Stigmatising Ethnic, Religious Minority Is Unacceptable: US State Department Official

While senior US state department official Alice G. Wells’ statement did not explicitly refer to India, her statement comes four days after another senior administration official called a hashtag on Indian Twitter “unfortunate”.

New Delhi: After a senior US administration official had called a hashtag on Indian Twitter targeting Muslims for spreading coronavirus “unfortunate”, a senior US state department official on Monday reiterated that stigmatising any ethnic or religious minority community is “unacceptable”.

In a signed post on Twitter, acting assistant secretary of State for South and Central Asia Alice G. Wells asserted that “stigmatising ethnic or religious minority communities is unacceptable, at any time and at any place”.

“Let’s not let anxiety and fear of #COVID19 divide us — especially not when we are united by a threat that knows no borders, ethnicity, or religion,” she tweeted.

After a large number of positive cases of COVID-19 were linked to a gathering of Tablighi Jamaat in early March, the hashtag ‘#coronajihad’ became a top trend on Twitter with claims that Muslims were deliberately spreading coronavirus.

While Wells’ statement did not explicitly refer to India, her statement comes four days after the US ambassador at large for international religious freedom, Sam Brownback had criticised the hashtag that had been trending in India.

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Last week, Sam Brownback held a media briefing on the impact of COVID-19 on religious minorities, where he was asked about the hashtag.

“We are tracking the blaming of religious minorities for COVID virus, and unfortunately, it is – it’s happening in various places. This is wrong by governments to do this,” he replied.

Ambassador Brownback asserted that it was up to the government to push back against this narrative targeting minorities. “Governments really should put this down and state very clearly that this is not the source of the coronavirus. It’s not the religious minority communities. And they should go out there in open messaging and say no, this is not what happened.”

He also called on governments to “to work with their religious minorities in this time of pandemic and make sure they are getting the needed resources and aid”.