By Ajmal Khan Yousafzai
ISLAMABAD: Speakers at a webinar hosted by Kashmir Institute of International Relations (KIIR) in Islamabad said that depriving Kashmiris of their inalienable right to self-determination constitutes a serious violation of the international law and the UNSC resolutions that guaranteed this right to them.
The webinar titled “World Human Rights Day: Agony of Kashmiris†was attended and addressed by noted human rights activists, legal experts, political analysts and journalists hailing from different parts of the world. The speakers included Ms Danielle Khan, special assistant to Dean Eliot A Cohen at Johns Hopkins Paul H Nitze School of Advanced Studies, Carin Jodha Fisher, American human rights activist, Nayeema Ahmed Mahjoor, author and columnist from Srinagar, Irshad Hussain Mir, Kashmir-based journalist, Scottish human rights activist and co-founder of Let Kashmir Decide, Ms Clair Bidwell, Ms Marina Zucca, human rights activist, visiting faculty, Italy, Ms Sehar Shabbir Shah, Mr Todd Shea, Irish American social worker, Ms Shugufta Ashraf, professor at University of Kotli, AJK, and others. The
event was moderated by KIIR Chairman, Altaf Hussain Wani.
In his opening remarks the KIIR Chairman, Altaf Hussain Wani, while pointing to the fast deteriorating political and human rights situation in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir said, India’s illegal and forcible occupation of Kashmir has led to widespread deaths and human rights violations in the territory. “Despite signing Universal Declaration of Human Rights, India has miserably failed to uphold its solemn commitments it had made vis-à -vis human rights at international level,†he deplored.
Irshad Hussain said IIOJK has virtually been under double lockdown for the past one and half years. “In Kashmir essential fundamental freedoms including right to freedom of speech and expression, the right to protest and assembly, the right to health and education, remain severely restricted,†he added. Ms Danielle Khan, terming Indian tactics of subjugating Kashmiris as flagrant violations of basic human rights, said, “Virtually, every article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is being flagrantly and brutally disregarded by the government of India and its forces that operate in Kashmir under the cover of black laws.â€
Ms Nayeema Ahmed Majhoor, narrating the appalling human rights situation in IIOJK, said India has enforced notorious laws, which have in fact facilitated human rights abuses in the territory. She lamented that the Indian government has brazenly ignored the recommendations of the report of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights that called for the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry to investigate human rights violations in the territory.
She also gave a detailed account of the sufferings of the Kashmir women, who have been subjected to rape, torture and other inhuman and degrading treatments.
