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Deprivation and Desperation in Gaza

November 25, 2008

By JOE MOWREY | Counterpunch, Nov  24, 2008

As conditions in the Gaza strip approach a catastrophic level of deprivation, the world media, and in particular the U.S. media, remain largely silent. The United Nations, whose truckloads of food and medical supplies continue to be denied entry into Gaza by Israel, appears to be one of the few international voices of dissent concerning the collective punishment of 1.5 million human beings. This, despite the fact that more than 50% of the population in Gaza is comprised of children under the age of 15.

Israel claims to be defending itself against the crude, often homemade rockets which militant factions in Gaza fire randomly into southern Israel. Though it may be considered politically incorrect, this writer refuses to precede his remarks with the requisite, “It’s wrong for militant Palestinians to be firing rockets into Israel.” The ethics of Palestinian resistance to the Zionist colonization of Palestine and the dispossession of the Palestinian people is a subject for another article. The issue at hand is one of collective punishment. Regardless of the actions of certain factions in Gaza, the fact remains that Israel (with the approval of the U.S.and the world community) is depriving an entire civilian population of food, medicine and clean drinking water in response to the violent actions of a few among that population. By any civilized standard this behavior is wrong and should be condemned vociferously. To paraphrase the words of an alien from another planet in a not-so-great Hollywood movie of some years ago, every sentient being knows the difference between right and wrong.

Apparently not. Israel’s Foreign Minister and likely future Prime Minister, Tzipi Livni, recently dismissed the notion that Israel’s actions in Gaza amount to collective punishment and claimed those actions were a justifiable response to the rocket attacks on Israel. She stated, “The international community must be more decisive in making itself heard and in using its influence in the face of these attacks.”

To suggest that the international community should condemn “these attacks” by militant Palestinian factions, yet ignore the humanitarian disaster being imposed on Gaza by the government of Israel demonstrates a nearly incomprehensible level of hypocrisy. But more importantly, the fact that Jews are the ones perpetrating these unconscionable actions in Gaza is a tragedy of historic proportions. The Geneva Conventions, particularly those articles addressing the  of civilian populations, were largely crafted in response to the treatment of Jews by the Nazis during World War II. Has the sense of exclusivity and entitlement created by the Zionist experiment in Israel become so great that people there no longer see themselves in the mirror of their own history? The irony of Jews, among the most egregiously persecuted and maligned people in history, denying food to hundreds of thousands of children in order, allegedly, to insure their own security, is breathtaking. Who could ever have imagined such a thing?

As people of Gaza suffer, here in the U.S., the vast majority of so-called progressives continue to revel in the recent election of the first Black man to the Presidency. While Obama has garnered a great deal of political and financial support by pledging his unconditional support for the Zionist regime in Israel, he remains completely silent on the plight of the children of Gaza. Our first Black President not only refuses to speak out against the collective punishment of an oppressed people, he actively supports and encourages the regime responsible for this behavior. This too is a tragedy of historic proportions. Have we come this far in the struggle against racism in our country only to see Barack Obama put a minority face on U.S. support for violations of international law and essential human dignity by Israel? Again, one has to say, who could ever have imagined such a thing?

Each morning I peruse the alternative media online and hope to see at least some minor degree of outrage at the situation in Gaza. A small but courageous handful of progressive web sites dare to criticize Israel and speak out against the abuse of the Palestinian people. But for the most part, the glorious and powerful “NetRoots” movement is too busy congratulating itself on the so-called victory it has achieved in the recent elections, too busy celebrating the illusion of change which Barack Obama represents, to admit the absence of any indication of substantive change in U.S. foreign policy in Palestine or the Middle East under his coming administration.

Does it ever occur to those who so blindly and passionately rallied ‘round their candidate for the Presidency that they might now use their voices to encourage him to oppose the human rights abuses being orchestrated in Gaza? The sad reality is, not even a chorus of such voices is likely to alter the course Obama appears to have taken. He has surrounded himself with a familiar cast of armchair militarists, corporatists and hard core pro-Zionist zealots who will continue to give their unconditional support to Israel regardless of what barbaric tactics the government there uses to advance the colonization of Palestine. He is choosing to turn his back on the men, women and children in Gaza and the West Bank who suffer chronic malnutrition, desperate poverty, dispossession and daily humiliation at the hands of the Israeli military.

We should stand up in opposition to instances of human rights abuses whenever and wherever they occur. The situation in Gaza is only one on an unfortunately long list, locally, nationally and internationally. And U.S. government (that means you and me) support for and complicity in many such instances is no secret. If each of us were to do just one thing per week to address these issues, the result might surprise us all. Take a minute out from the long and endless chatter of day to day living and speak to a friend about the idea of social equality. Write one letter to the editor of your local paper in support of human rights. Spend just one percent of your online hours learning the truth about our complicity as U.S. citizens in the exploitation and degradation of other people and their cultures. Turn off your television. Go stand on a corner with a sign to protest war. Wear a button promoting peace and justice. One small thing at a time.

To those who became politically active, possibly for the first time, and expended their valuable enthusiasm and energy in order to see Barack Obama elected: thank you for being a part of history. Now why not try on the mantel of social activism? Write our President-elect a letter and suggest that he at least acknowledge the suffering of the people in Gaza. It is doubtful it will change him or his policies, but it may change you. And that truly is “change we can believe in.”

Every sentient being knows the difference between right and wrong. The question is, why do so few of us act on that knowledge?

Joe Mowrey is an anti-war and Palestinian rights activist. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with his spouse, Janice, and their three canine enablers. You can write to him at jmowrey@ix.netcom.com.

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Will The US Government Accept Responsibility For The Slaughter Of Over 1,000,000 Iraqis.

November 20, 2008


By Michael Schwartz | Huffington Post, Nov 18, 2008

Will The US Government And Media Finally Report The Slaughter Of Iraqis By The US Military?

I recently received a set of questions from Le Monde Diplomatique reporter Kim Bredesen about the 2007 Project Censored story about 1,000,000 Iraqi deaths due to the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. The questions and answers are, I think, useful in framing both the untold story of the slaughter in Iraq and the failure of the U.S. media to report on its extent or on U.S. culpability for the deaths of 4% of the Iraqi population.

Bredeson : I observed recently that your story on Iraqi deaths caused by US occupation became story no. 1 in this year’s listing by Project Censored. I wondered if I could ask you a few questions on e-mail regarding this issue?

Regards,
Kim Bredesen, Le Monde diplomatiqe (Norway)

These are my questions.

1.Do you expect that the new administration under Barrack Obama will acknowledge the validity of the statistics concerning Iraqi deaths caused by the US occupation force?

