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Privacy Is Hard to Protect in Tunisia, Thanks to Politics · Global Voices
Dhouha Ben Youssef

Graffiti art of surveillance camera. Published and labeled for reuse on Pixabay.
The regime of Zine el Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia was infamous for mass surveillance practices. Yet almost six years after the regime's ousting, and despite the 2014 adoption of a constitution that grants all citizens the right to privacy, Tunisia's data protection law and its application, still do not meet international standards.
Tunisia first recognized the obligation of the state to protect the personal data of its citizens in the constitution of June 1959 (article 9) under the country's first ruler Habib Bourguiba. In July 2004, Tunisia adopted the data protection act (law n°63 of 7 July 2004). An independent authority to enforce the right to privacy was created later in 2008, and became active in 2009. These provisions, adopted under Ben Ali's rule, remain in tact today — despite large-scale changes in governance and improvements in mechanisms for public accountability, the country has made no further official progress towards protecting privacy rights.
Key draft amendments to the 2004 data protection law, prepared by the president of the Data Protection Authority, are chiefly aimed at consolidating the authority's independence from government interference, and making it unlawful for state authorities to collect, process and transfer personal data without the approval of the authority.
If adopted and properly enforced, the amendments are expected to have an impact on the day-to-day lives of users, in a country where the right to privacy is often flouted.
New obligations and sanctions would be imposed on telecommunications operators who pelt their subscribers with continuous advertising messages, and on supermarkets that harvest, transfer and store data on loyalty cards abroad. The reforms would also limit companies’ abilities to sell that data to third parties without the consent of their customers.
Another common violation is the illegal installation of video surveillance cameras by private individuals and businesses in common living spaces, which is forbidden by the 2004 law on the protection of personal data. Under the law, surveillance cameras can only be installed after the prior authorization of the Data Protection Authority, and in spaces that are open to the public such as commercial centers, parking garages, and public transportation sites.
According to figures given by the authority's president Chawki Gaddes, there are 30,000 security cameras installed illegally across the country. In one case dating back to 2015, citizens in the suburb of Megrine illegally installed two surveillance cameras to film people who throw garbage on the streets, thus threatening their neighbors’ privacy.
Chawki Gaddes and the new board members of the Data Protection Authority have taken several steps to ensure stronger privacy protections since May 2015. The authority applied for Tunisia’s accession to the Council of Europe’s Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data (Convention 108). The Council of Europe later officially invited Tunisia to proceed with its Data Protection reform, so that its membership becomes effective.
Tunisia’s accession to the convention would extend legal protections for personal data in the country by covering the use of video-surveillance, health data and other sensitive data, in addition to data collected by the interconnection of everyday objects such as fridges, lamps, cars and washing machines via the Internet, known as the Internet of Things (IoT). It is expected that this will become a more prominent issue in Tunisia, after the government’s approval this month of a decree establishing a commission in charge of administrating licenses for IoT providers. Paradoxically, the Data Protection Authority is not a member of that commission.
The Data Protection Authority has been repeatedly sidelined by other agencies and procedural bureaucracy, and thus afforded limited power to set Tunisia’s agenda for protecting citizens’ privacy.
In a recent interview with Nawaat.org, Gaddes said that the proposal for amendments to the existing 2004 data protection law were ready six months ago. The draft proposal however has not yet been sent to the cabinet or the parliament for approval, because it remains his “individual proposal and not that of the authority’s board.”
The proposal can’t be approved until the board holds a meeting, but since May 2016, it has been impossible for the authority to hold a board meeting and reach a quorum for any decision. Among other challenges preventing the the authority from making progress, the two judges appointed as permanent members to its board have not reported to work due to a dispute over their compensation.
At a September 2015 meeting, the Strategic Council in charge of the implementation of the National Strategic Plan, which is responsible for the development of the digital economy, granted the Data Protection Authority a supervisory role over the implementation of the very complex and controversial project of creating and administrating a “unique identifier” for all citizens and businesses. This system of the “unique identifier” is a collection of information relating to ID card, civil status, social security, income, taxation and more personal data, under the same code. The system will be technically managed by the National Center for Informatics, and administratively by the Ministry of Local Affairs, in charge of the forthcoming municipal elections.
The unique identifier project has raised concerns among Tunisian privacy advocates, due to the lack of legal reforms that would ensure protections for citizens’ data. Unfortunately the project is linked to Tunisia’s new Biometric Identification project called “eCIN”, which would require all citizens to carry a national ID card encoded with a rich combination of personal biometric data including one’s photograph, digitized fingerprint, social security number, and home address.
In a radio program debate about a bill on biometric identification cards approved by the government last year, the representative of the Ministry of Interior confirmed that the new biometric ID, over which the Data Protection Authority has no oversight power, would include the unique identifier. Including the personal data contained in the unique identifier in the SIM card of the new “eCIN”, will allow the police to access a mega database of citizens’ personal data, without any control. A mass surveillance system would be installed de facto. Also, the interconnection of the different databases containing sensitive data, especially with the lack of security and encryption measures, would increase hacking risks and raise questions about misuse of data by the various authorities privy to the system.
The bill has yet to be debated and adopted by the parliament, but has been criticized by experts, civil society, digital rights advocates as well as the Data Protection Authority. In a statement published on 3 November 2016, the authority lamented the fact that the government kept it from giving its advisory opinion on the draft law, and stressed the importance of involving civil society actors in such a project. It is now too late for the Data Protection Authority to give this input, as the battle has moved to the parliament where the scope of action is limited to hearings by committees.
In response to slow reforms and attitudes towards privacy, this year Tunisia is expected to host conferences and workshops to help raise awareness and accelerate the country's compliance with international best practices as articulated in Convention 108 of the Council of Europe. A Middle East and North Africa regional workshop by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Privacy Joseph Cannataci, is scheduled for the end of May, and a meeting of the Data Protection Commissioners of the Francophone Association of Personal Data Protection Authorities will take place later in 2017. This is in addition to a proposed awareness campaign, to be led by the Data Protection Authority with the help and expertise of the EU, if it is approved by both European and Tunisian sides.
In the meantime, the Data Protection Authority remains the only public sector actor working to promote privacy. Despite thousands of locally active NGOs, only few work on ICT or digital rights, such as the right to privacy, and if they do, their voices are not always heard. On 1 February, communication technologies and digital economy minister Anouar Maarouf said that the two civil society representatives to the Strategic Council on digital economy may no longer be invited to attend the council’s meetings, since the government has decided to review its composition, for the next meeting scheduled in three months.

author: Dhouha Ben Youssef


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Russia’s Censor Suddenly Wants to Know More About Channels on Telegram · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

A friendly sit-down with “Roskomnadzor-chan,” unofficial anime mascot for Russia's federal censor. Image edited by Kevin Rothrock.
With help from a Putin-launched political movement, Russia's federal censor, Roskomnadzor, met on Tuesday behind closed doors with the authors of several popular Telegram channels, according to the website TJournal, and it's unclear what they talked about.
The woman responsible for putting together today’s informal meeting was reportedly Yulia Zagitova, head media liaison for the All-Russia People's Front, a movement created by Vladimir Putin in 2011 to supplement and sometimes correct the work of United Russia, the country’s dominant political party.
One of the first people to share any details about the meeting was blogger and IT expert Vladislav Zdolnikov, a prominent critic of Roskomnadzor. Zdolnikov wrote on his own Telegram channel that “freeloading” bureaucrats are trying to learn more about the service in order to find new content to ban, all simply to justify their agency’s existence.
“I’ll never stop reminding people that Roskomnadzor is a useless and pointless organization, staffed with nothing but assholes,” Zdolnikov explained colorfully.
According to TJournal, Zagitova also invited reporters from several pro-Kremlin media outlets to the meeting between censors and Telegram channel authors. According to Vadim Ampelonsky, Roskomnadzor’s spokesman, the names of the Telegram channel authors who attended the meeting aren’t being revealed, in order to “avoid aggressive trolling.”
For the past year, Russian bloggers have increasingly turned to channels on Telegram, an instant messaging service designed and funded by Pavel Durov, the man who launched Russia’s most popular social network, Vkontakte.
Telegram’s “channels” allow users to share messages with followers in a one-way stream of information that mixes old-school blogging with the newsfeed of a really simple syndication (RSS) subscription.
A year ago, RuNet Echo reviewed the rise of this new medium and its emerging role in Russian Internet culture.
Read: Blogging Is Making a Comeback in Russia, Thanks to the Man Who Helped Kill It

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Kevin Rothrock


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The Strange Death of Russia’s Closest Alliance · Global Voices
Sergey Kozlovsky

