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The 1944 Thiaroye Massacre in Senegal, a Shameful Episode of the French Colonial Period in Africa · Global Voices
Abdoulaye Bah

Screenshot of Thiaroye Camp from the film Le Camp de Thiaroye by Ousmane Sembene on YouTube.
On December 1, 1944, an unspeakable tragedy took place at the military camp of Thiaroye, a small village in the suburbs of Dakar. Thirty-five Senegalese Tirailleurs (a type of rifleman or sharpshooter) were killed, according to official records, but other testimonies reported more than 300 dead, gunned down by colonial troops after protesting to be paid for their military service. The general public did not learn of this tragedy until 1988, when a film called “Camp de Thiaroye,” by Senegalese cineaste and writer Sembène Ousmane, was released.
The massacre is symptomatic of the French colonial power’s contempt for the African soldiers who had fought for its liberation during World War II. The film, which was produced by Senegal and Algeria, was banned in France for 17 years before being becoming available on DVD in 2005.
The Facebook page “Massacre du 1er Décembre 1944 : CAMP DE THIAROYE” (Massacre of December 1, 1944: CAMP THIAROYE) was created to honor the victims, killed by their metropolitan army comrades with whom they had fought the Nazi enemy. The course of events is recalled:
Le 1er Décembre 1944, furent massacrés des soldats africains, libérateurs de la France par… la France. Ces soldats Africains, communément appelés ‘ ‘Tirailleurs Sénégalais’  ont commis un seul crime: celui d’ être Africains.
En effet, comment expliquer autrement l'assassinat dont ils ont été victimes?  Car ces Tirailleurs africains* , à qui on avait toujours répété que la France est la mère patrie, avaient pour la grande majorité, même si ils ont été pour la plupart recrutés de force, combattu avec conviction l'ennemi Nazi, dont ils sont finalement venu à bout. C'est donc fiers de leur victoire qu'ils ont été démobilisés et sont arrivés au camp de Thiaroye* au Sénégal, le 21 novembre 1944. Sur leur visage, se lisait le bonheur de retrouver enfin leurs familles, après quatre longues années d'absence, malgré le traumatisme de la guerre et la perte de leurs nombreux camarades morts au combat ou fusillés par les Nazis. Ils ne se doutèrent pas qu'ils ne reverront plus jamais les leurs, ou leurs pays, pour ceux originaires d'autres pays du continent. Ils sont au nombre de 1280, originaires de pays d'Afrique Occidentale Française.
Mais le 30 Novembre 1944, il y’ eut une révolte au camp de Thiaroye, suite à la réclamation de leurs arrièrés de solde et de leur prime de démobilisation, qu'on leur avait déjà refusés en France, avant leur retour en Afrique. Ils prirent le général Damian en otage donc. Le 1er Décembre 1944, le bataillon de Saint-Louis donne l'assaut de nuit, sans sommation, du camp désarmé. Il y eu une trentaine de survivants qui  furent condamnés à des peines allant de 1 à 10 ans, avec amende, et perte de leur indemnité de mobilisation. Ils ne furent libérés qu’ en 1947, par le président Français de l'époque Vincent Auriol, sans avoir été rétablis dans leur droits, et n'ont pas eu droit à une pension de retraite.
On December 1, 1944, African soldiers, liberators of France, were massacred by… France itself. These African servicemen, commonly known as the Senegalese Tirailleurs, had committed one crime: that of being African.
Indeed, how else could the assassination they suffered be explained? These African Tirailleurs, who mostly had been recruited by force and who had repeatedly been told that France is the motherland, fought the Nazi enemy with conviction and finally triumphed. They were proud of that victory and were afterwards demobilized, arriving at Camp Thiaroye in Senegal on November 21, 1944. In spite of four long years of absence, the trauma of war, and the loss of their many comrades who perished in combat or were shot by the Nazis, their faces shone with happiness to finally be reunited with their families. They did not suspect that they would never again see their loved ones or home countries, for those originating from other parts of the continent. There were 1,280 of them, coming from all over French West Africa.
On November 30, 1944, however, there was a revolt at Camp Thiaroye. It came about after they demanded to be paid their salary arrears and demobilization allowance, which had already been denied to them in France before they returned to Africa. They thus took General Damian as hostage. The night of December 1, 1944, the battalion of Saint-Louis stormed the unarmed camp without warning. There were about 30 survivors who were condemned to one to 10-year prison terms, fined, and denied their mobilization pay. They were only released in 1947, by France's then-President Vincent Auriol. They were not restored their rights and were not entitled to a retirement pension.
Léopold Sédar Senghor, one of the rare public figures at the time to have denounced  this colonial crime, dedicated a poem to the victims in December 1945 and wrote an article on their subject in the July 1945 issue of the review Esprit.
In contrast, the French administration tried to minimize the contribution of these soldiers in an effort to avoid paying what it owed them, before finally killing them.
In a 2014 letter and petition addressed to French President François Hollande, the Vigilance Committee on the Public Use of History (Comité de Vigilance face aux usages publics de l’histoire), an advocacy organization that aims to rectify the historical recollection of the French colonial period, broke down the lies of the state and denounced the attitude of the French authorities in this affair:
These men had fought for France and demanded to be paid for their time as POWs. Their request had been refused by the Dakar military authorities, which was a transgression of the regulations at the time. This despoliation was covered up by the then Ministry of War. It falsely stated in a circular dated December 4, 1944 — thus after the massacre — that the repatriated soldiers had received the totality of their compensation before their departure from France.
Aiming to silence the legitimate claims of these men, an operation of the armed forces was mounted to crush/diminish the rebels. To conceal the massacre, certain officers produced damning reports and fabricated an official account of a mutiny. In these reports, the ex-prisoners of war are described as being paid by the Germans and heavily armed. In order to justify the heavy response, they were accused of being the first to shoot.
A partir de là, rien n’est clair, si ce n’est qu’une fusillade éclate peu après 9 heures. C’est ici que l’historienne doit se faire limier, tant les rapports sont litigieux. Le témoignage écrit du lieutenant-colonel Le Berre diverge ainsi de celui du chef de bataillon Le Treut, du capitaine Olivier, du colonel Carbillet, du général Dagnan, du lieutenant-colonel Siméoni, du lieutenant de gendarmerie Pontjean, du colonel Le Masle ou du général de Perier, qui diligentera une commission d’enquête en 1945. Certaines circulaires ou certains comptes rendus sont même introuvables. “Ils ont disparu”, explique l’historienne, qui a exploré les différents centres où sont conservés les documents de l’époque, en France, mais aussi au Sénégal.
Au fil des versions se développe l’idée d’une riposte à des tirs à la mitraillette ou au pistolet-mitrailleur venus des mutins. Le général Dagnan a fait établir à l’époque une liste des armes prétendument retrouvées. Armelle Mabon l’a fait examiner par des experts de l’Union française des amateurs d’armes. Rien ne tient dans cet inventaire ni ne justifie d’utiliser de tels moyens – un char, deux half-tracks, trois automitrailleuses – pour y répondre.
Officiellement, 35 tirailleurs furent tués ce 1er décembre, chiffre repris par François Hollande dans son discours à Dakar. Vingt-quatre seraient morts sur le coup et onze à l’hôpital. Mais le rapport du général Dagnan daté du 5 décembre fait état de “24 tués et 46 blessés transportés à l’hôpital et décédés par la suite“,soit 70 victimes. “Pourquoi aurait-il eu intérêt à alourdir le bilan ?”, demande l’historienne qui accrédite plutôt ce dernier chiffre.
The shooting began shortly after 9 am, but what followed isn't clear. The reports are so contentious that the historian has to become a sort of detective. Testimony written by Lieutenant-Colonel Le Berre diverges from that of Battalion Chief Le Treut, Captain Olivier, Colonel Carbillet, General Dagnan, Lieutenant-Colonel Siméoni, Gendarmerie Lieutenant Pontjean, Colonel Masle, and General de Perier, who initiated a commission of inquiry in 1945. Certain circulars and reports are nowhere to be found.  “They’ve disappeared,” explains the historian, who explored the various centers where the documents of the time are preserved, in France and in Senegal.
Successive accounts communicate the idea of a response to machine or submachine gunfire from the mutineers. General Dagnan had a list made of the weapons allegedly found. Armelle Mabon had this list examined by experts from the French Association of Arms Enthusiasts. Something doesn’t add up in this inventory, and the response to it – a tank, two half-track vehicles, and three armored cars – is totally unjustified.
Officially, 35 sharpshooters were killed on December 1, the figure used by François Hollande in his speech in Dakar. Twenty-four were reported to have died during the attack and eleven at the hospital. But General Dagnan’s December 5 report cited “24 killed and 46 wounded transported to the hospital and deceased thereafter,” for a total of 70 victims. “What could he have stood to gain by overstating the number of deaths?” asks the historian, who gives credence to this last figure.
On ne sait toujours pas où ils furent enterrés, sans doute dans une fosse commune non loin ou dans le petit cimetière militaire oublié de Thiaroye. Jean Suret-Canale fut l’un des tout premiers à évoquer cet épisode dans le tome II de son Histoire générale de l’Afrique occidentale (1963). J’en entendis pour ma part parler vers la fin des années 1970 par des amis sénégalais qui en avaient une vague notion. Je partis à la recherche du cimetière que je finis par retrouver avec une certaine difficulté car plus personne ne savait où il se trouvait, dissimulé derrière un petit mur pas très loin de la route partant vers la petite côte (il est aujourd’hui restauré et bien entretenu).
We still don't know where they are buried, probably in a mass grave nearby or in the small, forgotten military cemetery of Thiaroye. Jean Suret-Canale was one of the very first to evoke this episode in Tome II of his General History of Western Africa (1963). I heard about it towards the end of 1970 from some Senegalese friends who had a vague idea of what had happened. I went looking for the cemetery but had trouble finding it, since no one knew where it was. It was hidden behind a small wall not very far from the road heading towards the Petite Côte. Today it has been restored and is well maintained.