It is always difficult to predict the political future, but even if the Obama administration pursues a very different policy in Iraq and the Middle East, I doubt it will acknowledge the amount of violence caused by the war during its first six years. Historically, the U.S. government has a poor record of acknowledging its responsibility for death and/or destruction of other peoples, beginning with the genocide against Native Americans (never officially acknowledged), continuing through two hundred years of the slave trade and slavery (there has actually been a limp official apology), and culminating in the ongoing refusal to acknowledge one to three million deaths in Vietnam caused by the U.S. attempt to conquer that country.

2.You mention in your update to Censored 2009 that there is a media blackout about the dramatic statistics in US mass media. Do you think this will change?

I think that the U.S. mainstream media has a poor record of acknowledging the many instances in which it has (collectively) failed to  maintain its constitutionally mandated independence from government policy, and instead has ignored or written false reports supporting government malfeasance and tyranny. It was refreshing that the New York Times and Washington Post acknowledged their failure to report the contrary evidence to the US government claims about WMDs in Iraq, but this is a rare moment that has not led to more independent reporting on other U.S. government action in the Middle East.

I think that we can expect the U.S. mainstream media to continue to compromise its journalistic integrity in reporting on Iraq, and this will mean failing to report its own suppression of the Lancet studies and continuing to misreport the U.S. role in the Iraq war. This expectation is, of course, speculation, but the best evidence for this speculation is the fact that the major media have been withdrawing their personnel from Iraq, instead of taking advantage of more favorable security conditions to send reporters to locations that were previously inaccessible and therefore more thoroughly report the impact of the war on Iraqi life.

3.How have you experienced the coverage about the issue in other Western or international media, have they taken the situation in Iraq more seriously?

I find the reporting in Al Jazeera, the British national press, other international media, and independent U.S. media far more comprehensive in their coverage of the Iraq war. I would not say that they take the situation more “seriously,” – there has never been a problem with the U.S. media taking the war seriously. The differences are in very specific parts of the coverage: reporting on U.S. involvement in deaths and destruction, reporting on Iraqi resistance to the U.S. presence; reporting on the economic and social chaos caused by U.S. military, political, and economic policies in Iraq; reporting on who is fighting against the U.S.; reporting on the actual reality of life under U.S. occupation; and reporting on the day-to-day antagonism of Iraqis to the U.S. presence.

I should add, however, that these failures are not so much failures of U.S. mainstream reporters, but of the editors and publishers who assign reporters to particular stories and not to others. There are many reporters who fit information about all these issues into assignments that are aimed at other subjects. One small example will illustrate what I mean. In reporting about the U.S. offensive in Haifa Street in January 2007, mainstream reporters (for McClatchy and the Washington Post, if memory serves me) whose assignment was to report on the successful capture by U.S. troops of an insurgent stronghold also described the destructiveness of the U.S. attack and mentioned that U.S. soldiers stood idly by while Shia death squads cleansed the neighborhood of Sunnis. This information appeared toward the end of published reports, but it was published nevertheless. In contrast, a CBS report on the overarching destructiveness of the offensive and of the anger of residents at U.S. military actions was not broadcast and was only made public because of the protests of the censored reporter.

4.The journalist Joshua Holland compare the mass killings in Iraq with Pol Pot’s genocide in Cambodia. Is this an accurate comparison in your opinion?

Holland’s purpose in this comparison is the same as my purpose in comparing the deaths in Iraq to those in Darfur: we are trying to give people a sense of the scale of the violence wrought in Iraq by the U.S. military. The mass murders in Cambodia under Pol Pot and the displacements and genocide in Darfur–as well as so many other recent and more distant instances of such violence–all have different sources, intentions, and outcomes from the Iraq violence and from each other. The point of making these comparisons is to point out the magnitude of the slaughter in Iraq, not to make analytic comments about the dynamics of the war.

5. Do you believe it is appropriate that the Bush-administration should face trial for their actions?

In “The Fog of War,” former U.S. Secretary of Defense McNamara said to the camera that if the U.S. had lost World War II, then he and other American leaders would have stood trial as war criminals for the terrorist fire bombings of Japanese and German cities by the U.S. air force. Certainly the actions of U.S. political leaders and military commanders in ordering their troops to attack civilian targets in Iraq (for example the destruction of the city of Falluja—well publicized everywhere in the world except in the United States) fall under the same definition of war crimes that McNamara was considering in making this statement, and so it would be perfectly appropriate for Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, and the various commanding generals to stand trial for these actions.

But take note that McNamara said that trials would have taken place if the U.S. had “lost.” This statement has actually turned out to be a kind of half truth. In World War II, the Japanese and Germans certainly lost, but only a relative handful of those responsible for their war crimes stood trial (the Japanese Emperor, for example, was actually restored to his throne). In the Vietnam War, most observers say that the U.S. “lost” the war, but no U.S. leaders stood trial for the many war crimes they committed during that long conflict. There is no predicting the future, but I expect that, no matter how the Iraq war ends–with either McCain’s “victory” or with the “defeat” that President Bush has repeatedly warned the U.S. citizens about—there will be no war crimes trials of U.S. political and military leadership.

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Activists Seek Executive Order Banning Torture

November 20, 2008

NEW YORK – Shutting down the infamous detention centre at Guantanamo Bay is just one of a series of measures to reform U.S. counterterrorism practices being urged by the watchdog organisation Human Rights Watch (HRW).

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In a report released Sunday, the New York-based HRW urged President-elect Barack Obama to quickly repudiate the abusive policies put in place by the George W. Bush administration in its “global war on terror”.”The Obama administration is going to have a difficult task to restore America’s standing in the world,” Joanne Mariner, terrorism and counterterrorism programme director at HRW, told IPS. “The Bush administration’s counterterrorism policies deeply damaged the reputation of the United States.”

HRW’s 11-step action plan — entitled “Fighting Terrorism Fairly and Effectively: Recommendations for President-elect Obama” — suggests how the U.S. could again become a credible leader in the fight for the global implementation of human rights.

“But it depends on how dramatically the Obama administration makes a clear break with the past,” Mariner added.

According to HRW, some 250 terrorist suspects are still being held as “enemy combatants” at the military detention centre at Guantanamo Bay opened in 2002. Most of the detainees have now been in custody for nearly seven years, without charge.

As president, Obama should close the detention facility — a step he has already pledged to take — and establish a task force to review all the detainees’ cases to determine whether they should be charged and brought to trial or released.

Also among the 11 steps is the abolition of military commissions to try suspected foreign terrorists. HRW argues that these commissions lack “basic fair trial guarantees” and that federal criminal courts were the “best-equipped” and “time tested” venues to handle terrorism cases.

Similarly, plans to legalise the indefinite preventive detention of suspected terrorists – based on “predictions of future dangerousness” — should be rejected by Obama, HRW says.

Justifying detention without charge by classifying people as “enemy combatants” in the “war on terror”, as has happened to suspects arrested in locations like Bosnia, Thailand and along the U.S.-Mexico border, should also be stopped.

