text:
Spain: Bullfighting Nuns vs. Animal-Loving Children · Global Voices
Lourdes Sada

This is the story of a group nuns who needed to do construction on their monastery and had an idea: organise a bullfighting festival to raise funds.
The nuns from the «Iesu Communio» congregation who live in the La Aguilera monastery, in Burgos province, Spain, are some very unusual nuns, as their denim habits, their website [es] and their Facebook page [es] make apparent. “Split,” not without controversy [es] from the nuns of the order of St. Clare, they occupy San Pedro Regalado monastery [es], which was handed over to them by the Franciscans. Perhaps because this monastery was in a bad condition or because the community enjoys unusual growth and needs space for more nuns, the congregation has embarked upon distinct work and repairs, some very controversial, like the new building annex that, according to many, destroys the harmony of the Baroque site. In his blog Ex Orbe [es], Terzio [es] says:
Junto al precioso conjunto del Santuario de San Pedro Regalado, las monjas-guay de Sor Verónica han levantado un queso fresco con ventanitas y terracitas digno de la peor arquitortura contemporánea.
Beside the beautiful site of the San Pedro Regalado Sanctuary, the Sister Veronica cool-nuns have built a fresh cheese with little windows and little balconies worthy of the worst contemporary architorture.
Poster for the bullfight organised by the nuns of La Aguilera. Image taken from the Facebook page for this event.
On top of that, the construction was done without council permission, which led to a 25,000€ fine [es] being imposed on them by the Aranda de Duero council in August 2012, which could have been even more, because one of the applications had already expired. In order to continue with the reparations of the monastery, the nuns decided to organise, last 4th May, a charity bullfight. But this initiative was picked up by some very special ears: those of the «El cuarto hocico [es]», a virtual animal protection group in the form of a blog, created by some children from Orba de Muel school (Zaragoza, Spain). The “cuartohociqueros” decided to take action and offer the nuns all the money they had at their disposal, 1000 Euros, which came from various donations. They made the offer in the form of a letter in which, among other things you can read:
Para nosotros, los niños, es muy importante que los adultos nos enseñen cómo comportarnos con un ser que puede sufrir. Si tenemos esto claro desde niños sabremos utilizarlo de mayores. Por eso, cuando nos hemos enterado de que querían hacer una corrida de toros para recaudar dinero hemos pensado en ayudarles… pero ayudarles de otra manera ¡¡¡Y esperamos servirles de ayuda!!!
For us kids, it's very important that adults show us how to behave with a being who can suffer. If we have this clear from childhood, we will know how to do it as adults. So when we found out that you wanted to put on a bullfight to raise money, we thought about helping you… but helping you in a different way. And we hope to be of help!!!
Letter from the children from «El cuarto hocico» to the Iesu Communio nuns. Screenshot from their website.
This initiative did not go unnoticed in the online press and social media. The comments on the story are a clear reflection of the division that exists in Spanish society over bullfighting. Glauco commented in tercera información [es]:
Adultos que se esconden detrás de niños para montar un numerito tierno. Qué triste.
Adults that hide behind children in order to kick up a tender fuss. How sad.
While an anonymous commentator said on the same website:
La tauromaquia sólo se entiende en España y un par de países más. Es un espectáculo de la Edad Media. Para catetos que disfrutan con el sufrimiento animal con la excusa de que es “La Fiesta Nacional”. Qué coño fiesta! Es violencia! Abolición ya!
Bullfighting is only understood in Spain and a couple of other countries. It's entertainment from the Middle Ages. It's for hillbillies who enjoy an animal's suffering with the excuse that it's “the National Festivity”. What a rubbish festivity! It's violence! Abolish it already!
Papua shows his support for bullfights on the blog La crónica verde [es]:
(…) Pero bueno seguid diciendo que queda poco a la tauromaquia, como se nota que no has estado en los miles de pueblos taurinos de España en los que la fiesta se centra en el toro.
(…) So ok, keep on saying that there's not much left of bullfighting, it shows you haven't been in the thousands of bullfighting villages in Spain where the party is centred around the bull.
Terry-cola [es] thinks in El diario [es] the complete opposite:
Para que se les dé un poco de vergüenza, ¿qué pensará su Dios?, el verdadero. Incluso Diógenes el cínico se dejó abrumar por un niño que le dio una lección, pero hoy día corren peores tiempos. ¿De verdad alguien cree que España es un país que ama al Toro?. Aquí os dejo una historia fantástica: Fadjen. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Bx0zye0pwMM y http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00bFr3gnDus
To embarrass them a bit, what would their God think?, truly. Even Diogenes the Cynic gave in to a child who taught him a lesson, but today times are even rougher. Does anyone actually believe Spain is a country that loves The Bull?. I leave you with a fantastic story: Fadjen. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Bx0zye0pwMM and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00bFr3gnDus
The nuns also received dozens of messages on their Facebook page [es] criticising their decision. Although at the time this article was written these messages had been erased, you could still read some on the event's Facebook page [es]:
Amalia López: Tiene que estar contento San Francisco con estas señoras.
Amalia López [es]: Saint Francis must be happy with these ladies.
The “Cuarto hocico” kids  have not been able to stop the Lerma bullfight [es], but with such a generous gesture they have succeeded in stirring the conscience of many people, and once again laying on the table the controversy over bullfights, which reached its critical point in 2010, when the autonomous government of Catalonia decided to prohibit them in its territory, joining the  Canary Islands, where bullfights have not been celebrated since 1991 [es].
These achievements are not surprising, because despite their young age, the “cuartohociqueros” amass prizes and awards: their blog has received the APDDA 2012 Prize [es] from the Parliamentary Association of the Defence of Animales, the National Ecoinitiatives Competition III [es] prize, the Ministry of Culture National CreArt Prize, the 2011 Educared International Prize [es], a Special Certificate of Recognition from the Jane Goodall Institute [es]… They have also created the Facebook page “Children 4 Animals” [es], which  is defined [es] as a “Project for the creation of a worldwide network of animal protectors directed by children.”
7th May 2012: The El Cuarto Hocico children face the public in the presence of the primatologist Jane Goodall, 2003 Prince of Asturias Research Prize. Image taken from their blog.
27th February 2013: The El Cuarto Hocico children receive the APDDA prize at the Member of Parliament Congress. Screenshot from their website.
We cannot but agree with Sister Lucía Caram when she tweets:
@sorluciacaram: Estos niños valen un imperio: http://fb.me/CsHyPlRE
@sorluciacaram [es]: These children deserve an empire: http://fb.me/CsHyPlRE[es]
And Moni ANIMAL, also on Twitter, gives us an interesting piece of information:
@ToroLoboVivos:Las monjas toreras no están al tanto de esta bula? http://elcaudelllop.wordpress.com/2010/03/15/bula-contra-las-corridas-de-toros-de-salutis-gregis-dominici-pio-v-1noviembre1567-2/ …
@ToroLoboVivos [es]:Aren't the bullfighting nuns up to date with this papal bull? http://elcaudelllop.wordpress.com/2010/03/15/bula-contra-las-corridas-de-toros-de-salutis-gregis-dominici-pio-v-1noviembre1567-2/ … [es]
It refers to the «De salutis gregi Diminici [es]», papal bull, that since 1567 prohibits, under pain of excommunication, people who “have received sacred callings from taking part in these performances (bullfights)”.

author: Lourdes Sada


text:
Chinese Web Floods White House with Petitions · Global Voices
Gloria Wong

Recently, an unsolved case of poisoning of a 19-year college student in 1994 resurfaced in the Chinese social media sphere. It not only grabbed the wide attention of Chinese netizens, but also triggered a wave of petitions to the White House.
Zhu Ling, a promising sophomore at the most prestigious university in China then, was diagnosed as having been intentionally poisoned by thallium, a highly toxic chemical used in insect poisons. She remains mostly bed-bound now and is taken care of by her old parents.
Zhu’s roommate, Sun Wei, was the major suspect at the time and was the only one who was questioned by the police but was soon cleared. The hearsay circulated around has been that Sun's political-related family allowed her to escape justice.
Obama is photoshopped into Bao Zheng, an ancient Chinese figure symbolizing justice. Photo from Weibo User @Jianmingvip
Disappointed by a lack of judicial independence in China, netizens turned to the White House. On May 3, 2013, a Chinese-American living in Florida submitted an online petition, which has drawn more than 145,000 signatures so far, on the White House’s “We the People” platform. Sun is believed to be residing in the United States and thus the Chinese called on the Obama administration to deport the suspect.
After the petition was circulated on Sina Weibo and other online forums, the Chinese netizens crammed the White House’ petition website in the following days with a variety of petitions such as: to nail down the official taste of bean curd stew (a kind of Chinese tofu), to improve Sina staff ‘s meal subsidies, and to cancel the university admission exams [zh]. Some petitions were written in poor English while others were written simply in Chinese.
Although the current signatures regarding deporting Zhu Ling have surpassed the threshold of 100,000, the petitions haven't received any official response yet. Many are crystal clear that the petitions will not necessarily lead to any practical result, including Zhu Ling’s parents, who expressed their preference to solve the case through regular domestic channels instead of resorting to the United States.
However, the enthusiasm for petitioning White House reflects the shortage of a leveraging voice and the venting of resentment for Chinese back home. In fact, Sina Weibo made an attempt to censor the name of Zhu Ling at the very beginning, but only found that it was too late to block the issue. Upon seeing a call for justice turned into a petition drama, many netizens blame the dereliction of duty of the Chinese government. Prominent writer Li Chengpeng (@李承鹏) laughed at the local petition system [zh],
一桩在中国发生由中国人向中国人投毒的案子，中国司法无能为力，19年后中国人跑到美国网站请愿。它说明，公平从未远去，只在寻找栖身之所。它还说明，公平就是公平，并不管栖身之所性质。这些年奥巴马已成为中国信访办主任，不知道他是否得意，但我们确实尴尬。打造大国形象，就是打造追求公平的形象.
The inability of Chinese judiciary authorities to solve an attempted poisoning murder at home 19 years ago, forcing the Chinese to resort to the website of the United States, elaborates two points: one is that we are not turning blind to the justice but are looking for it elsewhere; the other point is that justice is boundless, no matter whether it exists in China or in the United States. These years Obama has been jokingly referred to as the head of the China's petition office. I am not sure whether he is proud of that, but it is embarrassing for the Chinese. To build up an image of a great country is to build up a image to pursue justice.
Journalist Xiang Xianjun (@@项仙君) believed that the incident would impose some pressure on the new leaders:
中国网民向白宫请愿是对新政府的警示:面对公信力的严重流失，高层须迅速找到适应网络时代的执政方式，前提是调整执政理念。we the people 的走红，就是软实力的成功。在最早喊出我们人民有力量的国度，为什么我们还纠缠于截访而不是开闸泄洪打捞沉没的声音呢？
Chinese netizens’ petitioning the White House is a warning to the newly elected government: faced with the serious loss of public credibility, the government must change the ruling style and keep up with the age of the Internet. The popularity of We the People illustrates the success of soft power. In a country that boasts the power of the people at an early age, why does it still bother to block the people's voice instead of letting it go?
Some netizens even make fun of Obama and photoshopped his image as Bao Zheng, a renowned justice official during the Song dynasty. Microblogger, “Shinning Sun” (@朗朗的阳光) commented on Obama-Bao-Zheng: A netizen's Weibo post was even carried on Twitter:
最近奥巴马忙死了，各种请愿，各种恶搞。。。哈哈！白宫有个包青天，铁面无私辨忠奸…..
President Obama must be very busy now due to various petitions and various parodies… Hah, Bao Zheng is in the White House, who is able to distinguish the good from the bad due to his impartiality.
But some netizens believe that the wave of petitions is meant to shift the attention onto Zhuling's case. For example “Tse Xiaowei” (@TseWave觉悟X) said:
严重觉得最近在American White House网上请愿那些搞笑是水军所为，是想试着以这些无聊的事去cover某个重要的请愿么？
I am very suspicious that the petitions on the American White House website are done by “web navy” [those who are employed by others to write posts purposefully]. And I wonder if their intention is to cover up the important petition with meaningless ones.
An independent journalist, Sang Bo, observed how a criminal case was turning into a public drama step by step [zh]：
从“司法独立”到“言论自由”，再从“国家公正”到“体制民主”——推演党一步步为朱令案推演出来的这个价值公式中，我们承认其中的结论部分成立，问题确实存在，但这个公式并不成立。
From “judicial independence” to “speech freedom”, from “national justice” to “democratic politics”, a group of people are making use of Zhuling's case to make their argument. Although I agree on their conclusion and the problems surfacing from the case, I do not agree with their mathematic equation.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Gloria Wong


text:
Dominican Catholic Church Sues NGO for Sexual Education Campaign · Global Voices
Pamela Martínez Achecar

