to question the unexplained wrongs
beliefs blinded by aeons of
superstitions
prejudices
and religions

Faith of the Heart

a song written by Diane Warren
originally performed by Rod Stewart for the soundtrack of the 1998 film Patch Adams
also the opening soundtrack for “Enterprise” – the Star Trek prequel

sung here by Russel Watson.

It’s been a long road
Getting from there to here
It’s been a long time
But my time is finally near

And I can feel the change in the wind right now
Nothing’s in my way
And they’re not gonna hold me down no more
No they’re not gonna hold me down

‘Cause I’ve got faith of the heart
I’m going where my heart will take me
I’ve got faith to believe
I can do anything
I’ve got strength of the soul
And no one’s gonna bend or break me
I can reach any star
I’ve got faith, I’ve got faith, faith of the heart

It’s been a long night
Trying to find my way
Been through the darkness
Now I’ve finally have my day

And I will see my dream come alive at last
I will touch the sky
And they’re not gonna hold me down no more
No they’re not gonna change my mind

I’ve known the wind so cold, and seen the darkest days.
But now the winds I feel, are only winds of change.
I’ve been through the fire and I’ve been through the rain.
But I’ll be fine.

It’s been a long road.

first it was the Foreign Secretary David Milliband’s gutless statements on Kashmir.
now it is Home Secretary Jacqui Smith

as the nations economy worsens,
and the evidence of their disastrous handling of the economy continues to surface
the more they have to rely on the muslim votebank to get themselves back into power
selling the rights and freedom of everyone else…

Dutch party chief barred from UK

Financial Times | Published: February 11 2009 00:45
By Michael Steen in Amsterdam

Britain has taken the unusual step of banning a Dutch member of parliament from entering the country due to his stridently anti-Islamic views, prompting the Dutch government to protest. Geert Wilders, who heads the anti-immigration Party for Freedom, had been due to travel to London on Thursday for a screening of his film, Fitna, organised by Lord Pearson of Rannoch, a eurosceptic peer. The film criticises Islam, one of Mr Wilders’ main targets.

The Dutch foreign ministry said it “deeply regretted the decision by the British government to deny Party for Freedom leader Wilders entry to the country”. Mr Wilders told Dutch television he had received a letter from the British Embassy in The Hague informing him of a decision by Jacqui Smith, Home Secretary, to bar him for public security reasons.

To be clear, his film Fitna is to be screened in the Palace of Westminster.

Dutch MP Geert Wilders deported after flying to Britain to show anti-Islamic film

Telegraph UK | Last Updated: 6:19AM GMT 13 Feb 2009
By Christopher Hope, John Bingham and Bruno Waterfield

Geert Wilders had been invited to Westminster to show his 17-minute film Fitna, which criticises the Koran as a “fascist book”, by a member of the House of Lords.

But on Tuesday Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary refused Mr Wilders entry because his opinions “would threaten community security and therefore public security” in the UK. Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen said Holland would press for a reversal of the travel ban.

Earlier on the flight, Mr Wilders had launched a savage attack on the Government. He said: “They (the British Government) are the biggest bunch of cowards in Europe. “I’m coming because I am invited by one of your members of parliament. I’m not provocative. I am an elected political representative. I am a democrat. I use my freedom of speech. I am using all the democratic means I have.”

Mr Wilders had been due to attend a screening of Fitna, organised by Ukip peer Lord Pearson, in the Lords. Lord Pearson said the screening would go ahead yesterday “with or without Mr Wilders”. In a joint statement, he and cross-bench peer Baroness Cox said they were “promoting freedom of speech” and accused the Government of “appeasing” militant Islam.

They added: “Geert Wilders’ Fitna film, available on the web, is not a threat to anyone. It merely suggests how the Koran has been used by militant Islamists to promote and justify their violence. “They react in fury and menace to our intention to show the film and have boasted that their threats of aggressive demonstrations prevented its previous showing in the Mother of Parliaments.”

… and so the pandering for muslim votes in Britain will continue.
biggest bunch of cowards in Europe – I totally agree.

as for the non-sloppy-thinking sanctimonious readers,
the next election in britain has to be completed by 3rd June 2010

british general electionmuslim+votebank

previous articles in the british mp series:
british mp’s support for islamic terrorism

would you live in an Islamic Caliphate,
the global state that will be ruled under the Sharia Law?
the one Islamic Caliphate, that every muslims desires, yes, everyone of them,
for it is dictated by their religion.

Islam is a religion of peace, it is argued by the muslims.

then there also are many non-muslims voices,
loud in their ignorance who only would like to be seen as “liberals”
while for many unfortunates, born and living in the wrong world region, it will be all too late.

an allegation from the Indian Ahmadiyya community

Ahmadi children arrested on false charges in Pakistan

In persecution.org | Punjab News Online
Maqbool Ahmad Wednesday, 11 February 2009

QUADIAN: Ahmadiyya Muslim community in India spokesman Mohammad Nasim Khan said in a press release that five members of its community residing in Chak 172/TDA, District Layyah, Pakistan have been arrested and charged under Section 295-C of the Pakistani Penal Code. In a grave blow to any standards of decency, four of the accused are children studying at the English language ‘Superior Academy’ private school. Under the terms of Section 295-C any person found guilty is subject to either the death penalty or life imprisonment.

The four accused children are Muhammad Irfan, Tahir Imran, Tahir Mahmood and Naseeb Ahmad. There are conflicting reports regarding the exact age of the children however according to both the ‘AHRC’ and ‘The Daily Times’ their ages range between 14 and 16. Mr Mubashar Ahmad, aged 50, has also been arrested under section 295-C.

All five were taken into custody on 28 January 2009 by virtue of a police raid on each of their homes. After four hours in custody each of the accused was charged under the terms of section 295-C on the completely false grounds that they had written the name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) on the walls of a toilet at the Jamia Gulzar-e-Medina Mosque.

The Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat urges the immediate release of the five persons imprisoned and for all charges to be dropped. In a country which seeks to promote an image of tolerance to the Western world, it speaks volumes that peace loving children have been charged with an offence that sanctions the death penalty as a sentence.

this is one of the many news feeds on this event

Presumed guilty five Ahmadis arrested in Punjab for blasphemy

Qaiser Felix – in Asia News 02/13/2009 17:47

Lahore (AsiaNews) – Five Ahmadi in Punjab’s Layyah district have been arrested on charges of blasphemy. No evidence has been presented, nor has any witness come forth. They were just detain on a “presumption of guilt,” this according to Asma Jahangir, chairperson of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) and United Nations Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion. For this reason she has called on the government to take prompt measures to prevent abuses of the law.

For Islamic fundamentalists the Ahmadis are a heretical sect that cannot claim to be Muslim because they do not recognise Muhammad as the final prophet. Because of this they have suffered persecution in Pakistan but also in Bangladesh and Indonesia.

This particular incident began when five Ahmadi students, who had been duly authorised to pray in the local mosque, were told not to come back to the holy place. With such a threat hanging over their heads, the five men were accused ten days later of scribbling offensive graffiti on the walls of the mosque’s bathroom. According to the official complaint filed against them, since they were the only non-Muslims in the mosque, “only they could be responsible for the offence.”

the eternal price of not being muslims in an Islamic republic – to be “guilty by presumption”.

but does the world care about the Ahmadis?

2005.

Pakistan: Killing of Ahmadis continues amid impunity

AI Index: ASA 33/028/2005 (Public) | News Service No: 271
Public Statement – Amnesty International: 11 October 2005

Police investigations of previous targeted killings of Ahmadis in Pakistan have been slow or have not taken place at all. In many cases the perpetrators have not been brought to justice. Amnesty International believes that the government’s consistent failure to investigate attacks and killings of members of religious minorities fails to discourage further human rights abuses against such groups. The right to freedom of religion, as laid down in the Pakistani constitution and in international human rights law, must be made a reality for all religious minorities in Pakistan.

Over the years Amnesty International has been informed of numerous targeted killings of Ahmadis, usually carried out with impunity. In some cases, the targeted Ahmadis themselves were subjected to criminal charges. In one incident in October 2000, eight Ahmadis were murdered in the village of Ghatialian, Sialkot district, in an incident similar to that of 7 October 2005.

In October 2000 gunmen opened fire on Ahmadis while they were gathered at a mosque for worship. Five Ahmadis who witnessed the attack and reported the incident to the police, along with 21 other Ahmadis, were arrested and many of them are still serving life sentences for what Amnesty International believes to be false charges. None of the gunmen were ever arrested or brought to justice.

A report by the Amnesty International
of the mockery of Human Rights of religious minorities in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

2007

And then there was from the Human Rights Watch:

Pakistan: Pandering to Extremists Fuels Persecution of Ahmadis

Government Must Repeal ‘Blasphemy Law’ and End Persecution of Religious Minority
Human Rights Watch | May 5, 2007

The Pakistani government should stop pandering to Islamist extremist groups that foment harassment and violence against the minority Ahmadiyya religious community, Human Rights Watch said today.

Human Rights Watch called on the government of President General Pervez Musharraf to repeal laws that discriminate against religious minorities such as the Ahmadis, including the penal statute that makes capital punishment mandatory for “blasphemy.”

The persecution of the Ahmadiyya community is wholly legalized, even encouraged, by the Pakistani government. Pakistan’s penal code explicitly discriminates against religious minorities and targets Ahmadis in particular by prohibiting them from “indirectly or directly posing as a Muslim.” Ahmadis are prohibited from declaring or propagating their faith publicly, building mosques, or making the call for Muslim prayer.

Pakistan’s “Blasphemy Law,” as Section 295-C of the Penal Code is known, makes the death penalty mandatory for blasphemy. Under this law, the Ahmadi belief in the prophethood of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad is considered blasphemous insofar as it “defiles the name of Prophet Muhammad.”

This is February 2009

where is the voice of the “moderate muslims”?

SITUATION IN DISTRICT LAYYAH WORSENS

In persecution.org | Punjab News Online
Maqbool Ahmad Wednesday, 10 February 2009

Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamat spokesman Mohammad Nasim Khan said in a press release today that the Human Rights situation of its members in District Layyah, Pakistan is worsening. The five Ahmadis, who include four children, arrested on 28 January 2009 remain in police custody. They are not being allowed to meet with any persons, in direct contravention to the provisions laid forth in Article 37 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child to which Pakistan is party.

In a further worrying move the local Mullahs have announced that a large scale rally will be held at Chak TDA/172 in opposition to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat. It is more than likely that this event will be used to incite hatred against the Jamaat and to urge people to act against Ahmadis. The organisers of this event are inviting people from nearby cities such as Dera Isamael Khan and Muzafergarh to take part in this rally. The local authorities and police are seriously concerned about the event which they fear they will be unable to control.

Ahmadi Muslims throughout the world are urged to write to their local media and officials in protest of what is happening in District Layyah. The International Community is once again urged to take immediate action.

where are the loud mouth noseycows?

ahmadiyyaspakistanislamic caliphate

Previous articles in this series:
in an islamic caliphate: would you live in one
in an islamic caliphate: what rights the Zarminas?

i stumbled back on this song from the

flower power days
when some had the courage to stand up and say no more to violence
when to bring change needed courage and sacrifice
not the sanctimonious voices

younger generation – john sebastian at woodstock

why must every generation think they’re folks are square
and no matter where they’re heads are, they know mom’s aint there.
cause’ I swore when I was small, that I’d remember when
i knew what’s wrong with them that I was smaller then

determined to remember all the cardinal rules
like sunshowers are legal grounds for skipping school
i know I have forgotten maybe one or two
and I hope that I recall them all before the baby’s due
and I’ll know he’ll have a question or two

like hey pop can I go ride my zoom
it goes twohundred miles an hour, suspended on balloons
and can I put a droplet of this new stuff on my tongue
and imagine frothing dragons, while you sit and wreck your lungs
and I must be permissive understanding of the younger generation

and then I know that all I’ve learned my kid assumes
and all my deepest worries must be his cartoons
and still I’ll try to tell him all the things I’ve done
relating to what he can do when he becomes a man
and still he’ll stick his fingers in the fan

and hey pop my girlfriend’s only three
she’s got her own bitty phone
and she is taking lsd
and now that we’re best friends she want’s to give a taste of me
but whats the matter daddy how come you’re looking mean
can it be that you can’t live up to your dreams

40 years and more has gone by, do we even care
what kind of a world we leave behind for the future generations
a world where they still will have to fight for their equal rights, if any at all

not one we can be proud of

[flowerpower: 1967 photograph of George Edgerly Harris III by Bernie Boston]

would you live in an Islamic Caliphate,
the global state that will be ruled under the Sharia Law?
the one Islamic Caliphate, that every muslims desires, yes, everyone of them,
for it is dictated by their religion.

The image is a link to a video clip
It has left me with speechless anger since I first saw it on Channel 4.
Do not open if you get upset by violence – this is extremely disturbing.

