autonomy

South Asia

Unrest erupts in Azad Kashmir

The politically volatile region of Pakistan-administered Azad Jammu Kashmir has once again plunged into a crisis of civil unrest. Local protests over government plans to drop subsidies for wheat and electricity rapidly transformed into a broader movement demanding comprehensive reform and regional economic relief. The demonstrations have pressured the government into negotiations and legal concessions, after initial harsh repression only further fueled public dissent. (Photo of Muzaffarabad via Wikimedia Commons)

Planet Watch

Bolivia, Syria & the challenge of plurinationalism

The recent political reversal in Bolivia raises the question of whether the advances of nearly 20 years of rule by the indigenist left will survive—including a constitution that refounded the state as a “plurinational” republic. In Episode 299 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg explores how the lessons of the Bolivian experience can be applied to Syria, where the new revolutionary government faces a challenge in Kurdish and Druze demands for regional autonomy. (Photo: Aymara march in Oruro, Bolivia. Via Wikipedia)

East Asia

China: new law threatens minority protections

Human Rights Watch warned that pending legislation in China may lead to escalated repression of ethnic minorities. The proposed Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity & Progress imposes Mandarin language dominance in public life and education across all regions of the People’s Republic. It would effectively overturn the current Law on Regional National Autonomy, which guarantees minorities the right to “use and develop their own spoken and written languages and their freedom to preserve or reform their own folkways and customs.” Ominously, the law introduces mandatory educational requirements for families and home life as well as schools. While Article 12 instructs authorities to “organize education” to ensure “correct views of the state, history, the nation, culture and religion,” Article 20 imposes legal obligations for parents to educate minors to “love the Chinese Communist Party.” (Photo of Uyghur family in Kashgar: Todenhoff/Flickr)

South Asia

India: deadly repression at Ladakh autonomy protest

Amnesty International urged Indian authorities to promptly investigate the use of live fire during protests in Leh, Union Territory of Ladakh, after at least four people were killed and more than 50 injured. Clashes erupted as demonstrators pressed long-standing demands for statehood and constitutional protections for land and jobs. Police said they responded after the crowd turned violent, with vehicles and a ruling Bharatiya Janata Party office set ablaze, and claimed officers fired in self-defense. Authorities imposed a curfew in Leh and restricted mobile internet services. (Map via Wikipedia)

Inner Asia

Chinese advocate for Tibetan rights arrested for ‘splittism’

Human Rights Watch urged Chinese authorities to release activist Zhang Yadi (张雅笛), also known as Tara, after she was arrested for creating a digital platform advocating for Tibetan rights in the Chinese language. Zhang, 22, is a member of the activist group Chinese Youth for Tibet, which aims “to foster a deeper understanding of Tibetan culture within Chinese-speaking communities, challenge and deconstruct Han chauvinism, and address ethnic conflicts and prejudice.” She maintained the group’s website from France, where she was studying, but was arrested in Shangri-La, Yunnan province, after returning to China to visit family. Charged with promoting “splittism,” she may face life imprisonment. (Photo: Tibetan Review)

Syria

Syria: clashes follow al-Sharaa ultimatum to SDF

Fighting broke out in the village of Um Tineh, in Syria’s Aleppo province, between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and forces aligned with the Damascus regime, leaving at least seven civilians dead. The SDF said the clashes began with a drone attack on the village, followed by artillery bombardment, damaging local homes. The violence came three days after President Ahmed al-Sharaa warned that the SDF’s failure to integrate into the Syrian Armed Forces could provoke Turkish military intervention by year’s end. Planned talks in Paris on how to incorporate the Kurdish autonomous zone into the new government were broken off by the transitional regime last month. Turkey has repeatedly bombed SDF-held territory in Syria over the past months, as the threat of Arab-Kuridsh ethnic war looms larger on the ground. (Photo: SOHR)

