INTERNATIONAL CONCERNS OVER KASHMIR ISSUE

INTRODUCTION

The following document presents a comprehensive compilation of international reactions to the issue of human rights violations in Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir, spanning the period from June 2023 to August 2023. This report aims to provide a consolidated overview of the statements made by prominent personalities and organizations, as well as the extensive coverage provided by leading newspapers and magazines, concerning the grave situation unfolding in this disputed region. The conflict in Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir has long been a matter of international concern, stemming from the aspirations of the Kashmiri people for self-determination. Throughout the years, numerous reports and testimonies have shed light on the violation of fundamental human rights and the immense suffering endured by the Kashmiri people.

This report endeavours to bring together the voices of influential individuals and organizations that have expressed their concerns regarding the human rights situation in Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir. It incorporates coverage of international the media outlets including prominent newspapers and magazines, offering a comprehensive overview of the prevailing discourse surrounding the ongoing crisis. By compiling these international reactions and media coverage into a single document, we seek to underscore the urgent need for international attention and action in addressing the human rights abuses occurring in Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir. Through highlighting the perspectives of those who have spoken out against these violations, we aim to emphasize the pressing nature of the situation and advocate for the resolution of the Kashmir issue in a manner that upholds the rights and aspirations of the Kashmiri people.

It is our sincere hope that this report will contribute to raising awareness about the challenges faced by the Kashmiri people and foster informed discussions among stakeholders and decision makers. By comprehending the gravity of the human rights situation, we can collectively work towards promoting peace, justice, and the realization of the legitimate right to self-determination for the people of Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir. We encourage readers to thoroughly review the findings of this report, engage in constructive dialogue, and explore opportunities to support initiatives aimed at finding a just and lasting resolution to the Kashmir conflict. Together, we can strive for a future where human rights are upheld, and the aspirations of all communities in Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir are respected. Please note that this report represents a compilation of various sources and does not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of any specific individual or organization.

Excellency,

We have the honour to address you in our capacities as Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders; Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances; Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association and Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, pursuant to Human Rights Council resolutions 52/4, 45/3, 50/17 and 49/10. In this connection, we would like to bring to the attention of your Excellency’s Government information we have received concerning the arrest and detention of Kashmiri human rights defenders Mr. Irfan Mehraj and Mr. Khurram Parvez and their ongoing persecution.

Mr. Irfan Mehraj is a human rights defender and journalist based in Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir. He has extensively covered allegations of human rights violations in Kashmir in his work as a journalist and has contributed to a range of both national and international media outlets. He is the founder of Wande Magazine and is an editor at TwoCircles.net. He has also worked as a researcher with the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCSS), an organization that carries out human rights monitoring in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir. Mr. Khurram Parvez, a human rights defender also normally based in Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir, is the Programme Coordinator of the JKCCS and Chairperson of the Asian Federation against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD), a regional federation of organizations that voices concerns on behalf of victims of enforced disappearances and Deputy General Secretary of the Fédération Internationale pour les Droits de l’Homme (FIDH). He is known for his work on the issue of enforced disappearances, as well as his work in combatting extrajudicial killings in India and the Asian region.

His arrest and detention in November 2021 were the subject of a previous communication addressed to your Excellency’s Government (UA IND 19/2021). We thank you for the response, dated 5 January 2022 which was submitted in a confidential basis. On 10 March 2022, the Working. Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances requested further information about the case following its 126th session, to which your Excellency’s Government replied on 11 April 2022.Mr. Parvez has regularly engaged with the United Nations, including the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council, reporting human rights abuses in Kashmir and faced restrictions and harassment from the Indian Government as a result. The case of Mr. Parvez was included in the reports of the Secretary-General on reprisals against those cooperating with the United Nations, its representatives and mechanisms in the field of human rights in 2017, 2018 and 2019 (A/ HRC/36/31 para. 9, Annex I paras. 39-42; A/HRC/39/41, para. 67, Annex II paras. 23-24; and A/ HRC/42/30 para. 58, Annex II para. 59).