HRW also condemned the use of torture and inhumane interrogation techniques by U.S. armed forces and intelligence agencies — “including stripping detainees naked, subjecting them to extremes of heat, cold, and noise, and depriving them of sleep for long periods”.

To ban these practices, which have led to the deaths of some detainees, Obama should quickly issue an executive order and repudiate legal memos issued by the Bush Justice Department and presidential directives under the outgoing administration that permit torture and other abuses.

HRW called on the new administration to redress victims of abusive counterterrorism policies — something which has not happened so far as the victims have effectively been shut out of U.S. courts.

Above all, past abuses should be investigated, documented and publicly reported by a non-partisan commission with subpoena power, and former government officials who were responsible for some of the crimes should not be given immunity from prosecution, the group said.

Last week, Rep. Rush Holt, a Democrat from New Jersey who chairs an intelligence oversight panel, issued a statement saying that “while an executive order [to ban torture] will not remove the need for legislation on the issue,” if Obama did so, it would “begin to restore our moral leadership on the issue”.

Holt also expressed support for the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT), a coalition of religious groups from all over the country that is lobbying to eliminate the use of torture as a part of U.S. policy.

On Nov. 12, NRCAT held a nationwide action day with more than 50 delegations of religious leaders holding meetings with members of Congress. Thirty religious groups participated in a demonstration in front of the White House, where President Bush is spending his final days in office.

While she agreed on the need to fight terrorism, Mariner of HRW rejected many of the measures taken after the 9/11 terror attacks, emphasising that “the Bush administration entirely disregarded even basic principles of the rule of law.”

“The government addressed terrorism in an extremely counterproductive way,” Mariner said.

Instead of diminishing the terrorist threat, reports of human rights violations at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and elsewhere fuelled the recruitment of supporters for militant groups, which argued the U.S. was in fact leading a “war on Islam”.

Asked whether she believes Obama will heed the recommendations of HRW, Mariner stressed that by voting against the Military Commissions Act of 2006 to authorise trials by military courts, “Obama has already stood up against these abuses.”

The president-elect also explicitly pledged to close Guantanamo during his campaign.

“So we are confident that consistent with his message of change, his actions and his criticism, he is going to repudiate the abusive counterterrorism policies of the Bush administration,” Mariner said.

© 2008 Inter Press Service

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Terror Indian Poll in Kashmir: A Vote for Independence

November 19, 2008

Dr Abdur Ruff Colachal, Nov 19, 2008

The larger world is quite unimpressed by the Indian polls in Kashmir by keeping the terror military threat more active. Unlike the great powers around, Kashmiris could be easily fooled by India and its agents in and around country by keeping them under its terror control and feeding false promise of freedom and development and also democracy to them. But Kashmiris have voted for both re-independence and development and they have hinted they would not like to antagonize India after achieving freedom from hegemonic India.

In view of prevailing mood of the Kashmiris seeking complete re-independence from occupier India, Indian poll action in JK on Nov 17 does not reflect the realities, though India keeps asking the USA and other powers to take note of the changing realities to accommodate its concerns. The state elections are being staggered over seven phases to allow authorities to mount a huge security operation to contain the freedom movement’s anti-poll campaign. In the first stage of elections, voting has been held in ten of the 87 state assembly segments.

India used force against the anti-poll campaign by the freedom leaders and tries to reduce the impact of the freedom struggle started form the Muzaffarabad March where several freedom strugglers including a major leader were killed by Indian terror forces. Indian agencies have made the poll possible as it feared international shame if polls are not held. Indian media is focused on the very conduct of polls. Turnout in the 10 seats contested across Jammu and Kashmir state was above average, but as expected by India. More surprising perhaps was a turnout of 59 percent in three seats contested in the Kashmir Valley, up from around 55 percent in the same seats in 2002. Previous elections have seen freedom fighters threatening violence to enforce their call for a boycott, and Indian soldiers trying to coerce people to vote. This time the freedom fighters did not resort to anti-state terror measures and said they would not interfere.

On the eve of the polls, the Indian government arrested and tortured freedom leaders and activists and terrorized the Kashmiris to vote. By conducting polls against the will and wishes of the freedom loving people and the freedom fighters by police and military threats, India has in fact killed democracy in Kashmir. The freedom fighters resisted from counter-force and the polls were “thus peaceful”. Four freedom activists and two army men were killed in two separate encounters on poll day in the State while another soldier was abducted after a gunfight in Poonch.

However surprising the turnout in Bandipora, voters in this picturesque Township insist their vote should not be misconstrued as “the vote against the movement”. Not just voters but the contestants also sought to reiterate that they did not seek vote in favour of any ideology but “exclusively for development. At least 42 people were shot dead by police when hundreds of thousands of Kashmiri Muslims took to the streets this year shouting “Azadi” (freedom).

Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said the people are yearning for revival of the golden era of governance that the state had witnessed under the stewardship of Mufti Sayeed between 2002 and 2005. PDP says the people have decided to teach the National Conference, a pro-Hindutva party, a lesson for the power-hungry politics of deceit practiced by the party over the years and they came out in large number yesterday to do so

State Terror and Violations

Human rights and poll monitor groups are not spared by the forces. Those who had gone to monitor the “freeness and fairness of polls” are behind the bars. Prominent human rights activist Parvez Imroz, the president of Coalition of Civil Societies, was beaten and arrested by police at Bandipora. Bar association struck its work in high court and other courts here in protest against the beating and arrest of Imroz. That apart – the man has been of late been in news for his Coalition’s interest in monitoring elections in Jammu and Kashmir and India has been focused on his torture and silence.

Important here is the history of detentions that Imroz has faced in the past. Since 2002, J&K CCS has been monitoring elections in the state. Their 2002 Assembly election report and later the 2004 parliamentary election report was not taken well by the powers-that-be because it contained several references to how the police and the Army had coerced people to vote. Significantly, the coalition even lost one of its volunteers during the 2004 elections when the vehicle, in which she was traveling, was targeted in a mine blast. Kurram Pervez lost his leg in the accident. He had to get it amputated. The leader of human rights campaign in the valley, he has long been espousing the cause of the voiceless especially those killed in custody and those who disappeared over the past several years of conflict in the valley. Very recently, Imroz’s house was under attack from people who are yet to be identified and punished.

They voted for Re-independence

Independence is a separate issue from the need for a better life, which a good administration can provide. While it is too early to draw firm conclusions from Monday’s first stage in a seven-part election across a very diverse state, the turnout in parts of the mainly Muslim Kashmir Valley was a surprise for separatists who had heatedly called for a boycott. This year has seen some of the biggest anti-India protests in the Kashmir Valley since an insurgency began in 1989, but a 70-year-old man said they wanted to cast their ballots even though they had taken part in protest marches

A good turnout at the start of Indian Kashmir state elections may mean freedom fighters don’t want to cause death to Kashmir by Indian terror forces under guise of tackling the opposition by the ‘separatists’. In fact of late freedom leaders showed inclination for Kashmir development while gaining freedom back from India. However, talk of democracy is something neither Kashmiris nor Indians know for sure. For Kashmiris it is state terrorism that is shown to them as democracy. An effective poll mechanism of promising life and development of Kashmir along with pressure tactics have brought a lot people to vote for a new government, but they say in voice that they don’t vote for India.