author: Abdoulaye Bah


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How Balkan Egyptians Are Asserting Their Identity and Fighting Discrimination in Macedonia · Global Voices
Filip Stojanovski

Part of the audience at the celebration of the International Day of Balkan Egyptians, June 24 in Ohrid, Macedonia, including Minister of Culture Robert Alagjozovski (fifth from the left in the bottom row with a blue shirt). Photo by NGO Izida, used with permission.
The June 24 annual celebration honoring Balkan Egyptians in Macedonia received high-level state recognition for the first time when it was attended by the country's minister of culture.
Balkan Egyptians belong to a discriminated ethnic group whose ancestors migrated from Egypt to Europe between 3rd century BC and 6th century AD. Several empires during the Hellenistic and Roman periods encompassed both the Balkans and Egypt, which made possible the migration of people in these places.
In the Middle Ages, after the arrival of the Roma people from India, Europeans started lumping the Egyptians with the Roma on account of superficial similarities like darker skin color. In some European languages, the designations for Roma, including the pejorative term ‘gypsy’ have origins in the term ‘Egyptian.’ Throughout their history the Balkan Egyptians have been trying to express their separate and distinct identity from other ethnic groups.
The emblem of Balkan Egyptians, containing a pharaoh's crown, the sun as symbol of monotheism, the pyramids of Giza and Balkan medieval castles. Image by NGO Izida from Resen, Macedonia, used with permission.
Over the centuries, the surviving Balkan Egyptian communities stopped using their ancestral language when they adopted the languages of the majority populations of their local regions. So in Kosovo and Albania they speak Albanian at home; in Macedonia either Albanian, Macedonian or Turkish; in Greece they speak Greek, etc.
Since the 1970s, Egyptians living in Western Balkans have been asserting their ethnic identity by demanding a separate Egyptian category to be added in official census forms. Thanks to a sustained grassroots campaign, the governments of Macedonia, Kosovo and Serbia recognized Balkan Egyptians during the 1990s.
Activists claim that the censuses still don't reflect the complete number of all Balkan Egyptians. In some regions, they suffer pressure to register as members of other ethnicity, or some census takers would mistakenly interpret the Egyptian category as Roma in official forms.
In 2010, the Second Congress of the Union of Balkan Egyptians decided to celebrate June 24 as the International Day of Balkan Egyptians, in memory of the historic 1990 assembly that took place on this day in southern Macedonia advocating the preservation and protection of their ethnic identity.
The International Day of Balkan Egyptians has become a platform to stress the need to fight prejudices and promote diversity. Below is an excerpt of the event's official statement:
Our community is just a small part of the Balkan cultural mosaic, but nevertheless it provides important contribution to the overall European diversity.
Balkan Egyptian actiivist Zizo Ljamkovski. Photo by Filip Stojanovski, CC-BY.
In an interview with Global Voices, activist Zizo Ljamkovski emphasized the cultural contributions of Balkan Egyptians in Macedonia. He added that the biggest challenge for Balkan Egyptians is how to ensure greater participation in the decision-making processes at local and national levels.
In Macedonia, Balkan Egyptians live mostly in the southern towns of Ohrid, Struga, Resen, Kichevo, Debar and Strumica. The last census in 2002 put the number of Balkan Egyptians at 3,713.
Despite the government recognition of Balkan Egyptians, discrimination continues to persist. In 2015, a leaked wiretap revealed politicians from the ruling party talking about the Egyptians in a derogatory manner while discussing election-rigging in Ohrid. Egyptian NGOs demanded an apology from a ruling party official but didn't receive any reply.
Some anti-corruption Balkan Egyptian NGOs like Izida from Resen also faced political harassment from the previous government, especially after the elections of December 2016.
Balkan Egyptian folk dancing. Photo by NGO Izida, used with permission.
A new government took power in Macedonia on May 31, 2017. Minister of Culture Robert Alagjozovski, who attended the program of this year's International Day of Balkan Egyptians, told the public that the new government will be more responsive to the needs of marginalized communities. He also tweeted about that:
Го одбележавме денот на балканските Египќани. Поддршка за младите таленти од запоставените заедници! pic.twitter.com/cs626HChDx
— Robert Alagjozovski (@RobAlag) June 24, 2017
We marked the International Day of Balkan Egyptians. Support for the talented youth from neglected communities!
During the same gathering, activists acknowledged the various successes in promoting the welfare of Balkan Egyptians. They mentioned an upcoming documentary film to be aired by Al Jazeera which they hope will provide better awareness about Balkan Egyptians. At the same time, they expressed optimism that similar efforts in other countries like Greece will also address some of the pressing issues facing the ethnic group.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Filip Stojanovski


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In a Guardian Story About an Environmental Conflict in Kenya, the White Saviour Rides Again · Global Voices
Christine Mungai

Herders with their cows in Laikipia. Photo by USAID made available under a Creative Commons license.
The Guardian recently published an article by Tristan McConnell, their correspondent in Nairobi, Kenya, titled “Who shot Kuki Gallman? The story of a Kenyan conservationist heroine.” McConnell attempts to tell the story of a conflict in Laikipia, a county in northern Kenya, through the eyes of Gallmann, who is best known for her autobiography I Dreamed Of Africa, which was turned into a 2000 feature film starring Kim Basinger.
Laikipia has been in the headlines on account of the migration, triggered by harsh weather conditions, of local herders and tens of thousands of their cows, goats and sheep in search of water and pasture. The migrating herders and their livestock have breached the fences and boundaries of private nature conservancies, which account for nearly half of Laikipia's land area. Politicians, taking advantage of historical grievances, have goaded the pastoralists on. Their call for the herders to forcibly occupy the holdings of all large landowners in the area, both black and white, has rattled Laikipia.
McConnell's framing of Gallmann as a regal, gallant hero fighting to “save the environment” against marauding hordes of “impoverished, local men” is so riddled with colonial tropes that it is astonishing The Guardian published it with that language intact.
Let's begin with the article's descriptions of the Laikipia landscape—”undulating savannah, forests, winding rivers, waterfalls, rocky hills and steep-shouldered escarpments. The land is home to elephants and rhinos, giraffes, zebras and antelopes, wild dogs, bat-eared foxes and lions.” It was here, the article continues, that “white, often British, settlers came to farm wheat and raise cattle during the first half of the 20th century, before independence. ” The ahistoricism of the description is jarring. It suggests that Laikipia was a terra nullius, an empty, unclaimed vastness waiting for someone to put it to good use. This, of course, is not the case.
Laikipia was the traditional homeland of the Maasai and Samburu people. It was violence—guns, coercion and deceit—that pushed these people out and created the “emptiness” so beloved of white settlers. Laikipia is not merely the habitat of bat-eared foxes and wild dogs—it is home to real, breathing humans. And the settlers were not a bunch of benign farmers looking to raise livestock. They were backed by the firepower and coercive machinery of the colonial state.
According to the story, Kuki Gallmann arrived in Kenya from Italy in 1972, a latecomer to the ranching enterprise, with a pile of luggage shipped in from Venice and a romantic nostalgia for a place she had never been. “I totally and utterly fell in love with Ol Ari Nyiro,” she wrote, “and I felt—and it’s irrational and difficult to explain—that I had come home and there was a reason for me to be there.”
Isn't it interesting that there are wonderful empty places in this beautiful Kenya waiting for someone to fall in love with them? That you can land in a place you have never been, where “falling in love” gets you 88,000 acres of prime ranch land? The casual erasure of the colonial violence that made Gallman's acquisition possible, and the human and social cost of it, is striking.
“Since many, many years my aim is to try to prove that people and environment can survive together, you have to have a balance,” says Gallman the conservationist. What a revelation! If it weren't for “the conservationists”, the article suggests, we Kenyans would never have grasped that fact. The White Saviour to the rescue, again.
This is insulting. Africans have been co-existing with wildlife for millennia. That's why the continent now has the wildlife to conserve in the first place! For the African, preserving nature was not something done to capture the attention of others, as the ecologist-journalist duo Mordecai Ogada and John Mbaria have noted. It was enshrined in ordinary, mundane, day-to-day life, in the form of taboos against killing certain animals, and reinforced in rituals, stories and songs. It was not the post-industrial, exaggerated fascination with nature developed by Europeans in the aftermath of their widespread and systematic looting and plundering of the natural world in the name of “industrialisation”.
Due to the current violence, McConnell's article reports, some ranches have closed and some owners are considering selling. But others, Gallmann among them, are hunkering down. “They are going to get tired of it,” she says. “I know I will outlast them. There is no doubt in my mind.” “They”, meaning the impoverished local Pokot militiias encroaching on “the environment”. They will get tired. Kuki Gallmann will outlast them.
In a way, Gallmann is right. They will get tired. They are poor, impoverished and local, after all. Their children will get hungry and thirsty. They will turn against each other. They will run out of ammunition. There'll be political changes. And they will scatter.
But there is such cruelty in someone casually waiting for “them” to scatter, to hunger, to thirst, to turn against each other and just go away and disappear. Or at least to go back to being poor, local and impoverished, but quietly. I am struck by grief when I read this, the grief of knowing that someone is waiting for our death, our silence, our hunger and thirst and confusion.
This is not to say that the conflict in Laikipia is not complex, or that there are easy answers. Climate change is leading to more frequent and more punishing droughts. Add the mix of demographic pressures and politics is an explosive one. But we have to tell the story right. Framing the conflict as between a noble conservation queen and a savage mob of impoverished locals is not only irresponsible and cruel. It is also simply not the truth.

author: Christine Mungai


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Meet the Saudi Woman Who Ignited a Firestorm When She Got Behind the Wheel · Global Voices
PRI/PRX's The World

