text:
Explore beauty and heritage in the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand while staying at home · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Screenshot from the Philippines’ Department of Tourism website.
Movement restrictions in place across the world as a result of the COVID-19 have canceled travel plans and left entire industries devoted to tourism in tatters.
In Southeast Asia, where tourism plays an important role in generating jobs and revenues, the pandemic has already weakened the economies of many countries. Tourism numbers are minuscule at a time when they should be booming.
The Philippines’ Department of Tourism reported that foreign arrivals went down by over 54 percent to 1.32 million from January to April this year. The tourism sector accounted for 12.7 percent of the country's gross domestic product in 2018.
According to the General Statistics Office, Vietnam welcomed 3.7 million international tourists from January to March, which was 18.1 percent lower compared to the same period in 2019.
Thai authorities said that from January to March, foreign tourist arrivals decreased by 38 percent to 6.69 million. Spending by foreign tourists accounted for 11 percent of the country's gross domestic product in 2019.
In response, governments in these countries have established virtual tours for those who want to explore famous travel locations in Southeast Asia without leaving their homes, and to encourage tourists to visit these places in the future.
Below are some of the free online travel packages on offer.
The Intramuros Administration (IA), a Philippine government agency, has partnered with Google Arts and Culture to create a platform that allows users to virtually visit the ‘walled city’ of Intramuros in Manila.
Intramuros was the site of the old capital during Spain's 300-year rule over the Philippines. Visitors can explore famous landmarks like Fort Santiago and Plaza Roma.
Our sister agency @Intramuros Administration has an online exhibit in @Google Arts and Culture: https://t.co/209fJsU4nE pic.twitter.com/sO0lV8sPhg
— Nayong Pilipino Foundation (@AtingNayon) April 8, 2020
The website also showcases the IA's art collection. The online exhibit ‘Christ in Filipino Consciousness’ features religious images of Child Jesus that reflect how Christianity was deployed to colonize the Philippines.
Meanwhile, the Department of Tourism is also offering virtual backgrounds featuring famous tourism destinations in the Philippines which users can display in video conferences.
Screenshot of the Ha Long Bay 360 degree tour. Source: Website of ‘Stay at Home with Vietnam’
The Vietnam Tourism Advisory Board and the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism have launched the ‘Stay at Home with Vietnam’ kit that allows visitors to explore the country from a distance.
The website offers 360-degree tours of its eight UNESCO World Heritage sites which include Halong Bay and the Phong Nha caves.
Visitors can also download homemade recipes of popular Vietnamese dishes such as banh mi sandwich and bun cha (rice noodle served with grilled pork meatballs).
Several short videos feature local citizens providing tips and unique perspectives on some Vietnamese destinations.
A coloring-in pamphlet that features Vietnamese icons is available for download.
Lastly, visitors can download photos of famous tourism sites that can be used as virtual background during video calls.
Thailand has recently eased lockdown restrictions but it will take some time before international tourists are welcomed back again.
The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) tried to sustain interest through its #BooknowTravelsoon campaign and Amazing Thainess social media promotion.
It has launched 3D virtual tours for 13 attractions in nine provinces.
One of the virtual museums offering a glimpse of the country’s riches is the Arts of the Kingdom Museum, which features art collections created by the craftspeople of the Queen Sirikit Institute.
Jewels of the collection uploaded on social media include the ‘Model of the Mongkol Suban Royal Barge’ and ‘Egg-shaped Urn with Khankorbua Print Golden top etched’
เรือพระที่นั่งมงคลสุบรรณจำลอง – Model of the Mongkol Suban Royal Barge
โขนเรือเป็นรูปพญาครุฑยุดนาค เป็นรูปครุฑใช้มือและเท้าจับนาคไว้ข้างละตัว ตัวครุฑขึ้นรูปด้วยทองคำลงยา ระหว่างเท้าครุฑมีช่องทอดปืนใหญ่ทำด้วยเงิน (1)#Art #Craft #Royal #Barge #ArtMuseum #Artsofthekingdom pic.twitter.com/i4ShyNKmSn
— Artsofthekingdom (@AOK_Museum) May 18, 2020
The model of the royal barge, including the hull and the keel, are made of gilded silver. The bow is made of carved gold and colour enamel in the shape of a Garuda clutching a Naga in each claw.
ผอบถมตะทองทรงไข่ลายก้านกอบัว
ยอดปริกทองคํา
ขนาด : เส้นผ่านศูนย์กลาง 5.8 ซม.
สูง 12.0 ซม.
จำนวนผู้ทำ : 7 คน
จำนวนวัน : 70 วัน (1)
.#Urn #Gold #Etching #Craft #ArtMuseum #Artsofthekingdom pic.twitter.com/pXV4zfqjAo
— Artsofthekingdom (@AOK_Museum) April 5, 2020
Egg-shaped Urn with Khankorbua Print Golden top etched
Size : Diameter 5.8 cm
Height 12.0 cm
Number of Artisans : 7
Production Time : 70 days

author: Mong Palatino


text:
Global Voices (GV) is seeking a part-time bilingual Arabic/English Regional Editor for its coverage of the Middle East and North Africa · Global Voices
Filip Noubel

Screen grab from a video taken on January 25, 2015 at the Global Voices 2015 Summit in Cebu, Philippines. Video by Global Voices and PR Works.
Are you a writer and editor who's knowledgable and curious about all facets of the Middle East and North Africa? Are you excited about shaping ideas into stories, social media posts, and other editorial outputs, in collaboration with a diverse community?
If you answered “yes” to the questions above, you might consider applying for the position of Regional Editor for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
The regional editor will be responsible both for editing stories written by Global Voices’ volunteer contributors and writing stories. GV stories focus on topics such as internet culture, freedom of speech online, technology and digital rights, human rights, diversity and representation, and language diversity, among others.
The editor will work with a diverse community of contributors who write stories, or share ideas for stories, and who set the editorial agenda for the region—proposing ideas, sharing knowledge, and providing leads.
For the purposes of this role, the MENA region includes: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Western Sahara, Yemen.
Global Voices is a global, virtual organization supported by the paid and volunteer efforts of people on every continent. The engine of the Global Voices newsroom is a team of part-time editors who work with volunteer authors around the world to highlight stories and perspectives that are underrepresented in international mainstream media.
Candidates must be comfortable setting their own schedules and working in a wholly virtual environment.
We strongly welcome candidates from outside North America and Western Europe and encourage people currently contributing to the Global Voices project to apply.
The position is part-time, and is treated as a freelance contract.
Submit a résumé and a cover letter in English that highlights your work and explains why you would be a great fit for Global Voices to jobs@globalvoices.org. Please include your name and “MENA Regional Editor” in the subject line.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Filip Noubel


text:
‘Indonesia, whatever’: Frontline staff express frustration over COVID-19 response · Global Voices
Juke Carolina

Not all heroes wear capes by Komik Faktap. Used with permission
The Twitter hashtag #IndonesiaTerserah (Indonesia, whatever) trended in Indonesia after health care workers expressed frustration over the relaxing of restrictions and the failure of many to observe social distancing protocols.
Tirta Mandira Hudhi, a doctor and social media influencer, popularized the hashtag after reacting to crowded airport scenes. Twitter users adopted the hashtag to show solidarity with health care workers.
Doctor and prominent social media user Tirta Mandira Hudhi holds up a sign saying “Indonesia??? Whatever!!! Do whatever you want.”https://t.co/kjhHpM1bDF pic.twitter.com/BMwrAY2jGW
— Langkir Kliwon (@LangkirKliwon) May 18, 2020
Health professionals later clarified that they have no intention of giving up, and they will continue to serve the public despite the non-compliance of some people with health guidelines.
An infamous example of this breach in guidelines is the gathering of a crowd to bid farewell to a popular McDonald’s branch in Jakarta, the nation’s capital, which is closing.
Indonesia is struggling to contain the spread of new COVID-19 clusters. According to government data, there are 24,538 confirmed cases and 1,496 COVID-19 deaths.
COVID-19 cases have been recorded in the country’s 34 provinces.
The Indonesian Pediatric Association said that the number of children dying there from COVID-19 is the highest in Asia.
The Indonesian government imposed movement restrictions only on April 10, which some observers believe was too late to prevent the spread of the virus. President Joko Widodo had earlier said that a total lockdown approach would harm the economy and displace millions of informal workers.
There are suspicions that Indonesia is trying out the controversy-laden herd immunity approach, although this has been denied already by a government official.
Nevertheless, the government approach has been criticized by several scientists. Biostatiscian Dr. Pandu Priono is one of them:
Terserah lah, mungkin tidak ada niat untuk mengendalikan pandemi di Indonesia secara serius. Ingat bahwa pemerintah RI berkewajiban melindungi segenap Bangsa Indonesia & Seluruh tumpah darah Indonesia..dst sesuai dg Pembukaan UUD NKRI 1945. https://t.co/M3mgtw3sVG
— Pandu Riono (@drpriono) May 25, 2020
Whatever, perhaps there's no serious will to control the pandemic in Indonesia. Bear in mind that the Indonesian government has the obligation to protect the nation and homeland, etc. in accordance with the Constitution.
Meanwhile, biomedical scientist Dr. Indra Kusuma warned that a herd immunity approach without vaccines will unleash a catastrophic event.
Saya ulangi: Herd Immunity tanpa Program Vaksinasi Massal adalah Genosida https://t.co/nnZe0JBOi8
— Indra Kusuma (@indrakusuma) May 22, 2020
Let me repeat: Herd immunity without mass vaccination is genocidal.
The delay in rolling out COVID-19 measures by the central government has left provincial governments across the archipelago scrambling for solutions they can apply in their constituencies.
The lack of coordination between the central and local governments has put an additional strain on frontline health workers, many of whom are exposed to dangerous working conditions while receiving inadequate benefits.
“Taruhan kami nyawa, tapi upah ala kadarnya”. Ratusan perawat di Indonesia tak dapat tunjangan hari Lebaran bahkan gajinya dipotong. Ini masalah yang juga dialami pekerja lain dengan status lepas ?? https://t.co/3SOaywF967
— Andreas Harsono (@andreasharsono) May 26, 2020
“We risked our lives, but are being paid less than is adequate. Hundreds of nurses faced pay cuts and their thirteenth-month salary was withheld. Similar to others working on contractor status.
The Indonesian government has invested heavily in ventilators, which are made locally. It has also set up a dedicated website to monitor COVID-19 statistics and the spread of the disease.
But many have wondered if these efforts are too little, too late.
A public health expert quoted in a New York Times (NYT) said that mass transmission has already happened. In the coming weeks, new clusters might emerge due to Mudik.
Mudik  is an annual homecoming tradition that sees urbanites join their extended families in the villages to celebrate Eid.
True to this habit, many went home to celebrate Eid with their family, ignoring the accompanying risks.
Meanwhile, President Jokowi announced on Instagram that his government will deploy the military to enforce health security protocols in public places once the quarantine directives loosen.

