Draconian UAPA, other laws being used by India to shrink cyber space for Kashmiris, says Shehryar Afridi

Islamabad: Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Kashmir Shehryar Khan Afridi has condemned the draconian laws by India to shrink cyber space for Kashmiris.
Addressing the participants of a seminar held here under the aegis of All Parties Hurriyat Conference that Indian act of muzzling voices of Kashmiris was a clear violation of the United Nations Conventions which guarantee and safeguard Freedom of Speech and expression.

He said that India is using the draconian laws like the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) to silence the voices of the Kashmiri people on Social Media applications and other platforms. However, he said, India can’t succeed in its vicious plan.

Afridi said that Pakistan would take up the matter with the UN and other international diplomatic forums.
“We will never allow India to deprive Kashmiris from their basic right of freedom of speech and expression. The world must take cognizance of the violation of the freedom right of the Kashmiris,” he said.

Afridi also condemned the arrest journalists and senior Hurriyat leader under this Act which include Masrat Alam Bhat, Aasiya Andrabi, Nahida Nasreen, Fahmeeda Sofi, Yasin Malik, Shabir Shah, Altaf Shah, Ayaz Akbar, Mehrajudin Kalwal and others. He said the law terrorizes Kashmir population because it gives unbridled power to the Indian occupant state.

“It is not only criminalizes India’s own constitution but also it endangers the concept of fair trial,” he said.
The draconian law empowers Indian government to proscribe even individuals as “terrorists” and jail them for at least seven years, if convicted, he said.

Afridi said that Kashmiri and Pakistani diaspora in across the world must raise the draconian laws being used by India to muzzle the Kashmiri voices and the world needed to be informed of the racist agenda being pursued by India’s fascist regime of Narendra Modi.

He said its about time that Indian minorities must raise their voices for Kashmiris because the Kashmiris and Indian minorities were being targeted by Sanghi fascist and racist killers the same way.

He urged the world to take cognizance of the lynching of Indian minorities with impunity because the courts and police in India had been overtaken by RSS ideologues.
President Azad Jammu & Kashmir Sardar Masood Khan, APHC leaders in Pakistan also addressed the seminar.