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Washington, May 16, 2023 (PPI-OT): The World Kashmir Awareness Forum (WKAF) rented digital advertising truck – exhibiting striking messages about G20 meeting in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir and demanding member countries to persuade India to abide by her pledge and give the Kashmiris the right to self-determination. According to Kashmir Media Service, the electronic screens on the truck carry messages such as: “G20 risks legitimizing India’s illegal occupation of Kashmir,” “Say No to G20 in Occupied Kashmir”, “Decolonize Kashmir,” “G20 in Kashmir violates UN resolutions”, “G20 in occupied Kashmir enables genocide”, “Kashmir for Kashmiris”, “Kashmir at the brink of Genocide” and “Stop Hindutva Fascism”.
The digital truck routed the embassies of all G20 countries, including India, the State Department; the Capitol Hill; Library of Congress; The Washington Monument; The White House; various Museums; Lincoln Memorial; Washington National Cathedral; the World Bank and IMF. Dr Ghulam N. Mir, President of World Kashmir Awareness Forum, said India has tried to wish the Kashmir conflict away for the last 76 years of its illegal invasion, occupation and finally full annexation settler-colonization. It has become a nightmare for the overpopulated and unmanageable nation of 1.3 billion people. In each tyrannical manoeuvre – including mass murder and mass imprisonment – it has tried in occupied Kashmir, but it has failed.
He added that India has tried to cover the evidence of thousands of mass graves and gang rapes committed by Indian military and paramilitary forces in occupied Kashmir. The mass graves were discovered by international human rights organizations, including Indian human rights defenders through their scrupulously researches and visits. One of the renowned intellectuals of America of Indian origin, Dr Angana Chatterji has spent days in Kupwara district of Kashmir and reported to the office of the UN High Commissioner on Human rights about the grim reality of more than 5,000 mass graves in this area alone.
Dr Mir said that India will be entertaining its rich invitees on the grounds of another nation when they wine and dine them on the soil of Kashmir. We appeal to the G20 countries, all but Prime Minister Modi to show respect to the dead and the living of Kashmir whose motherland is being colonized by India and avoid dignifying the host country – India. G20 members must understand that India will not show you the true face of the densest presence of military and paramilitary forces while you are given a sanitized version of its brutal face!
Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai, Secretary General of World Kashmir Awareness Forum, said that India is misusing and abusing its power of presidency of G20 to portray the image of normalcy in occupied Kashmir. A news-story that appeared in the New York Times on August 10, 2019, described the normalcy in Kashmir in these words, “Inside Kashmir, Cut Off from the World: ‘A Living Hell’ of Anger and Fear.” Fai added that India’s controversial decision to hold the G20 meeting in disputed Kashmir is in contravention of more than 12 substantive United Nations Security Council resolutions which were voluntarily agreed by the Government of India as early as in 1948. India’s aim is to divert global attention from the core issue of the occupation of a people without their consent, he insisted.
Dr Fai emphasized that members of G20 countries are practicing democracies except India, and they should abide by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and not to sacrifice their moral authority and ethical values for commercial interests and lucrative business deals. My assessment of India’s so-called democracy is based on a write-up in Huffington Post, dated August 5, 2019, that “As Kashmir Is Erased, Indian Democracy Dies in Silence,” and an Op-Ed that appeared in The New York Times on August 24, 2022 that, “Modi’s India Is Where Global Democracy Dies.
Dr Fai d Professor Fernand de Varennes, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Minority Issue who issued a statement on May 15, 2023 that the G20 is unwittingly providing a veneer of support to a façade of normalcy (in Kashmir) at a time when massive human rights violations, illegal and arbitrary arrests, political persecutions, retractions and even suppression of free media and human rights defenders continue to escalate.
Dr Imtiaz khan, Professor at George Washington Medical Center, said that the people of Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) express their strong reservations about the G20 meeting to be held in the disputed territory. Based on the UN resolutions the final status of IIOJK has to be decided by the plebiscite to be held under the auspices of this international organization that was founded in 1945. Not only has India reneged on her promise to allow the people of IIOJK to exercise their will, it has also unleashed a reign of terror in the region that has been condemned by well reputed international human rights organizations. India does not allow foreign press to travel to IIOJK and does not even permit the International Red Cross to provide succour to the people who are facing miserable situation.
Dr Khan added that on August 5, 2029 India abrogated Articles 370 and 35A that provided special status to IIOJK and annexed the territory. This was a shameful contravention of international agreement that did not receive the rebuke from the world community that it deserved. Since then, India is involved in changing the demography of the region by snatching the land from local people and settling rabid Hindu communalists in the region.
Dr Khan warned that holding of G20 meeting in the region is a facade to convey to international community that things are normal, and people have accepted the Indian occupation. The veneer of normalcy can be attributed to the presence of more than 900,000 trigger happy soldiers who can kill people with impunity. Holding of G20 meeting does not alter the ground situation and IIOJK will remain a disputed territory and Kashmiris in the region and outside will continue their struggle for liberation in an unabated manner. My appeal to the attending countries is to unequivocally condemn India for the barbarous acts and use the opportunity to impress upon the Modi government to fulfill the promises it has made to the people of IIOJK.
Sardar Zarif Khan, General Secretary of Kashmir American Welfare Association (KAWA), said if India wants to give the false impression of normalcy to G20 countries then why did New Delhi-based dreaded National Investigating Agency INIA), conduct raids and arrest hundreds of civilians at many locations in the Valley. We have the reports that mobile phones and laptops were either taken away or broken in Shopian, Islamabad, Srinagar, Pulwama, Kulgam and the nearby villages and towns. Silencing the dissent in Kashmir by Indian armed forces is the order of the day, Zarif added.
Sardar Zubair Khan said that the G20 countries should not have trusted India’s false propaganda that everything is fine in IIOJK. We appeal the G20 countries to persuade the Government of India to allow more than half a dozen United Nations Special Rapporteurs to visit Kashmir to assess the situation there. Amnesty International and other international NGOs need to be given unhindered access to the Kashmir Valley, he added.
Shoaib Irshad of KAWA said that the presence of 900,000 military and paramilitary forces have made IIOJK the largest army concentration in the world. On one hand, India is invited members of G20 to come to Kashmir and on the other, people are not allowed to make their feelings known through peaceful protest. And if they do, they will be arrested either under black law Public Safety Act (PSA) or Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and sent to the jails of India.
For more information, contact:
Kashmir Media Service
Phone: +92-51-4435548, +92-51-4435549
Fax: +92-51-4861736
Email: info@kmsnews.org
Website: www.kmsnews.org