WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD

AFAD’s Solidarity Message in the Event of the First Year Anniversary

of the Martyrdom of Aasia Jeelani and Ghulam Nabi

 

Since last year, April 20 was no longer a mere date in the calendar to be either ignored and spent with family and kith or considered as an ordinary working day that brings drudgery labor and toil. Rather, it is now a date that possesses profound meaning and significance, marking the loss of Asia’s two recent martyrs for human rights, encapsulating the various emotions of a grieving yet highly grateful people.

 

For exactly a year ago, a land mine exploded in the village of Chandigam right in the heart of the Indian-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir. A highly impersonal and undiscriminating instrument of destruction and death, the said blast led to the death of Kashmiri activist Aasia Jeelani and her driver Ghulam  Sheikh Nabi, and seriously wounded fellow advocate Khurram Parvez.

 

Even after the explosion and during her struggle with the approaching darkness, Aasia remained as a steady paragon of faith, courage and commitment—saying a Muslim prayer proclaiming Allah’s greatness—virtues which the modern world in its hectic pursuit or the secular have long learned to ignore.

 

A journalist by profession and a human rights advocate by obligation, Aasia and her fellow activists have worked for peace and justice and Kashmir, editing the quarterly newsletter Voices Unheard and joining various formations such as the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) and AFAD’s member-organization the Association of Parents Disappeared Persons (APDP).

 

Though the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) mourn their loss, we at the same time proclaim our admiration for their heroism and courage, never yielding to fear despite the “horror of the shade” and the “menace of the years” as the poet William Ernest Henley once wrote. Despite their demise, they remain present, for their death is not the termination of lives but the fulfillment of their work.

 

In their deaths, an inspiration is born, and we who have been left behind are given the supreme responsibility of continuing the values and ideals that Aasia and Ghulam have fought, died and lived for. Thus, we carry a heavy burden, assuming the responsibility of making their loss meaningful and significant—a necessary sacrifice to remind the old and embolden the young and collectively strive for a world free of disappearances.