author: Juke Carolina


text:
Is China’s ‘House of Cards’ in the Czech Republic beginning to wobble? · Global Voices
Filip Noubel

Cover of Respekt magazine, one of the most widely read weeklies in the Czech Republic. Recent covers have mostly been related to China's influence in the country. Photo by Filip Noubel, used with permission.
Back in 2015, when Czech President Miloš Zeman was the only leader of a European Union member state to attend a military parade in Beijing marking the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII, it seemed China and the Czech Republic were destined for a glorious friendship, leaving behind forever the raw feelings that they began the century with.
Five years on, China's footprint in the central European country has grown inexorably.
But as Beijing has made friends at the top, scandals have piled up, stoking public resentment towards the Middle Kingdom and empowering anti-China politicians in the process.
Global Voices looks at the television series-worthy developments that have shaped perceptions of China there in recent years.
Beijing could have hardly hoped for a more pro-China leader than Zeman of the Czech Social Democratic Party, who was elected president for the first time in 2013.
The country's first leader following the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, Václav Havel, a dissident and outspoken critic of Communism, had been a disaster for the relationship.
Havel's friendship with the Dalai Lama, whom he invited several times to Prague, was a particular sore point, and made the Czech Republic an official ‘enemy of China’ amid sensitivities over Tibet.
Havel's successor, Václav Klaus, an economist, took a more pragmatic, business-first approach to relations with China. Klaus paid the first ever visit by a Czech president to Beijing in March 2004.
Yet it wasn't until Zeman's presidency that a Chinese leader — current President Xi Jinping — visited Prague, ushering in a strategic partnership, that encompassed political rapprochement and investment.
Many activists and oppositions feel that Zeman got too close to China for comfort, however.
The first scandal to insert China as a major political issue in Czech domestic politics was the reported arrest in Beijing on bribery charges of Ye Jianming. Ye headed the Czech operations of a Chinese investment company called CEFC China Energy. The precise nature of the allegations against him has not been made public.
Problematically, Ye was also Zeman's personal economic adviser and had his own office in the presidential administration at the time he was abruptly summoned back to Beijing.
While his sudden disappearance indicates that Ye ran out of political favour back home, the episode alerted the wider Czech public to the fact that Chinese investments can bring with them corruption concerns.
The political opposition, as well as citizen movements such as the Million Moments for Democracy, demanded transparency and investigations.
That same year, the Czech Intelligence Service, BIS — a body that reports to the government and not the presidential administration — released a report that rated China as a greater threat to the Czech Republic than Russia.
China has also increased its influence over Czech media.
According to Kateřina Procházková, a China expert and member of the Sinopsis project that decodes Chinese influence in the Czech Republic, the July 2019 purchase by Chinese company CITIC of Medea — one of the largest communication agencies in the Czech Republic — marked a new milestone in China's image-making efforts in the country.
Procházková told Global Voices:
Medea je komunikační a mediální agentura, která ročně zadá reklamu za zhruba 3 miliony korun do inzerce. Medea může být tedy možným distributorem placené reklamy a promo článků, napsaných v prospěch ČLR a čínských projektů. Mnohem větší zkreslování informaci o Číně však přináší média – napojena přímo na čínské, státní partnery či české vlivové skupiny – jako je Info.cz, Sinoskop nebo TV Nova, jejíž novým vlastníkem se stala opět PPF
Medea is a communication and media agency that commissions advertisements worth three million Czech crowns (US$ 120,000) every year. It can thus act as a distributor of paid ads and promotional articles, written in the interests of China and Chinese projects. (Then there are) media directly connected to Chinese partners, state partners and Czech pro-China lobbies, such as Info.cz, Sinoskop or TV Nova [a private TV channel with the largest market share], whose new owner is PPF [one the largest investment groups in the Czech Republic]
In recent months, scandals over Chinese influence have multiplied, feeding media reports and social network chatter.
In November 2019, it emerged that the Chinese embassy had been secretly paying professors at Charles University to paint a positive image of Chinese investment and economic opportunities. The prestigious university is one of the oldest in Europe and widely revered in the Czech Republic.
In December 2019, it became known that top millionaire Petr Kellner — the owner of the PPF group referred to by Procházková — had hired a PR agency to support a local network of influencers, including politicians, journalists and China experts, to promote a positive image of China in the Czech Republic.
As a communist state Czechoslovakia was among the first countries to recognise the People's Republic of China after the People's Liberation Army claimed victory in the 1949 civil war. That stance did not change, even after the disappearance of the “Iron Curtain” in Europe.
But just as Tibet haunted relations in the early years of the Czech Republic, so too diplomatically-isolated Taiwan has emerged as a surprise stumbling block.
At present, the President of the Czech senate, Miloš Vystrčil, a rival of President Zeman, is set to make an official visit to Taiwan, which is a major job provider in the Czech Republic.
The trip has taken on added significance since January 20, when Vystrčil's predecessor in the role Jaroslav Kubera, unexpectedly died of heart failure weeks before he expected to make the very same visit.
Just five days before his death, Kubera received a letter signed by the Chinese Embassy in Prague, warning him of serious consequences should he go ahead with the planned visit:
České podniky, jejichž představitelé navštíví Taiwan s předsedou Kuberou, nebudou uvítány v Číně ani čínskými lidmi. České podniky, které mají ekonomické zájmy v Číně, budou muset za návštěvu Taiwanu předsedou Kuberou platit.
The Czech companies whose representatives will visit Taiwan with Senate Head Kubera will not be welcome in China, not even by the Chinese people. Czech companies that have economic interests in China will have to pay for Kubera's visit to Taiwan.
According to statements made by Kubera's widow and daughter, the president of the senate was under extreme pressure at the time of his death.
Further gripping public opinion was the revelation that the letter Kubera received was accompanied by a two-page note issued by the Czech presidential administration, which called Kubera's visit to Taiwan “krajně nevhodná” — “extremely inappropriate” — due to the harm it might inflict on Czech businesses operating in China.
This unfolding story comes as Taiwan has made inroads into Czech public opinion though successful “COVID-19 diplomacy”.
The unrecognized island-state has been donating masks just as COVID-19 test kits that Prague purchased from China proved largely unreliable.
Tapei's advocates in the Czech Republic include Zdeněk Hřib, Prague's mayor since November 2018, a member of the opposition Pirate Party, who studied there in his youth.
Popular and social media-savvy, Hřib's emergence as a serious political player at national level is perhaps the biggest threat to China's influence in the country in the medium to long term.
In the meantime, China expert Procházková predicts future drama in the Prague-Beijing-Tapei triangle.
“The planned visit [to Taiwan] by the new Senate president Vystrčil is a thorn in the eyes of the Chinese,” she told Global Voices. “They will do all that they can to prevent it.”


text:
Mozambique revokes decree that imposed exorbitant fees on journalist accreditation · Global Voices
Dércio Tsandzana

Mozambique revoked the decree on May 20, 2020. STV Television, screen capture from YouTube.
In August 2018, the Mozambican government introduced new accreditation fees for journalists in a measure at that time deemed both in the country and abroad as prohibitive and damaging of press freedom.
The fees ranged between 30 and 500 thousand meticais (around 507 and 8,450 USD) and were mandatory for foreign correspondents and foreign and national freelance journalists working in Mozambique.
Still in 2018, MISA-Mozambique, a local media freedom watchdog, submitted a request to the Constitutional Council of Mozambique, the country's highest judicial body, to declare the decree that set the new fees as unconstitutional.
On May 19, 2020, the Constitutional Council issued a favorable decision of MISA's request, voiding the decree.
O Conselho Constitucional declarou hoje inconstitucional o decreto que impunha taxas altas para o exercício de jornalismo em Moçambique.
Trata-se do decreto 40/2018, que entrou em vigor a 23 de Agosto do mesmo ano. O instrumento impunha taxas elevadas para o exercício do jornalismo no país e foi publicamente contestado, não apenas por profissionais e organizações ligadas à comunicação social, mas também por cidadãos particulares e pela sociedade civil.
Entre outras, as contestações evidenciavam que o decreto limitava garantias constitucionais como a Liberdade de Imprensa e o Direito à Informação, elementos fundamentais para a Democracia.
Today, the Constitutional Council declared the decree that imposed high fees for the exercise of journalism in Mozambique to be unconstitutional.
The Decree 40/2018 was approved on August 23, 2018. The ordinance imposed high fees on the exercise of journalism in the country and was publicly criticized, not only by professionals and organizations linked to the media, but also by private citizens and civil society.
Among other thing, criticism showed that the decree limited constitutional guarantees such as Freedom of the Press and the Right to Information, fundamental elements for Democracy.
The decree was enacted in the lead-up two elections — the municipal elections in 2018 and the general elections in 2019. The delayed decision of the Constitutional Council to void the decree had civil society entities wondering whether the act specifically intended to restrict election coverage.
On Facebook, the organization Sala da Paz said :
O decreto agora tornado inconstitucional tinha um objectivo e propósito definido. Vejam as datas e confiram para perceber que não foi um simples acto de agravamento de taxas. Tarde, mas foi bom a correcção feita.
The decree now made unconstitutional had a defined objective and purpose. Look at the dates and see that it was not a mere act of fee adjustment. However, although delayed, the correction was good.
Borges Nhamirre, a journalist, considered the decision a cause for celebration:
O Decreto aprovado em 2018 foi revogado dois anos depois, como forma de “criar espaço para se aprofundar e alargar a reflexão sobre a matéria, com o envolvimento das empresas e profissionais de comunicação social”. Granda lata!
A Luta Continua!
Mas antes uma pausa para felicitar o grupo de jornalistas e ativistas que levou o caso ao Provedor da Justiça para ganhar patrocínio e submeter o caso ao CC!
Especiais agradecimentos ao Ericino de Salema que elaborou a petição.
The Decree approved in 2018 was revoked two years later, as a way to “create space to deepen and broaden the reflection on the matter, with the involvement of companies and media professionals.” Big joke!
The fight goes on!
But first a pause to congratulate the group of journalists and activists who took the case to the ombudsman, who sponsored it and submitted it to the Constitutional Council!
Special thanks to Ericino de Salema who prepared the petition.
The work to revoke the decree was long and involved several entities and civil society organizations, as reported by journalist Alexandre Nhampossa:
Excelentes novas por @borges_nhamire no fb: Conselho Constitucional anula o decreto https://t.co/FFe8u6Yjx2 que cobrava taxas exorbitantes para actividade jornalística https://t.co/cnqmm9IJ2M
Na foto alguns jornalistas que contestaram as taxas no Gabinete de Info de #Mocambique pic.twitter.com/MUi0LqpQrh
— Alexandre (@AllexandreMZ) May 19, 2020
Excellent news by @borges_nhamire on [Facebook]: Constitutional Council revoked the decree that charged exorbitant fees for journalistic activity.
In the photo, some journalists who complained about the fees at the Information Office of #Mocambique

author: Dércio Tsandzana


text:
Quarantine debates in Zanzibar conjure memories of colonial racial segregation · Global Voices
Jessica Ott