Vladimir Putin attends a hockey match with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in May 2014. Photo: Kremlin Press Service
Almost three years ago, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko suddenly realized that his country's weak sense of national identity was a serious problem.
In March 2014, Moscow annexed Crimea. “We had to defend the Russian population in the peninsula,” Vladimir Putin told the world, shocking most everyone but the euphoric people of Russia.
Almost simultaneously, a war broke out in the Donbass — a Russian-speaking region in eastern Ukraine. While there is strong evidence suggesting Moscow's intervention in the region, it's also clear that at least some of the locals in the area had strong reservations about being part of Ukraine after the Maidan Revolution. Later, without revealing the full extent Moscow's role, Putin would say that Russia was “forced to defend the Russian-speaking population of the Donbass.”
The tragic and bloody events in Ukraine over the past three years show what can happen when a close Russian ally with lots of Russian-speaking people decides to “change sides” and move from Moscow's orbit of influence.
“Little green men”in Crimea, March 9, 2014. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
And that's where Belarusian fears have come into play. Ideologically, politically, economically, and culturally, Moscow wields enormous influence in Belarus. In everyday life, roughly 90 percent of Belarusians are believed to speak Russian. In their spare time, they watch Russian television and listen to Russian music. In Belarus, Russia's footprint is everywhere.
Over the years, President Lukashenko had done a lot to keep Belarus russified. In 1994, he insulted his country's own tongue, calling Belarusian a “poor” language. “You can’t express anything great in Belarusian. There are only two great languages: Russian and English,” he told his people.
A year later, Lukashenko also initiated the national referendum that made Russian a state language on par with Belarusian. The president's critics say it was a stunt to gain the support of Moscow, which he badly needed at the time to remain in power.
For the next two decades, Belarus was a key Russian ally, and Lukashenko enjoyed his reign over what was basically a buffer state between Russia and NATO. For the trouble, Moscow treated Lukashenko's regime to vital financial support and discounted prices on natural gas.
For years referred to informally as “Europe's last dictator,” Lukashenko ruled Belarus with an iron fist. He crushed independent politicians and discouraged the promotion of the Belarusian language, which became associated with the country's marginalized opposition.
And then came the wakeup call: the crisis in Ukraine.
In 2014, for the first time ever, Lukashenko delivered a speech in Belarusian. “We are not Russian — we are Belarusians,” he now declared. Later, he openly advocated for the broader usage of Belarusian.
Ever since, the Belarusian language has played a greater role in the country's public life.
And Lukashenko has changed his stripes in other ways, too. Last year, he pardoned six jailed political prisoners and, several months later, opposition activists won two seats in parliamentary elections for the first time since 2000.
Opposition activists are no longer arrested for “banned symbols” (the white-red-white flag and the coat of arms Pahonia, which used to be official state symbols in 1991-1994, before Lukashenko came to power), and banned musicians are suddenly welcome on the country's largest stages.
Some activists are even calling the last three years a “national revival.”
Unsurprisingly, Lukashenko's nationalist shift hasn't gone unnoticed among pro-Russian Belarusians and Russian nationalists, who complain about a “creeping belorussification.”
“The Belarusian language won’t stand a chance. Nobody needs Belarusian except for insane the sub-state, which is apparently seeking to break its neck on Maidan like the neighbours did,” Dmitry Alimkin, a Belarusian blogger with strong pro-Russian views, wrote last October for the Russian alt-right news site Regnum. The title of his article was, “Belarus Is Leaving the Russian World Surreptitiously, in the light of Ukraine’s Experience.”
White-red-white flag, which was the official flag of Belarus in 1991-1994. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Excerpts from Alimkin's piece later appeared on Russian television. A couple of weeks later, he was arrested along with two other pro-Russian Belarusian bloggers. Investigators studied 500 articles written by these bloggers, determining that more than 100 texts constituted illegal acts of extremism.
Today, the relationships between Moscow and Minsk has deteriorated significantly. Geopolitical tensions are now coupled with trade disputes. First, there is a conflict over oil and gas shipments. Lukashenko lobbied desperately for more discounts on gas prices, but this time Russia refused to lower its price. Moscow is also cutting its customs-free oil exports to Belarus, cutting into the country's budget, which relies on exports of refined Russian oil.
Second, there is a food dispute between Russia and Belarus. The bad blood apparently started when Lukashenko took offense at the Kremlin's decision to embargo Western food imports without first consulting Minsk — something he believes was expected under the Customs Union between Russia and Belarus.
For the past two years, Russian food inspectors have slammed Belarusian importers repeatedly for smuggling in banned European foods. Putin once even complained to Lukashenko that his country just changes the labels on the packages and tries to fool Russian officials.
Lukashenko during his last visit to Russia with Russian president Putin and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Then there is the border dispute. In February 2017, Belarus revealed that it will allow citizens from 80 states, including the U.S. and 39 different European countries, to travel to Belarus without a visa for five days. Shortly after this announcement, Moscow announced that it is setting up new border-control zones in three regions adjacent to Belarus.
In his most recent press conference (an unpleasant seven-hour marathon), Lukashenko lashed out at Russia for snapping 20 years without checkpoints along the Russian-Belarusian border.
In Russia, the media described Lukashenko's press conference as “scandalous,” portraying the Belarusian president as emotional and borderline unstable.
This isn't the first spat between Russia and Belarus, but tensions have usually been resolved in the past because Moscow gives Lukashenko what he wants (money and resources). This time, though, Moscow doesn't appear to be giving in, and it could mean the two countries have reached a point of no return.
As tensions rise, the Russian Defense Ministry is dramatically expanding its presence in this year's “Zapad” military drills, with plans to send 20 times more railway carriages to Belarus than it did in 2013.
“Obviously, the Kremlin does not need this many troops for training purposes,” think tank expert Arseni Sivitski wrote in Belarus Digest last November. “A more likely scenario is that Russia plans to transform Belarus into an outpost for military confrontation with NATO.”
What Moscow will actually do with Belarus should become clearer as the current conflict plays out, and Sivitski's assessment remains extreme, for now.

author: Sergey Kozlovsky


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Trump a Convenient Whipping Boy for Trinidad & Tobago Footballer Dwight Yorke’s Visa Issue · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Dwight Yorke visiting the British Deputy High Commission in Chennai on 27 June 2012. Photo by the British High Commission, New Delhi, CC BY-SA 2.0.
President Trump's travel ban may be on hold as his administration addresses where it may have overstepped constitutional provisions, but many social media users felt that was the reason Trinidad and Tobago-born football superstar Dwight Yorke was denied entry into the United States on February 17. But was it, really? The answer is probably not.
The controversial executive order on immigration banned US entry to citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries, including Iran. When then acting Attorney General Sally Yates refused to support the travel restrictions, citing them as unconstitutional, she was fired. Despite the Department of Justice's insistence that the travel ban was in the interest of national security, the US appeals court rejected an appeal to reinstate the ban after it was suspended by a different court. Nevertheless, many travellers have already been affected.
According to Yorke, he was “made to feel like a criminal” for having the Iranian stamp in his passport; he had visited the country to play in a football match to open a new stadium. Yorke was warned by airport officials in Qatar on February 17 that “there was a visa problem and a red flag had come up” because of the stamp. When told that he would likely face deportation if he landed in the US, Yorke explained that he was simply trying to get to Trinidad and Tobago, for which he had to catch a connecting flight in Miami.
Many netizens assumed the problem was related to President Trump's travel ban, but journalist Vernon O'Reilly Ramesar suggested on Facebook that the incident was “possibly related to an Act signed by President Obama in December 2015″, known as the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act. Posting a link to the Act, Ramesar quoted from it:
‘Under the Act, travelers in the following categories are no longer eligible to travel or be admitted to the United States under the VWP:
Nationals of VWP countries who have been present in Iraq, Syria, or countries listed under specified designation lists (currently including Iran and Sudan) at any time on or after March 1, 2011 (with limited government/military exceptions).
Nationals of VWP countries who have been present in Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, at any time on or after March 1, 2011 (with limited government/military exceptions).’
Popular sports website Wired868 backed up this claim, and helped clear up misconceptions:
Former Manchester United star and Trinidad and Tobago World Cup 2006 captain Dwight Yorke was not turned back from Florida nor was he denied access to the United States due to President Donald Trump’s controversial ‘travel ban’, which was already stayed by the US courts.
Instead, according to Trinidad and Tobago Government sources, Yorke was allegedly denied the opportunity to fly through Miami—in transit—due to a visa issue.
The US Embassy subsequently explained:
The Visa Waiver Program (VWP) allows citizens of certain countries to travel to the United States for business or tourism for stays of up to 90 days without a visa. A list of available countries is available at www.dh.gov/visa-waiver-program-requirements. Trinidad and Tobago is not part of the VWP.
All prospective VWP travellers must obtain pre-travel authorisation via US Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) ESTA system prior to boarding a plane or ship for the US.
As of December 2015, nationals of VWP countries who have been present in Iran, Iraq, Syria—and other specified countries—at any time on or after March 2011 are no longer eligible to travel or be admitted to the United States under the VWP.
These new eligibility requirements do not bar travel to the United States. Instead, a traveller who does not meet the requirements must obtain a visa for travel to the United States, which generally includes an in-person interview at a US Embassy or Consulate.
Additional information including ESTA applications are available at www.cbp.gov.
Yorke eventually re-booked his flight to Trinidad via another transit point, but the whole misunderstanding was linked to Trump's executive order after the footballer's colleague — senior football anchor at beIN SPORTS, Richard Keys — tweeted:
Well done @realDonaldTrump. Man U ambassador Dwight Yorke denied transit access to Miami cause he has Iranian stamp in passport. #crazy
— Richard Keys (@richardajkeys) February 17, 2017
Naturally, the Twittersphere exploded, with many criticising Trump and ranting at the perceived injustice done to Yorke:
@FoxNews @cnni @realDonaldTrump So @ManUtd legend #DwightYorke, A T&T national, denied entry in USA because he visited Iran..Great ..smh
— Kirby Jackson (@Jackson_BOSS1) February 17, 2017
What an absolute fucking joke. This is what we are being “protected” from by Trump. #ManUtd #DwightYorke https://t.co/9oV8QdU39J
— Jason (@jasonuk17) February 17, 2017
Makes me laugh America stamping down on immigration. Every single person in that country is an immigrant #DwightYorke
— Dan Bell (@TheDB30) February 17, 2017
Others, however, tried to share the real story:
#DwightYorke:
What REALLY happened!
The MSM of course know this, but it doesn't fit their narrative! #VisaWaiverProgram #Obama #Trump pic.twitter.com/wPXoaaVSOI
— Leanne (@LeanneSpurs) February 17, 2017
One Twitter user wanted to know if everyone who had visited a Muslim country could expect the same treatment…
Is everyone going to be denied entry if passport stamped from a muslim country @BBCNews @USATODAY @itvnews #dwightyorke
— dmarie (@fulbut) February 18, 2017
…while another called for quid pro quo:
#Trump considers new travel ban! Time for revenge – ban US passports/stamps. ;) #DwightYorke #TravelBan
— mead #FreePalestine (@glamead) February 18, 2017
One right-wing British Twitter user quipped:
Liberals defending #DwightYorke are funny – never hear them mention the 16 Muslim countries where Israeli passports are banned!
— james nicholson (@tattoolemkyreal) February 18, 2017
But the whole affair may just have come down to this:
So Dwight Yorke didn't get himself the visa necessary to enter the USA. How is this anyone's fault other than his own? #dwightyorke #visa
— Syndi (@SyndiTypo) February 18, 2017

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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Unsurprisingly, Saudi Arabia’s Politicians and Media Love Trump’s Tough Talk on Iran · Global Voices
Mohammed Al Nemer

