Kashmir Event at Labour Party Annual Conference

High Commissioner highlights humanitarian crisis in IIOJK

Labour Friends of Kashmir organized an event on the side-lines of the Annual Conference of the Labour Party in Brighton on 27 September 2021. They discussed in detail the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) and called for a just resolution of the issue in accordance with the relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council.

Chaired by Andrew Gwynne MP, the event was attended by a large number of Labour Party Parliamentarians, members of the British Pakistani community, Shadow Ministers, Labour Friends of Kashmir, rights activists and media persons.

The British Parliamentarians and other speakers expressed solidarity with the Kashmiris and demanded an immediate end to human rights abuses being committed in IIOJK. They urged the UK Government as well as the international community to play their due role to end the humanitarian crisis in IIOJK.

In his address on the occasion, High Commissioner Moazzam Ahmad Khan thanked the House of Commons for a recent debate to highlight and condemn human rights abuses committed by Indian occupation forces in IIOJK. He appreciated the fact that the British Parliament was maintaining a sharp focus on the continuing egregious human rights violations in Kashmir. He urged the Parliamentarians to move beyond the India-Pakistan binary and look at the issue of Kashmir in all its human, political, economic and humanitarian dimensions.

The High Commissioner termed India’s action of 05 August 2019 unilateral and illegal, and reaffirmed Pakistan’s support to the just struggle of the Kashmiri people for their right to self-determination. Highlighting the systematic and systemic attempts by the Indian Government to stifle the Kashmiris’ freedom struggle, he said it was a pet project of the Hindutva-inspired BJP government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to diminish the distinct indigenous Kashmiri identity and demography itself. He condemned the Indian Government for not allowing the dignified burial of the dead body of the iconic Kashmiri leader, Syed Ali Shah Gilani.

The High Commissioner also briefed the participants about salient features of the Dossier on IIOJK compiled by the Government of Pakistan recently detailing verified accounts of human rights abuses committed by the Indian occupation forces. The Dossier was distributed among the participants of the event.