- Saturday, May 03, 2025
Yana Mir was speaking at a ‘Sankalp Divas’ event on February 20 which was hosted by Jammu and Kashmir Study Centre to mark the 30th anniversary of a resolution on Jammu and Kashmir which was passed by the Indian parliament.
By: Shubham Ghosh
YANA Mir, an activist from Jammu and Kashmir in India, made a strong defence of the province during a speech in the UK parliament this week saying she is free and safe in her country India and called Kashmir, her home, a part of India.
Mir, who calls herself Kashmir’s first woman vlogger and is also a journalist, said that she is not Malala Yousafzai and ‘will never run away’ from her home country.
“I am free, and I am safe in my country India, in my home in Kashmir which is part of India,” she said, adding that she would never flee her homeland and take refuge in the UK.
Read: Protection officers accused of racist remarks towards Malala Yousafzai
TAKBEER!! https://t.co/ua4lS6gpVH
— Yana Mir (@MirYanaSY) February 22, 2024
Yousafzai was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman in the Swat Valley of Pakistan in 2012 after she defied a Taliban ban on women’s education. A Teenager then, she survived the deadly attack and shifted to the UK later and studied at Oxford University and even got the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 as the youngest-ever recipient at 17.
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“But I object to you, Malala Yousafzai, defaming my country, my progressing homeland, by calling it ‘oppressed’. I object to all such ‘toolkit members’ on social media and foreign media who never cared to visit Indian Kashmir, but, fabricate stories of ‘oppression’ from there,” Mir said.
I am not a Malala
I am free and safe in my homeland #Kashmir, which is part of India
I will never need to runaway from my homeland and seek refuge in your country: Yana Mir @MirYanaSY in UK Parliament. #SankalpDiwas pic.twitter.com/3C5k2uAzBZ
— Sajid Yousuf Shah (@TheSkandar) February 22, 2024
“I urge you all to stop polarising Indians on grounds of religion, we won’t allow you to break up us”, Mir added.
“I hope our perpetrators living in the UK in Pakistan will stop maligning my country”.
Videos of her speech went viral on social media.
Thank you Sajid for pushing me to go here, when i was depressed after we lost dad. I would'nt reach here if it wasnt for you.
Also this Malala theory was given to me by my sister.
So a person is nothing, without family support ❤️— Yana Mir (@MirYanaSY) February 22, 2024
The activist was speaking at a ‘Sankalp Divas’ event on Tuesday (20) which was hosted by the Jammu and Kashmir Study Centre (JKSC), a think tank dedicated to research on Jammu and Kashmir, in the British parliament complex. The occasion marked the 30th anniversary of a historic resolution related to Jammu and Kashmir which was passed by the Indian parliament on February 22, 2024.
It reaffirmed India’s unwavering stance that the entire region of Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India. The resolution, which was passed unanimously, had said, “Pakistan must vacate the areas of the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir, which they have occupied through aggression.”
PV Narasimha Rao was the prime minister of India at the time.
In a statement, JKSC UK said, “All the parliamentarians expressed their appreciation for the shared insights and encouraged the continuation of such events to unveil the ground realities of Jammu and Kashmir, a perspective often absent from the mainstream narrative. They stressed the importance of ongoing interactions on this subject.”
The event attracted a cross-party presence, including Conservative Party MPs Bob Blackman and Theresa Villiers and Labour Party MP Virendra Sharma. The keynote speakers were Professor Sajjad Raja from Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (POJK) who is currently residing in exile in Britain also was present.
Mir, who is currently working as a senior anchor with Bharat Express News Network, also received at the event the Diversity Ambassador Award for championing diversity in the Jammu and Kashmir region. She outlined progress in the region following the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019, emphasising improved security, government initiatives, and allocation of funds allocation.
She also thanked Sajid Yousuf Shah, the in-charge of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s media department in Kashmir, and said how she came up with the Malala Yousafzai comparison.
“Thank you, Sajid, for pushing me to go here, when I was depressed after we lost Dad. I wouldn’t have reached here if it wasn’t for you. Also, this Malala theory was given to me by my sister. So a person is nothing, without family support”, Mir wrote on X.
Mir’s father passed away on January 26.
In 2022, Mir had called Pakistan an “interfering boyfriend” in a YouTube interview and advised it “to stop”.
“The lady is claiming everywhere that she is happy with her husband,” she said, while accusing Pakistan of constantly interfering and claiming stake in Jammu and Kashmir.
