India\u2019s Ministry of External Affairs summoned a US State Department official after the department called for a fair legal process for opposition leader and Delhi chief minister Arvind\u00a0Kejriwal following his arrest last week. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe take strong objection to the remarks of the Spokesperson of the US State Department about certain legal proceedings in India,\u201d the Ministry said in a statement Wednesday. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn diplomacy, states are expected to be respectful of the sovereignty and internal affairs of others. This responsibility is even more so in case of fellow democracies,\u201d the statement added. <\/p>\n
The Ministry of External Affairs on Wednesday summoned Gloria Berbena, the State Department Minister-Counselor for Public Diplomacy, according to a diplomatic officer with knowledge of the matter. <\/p>\n
At a\u00a0briefing\u00a0later on Wednesday, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller declined to discuss \u201cprivate diplomatic conversations\u201d when asked about Berbena\u2019s summoning, but stood by the department\u2019s previous comments. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe encourage fair, transparent, timely legal processes. We don\u2019t think anyone should object to that, and we\u2019ll make the same thing clear privately,\u201d Miller said. <\/p>\n
Kejriwal was taken into custody on March 21 following a raid on his home by the federal financial crimes agency,\u00a0members of his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) said, in the latest blow to an alliance of parties aiming to unseat Modi as he seeks a third consecutive term. <\/p>\n
He is one of Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s fiercest critics and Kejriwal\u2019s allies have claimed the arrest was politically motivated. <\/p>\n
His arrest comes as tensions run high ahead of a crucial nationwide election which begins on April 19, in which Modi is widely expected to leave the opposition languishing despite sharp criticism over his perceived erosion of the country\u2019s democratic founding principles. <\/p>\n
India\u2019s main opposition, the Indian National Congress, has also accused the BJP of using the tax department to \u201ccripple\u201d their finances. The party claimed their bank accounts had been frozen by the tax department, leaving them unable to use some $20 million\u00a0in\u00a0funds. <\/p>\n
Human Rights group Amnesty International\u00a0warned\u00a0following the arrest of Kejriwal that a crackdown on Indian opposition figures and parties by the government had reached a \u201ccrisis point\u201d ahead of the national elections. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe arrest of Arvind Kejriwal and the freezing of Indian National Congress\u2019 bank accounts a few weeks before India holds its general elections show the authorities\u2019 blatant failure to uphold the country\u2019s international human rights obligations.\u201d <\/p>\n\n
India\u2019s Ministry of External Affairs summoned a US State Department official after the department called for a fair legal process for opposition leader and Delhi chief minister Arvind\u00a0Kejriwal following his arrest last week. \u201cWe take strong objection to the remarks of the Spokesperson of the US State Department about certain legal proceedings in India,\u201d the <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":17364,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17363","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}