PoK's human rights violation issue raised at UN's Human Rights Council

New Delhi: The United Kashmir People's National Party (UKPNP) activists voiced the grievances of the people living in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK) at the 37th session of United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva, Switzerland. They alleged Pakistan of gross human rights violation in PoK and Gilgit Baltistan. Enumerating many instances of human rights violations, the activists pointed at the practice of arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, torture, deaths in custody and extrajudicial executions. UKPNP activist Nasir Aziz Khan said, “We urge upon the Human Rights Council to take serious note of Pakistan's human rights situation and put pressure on the government to repeal all discriminatory clauses from the constitution and protect the life and liberty of people, produce all disappeared persons and release all political prisoners." Throwing light on the denial of rights to the people of PoK , they said that people of Pakistani peripheries have been systematically denied to enjoy the rights recognised by the international community. Freedom of expression and religion have also been dogmatised. They urged the council to ask Pakistan to allow the press to function freely in PoK and to abolish all the prejudiced laws to be repealed.