“In the midst of a pandemic, the Indian government finds it an utmost priority to identity 67 locations in Kashmir where they plan to set up liquor shops. Making liquor widely available is another attempt to humiliate Kashmiri Muslim sentiments & attract non-Muslim settlers.”
–Tweeted by Stand With Kashmir

Zachriah Sulayman pays tribute to Gowhar Nazir Dar, a young man he knew who was killed by a tear gas shell while out buying yogurt on November 7th, 2015:
“Gowhar was an engineering student who lived on the outskirts of Kashmir. He had recently joined an engineering college to pursue his further education. On November 3, Kashmir’s resistance leadership called for a Million March on November 7. The day witnessed no such thing as the cities and towns of Kashmir were put under curfew. There were no protests except for some pitched battles between protestors and Government troopers. When the dusk was nearing, he went out to buy yogurt for dinner and came back in a shroud. They said he collapsed the moment a bullet shot from a policeman touched his head, or a “stray bullet”. The vehicle left leaving him blood-ridden on the road. The police said it was a tear gas shell. How do people die from shells in “self-defense”? The shooter had to be close enough to cause fatal damage.
He succumbed to his injuries in the hospital and the whole area was put under curfew again lest people might come out and protest but we were so struck with the incident that it was hard to believe it had happened. The tear gas canisters broke the window of his house. It was his funeral and he was not allowed to rest. His body was carried to the local martyr’s graveyard where they rested him. The next four days the whole Kashmir was shut. Inaccessible and silent. People changed their profile pictures. He was on everyone’s Facebook. His grandmother kept crying “why are so many people in the house” she didn’t know. After four days, she died of a heart attack unable to bear his loss.
The police stood on the roads and the boys too. They looked at the road. I vividly remember the silence that day. He had applied for a passport recently. There were so many things that he wanted to do–“get a job” even though they were scarce, but who can stop you from dreaming?
All cut short by a bullet in your head. The shopfronts were silent and we talked about the life he had and the little memories we cherished. The skinny boy was the heaviest coffin to carry. There are so many things about him that we wanted to remember, but his death is the most dominant truth. One day I was strolling in a market and a stranger asked: “whether I knew the person who attained martyrdom”. He was talking about him. I replied “yes”. “You look like him” he smiled and I reckoned. Some people never get old, they never age.
It was the funeral that never ended. It went on every year in November when the leaves fall and the winter comes. Something that never left us as if we were still carrying him on the shoulders and it keeps repeating. So many years have passed, so many boys have died and so many coffins are on our shoulders. We feel tired by the weight and it keeps piling up, never to stop.
I didn’t recognize his body when he died. I had never seen him dead, as someone said once. I had seen him three days back. We talked about the stubble he had been developing and lamented the tea. Martyrs never die, but tell me where they live? After four days, life was normal. It still is normal. Gowhar keeps dying, we keep counting and pasting their pictures on the walls that read “Shaheed” before their names. He too ended a poster on some wall, but he was more than a picture, a figure in the files that dances with the dust. He was a friend and a life that was cut short. There are so many things I wish to write but nothing will suffice. Until victory, always.”
(Photo is Gowhar Nazir Dar, RIP November 7th, 2015)

From Claire Bidwell, UK on behalf of “Let Kashmir Decide”
This is an urgent appeal to everyone regarding Yasin Malik – Remember that name…
To governments, parliamentarians, human rights defenders, people of conscience, especially in India, please help to save Kashmiri leader Yasin Malik, who, in Indian custody faces a serious threat to his life. Kashmir is suffering at the hands of Modi’s authoritarian BJP government since they illegally occupied Kashmir on 5th August 2019. Yasin Malik is completely committed to a democratic peaceful solution for the Kashmir crisis and has demonstrated this with his commitment to task and involvement in peace processes over the last many years. Despite this the BJP government have imprisoned him on charges relating back 30 years using an old law referring to a public safety act. In 2008 Yasin Malik spoke passionately at a leadership conference in New Delhi yet now he is deemed a threat to the public. The Modi government, as well as silencing a nation, are silencing a leading Kashmiri voice as they know he would speak up against their actions.
Do we as an international community have to sit by and watch such barbarity? We must stop sitting in silence! The BJP government do not want anyone to speak out against their legal occupation of Kashmir or their going against UNSC resolutions or UN human rights articles and charters, but it is important that we do all speak out wherever we can and whenever we can. Modi’s actions are also a threat to world peace.
Any of you who remember the apartheid struggle of the 1980’s and the Free Nelson Mandela campaign of the 1980’s will identify many similarities. Modi has banned the JKLF political party and jailed their leader. It is just totally unacceptable. We would not walk past people in the street or in our town treating people this way so why are we allowing India to get away with it!
I’m urging all citizens of today who have taken up the strong cry against racism and the black lives matter movement to look at the crimes that are happening to humanity right here and right now in front of our eyes in Kashmir. Use your energy to raise voice for Yasin Malik and all other political prisoners who are victims of this dictatorial regime and where Modi’s government are proving that lives do not matter.
Please do whatever you can that is within your power. World Government leaders please challenge Modi; parliamentarians please challenge your governments; human rights defenders please challenge your governments and campaign how best you can for Yasin Maliks release; people of conscience please tell your friend, your councillors, your parliamentarians, human rights defenders and newspapers.
Please share this letter on all platforms.
United we can all save the life of one man and ensure him his freedom to speak for the Kashmiris. We can potentially save many political prisoners and Kashmiri lives if we act to. It is within your power to make a difference and see that justice and humanity prevails.
SHARE IF YOU CARE ABOUT HUMANITY!
Free Yasin Malik!

A Kashmiri recently told me it was difficult not to be able to speak freely about their struggle because of repercussions & repression & to have to listen to others speaking for them. All non-Kashmiris who write about your struggle do so in fullest solidarity & are aware of that tension. We don’t want to put words in Kashmiri mouthes nor impose our political perspectives on Kashmiri realities. We are not speaking so much for Kashmiris as to those around the world who are not aware of your freedom struggle that we may build an international movement in your defense. In all of that, we are who we are. There may be some who wish I wasn’t a feminist or a socialist or that I was a little less mouthy. We don’t want to overstep our bounds but sometimes with the best of intentions may.
We look to Kashmiris for guidance & understanding of your situation. So when I get it wrong, I’m going to blame it all on you.

“To fathers who were denied fatherhood. To fathers who were picked up by men in uniforms and tortured in jails. To fathers whose children were made to disappear, for fathers who cried over dead bodies dumped in their backyards, to fathers who shouldered dead bodies of their children killed on borders, to fathers who hung themselves from the ceilings after fighting court cases for years, to fathers whose graves have disappeared, who did not even live long enough to see their newborns, to fathers who carry around a framed photograph of their missing child, to fathers who were fighting for rights on the streets, but never returned home, to fathers who saw their children being lynched in broad daylight, to fathers who await the return of innocent sons and daughters implicated in false cases, to fathers who saw the dead bodies of their children lifted from obscure drains, to fathers who await justice, to fathers who saw their house burn down, to fathers who sacrificed themselves so that we could survive, speak, live, love.”
—Sabika Abbas Naqvi

This is a very powerful video on India’s settler-colonial plans for Kashmir modeled on Israeli colonial operations in Palestine. It shows the extremes of violence Kashmiris have endured for decades modeled on the extremes of violence Palestinians have endured during the same time.

Residents of Soura, Srinagar, which was an epicenter of resistance to the lockdown last year, offer funeral prayers at Jinab Sahib shrine for the young men killed by Indian troops in the Zoonimar & Zadibal military operation yesterday.
(Photo by Umer Asif)