The occupation of Afghanistan demonstrated that climate catastrophe is a crucial feature of imperialism, not a bug. THE VERTICAL Climate Crimes of US Imperalism in Afghanistan Shah Mahmoud Hanifi The occupation of Afghanistan demonstrated that climate catastrophe is a crucial feature of imperialism, not a bug. EVERY EMPIRE is unique but most empires share many discernible structural features and operational modes. Normative patterns of imperial conduct include transgressing geographic, cultural, political, legal, and other kinds of boundaries while generating new circulations of people, ideas, technologies, and practices. Historically, empires leverage inequalities and, in so doing, tend to commit crimes. In the modern era, Afghanistan has been arguably the primary victim of imperial war crimes. Since 2001, these crimes have been perpetrated by a large number of colluding and competing international actors and a wide assortment of local collaborators and proxies. It is historically rare for an empire to be held accountable for criminal conduct, and it is a bitter irony that empires present themselves as peace-loving and law-giving while imperial history can be read as repeating litanies of unprosecuted criminal conduct. Through information management predicated on censorship, propaganda, and manipulation of individual states and multinational institutions that may or may not constitute legal conduct, empires work hard to immunize themselves against their own criminality. The International Criminal Court indictment of the US and other actors for crimes against humanity in March 2020 was diluted in September 2021 after the Taliban returned to power to now make it practically impossible for the US to be investigated and held to account by the ICC. The ICC was the last and only internationally recognized authority willing to publicly pursue US imperial war crimes against humanity in Afghanistan. US imperial authority was horrifically predicated on perpetual jet bombing, wanton drone assassination, incessant helicopter night raids, routine abductions and extrajudicial killings, and systematic renditions to black sites in the country. All this occurred across a globally dispersed imperial regime of torture predicated on illegal human trafficking and conscious legal obfuscation, through chains of contractors and subcontractors working covertly across national boundaries. Rapidly emerging GIS-based technologies through which US imperial violence against the people of Afghanistan occurred—involving drones most notably—inherently challenged and transgressed established laws regarding war, military occupation, and universal human rights. U.S. Central Command movement across Kabul of a white Toyota Corolla on Aug. 29th, 2021. Mapping, central to U.S. defense companies and military, tracks an individual car. Today, former defense officials at companies like Janes and Quiet Professionals deploy the same data to ostensibly track and protect refugees. (CENTCOM/via Military Times) Here I highlight the environmental impact of the US-led international so-called “War on Terror” in Afghanistan and call for accountability and remedial action from the US and its allies for criminal negligence of the uniquely precious and life-sustaining natural resource base of the country. The US engagement of Afghanistan’s natural resources began during the Cold War in the context of the Helmand Valley Development Project involving large dams and related canals, roads, airports, and new bureaucracies and administrators organized to provide a perennial supply of water to new agricultural lands where nomads were to settle and produce cash crop exports such as cotton in the south of the country. The HVDP not only failed due to a lack of basic initial soil and groundwater surveys, but the over-salinated soil became usable for little else besides poppies that transformed Afghanistan into the world’s largest exporter of hashish, opium, and heroin in the 1980s. During this decade while the CIA was covertly funding and arming the Mujahideen, the US Drug Enforcement Agency facilitated the processing and global marketing of Afghanistan’s bountiful opiate harvests. One result of the extensive CIA financial and military provisioning of the Afghan mujahideen was the extensive landmining of mountain passes and valley pasturelands between market settings and strategic locations in eastern Afghanistan especially. The ICC was the last and only internationally recognized authority willing to publicly pursue US imperial war crimes against humanity in Afghanistan. Beginning in October 2001, a twenty-year monsoon rain of US bombs fell on Afghanistan. Older well-tested munitions such as daisy cutter bombs designed to destroy forests in Viet Nam were used to decimate gardens, orchards, and farms in Afghanistan, while innovative new bunker buster bombs devastated underground water channels, overland canals and dams, and mountainous habitats. This vengeful imperial desire to obliterate single individuals from Tora Bora in December 2001 to the “Mother of All Bombs” in April 2017, to the ‘final official’ drone bombing of an innocent family in August 2021, and the hundreds of thousands of US bombs throughout this imperial occupation, have done irreparable harm by depositing depleted uranium into the soil and groundwater to such an extent that Afghanistan now joins Fallujah, Iraq, the Marshall Islands, New Mexico, Hiroshima and Nagasaki as locations where US munitions have left radiation poisoning and high concentrations of eternally disturbing birth defects among humans and animals in their wake. Deadly chemicals have long blighted the waters and wider ecosystems surrounding many hundreds of military bases in the US. Similarly, the habitats surrounding what were hundreds of military bases in Afghanistan have been forever tainted by deadly toxins, but this environmental assault is amplified seemingly irremediably by the noxious burn pits used by these bases to incinerate everything from paper to human waste to military equipment including full vehicles. These bases were found throughout Afghanistan, from mountain hamlets in the north to the ever-expanding Shindand base in the southwest near the Iranian border to Bagram in the lushly watered northern third of the Kabul valley. During the American imperium, Bagram was a city of its own, defined by a perpetually flaming and smoldering football field-sized burn pit. The toxicity emanating from these burn pits circulated near and far from the bases, resulting in inescapable disease and infertility across the biological spectrum of organisms from insects to fish, crops, plants, trees, animals, birds, and humans. Afghanistan now joins Fallujah, Iraq, the Marshall Islands, New Mexico, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki as locations where US munitions have left radiation poisoning and high concentrations of eternally disturbing birth defects among humans and animals in their wake. The US military operates primarily on fossil fuels and, as a result, carries one of the largest carbon footprints in the world. Nowhere is the air pollution resulting from military aircraft and diesel-fueled wheeled vehicles more evident than in Kabul, which regressed during the US imperial presence in the country from near-pristine air quality in 2001 to having among the world’s worst air pollution during the US occupation. The hyper-urbanization of Kabul from a city of roughly half a million inhabitants in 2001 to more than five million today has occurred without a sanitation system, while unregulated private wells have depleted the city’s water supply and are also being undermined by climate change-induced deglaciation of the Hindu Kush. From lack of water to radiated water, from toxic air to poisoned soil, the fully unrestrained US imperial military conduct in Afghanistan has resulted in an environmental catastrophe that requires accountability and restitution from all international powers that have contributed to what is now genocidal famine and environmental ruin, much of which did not occur within the boundaries of international law and ethical conduct. ∎ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Aerial satellite map of the city of Kunduz, where a Kunduz Trauma Center operated by Médecins Sans Frontières hospital was bombed by a US Air Force gunship in October 2015. The former site of the MSF Trauma Center colored in yellow can today be seen in satellite images as a vacant plot filled with debris. Courtesy of Kamil Ahsan using ArcGIS. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Op-Ed Afghanistan Environmental Disaster Radiation US Imperialism War Crimes Climate Change Geography Urbanization International Law Internationalist Perspective Drug Enforcement Agency DEA Daisy Cutters Munitions Normative Frameworks Structural Frameworks Policy Torture GIS-based technologies Helmand Valley Development Project HDVP Surveillance Regimes Militarism Military Operations Taliban Media United States Memory Nationalism Human Rights Violations Human Rights Hindu Kush Bagram Heroin Hashish Opium Marshall Islands New Mexico Japan Hiroshima & Nagasaki Drone Warfare Predatory Drone Infertility Disease Generational Damage Kunduz SHAH MAHMOUD HANIFI is Professor of History at James Madison University where he teaches courses on the Middle East and South Asia. Hanifi’s publications have addressed subjects including colonial political economy and intellectual history, the Pashto language, photography, cartography, animal and environmental studies, and Orientalism in Afghanistan. Op-Ed Afghanistan 16th Oct 2022 RAHMAT TUNIO is an independent multimedia journalist whose work has been published in The Guardian, Independent Urdu, Dawn, Lok Sujag , and The News International, among others. On That Note: The Captive Mind 26th JUN Occupation and Osmosis 26th OCT Universalism & Solidarity in a Post-Roe Landscape 23rd FEB

