NEW YORK: Several Kashmiri-Americans protested on Monday in front of United Nations Headquarters against India’s decision to hold the meeting of G20 countries in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).
Many prominent speakers said that the Indian action was intended to provide a sense of normalcy in the unrest-ridden and disputed territory recognised by the UN.
Rented digital trucks flashing a wide range of messages, including the right of Kashmiri people to self-determination, amplified the protestor’s outrage ahead of the meeting since India unilaterally brought Kashmir under direct control in August 2019.
The messages at the protest included “G20 risks legitimising India’s illegal occupation of Kashmir, G20 in Kashmir violates UN resolutions, G20 in occupied Kashmir enables genocide, end the occupation, Modi: the face of fascism, say no to G20 in Kashmir, India: release all political prisoners, demilitarise and free Kashmir.”
A memorandum was filed to the office of the UN Secretary-General, demanding the unconditional release of human rights defenders and political prisoners, including Yasin Malik, Khurram Parvez, Shabbir Ahmed Shah, Masarrat Aalam, Aaasia Andrabi and journalists Irfan Mehraj, Asif Sultan, Sajjad Gul, Fahad Shah and Gowhar Gilani.
Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai, Secretary-General of the World Kashmir Awareness Forum, a Washington-based advocacy group, said the G20 meeting in the held Kashmir contravened more than 16 UN resolutions, which India and Pakistan agreed.
Fai said that by holding the G20 meeting in Kashmir, India intended to use the presence of the representatives of the G20 countries as some seal of approval on the “reckless decision” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to annex the occupied Kashmir in violation of UNSC resolutions and international laws.
He requested the G20 countries to listen to Professor Fernand de Vareness, the UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues, who had warned the G20 nations that India was trying to “normalise what some have described as a military occupation.”
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk expressed concern over the human rights violations in the held Kashmir.
Sardar Sawar Khan, the main organiser of the protest and the former member of the Kashmir Council, hoped that the G20 nations, as signatories to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Human Rights instruments and the Geneva Convention, will adopt a definitive pro-people stance.
He urged G20 countries to stand firm and refuse the subjugation and disempowerment of the people of Kashmir.
Other speakers at the protest in which anti-India slogans were raised included the Secretary-General of the Kashmir American Welfare Association, Raja Mukhtar of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front; Sardar Zarif Khan, Sardar Imtiaz Khan Garalvi, a Representative of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Azad Kashmir; and Kashmiri activists like Raja Razzak, Mirza Farooq, Sardar Sajid Sawar, Choudhary Muhammad Ishaq, Zahid Shahbaz, Sardar Mehmood, Aita Shahnaz, and Choudhary Rashid Masud.
