This is the mother of class 9 (15-year-old) student Asif Ahmad Wani, a resident of Bachin Beerwah, Budgam, holding up his photo on her mobile phone. He was critically injured by unexploded ordnance while playing in the Tosamaidan meadow. The meadow about 45 kms from Srinagar was used from 1964 until 2014 by the Indian Army as an artillery firing range. Apparently & so predictably, they did not take necessary precautions in clearing the land. Since 1964, about 70 Kashmiris, mainly shepherds & children, have lost their limbs in the meadow due to unexploded ordnance.
Family members of young Asif report that he is being operated on at SKIMS hospital & is in critical condition from injuries to the head. Please remember him in your prayers that he may have a full & speedy recovery.
(Photo by Kamran Yousuf, posted May 27, 2020)
Just a week after J&K police & CRPF special forces made a dozen families homeless in Nawakadal, Srinagar at the height of a deadly pandemic, they stood outside a Srinagar hospital handing out roses to doctors entering the premises to honor them for treating corona patients. Those doctors also treat pellet gun & tear gas victims & frequently protest against the occupation so it is unlikely any of them were impressed.
If this rose thing is some kind of a public relations stunt, India has to fire its propaganda director. It’s almost as farcical but ten times more cynical & contemptible then taking pigeons into custody as Pakistani terrorists besieging the border at the Line of Control.
Stand with Kashmiris & demand Indian forces get the hell out of Kashmir & take these clowns with them.
(Photo by Basit Zargar, posted May 27, 2020)
Police gone wild in Minneapolis with percussion grenades, rubber bullets, & tear gas: what they don’t yet realize is that the murder of George Floyd is rousing Blacks & their supporters to a new civil rights movement that will put a decisive end to martial law, swat team policing, flouting of the Bill of Rights, & the shooting down & killing of unarmed members of the Black community.
(Photo from May 26, 2020 protest from Minneapolis Star Tribune)
Protesters confront Minneapolis police despite the extreme aggression the Minneapolis police department is known for. There needs to be a new civil rights movement in this country to put an end to the US policy & police violence which allows them to kill hundreds of Blacks with impunity. It’s the modern form of lynching. If they are even prosecuted, most police who kill Blacks will walk away with a few months in jail. This policy goes all the way to the highest levels of the US government & is not just police practice.
Stand with the Black community.
#ICantBreath
(Photo from May 26, 2020 protest from Minneapolis Star Tribune)
Thousands of protesters came out last night in Minneapolis chanting ‘I can’t breath’ to denounce the murder of 46-year-old George Floyd. Police were mobilized with percussion grenades, rubber bullets, & tear gas as if they were in downtown Baghdad. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that protesters vandalized a police precinct. Since crime data shows that Minneapolis police kill Blacks at a rate 13 times higher than white people–one of the worst racist disparities in the country–the police department can be grateful the precinct wasn’t razed to the ground.
There has been a long lull in the Black Lives Matter movement but there has been no such lull in police violence in the Black community. Hopefully, the murder of George Floyd will inspire a new generation of civil rights activists to finish the mission begun by the Civil Rights & Black Power Movements of the 1960s.
#ICantBreath
(Photo by Richard Tsong-Taatarii/Minneapolis Star Tribune, posted May 27, 2020)
“Please I can’t breath. My stomach hurts, my neck hurts, everything hurts. They’re going to kill me.”
–George Floyd
Still want to argue that Colin Kaepernick went too far?
#ICantBreath
For many white people, violence against the Black community is not an abstraction. Since the US Civil Rights Movement, even with minimal desegregation of public schools, the personal interactions between white & Black kids have led to mixed families. Love happens. I have several Black nieces & nephews who live in Minneapolis & many more cousins who live in St. Paul. When we see several cases now of police in the Twin Cities using extreme violence against Blacks & killing them, it is a family concern, not just a political outrage.
#ICantBreath
Whilst 10,000 Chinese troops are amassing against Indian forces in Ladakh, Pakistan is escalating its flocks of spy pigeons along the Line of Control. A suspected spy pigeon was hauled in today for questioning but this is not the first time Pakistan has used pigeons as avian terrorists against India. In May 2010 & in May 2015, spy pigeons were arrested by Indian forces, kept under armed guard in a special air-conditioned room, & denied counsel. Hidden surveillance cameras attached to their wing spans have not been detected but officials believe the pigeons are ordered to poop their brains out when they fly over Indian troops. This is a war crime as defined by the Modi regime & must be prosecuted in an international tribunal.
This photo is the culprit just arrested on the Line of Control & accused of Pakistani terrorism against India. He claimed in interrogation that he just missed his flight path going back home but he was packing an AK-47 under his wing. He will be held for prosecution in one of India’s kangaroo courts.
(Photo from ANI)
This is an important initiative from Kashmiris to have a BDS-type boycott campaign against India. Informally, many have already begun boycotting Indian products, especially after the August 2019 lockdown. This would put considerable economic & political pressure on India.
Given China’s persecution of Uyghur Muslims, its occupation of Tibet, its complete tyranny when it comes to civil & democratic rights, & its repression of the democracy movement in Hong Kong, I would not be one to see its military operations in Ladakh as emancipatory in any way. That would be akin to seeing Russia & Iran as emancipatory against the Syrian Arab Spring. We should leave such treacherous views to the Stalinists who, believe me, support whatever the Chinese Communist Party does.
