text:
Hong Kong reveals the city’s agenda to construct an Orwellian ‘truth’ · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Backdrop of Hong Kong government's press conference on the IPCC's report. Image from RTHK reporter Yvonne Tong's Twitter.
Hong Kong’s Independent Police Complaints Council (IPCC), a government-appointed organization with no investigative power to summon witnesses, released on May 15 its report on public complaints against the police during the city-wide protests that began last June. The 999-page report concludes that police officers generally acted within guidelines, but there was “room for improvement”.
Clifford Stott, a British expert on riot research who quit the IPCC's foreign expert panel last December, suggested that the backdrop of the press conference at which the report was shared, formed part of a broader thrust aimed at delivering a particular message:
It would seem the release of the IPCC report is part of a wider set of coordinated announcements designed to deliver the new 'truth'. https://t.co/xQ5n0UElMm pic.twitter.com/bnsYZhBCmY
— Clifford Stott (@cliffordstott) May 15, 2020
Large-scale protests erupted in June 2019 demanding that the Hong Kong government withdraw an extradition bill allowing for the transfer of fugitives to mainland China. The government refused to trash the bill, even after a million demonstrators took to the streets on June 9. Three days later, thousands of protesters blocked the roads surrounding the Legislative Council and riot police fired rounds of tear gas on peaceful protesters.
The police crackdown led to massive protests on June 16, with two million people demanding that Chief Executive Carrie Lam step down. They also wanted the “riot” label that had been attributed to the June 12 protests removed.
The deferral to withdraw the bill led to multiple rounds of clashes between police and protesters. Amid calls for democracy, independent investigation into the use of force by the police emerged as a major demand.
However, the government refused to set up an independent investigative body, instead insisting that the toothless IPCC examine the police’s behavior. All information that the IPCC receives is provided by the police authority. Eventually, Carrie Lam agreed to appoint a team of foreign experts to assist with the IPCC’s review.
In their progress report last December, these experts concluded that “a crucial shortfall was evident in the powers, capacity and independent investigative capability of IPCC”. The team was thereafter dissolved.
The current report has not addressed any individual cases of police violence. Rather, it reviews the police response in six major protest incidents, including the Yuen Long mob attack on July 21, in which protesters and subway passengers were beaten by a pro-Beijing mob. There was no police presence at the spots where the mob, sticks in hand, gathered outside the subway station, causing the general public to believe there was collusion.
The IPCC report admits there were “deficiencies in police deployment and other police action in response to the events,” but stressed that there was no evidence of collusion with criminals “despite our best efforts in searching publicly available sources”. It added that public perception about the police was based on “misunderstanding”.
The Hong Kong Police Force has been accusing the media of creating misconceptions about the police authority. In March, Commissioner of Police Chris Tang filed a complaint to the Communications Authority against Radio Television Hong Kong’s satirical program “Headliner”, claiming that it was undermining police work and eroding law and order.
The public broadcaster has faced huge pressure after its news investigation on the Yuen Long Mob attack established evidence that the Yuen Long police were well aware of the violent incident, but did not intervene. In the report, the IPCC gave 52 incident-by-incident recommendations, the majority of which were related to improving the police force's public relations, facilities, and staffing.
Benedict Rogers, from London-based Hong Kong Watch, criticized the report as “whitewashing” and called for more international intervention:
The Independent Police Complaints Council’s report is a shocking whitewash which shows that there is no viable mechanism in Hong Kong to ensure accountability either for police brutality or police complicity with violence by criminal thugs. With rights groups reporting incidents of torture in detention and routine excessive use of force, it is now time for the international community to establish an independent inquiry, to hold the perpetrators of violations of human rights in Hong Kong to account. The introduction of targeted Magnitsky sanctions on those responsible for such violations should then be considered.
Magnitsky laws allow for sanctions to be imposed on human rights violators.
Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmaker Claudia Mo also slammed the report:
The report is not just superficial. It’s hollow. It has recollected some government information services handout. It’s all part of the establishment speak. It’s [the] Ministry of Truth à la George Orwell’s 1984.
Indeed, the issue of “truth” is politically significant: the report blames online information for destroying the image of the police, paving the way for the crackdown on free speech:
[Many complaints are] blatant propaganda with little or no factual basis, aimed at smearing the Police Force and impeding police officers from performing their duty to maintain law and order.
Standing in front of press conference backdrop proclaiming “The Truth About Hong Kong”, Carrie Lam announced that the police may be given more powers to monitor social media, and tackle “false and malicious information” and “rumors”. To this suggestion, Clifford Stott exclaimed:
Speechless! https://t.co/4QZ8aQeFIv
— Clifford Stott (@cliffordstott) May 15, 2020
Ahead of the release of the IPCC report, pro-Beijing political groups launched two advocacy campaigns to restrict the city’s freedom of the press and freedom of information.
On May 13, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, the biggest political party in Hong Kong, put out research stating that 70.9 percent and 61.6 percent of interviewees, respectively, believed that youth was invited by “fake news” and opinion leaders into committing crimes including violent protests and hence urged that there should be legislation against the spread of online disinformation.
On May 14, pro-establishment civic group Civic Force staged a protest outside the Hong Kong Journalists Association, demanding the implementation of a government-issued journalist license system.
Both the online rumor law and the journalist license system are in place in mainland China. The new “truth” in Hong Kong is becoming aligned with the “one country”.

author: Oiwan Lam


text:
Photo contest asks Rohingya community to document their lives during the COVID-19 pandemic · Global Voices
Rezwan

Socially distanced gathering of Rohingya refugees at No Man's Land at Taung Pyo, Myanmar-Bangladesh border. Submission by Ameen. Used with permission.
Check out Global Voices’ special coverage of the global impact of COVID-19.
As the world grapples with the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, the dire issues faced by vulnerable refugee and migrant populations are compounded. Discrimination against the Rohingya community has been exacerbated by the current crisis as Bangladesh recently annouced that it would not allow more Rohingya refugees to enter the country. In mid-April, fishing trawlers filled with Rohingya asylum seekers were turned away by Malaysian authorities over COVID-19 fears.
Rohingya refugees in Malaysia are also facing an increase in xenophobic and anti-immigrant pushback from Malaysians during the pandemic, and doubts about Bangladesh's ability to handle an outbreak in its densly-populated refugee camps are still in question.
To document the COVID-19 crisis through their own eyes, the Rohingya Photography Competition has been organized by London-based British-Bangladeshi documentary filmmaker Shafiur Rahman. The competition is open to members of the Rohingya community all over the world and will run from April 23 to August 25, 2020. The main categories are “Rohingya life” and “Response to Coronavirus” and selection of photographs will be exhibited at the Human Rights Research and Education Centre (HRREC) in Ottawa, Canada and the Oxford Human Rights Festival in Oxford, UK.
Global Voices interviewed Rahman by email to talk about what inspired him to create this competition and what he hopes to achieve.
Global Voices (GV): Tell us a bit about yourself and how you ended up shooting documentaries about the Rohingya community.
Shafiur Rahman (SR): It all started rather unexpectedly in December of 2016. I was in Cox’s Bazar area working on a project in the hill tracts. There had been a tremendous influx of Rohingya people in October 2016 and they were still arriving in December. What I saw and what I heard convinced me that I should do some documentary work. I went back the next month and shot a film about sexual violence. I then worked on trafficking and massacres. The films I have made have been shown in festivals and channels throughout the world.
Rohingya in Balukhali-2 camp in Cox's Bazar near Bangladesh-Myanmar border huddled together at a 2G signal spot to get news about Covid19 and Myanmar. Submission by Muhammed Yassin. Used with permission.
GV: How the idea of the competition come about?
SR: Actually a photo competition is a documentary endeavour. We are getting fantastic images already of the lockdown and of emergencies happening in the camp. A notebook of the days and weeks in the lockdown.
GV: Tell us some details about the two broad themes for the event. Why are they important?
SR: The themes are broad so as to allow the depiction of every tiny little thing to do with the camps. The reality is of course that when you start enquiring about that tiny little thing, whatever it is, you suddenly realise it is not tiny at all. It is all connected to the deportation of Rohingya from the state of Myanmar and their experience of genocide. And in the difficult and challenging conditions in the camps, you begin to question and wonder what exactly is changing for them. For me, these images that we are collecting are redolent of their decades-long struggle for survival. And now suddenly, they are hemmed in from all sides and a virus has entered the fray. It is a nightmare.
“LIVES AT RISK” – Submission by Mohammed Hossain. “Around 0830 on 12 May 2020, a devastating fire broke out in Rohingya Refugee Camp 1E, Ukhia, Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. From there it quickly spread. Damage has been extensive and hundreds of refugees have lost their possessions and their homes”. See more photos of the “LIVES AT RISK” series here. Used with permission.
GV: What sort of help you are getting to run the competition and who are the judges?
SR: I am running the thing myself. I am working on a variety of projects but I never tire of looking at images. Prominent humanitarians and Rohingya advocates are sharing their own images in the competition in order to support and help project the profile of the context. We have a variety of people – everyone from a former diplomat who was involved in the Kofi Annan report on Myanmar to the Founder of Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS), who has helped rescue thousands of refugees in the Mediterranean sea and has also been a part of the response to the Rohingya crisis. Prominent Rohingya activists are also on board. Liza Boschin, an Italian photographer, reporter and documentary maker is the chief judge.
GV: What response have you seen since the launch of the competition?
SR: Well over 400 images in the first three weeks. A fascinating glimpse of everything from social distancing to no regard for social distancing.
GV: Why should more Rohingyas join this competition?
SR: […] the reality is just for fun, very modest prizes and to document their own lives.
A Rohingya girl with Chandan (sandalwood) face pack. Submission by Noor Hossain. Used with permission.
GV: Do you have some tips for submission — what sort of photos, devices, tools, etc.?
SR: Think of telling a story in one snap. Or look for unusual angles. Or interesting faces. Think of getting pictures in difficult situations. Or just take a selfie.
GV: What can we expect from the exhibitions and the publicity about it?
SF: The exhibitions will take place in two places – Ottawa and Oxford – and in contexts which promote human rights. One is a human rights department of a university. The other is a human rights festival of a university. We are also already engaging other institutions and asking them to consider staging similar albeit more limited exhibitions. A well known published photographer and studio owner will run some of the images on his Instagram account.
“Dear Corona, please stay away from Rohingyas.” Submission by Azimul Hasson. Used with permission.
GV: What do you hope for the Rohingya people, as well as how people from around the entire world can learn from your tireless efforts to help make Rohingya lives better?
SR: Genocide should not be happening and yet it is. We keep saying “never again” but it seems to happen again and again. Let us learn from the Rohingya, and put an end to it.
Below are some photos submissions:
Day 43 #Rohingya camp #lockdown
Some great shots submitted to Rohingya Photography Competitionhttps://t.co/MATUKFz6Vu pic.twitter.com/8FT8pDdjcH
— Noor Hossain (@KTPNoorHossain) May 8, 2020
All in one #Rohingya PPE – Gown, Visor, Face Mask and Rain Coat. ?
Photo submitted to Rohingya Photography Competition by Md Hossain. #COVIDー19 https://t.co/hV0v6PC5AE pic.twitter.com/cjPiabSMqO
— Shafiur Rahman (@shafiur) May 3, 2020
Covid19 Facemask with leaf. Submission by Jamal Arakani. Used with permission.
Socially distanced queue for rations in a refugee camp in Bangladesh. Submission by Dil Kayas. Used with permission.
Covid-19 announcements in Kutupalong refugee camp, Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. Submission by Jamal Arakani. Used with permission.
During Covid-19 lockdown, Rohingya children reading in front of their camp home, Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. Submission by Abul Kalam. Used with permission.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Rezwan