The Catholic Church filed an appeal against the Dominican Association for Family Welfare (Profamilia) [es] to withdraw their advertising campaign, “Your sexual and reproductive rights are human rights,” which uses the slogan “Know, Act, Demand” and aims to raise awareness about sex education, condom use, abortion, incest, harassment, and high-risk pregnancies.
The pastoral vicars for Family & Life and Health of the Archdiocese of Santo argue that this campaign encourages abortion and early sexual relationships; violates the right to life, the right of parents to exercise authority over their children, and the right to non-interference in the home; and uses images of children, which is prohibited by the Constitution.
On Saturday, May 11, Cardinal Nicolás de Jesús López Rodríguez accused Profamilia of promoting promiscuity in the country by encouraging underage sex. López Rodríguez said that the campaign promotes promiscuity, lawlessness, and vagrancy [es]:
A medida que usted reparte preservativos fomenta el derecho al sexo; es un invento de los individuos de hoy día que no tienen ninguna vergüenza, ningún principio; yo no creo en ONG’s, creo en los principios morales.
Handing out condoms promotes a right to sex; this is an invention of contemporary individuals who don't have any shame or principles; I don't believe in NGOs, I believe in moral principles.
As usual, social networks were the site of a lively debate on the subject. Tweeters quickly coalesced under the hashtag #SometemeAMi (I answer to me) in solidarity with the NGO Profamilia. Among the most notable tweets:
Mariana Barrenese, a public policy specialist:
@MaruBarrenese: #SometemeAMi por apoyar abierta y públicamente a @profamiliaRD y su campaña
@MaruBarrenese: #SometemeAMi by openly and publicly supporting @profamiliaRD and their campaign
Jenny Torres, a poverty expert:
@JennyTorres67: Esta visión tan adultocéntrica no nos deja vivir #SometemeAMi que #YoApoyoaProfamilia
@JennyTorres67: This adult-centric vision won't leave us alone #SometemeAMi because #YoApoyoaProfamilia (I support NGO Profamilia)
Gloria Amézquita, a journalist and social activist:
@GloriaAmézquita: #SometemeAMi por luchar por el derecho a decidir. Porque en el cuerpo manda la persona, no la Iglesia.
@GloriaAmézquita: #SometemeAMi for fighting for the right to choose. Because people are in charge of their bodies, not the Church.
Even the prosecutor for the National District, Yeni Berenice, voiced her support for Profamilia's work:
@YeniBerenice: La campaña de @profamiliaRD educativa, oportuna, necesaria!
@YeniBerenice: @profamiliaRD‘s campaign is educational, timely, necessary!
In her masterful article The Case of Profamilia: A Sign of Weakness in the Catholic Church [es], Denisse Paiewonsky, a representative from the Mujer y Salud [es] (Woman and Health) collective, said:
La Iglesia no acaba de entender que las actitudes de la sociedad dominicana hacia el aborto terapeutico, el acoso sexual, la educación sexual científica en las escuelas, la anticoncepción, el embarazo adolescente, etc. se alejan cada vez más de la ortodoxia eclesial.
The Church does not understand that attitudes in Dominican society toward therapeutic abortion, sexual harassment, scientific sex education in schools, contraception, teen pregnancy, etc. are moving farther and farther away from Church orthodoxy.
Profamilia's official statement [es] on the Church's suit makes it clear that they will not retreat in their campaign and reaffirms their commitment to scientific, evidence-based, comprehensive sex education and the defense of sexual and reproductive rights as part of human rights.
Both parties were due in court on Monday, May 13, in the Fifth Chamber of the Civil and Commercial Court of First Instance in the National District. However, the hearing was postponed to next Monday, May 20, because the Church and its lawyers have not submitted their evidence to the court.

author: Pamela Martínez Achecar


text:
Is Italy Ready for an African-born Minister? · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

“Is Italy ready for an African-born government minister?,” Donata Columbro asks:
Two months after the recent elections, Italy has a new government. And Cécile Kyenge, 48 years old, an eye surgeon and Congo-born Italian citizen, is the new Minister for Integration in the cabinet of Prime Minister Enrico Letta.

author: Ndesanjo Macha


text:
Lebanon: Blogger Beaten for Taking Photos · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Lebanese blogger Habib Battah narrates how he was held against his consent, forced to delete photographs of ruins from his phone camera and repeatedly assaulted in this post on the Beirut Report. When he reported the case to his local police station, the officers in charge said it was his word against theirs. He adds:
They were right. If the men on site were willing to beat me up to please their boss, they would certainly lie for him. And I was sealed in, no one from the street could witness how they had repeatedly assaulted me.
I left the police station feeling that Lebanese citizens have no protection under the law. The wealthy developers can smash us like ants, if ever we dare to upset them.

author: Amira Al Hussaini


text:
Toy Dolls that Speak African Languages · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Myweku writes about the introduction of Rooti Dolls, by Chris and Ada Ngoforo, a Nigerian couple:
The 12 Rooti dolls are programmed to speak in several African languages. Amongst them, there’s Nina, a “vibrant girl” with Nigerian parents, who “loves watching Nollywood” and can interact in the Nigerian languages of Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa […]


text:
Obama Graduation Speech Sparks Debate In China: What Is Citizenship? · Global Voices
Tea Leaf Nation

This article by Rachel Wang originally appeared on Tea Leaf Nation on May 13, 2013 and is republished as part of a content sharing agreement [Format adapted to facilitate translation].
Last week, a speech by U.S. President Barack Obama on the value of engaged citizenship made waves in Chinese social media.
Influential Sina Weibo user @假装在纽约, or “pretending to be in New York,” a widely followed provocateur who frequently tweets about the U.S. and whose account has more than 470,000 followers recommended [zh] the speech to Chinese youths:
(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
奥巴马昨天在俄亥俄州立大学的毕业典礼上演讲，演讲的核心是“公民意识”。我把他的演讲稿匆匆翻译了下来，就是觉得，中国的年轻人，也许更应该接受这样在中国的课堂里接受不到的教育。
The core of Obama’s speech yesterday at the Ohio State University Commencement is ‘a sense of citizenship, I roughly translated his speech, because I feel that Chinese youth may perhaps be even more in need of this kind of education, which they do not receive in Chinese classrooms.
In his commencement speech on May 5, President Obama said, ”We are not a collection of strangers…we are bound to one another by a set of ideals and laws and commitments.” ”Pretending to be in New York’s” post, together with his translation of the speech, attracted over 30,000 retweets and nearly 6,000 comments in about two days.
Though this is not the first time that Chinese netizens have compared the circumstances of China and the U.S., the concept of “citizenship” has stirred yet another round of discussion about the rights and responsibilities of the Chinese people, as well as criticism of the government. Yin Hong (@尹鸿), executive dean of the Tsinghua School of Journalism and Communication, commented [zh]:
虽然不算是一篇最好的讲演，但公民意识表述很清楚：每一个人都拥有天赋人权，所以每一个人也都具有天赋义务。这就是公民。没有人权，就就不能有义务。权力和义务是相对对等的。
Though this is not the best speech, ‘citizenship awareness’ has been described very clearly: everyone has natural rights, so everyone also has natural responsibilities. This is citizenship. Without human rights, there should be no responsibilities. Rights and responsibilities go hand in hand.
Another Weibo user, “Once very fat” (@曾经的胖胖胖胖), wrote:
为什么中国人缺少公民意识，因为他们不觉得这个政府跟他们有关系，而且事实上这个政府也的确不是来自选票……
Why do the Chinese lack a sense of citizenship? Because they don’t feel that this government has anything to do with them, and truthfully, the government is not an elected body.
“Dragon Ash” (@龙团一灰) commented [original Chinese post deleted],
[Being in] a socialist country, we cannot think about such things; the more you think about them, the worse you will feel. As for rights, whatever the civil servants say goes.
The sentiments apparent in the comments on Pres Obama’s speech went beyond envy, jealous and pity. They also included discussions about the struggles, difficulties, and bitterness that Chinese youth face today. Weibo user “Big Guy Moving Like Dragon and Tiger” (@大背头龙行虎步 wrote [original Chinese post deleted]:
The youth all start out hoping for a sense of citizenship, but after hitting the wall over and over again in society, they turn towards nepotism. This is ‘soy-sauce vat’ China, where everything ends up black [corrupt] regardless of how it started out. One generation after another, this is our traditional culture: dictatorship, authoritarianism, and intolerance of opposition. The burdens of tradition are way too heavy; democracy might be another century away.
User “Hula Baopei” (@呼啦啦啦宝宝_佩) mused:
当国内大学生一毕业便面临高房价、物价而不得不屈服于现实失去梦想时，美国青年却可以以祖国未来为己任，被赋予强大的公民意识，坚定不移的实现自己的梦想、承担国家发展之重任，我在想中国的未来在哪里？下一代的未来在哪里？
While Chinese college graduates succumb to reality and lose their dreams in the face of high prices and unaffordable housing right after college, American youth can make the future of their country their personal mission; they’ve been endowed with a strong sense of citizenship, they hold fast to their dreams, and they take the responsibility for the nation’s development. I am wondering, where is China’s future? Where is the future of the next generation?
Such concerns might just be timely, with graduation right around the corner for many in China. Perhaps for most recent college graduates, the most pressing issue facing them is not how to change the nation, but how to survive in a gloomy economy. In fact, 2013 is believed to be the most difficult job hunting season modern China has ever faced. While almost seven million college graduates are entering the job market, only nine million new jobs have been created, and college graduates must compete with returning students from abroad, as well as high school graduates and trade school graduates. The ratio of college graduates to jobs is  believed to be the lowest in Chinese history [zh].
A sense of citizenship may mean more than thinking independently and forming opinions that differ from the propaganda of the Chinese government. More importantly, it represents an ability to be balanced and independent when facing authority, an ability that flows from the feeling of being an influential part of the country, however small the individual may be. As Ren Zhiqiang (@任志强), a real estate tycoon with more than 14 million followers on Weibo, opined [zh],
总统的讲话从来不是必须学习的圣旨。而是一种常识。
The president’s speeches have never been edicts that all are required to study, but simply common sense.

