Kashmir: Self-determination

Political prisoners remain behind bars without any due process. Khurram Parvez, a globally respected human rights defender, has spent years in prison for documenting abuses. Yasin Malik has been convicted in proceedings widely condemned for lacking fairness and transparency by every human rights organisation and now faces the death penalty. Many others, including Asiya Andrabi and Irfan Mehraj, remain imprisoned under draconian legislation. Political disputes are criminalised with one aim: to silence legitimate voices for self-determination. Kashmiris continue to suffer under a system that strips them of dignity, voice and agency.

In Azad Kashmir, where conditions are arguably much better and where there can be simply no comparison with the violence and bloodshed faced daily by Kashmiris on the Indian side, we have recently seen, very concerningly, a region-wide lockdown triggered by deep public grievances and followed by the suspension of mobile internet and even landline services. Markets have been closed and transport halted. Heavy deployments of security forces have created real fear and uncertainty for ordinary people. Those events have tragically led to the deaths and casualties of many. The current dispute started with Kashmiri grievances and demands, at the core of which were basic rights such as the right to a decent education, decent healthcare, fair pricing for electricity, and basic human rights that should be granted to all people.

Of course, I welcome the de-escalation of the situation and the positive negotiations between the Pakistani Government, the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Government and the grassroots movement, the Awami Action Committee. I thank all colleagues who signed the letter from the all-party parliamentary group on Kashmir, and I am grateful to those Governments for liaising with it. But let me make it absolutely clear that the human rights of Kashmiris must be respected and that all the reasonable demands of the Awami Action Committee must be met in full and implemented in full.

The central point of this debate is our moral, legal, historical and political duty. The United Kingdom is not a neutral observer in this conflict. Our decisions at partition, our diplomacy in the early decades and our vote for United Nations resolutions created obligations that remain unfulfilled to this day. We helped to shape Kashmir’s unresolved status, and therefore we bear a share of the responsibility for resolving it. We cannot speak of human rights in other parts of the world while telling Kashmiris that their rights are a matter for someone else to address. That is completely absurd and a clear abdication of our responsibilities.

We cannot pick and choose when it comes to human right abuses, yet for decades successive Governments have done just that. Governments of all stripes since the early ’70s have relied on the easy line that this is a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan, which has allowed us to wash our hands of moral, legal or political obligations. Let me be clear: this is not a bilateral issue and never has been. At its heart are international law and the right of Kashmiris to self-determination.

Action is required. Silence is not neutrality; frankly, it is complicity. The world has allowed UN resolutions on Kashmir to sit gathering dust for decades, and that must end. The UK must match its words with action by raising human rights concerns at every diplomatic level, demanding the release of political prisoners, insisting on independent access for journalists and observers, and ensuring that any future trade negotiations with India contain binding human rights conditions. Trade cannot trump human rights, and economic deals must never come at the expense of the Kashmiri people’s dignity, safety and democratic rights.

I have some simple questions for the Minister. First, do the Government and the Minister, who speaks for them, accept that the UK has a moral, historical and legal responsibility to support the full implementation of United Nations resolutions? Will he confirm that the UK Government’s position is to support the Kashmiri people’s birthright to self-determination through a free and fair plebiscite? Will the Government commit to ensuring that future trade negotiations with India do not come at the expense of human rights, accountability or justice, as trade cannot be prioritised over the rights of people who have been oppressed for generations, or do we apply a different set of rules to Kashmir?

The key question that we, our Kashmiri constituents and everybody up and down the country who champions human rights are asking is: what is the Government’s stance on whether this is a bilateral or an international issue? When political parties go out campaigning in our constituencies, big promises are made on issues such as Kashmir. Frankly, people are fed up with promises made by successive parties and Governments, all of which have gone on to betray the Kashmiri people.

Do the Government have the moral courage to stand by and defend their obligations under international law, to provide a case that moves away from the age-old wrong argument—that this is a bilateral issue—to one that recognises it as an issue deep-rooted in international law? That is the central question for the Government and the Minister. Along with hundreds of thousands of people watching, I would appreciate a straight answer.