Human rights tribunal set up in J&K

By OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

Srinagar, April 5: Three eminent human rights defenders of the country have, along with their compatriots from Jammu and Kashmir, set up an international people’s tribunal on human rights and justice in the restive state. The announcement about the launch made here on Friday comes amid allegations of widespread human rights abuses being articulated by local political and human rights groups.

The stakeholders in civil society across Jammu and Kashmir say that they are engulfed by local, regional and international political processes that bypass them, withholding their right to participate and decision-making. This was stated by Dr Angana Chatterji, the convenor of the tribunal, while announcing at a press conference here that the effort will have active involvement of Srinagar-based Public Commission on Human Rights, a constituent of the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) and support of other groups and individuals.

The tribunal, to be called "International People’s Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian-administered-Kashmir", proposes to enquire into the actions of the Indian state and its institutions in Jammu and Kashmir and examine conditions of injustice therein. However, it will also look into forms of "disempowered, reactive and violent resistance" on the part of groups engaged in militancy, and instances of outside intervention, the probable intersections between the injustices perpetrated by the Indian military and paramilitary forces and those enacted by militants, besides the activities of Hindu nationalist organisations.

Mr Pervez Imroz of the JKCCS said that the tribunal goes beyond condemnation. "It initiates an international process that looks into complex, systematic and institutionalised repression in order to engage global civil society in investigating crimes against humanity," he said.

Dr Chatterji charged that India was perpetuating a "systemic nature of violence and the spiral of brutality" in Jammu and Kashmir. "The repression of self-determination struggles and genocidal violence has left more than 70,000 dead and more than 8,000 have disappeared since 1989," she charged, adding the tribunal will, however, confine its investigations to the period between November 2003, when the India-Pakistan ceasefire on the de facto border in Kashmir began, and 2009 with supporting investigations related to the earlier period of insurgency.