[Reader-list] IPTK Files Complaint on Kashmir with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

[shuddha at sarai.net]

Dear All, 

This came in to my mailbox with a request for wide circulation. Please do read
and circulate widely. 

best

Shuddha
---------------------------

STATEMENT: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
Srinagar, August 9, 2010
INTERNATIONAL PEOPLE’S TRIBUNAL ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND JUSTICE IN
INDIAN-ADMINISTERED KASHMIR (IPTK)
www.kashmirprocess.org 

IPTK Files Allegation on Kashmir Killings with UN High Commissioner for Human
Rights IPTK filed a complaint letter with the Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights, and submitted a 16-page dossier to Dr. Christof
Heyns, Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions,
requesting an investigation into the killings of civilians in June-August 2010
in Indian-administered Kashmir. 

The allegation documents a list of 51 civilians who were reportedly killed by
military, paramilitary, and police forces in Kashmir between June 11 and August
8 of 2010. The Special Rapporteur is expected to address the allegation to the
Government of India, typically requesting a response within 60 days. We request
that the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights hold the Government of
India accountable, investigate the conditions of repression in Kashmir, and ask
that a minimum agenda for conflict resolution be followed. The general context
of the humanitarian crisis is described on Pages 1-6. 

The allegations pertaining to the specific killings are on Pages 7-16. For the
text of the allegation, see http://www.kashmirprocess.org/UNAllegation2010/. 

Whose Law and Whose Order?Civilian killings by police, paramilitary, and
military:
Between June 11-30, 2010: 13 deaths: All Muslim boys and men
Between of July 1-31, 2010: 13 deaths: 12 Muslim boys and men, 1 Muslim woman
Between August 1-8, 2010: 25 deaths: 23 Muslim boys and men, 2 Muslim women
Total civilian death count: Between June 11-August 8, 2010, 51                 
                                          

Widespread peaceable protests across Indian-administered Kashmir dissenting the
suppression of civil society by Indian forces have been continuously brutalized
by the police, military, and paramilitary without provocation. Indian forces
have acted with the knowledge and sanction of the Government of India and the
Government of Jammu and Kashmir, using human rights violations to maintain
military governance.

In numerous instances, the repeated repression by state forces provoked
civilians to engage in stone pelting and to be in non-compliance with
unremitting curfews. In certain instances civilians engaged in acts of
violence, including arson. There have been no reports of deaths of military,
paramilitary, and police personnel resulting from violent acts by civilians.
Each instance of civilian violence documented was provoked by the first and
unmitigated use of force on civilians and/or persistent extrajudicial killings
on the part of Indian forces. The cases recorded by IPTK are often
interconnected -- individuals protesting the actions of Indian forces, caught
in the midst of the unrest, or mourning the death of a civilian killed, without
provocation, by Indian forces, were fired upon, leading to other killings by
Indian forces, more civilian protests, greater use of force by the police and
paramilitary, use of torture in certain instances by Indian forces, more
killings by Indian forces, larger, even violent, civilian protests, and further
state repression. 

They tell a story of the web of continued violence in which civil society in
Kashmir is confined. In the deaths documented by IPTK, family and community
members were largely unable to lodge First Information Reports (FIRs) due to
unrest in their locality, or their requests to record FIRs were denied by the
police. In most instances where FIRs have been lodged, the police have recorded
them without consulting relevant stakeholders. At times, personnel from police
stations whose officers were perpetrators of the crime, or personnel from
neighbouring police stations, recorded the FIRs. Indian forces have threatened
eyewitnesses. 

Civil society activists and media persons were denied access to localities in
which the killing(s) took place. Massive numbers of civilians have been injured
in Summer 2010 by the Indian military, paramilitary, and police in Kashmir.
Recent acts of stone pelting, and incidents in which civilians damaged state
property and engaged in arson, have also caused injury to paramilitary and
policepersonnel. Accurate, independently derived figures are not available. We
note that stone pelting, and selective incidents of arson and violence are not
causal to the violence that is prevalent in Kashmir today. 

Along with civilians, Kashmiri journalists have been targeted by Indianforces.
Arrests have been made on uncorroborated suspicion, as evidenced by the cases
of Advocate Qayoom, Advocate Shaheen, and Muhamad Fazili. 