Public Execution of an Afghan Woman (Zarmeena) by Taliban

Kabul Ghazi Sports Stadium, Nov.16,1999

Movie clips from a video film by RAWA which was aired by Channel 4 (UK)

Every time I see this, I can only think of the state of the woman’s mind when left tied and helpless on the ground, blindfolded, knowing there was to be a bullet through her head.

Look at the spurt of dust where the bullet hits the ground.
A chilling reminder it is not a movie, this is real.

Her crime?
Read the original RAWA text,
RAWA: Revolutionary Association of Women from Afghanistan

ZARMINA’S STORY

The Mirror , June 20, 2002 | From Anton Antonowicz In Kabul

MILLIONS of people have watched this woman die. Yet none saw her face.

Only a handful of people know the real story which led to 35-year-old Zarmina being executed on the penalty spot in Kabul’s Olympic Stadium in Afghanistan.

The image of this mother of five children being driven to her death in a Toyota pick-up for the crime of killing her husband shocked the world. This anonymous woman being dragged across the pitch in front of 30,000 spectators and being made to kneel before the goalposts until the tall, thin Taliban rifleman blew out her brains.

The scene was recorded with a hidden video camera and smuggled into Pakistan by the brave women of RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of Women from Afghanistan. Later, it marked the opening scenes of Beneath the Veil, Channel 4’s award-winning documentary of life inside Afghanistan under the fanatical Taliban.

Here was the truth of life in a nation wracked by 23 years of war yet largely ignored until that day. When the Mirror first published photographs of Zarmina’s death in June last year we were inundated by calls and letters from readers. Few knew of real life under the regime which came to power in 1996.

September 11 changed all that.

But one, simple question remained unanswered.
One which obsessed me from the moment I first saw that secret footage in spring last year. If the claim that Zarmina had murdered her husband was true, what was the desperation, knowing the Taliban’s brutality, which ultimately led her to her death? And what, if anything, did it tell us about the life of women under the fanatics’ yoke?

These were the questions which took me to Afghanistan. To a secret rendezvous. To a filthy prison. To a cemetery. To houses where doors slammed in my face. Where men with guns threatened to kill me if I continued asking questions.

FINALLY, last Friday, a thin airmail letter arrived on my desk, post-marked April 6.

It contained three pages of green biro notes ripped from a school exercise book, confirming details which myself and colleague Tom Newton Dunn discovered during two separate Afghan assignments. It also held a tiny photograph, the size of a thumbnail, from a police file – the face of Zarmina, the woman beneath the veil.

The letter came from a young “fixer” I hired in Kabul. It followed a meeting I had arranged with a woman police inspector who had promised that somehow she would ensure Zarmina’s real story was told. Rana Sayeed works at the central police station in Kabul. It was sheer chance that we first found her on a rain-lashed day in late February standing at the entrance to the women’s jail.

Rana, a mother in her late 40s, appeared different from most Afghan women. She did not wear a burka. Her manner was loud and confident. She spoke of her training as a detective and told how she was sent to Moscow by Afghanistan’s former Soviet puppet regime.

Rana said she had been a police officer for some 20 years. “Even the Taliban needed some women to apply law and order,” she said, suddenly lowering and shaking her head. “Even the Taliban…” She took us across the mud-caked compound into the charred basement of the police HQ.

The room held two desks and one old typewriter. The air was still heavy with the stench of smoke from hundreds of fires the Taliban started in Kabul before they fled. She asked us to wait until her boss gave her clearance. When eventually the newly-appointed chief of Kabul’s police told her to give us every assistance, she began.

“At last Zarmina’s story can be told,” she said. “It is the story of one woman. But it is also the story of Afghan women under the Taliban, under brutes who turned our country into a zoo and our women into dogs. “I thought Zarmina would die when they brought her here. They beat her for two days with steel cables until she confessed.

“But she was a tough one. As she lay on the floor of the cell, she pointed to her one-year-old twins – the girl Silsila and the boy Jawad – and said she would fight for life, fight as the mother of these babies.

“There were other children. Zarmina had a son Hawad, who was 11, and two beautiful daughters Shaista, 14, and Najeba just 16. “It was her love for all of them which drove her to do what she did. The tragedy is that it made life a thousand times worse for them.”

Zarmina, from northern Kabul, was married at 16. It was an arranged union but blossomed into love. She was an attractive, feisty woman. Her Pashtun husband, Alauddin Khwazak, from the village of Paghman an hour’s drive away, was a policeman who also owned a small general store.

It was a marriage which flowered in the face of war and seemed at first to survive the violence in Kabul. But almost imperceptibly, perhaps inevitably, the relationship began to fall apart. Relentless bloodshed changed everyone. And it destroyed Zarmina’s husband. The bombings, mass rapes, and murders brutalised Khwazak’s mind, infecting it with an insidious poison.

A NEIGHBOUR told me: “He had been a mild man but slowly he turned into a monster. Perhaps, as a policeman, he had seen too much. “He’d rage. He became violent. He was mad with jealousy, convinced that Zarmina was seeing other men. It was rubbish. But his head was wrapped in madness.”

When the Taliban took control of Kabul in September, 1996, they effectively handed Khwazak a licence for that madness. For these fundamentalist “students” from the south, Kabul was Satan’s playground. A place where women were allowed to wear miniskirts and attend high school and university. A world of sin.

Women had no rights in Taliban Afghanistan. They existed only to obey. They were drones to bear children, cook and satisfy men. They were lashed for their high heels, had their fingertips amputated for revealing varnish and and were stoned to death for prostitution. Two women charged with adultery were hanged from a crane. A boy of 10 was given a gun to shoot his father’s killer and a girl of seven whipped for wearing white shoes.

Girls were forbidden to attend school and summary justice wrapped in a medieval robe was the creed. Ruthless in pursuit of purity and perfect proof that no crime is too awful if justified by religious belief. Khwazak’s moods matched the new doctrine. His brother, a dour and unforgiving man, hailed the Taliban’s fundamentalism and fed his sibling’s fevered brain.

Rana said: “Khwazak beat his wife every night. He abused her and her elder daughters. I don’t know if there was sexual abuse, but it was something Zarmina could no longer bear. So she plotted with Najeba to kill him. And finally they did it.”

The murder was carried out early one summer night five years ago. Some say Zarmina put opium in Khwazak’s food. Rana says she laced his meal with sleeping pills. As he fell into a drugged sleep Zarmina woke her daughter. Rana said: “She told me that there, at the final moment, she couldn’t do it.”

It was Najeba who took the 10lb mason’s hammer and killed her father with one blow to the head. Rana said: “They ran from the house screaming that robbers had broken in and attacked Khwazak. They said the men were ’shadows in the night’. “Some believed them, others weren’t so sure. Zarmina’s brother-in-law was the first to accuse and called the Taliban.

“They never found the hammer, but they got their confession. That was all that mattered.

“Zarmina said she was the murderer. That she acted alone. She stuck to that story all the time she was tortured. It was only two years later when she knew me well that she admitted the truth. And I wasn’t going to tell anyone.”

ZARMINA was taken to the central jail and held there with her twins for nearly three years. Sometimes her mother would come with food. But she condemned her daughter for bringing shame on all of them and said she hated her. She told Zarmina other women in jail would kill her. Yet it was those prisoners who helped keep her and her children alive.

Rana went on: “They’d give them scraps. I gave her a few blankets. Somehow she stayed alive.
“She was a brave woman and fought desperately against her fears. She told the Taliban she was a mother and that what she’d done was for her children.”

Rana said: “She asked what would happen to her children without a mother? She pleaded with them to lash her and let her go to tend her precious kids. “She had dreams in which her husband appeared. Then she said she knew she would die.”

Zarmina’s elder girls and son were given to her brother-in-law, according to tradition. He was Taliban and demanded blood law refusing to let her escape death. Then, two months before the execution, he told Zarmina’s mother he had sold Najeba and Shaista into sex slavery.

“That nearly killed Zarmina,” said Rana. “Everything she’d done was for her children. Now it had taken her girls to a living hell. “The brother-in-law even made sure she knew the price, 600,000 Pakistani rupees for Najeba and 300,000 for Shaista. Sold to a man from Khost.”

Khost, seven hours south east of Kabul on the Pakistani border, is a name which echoes loud. The city was a Taliban stronghold. The place where al-Qaeda had its main training camp and the tunnels from which Osama bin Laden issued his fatwa to kill Americans and their allies.

“Zarmina beat herself, smashed her head against the jail wall,” said Rana. “Of course her daughters were sold to Taliban, but who? To Afghans? To fanatics? To bin Laden? She knew she’d never see them again.”

Then, on November 15, 1999, the radio announced there would be an execution in two days time. Zarmina knew nothing of this. She had spent nearly three years in jail and knew there would be punishment. But still she convinced herself they would not kill a mother.

EVEN when the guards came for her she said she expected to face 100 lashes, but no more. She put on three dresses – two borrowed – underneath her burka, hoping they would soften the blows. Rana said: “I was ordered to accompany her with two women police officers. “We climbed into the pick-up with her and prayed together. I couldn’t stand it. I left before the truck entered the stadium.

‘And I’ll tell you that after what happened next, those two colleagues never worked again. One had a nervous breakdown. The other is plagued by nightmares to this day.” As the stadium crowd settled, an announcer described what was to happen: “Zarmina, daughter of Ghulam Hasnat, is to be executed for killing her husband with a hammer.”

He falsely said the murder happened “five months ago”. But the truth would not have fitted the Taliban creed of swift justice. The reality was that her execution was delayed until a premium price was haggled and paid for her virgin daughters.

The video takes over. It first shows the Toyota twice circling the pitch, the driver parading his passenger before the spectators. Zarmina, flanked by her two female escorts, sees little. Surgeons in masks stand to one side, ready for amputations which will follow the main event.

The next clip shows the two women guards escorting Zarmina to the goal area. She is told to sit. For the first time, the crowd of men, women and children falls silent. Slowly a tall Taliban steps forward. Zarmina tries to crawl away. What is not shown is the first shot.

The executioner’s hands are shaking. The cries from the crowd to spare Zarmina unnerve him. Officials refuse all pleas for clemency. They claimed there were too many in the crowd who wanted to see death.

The first shot creases Zarmina’s hair telling her at last what her fate would be. Her precious children brought for the spectacle can only stand and stare. Zarmina cries out. She says she cannot sit or kneel without falling. “Someone take my arms,” she pleads.

Her last request went unanswered. The gunman aimed his Kalashnikov again. And Zarmina was dead from a single 7.62mm bullet. The executioner turned away, blood law sated. He was Zarmina’s brother-in-law. The man who sold her precious girls. The man who, Rana is sure, escaped to Pakistan with so many others. A man with money in his pocket.

ZARMINA’S body was taken to the Wazir Akbar Khan hospital. Her body lay unclaimed in the mortuary for 20 days. Her mother, Shah Sultan, refused any responsibility, telling Rana: “She brought shame. She deserved what she got. She is not even a memory to me.”

Zarmina was buried in an unmarked grave 300 yards from her unforgiving mother’s home. Rana took me to the cemetery in Khair Khana, in District 11, north Kabul. She stayed in the car while I tried to find the grave. She said it was safer that way. That locals might object to her being in the company of foreign men. The gravediggers denied any knowledge of the executed woman. One man produced a gun and told myself and photographer Phil Spencer we had no business there.

Then a young fellow, perhaps 20 and dressed in a red blazer, drew up on his bike. “I know what you are looking for,” he said. “Everyone knows about Zarmina. They don’t want trouble. They don’t want reminding. But they are ashamed of what happened to that woman and her girls.”

People know when a wrong has been done. But there was palpable fear that Afghanistan’s turmoil would once again overwhelm them. That the Taliban were all around. That they would return and exact vengeance upon anyone who might now question their actions.

The cyclist ignored those fears. He led us through the cemetery. A stark moonscape of a place. So little colour. So much misery. So many newly dead. Just scores of the thousands who died young in an incessant war. My guide pointed out a mound with two stones facing each other flat on. The positioning meant it was a woman’s grave.

But there was nothing else to determine whose it was. Just the anger of the gunman and other armed men nearby, the embarrassed faces of the gravediggers and the cyclist pointing and saying “This is Zarmina”.

He refused my offer of money, saying “It is time Zarmina’s story was told.” And of course there are so many of these stories to be told. “There were so many nightmares here,” Rana said as we drove to The Herat, Kabul’s best restaurant. The place is little better than a greasy spoon. But Rana would not enter.

“It’s OK. You go, you sit. Just ask them to bring me some food in the car.” That is how it still is in Afghanistan. The Taliban and their al-Qaeda allies may be put to rout but still women’s rights are hardly a footnote on the agenda. WE speak to a beggar woman by the restaurant door. She has three children all under five. Her husband is dead. She tells me life should be better now. She receives about 50p a day.

She says all this through her burka. A Pushtun barges through the crowd, bends over her and strikes her head. “Get lost, you whore-bitch!” he shouts. And the woman scrambles away with her children. I ask Bashir, our “fixer”, why he did that. Was he related to the woman? “No. He’s just a Taliban type. Any woman is ripe for a beating. They don’t need an excuse.”

