NEW DELHI: India’s Supreme Court turned down a plea on Wednesday to stop the implementation of a new citizenship law based on religion that has set off violent protests in the country, but said it would hold hearings next month on the sweeping measure.Meanwhile, protests against the discriminatory law continued in different parts of India.The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) makes it easier for non-Muslims from the neighbouring countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who settled in India prior to 2015 to gain Indian citizenship.Thousands of people have protested, saying the law is anti-Muslim and the latest in a series of measures by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government to marginalise the community.“We want a stay order in the CAA case,” said Kapil Sibal, a lawyer for petitioners who challenged the law in court, adding it was in conflict with parts of the Indian constitution guaranteeing equality to all.Supreme Court Chief Justice SA Bobde refused requests to hold off the implementation of the law, which came into effect last week. The court will however hear petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the law on Jan 22.Modi’s government says the law was intended to address the persecution of minorities such as Hindus, Sikhs and Christians in the Muslim-majority countries of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.Those groups, many of whom have been languishing in India for years without rights, will now get an automatic path to Indian nationality if they came from these three countries before 2015.But protesters say the exclusion of Muslims shows a deep-seated bias against the community, which makes up 14 percent of India’s population, the third largest Muslim population in the world.The new measure follows the revocation of the special status of the Muslim-majority Indian Occupied Kashmir, and a court ruling clearing the way for the construction of a Hindu temple on the site of Babri Masjid razed by Hindu zealots.On Wednesday, police fired shots in the air in a Muslim-dominated part of Delhi to push back thousands of demonstrators throwing stones and glass bottles demanding the law be withdrawn.The Indian authorities have imposed an emergency law banning large gatherings in parts of Delhi, as nationwide protests escalated, injuring police and demonstrators.Clashes between demonstrators and police in the Seelampur district of Delhi turned violent, with 21 injured and buses and a police outpost set alight, leading police to bring in emergency measures to prevent the gathering of more than four people in certain Muslim-dominated areas of the city.Some of the most violent altercations between protesters and police over the past week have occurred on Muslim-majority university campuses, where students who were marching against the citizenship law were met with police brutality.Harsh Mander, a prominent human rights activist, said he would be filing an official complaint of serious police atrocities over officers’ actions at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) in Uttar Pradesh on Sunday. Police violently stormed the campus, firing teargas and detaining dozens of Muslim students.In Assam, the north-eastern state where the protests first began a week ago, and where six people have lost their lives in the clashes so far, thousands of government employees took to the streets.
12-19-2019, 10:52 AM
Widespread protests against anti-Muslim law continue
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