"He’s not a terrorist, he’s a Human Rights Defender," tweeted United Nations Special Rapporteur Mary Lawlor on Monday, 22 November, hours after eminent activist Khurram Parvez was arrested by the National Investigation Agency in Jammu and Kashmir.
Parvez, one of the most resounding voices of the Valley, has been a vocal critic of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, as well as of the prevailing regime in the Union territory in the past few decades.
He has has been booked under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) for funding terror activities.
The award-winning activist's arrest has been construed as a striking reminder of the progressive attempts to silence independent, dissenting voices in the Valley.
It is pertinent to note that this isn't Parvez's first run-in with the government. The human rights advocate has been arrested under another draconian law in the past.
Here's all you need to know about the activist.
Who Is Khurram Parvez?
Documenting J&K's Social Milieu: Parvez's Association With JKCCS
Forty-four-year-old Khurram Parvez, a journalist by education, serves as the programme coordinator of the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS).
Parvez had been one of the founding members of JKCCS, which is an amalgam body of various non-funded, non-profit, campaign, research and advocacy organisations based in Srinagar. Launched in 2000, JKCCS has been documenting socio-political issues and human rights interests in J&K for the past two decades.
"JKCCS through its constituents seeks to speak truth to power whether through reports, programmes, systematic documentation, litigation or other engagements in Jammu and Kashmir and outside," as per the organisation's website.
Notably, the activist-scholar is a recipient of the prestigious Chevening Fellowship at the University of Glasgow, United Kingdom.
Chairmanship at Asian Federation for Involuntary Disappearances: Parvez's Work on Conflict
Parvez also serves as the chairperson of the Philippines-based Asian Federation against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD), an international human rights organisation which focuses on the issue of forced disappearance in Asia.
It should be noted that Parvez's interest in forced disappearances dates back to his student days.
In 1996, as a student at the Kashmir University, Parvez had started a helpline which provided peer counselling and guidance to students affected by conflict in the Valley, as per a JKCCS document.
By 1999, he was actively engaged in the activities of the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons, a Srinagar-based group working on issues of enforced disappearances.
Blast Target and Human Rights Awardee
On 20 April 2004, while monitoring elections in north Kashmir’s Lolab, a car carrying Parvez and his associates was targeted using a high-intensity improvised explosive device (IED).
While his colleague and fellow rights defender Aasiya Jeelani succumbed to the injuries of the blast, Parvez survived with an amputated leg.
Soon after he was maimed in the accident, Parvez became actively engaged with the Nobel Prize-winning International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL).
“It was a huge loss and I made up my mind to ensure that no more lives were lost to such weapons,” Parvez, who had been 31 at the time, had told The Telegraph.
Two years later, in 2006, the J&K reformer had been honoured with the prestigious 2006 Reebok International Human Rights Award, which recognises activists under the age of thirty who fight for human rights through non-violent means.
"This award stands as a symbol of remembrance of all those faces unseen, voices unheard and souls familiar as well as strangers whose killings and sufferings everyday have deepened our commitment and cemented our belief in the rights movement," Parvez had been quoted as saying at the award ceremony.
Stopped From Attending UN Meet for 'Intention to Castigate Indian Policies'
In September 2016, Khurram Parvez was stopped by immigration authorities at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport from boarding a flight to Geneva, where he was scheduled to attend a UN Human Rights Council session.
The State's obstruction had come at a time when Jammu and Kashmir had been reeling from vehement civil unrest, that had been triggered by the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani.
“The Indian State seeks to isolate the people of... Kashmir at all costs, and disallowing human rights activists access to the UN is a part of this attempt to isolate and ensure impunity for violence and denial of human rights,” the JKCCS had said in a statement at the time.
The Intelligence Bureau had said that the activist had been stopped from proceeding to the UN as he had an “intention to internationalise the ongoing disturbance in Kashmir and castigate Indian policies had approached the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and other UN Special Rapporteurs,” The Indian Express has reported.
Arrested Under Draconian Law, Released by the Court
A day after Parvez was stopped from proceeding to the UNHRC meet, the human right activist was arrested from his Srinagar residence.
He was incarcerated for four days at a sub-jail in Kupwara, after his apprehension under Sections 107 (security for keeping the peace) and 151 (design to commit any cognisable offence) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).
Upon his release, he was re-arrested by the PDP-BJP coalition government, this time under under the draconian Public Safety Act (PSA).
The Public Safety Act, 1978 is a preventive detention law under which a person is taken into custody to prevent them from acting harmfully against "the security of the state or the maintenance of the public order" in Jammu and Kashmir.
The JKCCS office in Amira Kadal after Parvez's arrest in 2016.
(Photo Courtesy: JKCCS)
After serving 76 days in prison, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court had quashed his detention under PSA, and had observed that his fundamental right had been infringed upon.
“The detenu in these circumstances has been deprived of the opportunity of making an effective representation against his detention in terms of Article 22(5) of the Constitution of India. Breach of this constitutional safeguard alone is sufficient to invalidate the impugned order of detention,” the court had said.
“I won’t let this difficulty make me bitter, instead my resolve for peace and justice has got strengthened. I want all of you to be hopeful. I am," Parvez had said in a statement after he was released.
Parvez's Arrest 'Another Extraordinary Abuse in Kashmir'
Following day-long raids by the NIA at Parvez's residence in Sonwar and his office in Amira Kadal, the activist was on Monday, 22 November, apprehended from his residence for interrogation. He was arrested by the central counter-terrorism agency later during the day.
Parvez has been booked under Sections 17 (raising funds for terrorist act), 18 (conspiracy), 18B (recruiting of any person or persons for terrorist act), 38 (offence relating to membership of a terrorist organisation), and 40 (raising funds for a terrorist organisation) of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
The activist has also been booked under Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 121 (waging, attempting to wage, abetting the waging of war against the government), and 121A (conspiracy to commit offences punishable by Section 121).
Parvez's arrest is indicative of a seeming pattern of crackdown on activists, journalists, and dissenters in the Valley, which commentators suggest has gained momentum since the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution in 2019.
David Kaye, a former UN Special Rapporteur for freedom of expression, has tweeted, “If, as reported, Khurram Parvez has been arrested by India's ‘counter-terrorism’ NIA, it's yet another extraordinary abuse in Kashmir.”
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