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QUESTION: One thing that’s kind of new as far as I’m aware is you’re seeing regimes now like the Iranian regime, China has started to weigh in – the government, and criticize the Biden administration’s response to these protests. We saw overnight the Chinese saying that the way the U.S. Government is responding is violating these students’ rights. Do you have a comment on these adversaries kind of using it as an opportunity to criticize?

MR PATEL: Look, the policies and procedures as it relates to demonstrations, protesting, things like that that may or may not exist on a particular college campus, or may or may not exist in a particular town, city, or municipality, it is certainly not in the remit of the State Department so I am not going to even delve into that.

QUESTION: Isn’t it hypocritical though —

MR PATEL: There’s other agencies that are better suited to speak to that. But what I can say broadly, we of course support anybody to be able to express themselves and to exercise their First Amendments rights. They should not and cannot become violent, not peaceful. And in those particular circumstances, we believe it is the right of the appropriate law enforcement and – enforcement and security officials to take appropriate actions consistent with the policies of that jurisdiction. Again, we are delving far away from foreign policy and into law enforcement, which is not the remit of this – of this department.

QUESTION: No, because what I’m asking really is: Is it not from a foreign policy, foreign relations, diplomacy perspective, isn’t it, I mean, hypocritical of the Chinese and the Iranians, some of the worst human rights violators in the world, to be criticizing the Biden administration’s policy response to America?

MR PATEL: I don’t think anybody in this administration is interested in taking a human rights lesson from the Iranian regime, or the People’s Republic of China for that matter. And both of those regimes’ crackdowns on self-expression, on free and fair press, on basic human rights, is clear.

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QUESTION: Do you have any comment on the Hamas and Fatah leaders meeting in Beijing at the invitation of China? What is your comment on dialogue between Hamas and Fatah?

MR PATEL: So our message on this has been what it was since October 7th. If any country purports to have influence or relationships with Hamas, the message is quite clear: release every single hostage and it can no longer be business as usual. They should call on Hamas to lay down their arms, and that is the best and fastest way to get us where we need to be.

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QUESTION: The Philippines today said a coast guard ship and a fisheries vessel were damaged by water cannons used by Chinese coast guard ships. This comes right after Blinken’s trip to China. Do you have any comment on this, concerns?

MR PATEL: So the repeated harassment of Philippine vessels near Scarborough Reef is detrimental to regional peace and stability, and our belief is that the Chinese coast guard installation of these barriers also endangers Philippine fisherfolk’s livelihoods and prevents them from exercising their legal rights to fish in those waters. These are rights that were set out in 2016 in a final and legally binding judgment in the Philippines-China arbitration brought to the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention, and consistently – and this is something that the Secretary made clear on his travels as well – is that we urge the PRC to respect the navigational rights and freedoms guaranteed to all states under international law.

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Source: U.S. Department of State

Speaker: Vedant Patel, Principal Deputy Spokesperson

Format: Press Briefing

Link to Original Source