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Burundi: Scribble on the president’s picture — go to jail · Global Voices
Nwachukwu Egbunike

President Jacob Zuma visits Burundi on February 25, 2016. Photo Credit: GovernmentZA. Flickr, CC licence.
Six students were detained on Tuesday, March 12, in Kirundo province in northeast Burundi for scribbling on pictures of President Pierre Nkurunziza in five textbooks. The students were accused of “insulting the head of state.”
The National Federation of Associations Engaged in Children's Welfare in Burundi (FENADEB) reported that another student, 13, had been immediately released because he was a minor under the age of 15.
Three students were reportedly provisionally released on Friday, March 15, but, the remaining three were kept in custody. The girls, aged 15 to 17, if found guilty, risk up to five years in prison for insulting the president. Iwacu newspaper reported that families affected were deeply distressed.
“Scribbling [on the president’s picture] is a punishable offense under the Burundian law,” according to a Reuters report. However, the age of the offenders may serve as a “mitigating circumstance” in these students’ trial.
As a teacher anonymously noted, the textbooks had not been checked for several years and are often shared by students, so it is difficult to know who marked them.
A similar episode occurred in 2016, following the controversy over the president’s third term, where high school students scribbled on textbook pictures of Nkurunziza. Authorities took this as a serious insult and expelled hundreds of students from various schools across the country. Eleven students were charged with “insulting the head of state” and “threatening state security,” although they were reportedly later cleared.
These actions were highly criticized. Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, issued a statement on June 29, 2016:
I am dismayed by continuing reports of the suspension and arrest of schoolchildren and students for having scribbled on pictures of the president in textbooks.
President Pierre Nkurunziza of Burundi. Photo by Eric Miller / World Economic Forum, 2008 Africa Summit, Cape Town, June 3-6 2008. Image via Flicker (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).
Pierre Nkurunziza has been president of Burundi since 2005. In 2015, he was controversially nominated by his party for a third term in office.
In March last year, Nkurunziza was named “eternal supreme guide” by his political party, the National Council for the Defense of Democracy-Forces for the Defense of Democracy (CNDD-FDD). Evariste Ndayishimiye, CNDD-FDD’s secretary general explained why that title was conferred on Nkurunziza:
He is our leader. Therefore in our party… no one is comparable to him. He is our parent; he is the one who advises us. That is why I ask all our members to respect that because a home without the man (its head) can be overlooked by anybody. For us, we have the best.
While the CNDD-FDD downplayed the title, Nkurunziza’s reinforced status as the “eternal supreme guide” has made it difficult for anyone to disagree with his choices, including his move to change the two-term limit enshrined in the country’s constitution. This reflects a centralization of power in the ruling party around Nkurunziza and supporters, and of the party’s control of state institutions.
Netizens have taken to scribbling on pictures of President Nkurunziza in protest through two hashtags: #Nkurunziza and #Burundi:
Burundians online are scribbling in protest, doodling on pictures of President Nkurunziza in reaction to the arrest of three school girls who were detained for drawing over the picture of the President on their school books.
— Patience Atuhaire (@patuhaire) March 22, 2019
#Burundi : des lycéennes en prison pour le gribouillage d’un portrait du prédident #Nkurunziza @LewisMudge @hrw @hrw_fr https://t.co/BkAP5PfglK pic.twitter.com/z4HkiFbi3Z
— Eléonore Abou Ez (@Eleoabouez) March 22, 2019
High schoolers in prison for scribbling on a portrait of the President #Nkurunziza.
If I did this in #Nkurunziza’s #Burundi, I could be jailed #GribouilleMoi https://t.co/V7nVxKXZ0P pic.twitter.com/ahcO0apSQ7
— Wietske Nijman (@WietskeNijman) March 21, 2019
#Burundi Thank you @CNN @jeune_afrique @FRANCE24 @RFIAfrique @africanews @lemondefr & others for your solidarity with jailed teenage girls bcz they scribbled @pnkurunziza ‘s picture.
The Burundian autocratic regime must know that prison doesn't educate. @radio_rpa @RadioInzamba pic.twitter.com/3R9KQ1oz6Y
— NDAYISHEMEZA Denis (@NDAYISHEMEZAD) March 22, 2019
The government of #Burundi jailed schoolgirls for allegedly scribbling on photos of the president. We tweeted our scribbled photos in solidarity.
They dared us to scribble on our president's photo, so I did. I am confident I will not be arrested here. https://t.co/eqrrxussun
— Andrew Stroehlein (@astroehlein) March 22, 2019
Burundi's government has become increasingly sensitive to criticism since 2015, after a failed coup, clashes with rebel groups, criticisms of rights abuses, sanctions, economic hardships and a refugee crisis. Nkurunziza’s third term bid was opposed by the European Union, and the United Nations, who demanded a restoration of stability before elections. Faced with these challenges, a “siege mentality” hardened and authorities clamped down more harshly on perceived threats.
The Human Rights Watch May 2018 special report discovered that Burundian state security forces, intelligence services, and members of the ruling party’s youth league, the Imbonerakure, carried out brutal, targeted attacks on opponents or suspected opponents, human rights activists, and journalists, “killing an estimated 1,700 people and forcibly disappearing, raping, torturing, beating, arbitrarily detaining, and intimidating countless others.”
This has led to a refugee crisis that has seen Burundians fleeing particularly to Tanzania, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda. While thousands have returned, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees recorded over 347,000 total Burundian refugees in February 2019 UNHCR asserts:
…[P]olitical unrest in Burundi took a deadly turn in 2015 after the president announced plans to seek a third term. Street protests led to violent clashes, and hundreds of thousands fled to nearby countries in search of safety.”
Earlier this month, Burundi closed the United Nations human rights office after 23 years, saying it was no longer needed. The government was incensed with former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, who described Nkurunziza’s Burundi as one of the “most prolific slaughterhouses of humans in recent times” in February 2018.
Media outlet closures, harassment of opponents, and clampdowns on NGOs and restrictions in political space for alternative narratives and arguments.
For example, rights activist Germain Rukiki who documented acts of torture committed by Nkurunziza’s regime was sentenced to 32 years in jail in 2018 for “participation in an insurrectional movement,” “undermining state security” and “rebellion.” Rukiki's trial was also marred by irregularities and came weeks before the controversial constitutional referendum.
The “scribbling affair” is also indicative of the government’s increasingly conservative, moralizing approach, including mandatory marriages for cohabiting non-married couples in 2017, clampdowns on prostitution and begging.

author: Nwachukwu Egbunike


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Censored on WeChat: #MeToo in China · Global Voices
Wechatscope

Chinese students displayed anti-sexual harassment banners at the January 20 Women's March in Washington, DC. Image via Voice of America, licensed for reuse.
This post was written by the team of WeChatscope, a research initiative led by Dr. King-wa Fu at The University of Hong Kong.
With more than 1.0825 billion individual users, along with more than 20 million registered public accounts, WeChat has the largest number of domestic users and the most extensive coverage of any social media service in China. As such, it has become a chief component of China's rigorous censorship regime.
In 2017, our team at the University of Hong Kong built a technical web “scraping” system for studying censorship on WeChat's publicly accessible pages. Throughout 2018, we tracked more than 4,000 public accounts covering daily news and preserved censored posts in a publicly accessible database, WeChatscope. This article is the sixth in a partnership series with Global Voices.
Around the world, #MeToo was one of the most popular hashtags on Twitter in 2018. The global campaign took on different dimensions in dozens of countries, including China. Our data set indicates that online allegations of sexual misconduct were one of most heavily censored topics on WeChat in 2018.
The campaign first emerged on social media in China in October 2017, mostly in the form of reports about revelations among actors and film producers in Hollywood. But similar to what happened in other countries, after these stories made the rounds online for a few weeks, local people began to speak up about their own experiences.
In November 2017, female reporter Sophia Huang began investigating allegations of sexual harassment that appeared in the media. She used the hashtag #MeToo and launched an anti-sexual harassment platform on WeChat to conduct a survey and compile sexual harassment cases.
The first high-profile #MeToo exposé in China to make international news was reported on Weibo on New Year's day of 2018 by Luo Xixi, a former student at the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Luo, who had moved to the United States, revealed how she had been sexually harassed by University professor Chen Xiaowu 12 years prior. Her story, which included the hashtag ‘#Wo Ye Shi’ (#我也是, “#MeToo”), went viral within two days. After almost two weeks of investigation, Chen was sacked by the school. The Ministry of Education also stripped Chen of his academic title as Yangtze River Scholar.
The incident triggered  a series of campaigns and petitions in several universities calling for school administrators to establish official policies against sexual misconduct. Feminist activists also started using #MeToo and #Wo Ye Shi as campaign hashtags on social media. Within two weeks, these tags became popular topics on Weibo but were disabled from automatically generating a topic page in February. A new term, “rice bunny”, which sounds similar to “me too” when spoken in Chinese, was used as a replacement hashtag to get around the censors.
When Chinese feminists attempted to take the campaign forward for International Women’s Day on March 8, 2018, they were blocked by Chinese censors. The feminist campaign hashtag “#38antiharassment” was blocked. The hashtag #Metoo or #Wo Ye Shi was allowed to be used but only to discuss sexual harassment campaigns in other countries like South Korea.
One month later, in early April, the Chinese #MeToo campaign resurfaced when Li Youyou, an alumna of Peking University, published a post accusing Nanjing University literature professor Shen Yang of sexual misconduct against Gao Yan, a fellow classmate of Li's who died by suicide in 1998.
Shen Yang denied the accusation but the school decided to terminate the 60-year-old professor's contract for “violating teaching ethics”. Coincidentally, Shen is also a Yangtze River Scholar.
Shortly thereafter, eight university students from Peking University wrote an open letter to school authorities, asking them to release information about their investigation into Gao Yan’s death.
This relatively small collective action elicited a strong response from university authorities who attempted to threaten the students with further action. But this backfired when one of the students, Yue Xin, wrote another open letter, exposing how the school had harassed and intimidated the students. Although Yue’s letter was quickly censored, fellow students took screenshots of her letter and circulated them online. Soon, posters appeared on campus expressing support for the #MeToo student activists.
According to China Digital Times, a message circulated in various WeChat groups at Peking University alleging that the school’s Communist Party committee was concerned about the incident. The committee apparently saw the students’ response as a form of activism, or as a political movement in collusion with external forces, and thus presenting a threat to the broader political establishment.
During this time, a search of Yue Xin on WeChatscope's database generated zero results. This may have been a sampling error, but more likely it indicates that the term “Yue Xin” was marked as a politically sensitive term and had been completely censored on WeChat's public domain.
Even though the death of Gao Yan had taken place 20 years ago, posts mentioning the incident were more frequently removed on WeChat than other individual cases because the keywords related to it were flagged for being part of a “political movement”.
A few examples of posts censored on WeChat that were linked to the Gao Yan incident at the Peking University. The first post, “Peking University students Xu Fan and Wang Ao back from 1995 urge Yangtze River scholar Shen Yang not to lie anymore” (北京大学95级徐芃、王敖请长江学者沈阳不要再说谎了) was a public appeal made by two university alumni and published on April 5, 2018. WeChat took the post down on the same day.
The second post, “The resistance and redemption of Gao Yan incident” (高岩事件中的反抗与救赎) is an investigative piece interviewing Gao Yan's parents and Li Youyou. The report probed into the power relations between teachers and students in a university institution. It was published and also removed on April 8.
The third piece is “Please pay attention to the suicide of Gao Yan 20 years ago and the campus sexual harassment policy” (关注 | 20年前的高岩自杀事件 迟到的校园反性骚扰制度). The commentary, published and removed on April 9 also challenged the absence of policy in dealing with campus sexual harassment cases.
Despite the clampdown, individual stories about sexual harassment still continue to circulate on social media. According to BBC's estimation, between June to August 2018, around 30 public figures from education, media and NGO sectors have been accused of sexual violence in China.
The most explosive story was told by 25-year-old Zhou Xiaoxuan about how she was sexually harassed by Zhu Jun, a prominent TV host back in 2014. Her 3000-word story was first shared among friends in a chatroom. One of her friends, an environmental activist named Xu Chao, had her permission to share the story on Weibo and in two hours it went viral. In the next few days, the term “Zhu Jun” appeared on Weibo’s hot search list.
Though Zhu is closely associated with the China Central Television, public discussion of the case was subjected to less censorship than the Peking University incident. In WeChatscope's database, we retrieved one censored post, “New development regarding Zhu Jun's incident. Will people still believe teacher Zhu Jun is innocent?” (朱军事件有了新情况，有多少人还相信朱军老师是清白的？), with a rhetorical question in the headline which may have led readers to believe that Zhu is guilty without any double, and was published and deleted on November 12.
Zhu has denied the accusations and threatened to sue Zhou for defamation, in an ongoing legal dispute that continues to attract public attention. Zhou is now attempting to bring the country’s first-ever civil sexual harassment lawsuit against Zhu.
Our data supports the argument that Chinese censors are blocking content that challenges authorities and advocates for change, even when it does not explicitly touch upon political issues. But it also shows that the #MeToo campaign in China, and other content with similar messages, have managed to find space on Chinese social media. Every now and then, new cases flash on the internet and some attract widespread public attention.
When a person shares their story and it strikes a chord with others, it can be shared by tens of thousands of individual users in a matter of hours. Despite efforts to censor these kinds of messages, these outbursts of sharing have had a significant impact on Chinese university campuses.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Wechatscope


