On Monday, i.e., September 27, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), in their oral statement, at the 48th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council raised the issue of “human rights situations in Afghanistan and Kashmir.”
In the statement, a copy of which lies with The Kashmiriyat, FIDH began with expressing their concern over the “human rights crisis in Afghanistan and the lack of a robust response by the international community.”
The organization condemned how the Taliban had “enforced gender segregation in schools, prohibited many women from going to work, attacked journalists, and banned protests.”
Moving to the “equally disturbing” recent developments in Kashmir, the FIDH said that the death of the Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani had triggered “a new wave of serious human rights violations by Indian government authorities, including severe restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression, movement, and assembly, and harassment of journalists.”
It said that while the curbs had been progressively lifted, the overall human rights situation remained grim.
The organization expressing its concern said that people in Kashmir could be subjected to arbitrary, unnecessary, and disproportionate restrictions on their rights at any time amid “a rampant abuse of repressive anti-terrorism legislation and a total lack of accountability by the authorities.”
In their concluding remarks, the organization addressed the council and stressed that it “must take immediate action to address these situations by establishing independent investigative mechanisms” in order to monitor the “human rights violations and promote accountability in Afghanistan and Kashmir.”