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The Three Kings Is One of Puerto Rico’s Most Loved Traditions · Global Voices
Ángel Carrión

The wooding carvings of saints is one of the oldest popular Puerto Rican traditions. It is very common in the Promesa de Reyes for participants to bring figurines of the Three Kings, like those in the picture, to the ceremony. Image taken by Wilma Colón. Used with permission.
In Puerto Rico, as well as in other Latin American countries and Spain, January 6 is the Día de Reyes or Day of the Kings, a tradition which celebrates the Epiphany — the Three Kings or Wise Men visiting the new born baby Jesus.
For Puerto Rico, the holiday has great cultural importance, given that in the past this was the main day of celebration during the festive period. It is so important, in fact, that in Puerto Rico they coined the verb reyar, which means to go out in groups asking for donations or gifts.
The Three Kings are traditionally known as Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar. In Puerto Rico, these are also the names given to the three stars forming Orion's Belt, which is visible on the northern hemisphere during the winter months.
Those who are particularly religious celebrate the tradition of the Promesa de Reyes or Kings’ Promise. Dolma Irizarry describes it in a Facebook post as follows:
La Promesa de Reyes es la costumbre de invocar a los Santos Reyes Melchor, Gaspar y Baltasar, para su intervención en un momento de necesidad, para la solución de alguna situación que está fuera de su alcance. A cambio de la petición concedida, quien celebra e invita, hace un pacto o compromiso de pagar esa promesa.
The Promesa de Reyes is the tradition of asking the Three Kings, Melchior, Caspar and Balthazar, to intervene in a moment of need, or for help in a situation which is out of your control. In exchange of a granted wish, you must make a pact or promise to the Kings.
The Promesa de Reyes resembles a ritual in the Catholic Church known as the rosario cantado, a musical custom of alternating song and prayer.
In the following Spanish-language video, you can watch the Promesa de Reyes being celebrated at a family home in the town of Aguadilla on the northeastern coast of Puerto Rico:
While it was once just the most faithful of devotees who participated in the Promesas de Reyes, more and more cultural institutions are now getting involved with the festivities. Rather than just a gathering of friends and relatives, people who don't necessarily personally know the host might take part, deciding to join in whether to show solidarity or for the cultural value of the experience. Such is the case for Jaime Torres Torres, who wrote about the Promesa de las Reyes for the website Fundación Nacional para la Cultura Popular (FNCP) after his experience on January:
Cada interpretación siento que ascendió como incienso al trono del Altísimo, a los compases de peticiones muy nobles, como paz para Borikén [Puerto Rico] y sus familias, respeto a nuestra cultura, trabajo pa’ los desempleados, justicia social, la sanación de alguna enfermedad, respaldo financiero para la obra sin fines de lucro de la F.N.C.P., la solución de nuestra condición política para, como un pueblo unido, enfrentar los retos de la segunda década del Siglo XXI y la excarcelación del preso político Oscar López Rivera.
Through each rendition it felt as though we were rising like incense to God's own throne, to the rhythms of such bold pleas as peace for Borikén [Puerto Rico] and its people, respect for our culture, work for the unemployed, social justice, the healing of an illness, financial backing for the non-profit work of the FNCP, a solution to our political situation, to face the challenges of the second decade of the 21st century as a unified people, and freedom for political prisoner Oscar López Rivera.
Alguna lagrimita humedeció mis mejillas al escuchar, ya en la sala de recitales de la Fundación y con los Tres Reyes sentados en el lateral izquierdo del escenario, los aguinaldos “La luz de los Reyes”, “El cofre”, “Si me ven con flores” y otros de estilos cultivados en las promesas que, desde el anonimato y como un legado hermoso e inigualable de la religiosidad popular borincana que dejan a sus hijos en un relevo perpetuo de nuestra cultura, idiosincrasia e identidad, aún nuestros jíbaros cantores entonan en los campos de Peñuelas, Guayanilla, Yauco, San Germán y Maricao.
A tiny tear dampened my cheeks at the sound of “The Light of the Kings”, “The Trunk”, “If You Bring Me Flowers” and other pieces, all bearing the promise that, as an anonymous, beautiful and incomparable legacy of popular Puerto Rican piety left for our children, as an eternal flame for our culture, our quirks and our identity, our jíbaros singers will still sound in the countryside of Peñuelas, Guayanilla, Yauco, San Germán and Maricao.
Another place which now celebrates the Promesa de Reyes is the Centro de Estudios Avanzados de Puerto Rico y el Caribe (Center for Advanced Studies on Puerto Rico and the Caribbean), the headquarters of one of the busiest Promesas. Jaime Torres Torres comments on the latest Promesa celebrated there January 5.
Antes a la promesa asistían alrededor de 60 personas, pero desde que se celebra en el Centro llegan hasta 400 y 500 parroquianos, portando sus tallas de Reyes y, sobre todo, corazones sensibles a la espiritualidad de esta popular tradición.
Before the Promesa around 60 people used to attend the centre, but since the celebrations began it attracts up to 400 or 500 parishioners, bearing their figurines of the Kings and, above all, opening their hearts to the spirituality of this popular tradition.
Every year hundreds of people attend the traditional Promesa which was initiated by the late Norma Salazar ,30 years ago. Her sister Monina Salazar has kept the tradition going. Image taken by Gildo Jesús Peña García. Used with permission.
If you find yourself in Puerto Rico at some point during the Christmas season, try and check out a Promesa de Reyes celebration. Regardless of your religious belief, it is a rare opportunity to experience one of the oldest popular Puerto Rican traditions and submerge yourself in the music and culture of the country. It is a festivity that not many tourists get to witness and will be a memory you cherish for the rest of your life.


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Ukraine Plans Cyber Security Review After ‘Russian’ Attack on Key Airport · Global Voices
Tanya Lokot

Boryspil airport in Ukraine's capital Kyiv was the target of a hacker attack officials claim originated in Russia. Image from Wikimedia Commons.
Officials in Ukraine are set to reconsider the state's cyber security and defense systems, including those at airports and railway stations, after a recent malware attack on Kiev's main airport Boryspil that targeted its air traffic control system. The Ukrainian defense ministry believes the attack was launched from a server within Russia.
Malware akin to that which was used to attack Ukrainian power companies in December 2015 was detected last week on a computer in the IT network of Boryspil airport, a key transport hub connecting Ukraine to the rest of the world.
Irina Kustovska, a spokeswoman for Ukraine's infrastructure ministry, which oversees airports, railways, and other transport networks, said the ministry intends to initiate a review of anti-virus databases at Boryspil airport and in other companies it is responsible for.
At a press briefing on January 16, Ministry of Defense spokesman Andriy Lysenko announced that state cybersecurity experts discovered an airport workstation infected with the BlackEnergy malware, linked to other recent cyber attacks on Ukraine. Experts isolated the infected computer from the airport's IT network.
“The control center of the server, where the attacks originate, is in Russia,” Lysenko told Reuters news agency, adding that the malware in Boryspil's system had been detected early on and that no damage had been done. At this stage, Ukrainian authorities have made no mention of the Russian government in their statements on the matter.
Ukraine's state security service has previously blamed Russia for the blackout in Ukraine's western Ivano-Frankivsk region on December 23 that affected about 80,000 citizens. At the time, a local power company, Prycarpattyaoblenergo, reported that part of its service area, including the regional capital Ivano-Frankivsk, was left without power for over six hours due to “interference” in its industrial control systems. The cybersecurity research team iSIGHT Partners linked the attack to the Russian hacker collective known as the Sandworm Team based on their analysis of the BlackEnergy software, reportedly used in the attack.
On January 18, Ukraine's state Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-UA) issued a warning about the threat of more attacks connected to BlackEnergy, calling on system administrators to keep an eye out for suspicious indicators in log-files and Internet traffic.

source: news-globalvoices

license: Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

author: Tanya Lokot


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A Struggling Economy Means New Taxes and Belt-Tightening for the People of Trinidad and Tobago · Global Voices
Atiba Rogers

