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Colombian activists deliver letter about killings of social leaders to the ICC · Global Voices
Laura Vidal

Screenshot of the video taken during a Paris rally on March 28. The protester holds a sign saying “they have killed my friend” and marches next to a list with victims’ names. Video shared on YouTube by Agence France Press in Spanish.
On April 5, a group of around 20 Colombian activist collectives delivered a formal request to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for it open a criminal investigation about the mass killings of social leaders in their country.
The collectives and their supporters delivered the letter in person at The Hague after marching for over a week from Paris, while stopping in different cities in France and Belgium along the way where they've staged rallies and performances.
The photo below is from the kick-off gathering in Paris:
Homenaje a los 472 líderes sociales asesinados en Colombia, los caminantes de la Haya hicieron trapo con los nombres de los 472 #OjaláLeRinda al gobierno su política de seguridad y esta cifra no aumente #PorLosLideresMarchamosALaHaya #MarchamosALaHaya #YoApoyoLaMarchaALaHaya pic.twitter.com/nIkuFE33KO
— Hermisaurio ????? (@Hermisaurio2) April 2, 2019
A homage to the 472 social leaders assassinated in Colombia, the walkers of The Hague made a piece of fabric with the names of [each of] the 472 [leaders]. We hope the government has enough with their security policies and this number doesn't continue swelling.
The march was spearheaded by The Netherlands’ Colombian Citizens Diplomacy Collective with other groups joining forces later on.
Participants have used the hashtag #MarchamosALaHaya (Marching to The Hague) and #MarchamosALaHaya5abril (Marching to The Hague April 5) to spread information about the initiative.
Colombian politicians Gustavo Bolívar and Antonio Sanguino have expressed support for the march. Senator Gustavo Petro, who lost presidential elections in 2010 and 2018, also participated in the march through his organization “Colombia Humana” (Human Colombia).
A video by Adriaan Alsema, the founder of online media outlet Colombia Reports, shows some images of previous protests that were staged inside and outside Colombia against the killings of social leaders. It also includes a brief explanation of the problem.
Over 163  community leaders and activists — referred under the umbrella term líderes sociales in Colombia — have been murdered over the past three years in Colombia, according to the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights. The Colombian Ombudsman has a much higher figure — over 460 killings since 2016.
By any accounts, the number of violent deaths has soared since the 2016 peace agreement that for the most part ended the country's decades-long conflict between the government and the guerrilla group FARC.
Among many other directives, the peace agreement stipulates that the FARC will surrender all assets in exchange for participation in institutional politics.
But the FARC has left a vacuum of power since it left its former territories, which have now been occupied either by paramilitary groups or guerrilla dissidents that don't accept the peace process.
Social leaders are targeted for defending their communities from such groups, who usually run a monopoly on illegal drug trade or illegal mining on the areas they control.
According to Carlos Guevara, who coordinates the organization “Somos Defensores” (we are defenders, in Spanish), the social leaders are often killed in their own homes, in front of their families, and usually have no support from authorities when they seek justice:
…las agresiones contra personas que se dedican a defender de los derechos humanos en Colombia [está al nivel de] una crisis humanitaria […] los están matando porque están impulsando quitar una economía considerada ilegal y que beneficia a los narcotraficantes y grupos armados. Y el Gobierno no está tomando medidas para proteger a esos líderes…
Aggressions against people devoted to defend human rights in Colombia [has reached the level of] a humanitarian crisis […] they're being killed because they're pushing to move away from an economy deemed illegal and beneficial to drug traffickers and armed groups. The Government is not taking action to protect these leaders…
Meanwhile, The National Conference of Afrocolombian Organizations highlights an important aspect of the mass killings that tends to be set aside: the fact that most social leaders belong to ethnic minorities.
In addition, female leaders suffer from an additional layer of violence, as they are subjected to additional kinds of gender-based aggressions.
Colombia Twitter often uses the hashtag #NosEstánMatando (they're killing us) to talk about the killings of social leaders. With the ICC march, activists hope to raise the international profile of their plight.
Meanwhile, the numbers don't cease to soar. Since the start of 2019, 73 social leaders have been threatened just in the central Boyacá department.

author: Laura Vidal


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In landmark decision, Lebanese military court rules that homosexuality is not a crime · Global Voices
Elias Abou Jaoude

Protesters hold pride signs during Women's March in Beirut, Lebanon, March 10, 2019. Photo by Beirut By Dyke. Used with permission.
On March 30, 2019, a Lebanese military court ruled that homosexuality is not a crime and refused to prosecute four individuals accused of the ‘crime’. This landmark decision is the first case of a military court refusing to equate homosexuality with a crime, although there have been precedents in civilian courts.
Despite the ruling, the army still discharged the four individuals involved in the case.
In the Lebanese penal code, Article 534 had allowed for the prosecution of homosexuals. Activists and lawyers who support LGBTQ+ rights have worked to abolish the article.
Article 534 punishes “intercourse contrary to nature” with up to one year in prison. Because the definition of homosexuality is not explicitly stated, more progressive judges have been able to interpret the law and vindicate those prosecuted for acts such as sodomy.
Screenshot of The Association of Muslim Scholar's post before it was removed. The title of the post is “Sodomy is a Crime.” In it, the association demands the court to reconsider the verdict to vindicate the four men.
However, Lebanese authorities and many religious leaders do not look favorably on these decisions, choosing to persecute and ostracize Lebanon's LBGTQ+ population instead. For example, the League of Muslim Scholars (Ulemas) in Lebanon published a post on their Facebook page claiming that “Sodomy is a Crime.”
That same league threatened to intervene with protests if Beirut Pride 2017 events took place. It ended up taking place in a more limited format and was forced to cancel in 2018 after hosting a few events.
The army now plans to take the case to an appeals court so that the four individuals involved in the case are charged with the ‘crime’.
The first precedent for an appeals court followed the judgment of a lower court in July 2018.
Another appeals court on November 14, 2018, also acquitted three men facing prosecution for crimes related to homosexuality. In this instance, one of the individuals, a Syrian, was tortured during arrest, which the judge underlined in the case.
Legal Agenda, a Lebanon nongovernmental organization, highlighted:
وفيما تضمن قرار المحكمة حيثيات هامة على صعيد حماية الفئات المهمشة، فإن أحد أعضائها (وهو القاضي ربيع معلوف) ارتأى الذهاب أبعد من ذلك، وذلك في المخالفة التي دوّنها في أسفله. وقد تميزت المخالفة في جانبين: الأول، التأكيد صراحة على عدم جواز تجريم المثليّة في لبنان، والثاني، التأكيد على وجوب إبطال إجراءات التحقيق في محاولة لمواءمة أصول المحاكمات الجزائية مع الحقوق الأساسية، لا سيما الحق بالخصوصية والحماية من التعذيب.
As to what pertains to the court’s sentence on the important implications toward the protection of marginalized groups, one of its members [Judge Rabih Maalouf] decided to go further in the violation mentioned below.
The offense was characterized in two respects: Firstly, to explicitly confirm that criminalizing homosexuality is not permissible; and secondly, to emphasize that investigation procedures should be nullified so that criminal proceedings can be concurrent with human rights, in particular the right to privacy and protection against torture.
LGBTQ+ individuals’ hurdles to a normal life in Lebanon aren’t just legal. As reported by Global Voices, LGBTQ+ people face immense social discrimination socially outdated medical practices such as so-called conversion therapy, considered a form of torture by the majority of sexual health professionals.
Despite the discriminatory nature of such practices, the Lebanese Medical Association for Sexual Health (LebMASH) reported at its third annual health conference in March 2019 that Lebanese physicians continue to routinely refuse treatment for LGBTQ+ people:
حتى اليوم يوجد أطباء وممرضون ومعالجون نفسيّون يرفضون تقديم الخدمات الصحية والرعاية لمجتمع الميم معرضين أفراد هذا المجتمع للتمييز
Until this day, there are doctors, nurses and psychologists that refuse to offer medical assistance and care to people from the LGBTQ+ community, in effect subjugating them to discrimination.
It also stated that 60% of Lebanese physicians believe that homosexuality is a disease, in accordance with apparent attitudes within society overall. According to a 2015 poll by the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center (GSRC) and the Arab Foundation for Freedoms and Equality (AFE): “64.6% felt that homosexuals should not be accepted into society and the majority — 75.9% — disagreed that it would be beneficial for society to recognize homosexuality as normal with more than half —51.5% — feeling very strongly about their view.”
Despite these obstacles, there has been some progress toward equality under the law and toward acceptance in society. As mentioned above, judges in civilian courts have passed similar rulings in the past.
Furthermore, in 2013, Lebanon's Psychiatric Society made it the first Arab country to denounce the belief that homosexuality is a mental disorder. But the Index on Censorship reported in 2014, “In a country drenched in sectarianism, debates about homosexuality are easily dismissed in the name of religion and homosexuals are accused of promoting debauchery.”

