Update on Riots in France

Update on Riots in France

The Leonard Lopate Show, WNYC

After two nights of deadly rioting in Paris’s suburbs earlier this week, the situation seems to have calmed down for now. Michael Deibert, Paris correspondent for the Inter Press Service, tells us more about what caused the riots, and whether we can expect more.

Listen to the full interview here.

The Struggle for Kashmir (Continued)

My article The Struggle for Kashmir (Continued), based on my visit to the conflict zone in February of this year, has just been published in the Spring 2007 edition of the World Policy Journal.

Featuring interviews with such pivotal figures in Kashmir’s recent political history as People's Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti, Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKFL) chairman Yasin Malik, Indian historian and author Ramachandra Guha and Parmina Ahanger, head of the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons, the article takes a long and uncompromising look at the situation on the ground in Kashmir today and the role that India and Pakistan have played in fostering it.

It also looks in depth at the effects on human rights and individual liberties in the region as a result of Section 45 of India’s criminal procedure code - which protects any member of the armed forces from arrest for “anything done or purported to be done by him in the discharge of his official duties except after obtaining the consent of the Central government” - and Section 197(2) of the same code, which makes it mandatory for prosecutors to obtain permission from the federal government to initiate criminal proceedings against any public servant, including armed forces personnel.

The article is also, I hope, a tribute to the resilience, hospitality and beauty of the thousands of ordinary Kashmiris, as beautiful even as their spectacular homeland, who, as one Kashmiri I met told me, “are very moderate people not the Taliban projected by media.”

Quite so.

For those interested, here also is a link to an interview I did regarding the situation in Kashmir with talk-show host Leonard Lopate on WNYC in New York this past May.

Underreported: An Update on Kashmir

I appeared on WNYC New York Public Radio today discussing the situation in Kashmir and my recent trip there, rather amusingly sandwiched in between Mathieu Eugene, celebrating his election as the first Haitian-American member of the New York City Council, and the still-very-fetching supermodel Paulina Porizkova, discussing her new book. You can listen to Leonard Lopate’s full interview of me here.

Deibert on WNYC

I will be interviewed on the Underreported segment of WNYC's Leonard Lopate Show regarding my recent trip to Kashmir at some point between 12 noon and 1pm tomorrow. Tune in if you have a chance!