“Calculating Taxes Up And Down.” image by Ken Teegardin. CC 2.0.
Consumers’ nightmares have come to life in Trinidad and Tobago as they struggle to adapt to a new tax schedule presented by Finance Minister Colm Imbert, who says the shift is necessary to rescue the economy from its current precarious state, as oil prices continue to plummet. The previous administration‘s overspending hasn't helped matters, either.
The Finance Bill 2016 is set to remove 99 categories of items from the zero-rated list, while placing a Value Added Tax (VAT) on formerly untaxed items such as salt, books, and computers. Basic food items like rice and flour are also soon-to-be taxed, leaving many people in Trinidad and Tobago outraged.
Tensions mounted on Iza-Trini's Facebook page, where AviAnn Richardson left the following comment:
Isn't ANYONE QUESTIONING THE PNM [People's National Movement, the party currently in government]? They lay out the law and folks just go with the flow? How bout a nationwide boycott for a day? How about a walkout? Just don't sit there and post memes about how bad the PNM is, without doing something! Stand up DO SOMETHING!
Ah just hope doubles doh go up nah :'( #D_Taliban
Posted by Iza-Trini on Tuesday, January 12, 2016
In a recent newspaper interview, Finance Minister Imbert maintained that it is the right move to add the (reduced) 12.5-percent VAT to certain items because of the low income tax rate, which has been steadily lowered—along with corporation tax rate—over the years. Ideally, a lower rate without exemptions would be optimal, but—because the rate is already low—he agrees there also needs to be an efficient VAT-collection system, designed to help run the country better. The VAT rate will be reduced from 15 percent (where it currently stands) to 12.5 percent, starting on February 1, 2016. You can view the entire list of newly taxed items here.
Taxing computers and books, which were formerly exempt, has struck a particularly sour note with Internet users. On Facebook, Christian M. Johnatty voiced his concerns about educational supplies:
Wait wait wait, ent the reason vat was removed from these in the first place, was because as a developing country, it would be more affordable and accessible for the lower income brackets to have access to computers and become computer literate?
Paria Publishing Company Limited posted a statement by Professor Bridget Brereton criticising the VAT on books. The post attracted almost 500 shares:
When I read about this strange decision, I was both surprised and disappointed. After all, there's a reason why books have been zero-rated ever since VAT was first introduced to Trinidad and Tobago, many years and several governments ago.
Everyone agrees that we don't read nearly enough, from children in school to students in the universities to the general population. At The University of the West Indies (The UWI), we've noticed for years now that our students’ reading skills, and willingness to tackle books as opposed to a few paragraphs on the net, have declined significantly. […]
Why then make books even more expensive than they are already? […] Recently, a sort of literary renaissance has taken place in T&T and the Caribbean, with more local or regional authors publishing novels, short stories and poetry, and winning big awards, too, as well as interesting non-fiction books of all kinds. Do we want to reduce their market by making their books more costly?
But a message will certainly be sent out: that this Government is not interested in encouraging the population, from school kids to senior citizens, to read, buy, collect and share books.
Still, not everyone in Trinidad and Tobago is against the changes, even if they do affect their pocketbooks. The Facebook page Speak Out T&T posted a link about six countries that are also preparing to begin taxing citizens for the first time, commenting:
The same people who mismanaged us into a recession are complaining about VAT. They appeal to the most uneducated in our society and make this a political issue.
Well this is a global issue. Around the world, countries are putting the same financial measures in place to help keep their economies afloat, because that is what responsible governments do.
But acknowledging that would require the ability to think. It's easier to say ‘PNM’ ‘Oh no, they taxing salt’ and ‘we go eat grass’.
Facebook user Jovi Modeste made the point that people have their priorities skewed, especially during the country's Carnival season (which is currently in swing), where overspending on “fetes” [expensive parties at which food and alcohol are included] is the norm:
Is how people complaining about the food prices, but paying for costume that cost 2-10k just for 1 day, 1200 for a 400 bottle of rum in the club…
All limited advance tickets sold out….
Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley addressed the nation about the reinstatement of property taxes and increases to the VAT. Commenting on FreeDom’s Facebook status, Vitas Butkoon summed up Rowley's suggestions on the issue:
Let us pay the full price for oil and food. Raise electricity rate to be on par with other countries. Let nothing in this country be subsidized. Don’t stop a tax alone. Remove welfare from single mothers and stop cepep [an environmentally focused arm of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development that has been mired in alleged corruption] and urp [Unemployment Relief Programme]. Also tax online shopping.. Don’t let s stop at salt and rice. Increase everything.
In order for citizens to live on the country's available resources, the prime minister said, “we have to cut to suit what we have”, underscoring the fact that Trinidad and Tobago must now do its best to curtail spending.

author: Atiba Rogers


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A Tragic Suicide at a University Puts the Spotlight on Discrimination Against Dalits in India · Global Voices
Kisholoy Mukherjee

Rohith: Image Courtesy Rohit Vemula's Facebook page
A second year PhD student from the University of Hyderabad (also known as Hyderabad Central University), Rohith Vemula, took his own life on Sunday, 17 January, 2016.
Protests erupted the day after his body was found hanging in a hostel room on campus, a hostel where the university had banned him and four other Dalit students from stepping foot. Rohith was a Dalit and an active member of a student group that fought discrimination against Dalits, a caste historically deemed “untouchable” and discriminated against in India.
Twenty-six year-old Rohith was expelled from his hostel at the university along with four other Dalit students. According to independent news site Scroll.in, “university authorities had barred them from entering the administrative building, hostels, libraries, mess and other common areas.” They were also banned from participating in the university's student union elections. Since they were evicted from their university accommodation, they were forced to sleep in tents on campus. Rohith's friends say he had not received his university stipend since July last year.
All of the suspended Dalit students were members of the Ambedkar Student’s Association (ASA-HCU). The ASA-HCU aims to build a casteless and exploitation-free society and is heavily influenced by the ideas of the late Indian social reformer Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, who opposed discrimination against Dalits.
Before he took his life, Rohith and members of other student groups had been on a hunger strike to demand the decision to suspend them be reversed. The University Proctorial Board had issued the suspension order after Susheel Kumar, the leader of the local ABVP chapter, the student wing of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), complained in August that he had been beaten up by members of the ASA-HCU. The board’s own inquiry report revealed that this complaint was not backed by evidence but the five were suspended in September. After a series of flip-flops over the months the decision was upheld in December and the students were asked to vacate their university accommodation.
Agnes Amala. T at Counter Currents reported that the order to suspend the students “was an outcome of political pressure exerted by BJP Union Minister for Labour, Bandaru Dattatreya and BJP [Member of Legislative Council] Ramachandra Rao.”
In a Facebook post, Chittibabu Padavala, who knew Rohith closely, pointed out:
One of the reasons for which Rohith and others were persecuted by the administration is that he was seriously organising campaigns and programs to highlight persecution of, and discrimination against Muslims and worked to bring Dalits and Muslims together to combat it, on campus level. If these activists are not Dalits and their fight was not against Hindutva fascism, this false case and persecution of Dalit scholars would have attracted national and international attention and outcry.
Dalit means “oppressed” and is the self-chosen political name for castes historically considered “untouchable” within the Hindu caste system. While caste-based discrimination is prohibited under Indian law, reports indicate that Dalits have the least access to higher education in India compared to other groups. Apart from educational institutions, Dalits are often the target of rapes, discrimination and humiliation in India. The last decade saw a staggering 245% rise in crimes against Dalits. Noted social commentators like Anand Teltumbde have constantly pointed out the various ways in which casteism is still widely prevalent in India.
This incident cannot be seen in isolation. There have been other instances of discrimination on the basis of caste. Student groups that have tried to combat casteism in the recent past have had to face the ire of the authorities for being “anti-national”, “extremists” and “casteist”.
Ambedkar Periyar Circle, a student’s group that raised its voice against Brahmanical, upper caste hegemony and criticized policies of the incumbent Indian government such as the dilution of labor laws. This group was derecognized by the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, but authorities, were forced to revoke the decision after massive protests, both online and offline.
Similarly, the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee administration expelled 73 students, majority of them from Dalit and other socially marginalized backgrounds, because they secured low grades. Many saw this expulsion as casteist as well.
Meanwhile at the University of Hyderabad, other student activists mounted a solidarity protest in the name of “We Are More Than Five” ever since the students were suspended. The students initially refused to hand over the body of Rohith, even as police baton-charged the crowd, arresting eight students and imposing Section 144, which makes public assembly illegal. The body was finally snatched away through use of brutal force.
A poem titled “Death of a Dalit life” by Abul Kalam Azad went viral. The poem ends on the following note:
with tears,
you look,
at all the gentle eyes
whose pupils pause,
and rage,
waiting for the dream
of dignity to descend
on our Dalit lives’
and deaths’
Rohith's final letter was doing the rounds on Facebook.
On Twitter, people spoke out against the injustice of Rohith's treatment by the university:
What happened with #RohitVemula should not happen with anyone. We can't progress until every citizen of India has equal rights!
— Amena (@Fashionopolis) January 18, 2016
#RohitVemula suicide shows social boycott, witch-hunt, framing of Dalits doesnt just happen in villages – in Central Univ campuses too 1/n
— Kavita Krishnan (@kavita_krishnan) January 18, 2016
No country for dalits “@_Namita_: No one killed Rohit Vemula”
— Chai Sutta Cynicism (@ChaiSuttaCynic) January 17, 2016
Activist Gutta Rohith pointed out what he thought was a distortion of the facts of the case by a local news outlet.
This is how casteist Telugu media distorts the facts. Here it is written that ABVP goons ‘advised’ him not to support an ‘anti-national.’ It is also written that these people were counseled by the police for indulging in ‘violent’ behavior’. Also, they have conveniently picked portions from his suicide note. To absolve ABVP goons, Brahminical administration from the murder they have only quoted the part where he claims no one's responsibility for his death. Full of lies, distortions. This is how Telugu media works. “పెట్టుబడికి కట్టుకథకి పుట్టిన విషపుత్రికలు” ఈ పత్రికలు.
Lies, blatant lies. Distortions.
The text in Telugu is a line from a poem by someone who is considered a great poet of Telugu literature; it translates to “Can a nation of false notes and fraudulent votes be called a nation? Can a promise given by corrupt thugs be called a promise?”
There were protests going on at the time of writing this article. In New Delhi, police launched a brutal crackdown on protesters, using water cannons and injuring several people. Shehla Rashid, vice president of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Student's Union, wrote on Facebook:
Inside the Parliament thana, students have been brutally beaten, girls have been manhandled by male and female police both, police officials are abusing students and beating up journalists.
Activist Kumar Sundaram shared pictures of the protest and the subsequent police action.
It is clear that many activists are really angry and we may see more protests on the issue of caste in the coming days, thanks to the growing radicalization of the discourse surrounding casteism. Perhaps the following quote from Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, used in the Facebook page of ASA-HCU, will become more and more relevant for Dalits in the coming days:
“our ultimate goal is to become the governing class to rule this country”

author: Kisholoy Mukherjee


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A Venezuelan Digital Artist Defends LGBT Rights Despite Social and Political Censorship · Global Voices
Laura Vidal