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Cyclone Idai almost completely submerged Beira, a city of 500,000 residents in Mozambique · Global Voices
Alexandre Nhampossa

The aftermath of the cyclone in Beira. Photo by Juliano Picardo (19 March 2019), used with permission
Cyclone Idai hit southern Africa between 15 and 19 March and has already left over 350 dead and more than two million homeless across the region, specifically in Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Mozambique, with the latter being one of the most affected.
The category four cyclone formed on 4 March in the Mozambique Channel and hit the continent at the coastal city of Beira, the second largest in Mozambique with over 500,000 residents. Winds of 180 to 220 km/h were recorded, and over 160mm of rain caused sudden floods.
The number of deaths confirmed in Mozambique exceeds 200, according to the government, but it is thought to be much higher. The government estimates that more than 350,000 people are in a “state of constant risk”. The Red Cross reports that Beira could have had 90 per cent of its infrastructure destroyed, saying that “the scale of devastation is enormous.” The Mozambican provinces of Manica, Tete, Zambézia e Inhambane were also affected.
Provisional figures indicate the destruction of 23,000 houses, 616 classrooms, 30 clinics, bridges, and other infrastructure, alongside electricity cuts, and devastated agricultural land across 274,131 hectares. The collapse of telecommunications towers has also cut telephone and internet connections in the region.
Idai is the most violent cyclone to hit Mozambican territory since 2000. The United Nations said that the disaster left in its wake could be the worst ever in the southern hemisphere.
On Tuesday night, 19 March, the Mozambican government declared a state of emergency and national mourning for three days. While torrential rains and strong winds had been foreseen, the magnitude of the disaster was unexpected, and it has lead President Filipe Nyusi to cut short his state visit to the Kingdom of Eswatini.
The aftermath of the cyclone in Beira. Photo by Juliano Picardo (19 March 2019), used with permission
“It is really a humanitarian disaster of great proportions” was how Nyusi described the situation in a statement to the nation broadcast live on the state television channel, Televisão de Mocambique.
After having flown over the most affected areas, Nyusi explained that in Nhamatanda district, Sofala, rivers’ waters burst their banks due to the high water flow in the water basins of Búzi and Púnguè:
As águas dos rios Púngoè e Búzi transbordaram fazendo desaparecer aldeias inteiras e isolando comunidades, vêem-se corpos a flutuar, e estradas totalmente cercadas pelas águas
The waters of the rivers Púngoè and Búzi overflowed making entire villages disappear and isolating communities, you can see bodies floating, and roads totally surrounded by the waters
“It is all destroyed”, lamented the Minister of Land, Environment and Rural Development, Celso Correia.
“The brutal force of the waters was such that it managed to destroy what for us had been unthinkable,” commented the Minister of Public Works, Housing and Water Resources, João Machatine, about the destruction of the new National Road No. 6. The road had opened only in late 2018 and connected the Port of Beira to inland regions. Machatine said that it had “toughness that was supposed to withstand any type of bad weather”.
The spokesperson for the UN World Food Program Hervé Verhoosel, told AFP “I don’t think that the world (has) realised the scale of the problem yet”.
On Tuesday 19 March, in a river in Manica province, ten bodies were found, most likely of people who tried to flee the intense rains by making the crossing. On that day, numerous people in Buzi were still holding on to buildings calling for help:
Imagens tiradas esta manhã no Distrito de Buzi pela equipa do Instituto Nacional de Gestão de Calamidades #INGC. Equipas de resgate estão nas buscas com o apoio das Nações Unidas. pic.twitter.com/mXOYhdvVHs
— Nações Unidas em Moçambique (@onumocambique) 19 mars 2019
United Nations in Mozambique: Images taken this morning in Buzi District by the team of the National Institute for Managing Disasters. Rescue teams are searching with the support of United Nations
Rescue teams reported seeing children clinging to trees, and when they lost strength, they were swept away by the current.
In order to minimize the suffering of the displaced populations, various international and national teams are in the affected areas to deliver assistance. Despite the cyclone having passed, the victims continue to struggle with heavy rains, making the arrival of aid difficult, as was recounted to DW África, on a story dated 18 March, by the spokesperson for the National Institute for Managing Disasters, Paulo Tomás:
Os nossos armazéns ficaram destruídos. Há necessidade de fazer a assistência alimentar via ponte aérea para alguns locais onde não há transitabilidade via terrestre. Há dificuldades também na comunicação com alguns pontos. Estas é que são as maiores dificuldades neste momento. E a cidade da Beira está sem energia, logo não há água disponível.
Our storehouses were destroyed. It is necessary to deliver food aid by air to some areas where it is not possible to travel by land. There are also difficulties for communications with some places. These are the biggest difficulties at the moment. And the city of Beira has no energy, so there is no water available.
Faced with the inaccessibility of land routes, India decided to divert naval ships to Beira, a port city, to deliver immediate aid to and help those affected. The ships hold food, clothing, and medicine, as well as three doctors and five nurses to give immediate medical assistance.
South Africa sent more than 100 divers supported by three helicopters to rescue families who found themselves trapped by the overflowing waters of the Búzi and Púnguè rivers. Verhoosel, who is coordinating the humanitarian response of the United Nations Mozambique, made an appeal for the collection of around 40 million US dollars alongside other partners.
The European Union made 150,000 euros available to the Red Cross of Mozambique, while the Portuguese branch of Caritas, a charitable Catholic Church organisation, announced the donation of 25,000 euros. The oil company Anadarko pledged to give 200,000 dollars.
After the cyclone in Beira. Photo by Juliano Picardo (19.03.2019), used with permission
France is sending 60 tons of material aid (3000 reconstruction kits and 6000 tents), while the French NGO Télécom Sans Frontière managed to re-establish internet communications in Beira Airport by way of satellite mobile phones, thereby helping rescue operations to function.
A plane with UN food aid landed on Sunday, March 17 in Beira with 22 tons of fortified biscuits to feed 22,000 people for three days:
Response to #CycloneIdai in Sofala: @WFP rushed four tonnes of high-energy biscuits early today to assist people stranded in #Nhamatanda district after rising floodwaters burst a major dam on Saturday. It's part of 20 tonnes airlifted into Beira on Sunday from @unhrd in Dubai. pic.twitter.com/ymVs5ZCse9
— WFP Mozambique (@wfp_mozambique) 18 mars 2019
On social media there have already been numerous appeals and fundraisers organised by Mozambicans to help the victims of the cyclone, such as this one from Porto de Maputo:
Porto de Maputo anuncia barco para transporte de ajuda humanitária para vítimas #IDAI “apelamos que os bens sejam entregues com a maior antecedência possivel, entre as 7h30 e as 16h no Terminal de Cabotagem do Porto (acesso pela Av. Mártires de Inhaminga)” #MoçambiqueCheias2019 pic.twitter.com/iaXZKaEe3O
— Verdade Democracia (@DemocraciaMZ) 19 mars 2019
Porto de Maputo announces a ship for the transport of humanitarian aid for victims #IDAI “we call for the goods to be delivered as early as possible, between 7:30 and 16:00 to the Port’s Cabotage Depot (access by Av. Mártires de Inhaminga)”

author: Alexandre Nhampossa


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Outgoing baseball superstar Ichiro Suzuki’s oddball t-shirts make him fan favorite · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

