New Delhi: The UN human rights office on Friday called on Indian authorities and farmers protesting against the new agriculture laws to exercise maximum restraint, emphasising that it is crucial to find “equitable solutions” with due respect to human rights for all.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), in a tweet said the rights to peaceful assembly and expression should be protected both offline and online.
“#India: We call on the authorities and protesters to exercise maximum restraint in ongoing #FarmersProtests. The rights to peaceful assembly & expression should be protected both offline & online. It’s crucial to find equitable solutions with due respect to #HumanRights for all,” it tweeted.
Thousands of farmers, mostly from Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, have been camping at three Delhi border points — Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur — for over 70 days, demanding a complete repeal of three central farm laws.
The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), an umbrella body of the farmer unions protesting the farm laws, on Friday said there would be no ‘chakka jam’ in Delhi on February 6 even as it asserted that peasants in other parts of the country will block national and state highways for three hours but in a peaceful way.
The SKM had earlier this week announced this nationwide chakka jam on Saturday, saying that farmers would block national and state highways for three hours in protest against the Internet ban in areas near their agitation sites, harassment allegedly meted out to them by authorities, and other issues.