author: Tea Leaf Nation


text:
Russia’s State-Contracted Revolutionaries · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

When Vladislav Surkov left the government last week, it triggered an avalanche of speculation about what the loss of “the grey cardinal” means for Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev in particular and his “liberal” political clan in general. The ouster followed a public fracas with the federal Investigative Committee, which recently opened an embezzlement case against managers of the state-sponsored Skolkovo innovation center, which is widely considered Surkov’s brainchild.
At the center of the feds’ probe [ru] is Duma Deputy and anti-Putin protest movement leader Ilya Ponomarev, who earned a surprising $750,000 [ru] for his outreach (see below) and planning work for Skolkovo between 2010 and 2012.
In the last two months, Ponomarev’s Skolkovo income has attracted growing national media attention, but the issue has been percolating [ru] on the RuNet since last year. On September 23, 2012 (in response to a scandal involving registration fees for elections to the Coordinating Council of the Russian Opposition), Ponomarev first addressed the large sum of money he earned from Skolkovo, writing [ru] on LiveJournal:
Про доходы. Моя декларация есть в открытом доступе. Я никогда не жаловался на доходы. За последний год я получил как депутат около 2 млн. рублей, и еще около 7 млн. получил как гонорары за поддержку инновационных проектов по линии Фонда Сколково.
About my income. My declaration is accessible to all. [See here for Ponomarev's 2006-2012 records.] I’ve never wanted for earnings. In the last year, I made 2 million rubles as a Duma deputy, and I earned another 7 million rubles ($225,000) in honoraria for supporting the Skolkovo Foundation’s various innovation projects.
Suspicious minds
Many bloggers reacted to these figures with suspicion. Vadim Skvortsov, for instance, highlighted Ponomarev’s apparently unique advisor position under Skolkovo President Viktor Vekselberg, writing [ru]:
Что-то мне подсказывает, что такие денежки идут частенько прямиком на финансирование антипутинских акций “болотной” либерально-анархической оппозиции.
Something tells me that such money goes directly toward financing the anti-Putin demonstrations of the “Bolotnaya” liberal-anarchist opposition.
Earlier that year in March, a Lithuania-based blogger named skolkovo_eu also raised the idea [ru] that Vekselberg was financing the opposition through Skolkovo, linking to an article [ru] in the online tabloid wek.ru titled “Viktor Vekselberg Funds Ponomarev’s ‘Million Man March’?”
An artist's impression of Ilya Ponomarev's radical politics. Remixed by author from Alberto Korda's iconic 1960 photo of Che Guevara.
On April 19, 2013, a day after police raided the offices of Skolkovo’s management, the Investigative Committee opened [ru] a criminal case against the fund’s senior vice president, Alexey Beltiukov, for embezzling money through Skolkovo’s contracts with Ponomarev. Over the next twenty-four hours, the story developed in several directions online, focusing mainly on (1) continued suspicions about Ponomarev’s large honoraria, and (2) a debate about whether or not Skolkovo serves as a funnel for state sponsorship of the opposition. Much of the controversy surrounding the high income is that almost half ($300,000) was compensation for just ten lectures, meaning that Ponomarev earned roughly $10,000 for each talk, some of which lasted less than twenty minutes. Investigators even allege [ru] that he may not have attended one of these presentations in Tomsk in October 2011 (though there is photographic evidence to the contrary, and Ponomarev did “check-in” from the event’s location, using Foursquare).
Ponomarev & friends fight back
On April 20, writing on LiveJournal, Ponomarev responded [ru] to investigators’ accusations, defending the size of his contracts and arguing that the state saved money by hiring him instead of outsourcing the labor to private firms. While his Skolkovo deal formally concerned a lecture series, Ponomarev insists that far more was included in the work:
Мероприятий было гораздо больше, но меня Фонд изначально предупредил, что надо отчитываться небольшим количеством из них, которые проходили в открытом режиме, и каждое из которых смогут подтвердить свидетели в ходе неминуемых проверок.
There were far more events, but the Foundation from the start warned me that we needed to give an account of [only] a small number—the ones open to the public, so witnesses could confirm each of these events during inevitable [future] audits.
On April 19, another Duma deputy on LiveJournal, LDPR’s Igor Lebedev, posted scans [ru] supposedly containing excerpts of Ponomarev’s Skolkovo contracts. (Ponomarev says the scans are fake.) What Lebedev published accounts for about 80% of the $750,000 work, which Ponomarev allegedly described in a March 2011 letter to Beltiukov as “scientific research.” On the subject of qualifications, questions remain about Ponomarev’s academic credentials, given that he had not completed his higher education at the time of the contracted work. (He returned for a degree in 2011, after a 14-year hiatus.)
Because of Skolkovo’s mysterious recordkeeping, the public is free either to take on faith or reject Ponomarev’s claim that his work for the government was honest. Skolkovo’s puzzling approach to contracted labor seems to have stemmed from fears that a more straightforward, transparent approach would make it vulnerable to state inspectors. Ironically, it’s the absence of a clear paper trail that now incriminates the project.
Some bloggers have tried to piece together the various input costs that Ponomarev would have incurred in his travels inside Russia and abroad (he visited a dozen foreign countries in connection with Skolkovo work). On April 20, 2013, California-based software engineer Yuri Panchul (a self-confessed admirer [ru] of Ponomarev) estimated the likely costs of the Skolkovo-related business trips throughout the United States, concluding [ru] that any Silicon Valley executive would not have taken the contract for less than $1 million. Regarding probable travel and hospitality expenses (which Ponomarev claims to have paid using his honoraria), Panchul argues that costs were as high as $700,000, meaning that Ponomarev’s real salary was only about $50,000.
Clan warfare then & now
Others on the RuNet have been less inclined to believe that Ponomarev’s income was all lost to unreported expenses. On April 22, 2013, Kremlin-sympathetic blogger Nikolai Starikov tried to connect Ponomarev’s Skolkovo work to foreign political interference [ru], implying a plot [ru] between Westerners and certain government insiders:
Нас еще ждут отставки и весьма интересные повороты сюжета. Ведь наша «оппозиция», а вернее говоря, их западные друзья и кураторы были уверены, что им удастся не допустить прихода Путина на пост президента. А, значит, все эти «шалости» останутся покрытыми тайной и туманом. И тот факт, что государственные структуры оплатят протесты против государства, так никто и не узнает.
Но вот эту правду про истинное назначение денег Илья Пономарев никогда не скажет. И предпочтет выглядеть банальным жуликом и вором.
We can look forward to resignations and some quite interesting plot twists. Indeed, our “opposition”—or better said, our opposition’s Western friends and sponsors—were sure they’d succeed in stopping Putin’s return to the presidency. That means that all these “antics” will remain covered in secrets and mist. And nobody realizes the fact that state structures are paying for protests against the state.
But Ilya Ponomarev will never reveal this truth about the money’s real purpose. He’d rather look like a common thief.
In July 2010, when Russian politics was still caught in a feverish debate about whether Medvedev or Putin would run for president in 2012, LiveJournal user _iga taunted Ponomarev on his blog, arguing [ru] that the Skolkovo project amounted to a retirement plan for Medvedev, sealing his fate as a one-term president. Ponomarev disagreed, writing [ru]:
думаю, строго наоборот – этот проект является заявкой Медведева на второй срок
I think it’s exactly the opposite. This project [Skolkovo] is Medvedev’s bid for a second term.
Almost three years later, in the immediate aftermath of the Investigative Committee’s raids on Skolkovo, Ponomarev’s thoughts about the innovation center’s place in Russian politics have changed. Whereas Skolkovo was Medvedev’s executive calling card in July 2010, Ponomarev now sees politics as an intrusion on the project:
Я не склонен оценивать происходящее как борьбу Путина с Медведевым. Но думаю, мы являемся свидетелями борьбы консервативного клана (условного кооператива Озеро) с условными либералами в правительстве. Мне не нравятся они оба. Но второй клан хотя бы что-то делает, чтобы разорвать зависимость России от нефти и газа. Первый клан устраивает статус кво, и он сознательно рушит все начинания, которые могут его поколебать.
I’m not inclined to see events as a battle between Putin and Medvedev, but I do think that we’re witnessing a battle between the conservative clan (your Ozero co-op) and your various liberals in the government. I don’t like either of them, but the second clan is at least doing something to break Russia’s dependence on oil and gas. The former clan is satisfied with the status quo, and it consciously destroys all endeavors that might shake it.

author: Kevin Rothrock


text:
Laos Defines National Dress · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

To further promote Lao culture, the government has organized a seminar which defined the country's national dress to be used during formal events.
For men the suit will be made from Lao silk fabric and cut in a Lao style. The women’s suit is also from Lao silk fabric cut as a traditional Lao shirt and worn together with a silk skirt.

author: Mong Palatino


text:
Saint Lucia Jazz Festival’s Controversial Couture · Global Voices
Matthew Hunte

This year, the revamped Saint Lucia Jazz and Arts Festival featured a fashion show dubbed “Hot Couture”, intended to boost the island's burgeoning fashion industry by creating a showcase for local models and for designers both in Saint Lucia and throughout the region.
The show's artistic director was Vincent McDoom, a Saint Lucian designer and television presenter currently based in France – and while the event has generally received positive feedback, it has also been controversial, thanks in part to behind the scenes wrangling.
Designer Joycie Mederick, who had voiced concerns early on, felt that the event needed closer examination:
The controversial Fashion Show Hot Couture has brought to light a number of issues and personalities. There are a number of questions to be asked. Have any of you seen the Hot Couture Magazine under St. Lucia Fashion Pioneers? The information contained is endorsed by the Government of St. Lucia/ SLTB in support of the development of the Arts. Please find a copy and tell me what you think?
Was Hot Couture really to promote St. Lucia or St. Lucian Talent or was it staged to help some friends and to save a publication house? One that has done nothing to promote the works of the very industry or sector it is now claiming and making a bid for?  If there was no money for the Arts would the same players be interested in making an investment in the industry?  And why is there a need to wipe out and discount the efforts and achievements of others in the fashion industry?
Tennyson Scott felt that the post mortem should have been held after the entire festival was over:
My only disappointment is that the St. Lucia Jazz has not concluded and we have all of this outplay in the media. Why could it not wait until after the event when there is specific meeting when there is an evaluation. This in my view is how professionals operate. Issues like whether a foreign or local designer should open and close the show, or the design of the catwalk etc are things that should be discussed at the evalaution meeting. Remember this aspect is a new addition and we won't get everything right one time. But it is from the mistakes that are made and the recommendations…implemented [that] the event gets better and more meaningful.
Magdalene Daniel was happy that the fashion show brought something new to the Jazz festival:
Wendy Pilgrim-Michael felt that McDoom was justified in airing whatever problems he had with organizing the event:
Vincent is a professional and in that same vein would like to see the industry that he's passionate about succeed in the country of his birth, the country he loves; to afford other young people the opportunity that he was afforded. The country cannot be held hostage to the incompetencies and deficiencies of certain individuals….by calling on members of this forum in your post, you make it seem like before THEIR tourist board came in everything ran smoothly.
According to Jason Sifflet at The Flogg Blog, there was conflict on the organizing committee:
Vincent McDoom spoke about his experiences directing the show on his personal Facebook page:
This was a lovely opportunity and a fabulous learning experience for me as well as a slap in the face eye opener… My grandma taught me that it's in sleeping in a chicken pen you realize that chicken snores and this experience proved she was right in many ways…. After working closely with the models and designers the real talents who really should be applauded for their tried hard work and dedication I have come to realize that the designers suffer just as much as the models from various forms of abuse.
Yet, he promised to never stop his advocacy of the creative talent in Saint Lucia:
I will also continue to voice my observations and opinions on the ills of our creative talents both in the press locally and internationally and on the social network so as to create more awareness as to what the are truly confronted with and to stop those who trie[d] to exploit this talent with smooth talking in the media when in truth they could not care less and it's just to promote their faces and their egos at the expense of our models and our creative designers

author: Matthew Hunte


text:
WeiboSuite: New Tool to Analyze Sina Weibo · Global Voices
Abby Liu

WeiboSuite is a new toolbox for journalists and netizens. Created by data journalists from the University of Hong Kong, WeiboSuite provides English translations of censored materials on Weibo and tools to translate textual images.

