Human Rights: Kashmir

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Thursday 23rd September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab) [R]]

I beg to move,

That this House notes with grave concern the escalation of tensions between India and Pakistan, two nuclear powers, following the revocation of Articles 370 and 35A from the Indian Constitution in August 2019; further notes the United Nations reports of 14 June 2018 and 8 July 2019 on human rights violations in Indian-administered Kashmir and Pakistan-administered Kashmir; and calls on the Government to work with the United Nations, Commonwealth and wider international community to help ensure that international law is upheld and human rights are protected throughout India, Kashmir and Pakistan.

It is an honour to lead this debate on human rights in Kashmir, as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Kashmir. I extend my thanks to the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate. Given that my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) and I applied for this debate back in March 2020, I wonder whether we might have reached a record for the time between something being approved and being debated. None the less, I am grateful that we can now debate an issue that is so important to many of our constituents.

The partition of India into India and Pakistan in 1947 and the cavalier manner in which the governance of Kashmiris was determined without them has led to 74 years of unrest, dozens of UN resolutions, and violence across the line of control and within Indian-administered Kashmir, or IAK, and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, or PAK.

Since I was elected chair of the APPG back in November 2018, its focus has been on the promotion of human rights in all parts of Kashmir. This followed the first ever report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on human rights in Kashmir in July 2018. The report documented human rights abuses in both IAK and PAK, and concentrated in particular on the period between 2016 and 2018, following the unprecedented protests and violence that erupted after the killing of Burhan Wani, the leader of Hizbul Mujahideen, by Indian security forces in 2016—[Interruption.] I do hope that my voice will last till the end of my speech!

The abuses that the United Nations reported in the then Jammu and Kashmir state of Indian-administered Kashmir, and what it noted as the “root causes” that were fuelling local dissent, included the reported killings of civilians by off-duty police and army personnel with impunity; the failure to independently investigate and prosecute widespread reports of sexual violence committed by security services personnel; people reported disappeared with impunity; the detention of thousands of people, including children, under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act 1978, which, for the uninitiated, allowed the state to take a person into preventive detention without trial for up to two years; the obstruction of access to justice, through not just the 1979 Act but the Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act 1990, which gives security personnel powers to investigate and arrest without warrants, as well as protecting those personnel under law; and, finally, the obstruction of access to basic medical care for civilians.

The UN report concluded:

“In responding to demonstrations that started in July 2016, Indian security forces used excessive force that led to unlawful killings and a very high number of injuries...Civil society estimates are that 130 to 145 civilians were killed by security forces between mid-July 2016 and end of March 2018, and 16 to 20 civilians killed by armed groups in the same period. One of most dangerous weapons used against protesters during the unrest in 2016 was the pellet-firing shotgun, which is a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun that fires metal pellets.”

For PAK, the UN reported that

“the human rights violations in this area are of a different calibre or magnitude and of a more structural nature.”

For example, it identified that the Pakistan Government had control over the affairs of Azad Jammu and Kashmir and of Gilgit Baltistan. It identified that the interim constitution of AJK prevents anyone criticising AJK’s accession to Pakistan in contravention of international standards on the rights to freedom of expression, opinion, assembly and association.

Local people in Gilgit Baltistan have been forcibly displaced to make way for the China-Pakistan economic corridor.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Unfortunately, that pattern of abuse will be all too familiar not only to our constituents of Kashmiri heritage, but to those from the Punjab, where similar abuses are taking place. In Kashmir, in particular, it is a matter not only of enormous abuse of human rights but, given the security situation, of international concern because of the tensions. Should the international community not therefore intervene to try to resolve this issue?

[Debbie Abrahams]

We cannot say—this has been said on too many occasions—that this is just a bilateral issue. I will come to that point in a moment.

