A Modest Proposal for a Selfie or Photo Campaign to Free Khurram Parvez:
Kashmiri human rights leader Khurram Parvez has now been in administrative detention for 50 days. He was arrested not for any criminal misconduct but because of his central role in investigating, exposing, campaigning against human rights crimes by the Indian occupying army–especially on the issue of forcible disappearance.
An estimated 8,000 to 10,000 cases of enforced disappearances, most of them male, have been reported in Kashmir since 1989. The monstrous character of this crime leaves families profoundly bereft with a grief that cannot be resolved & will not be exhausted by times passage. Justice for the disappeared was Khurram’s commitment.
Khurram’s legal team from the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society is working through the tediums of the court system for his release while his defense campaign is appealing to international human rights groups & those of the disappeared to campaign for his immediate, unconditional release. Most are posting photos on his defense wall of rallies & placards demanding his release.
Kashmiri activists on social media are being monitored & hundreds are being arrested & administratively detained in Kashmir. It’s an important time for human rights advocates around the world to answer the clarion call for solidarity–& in a very simple & public way.
It would be very powerful if people would take a selfie of themselves, with or without others, or a photo of others holding up a handwritten sign (nothing fancy-schmancy is required) saying “Free Khurram Parvez” which you would then post to his defense wall. The point is to keep his defense active & to take it international.
This is the wall where you would post your selfie: