KASHMIR CONFLICT : Studying at prison; appearing in chains

As standard 10th students rush towards their examination centre at the historic Islamia School in the heart of the Old City, Shahbaaz Manzoor Khan, 16, who is also appearing, is brought handcuffed like a ‘criminal’.

Shahbaaz, who hails from Gojwara, has been in police detention for over a month before the annual 10th standard examination began in the Kashmir valley.

On the morning of September 8, this year, when Shahbaaz was still asleep, a pose of 75 police vehicles stood outside the gate of his house, says his father Manzoor Ahmad Khan. The family was having breakfast when they heard a thunderous sound. He says he rushed out in hurry to check out and found the policemen had broken the fence which surrounds their house.

“When my husband went out, I followed him and saw huge number of policemen crossing over the broken fence towards our house, says Dishada, his mother.

The policemen asked for their son. “They (policemen) were angry to listen to us, they warned us that they would barge into his room, if we did not bring him quickly, she says amid sobs outside the school, where her son is appearing for the exam.

She says being a mother she thought her only son

would be panicked ‘so she woke him up like she did every morning’. “I called him and asked him to wear your clothes quickly and come downstairs,” she explains with tears glistening in her eyes. She says when her son came down he held her hand tightly, before police took him away. “We didn’t utter a word in front of them, we just handed over a jacket to our son and they took him away,” she cries as she speaks.

The parents desperate to get their son out, more so as the dates for the crucial exam were nearing, approached people in the corridors of power. But, as his parents say nobody paid any heed. “We are pleading for our son in front of them, he is too innocent and young to do anything,” Dilshada says.

A police official says that the teen has been arrested on charges of hurling stones at the government forces. He, however, fails to explain the need of bringing Shahbaaz handcuffed to the examination centre.

A physiologist says that such scene at places where there is a huge presence of children is a matter of concern. "If you bring a child handcuffed and guarded like a hardened criminal it certainly is going to play on the psyche of other children around," he remarks while wishing to remain anonymous.

This becomes, particularly, important when government claims to have launched several initiatives for the youth, who have been at the forefront of expressing dissent, he says.

But, authorities seem to be ignoring the gravity of such actions and as his parents' pleas have fallen to deaf ears. Shahbaaz, these days, prepares in dark prison cell where not a ray of light passes, his mother believes. “When I went there, I saw the room in which they are keeping my son, it has a single window with no light, it is a ‘kal kothri’, I am not coming to terms with the crime he has committed, I don’t understand how would he be preparing,” she expresses her worry.

Dilshada often visits her son in jail to give him books and sometimes food.

On the first day of his examination she visited his school to wish him luck

b ut when she found his son handcuffed and surrounded by police it became difficult for her to

bear her son’s plight, says his father.

“Since then I don’t go to wish him luck, I just wait for the jeep outside school premises which picks and drops him to assure myself that he is appearing in exams,” says Dilshada.

Earlier Published On Kashmir Dispatch

October 27 Most Tragic Day In The History Of J&K: Sayed Ali Geelani

Organize protest rallies on the day and highlight the military atrocities being carried out in Kashmir.

Calling October 27 as the most tragic and darkest day in the history of Jammu and Kashmir, Chairman APHC Syed Ali Shah Geelani Thursday asked people to observe a complete shutdown on the day to show the international community that People here will never reconcile with this occupation and fight against it till the last soldier leaves this land.

He appealed to Kashmiris living In other countries to organize protest rallies on the day and highlight the military atrocities being carried out in Kashmir.

APHC chairman said that Kashmir was autonomous state till 26th October 1947 but on 27th October the Indian troops initiated the occupation of Jammu and Kashmir. He said that this occupation has no legal moral or political validation and it is only due to military might that India is holding on to Jammu and Kashmir.

Kashmiri people have struggled ever since against this occupation but despite claiming to be democratic country India has used every available power to crush the public opinion. More than one lakh people have been killed and ten thousand have been subjected to enforced disappearance. Thousands of women have been violated.

