Islamabad
Chairman Kashmir Institute of International Relations (KIIR) Altaf Hussain Wani Monday made a passionate appeal to the UN Secretary General, Antonio Gutters urging him to mount pressure on Indian government to stop human rights violations, persecution of journalists, rights defenders and civil society activists in the held territory.
In a letter addressed to the UN secretary general the KIIR chief while seeking Gutter’s urgent attention toward the highly critical situation in the region said, “The human rights situation in the occupied Kashmir has taken a dangerous turn after Indian government’s unilateral decision to forcibly annex the disputed state into Indian Union, last year”.
“The unilateral move followed by a crippling clampdown and communication blockade has thrown the territory into a quagmire of uncertainty and perpetual violence that continue to consume innocent lives at an unprecedented scale”, he said adding that there has been no letup in the state sponsored violence as arbitrary arrests, extra-judicial killings, forced disappearances and military crackdowns and nocturnal raids by the Indian army continue unabated.
“Thousands of Kashmiris including political activists, lawyers, human rights activists and youth who were arrested before and after 5th August last year continue to rot in jails far away from their homes”, the communique said.
“Every aspect of the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir, society, politics and culture today bears the scars of the 14-month inhuman siege, the longest in Kashmir’s history”, he said adding that fundamental political and human rights including the right to freedom of expression, the right to opinion and right to assembly remained severely restricted in the region.
Massive crackdown on civil society, human rights defenders and persecution of journalists, he said reflect the dangerous and dark aspects of the fascism the Indian state had exhibited while dealing with the political dissent in the region.
He lamented that the government of Indian was using counterterrorism laws to muzzle the media and silencing critical and truthful voices.—APP
