Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai, Chairman of the World Forum for Peace & Justice, has drawn the attention of international community to the worsening economic, social and cultural rights of people living under Indian occupation in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir.  Addressing the ongoing 77th session of Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) in Geneva under the chairmanship of Mohamed Ezzeldin Abdul-Moneim of Egypt, Dr Fai citing UN resolutions emphasized that these rights are inseparable from civil and political freedoms and must be protected through global cooperation.  

The session will conclude on February 28, 2025. Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai said in its Resolution 4 of 21 February 1977, the commission on Human Rights stressed the responsibility and duty of all members of the international community to create the necessary conditions for the full realization of economic, social and cultural rights as an essential means of ensuring the real and meaningful enjoyment of civil and political rights and fundamental freedoms. Dr. Fai suggested that the eighteen independent experts of the 77th session of ESCR must examine the issue of realization of these rights of peoples under foreign occupation or alien domination.

It should devise ways and means of monitoring the violations of economic social and cultural rights. As an example, the people of Kashmir have been languishing under the foreign occupation of India for the last more than seven decades. India has depriving them not only of economic, social and cultural rights but of all civil and political rights as well. They have yet to realize their right to self-determination despite being promised by the UN Security Council. He slammed India's continued denial of Kashmiris' right to self-determination and condemned the international community’s silence, attributing it to economic interests in India.

He warned that media suppression in Kashmir has reached alarming levels, with press freedoms declining below those of Afghanistan and Myanmar. He argued that Kashmiris’ legitimate struggle is wrongly labeled as militancy to justify repression. Dr. Fai urged the UN and world powers to prioritize human rights over political and economic considerations and take meaningful steps toward resolving the Kashmir dispute in line with UN resolutions.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan (INP)