If Hindu-terrorists are harassed by the state, the Hindutva forces come to their rescue. Breaking his silence over the Maharashtra anti-terror squad (ATS) probing the September 29 Malegaon bomb blasts that killed six persons, Lok Sabha Opposition leader LK Advani on 17Nov expressed “shock and outrage” over the way Sadhvi Pragya was “physically and psychologically tortured and abused in obscene language by her interrogators.” Advani should not realize the way the Muslims of India and Kashmir are being ill-treated by Indian forces and jail authorities. This is main reason how Kashmir poll was peaceful so far.

Illegal Indian Polls

Current Indian poll in JK is ilegal and immoral. The chairmen of Hurriyat factions, senior freedom leaders Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said that the sanctity of elections have been lost in presence of 7 lakhs troops. Reacting to the statement of authorities that 55 per cent people voted in first phase of election, Geelani said that the claim of free and fair elections ‘is a sheer joke’. Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chairman of the All Parties Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference which had called for a boycott, questioned the official figures and said free and fair voting was impossible in the presence of hundreds of thousands of troops. But more mainstream political parties appeared to have won some listeners by arguing that the need to choose good government that can build roads and improve civic amenities would not necessarily undermine the independence movement. Many voters said they still wanted independence as firmly as ever, but experts said a successful election across Kashmir would give the state and central government the chance to offer better governance and defuse the independence movement to some extent.

Some Observations

One does not clearly know if the current governor Vohra has difference of opinion over the poll show when he met the big bosses in New Delhi recently, but as an appointed agent of New Delhi as governor of JK, he still continues to work for Indian case in JK by ensuring the poll at any cost by using the terror forces taking positions street by street.  It was a common knowledge that the occupying Indians would go all about presenting a pro-India image for the watching world and with the waste resources wasted on poll machinations in JK, the task would not have been a total flop given a sort of neutral posture adopted by the freedom leaders. But the trend would fast change.

US president-elect Obama’s passion for a free Kashmir must have given the Kashmiris and their freedom leaders a fresh boost in pursuing their goals in non-confrontational manner. But, the unexpected turnout in 10 assembly constituencies that went to polls on Monday has given a boost to the pro-India so-called “mainstream” parties. Each party in JK wants to claim some credit for the polls. They believe massive participation of people will set a trend for the rest of the polling, especially in Srinagar and will give a confidence to candidates as well as voters. That is the joke being played out by New Delhi’s strategists, quit tragically, if not pathetically.

Does it all mean that India would not surrender sovereignty back to Kashmir in a peaceful manner? Does it mean Kashmir is permanently under Indian brute control? As a mark of support for Kashmir vote for re-independence, six mini trucks carrying goods from Pakistani Kashmir crossed the border in Baramulla district of Jammu and Kashmir.

However, it is quite clear that Kashmiris have voted not for Indian terrorist-rule in Kashmir, but, on the contrary, to get rid of India oppression and gain freedom. Kashmiris have showcased their strength once again in making the vote as a declaration for gaining independence from India. India should read the message quite correctly and not to day-dream about keeping JK under its terror custody forever!

Kashmir Freedom seems to be fast approaching!

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Anger as Indian police who tortured terror suspects escape action

November 19, 2008

From The Times, November 18, 2008

Rhys Blakely in Bombay

Human rights activists today expressed outrage that Indian police officers responsible for , using methods including severe beatings and electric shocks, will not be prosecuted.

The failure to act against the officers comes despite the Andhra Pradesh state government’s admission that the 21 men, who were detained in the wake of a series of terror attacks in Hyderabad in May and August last year, had been tortured. The state later offered them about $600 each in compensation.

Meenakshi Ganguly, senior South Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, said: “The government has to prosecute those responsible so that those who use torture will not get away with it.”

He added: “For a period of time, these detainees were effectively ‘disappeared’ persons. No one knew if they were dead or alive.”

On May 18, 2007, at least nine people were killed when a bomb exploded outside Hyderabad’s Mecca Masjid, where thousands had gathered for Friday prayers. On August 25, 2007, nearly 50 people died and scores were injured in two separate blasts in Hyderabad.

After interviewing those charged while they were still in jail awaiting trial, the Andhra Pradesh Minorities Commission reported that their injuries were “not self inflicted, these obviously arose during police custody – custodial atrocities on young detainees all minority persons stand proved”.

The Commission said that the detainees bore scars from violence, including some who showed signs of electric shocks.

The report escalated fears that India’s police force is losing credibility as it scrambles to clamp down on a burgeoning Islamist terror threat that has claimed at least 150 lives in a series of bomb attacks since May. Responsibility for the blasts has been claimed by the Indian Mujahedeen, a previously unknown group.

Doubts over police methods have been fanned by a proliferation of claimed “terrorist masterminds” as police forces across India react to political pressure to deliver swift justice in the wake of the Indian Mujahedeen’s rise.

In September, police in Bombay said they had cracked the terror group by arresting Sadiq Sheikh, who they claimed was the lynchpin behind an attack on Delhi on September 13 that claimed 22 lives. The capital’s force had already said Atif Ameen, a previously unknown 24-year-old college student who was gunned down by the Delhi police in October, had planned the crime.

Similarly, police in Jaipur said in August that a man called Shahbaz Hussain was behind an attack on the city that killed 80 people in May.

Delhi police now claim that Atif was. Last month, both Atif and Sadiq were linked to an attack in Ahmedabad which killed 45 people and which local police had said in August was “100 per cent solved”.

The tangle of competing police claims has triggered ridicule. Antara Dev Sen, editor of The Little Magazine, said: “We better get used to having several different ‘masterminds’ for the same crime as police teams of different states fall over each other to grab the limelight in fighting terror.”

Activists fear that ill-considered police tactics risk endangering innocent Muslims. In one incident that drew ridicule, police in Delhi presented three terror suspects to the media with their faces covered in red Arab-style keffiyah headdresses, which had been supplied by officials, rather than the plain cloth bags usually used to mask criminal suspects.

Mobashar Jawed Akbar, a senior Indian journalist, said: “Indian Muslims… knew that it was an attempt to stigmatize the whole community and link terrorism in India with… Osama bin Laden.”

The Andhra Pradesh minister for minorities’ welfare, Mohammad Shabbir Ali, who announced the compensation awards to the 21 torture victims, told the Indian Express last week that he does not want to blame the police because they “do their work based on information, and sometimes information can be wrong.”