Unmarked and mass graves are being discovered all over valley. All this has happened because of the military occupation initiated on 27th October 1947.

Calling for complete demilitarization APHC chairman said that until Indian forces are on this soil life and honour of people is not safe and there will be no regard for human rights. He further added that Kashmir is a problem for peace in whole south Asia forcing to two already impoverished nations to spend major part of their budget on military instead of poverty eradication programs.

Mr. Geelani said that the biggest hurdle in the settlement of this issue is the stubborn mindset of India. Despite making tall claims of democracy India does not want a peaceful solution to this imbroglio.

Aphc chairman said that the international community has accepted our right for self determination with UN passing no less than 18 resolutions in this regard. It is high time that UN lives up to its word and plays a role in providing the right to people in Kashmir as they have done in the case of countries like south Sudan, Abkhazia, Serbia ,Kosovo, Serbia, Montenegro, Eastern Timor in the recent past.

Mr. Geelani said that India should have a relook at its expansionist policy accepting the ground realities otherwise it will be left alone on the international front soon.

With Inputs From Tehreek-e-Hurriyat Jammu & Kashmir

Zainab al-Ghazali: Lady with a Mission

The year is 1966. A middle-aged woman sits in an Egyptian military prison, awaiting the torture sessions that have become part of her daily routine. She recites verses from the Qur’an, sentences of classical Arabic which have been repeated endlessly, but which never lose meaning. Bismillah al-Rahman al Raheem. She is among the top leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, a social organization which seeks to Islamize Egyptian society and government. She is imprisoned on charges of sedition and conspiring to assassinate President Gamal ‘Abd al-Nasser. She denies these charges, and while other members of the Brotherhood are weakened into submission through torture, every crack of the whip only serves to strengthen her resolve. The year is 1981. A woman in her mid-sixties sits at a publishing desk for al-Da’wah magazine, a publication of the Muslim Brotherhood. She is the editor of a women’s column for the magazine, and writes articles on the domestic nature of females and on the importance of motherhood and wifedom for Muslim women. When she is not writing, she lectures on the Islamic call, al-da’wah, the social movement whose participants seek Islam as a way of life, not merely a religion. Bismillah al-Rahman al Raheem. She speaks publicly on the important role which mothers and wives have in forwarding the Islamic nation. Return to the home, she encourages her female audience, and do not work outside the home unless there is dire need. These are two stories, but they speak of only one woman. She is Zainab al-Ghazali, Leader of The Muslim Brotherhood and one of the most controversial female Muslim figures of The 20th century. Born in 1917 into the household of a local religious leader, she was inculcated With the importance of religion in everyday life. From an early age her father encouraged her to be a strong woman, and a leader who embraced Islam and the indigenous traditions of Egypt. al- Ghazali emerged into Egyptian society at a time of great upheaval for women and the nation as a whole. The Wafd revolution of 1919 had granted Egypt nominal independence from Great Britain, but the nationalist movement continued to fight for true sovereignty throughout al- Ghazali’s formative years. The nationalist movement was largely dependent on the mobilization of Egyptian women, whose participation marked a dramatic shift in social norms regarding women and their role in public life. The late nineteenth century had witnessed an awakening of a feminist conscious among men and women within the elite classes of Egypt. This phenomenon was largely a nationalist reaction against colonial arguments that often used the “oppression” and “subjugation” of Muslim women as a cause for British control of Egypt. However, this colonial mission to “emancipate” the women of Egypt was more a tool of political propaganda than it was a feminist crusade. Lord Cromer—the British counsel of Egypt during the early twentieth century—must have been concerned for the political emancipation of only Egyptian women, as he was a well-known staunch opponent of the women’s suffrage movement back in Great Britain.Disproving the widespread belief that Egyptian women were helpless and desperate for the guidance of British tutelage, female activists began to mobilize behind the nationalist movement. Continuing the previous movements for women’s political and educational rights—led by such activists as Nabawiyya Musa and Malak Hifni Nasif—the nationalist movement proved to be another medium in which Egyptian women could assert their social agency. The mass participation of women within the nationalist movement changed the traditional gender Landscape, as women moved from the margins to the heart of society. It was no longer a question of whether or not women should be freed from the traditional patriarchy that governed Egyptian Society—not unlike the British society of Lord Cromer—but rather what path should such an Emancipation follow.

