Kashmir Council EU has launched a two-week campaign today (Friday), 23rd February 2018 for rememorizing ruthless 27-year old forgotten incident of Kunan Poshpora in Indian occupied Kashmir.
It is essential to recap that it was night of February 23, 1991, the personnel of the 4 Rajputana Rifles of Indian Army cordoned off the two villages Kunan and Poshpora in north Kashmir’s Kupwara district under garb of house to house search and gangraped dozens of the women of these villages.
Every year since 2014, 23rd February is commemorated as Kashmiri Women’s Resistance Day, inspired by the struggles of the survivors of the mass rape and torture in the twin Kashmiri villages of Kunan and Poshpora. The two and a half decades–long struggle of the survivors from Kunan and Poshpora is a part of the larger ongoing struggle in the Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir, against the institutionalized and structural violence of the Indian State in the region.
In a statement, Chairman Kashmir Council EU Mr Ali Raza Syed said, the campaign will highlight the unhuman incident of Kunan-Poshpura through seminars, meetings, making contact with important institutions and personalities including European Union and EU parliament and high ranking officials and representatives of different human rights organisations based in Europe.
The theme of the campaign is commemoration of gang rape of Kunan-Poshpora and other sexual violence and human rights abuses committed by Indian occupation forces in the occupied territory.
The campaign will be continued until holding of a conference on role of Kashmiri women on the International Women’s Day, 8th of March in European parliament in Brussels. The aim of the Conference will be to explore the need for mental health counselling and therapy for women suffering from Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a result of trauma (such as rape, abuse, etc.). Mental health disorders and psychosocial problems arising from conflict need to be addressed as part of post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation efforts, the statement said.
In his statement, Mr Ali Raza Said, we believe that having such drive including seminars and contacting EU officials and human rights organisation based in Europe will help in creating an effective awareness against human rights violations committed by Indian forces in the region of Jammu and Kashmir.
It is also a sort of solidarity with the oppressed people of Kashmir specially victims of sexual violence including survivors of Kunan-Poshpora and other rape cases in Occupied Kashmir.
The campaign will also raise the exploitation of black laws, the extra judicial killings, massive use of pellet guns on faces of the innocent civilians in the occupied Kashmir, the statement said.
