Senior leader of All Parties Hurriyat Conference Azad Jammu and Kashmir (APHC-AJK) chapter, Muhammad Farooq Rehmani, has strongly condemned restrictions by Israel and India in Srinagar Jamia Masjid and Masjid-e-Aqsa on Friday prayers respectively, which he characterised as tantamount to the universal principle of religious freedom.
According to Kashmir Media Service, Muhammad Farooq Rehmani in a statement issued in Islamabad said that India had sealed the grand masjid of Srinagar, disallowed Muslims from entering into it and had kept Mirwaiz Umar Farooq in house detention for the fourth consecutive Friday on November 3, 2023, depriving him of offering Juma prayers in the Jamia Masjid.
He said if the restrictions are aimed at preventing people from protest against illegal occupation of al-Quds and genocide of Palestinians across the occupied Arab lands, then Israel was violating the international humanitarian law and people across the world were hurt and they had everywhere their right to raise their voices against the rights violations and undoubtedly freedom and right of self-determination is a universal concern and Kashmiris can never be expected to remain indifferent to such a situation.
He urged India to foresee consequences of its long authoritarian policies in Kashmir, which was a global issue and cannot be resolved by constantly violating the United Nations resolutions and at the same time punishing the Kashmiris for exercising their religious and civil liberties.
At the moment, he deplored the Kashmiris had been incarcerated like slaves and treated as sub-humans without any regard for their basic human and civil rights. Doesn’t it amount to suffocation of an entire nation, he asked.
He said al-Quds is the religious faith of the people of Kashmir and the right of self-determination is their inalienable right to safeguard their national identity like all other nations of the world.—KMS