The last point that was raised is around the discrimination against ethnic and religious minorities. The UN report also noted that the number of armed groups that have been operating across IAK and which were also held responsible for human rights abuses, including kidnappings, killings and sexual violence. The report stated that, despite the Pakistan Government’s denial,

“experts believe that Pakistan’s military continues to support their operations across the Line of Control in Indian-Administered Kashmir.”

The human rights high commissioner made a series of recommendations to both the Indian and Pakistani Governments, and the primary one that covers both is that the rule of law and international human rights must be upheld. Both of these countries are signatories to the universal declaration and they must be upheld.

Specifically, the high commissioner recommended that India repeal the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act 1958 and ensure that the 1978 public safety Act was compliant with international law. It was recommended that Pakistan amend the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997, bringing it in line with international human rights standards and safeguards as well as amend the interim constitution of AJK and other legislation that limits the rights of freedom of expression and opinion.

Let us fast forward to July 2019 when a second UN report was published. This was meant to be a progress report, but the high commissioner expressed real concerns that very little progress had been made. It noted that the political and military tensions between them, particularly as a result of the Pulwama attack in February, was having an impact on the human rights of Kashmiris on both sides of the line of control.

On 5 August 2019, as Members will know, after the Bharatiya Janata party’s general election win in India, Prime Minister Modi announced the revocation of article 370 in India’s constitution. The effect was to remove the special status afforded to Jammu and Kashmir since partition. A Bill was rapidly approved by both Houses of Parliament, splitting the state of Jammu and Kashmir into two federal territories, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, with direct rule from Delhi. The revocation of article 370 was also extended to article 35A, which removes the rights of indigenous Kashmiris, and has the potential to alter the distinct demographic character of IAK—a direct contravention of the 2007 UN declaration on the rights of indigenous people.

[Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and for bringing this debate to the House. This week, Narendra Modi will be addressing the United Nations General Assembly. Does she agree that it is high time that Narendra Modi is challenged on the breaking of the UN conventions and on the reports of human rights abuses in Kashmir?

[Debbie Abrahams]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that whenever and wherever there are human rights abuses—in whichever country, including our own—we should hold that country to account. That still needs to happen.

Accompanying the changes to India’s constitution, the Indian Government sent tens of thousands of Indian troops to the Kashmir valley, imposed a strict curfew and blocked all communications. In addition, initially hundreds and then thousands of people, including politicians, were detained. The National Federation of Indian Women claims that 13,000 teenage boys, some as young as 14, were imprisoned for up to 45 days, far away from their families.

During the weeks and months that followed, it was difficult to get accurate information about what was happening in IAK. There was an imposed media blackout and the Indian Government refused to allow independent observers to IAK, other than through those carefully choreographed visits. Despite that, there were reports of food and medicines shortages, and ongoing communication issues, especially for non-business purposes. Concerns were also being raised about the restrictions on access to essential healthcare as a result of the lockdown measures. Children’s education was severely disrupted, with parents afraid to let their children out of their sight. Although some of those detained have been released, thousands still remain in prison. In some cases, their families do not know where they are. On top of this, there are very concerning allegations of torture.

It is in this context that in early 2020 the all-party parliamentary Kashmir group decided that a delegation should try to visit IAK and PAK as early as possible in that year. The Kashmiri diaspora in the UK had raised concerns about family members still in Kashmir, and this is still a real concern for our constituents. Unfortunately, the Indian Government did not respond to the APPG’s request to visit. However, through the Pakistani high commissioner in London, to whom I express my sincere thanks, the Pakistani Government agreed to allow the APPG unfettered access to PAK in February 2020. We said who we wanted to meet and where we wanted to go, and that was followed.

During our delegation’s visit, we met Prime Minister Khan and Foreign Minister Qureshi in Islamabad, the Prime Minister and President of Azad Kashmir in Muzaffarabad, and the Pakistan parliamentary committee on Kashmir. We used those meetings to ask pointed questions—and they were pointed—about the reports in the UN human rights report. At the time of our visit, Prime Minister Khan had just brokered a peace deal with Afghanistan, and that was his focus. He said, “This will allow us a bit more freedom also to look at what is happening on the east of our border.” If only we had known then what we know now.