Image used by Saudi Twitter users showing Donald Trump and Hassan Rouhani. Source: Twitter
Donald Trump's administration announced on February 3, 2017, that it will put new sanctions against individuals and organizations who it says are “supporters of Iran’s ballistic missile program and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – Qods Force” following the country's test launch of a ballistic missile.
Not long before, Trump and Saudi Arabia's King Salman had a telephone conversation in which they affirmed the “depth and durability of the strategic relations between the two countries”, according to the state-run Saudi Press Agency. In the call, the White House also stressed the “importance of rigorously enforcing” the nuclear deal with Iran — the landmark agreement between Iran and six world powers on scaling back Iran's nuclear program — as well as “addressing Iran’s destabilizing regional activities”.
Iran has offered support to Syria's embattled Bashar al-Assad and certain groups throughout the region, which has led Saudi Arabian officials to accuse Iran of sponsoring terrorism. Predictably, the statement made no mention of Saudi Arabia's own actions, notably its military intervention in Yemen or the groups it itself has funded.
In this context, many Saudis took to social media to celebrate the new sanctions against Iran with the hashtag #TrumpWarnsIranianTerrorism, which trended in Saudi Arabia on February 4.
It's not too shocking that Trump's hardline on Iran would find support in Saudi Arabia, which has a frosty relationship with Iran. The two countries severed diplomatic relations in January 2016 after Saudi Arabia executed a prominent Shiite cleric and angry Iranian crowds overran Saudi diplomatic missions, but the animosity has a long history.
And Saudi Arabia is traditionally an ally of the US. Many have speculated that the friendly relationship won't be changing anytime soon, given Trump has business ties in the country.
What this story also reveals is how Saudi media is generally speaking positively about the Trump administration's foreign policy regarding Iran. A January 2017 statement by the Saudi Foreign Minister Adel bin Ahmed al-Jubeir at a news conference in Riyadh read:
We are very very optimistic about Trump Administration. And on working closely with it to deal with the many challenges, not only in our region, but in the world. I say what I say about our positive outlook because we have had contact with Trump Administration, and we feel very positively about it.
This sentiment is being echoed by Saudi elites. Saudi commentator and general manager of Al-Arabiya television Abdulrahman Al-Rashed wrote that:
Trump’s administration considered Iran as part of the problem while the previous administration insisted that Iran was part of the solution. All these are significant developments that aim to end chaos in Libya, Syria, Yemen and Iraq and unite powers to chase and combat terrorist groups.
The Saudi Twitter campaign to “thank” Trump via the hashtag was first launched by Turki Al-Dakhil, the general manager of Al Arabiya Television News Network in Dubai, who called on people to “tweet under this hashtag in English to thank Trump for confronting Iranian terrorism”.
غردوا تحت هذا الهاشتاق بالانجليزي لشكر ترمب على مواجهته للارهاب الايراني #TrumpWarnsIranianTerrorism
— #تركي_الدخيل (@TurkiAldakhil) 4 février 2017
Tweet under this hashtag in English to thank Trump for confronting Iranian terrorism.
Another Saudi journalist and sport TV host, Waleed Al-Farraj, said Trump is “putting Iran on fire”:
#ترامب داخل حامي على ايران ، شاركونا في هذا الهاشتاق لتشجيع سياسته الحازمه مع تلك العصابه التي تهدد الخليج #TrumpWarnsIranianTerrorism pic.twitter.com/eotMY0rb1u
— وليد_الفراج# (@waleedalfarraj) 4 février 2017
Trump is putting Iran on fire, join us in this hashtag to encourage assertive policy with the gang that threatens the Gulf
And here are some reactions by other Twitter users in Saudi Arabia:
@realDonaldTrump
This is brilliant, you started your presidency fighting the Iranian terrorist threat. ??#TrumpWarnsIranianTerrorism
— عبدالمجيد السعيد (@mjeed_alsaeed) 7 février 2017
Obama lifted sanctions, and Irans proxies got a raise. Not anymore ! #TrumpWarnsIranianTerrorism pic.twitter.com/TlwNRu47x4
— Yousef Al Naimi (@YousefAlNaimi) 4 février 2017
#TrumpWarnsIranianTerrorism
ألف شكر سيادة الرئيس ترامب لتحذيركم ايران بسبب نشاطاتها الإرهابية
Thank you MR: Trump ?@realDonaldTrump
— موجز الأخبار (@KSA24) 4 février 2017
Thank you Mr. President Trump for warning Iran because of its terrorist activities
#TrumpWarnsIranianTerrorism#ما_هو_حلمك_في_كلمتين
Mr. Trump will end the Iranian terrorist expansionism in the world, and will bring peace pic.twitter.com/FR8bqXMv8F
— 500k طفيشآن (@6fshan011) 5 février 2017
WARNING: ⚠
Your time has been ending #Iran
It's time for a peaceful world! ?#TrumpWarnsIranianTerrorism#nflhonors pic.twitter.com/Paph8UDOku
— م. خالد المانع (@KhaledHas7) 5 février 2017
Saudi daily Okaz featured “Trump: Iran is number one terrorism” as its headline for February 5, 2017:
#عكاظ.. الصفحة الأولى لعدد الثلاثاء الموافق 10 / 5 / 1438 هـ https://t.co/hiZirp74eV@OKAZ_online pic.twitter.com/ywetpUezkA
— صحيفة عكاظ (@OKAZ_online) 6 février 2017
Tariq Alhomayed, the former editor-in-chief of Asharq Al-Awsat, suggested that this represents “a new stage”:
This new stage means the turning over of Obama’s page filled with hesitancy and weakness. It is the start of Trump’s resolute times, in which a man rather rises up to a confrontation, which can cost Iran, even if the pay is in economic terms.
But not all Saudis believe that Trump's anti-Iran rhetoric represents a change in US policy. Abdulaziz Al-Suwayed, a Saudi writer at major pan-Arab daily newspaper Al-Hayat, argued in an article that the Trump administration's threats against Iran are nothing new in US foreign policy:
تقوم الإدارة الأميركية بحملة إعلامية ضد نظام الملالي في إيران، وهي لم تخرج عن دائرة تصريحات الرئيس ومساعدين له يرددون كلامه، أما العقوبات التي فرضت على شركات مرتبطة بإيران فليست إجراء جديداً. الإدارة الأميركية السابقة فعلت الشيء ذاته بالتدريج، وباليد الأخرى منحت إيران مئات الملايين من الدولارات، وتخادمت معها في العراق، وأعلت من شأن عميلها في اليمن.
The new administration's campaigns against the Mullahs's regime in Iran [term widely use in Saudi media to describe the Iranian government] are nothing more than mere statements by the president and the advisers repeating after him. As for the new sanctions imposed on companies linked to Iran, they are nothing new. The previous administration did the same gradually, but on the other hand was giving Iran hundreds of millions of dollars, and also cooperated in Iraq which gave rise up to its operations in Yemen.
And beyond the warmongering rhetoric that seems to be dominating in elite sectors of Saudi society, many Saudis are actually expressing concerns of what escalating tensions would mean for everyone in the region.
Saudi radio host Iman Al Hammoud shared Trump's statement made during his presidential campaign saying that Saudi Arabia and the Gulf rely on the US for their existence, commenting:
عموماً هذه تصريحات السيد ترامب خلال حملته الانتخابية .. ولا احد يعلم مالذي ينتظر المنطقة على يديه !! ?????? pic.twitter.com/C45FLDvlkN
— ايمان الحمود (@imankais1) 5 février 2017
No one knows what is the outcome of his [Trump] policy on the region.
Faris Al Jurbua warned that in the worst case scenario, a war with Iran will devastate the region:
ايران تعيش معنا في نفس المنطقة الحرب عليها يعني الخراب لنا جميعا، الدمار لا يتحدث العربية فقط الدمار لا لغة له
#TrumpWarnsIranianTerrorism
— فارس الجربوع (@Farisalialj) 4 février 2017
We live in the same region with Iran, any war on Iran means we all going to be devastated; devastation does not only speak Arabic, it does not have a language.

author: Mohammed Al Nemer


text:
Colombia’s Guerilla Fighters Like You’ve Never Seen Them · Global Voices
Natali Herrera Pacheco

Photo: Pixabay. Public Domain.
More often than not, when the words Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) show up in any kind of medium, they are a prelude for yet another story about the armed conflict that has plagued Colombia for the past 52 years.
Similarly, the photos usually accompanying these newspaper articles and television reports feature men and women, and sometimes even children, depicted as tough, unstoppable soldiers, gazing at something outside themselves. Images of their victims have also been published countless times: displaced families and victims of kidnapping with anger, sadness and frustration on their faces.
However, the Colombian photojournalist Luís Acosta has had the fortitude to face the FARC in another way. Acosta turned these four letters into the title of the photo that won one of the three Awards of Excellence in the General News category of the Pictures of the Year competition held by the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute of the University of Missouri.
Congratulations!! Luis Acosta @LAcostaCastro @AFPphoto Award of Excellence | @POYicompetition Feature Picture @AFP #AFP http://www.poyi.org/74/03/ae03.php #colombia #farc #poyi #awards #photojournalist #afp #agencefrancepresse #afpphoto #nikon #conflict #everydaylatinamerica #ig_colombia #picoftheday #instagram
A photo posted by Luis Robayo (@luis_robayo) on
Acosta's work has already been honored by local awards, recognizing the vision in his portraits of the women who were attacked with acid in Bogotá.
Looking at the photo above, the possible question arises: Who are these young people? The answer seems obvious: “members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) taking a rest in a camp in the mountains of Colombia,” as the official description of the image indicates.
However, the description given by Acosta seems to be intentionally vague in order to leave room for a wide variety of answers, each one as different as the person looking at the photo. “FARC” by Luís Acosta gives one of the many images of the war that don't make it to the public's imagination.

author: Natali Herrera Pacheco


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These Female Skateboarders Are Blazing a Trail in India · Global Voices
Rezwan

