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Should Brazil Boycott Traditional Carnival Songs With Sexist and Racist Overtones? · Global Voices
Adam Lee

Partygoers in Rio de Janeiro's Carnival. Image: Flickr user Ronald Woan, CC-BY-NC 2.0
“Your hair doesn't deny it, mulata / Because you’re mulata by color / But since color doesn’t rub off, mulata / Mulata, I want all of your love”. Those are the lyrics of one of Brazil's most popular marchinhas, a popular musical genre in the country's world-famous Carnival.
The song “O Teu Cabelo Não Nega” (your hair doesn't deny it), composed in 1929, is among the carnival traditions that have been heatedly debated in recent years in Brazil. This year, with the party set to take place in the final days of February, is no different. At least three Carnival groups, which are called blocos, have said they would remove such songs from their playlists this year. Meanwhile, others object to such a movement, stating that Carnival is a festive time when things should be put out in the open.
The marchinha (little march) is a genre of music that satirizes the seriousness of military marches, played by brass bands and followed by a snare drum. They were popularized in the 1930s and are still a hallmark of Carnival in some Brazilian cities, particularly Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. The lyrics are often comical and satirical, with double-meaning that some might deem “politically incorrect”.
Musician Thiago França, the creator of Charanga do França, a popular bloco from São Paulo, expressed in an interview to website UOL why he is against songs like “O Teu Cabelo Não Nega”:
É uma afirmação racista. Deixar essa música de fora não deixa a festa menos animada e a gente consegue fazer um baile em que todo mundo se diverte numa boa. Sou responsável por 50 músicos, 20 pessoas da produção e cerca de 10 mil pessoas que vão com a gente para a rua. Tenho essa preocupação de não ofender quem está ali. A sátira deve existir com quem é opressor, não com quem é oprimido. Por outro lado, não quero insinuar que quem toca é racista. Cada um sabe de si. Essa decisão faz sentido para mim.
It's a racist affirmation. Leaving this song out doesn't make the party less fun and we manage to have a gathering where everyone can really enjoy themselves. I'm responsible for 50 musicians, 20 people in production and close to 10,000 people who will join us on the street. I have this concern about not offending who's there. Satire should be about those who are oppressors, not those who are oppressed. On the other hand, I don't want to insinuate that those who play it are racist. Every person knows what's best for themselves. This decision makes sense to me.
Renata Rodrigues, one of the organizers of Mulheres Rodadas, another bloco from Rio, had the following to say in an interview with Brazilian news radio network CBN (via O Globo):
Se a gente é um bloco feminista, não temos como passar ao largo dessas coisas. Se isso está sendo considerado ofensivo, acho que a gente não deve fazer coro.
If we're a feminist bloco, there's no way to keep our distance from these things. If this is being considered offensive, I think we shouldn't go along with it.
Regarding the marchinhas, other songs on the chopping block include solidified classics whose lyrics are very well-known among Brazilians, such as “Maria Sapatão” (1981) and “Cabeleira do Zezé” (1964), both by João Roberto Kelly. Let’s briefly take a look at some of the lyrics from these two songs:
Maria Sapatão*
Sapatão, Sapatão
De dia é Maria
De noite é João
O sapatão está na moda
O mundo aplaudiu
É um barato, é um sucesso
Dentro e fora do Brasil
Maria Big Shoe
Big Shoe, Big Shoe
By day she’s Maria
By night she’s João
The big shoe is in style
The world applauded
She’s cool, she’s a success
In and outside of Brazil
Sapatão, which means “big shoe”, is generally derogatory slang in Brazil for a butch lesbian, both pre-existing this song but also popularized by it. Some lesbians in the 1970s were said to enjoy wearing men’s shoes but couldn’t find sizes that fit well, thus the shoes they wore were too big for them.
Olha a cabeleira do Zezé
Será que ele é?
Será que ele é?
…..
Corta o cabelo dele!
Corta o cabelo dele!
Look at Zezé's head of hair
Is it possible that he is?
Is it possible that he is?
…..
Cut his hair!
Cut his hair!
According to an article on Carnival marchinha innuendo from online mental health awareness portal (En)Cena, Kelly, who's now 78, has always alleged “Cabeleira do Zezé” refers to the 1960s counterculture when men had long hair. There’s also a double meaning, however, that Zezé is either secretly gay or just womanly.
The bloco Domésticas de Luxo features primarily white men dressed as black female domestic workers and has faced online criticism. Image: TV Globo/screenshot
Carnival is a major holiday in Brazil that draws millions of people to the streets for festivities that last at least five days. Music genres and the party culture itself varies from one region to another. In northeastern cities like Salvador, styles such as axé music dominate, while the famous samba schools competition is a hallmark of southeastern cities like Rio de Janeiro. A culture of costumes and brass bands, which had withered away since the late 1970s, has seen a revival in the past decade in many cities, especially in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, which brought to the foreground the somewhat forgotten marchinhas.
Other costume traditions of old have also been subjected to scrutiny, like the “indian” outfit and the “nega maluca”, which translates as “crazy black woman”, whose features include black paint and clothes associated with female domestic workers. In 2015, the bloco “Domésticas de Luxo” (Glamorous Domestic Workers) from the city of Juiz de Fora was the subject of much online criticism, as its members traditionally dress as black domestic workers. The bloco has existed since 1958.
When talking about the marchinhas he composed, João Roberto Kelly told newspaper O Globo the following regarding the controversy:
Acho um pouco exagerada. Eu respeito todo mundo, todas as opiniões, mas acho que o carnaval é uma festa tão alegre, tão pura, é brincadeira em cima de brincadeira. O sujeito vai censurar uma letra de carnaval? No carnaval, o homem se veste de mulher, mulher se veste de homem, a gente brinca com careca, com barrigudo, brinca com todo mundo. A gente sai fantasiado de índio, sai assim, sai assado.
I think it’s a bit exaggerated. I respect everyone, all opinions, but I think Carnival is such a happy, pure party, it’s one joke on top of another. Someone is going to censor Carnival lyrics? During Carnival, men dress up as women, women dress up as men, we play around with bald men, with fat men, we play with everyone. We go out dressed up as indigenous people, we go out as one thing or another.
And when asked if he considered it a form of patrulha, which is a derogatory word that refers to activist pressure groups, he said:
É uma patrulha, mas sem necessidade. O carnaval é isso, é todo mundo solto, todo mundo procurando fazer uma fantasia qualquer. E agora vem o politicamente correto, o que é, o que não é… Essas músicas todas têm por volta de 50 anos, e o povo as consagrou, o povo gosta de cantar.
It is patrulha, but there’s no need for it. That’s Carnival, it’s everyone letting loose, everyone looking to make some kind of costume. And now the politically correct come, [saying] what it is, what it isn’t…These songs have been around for about 50 years, and people are devoted to them, people like singing them.
Blocos not involved in removing the songs in question share Kelly’s opinion. Pedro Ernesto Marinho, the president of one such Carnival group, Cordão da Bola Preta, said:
Não consideramos essas marchinhas ofensivas. Quem as compôs, certamente, não tinha essa intenção. Carnaval é uma grande brincadeira. Essa polêmica não vai levar ninguém a lugar algum e até desmerece o carnaval. O preconceito está mais dentro das nossas cabeças do que nas marchinhas.
We don’t consider these Carnival songs to be offensive. The composers certainly didn’t have this intention. Carnival is a big game. This scandal won’t get anyone anywhere and it’s even unworthy of Carnival. Prejudice is more in our heads than in the Carnival songs.
In one of the many opinion pieces that came out in the lead-up to this year's Carnival celebration, the author of an article from Brazilian news website G1, titled “Banning incorrect Carnival songs is useless, but reflecting on lyrics is necessary”, took both sides into account:
Talvez o melhor, em ambos os casos, seja refletir sobre o conteúdo dessas músicas e cantá-las em contexto adequado – como em um baile ou bloco de Carnaval, no caso das marchinhas – com a consciência de que não há mais como defender tais letras e, sobretudo, de que é preciso combater o racismo e a violência contra a mulher em qualquer tempo ou lugar. Inclusive em um baile ou bloco que toque O teu cabelo não nega e que, por acaso, registre caso de racismo ou de violência contra a mulher. Boicotar tais músicas é ineficaz, assim como pôr na mira qualquer outra composição que tenha a palavra mulata na letra chega a ser risível pelo exagero. Ter bom senso também é ser politicamente correto.
Perhaps the best, in both cases, is to reflect on the content of these songs and to sing them in a suitable context — such as in a dance or in a Carnival bloco, in the case of marchinhas — with the awareness that there is no way to defend such lyrics and, above all, that it's necessary to fight racism and violence against women in any time or place, including in a dance or a bloco that plays “O Teu Cabelo Não Nega” and that, by chance, invokes racism or violence against women. To boycott such songs is ineffective, just as putting in the crosshairs any other song with the word mulata in the lyrics is excessively laughable. Having common sense is also being politically correct.
A debate is now certainly taking place, with ideas being challenged. The blocos against the lyrics mentioned above are not calling for a Carnival-wide ban on the songs — they are merely deciding to challenge the ideas within them. Revelers that disagree with making any changes are free to go elsewhere, and they literally have hundreds, if not thousands, of other options available. In the end, any alterations will only make Carnival more of what it already is — an event where there's something for everyone.

author: Adam Lee


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An American Artist Is Inking ‘RESIST’ Tattoos for Good Causes · Global Voices
Erin Gallagher

Nate Kascak of A Psychic Unicorn Tattoo & Art Studio. Photo: Erin Gallagher
A tattoo artist in the United States is offering free “RESIST” themed tattoos to anyone who brings him proof of donating $100 or more to charities or organizations “fighting for a better world.”
Nate Kaschak works at A Psychic Unicorn, a tattoo and art studio owned by Rhi and Chris Wallace in the town of Kingston, Pennsylvania, population around 14,000. Located in the Wyoming Valley, Kingston was a historic coal mining region of northeastern Pennsylvania once pivotal in the industrial revolution.
Kaschak says he was tired of so much negativity online and wanted to encourage people to be more proactive instead of complaining. He drew an original series of “RESIST” themed tattoos and posted the following to Facebook on January 27:
Help our world, get a free tattoo!
Starting February I will be offering a selection of designs available at absolutely no charge with proof or receipt of donations of $100 or more to the following organizations (or a charity/organization of your choice, these are just my recomendations):
People for the American Way
Human Rights Campaign
Planned Parenthood
ACLU
Sacred Stone Legal Defense Fund
NAACP
ProPublica
The Trevor Project
National Resource Defense Fund
International Refugee Assistance Project
Environmental Defense Fund
National Endowment for the Arts
National Center for Transgender Equality
There's a ton of useful projects and organizations out there fighting for a better world, do your research! A great deal of change is heading our way and it's our collective responsibility to make sure they're positive and progressive steps towards a brighter future for E V E R Y O N E.
Do me a huge favor and share this around and feel free to suggest any programs you can think of.
Series of “RESIST” tattoos by Nate Kaschak. Photo: Erin Gallagher
Kaschak’s Facebook post has gained quite a lot of attention and currently has 410 shares and many comments of people advising they have donated to various organizations and will be in for their tattoos. He says he’s been overwhelmed with the response and has booked appointments to ink his original “RESIST” designs from people in the local area as well as out of state.
Photo: Erin Gallagher
Global Voices visited A Psychic Unicorn and hung out with Kaschak as he was inking one of his new RESIST designs, which he modified to say “PERSIST” at the customer's request.
Kaschak, whose unique style is characterized by colorful creations and some signature ghosts, plans to release his “RESIST” designs with a Creative Commons license so artists anywhere can use them.
A Psychic Unicorn's Facebook page describes the studio as being home to artists who “all strive to be the best all around humans as possible” and lists personal interests as “charities for cancer, animals or anything that forwards positive vibes in the galaxy.” It seems Kaschak is certainly living up to that goal.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Erin Gallagher