Author Manal al-Sharif. Credit: Courtesy of Simon and Schuster.
This story by Joyce Hackel originally appeared on PRI.org on June 14, 2017. It is republished here as part of a partnership between PRI and Global Voices.
When Manal al-Sharif posted a video of herself driving in Saudi Arabia in 2011, she angered many in the deeply conservative kingdom.
“The worst backlash was from the religious establishment,” she says. “They took the Friday sermons, and they called me things like a prostitute for just driving a car.”
Al-Sharif landed in jail. She received threats on her life. Her father had to appeal to the Saudi king for her release. But the video of her definance behind the wheel had already gone viral, receiving more than 700,000 views in just a day, energizing the global moment to drop Saudi Arabia's prohibitions on women driving.
Today, the 38-year-old activist is still one of the loudest voices calling for the kingdom to drop the driving ban. In her new memoir, “Daring to Drive: A Saudi Woman's Awakening,” al-Sharif describes growing up in Mecca as a firm believer in conservative Islam. When she turned 18, she enrolled in King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah. She met liberal women who didn't cover their faces in public, and her world view began to change. The notion of male guardianship began to grate on her.
“A woman is considered a minor from the time she's born until the time she dies,” she says. “When women drive in my country, they will have the voice and the power and the belief that they can do anything and they will act on ending the guardianship system.”
Al-Sharif says her campaign #women2drive continues to push the limits of what's socially acceptable in Saudi Arabia. In the coming months, her memoir “Daring to Drive” will also be published in Arabic.
“There are a lot of brave actions happening, more and more girls posting videos of themselves driving and more and more men are joining us,” she says. “We'll continue campaigning, using all the tools that we can.”
Read the first chapter of “Daring to Drive” here:

author: PRI/PRX's The World


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Tanzanian Media Misrepresent the Dispute Between the Government and the World’s Third Largest Gold Mining Company · Global Voices
Ben Taylor

President John Magufuli, second left, with Barrick Gold executives at State House on June 14. Photo by State House.
A version of this post appeared on Mtega.com, Ben Taylor's personal blog. The piece is republished here with permission.
On June 14, John Magufuli, the president of Tanzania, met with John Thornton, the chairman of Barrick Gold—the world’s largest gold mining company—who had flown in from North America for the purpose. Reports of the meeting dominated the headlines in Tanzania for the next several days.
The subject of the meeting was the “mineral concentrates” produced by Barrick subsidiary Acacia Mining plc at its three gold mines in Tanzania. On March 5, 2017, a large number of containers containing concentrates were seized for investigation, and exports suspended. The committees appointed by the president to carry out these investigations accused Acacia Mining of massively understating the amount of gold and other minerals present in the exported concentrates, thus depriving Tanzania of a huge amount of revenue—to the tune of three years’ worth of the national budget.
Acacia and Barrick were alarmed, and disputed the committees’ findings, insisting their exports have always been audited and declared accurately, and that all payments of tax and royalties, etc. to the Tanzanian government had been made. For a few weeks, Acacia had been calling for dialogue with the Tanzanian government so the issue could be resolved. (This post on Bloomberg offers a comprehensive account of the matter).
After the Magufuli-Thornton meeting, the president’s office released a video, shot on the steps of State House, in which the two men give their versions of what transpired during the meeting. To spare you the trouble of watching, here’s a summary: the president thanks Thornton for coming, and for agreeing to pay what is due. Thornton says his company was pleased to be able to enter into a dialogue to resolve the ongoing dispute, and would be happy to pay the rightful amount that was due.
An accompanying statement by State House made similar claims, saying that Barrick had agreed to pay what the government has said its owed to them.
Mhe. Rais Magufuli amesema pamoja na kukubali kulipa fedha zinazodaiwa Prof. John L. Thornton amekubali kushirikiana na Tanzania kujenga mtambo wa kuchenjulia dhahabu (smelter) hapa nchini.
The president said, on top of agreeing to pay what they owe us, Prof. John L. Thornton has agreed to work with Tanzania to build a smelter in the country.
Based on Barrick's comments, the meeting seems to have concluded with an agreement to have further discussions, nothing more, nothing less. There was no consensus reached on the amount of money—if any—owed by Acacia/Barrick to the government of Tanzania, nor any admission of liability on the company's part. The government's own official press release on the meeting supports this conclusion, as do Thornton's comments after the meeting and the latest press release on the Acacia website and the market update call they held on the morning of June 15.
The next day following the meeting, however, six Swahili papers portrayed the meeting as a big win for the president and for Tanzania, going well beyond even what the president himself said about the meeting. Some stated that Acacia/Barrick agreed to pay what is being demanded of them, or that they have admitted responsibility for wrongdoing, neither of which is reflected in the actual agreement reached.
From top left: Habari Leo, “Barrick agrees to end the matter”. Imani, “Listen young man, there is no weakness here”. Majira, “Acacia bows down to the government”. Uhuru, “Acacia heeds the order”. Nipashe, “Acacia to pay”. Mwananchi, “JPM: They repented”.
Two other Swahili papers took a different line, focusing instead on an issue mentioned in the second part of President Magufuli’s post-meeting remarks, in which he condemned the media's attacks on former Presidents Benjamin Mkapa and Jakaya Kikwete accusing them of alleged lax oversight of the mining sector.
“Nimesoma ripoti zote mbili hakuna mahali ambapo Mzee Mkapa na Mzee Kikwete wametajwa, vyombo vya habari viache kuwachafua hawa wazee, wamefanya kazi kubwa ya kulitumikia Taifa letu, viwaache wapumzike,” amesema Mhe. Rais Magufuli.
“I have read both reports and there nowhere is it mentioned that Mr. Mkapa and Mr. Kikwete are implicated. Media outlets should stop tarnishing the names of these men, who did a great job of serving their country, they should be allowed to rest in their retirement,” President Magufuli said.
From Left: Mawio, “Invalid”. Tanzania Daima, “Not Allowed to touch Mkapa, Kikwete”.
The weekly tabloid Mawio, which did not heed Magufuli's call, was subsequently suspended for two years by the government for linking the two former presidents to the scandal.
Three English-language papers took a more measured tone, but it's still hard to agree with the sentiment expressed in The Guardian and Daily News headlines. Was the “Battle won”? Were Acacia “hiding”? The Citizen’s headline came closest to expressing the reality of what happened, as did their coverage in general, notably a balanced and sensible editorial, which stated that:
Now that the ground has been set for negotiations, our prayer is that both the parties will engage in earnest talks based on good intentions for mutual benefit. […]
[I]t is in the interest of both parties to find a middle ground and secure a win-win situation, for we wouldn’t like to see this standoff degenerate into a fully-blown crisis with devastating consequences.
The situation was also misread by several cartoonists. Nipashe and Mtanzania were off the mark, Mwananchi managed to sidestep the main point, and Daily News used aggressive imagery. The Citizen’s cartoonist did better, but Gado, who did not publish his cartoon in any of the papers, went in a completely different direction from everyone else.
Nipashe, 15/6/17: “Let’s end this”.
Mwananchi, 15/6/17: “You can use it as a trench in wartime”.
Mtanzania, 15/6/17: “He has agreed to pay”.
Gado, 15/6/17: “You want to run and you have no brake – what do you expect to happen?”.
Daily News 15/6/17.
The Citizen, 15/6/17: “We want our money back”.
The varying interpretations of the outcome of the meeting between Magufuli and Thornton by the Tanzanian media raises the question of whether these journalists and editors are aware they were potentially misleading the public; and if they did know, why were they doing so? Could it have anything to do with the law that allows the government to suspend Mawio so easily? Could they be worried that what happened to Mawio could happen to others as well?

author: Ben Taylor


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Transgender Woman Speaks on Chechnya’s Persecutions and Life Pre-Kadyrov · Global Voices
OC Media