Girl Skate Tour 2016. Screenshot from Vimeo video.
A community of women in Kovalam, a small coastal town in the southern Indian state of Kerala, is pushing the boundaries that Indian society sets for women and girls. Led by India’s first female skateboarder, Atita Verghese, Girl Skate India is on a mission to feature, connect and increase the number of female skateboarders in India and so far achieved a lot of international recognition.
Atita Verghese explains how she was drawn to this sport in a TEDxPESITBSC talk. She fell in love with skateboarding when she was 19, but didn't have her own board. She joined a collective in Bangalore called Holystoked and decided she wanted to bring more girls to skate. In her view, skateboarding not only gets girls into athletics, but also teaches perseverance, teamwork, confidence, balance, coordination and endurance, “things that can help women grow stronger mentally and physically”.
In 2013, Atita and her friends built a skate park in Bengaluru with the help of the HolyStoked Collective, and began teaching skateboarding to underprivileged children. She eventually launched Girl Skate India — an initiative to teach girls how to skate, promote gender equality in skating and highlight up-and-coming female skaters in India. Girl Skate India works with Holystoked to host classes for young girls and aims to make skate parks open to skaters of all genders.
In an interview with Girls Are Awesome, Atita commented about the efforts she put in to bring more girls into the sport:
I wanted to make it visible that there were girls skateboarding in India, even though the numbers could be counted on one hand at the time. I started talking parents into getting their girls into skateboarding and taking the movement online.
The work of Atita's team is important as India ranked 136 out of 186 countries in the UN’s gender inequality index (2014).
This is one of our favourite photos by far from the little village that's home to one of the best skate parks in india- @janwaarcastle. Happy little girls supporting each other on boards and off ❤? #girlgang #thankyouskateboarding
Una publicación compartida de Girl Skate India (@girlskateindia) el
The Girl Skate India team successfully completed India’s first all-girls skateboarding tour in December 15, 2015, which visited four locations in India — Bengalore, Goa, Kovalam (Tamil Nadu) and Hampi (Karnataka) —  and involved 12 female skateboarders from nine different countries.
Inspired by its success, Atita and the Girl Skate India team embarked on a 15-day journey with 13 female skateboarders from nine different countries across Bengalore, Kovalam, Goa and Hampi, in December 2016. Atita led the team which performed on the street and taught local girls how to skate and build ramps for the future. Here is the short film featuring the tour.
The Girl Skate India team has also appeared in a music video for “Alpha Female” by British band Wild Beasts:
The director of the video, Sasha Rainbow, explained:
In places like Afghanistan, Cambodia, and India, skating has not been solidified as a male sport and, therefore, has had a massive cultural impact, teaching values about self-empowerment through skateboarding.
You can follow the skate girls India on Facebook and Instagram.

author: Rezwan


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Apple iPhone Ad Puts an Artistic Spotlight on Greece (but Not All Greeks Are Happy) · Global Voices
Veroniki Bacharidi-Krikoni

A villager proudly poses for a photo. Screenshot of YouTube video ad by Apple.
“Apple’s latest commercial looks like something straight out of a foreign indie film,” popular US digital news website Mashable declares. Part of what gives it that feel? The advertisement for the iPhone 7 Plus's portrait and depth-of-field modes is entirely shot in two Greek villages in Peloponnese, features Greek-speaking villagers and is subtitled in English.
The Greek involvement in the ad has certainly made some Greeks proud, but others have complained that the ad's storyline enforces stereotypes.
Titled “Take Mine,” it follows a young woman (actress Νefeli Kouri), who arrives at a Greek village in Mani, Peloponnese, to visit family. She meets her “yiayia” (that's Greek for grandmother) at the old village “kafenio” (a Greek café) and takes a picture of her with her new rose gold iPhone. She is amazed by the photo clarity and soon the camera takes the viewer on a stroll through the village's picturesque paths meeting friends and family, who all pose for a photo.
Not only are the characters and location Greek, but the soundtrack is as well. What might sound like a Hawaiian tune or Swiss yodeling to the untrained is actually an old recording of a Greek song from the 1930s called “Pame sti Honolulu” (Let's go to Honolulu) by Rebetiko musician Kostas Bezos.
The video on YouTube has reached over 5 million views here :
While some see the ad as charming, there are others who have accused the ad of portraying Greek people as ignorant and have left many negative comments on Facebook.
On Huffington Post Greece, John Simotas from the US, commented:
Δείχνουν την Ελλάδα λες και είμαστε ακόμα στην δεκαετία του '50. Από τις ενδυμασίες, μέχρι τις συμπεριφορές των ανθρώπων που κάνουν λες και δεν έχουν ξαναδεί κινητό με φωτογραφική μηχανή στην ζωή τους……… Υπερηφανεύεστε μια ζωή για τα πιό χαζά πράγματα…………
They portray Greece as if we are still in the 1950s: clothes, the behavior of people, who act like they have never seen a mobile phone with a camera before…..You always are proud of the silliest things…
And a Greek portal, among many others, shared the news, underlying both the pros and cons of the ad:
To μόνο παράξενο στην ιστορία αυτή είναι ότι όλο το χωριό ενθουσιάζεται από τη μαγική αυτή συσκευή, σαν να μην είχε δει ποτέ κανείς smartphone.
Τουλάχιστον οι ηθοποιοί ήταν Έλληνες που μιλούσαν κανονικά ελληνικά, και θα έχει ακόμα μια ευκαιρία η χώρα μας να προβληθεί παγκοσμίως έστω και έτσι.
The only strange thing in this story is that the whole village is in awe of this “magic device,” as if nobody there has seen a smartphone before.
At least, the actors were Greek and they were speaking proper Greek; this will be another opportunity for our country to get famous around the world, even if in this way.

author: Veroniki Bacharidi-Krikoni


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Erdogan’s Purges Arrive in Angola · Global Voices
Dércio Tsandzana

International Hope School, known as the “Turkish college”, had their activities banned by Angolan authorities on 10 February. Source: Screenshot/Facebook
Earlier this month, Angola's Education Ministry shut down the International Hope School, known as the “Turkish college,” a private school in Luanda. According to the Angolan newspaper O País, all the foreigners employed at the school lost their work visas and will soon be asked to leave the country.
Critics suspect that the decision, supported by a presidential decree issued last October but enforced only now, might be the result of pressure by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose government has carried out mass arrests in Turkey ever since a failed coup last July.
In October, the newspaper Folha 8 reported, without citing sources, that Erdogan was negotiating with the Angolan government to have Turkish citizens extradited in exchange for shipments of food products, including rice.
Tchissola Figueiredo, a 16-year-old student from the Turkish college, published a video on Facebook describing what happened when the school was closed, when she says Education Ministry officials interrupted morning classes. Around 11 a.m., police reportedly lined up all the school's faculty and demanded to see their identification papers.
In her Facebook video, which has nearly 80,000 views on Facebook at the time of this writing, Tchissola also denies rumors circulated on WhatsApp that the school supposedly promoted radical Islam and supported the movement of Fethullah Gülen, a Turkish citizen exiled in the United States accused by Erdogan of masterminding last year's attempted coup in Turkey.
Esse movimento não tem nada de errado. É um movimento humanista. É um movimento que tem como objetivo mostrar que nem todos os muçulmanos são radicais e são extremistas. E mesmo assim, nós não fazemos parte desse movimento. Nós não fazemos parte do movimento do Fethullah Gülen. Mas mesmo que fizéssemos não haveria problema nenhum. Porque se o Fethullah Gülen estivesse mesmo na base do golpe de estado que aconteceu na Turquia, o povo americano não o teria acolhido como está a acolher até agora.
This movement has nothing wrong. It is a humanist movement. It is a movement that aims to show that not all Muslims are radical and extremist. And yet, we are not part of that movement. We are not part of the Fethullah Gülen movement. But even if we were, there would be no problem. Because if Fethullah Gülen were really at the base of the coup that happened in Turkey, the American people would not have welcomed him as he is now.
Journalist Pedrowski Teca of the newspaper Folha 8 recorded footage of the government's raid on the school, sharing the video on his Facebook page:
According to Deutsche Welle, students’ parents say they plan to protest the decision to close down the school.
The police crackdown didn't end with closing the school. Two Turkish faculty members, Ibrahim Gardol and Elgiam Tusdiev, were also charged with money laundering, financing international terrorism, and associating with an ideological movement linked to the attempted coup in Turkey, according to O País, citing an anonymous source.
Angola's interior minister Ângelo da Veiga Tavares denies that its actions against the school were motivated by external pressures, refusing to offer further details about what prompted its police operation. In a press conference on Feb. 15, he stated:
A questão que fez com que o Governo tomasse a decisão do encerramento do colégio é uma questão de bastante gravidade, não tem nada a ver com quaisquer pressões que o Governo angolano vem sofrendo de qualquer país, mas por questões de natureza factual em que nós não vamos pormenorizar, porquanto existem outras estruturas que estão também a dar tratamento a esta questão.
The issue that caused the government to make the decision to close the college is a matter of gravity, it has nothing with any pressure that the Angolan government has been suffering from any country, but for reasons of a facts in which we are not going to detail, because there are other structures that are also giving treatment to this issue.
The Turkish president recently toured Africa, having passed through Mozambique, where he also made a similar request to close down several schools and projects connected to his Turkish adversaries. In this case, Facebook user “El Thazi,” a Mozambican citizen, shared his skepticism:
Este foi o pedido de Erdogan, presidente Turco. Desde do atentado falhado, diz que temos na SADC células/empresários turcos que financiam o terrorismo na Turquia.
Solicitou a entrega destes em troca de apoio financeiro: chantagem
Nós Moçambicanos não vamos entrar nessa. A nossa constituição não nos permite.
This was the request of Erdogan, Turkish President. Since the failed attempted coup, he says we have in SADC Turkish businessmen who finance terrorism in Turkey.
He asked for their delivery in exchange for financial support: blackmail
The Mozambicans will not get into that. Our constitution does not allow us.
Luaty Beirão, an Angolan activist on trial for rebellion in a high profile case known as 15 + 2, also accused the Turkish government of being involved in the scandal:
#angola prof. turcos e famílias a 2 dias de expulsão INJUSTIFICADA pelo gov angolano. Fala-se de pedido de Erdogan! @Publico@JornalOGlobo
— LUATY BEIRÃO (@LuatyBeirao) 13 février 2017
#angola turkish professors and families for two days facing UNJUSTIFIABLE expulsion by the Angolan government. There's talk of Erdogan's request!
Mozambican journalist Rafael Ricardo argued that the Turkish government is buying the Angolan regime “with a plate of food”:
É muito perigoso ser uma nação faminta porque quem tem comida pode fazer o que quiser em onde há fome: Comprar um país com um prato de arroz.
Eis os tentáculos do imperador otomano pelas bandas dos kambas. Ele quer encerrar todo negócio turco dr qualquer cidadão turco que esteja fora do seu “habitat” político. É o mesmo desejo que ele tem por cá.
It is very dangerous to be a hungry nation because those who have food can do whatever they want where they are hungry: Buy a country with a plate of rice.
Here are the tentacles of the Ottoman emperor by bands of Kambas. He wants to shut down every Turkish business to any Turkish citizen outside his political “habitat.” It's the same desire he has around here.

