A handful of House Democrats are boycotting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s address to a joint meeting of Congress today, citing concerns about human rights in the country.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) on Wednesday joined Reps. Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (Minn.) — the two Muslim women in Congress — in announcing a boycott of the address.
“A joint address is among the most prestigious invitations and honors the United States Congress can extend,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “We should not do so for individuals with deeply troubling human rights records – particularly for individuals whom our own State Department has concluded are engaged in systematic human rights abuses of religious minorities and caste-oppressed communities.”
Reps. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) and Summer Lee (D-Pa.) are also boycotting the address.
Earlier this week, Tlaib said Modi’s “long history of human rights abuses, anti-democratic actions, targeting Muslims and religious minorities, and censoring journalists is unacceptable.”
And from Omar: “Prime Minister Modi’s government has repressed religious minorities, emboldened violent Hindu nationalist groups, and targeted journalists/human rights advocates with impunity.”
At a press conference with President Biden this afternoon, Modi pushed back on criticisms of the state of human rights and democracy in India.
Modi responded to a Wall Street Journal reporter’s question on democratic rights: “Indeed, India is a democracy. … And as President Biden also mentioned, India and America, both countries, democracy is in our DNA. Democracy is our spirit. Democracy runs in our veins. We live democracy.”
Modi also said there’s “absolutely no space for discrimination.”
Biden said the two leaders “had a good discussion about democratic values.”
Watch Modi’s speech live here at 4 p.m. ET.
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