Police have engaged in extortion and demanded bribes from those in custody and
those seeking to free the imprisoned. Between January 1 and August 8, 2010,
reportedly 84 civilians have been killed (66 were killed by Indian forces,
including military, paramilitary, and police), 120 persons identified as
militants have been killed, and 66 Indian forces personnel have been killed (34
were killed by militants, 16 committed suicide, 2 died in fratricidal killings,
8 died in grenade/mine explosions, and 6 were killed by unidentified gunmen).
Fake encounter killings are utilized to enhance the supposition of cross-border
terrorism. Cross-Line of Control infiltrations and insurgency into Kashmir are
real and significant issues, even as the Indian state exaggerates these
realities to escalate militarization. 

During the humanitarian crisis that has subsumed the Kashmir Valley in Summer
2010, civil disobedience paralleled that of 1989 as well as 2008.State
institutions, certain human rights organizations, and dominant media have
asserted that civil society protests are being orchestrated by political
interest groups in and outside Kashmir, with the objective of endorsing
violence. Such contention refuses to recognize the inequitable
historical-political power relations at play between the states of India and
Pakistan and the Kashmiri peoples, and distorts the conditions that have
provoked civilian youth to throw stones and selectively use arson and attack
this summer. Minimum Agenda for Conflict Resolution. 

The conditions for nonviolent civilian dissent are being eroded by the Indian
state. The approach of the Indian state has been, and continues to be,
neo-imperial and aggressively militaristic. The Government of India assumes
that the people of Kashmir should respond with nonviolence to the violent
methods of the state. More troops were recently moved into Kashmir, even as
there were reported shortages of blood, groceries, and cash. The recent
protests in Kashmir evidence dissent to the present events and the confinement
of civil society by Indian military and paramilitary forces since 1989, and the
suppression of local demands for the right to self-determination since 1946. The
Indian state has reiterated to the people of Kashmir that violence cannot lead
to a resolution. 

The Government of India must recognize that its own violence is the primary
deterrent to peace and justice in Kashmir. As a body comprised of human rights
defenders, IPTK is committed to peaceable methods of conflict resolution. In
order to ensure interim conditions that are facilitative of nonviolent conflict
resolution, and enable ethical civil society participation, we urge that the
Government of India, the Government of Jammu and Kashmir, and the military,
paramilitary, and police be held accountable to a minimum agenda in
Indian-administered Kashmir inclusive of the following:

1.      Immediate halt to, and moratorium on, extrajudicial killings, and
the use of torture, kidnapping, enforced disappearance, and gendered violence
by the Indian military, paramilitary, and police.

2.      Agreement to non-interference in the exercise of civil liberties of
Kashmiris, including the right to civil disobedience, and freedom of speech,
movement, and travel.

3.      Proactive demilitarization and the immediate revocation of
authoritarian laws.

4.      Release of political prisoners.

5.      Detention and torture centres, including in army camps, be identified,
made public, and dismantled.

6.      Instatement of a Truth and Justice Commission for political and
psychosocial reparation, permitting spaces for acknowledging the culture of
grief and the staggering corporeal and spiritual fatalities of the past two
decades, to imagine and energize local and civil society initiatives in order
to heal, and imagine a different future.

7.      Support of cultural, economic, and peace initiatives by disenfranchised
groups, including half-widows, families of the disappeared, minority
communities, and former militants.

8.      International and transparent investigations into torture,
disappearances, gendered violence, unlawful deaths, and unknown and mass graves
constitutive of crimes against humanity committed by the Indian military,
paramilitary, and police.

9.      Open and transparent dialogue toward conflict resolution between
Kashmir, India, and Pakistan, inclusive of Kashmiri civil society and
leadership as primary stakeholders.  

From:Dr. Angana Chatterji, Convener IPTK and Professor, Anthropology,
California Institute of Integral Studies
Advocate Parvez Imroz, Convener IPTK and Founder, Jammu and Kashmir Coalition
of Civil Society
Gautam Navlakha, Convener IPTK and Editorial Consultant, Economic and Political
Weekly
Zahir-Ud-Din, Convener IPTK and Vice-President, Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of
Civil Society
Advocate Mihir Desai, Legal Counsel IPTK and Lawyer, Mumbai High Court and
Supreme Court of India
Khurram Parvez, Liaison IPTK and Programme Coordinator, Jammu and Kashmir
Coalition of Civil Society 

Queries may be directed to:Khurram Parvez
E-mail: kparvez at kashmirprocess.orgPhone: +91.194.2482820Mobile: +91.9419013553