Rallies for Kashmir in San Francisco
By Elaine Pasquini
Pictures by Phil Pasquini
Outside San Francisco’s ferry building on August 17, some 500 members of the Northern California Kashmiri community and their supporters rallied against the Indian government’s recent revocation of Kashmir’s special autonomous status and the deployment of 38,000 additional Indian security forces to the region.
For nearly two weeks, residents of India’s only Muslim-majority state were under a lockdown, curfew and communications blackout. Stand with Kashmir, a grassroots organizing group, called for the immediate withdrawal of all Indian occupying forces from Kashmir and for a referendum to be held under international and United Nations supervision with local leaders in attendance to ensure Kashmiris their right to self-determination and restore human and democratic rights to the 13 million residents of the region.
Many at the rally held signs reading, “Kashmir is Bleeding,” “Free Kashmir” and “End the Occupation of Kashmir.” One motorist waved a flag of Kashmir as he drove on the adjacent Embarcadero thoroughfare. Speakers, including Lara Kiswani of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC) and Javaid Akhtar of Kashmir Action Committee, directed their ire at Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu-nationalist government whose authoritarian actions, including restrictions of movement and curfew, caused devastating hardships on the residents of Kashmir.
By removing Article 370 from India’s constitution, Modi has nullified Kashmir’s own constitution and enabled a complete occupation of the region. Supporters of Kashmir also protested outside San Francisco City Hall on August 15. Their red banner proclaiming “#Free Kashmir, Stand with Kashmir” drew attention from the many passersby and locals going in and out of the municipal building. “We do not want Kashmir to become another Palestine,” one activist told this reporter.
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