UNITED NATIONS, Nov 01 (APP): A senior Pakistani diplomat Tuesday called for “decisive actions” to prevent and redress human rights violations universally — not selectively — particularly in situations of foreign occupation and alien domination, where he said occupiers portray legitimate struggles for self-determination as terrorism.
“Occupying powers invariably resort to draconian laws to create impunity for their oppression and crimes and avoid accountability,” Ambassador Aamir Khan, deputy permanent representative of Pakistan to the UN, told the General Assembly’s Third Committee, which deals with social, humanitarian and cultural matters.
Discussing the annual report of the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council, he urged the 47-member body to shift it’s focus on the situations of foreign occupation and alien domination.
“Human rights situations of UN-recognized disputed and occupied territories warrant much closer attention of the Council,” Ambassador Aamir Khan said, adding, “Occupying powers invariably resort to draconian laws to create impunity for their oppression and crimes and avoid accountability.”
He urged the Council to consider country-specific human rights situation on the basis of universal and non-selective criteria, and to refrain from targeting only their adversaries, or weaker States, while ignoring the crimes and atrocities of their large strategic partners.
The Pakistani envoy regretted that expressions of racial hatred, religious supremacy and violent nationalism have moved from the fringe to the political mainstream, with Islamophobia very much at the centre of certain political parties and governments’ discourse.
Calls for expulsion of Muslims, restrictions on the hijab and other Muslim practices, provocations, such as the burning of the Holy Quran and vandalization of Islamic holy sites and symbols, hurtful caricatures and discrimination and violence against Muslims were manifestations of that discourse, Ambassador Aamir Khan said, and called on the Human Rights Council to promote specific action to combat Islamophobia.