“Smiles are free.” Retiring baseball superstar Ichiro Suzuki is also famous for his collection of offbeat t-shirts. Image widely shared on social media.
On Thursday, March 21, Ichiro Suzuki, the most prolific slugger in baseball history, announced his retirement in front of fans at a Major League Baseball (MLB) exhibition game in Tokyo Stadium.
A baseball icon on both sides of the Pacific, Japanese fans both lamented the end of his baseball career and remembered one of Suzuki's more colorful idiosyncrasies: his habit of wearing extremely odd t-shirts to baseball practice.
In the day or so following Suzuki's retirement announcement the hashtag #イチローＴシャツ (“Ichiro T-Shirt) reappeared as a trend on Twitter.
おつかれさま、スーパースター✨#イチロー #イチローTシャツ pic.twitter.com/oiWVA1D6Zp
— まっつん⚡ (@mattun_dmpa) March 21, 2019
T-shirt caption: “I won't work overtime.”
Many thanks, superstar! ✨ #Ichiro  #IchiroTShirt
Now 45, Suzuki, known simply by his first name “Ichiro” to fans in Japan and around the world, started his professional career playing for Kobe's ORIX Buffaloes before playing for the Seattle Mariners in the American major leagues. Suzuki played short stints with the New York Yankees and Miami Marlins before returning to Seattle to finish his career. Along the way he developed a reputation for methodically stripping away everything from his life except baseball.
As a result of his focus, hard work and innate talent, Suzuki has set multiple batting records, including the American Major League Baseball (MLB)'s single-season record for hits, and ten consecutive 200-hit seasons, the longest streak by any baseball player in history.
Suzuki has also bemused fans with the unusual t-shirts he wears to training camp.
「肉の日」#イチローおもしろTシャツ pic.twitter.com/uscpMyENRp
— イチローおもしろTシャツbot (@ichiro_tshirts) January 24, 2018
T-shirt caption: “It's Meat Day”
Twitter user Tatsuno Shinji has compiled a series of tweets that document many of the unusual t-shirts Suzuki has worn over the years.
イチローTシャツを友人から送られてきて権利関係無関係で投稿します#イチローTシャツ pic.twitter.com/5feoysES31
— 立野新治@投資,startup (@shinjitatsuno) March 22, 2019
Here's a selection of Ichiro t-shirts sent to me by a friend (who has no connection to Suzuki, nor is the owner of these images)
At a press conference announcing his retirement, Ichiro was inevitably asked about the meaning of his t-shirts:
さらに、「キャンプなどでユニークなメッセージのTシャツを着ていたが、何か心情を表していた？」と聞かれたイチロー選手は、「そこを言うと急にやぼったくなるので、言わないほうがいいですね。それは見る側の解釈だから、そう捉えれば捉えることもできるし、全然関係ない可能性もあるし。だってそういうものでしょう」とコメントしました。
When asked “What message are you trying to convey when you arrive at training camp wearing your unique t-shirts?” Ichiro replies, “I think it would dispel some of the magic and intrigue if I started talking about the t-shirts, so I think it's better if I don't say anything at all. It's up to the fans to interpret what the t-shirts mean. Sometimes fans can figure out what I'm trying to say, sometimes they come up with their own, original interpretations.”
More of Suzuki's amusing and offbeat t-shirts can be found on blogging site Naver Matome, on Twitter and on various blogs.

author: Nevin Thompson


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Two years after completing his sentence, Emirati activist Osama al-Najjar remains in detention · Global Voices
Afef Abrougui

Osama al-Najjar remains in detention, despite completing his jail sentence two years ago. Photo Credit: the activist's Twitter account
Emirati activist Osama al-Najjar remains in unlawful detention, despite having completed his three-year jail sentence more than two years ago.
Al-Najjar was arrested in March 2014 for posting tweets denouncing that his father had been tortured in prison, and calling for his release and that of other prisoners of conscience in the Emirates.
Osama's father, Hussain Al-Najjar, is one of 94 Emirati activists who were prosecuted en masse in 2013 for calling for political reform in the Emirates on charges related to “harming State Security”. He is currently serving 11 years in prison.
In November 2014, the State Security Chamber of the Federal Supreme Court, whose verdicts cannot be appealed, sentenced Osama to three years in jail under the country's cybercrime law on a number of charges that include “instigating hatred” against the state and “designing and running a website [with] satirical and defaming ideas and information”.
He was due to be released on 17 March, 2017, but at the request of public prosecution, the court deemed him a ”threat” to national security and extended his detention without specifying for how long. Two year later, Osama remains behind bars, with no end to his detention in sight.
In a recent statement marking the anniversary of the end of his official sentence, the International Campaign for Freedom in the UAE said:
As there is no trial proceeding this form of detention, those transferred to such facilities can be held indefinitely with the government – rather than the judiciary – handing down punishment. This type of administrative detention grossly violates international standards of due process.
Although he was not convicted of a terrorist offence, Osama is being held at a counselling centre at al-Razeen prison under the country's counter-terrorism law. Emirati authorities claim that the purpose of these facilities is to offer guidance to those considered to be “a threat against the state”. However, rights groups say that authorities are using counter-terrorism and these so-called counselling centres as a pretext to indefinitely extend the detention of prisoners of conscience.

author: Afef Abrougui


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China’s press freedom crackdown poses a threat to democracies, says media watchdog · Global Voices
Hong Kong Free Press

Image from RSF.
The following post is originally written by Jennifer Creery and published on Hong Kong Free Press on 25 March 2019. The edited version is republished on Global Voices under a content partnership agreement.
China’s crackdown on press freedom poses a direct threat to democracies worldwide, press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in a report released on March 25, 2019.
The 52-page report titled “China’s Pursuit of a New World Media Order”, outlines the ways that Beijing has sought to exert its political influence on international media in order to deter criticism and negative coverage – from exporting its censorship model to autocratic states to silencing dissidents through intimidation.
“The purpose of the report is to stir a reaction,” Cédric Alviani, director of RSF’s East Asia bureau, told HKFP. “It is only the tip of the iceberg of China’s influence on media across the world. That is what makes it chilling.”
The report condemns Chinese President Xi Jinping as an “enemy of democracy, universal values, human rights and press freedom.”
“In the spirit of the Beijing regime, journalists are not intended to be a counter-power but rather to serve the propaganda of states,” Christophe Deloire, secretary-general of RSF, said. “If democracies do not resist, ‘Chinese-style’ propaganda will gradually invade the world’s media, competing with journalism as we know it.”
In a section on Hong Kong, RSF said that press freedom in the city had been eroded, citing ties between Hong Kong media owners with mainland political bodies, threats from the Communications Authority to discontinue media licenses and the sale of English-language newspaper South China Morning Post to Chinese internet commerce company Alibaba in 2016.
It said that after the purchase, “…around 30 members of its staff immediately left. They were quickly replaced by reporters with a reputation for being docile or pro-Beijing, and its editorial policies did not take long to change.”
RSF said that China is exporting its media model to other countries in an effort to combat “hostile Western forces,” identified as news outlets who do not cover the country favourably.
The report highlights state-owned outlets China Global Television Network (CGTN), which broadcasts news programmes in 140 countries, and China Radio International, which broadcasts in 65 languages, as evidence of the country’s global media ambitions.
It also said that China has heavily invested in African nations in an attempt to expand its media influence, in particular, through Chinese state-controlled programmes such as CGTN Africa which avoids critical coverage of Beijing.
RSF added that Beijing has invited at least 3,400 foreign journalists from 146 countries on lavish trips to seminars in China to attract favourable coverage.
The report claims that Beijing has implemented a “Trojan horse policy” in order to insert propaganda advertorials in foreign publications which include the Wall Street Journal and the Daily Telegraph.
China Watch, an English-language state-sponsored insert, has reportedly been included in 30 major daily newspapers with a circulation of 13 million copies – 1.7 million of which are in the New York Times and 6.6 million in Mainichi Shimbun.
Below is a map showing the global reach of the sponsored supplement “China Watch” (via Twitter user @Fenella Sung):
“China Daily, the state-run English-language newspaper, has struck deals with at least 30 foreign newspapers – including NY Times, WSJ, WP & UK Telegraph – to carry 4 or 8-page inserts called China Watch, which can appear as often as monthly.” #propaganda https://t.co/C4exZBAZEX pic.twitter.com/nljqQI5Zvw
— Fenella Sung (@FenellaSung1) January 31, 2019
Other methods of influence outlined by RSF include the country’s heavy investment in foreign media such as spending 3.3 billion Euros in acquiring shares across various European media outlets.
In October 2018, New York investment firm H&H Group with links to Beijing-controlled Phoenix TV in Hong Kong acquired Mexican radio station XEWW 690, capable of reaching all of southern California – an area with a large Chinese diaspora – with the aim of targeting the community, RSF said.
Additionally, the NGO said that social media platforms have been threatened with being excluded from the Chinese market if they do not comply with the country’s censorship practices, referencing American technology giant Apple, who in 2018 yielded to government pressure by removing 25,000 “illegal” gambling apps from its Chinese store.
The report urged media companies in democratic countries to guard against China’s expanding influence by publicly identifying shareholders and introducing Chinese-language content, such as ABC’s AustraliaPlus.cn.

author: Hong Kong Free Press


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Colombian social networks rally behind a local street poet fined for ‘trafficking poems’ · Global Voices
Marco Sarmiento