‘I'm not a joke’ is an artistic campaign aimed to defend LGBT rights by challenging stereotypes. The campaign was created by Daniel Arzola and it has been followed and expanded by different activist groups and artists around the world
Gender fluidity, the oppressiveness of social norms, and the dignity of the LGBT community are at the centre of Daniel Arzola’s art and visual campaigns, most notably the project No soy tu chiste (‘I’m not a joke’), which Arzola created as a form of resistance to the everyday violence of living under heteronormativity.
‘I’m not a joke’ came as a response to Arzola’s violent past in Venezuela and evolved through a digital medium to defend and expand the message that paper, in its material vulnerability, could not protect.
“I never wanted to leave my house [because of my violent neighbors, but] I left one day to draw and they attacked me,” Daniel said:
They ripped all my drawings, they tied me to a post, took off my shoes and tried to burn my genitals … I got away, but I stopped drawing . […After this] In 2012 I heard the story of Angelo Prado. […] I felt that could have been me. They burned his arms, legs, back … Something like 60% of his body. [I tried to find him], but it was hard. I actually looked for him three years until I finally found him.
What had happened to Angelo inspired Arzola to start drawing again:
I decided I had to draw in a new format. A format that, if someone broke or tore it up, I could replace it, unlike that time when they attacked me. So I started to draw on the computer.
That same year, a girl was killed for being a lesbian. Her partner was injured. And Angelo’s case was not the only case of incineration in Maracay, a city in the North of Venezuela.
The hate crime against Angelo reminded Daniel of the violence which he had also lived through years ago. Soon after, an incident in a movie theatre provided the final impetus:
I was in the cinema watching ‘Cloud Atlas’ – a film about past lives. There is a love story in which the two characters find each other over and over again in different lives. In one, they are mother and son, in another they are two lovers. In yet another life, they are gay lovers, and their end is pretty sad. And the people in the theatre laughed: Oh look, they’re queers’. Laughing. And I just reacted… This thing with Angelo had happened a week before, [and] I have always had a very big mouth, so when I saw a girl laughing beside me, I said, ‘Do you want me to grip a man and kiss him so you can piss yourself laughing? Do you think it’s a joke? I’m not a joke!’
Artwork from the ‘I'm not a joke’ campaign.
Artwork from the ‘I'm not a joke’ campaign.
Arzola’s case demonstrates that censorship is often aided by social structures and their defenders. Efforts to maintain the norm are tied to power, and censorship becomes the work of many.
As ‘I’m not a joke’ spread throughout social networks, boosted by online promotion by celebrities, many other organisations became interested in Arzola’s work:
Neil Gaiman, creator of ‘Coraline’, shared it on Tumblr. And it was like a boom. That made it go viral on Tumblr. Suddenly people were writing me from Russia. People from Portugal wrote me, asking me to do the campaign in Portuguese, so we did it in Portuguese. And since, the campaign has gone viral in 30 countries. The second country where it went viral was Australia. […] The campaign went viral in many places, but in Venezuela the only people who knew about it were activists. Until Madonna retweeted me. When she shared it, there was a ‘boom’. Many people wrote me, including the Dutch organisation that [would eventually help] me out of the country. It was madness.
As Arzola received more attention in the media, his political work grew in scope. He criticised the use of homophobic speech by government figures and the lack of progress on legal equality for LGBT people, despite the support that Chavismo’s leaders promised the LGBT community:
Once they gave me a voice in the media, I started to denounce the things that happen in Venezuela. I started to say that the State uses its force to promote homophobia, that homosexuality might not be illegal but it is not free, that the State says ‘OK, give them a truck for the march, but they cannot speak of equal marriage’. As it happened in March of 2012, as it happened in March of 2013.
With this, a gap opened between the forces supporting the government and the work driven by ‘I’m not a joke’. Increasingly, threats began to take different forms:
I received an invitation to exhibit in a theatre in Caracas. [An exhibition that turned out to be part of a government initiative …] At no point in ‘I’m not a joke’ will you find a sentence against the government. I do not want to tell people what to think. […] This is a moral choice. In the end, I decided be polite to the host, and I stayed. But as the exhibition ended, I left.
However, from that moment I began to receive threats. Calls. One time a guy comes up to me and says “I’m glad you’re here, f**n escuálido [“escuálido” is the name given to government opponents]. I smiled and said “thank you” to avoid conflict. [… The threats continued] in various formats. I have a theory that as times change, fashions change, and dictatorships change. They learn to dress up. The way that our computers are not the same as they were 20 years ago, dictatorships aren’t either. They learn to dress up, to camouflage. I started getting phone calls to my personal phone from private numbers saying ‘Keep talking, faggot’. ‘One queer less, no one will notice.’
In one of the last [threats], they told me ‘You look good walking down the Coromoto (street), alone.’ They told me that if I talked about this, things were going to get worse. … At that time I was living in my mother’s house, so I stopped fueling the fire. I had several friends who had been killed. At that time I remembered that people from the Netherlands, the NGO Radio Netherlands, told me that they were having an event featuring voices that have survived homophobia in countries of conflict. I was told that I would be the representative of Latin America. I told them what was happening to me and began a process of seeking refuge internationally. However, the process required me to return to Venezuela.
Threats are a part of censorship. Government agents were not the only people who wanted to hide the message of ‘I’m not a joke’. However, much of this disruption contains nuances that are difficult to understand or to locate.
Sexual minorities are often highly vulnerable to violence and discrimination. Between May 2013 and May 2015, 47 hate crimes were reported in Venezuela against people who express themselves in a way that is outside the norm. Even these figures give a blurred vision of reality. Activists and advocates for persons belonging to these groups are concerned that the vast majority of such crimes go unpunished, not only because of the inefficiency of institutions, but because victims are afraid to speak up.
One example of this took place at an exhibition of Arzola’s work in Chacao Cultural Centre in Caracas:
It was assumed that [the exhibition] would last five days, but thanks to the receptivity of the people, it was extended 10 more days. During these days, however, certain letters began to arrive to the Cultural Centre saying that my work was ‘unworthy’ and ‘not for children’, that it could not exist in a public space.
Some letters were anonymous. Others were from people who had allegedly entered [the exhibition], and had complained.
All of it was super abstract. No one ever said who had complained. At one point I received a call from the lawyers of the Cultural Centre, and it made me realise that this was more than just gossip. Some people reportedly complained to the Mayor, complaining that the exhibition was pornographic. They failed to close the exhibition, but they took down two posters …
Artwork from the ‘I'm not a joke’ campaign.
Since the formalities of seeking refugee status required that Arzola return to Latin America, he chose to wait in Buenos Aires rather than Venezuela to avoid risks. While there, he enrolled in a Masters of Human Rights program. But political pressure did not stay in the Caracas galleries or stop with the anonymous threats. In the courses offered by the degree in Human Rights at the University of La Plata, Arzola encountered severe limitations to debating the issue in Venezuela:
We know that when we talk about human rights in Venezuela, we talk about how the State and its forces violate the human rights of individuals. In [our] classes, Colombians exposed Human Rights violations under ex-president Uribe. Argentines exposed the human rights violations during the military dictatorship. When it was our turn, [the Venezuelans], the teacher said, ‘first you have to send me what you’re going to say in order to review it.’ Why? ‘To be sure of what you’re going to say. This university gave an award to Chavez.’
The rest of the teams were given the whole morning to discuss their cases. The Venezuelans, though, were given only five minutes to present.
We said we would play the game. We organised. In eight minutes we discussed the student protests, the closing of media, the closing of tv channels and radio stations. But before we talked, the professor [told the audience], ‘I have to apologise for what you are going to hear, but you need to know that the next talk is an anti-Chavez talk.’ I said, ‘We are not anti-Chavistas, we are anti-violence. We are in a master’s of Human Rights program.’
All the theses presented by the three Venezuelans on Human Rights abuses in the country were rejected. It is there that you realise the danger of ideologies. You get a master’s degree in Human Rights, but you cannot challenge the violation of Human Rights in a country, because the country is part of a process that you are following. At that time I decided to abandon the Master’s, disappointed.
Artwork from the ‘I'm not a joke’ campaign.
Arzola’s work continues from Chile. The campaigns continue their sharp messages that support many minorities, not just gendered ones, in their struggles against oppression. I’m not a joke is flexible and contributes to other campaigns that promote tolerance, respect for individuality and equality, and the defense of peace and human rights.
The initiative created by Arzola now has numerous awards and is internationally recognised and promoted by various groups that advocate for human rights and LGBT communities. The answer to a ‘joke’ in a small cinema in Maracay created a domino effect that continues to expand.
The focus, however, remains the defense of the dignity of people who step outside of the generic norm, who refuse to be objectified, or to be part of dehumanising stereotypes. It is followed by those who, despite not being a part of the cause, defend it, and those who refuse to be silenced by government or private oppression. As a result, an increasing number of people take part in groups and communities that challenge the norm, and that, far from being a joke, is today a community of great strength that carries out advances which will benefit not only their groups, but society as a whole.
See more artwork on the No soy tu chiste Tumblr page and the No soy tu chiste Facebook page.

