Global bodies working for Human Rights across World including United Nations, (OMCT) World Organisation Against Torture, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have raised concerned over the imprisonment of Kashmir based Human Rights Defender Khurram Parvez and demanded his immediate release.
Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders said Authorities in India has charged Khurram with terror crimes but he is a Human Rights Defender and not a terrorist.
“I’m hearing disturbing reports that Khurram Parvez was arrested today in Kashmir & is at risk of being charged by authorities in India with terrorism-related crimes. He’s not a terrorist, he’s a Human Rights Defender,” she tweeted.
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World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), Geneva based non-profit which works with groups across the world to fight for human rights, said it was “deeply concerned” by Khurram’s arrest, “We are deeply concerned about the high risk of torture while in custody. We call for his immediate release,” OMCT said in a tweet.
Whereas David Kaye, former UN Special Rapporteur, said Khurram’s arrest under terrorism charges was “yet another extraordinary abuse in Kashmir.”
Khurram’s imprisonment evoked sharp reaction from the Human Rights Watch, “Using authoritarian tactics against outspoken critics and journalists needs to stop. India faces serious security challenges, but instead of addressing the problems in a rights-respecting manner, the authorities appear determined to crush peaceful criticism and calls for accountability,” Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch said in a statement.
The Human rights defender honored with 2006 Reebok Human Rights Award was barred to attend the 33rd session of United Nations Human Rights Council and arrested under PSA after two days in 2016.
The then PDP-BJP coalition government had booked him under the controversial Public Safety Act (lawless law in J&K only) and jailed for two and half months before the J&K high court termed his incarceration illegal.
The JKCCS (Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society) where Khurram is the programme Coordinator has published more than a dozen reports on human rights abuses in Kashmir.
In its last report, ‘Kashmir’s Internet Siege’ focused on the mass detentions and the reported breakdown of the judicial system in Jammu and Kashmir in the aftermath of August 5, 2019.
Khurram’s last tweet on August 30 this year was about a programme organised by Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances who pledged “that truth will not be buried, disappeared won’t be ever forgotten & perpetrators will never be forgiven.”
“Families of the disappeared across the world are commemorating today as the International Day of the Disappeared with hope amidst hopelessness that their struggle will lead them one day to the truth about their disappeared loved ones & that justice will not remain always elusive,” Khurram tweeted.
Khurram, 44, is partially disabled. He lost his leg in a landmine blast that hit his car while he was on his way to monitor the parliamentary elections in 2004. His colleague, Asiya Geelani, a journalist, was killed in the explosion.
