‘J&K Internal Affair, Don’t See UN Role’: India On Global Body’s ‘Worrying Human Rights’ Remark

India has expressed remorse over the United Nations Human Rights Commissioner’s feedback on the state of affairs in Kashmir, stating that they have been “unwarranted and factually inaccurate”. In the course of the Basic Debate on the Oral Replace by Excessive Commissioner on the 52nd Session of the Human Rights Council, India’s Everlasting Consultant to the UN in Geneva, Ambassador Indra Mani Pandey, additionally made it clear that New Delhi doesn’t imagine the human rights commissioner’s workplace has a job to play within the nation’s inner affairs.

Pandey stated, “We pay attention to the oral replace and thank the Excessive Commissioner. For the reason that constitutional adjustments in August 2019, there was unprecedented progress within the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, in taking democracy to the grassroots, enhancing individuals’s participation in political processes, offering good governance and safety to the individuals and accelerating all spherical socio-economic growth.”

“On this context, we remorse the Excessive Commissioner’s unwarranted and factually inaccurate portrayal of the human rights state of affairs within the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Let me reiterate that the issues pertaining to the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir are an inner affair of India and we don’t see any position for the Workplace of the United Nations Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in it,” he was quoted as saying PTI.

Earlier on the identical day, UN Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk acknowledged that he had mentioned the “worrying human rights” state of affairs in Kashmir with each India and Pakistan in latest months. Turk additionally famous that progress on human rights and justice for the previous can be key to advancing safety and growth. “I’ll proceed to discover how my Workplace can help, together with by means of significant entry to the area,” he stated in his international replace to the UN Human Rights Council.

Turk additionally commented on the state of affairs in China, stating that the UN Human Rights workplace had documented grave issues, significantly about large-scale arbitrary detentions and ongoing household separations. The workplace has made essential suggestions that require concrete follow-up. Turk added that his workplace has opened up channels of communication with a spread of actors to observe up on quite a lot of human rights points, together with the safety of minorities, resembling for the Tibetans, Uyghurs, and different teams.

In his international replace, Turk additionally referred to the state of affairs in Afghanistan, the place he stated the repression of ladies was “unparalleled, contravening each established perception system.” He famous that folks of African descent in the US are reportedly nearly 3 times extra more likely to be killed by police than “white” individuals. He additionally referred to the “brutal dying” of a 29-year-old Black man Tyre Nichols in Memphis two months in the past, saying that this tragic incident stood out not simply due to the severity of the violence caught on tape however as a result of it was adopted by instant motion to prosecute the officers concerned, whereas typically, solely a fraction of such instances result in these accountable being delivered to justice.

Turk additionally commented on the debilitating debt and financial disaster in Sri Lanka, which have sharply restricted individuals’s entry to basic financial and social rights. Restoration insurance policies might want to redress inequalities and spend money on social protections and different levers of financial resilience. He expressed remorse over the “rising incidence of political violence” in Bangladesh, coupled with arbitrary arrests of political activists and ongoing harassment of human rights defenders and media personnel within the build-up to the elections this yr.

Turk careworn that the world faces the “compounding results” of crises resembling battle, discrimination, poverty, restrictions on civic house, and assaults towards local weather activists. “We face all of those crises – whereas additionally confronting a surge of latest human rights challenges, notably within the digital realm and involving synthetic intelligence and surveillance. Recent pondering, political management, renewed commitments, and dramatically scaled-up financing — with the centrality of human rights at their core — are urgently wanted.

(With inputs from PTI.)