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Battle of the Hashtags: Mapping the Online Conversation Surrounding Mexico’s Gas Prices · Global Voices
Signa Lab

A tractor against the “gasolinazo.” Photo by Thelmadatter via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
With the increase of gasoline prices in Mexico, social unrest has spread and people are making themselves heard everywhere they can: on the street, in coffee shops and all across social media.
The latest hike in fuel prices – known as the gasolinazo – went up by about 20% virtually overnight on January 1. This spurred daily protests in the streets and online.
During these protests, Twitter has served as both a megaphone and a platform from which people can show their anger and discontent. However, friction and conflict have increased on the site, as well as the propagation of false stories.
“Youth armed with pipes and knives running through the streets of Tultepec, #EdoMex” Deleted tweet from Grupo Formula, accompanied by a photo from Egypt, in which Arabic writing can be seen in the background.
One of the most important phenomena that has been observed in this fight is the circulation of rumors and hashtags that promote illegal activities such as looting and theft. These strategies two objectives: to influence the conversations and to delegitimize the protests. Alarmist messages have even been shown alongside photos from other contexts and situations, such as the deleted tweet displayed here, published by Radio Fórmula with a photo that fact-checkers later confirmed depicts a street scene in Egypt.
Some of the accounts involved in these disinformation campaigns have been identified as bots (automated accounts) or trolls who had already been linked to harassment and threats against journalists and social activists.
The strategy of these accounts is to reshape the natural online conversation via trending topics, interfering with the discussion. This kind of strategy has been used at different times to systematically curb or modify conversations that are not favorable to certain groups in power.
During the protests on January 4, 2017, two hashtags were used, #Gasolinazo and #SaqueaUnWalmart (Loot a Walmart), which grew to be trending topics in Mexico. The following image shows the relationship between different hashtags found in the tweets published on that date. The links between hashtags represent the times when two or more hashtags were used in the same tweet, and the size of each node shows the number of times each hashtag was used. This analysis was generated using more than 15,000 downloaded tweets, posted and re-tweeted by more than 10,000 different accounts.
Here we see the importance of #Gasolinazo and its relationships with the rest of the hashtags used that day. The appearance of #SaqueaUnWalmart can be read as a cluster in the system, an unnatural insertion that links up with #Gasolinazo in order to gain momentum and invade the natural conversation.
The diagram also allows us to identify other hashtags associated with #SaqueaUnWalmart, which gives clues as to the strategy used to enter into the conversation. Specifically, the hashtag #Hail100cia (a play on words meaning “hail ciencia” or “hail science”) stands out. This hashtag is associated with the group of Twitter user accounts that coordinated the appearance of #SaqueaUnWalmart and has continued pushing forward new hashtags such as #GolpeDeEstadoMX (State of Mexico Coup D'état).
In order to identify the real influence of the hashtag within the conversation, the accounts that were active with both tags were analyzed and graphed. This allows us to see who is posting messages and who their audience is. The following graphic shows these relationships. The size of the nodes depends on the number of times a user is mentioned within the conversations with the hashtags #Gasolinazo and #SaqueaUnWalmart — the more mentions, the larger the node.
The active communities range from traditional media who reported on the hike in gas prices, to particular organizations — in this case the group that instigated the #SaqueaUnWalmart hashtag.
At first glance it is difficult to see the relationship between said accounts within the many active accounts who adopted #Gasolinazo, but as the following image shows, the #SaqueaUnWalmart group managed to link themselves up with #Gasolinazo to position their hashtag as a trending topic.
The community highlighted in red in the above diagram identifies the group of active accounts that used the hashtag #Hail100cia. This is the same group of users (trolls and bots) that interrupted the natural conversation surrounding #Gasolinazo to insert the #SaqueaUnWalmart message. This group represents only 4.19% of the total active accounts (5,302 in total used the tags #Gasolinazo and #SaqueaUnWalmart). However, despite their small numbers, their attack through the use of replies and mentions managed to boost #SaqueaUnWalmart so much it impinged upon the natural conversation.
Manipulating trends within a global conversation not only draws attention, but also “pops” or “deflates” the conversation as well as any pressure the real activists exert on the government and/or certain figures. These types of strategies, while not illegal, represent a new challenge in the use of digital spaces for public discourse.
Other questions arise after identifying these patterns, strategies and accounts. First, what is the motivation for influencing the conversation in a certain way? Second, what people or groups benefit from this kind of behavior? Third, what are their long-term plans? And lastly, what mechanisms can be developed to curb or mitigate the artificial modification of trends?
It is imperative these days to ask the right questions and keep working along this vein. Federal elections in Mexico are only a year away, and the circus of social media could easily become a battlefield between artificial discourse and society, journalists, activists and analysts. And what's more, it could make building a critical, transparent and robust public space difficult.

author: Signa Lab


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Driving Through Sniper Territory Close to the Azerbaijan-Armenia Border · Global Voices
Chaikhana.media

Screenshot from video produced by Lusine Balyan for Chai-Khana.org.
The following is a version of a partner post that first appeared on the website Chai-Khana.org.
Rich vineyards, fertile pastures and mostly arable land lie along the road connecting the two Armenian villages of Baghanis and Voskepar. This stretch of tarmac in the north of country is part of the artery linking Armenia's capital Yerevan to the Georgian capital of Tbilisi.
It also leans towards the border with Azerbaijan and suffers from increasingly regular Azerbaijani sniper fire and shelling. Nevertheless, villagers and drivers have no other choice than to keep up with their daily life.
English subtitles are available for the video below, filmed and produced by Lusine Balyan.


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Families in Sri Lanka Stand Up to the Soldiers Who Took Their Homes · Global Voices
GroundViews

IDPs in the north of Sri Lanka carrying the possessions. Image from Flickr by trokilinochchi. CC BY 2.0
This post by Raisa Wickrematunge originally appeared on Groundviews, an award-winning citizen journalism website in Sri Lanka. An edited version is published below as part of a content-sharing agreement with Global Voices.
Feb. 9 marks the tenth day of protests in Keppapulavu, a village in Mullaitivu, situated on the north-eastern coast of Northern Province, Sri Lanka, where residents are demanding the return of their land. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is meeting with representatives of the Keppapulavu protests, but the struggle for the return of their land has been going on for years.
More than seven years have passed since the end of a civil war. Still, though, as many as 200,000 troops remain stationed in the Tamil-populated north. They occupy significant amount of land belonging to locals, who were driven from their homes during the war, supposedly because of national security needs.
Dozens of families in Pilavukkudiyiruppu village, in Keppapulavu of Mullaitivu, have been protesting in front of an Air Force camp, demanding the return of their 25-acre lands, which the military currently occupies. Families have been waiting to return to their homes since the final phases of the war in 2009.
Keppapilavu villagers threatened by Sri Lankan army ahead of presidential visit https://t.co/5od7r1WDsc #Tamil #lka
— Tamil Guardian (@TamilGuardian) January 20, 2017
The displaced residents of Keppapulavu were reportedly warned not to protest, as President Maithripala Sirisena was scheduled to visit the area.
Ahead scheduled visit of @MaithripalaS today/25, 59 Div in Mullaithivu warned Keppapilavu residents not to stage protests or any agitations pic.twitter.com/8EWagv9sUX
— Garikaalan (@garikaalan) January 24, 2017
President Sirisena did not visit Mullaitivu due to poor weather, though a ceremony was held to transfer some land. Local displaced persons, however, say the land isn't the same area they inhabited previously.
In response, protesters have demanded the right to resettle on their original land. The villagers initially held a protest on Jan. 25.
Keppapilavu residents in Mullaithivu today pretested demanding to access their lands;stopped Forest Dept vehicle & sat middle of the road pic.twitter.com/HC4KTubkph
— Garikaalan (@garikaalan) January 31, 2017
On Jan. 31, the villagers protested through the night.
Mullaitivu Keppapilavu residents protest all over the night; demanding to access their land. #lka #tamil pic.twitter.com/GOYvZO2LhN
— shalin (@uthayashalin) February 1, 2017
Villagers said they will continue their protest until Air force return their lands belong to them in Pilavukudiruppu in Karaithuraipattru DS pic.twitter.com/dzJdZqYZad
— Garikaalan (@garikaalan) February 1, 2017
Following villagers protest last night,Air Force today strengthened its military base secuirty by putting up new fences #Keppapilavu pic.twitter.com/4CZUnfaCz5
— Garikaalan (@garikaalan) February 1, 2017
“We have lost everything.We have been running away(being displaced continuously) for long time, when will we return to our homes/lands?” pic.twitter.com/QCq8Oi4lON
— Garikaalan (@garikaalan) February 3, 2017
“They uprooted us from our land &now made to resettle in cemetery land!'a women protester in #Keppapulavu detailing displacement tragedy 1/2 pic.twitter.com/a8G8xotRBk
— Garikaalan (@garikaalan) February 4, 2017
The military reportedly tried to pressure the demonstrators into stopping the protest.
Nearby electricity/drinking water facilities stopped by military;courageous women take turns in middle if protest to see their families 2/2
— Garikaalan (@garikaalan) February 1, 2017
Protestors-most of them are women with families spending the night in front of military camp;very cold weather prevails in the area #lk pic.twitter.com/kfutVY5wFp
— Garikaalan (@garikaalan) February 2, 2017
Day6: #Keppapilavu women protesters are sitting around a fire to survive the cold in early morning today pic.twitter.com/c0nk5p7YIp
— Garikaalan (@garikaalan) February 5, 2017
As the protests continued, local politicians and neighboring villages expressed solidarity.
Residents of neighboring villages came forward to offer help for Keppapilavu protesters with food;local politicos also expressed solidarity pic.twitter.com/iiumVbHSTp
— Garikaalan (@garikaalan) February 2, 2017
Mullaithivu residents today blocked entrance of Puthukkudiyiruppu DS office-in solidarity with ongoing Keppapulavu residents’ struggle #lk pic.twitter.com/HM68CYGeQj
— Garikaalan (@garikaalan) February 3, 2017
CM Wigneswaran & Mullaithivu GA visited #Keppapulavu protesters today;Air Force reportedly told them returning lands is under consideration pic.twitter.com/BOFP8RHhA4
— Garikaalan (@garikaalan) February 4, 2017
Some dubbed the country's Independence Day a “Black Day”:
Rejecting SL Independence celebrations, a ‘Black Day’ campaign by residents of Mullaithivu underway demanding return of lands in Keppapulavu pic.twitter.com/Fbfj4GhowU
— Garikaalan (@garikaalan) February 4, 2017
Many children in Keppapulavu also joined in the protest.
Children in Keppapilavu drum out their own #protest song – ‘#SriLankan army leave our land’. #Resistance is in our blood. #Tamil #music pic.twitter.com/BGDh2LfHDg
— Thusiyan Nandakumar (@Thusi_Kumar) February 6, 2017
As the demonstrations continued, the story gained more mainstream media coverage, as well.
Women in week long sit down to regain occupied land threaten self-immolation https://t.co/XEhzHrdnSZ pic.twitter.com/nqzD4BzEtv
— JDS (@JDSLanka) February 7, 2017
Activists from the south of the country also visited in solidarity.
“We are only asking for our own land” On Keppapilavu protest https://t.co/VAMDybSc85 #lka #SriLanka @rukitweets pic.twitter.com/8bWQYnXbg5
— Groundviews (@groundviews) February 8, 2017
For nine days, there was no official government response, apart from local politicos such as Chief Minister Wigneswaran and the Mullaitivu GA who visited the protesting residents and expressed support.
Matters finally came to a head when TNA MP M A Sumanthiran raised the matter in parliament.
Is Govt apathy to protestors in #Kepapulavu 10 days into agitation for their lands due to their ethnicity? @MASumanthiran asks in P'ment
— dharisha (@tingilye) February 8, 2017
You wouldn't dare treat ur Sinhalese citizens like this says @MASumanthiran accusing Govt of apathy to #Kepapulavu land protest now in day 9
— dharisha (@tingilye) February 8, 2017
Private bus owners strike & Govt responds in 24hrs. #Kepapilavu land protest in day 9, yet this does not move u in the least:@MASumanthiran
— dharisha (@tingilye) February 8, 2017
Following Sumanthiran's speech, State Minister of Defense Ruwan Wijewardene committed to a meeting to discuss the issue.
1/ StateMin @RWijewardene,in debate foll @MASumanthiran‘s speech:land #lka gov promised to release was located elsewhere & wld be released.
— TNAMedia (@TNAmediaoffice) February 8, 2017
2/ However, @RWijewardene said some arrangement cld b made re land ppl were protesting abt as well & agreed to meet to discuss this tmrw.
— TNAMedia (@TNAmediaoffice) February 8, 2017
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe then met with representatives from Keppapulavu on Feb. 9.
The military meanwhile has asked displaced families to provide copies of their deeds, posing a problem for those who do not have these documents.
Military Spokesperson says Air Force is willing to return lands belong to #Keppapulavu residents if they can prove their ownership 1/3 pic.twitter.com/iRJ6HcT7DH
— Garikaalan (@garikaalan) February 8, 2017
Some #Keppapulavu residents who displaced many times & faced worst destruction in 2009 lacks key Docs-deeds/permits to claim their lands 3/3
— Garikaalan (@garikaalan) February 8, 2017
UPDATE: Following a meeting with the families, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe reportedly asked the military to relocate its camp. The Keppapuvalu residents welcomed the decision, but said that they would continue protesting until their land was returned.
At High Level meeting on #Keppapulavu today @RW_UNP instructed military to shift their camps from Pvt lands to nearby Forest/State lands 1/2 pic.twitter.com/3MpvUxVjvT
— Garikaalan (@garikaalan) February 9, 2017
However #Keppapulavu protesters welcomed @RW_UNP decision & informed their protest will continue until their lands are returned to them 2/2
— Garikaalan (@garikaalan) February 9, 2017

