By David L. Chaplin II
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

KASHMIR, India – The killings of civilian protesters, most of them teenagers, have angered many in the valley.  One newspaper headline described 2010 as the “year of teenage killings” in Kashmir. 

Even the pro-India People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has accused the government of declaring war on its own people, our correspondent reports.

Hundreds of thousands of troops are based in Kashmir to fight a two-decade insurgency against Indian rule.

The three deaths on Tuesday mean that there have been 10 civilian deaths at the hands of the security forces this month in Indian-administered Kashmir.

The protests have been some of the biggest in two years.  The latest violence began with the death of a schoolboy on June 11.

“When incidents like this happen, when innocents get killed, people get provoked,” Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, the leader of the Separatist Hurriyet Conference, told Al Jazeera.

Local people and the state government have blamed most of those deaths on the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF).

They say that in many cases the CRPF – who have been described by the state government as “trigger happy” – fired on unarmed protesters.

On Tuesday the army said it killed five militants who were trying to cross the Line of Control which divides Indian- and Pakistani-administered Kashmir.  The army said that three soldiers also died in the gunbattle on Monday night and Sunday afternoon in the Nowgam area.

Shops, schools and colleges in the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley are shut on the fourth day of the curfew, the BBC’s Altaf Hussain in Srinagar reports.  The strike has been called in protest at the recent killing of unarmed civilians by police and paramilitary troops.  Five towns – Sopore, Anantnag, Mattan, Kulgam and Koimoh – and some areas of Srinagar have been placed under curfew.

Nearly 20 civilians died in clashes with security forces in Indian-administered Kashmir in June.  Many of the deaths have been blamed on the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF).

On Wednesday Chief Minister Omar Abdullah defended the security forces, saying they could not be expected constantly to show restraint when they were so often pelted with stones.

Anti-India sentiment runs deep in Muslim-majority Kashmir, over which India and Pakistan both claim sovereignty and have fought two wars.

The authorities have re-imposed a curfew in the northern town of Sopore, where protesters clashed with the police until late on Monday night.

For more information, please see:

BBC – Civilians killed in renewed Kashmir violence – 29 June 2010

Al Jazeera English – Deadly clashes continue in Kashmir – 29 June 2010

CNN World – 4 dead, 5 wounded in Kashmir fighting – 25 June 2010

By David L. Chaplin II
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

KASHMIR, India – “We want freedom” was the resonating chant as protests in Kashmir turned deadly when troops open fired on hundreds of demonstrators on Sunday, killing one person and wounding at least five.

Hundreds of people took to the streets, throwing rocks at security forces and surrounding an armored vehicle belonging to paramilitary soldiers, in a protest against the death of Mohammed Rafiq Bangroo, a 25-year-old who died Saturday after being beaten by troops in an earlier demonstration last week.  After the demonstrators tried to light a bunker on fire, the officers fired as an act of self defense, authorities say.

“We exercised maximum restraint.  Our soldiers opened fire only in self-defense after the protesters tried to torch the bunker,” Prabhakar Tripathi, spokesman for the Central Reserve Police Force, told the AP.  Tensions in the Muslim-majority region have been running high since local police accused the military of killing three civilians in April, and officials now say they are clamping down by enforcing a tight curfew and other restrictions.

Despite a decline in violence in Kashmir in recent years, there are fears that militants are trying to regroup in the region.  Hundreds of thousands of Indian troops are based in Kashmir to fight a two decade-old insurgency against Indian rule.

A senior Indian army officer has been killed in a gun battle with separatist militants in Indian-administered Kashmir.  Colonel Neeraj Sood was “leading his troops” when he was gunned down by militants in Lolab area, the army said.  He was the highest ranking officer to be killed by militants in Kashmir in 2010.

It is not clear whether the militants have suffered any casualties in the clashes.

Many know this re-birth of violence comes at the worst time, Al Jazeera’s Prerna Suri reports from Srinagar, said: “The violence couldn’t have come at a worse time for the people of Kashmir.  It’s peak tourist season and families live entirely on tourism.  They say if violence spreads, the only ones to suffer will be them.”

The demonstration swelled after the shots were fired, when hundreds more people poured into the streets, chanting “Indian forces leave Kashmir”.

Anti-India sentiment runs deep in Muslim-majority Kashmir.  Opposition groups have been fighting since 1989 for the Himalayan region’s independence from India or its merger with neighboring Pakistan.

For more information, please see:

Al Jazeera English – Police on Kashmir protestors – 20 June 2010

BBC news – Indian army officer killed in Kashmir clash – 23 June 2010

The Huffington Post – Kashmir Police Open Fire On Protesters – 21 June 2010

By Kwangmin Ahn
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

GUANGDONG, CHINA – China’s Premier Wen Jiabao has called for better living conditions for migrant workers from rural areas. He said China owed them its wealth and tall buildings, and officials should treat them as their own children. The comments follow a wave of strikes and labour-related suicides.

The speech was a familiar one for the premier, known as “Grandpa Wen” for his ability to display empathy on behalf of the country’s struggling masses. But it was also the first public intervention by the leadership since strikes and other incidents at some of the country’s most modern factories focused global attention on an agitated younger generation of workers.

At the same time, the ruling communist party maintained a reporting ban on the third in a series of strikes in southern Guangdong province that have affected the China operations of Honda, the Japanese carmaker. The latest strike at a Honda lock factory in Zhongshan began on June 9 and has reached an uneasy stalemate.

After refusing to enter plant grounds for four days, workers returned to their posts on Monday pending another management response, expected on Friday, to demands for a 70 percent wage increase to $230 a month.

Up to 200 million Chinese workers have migrated from the countryside to the cities in recent years and the labour disputes at factories in the Chinese industrial belt have raised fears that migrant workers are becoming restless about tough working conditions and curbs on pay.

Strikes are illegal in China but the government seems to be tolerating the recent walkouts at Honda suppliers and other firms, as long as the disputes are settled quickly and quietly

For more information, please see:

Al Jazeera – China’s changing work landscape – 09 June 2010

CNN –China attempts to soothe worker unrest– 16 June 2010

BBC – China PM praises migrants but makes no promises on pay– 15 June 2010

NYTIMES – New strike threat at a Chinese Honda parts plant– 14 June 2010