Eighteen civilians killed in Kashmir by Indian troops just in January 2018

Srinagar protester Jan 19 returning tear gas canister (Faisal Khan) Feb 1 2018

Kashmir Media Service reports today that just in January 2018, Indian occupying forces & police personnel using brute force, pellet guns, & teargas shells killed 18 people, injured 147 people, arrested 137 people. Two women were left widowed & ten children were orphaned.

Just one month of military occupation with enough human rights crimes & enough mourning to take to an international tribunal condemning the Indian government & demanding it immediately, unconditionally withdraw from Kashmir.

Photo is protester in Srinagar on January 19th throwing a tear gas shell back at Indian soldiers.

End the occupation. Self-determination for Kashmir.

(Photo by Faisal Khan)

RIP Laith Abu Naim

Laith Abu Naim, 16 killed in West Bank Jan 30 2018

This is 16-year-old Palestinian Laith Abu Naim who was shot in the head last Tuesday by an Israeli soldier in the occupied West Bank. Nineteen Palestinians, mostly protesters, have been killed by Israeli troops just since December when Trump declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel. It isn’t confirmed how many of the nineteen were shot in the head but it’s likely most were young people shot with live ammo, several directly in the head. It’s not an accidental thing but a strategy of war & occupation to target youth. Nor is it an accident that so many die from bullet wounds to the head. Just last week, Indian occupying troops in Kashmir killed four (including 12-year-old Najar Mushaira Fayaz killed by head injuries from a live shell) & seriously injured five other young people by bullet wounds to the head. It’s relevant to note here that India contracted with Israel to train paramilitary forces for Kashmir & for use against political resistance in India.

An Israeli army spokesperson blamed the nineteen executions on ‘violent rioters’ & stone pelters. But Palestinians fighting unarmed against occupation, the razing of entire villages to make room for Israeli settlements, & the violent expropriations of their lands are not rioters. They are freedom fighters.

Laith Abu Naim was laid to rest in his ancestral village of Al-Mugheer near Ramallah. Hundreds of residents chanted for freedom as they mourned & laid him to rest. May he Rest In Peace after spending his short life fighting for freedom.

No to Israeli apartheid. No to ethnic cleansing. End the occupation of Palestine. Self-determination & a democratic secular state.

(Photo of Laith Abu Naim from several sources)

RIP Musharaf Fayaz

Najar Mushaira Fayaz RIP Feb 1 2018

This is Musharaf Fayaz, the adolescent boy who sustained head injuries, damage to both eyes, & internal hemorrhaging from a live shell explosion during the Indian Army’s hunt to kill operation in the Shopian district of Kashmir last week. The young boy was in front of his family home & his father witnessed the assault. He died today in the ICU SKIMS Soura Hospital.

His funeral prayers were attended by so many thousands that, as is often the case in Kashmir, they had to be held more than once. The funeral cortege is also protest under military occupation & mourners paid tribute to his life by chanting for freedom & against the occupation. He was laid to rest in his ancestral village at Datmudoor. May his sweet soul Rest In Peace.

End the occupation. Self-determination for Kashmir.

(Photo from FB wall of Trending Kashmir)

Do you think I was censorious to unfriend a man who called feminism “cancerous,” feminists “scum of the earth,” & likened me to Taliban & ISIS goons?

“video of an Indian army officer glorifying bloodshed and war is going viral. there is nothing shocking in what he is saying, on the contrary, it represents the every day reality in kashmir, where these criminals have translated their deadly ideology into practice. Kashmir is a laboratory for Indian occupying forces to test their blood thirsty theories and take revenge for imaginary indignities they have suffered at the hands of Muslim rulers of past.”

–Mir Laieeq

About those earthquakes:

“Law of Tectonic Shifts: frequency of earth quakes in an area in a year is directly proportional to number of women wearing jeans in that area in that year.”

Geology Manual for Dummies, Chapter 2 page 9.”

–Mir Laieeq

On the racist presentation of Muslims in film

The article is about the presentation of Muslims in Bollywood films but it is just as true of Hollywood films:

“Indeed, a selective survey of 41 films had concluded that 75.60 per cent of them portrayed Muslims negatively, 12.20 per cent positively, and the rest were ‘mixed.’ Be that as it may, Muslims are no longer Rahim chachas, rib-tickling Hyderbadi chefs (Mehmood, Gumnaam, 1963), kindly daai maas ( the daijaan nanny of Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, 2001). Instead, largely, they’re shown as terrorists without delving into the reasons why. In my book, Kurbaan (2009) has been the worst B-Town offender of the clutch, because of its sweeping generalisations and dismaying divisive tenor. Or Muslims are caricatured as bomb-chucking lumpens and dons seated on throne-like chairs in dimly lit ghettos. ”

https://www.thequint.com/entertainment/bollywood/muslims-in-the-movies-the-good-the-bad-the-khiji

The Peacock is a bird, not an accessory

Peacock not allowed to board United (Thejetset.tv) Jan 31 2018

There’s apparently a furor on social media about the woman denied a passenger seat on United Airlines out of Newark for her “emotional support peacock.” The furor was over United’s decision when it should have been over the welfare of the animal. It’s a huge dilemma for pet caretakers that our beloved animals have to fly in cargo where it’s cold & bereft & they’re terrified. But the issue here isn’t that. It is not in the best interests of the peacock to be grafted to a woman with psychological problems. The peacock is a bird & a very social animal who needs to bond with its own species & be allowed to live like a peacock, not be carted around like an accessory. If the woman needs an emotional support animal she ought to get a dog who are suitable companions to human beings.

(Photo of the poor peacock at the Newark airport by The Jet Set TV)

It’s all the vogue today to trash white women to belittle the #MeToo movement. One particularly deranged commentator even said ‘White women are out here trying to turn bad dates into “MeToo money’–as if Black, Latino, oppressed caste, disabled, militarily occupied, & ethnically cleansed women did not endure the extremes of sexual violence. It’s a profoundly ignorant, hateful way of trying to divide women. White women, they claim, are all terfs, swerfs, racists, supremacists, elitists, but mostly rich & privileged cry babies. Not the ones I’ve organized & marched with since the 1960s–many of whom in the US are Black & Latino, by the way.

Let me stick it to you bluntly, buckos: all women, whatever their state in life, are affected by the pernicious hatred, denigration, & violence against our gender & against children. Feminists are committed to uniting to defend women & children on those issues where our demands are in accord, allowing no social hatred to come between us–& I assure you, we know how to fight that out. On those things which divide women, like class, caste, ethnic or national privilege, rightwing politics, we will not hesitate to go our separate ways. But on the issue of violence of any kind against women & children we work tirelessly to stand united & none of your smears & vituperations will stop us. Move over busters. Women are on the march.

Kashmir runs for cover after pelting at paramilitary men in Srinagar Jan 27 2018 (Basit Zargar)

A Kashmiri protester runs for cover after giving paramilitary troops a run for their money. On the one hand, these young men are so courageous & admirable. On the other, they were not meant to be fighting freedom struggles against a military occupation when they could be writing, singing, painting, playing ball, courting, & being free as youth should be to explore life.

End the occupation. Self-determination for Kashmir.

(Photo by Basit Zargar)