Advocate Mian Abdul Qayoom, 76- year-old Jammu and Kashmir High Court Bar Association President is in prison since 5 August when India decided to take control of Kashmir. Incarcerated earlier in Central Jail Agra and now in Delhi’s Tihar Jail, this veteran lawyer has dealt with 15,000 habeas corpus petitions, making him perhaps the only lawyer in South Asia to do so. His steadfast stance on the right to self-determination for Kashmir has rattled the Indian government and he is being harassed for his views, making him a Prisoner of conscience. The Legal Forum for Oppressed Voices of Kashmir (LFOVK) in an online petition to the United Nations seeks his release. WSN urges you to vote and share.

MIAN ABDUL QAYOOM IS A NAME EVERY HOME IN KASHMIR IS FAMILIAR WITH. Virtually, every home has had a brush with the state machinery and has had the need to take the services of this veteran advocate, who has been the president of the High Court Bar of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court for as many as 21 times.  The Legal Forum for Oppressed Voices of Kashmir (LFOVK) urges political activists who support the right to self-determination, conscientious individuals, civil society and human rights defenders to endorse the online petition seeking his release. The petition addressed to the United Nations is a sincere effort to raise voice for a leading counsel whose detention has not invoked the attention of  Bar Associations throughout India to stand up for him and denounce his detention.

While Indian civil liberties or lawyer bodies have not expressed concern over Qayoom’s detention so far, in November last year, Richard Atkins QC, Chair of the Bar Council of England and Wales and Schona Jolly SC, Chair of the BHRC wrote to the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressing concern over the arrest of Qayoom.

The rationale given by the Jammu and Kashmir High Court while dismissing a plea for Advocate Mian Abdul Qayoom’s release is noteworthy. Presiding judge Justice Tashi Rabstan described personal liberty as the most cherished freedoms guaranteed under the Indian Constitution in Article 22, but with a caveat. He cited observations made by the Supreme Court in ‘The Secretary to the Government, Public (law and order-F) and another vs Nabila and another (2015)’ case, which said, “Where individual liberty comes into conflict with the interest of the security of the state or maintenance of public order, then the liberty of the individual must give way to the larger interest of the nation.”

“We urge political activists who support the right to self-determination, conscientious individuals, civil society and human rights defenders to endorse the online petition seeking release of Advocate Mian Abdul Qayoom.”s release.”

The Legal Forum for Oppressed Voices of Kashmir (LFOVK)

Not only this, the court said, “the detention of the person is not to punish him for what he has done but to intercept and prevent him from doing it.” For how long? Is his health and life of any concern? Can the court order the shuffling of a 76-year-old prisoner from one prison to another even after a heart attack? Is the Indian administration, executive and judiciary following the norms of criminal jurisprudence and India’s obligations under various UN treaties and conventions in this case or in such other political detentions?

Qayoom is known for his political views and has been a staunch critic of abrogation of Article 370 and Article 35 A.

LFOVK in the petition says, “Since the insurgency in 1990, he has been arrested and incarcerated in different Indian prisons. In 1995, he was shot at by an unknown gunman resulting in serious spinal injuries leading to nine surgeries through which he recovered but with a limp.  With one of his kidneys also removed, he survives on one.”

He is sick suffering from multiple ailments -diabetes, arthritis, hypertension and prostate issues and thus needs urgent medical attention and regular care.

The petition has added that on 29 January, while in detention in the Central Jail Agra, he suffered a major heart attack and was rushed to S.N. Medical College Agra. Subsequently, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court directed that he be shifted to Tihar Jail in Delhi. He has now been detained under the draconian Public Safety Act of 1978 which gives arbitrary powers to Indian administrators to detain individuals without any judicial process or trial for up to 2 years.

Recently this law has been clamped on two former chief ministers of Jammu and Kashmir -Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti. It has also been used to mistreat, abuse, victimize and suppress and suppress activists, journalists, political, human rights, lawyers and common people of Kashmir. Since August 5, a few thousand Kashmiri nationalists have been detained under this Act.

India’s National Investigation Agency –NIA has harassed him in terror-funding cases but all allegations have proved baseless.

“A senior advocate is behind bars and the silence of the lawyer fraternity is not a good omen for respect for human rights. Lawyers and activists will do well to remember what Niemoller said.”

Navkiran Singh, General Secretary, Lawyers for Human Rights International

Spearheading the campaign for the release of political prisoners, LFOVK, an independent organisation that advocates -nationally and internationally the Right of Self-Determination and respect for human rights in Occupied Kashmir through legal research, documentation and capacity- building to address, under international law, the violations of individual and collective rights of Kashmiris. To protect and assist the victims of conflict, LFOVK seeks to ensure compliance with the obligations of International Human Rights Laws and International Humanitarian Laws during conflicts.

Lawyers for Human Rights International general secretary Advocate Navkiran Singh of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, who has been urging advocates and activists to sign the online petition seeking Qayoom’s release says, “A senior advocate is behind bars and the silence of the lawyer fraternity is not a good omen for respect for human rights. Lawyers and activists will do well to remember what Niemoller said.”