New Delhi: A day after a video went viral on social media showing “anti-India posters” in Geneva, India protested by summoning the Swiss Ambassador to the Ministry of External Affairs on Sunday, March 5.
On Sunday, official sources stated that MEA’s secretary (west) Sanjay Verma “called in” the Swiss ambassador and “raised the issue of unfounded and malicious anti-India posters in front of the UN building in Geneva”.
The envoy was summoned after an anonymous Twitter user (with a Twitter Blue tick) shared a video it claimed was taken by an Indian student in Geneva. “A video shot by an Indian student in Geneva goes viral where a high level of propaganda can be seen unleashed against India near UNHRC HQ. Is this the new Toolkit or planned preparation for 2024??” the tweet said, which had been retweeted close to 6,000 times.
A video shot by an Indian student in Geneva goes viral where a high level of propaganda can be seen unleashed against India near UNHRC HQ.
Is this the new Toolkit or planned preparation for 2024 ?? pic.twitter.com/irNPkiHvY2
— Megh Updates 🚨™ (@MeghUpdates) March 4, 2023
As per sources, the Swiss ambassador told the senior Indian diplomat that he would “convey India’s concerns to Berne with all the seriousness it deserves”. He added that the posters in Geneva “are part of space provided to all, but in no way endorses the claims, nor reflects the position of the Swiss Government”.
A statement issued on behalf of the Swiss ambassador to India, Ralf Heckner, said, “The Embassy has conveyed India’s concerns to Berne with all the seriousness it deserves”.
Incidentally, posters appear on the plaza in front of the UN building in Geneva during the sessions of the UN Human Rights Council to catch the eye-balls of officials and ministers arriving from all over the world. The fifty-second session of the UNHRC began on February 27.
As this tweet from state-run Pakistan Television shows, anti-India posters on Kashmir and Nagaland were apparently displayed in the plaza in front of the UN building in Geneva in 2017 to coincide with the 36th session of UNHRC. The Dawn reported on these posters in September 2017. It also noted that Pakistan’s representative to the UN in Geneva had written a week earlier to Swiss authorities to take action on “Free Balochistan” posters on buses in Geneva.
Banners in Switzerland calling for the freedom of Tripura Nagaland Manipur & Kashmir on metro busses & trams at the 36th session of UNHRC pic.twitter.com/v4S80VTkTA
— PTV News (@PTVNewsOfficial) September 25, 2017
Two years later, during the 42nd UNHRC session in 2019, another Pakistani Twitter user claimed that posters and banners with anti-India slogans on Kashmir had been emblazoned on vehicles in Geneva. The state-run Prasar Bharati tweeted photos of signs against Pakistan’s treatment of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa installed in front of the UN building in September 2019.
A Twitter search of tweets regarding posters in Geneva from previous years also showed an unverified photo of a couple of banners at the plaza in front of the UN building in 2020 accusing the Pakistan army of terrorism.
A tweet from 2021 by a Pakistani Twitter user showed that several anti-India posters were at the same venue.
While Pakistan had reportedly protested posters in 2017, India had, till now, not summoned the Swiss ambassador despite such signs appearing in time for various UNHRC sessions.
Following the BBC documentary on Gujarat riots, the Indian external affairs minister S. Jaishankar had said last month that there was a foreign conspiracy to target his government ahead of next year’s Lok Sabha elections. “I mean, come on, you think the timing is accidental?” he asked. “Let me tell you one thing. I don’t know if election season has started in India and Delhi or not but for sure it has started in London and New York,” he said in an interview to ANI.