Early Times Report
JAMMU, July 12: Commissioner of United Nations Human Rights body, Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, who made public his biased and lop-sided report on human rights situation in Jammu & Kashmir, last month stands exposed. Hussein has been exposed by none other than a Canada-based journalist of Pakistan origin Zafar Bangesh.
On Wednesday, Bangesh claimed that he influenced UN high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, as far as his report on the human rights situation was concerned.
Zafar Bangesh on Wednesday claimed that "the UN High Commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, was in constant touch with him while preparing the report on human rights situation in Jammu & Kashmir".
The Government of India had rejected the report outright, saying it was boased, lop-sided and mischievous.
Bangesh claimed that he was in constant touch with Hussein while speaking at a conference on Kashmir in Mississauga Canada recently. Bangesh, inter-alia, said: "I can say it to you, and I say it with all humility, but with great pride, that we, 'The Friends of Kashmir', also have a role in the production of this report. In fact, I had personal correspondence with the high commissioner for human rights, email correspondence in which he responded to my personal letter and email saying he would like to have access to both sides of LoC".
Bangash also admitted to "lobbying with officials in Islamabad for facilitating a visit of the high commissioner and his representatives to PoJK". "I responded to him after speaking to the foreign office spokesperson in Pakistan, Nafees Zakaria, who used to be the consul general in Toronto and he assured that Pakistan would welcome the high commissioner and the representatives," Bangesh claimed in unambiguous terms.
It was on June 14 that Hussein made public his nasty report on human rights situation in Jammu & Kashmir. His biased report had said: "There was an urgent need to address past and ongoing human rights abuses and deliver justice for all people in Kashmir, who for seven decades have suffered a conflict that has claimed or ruined numerous lives".
The 49-page report - the first ever issued by the UN on the human rights situation in Jammu & Kashmir - details human rights violations and abuses. It, among other things, says that "the political dimensions of the dispute between India and Pakistan have long been in centre-stage, but this is not a conflict frozen in time" and that "it is a conflict that has robbed millions of their basic human rights, and continues to this day to inflict untold sufferings". |
