Demo in Hamburg to highlight Kashmir issue

Former AJK PM Barrister Sultan leaves on Europe trip today

ISLAMABAD: Kashmiris living in European countries will gather for a protest demonstration in Hamburg, Germany on July 8 on the eve of the G-20 conference, according to former AJK prime minister Barrister Sultan Mehmood Chaudhry.

Barrister Sultan told reporters here on Friday that he would be leaving on a tour of the UK and other European countries on Saturday (today) to highlight the longstanding Kashmir issue.

During his UK trip, he said, he would address the House of Commons on July 4 to sensitise British lawmakers about India’s unabated human rights violations in held Kashmir.



On July 8, he said, Kashmiris would converge on the German city of Hamburg – the venue of the G-20 summit – for a peaceful demonstration. The demonstrators would record their protest against the recent US-India joint declaration and attempts to equate the freedom struggle in Kashmir with terrorism, he added.

Earlier this week, US Department of State had declared Hizbul Mujahideen commander Syed Salahuddin ‘Specially Designated Global Terrorist’, hours before a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Washington.

Barrister Sultan said that through the protest, Kashmiris living in Europe would also draw the attention of the international community towards the Kashmir dispute, highlighting India’s state terrorism in the held valley.



He criticised Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government for its ‘disastrous’ foreign policy.    “America’s equating democratic freedom movement in occupied Kashmir with any terrorist movement is a failure of the foreign policy of the incumbent prime minister,” he remarked.

The AJK leader said that the Trump- Modi declaration proved that PM Sharif was advocating a failed foreign policy, he said, adding that the declaration should be an eye-opener to counter which, Pakistan should form a bloc with China and Russia. He called Sharif and Modi two sides of the same coin.