Live coverage of part of Adios Modi counter-protest going on now in Houston:
Posted by Alliance for Justice and Accountability on Sunday, 22 September 2019
It’s not my place to be sectarian on behalf of the Kashmiri people but I choose not to share the videos & interviews with Iltija Javed, the daughter of former chief minister of J&K & Indian collaborator Mehbooba Mufti. Mufti is jailed in a luxury suite while Kashmiri fighters for azaadi suffer torture in the Indian gulag. It’s likely that India is having Mufti play the martyr so they can groom her as a moderate leader in full cooperation with the conquest of Kashmir. Javed is a young woman & maybe she’s sincere. Maybe she doesn’t realize the criminality of her mother who during her tenure as chief minister allowed the arrests, torture, forcible disappearance, & use of pellet guns that injured thousands of Kashmiris. But I really don’t want to be involved in any dog & pony show that helps to rebuild the image of Mehbooba Mufti as a leader rather than as the monster that she is. I don’t speak for Kashmiris on that score; just for my own skepticism.
The Kashmiri solidarity movement is not going away but continues to expand, with Kashmiri women at the center of the freedom struggle & women around the world at the center of solidarity. This can yield a devastating blow to Islamophobic ‘war on terror’ war mongering that cynically uses women as a primary justification.
A very powerful & moving essay by a journalist about Kashmir under siege.
https://caravanmagazine.in/conflict/modi-war-dispatches-from-seething-kashmir?
One of the many hardships imposed on Kashmiris is jailing their family members hundreds of miles away in Indian prisons. They don’t know if their loved ones will be tortured, murdered, disappeared, or ever allowed to leave, so they make the long treks to visit them & assure them they are not alone.
Demand the immediate release of all Kashmiri political prisoners.
Take a look at who is denouncing fake news the loudest: Assad & his stable of paid propagandists to claim Syria & Russia are bombing terrorists, not civilians; Trump, who operates concentration camps for little kids & other refugees & is commander-in-chief of at least seven wars; Putin, engaged in at least two wars, in annexing Crimea, & supporting & arming the Rohingya & Kashmiri genocides; Modi, on a genocidal tear in Kashmir, pogroms against Muslims & oppressed castes in India, & who just disenfranchised two million Muslims in Assam as ‘illegal immigrants’; Stalinist hacks opposing the Hong Kong protests as ‘US regime-change operations’ & who scoff with contempt & denial of the Rohingya & Uyghur genocides.
There has always been fake news mostly promulgated by governments to cover their war & human rights crimes. Part of growing up is learning how to distinguish what is real from what are lies. The point of these extreme rightwing politicians & their stooges denouncing fake news is to create nihilism, conspiracy thinking, confusion, conformity with the oppressors. Nihilism is the ideology of fascism that claims nothing can be known, everything is a lie except what these governments & their propaganda hacks say is real.
Whilst 49 days ago, India imposed a telecommunications blockade on Kashmir to prevent news of their genocide from becoming known, they are going about the business of generating fake news & denouncing eye-witness reports, including videos, from Kashmir as fake news. India is bungling its propaganda efforts in an almost clownish but entirely cynical way that only nationalists can fall for.
Just a few days ago, Indian media reported that independence leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq was among other Kashmiri leaders who signed bonds for their release from prison after agreeing not to engage in political activity. This would have been demoralizing to many Kashmiris, if it were true. But it was a divide & conquer maneuver by the Indian government.
The Hurriyat Conference which Farooq chairs issued a statement of denial yesterday saying he did not sign any such bond for his release & remains under house arrest since August 5th. The statement said he remains vociferously opposed to the scrapping of Article 370 & firm on the principles of azaadi.
(Photo is Mirwaiz Umar Farooq)
“The anti-fascist, anti-capitalist and anti-patriarchy credentials of an Indian citizen should not be assessed mainly on the basis of attitude towards the BJP/RSS, or the policies of globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation. The decisive factor is support for freedom of Kashmiri people and the peoples in the Northeast, and the rebellions for democracy and self-determination in the Adivasi heartland.”
–Indian activist Satyadeep Satya
