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Free Yasin Malik: Pakistan must press India for his release from Tihar Jail
Yasin Malik, chairman of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, has been held in Tihar Jail in New Delhi since 2019. In May 2022 an Indian court sentenced him to life imprisonment. India's National Investigation Agency has since gone to the Delhi High Court to ask that the sentence be increased to death.
Pakistan does not accept that this was a fair trial, and neither do we. Yasin Malik laid down arms in 1994 and spent the next twenty-five years pursuing the Kashmiri cause by peaceful, political means. He met Indian prime ministers. He addressed seminars and gave interviews. He was, by India's own conduct, treated as a man to be talked to. He is now serving life for that same politics, and the state that once sat across the table from him is asking a court to hang him.
Jammu and Kashmir is not a settled internal matter of India. It is a disputed territory under United Nations Security Council resolutions, and the people of Kashmir were promised a plebiscite that they have never been given. A man imprisoned for advocating that promise is a political prisoner, and Pakistan has both the standing and the duty to say so.
There is a further and direct Pakistani interest. Yasin Malik's wife, Mushaal Hussein Mullick, is a Pakistani citizen. Her husband's imprisonment, his health, and the treatment he receives are the legitimate concern of the state whose passport she carries.
We therefore call on the Government of Pakistan to:
1. Raise Yasin Malik's imprisonment directly and formally with the Government of India, and to press for his release.
2. Take the case, in the strongest terms, to the United Nations Human Rights Council, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
3. Demand independent medical access to him and confirmation of his condition, and demand that his family be permitted to see him.
4. Oppose, publicly and at every forum available, the National Investigation Agency's move to have him sentenced to death.
5. Report back to the people of Pakistan on what has actually been done, and when.
Kashmir has been Pakistan's cause for seventy-eight years. If that means anything, it means speaking for the Kashmiris who are in prison for it.
Pakistan does not accept that this was a fair trial, and neither do we. Yasin Malik laid down arms in 1994 and spent the next twenty-five years pursuing the Kashmiri cause by peaceful, political means. He met Indian prime ministers. He addressed seminars and gave interviews. He was, by India's own conduct, treated as a man to be talked to. He is now serving life for that same politics, and the state that once sat across the table from him is asking a court to hang him.
Jammu and Kashmir is not a settled internal matter of India. It is a disputed territory under United Nations Security Council resolutions, and the people of Kashmir were promised a plebiscite that they have never been given. A man imprisoned for advocating that promise is a political prisoner, and Pakistan has both the standing and the duty to say so.
There is a further and direct Pakistani interest. Yasin Malik's wife, Mushaal Hussein Mullick, is a Pakistani citizen. Her husband's imprisonment, his health, and the treatment he receives are the legitimate concern of the state whose passport she carries.
We therefore call on the Government of Pakistan to:
1. Raise Yasin Malik's imprisonment directly and formally with the Government of India, and to press for his release.
2. Take the case, in the strongest terms, to the United Nations Human Rights Council, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
3. Demand independent medical access to him and confirmation of his condition, and demand that his family be permitted to see him.
4. Oppose, publicly and at every forum available, the National Investigation Agency's move to have him sentenced to death.
5. Report back to the people of Pakistan on what has actually been done, and when.
Kashmir has been Pakistan's cause for seventy-eight years. If that means anything, it means speaking for the Kashmiris who are in prison for it.
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