A quite good NY Times video report titled “What’s Happening in Kashmir? Our Cameras Contradict India’s Official Story.”
https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/asia/100000006676350/kashmir-india-article370.html?
Daily Archives: August 23, 2019
Balochistan, Pakistan #StandWithKashmir rally, August 14th, 2019:
(Photo via FREE KASHMIR … End Occupation and Oppression of People of Kashmir Facebook wall)
“I got the most anticipated phone call from Srinagar!! The person on the other side of the phone was Parveenaji (Parveena Ahangar). The phone got disconnected twice before we could actually speak to each other. We cried, we gave virtual hugs to each other but most importantly she said I should communicate to everyone that they are doing fine. She told me that they have seen so much brutal suppression since 1990’s that this does not scare them and it cannot break their spirits. The roads and lanes are sealed with army checkpoints and she walked halfway to her brother’s place to make the call. The resisting, fighting spirit of kashmiri women in these times will be the most important marker for the new history of Kashmir that will be written soon. To hear these resilient voices after 18 days is the hope that we will have to live with for the next few months of vile political precarity.”
–Bhavneet Kaur
apdpkashmir.com
Presidential candidate Marianne Williamson thinks the US should stay in Afghanistan to save Afghan women & “bear witness to the agony of others.” What a disgraceful position entirely rooted in Islamophobia, misogyny, & war mongering. The US has no rights whatsoever to be in Afghanistan & did not go there to liberate women. Or does she consider setting up a nail salon in Kabul, carpet bombing mosques, schools, homes, fields, entire villages for now 18 years a way to emancipate Afghan women?
Bear witness, my ass! We should be demanding the US immediately, unconditionally withdraw all its troops, mercenaries, CIA operatives, & dope traffickers. Any other position is Islamophobic war mongering.
Fascist Eva Bartlett & several American Stalinists, including Max Blumenthal & Ben Norton, went to Venezuela & found a worker’s paradise with no dissent. Médecins Sans Frontières medical staff report a very different situation with 600 fleeing “crisis-ridden Venezuela” every day for shelters, abandoned houses, & homelessness in Brazil. Who is it wiser to believe?
https://www.msf.org/struggle-venezuelan-migrants-and-asylum-seekers-northern-brazil?
There will be a #StandWithKashmir rally in Palmerston North city New Zealand, Sunday, August 25th from 2pm to 4 pm.
Those organizing the rally would like to connect with other Kashmiris or supporters in New Zealand, like the ones who organized the Auckland rally. You can contact Sadaf Nakash at https://www.facebook.com/sadaf.naqash
There’s a genocide alert on for Kashmir. Nothing should deter us from building a #BoycottIndia movement for the thousands of products India exports to at least 200 countries. They are ubiquitous in health food stores, supermarkets, specialty stores, gift shops, Amazon. They include skin care oils & lotions, Ayurvedic goods, pharmaceuticals, vitamins & supplements, scarves & clothing of all kinds, foodstuffs of all kinds (especially rice & grains), jewelry, leather goods, textiles, electronics, Bollywood films, tourism.
A boycott would reinforce #StandWithKashmir protests with direct economic & political pressure on India to withdraw the troops, release political prisoners, halt the use of pellet guns, forcible disappearances, rape as a weapon of war, indiscriminate shooting of unarmed protesters, hunt to kill operations. It would also tangentially, or maybe not so tangentially, fortify the Palestinian BDS movement because of India’s political & military ties to Israel, especially in their occupation & colonialism strategies.
We shouldn’t just stop buying the products but should notify the enterprises that we are refusing to buy Indian goods to support the Kashmiri struggle. (You might not want to say that directly to an Indian shopkeeper who could be a Hindutva nutcase, but notify them by letter.) For those who say this will hurt Indian workers, our response is that nothing hurts Indian workers more than Indian militarism. A boycott has the best interests of both Indian & Kashmiri workers at heart. Those primarily hurt by a boycott would be Indian capitalists. Try not to cry me a river.
I love many Indian products & buy & use them all the time. Or at least, did. But the issue of genocide preempts everything. It is a matter of solidarity with one of the most important freedom struggles of our times.
#BoycottIndia
It looks like a boycott of India has already begun ad hoc. This shopkeeper in the UK trashed Indian goods he was going to sell & refuses to sell any more.
If you want to see what loyalty to #Kashmir looks like, look no further.
A shopkeeper in UK registers his protest against #India & #Modi by trashing Indian goods he has bought to sell.
He refuses to sell Indian goods.
He has decided to #BoycottIndia.
Be like chacha. pic.twitter.com/NwrmfXJJGb
— Muzzammil Ayyub Thakur (@M_A_Thakur) August 13, 2019
News video on the Soura neighborhood of Srinagar, called by residents ‘Kashmir’s Gaza’:
VIDEO: In an act of defiance against New Delhi's decision to strip Muslim-majority Indian-administered #Kashmir of its autonomy, the #Soura neighbourhood on the outskirts of the city of #Srinagar has sealed itself off from security forces pic.twitter.com/nFWVidQgie
— AFP news agency (@AFP) August 22, 2019
The Indian Consulate in NY approached the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) of New Jersey ostensibly to discuss India’s revocation of Article 370 & the #StandWithKashmir protests. They made the request for a meeting after CAIR NJ asked the New Jersey governor to cancel his scheduled September trip to India because of the siege & blockade of Kashmir.
This is the response sent to the Indian Consulate by CAIR NJ & is the official position of all CAIR chapters which has been released to media outlets as well. It appears a boycott of India is shaping up ad hoc so it may be time to formalize & launch the call.