51st Session UNHRC: Intervention by Mr. Junaid Qureshi (Director EFSAS) on General Debate Item 4
27-09-2022, Geneva
Text and video of Mr. Junaid Qureshi's Intervention on General Debate Item 4 (Human rights situations that require the Council's attention) during the 51st Session of the UN Human Rights Council.
Video of Mr. Junaid Qureshi's Intervention on General Debate Item 4 during the 51st Session of the UNHRC.
"Mr. Vice President,
I would like to draw the Council’s attention to Pakistan’s repeated attempts to further change the already seriously dented status of Jammu & Kashmir through Islamabad’s periodic introduction of proposals to amend the farcical 1974 Interim Constitution of that part of Jammu & Kashmir that it illegally occupies.
This so-called Constitution, among other things, spells out the contours of the relationship between the Pakistani State and Pakistan-Administered Jammu & Kashmir, and brings to mind images of subjugation and occupation. The people of Pakistan-Administered Jammu & Kashmir have been denied their basic fundamental rights and face severe brutalities by Pakistani security agencies on a daily basis.
Despite a harsh crackdown by Pakistani security agencies, large protests were witnessed in the region last month against the proposed 15th Amendment to this so-called Constitution. This Amendment represented the 24th Pakistani attempt to determine the constitutional status of this forcibly held part of Jammu & Kashmir.
While the huge protests eventually resulted in the withdrawal of the proposed Amendment, Pakistan’s repeated attempts to alter the status of territory that it holds illegally, renders the prospects of a fair and respectable solution to the issue of Jammu & Kashmir extremely murky and complicated.
Mr. Vice President,
It is therefore, imperative that this august Council uses all the tools at its disposal to prevent Pakistan from carrying out any changes to the status of Pakistan-Administered Jammu & Kashmir.
Thank you".