Prison Island off the coast of Unguja, Zanzibar, established in 1899 as an East African colonial quarantine station to prevent the spread of the bubonic plague. Photo by Jessica Ott, used with permission.
When the first case of COVID-19 was reported on March 8 in Zanzibar, East Africa, the government closed schools and banned unnecessary public gatherings to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
Authorities encouraged social distancing and 14-day quarantines among people who may have been exposed but did not order a full lockdown. In a show of due diligence, Second Vice President Seif Ali Iddi self-quarantined for 21 days upon his return from a diplomatic visit to Cuba. Several doctors also reportedly self-quarantined.
Yet, some members of the political opposition have questioned whether these measures are enough.
On Twitter, debates about the government's response to COVID-19 began to conjure up memories of colonial quarantining measures on the islands — which were often based on racial segregation. Zanzibar came under Omani rule in 1698, although the sultan’s power was seriously undermined when the British declared a protectorate over the isles in 1890.
On April 25, Ismail Jussa, an Alliance for Change and Transparency (ACT) opposition party politician in Zanzibar’s House of Representatives, sparked a Twitter discussion about colonial quarantining measures after he condemned the government’s lackluster response to COVID-19.
Citing the British colonial administration’s successful efforts to curb the spread of the Spanish Flu in 1918 through an enforced quarantine, Jussa questioned why the government had not learned from its own history and enacted more forceful quarantining measures:
Historia inatuonesha mwaka 1918 #Zanzibar ilidhibiti Spanish flu kwa kuweka #karantini ya nguvu. Imepita miaka 100 sasa imekuja #Corona lakini bahati mbaya sana imeikuta #Zanzibar ina watawala vibaraka, wasiojiamini na wasio na uwezo. Wanaambiwa wafanye maamuzi magumu WAMEUFYATA! pic.twitter.com/EslNGiLIbk
— Ismail Jussa (@IsmailJussa) April 25, 2020
History has shown us that in 1918, Zanzibar controlled the Spanish Flu through forceful quarantining. Now, 100 years later, the coronavirus has arrived, and it has unfortunately found Zanzibar with puppet leaders who lack self-confidence and are incapable. They are being told to make important decisions, but they are too afraid to speak.
Thamoka, one of Jussa’s more than 79,000 Twitter followers, criticized Jussa for lauding an era when their ancestors were under Omani rule and relegated to the supposed African quarter of Zanzibar Town called Ng’ambo.
Sultan alikuwa kwani anaruhusu watalii kipindi hicho wakati huo si wazee wetu walikuwa wananyanyaswa tu na Sultan au ndo hujui tuseme km muda huo tulikuwa tunanyonywa na bwana ktk ardhi yetu na kutuuza huko ng'ambo
— Thamoka (@mokashe38) April 25, 2020
During that time, the sultan only allowed Europeans in that part of the city, not our ancestors. Our ancestors were being abused by the sultan. Or aren’t you aware that during that time, we were being oppressed and sold by masters on our own land in Ng’ambo?
Thamoka’s tweet reflects a common understanding of history put forth by Tanzania’s ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (Party of the Revolution), or CCM, that Zanzibaris of African descent were in effect slaves to the sultan before the Zanzibar Revolution of 1964.
Thamoka’s politicized tweet also alludes to British colonial attempts to separate the supposed European and African quarters of Zanzibar Town.
British colonial administrators in Zanzibar saw non-Europeans as vectors of disease and sought to ensure European health and wellbeing through racial segregation, according to William Cunningham Bissell in the book, “Urban Design, Chaos, and Colonial Power in Zanzibar.”
Colonial public health measures like quarantine were motivated by a fear that diseases like leprosy would endanger European life in Stone Town, writes Amina Ameir Issa, director of Zanzibar's department of museums and antiquities, in “From Stinkibar to Zanzibar: Disease, Medicine, and Public Health in Colonial Urban Zanzibar, 1870-1963.”
According to Issa, the British colonial administration began to forcibly isolate and detain people with leprosy in 1897. Leprosy was a heavily stigmatized, disfiguring disease that especially afflicted the poorest Zanzibaris.
People living with leprosy were detained at one main settlement in Walezo, just outside of Zanzibar Town on Unguja Island, and three smaller settlements on Pemba Island, writes Stephen Pierce in his case study on the settlement. Pierce describes frequent attempts to escape among detained patients who lived in deplorable conditions and were unable to seek support from loved ones.
Responding to a known case of bubonic plague on a ship in East African waters, the British Foreign Office in London established a quarantine station in 1899 on Prison Island, just off the coast of present-day Stone Town.
The island was previously used as a prison for people caught smuggling slaves after the abolition of the slave trade in Zanzibar in 1873.
Prison Island, 1985. Photo by Sherwood via Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0.
From 1899 until at least the mid-1950s, Prison Island became a quarantine station for all of East Africa, first for bubonic plague and eventually for cholera and yellow fever.
Despite the establishment of a colonial quarantine station just off its shores, Zanzibar experienced a bubonic plague outbreak in 1905.
According to Issa, colonial officials stopped commercial activities and prevented merchandise from entering the port. They also required all passengers and crews on incoming vessels to undergo a mandatory quarantining period of 10 days on Prison Island.
Meanwhile, in Stone Town, the British colonial administration enacted harsh public health measures against Zanzibaris of Indian descent, Issa writes. Colonial officials blamed Indians for the spread of bubonic plague, which first emerged in India, in 1896, before reaching other Indian Ocean ports in early 1897. Medical officials attributed the 1905 bubonic plague outbreak to a cargo of rice from Bombay. That year, “a decree gave powers to the medical authorities to detain suspected plague victims, to segregate, to hospitalize them and to destroy the property of plague victims,” Issa writes.
Zanzibaris of Indian descent resisted colonial efforts to detain and segregate their afflicted family members and perform post-mortem medical examinations, which many Muslim families viewed as un-Islamic.
As Issa argues about the colonial response to leprosy, colonial quarantining and other public health measures reflected a desire among British colonial administrators to ensure European health and wellbeing through racial segregation.
The establishment of a quarantine station at Prison Island and the colonial response to bubonic plague were part and parcel of an era of attempted racial segregation in the name of public health.
Ironically, European residents frequented the island during the colonial era as an escape from bustling city life.
Today, Prison Island is a popular tourist destination. Visitors travel via a short boat ride to the island, where they can visit the “Prison Trattoria” or feed its resident tortoises, purportedly gifted from Seychelles in the late 1910s.
Prison Island restored as a popular tourist destination. Photo by Kevin Harber via Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
In light of Zanzibar’s complex history of racial segregation in the name of public health, social distancing and quarantine measures have been controversial.
Government officials like Health Minister Hamad Rashid Mohamed, and Second Vice President Seif Iddi Ali, have scolded Zanzibaris for continuing to gather at the market, weddings, and burials and for visiting their hospitalized loved ones, despite government directives to remain at home.
In response to Jussa’s tweet about Zanzibar’s successful containment of the Spanish Flu in 1918, a Twitter user who goes by Lilie called into question the government’s ability to quarantine poor Zanzibaris whose livelihoods depend on their mobility.
Lakini hebu niwaulize swali,je quarantine ikiwekwa serikali itakuwa na uwezo na watu ambao wana maisha duni?
— lilie? (@lilie_mwanafunz) April 26, 2020
But let me ask you a question, if the government put in place a quarantine, would it really work for people who are truly struggling to get by?
As Zanzibar and mainland Tanzania slowly begin to reopen on June 1, authorities are working to determine social distancing and quarantine measures for the months to come.
Prison Island serves as an enduring reminder of quarantine’s complex past where racial segregation shaped public health policies on the isles.

author: Jessica Ott


text:
Talking down under: Greek PM ‘discovers’ South Zealand · Global Voices
Maria Soulis