author: GroundViews


text:
Her Syrian Resistance: Into the Deep Podcast · Global Voices
Sahar Habib Ghazi

The scale of the crisis and destruction in Syria is mind-numbing. The country is “a slaughterhouse, a complete meltdown of humanity, the apex of horror, “ according to one United Nation’s official.
The war has killed close to half a million people; half of the country’s 22 million population has been forced from their homes. The Syrian Centre for Policy Research says a total of 11.5% of the entire Syrian population has either been wounded or killed. Recently, Amnesty International released a report saying 13,000 Syrians had been hanged in a military prison between 2011-2015. They were doctors, lawyers, activists, fathers, husbands and sons.
In this edition of Into the Deep, the Global Voices podcast where we dig deep into one topic that isn’t getting the media coverage it deserves, we are digging deep into the resistance in Syria.
The Syrian civil war, now in its sixth year, may be the most documented war in history. But to people outside the country, it may also be the most confusing.
We see heart-breaking tweets from a 7-year old Syrian girl named Bana in besieged Eastern Aleppo, and then we see our friends sharing a news article telling us that Bana doesn’t exist and is a propaganda tool created by the West.
Bana does exist. Her videos were verified by comparing them to satellite imagery. And trusted activists and doctors working in eastern Aleppo also confirmed to the Guardian and the New York Times via Skype and WhatsApp, that Bana and her mother are who they say they are. Millions of images, videos, blogs, tweets and audio files about the war have been shared on social media. Some have been contextualized by news organizations and some have been de-contextualized by propaganda machines.
When we want to truly understand what’s going on in Syria, we, at Global Voices, always turn to Marcell Shehwaro. She’s a 32-year-old blogger and activist from Aleppo, Syria.
Marcell has been writing an evocative series for Global Voices since 2014, called “Dispatches From Syria”, where she describes her life in Aleppo and her eventual exile outside of Syria. In 2015, the series won a 2015 Online Journalism Award. The judges praised her “intensely personal writing” for finding “the gray areas in a war usually told from polar extremes.”
In this episode, Marcell is joined by Joey Ayoub, the Global Voices Middle East and North Africa editor, who helps us understand what viewing the Syrian resistance through Marcell's eyes and pen means.
The inspiring work of all our Global Voices authors, translators and editors made this episode possible. So, a big thank you to all of you out there.
In this episode, we featured Creative Commons licensed music from the Free Music Archive, including The Telling (CC BY-NC 4.0) and Parissi (CC BY-NC 4.0), both by Blue Dot Sessions.
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author: Sahar Habib Ghazi


text:
Kenyan Government Allegedly Pays Social Media Influencers to Promote “GreedyDoctors” Hashtag · Global Voices
Njeri Wangari

Mothers queuing for treatment, Sindo District Hospital, Nyanza, Kenya. Photo by UK Department for International Development via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Since October 2015, there have been reports on Kenyan social media about the so-called “36 Bloggers” — a group of 36 social media influencers purportedly hired by the federal government to defend its interests online.
Often referred to as “The Itumbi Boys” or “Itumbots”, the group curates online discussions, spreads propaganda and otherwise works to change narratives that are deemed to be critical of the current Kenyan government, through the creation of counter hashtags or by hijacking any existing hashtags that put the administration in a bad light.
It is believed that the bloggers were hired by State House Director of Digital Communications Dennis Itumbi and are working under the Presidential Strategic Communications Unit based at State House.
#TalkToRuto why did you hire 36 bloggers to spread propaganda and counter any critic? pic.twitter.com/WwPGsliuL0
— Ojijo Dancun Oyieko (@OjijoDanOyieko) September 28, 2016
The issue of the 36 bloggers has gained prominence online, following a nationwide strike by Kenyan doctors. In December 2016, 5,000 Kenyans doctors from all state hospitals went on strike to protest the government's failure to implement and honor the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) it had entered into with the doctors’ union in 2013. Ongoing since December 5, the public support for the strike has been bolstered by allegations of millions of dollars having gone missing from the Ministry of Health. It has also brought the public healthcare system to a halt.
The effects of the strike escalated on February 13, 2017 when an appeals court judge ordered that seven officials from the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentist Union (KMPDU) be jailed for contempt of court in failing to call off the the ongoing strike.
From the very beginning of the strike, the 36 bloggers created four hashtags: #DaktariRudiKazi, (loosely translated as “Doctors, go back to work”), #GreedyDoctors, #MyBadDoctorExperience, and #DaktariMmetuchosha (loosely translated as “Doctors, we are tired of you).
The hashtags have been countered not just by union members, but also by Kenyan social media users who refuse to buy into the rhetoric that the doctors are a greedy, incompetent lot, allowing innocent Kenyans to die. This caused the efforts of the allegedly paid influencers to backfire.
The Secretary General of The Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU), the body that governs all Kenyan doctors, alleged that the 36 bloggers are getting paid more money than what the government has allocated for medical research in the country:
#GreedyDoctors sponsored at Kshs 20 million to 36 bloggers vs 5000 doctors promised Kshs 11 million a year for Research. Priorities please!
— KMPDU Sec Gen (@fnoluga) January 13, 2017
The Twitter account of the doctors’ union also questioned the rationale behind the hashtag #GreedyDoctors, by posting a summary of the content of the CBA:
#greedydoctors? Our “greed” is to have a better health care as outlined in our CBA. @fnoluga has outlined the “greed” points below! pic.twitter.com/WNiXruGmw9
— kmpdu (@kmpdu) January 13, 2017
Referring to one of the other hashtags, #DaktariRudiKazi, Dr. Mo shared a post by an ordinary Kenyan who was defending the doctors against malicious propaganda:
Here's from a REAL Kenyan that sees through the propaganda & double standards. #DaktariRudiKazi is one of those propagandas!#LipaKamaTender pic.twitter.com/RUDszU605T
— Dr.Mo (@Moshexxx) January 12, 2017
Omar Bond tweeted:
How I wish kenyans were as angry about massive corruption , looting and mp/mca Salaries as they are about #GreedyDoctors. Hypocrites!
— Omar Bond (@AstronautKE) January 17, 2017
Poriot Teko pointed out that the hashtags created by the group have flopped:
So #GreedyDoctors was a flop #mybaddoctorexperience a flop I wonder what @OleItumbi ‘s errand boys will serve tomorrow. #implementcba
— Poriot Teko (@PoriotTeko) January 16, 2017
Although there are a number of mission hospitals affiliated to different religious denominations, their capacity has been strained over the last two months due to the influx of patients, many of whom can’t afford private health care.
Not all Kenyans are seeing this crisis from the viewpoint of the doctors. Many of those affected directly have an ailing close relative and are expressing their disappointment and disapproval for both parties in the crisis. AbdulKarim Taraja, whose family member has been suffering in hospital since the beginning of the strike, felt that doctors need to go back to work:
My kin has been suffering for a whole 2+ months in hospital I don't care if someone sleeps on the deck #HealthCrisisKe
— Abdulkarim Taraja (@Abdtaraja) February 13, 2017
John Muiru also felt that the doctors should return to work as negotiations continue:
Can the Doctors embrace the return to work formula, as the concerned bodies come to a consensus, we are suffering #HealthCrisisKe
— John Muiru (@ThisisMuiru) February 13, 2017
Meanwhile, patient deaths in hospitals continue to rise. There has not been an official number provided by the Ministry of Health of the patient death toll due the ongoing strike. There is, however, an estimate of 300 deaths from a Kenyan media house, KTN:
KTN yesterday estimated 300 have died since the start of the Doctors strike
— Intellect Mogul (@GicheruGicheru) February 2, 2017
Some of these cases are making their way to Kenya’s social media space. Writing about the deaths, Soko Analyst said:
The senseless deaths I have witnessed have scarred me in ways I don't know how I will recover #DoctorsStrike https://t.co/YJdzC0tHAD
— SokoAnalyst (@SokoAnalyst) February 1, 2017
Teddy Eugene narrated:
3 pregnant women denied admission at Mwala hospital, lose their infants in attempt to give birth by themselves #NursesStrike #DoctorsStrike
— The African Voice (@teddyeugene) February 3, 2017
Some like Kiprono do not support the strike at all due to how doctors treat patients under their care:
I may want to support doctors strike but to remember how they treat patients esp those in public hospitals is sad
— kipro kiprono (@terer_aaron) February 2, 2017
The worst affected by the doctor’s strike are the nation’s poor who can’t afford private healthcare, many of whom go to the nation’s biggest referral hospital, Kenyatta Hospital.
As the battle to improve public healthcare in Kenya continues, the battle of the hashtags will definitely continue on social media.

