A 28-year-old Honduran woman–in a group of refugees trying to cross the Rio Grande River at El Paso, Texas around 1:30 am last Monday–drowned when she & her 3-year-old son were swept away by a strong current. Her body was recovered downstream; the little boy’s body has not yet been recovered.
May they Rest In Peace. To hell with the border wall! Open the damn borders. No human being is alien to us.
“Having worked briefly in India as a doctor, the one thing that shocked me the most was the complete denial of the patient’s consent. This wasn’t just true of government institutions but private too. Although in government institutions this was far worse. The patient was treated with little more dignity than a guinea pig. The more disenfranchised, the more poor, the more voiceless the person was the more doctor treated him as an experimental object. Doing whatever he/she wanted to do without explaining what was happening to them, why and what for.
“Women coming in for childbirth were the most vulnerable and consequently the most abused group. Without asking their consent, the junior doctors were allowed to learn their skills on them without as much as “by your leave”. In private practice, they were routinely subject to procedures that were not clinically warranted for financial gain. The other most vulnerable group were the people with mental health issues who were given no support, explanations except pumped full of medication which left them more disabled than helped.
“I am not therefore surprised when the majority of physicians in India support the brutal denial of health and human rights of Kashmiris. Standing with a beleaguered people requires professional, ethical, moral and probity standards that a doctor should have and majority of Indian doctors demonstrably do not possess. A discussion about why this is for another day but millennia of dehumanising casteism doesn’t disappear with a few years training.”
–Shuja Kosher
The Great Return March in Gaza today: 70 unarmed, peacefully protesting Palestinians, including children & three paramedics, were injured by Israeli snipers.
Stand with Palestinians. Build BDS.
(Photo from Younes Arar)
Allow me to say that I hate these kind of articles. They posture as hard-nosed realism & they do present the immense obstacles Rohingya refugees face in their struggle for human, democratic, & civil rights in Burma. But there’s an undercurrent here, entirely intentional, of trying to present the Rohingya struggle as a hopeless cause.
The Rohingya refugees are not passive victims of genocide but have campaigned, including on social media, for their right to live as a free people in Arakan state which is their homeland. They have organizations, tribunals, hearings, conferences, protests, bloggers, journalists, human rights campaigners, supporters working tirelessly to achieve their political goals. Theirs is not a lost cause until the Rohingya say so & that will not be forthcoming so long as millions live in refugee camps & diaspora.
“Finally I managed to speak to my parents after 18 days. Breathing sigh of relief. No where it wasn’t a normal conversation from the word go, it was sobbing, angst, agony, perturbation & suffering. Concluded the call shedding tears as if we are bidding farewell to each other ? This is the hardship tale of our native place.
#kashmirclampdown”
–Kashmiri Shabir Wani
Remember, not that long ago, when Turkish president Erdogan postured as a champion of Palestinians even though he was backstabbing them? Two days ago, the Turkish government ordered Palestinian refugees without papers to leave Turkey by the end of October as ‘illegals’. Most of them are fleeing from Syrian & Russian bombing in Idlib.
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania #StandWithKashmir rally, August 25th, 2019.
(Harrisburg is about a three-hour drive from Newark, New Jersey for those able to make the trip. Though New Jersey activists are planning their own upcoming events.)
The US State Department expressed concern about Indian respect for human rights in Kashmir & they did so from the Olympian heights built over the millions of Iraqis, Afghans, Yemenis, Syrians, Somalians, Palestinians, Libyans, & others killed in US wars & despite those concentration camps for refugees on the US southern border.
The UAE is honoring Modi with its highest award. Not sure they’ve explained why since his accomplishments are entirely criminal & the hermetic blockade of Kashmir is still front page news. But since the UAE is involved in the monstrous Saudi-led carpet bombing of Yemen for over four years, who cares? It’s like Suu Kyi going to belatedly pick up her Nobel Peace Prize & a raft of other human rights honorifics in 2012 & silent on the Burmese Army then waging a genocidal campaign against Rohingya fleeing for their lives.
Our demands should include India stop the indiscriminate use of pellet guns against unarmed Kashmiris.
https://thewire.in/rights/more-than-150-tear-gas-pellet-injury-cases-at-two-srinagar-hospitals?