Indian American Rashad Hussain, nominated by United President (US) President Joe Biden for the International Religious Freedom (IRF) ambassadorship on Tuesday, 26 October, pledged to hold China accountable for its treatment of minorities, both religious and ethnic. He also stated that he would take steps to work with Muslim-majority countries to help protect minorities there.
"China is one of the worst abusers of religious freedom in the world," he said at the virtual hearing by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations for his confirmation to the post. He noted that having visited the Xinjiang province in China, he has first-hand witnessed the situation there – "oppression and genocide" and "the blatant disregard for human rights" – towards a number of religious communities, including the Tibetan Buddhist Protestants, Catholics, and Falun Gong.
He maintained that in other parts of the world too, people have been living under grave stress due to restrictions on their religious freedom.
He gave the example of the Panchen Lama being disappeared by the Chinese and stolen from the global Tibetan Buddhist community and the stories of Christians in Vietnam, the Ahmadiyya in Pakistan and the Baha'i in Yemen, PTI reported.
"A staggering eighty per cent of people worldwide live in environments with high or severe restrictions on religious freedom. He said that far too many people around the world continue to face arrest, torture, discrimination and even death on account of their beliefs. Anti-semitism, Christian persecution, anti-Muslim hatred and other forms of intolerance are on the rise."Rashad Hussain at the Senate hearing
The 42-year-old diplomat during the hearing made sure to highlight his previous work as a special envoy to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation during the Obama administration.
He said that he can leverage his relationship with the Muslim-majority countries, that he has worked with before to make sure minorities are safer and their rights protected. "I will redouble efforts to broaden the coalition to hold China accountable for its horrific crimes against the Uyghurs and its repression of other ethnic and religious minorities," he added.
Hussain, an attorney and diplomat, if confirmed, would be the first Indian American and the first Muslim to be appointed to the post of Ambassador-at-Large for IRF.
Hussain was born in Wyoming, US, to immigrants; his father is a mining engineer and mother a doctor. He has studied Political Science at the University of North Carolina, and Arabic and Islamic Studies at Harvard. He has a master's in Public Administration from John F Kennedy School of Government and a Juris Doctor from Yale.
He has worked as a legislative aide for the House Judiciary Committee and as a law clerk for Damon J Keith. He served as a trial attorney at the US DoJ and was an associate counsel to former President Obama. He has served as a Special Envoy to the OIC and a Special Envoy for Strategic Counter Terrorism Communications. Hussain has also worked in religious rights advocacy and has worked alongside other envoys such as the Anti-Semitism envoy in 2013 to travel around in effort to address discrimination against minorities.
(With inputs from the PTI and the Hindu.)
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