Syed Ali Shah Geelani (1929 – 2021) was a schoolteacher, writer and talismanic defender of the rights of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. For decades, he was the face of the Kashmiri political movement for democracy, self-determination and human rights, serving as chairman of the pro-self-determination political coalition, the Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference. Indian authorities first arrested him for his political activities in 1962. He spent over 25 years of his life as a prisoner of conscience. The Indian government maligned and persecuted him as an insurrectionist, seditionist and terrorist for his steadfast advocacy of Kashmiri rights. Amongst Kashmiris, he was widely respected for his principles, incorruptibility, forthrightness and gentle demeanor.

As Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s health failed in recent years, Indian authorities kept him imprisoned in his home. When he died on September 1, 2021, they denied him a proper funeral and burial, denied his family participation in his last rites and denied the Kashmiri people the opportunity to celebrate his life and mourn his death. This is a grave violation of religious and cultural rights, the defiling of an unparalleled human life and an act of colonial contempt toward a subject people. As an outrage upon personal dignity committed during an armed conflict (Kashmir is occupied territory with an ongoing struggle for self-determination), India’s treatment of Syed Ali Shah Geelani in death constitutes a war crime.

In connection with Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s passing, we renew Kashmiris’ longstanding demands of the international community, including that the United Nations and its member states comply with international law, their own commitments and common decency by:

• pressing India to return the remains of Kashmiris forcibly buried contrary to their families’ wishes, including Maqbool Bhat (d. 1984), Afzal Guru (d. 2013), Syed Ali Shah Geelani (d. 2021) and dozens of other individuals;
• pressing India to permit the proper burial of Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Maqbool Bhat, Afzal Guru and other martyrs of the Kashmiri struggle for self-determination in accordance with their families’ wishes;
• implementing a transparent process of accountability and fulsome reparations for rights violations and atrocity crimes that have occurred and are occurring;
• ceasing to violate international law by aiding and assisting violations of international law in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir (including by failing to call India to account, supplying arms, sharing intelligence and normalizing India through diplomatic and trade relations); and
• fulfilling obligations under international law by ensuring the implementation of international law in Jammu and Kashmir, including ending the annexation and colonization, commission of serious human rights violations and atrocity crimes in Indian-Administered Jammu and Kashmir, demilitarizing and ending the occupation of the territory of the historic Princely State of Jammu and Kashmir, and effectuating the realization of the right to self-determination by its native people.