This is an extremely distressing report on the Indian Army’s use of sexual torture, including repeatedly sodomizing young men while in custody. The trauma of rape & torture is never overcome but causes unimaginable lifelong human suffering. The intention is to demoralize young Kashmiri men, make them feel humiliated, helpless, & overcome with shame–as if they did something to provoke such violence. It is a monstrous human rights crime & India needs to be held accountable for it in an international tribunal.
Indian media reported that Jammu & Kashmir police headquarters invited female residents of J&K to apply online for 1,350 vacant constable positions. Does the Indian government not know its ass from its elbow about its own telecommunications blockade?
It’s heartbreaking to see placards from protests in Kashmir asking why the world is silent whilst they endure genocide. That merciless blockade means they cannot hear the thunder of voices raised around the world on their behalf. But India can. Which is why we must continue & add force to our continuing protests with a boycott of Indian products. In a message received from a Kashmiri returning home, he asked if I had any message for anyone there. My only message would be to hearten them with reports that a worldwide movement has emerged, they no longer stand alone, their struggle has become internationalized & personalized by hundreds of thousands of people all over the world, & not just Muslims, Kashmiris, & Pakistanis. Their suffering is the first thing we think of when we get up & the last thing we think of when we go to sleep. And it will stay that way until the siege & blockade have been lifted.
#WeStandWithKashmir
(Photo is placard at protest in Soura neighborhood of Srinagar on September 13th, 2019)
Tell my enemies that I feel no fear.
Tell them I was forged in oppression, watered in tears.
Molded by the bullets,
Tell them my heart is of steel.
Tell them I am a Kashmiri
Tell them so they hear.
–adapted by Kashmiri Musaib Bhat from Kurdish poem by Zeki Madjid
Shame to say, I’m behind more than usual on reading messages & when I tried to catch up today found countless messages in that damn ‘other messages’ file from Kashmiris as well as some nastygrams from Hindutva dopes. If you have messaged me & I have not responded, there is no slight intended, no snit involved.
This article could have been posted with others about India’s use of torture against young boys & men taken in nighttime home invasions but it is particularly horrifying & needs to be highlighted to steel our resolve to #StandWithKashmir & build #BoycottIndia.
https://news.yahoo.com/screams-night-indian-kashmir-055538662.html
Remaining steadfast in support for Kashmiris, building #BoycottIndia, continuing to forge links in action with the Palestinian, Rohingya, Syrian Arab Spring, & other freedom struggles, are absolutely imperative. India has in mind an Idlib scenario in Kashmir, or an Arakan state, West Bank & Gaza scenario. They have genocide on their minds & we cannot allow that to advance another inch. We should consider how we can coordinate unity in action to more powerfully build the economic boycotts of India, Israel (BDS), & the boycott of Burma called by Rohingya activists & their supporters. We must decisively act to forge that unity to strengthen the struggles of those on the front lines of oppression.
It’s making news that Tulsi Gabbard dropped out of speaking at the American Hindutva “Howdy Modi” rally in Houston on September 22nd. She has met with him several times, including in India, & once called him “an inspiration to elected officials everywhere.” Because of her hatred for Muslims, his 2002 pogrom against Muslims in Gujarat & his current rabid persecution of Muslims in India must make him particularly inspiring to her.
She is not dropping out from fawning & dishonoring Native Hawaiian tradition with her aloha schtick because she’s rethinking rightwing nationalism or genocide. Massive, international opposition to the siege & blockade of Kashmir make the Houston Modi-fest particularly inauspicious for the POTUS candidate at this time. Her campaign is tottering, except among Assadists, Zionists, & Hindutvavadis who sustain it with their dough & endorsements. She isn’t going to risk that but is making a tactical decision in order to salvage what little is left of her chances as a candidate.
(Photo is Gabbard with Modi at one of his trips to the US)
An important article about the sadistic torture inflicted by soldiers on young Kashmiri men arrested in late night home invasions.
https://www.newsclick.in/Kashmir-Boys-Being-Rowed-Paradise-River-Hell?
Israeli journalist Gideon Levy wrote an article on August 29th titled “If there’s such a thing as a murderous culture, then it exists in Israel” in response to Haaretz culture & literature editor Benny Ziffer who wrote a vile FB post after returning from a visit to an illegal Israeli settlement in the West Bank. As an Israeli Jew, Ziffer probably cruised through the ubiquitous military check points & turned a blind eye to the thousands of home & village demolitions by Israeli bulldozers & soldiers to make room for Israeli settlers from all over the world. Ziffer wrote:
“En route I looked at the Palestinian villages alongside the Jewish communities, & I thought of how for the Palestinians murder is a type of sport or enjoyment, perhaps a substitute for erotica. From that perspective we will never have anything culturally in common with them.”
Statistics, however, speak louder than Ziffer’s unspeakably racist, supremacist, & putrid hate. Between March 2018 & March 2019, 30,398 Palestinians were injured by Israeli snipers, including 3,175 children & 1,008 women. Eighty-seven percent of those injuries were to the limbs, intended to permanently disable protesters. 267 Palestinians were killed, including fifty children, six women, one elderly person, journalists & paramedics. That does not include those Palestinians shot & injured or killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank or East Jerusalem. This is properly called genocide & to suggest that Palestinians engaged in resistance to it are doing it for sport or sexual arousal is about as grotesque as racism gets.
Photo is an injured Palestinian being rescued by other protesters at the Great Return March on September 13th, 2019. Fifty-five unarmed Palestinian protesters were injured by Israeli snipers at the march on that day.
(Photo via Younes Arar)