UN Special Rapporteur on minority issues (Fernand de Varennes) stated that holding a #g20 meeting in #jammuandkashmir while massive #humanrights violations are ongoing is lendingsupport to attemps by #India to normalize the brutal & repressivedenial of democratic & other rights of #kashmiri #Muslims and #minorities. G20 should on the contrary uphold “International human rights obligations& the #UN Declaration of Human Rights should be upheld... and the situation in Jammu and Kashmir should be decried and condemned, not pushed under the rug and ignored with the holding of this meeting”.

Sixteen human rights organisations called on the Indian authorities to immediately stop the reprisals against human rights defenders and organizations in Jammu and Kashmir, especially Khurram Parvez, Irfan Mehraj, and the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS). Khurram Parvez has been arbitrarily detained since 22 November 2021 as a reprisal for his human rights work, including documentation and advocacy in Jammu and Kashmir. The organizations called on the Indian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release Khurram Parvez and Irfan Mehraj, drop all charges against them and to end the ongoing persecution and targeting of human rights defenders in Jammu and Kashmir. Reprisals against human rights defenders in Jammu and Kashmir including human rights organizations and independent journalists are aimed at maintaining a forcible silence and facilitating continued impunity for violations in an intensely militarized region that the Indian government has made inaccessible to the international community and where grave human rights violations arelongstanding and ongoing.

Kashmir Scholars Consultative Action Network (and supporting organizations and endorsers) urges invited participants withdraw from G20 meetings planned for Indian-Administered Kashmir (IAK) on May 11 and May 22-24, 2023. The letter furthers urges invited countries and organizations to immediately comply with their duties under international law and cooperate to end the Indian state’s serious breaches of peremptory legal norms in IAK – including the illegal occupation, annexation, and colonization of IAK and the commission of atrocity crimes and grave human rights violations in the region.

Kashmir Scholars Consultative and Action Network April 1, 2023 public statement on the Arrests of Irfan Mehraj and Khurram Parvez. KSCAN invites institutional endorsements and individual signatories in support of this statement. Individual scholars, journalists, and activists should add their signatures using this Google form. Organizations should email kashmirscholarsnetwork@protonmail.com to add their institutional endorsements.  See the full statement with a complete list of signatories at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1B8fbzSXg-1tmMT5XeQjCEkG993_HyHZftUlz_ILwGm8/.

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UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders (Mary Lawlor) with the endorsement of the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of peaceful assembly and of association (Clément Nyaletsossi Voule)dcalls for the release and the closing of the investigations against Kashmiri human rights defenders, including Khurram Parvez and Irfan Mehraj. “The State must respect its human rights obligations and be held accountable where it violates them....Former associates and volunteers of the JKCCS are facing coercion and intimidation from the authorities. The Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) carries out essential work monitoring human rights. Their research and analysis of human rights violations are of huge value, including to international organisations seeking to ensure accountability and non-repetition of abuses. UN experts have repeatedly highlighted grave concerns regarding the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, which allows the designation of any individual as a ʽterroristʼ, bypassing the requirement to establish membership or association with banned groups. The Act is applied as a means of coercion against civil society, the media, and human rights defenders in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir.