United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is on a three-day visit to India, took a sarcastic dig at United Nations experts while responding to a question over their criticism of India's handling of recent protests. Refraining from meddling in India's internal matters, Rubio asked if 'UN experts' is an oxymoron.
Rubio said, "Well, the UN experts, yeah. My favourite. The UN experts, or is that an oxymoron?"
"No, it’s a domestic political matter. I mean, I am not going to get involved in their politics. This is a democracy. They have elections here. So I am not going to align on their domestic political matters," Rubio said.
"But we’re not going to comment on internal political matters. That’s for the Indian people to decide and navigate," Rubio added.
The comment came a day after over 20 independent UN human rights experts expressed concern over New Delhi's handling of youth-led protests.
The UN experts described the state action as a heavy-handed police response to peaceful demonstrations. They levelled allegations of the use of excessive force by law enforcement agencies against students, mostly unarmed.
"We call on the authorities to immediately cease the use of excessive force, rescind blanket assembly bans, and refrain from the misuse of digital surveillance, including through biometrics, and internet disruptions," the experts had said while calling for an independent investigation and accountability of reported injuries.
Reacting to the UN experts' remarks, India strongly rejected vilifying attempts to portray the country negatively.
Speaking at the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee on Tuesday, Deputy Secretary Barkha Tamrakar said, "India engages with international human rights mechanisms, but such engagement must be based on dialogue, consultation, cooperation with non-selectivity and transparency as guiding principles."
"We call on delegations to cite the report faithfully, not to inflate a humanitarian communication into a verdict," Tamrakar added.
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