Observer Report Geneva
Pakistan has urged the UN Human Rights Council to step up efforts to get access for independent observers into Illegally-Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJ&K) to conduct an impartial investigation into reports of multiple violations of human rights in the disputed territory.
“Failure to hold India accountable for human rights abuses in IIOJ&K will erode the credibility of this Council, its members, and the global human rights agenda,” Ambassador Khalil Hashmi, Pakistan’s permanent representative to the UN in Geneva, said in the 47-member body’s general debate.
At the outset, the Pakistani envoy thanked the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, for voicing concern over the rights situation in occupied Kashmir which, he said, was highlighted by numerous reports by global media, independent NGOs, and UN human rights machinery.
Just last week, he said the ‘UN Mandate Holders’ (independent rights experts) warned about continuing demographic changes in IIOJ&K on a religious and ethnic basis, as over 3 million illegal citizenship certificates have been issued to non-Kashmiris.