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Badri Raina: Hindu Terrorism

November 18, 2008

The Shock of Recognition

By Badri Raina | ZNet, Nov 17, 2008

Epigraph:

“underlying these religions were a common set of beliefs about how you treat other people and how you aspire to act, not just for yourself but also for the greater good”

(Obama in his interview about Religion given to Cathleen Falsani, March,27,2004; cf. to his mother’s teaching about the validity of diverse faiths and the value of tolerance.)

I

So, now, India is home to “Hindu” terrorism.

Departing from the more usual banner-appelation, “Saffron Terror”, I wish the fact to be registered that saffron is drawn from the stamin of a delicate and indescribably pretty mauve flower grown exclusively in my home valley of Kashmir, and exclusively by Muslims. My inherited memories of it are thereby sweet and secular to the core.

Also, saffron when used to grace milk products, Biryani, or to brew the heavenly Kehwa is a thing of the gods truly.

It is only when it is coerced against the use of nature to colour politics that it rages against the sin. Then, don’t we know, what gruesome consequences begin.

I think it proper, therefore, to stick with the more direct and honest description “Hindu” terrorism, since, much against their grain, even India’s premier TV channels are now bringing us news of “Hindu” terrorism, so compelling the materials gathered by the investigating agencies thus far.

This despite the fact that in my view the term “Hindu” trerrorism is as erroneous as the term “Muslim” terrorism. Even though not a religious man myself, I am able to see that being Hindu or Muslim by accident of birth has no necessary connect with how one’s politics turn out to be in adult life. A plethora of specific contexts and shaping histories are here provenly more to the point.

II

It was way back in 1923 that Savarkar, never a practicing Hindu (indeed a self-confessed atheist) had first understood that from this benign term, “Hindu,” could be drawn the toxic racial concept Hindutva, and made to serve a forthrightly fascist purpose. That Brahminism had always been a socially toxic form of Hinduism was of course an enabling prehistory to the new project.

He it was who established Abhinav Bharat in Pune (1904), that theoretical hotbed of twice-born Brahminical casteism against which low-caste social reformers such as Phule, Periyar, and Ambedkar were to struggle their whole lives long.

Such casteism was made the instrument of communalist politics to serve two major objectives: one, to overwhelm and negate the specific cultural and material oppressions of the low-caste within the Hindu Varna system , and two, to elevate the low-caste as a warrior of a common “Hindutva” army against the chief common “enemy,” the Muslim.

Such an army has been seen to be needed to salvage the “real” nation from this so-called common enemy who continues to be represented to this day by the RSS and its hydra-headed “educational” front organizations as an “invader” still bent on seeking to convert India into an Islamic theocratic state.

Aided in these mythical fears and constructions by the British during the crucial decades leading upto Independence, India’s majoritarian fascists continue thus to keep at bay all consideration of secular oppressions based entirely in the brutal social order of Capitalist expropriation.

Savarkar thus counseled how a resurgent nation could result only if “Hinduism was militarized, and the military Hinduised.”

Clearly enough, the serving army Colonel, S.P. Purohit and the other retired Major, one Upadhyay, who the Mumbai ATS (Anti-Terrorist Squad) tells us, are at the centre of the Malegaon terrorist blasts of September 29, 2008, alongwith Sadhvi Pragya and the rogue-sadhu, Amreetanand—and very possibly complicit in half a dozen other blasts as well—seem to have heeded Savarkar’s advice to the hilt.

Indeed, in his Narco-test confessions, Colonel Purohit, sources have told some TV channels (Times Now), admits to his guilt and justifies his actions as retribution for what he thinks SIMI (Student’s Islamic Movement of India) have been doing. He is understood to have further indicated that the rogue sadhu, Amreetanand, nee Dayanand etc., has been the kingpin and chief coordinator and devisor of several other blasts carried out by this cell, including the blasts at the revered Ajmer Dargah (Mausoleum of the 12th century Sufi saint, Chisti, which to this day draws devotees across faiths the world-over), and at Kanpur.

The ATS are now busy exploring the routes through which huge sums of money have been brought into the country for such terrorist activity as Hawala transactions, and whether the RDX, suspected to be used in the Malegaon blast, was procured by Colonel Purohit through army connections. It is to be noted that Purohit has been in Military Intelligence, and serving in Jammu & Kashmir, where it is thought he made contact with the rogue sadhu, Amreetanand.

(Indeed, as I write, news comes of the ATS claiming that Purohit actually stole some 60 kilos of RDX which was in his custody while doing duty at Deolali, and that in his Narco-test confession he admits to passing it on to one “Bhagwan” for use in the blast on the Samjhauta Express train in Feb.,2007.)

Needless to say, that alongwith the courts, we will also require that the ATS is actually able to obtain convictions rather than merely pile on evidence which may not be admissible in law.

To return to the argument:

As I suggested in my last column, “Notions of the Nation” (Znet, Nov.,4), Hindutva militarism since the establishment of the Hindu Mahasabha and the RSS has been inspired by the desire to emulate and then better Muslim “aggressiveness” seen as a racial characteristic that defined “Muslim” rule in India, and rendered Hindus “limp” and “cowardly.”

Thus, if Savarkar established Ahninav Bharat, Dr.Moonje, an avowed Mussolini admirer who in turn inspired Dr.Hedgewar to establish the RSS on Vijay Dashmi of 1924 (victory day, denoting the liquidation of the Dravidian Ravana by the Aryan Kshatriya warrior, Ram) established the Bhondsala Military Academy at Indore (1937). It now transpires that this academy has been playing host to the Bajrang Dal for militarist training routines etc., and its director, one Raikar, has put in his papers.

Unsurprisingly enough, both these institutions are now under the scanner.

III

Over the last decade, terrorist blasts have occurred in India across a wide variety of sites and in major cities and towns.

Many of these blasts have taken place outside mosques and known Muslim- majority locations, as well outside cinema halls that were thought to be showing movies inimical to Hindu glory.

Briefly, these sites are: cinemas in Thane and Vashi in Maharashtra, Jalna, Purna, Parbhani, and Malegaon towns, again all in Maharashtra—and all areas of high Muslim density, in Hyderabad outside a famous old mosque, and in Ahmedabad and Surat in Gujarat.

Curiously, in the Surat episode, some sixteen odd bombs were found placed along the main thoroughfare in tree branches, on house-tops, on electric poles and so forth. Not one of them however exploded. This was thought to be the result of defective switches. Curious circumstance that; besides the wonder that Ahmedabad’s Muslims could find such sprawling access to such strategic locations without Modi knowing a thing.

Yet, regardless of where the blasts have taken place, almost without exception the Pavlovian response of state agencies as well as, sad to say, media channels has been invariably to point fingers of suspicion and culpability towards one or the other “Islamic” outfit.

