A member of parliament from the Labour party, Sarah Owen this week stood in solidarity with kashmir and made a heart moving speech in Westminster Hall, where parliament witnessed a discussion on the situation of occupied Kashmir Issue.
Moreover Sarah urged to the fellow parliamentarians in a debate that was live-streamed on Wednesday, that at some stage everyone of us have caught ourselves moaning about the lockdown in the pandemic, but for the residents of Kashmir it’s something very common. And unlike Kashmir, Lockdown is not about safety, it is about control.
“The lockdown of 2019 shut off entire communities and also their communication to the outside world. Families worried about loved ones. Students studying in Luton, unable to get their fees paid from [occupied] Kashmir, because banking ceased. Curfews [imposed] to control people’s lives, not a virus. A lockdown enforced by half a million soldiers”, Sarah stated.
Ms Sarah Owen has always been a vocal supporter of Kashmiris and has always expressed solidarity for those living under occupation as she believes “if you care about human rights, you should care about Kashmir Issue”, and in this week she highlighted how pandemic has affected the everyday realities of Kashmiris.
She called on the British Government to do more to revile the situation in Kashmir as she highlighted some facts saying “Muslims have reported being turned away from hospitals. This is shocking at the best of times, but especially so during a pandemic,” she said, adding: “There are numerous reports of Kashmiri women and girls being raped. Senior officials in the BJP put on record their intentions to make Kashmiri women a part of this conflict. And I have heard [that there are] women in Kashmir that are terrified of being assaulted by the thousands of soldiers on their doorstep. Women fear for their lives and do not feel safe.”
Furthermore she added “We often hear from the Minister that the UK cares about women’s rights. But will the actions match the rhetoric? What guarantees can he give that rape cases and asylum cases will be taken seriously by colleagues at the Home Office?”
Rights of Uighurs, a Muslim Turkic ethnic Population reportedly being persecuted in China’s Xinjiang region were also Highlighted in the debate by Sarah.
British Secretary of State Dominic Raab Publicly convicted China’s “barbaric treatment” of Uighur Muslims and spoke of clear evidence of “internment camps, forced labour, arbitrary detention and forced sterilisation”, a day earlier.
Sarah Owen urged to the Government to take the similar stance on the Kashmir Issue as they took on China’s treatment Of the Muslim population in that country as she said “The government has quite rightly shared their views on China’s treatment of the Muslim population in that country. What we must do is take a similar stance to the issue of Kashmir.”
