Priyanka Chopra Jonas steps into India-Pakistan dispute

SCREEN CAPTURE

Priyanka Chopra Jones speaks her mind about the dispute between India and Pakistan.

ASAM NEWS

Actress Priyanka Chopra Jonas is embroiled in a controversy after statements she made concerning the current dispute between India and Pakistan over the Kashmir region, long a hotspot of contention between the two countries.

The Bollywood actress is currently under fire, as Pakistan just launched an official complaint with the United Nations to remove her as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, according to Al Jazeera.

The move comes in response to Chopra Jonas’s supposed endorsement of the Indian national government’s lockdown and revocation of autonomy in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Earlier this month, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced it would strip autonomy from the state of Jammu and Kashmir -- its part of the Himalayan region. India imposed curfews and a communication blackout.

Chopra Jonas can be seen in the following video from earlier this month responding to someone who confronted her about a February tweet in which she allegedly encouraged war against Pakistan:


“Her jingoism and support for violations by the Modi government of international conventions and UN Security Council resolutions on Kashmir, as well as support for war, including a nuclear war, undermines the credibility of the UN position to which she been elevated,” Pakistan’s human rights minister Shireen Mazari said in a letter to UNICEF. “Unless she is removed immediately, the very idea of a UN goodwill ambassador for peace becomes a mockery globally.”

Stephane Dujarric, the spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Thursday (Aug. 22): "When UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors speak in their personal capacity, they retain the right to speak about issues that interest or concern them."

The Indian-born actress' Twitter account is currently quiet on the matter.

Chopra Jonas will be starring in We Can Be Heroes, a new Netflix film about a team of superhero children who have to save the world after aliens abduct their hero parents, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Fresh Off The Boat’s Dylan Henry Lau and The Fast and the Furious actor Sung Kang have also been announced as part of the We Can Be Heroes cast, reports Deadline.Robert Rodriguez (Sin City, Spy Kids, and Alita: Battle Angel) will be writing, directing, and producing the movie.

Chopra Jonas is the second actress who has drawn the wrath of fans in recent weeks for making controversial statements about political situations in Asia.

Chinese and Asian American supporters of the pro-Democracy protests in Hong Kong called for a boycott the upcoming live-action Mulan movie when its star Crystal Yifei Liu used social media to express her support for the Hong Kong police.

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Couple found guilty of trafficking victims from India and Nepal

ILLUSTRATION

An Indian American couple from Stockton has been found guilty to the charges of forced labor of workers from India and Nepal.
After an 11-day trial, a federal jury found Satish Kartan, 45, and his wife, Sharmistha Barai, 40, guilty on March 14 of conspiracy to obtain forced labor and two counts of obtaining forced labor. 

Satish Kartan, 45, and his wife Sharmistha Barai, 45, took advantage of overseas workers, forcing them to work without pay, physically abusing them and threatening them of negative repercussions if they tried to leave, Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband said.

“Kartan and Barai did not simply fail to pay victims for their work,” said Sean Ragan, Special Agent in Charge of the Sacramento FBI Field Office. “They deprived them of their dignity and robbed them of their federally-protected civil rights."

Human trafficking victims flew from India and Nepal to testify against the couple.

During the trial, it was revealed that between February 2014 and October 2016, Kartan and Barai hired workers from overseas to perform domestic labor in their home in Stockton. 

In advertisements seeking workers on the internet and India-based newspapers, the defendants made false claims regarding the wages and the duties of employment. Then, once the workers arrived at the defendants’ Stockton residence, the couple forced them to work 18 hours a day with limited rest and nourishment. Few of them were paid any wages. 

The defendants kept their domestic workers from leaving, and induced them to keep working for them, by threatening them, by creating an atmosphere of fear, control, and disempowerment, and at times by physically hitting or burning them. When a victim pushed back or said she wanted to leave, it got worse.

According to evidence presented at trial, the defendants struck one worker on multiple occasions. Barai threatened to kill her and throw her bones in the garbage, backhanded her across the face for talking back, and slammed her hands down on a gas stove, causing her to suffer first and second degree burns on her hands from the flames. 

