Kashmiri representative, Shamim Shawl, has deplored that human rights defenders continue to face harassment, intimidation, attacks and reprisals for their work for the promotion and protection of human rights in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
According to Kashmir Media Service, Shamim Shawl speaking at the ongoing 54th session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva under agenda item 5 said, freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. She said, the right to freedom of expression has been recognised as a human right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international human rights law by the United Nations.
She said, “Despite a clear right to access and communicate with the international human rights bodies, human rights defenders continue to face harassment, intimidation, attacks and reprisals for their work for the promotion and protection of human rights. Human rights defenders are not allowed to monitor and voice for the victims of Indian state terrorism in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir.”
She pointed out that Indian troops, under the protection of black laws, are targeting the Kashmiris and mainly the women human rights defenders. She said, over the last 24 years along with the killing of over one hundred thousand innocent men and women, a good number of human rights defenders were also killed, detained, harassed and intimidated in IIOJK. As per a report by Human Rights Watch, the Indian government has arrested at least 35 journalists in Kashmir since 20191, she said. The Indian government has been cracking down on independent media and civil society groups in occupied Jammu and Kashmir, and the situation has only worsened since the special status of the territory was revoked by the Modi government in August 2019, she added.
Shamim Shawl said one of the most recent cases is that of Fahad Shah, editor-in-chief of a leading Srinagar-based news site, The Kashmir Walla. She said, he was arrested on February 04, 2022, on charges of sedition after his site reported on a fake encounter in Pulwama in January 2022 in which Indian forces killed four people. Fahad Shah’s arrest is part of the Indian government’s attempt to silence those who highlight the human rights violations by Indian troops in the occupied territory, she maintained.—INP