Greece and New Zealand on a world map. Photo: Groubani at English Wikipedia / CC BY-SA 3.0
Greek social media users have spent the week laughing at Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who credited a fictional country for its efforts against coronavirus during a May 25 TV interview.
In the interview with journalist Mara Zaharea on STAR TV, the Prime Minister said his own country's successes battling COVID-19 had put it in a group of countries that included “Singapore, Australia (and) South Zealand” who were sharing advice and suggestions on how to re-open the economy.
The Prime Minister's blunder soon went viral on social media, with users asking questions such as, “which of the two Zealands is the best”, or if the PM had confused the N-word before “Zealand” with the Greek word “Notia”, meaning “South.”
It is not the first time that a Greek PM's on-camera gaffes have become national talking points. Predecessors Costas Simitis, George Papandreou and Alexis Tsipras had already established a rich tradition of public speaking fails.
Social media users were quick to troll Mitsotakis for the blunder:
Ο Κυριάκος είπε ότι η χώρα συνεργάζεται, μεταξύ άλλων, με τη… Νότιο Ζηλανδία!
Ξέσπασε εμφύλιος εκεί και χωρίστηκε η χώρα στη μέση;
- Dimitris Soultas – Facebook, May 25th, 2020
Kyriakos [Mitsotakis] said that the country cooperates, among others, with…South Zealand!
Is a civil war taking place there and the country was cut in the middle?
Όταν παπαγαλιζεις χωρίς να κατέχεις το κείμενο βλέπεις Ν.Ζηλανδια και λες Νότιος Ζηλανδία.
Ούτε για έτοιμο κείμενο δεν είναι.
pic.twitter.com/nh41CrXAT8
— Lina Greek (@Linagreek) May 25, 2020
When you recite parrot-fashion without having mastered the text, you see “N. Zelandia” and you say “South Zealand”.
-Δεν υπαρχει Νότια Ζηλανδία Κυριάκο.
-Και τι υπάρχει;
-Νέα Ζηλανδία.
-Και η Παλιά που είναι βόρεια ή νότια;
— Γκίζμο (@BKoufontinas) May 25, 2020
-Kyriakos, there is no South Zealand.
-And what is there?
-New Zealand.
-And the Old one, where is it? North or South?
Να του γράφετε ολογράφως το όνομα της χώρας στο auto cue ή τις σημειώσεις.
Ούτε το όνομά του δεν μπορεί να πει σωστά χωρίς βοήθεια. #ΝότιοςΖηλανδία#Μητσοτακης
— Costas Tachtsidis (@C_tachtsidis) May 25, 2020
Write for him the full name of the country in the auto cue or his notes.
He cannot even say his own name correctly without help. #SouthZealand #Mitsotakis
Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis photoshopped in the “Who wants to be a millionaire” format. The question reads: “What goes before Zealand in a sentence? A. South-New B. North. C. South. D. New”. Photo tweeted by user @Athyrostomix.
In this tweet, the user mocks Mitsotakis’ high upbringing and education — he comes from one of the most established and prominent families in Greek politics.
Τον έστειλαν να σπουδάσει στο Harvard ,πλήρωσαν τόσα όσα βγάζουν άλλοι μία ζωή, για να λέει τη Νέα Ζηλανδία, Νότια Ζηλανδία. Τον ακούν τα παιδιά του δημοτικού και κλαίνε απο τα γέλια. Μπράβο !!! Να τον χαιρόμαστε τον Ηγέτη μας τον ΑΡΙΣΤΟ ΚΥΡΙΑΚΟ !!!ΑΥΤΟΣ ΜΑΣ ΑΞΙΖΕΙ !!!!
— ΓΙΑΝΝΗΣ ΜΑΚΡΗΣ (@makrjohn1968) May 25, 2020
He was sent to study at Harvard, they paid so much money, that others need a whole lifetime to earn, so that he can say “New Zealand” as “South Zealand”! Primary school kids listen to him and drop dead laughing. Long live our Leader, our EXCELLENT KYRIAKOS!!! HE'S WHAT WE DESERVE!!!
User AnnaKonda made fun of the alleged “Mitsotakis jinx“:
Το λες τώρα αυτό τυχαίο;
Σεισμός στη Νότια Ζηλανδία, 5,2R σήμερα τα ξημερώματα.#νοτια_ζηλανδια #ΝοτιοςΖηλανδια pic.twitter.com/1IydCEQvyG
— ????_?????? (@_AnnaKonda_) May 26, 2020
So, is this a simple coincidence?
Earthquake in South Zealand, 5,2 R, today early in the morning
The center-right New Democracy party led by Kyriakos Mitsotakis won the General Elections held in Greece in summer 2019, defeating its main opponent Syriza and its leader, former Greek PM Alexis Tsipras.
The COVID-19 pandemic is just one of a list of challenges facing the government. Others include the refugee and migrant crisis, tricky foreign politics, and a still-struggling economy that has taken its toll on public health and education.

author: Maria Soulis


text:
Tour little-known tourist spots in Japan on YouTube · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

Kiyomizu temple, Kyoto, in happier, more crowded times (August 2019). Photo by Nevin Thompson, used with permission.
At the end of May, in an effort to prevent the transmission of COVID-19, Japan had virtually closed its borders, denying entry to citizens of at least 111 countries. Besides stranding some permanent residents of Japan abroad, separating them from their families, the border controls effectively shut down inbound tourism, causing the number of visitors to the country to drop by 99.9 percent compared to just a year before.
With the Japanese government releasing no information on easing entry restrictions, there are plans to help subsidize Japan's tourism industry by encouraging domestic travel. For would-be foreign visitors, however, Japan's travel ban makes it impossible — at least for now — to plan a vacation. Luckily, YouTube is the perfect vehicle through which to arrange your own virtual tour of Japan.
The YouTube channel Anna Film Production produces short videos of interesting and scenic spots in the Kansai region of western Japan. The densely populated area, centered around Japan's second city of Osaka, includes the historic capitals of Kyoto and Nara, and the port city of Kobe. The region's combination of urban landscapes, cultural sites and mountainous natural beauty make it a prime tourism destination.
While Anna Film Production does upload videos of some of the more famous tourist spots in Kansai, including the Great Buddha of Nara and the Fushimi Inari shrine in Kyoto, as well as cherry blossoms and maiko (apprentice geisha) in various locations, the channel also takes visitors on a virtual tour of some fascinating places, far off the beaten track.
The Tomogashima Islands, which lie about 100 kilometers southwest of Japan off the coast of Wakayama Prefecture, feature the ruins of forts first built in the 1880s as part of Japan's coastal defense system.
It's said that the red-brick ruins on the islands resemble Laputa, the floating “Castle in the Sky”, from the Studio Ghibli movie of the same name.
This video allows us to travel to Maizuru, in the rural, northern prefecture of Kyoto, a place that can be hard for tourists to access from central Kyoto or Osaka.
In this case, we're given a guided tour of retro vending machines dating back at least forty years, at a rest area on the road along the Yura River, between Maizuru and tourist hotspot Amanohashidate.
Despite being located next door to Kyoto with quick and easy rail access — and having its own fair share of sightseeing spots — Shiga Prefecture is off the beaten path for most tourists.
Gokasho, on the east side of Lake Biwa, features a neighborhood of well-preserved merchant houses. When inbound tourism does resume in Japan, it's unlikely Gokokasho will see the huge crowds that have crushed nearby Kyoto over the past few years.
Apart from dozens of high-quality travel videos, there are more gems to be found. The channel includes some rare historical finds, including scenes of Tokyo in 1958, Nagoya in 1955, and Nara in 1954, when Japan was truly off the beaten track for tourists.

author: Nevin Thompson


text:
Dalit youth and five of his friends stoned to death in Nepal because of his love for an upper-caste girl · Global Voices
Benju Lwagun

Children in Shikharpur, Nepal. Image via Flickr user Linus Mak. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Despite the country's multiculturalism, minority groups in Nepal — known as Dalits or untouchables — are often subjected to various forms of discrimination, which ranges from hate speech and abuse to rape and murder.
Most recently, on May 24, two Dalit boys, Nawaraj Bishwakarama (BK) and Tika Ram Sunar, were found dead on the banks of the Bheri river in the Jajarkot district of Southern Nepal. Three other bodies of Ganesh Budha, Sandip BK and Lokendra Sunar were found later and another youngster, Govinda Shahi is still missing. An inter-caste love relationship was deemed to be the major reason for their tragic deaths.
Nawaraj, a 21-year-old from Jajarkot who loved playing sports and wanted to join the police force, was born into a Dalit family. He fell in love with Sushma Malla, an upper-caste, 17-year-old girl. Once her family learned about their relationship, Nawaraj and his family received frequent warnings to keep away from her, and on one occasion, he was reported to the police.
Sushma's family wanted to marry her off with someone from her own caste, so she reportedly asked Nawaraj to rescue her before they did. On the night of May 23, Nawaraj — accompanied by 18 friends — headed to Sushma's village of Soti, in the Rukum district, so that the two could elope. Upon their arrival, they were chased, stoned and beaten. In an attempt to save themselves, some of them jumped into the nearby river and managed to escape, but Nawaraj and five of his friends didn’t survive the fall. Five bodies have been recovered so far, one still missing, and other members of the group were handed over to the police and were released later.
One survivor told to media:
Nawaraj was badly beaten up by the crowd. All his body parts, including his head, were seriously injured. He wasn't able to move and he was thrown into the river, he was not in a condition to even swim [so he] could survive.
After the incident, police arrested Dambar Bahadur Malla, Sushma's father and ward chair of the local municipality, along with fifteen others in connection with the incident.
Various human rights organisations and Dalit leaders have been pressuring the government to take immediate action on the case and provide justice to the victims’ families:
Although protests and discussions are ongoing in different parts of the country, many fear that this case will soon be forgotten, like so many others in the past. One Twitter user explained:
रुकुमको घटना एउटा जघन्य अपराध हो।नवराज बिक संगै गएका भागेर ज्यान बचाएका २ साथीहरुको बयान सुन्दा आङ जिरिङ्ग हुन्छ।उनका साथीहरूको कुरा सुनिसकेपछि,दलित भएकै कारण नवराजको ज्यान लिइएको बुझ्न कठिन हुने छैन।तर्क/कुतर्कले नबराज र साथीहरूको जीवन अब फिर्ता हुने छैन।https://t.co/gtxd78MgDx
— Rabi Lamich2ane (@hamrorabi) May 26, 2020
Rukum's incident is a heinous crime. It is heartbreaking to hear the statements of two friends who ran away with Nawaraj BK, who escaped from the crowd [in order] to save their own lives. After listening to his friends, it will not be difficult to understand that Nawaraj was killed because he was a Dalit. The lives of Nawaraj and his friends will not be returned by any logic/gossip.
Despite laws to the contrary, caste-based discrimination is a festering sore in Nepalese society, as Dalits face continuous social prejudice and violence.
On May 23, 2020, one day after a 12-year-old Dalit girl from the western Rupandehi district was forced to marry her upper-caste rapist, she was found hanging from a tree. Preliminary police investigations suggest that she had been raped and murdered.
Every year in Nepal, many cases of inter-caste marriage are reported. In 2016, for example, 18-year-old Ajit Mijar married his upper-caste girlfriend Kalpana Parajuli. Five days later, his body was found hanging. By the time his family arrived on the scene, the police had already buried him, and — without any investigation — declared his death a suicide.
According to the Article 18 of Nepal's Constitution, caste-based discrimination is criminalised — but while the country announced itself as an untouchability-free nation in 2006, the Act only came into effect in 2011 and is not enforced. Most cases of caste-based discrimination are swept under the carpet, the police often fail to investigate reports of violence against Dalits, and perpetrators often go unreported or unpunished.
Journalist Ajay Das tweeted:
संविधानबाट ‘दलित’ शब्द हटाए विभेद अाफै हट्छ भनेर कुतर्क गर्ने केही महान विचारकहरूले ‘गरिबी’ शब्द शब्दकाेशबाट हटाए विपन्नता पनि हट्छ र समृद्धि अाउँछ भनेर तर्क गरे अनाैठाे नमाने हुन्छ। #Nepal #Dalit
— Ajay Das (@ajaydas09) May 29, 2020
Some great thinkers, who speculate that removing the word ‘Dalit’ from the constitution will eliminate discrimination itself, argue that removing the word ‘poverty’ from the vocabulary will also remove poverty and bring prosperity.
Entrepreneur Shiwani Neupane challenged the media not to shun their responsibility:
I hope the Nepali media will continue to follow on the story of lynching of innocent Dalit boys in Nepal till justice is served. There is no space for impunity and that should be clear to everyone. I beg the media to not set this aside and move to the next news cycle. Please.
— Shiwani Neupane (@ShiwaniNeupane) May 30, 2020
Dalits remain one of the most underprivileged groups in Nepal, prompting the successful social entrepreneur and human rights activist Bishnu Maya Pariyar, who came from a low-caste family, to return to Nepal and produce a documentary, “Untouchable”, on the discrimination that she faced growing up:
The caste system is categorised in a hierarchical arrangement, with Brahmins (priests) at the top, followed by Kshatriya (warriors and princes), Vaishya (farmers and artisans), and Shudra (shoemakers, tailors, metal workers, and servants). A fifth element varna categorises those deemed to be entirely outside its scope, including tribal people and untouchables such as Dalits.
According to a comprehensive 2011 census report, Dalits made up 13.6 per cent of the total population (approximately 3.6 million people), but some researchers estimate that the number could be more. The census is conducted every 10 years in Nepal; the government is currently preparing for new census data collection.
The caste system has played an influential role in Nepal’s social, economic, and political landscape. Most higher caste people are in positions of leadership, while Dalits are held back economically, socially, culturally and politically. In some parts of Nepal, Dalits are still not allowed to use public taps, temples, or shops.
Though such incidents — which range from social exclusion to murder — are still prevalent nationwide, they are usually felt most strongly in conservative regions like Western Nepal, although the cities exhibit the underlying prejudice in subtler ways.

