Staff Reporter Islamabad
Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, along with National Security Adviser Dr Moeed Yusuf and Federal Human Rights Minister Shireen Mazari, on Sunday presented a detailed dossier on war crimes and human rights violations in Illegally In-dian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).
Addressing a press conference in Islamabad, the foreign minister pointed out that the decision to compile the dossier was taken d ue to the actions of Indian authorities after the death of Kashmiri separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani and their treatment of his family.
“We decided that considering the situation there, (IIOK) and the kind of government’s thinking pre-sent there, we should play our role and unveil the real face of this [India] government claiming to be the world’s biggest democracy before the world,” he said.
Qureshi said there was a continuing communications blackout in IIoK as independent journalists and ob-servers were denied access, while facts were distorted and brutalities went unreported “by de-sign”.
FM Qureshi pre-empted any concerns regarding the dossier’s credibility, explaining that the majority of the references in it were from international and In-dian media outlets as well as international human rights organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
Calling upon the media to examine it for itself, the foreign minister said the dossier contained details on a vast range of incidents and atrocities from war crimes, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, tor-ture, pel-let gun injuries, rapes, over 100,000 cases of children being orphaned, search and cordon op-erations, false flag operations, fake encounters and planting of weapons on innocent residents to impli-cate them and harm the resistance movement.
Yusuf, the NSA, meanwhile, said: “My request would be to remember that this dossier and its tim-ing are a tribute to Geelani sahab.
His whole life was spent for this purpose (IOK’s freedom) but the struggle con-tinues and we have to bring it to com-pletion.”
FM Qureshi said protecting fundamental human rights was not just the state’s responsibility but there were international obligations, instruments and mechanisms to ensure their protection and that they should be fulfilled.
“The UN department of peacekeeping operations must note the names of individuals and units in IoK who have been directly responsible for human rights violations. They should be identified, named and disal-lowed to be part of UN peacekeeping operations.”
Meanwhile, the human rights minister questioned the UN for not placing sanctions on India despite con-travention of its resolutions and asked it and the international community why they did not push India to allow access of UN observers in IoK.
“I also want to call on the UK that made special sanctions laws after it left the EU. Why is the UK not bothering to assert itself on the human rights issue [in IoK]? because of business interests?” she railed, add-ing that Pakistan was told that human rights were a central focus of Western countries’ foreign policies.
“But if you do not fairly apply your own principles of foreign policy across the board […] this means that there is no respect of human rights by these Western states.”
Mazari lobbed similar criticism at the European Union for not giving a statement against India’s annexa-tion of IoK, asking why sanctions were con-tinued on Russia on the Crimean issue while there were none on India.
Meanwhile, Yusuf said: “There is nobody today who behind closed doors defends what India is do-ing.
I think we should be clear about this. What is happening [in IoK] is so egregious that there is no possibility that anyone can tell you with a straight face that what Pakistan is saying is wrong.”
Instead, he claimed, it was conceded that there were economic reasons and other interests for not doing so. “That is the barrier that the world will have to break for its sake, not Pakistan’s sake.
“This is exactly how Europe talked about Hitler and we saw what happened. We are clear where this is going, the region is going to be affected first but the entire world will be affected [as well],” Yusuf warned.
When questioned on why India’s alleged involve-ment in fomenting terrorism from Afghanistan was-n’t addressed, the NSA opined that one reason was India’s interests with the world such as being a counter-weight to China.
“Look at what’s happening inside India and look at the power that China wields. It’s laughable to think that this country can be a counterweight except unto itself but it is what it is.