author: Njeri Wangari


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Kenyan President’s #DabChallenge Backfires After Critics Create #DabOfShame · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

President Uhuru Kenyatta (centre) dabbing at State House. The photo has been widely shared on social media.
A campaign by Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta, #UhuruDabChallenge, to motivate young people to register to vote went awry after social media users took the opportunity to point out misplaced priorities in his administration.
The challenge requires youths to “dab” —  a type of dance move that resembles sneezing into your elbow — in voter registration centres and share photos and videos of themselves doing it on social media. Kenyans will go to the polls on August 8, 2017.
A tweet from the official account of Uhuru Kenyatta about the campaign said:
The winner of the Dab challenge, whether it is a group or individual with the most retweets at the end of the remaining five days of voter registration, will be rewarded for their patriotism, including visiting with me at State House.
And as part of the campaign, Kenyatta recorded a video of dab moves at the State House with a popular local dance group called FBI.
However, Twitter users inspired by the hashtag started publishing criticism under #DabOfShame. Kenyans wondered how the president could find time to record a music video while the country is going through major social and political problems such as hunger, drought, cattle rustling and nationwide strikes by university lecturers and doctors.
Following the backlash, tweets and photos related to the campaign hashtag (including the one mentioned above) were deleted from President Kenyatta’s Twitter account.
Despite deleting the tweets, some Twitter users such as Dikembe published screenshots, which they are mockingly sharing them online.
President Uhuru DELETED these tweets! Should we have a law prohibiting deletion of presidential archive? #DabOfShame #UhurudabChallange pic.twitter.com/kPEp4eiajn
— Dikembe (@Disembe) February 11, 2017
Showing his disapproval of the challenge, Master Chengo posted two images showing the difference between a presidential dab and a common citizen's dab:
Let 2017 be the Year Of Redemption.
Presidential Dab v/s Common Mwananchi Dab. #TheyarebothDabbing #TheDifferenceIsNotTheSame#DabOfShame pic.twitter.com/fbcLBT8aGn
— Master Chengo (@MOGULinfluencer) February 11, 2017
The video below from Kenya NTV shows president Kenyatta dancing with FBI dance group:
Elia Muriuki noted:
#UhuruDabChallenge in for a rude shock after being turned down by pissed Kenyans. It turned into #DabOfShame Tia bidii #Sir_presidente
— Elias_Muriuki (@iam_muriuki) February 12, 2017
#UhuruDabChallenge in for a rude shock after being turned down by pissed Kenyans. It turned into #DabOfShame Work hard #Sir_presidente
Mark Wuon Odhis complained:
Kenyans are suffering with this drought and all we are asked to do is dab #DabOfShame
— Mark Wuon Odhis (@makoth) February 11, 2017
Kenya is experiencing severe drought, which the president has declared a national disaster.
Silas Okumu joked:
#DabOfShame after dubbing next is twerking… we shall do it now that drought is a national disaster.
— Silas Okumu (@sokumu58) February 11, 2017
Twerking is a type of dancing in which an individual moves to music in a sexually provocative manner.
While Kibii Eliud asked the president:
Mr President, how about dabbing off clashes in Kerio Valley and Laikipia? https://t.co/MAOiwIUkWT via @TheStarKenya #DabOfShame
— Kibii Eliud (@eliudkibii) February 11, 2017
There have been a series of clashes in Kerio Valley associated with banditry and cattle rustling that have left several people dead.
A parody Twitter account purporting to be that of a fictional son of Kenyatta joked:
Stop exaggerating what My Dad did, as a President he has to use Entertainment Allowance well. #UhuruDabChallenge pic.twitter.com/j1qtJHEKzH
— Uhuru Kenyatta Jnr (@UkenyattaJr) February 12, 2017
However, there are Kenyans such as Yobra Silver who was in support of the campaign. He wrote:
#DabOfShame
Good president
It is good to know he also appreciates the youth
— yobra_silver (@yobra50100) February 11, 2017
Another Twitter user wrote:
#UhuruDabChallenge wow! HE Uhuru me and my hommies are dabbing????
— saidamilan (@saidamilan) February 10, 2017
And Annie made the following observation:
Its only in Kenya that a president is not supposed to dab, laugh or have some good time~smh #UhuruDabChallenge
— Annie (@matrevor) February 10, 2017

author: Ndesanjo Macha


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Mystery Oil-Like Substance Pollutes Macedonia and Albania’s Lake Ohrid · Global Voices
Elena Nikolovska

Drastic low water level and oil spill in the Ohrid Lake quay in Ohrid. Photo by OhridSOS, used with permission.
Residents of Ohrid, a touristic town in the southwest of the Republic of Macedonia, were shocked by view of the lake shores this week — a muddy beach covered in oil-like liquid replaced the once deep and clear waters of the oldest lake in Europe.
Lake Ohrid and the surrounding area is a UNESCO world heritage site and a biodiversity hotspot harboring more than 212 endemic species that exist in no place else on Earth. Due to its age scientists have also dubbed it a living evidence of evolution.
Lake Ohrid with normal water levels. Photo by MatriX at English Wikipedia (public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.
The citizen initiative OhridSOS, fighting against harmful urbanization on the lake shores, posted alarming photos of dry shores covered in an oily substance on February 13, 2017. This caused a strong discussion on social media in Macedonia. People demanded responsibility from the local and national authorities. Мr. Arnaudov from OhridSOS, who also lives in Ohrid, theorized what caused the pollution:
This is definitely caused by a human factor. Whether it is done consciously or by accident we cannot know. Our doubt is that somebody has been using the sewage system to discharge burned oil, to avoid paying to dispose of them adequately. A lot of people from a neighborhood located several meters from the lake have been complaining that they are feeling a strong smell of oil for the last couple of weeks.
Photo by OhridSOS, used with permission
State officials have kept quiet about the environmental disaster and there has been no official statement made so far.
This situation comes a month after the waters of Lake Ohrid hit their lowest level in residents’ memories — eight centimeters below the allowed legal limit. OhridSOS and locals suspect that state-owned electrical energy company ELEM – Macedonian power plants is to blame for this situation. ELEM controls the flow of water from the lake into the Drim River, which powers hydro plants on its way to Albania, and seems to have increased the flow in January, at a time when the snow had not melted yet and the springs were frozen.
господа од елем, од локална и разни други експерти, мајка природа заедно со трскава ви нацрта линија до каде треба да е нивото на езерото pic.twitter.com/MOm2enyHpB
— GK (@KG_OhriT) February 10, 2017
Gentlemen from ELEM, the local government and various other experts: Mother Nature together with these reeds draws a line showing you how high the water level in the lake should be.
In the last week of January, the Public Scientific Institution Hydrobiological Institute of Ohrid issued an official request to ELEM to lower the outflow from the lake, because the alarmingly low water level directly endangers the survival of the species living in the shallows. ELEM issued a statement that “there's no uncontrolled outflow of water from the lake” and that they've been adjusting the production in their power plants to the situation.
Photo by OhridSOS, used with permission
OhridSOS, however, alleged that the “main reason for this shockingly low level of the lake waters is ELEM. We are asking them to shut down the doors on the Drim hydro plants before it is too late to save the lake.”
Macedonia shares Lake Ohrid with Albania, so just a few days after ELEM's statement residents and media from Pogradec, a city on the shore of Lake Ohrid’s Albanian side, posted videos and photos of the devastation caused by the low levels of the lake. They demanded responsibility.
The situation could threaten the UNESCO World Heritage status of Lake Ohrid. After the last UNESCO mission in Ohrid last year, officials expressed many concerns and requested actions be taken:
A number of large-scale infrastructure projects have been proposed within the property and that the conclusions of the impact assessments of the proposed Galičica Ski Centre, the A3 road, the Railway corridor VIII and Highway A2 demonstrate that these projects would be likely to cause significant potential impacts on the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of the property, and considers that these projects appear to represent a potential danger to the property.
A World Heritage Centre/ICOMOS/IUCN Reactive Monitoring mission has been announced to take place in March this year, at which point they can decide to either put Ohrid on the List of World Heritage in danger or delete it from the list.
Since it was inscribed on the list in 1979, Ohrid has proudly used the UNESCO status to boost tourism. The World Heritage Site designation has indeed lured many foreign tourists to the area. Since tourism is the primary source of income for Ohrid, loosing the UNESCO status could be devastating for the livelihood of the local population.

author: Elena Nikolovska


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Please Drink in and Inhale These Unusual Superstitions Before You Visit Kyrgyzstan · Global Voices
Elita Bakirova

