British parliament hosts national student conference on IIOJK

Students, lawmakers and activists from across UK participate in conference

LONDON:

The British parliament hosted the National Student Conference on Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), with the participation of students, British lawmakers and activists from across the country.

“When you talk about rape as a weapon of war and having treated so the women that it occupies, that it rules over, that it claims to secure, there is a certain tyranny that the world can understand,” said British Shadow Minister Jess Phillips about IIOJK.

She said that India has used rape as a weapon of war in IIOJK to persecute the local population against their demand for right to self-determination

“As we go to the next step of hoping that spring will one day come, myself and others can work on specific activism and lay at the feet of the Indian government exactly what is happening to women and children in their name,” she told the conference, which was attended by around 100 students from across the United Kingdom.

Chaired by British MP Afzal Khan, who is also UK's Shadow Minister for Justice, the National Student Conference was organised by Tehreek-e-Kashmir (TeK) UK and attended by peace practitioners, activists and Kashmiri diaspora leadership including TeK UK President Fahim Kayani, Kashmiri activists from IIOJK Muzammil Ayyub Thakur, Shaista Safi besides others.

The conference is the first “successful student conference on Kashmir in the history of Great Britain held in the House of Commons,” organisers said.

MP Afzal Khan detailed how India was involved in demographic changes in the UN-designated disputed territory.

"The artificial demographic changes in Kashmir tantamount to violations of international law, Geneva Conventions," said Afzal Khan, urging the international community to act faster to implement the long-due plebiscite in accordance with UN resolutions.

Read more: IIOJK, Palestine issues UN’s ‘unfinished agenda’

British MP Debbie Abraham, who is also chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Kashmir, also attended the conference.

Expressing concern over the situation of human rights in IIOJK, Phillips said the right to self-determination is the end goal for Kashmir.

“I pledge that going forward we will seek to do some real international work with women of occupied area (of Kashmir) … with women’s rights activists around the world,” she added.

Abraham expressed her delight to attend the conference and interact with students discussing “how we can move things forward in Kashmir.”

She said Kashmiris have to be at the “heart” of discussion on Kashmir.

“I was really pleased that the Kashmiri students (in conference) came up with some very tangible ideas of what we should be doing. The key to that is about organisation and solidarity,” the APPG chair said.

Reminding the conference of the British government’s stance regarding Russia’s war on Ukraine, TeK leader Kayani said the UK government was pursuing “double standards viz-a-viz Kashmir.

Pushing back efforts to bilateralise Kashmir between India and Pakistan, Kayani told the convention: “Kashmir is not a bilateral issue. It is a matter of the right to self-determination of Kashmiris. No bilateral agreement can supersede this international obligation.”

Kayani reminded the participating students of the importance of their efforts in movements for freedom, justice and equality.

“Dear students, no movement can succeed without the involvement of youth,” he told the National Students Conference, suggesting forming of a “Kashmir Student Forum which will take this issue to the public and students through social media and other means.”

Thakur and Safi narrated the ordeal of being a Kashmiri in IIOJK and how India was committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in the UN-designated disputed territory.

Student leaders Yousaf Farooq, Zeynep Bugday, Zohra Shamim, Sadaf Abbas, Muhammad Bilal Mustafa, Iman Rasheed, Sabba Choudary and Syed Hassan were the main speakers of the conference.

They said that this conference "is beginning not the end."

"We must mobilise youth in the UK on Kashmir and this issue deserve the same attention as other humanitarian issues. India is committing war crimes in Kashmir. The so-called largest democracy’s brutal face must be exposed to the world," they added.