author: Laura Vidal


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Caribbean Social Media Dissects the Tangled Outrage Surrounding Cricketer Chris Gayle’s Come-On · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Chris Gayle at the Prime Ministers 11 Cricket match in Canberra 2010. Photo by Flickr user NAPARAZZI. CC BY-SA 2.0
Nearly three weeks after West Indies cricketer Chris Gayle put his foot in his mouth during a live interview with sports journalist Melanie McLaughlin, Caribbean netizens are still talking about it. The incident has sparked online discussion about culturally entrenched sexism, racism in sport and whether or not Gayle was unfairly being made into a whipping boy.
The debate is still as heated as ever. Blogger Carolyn Joy Cooper, who writes at Jamaican Woman Tongue, explored what Gayle's (often self-proclaimed) sex appeal and race had to do with the whole hullabaloo.
During an interview with McLaughlin after his innings for the T20 (limited overs) cricket team Melbourne Renegades in their Big Bash League match against Hobart Hurricanes, Gayle gushed about how attractive he found the reporter. Cooper's blog post noted that Gayle was “not the first athlete to get carried away in Ms McLaughlin’s glamorous presence”:
In 2012, Australian soccer star Tim Cahill stepped up to the mike to be interviewed by the journalist and gave her a completely unexpected kiss on the cheek. Ms McLaughlin looked flustered. She was clearly taken by surprise. Perhaps she blushed. But she kept her cool. She gave a half-laugh and said, ‘OK.’ But was it?
As far as I can tell, not a bit of a fuss was made about that Cahill kiss. There was no talk of sexual harassment at the workplace. No fine. No call for a worldwide ban on Cahill. No bogus story that Cahill had exposed himself to an anonymous female who wandered into a male dressing room. Cahill is white and Gayle is black. Is that the difference in the treatment of the two athletes?
This isn't to say that Gayle was not “well out of order”. Cooper admitted that the come-on was inappropriate, adding:
What is so puzzling is that the interview started off quite professionally.
Drawing a parallel with “the story of Emmett Till”, an American black teen who was murdered for allegedly flirting with a white woman in 1955, Cooper also noted Gayle's cockiness after McLaughlin attempted to steer the interview back on a more professional course, suggesting that may have contributed to the harsh criticism levelled against him:
Gayle is lucky. He’s not likely to be murdered for flirting with Mel McLaughlin on national television. But his career might take a hit. The Australian cricketer Ian Chappell is calling for a worldwide ban on Gayle. This punishment seems completely out of proportion to the offence. Gayle made a stupid mistake. But to ban him from cricket forever?
Gayle says it was an innocent joke. I’m inclined to believe him. And he made the pass out in the open on television. It was on show! To me, this makes the flirting less troubling than it might have been in private. But the image of an athletic black man flirting with a white woman remains threatening to ‘the boys’, even in the 21st century. That seems to be the real issue.
More and more, that seems to be the bent of the conversation. On the Facebook group Wired868, sports journalist Lasana Liburd critiqued a video that was posted of various other sporting personalities making on-air passes at reporters, which insinuated that Gayle has got the short end of the stick because he is black:
…Did you realise that is a video of [Spanish footballer] Iker Casillas kissing his wife?! She was his girlfriend at the time.
Yes, he probably should not have kissed on air and she was embarrassed. But I think there is a pretty big difference to that and Chris Gayle's unwanted flirtation.
The caption under the video is startling ignorance. Mind numbing.
Liburd went on to tag his colleague in this post, Rhoda Bharath, and myself, who interviewed them both about the Gayle issue. He asked us whether we had “seen the video and what people are making it out to be”. Bharath answered:
how long and loudly am I allowed to steups? [teeth sucking, usually to express annoyance] Gayle did something that was stupid, sexist and unprofessional. Arguments based on moral relatavism not going to change that.
Jamaica Woman Tongue agreed, but also made the point that there should be one standard across the board:
Of course, sexual harassment on the job is no laughing matter. And it’s not only women who are harassed. Men are also harassed by both men and women. The workplace ought to be a safe environment in which both men and women can work in peace without fear of unwanted sexual advances.
Ending on a wicked note, Cooper quipped:
Though the global condemnation of Chris Gayle’s flirting with Mel McLaughlin on the job seems over the top, the controversy over the incident is a welcome reminder that there are lines of propriety that should not be crossed.
I’m sure Chris Gayle will now think at least twice, if not more, about inviting any woman to have a drink with him. And certainly not on TV! But, hopefully, he will continue to enjoy the pleasures of appropriate flirting. After all, if he stopped, it would be such a waste of a deliciously sexy man.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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China Is Blocking Circumvention Tools With Help of Cloud Service Providers · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

The Great Firewall of China. Image from Digital Trends.
In their long-standing effort to eliminate the unauthorized use of online circumvention tools like proxy services and VPNs, Chinese state regulators have recently turned their attention to cloud storage providers for content delivery networks.
VPNs, web proxies and other such tools are often described together as “circumvention technologies” — tools that help Internet users get around obstacles in online networks. Obstacles could include various forms of targeted censorship, but also things like slow speed or technical malfunctions.
It has been estimated that about 1-3% of China's internet users are using circumvention tool to visit overseas websites. Currently there are more than 650 million internet users in China, which means at least a few millions have access to the open Internet.
Content delivery networks (CDNs) are third-party servers that deliver content to end-users with a certain guarantee of high availability and high performance. Although they are relatively invisible for most regular Internet users, CDNs play a key role in ensuring smooth flows of online traffic, particularly when it comes to large files.
It appears that Chinese regulatory authorities are now actively asking these middle men to aid in this effort. In response to recent pressure from Chinese regulatory authorities, Microsoft Azure China, which provides cloud storage for leading CDNs, issued a letter to its clients recommending that they remove all illegal circumvention, proxy and VPN services hosted on their server.
The letter circulated on Twitter and tech blogs read:
According to the telecom regulations and the requirement of MIIT and Internet supervision agency, no company or individual can provide hosting service for illegal “over the wall” proxy sites, or illegally mount any VPN service to abroad. Recently, the regulators have found several Windows Azure customers violated the related regulations and demanded immediate shut-down of the service deployment.
We will continuously receive notification from the regulators to close such sites or shut down service deployment. In order to avoid unnecessary risks and losses, we recommend that you conduct self-examination and rectification immediately. In case you have involved in any above illegal behaviors, please stop immediately. Otherwise, you would assume all the consequences of such violation.
The effort to remove circumvention tools from the offerings of local content providers may be a response to efforts by researchers of China’s censorship system, who some years ago sought to deploy a “collateral freedom” strategy in which they proposed that the world's leading CDNs serve as hosts to proxy and circumvention services. This made it difficult for censors to block the services without disrupting entire networks and bringing economic consequences.
Thus far, the Chinese government has made several attempts to block circumvention tools hosted on CDNs. In one prominent example, the targeted DNS poisoning of the greatfire.org project resulted in the blocking of thousands of sites.
Azure China has been one of the major platforms for hosting circumvention proxy and VPN service. Most of these circumvention services are not politically motivated but rather geared towards expediting the streaming of foreign online games and television network programs. The letter suggests that, instead of detecting and blocking circumvention servers, the Chinese censor is adopting another strategy to press service providers to remove illegal circumvention services.
Since January 2015, the services of multiple VPN providers, including Astrill and StrongVPN, have been blocked. In response to the blockage, Fang Binxing, the father of China's so-called Great Firewall, suggested that companies running VPN businesses in China should register with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT). A top official from MIIT also said foreign sites must abide by Chinese laws and that the “new method” must be introduced to tackle the problem. The “new method” is a system intended to govern the registration and inspection of Internet software and hardware providers for security purposes.
Under the 2015 amendment of the Criminal Law that took effect on November 1 2015, newly stipulations regarding failure to implement information security, the illegal use of Internet, and assisting with committing an Internet crime have provided legal grounds for prosecuting unauthorized circumvention tool developers, circumvention service providers, as well as circumvention service hosting providers.
Even before the amendment was passed, circumvention tool developers were forced by police to withdraw their source code from GitHub. The platform was later attacked by the Great Cannon for hosting the Great Fire project. The attacks have been viewed as an aggressive turn in China's censorship practices.
Two weeks after the the criminal law amendment passed and one week after the November attacks in Paris, mobile service providers shut down the mobile service of residents in the ethnic minority region of Xinjiang, many of whom use VPNs on their mobile phones. Their services could only be reactivated after they reported themselves to the police.
The Azure China letter indicates that service providers are now actively responding authorities’ requests. As the draft Cyber Security Law, which will further rationalize censorship and surveillance practice, is set to pass later this year, foreign service providers may be compelled to take more proactive measures to assist authorities in tracking down their customers’ personal details. Indeed, this may become yet another price one pays upon entering the Chinese market.

author: Oiwan Lam


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First Russian Pastafarian Gets Driver’s License Photo Wearing A Colander · Global Voices
Darina Gribova