author: Benju Lwagun


text:
#SiAceptoCR: LGBTQ+ couples celebrate online as Costa Rica legalizes same-sex marriage · Global Voices
Melissa Vida

Bryan Vargas Leon and his partner Wagner Quiros Quiros. Photo from Leon's Twitter page, used with his permission.
On May 26, Costa Rica became the sixth country in Latin America to legalize same-sex marriage, after Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Uruguay, and some parts of Mexico. On Twitter, people began counting down the hours until midnight before filling social media with celebratory messages and photos of happy couples.
The road to same-sex marriage has not been easy for this traditionally conservative and religious country. However, this took a turn in 2018 when the Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued an opinion, on Costa Rica's demand, on gender identity and equality for same-sex couples. Later that year, Costa Rica's Constitutional Court followed the international court's lead and ruled 18 months for the Costa Rican parliament to legislate on this issue or let the ban on same-sex marriage, which was enshrined in the country's Family Code, dissolve automatically on May 26. That same year Costa Ricans voted for Carlos Alvaro Alvarado Quesada, a candidate who supports same-sex marriage, instead of his conservative evangelical rival, Fabricio Alvarado. In early May 2020, conservative lawmakers tried to delay the ruling by 18 months but ultimately failed to pass their motion.
This law is a first in Central America, a region where LGBTQ+ people frequently flee due to violence and discrimination. In El Salvador, for example, 600 members of the LGBTQ+ community have been killed between 1993 and 2017, according to State figures. Hate crimes against LGBTQ+ people have also been registered in Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras. Even though Costa Rica has a lower homicide rate than its northern neighbors, there have been spikes of aggression, sometimes lethal, because of people's sexual orientation. That is why Costa Rica's new law also sparked fellow Central Americans to tweet joyful congratulations (and admit a pinch of envy) of their neighbor's legislative strides.
The first wedding was between Alexandra Quirūs and Dunia Araya under social distancing rules. At midnight on May 26, nearly 20,000 people watched them tie the knot before their lawyer on Facebook live, and more watched on television. Around 50 more weddings have been planned at the Civil Registry for weeks.
After her wedding, Araya told BBC:
“Con la entrada en vigencia de la ley, ojalá que quienes siguen luchando en la región centroamericana, e inclusive a nivel mundial, tomen la inspiración y el ejemplo no de nuestro matrimonio, sino de Costa Rica, que ha dado ese paso importante.”
“With the entry into force of the law, hopefully, those who continue to struggle in Central America, and even globally, will be inspired and take the example not from our marriage, but from Costa Rica, which has taken that important step.”
A las 00:01 del 26 de mayo se ha celebrado la primera boda LGBT en Costa Rica, ha sido retransmitida en directo por la televisión del pais ??♥?? pic.twitter.com/Ylj5cG6HxQ
— Igualdad LGBT ?? (@IgualdadLGBT) May 26, 2020
At 00:01 on May 26, the first LGBT wedding in Costa Rica was held, and was broadcast live on the country's television ??❤??
The morning after, a second wedding was also live-streamed. This time, longstanding activist Marco Castillo married Rodrigo Campos. Two days later, judge Francis Porras León tried to annul their marriage and failed.
Ayer. Primer matrimonio de personas del mismo sexo realizado en un juzgado de familia. Un acto simple pero con un enorme peso simbólico. Agradecido de haber sido testigo del principio del cambio. #diversidad #MatrimonioIgualitarioCR pic.twitter.com/uZriGCKqdK
— JP Monge (@jpmonge_photo) May 27, 2020
Yesterday. The first wedding of people of the same sex before a family court. A simple act but with a huge symbolic weight. I am grateful of being a witness of the start of change. #diversity #marriageequalityCR
Due to social distancing measures in the context of COVID-19, celebrations happened online under the hashtag #SiAceptoCR (#YesIAcceptCR). Couples shared photos of themselves on Twitter.
Hoy 26 de mayo es un paso enorme para Costa Rica.
Hoy 26 de mayo es un día menos para nuestra meta.
❤?????#lovewins #MatrimonioIgualitarioCR #siaceptocr pic.twitter.com/vMD3iSYDKX
— Dani Garita Rovira❤????? (@96Garita) May 26, 2020
Today May 26 is a huge step for Costa Rica.
Today May 26 is a day less for our goal.
?❤???? #lovewins #marriageequalityCR #yesIacceptCR
This Twitter user explains how he thought of leaving Costa Rica because of the lack of LGBTQ+ civil rights.
Hace años pensaba en que si llegaba el día, jamás sería algo que podría hacer en mi país. Que tendría que irme a hacer mi vida en otro lugar con más opciones. Hoy agradezco que es una posibilidad en Costa Rica. ?? #SiAceptoCR @LeChikitico pic.twitter.com/srs1I2q6kV
— Gian Ca Restani (@GianCaRestani) May 26, 2020
For years that I thought that if the day arrived, I could never be able to do it in my country. That I would have to leave and build my life in a place with more options. Today I am grateful that it's a possibility in Costa Rica. ?? #YesIAcceptCR
More couples celebrated online:
?? Hoy celebramos la igualdad y el amor! @kingdobleq ?
Costa Rica dijo “Si, acepto” al matrimonio igualitario! ??#SiAceptoCR #MatrimonioIgualitarioCR #Equality #LoveIsLove #MatrimonioIgualitario #LoveWins ? pic.twitter.com/2bAFOe4H82
— Bryan (@Bryanshortstuff) May 26, 2020
?? Today we celebrate equality and love! @kingdobleq ?
Costa Rica said “Yes, I accept” marriage equality! #YesIAcceptCR #MarriageEqualityCR #Equality #LoveIsLove #MarriageEquality #LoveWins ?
Hoy aunque no estamos físicamente juntos, celebramos porque al fin el amor de "a escondidas" legalmente puede ser gritado a los 4 vientos por amor es amor. #SiAceptoCR ❤????? pic.twitter.com/mjsGNyd1V5
— BAZINGA ? (@Rob13sc) May 26, 2020
Even if we are not physically together, we celebrate because finally the “secret” love can legally be screamed from the hilltops because love is love. #YesIAcceptCR ❤????
Dieguito, Oliver y yo súper listos para el #MatrimonioIgualitario #MatrimonioIgualitarioCR #lovewins pic.twitter.com/sB7cNGPri7
— Fabián Solano (@FabianSolanoCR) May 26, 2020
Dieguito, Oliver and I are super ready for the #MarriageEquality #MarriageEqualityCR #lovewins

author: Melissa Vida


text:
As COVID-19 accelerates digital transformation, is the internet safe for women in the Middle East? · Global Voices
Saoussen Ben Cheikh