text:
‘We’re staying home today’: The unexpected anthem of Russia’s COVID-19 lockdown · Global Voices
Maxim Edwards

Screenshot from the music video of Hadn Dadn's “We're staying home today”, YouTube, 2018.
Check out Global Voices’ special coverage of the global impact of COVID-19.
As Russia gradually eases its COVID-19 lockdown, a song by Moscow indie band Hadn Dadn is being hailed as the “anthem of self-isolation.”
“We're staying home today,” begins the song of the same name, “We're staying home tomorrow. And the day after tomorrow. And the day after that.”
Given the strictness of self-isolation requirements for Russians, particularly in Moscow, it's not surprising that the song's bittersweet homage to being housebound has struck a chord. It incessantly shared on social networks. Independent station TV Rain organised a flashmob with around a dozen prominent female actors, television presenters, and videobloggers singing the song from their homes.
The song's sudden surge in popularity reflects Russians’ changing listening habits under lockdown. Writing on May 5 for Kommersant, radio columnist Dmitry Butkevich cited data from popular streaming service Zvuk, according to which Russians had dropped their party playlists in March and April in favour of more ambient music which could help productivity and relieve stress. Predictably, he also noted a surge of interest in songs specially tailored to these unusual times, such as the dance track Coronaminus by Gidayyat and Gazan, Kis-Kis's Quarantine, Olga Buzova's Let's stay at home, and Byanka's Pandemic.
All of these songs were recorded in the early months of 2020 as a direct response to the COVID-19 pandemic. But Hadn Dadn's song is unusual in that, despite its popularity, it was actually written in 2017 and released on the group's 2018 Secret Album. In the words of lead soloist Varvara Kramova, the lyrics refer to a visit to the North Caucasus with the band's producer Anton Moiseyenko, who intended to spend the new year with his parents and explore the region. But after four days visiting bucolic spa towns such as Kislovodsk and Pyatigorsk, Moiseyenko's parents had had enough. They urged Moiseyenko and Kramova to stay at home rather than visit Zheleznovodsk. But the two pressed on and went alone, distilling their irritation at being denied their wanderlust into a protest song.
When interviewed for BookMate as part of the #СидиЧитай campaign (when celebrities discuss their favourite books during self-isolation), Kramova reflected on the song's humble origins and its subsequent significance:
Мы шли к автобусной остановке, чтобы ехать в Железноводск, и орали отвратительными голосами «Мы сегодня дома! Завтра тоже дома!» и представить себе не могли, что эта песня станет гимном самоизоляции.
As we went to the bus stop in order to go to Zheleznovodsk, we shouted in a disgusting tone ‘we're staying home today! We're staying home tomorrow!’ We could never have imagined that the song would become the anthem of self-isolation.
It was one of several songs written by Kramenko during the trip, and she wasn't initially convinced that it would be an obvious hit.
The reaction appears to have surprised her. For example when Hadn Dadn performed the song in March for the finale of Bol’, or “Pain”, a Moscow music festival streamed online, Kramova says that she was pleasantly surprised by how many of the audience members appeared to be able to sing along to the lyrics. But the musician now believes that the song's significance could prove its undoing, as future listeners associate it with the traumatic times of the COVID-19 pandemic. As she told the independent news outlet Meduza in early April:
Мне кажется, что, когда эпидемия закончится, эту песню будут вспоминать как страшный сон — из-за этой ассоциации она умрет. На самом деле мы уже подустали петь ее на концертах, довольно долго ее играем. Мы с Антоном долго размышляли, что может убить эту песню — отдать ее в рекламу? Или куда-то еще? Мы даже стремились к тому, чтобы этого не случилось — придумывали всякие акустические версии, но, кажется, песня сама по себе умрет.
It seems to me that when this epidemic ends, this song will be remembered like a bad dream. Due to that association, it will die. In fact, we're already tired of singing it at concerts: we've been playing it for a long time. Anton and I had wondered for quite some time about what would kill the song. Allowing an advertisement to use it? Or somewhere else? We even tried hard to ensure that didn't happen; we came up with all kinds of acoustic versions. But it seems that the song will die by itself.
Hadn Dadn's sorrowful lyrics are suited to the moment in a country which now records over 10,000 coronavirus cases every day. And if virologists’ predictions of a second wave are accurate, their words could be resonant for even longer.
But there is some deliverance to these lyrics, as the singers staying home can ask their friends to take a walk on their behalf and pass greetings to their friends. Even if, as one commentator under the official music video remarks, that simple gesture may be prohibited for the time being.
Мы сегодня дома
Завтра тоже дома
Послезавтра дома
Послепослезавтра тоже дома
Вы езжайте там без нас
Погуляйте там за нас
Хорошенько погуляйте
Всем привет передавайте
Мы сегодня дома
Потому что мы устали
Потому что было много
Дел вчера по дому
Вы езжайте, ато что-то
Холодно на улице
А у нас тепло – мы топим
И гуляем на крыльце
Даже в ванной есть вода и горячая всегда
И не нужно ехать в баню, и не нужно никуда
Ну а если вы серьезно, то оденьтесь потеплей
Поезжайте на маршрутке, всего 45 рублей
Да куда вы претесь?
Что опять забыли?
Почему вам надо ехать?
Мы сто раз уже там были
Вы купите мне картину
Выбирайте покрасивей
Буду вечером сидеть
Буду на нее смотреть
Там кафешка у Натальи, у Ахмеда ресторан
Нам вообще не интересно, что не видели мы там
Там фонтан, потом орел, там дорожка вдоль палатки
Мы сегодня дома
Завтра тоже дома
We're staying home today
We're staying home tomorrow too
And the day after tomorrow
And the day after that
Go out without us
Take a walk for us
Have a nice walk
Say hello to everyone from us
We're staying home today
Because we're tired
Because there was a lot
To do at home yesterday
Go out without us, and so on
It's cold outside
It's warm at home, we're drowning
We can step out onto the porch
There's even water in the bathroom, and it's always hot
We don't need to go to the bathhouse or anywhere else
Well, if you're so serious about it, dress warmly
Take the minibus, it's just 45 rubles
We're staying home today
At home tomorrow too
And the day after tomorrow
And the day after that
Go out without us
Take a walk for us
Have a nice walk
Say hello to everyone from us
Where are you hurrying to?
What have you forgotten?
Why do you have to go?
We've been there a hundred times
Buy me a picture
Choose a pretty one
I'll look at it tonight
Natalya has a cafe, Ahmed has a restaurant
We don't care that you didn't see us there
There's a fountain, then an eagle, then a path by the tents
We're staying home today
We're staying home tomorrow too

author: Maxim Edwards


text:
A glimpse at Thailand’s digital ID through the biometric profiling of Malay Muslims · Global Voices
Darika Bamrungchok