Pastafarian Andrei Filin got his wish: here he is getting his driver's license photo taken sporting a colander. Screencap from YouTube.
Andrei Filin, an adherent of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the religion known as Pastafarianism, became the first Pastafarian in Russia who managed to get his driver’s license photo taken with a colander on his head.
The headgear, considered a mandatory attribute by the Pastafarianism community, happened to be made out of yarn, not metal, and was knitted by Filin’s wife.
Filin shared news of his success on Twitter, using the hashtag #Ramen—the Pastafarians’ noodle-themed variation on the more conventional “Amen.”
Торжество Пастафарианства в РФ! Раминь, братья и сёстры!!! Первые права с дуршлагом в России! Великий день! #Раминь pic.twitter.com/ixu6Rz8Y4Y
— Андрей Филин (@Barsyaka1) January 9, 2016
A triumph for Pastafarianism in the Russian Federation! R'amen, brothers and sisters!!! The first driver’s license with a colander in Russia! What a great day! #Ramen
Except for a barrage of questions (and some attempts at cropping out the knitted contraption), Filin did not meet with many objections while taking the photo and getting his license, as can be seen from the video he uploaded to YouTube as a kind of DIY guide for his fellow Pastafarians, documenting the process.
In the video, Filin briefly explains the tenets of the quirky religion and talks about the Russian Pastafarian community, before he describes the hoops he jumped through to get his way.
Fearing the worst, Filin came prepared for a possible battle of wills with law-enforcement officers, bringing printouts of the complete text of the Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations and the Russian Criminal Code with him.
Even though the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is not officially recognized as an organized religion in Russia, the religious associations law defends the rights of those citizens whose religious beliefs do not allow them to appear bare-headed in public.
Conversely, a 2009 directive from the Interior Ministry describing the guidelines for a driver’s license look and feel allows for “photos made while wearing headgear that does not obscure the face” for citizens whose religious beliefs do not allow them to publicly go without said headgear.
A conflicting set of rules came with a new design for drivers’ licenses, approved in Russia in April 2014: these rules forbid wearing any hats or other headgear while being photographed. But it seems the 2009 directive takes precedence over the new design guidelines.
The blowback was swift: shortly after Filin’s very public triumph, the main Moscow department of the Traffic Inspectorate noticed the case going viral in the mainstream media. On January 12, its head office announced that it was looking into the photo of a Moscow citizen in “unusual headgear” and would decide if his driving license should be annulled.
Two days and an investigation later, Filin remained victorious. The Pastafarian was allowed to keep his license under one condition: he would be expected to drive only wearing the knitted colander. Caught without it, the driver would lose the license, according to the deputy head of the Moscow State Traffic Inspectorate Vladimir Kuzin. Filin himself doesn't seem inclined to follow these instructions.
Как бы вот. Раминь! pic.twitter.com/tKly25VxRx
— Андрей Филин (@Barsyaka1) January 13, 2016
Here we are. R'amen!
[…]
Internal orders of the Ministry of Interior don’t concern me. […] I'll drive in a colander, or in a cap made from newspaper, in a baseball cap. I'll do it bald or bearded.
Apart from being a die-hard Pastafarian, Filin is a civic activist and the founder of “Dvizhenie” (a Russian word meaning simultaneously “The Movement” and “The Traffic”)—a citizen project that monitors the work of traffic police in Moscow.
The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster was founded in 2005 by Bobby Henderson from Oregon in the US. Filin claims that in Russia, about 170,000 people consider themselves adherents of the religion. The Church states its mission as protecting freedom of choice, and cultivating critical thinking, irony and self-irony. While the followers of Pastafarianism claim to take the religion seriously, many others view it as an invented religion that serves as humorous metacommentary on organized religions, their traditions, rituals, and attire.
ТАК! pic.twitter.com/I7hWvv39TF
— David Homak (@aalien) January 15, 2016
YEP!
Niko Alm, an Austrian parliament deputy was the first Pastafarian in the world to win a three-year battle against the regulators and get a photo with a pasta strainer on his driver's license in 2011. Filin claims his knitted colander is identical in form and color to a plastic pasta strainer that Alm autographed for him during a personal meeting in 2014.

author: Darina Gribova


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ISIS Destroys Dair Mar Elia, Iraq’s Oldest Christian Monastery · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Saint Elijah's Monastery, Mosul, Iraq – the oldest Christian monastery in Iraq. Photograph by Doug, on Wikimedia Commons, used under GFDL
Iraq's oldest Christian monastery, Dair Mar Elia, has been destroyed by the ISIS, according to news reports released today. The monastery, known in English as Saint Elijah's Monastery, was built in 595, and is located in Ninawa, just south of Mosul, which is the militant group's stronghold in Iraq.
Although in ruins, Christian pilgrims continued to visit the stone monastery, which had a chapel and a sanctuary, as well as a neighbouring reservoir and natural mineral water springs. Satellite photographs published by Associated Press, which broke the story, show rubble where the structure once stood on a hill.
On Twitter, AP's photo editor for the Middle East Maya Alleruzzo, who is based in Cairo shares an undated photograph she had taken at Dar Mar Elia before its destruction. She tweets:
I can't describe the feeling of standing in a place that is no longer there https://t.co/coZAGeGfzc pic.twitter.com/Y4ndF3q4f2
— Maya Alleruzzo مايا (@mayaalleruzzo) January 20, 2016
Many others on Twitter expressed their anger and disbelief.
Fawzi Shingali, from Iraq, tweets:
تنظيم #داعش يفجر دير مار ايليا اقدم دير في العراق بني ما قبل الاسلام ذبحوا البشر ودمروا الحجر وعاثوا في الارض فسادا #الدوله_الإسلاميه !!!
— Fawzi Shingali (@FawziShingali) January 20, 2016
ISIS blows up Dair Mar Elia, the oldest monastery in Iraq. It was built before Islam. They have killed the people, destroyed buildings, and wreaked havoc in the land.
Ever since occupying swaths of Iraq and Syria, ISIS has been on a rampage obliterating all aspects of “apostasy” it comes across, destroying ancient sites among them Nineveh, Nimrud and Hatra, which are all designated or nominated to become World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. ISIS considers the veneration of saints apostasy and all those outside their definition of their narrow version of Islam as heretics.
From the UK, James Noyes calls upon the international community to “rethink” its strategy to protect such important cultural and historical sites, particularly when international conventions in place so little to ensure their safety.
He explains his views in a series of tweets.
Once again, events like the razing of Deir Mar Elia demonstrate the ineffectiveness of the international response to heritage destruction.
— James Noyes (@JRANoyes) January 20, 2016
UNESCO conventions don't help places like Deir Mar Elia. They are treaties which depend on peace, and are often ignored by signatories.
— James Noyes (@JRANoyes) January 20, 2016
The use of a heritage site by a state's or an occupier's troops is a technical violation of the Hague Convention: an act of non-compliance.
— James Noyes (@JRANoyes) January 20, 2016
And then we have the issue of groups operating today (like IS) who denounce the very premise of cultural heritage and universal value.
— James Noyes (@JRANoyes) January 20, 2016
And so we might ask: faced with both non-compliance and non-recognition, how can Hague conventions really save places like Deir Mar Elia?
— James Noyes (@JRANoyes) January 20, 2016
Surely there needs to be rethinking about how, in today's climate, the international community protects important cultural heritage sites.
— James Noyes (@JRANoyes) January 20, 2016
In February last year, ISIS burned Mosul Library, destroying hundreds of thousands of books and manuscripts, some dating back 800 years.
Mosul, Iraq's second largest city fell into the militants’ hands in June 2014 and is now under the control of the group, a splinter of the notorious Al Qaeda, which is also fighting in Syria.

author: Amira Al Hussaini


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Netizen Report: Egyptian Activists and Authorities Brace for January 25 Protests · Global Voices
Netizen Report Team

Tahrir Square in January 2011. Photo by Jonathan Rashad. (CC BY-2.0)
Activists online and on the ground in Egypt have faced heightened scrutiny and legal threats from government authorities since early January, as the country approaches the fifth anniversary of the mass protest movement that toppled former President Hosni Mubarak.
In addition to multiple arrests of activists and artists who have expressed criticism of the current regime, at least five people have been arrested due to their activities as administrators of Facebook pages. Three among them were arrested at the start of January and accused of belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood, the prominent political party outlawed by military leaders in 2013. All were accused of inciting violence against state institutions and calling for protests to be held on January 25.
On January 14, Ahmed Abdel Gawad, managing editor of the privately owned news site Masr al-Arabia, was detained briefly and then released after the site’s offices were raided. According to independent news site and Global Voices partner Mada Masr, security forces seized eight computers in the raid and unpublished several of the website’s top news stories, saying the articles threatened national security.
Various activists promoting protests have also bumped up against Egypt’s so-called anti-protest law, which requires citizens to obtain a state permit before holding a public gathering of 10 or more people.
As online conversations and coordination of demonstrations increases, technology platforms are bracing for challenges as well. Netizens across the country have reported challenges using platforms such as Skype, Facebook, Viber and WhatsApp.
Based on following the situation the reason behind shutting down #Facebook Free Basics in #Egypt, is probably requests to access users data.
— Ramy Raoof (@RamyRaoof) December 30, 2015
And after Facebook’s Free Basics app was mysteriously discontinued by Egyptian ISP Etisalat, Facebook appears to be stepping up its game in order to better serve Egyptian users facing censorship and surveillance constraints. As of January 19, Egyptian Android users can now access Facebook’s mobile site using the privacy-protective Tor browser, thanks in large part to Orbot, a proxy tool created by non-profit tech tool developer The Guardian Project. Learn how to download and use the tools here.
January 27 will mark a major court date for several free expression advocates facing trial in North Africa. In Morocco, seven advocates including Global Voices author Hisham Almiraat will begin trial, with five facing charges of “threatening the internal security of the State” and two of “receiving foreign funding without notifying the General Secretariat of the government.” In Ethiopia, blogger Zelalem Workagegenhu and two of his friends will return to court on charges of co-facilitating an online social media training (which never took place) and recruiting members for a diaspora organization. Acclaimed journalist and blogger Eskinder Nega, who is currently serving an 18-year prison sentence on terrorism charges, is slated to testify in their defense.
Access to VoIP services Whatsapp, Viber, Facebook and Skype was blocked by Morocco’s telecom providers, who claim the services breached their regulations. In response Moroccans announced plans to boycott the companies. They say they’ll escalate if the block does not end.
Peru’s National Board of Elections vowed to prosecute anyone who criticizes or humiliates political candidates on social media, under the country’s Organic Elections Law. Elections officials made it clear that the policy would apply to anyone — including competing political candidates. The motion has since been revoked.
Chinese regulators are working to ensure that local content delivery networks —  third-party servers that deliver content to end-users with a certain guarantee of high availability and high performance — remove circumvention tools from their networks. Although the move carries some political significance, experts note that most of these circumvention services are not politically motivated but rather geared towards expediting the streaming of foreign online games and television network programs. The change in tactic may be linked to amendments to China’s penal code made in November 2015 that addressed “Internet-related crime,” among other thing.
Access more than 100 Ukrainian news websites was blocked in the self-proclaimed “Lugansk People’s Republic”, an area of eastern Ukraine occupied by pro-Russian militia. The militia leaders claim the block, which was ordered by decree from the militia’s Ministry of Information, was instituted to protect citizens from the ‘destabilizing’ influence of Ukrainian media. Among the sites blocked are several news services including BBC Ukrainian, Ukrainska Pravda, Obozrevatel, TSN, and 24 TV.
Ellery Roberts Biddle, Marianne Diaz, Oiwan Lam and Sarah Myers West contributed to this report.