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced countries into lockdown and quarantine. Trapped at home, many people have turned en masse to the internet to continue their daily routines from shopping, working, and learning to communicating and socializing. It’s likely that it will have a lasting impact well after the pandemic ends.
Volunteer women of the HerStory youth-led initiative, which produces and disseminates knowledge about gender equality issues in the Arab region. Photo: UN Women/Emad Karim [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0].
However, offline gender norms and violence are amplified online, which means that women are less likely to benefit from this digital transformation as much as men. In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, online abuse and harassment have been forcing some women to self-censor and disengage from public discourse.
The internet is a double-edged sword. The online world is a reflection of offline realities. New technologies replicate limited environments that women navigate offline. Virtual spaces extend and perpetuate offline inequalities in terms of power dynamics and patriarchal gender norms.
Online abuse that targeted women increased in March 2020 during confinement by 50 percent similar to the surge in domestic violence, according to the office of the eSafety Commissioner in Australia.
Online violence against women can take different forms, including hateful and offensive comments, physical threats, sexual harassment, stalking, trolling, sharing intimate images without consent, and receiving unsolicited images with sexual content.
Most abuse against women online occurs on major social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp and YouTube, according to a 2017 Amnesty International report.
In conservative societies where women bear the burden of so-called family honor, the image of a woman made public can have devastating consequences. In Yemen, women fear retribution by their families and therefore rarely show themselves on social media.
Dawla, a Yemeni Human rights activist Dawla told Global Voices:
There is a strict segregation of sex and men should not see women’s appearance. Women don’t usually post their photos online. If a woman shares intimate photographs in a private conversation — which can be something as mild as a picture showing her face without the full traditional black cover — there is a risk that someone will use it to bully or blackmail her. If known it could ruin her reputation and bring shame to her entire family.
Women activists and journalists are particularly targeted online in attempts to intimidate, sow disinformation and discredit their work.
Recently, Tawakkol Karman, a prominent Yemeni human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, said that she was subjected to what she described as “widespread bullying” and a “smear campaign.” The campaign, led by media affiliated with the Saudi government and its supporters on social media, targeted Karman after she was nominated to the Facebook Oversight Board, established by the company to take content moderations for two of its platforms — Facebook and Instagram.
[Thread]1/ This one is on the campaign “Facebook Caliphate”, which is a mostly Saudi-led protest against @TawakkolKarman . What was striking about the hashtag is the number of clearly suspicious accounts tweeting on it. Read on for more #disinformation
— Marc Owen Jones (@marcowenjones) May 17, 2020
According to a global survey conducted in 2018 by International Women’s Media Foundation and Troll-Busters.com, “online attacks have become more visible and coordinated in the past five years, particularly with the rise of nationalism around the world and the use of digital networks to thwart political processes.” The survey concluded that “physical, sexual and online abuse is a part of women journalists’ daily work”:
Online attacks against journalists have become more sophisticated in nature, more insidious in their damage to the news enterprise and more dangerous for journalists, both online and offline.
As a result of a hostile online environment, women often self-censor and even withdraw from public discourse. The United Nation’s Human Rights Council identified widespread online violence against women as a significant reason for the global digital divide between men and women.
In Amnesty’s study, a vast majority of women said that they were apprehensive about using the internet after being targeted. Some closed their social media accounts, while others refrained from sharing specific kinds of content.
Palestinian women have also complained about the “surveillance tower” — familial and social surveillance that monitors and intervenes in online activities and interactions, which results in increased pressure to self-censor.
“Having your parents on Facebook has its effects. You start rethinking the posts you want to write, or photos you want to share, or people you want to connect with,” said Susan, a Palestinian woman from the West Bank in a 2017 report on online gender-based violence conducted by the Arab Center for the Development of Social Media, 7amleh and the Swedish Kvinna Foundation.
As with domestic violence, the true extent of online violence against women is often untold and underreported.
A 2019 Moroccan study revealed that only one out of 10 women reported online gender-based violence to the authorities.
Even though cyber violence has been recognized by the United Nations as “just as damaging to women as physical violence,” the phenomenon in the MENA region is still largely unrecognized and overlooked, despite the adoption of a number of laws that criminalize cybercrime and online harassment in the past few years.
Women’s rights advocates say those laws often fall short of what is needed to protect women online. The Sisterhood Is Global Institute, a Jordanian women’s rights organization, said not enough women are aware of the new law and thus are still not reporting harassment.
In another example, despite Tunisia passing a law on the elimination of all forms of violence against women, prosecutions for online abuse and harassment against women remain rare. Although in an unprecedented ruling, on May 8, a Tunisian court pronounced a restraining order in favor of victims harassed online before stalking begins offline.
In general, civil society lacks awareness and capacity in terms of what exactly constitutes cybercrime and related rights. As women’s rights groups in the region focus on advocacy efforts on pressing issues affecting women offline, they may not be left with enough resources for safeguarding those rights online. Social norms can also prevent women from speaking out.
In addition, there is often a lack of knowledge of technology among legal and law enforcement professionals. Police tend to trivialize online violence and abuse against women.
In the study by 7amleh and the Swedish Kvinna Foundation on online gender-based violence in Palestine, more than half of the women surveyed said they are afraid to speak up and do not trust the police to handle online abuse cases. Instead, many said they dealt with the issue within personal circles.
Online violence restricts freedom of expression, self-development, economic empowerment, civic and political participation. In an era where the internet is an increasingly critical space to exercise fundamental human rights, more needs to be done to ensure women's safe participation.

author: Saoussen Ben Cheikh


text:
COVID-19 diaries from Wuhan: A day of arranged mourning · Global Voices
Winston Chiu

Ai Xiaoming's yard. (Photo credit: Ai Xiaoming. Used with permission.)
The following post is the sixteenth in a series of diaries written by independent filmmaker and feminist scholar Ai Xiaoming and feminist activist Guo Jing. Both are living in Wuhan at the initial center of the COVID-19 pandemic. Here are the links to the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth and eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth parts of the series.
Check out Global Voices’ special coverage of the global impact of COVID-19.
This installment was written between April 1 and April 4, 2020. The original Chinese diaries are published on Matter News.
昨天开始，我把原来放在家里的绿植一盆盆搬到外面院子里。因为室内花草越来越萎缩，长了几年的芦荟开始烂根。
这是一个被辜负的春天，我们小区里梨花开了，落了，满目新绿。接着，门前的樱花盛放。往年这个日子，我就会给家里的阿姨盛装拍照。现如今，阿姨回不来；我们的车也走不出武汉。这几天广为流传的视频里，为了出境复工，在九江大桥上已经上演了一场战斗。昨天，在北上离鄂的出口信阳，鄂牌车也排了长龙；全都不得出境。
I started moving the plants from my apartment to the yard yesterday. The plants are withering. The aloe's root is starting to rot.
We did not have the chance to enjoy the springtime this year. The pear tree in our residential district bloomed, the blossom withered and now only green leaves remain. The cherry tree also entered full bloom in front of my door. I used to take photos of my helper every year around this time. However, my helper cannot return to work, and we cannot drive out of Wuhan. Recently a viral video showed a conflict on the Jiujiang Bridge as Jiangxi police stopped people from Hubei (the province where Wuhan is the administrative capital) entering. Yesterday, there was a long car queue near Xinyang highway exit because cars with Hubei car plates were not allowed to leave.
这几天我再次被疲惫袭击，也不太有食欲。白天勉强做一些工作，坚持写日记。到了晚上，我就觉得浑身无力，脑子都不转了。这几年，这种疲惫感时不时地出现，这大概跟“不可抗力”太多有关。
我们经常看到一些活动因为“不可抗力”取消，一些平台因为“不可抗力”而消失。我会愤怒和不满，可有时候无处发泄，想要逃避也无处可逃。
怀有社会理性的人大概都经历过类似的状态，因为我们生活在充满“不可抗力”的社会中。最近几年，身边很多人都得了抑郁症，他们的抑郁都有社会性的原因。
没有人有灵丹妙药，有人和朋友互相倾诉，有人做心理咨询，有人通过运动缓解情绪，大家都在挣扎着前行。
过去一周都是阴天，早上久违的阳光出现了。
桐桐（我之前写的是彤彤）家长在群里说：“405的嘟嘟小朋友，今天阳光明媚，要不要下楼玩呀，桐桐小朋友十点钟下楼等你哦。”405的住户回复到：“好啊”。
桐桐家长一会儿又在群里发信息：“嘟嘟小哥哥，我们下来了”，还说：“胖丁的家长，把胖丁搞下来玩，哈哈”。
在桐桐家长的召唤下大家纷纷下了楼。我看到这个对话，一股温暖涌上心头。在城市中，很多人住在一个小区，但并不认识，然而在封锁中有一些人竟逐渐认识并熟悉了起来。
I felt extremely tired these last few days and lost my appetite. I tried to do some work and insisted on writing my diary in the daytime. In the evening, I felt exhausted and my brain could not function. In recent years, the feeling of powerlessness keeps coming back. I think this is related to the presence of the “irresistible” [political environment].
We see activities canceled due to the “irresistible” and online platforms disappeared due to the “irresistible”. I am angry and resentful, but there is no way for me to let go of my emotions or escape this reality.
Any rational people living under this “irresistible” society would have similar feelings. In recent years, many of my friends have developed depression due to this reality.
None of us has found a resolution yet. We talk to friends, go to psychological counselling, do exercises to relieve our symptoms. All of us are struggling to move forward.
It was cloudy this past week. We finally have a sunny day this morning.
Tongtong’s parents sent a message to the chatroom, “Dudu from Room 405, do you want to go downstairs to play in the sun? Tongtong will wait downstairs for you at 10 AM.” Room 405 replied, “Yes”.
After a while, Tongtong’s parents sent another message, “Dudu, we are downstairs.” They added, “Panding's parents, please bring Panding downstairs to play with us.”
Many people went downstairs in response to the call. I was touched by these simple exchanges. Very often, we do not know each other even if we live in the same residential district. But now, because of the lockdown, people are getting closer.
A kid played in the yard in a sunny day. (Photo credit: Guo Jing. Used with permission.)
樱花繁盛，拍了一张照片，然后用“形色”这个软件去检索；查到老舍赠日本戏剧家木下顺二的诗句：
小院春风木下家，
长街短巷插樱花。
十杯清酒千般意，
笔墨相期流锦霞。
“笔墨相期”，想起前一向时我们在“且来歌咏”群里的邀约，疫后我们要相聚，要在一起朗诵诗，听黑胶……
I took a photo of cherry blossom and search the photo on the flower detection app Xingse. Upon searching, I found a poem written by Lao She for Junji Kinoshia, a Japanese screen writer:
“In Kinoshita’s yard, we enjoy the spring breeze.
On the streets, cherry flowers are everywhere.
Drinking sake, we exchange our thoughts.
We meet to share writings, and they are spectacularly beautiful.”
The phrase “Meet to share writings” reminds me of an invitation in a chatroom called “Come to sing”. The invitation said that after the pandemic, we should gather together to read poems and listen to vinyl records…
The yellow iris by a lake. (Photo credit: Guo Jing. Used with permission.)
现在想要出小区就要被量体温。尽管我知道我没有发烧，但每次被量体温的时候我心里都很担心。我担心如果体温枪出现问题，测出来我的体温高了，那就比较麻烦。我会被隔离在家，还是被拉去某个地方隔离？我会被小区的人排斥吗？
其实，我目前差不多也是被单独隔离的状态，而且现在发烧或感染新冠肺炎在武汉应该是可以得到救治的。如此想来，被歧视和排斥似乎是更可怕的事情。
早上10点0分，我扫码。量体温，然后出小区。
我路过一个公交车站，有五六个人在等公交，大家排队上车，先扫健康码，车上有人用体温枪给大家量体温。
我骑到了内沙湖公园，一眼望去湖边已经全是绿色，湖边的黄鸢尾已经开了，竟有点不适。
有个便利店在恢复运营中，很多商品都没有上架。一些小店铺虽然开门营业了，但店铺门口会用自行车或电动车拦着入口，有人想买东西就隔着门问或指。
有的路都被蓝色围栏隔断了。蓝色围栏成为了武汉的标志物。
我11点59分回到小区，又被量了一次体温，体温是36.1℃。
Whenever I want to go out of my community, I have my temperature taken (at the gate). Although I know I don't have a fever, I am still worried — if the thermometer is broken and shows that I have a fever, I would have trouble. Will I be quarantined at home or elsewhere? Will I be scrutinized by my neighbors?
My present condition is not much different from quarantine [as I live alone]. Currently anyone with a fever or who has been diagnosed with COVID-19 will get the proper treatment. My anxiety, hence, is more about social discrimination and exclusion.
At 10 AM this morning, I scanned my health code. After my temperature was taken, I stepped out of the gate.
I walked by a bus stop where five to six people were in a queue. Before getting on board, they had to scan their health codes and have their temperature taken.
I biked to the Shahu Park. The plants around the lake have turned green. The yellow iris by the lake has bloomed. Strangely, I feel at odds.
A convenience store was just reopened. Shelves were half empty. Some stores were reopened, but they put bicycles or electric bikes at the entrances to block them. If people want to shop, they need to order from a distance.
Some roads were blocked by blue gates. Those blue gates have become Wuhan's distinctive street view.
I returned to my community at 11:59 AM. I had my temperature taken again, it was 36.1 degrees Celsius.
Outside a reopened store. (Photo credit: Guo Jing. Used with permission.)
解封一个城市的交通容易，想要把封闭的心打开却是一件难事。尽管武汉的疫情在好转，很多人还在担忧疫情的二次爆发，精神还在受折磨。大家现在都如惊弓之鸟，交流复工经验的群里有个人买了一个新的冰箱，说：“为可能第二次爆发准备了一个大冰箱”。
很多人已经停工了七十多天，复工也困难重重。武汉人的生活越来越拮据，政府要有相应的措施保障人们的生活，不然新的社会悲剧就会发生。很多人都在呼吁政府给武汉人发补贴，但政府一直没有回应。
It is easy to lift traffic restrictions, but harder to reopen our sealed hearts. The pandemic has passed but many are still worried about the return of a second wave. They suffer like startled birds. In a chatroom, people exchange their experience of work resumption and someone said s/he bought a new refrigerator, “I bought a big refrigerator to prepare for the second wave of the pandemic.”
Some people have not worked for more than 70 days and still cannot return to work. Many in Wuhan are short of money. The government should do something to safeguard our lives, or there will be a social tragedy. Many have urged the government to subsidize people in Wuhan, but there hasn't been any response yet.
今天是个被安排的集体哀悼日。有人去了武汉的公祭台，普通人是不能进入会场的，进入会场的也都是男性。一些人写的哀悼文也被404。
今天是阳光明媚的一天。每个阴天我都在盼望阳光，但今天的阳光却有些讽刺。我对被安排的集体哀悼极度地厌恶，不想参与，隔离自己，暂时逃离荒唐的世界。
Today is set as a public mourning day. Some people went to the public memorial ceremony. Common people were not allowed to attend. Those who could enter the venue were all male. Some wrote eulogies online but many were censored and removed.
Today is a sunny. I always look forward to a sunny day when it is cloudy. But the sunlight today feels so ironic. I hate this arranged public mourning and don't want to be part of it. I want to be isolated and escape this ridiculous world.