Often, young Muslims men have been rounded up in the scores and held for days of brutal questioning without the least prima facie evidence. Nearly in all such cases, however reluctantly, they have had to be let off.

The most recent case is that of some fifteen young Muslims picked up after the Hyderabad blasts. Tortured with electric shocks, they have nevertheless been found to be innocent and let go.

Indeed, after the gruesome blasts in the Samjhauta Express—a train service of reconciliation and confidence-building between India and Pakistan—in which some 68 people were burnt to cinders, 45 of them Pakistani citizens, fingers were immediately pointed towards the SIMI.

Yet, the ATS of Mumbai now suspects that this may also be the doing of the “Hindu” terrorists in custody. These speculations have been raised by the circumstance that the suitcases that held the bombs had Indore labels on them.

Just as the ATS now suspects that more than half a dozen blasts (the two at Malegaon, in 2006 and 2008, at the cinemas in Thane and Vashi, at Jalna, at Purna, at Parbhani, provenly at Nanded and Kanpur) have all been the handiwork of “Hindu” terror groups.

Continued  >>

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Indo-US Terrorism in Pakistan?

October 23, 2008

By Dr Abdul Ruff Colachal

It is crudely painful to know the Pakistan is engaged in killing Muslims of Pakistan with the help of USA and India via Afghanistan. Recently, a lot of Muslims are being butchered by these trio-“democrats” in this Islamic nation and that is a shameful event. Missiles thought to have been fired by the US have killed at least seven students of a religious school in north-western Pakistan. At least two missiles, reportedly fired by pilotless US drones, hit the school early on Oct 23. One does not what exactly the USA wants in Pakistan by destabilizing and terrorizing citizens of that country. The school, in North Waziristan, is close to the residence of a fugitive Taleban leader, Jalaluddin Haqqani and by killing these innocent school kids, USA has possible tried to reduce the Muslim population in a Muslim country with the help of Indian Hindus who always talk filth about Indian Muslims saying they are growing at a reckless speed and they have 30 million share in the 1 billion of India and that poor Hindus have stopped producing children long back. America is, then, appeasing it newly found nuclear partner in many ways.

The latest missile attack comes hours after the Pakistani parliament unanimously adopted a resolution calling on the government to defend its sovereignty and expel foreign fighters from the region. The resolution also called upon the government to prevent the use of Pakistani territory for attacks on another country. The Pakistani army is investigating the incident. The US has made no comment. It seems both USA, the global terrorist state and India, the regional terror state, have coerced Pakistan to be silent on the US-led terror wars in Islamic world including Pakistan and accommodate the Into-US “concerns” in Pakistan. Witnesses told the BBC that the missiles destroyed nearly half of the school building in the Dande Darpakhel area near Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan. At least six people were injured in the attack. It is still not clear whether there were any foreign fighters among the dead students. Local people have said that most of the injured were local students at the seminary. The residential complex of Jalaluddin Haqqani had been targeted by a previous missile attack, in which more than 10 people had been killed or injured.

In recent weeks the United States has launched several missile strikes against suspected militant targets in the Afghan border region. Any support for Muslims is treated as act of terrorism. Muslim fighters from Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and the Middle East sympathizing with the terrorized global Muslims are the target of Indo-US state terrorists. Intelligence failures have sometimes led to civilian casualties and in Islamic world that does not matter to anti-Islamic terrorists led by the USA. Washington is least worried about Muslim civilian casualties and simply covers it up by saying the strikes are used against “suspected” militant targets. Some 80 people have been killed in a number of suspected US missile strikes in South and North Waziristan region over the past month.

Earlier in October a suspected pilotless American drone fired missiles in North Waziristan, killing at least six people. The United States rarely confirms or denies such attacks, as India does it when they kill innocent Kashmiri civilians. They have least regard for Muslim human lives.

Pakistan has been on the hit list of India and one cannot firmly say if the recent cross-border trade would eventually remove the “cross-border-terrorism” mentality of India. Indian media and intelligence not seem to be really interested in peace with India, although on US pressure both are doing this kind of CBMs. The Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), the military based premier spy agency of India created in 1968, has assumed a significant status as invisible actor in formulation of India’s domestic, regional and global policies, particularly directed against Muslims. It fundamental jobs include destabilize the region by engineering splits and turmoil in Indian neighborhoods. Fundamentalist Hindus give credit to Indira Gandhi who in the late 1970s gave RAW a new role to suit her Indira Doctrine specifically asking it to undertake covert operations in neighboring countries especially Pakistan which comprises majority of Muslims. RAW was given a green signal to mobilize all its resources by exploiting political turmoil in East Pakistan in 1971 which RAW had created through its agents who provided Bengalis arms and ammunition for conducting guerrilla acts against the Pakistani defence forces.

Tensions between the US and Pakistan have increased over the issue of cross-border incursions against militants by American forces based in Afghanistan. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has said he will not tolerate violations of his country’s territory. The US state department has affirmed “its support for Pakistan’s sovereignty, independence, unity, and territorial integrity”. But the US-led terrorist attacks are on the increase inside Pakistan, known as a major non-NATO ally and a “respected”, crucial partner of the USA. No one can clearly say what exactly has been happening in Jinnah’s Pakistan now-a-days!

Dr Abdul Ruff Colachal has been a university teacher, and has worked in various Indian institutions like JNU, Mysore University, Central Institute of English FL, etc. He is also a political commentator, researcher, and columnist. He has widely published in India and abroad, and has written about state terrorism.

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When Will India Quit Kashmir?

October 20, 2008

Kashmir Watch, Oct 19, 2008

Dr Abdul Ruff Colachal

After protesters thronged to United Nations Military Observer Group office in Srinagar demanding the resolution of Kashmir dispute, as it is already known, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is planning to visit India towards the end of this month or in early November.  Another important move in this regard is that United Nations Secretary General has informed the Security Council of his intention to appoint Major General Kim Moon Hwa of the Republic of Korea as Chief Military Observer in the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP). Major General Kim will replace Major General Dragutin Repinc of Croatia.

The historic opening of Srinagar-Muzaffarabad and Poonch-Rawalakote roads for trade would be supplemented by some more bold initiatives to facilitate Kashmir resolution process, both on bilateral and internal fronts. Kashmir resolution process involves not only various shades of political opinion but all sections of the society. In a historic decision, the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industries (KCCI), Chamber of Commerce and Industry Jammu (CCIJ) and Azad Jammu and Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry (AJKCCI) on Oct 14 formed a 32-member joint chamber of commerce. But the cross-LoC trade cannot be an alternative to Kashmir solution.

The latest developments in the State offer Government of India an opportunity to reinforce its resolve of working through peaceful means and through public participation towards the resolution of the problem.

Freedom Leader Geelani

Calling for a complete shutdown on October 24, the United Nations Raising Day, the Hurriyat Conference (G) chairman, Syed Ali Shah Geelani on Saturday urged masses to send emails, letters, faxes, telegrams and SMS to the UN’s New York headquarters to press for granting Right to self determination (RSD) to people of Kashmir to determine their fate.