author: Abby Liu


text:
Yemen: Focus on Education!  · Global Voices
Noon Arabia

In a country where the illiteracy rate of both sexes (15 years and above) is almost 40 per cent, education and the empowerment of the women and youth is an imperative necessity for any concrete development in Yemen.
Activist and researcher Atiaf Alwazir wrote a blog post entitled “Reading should be a right not a privilege” highlighting the importance of education for women.
She urged:
Let us all work together to demand concrete changes, and demand from the government to bring back the literacy program that it used to implement in the past.  We also must make the rights to education and health care as top political priorities in the national dialogue conference (which began on March 2013 and is scheduled to end in August 2013).
Yemen's school aged boys and girls. Photo by Arwa Othman
Activist and chairperson of the Rights and Freedoms Working Group in the National Dialogue, Arwa Othman stressed the importance of education but also added in a post on her Facebook page [ar]:
ليس فقط الحق في التعليم كما تنص مواثيق حقوق الإنسان ، بل ويجب أن أن تتضمن المناهج المدرسية في الجمهورية اليمنية ( اليمن الجديد) هذه المواثيق .. وتدرسها كمادة أساسية ، لإشاعة ثقافة حقوق الإنسان  التسامح ، التعايش ، السلام ، الحرية ، المواطنة ، المساواة ، عدم التمييز ، حرية الإختلاف ، حرية المعتقد ،…الخ) أي أحترام الإنسان بعيداً عن لونه ، وجنسه ، وديانته ، ولغته ، ورأيه السياسي ، ومبادئه ..الخ ..نتمنى أن نخرج من مؤتمر الحوار بهذا النص الدستوري احتراماً لحق الأجيال ..
Not only is the right to education as stated by human rights conventions, but we must also include in the school curriculum in the Republic of Yemen (The New Yemen) these charters .. and they must be taught as a core subject to promote a human rights culture, tolerance, coexistence, peace, freedom, citizenship, equality, non-discrimination, freedom of difference, freedom of religion, etc …) i.e respecting the human being regardless of his/her color, sex, religion, language, political opinion and principles ..etc. We hope to get out of this National Dialogue Conference a constitutional text which respects the right of future generations

author: Noon Arabia


text:
Bahrain Jails Six Twitter Users for Insulting King  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Six Twitter users have been sentenced to a year in prison each by a Bahrain court today for allegedly insulting King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa on the micro-blogging site.
According to the government-run Bahrain News Agency, the “six suspects” where charged in five different cases “related to the misuse of freedom of expression and defaming His Majesty the King on twitter.” It added the six were “charged [with] misusing freedoms of expression and opinion publically and remanded .. in custody ahead of their trial.”
According to the London-based Bahrain Press Association those sentenced are [ar]:
المحكمون بالسجن في #البحرين بتهمة إهانة الملك في #تويتر هم: المحامي مهدي البصري، محمود طارش، محسن عبدعلي، حسن عبدعلي، حسن عبدعلي، عمار مكي.
@BahrainPA: Those sentenced to prison with the charges of insulting the king on Twitter are: lawyer Mahdi Al Basri, Mahmood Taresh, Mohsin Abdali, Hassan Abdali, Hassan Abdali and Ammar Makki.
Tweets that won't land you in trouble in Bahrain
The name Hassan Abdali appears twice and Global Voices Online cannot verfiy whether it is two separate people or a mistake. A query by Global Voices remained unanswered at the time of writing this post.
The association added:
@BahrainPA: BPA: consider these sentencing unfair provisions that violate the freedom of Expression
Meanwhile, the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights says five Twitter usershave been sentenced to a year in prison – and calls for their immediate release:
The Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights (BYSHR) demands:
The sentencing sparked criticism online.
Bahraini Freedom Prayers sees the sentences as a threat to silence other dissidents:
@FreedomPrayers: Last year twitter users sentenced to 6months. This year the offering reached 1yr. If the rest didn't shut up, next it will be 5yrs. #Bahrain
From Cambridge, the UK, author Toby Matthiesen tweets:
@TobyMatthiesen:  Bahrain court jails 6 tweeters for a year for “insulting” the King. Another sign of GCC trying to limit Twitter impact
And researcher Marc Owen Jones challenges:
@marcowenjones: They couldn't arrest everyone if they all insulted the King on Twitter. Or could they…? #Bahrain


text:
Brunei: ‘Slow Internet is Almost Like Censorship’ · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Brunei internet users are complaining against the slow and unreliable internet connection in their country.
Writing for The Brunei Times, Shareen Han cited a study by the World Economic Forum which listed Brunei as having one of the most expensive internet rates in Southeast Asia. But many Brunei netizens feel they are getting poor internet service for the high fees they are paying.
Through Twitter, The Brunei Times posted this question:
Are you satisfied with Internet services in #Brunei?
The replies are mostly complaints about the slow internet connection provided by the country’s three major telco providers. @nadiebytes even compared the slow internet to censorship:
A tweetup event in Brunei. Bruneians are among the most active social media users in Asia. Photo from Flickr page of Reeda
No! The internet provides easy access to a wealth of info. Slow internet is almost like censorship.
Here are similar comments about the slow internet in Brunei:
@ZeekCrazy I don't think even the mouse is satisfied.

@janetlivetravel No! It's 2013. Internet, technology, information and social media should be there with just a click of a finger. TOO SLOW
@masruuuuur Try finding someone who IS satisfied
@almstfrsh not worth what we're paying for. Inconsistent. Unstable. Need I say more?
@AmeerahIsa seriously NOT HAPPY with it. I mean we pay for so and so mbps, and the speed is not even near to what we paid for.

@_hakims very disappointing.. even my parents complain.. sorry #workitout
@ongscw Investigations on regular service disruptions should be conducted. I would choose SLOW Internet over NONE AT ALL any day.
@Aliffen41 Light years away from it.
@bobby_trisyia thankful but not satisfied..slow and expensive
According to a report, Brunei has at least 200,000 internet users who are among the most active in social media usage in Asia. However, only 56 per cent of Bruneians are internet users.
Some internet users are actually quite satisfied with the quality of internet in the country:
@AnwarOmarAli yes very satisfied.
@berrymerlina speed, yes! High price can't be argued because of population & competition unlike other countries

@Yunn_ha even if there's vast improvements with the speed, We will never be(satisfied). Haha #sobrunei
@oxba 6 years ago, 3G wasn't around and ADSL was at 256kbps. 10 years ago, I can't even surf the web on my mobile. I am satisfied.
Even before the publication of the article in The Brunei Times about the internet quality in the country, Bruneians have been complaining about it for some time already:
@Natterulala Brunei's internet is the main reason why most bruneians suffer from High Blood Pressure and Depression.
@AzizHarun212 OMG Brunei's internet really knows how to piss people off
Elliop notes that internet speed has not improved in Brunei:
I don’t know about you but I for one am wondering why in this day and age where internet speeds are measured not in single digits but 10’s or 100’s of Mbps. Brunei’s internet speed has not changed much in years, and is lagging behind the rest of the world significantly.
A petition was created demanding answers about the slow internet in Brunei:
We the people of Brunei want to know:
• Why Brunei’s internet access speed is so slow?
• Why Brunei’s internet access is unreliable?
• When will the internet access reliability be improved.
Joe King thinks telcos are not pressured to improve service:
The problem is they are the monopoly in the market here, so they do not feel the pressure to deliver what we need. Who else can we turn to to get quality service? They're only out to get your money


text:
Chinese Officials Attempt to Stem Protests · Global Voices
Abby Liu

After Kunming's Anti-PX protest on May 4, 2013, local government has tried to stop further protests by sending text messages, “visiting” protest organizers, and censoring information online. East by Southeast has more details.


text:
INFOGRAPHIC: The Forced Exile of Palestinians · Global Voices
Elia J. Ayoub

In commemoration of Nakba Day, the ‘Visualizing Palestine’ graphic team have released their latest infographic entitled “An ongoing displacement” which “quantitatively catalogues the multiple dimensions of Palestinian displacement and loss of land.”
On their Facebook page, they wrote :
May 15th marks the 65th anniversary of the Nakba – when 750,000 Palestinians were displaced from the territory that became Israel. In 1948, more than 50% of the entire Palestinian population was ethnically cleansed.
In commemoration of the Nakba, and the displacement that continues today, we are releasing ‘An Ongoing Displacement’. The new visual quantitatively catalogues the multiple dimensions of Palestinian displacement and loss of land.
www.visualizingpalestine.org/disappearing-palestine
The following image can also be found on their website (click for higher resolution)
Courtesy of VisualizingPalestine

author: Elia J. Ayoub


text:
Media’s Too Simple View of Japan LGBT  · Global Voices
Keiko Tanaka

Blogger and activist Masaki C. has something to say about English media coverage of LGBT politics in Japan, arguing that they simplify the issue down to marriage equality:
They are, in constructing LGBT politics in Japan as such, erasing local history and ignoring dialogues taking place among queers in Japan.

author: Keiko Tanaka


text:
Mothers of Missing Mexicans Go On Hunger Strike · Global Voices
Silvia Viñas

