Pakistani President Alvi demands Indian government uphold rights of Kashmiri people | #AsiaNewsNetwork

Pakistani President Alvi demands Indian government uphold rights of Kashmiri people | #AsiaNewsNetwork
Published 5 February 2019

President Arif Alvi on the occasion of Kashmir Solidarity Day demanded the Indian government uphold the rights of the Kashmiri people instead of trying ─ and failing ─ to "justify its terrorism" against innocent citizens by pushing a "false narrative of 'killing militants'."

President Alvi in an address to the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly in Muzaffarabad on Tuesday issued a list of demands for the Indian government:

    Free all political prisoners

    Uphold freedom of expression in Kashmir

    Ban the use of firearms against Kashmiri citizens

    Ban the use of pellet guns against Kashmiris

    Withdraw draconian 'black laws' in Kashmir

    Allow IOK leaders to travel freely and "make their case abroad"

    Allow international rights observers into IOK to "see the situation for themselves"

    Lift restrictions on electronic communications

The president urged the Indian government to lift restrictions on electronic communications in Kashmir so that international media and social media are in the know about what is happening in the occupied territory.

"If you are in the right, the world will come to know about it. And if you are in the wrong, the world will find out about," President Alvi challenged the Indian government.

The president also asked the United Nations to send a fact-finding commission to IOK and "fulfil the promises it made to Pakistan and India".

"I salute your struggle," he said, addressing the people of Kashmir. "Pakistan is with you."

'India trying to justify terrorism through false narrative'

The president, in a separate special message, recalled that the purpose of Feb 5 is to "demonstrate to our Kashmiri brothers and sisters and the world at large that we have not forgotten the long-pending dispute of Jammu and Kashmir,and the struggle of the people of Indian-occupied Kashmir against woeful Indian occupation."

The president hit out at the international community's indifference to grave human rights violations by Indian forces in Kashmir, which he said "raise doubts in the minds of Kashmiris, hinting at a double standard where every atrocity goes unpunished and every human rights violation, uncondemned."

"It reduces the UN Human Rights Charter to mere verbal rhetoric," he stressed.

"Behind its false narrative of 'killing militants', India has been trying to justify its terrorism but has failed miserably," Alvi asserted.

Alvi described a report by the UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights documenting alleged human rights violations in Kashmir as a "turning point and a watershed moment for the Kashmiri community all over the world".

Read more: The UN Kashmir report is an opportunity for Pakistan to take the higher moral ground over India

The president said Pakistan supports the proposals contained in the report and calls for the expedited establishment of a Commission of Inquiry to probe the human rights situation in IOK as per the report's recommendations.

He reiterated Pakistan's "unflinching solidarity" with the people of occupied Kashmir, Radio Pakistan reported.

"Pakistan ... pays homage to the heroes and martyrs of this epic struggle for liberation that has become a living symbol of the indomitable human spirit. Your cries for azadi cannot be suppressed," the president said.

https://www.dawn.com/news/1461965/president-alvi-demands-indian-govt-uph...