Map of Chechnya, surrounding federations and countries. Author: Peter Fitzgerald. Creative commons.
The following is a version of a partner post written by Aida Mirmaksumova that first appeared on the website OC Media.
Queer people in the Caucasus face a number of challenges; discrimination, physical and sexual abuse, and blackmail. In recent times, activists have observed in horror evidence of the persecution of gay men in Chechnya. But the threat to the LGBTQ community in the country did not emerge overnight. OC Media spoke to a transgender woman from Grozny, who shared some of her experiences and talked with us about what is happening in the republic.
Queer rights in Chechnya were thrust into the global spotlight several months ago, after reports emerged of the abduction, torture, and murder of queer men in the republic. The story was broken by Novaya Gazeta journalist Elena Milashina, who revealed how the Chechen authorities were rounding up suspected queer men, and sending them to the secret prisons of Argun.
Sabrina (not her real name) a transgender woman, was born and raised in Grozny. She has felt that she was a woman since childhood. Once she reached adulthood, she realised that it wasn’t safe for her in Chechnya and moved to Moscow. After a group of Chechens learned of their compatriot's sex change, a hunt began for Sabrina. In the end, in fear for her life, Sabrina moved to the US.
I worked as a volunteer at a human rights organisation. Once I was told that that someone needed my help. It was an acquaintance from Daghestan, a transgender woman. She had problems; she was in danger. I immediately took her in, because she didn’t have any money. While I was trying to help her, someone I considered a friend made copies of my documents and posted them all over the internet along with my phone number and photo, sending them to his Chechen affiliates with a following note: ‘So there are no men left in Chechnya that can remove this shame?’ After that, photos of my documents were widely spread across WhatsApp.
On October 10, 2015 I was attacked. I was taking shopping bags from the backseat of my car. I heard a man’s voice: ‘This is a gift to you from your uncle’.
When I looked around I felt something in my body, but there was no pain. Then I heard another sentence, but in Chechen: ‘How long are you going to disgrace the family, scum?’ I didn’t know this person. I remember that it was a young man, under 30. Then I lost consciousness. I woke up in the hospital. Apparently some women saw everything and began yelling. The man ran away. The women called an ambulance. I learned at the hospital that I had two stab wounds in my right lung.
: I have old documents with my male name, but the doctor understood everything and put me in the women’s room. I am very thankful to him for this. When I first saw his name on the door, I was crazily afraid — a Muslim name, Caucasian. But he turned out to be a decent man. I am grateful for his attitude towards me.
I spent more than a month in hospital. Last February I received threats. They called me, relatives wrote to me, strangers, some unknown people. A nightmare began. Neighbours and some distant relatives were coming to my family. They were demanding that I move back to Chechnya to prove that this [the sex change] was all a lie. There were crazy demands. Some people said that I had to prove it by walking through the streets topless. Some people said that I had to speak on the official Grozny TV and say that I hadn’t changed my sex, that it was all slander and photoshop. How could I speak on TV with C-cup breasts?
: They still cope with it. Some elderly people from the street approached my mum once. They told her: ‘You gave birth to a freak who disgraced not only your family, but the entire republic. We cannot touch you, because you are a pious woman, but you must leave’. Mum couldn’t take any more and put a noose around her neck. Luckily, neighbours came and saved her.
During that time I had to switch flats several times a day. I would move into one flat and in a few hours a car would park under the flat's windows with the number 95 numberplate, [from Chechnya], and tinted windows. After the third time I understood that something was wrong. My friends, human rights activists, checked the number plates; it turned out that they were looking for me.
: Activists helped me. I don't want to say their names, for safety reasons, but I want to say that I remember everyone, they really helped me.
With their help I left the country, but something unbelievable happened. I still cannot understand how it was possible.
Right before my departure from Moscow, I purchased a new sim card in order to call my mother once I arrived. I bought it without registration, without documents, without anything. I broke my previous sim card and put it in the bin. I arrived and checked into my hotel. The number was registered to a stranger.
I put the sim card in my phone. I tried to call my mother through WhatsApp and at the same moment I received a message: ‘Do you think you are safe because you left the country? We have our people there who have already been notified which hotel you are in, and even about your room number. To assure you that we know, your room number is 115’. Can you imagine?! This was indeed my room number.
: Only with my mother and sisters. However we don’t discuss the sex change — this is a taboo. Traditional Caucasian moments are still inside me. No matter how strongly I want to, I cannot ignore this psychological barrier. I always say that while my mum is alive, I will do my best to do everything not to upset her. If we have a video chat, I do try to look like the person she remembers I was in the past, I mean in the male form. However it is very hard to do.
: I introduced a report in Washington last week. I needed fresh information about the situation in Chechnya for the report. I spoke with someone who spent a month and a half in Argun Prison. He said that now, during the month of Ramadan, they are not abducting and torturing people, but that everyone looks forward for the end of Ramadan, and he didn’t rule out that there will be a new wave [of persecutions]. Most likely, they will now bet on people’s relatives. I mean, they will probably summon their relatives [those of suspected queer people]; they will deal with the person, and then [the authorities] will demand proof that so-called ‘honor’ has been satisfied with blood.
: According to an acquaintance of mine, there are not so many now. Mainly those who do not have rich relatives, or whose relatives have abandoned them to face Kadyrov’s trials. From what I understand they are being kept there in order to show them off later as terrorists. I mean, if they murder them, they will show their bodies on TV alleging that they attacked some village or military target. Do you understand? As if they were not just people who disappeared but went underground to become militants.
: I am quoting a person, who spent a month and half at Agrun Prison. He says that several people who were kept in this prison disappeared after their beards had grown. There has been no news of them. They just took them. And this so-called Lord [Magomed Daudov, the Speaker of the Chechen Parliament, and close ally of Ramzan Kadyrov], this person, personally saw them at the moment they took these people. However, until now they have not been presented as bandits, there were no reports of this, but we suspect that such actions are possible. Otherwise why did they not allow these people to shave?
: I always wore long hair. I had a bob cut when I lived in Chechnya. I think the whole of Grozny knew about me even before 2003 [when the Kadyrov regime came into being], when I lived in Grozny and I didn’t have any problems. Seriously! I never had problems even in 1998–1999, when Shariah Law was in force. On the contrary, it was much safer then than now. I mean Russia, which wanted to bring ‘civilisation’ to us, brought us a stone age in the end.
: My eyebrows were plucked, I had coloured eyelashes, tube-jeans, I wore short tops. The Ministry of Sharia Security never touched me. There was a spot in front of the Russian theatre in Grozny where every evening, especially on weekends, a whole bunch of people like me gathered. This was a small square with several benches, and the entire city knew about it, why men would come, young people, to meet up. We were never insulted. There is such an expression in Chechen language — Kharda ma Kharda — which means ‘do not laugh at someone else's misfortune’. They often tell this to children if they make fun of sick people.
: Yes. They would never insult me, never chase me or beat me.
: Before [Ramzan] Kadyrov came in. In 2005, when he was appointed Prime Minister [of Chechnya], he began to speak on television, talking about morality. He didn’t speak specifically about us, but mainly about the behaviour of women. However, you could feel in the city that people began to change. Those who used to smile and laugh, began looking at you questioningly. I left Chechnya in those years. But every time I went back home I would feel how the situation was worsening in the republic.
: I earn money as a waitress. I am not paid much — $700–800 a month — which is not much in the US. Apart from that I continue being an activist. Now I am responsible for 15 Muslim women. I communicate with them as kind of a psychologist. We organise tea drinking meetings, rallies, I go to the hospital with them, I help them to get food cards. I do all this absolutely free. I found these people myself. I was going through shelters. I am Muslim and I want to help those who need help.
: Yes.
: This is silly. This is nature — religion has nothing to do with it. It’s the same thing as Chechens foaming at the mouth to prove that they do not have any gays. Daghestanis have them, Kabardians have them, and Russians have them too, the entire planet has them, but ‘Chechens — they don’t’. I came from there, it is unpleasant for me to hear this.
I meet so many men from the Caucasus here. Many of them — Muslim worshipers, who visit the mosque and fast during Ramadan — live with men.
You know, many people mix transgenderism with men who like men, and they think that people change sex so that they have more intimate opportunities, but this is wrong. This is a different thing, different psychology in fact, different attitudes to things. For me it is important that now I feel in my own shoes and I am not ashamed of my body. It is not important if you have a partner or not. I am sorry for the details, but it’s been more than a year since I had intimate relations with anyone. And I'm absolutely not upset about this — I just know that now I am myself.

author: OC Media


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Kazakhs Ridicule ‘Self-Made Man’ Puff Portrait of Presidential Grandson · Global Voices
Akhal-Tech Collective

Screenshot of article ‘Nurali Aliyev – Transforming Kazakhstan’s Economy, One Venture at a Time’ on Patch.com.
Facebook users in Kazakhstan are mocking an apparent PR piece that first appeared on the website Patch.com.The piece focusses on the achievements of “self-made man” Nurali Aliyev, the 32-year-old grandson of long-reigning Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
The article, authored by a Patch.com poster “John Wilson”, is so embarrassingly misleading that it almost reads like a parody of political puff. At no point during the piece is Aliyev's status as a blood relative of the endemically corrupt, oil-rich Central Asian country's 76-year-old leader even mentioned.
The article introduces Aliyev as “one of the most celebrated names in the Kazakhstan when it comes to the field of economic transition.”
Absurdly, the author of the article then makes a point of highlighting in bold the expression ‘self-made men’, despite the fact that anyone who knows anything about Aliyev knows that he is anything but self-made.
Nurali Aliyev is one of the most celebrated names in the Kazakhstan when it comes to the field of economic transition and entrepreneurial grit. A Kazakh by birth, Aliyev has been instrumental in the success stories of several Kazakh IT startups and has amply contributed to the economy by spearheading several institutions and organizations in the country.
But, this man’s story has had humble beginnings. As with most self made men, Nurali Aliyev started his education in professedly ordinary universities and schools. Pursuing an education in Finance and Marketing, Aliyev quickly realized his career path and started working towards his goal of gaining enough knowledge and experience to help his own country’s dwindling economy.
Several quotes attributed to Aliyev are included in the piece, although it is not clear whether or not they are the result of an interview he gave to the author. At one moment in the article, the author refers to Aliyev as “the quintessential scholar”.
After providing a glowing assessment of his achievements as a magnate in the Kazakh sugar industry and as deputy mayor of the Kazakh capital Astana, the author signs off with a final foray into facepalm territory:
The economic policies of Nurali Aliyev have brought international recognition and while the man toils towards the welfare of Kazakhstan, his policies are something that every prominent person can emulate.
To eliminate any doubt, Aliyev's “beginnings” were anything but humble. Even at the time he was born Nazarbayev was one of the most important politicians in the then-Soviet republic. By independence in 1991 he was the country's undisputed leader, a status he has maintained up until the present day, against the background of an ever-expanding personality cult.
If Aliyev has any international recognition, it is most likely as a character figuring in the ‘Panama Papers’ leak, a giant data dump consisting of records belonging to the Mossack Fonseca offshore companies’ registrar.
According to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project that covered the leak extensively:
The documents show that Nurali Aliyev, the president’s grandson and [presidential daughter] Dariga Nazarbayeva’s son, had no second thoughts or conscience when deciding where to keep his money or register his luxury possessions.
Aliyev owned two companies registered in the British Virgin Islands, one of the world’s least transparent offshore destinations, and used the offshores for operating a bank account and a luxury yacht.
A search of other articles penned by ‘John Wilson’ for Patch.com throws up similarly puffy efforts, including one titled ‘Anar Mammadov, Golf and Grand Prix – How Azerbaijan is Molding its Economic Landscape through Sports’.
Oil-rich regimes seeking self-promotion through paid-for-content in Western outlets (although there is nothing in the patch.com article that specifically indicates it was paid-for-content) is nothing new. Websites like Patch and Huffington Post, where editorial oversight is limited and where regular authors are effectively self-publishing, represent soft targets for such efforts.
The piece might not have triggered a public reaction at all had it not been so effusive in its praise for Aliyev, and so thoroughly ironic.
The article was subsequently translated into Russian by a local Kazakh website, without any additional commentary.
“It seems like this article was written by a freelancer from North Korea,” joked Facebook user Gleb Ponomarev in a comment underneath a public thread linking to the translated article, posted by journalist Gulnara Bazhkenova.
“We should give him what he deserves and name Almaty airport in his honour!” chimed Nazgul Zhumabayeva, indirectly referencing a recent decision to rename the airport in the capital in honour of Aliyev's grandfather, Nazarbayev.
“Whatever he deserves, he has already taken,” retorted Kairat Mukhtarov.
Several users posted puking memes under the same thread in response to the article's overboard praise of Aliyev.
Facebook remains a key medium through which local opposition to the authoritarian Nazarbayev regime can be expressed, albeit mostly only in humorous terms.
Media in the country remains tightly controlled, with anti-defamation legislation, official censorship and pervasive self-censorship combining to effectively prevent local journalists from investigating the ruling family and its business interests.

