Texas 2021 - 87th Regular

Texas House Bill HR1330 Compare Versions

Only one version of the bill is available at this time.

Old	New	Differences
1	1	87R21036 TBO-D
2	2	By: Reynolds H.R. No. 1330
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5	5	R E S O L U T I O N
6	6	WHEREAS, The State of Texas supports the protection of human
7	7	rights, democratic principles, and equal justice for all people,
8	8	and opposes all discrimination, including discrimination based on
9	9	religion and ethno-nationalism; and
10	10	WHEREAS, The nation of India was founded as a secular
11	11	republic in which members of all regional cultures, castes,
12	12	linguistic groups, and religious faiths are welcome, and India and
13	13	the United States share common values of democracy, the rule of law,
14	14	and the protection of human rights and liberty; however, the ruling
15	15	Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of India's prime minister,
16	16	Narendra Modi, has promoted the suppression of free press, the
17	17	silencing of political dissent, governance through increasingly
18	18	divisive policies, and overt discrimination and violence against
19	19	religious minorities; and
20	20	WHEREAS, In 2002, Narendra Modi was chief minister of the
21	21	Indian state of Gujarat, and he failed to quell the monthslong
22	22	lynching of more than 1,000 Muslims, mass rapes of Muslim women, and
23	23	the destruction of 20,000 Muslim-owned homes and businesses as well
24	24	as 360 Muslim places of worship; his complicity and involvement in
25	25	the 2002 Gujarat pogrom prompted the U.S. State Department to deny
26	26	him entry into the United States from 2005 until his election as
27	27	India's prime minister in 2014; and
28	28	WHEREAS, On August 5, 2019, the BJP-led government revoked
29	29	Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, which granted special
30	30	semiautonomous status to the former Indian state of Jammu and
31	31	Kashmir, which was the only Muslim-majority state in the nation; in
32	32	revoking the article, the government implemented mass detentions
33	33	and imposed wide-ranging restrictions on communications and press
34	34	freedoms; and
35	35	WHEREAS, On December 11, 2019, the Indian government passed
36	36	the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA); under the guise of helping
37	37	refugees fleeing religious persecution from neighboring countries,
38	38	the act blatantly discriminates against Muslim Indians by favoring
39	39	Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian immigrants, while
40	40	specifically excluding Muslim people; the CAA is the first instance
41	41	of religion being used as a criterion for Indian citizenship in the
42	42	history of the nation; and
43	43	WHEREAS, BJP president Amit Shah has expressed support for
44	44	the nationwide expansion of the National Register of Citizens
45	45	(NRC); however, many Indians lack documentation to prove
46	46	citizenship, such as birth certificates, and the NRC expansion
47	47	could strip hundreds of millions of people of their citizenship
48	48	with no option to be re-naturalized; this would disproportionately
49	49	affect Muslims, oppressed castes, women, and indigenous
50	50	communities; in addition, when combined with an expansion of the
51	51	NRC, the CAA will allow for the disenfranchisement of India's
52	52	largest religious minority community and create a situation where
53	53	individuals could be deprived of citizenship if they are a Muslim
54	54	without documents; in 2019, India's government began building vast
55	55	detention camps to house individuals who are unable to provide
56	56	documentation of citizenship and who are unable to apply for
57	57	refugee status or asylum under CAA; and
58	58	WHEREAS, From 2019 through 2021, public protests in India
59	59	against CAA, NRC, and anti-farmer legislation have been met by
60	60	consistent and indiscriminate governmental repression, including
61	61	the firing of live ammunition at demonstrators, mass arrests, and
62	62	the imposition of restrictions on telecommunications and free
63	63	press; in 2021, several Indian states ruled by the BJP passed laws
64	64	to regulate religious conversions, making interreligious marriages
65	65	between Muslim men and Hindu women punishable by imprisonment if
66	66	the government determines that the marriage involved a fraudulent
67	67	conversion; and
68	68	WHEREAS, In September 2019, a "Howdy, Modi!" rally was held
69	69	in Houston, featuring Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, in what
70	70	the Washington Post ominously reported was "the largest-ever
71	71	gathering with a foreign political leader in the United States,"
72	72	demonstrating the growing threat of the BJP's influence around the
73	73	world; and
74	74	WHEREAS, In its 2020 report, the U.S. Commission on
75	75	International Religious Freedom recommended that India be
76	76	designated as a "Country of Particular Concern" (CPC), stating that
77	77	the country is "engaging in and tolerating systematic, ongoing, and
78	78	egregious religious freedom violations"; in September 2020,
79	79	Amnesty International halted all work in India due to the
80	80	"heavy-handed tactics that Indian civil society has become
81	81	increasingly familiar with--part of the government's drive to
82	82	silence critical voices and stoke a climate of fear"; in its 2020
83	83	Democracy Index, the Economist Intelligence Unit decreased India's
84	84	global ranking, citing "democratic backsliding" by authorities and
85	85	"crackdowns" on civil liberties as well as stating that the
86	86	Narendra Modi-led government had "introduced a religious element to
87	87	the conceptualization of Indian citizenship, a step that many
88	88	critics see as undermining the secular basis of the Indian state";
89	89	and
90	90	WHEREAS, In its 2021 World Report, Human Rights Watch stated
91	91	that "the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government increasingly
92	92	harassed, arrested, and prosecuted rights defenders, activists,
93	93	journalists, students, academics, and others critical of the
94	94	government or its policies . . . [a]ttacks continued against
95	95	minorities, especially Muslims, even as authorities failed to take
96	96	action against BJP leaders who vilified Muslims and BJP supporters
97	97	who engaged in violence"; in its 2021 Freedom in the World Report,
98	98	Freedom House downgraded India from "Free" to a "Partly Free"
99	99	country, finding that "harassment of journalists and other
100	100	government critics has increased under Prime Minister Narendra Modi
101	101	and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), as have
102	102	religiously motivated attacks against non-Hindus"; and
103	103	WHEREAS, All people deserve to live without fear or
104	104	intimidation in practice of their faith, and it is important to join
105	105	in the outcry against the anti-Muslim actions of the BJP-led
106	106	government in India; now, therefore, be it
107	107	RESOLVED, That the House of Representatives of the 87th Texas
108	108	Legislature hereby condemn rising ethno-nationalism and the
109	109	suppression of democratic principles in India; and, be it further
110	110	RESOLVED, That the Texas House of Representatives express
111	111	solidarity with the Indian-American community regardless of
112	112	religious, linguistic, and cultural identification, and affirm
113	113	support for the protection of human rights, democratic principles,
114	114	and equal justice for all people in Texas and beyond.