We continue to express deep concern at what appears to be concerted judicial harassment of Mr. Parvez for his human rights work. Aside from the communication of 2021 previously referenced, Mr. Parvez was the subject of three further previous communications sent to your Excellency’s Government on 16 September 2016 (UA IND 7/2016), 11 October 2016 (UA IND /2016) and 21 December 2020 (AL IND 20/2020), including concerns relating to allegations of arbitrary arrest, detention, intimidation, and a travel ban issued against him in alleged reprisal for cooperating with the United Nations human rights mechanisms. We take this opportunity to once again restate the concerns and recommendations addressed to your Excellency’s Government in OL IND 7/2020, sent on 6 May 2020, in connection with the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Act, 2019, and the current counter-terrorism legislation, the 1967 Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.

We reiterate our regret that the Government has not provided a reply to this communication and that the Act continues to be used as a tool to silence human rights defenders According to the information received: The case of Mr. Irfan Mehraj:On 20 March 2023, Mr. Mehraj received a phone call from the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) in which he was ordered to present himself at the NIA office in Srinagar.Upon arriving at the NIA office, he was arrested, accused of several offences under the Indian Penal Code and the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). His arrest was based on an investigation opened by the NIA in October 2020 into allegations that certain nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), as well as other groups, had been collecting funds for the benefit of nationally proscribed terrorist organizations as part of a criminal conspiracy also said to include publications inciting hatred and contempt of the Government.

The investigation was launched following a raid on the offices of the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) in the same month of 2020, referred to in IND 20/2020. On 21 March 2023, the NIA issued a press release describing a “first arrest in NGO Terror Funding Case”. In the press release, the agency announced the arrest of Mr. Mehraj, describing him as “a close associate of Khurram Parvez” and citing his work with the JKCSS, whom it accused of “funding terror activities in the [Kashmir] valley” and propagating a “secessionist agenda in the Valley under the garb of protection of human rights.” On the same date, a request by the NIA through the local courts to permit the transfer ofMr. Mehraj from Srinagar to New Delhi was granted. On 22 March 2023, Mr. Mehraj was presented at the Patiala House Court in New Delhi and remanded in custody for a period of 10 days, accused of criminal conspiracy and sedition under sections 120A and 124A of the Penal Code, and of offences under sections 17, 18, 22A, 22C, 38, 39 and 40 of the UAPA, including raising funds for terror activities, conspiracy to commit terror offences.

On 1 April 2023, Mr. Mehraj appeared in court following the end of his remand period. Subsequently, he was returned to judicial custody in Rohini Central Prison. On 28 April 2023, Mr. Mehraj appeared in court by video link from Rohini Central Prison. He remains in detention where he has reportedly been permitted access to his lawyer. His next court date is scheduled for 26 May 2023. The case of Mr. Khurram Parvez On the same date, a court in New Delhi remanded human rights defender Khurram Parvez, who was already in detention for an earlier case (see IND 19/2021), to the custody of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) (for ten days). This was in relation to a new case filed against him. On 1 April 2023, Mr. Khurram appeared in court following the end of his remand period, along with the aforementioned human rights defender Mr. Mehraj. They were both returned to judicial custody in Rohini Central Prison.

On 26 April 2023, the office of the JKCCS in Kashmir’s Bugdam District was raided by NIA personnel accompanied by members of the Jammu and Kashmir Police, with those carrying out the raid seizing documents. The office in question had reportedly been closed for some time prior to the raid. On 28 April 2023, Mr. Parvez, appeared in court, alongside Mr. Mehraj, by video link from Rohini Central Prison. Like Mr. Mehraj, at the time of finalizing this communication it is understood that Mr. Parvez also remains in detention where he has reportedly been permitted access to his lawyer. In parallel to the case of Mr. Mehraj, his next court date is scheduled for 26 May 2023.We express our serious concern at the arrest, detention and accusations brought against Mr. Mehraj and Mr. Parvez, which would appear to gravely conflate their legitimate human rights work with terrorism. We underline the legitimacy of their work and of the activities of the JKCSS and express our fear that the arrest and detention of Mr. Mehraj, as well as the continued detention of Mr. Parvez since 2021 and his involvement in the second case at hand, are designed to delegitimize their human rights work and obstruct monitoring of the human rights situation in Indian administered Jammu and Kashmir.

As we have repeatedly stressed in the past, counter-terrorism legislation should never be used to sanction human rights defenders. We express our abhorrence at the continued instrumentalization of national-security measures and discourse to undermine, obstruct and persecute those peacefully promoting, defending and seeking the advancement of human rights in the country, as well as to frustrate accountability for human rights violations. As we previously raised in OL IND 7/2020, we are deeply concerned about the definition of ‘terrorist act’ in the UAPA, which substantially departs from the model definition offered by the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism and provides broad powers to the executive, without oversight or control from the judiciary.

