ISLAMABAD: Diplomats, government figures and civil society representatives called for an end to human rights violations in India-held Kashmir (IHK) and trilateral peace negotiations that are inclusive of Kashmiri stakeholders, including women.

“Pakistan needs to keep reemphasising the fact that when India took the Kashmir issue to the UN, it did not cite Pakistan as a transgressor. Sideways, we need to move beyond the rhetoric we are addicted to. Too many Kashmiris have died and too many generations have been lost,” said Minister for Human Rights Shireen Mazari during a talk on human rights violations in India-held Kashmir at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI).

The event was organised to mark the 70th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the UN General Assembly in Paris on Dec 10, 1948.

Dr Mazari said the 70-year dispute could be resolved on the principles underlying the 1998 Good Friday or Belfast Agreement signed by the British and Irish governments, as well as political parties, on power sharing.

Minister says dispute could be resolved on the principles underlying 1998 Good Friday Agreement

She explained that the principle of self-determination should be acknowledged, a deweaponisation process should start immediately following an agreement and two parallel agreements – one between India and Pakistan and one between India, Pakistan and all other stakeholders – should be signed.

Before such a process, India and Pakistan need to develop confidence-building measures, she said, and she also called for the deployment of UN observers on the LoC to monitor human rights violations.

The minister criticised Pakistani governments and the Parliamentary Kashmir Committee for failing to highlight the Kashmir issue at the international level.

“We have left the Kashmiris in the lurch and at the mercy of the Indian security forces who are committing the worst kind of violence against the civilian population and women,” she said.

She claimed the Indian government was trying to change the demography of Kashmir and, if successful, this would destroy the whole concept of the plebiscite and the proposed setting up of a referendum committee to identify disputed territories and their populations.

In response to a question, Dr Mazari denied that the government was contemplating any proposals to give GB provisional provincial status.

She and other panellists also highlighted increasing violence against women, citing the Kunan-Poshpora incident 27 years ago when security forces gang-raped 23 women and other such incidents, and questioned the apathy of the international community.

Human rights activist Tahira Abdullah, who was also among the speakers, endorsed a United Nations report released in June this year on Kashmir.

She said: “Kashmir is a trilateral, not bilateral issue, therefore, a triangular dialogue should be held on the issue by including the primary stakeholders – Kashmiris from both sides of the Line of Control (LoC) and the residents of GB.”

She said Pakistan must put its own house in order if it wishes to retain the moral high ground regarding Indian human rights violations in India-held Kashmir (IHK).

She added that Pakistan had to stop misusing anti-terrorism laws against political activists in GB to address their demands for constitutional and other fundamental rights, missing persons, increasing curbs on freedom of expression, the rights of women and religious minorities and the right to information and dissent to retain the moral high ground on Indian human rights violations.

Ghulam Mohammad Safi, the convener of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference AJK chapter and Sardar Amjad Yousuf from the Kashmir Institute of International Relations also spoke at the event, narrating the atrocities committed by Indian forces against Kashmiris with impunity.

While discussing the June Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) report, they said human rights violations in AJK and GB are of a different calibre, magnitude and structure.

In his concluding remarks, chairman of the board of ISSI retired ambassador Khalid Mahmood said there was now a growing awareness about rights violations in Kashmir after the UN report.

He urged the international community to put an end to the conflict spanning over 70 years.

Published in Dawn, December 11th, 2018