TUESDAY, AUGUST 13, 2019 The Boston Globe TheWorld A
By Niha Masih
and Joanna Slater
WASHINGTON POST
SRINAGAR, India — Ever
since India announced a move
to strip Kashmir of its autono-
my one week ago, residents of
this disputed region have been
unable to make phone calls,
access the Internet, or move
freely.
They also have heard noth-
ing from local political leaders
because many of them have
been detained and held in-
communicado, part of an un-
precedented clampdown that
has helped muffle the public
response to India’s decision.
On Monday, the major
Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha
was a tense and muted affair
instead of a joyous occasion as
security forces flooded the
streets of Srinagar, the Kash-
miri capital. The festival
passed without violent pro-
tests, as some had feared.
The region has remained
on edge ever since Prime Min-
ister Narendra Modi revoked
autonomy for Indian-con-
trolled Kashmir, fulfilling a
major campaign pledge of his
Hindu nationalist Bharatiya
Janata Party but raising the
likelihood of unrest in India’s
only Muslim-majority region.
To maintain control in the
wake of the decision, India has
sent thousands of additional
troops to Kashmir and de-
tained hundreds of local politi-
cians and party workers. They
include two of the highest-pro-
file leaders in the state: Meh-
booba Mufti, who until last
year was the chief minister of
Jammu & Kashmir, and Omar
Abdullah, one of her predeces-
sors in that post.
‘‘I’ve no idea what is in
store for our state, but it
doesn’t look good,’’ wrote Ab-
dullah to his 3 million Twitter
followers in the wee hours of
Aug. 5. He has not been heard
from since.
Kashmir is home to a long-
running insurgency against
Indian rule waged by militant
groups seeking independence
or a merger with Pakistan. But
the politicians who have been
detained since Aug. 5 are not
militants or separatists but
mainstream leaders who advo-
cate for Kashmir’s future in-
side India with a degree of au-
tonomy.
Adnan Ashraf Mir, a
spokesman for the Jammu &
Kashmir People’s Conference,
said that its leader, Sajjad
Lone, was placed under house
arrest on Aug. 4. The following
day Lone was transferred to
the makeshift detention center
on Dal Lake and has been held
incommunicado ever since.
The party’s entire top lead-
ership is either detained or un-
der house arrest, said Mir, and
he estimated that more than
200 party workers across the
state had also been taken into
custody. ‘‘It’s just appalling
how they have treated these
people,’’ said Mir, who left Sri-
nagar several days ago. The
government is ‘‘trying to si-
lence every voice they think
would be able to mobilizeopinion on the ground.’’
Mrinal Sharma, a policy ad-
viser with Amnesty Interna-
tional India, said that the au-
thorities could be using two
statutes to carry out the deten-
tions. The first is Kashmir’s
Public Safety Act, which activ-
ists say facilitates arbitrary de-
tentions. The second is a pro-
vision in the Indian criminal
procedure code that allows po-
lice to take people into custody
to prevent breaches of the
peace.
The latter is often used to
prevent possible riots, said
Sharma. But ‘‘detaining politi-
cal leaders while a decision is
being made on the fate of their
constituencies is just unprece-
dented.’’A spokeswoman for India’s
Home Ministry did not reply
to requests for comment on
the detentions or the where-
abouts of Mufti and Abdullah.
A senior government official,
speaking on the condition of
anonymity to discuss matters
with reporters, twice declined
to answer queries about the
detained politicians.By Megan Specia
NEW YORK TIMES
More than 500 migrants and
refugees afloat in the central
Mediterranean were in limbo
Monday, as the two aid ships
that had rescued them
searched for a safe port that
would take them.
The impasse came days after
Italy had announced fines of up
to 1 million euros — more than
$1.1 million — for ships carry-
ing unauthorized migrants that
attempted to dock in Italian
ports without permission. It
has ordered the seizure of such
ships, and arrested the captain
of one.
The ships, operated by char-
ities, provide the only search
and rescue operations in the in-
ternational waters where often-
unseaworthy boats packed with
people attempt to cross from
Libya to the nearest European
country, Italy.
Matteo Salvini, Italy’s interi-
or minister and a deputy prime
minister, has used harsh anti-
immigrant rhetoric to build up
his own popularity and that of
his League party. He has been
the main architect of policies
thatseektocloseoffthecoun-
try to further migration from
the Middle East and Africa.