A military raid on a school in Pattani, Thailand. Photo and caption by Prachatai. Source: Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Editor's note: This piece was written by Darika Bamrungchok, Digital Rights Manager (Mekong Program) at EngageMedia, based in Bangkok. It is part of our series on digital ID systems produced in partnership with The Engine Room. Visit the Digital ID microsite to read a full research report on this global trend, and case studies on five countries that have deployed digital ID systems, including Thailand.
Many countries across the globe have been modernizing their national identification systems to incorporate the use of biometric data to verify people’s identities and provide public services. Thailand is no exception.
Thailand's Smart ID Card, which features the use of a microchip, was first introduced in 2005. However, the use of biometrics with the National ID card did not  materialize until 2019, when the Digital ID Bill was passed by the National Legislative Assembly. Currently, a national digital ID company is testing the implementation of digital IDs, but progress is slow.
Before the planned digital ID system is rolled out nationwide, stakeholders including the government, the private sector and civil society should take a step back and consider the risks posed by the system and the potential for misuse of biometric data in Thailand, particularly given the country’s problematic record of collecting and using such data in the country's Deep South region as part of its counter-insurgency policies.
After the 2014 coup, Thailand's political situation deteriorated, ending with a flawed election process in 2019. Additionally, the pro-military government has since 2014 used various repressive measures to quell the opposition and other dissenting voices and to suppress criticism from people viewed as political threats, which has created a climate of mistrust and fear. All of this raises questions about government transparency in implementing the digital ID system, in addition to concerns about security and privacy safeguards to prevent the misuse of biometric data.
“The trust in Thai authorities is getting low,’’  a 27-year-old pro-democracy activist who requested not to have her name disclosed said in a phone interview with Global Voices (GV). She added:
So, when any new digital policies are introduced, we have to remind ourselves that those technologies will be implemented under a military mindset. It can create a range of risks violating people’s privacy, freedom, and political participation. The upcoming digital ID or mandatory biometric data system could be another tactic to monitor human rights defenders and critics who are simply against the government.
Without explicit safeguards and good data governance, the repercussions for privacy and human rights—particularly of vulnerable groups and minorities—could be serious. Malay Muslim communities in Thailand’s southernmost provinces, have had to learn that bitter lesson, the hard way.
In predominantly Buddhist Thailand, the majority of people living in the Southern Border Provinces (SBPs) are Muslim. Over the last few years, violence in these provinces has been escalating, with more than 7,000 casualties in the last 15 years. This region has a long, troubled history of state-led discrimination against local Malay Muslims, including various draconian military measures imposed by the authorities under special security laws.
During a public seminar named “Seize, Trample, Repeat, Change’” held in October 2019, Romadon Panjor, editor of the Deep South Watch website, described the Southern Provinces as ‘’the testing sites for the military forces.’’ According to Romadon:
They are merely areas for testing certain tools… From there, some methods have been replicated and applied countrywide.
Among the government’s counter-insurgency methods, the most controversial was the forced collection of DNA from Malay Muslims.
Under Thailand's Criminal Procedure Code section 131 and 131/1, people who are arrested for criminal suspicion or convicted of a crime can be subjected to DNA collection. In Thailand's Deep South, however, security forces have consistently performed dragnet operations to arbitrarily collect DNA samples from Malay Muslims, most of whom had never committed any crime.
The Cross Cultural Foundation (CrCF), a human rights advocacy group, has been monitoring the human rights situation in the region since the re-emergence of ethno-religious conflict between the Thai state and the Malay Muslim insurgent groups in 2004.
In 2012 the Thai government started collecting biometric data, including DNA samples, from Malay Muslims in the region for use as forensic evidence to identify perpetrators involved in violent incidents. From January to September 2019, the foundation received at least 139 reports of forced DNA collection in the region.
A human rights researcher from the CrCF, Chanatip Tatiyakaroonwong, said in an interview with GV that:
this massive collection of personal biometric data raises serious concerns about violating people’s basic rights. The discriminatory nature of these measures could amount to racial profiling, which subjects Malay Muslims to disproportionate and unnecessary surveillance based on ethnic prejudice rather than objective signs of suspicion.
In researching the period April 2019 to April 2020, Chanatip found that the Thai state’s practice of collecting biometric data, along with other counterinsurgency measures, is often carried out at checkpoints or during search operations at houses, villages, dormitories, private religious schools in the Southern Border Provinces, as well as at the homes of people from the region living in Bangkok, the country’s capital.
Random DNA collection in Malay Muslim communities grew into a more systematized structure alongside many other policies such as taking photos of their faces, their ID cards, and their car number plates by military officers. Currently, the government has launched a large-scale measure to collect the facial data of a wide-ranging group of people in the region. They also signaled an expansion of CCTV by integrating AI technologies in the region.
In April 2019, the practice had become even more widespread as DNA collection was incorporated into the annual mandatory military conscription process in three districts of the Southern Border Provinces and four districts of Songkla Province. Chanatip’s research also noted that between April 4 and April 11, 2019, at least 20,250 men who underwent conscription had DNA samples taken by officers.
After concerns were raised over the collection of DNA samples during military conscription, Colonel Chalat Sriwichien, Deputy Chief of the Special Task Force in the city of Yala, refuted reports that the authorities were conducting forced DNA testing. He added that the DNA samples in the new national security database would help security authorities solve violent crimes connected to the insurgency.
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha also denied that forced DNA testing constituted a violation of rights, maintaining that “the procedure is on a voluntary basis.’’ He added that the Southern Border Provinces was merely the first area where DNA collection from army conscripts had taken place and that the practice would be expanded to other regions.
But the irony here is that while authorities are aggressively implementing random DNA collection—targeting ordinary citizens in Muslim-dominated communities—there remain thousands of stateless persons across the country who cannot afford the required DNA verification test for their citizenship applications, especially stateless people who have no birth certificate. According to research published in 2015, stateless people have to visit a clinic to have a DNA test, which costs THB 4,800 (USD 150).
According to Chanatip’s research, in this climate of fear, many people in the Southern Provinces give DNA samples without getting adequate information about the procedure. The authorities collect samples for the purpose of gathering forensic evidence for prosecution, but also to intimidate locals suspected of being affiliated or sympathizing with insurgents.
Chanatip interviewed wives of suspected insurgents who said that their DNA samples had been collected during house raids, although they are not genetically related to their husbands.
“It made us feel so bad. They treated us as if we were criminals. We are now anxious,” the wife of a suspected insurgent in Pattani told him.
The CrCF observes that despite being suspicious and reluctant to give DNA samples, most people did not know they had the right to refuse to give their sample, which is guaranteed under Sections 131 and 131/1 of the Criminal Procedure Code. In some cases, security officials reportedly instructed people to sign a consent form after the sample was collected. In other cases, the owners were not given the option of deciding whether they consented to the collection. In no case was anybody provided with information about how and where DNA data is accessed, processed, and stored.
In June 2019, the government took the further step of ordering all mobile phone users in three southernmost provinces to register their SIM cards via a facial recognition system. Those who failed to register risked having their mobile phone service cut.
An army spokesman said that SIM cards have been used to detonate bombs and facial recognition could help identify perpetrators. While the government said that it only planned to use the system to find suspects or persons of interest for questioning, this measure could still negatively affect the lives of many innocent citizens, including the risk of making wrongful arrests.
It remains unclear how the facial data the government obtained through the mandatory SIM card registration will be utilized or incorporated into the current surveillance infrastructure.
Chanatip mentioned one concern of locals:
Malay Muslims tend to express much more suspicion towards this policy and worry that these data would be abused in some way. A local political activist said to me that this measure would only intensify the locals’ distrust in the government and decrease the legitimacy of the ongoing peace process.
The Thai government’s controversial practice of forced DNA collection and SIM card registration using facial recognition in the Southern Border Provinces is a reminder for the need for awareness-raising about its digital ID project. As the government pushes for the implementation of a country-wide digital ID system, there are concerns that these same draconian measures could be applied to other regions and ethnic groups across the country. If the system is not transparent, and if citizens are not provided with prior informed consent before their data is collected and do not know what happens to their personal data, including who has access to it, how it is collected and stored, the people’s right to privacy could be doomed.
Without such measures, many “will continue to feel that they are unfairly subject to racial profiling and intense state-led surveillance,” Chanatip warned.

author: Darika Bamrungchok


text:
How a football team from Cameroon’s conflict-stricken regions defied all odds to win a maiden national trophy · Global Voices
Ekonde Daniel

PWD Bamenda football team from Cameroon. Credit: PWD Bamenda media, used with permission.
In 2016, PWD Bamenda, a football club from Cameroon’s embattled northwest region, gained promotion into the country’s national division two championship known as the Elite Two.
That same year protests broke out in the northwest and southwest regions, paralyzing football activities in the two Anglophone regions. Protesters’ demands included the use of English as the official language in Anglophone courts and schools and equal distribution of economic resources.
These protests turned violent, leading to a bloody, nearly four-year conflict between primarily French-speaking government forces and English-speaking separatist militias.
Meanwhile, PWD Bamenda has been in the mix — gaining promotion to the national division one, Elite One, and being crowned champions of a disrupted season caused by the coronavirus, with only a few games remaining.
The club has withstood the test of time — surviving threats related to the coronavirus and ongoing separatist conflict — to reach the highest levels.
At the start of the just-ended football season, club president Abunde Pascal told CBS Radio he would like the team to play a pivotal role in the championship, having escaped relegation in the previous season.
“The objectives of this season have not yet been properly defined but we think that we should play a key role in the championship this season. We don’t want to be in that relegation battle that we were last season,” club president Abunde said last October.
PWD Bamenda had barely survived relegation from the previous season when its former coach, Augustin Choupo, was kidnapped by suspected Anglophone separatists and repeatedly faced threats while hosting its matches in Bamenda, the regional headquarters of the northwest region.
“There were persistent negotiations with security forces to protect the playground of the team,” Kouamo Arnold, a Bamenda-based reporter who covers the club told Global Voices on May 16, 2020. “The team has Francophone players, so most of them were afraid of being kidnapped while in the northwest because the former coach Augustin Choupo was abducted.”
The team suffered a series of defeats in the initial stage of the 2020 season and nearly got to the relegation zone, but picked up before the first phase could wrap up – raking in 29 points and finishing second.
“Many people criticized coach [David] Pagou’s [the new coach] playing formation of 3-5-2. But he took the risk, diverting from the previous coach’s philosophy and it started paying off,” Kouamo said.
PWD nudged to the second spot with 40 points after a 1-0 win over legendary club Tonnere Kalara Club in a day 24 fixture. The club had dropped points in a few matches in the early stage of the second phase in their initial quest to avoid relegation in the top-flight.
“The spirit of winning the championship never really occurred to the club,” Giovanni Wanneh, a football writer in Cameroon, told Global Voices. According to Giovanni, PWD’s turning point came on the 28th day of the competition, when they claimed a decisive win to move to the top of the league.
“Winning against Union Sportive of Douala made the team and the fans to believe they could actually win the league. The fans started pushing,” said Wanneh.
The win took the team to the top of the Elite One table with 47 points — a point away from Cameroonian giants, Coton Sport, who unfortunately drew against their opponents. A win would have taken Coton Sport to the top spot; however, things stayed that way and the league was suspended in March because of the coronavirus.
Cameroon has recorded some of the highest numbers of coronavirus patients during this period in the region.
Eventually, the Cameroon Football Federation (Fecafoot) that runs the league wrapped up the championship and declared PWD winners with six days remaining in the championship.
The team, created 58 years ago in the then-Southern Cameroons will now represent Cameroon in next season’s CAF Champions League – their first-ever appearance.
“We are very happy because practicing the game in this part of the country [northwest] is not easy, with the challenges that you know,” PWD Bamenda president Abunde Pascal told Global Voices on May 16.
Journalist Afeseh Apong, who traveled with the team for matches throughout this season, concurs.
“We had a game in Bamenda and Dragon Yaounde — the opponent — went to the field earlier before us. They were stopped at the entrance of the field by suspected separatist fighters.  The players were traumatized and they never wanted to continue the game. We needed extra effort to convince them to play,” he told Global Voices on May 17.
“With all those negative factors, I think PWD broke all odds.”

