This letter from a transnational collective of human rights and civil society organizations was submitted to the UN Human Rights Committe in connection with the the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) review of the USA. It focuses on how the spread of the US' counter-terrorism framework beyond its borders is having concrete human rights impacts like repressing civil society, eliminating due process rights and starving citvil society organizations of funding. The letter focuses on five specific examples from different parts of the world, including Indian-administered Kashmir (others include Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Palestine). The signatories include: Al-Haq, Addameer, Center for Constitutional Rights, Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales, Colectivo de Abogados y Abogadas “José Alvear Restrepo” (CAJAR), European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, Movement Law Lab, KLJP, Palestine Institute for Public diplomacy (PIPD), Rede de Apoio às Favelas (Rio de Janeiro), Rede de Advogadas Populares Feministas Coletes Rosas (Rio de Janeiro), Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa and Temblores ONG.

In the context of the September 2023 G20 summit, several human rights organizations issued a public letter to G20 member countries, guest countries and invited international organizations reminding them of the ongoing human rights violations in Indian-administered Kashmir and urging them to call on the government of India to: 

• Immediately and unconditionally release Khurram Parvez and Irfan Mehraj, drop all charges against them and to end the ongoing persecution and targeting of Kashmiri human rights defenders, journalists, dissenters and political prisoners;
• Comply with their international legal obligations and allow civil society to freely operate in IAK;
• Cease their longstanding obstruction of international civil society and inter-governmental organisations including the United Nations Special Rapporteurs and other human rights mechanisms which should have unfettered access to IAK and Kashmiri detainees.

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.

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.