author: Dércio Tsandzana


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Visit by France’s Marine Le Pen Leaves Many Lebanese Unimpressed · Global Voices
Elia J. Ayoub

From an anti-Le Pen protest in Beirut, February 21, 2017. Source: Al Manshour.
Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s far-right Front National (FN) party who is running for president, sure made the news during her short two-days trip to Lebanon on February 20 and 21, 2017.
She met with the Lebanese President Michel Aoun, Prime Minister Saad Hariri, Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros Al-Rahi, a delegation of parliamentarians, Chairman of the Lebanese Forces Samir Geagea, and Phalanges political leader Sami Gemayel .
Le Pen was also supposed to meet the Grand Mufti Abdel-Latif Derian, but that didn't happen after she supposedly refused to wear a headscarf offered to her prior to her meeting with him, leading to its cancellation.
She told the cameras, in French, that she was not required to wear the veil when she met the Grand Mufti of Egypt. The spokesperson of the Grand Mufti of Lebanon, seen facing Le Pen, said in response, ‘Okay okay, no problem’ in English, and then in Arabic, ‘We have a different system here and he had informed her beforehand.’
Predictably, the incident immediately made international headlines and was widely praised by many, particularly those who already support her. Florian Philippot, the vice president of the FN, tweeted:
Au Liban, Marine refuse de porter le voile. Un magnifique message de liberté et d'émancipation envoyé aux femmes de France et du monde ! ?? pic.twitter.com/jAvKEfjGEF
— Florian Philippot (@f_philippot) February 21, 2017
In Lebanon, Marine refuses to wear the veil. A magnificent message of liberty and emancipation sent to the women of France and of the world!
Jerome Cochet, secretary at the FN, tweeted:
Quand les autres reculent, Marine avance !#Liban #Beyrouth #Marine2017 pic.twitter.com/ljcAOQ8MIr
— Jérôme Cochet (@JeromeCochet) 21 February 2017
When others go back, Marine goes forward!
Others in France were of a different opinion. French media group Les répliques, for example, posted a screenshot of two tweets made by high-profile FN members to highlight how the messages seemed to conflict.
The first is by Philippot mentioned above, and the second is by Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, niece of Marine Le Pen. Maréchal-Le Pen's tweet reads: “When one enters our country, one has to respect our laws, but also our traditions and our culture.”
The Facebook post by Les répliques was liked over 8,000 times and shared over 1,400 times. The accompanied caption reads: “Yesterday, in Lebanon, Marine Le Pen, who had planned to meet the Grand Mufti in Beirut, refused to wear the headscarf to speak with him and clearly let him know when the cameras were on.” February 22, 2017. Source: Facebook Page.
Echoing these thoughts, many Lebanese believed that Le Pen's ‘refusal’ was nothing more than a stunt designed to catch international headlines.
Lebanese blogger Elie Fares wrote on his widely-read blog State of Mind:
Marine Le Pen was informed yesterday [February 20] that the Mufti would only meet her if she covered her head with a scarf, but she still showed up anyway with the only purpose to be as controversial as she possible.
It was nothing but a publicity stunt, and it worked. These are the current top news google results about Marine Le Pen:
He then proceeded to show a screenshot from a Google search of ‘Marine Le Pen’ to prove that, indeed, it went viral, as expected.
Screenshot of the Google Result for ‘Marine Le Pen’ shortly after the event. Source: State of Mind
And if there was anything more predictable than Le Pen's act, it was the Mufti's reaction. In other words, the Mufti's views are well-known and would have been known by Le Pen and her staff long before she set foot in Lebanon. As Lebanese commentator Halim Shebaya wrote:
That was political theater at its best. And for Marine Le Pen, it was “mission accomplie” (mission accomplished)!
He added:
A spokesperson for the Grand Mufti responded, drawing a comparison between the way in which she wants immigrants to respect France’s culture and her refusal to practice what she preaches in Lebanon.
But it isn't just her refusal that made the news. Le Pen is, to say the least, a controversial figure in Lebanon.
As soon as her visit was announced, many Lebanese activists launched a petition, signed by 400 people, demanding that her visit not receive ‘state visit’ status. When it was announced that the state visit would proceed nonetheless, they planned a protest.
Source: The Socialist Forum.
On February 20, French-Lebanese freelancer writer Edwin Nasr attempted to give some context to Le Pen's visit.
Nasr first noted how Michel Aoun would be the first head of state to agree to meet with Le Pen. This, he claims, “ascertains both Le Pen and Aoun's willingness to form an international network of solidarity around the Assad regime” reminding the reader that Le Pen is an outspoken supporter of embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Indeed, “Marine Le Pen was the only non-Arab politician to have ever been interviewed by Damascus-based SAMAA TV, a station that has, throughout the Syrian revolution, continuously incited violence against civilians and operated as a regime mouthpiece.”
Additionally, there are 17,000 French-Lebanese voters residing in Lebanon, over 70% of whom voted for a right-wing or far-right candidate in the 2012 French presidential elections. Nasr then quotes Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the party and father of Marine, who recently said in an interview with Le Monde newspaper that they “hold a particular tenderness towards Lebanon. […] There are undeniable ideological and political parallels between the [Front National] and Lebanese Christian parties.”
Nasr then listed a number of high-profile Front National (FN) members with ties to Lebanon.
First of all, Wallerand de Saint-Just, the party's national treasurer, “was Christian militia leader Samir Geagea's former lawyer.” Second of all, Thibault de la Tocnaye, who serves on the FN's central committee, became “an artillery officer for the Lebanese Forces (LF) in 1982. He actively participated in the Mountain War (1982-83) and now holds a medal of honor given to him by Geagea himself. Later, he joined the Nicaraguan counter-revolution against the Marxist Sandinistas by lending his military expertise to various right-wing/anti-communist Contras.” And finally, Elie Hatem, a “Lebanese lawyer and active member of the royalist, National-Catholic, and violent movement” Action Francaise “served as Jean-Marie Le Pen's primary advisor and is now an elected official representing the FN in Paris’ 4th arrondissement”. Hatem, Nasr emphasized, was “at the origin of Le Pen's trip to Beirut in terms of both mediation and organization.”
Nasr also spoke of the “Chrétienté-Solidarité” (Christendom-Solidarity) movement which is popular with FN members and which was initiated by “notorious fascist Bernard Antony“, who left the party in 2003. The movement “sent military aid packages and fighters to the Lebanese Forces and various other Christian militias in the 80s under the guise of humanitarianism.”
Its successor, “SOS Chrétiens d'Orient” (SOS Christians of the East) “regularly sets shop in front of Parisian churches and sends militants and representatives, most of whom are either local FN officials or adherents of the openly white supremacist ‘Génération Identitaire‘ movement, to Syria in a bid to normalize ties between France and the Assad regime.”
The connection with the LF is important to remember for the simple reason that Le Pen's outspoken support for the Assad regime did not go well with Samir Geagea.
Geagea told Le Pen that Assad is no different than ISIS. As he subsequently informed the press:
I took my time to explain to Le Pen the unclear images that reach the West and that we are all against terrorism which has no religion. Based on the aforesaid, Bashar Assad is one of the biggest terrorists in Syria and the region. One can’t forget the military operations he conducted over tens of years. One can't forget the terror acts he carried out. He can't stay in Syria, so (we say) no to the Islamists and no to Bashar.

author: Elia J. Ayoub


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Netizen Report: How Private is Our Email? Riseup Users Want to Know. · Global Voices
Netizen Report Team