author: Ekonde Daniel


text:
Journalists in Russia’s regions catalogue the ‘unseen victims’ of COVID-19 · Global Voices
Maxim Edwards

“We find those who are indirectly suffering due to the coronavirus. We trace the signals about the problem. We track the trends,” reads the landing page of Coronavictims.ru.
Some die of heart attacks, as there were no ambulances available to take them to hospital. Others couldn't get medicine for serious conditions or organ transplants in time. Then there are those who lose their job, income, and savings, some by falling prey to fraudsters who promise protective equipment or miracle cures in exchange for cash.
These are Russia's “unseen” COVID-19 victims — those who have suffered seriously or even perished due to the broader consequences of the pandemic. According to the Johns Hopkins University map, there have been to date over 290,000 COVID-19 cases in Russia, including 2,722 deaths. In recent weeks, coronavirus cases have been rising by between 8,000 and 11,000 on a daily basis.
Given the numbers of the “visible” victims, Russia's journalists have their work cut out for them — the incidents mentioned above are not “unseen” for no reason. They are real tragedies, all of which took place in various Russian regions since April 2020. That month, a team of Russian journalists and media workers founded Coronavictims.ru, a portal dedicated to recording the less obvious hardships caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The project does not record COVID-19 infections unless they were themselves caused by wider “unseen” social and economic consequences of the pandemic, or by a clear case of another's negligence influenced by these factors.
Importantly, Coronavictims.ru does not record cases in Russia's largest cities of Moscow and St Petersburg and their hinterlands. Its team of 20 journalists based across Russia, many of them working for regional publications, closely monitor local newspapers and social media networks for evidence of “unseen” cases. The site also includes a contact form where citizens can provide their own information about an “unseen victim.”
The project's founders hope that their data will assist journalists in their reporting, activists in raising awareness of underreported issues, and state officials and NGOs alike in developing an effective response to the pandemic.
The data are ranked into five colour-coded classes: yellow (for problems for which there are five or less recorded instances), orange (five or more), red (ten or more), crimson (100 or more), and black. The last and most extreme category is reserved for incidents which, regardless of number, have irreversible and serious consequences — these include deaths related to the coronavirus pandemic but not caused by the infection itself, and the complete collapse or bankruptcy of businesses. The latter can have serious social consequences, such as alcoholism, domestic violence, homelessness, and even suicide.
Read more: As Russia goes into lockdown, feminists fear an epidemic of domestic violence
It must be added that as all incidents recorded are based on public data, many of these same social problems are underreported, and therefore doubly “unseen”. Domestic violence, for instance, stays in the yellow zone, although due to the nature of the problem the public never hears about many cases, assuming that victims speak out at all.
Two examples of “black zone” cases are as follows. One concerns a tragic death in Bashkortostan, a region in the Ural mountains:
Студент из Стерлитамака Ранэль Шамсутдинов в начале апреля стал жаловаться на головные боли, родные думали, что он нервничает из-за дистанционного обучения. Позже МРТ показало злокачественную опухоль головного мозга. В больнице студента отказались принять из-за карантина по коронавирусу.
In early April Raniel Shamsutdinov, a student from Sterlitamak, started to complain of headaches. His parents believed he was just nervous because of distance learning [put in place due to quarantine.] An MRI scan later revealed a malignant brain tumour. The hospital refused to admit him due to the coronavirus quarantine.
- Reported by Znak, May 9, collected by Coronavictims.ru
Another refers to a comparison made by a local publication in the city of Tyumen, western Siberia.
За указанный период [Февраль-Май 2020 г.] в Тюмени прекратили свою работу 44 магазина одежды, 27 цветочных салонов, 22 кафе, кофеен и кондитерских, 17 детских и подростковых клубов, 10 праздничных агентств
In Tyumen, during the indicated period [between February and May 2020], 44 clothes shops, 27 flower shops, 22 cafes, coffee houses, and pastry shops, 17 children's and teenagers’ clubs, and 10 holiday agencies stopped operating.
- Reported by 72.ru, May 14, collected by Coronavictims.ru
The Tyumen publication continued that its newsroom received calls on an almost daily basis from locals complaining that they were now unable to pay their rent.
Importantly, these incidents remain all the more “unseen” by virtue of occurring in Russia's regions, where access to independent journalism is a tall order in comparison to Moscow or St Petersburg. Thus the project's regional focus sheds light on a largely “unseen” player in Russia's media ecosystem — the high-quality, independent media outlets founded in recent years to rectify that problem. Coronavictims.ru is the brainchild of three of them: SemNaSem or “horizontal Russia,” Sector Four Media, and Gribnica. As Sector Four Media's editor Anastasia Sechina puts it, news outlets like these are “a step towards the decentralisation of our Moscow-centric Russia, which is badly needed across the board — particularly in journalism.”
Sechina, a researcher and coordinator for the Coronavictims.ru project, spoke to RuNet Echo about her and her colleagues’ goals:
Maxim Edwards: How did the idea for this project arise?
Анастасия Сечина: С коронавирусной повесткой были трудности. С одной стороны, делать что-то, не оставаться в стороны казалось необходимым, с другой стороны – какой слой проблемы ни возьми – про это кто-то уже написал или готовился написать, просто потому что всё без исключения – и федеральные, и региональные медиа – «сидят» сейчас на коронавирусной повестке. Тогда мы стали думать так, как обычно думаем – о чём не говорится, какой слой проблемы мало исследован, какой фокус упускается? И как эти слои и фокусы обнаружить? Таким образом пришла идея мониторинга.
Да, в конечном итоге на сайте есть и пока неочевидные жертвы, и жертвы, которые уже стали очевидными, но это нормально, мы не считаем, что их нужно удалять – просто потому что любая неочевидная проблема может перекочевать из «жёлтой зоны» в любую другую зону. И за время проекта так происходило уже неоднократно. В то же время есть проблемы, по которым острота снижается, и мы это также фиксируем. Например, поначалу было много сигналов о травле заболевших, о мошенничестве на коронавирусе, о проблемах людей, застрявших за границей. Сейчас таких сигналов единицы, зато, например серьёзно увеличилось число сигналов об отсутствии обещанных президентом доплат за работу с коронавирусом и о заражении COVID-19 из-за чужой безответственности или халатности. При этом изначально было много сигналов о проблемах предпринимателей и о том, что люди теряют доходы и работу – и число этих сигналов пока не снижается, каждую неделю их много.
Anastasia Sechina: The coronavirus topic always presented difficulties. On the one hand, it seemed necessary to do something, to not avoid it. On the other hand, whatever aspect you tried to address, somebody had written about it or was preparing to write about it, simply because federal and regional media are, without obsession, glued to the topic. So we started to think, as we usually do, about what problems were poorly studied and what focuses were missing in reporting. And how could we detect those other layers? So the idea of a monitoring project arose.
Yes, eventually we ended up with “unseen” victims on the site, as well as victims whose problems are now “seen.” But that's normal, we don't think they should be removed: any unseen problem can migrate from the “yellow zone” to the “crimson zone,” and that's already happened more than once. At the same time, there are problems which become less severe, which we try to record. For example, initially there were lots of cases of harassment of patients, coronavirus-connected fraud, and people stuck overseas. Now there are very few of these cases, but there are many more incidents around the lack of additional payments which the president promised those who work closely with coronavirus patients; COVID-19 infections caused by somebody else's negligence have also increased. At the beginning there were also many complaints by business owners and employees who had lost their income and work; we hear a lot of these cases every week, and their number has not yet decreased.
ME: How have journalists responded to the project?
АС: Если речь про журналистов из регионов, которые захотели принять участие в проекте, то интерес был довольно высокий. Если речь о том, используют ли другие журналисты наш ресурс сейчас для освещения темы, то мне, к сожалению, ответить на этот вопрос сложно. После того, как мы запустили ресурс, то сделали рассылку по различным федеральным СМИ, межрегиональным СМИ, некоммерческим организациям. Кому-то из редакторов, кого знаю, написала лично. Они среагировали заинтересовано. Но мне пока неизвестно, пригодился ли наш ресурс в результате.
Мы прекрасно понимаем, что если благодаря нашему ресурсу кто-то из журналистов нашёл кейс(ы) или персонажа(ей) для своей публикации, то будет странно писать что-то вроде: «Как рассказала Елена (её я нашёл благодаря сайту coronavictims)…». Мы создали штуку, которая может помочь сориентироваться в повестке, но объективно понимаем, что сложно при этом ожидать цитирования и ссылок на проект.
Сейчас мы готовим инфографику по материалам проекта – возможно, она будет интересна другим журналистам и СМИ сама по себе и число ссылок на проект возрастёт.
AS: If we're speaking about journalists from the regions who want to take part, then we can say that there's great interest. If we're speaking about whether journalists now use our resource to cover COVID-19, then that's difficult to answer. After we launched, we sent newsletters to various federal and regional media and NGOs. Some editors wrote to me personally and expressed great interest. But we still don't know whether our project came in handy as a result.
We're well aware that even if, thanks to our project, a journalist found an incident or a respondent which could be useful in their reporting, it would be odd of them to write something like “As Elena said (whom I found thanks to the Coronavictims website). We've created something which can help you navigate the news agenda, but we understand that it's hard to expect quotes about or links to the project.
At the moment we're preparing infographics based on the materials we have collected. Perhaps they'll be of interest to other journalists and the number of links to the project will increase.
ME: How important are social networks in discovering these cases, in comparison to news sources?
АС: С точки зрения технологии очень непросто вести мониторинг социальных сетей, просто потому что проект не предусматривает ресурсов на верификацию сигналов. Мы договорились, что журналисты команды мониторинга включают в результаты мониторинга публикации в соцсетях только в тех случаях, когда они лично знают автора поста и история рассказана от первого лица, а не с чьих-то слов. Но основным источником остаются всё-таки новостные сводки. Важно подчеркнуть, что часто публикации в местных СМИ появляются по мотивам постов в социальных сетях, поэтому в конечном итоге соцсети – важный поставщик сведений. Другое дело, что журналисты проводят верификацию изложенных файлов, в той или иной степени – не всегда, но многие стараются связаться с автором поста, узнать подробности, взять официальные комментарии. Получается, в наши результаты сигнал из соцсетей поступает нередко уже обросший дополнительными подробностями, которые появились благодаря местным журналистам.
При этом мы стремимся оценивать то, насколько проверен тот или иной факт, изложенный в СМИ, и иногда не берём публикацию в результаты мониторинга, если есть сомнения. Но также нередко берём, даже если считаем, что она недостаточно глубоко верифицирована. Задача проекта всё-таки не проверить все публикации, а зафиксировать сигналы о проблеме и увидеть динамику этих сигналов – насколько часто они появляются, то есть – проблема усугубляется или сглаживается. Предположим, что в некой проблеме действительно есть несколько сообщений, где ситуация гиперболизирована, приукрашена или не совсем соответствует действительности, однако в целом такого рода сигналов – десятки, из разных регионов огромной страны. Все эти десятки не могут быть ложью и преувеличением, именно в своей совокупности они говорят о том, что проблема обретает масштаб. Нам важно зафиксировать именно это, и с точки зрения такого подхода мы считаем допустимой некоторую погрешность.
AS: Technically speaking, it's rather difficulty to monitor social media, simply because our project doesn't have the resources to verify every case we find. We have agreed that journalists from the monitoring team should only cite posts on social networks if they personally know the author and the story is told in the first person, not second-hand in somebody else's words. But news reports remain the primary source. It's important to stress that reports by local media are themselves based on social media posts, so ultimately they are an important source. It's another matter to ensure that journalists verify these files to some degree and usually, if not always, try to contact the author of the post, find out details, and get quotes. Our results show that cases recorded from social media have often accrued all kinds of other details thanks to the work of local journalists.
At the same time, we do try and assess how well local media have verified their own facts. If we're in doubt, sometimes we do not cite the article in the results of our monitoring. But there are other times when we do just that, even if we believe that it could have been more thoroughly verified. The goal of our project is not to check every publication's work, but to take note of instances of various problems and their dynamics. How often they appear, whether the situation is deteriorating or improving. Suppose that we find several mentions of a problem which are indeed exaggerated or embellished or not wholly true in some fashion. There are dozens of cases like that across all the regions of this enormous country. But they can't all be a lie or an exaggeration; taken together, they reflect the growth of a particular problem. And that's precisely what we're trying to track. So in view of our approach, we consider some margin of error [in verification] to be acceptable.
ME: How would you assess Russian society's attitude to these “unseen problems” right now?
АС: Я бы сказала, что соразмерность проблемы коронавируса как такового и проблем, которые возникают из-за борьбы с коронавирусом, осмысливается. Два главных вопроса, которые появляются на повестке: насколько правильно то, что мы так серьёзно «уронили» малый и средний бизнес и насколько правильно то, что мы так серьёзно перестраиваем систему оказания медицинской помощи на оказание помощи людям с коронавирусом, если из-за этого страдают люди с другими заболеваниями (например, онкобольные, диабетики)? Рядовые граждане, журналисты, правозащитники задаются вопросами: насколько непродуманными были принятые меры, можно ли было поступить иначе, что можно сделать сейчас, чтобы скорректировать ситуацию? Мне сложно утверждать, я лишь надеюсь, что наш проект играет какую-то роль в этом осмыслении.
AS: I'd say it's widely understood that the scale of the problem posed by the coronavirus itself, and problems arising from of the fight against it, are proportionate. There are two key questions on everybody's minds. Firstly, how acceptable is it that small and medium sized businesses have been left in the lurch? And secondly, is it right to redirect the entire healthcare system towards helping coronavirus patients if doing so means that people with other diseases (such as cancer patients or diabetics) suffer as a result? Ordinary citizens, journalists, and human rights defenders alike are asking how the measures taken could have been so poorly thought out. Could anything have been done differently? What can be done now to get things back on the right track? It's hard for me to say. I just hope that our project plays some role in considering these issues.
After initially planning to continue collecting data until May 17, Sechina that she and her colleagues have now secured enough resources to keep the project running until June 18.
Ultimately, they hope that Coronavictims.ru will last even longer. After all, it is safe to predict that the names and fates of more “unseen” victims will enter the database in weeks to come.


