India rejects comments by UN human rights chief on foreign influence laws

India has rejected a comment by the UN's top human rights official on foreign influence laws, saying principles of transparency and accountability cannot be applied selectively.

India's Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations and other International Organisations in Geneva Ambassador Arindam Bagchi, said he "humbly disagrees" with the brief reference to India made by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk in his Global Update 56th session of the Human Rights Council this week.

Turk had said in his global update that a worrying trend in terms of civic space is the consideration or adoption of so-called transparency or foreign influence laws in over 50 countries, including in the Republika Srpska entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, India, Kyrgyzstan, the Russian Federation, Slovakia and Turkiye. These laws risk having serious chilling effects on the work of civil society, freedom of expression and of association.

Bagchi said democratic nations across