“Hacker” by the Preiser Project via Flickr. (CC BY 2.0)
The email provider Riseup reported that it received two warrants from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) requesting data for two users. One warrant requested the public contact address for an international DDoS extortion ring, and the other concerned an account involved in a ransomware scheme.
Riseup complied with the warrants after exhausting other legal options, explaining in a public blog post that to do otherwise would have left them in contempt of court. They also noted that both users had violated Riseup’s social contract, which all users sign. In short, they said, “We have your back so long as you are not pursuing exploitative, misogynist, racist, or bigoted agendas.”
Until this week, the warrants were under a gag order, leaving the provider legally unable to release any information about them to the public. However, in November 2016, civil rights and digital activists began to worry that the platform may have been facing a warrant, due to the sudden silence of its “warrant canary,” a signal that something had gone awry.
The warrant canary system takes its name from a once-common practice of coal miners, who would lower a caged canary into a coal mine as a rough measure of air quality. If the small yellow bird continued to chirp throughout its journey to the bottom of the mine, the workers knew it was safe enough for them to enter. If the canary stopped chirping, this indicated that the air was not safe enough to breathe.
The contemporary usage refers to a sort of digital chirping in which a company that processes communications data publishes routine notifications that all is well (“chirp! No warrants today!”). When Riseup stopped issuing these routine notifications in mid-November 2016, and posted a tweet quoting a song by the recently-deceased songwriter Leonard Cohen that urges us to “listen to the hummingbird,” users began to worry. Because Riseup serves so many human rights advocates around the world, the tweet triggered a great deal of concern that the company’s servers may have been seized or otherwise compromised.
Riseup has now implemented encryption on their servers so that only users themselves — not the company — can see the content of their messages when they are on Riseup servers. However, any message sent between a Riseup account and a different service can still be intercepted while in transit. Riseup plans to introduce a more secure, end-to-end encryption option later in 2017.
A group of rights advocates and economists concerned about the ongoing Internet shutdown in English-speaking regions of Cameroon say that the shutdown has cost the country at least USD $139 million. In a letter to CEOs of MTN, NexTel and Orange — all telcos that have carried out orders to shut down Internet access in the area — advocacy group Access Now called on telcos to restore access, citing businesses’ responsibilities to uphold human rights and “mitigate or remedy harms they cause or contribute to.”
New research shows that Iranian activists and human rights defenders who use Apple devices may not be as secure as previously thought. In the past, Windows and Android users were the most susceptible to government-linked hacking attacks due to their way their devices are built. New evidence from independent researchers suggests that malware targeting Apple devices is increasingly common.
A whale-themed game on the Russian social media platform VKontakte, which encourages self-harm and suicide, appears to have inspired officials in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan to further scrutinize and restrict online content. In response to rumors that teens playing the game are led to self-harm, a court in Almaty, Kazakhstan banned the circulation of the game, while officials in Kyrgyzstan raided schools and checked students’ mobile phones for connections to the game. Despite widespread media reports, it remains under dispute whether the game is in fact linked to increased rates of self-harm by teens.
Tunisia’s data protection laws do not meet international standards despite the country’s 2014 adoption of a constitution that grants all citizens the right to privacy, writes Global Voices’ Dhouha Ben Youssef. In fact, the country’s privacy laws have not been updated since well before the 2011 ousting of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
Facebook rolled out a discrete new feature that discloses to users which advertisers have access to their contact information. This information can be found under Settings, if you select “Download a copy of your Facebook data.” This may be intended as a measure of compliance with European data protection laws, which now have been cited several lawsuits by European Facebook users. Users have reported seeing as many as 250 advertisers listed who have access to their contact information.
US civil liberties organizations authored a joint letter urging high-ranking UN officials to investigate reports that US border officials are demanding that visitors give them access to their electronic devices, including the passwords to their online accounts, before being authorized to enter the country. The letter asserts that the practice violates US obligations under human rights treaties. “It is a violation of human rights to obtain at the order or elsewhere, by force or coercion, suspicionless access to a person’s digital life,” the letter argues. The ACLU, the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the National Iranian American Council are among the signatories to the letter.
Ellery Roberts Biddle, Leila Nachawati and Sarah Myers West contributed to this report.

author: Netizen Report Team


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Oscar López Rivera Is in Puerto Rico but Under House Arrest Until His Sentence Expires · Global Voices
Ángel Carrión

The image shows a house in Old San Juan with a Puerto Rican flag draped over the balcony. Image taken from video “OSCAR LOPEZ RIVERA LIBRE!” uploaded by ACKMVMT.
The news broke unexpectedly on the morning of February 9. Social media was buzzing with rumors that Puerto Rico's longest-serving political prisoner, Oscar López Rivera, would be landing in San Juan that very same day. Shortly thereafter, both El Nuevo Día and Noticel, two of Puerto Rico's major news outlets, had published articles confirming that, indeed, López Rivera would be serving in his homeland the remainder of his sentence, commuted in January by Barack Obama during the then-U.S. president's final days in office.
López Rivera was convicted of seditious conspiracy in 1981 over his links to the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional (Armed Forces of National Liberation), a group that used violence to advocate for Puerto Rico's independence from the U.S. He was never convicted of causing harm to anyone, but was nevertheless sentenced to 55 years in prison.
At 4:36 p.m. Atlantic Standard Time on February 9, López Rivera's flight landed at Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport, where he was quickly and quietly escorted to a private car by his daughter, Clarissa López; his lawyer, Jan Susler; U.S. Representative from the state of Illinois Luis Gutiérrez; and San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz Soto.
The sudden arrival of López Rivera to Puerto Rico caused much confusion and speculation, since it was completely unanticipated. As soon as the news broke, a crowd gathered outside the airport in anticipation of his arrival. However, those who wish to celebrate López Rivera's return will have to wait until his sentence ends officially on May 17 at 8 a.m. Even though López Rivera is back in Puerto Rico, he still must complete his sentence in full. He will serve the remainder under house arrest in his daughter's residence, and cannot have any contact with people who are not expressly authorized to do so, especially the press.
Facebook user Nelie Lebrón Robles advised other users to carefully mind what they posted about López Rivera on social media:
Hay felicidad entre el pueblo por la llegada de Oscar. […] Si no saben el por qué de las circunstancias de la llegada de Oscar a Puerto Rico, no hagan comentarios que lesionan este día tan maravilloso para el pueblo que, fuera de líneas políticas, religiosas, sociales, se unió para pedir su excarcelación.
There is happiness among the people because of Oscar's arrival. […] If you don't know the why of Oscar's arrival in Puerto Rico, don't leave comments that tarnish this wonderful day for the people that, beyond partisan, religious and social lines, united to demand his release.
Reflecting on the events of the past few weeks, another Facebook user, Cristina Vives Rodríguez, wrote this status on the night López Rivera landed in Puerto Rico:
El día después de las pasadas elecciones de noviembre, al despertar, aún acostada, me enteré a través del internet y por medio de mi teléfono, de que Donald Trump había ganado la presidencia de Estados Unidos. Las lágrimas de tristeza salieron de mis ojos al instante. No tuve control de ellas. Susurré en voz alta un nombre: Oscar. “¿Qué va a pasar ahora? ¿Qué vamos a hacer? Oscar tiene que salir. Es urgente. No hay más tiempo”, pensé. Esta noche, estando ya acostada, siento brotar las lágrimas de mis ojos de nuevo. Esta vez, vienen acompañadas de sonrisas felices porque sé que Oscar dormirá hoy en su País, junto a su hija. En su hogar… Gracias doy.
When I woke up the day after the elections in November, still in bed, I found out through internet and through my phone that Donald Trump had been elected president of the United States. Tears of sadness flowed from my eyes instantly. I had no control over them. I whispered aloud a name: Oscar. “What will happen now? What will we do? Oscar has to be released. It's urgent. There is no more time,” I thought. Tonight, having laid down to sleep, I feel the tears come forth from my eyes again. This time they are accompanied by happy smiles because I know that Oscar will sleep tonight in his country, near his daughter. In his home… I am thankful.
Many people imagined the moment when López Rivera finally came home to Puerto Rico as a day of widespread celebration. Nobody imagined that his return would occur the way it did. It wouldn't be surprising that the day that López Rivera completes his sentence, there is widespread celebration in the streets. Thus, many Puerto Ricans continue to hold their breath until May 17.

author: Ángel Carrión


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‘Pro-Russia’ Label Hounds Bulgaria’s New President · Global Voices
Nevena Borisova

Bulgarian President Rumen Radev and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Brussels. Photo by President.bg (CC BY 2.5)
Bulgaria's Rumen Radev was described as being pro-Russia by some international media during last year's presidential race in Bulgaria. Now that he's assumed office, the label hasn't gone away, and his first moves as president have been analyzed through a pro-Russia or anti-Russia lens, despite Radev's protestations.
Talking heads and ordinary Bulgarians have theorized that foreign media, including Russian media, starting calling the president pro-Russia because the Bulgarian Socialist Party, a successor to the Bulgarian Communist Party, supports him (although Radev participated in the elections as an independent candidate). Pro-Russianness is a sensitive topic in Bulgaria, given it was in the recent past a Communist country and part of the Soviet bloc. In 1989, however, the country began its democratic transition and is now a parliamentary republic.
Others suggested it has to do with his stance on European Union (EU) sanctions against Russia, originally enacted in response to Russia's actions in Ukraine. Nikolai Neichev wrote on Facebook:
Цялата теория, че Радев е проруски идва от призива ЕС да отмени санкциите срещу Москва, които вече всички знаят, че са пълна глупост, но ги е срам да си признаят.
The whole theory that Radev is pro-Russia comes from his appeal to the EU to withdraw the sanctions against Moscow.
Radev recently told Euronews that while Russia's annexation of Crimea was “a violation of international law,” the sanctions “do not bring about definite benefits” and “they rather hurt the economies of Russia and the European Union.”
Some of Radev’s opponents also used the label during the election campaign to gain points with potential voters who are pro-European or suspicious of Russia. Notably, Radev's main opponent from the political party GERB, Tsetska Tsatcheva, pushed the point of Radev's supposed pro-Russia stance. In a massively watched debate aired on national Bulgarian television, Radev called the idea that he's a pro-Russia candidate “lies.”
At the time, Bulgarians on social media also protested against the framing of political candidates as pro- or anti-Russia. For example, in his post Nikolay Neichev objected to a headline in the UK newspaper the Guardian saying that “Pro-Russia presidential candidates tipped to win in Bulgaria and Moldova”:
Нито дума, че човекът се е изучил в САЩ и цялата му кариера е в НАТО. (Най-смешното е, че заглавието на Гардиан е “проруски”, а вътре в материала цитират посланик, според който Радев е 100% про-НАТО).
Not even a word that the man received education in the USA and his whole [military] career was in NATO. (The most ridiculous thing is that the Guardian headline says “pro-Russia,” while inside the article they quote an ambassador [a Western diplomat in Sofia] who says Radev is 100% pro-NATO).
NATO is the international military alliance between the Canada, the United States and dozens of European countries, which Bulgaria joined in 2004. Radev holds the rank of major general in the Bulgarian air force.
At the end of December, before his inauguration on January 22, Radev continued to challenge the label, prompting reactions in social media. In a Facebook post, Peter Katzaroff, an expert in foreign relations, shared an interview with Radev from the Bulgarian online media Mediapool titled “I am a general from NATO, do not define me as a pro-Russia,” and commented:
Отговорна позиция на един генерал, доказващ всеки ден,защо е спечелил доверието на Суверена-българският народ!! Стратегически правилно,г-н ПРЕЗИДЕНТ!
Responsible position of a general who proves every day why he has won the trust of the sovereign Bulgarian nation!! Strategically right, Mr. President!
As president, Radev's first visit abroad was to Brussels, home to NATO's headquarters, where he met NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg and Curtis Scaparrotti – Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO Allied Command Operations. While there, he advocated strengthening NATO while engaging in dialogue with Russia, according to Australian international broadcaster SBS Radio.
During his visit, Radev also gave interview for European Union-focused news website EurActiv.com (Bulgaria is a member of the EU), saying that “Bulgaria’s choice of the EU and NATO is strategic and should not be called into question.”
He addressed the issue of the supposed pro-Russia orientation of the interim government he appointed. He noted that the appointment of the foreign and defence ministers (Radi Naydenov and Stefan Yanev) who are pro-European and pro-NATO, contradicts the label:
Labelling people is a simplistic political practice. Some European media willingly allow being involved in internal political intrigue, by using labels.
I have already stated in my speech to parliament that Bulgaria’s choice of the EU and NATO is strategic and should not be called into question.
As for the sanctions [against Russia], I do not see what is the practical use of them, as the losses are obvious. I fear that the new US administration will restore the dialogue with Russia and the EU will remain hostage to the sanction war.
Not all international media have used the pro-Russia label for Radev. The New York Times, for example, opted for a more nuanced description, calling the president as “balancer in chief”:
Bulgarian politicians, including the president, want closer relations with Russia, but not so close, that their nations loses its cherished ties to the West and falls firmly into Russia's orbit.

