Protests continue against new citizenship law

(18 Dec 2019) Growing waves of protests hit India's capital on Wednesday as India's Supreme Court postpones hearing a challenge to a new citizenship law.

Opposition to a new law that provides a path to citizenship for non-Muslim migrants is igniting, with demonstrations erupting across the country since last week.

The court said it would now consider the pleas on January 22 next year.

Protesters in Delhi waving banners and crowding streets while chanted in opposition to the law, which applies to Hindus, Christians and other religious minorities who are in India illegally but can demonstrate religious persecution in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The new law does not apply to Muslims.

Critics say that the new law is part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist-led government's agenda to marginalize India's 200 million Muslims, and that it goes against the spirit of the country's secular constitution.

Modi has defended it as a humanitarian gesture.



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