Photo taken during beshik toy, or ‘crib party': Elita Bakirova and Erlan Bakirov.
Kyrgyzstan, a country located where the old silk routes once ran through in the heart of Eurasia, celebrates Christian, Muslim, Soviet and pagan holidays. Its superstitions are equally numerous and diverse.
In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that Kyrgyz culture is a cradle for superstitions. People pass them from generation to generation to explain things that mostly defy explanation.
Here are a few that stick out.
When parents welcome their new-born child into the world, they try to keep him away from strangers for 40 days. It is believed that if a stranger — or even a non-member of the family — sees a baby, the child may get severely ill. This explains why women in Kyrgyzstan often drape cloth over their prams when walking their newly borns, just in case alien eyes are peeping over their shoulders.
Or, perhaps it's just an excuse for a party. After 40 days, relatives, neighbours and friends come around to watch the family give the child a warm bath using 40 spoons of water and enjoy forty roundels of bread (mai tokoch) baked specially for the gathering. This is when the baby is first placed in a beshik, or traditionally carved cot, usually given to the baby by his or her maternal grandmother.
Beshik ceremony: Elita Bakirova and Erlan Bakirov.
Other baby-linked superstitions are more left field. If a baby sleeps during the day but not at night, for instance, a mother may stick its head into a tandyr (a traditional oven dug into the ground to bake bread) three times in the hope that the baby gets used to the new day-night cycle. This takes place, of course, when the oven has not been heated up to bake bread.
An alternative to oven-dunking is placing soot on the baby's forehead. Mothers tend to do that when guests come around to see the baby, so that the guests focus on the black spot, rather than looking directly into the newborn's eyes, which some believe can contribute to a child’s sleeping disorder.
Tandyr – a traditional oven for baking bread: Elita Bakirova and Erlan Bakirov.
If a family is facing financial or personal difficulties such as disease, unemployment or depression, Kyrgyz families often burn parts of a pine tree (ysyryk) in a dish and move it around each family member, uttering words such as, “May prosperity and success attend us throughout the year!”
Watch this video >
A similar rite is carried out over the newborn's beshik (see video below) to drive away negative spirits. From a scientific point of view, pine, which is indigenous to Kyrgyzstan, can provide benefits in terms of respiratory health and the immune system. Whether that is also the case when it is burned is not clear.
View this video >
Birds whistling away in Disney classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Screenshot from YouTube.
Many people find whistling an annoyance, including people that are partial to whistling themselves. But in Kyrgyzstan, as with many other parts of the former Soviet Union, it goes much further than that. In many homes, there is an iron-clad belief that whistling brings on bankruptcy.
The roots of the superstition are unknown, but a Russian website offers two explanations. One is that whistling is the way in which “impure spirits communicate” and that echoing their language brings them into the home. The other is that ancient peoples used whistles as a way to summon a gust of wind if they needed it. But even then they had to be very careful with winds/whistling, as a strong storm might take the roof off their homes…
Full moon. Pixabay image. Creative commons.
Well, because why not? This is another superstition fairly prevalent across the ex-Soviet Union. A full moon is associated with abundance by some astrologists, so it doesn't do any harm to wave a banknote at it. No actual guarantee that your finances will wax, rather than wane, but it seems worth a shot.
As in Western countries, Kyrgyz households have come to view the horseshoe as a good luck symbol, and have started to hang them outside their doors in recent years. This makes sense, since Kyrgyz owe a large part of their identity to horses.
Horseshoe hung on the door of a beauty parlour in Osh, Kyrgyzstan: Elita Bakirova and Erlan Bakirov.
This is less of a superstition and more of a practical necessity in a country where much of the population of six million people depends on animal husbandry as a way of life. Nevertheless, beyond the oft-repeated common-sense mantra madli tebbe, bashka, sappa (don't kick the cattle, don't hit its head), there are plenty of negative omens — too numerous to cite here — that cling to sick horses and cows like unwanted fleas.
Photo taken on the jailoo (mountain pasture) in Sadyrbay village, Jalal-Abad province, Kyrgyzstan: Elita Bakirova and Erlan Bakirov.
There are plenty of waterfalls to tell your nightmares to in Kyrgyzstan.Taken from static.pexels.com. For illustration purposes only.
If a person has a nightmare or insomnia, Kyrgyz will sometimes put bread, wheat, or table knives under a pillow to keep bad dreams at bay. Elders even recommend telling your nightmare to flowing water; this will flush away the memories of the ‘mare.
Dog in a fairy costume. Creative commons.
When Kyrgyz children lose their baby teeth, they don’t wait for a tooth fairy to leave them pocket money in exchange for their fallen tooth. Rather, they fill the fallen tooth with bread, approach a neighbourhood dog, and throw their tooth to the dog, shouting: “Take a bad tooth, and give me a good one!”
Pot of tea? Image used for illustration purposes only. Creative commons.
Like many other cultures, people in Kyrgyzstan sometimes see bubbles in a bowl of tea as evidence of good luck or future prosperity.
Where Central Asian tea-traditions differ is in the serving of tea. On visiting a Kyrgyz home you might find you are constantly being served half a cup of tea. You are not being shorted. In fact, the host is showing you that he or she does not want you to leave. When it is time for you to go, they will let you know by pouring you a full cup!
Kelin arrrived in her new family: Elita Bakirova and Erlan Bakirov.
A daughter-in-law or kelin has the lowest rank in a Central Asian household, and as such is inundated with superstitions even before she begins married life.
Typically, when a new kelin arrives in her husband’s home for the first time, she is supposed to bow three times to the guests and her parents-in-law as a sign of respect and reverence. In northern parts of Kyrgyzstan, the rite is even stricter; a kelin should bow whenever she encounters her parents-in-law in order not to bring misfortune and sorrow into her new home.
Another superstition threatens that if the young woman takes even a covert disliking to one of her husband’s relatives or her mother-in-law, her next child will resemble that relative.
Watch this video >
Yet another old wive's tale sees people avoid distributing the tongue of a sacrificial sheep to girls at feasts. The assumption is that eating a tongue might make a young girl a sharp-tongued kelin in her new family, rather than the subservient variety that is favoured. Conversely, when a chicken is divided among family members, daughters get chicken wings, as an encouragement to fly the family nest!
A kelin distributes meat according to age and status. All photos Elita Bakirova and Erlan Bakirov.
Finally, by the time the kelin meets her husband's parents, she should have no excuses for leaving dishes unwashed until the following morning, as this will have been drummed into her by her mother from an early age.
Supposedly, it is forbidden to leave dishes unwashed until the next morning because dirty dishes will attract evil spirits. But is this a actually a superstition or just a creative way of encouraging girls to be neat and tidy? Who knows?
Watch this video >

author: Elita Bakirova


text:
Here Are Some of the Southeast Asian Artifacts in the Met Museum’s Public Domain Collection · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

The Parinirvana of the Buddha, gold, lacquer and silver, 18th century. Thailand. CC0 1.0
More than 300,000 images of artworks and other cultural artifacts in the collection of the New York-based Metropolitan Museum of Art are now freely available for unrestricted use.
This Open Access policy of The Met was announced on February 7, 2017 as part of the museum’s strategy to reach a bigger audience:
Since our audience is really the three billion internet-connected individuals around the world, we need to think big about how to reach these viewers, and increase our focus on those digital tactics that have the greatest impact. Open Access is one of those tactics.
Searching The Met’s public domain collection related to Southeast Asia, we found 1,023 images of artworks from Indonesia, 397 from Thailand and 25 from Myanmar.
These resources are important not just for scholars but for the general public who want to expand their knowledge of history and culture. Majority of the Southeast-Asia-related images in The Met provide interesting information about the region’s diverse cultures, religious practices, and economic history.
Below are some of the images that can be freely downloaded from The Met’s public domain collection.
Portable writing set, sharkskin and ivory, 19th Century. CC0 1.0
Garuda with dolphins, gold jewelry, 18th century. CC0 1.0
Pellet bell in the form of a Kala head, bronze metalwork, 12th century. CC0 1.0
Standing crowned and jeweled Buddha, wood with traces of red lacquer, gesso and gold leaf, 12th century. CC0 1.0
Seated Buddha with double-lotus base, bronze inlaid with silver and copper, 11th century. CC0 1.0
Burmese chess set, 18th century. CC0 1.0
Bracelet with three-headed snake, gold jewelry, 15th century. CC0 1.0
Heads of Hevajra and four dancing yoginis, 11th century. CC0 1.0

author: Mong Palatino


text:
Netizen Report: In Kenya and Mexico, Citizens Suspect State Manipulation on Twitter · Global Voices
Netizen Report Team

Flock of birds. Photo by Christoffer A Rasmussen, via Wikimedia. Licensed to public domain.
A social media tug-of-war has emerged in the face of a nationwide strike by Kenyan doctors protesting the government's failure to honor their collective bargaining agreement. The strike has brought the public healthcare system to a halt and has stoked public mistrust of the Uhuru government, particularly following allegations of millions of dollars having gone missing from the Ministry of Health.
While doctors have garnered substantial public support in their demands, there has also been a spate of social media messages maligning doctors. Local bloggers have identified a strong correlation between Twitter accounts propagating hashtags such as #GreedyDoctors, #MyBadDoctorExperience, and #DaktariRudiKazi (Doctors, go back to work) with those promoting other pro-government messages. Social media experts believe the messages are not being circulated by regular citizens, but rather by government-paid “social media influencers.” Some have suggested links between these accounts and widespread reports of a group of 36 social media influencers purportedly hired by the Presidential Strategic Communications Unit to change online narratives critical of the Kenyan government.
In recent days, #GreedyDoctors and similar hashtags have been overwhelmed by Twitter users promoting the implementation of the collective bargaining agreement, adding to their tweets the hashtag #implementCBA.
Kenya is not alone in this phenomenon. Alongside countries with long-standing practices of promoting state interests via social media commenters, such as China and Venezuela, Mexico appears to have joined these ranks with various recent pro-government campaigns online.
Most recently, after January’s gas price hikes triggered public protests on major roadways and online, a select set of Twitter accounts began promoting illegal activities such as looting and theft, in what appeared to be an effort to influence conversations and delegitimize the protests. Most commonly, they inserted hashtag #SaqueaUnWalmart (“loot a Walmart”) into conversations bearing the #gasolinazo hashtag, which was widely used by protesters. These accounts also propagated images of people rioting, which turned out to be false (the photos actually depicted street riots in Egypt in 2011.)
By visualizing data from over 15k tweets associated with the protests, data scientists at the Jesuit University of Guadalajara observed that the #SaqueaUnWalmart hashtag interrupted the flow of conversations, seeking to associate #Gasolinazo with malicious intentions. Some of the accounts involved in these campaigns have been identified as bots or trolls who had already been linked to harassment and threats against journalists and social activists.
These observations, along with recent allegations of spyware used against researchers and public servants promoting a tax on soda (reported by the New York Times and analyzed by Citizen Lab) suggest an increasingly threatening environment for citizens seeking to advocate and express their views on matters of public interest in Mexico.
The Spanish language version of the US-based news channel CNN, and its corresponding website, were blocked in Venezuela on February 15, after reporting on passport fraud allegations.
CNN is not alone — Mexico-based TV Azteca was also taken off the air on February 16. Since February 7, the Venezuelan news and public opinion website Maduradas has been inaccessible on a majority of ISPs (including government-controlled CANTV) in seven provinces in Venezuela since February 7. The site is known for its summaries of online responses to issues of public interest. In a public statement, Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro called CNN an “instrument of war.”
Researchers at Amnesty International uncovered a wave of sophisticated phishing attacks aimed at spying on the activity of journalists, trade unions and labor activists advocating on the rights of migrant workers in Qatar, a large proportion of whom come from Nepal. The campaign was likely orchestrated by a state-affiliated actor, although there is no evidence at the moment to conclusively identify who was behind the attacks. The attacks invited targets to open links to what appear to be files in Google Drive and Google Hangouts, but actually lead to spyware.
Media organizations in Thailand are warning that draft legislation could lead to complete government control over the press. The curiously named “Protection of Media Rights and Freedom, Ethics and Professional Standards” would require journalists to obtain licenses in order to do their work. It also would create a National Professional Media Council that would be staffed primarily with representatives from government ministries. According to Chakkrit Permpool, the former chair of the National Press Council of Thailand, “This kind of thing exists only under dictatorship governments. This is against the new constitution….that ensures media freedom and people’s freedom of expression.” More than 30 media groups have signed a statement rejecting the bill.
Facebook announced plans to combat the spread of fake news in the lead up to French elections in April and May by launching a new partnership with eight media organizations that will fact-check and filter news articles flagged by Facebook users. But some worry that Facebook’s reliance on already-stretched newsroom resources will not be sustainable.
On 23 February tech companies and organisations will face a Distributed Denial of Women, a general strike to show how important women and gender non-binary people are to the tech industry. In support of this action, the Association for Progressive Communications’ Take Back the Tech campaign is collecting stories about discrimination and gender in the technology industry and community. Learn more here.
Afef Abrougui, Mahsa Alimardani, Ellery Roberts Biddle, Marianne Diaz, Leila Nachawati Rego, Njeri Wangari and Sarah Myers West contributed to this report.

