ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: The Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has said that the International Community must continue its support for the fundamental freedoms and basic human rights of Kashmiris and urge India to allow the UN to investigate the grave human rights violations in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).
In his message on the Kashmiris’ Right to Self-Determination Day being observed on Tuesday, the foreign minister also urged India to allow United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) unhindered access to carry out its duties in IIOJK.
“If India has nothing to hide, why does it not allow international media and civil society to visit and report on the human rights situation in IIOJK?” the minister said.
Qureshi said that 72 years ago, the United Nations made the commitment that the Jammu and Kashmir dispute would be decided through the democratic method of a free and impartial plebiscite under the UN auspices.
The foreign minister said that through the resolution, the United Nations affirmed its support for the realization of the inalienable right to self-determination of Kashmiris – a right from which all other fundamental freedoms and basic human rights emanate.
However, regrettably, this right of Kashmiris is being brazenly denied by India in the IIOJK for more than the past seven decades.
The minister said that the United Nations, especially the UN Security Council, bear the responsibility to ensure the fulfillment of the promise of granting the right to self-determination to the Kashmiris.
Shah Mahmood Qureshi was of the view that India is the sole cause of the non-fulfillment of this promise.
Furthermore, he said that post-August 5, 2019, India’s unabated oppression has reached unprecedented levels with the inhuman military siege now in place for over 500 days. He added that in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, India has deprived Kashmiris of their basic rights to life, health, and food.
The minister also said that thanks to awakened global conscience, the fresh spate of India’s illegal and unilateral actions, aimed at altering the disputed status of IIOJK and bringing about demographic change to undermine the right to self-determination of Kashmiris, has been widely rejected by the International Community.
“Let me reaffirm Pakistan’s strong and steadfast support to the valiant Kashmiri people in their just struggle for human dignity and their inalienable right to self-determination in accordance with United Nations Security Council resolutions,” the foreign minister concluded.