 and work of one of the first Islamist feminists. Entering the fertile scene of the Egyptian nationalist/women’s movement, Zainab al- Ghazali gained an early exposure to women’s activism and participation in public space. Joining the Egyptian Feminist Union when she was no more than eighteen, she was exposed to the ideology of Egyptian women who favored emulation of the west and a secularization of women’s roles in society. However, al-Ghazali quickly became frustrated with the EFU’s methods, believing that its members rejected Islam as a guide to defining the role of women in society. She quit the organization, and went on to establish the Jamiat Al-Sayyidat-al-Muslimeen, or, Muslim Ladies Association in 1936. Correcting what al-Ghazali had seen to be the fatal flaw of the EFU, she and the MLA encouraged women to seek religion as a means to personal agency and as a source of advancement. While  al-Ghazali insisted upon the independence of the MLA from the Muslim Brotherhood, she was closely affiliated with the larger Islamist organization and was among the top leaders within the Egyptian da’wah movement. While specifically concerned with the role of women in society, al-Ghazali dedicated herself to the da’wah movement as a whole. She criticized “westernized” feminists for devoting themselves only to “women’s issues,” arguing that not only was it impossible to separate the issues of women from those of society at large, but that in fact such specifications only weakened the community and ignored comprehensive ailments of society.8 As a da’iya, al- Ghazali was passionate about spreading Islam to all sectors of society, as well as devoted to teaching the benefits that she believed Islam would bring to Egypt. While she had been married at a young age, she quickly divorced her husband whom she remembered as trying to impede her da’wah activities.With no children from her first marriage, she was able to fully devote herself  to the work of the MLA and the Muslim Brotherhood until she married again. Her steadfast  dedication to al-da’wah was again demonstrated by her insistence that the contract for her second marriage stipulate that her new husband could not prohibit or prevent al-Ghazali’s activism. Such actions prove not only her commitment to the Islamist movement, but also demonstrate her beliefs in the personal agency of wives, and women. With a tamed husband and no children, al-Ghazali was able to fully dedicate herself to the life of public leadership at which she excelled. After the military coup of 1952, the newly empowered secular-nationalists—led by Gamal ‘Abd al-Nasser—targeted the Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist ideology as a threat to their newly secured power. Accused of sedition, hundreds of Muslim Brothers were imprisoned or assassinated, crippling the leadership apparatus of the organization. Accused of conspiring to assassinate the president, al-Ghazali herself was incarcerated in a military prison before being transferred to the all-women’s prison of al-Qanatir. Before her transfer, she was subjected to      heinous torture and inhumanity, described in her memoir Return of the Pharaoh. Her leadership within the Brotherhood had made her a target, and she bravely withstood the consequences of such activism. Because of her commitment to the da’wah movement, al-Ghazali is considered amongst many Islamists to be a mujahida—a fighter in the path of God. She is remembered as a bold, courageous, and outspoken woman who thrived in the male-dominated scene of politics and religious activism. Therefore, it may seem slightly incongruous to recall that this mujahida is the same woman who exhorted women to remain in the home, and take up the domestic roles of wife and mother. It is the recollection of this anecdote which richens the story of al-Ghazali. For at face value it seems that by promoting domesticity for women, she somehow rejected the life of public activism which she led. As an editor for a column within al-Da’wah magazine, al-Ghazali had the opportunity to write numerous articles to women who wished to contribute to, or participate within, the Islamist movement. Given the life choices and experiences of the author, one might expect that such articles would promote the public activism and participation of women within the da’wah activities. Indeed, al-Ghazali encouraged her female—and male audience—to dedicate themselves to Islam and the Islamization of society. However, for her female readers, al-Ghazali specified that their participation be defined primarily within their natural roles as mothers and wives of the male fighters, al-mujahideen. While she herself acted on the stage of the da’wah movement, it seems she preferred that other women to work behind the scene. While she herself lived a life amongst men in the public sphere of politics and leadership, she encouraged Muslim women to return to domesticity, protecting and maintaining the base of Islamic society: the home and family. While contemporary western feminists may praise her life as having defied patriarchal social structure and for having claimed a public space, al-Ghazali rejected those western feminists, believing them to be corruptive to tradition and religion. This perceived disjuncture between the rhetoric and action of al-Ghazali is the root of the controversy that surrounds her. However, it is also the key to understanding the ideological syncretism that she represents. Scholars in search of recognizable traces of western feminism in the Islamic world are tempted by al-Ghazali’s life of activism and leadership, but are befuddled by her subscription to the cult of domesticity. Even more problematic for some is the fact that al- Ghazali is not an anomaly within the community of Egyptian Muslim women. Her ideological blend of conservatism, nationalism, feminism, and spirituality may be the guiding principle of many Islamist women today. She, and her inheritors, are conservative in their efforts to maintain religious and social traditions amidst the changing landscape of a modernizing society. They subscribe to nationalist sentiments in their rejection of western imperialism and its legacy, supporting the independence of Egyptians and complete sovereignty of Muslims. Thirdly, it is impossible to deny the sinews of feminist thought within the discourse of al-Ghazali, as she demanded the respect and rights of women within Islam and society as a whole. Finally, al- Ghazali and her successors are unwavering in their commitment to Islamism, striving for the panacea believed to be found in a collective and individual return to religion.. Understanding al- Ghazali is key to understanding the Islamists women of contemporary Egypt, their international counterparts, and their commitment to an ideology which seems at best contradicted and at worst misogynist to the ethnocentric eyes of some western feminists. 