author: Akhal-Tech Collective


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False Rumors of a Collapsed Tunnel in Madagascar Raise Questions about Cybercrime and Punishment · Global Voices
Karolle Rabarison

View of Tunnel d'Ambanidia in Antananarivo shared on Facebook by Caleb Landry. Used with his permission.
Police in Madagascar's capital has arrested a man suspected of sharing “fake news” about a collapsed tunnel through Facebook.
One afternoon in May, alarm spread through Antananarivo in response to a social media post reporting casualties in the collapse of the Tunnel d’Ambanidia. The false report went viral on social media and through word of mouth as people phoned family and radio stations in a panic.
Emergency vehicles, journalists, and city residents rushed to the scene, only to find the tunnel still standing. Facebook user Rovaniaina Hasivelo Randrianarijaona posted a live video as he walked through the tunnel and showed traffic continuing to pass with no trouble. “Tiako be ilay intox (I really enjoyed the hoax),” he wrote.
Jeannot Ramambazafy, journalist and editor-in-chief of Madagate.org, was not amused and expressed concerns about how the government will handle the investigation:
Une question mérite, à présent, d’avoir une réponse rapide et sérieuse: QUI sont le ou les auteurs de cette désinformation? Car cela fait partie de la cybercriminalité … Son point de départ a été facebook. Est-ce que le service de la police malgache dans ce domaine, est capable se retrouver l’origine ou bien faudra-t-il encore l’expertise de “vazaha”?
One question now deserves to be answered quickly and seriously: WHO are the perpetrators of this misinformation? This is cybercrime … Its starting point was Facebook. Is the [cybercrime] service of the Malagasy police capable of finding [the rumor’s] source or will it still need foreign expertise?
Police traced the “fake news” post to an IP address and made an arrest within two days. The suspect’s punishment, if any, is yet to be determined.
Ramambazafy also recalled the case of Hiary Rapanoelina, a Facebook user in Antananarivo who in February was sentenced to one year in prison for his association with a Facebook group dedicated to gossip about public figures. At the height of its popularity, the now defunct group had more than 70,000 members.
Authorities had received complaints from artists and an elected official about content shared in the group and quickly identified Rapanoelina as the group creator and one of the administrators. They arrested him the next day. Rapanoelina was convicted on counts of defamation and in violation of the controversial Article 20 of Law No. 2014-006 to fight cybercrimes, which criminalizes any “insult or defamation” against public officials through electronic media.
It remains unclear whether and how the suspect in the Tunnel d’Ambanidia case will be charged. Harinjaka Ratozamana, a key influencer in Madagascar’s internet and startup scenes, said in an interview with RFI that this was the first time a rumor has spread to such an extent.
Koolsaina, a Malagasy current events blog, summarized the lessons learned from the incident:
D’un, nul n'est anonyme derrière son écran! Et de deux, ne prenez pas pour argent comptant tout ce qui se dit sur internet!
For one, no one is anonymous behind their screen! And two, don’t take everything that is said on the internet at face value!
Koolsaina reader Lydia Ravonihanitra commented on the article:
Mila faizina kely izy mba ho anatra ho an'ny [rehetra] fa tsy fanagadrana kosa angamba ny saziny, fa lamandy ohatra dia mba ampy. Tsy namono olona izy…fa ny dondrona kelin'ny Facebook mora [adalaina].
They need to be punished a bit as an example to [everyone], but maybe the punishment shouldn’t be jail time; a fine for example would be enough. They didn’t kill anyone…it’s stupid Facebook being easily fooled.
Elsewhere online, reactions weren't concerned with the possibility or severity of punishment, but with the fact that an arrest was made in the first place.
Zo Andriamifidisoa (Global Voices Malagasy Translation Manager) wrote on Facebook:
Manahy mafy aho fa kinendry hamerana ny media sosialy iny tsaho iny!
I am very worried that the rumor was a targeted way to restrict social media
Suspicions about potential censorship underscore the distrust and frustration that some Malagasy feel towards the government. It also echoes broader anxiety about free speech online in the context of a “fake news” crisis that has gone global—from Madagascar and India, to Bahrain and the United States.
Misinformation can have real-life consequences, especially when it is shared widely online. But not all misinformation is equal—the intentions of the speaker, the context in which the post was shared, and the actual consequences that false information carries must be considered carefully.
Experts consulted by Pew Research Center about the future of online interactions warn that moderation comes at a cost, highlighting the delicate balance between countering online violence, hate speech, and “fake news” and safeguarding free expression and access to information.
This Ambanidia incident happens amid a growing trend of governments censoring social media or switching off the internet, in what they often justify as an effort to minimize misinformation. In Africa in particular, censorship and shutdowns are becoming increasingly common around election seasons, with Gabon and Gambia being recent examples. While these shutdowns may help curb false news, they also prevent citizens from communicating with one another, to say nothing of obtaining news and information about candidates. Shutdowns have also been known to stymie opposition candidate efforts to rally support in the final days or hours before a vote.
This trend is on the minds of Malagasy citizens, with presidential and parliamentary elections coming up in 2018. As the process unfolds, human rights defenders will keep a close watch on how the sitting government navigates challenges around misinformation, freedom of speech, and online privacy. Will the government take additional steps to prevent or punish viral “fake news”? Time will tell if Madagascar joins the trend of using internet shutdowns to control access to information during elections.

author: Karolle Rabarison


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Romania Seeks to Draw Lines Around Notions of Family · Global Voices
Guest Contributor

A Romanian Family in Traditional Costume. Photo by Adina Voicu (Public Domain via Good Free Photos)
By Ana-Maria Dima
A few weeks ago I spoke to a school principal from one of the poorest counties in southern Romania, about the situation of the children enrolled in her school and the other schools in the area. My intention was to gather information about the children’s overall level of well-being, an important question in a country where 46.8% of children are believed to be at risk of poverty and social exclusion.
In fact, the question was aimed at something more nuanced. I wanted to get a sense of the extent to which school staff are aware of what’s happening to children in their homes and the situation in which families whose children went to school find themselves in. As this was a rural school, it came as no surprise to hear about households affected by poverty, and sometimes alcoholism and domestic violence. But a more recent addition to the list is that of children left in the care of other family members due to parents working abroad—children who end up suffering from both material and emotional deprivation as they learn to cope with the long-distance, disembodied affection from one, or in some cases both, parents.
The school principal started crying towards the end of our conversation. She was concerned that children in her school and others in the district were bearing emotional loads much too heavy for children their age, and that they were not being listened to and offered proper emotional support. School psychologists in Romania do not have the capacity to provide one-on-one counselling. They offer group support when it’s needed, and there is only one school counsellor for every 1000 pupils regardless of school level. Perhaps the principal’s own background as a counsellor got the better of her.
Since 2008, Romania’s National Authority for Child Rights Protection and Adoption has been monitoring the situation of children whose parents have left to work abroad. According to the figures released every six months, nearly 100,000 children nationwide have parents working abroad, though the numbers are thought to be largely underreported. Parents are supposed to inform local authorities when they leave the country so that local authorities can monitor the well-being of their children in whichever care situation they end up, whether this is with other family members, foster families, or institutions. But the practice is still not widely implemented nationally, and becomes even more complicated in the case of groups such as the Roma, either because parents may themselves not have adequate documentation, have limited literacy or are unaware of or unwilling to fulfil their legal obligations. There are also cases where parents do not report leaving the country so as not to risk losing state aid.
Romania is second only to Syria in terms of the growth of its diaspora between 2000 and 2015. This scale of population shift is unparalleled in the country’s history, and the exodus of Romanians has been a topic of great alarm and concern for both our society and state authorities these last several years. In addition to the children left behind by parents working abroad, often in situations of poverty and material deprivation the state finds it difficult to make up for, another area of concern has been the flight of qualified medical personnel. A country that is being depopulated at such a rapid pace requires an emotional rewiring of sorts, an experiment where new notions of transnational family life take shape as the familiar social fabric becomes thinner and more fragile.
As Ulrich Beck has noted, however, in the classic Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity, “the family is only the setting, not the cause of the events.” The emotional landscape that many Romanian families are now navigating is difficult, to say the least. Parents may encourage their newly graduated children to seek better-paid jobs and lives in the western Europe while quietly deploring the state of affairs pushing them towards emigration. Then there are those who emigrate because they have few other choices for making ends meet, particularly if they live in remote rural areas. These are the places where families are struggling the most, not only to address material challenges, but also to maintain some sort of connection with family members beyond long distance calls, Facebook postings, WhatsApp messages and emails.
There are of course entrenched cultural beliefs around how families should function, and one of them is that families should remain physically together. This is a remnant, perhaps, of older days under Communism when Romanian migrant labourers working abroad would more often than not be denied the possibility of having their families join them abroad, as the state feared high levels of emigration. But the change is now of a different magnitude. There are entire villages now populated only by elderly people, and which appear deserted, a demographic shift that feels justifiably threatening, given the unprecedented scale of transformation. The question “What is happening to us?” cannot too easily be dismissed.
And there are other tensions lurking beneath the surface. While the country is showing signs of progress, with many pointing to Romania’s economic growth in recent times, there is also the underlying sense that the country’s social and cultural fabric is being dismantled in ways that cannot be easily measured or discerned. This shift could also be one of the impulses behind the upcoming Family Referendum. The date has yet to be finalized, but it seeks to define marriage between a man and a woman as the basis for constituting a family. As economic pressures drive Romanians to emigrate, however, the struggle to redraw the treasured—albeit at times idealized—emotional space occupied by notions of family is likely to continue for quite some time.
Ana Maria Dima is a Romanian working in the field of international development. Follow her on Twitter at @AnaMariaDima.

author: Guest Contributor


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An Angolan Governor Loses His Job After Criticizing His Own Political Party in an Interview · Global Voices
Dércio Tsandzana

