NEW DELHI – A UN envoy on a human-rights mission this month to India on Friday called for reforms including the repeal of laws giving security forces wide powers of arrest in Indian-held Kashmir (IHK). Margaret Sekaggya, the UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders, told a news conference in New Delhi that, during her 11-day tour of five Indian states, including Kashmir, she had been told of many abuses. “I heard numerous testimonies about male and female rights defenders, and their families, who have been killed, tortured, ill-treated, disappeared, threatened, arbitrarily arrested and detained,” she said.
In particular, Sekaggya called for an end to two laws applied in India’s northeast and in the troubled Kashmir region that have proved to be a sticking point in New Delhi’s attempts to negotiate with Kashmiri separatists. “The Armed Forces Special Powers Act and the Public Safety Act should be repealed, and application of other security laws which adversely affect the work of human rights defenders should be reviewed,” she said.
