“Kashmir is safe for foreign tourists. Kashmir is safe for beggars from various states of India. Kashmir is safe for the armed forces. However, Kashmir is unsafe for the natives: Kashmiris. To cut the long story short.”

–by Gowhar Geelani via Zahid Zubair

Assad propagandists & their fellow travelers (most of whom are political nitwits or completely corrupt) have written thousands of diatribes against the White Helmets who they claim are terrorists, not rescue workers. They’ve written barely a peep about those US regime change plans which make them support dictatorship & counterrevolution in Syria. On a scale from one to ten, how stupid or lying-assed are they? Of course when it comes to siding with fascism & war, such measurements cannot contain the political & moral corruption involved.

Injured protesters fill Kashmir hospitals from Indian army hunt to kill operations

Shopian encounter Apr 1st (The Hindu) Apr 3 2018

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/injured-protesters-fill-jk-hospitals/article23409842.ece

This April 1st article in Indian media titled “Injured protesters fill J&K hospitals” says Indian occupying forces used tear gas shells, bullets, & “shotguns,” by which they certainly mean pellet guns, to “control protesters” in the Shopian & Kulgam districts of Kashmir. What would be the compelling need to control protesters if India is, as it claims, the world’s largest democracy? It’s a lot like Israel’s claim to being the most moral army in the world or the US claim to being the leader of the free world: a burlesque of political reality.

According to this report, over 50 young people, unarmed civilians, were admitted to hospital in Srinagar on Sunday, 40 of them with pellet gun injuries mostly in the eyes. An ophthalmologist at the Srinagar hospital said “I performed 28 eye surgeries on Sunday. All cases were bad with perforations due to pellets. Many are at the risk of losing their sight.” To legitimize their use, the Indian army claims it shoots pellets below the waist–as though shooting a young man’s genitals off were a human rights standard. Clearly the eyes are targeted with the intent to blind, disfigure, disable protesters & demoralize political struggle against occupation.

With so many killed & injured in just one day during three hunt to kill operations, it is imperative to stand with Kashmiris in their historic struggle against colonialism & occupation by getting out the word of what is happening since the internet in the districts under siege has been snapped.

End the occupation. Self-determination for Kashmir.

M. Saleem Pandit is a Hindutva propagandist

The Times of India reports that mobs of stone pelters are attacking tourist buses in Kashmir. If you look at his catalog of articles about terrorists attacking the Indian army in Kashmir, you can see the reporter M. Saleem Pandit bombs credibility standards. He’s the Hindutva analog of Assadists Bartlett & Beeley. A warning should be posted on the vicious tripe they produce: “Lose your critical faculties all ye who buy this crap.”

Indian army razes homes in its hunt to kill operations

House destruction in Apr 1 Shopian encounter (Kashmir Xpress News) Apr 2 2018

This complete destruction of homes is a routine part of the Indian army’s hunt to kill operations in Kashmir. There have been photos of sheep flocks slaughtered in these operations. It’s also routine in occupied Palestine where Israeli bulldozers take down entire villages as part of the genocide. Indian & Israeli officials justify this by pushing the international panic button of ‘Islamist terrorism’–the same thing used to justify carpet bombing civilians in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya & torching whole villages in the Rohingya genocide in Burma.

The international structures & movements of political solidarity must be rebuilt & mobilized to oppose persecution, war, occupation, & genocide.
“Whoever saves one life, saves all of humanity” & “an injury to one is an injury to all.”

(Photo from Kashmir XpressNews)

Texas friends: I met a woman today who is the sole caretaker for a cognitively disabled brother. He is incapable of self-care so she has to shave, bath, change his diapers. He is also unable to talk or walk. She may not know how to navigate the disability benefits programs in Texas so he receives $700 a month with no other benefits, including a wheel chair or a home care worker. She supports them by selling used goods out of a storage locker so she’s unable to afford a disability rights lawyer & doesn’t know where to turn. Do any of you know who she needs to talk to for some action on his disability rights? I told her I’d reach out for some advice & think some of you may know the system.

Thai navy takes damaged boat of Rohingya refugees out to stormy sea

Rohingya boat (ROYAL THAI ARMY : HANDOUT : VIA AFP-JIJI) Apr 2 2018

There’s a report originated from Associated Press (AP) that a damaged boat with 56 Rohingya refugees, believed to have set sail from Arakan/Rakhine State within the past three weeks, stopped at an island in southern Thailand on Saturday evening to get out of a storm at sea. The AP report said those 56 people “claiming to be Muslim Rohingya refugees” from Burma were helped back to sea by Thai fishermen & navy craft.” The Thai police claim they restocked essential supplies before putting them back out to sea.

Everything about this story stinks like horse manure, including the suggestion that refugees would claim to be Rohingya when they could have been aliens from outer space. Why the hell would they lie? Couldn’t Thai officials tell who they were from their language? There are reports that the storm had not abated before the boat was put back out to sea. There are no reports that the boat damage was repaired before it was forced back out to sea. We’d like to see an inventory of what the Thai police considered “essential supplies.” Were food & water included? We’d like to know if the Rohingya refugees wanted to move on in a rickety, damaged boat during a storm with at least 20 kids aboard? Or were they forced back to sea, as is the practice of the Thai Navy?

Take a look at this photo which the Thai Navy released claiming it was the Rohingya boat being escorted out to sea with a Thai naval officer seen standing in dark outfit on the bow. There are only about twenty, not 56, people in that boat in a calm sea. The Thai Navy has no idea what happened to that boat & in violation of maritime law almost certainly forced that boat to set sail in treacherous conditions against their wills. There will come a time of justice for the Rohingya people & part of it will include bringing down the Thai military regime that commands such barbarity against refugees from genocide.

(Photo is Thai Army handout via AFP-JIJI)

Children denied childhood under war, occupation, genocide

Child stone pelter Kashmir (Kashmir News Trust) Apr 2 2018

Such is the depravity of war, occupation, genocide that children are denied childhood to fight for their humanity & survival. This little boy is Kashmiri. He could be Palestinian, Rohingya, Afghan, Iraqi, Syrian, Yemeni, Libyan, Somali. Children & youth with rocks & fury against pellet guns, rockets, assault weapons, & bombers.

Long live Intifada.

(Photo from Kashmir News Trust)

March in Tel Aviv to protest sniper slaughter of unarmed Palestinians in Gaza

About 250 Israelis marched in Tel Aviv yesterday to protest the slaughter of unarmed Palestinians last Friday in Gaza. They of course had to face counter-protesters celebrating the slaughter. Those Israelis who defy the rightwing & the regime to oppose the occupation & apartheid are the advance guards of social transformation. Zionism can be defeated. Justice will win in Palestine. There can be a democratic, secular state where Palestinians & Jews will live as brothers & sisters.