Right of Reply by India at the High-Level Segment of the 52nd Session of the Human Rights Council (27 February-4 April 2023) delivered by
Ms. Seema Pujani, First Secretary, Permanent Mission of India [Geneva, 03 March 2023]
Mr. President,
India is exercising its Right of Reply in response to the statement delivered by Pakistan.
2. Pakistan’s representative has once again chosen to misuse this august forum for its malicious propaganda against India.
3. Pakistan is a State which responds to any calls for reforms with enforced disappearances. In the last decade, Pakistan’s own Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances has received 8,463 complaints. The Baloch people have borne the brunt of this cruel policy. Students, doctors, engineers, teachers, and community leaders are regularly disappeared by the State never to return back.
4. No religious minority can freely live or practice its religion in Pakistan today. The Ahmadiyya community continues to be persecuted by the State for simply practicing their faith. To even obtain a Pakistani passport the community has to denounce its founder. Equally worse is the treatment of the Christian community. It is frequently targeted through draconian blasphemy laws. State institutions officially reserve ‘sanitation’ jobs for Christians. Underage girls from the community are converted to Islam abetted by a predatory State and an apathetic judiciary. Hindu and Sikh communities face similar issues of frequent attack on their places of worship and forced conversion of their underage girls.
5. The State’s crackdown on those who wish to raise their voice against any of these heinous policies is also incomparable. A bill which proposes a five year jail term for anyone who ‘scandalises or ridicules’ the military or the judiciary is currently on the table in Pakistan’s Parliament.
6. When it is not entirely focused on suppressing its own population, Pakistan actively lends its energies to aid, host and abet international terrorists. It has the unique distinction of hosting the most number of UNSC designated terrorists and terror organizations. Allow me to recall that Osama bin Laden lived next to Pakistan’s premier military academy. Its security agencies have nurtured and sheltered Hafiz Saeed and Masood Azhar for decades. These are but a few dreaded names from the annals of Pakistan’s history of supporting terrorism. Pakistan’s policies are directly responsible for the death of thousands of civilians around the world.
7. Pakistan’s obsession with India while its population battle for their lives, livelihood and freedom is an indication of the state’s misplaced priorities. I would advise its leadership and officials to focus their energies on working for the benefit of their own population instead of baseless propaganda.
Mr. President,
8. We regret the comments made by Türkiye on a matter that is an internal affair of India and advise it to refrain from making unsolicited comments on our internal matters.
9. As regards the OIC statement, we reject the unwarranted references to the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. The fact is that the entire territories of the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh have been, are and shall always be part of India. Pakistan is in illegal occupation of Indian territory. Instead of calling upon its member Pakistan to give up state-sponsored terrorism and to lift its occupation of Indian territory, OIC has let Pakistan hijack and misuse its platform for carrying out its nefarious agenda of engaging in malicious propaganda against India.
I thank you.
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