This awakening, nahdah, resulted in the establishment of two schools of thought regarding the advancement of women: those who sought “westernization” of society, and those who sought “Islamization.” Each feminist camp viewed the other as the enemy. Although cautious of attacking Islam, “westernized” feminists argued that incorrectly-interpreted Islamic traditions were the root of the women’s oppression, citing the seclusion of women, harem, to be a religious institution. On the other hand, the Islamists viewed the subjugation of women to be a product of the lack of religion in society. They contrasted the lack of women’s education with the Qur’anic stipulated rights of education for women. These “westernized” and “Islamist” feminist movements were not the cleanly formed binary that their titles suggest. The “westernized” feminists, led by Huda Sha’wari and the Egyptian Feminist Union, considered themselves to be indigenous Muslim reformers who were not “betraying” their culture to British imperialism. Likewise, “Islamist” feminists, represented by Zainab al-Ghazali, were not devoid of influence from European encounters. It is likely that most Egyptians subscribed partially to aspects of both camps. While the “westernized” and “Islamist” feminists can not be so easily separated, historical hindsight has proven that the “westernized” feminism of Sha’wari achieved a monopoly over the Egyptian women’s movement during the first half of the twentieth century. However, it now appears that the feminism of al-Ghazali has gained popularity amongst the contemporary women of Egypt. This is a phenomenon that demands a re-inspection of the life

Earthquake anniversary: Pakistan reiterates support for Kashmir

'People of Pakistan and Kashmir are bound together historically, religiously and geographically.' PHOTO: PPI/FILE

MUZAFFARABAD:
In a speech marking the sixth anniversary of the 2005 earthquake, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, while announcing a list of projects, reaffirmed the government’s support for the “freedom, development and prosperity of Kashmir”.

“The people of Pakistan and Kashmir are bound together historically, religiously and geographically,” Gilani said, addressing the inaugural ceremony of AJK’s first medical college in Muzaffarabad on Saturday.
The prime minister announced to name the medical college after veteran Kashmiri political leader Mirwaiz Molvi Farooq, who is also the father of All Parties Hurriyat Conference leader Mirwaiz Umer Farooq.
The premier expressed hope that travel and trade between the two parts of Kashmir will lead to a “destination of freedom”.

