The prominent human rights defender is also the chairman of the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances.
Khurram Parvez. Photo: Twitter/@MaryLawlorhrds
I’m hearing disturbing reports that Khurram Parvez was arrested today in Kashmir & is at risk of being charged by authorities in #India with terrorism-related crimes. He’s not a terrorist, he’s a Human Rights Defender @mujmash @RaftoFoundation @GargiRawat @NihaMasih pic.twitter.com/9dmZOrSwMY
— Mary Lawlor UN Special Rapporteur HRDs (@MaryLawlorhrds) November 22, 2021
David Kaye, a former UN Special Rapporteur, said Khurram’s arrest under terrorism charges was “yet another extraordinary abuse in Kashmir.”
World Organisation Again Torture (OMCT), a Geneva based non-profit which works with groups across the world to fight for human rights, said it was “deeply concerned” by Khurram’s arrest, “We are deeply concerned about the high risk of torture while in custody. We call for his immediate release,” OMCT said in a tweet.
/center>#India: Rights defender @KhurramParvez detained for questioning after his house & office were raided by National Investigation Agency officials.
— OMCT (@omctorg) November 22, 2021
🔴We are deeply concerned about the high risk of torture while in custody.
We call for his immediate release.
https://t.co/skXz3gM879
The JKCCS has published more than a dozen reports on human rights abuses in Kashmir and its last report, ‘Kashmir’s Internet Siege’ focused on the mass detentions and the reported breakdown of the judicial system in Jammu and Kashmir in the aftermath of the reading down of Article 370.
After J&K’s special status was scrapped in 2019, Khurram kept a low profile, tweeted less frequently and avoided speaking with media on the issues which he had advocated for years. As the political climate deteriorated in Kashmir, the JKCCS had also put a brake on its work after August 5, 2019.
Khurram’s last tweet on August 30 this year was about a programme organised by Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances and its members countries across Asia who pledged “that truth will not be buried, disappeared won’t be ever forgotten & perpetrators will never be forgiven.”
“Families of the disappeared across the world are commemorating today as the International Day of the Disappeared with hope amidst hopelessness that their struggle will lead them one day to the truth about their disappeared loved ones & that justice will not remain always elusive,” Khurram tweeted.
Families of the disappeared across the world are commemorating today as the International Day of the Disappeared with hope amidst hopelessness that their struggle will lead them one day to the truth about their disappeared loved ones & that justice will not remain always elusive.
— Khurram Parvez (@KhurramParvez) August 30, 2021
A vocal critique of government policies, Khurram, in a rare interview since August 5, 2019, had said that the aim of the Union government’s decision on that day was to “completely disempower and disenfranchise local population,” while terming it as “violation of UN resolutions” on Jammu and Kashmir.
“By breaking all commitments and forcing changes in Kashmir through military means would not alter the reality of Kashmir. Israel did all this but the Palestine issue is still alive and more than ever the world is behind Palestinians,” he told Turkey’s Anadolu news agency last year.
Khurram, 44, is partially disabled. He lost his leg in a landmine blast that hit his car while he was on his way to monitor the parliamentary elections in 2004. His colleague, Asiya Geelani, a journalist, was killed in the explosion.
Last year, Khurram’s office was one of the ten locations, including the office of Greater Kashmir, a prominent Srinagar-based English daily, that were raided by the NIA in connection with a case related to the funding of “secessionist and separatist activities.” In a statement, the agency had said, “These entities were receiving money from undisclosed donors which was then being used to fund terror activities.”
The raids had evoked sharp reaction from global human rights organisations including the Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. “Using authoritarian tactics against outspoken critics and journalists needs to stop. India faces serious security challenges, but instead of addressing the problems in a rights-respecting manner, the authorities appear determined to crush peaceful criticism and calls for accountability,” Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch, had said in a statement.
Khurram, who is the recipient of the 2006 Reebok Human Rights Award, had been arrested before in 2016, a day after he was barred from travelling to Switzerland to participate in a session of the UN Human Rights Council. The then PDP-BJP coalition government had booked him under the controversial Public Safety Act and he was jailed for two and half months before the J&K high court stepped in, terming his incarceration illegal and setting him free.
source ; the wire
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