Pakistan willing to allow UNHRC team’s access to ‘Azad Kashmir’

Pakistan on Thursday said that it was always ready to allow access to UNHRC team to the Pakistan administered Kashmir (PaK) region. The assertion came after allegations were leveled by the United Nations Human Rights Council chief that it was not giving access to a UN rights team to visit the area. 

“…we would clarify that Pakistan has expressed its readiness to allow the UN team sent by the High Commissioner to visit Azad Jammu and Kashmir together with the other part of Jammu and Kashmir under India.”

Pakistan was responding to Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein’s (UN high commissioner for human rights) address to the 35th session of UNHRC in Geneva on June 6 this year.

Pakistan asserted that it is in sharp contrast to India’s outright denial of the request for access. “The current situation is the result of horrifying atrocities committed by India in Jammu and Kashmir,” it alleged.

Pakistan said that India has curbed freedom of expression. “It is in Indian Occupied Kashmir where mass blinding due to use of pellet guns, rapes, torture, extra-judicial killings, and continuous curfews are being reported. Therefore, we urge the High Commissioner to present the complete picture in front of the Council rather than coupling Pakistan with India while addressing the situation in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir,” Pakistan stated.

The representative of Pakistan in UNHRC informed the session that the Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission (IPHRC) had recently sent a fact finding mission to “Azad” Jammu and Kashmir. The Commission’s request for access of a fact finding mission to the Indian part of Kashmir was rejected, it said.

 

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