London, April 10, 2023 (PPI-OT):Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi continues to hit international headlines for all the wrong reasons including his increasingly hard-line Hindutva policies that are particularly targeting people in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, says the UK-based Amnesty International in one of its posts on its website. The post written by Cherry Bird who has been Amnesty UK’s Country Coordinator for India and Nepal since 2017, mentioned a few of the key issues recently highlighted in the press including Modi’s bulldozer politics, extortion of Kashmir’s mineral resources, arrest of journalists and targeting of minorities in India.
Cherry while mentioning a photo of a house being demolished in Kashmir in her post writes: “As shown in the photo, the houses and businesses of Kashmiris are being destroyed without warning or valid reason, using JCB [excavator] equipment (parallels with Israel Palestine).” Regarding extortion of Kashmiris’ resources, Cherry under Adani mining poised for Kashmir headline, says, “Profits will go to this massive Indian company (Gautam Adani is close to Modi), not Kashmiris, but they will be left with the environmental damage and displacement.”
Cherry Bird also took up the issue of arrest of Kashmiri journalist Irfan Meraj in her post. She wrote that Irfan was arrested for his links with the same organisation as Khurram Parvez – the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS), which has repeatedly criticized the human rights abuses committed by Indian forces in Kashmir. “And the US government has just released a report heavily criticising the Indian government for human rights abuses including the targeting of religious minorities, dissenters, and journalists,” she said.
“Yet the UK Foreign Secretary has just visited India to forge stronger economic and tech ties,” Cherry criticized the UK government’s way of dealing with Modi. She went on to add: “And Adani has established a connection with the London Science Museum through an offshoot called ‘Adani Green’ (!) which purports to promote sustainable fossil fuel extraction and use. A campaign by ‘Fossil free science museum’ is opposing this.”
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