We ate with Rana in the car. She said: “I remember another stadium execution where the man had 10 bullets in his body. His victim’s family took turns to shoot him. “I remember a woman the Taliban accused of having a walkie-talkie. There were 16 of them beating her with cable wires until she pissed blood. All the time they made sure her head and face were covered so they should not be tempted by her looks.

“I tell you I thank God for September 11. Not for the innocent deaths. But, without that day, we’d still be treated like animals. “The whole place was run by Pakistanis and Arabs. No one dared say anything against them.

“It was the same the day Zarmina died. Everyone knew she did not deserve to die. But nobody said anything. Nobody dared.” Now some do dare to speak. Rana and Zarmina’s neighbours tell me the twins, now six, and their brother Hawad,16, have been cast adrift.

Unwanted by their fleeing uncle. Unacknowledged by their grandmother. They beg, they rag-pick at the local dumps. But nothing has been seen of Najeba and Shaista. Five children all lost because of a mother’s desperation to give them a better life. “Yes,” Rana repeated, “Zarmina’s story must be told.” So, with that photograph arriving on my desk last week, it has been told. It cannot be the whole truth but from what we have found and checked, it is nothing but the truth.

The story of a woman beneath veils of violence, madness and terrible sadness. A woman so many saw die. But never knew how she had lived.

Now to wait for the hypocrites to queue up to say this is western propaganda, it is not.

This is Taliban.
This is the Taliban, that Pervez Musharraf vowed to save.
This is Islam unfettered and unchecked,
like it had been for centuries, where no one enforces an individuals’ human rights.
This is the Shariya Law that a proud fundamentalist here said
would be beneficial for humanity, for the whole world.

islamic caliphateshariya lawtalibans

would you live in an Islamic Caliphate,
the global state that will be ruled under the Sharia Law?
the one Islamic Caliphate, that every muslims desires, yes, everyone of them,
for it is dictated by their religion.

Islamic Caliphate

a Caliphate, is the only form of governance that has full approval of traditional Islamic theology. the political leadership of the Muslim ummah in classical and medieval Islamic history and juristic theory. The Caliph, head of state’s position is based on the notion of a successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad’s political authority.

The stark example on BBC today.

Taleban ‘will kill school girls’

BBC World South Asia || Friday, 26 December 2008
Taleban militants in the Swat valley in north-west Pakistan have threatened to kill girls who attend school.

A local Taleban commander ordered parents to stop sending their daughters to school by 15 January. In comments broadcast on an illegal radio station, he threatened to blow up schools which enrolled female students.

This year alone, Taleban militants have destroyed more than 130 schools in the Swat valley. They want to bring in Islamic sharia law in the region. Militant attacks on schools in the region have deprived more than 17,000 students of education.

These schools are not Islamic religious institutions and the students are taught courses based on the government syllabus.

To kill in the name of religion?
then are Talibans not muslims?

Talibans

the name confirms them as Students of Islamic Knowledge Movement
an Islamic fundamentalist politico-religious movement initiated and perpetuated by the madrassa students in the Helmand and Kandahar region of Afghanistan.

Madrassas

what is the ‘madrassa’ -
is it not an Arabic word for any type of school, college or university?

is it not that students in madrassas memorises the entire Quran?
then is it not, every action of the students of madrassa have the endorsement in the words of Quran?

and is it not –
that the restrictions imposed on every individuals fundamental human rights
the killings of school girls in Afghanistan who wish to learn
in schools like every other child of this world
- are also being endorsed in the fundamentals of the Quran.

This comment by a Sajjad of IP 116.72.188.176
the self proclaimed muslim fundamentalist on my site.

3. I am proud to be a Muslim fundamentalist
I am a fundamentalist Muslim who, by the grace of Allah, knows, follows and strives to practise the fundamentals of Islam. A true Muslim does not shy away from being a fundamentalist. I am proud to be a fundamentalist Muslim because, I know that the fundamentals of Islam are beneficial to humanity and the whole world.

There is not a single fundamental of Islam that causes harm or is against the interests of the human race as a whole.

oh yeah?
tell that to the parents of every school girl who gets killed, Mr Sajjad.

islam caliphate

no, I do not rest my case.
this is the first of a series documenting events
from around the world TODAY of life and human rights as is under the Islamic Shariya Law.

for those who lives in the romanticism of Arabian Nights
unaware of the realities of living under the Shariya, real possibility of having to live under Shariya,
for those who do not bother to find out what individual rights they would have in such a world…

just as night follows day and hides everything under darkness

the kashmir propaganda invariably follows every islamic atrocity in India
the ultimate excuse for a perpetual lie

and does it come any more blatant as this – I Am A Muslim…

it is said a picture conveys a thousand words but it does not have to be the truth
the perfect tool for clever propaganda

this photograph
published on an obscure and untraceable URL
with no means of confirming its source, its context or authenticity
becomes “this picture is of KASHMIR” –
a lie – to be repeated over and over again –
till it becomes accepted by the intentionally lazy ignorants – as the truth.

Kashmir as it is today
is because of atrocities committed by pakistani muslims
on both MUSLIMS and HINDUS, the true kashmiris of 1947 –
as a planned campaign by the pakistani army to invade and annex Kashmir

the muslim founder fathers of Pakistan
could not legally ‘demand’ Kashmir for their new nation
so they had to get their claws into it any which way –
even if it was by setting muslims on muslims

and obsessively so for 60 more years.
why else would Musharraf initiate a war in Kargil?
what right had he to invade and to fly the Pakistani flag atop the Srinagar Assembly?
he is no “terrorist”.
Or is he?

strange that
no muslim will ever mention how “Kashmir” started
no muslim will ever explain how the Pakistan Army happens to be in Kashmir
no muslims will ever mention that Pakistan was ordered by the UN security council to withdraw it forces from the territory that was the Princely state of Kashmir.
no muslim crying for a plebiscite in Kashmir will ever mention the withdrawl of Pakistani troops and militants was a pre-requisite
no muslim will ever acknowledge that Pakistan has occupied Kashmir in breach of UN resolution

UNCIP Resolutions of August 13, 1948

PART II: TRUCE AGREEMENT
Simultaneously with the acceptance of the proposal for the immediate cessation of hostilities as outlined in Part I, both Governments accept the following principles as a basis for the formulation of a truce agreement, the details of which shall be worked out in discussion between their Representatives and the Commission.

A.
(1) As the presence of troops of Pakistan in the territory of the State of Jammu and Kashmir constitutes a material change in the situation since it was represented by the Government of Pakistan before the Security Council, the Government of Pakistan agrees to withdraw its troops from that State.

(2) The Government of Pakistan will use its best endeavour to secure the withdrawal from the State of Jammu and Kashmir of tribesmen and Pakistan nationals not normally resident therein who have entered the State for the purpose of fighting.

(3) Pending a final solution the territory evacuated by the Pakistan troops will be administered by the local authorities under the surveillance of the Commission.

to every non muslim Indian who happens to read such propaganda, I ask
why is it that no muslims in india will ever march with banners asking for withdrawl of pakistan from kashmir?
why if Islam is indeed a religion of peace and tolerance and forbids all killings then how could the ghazni’s and ghoris of history, not once or twice but for centuries; loot, plunder, rape, convert, enslave and systematically destroyed hindu temples in the name of spreading Islam?

so convenient there were no cameras, no photographers in those days
to record the plight of the hindus
not in hundreds
nor in thousands
but in hundreds of thousands;
NOT episodic acts of human rights abuse or extremism – but a hindu GENOCIDE

muslims try to portray themselves as world’s eternal victims
if at all they are ‘victims’, it is only of ‘generalisation’ –
none else to blame but their unquestioned faith
in the teachings of Islam

what I read there is not just a propaganda,
but extremely nauseating in its dishonesty and hypocrisy

the banner should read

“I kill
for I am a muslim and it is my religious duty
to spread Islam – and if necessary to terrorise, invade and kill”

but that would be the truth…

2008 AD

the United States of America has elected a black president – their first ever black president.
It is an event I did not expect to see in my lifetime.

I am in disbelief.
Why?

There has been many notable first blacks in the country’s sad and often unpleasant history.

On a day when history is about to be re-written,
I can only think of
one person – Elizabeth Eckford
one school – Little Rock Central High School
and the one event – Little Rock Nine
that never failed to leave me in speechless anger,
everytime I remember
and for as long as I can remember.

Little Rock Nine

1957 AD
Nine students who had been chosen to attend Central High because of their excellent grades.
They were nine black students.
Central High was a racially segregated school.

September 4:
Segregationist “citizens’ councils” threatened to hold protests and physically block the black students from entering the school. The Governor Orval Faubus had deployed the Arkansas National Guard to support the segregationists.

On that first day of school, only one of the nine students – Elizabeth Eckford
showed up because she did not receive the phone call about the danger of going to school.

Elizabeth Eckford is depicted in this photograph taken by Will Counts in 1957

She was harassed by White Americans outside the school, and the police had to take her away in a patrol car to protect her.

September 24:
President Dwight Eisenhower sent in the 101st Airborne to escort nine students to school.

153rd Infantry, a Task Force had to hastily organized taking over the entire operation when the paratroopers left and remained on duty until the end of the school year.

October 3:
Georgia Dortch and Jane Emery,
editors of Central High’s student newspaper The Tiger, editorialize:

“Looking back on this year will probably be with regret that integration could not have been accomplished peacefully, without incident, without publicity.” The editors encourage “each individual to maintain a sensible, peaceful neutrality; to accept the situation without demonstration, no matter what personal views are entertained; and to make these, your years in Little Rock Central High School, the happiest and most fruitful of your academic education.”

How long will it take to finally erase all these memories?

How long does it take to right the wrongs?
Fifty years, it seems, hasn’t been long enough.

The Legacy of Little Rock

Juan Williams Thursday, Sep. 20, 2007

The 50th anniversary of the Little Rock school crisis is a powerful lesson in the complicated calculus of social change.

Earlier this year the U.S. Mint issued a silver dollar commemorating the event, and throughout the anniversary’s week there will be other observations marking this turning point in U.S. history. But the joy will be somewhat muted, for American schools are still nearly as segregated as they were 50 years ago.

Fifty years after U.S. troops had to escort nine black children to school in Little Rock, the issue is still how to take race out of the equation when it comes to educating every American child.

The students had written the editorial fifty years ago.
The observation in the Time US was made only a year ago – fifty years hence.

Equality is not confirmed overnight by the election of a president,
it will come only on the day every American child is truly considered as equals.

Its over to each one of you,
each american citizen …

Americaequality

… what kind of a religion, in the twenty-first century
can dictate this:

Top Afghan policewoman shot dead

BBC News | Sunday, 28 September 2008 12:04 UK

Malalai Kakar was not allowed to work as a police officer under the Taleban

Gunmen in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar have killed the country’s most prominent policewoman, officials say.

Lt-Col Malalai Kakar, head of Kandahar’s department of crimes against women, was shot in her car as she was about to leave for work.
Taleban rebels, who banned women from joining the police when they were in power, said they had carried out the shooting.

“We killed Malalai Kakar,” a Taleban spokesman told AFP news agency.
“She was our target, and we successfully eliminated our target.”

Every individual, regardless of religion, has to ask themselves if there is a place
for 7th century rules in this 21st century world we live in –
we have no other option but to share.

Can the excuse of “religious tolerance” overrides an individual’s basic human rights?
Should we, the humans of this entire world, take the blame for this individual’s murder?

IslamTalibanhuman rightslittleindian

and not necessarily by the different religions

A traveller in her blog had stated:

india india

so here i am finally again. india india. somehow i feel like home but same time this feels a big chaos. or well landing in mumbai after peaceful and nice christmas holiday in finland…it can be a big change. and not much to say about mumbai but that i really did not like it. i love kolkata which is big and noisy but something there still makes me love it. in mumbai i did not see anything worth to stay more than 1 night.

This is a blog of a visitor writing of her own experiences.

One would assume that we would
acknowledge her capability to judge for her ownself
and respect her the right to decide as to what she likes and loves.

Not,
if Indians can help it.
Not if they dribble hatred
towards a community or city referred
and all the more vitriolic if it is about “the bengalis”.

So why wasn’t I surprised to read this first comment to the blog.

melbas said:

January 11, 2008 at 9:05 am

In Mumbai people actually do work.
It’s the commercial capital and contributes 25% of India GDP.
The bengali’s of Kolkata like to spend their time contradicting everything the central government says and then some years later doing what it had spent years arguing against and congratulating itself heartily for being such a progressive city.
Kolkata… yikes!

So this melbas has to poison the blogger’s mind.

Not only is his logic out of context to what the lady had written,
in his effort to malign a city he generalises a whole community – “the bengalis”.

That too, if his argument had any truth.

The government central government,
the government that is clinging to power
by forming a coalition with the same hated bengalis,
shamelessly holding hands with their sworn enemies the bengali communists.