author: Winston Chiu


text:
How this Brazilian police chief transformed her state’s handling of femicides · Global Voices
Giovana Fleck

Eugênia Villa, the woman who created the first police department to investigate femicides in Brazil. Photo: Secretaria de Segurança Pública do Estado do Piauí
This story is part of Global Voices’ special coverage on gender-violence in Latin America.
A glass container the size of a mayonnaise jar was filled all the way to the top with a clear liquid. Inside, there was a human body part that looked like it had been severed with a knife. Cinco Estrelas, a police clerk who was working on the case, took it to the magistrate in charge of internal affairs (corregedor) at an appeals court of Piauí, one of the poorest states in Brazil.
The year was 2002, and that magistrate was Eugênia Villa, who recently recounted the story to Global Voices in a conversation via Skype while quarantined in her home in Teresina, Piauí's capital. When she asked the clerk what the item in the jar was, he replied: “It's a woman's ear. I'm taking it to the morgue.”
Villa still remembers the shock. “That was a first for me,” she said. Since the women's police unit was on the same building, she headed there to investigate, as she recalls:
A delegada responsável me contou que se tratava de uma mulher que concordou que o companheiro cortasse uma parte da orelha. A mulher havia traído o companheiro e se viu merecedora do castigo. Isso não é algo que te ensinam na academia de polícia ou na faculdade, não te ensinam que isso acontece, que essa é a vida real.
The female police chief told me that the ear belonged to a woman who gave permission to her partner to cut it off. The woman had cheated on him and she said she deserved it. This is not something they teach you at the police academy or at law school. They don't teach you that it happens, that this is real life.
That episode would forever change Villa's career. At that moment, she decided to dedicate the rest of her life to bridging the chasm between real-life violence against women and Brazil's legal system. She dropped a 19-year career in architecture to join the police academy and went on to become a superintendent in her state's civil police.
In 2015, she created Brazil's first police unit focused exclusively on investigating femicides. To this day, Teresina remains the only Brazilian city with such a unit.
Femicides are on the rise in Brazil, even though general homicide rates are down. An analysis by newspaper Folha de S. Paulo published in February showed that 2019 saw an increase of 7.2 percent of femicide cases in relation to the previous year — that's 1,310 women killed in the country last year, most of them in episodes of domestic violence.
Villa's personal story is a testament to the struggles women face in Brazil's police forces. At age 32, she left a career in architecture and enrolled in law school. Shortly after graduating in 2000, she passed the test to become a police officer. Villa entered the police academy while pregnant.
Eu escondi a gravidez. Eu tinha receio de que eles não iriam me aprovar. (…) Minha carreira foi feita de quebrar paradigmas.
I hid the pregnancy [during the test]. I was afraid they wouldn't approve me. (…) My career was made out of shattered paradigms.
Once in the academy, she teamed up with two other colleagues who were also pregnant to ask their superiors to be relieved from physical activities. Not only the academy rejected the request, but it also marked them zero in those disciplines, affecting their global average.
Eugênia went on to become the dean of that same academy a few years later and says that one of the first things she did was to ensure pregnant students were treated fairly. She says:
Eu sou branca. Católica. Heterossexual. Em uma sociedade colonizada, eu reconheço meu lugar e meus privilégios – e rompo com isso. Rompo com isso no momento em que me reconheço e uso isso para que a violência estrutural que todas sofremos, de diferentes formas, diminua.
I'm white. Catholic. Heterosexual. In a colonized society, I recognize my place and my privileges, but I break with that. I break with that the moment I recognize [those privileges] and use them to fight against the structural violence from which we all suffer in different ways.
Women's rights legislation was slow to catch on in Brazil.
Women's police units were created starting in 1985. Nine years later, Brazil ratified the Interamerican Convention to Prevent, Punish, and Eradicate Violence Against Women (also known as the Belém do Pará Convention).
It took another 10 years for the country to pass legislation that punished women's attackers: The Maria da Penha Law, named after a women's rights activist who became paraplegic after her husband tried to kill her, was sanctioned in 2006 and became Brazil's first law against domestic violence.
In 2015, the word “femicide” finally made it to the country's Penal Code.
But for Villa, there is still much to be done:
São várias as fragilidades. A começar pelo termo violência doméstica, que limita a mulher à condição de ‘do lar’. Além disso, pela lei nacional, não se enxerga a morte de mulheres trans como feminicídio, não se enxergava estupro marital por muito tempo, há uma cegueira em torno de feminicídios fora de relacionamentos.
There are several weaknesses. Starting with the term domestic violence, which limits women to the condition of “housewife.” Besides, under national law, killings of trans women aren't seen as femicides. Marital rape was inivisible for a very long time. There is a blindness around femicides outside of relationships.
Along with Brazil's first femicide department, Villa created a study group focused on gender violence as well as a method to investigate femicides. She is also the mastermind of Caravana Salve Maria (Hail Mary Caravan), an interagency government program in Piauí focused on educating women about gender violence. She says:
As ideias misóginas estão impregnadas no sistema. São ideias reproduzidas por anos e não questionadas. O que fizemos foi explicar, através do método científico, o porquê de isso estar errado e como concertar. O promotor, o juiz, o policial… Por muito tempo, estavam cegos.
Misogynistic ideas are embedded into the system. They have been reproduced for years, never questioned. What we did was to explain, through the scientific method, why this was wrong and how we could fix it. The prosecutor, the judge, the police… For a long time, they were blind to those issues.
Villa says that a former colleague of hers, a police chief, used to joke that Eugênia must have been beaten up by a boyfriend for her to care so much about violence against women.
“I was never physically beaten,” she laughs. “But I've taken a figurative beating when opening doors for change and for other women.”
For an interview to a local publication, Eugênia made sure that the photograph featured her holding a book, instead of a gun | Photo: Personal Archive/Used with permission
After she took over the internal affairs department, a reporter from a local newspaper who was profiling her was surprised to find her in a floral dress while helping her son with homework. Villa says she intended to be photographed in that dress — while also holding a book, rather than a gun, she says.
At her current job, Villa is in charge of evaluating and improving the penal system in Piauí. As such, she oversees the training of police agents and stations when it comes to assisting women in situations of violence.
She never learned what happened to the woman who had her ear severed, the case that first piked her interest in gender issues within the legal system. But she believes that Piauí's security has vastly improved when it comes to supporting its female citizens.
Hoje, dificilmente esse caso ficaria sem solução. O que falta no combate à violência? Falta compreender a violência como estrutural e estruturante das relações sociais.
Today, it's unlikely that that case would be left unresolved. What is lacking in the struggle against violence? An understanding that violence is structural and structuring of social relations.

author: Giovana Fleck


text:
Pakistan blocks Twitter, Zoom and Periscope to curb critical voices · Global Voices
R Umaima Ahmed