author: Netizen Report Team


text:
‘We Need to Normalize HIV Now, Not Tomorrow,’ Says One Chilean Artist · Global Voices
Autor Invitado

José Abarza: “Finding out I had HIV was like coming out of the closet again. That's how I saw it. This was my second chance and this time I'm not going to be sad about it, I'm going to make a show of it.” Image published under a Creative Commons Licence 4.0.
The following interview by Palo Valencia was originally published on Pousta, a Chilean media collective. An edited version appears below under a Creative Commons Licence 4.0.
“El Sombra is a parasite,” José Abarza tells you when he introduces himself. Because the person in front of you is not José, but El Sombra (The Shadow), the character he adopted to identify himself artistically and as a human being. Abarza is also known in Chile as a member of the “dissident reggaeton” band Marako Intenso, which tries to turn the genre's own stereotypes upside down and give it a new image:
Abarza creates “bizarre performance art“. That is how he defines it. He has been performing since the days of Marako Intenso, when he sang about real-life experiences. For example, the song Trava asesina is about a transvestite Abarza knew, who killed three people and spent nine years in prison for it; or Sexy pasturri, which was about someone who he liked who was mixed up in coca paste:
Muchas veces te bombardeas de tantas cosas y normalizas tantas situaciones que […] ya no te sorprenden. Pero cuando sales de ahí piensas que es fuerte […]
Lots of times you bombard yourself with so many things and you normalize so many situations that […] you don't get surprised anymore. But when you leave that place, you realize it's heavy […]
But now Marako Intenso is in the past and El Sombra is an independent artist:
Yo soy loca, soy más bizarra. Yo hablo del sida, de las enfermedades de transmisión sexual, sobre cortarte, que [insultes] a los demás. Ahora hago algo similar a Marako Intenso pero más bonito, más visualmente cuidado. Ya no me grabo yo, hay alguien que lo hace, que me corta y arma las maquetas. Yo puedo pedir lo que quiera, quiero que suene así, o quiero que suenen balazos. Igual antes me tenía que adaptar a lo que había en internet y [eso] me enseñó a trabajar con cero recursos. Pero ahora puedo crear algo con más recursos.
I'm queer, more weird. I talk about AIDS, about sexually transmitted diseases, about cutting yourself, about insulting other people. Now I'm doing something similar to Marako Intenso, but more attractive, more visually careful. I don't record myself anymore, someone else does that. They cut and assemble the models for me. I can ask for whatever I want, ‘I want it to sound like this, or I want gunshots sounds. Before I had to adapt myself to what was on the internet, and [that] showed me how to work with zero resources. Now I can create something with more resources.
In March 2016, El Sombra appeared in a story about HIV in the independent Chilean media outlet El Desconcierto, talking about the fact that he is HIV-positive. What for many would mean an unending drama, didn't turn out that way for him:
Salió un día y al otro tenía toda la bandeja de entrada llena de mensajes de ‘estoy contigo’, ‘te apoyo’. Y yo [respondía] ‘no me estoy muriendo, estoy más vivo que nunca’. Lo que menos quiero es que sientan pena o lástima
It went public one day and the next my inbox was full of messages like, ‘I'm with you,’ ‘I support you.’ And I [responded] ‘I'm not dying, I'm more alive than ever.’ The last thing I want is for them to feel pity.
Sombra has had HIV for a little more than a year now, but for a while he was faced with difficult uncertainty. He had to go through months of medical examinations without knowing what he had. “It was HIV or leukemia. I preferred [HIV], not cancer,” he says.
Afterwards he watched a parade of doctors go by, refusing to treat him. He saw other doctors attend 17 patients in an hour and a half. Others came accompanied by medical students while they examined him. At the moment, he's not at a stage where he has to receive treatment. He doesn't really like the topic of medication:
Tengo un amigo que toma como ocho pastillas y él no se va a morir de sida, se va a morir de falla hepática de tanta cosa. Si al final nos quieren a todos los [homosexuales] muertos y resulta que somos súper buena inversión. Vivimos solos, [salimos de fiesta] toda la vida, nos compramos ropa cara, no tenemos hijos. ¿Para que nos quieren matar estos empresarios locos?
I have a friend who takes like eight pills. He isn't going to die from AIDS, he's going to die from liver failure from so much stuff. If in the end they want all us [homosexuals] dead, and it turns out we're a super great investment. We live alone [we party] our whole lives, we buy ourselves expensive clothes, we don't have kids. What do those crazy businessmen want to kill us for?
And on the diagnosis, Sombra says:
Enterarme de que tenía VIH fue como salir nuevamente del closet. Yo lo vi así. Esta era mi segunda oportunidad y esta vez no lo voy a hacer triste, lo voy a hacer con show. Si mi mamá se siente mal, obvio que se lo voy a explicar de mejor forma para que no le de pena. Si [tengo sexo] con alguien obvio que le voy a decir, mejor que lo sepa de antes para evitar esa conversación. Porque no todo el mundo es como uno. Mis amigos me dicen [“no me toques”] y yo les digo “me voy a cortar en la noche y se lo voy a pegar a todos”. Es un [fastidio] constante. Pero el poder lo tengo yo. Yo soy un arma mortal
Finding out I had HIV was like coming out of the closet again. That's how I saw it. This was my second chance and this time I'm not going to be sad about it, I'm going to make a show of it. If my mom feels bad, obviously I'm going to explain it to her in the best way possible to keep her from getting hurt. If I [have sex] with someone, obviously I'm going to tell them. Better for them to know before to avoid that conversation. Because not everyone is alike. My friends tell me [‘don't touch me’] and I tell them, ‘I'm going to cut myself some night and stick you all with it.’ It's a constant bummer. But I have the power. I'm a living weapon.
According to him, the groups in power have taken over the discourse on HIV:
Todo lo adornan con lentejuelas. Hubo una marcha el 1 de diciembre para decir “yo tengo VIH”. Patético, salgamos a marchar a decir que tenemos VIH todos. A mí me llegó una invitación y dije ‘uuuh voy a derramar y esparcir sangre para que todos se infecten’, y me dicen ‘oooh es tan serio’. No puedes dar charlas para asustar a la gente. Normalicemeos el VIH ahora, no mañana. Yo no entiendo a la gente que le tiene tanto miedo al VIH. Sí, ya, es una enfermedad crónica. Pero si te la cuidas bien puedes ser más sano que alguien sin VIH. Tengo VIH. Soy persona.
They put sequins on everything. There was a march on December 1 to say, ‘I have HIV.’ Pathetic. We go out to march and say we all have HIV. I got an invitation and I said, ‘uhhh, I'm going to leak and spread blood everywhere so everyone gets infected,’ and they told me, ‘ohhh, that's so serious.’ You can't give talks to scare people. We need to normalize HIV now, not tomorrow. I don't understand the people who are so afraid of HIV. Yes, alright, it's a chronic disease. But if you take good care of yourself you can be healthier than someone without HIV. I have HIV. I am a person.

author: Autor Invitado


text:
What It’s Like to Drive for Uber in Russia · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