Ex-governor Isaac dos Anjos, dismissed in June. Photo: Screenshot/YouTube
The governor of Benguela province in Angola, Isaac Maria dos Anjos, was dismissed after giving a controversial interview to the US government-funded media outlet Voice of America (VOA), which was broadcast live on Facebook.
Anjos was invited to the program Angola Fala Só (Angola Talks Alone), recorded in Benguela on June 1, in which he responded to the questions of those in the room and those watching the broadcast live via Facebook.
Tudo a postos #AngolaFalaSó #Benguela hoje às 14h com Governador Isaac dos Anjos no Hotel Mombaka
Às 15h há 2º painel com sociedade civil pic.twitter.com/GpMfVMXWmx
— VOAPortuguês (@VOAPortugues) 1 juin 2017
Everything in place. Today at 14h with Governor Isaac dos Anjos at Hotel Mombaka. At 15h there is the second panel with civil society
During the interview, dos Anjos criticized his own party, the MPLA (Popular Movement for Angola Liberation), which has ruled Angola since it became independent from Portugal in 1975. He said:
(…) Nós temos ainda no nosso léxico político os partidos da independência. Eles (partidos políticos) são muitos pesados. (…) Nós queremos que no futuro tenhamos pessoas que dirijam o país no respeito pelas normas gerais e o cidadão possa andar a vontade, para ter uma coisa não deve estar conotado com alguma bandeira (partidária)…depois que eu falei aqui com esses micros todos, nem sei se o meu emprego não está em risco.
[…] We still have the parties from independence on our political scene. They are very influential. […] In the future we want to have people who run the country respecting general norms and for the citizen to be able to walk freely, to have something should not be linked to some [political party] banner… after having spoken here with all those microphones, I don’t even know if my job isn’t at risk.
The video of the interview with the above excerpt was shared on YouTube:
On June 8, a government decree dismissed dos Anjos and nominated in his place Rui Falcão Pinto de Andrade, who was governor of the province of Namibe, naming for that position someone else within the party.
The MPLA justified the decision to dismiss dos Anjos as part of the party’s reorganization ahead of the next general election, to be held in August this year. This will be the first election since 1979 without President José Eduardo dos Santos in command of the MPLA.
But internet users pointed to the fact that Dos Anjos was already strongly disliked by MPLA leadership for his positions critical of the party, making the VOA interview just another drop in the ocean.
In May, for example, Angolan media revealed “misunderstandings” between the governor of Benguela and some sections of the MPLA, with, at the time, sources in the ruling party having revealed the creation of a management commission to replace Isaac dos Anjos.
In April, Isaac dos Anjos gave another interview to DW África Portuguese, part of Germany's international public broadcaster, in which he criticized his own party:
(…) Não vale a pena escamotear mais e nos guerreamos com os argumentos do passado. Sofremos uma grande pressão internacional e nacional para mudarmos. Foi uma guerra longa e essa guerra também foi uma guerra civil. E, por ter sido civil, fica difícil [dizer] quem participou no bem, quem participou no mal. Levámos muito tempo a negociar a paz. Foram anos sucessivos, mas conseguimos agora ter 15 anos de paz.
Temos que prestar contas ao povo. Não podemos chegar aqui e só falar das vitórias. Temos que falar também dos nossos fracassos – não pode ser a nossa oposição a ter o começo. Eu próprio tenho que dar a cara. Mas não vou fazê-lo sozinho, os directores que estiveram a ganhar salários comigo têm que vir.
[…] It is no longer worth playing games and fighting ourselves with the arguments of the past. We are under a great international and national pressure to change. It was a long war and this war was also a civil war. And, having been civil, it remains difficult [to say] who participated for good, who participated for bad. We took a long time to negotiate peace. It lasted for years, but we have now managed to have 15 years of peace.
We have to be accountable to the people. We cannot come here and only talk of the victories. We have to talk also of our failures – it cannot be our opposition which has to begin that. I myself have to take responsibility. But I will not do it alone, the leaders which were earning wages with me have to join in.
On social media, this topic caused a lot of debate. Clitorclilson Bombestergue Pacoy Cosme, a university student in Luanda, explained that the dissenting viewpoints of the dismissed politician are not new:
In 2015 Isaac Maria Dos Anjos called the government of the MPLA incompetent for importing even toothpick holders. In May 2016 in a speech for OMUNGA [national NGO that defends children's rights] Isaac Dos Anjos warned the youth to no longer put their faith in the MPLA, indirectly advising the youth to support the CASA-CE [coalition of opposition parties].
Kikas Pedro Moises is Angolan and lives in the same province where the governor was dismissed:
The Benguele people are saddened by the attitude of the president of the Republic of Angola towards the dismissal of the Governor of Benguela Isáac Maria dos Anjos, as he was the best governor ever because he knows how to separate matters of work and politics!
António Pinto Uassamba questioned the real intentions behind dismissing a governor with upcoming elections:
A pergunta que não quer se calar é: O que esteve na base da exoneração de Isaac dos Anjos, uma vez que em termos de timing, o acto pode ser perigoso para o partido da situação que vai às eleições em Agosto próximo?
The question that should not be ignored is: What was the basis of the dismissal of Isaac dos Anjos, given that, in terms of timing, this move could be dangerous for the party in power which is going into the elections this August?

author: Dércio Tsandzana


text:
Iran’s Revolution In Waiting · Global Voices
Rahim Hamid

Two Ahwazi Arab boys in Ahwaz, in southwestern Iran. Non-Persian ethnic groups make up 50% of Iran's population. Photo by Ahwaz (via Wikimedia Commons)
A comparison of recent events in the Middle East with popular revolutions that occurred in Eastern Europe in 1989-1990 reveals a variety of illuminating parallels. The fall of oppressive regimes in Poland, East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania were all resolved within two years of each country’s respective uprising, and in most cases the primary focus of revolution was to overthrow oppressive ruling systems and replace them with something more unifying. The Tunisian, Egyptian, and Libyan revolutions had similar aims, and also overthrew their respective regimes within months.
The other side of the coin was Yugoslavia, which—like in Yemen and Syria and Iraq—devolved into war, with large-scale loss of life, the devastation of country infrastructure and a humanitarian crisis that reverberated globally.
At the time, Yugoslavia had the lowest levels of national unity among Eastern European countries, and the uprising sought not only to dismantle the ruling system, but also to eliminate it. Unlike Yemen, Syria and Iraq, however, the former Yugoslavia had a political system which officially recognized multiple national identities and granted them political autonomy in different parts of the country.
Some groups claim there was a western conspiracy to break up Yugoslavia and others blame the mismanagement of political elite. Regardless of the cause of the crisis, Yugoslav leaders had a historic opportunity to use the fact of the country’s stability over 70 years to strengthen unity between the various ethnic groups. Instead, the ruling Serbs sought to intensify Serbian industrial and economic superiority in order to monopolize political and military power. Serbian intellectuals and politicians avidly promoted Serbian superiority, fueling national chauvinism and hatred towards Bosnian Muslims, Albanians, and Croats. Demands from dissenting groups were met with bloody crackdowns. Even the large portion of the Serbian political elite that opposed the ruling Socialist Party stood with the regime at this time. The result was a civil war.
Iran, much like Yugoslavia, is a large country composed of many disparate nations. When the Islamic revolution took place in Iran in February 1979, there was only one minority group in conflict with the Islamic Republic and opposed to the revolution—the Kurdish minority. Today, according to the reformist neo-liberal Iranian academic Sadegh Zibakalam, there are several others, including Turkish Azerbaijanis, Sunni Muslims, Baluchis and Ahwazi Arabs. Zibakalam has advocated for the Islamic Republic to hold firm, as “if this regime is toppled, it is not obvious that a country of Iran as we know it will remain. Wrong methods we adopted led to all of [these people] getting away from us.”
The current situation in Iran strongly resembles non-Serbian ethnic groups’ struggle for representation in Serbian-ruled Yugoslavia. While the Iranian Constitution officially guarantees freedom of cultural expression and linguistic diversity, ethnic diversity is one of the topics the regime has found it most problematic to address, despite the fact that ethnic minorities make up 50% of the Iranian population.
The Persian elite and intelligentsia have also adopted oppressive social practices that seek to undermine the autonomy, representation, and humanity of ethnic minorities, possibly out of fear that acknowledging the rights of ethnic minorities challenges Persian dominance and could possibly lead to the collapse of the regime.
The Iranian myth of a unified Persian identity results directly from over 100 years of ultra-nationalist supremacist ideology that has staunchly resisted any sort of critical analysis. In Iran, Persians are indoctrinated from birth to believe they are racially superior, an idea supported not only by their communities and families, but also all types of media. The majority of Persians are unfamiliar with, and even hostile towards, problems faced by minorities in Iran, and Persian-speaking intellectuals have failed to promote a culture of tolerance and respect. Minorities are unrepresented in important sectors such as media and education, and in the media they are portrayed as less intelligent, more violent, and therefore less worthy of enjoying equal rights to Persians.
It is not uncommon when addressing Ahwazi Arabs, for instance—my own ethnic group—for Persians to express racist sentiments such as “You are not real Arabs! You are Arabized due to proximity with Arab countries, but you are really only Arab speakers.” Or “If you wish to express your Arabism or defend what you dub an ‘Arab identity’, get out of here. Go to Saudi Arabia!” Such sentiments deny the whole existence and history of Ahwazi Arabs in their homeland of Iran. Anti-Arabism ingrained in workplace attitudes, printed in newspapers, promoted on the television, spoken about unabashedly by regime officials, and touted by intellectuals, and a key factor in maintaining the facade of Iran/Persian nationalism. Ahwazi Arabs activists are commonly accused of secession and being threats to national security, a charge that usually carries the death penalty or a very harsh prison sentence.
At present, senior officials in the ruling regime even oppose the idea of ethnic minorities being allowed to receive educational instruction in their mother tongue, the argument being that that teaching classes in a language other than Persian would undermine the unity of the Iranian nation. This in spite of the fact that Article 15 of the 1979 Iranian Constitution allows for education and a variety of media to be offered in languages other than Persian.
Iran’s main opposition has also failed to address the critical issue of ethnic minority rights. In the uprising that took place in Tehran against the regime in 2009, for instance, the ethnic opposition did not participate, as they viewed the movement as a mere derivative of the regime itself.
Iran’s ethnic minorities began openly demanding their national rights when the central government was destabilized in 1979, and have continued to do so over the years. Such events, however, are met with violent crackdowns by Iranian security services and the Revolutionary Guard. This only encourages new radicalism, a rising wave of discontent and opposition that is spreading throughout the country with increasing ferocity. As there is nothing in Iran’s history to support the idea that a unified Iran that includes all its ethnic minority nations is even possible, Iran’s minority groups feel they have no option but to resort to violent resistance in order to preserve their heritage, culture, and survival under the country’s profoundly racist leadership. This will probably be the leading factor to push forward a revolution in the country.
From the time a potential uprising begins in Iran until the establishment of a fairer system, stakeholders invested in the future of Iran can limit potentially disastrous consequences by learning from the history of countries such as Yugoslavia. In 1979, most Iranians came together in agreement that a monarchy was not a system of governance they wished to continue. It is essential, therefore, that the Iranian opposition begin to represent ethnic minorities’ demands and support them in attaining national rights and the right to self-determination, or the country may very well face a militarily advanced situation similar to the one Yugoslavia experienced.
It is now time for the people of Iran to decide what type of non-centralized ruling structure can more effectively replace the current regime in order to meet the needs of all people—not just the Persian majority.
Rahim Ahwaz is an Iranian human rights activist focusing on ethnic minority rights.

