Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai
\nWashington
\nThe Committee against Torture opened its seventy-eighth session in Geneva on October 30 and will continue until November 24, 2023. The body of 10 independent experts is headed by Dr. Claude Heller of Mexico. The Committee will examine the implementation of the \u2018Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment\u2019 by its States parties.
\nIt is worth mentioning here that the Convention against \u2018Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment\u2019 was adopted on December 10, 1984. It entered into force on June 26, 1987.
\nArticle 1, of the Convention reads, \u201cFor the purposes of this Convention, the term \u201ctorture\u201d means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.\u201d
\nDr. Alice Jill Edwards (Australia), United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture told the United Nations Third Committee, \u201cThere is a persistent accountability gap for torture and ill treatment worldwide, caused in part by the systemic denial, deliberate obstruction and purposeful evasion of responsibility by public authorities.\u201d She added, \u201cwhen a State fails to defend truth and justice, it becomes an accomplice in torture. Some States wrongly perceive criminal investigations into torture as a direct attack on their legitimacy. On the contrary, what threatens governmental legitimacy is impunity.\u201d
\nHuman Rights Watch (HRW) talks about torture in these words, \u201cThe prohibition against torture is a bedrock principle of international law. Torture, as well as cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, is banned at all times, in all places, including in times of war. No national emergency, however dire, ever justifies its use.\u201d
\nSo, Torture is a universal sin and a crime against humanity. Torture with impunity, nonetheless, is widespread in the disputed territory of Kashmir. The abuses are so extensive as to extend beyond those directly affected, reaching every man, women, and child in the Valley of Kashmir. The civilians live under the constant threat of abuse.
\nThe overwhelming presence of 900,000 Indian military and paramilitary forces serves as a constant reminder to Kashmiris that they are not free people, but a people subjugated and enslaved against their will.
\nIndia has authorized a police state reminiscent of the Gestapo in Kashmir. The Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, The Armed Forces Special Powers Act, The Disturbed Areas Act, The Unlawful Activities Prevention Act are illustrative. Generally speaking, these laws empower the Indian military and paramilitary forces in Kashmir to arrest, detain, torture, search, wiretap, tr, and punish without material restraints.\u201d
\nTens of thousands of Indian officials are guilty of war crime in Kashmir. These crimes include willful killing, torture, rape, wanton destruction of civilian properties and maiming of innocent civilians. These brutalities are commonplace in Kashmir and have been verified by numerous impartial human rights NGOs.
\nMs. Arundhati Roy, an internationally acclaimed novelists of India wrote, \u201cThe documentation of instances of torture, disappearances, custodial deaths, rape and gang-rape (by security forces in Kashmir) is enough to make your blood run cold. The fact that despite all this India retains its reputation as a legitimate democracy in the international community and amongst its own middle class is a triumph.\u201d
\nDr. Juan E. Mendez, Former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Professor of Human rights Law in Residence at American University, Washington, Dc wrote about the \u2018Torture Report on Kashmir\u2019, \u201cHopefully, a serious debate among the Indian public about this report will prompt the national authorities to take the matter of torture seriously and establish effective control and to act as a more responsible global citizen and cooperate with the human rights machinery at the United Nations.\u201d
\nAljazeera reported that \u201cHuman Rights bodies say India uses torture as \u2018instrument of control\u2019 to quash rebellion in Indian-administered Kashmir.\u201d
\nAmnesty International reported, \u201cThe Indian government must take urgent steps for the protection of the people of Kashmir…Indian government\u2019s historical failure to protect the people of Kashmir will keep feeding into this never-ending cycle of abuses and impunity.\u201d
\nThe United States, Department of States, 2022 Country Report on Human Rights Practices in India says, \u201cAccording to human rights NGOs, police used torture, other mistreatment, and arbitrary detention to obtain forced or false confessions.\u201d
\nIt is gravely sinful for any nation to remain silent or passive over frightful human rights violations anywhere in the world, including Kashmir.
\nEdmund Burke wrote that all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men and women to do nothing. Bishop Desmond Tutu lectured that \u201cApathy in the face of systematic human rights violations is immoral. One neither support justice and freedom or one supports injustice and bondage.\u201d
\nLet me also tell you that even in today\u2019s violent world, the behavior of the Indian occupation regime in Kashmir is singular in so far as it has enjoyed total impunity from restraint imposed through international action or persuasions. No word of disapproval, much less condemnation, has been uttered by the international community.
\nThere has not been a call on India to cease and desist from the murderous course it has chosen for itself in Kashmir. Such passivity, such unfeeling and indifference, let no one blame the Kashmiris for concluding, amounts to encouragement of tyranny.
\nDoes anyone seriously believe that if the ICC statue were ratified by India, a single Indian soldier or civilian official would ever be prosecuted before the ICC? Of course, NOT. India has sneered at international law for decades, and the international community has yawned, whether the violations were in Kashmir or with minorities within India. Although not contrary to international law, India showed itself utterly contemptuous of international moral sentiments.
\nIt stands proudly outside the mainstream of international conventions.
\nAnd the Biden Administration would do nothing to call India to account. The United Nations Security Council has sat on its hands for over 76 years over Kashmir. President Biden stood mute when he met Prime Minister Modi at the White House on June 22, 2023, and then at G20 meeting on September 9, 2023, in New Delhi, India. He never paid any attention to the warning of Dr. Gregory Stanton, Chairman, Genocide watch who said that Kashmir was at the brink of genocide and New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists that the news media in Kashmir was at the brink of extinction. I still believe that President Biden will tell Prime Minister Modi to lead with the power of example and NOT the example of power to resolve the Kashmir conflict for the sake of international peace and security.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai Washington The Committee against Torture opened its seventy-eighth session in Geneva on October 30 and will continue until November 24, 2023. The body of 10 independent experts is headed by Dr. Claude Heller of Mexico. The Committee will examine the implementation of the \u2018Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":367477,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-367445","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n