BRUSSELS: A three day international conference “the Russell Tribunal on Kashmir” hosted by Kashmir Civitas, the international civil advocacy organizations working for the Kashmiris’ right to self-determination, concluded on Sunday.
Organized by an international civil society organization in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia Herzegovina, the speakers highlighted the issue of Indian crimes against humanity in occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
The aim of the event was to highlight the grave issue of genocide, settler-colonialism, crimes against humanity and nuclear threat emerging in the region due to dispute of Jammu and Kashmir.
A discussion panel of the event titled, “Crimes Against Humanity,” moderated by veteran Kashmiri figure Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai, included Chairman Kashmir Council EU Ali Raza Syed, Dr. Emir Suljagic, Daniyal Ubaidullah, Ambassador Malik Nadeem and Naveed Sheikh.
Various scholars, experts and intellectuals from different parts of the globe participated in the event.
Chairman Kashmir Council Europe (KC-EU) Ali Raza Syed said Indian occupation forces are committing crimes against the humanity in occupied Kashmir for more than seven decades.
He said, India forces are involved in extra judicial killings, forced disappearances of youth, rape of women, targeting the protesters by pellet guns and direct bullets, imprisonment of the political workers and leaders of Jammu and Kashmir.
The Russell Tribunal, is a private People’s Tribunal established in 1966 by Bertrand Russell, British philosopher and Nobel Prize winner.
Kashmir Civitas partnered with the Russell Foundation in London, UK, the Permanent Peoples Tribunal of Bologna, Italy, the International University of Sarajevo and the Center for Advanced Studies for three day Russell Tribunal on Kashmir in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia from 17 to 19 Dec 2021.
Chairman KC-EU said, occupied Jammu and Kashmir based Indian forces are involved in all of the criminal acts including torture, sexual violence, murder, extermination, enforced disappearances and deportation, or forcible transfer of population which under the international laws is crime against the humanity.
He said, Kashmiris have also started a move to pressurize India to release of known human rights activists Khurram Parvez in Europe.
Ali Raza Syed called upon international community to use its influence for release of Khurram Parvez and other Kashmiri figures detained in Indian jails.
Chairman Kashmir Council Europe Ali Raza Syed said, crimes against humanity appeared for the first time in a treaty in the 1945 Nuremberg Charter at the end of the Second World War, albeit with a different definition than today.
Since the 1990s, crimes against humanity have been codified in different international treaties such as the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (1993), the Statute of the International Tribunal for Rwanda (1994) and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (1998).
The Rome Statute provides the most recent and most expansive list of specific criminal acts that may constitute crimes against humanity.
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