36th Session UNHRC: Intervention by Director EFSAS
22-09-2017, Geneva
Text and video of the Intervention by Mr. Junaid Qureshi, Director European Foundation for South Asian Studies (EFSAS), on General Debate Item 5 (Indigenous People-Minorities) during the 36th Session of the UNHRC in Geneva.
Video of Mr. Junaid Qureshi's Intervention on General Debate Item 5 during the 36th Session of the UNHRC
"Mr. Vice President,
I am a Sunni Kashmiri Muslim from the Valley of Kashmir. Contrary to propaganda, my State is not the private property of only the Sunni Muslims of the Valley. It equally belongs to the Kashmiri Pandits, Sikhs, Buddhists and Shia Muslims of the State.
Under a well-hatched conspiracy of injecting communalism in the Kashmir Valley, terrorist groups with financial and military support from Pakistani intelligence agencies started with the ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Kashmiri Pandits in the late eighties, resulting in their exodus.
All in the name of Jihad and freedom struggle.
Today, we have new minorities in Jammu & Kashmir.
Today, secular and liberal Muslims like me, who do not support this proxy war of Pakistan, have become the next Kashmiri Pandits in the Kashmir Valley.
Tomorrow it will be the Shia Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, writers, academics and poets. Until Hizbul Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Taibah and Jaish-e-Mohammed, all acting under the patronage of the Pakistani Army and its intelligence agencies, will have no one to kill anymore.
Mr. Vice President,
For how long will the world, including the UN remain quiet to the brazen export of terrorism manufactured in Rawalpindi at GHQ? For how long will the international community allow Pakistan to get us Kashmiris killed?
We, the people of Jammu & Kashmir want to live in peace. Peace with dignity and honour and not the peace of graveyards.
Thank you".
