For years, Pakistan has attempted to turn the language of human rights into an instrument of foreign policy, presenting itself internationally as a defender of human rights in Jammu and Kashmir while resisting scrutiny of what happens within territories under its own control. But at the ongoing 63rd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, that carefully cultivated narrative has collapsed. The discussion has increasingly moved from Pakistan’s accusations against others to questions about its own record of dealing with dissent, protest, political opposition and civic freedoms.

The most consequential intervention came from UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk himself. While addressing the Council at the opening of its 63rd session, he directly stated that authorities in Pakistan had used “excessive lethal force and arbitrary detention to quell protests.” His remarks came in the broader context of shrinking civic space and the right to peaceful protest, but the reference to Pakistan was unambiguous. Türk argued that governments should respond to public frustration through dialogue rather than repression. That statement matters because it strips away much of the diplomatic ambiguity that normally surrounds criticism of Pakistan’s internal human-rights record. The issue was not presented simply as a disagreement between Islamabad and its political opponents.

The UN’s top human-rights official placed Pakistan’s response to protests within a wider international concern over the use of force, arbitrary detention and the shrinking space available for peaceful political expression. The significance becomes clearer when the discussion is placed alongside what has been raised about Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK). The region that Islamabad routinely presents before international forums as evidence of India’s alleged human-rights failures has itself become the subject of increasingly serious scrutiny over the conduct of Pakistani authorities. At the Council Shivi Development Society, an Indian civil-society organisation made an oral statement during the Item 3 General Debate on civic space and democratic participation.

The intervention was focused specifically on the deterioration of civic space in PoJK. The organisation said that protests and tensions had escalated since June and alleged that Pakistani security forces had responded with disproportionate force, arbitrary violence and heavy-handed security measures resulting in significant civilian casualties. The statement also raised concerns over digital censorship, restrictions on peaceful protest and pressure on human-rights defenders. The statement was significant not merely because it criticised Pakistan, but because it connected the political unrest to the deeper socio-economic conditions in the........

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