author: Nevena Borisova


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Why Are Puerto Ricans Sharing Their Student Numbers on Social Media? · Global Voices
Ángel Carrión

Photo: Pixabay / Public domain
UPR, the University of Puerto Rico, finds itself in crisis, following funding cutbacks that have led to a wave of resignations by top administrators.
Last summer, the U.S. Congress adopted PROMESA (the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act), creating the Fiscal Control Board, which has now ordered Governor Ricardo Rosselló to reduce UPR's budget by $300 million in order to avoid the need to borrow more money.
In response, UPR President Celeste Freytes and 9 of the school's 11 provosts resigned from their positions, signing a joint letter that calls the cutbacks “draconian”:
Rechazamos que se sacrifique más a la UPR mientras otras corporaciones y estructuras gubernamentales no dan un paso al frente, ni se les exigen los recortes draconianos que se le han requerido a una institución que ha probado ser vital en el desarrollo de nuestro país.  En el momento en que el país más necesita de su Universidad  y de ampliar las oportunidades para que un mayor número de estudiantes puedan acceder a ella, le dan un golpe que amenaza su viabilidad. No es sensato ni justo que, en estos momentos, se amenace su existencia. Repudiamos la insistencia de pagar la deuda pública a expensas de la Universidad.
We reject that UPR should be sacrificed more while other public corporations and government agencies do not volunteer, nor are they demanded the draconian cuts that have been required of an institution that has proven vital to the development of our country. At a time in which the country needs its University the most and in which the need to expand the opportunities for a greater number of students to have access to it have never been greater, a blow is struck to it which jeopardizes its viability. It is neither reasonable nor just that in these moments, its existence should be threatened. We repudiate the insistence on paying the public debt at the expense of the University.
Students and professors have already started organizing protests against the austerity measures imposed by the PROMESA Board, warning that such drastic cuts will endanger vital academics programs.
When students learned about the mass resignations by the school's top administrators, many started sharing their student identification numbers online, as a gesture of solidarity.
Writing for the university's news magazine, Diálogo Digital, Karisa Cruz Rosado also posted her student number, along with her reasons for supporting the university against cutbacks:
801-03-XXXX: Fue en la Universidad de Puerto Rico (UPR) donde oí el ruido de mis cadenas. Donde me reconocí presa de mis deseos sin cabeza. Allí, en esos salones con hongo, caldo de cultivo para alergias crónicas, casa del terror para los asmáticos, descubrí la brevedad de la vida y cuán “mcdonalizados” estamos. […] Sin la UPR mi vida sería silencio. Sosa. Sin historia ni poesía. Sin pachanga ni francachela. Sin lucha ni resistencia. Dejar que los buitres se coman- vivo- el Alma de la Máter (madre) de Puerto Rico sería un crimen de alta traición. Porque quizá es ahí, en su lecho, donde único nos hemos acercado a la efímera sensación de libertad.
801-03-XXXX: It was at the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) where I heard the sound of my chains. Where I realized myself a prisoner of my senseless desires. There, in those moldy classrooms, fertile ground for developing chronic allergies, house of terror for those with asthma, I discovered the shortness of life and just how “McDonaldized” we are. […] Without the UPR, my life would be silence. Bland. Without history or poetry. Without parties or jamborees. Without struggle and resistance. Letting vultures eat the live heart of the Alma Mater (mother) of Puerto Rico would be a crime of high treason. Because maybe it is there, in its midst, the only place where we've come close the the ephemeral sensation of freedom.
UPR, Puerto Rico's public higher education system, has proven to be an essential gateway to social mobility for a large number of graduates, thanks in large part to its students’ lack of astronomical debt that's so common at other schools today.
Two other higher public education institutions in Puerto Rico have also endured years of shrinking budgets and politicized oversight: the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music (Conservatorio de Música de Puerto Rico) and the Puerto Rico School of Plastic Arts and Design (Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Diseño de Puerto Rico).
One of the buildings of the Puerto Rico School of Plastic Arts and Design in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. Image uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by Moebiusuibeom-en under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 International (CC-BY-SA-4.0).
Governor Rosselló recently replaced the entire board of directors at the Puerto Rico School of Plastic Arts and Design, imposing a new chancellor last December, without consulting the school's academic community, despite rules stating that this appointment should only be made after speaking to the student body, the faculty, and administrators.
Rosselló said his decision was rooted in the board of directors’ rejection of Mónica Villaverde, the governor's original pick for chancellor. Cleaning house required invoking the recently adopted Law 3 (enacted on Jan. 23), which grants the governor the power to remove board members from any public corporation who he feels do not agree with his fiscal policies.
Many have raised the concern that Law 3 violates the autonomy of universities, arguing that school autonomy is vital to complying with international accreditation standards. Rosselló's administration has dismissed these fears.
One of the buildings of the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music in the area of Santurce in San Juan, the capital city of Puerto Rico. Image uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by Dsmorales under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported licence (CC-BY-SA-3.0).
It's worth noting that both the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music and the Puerto Rico School of Plastic Arts and Design have produced many alumni who have gone on to enormously successful careers in the arts — both at home and around the world, earning prestige for both institutions and inspiring countless Puerto Ricans.
Unfortunately for this legacy, today's political climate increasingly sees public education as an unnecessary expense. In this environment, especially for students of the arts and humanities, budget cutbacks might cripple future education programs.
If past experience is any indication, however, Puerto Ricans won't give up their institutions of higher learning without a fight.


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As Border Wall Looms Over Mexico, a Closer Look at Israel’s Internationally Condemned Wall · Global Voices
Elia J. Ayoub

