A/73/305 individuals labelled as falling outside of the group designated as “the people”. This structural exclusion is achieved through discriminatory laws and policies that pursue, among other things: voter suppression aimed at racial, ethnic and other minorities; constitutional and legislative amendments to exclude certain groups from political life on racial, ethnic, religious or other grounds; and restriction of access to public goods and services and even to equality before the law on racial, ethnic, religious or other grounds. 26. Once they are in government, nationalist populists often deploy a range of tactics to disenfranchise groups portrayed as outsiders, including racial and ethnic minorities. These might include, for example, seemingly race-neutral measures imposing specific photo identification and other requirements that disproportionately exclude marginalized groups from voting. 27. An example of more blatant institutionalized ethnic and religious exclusion can be found in the preamble to the Hungarian Constitution of 2011, which portrays Hungary as “a nation of Christians, ethnically distinct from minorities living alongside the ‘real’ Hungarians”. 41 Further advancing racial and ethnic exclusion, in June 2018 the Hungarian Parliament adopted the Seventh Amendment to the Fundamental Law and a legislative package called “Stop Soros”, which amends the Aliens, Asylum and Police Acts as well as the Criminal Code. The new laws prohibit the settlement of non-European immigrants in Hungary. They restrict the right to asylum and prohibit entry and stay in designated areas of the country. Furthermore, they criminalize providing support to irregular migrants. 42 Civil society submissions have also highlighted the rise in racially discriminatory immigration laws and policies in the country, driven by nationalist populist ideology and diminishing the rights of non-nationals to employment, education and health care. 28. Nationalist populist parties in other places have implemented administrative and other rules leading to the exclusion of minority groups from official citizen registries on the basis of claims that they are irregular migrants, notwithstanding evidence showing that they are entitled to citizenship. This in turn has led to statelessness, disenfranchisement and increased vulnerability to discrimination, including the denial of basic rights and access to public services such as health and education. In May 2018, the Special Rapporteur addressed a letter to the Government of India concerning the updating of the National Register of Citizens, a process governed by local authorities in the state of Assam. The letter drew attention to the heightened concerns of the Bengali Muslim minority, who have historically been portrayed as foreigners despite having lived in India for generations, even preceding the colonial era. Since 1997, the Election Commission of India has arbitrarily identified a large number of Bengali people as so called “doubtful or disputed voters”, resulting in their further disenfranchisement and the loss of entitlements to social protection as Indian citizens. 43 While many have affirmed that the updating process is generally committed to retaining Indian citizens on the National Register of Citizens, concerned partie s fear that local authorities in Assam, who are deemed to be particularly hostile towards Muslims and people of Bengali descent, may manipulate the verification system in an attempt to exclude many genuine Indian citizens from the updated Register. 44 __________________ 41 42 43 44 18-12945 Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser and others, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Populism (New York, Oxford University Press, 2017), p. 599. European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, “Periodic data collection”. Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, communication on legislation and policy, other letter IND 13/2018, 11 June 2018. Ibid. 11/22