A frequent Indian tourist in Kashmir named Amit Tyagi is reporting that many Kashmiris are offering to open their doors to tourists stranded after the government order to evacuate. The Indian army is creating panic while Kashmiris are trying to calm it down. The fellow is also being relentlessly harassed by nationalists in their usual abusive style.

“One day, India will call back all its army from Kashmir like it called all the tourists & students today.

“We’ll drive them out in flocks of thousands. We’ll sing our songs of freedom then. Just wait.”

–Kashmiri medical student Dawood Yousuf on Twitter

On India’s evacuations of tourists, pilgrims, non-Kashmiri students from Kashmir:

“We saw this in 1990 when Pandits were panicked, asked to leave the valley. They are yet to return. It is the state’s responsibility to ensure security for all, including Kashmiris, tourists & pilgrims, not disrupt civilian life.”

–Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director, Human Rights Watch on Twitter

Kashmiri journalist Qazi Shibli has been arrested for questioning over his tweets involving the leaking of an official order about the deployment of thousands of paramilitary Indian troops.

https://thekashmirwalla.com/2019/08/qazi-shibli-journalist-from-south-kashmir-arrested/?

This is an order dated today from the government of Jammu & Kashmir urging tourists & those on Hindu pilgrimages to leave the state. One could call this a provocation, a calculated measure to incite fear & alarm among Kashmiris.

Our response should be to stand with Kashmiris in educating about their struggle. Prior to the activism of Kashmiris on social media, there was a media blackout & few knew anything about their struggle. Now media regularly addresses issues like pellet guns in order to manage the narrative rather than leave it in the hands of activists who will not be compromising with India. That media coverage would not exist were it not for Kashmiri’s use of social media to educate us & campaign for international solidarity. It may be that India will snap the internet to hide what they are doing in Kashmir. We must be at the ready to campaign on social media, organize forums & rallies so that India knows it actions in Kashmir are under international scrutiny by human rights advocates.

(Photo tweeted by Hakeem Irfan)

“The Syrian opposition is comprised of ISIS, Zionists, al-Qaeda, Neocons/Neolibs & Kurdish (Marxist) terrorist groups hellbent on bringing down a Western-educated doctor who puts his nation and people first.”

That tweet yesterday from white supremacist David Duke, former grand Poobah of the KKK, is in complete accord with Assad propagandists & their guppies in the corrupted antiwar movement. The reality is that it is little kids like this boy being bombed & rescued by White Helmets who are maligned as terrorists engaged in organ trafficking. Can there be any greater political corruption than vilifying civilians & humanitarian rescue workers to serve a dictator?

(Photo from White Helmets)

Commentary on Twitter about the Indian troop deployments to Kashmir are full of anxiety about what they mean. This cartoon addressing that is from a Kashmiri friend.

“…artificial intelligence is not as much a threat to humanity as natural stupidity.

–Kashmiri Bazillah Mairaaj on Twitter

Every once in a while I have to restate that I don’t run a debating society. One reason is because in 53 years of activism, I haven’t persuaded any boyfriends to move to the left of the Democrats or a single person in my family to move to the left of–dare I admit it–Donald Trump. I once thought leading a virtuous life combined with my ardor for socialism would persuade at least one of them to stop with the crappy politics & ‘come to Jesus’. But I just wasted years when I could have been sinning up a storm. That’s how bad I am at persuading people.

Another reason is that my wall is a solidarity wall, not a debating society. If Zionists, Assadists, anti-Semites, Islamophobes, Hindutva nationalists were a reasonable lot & one could engage in useful discussion, okay, I might consider changing that. But the best of them are lost souls & the most of them are vituperative & hateful. I don’t delete their comments & block them for reasonably presenting deranged ideas but because they swear at me & call me names & there is nothing to learn from that, not even insights into abnormal psychology.

That’s why you can’t hijack my posts & use them to talk rubbish about Palestinians, Kashmiris, Rohingya, Uyghur, refugees, immigrants. I don’t mind disagreement but only within the framework of solidarity.

“there is curiosity in Kashmir about what india is up to, but no panic, we have seen the worst and survived the worst. Only people who are panicking are the collaborator politicians and their followers who are sensing their shops might be closed for long. Whatever their designs are, we must stand firm, united and take care of each other. We must not forget that “God has power over all things” <3″

–Mir Laieeq on the deployment of 88,000 more Indian troops to Kashmir