The Seattle City Council, on the 3rd of February, passed a resolution against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act [CAA,] 2019.
The Seattle City Council of the United States of America (U.S.A.,) unanimously passed the resolution against the CAA and the National Register of Citizens (NRC.)
The resolution “resolves that the Seattle City Council opposes the National Register of Citizens and the Citizenship Amendment Act in India, and finds these policies to be discriminatory to Muslims, oppressed castes, women, indigenous, and LGBT people.”
In December 2019, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi led Central Government justified the Act, which excludes Muslims. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said the Act was proposed to help people who are being persecuted based on their religious beliefs. According to the CAA, refugees from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, who have been residing in India since or before the 31st of December, 2014, are eligible for Indian citizenship. As communities like the Hindus, the Jains, the Buddhists, the Christians, the Parsis and the Sikhs are minorities in the aforementioned countries and are being persecuted, the Indian Government decided to help them by granting them citizenship.
The Nation is protesting against the Act because it excludes Muslims and violates one of the major ideologies of the Constitution of India—secularism.
Kshama Sawant, a member of the Indian American City Council, introduced the resolution and urged the Parliament of India to stop the implementation of the CAA and the NRC and take steps to help refugees by ratifying the various UN treaties pertaining to refugees.
Ahsan Khan, the President of the Indian-American Muslim Council, said, “Seattle City’s decision to condemn CAA should be a message to all who wish to undermine pluralism and religious freedom. They cannot peddle in hate and bigotry, and expect to have international acceptability at the same time.”
Thenmozhi Soundararajan, a member of Equality Labs, a committee in support of the resolution passed, said, “We are proud of the Seattle City Council for standing on the right side of history today. Seattle is leading the moral consensus in the global outcry against the CAA.”
She further added, “At a time when members of the Indian ruling party sided Trump, the Muslim ban, and his war on immigrants as justification for targeting hundreds of millions of Indian minorities, Americans have a unique responsibility to stand up and speak about this human rights crisis. We are glad that Seattle is leading the way on this.”
Meanwhile, Indians are continuing their protest against the CAA across the Nation. One such 24X7 protest is happening in Shaheen Bagh of Delhi. Residents of Mumbai and West Bengal are also protesting day and night against the CAA and the NRC.
Stay tuned for further updates.