Towards the end of FLUX, a key organizer with Muslims For Just Futures, Muslims for Abolitionist Futures, among others, performed a DJ set with Bhangra and urban music beats, featuring Major Lazer, Meesha Shafi & more, bringing a wide-ranging event about many intellectual and material shifts to an end. INTERACTIVE FLUX · A Celebratory Set by DJ Kiran Darakshan Raja Towards the end of FLUX, a key organizer with Muslims For Just Futures, Muslims for Abolitionist Futures, among others, performed a DJ set with Bhangra and urban music beats, featuring Major Lazer, Meesha Shafi & more, bringing a wide-ranging event about many intellectual and material shifts to an end. FLUX: An Evening in Dissent An uplifting set by DJ Kiran to dance to at the end of a weighty virtual event. Jaishri Abichandani's Art Studio Tour Kshama Sawant & Nikil Saval: A panel on US left electoralism, COVID-19, recent victories, & lasting problems. Natasha Noorani's Live Performance of "Choro" Bhavik Lathia & Jaya Sundaresh: A panel on the US Left & its relationship with media in the wake of Bernie Sanders' loss. Tarfia Faizullah: Poetry Reading Rajiv Mohabir: Poetry Reading SAAG, So Far: A Panel with the Editors ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Watch the event in full on IGTV. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Event Global Virtual Live FLUX Bhangra Music DJ Urban Desi Music Muslims For Just Futures North American Diaspora Muslim Abolitionist Futures Anti-Racism Islamophobia Major Lazer Meesha Shafi The Halluci Nation Boogey the Beat Northern Voice Jay Hun Sultaan Kisaan Bands Experimental Electronica Experimental Music DARAKSHAN RAJA A.K.A. DJ KIRAN is an abolitionist activist, musician, and DJ who works to cultivate joy and community in movement work with Bhangra and Urban Desi Music. DJ Kiran was part of The Empowerment Album , a collaboration between desi women DJs from the US, UK, and Canada. Darakshan is the co-founder and co-director of Muslims for Just Futures , a grassroots organization that focuses on working-class communities, women, and communities nationally through the Muslim Abolitionist Futures (MAF) National Network. Event Global 5th Dec 2020 On That Note: A Set by Discostan 5th JUN FLUX · Natasha Noorani Unplugged: "Choro" 5th DEC FLUX · A Panel on SAAG, So Far 5th DEC

JOURNALIST Marissa Carruthers MARISSA CARRUTHERS is a British journalist of 15 years, who relocated to Cambodia almost six years ago. She writes about lifestyle, travel and culture across Southeast Asia and has been contributing to The Post for the last five years. JOURNALIST WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 LOAD MORE

Activist Ammar Ali Jan in conversation with Kamil Ahsan. COMMUNITY The Pakistani Left, Separatism & Student Movements AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR Activist Ammar Ali Jan in conversation with Kamil Ahsan. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Interview Pakistan Student Movements Baloch Students Organization-Azad Haqooq-e-Khalq Movement Student Solidarity March Baloch Student Long March Pashtun Tahafuz Movement Shehri Tahafuz Movement Zaigham Abbas Universities State Repression Repression in Universities Partha Chatterjee Subaltern Studies Karl Polanyi People's Solidarity Forum Neofeudalism Neoliberalism Constitutionalism Pashtun Long March Trade Unions Electoral Politics Elections Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. DISPATCH Interview Pakistan 14th Dec 2020 We worry too much about divisions within the left. It can be very productive if people engage in a decent, intellectual conversation. Actual disagreements shouldn't be repressed for the sake of some mythical unity. Editor's Note: Throughout the Baloch student long march & the #PashtunLongMarch2Karachi , the Pakistani state cracked down on activists—including Ammar Ali Jan—and continues to. This conversation took place in September 2020. A detention order for Ammar Ali Jan was issued in late November 2020. It was far from the first time he had faced detention, intimidation, or threats from the state. Granted pre-arrest bail, the detention order was lifted in December by the Lahore High Court, with LHC Chief Justice Muhammad Qasim Khan saying: “In Pakistan, influential people will not let their rivals to move freely by misusing ‘detention orders’." Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Next Up:

ARITST Mariyam Omar MARIYAM OMAR 's work focuses on human interactions within the society, with her primary medium being painting. Her installation works are based mainly on human rights issues. Her solo exhibition Untitled Works was held at the National Art Gallery in 2011. Her installation Departure from Logic and Humanity is featured in the ArtAsiaPacific Almanac 2014 Volume. She has exhibited her work in exhibitions including XOPI Exhibition of Public Enquiry in 2012 at Malé City Hall, The Maldives Exodus Caravan Show curated by SØren Dahlgaard in Venice in 2013, Berlin’s Import Projects Gallery, the Bangladesh Biennale, the Nasandhura Palace Hotel, and the Loama Art Gallery. ARITST WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 LOAD MORE

With internet services partially restored and the curfew relaxed, the government in Bangladesh is spinning bizarre narratives about student protesters. Sheikh Hasina and the Awami League have variously labeled the protesters as both innocent and as Pakistani collaborators in the 1971 Liberation War. They have also alleged that students were misled by terrorists. Meanwhile, extrajudicial arrests of students continue. THE VERTICAL Update from Dhaka III With internet services partially restored and the curfew relaxed, the government in Bangladesh is spinning bizarre narratives about student protesters. Sheikh Hasina and the Awami League have variously labeled the protesters as both innocent and as Pakistani collaborators in the 1971 Liberation War. They have also alleged that students were misled by terrorists. Meanwhile, extrajudicial arrests of students continue. Shahidul Alam EDITOR'S NOTE: SAAG received this piece along with other media organizations on 23rd July, with another update the following day. Part of it was published by The Wire. We chose to publish the piece lightly edited, in keeping with the author’s wishes. Due to the urgency of its message, it has not been fact-checked in accordance with regular editorial processes. The views expressed in this piece are the author’s and do not necessarily represent SAAG’s editorial stance. —Iman Iftikhar 22nd July There is a particular type of bowling in cricket called “the Google” or “the Doosra.” It is a rare spin ball that is meant to trick the batsman—one only a few bowlers have mastered. Good batsmen and women, however, can tell from the way the bowler’s arm or wrist acts which way the ball will spin and play accordingly. Except in the case of the deceptive Doosra. Many a famous scalp has been taken by the well-executed Doosra. In Bangladeshi politics, it is actually the infamous spin doctors themselves who seem to be falling prey to the Doosra, the outcome not going quite the way they intended. Bangladeshi citizens are faced with a dilemma. The coming 48 hours may be a “general holiday,” as declared by the government. The quota students, on the other hand, have declared a “complete shutdown.” The Army chief, Waker-Uz-Zaman, announced on TV that the army had brought things under control and the country is heading back to “normal.” At the same time, however, there are soldiers in the streets enforcing an ongoing curfew with orders to shoot to kill. A curfew isn’t what one associates with a general holiday, though sadly, killing unarmed citizens could be considered normal in Gaza or Kashmir. In Bangladesh, with no Internet, no cash, no banking services, and with people using pay-as-you-go accounts for gas and electricity on the verge of having their connections closed down due to non-payment, one wonders whether this really will become the new normal. The “shutdown” moniker makes some sense. Most shops are closed, and while there are people on the streets, especially