Indian Terrorism

Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Patron Mufti Muhammad Sayeed claimed the State had started witnessing continuous changes of great importance and substance after the 2002 elections transforming its ground scenario positively and this had resulted in consistent increase of public participation in the democratic processes and his party contributed to it. Let that be. But he should enter now the freedom movement by actively involving himself with the freedom leaders fully committed to the cause of full and complete freedom from foreign occupation.

An international organization research on the Kashmir conflict, 7thspace.com, to assess experiences with violence and mental health status among the conflict-affected Kashmiri population, has reported that 85 per cent of Valley population have confrontation with the violence while 66 percent have witnessed torture. The survey reported that the civilian population in Kashmir is exposed to high levels of violence, as demonstrated by the high frequency of deliberate events as detention, hostage, and torture. Respondents reported frequent direct confrontations with violence since the start of conflict, including exposure to crossfire (85.7%), round up raids (82.7%), the witnessing of torture (66.9%), rape (13.3%), and self-experience of forced labor (33.7%), arrests/kidnapping (16.9%), torture (12.9%), and sexual violence (11.6%).The survey found high levels of psychological distress that impacts on daily life and places a burden on the health system. Ongoing feelings of personal vulnerability (not feeling safe) were associated with high levels of psychological distress. Over one-third of respondents were found to have symptoms of psychological distress, women scored significantly higher. A third of respondents had contemplated suicide.

India Destroys Medicinal Fauna of Kashmir

Kashmir is infested with Indian terror forces, agents and pro-India elements sabotaging the cause of freedom. India argues it has every right to heavily militarize Jammu Kashmir and kill the Kashmiri Muslims stock and barrel. Around 60,000 troops are posted in the Gurez which has a habitation of only 30,000 people. The ecology of Gurez is under threat as the army troopers deployed in the border area have been accused of vandalizing the environment by extracting valuable medicinal plants and minerals. Gurez has got vast resources of precious and costly medicinal plants and minerals, which were extracted legally by the locals till 1989 when armed rebellion broke out in Kashmir. After the turmoil, thousands of soldiers were deployed in Gurez and they continue to man each and every ridge.

The locals said that valuable medicinal plants like Kuth (Saussurea cosstus), Diosoriea (Dioscorea deltoidea), Mushki Bala( Veleriana wallichii) Guchies (Morchella esculenta), Black Zeera, Artimesia, Bellodona, Podophyllum (Banwangon) are found in abundance in Gurez. They said that had these natural resources been extracted by the state administration with the help of locals, the economy of the border area would have received a boost. They, however, alleged that the troopers are illegally extracting the natural resources, posing ecological and economic threat to the border area.  “There are legal, scientific and technological methods to extract the medicinal plants from the forests. However, troops during illegal extraction are not following these methods and destroy the precious and costly medicinal plants for their monetary benefits,” they said. “We were exporting medicinal plants legally worth crores of rupees to other parts of India and world before start of militancy. After the deployment of army personnel in Gurez, peaks encumbered with medicinal plants and minerals are now on the verge of extinction.

Continued . . .

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Saudi Arabia: Free Political Prisoners

October 16, 2008

Many Criminals Granted Amnesty, but Activists Remain in Prison

Source: Human Rights Watch

New York, October 3, 2008) – The Saudi government should free unlawfully detained political activists, including Professor Matrook al-Faleh, one of Saudi Arabia’s leading advocates of reform, Human Rights Watch said today. Although Saudi prison officials said that they had amnestied 1,000 convicted criminals during Ramadan in September, dozens of political activists remain behind bars or are subject to arbitrary travel bans.

" Peaceful dissidents continue to be locked up for speaking out, while convicted criminals get amnesty. Apparently the government considers reform advocates a greater danger to their authority. "
Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch
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“Peaceful dissidents continue to be locked up for speaking out, while convicted criminals get amnesty,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Apparently the government considers reform advocates a greater danger to their authority.”

Saudi secret police arrested al-Faleh, a professor of political science at King Saud University in Riyadh, on May 19, 2008 at the university. The arrest came two days after he publicly criticized conditions in Buraida prison following a visit to two fellow human rights activists being held there.

For six days, the secret police denied holding him, and even after they acknowledged that he was in detention, officials allowed his family just one visit during the first 60 days.

Saudi officials have not charged al-Faleh with a crime, though the criminal procedure code adopted in 2002 requires the authorities to charge detained suspects and take their statement within 48 hours. Officials have not interrogated him during his five months in prison, and al-Faleh has not been allowed to see the evidence, if any exists, on which the Investigation and Public Prosecutions Bureau is holding him. He is being held in solitary confinement next to suspected militants at the secret police’s al-Ha’ir prison.

Al-Faleh, denied the right to see his lawyers, started a hunger strike. During that time, prison guards taunted him with food and also shined a bright light in his cell around the clock. He has since broken off his hunger strike. His lawyers, Ibrahim Mubaraki and Khalid al-Mutairi, still have not been allowed to visit him.

Officials said they released at least 1,000 prisoners during the holy month of Ramadan, Saudi newspapers Al-Riyadh, Okaz, and Al-Sharq al-Awsat reported between September 14 and 29. In November 2007, 1,500 suspected militants held in separate prisons run by the secret police were released after undergoing a reeducation program in prison. These detainees had never faced charge or trial.

In February 2007, Saudi secret police arrested nine dissidents in Jeddah, who remain in prison without charge or trial. In December 2007, the secret police detained for almost five months without charge or trial Fu’ad Farhan, a blogger who had written in support of the release of the Jeddah group. Mansur al-‘Awdha, a reform activist from Jawf, has been in al-Ha’ir prison without charge since December 2007.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights spells out the rights to free expression and freedom from arbitrary arrest. Closely mirroring the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), articles 14 and 32 of the Arab Charter of Human Rights, which the Saudi Shura Council (an appointed parliament) ratified in March 2008, guarantee freedom from arbitrary arrest and freedom of expression. Saudi Arabia has not signed the ICCPR.

The kingdom has no penal code, and there are only a few statutory offenses, such as drug smuggling and embezzlement. Saudi Arabia implemented a Criminal Procedure Code safeguarding due process rights in 2002; articles 34 and 116 oblige the authorities to charge detained suspects within 48 hours.

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Kashmiris seek independence now, not Indian poll!

October 12, 2008

Not by Curfews alone, Mr. Governor!

By Dr Abdul Ruff Colachal | Kashmir Watch, Oct 11, 2008, Part 32

Muslims are being tortured and killed almost everywhere, in conservative countries, autocracies and the so-called democracies.  Anti-Islamic regimes kill them to quench their blood thirst, while the Muslim nations do the same in order to appease the terrorist nations led by the USA which many developing countries vie to gain nuclear contracts. Muslims are being butchered in Kashmir, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere and yet none is capable to raise their serious concern against those waging poisonous tails against Muslims. In anti-Muslim Hindu conservative India, even Muslims are made to be work against their own legitimate interests.

