UNITED NATIONS, Oct 22 (APP):Pakistan has voiced serious concern over grave human rights violations by countries conducting extra-territorial assassination campaigns under the pretext of counterterrorism, and called for their condemnation.
Participating in an interactive dialogue with UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, Ben Saul, in the General Assembly’s Third Committee, Pakistani delegate Muhammad Jawad Ajmal reaffirmed Pakistan’s commitment to ensuring protection of human rights while countering terrorism.
The Third Committee deals with social, humanitarian and cultural matters.
Emphasizing that the definition of terrorism must be consistent with international law, he called for distinguishing between terrorism and exercise of the legitimate right of people to resist foreign occupation and for exercising their right to self-determination.
Highlighting situations of foreign occupation in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir and Palestine, Ajmal, a counsellor in Pakistan Mission to the UN, said the occupying powers continue to violate human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous populations, with forced relocations, settler violence, demographic changes, arbitrary detentions, torture, inhumane and degrading treatment.
He called for holding to account organized criminal networks involved in illicit trade of arms and weapons, as well as drones to facilitate terrorist groups such as the TTP (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan) and BLA (Balochistan Liberation Army) in the region.
“The situation in Afghanistan is a glaring example of the growing nexus of terrorist groups targeting neighbouring countries, such as Pakistan that has lost more than 4,700 lives in just the last three years alone.
The Pakistani delegate also expressed concern at violations of sovereignty and territorial integrity in complete breach of international human rights laws, under “false pretexts” of counter-terrorism.
In May 2025, he said, India attacked urban civilian areas in Pakistani territory leading to the loss of 54 innocent Pakistani civilians, including 15 children and 13 women, some of them infants.
“While Pakistan has demonstrated its will and capability to thwart such malicious acts of state terrorism, we must condemn such misadventures,” Ajmal stressed.
Listings of terrorist individuals and entities must not directly or indirectly discriminate on prohibited grounds, including religion, he said, but must include violent nationalist, far right and Islamophobic groups that target minorities and vulnerable populations worldwide.
The UNSC sanctions regimes, the Pakistani delegate said, should be made more equitable and transparent.
Source: APP (Associated Press of Pakistan)