in the hours when the curfew is called off, the city is tense (the curfew was relaxed today from 10 am to 5 pm. Offices and banks are to be open from 11 am to 3 pm). The only people venturing out any distance away from home, whether or not they have a curfew pass, are those on essential duty: hospital staff, journalists, and fire-fighters. People can be seen in the back streets, where there appears to be no military or police presence, but there are also reports of people being hunted down and killed in alleyways, a source of intense fear. The policing is site-specific. The Maghreb azaan floats across Rabindra Sharani, the outdoor recreation centre in the well-to-do residential area of Dhanmondi. There are no security forces here. Young women and men walk by the lakeside after dusk. Puppies frolic by the amphitheatre as kids play football and parents walk toddlers on the stage. I am also told that life is “normal” in the upmarket tri-state areas of Gulshan, Baridhara, and Banani. Diplomats and decision-makers live there, and it wouldn’t bode well to have an overt military presence in such areas. These are the normal zones. Mohammadpur, less than a kilometre away from Rabindra Sarani, is a curfew zone. Topu, the Head of the Photography Department of Pathshala, the South Asian Media Institute which I founded, rings me at around 7:30 pm to tell me that a graduate student Ashraful Haque Rocky has been picked up by the police. Luckily, he has a press card as he used to work for a prominent newspaper. They’ve taken his camera away, but so far, he’s not been roughed up. We’re trying to get someone from the newspaper to call the police to make sure he is not physically harmed or disappeared. We anxiously await more information from the police station. After lobbying through multiple sources, a message comes in just before midnight that Rocky has been released. He has his camera. For the moment, we know nothing more. News trickles in through our network that anyone taking injured students to the hospital, even if they are helpful bystanders, is getting arrested by plainclothes police. Injured students are arrested as soon as they are well enough to be released. They don’t always get beaten up or put in jail; sometimes, they are just extorted. A friend’s brother was released upon paying a ransom of one lakh taka, just short of $1,000, worth a lot of money in Bangladesh. Newspapers also report Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus bucking the government narrative with a statement to the international community on Monday, “Bangladesh has been engulfed in a crisis that only seems to get worse each passing day. High school students have been amongst the victims.” 23rd July Local news channels reported last night that there had been “no untoward incident,” though a friend provided eyewitness reports of two students and two passersby being killed by the police in the Notun Bazar area of Dhaka. A young rag picker was shot dead in a different part of the city. She also talks of the smart tanks stationed outside her house in Gulshan. Foreign Minister Hasan Mahmud summoned the diplomatic community to brief them on the current situation with a presentation. It didn’t go quite as planned. Unusual for diplomats, the UN Resident Coordinator asked the FM about the alleged use of UN-marked armored personnel carriers and helicopters to suppress protesters. The outgoing US Ambassador Peter Haas, who had been instrumental in the US government’s sanctions against the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) for its human rights abuses, was the one to respond to the FM: “I am surprised you did not show the footage of police firing at unarmed protesters.” There are dissenting voices among civil society personnel despite the fear and repression. 33 eminent citizens have asked the government to apologize unconditionally to citizens for the deaths of protesters since 16th July. The Communist Party of Bangladesh has demanded fresh general elections, while Rashtra Sanskar Andolan (Movement for State Reform) has demanded the government’s resignation. 25 women’s rights activists and teachers termed the Supreme Court’s verdict on the quota system “a trap to confuse the ongoing just protests against the fascist government.” 24th July My partner, Rahnuma, and I are both aware that martyrs don’t do good reporting. Working with limited resources, along with our wider team of dedicated activists, we’ve been looking out for each other. I’ve been out on the streets, on most occasions Rahnuma being my bodyguard. Even in this warlike environment, some show solidarity and want updates. A few even ask for selfies while heavy-set Awami League types scowl from a distance. Curfew and trigger-happy security forces have made it difficult to visit friends in the hospital, find safe homes, and get supplies. Finding ways to beat the Internet ban and get messages such as this one out has been far from easy. We’ve managed so far. It is for you readers to take the next steps to freedom. The broadband connection was restored last night, but selectively. We now have email and WhatsApp access at home, but no YouTube or Facebook, nor social media. My niece, two roads down, has none. Meanwhile, the spin doctors are working overtime. The students, who were called “razaakars” (war of liberation collaborators) a week ago, then became “komolmoti shishu” (sweet innocent kids) a few days later, and are now “obujh chhatro” (naive students) whom the “dushkritikari o jongi” (miscreants and terrorists) have exploited. The PM met with the business community on Monday afternoon. They were concerned about the effect this “problem” has had on the nation’s economy. Part of the discussion was aired on TV. The PM absolved the quota protesters of any ill deeds and reminded us that they were not the reason the army had been brought in. Strange then that one of the protestors' demands is that all charges against them be dropped. There is silence about the ongoing arrests of students. The spin doctors are working overtime to fit the quota protests, which spilled over into a nationwide uprising, into the government’s hold-all explanation, “the BNP-Jamaat-Shibir are responsible.” They will not be spared. They are the ones trying to hold back the country and turn back the development process. The entire cabinet nods. Some of the party faithful come to the podium to hail the PM for her leadership and for thwarting the opposition’s evil plans so successfully. They assure her that the nation will continue in its glorious journey under her able leadership. They would like her to be Prime Minister “for life.” The images of Sheikh Hasina and her father, Bangabandhu (friend of Bengal) Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, plastered on every wall across the country, the billboards and banners that litter the countryside, the Bangabandhu corner, required by law to be present in every library and prominently placed at the airport and all-important buildings, collectively create a North Korea-like adulation of the great leader. As in North Korea, the Bangladeshi leader has total control. The Argentinian army’s loss in the Malvinas (Falklands) Islands, while a loss for the nation, resulted in an unexpected gain. It broke the aura of the army’s invincibility, which allowed the resistance to build and eventually overthrow the military regime. It was one of the few instances where military rulers have been brought to trial. This aura of invincibility is important for the leadership to maintain. That is why the photo of the soldier on the receiving end of a flying kick by a student way back in 2007 was quickly hushed up and has disappeared from official archives. It is probably also the reason why the recent attack on the home minister’s house, though instigated by the helicopter fire on protestors down below in the first place, never made it to print and electronic media. Even the acknowledgment of such temerity, even if provoked, is dangerous. The business community needs the Internet to be up and running immediately. The downtime is costing them, and they are getting agitated. The great leader informed them that she had explained everything to the naive students, and they had understood. The students were no longer the problem. What was to be tackled were the terrorists and the miscreants, which she would take care of. You don’t bite the hand that feeds you. The business community knew where the red lines were and was careful not to cross them. They bowed and retreated. The media in Bangladesh long stopped behaving as the fourth estate and has morphed into a PR network for their corporations and for the government. With extremely rare exceptions (the daily New Age being one), independent media has perished. Embedded journalism is the norm. The few free-thinking journalists who still survive in this space worry about the moles surrounding them. Media owners confide that their headlines are dictated by military intelligence. Their own culpability, they