Image by edar from Pixabay. Used under a Pixabay License.
According to the internet blockade observatory NetBlocks, after Twitter went down all across Pakistan from 10 p.m on May 17 to 1.30 am on May 18, 2020 Pakistan Standard Time, the bulk of reports it received from the country described a loss of access to affected services. Media Matters for Democracy from Pakistan reports the outage and calls upon the government to issue an official statement on the matter, clarifying whether Twitter was blocked and if it was, on what grounds.
“This incident merits clarity on part of the authorities, and we demand transparency from PTA (Pakistan Telecommunication Authority) on whether inaccessibility of Twitter in Pakistan was by design and done on orders of the government.”
NetBlocks data indicate that backend image and video servers, in particular, were unavailable during the disruption period, corroborating these reports. A preliminary test of OONI Probe suggests that the website was potentially blocked in the country. However, the reason for the outage that lasted for at least three hours, is not clear.
Working with Pakistan's Digital Rights Foundation, Netblocks analysed the network data and confirmed that there had been no international outage at the time of disruption:
? Report: Evidence of nation-scale Twitter, Periscope and Zoom disruption across #Pakistan on 17 May 2020.
Analysis of network data with @DigitalRightsPK confirms no international outage at time of disruption and establishes a timeline of events.https://t.co/Geub2awRMD
— NetBlocks.org (@netblocks) May 18, 2020
Meanwhile, in Pakistan, the #TwitterDown hashtag went viral on the microblogging platform, as people used Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to voice their concerns. A VPN is a technology used primarily to help people access websites that are blocked in the jurisdiction where they are located.
Thank You @ForumSaath for organising such a successful #SAATHVirtualConf2020 to discuss the most pressing issues of #Pakistan. Waiting for videos of the event as #TwitterDown for the period. More power to #SAATH @AWGoraya pic.twitter.com/wxHTOvlGRk
— Ayub Assak (@AyubAssak) May 17, 2020
Twitter confirmed that there was no disruption caused from their end, nor had it seen any indications of an outage on its server.
The very same day, the video conferencing platform Zoom also faced technical issues, but prior to the blockade in Pakistan, the company issued an update stating that the problem had been resolved.
No local outages were reported and Netblocks confirmed that the disruption was localised:
NetBlocks performance metrics from around the world show that Sunday’s disruption was localized to Pakistan.
Many drew their own conclusions as to the cause. Pakistani politician Farhat Ullah Babar, for example, suggested that Twitter was blocked to target a virtual conference organised by South Asians Against Terrorism For Human Rights (SAATH):
The blocking was not universal, it was specifically for Pakistan. Most intriguingly it occurred just at scheduled time of #SAATHVirtualConf2020 to discuss state of human rights in Pakistan. PTA must come out clean. Parliament committee on IT please take notice https://t.co/e3cYCfRKdy
— Farhatullah Babar (@FarhatullahB) May 19, 2020
The collective's Zoom conference, which was scheduled to begin on Sunday, May 17 at 10 p.m. — the precise time the Twitter and Zoom outages happened — intended to focus on the issues of enforced disappearances, state-sanctioned killings and diminishing democracy in Pakistan.
Gul Bukhari, a Pakistani journalist living in exile in the United Kingdom, is an active member of the SAATH Forum. In 2018, Bukhari was abducted by Pakistan's notorious spy agency because of her critical views. She told Global Voices in a call:
[The] SAATH Conference was planned as a virtual conference [to be] attended by prominent Pakistani human rights defenders, public intellectuals, journalists, scholars living in Pakistan, as well as those living in exile in different countries. When the conference began, people started looking for the link and that is when they noticed that Twitter, Periscope and Zoom were not working in Pakistan.
Bukhari said that many people did not know the SAATH conference was even happening; the blockage actually garnered it more attention:
It is time that the establishment understands that such tactics are counterproductive, especially in today's time when people can gain access to social media through VPNs and proxy websites to exercise their right to freedom of speech and get information.
This is not the first time such an outage has happened in the country. Previously, the authorities resorted to shutting down the internet to curb coverage of public gatherings organized by the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM). PTM demands basic rights for the Pashtun minority community, including the “right to live without fear” of extrajudicial killings. They have been gathering in different cities in Pakistan and faced internet outage regularly. Only after these gatherings are over, would videos and pictures of those human rights protests go online.
According to Bukhari:
These attempts to muffle voices are not doing any good to the country; rather [they make] a laughing stock out of us on the international canvas.
Naya Daur, an alternative and bilingual news website founded by Pakistani journalist Raza Rumi, also had a Zoom conference scheduled for 10 p.m. on May 18. With speakers that included academic and activist Ammar Ali Jan, reporter Benazir Shah, and and Dr. Shah Jahan, the webinar was intended to explore possible solutions regarding healthcare and public services, and discuss the impact of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)-driven austerity and privatisations in the past.
Rumi said however, that the Twitter and Zoom outages did not affect the conference the way the authorities might have wanted to:
Naya Daur’s webinar was aimed to raise awareness and involve expatriate doctors. Thankfully, it continued despite the problems. But imagine if there were students online, using digital platforms or patients seeking medical advice, or others engaged in critical services. Such disruptions are troubling and counterproductive.
Rumi also believes that censorship and blockades are counterproductive:
The members of [the] SAATH conference and their followers created a Twitter storm claiming that the outage was designed to block their engagement with the Pakistani audiences. If this is true, it does not serve Pakistan’s public interest to muzzle dissenting opinions nor does it ‘improve’ Pakistan’s image abroad. The lesson from the unfortunate episode is clear: Instead of becoming invisible, the small digital conference and its proceedings were amplified.
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) is a state-owned enterprise responsible for the regulation of establishment, operation and maintenance of telecommunications in Pakistan. So far, government officials have not given any statements on the issue.

author: R Umaima Ahmed


text:
Hongkongers strive to remember Tiananmen crackdown despite ban on candlelight vigil · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Social media campaign banner of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China.
Hong Kong has held candlelight vigils to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre for over 30 years, but this tradition — like so many cherished by HongKongers — is facing extinction as Beijing tightens the screws.
On June 1, for the first time in history, Hong Kong police sent a letter of objection regarding the annual candlelight vigil to the event's organizer, the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China (HK Alliance).
In the letter, police called the vigil a “major threat to public health”.
COVID-19 has been under control for weeks on the island and a number of physical distancing measures have been lifted — bars and beauty salons have been reopened, while elementary school students went back to school in May.
The ban on the vigil this year is even more notable against the backdrop of China's decision to enact a tailor-made national security law in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong's Former Chief Executive Leung Chung-ying last month hinted that the Victoria Park candlelight vigil may be banned under the terms of the future law.
Since 1990, the vigil organized by the HK Alliance has seen protesters chant slogans including “release the dissidents”, “rehabilitate the 1989 pro-democracy movement”, “demand accountability for the June 4 massacre”, “end one-party dictatorship” and “build a democratic China.”
These demands could be considered as “inciting sedition” under national security legislation that is already in force in mainland China.
The HK Alliance said that its members will still gather at Victoria Park to light candles on June 4 and urged Hong Kong citizens to do the same all across the city. The event will be livestreamed.
Twitter user Yuen Chan translated HK Alliance’s statement into English:
A reminder: for the 1st time since 1990, there won't be a mass candlelight vigil to commemorate the Tiananmen crackdown in Hong Kong's Victoria Park. Organisers are calling people on people to light candles at 8pm HKT on June 4th wherever they are #6431truth pic.twitter.com/AVCqtpce2S
— Yuen Chan (@xinwenxiaojie) May 29, 2020
The vigil is just one of a number of initiatives to commemorate June 4 in Hong Kong.
This year, some District Councils with pro-democracy incumbents have passed motions to urge the Chinese government to “rehabilitate June 4 as a patriotic pro-democracy movement.”
A theatrical group, June 4 Theatre, is set to broadcast its drama “The 35th of May” on June 4 for 24 hours straight in order to commemorate the Tiananmen violence.
The title of the drama is an attempt to circumvent pervasive censorship in China that sees “64”, “六四” and “六月四日” (June 4) heavily censored during the months of May and June.
The theatrical group stressed that remembering June 4 is a “battle against amnesia” in Hong Kong.
Yellow Avenger, a Facebook page promoting local businesses that are pro-democracy, urged Hongkongers to donate to the June 4 Theatre:
“香港人講六四是「記憶與遺忘的戰爭」。”
其實呢一年來香港人又何嘗唔係,
教科書改寫歷史,
監警會調查報告話無警黑合作。
今日香港人如果唔將真正既香港歷史好好記錄低,他日下一代只會知道被篡改的所謂”歷史”。
香港人善忘, 但有些事情,
不想回憶, 未敢忘記。
你, 我, 他, 每一個人都有責任記錄低真正歷史,
請多支持各走在同一條抗爭路上的有心人?
“Remembering June 4 is a battle against amnesia in Hong Kong.”
What we have seen in the past year is a similar battle.
Text books were edited to change history.
The report published by the Independent Police Complaints Council denied cooperation between the police and the triad [armed gangs, some of whom have ties to the mainland]
If Hongkongers do not record our history today, the next generation will only learn the “edited” history.
Hongkongers are usually forgetful.
Certain issues we don’t want to remember, but refuse to forget.
Every single individual has the responsibility to record the truth in history.
Please support those who are walking along the same path.
Visual artist Chan Ka Hing meanwhile promoted on Facebook his public performance called “We all are Tank Man” that will take place on June 5:
Chan Ka Hing's forthcoming public performance as advertised on Facebook.
一九八九年六月四日後，翌日（六月五日）於北京長安街上，發生了近代歷史上著名的「坦克人」事件。
今年六月五日，下午三時，我將身穿黑褲白恤衫，雙手持袋，默站於政總前，此為一個人之「藝術行為」，懇請大家切勿「模倣」。
此「藝術行為」會由政總開始，流動於港九各地，同樣會默站於某些「地點」，同樣，懇請大家切勿「模倣」。
「坦克人」場景三十一年不滅，他象徵不屈勇氣，一個震撼人心的場景，能牽動全世界相信普世價值的人，但願我能重現這一場景的意義。
On June 5, the day after June 4, 1989, “Tank Man” appeared on Changon Street in Beijing.
This year, on June 5 at 3 PM, I will stand still in front of the government headquarters, wearing a white T-shirt and a pair of black pants carrying plastic bags in my hands. This is an individual art performance, please do not “copy”.
The art performance will begin at the government headquarters and…I will then stand still in the same manner in other spots. Again, please do not “copy”.
The image of “Tank Man” has survived for 31 years. He is a symbol of unyielding courage. It shocked the world and connected people who believe in universal values. I hope my performance will remind people of its significance.
Chan's plea for others not to copy him is best understood as a self-protection measure, since public calls for collective action online can be prosecuted under local public order legislation.
With tens of thousands participating in the event every year, the candlelight vigil at Victoria Park is the single biggest civic commemoration within Chinese territory.
It is anticipated that this year's vigil will be much smaller as police officers have been given authority to disperse crowds thanks to the Prevention and Control of Disease (Prohibition on Group Gathering) Regulation that was enforced in response to COVID-19.
Last week, riot police arrested more than 900 people who protested against Beijing's decision to impose a new national security law on Hong Kong.
With that legislation looming, it is likely that future June 4 vigils will have to be organized in a more decentralized manner, with the main event potentially being staged outside Hong Kong.
This year, it is possible that an even larger candlelight vigil will be held in Taiwan.
Acknowledging this, the HK Alliance has issued a call for global solidarity and asked communities across the world to join the “memory battle” by using the social media hashtag #6431truth.
The Tiananmen democracy movement was a series of student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989. The 50 day-long peaceful protests began in April with the death of pro-reform Communist general secretary Hu Yaobang and ended with a military crackdown on June 4, 1989.
According to a Chinese Red Cross estimate, 2,700 civilians were killed, while foreign diplomatic cables from the period suggested a figure up to four times higher.
Discussions of Tiananmen are still taboo in mainland China and much of the younger generation knows little or nothing about the bloody crackdown.

author: Oiwan Lam