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Elias Abou Jaoude


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These women ride across Bangladesh on motorcycles to spread the word about empowerment · Global Voices
পান্থ রহমান রেজা (Pantha)

Sakia Haque and her team travel on motorbikes as much more than tourists; they talk to local girls about reproductive health, the challenges that come with adolescence and women's empowerment. Image taken in Sunamganj district courtesy Sakia Haque, used with permission.
According to the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2018, Bangladesh has made great strides when it comes to women's empowerment. The country currently ranks 48th — far ahead of neighboring South Asian countries — but the indices do not reflect the overall condition of women in Bangladesh, who often face obstacles both inside and outside the home.
The country's conservative, patriarchal society still deters and discourages women from stepping out of the house on their own, whether for work or just for a short walk. Despite such challenges, a group of Bangladeshi women, co-founded by doctors Sakia Haque and Manashi Saha, vowed to travel (by motorbike, no less!) to each of the country's 64 districts in order to educate young women about their own potential.
The scope of their tour was always broader than just visiting places. Apart from learning about the natural attractions, culture and food of each new district, they visited many girls’ schools, offering free medical advice on reproductive health and puberty, and talking about ways in which women can empower themselves. In Bangladesh, discussing “female” issues like menstruation and reproductive health is considered taboo — Bangladesh is yet to effectively roll out sex education at the high school level — and as a result, many girls endure different types of physical problems that could otherwise be prevented, or at least better managed.
The team offers awareness activities for students at girls’ schools. Image taken in Jamalpur district courtesy Haque, used with permission.
Haque's novel idea was supported by a number of her friends, who dubbed the initiative “Bangladesh through the eyes of women”. Although Haque and Saha have traveled to all 64 districts individually, they will complete visiting them as a team in the coming months (they already have 57 districts under their belt). By talking about various topics and sharing tales of their travels, the group tries to awaken the schoolgirls’ spirit of adventure in the hope that they might be able to break the shackles of conservative society.
The group has also created a website and Facebook page, Travelettes Of Bangladesh. So far, 28 thousand people have joined the page and the group has arranged a number of tours with members. Via Facebook Messenger, Global Voices talked with Haque about her group's travels and its mission to empower young women in Bangladesh.
Global Voices (GV): Where did you come up with the idea of traveling to all the districts of Bangladesh — and to do it by riding on motorcycles in such a conservative country?
Sakia Haque (SH): My dream to travel across the country started from early childhood. Back then, there was no opportunity for girls like me. Nobody would accept that a girl from a conservative family would travel alone. I got the opportunity when I came to study in the medical college [Sakia works at the Dhaka Medical College and Hospital, one of the premier hospitals in Bangladesh]. I found that friends used to brag about traveling to foreign countries, [about] how beautiful they were! But I was more interested in traveling around my own country first.
I visited a few foreign countries and saw girls and women riding scooters, going to study or work. But in our country, even a girl riding a bike is seen differently. So I decided that I would do my traveling on a motorcycle.
With four of them riding on two motorbikes (scooters), the friends who started the “Bangladesh through the eyes of women” initiative have already visited many of the country’s districts. Image taken in Lalmonirhat district courtesy Haque, used with permission.
GV: Tourism is on the rise in the country. Women are also traveling in increasing numbers. From your experience, how safe is Bangladesh for a woman traveler?
SH: I would not say that Bangladesh is absolutely safe for women travelers; that any girl can travel anywhere without giving much thought about safety. There are many areas in the country which are still conservative and girls can face challenges. They do not want to accept that a girl is traveling alone, but if she is a little cautious, or can contact a local in advance to gather information, things become easy for her. I started traveling alone from the time I started college. I preferred to stay in other medical college dorms whenever I traveled. Now, I pick the government circuit houses [accommodations for traveling government officials] for overnight stays, as this is safer for woman travelers.
GV: What kind of obstacles have you faced during your travels?
SH: I suffered eve teasing [street harassment] in a few places. I did not care about all that. If I would have bothered, I could not go further.
GV: Wherever you went, you visited schools and discussed issues like reproductive health. Tell us about this effort.
SH: As a medical professional, I know that many women in our country do not know about reproductive health and hygiene. They think menstruation is a taboo topic. The motto of our Travelettes of Bangladesh group is to achieve the empowerment of women through travel, so we chose to disseminate information about these topics and help local girls to raise their voices, come out of their homes, speak out and see the beauty of our country through their own eyes.
GV: What kind of response are you getting via the Facebook group?
SH: We started the Facebook group in November 2016 with the goal of encouraging the women of Bangladesh to travel more. We got a lot of responses from women across the country. Girls of different ages want to travel with us and tell us about their challenges. We have already completed several successful tours with interested girls.
In 2017, the Travelettes of Bangladesh organized the country's first travel photography exhibition. We also won the Joy Bangla Youth Award 2019 and were invited by Marina Mahathir [daughter of Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad], to present our works in Malaysia. Our co-founder, Manasi Saha, is traveling to India to participate in the 2019 Global Platform for Women Leadership, at which she will highlight the work of the Travelletes — so we can say that we are getting a great response from both inside and outside the country.
Sakia Haque wants to travel far and women's empowerment is not the only thing she hopes to explore along the journey — she also wants to devote herself to human welfare. You can check out the album of her travels across Bangladesh here.

author: পান্থ রহমান রেজা (Pantha)


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Censored on WeChat: How a fatal bus accident in Chongqing symbolized China’s ‘left turn’ · Global Voices
Wechatscope

