UNITED NATIONS: Voicing deep concern over rising anti-Muslim attacks in parts of the world, Pakistan has called upon the UN Security Council to act and prevent impending atrocities, including against Muslims in India and occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

“We are, unfortunately, witnessing a global resurgence of rightwing and fascist ideologies, hate speech, xenophobia, Islamophobia, incitement to violence and acts of brutal violence,” said Ambassador Munir Akram during a Security Council meeting on Friday.

“These trends have been exacerbated, rather than ameliorated, by the Covid-19 pandemic — the most serious global crisis since the founding of the United Nations,” the Pakistani envoy said.

Estonia, a non-permanent member of the 15-nation council, convened the meeting on “Preventing Future Atrocities” under the format of Arria formula, which is named after a former Venezuelan ambassador to the UN, Diego Arria. It is an informal process which affords members of the Security Council the opportunity to hear persons in a confidential setting.

In his remarks, Ambassador Akram noted that Islamophobia was emerging as a viral trend, “unfortunately even in Europe and elsewhere, manifested by negative profiling, religious and cultural discrimination, the deliberate defamation of Islam, (and) calls for... the vandalising of Islamic sites and symbols, anti-Muslim hate speech, incitement to and perpetration of violence against Muslims”.

“Sadly,” he said, “state-sponsored Islamophobia has found a fertile home in Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-Rashtriya Sway­amsevak Sangh (RSS)-ruled India. The ‘sevaks’ of the RSS, modelled on the Nazi ‘brown shirts’, are launched on a programme to eliminate India’s Islamic heritage — as evident in the 1992 destruction of the historic Babri Mosque and anti-Muslims pogroms in Mumbai in 1992, Gujarat in 2002 and New Delhi in 2020, a few months ago. India’s Muslims are also being vilified as the source of the Covid virus in India.”

The Pakistani envoy pointed out that the ethos of the Hindu supremacists was epitomised in the declaration of a prominent BJP parliamentarian that all people are not equal — Muslims are not equal in category. If Muslims become more than 30 per cent, that country is dangerous.”

“In occupied Jammu and Kashmir,” Ambassador Akram said, “the BJP-RSS leaders are engaged in imposing what they themselves have called ‘a final solution’ — a plan to crush Kashmir’s quest for self-determination and freedom and colonise it into a Hindu majority territory.”

“The Security Council has the mandate to prevent and punish genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. It must act to prevent impending atrocities, including against the Muslims in India and in occupied Jammu and Kashmir,” he added.

Published in Dawn, May 10th, 2020