Southeast Asia

Vietnam: Khmer Krom people face escalating repression

UN human rights experts condemned what they described as escalating repression against the Khmer Krom people in Vietnam, urging authorities to cease targeting minority communities through security laws, and to release those detained for peaceful activity. The experts reported that Khmer Krom rights defenders, including Theravada Buddhist monks, face systematic harassment and criminalization for peaceful efforts to promote indigenous identity, cultural expression and religious freedom. The experts further condemned government claims that indigenous and minority cultural identity threaten national security and public order. (Image: Unrepresented Nations & Peoples Organization-UNPO)

Syria

Syria: continuing attacks on Druze population

UN human rights experts expressed deep concern Aug. 21 over continuing violence against the Druze population in the Suwayda region of Syria. Since the outbreak of fighting in mid-July, the UN experts said they have received reports of “killings, enforced disappearances, abductions, looting, destruction… Read moreSyria: continuing attacks on Druze population

Syria

Druze protesters mobilize for independence from Syria

Hundreds demonstrated in the southern Syrian city of Suwayda, pressing for the “self-determination” of the Druze people. Protesters demanded full independence from Syria, dismissing ideas of federalism or autonomy as inadequate. Speakers asserted that statehood is needed to guarantee their security, citing last month’s episode of violence in Suwayda as evidence that inter-ethnic coexistence under one state is no longer a viable solution. Complicating the situation is that Israel is posing itself as the protector of the Syrian Druze. Amid the July fighting, Israel launched air-strikes on Syria, saying that the Druze were threatened by government-affiliated forces. (Photo: Druze Free Spirits via Twitter)

East Asia

Macau activist arrested under national security law

Human Rights Watch called for the immediate and unconditional release of a former Macau lawmaker and pro-democracy activist following his arrest on “national security” charges. The arrest marked the first time Macau, a Special Administrative Region of China, has invoked its sweeping Law on Safeguarding National Security. Au Kam San was arrested after authorities accused him of violating Article 13 of the national security law, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment and criminalizes “links with organizations or groups” outside Macau to “conduct activities endangering national security.” This presumably refers to Au’s work with the Macao Union of Democratic Development, which for years organized annual commemorations of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Members have repeatedly met with threats and harassment from the authorities. (Image: Macau police block annual Tiananmen vigil, June 2020. Credit: Choi Chi-chio/United Social Press via HKFP)

New York City

Zohran Mamdani and municipal resistance II

As a dictatorship consolidates in Turkey, aspiring strongman Recep Tayip Erdogan is launching a special attack on municipalities, arresting the mayor of Istanbul and removing elected governments in hundreds of cities and towns across the country—mostly in the restive Kurdish east. In the United States, aspiring strongman Donald Trump is now threatening to similarly remove Zohran Mamdani if he becomes mayor of New York, and order a federal take-over of the city government. Border czar Tom Homan says he will “flood the zone” with ICE agents in “sanctuary cities” such as New York and Los Angeles. In Episode 287 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg argues that Trump forcing the issue could accelerate the breaking point in which localities coast-to-coast assert their autonomous powers in repudiation of the fascist-coopted federal leviathan—vindicating Murray Bookchin’s theories of radical municipalism. (Photo: Wyatt Souers/Peoples Dispatch)

Iraq

Iraq: mysterious drone strikes on Kurdistan oil-fields

Three days of drone attacks on oil-fields in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region have brought operations at several facilities to a halt and slashed crude output. The targeted sites include fields at Zakho, operated by Norway’s DNO; the Sarsang field, operated by US-based HKN Energy; and the Ain Sifni field, operated by Hunt Oil, all in Dohuk governorate. Kurdistan authorities also said a drone was downed near Erbil airport, which hosts US troops. Nobody has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but Kurdish authorities blamed the Hashd al-Shaabi, or Popular Mobilization Units, a paramilitary network aligned with the Baghdad government and backed by Iran. The attacks come amid renewed dispute between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government over whether the KRG may enter into hydrocarbon contracts with foreign firms. In May, the central government filed a complaint against the KRG for signing gas contracts with two US companies, including HKN Energy, asserting that all oil and gas deals must go through Baghdad. (Map: UNHCR via ReliefWeb)