Two drivers from the Chongqing bus accident. Image from Weibo.
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 eighth in a partnership series with Global Voices.
The Chinese government has long justified its censorship practices as necessary for keeping fake news and online rumors out of circulation, both in traditional and online media. But a 2018 bus accident in Chongqing marked one of few news events where government censors found themselves censoring news coverage by state-affiliated media outlets.
The bus accident took place in the Wanzhou District of Chongqing on 28 October 2018. On a two-way bridge, the vehicle swerved into oncoming traffic, collided with another car and then flew off the bridge, plunging into the Yangtze river. All told, 15 people were killed as a result of the accident.
State-affiliated newspaper Beijing News was the first media outlet to report the news on Weibo, with a story suggesting that the accident was caused by an oncoming car. The report emphasized the fact that the driver of the car was female, and alleged that she had been driving on the wrong side of the road.
Later, Xinhua news agency quoted the Beijing News story and the news was published on major news sites and media outlets. For example, Global Times's headline was “The cause of bus plunge accident: a female driver drove in the wrong direction”.
Netizens blamed a female driver for the bus accident, attributing it to her wearing high heels. (viral screen capture image from Weibo)
The news went viral online, with a majority of netizens praying for the accident victims. A few made comments reflecting gender stereotypes, criticizing the female driver. Then on Weibo, a user posted an original photo from the scene of the accident, showing the driver, who incurred only minor injuries, had been wearing high heels. The photo went viral immediately, eliciting comments including “she deserves to die” and “murderer”.
A few hours later, Wanzhou District police reported that it was the bus driver, not the woman in the car, who had veered into oncoming traffic. The female driver had done nothing wrong.
The police clarification also went viral and public opinion reversed. Some criticized the original reports for misleading the public. But the media outlets involved simply removed their stories in silence, without making any public apology. Notably, Beijing News ran another report “Attacking the female driver was straying from the point”, as if it had played no role in misleading the public.
Five days later, surveillance footage taken from the bus again went viral online. It revealed that five minutes before the crash, a passenger had had a quarrel with the driver. The quarrel then escalated into a physical fight and the driver lost control of the vehicle.
As predicted, the footage caused another uproar online and attracted a huge number of comments. Many people saw the escalation of tension as an allegory of China's political turn in recent years.
The Wechatscope database revealed that some official outlets removed the misleading news stories on WeChat soon after Wanzhou District police released the details of the bus accident. For example, Legal Daily published a post with the headline: “Chongqing bus plunged into the river to avoid crashing with the female driver who had taken the wrong lane. The bus has sunk 65 meters and is now at the bottom of the river. Two bodies have been found” (重庆公交车为躲避逆行女司机撞破护栏坠江 沉入65米深江底 已打捞出两具遗体). The post was published on 28 October 28 and then deleted just two days later, on 30 October.
With this and other stories, the removals were not enforced by an outside authority. Instead, media outlets themselves were self-censoring (or self-regulating) their own misinformed news content. The content removal notices issued by WeChat indicated that these posts were taken down by their own publishers.
At the time of this story's writing, similar headlines about women driving in the wrong lane had been removed from all official news outlets and could not be found in search results.
At a later stage, after the surveillance footage had been released, censorship authorities stepped in and labelled reflective and critical commentaries as “illegal”. The WeChatscope data set offers a glimpse at what authorities deemed to be “illegal” content — this proves that authorities’ interventions were not intended to stop the circulation of fake news or misinformation, but rather of opinions and views.
Below are three posts that circulated widely on the WeChat public domain, but were then deleted quickly.
This post was published and deleted on November 4. It was labelled as illegal content according to WeChat's take down notice. The writer quoted social media discussions and used these to build an allegory, comparing the bus accident with China's trajectory in recent years. One line of the piece read:
千万不要攻击掌舵人，否则他忽然左转，全车人都会完蛋！
Don’t attack the person who is in charge, or else he makes a sudden left turn, everyone in the vehicle will be doomed.
The post was published on November 3 and deleted on November 6. It was also labelled as illegal content. The writer criticized onlookers who have witnessed wrongdoings but chosen to remain silent, warning that when people tolerate barbaric behavior, all of society suffers.
Published on November 5 and deleted on November 7, this story also was labelled as illegal content. The post interprets the incident as a typical tragedy of an era in which good people cannot speak up and act out, lest they be buried alive with evil people.
In each of the above examples, we see that the censorship authorities were forced to step in and label related content as “illegal” only when interpretations of the news story had the potential to challenge the political status quo.
This case study shows that the spread of factually inaccurate information in mainland China could be dramatically reduced if state-run media conducted more self-regulation and employed higher reporting standards. And the second set of examples shows that in censorship authorities’ crackdown on rumors, the real target is independent political views.

author: Wechatscope


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Censored on WeChat: Revelations of toxic ingredients in Hongmao medicinal liquor · Global Voices
Wechatscope

Hongmao liquor for sale at a shop in Suzhou, China. Photo by Shwangtianyuan via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
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 seventh in a partnership series with Global Voices.
Chinese authorities regularly cite disinformation and rumors as justification for online censorship. But when independent citizens attempt to fight against the spread of disinformation, they can face legal threats.
At the start of 2018, a medical doctor in Guangdong province was arrested and jailed after he uncovered the presence of toxic ingredients in a medicinal liquor made by Hongmao Pharmaceuticals, a company based in the northern city of Liangcheng.
Advertisements claimed the medicinal liquor could cure the common cold, relieve pain and keep people in good health, leveraging the power of traditional Chinese herbs. But anesthesiologist Tan Qindong pointed out that a number of herbs in the product are toxic when consumed over a period of time. Moreover, it could generate adverse effects to old people with certain physical condition, such as high-blood pressure. He wrote his medical view and criticized that the company had exaggerated its efficacy on a mobile publishing platform.
Less than a month later, Tan was arrested in Guangzhou City, where he resides. But he was arrested by police from Liangcheng, a major city in the autonomous region of China called Inner Mongolia.
The inner Mongolia liquor company claimed that Tan’s article was defamatory in nature and had caused the company RMB 800,000 (US $ 119,000) in damages. The Liangcheng police then tracked Tan's location through the online publishing platform, crossed out of their jurisdiction and went to Guangzhou, where they arrested Tan. Their journey was not trivial — Google maps estimates that it takes 26 hours by car to drive from Guangzhou to Liangcheng. Tan’s lawyer later revealed that the Liangcheng police trip was sponsored by the liquor company.
Police took Tan back to Liangcheng county where he was detained for three months before the case was presented to the Inner Mongolia court on April 15.
On April 16, a Chinese medical doctors’ association issued a statement pledging to provide legal aid to Tan, urging pharmaceutical corporations to abide by regulations on medical advertisement, and calling on law enforcement to respect academic views and avoid the criminalization of civil disputes.
On the same day, the National Medical Product Administration also issued an official response criticizing Hongmao for misinforming consumers.
The next day, the court rejected the prosecutor’s case against Tan due to lack of evidence. Tan was released on bail on the same day.
During his detention, Tan was viewed as a hero fighting against an immoral company and corrupt police. Many celebrities spoke out against the liquor’s misleading indications and advertisements. Tens of thousands netizens flooded the Liangcheng police department’s official Weibo criticizing them for making an illegal arrest across provincial jurisdiction.
Prior to the court ruling, many posts on WeChat that criticized the company were taken down. For example, an April 16 post, “Liangcheng police cross jurisdiction arrest was similar to what happened to hero Lin Chong in Water Margin” (凉城警方跨省抓发帖人和董超薛霸押解林冲没啥不同), was deleted on the same day. The post pointed to the fact that Hongmao had partnered with China Central Television in “national brand” sponsorship.
But when state media began to report similar messages, the narrative became permissible. On April 17, state media outlet Xinhua published a commentary criticizing Liangcheng police for acting outside their jurisdiction and Hongmao liquor for misleading consumers and violating medical product regulations. This post was well received online.
Upon his release, Tan told Beijing News what he endured during his three-month detention. He emphasized that he was unrepentant, saying that “it was right to tell the truth”. This video interview soon went viral and western media, including The New York Times, picked up the report.
Public attention on the case triggered more commentary on social media. But those who did not adhere to the official line had their posts deleted on WeChat. For example this post, “Details filtered by media reports concerning Tan Qidong.” (关于谭秦东：那些被媒体过滤的细节) was published on April 21 and deleted on April 23. The writer credited netizens’ support and the Chinese medical doctors’ association for helping to get Tan out of jail.
Another post, “Insider on Hongmao: original plan was to convict Dr Tan and arrest Dr Spring rain” (知情者谈鸿茅药酒：本想判完谭秦东后 再抓春雨医生) presented photos taken from Hongmao’s meeting with its traders on April 16 and 17. The story was published on April 21 and censored on the next day.
There were no further reports about Tan until May 15 when Tan’s wife told an online news reporter that Tan was admitted to a mental hospital after being questioned by Guangdong police for 12 hours on May 11. According to his wife, upon returning home from the police station, Tan locked himself in a room crying, slapping himself on the face and banging his head against the wall. Hospital officials said Tan was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.
Reports of this ordeal went viral overnight and on May 17, propaganda authorities issued an instruction demanding deletion of related content, as reported by China Digital Times:
Delete the article “Doctor Detained in Hongmao Liquor Interprovincial Case Suddenly Develops Mental Illness.” Websites must not further hype this incident.
Even reports from state-affiliated People’s Daily were removed from their website. Similar reports on Tan’s status were removed from WeChat. On May 17, Tan issued an apology to Hongmao for using the term “poison” in his post.
Tan’s name has become a sensitive term on social media. In June, he opened a WeChat account by reversing his name and writing it as Dong Qintan. Though he had thousands of followers, could not mention anything related to Hongmao.
After the incident, Hongmao’s production line was suspended for four months. But it is now back to business as usual. The company remained among CCTV’s top five advertising business partners for 2018 — and still managed to become was one of the top ten censored topics on WeChat for the same year.


