Kashmir: Self-determination Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Ian Lavery
Main Page: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)Department Debates - View all Ian Lavery's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(1 day, 22 hours ago)
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Imran Hussain
I absolutely agree. We have a deafening silence and lack of action. One cannot choose between human rights abuses. In Kashmir, we continue to see human rights defenders, journalists and political leaders being targeted relentlessly. Political prisoners are denied the right to a fair trial and used as an example of what happens when Kashmiris dare to speak the truth. That is not the rule of law; it is state-sponsored persecution designed to break the will of an entire people.
Ian Lavery (Blyth and Ashington) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful contribution. Could explain he explain what actions the UK Government could best make to assist the Kashmiri people to get self-determination?
Imran Hussain
That is the very point that I am coming to. As my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) said, for decades successive UK Governments have hidden behind the policy and line that Kashmir is a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan. Let us start by saying clearly that Kashmir is not a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan but an international issue. The first thing the Government can do is start recognising it as that. The roots of the situation continue to be within UN Security Council resolutions that Britain helped to draft and promised to uphold.
When a people are denied their right to self-determination, when human rights abuses are systematic and documented and when—this is another point—two nuclear states sit on a knife edge, the world, and especially the UK, cannot wash its hands of responsibility.