We further remind your Excellency Government that the definition of terrorism and terrorism offences must be ‘genuinely’ terrorist in nature in accordance with the elements identified by the Security Council in its resolution 1566 (2004). Conflation of human rights work with terrorism is inconsistent with the obligations of State affirmed by the Security Council that counter-terrorism activities by States should not conflict with other international law obligations, particularly human rights, and with the agreed consensus of Member States contained in the Global Counter-Terrorism strategy opposing the misuse of counter-terrorism measures against civil society (A/RES/60/288). We also note our deep concerns about allegation of “terror funding” and highlight that the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has set forth international practices and guidelines aimed at preventing global money laundering and terrorist financing.

The FATF recommendations, while non-binding, provide recognized international guidance for the countering of terrorism financing. Recommendation (1) states that “countries should apply a risk-based approach (RBA) to ensure that measures to prevent or mitigate money laundering and terrorist financing are commensurate with the risks identified”.

Recommendation (8) provides guidance to States on the laws and regulations that should be adopted to oversee and protect NPOs that have been identified as being vulnerable to terrorist financing concerns. Such measures must be “focused and proportionate”; “a ‘one size fits all’ approach to address all NPOs is not appropriate.” FATF has reaffirmed that State compliance with Recommendation (8) and the other FATF Recommendations “should not contravene a country’s obligations under the Charter of the United Nations and international human rights law to promote universal respect for, and observance of, fundamental human rights and freedoms, such as freedom of expression, religion or belief and freedom of peaceful assembly and of association.

” We are concerned that these arrests appear to contravene a “risk-based” approach to countering terrorism finance and appear to demonstrate a misuse of countering terrorism finance laws and practice to disproportionality target civil society.In connection with the above alleged facts and concerns, please refer to the Annex on Reference to International Human Rights Law A attached to this letter which cites international human rights instruments and standards. relevant to these allegations

As it is our responsibility, under the mandates provided to us by the Human Rights Council, to seek to clarify all cases brought to our attention, we would begrateful for your observations on the following matters:

1. Please provide any additional information and/or comment(s) you may have on the abovementioned allegations.

2. Please provide information as to the factual and legal basis for the arrest and detention of Mr. Mehraj and Mr. Parvez, including the reasons for any charges being pressed against them, and how this complies with a strict understanding of terrorism as put forth in international legal norms including, but not limited to, United Nations Security Council resolution 1566 (2004).

3. Please provide information as to the rationale and legal basis for the transfer of Mr. Mehraj to New Delhi from Srinagar, and for the remand of Mr. Mehraj and Mr. Parvez in NIA custody from 22 March 2023 to 1 April 2023.

4. Please provide information as to the legal and factual basis for the alleged raid on the closed office of the JKCCS on 26 April 2023 and seizure of documents from the premises

5. Please provide information on how the definition of terrorism in the UAPA counter-terrorism legislation is interpreted in a manner that does not unduly interfere with the legitimate exercise of human rights.

6. Please safeguards of a fair trial and due process are granted for persons accused of terrorism related offenses, in accordance article 14 of the ICCPR.

7. Please address how the countering terrorism finance measures applicable in India are compatible with the principle of legal certainty, and if any risk assessments have been carried out in line with FATF recommendation.

We would appreciate receiving a response within 60 days. Past this delay, this communication and any response received from your Excellency’s Government will be made public via the communications reporting website. They will also subsequently be made available in the usual report to be presented to the Human Rights Council. While awaiting a reply, we urge that all necessary interim measures be taken to halt the alleged violations and prevent their re-occurrence and in the event that the investigations support or suggest the allegations to be correct, to ensure the accountability of any person(s) responsible for the alleged violations.

We may publicly express our concerns in the near future as, in our view, the information upon which the press release will be based is sufficiently reliable to indicate a matter warranting immediate attention. We also believe that the wider public should be alerted to the potential implications of the above-mentioned allegations. The press release will indicate that we have been in contact with your Excellency’s Government to clarify the issue/s in question. Please accept, Excellency, the assurances of our highest consideration.