The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has called upon the Indian authorities to immediately release the Kashmiri human rights defender, Khurram Parvez, from illegal custody.

The UN group, in a statement, called for an enforceable right to compensation and other reparations to Khurram Parvez.  The group found that Parvez’s deprivation of liberty is in contravention of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Meanwhile, illegally detained senior APHC leader, Nayeem Ahmed Khan, in a message released in Srinagar voiced his grave concern over the continued bloodshed and rising human rights violations in occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

Ahead of Modi’s official visit to US next week, the Committee to Protect Journalists citing a media crackdown in occupied Jammu and Kashmir has called on the American government to urge India to end the use of preventative detention, terrorism and criminal cases, travel bans and raids against media persons.