*UNITED NATIONS: Amid the world’s focus on the crisis in Ukraine, a seniorPakistani diplomat has urged the U.N. to promote universal accountabilityfor grave human rights violations, especially in situation of foreignoccupation — Kashmir and Palestine — as he stressed that there should be nodisparity between such violations in two different circumstances.*
“If we want to pay attention to a particular situation which is currentlyin the limelight, we should also not forget the situations of Palestine andJammu and Kashmir, where human rights are being trampled every day, andwhere counter-terrorism laws are used to silence civil society,” AmbassadorAamir Khan, deputy permanent representative of Pakistan to the UN, said ata virtual event where the alleged rights violations in the war-hit Ukrainewere highlighted by several members.
“If we are raising voice in the context of one situation, we should notforget raising our voices in other two situations as well,” he emphasized.
In this regard, the Pakistani envoy urged the international community andthe Office of High Commissioner of Human Rights in Geneva to makepronouncements on violations of human rights in Jammu and Kashmir and inPalestine as well, just like they are making pronouncements elsewhere–referring to Ukraine.
“Earlier today,” he said, “there was mention of global shocks (Ukrainecrisis), in the context of violation of human rights — I would like to addhere that the application of human rights in the Charter should beuniversal and impartial.
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“Just like there is no hierarchy or precedence in the context of two setsof rights, i.e. economic rights or civil/political rights, there is also nodisparity between violations of human rights in two different situations,”Aamir Khan added.
The virtual event was held to mark the second anniversary of the UNSecretary-General’s Call to Action for Human Rights, and the Pakistanienvoy called it an opportunity to exchange views on how to advance S.G’sAgenda for human rights more robustly, including by exploring its linkageswith ‘Our Common Agenda’, which deals with what has become known as thethree “Cs’ — ‘Conflict, Climate Risk, and Covid-19” — linked by some, topoverty UN Under-Secretary-General for Policy, Volkar Turk, moderated theevent.