conveniently ignore. Even the headlines, some say, are dictated by security agencies. Even so, there are brave journalists who do what journalists must. Rigorous research. Detailed fact-checking. Connecting the dots. Good reporters find holes in the spin doctor’s statements, who are caught in their own web of lies. Different ministers making contradictory statements create traps for each other. Why the police opened fire and killed “komolmoti shishus” is not an easy question to answer. If the attackers were BNP and their allies, why they were chanting pro-Sheikh Hasina slogans is also unexplained. If there was nothing to hide, why, after the claim that the internet shutdown was due to a technological issue was debunked by the industry experts, was the Internet still down? The government accuses international agencies who are reporting on the situation, of providing fake news. Why, then, is Dhaka Medical College Hospital refusing to provide figures for the dead and injured? In recent years, tyrants across the globe have often deployed the “fake news” accusation to deny human rights violations that are abundantly clear to the public and the rest of the world. They’ve also used the full spectrum of repressive state machinery, including media, to deny culpability and hide their own guilt. They have also banded together to share resources and copy from each other’s playbook. Sheikh Hasina, a long-standing member of the tyranny club, has been playing the game for some time. But arrogance has its drawbacks. It would be wrong to underestimate the public, and the Doosra can only take one so far. Especially when the spin doctors seem to be getting wrong-footed by their own ball. ∎ EDITOR'S NOTE: SAAG received this piece along with other media organizations on 23rd July, with another update the following day. Part of it was published by The Wire. We chose to publish the piece lightly edited, in keeping with the author’s wishes. Due to the urgency of its message, it has not been fact-checked in accordance with regular editorial processes. The views expressed in this piece are the author’s and do not necessarily represent SAAG’s editorial stance. —Iman Iftikhar 22nd July There is a particular type of bowling in cricket called “the Google” or “the Doosra.” It is a rare spin ball that is meant to trick the batsman—one only a few bowlers have mastered. Good batsmen and women, however, can tell from the way the bowler’s arm or wrist acts which way the ball will spin and play accordingly. Except in the case of the deceptive Doosra. Many a famous scalp has been taken by the well-executed Doosra. In Bangladeshi politics, it is actually the infamous spin doctors themselves who seem to be falling prey to the Doosra, the outcome not going quite the way they intended. Bangladeshi citizens are faced with a dilemma. The coming 48 hours may be a “general holiday,” as declared by the government. The quota students, on the other hand, have declared a “complete shutdown.” The Army chief, Waker-Uz-Zaman, announced on TV that the army had brought things under control and the country is heading back to “normal.” At the same time, however, there are soldiers in the streets enforcing an ongoing curfew with orders to shoot to kill. A curfew isn’t what one associates with a general holiday, though sadly, killing unarmed citizens could be considered normal in Gaza or Kashmir. In Bangladesh, with no Internet, no cash, no banking services, and with people using pay-as-you-go accounts for gas and electricity on the verge of having their connections closed down due to non-payment, one wonders whether this really will become the new normal. The “shutdown” moniker makes some sense. Most shops are closed, and while there are people on the streets, especially in the hours when the curfew is called off, the city is tense (the curfew was relaxed today from 10 am to 5 pm. Offices and banks are to be open from 11 am to 3 pm). The only people venturing out any distance away from home, whether or not they have a curfew pass, are those on essential duty: hospital staff, journalists, and fire-fighters. People can be seen in the back streets, where there appears to be no military or police presence, but there are also reports of people being hunted down and killed in alleyways, a source of intense fear. The policing is site-specific. The Maghreb azaan floats across Rabindra Sharani, the outdoor recreation centre in the well-to-do residential area of Dhanmondi. There are no security forces here. Young women and men walk by the lakeside after dusk. Puppies frolic by the amphitheatre as kids play football and parents walk toddlers on the stage. I am also told that life is “normal” in the upmarket tri-state areas of Gulshan, Baridhara, and Banani. Diplomats and decision-makers live there, and it wouldn’t bode well to have an overt military presence in such areas. These are the normal zones. Mohammadpur, less than a kilometre away from Rabindra Sarani, is a curfew zone. Topu, the Head of the Photography Department of Pathshala, the South Asian Media Institute which I founded, rings me at around 7:30 pm to tell me that a graduate student Ashraful Haque Rocky has been picked up by the police. Luckily, he has a press card as he used to work for a prominent newspaper. They’ve taken his camera away, but so far, he’s not been roughed up. We’re trying to get someone from the newspaper to call the police to make sure he is not physically harmed or disappeared. We anxiously await more information from the police station. After lobbying through multiple sources, a message comes in just before midnight that Rocky has been released. He has his camera. For the moment, we know nothing more. News trickles in through our network that anyone taking injured students to the hospital, even if they are helpful bystanders, is getting arrested by plainclothes police. Injured students are arrested as soon as they are well enough to be released. They don’t always get beaten up or put in jail; sometimes, they are just extorted. A friend’s brother was released upon paying a ransom of one lakh taka, just short of $1,000, worth a lot of money in Bangladesh. Newspapers also report Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus bucking the government narrative with a statement to the international community on Monday, “Bangladesh has been engulfed in a crisis that only seems to get worse each passing day. High school students have been amongst the victims.” 23rd July Local news channels reported last night that there had been “no untoward incident,” though a friend provided eyewitness reports of two students and two passersby being killed by the police in the Notun Bazar area of Dhaka. A young rag picker was shot dead in a different part of the city. She also talks of the smart tanks stationed outside her house in Gulshan. Foreign Minister Hasan Mahmud summoned the diplomatic community to brief them on the current situation with a presentation. It didn’t go quite as planned. Unusual for diplomats, the UN Resident Coordinator asked the FM about the alleged use of UN-marked armored personnel carriers and helicopters to suppress protesters. The outgoing US Ambassador Peter Haas, who had been instrumental in the US government’s sanctions against the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) for its human rights abuses, was the one to respond to the FM: “I am surprised you did not show the footage of police firing at unarmed protesters.” There are dissenting voices among civil society personnel despite the fear and repression. 33 eminent citizens have asked the government to apologize unconditionally to citizens for the deaths of protesters since 16th July. The Communist Party of Bangladesh has demanded fresh general elections, while Rashtra Sanskar Andolan (Movement for State Reform) has demanded the government’s resignation. 25 women’s rights activists and teachers termed the Supreme Court’s verdict on the quota system “a trap to confuse the ongoing just protests against the fascist government.” 