Kashmir

Robbie Moore Excerpts

Wednesday 13th January 2021 Westminster Hall

[Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I thank the hon. Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) for securing this really important debate. I want to say a huge thanks to all my constituents who contacted me specifically on this issue. I know it sits very close to their hearts.

Kashmir has been living under heavy lockdown restrictions since August 2019, following the special status of Jammu and Kashmir being revoked by India. We should be clear about what these lockdowns actually mean. No foreign journalists are being allowed into Kashmir by the Indian Government. Thousands of people have been arrested and face harassment and imprisonment without due cause: lawyers, small business owners, journalists, students and of course human rights activists. Phone lines have been blocked and internet access taken away. Although some communication has been restored, it is patchy and heavily controlled by the Government.

Legal reforms have been made so that residents’ property rights can be revoked. Properties have been destroyed and innocent people are losing their lives. It is reported that nearly 300 Kashmiris have been killed and over 1,600 injured, and more than 900 houses have been destroyed since special status was revoked. That, quite rightly, is causing a huge amount of concern for many of my constituents across Keighley. These stories are being reported to me—to all of us, as we have heard—and they are harrowing.

Of course, as elected politicians in the United Kingdom we cannot decide on domestic policy in another country, but we can use our influence to ensure that this terrible situation is investigated and that our Government use their weight to put on pressure to reach a solution. The UK’s fundamental values are freedom and democracy. That applies not only to the situation in Kashmir, but around the world. Only yesterday, I said that to the Foreign Secretary during his statement on the terrible situation in western China.

I say to the Minister that now is the time to hear the allegations of human rights abuses from both sides of the line of control, but particularly from the Indian side. Only last October, speaking in the Middle East Institute in Washington DC, the world heard the President of Azad Kashmir accuse India of genocide. It is not in India’s interest for those allegations to go stated without investigation. I call on the Government to take this issue extremely seriously.

I would like to see UN human rights officials get access to both sides of the line of control, to find out the facts. Of course, India and Pakistan are both longstanding friends of our country. That is strengthened by the large Indian and Pakistani communities across our country. But a solution to the situation in Kashmir must be sought—after all, both countries are nuclear powers—and it must be sought at speed.

I know the Prime Minister is due to visit India at some point. I hope that he will raise the issue directly with Prime Minister Modi and seek his reassurances that all is being done to seek a solution. The UK must stand for freedom and democracy. That applies around the world, including in Kashmir.

[Philip Davies (in the Chair)]

We will keep the five-minute limit going.