This communication from the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the UN Special Rapporteurs on the situation of human rights defenders, the promotion of freedom of speech, the rights to assembly and association, the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism and torture expresses serious concern regarding the arbitrary detetnion and ill-treatment of Muhammad Ahsan Untoo, the misuse of counter-terror laws to retaliate against human rights defenders and poor conditions of detention, indefinite detention and detention with charge or trial. The UN human rights experts note that "his detention appears to be part of a strategy to disrupt, intimidate, detain and punish those engaging in journalism and human rights advocacy."

Topics: arbitrary detention and ill-treatment of human rights defender Muhammad Ahsan Untoo

Terms: January 2022 arbitrary detention of Muhammad Ahsan Untoo, International Forum for Justice and Human Rights Jammu Kashmir, ill-treatment, torture, Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), Jammu Kashmir Public Safety Act (PSA), revolving door detention, violaiton of right to fair trial, violation of right to habeas corpus, violation of right to liberty, poor prison conditions, denial of medical treatment, physical torture, sexual torture, special cell, Security Council Resolution 1566, Nelson Mandela Rules, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders

An expert panel examines India's hosting of G20 meetings in Indian-Administered Jammu and Kashmir on May 22 - 24, 2023. Dolores Chew- introduction; Panelists: * Anam Zakaria, award-winning author and journalist * Ather Zia, political anthropologist, poet, short fiction writer, and columnist and an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Gender Studies at the University of Northern Colorado Greeley * Robert Fantina, journalist and author of Settler-Colonialism in Palestine and Kashmir * Dean Accardi (Moderator), Assistant Professor of History at Connecticut College  ‍

Co-sponsors Academics for Palestine-Concordia, Canadian Foreign Policy Institute, Canadian Voices for Palestinian Rights, Canadians for Peace and Justice in Kashmir, CERAS (South Asia Forum), CODEPINK, Critical Diasporic South Asian Feminisms Collective,Free Kashmiri political prisoners, Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA), India Solidarity Germany - Munich, International Defenders Council, International Solidarity for Academic Freedom in India (InSAF India), Just Peace Advocates, Justice for All-Canada, Kashmir Law and Justice Project, Kashmir Scholars Consultative and Action Network, Kashmir-Palestine Scholars Solidarity Network, LeftWingBooks.net (Kersplebedeb), Palestinian and Jewish Unity (PAJU), People's Health Movement United States, Projet accompaniment solidaire Colombie (PASC), Punjabi Literary and Cultural Association Winnipeg, Quebec Public Interest Research Group (QPIRG) - Concordia, South Asia Solidarity Group (SASG), South Asian Diaspora Action Collective (SADAC), Stand with Kashmir, The PolisProject, University Network for Human Rights, World BEYOND War.

In April 2023, Indian authorities continued to commit grave human rights violations in Indian-administered Kashmir. Indian forces killed at least two adults and one unborn child. At least one person was killed by unexploded ordnance. Indian authorities continued to suppress the right to freedom of expression, specifically targeting Kashmiri journalists. The Jammu & Kashmir administration continued its ongoing systematic campaigns to displace Kashmiris from, and dispossess them of, their residential, agricultural and commercial property on various pretexts. In developments with a disproportionate impact on IAK, Indian authorities continued their ongoing censoring and erasure of information that contradicts or challenges state-preferred narratives, including through revising textbooks to eliminate history and imposing government approvals over social media content about Indian authorities.

UN Special Rapporteur on minority issues (Fernand de Varennes) stated that holding a #g20 meeting in #jammuandkashmir while massive #humanrights violations are ongoing is lendingsupport to attemps by #India to normalize the brutal & repressivedenial of democratic & other rights of #kashmiri #Muslims and #minorities. G20 should on the contrary uphold “International human rights obligations& the #UN Declaration of Human Rights should be upheld... and the situation in Jammu and Kashmir should be decried and condemned, not pushed under the rug and ignored with the holding of this meeting”.

Sixteen human rights organisations called on the Indian authorities to immediately stop the reprisals against human rights defenders and organizations in Jammu and Kashmir, especially Khurram Parvez, Irfan Mehraj, and the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS). Khurram Parvez has been arbitrarily detained since 22 November 2021 as a reprisal for his human rights work, including documentation and advocacy in Jammu and Kashmir. The organizations called on the Indian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release Khurram Parvez and Irfan Mehraj, drop all charges against them and to end the ongoing persecution and targeting of human rights defenders in Jammu and Kashmir. Reprisals against human rights defenders in Jammu and Kashmir including human rights organizations and independent journalists are aimed at maintaining a forcible silence and facilitating continued impunity for violations in an intensely militarized region that the Indian government has made inaccessible to the international community and where grave human rights violations arelongstanding and ongoing.

Kashmir Scholars Consultative Action Network (and supporting organizations and endorsers) urges invited participants withdraw from G20 meetings planned for Indian-Administered Kashmir (IAK) on May 11 and May 22-24, 2023. The letter furthers urges invited countries and organizations to immediately comply with their duties under international law and cooperate to end the Indian state’s serious breaches of peremptory legal norms in IAK – including the illegal occupation, annexation, and colonization of IAK and the commission of atrocity crimes and grave human rights violations in the region.