Eideard

Yes, there are parts of Kashmir that look just like my neck of the prairie
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

A much-despised law that suspends basic rights and shields security forces from prosecution in the disputed province of Kashmir will be lifted in some areas in the next few days.

Omar Abdullah, the chief minister of the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir, said in a speech to police officers that the situation in many areas of Kashmir had become peaceful enough to warrant removing the law, which is known as the Armed Forces Special Powers Act.

Human rights activists have long argued that the act, which gives government security forces wide latitude in areas where insurgents operate, has led to widespread abuses. The discovery of thousands of unidentified bodies in mass graves in the region this summer seemed to underscore the impunity the law allowed.

Security officers cannot be prosecuted for acts committed while on duty in areas covered by the act without permission from the Home Ministry, and such permission has almost never been granted, even in cases where rape and murder were alleged.

The law was put in place in the Indian-administered part of Kashmir in 1990, when the state was in the grip of insurgents — partly fueled by Pakistan — who sought to wrest it free of India…The insurgency petered out in the late 1990s, and the past few years have been largely free from armed struggle. But the act has remained in force and was a crucial catalyst for unarmed protests that have swelled in Kashmir almost every summer in recent years. Last year more than 100 people died in protests, most of them killed by security officers who fired into rock-throwing crowds.

But this summer was largely tranquil, and the state government has been slowly reducing the visibility of its security presence in the region, removing heavily armored bunkers and taking machine-gun-toting security officers off the streets.

Like many activists around the world who support the range of struggle from national liberation movements in earlier days, pro-democracy movements, nowadays – I sincerely hope the Indian government can make it past sectarian insurgencies to support full-blown democracy in a region long in the search for its own voice in governing.

This could be a start.

The Mubarak government calls this peaceful resolution of conflict

Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the UN nuclear watchdog turned democracy advocate, has arrived in Egypt amid escalating political unrest in the country.

ElBaradei, 68, returned to the country on Thursday from the Austrian city of Vienna, where he lives, to join a growing wave of protests against Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s president of 30 years, inspired by Tunisia’s overthrow of their long-time president, Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali.

Violence erupted in Cairo and in the flashpoint city of Suez, east of the Egyptian capital, while in the northern Sinai area of Sheikh Zuweid, several hundred bedouins and police exchanged live gunfire, killing a 17-year-old man…

Millions gather at mosques across the city for Friday prayers, providing organisers with a huge number of people already out on the streets to tap into.

“It is a critical time in the life of Egypt. I have come to participate with the Egyptian people,” ElBaradei said as he left Cairo airport, where he was greeted by a small group of supporters.

“The desire for change must be respected. The regime must not use violence in the demonstrations…”

Associated Press reporters saw scores of protesters outside the Cairo offices of Egypt’s lawyers’ union, which has been one of the flashpoints of this week’s unrest.

There were two other small, peaceful protests by lawyers in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta town of Toukh, north of Cairo.

In the day’s other major incident, protesters in the northern Sinai – an area of land largely populated by armed Bedouin tribes – blocked the main roads in the area.

You can only hope for a gateway to democracy and civil participation to open. ElBaradei is a brave man to return and confront a government that I’m afraid wants nothing more than his sudden death.

Then, there is the freedom-loving United States government. Rote wrist-slapping has already demonstrated our usual role. If confrontation escalates – no doubt – a quick phone call to Netanyahu will provide guidance for the State Department.

The Italian government has lashed out at an influential Catholic magazine which suggested fascism might be resurfacing within the government. An editorial in the Famiglia Cristiana weekly is critical of government policy towards the Roma community.

Two cabinet ministers said the tone of the article was “irresponsible”. And the Vatican has also distanced itself from the publication with a papal spokesman saying it “does not reflect the views of the Holy See”.

The article is accompanied by a famous image of a Jewish child being searched in the Warsaw ghetto.

The magazine has repeatedly denounced tough new measures introduced by Silvio Berlusconi’s rightwing government targeting the Roma, or Gypsy, communities whom officials blame for much of the country’s violent and petty crime.

Correspondents say the government’s left-wing opponents often label it fascist, but the allegation is more damaging when it comes from a publication linked to the Catholic Church, to which many centre-right politicians and their supporters swear allegiance.

The Gypsy community, of course, figured as an easy first target for the last generation of Italian fascists. Followed by Jews, Communists, homosexuals and damned near everyone else.