Marco Rubio calls UN experts’ criticism of India a domestic matter

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio declined to comment on protests in India, calling them a domestic political matter. At the UN General Assembly, India defended its democratic institutions and opposed what it described as selective targeting through unverified human rights allegations

New Delhi: Labelling ‘experts’ from the United Nations (UN) as an “oxymoron”, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday called the recent demonstrations by Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) and opposition parties against Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar as India’s “domestic matter”.

Currently visiting India, Rubio was asked in Mumbai about the remarks made by UN ‘experts’ on the CJP protests and the subsequent response by the law enforcement agencies.

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“Oh, UN experts, my favourite. The UN experts are the oxymoron,” said Rubio.

The US Secretary of State then went on to say that he would restrain from making any comment on India’s domestic political matters.

“It is a domestic political matter. I am not going to comment on it. This is a democracy, they have elections here. I am not going to opine on their domestic, political matters. We have protests every day in US,” Rubio told reporters before leaving for Jamnagar.

The so-called ‘UN experts’ had on Tuesday called on Indian authorities to respect, protect and fulfil the right to peacefully protest, and ensure justice for human rights violations “reported during these and previous protests’.

Earlier in the day, India told the UN General Assembly that it is a “vibrant democracy anchored in the rule of law” and Article 21 of its Constitution guarantees the right to life and personal liberty.

Speaking at the General Assembly’s Third Committee, which deals with humanitarian affairs, Barkha Tamrakar, a Deputy Secretary in the External Affairs Ministry’s UN Economic Social Division, said that while it engages with international human rights organisations, India has said it opposes the stealth use of the concept of human rights as political tool that uses unverified allegations to selectively target countries.

“India firmly opposes any attempt to convert unverified allegations, incomplete statistics or a report that contains no India country[-specific] observation into a negative characterisation of the world’s largest democracy”, said Tamrakar.

At the same time, “India remains prepared to clarify specific, properly documented cases through established channels”, she said.

In engaging with international human rights mechanisms, India’s ground rule is that it “must be based on dialogue, consultation, cooperation with non-selectivity and transparency as guiding principles”, she said.

“’Human rights’ must not to be used as an instrument of political pressure or selective country targeting”, she said.