The same government that turned a blind eye to the communists atrocities
in Nandigram
all in the name of holding onto power
and be able to twist the communist’s arm to accept the 123 agreement.

Hypocrisy so blatantly defined .

But this individual is not finished, yet.

melbas said

January 11, 2008 at 2:34 pm

I can’t tell whether you’re being sarcastic, but any people who radiate the hypocrisy and foolishness that the residents of that city do, deserve to be hated.
Not only must the Good be celebrated but the Bad must be put down.

Anti-Indians, or should I say anti-hindus like the Bengalis, ultimately paint themselves into a corner, because their beliefs are based on jealously opposing a better and nicer people.

He now has to label all residents of the city (surely referring to bengalis only)
as hypocrites and foolish and Bad, to justify his hatred,
and to declare they be put down.

Bengalis are anti-Indians, and being hindus themselves they are anti-hindus.
And all non-bengalis are better and nicer people.

A delusion of grandeur.

Not content with the above, it returns again to spew some more venom.

melbas said,

January 11, 2008 at 11:13 pmThe truth if the matter is that people don’t derogate Kolkata. They will complain about the poverty, slums, beggars and crime elsewhere, but refuse to mention any of these when discussing Kolkata. These things are actually cheered on. The propaganda that has been spread over the decades, makes it “cool” to derogate all other cities except Kolkata.

And all this because a lady had blogged to say she loved Kolkata.

Propaganda!
This individual doesn’t begin to understand the meaning of it.

This, sadly, is the reality of regional hatred and the true communalism in India.

I am glad that this commenter himself/herself is not a bengali ,
I would hate to think there are any such morons amongst the bengalis.

The “melbas”es of India will carry on living with unreal beliefs,
in an unreal world, rotting away inside with hatred.

India, you may be shining,
but deep in your heart there is only hatred.

Who needs to play politics with religion to fragment India into bits,
when there are poisonous minds like these burning with hatred, day after day.

First they banned her book
but the ban was overturned in a Court of Law.

Then they forced her out of the state,
at the rioting of Islamic extremists and marxist sympathisers.
And refused to let her return, or give her the refuge she had requested.

And all so conveniently timed to divert attention from the Nandigram massacres.

Now,
following the victory for ideology
the defeat of pseudo-secular hypocrisy
Gujarat, has abraded the apathetic eyes of the nation.

We have woken up, at last.
Hopefully some of us.

Questions will be asked, policies examined, manifestos scrutinised.
Where is our freedom of thoughts and expression?
Who robbed us of our basic human rights?

The Marxist politburo is unable to go back on their arrogant stance.
Like cowards they stayed hidden, instead
their 93 years old ex leader made the humiliating turnaround.
“If she wants to return to Kolkata or elsewhere in West Bengal, she is welcome.
But the Centre will have to ensure her security,” Mr Basu told reporters.

It is us Bengalees, who have failed
if not Ms Nasrin,
but surely the rights of every human being, to free thoughts, speech and expression.

Most of all we failed to give safe refuge to one
who today is homeless for her courage to speak out against injustice and prejudice.
The shame is on us.

For freedom of expression

by Taslima Nasreen: November 12, 1999

Taslima Nasreen took the floor during Commission V of UNESCO’s General Conference,
as a delegate of the NGO “International Humanist and Ethical Union” (I.H.E.U.).

This is the full text of Ms Nasreen’s declaration, from Webworld:

“I was threatened by the religious fundamentalists in my country Bangladesh. They have decreed a fatwa against me and set a price on my head. Not only that, I am a criminal according to the government of my country too. The government there has banned my book, and issued an arrest warrant against me for committing blasphemy. I was forced to leave my country. Since 6 years I have been living in exile.

I was born in a Muslim family, but I became an atheist. In course of my training in science, I developed the powers of observation, experiment, analysis, and reasoning. Without reasoning, I found, nothing should be accepted as fact. I have been fighting against injustice, unreason, and prejudice. I exposed the crimes of religion, particularly the injustice and oppression against women.

It makes me surprised that some Western states have declared the protection of human rights to be one of their supreme objectives, but then they patronized fundamentalism both overtly and covertly. Democratic governments recognize military dictatorships for short-run political interests. Secular states make friends with autocracies as well as theocracies. They even tolerate the completely inhuman behavior of their own fundamentalists. Such double standards practiced by so-called democratic and secular states at home and abroad give the fundamentalists a sort of legitimacy. Governments then have to succumb to the fundamentalists’ pressure and proscribe books and make arrangements to send its writers and authors to prison.

Some Westerners argue that not all the customs in the third world countries are harmful for women. They find a sort of stability and social peace in the oriental world. It is nonsense. For me, there can be no difference in the concept of human rights between the East and the West. If the veil is bad for Western women, then it is bad for their oriental sisters as well. If patriarchy is to be fought against in the West, it should be equally fought against in the East. The fight, in fact, is more urgent there because most of the women have neither any education nor any economic independence. If modern secular education is good for Western women, why should the Eastern women be deprived of it!

The fundamentalists cannot be countered without a relentless and uncompromising fight. The struggle should be both theoretical and tactical. Democracy and secularism should be applied in practice and not remain a mere play of words.

Fundamentalism is an ideology that diverts people from the path of natural development of consciousness and undermines their personal rights. Fundamentalists do not believe in individualism, liberty of personal choice, or plurality of thought. Moreover, as they are believers in a particular faith, they believe only in propagating their own ideas as autocrats generally do . They do not encourage or entertain free debate, they deny others the right to express their own views freely, and they cannot tolerate anything which they perceive as going against their faith.

I believe in fundamental rights of human beings to express themselves orally or in their writings; in equal rights for women in every sphere of life; and in constructing a society in which everybody gets a fair deal. We all should work for it. Media is helpful for spreading the ideas of human rights. And for media to work, the state has to be secular, the religious laws has to be abolished to create uniform civil code in which women get equalities. Education, of course secular education is important for women to get the knowledge about their rights. Religious education and politics based on religion must be banned to save the mankind. As they are not banned in my country, and the country is not secular, I, as a writer and journalist, once worked in media, was prevented to express my ideas and thoughts. It is impossible to have coexistence of religion and freedom of expression.”

It is never too late to make amends.
We need to stop fighting amongst ourselves
and for once, just once, stand up to say, enough is enough.

We are entitled to our rights, we are entitled to know the truth.

Bengalmarxismislamnegationismpseudo secularismhuman rights

Photo: Wikipedia

Bengalees
it is time we shrugged off our lethargy and took control of our future.

For too long,
we have let others dictate to us,
we have buried our heads in the sand
hoping someone will come and deliver us from this evil we are in.

It doesn’t happen that way.
Life is not that easy.

Today Gujarat is showing the way,
the way that was paved by one of us, fifty six years ago.
Do you remember Shyama Prasad Mukherjee?

Have you heard about him at all?
You have heard of the road and the college in his name,
but have you ever been curious as to who was, what was his legacy for the Hindus?

Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee

He was a Barrister, the son of
Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee and Jogmaya Devi.
the youngest Vice-Chancellor of Calcutta University.
He was one of the first spokesperson for the Hindus majority.

He was never an anti-Muslim,
but felt it necessary to counteract
the communalist and separatist Muslim League of Muhammad Ali Jinnah,
who were demanding exaggerated Muslim rights or a Muslim state of Pakistan.

He strived to unite Hindu voices,
and protect us Hindus against what he believed to be
the communal propaganda and the divisive agenda of the Muslim League.

In 1951, he founded the Bharatiya Jana Sangh,
the first Hindu nationalist political party
the forerunner of the BJP.

It was SP Mukherjee who created the Hindutva agenda
later to become the wider political expression of India’s Hindu majority.

His party criticized favoritism of India’s Muslims by the Nehru administration,
he promoted free-market economics as opposed to the
socialism of Nehru’s economic and social policies.
His favored a uniform civil code for
both Hindus and Muslims, and wanted to end
the special status of Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir.

The Bharatiya Jana Sangh became home to many conservative members
of the Indian National Congress who were disenchanted with
socialist policies and politics of Jawaharlal Nehru
and the Congress Party.

In the 1952 general elections
SP Mookerjee was elected as an MP, his BJS won 3 seats.
As an MP, he had become a major and a vociferous threat to Nehru’s policies.

In 1953 he went to Kashmir to protest the law prohibiting Indian citizens
from settling in the state of Kashmir, a state in their own country
and the need for Indians to carry ID cards.

On 11th May, he was arrested while crossing border into Kashmir.
On 23rd May he died under mysterious circumstances whilst in detention.

His death in custody raised wide suspicion across the country
and demands were made for an independent enquiry.
His mother herself wrote to Jawaharlal Nehru,
but no enquiry commission was ever set up
the cause of his death was never known.

The legislation for ID cards did get revoked.

He had become a major threat to Nehru’s policies,
how convenient it was for Nehru, that he died in judicial custody.
In Kashmir!

Only the name Nehru has changed to Gandhi in these fifty odd years,
everything else has stayed exactly the same.

Shyama Prosad Mukherjee had seen the grim fate
of the Hindu majority under Nehru, and
he had spoken out against it.

Did he die for it? Did he die in vain?
It is time for us to get off our lazy bengali backsides and start asking questions.

Indiahinduismislammarxismnegationismsecularismpropaganda

India
has been held hostage by the religious minorities
by giving in to their demands, at the cost of the majorities
by the pseudo-seculars like the Congress and the Communists
by their politics of negatives ever since our independence 60 years ago.

You have proved
that politics of ideology has not died out.
that it is not necessary to pretend to be secular to fight elections
that it is no longer necessary to pander to the minorities for their votes to win.

That it is possible to win, if you stand firm in your beliefs
and deliver what you have promised
for the benefit of all.

I do not care what atrocities Mr Modi had committed,
for every act of human right abuses he may have committed,
his opponents have committed many times more, and of a nature no worse.

Thanks Gujarat,
for proving to the nation
that a time has come when one can say enough is enough
that it is not necessary to turn the other cheek, but to hit back in kind
that the time to be blackmailed by the minorities for their vote is finally over.

The Hindu majority has suffered for too long.
Our rights are no less than those of the minorities.
I hope the rest of the India wakes up and learns from you
that India is a country for all, and not just the religious minorities.

Well done, Gujarat.

Indiahinduismislammarxismnegationismsecularismpropaganda

Reason 1. In a judgment the Indian Supreme Court ruled that “no precise meaning can be ascribed to the terms ‘Hindu’, ‘Hindutva’ and ‘Hinduism’; and no meaning in the abstract can confine it to the narrow limits of religion alone, excluding the content of Indian culture and heritage.” The Supreme Court also ruled that “Ordinarily, Hindutva is understood as a way of life or a state of mind and is not to be equated with or understood as religious Hindu fundamentalism”.

A Hindu may embrace a non-Hindu religion without ceasing to be a Hindu and since the Hindu is disposed to think synthetically and to regard other forms of worship, strange gods and divergent doctrines as inadequate rather than wrong or objectionable, he tends to believe that the highest divine powers complement each other for the well-being of the world and mankind.”

Reason 2. He claims the alleged genocide has been eternal.

I wrote a blog “unashamed hypocrisy” arguing against this misalignment.
The author of the article left this long winded comment,
which I publish here, his comments being within the blockquotes.

Dear Friend

I must be thankful that you have submitted a wonderful article, a fair and free way of expression that you posted on comments for the article in my blog. The point is not whether you are right or I am. Let us speak more openly on this issue so that if we reach at a solution, the losing side would be enlightened with knowledge from the winning side.
I always prefer to lose this debate as I would learn more from you.

You start your long comment with self contradictory statements.
One one hand you say, it is not a point of being “right or wrong”,
but you go onto the “winning or losing” of the debate.

I am a realist.
I believe in the truth, and being right is more important to me than winning a debate.
A debate won can uphold the wrong or untruth. That doesn’t right what is wrong.
That is just hypocrisy.

When you say you may learn more from the “debate”, that says it is possible you do not know enough yet; then I ask how can you publish such a strongly worded report that is bound to inflame sentiments.
Are you really a journalist, or a propagandist.

I’ve been busy a couple of days in the press meeting regarding the Nandigram issue and as it’s almost the last 10 days of the month, I’m busy with bringing out my magazine for the next month. I realized after reading your article that I must write a reply (a thanks) to you and to share my opinion on this particular article.

Let me first say, you called your article “Indian Hindutva – the eternal genocide”.
With one headline you are calling every Hindu alive or dead criminals of committing perpetual murder. I say put your money where your mouth is and prove it.

One thing must be understood very clearly.
A genocide, no matter who did it. It is always a genocide. Whether it is a Christian, a Jew, a Mozlem or a Hindu . Human values are more important than religion. Though I’m a staunch atheist, I wouldn’t comment on the Belief of God as I respect the belief people have on God. It is neither my wish to comment on Gods. But I’m obliged to make some strange remarks on Gods when the very existence of a sin is being carried out in the name of God.