A group of mothers on a hunger strike commemorated Mothers’ Day outside the attorney general’s office in Mexico City demanding [es] that the Mexican government keep its promise [es] to search for their missing sons and daughters.
According to official reports, more than 26,000 people went missing in Mexico between December 1, 2006, and November 30, 2012, during the administration of former President Felipe Calderón.
The women have maintained the strike since May 9, 2013.
Erwin C. in The Latin Americanist blog quoted one of the mothers participating in the hunger strike:
“We will not leave until our cases have been resolved, the president meets with us and he gathers a working group to tell us when and how they will start to find our missing loved ones,” declared hunger striker Margarita López.  López said her “disappeared” daughter, Yahaira Guadalupe Bahena, was kidnapped two years ago by “armed men” and then tortured until she died. López has urged authorities to uncover a mass grave where her daughter was allegedly buried in but her pleas have thus far been ignored.
López was one of the participants in a seven-day hunger strike that took place last November and that ended after Mexico City authorities met with the protesters.
Paris Martínez from the digital publication Animal Político has covered the hunger strike from the start [es]. In one post [es], he introduced readers to some of the mothers participating in the strike, like Nancy Rosete, whose son Elvis Axell Torres Rosete has been missing since December 29, 2010:
Yo decidí participar en la huelga de hambre porque, como víctimas, no contamos con certeza sobre las acciones que realizan las autoridades. Han pasado ya más de dos años y, aun cuando hay supuestos avances en las investigaciones, nosotros no podemos verificarlos.
I decided to participate in the hunger strike because, as victims, we have no certainty about the authorities’ actions. It has been more than two years, and even though allegedly there are advances in the investigation, we cannot verify [these advances].
On May 13, Martínez reported [es] for Animal Político that, “aside from a brief exchange of comments by deputy attorney general Ricardo Garcia Cervantes -on the day the protest began- no authority has come to ask about [the protesters’] demands or to start a formal dialogue.“
Mothers and family members of the disappeared held demonstrations on May 10, Mothers’ Day in Mexico. Martínez shared a video [es] that shows the mothers on hunger strike commemorting Mothers’ Day while chanting “They took them alive, we want them back alive!” and “Where are they? Where are they? Our children, where are they?”:
In another video [es], Martínez interviewed mothers and other family members of the missing on the fourth day of the hunger strike. Erica, one of the mothers on hunger strike, holds a sign which reads: “Four days on hunger strike and there are no answers. We want our sons and daughters to appear. Justice!”
She says that they are feeling the effects form the lack of food, that temperature decreases at night, and that they don't feel safe. Erica adds that citizens have been helping them.
Another protester affirms that they are not going anywhere: “We are not here for just one person, we are here for one common goal, which is the search of the missing”:
On Wednesday, May 15, Martínez reported [es] that a group representing the protesters will visit Los Pinos — the official residence and office of the President of Mexico — to present their written demands to President Enrique Peña Nieto, “so that he explains the lack of concrete actions in the search for their sons and daughters.”

author: Silvia Viñas


text:
Muslim TV Anchor Faces Backlash in India Over ‘Uncivilized’ Veil Comment · Global Voices
Inji Pennu

A female anchor for a popular Malayalam-language television channel in the southern Indian state of Kerala is facing a firestorm of criticism after she called the Muslim practice of women wearing a veil “uncivilized” and a form of oppression.
Fousiya Musthafa, a Muslim woman herself, talked about the general plight of Muslim women on an India Vision TV program on April 9, 2013 saying the purdah, or practice of veiling and segregation of the sexes, is oppressive, especially for women who have been married living their lives like widows as their husbands are away from home working in the Middle East. She added:
Even with all the modern facilities, in this hot summer here, these women have to wear the uncivilized purdah.
About a quarter of the population in Kerala are Muslim and more than half are Hindu. The editor for India Vision has issued a hazy explanation that there was a misunderstanding with the script, with the editorial board overlooking some unnecessary lines in it.
A group of Muslim women rallying with placard in Kerala. Image by Aji Jayachandran. Copyright Demotix (8/12/2011)
Muslim women in Kerala, who claims the highest literacy rate among other Muslim women in India, began to wear a veil only recently. Some 20 years ago, even though the dress of Muslim women had differences in color and method from other religious groups, it never was an all-covering purdah. Some observe that the influx of Kerala workers into the Middle East on their return has influenced this rise in purdah as a fashion wear in Kerala. Also, famous Kerala writer and poet Kamala Surayya's conversion to Islam during her later years and praise for the purdah may have given the veil a boost in popularity.
However, the rising trend has been met with resistance from some quarters of Kerala's Muslim women who did not want to adhere to such dress codes. Jameela K, mathematics teacher at Sullamussalam Oriental High School in Malappuram district was suspended because she refused to wear the purdah or the green overcoat as prescribed by the school.
And aeronautical engineer Reihana Kazi sought out protection from the court after some of her relatives pleas for her to wear the purdah escalated to death threats.
After Fousia Musthafa's declarations on the veil, Facebook was flooded with virulent comments and posts against her, attacking her with expletives and verbally assaulting her. An Facebook post supporting purdah was written showering the journalist with verbal abuse and defaming her character, which was shared by 1,986 users.
Sreeja Neyyattinkara protests [mal] against such attacks:
ഒരു കാര്യം അതു തെറ്റായാലും ശരിയായാലും ഒരു പെണ്ണ് പറഞ്ഞു അങ്ങനെ പറയുന്നവരെ ഇങ്ങനെ തെറിയഭിഷേകം നടത്താന് ഏത് പ്രവാചകനാണ് നിങ്ങളെ പഠിപ്പിച്ചത്
Even if something is right or wrong, just because a woman said it, did any prophet give you the right to abuse her?
Latheef Arinjira [mal] who shared the same post that has attacked the journalist pleads support:
sahodara vayikkuka…thalkalika labathin vendi samudayathinte acharangale publicil avahelicha indiavisioneyum athile curspondenna chettayekkethireyum prathshedikkuka
dear brother, please read this post. For temporary benefits our culture has been tarnished by this channel (India Vision). Please protest against this.
Most of the comments on FB were pure vitriol and cannot be reprinted. But, there were lone voices too defending purdah which took a more objective approach towards the issue,
Ahmed Niyaz writes as a comment [mal] pertaining to a discussion of the same issue in G+:
ഹിജാബ് മുസ്ലിം സ്ത്രീയുടെ സംസ്കാരമാണ്, കേരളത്തിലെ മതബോധമുള്ള മുസ്ലിംകള് തലമറച്ചിരുന്നു. കേരളത്തിലെ മുസ്ലിംകള് സാംസ്കാരികമായി കൂടുതലായി മതവല്കരിക്കപ്പെട്ടത് ഈയടുത്താണെന്നത് യാഥാര്ത്യമാണ്, പക്ഷേ അതൊക്കെ ഭരണഘടനയുടെ ഉള്ളിലുള്ള കാര്യം മാത്രമാണ്. രണ്ട് ജോടി വസ്ത്രം മാത്രമുള്ള അവസ്ഥയില് നിന്ന് വസ്ത്രത്തിന്റെ ആര്ഭാടത്തിലേക്ക് വന്നിട്ടും അധികമായിട്ടില്ല.
മാറ് മറക്കാനവകാശമില്ലായ്മയില് നിന്ന് ജീന്സും ടോപിലുമെത്തിനില്ക്കുന്ന ഇതര സ്തീകളുടെ ചോയ്സിലിടപെടാനവകാശമില്ലാത്തത് പോലെ ഇതിലും ഇടപെടാനവകാശമില്ല.
പര്ദ്ദാവിരുദ്ധരുടെ ആത്മാര്ത്ഥതയില് സംശയമുള്ളത് കൊണ്ടാണ് അസഹിഷ്ണുത കാണിക്കേണ്ടി വരുന്നത്.
Hijab is just the culture of a Muslim women. In earlier Kerala Muslim believers used to cover their heads. Its true that purdah is new and Kerala Muslims are trending more towards Islamic icons and cultures. But its within the constitution. From two pairs of clothes, we have now come to a point of many choices.
Once women in Kerala couldn’t cover their upper torso and now they have reached a point of wearing jeans. Just like that, we cannot manipulate a women’s choices of wearing a jeans or purdah too. The sincerity of the anti-purdah supporters is very dubious and maybe that’s why believers are suspicious of the intentions and hence virulent.
But Shahina Nafeesa, [mal] a Muslim journalist in Kerala, challenged the notion of choice which is usually espoused by Muslim men and women alike for wearing purdah:
ആരെങ്കിലുമൊക്കെ പർദ്ദ ധരിക്കുന്നതിൽ എനിക്ക് പ്രത്യേകിച്ച് വിഷമമോ സന്തോഷമോ ഇല്ല .പർദ്ദ ധരിക്കാനുള്ള സ്ത്രീകളുടെ ‘ചോയിസിനു വേണ്ടി പോരാടുന്നവരെ കണ്ടു ,നല്ല കാര്യം .എനിക്കും ഒരു ചോയിസ് ഉണ്ട് .എനിക്ക് പർദ്ദ ധരിക്കാൻ ഇഷ്ടമല്ല.ചൊമല ഷോട്സും ലൈറ്റ് മഞ്ഞ ടീ ഷർട്ടും ആണ് എന്റെ ചോയിസ് .എല്ലവരും വരി വരിയായി വന്നു എന്റെ ചോയിസിനെ സപ്പോർട്ട് ചെയ്താട്ടേ
I don't have any issues if someone is wearing a purdah or not. I wont be happy or sad. I am noticing many supporting the “choice” of women wearing purdah. Good. I too have a choice. I don't like to wear purdah. My choice is to wear a yellow tee and a red shorts. Please come and support my choice too.
Another FB post from Rejesh O Positive questioned [mal] where exactly is the choice in wearing religious attire:
സ്ത്രീകള് എന്തുധരിക്കണം എന്തുധരിക്കരുത് എന്നൊക്കെ നിർദേശിക്കുന്ന മതങ്ങൾക്കുള്ളിൽ. അവർ ചെയ്യുന്നത് അവരുടെ ഇഷ്ടമാണ് എന്ന് പറയുന്നത്. ജയിലിൽ കഴിയുന്നവർ ജയിൽ അധികൃതർ വരുമ്പോൾ മുണ്ട് ‘മടക്കികുത്ത്’ അഴിക്കുന്നതും , തോളിൽ കിടക്കുന്ന തോർത്ത് കയിൽ എടുത്തു പിടിക്കുന്നതും സ്വന്തം ഇഷ്ടപ്രകാരം ആണെന്ന് പറയുനതിന് തുല്യമാണ്.
If someone is telling women that they have choices for clothing inside their religion, it's like telling people inside a jail that they have choices when it comes to wearing the clothing endorsed by the jail authorities.
In the Quran, it would appear that the Prophet had foreseen all this controversy:
After my disappearance there will be no greater source of chaos and disorder for my nation than women.
It's true, considering the recent debate surrounding religious morals and women. Europe and the rest of the world is still smarting from feminist group FEMEN's fiery “International Topless Jihad Day” to raise awareness about Amina Tyler, a 19-year-old FEMEN member who sparked a massive uproar in Tunisia by posing topless with the slogan “Fuck Your Morals” written across her chest.
The group's method has been controversial, with some Muslim women even rejecting FEMEN's support by counter protesting that they do not need nude protests and imperialistic approaches to solve their own problems.
Muslim Feminists such as Qasim Amin to Fatima Mernissi have written extensively about the moral dress codes on women and linked it to the the suppression of women by the patriarchal nature of religion.
Activist and writer Arundhathi Roy wrote in an essay for Outlook India last year:
Coercing a woman out of a burqa is not about liberating her, but about unclothing her. Coercing a woman out of a burqa is as bad as coercing her into one.
Daly, a blogger [mal], linked this cultural sensitivity issue as a form of patriarchy itself in a discussion about purdah in a blog post seven years ago:
ബൂര്ഖയെ വെറുമൊരു സാംസ്കാരിക ചിഹ്നം മാത്രമായി ഗ്ലോറിഫൈ ചെയ്യുക. പാത്രിയാര്ക്കിയുടെ എല്ലാ അപ്പസ്തോലന്മാരും ചെയ്യുന്നതത് തന്നെ. എന്നീട്ട് അതിനെ സംരക്ഷിക്കാനെന്നപേരില്, അധിനിവേശത്തിനെത്തിരെ എന്ന പേരില് ഉപയോഗിക്കുക. അങ്ങനെ മനസ്സിലാക്കുമ്പോള് “സംസ്കാരത്തിന്റെ ദുരഭിമാനം സംരക്ഷിക്കാനുള്ള ബാധ്യത സ്ത്രീയ്യ്ക്ക് മാത്രമോ എന്നത് കൂടുതല് കൂടുതല് പ്രസക്തമാവുന്നു. ഒരു തിന്മയെ എതിര്ക്കാന് മാറ്റൊരൂ തിന്മ ഉപയോഒഗിക്കുന്നതിലെ അപഹാസ്യതയും പ്രത്യക്ഷപ്പെടുന്നു. അധിനിവേശം ഇല്ലാതായാലൂം ഇല്ലാതാകുന്നതല്ലല്ലോ സംസ്കാരിക ദുരഭിമാനം. പറഞ്ഞു വന്നത്, അധിനിവേശത്തിനെതിരെ പോലും ഇത്തരം അടിച്ചമര്ത്തല് തന്ത്രങ്ങള് ഉപയോഗിക്കപ്പെടുന്നതിന്റെ അപഹാസ്യതയാണ്.
Burqa is glorified as a cultural symbol, which is done by the patriarchal systems. After it is glorified it is then said to be used as a tool against imperialism. Then we need to ask, why only a woman’s dress is used a symbol against imperialism and why only women needs to protect this culture. To deflate an evil, another evil is used. Even if the imperialism is done and over with women in burqa still exist.

