https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REBSVYtVnJM

FB deleted hundreds of my posts prior to April 2012. A good share, if not the majority of them were about the Arab uprisings that began in early 2011, including the Syrian uprising against Assad’s dictatorship which I followed very closely.

It is not an exaggeration to say that thousands of videos poured out of Syria documenting that massive uprising which Assad supporters now claim never happened.

This video came up in my September 30, 2011 Facebook memories. It shows the popular, unarmed uprising against Assad in Homs, Syria, often called “the capital of the revolution” for the leading role residents played in opposing Assad’s dictatorship. The Syrian source is no longer available. Maybe they have been arrested, maybe they’ve been bombed to death as “jihadists.” I have confirmed the authenticity of this video.

When I posted it I commented that Syrians faced extreme violence from the Assad regime, including at that time 3,000 murdered, 3,000 disappeared, mass arrests, & torture.

In the past week, several Kashmiris have told me about their fear in posting on social media since Indian officials & nationalists are monitoring them. A few were arrested in India for FB posts & some are being harassed there by nationalists. FB continues to suspend accounts of Kashmiris & Indian supporters.

In Kashmir, youth are being arrested in large numbers under the Public Safety Act used against Khurram Parvez, That means possible torture & detention without charge up to two years. Given India’s flagrant disregard for law, the detention could be indefinite.

Kashmiri activists on social media worked tirelessly for a long time to break the news blackout that prevailed in international media about the occupation & their struggle. They created a monumental shift in awareness about their struggle & for that they are being punished.

Solidarity now requires those of us beyond the reach of India’s penal system to post, not recklessly but honestly, about what has gone on the past 84 days of a relentless military siege against unarmed protesters & what continues unabated.

(Left photo sign reads “Where is my son who you took away 12 years ago?” Right photo is mother protesting forcible disappearances of Kashmiri youth.)

Mahmoud Abbas is being excoriated by Palestinians & others for not just attending but getting emotional & crying at the funeral of Shimon Peres. His grief may actually be real since Abbas owes his traitorous career to the 1993 Oslo Accords negotiated by Peres.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) which Abbas heads derives from the Accords which laid out the terms for Palestinian surrender of self-determination. They were always a bantustate solution & none criticized them more harshly nor more cogently than Edward Said. The PA functions as a mechanism in that betrayal. Abbas may see it coming that he will soon have to bend over & kiss his treacherous ass goodbye.

A photo of his disgraceful fawning over Peres’ corpse, next to Obama, Bill Clinton, & Netanyahu, is too contemptible to post when you consider the monstrous crimes Peres committed against Palestinians for the past 68 years.

Yesterday, these children in Gaza held an appropriate burial ceremony for Peres. They held up crossed posters of Peres, Obama, & Netanyahu before burning them during a rally. There is no sentimentality for an architect of Israeli colonialism, apartheid, & ethnic cleansing.

(Photo from Reuters)

Today is the Day of Solidarity with Syria, There are protests around the world demanding Syria, Russia, & their allies stop the barbarous bombing of Aleppo where 275,000 civilians live. Bombing civilians will never be recognized as a method used by freedom fighters, even in the barbaric phase of capitalism.