author: Netizen Report Team


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On Criticising Charlie Hebdo on Facebook, and the Perils of Selective Freedom of Speech · Global Voices
Efe Levent

The author's Facebook post (L), and the takedown notice (R) he received within 24 hours of posting.
People who are politically active learn very quickly to adopt different personas according to the situations they’re in. This generally first happens around the family dinner table, where we become versed at suppressing our indignation and resisting the urge to pontificate on our latest cause. Because nobody wants to be too self-righteous to enjoy a little quality time with people they love. At least until after dessert.
Outside of the family circle, we also establish bonds of love and trust with people with whom we share common interests, ideas, opinions, a common language. And it is this sharing that make us grow together into a community. This is why Charlie Hebdo’s depiction of a dead Kurdish child does not appear to my community an act of solidarity, as its defenders have claimed. The repeated exploitation of Aylan Kûrdi’s body to make edgy works of satirical art does not strike us as something a caring person would do. It strikes us as callous and inconsiderate. Particularly when Kurdish activists are offering suggestions for meaningful acts of solidarity the French could perform in order to address their state’s own complicity in the crimes committed against the Kurdish people.
“The repeated exploitation of Aylan Kûrdi’s body to make edgy works of satirical art does not strike us as something a caring person would do.”
These were the thoughts behind the commentary I posted about a Charlie Hebdo cartoon on Bay Area Intifada’s Facebook page. I was commenting on the fact that the freedom of speech that is granted to some is often denied to others.
How ironic is it, then, that my comment was removed from Facebook within less than 24 hours? The cartoon itself is still circulating on Facebook, so it is clear that Charlie Hebdo’s offensive drawing is not the problem. I looked up Facebook’s Community Standards to get an idea of why my post may have been removed. It contained no reference to “regulated goods”, “self injury”, or criminal activity. The closest the guidelines come to possibly describing what I had done is “hate speech”.
According to the guidelines: “Facebook removes hate speech, which includes content that directly attacks people based on their: race, ethnicity, national origin […].” My post neither advocated violence, nor called for revenge. It merely pointed out that white supremacy obfuscates its own mechanisms—hello, irony! Unless of course, some exceptionally sensitive auto-censorship algorithm interpreted “German asses” (my translation of “des fesses en Allemagne”, part of the cartoon's caption) as my calling German people donkeys, and got frightfully offended. The other possibly contentious word in my commentary is “cracker.”
I admit the word is vulgar and disrespectful. One I would not use at the family dinner table (if my family’s native language were in fact English). More importantly, no one at our family table would use Aylan’s death to make a snarky joke. French intellectuals of the Charlie Hebdo type look more and more like uninvited guests who show up drunk at your house, insult everyone with crass personal jokes targeting members of your family, then complain that the sophistication of their humour is lost on the people in the room. Meanwhile, Aylan’s family remains perplexed as to why some French cartoonists are so keen on mocking their trauma.
But “cracker” is a word I use regularly with the people I consider my community here in Turkey.
“I watched white anarchists flip like weather vanes from protesting against the occupation of Iraq to holding candlelight vigils. I realised then that we are not the same. That solidarity is for white people. That not all lives matter.”
I have been politically active in various shapes and forms since I was a teenager. I received my first death threat for speaking my mind at the tender age of 16, when I publicly insulted Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish state. Ever since then I have hopped around from movement to movement, protest to protest. I was protesting in Gleneagles against the G8 in 2005 when the July 7 bombings happened. I watched white anarchists flip like weather vanes from protesting against the occupation of Iraq to holding candlelight vigils. I realised then that we are not the same. That solidarity is for white people. That not all lives matter.
After many years of searching and occasionally abandoning hopes of finding organised political action, I came into contact with people of colour, first-generation US immigrants from the Middle East, Central Asia and the Pacific who, like Baldwin, felt eviscerated by America’s systematic destruction of their bodies and had washed up on the shores of Istanbul, which, as a result of the Gezi protests, was already starting to become an exciting place.
I made friends from Syria with whom I connected both on a personal and political level.  We discussed the elitism of white journalists and NGOs. We read articles by Budour Hassan deconstructing white solidarity with Palestine. It is from these people that I learned the word “cracker”, and it is also from them that I discovered Bay Area Intifada.
The word “cracker” was originally used in  the United States as a pejorative term for white people, especially poor rural whites from the South, referring to those who “cracked the whip” on plantations in order to keep African slaves in line.. My comrades and I borrowed our usage of the term from Black nationalists—and from people like Trayvon Martin—both to articulate our own demands from colonisers, and to signal that we stand in solidarity with those who have paid the heaviest price as a result of the colonisers’ lecherous greed.
We use the word “cracker” to refer to people who justify occupying a country by claiming that they are liberating it. We use it to describe those who choose to ignore pre-existing sexual harassment on their own turf, just so they can pretend that a propensity for sexual violence and melanin content are directly proportional. We use it to reclaim our struggle from the hands of those who exploit our tragedies to promote their mediocre art.
“We use the word “cracker” to refer to people who justify occupying a country by claiming that they are liberating it. We use it to describe those who choose to ignore pre-existing sexual harassment on their own turf, just so they can pretend that a propensity for sexual violence and melanin content are directly proportional.”
But most of all, we use it to refer to those who delude themselves into believing they built the affluent civilisation they guard so jealously from invading “swarms” with their own hands. When we know very well that it was built on the backs of slaves who were stolen from their homes and forced to work on plantations all across the Americas.
Why did I use it on Facebook? Because it reminded me that the crackers who claimed insurance for their “property” who drowned in unsafe ships are the same as those who refuse to carry out rescue operations in the Mediterranean in order to deter refugees from travelling to Europe. A cracker, to me, is someone who thinks that watching someone drown is cause for merriment.
If “cracker” was in fact the word that triggered Facebook’s takedown of my post, then Facebook censored the truth and denied the memory of a people’s suffering—a suffering for which reparations are still to be paid. It prioritised petty sensitivities over the suffering of the genuinely afflicted, placing the blame on those who need to remember their historic traumas in order to survive.
To us, using this word is a means of establishing bonds of solidarity across time and space. Of identifying the perpetrators of our collective subjugation. Until we take back what was stolen from us, until the day we don’t have to fight tooth and claw just to defend our right to commemorate our traumas in our own terms, crackers they are. And crackers they will remain.

author: Efe Levent


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The Caribbean Prepares Itself for ‘Zik-V’ Virus Threat · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

“Aedes aegypti on arm”; photo by AFPMB, used under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license.
Ever since Brazilian health authorities confirmed that there is a link between the mosquito-borne Zika virus and a fetal brain-damage outbreak in the country (more than 3,500 cases between October 2015 and January 2016), netizens have been getting nervous about the health of pregnant women throughout the region.
The disease is now being considered a threat to public health in several Caribbean territories. Just last week, the Center for Disease Control issued an interim travel advisory related to the virus for 14 countries throughout Central and South America and the Caribbean.
There is, at present, no medicinal treatment or preventive vaccine available for the disease. An unusually high number of babies affected by the virus in utero are born with microcephaly, a developmental disorder in which the brain is unnaturally small and ceases to grow with the child, thereby limiting intellectual development and muscle coordination. Some of the infants have died as a result of their condition.
The regional blog Repeating Islands recently reported that Puerto Rico has recorded its first case of the virus. Pedro Pierluisi, Puerto Rico’s representative in Congress, advised that “the public should continue to take common sense steps to avoid mosquito bites, like using repellent and wearing long pants and shirts”. The post also confirmed that other regional territories such as Suriname and the Dominican Republic are being affected:
According to a report in Loop Suriname last week, the head of the Academisch Ziekenhuis Paramaribo (AZP) lab, where the first cases were confirmed, said thousands may be infected with the mosquito borne viral illness.
Once the disease reached the Caribbean, the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) started taking action, advising people to protect themselves against mosquito bites and to ensure that their homes were not breeding grounds for mosquito larvae. The organisation even plans to launch a mobile game called Zap-a-‘quito to educate the public about the Aedes Aegypti mosquito and its potential breeding sites; it also noted that the virus is a threat to “health, tourism, social and economic development” in the Caribbean.
As far back as June 2015, Trinidad and Tobago's health ministry had warned citizens to take precautions against the virus. By November 2015, Jamaica began to take notice of the threat — having experienced a massive Chikungunya outbreak in 2014, the authorities were reticent to be unprepared once again. Jamaica's health ministry even released a fact sheet about the Zika virus.
The Jamaican Blogs reported this week that the country's health authorities have gone as far as to advise women to delay pregnancy because of the “Zik-V” threat, as it is called on the island:
Following reports linking Zik-V to micro-encephalitis, an inflammation of the foetal brain that can stunt the growth of the affected foetus’ head, the Ministry of Health has advised women to delay becoming pregnant for the next six to twelve months.
The Ministry also encouraged those already pregnant, to take extra precautions to prevent being bitten by mosquitoes given the possible link between Zika Virus infection and micro-encephalitis. […]
Minister of Health, Horace Halley says although there is no absolute proof, the evidence from Brazil and the information from the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) and other technical partners is strong enough for the ministry to take this position in seeking to prevent any possible adverse outcome to pregnant women.
The virus continues to move closer to Jamaica having already been detected in Haiti.


