Kashmiri political organisation strongly condemns 'biased, fabricated' report by EU Disinfo Lab
Dec 13, 2020
New Delhi [India], December 13 : United Kashmir People's National Party (UKPNP), a political organisation in Jammu and Kashmir, on Saturday strongly condemned a report by EU Disinfo Lab, saying that the NGO is involved in malicious propaganda against regional countries by supporting Pakistan to further suppress voices against the numerous illegal activities of the Pakistani establishment.
The political party of Kashmir further accused the EU Disinfo Lab of giving biased, fictional and fabricated reports against India and other regional countries.
The party stated that the purpose of the report was to defame all activists and their leadership who are fighting against human rights violations in the Pakistani peripheries, while adding that it also discredited all political parties and NGOs, including nationalists affiliated with these organisations.
"EU Disinfo Lab report is spread to defame genuine leadership, human rights defenders and rights activists from Pakistan and its peripheries who are peacefully struggling for their basic human and fundamental rights, who are striving for ownership of their natural resources, self-governance, equality, rule of law, freedom of expression and press and media," said UKPNP.
UKPNP has repeatedly advocated for peace, harmony, and co-existence for the cause of civil society, political, socio-economic and human rights of the people of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan.
The party also maintained that though all UN-accredited NGOs are bound to submit reports before UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) committee of 19 states every year regarding their work and activities at UN Human Rights Council, with complete details of offices and board of directors, EU Disinfo Lab did not share the content of speeches and interventions by these NGOs.
The party also raised its voice against enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, strict restriction on freedom of press and media, growing extremism and terrorism in the region, discrimination towards nationalist leaders and rights activists, and the freedom of banned terrorist organizations in Pakistan.
Sardar Shaukat Ali Kashmiri, exiled Chairman of UKPNP, said: "The NGO has failed to create or find any link between UKPNP and those groups. I reject this entire statement in which I and my comrades are mentioned. Our party reserves every right to defend ourselves at all such forums and any code of law when required."
Asserting that Pakistan and its intelligence agencies are regularly hunting pro-people, progressive and democratic voices in the country, he said that his party is being targeted by malicious and fabricated propaganda to suppress the voices which say that the people in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) are deprived of fundamental human rights.
Terming the report as 'biased and baseless', he said that several non-UN entities have been mentioned in the report, which showed that the NGO has only offered its platforms to serve the interests of 'someone else', while adding that the report failed to mention numerous interventions against India and other regional countries.
He also termed the report as 'one-sided' and a 'cyber warfare' in which the NGO had involved itself without being aware of the UNHCR or its mechanisms.
"We shall continue our peaceful struggle with resilience for the safety of our human rights and rights to developments," he said, while asking journalists to abide by journalistic standards and not spread such fake news.
"We have been raising the issues of enforced disappearances, exploitation of natural resources on PoK and Balochistan. We are not hiding anything, we are not doing any secret meetings and they are blaming us for propaganda," said another party member.
Earlier on Friday, India hit out at Pakistan for circulating "fictional and fabricated dossiers," saying that disinformation is practised "by those who have records to hide such as sheltering international wanted terrorists including Osama Bin Laden."
"As a responsible democracy, India doesn't practice disinformation campaigns. In fact, if you're looking at disinformation, the best example is the country next door which is circulating fictional and fabricated dossiers and purveys a regular stream of fake news," said Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Anurag Srivastava.