text:
Nepali Muslims eye India’s growing Islamophobia with fear · Global Voices
Saprina Panday

During the end of Ramadan celebrations in 2009, a man at Nepal's Jame Masjid Mosque in Kathmandu looks pensively into the distance. Image by Flickr user @Ingmar Zahorsky (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Check out Global Voices’ special coverage of the global impact of COVID-19.
In early April, 13 members of Islamic missionary group Tablighi Jamaat tested positive for coronavirus while living in a mosque in southeastern Nepal. Many of them were Indian nationals who had returned from a Delhi-based gathering organized by the religious group in March — referred to as a “super-spreader event”.
As India deals with an increase of online and physical attacks against Muslims, Nepali Muslims are worried that their country may follow suit.
Muslims make up around 5% of Nepal's population, and in terms of access to health and education as well as standard of living, the group falls well below average.
With a history of limited physical protection from the state and local authorities in times of need, members of the Muslim community have been victim to attacks in 2004 and most recently in 2016.
After the 13 Tablighi Jamaat members tested positive for the coronavirus in Nepal, conspiracy theories led to online anti-Muslim vitriol which solely blamed the religious gathering in Delhi for the spread of the coronavirus.
#Ramadan has always been a time of joyous celebration. This year however, there is anxiety and fear among Nepal’s Muslims because of fears that they will be blamed for the virus.@AlishaSijapati from @NepaliTimes reports on Ramadan during #lockdown.https://t.co/g0c7NbFU5X
— Nepali Times (@NepaliTimes) May 4, 2020
Twitter user Md Aasif asked the Nepali police to arrest users who were spreading messages of hate:
I request the @NepalPoliceHQ to arrest these people and take strict action against them because these people want to spoil the good environment of Nepal and are spreading hatred against Muslims. pic.twitter.com/7wtQCcmlfh
— Md Aasif (@MdAasif166) May 3, 2020
Translation of tweets:
Tejendra Kunwar: the police have sealed all mosques in Gulf countries, why is it still open in Nepal? All mosques need to be sealed before we face the worst.
Naresh Prashad Patel: No place will remain safe if the government doesn’t focus on tracing, testing and treatment from eastern terai to west on time.
Padam KC: Musa-Ban [“ban” is a curse word which means dead] is ruining everything.
Krishna Rimal: The government should strictly speed up the search of Jamatis.
Surya: Muslims are going to finish Nepal.
Nayan Oli: Mosque Madarsa has sank us.
Nabin Devkota: should bomb attack all mosques of Nepal.
Neighboring Islamophobia
In neighboring India, Narendra Modi's nationalist Hindu party has been accused of creating an atmosphere of Islamophobia. Arjun Appadurai, a professor of media, culture and communication at New York University explains how the coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated existing issues in the country:
One of the key features of anti-Muslim sentiment in India for quite a long time has been the idea that Muslims themselves are a kind of infection in the body politic. So there’s a kind of affinity between this long-standing image and the new anxieties surrounding coronavirus.
The fact that India focused almost exclusively on the gathering of the Tablighi Jamaat Islamic group to the exclusion of all others speaks to a much larger history of scapegoating and inciting communal violence. And Muslim Indians have indeed been targeted through social media through viral hashtags like #CoronaJihad’.
While Muslims have been marginalized in Nepal, from education to politics, Kathmandu-based American journalist Peter Gill explains that, unlike in India, the recent anti-Muslim sentiment does not have overt rhetorical support from ruling Nepali political parties:
“…religious violence [in Nepal] is much less common than in India, where interfaith relations have been fraught since the bloody partition of India and Pakistan in 1947… [In Nepal] there are no powerful political groups that openly target Muslims in Nepal. The mainstream Hindu nationalist political party, the Rastriya Prajatantra Party, has focused on trying to restore Hinduism as the official state religion, bringing back the monarchy and stopping the spread of Christian proselytization. While these issues are indirectly threatening to Muslims, the party generally does not oppose Muslims in its rhetoric.
However, this may not be enough to allay the fear of Nepal's Muslim community. For the head of Nepal's Jame Masjid, Abdul Shamim:
After these cases, whenever there is news of confirmed cases going up, people are always asking were they Muslims? Were they caught in a mosque? The media highlights Muslim positives, they never say a Hindu or a Christian tested positive. […]
Muslims in Nepal are a minority and have peacefully coexisted without any conflict for centuries, but now I dread the future, and the rise of xenophobia and intolerance spreading from across the border.
As the Nepali government struggles to respond to an overwhelming series of challenges posed by the coronavirus, including organizing the return of thousands of its migrant workers abroad, and harmful testing, the situation for Nepal's vulnerable populations is only likely to get worse.

