Orissa Archbishop welcomes upcoming visit by US Commission

With the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) announcing its official visit to India next month, all eyes are set on Orissa.

The state witnessed large-scale violence on the microscopic Christian community as 4,640 houses, 252 churches and 13 educational institutions were destroyed, besides rendering more than 50,000 homeless.

Although the violence has ebbed down in the eastern state, Christians now face a storm much worser and frightful - the rampant culture of impunity and government's apathy towards affected victims.

Archbishop of Orissa Raphael Cheenath, who has since been a pillar of support to the Christians there, has expressed hope on the US Commission set to visit in June.

Archbishop Cheenath welcomed the decision and said the Commission can be pivotal in restricting further violence and ensuring the protection of minorities.

He wants the Commission - a US government-funded agency created to monitor the status of freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief abroad - to put pressure on the Indian government to dutifully maintain the Rights enshrined in the Constitution.

"If an independent body can force local government to put into practice the provision of the constitution – religious freedom – it would be good for all minorities," he told the Aid to the Church in Need.

Secretary General of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India (CBCI), Msgr. Stanislaus Fernandes, also welcomed the visit and said he hoped it can speed up the "processes of Justice for our Kandhamal Christians and others victims of communal violence."

Riot-scalded Kandhamal, which was the center of violence in Orissa, came under the notice of human rights activists and religious groups, only after the country knuckled under international pressure.

Last year, UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion and belief, Asma Jehangir, following her visit to the country, noted there is a "pervasive climate of fear and intolerance perpetuated by religious mobs."

"Organised groups claiming adherence to religious ideologies have unleashed an all-pervasive fear of mob violence. Furthermore, concerns have been raised with regard to the social, economic and educational status of minority communities," Jehangir said in her report which was discussed in the UN Human Rights Council on March 10, 2009.

The Special Rapporteur further noted that violence against Christians in Orissa were taken place with "advance preparation and planning".

Indian authorities were urged by the council to step up efforts to prevent communal violence and include measures that can build peace and equal justice in the society.