The biggest mass-disenfranchisement of the 21st Century Joint Statement: 125 Civil Society Organisations condemn the exclusion of 1.9 million people from the Assam NRC and call for urgent action to protect everyone’s right to a nationality On 31 August 2019, after a long-drawn out process, the final version of the Assam National Register of Citizens (NRC) was published. 31,121,004 residents of Assam were included in the NRC and therefore recognised as citizens, whereas 1,906,657 residents – approximately 6% of the population of Assam - were excluded, pushing them to the brink of statelessness. Further to a 2014 Supreme Court Order, in 2015, the Assam state government announced it would initiate a process of updating the NRC, requiring every person in Assam who claimed Indian citizenship, to submit proof of their ancestry (or birth) in the country pre-dating 1971, the year that Bangladesh was formed. This process arose out of a history of xenophobia and discrimination against both Indian and non-Indian migrants of Bengali ethnicity, with Muslim Bengalis being the most disproportionately impacted. Women who are less likely to be literate or have documentation due to societal prejudices and norms and their children have also been excluded. The immense pressure that this process has placed on individuals and their families, including the cost of applying and appealing, the loss of work, the strain on family life, the emotional and psychological impact, the loss of liberty through detention and the rise in hate-crimes and hate-speech, is extremely worrying. Local NGOs have reported that the NRC process has already claimed the lives of a number of people who have died by suicide. The failure to implement adequate procedural safeguards and the consequent arbitrariness of the NRC process has also been a significant concern. Further, while India claims that those excluded from the NRC are not yet stateless, they are undeniably at extreme risk of imminent statelessness, as they have effectively been stripped of their citizenship, with a 120-day window to appeal. International law prohibits the arbitrary deprivation of nationality and obligates states to avoid statelessness, while guaranteeing the right of every child to acquire and preserve their nationality and to be protected from statelessness. Despite mounting evidence that this process would result in a human rights and humanitarian catastrophe and repeated calls to action by UN human rights mechanisms, including a number of special procedures mandate holders, the failure of the international community over the last two years, to exert sustained pressure on India to reverse the process, shows that little has been learnt from the Rohingya crisis or the many crises before. Signatories: Advocates for Non-Discrimination and Access to Knowledge (ANAK) (Malaysia) African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies (ACJPS) Agora Society (Malaysia) All India Union of Forest Working People Alliance for Social Dialogue - Social Science Baha (Nepal) Amnesty International Anti-Discrimination Centre Memorial Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network (APRRN) ASKV Refugee Support (Netherlands) Association des jeunes formateurs (AJFACE) Baghdad Women’s Association Benet Lobby Group (Uganda) Beyond Borders (Malaysia) Borneo Komrad (Malaysia) Boston University International Human Rights Clinic Botswana Labour Migrants Association Canadian Centre on Statelessness Caribbean Institute for Human Rights (ICADH) CEDESO (Republica Dominicana) Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL) Centre de Développement Soutenable (CEDESOU) (Haiti) Centre for Advancement of Development Rights (CEADER) Centre for Peace and Justice, BRAC University (Bangladesh) CF “Right to Protection” (Ukraine) Clínica Jurídica de Migrantes y Refugiados, Universidad Diego Portales Coalition de la Société Civile Ivoirienne contre l’Apatridie Conscience International Sierra Leone Conseil National des Femmes de Madagascar (CNFM) Consonant (UK) Council of Minorities (Bangladesh) Cross Cultural Foundation (Uganda) Defence of Human Rights and Public Services Trust (Pakistan) Development and Justice Initiative (India) Development of Human Resources for Rural Areas (DHRRA) (Malaysia) East Forum Foundation Elom Empowerment European Network on Statelessness FACES Pakistan