No steps taken by India or Pakistan
to improve human rights situation in Kashmir – UN
GENEVA (8 July 2019) – A UN human rights
report on the situation in India-Administered Kashmir and Pakistan-Administered
Kashmir from May 2018 to April 2019, says the number of civilian casualties
reported over the 12-month period may be the highest in over a decade, and
noted that neither India nor Pakistan have taken any concrete steps to address
the numerous concerns raised in an earlier UN report.*
The new report, published on Monday by the
Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, describes how tensions
over Kashmir – which rose sharply after a deadly suicide bombing in February
targeting Indian security forces in Pulwama -- continue to have a severe impact
on the human rights of civilians, including the right to life.
According to data gathered by local civil
society, the report says, “around 160 civilians were killed in 2018, which is
believed to be the highest number in over a decade. Last year also registered
the highest number of conflict-related casualties since 2008 with 586 people
killed, including 267 members of armed groups and 159 security forces
personnel.”
The report notes that the Union Ministry for
Home Affairs has published lower casualty figures, citing 37 civilians, 238
terrorists and 86 security forces personnel killed in the 11 months up to 2
December 2018.
Of the 160 civilian deaths reported
by local organizations, 71 were allegedly killed by Indian security forces, 43
by alleged members of armed groups or by unidentified gunmen, and 29 were
reportedly killed due to shelling and firing by Pakistani troops in areas along
the Line of Control. According to the Government of Pakistan, a further 35
civilians were killed and 135 injured on the Pakistan side of the Line of
Control due to shelling and firing by Indian forces during 2018.
Two armed groups have been accused
of recruiting and deploying child soldiers in Indian-Administered Kashmir, and
armed groups were reportedly responsible for attacks on people affiliated or
associated with political organizations in Jammu and Kashmir, including the
killing of at least six political party workers and a separatist leader. In the
lead up to local elections scheduled for October 2018, armed groups threatened
people participating in the elections and warned of “dire consequences” if
those running for election did not immediately withdraw their nominations.
The report notes that in
Indian-Administered Kashmir, accountability for violations committed by members
of the Indian security forces remains virtually non-existent.
Despite the high numbers of
civilians killed in the vicinity of encounters between security forces and
members of armed groups, it says, “there is no information about any new
investigation into excessive use of force leading to casualties. There is no
information on the status of the five investigations launched into
extrajudicial executions in 2016. The Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir did not
establish any investigations into civilian killings in 2017. No prosecutions
have been reported. It does not appear that Indian security forces have been asked
to re-evaluate or change their crowd-control techniques or rules of
engagement.”
Arbitrary detention and so-called
“cordon and search operations” leading to a range of human rights violations,
continue to be deeply problematic, as do the special legal regimes applying to
Indian-Adminstered Kashmir.
“The Armed Forces (Jammu and
Kashmir) Special Powers Act 1990 (AFSPA) remains a key obstacle to
accountability,” the report says. “Section 7 of the AFSPA prohibits the
prosecution of security forces personnel unless the Government of India grants
a prior permission or ‘sanction’ to prosecute. In nearly three decades that the
law has been in force in Jammu and Kashmir, there has not been a single
prosecution of armed forces personnel granted by the central government. The
Indian Army has also been resisting efforts to release details of trials
conducted by military courts where soldiers were initially found guilty but
later acquitted and released by a higher military tribunal.”
In addition, the report notes, “no security
forces personnel accused of torture or other forms of degrading and inhuman
treatment have been prosecuted in a civilian court since these allegations
started emerging in the early 1990s.”
And despite international concerns
at the alarming numbers of deaths and life-altering injuries caused by the
security forces’ regular use of shotguns as a means of crowd control – even
though they are not deployed elsewhere in India – they continue to be employed,
leading to further deaths and serious injuries.
The report describes how, among various other
incidents, a 19-month-old girl was hit by metal shotgun pellets in her right
eye on 25 November 2018. According to information from Srinagar’s Shri Maharaja
Hari Singh Hospital, where most people injured by shotgun pellets are treated,
“a total of 1,253 people have been blinded by the metal pellets used by
security forces from mid-2016 to end of 2018.”
The report also examines human
rights violations in Pakistan-Administered Kashmir. While different in nature
to the violations taking place on the other side of the Line of Control, people
living in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, as well as in Gilgit-Baltistan are also
deprived of a number of fundamental human rights, particularly in relation to
freedoms of expression and opinion, peaceful assembly and association. The
report notes no steps have been taken to resolve the main issues, including a
number of highly problematic legal restrictions, outlined in the previous UN
Human Rights Office report.
“Anti-terrorism laws continue to be
misused to target political opposition as well as civil society activists,” the
report says, adding that nationalist and pro-independence political parties
“claim that they regularly face threats, intimidation and even arrests for
their political activities from local authorities or intelligence agencies.”
Threats are also often “directed at their family members including children.”
Citing specific cases, the report
also notes how journalists in Pakistan-Administered Kashmir “continue to face
threats and harassment in the course of carrying out their professional
duties.”
The report also says the UN Human
Rights Office has received “credible information of enforced disappearances of
people from Pakistan-Administered Kashmir including those who were held in
secret detention and those whose fate and whereabouts continue to remain
unknown.”
“In almost all cases,” it adds,
“victim groups allege that Pakistani intelligence agencies were responsible for
the disappearances. There are fears that people subjected to enforced
disappearances from Pakistan-Administered Kashmir may have been detained in
military-run internment centres in Pakistan.”
The report also notes that four
major armed groups believed to be currently operating in Indian-Administered
Kashmir – Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Hizbul Mujahideen and Harakat
Ul-Mujahidin – are believed to be based on the Pakistan side of the Line of
Control.
The report stresses that “neither
the Governments of India nor of Pakistan have taken clear steps to address and
implement the recommendations” made in the UN Human Rights Office’s previous
report, published in June 2018. It therefore restates those recommendations
along with additional ones. It also calls on the 47-Member-State UN Human
Rights Council to “consider… the possible establishment of a commission of
inquiry to conduct a comprehensive independent international investigations
into allegations of human rights violations in Kashmir.”
ENDS
The full 2019 report is available here
* The first ever UN human rights
report on the human rights situation in Kashmir was released on 14 June 2018.
For more information and media
requests, please contact: Rupert Colville - + 41 22 917 9767 /
rcolville@ohchr.org or Ravina Shamdasani - + 41 22 917 9169 /
rshamdasani@ohchr.org
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