A young woman from Baramulla has taken the plight of people in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) to the international stage, speaking out against Islamabad’s crackdown on protests in the region at the 63rd Session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. Tasleema Akhtar later spoke to NDTV from Geneva about her intervention, saying she was not afraid to speak plainly and challenge what she called Pakistan’s false narratives.
Tasleema Akhtar is a socio-political activist associated with the Association of Terror Victims in Kashmir (ATVK). Addressing the UNHRC General Assembly in Geneva, she raised concerns over the human rights situation in PoK, accusing Pakistani security forces of firing on civilians who were peacefully demanding basic rights.
“There should be an independent probe into each killing with free and fair access to information related to all cases,” she said at UNGA.
Speaking to NDTV, Akhtar said Pakistan’s biggest falsehood was referring to PoK as “Azad Kashmir”. “The biggest lie of Pakistan is calling PoJK ‘Azad Kashmir’. People of an independent nation are not sprayed with bullets for asking for their fundamental rights,” she said.
She said Pakistan could never genuinely act in the interest of Kashmiris. “First they tried to convert J&K into a graveyard by pushing terrorists, and now they have turned PoJK into a graveyard by killing innocent unarmed protestors,” she said.
Akhtar also said there was no one present at the UN to represent the people of PoK directly, alleging that Pakistan had instead brought in London-based individuals to speak on the region’s behalf and present what she called a fabricated narrative.
At the UN General Assembly in New York, Akhtar said PoK had recently seen sustained peaceful protests, led by the Joint Awami Action Committee and civil society groups, over governance and economic issues, and that these had been met with a harsh response from authorities.
“The Pakistan government arrested hundreds of activists, detained key leaders, shut down the internet, and resorted to violent clashes that claimed dozens of lives, exposing political instability and public discontent in PoK,” she said.
She also pointed to what she described as a complete absence of civic space in the region, calling for the UNHRC to step in. “There is no civic space in PoK. Large-scale reprisals and killing of innocent civilians by Pakistani forces must be stopped at once. Civic space and communications must be restored, and there should be an independent inquiry into each killing,” she said.
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