Always remarkable & fearless Filipino human rights activists held a rally inside university premises after riot police threatened to arrest them if they protested in the streets during a Duterte speech on the state of the nation.

Scientists are now saying that corona is not just a respiratory disease but also a neurological, cardiovascular, psychiatric, & brain disease & the long term health consequences are not yet understood. Stay the hell home.

Al Jazeera news showed monsoon flooding in the northern Indian states of Bihar & Assam with millions affected, at least 300,000 displaced, & many hospitals during this pandemic submerged under water. A man visiting his daughter in hospital said in the past five days there has been no government assistance against the flooding. If India pulled its troops out of Kashmir, they could address this horrific crisis rather than create a living hell in Kashmir & now Bihar & Assam.

It’s after 5am here & I was irritated since I can’t sleep. But I received a call from the 12-year-old daughter of a FB friend in Pakistan. She told me she is also bored under quarantine & was so charming that all my irritation dissolved. She made my day.

So far this year, 138 Kashmiri militants have been killed in military operations. That’s almost 20 young people every month. Maybe they were all militants; maybe some were young men abducted by the Indian Army. All of them were executions. How many civilians were injured or killed? How many homes razed & families made homeless in a pandemic? How many lives have been traumatized & terrorized?
Stand with Kashmiris & demand the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all Indian forces from Kashmir.

Micheal Clinton remains in hospital with something of a relapse. He is an extraordinary person & needs extraordinary prayers & blessings to get through this. Please keep him in your prayers.

Solidarity with those on the front lines of oppression is such a two-way street. There’s nothing noblesse oblige about it. The resistance of Kashmiris, Palestinians & others facing colonialism & genocide to massive military & political power is all of humanity’s only hope that someday we will all live as free human beings. That’s how important their struggles are.

This is the mother of 26-year-old Aqib Ahmad Malik holding a photo of him after he was arrested today in connection with a 2018 case filed under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). The UAPA is the same pretext used to haul in journalist Masrat Zahra for interrogation & intimidation. He was booked under Section 13 of the UAPA indicting ‘a person who advocates, abets, advises or incites the commission of any unlawful activity’. Since he doesn’t have a history of criminal activity, his family believes he was arrested for protesting the poor quality of food at Kashmir University (where he is a student) in 2018. It doesn’t take much more than that to be considered a political malcontent in Kashmir.
Aqib is a post-graduate student in biochemistry at Kashmir University but has been home under corona quarantine for the past three months since classes are suspended. His case highlights the precarious situation of young people in Kashmir & the direct targeting of youth by the Indian occupation.
We should demand the immediate release of Aqib Ahmad Malik & that all phony charges against him be dropped as part of demanding the immediate release of all Kashmiri political prisoners.
(Photo by Kamran Yousuf)
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