Pakistan has told the UN General Assembly that India, whose prime minister is visiting the US later this month, was targeting Indian Muslims, Christians, as also Muslims of occupied Kashmir, and called for an end to their harsh suppression.
Ambassador Munir Akram in a speech during a debate on ‘Culture of Peace’ said, “To those who are ready today to open their doors to the Prime Minister of India, we urge that they call for a halt to India’s oppression and atrocities.”
“Their silence diminishes their stature and exposes their real commitments to universal human values and human rights as being hollow and hypocritical,” the Pakistani envoy told the 193-member Assembly.
In his remarks, noted for their depth and sweep, Ambassador Akram pointed out that recent times have witnessed a significant rise in hate, discrimination, xenophobia and organized violence against individuals, communities and nations due to their differences of cultures, nationalities, religions, or race.
“The most adverse development in the context is the proliferation of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hate and hostility, especially after the terrorist attacks of 9/11,” he said.
Several instances of military intervention, in which hundreds of thousands of Muslims have perished, would not have happened if Islamophobia had not influenced perceptions and decisions, the Pakistani envoy said, noting that the world is now dealing with the consequences of those mistakes.
“The resolution of the consequent conflicts and tensions in Asia and Africa will require the active promotion of a Culture of Peace,” Ambassador Akram said.
The international community, he said, cannot fail to address the worst contemporary manifestation of Islamophobia – “the threat posed by Hindutva hate in India against the 200 million Indian Muslims and Christians as well as the oppressed Muslims of occupied Jammu and Kashmir.”
“They seek to transform India into an exclusive Hindu State in which Muslims and other minorities are obliged to convert to Hinduism or accept ejection or a second-class existence.
“The founders of this party – the RSS, the parent of the ruling BJP – proudly equated their ideology with Hitler’s Nazis and called for the persecution of India’s Muslims just like the Jews,” he added.
The United Nations, he added, must demand that the Indian government halt its programme to eliminate India’s Islamic heritage – by changing history books, place names, school curriculums and other similar cultural obliteration of Islam.
India must also be prevented from reducing its Muslims to statelessness through the discriminatory Citizenship Law and National Registry List, he said, calling for an end to daily atrocities against Muslims such as the lynching of Muslims by “cow vigilantes”; detention of Muslims on a charge of “Love-jihad”; and violence against Christians for the “crime of proselytizing”.
“Hindutva extremism is also ‘turbo-charging’ India’s repression in occupied Jammu & Kashmir. It has deployed 900,000 troops – one soldier for every 8 Kashmiri men, women and children – to impose its colonial annexation of Kashmir, resorting to extra-judicial killings; the abduction of 15,000 Kashmiri boys; collective punishments; and the incarceration of the entire political leadership of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference – the true voice of the Kashmiri people,” Ambassador Akram said.
