EU should use its good office to stop HR violations in Occupied Kashmir: Ali Raza Syed

BRUSSELS, Dec 16 (SABAH): Chairman Kashmir Council Europe (KCEU) Ali Raza Syed has urged European Union’s authorities to use their influence to stop human rights violations in Illegally Indian Occupied Kashmir.

Ali Raza Syed dispatched a letter in the context separately to Presidents of European Council Antonio Costa, European Commission Ursula V.D Leyen and EU’s parliament Roberta Metsola and High Representative of European Union Kaja Kallas, Chairs of Foreign Affairs’ committee Davis McAllister and Human Rights Sub-Committee of EU’s parliament Mounir Satouri.

According to the letter, Chair of KCEU urgently appealed to the European Authorities to use their good office to pressurize India to stop the human rights violations in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu & Kashmir and unconditionally release all of the Kashmiris imprisoned in the Indian jails. The letter said, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a common standard of achievement basic rights for all peoples and all nations in the world but India, the so-called “biggest democracy in the world” doesn’t accept these rights in the occupied Kashmir as Indian troops are carrying out extrajudicial killings, fake encounters, and withholding burials of victims, and keeping in arbitrary detention Kashmiri politicians, human rights activists and journalists.

Journalists in Kashmir have been forcibly silenced and many of them are in prison or rearrested under the draconian laws. Aasif Sultan, Sajad Gul, Fahad Shah and Mehraj are examples of the Kashmiri journalists who became victims of the Indian injustice under the brutal acts.

A court in India has sentenced senior Kashmiri separatist leader Yasin Malik to life imprisonment on fake charges of funding terrorism. A Kashmiri scholar Dr. Qasim Fakhtoo – longest-serving prisoner, who is often called Kashmir’s Nelson Mandela –has been in prison for 31 years.  Khurram Parvez, the prominent Kashmiri human rights activist who won the Martin Ennals Award, one of the world’s most prestigious human rights prizes in 2023, marked three years of wrongful incarceration on unsubstantiated charges of terrorism and related offenses. Another Human rights defender Mohammad Ahsan Untoo has been incarcerated for over two years.

Chairman KCEU determined that Kashmir Council Europe will continue to raise its voice in Europe against human rights violations in Indian Occupied Jammu & Kashmir as long as these human rights activists, journalists and political prisoners do not regain their freedom and until the Kashmiri people get their basic rights including right to self-determination. He added, a safe and peaceful region can only be achieved when there is universal respect for the inherent dignity and equal rights of all members of the human family among them the Kashmiri people struggling for their freedom.

Addressing European authorities, Ali Raza Syed concluded that Europeans should not forget rights of Kashmiris as human beings while Europeans should help the Kashmiris in achieving their rights.