India slams Pakistan’s ‘doublespeak’ at UN for defending terrorists as ‘freedom fighters’

India denounced Pakistan at the UN for defending terrorists as “freedom fighters,” calling it the “epicentre of terrorism.” New Delhi said Islamabad was twisting international law to legitimise cross-border attacks and obstructing a global anti-terrorism treaty for nearly two decades.

United Nations: Pakistan has made a renewed attempt to legitimise its terrorism by defending its terrorist brigades sent across to attack India by making the outlandish claim that they are freedom fighters.

India denounced it as “doublespeak and hypocrisy” by the “epicentre” of global terrorism. Nations should “distinguish between terrorism and the exercise of the legitimate right of people to resist foreign occupation”, Muhammad Jawad Ajmal, a Counsellor at Pakistan’s UN Mission, said on Wednesday. He falsely claimed that the “distinction is duly observed in International Law, International Humanitarian Law, and General Assembly resolution 46/51 which also endorses this position”.

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However, a 1994 General Assembly declaration expressly states, “Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them.”

This is reiterated in a 2004 Security Council resolution and the 1999 International Convention Against Financing Terrorism adopted by the UN General Assembly. The Assembly resolution that Ajmal cited, 46/51 adopted in 1991, makes a glancing mention of liberation struggles, but does not legitimise terrorism carried out under that claim, and goes on to stress that it “once again unequivocally condemns as criminal and unjustifiable, all acts, methods, and practices of terrorism wherever and by whomever committed”.

It demanded that all nations “fulfil their obligations under international law to refrain from participating in terrorist acts in other states”. Raghoo Puri, a first Secretary at India’s UN Mission, sought to set Pakistan right, saying, “Terrorism is among the gravest of offences that fundamentally violates the core of humanity. It represents the worst of bigotry, violence, intolerance and fear and terrorists are the worst of the worst in humankind.” “Pakistan’s doublespeak and hypocrisy also stand exposed,” he said.

He added, “Pakistan is a well-known epicentre of terrorism, with established link to multiple terror attacks across the world targeting innocent nationals.” Ajmal made the absurd attempt to misinterpret international law during the interactive dialogue with Ben Saul, the Special Rapporteur on Fundamental Freedoms While Countering Terrorism. It was held by the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee that deals with humanitarian affairs.

Negotiations for the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism proposed by India have been mired for 19 years by the insistence of Pakistan and a small coterie of countries on trying to define their favoured terrorists as “freedom fighters”. Ajmal claimed that the counterterrorism measures taken by India were violating the human rights of those attacking the country.

Puri said, “Terrorism is the gravest threat to humanity and its abettor and aider like Pakistan remains the worst violator of human rights.” Ajmal also opposed the world organisation’s efforts against terrorism, claiming that the “UN’s counter terrorism architecture has regrettably singled out one religion for affiliation with terrorism”. Puri dismissed that as Pakistan’s “futile attempts to take cover of Islamophobia to hide its atrocities”.