Street poet Jesús Espicasa with his typewriter. Photo by Vladimir Diana, shared on his blog Ce Caudata. Used with permission.
On March 10, street poet Jesus Espicasa sat with his old typewriter on a sidewalk in Bogotá, Colombia. A craft fair happened nearby and he thought it would be a timely occasion to sell his poems to passersby.
But the fair organizers weren't very pleased with his presence and called the police. An officer approached Espicasa and told him to pack up and leave, and when the poet refused, he was taken to a police station where he was fined 833,000 pesos (260 US dollars) — the highest fine in Colombia's Police Code. When Espicasa asked what was his crime, the agents allegedly responded, mockingly, that he was a “poem trafficker.”
The above story was told by renowned Colombian writer, and a friend of Espicasa, William Ospina, in his March 17 column in the newspaper El Espectador. The story made waves on Colombian social networks and sparked a nationwide debate about the role of poetry in public life.
Espicasa went on to be interviewed by RCN Radio, where he said that it had not been the first time he went through such an incident, nor was he the only artist to have experienced mistreatment by the police. “Public institutions push [the artists] into the streets and then treat them as criminals,” he said.
In his column, William Ospina said that Espicasa's story speaks volumes of the authorities’ view of public spaces — and the role of artists in them. Ospina asserts that the fine must be reversed and that Espicasa is owed an apology:
No sólo merecen un espacio en la ciudad, merecen un homenaje de la ciudadanía y de las autoridades. Nuestra barbarie autoritaria les pone multas y los declara criminales. ¡En un país lleno de criminalidad verdadera y devorado por la corrupción! […]¿Por qué aquí les ha dado por llamar espacio público a un espacio del que cada vez más quieren expulsar a los ciudadanos, un espacio que privatizan cuando quieren de mil maneras distintas, donde la libertad está cada vez más restringida y donde expresiones como la música y la poesía terminan siendo tratados como delitos?
Not only they [the artists] deserve a space in the city, they deserve a tribute by citizens and officials. Our authoritarian barbarism fines them and declares them criminals. In a country full of real criminality and devoured by corruption! […] Why do they call it ‘public space’, a space from where they increasingly want to expel citizens, a space that they privatize when they want in a thousand different ways, where freedom is increasingly restricted and where expressions such as music and poetry end up being treated as crimes?
Many people on social networks defended Espicasa. Lawyer and criminologist Daniel Mendoza considered the incident an attempt to silence the “collective consciousness”:
La cárcel para escritores y poetas, la tortura inquisitiva para los traductores de la consciencia colectiva, a ella nadie la quiere desnuda, quitarle la venda y la mordaza es dejarla en interiores y con la verdad puesta…y eso es un atentado a la moral. https://t.co/VNuuKosuor
— Delator (@elquelosdelata) 18 de marzo de 2019
Jail for writers and poets, inquisitive torture for translators of [our] collective consciousness, nobody wants it to be uncovered, with the bandage and the gag off, that would leave the truth exposed… and that is an attack on morality.
Journalist Yolanda Ruiz Ceballos launched the hashtag #PoesiaALaCalle (#PoetryOnTheStreet), through which people were encouraged to share theirs or other people's poems.
In the following video, Ruiz Ceballos summarized what happened with Espicasa and read the first part of the poem “The End and the Beginning“, by Polish poet Wisława Szymborska:
#PoesíaALaCalle Que no multen los versos. pic.twitter.com/EP1tezGABb
— YolandaRuizCeballos (@YolandaRuizCe) 18 de marzo de 2019
# PoetryOnTheStreet Do not fine the poetry.

author: Marco Sarmiento


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‘Representation is not feeling different when I read or see something,’ says scriptwriter of comic with black lead character · Global Voices
Luis Henrique

“I exist and I want people to see me as I am.” The phrase, uttered with a firm voice, is that of Jeremias, a black boy and a character of the Brazilian comic Turma da Mônica (Monica’s Gang). Created in the 1960s by Maurício de Sousa, the series of comic stories influenced generations of children in Brazil and around 40 other countries, having been translated into 14 languages.
Excerpt from Jeremias – Pele [Skin], used with the author's permission.
Jeremias — who was created in 1960 and is the first black character of the group – had never led his own story. Until 2018. With the series Graphic MSP, creator Maurício de Sousa revisited his classic characters with the contemporary outlooks of new artists, who then told stories under different perspectives.
In the case of Jeremias, this was manifested in the works of Rafael Calça (script) and Jefferson Costa (art and colour), two black artists, inspired by so many other youths and adults for whom skin colour has already been a subject of debate.
Excerpt from Jeremias – Pele, used with the author's permission.
School age is a time of tough trials, a time of turbulent hormonal changes when one builds convictions and creates their own personality. If it is hard for most people, for a black child the journey is even more difficult, as there is one other component: racism.
Jeremias – Pele [Skin], as well as entertaining, could help children and families deal with this situation.
The authors managed to create a work that is very tough in some of the stories that it tells and very sensitive in its essence and the sweetness that endures at the end of the comic. It is a read that certainly would have helped this writer to face his days at school.
I spoke with scriptwriter Rafael Calça to learn about how he created the story and the feedback he has had from the readers since:
Global Voices (GV): In the creation of the comic, you investigated stories, events, and insecurities of a black child of school age. How has this process impacted on you?
Rafael Calça (RC): O Jefferson e eu conversamos sobre o que passamos na infância e como certos eventos são comuns na vivência negra. E foi uma catarse pra mim, listar situações e lembrar como me senti sem entender muito o que acontecia. Confesso que evitava pensar muito nisso e queria focar no hoje, mas fazer essa história foi como fazer as pazes com o menino que eu fui.
Rafael Calça (RC): Jefferson and I talked about what we went through in childhood and how certain events are common to the black lived experience. And it was cathartic for me, listing events and remembering how I felt without understanding much of what was happening. I confess that I used to avoid thinking much about this and wanted to focus on today, but making this story was like making peace with the boy that I was.
Excerpt from Jeremias – Pele, used with the author's permission.
GV: For you, what is representation?
RC: Representação para mim é não me sentir diferente quando leio/assisto algo. Não ter que me adequar a uma vivência tão diferente, dilemas que não são meus. É saber que a minha história, a história da minha família, não é só tristeza ou estereótipos repetidos por gente mau-caráter. É minha existência não estar atrelada apenas à escravidão, como a escola parece dizer e a novela repetir. É me sentir parte do mundo em pé de igualdade.
RC:Representation for me is not feeling different when I read/see something. Not having to adjust to a lived experience which is so different, to dilemmas which are not mine. It is knowing that my story, my family’s story, is not only sadness or stereotypes repeated by malicious people. It is my existence not being tied only to slavery, as schools seem to say and TV shows repeat. It is feeling part of the world on an equal footing.
GV: There is something powerful in the effects of your work, which is the feedback by people who have felt connected with the book. Like the rapper Emicida, who has praised the story in the comic's back cover, you must have received a lot of responses from readers. What can you tell us about this?
RC: Recebemos uma quantidade bem grande de depoimentos pelas redes sociais, isso constantemente nos alimenta com a sensação de que fizemos um bom trabalho e o próximo precisa ser tão bom quanto, tão respeitoso com as pessoas quanto.
No Instagram, a hashtag #jeremiaspele contém a maioria. Em eventos, as histórias chegam até nós pessoalmente, é muito bonito. Situações iguais ou similares às que contamos em Pele aconteceram mesmo com muita gente.
Outras duas coisas inesperadas e incríveis que aconteceram: pais estão usando o livro para conversar com seus filhos pequenos sobre racismo. Através da história descobriram como abordar um assunto tão duro. E professores do país inteiro estão adotando o livro, mesmo que por conta própria, para tratar de racismo em sala de aula.
RC: We received a great deal of stories via social media, and this has constantly filled us with the sense that we had done good work and that the next needs to be just as good and respectful of people.
On Instagram, the hashtag #jeremiaspele contains the majority [of those stories]. At events, the stories come to us personally, it is very nice. The same or similar things that we recount in Pele happened to a lot of people.
Another two unexpected and incredible things which happened: parents are using the book to speak with their small children about racism. Through the story they find a way to discuss such a tough topic. And teachers across the country are using the book, even on their own initiative, to deal with racism in the classroom.
Excerpt from Jeremias – Pele, used the author's permission.
GV: Does Jeremias – Pele have potential for international distribution? Do you think that these stories would resonate in other societies?
RC: Acredito que sim, já que o tráfico negreiro aconteceu em vários países, gerando uma desigualdade racial similar a do Brasil. Mesmo, claro, que em proporções diferentes, já que para nenhum outro lugar tantos africanos foram sequestrados e escravizados. Mas é possível entender o racismo na infância no mundo todo, a xenofobia na Europa é comum por exemplo.
Enfim, infelizmente o Brasil não é um caso isolado e muitas crianças poderiam ter uma perspectiva diferente com o Jeremias.
RC: I think so, given that the African slave trade happened in various countries, generating a racial inequality similar to that of Brazil. Even though, obviously, to different degrees, given that in no other place were so many kindapped Africans were enslaved. But it is possible to perceive racism during childhood across the whole world, xenophobia in Europe is common for example.
So, unfortunately, Brazil is not an isolated case and many children could gain a different perspective with Jeremias.
Cover of Jeremias – Pele, used with the author's permission.
GV: We learn a lot from children and it is no different with Jeremias. What did he teach you, Rafael?
RC: Que não adianta fingir que certas coisas não machucam ou não existem. Carregamos marcas para a vida a gente queira ou não. Nosso emocional pagará um preço. Por isso é preciso levantar a cabeça e deixar de aceitar tudo o que dizem. É a nossa vida e vamos contar a nossa história do nosso jeito.
RC: That we do not advance by pretending that certain things do not hurt or exist. We bear these marks for life whether we want it or not. Our emotional state will pay a price. So it is necessary to raise your head and stop accepting everything that they say. It is our life and we will tell our story in our way.
More about the scriptwriter Rafael Calça: www.instagram.com/rafaelcalca/

author: Luis Henrique


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These Colombian journalists want you to know that Pablo Escobar was no hero · Global Voices
Laura Vidal

Screenshot of La Pulla's episode “Pablo Escobar is a Hero,” available on YouTube.
The phenomenon didn't start with the Netflix series, but Narcos certainly helped revive 1980s Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar's status in North American popular culture. Since it premiered in 2015, the controversial series has fueled conversations about Colombia's persistent international image as a cocaine paradise dominated by charismatic drug traffickers.
As a response, the Colombian journalists behind YouTube channel La Pulla (in Spanish, “the taunt”), a project by Colombian newspaper El Espectador, made a video responding to people who still glorify Escobar as a “hero”. Among other things, the video highlights tragic episodes — and statistics — of one of the darkest periods of Colombia's history, such as the assassination of El Espectador's former director Guillermo Cano on December 17, 1986, and the bomb attack next to their offices in September 1989.
It is common in other countries to see people with T-shirts of him, encouraged by series such as Netflix's ‘Narcos’. And then when they come to Colombia they pay a lot of money to go on a tour so they can admire his great accomplishments. […] This “hero” prompted thousands of people to run towards drug trafficking money [like] pigeons chasing corn and rendered the national economy into a little pot to launder the money that came from drug trafficking. This “hero” was not a friend of the people: he committed 623 attacks, left 1710 civilians in pain, and killed 402.
This “hero” forced us to escape from an abandoned briefcase in the street or from a stationed car with no one inside [thinking] there [it was] one more bomb. This “hero” forced us to stay indoors, to suspect from everyone, and to react with fire and violence. This hero forced us to live in constant fear.
The tours referenced in the video are known as Narco Tours, and they guide tourists around the city of Medellin through famous spots related to Pablo Escobar's life. In 2018, Global Voices partner Radio Ambulante described the tour in one of the episodes of their award-winning podcast.

