United Nations Human Rights Council

6th Session (September 10-28, 2007)

Item III: Promotion and protection of human rights and international solidarity


INTERFAITH INTERNATIONAL

Intervention by Sardar Shaukat Ali Kashmiri

Hon’ble Chairperson:

Today, my heart goes out to the hundreds of oppressed people in different parts of the world suffering from armed conflict, terror and despotic rule. I congratulate this august body for placing on the Agenda for discussions the pressing need for international solidarity to end human rights violations and protect human rights of the hapless sufferers. It is reflective of the Human Rights Council commitment and determination to make itself an effective body in international discourse. Never has this need been felt more strongly before, especially to curb excesses of autocratic regimes that crush their own peoples to perpetuate themselves in power.


I come from the State of Jammu and Kashmir, two-thirds of which are ruled by India and the remaining one-third by Pakistan. The trials and tribulations faced by my fellow Kashmiris in the Indian –administered part of the State for now, close to two decades due to the armed insurgency, are well documented and known to the international community at large due to India’s democratic institutions and free media.

However, the international community is quite unaware of the far more serious violations of human rights in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir comprising the so-called Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan. The lack of a freedom of expression and a media controlled by Pakistan’s military-intelligence establishment ensures

that the suffering of these hapless people continues far away from media glare and international attention.

For the benefit of this august Council, allow me to reiterate some of the continuing and oft-repeated abuses of the rights of the people of Pakistan in general and “Azad” Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan in particular, which have been brought to the attention of the earlier Commission on Human Rights on many occasions but without effective action.

Orchestrated referendums and rigged elections are routine practices in military-ruled Pakistan. In the so-called “Azad” Kashmir, political parties and candidates who aspire for a sovereign, secular, democratic and independent Jammu & Kashmir have been barred from participating in elections. Only those who swear allegiance to the Constitution of Pakistan are permitted to contest in this ‘’controlled democracy’’.
Hundreds of political workers belonging to democratic, secular, nationalist parties and organizations such as Pakistan People’s Party, Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), United Kashmir People’s National Party (UKPNP) and Balawaristan National Front - to name but a few - continue to languish in prison on false charges of sedition. Many of their leaders have been forced into exile or killed.
The Pakistani military-intelligence establishment has converted “Azad” Kashmir and the Northern Areas into a sanctuary for international terrorists. While the situation in Waziristan is slowly coming into international consciousness, the plight of hundreds of Kashmiri youth who continue to be held hostage and exploited by the intelligence agencies of Pakistan to spread terror and violence across the Line of Control lies buried in the small print.
It is true that it is not only the Kashmiri people who are suffering under the jackboots of the military dictatorship in Pakistan. The blatant discrimination by the Punjabi-speaking ruling elite against the hapless people of Sindh and Baluchistan, the frequent and brutal attacks on
Christians and other religious minorities, the abject subjugation of women and the heinous crimes perpetrated against them in different parts of Pakistan have all been well documented by human rights organizations and the media.
Even the higher judiciary in Pakistan is not immune to attacks from this military leadership. The treatment meted out to the Chief Justice of Pakistan Supreme Court, Iftikhar Choudhry recently is a case in point. The ungainly spectacle of two former Prime Ministers of Pakistan having been forced into exile and not permitting one of them, Nawaz Sharif, to return to his homeland despite a Supreme Court ruling that it is his inalienable right, shows the extend to which the military dictatorship in Pakistan would go to keep itself in power, which it has illegally and unconstitutionally grabbed.
Hon’ble Chairperson, there is urgent need for international solidarity to ensure that the democratic aspirations of the Pakistani people, and those in ‘Azad’ Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan are not held hostage by a autocratic military dictatorship under its garb of support for the war on terrorism. In the run-up to the forthcoming elections in Pakistan, the international community would be failing in its duty if it does n