What the world’s institutions have actually said

The United Nations human rights reports

There are two, and they are the most important documents on this site. They are not advocacy publications; they are reports of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, issued under the High Commissioner’s mandate from General Assembly resolution 48/141.

14 June 2018 — the first UN report on Kashmir, ever

Covering June 2016 to April 2018, it addressed excessive use of force by Indian security forces leading to civilian casualties, arbitrary detention, and impunity — and human rights abuses by armed groups. It also examined Pakistan-administered Kashmir, finding violations there of a different calibre or magnitude and of a more structural nature: restrictions on expression and association, institutional discrimination against minorities, and misuse of anti-terror laws against political opponents.

It urged the Human Rights Council to consider establishing an international commission of inquiry into allegations of violations in Kashmir.^[1]

8 July 2019 — the update, and the verdict on the first report

Covering May 2018 to April 2019. Its central finding was that nothing had been done. On 10 September 2018 the High Commissioner had told the Human Rights Council that the 2018 report’s findings had:

not been followed up with meaningful improvements, or even open and serious discussions on how the grave issues raised could be addressed.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Human Rights Council 39th session, 10 September 2018

Neither India nor Pakistan had taken any concrete step towards giving OHCHR unconditional access to their side of the Line of Control.^[2] Both refusals are on the record here.

The 2019 report is where the load-bearing figures on this site come from: the two conflicting casualty counts for 2018, the 1,253 people blinded by pellets, the absence of a single sanctioned prosecution under AFSPA in nearly three decades, the reintroduction of cordon and search operations, and the amendment to the Public Safety Act permitting detention of Kashmiris outside the state.

24 November 2025 — fourteen mandate holders

The most recent, and the most striking for the number of independent UN experts prepared to put their names to it. The signatories:

They opened by condemning the Pahalgam attack without qualification — and that is precisely why the rest of the statement is difficult to dismiss:

We unequivocally condemn the brutal terrorist attack on a tourist area and extend our condolences to the victims, their families, and the Government of India. However, all governments must respect international human rights law while combating terrorism.

UN Special Procedures, 24 November 2025

The experts recorded that detainees were held under the Public Safety Act or the UAPA — laws that “permit prolonged detention without charge or trial and contain vague and overbroad definitions of terrorism” — and that some were allegedly tortured, held incommunicado, and denied access to lawyers and family. On demolitions:

Such actions constitute collective punishment and defy the 2024 ruling by India’s Supreme Court, which found that such demolitions are unconstitutional and violate the rights to life and human dignity, which includes the right to protection against arbitrary displacement.

UN Special Procedures, 24 November 2025

They also recorded that Kashmiri students were subjected to surveillance and harassment following government directives requiring universities to collect their personal data, and that hate speech and incitement against Muslims increased, “inflamed by political figures in the ruling party”. They named Irfan Mehraj and Khurram Parvez as arbitrarily detained for years under draconian security laws, and demanded “the immediate unconditional release of all individuals arbitrarily detained in Jammu and Kashmir”.

Their closing recommendation was addressed to both states: to resolve the conflict peacefully. This site prints that in full, because a record that edits the UN for convenience is worthless. ^[3]

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention

The Working Group addressed the detention of Khurram Parvez in Opinion A/HRC/WGAD/2023/8. He was held four years and seven months before the Delhi High Court granted bail on 10 June 2026 — during which time his trial never reached the stage of framing charges.^[4]

Human Rights Watch

The India chapter of World Report 2026 records the Pahalgam killings; the demolition of homes of alleged militants in defiance of a Supreme Court prohibition; the blocking of independent media outlets and cases filed against academics and satirists; the banning of twenty-five books and raids on bookshops in August 2025; and intimidation, threats and assault against Kashmiri students, vendors and workers in other Indian states.^[5]

HRW’s 2023 report on internet shutdowns, “No Internet Means No Work, No Pay, No Food”, documents the consequences of India’s shutdown practice, of which Kashmir is the most extreme instance.

Amnesty International

“Denied”: Failures in accountability for human rights violations by security force personnel in Jammu and Kashmir (July 2015, ASA 20/1874/2015) is the standard work on Section 7 of AFSPA. Twenty-five years after the law’s introduction, Amnesty found it continued to feed a cycle of impunity, and that not a single member of the security forces deployed in the state had been tried for human rights violations in a civilian court. Its method was documentary: interviews with fifty-eight family members of victims, Right to Information applications, and examination of police and court records.

Amnesty’s India — Sopore: a case study of extrajudicial killings in Jammu and Kashmir (April 1993, ASA 20/17/93) is the earliest primary document in this site’s collection, recording at least fifty-three people killed by the Border Security Force on 6 January 1993.

Médecins Sans Frontières

Muntazar: Kashmir Mental Health Survey Report 2015, with the University of Kashmir and the Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences. 5,600 households, 400 villages, ten districts. It is the reason this site can state that 45% of adults in the Kashmir Valley — nearly 1.8 million people — show symptoms of significant mental distress. The findings →

Kashmiri civil society

Most of the primary documentation that exists was produced by Kashmiri organisations, and this site names them every time it uses their work: the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (annual human rights reviews, casualty counts), the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (founded 1994 by Parveena Ahangar; the 8,000–10,000 disappearance estimate), and the International People’s Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian-administered Kashmir. Their joint 550-page torture report of May 2019 is the single most detailed record of its subject that exists. The torture archive →

A note that belongs here. As this site was compiled in September 2026, jkccs.info did not resolve. The organisation whose coordinator spent four and a half years in prison no longer has a reachable website. Citations to JKCCS material on this site therefore point to mirrors, archives and the documents themselves wherever possible. That is what the closing of civic space looks like at the level of a hyperlink.

What is still missing

There has never been an independent international investigation with access to the territory. OHCHR asked for one in 2018. It asked for access in 2018 and again in 2019. It has not been granted by either government. Until it is, the record will consist of what could be gathered from outside and from a civil society under prosecution — which is precisely why every figure on this site is attributed rather than asserted.