author: Laura Vidal


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With elections just days away, Ukraine faces disinformation, cyber attacks and further Russian interference · Global Voices
Tetyana Bohdanova

Little green and grey men invading a cyber space. Photo by Filip Stojanovski, CC-BY.
Ukrainians will head for the polls on Sunday 31 March in what will be the first regular national elections since the country's 2014 Euromaidan revolution.
With its Crimean peninsula still occupied by Russian forces, an ongoing military conflict in eastern Ukraine, and rising activity of far-right groups, the country is a prime target for both domestic and external information influence operations.
Ukraine has been in the crossfire of disinformation warfare since 2014, with multiple political actors attempting to disrupt its democratic development. The elections for both the office of the president and parliamentary seats will be a crucial test for Ukraine’s democracy and stability.
Much of the action has taken place on Facebook, which is the country's most popular social network. Despite persistent efforts of civil society and media groups, Facebook has done relatively little to respond to Ukraine's disinformation problem in the past. But the company changed its tune in January, when it publicly announced that it had taken steps to counter some of these issues.
Citing the threat of foreign influence, the company changed its policy towards Ukraine for the election period, banning all political ads purchased from outside of the country (including those concerning politicians, political parties, political slogans and symbols, mobilizing or discouraging voters) and vowing to monitor user behavior more closely.
In short order, on January 17, Facebook reported that it had removed multiple pages and accounts on both Facebook and Instagram linked to two malicious operations that originated in Russia and appeared to include Ukrainian users among their main targets.
One cluster of 289 pages removed by the company had been active in Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Baltics, and Central and Eastern European countries.
Facebook also removed 107 pages and 41 Instagram accounts that had operated specifically in Ukraine. Facebook described their activities as “creating networks of accounts to mislead others about who they were and what they were doing.” The accounts and pages were linked to employees of the Russian state news agency Sputnik, but the individuals behind them had represented themselves as being Ukrainian.
According to Facebook, the Ukraine-focused network disseminated local news stories on a variety of topics and spent around US $25,000 on ads. The group's activities resembled the behavior of Russia's Internet Research Agency (IRA), which was found to have run online influence operations during 2016 elections in the US.
There is ample evidence that Russian state actors and associates have targeted Ukraine with disinformation campaigns going at least as far back as 2014.
In 2016, the Ukrainian internet portal Texty.org.ua uncovered a coordinated network of more than 2,000 Facebook profiles linked to a Russian troll farm, which for nearly eight months led an online campaign that sought to topple the Ukrainian government.
A more recent study by VoxUkraine reviewed more than nine million tweets linked to the IRA, of which 750,000  related to Ukraine. This disinformation campaign appears to have been sparked by the 2014 Euromaidan revolution and has steadily gained ground through the occupation and annexation of Crimea. The campaign went into overdrive the day after Malaysian flight MH17 crashed in eastern Ukraine.
#Euromaidan protesters fill central Kyiv on Dec. 1, 2013. Photo by Alexandra Gnatoush. Used with permission.
These and other instances have prompted disinformation researchers at the Oxford Internet Institute to state that Ukraine may be home to “the most globally advanced case of computational propaganda”.
Citizen journalists and independent researchers also have played a key role in countering Russian disinformation and alerting both the Ukrainian government and international community about the threats it poses. Despite these efforts and appeals from public officials — including President Poroshenko, who publicly suggested that Facebook open a Ukraine office — Facebook was relatively inactive in responding to the problem until 2019.
It appears that Russian meddling in the 2016 US elections and ensuing public pressure (along with pressure from US legislators) have forced Facebook to more actively respond to threats of disinformation, especially when it comes from Russia and targets democratic elections.
But while the company's recent efforts could be a step in the right direction, it may be too little too late.
There is only so much Facebook or any other tech platform can do by changing its policies or dedicating more time and labor to monitoring user activity in certain countries. Moreover, some of these policy changes can arguably make the situation worse by driving malicious activity into the shadows.
Facebook users were quick to spot several popular pages with seemingly Ukrainian political content that were run from Russia after the network enforced identity and location verification for administrators of popular public pages and verified accounts. In 2018, Ukrainian state security services warned of apparent preparations by Russia to influence upcoming elections by “buying out” administrators of popular Facebook groups in eastern Ukraine and hiring Ukrainian citizens to set up and register news websites domestically. Such persons were offered monetary incentives to disseminate Russian-made content through their social media accounts and web platforms. In cases like these, foreign interference would be much more difficult to detect, let alone expose or counter.
Observers at the Ukrainian Election Task Force say that Russia’s goal is not to aid a particular candidate, but rather “to delegitimize the election process altogether”.
And if the actions of foreign actors alone were not enough, Ukrainian activists such as political “bot busters” keep uncovering evidence of domestic politicians’ attempts to manipulate public opinion online through the use of inauthentic accounts. In addition, the problematic application of outdated political advertisement regulations to online spaces provides opportunities for further manipulations.
Currently, disinformation attacks against Ukraine are as active as ever, and other technology-related incidents are on rise too. Just ten days before elections, the head of Ukraine's Cyberpolice announced that they have registered increased attacks on Ukraine's election infrastructure by hacker groups associated with Russia. A few days later, a fake e-mail about election rules was sent on behalf of Ukraine’s Minister of Interior.
Alongside state security services working to counter foreign interference during elections, it is vital that activists, researchers and civil society groups keep supporting fact checking, public communications and election observation initiatives on the ground as polling day approaches.

author: Tetyana Bohdanova


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Growing controversy in Myanmar: A Kachin banana plantation in photos · Global Voices
The Irrawaddy

Photo by Nan Lwin / The Irrawaddy
This article by Nan Lwin is from The Irrawaddy, an independent news website in Myanmar, and is republished on Global Voices as part of a content-sharing agreement.
This 500-acre banana plantation in Kachin State’s Lamyang Township normally comes to life at 7 each morning. Workers, men and women alike, most from Rakhine State, carry freshly cut bunches of green bananas on yokes to a processing area where the bananas are rinsed and then soaked in a tank filled with a white chemical solution. No one knows what the solution is, but they say “it is to make the fruits last long.” The bananas are then loaded — under the watchful eyes of Chinese supervisors — onto 12-wheeler trucks that will take them to their final destination: Yunnan Province in China.
“It takes nearly four hours to fully load a truck. After that we get our lunch break,” one worker said.
The scene is a microcosm of the quickly expanding tissue-culture banana plantations in Kachin State. According to the state’s Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation Ministry, Kachin has more than 60,000 acres of such plantations. Civil society groups, however, say they have counted more than 170,0000 acres in the state’s Waimaw, Bhamo, Shwegu, Mansi, Momauk and Dokphoneyan townships. Most of the plantations have Chinese backing and are accused of stealing land, damaging the environment and violating their workers’ labor rights.
Tissue-culture banana plantations are banned in Laos and Thailand but have become ubiquitous in war-torn Kachin State. Most of the farmland left behind by displaced ethnic Kachin has been replaced by the plantations.
According to reports from civil society groups, the companies are using insecticides, weed killers and fertilizers and disposing of them carelessly. They say the chemicals have polluted water supplies, poisoning the soil and killing fish and livestock.
Photo by Nan Lwin / The Irrawaddy
Photo by Nan Lwin / The Irrawaddy
Photo by Nan Lwin / The Irrawaddy
Photo by Nan Lwin / The Irrawaddy

author: The Irrawaddy


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The Slovakian memes that tore apart the first round of presidential elections · Global Voices
Tibor Blazko