St. Petersburg, Russia. Photo: Pixabay
Last month, writing for the popular news site TJournal, Denis Gavrilov interviewed several Uber drivers in Russia, learning about their work, their habits, and of course their passengers. RuNet Echo translates that text into English here.
A driver named Alexander says at least one passenger reliably forgets a mobile phone or a glove in his car every few months. Often, they don’t even realize it, but he calls them up, and returns their things. “The bummer is that they never reward you for it,” he says sadly.
Another driver, also named Alexander (“Alexander-2,” for our purposes), says he once discovered something even bigger: a tourist from Africa forgot his wallet containing all his documents and 80,000 rubles ($1,300) in cash.
The driver says he only noticed the wallet a few hours later, and then he started calling passengers that had recently been in his car. When he finally reached the man from Africa, it turned out that he’d forgotten entirely about his wallet, but he was wildly happy to learn that it was safe. He said this was already the second time he’d lost his wallet in Russia, though the first time it had been returned to him without any money inside.
Some drivers don’t just return lost items, but they actually help passengers pick up things from other places. According to another driver named Alexander (we didn’t plan it this way, but meet Alexander-3), a young man once ordered a ride, after forgetting almost all his things in a taxi: his money, documents, credit cards, and more.
“This guy already needed to be on his way out of Moscow, and he’d only come to his senses at the last minute. By this time, the driver with all his stuff was on the other side of the city,” Alexander-3 said. In the end, he had to put the pedal to the metal to reach him, but he pulled it off, and got a handsome tip.
Alexander-2 says he always tries to make conversation with passengers, but he pays close attention to their reactions. If somebody doesn’t reciprocate, or they answer monosyllabically, then that’s the end of the chatter.
“A lot of people spend the whole ride on their phones, but I can’t text with them while I’m driving, and I really like live conversation! I talk with passengers about all kinds of things — it’s always different. The topic of conversation, of course, depends on the age and sex of the passenger,” Alexander-2 says.
In the past year, many Uber drivers in Russia say they more often hear passengers talking about money issues, discussing the crisis, and a lack of funds and credit. A lot of men ask about working for Uber, wondering how they could start driving for the service, too.
Alexander-1 says he often explains the Uber fees to clients, giving them practical tips on using the Uber app, and teaching them its nuances. He says Russians aren’t at all interested in talking about politics, but plenty of people talk about their own lives, such as their finances, their purchases, and their personal issues.
Alexander-1 says he always respects his passengers and tries to be honest with them.
“Some Uber drivers trick their customers,” Alexander-2 warns. “They arrive, turn on their meter, and only then call the client, but the rules say they’re supposed to wait to activate the meter until after they call the client.”
Alexander-1 says he often argues in online forums with drivers who cheat their passengers. He thinks deceiving the clients is “a disgrace.”
Russian Uber drivers have generally kind things to say about their passengers, calling them respectful and well-mannered. Alexander-1 admits, however, that the clientele changed dramatically after Uber introduced promo codes and the option to pay fares in cash.
Moscow, Russia. Photo: Khusen Rustamov / Pixabay
“The customers started getting younger and ruder. Ill-mannered people are riding more and more, and they’re often acting like idiots,” Alexander-1 said, adding that the best behaved clients in St. Petersburg are foreigners. “You drive up, and they’re there waiting for you. Only 40 percent of Russian Uber users will call and actually wait where they’re supposed to. And, by the way, there are a lot of foreigners using Uber in St. Petersburg. I pick up three or four every day. In the center of the city, 30 percent of the clients are Muscovites coming from or going to the Moscow Train Station.”
Alexander-3 says he’s only had to turn away passengers four times in two years on the job.
When it comes to drunk passengers, most drivers say they don’t have a problem. Some drivers simply don’t work at night, so they only rarely encounter a client under the influence.
Rustam, however, works a night shift, and he’s called by drunk passengers all the time. If they start to behave aggressively, he immediately warns them that he boxed for years, and the jokesters usually pipe down right away. “You’ve just got to know how to talk to drunks,” Rustam says.
Alexander-2 is a big fan of billiards, and this is what he’s usually doing in his spare time. He never finished college: when he was younger, he studied to become a design-engineer of foundry machinery. In school, he loved soccer and played for a team called “Torpedo.” Later, he played college ball, and then he started a family.
Alexei, another Uber driver, loves to ski. In college, it so happens, he studied to be a physical education instructor and a biathlon trainer.
Alexander-3 is technically retired, but he works for multiple taxi companies “as a hobby,” he likes to say. His education is in engineering.
Alexander-1 is fond of betting on soccer and basketball, and he’s well versed in both sports.
Uber drivers break down into two basic types: those who drive for a primary source of income, and those who do it for extra money.
For example, Rustam drives his daughter to daycare every morning, then he spends a few hours driving for Uber, and then he goes to his main job. At the end of the day, he leaves his home again to drive a few more hours for Uber. Doing this, he’s able to earn an additional 10,000 rubles ($175) in a week, but sometimes he can make even more. Once, he says he took a week off from his main job and worked extra for Uber, and in a week he made more than 30,000 rubles ($525).
“But this was when Uber awarded you for every 50 trips, and they kicked me an extra 4,000 rubles [$70]. Sadly, there aren’t any bonuses like that anymore,” Rustam said.
Alexander-1 works a nine-hour shift for Uber from 5 a.m. until 2 p.m., taking off Mondays and Tuesdays. He says the most profitable days to drive are when it snows. “All the roads in online maps go red, public transportation comes to a standstill, and you get a rush of orders, and traffic surges. That’s the time to be working!” he says.
Many other drivers try to work more during the holidays, for instance during the New Year’s holidays. Alexander-3 says he managed to make 30,000 rubles in a day during this season in 2015. “This year, sadly, I couldn’t pull that off,” he says disappointedly.
According to Sergei Muravyov, the general director of “Everest 8800” and a manager for Uber’s driver recruitment in Russia, Uber drivers can earn between 25,000 and 35,000 rubles ($440 and $610) in a week, working 8-10 hours a day.

author: Kevin Rothrock


text:
Award-Winning Hong Kong Political Cartoonist Refuses Self-Censorship · Global Voices
inmediahk.net

Arto's award-winning piece (full image inside text). Via inmediahk.net
Arto is a cartoonist from Hong Kong who won Best Political Cartoon in the 2016 E-Citizen Awards, organized by the civic groups Hong Kong In-Media (inmediahk.net) and the Culture and Media Education Foundation to promote original reporting, political cartoons, video documentary and photography online.
Below is an interview with Arto conducted by Betty Lau, which was originally published in two parts in Chinese on inmediahk.net on December 17, 2016 and January 23, 2017. The English translation is published on Global Voices as part of a partnership with inmediahk.net.
Arto started participating in local protest movements in 2010 when Hong Kong's Legislative Council passed a budget for the construction of the Rapid Railway connecting China's Shenzhen to Hong Kong. He said:
看到整個制度如何不堪，你沒可能不出聲，身為一個香港人。
It is impossible for you not to speak up against the rotten system if you identify yourself as a Hong Konger.
Previously a graphic designer, he only started drawing online in 2011. At first he drew for fun; he published his first set, titled “Golden Creature Card,” on the popular platform Golden Forum. From there, he became an online celebrity. Later, his work became more political:
你真係對於那些事一種義憤、有一種感受，就變了畫那些事。
When incidents trigger emotion, anger, they turn into drawings.
But it is very difficult to develop a career as a political cartoonist in Hong Kong. Sometimes, his clients ask him not to use the name Arto on jobs because the name is too political.
In 2016, as he was gathering his online works into a book, the publisher asked him to remove some politically sensitive content. At first, the publisher referred to a drawing related to Chinese President Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party as sensitive. Then they wanted him to remove content that carried China’s national flag and the flag of Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China, arguing that the works might violate the National Flag and National Emblem Ordinance and the Regional Flag and Regional Emblem Ordinance.
A publisher told Arto that some of his work may have violated the law. Below is one of the pieces accusing the Hong Kong chief executive of destroying Hong Kong's core values. Image via inmediahk.net.
According to the two ordinances, anyone who desecrates the flags and emblems by publicly and willfully burning, mutilating, scrawling on, defiling or trampling on them risks a fine of 50,000 Hong Kong dollars (approximately 6,000 US dollars) and three years in prison.
Arto said:
我覺得非常非常之無稽。畫時事嘢，好難避免畫這些圖案[…]而且我覺得是過份憂慮，香港出版界從來未試過因為國旗法，而不能直接出國旗或區徽。
The incident is so ridiculous. How can you avoid flags in political cartoons? […] They worried too much. So far there is no case against Hong Kong publishers using those ordinances.
He then contacted another small publisher and all the works were printed without issue. He criticized the self-censorship practices that are currently common in Hong Kong as pathetic:
你是在揣摩政府可能因此控告出版社，導致要收書。我覺得這有違我畫時事漫畫的精神。如果我退讓，以後都有這些制肘，不能畫五星旗、區徽，是不是極之荒謬呢？
You speculate that the government may sue the publisher, and so decide to censor the work. The whole incident goes against my principles. If I give in, similar things will happen again and again and eventually no one can draw the national and regional flags and emblems. Isn’t that ridiculous?
With the space for political cartoons in printed media is shrinking, Arto releases his works mainly online. His award-winning cartoon, “After the reinterpretation of the Basic Law” was first published on his Facebook account with thousands of likes and shares.
Arto's award-winning piece. Via inmediahk.net
He drew the cartoon after China's Standing Committee of the National Congress exercised its unrestrained power to interpret Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, known as the Basic Law, in November 2016. That “reinterpretation” was in response to two Hong Kong lawmakers who altered the wording of their oaths to pledge allegiance to “the Hong Kong nation” instead of Hong Kong as a special administrative region of of the People's Republic of China.
The Standing Committee, China's top legislative body, said politicians who do not correctly swear the oath will be barred from office, preempting a local court's ruling on whether the two independent lawmakers should be disqualified for their actions. The move was criticized by many as hampering Hong Kong's autonomy.
Arto could only express his anger and sense of helplessness over the situation through drawing. The result was a cartoon featuring the statue of Themis, which is a symbol of justice erected outside the old Hong Kong Legislative Council and currently at the Court of Final Appeal, draped by China’s national flag. The weight of a hammer and sickle, the symbol of the Chinese Communist Party, tips the scale she's holding.
Arto attached the following comment to his work:
話說，最不守法律、最缺乏真誠的黨，要以法律裁決別人是否真誠。
The most insincere, unlawful party wants to use law to judge whether a person is sincere.
Arto believes that political cartoons can stimulate people to think deeper on complicated politics:
用輕鬆的手法，讓人一眼看懂事件的大概，再去讀比較複雜的資訊，就如一個踏腳石。我一直都以這個想法，去畫時事漫畫
By using humor and light-hearted presentation, [the cartoon] can help people to develop an impression of social and political events. Then they may have the motivation to read more concerning the events. It is like a stepping stone. This is my philosophy when drawing political cartoons.
Social media has helped him in his creative journey:
在傳統紙媒，你真係要揭那幾頁才會看到時事漫畫，普通一個師奶可能只看頭版或娛樂版；但網絡就不同，可能無端端在飲飲食食、生活瑣事的帖子之間，有個時事漫畫彈出來。
In conventional printed media, you have to flip a few pages and find the cartoon. But ordinary readers may just read the front page and entertainment news. The internet is different, the cartoon can pop up anytime when you are eating a meal or sharing your status about everyday life.


text:
Belgrade Mayor’s Ex-Wife Reignites Political Scandal With Bombshell Interview · Global Voices
Milka Domanovic

