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NEW YORK: Prime Minister Imran Khan has said the United Nations must urge India to immediately lift the inhuman curfew in occupied Kashmir continuing for over fifty days and release all the political detainees including youth.
He was addressing the UN General Assembly session in New York on Friday amidst repeated applause by the audience. The prime minister said the world community has a responsibility to ensure that Kashmiris get their right to self-determination as enshrined in several UN Security Council resolutions. He said it is not time to appease a market of 1.3 billion people but to take concrete action to avert a brewing humanitarian crisis.
PM Imran Khan warned of serious consequences of a war between two nuclear armed countries. He said if a nuclear armed country fights to the end, the consequences will go far beyond the borders.
He said if a conventional war starts between Pakistan and India, anything could happen. “A country seven times smaller has only two choices; either to surrender or fight till end, and we will fight to the end,” he said.
Imran Khan said India’s illegal action about occupied Kashmir is in violation of the UN Security Council resolutions, Shimla Agreement, and its own constitution. He said Kashmiris will never accept revocation of the special status of the disputed territory.
He said hundreds of thousands of Kashmiris have been killed by the occupying forces and over 11,000 women raped over the past 30 years. He said there are also two UN human rights reports on the blatant Indian human rights violations in the held valley.
Voicing serious concerns over the situation in occupied valley, the prime minister said women, children and sick people are locked and being treated as worse than animals. He said it is sheer arrogance that has blinded Narendra Modi. He said Modi is not cognizant of the situation when curfew is lifted, and Kashmiris will come out of their houses in protest and the 900,000 Indian troops in the held territory leading to a bloodbath.
PM Imran Khan said Indian Muslims, Pakistanis, Kashmiris and the entire Muslim community are closely watching the grave situation in occupied Kashmir, and persecution of oppressed Kashmiris will contribute to their radicalisation.
He express fears that a Pulwama like incident may take place and India will blame Muslims and Pakistan for it; and the world should realize this apprehension.
Imran Khan said the incumbent Indian government is a follower of RSS that is a racist organization founded in 1925 and inspired by racial superiority ideas of Adolph Hitler and Benito Mussolini.
“This organization has its basis on hatred against Muslims and Christians. Racial superiority and hatred against others are its founding premise. This ideology of hate murdered Mahatma Gandhi in 1948 and goons of RSS massacred thousands of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002,” he said adding that Modi was put in blacklist of the US to travel there.
After assuming his office, the prime minister said his first priority was to reach out to the neighbours, but unfortunately Modi never reciprocated his peace overtures. He said as a peace gesture Pakistan also returned India’s pilot who was captured in response to Indian aggression in Balakot. He said India also tried to put Pakistan into the blacklist of Financial Action Task Force that is when Pakistan realised the agenda of the Modi regime.
Highlighting Pakistan’s role against terrorism, the prime minister said the country acted as a frontline state in war against terrorism. He said Pakistan rendered sacrifices of over 70,000 people and suffered an economic loss of 150 billion dollars.
“We were committed against the scourge of terrorism and did everything to dismantle their structure. We decided that there would be no militant organisation in Pakistan,” he added. He said though India accuses Pakistan of terrorism, and asked the United Nations to send their observers to see for themselves what Pakistan has done, and they started fencing the border with Afghanistan.
Islamophobia
Underlining Islamophobia as a major global issue, the prime minister said it is impacting Muslims worldwide, especially in the Western countries. He said women wearing Hijab in certain countries feel threatened, and this has been happening since 9/11.
He said terms like Islamic radicalism and terrorism are used by some leaders without realisation, which contribute to spread of hatred against Muslims. This is marginalising Muslim communities, which leads to radicalisation. He categorically stated that there is only one Islam.
The prime minister regretted that Muslim leaders also did not play their role in sensitising the world about the causes of radicalization. He said they have failed to tell the Western world that there is no such thing as radical Islam.
PM Imran Khan said no one did research that majority of suicide attacks were committed by Tamil Tigers that were Hindus, but no one blamed the Hinduism for that.
Referring to the state of Madinah that was established by Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) as his role model, the prime minister said the state ensured welfare of all segments of the society.
Imran Khan said Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) lives in our hearts. “We Muslims believe that pain of heart is much more than physical pain.”
Corruption and offshore accounts
He said another global problem is siphoning off money from the developing world by the corrupt elite and reaching to advanced countries. This causes more poverty, debt and destruction in developing countries. He said money laundering is not treated the same as money of drugs or terror financing.
Imran Khan said when he assumed power last year, we found that the country’s total debt increased by four times during the last ten years. He said half of the total revenue collected in Pakistan in one year went to debt servicing negatively impacting human development. He said that plundered money could be spent on welfare of human beings.
He said when Pakistan government tried to retrieve the money stashed abroad, but faced a lot of legal and other challenges. He questioned the rationale of the presence of tax havens and offshore companies. He urged the developed world to build wall against the economic refugees.
Coming to a global issue of climate change, the prime minister urged the United Nations to take the lead in countering the challenge posed by climate change. He regretted there is lack of seriousness and perhaps world leaders do not realize the urgency of the situation.
He said Pakistan is amongst the top ten nations most affected by climate change. He said Pakistan depend on rivers, and is mainly an agrarian country and most of its water comes from the glaciers, which are melting at a rapid pace. He warned if this keeps going and if nothing is done, humans will face a huge catastrophe.
Imran Khan said their previous government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa planted one billion trees and now have set a target of ten billion trees to counter the effects of global warming. He, however, stressed this has to be a combined effort of the world. He said there must be more emphasis on this issue and the richer countries should be pushed to meet the challenge.
