British Kashmiri MP asks UAE to reconsider award to Modi, butcher of Gujrat and oppressor of Kashmiris

LONDON, Aug 20 (APP):British Member of Parliament, Naz Shah has strongly opposed granting the Order of Sheikh Zayed award to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi who once recognized as the butcher of Muslims of Gujrat and now oppressor of people of occupied Kashmir.

In a written letter to Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheik Mohammad bin
Zayed Al Nahyan of United Arab Emirates (UAE), British Kashmiri MP Naz Shah asked the Crown prince of UAE to reconsider the grating of prestigious award of their country to Modi.

In the letter, she said: “I write to you not only as a British Parliamentarian
representing a constituency home to thousands of British Kashmiris, but also
as a British Kashmiri expressing my complete dismay towards the decision made
by your government to award Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the order of
Zayed, your kingdom’s highest civilian award”.

Naz Shah said that Indian Prime Minister Modi was illegally removing the sovereignty of the people of Indian occupied Kasmir (IoK), through forced revocation of Articles 370 and 35-A.

Consequently, she said, to his orders, 38,000 more paramilitary officers
have been added to the already 700,000 strong forces, making occupied Kashmir the
most militarized region in the world.

Naz Shah said that Modi has placed the people of Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir into a complete lockdown for the more than last fifteen (15) days, with the shut down of the telecommunications, internet and other sources of communications.

She said that there have been reports of political leaders living under
house arrest, political activists injured with pellet guns, curfews and a maze of
razor wire that was locking the capital’s population into an open prison.

The British MP further said that after being a 5-day fact finding mission in
occupied Kashmir, Secretary of All India Progressive Women’s Association, Kavita
Krishnan, described Indian occupied Kashmir as being under a military siege and stated that “Frankly ,it looked like occupied Iraq or occupied Palestine”.

“Furthermore, due to the severity of the current situation ,the predicament of
the Kashmiri people has been raised at the United Nations Security Council for the first time in decades”, she remarked.

Naz Shah said that moreover, leading human rights voices such as Kumi Naidoo, the Secretary General of Amnesty International have commented on the issue.

Ahead of the UN Security Council meeting, Naidoo stated “The action of the
Indian government have thrown ordinary people’s lives into turmoil, subjecting
them to unnecessary pain and distress in top of the years of human rights violations
they have already endured”.

Naz Shah said that in the midst of all the illegal barbarity endured by the
Indian occupied Kashmiris, the brutality was now being directed by Prime
Minister Modi himself.

She said: “It saddened me greatly, to see the news that Modi, once recognized as the butcher of Gujrat being offered the UAE’s highest civilian honour, a title in the name of your founding father Sheikh Zayed”.

Sheikh Zayed, she said was a man of great honour, a figure who is remembered in the annals of history as exemplifying decent, chartiable and support for oppressed people, May God have mercy upon his soul”.

“To grant such recognition to an individual who is oppressing the people in occupied Kashmir in the name of Sheikh Zayed, was not only questions the values of this previously prestigious title, misrpresents his legacy but also forces the world to
debate the nature of your moral conscious”, she observed.

“I ask you to question this decision and reconsider giving such an award ,not only because the majority of the Kashmiris share the same faith as you, but because we have duty as a human being to stand up against the disregard of human rights and evil”, she said.

Naz Shah is a member of British Parliament for Bradford West and shadow
minister for women and equalities.