Human Rights Violations in Kashmir, Syria, & Palestine
For decades, Human Rights have been violated in Kashmir and Palestine. However, now the atrocities have spread the web in Syria as well. Each of this region is the living proof that violence has always been a serious infringement in the basic rights. The dispute began in 1947 with the partition of the British Indian Empire into India and Pakistan.
The situation of Kashmir gets worse as each year passes. Last year was the worst, yet the transgression only continues. Each year the body counts keep on rising. What’s even more dismaying is, the barring of every effort done in order to make the situation better. In 2016, a rights activist from Jammu and Kashmir, Khurram Parvez, was going to Geneva to brief officials on the ongoing Kashmir issue at the UNHRC session but was held back from boarding a flight from Delhi to the said destination. A refusal to invite a mission and detention of rights activists is further proof of India’s reluctance to let the violation of human rights in Kashmir be highlighted on any international forum. While Pakistan’s letter to the UN has been acknowledged, India has refused to write one. In order to send any mission, the UNHRC chief requires an invitation from both countries.
Torture, impunity, rape, murder, disappearances, use of violence in internal conflicts, executions and countless deaths are what sums up the atrocities in Kashmir.
The NHRC stated in its 1996-1997 report that 1,375 armed forces personnel had been killed and 2,237 injured in Jammu and Kashmir between January 1, 1988 and April 30, 1997. The totals were 918 civilians, 189 security force personnel and 1,114 militants, according to reliable press reports in 1997.
According to U.S. Department of State, India Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 1998. Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, February 26, 1999. According to the Kashmiri-Canadian Council, 47,455 Kashmiris have died since October 1989.
Kashmiri-Canadian Council have put forward an alarming number of rape statistics too; 6,300 Kashmiri women have been raped. Indian security forces have adopted rape as a method to attack Kashmiri women who they accuse of sympathizing with the militants. By raping these women, the security forces are aiming to punish and humiliate the entire community.”
-Human Rights Watch
“Impunity has been and remains a serious problem in Jammu and Kashmir. Security forces have committed thousands of serious human rights violations over the course of the conflict, including extrajudicial killings, disappearances, and torture.”
-US department of state
Last year was a significant year as the International Community has finally taken notice of the torment and tyranny in Kashmir. Many countries have outspoken against the fascism rendered by Indian forces.
The situation of Palestine is no different.
Even in 2015 Israel continued to spread the horror by enforcing severe and discriminatory restrictions on Palestinians’ human rights. Israeli authorities also irrationally held up peaceful Palestinian demonstrators. That included children too.
Israeli security forces killed at least 120 and injured at least 11,953 Palestinian civilians in West Bank, Gaza, and Israel as of the same date, including bystanders, protesters, and suspected assailants.
Israeli forces are also responsible for destructing homes and other property under discriminatory practices that severely restrict Palestinians’ access to construction permits and forcibly displaced hundreds of Palestinian residents in West Bank areas under Israeli control, as well as Bedouin citizens of Israel. Israeli courts have been unwilling to rule on the legality of the settlements under international law.
Palestine also acceded to the International Criminal Court treaty and became an ICC member in April. Following a January 2015 declaration by the Palestinian government giving the ICC a mandate back to June 13, 2014, the ICC prosecutor opened a preliminary examination to determine whether the criteria have been met to merit pursuing a formal investigation.
The horror have spread its wings to the region of Syria as well. Once a peaceful country, Syria is one of those regions now that witness serious encroachments of the rights.
Greater United States and Russian engagement on Syria and efforts to reach a political settlement in 2016 failed to significantly reduce egregious violations of human rights and humanitarian law that have come to characterize the armed conflict there.
According to the Syrian Center for Policy Research, an independent Syrian research organization, the death toll from the conflict as of February 2016 was 470,000. The spread and intensification of fighting has led to a dire humanitarian crisis, with 6.1 million internally displaced people and 4.8 million seeking refuge abroad, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. By mid-2016, an estimated 1 million people were living in besieged areas and denied life-saving assistance and humanitarian aid.
More than 117,000 have been detained or disappeared since 2011, the vast majority by government forces, including 4,557 between January and June 2016, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights. Torture and ill-treatment are rampant in detention facilities; thousands have died in detention.
The Islamic State (also known as ISIS), and the former Al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra, which changed its name to Jabhat Fath al-Sham, were responsible for systematic and widespread violations, including targeting civilians with artillery, kidnappings, and executions. Non-state armed groups opposing the government also carried out serious abuses including indiscriminate attacks against civilians, using child soldiers, kidnapping, unlawfully blocking humanitarian aid, and torture.
On October 28, Russia lost its seat at the Human Rights Council after failing to secure enough votes for re-election from UN member states. Various human rights and humanitarian relief organizations, including Human Rights Watch, had urged UN member states to hold Russia accountable for its involvement in possible war crimes.
In its fourth report, released this year, the Joint Investigative Mechanism between the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the UN concluded that Syrian government forces used chemicals in an attack in Idlib in March 2015. The inquiry also identified the military units responsible for flights connected to the attacks but could not name the commanders of the units due to the Syrian government’s failure to respond to crucial queries. In an earlier report, the joint inquiry had reached the same conclusion for two other attacks, in 2014 and 2015. The inquiry also previously found that ISIS had used sulfur mustard gas in an attack on areas held by armed opposition groups in August 2015.
