UN rights chief flays India’s stand on Rohingyas

Geneva, Sept. 11: The UN high commissioner for human rights on Monday described the situation of Myanmar‘s Rohingya minority as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing” and criticised both Yangon and New Delhi, the latter for seeking to deport Rohingyas who had fled to India.

Speaking at the opening of a human rights council session here, UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said, “I deplore current measures in India to deport Rohingyas at a time of such violence against them in their country.”

“The minister of state for home affairs has reportedly said that because India is not a signatory to the Refugee Convention, the country can dispense with international law on the matter, together with basic human compassion. However, by virtue of customary law, its ratification of the

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the obligations of due process and the universal principle of nonrefoulement, India cannot carry out collective expulsions, or return people to a place where they risk torture or other serious violations.”

India’s minister of state for home, Kiren Rijiju, had last week said Rohingyas were illegal immigrants and stand to be deported. He also said that nobody should preach to New Delhi as India absorbed the maximum number of refugees in the world.

Some 40,000 Rohingyas have settled in India, and 16,000 of them have

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Zeid also expressed dismay at what he called the “broader rise of intolerance towards religious and other minorities in India”, and alleged that those who spoke out for fundamental human rights faced threats.

“Gauri Lankesh, a journalist who tirelessly addressed the corrosive effect of sectarianism and hatred, was assassinated last week. I have been heartened by the subsequent marches calling for protection of the right to freedom of expression, and by demonstrations in 12 cities to protest the lynchings,” he said.

Touching upon cow vigilantism in India, Zeid said, “The current wave of violent, and often lethal, mob attacks against people under the pretext of protecting the lives of cows is alarming.”