24th July My partner, Rahnuma, and I are both aware that martyrs don’t do good reporting. Working with limited resources, along with our wider team of dedicated activists, we’ve been looking out for each other. I’ve been out on the streets, on most occasions Rahnuma being my bodyguard. Even in this warlike environment, some show solidarity and want updates. A few even ask for selfies while heavy-set Awami League types scowl from a distance. Curfew and trigger-happy security forces have made it difficult to visit friends in the hospital, find safe homes, and get supplies. Finding ways to beat the Internet ban and get messages such as this one out has been far from easy. We’ve managed so far. It is for you readers to take the next steps to freedom. The broadband connection was restored last night, but selectively. We now have email and WhatsApp access at home, but no YouTube or Facebook, nor social media. My niece, two roads down, has none. Meanwhile, the spin doctors are working overtime. The students, who were called “razaakars” (war of liberation collaborators) a week ago, then became “komolmoti shishu” (sweet innocent kids) a few days later, and are now “obujh chhatro” (naive students) whom the “dushkritikari o jongi” (miscreants and terrorists) have exploited. The PM met with the business community on Monday afternoon. They were concerned about the effect this “problem” has had on the nation’s economy. Part of the discussion was aired on TV. The PM absolved the quota protesters of any ill deeds and reminded us that they were not the reason the army had been brought in. Strange then that one of the protestors' demands is that all charges against them be dropped. There is silence about the ongoing arrests of students. The spin doctors are working overtime to fit the quota protests, which spilled over into a nationwide uprising, into the government’s hold-all explanation, “the BNP-Jamaat-Shibir are responsible.” They will not be spared. They are the ones trying to hold back the country and turn back the development process. The entire cabinet nods. Some of the party faithful come to the podium to hail the PM for her leadership and for thwarting the opposition’s evil plans so successfully. They assure her that the nation will continue in its glorious journey under her able leadership. They would like her to be Prime Minister “for life.” The images of Sheikh Hasina and her father, Bangabandhu (friend of Bengal) Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, plastered on every wall across the country, the billboards and banners that litter the countryside, the Bangabandhu corner, required by law to be present in every library and prominently placed at the airport and all-important buildings, collectively create a North Korea-like adulation of the great leader. As in North Korea, the Bangladeshi leader has total control. The Argentinian army’s loss in the Malvinas (Falklands) Islands, while a loss for the nation, resulted in an unexpected gain. It broke the aura of the army’s invincibility, which allowed the resistance to build and eventually overthrow the military regime. It was one of the few instances where military rulers have been brought to trial. This aura of invincibility is important for the leadership to maintain. That is why the photo of the soldier on the receiving end of a flying kick by a student way back in 2007 was quickly hushed up and has disappeared from official archives. It is probably also the reason why the recent attack on the home minister’s house, though instigated by the helicopter fire on protestors down below in the first place, never made it to print and electronic media. Even the acknowledgment of such temerity, even if provoked, is dangerous. The business community needs the Internet to be up and running immediately. The downtime is costing them, and they are getting agitated. The great leader informed them that she had explained everything to the naive students, and they had understood. The students were no longer the problem. What was to be tackled were the terrorists and the miscreants, which she would take care of. You don’t bite the hand that feeds you. The business community knew where the red lines were and was careful not to cross them. They bowed and retreated. The media in Bangladesh long stopped behaving as the fourth estate and has morphed into a PR network for their corporations and for the government. With extremely rare exceptions (the daily New Age being one), independent media has perished. Embedded journalism is the norm. The few free-thinking journalists who still survive in this space worry about the moles surrounding them. Media owners confide that their headlines are dictated by military intelligence. Their own culpability, they conveniently ignore. Even the headlines, some say, are dictated by security agencies. Even so, there are brave journalists who do what journalists must. Rigorous research. Detailed fact-checking. Connecting the dots. Good reporters find holes in the spin doctor’s statements, who are caught in their own web of lies. Different ministers making contradictory statements create traps for each other. Why the police opened fire and killed “komolmoti shishus” is not an easy question to answer. If the attackers were BNP and their allies, why they were chanting pro-Sheikh Hasina slogans is also unexplained. If there was nothing to hide, why, after the claim that the internet shutdown was due to a technological issue was debunked by the industry experts, was the Internet still down? The government accuses international agencies who are reporting on the situation, of providing fake news. Why, then, is Dhaka Medical College Hospital refusing to provide figures for the dead and injured? In recent years, tyrants across the globe have often deployed the “fake news” accusation to deny human rights violations that are abundantly clear to the public and the rest of the world. They’ve also used the full spectrum of repressive state machinery, including media, to deny culpability and hide their own guilt. They have also banded together to share resources and copy from each other’s playbook. Sheikh Hasina, a long-standing member of the tyranny club, has been playing the game for some time. But arrogance has its drawbacks. It would be wrong to underestimate the public, and the Doosra can only take one so far. Especially when the spin doctors seem to be getting wrong-footed by their own ball. ∎ SUB-HEAD ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: Clare Patrick (Our) Worlds and (Plant) Wisdoms Kareen Adam · Nazish Chunara A Dhivehi Artists Showcase Quota (2024), digital artwork, Nazmus Sadat. SHARE Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Opinion Dhaka Quota Movement Fascism Student Protests Bangladesh Awami League Sheikh Hasina Police Action Police Brutality Economic Crisis 1971 Liberation of Bangladesh BTV Zonayed Saki Internet Crackdowns Internet Blackouts BSF Abu Sayeed Begum Rokeya University Abrar Fahad BUET Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology Mass Protests Mass Killings Torture Enforced Disappearances Extrajudicial Killings Chhatra League Bangladesh Courts Judiciary Clientelism Bengali Nationalism Dissent Student Movements National Curfew State Repression Surveillance Regimes Repression in Universities Argentina's Military Dictatorship Dhaka Medical College Hospital Doosra Fake News Razaakars July Revolution Student-People's Uprising SHAHIDUL ALAM is a Bangladeshi photographer, writer and social activist. He co-founded the photo agencies Drik and Majority World . He founded Pathshala , a photography school in Dhaka, and Chobi Mela , Asia’s first photo festival. He is the author of Nature's Fury (2007) and My Journey as a Witness (2011). His work has been featured and exhibited in MOMA , Centre Pompidou , Tate Modern , Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art , the Royal Albert Hall , among others. He was one of TIME Magazine's person's of the year in 2018. 23 Jul 2024 Opinion Dhaka 23rd Jul 2024 NAZMUS SADAT is a freelance artist and a student at Dhaka University's Department of Drawing and Painting. A Grammar of Disappearance I Sayed · Rasel Ahmed 24th Oct Bulldozing Democracy Alishan Jafri 10th Jan The WhiteBoard Board Mahmud Rahman 20th Oct Update from Dhaka II Shahidul Alam 21st Jul Urgent Dispatch from Dhaka I Shahidul Alam 20th Jul On That Note:

JOURNALIST Fiza Pirani FIZA PIRANI is an independent journalist, writer and editor based in Atlanta, Georgia. She is currently a student in the University of Georgia’s Master of Fine Arts in Narrative Nonfiction program and the founder of the award-winning immigrant mental health newsletter Foreign Bodies . Her work has appeared in The Guardian, Teen Vogue, Colorlines, Electric Literature. Previously, she was managing editor of The AJC’s Pulse Magazine. JOURNALIST WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 LOAD MORE

