UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights Defenders, Mary Lawlor
Srinagar, Nov 23: The United Nation (UN) has criticized the arrest of prominent Kashmir Human Rights defender Khurram Parvez by National Investigation Agency (NIA) on ‘terror funding’ and other charges from his Srinagar residence.
UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights Defenders, Mary Lawlor, said that she was hearing disturbing reports that Parvez was arrested on Monday in Kashmir.
She said that Parvez was at the risk of being charged by authorities with terrorism-related crimes.
“He’s not a terrorist, he’s a Human Rights Defender,” she said.
I’m hearing disturbing reports that Khurram Parvez was arrested today in Kashmir & is at risk of being charged by authorities in #India with terrorism-related crimes. He’s not a terrorist, he’s a Human Rights Defender @mujmash @RaftoFoundation @GargiRawat @NihaMasih pic.twitter.com/9dmZOrSwMY
— Mary Lawlor UN Special Rapporteur HRDs (@MaryLawlorhrds) November 22, 2021
Parvez, is a prominent activist, and is coordinator for the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, a group of rights organisations working in Kashmir.
Official sources said that sleuths of NIA carried out searches at the residence and office of Human Rights activist Khurram Parvaiz in Srinagar, in connection with a case already registered at NIA on Monday.
They said that the residence of Khurram at Sonwar was searched for many hours and the office at Amira Kadal was being searched since morning by the sleuths of NIA.
The arrest memo states that he was arrested in the case, FIR RC-30/2021/NIA/DLI filed on November 6, under IPC Sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 121 (waging, attempting to wage, abetting waging of war against the government), and 121A (conspiracy to commit offences punishable by Section 121); and Sections 17 (raising funds for terrorist act), 18 (conspiracy), 18B (recruiting of any person or persons for terrorist act) and 40 (raising funds for a terrorist organisation) of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
Parvez was earlier arrested and detained on similar charges in 2016, after being prevented from boarding a flight to attend a UN human rights forum in Geneva. Later, he was released without being convicted for any charge.