DNA
Muzaffarabad; 23 June: Sardar Masood Khan, President Azad Jammu and Kashmir, has proposed a ban on import of the non-Halal meat and all non-Halal products into the member nations of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
He also called on the OIC leadership to initiate a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against India and establish a Kashmir Humanitarian Fund with the help of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) and the Islamic Solidarity Fund (ISF).
The President made these proposals while addressing an Emergency Meeting of the OIC Contact Group on Jammu and Kashmir convened at the request of Pakistan. The meeting was attended by OIC Secretary General Yousef bin Ahmad Al-Othaimeen, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, Niger Ambassador Abubakar Hassan and Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to OIC Ambassador Rizwan Shiekh. The Emergency Syed Faiz Naqshbandi, True Representative of the Kashmiri people, and Mr Marghoob Butt, Executive Director OIC-Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission (IPHRC) also spoke at the meeting.
After sharing the harrowing details of the human rights situation in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IOJK), Sardar Masood Khan urged the OIC leadership to urgently send a message to the UN Secretary General to immediately appoint a Special Envoy on Jammu and Kashmir and request the UN Security Council to hold result-oriented meetings to implement its relevant Kashmir resolutions.
The President also said it was high time the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights revived the proposal for establishing a Commission of Inquiry (CoI) to investigate the gross and consistent human rights violations in IOJK.
The President informed the Islamic Foreign Minister that “the situation is dire” and that “under the cover of Covid-19, every day dozens of Kashmiris are being martyred by occupation forces in staged encounters. Floodgates for new Hindu settlers from all over India have been opened, while Kashmiris are running from pillar to post to prove that their homeland is theirs”.
Briefing OIC Foreign Ministers about the radical steps taken by Indian authorities to change the demography of the occupied territory, President Masood Khan said, “This is settler colonialism in full swing. The new settlers now qualify for half a million jobs that used to be reserved for Kashmiris”.
He appealed to the international community and multilateral chambers to hear the screams of Kashmiris.
“First thing first, stop the carnage and the biggest land grab in the 21st century taking place right before our eyes”, said Masood Khan.
The AJK President compared the New Domicile Rules to the Nazi and Israel practices in Germany and Palestine, respectively. “This is a replication of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank. This is a revival of the Nazi Party’s 1935 Nuremberg laws”, said the AJK President.
Highlighting the enormity of the egregious human rights violations in IOJK, President Masood Khan pointed out that some 13,000 boys were being tortured in concentration camps; women were being raped and molested; and demonstrators were being blinded and maimed.
“The occupied territory has been torn asunder into two parts, without the consent of its people, and now it is being ruled directly like a colony by Delhi. This is imperialism”, the AJK President said. He added that this is a story of disenfranchisement, dispossession and displacement. This is naked lebensraum, irredentism and expansionism being executed through state terrorism.
President Masood Khan further underlined that the BJP-RSS religious supremacist doctrine is anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and anti-Kashmir. He added that its sole purpose was to wage a civilisational war against Islam and other monotheistic faiths to “cleanse” India.
India hurls false accusations of terrorism against Pakistan to hide its genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crime against humanity perpetrated by it in IOJK.
The President stated with full authority that there were no “launch pads” in AJK and that no fighters were being sent across the Line of Control. He said, “The Indian propagandists lie through the teeth, taking a leaf from Goebbels playbook”.
The AJK President also briefed the Foreign Ministers about the war psychosis whipped up by India and its threats to attack AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan militarily. “Their Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) has twice threatened to wipe out Pakistan by the use of nuclear weapons”, he said.
Despite these threats, he said, the people of Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan remain undeterred, and Kashmiris have vowed that they will continue their peaceful struggle for freedom, liberty and self-determination in accordance with the UN Security Council resolutions.
The President appealed to the OIC Heads of State and Government to put pressure on India to respect the right to self-determination of the Kashmiri people recognised by international law and the international community; restore the disputed status of IOJK; stop forthwith illegal settlements in Kashmir; and reinstate Kashmiris’ rights to life, permanent residence, ownership of property, livelihoods and education – all protected under international law.
President Masood Khan thanked the OIC, its IPHRC, the European Parliament and the UN Secretary General for their recent statements for the protection of the human rights of the Kashmiris.
The OIC Contact Group also issued a communiqué at the conclusion of the Emergency Meeting.
