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  • Dec 11th, 2005
  • Comments Off on APHC slams India for human rights violations
Kashmiris in occupied Kashmir accused Indian army of violating human rights and appealed for UN intervention as they staged protest marches on Saturday to mark International Human Rights Day.

Police broke up a small march by activists of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference in occupied Srinagar. Four activists were detained for violating law and order, a police officer at the scene told AFP.

But another group of protesters presented a petition to the small United Nations office in occupied Srinagar that monitors the cease-fire along the Line of Control.

The protesters were led by a senior Kashmiri leader Shabbir Shah who spent over 20 years in Indian jails and who heads Kashmir's anti-violence Democratic Freedom Party.

The petition addressed to UN chief Kofi Annan alleged that rights violations were continuing in occupied Kashmir despite a peace process between India and Pakistan.

"There is no let-up in human rights violations (by Indian occupation troops) even as a constructive peace process is going on," read the two-page memorandum. "We continue to be killed and oppressed.

"On behalf of nearly 13 million people on both sides of the Line of Control, I passionately appeal to your kind self to respond to the boiling Kashmir situation," the document said.

"We believe demilitarising the region would help find the long elusive Kashmir solution. Let this credible world body reach out to the oppressed people of Jammu and Kashmir," it added.

New Delhi has barred Amnesty and other leading international human rights groups from visiting occupied Kashmir to check on the situation.

Kashmiri leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani has said the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) could play a more important role in solving the Kashmir issue and merely supporting the right to self-determination of Kashmiris would not serve any purpose.-Agencies

OUR RAWALPINDI CORRESPONDENT ADDS: The All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) has condemned the ongoing state-terrorism and brutal human rights violations by Indian Army and its armed agents in occupied Kashmir. It called upon United Nations and international human rights organisations to use their influence to save Kashmiris from Indian repression.

A demonstration was held by the APHC in front of the United Nations Military Observers Mission here on Saturday on the occasion of the International Human Rights Day. The participants of the demonstration, led by senior Hurriyat leaders Syed Yousuf Naseem, comprising Professor Ashraf Saraf, Dr Abdul Aala, Abdul Hameed Lone and Abbas Rizvi, handed over a protest memorandum to UN Military Observers for UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

APHC leaders, in the memorandum, demanded of the UN secretary-general to take stock of the ongoing Indian barbaric atrocities in the form of mass killings, torture, inhuman and degrading treatment, arbitrary arrest and detention, molestation of women, custodial killings of Kashmiri people by Indian force. This is height of the state-terrorism, which is highly condemnable by world, they added.

On the occasion of the International Human Rights Day, "we seek the attention of the United Nations, all states and human rights monitoring groups towards the massive and systematic human rights violations in occupied Jammu and Kashmir by Indian forces", Hurriyat in the memorandum maintained.

They said that if India is not stopped from the state-terrorism in occupied Kashmir it would shake the faith of Kashmiris on UN.

They demanded the implementation of UN resolutions, and said that relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council and also UN Commission for India and Pakistan resolutions, upholding the right of self-determination of people of Jammu Kashmir should be implemented and Kashmiris should be allowed to exercise this inalienable right to self-determination.

Hurriyat leaders have also condemned the destruction of mosque and desecration of Holy Quran by Indian forces and termed it brutal violation of basic human rights.

Appreciating the peace process between India and Pakistan, the Hurriyat leaders said this a right step towards the positive direction but without active participation of the representatives of Kashmir the process would not prove fruitful.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2005


Copyright Business Recorder, 2005


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