Speakers of a seminar in Brussels, the capital of Belgium have called upon international community to pressurize India in order to strictly punish its security personnel involved in human rights violations specially culprits of 27-year old mass-rape incident of Kunan-Poshpora villages in occupied Kashmir.
Former member Brussels Parliament Daniel CARON, Chainman Kashmir Council EU Mr Ali Raza Syed, Member Brussels Parliament Dr Zahoor Manzoor, President WKDA Europe Ch Khalid Joshi, and Chairman Kashmir Info Mir Shahjahan spoke on the occasion.
Members of civil society, representatives of various NGOs including Senior Kashmiri figure Sardar Sadique, Mr. Igore, Ms Sofie and Ms Ramona Benzar and office bearers of human rights organisations and people from different walks of life attended the seminar which was held in continuation of Kashmir Council EU’s move for memorizing of the forgotten incident of Kunan Poshpora.
Kashmir Council EU has launched a two-week campaign on 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.
Speaking at the seminar 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.
During the seminar, the Chairman Kashmir Council EU also showed a book written by the girls survived in Kunan-Poshpora incident.
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 psycho-social problems arising from conflict need to be addressed as part of post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation efforts, the statement said.
