Pakistan has sought the United Nations’ immediate intervention for the release of Kashmiri human rights activist and political leader, Asiya Andrabi, held in Indian capital New Delhi’s Tihar jail.
According to a Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement, Pakistan has approached the United Nations Secretary-General in New York and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva to seek her immediate release. She was convicted on 18 January last year by a sham court and her life is in danger.
Pakistan has urged the United Nations to pressurise India to drop all fabricated charges against Ms Andrabi, her husband and her associates, and provide them legal protections, including the right to a free and fair trial; release all prisoners, especially political prisoners and human rights defenders in Occupied Kashmir; repeal draconian laws AFSPA, PSA, and UAPA; allow UN-supervised investigations into cases of extra-judicial executions and other serious and systematic human rights violations; and fully implement all recommendations of the two Kashmir reports of OHCHR, including the establishment of a UN Commission of Inquiry.
India’s blatant attempts to portray the legitimate Kashmiri struggle as “terrorism”, and to prosecute its leaders through concocted cases, is a clear violation of the UN Charter, UN Security Council and UN General Assembly resolutions, and international human rights and humanitarian law, the statement added.
It said Ms Andrabi has been under illegal and inhuman detention for more than 15 years on fabricated charges under draconian laws aimed at further perpetrating India’s illegal occupation of the valley through brutalisation of the Kashmiri people.
The Indian authorities have now put Ms Andrabi on trial on trumped-up charges; deliberately accelerated the trial; and set aside due process, reflecting malicious intent with clear indications of looming judicial murder.
As a champion of human rights and an ardent advocate of women empowerment, Ms Andrabi has worked tirelessly for social reforms and realisation of fundamental freedoms for the people of the Occupied Jammu and Kashmir for more than four decades. She founded an organisation, Dukhtaran-e-Millat, which is one of the biggest women rights organisations in Occupied Kashmir, working on women’s education, empowerment, well-being and protection — especially against sexual violence and abuse at the hands of Indian occupation forces.