He also announced the set up of an Information Technology University in Rawalakot and the creation of 2,000 jobs in the AJK police department.Speaking of the success of the reconstruction programme, he said that 99 per cent of earthquake survivors in the rural areas of AJK have completed the reconstruction of their houses with financial assistance from the government.

“It is highly satisfactory for us that the UN has rated our housing project as one of the most successful programmes in the world after a disaster of such magnitude,” he said.He added that 3,752 reconstruction projects, at a cost of Rs58 billion have been completed while work on 2,613 is under progress.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 9th, 2011.

‘If they tell me my son is dead, I’d hug his grave’

Kashmiri mother’s relentless fight to trace her son ends with her death

When the mothers, whose sons disappeared during last 20 years of Kashmir conflict, gather for their monthly remembering assembly this time, they will also be mourning a mother, who died waiting for her son to come back. Mughli — the elderly mother whose relentless fight to know the whereabouts of her only son had become the epitome of the struggle of the parents of disappeared in Kashmir — left for her heavenly abode Sunday last, leaving behind memories of togetherness in struggle, desolation and a renewed hope for the mission ahead.

Mughli’s son — Nazir Ahmad Teli — was a school teacher, who disappeared in 1990 after he was picked up by Indian security forces, never to return. For years, Mughli lived alone in her large family house deep inside Srinagar’s Habba Kadal where narrow streets snake through a cluster of housing blocks. Old age had turned her nearly deaf but the hope that her son may return saw her spending days at the window, looking out at the door. Today, the rusty chain link that would shut the mite-eaten door of her house is locked.

One morning — Mughli once told to a newspaper correspondent — it was in September 1990 when her son, Nazir Ahmad Teli, a teacher by profession, left for school. She never saw him again — and Mughli became one of the first members of the tragic club of several thousand women whose young sons or husbands have disappeared.

“Maine Nazira, aave kha (My Nazir, have you come), she said and closed her eyes,” said Parveena Ahangar, the President of Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP). “For the last 19 years, she had been craving to see her son, to know of his fate. She was always full of hope.” Ahangar said.

Mughli’s death was especially tragic for the group. “We feel that we will die one by one, looking for our children,” Parveena said, adding, “Over the years, we had developed such a strong attachment with each other. This bond of mutual pain and hope has turned us into a large family. Now we are losing hope and with her death, one story of pain has come to a sudden end. But it has also left a gaping wound.”

Mougli was laid to rest at her ancestral graveyard at Narwara in Srinagar.

“Medical reason for her death may be renal failure or heart attack but she actually died longing for her only son,” says her nephew Abdul Rashid, at whose house Mougli stayed during past few months.

“I visited her house fortnightly and we used to share our pain. Repeating the same words every time we met, but it really acted as panacea for a while,” shares Fatima of Tankipora, whose son was picked up by the troops from Dalgate in early 90s and is still missing. “I lost my support,” cried Fatima, referring to her friend Mougli. However, Fatima vowed to continue the mission of Mougli. “We will not give up. She left us but instilled new hope as well.”

The APDP, according to its president, will be holding a special program on November 10 as part of their regular meeting at Partap Park Srinagar.

Bound together by mutual pain and a shared tale, the APDP says that at least 10,000 persons have disappeared in Jammu and Kashmir, the majority of them picked up by Indian security forces, during the last 20 years of turmoil. On the 10th and 28th of every month, the APDP meet remembering the disappeared, sharing their stories, helping each other cope and urging the government to take necessary action.

In an interview to an Indian daily ‘The Indian Express’ while she was still able to move around, Mughli — who didn’t remember her age — had said that the shock broke her back. “He was born after my husband divorced me. I had no one. I didn’t marry again and raised him. He was the only reason for my life,” she had said. “He had never stayed away from home — not even for a single night. Each day he would return from school and give me a hug. I am still waiting. I wish to hug him once. If they tell me he is dead, I would hug his grave. I don’t know what happened to him and this pain, this uncertainty is unbearable.”