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Don’t Laugh, But Dubai’s Deputy Police Chief Would Like to Tell You About Obama’s ‘Shia Roots’ · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Barack and Michelle Obama photoshopped into Islamic attire in front of the Imam Redha shrine in Mashhad, Iran, a revered Shia site. The text, in Persian, reads “Very soon…” (Original image source unknown.)
The Internet has been in stitches ever since Dubai's deputy chief of police Dhahi Khalfan announced on Twitter that US President Barack Obama has “Shia roots” and is likely to visit Shia religious centres in Iran soon.
The tweets, seen by many as reeking of Shia-phobia, were made after sanctions against Iran were lifted recently as part of an agreement reached last July between Iran and the P5+1 (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States; plus Germany) concerning Tehran's nuclear program.
On Twitter, Khalfan wrote:
أوباما الذي يعود لأصول شيعية انتخب لتقريب وجهات النظر بين إيران وأمريكا لإيقاف برنامج إيران النووي العسكري.نجحت الخطة .
— ضاحي خلفان تميم (@Dhahi_Khalfan) January 19, 2016
Obama, who has Shia roots, was elected to bridge the gap between Iran and the US to stop Iran's military nuclear programme. Mission accomplished.
In another tweet, he added:
من المتوقع أن يزور أوباما قم ومشهد وكبرى الحسينيات في إيران. !!
— ضاحي خلفان تميم (@Dhahi_Khalfan) January 19, 2016
It is expected that Obama will visit Qom, Mashhad, and all the big Shia religious congregation halls!!
Many responded to Khalfan with mockery. Twitter user AIfie, for instance, shared this photograph with Khalfan:
@Dhahi_Khalfan pic.twitter.com/QQOCao84fw
— Alfie (@AIfie_Twit) January 19, 2016
Faisal Alhbabi asked:
@Dhahi_Khalfan انت كيف صرت رئيس شرطة دبي وهذا فكرك 😒
— FAISAl (@faisalalhbabi) January 19, 2016
How did you become chief of police when this is the level of your thinking?
Abbas Zahri, meanwhile, shared this photoshopped image of Obama performing Shia rituals, mourning the death of an Imam:
معك حق والدليل هذه الصورة 😂😂😂😂😂😂 @POTUS @BarackObama @Dhahi_Khalfan pic.twitter.com/WtPb8t7ZYE
— عباس زهري (@zahri_abbas) January 19, 2016
You are right and this is proof!
More photoshopped pictures followed. Ammar Ali shared another doctored photograph of the US president, this time depicting him performing a Shia mourning ritual associated with Ashura:
صورة له و هو يقري لطمية ف حسينية @Dhahi_Khalfan pic.twitter.com/ZZfKd1BFkw
— عمّــــاار عليّ (@ammar_ali94) January 19, 2016
This is a photograph of him mourning in a Hussainiya.
A Hussainiya is a Shia congregation centre, used for gatherings to mark Shia rituals.
Twitter user Hussain M shared this photograph of Obama, saying it is a leaked photograph from a religious learning centre in Qom (the epicentre of Shia learning in Iran):
@Dhahi_Khalfan صور مسربة لاوباما عند تخرجه من حوزة قم في ايران . pic.twitter.com/fBgNy9NJJZ
— hossien m. (@69mansourM) January 20, 2016
Here's a leaked photograph of Obama after his graduation from a Shia learning centre in Qom, Iran.
Iranians on social media have also taken to discussing Obama's role in Shia Islam, however in a slightly different light. Last November, an Iranian blogger posted a picture from an anti-US rally in Tehran, where protesters carried pictures of Obama, where his likeness was compared to that of Shemr, a villainous figure in Shia Islam.
#Obama depicted as Shemr, the most evil figure in history for #Shia followers today's anti-US rallies pic.twitter.com/tGO8zPvkFb
— potkin azarmehr (@potkazar) November 4, 2015
Other Iranians who shared the news of the deputy chief of police's views noted their amusement at such far-fetched ideas. Addressing the news, one Iranian-American blogger, Holly Dagress, added the hashtag #ShiaScare.
Dubai's ex-police chief says US President Barack #Obama is of Shia origin due to #IranDeal #ShiaScare https://t.co/TuZJ6DK9t5
— Holly Dagres (@hdagres) January 20, 2016
Mohsen Milani, an Iranian academic based in the United States, shared the news with a laughing emoji.
Ex head of Dubai Police Khalfan:#Obama is of #Shia origin elected to bring #Iran & US closer.😄 https://t.co/TZQEwkBdGB via @DrAbbasKadhim
— Mohsen Milani (@MohsenMilani) January 20, 2016
Various conspiracy theories have circulated about Obama's Shia background in the past. During the 2008 elections, Iran's state-run newspapers ran unsubstantiated claims about Obama's Shia past and his connections to southwestern Iran. In June 2015, the former Iraqi parliament member Taha al-Lahibi released a YouTube video describing Obama's Shia background as part of a conspiracy by Iran's Shia forces fighting the Islamic State in Iraq, alongside the still evolving nuclear negotiations between Iran and the United States.
Iranian social media users typically ridicule theories like these. In response to the al-Lahibi conspiracy, one Iranian Twitter user joked that the nuclear negotiations were turning Obama into a Shia.
مذاکره با ایران اوباما را شیعه کرد! +فیلم http://t.co/T7XUdNPjJS
— علمی مذهبی کوثر (@sobhan348) June 10, 2015
Nuclear negotiations with Iran have made Obama into a Shia! +film
The statements by Dubai's deputy chief of police come after the United Arab Emirates backed Saudi Arabia in a recent conflict with Iran that led the two nations to cut diplomatic ties. In reaction, the Emirates downgraded their relationship by reducing the number of diplomats in Iran and recalling its ambassador. They have not severed ties, however, due to a long history of trade with Iran.


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Warlords to the Lebanese People: Let’s Forgive and Forget! · Global Voices
Abir Ghattas

Lebanese “Warlords Collage”. Geagea (with mustache) and Aoun (in uniform) appear in the photo at the upper right. Source: moulahazat.wordpress.com
Lebanon is special, we know, because our ancestors are Phoenician and because we can swim and ski in the same day. But Lebanon is also special because key figures of the Lebanese civil war are still in power, waltzing on the corpses of thousands of dead civilians and the living bodies of 4.5 million Lebanese citizens. On January 18th, 2016, Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geageapublicly endorsed his wartime rival Michel Aoun’s candidacy for president. This agreement means that Lebanon might finally have a new president, after 20 months in which the country's top post has been vacant.
Here’s some context. Geagea, the executive chairman of the Lebanese Forces, the second largest Christian political party in Lebanon, and Aoun, a former Lebanese Army Commander and founder of the Free Patriotic Movement, are former enemies who fought against each other during the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990). On January 31, 1990, the Lebanese Army, with Aoun as its commander-in-chief, clashed with the Lebanese Forces (then a militia). The latter objected to Aoun’s assertion that it was in the national interest for the government to “unify weapons”, meaning that the Lebanese Forces should submit to his authority as acting head of state. The clash resulted in the deaths of hundreds of civilians.
I felt the need to add my two cents’—or two liras—on this state of affairs because of what General Aoun said during what blogger Joey Ayoub compared to an acceptance speech at the Oscars—that he wanted to leave the past behind in order to build the future.
“I would like to thank the academy for giving me this opportunity to shine” https://t.co/ThGW42dv0h
— Joey Ayoub جووي أيوب (@joeyayoub) January 18, 2016
People are sharing stories online of the times Aoun and Geagea bombed their neighborhoods. I can't testify to that, as I was too young at the time and had the “luxury” of being born in a remote village in the north of Lebanon. I can't testify first-hand to the pain of the war, to the loss, to the fear, to the experience of living surrounded by death. But I can testify to the hatred I saw, and continue to witness, between people my age or younger who also did not live through the war. No matter what anyone says, Lebanon’s regions, cities and neighborhoods, already riven by sectarian divisions, are still divided between the Aoun and Geagea camps.
I am not dismissing the experiences of these young partisans, nor those of their loved ones. But I do wonder how they, with no direct experience of the war, manage to muster such hatred, why they listen to songs about an ugly war that ended 25 years ago that describe one leader as the alpha and omega and the other as god sent. I’m puzzled as to why they learn how to signal their support by honking their car horns—a “taratatata” or a “tata tatata tata tata tata” in the wrong place or time can get you into trouble—display party stickers on their cars, and wage their own second-hand war. A bloodless one, it’s true, but a cold war nevertheless.
“I’m puzzled as to why they learn how to signal their support by honking their car horns—a “taratatata” or a “tata tatata tata tata tata” in the wrong place or time can get you into trouble…”
Where is the urge to question those they blindly follow, and ask questions like “what happened”? “Who won”? “How many people died”? “What happened to those who were kidnapped”? “How many women and girls were raped”? “How many corpses were tied and dragged behind cars like war trophies”? “How many loaves of bread were stolen at checkpoints”?
During his “acceptance speech” Aoun basically said that what happened happened, and we should put it behind us, and maybe remember it so that we don't repeat it. Geagea was smiling beside him.
Well, even though it is our fault (we elected them, after all, over again over again, those times we were actually allowed to have elections), I don't want to stop believing that we deserve better. This endorsement, this deal between two war criminals, represents yet another nail in the coffin of our collective memory. Those of us who didn't experience the war are now stripped of our ability to hold these men accountable for the deaths of thousands. And now they tell us to forget and move on. Because it is convenient for them? Because after years of wanting to eliminate each other, this is the only way to survive? We shouldn’t question their pasts or demand justice, yet these men want us to trust them with our future?
It’s about peacemaking, they say. But can peace really exist in a vacuum? How can we   achieve peace without a reconciliation process? Without healing the wounds of the past? How can peace exist when a silent, brutal, cold, war is being waged every day?
Where, indeed, is there room for peace when all we see is corruption, unaccountability, nepotism, theft, and the dismissal of an entire people?

