Daily Times

Despite the right to self-determination being U.N. Charter’s “core principle”, Pakistan has voiced great concern that millions of people around the globe, notably the people of Kashmir and Palestine, still await the fulfillment of this right’s promise of freedom and equality for all people.

“The continued suffering of these people serves as a stark reminder of our unfulfilled obligations,” Ambassador Usman Jadoon, acting permanent representative of Pakistan to the UN, told the General Assembly’s Third Committee, which deals with social, humanitarian and cultural issues, on Monday.

“Today, millions, including Kashmiris, are systematically deprived of their right to determine their destiny,” he said during a debate on the ‘Right of the peoples to self-determination’.

“As we discuss self-determination in this debate, we renew our collective responsibility to eliminate the remnants of colonial and foreign occupations that deny people their legitimate rights.”

On October 27, 1947, he recalled India forcibly occupied Jammu and Kashmir, initiating a brutal chapter in the disputed region’s history that continues to deny Kashmiris their right to self-determination. “Despite clear international recognition through more than a dozen Security Council resolutions, Kashmiris continue to live under foreign occupation of India.”

In August 2019, Ambassador Jadoon said, India escalated its repression in Kashmir through unilateral and illegal actions that amount to de facto annexation, blatantly violating international law and UN Security Council resolutions.

Since then, Kashmir has witnessed a rise in heinous human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings, torture, denial of civil liberties, enforced disappearances, and collective punishments, the Pakistani envoy said. “Furthermore, India has intensified its attempts at demographic engineering, aiming to alter the social fabric of the occupied territory and erase its indigenous character by granting more than 4 million domicile certificates.”

These atrocities, he said, were well-documented by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), as well as numerous human rights organizations and global media. Two significant OHCHR reports, alongside statements from the UN High Commissioner and communications from Special Procedures, confirm the severity and systematic nature of human rights violations in Kashmir.

“These reports catalog the plight of a people held captive in their homeland, confronting violence as they seek only the right to exist freely and fairly.” India, he said, continues to evade accountability, noting that this calculated impunity not only undermines the human rights framework but poses a significant threat to international peace and security.

Ambassador Jadoon urged the United Nations, particularly the Secretary-General and the Security Council, to take concrete actions toward enabling a plebiscite in Kashmir, as mandated by previous UN resolutions. “The international community must hold India accountable and support the Kashmiri people’s right to determine their future without interference, violence, or fear.”

He said the vision of peace and security cannot be realized until people under foreign occupation and alien domination have the right to self-determination to determine their own future.