And a genocide stays as heinous a crime even after 500 years.
Passage of time, does not lessen the criminality.

And no, you are not obliged to make any remarks.
You chose to do so on your own free will.
But if and when you decide to speak out to the world,
is when you become obliged to speak the truth and the whole truth.
Deliberately not doing so is hypocrisy.

I’m neither a sympathizer of any religion, nor a phobic towards any religion.
If the muslims are being killed to death in India, the same muslims also carry out murders, rapes and killings in Bangladesh and other parts of the world (as you said). My point of the article is just about what I see in India as a journalist, what I feel looking at it and what history clearly defines.

A journalist has a moral duty to portray the truth.
If what you write is the way you look at events,
then it is your opinion, and not unbiased journalism.

And you have clearly distorted the facts of history.
Unscrupulous and biased jouranalism thrives on stoking up further controversies.
Your article comes across as another example.

1. You said: This article is either a result of absolute ignorance, or disgraceful hypocrisy.Why just go back a few decades in time to find the root cause? How did the muslims come into a hinduland? Not with flowers but with swords in their hands, and killed and plundered. That was genocide. How did portions of hindu homeland become predominantly muslim? By ethnic cleansing.

I can accept my ignorance of Historical facts and my writings.
But wouldn’t felt anything guilt about being hypocritic.
If the freedom of my expression is hypocritic, then even you are hypocritic to have expressed what you think.

A human’s basic rights is not hypocrisy.
Exercising one’s Freedom of Expression is not hypocrisy.
But using that “right” to deliberately distort the truth,
and to publish that as the whole truth to the world, is hypocrisy.
And that is why I have called your article, hypocrisy.

Now how did mozlems come to India?
I agree (to some extent) the fact that many Mozlems came with the swords.
But the religion of Islam came to India as a religion, not as a war.

It doesn’t matter to what extent you agree or deny how Islam entered India,
what matters is the historical evidence.
If you want to make such sweeping statements, show me your evidence,
I will show you as many historical evidence to refute, if not many times more.

A religion couldn’t be blamed for what it’s followers do.

No? yet you have so pompously stated above “But I’m obliged to make some strange remarks on Gods when the very existence of a sin is being carried out in the name of God”.
That is hypocrisy

A religion has to accept the blame for any offense or act that has been committed in the name of that religion. Either the religion denounces every such act or accepts the full blame.

(That is why I never blamed Hinduism for what Hindu Fascists do. I just blamed Hindutva-the modern Politics of Hindu Fascism).

Who or what is a Hindu fascist?
The Hindu nationalism? Calling for a Hindu state?
Or because they have the holy hindu emblem of the swastika on their banner instead of star crescent or the sickle and hammer?

So very convenient, so very easy to fool westerners to believe
the hindu swastika only proves fascist intentions.

Is the call for an islamic caliphate, fascism at an international level?
How would you describe the call of Mr Bin Laden to Muslims to “establish the righteous caliphate of our umma.” The call of Islamist political parties and Islamist guerrilla groups for the restoration of the caliphate by uniting Muslim nations, either through peaceful political action (e.g., Hizb ut-Tahrir) or through force (e.g., al-Qaeda)?

Where is the difference?
If you are unable to call that fascism, that is hypocrisy.

Now… As you say, if historical evidences suggests surely that Mozlems did Genocide, then does that mean that Hindus must also do the same Genocide on Mozlems? How can Hindutva fascism could be compromised by saying that Mozlems were also fascists? You ask me how could a portion of Hindu homeland became predominantly Muslims? Now let me ask you- How the Dravidian Society of India became predominantly Hindu? So Hindus too did an ethnic cleansing against Dravidians?

2. You said: According to Professor K.S Lal, the hindu population decreased by 80 million between 1000 AD, invasion of India by Mahmud Ghazni and 1525 a year before the Battle of Panipat. Add another 20 million that were killed during the muslim reign. Koenraad Elst wrote in Negationism in India – Concealing the records of Islam: destruction of about 100 million hindus (by muslims) is perhaps the biggest holocaust in the whole world history.

Now, (considering that Mr.Mahmud Gazni and other mozlem rulers deliberately killed millions of Hindus)..
what link do the present Indian mozlems and Mohamed Gazni have?

You have called the Hindutva an eternal genocide. Eternity did not start in 1947.
You have written “The riots and aggressions against the muslims were routine in the Land of India from the origin of an anti-Muslim Brahminical society“.

That links the modern day muslims to their invading murdering forefathers.
You yourself have brought in history in an attempt to justify your argument.
I have taken you back to the origin of that history, the truth,
which you have conveniently failed to mention.
That history you do not like published.
That is hypocrisy.

You have resorted to deliberate misrepresentation of history.
Either you have the guts to tell the whole truth.
Or you are a cowardly hypocrite.
There is no third choice here.

If a community knows that in the name of a religion,
100 million of their fathers, and forefathers were killed by muslims,
that their places of worships had been looted, desecrated and destroyed,
can they ever forget the inhuman injustice?
Its naive to think that such acts of crime will not generate hatred or distrust for centuries.

Indian mozlems neither defend the killings of Mohamed Gazni (if there is a very authentic evidence to prove that), nor enjoyed it. If mozlems killed 100 million Hindus, sure, it is agreed that that is also a genocide!!!
I acknowledge Koenraad’s claim that Mozlems killed 100 Hindus!

Please get the facts right. He claimed Muslims killed a 100 million Hindus.

Now cleaning out all mozlems, raping them, torching and firing their home, looting their properties would bring back those 100 Hindus who were killed?
And would that bring peace to the Hindus who live today?
I’ve not seen any Mohamed Gaznis today. So the mozlems today must be punished for the crimes of Gazni?

You will never see one, because you do not want to look for one.
A train full of Hindu pilgrims were burnt to death by muslims,
is just a single example.

I am amazed at the immaturity of your arguments.
To bring peace in India, the atrocities on both sides of the religious divide has to be acknowledged. All that I read in you article is your pathetic attempts to criticise RSS, while crimes no less atrocious is still being committed by the muslims.

If the muslims kills for religious reasons, they should be tried by the same laws
that you want to be exercised on the hindus for the same crimes.
Why do they deserve cover ups or any protection.

You try to portray muslims as eternal victims, I drew my readers’ attention to the numerous genocide carried out in the name of Islam in and beyond India.

If so, then let all the Germans shall be punished for the crimes of Hitler.

The modern day neo-nazis will pay for any racial crimes they commit.
So that Hitlers crimes are never forgotten, holocaust denial is explicitly or implicitly illegal in 13 european countries: not just in germany, but also Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Israel, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Switzerland.
Why is there a blatant muslim denial of the Islamic genocide?

3. You said: If a muslim majority country can have a constitution that declares it an Islamic state, the hindu majority in India also has the same right to call for a Hindu state?

I have seen Muslim constitution practiced just in Iran. Frankly, no where else (though there may be some extremists demanding the Islamic constitution in some villages in Somalia or Indonesia). And even in Iran, boys and girls kiss in parks, several teenage girls become pregnant by having pre marriage sex. If Iran really follows an Islamic constitution, all these people must be punished for it. Why Iran does not punish? Because precisely, what they follow is NOT an Islamic constitution. It could rather be called their country’s traditional law. To defend such a law, Islam’s name could be used! Right?
If country like Saudi Arabia follows Islamic constitution, then the Kings of Sauds and Nahyans must be hanged to death. Because these kings are familiar in France to sleep with one prostitute for one night, in their vacations! Where is the Islamic constitution ? Show me one country! The very claim that Islamic Consitution exists can be neglected through these arguments!

What you write here is not just irrelevant, but so laughable in this context, I am have serious doubts as to your capability to understand simple written english.
I have written ” If a muslim majority country can have a constitution that declares it an Islamic state, the hindu majority in India also has the same right to call for a Hindu state?”

It has nothing to do on the merits or demerits of being an Islamic state.
It is about one’s rights of freedom of expression to call for a Hindu state.
To have independant thoughts and be able to express those thoughts
without persecution is every human’s fundamental right.

If the leaders of the Muslim league could ask for a muslim homeland,
why cannot any Hindu ask for a Hindu state?
To accept the demand for the muslim state as justified,
but deny the simple right to ask for a hindu one, is blatant hypocrisy.

Ok… Now if Hindus need Hindu State as you say, how many of them need a Hindu state?
Without a Hindu state, they cannot worship God? Without a Hindu state will Hindustan become Islamic?
If yes, then why Turkey and Bosnia are still Islamic when there is an all-western modern culture with the absence of Islamic state?
If we consider imposing an Islamic state in a country is strange, then how could we impose a Hindu state in India which is a multi cultural, multi religious and democratic nation?

With your own logic I ask:
Why did the muslims demand a separate muslim homeland?
Could they not worship Allah in secular India?
Or without Pakistan would they have all become Hindus.
You conveniently have different arguments for different communities.
That is hypocrisy.

Now again.. If you judge that claiming a Hindu state for India is not a wrong thing, then are you an anti-democratic person? Democracy and Religion cannot go hand-in-hand. (If you need explanations for this, I’m ready to give that too). So you want India to throw the democracy out and bring Hindu rule?

Do you really understand democracy?
Are you just being funny, or are you really that idiotic.
Or are you a marxist in disguise hoping that one day india
will become a religionless communist state. Dream on, hypocrite.

Democracy and religion cannot go hand in hand!!
Tell Mr George Bush that,
he has been fighting to force democracy on muslims in the middle east.
The Communists claim that their ideology doesn’t go with religion.
Islamists claim democracy cannot go with Islam.
But to contradict your prejudiced view,
you have no evidence to say there cannot be a hindu democracy.

4. You say: To demand a separate nation and to carve up India to form Islamic states, and then to condemn the activities of RSS and VHP is a sheer hypocricy!
I agree! It is a hypocrisy. But I neither demanded a separate nation, nor encourage an Islamic state into India.
So am I allowed to condemn the activities of RSS and VHP?

Yes, you can condemn any bodies activities.
But you cannot exercise your freedom of expression to condemn other for exercising their right to freedom of religious belief, their freedom of independant thoughts and their rights to free speech. That is hypocrisy.

5. You say: There are muslims who are no less innocent than the hindu extremists. Why cry only for the rights of muslims in India?

I agree. So you have not read in any newspapers we journalists crying even for Sikhs, Hindus and Christians? I must accept that we cry more for mozlems, because for every 1 Hindu being killed, atleast 10 muslims are killed. So we are obliged to cry more for Muslims (and dalits). That does not mean that our media keeps silent in the issue of Bombay Don Dawood Ebrahim and Kovai Blasts!
Our media sometimes sprays even false accusations on Muslims which were later identified to be totally irrelevant. So we cry for Hindus, muslims, Sikhs and almost everyone in India who are victims of crimes. Even if RSS chief Sudarshan is punished by our government for what he did not, we will defend him. Don’t worry.

What is written in newspapers by “we journalists” is not being discussed here.
It is what “you the self-proclaimed journalist” who have published to the world.

And from what you write, the manner you write,
if you are the face of Indian journalism; I do worry for my country.

6. You say: Jews have been forced out of Pakistan… Hindus are being systematically cleansed and killed in Bangladesh…

What does it has with my article regarding Gujarat Riots and Hinduism? Like how hindus are sent out of Bangladesh, mozlems must also be sent out of India? If yes, I would advice you to give this suggestion to the Indian Government. Let our Government decide on that issue. Not the RSS.

You have called it an eternal genocide, remember? Not one single incident of riots.
You have generalised hindus and made this a hindu – muslim issue.
So it concerns hindus muslims conflict everywhere it happens.
Keeping it restricted to within the boundaries of Gujrat
just to strengthen your argument is hypocrisy.

You have published your article on the worldwideweb.
It will be read by people outside of India, some of who, without knowing the full history of Islam in India, may believe your unsubstantiated garbage and have a distorted view of hindus.

But that is precisely what you have aimed for, isn’t it? Either as a muslim, or a marxist.
For I cannot believe a non-marxist hindu will ever present arguments
in such a dishonest way as you have.

7. You say: Just for once… I challenge the muslims to have the courage to come out and say that they cannot tolerate any other religion.

Just count how many Hindus are anti-Muslims.. And count how many Muslims are anti-Hindus.. And take a percentage out of it. You would obviously find more anti-Muslims than anti-Hindus! You don’t believe me? Just go out in your area and take this statistics. Remember, don’t go to Pakistan! Because Indian Mozlems are different from Pakistani Mozlems. (Like how Israeli Jews are different from Jews elsewhere. Israeli Jews are more Zionists, while other Jews are less. Likewise, Pakistani Mozlems are more Islamists and Indian Mozlems are good Humanists. They are no more Mohamed Gazni’s followers)

Now remind me in which of the two religions, Hinduism or Islam is this relevent:
The shahadah: “‘ašhadu ‘al-lā ilāha illā-llāhu wa ‘ašhadu ‘anna muħammadan rasūlu-llāh“, or “I testify that there is none worthy of worship except God and I testify that Muhammad is the Messenger of God.