Since Friday, 251 people had
been rescued from three boats
in distress by the vessel Ocean
Viking, operated by the inter-
national aid group Doctors
Without Borders, known by its
French acronym, MSF, and SOS
Méditeranée, a European mari-
time rescue charity. Then, on
Monday afternoon, 105 more
people were pulled from the
water as the flimsy dinghy they
were traveling on burst, accord-
ing to MSF, bringing the total
number of people onboard to
356.
While the crew has yet to
formally request permission to
dock in Italy, the Ministry of the
Interior, headed by Salvini, con-
tacted the ship Friday to warn
that it would not be allowed to
dock in Italy.
“MSF believes that such a
notice is seeking to add political
drama to human tragedy,” the
group said in an e-mailed state-ment. “The Ocean Viking will
continue to operate in accor-
dance with international laws.”
Standoffs between charities
operating rescue ships and the
Italian government have be-
come common since last year,
when the new government
formed by the League party
and the Five-Star Movement
banned vessels carrying mi-
grants from its ports. Within
days of taking office, the gov-
ernment refused entry to a ship
carrying more than 600 people
rescued at sea, which ultimate-
ly docked in Spain.
The United Nations has crit-
icized the Italian policy of turn-
ing away ships, with a spokes-
man for the body’s refugee
agency, saying the ships played
an “invaluable role in saving
the lives of refugees and mi-grants attempting the danger-
ous sea crossing to Europe.”
The operators of the Ocean
Viking said Monday morning it
would remain in international
waters near the Libyan coast, as
they believed there might be
more ships in distress and they
still had space for about 80
more people.
The crew now plans to head
north and attempt to dock, ac-
cording to a spokeswoman for
MSF. The Libyan Coast Guard
had earlier offered to allow the
boat to disembark there over
the weekend, but the rescue
vessel would not return people
to Libya, wracked by civil war,
because of safety concerns.
“Many of the people we have
rescued recount horrific stories
of violence, torture, extortion,
sexual violence, and forced la-
bor in Libya, as well as arbi-
trary detention in inhumane
conditions,” MSF said in a state-
ment. “We know that migrants,
refugees, and asylum-seekers
experience alarming levels of
violence and exploitation in thecountry.”
Elsewhere in the Mediterra-
nean, another ship, the Open
Arms, run by a Spanish charity
group, had 151 rescued mi-
grants and refugees by Monday
and had been denied entry into
Italian and Maltese ports.
There were originally more
people on board, but a man
with tuberculosis and two
women with medical concerns
and their families were evacu-
ated, according to Laura Lanu-
za, a spokeswoman for Open
Arms. A video shared by the or-
ganization Monday morning
showed dozens of people sleep-
ing in rows on the ship’s deck at
dawn. They had been there for
11 days.
“The 151 people who will re-
main on board need a secure
port NOW,” the organization
said in a tweet. “Europe has
abandoned them.”
Italy, a country on the front
line of the arrivals, has often
engaged in highly politicized
public disputes with these aid
ships, as has neighboring Mal-ta. But while Italy has called for
a comprehensive European
Union-wide plan for sharing
the burden of responsibility for
the migrants and refugees res-
cued while traveling to the con-
tinent, the country has refused
to take part in discussions to
chart a way forward.
President Emmanuel Ma-
cron of France said last month
that eight nations had agreed,
in principle, to a plan to resettle
refugees and migrants rescued
in the Mediterranean.
There were once dozens of
rescue ships operating in the
Mediterranean, launched after
a series of deadly shipwrecks.
And while the numbers of
migrants taking the journey
across the sea has decreased
significantly since mid-2017,
the central Mediterranean
route has remained deadly,
with at least 578 people drown-
ing there so far this year, ac-
cording to the UN’s migration
agency. Thousands have died
since the migrant crisis began
in 2015.Hundreds of migrants stranded in aid ship standoff
Italy,Maltadeny
rescueboatssafe
porttodockin
ANNE CHAON/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
An aid ship transported migrants rescued from their
dinghy during an operation in the Mediterranean Sea.AsKashmircrackdowndeepens,
Indiadetainslocalpoliticians
‘I’venoideawhat
isinstoreforour
state,butitdoesn’t
lookgood.’
OMAR ABDULLAH,
a Kashmir leader who has not
been heard from since he
tweeted early on Aug. 5BOSTON GLOBE MEDIA
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