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Four real-life locations that could have featured in Game of Thrones · Global Voices
Filip Stojanovski

Collage of illustrations of locales from the TV series “Game of Thrones” and “Fist of the First Men” collectible card by Franz Miklis/Fantasy Flight Games, paired with photos of real-life locations that might have inspired them (fair use/CC via Wikipedia).
The eighth and final season of HBO’s hit television series Game of Thrones will premiere in April 2019, so fans around the world will be gearing up for one last dose of dynastic squabbling, political intrigue and looming supernatural doom on the fictional continents of Westeros and Essos.
George R. R. Martin, the author of the cycle of novels on which the TV series is based, took inspiration from actual historical events and locations, including the city of Venice, the likely model for Braavos, whose bay is guarded by a giant statue called the Titan of Braavos resembling the famed Colossus of Rhodes.
The lavish television production has filmed in many stunning locations throughout the world, and location scouts would no doubt have visited many more. A pity they didn't consult with us here at Global Voices, as we have a few recommendations as well. Here they are below, better late than never.
A wall of the Skull Tower in Niš, Serbia. Photo by freesrpska.org uploaded to Wikipedia, CC BY-SA. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%C4%86ele_kula,_Ni%C5%A1,_Srbija.jpg
In Game of Thrones, the Hall of Faces houses skinned faces of the dead in a great hall within the House of Black and White, a temple in the city of Braavos that serves as headquarters for a sect of religious assassins known as the Faceless Men.
A real-life equivalent can be found in the Skull Tower in the Southern Serbian city of Niš. The structure, now located in the Serbian Orthodox Christian temple, was originally erected by the Ottomans in 1809 to display the severed heads of the rebels participating in the First Serbian Uprising.
The 4.5-meter (15 ft) tower originally contained 952 skulls embedded on four sides in 14 rows, but over time many fell off and were lost. Some were reclaimed by relatives and buried, or stolen by souvenir hunters. Instead of serving its intended function as a deterrent to future rebels, the Skull Tower became a symbol of resentment against the Ottomans, who were finally forced to leave the area in 1878.
The site has an official status of Monument of Culture of Extraordinary Importance and is one of the biggest tourist attractions in the Niš area, receiving tens of thousands of visitors per year.
In 2014 Mental Floss website featured the Skull Tower among the top “10 buildings made with bones” from around the world.
After sunset, near Oymyakon in Yakutia. Photo by Maarten Takens, CC BY-SA. https://www.flickr.com/photos/takens/8684784715/
In Game of Thrones, Lands of Always Winter is the northernmost part of the continent of Westeros, far beyond the Wall. It is permanently locked in winter and perpetually frozen.
Discussions within Global Voices community identified the Oymyakon village in Russia as a place where one can experience what it would be like in the land of the Free Folk.
One of the coldest permanently inhabited locales on earth, Oymyakon is situated in the part of Siberia known as Yakutia (officially Sakha Republic), a term familiar to players of another pop culture phenomenon, the strategy board game Risk.The region has been marketed to international tourists as “the Pole of Cold”.
In 2017, a local Yakutian broadcaster wrote to HBO suggesting that the series finale be filmed in the region, including at Oymyakon, because “there is no place more appropriate to show the real winter”. The suggestion was ignored, however, and Northern Ireland and Iceland remained the final season filming locations for scenes in the north of Westeros.
In the world of Game of Thrones, Blackwater Bay is an inlet in the Narrow Sea on the shores of eastern Westeros. King's Landing, the capital of the empire of the Seven Kingdoms, is located there.
A credible real-life stand-in for Blackwater Bay is the Golden Horn, the primary inlet of the Bosphorus in Istanbul, Turkey. In bygone days it was the primary waterway used to reach Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, later known as the Byzantine Empire. The bay served as the chief base for the Byzantine navy, and unlike its Game of Thrones lookalike, a long chain across its mouth prevented enemy ships from entering and getting close to the city.
The chain wasn't enough to stop the most persistent of invaders, however. The Viking-Slav raiders of the Kievan Rus’ in the 10th century, and Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II in 1453 both went around the chain by dragging their (Viking and Ottoman) light ships overland, out of the Bosphorus and around Galata, the tower that anchored the chain on the far end of the bay. They then relaunched the ships into the closed bay. In 1204, during the Fourth Crusade, Venetian ships were able to break the chain with a ram.
Unlike the two later invaders, who managed to take the city, the defenders of Constantinople managed to defeat the Kievan Rus’ by the using Greek Fire, a combustible compound emitted by a flame-throwing weapon and used to set light to enemy ships.
A Byzantine ship uses Greek fire against a ship of the rebel, Thomas the Slav, 821. 12th century illustration from the Madrid Skylitzes. Public Domain, via Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_fire#/media/File:Greekfire-madridskylitzes1.jpg
The Game of Thrones equivalent of Greek Fire is wildfire, the volatile green liquid that was used by forces commanded by Tyrion Lannister to win the Battle of Blackwater. The composition of both the historical and fictional chemical weapons has remained a secret.
For the TV series, the ancient medieval city of Dubrovnik on the Croatian coast of the Adriatic Sea, was the filming location for many of the outdoor scenes in King's Landing.
Game of Thrones’ the Fist of the First Men is an “ancient ring fort” in the Lands of Always Winter, “located at the crown of a defensible round hill with an excellent view of the surrounding countryside.” It is used as a defensive position by the Night's Watch in battles against the Free Folk and the Night Walkers’ zombies.
One earthly equivalent of this mountain is located far away from the icy polar regions in the tropics, near the equator, in an environment that Game of Thrones’ fans would consider more similar to the famed ‘Summer Islands': central Sri Lanka.
The approach to ancient rock fortress of Sigiriya in Sri Lanka. Photo by Filip Stojanovski, CC-BY.
In its heyday, far from being a remote outpost in the wilderness, the ancient rock fortress Sigiriya (or the Lion Rock) served as the capital of a legendary fifth-century kingdom. The palace of the king, Kasyapa, sits at the top of a column of rock nearly 200 metres (660 ft) high that dominates the vast plain around it. It was abandoned after the king's death and later used as a Buddhist monastery until the 14th century.
Still visible at the top of the rock are the remains of the king's throne, which was made of stone within a larger structure.
The remains of the ancient Throne on top of Sigiriya fortress. Today it's forbidden to sit on it. Photo by Filip Stojanovski, CC-BY. Click to enlarge.
UNESCO designated Sigiriya a World Heritage Site in 1982. In the same year it featured as a location of the music video for the song “Save a Prayer” by Duran Duran.
Are there any Game of Thrones-like locations in your country? Let us know in the comments below.

author: Filip Stojanovski


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Hungarian state media are attacking a high school student who criticized government · Global Voices
Atlatszo.hu

