Watch: Kashmiri activist slams Pakistan at UNHRC over plight of Pashtun Shias

An Indian Kashmiri Muslim activist Javed Ahmad Beigh on Friday (Mar 15) blasted Pakistan for its treatment of minorities while speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).

Highlighting the plight of Pashtun Shias who reside in the Kurram district of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Beigh said they were being treated by Islamabad in the “most inhumanly way possible”.

On Saturday (Mar 16), he posted the video of his address on X, along with a long message with the header: “AN INDIAN KASHMIRI MUSLIM BLOWING PAKISTANI PROPAGANDA TO SMITHEREENS AT UNITED NATIONS”

Add WION as a Preferred Source

“I am extremely pleased to share video of my intervention at 55th session of United Nation Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva, Switzerland, exposing Punjabi Muslim run & dominated PAKISTAN on its dubious, bloody, violent, horrifying and pathetic record of treating PAKISTAN's SHIA MUSLIM minority in humanly worst possible manner,” Beigh wrote on X.

“As a member of India's Kashmir Valley's 1.5 million strong Shia Muslim community, which is acutely aware of the mistreatment of Shia Muslims in Pakistan, I forcefully and vociferously raised issue of the plight of Shia Muslims in Pakistan by highlighting extremely horrifying condition of Pakistan's lesser known PASHTUN SHIA MUSLIMS of PARACHINAR which is located in Kurram district of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhawa province,” he added.

“Kashmir's Shias (nearly 20% of total Kashmiri Muslim population) are very well aware of the miserable plight of Pakistani Shia Muslim communities like Pashtun Shias of Parachinar, Hazara Shias of Balochistan and Shias & Ismailis of Pakistan Occupied Gilgit and Baltistan,” he wrote in his message.

“It is hightime that world must be made aware of the hell that Punjabi Muslim controlled Pakistan has become for its Shia Muslims. As an Indian Kashmiri Muslim, I am proud and delighted to take Pakistan to task for pushing its Shia Muslim population to unending cycle of death and destruction,” he stressed.

During his speech at the UNHRC, he highlighted that even Pakistan’s judiciary has become immune to violence committed against Shias.

He also presented a stark contrast between India’s ‘gifted’ land of Jammu and Kashmir, where interfaith harmony, progress and economic well-being of all have taken firm roots, and the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

In his speech, Javed Ahmad Beigh threw light on the fierce sectarian war that erupted between Sunni Pashtun militants and Shia Bangash tribesmen in which more than 3,000 people were killed.

He concluded his speech by saying that the increasing extremism in Pakistan was all set to make the future further bleaker for the Shias of Parachinar.