(Washington, D.C., 8/16/2019) – USCMOmembers and supporters of Kashmir’s national and human rights rallied in front of the Indian Embassy, formally protesting the massive military and paramilitary invasion of Kashmir (which began at the stroke of midnight, August 4) with some 700,000 soldiers and irregulars of the ruling BJP Hindu chauvinist party’s parent paramilitary organization RSS locking down the whole of Kashmir, with shoot-to-kill orders for people who came out of their homes. That’s one soldier for every 10 Kashmiris, making it the most militarized place in the world.
The rally condemned six major Indian violations of Kashmiri people’s self-evident political freedoms and human rights:
- THE COMMUNICATION BLACKOUT of 7 million Kashmiris, a humanitarian catastrophe in violation of Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which India is a state party.
- THE JAILING OF THOUSANDS OF KASHMIRIS, including arbitrary, “preemptive” arrests of seated politicians, activists, and citizens, mostly young men and boys.
- THE DETAINMENT OF JOURNALISTS AND PHOTOGRAPHERS, part of the communications lockdown, designed to keep the world in the dark about India’s use of lethal force and repression to put down Kashmir’s people and stymie any international momentum to hold India accountable.
- THE KILLING OF CIVILIANS, which comes on the heels of years of Indian paramilitary troops and soldiers conducting an egregious, open campaign of deliberately blinding and maiming Kashmiri youth and children with pellet weaponry designed for this pernicious purpose. Since 1990, India’s military and paramilitary have killed more than 80,000 Kashmiris and imprisoned thousands more.
- THE INDIAN GOVERNMENT’S UNILATERAL ABOLITION OF ARTICLES 370 AND 35A OF THE INDIAN CONSTITUTION, which preserve Kashmir’s autonomy and demographic integrity. These two articles were put in place in 1947 to satisfy the agreement of United Nations and the international community, including India, to allow Kashmiri’s themselves to determine their own future national identity.
- THE MYSOGYNST RHETORIC OF INDIA’S BJP OFFICIALS like “Kashmir is open. … we can bring girls from there.”
