Express News Service
NEW DELHI: India has snubbed the UN special rapporteur (SR) on minority issues, who questioned India hosting G20 meeting in Srinagar which, he alleged, was a denial of democratic rights of Kashmiri minorities.
“We, India at the UN in Geneva strongly reject the statement issued by SR on minority issues, Dr Fernand de Varennes, on the baseless and unwarranted allegations in it. As G20 president, it is India’s prerogative to host its meetings in any part of the country. We are aghast that Fernand has acted irresponsibly to politicise this issue, misused his position as SR to publicise on social media his presumptive and prejudiced conclusions in a gross violation of the Code of Conduct for SRs,’’ said India at UN.
The SR has made allegations that India is attempting to show that situation as normal in Kashmir. “Holding a G20 meeting in Kashmir while human rights violations are ongoing…,” special rapporteur has alleged. He went on to further state that G20 should be used to uphold human rights. “G20 should on the contrary uphold ‘International human rights obligations and the UN declaration of human rights should be upheld and the situation in Jammu and Kashmir should be decried and condemned not pushed under the rug and ignored with the holding of the meeting,” SR added.
India has the ongoing presidency of G20 under which it is hosting over 200 meetings across different states across the country. The upcoming G20 meeting in Srinagar (May 22-24th) had earlier elicited a comment by Pakistani foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto during his visit for the SCO meet in Goa. External affairs minister S Jaishankar had issued a befitting rebuttal.
“Jammu and Kashmir was, in and will always be an integral part of India and we are free to host whatever events we want to in our territory,’’ the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has always maintained. The UN Special Rapporteur alleged that the government is “seeking to normalise what some have described as a military occupation by instrumentalising a G20 meeting.
NEW DELHI: India has snubbed the UN special rapporteur (SR) on minority issues, who questioned India hosting G20 meeting in Srinagar which, he alleged, was a denial of democratic rights of Kashmiri minorities.
“We, India at the UN in Geneva strongly reject the statement issued by SR on minority issues, Dr Fernand de Varennes, on the baseless and unwarranted allegations in it. As G20 president, it is India’s prerogative to host its meetings in any part of the country. We are aghast that Fernand has acted irresponsibly to politicise this issue, misused his position as SR to publicise on social media his presumptive and prejudiced conclusions in a gross violation of the Code of Conduct for SRs,’’ said India at UN.
The SR has made allegations that India is attempting to show that situation as normal in Kashmir. “Holding a G20 meeting in Kashmir while human rights violations are ongoing…,” special rapporteur
has alleged. He went on to further state that G20 should be used to uphold human rights. “G20 should on the contrary uphold ‘International human rights obligations and the UN declaration of human rights should be upheld and the situation in Jammu and Kashmir should be decried and condemned not pushed under the rug and ignored with the holding of the meeting,” SR added.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });
India has the ongoing presidency of G20 under which it is hosting over 200 meetings across different states across the country. The upcoming G20 meeting in Srinagar (May 22-24th) had earlier elicited a comment by Pakistani foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto during his visit for the SCO meet in Goa. External affairs minister S Jaishankar had issued a befitting rebuttal.
“Jammu and Kashmir was, in and will always be an integral part of India and we are free to host whatever events we want to in our territory,’’ the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has always maintained.
The UN Special Rapporteur alleged that the government is “seeking to normalise what some have described as a military occupation by instrumentalising a G20 meeting.