Mr. President, The Pakistan delegation welcomes the consideration of this important item on the “Culture of Peace”. We thank the Secretary- General for the report contained in document A/77/614, and we thank the President of the assembly for his opening insightful remarks. Pakistan welcomes and has co-sponsored the draft resolution submitted by Bangladesh, which has just been introduced by the Permanent Representative of Bangladesh. 2. Mr. President, As outlined in Article 3 of the UN Declaration on Culture of Peace, the realization of a culture of peace is integrally linked to the central purposes of the UN Charter: that is the non-use of force, respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity of states, recognition of the right to self- determination of peoples, pacific settlement of disputes, and elimination of racial or religious discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. Mr. President, 3. Humanity encompasses diverse cultures and civilizations. These have come into progressively closer contact as the communications and information revolutions have contracted the world. The multi-cultural interactions – of different languages, food, customs and beliefs – have successfully enriched each culture, community and State. Greater inter-cultural understanding has helped to liberate peoples, end wars and promote peace and cooperation. 4. Unfortunately, there is a dark side to the closer contact of cultures and civilizations, as manifested in the historical and current instances of hostility, discrimination, hate and violence based on differences of race, religion, ethnicity, nationality and culture. History has frequently witnessed mass crimes and atrocities against the “other” in pogroms, wars, oppression and foreign occupation. 5. Despite the bitter lessons of the last century and the endeavors of the United Nations and many peoples and governments of goodwill, recent times have witnessed a significant rise in hate, discrimination, xenophobia and organized violence against individuals, communities and nations due to their differences of cultures, nationalities, religions or race. The most adverse development in the context is the proliferation of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hate and hostility, especially after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. 6. Anti-Muslim discrimination is pervasive in several non- Muslim countries. Islamophobic attitudes have justified societal discrimination and violence against Muslims. Worse, several instances of military intervention, in which hundreds of thousands of Muslims have perished, would not have happened if Islamophobia had not influenced perceptions and decisions. The world is dealing with consequences of several Islamophobic mistakes. The resolution of the consequent conflicts and tensions in Asia and Africa will require the active promotion of a culture of peace. Mr. President, 7. The General Assembly resolution adopted year before, to observe 15 March- the day of the Christchurch massacre of 55 innocent Muslims – as the Day to Combat Islamophobia was most timely and essential. We look forward to developing, with the Secretary General, a Plan of Action with the Secretary-General to combat Islamophobia. 8. In such a Plan of Action, the international community cannot fail to address the worst contemporary manifestation of Islamophobia – the threat posed by Hindutva hate in India against the 200 million Indian Muslims and Christians as well as the oppressed Muslims of occupied Jammu and Kashmir. Mr. President, 9. A Century after the rise of Fascism in Europe, which devastated the Continent, the world is witnessing the rise of another state imbued with a similar ideology, “Hindutva,” and similar practices of racially and religiously driven oppression and aggression against minorities. It is no accident that Hindutva, prescribing Hindu supremacy, was born simultaneously with Nazism in the 1920s. 10. The exponents of Hindutva – the Sangh Parivar, or family of Hindu organizations – adhere to an ideology of Hindu supremacy. They seek to transform India into an exclusive Hindu State in which Muslims and other minorities are obliged to convert to Hinduism or accept ejection or a second-class existence. 11. The founders of this party – the RSS, the parent of the ruling BJP – proudly equated their ideology with Hitler’s Nazis and called for the persecution of India’s Muslims just like the Jews. As Arundhati Roy, the Indian author, has observed, none of the modern-day white supremacists’ neo-Nazi groups can boast the infrastructure and size of the RSS – with 57,000 branches, or what they call “shakas”, and an armed and dedicated militia of 600,000 “volunteers”. 12. One of the members of the RSS, Nathuram Godse, assassinated Mahatma Ghandi. Within India’s ruling party today, it is Godse, not Ghandi, who is glorified as a deity. 13. The RSS is responsible for the organized pogroms against Indian Muslims in Bombay (1992), Gujarat (2002), Delhi (2021). The BBC Documentary on the Gujarat pogrom and the Indian Prime Minister’s culpability in this massacre was banned in India and the BBC is being investigated for tax fraud. 14. The RSS and the Sangh Parivar were responsible for the destruction in 1992 of the historic Babri Mosque in Ayodha and the construction, with judicial complicity, of a Hindu Temple on the site. Thousands of other Mosques are threatened with destruction by the Hindu zealots. The UN Alliance of Civilizations must take action, in accordance with its mandate, to protect these Islamic shrines. And, the United Nations must demand that the Indian government halt its programme to eliminate India’s Islamic heritage – by changing history books, place names, school curriculums and other similar cultural obliteration of Islam. 15. India must also be prevented from reducing its Muslims to statelessness through the discriminatory Citizenship Law and National Registry List. India must halt the daily atrocities against Muslims such as the lynching of Muslims by “cow vigilantes”; detention of Muslims on the ridiculous charge of “Love-jihad”; and violence against Christians for the “crime” of proselytizing. Mr. President, 16. Hindutva extremism is also “turbo-charging” India’s repression in occupied Jammu & Kashmir. It has deployed 900,000 troops – one soldier for every 8 Kashmiri man, women and children – to impose its colonial annexation of Kashmir, resorting to extra-judicial killings; the abduction of 15,000 Kashmiri boys; collective punishments; and the incarceration of the entire political leadership of the All Parties Hurriyet Conference – the true voice of the Kashmiri people. And India is implementing its strategy to transform occupied Jammu & Kashmir from a Muslim-majority State into a Hindu-majority territory in violation of security council resolutions and international humanitarian law. 17. Pakistan has circulated a detailed dossier documenting, with evidence, over 3432 war crimes committed by Indian officials in occupied Jammu & Kashmir. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has issued two reports citing massive human rights violations, and proposed the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry to investigate these violations and asked for access to occupied Jammu & Kashmir. Over a dozen Special Rapporteurs of the Human Rights Council have expressed similar concerns about the human rights violations in occupied Kashmir and sought access to investigate these violations. None have been provided access, even as India has held stage-managed G-20 events in occupied Jammu and Kashmir to project a “false normalcy” there. As the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Minorities, Fernand de Varennes, stated on 15 May: “by holding the G-20 meeting (in occupied Kashmir), the Government of India is seeking to normalize....military occupation....”. He added that “the situation in Jammu & Kashmir should be decried and condemned, not push(ed) under the rug...”. Mr. President, 18. Adama Dieng, the former Special Envoy on Genocide, used to say “atrocities do not happen overnight”. And, Gregory Stanton, the head of Genocide Watch, has warned, that what is happening in Indian-occupied Jammu & Kashmir, and in India itself, points to the possibility of genocide in Kashmir and in India. 19. To those who are ready today to open their doors to the Prime Minister of India, we urge that they call for a halt to India’s oppression and atrocities. Their silence diminishes their stature and exposes their real commitments to universal human values and human rights as being hollow and hypocritical. I thank you. *******
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