Before COVID-19, protests and violence erupted in India over the new Citizenship Amendment Act, which discriminates against the nation’s Muslims. The Citizenship Amendment Act drew international attention and condemnation, but what is less known is that in the Indian state of Assam millions of people – primarily women, children, and other vulnerable groups – have had their citizenship status threatened for decades now. If they are rendered stateless and stripped of their rights, these people would have nowhere to go.
The stripping of citizenship is just one of the ways international human rights laws are being violated by the quasi-judicial system known as Foreigners’ Tribunals that decide the citizenship of individuals – or who is considered “the other.”
