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.”