'UN report on PoK is highly dubious'

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights' report on the situation in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir is "highly dubious" as it has failed to address the deplorable human rights situation in the region despite having all "invaluable insights", a researcher at an Amsterdam-based foundation told the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).

"In its first-ever report on the situation in Jammu and Kashmir, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights states that 'restrictions on the freedoms of expression, opinion, peaceful assembly and association in PoK have limited the ability of the High Commissioner to assess the human rights situation there' completely disregards the invaluable insights shared at this august platform by numerous human rights activists, including those from the area itself, into the deplorable human rights situation there and atrocities committed by the Pakistani State in PoK and Gilgit Baltistan," Yoana Barakova, a research analyst with the Amsterdam-based European Foundation for South Asian Studies (EFSAS), said.

"The failure of the Office of the High Commissioner, to address said issues, not only renders the correctness and neutrality of this Report highly dubious," she added.

Barakova made these remarks during the ongoing 41st session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday.

The researcher observed that the report also labelled UN-designated terrorist organisations such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, Hizbul Mujahideen and Jaish-e-Mohammed as "armed groups".

"The report glosses over cross-border terrorism perpetrated by Pakistan's security agencies, while it labels UN-designated terrorist organisations, such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, Hizbul Mujahideen and Jaish-e-Mohammed as armed groups, negating UN parlance and contradicting the terminology of the UN Security Council's consolidated list of terrorist individuals and entities," she noted.

"The report also failed to make any recommendations imperative to the dismantling of the operation of these terrorist groups and their terrorist infrastructure," Barakova added.

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