author: Saprina Panday


text:
The healing effects of bush tea: A conversation with Barbadian visual artist Annalee Davis · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Cerasee bush, just one of the many medicinal plants that can be used to make bush tea, drying. Photo by Sammy Davis, courtesy of Annalee Davis, used with permission.
Bush tea — infusions of indigenous plants and herbs deemed to have medicinal properties — is still fairly well-consumed in the Caribbean. Barbadian visual artist and cultural activist Annalee Davis is taking the concept to a new level through her work around the well-known drink.
In a region still grappling with the fallout from colonialism and slavery — trauma that is rooted to the land — Davis’ project, “Bush Tea Plots,” seeks to develop post-plantation regenerative strategies. The result is a progressive interweaving of agriculture, economics, art and history that has the potential to not only make Caribbean people reframe the past but build on that resilience to create a hopeful future, tackling challenges like climate mitigation and COVID-19 head-on.
The fact that Davis’ studio is located on a dairy farm that used to be a 17th-century sugar plantation makes her discoveries even more tangible, as her art and writing literally engage with the shards of that history.
A Flamboyant tree at Walkers Dairy, St. George, Barbados, site of the artist’s home and studio. Photo (2019) by Annalee Davis, used with permission.
Via a YouTube livestream on May 14, 2020, Davis spoke with Keisha Farnum, the managing director of Walkers Institute for Regeneration Research Education and Design (WIRRED), about some of these concepts, and engaged with me right afterward via email and WhatsApp, where we further examined some intriguing questions.
Barbadian visual artist Annalee Davis discusses her work. Photo by Tim Bowditch. Image courtesy Davis, used with permission.
Janine Mendes-Franco (JMF): Bush tea provides a non-threatening way to bridge the chasm between the shared history of our region and its collective future. Did you consciously choose an approach that turned the drink of our former colonisers on its head, or did it emerge organically?
Annalee Davis (AD): This particular landscape and the context of the plantation have formed the baseline of my work for decades. I tend to ruminate on an idea for quite some time, maybe years, until it coalesces into something more tangible. (Bush) Tea Services [a related project] evolved from the Wild Plant drawings on ledger pages and from the land in an organic way. Walking the fields, as Rebecca Solnit suggests, is a way to measure our bodies against the land and I am constantly measuring my body against this land during my roaming dawn ritual where ideas reveal themselves and later manifest in the studio.
JMF: As Caribbean people take control of our historical narrative, how important is it to talk about the trauma in order for collective healing to take place — and how critical is art to that cure?
AD: I have been concerned with how shared historical suffering reveals itself communally and how individuals and nations manage trauma and the desire for self-fulfilment in small places like Barbados, where social life and kinship are predominantly experienced in separate social spheres.
Art is pivotal in the curative space because it registers beyond the intellect at a sensorial level. However, before we heal, difficult conversations analysing the past, facilitating opportunities to broaden identities, and expressing solidarities to shape the future are essential.
A virtual slaughterhouse sits beneath our soil, sowing the seeds of contemporary issues with which we grapple today. These legacies emanate from the subterranean layers of this land as living ghosts from our collective past. There is so much work to do and artists are critical to the conversations as we have the power to envision alternative futures for us all.
JMF: I was recently explaining to someone outside of the region that Barbados, highly reliant on tourism, is perhaps the most manicured of all the Caribbean territories. Bush, on the other hand, is wild. How has this project helped you reconcile the two?
AD: I’m not sure I have. If anything, bush reminds me how fake the polished tourist environment is — from which I’m quite removed. Bush is wild and has taught me so much more about myself and the way in which I was (mis)educated. As a young child I learned that ‘weeds’ were not valued and were removed manually or eradicated chemically. Much later, I understood the importance of bush, and the significant role played by wild botanicals in regenerating the soil.
Exhibit of Annalee Davis’ “Wild Plant Series”, Art Gallery at Black Studies, UT, Austin, 2015. Latex on Plantation Ledger Pages, @ 22” x 13”. Photo by Mark Doroba. Image courtesy Davis, used with permission.
JMF: I know you’re concerned about the region’s soil degradation and biodiversity loss as a result of extractive industries like monocropping — whether it was sugar cane in the 17th century, or tourism now. Can you explain how your “Wild Plants” series has helped create a shift from degradation to phytoremediation — from bush as weeds to bush as a precious resource?
AD: I now see wild plants as active agents in the process of decolonising fields, performing quiet revolutions by asserting themselves against an imperial, monocrop landscape. A proliferation of wild plants and trees growing in abandoned sugar cane fields now contribute to greater biodiversity in Barbados since the late 17th century. Walking these fields at Walkers and directing my attention toward plants often ignored, reorients my understanding of this land and our history away from dominant narratives. Phytoremediation — the capacity of some plants to remove toxins from the soil through their roots — has become a conceptual springboard for this series of drawings and a powerful way to instrumentalise the bush.
Annalee Davis’ “Wild Plant Series” (Detail): Leucaena leucocephela/Myamosee, River Tamarind. Photo by Mark King. Image courtesy Davis, used with permission.
JMF: When you were working on the series, drawing the images on actual plantation ledger pages — an accounting methodology used by the British Empire — two things struck you: the Victorian rose colour of the pages, which led you to think about gender, and the orderliness with which all sorts of information was fastidiously recorded, disguising the underlying chaos and trauma of the plantation system. How does your art offer an alternative story?
AD: My inscription of other images, like delicate shards, the Queen Anne’s Lace pattern, botanicals or the woman’s body, encourages us to think differently about this loaded context. I decolonise the ledger by repopulating and complicating these fiscal substrates as a kind of civic negotiation, exposing gaps in Barbados’ plantation history buried in the soil, in the public imagination and inadequately documented in the archives. This complicates the single story written through the voice of the white male planter about the economics of the sugar industry. Black, white, and biracial women also lived and worked on the plantation, lands previously inhabited by the indigenous. What was their relationship to wild plants, I wonder?
Annalee Davis’ “Bush Tea Plots – A Decolonial Patch”, 2019. Photo by Dondré Trotman. Image courtesy Davis, used with permission.
JMF: Your work “Bush Tea Plots – A Decolonial Patch,” incorporates art, landscape architecture and spiritual healing. Can you explain how this is a living testimony to regional resilience?
AD: Commissioned by the World Bank Group for their Risk and Resilience conference at a conference at [The University of the West Indies] Cave Hill campus, I collaborated with Kevin Talma and Ras Ils, linking art practice, landscape architecture, and botany for this permanent installation at the Errol Barrow Centre for Creative Imagination.
Thinking about forming new relationships with the land, I envisaged this work as a living restorative plot or apothecary of resistance confronting the historical imposition of Barbados’ monocrop, sugarcane, recognising nature as a radical agent of resistance against the model of the plantation. Observing how the natural world is threatened and degraded, the work looks to nature as a regenerative biosphere with tools for healing at the agricultural, botanical and psychological and spiritual levels.
Comprising a glass planter showing the soil profile and a specially curated selection of 12 medicinal plants with healing properties, it increases knowledge of medicinal plants through a dedicated website while teaching resilience by using what’s readily available in our environment rather than only relying on imported pharmaceuticals.
Look out for the second installment, in which Annalee discusses another bush tea concept, “Bush Tea Services,” and explains how her theories are relevant to pressing global issues like the climate crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


text:
Where’s the Pacific voice in the viral ‘real Lord of the Flies’ story? · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