Marija Mali, illustration of KRIK interview.
A bombshell interview has been making waves in Serbia this week. On Monday, the Network for Investigating Crime and Corruption (KRIK) published revelations by Marija Mali, the ex-wife of Belgrade's mayor, claiming that her former husband, Sinisa Mali, admitted to being involved in the demolition of private property in the Serbian capital’s neighborhood of Savamala in April 2016.
According to Marija, her ex-husband told her that the violent demolition on the election night was organized in order to make room for the further development of the so-called Belgrade Waterfront project.
Late on April 25, 2016, a night after snap parliamentary elections, a group of about 30 masked men, armed with baseball bats, knocked down multiple buildings in the Savamala neighborhood, where a controversial Belgrade Waterfront gentrification project is planned.
“He said like it was an ordinary event. ‘I had a problem: some [people] did not want to move out. I organized a cleanup operation. People came in the middle of the night, smashed a little… I didn't do anything bad, but I organized everything by myself,’” Marija says her ex-husband told her.
She also said Mali named the company that provided bulldozers to tear down the buildings in the Savamala district, but revealed no details.
KRIK published a copy of the notarized statement by Marija Mali, which she now claims was false, and used to cover up money laundering of 95.000 euros.
Marija Mali said her main motive for speaking publicly about the demolition and other alleged wrongdoings by her ex-husband — including his offshore businesses and his real estate assets (which was also investigated earlier by KRIK) — was a court verdict that cost her custody of her three children.
She told KRIK that Mali used political connections to win custody, despite criminal charges filed against him for domestic violence.
By exposing Mali, Marija also admitted that she involved herself in some of his illicit affairs when she gave a false statement to anti-corruption officials about 95,000 euros in family spending.
“Sinisa and his lawyer came up with an idea that after my father’s death I found money that I later used for everyday needs,” said Marija.
At first, most mainstream media in Serbia simply ignored the interview. No national television networks or other mainstream media outlets reported the story until state officials began reacting.
Podrži RTV (“Support Vojvodina Public Broadcaster”), which promotes the role of Serbia's public broadcasters, quoted Vreme Weekly journalist Jovana Gligorijevic's criticism of the national media:
J. Gligorijevic: Nas javni servis RTS je izvestavao o neodgovornosti gradskih vlasti Orovila u Kaliforniji a o Beogradu cute kao zaliceni!
— Podrži RTV (@PodrziRTV) February 15, 2017
J. Gligorijevic: Our public broadcaster RTS reported on lack of responsibility of the city authorities’ in Oroville in California, but they remain very silent on Belgrade.
At a press conference the same day KRIK published its story, Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic refused to answer journalists’ questions about the allegations presented in the interview, but promised to explain everything the next day, during his own interview with Serbia’s public broadcaster, RTS, which is widely considered to be pro-government.
Šta je RTS objavio?
Pink?
Prva?
Blic?
Novosti?
Kurir?
Koje važne velike vesti?
Oni nisu nikakav mainstream
To je najveća laž
— PRO-FEEL (@SlobaGeorgiev) February 15, 2017
What did RTS publish? Pink? Prva? Blic? Novosti? Kurir? What important and big news? They are not mainstream. That is the biggest lie.
At the same time, story was gaining major attention online, where more than 330,000 people read the interview in a single day, according to KRIK.
Belgrade's mayor, meanwhile, simply ignored it and all his ex-wife's allegations.
Vucic, on the other hand, changed his tone and promised that those responsible for the election-day demolition will bear the political consequences. “Mali will hardly keep his post for much longer,” he declared.
“Mali will not be the candidate [for the mayor] of the party I lead. I spoke to him two days ago, and I do not know if he understood me, but I told him that,” Vucic later said in his interview with RTS.
But Vucic also used the interview to praise Mali for his accomplishments during his term, saying he had some of the best results in Belgrade’s history, and implying that the scandal with his ex-wife was being politicized.
Vucic said that Mali's only real mistake was that the demolition was carried out the middle of the night and that he would even be proud if the action had been completed during the day.
Serbian authorities, including Prime Minister Vucic, claimed those buildings were constructed illegally, while an independent government report a month later found that police allowed the incident to take place, ignoring calls from local citizens about the masked men.
In June, following massive public pressure and a promise that he would reveal “the whole truth” about the action, Prime Minister Vucic said that top city officials were behind the demolitions.
Still, though, there have been no formal charges or high-level resignations. In response, a series of protests have swept Belgrade, demanding that the mayor and top police officials step down for their role in the scandal.
Nijedan dan više! pic.twitter.com/6fOcT7NeCa
— Ne davimo Beograd (@nedavimobgd) February 15, 2017
Photo: Banner “Let’s Not Drown Belgrade”
Tweet: Not a day more!
“Do not drown #Belgrade!” Protesters continue to call for Mayor Mali's resignation in Serbia after his ex-wife alleged his role in #Savamala pic.twitter.com/QOonjlIj3Q
— OCCRP (@OCCRP) February 15, 2017
One of the most recent protests was staged on Wednesday, after KRIK's interview with Marija Mali. According to reports, thousands of people, led by initiative “Ne da(vi)mo Beograd,” (“Let’s Not Drown Belgrade”) gathered in front of the City Assembly and later marched to the prosecutor’s office, demanding an investigation and justice for those responsible.
Since Vucic, who started his second term in office in August 2016, announced this week he would run for president in elections this spring, there are rising concerns that this scandal will be “buried” by subsequent breaking news, and Twitter users are doing their best to keep KRIK's interview with Mali's ex-wife circulating online.
Zbog cirkusa oko izbora ne smemo zaboraviti intervju Marije Mali.
Hocemo ostavke, odgovrnost za rusenje u Savamali!!https://t.co/jnfDyJV8KA
— Jovana Radenovic (@joovanica88) February 17, 2017
Because of the circus on election we mustn’t forget Marija Mali’s interview. We want resignations, accountability for the demolition in Savamala!

author: Milka Domanovic


text:
Divisions and Danger Loom Ahead of Turkey’s Upcoming Referendum · Global Voices
Arzu Geybullayeva

Turkey's Erdogan. Taken from Official Flickr page. Licensed for reuse.
On April 16, Turks will head to polls to yea or nay constitutional amendments which have been approved by the 550 seat parliament where the majority of seats (317) belong to the ruling party of Justice and Development (AKP) under the control of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Here are some things worth knowing ahead of the vote.
Pretty grim. The referendum will take place under the State of Emergency (SoE) introduced in the aftermath of the failed July 15 coup in which 241 people died.
Since the SoE was brought in 128,398 people have been sacked from their jobs, 91,658 people have been detained, 45,012 people have been arrested, 2,099 schools, dormitories and universities have been shut down, 7,316 academics have been sacked, 3,843 prosecutors and judges dismissed, 149 media outlets shut down and 162 journalists arrested according to the independent Turkey Purge watchdog.
Mostly the victims of this “purge” have been linked by authorities to the network of Fethullah Gulen, which Turkey's government views as a terrorist group responsible for engineering the coup attempt. In many cases they have nothing to do with Gulen, but aren't neat fits in Erdogan's ‘New Turkey’.
Basically, empower President Erdogan, who is already vastly more influential than his constitutional mandate would suggest. To be fair, Erdogan argued for a presidential political system when he was still prime minister — currently the most constitutionally empowered office in the country — but many suggested he had his eye on the job even then.
Specifically the changes would enable the president to issue decrees, declare emergency rule, and appoint ministers and top state officials. It could also see Erdogan remain in power in the country until 2029.
The rhetoric coming out of Ankara since the coup attempt has created more cleavages in a divided nation.
Now, in the wake of the referendum being announced, those voting “no” are being described as enemies and terrorists, while those voting “yes” are praised as defenders of Turkish democracy. The official rationale for voting ‘Yes’, trumpeted by the bulk of Erdogan's AKP party and also the nationalist MHP party, is that the presidential system will enable decisions to be made faster and reduce the risk of political crises.
This pro-government newspaper says “those voting no endorse July 15″, referring to the coup attempt.
Speaking at an event in a pro-government think tank earlier this month, Erdogan warned that those who vote against the changes will strengthen Turkey's enemies, including the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group, which has fought the state for more than three decades from camps in the Qandil mountains in northern Iraq.
Other developments indicate the hysteria surrounding the vote. One imam in Istanbul reportedly called those voting “No” traitors during a sermon. A family in the eastern city of Diyarbakir meanwhile named their new born baby daughter “Evet”, or “Yes”, ahead of the referendum.
In a recent memorandum on freedom of expression and media freedom in Turkey, Nils Muižnieks, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, said:
The space for democratic debate in Turkey has shrunk alarmingly following increased judicial harassment of large strata of society, including journalists, members of parliament, academics and ordinary citizens, and government action which has reduced pluralism and led to self-censorhip. This deterioration came about in a very difficult context, but neither the attempted coup, nor other terrorist threats faced by Turkey can justify measures that infringe media freedom and disavow the rule of law to such an extent. The authorities should urgently change course by overhauling criminal legislation and practice, re-develop judicial independence and reaffirm their commitment to protect free speech.
In another recently published report, the Checks and Balances Network made up of over two hundred Turkish civil society organisations doubted whether the constitutional fix could be a good thing:
The overall outcome of this assessment is that a holistic perspective is required for the checks and balances system to become duly operative. While the proposal for constitutional reform being debated involves comprehensive changes especially in terms of executive power, it includes limited changes regarding representation, oversight and deliberative powers of the legislature which in fact need extensive reforms. A similar situation is true for judicial power.
Bertil Emrah Oder, a constitutional law professor from Istanbul's Koc University, told Al Jazeera that the changes would disrupt balance between the branches of power:
According to the proposal, presidential and parliamentary elections are going to be simultaneous and the president is allowed to act as the leader of a political party.
Turkey's media has become a largely “Yes”-friendly zone following significant reversals in already weakening press freedoms since the coup attempt took place. But the two opposition parties, CHP and HDP both oppose the changes.
Moreover, on social media, hundreds of “No” Facebook pages have popped up, with humour deployed in the face of strident state propaganda.
Bir #HAYIR da Tom Cruise ‘dan ?pic.twitter.com/zfib3wcKxP
— ? Aslı ? (@Aslican33) February 14, 2017
Here is another #No from Tom Cruise
#Hayır Hayır yüzbin kere hayır hayır ✊ pic.twitter.com/lOFl4NqsEe
— TC Orhan S• #Atam ? (@TC_Atamm) February 13, 2017
“Nos” compiled from old Turkish films.
#AKPileTürkiyeİflasEdiyor o nedenle #hayır diyorum! pic.twitter.com/CnkpBhVarD
— ⓂuratS ?? (@mrtslm40) February 12, 2017
I think, therefore “No”.
Ahmet Sabanci, a Global Voices contributor suggested Turkish netizens begin a “no” gif campaign:
Her güne bir #Hayır gifi serisini başlatıyorum. pic.twitter.com/h8LNb8b85h
— Ahmet A. Sabancı (@ahmetasabanci) February 3, 2017
I am starting one #No gif series for each day.
Bugün referandum hakkındaki görüşleri için @SenSanders ile konuştuk. Kesin bir şekilde #Hayır dedi. pic.twitter.com/KCuRpUxwXu
— Ahmet A. Sabancı (@ahmetasabanci) February 15, 2017
We talked with @SenSandrs about the referendum today. He clearly said “No”.
Efe Kerem Sozeri, another GV contributor, posted a video of himself strumming along to a “No”-themed song.
Bu da benim elimden, dilimden gelen..#Hayır‘lısı var
??? pic.twitter.com/Oyfcj4YqLw
— efe kerem sozeri (@efekerem) February 14, 2017
And this is from me. Let it be good!
But voting “No” is not all fun and games.  At least two journalists have been fired from their jobs for openly backing the campaign.
Mainstream @KanalD fires newscaster #IrfanDegirmenci for announcing to say “No”to executive presidency in referendumhttps://t.co/XGYG4A6GLM
— JournosInTurkey (@JournosInTurkey) February 11, 2017
This is where Turkey is at right now, as it prepares for yet another high-stakes, path-defining vote.

author: Arzu Geybullayeva