Jeremy Corbyn tweeted this pretty harmless, Bernie Sanders kind of statement on Kashmir & he was trolled by nearly 6,000 British & Indian nationalists:

“The situation in Kashmir is deeply disturbing. Human rights abuses taking place are unacceptable. The rights of the Kashmiri people must be respected and UN resolutions implemented.”

Magnificent tribute to the Kashmiri struggle for #Azaadi by Rollie Mukherjee:

“Bertolt Brecht: “The cries fall like rain in summer…even evil doing comes like falling rain…there was a blanket of silence nobody calls out “stop” when crimes begin to pile up they become invisible. When sufferings became unendurable the cries are no longer heard. The cries fall like rain in the summer”

#standwithkashmir

People who have never lived under occupation cannot presume to know how the occupied psychologically handle the ubiquitous presence of martial force. During my visit to Northern Ireland during the British occupation in 1983, the presence of armed forces & armored vehicles scared the hell out of me. When I pointed my camera at a soldier pointing a rifle at pedestrians going about shopping, the soldier pointed his gun at me until I put the camera away. But young boys pelted stones at armored vehicles & shoppers went about their daily lives as if the soldiers were not there. In one incident in Derry, several British soldiers emerged out of armored vehicles with rifles, encircling me & two Irish women walking down the street. In terror, I watched the women to respond as they did. They kept walking as if nothing was happening.

The nonchalance here is only apparent. We know that the occupied from Northern Ireland to Palestine to Kashmir suffer profound trauma & fear. Our steadfast demand must be that India immediately, unconditionally withdraw all its troops & immediately release all political prisoners.

#StandWithKashmir

(Photo by Atul Loke for NY Times)

#Azaadi from the mouthes of babes.

This little 14-year-old Kashmiri girl Afshana Farooq was nearly trampled to death in a ‘stampede’ caused by Indian soldiers opening fire on unarmed protesters after Friday prayers on August 9th. Her dad said, “We were just marching peacefully after prayers. Then they started shooting at us.”

Media should be careful about its use of such words as ‘stampede’ usually reserved for horses, cattle, or Christmas sale shoppers at the mall. It’s an absolutely terrifying thing to be in the middle of a large crowd panicking from being shot at. I only know that from being in the middle of a large protest that was panicking because it was unable to move when I thought I would be trampled to death. I also know it from a Palestinian rally being attacked by NYC police with truncheons & on horseback. If there’s any ‘stampeding’ going on, it’s by Indian soldiers. It’s not nitpicking language so much as presenting who is at fault with absolute clarity.

#StandWithKashmir

(Photo by Atul Loke for The NY Times)

Women protesting in Srinagar on Friday, August 9th, whilst Indian troops were firing pellet guns, rubber bullets, & tear gas shells at unarmed protesters. See how Indian troops have won the hearts & minds’ of the Kashmiri people?

#StandWithKashmir

(Photo by Faisal Khan/Anadolu Agency, via Getty Images)

A Hindutva nationalist thought he really had us when he threw the Pandit issue at Kashmiris & accused me of being a Jewish holocaust denier. He ended up with all the other Hindutva, Zionist, anti-Semite, & Assadist creeps: in the graveyard of the deranged. You can’t reason with hate & demagoguery. You just ‘block ’em Danno’.

On India’s occupation & the oppression of Kashmiri women, by Amir Malik:

“The Indian state-sponsored killings, rape & torture. This is massive. Precisely to put an end to the violence against women & many others, Kashmiris need to end all kinds of foreign rules on its land, in this case, Indian rule.”

https://countercurrents.org/2019/08/kashmir-struggle-towards-gender-justice-means-end-to-foreign-rule?

“If Indians are under the impression that abrogation of the dead shell that was Article 370 will lead to integration of Kashmir into India, they are so mistaken–the Indian State has never had a democratic face in Kashmir, having always relied on deceit, Muslim-hate and brute force to hold on to power through Congress/secular rule and now Hindutva rule. We are still trying to process what has happened. In my mind, Article 370 only signified the promise made to the Kashmiri people by the Indian State–that the ‘instrument of accession’ was temporary, and that the political future of Kashmir was subject to the moral, legal principle of self-determination. This is still the case.

Hindutva majoritarianism, as expressed through the removal of Article 370, will change some things in Kashmir. We don’t yet know how or when, but most importantly it will change ‘Indian democracy’ until the ugliness it has brought to Kashmir seeps into it and slowly eats away at whatever little remains, until what Indians think they are exporting to Kashmir comes knocking at their own door.

Till then.” #StandWithKashmir #RedForKashmir

–Mahum Shabir

“Tomorrow will be Eid for the rest of the world except us. It’s been more than a week that I haven’t heard from my loved ones.It Hurts to see people celebrating our agony, pain and sufferings. Celebrating a mother being kept away from her son and a father being kept away from his daughter. We are left with nothing but the hope that they’ll be alright. We’re left with nothing but anger in our hearts. We will remember, we will remember how our freedom was snatched away and we were left to feel like our lives are being controlled by the people whom we don’t even know or have ever met with, who we have even never talked to and whose families we don’t even know, but still, they keep us away from our families on this Eid. Yes, we will never forgive or forget them for their cruelty, oppression and subjugation. Our tears and sighs are only keeping this fire with in us burning. They may take our homes, our lands and kill us, harm us and try to break us by making lewd and misogynic remarks against our women but they will never be able to lower our heads down in slavery. They’ll never be able to snatch us off our dignity. They’ll never be able to break our spirit. Sooner or later we all have to die and the world will be taken over by another generation. They’ll remember you and they’ll remember us, the difference will be this that you’ll be remembered for all the wrong reasons and we’ll be remembered for the Right Ones!

–Mirza Jahanzeb Beg

#StandWithKashmir