Malaysian Council seeks UN intervention against Indian impunity on Kashmir rights activists

Islamabad: The Malaysian Consultative Council of Islamic Organizations (MAPIM) Wednesday called for United Nations’ immediate intervention against India’s impunity on Kashmir’s freedom and human rights activists to ensure their protection particularly Aasiya Andrabi.

In a statement, President MAPIM Muhammad Azmi Abdul Hanid demanded dropping of “concocted charges” against Andrabi and her unconditional release.

“India must end all persecutions on Kashmir political dissenters and human rights activists and those apprehended without charge must be released,” Azmi said.

Azmi’s statement was endorsed by Chairman MANAR Datuk Seri Syekh Ahmad Awang, Chairman SHURA Datuk Wira Syekh Abdul Ghani Samsudin, Chair Malaysia Women for Kashmir Datin Seri Ustazah Rosiah Saleh, Chair Malaysian Kashmir Youth Movement Mohammad Fadhil Yusni and Chair Association for Justice and Development Cambodia Jamal Abdul Nasir.
The Council called for investigation to identify Indian security officials responsible for the violent attacks on Kashmir civilians.

Demanding the revocation of draconian laws intended to crush Kashmir political activists, the MAPIM demanded UN intervention to end torture and physical and mental abuses of Kashmiri human rights activists in Indian jails.

The body said India was reigning its occupation troops on IIOJK and siege by more than 900,000 Indian troops was a clear violation of all international laws.

“We call the UN to intervene without delay. UN has the obligation to stop this inhumanity and gross violation of international laws by India on Kashmiris,” the statement said.

It said the worsening human rights violation and forced demographic changes to alter Kashmir from a Muslim majority populated territory to a Hindu dominated region was a dangerous path. A regional instability will be an imminent outcome if this is not checked, it added.

Azmi said that the human rights violation were visible and well recorded besides the brutality being glaring enough for the UN to step in.

The Council observed that the Indian troops had acted beyond the rules of the standard international law to claim that India was to weed out so called terrorists.

Under the pretext of the so-called crackdown against terrorists, India was executing extrajudicial murders, torture in custody and detention without access to legal recourse, MAPIM said.

Protesting the Indian operation to “crush voices of dissent”, the Council believed that the extrajudicial killings and collective punishment by barbaric raids on homes and setting ablaze houses by Indian troops could not be allowed to persist and those responsible go unpunished.

“India must be held fully responsible for the atrocities and crimes against humanity in the IIOJK. Its appetite to launch a full genocide operation in the disputed territory is emboldened by the support it received from Israel and the US,” the statement said.

Azmi said they could not comprehend the lackadaisical attitude of the UN and demanded the world body to respond with a greater weight to stop India’s aggression.

Taking cognizance of the two Kashmir reports issued in 2018 and 2019 by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the MAPIM said even the Indian judiciary was clearly complicit in legitimizing unlawful actions by the Indian government.

They observed that mass murder and deliberate injuring of Kashmir civilians including infants, children, women and the old had never ceased since India’s occupation.

The Council expressed serious concern on the inhuman treatment of freedom activists in custody and said Aasiya Andrabi and her associates were under tremendous brutal ordeal in a concocted range of criminal allegations.

Taking serious note of impending sentencing of Aasiya Andrabi, the MAPIM said since her detention in 1992 and incarcerated for 15 years, the Indian court had denied her a proper legal counselor.

Dubious charges under the draconian laws of India on Andrabi, her husband and her associates are an affront to international standards of criminal proceedings, the Council added.

“The possibility of her being sentenced to death by the Indian court is imminent. The international community must not remain silence on the fate of the victims of the Indian ruthless oppression,” the Council said.

They said India had no right to abrogate Kashmir’s autonomous status and it must refer to the UNSC resolution for a plebiscite to be conducted for the people of Kashmir to decide their own future.