An island in Vava'u, Tonga. Photo uploaded by Flickr user Brownell Chalstrom. (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
A book excerpt published by The Guardian narrates the survival of six shipwrecked Tongan boys on an island for 15 months in 1965. The story received more than seven million hits in just four days, but some Tongans have pointed out that the story, which foregrounds the point of view of the Australian sailor who rescued the teenagers, lacks a Pacific voice.
The Guardian story, ‘The real Lord of the Flies: what happened when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months,’ was published on May 9 and immediately went viral, attracting the attention of filmmakers and global leaders. The book from which it is excerpted is “Humankind: A Hopeful History,” by Dutch historian Rutger Bregman.
Bregman recounted how Tongan teenagers Sione, Stephen, Kolo, David, Luke and Mano survived on the depopulated Ata island for 15 months by relying on each other after their boat was destroyed by a storm. They were rescued by Australian sailor Peter Warner.
Bregman contrasted the story of the six Tongans with the tragic fate of the characters in the popular 1954 novel “Lord of the Flies” by British author William Golding. In the novel, the children survive a plane crash and end up on a remote Pacific island. Some of them become violent, with fatal consequences.
For Bregman, the story of the six Tongans offers a more positive view of humanity:
It’s time we told a different kind of story. The real Lord of the Flies is a tale of friendship and loyalty; one that illustrates how much stronger we are if we can lean on each other.
The Guardian story was picked up by the local press in Tonga. Through the Matangi Tonga Online, we learned that the full names of the six teenagers are Kolo Fekitoa, Sione Fataua, “David” Tevita Siola'a, “Stephen” Fatai Latu, Mano Totau, and Luke Veikoso.
from left to right: Tevita Siola’a, Sione Fataua, Peter Warner (the sailor who rescued them, also my eldest uncle’s namesake), Luke Veikoso, unknown, Fatai Latu, unknown, Kolo Fekitoa, Mano Sione Filipe Totau (my grandpa) pic.twitter.com/JqFLh3T7LD
— Janet. U (@jaay_net) May 11, 2020
Not all are happy with the story published by The Guardian. In an ABC Australia audio interview Meleika Gesa-Fatafehi, a Tongan author and storyteller, took issue with the story's “colonial lens”. She felt there was too much focus on the Australian rescuer while omitting reference to the island’s history of colonialism (which is why it was depopulated), and the local belief systems that could explain why the boys behaved the way they did. She expressed frustration that a foreigner owns the rights to the story about what happened to the six teenagers, which is well-known in the Tongan community.
Gesa-Fatafehi added that understanding Tongan history and the values promoted in the community would have made readers see that the western novel Lord of the Flies provided an inaccurate counterpoint to the story of the six teenagers.
In a widely-shared Twitter thread, Gesa-Fatafehi elaborated her other concerns:
It lacked so much. It never even asks what the boys felt nor anything in detail of why they chose to do things. It lacked their perspective. It lacked the very Tongans the story was about, with the exception of Mano
— VIKA MANA / MELEIKA (@endlessyarning) May 10, 2020
idk (I’m playing, I do know), but your story wasn’t what I grew up learning. It’s told from a colonial lens. It just seems out of place, especially how we are viewed as some uncontaced magical native who surprisingly have the ability to live off the land/country
— VIKA MANA / MELEIKA (@endlessyarning) May 10, 2020
Samoan journalist Tahlea Aualiitia also commented:
As a Samoan, I had issues with the way the story of the 6 Tongans stranded on ‘Ata island was told.
I just spoke to @endlessyarning about it and, when you get over the romanticising of the story it's actually WILD that a white man owns the world rights to their story of survival https://t.co/pES7E4gEda
— Tali Aualiitia (@taliaualiitia) May 13, 2020
On Twitter, Janet. U revealed that her grandfather is one of the six castaways and posted the following appeal to the public:
All I ask is, PLEASE DO NOT SPEAK OR TALK ON BEHALF OF THE 6 BOYS if you’re not them or their immediate family or without their permission. YOU WEREN’T THERE!! so please stop. Try reaching out to them as majority of them are still alive.
— Janet. U (@jaay_net) May 13, 2020
Bregman responded to the Twitter thread of Meleika Gesa-Fatafehi by pointing out that the Guardian excerpt did not include his interview with Mano and Sione.
The version is my book is twice as long. I interviewed not only Mano, but also Sione – the oldest of the six. Spoke to both of them this week, and they're really happy with everything that's happening.
— Rutger Bregman (@rcbregman) May 13, 2020
He said he also tackled the history of slavery on the island.
A big part of my book, also in another chapter about Easter Island, is devoted to the the horrible Pacific slave trade.
— Rutger Bregman (@rcbregman) May 13, 2020
On May 13, The Guardian published an interview with Mano. The article quoted Mano and Bregman, who clarified that Warner did not benefit financially from the story of the rescue.
Gesa-Fatafehi posted a rejoinder to Bregman's point that the story is not about racism or colonialism but resilience and interracial friendship:
Hey, I disagree. This story is essentially tied with slavery, racism and colonialism. You may not see it, but as a child, we get told stories about ‘Ata and those who were stolen. Those boys ended up on ‘Ata. It’s important to acknowledge that their story is 100% tied in with
— VIKA MANA / MELEIKA (@endlessyarning) May 10, 2020
She wrote a longer piece summarizing the points she raised on her Twitter thread:
The original article could’ve done more for the six men. The story should have been told by a Tongan. The story should have been told by the men themselves and their families. This is their story, will always be their story. The article doesn’t mention how the boys felt or why they made the choices they made. It lacked their perspective. It lacked the very Tongans the story was about, with the exception of Mano. But even then, Mano was sidelined. He deserves to share his story how he would want to.
Gesa-Fatafehi said in the ABC Australia interview that if ever a film were to be made about the six teenagers, her advice is to hire a local crew and incorporate local perspectives in sharing the story to the world.

author: Mong Palatino


text:
In Algeria, online repression targets Amazigh protesters active in Hirak movement · Global Voices
Layli Foroudi

Protesters stand with the Algerian flag and an Amazigh flag in Tizi Ouzou, Algeria. Photo by Kader Houali, used with permission.
One Friday morning in late summer 2019, a lone woman marched through the center of Algiers, walked in front of a row of policemen and loudly called for the deposition of now-deceased army general Ahmed Gaid Salah, — hours ahead of the main anti-government march that afternoon.
The Amazigh flag was outlawed in Algeria in June 2019.
Earlier that summer, in June 2019, Gaid outlawed the Amazigh flag that belongs to the Kabyle Berbers, or Amazigh people. Following this decree, dozens of protesters were arrested for brandishing it alongside the national flag during Hirak protests, the popular uprising that erupted in February 2019 in opposition to then-president Abdelaziz Bouteflika running for a fifth term.
“This woman braved two things: In the morning, there are more arrests and it is unimaginable to speak about Gaid,” said Meziane Abane, a journalist who captured the woman on film. He uploaded the video to the Facebook page of his news website, L'Avant-Garde Algérie (Algerian authorities recently blocked the website).
Moments later, insults started pouring in. Comments like “you are the residue of France,” “France is your mother,” and “son of France” flooded the comments section. In one day, the video had 1 million views and up to 4 million comments.
Those from the Kabyles region are often associated with France, Algeria's former colonial power. Online trolls use slurs to target and accuse those from Kabyles of being separatists that threaten “national unity.”
“This is when I understood the power [of these online trolls],” said Abane, in a phone interview with Global Voices. “I was asking myself, when are they going to stop? Are they going to stop? They stopped at 6 in the morning!”
Abane himself is from the town of Bouïra in Kabylie, a mountainous region bordering the Mediterranean Sea and home to the Amazigh people. The comments — while rooted in a political battle — specifically target Kabyle activists with racist overtones.
The Kabylie region has been central to the Hirak movement. After Bouteflika stepped down in April, the movement continued to protest every Tuesday and Friday to demand an overhaul of the system (up until March when it “paused” for public health reasons due to COVID-19).
In December, Hirak activists boycotted the national elections. About 40 percent of the population voted nationally while parts of Kabylie saw a near 100 percent abstention rate.
Racism directed at Kabyle activists and citizens is not new, but the strength of this rhetoric intensified in 2019, according to Abane.
Algerian Zouave, French Army, 1886, from the Military Series (N224) issued by Kinney Tobacco Company to promote Sweet Caporal Cigarettes. Photo via Wikimedia Commons via Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company / C.C.0.
Algerian journalist Khaled Drareni who covered the Hirak protests was sentenced to eight months in prison in April on charges of incitement and “attacking national unity.” He told Global Voices in an interview last year that his coverage of the Hirak attracted “copy-paste” comments accusing him of working for France, being paid by the French, and calling him a zouave.
The word zouave refers to a group of Algerian men from Kabylie who were hired by France during its occupation of Algeria, to be part of a light infantry unit working for the French army from 1830, said Ouissal Harize, a PhD student at Durham University, who researches violence as a colonial legacy in Algeria.
There are conflicting accounts of the term’s etymological origins. Harize traced it back to the Kabyle word izouf which means “to throw.” But he says the term could also come from an Arab mispronunciation of agawaw — the name of a confederation of Kabyle tribes.
By the 1860s, other armies also named their infantry regiments zouave. European painters such as Vincent Van Gogh chose the zouave as a popular portrait subject, she added.
While the presence of Kabyles in the French army is indeed verifiable, “the term is now being used by some to target and tarnish all Kabyles and so it is now being used as a means of racialization,” Harize explained.
“It is an ideological battle” between Arab nationalists and Amazigh movements, explained Nacer Djabi, a professor of sociology at the University of Algiers:
The Arab nationalists call people from Kabylie zouaves to say that they were with colonisation at the start, [in order] to create a complex for the Kabyle people who present themselves as great revolutionaries during the war for independence. It is a manipulation of national history for contemporary politics.
Today, trolls take this historical discourse around the meaning and definition of zouave and create a conspiracy that the Hirak movement “is directed by a Franco-Berber secular elite, which is trying to surf the movement,” said Redouane Boudjema, media and communications professor at the University of Algiers.
Boudjema said that false information has been diffused about important historical Kabyle figures, such as Hocine Aït Ahmed, a commander of the first guerrillas to fight colonial rule and part of the post-independence provisional government before he resigned and created Algeria’s first opposition party.
Boudjema explained:
Fake news about Algerian history is used to feed a hateful, toxic discourse against a region [Kabylie], which was always at the vanguard of the struggle for democratic transition.
Over the last year, the current regime has instrumentalized this anti-Kabyle discourse to try to weaken the Hirak movement.
“Amazigh-ness” is recognized as one of the fundamental components of Algerian identity in the constitution and the authorities have taken steps in recent years to integrate Amazigh culture: Tamazight was established as an official language in 2016 and the first month of the Amazigh year — yannayer — was designated as a public holiday in 2018.
Despite this, in June 2019 as the Hirak protesters marched, Gaid cracked down on Amazigh expressions by outlawing their flag and arresting those who waved it.
Protesters march through the streets carrying a large Amazigh flag in Tizi Ouzou, Algeria. Photo by Kader Houali, used with permission.
“The discrimination of Kabylie existed well before February 22, and it was on an institutional level,” said Kader Houali, a lawyer and human rights activist from Tizi Ouzou in Kabylie, pointing out how long it took after independence for the language to be recognized. But he added that this type of discrimination exists in society, as well as in the system, and is fanned by certain public figures and journalists.
Houali, along with two other lawyers, filed a complaint against Naima Salhi, president of the Parti de l’équité et de la proclamation (PEP), for “inciting racial hatred and calling for the murder of Kabyle citizens.” She is one of a number of politicians and journalists that “attack everything that is different [non-Arab and non-Islamic],” he said.
Salhi uses her political party’s Facebook page to share video appeals for citizens “to marginalize Kabyles and execute what they call zouaves and ‘the community of the devil,’ it is a call for death and violence,” said Houali. Young bloggers post similar appeals, he said.
In one video published in late 2019, Salhi said that Kabyles are not Algerians but rather “immigrants” descended from the Vandal people. In the video, she called it a shame for “Algerians to let these dogs do what they like.”
In another video, recorded just after the death of Salah on December 23, 2019, Salhi warned: “Beware of this dangerous group and this flag.”
In a series of derogatory comments, she addressed Kabyles as Jews and said, “that is why we don’t get on with you.” She also referred to the outlawed Amazigh flag as a “zouave flag.”
While there is no official law that outlaws racial or regional discrimination, Houali hopes that they may be able to apply the section of the Penal Code that outlaws “threats to national unity” — ironically, the same law used to arrest protesters for waving the Amazigh flag.
Abane thinks that the anti-zouave campaign has managed to demobilize some of the Hirak protesters. “This is the refusal of other; It is primarily racism — they are targeting people from Kabylie and there is no action, neither from Facebook nor from the Algerian judicial system,” he said.
For now, all he can do is filter the repeated slurs from his Facebook page, but that hasn't stopped the trolls — they get around it by adding a single letter to flood him with comments that call him azouave instead.