Blanka Nagy speaking at a rally in January 2019. Photo by Márk Tremmel, CC BY-NC-SA 2.5.
This story was written by Tamás B. Kovács and translated by Anita Kőműves for the Hungarian investigative journalism non-profit, Atlatszo. This edited version appears here as part of a partnership with Global Voices.
Hungarian pro-government media outlets have launched new attacks against Blanka Nagy, a high school student who has spoken out against the government at several protests since late 2018.
Nagy has endured criticism of her intellect and even sexual harassment, with one outlet calling her a “whore”.
She has already filed and won defamation cases against three pro-government outlets that claimed she was failing in school: Lokál, Ripost, and Origo. However, after Nady won her case against Origo, the outlet launched another attack, publishing her school reports. Nagy told Atlatszo that she is considering suing Origo again over these latest stories.
Blanka Nagy became well-known in Hungary last winter after she gave a speech at an anti-government rally, in which she criticized prominent politicians using foul language. Her harsh words resonated with many social media users and a video of her speech went viral.
About two months after her video became a social media sensation, the pro-government media and pundits such as Zsolt Bayer launched a series of attacks against her. Pro-government outlets claimed that she was failing many of her subjects in school and that she had missed many days of school. They also called her an “untalented wannabe actress” and a “whore”.
Her attorney filed copies of her academic transcript with the court to prove that she is not failing her classes – and thus the school transcripts became available for attorneys of Origo. The outlet decided to publish data from her transcripts, claiming that Nagy almost failed history last term and is on the verge of failing in a few other subjects as well.
When #Hungary‘s pro-govt media lied about teenage protester Blanka Nagy, she sued for defamation and won. Ordered to issue corrections, however, they've refused and doubled down. TV2 devoted a whole news segment to mocking her grades, mentioning court documents but not its ruling https://t.co/MyllWb2Jwh
— Joost (@almodozo) April 5, 2019
“My attorney and I are considering suing the outlet that published my school transcript”, Nagy told Atlatszo in an interview. She says that Origo had no right to publish the transcripts. She and her attorney did not even think that Origo had the right to see the transcripts when they filed them in court.
“And their latest claims are not true either”, she said. “I am not failing my history class, contrary to what they say. I have a much better grade than a 2 (rough equivalent to a C-). What they say is simply false. I would be ashamed if it was true because I have a history teacher among my ancestors”, she said.
“I think all this verbal aggression against me is very strange but I am no longer bothered by it. It only proves that I somehow scared the highest ranks of governing party Fidesz. The fact that Zsolt Bayer himself attacked me and the pro-government media is using false pretexts to try and smear me proves that”, she added.
Blanka Nagy high schooler: “Fidesz is a disgusting, treacherous, ugly & infectious plague. This disgusting band of thieves,this oligarch-government are filling their pockets for their old days, while you will suffer in poverty as a pensioner.” She told the truth. THIS is Hungary. https://t.co/N8ar0prXj6
— Zsuzsa Gál (@JulieSueGal) April 6, 2019
Defamation and disinformation are common weapons of Hungarian pro-government media. Some opposition figures have responded by suing these outlets for character assassination. According to data recently obtained by Atlatszo, the most prominent propaganda outlets have lost dozens of cases, and were mandated by the courts to issue corrections to their stories 109 times during 2018.


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Philippine military and police execute 14 labor advocates and farmers in crackdown · Global Voices
Karlo Mongaya

Various people's organizations hold indignation protests in front of the Philippine National Police National Headquarters, Camp Crame, in Quezon City. Photo from Kabataan Partylist's Twitter account. Used with permission.
A police operation dubbed “Oplan Sauron” killed 14 farmers, mostly local peasant leaders and their relatives, in the Philippines’ central island of Negros on March 30.
The operation took place in pre-dawn hours in the towns of Santa Catalina, Manjuyod, and Canlaon City. An additional 12 farmers were arrested on the same night.
Police say the victims were communist rebel fighters who had shot at authorities, leaving them no choice but to fire back, or “nanlaban” (a term in the local police lingo referring to those killed for fighting back). Rodrigo Duterte's Presidential Palace has backed their account.
But witnesses tell a different story. The wives of multiple victims say that police came to their homes in the middle of the night, wearing masks. The police ordered the women and young children outside and then executed the men inside their homes. One victim suffered a total of seven bullet wounds, including one to his genitals. Witnesses say local police have not investigated the killings.
Descriptions of the operation resemble the “tokhang” summary executions that have become the hallmark of President Rodrigo Duterte’s anti-drug campaign in Metro Manila.
More than 200 peasant leaders have been killed since Duterte came to power in 2016, with 60 of them, or about 30 percent of all the killings, taking place in Negros, according to the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP).
April 10 has been set as a Global Day of Action by the ICHRP to call for justice for the killings in Negros.
Apparently inspired by the dark lord Sauron in J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings,” Oplan Sauron is a code name for joint operations between the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippines’ National Police (PNP).
Formally, they're known as “synchronized enhanced management of police operations (SEMPO)” and are part of counterinsurgency efforts against armed rebel groups in the country.
Duterte's administration intensified these counterinsurgency efforts after a bombing in Davao City, Mindanao, killed 14 people in September 2016.
In response to the bombings, Duterte has declared the Philippines to be in a “state of national emergency,” which has provided legal justification for the SEMPO operations.
Duterte initially focused those military efforts in Mindanao and even imposed Martial Law on the island in 2017. But since November 2018, he has signed multiple directives expanding military operations to the islands of Negros, Samar, and the Bicol region in the island of Luzon.
While Mindanao has a few active Islamist separatist groups, small areas in the rest of the countryside are controlled by fronts of the New People’s Army (NPA), the armed wing the Communist Party of the Philippines that has been active since 1969.
At its peak in the 1980s, when it fought against the US-backed dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos in favor of a socialist state, the NPA allegedly amassed over 20,000 armed regulars. Today the government says their numbers have dropped to just 3,000.
Since the movement’s rise, no leader of the Philippines has successfully negotiated a lasting peace deal with the communist armed resistance. At the same time, labor and agrarian rights groups have been targeted and actively repressed by authorities for suspected association with them.
Eight farmers were killed in Canlaon City on March 30: brothers Ismael Avelino, 53, and Edgardo Avelino, 59; Mechor Panares, 67, and his son Mario Panares, 46; Rogelio Recomono, 52, and his son Ricky Recomono, 28; Gonzalo Rosales, 47; and Genes Palmares, 54.
Edgardo Avelino was the chairperson of the local chapter of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP), a national peasant movement.
This is the testimony of his wife Carmela Avelino, illustrated in 18 panels by the group SAKA, or Sama-samang Artista para sa Kilusang Agraryo (Collective Artists for the Agrarian Movement):
Testimonies by Ismael Avelino's relatives were posted on the Facebook page of the National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW), a labor movement.
Noong madaling araw ng Marso 30, walang habas na winasak ang pinto ng kanilang bahay ng pinaghalong pwersa ng AFP at PNP. Habang naririnig ang putok sa bahay ng kanyang kapatid na si Edgardo Avelino, pwersahan pinalabas ng bahay ang kanyang asawa at mga anak.
Ang kanyang sampung taong anak ang huling nakakita ng ngiti ni Ismael, “Ingatan mo ang iyong Mama at mga kapatid”
Walong bala sa katawan ang tumapos sa buhay ni Ismael.
March 30 dawn, their house’ door was wantonly destroyed by combined forces of the AFP and PNP. While they heard shots in the house of his brother Edgardo Avelino, his wife and children were forcibly led out of the house.
Ismael's ten year old child was the last to see him smile, “Take care of your mother and siblings.”
Eight bullets in his body would take the life of Ismael.
Two other people, Franklen Lariosa and Anoj Enojo Rapada, were killed in Santa Catalina. The four victims in Manjuyod include village officials Velentin Acabal and Sonny Palagtiw, along with residents Steve Arapoc and Manulo Martin. Catholic Bishop Gerardo Alminaza said the victims in Canalon City were part of his diocese’s mission station, and that one was a lay minister.
Twelve farmers were also arrested that night, including the local leader of KMP in Manjuyod town, Nestor Kadusale, 58. Here are some reactions on Twitter:
Farmers are one of the most hard-working laborers known, but are among the impoverished. They are one of this country's top providers, yet they are being slaughtered in return. This is heartbreaking. Only in the Philippines, ladies and gentlemen. #StopKillingFarmers
— ??????? ??????? (@thisis_Lala) March 30, 2019
I wonder if Malacañang realizes that since they call the murder of the #Negros14 a “legitimate police operation” they're actually doing themselves in. Because I've seen photos of the dead farmers, and what I've seen look like executions. So I guess: official police ops?
— katrinastuartsantiago (@radikalchick) April 7, 2019
The island of Negros is one of the many places in the Philippines where peasant struggles have been systematically suppressed.
In Negros, the “hacienda” system of feudal plantations continues to predominate since Spanish colonial times. Vast tracts of land are still devoted solely to the cultivation of sugarcane and production of sugar products for export, thus producing an extreme social divide between a handful of “haciendero” elites who own the plantations and poor landless farmers who work the land.
Long before the current wave of killings, Negros has been notorious for the “Escalante Massacre” when military officers at the order of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos shot dead 20 poor farmers who took part in a “welgang bayan” (people’s strike) in Escalante City on September 20, 1985.
Paramilitary groups allegedly connected to the armed forces often carry out attacks too.
On October 20, 2018, nine farmers were brutally murdered in Sagay City, Negros allegedly by one such group. The case is now known as “Sagay 9.” The farmers occupied part of the 75-hectare Hacienda Nene, which they claimed was earmarked for redistribution to farmers under the Philippines’ land reform program.
Two weeks later, human rights lawyer Benjamin Ramos, 56, who assisted the victims of the massacre, was gunned down by suspected military men. Before he was shot dead on November 6, 2018, Ramos was vilified as a communist rebel in posters displayed in public areas.
In response to the latest killings in Catalina, Manjuyod, and Canlaon City, various people’s organizations have conducted a National Fact-Finding and Solidarity Mission at the locations between April 4 and 8, 2019.
LOOK: 5-day national fact finding and solidarity mission (NFFSM) for #Negros14 kicks off today. Various peasants and human rights groups will conduct independent probe on the spate of killings & human rights violations in Negros Oriental.#StopKillingFarmers#JusticeForNegros14 pic.twitter.com/yPUFYqiRye
— StopKillingFarmers (@kmp_phl) April 4, 2019

