April 2, 2003	Wednesday	Muharram 29, 1424

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GENEVA, April 1: The OIC Contact Group on Jammu and Kashmir here on Monday night expressed its deep concern over the continuing deterioration in the human rights situation in occupied Kashmir and called for an immediate halt to hostilities.

The group, comprising Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Niger and Pakistan, held its annual meeting during the 59th session of the Commission on Human Rights at the United Nations European headquarters here and adopted a joint statement reiterating the OIC’s determination to continue efforts for the full protection of the fundamental rights of the Kashmiri people.

Kashmiri representatives from both sides of the Line of Control were invited to the meeting. They presented a memorandum to the chairman of the contact group that urged the OIC to influence India to implement UN Security Council resolutions, end its state terrorism, revoke Draconian legislation, and withdraw its occupation army to create conditions for the revival of a genuine political process in Jammu and Kashmir.

Pakistan’s permanent representative to the European Office of United Nations at Geneva, Shaukat Umer, regretted that Pakistan’s initiative for dialogue and the international community’s offers of assisting resolution of the Kashmir dispute had resulted only in India demonstrating its preference for a military solution.

He said that Pakistan was legally and morally bound to alert the international community towards the plight of the Kashmiri people. To silence Pakistan in articulating its principled stand on Jammu and Kashmir, India had been holding the threat of military aggression against Pakistan with a massive build-up of troops along the international boundary and the Line of Control.

Shah Ghulam Qadir, member of the AJK Legislative Assembly, said the Kashmir people had been arbitrarily divided as a result of the Indian occupation and denial of the right to self-determination to the Kashmiris. He informed the contact group about the intensification of Indian repression after the tragedy of September 11.

The representative of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, Mir Tahir Masood, regretted that the Kashmiri peoples’ struggle for the realization of their right to self-determination had been labelled as terrorism by the occupying power to justify its repression. Social facilities such as schools and hospitals either did not exist or were dysfunctional. Curfews, blockades, crackdowns, political and economic disempowerment of the Kashmiri people were the defining features of life under Indian occupation, he added.

He called upon the OIC contact group to influence India to end its repression and state terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir, to convene the free and impartial plebiscite under the auspices of the United Nations.