Members of the Eritrean community in Israel mourn on October 21, 2015 in Levinsky park in south Tel Aviv during a memorial ceremony for Eritrean asylum seeker Habtom Zarhum, who was shot by an Israeli security guard at a bus station in the southern city of Beersheba after being mistaken for an assailant in an attack that killed an Israeli soldier. Zarhum, who was kicked by an angry mob after being shot, will not be recognised as an official victim of terrorism. Source: Oren Ziv/ActiveStills
On January 28, 2017, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted his support for US President Donald Trump's planned border wall with Mexico by making the following claim:
President Trump is right. I built a wall along Israel's southern border. It stopped all illegal immigration. Great success. Great idea ????
— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) 28 janvier 2017
Netanyahu was not speaking about the wall along the West Bank border, which violates international law according to the International Court of Justice, and is therefore informally known as ‘the Apartheid Wall‘ in Arabic (جدار الفصل العنصري) and by opponents of the Israeli government's policies. He was referring to another ‘wall': the approximately 152-mile-long (245 kilometers) fence on the border with Egypt, codenamed ‘Hourglass’ or Sha'on HaHol (שְׁעוֹן הַחוֹל) in Hebrew, on which construction began on November 22, 2010 and finalized on January 18, 2017.
The purpose of the ‘wall’ that Netanyahu boasted about? To keep African asylum seekers out.
As 972mag, the Israeli-Palestinian news collective, wrote on its special coverage page for “Asylum Seekers in Israel”:
There are tens of thousands of African asylum seekers in Israel, mostly from Eritrea and Sudan. Israel cannot deport nationals from those countries, but is pursuing a string of measures to stop new arrivals and encourage those already here to leave.
Indeed, Israel categorically refuses to even look at their asylum claims. One Sudanese asylum seeker, who said he was tortured by the Sudanese regime before fleeing to Israel via Egypt, has been waiting since December 6, 2005:
I was 17 years old when my village, Smasm, in the South Kordofan province of Sudan’s Nuba Mountains, was attacked. Most members of my family were killed in that horrible attack, which was the beginning of the suffering I have endured until today. I was arrested.
“March For Freedom” camp on the Israeli-Egyptian border on June 29, 2014, Negev Desert, Israel. Israeli policemen and immigration officers arrest African asylum seekers near the Israeli Egyptian border, forcing them back to imprisonment. They had marched from the Holot detention center, where they were jailed, to the Israeli-Egyptian border to protest of Israel's asylum policies, calling on the UN and the Red Cross to intervene and saying Israel is not checking their asylum requests and they therefore seek to leave the country. The group was stopped by the Israeli army and spent the night in a forest located a few hundred meters from the border. Source: Oren Ziv/ActiveStills.
The Israeli government offers cash to these ‘unwanted African migrants,’ as the BBC called them, and sends them to a ‘safe’ third country, but two men who took up the offer recently told the BBC that upon arrival, they “were abandoned as soon as they got off the plane. One was immediately trafficked, the other left to fend for himself without papers.”
Netanyahu tweeted his support for Trump's wall a day after International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and the ‘illegal immigration’ he was talking about were in fact to asylum seekers fleeing violence, oppression and in some cases genocide. As Asher Schechter wrote for Israel's Haaretz:
[…] The sad historical irony that of all nations, the one bragging about his success in turning away survivors of genocides and brutal dictatorships one day after International Holocaust Day is none other than the Prime Minister of Israel. You know, that country that owes its very existence to the plight and suffering of the victims of the greatest genocide in modern history.
This touches on a major aspect of the border fence that is rarely mentioned, although fairly obvious: the fact that it is yet another component of Israel's highly racial and sectarian politics.
Indeed, the border, as Asaf Calderon wrote recently for 972mag, “is only aimed at preventing black people from entering Israel irregularly.”
This should come as no surprise given the prevalence of anti-African rhetoric in Israeli politics. To give but a few examples, in October 2009, then-Interior Minister Eli Yishai told Israel’s Channel 2 that African asylum-seekers “will bring with them a profusion of diseases: hepatitis, measles, tuberculosis, AIDS and drugs.” In May 2012, Likud Member of the Knesset Miri Regev, who was the spokeswoman of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), told a crowd of thousands of Israelis that African asylum-seekers “are a cancer in our body.”
In 2013, Member of Knesset Michael Ben Ari told a crowd, a year after he helped provoke a race riot in the southern Tel Aviv neighborhood of Hatikva:
For three years now women haven't been able to go to the market without getting their handbags stolen. Little girls can't play outside. Young men can't find work. Sudanese, go back to Sudan! Sudanese, go back to Sudan! Sudanese, go back to Sudan!
A poll published by Israel Hayom (Israel Today) in January 2014 showed that “61.3 percent of Jewish Israelis believe the best way to deal with the recent phenomenon of illegal immigration from Africa is to sent the illegal migrants to a third country immediately” and a “further 18.4% think they should be sent back to the Holot open detention facility with arrest as a penalty for those who do not agree to go.” The poll added that “11.6% think the migrants should be given the opportunity to live and work in Israel.”
African asylum seekers jailed in Holot detention center protest behind the prison's fence, as other asylum seekers take part in a protest outside the facility, in Israel's southern Negev desert, February 17, 2014. The protesters were calling to close the prison and to recognize the refugee rights of the African asylum seekers living in Israel. Source: ActiveStills.
In contrast, Israel, as the world's only ‘Jewish State’, considers any member of the Jewish faith anywhere in the world as automatically deserving of Israeli citizenship. This is due to the 1950 Law of Return, declared just two years after the establishment of the State of Israel and the Palestinian Nakba (Arabic for ‘catastrophe’) in which approximately 700,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes in the territory that would become Israel.
From the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affair's website:
The Law of Return (1950) grants every Jew, wherever he may be, the right to come to Israel as an  (a Jew immigrating to Israel) and become an Israeli citizen. For the purposes of this Law, “Jew” means a person who was born of a Jewish mother, or has converted to Judaism and is not a member of another religion.
Unsurprisingly, Netanyahu's tweet did not go well with many Mexicans. Voices from Mexico's 50,000-strong Jewish population were particularly critical. The Central Committee of Jews in Mexico condemned Netanyahu's comments in an open letter:
La Comunidad Judía de México se deslinda del mensaje del Primer Ministro de Israel, Benjamín Netanyahu, sobre el muro fronterizo. No coincidimos con él en este punto de vista y rechazamos contundentemente su postura. […]
Nos solidarizamos con nuestros conciudadanos que viven, trabajan y aportan en el país vecino, cuyos derechos humanos tiene que ser respetados en todo momento y quienes deben recibir un trato digno.
The Jewish Community in Mexico disavows itself from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's message regarding the border wall. We do not agree with him in this point of view and strongly reject his standing. […]
We stand with our fellow citizens who live, work and add value to the neighboring country, their human rights have to be respected at all times and they have to be treated with dignity.
Salomón Chertorivski Woldenberg, the current secretary of economic development in Mexico City, and himself of Jewish origins, responded on Twitter, first in Spanish with an English translation to follow:
@netanyahu your ignorant tweet is offensive to Mexico, a country whose tolerance, solidarity,and opportunity has welcomed families like mine https://t.co/fe2XeKSGOE
— Salomón Chertorivski (@Chertorivski) 28 janvier 2017
León Krauze, a writer and professor, agreed with Chertorivski:
Como judío mexicano, me avergüenza este tuit https://t.co/GcgCvmpnaF
— León Krauze (@LeonKrauze) 28 janvier 2017
As a Mexican Jew, I am ashamed of this tweet.
Commentator Leo Zuckermann was more direct and addressed Israel's president, Reuven Rivlin, directly:
@PresidentRuvi: as the state head of Israel, I ask you, as a Mexican, to correct the position of PM @netanyahu about a wall in our border
— Leo Zuckermann (@leozuckermann) 28 janvier 2017
And journalist Ezra Shabot said:
El apoyo de @netanyahu a Trump y al muro muestra en toda su bajeza el grado de descomposición del primer ministro israelí Lamentable
— Ezra Shabot (@ezshabot) 28 janvier 2017
Netanyahu's support for Trump and the wall shows in all its meanness how low the Israeli prime minister has reached. Shameful.
The link between the Israeli wall and Trump's wall is not coincidental. Countries from India to the US have sent experts to Israel to study border security and the various technological tools used by Israel to keep African asylum seekers out. Furthermore, Magal Security Systems, the Israeli company that built Israel’s border with Egypt – which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to on his infamous tweet – is seeking to build Donald Trump’s planned wall between the US and Mexico, according to Bloomberg news agency.
The relationship between Israel and security experts throughout the world is itself nothing new. In 2002, five New York Police Department (NYPD) officers were sent to Israel to be trained in counter-terrorism measures and in 2012, the NYPD opened a branch in the Sharon District Police headquarters in Kfar Saba.


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Benjamin Netanyahu’s Historic Visit to Australia Gets Mixed Reactions · Global Voices
Kevin Rennie

Prime Ministers Netanyahu and Turnbull meet in Sydney. Screenshot SkyNews Australia from 22 February 2017.
The arrival of Benjamin Netanyahu heralds the first official visit of an Israeli prime minister to Australia. However, it has not been welcomed by all.
The Wire, a current affairs program on community and Indigenous radio stations, canvassed some of the issues with Dr. Peter Slezak, co-founder of the organization Independent Australian Jewish Voices and a board member of the Australian Palestinian Advocacy Network, and Peter Wertheim, executive director of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.
Slezak cited Israel's occupation of Palestine, the settlements built in the occupied territories and Israel's West Bank wall as examples of breaches of international law and human rights. On the other hand, Wertheim argued that the visit is about the Australia/Israel relationship, not about specific politics of the day. The two also discussed issues related to calls to boycott Israeli businesses that profit from the occupation. You can listen to the full segment here:
Sixty “prominent” Australians released a statement highly critical (PDF) of the trip:
[…] over the last 50 years, Israel has held the people of Palestine under military occupation and: continues to illegally build settlements on Palestinian land in the West Bank and East Jerusalem; continues to confiscate Palestinian land; continues to demolish Palestinian homes; continues its policy of imprisonment of Palestinians without trial even of children as young as 12; and continues its blockade of the 1.8 million civilian inhabitants of Gaza.
We want all Israelis and Palestinians to have peace and freedom; we oppose all forms of terrorism and criminal violence by either side. We recognise when there is a gross imbalance of power, conflict will never be resolved. Mr Netanyahu’s policies consistently aim to provoke, intimidate and oppress the Palestinian population which increase that imbalance, thus taking Israel irretrievably further from peace. These policies are inconsistent with Australian values and beliefs and we should not welcome him here.
Australia's conservative Turnbull government has been effusive but received some harsh criticism on social media:
The grovelling to that duplicitous thug Netanyahu is truly demeaning.
— Mike Carlton (@MikeCarlton01) February 22, 2017
Oz praised by international pariah Netanyahu as a ‘clear eyed nation’ how has our gov become such ingrates to someone so unworthy!
— Jack O'Toole (@jotoolesyd) February 22, 2017
Turnbull rebukes the United Nations for the illegal settlements vote just before meeting Netanyahu. Shames Oz. PM is a Moral Coward #auspol
— grace pettigrew (@broomstick33) February 21, 2017
There has also been plenty in favour of the prime minister's strong pro-Israel positions:
Thank you @TurnbullMalcolm 4steadfast friendship with #Israel and @Netanyahu. The ONLY successful #middleeast democracy. #auspol #abcnews24
— Dame Sir Ron (@paddo_ron) February 22, 2017
Among the opposition Australian Labor Party, who are longtime supporters of Israel, there have been some misgivings. Two former prime ministers, Bob Hawke and Kevin Rudd, plus two former foreign ministers have supported granting diplomatic recognition to Palestine. Netanyahu has rebuked them. Rudd has responded strongly on his Facebook page:
I have been a supporter of Israel all my life. And a public campaigner against any form of anti-Semitism. But to support the state of Israel does not mandate automatic support for each and every policy of Mr. Netanyahu.
Rudd also raised an old grievance from 2010 when he was prime minister — Palestinian Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh, who was believed to have been killed by Israeli Mossad intelligence agents:
Will he use this visit to Australia to apologise to the Australian people for his government using forged Australian passports to facilitate an Israeli assassination of a member of Hamas in Dubai?
The ex-prime minister copped plenty of criticism in return:
@MrKRudd is acting as a Palestinian mouthpiece in the hope of getting a @UN job#Israel #Auspol @netanyahu @TurnbullMalcolm @TimesofIsrael
— Peter OatawayⓂ (@PetefromHayNSW) February 22, 2017
As well as lots of social media support:
@MrKRudd Thank you for your public stand against @netanyahu.https://t.co/v79lnFAPcQ
— Ian (@Saints_Dragons) February 22, 2017
Some of voices of protest have been Jewish ones:
#Bibi doesn't speak for me – Jewish protesters against #Netanyahu in #Sydney pic.twitter.com/SAXpDI8P2U
— Peter Boyle (@peter_b1953) February 22, 2017
Meanwhile, it has emerged that there was another bump on the Israeli prime minister's trip. Apparently he had to detour around Indonesia on his way from Singapore:
Gee, wonder why El Al is banned from flying in Indonesia's air space? Could it be a protest against apartheid state? https://t.co/kqf53rlzkh
— Elizabeth Gunn (@ELanguagesGeek) February 22, 2017
There have also been the predicted protests:
Protest #Netanyahu in Sydney #Australia – Rally last night#FreePalestine #worldnews pic.twitter.com/bCvE6YV0Mu
— Schtang (@Schtang) February 24, 2017
While others are sharing the celebrations:
More coverage in the AFR on Israeli PM @netanyahu‘s visit to Aus, where @LeiblerMark made opening address https://t.co/uAgfg527HR pic.twitter.com/unGi0cHg1v
— Arnold Bloch Leibler (@ABLLaw) February 23, 2017

author: Kevin Rennie