As Pakistan's militarized disappearance of everyday Baloch civilians continues, the vitality of the community in the age of social media has come to be preserved through “dossiers of memory”—online archives housed in tweet threads and on Facebook groups. These archives are tools of resistance—declarative visual pleas to local and global audiences that affirm the presence of the disappeared Baloch and connect their struggles to worldwide movements against enforced disappearances. As Pakistan's militarized disappearance of everyday Baloch civilians continues, the vitality of the community in the age of social media has come to be preserved through “dossiers of memory”—online archives housed in tweet threads and on Facebook groups. These archives are tools of resistance—declarative visual pleas to local and global audiences that affirm the presence of the disappeared Baloch and connect their struggles to worldwide movements against enforced disappearances. Sameen Agha, My House is on Fire (2021). Marble & mixed media on canvas. Artist Balochistan Noor Bakhsh · Qasum Faraz · Sajid Hussain 5 Mar 2025 th · THE VERTICAL REPORTAGE · LOCATION Who is Next? “Now that I have cleaned the dust from my son’s photograph, where should I keep it to find some relief? Wherever I place it, I feel as though the photograph is looking at me and talking to me.” These are Nako (Uncle) Mayar’s words, shared in a Facebook post on 19 December 2023. Nako Mayar first caught public attention when his photographs and videos went viral during a sit-in protest in Turbat , held against the extrajudicial killing of Balach Mola Bakhsh by the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) in November 2023. He was later seen participating in the “ Long March against Baloch genocide ” to Islamabad, organized by the Baloch Yakjehti Committee. The public were deeply moved by the sight of this elderly man holding a picture, crying, cursing, lamenting, and pleading—showing the photograph to everyone who visited the sit-in or sat near him to express solidarity. “Look how handsome my son is”, he would say. These visuals of Nako Mayar were shared widely on Facebook and Twitter, making Baloch people aware of his plight. Nako Mayar, holding a framed photograph of his disappeared son, Fateh, during a protest. Image courtesy of the author. Nako Mayar hails from Zamuran, a sub-Tehsil of Buleda in district Kech, nearly 70 kilometers south of Turbat city. He spent most of his life as a shepherd, relying on subsistence farming. After the 2006 assassination of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti during a military operation in Kohlu Dera Bugti—which ignited the current and fifth wave of the Baloch nationalist movement—however, the political situation in the region deteriorated. As military operations intensified in the B-areas (rural areas policed by Levies and Frontier Corps) of Balochistan, Nako Mayar migrated to Tehsil Buleda, district Kech to escape the violence. Buleda, more populated and equipped with slightly better facilities than Zamuran, offered relative safety compared to the isolated, violence-stricken rural areas. Additionally, military operations often targeted remote villages, forcing residents to move toward more concentrated settlements, where they could be easily monitored and controlled. In Buleda, he continued to live a modest life, relying on his goats and sheep. His son, Fateh Mayar, was a diligent student who attended school in the mornings and taught English at a local language institute in the evenings. Fateh earned his pocket money from teaching. According to Nako Mayar, his son Fateh was forcefully disappeared from Turbat Bazaar on 14 June 2023, when he went for Eid shopping. This incident completely altered Nako Mayar’s life, transforming him from a free and independent shepherd into a political subject. In many of the videos shared on social media, Nako Mayar can be heard saying, “My son is innocent. He doesn’t even have a Computerized National Identity Card (CNIC). He’s still a child, less than 18 years old.” One of the most poignant lines he often repeats while looking at his son’s photograph is, “I am cursed for giving my beloved Fateh an education. If you come back, I will not let you study. If he had been a shepherd, maybe nobody would have cared about him. I am seventy years old, and he is my only son. My son used to go to school in the morning and to the language institute in the evening. He is not involved in any kind of anti-state activities. His records are clear—they can check the school and language institute attendance. If he were involved in any such activities, how could he have taken his relative to the Frontier Corps camp doctors when he was stung by a scorpion? This should not happen to anyone.” He continues, “If the tyrants do not give me justice, may God hold them accountable. Oh God, question these tyrants on my behalf.” The story of Nako Mayar and his son Fateh is not just about personal tragedy but is emblematic of a much larger human rights crisis faced by countless families in Balochistan. Fateh is just one of thousands of young Baloch, predominantly students, who have been forcibly disappeared by Pakistan’s military and paramilitary forces. In his search for justice, Nako Mayar is one of many family members who tirelessly protest outside press clubs, march along roads holding photographs of their missing loved ones and engage in social media campaigns led by political organizations such as the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP) and the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC). They demand answers and the safe return of their sons, husbands, and brothers. Central to their struggle are the photos they hold. These photos, once treasured as personal memories, have now become powerful symbols of protest, keeping the stories of the disappeared alive. More than just reminders of the past, these photos break the silence that surrounds enforced disappearances, turning personal grief into a powerful act of public resistance. In Nako Mayar’s case, the photos of his disappeared son, Fateh, have become much more than just images. They represent a father’s grief, his unbreakable resilience, and his refusal to let his son’s story be forgotten. These photos draw people in, making them feel the weight of Fateh’s disappearance and compelling them to engage with his story. The photographs are not just keepsakes. They are reminders of the love families still hold and the pain they endure. Every time Nako lifts Fateh’s image at a protest or posts it online, he is refusing to let his son’s story be silenced. He is fighting against the state’s efforts to erase Fateh’s memory. These photos demand answers, pushing families and communities to keep speaking up for those who no longer have a voice. They push the stories of their loved ones out of the darkness, out of prison cells, and into the public eye. The fight for visibility and justice has also found its way into the digital realm, where families and activists have created virtual archives, to ensure that the stories of the disappeared are neither forgotten nor ignored. Social media platforms have become crucial sites for preserving these memories and amplifying their resistance. The “Voice for Baloch Missing Persons” (VBMP) Facebook page is a digital archive created by families to record the stories of their missing loved ones. Since its formation in 2009, VBMP has documented thousands of cases of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings. Faced with a lack of attention from national and international media, families and activists have turned to social media to share their stories and gather support. Photograph from a sit-in camp near the Quetta Press Club. Image courtesy of the Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP) Facebook page. Beside the Quetta Press Club, VBMP maintains a permanent camp where portraits of the missing are displayed prominently. These photographs, larger than typical ID photos, are arranged in rows. The camp, lined with these images, serves as a powerful reminder of the families’ pain and their relentless demand for justice. Each day, VBMP’s page posts updates, counting the days since its encampment began and marking the time that families have spent waiting for answers. Digital platforms have also become vital tools for connecting the local struggle in Balochistan to a global audience. By using hashtags like #ReleaseAllBalochMissingPersons on digital sites, families are not only reaching out for local support but also appealing to international human rights organizations and diaspora communities. These posts, shared repeatedly, create an online archive of pain and resistance, reinforcing the community’s presence in digital spaces even as they are marginalized in physical ones. Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC) emerged in 2020 after the killing of four-year-old Bramsh Baloch’s mother, allegedly by one of the local death squads believed to be operating under Pakistani military intelligence. This devastating event sparked new waves of protests, with BYC leading numerous demonstrations, including the Long March against Baloch Genocide in 2023 and the Baloch Raji Muchi in 2024 . These events, led by Baloch women, brought attention to the suffering of the community, calling for basic rights and an end to state violence. Every year, on October 4, the family of Shabir Baloch —one of the many forcibly disappeared activists—launches a campaign, demanding answers. For his wife, Zarina Baloch, and his sister, Seema Baloch, the fight is not just for visibility but for recognition, acknowledgment, and the hope of bringing Shabir back home. This year on October 4, Zarina Baloch and Seema Baloch, launched a protest campaign demanding the whereabouts of Shabir Baloch. Zarina, Shabir’s wife, is often seen at protests, both in person and online, holding a placard that reads, “Am I married or a widow?” Zarina Baloch holds a sign with the words, “ Am I married, or a widow? " Image courtesy of X. Shabir Baloch was born in the Labach district of Awaran. He began his political journey as a student activist and was later elected as the Information Secretary of the Baloch Students Organization, Azad chapter (BSO-Azad). The BSO was banned by the Pakistani state as a terrorist organization due to its radical separatist stance on the issue of Baloch liberation. Shabir was arrested by the Frontier Corps while visiting Gwarkop, a village seventy kilometres far from Turbat city in the Kech district, with his wife, Zarina, during a raid on 4 October 2016. Along with Shabir, twenty-four other Baloch were detained in the raid, but all were eventually released—except for Shabir. Since then, his whereabouts remain unknown. “It was less than two years into our marriage when Shabir was abducted,” Zarina says. I still hear our laughter echoing in our bedroom when we were together.” For the past eight years, Zarina and Shabir’s sister, Seema, have been searching for justice. On 12 October 2016, Zarina went to the police station to file a report, but the authorities refused to register her case. In November 2016, she filed a petition in court, hoping to find her husband. Zarina and Seema brought Shabir’s case to the attention of international organizations like Amnesty International and the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, but they received no response from the Pakistani government. The Pakistan Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances also took up Shabir’s case but failed to recover him. Instead, according to the Human Rights Council of Balochistan (HRCB), the commission intimidated and harassed Shabir’s family during the hearings. On October 4, 2024, HRCB tweeted , “On one occasion, a justice on the commission told Seema not to attend any more hearings. When she insisted, he remarked that if she was not a woman, she would have been kicked out of the office.” This is the struggle faced by every mother, sister, and wife of men, forcibly disappeared in Balochistan. These women protest and march tirelessly, often breaking down mid-speech while demanding answers, overwhelmed by panic attacks and grief. They find themselves navigating complex and indifferent government institutions. When they go to police stations to file their cases, they are refused. When they knock on courts’ doors, they are given endless dates for hearings without resolution. They work to have their loved ones’ names added to the lists of human rights commissions, but nothing changes. Instead, they are met with harassment, intimidating calls from authorities, and false assurances. Each day, the size of their case files grows thicker. With each passing year their hope and determination remain unwavering despite the system’s continued failure to deliver justice. One such file belongs to Saira Baloch—a plastic folder filled with photographs of her brothers, Asif and Rasheed. They were both arrested by Pakistani security forces at Zangi Nawad, a picnic spot in District Noshki, on 31 August 2018. Saira explains that while the security forces initially acknowledged the arrest, they later denied it. It has been six years since, and the family has received no information about the alleged crime, whereabouts, or legal basis for their detention. A folder with images of Asif and Rasheed. Image courtesy of X. Salman Hussain, an anthropologist, describes these files as “dossiers of memory.” It is a personal archive containing photographs, National Identity Cards, First Investigation Reports (FIRs), police complaints, court hearing dates, and handwritten notes from relatives. Personal notes often detail the dates and locations of abductions or provide outlines of speeches that families deliver at protests. The caption of one of Saira’s posts on X captures the essence of these memory dossiers, “Our happy life has been imprisoned first in pictures and then in files. Our wishes, dreams, and desires to live are locked inside this file. Will he (the disappeared) ever be able to come out of these torture cells and files?” T hese personal archives are much more than collections of old photos and documents, they are records of dreams, struggles, and resistance. When families share these photographs alongside their personal notes, they turn the images into powerful reminders of those who are missing, keeping their stories alive. With no physical remains to mourn, they use photographs to fill the space between life and death—where the missing is neither fully gone nor truly present. Sharing these photographs on platforms like Facebook or X is not just about raising awareness—it’s a way of saying, “We’re still here, and we will not be silenced.” Each post is a reminder that the state has failed to provide answers, yet these families will not stop demanding justice. For many relatives, searching for their missing loved ones has taken over their entire lives. Most of their days are spent protesting on the streets or sharing their stories online, refusing to let the world forget. By sharing these images, families also reclaim control over who is seen and remembered. Kashmiri and Palestinian scholars have called this a form of “counter-visuality,” where images serve as a tool to resist erasure and assert presence in spaces where they are denied. When a loved one disappears, families do not just lose a person, they lose part of their identity. They exist in a painful state of limbo, caught between being present and absent, struggling to find answers. Roles like wife, widow, parent, or child no longer fit. Instead, they become new political subjects, voices of resistance, marching in protest or campaigning on social media. Relatives who were once viewed as powerless victims have turned into powerful voices speaking out against state violence. This phenomenon extends beyond Baloch women, who have become symbols of resistance against enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings. Similar movements can be seen around the world. In Argentina, the Organization of Mothers of the Disappeared (Mothers of Plaza de Mayo) was formed in 1977, marking the first public protest against military rule. To this day, every Thursday, the Madres march around the Pirámide de Mayo in the center of Buenos Aires. In Guatemala , tens of thousands of people were disappeared during the 1960-1996 civil war between the military and leftist guerrilla forces, leading to enduring grief and activism by the families left behind. Likewise, in Jammu and Kashmir, the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) continues to fight for justice and accountability for those who have vanished under state-sponsored repression. In each of these cases, women have used public grief and emotional expressions—such as weeping and mourning—as powerful political tools, transforming fear into collective resistance against state violence. These movements against enforced disappearances have given rise to influential political figures such as Estela de Carlotto, Rigoberta Menchú Tum, Parveena Ahangar and Mahrang Baloch. Every time a new story of disappearance is shared online, the community holds its breath, wondering, “Who is next?” This question echoes through every gathering and protest, a reminder that the pain of enforced disappearances is far from over. A young girl at a protest holds up a frame with the question “Who Is Next?” Image courtesy of X. Who’s Next by Qasum Faraz translated by Sajid Hussain (2013) Life is a poster pasted on the city’s walls. With the passage of time, It changes the names and photos emblazoned on its chest. Some days it’s Allah Nazar, Some days it’s Abdul Nabi. On every remorseless road of time and occasion, On every square, The wind distributes bits of my self- Like pamphlets. There is a strike tomorrow: All the shutters in the market will drop their gaze. Time and space will become one in the din of rallies. The day and the night, The month and the year, Will wear the same colour. Every letter on banners, placards, and foreheads, Will march along with a sea of its own. Who knows what will happen then? I, as a character of a global story, Stand at a distance and think: “For whom?” Someone, from behind, puts a hand on my shoulder, And whispers, “Life is a poster pasted on the city’s walls.”∎ SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. 