INSPAD Urges UN to Intervene for Release of Kashmiri Leaders

ISLAMABAD
President of the Institute of Peace and Development (INSPAD), a leading organization active for human rights, religious harmony and world peace, Dr. Muhammad Tahir Tabassum has appealed to Mr. Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations and Amb. Dr. Jassim Muhammad Al-Mutehry, UN high commissioner for human rights in letters to stop the unjustified detention and imprisonment of the political leadership in occupied Kashmir in fictitious cases, provide them with medical facilities and unconditionally release them. In his letter, he wrote that after the abrogation of Article 370, he is pleading with utmost compassion that the Indian government has imprisoned the leadership of Kashmir in various jails across India in extremely unfavorable conditions, due to which it is impossible for their families to access legal aid. The concept of separate institutions of the state, the legislature, the judiciary and the executive has been erased. The extreme right-wing government of Narendra Modi has strangled the judiciary and according to the report of US President Donald Trump, minorities, especially the Muslim community, have been targeted. The clearest examples of this are the oppressive laws like CAA and Waqf Bill.
Kashmiri leaders like Masrat Alam Bhat, Yasin Malik, Shabbir Ahmed Shah, Farooq Ahmed Dar, Asiya Andrabi and many other prominent Kashmiri leaders are imprisoned in Delhi’s Tihar Jail and have no access to medical facilities. Under Article 268, the Kashmiri leadership is not even allowed to appear in court for hearing. They are being denied video conferencing and fair trials. And these leaders are facing many serious health problems.
The United Nations, the international community and human rights organizations are in dire need of intervention for the immediate release of the Kashmiri leadership as well as all Kashmiri political prisoners and youth.
Atrocious laws like UAPA, PSA, AFSPA are being used to detain Kashmiris for indefinite periods. The Indian government has been committing judicial terrorism, administrative terrorism, economic terrorism, media terrorism against Kashmiris for seven decades. The genocide of Kashmiri youth is a new norm, thousands of Kashmiri youth are killed in extrajudicial fake encounters by the Indian army and India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). This issue requires urgent sympathetic measures from the United Nations and the Human Rights Council and the international community. And has demanded their immediate release