Senator Farhatullah Babar has said that the report last month of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights offered an opportunity to alleviate the sufferings of people of the Indian Kashmir as well as taking some corrective measures in Pakistan.
He said this while addressing a seminar on the second death anniversary of Burhan Wani organised by the Peace and Culture Organization headed by Mushaal Malik wife of Kashmiri leader Yasin Malik here on Sunday. Wani's martyrdom galvanized the people of Kashmir as never before.
For the first time educated middle class youth have risen. The coalition government has been disbanded and governor rule imposed. Repression has increased but so has the resistance, he said. For the first time the UN has reported on the grim situation in Indian Kashmir. For the first time also the UN has called for Inquiry into human rights violations.
For the first time the UN has talked of enforced disappearances, curbs on expression, reprisals against human rights defenders and journalists, use of pellet guns and torture in Kashmir. For the first time UN has lamented "total impunity for enforced disappearances".
He said that Pakistan should support the proposed commission of inquiry and also offer to allow its visit to AJK. Simultaneously we should also improve our own human rights record and end enforced disappearances and internment centres. We must bring torture legislation and stop gerrymandering before and after polls to be credible, he said.
The former Senator also called for bringing charges under Geneva Conventions against individuals responsible for grave rights violations in Kashmir as well as proposing UN Convention against pellet shotguns. He said that the Kashmiris' cause was so strong that it did not need external non-state actors which indeed undermined the cause of self determination after the Kargil debacle.
The Kargil misadventure caused irreparable day to Kashmir by reducing it to cross border terrorism from Pakistan. Wani martyrdom and the events flowing from it has sought to correct the narrative by re-shifting focus from territorial dispute to human rights, freedoms, fundamental rights and torture, he said. Former senator Syed Zafar Ali shah, Maria Sultan and Chairperson Peace and culture organisation Mushaal Malik also addressed the seminar.-PR
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