HRF, together with its partner the @forum_asia, urges the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) to intervene in the case of Kashmiri journalist Irfan Mehraj.
Mehraj has spent more than 1000 days in pretrial detention without a start date for his trial or a decision on his bail application. His case exemplifies India’s practice of “trial by jail,” whereby the legal process itself becomes the punishment.
Mehraj worked as a journalist for major international and local news outlets, and as a researcher for the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS). Indian officials allege Mehraj’s detention is linked to his association with JKCSS in a broader so-called “NGO terror funding case”, which the WGAD has previously rejected as baseless.
HRF and FORUM-ASIA call on the UNWGAD to declare Mehraj’s detention arbitrary under international law and demand his immediate release.