author: Rahim Hamid


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Is the End Near for Telegram in Russia? · Global Voices
Isaac Webb

Image by Kevin Rothrock.
On June 26, Russia's Federal Security Service announced that the April 3 terrorist attack on the St. Petersburg metro, which left 16 people dead, was coordinated using the messaging app Telegram.
In a press release, the Security Service (FSB) said it had “reliable information about the use of Telegram by the suicide terrorist, his accomplices, and his foreign handler to conceal their criminal intentions at all stages of organizing and preparing the terrorist attack.” The statement echoed similar sentiments from the US and European governments who have pushed for greater control over social media and messaging apps, arguing that they enable perpetrators to communicate and coordinate attacks.
The announcement comes amid a broader effort by the Russian government to force the messaging app company to store users’ chat histories and private encryption keys on Russian soil.
Recent statements from Aleksandr Zharov, the head of Roskomnadzor, the Russian state censor, have signaled that Telegram's days in Russia may be numbered. On June 23, Zharov accused Russian-born Telegram founder Pavel Durov, who is also the founder of VKontakte, Russia's most popular social network, of being “neutral with respect to terrorism and crime.”
In the same statement, Zharov said that Telegram had not responded to Roskomnadzor's request for information necessary to include the app on Russia's “Registry of Information Disseminators.” The registry was introduced as part of a federal law that requires websites to locally store all Russian users’ metadata (data about the time, place and people involved in communication, but not the content of their messages) and make it accessible to the Russian authorities. Social networks VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, the email client Mail.ru, and dozens more services are on the list.
Last month, the lower house of parliament introduced a bill that would ban anonymity on online messengers and force apps like Telegram to register with the Registry of Information Disseminators, though it has not yet entered into law.
Image of someone trying to extract passwords with a Telegram logo.
Telegram has become increasingly popular in Russia and elsewhere, due in part to its safety features, though it cannot guarantee absolute privacy. The American- and British-registered company operates in Berlin and asserts that it has “disclosed 0 bytes of user data to third parties, including governments.” They say that their unique legal and technical structure makes it uniquely difficult for governments to successfully obtain user data:
…we can ensure that no single government or block of like-minded countries can intrude on people's privacy and freedom of expression. Telegram can be forced to give up data only if an issue is grave and universal enough to pass the scrutiny of several different legal systems around the world.
On June 25, Zharov again put Telegram on notice: “I can’t say that we’re ready and will block Telegram tomorrow, but I’ll repeat that time is limited—it’s being counted in days.”
Telegram founder Pavel Durov responded on VKontakte early this morning, arguing that not only does Roskomnadzor's demand violate the Russian constitution, but that the decentralized nature of their technical infrastructure makes it impossible for Telegram to hand over its “decryption keys,” which authorities would need in order to access the content of messages sent over the network.
Глава Роскомнадзора заявил, что Telegram должен выдать спецслужбам “ключи для дешифрации”, чтобы те могли читать переписку пользователей и ловить террористов. Это требование не только противоречит 23-й статье Конституции РФ о праве на тайну переписки, но и демонстрирует незнание того, как шифруется коммуникация в 2017 году.
В 2017 году обмен секретной информацией построен на оконечном шифровании, к которому у владельцев мессенджеров нет и не может быть “ключей для дешифрации”. Эти ключи хранятся только на устройствах самих пользователей. Хотя Telegram был пионером этой технологии, сегодня оконечное шифрование используют все популярные мессенджеры, включая WhatsApp, Viber, iMessage и даже Facebook Messenger.
Потенциальная блокировка Telegram никак не усложнит задачи террористов и наркодилеров – в их распоряжении останутся десятки других мессенджеров, построенных на оконечном шифровании (+VPN). Ни в одной стране мира не заблокированы все подобные мессенджеры или все сервисы VPN. Чтобы победить терроризм через блокировки, придется заблокировать интернет.
The head of Roskomnadzor announced that Telegram should hand over “keys for decryption” to the special services so that they can read correspondence between users and catch terrorists. This demand not only violates Article 23 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, which outlines the right to private correspondence, but it demonstrates an ignorance of how communication is encrypted in 2017.
In 2017, the exchange of secret information is built on end-to-end encryption, to which the owners of the service do not have and cannot have the “keys for decryption.” These keys are stored only on the devices of the users themselves. Although Telegram was a pioneer of this technology, today all popular messaging services use end-to-end encryption, including WhatsApp, Viber, iMessage, and even Facebook Messenger.
A potential block of Telegram will not complicate the work of terrorists and drug dealers – dozens of other end-to-end encrypted messengers remain at their disposal (in addition to VPNs). There isn’t a single country in the world that blocks all available messengers or VPN services. In order to defeat terrorism through blocks, you’d have to block the internet.
According to IT analyst, Mikhail Klimarev, people use Telegram because they don't want to be spied on, and surrendering user data to the Russian government would undermine user trust: “It's very unlikely that Durov will agree to fulfill Zharov's ultimatum.”
Blocking Telegram in Russia would surely decrease its popularity, particularly among new users and people with less technical savvy. But Russian IT experts are confident that determined users would be able to bypass any block.
Vladislav Zdolnikov, a technical consultant for opposition leader Alexei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, told Novaya Gazeta that “blocking Telegram such that the block cannot be bypassed is impossible.”
Telegram использует большое количество серверов для подключения. И, принимая во внимание уровень технической грамотности сотрудников Роскомнадзора, полностью заблокировать мессенджер у них не получится. Но если такое произойдет, я уверен, что в течение ближайшего времени появятся волонтерские прокси-серверы, которые можно будет ввести в Telegram-клиент и, он без проблем будет работать в обход блокировок. Также Telegram будет работать через любой VPN-сервис»
Telegram uses a large number of servers to connect. And, taking into account the level of technical literacy of Roskomnadzor employees, a complete block of telegram isn't going to happen. But if it does, I'm sure that in the near future volunteers will set up proxy servers that allow Telegram users to bypass the block. And Telegram will work through any VPN service.
And all else being equal, there is no guarantee that blocking the service will help to stifle communication among violent extremist and organized crime groups.

author: Isaac Webb


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Mexico’s Drug War Makes Everyone a Target · Global Voices
J. Tadeo

