Mostly I delete comments by rightwing ideologues & nationalists from Burma, India, Israel, the US & those who are Assad supporters because they’re so hateful & because they all sound like the KKK to me.

The Putin & Trump supporters gloating that the Russiagate investigation has gone south need to read MSM once in a while. Mueller is on your man like a Pit Bull with rabies.

Voices from the Dark: Torture & Sexual Violence Against Women in Assad’s Detention Centres

Voices from the Dark cover Aug 28 2017

How the Assad dictatorship became a cause célèbre for so many who call themselves progressives is a case of the triumph of propaganda, deceit, & dogma added to Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, & misogyny. There is overwhelming documentation of monstrous human rights & war crimes committed by the Assad regime. Assad supporters deny the evidence or claim those crimes are the price paid for national sovereignty but the question is: national sovereignty for the Assad regime or for the people of Syria who rose up to oust him? It’s a switch & bait maneuver to attempt to identify Syrian revolutionary opposition to Assad with the counter-revolutionary terrorist groups.

It’s estimated that 65,000 Syrians have been tortured & executed in Assad’s gulag in the past six years. Several thousand more were detained & tortured but not executed & managed to flee into exile after release. The Syrian NGO named Lawyers & Doctors for Human Rights (LDHR) issued this report in July 2017 titled “Voices from the Dark: Torture & Sexual Violence Against Women in Assad’s Detention Centres.” Trained doctors examined & lawyers took testimony from eight Syrian women who had been detained, tortured, & sexually assaulted in Assad’s prisons. None of the women knew each other nor were they detained in the same prison.

The LDHR report in full: http://guernica37.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Voices-from-the-Dark.pdf

On the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARFA)

Any suggestions that alleged actions of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) are responsible for the military onslaught against Rohingya are to be rejected with contempt. Unconfirmed charges are circulating that ARSA militants attacked Myanmar security forces with knives, guns & homemade explosives. Maybe they did; maybe they didn’t. Since the source of the charges are the Myanmar government, there isn’t an ounce of credibility to the claims.

According to some reports, ARSA has been active in Arakan state since the genocidal military onslaught in 2012; according to other reports, they were behind the October 9, 2016 attack on border patrol that unleashed the military onslaught that lasted for several months. The Rohingya people have the right to defend themselves by any means necessary but there’s something about ARSA that doesn’t quite add up. It’s origins, existence, & alleged actions have proven an advantage to the regime in justifying genocide. It’s not certain what their politics are or if they do more than issue occasional videos on YouTube. Even if they turn out to be behind the attacks on security forces in Arakan state, they are not responsible for the genocidal onslaught on Rohingya villagers.

Rohingya stranded on Bangladesh-Burma border because denied asylum by Bangladesh

Rohingya stranded on Naf river (Arakan TV) Aug 28 2017

These are among five-thousand Rohingya, mostly women & children, stranded on the banks of the Naf river at the Burma-Bangladesh border. Many have managed to cross into Bangladesh but thousands are being denied asylum & many who managed to cross are being forcibly returned to Myanmar by Bangladeshi border patrol under orders from the government.

Since Friday when the Aung San Suu Kyi regime relaunched a genocidal assault on Rohingya in Arakan state, an estimated 15,000 Rohingya men, women, & children have taken shelter in hills & forests; nearly 500 Rohingya men, women, & children have been killed by gun fire, arson, & slaughter; 1,000 are seriously injured; 300 to 400 houses have been torched along with mosques & other buildings; livestock have been killed in large numbers.

We stand in full solidarity with the Rohingya struggle against genocide & for human, democratic, civil, & refugee rights.

(Photo & information from Arakan TV)

Bangladeshi Muslims protest in defense of Rohingya

Bangladeshi Muslims protest Aug 28th (Arakan TV) Aug 28 2017

Bangladeshi Muslims are protesting today in Chittagong against the genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar: “Stop genocide on innocent Rohingya in Arakan, Myanmar.”

There is a distinction made in international law between ethnic cleansing, which is forcible removal of a religious or ethnic group from a particular region, & genocide, which is the complete extermination of an ethnic or religious group. There is no distinction in the methods used to achieve ethnic cleansing & genocide & in some places like Gaza & Arakan state, Myanmar, the distinction becomes useless.

Stop the genocide of Rohingya Muslims. Full solidarity with their struggle against genocide & for human, democratic, civil, & refugee rights.

(Photo from Arakan TV)

One hopes the volunteers & first responders rescuing people in Houston will show those many with an attitude problem toward Texans the error of their ways & that we’ll never hear another word about Texas being the wellspring of rednecks. George Bush could have been any monster’s child. I knew types like that in Minnesota & even more in Massachusetts.

International Day of the Disappeared: August 30th, 2017

International Day of the Disappeared Aug 28 2017

The Kashmiri Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) & Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) will be commemorating the International Day of the Disappeared on Wednesday, August 30th with a silent sit-in protest (at Municipal Park, near General Post Office, Residency Road, Lal Chowk, at 12:00 noon). It is estimated that since 1989 between 8,000 & 10,000 mostly men & boys have been forcibly disappeared. That is about one person every day for 28 years.

The organizers suggest a virtual solidarity campaign on social media using the hashtags #expressionsofsolidarity or #disappearances. The solidarity campaign can include photos of those disappeared from around the world as well as Kashmir; photos of protests against disappearances; artwork from solidarity activists like Rollie Mukherjee, political cartoons by Kashmiri activists like V Arun Kumar & Mir Suhail.

Forcible disappearance is an unspeakable crime with a grief among survivors that is complex, unforgiving, & unresolvable. This is a day to highlight the character of this crime, to educate about it, & to demand governments around the world stop using it as a way to repress dissidence & punish activists for social justice.

You can like & share this FB page to prepare for the event:

https://www.facebook.com/events/492413927784187/?

Spent the morning with two women very well-informed on the details of the Trump fiasco. Powerful forces with big grudges against this ass are working to take him down ingloriously. From here on out we should just sit back & enjoy the spectacle. The blowhard faces extermination & of course it will all be done smothered in legalities. There’s no soft coup by the imaginary deep state on the horizon.