author: Inji Pennu


text:
Online Journalism In Nepal To Be Regulated · Global Voices
Rezwan

Online journalism and news portals are gaining popularity in Nepal as evident in Surath Giri's list of 20 online newspapers. However, according to reports, the Ministry of Information and Communications of Nepal has recently formed a five-member committee to register, regulate and manage online news.

author: Rezwan


text:
Over 3,000 Participate in Data Journalism MOOC · Global Voices
Silvia Viñas

More than 3,000 students are participating in the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas‘ second Massive Open Course (MOOC) in Spanish: “Introduction to Data Journalism.” The course began on May 13, but registration is still open.


text:
Uprooted by Brazilian Power Plant, River Residents Try to Rebuild · Global Voices
Pública - Agência de jornalismo investigativo

This story by Ana Aranha was originally titled Vidas em Trânsito (Lives in Transit) [pt] and is part of Brazilian investigative journalism agency Pública's special coverage #AmazôniaPública (Public Amazon) [pt], which reports on the impact of mega-construction projects in the Amazon along the Madeira river in the state of Rondônia, Brazil. The story will be published in a series of five posts on Global Voices Online.
Previous post: Displaced Residents Accuse Brazilian Power Plant of False Promises
After spending almost two years in the village of New Mutum, a city constructed by company Energia Sustentável [en] to house the engineers and foremen of its Jirau power plant [en] as well as the river dwellers, known as ribeirinhos [en], who were displaced when the area was flooded for the plant, the Batista family decided to return closer to the river. Alongside the same neighbors from the old Mutum, they constructed a wooden house next to a bayou called Jirau.
But now there’s a suspicion that this area will also be flooded.
This news flows among the inhabitants and workers of the power plant and is being investigated by public attorney Renata Ribeiro Baptista from the federal public prosecutor’s office in the federal state of Rondônia [en]. “Jirau denies it, but we are following this closely,” she declares:
Essa situação mostra o dilema dos ribeirinhos. Eles correram de volta para os seus hábitos de vida, que estão ligados à proximidade ao rio. Mas a vida como eles conheciam foi tomada pela usina.
This situation shows the dilemma faced by the river dwellers. They went back to their way of life, tied to the proximity of the river. But life as they knew it was taken away by the power plant.
“I no longer consider myself a Brazilian citizen. I feel like a dog on a leash that can’t choose where to go,” says Jonas Romani, a 55-year-old fisherman. He lived in the district of Jaci Paraná that was flooded by the Santo Antônio power plant [en]. Like Batista, he moved to the Jirau river and now loses sleep over the possibility of having to move again. “If they aren’t sure if this area will be flooded, why not close this area off? They let us come here, build our things, plant our manioc, only to flood everything all over again?”
Esmeralda Marinho Gomes used to lived in the village of Mutum Paraná, which was relocated because the area was to be flooded by the Jirau power plant. She states she has never been compensated. Esmeralda explains how the riverside dwellers never adapted to the village constructed by the power plant, New Mutum, and went to live in another location close to the river. She worries about what will happen to the community when the construction project is finished and the jobs are gone.
The process of wrenching people from where they have built their lives is always subject to injustices. There are small injustices and there are big ones. The story of Esmeralda Marinho Gomes, 63, is one of the larger ones.
She had rented a house in old Mutum since 2006. Even those who rented had the right to choose between a compensation of 55,000 Brazilian reais (about 28,000 US dollars) or a small house in New Mutum. But the week that the power plant employees came through to create a registry of inhabitants, she was away working at the mine. When she returned, she began her saga of attempts to contact the power plant. As the community was one of squatters, the houses didn't have official documentation and therefore, there was no contract, only an agreement with the owner:
Primeiro disseram que era estudo de caso. Depois, que não tinha prova suficiente.
They initially said her case was under study. Later, they stated there was insufficient proof.
She never received compensation.
While her neighbors were in New Mutum, Esmeralda rented a room in the village. When the first few began moving to the Jirau bayou, she moved with them.
With the breakup of the river dwellers and cuts at the power plant, the future of the 1,600 homes in New Mutum becomes worrisome. The Jirau plant is progressively reducing the number of workers. The work is scheduled to finish in 2016, when the number of employees near the infrastructure created to house them will be reduced to a minimum. Until now, no industry or activity generating an income independent from the construction of the power plant has been created in the area.
“I've already got my little house in Jaru [another river different than the Madeira river]” says Sônia, a former inhabitant of the old Mutum who has a clothing shop in New Mutum:
Quando acabar a obra, acabou o emprego, acabou tudo. Isso aqui vai virar uma cidade-fantasma.
When the construction is finished, the work is finished, everything is finished. This here will become a ghost town.


text:
Saudi Mobile Company Seeks Privacy Advocate’s Help to Spy on Clients · Global Voices
Anas Soliman

Saudi Arabia's second largest telecommunication company, Mobily, has reached out to a privacy advocate for help in surveilling encrypted communication applications.
In March, the governmental Saudi Communications and Information Technology Commission threatened to block WhatsApp, Skype and other applications that do not comply with Saudi regulations (which include allowing surveillance) and gave telecommunication companies a deadline to find a solution or block them. The American developer and privacy advocate Moxie Marlinspike published an email exchange that he had with Mobily as they were looking for help.
In one email, the Mobily head of security department used the standard terrorism line to try to convince him:
If you are not interested than maybe you are on indirectly helping those who curb the freedom with their brutal activities.
Marlinspike decided to publicize the request, and it got massive attention within the Saudi Twittersphere. Once it caught on, he tweeted in Arabic:
شكرًا للكلمات اللطيفة والتسجيعات من السعودية. كنو دائما بصوت عالي عندما يحاولون اسكاتكم. #موبايلي_تتجسس_على_الشعب
@moxie: Thanks for all of the kind words and encouragement from Saudi Arabia. When they try to silence you, be loud.
A line of people outside a Mobily office in Medinah, Saudi Arabia on October 16, 2012. Photo by Kashif Aziz.(CC-BY-Attribution 2.0 Generic)
Some called for a boycott, others criticized what they thought of as the root of the problem, namely, dictatorship and repression. Reactions were under the hash tag #موبايلي_تتجسس_على_الشعب [ar], which translates to “Mobily spies on the people.”
Saudi netizen Faris Abaalkhail called for a legislative change:
الحل هو ليس فقط تغيير مزود الخدمه اذا تبت #موبايلي_تتجسس_على_الشعب بل المطالبه بسن قوانين تحمي خصوصيتنا وتجرم مثل هذه الأفعال #السعودية
@FarisAbaalkhail: The solution is not to only change the service provider if [this] is proven to be true, but to demand laws that protect our privacy and criminalize such actions.
Bandr al-Amri and many others accused the Interior Ministry of being behind this attempt:
#موبايلي_تتجسس_على_الشعب لذلك يجب معاقبتهم .. و معاقبة من أمرهم بذلك يا # وزارة_الداخلية
@ZajeelBird: #Mobily Spies on the People – for that they should be punished and those who ordered them should be punished too, namely the Interior Ministry.

author: Anas Soliman


text:
Group to UN: Probe South Korean Election · Global Voices
Lee Yoo Eun

South Korean civil rights group Fight For Voters’ Rights (FFVR) filed a petition to the United Nations requesting them to investigate suspected election fraud. A series of investigations into South Korean spy agency's illegal involvement in the latest presidential election are still underway in the country.

author: Lee Yoo Eun


text:
Activists Occupy Parliament in Kenya · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Kenyans activists occupied the Kenyan parliament yesterday to protest against attempts by Members of Parliament to demand more money. The activists have been using the hashtag occupyparliament on Twitter.


text:
Bolivian Workers Protest Seeking Better Pensions · Global Voices
Pablo Andres Rivero

