Geneva: India exercised its right to reply under the High-Level Segment of the 46th session of the Human Rights Council to rebut allegations levelled by Pakistan, Turkey and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) about rights violation by India in Jammu and Kashmir, here today.
Pakistan’s Minister of Human Rights Dr. Shireen Mazari, in her televised speech at the Council, had sought to draw the attention of the international community toward the “full-blown human rights crisis” in “Indian controlled Kashmir region”, while Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, had called upon India to “ease current restrictions” in Jammu and Kashmir and also for resolution of the issue of J&K as per the UN Security Council’s resolutions.
Yousef A Al-Othaimeen, Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), had referred to what he claimed “ongoing security clampdown, communications blockade and denial of religious freedoms to Kashmiris in Indian-occupied Kashmir (IOK)”, and stated the the OIC joined “the international community in condemning the ongoing security lockdown/curfews and communications blackout in the IOK by the Indian occupation forces, which remained in place even during the festive period of Eid Al-Adha”.
Exercising India’s right to reply, Seema Pujani, deputy secretary, Permanent Mission of India, said India was “not surprised” that Pakistan’s representative had chosen “to misuse this august forum” yet again. “Pakistan’s continued misuse of various platforms to engage in baseless and malicious propaganda against India is not new,” she said.
Reiterating that the entire Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh are an integral and inalienable part of India, she made it categorically clear that the steps taken by the Government to ensure good governance and development in these Union Territories “are our internal matters”.
As regards the remarks made by Turkey, Pujani said India found them completely unacceptable. “It is ironical for a country which has trampled upon its own civil society to pass unjustified comments on other’s internal matters,” she said and added that as far as the subject of UN Resolutions is concerned, “we would advise Turkey to practise what it preaches by first implementing those UN Resolutions that apply to it”.
Responding to the OIC’s statement, she said, “we reject the factually incorrect and unwarranted references to India”. She added: “We regret that the OIC countries continue to allow Pakistan to misuse OIC platforms to indulge in anti-India propaganda.”
Pujani asserted: “The Government of India is fully cognizant of its human rights obligations and committed to the promotion and protection of the human rights of our people. The statement of our External Affairs Minister has outlined India’s perspective on human rights, both in relation to India and in the global context.
Launching a scathing attack on Pakistan at the Council, Pujani said that as a country with one of the world’s worst human rights records, Pakistan would do well to put its own house in order, before venturing to point a finger at India,
“The violence, institutionalised discrimination and persecution faced by Pakistan’s minorities, including Christians, Sikhs and Hindus, has continued unabated. There have been frequent attacks on the places of worship of minority communities, a grave violation of their right to freedom of religion and belief,” she pointed out.
She said the condition of women belonging to minority communities, notably Hindus, Sikhs and Christians, remains deplorable, and referred to a recent report published by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, which stated that an estimated 1,000 women from minority communities are subjected to abduction followed by forced conversion and forced marriage in Pakistan every year. “Most of these women fall in the age-bracket of 16-25 years. The fact that young women, and not men or older women, are the main victims of forced conversions is a telling fact about Pakistani society,” she said. She further pointed out that Shias, Hazaras and Ahmadiya communities have continued to face persecution, state-condoned violence and discrimination in Pakistan.
Pujani said it was well known that Pakistan had been crushing dissent and engaging in political repression in Balochistan, and other regions, for decades. “Enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions and torture have been used as tools of coercion. Several Baloch human rights defenders have even met tragic death under mysterious circumstances, while in exile. Pashtuns and Sindhis have continued to struggle against the systemic oppression and discrimination,” she stated.
Instances of repression of journalists and civil society activists are rife, Pujani told the Council and cited the example of Gulalai Ismail, a Pakistani human rights defender who campaigned against violence against women and enforced disappearances. Gulalai was charged with sedition, terrorism and defamation in May 2020. In August 2020, Ms. Ismail sought refuge in the USA. As retribution, the Pakistani authorities have now arrested her father, Muhammad Ismail, on ‘terror’ charges.
Further, Pujani said, in September 2020, UN human rights experts had condemned the enforced disappearance of Idris Khattak, a former consultant with Amnesty International and Human Rights watch. “Mr. Khattak had himself worked on reports on enforced disappearances in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas, before disappearing himself in November 2019, in a cruel twist of fate. The UN human rights experts have called upon the Pakistani authorities to end Mr. Khattak’s secret detention at the earliest,” she pointed out.
Calling Pakistan as the home and patron to the largest number of internationally proscribed terrorist entities and individuals in the world, Pujani said as many as 126 individuals and 24 entities, sanctioned under the UN Security Council 1267 and 1988 Committees’ Lists, are associated with Pakistan. “State-sponsored terrorism by Pakistan is a threat, not only to India but to other countries in the region and beyond,” she emphasised.
She further referred to the recent acquittal of Omar Saeed Sheikh, the al-Qaeda terrorist and murderer of the American journalist Daniel Pearl by the Pakistani Supreme Court, and said that it was a clear example of the Pakistani establishment’s nexus with such entities and, as the US Secretary of State said, it is “an affront to terrorism victims everywhere.
“We request the Council to call upon Pakistan to take credible and irreversible steps to end state-sponsored terrorism and dismantle terrorist infrastructure in the territories under its control,” Pujani said.
– global bihari bureau
