Speakers at a function in the United States expressed solidarity with Muhammad Yasin Malik, prominent leader of Jammu and Kashmir’s political resistance movement.
The speakers said this at a certificate distribution ceremony hosted in the honour of 2022 graduates at ‘Kashmir House’ Maryland. It was hosted by Kashmiri Americans.
Yasin Malik was given life imprisonment by an India’s kangaroo court for raising demand for freedom of his motherland from the illegal occupation of India.
Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai, Secretary General, World Kashmir Awareness Forum, said if Yasin Malik is a terrorist as India has charged him, then why the-then prime minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh urged him during an official meeting on February 17, 2006, to help initiate a peaceful negotiation for the resolution of Kashmir dispute. Dr. Manmohan Singh sought the meeting with Malik because of non-violent ideology that Yasin Malik was pursing since 1994.
The world powers must realize that alienating peace-loving leaders like Yasin Malik, closes any chance of peace in the region of South Asia and pushes the new generation towards actions that can be detrimental to the peaceful resolution of Kashmir conflict.
“As we know that the youth has been raised with blood and tears for which death no longer poses a threat for what can death do that life has not done before: their suffering is freeing them from fear. Kashmiri freedom from fear has led to the powerful peaceful protests we have witnessed on the streets of Srinagar,” Fai continued.
Fai emphasized the need to strive for making South Asia a region of peace and of shared prosperity. “It could be achieved if India moves beyond its present inflexible political agenda and realizes that the people are the real stakeholder when we talk about the conflict of Kashmir.”
Human rights are cheapened, said Dr. Fai, when enforcement of world powers is selective. Sardar Zarif Khan appealed to the United Nations and other world organizations to shed their protracted silence and earnestly impress upon the Indian government to let international standards of justice prevail and free Mohammad Yasin Malik and other Kashmiri detainees like Khurram Parvez, Shabbir Ahmad Shah, Aasiya Andrabi and Masarrat Aalam Butt.
Raja Liaqat Kayani, the President of ‘Kashmir House’ said that in their struggle against the tyranny of foreign occupation and to regain their rights, the people of Kashmir look for support from world leaders, including the United States of America of conscience and concern who stand for freedom, democratic rights and human dignity.
Shoaib Irshad said that the gruesome status quo in Kashmir is both legally and morally unacceptable and militarily and economically frightening.
Asif Khan said that that a major problem in human rights enforcement is that countries that violate human rights have no consequences serious enough to change their actions.
Others who addressed the event included Waseem khan, Asghar Khan, Abid Kan and Shafiq Shah.—KMS