Tension is growing in Bolivia as miners, teachers, health service workers and public university staff -all affiliated to the Central Workers Union (Central Obrera Boliviana, COB, in Spanish)- are on strike demanding an increase in their retirement pension scheme.
A number of strategic streets remain blockaded in La Paz and neighbouring El Alto, with limited public transport circulating their usual routes. Road blockades also impede the normal transit to other regions.
As protests escalate, on May 14 teachers and miners detonated dynamite in the streets of La Paz during demonstrations.
Photo by @tIrA_pIEDRAs via Twitter
COB representatives demand an increase in their retirement pensions from the current 70 percent to 100 percent of the their salary. They are asking that the increase of 30 to 50 percent in their compensation come from public funds saved in the Solidarity Fund (Fondo Solidario in Spanish). Government officials rejected this demand as they consider that it compromises the sustainability of the “Fondo Solidario”.
Negotiations are intermittent as the Government requests COB representatives to suspend demonstrations and blockades. Moreover, low-rank Police Unionists and their wives have threatened to join the general strike [es] demanding better pension schemes, arguing the same conditions that Army officers enjoy: retirement with 100 percent of their contributions.
Clashes between police and demonstrators were reported via Twitter under the hashtag #ConflictosBo. In spite of the conflictive climate, and although blockades and demonstrations continue, dialogue between Unionist and Government representatives is expected to resume.
Police after using tear gas between Ingavi and Yanacocha streets (La Paz).
Photo by @jesus_alanoca via Twitter
Blogger and Analyst Raúl Prada comments on his blog Horizontes Nómadas [es] (Nomad Horizons):
La COB se encuentra movilizada por reivindicaciones salariales, en defensa de una jubilación digna, que no es otra cosa que salario diferido, en contra los métodos monetaristas de transferir la solidaridad a los trabajadores, desentendiéndose el Estado de apoyar con un fondo adecuado en la perspectiva de una jubilación digna para todos.
The COB is mobilized for wage demands in defence of a dignified retirement, which is nothing but deferred salary, they are against monetarist methods of transferring Solidarity Fund responsibility to workers, while the state avoids providing support with an appropriate fund to provide a dignified retirement for everyone.
On the other hand, Minister of Economy Luis Arce stated [es] that the government does contribute to the Solidarity Fund and “guarantees the payment of the 70 percent in regards to wages.” He added that the government's proposal ensures the sustainability of the Solidarity Fund for about 30 years and supports payments to current and future pensioners”.
According to Government radio station Patria Nueva [es], “the [same] authority explained that COB representatives are pursuing a ‘political decision’ rather than a technical one in order to increase pensions, which is not possible because it would jeopardize the income of all pensioners”.
In his blog [es] Boris Bernal shares the analysis made by the Centre for the Study of Labour and Agrarian Development (“Centro de Estudios para el Desarrollo Laboral y Agrario” in Spanish, or CEDLA [es]):
El actual sistema integral de pensiones no garantiza el pago de rentas de jubilación dignas que
alcance a los trabajadores para cubrir sus necesidades básicas cuando pasen a ser trabajadores pasivos y las fuerzas físicas y el mercado de trabajo no les permita continuar trabajando
The current Pension System does not ensure a decent retirement income for workers to satisfy their basic needs when they become passive workers, and when physical strength as well as the labour market does not allow them to continue working.
Further down, the same analysis predicts harder conditions for young workers in the future:
El panorama para los jóvenes trabajadores y para todos aquellos que vienen aportando al actual sistema así como al que estuvo vigente hasta el 2010 (sistema administrado por las AFP) es más crítico, porque a diferencia de los aportantes antiguos […] dispondrán de una sola fuente, sus aportes, que hará aun más insuficiente el monto requerido para jubilarse.
The scenario for young workers and for those who are contributing to the current system, and the one that was in force until 2010 (administered by the AFP system) is more critical, because unlike older contributors […] they will have a single source, their own contributions, that will make it even harder to reach the amount required to retire.

author: Pablo Andres Rivero


text:
Chinese Government Bans Seven ‘Speak-Not’ Subjects · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

A prominent Chinese law professor recently revealed in his microblog on popular Twitter-like site Sina Weibo that the Chinese government has imposed a policy on university professors instructing them not to teach seven subjects, including freedom of the press, past mistakes of the communist party, and citizen rights.
Zhang Xuezhong (張雪忠), who teaches at East China University of Political Science and Law, listed the other taboo subjects  in the May 10, 2013 post as universal values, civil society, citizen rights, judicial independence, freedom of the press, past mistakes of the communist party, and the privileged capitalist class.
Zhang's Weibo account was deleted soon after and the term “Seven Speak-Nots” (七不講) has been blocked on major social media in China.
Seven Speak-Nots, image from “Silly Talks” public timeline from Google Plus.
In addition, it was further revealed in a memo on “Concerning the Situation in the Ideological Sphere” (《關於當前意識形態領域情況的通報》) issued by the Central Committee General Office of the Chinese Communist Party on May 13, 2013 that the “Seven Speak-Nots” policy has been incorporated into a policy for online public opinion censorship. The government's latest round of tightening of its control on discourse and ideology has resulted in the shutting down or suspension of the microblog accounts of several prominent liberal intellectuals and political harassment of rights defenders.
Though most of the discussion on the “Seven Speak-Nots” has been deleted, “Silly Talk”（胡言兌）has collected [zh] and resurrected some censored social media posts in Google Plus:
@Stariver：七不讲也没啥阿。不讲普世价值可以讲专制罪恶，不讲新闻自由可以讲道路以目，不讲公民社会可以讲太平天国，不讲公民权利可以讲屁民遭遇，不讲党的历史错误可以讲假的历史功绩，不讲权贵资产阶级可以讲红二代，不讲司法独立可以讲司法黑幕。
@Stariver: Nothing special about the “Seven Speak-Nots”. We don't have to speak about universal value, we can speak about the evil of authoritarianism. If we can't speak about freedom of press, we can speak about communication with our eyes [an ancient Chinese story about freedom of expression under authoritative rule]. If we can't speak about civil society, we can speak about Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. We don't have to speak about citizen rights, we can speak about the experience of fart-izen [citizen deprived of rights]. We don't discuss the mistakes of the Chinese Communist Party but can talk about all the fake historical achievement. If we can't talk about the “privileged capitalist class”, we can talk about “the second generation red”. If judicial independence is banned, we talk about all the dark secrets of our judicial system.
@余喷：五不搞了才惊叫？七不讲了才哗然？我觉得都涉嫌程度不同的装外宾了。早在枪响之后，就该断绝最后一丝的幻想了。枪响是迟钝划线。此后的所有卖萌动作，最多具有策略性的价值。而策略性的东东，难免欺庙堂不着而惑江湖良多。
@Yu Pen: How come we yell about the Five Do-Nots [note: The Five Do-Nots are: do not make a system in which multiple parties govern in turn; do not diversify guiding ideologies; do not “separate the three powers” and create a bicameral system; do not federalize; do not privatize.] and find the “Seven Speak-Nots” surprising? Don't pretend to be outsiders. After the guns fired, we should not have any illusion. We were already too late to draw the line when the guns fired. All gestures after the incident are strategic aiming at cheating people.
@songshinan：#说出党的潜台词#普世价值不要讲，要讲中国特色；新闻自由不要讲，要讲党管媒体不变；公民社会不要讲，要讲社会管理创新；公民权利不要讲，要讲和谐社会；党的历史错误不要讲，要高举毛邓旗帜；权贵资产阶级不要讲，要讲中国梦；司法独立不要讲，要讲政法委办案。
@songshinan: #Spell out the party's hidden agenda# Speak not about universal value, speak about Chinese Character; Speak not about press freedom, speak about never-changing party media; Speak not about civil society, speak about the innovation of social management; Speak not about citizen rights, speak about harmonious society; speak not about the historical mistakes of the communist party, uphold the ideology of Mao and Deng; Speak not about the privileged capitalist class, talk about the China Dream; Speak not about judicial independence, the party's legal committee will handle all the cases.
Some Chinese bloggers have moved to Google Plus to carry on the discussion. Below are some immediate comments from prominent blogger Wen YunChao's post about the policy.
@agan G: 笑话，现在的年轻人早已不属于那个年代，还TM想洗脑！
@agan: This is a joke. Young people nowadays do not belong to the old time, they can't be f**king brainwashed.
@Loby Liang: 唉！他们总结的比我们总结得还好呢！就应该讲这7件事。
@Loby Liang: Well… Their conclusion is much better than ours! These are the subjects we have to talk about.
@Star Dung: 要培养彻底的奴隶
@Star Dung: The want to cultivate obedient slaves.
@Jack ANNA: 我看到了中国共产党发自内心的恐惧。
@Jack ANNA: I see the fear deep down in the communist party's heart.
@沈宏星 哈哈，习近平的尾巴露出来啦。和薄一个样
@Shen Hongxing: Haha, [President] Xi Jinping has revealed his true self. He and Bo Xilai are just the same [Bo is a former CCP leader who upholds Maoist ideology].
@李冠阳 我们今天上历史课老师也说这个了,我们老师说教学内容要与国际接轨,价值观不能接轨
@Li Guanyang: Our history teacher talked about this today. Our teacher said the content of our course has to be in alignment with international society, but our values can't be.
“Fairy outside the wall” (@墙外仙）carefully reposted [zh] Zhang Xuezhong's opinion to get around censorship on a Sina microblog:
如果一个国家总是顽固地拒绝人类社会通行的普世价值,并且迟迟不肯建立以自由、民主和法治为基础的宪政制度,那绝不是因为这个国家有什么特殊的国情,而是因为这个国家有一个特殊的政府：这个政府本身极其败坏和不得人心，以至于根本无法通过公正的法律和诚实的手段，来维持自己的存续！
If a country keeps resisting the universal values that have been shared by the rest of the world and refuses to build a constitution based on freedom, democracy, and rule of law, then this is not due to the distinctive character of the country, but the distinctive character of the government: a corrupted government that can't win people's support and cannot sustain itself with a legal system that upholds justice and honesty.

author: Oiwan Lam


text:
Dirty Words Russian Girls Can’t Say on the Internet · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

