Chair of KCEU Ali Raza Syed for EU’s influence in urgent release of Farooq Dar

Brussels:Chair of Kashmir Council Europe (KCEU) Ali Raza Syed has urged European Union’s authorities to use their good offices for freeing Farooq Ahmad Dar, the detained pro-freedom leader of Occupied Jammu and Kashmir on urgent health grounds.

He wrote a letter in the context to Charles Michel, the President of European Council, Ursula Von Der Leyen, the President of European Commission, Roberta Metsola, the President of EU parliament and Josep Borrell, the High Representative of EU on Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

The letter stated that Farooq Ahmad Dar, the Chairman of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (R) is currently lodged in New Delhi’s infamous Tihar Jail Prison and his condition is deteriorating as he is suffering from serious diseases since June 2022. His hemoglobin level had fallen to seven points because he has been oozing out blood from his mouth from time to time.

Chairman KCEU said, this matter requires urgent attention and needs to be taken very very seriously. His family is demanding immediate medical help from a reputed institution and he should be immediately freed on serious health grounds.

The letter pointed out, Farooq Ahmad Dar is under detention for 26 years of his life. He was continuously detained from June 1990 to October 2006, then was detained for one year in 2008 and has been in continuous detention since 24th July 2017. Despite three Supreme Court Orders that no case can be made against him, he has been implicated in a fake money laundering case.

Condemning the unlawful imprisoning of this noted Kashmiri politician, chair of KCEU Ali Raza Syed urged the EU’s leaders to raise the matter directly with the Indian government, demanding the immediate and unconditional release of Farooq Ahmad Dar and the dropping of all charges against him.

In his letter addressing the heads of the EU’s institutions, Chair of KCEU also highlighted the violation of human rights in the occupied Kashmir as he claimed that the Indian military personnel continue involved in crimes against humanity in the Illegally Indian Occupied Jammu & Kashmir. These activities are violations of the Geneva Convention and international law. Hundreds of innocent Kashmiris who are Illegally imprisoned under black laws on fake charges, are languished in India’s notorious Tihar Jail in its capital New Delhi, taking almost the last breathes of their lives behind bars for past many years due to their “crime” of struggling for

securing their birth right of self-determination through getting the motherland liberated from Indian Illegal and forced occupation.

He called upon the leaders, politicians and decision-makers of the European Union, United Nations and also human rights organizations of the world to come forward and pressure the Indian government to stop human rights abuses in Indian Occupied Jammu & Kashmir and release all the political prisoners, human rights activists and journalists, including Yasin Malik, Shabbir Ahmad Shah, Aasif Sultan, Irfan Mehraj, Sajjad Gul, Rana Ayyub, Fahad Shah, Prabir Purkayastha, Rupesh Kumar and Khurram Parvez without any further delay.

The detention of Khurram Parvez, the Program manager of JKCCS and chairperson of the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances caused sadness and anger all over in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir and rest of the world. Khurram Parvez is an internationally famous person due to his work on human rights. He received many awards including Reebok Human Rights award in 2006 and the Martin Ennals Award in 2023. Kashmir Council EU launched a broader campaign for release of Khurram Parvez in 2021.

Chair of KCEU said, we never give up our struggle until all the human rights activists, journalists and all Kashmiri political prisoners who are innocently detained in Indian jails, are not released.

Email: secretariat@kashmircouncil.eu

Kashmir Council EU: Brussels, Belgium.