Malware infection. Photo by howtostartablogonline.net via Flickr. (CC BY 2.0)
“All is fair in love and war.” This common saying is perhaps the main argument that the Mexican government hides behind to arbitrarily monitor its citizens using surveillance software or “spyware.”
Researchers in Mexico revealed findings last week that since 2011, at least three Mexican state agencies spent nearly 80 million dollars on Pegasus spyware. This software has been used to spy on citizens, including journalists who cover organized crime, human rights attorneys and anti-corruption activists. The US newspaper The New York Times published a report on research conducted by Mexican organizations Artículo 19, Red en Defensa de los Derechos Digitales (R3D) and SocialTIC.
El @nytimes publica un reportaje sobre espionaje a periodistas y activistas con el malware Pegasus #GobiernoEspía https://t.co/eZF5vkaRRy
— R3D (@r3dmx) 19 de junio de 2017
The @nytimes published a report about surveillance of journalists and activists using Pegasus malware #GobiernoEspía
This particular software is designed to infect mobile devices and collect data from communications, shared images, geolocation tools, and even cameras. It can also steal passwords to access private networks. Most people affected by the software receive it in the form of a benign-seeming email attachment or link, which infects their device after they download or click on it.
Pegasus software infographic developed by Pictoline.
Top: The software called Pegasus is developed by the Israeli company NSO Group. According to NSO, they only sell it to governments for intelligence gathering against organized crime and terrorism. Lower left: How does it work? It tricks the user into clicking a malicious link that installs the software on their device. Lower right: Once it’s installed the government can access: your phone calls, your emails, your contacts, your calendar.
The rise in use of digital surveillance tools has become part and parcel of Mexico's ongoing internal armed conflict. Triggered by the war against drug cartels, declared by the administration of former President Felipe Calderón in late 2006, the conflict has led to the deaths of tens of thousands of people, including members of armed groups, military and civilians. Many others have gone missing, including 43 students from Ayotzinapa. Several attorneys who have represented disappeared victims have been targeted and surveilled with Pegasus malware.
In this context, the allocation of public resources to intelligence and security matters goes unquestioned and it is difficult to scrutinize. The government spends millions of dollars with little accountability to the public, and it employs cyberweapons to wage war against its citizenry.
The use of Pegasus in Mexico, however, is not novel. Since August 2016, the New York Times has reported that Pegasus spyware, developed by the Israeli company NSO Group, is used by the government of Mexico. In September 2016, the Mexican news outlet Vanguardia reported on the purchase of this system:
La Procuraduría General de la República en la gestión de Jesús Murillo Karam fue la dependencia que compró el software de espionaje Pegasus, el más sofisticado en el mercado y capaz de escuchar, ver, capturar texto, imagen y contactos de cualquier teléfono inteligente.
The Office of the Attorney General of the Republic under the management of Jesús Murillo Karam purchased Pegasus surveillance software, the most sophisticated of its kind on the market, with capabilities to listen, view and capture text, images and contacts of any smartphone.
Until now, the tools that citizens of Mexico have at their disposal to force government transparency have been ineffective at exposing information about Pegasus and how to defend against its intrusions.
In September 2016, a citizen officially requested that the Attorney General release details about the acquisition and use of Pegasus. The AG responded saying that the information doesn't exist and that it does not have a cyber-surveillance program.
This was later confirmed by Mexico's transparency agency, the National Institute for Transparency, Access to Information and Personal Data Protection (known by the acronym INAI in Spanish). The INAI has undergone major reforms in the current administration, some of which have cast a shadow of suspicion among civil society advocates, who have begun to doubt its accountability.
In February 2017, the Mexico City NGO Red en Defensa de los Derechos Digitales (R3D) published a study on surveillance by the Mexican government of two activists and a researcher who supported a tax on sugary beverages.
Conclusions of R3D study on soda tax activists
In an article on independent media site Animal Politico, activist Vladimir Cortés commented:
Las acciones de intromisión a la privacidad de los activistas por el derecho a la salud, sugieren que su trabajo no es una amenaza al Estado sino a los intereses privados. Demuestra que el gobierno mexicano ejerce total discrecionalidad para intervenir los teléfonos de las personas sin que existan instancias que regulen esta actividad.
The attacks against the privacy of nutrition activists suggest that their work is not a threat to the State but to private interests. It shows that the Mexican government exerts total discretion to intercept people’s communications without there being instances that regulate this activity.
In light of these allegations, it was not surprising that in May 2017 various civil society organizations declared their intention to leave the government on its own, and to end a partnership that had existed as part of the Open Government Alliance (AGA or OGP for its acronym in English), a multinational initiative intended to promote actions that contribute to transparency, accountability and citizen participation, in order to strengthen governance and combat corruption.
The news was circulated by many users on Twitter including Jaime Villasana:
Otra mala noticia para @gobrep de @EPN ONGs se levantan de mesa de Gobierno Abierto. @INAImexico https://t.co/8ODq937IXo
— Jaime Villasana D. (@jvillasanad) 24 de mayo de 2017
More bad news for EPN's government, NGO's leave the table of Open Government.
It was clarified shortly thereafter that the departure of the organizations happened “as a consequence of serious indications of espionage directed at human rights defenders and the increase of threats to freedom of expression in Mexico.”
The INAI — the agency through which the government participates in the aforementioned Alliance — only stated that it condemns espionage and respects the decision of the organizations.
Threats to freedom of expression have also come in the form of executions of many journalists including Miroslava Breach and Javier Valdéz, who both covered organized crime, and whose spring 2017 executions remain unpunished and without substantial investigative progress even after several weeks.
The threats are compounded by the fact that journalists have been spied on by the government through the use of Pegasus. Those targeted range from journalists working independently, to well-known mainstream journalists such as Carmen Aristegui and Carlos Loret de Mola. Since April 2017, both have openly denounced receiving suspicious texts messages to their mobile phones, which researchers have since confirmed were attempts to infect their devices with malware.
The caricaturist Patricio weighed in on the subject:
El gobierno de @EPN espía a los periodistas exclusivamente cuando están vivos. Una vez que los asesinan, dejan de investigar. https://t.co/9wbvDAxmfq
— Patricio (@Patriciomonero) 19 de junio de 2017
EPN's government spies on journalists exclusively while they're alive. Once they are murdered, the investigation stops.
In the face of invasions of privacy in Mexico, whether through malware or spyware sold to the government, activists, communicators and citizens in general have limited ability to defend themselves. The inviolability of private communications becomes nullified in the context of the drug war, despite the fact that the specific motives behind these surveillance practices remain opaque.
The conversation between citizens regarding this topic can be followed on Twitter using hashtag #GobiernoEspía.

author: J. Tadeo


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The Rise of the Hirak Protest Movement in Morocco · Global Voices
Sahar Amarir

Local youth showing the Berber hand sign and doing a sit-in in Imzouren, 14km from the city of Al-Hoceima in the Rif region. Photo by AlhoceimasOfficiel. Used with permission.
Morocco has been facing waves of protests for several months.

In late October 2016, Mohcine Fikri, a fisherman in the northern Moroccan city of Al Hoceima, saw his 500kg catch of swordfish seized by the police.
As his merchandise was being crushed in a truck, he tried to save his only means of living and was crushed himself. Witnesses have said that the police did nothing when they saw Mohcine Fikri throwing himself in the truck which led to his death.
Even worse, and that was the starting point of the protests, the police allegedly told the truck driver in charge to “crush the hell out of him”.

An open conflict between civil society and the local authorities and police forces over the sequence of the events soon started and protests have been raging in the northern Rif region in Morocco since then.

Even though Fikri's death caused national uproar and nationwide protests, the weekly protests initially took place only in Rif before spreading out to the rest of Morocco in the past few weeks.
They are finding echo in the general discontent in the population regarding the lack of economic opportunities, failing or non-existent infrastructures and creeping corruption that were highlighted through the government's treatment of this issue.

Indeed, after national elections took place on November 2016, and new political parties came on the political scene, Morocco witnessed one of its first political deadlocks, lasting for months.
This came at a crucial moment as authorities were already facing popular wrath.
After five months of failure to form a coherent coalition, King Mohamed VI intervened by appointing former Foreign Affairs Minister Saad Eddine Al Otman to head the government.
But it's the lack of any governmental reaction, perceived as representing the general apathy of authorities, which made the situation worse.
Authorities denied protesters’ demands and smeared them as foreign agents hired to destabilize Morocco instead.
The Rif region, mainly inhabited by the indigenous Berber minority, has long been seen as a region historically hostile to the central power, also known as Makhzen.
In the beginning of the 20th century, the Rif tribes were unified under the leadership of the Riffian political and military leader Abd el-Krim and fought both French and Spanish colonization of Morocco.
They ended up declaring the independence of the Rif Republic (1921-1926) following the Moroccan Sultan Yusef's decision to surrender and sign a treaty with France which officially turned Morocco into a French protectorate.

This move is still largely not taught in Moroccan curriculum and largely misunderstood.

Because of that, people skeptical about the protests, or the “Hirak” as the movement is called, were quick to question the presence of several Rif Republic flags and in parallel, the lack of Moroccan flags. They thus labeled the Hirak an ‘unpatriotic movement’ on social media despite the Hirak movement denying any separatist intentions and arguing for its economic and social grievances instead.

For example, one of the main demands of the Hirak is to have a hospital specialized in cancer treatments as cancer rates in the Rif are the highest in the country, dating back to Spain's use of mustard gas in the region.
Although the new king took a different stance than his father by liberating political opponents, putting in place new institutions to promote national reconciliation, and regularly visiting the Rif region, these were not enough to make the locals forget the violence and repression their people endured in the past century.

Six years after Morocco's Arab spring, also known as the “20th of February” movement, authorities are struggling to cope with new popular grievances.
Back then, authorities implemented some reforms to ‘calm’ protestors. The constitution was amended, new institutions were put in place and many promises were made to the civil society in terms of economic and social development.

But now, this strategy is running out of steam after several years of stagnation, and political parties are failing to come up with new strategies to address popular anger.

And because of the lack of any long-term or even short-term vision from the ruling political class, the protests kept going strong, and one figure in particular managed to stand out from the crowd: the self-proclaimed leader of the Hirak movement, Nasser Zefzafi.
The 39 year-old Al Hoceima-born and raised Riffian has earned the reputation of being a very staunch and vehement activist, gathering sometimes thousands of people coming to listen to his speeches, all of which would be live-streamed on social media.
He gathered a core group of protestors around him and kept the movement alive and lively, all the while calling for all protests to remain peaceful.
Both the authorities and the protestors have been really cautious and called each of their sides to self-restraint: the authorities did not want to be compared to neighboring regimes which adopted repression and violence as a main policy in order not to fuel Moroccans’ wrath, and protestors did not want to be compared to violent groups seeking to jeopardize national security and stability.

However this all changed when on May 26, 2017, Nasser Zefzafi interrupted the last Friday sermon before Ramadan at a local mosque.
The imam was preaching against “fitna”, a religious label used to designate any move whose goal is general disunion and the promotion of enmity between different people among a united group, without a doubt a reference to Zefzafi and the Hirak movement.

Under the laws aimed at protecting all religions, any act that disrupts or infringes on the regular and normal practice of any religion in Morocco is a crime, and the police forces started a manhunt to arrest Zefzafi.
Zafzafi was hidden by locals for a few days before finally surrendering to the police against popular wishes.
Following this event, police forces and authorities unleashed a massive campaign of arrest and have put in custody more than 130 activists to this day. More than a dozen activists, including Zefzafi, will ‘face justice’ for what local activists and human rights defenders have called outrageous charges, almost all related to threatening national security.

Following this complete reversal of strategy and the new repressive approach by the authorities, massive demonstrations have taken place throughout the kingdom, most notably in the capital, Rabat, on June 11, 2017, where around 52,000 people took to the streets to protest in support of the Hirak and against the massive arrest of activists.
Authorities claimed it was only around 15,000 people whereas the Hirak claimed more than 100 000 joined the protest, which would make it the biggest protest in Morocco since the 20th February movement during the Arab spring.
Many fear that the absence of the Hirak's leaders, all arrested, might make things worse as they were the ones who contained it for months.
On June 22, Zefzafi was ‘severely beaten‘ along with two other activists during their arrest, so it does not look like this story will end anytime soon.

author: Sahar Amarir