Collage of Facebook photos of the two Slovakian presidential candidates who will compete in the second round of elections: Zuzana Čaputová and Maroš Šefčovič. Image by Zomri.online titled “Second round of elections.”
Editor's note: This story contains images that some readers could find offensive.
Pro-EU politician and lawyer Zuzana Čaputová won the first round of Slovakia's presidential elections, which took place on March 16, with 40 percent of the votes. She will face runner-up Maroš Šefčovič, an independent candidate backed by the ruling left-wing populist party SMER, on the second round scheduled for March 30.
Running on an anti-corruption platform, Zuzana Čaputová publicly advocates for solving the murder of journalist Jan Kuciak, whose brutal death in March 2018 deeply shook Slovakian society.
She rose to public prominence after leading a successful campaign to shut down a landfill in her home town of Pezinok. The waste site's managing company had connections with powerful businessman Marián Kočner, who is currently the main suspect of ordering Kuciak's murder.
Čaputová beat several candidates in an eventful race that was wittily captured by the Slovakian internet on memes. Here are some of them.
SMER's leader Robert Fico was Slovakia's prime minister twice in 2006-2010 and 2012-2018. After protests related to Jan Kuciak's murder prompted him to resign, he decided to invest in a judicial career, eyeing a position at the Constitutional Court.
When Slovakia's current president Andrej Kiska declared that he would not appoint him, Fico used his influential position in the party to block parliament's confirmation of all appointees to the Constitutional Court, in the hopes that the next head of state will be more cooperative. Satirists criticized him for placing his interests ahead of those of the state by comparing him to the Roman emperor Nero.
“And after all I will be a justice of Constitutional Court.” Caricature of Róbert Fico as Nero by Zomri.Online, used with permission.
Facing so much negative public opinion, Fico had trouble finding a presidential candidate who would help him achieve his ambitions. On a last-minute development, SMER recalled from Brussels seasoned diplomat Maroš Šefčovič, who was serving as European Commissioner for the Energy Union, to represent the party in this year's elections.
Officially, Šefčovič is running as an independent candidate, with only the support of SMER. He has been styling himself as a defender of Christian values, criticizing his opponent Čaputová as “a proponent of the liberal agenda” for her approval of equal marriage, same-sex adoption, and migration.
Another man in the game was Štefan Harabin, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Slovakia's highest, and former minister of justice in the first Fico administration. In this elections, he has styled himself as “anti-system” and ran on an anti-immigrant and anti-Islam platform.
Slovakia has the lowest rate of immigration in the EU. It also has one of the lowest percentages of Muslim residents on the continent — less than 0.1 percent of the population, according to Pew Research Center. Harabin's attempts to stoke fear of migrants drew quite a bit of mockery by online satirists.
“Migrant woman! Armed, too!”, a meme featuring Anastasiya Kuzmina, Russian-born, Slovak biathlon Olympic champion. Image by Zomri.Online, used with permission.
Known for his passion of uniforms in the style of the Hlinka guard, neo-Nazi candidate Marián Kotleba finished the first round with 10 percent of the total number of votes.
While his main political aspirations are Slovakia's exit of both NATO and the EU, Kotleba also ran on an anti-LGBT platform. For instance, alongside his slogan “finally, a Slovak president,” his billboards included messages such as: “The family consists of a man and a woman. STOP LGBT!”
“The family consists of a man, and a woman, and a leader.” From the parody collection of modified Kotleba's posters at Zomri.Online, used with permission. The billboard originally says: “The family consists of a man and a woman. STOP LGBT!”
When another of Kotleba's posters said that he was the only politician in Slovakia who didn't “turn his coat,” online commentators praised his consistency, ascribing that he is indeed “the same Nazi he has always been”.
The blog Cynical Monster was blunt in reiterating the connection of extremist far-right politicians and their ideological predecessors with a caricature named “Clerofascist Heaven”.
“So please, that Slovakia used to be such a verminous partisan hole… And now they can choose between Harabin, Kotleba and Krajniak!” Image by Cynical Monster, used with permission.
Roman Catholic Archbishop Jan Orosch warned during a public sermon (minute 35:20 of the video) that voting for Čaputová would amount to a heavy sin. That didn't go down well with some Catholics — his predecessor Róbert Bezák and Czech priest and philosopher Tomáš Halík opposed the Archbishop's position and expressed public support for Čaputova.
Archbishop Jan Orosch: “Supporting liberal presidential candidates is a heavy sin. Nearly as heavy as gluttony!”. Image by Cynical Monster, used with permission.
Meanwhile, prominent members of the church backed Šefčovič, ignoring his past membership of the Communist Party or his recent so-called “liberal” period in Brussels as EU commissioner. This situation brought about many memes.
“During the times of the hardest socialism, I was studying directly in Moscow. But after those lessons, I always ran directly to the church!”. Image by Cynical Monster, used with permission.
After the leading anti-system candidates failed to qualify for the second round, they immediately started blaming each other for the failure.
Organizers of the “For Decent Slovakia” protests took part in the campaign without supporting a concrete candidate. They have traveled across the country holding public debates and say they have learned that many people were considering Čaputová or Harabin because both of them proposed change.
Meanwhile, most of the right-wing supporters of Kotleba have said that they consider both Čaputová and Šefcovič as unacceptable Western liberals.
Meanwhile, Čaputová had the support of research and entrepreneur Róbert Mistrík, another independent candidate who initially fared high in the polls, but stepped aside at the last-minute when surveys indicated Čaputová had better chances of winning. However, his name was printed in the ballots and he ended up receiving 0,15 percent of the votes, which were deemed invalid.
Blogger Paula Kentošová wrote about her experience with people ready to vote for Harabin or Kotleba. After failing to change their positions, she began to agree with Čaputová's style — who has been praised for running a clean campaign without resorting to personal attacks to her opponents:
My neextrémisti by sme to mali robiť inak. Rozprávať sa, poukázať na fakty, ktoré presvedčili nás, poskytnúť možnosť na diskusiu. V momente, keď totiž začneme zaryto bojovať len za tú našu pravdu, v momente, kedy začneme urážať a znevažovať mienku tých, ktorí majú opačný postoj – v tom momente sme prehrali a meníme sa na tých, ktorých sa bojíme. Extrémistov.
We non-extremists should do it differently. Talking, pointing to the facts that persuaded us, provide an opportunity for discussion. In the moment we start to struggle only for our truth, in the moment we start to insult and disparage the opinion of those who have the opposite position – at that moment we have lost, and are turning into those we fear. Extremists.

author: Tibor Blazko


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Facebook comment about throwing an egg at Singapore minister triggers police probe · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Home Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam (left) and Facebook user Edmund Zhong (right)
Two Facebook users in Singapore are under police investigation for posting a comment about throwing an egg at Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam.
Edmund Zhong, a 20-year old national serviceman, left this comment in a Channel News Asia Facebook post about an Australian teen who threw an egg at a conservative Senator: “I wanna do that to K Shanmugam. I swear.” Another Facebook user encouraged Zhong to do it.
Three days later, Zhong received a police notice at his home informing him that he is being probed for the offence of “communicating an electronic record to incite violence” under Section 267C of the Penal Code. If found guilty, Zhong may face up to five years’ imprisonment or fined, or both.
He shared the police notice in a Facebook group called “Complaint Singapore”.
Apparently 3 days ago, 2 officers from Ang Mo Kio Division HQ went to my home regarding my egg throwing comments towards K Shanmugam. Felt a mix of emotions as I didn't expect a harmless but straightforward comment can gain so much reaction.
In a media interview, Zhong said he was only making a joke. He added that his ‘harmless’ comment should be protected on free speech grounds:
To be honest, I don't feel much regret. I feel it's a matter of freedom of speech, and that we have a right to voice such opinions.
In a Facebook post, Shanmugam acknowledged that Zhong was only joking:
When I was told about it, I laughed it off – the somewhat exaggerated words of a young man.
I was then told about some of his background, and that he would be interviewed to establish that he is not actually going to take any action.
I understood Police’s concerns. I can laugh off these comments, but understandably, Police can’t.
I am much more concerned about his public comments, on his FB, on his attitude to narcotics. I hope he does not actually experiment further with cannabis, regardless of how desirable he thinks drugs are.
Critics seized on the last sentence of the minister's post, that referred to cannabis use. Some accused the minister of trying to intimidate Zhong:
Shanmugan is one of the most powerful people in Singapore and this is a 20-year-old kid.
It is full blown bullying and Shanmugan should be embarassed. Frankly, there is a non-zero chance he just ruined this guy's life because he can't take a joke.
I hate bullies
— Kevin McSpadden (@kevinmcspadden) March 27, 2019
The Alternative View, a socio-political Facebook page, wrote:
there is really no need for him to bring in and make uncalled-for insinuations about the man’s character over a few posts about drugs.
But the fact that he did so and even repeated the young man’s name on his post shows up his own character.
Some have defended the police, arguing that the agency was simply performing its mandate, and others reminded Zhong and other social media users to take responsibility for their posts. But many netizens have questioned the appropriateness of the police probe, with some calling it a disproportionately harsh response on the part of the police.
The Online Citizen, a news website, posed a set of questions in response to the incident, inferring that it will set an extreme precedent for future cases:
In light of this recent incident, Singaporeans may have cause to wonder if similar comments towards other public figures in the future would justify the course of action by the SPF [Singapore Police Force] as well as the heavy offences charged.
Do trivial matters such as “innocent” comments made on social media need to be exposed through public investigations by using the SPF as a form of personal security or bodyguards in order to intimidate others from doing the same?
The crime that police have threatened to prosecute Zhong for, under section 267C of the penal code, reads as follows:
Whoever….makes or communicates any electronic record containing any incitement to violence or counselling disobedience to the law or to any lawful order of a public servant or likely to lead to any breach of the peace shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 5 years, or with fine, or with both.
If Zhong's casually expressed desire to throw an egg at the minister can be interpreted to meet the definition and corresponding punishment laid out above, what other kinds of online speech could be punished at this level?

author: Mong Palatino


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Netizen Report: Activists in Pakistan and Malaysia confront online backlash after International Women’s Day events · Global Voices
Netizen Report Team

Protesters’ signs after Women's March in Boston, USA, January 2017. Photo by Ellery Biddle, used with permisison.
The Advox Netizen Report offers an international snapshot of challenges, victories, and emerging trends in technology and human rights around the world. This report covers news and events from March 22-28, 2019.
Feminist activists in Malaysia and Pakistan are confronting a spike in online harassment triggered by their participation in public events marking International Women’s Day, on March 8.
Women’s groups around the world organized public rallies, marches, and educational events for the UN-recognized occasion. Alongside issues such as access to education, labor rights and political representation, many of these public gatherings put forth strong messages condemning sexual violence and harassment of women and LGBTQI people.
More than anything else, those last messages seem to have triggered the online backlash. In Pakistan, the Digital Rights Foundation’s online harassment helpline received a high number of calls from participants who had received threats of sexual violence, death, and acid attacks.
Feminist writer Bina Shah posted about the threats on Twitter. She also noted that Twitter itself was failing to respond to women’s requests that these threats be removed from the social media platform:
In the backlash of the @AuratMarch2019 @AuratMarch, dozens of accounts have been reported by multiple users for threatening violence and targeted harassment against the women who marched, but @twitter @TwitterSupport says these threats don't violate Community Standards. @jack
— Bina Shah (@BinaShah) March 11, 2019
In Malaysia, the photos and profiles of several Women’s Day marchers were widely shared in chat groups and social media pages, so that they could be targeted for abuse. Some were threatened and bullied by strangers and even family members and employers.
Datuk Seri Mujahid Yusof Rawa, the country’s minister in charge of religion, further stoked the online vitriol when he accused the Women’s Day march of “misusing the democratic space to defend things that are wrong in the religion of Islam.”
On March 14, the police announced that seven Women’s Day organizers are under probe for sedition and for violating the Peaceful Assembly Act.
Residents of Pakistan’s capital city Islamabad were unable to use mobile phone services for a few hours due to a network shutdown that coincided with a military parade held on March 23 to commemorate Pakistan Day. The date marks the anniversary of the 1940 resolution that became the basis of Pakistan’s independence from Britain.
Although in 2018 the Islamabad High Court declared arbitrary network shutdowns to be illegal, an appeals court granted a stay on the decision. Since then, authorities have invoked security concerns on several occasions to cut access.
Despite the pleas of more than five million people in Europe — through petitions and public marches — the European Parliament approved the much-maligned EU Copyright Directive on March 26.
The Directive obligates member states to introduce laws requiring internet platforms like YouTube to block users from uploading copyright-protected content, effectively imposing a system of “prior censorship” on major internet and social media platforms. The Directive also calls on for-profit media outlets wishing to quote more than a few words from another source will be required to pay fees to the authors or “rightsholders” of those sources.
Diego Naranjo, a senior policy advisor for the coalition group European Digital Rights (EDRi) said that the directive, and in particular Article 13, “sets a dangerous precedent for internet filters and automatised censorship mechanisms – in the EU and across the globe.”
A Mozambican journalist who was arrested while reporting on a trend of violent attacks on small villages in Mozambique's province of Cabo Delgado has been behind bars for more than 70 days without trial. Authorities have accused Amade Abubacar of “violating national security” and “incitement to disobedience by means of computerised devices,” but have yet to issue formal charges.
The 32-year-old was briefly detained at a military base, despite not being a member of the armed forces. He later told the Mozambican Bar Association that he was tortured and denied food. Authorities have declined to charge him to court or grant a second request by Amade’s defence team requesting for his provisional release.
A local activist was sentenced to two years in prison for Facebook posts that were critical of Vietnam’s highly restrictive Cybersecurity Law, which requires internet companies to store their data inside the country and remove content if ordered by the state. Le Minh The is a member of the pro-democracy group Hien Phap and an outspoken advocate for free expression. He is one of six activists and bloggers who are currently being prosecuted for peaceful opposition to the government, according to Human Rights Watch.
Singaporean Facebook user Edmund Zhong is under police investigation for posting a comment indicating that he wanted to throw an egg at Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam. The 20-year-old national serviceman left this comment in a Channel News Asia Facebook post about an Australian teen who threw an egg at a conservative Senator: “I wanna do that to K Shanmugam. I swear.”
Three days later, Zhong received a police notice informing him that he is being probed for the offense of “communicating an electronic record to incite violence” under Section 267C of the Penal Code. If found guilty, Zhong may face fines and/or a prison term of up to five years.
Authorities in Bangladesh blocked Al Jazeera's English news website after the media outlet published an article describing allegations that the head of Bangladesh’s military intelligence agency had ordered state security agents to abduct three men to settle a business dispute. Local news site Joban, which posted a Bangla-language summary of the exposé, was also rendered inaccessible.
The government has a long track record of blocking news sites that publish critical information. Notwithstanding, the process for pulling the plug was recently streamlined to make it even easier: Now, security agencies can block websites centrally without obtaining authorization from the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission.
Afef Abrougui, Ellery Roberts Biddle, Nwachukwu Egbunike, L. Finch, Rohith Jyothish, Rezwan Islam, Oiwan Lam, Mong Palatino, Talal Raza, Taisa Sganzerla and Filip Stojanovski contributed to this report.

