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home > Reports > U.S. Department of State Report on International Religious Freedom: October 2002
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U.S. Department of State Report on International Religious Freedom: October 2002
The annual State Department Report on International Religious Freedom details religious persecution around the world on a country-by-country basis.
Source: Executive Summary
India:
Muslims were the victims of sustained communal violence in the state of Gujarat in March and April 2002. Ostensibly sparked by communal violence directed against Hindus, the violence highlighted the continuing difficulties faced by religious minorities. On February 27, 2002, Muslim mobs attacked a train in Godhra, Gujarat, carrying Hindu activists returning from Ayodhya, the site of a 500-year-old mosque demolished by a Hindu mob in 1992; 2 train cars were set on fire and 58 passengers were killed. In response, Hindu mobs in Gujarat and Maharashtra destroyed Muslim businesses, raped Muslim women, and killed at least 950 Muslims; the unofficial death toll was significantly higher. According to credible observers, the Gujarat fighting was aggravated by official inaction and, in some cases, involvement. The hostility against Muslims in Gujarat reflected tensions within the governing coalition, which is led by the Bharatiya Janata Party, a Hindu nationalist party with links to Hindu chauvinist groups implicated in the past to attacks against religious minorities. The growing aggressiveness of Hindu extremists also seems to be the major contributing factor to societal discrimination and occasional acts of violence against Christians by Hindus in Gujarat and elsewhere in India.
The International Religious Freedom Report for 2002 is submitted to the Congress by the Department of State in compliance with Section 102(b) of the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) of 1998. The law provides that the Secretary of State shall transmit to Congress by September 1 of each year, or the first day thereafter on which the appropriate House of Congress is in session," an Annual Report on International Religious Freedom supplementing the most recent Human Rights Reports by providing additional detailed information with respect to matters involving international religious freedom." This Annual Report includes 192 country chapters on the status of religious freedom worldwide.
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