British Members of Parliament have stood in solidarity with the Kashmiri people strongly condemning the gross human rights violations of the Kashmiri people being committed by the Indian occupation forces.
Speaking at a webinar hosted by the Pakistan High Commission in London to mark Kashmir Solidarity Day on Friday, the MPs demanded India immediately repeal draconian laws regarding the occupied valley. They added that the country end the military siege, stop demographic changes in the occupied region, lift communication blockade and release all political prisoners. The MPs called on the international community to speak out against the BJP governments’ discriminatory laws against Muslims and other minorities in India, and also in IIOJK.
In his opening remarks, High Commissioner Moazzam Ahmad Khan apprised the audience about the unabated atrocities being committed by the Indian security forces in occupied Kashmir. He said that nearly a million-armed occupation forces were violating the fundamental rights of innocent and unarmed Kashmiris at a scale unparalleled in modern times.
Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) is today the locus of the heaviest concentration of armed occupation force anywhere in the world, as the BJP’s long-term project of altering Kashmir’s demographic makeup continues. Khan called upon the UK government to play its due role in bringing the humanitarian crisis and the political dispute to a peaceful and just conclusion, in accordance with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions and the wishes of the Kashmiri people.
Terming it an international issue, the speakers unanimously refuted the Indian narrative of Kashmir being an internal matter and pledged to continue to raise their voice for the basic human rights of the Kashmiris. Drawing parallels between the issue of Falkland Islands/Gibraltar and Jammu & Kashmir, the parliamentarians urged the British government to apply the principle of the inalienable right to self-determination universally on all peoples.
It was also stressed that a genocide was underway in the valley by Indian occupation forces and that urgent international intervention is warranted to call Narendra Modi-led Indian government to account.
The webinar was attended by a large number of cross-party British MPs from both houses of parliament, eminent scholars, academics, members of the civil society, and British friends of Kashmir.
The speakers included MPs Debbie Abrahams, Paul Bristow, Afzal Khan, Steve Baker, Imran Hussain, Tony Lloyd, James Daly, Khalid Mehmood, Naz Shah, Yasmin Qureshi, Lord Qurban Hussain, Lord Wajid Khan, MP Muhammad Yasin, Raja Najabat Hussain, Prof Dr Victoria Schofield, Dr Nazir Gilani, Dr Khurshid Ahmed, and Muzammil Thakur among others.
