GENEVA, Jun 16 (APP): Pakistan has called on the UN Human Rights Council to take “credible steps” to uphold Kashmiri people’s fundamental rights, and to hold India accountable for its illegal colonization and rights abuses in the disputed territory.
“Today, Pakistan echoes this call for action to address the growing human rights crisis in occupied Kashmir,” Ambassador Khalil Hashmi, permanent representative of Pakistan to the UN in Geneva, told the 47-member council.
“The global flag-bearers of human rights must break their deafening silence, and call India out for its atrocities against the Kashmiris,” he said during interactive dialogue on the annual report of the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, at the Council’s 50th session.
At the outset, the Pakistani envoy welcomed High Commissioner’s continued monitoring and reporting on India’s escalating human rights violations in Occupied Jammu & Kashmir.
“India continues to subvert the UN Charter principles, Security Council resolutions and 4th Geneva Convention provisions by illegally altering demographics of the disputed territory,” Ambassador Hashmi said.
In doing so, he said, the Indian colonist machinery had resorted to the worst form of state terrorism against the Kashmiri people, while referring to Kashmiri leader Yasin Malik’s conviction through a “sham trial” that exemplified New Delhi’s systematic suppression of indigenous Kashmiri voices.
Every day, the Pakistani envoy added, Kashmiri people were braving a human rights tragedy.
“Armed with oppressive laws, over 800,000 Indian occupation troops continue to unlawfully kill, torture, arrest and maim Kashmiri people with full impunity behind an iron curtain,” Ambassador Hashmi said.
“To hide its transgressions, the Hindutva Raj has installed a pliant judiciary, gagged local media, persecuted civil society, and denied access to the UN human rights machinery.”
The UN Special Procedures have publicly raised concerns about the devastating human rights impacts of India’s demographic engineering and called on the international community to ‘step up’, he pointed out.
The Pakistani envoy urged the High Commissioner to issue an updated report about the situation in Jammu and Kashmir in exercise of her prevention mandate.
He commended Ms. Bachelet, the High Commissioner, for her leadership role during the last four years and wished her success in her future endeavors. Ms. Bachelet, a former president of Chile, is stepping down from her post in August.
