48th Session UNHRC: Intervention by Mr. Junaid Qureshi (Director EFSAS)
27-09-2021, Geneva (Virtual)
Text and video of Mr. Junaid Qureshi's Intervention on General Debate Item 4 (Human rights situations that require the Council's attention) during the 48th Session of the UN Human Rights Council.
Video of Mr. Junaid Qureshi's Intervention on General Debate Item 4 during the 48th Session of the UNHRC
"Madam President,
I would like to draw the Council’s attention to the grave situation in Afghanistan and the ramifications it could have for Jammu & Kashmir.
When the Soviets left Kabul in 1989, many Islamist fighters had to go somewhere. And for many, somewhere was Kashmir.
32 years later, when the last US soldier has left Afghanistan and Taliban has taken over, it again has rendered thousands of mercenaries, triumphant after having driven yet another superpower out of Afghanistan, jobless.
Visions of the dreadful years in the 1990s when these jihadis, trained, armed and patronized by Pakistan’s powerful intelligence agency, the ISI, were re-routed to Kashmir, have now come back to haunt us.
In view of the destructive role that Pakistan has historically played in the region, the people of Jammu & Kashmir fear that the country will persist with its strategy of engendering terrorism and will resume its policy of pushing terrorists into Kashmir to keep dangerous veterans of the Afghan campaigns from destabilizing Pakistan itself.
Madam President,
We Kashmiris stand with Afghans. Against the Taliban. Against terrorism.
I urge this council to intervene and deter the Islamic Republic of Pakistan from imposing its merchandise of terror and jihad on Afghans and us Kashmiris.
Because while we feel honoured with the Afghan proverb which says that everyone’s own homeland is Kashmir to him, we would not want our bruised homeland to become the Afghanistan of today.
Thank you".
