KARACHI: Pakistan foreign office spokesman Dr. Muhammad Faisal on Wednesday rejected reports that Pakistan had decided to take its dispute with India over Kashmir to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), saying the option was still under consideration and no final decision had been reached so far.
On Tuesday, Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said in an interview to a private news channel that Islamabad would take the Kashmir dispute with India to the ICJ following the New Delhi’s government’s decision on August 5 to revoke the special status of Kashmir in a bid to fully integrate its only Muslim-majority region with the rest of the country, the most far-reaching move on the troubled Himalayan territory in nearly seven decades.
“No final decision has been taken [with regards to moving the ICJ],” Faisal told reporters after a meeting with the Senate’s standing committee on Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan. “The media will be apprised once a decision is being taken to this regard.”
Sajid Mir, the chairperson of the Senate’s standing committee on Kashmir, told Arab News that Pakistan was considering moving the ICJ as one among several options and no decision on the matter has been made so far. He said the foreign office spokesman had briefed senators during Wednesday’s meeting that several options were under consideration.
“Going to ICJ is one of them, but it’s still under deliberation and no final decision has been taken,” Mir said, adding that Faisal had also apprised senators about the situation in Indian-administered Kashmir.
“Around a million people are under house arrest in Kashmir where the curfew has entered its 16th day,” Mir said. “There are reports that around 4,000 Kashmiri people have been detained by occupation forces due to fear of a strong reaction,” adding that Pakistan would “raise the issue at the [United Nations] Human Rights Council.”
In the run-up to August 5, some political leaders in Kashmir had warned that any attempt to repeal of the constitution’s Article 370 and change Kashmir’s special status could trigger major unrest as it would amount to aggression against the region’s people.
Anticipating unrest, authorities immediately moved to launch a clampdown in the state of Jammu and Kashmir by suspending telephone and Internet services and putting some leaders under house arrest.
The decision to revoke Kashmir’s special status means the revocation of a bar on property purchases by people from outside the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir and also that state government jobs and some college spots will no longer be reserved for state residents.
The Muslim-majority Himalayan region of Kashmir has been at the heart of more than 70 years of animosity, since the partition of the British colony of India into the separate countries of Muslim Pakistan and majority Hindu India.
The scenic mountain region is divided between India, which rules the populous Kashmir Valley and the Hindu-dominated region around Jammu city; Pakistan, which controls a wedge of territory in the west; and China, which holds a thinly populated high-altitude area in the north.
International law experts have urged Pakistan to exercise caution prior to taking a decision to move the ICJ and instead suggest that Pakistan approach the UN General Assembly or a specialized agency of the UN and ask them to refer the matter to the ICJ. Any decision by the ICJ would be an advisory opinion only.
“Although an Advisory Opinion will not be binding, it will support Pakistan’s position that Kashmir is an international issue and is likely to put pressure on India to act in accordance with the previous resolutions of the UNSC,” international law expert and barrister Taimur Malik said.
No final decision yet on moving ICJ on Kashmir — Pakistan foreign office
No final decision yet on moving ICJ on Kashmir — Pakistan foreign office
- Chairman senate committee on Kashmir says going to ICJ one of several options being considered
- International law experts advise caution on moving ICJ against India, suggest going to UN General Assembly instead
Italian officials go on trial over shipwreck that killed Pakistanis among 94 migrants
- Thirty-five children were among those killed when the boat crashed on the rocks off the coast of the tourist town of Cutro in 2023
- They are accused of involuntary manslaughter and “culpable shipwreck,” a crime in the Italian penal code punishing negligent actions
ROME: Six members of Italy’s police and coast guard go on trial Friday over a 2023 shipwreck that killed at least 94 migrants, accused of failing to intervene on time.
The disaster off the southern Calabrian coast was Italy’s worst in a decade and set off a firestorm of criticism against far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s tough stance on the thousands of migrants who arrive by boat each year from North Africa.
Thirty-five children were among those killed when the boat crashed on the rocks off the coast of the tourist town of Cutro on February 26, 2023.
Four officers from Italy’s Guardia di Finanza (GDF) financial crimes police and two members of the coast guard are standing trial in nearby Crotone.
They are accused of involuntary manslaughter and “culpable shipwreck,” a crime in the Italian penal code punishing negligent actions or omissions leading to a shipwreck.
The overcrowded boat had set sail from Turkiye carrying people from Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Syria. Around 80 survived.
Dozens of bodies washed up along the beach, their coffins later filling much of a nearby sports hall — brown wood for the adults, white for the children.
Authorities say more people may have perished in the shipwreck, their bodies never found.
’Negligent’
The charges against the officers relate to a search-and-rescue operation that never came, despite the boat having been tracked for hours.
A plane from European Union border agency Frontex had spotted the vessel in difficulty some 38 kilometers off the coast and flagged it to Italian authorities.
But a boat subsequently sent by the GDF police turned back due to the bad weather, and the migrant boat eventually capsized on rocks near the beach.
Prosecutors accuse the police of having failed to communicate key information to the coast guard, while the coast guard members allegedly failed to collect details from police that would have alerted them to the situation’s urgency.
Liborio Cataliotti, a lawyer for defendant Alberto Lippolis from the GDF — who ran the air and naval command center from Calabria’s other coast — told AFP his client was “very calm” heading into trial.
He said his client is being held responsible for subordinates not having provided more information.
All those on trial worked from various control centers far from the site of the shipwreck.
More migrants feared dead
Charity groups that operate search-and-rescue boats in the Mediterranean, including SOS Humanity and Mediterranea Saving Humans, are civil parties to the case.
They say the tragedy points to the policy of Meloni’s hard-right government of treating migrant boats as a law enforcement issue rather than a humanitarian one.
Human Rights Watch’s acting deputy director for Europe and Central Asia, Judith Sunderland, said it was not only the individual officers on trial, but also “Italian state policies that prioritize deterring and criminalizing asylum seekers and migrants over saving lives.”
Visiting Cutro after the tragedy, Meloni put the onus for the disaster squarely on the shoulders of human traffickers, announcing toughened penalties for those who cause migrant deaths.
Two men accused of trafficking the migrants on the boat, one Turkish and the other Syrian, were sentenced to two decades in prison in 2024.
In December that year, two Pakistanis and a Turk were convicted by a court in Crotone for their lesser roles in managing the migrants on board, with sentences from 14 to 16 years.
Around 66,000 migrants landed on Italy’s shores last year, a similar number to 2024, down from more than 157,000 in 2023, according to Italian government officials.
But many lost their lives trying to make the journey.
At least 1,340 people died while crossing the central Mediterranean last year, according to the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM).
On Monday, the agency said it feared for the lives of over 50 people missing after a shipwreck off the coast of Libya during the recent Storm Harry.
Days earlier, one-year-old twin girls were reported missing after their boat hit bad weather crossing from Tunisia to Italy.