You didn’t answer the question which was: can muslims tolerate other religions?
If not why do they not have the courage to openly declare it?
This world would be a lot simpler place if they would honestly say so.

“Indian muslims are different from pakistani muslims??? In what way?
They will blast your theory and prove each and one of them are anti-Hindu?

Sixty years ago they were the same. So were the Bangladeshis.
Just a political boundary doesn’t change their genetic markup or beliefs, does it?
You are such a pathetic hypocrite.

Once again, you either do not understand what I have said,
or deliberately wants to sidestep the issue.
For what you have written
not only makes a mockery of statistical methods, but is idiotically irrelevent.

I hope I did my best to answer your questions. But still I feel that I’m obliged to explain some parts of it. As I said, I wish to lose this battle with you. So I hope you will bring good questions like these again. You may freely write on my comments blog whatever you feel. I think the discussion will continue..
So I let this reply without mentioning..Good bye..

What you have done is proved my point.

When the ideal way forwards would be to accept the truths of the past, and reconcile,
evil reporting will deliberately distort the truth in the name of journalism.
That is hypocrisy.

I have no desire to continue a discussion with someone
who cannot understand my simple written English
or be honest with the facts
or capable of looking beyond their own backyard.

Neither will I let my blog become a venue of a “win / lose” debate,
so any further points you wish to make, do so on your site.
If I disagree, I of course will write my own response here and with real evidence.

Indiahindusmuslimscommunal violencepropaganda

It was exactly 60 years ago,
on the 26th October, the princely State of Kashmir was invaded.
On the 27th, the ruler Hari Singh signed the Instrument of Accession.
By the 28th, Indian troops had landed to stop the invadors and the indiscriminate
looting, rape and plunder.

As is obvious that some Indians are STILL under ILLUSION
that Kashmir may indeed become independent one day.
And lend their “weak voice” in support.
There are some Kashmiris,
who may believe that Pakistan will help them become independent.
The world has been led to believe, Pakistan “morally” supports the Kashmiri
violence in the name of a fight for freedom.

The reality, unfortunately for Kashmiris, is very different,
For there is only ONE reality set out in the UNCIP Resolution of January 5, 1949.

India, at the time of accession had promised that the future of Kashmir,
as set out in the UNCIP Resolution of August 13, 1948,
would be determined by the will of the Kashmiris.
Even if that meant complete independence.

But by January next year,
Pakistan had that amended to UNCIP Resolution of January 5, 1949
By which, there never was a third option; no choice for complete independence.

There was only ONE choice for the Kashmiris.
To exercise their “democratic” rights to,
EITHER lose those right in an ISLAMIC and MILITARY DICTATORSHIP
OR retain those rights in a SECULAR and DEMOCRATIC republic
for it was always a myth there would ever be an INDEPENDANT Kashmir

For the Kashmiri HINDUS and BUDDHISTS the choice was even more chilling,
EITHER spend THE rest of their lives
in an ISLAMIC STATE under a MILITARY DICTATORSHIP.
OR be ETHNICALLY CLEANSED out of their homeland Kashmir.

It has been sixty long years.
And nothing has changed. There is no third option.

KashmirIndiaPakistanpropagandademocracydictatorship

To be continued

]]> http://littleindian.awmyth.net/2007/10/28/kashmir-myths-therell-be-an-independant-kashmir/feed/ 5 http://littleindian.awmyth.net/2007/10/02/on-2nd-october/ http://littleindian.awmyth.net/2007/10/02/on-2nd-october/#comments Tue, 02 Oct 2007 13:10:43 +0000 littleindian http://littleindian.awmyth.net/2007/10/02/on-2nd-october/ [digg=http://digg.com/world_news/on_2nd_october/blog]

“What difference does it make
to the dead,
the orphans
and the homeless,
whether the mad destruction is wrought
under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?”

10 Downing Street

“I am prepared to die, but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill”.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

October 2, 1869 – January 30, 1948

HistoryMahatma GandhiHuman rightslife

so that others may get their basic human rights?
and can speak without fear?

Monday, October 1, 2007
By LEELA JACINTO and JULIEN PAIN

PARIS, Oct. 1 — Floating face down in a filthy pool of water, a tangled strip of saffron cloth – the distinctive garb a Buddhist monk – still clinging to his neck, the images are a gruesome reminder of the brutality of last week’s military crackdown on Burmese protesters.

The graphic video of what appears to be a dead monk was filmed Sunday in the Pazondaung area of the Burmese city of Rangoon, according to the Democratic Voice of Burma, an Oslo-based opposition group. It is not known when the monk died.

born into a democratic society, the freedoms of thoughts and expression as birthrights
we take our rights for granted, we will never know what life is like without…

there are some people on earth who can only dream of that freedom,
and are prepared to give up their lives to get their basic rights,
to have the voice; to have a say about life and nation.

We are born with our human rights,
and no one, nobody should be allowed to take it away from us.

[Photograph from: France24.com]

NewslifeHuman rightsBurma

THE LAHORE RESOLUTION:

March 1940, Nawab Sir Shah Nawaz Mamdot

The Resolution declared:

“No constitutional plan would be workable or acceptable to the Muslims unless geographical contiguous units are demarcated into regions which should be so constituted with such territorial readjustments as may be necessary. That the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in majority as in the North-Western and Eastern zones of India should be grouped to constitute independent states in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign”.

Historical, Moral and Constitutional Perspectives – contd:

Professor Deshmukh

We pick up the threads from the events after the Quit India movement, i.e. after August 1942.

By 1944, the Muslim League had become quite weak. Jinnah faced considerable opposition even within the Muslim League. The Sind leader, Allah Baksh was a formidable rival to Jinnah, for whose public speeches only a few hundred would turn up now, as opposed to a hundred thousand in previous years. Jinnah retired from politics, a second time, and this was just three years before August 15, 1947!

On February 19, 1946, when the Labor party was in power in Britain, Prime Minister Atlee sent a delegation comprising of
Pethick-Lawrence, Secretary of State for India,
Stafford Cripps, then President of the Board of Trade, and
A.V.Alexander, the first Lord of Admiralty.

On May 16, 1946, the British Cabinet Mission published its plan that had for its parts, a long-term plan toward India’s independence, and a short-term plan for governance of the region till the British completely surrendered power.

Both the Congress and the Muslim League accepted the long- term plan, but had differences over the short-term plan.

The long-term plan rejected the division of India into two separate sovereign states. Further, it did not provide for the princely states to secede from the union of India.

Statement by the Cabinet Delegation and His Excellency the Viceroy
(as issued in New Delhi on 16 May 1946).
[L/P&J/10/42: ff 53-5]

(Para) 4. It is not intended in this statement to review the voluminous evidence that has been submitted to the Mission; but it is right that we should state that it has shown an almost universal desire, outside the supporters of the Muslim League, for the unity of India.

(Para) 15. We now indicate the nature of a solution which in our view would be just to the essential claims of all parties, and would at the same time be most likely to bring about a stable and practicable form of constitution for All-India.

We recommend that the constitution should take the following basic firm:

(1) There should be a Union of India, embracing both British India and the States, which should deal with the following subjects: Foreign Affairs, Defence, and Communications: and should have the powers necessary to raise the finances required for the above subjects.

(2) The Union should have an Executive and a Legislature constituted from British Indian and States representatives. Any question raising a major communal issue in the Legislature should require for its decision a majority of the representatives present and voting of each of the two major communities as well as a majority of all the members present and voting.

(3) All subjects other than the Union subjects and all residuary powers should vest in the Provinces.

(4) The States will retain all subjects and powers other than those ceded to the Union.

(5) Provinces should be free to form Groups with executives and legislatures, and each Group could determine the Provincial subjects to be taken in common.

(6) The constitutions of the Union and of the Groups should contain a provision whereby any Province could, by a majority vote of its Legislative Assembly, call for a reconsideration of the terms of the constitution after an initial period of 10 years and at 10 yearly intervals thereafter.

Professor Deshmukh contd:

The cabinet mission returned to England on June 29, 1946, happy that both the Congress and the Muslim League had accepted the long-term plan.

We now narrate one of the most tragic instances in Indian history and see how ostensibly very minor events can change course of history. In May 1946, the Congress held elections for its next president, at the end of Moulana Azan’s term and Jawaharlal Nehru became the new President. Nehru addressed a press conference on July 10, 1946, in Mumbai, following a meeting of the Congress.

Right until that day, the amputation of India was not on the cards.
The unity of India was not threatened.

To satisfy some congressmen over some of their concerns regarding the cabinet mission’s long term plan, Nehru announced at the press conference that certain aspects of the long-term plan were not resolved. This gave Jinnah the opportunity to claim that the Congress was pettifogging and haggling and could not be trusted.

Jinnah called upon the Muslim League to demand for Pakistan, rejected the cabinet mission plan, and called for a civil war against the British and against the Congress on August 16, 1946, which he declared as the Direct Action Day. A large number of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs were killed in the! violence following Jinnah’s call for direct action.

A copy of a secret report written on 22 August 1946 to the Viceroy Lord Wavell,
from Sir Frederick John Burrows, concerning the Calcutta riots.
[IOR: L/P&J/8/655 f.f. 95, 96-107]

After the Muslim League had retracted its acceptance of the Cabinet Mission’s Plan and called for a ‘Direct Action Day’, communal violence broke out.
16-18 August saw the first wave with the ‘Great Calcutta Killing’. Around 4,000 people were killed in Calcutta and many more injured, with around 100,000 made homeless.

This report was written after the event, from the viewpoint of the British Governor of Bengal. There was criticism of Suhrawardy, Chief Minister in charge of the Home Portfolio in Calcutta, for being partisan and of Burrows for not having taken control of the situation.

The troubles then spread to the Noakhali district in East Bengal and to Bihar where approximately 7,000 Muslims were killed. There were also troubles in Bombay and the United Provinces, but little elsewhere. The original report by sir John Burrow was lengthy and laborious containing 10 pages of narratives. The following is an extract…

(Para) 2. The setting. Omitting the more remote causes of the riots – the long struggle for power between Hindus and Muslims, in which Calcutta is a focal point, the weakening of our authority which is an inevitable consequence of our impending departure, the dislocation of the normal life of Calcutta by war and famine, and the presence of a Muslim Ministry in a predominantly Hindu city – the proximate cause was the resolution of the Council of the All-India Muslim League passed at Bombay on July 29th, calling on ‘the Muslim nation to resort to direct action to achieve Pakistan’, and the consequent fixing of August 15th as ‘Direct Action Day’.

Professor Deshmukh contd:<

Viceroy Wavell was left with no choice, with the Muslim League having declared defiance, but to invite the Congress alone to form the interim government that would govern till the already approved long-term plan of India’s independence could be implemented. Realizing however that an interim Government without the Muslim League would cause only more bloodshed, and out of sheer exasperation, Nehru invited Jinnah and some other Muslim League members to join the short-term interim Government.

The Muslim League members would not cooperate with the Congress on the simplest of things, and both Patel and Nehru helplessly out of frustration reconciled with the eventual formation of Pakistan.

 

TERMS OF DECLARATION OF THE INDEPENDENCE OF INDIA

Prime Minister Atlee declared, on February 20, 1947, that Britain would transfer power by June 1948, by which time the Congress and the Muslim League were supposed to resolve their differences and accept some plan.

Atlee declared that if no comprehensive plan were put forth, then power would be transferred to one or more governments in different regions (as per their divide and quit policy).

Churchill, who had always remained contemptuous of India and Indian people, and had never agreed to surrender power to India, condemned the Atlee government for its resolution to transfer power to India’s politicians who were men of straw, of whom in a few years no trace would remain. The same day, the British Government recalled Wavell, since he was committed to surrendering power to a united India, and replaced him by Mountbatten as India’s last Viceroy.

Viceroy Wavell (center)

Viceroy Wavell was indeed reluctant to dividing India.
Wavell is generally considered the best Viceroy and Governor General of India, for not only he had done all his homework before he became viceroy, but he is also considered one of those British personalities who touched Indian souls and understood them.

His understanding of the Indian situation and the ignoring of his requests and proposals by Winston Churchill had made him quite frustrated. He was relieved to see Clement Attlee replace Churchill as Prime Minister in July 1945; however, he was unhappy with Attlee’s slowness to make decisions.

He had himself requested several times to be removed from his post, but his requests were turned down by London. However, had Wavell not been there, the communal tension and civic strife could have been prolonged and more bloody. Wavell was against the Partition of India, as he knew this would lead to bloodshed which neither Indians nor the British would be able to control.

Professor Deshmukh contd.

Wavell has reported in his diary that Churchill wanted him to divide India between Hindustan, Pakistan and Princestan; hence Churchill’s brief to Mountbatten: If the British could not hold India, it was best to divide her.

