Dr Fai Visits SF Bay Area
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Dr Syed Ghulamnabi Fai, President of the Kashmiri American Council (KAC), is on a week-long visit to the Bay Area to speak about the Kashmir issue. American Muslim Alliance and Pakistan American Democratic Forum have arranged four community gatherings for Dr. Fai. titled "Kashmir: The Palestine of South Asia - A Reminder to the US Policymakers."
Dr. Fai will be addressing a gathering on March 23 at the Mehran Restaurant, Newark. Other speakers on the occasion will include: Hon Senator Mike Gravel, Hon Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, Dr Imtiaz Ahmed, Mr Naeem Shakir, Imam Mahdi Bray, Dr Hatem Bazian, and Dr Agha Saeed.
On March 22, he is scheduled to address a gathering in Monterey. On March 26 he will speak in Berkeley, and on March 27, in Santa Clara.
Dr Fai was released from prison in November last after the Federal Court Eastern Virginia cancelled his six month's remaining term. On March 16, Dr. Fai submitted his testimony to the UN Human Rights Committee at the United Nations Office at Geneva about the State of Human Rights in Kashmir. In the testimony, he pointed out that the best estimate of extrajudicial killings in Kashmir since 1989 approaches a staggering 100,000. He went on to say that this number dwarfs the killings in Northern Ireland, Palestine, Bosnia, Kosovo and Southern Sudan which have brought the world to tears and revulsion. The 100,000 corpses also exceed the death toll for United States forces in Vietnam over 10 years.
Torture is a universal crime, he said, adding, crime creates a cause of action for damages under the United States Alien Tort Claims Act. Torture with impunity, nonetheless, is widespread in Kashmir.
Dr. Fai said Kashmiris disappear into a dark Gulag and since 1989, approximately 8,000-10,000 Kashmiris have disappeared into a black hole. Even Muzaffar Hussain Baig, former Deputy Chief Minister of Kashmir under India's auspices, confessed before the legislature that 3,931 persons had disappeared since 1990. These numbers are horrifying, like the more notorious missing in Argentina regularly denounced by the grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo.
