BJP’s Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy has threatened to sue United Nations Under-Secretary-General Adama Dieng for expressing his concern over the comments attributed to the former that Muslims were not the equal citizens of India. Swamy’s comments on Muslims had triggered social media backlash with many raising the issue of his journalist daughter’s marriage to a Muslim.
Dieng, who’s also the UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, said on Monday that ‘statements such as those expressed by Member of Parliament Subramanian Swamy, that all people are not equal, and that Muslims are not in an ‘equal category’ as others are extremely alarming.
Swamy took to Twitter to threaten to sue him. He wrote, “UN Under-Secretary-General Mr. Adama Dieng slandered me in a press release in New York saying I had said in an interview to a Pakistani owned TV channel that Muslims are not equal to Hindus in Indian Constitution. This is a blatant lie so I will take steps to sue him in court.”
UN Under Secretary General Mr.Adama Dieng slandered me in a press release in New York saying I had said in an interview to a Pakistani owned TV channel that Muslims are not equal to Hindus in Indian Constitution. This is a blatant lie so I will take steps to sue him in court.
— Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) May 19, 2020
Dieng also expressed concern over reports that demonstrations against the law, which occurred across some regions of India since its enactment, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, had reportedly resulted in the injury and death of civilians, attacks on religious sites, as well as an increase in expressions of hate against India’s Muslim community. He said that hate speech and the dehumanisation of others went against international human rights norms and values.
In April this year, Swamy was asked by a journalist if the newly enacted Citizenship Amendment Act violated Article 14 of the Indian constitution, which guaranteed equal rights to Indian citizens regardless of their religious background. Swamy had replied, “I can tell you that’s the misinterpretation of Article 14. Article 14 guarantees equality of equals.”
When the anchor challenged him asking if all people were not equal, Swamy had replied with a straight face, “All people are not equal.” He had added, “There’s no such thing called equal rights. They are not in equal category.”
This had prompted Twitterati to remind the BJP parliamentarian that his own journalist daughter was married to a Muslim.