1 NOOR BAKHSH belongs to Balochistan. He is a PhD student in Social Anthropology at York University. He has worked as a visiting and ad-hoc lecturer in various public and private universities in Balochistan. He is interested in the anthropology of violence and resistance; enforced disappearances, politics of photographs; digital activism, and hashtag ethnography; South Asia; Baloch and Balochistan; and Balochistan and Pakistan. QASUM FARAZ is a Balochi poet and the author of several poetry collections. He is an assistant professor of English literature and a critic. SAMEEN AGHA lives and works in Lahore. Working across sculpture, painting and installation, her practice explores the emotional landscape of the home and its social and physical attributes as they intersect with gender and self-identity, and confronting the complexities of loss, belonging, and remembrance. She is the recipient of the 2024 Sovereign Asian Art Prize. Agha received a BFA from the National College of Arts, Lahore, in 2016. Essay Balochistan Pakistan Civilian Activism Archive of Absence Resistance Resistance Movement Enforced Disappearances Disappearance Militarism Protest Extrajudicial Killings Counterterrorism Department Long March against Baloch Genocide Baloch Yakjehti Committee Zamuran Buleda Kech Shepard Subsistence Farming Assassination Kohlu Dera Bugti Baloch Nationalist Movement Rural Policing Violence Monitoring Turbat City Turbat Bazaar Childhood Computerized National Identity Card Education Levies and Frontier Corps Human Rights Human Rights Violations paramilitary Military Occupation Voice for Baloch Missing Persons Memory Grief Public Space Photography Justice Visibility Social Media Facebook X Quetta Press Club Baloch Raji Muchi 2024 State Sanctioned Violence Baloch Students Organization BSO-Azad Liberation Gwarkop Amnesty International United Nations Working Group Intimidation Security Dossiers of memory Anthropology Counter-visibility Erasure State Erasure Who is Next? Qasum Faraz Sajid Hussain Poetry Translation Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 On That Note:

The Delhi-based Kashmiri musician & Ramooz frontman on how growing up in occupied Kashmir shaped his soundscapes through violence, and how genre experimentation and fluidity serve to address grief and trauma. | · COMMUNITY Interview · Progressive Rock Kashmiri ProgRock and Experimentation as Privilege The Delhi-based Kashmiri musician & Ramooz frontman on how growing up in occupied Kashmir shaped his soundscapes through violence, and how genre experimentation and fluidity serve to address grief and trauma. Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. Living in Kashmir, in an atmosphere so accustomed to murder, rape, disappearances—it's directly affected the way I perceive and interact with sound. A loud thud might be an interesting sound for many. It's traumatizing for me. RECOMMENDED: Imtihan by Zeeshaan Nabi, Qassam Hussain ft. Denis Thomas ( Meerakii Sessions, Season 1, Episode 1, October 2022) SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Interview Progressive Rock Kashmir Music Music Criticism Kashmiri Folk Music Contemporary Music Ramooz Dream Theater John Cage Ahmer Javed Experimental Methods Experimental Music Experimental Electronica Literature & Liberation Literary Solidarity Depictions of Grief Sound Occupation Genre Fluidity Genre Tropes Genre Intentional Audio Community Building New Artists Delhi Indian Fascism Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. 21st Dec 2020 AUTHOR · AUTHOR Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. 1 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 On That Note:

Tarfia Faizullah's oeuvre is one of poetic attunement to how the temporalities of violence at various scales—be it the mass rape and torture of women in the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971 or the colonial plunder of cultural artifacts—are linked with crimes of intimacy at the most personal and private level. Eliding cliche, her work is connected by a searching fury at unjust banalities. INTERACTIVE FLUX · Tarfia Faizullah: Poetry Reading Tarfia Faizullah's oeuvre is one of poetic attunement to how the temporalities of violence at various scales—be it the mass rape and torture of women in the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971 or the colonial plunder of cultural artifacts—are linked with crimes of intimacy at the most personal and private level. Eliding cliche, her work is connected by a searching fury at unjust banalities. Tarfia Faizullah FLUX: An Evening in Dissent A selection of readings by Tarfia Faizullah served as a gentle, immersive break between panels. Faizullah read excerpts from her poetry collections Registers of Illuminated Villages and Seam and the experimental poem Alien of Extraordinary Ability , which we published earlier that year. “ Is this a museum or a border? where there / is a border, does there need to be patrol? ” Faizullah muses in Alien of Extraordinary Ability , a startling and experimental work shifting slowly from a visa alien classification by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) federal agency to the vicissitudes of borders, abuse, and plunder simultaneously intimate and global: speaking with one voice, then with many, often within a single verse or phrase. Jaishri Abichandani's Art Studio Tour Kshama Sawant & Nikil Saval: A panel on US left electoralism, COVID19, recent victories, & lasting problems. Natasha Noorani's Live Performance of "Choro" Bhavik Lathia & Jaya Sundaresh: A panel on the US Left & its relationship with media in the wake of Bernie Sanders' loss. Rajiv Mohabir: Poetry Reading SAAG, So Far: A Panel with the Editors DJ Kiran: A Celebratory Set FLUX: An Evening in Dissent A selection of readings by Tarfia Faizullah served as a gentle, immersive break between panels. Faizullah read excerpts from her poetry collections Registers of Illuminated Villages and Seam and the experimental poem Alien of Extraordinary Ability , which we published earlier that year. “ Is this a museum or a border? where there / is a border, does there need to be patrol? ” Faizullah muses in Alien of Extraordinary Ability , a startling and experimental work shifting slowly from a visa alien classification by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) federal agency to the vicissitudes of borders, abuse, and plunder simultaneously intimate and global: speaking with one voice, then with many, often within a single verse or phrase. Jaishri Abichandani's Art Studio Tour Kshama Sawant & Nikil Saval: A panel on US left electoralism, COVID19, recent victories, & lasting problems. Natasha Noorani's Live Performance of "Choro" Bhavik Lathia & Jaya Sundaresh: A panel on the US Left & its relationship with media in the wake of Bernie Sanders' loss. Rajiv Mohabir: Poetry Reading SAAG, So Far: A Panel with the Editors DJ Kiran: A Celebratory Set SUB-HEAD ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: Clare Patrick (Our) Worlds and (Plant) Wisdoms Kareen Adam · Nazish Chunara A Dhivehi Artists Showcase Watch the event in full on IGTV. SHARE Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Event Dallas Live FLUX Published Work Poetry Alien of Extraordinary Ability Seam Reading Bangladeshi Diapora Bangladesh Immigration Work Authorization Borders Visa TARFIA FAIZULLAH is the author of two poetry collections, Registers of Illuminated Villages (Graywolf, 2018) and Seam (SIU, 2014). Tarfia’s writing appears widely in the U.S. and abroad in the Daily Star, Hindu Business Line, BuzzFeed, PBS News Hour, Huffington Post, Poetry Magazine, Ms. Magazine, the Academy of American Poets, Oxford American, the New Republic, the Nation, Halal If You Hear Me (Haymarket, 2019), and has been displayed at the Smithsonian, the Rubin Museum of Art, and elsewhere. Tarfia is currently based in Dallas. 5 Dec 2020 Event Dallas 5th Dec 2020 Chats Ep. 9 · On the Essay Collection “Southbound” Anjali Enjeti 19th May FLUX · Poetry Reading by Rajiv Mohabir with Marginalia Rajiv Mohabir 5th Dec FLUX · Natasha Noorani Unplugged: "Choro" Natasha Noorani 5th Dec FLUX · A Celebratory Set by DJ Kiran Darakshan Raja 5th Dec Alien of Extraordinary Ability Tarfia Faizullah 13th Oct On That Note:

WRITER Mashiul Alam MASHIUL ALAM is a writer and translator who was born in northern Bangladesh in 1968. He graduated from the Peoples’ Friendship University in Moscow in 1993. A journalist by profession, he works at Prothom Alo , the leading Bengali daily in Bangladesh. He is the author of over a dozen books including The Second Night with Tanushree (novel), Ghora Masud (novel), Mangsher Karbar (The Meat Market ) (short stories), and Pakistan (short stories). His translations include Dostoevsky’s White Nights (translated from the Russian to Bengali); Bertrand Russell’s Plato’s Utopia and Other Essays , and Before Socrates . Alam was recently awarded the debut Sylhet Mirror Prize for Literature. His short story Doodh, translated as Milk by Shabnam Nadiya, was awarded the 2019 Himal Southasian Short Story Prize. He is currently working on Laal Akash (Red Sky) , a novel set in the Soviet Union during Perestroika, and is based in Dhaka. WRITER WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 LOAD MORE

ARTIST Chaaya Prabhat CHAAYA PRABHAT is an illustrator from India currently working out of Goa. She’s previously worked with several clients such as Penguin, Hachette, Meta and Google on digital illustration projects, stickers and book projects. She enjoys the using pattern and colour in her illustrations, and has previously won awards for her work from Behance and Cosmopolitan magazine. ARTIST WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 LOAD MORE