At UN, India Votes In Favour Of Russian Resolution On Fighting Nazism

India at United Nations voted in favour of Russia’s draft resolution on “Combating glorification of Nazism.”
Amid the spirited debate, the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly approved a draft resolution on combating the glorification of Nazism by a recorded vote of 105 in favour to 52 against, with 15 abstentions.

The representative of India said that the concept of Indigenous Peoples is not applicable in the country’s context, adding that it joins consensus on the resolution with this understanding.

The committee approved eight draft resolutions, including Texts on Indigenous Peoples’ Rights, Privacy in Digital Age, Condemning Glorification Of Nazism.

The draft resolutions covered a range of human rights issues, from the right to literacy and protection of children from sexual exploitation to matters of crime prevention and criminal justice as well as efforts to combat the glorification of Nazism.

The draft resolution had the Assembly express deep concern about glorifying the Nazi movement, neo-Nazism and former members of the Waffen SS organization, including erecting monuments and holding public demonstrations in glorifying the Nazi past.

Russian Federation’s delegate voiced concern over an increase in racist and xenophobic rhetoric, calls to deport migrants and refugees, Islamophobia, Afrophobia and antisemitism, the UN said in its release.

Several delegates took to the floor to express concerns over Moscow’s attempt to exploit the pretext of combating neo-Nazism to justify its brutal war against Ukraine, with Ukraine’s delegate asserting that the draft has nothing in common with the genuine fight against Nazism and neo-Nazism.

Echoing his concerns, the United Kingdom’s delegate stressed that the resolution is part of Moscow’s attempt to justify its aggression against Ukraine by furthering lies and distorting history.

The United States’ delegate called the resolution “a cynical attempt” of Moscow to further its geopolitical aims by invoking the Holocaust and Second World War. In the same vein, Australia’s delegate called Moscow’s weaponization of the Holocaust and Nazism unacceptable.

Meanwhile, several delegates disassociated from the amendment, which notes with alarm that the Russian Federation seeks to justify its territorial aggression against Ukraine on the purported basis of eliminating neo-Nazism. Rejecting the amendment, as it politicizes the issue of elimination of racism while introducing a narrow, country-specific approach, the delegate of the Russian Federation said that “this is a thematic resolution, not a country-resolution”.