HR violations turn IIOJK into a violent conflict zone: Speakers at Geneva seminar
Geneva: Speakers at a seminar in Geneva said that widespread human rights violations by Indian troops have turned Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir(IIOJK) into a violent conflict zone marked by fear, repression, and uncertainty.
According to Kashmir Media Service, the seminar was organized on the sidelines of the 59th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council by the Community Human Rights and Advocacy Center (CHRAC) in collaboration with Kashmir Institute of International(KIIR).
The event was attended by prominent human rights defenders, journalists, and legal experts from various parts of the world. Notable speakers included Canadian journalist Robert Fantina, APHC-AJK Convener Ghulam Muhammad Safi, Syed Faiz Naqshbandi, human rights activist Rehana Ali, Syeda Tahreem Bukhari, among others. The session was moderated by Naila Altaf Kayani.
The speakers highlighted the importance of international human rights frameworks, international law, and conventions such as the Geneva Conventions, asserting that states are legally obligated to uphold all human rights including economic, social, cultural, civil, and political rights even during conflict.
The speakers emphasized the critical importance of upholding human rights, human dignity, and the protection of lives even in situations of armed conflict and war.
Using the Kashmir dispute as a case study, the participants expressed grave concern over the gross human rights violations committed by Indian occupation forces in IIOJK, saying these violations have turned the territory into a zone of violent conflict, marked by fear and uncertainty.
They noted that the protracted conflict has devastated the daily lives of the Kashmiri people, causing mass displacement, social instability, and deep psychological trauma. The speakers denounced the Indian forces’ use of violence, mass arrests, extrajudicial killings, and sexual violence, particularly rape as a weapon of war, as systematic tools of repression.
They said the draconian laws imposed in IIOJK provide Indian forces with impunity to commit grave crimes against unarmed civilians. These black laws, they added, are the root cause of the continued human rights violations in the occupied territory.
The speakers regretted that in the last 35 years, Indian troops have martyred tens of thousands of Kashmiris, including women and children. Since the illegal abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019, a large number of homes have been demolished, and Kashmiris forcibly evicted from their properties and lands. Thousands of Kashmiris, including human rights defenders, remain imprisoned in jails across India and occupied Kashmir.
They further highlighted India’s demographic engineering plans in the territory, citing the issuance of domicile certificates to millions of non-Kashmiri Hindus and the dismissal of thousands of local government employees.
The speakers urged the UN Human Rights Council to hold India accountable for the ongoing crimes against humanity in IIOJK and to take concrete steps to end the suffering of the Kashmiri people.