The defendants also threatened several other victims to coerce them to keep working, including by telling the victims they would report them to police or immigration authorities if they tried to leave. 

Throughout the victims’ time in the defendants’ home, they were deprived of sleep and food. The defendants subjected the victims to verbal abuse and harassment in an effort to intimidate them into continuing to provide labor and services.

Kartan and Barai are scheduled to be sentenced on June 6. Each defendant faces a maximum statutory penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. 

“Human trafficking is a disgraceful and unacceptable crime. The defendants in this case took advantage of overseas workers, forcing them to work without pay, physically abusing them, and threatening negative repercussions if they tried to leave,” said Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband. “The Justice Department will continue to investigate and vigorously prosecute human traffickers in order to bring justice to victims.”

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Journal reveals Asian American Christian missionary killed by stone-age tribe had premonition of death

INSTAGRAM

JOHN ALLEN CHAU

AN AMERICAN MISSIONARY wanted to spread the word of God to inhabitants of a remote island in India, but instead he was killed by a hail of arrows.

John Allen Chau, 26, was killed over a week ago and reportedly buried in the sand shortly after setting foot on India’s North Sentinel Island in the Bay of Bengal. The island is inhabited by stone-age tribes and in order to protect their way of life the Indian government forbids outsiders from visiting them.


Chau apparently knew that his visits to the Sentinelese was illegal and dangerous, according to his entries in his journal. He also hinted that he might not return alive. 

On Nov. 16,, the night before his fatal visit to the Sentinelese, Chau penned a letter to his parents, asking them not to be angry at the Sentinelese or God if he were to die. He advised them to live their life in “obedience” and that he would see them again when they “passed through the veil.”

The Sentinelese who he wished to convert to Christianity, are the most reclusive of the  tribes and in the past have driven away uninvited guests with spears and bow and arrows and thrown spears at helicopters flying overhead.

According to journal entries made public by his family, Chau made multiple unsolicited trips to the community over the past three years as he made plans to “establish the kingdom of Jesus” on the island.

In his journal, Chau described himself as “an American citizen, part Irish, part Native American and part African and part Chinese and South East Asian'; groups that have painful histories of invasion, colonisation and forced ‘civilisation.’" 

"God, I thank you for choosing me before I was even yet formed in my mother’s womb to be your messenger, of your good news to the people North Sentinel Island," he wrote. He then expressed hope that the Sentinelese tribe will accept Jesus and Christianity with an open heart.

Chau made arrangements with local fishermen to bring him to the island. They brought him as close as they dared, knowing the ihabitants' hostility to outsiders. He made the final leg of the journey by himself in a canoe. 

As he approached, one of the tribesmen shot an arrow at him hitting him in the chest. By a miracle, he survived because the arrow hit a bible he was carrying.

He returned to the fishermen's boat where he wrote the notes in his journal describing his attempts to evangelize the natives. He left instructions with the fishermen that if anything happened to him, to give his journal to a local friend.

The next day, as he again made an attempt to meet with the natives, he was again met with arrows. That is when he met his death. Witnesses said he was buried in the sand.

Authorities have not yet recovered his body.

Chau’s family in Alabama released a statement saying he “loved God, life, helping those in need, and had nothing but love for the Sentinelese people,” according to the BBC.

“We also ask for the release of those friends he had in the Andaman Islands. He ventured out of his own free will and his local contacts need not be persecuted for his own actions,” the statement said.

“He loved God, life, helping those in need and had nothing but love for the Sentinelese people,” the family said. “We forgive those reportedly responsible for his death. We also ask for the release of those friends he had in the Andaman Islands.”

“This is not a pointless thing – the eternal lives of this tribe are at hand and I can't wait to see them around the throne of god worshiping in their own language as Revelations 7:9-10 states,” he wrote in one of the last journal entries. “I love you all and I pray none of you love anything in this world more than Jesus Christ,” he said, before signing off ‘Soli Deo Gloria’, followed by his name.
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