India slams Canada for blocking Australian channel for showing EAM’s presser

Hours after the Justin Trudeau government blocked an Australian media outlet for showing external affairs minister S Jaishankar and his Australian counterpart Penny Wong’s press interaction in Canberra, the Ministry of External Affairs have referred it as ‘hypocrisy’ while lambasting the move.
“We understand that the social media handles, pages of this particular outlet, which is an important diaspora outlet, has been blocked and are not available for viewers in Canada. This happened just an hour or few hours after this particular handle carried the press conference of EAM Dr S Jaishankar with Penny Wong…We were surprised. It looks strange to us. But nonetheless, what I will say is that these are actions which yet again highlight the hypocrisy of Canada towards freedom of speech,” MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said at a press conference today.
During a press interaction, Jaiswal said that EAM Jaishankar highlighted that political space was being given to anti-India elements in Canada.
The Australia Today channel was allegedly blocked earlier because MEA S Jaishankar criticized Canada.
“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 the Australia Today channel was blocked by Canada,” ANI quoted him as saying.
India’s MEA lambasted Canada in Australia on Tuesday over the attack on a Hindu temple in Brampton. Apart from this, Jaishankar also touched upon India’s charge that Canada had illegally placed Indian diplomats under surveillance.
“Let me make three comments, one, Canada has developed a pattern of making allegations without providing specifics. Secondly, when we look at Canada, for us, the fact that…our diplomats are under surveillance, is something which is unacceptable,” Jaishankar said.
“The third is the incident which the gentleman spoke about, do look at the video. I think that will tell in a way the political space which is being given to extremist forces there,” the EAM added.
Following the murder case of Khalistani separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, authorities in Canada accused senior Indian diplomats were ‘persons of interest’. This led to the India-Canada bilateral relations hit rock bottom last month.
With agency inputs.