[Reader-list] Fwd: India deports noted American radio broadcaster David Barsamian

[Nagraj Adve]

This is simply infuriating.
Naga

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Vivek sundara <viveksundara at gmail.com>
Date: 24 September 2011 14:42
Subject: India deports noted American radio broadcaster David Barsamian
To:





Date: 24 September 2011
Subject: India deports noted American radio broadcaster David Barsamian



Tehelka - India's Independent Weekly News
Magazine<http://www.tehelka.com/story_main50.asp?filename=Ws230911Kashmir.asp>
*ted on 23 September 2011*
    CURRENT AFFAIRS
KASHMIR

India deports noted American radio broadcaster David Barsamian

He has visited Valley in February this year—this time in the wake of the
three year cycle of the protests. He praised Kashmiris for transitioning to
a peaceful struggle

*Riyaz Wani *
Srinagar

David Barsamian

Photo: Tehelka Photos
 ------------------------------



    **
<http://www.tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=Ws060908contagious_india.asp>
  ------------------------------

Radio broadcaster and founder-director of *Alternate Radio*, David Barsamian
was deported from New Delhi airport on Friday, allegedly for his views on
Kashmir. He was put back on a flight to Frankfurt.

“Sad and furious and so tired. At Frankfurt airport. Will call you from
Boulder. So disappointed but I am safe have my life, not tortured,”
Barsamian wrote in an email to his friend in New Delhi noted documentary
film maker Sanjay Kak.

Barsamian is the second US citizen to be deported from New Delhi airport in
the past ten months. In November 2010 US academic Professor Richard Shapiro
was denied entry by the immigration authorities in New Delhi. Shapiro is the
chairman and associate professor of the Department of Anthropology at the
California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco. He is the
husband of Angana Chatterji, co-convener of the International People's
Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Kashmir. In May this year, J-K
government deported human rights activist Gautum Navlakha from Srinagar
airport.

Barsamian has made three visits to Kashmir over the past 15 years to Kashmir
to participate in the seminars and do interviews for his radio station. He
visited Valley first in 1996 when militancy was at its peak. There is no
record of his activities in the Valley then. He returned eleven years later
in 2007 to deliver a lecture on “State, Media and Resistance” organized by
Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society.

In the 2007 visit Barsamian had made some really controversial remarks in
his speech, calling on the people in Valley to persevere in their resistance
against New Delhi. “Persistence is the key in all forms of resistances,”
Barsamian had said in his speech. “You can’t ask me what to do. It would be
colonial thinking. It’s your soil and you are the ultimate decision makers
on how to resist.”

Incidentally, the following year, Kashmir erupted in the first of its three
successive public groundswells against New Delhi. The three month unrest
over Amarnath land row brought entire Kashmir on the roads. In 2009 and 2010
Kashmir again became the scene of all-encompassing separatist summer
revolts.

Barsamian visited Valley again in February this year—this time in the wake
of the three year cycle of the protests. He praised Kashmiris for
transitioning to a peaceful struggle, saying it had changed global
perception about the struggle in the state. “I observe that people
especially the youth of Kashmir are more confident and politically conscious
as compared to my previous visits. They are now using the non-violent means
to press for their political demands. It’s the most effective form to fight
for your rights,” he said in an interview to a local daily.

However, Barsamian's tryst with India goes back long. He first arrived in
India in 1966. His association with Sitar maestro Debu Maharaj who teaches
him sitar, deepened his bond with the country. ''He makes it a point to
visit India once every year,” Kak told TEHELKA. He said that Barsamian was a
man of serious credentials and had done some really great work that spanned
decades. “It will be seen as ridiculous in US to deport him like this”.

*Riyaz Wani is a Special Correspondent with Tehelka. *
riyaz at tehelka.com


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