Geelani barred 48 times from offering Friday prayers in 2017: Hurriyat (G)

Srinagar, Jan 5: Chairman Hurriyat Conference (G) Syed Ali Geelani could not attend the Friday congregational prayers due to his continuous house arrest, a spokesperson of the conglomerate said.
He said in 2017, Geelani was stopped 48 times from offering Friday prayers, an important religious obligation.
Meanwhile, Tehreek-e-Huriyat General Secretary Mohammad Ashraf Sehrai continued to remain under house detention on Friday for the third consecutive day and they too were not allowed to offer the Friday prayers, the spokesperson said in a statement issued. “Huriyat spokesman Gh Ahmad Gulzar, Mohd Yusuf Naqash, Mohd Yasin Ataie and Syed Imtiyaz Hyder are continuously lodged in different police stations.”
Strongly condemning the house imprisonment of Syed Ali Geelani and other resistance leaders, Hurriyat spokesperson said the imprisonment of its leaders has “no constitutional and moral justification” and police is suppressing their peaceful voices “just with the barrel of gun”.
Hurriyat said police “invented a new process of house arrests and banning of political activities of Geelani Sahib and other leaders during 2010 mass uprising in Jammu & Kashmir”.
“Since then, police never produced any legal justification for this illegal house arrest process and they never explained that under which act or section of the law Geelani is being imprisoned inhis house,” he said. “This lawlessness continued in the period of Omar Abdullah and now PDP government is following the suite in its rule.”
Hurriyat while strongly denouncing PDP-led coalition government said their “rhetoric” about “battle of ideas” proved hoax and they proved “most opportunistic”.
“Despite their tall claims about freedom of expression, they are chasing political leaders, strangulating genuine voices, curbing peaceful political activities and implicating and caging youth on fake allegations,” Hurriyat said.
Hurriyat slammed PDP government for “misusing PSA”, saying that Public Safety Act was introduced by late Sheikh Mohd Abdullah saying it would be used against timber smugglers only but later it was misused and used against political opponents.
Referring to Amnesty International, Hurriyat said that international organisations for human rights and AI have declared this law as draconian and lawless law as authorities in Jammu and Kashmir are using the PSA to detain its political opponents on “fabricated charges”.
“Even ordinary police man and DC is authorised to slap PSA against anyone without taking into consideration the ethics, law and basic moral values,” he said.
Demanding immediate release of all detainees, Hurriyat said that “unnecessary caging and curbing people and detaining resistance leaders and youth is the root cause of uncertainty in state”.