New Delhi:
India on Thursday called out Canada’s “hypocrisy towards freedom of speech” after the country banned an Australian media outlet, hours after it carried the news of a press conference of External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s meeting with his Australian counterpart Penny Wong.
Ministry of external affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said Canada blocked Australia Today, which is an important diaspora outlet. Its content and social media pages are no longer accessible to Canadian users, he said.
“…We understand that the social media handles and pages of this particular outlet, which is an important diaspora outlet, have been blocked and are no longer available for viewers in Canada. This happened just a few hours after this outlet carried a press conference of the External Affairs Minister along with Penny Wong. The outlet also published several articles on the visit of the External Affairs Minister, as well as an interview with him. So, we were surprised. It seems strange to us…” he told reporters during the ministry’s routine briefing.
Jaiswal said the action came after Wong raised Canadian allegations that India has targeted Sikh extremists in the country — an issue that has caused a massive diplomatic crisis between the two countries. In response to this, he said, Jaishankar told her that Canada has developed a pattern of making allegations without providing evidence and its targeting of Indian diplomats was “unacceptable”.
“But nonetheless, what I will say that these are actions which yet again highlight the hypocrisy of Canada towards freedom of speech. You would have seen that EAM in his media engagements, spoke about three things. One was Canada making allegations and a pattern has developed without any specific evidence. The second thing he highlighted was surveillance of Indian diplomats happening in Canada, which he termed as unacceptable. The third thing which he highlighted was the political space which has been given in Canada to anti-India elements. So you can draw your conclusions from that, why Australia Today channel was blocked by Canada…” he added.
What Was The Jaishankar-Wong Press Conference About?
During Jaishankar’s four-day official trip to Australia, Wong raised Canada’s allegations against India and said she discussed the issue with her Indian counterpart in Canberra. India has denied the allegation that Union Home Minister Amit Shah ordered the targeting of pro-Khalistan separatists inside Canada.
She further said her message to the Sikh community was that people have a right to be safe and respected in Australia, regardless of who they are. “We’ve made clear our concerns about the allegations under investigation. We’ve said that we respect Canada’s judicial process,” she said at the news conference.
“We convey our views to India as you would expect us to do and we have a principled position in relation to matters such as the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary and also, frankly, the sovereignty of all countries,” she added.
Australia has close intelligence-sharing ties with Canada as members of the Five Eyes alliance that also includes the United States, Britain and New Zealand.
Over the weekend, India officially protested Canada’s allegation of Sikh activists being targeted there as “absurd and baseless”. On November 5 (Tuesday), Jaishankar also condemned reports of vandalism at a Hindu temple near Toronto in Canada as “deeply concerning”. In videos on social media, demonstrators carrying yellow flags in support of the Sikh separatist movement can be seen clashing with others, including some holding India’s national flag, inside the temple complex.