Terrorist India that occupies its neighbor Jammu Kashmir by brutal force has over decades created a terror force to kill Kashmiris and groomed a band of anti-Muslim militant-minded journalists to pursue the state agenda of anti-Muslimism who in the name of combating terrorism only keep the inter-civilization wedge intact  if no t further fueling it. They promote only anti-Islamic opinions in the media under their control and influence abroad especially in developing world, more importantly in Middle East. Indian journalists, thriving on “terrorism” cash, see only terrorism in Indian and Kashmir Muslims in one form or the other. They denounce anything “not pro-India’ and term them as ” anti-India” and terrorize even the non-Muslim journalists who make living on terrorism theme.

India is country of hidden agendas at home and abroad. State terrorism has remained the hallmark of Indian policy. As soon as it clinched the nuclerism with USA, it went further to showcase its power to Jammu Kashmir. Indian leaders, including the military top brass, are yet to admit the fact that terror forces are illegally occupying Jammu Kashmir. India has repeatedly asked Pakistan to stay away from Kashmir issue and let the Kashmiris seek independence all by themselves. It is very particular that Kashmir is kept out of purview of any bilateral talks between them. Will India, then, resolve the issue now and surrender Kashmir for good?

Indian and JK governments have complicated the life of freedom leaders particularly Syed Ali Geelani who is being repeated arrested and mentally tortured. During the recent curfew clamped by Vohra regime in Srinagar has further deteriorated the health of this veteran leader.  The Majlis Shoura of All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC-G) has appointed Ghulam Nabi Sumji as acting chairman of the amalgam because of the ill-health of Chairman Shah Geelani, who has been advised to get his pacemaker replaced and is being shifted to Delhi for treatment. The condition of Geelani had deteriorated because of his continuous detention and house arrest. He was admitted to a local hospital on October 5.

Geelani criticized the authorities for imposing curfew in the valley and arresting separatist leaders and asked the people not to heed rumors and foil any attempt by miscreants to harm unity. However, in a message to the people of Kashmir, he stressed the need for unity among all pro liberation groups.

People’s power is indeed great and purposeful. Kashmiris have shown that if people are united and fight for a just cause the rulers would be ruined sooner than later.

Discovered by UK in 19th century, the Amarnath temple structure outside India has all of sudden become a Hindutva symbol of Hindus in India and Jammu region of Kashmir. India and its Hindu representatives in Jammu Kashmir seem to have accorded to the Amarnath the status of NRI. After the destruction of Babri Mosque on the pretext that it was once Hindu structure, the Hindu India has taken up a new agenda in Hinduizing occupied Jammu Kashmir. They were under illusion that what they want to do in India and Jammu Kashmir will have to be accepted by Muslims as the final law. But Muslims Kashmir are totally different form those in India made with completely pro-Hindu mindset, and they don’t want to be a part of terrorist India that has killed over lakh [100,000] Kashmiris so far.

Unlike the slavery minded Muslims in India who even don’t have the capacity to fight for the reconstruction of the Babri Mosque demolished by Indian Hindu terrorists, Kashmiris continue to demand freedom from occupying India. Muzaffarabad March sacrificed a prominent freedom leader among others, but it evoked the inner consciousness of freedom seeking Kashmiris who are overwhelming in Jammu Kashmir.  After protestors thronged the United Nations Military Observer Group’s (UNIMOGIP’S) office in Srinagar demanding the resolution of Kashmir dispute the United Nation Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has formulated plans to pay a visit to India towards the end of this month or early November. Ban has criticized the India terrorism in Kashmir but, as usual, prompted resented by India. UN chiefs visit to India will be closely watched by the pro liberation camp in the Valley. Many pro liberation leaders are planning to seek a rendezvous with the UN chief and plead for his intervention in resolving the six decades old Kashmir sovereignty issue.

Pertinent to mention that freedom leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani had during a rally held at TRC grounds on August 18 asked Ban Ki-moon to pay a visit to the Valley and ascertain the facts, besides getting a firsthand account on the uprising in Kashmir. Hopefully, UN chief’s visit to this “democracy’ killing Kashmiris for fun will pave way for freedom of Jammu Kashmir.

Not by Curfew alone!

A high level meeting held in New Delhi discussed the Kashmir situation and unanimously decided to impose curfew in the Valley to scuttle the Lal Chowk March. The security agencies were already directed to erect long iron-made barricades at various entry points including Kokerbazar, Amira Kadal, Jehangir Chowk, Regal Chowk to prevent people from marching towards Lal Chowk. “Massive deployment of troops has already been put in place and Lal Chowk will be made out of bound for the people. Meanwhile, authorities have imposed section 144 in Ganderbal and Baramulla districts of Kashmir to prevent assembling of more than four persons at a place.

The curfew comes in the wake of Lal Chowk Chalo March call given by Coordination Committee, a freedom conglomerate, to press for its demands which include opening of Line of Control roads for trade, release of all detainees and revocation of Armed Forces Special Powers Act. A number of freedom leaders, including Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front leader Yaseen Malik were put under preventive custody. Hardline freedom leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani was shifted to a hospital after he complained of pain in lower abdomen. Among those placed under house arrest were Chairman of moderate faction of the Hurriyat Conference, Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, Jamiat-e-Ahl-e-Hadith chief Maulana Showkat besides senior separatist leaders Abdul Gani Bhat, Bilal Lone and Sajjad Lone.

A virtual siege was laid around Lal Chowk as a large posse of gun-toting security personnel took up position in and around the area. All entry and exit points in Srinagar city have been sealed. There were some sporadic protests when the paramilitary forces refused to entertain curfew passes. However, the issue was resolved later. The new anti-riot vehicles, procured by the Jammu and Kashmir Police recently, were positioned at strategic locations, especially those which had witnessed violence earlier. Due to indefinite curfew imposed by the authorities in Srinagar and elsewhere in Kashmir and the government’s failure to provide adequate number of curfew passes to our staff, distributors and hawkers, the print editions. Some of the local newspapers failed to hit the stands as publishers decided not to print them accusing the government of not providing enough curfew passes to their staff, a charge denied by the government. A private television channel — Sen TV– was banned for allegedly inciting people to disturb public peace and tranquility.

Indian agents in Jammu Kashmir headed by Governor Vohra are trying all tricks including state terrorism techniques to quell the freedom move in Jammu Kashmir by clamping curfews intermittently adding more harm to the Kashmiris. After creating enough trouble for the Kashmir Muslims the Hindu “brethren” in Jammu region are enjoying life by being agents of New Delhi.

Continued . . .

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