Turns out ‘going full Hong Kong’ with nearly two-million democracy protesters is very effective. At least for now, the extradition bill that would allow protesters & dissidents to be moved to mainland China for prosecution in kangaroo courts & long stays in the gulag, has been withdrawn. But since ‘going full Hong Kong’ is a committed strategy, the protesters continue to demand an end to police violence against protesters & that the government stop prosecuting & release all protesters arrested & being held.

A salute to the democracy movement of Hong Kong.

(Photo of June 16, 2019 Hong Kong protest by Kin Cheung/AP)

In the infinite wisdom of its algorithms, Facebook posted a petition titled “BOYCOTT US SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS INTERFERENCE IN INDIA’S INTERNAL ISSUE OF KASHMIR.” I’m not one for censorship but I reported it as fake news.

#Kashmir

Our Friends

First, they came uninvited and said:
“We are your saviours” though,
We never wanted them to be one.
They wrote about our warmth
And our fair-skinned doves,
We thought it would be over soon.

We ploughed the land we fought for
And managed to get from our lords.
We kept them watching until one day
They poisoned our history, let loose
Their barricaded dugouts- and took
Us all inside – one after another.

I, like God, stood watching the intricate
Designs forming on the beaten bodies;
And the embryonic maps of nation from
The bared wounded chests laid
To rest by the butt-blows.

I wanted to cry, they teargassed my eyes
I tried to shout, they shot the air- full.
Therefore, I wrote them down- all.
I see a space when they will haunt them
Their school texts and their own graves
And their honeymoon trips to Kashmir.

–Kashmiri poet Ashaq Hussain Parray

An Indian media source reports that 18-year-old Asrar Ahmed Khan from Srinagar died in hospital from pellet injuries sustained August 6th. An Indian Army official denied that he died from pellet gun injuries but claims “he died due to stone pelting…it is for you to decide who is trying to kill whom.” Do Indian propagandists think we’ve never heard ‘blaming the victim’ before? Forensic science would be greatly interested in how he killed himself by stone pelting. Did a stone ricochet or was he hit by another stone pelter? Does India think we are so stupid that we would believe this deplorable, stinking foolishness?

The photo is Firdous Ahmed with a picture of his son Asrar shortly after he was admitted to hospital on August 6th.

(Photo by Samaan Lateef/The Independent )

Cardiff, Wales #StandWithKashmir rally, September 1st, 2019.

See how the US occupation & bombing of Afghanistan has liberated Afghan women? By creating tens of thousands of amputee children with no social services to assist their care.

Received this letter from a former Bangladeshi friend who does not live in Bangladesh & describes himself as “from an old Bengali aristocratic family.” When you read it, you will see why he had to become a former friend:

“Dear Miss Scully
As you know about the Rohinga issues of Myanmar but to be honest as a Bangladeshi I love to see them die and the reason is they are nothing but a virus, a problem maker nation. They are staying in Bangladesh. They just destroyed almost about all hills, forest areas. They involved them selves with all kind of illegal activities, they are the drug smuggling carriers. They are involved with robbery, rape, looting people, drugs etc. There are at least 100 people who are here as refugees but they are doing business and they are millionaires. They are in fact protesting that Bangladesh is not giving them any favour. Aid donating countries are their friends where else they are now even threating local people .
“They are just nothing but a curse, a virus and pests. Their own people don’t take them and the people who helped them and they are destroying and making problems against us .
“Once we where sympathetic with them but now, I love to see them out from my country and we don’t care where they stay, live or die.”

#StandWithRohingyaRefugees

Anyone surprised that Assadist propagandist & fascist Eva Bartlett agrees with Sara Flounders, Max Blumenthal & Ben Norton that the Hong Kong protests are a ‘US regime-change operation’ against China. Stalinism has found its final rotting place in fascism.

Sorry I lost my temper & blocked the Bangladeshi guy who couldn’t distinguish my criticisms of his government from my attitude toward Bangladeshi working people. But I don’t have the patience right now to deal with obtuseness on that score. I’ve spent too much time studying the poultry & leather industries in the country, the catastrophic health problems of their workers & the pollution of rivers & environmental problems caused by reckless disregard for anything but profits; the super exploitation of child & women’s sweatshop labor, the fires & building collapses that killed hundreds of sweatshop workers or permanently incapacitated them without compensation; the lack of elementary safety protection for adult workers; the killing of labor organizers; & the exponential growth of billionaires off the backs of working men, women, & children.

I’ve been horrified at Sheikh Hasina’s attempts to keep Rohingya refugees out when in flight from genocide, her determination to send Rohingya refugees back to Burma without protections or rights or deport them to an uninhabitable island in the middle of nowhere, & her denial of education to Rohingya children or employment to adults. Don’t ask me to identify the working people of Bangladesh or refugees with the predators who run the country.

This iconic & deeply disturbing photo from 2010 is a Bangladeshi policeman hitting a child garment worker with a baton during a labor strike in Dhaka. Anyone who sees this will find it unforgettable. Anyone who views any of the hundreds of photos of child labor in Bangladesh will find them unforgettable & traumatizing. Don’t ask us to identify these little kids with the criminal misconduct & exploitation of their government. Don’t ask us to apologize for criticisms of the Bangladeshi government. We hold them responsible just as we do the US government for the concentration camps they run for refugee children on the southern US border.

(Photo by Munir Uz Zaman/AFP/Getty Images)