Fellatio has long been part of the rich tapestry of politics worldwide. For anyone alive and cognizant during the 1990s, Bill Clinton’s licentious escapades with Monica Lewinsky will forever color (or taint, depending on your perspective) the image of the American White House. Earlier this week, on May 13, 2013, opposition figure Maria Baronova penned an open letter [ru] to writer and political dissident Eduard Limonov, wherein she dropped a sexual bombshell of her own. Her text unabashedly refers to “masturbating in the shower” and credits Limonov—whose works [ru] are famous for their intricate descriptions of lewd sex acts—with teaching her (through his books) how to “suck dick” “without false modesty” and “fuck like an animal.” Baronova’s letter included a great deal more than these offhand sexual remarks, though it is those remarks that undoubtedly explain the online backlash that followed.
Maria Baronova at a Moscow protest, 17 April 2013, photo by Nickolay Vinokurov, copyright © Demotix.
Sexism, locked and loaded
This week has been unusually cruel to women on Russian Twitter. In addition to the wave of sexist jokes that washed up after the RuNet learned about film star Angelina Jolie’s preventative double mastectomy, many Russian netizens took Baronova’s sexual revelations as an invitation to attack her specifically and female public figures more broadly.
Some of the insults came from the usual suspects, like tabloid editor Ashot Gabrelyanov, who proposed [ru] on Twitter that Jolie auction off for charity her removed breasts on eBay. Also joining the fun, however, was one of Pussy Riot’s lawyers—the infamously unpleasant Mark Feygin—who mused in a (now deleted) tweet:
Кстати сказать, насчет сисек Джоли, может это она операцию по изменению пола прикрывает. Трансгендеры отрезают. А чо?
By the way, regarding Jolie’s tits, maybe she’s using this to cover up a sex change operation. Transgenders slice off. Hey now.
Indeed, Feygin was on a roll. Commenting on Baronova’s open letter just a day before, he wrote in a tweet (that he has not deleted):
По поводу одного широко обсуждаемого сейчас текста, маленькая ремарка: …и это, пожалуй, всё, чему она научилась…
Regarding a certain now widely discussed text, [I have] one tiny remark: … this [fellatio], if you will, is the only thing she learned…
Lev Sharansky (a satirist personality run anonymously) quipped with open-ended sexism:
Вчера Баронова, сегодня Джоли. С ужасом жду завтра.
Yesterday Baronova, today Jolie. I await tomorrow with horror.
Others decided to broaden their aim and take shots at different prominent Russian women. Anna Veduta, opposition leader Alexey Navalny’s press secretary, found herself in Twitter user berdnikov’s crosshairs:
Анна Ведута более воспитанная девушка, чем Мария Баронова, поэтому она не расскажет нам чему она научилась у Алексея Навального
Anna Veduta is a better-raised young woman than Maria Barnova, therefore she doesn’t tell us what she’s learned from Alexey Navalny.
One of the many demotivators that appeared, following Baronova's open letter.
Demotivators soon popped up online, such as an image [ru] featuring Limonov above the text: “He taught Maria Baronova to suck dick. And what have you done today?” Another popular mash-up (see image to the right), which Baronova herself retweeted, included a photo of her riding a scooter below another picture of a blonde woman sitting in an expensive convertible. The caption is the Karl Marx quote: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” (The joke is that Baronova’s “ability” only earned her a scooter, rather than a sports car.)
Bringing in Baronova’s one-time boss, Duma Deputy Ilya Ponomarev (who himself retweeted [ru], rather strangely, Baronova’s line about masturbating in the shower), Twitter user fuckdaoutlaw asked:
Почему Пономарев Илья не научил свою помощницу Баронову сосать х%й?
Why didn’t Ilya Ponomarev teach his assisant Baronova to suck d**k?
Twitter user rusrusdada expanded the attack on Baronova into a jibe at the entire protest movement, writing:
На самом деле, Баронова из всей Болотной тусовки вызывает уважение. Она единственная честно призналась, что сосет. Другие тоже, но скрывают
In truth, Baronova, apart from the whole Bolotnaya [oppositionist] clique, deserves respect. She alone has honestly confessed that she sucks. The others suck, too, but they conceal it.
The LJ cesspool
On LiveJournal, where an absence of character limits accompanies the bravery of online anonymity, commentary was more substantive, but no less harsh.
A May 14 post [ru] by music critic Artem Rondarev functioned as a sort of beacon for Baronova’s critics, many of whom argued vociferously that politics is no place for raunchy women. In the comments to his post, Rondarev explained [ru] his position on Baronova’s lack of sexual modesty in her public prose, interpreting her lewdness as an endorsement of anarchy:
[…] в случае с Машей я всего лишь попытался объяснить ту простую мысль, что нельзя жить в обществе и быть свободным от него. Оно может не нравиться и все такоэ, но дилемма простая – или в обществе с конвенциями, или в Сомали. Потому что, видите ли, завтра у вас над головой сосед ночью врубит рэп на полную катушку, а когда вы ему придете предъявлять, скажет, что это его способ самовыражения, а вы ханжа, которая спит по ночам, в то время как все свободные люди слушают рэп. Ну и?
[…] in the case of Masha, I just tried to explain the simple idea that it’s impossible to live in society and [simultaneously] be free from it. One might not like everything about it, but the dilemma is simple: it’s either society with its conventions, or you’re in Somalia. Because, you see, tomorrow you’ll have an upstairs neighbor blasting rap music all night long at top volume, and when you go up to confront him, he’ll say that this is his means of self-expression, and you’re just a prude who sleeps at night, while all the free people listen to rap. Well?
In another comment [ru] on Rondarev’s post, LiveJournal user pervert_tanuki called Baronova “a furious attention whore,” to which Rondarev responded [ru] less than charitably:
Опять-таки – я не ищу тут мотивацию Маши, она очевидно лежит неглубоко […] Понятно, что девушке хочется трахаться; меня интересует, грубо говоря, почему подобным девушкам все время хочется именно трахаться, а не книжки читать.
Again—I’m not searching for Masha’s motivation. She’s obviously shallow […] It’s understandable that a young woman wants to screw; I’m interested, to put it crudely, in why similar girls always want precisely to screw, and not to read books.
Several bloggers have concluded that Baronova’s vulgarity damages any chances she has at a career [ru] in politics. In separate posts on LiveJournal, user haeldar [ru] and Google+ user mc project [ru] proposed a scenario thirty years in the future, where Baronova is now a Duma deputy serving a post-Putin Russian democracy. According to the plot, the now stately Baronova proposes some piece of moralist legislation (for example, banning sex robots), only to remind the public that “Maria Baronova in her youth was not above getting fucked in every hole.”
Even Kirill Goncharov, leader of the youth wing of Russia’s oldest liberal political party, joked on Twitter:
Я так понимаю, сегодня Маша Баронова публично закончила заниматься политикой?
So, as I understand it, Masha Baronova today publicly ceased to be involved in politics?
Twitter user VRebyata also resonated the idea that Baronova’s bawdiness causes problems for women in government, writing:
Баронова всколыхнула твиттер. Теперь самым популярным вопросом к женщинам – политикам будет вопрос об их отношении к книгам Эдуарда Лимонова
Baronova stirred up Twitter. Now the most popular question to female politicians will be the question about their relationship to Eduard Limonov’s books
In one comment thread [ru] on LiveJournal, a group of netizens even thought it fair to compare Baronova’s talk of oral sex to Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova’s participation in a public orgy. They even connected Baronova and Tolokonnikova to Cicciolina, the famed pornstar and member of the Italian parliament in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Baronova’s guile?
Not everyone deplored Baronova for her letter to Limonov, however. Many bloggers seemed willing to accept that her use of vulgarity was a cunning, if shrewd, ploy to gain an audience. Indeed, Norway-based Facebook user Andrew Voronkov observed [ru]:
Если бы она про это не написала, то многие бы и не прочитали бы статью.
If she hadn’t written about it [fellatio], then many people would not have read the article.
Poland-based LJ user Andrei Karatkevich enumerated [ru] four justifications for Baronova’s scandalous word choice:
1. Содержимое текста отнюдь не сводится к сосанию хуя, хотя все цитируют именно эту фразу.
2. С другой стороны, девушка, очевидно, понимала, что цитировать будут именно это.
3. …как из романа “это я, Эдичка” чуть менее чем все помнят сцену сосания хуя негру… и ничего больше.
4. А научил-то он её вещи нужной и полезной…
1. The contents of the text cannot be reduced just to sucking dick, though everyone is quoting exactly that phrase.
2. On the other hand, the girl obviously understood that everyone would quote exactly that.
3. [Limonov’s] novel “It’s Me, Eddie” is remembered more than anything for the scene where he sucks the dick of a black man … and nothing more.
4. And he [Limonov] taught her things necessary and useful…
Even some of Baronova’s critics felt compelled to acknowledge her letter’s publicity success. In a long response [ru] published the day after Baronova’s text, Pavel Zherebin (a member of Limonov’s NatsBol movement) offered the following measured praise:
Статья эта станет знаменитой, ведь Мария применила нехитрый прием – эпатаж с отсылками к сугубо сексуальным вопросам. До сих пор политическая публицистика была свободна от подобных методов форсированного продвижения своих идей. Поэтому Марии можно только поаплодировать – она храбрый новатор, которая решилась не просто на то, чтобы наполнить свою статью до краев женской гендерностью, но и на то, чтобы эту гендерность выразить прямым текстом в самых искренних и волнующих выражениях.
This article will become famous because Maria used an ingenuous approach—a shocking tone that touches on extremely sexual issues. Until now, political journalism was free from promoting its ideas by such methods. Therefore, we can only applaud Maria—she’s a brave innovator who decided not just to fill her article to the edges with female genderness, but also to express that genderness in plain speak, in the most sincere and exciting expressions.
Maria Baronova, Moscow, 25 August 2012, photo by Anton Nossik, CC 2.0.
In a comment [ru] on Rondarev’s blog, Baronova herself confirmed that she consciously employed gender as a means to generate a larger dialogue (about both Limonov and women in contemporary Russian politics):
Цель письма – получить от общества реакцию и расшевелить его, это общество. По большей части реакционное и консервативное. Цель вполне достигнута. Тонны говна и хихиканий: “ПИПИИИСЬКА” – получены. Дальше люди обсуждают. Дисскусия возникла. Каждый, в итоге придет, к чему-то своему. И мне от того, что люди поймут что-то важное (и каждый глубоко свое), будет приятно. End of story
The purpose of the letter was to get a reaction from the public and rattle it up. This society is mostly reactionary and conservative. My goal has been reached entirely. I got tons of shit and chuckles: “WEEEENIE.” From there, [though], people discuss. A discussion arose. Eventually, everyone comes to something all their own, and for me it’s nice that people will realize something important (and something deeply their own). End of story.
Not everyone is a hater
Many bloggers, of course, refused to attack Baronova, and some rallied to her defense. Journalist Arina Kholina, for instance, credited her in a Facebook post [ru] with capturing the collective experience of a generation of Russian women:
Не знаю, зачем все ругают Машу Баронову. Она была честна. Книга Лимонова про Эдичку, правда, была одним из сексуальных переживаний подросткового возраста. Особенно после СССР. Маше хватило смелости написать об этом. Пусть немного коряво. Может, конечно, особенно взрослые или умные читали совсем о другом, но мне было лет 16 и я думала про секс. И да – в каком-то смысле она была учебником. Наверное, если бы Маша написала, что книга научила ее шить кружевные рубашки, все бы умилились. А она, вот бесстыдница, про минет.
I don’t know why everyone is ripping into Masha Baronova. She was being honest. Limonov’s book about Eddie, it’s true, was one of the sexual experiences of adolescence. Especially after the USSR. Masha had the courage the write about it. Okay, it turned out a little clumsy. Maybe, of course, particularly mature or intelligent people read about something entirely different, but when I was 16-years-old, I was thinking about sex. And, yes, in a sense, it was a sort of textbook. Probably, if Masha had written that the book taught her how to sew a lace shirt [another part of It’s Me, Eddie], everyone would just melt for her. But she, without shame, wrote about blowjobs.
Opposition activist Ilya Yashin tried to relocate the focus of RuNet mockery to government officials, tweeting:
Надеюсь, депутат Бурматов никогда не будет писать открытых писем Вячеславу Володину. Не хочу знать, чему он его научил.
I hope [Duma] Deputy Burmatov never writes an open letter to [First Deputy Chief of Putin’s Staff] Viacheslav Volodin. I don’t want to know what he [Volodin] taught him.
Vera Kichanova, one of the opposition’s youngest figures, tweeted innocently:
А меня Лимонов только матом ругаться научил.
Limonov only taught me to curse [in obscenities].
Russia after blowjobs
One day after publishing her open letter, Baronova granted an interview [ru] to Daria Yausheva of jourdom.ru, where she addressed the backlash to her explicit sexual language:
Как сегодня написал Евгений Фельдман: «Лимонов научил сосать х** Баронову, а Путин – всю страну». Опять же, мужчина может писать о сексе достаточно свободно, а для женщин в России это по-прежнему – полузапретная тема. Тем более, если ты вовлечена в политику, то должна все время соблюдать некие рамки в которых, на самом деле, уже давно никто не живет.
It’s like Evgeny Feldman wrote [ru] today: “Limonov taught Baronova to suck d**k, but Putin taught the whole country.” Once again, a man can write about sex quite freely, but for women in Russia it’s still a semi-prohibited topic. Especially if you’re involved in politics, [you, as a woman,] must at all times observe certain confines, within which, in fact, nobody has lived for a long time.
Baronova identifies a cultural contradiction that is hardly unique to Russia. Certainly, the perseverance of sexist “confines” plagues societies the world over, no matter how developed or humane the civilization. The Internet response to Baronova’s talk of sex, whether one reads her text as a raised fist to patriarchy or a frivolous attempt at self-promotion, reveals that prejudices against freewheeling women enjoy widespread popularity among Russian netizens. That said, Baronova’s own audacity over the last 18 months—and the prospect of decades more to follow—promises to keep Russia’s male chauvinists busy indeed.