author: Layli Foroudi


text:
Women in Nigeria face a caustic landmine of political advocacy online · Global Voices
Nwachukwu Egbunike

Members of the Mother's Savings Club, Nigeria. Image by Karen Kasmauski/USAID in Africa via United States government work, public domain.
In Nigeria, the political advocacy sphere is a caustic landmine. Politics and advocacy usually get filtered through a religious and ethnocentric prism. Advocates with a strong social media presence — especially on Twitter — have to develop a tough skin to deal with the avalanche of gbas gbos (Nigerian Pidgin for “throwing punches”) in digital spaces.
Nigerian female advocates — in addition to weathering this identity-driven harmful content — also face the added reality of gender-driven attacks.
How do female advocates in Nigeria cope with the bitter online terrain such as trolling, hate speech and targeted misalignment of their messages? How do they forge ahead to make sure that these attacks do not simmer their resolve or eclipse the message of their movement?
Two online social media movements in Nigeria lend powerful insights into the experiences of advocacy and gender: The #BringBackOurGirls movement, led by Dr. Oby Ezekwesili; and #ArewaMeToo, led by Fakhriyyah Hashim, both experienced gendered political hatred that greatly affected the integrity of their messages.
Six years ago, on April 15, 2014, about 200 school girls between the ages of 15 and 18, were forcefully abducted by Boko Haram, an Islamist terrorist group, from Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok near Maiduguri, in northeast Nigeria.
The kidnapping of the Chibok girls ignited an international outcry. The BBC reported that in April 2014,  the #BringBackOurGirls trended on Twitter with over 3.3 million tweets, 27 percent of the tweets came from Nigeria, 26 percent from the United States and 11 percent from the United Kingdom.
Dr. Oby Ezekwesili answering a question during a UN Women event with #BringBackOurGirls Campaign Coordinators. Image by UN Women/Ryan Brown, September 14, 2014. (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Dr. Obiageli (Oby) Ezekwesili, a former vice president of the World Bank, and one-time minister of education in Nigeria, started tweeting about the Chibok girls the day they were kidnapped. She was motivated to take action due to a previous attack on schoolboys at the Federal Government College of Buni Yadi in Yobe State, northeastern Nigeria on February 25, 2014. Fifty-nine boys died from gunshots or knife wounds, while the others were burnt to death.
However, it was not until April 23, when, as a guest at a UNESCO event in Port Harcourt, in the oil-rich Niger Delta region, did her cry for the release of the schoolgirls grab national and international attention:
Lend your Voice to the Cause of our Girls. Please All, use the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls to keep the momentum UNTIL they are RESCUED.
— Oby Ezekwesili (@obyezeks) April 23, 2014
And on May 7, 2014, former American first lady Michelle Obama posted an image of herself on Twitter holding a sign with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. She also released a video a few days later from the White House — making it a global sensation.
It would take two years before the Nigerian army rescued one girl, in May 2016. By October 2016, 21 girls were reunited with their families. And by May 2017, Boko Haram militants released 82 girls from captivity. However, about 112 girls remain missing and 13 are presumed dead, according to a 2018 report.
Ezekwesili co-founded the #BBOG movement that mobilized a global protest for the release of the Chibok girls. The movement later transformed into a formidable social movement organisation that has withstood the harsh Nigerian civic space. But the success of this movement occurred at great personal cost to Ezekwesili.
The kidnapping of the Chibok girls occurred on the threshold of the 2015 presidential election, and Ezekwesili's online advocacy was viewed through the prism of partisan politics by some. Her personal integrity was not only questioned but shredded. Some alleged that her #BBOG was merely a front to gain political capital.
Reno Omokri, a former presidential aide, accused Ezekwesili of being used by the then-opposition party, the All Progressive Congress (APC), to “undermine” the government of President Jonathan, thereby paving the way for APC’s “rise to power.”
Supporters of former President Jonathan and the Peoples’ Democratic Party spread “all manners of falsehoods” online against Ezekwesili in 2014:  “I was actually being insulted, maligned…” said Ezekwesili in a live Twitter video broadcast on April 14, to mark the sixth anniversary of the abduction.
Ezekwesili was falsely accused of being bitter for not gaining a ministerial appointment under Jonathan. According to her, some of her online attackers thought “that the reason we kept on with the advocacy of Chibok girls was that I wanted to be made a minister.”
“How could I want to be made a minister when I rejected the request to be a minister way before the Chibok girls were abducted three years later? How could I?” Ezekwesili said in the live Twitter video broadcast.
She became a 2018 presidential contender, but later withdrew from the race.
Live on Twitter, Ezekwesili recalled her grief: “It was a very sad thing for me to bear the thought that children who went to school were so killed and brutally murdered to the point where parents could not recognise their children.”
But her grief and rage was eclipsed by the political maligning she endured to get the #BBOG message out.
On February 3, 2019, a young woman named Khadijah Adamua found the courage to tweet about the physical abuse inflicted by her ex-boyfriend. Adamua, who lives in Kano state in northwest Nigeria, had previously blogged about her horrific experiences.
Fellow Nigerian Fakhriyyah Hashim tweeted her support for Adamua with the hashtag #ArewaMeToo:
Neglecting his victims will only fuel this culture of rape and sexual harassment, and it will be a slap in the faces of victims that have bravely come out to tell of their haunting experiences. We all know the social dynamics of the North that demonises victims.
— Fakhrriyyah (@FakhuusHashim) February 10, 2019
#ArewaMeToo became northern Nigeria’s version of the global #MeToo movement. (Arewa is the Hausa word for “North”) — igniting a storm of online discussion on rape and other forms of gender-based violence.
Violence against women is rampant throughout Nigeria. However, Relief Web asserts that between November 2014 and January 2015, northeastern Nigeria, especially Borno State, recorded the most violence against women. In the Muslim-majority north, discussions about these taboo topics are difficult, often forcing victims into silence.
The online rage of #ArewaMeToo propelled the NorthNormal offline protests in Bauchi, Kano, Niger. Sixteen days of NorthNormal protests occurred in November last year across eight northern Nigerian states and Abuja. They were largely positive and state legislators “were receptive of young indigenes” for taking “the baton to push for the VAPP,” Hashim said.
However, in Sokoto State, “government played a role in harassing and arresting NorthNormal campaigners,” Hashim said. The police manhandled a local leader of the movement. Thereafter, protests were banned by the Sultan of Sokoto, head of Nigerian Muslims.
According to Hashim, NorthNormal grew out of the #ArewaMeToo hashtag, and has two objectives: advocating for “the domestication of the Violence against Persons Prohibition Act (VAPP),” and championing the conversation on “various forms of gender-based violence and rape culture across northern Nigeria.”
The Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act 2015 was signed into law on May 23, 2015. Under the VAPP Act — an improvement on the provisions of Nigeria’s penal code — acts of violence against women are punishable offences. This includes rape, spousal battery, forceful home ejections, forced financial dependence or economic abuse, harmful widowhood practices, female circumcision or genital mutilation, and/or child abandonment.
However, Section 47 of the VAPP Act stipulates that this legislation applies only in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital. NorthNormal and other organisations have been campaigning for all 36 state legislative assemblies to domesticate this act.
Backlash against advocates
One year after sparking the #ArewaMeToo movement, Hashim told Global Voices that although their advocacy exposed the “rot within society,” it also took its toll.
Hashim experienced major online harassment when her group confronted “an alleged serial abuser of minors” who works at the finance ministry as part of their online advocacy. She told Global Voices:
We launched a campaign against him [the serial abuser], demanding that he be sacked by the minister; some people did not like that so they orchestrated an online targeted harassment campaign to delegitimise ArewaMeToo.
According to Hashim, harassers attempted to delegitimise ArewaMeToo by “associating ArewaMeToo with LGBTQ [lesbians, gay, bisexual transgender and queer people] and “their strategy worked as online harassment gained momentum,” Hashim said.
In Nigeria, gay marriage is illegal and under Sharia and penal legal codes, sodomy and lesbianism are punishable in some states.
By associating Haashim's movement with LGBTQ rights, online trolls distorted their message and framed #ArewaToo and NorthNormal as illegitimate.
However, Global Voices was not able to independently verify tweets that pinned Hashim's movement to LGBTQ rights.
Still, Hashim posts messages of hope on Twitter:
To every young girl out there that’s hurting, that’s yearning to find a voice, it was all for you. For those innocent young girls and boys that were touched and silenced, this voice is yours and no one can take that away from you. #ArewaMeToo
— Fakhrriyyah (@FakhuusHashim) February 23, 2020
Fakhriyyah Hashim, co-founder of #ArewaToo and NorthNormal (Image used with her permission).
She said all these experiences helped her grow a “really thick skin”:
In my experience of being loud on political Twitter for good governance, I’ve grown a really thick skin, but even that didn't prepare me for the amount of backlash we got through ArewaMeToo and NorthNormal. Though I mustered all of that and did not retreat to any cave, I did begin feeling demoralised about Northern Nigeria’s governanace and response to sexual violence…After every episode of attacks, we did gather more strength and energy to push back because the backlash made us see how society enforced the culture of silence and if we allowed our lips to be sealed then that would be the real tragedy.
Sadly, Hashim and Ezekwesili still struggle with the excruciating “lack of empathy” that characterises discourse about gender-based violence on- and offline.
According to Hashim, this “deliberate maligning of a cause that only seeks better for victims of sexual violence” is incredibly difficult to grasp.

author: Nwachukwu Egbunike