French police using special rubber bullet launchers to target protesters’ heads is of considerable concern. It is a given that if we do not internationally oppose the use of pellet guns against unarmed protesters in Kashmir (& elsewhere), police will begin to test out their use in other countries, especially as social opposition to the rise of the extreme rightwing increases. This bullet launcher apparatus is setting the political stage for that eventuality or at least for introducing weapons that disable & disfigure protesters.
The occupation of Palestine which deploys snipers to disable & kill & the the occupation of Kashmir which uses pellet munitions to do the same are leading the way in savagery but if we do not stand in solidarity we can expect to see these methods used against the rest of us.

https://www.politico.eu/article/yellow-jackets-blinded-police-weapons-france-protests/?

Under the Indian occupation, even religious festivals are not sacred because today after Eid prayers police used intense tear gas shelling, pellet guns, & stun grenades against unarmed civilians in Srinagar & other towns in the Baramulla, Kupwara, & Anantnag districts. There have been previous attacks during Eid in earlier years.

As Kashmiri police officials report it, Kashmiri youth came pouring out of the mosques & started pelting stones at security forces. Yeah right! What they don’t explain is what they were doing deployed outside mosques during the celebration of Eid when that is clearly a provocation & affront to religious freedom. The more likely scenario, as reported by Kashmiris present at the police attacks, is that civilians came out of Eid prayers & seeing the presence of troops started chanting anti-India & pro-azadi slogans which set off the security forces itching for a confrontation.

During the Srinagar confrontation today, Kashmiri youth were shown wearing that Guy Fawkes mask that has come to represent the rebellion of youth around the world against injustice. The mask is a good way to prevent getting fingered by police agents & hopefully will provide some measure of protection against pellet injuries to the face.

India out of Kashmir. End the occupation. Self-determination for Kashmir.

Photo is protest today in downtown Srinagar. Who’s the aggressor at this protest?

(Photo by Saide Zahoor Shah for The Kashmir Walla)

One in four Americans skip medical treatments because of the high cost. That includes me & I’m on Medicare. Mostly, it includes millions of little kids who also don’t have enough food to eat. This is summer vacation when the free school breakfast & lunch programs end & kids start dumpster diving for food. A study done in just St. Paul, Minnesota showed that hunger among especially Black children is a crisis during school vacation. That’s the price children & seniors have to pay for US wars & that grotesque wall along the southern border.

A sweet & touching video of Syrian refugee children saying what they wish for on Eid: toys, clothes, a bicycle, a baby brother, to go home, for the planes to stop bombing them. Can any Assadist tell us if these children are the “al-Qaeda affiliated Salafi-jihadi terrorists” they rant about? Is that why Syria & Russia are bombing them? Or are these children ‘crisis actors’ playing scared & afraid of bombing on cue from the White Helmets? We’d really like to understand from those who call themselves antiwar activists how these little kids fit into the ‘war on terror’ ideology that has destroyed the antiwar movement. Can they explain? Or will they go on self-destructing in support of dictatorship & militarism?

https://www.facebook.com/SpotLightHumanity/videos/2421336048099580/UzpfSTE2MjUyMjkwNjE6MTAyMTY3MDYzOTE2MDUyNDk/

“In 1998, I lost my cousin brother (peter boi)

In 2002, I lost my another cousin brother (Pufter boi)

In 2006, I lost my third cousin brother (Masster boi). All three died in the hands of Indian soldiers. There is no forgetting pill that could erase them from my heart. In picture is my peter boi.”

–Kashmiri Aasif Shah

It has been a political tradition since the Vietnam War that veterans & active duty antiwar soldiers lead off all antiwar protests in recognition of the unique role they play & their moral authority in opposing war. It was Assadists who corrupted the movement so that now “retired” CIA, FBI, State Department, Pentagon, & military officials (who admit they collaborate with operatives in their former agencies) now lead the antiwar movement. That would explain its complete capitulation to Syrian & Russian militarism.

Li Wangyang is honored every year by Hong Kong protesters on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. He stands with those Palestinians, Kashmiris, Uyghur, Rohingya, Syrians, Afghans, Yemenis, & so many others who have lost their lives because of an uncompromising commitment to justice, equality, freedom. I repost this in his honor:
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Today we commemorate the 30th anniversary of Tiananmen Square when the Chinese government violently cracked down on the democracy movement with the imposition of martial law. Student protests for democratic reforms that began in Beijing in April 1989 spread rapidly to include millions of people in over 400 Chinese cities. After the military crackdown on June 4th, the regime used traffic control systems in Tiananmen Square as a surveillance system to track down participants & then unleashed a nation-wide crackdown, hauling in thousands of activists for interrogation & arrest in order to strangle the movement.

This is a day to honor those activists, many of whom were tortured & died in prison. Li Wangyang represents the best in that generation of fighters & reportedly served one of the longest jail terms. He was a 39-year-old factory worker & labor rights activist in Shaoyang (Hunan Province) about 920 miles (1481 km) south of Beijing, who advocated & organized labor unions independent of Chinese government control. Mr. Li was arrested as a result of his participation in the democracy movement, including publicly posting a call for a general strike in support & organizing a memorial for the victims.

He served 21 years in prison on charges of counterrevolutionary propaganda, incitement, & subversion. During that time, he was subjected to hard labor, solitary confinement, torture, & beatings which caused blindness & loss of hearing. In May 2011, he was released for reasons of poor health & checked into a hospital for treatment of diabetes & heart disease. On June 6th, 2012, he was found hanged in his hospital room. Officials immediately declared it a suicide & pressured his family (who visited him daily) for cremation, warning them not to make trouble.

Mr. Li was frail & broken physically by his incarceration but his mind & spirit remained undaunted & fearless. A media interview only days before his death documents that along with the testimony of his sister & family members. He was too weakened by torture & abuse to even stand alone, let alone hang himself. Thousands march every year in Hong Kong to mourn the death of this champion of democracy & human freedom & to demand a formal criminal investigation into his death. The results of such a forensic investigation have not been forthcoming while the regime hopes time will nullify the demand.

We should all take a moment to honor this remarkable man. May he RIP & may his life & commitment to democracy inspire a whole new generation of freedom fighters not just in China but throughout the world.

(Photo is Li Wangyang)

Today, June 4th,  marks the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. Tens of thousands protested this year in Victoria Park, Hong Kong, as they do every year, to declare that the struggle for democracy in China continues. This is the iconic moment when an unidentified democracy protestor known only as “Tank Man” & whose fate remains unknown confronted regime tanks.

We should take a moment to honor Tank Man & all those who were massacred, arrested, tortured at Tiananmen in the ongoing struggle for Chinese democracy, of which the Uyghur Muslim people are a central part.

(Photo by Charlie Cole)

Doctors working in Idlib are no longer sharing the coordinates of hospitals & medical facilities with the UN which passed them on to Russia, making those hospitals targets for Syrian & Russian bombers. At least 25 hospitals were bombed just in the past month. Assad propagandists & their hapless guppies, who have an Islamophobic answer for everything, insist they are not medical facilities but that “al-Qaeda affiliated Salafi-jihadist rebels” use them as command & control centers & to hide artillery shells.

It’s good the NY Times is calling this out in Syria but we wish the paper was as forthright in calling out Israel for doing the same in its bombing assaults over Gaza & in calling out the US which is committing the same war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, & Syria.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/03/opinion/syria-assad-hospitals.html?