Monitoring Desk: The spokesperson for United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Rupert Colville has expressed extreme dissatisfaction over situation in Indian Occupied Kashmir.
Colville said the population of Indian-Administered Kashmir is deprived of a wide range of human rights.
He urged the Indian authorities to unlock the situation and fully restore the rights that are currently being denied.
In a Press briefing note released from Geneva Switzerland on Indian-Administered Kashmir on October 29, 2019, Colville stated that very restrictive measures are (were) imposed and their impact on human rights is widely felt.
Human Rights Violations:
- Undeclared curfew is preventing free movement of people, as well as hampering their ability to exercise their right to peaceful assembly.
- Restriction on rights to health, education and freedom of religion.
- Excessive use of force including the use of pellet-firing shotguns, tear gas and rubber bullets by security forces.
- At least six civilian killings and scores of serious injuries in separate incidents since 5 August.
- Hundreds of political and civil society leaders, including three former Chief Ministers of Jammu and Kashmir, have been detained on a preventative basis.
- Torture and ill-treatment of people held in detention. These must be independently and impartially investigated. Torture is totally and unequivocally prohibited under international law.
- Restrictions on landline telephones were eventually lifted, and a state-run telecom company allowed to resume partial mobile services but all internet services remain blocked.
- Media outlets continue to face undue restrictions, with at least four local journalists arrested in the past three months.
- The Supreme Court of India has been slow to deal with petitions concerning habeas corpus, freedom of movement and media restrictions.
- The Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission, the State Information Commission and the State Commission for Protection of Women and Child Rights are among key institutions those are closed down.
- Major political decisions about the future status of Jammu and Kashmir have been taken without the consent, deliberation or active and informed participation of the affected population.
- Kashmiri leaders are detained, their capacity to be informed has been badly restricted, and their right to freedom of expression and to political participation has been undermined.
Note:
A number of the most serious underlying issues which remain to be addressed, including impunity for past violations by Indian security forces, were outlined in the second of two reports published by the UN Human Rights Office in July 2019, as well as in the initial remote monitoring report of June 2018.