It is fair to say that the pressure that Pakistan now faces along the Durand line has significantly escalated since our visit. As I said last month when we were recalled, the international community must step up and offer support to Pakistan and other third countries as this new wave of Afghan refugees migrates across the border. I sincerely hope, given that Pakistan has been such a strong advocate for human rights in IAK, that when it is engaging with the Taliban, it also speaks about the human rights of all Afghanis.

As much as the APPG delegates enjoyed meeting parliamentarians, I think we would probably say that we were particularly moved by our visit to a refugee camp in Gulpur, where we heard at first hand about the experience of people who had fled from IAK. The visit to the line of control at Chakoti, where we were briefed by the Pakistan military, made us acutely aware of the tensions at the border, and we were shown video footage of civilians apparently being shot at by the Indian military.

I found the briefings from the British high commission and the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan particularly revealing. UNMOGIP confirmed an extensive military presence in Srinagar and especially in IAK, with armed forces personnel every 30 metres or so contributing to the feelings of harassment and being under siege reported by civilians in IAK—and this was pre-covid. With the advent of the covid pandemic, civic society stakeholders reported a double lockdown with further detentions of large numbers of young IAK men in the spring of 2020, when we were all grappling with our first experience of lockdown. The use of other legislation, including the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Order and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Act were further examples of infringements by the Indian Government of international and human rights law.

The attack on human rights organisations such as Amnesty International India is another area of grave concern.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

I met members of Amnesty just earlier today, and they spoke about their concerns and their inability to do the vital work that they do in supporting human rights around the world because their offices and operations have been shut down by the Indian Government. Does the hon. Lady agree that we need to condemn that and support Amnesty to be able to do its very vital work?

--- Later in debate ---

[Debbie Abrahams]

Indeed. The APPG met Amnesty last autumn once we heard about that. If anybody is not familiar with it, please google what has happened; it is quite disturbing.

Amnesty International’s 2020 annual report cites how covid has been used by some countries to quell peaceful dissent, including in IAK and PAK. In IAK, journalists and human rights defenders were questioned for allegedly anti-national activities. The Indian police attacked or summoned 18 journalists for their reporting, and the offices of the Kashmir Times were sealed when its editor sued the Government after their shutdown of internet and telephone services in the region. In PAK last July, doctors peacefully protesting about the lack of security in the region were arrested.

In addition to the human rights issues, the stakeholders whom the APPG met or interviewed raised concern at the escalating tensions between India and Pakistan, and, latterly, India and China—all nuclear powers, making Kashmir a very significant security concern in the world.

The APPG discussed a number of recommendations for the international community, the Indian and Pakistani Governments, the British Government, and the APPG itself. The ones that we drafted in relation to the Government are as follows, and I would be very grateful if the Minister could respond to them: to provide Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office funding to support track 2 diplomacy measures in Kashmir, as well as practical support for Kashmiri refugees; to offer support via the Commonwealth to facilitate crisis talks and peacebuilding in Kashmir; to make the commitment to and delivery of human rights explicit in all UK trade deals, including with India and Pakistan; and to make an annual statement to the House—it is about four years since the last debate on Kashmir on the Floor of the House—on the Government’s contribution to conflict resolution and peacebuilding in Kashmir. Fundamentally, Kashmir must be at the heart of a trilateral peacebuilding process with India and Pakistan.

The APPG has members of Kashmiri, Pakistani, Indian and other heritages. We are passionate about human rights for all our brothers and sisters, at home and abroad. I have tried to be even-handed and to base my remarks on evidence. This is not pro or anti any country; it is definitely pro human rights. The plight of Kashmir is barely in our country’s consciousness, let alone in our media’s. I hope the media who are listening to this debate will notice the passion that we all bring to this subject, and I hope that this debate will change things.

[Several hon. Members rose—]