Human Rights Foundation urges UN to declare Kashmiri journalist’s detention since 2023 unlawful
An international intervention has pulled Kashmiri journalist Irfan Mehraj’s long, uncertain wait for justice into the global spotlight, with a New York-based advocacy group warning that his continued detention is not an aberration but part of a pattern — one in which Indian authorities jail first and dispense justice, if it comes at all, much later.
“Mehraj’s case exemplifies India’s practice of ‘trial by jail,’” said Hannah Van Dijcke, legal and research officer at the Human Rights Foundation, adding that dissidents are subjected to indefinite pre-trial detention, where the legal process itself becomes the punishment.
Last month, the Human Rights Foundation (HRF) and Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development submitted an individual complaint to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on Mehraj’s behalf, urging the body to declare his detention arbitrary and in violation of international law.
More than 1,000 days behind bars, the Kashmiri journalist remains confined in a maximum-security prison in New Delhi — over 500 miles from Srinagar — with his trial yet to begin and his bail unresolved, according to the Human Rights Foundation. In its statement on the case, the advocacy group accused Indian courts of repeatedly extending his detention, leaving him trapped in pre-trial limbo.
Indian authorities claim Mehraj’s detention is linked to his former work with the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS), accusing him of terrorism and secession under the so-called “NGO terror funding case.” This case is part of a broader probe launched in 2020 against JKCCS and other Kashmiri NGOs, which has drawn widespread international criticism, including from the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.
HRF said that despite these allegations, Mehraj’s reporting shows a consistent commitment to highlighting human rights issues in Kashmir, documenting everything from young women volunteering during the 2014 floods in Srinagar to the struggles of the Pandit community and ongoing abuses by authorities.
Condemning Miraj’s detention, Mary Aileen Diez-Bacalso, executive director of Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development, said: “Holding a journalist and human rights defender like Irfan Mehraj under this case is a blatant violation of press freedom and human rights.”
His imprisonment, she added, appears to punish him for legitimate reporting and advocacy, and reflects a wider pattern of silencing independent voices in Kashmir. “Alongside Khurram Parvez, his case underscores the authorities’ failure to uphold freedom of expression and meet international obligations,” Diez-Bacalso concluded.
Earlier this year, HRF also expressed concern over the Indian Supreme Court’s decision to deny bail to activist Umar Khalid, who has been held for more than five years without trial or conviction. The rights group said Khalid has spent years confined in Delhi’s notorious Tihar Jail, trapped in a trial that has been repeatedly postponed.
A tireless advocate for India’s minorities and marginalized communities, Khalid is also the co-founder of United Against Hate, a grassroots organization campaigning against the rise of hate crimes in an increasingly intolerant India.
Khalid was arrested over five years ago, after emerging as a leading voice in nationwide protests against the discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act, which excludes Muslims from a fast-tracked path to citizenship.
For his activism, the Human Rights Foundation said, he and 11 other still-detained protesters were slapped with 29 charges, including terrorism, sedition, and promoting religious enmity. “Authorities have invoked the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) — a vague law often used to silence dissent — to keep him behind bars,” the advocacy group said in a January statement.
“Khalid stands as a courageous symbol of dissent in an increasingly authoritarian India. For five years, he has remained one of the country’s most prominent political prisoners — his case exposing the lengths to which the government will go to crush voices of dissent, particularly from the Muslim minority,” said HRF’s Hannah Van Dijcke.
In an interview with the Express Tribune, Van Dijcke said India’s political freedoms have eroded and the country is no longer fully democratic. “We reclassified India from a democracy to what we call a hybrid authoritarian regime, a system that falls between a fully democratic and an authoritarian state.”
Irfan’s case, she added, is a clear example of where the judiciary and the legal system are failing in India. “He has been in detention, without any trial, for more than 1000 days. That is something you will never see in a democracy, as the general rule in international law is that pre-trial detention should be as short as possible,” Van Dijcke explained.
Van Dijcke flagged another worrying pattern in India, where authorities are using anti-terror laws to target journalists and activists. “At the core of many of these cases, including Irfan’s case, we can see the same law at work.
It’s the anti-terror law, the UAPA, which has a provision allowing for very lengthy pre-trial detention. It makes it much easier for Indian authorities to imprison dissidents because they don’t have to go to official trial,” she said, referring to the weaponization of laws in India.
In practice, the UAPA, officially a terrorism prevention law, has routinely been used by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) administration to intimidate and detain those critical of the government—from lawyers and activists to journalists, priests, poets, academics, civil society members, and Kashmiri civilians.
Before Narendra Modi’s government came to power in 2014, the law’s use was negligible. However, as reported by The Guardian, between 2014 and 2020, 10,552 people were arrested under the UAPA. Among those detained under UAPA in 2021 was Khurram Parvez, who documented violence, torture, and enforced disappearances of Kashmiris by Indian armed forces. The Indian government was contacted for comments on HRF’s latest submission, but no response was provided.