author: Karlo Mongaya


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Rumors of Russia’s first ‘fake news’ case against a media outlet might just be fake news · Global Voices
Alexey Kovalev

By Bruce Mars via Pexels.com
Russia’s “fake news” law, which came into effect in late March, could see its first test case soon — but its definitions are vague and even Russia’s top lawmakers are still uncertain about the mechanics of its enforcement.
The seemingly fake news story in question broke in early April 2019, when Russian news media reported that yoga classes in Russian prisons might be banned:
Yoga lessons in Moscow prisons are to be banned because of “the threat of homosexuality”. Russian senator Elena Mizulina called for the ban after an orthodox theologian claimed that “yoga poses trigger uncontrollable sexual arousal that can lead to homosexuality”#LGBT #Russia pic.twitter.com/JYGSEmUG5y
— Francesca Ebel (@FrancescaEbel) 8 апреля 2019 г.
The story was originally reported by Moskovsky Komsomolets, a popular tabloid. The story’s author, Eva Merkacheva, wrote that Russia’s penitentiary system had suspended yoga classes for inmates after the attorney general’s office received a letter of concern from conservative senator Yelena Mizulina.
Mizulina, the article claimed, cited previous communication the senator had received from Russian Orthodox theologian and Alexander Dvorkin, an anti-cult activist. His appeal to Mizulina, according to Komsomolets, spoke of the dangers of indoctrinating inmates into an “infamous pseudo-Hinduist cult” and “uncontrollable sexual arousal” triggered by yoga.
It is worth noting that Eva Merkacheva, the Komsomolets reporter, is not an impartial observer in this case: she herself campaigned for instituting yoga classes in Russia’s pretrial detention facilities and wrote a book on yoga for inmates which conveniently was published just as the story broke. This led to rumors that the whole story could be a PR stunt to promote her book.
Later, the deputy head of Russia’s penitentiary system said there were, in fact, no plans to ban yoga classes in Russia’s prisons and actually praised the experimental program for significantly improving the inmates’ overall health and general well-being in the selected detention facilities where yoga classes were introduced in 2018.
Russia reinstates yoga into prisons following claims it turned inmates gay https://t.co/8jFRZSKx8O
— The Independent (@Independent) 10 апреля 2019 г.
On April 8, Senator Mizulina struck back with a claim that the story about her attempts to ban yoga was fake.
Govorit Moskva, a Moscow-based radio station, tweeted:
Мизулина назвала фейком её обращение по поводу запрета йоги в СИЗО.
Сенатор планирует в ближайшее время обратиться в Роскомнадзор https://t.co/RWGQ0gp7vG pic.twitter.com/4vUuLSxAhj
— #говоритмосква (@govoritmsk) 8 апреля 2019 г.
Mizulina calls the story about her appeal to ban yoga in pretrial detention facilities fake. The senator plans to petition Roskomnadzor [Russia’s state media watchdog] soon.
Govorit Moskva attached to their tweet a copy of Mizulina’s letter to Russia’s attorney general Yuri Chaika. It does not, in fact, contain any demands to ban yoga — only a request to investigate the claim that inmates were involved in “kundalini-yoga” studies (quote marks are Mizulina’s) and to determine whether this was lawful. Kundalini is a legitimate school of yoga known for its physical intensity and heavy focus on the nervous system.
Mizulina’s press office then supplied the senator's comment to Russian news agency TASS:
Это типичный пример распространения фейковых новостей. В моем письме в адрес генерального прокурора не содержалось никаких требований “запретить проведение занятий йогой в СИЗО и уж тем более “запретить йогу.”
This is a typical example of dissemination of fake news. My letter to the attorney general’s office contained no demands to ‘ban yoga in detention’, let alone ‘ban yoga altogether.’
Mizulina’s press office also noted that the senator is planning to report this case of fake news to Roskomnadzor.
The media jumped on the possibility that this might be the inaugural case for Russia's recently passed “fake news” law, which has been the subject of much derision and public criticism. However, it quickly became clear that even the senator herself is in the dark about what the new law’s provisions are.
Under this law, individuals, officials or organizations accused of spreading fake news “disguised as genuine public announcements” which are found to promote public disorder or other serious disturbances could be fined for up to a million rubles (slightly above USD $15,000), unless they remove the violating content in a day’s time. The law also provides measures through which Roskomnadzor, Russia's media watchdog, will order ISPs to block websites hosting the offending content.
But Mizulina has not filed a petition to Roskomnadzor, and even if she had, the agency’s press officer told Kommersant, it wouldn’t be Roskomnadzor’s job to deal with it. The law says that it is the responsibility of the attorney general office’s to flag fake news “disguised as genuine public announcements.” Only when the attorney general deems a message as potentially harmful to public order, they can command Roskomnadzor to block and censure the offending website — unless it agrees to remove the article in question. And it remains to be seen whether Merkacheva was  “knowingly and maliciously disseminating false information of public importance,” as the law defines it.
So it is unlikely that Mizulina’s grievances against Moskovsky Komsomolets and other media which have re-reported her claims will gain any traction. The first case of Russia applying its “fake news” law against a media outlet could itself be a case of fake news.

author: Alexey Kovalev


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Will Albania’s political crisis delay negotiations for accession to the European Union? · Global Voices
Ardi Pulaj

