The Kachin people in Kachin state, Burma have sustained violence at the hands of the Burmese army for several years. The same Burmese soldiers who have committed genocide & driven Rohingya from their lands have attacked Kachin civilians in their homes. In solidarity, a young Kachin woman is #Black4Rohingya today.
(Tweeted by Debbie Stothard @DebbieStot, June 13, 2020)

Maung Zarni, Burmese activist for Rohingya justice is #Black4Rohingya.

June 13, 2020

Today Kashmiris are commemorating the killing of 17-year-old Shaheed Tufail Mattoo, the first casualty in the 2010 Kashmir Intifada. He was not protesting the occupation but around 7 pm was on his way home from an educational center where he was tutoring for the medical exam to become a doctor. It was under the tenure of Omar Abdullah as chief minister–the same Omar Abdullah now playing a Nelson Mandela impersonation after being detained in a luxury suite for a few months; the same one who gave advice on how to stay in shape while held as a ‘political prisoner’ in health spa conditions. It was then that Omar Abdullah first allowed India the use of pellet guns against unarmed civilians.
As young Tufail Mattoo walked home with schoolmates that day, J&K police officers from a nearby protest took after them chasing. The other young boys managed to escape. But when Tufail slipped & fell, the officers, hurling invectives at him, shot a tear gas shell from close range at the back of his head causing such damage that his brains splattered.
As their only child, Tufail had a close relationship with his mom & dad. When his dad was notified of his death, he had to go to the site in a grief-stricken state to bring his young boy to the hospital. Within hours of his killing, the whole of Srinagar was on the streets protesting the killing. His funeral prayers were attended by thousands. In attempting to suppress the protests, including with pellet guns, the Omar Abdullah government killed more than 120 civilians, mostly teenagers like Tufail.
Tufail’s grieving family has repeatedly approached the courts over the past ten years to get the officers identified & prosecuted but have been stonewalled the entire time. His killers are still at large. Police first refused to file the case. Later, the investigative agency claimed insufficient evidence to identify the police officers who executed Tufail & keep trying to close the case without resolution. They also claim he was hit in the head with a stone, not a tear gas shell, thereby attempting to blame protesters rather than police for his death.
Muhammad Ashraf Mattoo & Tufail’s mother Rubina Mattoo still grieve the loss of their beloved son & do not want his death exploited. Paying tribute to him as the first victim of the Kashmiri Intifada honors him & all those, young & old, who have died in the struggle for freedom against colonial occupation.
Human rights activists around the world honor Shaheed Tufail Mattoo by demanding the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all Indian forces from Kashmir. May he Rest In Peace.
(Photo of Tufail Mattoo from his family, June 11, 2020)

These are photos from the regular protests held in Srinagar by the Association for Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP). Forcible disappearance is a particularly gruesome crime inflicted to also punish the families of those disappeared, incarcerated, tortured, often murdered & dumped in mass graves. There are thousands of mass graves in Kashmir which the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) has investigated & written reports about. Khurram Parvez of the JKCCS & Parveena Ahangar of the APDP play a leading international role in campaigning against forcible disappearance which is used by governments in at least 50 countries as a means of social control & repression.
There is no resolution of the grief as long as families do not know what happened to their beloved. There has been no accounting by the Indian government of the between 8,000 & 10,000 Kashmiris forcibly disappeared since 1989.
Stand with Kashmiris in demanding an accounting for every one forcibly disappeared & in demanding the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all Indian forces from Kashmir.
(Photos tweeted by @haazek_, posted June 10, 2020)

This is the Leopold the monster of Congo monument in Brussels after Black Lives Matter activists got at it in their campaign to have all monuments to him destroyed. It’s like having monuments to Hitler, Pol Pot, or Stalin all over your country. There are hundreds of Confederate monuments all across America, maintained by organized white supremacist groups, which must eventually be razed to the ground. There are those who argue for having some kind of graveyard for these monstrosities as part of our historic heritage. We would prefer they be destroyed for lacking all value & replaced with monuments to our Black & Native American freedom fighters who have never received their due & are systematically excluded from the historic record.
Down with Leopold the monster! Down with the Confederacy, once & for all! Down with colonialism still being fought by Palestinians, Kashmiris, Rohingya, & too many others! Down with racism & white supremacy!
(Photo from RTBF)

Satyadeep Satya is back after his fourth 30-day suspension for supporting the freedom struggle of Kashmiris & for his other human rights campaigns.

Participants in the Syrian Arab Spring protested today in Suwayda, a southwestern city near the border with Jordan, demanding the overthrow of the Assad regime & an end to Russian & Iranian intervention.
(Photo via Syrian journalist Hussien Khattab, posted June 7, 2020)