author: Abir Ghattas


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A New Wave of Protests Sweeps São Paulo Against Public Transportation Fare Hikes · Global Voices
Raphael Tsavkko Garcia

São Paulo will have its fifth protest against the fare hike this month on January 21. Photo: Mídia Ninja, CC 2.0
As the new year dawned with public transportation fare hikes in some major Brazilian cities, the Free Fare Movement, a leading force in mobilizing for cheaper tickets, organized multiple demonstrations across the country — sometimes met with violent crackdowns from the police.
In São Paulo, bus, train and subway fares increased from 3.50 reais (0.85 US dollars) to 3.80 (0.92 US dollars), while in Rio de Janeiro the fare rose from 3.20 to 3.50. State and city governments blame Brazil's high inflation rate — the highest in 12 years — and rising costs of electricity for the hikes: Protesters, however, are demanding a thorough revision of transportation policies that rely on private enterprises, claiming these business make a generous profit out of public subsidies.
A study carried out in 2015 by Fundação Getúlio Vargas, a local research center, found that public transport in 21 Brazilian cities are among the most costly in the world in relation to the average salary, outranking cities like London, Tokyo and New York. The study calculated how many minutes the average employee needs to work in order to afford a single journey bus ticket — 13.3 minutes in São Paulo, 13.2 in Rio de Janeiro, 11.3 in London, 6.5 in Tokyo and 5.8 in New York.
A protest in São Paulo city center. Photo: PSTU Nacional/Facebook
In June 2013, protests against a fare hike also led by the Free Fare Movement triggered the largest demonstrations in a generation in Brazil, with their political implications still being debated to this day. In early 2015, the movement once again mobilized protests against another fare hike, but this time they didn't pick up speed as before because a different group of protesters stole away the media spotlight for demanding the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff.
So far in 2016, six demonstrations have taken place, four of them in São Paulo alone. The first two, January 8 and 12, were the most violent, with police firing rubber bullets and tear gas at protesters, leaving dozens injured, some seriously. On January 12, the protest was cut short by the police following a disagreement with organizers over the route of the march. Police accused protesters of damaging public and private property, and more than 25 people were temporarily detained.
Demonstrations were widely tweeted and dozens of photos and videos have sprung up online. The one below was recorded in São Paulo on January 12:
Activist Caio Castor recorded the same scene from the ground:
São Paulo police officer caught pointing gun at #ContraTarifa transport protester. Circumstances unclear. Photo: @G1 pic.twitter.com/fGYXeIwbSx
— Ben Tavener (@BenTavener) January 8, 2016
Among the injured on January 12 was a homeless man who was collecting cans in the area, hit by a rubber bullet in the leg. Another was subway employee Heber Veloso, who says he was beaten up by the police. One protester was shot in the eye with a rubber bullet, but isn't at risk of losing his vision, while another suffered a hand fracture and had to undergo surgery.
Inmense presence of military police forces during the third demonstration in São Paulo city center. Photo: Mídia Ninja.
During the third demonstration on January 14, protesters complained of the disproportional amount of police officers deployed to follow them, accusing the state government — who controls the police forces — of ‘psychological terrorism’.
Ex-alunos meus e do @Hupsel relatam via msg a impossibilidade de ficar no ato com tanta polícia. Terror psicológico! pic.twitter.com/reESCzT7iy
— Acácio Augusto (@acacio1871) January 14, 2016
Former students of mine and of @Hupsel report via message the impossibility of getting into the demonstration with so much police. Psychological terror!
Observe a quantidade de policiais militares… #3e80Nao #ContraTarifa #NaoAoAumento pic.twitter.com/SrFQgSL3T1
— Midia NINJA (@MidiaNINJA) January 14, 2016
Note the amount of military police …
Choque na Praça da Sé, ato contra o aumento da tarifa em SP #3e80Nao #ContraTarifa #NaoAoAumento pic.twitter.com/RlPuqZhHQM
— Midia NINJA (@MidiaNINJA) January 14, 2016
Shock [the name of a military police division] in Sé Square, demonstration against the fare increase in São Paulo
Some women at the third demonstration accused military police of sexual abuse. Seven reported being beaten by military police officers; another group of around 15 people said police officers beat them as well and touched the vaginas of the women amongst them.
The protests managed to gain support from other social movements in São Paulo such as the Homeless Workers Movement (MTST), which has a solid base in the city's poor suburbs (the Free Fare Movement in contrast finds most of its support amongst students). During a demonstration held on January 19, the Homeless Workers Movement gathered 5,000 people in São Paulo's Itaquera district in the city's far east, where World Cup Stadium Arena Corinthians is located, and in Capão Redondo, in the city's south.
Homeless Workers Movement demonstration in Itaquera. Photo from the MTST profile on Facebook.
Independent journalism agency Democratize summarized the day:
Fortalecido com o apoio de movimentos como o MTST, protestos contra a tarifa ganham peso nesta semana. Com quatro manifestações simultâneas em pontos diferentes da cidade, mais de 30 mil pessoas participaram de mais um dia de luta contra o aumento da tarifa no transporte público em São Paulo.
Strengthened by the support of movements like the Homeless Workers Movement, fare protests gained momentum this week. With four simultaneous demonstrations in different parts of the city, more than 30,000 people took part in another day of struggle against the fare increase in public transportation in São Paulo.
A fifth demonstration in São Paulo has been called for January 21, although it remains to be seen whether those demonstrations will gain the momentum of those in June 2013 or if they will succeed in pressuring state and city governments to revoke the fare hikes once and for all and not for just a few months.

author: Raphael Tsavkko Garcia


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An AIDS Epidemic is Decimating the Indigenous Warao Community in Venezuela · Global Voices
Minerva Vitti

A specialist conducting a preliminary HIV test on a Warao patient. To determine if a patient has HIV, two tests are run: first a saliva sample is studied and if it tests positive, the patient must undergo a blood test. Photo by Minerva Vitti, published with permission.
This story is an adaptation of the first installment of research conducted by Minerva Vitti and was previously published on ArmandoInfo.
The day Monsignor Felipe González asked the residents of San Francisco de Guayo, an indigenous village located in the Orinoco Delta on the far northeastern tip of Venezuela, to describe what people felt before they died, everyone started naming fever, diarrhea, weight loss, weakness, and dizziness. No one mentioned the illness that encompasses all of these symptoms.
“Folks, you are dying of AIDS,” said the priest. In San Francisco de Guayo, as in other nearby communities, many of the Warao people do not call AIDS by name, but by the symptoms they experience.
San Francisco de Guayo, which is located in the Antonio Díaz municipality of the Venezuelan state of Delta Amacuro, was one of the eight communities where in late 2011, Dr. Julián Villalba and other researchers from the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research and the Biomedical Institute at the Central University of Venezuela conducted a study that confirmed 55 cases of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) among the indigenous population.
The specialists became alarmed because 9.55% of residents in the eight communities studied had contracted the virus. Up until that point, the highest rates in the world corresponded to a distant region: Sub-Saharan Africa, with 5% of the population.
The research that specified the types of HIV contracted and the population’s infection rates were presented at meetings with Deputy Ministers of Health Miriam Morales and Claudia Morón in 2012 and 2014, respectively. Of these two health authorities, only Claudia Morón remains as a deputy minister of the Public Health Network. At that time, the officials guaranteed they would take action, that a part of the institution was already aware of the problem, and they would plan field research.
In 2015, some of the specialists from these studies as well as anthropologists conducting other research about the determining social factors of HIV infection in the Warao communities (carried out by the Foundation for Population Growth and Development, and which has not yet been published) met with representatives from the office of the Venezuelan ombudsman to update them on the situation. It is only known that after that they traveled to Tucupita, the capital of the state of Delta Amacuro, where they met with authorities and held workshops with community leaders.
Since then, however, nothing has changed.
A person can be infected with HIV for eight to 10 years without having any symptoms, yet still spread the virus. Someone infected with the most common strain in Venezuela, HIV-1 subtype B, could live during that time without treatment, but the Warao are developing AIDS symptoms in less than five years.
Other studies suggest that the virus entered the community about three decades ago and has progressed very quickly. It is well known that the outlook is devastating: the magnitude of the epidemic, the rate of transmission, and especially the aggressiveness of the strain.
Doctors also concluded that the communities with the highest rate of HIV infection are Jobure de Guayo, Usido, and San Francisco de Guayo, that men are more prone to infection than women, and that the highest HIV rates are among the 15-24-year-old age group. The mortality rate of HIV infection of the past eight years is high, and the HIV infection rate in the communities studied has been constant for the past three years.
In 2007, the Venezuelan Red Cross had identified 15 cases of HIV in the San Francisco de Guayo community and its surroundings (Murako, Jobure, Jobure Island, Ajimurina, Merejina, Kuamujo, La Mora, and Guayaboroina). Today, HIV is present in 26 Warao communities. The leaders of the Jeukubaca community disappeared two years ago when the majority of its inhabitants died of AIDS. This was confirmed by a list of statistics of the deceased maintained by the Guayo hospital. Most were men. The women who remained abandoned the town.
The communities with the highest incidence of HIV were Nabasanuka (three cases representing a prevalence of 5%), Burojosanuka (two cases representing a prevalence of 6.6%), and Bamutanoko (one case representing 5.26%). These figures are clear evidence that what is happening in Venezuela’s Orinoco Delta is an epidemic — an epidemic that is threatening the survival of an entire indigenous people.

author: Minerva Vitti