PFP urges world to save Kashmiris from state terrorism

Muzaffarabad: Wednesday, May 20, 2009 Civil rights group Press for Peace (PFP) has called upon international human rights organizations to take notice of gross human rights violations in Pakistani Kashmir in order to protect people from state terrorism.

The accused policemen involved in assault on journalists and lawyers must immediately be sacked from their jobs and punished, the PFP demanded in an urgent meeting here on Wednesday.

The meeting was attended by Raja Wasim Director, Ammir uddin, Aurengzeb Saifullah, Jalalaudin Mughal, Khawaja Answer, Arshad Mughal and other officer bearers of the organization.

The meeting categorically condemned the shocking occurrence of ruthless police attacks and torture on the participants of a peaceful demonstration which was held to denounce illegal demolition of some houses by local authorities. According to detail, more than sixty citizens, sixteen of them critical, were injured in police baton charge and bullets of teargas during last two days in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani part of Kashmir.

‘It is a basic right of citizens to hold peaceful demonstrations for their demands, however, the police baton charge against citizens and torture on lawyers and journalists is an undeniable evidence of state aggression. Instead of provision of basic amenities to the people and protection of their lives, present government has failed its responsibilities and its authorities are victimizing blameless and peaceful citizens’, the meeting observed.

The meeting maintained that the barbaric acts of police has turned Azad Kashmir into a police state, refereeing an another incident of police torture in which the house of a prominent local lawyer and political leader Ibrahim Zia Advocate was attacked by local police few weeks ago, Director Raja Wasim said that the PPF would mobilize civil society for the protection of peoples rights.

The meeting also condemned police persecution on journalists who were present there to perform there professional duties. ‘Severe torture on journalists is assault on freedom of press, the meeting passed a resolution as well.