Tel Aviv, Oct 5
The demand for basic rights like affordable electricity, flour, and dignity by Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK) protesters and their killings by Pakistani troops were criticised by a human rights expert who also questioned the “deafening” global silence on the brutality, a media report said on Sunday.

“The valleys of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), often described as idyllic and scenic, are now drenched in blood. For over a week, protests led by the Jammu Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC) have engulfed Muzaffarabad, Rawalakot, Dheerkot, and Mirpur, demanding nothing more radical than affordable electricity, subsidised flour, and dignity,” said a blog by Michael Arianti on The Times of Israel website.

Slamming the international silence over the Pakistani troops’ atrocities in PoJK, Arianti said, “What is unfolding in PoJK is not just a story of local grievances but of international hypocrisy.”

Arianti, an expert on Kurdish affairs and human rights, said, “We live in a world where hashtags trend within hours, where causes go viral across continents, yet the massacre of Muslim civilians in PoJK has barely stirred a whisper. The selective outrage is deafening.”

Pointing to the demands of protesters, he said, “These are the most basic of rights, yet they have been answered with bullets, curfews, and a communications blackout.”

Reports from the ground are grim. At least 10 civilians, including young men in Dheerkot and Muzaffarabad, have been shot dead by Pakistani forces. More than 100 others lie injured, victims of live ammunition, tear gas, and batons, he said.

Paramilitary troops from mainland Pakistan -- outsiders in every sense -- have been deployed against Kashmiri Muslims protesting the very exploitation that sustains Pakistan’s power grid and fills its treasury, said the blog.

For a region producing nearly a third of Pakistan’s hydroelectricity, residents still pay exorbitant tariffs, often ten times higher than production costs, while the elites in Islamabad and “Azad Kashmir” enjoy free power, free fuel, and unchecked privileges, said the rights expert.

The blog said that numbers tell the story more starkly than rhetoric ever could. In the past week alone, at least 10 civilians have been killed and over 100 injured. This follows previous cycles of violence in 2023 and 2024, when protests over flour shortages and electricity tariffs were met with state firepower, leaving multiple civilians dead.

The pattern is clear: demands for rights in PoK are answered with repression.

Economically, the injustice is staggering. The region generates 30 per cent of Pakistan’s hydroelectricity, yet locals pay some of the highest electricity tariffs in the entire country -- Rs 40-50 per unit, compared to production costs of Rs 4-7.

Pakistan owes the region at least Rs 370 billion in royalties, but instead of repayment, Islamabad sends Rangers and federal police.

What is unfolding in PoJK is not just a story of local grievances but of international hypocrisy, said Arianti in his blog.

Consider this: when a flotilla headed to Gaza was intercepted, it dominated headlines across Europe and the Middle East. Politicians, activists, and journalists raced to express indignation, he said.

But when Pakistani forces opened fire on Kashmiri Muslims -- when eight, then ten, and perhaps more were martyred -- there was silence. No emergency UN session. No Arab League declaration. No European Parliament resolution, he said.

Why is the death of a Palestinian in Gaza a global headline, but the death of a Kashmiri Muslim in Muzaffarabad or Dheerkot a footnote, if acknowledged at all? Both are victims, both cry out for dignity, and yet the international community decides whose suffering matters, he said.

Arianti said the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), so quick to issue statements against India whenever an incident occurs in Jammu and Kashmir, has not uttered a single word about the massacre in PoK. Not one. The same OIC that rushes to condemn Israel or India now averts its gaze when the oppressor is Pakistan.

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Global silence on PoJK killings by Pak troops is ‘deafening’, says media report