One of the slogans of the Albanian opposition reads: “End to the government of thieves and oligarchs”. Photo by Democratic Party of Albania, for public use.
As Albania plods through a now months-long political crisis, citizens are wondering whether the impasse will hinder the EU's decision to begin talks that could eventually lead to the Balkan country's accession to the bloc.
Since February 2019, 58 out of 62 lawmakers from the opposition Democratic Party and Social Movement for Integration have resigned following revelations by Voice of America and the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network that government officials allegedly collaborated with criminal gangs in a vote-buying scheme in the 2017 elections.
As of April 9, 20 new opposition MPs have taken the vacant positions, according to the Central Election Commission, defying the leadership's call for the boycott.
Thousands of people from all over the country have joined the former lawmakers in a series of street protests in the capital, Tirana. They demand that Prime Minister Edi Rama resigns and call for creating a transitional government that will oversee fresh parliamentary elections.
The leader of the Democratic Party, the main opposition party, Lulzim Basha tweeted on March 16:
Nuk ka stabilitet pa demokraci!                                                                                Shqiptarët jane bashkuar për liri, demokraci dhe vlera europiane. Fund pandëshkueshmërisë së Ramës. Fund qeverisë së hajdutëve dhe kriminelëve! #ShqiperiaSiEuropa pic.twitter.com/g0yfdRrZnx
— Lulzim Basha (@lulzimbasha_al) March 16, 2019
There is no stability without democracy! Albanians are united for freedom, democracy and European values. Stop to Rama's impunity. Stop to the thieves and criminals’ government! #AlbanialikeEurope
Rama so far hasn't shown signs he'll resign. At a recent public speech, he said — without addressing the protests directly — that his government will stay in power until 2021, which is when ordinary parliamentary elections are due.
The wave of protests has grappled Albania, a NATO member, only months before the European Council is due to announce whether or not it'll open accession talks.
Like some of its Western Balkan neighbors, Albania is an official candidate to join the European Union. The EU requires potential member states to fulfill a set of conditions before they begin the accession process, such as ensuring the stability of institutions, the independence of powers, and a functioning market economy.
In the case of Albania, a key condition set by the EU is that it implements a judiciary reform that includes, among other things, vetting of judges.
Some EU officials have rebuked the opposition lawmakers’ decision to renounce their mandates. German MEP Knut Fleckenstein, who is also the European Parliament's rapporteur on Albania, released a statement dated from February 28 in which he said:
Boycotting the Parliament is in no respect a way out of political problems and is against democratic principles. Parliament is the forum where political disagreements should be addressed. I call on political responsibility from all parliamentarians to fulfill their duties and resume parliamentary work in the interest of the country and of its EU integration prospect, not with the next election in mind.
However, it isn't yet clear whether resolving the political struggle will be one of the conditions to open the accession talks with the EU.
Speaking with representatives of the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs on April 2, Johannes Hahn, the EU-Commissioner for European Neighborhood and Enlargement Negotiations, has given positive signs that the European Commission will recommend the beginning of talks with Albania.
He said (min 11:47:20):
I expect, on the basis of what we have observed, that we will make a recommendation for North Macedonia and also for Albania that they should enter the preparatory stage for accession negotiations. And this will be done officially.
He added:
If our partners satisfactorily fulfill the criteria [for opening the negotiations], then is an issue of our credibility and our reliability. We also need to live up to our side of the bargain. When our partners meet the criteria for the beginning of accession discussions, then we need to react positively.
Of the Western Balkans countries, only Serbia and Montenegro have officially begun accession talks with the EU, in 2014 and 2012 respectively. For Serbia, improvement of relations with Kosovo — whose independence Belgrade doesn't recognize — is on the table.
Meanwhile, Albania and North Macedonia are on a path to begin talks.
Macedonia made significant strides recently after it changed its name to North Macedonia, resolving a 27-year-old dispute with its NATO and EU member neighbor, Greece.
The most recent opposition rally, held in front of the National Assembly on April 3, didn't cause any disturbance to parliamentary activities.
However, the opposition has said it won't back down until Rama resigns. It's also unclear whether the Democratic Party will participate in municipal elections scheduled for June 30.
The US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Matthew Palmer, was in Tirana on April 8-9, where he met PM Rama, opposition leaders, Lulzim Basha and Monika Kryemadhi, and the country's president, Ilir Meta. He said during a meeting with journalists that he wasn't there to negotiate a resolution of the political crisis, but he urged the Albanian opposition to attend the local elections, according to a transcript published on US Embassy in Albania's website.
Protests have had supporters coming from all over the country to the capital, while some citizens report disturbances to their routine with frequent street blocks and the occasional firing of tear gas by the police. Some citizens don't support either the protests or the prime minister, and say that they're no different from one another.
The next rally is scheduled to take place on April 13 in the front of the Prime Minister’s office.

author: Ardi Pulaj


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Angola’s president said there was no starvation in the country in interview, sparking indignation · Global Voices
Simão Hossi

João Lourenço, President of Angola. Photo: Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 2.0
An interview given by the President of Angola João Lourenço to RTP, Portugal’s public television channel, in which he stated that there was no hunger in his country, caused some outrage among citizens.
During the 30-minute interview broadcast on 4 March, the Portuguese journalist of RTP África referred to a UNICEF report which stated people were dying of hunger in Angola. Lourenço then rejected the existence of starvation in the country, while admitting that there was malnutrition. He said:
A nossa luta é lutar para reduzir os índices de pobreza, devido aos longos anos de conflito armado. Hoje há oferta de bens alimentares em Angola, não se pode dizer que existe hoje fome em Angola, é uma questão de alguma má nutrição.
Our struggle is to reduce the rates of poverty, owing to the long years of armed conflict. Today there is a supply of food in Angola, one cannot say that today there is [serious] hunger in Angola, it is a question of some malnutrition.
President João Lourenço said this just before the visit to Angola of Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, and a few days before a Catholic priest and human rights activist criticized the death of Angolans from hunger in a region suffering from drought.
The activist Manuel Mapanda, better known as Dago Nível, questioned the President’s comments:
Como é que o senhor vai dizer que não existe fome em Angola? Não leu a Denúncia do padre Jacinto Wacussanga sobre a morte de um Angolano por fome? Será que nos Gambos e no Curoca já não há fome? Assim que Jlo assumiu a presidência a maioria dos Angolanos passou a ter a cesta básica, e a fome foi eliminada?
How is the gentleman going to say that hunger does not exist in Angola? Did he not read the criticism of Father Jacinto Wacussanga about the death of an Angolan from hunger? Does it mean that in Gambos and Curoca there is now no hunger? As soon as Jlo [João Lourenço] assumed the presidency the majority of Angolans got basic essential goods, and hunger was eliminated?
During the unfortunate interview, the Angolan head of state also made clear his intention to combat corruption, which is part of the party's electoral programme:
Ninguém pode garantir que daqui para a frente não haverá corrupção e, que não haverá corruptos, mas que não ficarão impunes tal como sempre foi. Não haverá mais intocáveis, segundo João Lourenço. Esse tempo ficou para trás.
Nobody can guarantee that from this moment onwards there will be no corruption and that there will be no corrupt people, but that they will not remain unpunished. There will be no more untouchables, according to João Lourenço. That time is behind us.
In 2018, the Regional Forum for University Development (FORDU), a civic association in the field of education headquartered in southern Angola, produced a documentary (with no online version) entitled “Angola, a country at risk”. It highlights the high number of people searching for food in bins, both in the urban centre of Huambo province, the documentary focus, and in the country’s capital Luanda.
Screengrabs from the documentary, available only on DVD | Photo of the author, Simão Hossi — used with permission
On JM. Notícias, a Facebook page dedicated to sharing news, there was a clear criticism of the president’s remarks:
Precisamos reconhecer que ainda há muita gente em Angola vivendo á [sic] margem da sociedade, problema que dificilmente se resolverá se não haver uma promoção de programas de inclusão social credíveis, onde é cobrado e prestado contas. E não com este nascer de uma nova elite de gatunos tipo quem não se safou no outro tempo, que aproveite á [sic] brecha agora em que o artista principal e financeiro da nação é o J.Lourenço.
Olha que os principais desafios estão ai mesmo diante dos vossos próprios olhos, em vencer os problemas nas áreas da saúde, educação, habitação, etc, que pelo menos já deveriam dar alguns sinais mesmo que tímidos, mais [sic] nada se vê .
We need to recognize that there are still many people in Angola living at the margins of society, a problem that will be difficult to resolve if there is not a promotion of credible programs of social inclusion, where it is held accountable. And not with this birth of a new elite of crooks who didn’t get away with it before, who take advantage of the opening now where the main protagonist and financier of the nation is J.Lourenço.
Look at what the main challenges are right in front of your eyes, to overcome problems in the areas of health, education, housing, etc., which should at least already be showing some signs even if slight, but nothing can be seen

author: Simão Hossi


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Expelled Chinese diamond mining firm quietly returns to Zimbabwe · Global Voices
Kudzai Chimhangwa