author: Netizen Report Team


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Tanzania’s opposition ‘heavyweights’ are bouncing back to the ruling party · Global Voices
Samuel Kabulo

Edward Lowassa was a long-time ruling party CCM member until he was banned from running for president and joined opposition party CHADEMA. Recently, he bounced back to CCM. Screenshot via KTN News Kenya on YouTube. October 18, 2015.
In Tanzania, high-profile opposition party members have defected to the ruling party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi, or the Party of the Revolution, casting a shadow on multi-party politics in the East African nation.
Most defectors come from the leading opposition party, Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo, or CHADEMA, the Democracy and Development party. Four CHADEMA members of parliament, 75 councilors and several village chairmen have joined CCM in the last few years.
The Tanzania Constitution Forum has called for a constitutional amendment to bar defections. “The aim is to avoid unnecessary costs the government incurs in organizing frequent by-elections,” said TCF chairman Hebron Mwakagenda, according to the East African.
The National Electoral Commission has conducted several by-elections at a high cost that yielded below 50 percent voter turnouts. Campaigns have created fear and lack of trust among citizens.
On March 1, 2019, retired prime minister Edward Lowassa, member of the central committee of CHADEMA, bounced back to CCM, his longtime party, after defecting from it four years ago.
At a brief public ceremony, CCM chairman and Tanzanian President John Pombe Magufuli warmly welcomed  Lowassa:
Mr. Lowassa has shown himself to be a true gentleman. We are taught to forgive… and our aim is to build a new, united Tanzania with no political conflicts.
Lowassa confirmed that he is back home and there is no reason now for him to be in opposition.
Lowassa is one of few groomed by one of the earliest parties, the Tanganyika African National Union party, or TANU, formed before Tanzania's independence from Britain in 1961, and later, CCM’s youth wing during the days of a single-party system.
Read more: Even the Best Dancer Leaves the Dance Floor: African Strongmen and Political Transition
Under the auspices of CCM, Lowassa served as MP for the Monduli district for 25 years and held ministerial responsibilities in parliament over four decades. In 2008, while serving as prime minister under then-President Jakaya Kikwete, Lowassa was forced to resign after being implicated in a fraud scandal.
Lowassa moved to CHADEMA on August 4, 2015, just before the general election, after the CCM banned him from running as a presidential candidate. He condemned CCM and its leaders as “dictators, undemocratic and greedy power mongers.”
CHADEMA then nominated Lowassa as a presidential candidate under UKAWA, a coalition of opposition parties. In the 2015 general election, Lowassa obtained 6 million votes, around 40 percent, against CCM’s Magufuli, who got 8.8 million votes or nearly 60 percent.
With Lowassa’s political influence, opposition parties, CHADEMA earned 70 seats in parliament compared to 48 in 2010, while the Civic United Front (CUF), also a member of UKAWA, earned 45 seats compared to 36.
Lowassa’s return to the ruling party sparked both praise and ridicule from politicians and prominent political analysts. CCM spokesman Humphrey Polepole congratulated Lowassa for his bold move to return to his longtime party:
To come back to apologize is a great wisdom and humility.
Others have argued that high defection rates are not good for national politics.  Magdalena Sakaya, CUF deputy secretary general for mainland Tanzania, said the move is “bad for democracy,” and signals a conspiracy to kill the opposition, she added.
Dr. Adolf Mihanjo, head of the faculty of philosophy and religious studies at the University of Dar es Salaam, termed defectors as people who lack ideology and only seek leadership positions:
People have started feeling that defectors are being bribed — this is dangerous.
Likewise, CUF deputy secretary general for the islands of Zanzibar, Nassoro Mazrui, expressed pessimism with Tanzania’s political future, saying corruption has engulfed multi-party politics. CHADEMA chairperson Freeman Mbowe believes that defectors are being lured by CCM as a way of muzzling the opposition.
However, Maulid Mtulia and Godwin Mollel, two defectors who joined CCM last year, said they made the switch out of satisfaction with Magufuli’s performance. Opposition party leader Zitto Kabwe, of the ACT-Wazalendo party and MP for Kigoma Urban, rejected their claims, calling them “empty reasons without grounds and backings.”
Dr. Richard Mbunda, a political science professor at the University of Dar es Salaam, cautioned that it is hard to regain legitimacy once it's gone. Defections create “self-disenfranchisement” which can be disastrous: The government could slip as a democracy which could then lead to civil disobedience and illegitimate governance, he observed.
Tanzania legalized multi-party democracy in 1992 under Article 3 (1) of the constitution. In a multi-party democracy, political parties play a fundamental role in providing stability and peace needed for peaceful political transitions. However, the current government has imposed a series of restrictions that limit the power of opposition parties, such as limitations on political rallies and live-broadcasting parliamentary sessions.
In February, new amendments to the Political Parties Act were passed that further limit opposition politics. Since Magufuli assumed power in 2015, there's been a continuous squeeze on civic, political and social spaces through various bills and legislation to limit freedom of expression online and in the streets.
Read more: An owl refuses to leave Tanzanian parliament. What does it all mean?
Politicians — including national party leaders — are only allowed to hold rallies within their constituencies. Violators face arrest and prosecution. ACT’s Kabwe was ordered to report to the regional police commander of the southern region of Lindi for conducting a political rally out of his constituency. Kawe district MP Halima Mdee was arrested after speaking to her voters for the reason of “conducting a meeting without permission.”
Given the current state of Tanzania multi-party politics with defections of heavyweight opposition party members like Lowassa, multi-party politics struggle to thrive. Since its beginning, though, the hope was for the scope of democracy to expand.

author: Samuel Kabulo


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A Brazilian funk DJ was sentenced to prison, but many believe his musical genre made him a target · Global Voices
Fernanda Canofre