Communal riots broke out in February-March, 1947, and the Congress demanded the partition of Punjab and Bengal on communal lines in the hope that this would stop violence. Patel and Nehru were advised by V.P.Menon, the Reforms Commissioner and Constitutional Advisor to the last three viceroys (Linlithgow, Wavell, Mountbatten), that the Cabinet Mission plan would not work and that it would therefore be better to concede to the Muslim League’s demand for Pakistan.

 

THE MENON MOUNTBATTEN PLAN:

It had now become clear that India would be disintegrated and that the British would withdraw soon. Several small regions sought sovereignty.

It was decided that Atlee’s deadline of June 1948 be advanced to August 15, 1947. V.P. Menon proposed the TWO-DOMINION of INDIA and PAKISTAN plan that was accepted by Mountbatten and by Nehru on May 11, 1947.

On June 2, 1947, the Menon-Mountbatten plan was accepted by Nehru, Kripalani and Patel on behalf of the Congress, by Baldeo Singh on behalf of the Sikhs, and by Jinnah (with a nod!) on behalf of the Muslim League.

Indian Empire 1901: 565 Princely States

Professor Deshmukh contd.

The STATUS OF THE PRINCELY STATES

The British had divided what makes up for the present Bangladesh, India and Pakistan into several segments.
About 40% of this territory came under ‘British India’ over which alone the British Parliament could legislate.
The British Parliament did NOT legislate for the remaining 60% of the territory that was ruled by the princes, the maharajas, and the nizams, and they reported to the Viceroy.
There were nearly six hundred of these princely states. The Indian princely states were left free to decide if they would stay independent or join one of the two countries.

The British Government’s ruling, contained in His Majesty’s Government’s statement of June 3, 1947 was clear: the decision announced about the partition relates only to British India (seven provinces) and that their policy towards the Indian (princely) states remains unchanged .

There was no provision to influence the destiny of the princely states with regard to any communal factor, which was the governing factor for the partition only of British India over which alone did the British Parliament legislate. The future of the nearly six hundred princely states was thus completely, exclusively and irrevocably to be determined by their monarchs.

PAKISTAN DECLARATION 1933:
NOW OR NEVER: ARE WE TO LIVE OR PERISH FOR EVER?

Rahmat Ali’s Pakistan Declaration issued on January 28, 1933 from Cambridge.

At this solemn hour in the history of India, when British and Indian statesmen are laying the foundations of a Federal Constitution for that land, we address this appeal to you, in the name of our common heritage, on behalf of our thirty million Muslim brethren who live in PAKSTAN – by which we mean the five Northern units of India, Viz: Punjab, North-West Frontier Province (Afghan Province), Kashmir, Sind and Baluchistan – for your sympathy and support in our grim and fateful struggle against political crucifixion and complete annihilation.

This is more especially ture when there is just and reasonable alternative to the proposed settlement, which will lay the foundations of a peaceful future for this great continent; and should certainly allow of the highest development of each of these two peoples without one being subject to another. This alternative is a separate Federation of these five predominantly (sic) Muslim units – Punjab, North-West Frontier (Afghan Province), Kashmir, Sind and Baluchistan.

The States of Kalat (Balochistan) and Kashmir, were princely states and never under the legislate of the British Parliament. Their future was not going to be decided by the Partitioning of India. Yet the future rulers of Pakistan, by proclaiming the name “Pakistan” proves that as early as in 1933, they had decided on the future of these states.

Professor Deshmukh contd.

PAKISTAN WAS CONCEIVED AND FORMED AS A MUSLIM STATE
INDIA WAS NOT, BY DEFAULT, FORMED AS A HINDU STATE.

Sardar Patel led a marathon and magnificent campaign that can be compared perhaps only with the unification of India by the Mouryas or the Guptas and got most of the princely states to take suitable decisions.

These princely states were encouraged to accede to either Pakistan or to India as per the wishes of their rulers. It was expected, naturally, that the rulers would keep in mind the interests of their subjects. Given the treatment handed to the Muslims from India who went to Pakistan, any Government of Jammu and Kashmir, it was obvious, would opt only for accession with India.

Pakistan was conceived and formed as a Muslim state. India was not, by default, formed as a Hindu state. Most of the princely states acceded to one or the other country in a very dignified way, governed by simple logistics. However, there were some exceptions…

Viceroy Wavell’s had concluded his presentation with:

(Para) 24. To the leaders and people of India who now have the opportunity of complete independence we would finally say this. We and our Government and countrymen hoped that it would be possible for the Indian people themselves to agree upon the method of framing the new constitution under which they will live.

Despite the labours which we have shared with the Indian Parties, and the exercise of much patience and goodwill by all, this has not been possible. therefore now lay before you proposals which, after listening to all sides and after much earliest thought, we trust will enable you to attain your independence in the shortest time and with the least danger of internal disturbance and conflict.

These proposals may not, of course, completely satisfy all parties, but you will recognise with us that at this supreme moment in Indian history statesmanship demands mutual accommodation. We ask you to consider the alternative to acceptance of these proposals. After all the efforts which we and the Indian Parties have made together for agreement, we must state that in our view there is small hope of peaceful settlement by agreement of the Indian Parties alone.

The alternative would therefore be a grave danger of violence, chaos, and even civil war. The result and duration of such a disturbance cannot be foreseen; but it is certain that it would be a terrible disaster for many millions of men, women and children. This is a possibility which must be regarded with equal abhorrence by the Indian people, our own countrymen, and the world as a whole.

We therefore lay these proposals before you in the profound hope that they will be accepted and operated by you in the spirit of accommodation and goodwill in which they are offered. We appeal to all who have the future good of India at heart to extend their vision beyond their own community or interest to the interests of the whole four hundred millions of the Indian people.

We certainly got that one historically wrong.

KashmirhistoryIndiaPakistanpropagandahuman rights

To be continued

I have explored the threat to regional peace and safety brought on by Pakistan.
I have been exploring myths about Kashmir that are subject of biased propaganda.
The price paid by the millions of hindus and muslims to achieve our independance.

This week, there is a call for a “one state solution” for the Indian subcontinent.
When better the time to start to bring these issues together, than this week.

This document by Professor Pranawa Deshmukh does that …

WHY ANYONE INTERESTED IN WORLD PEACE MUST STUDY
THE STORY OF JAMMU AND KASHMIR ?

The nuclear arsenal in Pakistan’s possession today threatens to be used against India, and also against Israel and the USA through international terrorist organizations, that Pakistan colludes with.

Anybody interested in world peace must understand the Jammu and Kashmir imbroglio and assess the real motives behind Pakistan’s savage designs against humanity.

Often, the western media and their Indian clones discuss the drama and the controversies, which took place before the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India, rather than the completeness and irrevocability of the accession itself.

The pre-accession confusion was fuelled more by the Maharaja’s hopes of retaining post-independence control as he did under the British, than by anything else.

When the accession took place however, it was through the same instrument through which hundreds of other princely states acceded to India - complete and irrevocable in every respect!

…so I intend to explore all aspects of the Kashmir issue through his documentation.

Historical, Moral and Constitutional Perspectives

Professor Pranawa C. Deshmukh

Abstract -
A historical tour d’horizon is presented showing that Jammu & Kashmir’s incorporation within India is buttressed by cultural, historical and legal facts.
Pakistan’s savage designs against humanity in Jammu and Kashmir are treated not just as of India’s concern but that of every lover of world peace.

The United Nations resolutions of 1948-9 are also elaborated upon and Pakistan’s deceitful scuttling of these is exposed.

Finally the status of POK and of Article 370, which Nehru himself considered a temporary arrangement which will vanish ultimately, are broached and policy options for India and the free world recommended.

The nationhood that defines BHARAT is a unique phenomenon in world affairs.

Western nations and Indians who learn about India through western authors often remain illiterate about the Indian stance on Kashmir. The soul of this issue has such exceptional dimensions peculiar to itself that it simply cannot be analyzed in any terms other than its very own.

We all recognize that the present situation in the country is a turning point in India’s evolution. This is a crucial stage as history unfolds itself by the day. As India became free on August 15, 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru said:

“Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially.”

Indeed, a part of India – Jammu and Kashmir – remained to be assimilated in free India on that day. We are very troubled that even today this assimilation is not in full measure even if the State of Jammu and Kashmir has wholly and irrevocably acceded to India soon after, which was on October 26, 1947.

It is important to know that the foundations of India’s claim to Jammu and Kashmir are solidly entrenched in hard facts from the history of the region going back to over five thousand years.

The history of Kashmir is well and clearly recorded.

RAJTARANGINI
Rajtarangini (River of Kings), a book written in Sanskrit by Kalhana, contains an account of the life and history of Kashmir.
Kalhana (कल्हण) (c. 12th century) is regarded to be Kashmir’s first historian. His father Champaka was the minister in the King’s court. It is believed that he wrote his book during 1147-1149.
The recorded history of Kashmir, as retold by Kalhan begins from the period of the Mauryas. Kalhan’s account also states that the city of Srinagar was founded by the Mauryan emperor, Ashoka, and that Buddhism reached the Kashmir valley during this period. From there, Buddhism spread to several other adjoining regions including Central Asia, Tibet and China.
The Rajatarangini is the first of a series of four histories that record the annals of Kashmir. Commencing with a rendition of traditional history of very early times, the Rajatarangini comes down to the reign of Sangrama Deva, (c.1006 AD).
The second work, by Jonaraja, continues the history from where Kalhana left off, and, entering the Muslim period, gives an account of the reigns down to that of Zain-ul-ab-ad-din, 1412. P. Srivara carried on the record to the accession of Fah Shah in 1486.
The fourth work, called Rajavalipataka, by Prajnia Bhatta, completes the history to the time of the incorporation of Kashmir in the dominions of the Mogul emperor Akbar, 1588.

In the 13th century, Islam first became the dominant religion in Kashmir.
Some Kashmiri rulers, such as Sultan Zain-ul-Abidin, were tolerant of all religions in a manner comparable to Akbar.
However, several Muslim rulers of Kashmir were intolerant to other religions. Sultãn Sikandar Butshikan of Kashmir (AD 1389-1413) is often considered the worst of these. Historians have recorded many of his atrocities.
The Tarikh-i-Firishta records that Sikandar persecuted the Hindus and issued orders proscribing the residence of any other than Muslims in Kashmir. He also ordered the breaking of all “golden and silver images”.

Prof. Deshmukh contd:

In the modern context, democratic principles and international tenets of contemporary world order dictate it. The constitutional elements that dictated the vexatious partition of the sub-continent in August 1947 provide firm evidence pertaining to the integral status of the State of Jammu and Kashmir in the union of India.

Pakistan continues to internationalize the issue of Jammu and Kashmir through its counterfeit technique of fanning religious fundamentalism, enabled by a dormant Indian media, which has failed to expose the hypocrisy of this rogue state.

Despite assaulting fellow-Muslims in erstwhile East-Pakistan and the continual exploitations of all other regions of Pakistan by the Punjabi Muslims who wield local power through corrupt means, it is only due to sustained propaganda that Pakistan can still proclaim itself as a champion of Muslims.

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The Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir is geographically and politically
distinct and different from the Azad Kashmir and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.
Pakistan has direct control of the “Pakistan Occupied Kashmir” or POK.
Pakistan has indirect but overwhelming control in “Azad (Independant) Kashmir.

Click to enlarge image

The Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir is secular and a democracy.
The regions under Pakistan control is Islamic, and under a military dictatorship.

The Indian State of Kashmir has no restriction of freedom of expression,
any new of atrocities are hence quickly highlighted to the world.
The Pakistan controlled regions have no freedom of expression
the human rights abuses and atrocities never get to reach the outside world.

Most anti-India propaganda
will ONLY speak about the sufferings of Kashmiris in the Indian state,
but cleverly avoid talking of the fate of the Kashmiris in areas under Pakistan’s control.

They will deliberately blur the distinction between the different areas of control to give
the impression that atrocities are being committed ONLY in the Indian state.

This document will break that myth.
To keep the information clear and objective,
this is has been quoted word for word from a Human Rights Watch Publication.

For those of who may question the neutrality of the source,
this is about the Human Rights Watch.

“With Friends Like These…”

Summary:

Pakistan says they are our friends and India is our enemy.
I agree India is our enemy,
but with friends like these, who needs enemies?

—Mir Afzal Suleri, Muzaffarabad resident

The massive earthquake that struck on October 8, 2005, wreaking death and destruction on Kashmir, instantly conflated Kashmir’s long-running man-made crisis with a natural one. The poor response of the Pakistani government and military to the earthquake, and the attendant further loss of life, served to highlight that even natural disasters in Kashmir have a strong human component.

 

 

Major cities and thousands of villages in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK, Azad Kashmir), including the capital Muzaffarabad, were reduced to rubble. The devastation was immense—at least eighty-eight thousand people died, more than one hundred thousand were injured, and more than two million were left homeless. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimated that seventeen thousand children were among the dead.

