Another legacy of Modi’s vindictive rule – Middle East Monitor

India’s authorities has this week determined to shut Srinagar’s Grand Mosque in Indian-administered Kashmir. This act is the most recent of a two-year marketing campaign of repression by the Indian authorities in opposition to Kashmir’s Muslim inhabitants.

The 600-year-old mosque is now shut for the primary time in its historical past. For hundreds of years, Jamia Mosque, as it’s recognized, has been utilized by the locals, their ancestors, students and non secular masters to worship.

The closure of this historic mosque has naturally referred to as into query the human rights and spiritual freedom insurance policies of the Narendra Modi authorities. Confronted with widespread condemnation, the Indian authorities declare the mosque is a bother spot, a nerve centre for protests and clashes that problem India’s sovereignty over the disputed Kashmir area.

Moreover limiting coming into holy locations to hope, final January, the federal government additionally blocked telephone strains and entry to the web. Worldwide organisations have often reported the abuses. Human Rights Watch has reported that: “The federal government was so scared of criticism. That is why it curtailed Kashmiris’ rights to share information of births or deaths, name their medical doctors, order provides, analysis time period papers, file taxes and commerce apples and walnuts.”

These present restrictions are essentially the most extreme because the area was divided between India and Pakistan after the 2 nations gained independence from British colonialism in 1947.

READ: India’s iconic mosque wants pressing repairs, says administration

Throughout a human rights convention in Istanbul in 2018, the secretary-general of the Washington-based World Kashmir Consciousness Discussion board, Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai, defined to me in graphic element the suppression of Kashmiri individuals. He recalled that 144 youngsters had been detained in 2018 by 900,000 Indian army and paramilitary forces.

Dr Fai identified that whereas human rights are being proclaimed, he discovered it unbelievable that they have been so routinely violated in Kashmir and worldwide. He expressed: “Consider the continuing human rights atrocities which are going unsanctioned. Myanmar, the place a Muslim civilian inhabitants is routinely pushed from properties and cities are constantly destroyed. Tragic genocide in Syria. Within the twentieth century, there was the Srebrenica genocide in fashionable European society. Dying and destruction in Yemen. Denial of the Palestinian demand to train the best to self-determination. The listing goes on and on.”

Based on Dr Fai, Kashmir is sort of a slow-motion genocide unfolding: “There’s a fixed feeling that one thing is lacking in individuals’s lives as they’re restricted from having their very own primary human rights even, resembling schooling.”

Worldwide organisations just like the United Nations (UN) should present full assist for Kashmir. The President of the UN Common Meeting Ambassador Volkan Bozkir promised to grow to be the voice of the oppressed individuals worldwide final September, when he pledged: “Individuals in want or beneath oppression ought to really feel that their considerations are being heard within the UN’s most democratic physique. I’ll work to convey the voices of the world’s individuals into our discussions.”

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Final yr, president of Azad Kashmir, Sardar Masood Khan, spoke about Modi’s insurance policies at MEMO’s convention, “Kashmir & Palestine: The destruction of Indigenous Cultural Heritage”, mentioning that Kashmir was on the stage of persecution. He additionally pressured that whereas Palestine obtained widespread worldwide assist, Kashmir didn’t receive the identical degree of consideration. By highlighting this level, Khan wished to precise the function of the UN in defending Kashmir. He acknowledged that the organisation has an obligation to honour the voices and rights of the individuals of Palestine and Kashmir of their wrestle for the best to self-determination.

Extra not too long ago, India’s arrest of world-renowned human rights activist Khurram Parvez on 21 November is evidently an affront to justice.

Subsequently, Mary Lawlor, UN particular rapporteur on the scenario of human rights defenders, tweeted: “He (Khurram Parvez) is just not a terrorist. He’s a human rights defender.”

Modi’s authorities ought to perceive that the individuals of Jammu and Kashmir haven’t forgotten that in April 1948, the UN Safety Council adopted Decision 47, promising: “The way forward for Kashmir shall be determined by its inhabitants.” As an alternative of deterring the individuals of Kashmir from pursuing their proper to self-determination, the closure of Srinagar’s Grand Mosque will solely add one more stain on Modi’s darkish legacy of repression.

The views expressed on this article belong to the writer and don’t essentially replicate the editorial coverage of Center East Monitor.