Pakistan's Visually Impaired Young Diplomat Excels at UNGA
By Riaz Haq
CA
Ms Saima Saleem, Pakistan's young visually-impaired woman diplomat, is currently serving at the country’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. Saima graduated from Lahore's Kinnaird College for Women. She won the Quaid-i-Azam Gold Medal for her outstanding academic performance and stood first in the Punjab Public Service Commission examination.
She spoke at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) 2021 to exercise her country's right of reply to false accusations leveled by Indian diplomat Sneha Dubey.
Saima Saleem rejected Dubey's claim that Jammu and Kashmir is "an integral part of India", and proceeded to describe India's brutal military occupation of the disputed territory. She reminded delegates of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions to this effect.
Saleem spoke of the Indian government's massive human rights violations exposed by the UN Human Rights Commission and other rights organizations. Saleem said Indian leadership is obsessed with Pakistan.
She also shared EU Disinfo Lab's recent disclosure of the scope, scale and duration of India's massive disinformation campaign against Pakistan.
Rejecting India's allegations of terrorism against Pakistan, Saleem said India's arguments are those of an occupier seeking to delegitimize popular resistance as "terrorism".
Here's a video of Saima Saleem's UNGA Speech:
https://youtu.be/EtPpvbiDGT4
(Riaz Haq is a Silicon Valley-based Pakistani-American analyst and writer. He blogs at www.riazhaq.com)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Back to Pakistanlink Homepage