She then took off her thick glasses and wiped her tears with the corner of her shawl. “Every time I tell this story I feel as if I rind my wounds — as if a sharp knife is dipped in my wound again,” she had said. “These walls are my only companion and they don’t ask anything.” She wailed in murmurs, her words inaudible. Where did you search for him? “I waited and waited for him that evening. When the sun went down and it was dark, I knew something was wrong. He would always come straight home after his work,” she had recalled. “I felt my heart sink and called my neighbours. They came and tried to console me till late in the night. I spent that night sitting at the window looking at the door. He didn’t return.”

Mughli had approached police officers and politicians and even visited every jail in Kashmir hoping to find her son. But nothing helped.

The APDP had helped her file a petition in the court which is still going on. Mughli, meanwhile, had taken refuge in faith and every Thursday, she would visit the shrines in the city, seeking divine help.

Mughli had never opened her son’s room ever since he went missing. She had said that her son comes in her dreams. “He (her son) calls me in the dream. He tells me he is alive,” she had said.

Pak equates Kashmir with Palestine

Two days after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas made a historic move at the United Nations for recognition of his homeland as an independent State, Pakistan put the issue of Kashmir in the same bracket with the Middle East conflict and sought early resolution of the dispute in South Asia too.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar told an annual meet of the 56-nation Organisation of Islamic Confere­nce (OIC) that the world com­munity must strive for resolving the “two oldest unresolved disputes on the UN agenda – Palestine and Kashmir” to ensure the right to self-determination for struggling people in both the lands.

The All Party Hurriyat Conference chief Mirwaiz Umar Farooq too told an OIC Contact Group on Kashmir that Kashmiris supported the Palestinians’ bid for statehood recognition at the UN.

“Let me say to the people of Palestine that the people of Kashmir, proudly, are the first to congratulate you on your bold initiative. Let it be written in history that an oppressed people are overjoyed looking at you in your moment of glory, confident that our time will soon come,” he said.

India pledged support to Palestine’s statehood bid at the United Nations. New Delhi, however, is opposed to drawing a parallel between Kashmir and Palestine. It has been maintaining that Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India and the OIC has no locus standi in matters concerning internal affairs of India.

Khar joined her counterparts from other OIC member-States to seek an international investigation into the large number of unmarked graves in Jammu and Kashmir.

Mirwaiz also referred to the issue of unmarked graves and called upon the UN to condemn “the atrocities perpetrated upon the innocent Kashmiris, organise a tribunal to ascertain the gravity of the tyranny and to request Jeremy Sarkin, chairperson of the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, to conduct an independent investigation”.

The Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission recently recommended the identification of all the 2,156 people buried in unmarked graves in north Kashmir.
The graves were identified through an investigation done by the panel’s police wing last month.

New Delhi, however, is likely to reject the demand for independent international probe into the unmarked graves, pointing out that India was a vibrant democracy, which fully respected rule of law and human rights, with civil liberties and freedoms enshrined as citizens’ fundamental rights in the Constitution.

India maintains that it has many effective mechanisms within its constitutional framework to address aberrations.

UN’s obligations

Mirwaiz said that the UN had moral and legal obligation to help resolving the issue of Kashmir and past disputes should not deter the world body from renewing its efforts to work for a promised settlement of the dispute.

Khar said that Pakistan had repeatedly underlined in its engagements with India the fundamental reality that the prospect of a lasting peace in South Asia was directly linked with “a just and durable solution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute”.

The Pakistani foreign minister had triggered a controversy last July, when she had met Kashmiri separatist leaders –both Mirwaiz and chief of the Hurriyat Conference’s hardline faction Syed Ali Shah Gilani – in New Delhi, just ahead of a meeting with her Indian counterpart S M Krishna.

India had expressed its unhappiness over Khar’s meetings with the separatist leaders of Kashmir.

Krishna and Khar, however, had discussed the issue of Jammu and Kashmir and agreed to “the need for continued discussions, in a purposeful and forward looking manner, with a view to finding a peaceful solution by narrowing divergences and building convergences”.