20 US Senators Seek Emergency Refugee Protection for Afghan Sikhs, Hindus

In a bipartisan letter addressed to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the senators referred to as at the State Division to prioritise resettlement alternatives underneath the USA Refugee Admissions Program allocation ceilings for Afghan Sikh and Hindu communities.

The inhabitants of Hindus and Sikhs in Afghanistan have plummeted markedly because of years of persecution via the Taliban and more moderen terrorist movements perpetrated via ISIS Khorasan (ISIS-Ok), they mentioned.

This Management has many times highlighted protective spiritual freedom as a best international coverage precedence, the senators wrote.

Sikh and Hindu communities in Afghanistan face an existential risk from ISIS-Ok on account of their faith. To offer protection to spiritual freedom, we urgently ask that you are taking those very important steps to shield those threatened spiritual minorities, they mentioned within the letter.

The letter additionally calls on Pompeo to supply further reinforce to participants of the Sikh and Hindu communities that make a selection to stay in Afghanistan, and to be sure that Afghan spiritual minorities get pleasure from the USD 20.6 million in American assist already supplied to deal with COVID-19.

Making sure that spiritual minorities obtain US COVID-19 help must be a concern in all international locations the place coverage of spiritual minorities is a problem, the senators added.

The letter was once written via senator Robert Menendez, Score Member of the Senate Overseas Members of the family Committee, Senate Democratic Chief Chuck Schumer, and senators Thom Tillis, Dick Durbin, Patrick Leahy, Dianne Feinstein, Kirsten Gillibrand, Tim Kaine, Kamala Harris, Bob Casey, Chris Van Hollen, Bernie Sanders, Patty Murray, Chris Coons, Ed Markey, Tammy Duckworth, Jack Reed, Mark Warner, Ben Cardin, and James Lankford.

ISIS-Ok goals spiritual minorities in Afghanistan and poses an existential risk to Afghanistan’s Sikh and Hindu communities particularly, the letter mentioned.

The Sikh and Hindu communities as soon as numbered round 250,000 other folks however now have fewer than 1,000 people because of many years of persecution, they added.

The communities proceed to stand discrimination in get right of entry to to housing and employment, and the Taliban has up to now mandated that Sikhs and Hindus put on yellow armbands or patches as a marker in their spiritual standing, the senators wrote.

Lately, a brand new risk to Afghanistan’s Sikh and Hindu communities has emerged: terrorist assaults from ISIS-Ok. In March, ISIS-Ok introduced an assault on a Sikh gurdwara in Kabul that killed 25 worshippers and later performed an explosion all the way through a funeral carrier for the ones sufferers.

As ISIS-Ok continues to assault civilians and global troops drawdown in Afghanistan, Sikhs and Hindus are more likely to face extra violence, they wrote.