DJ Rennan da Penha. Image: Screeshot from YouTube/Rennan Da Penha
Rennan da Penha, 24, is a Brazilian funk DJ and the founder of what is arguably Rio de Janeiro's largest funk party. Baile da Gaiola, which means “cage ball” in Portuguese, gathers around 25,000 people in Complexo da Penha Favela every week.
Last week, an appeals court sentenced Rennan for six years and eight months in prison for “association with drug trafficking.” An earlier sentence had deemed Rennan innocent for lack of proof, but the public prosecutor appealed it.
Rennan’s lawyers have also sought court approval for Rennan to remain free while they appeal this newest sentence before Brazil’s Supreme Court. According to Folha de S. Paulo, his prison order is yet to be issued.
The sentencing of this major Brazilian funk celebrity has sparked a debate about racism and the criminalization of funk parties in the country.
O @rennan_penha é uma das grandes revelações de favela dos últimos anos, um muleque q do nada, se tornou um fenômeno nacional através do FUNK. A prisão do Rennan é política, racista e preconceituosa, ataca o FUNK, A FAVELA e a ascensão de alguém q vem do nada e se torna gigante!
— Santiago, Raull. (@raullsantiago) March 22, 2019
@rennan_penha is one of the greatest revelations of the favela of the last few years, a dude that came from nowhere, who became a national phenomenon through FUNK. His prison is political, racist, and bigoted, it attacks FUNK, FAVELA and the rise of someone who came from nowhere and became a giant.
Activist Raull Santiago, who testified in Rennan’s favor at the time of his first sentence, told Global Voices that he was “jumbled with several other people” who had all been charged with drug trafficking association in the same process. During the hearings, Raull says, witnesses accounts’ have shown Rennan had nothing to do with the favela's drug business.
After Rennan's prison sentence, his friends and supporters put together a website called “Deixa Eu Dançar” (Let Me Dance) where they cite arguments made by the prosecutors and judges and try to debunk them.
For example, the court's sentence says that Rennan's music “exalts drug trafficking”; the website responds by saying that his lyrics merely express daily life in a favela.
A point raised by the prosecution is Rennan's WhatsApp messages, in which he speaks about routes where the police had been wandering lately in Complexo da Penha. The prosecution weighed he was playing the “eyes” for drug lords.
The website argues that this how this is a common type of information to pass around among favela residents, who are often mistreated by the police. Speaking with Global Voices, Raull says that the information is useful for people looking to avoid areas where armed conflict is likely to take place.
One of the latest videos tweeted by Raull shows a police officer shooting aimlessly with a gun and threatening passersby by saying “you’ll be next.”
POLICIAL MACHÃO numa favela do Rio de Janeiro, ameacando as pessoas, dando tiro para o alto a esmo, mandando o povo tomar no cu e ainda diz para alguém, que “o próximo é você”.
ISSO É CRIME, não??? pic.twitter.com/GIHrjUJcmK
— Santiago, Raull. (@raullsantiago) March 23, 2019
Another point raised by the judges is that Rennan publicly paid respect to people accused of drug trafficking that were killed. The website responds: “It is not a crime to mourn the death of someone with whom you grew up regardless of the mistakes they might have made in their lives.”
On his file, there is a photo of Rennan posing with a gun. The defense claims the weapon is fake and the photo taken during Carnival. After seeing the image, the first judge of the case dismissed the charges on Rennan, the website states.
Directly derived from Miami bass, funk carioca emerged as a musical genre in its own right in the 1980s in Rio de Janeiro's slums.
Not to be confused with USA 1970s funk, Brazilian funk was originally produced on the cheap, with a limited number of sampled beats and melodies that would show up in nearly every song. Today, funk parties attract millions of people from different social classes in Brazil and drive a multi-million dollar industry.
However, just like samba many decades before it, white elites — and the police and the judiciary — persistently regard the genre with prejudice (yes, samba used to be frowned upon by elites before it became Brazil's national symbol).
There are state and city laws in Rio de Janeiro that recognize funk as part of the state's cultural heritage, but that doesn't seem to have stopped a recent criminalization wave of the funk scene. As Raull Santiago has told me:
Esse processo de condenação é uma situação muito grave, que passa pelo processo de criminalização das favelas, das periferias, da juventude negra, da ascensão das pessoas que vêm desses lugares, que fazem dinheiro, que empregam pessoas. Acho que tem uma questão racial e uma questão da desigualdade e do preconceito histórico implícita nesse processo.
This conviction process is a very serious situation, which passes through the criminalization of favelas, of peripheries, of black young people, and the ascent of the people who come from these places, who make money out of it and employ people with it. I think the racial issue, and the issue of inequality and historical prejudice, are all implicit in those charges.

author: Fernanda Canofre


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A new #MeToo wave is flooding Mexican social media · Global Voices
Giovanna Salazar

Caption says: “43 percent of women reporters and photographers were assaulted by their sources”. Promotional image for the campaign #MeTooMexicanJournalists, by PUM – Female Mexican Journalists United, a collective. Used with permission.
Nearly a year and a half after it erupted in the United States, the #MeToo movement shows no signs of fading worldwide. Since March 23 and 24, a surge of sexual assault allegations in the universe of the film, the arts, academia, and the media is overflowing Mexican Twitter, with more and more women joining in and recounting their experiences.
The surge was kicked off by a tweet by Ana G. González in which she accused a well-known journalist of physically assaulting “a long list of women,” one of them being part of her close circle of friends.
Her tweet gave birth to the hashtag #MeTooEscritoresMexicanos (#MeTooMexicanWriters), and soon similar hashtags followed suit: #MeTooMexicanFilm, #MeTooMexicanMusicians, #MeTooMexicanAcademics, #MeTooMexicanJournalists, #MeTooMexicanTheatre, #MeTooMexicanArtists, #MeTooMexicanActivists, and others. Not long after, anonymous accounts such as @MeTooFilmMx or @MeTooTheatreMx were created encouraging women to send testimonies via DM.
The female journalist collective PUM — Periodistas Unidas Mexicanas, or Mexican Female Journalists United, in English — launched the hashtag #MeTooMexicanJournalists at an event on March 23, where they've presented results of a survey showing that 43 percent of the female journalists interviewed have been harassed at least once by their sources.
Millions of users have interacted with the hashtags, which since then have produced some concrete effects. The operations director of Reforma, a national newspaper, has been fired. Two journalists from online media Chilango have been fired, while a third is under internal investigation, according to a statement.
The Wikipolítca network, a group of organizations seeking to connect independent political representatives with civil society, expelled three of their members after they were accused of sexual assault.
Caption says: “Only 18 percent of female journalists who have suffered harassment at work have filed complaints with their employers.” Campaign image of #MeTooMexianJournalists, by PUM – Periodistas Unidas Mexicanas. Used with permission.
The #MeToo movement began with US activist Tarana Burke in 2007, but it only spread worldwide in 2017 after Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein was accused of sexual assault by several prominent actresses on US media.
Other online campaigns in Mexico, and more broadly in Latin America, have helped raise awareness against sexual violence against women. Some examples include #MiPrimerAcoso (#MyFirstAssault), #SiMeMatan (#IfTheyKillMe), and #AquíTambiénPasa (#ItAlsoHappensHere).
The hashtags draw attention to multiple types of violence experienced by women. According to UN Women, at least six in ten Mexican women have experienced an episode of violence at least once in their lives, while 41.3 percent were victims of sexual violence, and an average of nine women a day was killed in Mexico in 2018.
A tweet by @MeTooAcadémicosMx says women ‘have had enough':
Como alumnas, colegas, y parejas de académicos, nos unimos al ejercicio de denuncia iniciado por @MeTooEscritores, seguido por @MeTooCineMx, y alimentado por mujeres valientes y hartas. #MeTooAcadémicosMexicanos #NoEstásSola
— MeTooAcadémicosMx (@MeTooAcademicos) March 24, 2019
As students, colleagues, and partners of academics, we join the condemnation movement started by @MeTooWriters, followed by @MeTooFilmMx, and supported by brave and fed-up women. #MeTooMexicanAcademics #YouAreNotAlone
On Medium, Astrid López Méndez, has written a long post in which she details the harassment she was subjected to by a famous Mexican writer. She shows empathy with women who've been through similar experiences:
El silencio a veces es la única manera de lidiar con el dolor. Pero también, a veces, poco a poco, las mujeres aprendemos a hablar, a decir lo que nos ha lastimado. No es sencillo. Por eso, a quienes están en ese proceso, les escribo también, no están solas.
Silence is sometimes the only way to cope with the pain. But also, sometimes, little by little, us women learn to speak, to say what has hurt us. It's not easy. That is why, to those who are in this process, I also say this: you are not alone.
One recurrent discussion around #MeToo since it emerged in 2017 is how to balance the importance of protecting the identity of victims with the ethical implications of anonymous accusations.
Ana G. González has shared some thoughts on this on a Twitter thread. She says we should be careful not to treat all violence as if they were the same, as allegations made through the hashtags have included not only sexual assault, but also other kinds of harassments of a more furtive — though also pervasive — nature:
Homogeneizar violencias es aminorar las violencias más graves. Hay que tener la capacidad de reflexionar y de diferenciar entre tipos de violencia para hacer análisis complejos y poder hacer reparaciones.
— ??? ?? ? (@anag_g) March 25, 2019
Homogenizing violence is to minimize acts of violence that are more severe. It is important to have the capacity to reflect and differentiate among types of violence in order to do a thorough analysis and be able to make amends.
Men have also taken to social media to share their thoughts. On a Medium post, writer Raúl Aníbal Sánchez Vargas admits he is guilty of the same abuses being told on social media:
Creo que lo principal es el temor a reconocernos como agresores porque, a final de cuentas, tenemos un universo moral del cual no queremos ser los villanos. Tal vez por eso entre los escritores, artistas y personas de izquierda reconocernos como ESO, es casi imposible. […] Además, va junto con pegado al mito del aliado, feministo, deconstruido […] El entusiasmo y las ganas de la emancipación de [las mujeres] no nos eximen de volvernos agresores.
I think the most important is the fear of recognizing ourselves as perpetrators. In the end of the day, we have a moral universe in which we do not want to play the role of the villain. Maybe that's why among writers, artists, and people on the left, to acknowledge ourselves as THAT is almost impossible. […] In addition, [all of this] goes hand-in-hand with the myth of the ally, the feminist, the deconstructed man […] The enthusiasm and desire for the emancipation of [women] does not exempt us from becoming aggressors.
In a country where over 90 percent of all crimes are never reported to the authorities, the #MeToo campaigns could turn out to be a chance for society to recognize the lack of access to justice for women in Mexico.

author: Giovanna Salazar


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In India, a video brings awareness to children suffering from mumps · Global Voices
VideoVolunteers

Video Volunteer Community Correspondent Shabnam Begum. Screenshot from YouTube Video.
This post was written by Grace Jolliffe and originally appeared on Video Volunteers, an award-winning international community media organisation based in India. An edited version is published below as part of a content-sharing agreement.
Mumps, a highly contagious viral disease, continues to spread unabatedly in India, mainly because the widely available vaccine is not included in the free Universal Immunization Programme (UIP) of India. Video Volunteer Community Correspondent Shabnam Begum produced a video reporting the outbreak of illness at a primary school in Danganj Bidur village, Varanasi which brought widespread attention to the problem.
Shabnam, formerly a teacher, hails from Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. Here is her video:
“When we looked at the attendance roster, we realised that many children were absent. We found that the children had mumps,” says Ramchand, a teacher at the primary school.
According to the WHO, mumps is an infection caused by a virus and spread human-to-human via direct contact or by airborne droplets. It is a mild childhood disease, most often affecting children between five and nine years old. However, the mumps virus can infect adults as well, and when it does, possible complications are more likely to be serious. Complications of mumps can include meningitis (in up to 15% of cases), orchitis and deafness. Very rarely, mumps can cause encephalitis and permanent neurological damage.
Vaccines to prevent the diseases have been available since the 1960s and globally, 120 countries have included the mumps vaccine in their national immunisation schedule. India, however, is yet to follow suit.
After Shabnam produced the above video highlighting the outbreak of the disease, she screened it to the doctors at Cholapur Community Health Centre at Cholapur block in Varanasi. The doctors then visited the school where all the students underwent a thorough check-up and were given medication.
“The team of doctors continued their visits until all the children recovered. It took approximately one month for all the children to get better,” says Ramchand.
Shabnam who works on health, education, sanitation, and gender says that she would like to continue using her camera as a tool to amplify the voices of marginalised members of her community. And to continue to create awareness and mobilise her community.

author: VideoVolunteers