UN report on Kashmir

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has published the first-ever UN human rights report on Kashmir. 

The title of the report is “Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Kashmir:  Developments in the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir from June 2016 to April 2018, and General Human Rights Concerns in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan”. 

Details:

● It highlights the wide range of ongoing serious human rights violations and patterns of impunity in Indian-Administered Kashmir It also raises significant human rights concerns in Pakistan-Administered Kashmir.

  ● It criticise the Restrictions on access to Kashmir imposed by both the Governments of India and Pakistan which impede the work of civil society organizations, journalists and independent human rights experts including OHCHR.

 ● It criticise Abuses by armed groups, Sexual violence, Use of pellet-firing shotgun Lack of access to justice and impunity. Arbitrary arrests and detention, including of children Torture Etc.

  It recommends;

● Urgent repeal of the Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act, 1990
● Establish independent, impartial and credible investigations to probe all civilian killings, all cases of abuses committed by armed groups, all cases of sexual violence allegedly perpetrated by state and non-state actors. 
● End restrictions on the movement of journalists and arbitrary bans of the publication of newspapers in Jammu and Kashmir
● Fully respect the right of self-determination of the people of Kashmir as protected under international law etc. 

      Problems of the report:
● Incompetence The UN report at best lacklustre and is wholly superficial with little groundwork and insufficient knowledge of the situation.

Glaring biases in the report- It refers to LeT, JeM and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen as "armed groups" even though they are listed as terrorist organisations by the Security Council.

● It uses Pakistan's nomenclature by referring to Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK) as "Azad Jammu and Kashmir" several times in the document

 ● It dwells at length on the provisions of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act but ignores the fact that most countries protect their armed forces with similar laws.

 ● Factual errors -It says that India is a state party to the international conventions against torture and enforced disappearance. But the fact is that India has not ratified either.

● The high commissioner's office does not state why it selected Kashmir's human rights situation for the report. It does not cite any resolution of the General Assembly, the Human Rights Council or the Security Council as the mandate for it, only its founding resolution.         

 India’s stand;

● India reacted sharply to the report, calling it “fallacious, tendentious and motivated”, and lodged a strong protest with the United Nations. 
● The Opposition also came out in support of the government saying the report violates India’s sovereignty and integrity.
 ● India reiterated that it does not recognise the geographical territories as defined in the report.
● The MEA also said that the report failed to take into account the global consensus on terrorism

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