MSNBC got a retired admiral to come on & discuss US ties to Israel. He said the US & Israel have “profound cultural affinities.” If that’s true, & it probably isn’t, it’s only because so many Israeli politicians & citizens were born & raised in the US. You can’t really call extermination of the native population, racism, & apartheid ‘cultural affinities’. The only affinity the US has with Israel is as a military fortress against democracy in the Middle East.
Indian officials of Kashmir report they have imposed a curfew 188 times in different districts of the valley in the past two years. Curfews are repressive measures usually imposed to prevent public protests but also to throw military weight around. It is basically house arrest, collective punishment, & psychological warfare that threatens public safety, welfare, & every standard of democracy.
End the occupation. Self-determination for Kashmir.
A time of commemorating massacres of civilians by Indian occupying forces
You know all that blither about the Kashmiri freedom struggle being riddled with “Wahhabi/Salafi jihadists”? Well the truth about terrorism in Kashmir is quite the contrary because this is the time they commemorate several massacres of unarmed civilian protesters by Indian occupying forces, just in the month of January. January 21st, 1990 was the first of many massacres of unarmed civilian protesters by Indian paramilitary forces. On that day, several thousand Kashmiris violated a curfew which India had no right to impose & peacefully marched through Srinagar to protest incidents of police brutality & violence during search operations. When the front of the protest was halfway across the Gaw Kadal bridge, CRPF paramilitary troops opened fire with machine guns from three directions & reportedly continued indiscriminate firing for three hours. The casualty & injury figures from this incident differ considerably (from 52 to 280), probably because some were killed on the spot, some of the injured were executed as they lied on the ground, others died at the hospital, & others died later from their injuries–& also because the Indian Army calculates loss of Kashmiri life very differently than Kashmiris who witness the carnage or lose loved ones.
According to one report, as the protesters scattered for safety, Indian troops went through the bodies lying on the ground to finish off any survivors among the injured & kick bodies near the edge of the bridge into the river. The soldiers than piled bodies into a convoy of trucks, covered them with tarpaulins, & drove around Srinagar before dumping them at police headquarters. Only then were they taken to the hospital. Fearless against the threats of military violence, unarmed civilians in Handwara came out on January 25th, just four days after the massacre at Gaw Kadal bridge, to protest Indian Army violence. Again, fatality figures conflict, but at least 26 protesters were shot dead by paramilitary troops. Protesters who ran for safety to the nearby home of a local politician were denied entry & fired on by his security guards. After these incidents, foreign journalists were banned from entering Kashmir for several months.
There have been other massacres in January, most notably at Sopore on January 5th, 1993 when Indian paramilitary troops killed 55 civilians & torched 600 houses. According to one report, Kashmiri civilians sought safety in shops which were fired on & then torched.
If you have to ask why Kashmiris are still commemorating the massacres at Gaw Kadal & Handwara 28 years later, it’s because humanity has a long memory for mass murder, indiscriminate shooting of unarmed civilians, the loss of beloved family, friends, & neighbors to massacre, especially when such violence is still going on & when there hasn’t been a modicum of elementary justice for the executions of so many Kashmiri protesters. It is also a way to remember & honor those who died in the struggle for freedom & to commit to continuing the struggle they gave their lives for.
(Art work depicting Gaw Kadal massacre by Mir Suhail)
Justice for Asifa Bano
This is 8-year-old Asifa Bano, a child from the nomadic Gujjar and Bakerwal community in the Jammu area of Jammu & Kashmir. Gujjar & Bakerwal nomads are an oppressed caste categorized legally (if not also ignominiously) as Other Backward Class in some parts of India & as Scheduled Tribe in Jammu. Her family was camping near Kathua, about 88 kilometers from Jammu when the little girl was abducted on January 10th. Her body was recovered on January 17th dumped in a forest. She had been raped, tortured, mutilated, & burned in the most gruesome & unspeakable ways.
The father went to the police on January 11th when she did not return from watering the horses but they took no action to find her or investigate what happened to her. After what appears to be a mockery of forensics & criminal procedure, police arrested a 15-year-old boy who they claim confessed to the abduction, rape, torture, & murder. The family believes little Asifa was murdered by locals, by a group of youth from the village. Police inaction gave the perpetrators a week to cover their tracks or even flee. They also assaulted protesters demanding justice for Asifa with tear gas & arrested nomad community leader Choudhary Talib Hussain at one of the protests.
The rape & murder of women & children cannot be considered only a personal crime because it is primarily a political one which sustains impunity throughout the world. As a political crime, it involves class, caste, ethnic & gender oppression. Every time a child or a woman dies at the hands of monsters in their families, their neighborhoods or schools, the world shifts a little on its axis. Ending every form of violence against women & children is a primary concern to women & men of good will everywhere while being the object of considerable misogynist contempt.
Our heartfelt condolences to the family & community of Asifa Bano. May this dear child Rest In Peace. May the protesters in Jammu & Kashmir bring her justice by forcing the police to investigate & bring all the perpetrators to prosecution.
#JusticeForAsifa
(Photo of Asifa Bano from Greater Kashmir)
Senior feminists take on the #MeToo mansplainers in our most diplomatic style. You don’t want to test us to see our kick-ass style.
We always must remind ourselves of what humanity is capable of, especially when it seems barbarism is gaining the upper hand:
Bill Cosby is now back working as a stand-up comedian after 60 women accused him of sexual assault. Only one case could be prosecuted because of the weakness of rape laws & lack of due process. Has a single mansplainer & opponent of the #MeToo movement posted a single article or even a whimper of protest against the lack of due process for women & children victims of rape?
Did the Bollywood Khans really refuse to meet with Netanyahu?
This is a quite cogent & no-nonsense commentary by Kashmiri Mir Laieeq on the Bollywood Khans, three unrelated actors with the same last name being feted on social media for boycotting the Hindutva Bollywood meets Zionism agitprop selfies event with the Netanyahus:
“It is probably a fake news that Bollywood Khans “boycotted” Netanyahu. When and who invited them to meet? If they refused to meet what reasons did they put forward? Did they give their busy schedules as the reason to not meet him? We haven’t heard anything categorical by Khans about this. Boycotts should be unambiguous and categorical to have any impact. These Khans have maintained criminal silence about lynchings of Muslims in india, not to speak of the atrocious occupation of Kashmir by india. One of the Khans who murdered four people under his wheels was among the first to endorse Modi, the mass murderer, in his run up campaign for Prime Minister. Khans are nothing but the selfish bunch of elite Muslims who don’t give a shit about their own communities, they standing up for Palestinians is simply unimaginable!”
(Photo is Bollywood Khans)
Tucker Carlson on Fox News had a segment on how the Women’s March 2018 demeaned & marginalized white women. Only our man Tucker the sucker can make this crap up.
Glenn Greenwald was once an insightful commentator on civil liberties. But when he forayed into international politics & was treated as the omniscient left analyst of all things geopolitical, he showed ignorance, arrogance, libertarianism, & a profound fundamentalist conservatism. His deep state & Russiagate commentaries are embarrassing & paranoidal when not outright comical so it’s entirely appropriate that he end up as an expert on Fox News. We only wish he had more sense than to appear on Tucker Carlson who is the most vile, racist, xenophobic, & hateful of the Fox News crowd.