MUZAFFARABAD: Peo­ple from different walks of life held a protest demonstration on Monday to draw the international community’s attention to human rights violations in India-held Kashmir (IHK).

The demonstration was held under the aegis of the International Forum for Justice and Human Rights (IFJHR), a Srinagar-based organisation, to commemorate the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations General Assembly on this day in 1948.

Participants, who included students and civil society activists, marched through the Muzaffarabad-Islamabad highway near the Ambore refugee camp, amid downpour, while chanting pro-freedom and anti-India slogans.

They carried banners and placards inscribed with slogans condemning human rights abuses by Indian troops in IHK.

“Where is justice in case of Jammu and Kashmir,” read one placard.

Speaking on the occasion, IFJHR vice chairman Mus­h­taqul Islam regretted that those who proclaimed themselves as champions of human rights were silent on rights violations in IHK. “Before marking this day as fashion, they should first stop human rights violations in India-held territory,” he stressed.

Uzair Ahmed Ghazali, a migrant leader, lamented that while the West had been maintaining “shameless silence” over human rights violations by non-Muslim states such as India, Israel and Myanmar, it had been using the same term as a tool to subdue Muslim countries.

“There should be an end to this hypocrisy and double standards,” he said.

PPP leader Shaukat Javed Mir appreciated the June 2018 report by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights as a “significant breakthrough” after a long time.

However, he stressed that the UN must establish an international inquiry commission to investigate human rights violations in occupied Kashmir as suggested by the report.

Published in Dawn, December 11th, 2018