Kashmir is one of the most heavily militarized regions of the world, and those buried under the rubble and their relatives who tried frantically to dig them out with their bare hands would have been justified in thinking that help would arrive rapidly. It was fair to hope that the armies massed on both sides of the Line of Control (LoC) separating Azad Kashmir and Jammu and Kashmir state, ostensibly to protect the Kashmiri population, would move quickly to save Kashmiri lives from a natural threat. But as time passed and the sound of life beneath the rubble began to grow silent, it became painfully and brutally clear that the hope was misplaced. In the aftermath of the disaster, the Indian and Pakistani militaries simply did not make the saving of Kashmiri lives a top priority. As India and Pakistan engaged in diplomatic one-upmanship—making and refusing offers of help based on political opportunism rather than humanitarian concerns—the death toll mounted.

In the first seventy-two hours after the earthquake, thousands of Pakistani troops stationed in Azad Kashmir prioritized the evacuation of their own personnel over providing relief to desperate civilians. The international media began converging on Muzaffarabad within twenty-four hours of the earthquake and fanned out to other towns in Azad Kashmir shortly thereafter. They filmed Pakistani troops standing by and refusing to help because they had “no orders” to do so as locals attempted to dig out those still alive, sending a chilling message of indifference from Islamabad. Having filmed the refusal, journalists switched off their cameras and joined the rescue effort themselves; in one instance they shamed the soldiers into helping. But unlike the death and destruction, the media were not everywhere. The death toll continued to mount.

Many Kashmiris told Human Rights Watch that prior to the earthquake, the Pakistani military kept a close watch on the population to ensure political compliance and control; this was facilitated by the placement of military installations frequently in close proximity to populated areas. In the context of a military presence that was more abuser than protector, and domineering Pakistani political control, the failure of the authorities to respond quickly and more humanely to the aftereffects of the earthquake in Azad Kashmir came as little surprise. That failure generated massive public resentment against the Pakistani state, and it highlighted the need for an examination of the conduct of Pakistani authority in Azad Kashmir. This report on the state of human rights in Azad Kashmir shows longstanding restrictions on fundamental freedoms, as well as politically motivated mistreatment of persons supporting an independent Kashmir.

The earthquake put the international spotlight on Azad Kashmir for the first time. Previously, attention had been almost wholly on Jammu and Kashmir state in India, which since 1989 has endured a brutal insurgency and counterinsurgency. Human rights abuses by the Indian security forces and separatist forces in Jammu and Kashmir have been relatively well documented and often condemned. But the world knows little about Azad Kashmir, other than that the territory has been used by Pakistan-backed militant groups as a staging ground for attacks in Jammu and Kashmir.1

Aid organizations and donors that wanted to learn about Azad Kashmir after the earthquake so that they could respond in a useful and informed manner quickly discovered that there was virtually no published information. This is because prior to the earthquake, Azad Kashmir was one of the most closed territories in the world. While Jammu and Kashmir state had known considerable tourist traffic prior to the beginning of the insurgency there, the areas of Kashmir on the other side of the LoC had seen little external interest or presence after the end of the British colonial era in 1947—a situation used by Pakistan to exercise absolute control over the territory.

Information, particularly about the human rights situation, governance, the rule of law, and the institutions that hold real power in Azad Kashmir is more important than ever as the territory rebuilds and, by necessity, opens up to the international community in the aftermath of the earthquake. In the coming years, international engagement with the territory is likely to be intense. For that engagement to be effective and beneficial to the people of Azad Kashmir, it is essential that international actors approach the territory with an awareness of its particular history and its fraught, often tense and unhappy relationship with the Pakistani state in general and the Pakistani military in particular.

Azad Kashmir is a legal anomaly. According to United Nations (U.N.) resolutions dating back to 1948, Azad Kashmir is neither a sovereign state nor a province of Pakistan, but rather a “local authority” with responsibility over the area assigned to it under a 1949 ceasefire agreement with India. It has remained in this state of legal limbo since that time. In practice, the Pakistani government in Islamabad, the Pakistani army and the Pakistani intelligence services (Inter-Services Intelligence, ISI) control all aspects of political life in Azad Kashmir—though “Azad” means “free,” the residents of Azad Kashmir are anything but. Azad Kashmir is a land of strict curbs on political pluralism, freedom of expression, and freedom of association; a muzzled press; banned books; arbitrary arrest and detention and torture at the hands of the Pakistani military and the police; and discrimination against refugees from Jammu and Kashmir state. Singled out are Kashmiri nationalists who do not support the idea of Kashmir’s accession to Pakistan. Anyone who wants to take part in public life has to sign a pledge of loyalty to Pakistan, while anyone who publicly supports or works for an independent Kashmir is persecuted. For those expressing independent or unpopular political views, there is a pervasive fear of Pakistani military and intelligence services—and of militant organizations acting at their behest or independently.

Human Rights Watch has previously reported that torture is routinely used in Pakistan, and that acts of torture by military agencies primarily serve the purpose of “punishing” errant politicians, political activists and journalists. Azad Kashmir is no exception. Though torture is not commonplace, it is threatened often, and—when perpetrated by the military—is carried out with impunity. Human Rights Watch knows of no cases in which members of military and paramilitary security and intelligence agencies have been prosecuted or even disciplined for acts of torture or mistreatment. This report documents incidents of torture by the ISI, and by Azad Kashmir police acting at the ISI’s and the army’s behest.

Tight controls on freedom of expression have been a hallmark of the Pakistani government’s policy in Azad Kashmir and are also documented in this report. This control is highly selective. Pakistani-backed militant organizations promoting the incorporation of Jammu and Kashmir state into Pakistan have had free rein— particularly from 1989 when the insurgency began to 2001—to propagate views and disseminate literature; by contrast, groups promoting an independent Kashmir find promoting their views sharply curtailed. But frequent official repression of freedom of expression and assembly is not limited to controls and censorship specific to Kashmiri nationalists, journalists and election cycles. This repression can also be violent and very publicly so. For example, Pakistani police used lahtis (canes) and rifle butts to break up a peaceful demonstration in Muzaffarabad on November 11, 2005, by approximately two hundred earthquake survivors protesting eviction from their makeshift camp. Several protestors, including children, were injured as a result of police efforts to break up the demonstration.

Since 1994, when the ISI organized thirteen militant groups operating in Jammu and Kashmir state into the Muttahida [United] Jihad Council, army-backed militant organizations have shared, with the Pakistani military through the ISI, real decision-making authority and the management of the “Kashmir struggle.” Even mainstream political parties allowed representation by Pakistan in the Azad Kashmir Legislative Assembly are largely sidelined. As the government-backed militant groups gained strength and dominance, Kashmiri nationalist militants left the movement or were sidelined and eventually began to be persecuted by the authorities and their proxies. Soon after Pakistan began supporting the U.S.-led “global war on terror” in 2001, the United Jihad Council ceased to operate publicly. Several groups simply changed their names and now operate independently or through clandestine underground networks. The Pakistani intelligence apparatus retains close associations with these groups.

Virtually all independent commentators, journalists, as well as former and serving militants, Pakistani military officers and Pakistan-backed Azad Kashmir politicians speaking off-the-record told Human Rights Watch that there was continuing militant infiltration from Azad Kashmir into Jammu and Kashmir state, but were not willing to be quoted for fear of reprisal from the ISI. Most of those interviewed were of the view that though the level of infiltration had decreased substantially since 2004 (a brief spike in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake notwithstanding), there have been no indications that the Pakistani military or militant groups had decided to abandon infiltration as policy.

It was thus no accident that militant groups were the first on the scene dispensing relief goods and other aid after the earthquake. Nor was it a sign of their great organizational prowess. As the Pakistani military prioritized the rescue of its own personnel, it probably sought the assistance of its closest allies in Azad Kashmir, the militant groups. These groups, which had undoubtedly suffered the loss of personnel and infrastructure themselves in the earthquake, won much local appreciation for their rescue and relief efforts. This public relations coup could not have been possible without logistical support from sections of the Pakistani military’s intelligence apparatus. For example, one of the first groups to set up operations was the Jamaat-ud-Dawa —the Lashkar-e-Toiba group operating under a new name. In January 2002 the Pakistani government had banned the LT as a terrorist group. However, in the aftermath of the earthquake, President Pervez Musharraf went out of his way to praise its relief work and brushed off calls to restrict its operations. The Pakistani military apparently saw the earthquake as an opportunity to craft a new image for the militant groups rather than as an opportunity to disband them.

This report also documents discrimination against Kashmiri refugees and former militants from India, most of whom are secular nationalists and culturally and linguistically distinct from the peoples of Azad Kashmir. The last major episode involving these former militants took place on April 7, 2005, when Pakistani security forces prevented them from greeting the inaugural bus service between Srinagar (the Jammu and Kashmir state capital) and Muzaffarabad and arrested, jailed and beat them. A primary motive for the discrimination would appear to be that many of these people DO NOT SHARE the vision of a UNIFIED KASHMIR under PAKISTANI CONTROL.

Successive Pakistani governments have asserted that Kashmir’s political future must be determined in accordance with the wishes of the people. But the reality of Azad Kashmir prior to the earthquake was life dominated by governmental restrictions on fundamental freedoms. As the international community supports the task of reconstruction, it must insist on a new respect by Pakistan for the human rights of the people of Azad Kashmir. No viable solution to the Kashmir issue can exclude the exercise of fundamental civil and political rights for the people of Azad Kashmir in an environment free of coercion and fear.

Key recommendations:

The October 2005 earthquake brought into focus the dominant role of the Pakistani army in the governance of Azad Kashmir and the almost complete absence of any independent civil society in the territory. While Pakistani civil society’s immediate, rapid mobilization in the aftermath of the earthquake is commendable, the Pakistani military’s blundering and ineffective response to the humanitarian disaster was indicative of more than just the military’s different priorities in the region. It also highlighted its inability to assume the role of civil society that, as a matter of security policy, it has prevented from taking root. The army must greatly reduce its political role in Azad Kashmir in order to make way for genuinely civilian governmental institutions that respect basic rights.

The post-earthquake situation provides the international community with a unique opportunity to engage with Azad Kashmir’s population, government officials, civil society, and the Pakistani military to improve the state of civil and political rights in the territory. Reconstruction in Azad Kashmir, for which the international community has pledged U.S.$6.5 billion, can only be successful if central to the process is the creation of an open, empowered, rights-respecting society.
Specifically, Human Rights Watch makes the following key recommendations (a full set of recommendations is given at the end of this report):

To the Pakistani government

* Release all individuals imprisoned or detained and withdraw immediately all criminal cases against anyone, including Kashmiri nationalists, for the peaceful expression of their political views, including that Azad Kashmir should be independent.

* End the practice of arbitrary arrest and detention, other forms of harassment, and torture and other ill-treatment of persons exercising their right to freedom of expression, including those who peacefully oppose Kashmir’s accession to Pakistan or demand greater autonomy for the territory.

* Repeal constitutional curbs on freedom of association, expression and assembly in Azad Kashmir so that the constitution and Azad Kashmir law are consistent with international human rights standards.

* Prosecute to the full extent of the law and in accordance with international standards those members of the armed forces, its intelligence agencies, government officials and police personnel implicated in serious violations of human rights, including arbitrary arrests and torture.

* Respect press freedom and allow full independent coverage of both past and ongoing events in Azad Kashmir. Remove formal and informal prohibitions on news gathering and reporting by the Azad Kashmir and Pakistani media, and accord all journalists full freedom of movement. End the practice of banning books and literature.

* Ensure that human rights organizations have freedom of movement throughout Azad Kashmir and allow them to carry out investigations and fact-finding missions free from intimidation and interference by military authorities.

To Azad Kashmir-based militant groups

* Cease threatening civilians who do not cooperate with or support the activities of militant groups.

* Publicly denounce abuses committed by any militant group in Jammu and Kashmir state and call for accountability for such abuses on both sides of the Line of Control.

To donors and other international actors

* Ensure greater civilian oversight of relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts. Aid should be handled through a process that involves the Azad Kashmir government, as well as local, national and international NGOs, civil society groups (particularly those working in the field), and the affected population.

* Ensure the continuing distribution of reconstruction aid without regard to political affiliation. In particular, there should be no discrimination against Kashmiri nationalists who do not support Kashmir’s accession to Pakistan or refugees who have entered Azad Kashmir from Jammu and Kashmir state since 1991.

* Use every available opportunity to press for an end to impunity for perpetrators of serious human rights abuses, including members of the military, intelligence agencies, police and militant groups. Urge respect for international due process and fair trial standards and press for impartial inquiries into, and accountability for, cases of arbitrary detention and torture and other ill-treatment in detention.

Link: To read the full documant.

If the future of Kashmir is to be decided by the choice of the the Kashmiris,
people in Pakistan occupied areas have no fundamental freedom to make a free choice.

Since 1989,
the Indian security forces have been
the persistent victim of a (Pakistani masterminded) Islamic Jihad.

(Without condoning the abuses committed by the Indian forces),
is it not possible that none of these abuses would have ever taken place if
there had not been any killings and atrocities by Islamic militants in the first place?

You decide.

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