Kashmiri activist Qureshi objects to Chinese presence in Gilgit Baltistan

Geneva : Strongly objecting to the Chinese presence in Gilgit Baltistan, prominent Kashmiri writer and international human rights activist Junaid Qureshi has demanded the release of Baba Jan.
Speaking at an event on ‘China in Gilgit Baltistan; Its Implications’, organized during the 32nd Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva yesterday, Qureshi said Pakistan keeps unleashing terror in the region.”China’s presence in Gilgit Baltistan stirred up more than China and Pakistan would want the world to believe. Human rights violations are the order of the day in the region while the State of Pakistan keeps operating and unleashing terror with total impunity. The Anti -Terrorism Act is being used to silence voices of justified dissent,” he said.
Qureshi strongly condemned the arrest, inhuman torture and 40 years imprisonment of Baba Jan and his associates on fabricated charges of terrorism.
“Baba Jan is being prosecuted as he organized protests against the selling-off of all the natural resources of the region to Chinese companies and challenged the forcible occupation of 2,800 square miles of the region’s land mass by the Chinese, as well as the annexation of Kohistan and Chitral into the Republic of Pakistan,” he added.
Qureshi stated the conviction of Baba Jan and his associates is illegitimate as they have been falsely implicated and Islamabad has no jurisdiction in Gilgit Baltistan according to Pakistan’s own Constitution and the Supreme Court.Describing Baba Jan’s prosecution as ‘State terrorism and a grave violation of Human Rights’, Qureshi said the Anti-Terrorism Act is being used to silence the voices of justified dissent in Gilgit Baltistan in order to pacify concerns raised by Beijing.He appealed to the UN to take note of the injustice mounted upon Baba Jan and demanded that he should be immediately released along with his associates. Qureshi, the leader of Jammu Kashmir Democratic Liberation Party, is the organizer of the Europe-wide Signature Campaign against the further division of Jammu and Kashmir and attempts of unlawfully annexing Gilgit Baltistan.He highlighted the 46 billion dollar costing China Pakistan Economic Corridor is an extension of Beijing’s ambitions of reconstructing the ancient Silk Road.