Worsening human rights in PoK, Gilgit Baltistan raised at UN

Political activists from Gilgit Baltistan and Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) have raised the worsening human rights situation in the region during the 43rd session of United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on Friday.

Senge H Sering, President of Gilgit Baltistan Studies told the Council during his intervention, "The people of Pakistan-occupied-Gilgit-Baltistan continue to face torture, sedition and terrorism charges and life-imprisonment for opposing onslaught on their resources and cultural identity. Locals are losing battle against worst demographic engineering due to the China Pakistan Economic Corridor that encourages illegal settlements of Pakistanis and Chinese".

He added, "China-led genocide is enabling fast depletion of flora and fauna with impending environmental catastrophe. Further, a permanent resource-use ban on locals is enabling Chinese companies to enjoy an advantage to exploit indigenous mineral wealth".

Senge said that people of Gilgit Baltistan who are constitutional citizens of India as part of the Union Territory of Ladakh are under constant threat of terrorism perpetrated by the Pakistani military.

He said, "Locals trying to protect natural resources in a peaceful manner are threatened with abductions, genocide and economic blockade as happened recently when pro-Taliban Pakistani citizens called for the massacre of Shias and Ismailies of Gilgit Baltistan travelling through their districts".

"Seventy years ago, United Nations Security Council asked India to station troops in Jammu Kashmir to protect life, honour, and assets of locals. Today, as a native of Gilgit Baltistan and Jammu Kashmir, I request India to resume constitutional responsibility and acquire control over Gilgit Baltistan to save us from the brutal colonial reign of Pakistan", Senge told the Human Rights Council.

Muhammad Sajjad Raja, President of Jammu Kashmir National Awami Party (UK) told the Council that his NGO is concerned with the fact that the people of Jammu Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan experience gross violation of their basic human rights as guaranteed by article 20 of the Declaration of Human Rights and as reinforced by Article 21 of ICCPR.

He said, "In Pakistani occupied areas people continue being subjected to arbitrary arrests, illegal detentions and enforced disappearances by authorities".

"In Kashmir Valley, Human Rights violations were unheard of before 1990 until Pakistan started sending in her armed militants who plunged Kashmir into a living hell; any human rights violations there stem from Pakistani infiltration," said Sajjad Raja.The political activist from PoK said, "We are gravely concerned that the world has never paid any attention to the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of the people of Jammu Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan living under Pakistani occupation where people have no constitutional rights to demand for other rights. Instead, laws such as the National Action Plan, ATA and Schedule 4 are used ruthlessly to stop people from taking part in any peaceful assembly".