On Tuesday, India’s Press Information Bureau (PIB) issued a fact-check rebuttal of claims made by international media outlet Al Jazeera that had labelled the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) “anti-Muslim”.
Bharat on Monday announced the implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Rules, 2024, which aims at granting citizenship to undocumented non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
Misinformation is being spread by @AJEnglish regarding the Citizenship Amendment Act, calling the act 'anti-Muslim'#PIBFactCheck
▶️This claim is misleading!
1/2 pic.twitter.com/EkaV2sEr5X
— PIB Fact Check (@PIBFactCheck) March 12, 2024
In a post on X on the same, Al Jazeera wrote: “India implements ‘anti-Muslim’ 2019 citizenship law weeks before election.” The social media post linked to an article from the Qatar-based media group, headlined, “India implements ‘anti-Muslim’ 2019 citizenship law weeks before election”.
PIB posted a screenshot of the Al Jazeera report, marking it as “MISLEADING”.
The government agency wrote, “Misinformation is being spread by @AJEnglish regarding the Citizenship Amendment Act, calling the act ‘anti-Muslim'”.
It added that “CAA will not take away citizenship of any Indian citizen irrespective of religion. It’s not against any single religion/ community.”
“It’s an enabling law only to provide citizenship to persecuted minorities from neighboring countries – Afghanistan, Pakistan & Bangladesh,” it added. Earlier, India’s Ministry of Home Affairs had emphasised that the Act “does not prevent any Muslim, who is persecuted in those Islamic countries (Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan) for practising their version of Islam, from applying for Indian citizenship under the existing laws”.
“CAA does not cancel the naturalisation laws. Therefore, any person, including Muslim migrants from any foreign country, seeking to be an Indian citizen, can apply for the same under the existing laws,” the ministry added.
Such false claims and misleading headlines were carried by several international news sites.
For example, BBC’s headline reads, “CAA: India to enforce migrant law that excludes Muslims”.
The headline of The Guardian report reads, “India enacts citizenship law criticised as ‘discriminatory’ to Muslims”.
The headline of the CNN report is “India moves to implement controversial citizenship bill that excludes Muslims”.
Comments