‘UN experts are oxymoron’: Rubio calls anti-EC protests ‘domestic political matter’

NEW DELHI: US secretary of state Marco Rubio on Wednesday dismissed the term “UN experts” as an “oxymoron” when asked about the United Nations' criticism of India's handling of anti-Election Commission protests, calling the issue a "domestic political matter" that should be decided by Indians.

Asked about protests by opposition parties and students in India and UN experts' allegations of a crackdown on demonstrators, Rubio said Washington would not interfere in the country's internal politics. "Well the UN experts, my favourite. The UN experts is an oxymororn," he said.

He added that India was a democracy with elections and said he would not comment on its domestic political matters. “No, it's a domestic political matter. This is a democracy, they have elections here. I am not going to opine on their political matters,” Rubio said.

Rubio distinguished peaceful demonstrations from riots involving vandalism and destruction of property, saying the ability to express differing political opinions was an important feature of democratic societies. "I am not talking about the riots, what you see in Europe. They are vandalizing and breaking and burning down buildings. I am not talking about that," he said.

Rubio's remarks come amid a diplomatic exchange over concerns raised by UN experts about India's handling of protests. The experts had alleged restrictions on peaceful assembly and raised concerns over the alleged excessive use of force against demonstrators and reports of enforced disappearances.

India pushed back against the criticism at the United Nations on Tuesday, rejecting what it described as attempts to portray the country negatively on the basis of unverified allegations and incomplete statistics.

Indian diplomat Barkha Tamrakar told the UN that constitutional safeguards, including Article 21, protect human rights and ensure due process. “India firmly opposes any attempt to convert unverified allegations, incomplete statistics, or a report that contains no India country observation into a negative characterization of the world's largest democracy,” Tamrakar said.

“Human rights should not be used as an instrument of political pressure or selective country targeting,” she added. India also called for impartial and evidence-based engagement on human rights, arguing against what it described as selective scrutiny of countries.