Israeli & Indian military officials portray stone pelters as antisocial lawless elements & have imposed draconian sentences on them. A Palestinian stone pelter can be sentenced to 20 years in prison; in Kashmir, they are detained & often tortured under the Public Safety Act. Most in both Palestine & Kashmir are working class young men & boys who function as civilian defense guards for protesters against heavily armed troops.
This August 2019 photo by Pulitzer winning photojournalist Dar Yasin shows two young guys in Haal village south of Srinagar at the funeral procession/protest of a teenage boy. There’s no criminality or bravado evident in these young men. It’s clear they’re exhausted by the predations of occupation & by the losses they face on a daily basis. Israeli & Indian officials try to draw parallels between stone pelting & terrorism but the real terrorism is that of occupation, using heavy artillery, pellet guns, snipers, tear gas, & live ammo to engage in destruction of homes & property, mass rape, forcible disappearances, extrajudicial killings, mass arrests especially of young men. Stone pelting to draw off the occupying armies from shooting down unarmed protesters is the self-defense of the oppressed & has nothing in common with terrorism.
Stand with Kashmir. Stand with Palestine. They have a right to defend themselves by any means necessary.
(Photo by Dar Yasn/AP)