A secret airstrip was built in a diamond field seized by the Zimbabwe army in 2007. Zimbabwe has long struggled with diamond mining exploitation from foreign companies. Photo by Aristocrat's Hat via Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
The quiet return of expelled Chinese mining company Anjin Investments to diamond fields located in eastern Zimbabwe have sparked concerns of exploitation of Zimbabwe's resources under President Emmerson Mnangagwa's administration, natural resource experts have said.
The state restored Anjin's license following intense pressure on Harare by Beijing, and the company has begun setting up operations earlier this month.
Return of Anjin To Marange Diamond Fields: the blindside of Zimbabwe is open for business agenda https://t.co/g0uv4yIuTI
— Mukasiri Sibanda (@mukasiri) February 10, 2019
Anjin Investments is a joint venture between the Anhui Foreign Economic Construction (Group) Co Ltd (Afec), and Matt Bronze Enterprises, formed by Zimbabwe’s defense ministry and the Zimbabwe Defence Forces.
Anjin Investments and other diamond companies were stopped from mining the diamond fields located in Marange by former President Robert Mugabe’s government in 2016 following allegations of failing to remit taxes.
Marange is a diamond-rich area located 400 kilometers east of the capital Harare within Manicaland Province.
Zimbabwe's office of the auditor general and parliament noted that Anjin Investments had never produced financial statements to account for its diamond mining operations.
According to a parliamentary report on record, between 2010-2015, Anjin produced approximately 9 million carats which generated about $332 million United States Dollars in revenue. Out of that figure, $62 million USD went to the government as royalties and $86 million USD was spent under corporate social responsibility.
However, due to its military connections, Anjin Investments constructed a defense college at a cost of $98 million USD.
The company was one of the seven companies that were permitted to operate in Marange diamond fields prior to the consolidation of the mines in 2016.
The other companies included Mbada Diamonds, Diamond Mining Corporation, Jinan Investments, Marange Resources, Kusena and Gye Nyame. Government-owned a 100 percent stake in Marange resources and 50 percent in the other six diamond-mining entities in Marange.
These companies were forced into a merger to create the Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company (ZCDC), but Anjin resisted the move.
Anjin and Jinan were negatively affected by the merger, angering Chinese authorities who viewed the move as an assault on property rights and a violation of the investment agreement companies shared with the government.
This development also led to the overall deterioration of relations between former president Robert Mugabe and the Chinese, who had been his “all-weather friends.”
When Anjin left Marange, they dismissed hundreds of workers without paying their outstanding salaries and severance packages. The company was accused by its employees of racism and abuse of workers.
Anjin recently recruited scores of employees at Chibuwe village, with the assistance of local councilors who were asked to provide names for the company to select, according to Farai Maguwu, director of the Centre for Natural Resource Governance:
Lack of transparency regarding the return of Anjin, therefore, raises these questions, who authorized them to mine in Marange? Why were formal government institutions overlooked?
Anjin joins ZCDC, which has also been plundering Marange and committing horrific human rights abuses without any tangible benefits to the community.
Chibuwe village is located within Manicaland near Marange, situated at the deep end of the Save Valley.
Omen Dube, provincial mining director for Manicaland, expressed ignorance about the presence of Anjin when contacted for comment.
Onesmo Moyo, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development, also professed ignorance on the matter saying as far as he was concerned Anjin does not have a permit to be in Marange. Moyo said:
Anjin is one of the companies we are in discussions with but no decision had been made on their return.
THE RETURN OF ANJIN INVESTMENTS TO MARANGE – ZIMBABWE GOVERNMENT PROFESSES IGNORANCE https://t.co/clkfYlSTJZ @FMaguwu @mlevu28 @onhachi pic.twitter.com/1We3n7tGv9
— CNRG Zim (@CNRG_ZIM) March 25, 2019
The government's move to re-select Anjin Investment along with the Russian company Alrosa as the two foreign diamond-mining companies signals a red flag to those fighting corruption and human rights abuses in Zimbabwe.
Although the Chinese share close ties with Zimbabwe, in Anjin Investment’s case, the government should put national interests first, notes Mukasiri Sibanda, a Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (ZELA) economic governance officer:
How can a company mine diamonds from 2010 to 2015 and fail to produce audited financial statements, a basic integrity requirement?
Between 2005 and 2016, as much as half of all outbound Chinese investment went into the extractive sector, according to Quartz Africa. A third of those funds have come to Africa, where the highest numbers of Chinese mines are found in South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The mining sector has been the core driver of Chinese investment in Zimbabwe, and indeed the rest of Africa.
Diamond mines were, in fact, the source of China’s growing concerns about the Mugabe regime’s indigenization policy, which required 51% local ownership of foreign businesses.
The Centre for Natural Resource Governance, a natural resources governance watchdog based in Harare, said that China must ensure that its companies in Zimbabwe, Anjin in particular, comply with the laws of Zimbabwe and get social licenses from the communities where they intend to operate.
Maguwu also said:
It is also important for China to ensure its companies are transparent and accountable to the local populations and the government of Zimbabwe.
Anjin investments will soon pour $20 million USD to resume diamond mining operations. Full throttle extraction is expected to commence by the end of May 2019.

author: Kudzai Chimhangwa


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Iran faces backlash from its Azeri citizens over Armenia and the Karabakh question · Global Voices
Aisha Jabbarova

A poster raised in Sahand stadium in Tabriz, Iran. Photo taken from Guney Azerbaycan Facebook page. Used with permission.
One might think that a Middle Eastern powerhouse like Iran has little connection to a conflict between two former Soviet republics in the South Caucasus that began before the communist bloc even broke up. That would be quite wrong, however.
Tensions over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region that fell under Armenian control following a war with Azerbaijan which began in the late 1980s are never far from the surface in relations between the two countries.
A March 29 meeting between Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev and Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan was billed as among the most positive in recent years, but it was overshadowed almost immediately by the aggressive rhetoric of subordinate officials on both sides.
In such a tense diplomatic atmosphere, powerful geopolitical neighbours have an important role to play. While the focus in this respect is often on traditional ex-Soviet power-broker Russia, Iran is also uniquely positioned to impact the conflict for better or worse.
Present-day Azerbaijan's borders are a product of the Turkmanchay Treaty between Tsarist Russia and the Persian Empire that divided the country along the Arax River in 1828.
According to this treaty, Azerbaijan became part of the Russian Empire while the lands to the south of the country became part of what is now known as Iran.
As a result, the number of Azeris in Iran far outnumber those in the Republic of Azerbaijan that has a population of 10 million people. Presently there is no official data available on the number of this country’s Azeri population. But the Encyclopedia of the Stateless Nations (2002) put the number of Azeris in Iran at 18,500,000 people, or over a quarter of Iran's population.
In Azerbaijan, many criticise Iran for having friendly ties and cooperating with Armenia, while Tehran, in turn, is wary of Baku's economic and military partnership with Israel. Although close religious and cultural ties bind Iranians and Azeris — they mostly share Shia Islam as a faith — Azerbaijan's government is strongly secular and suspicious of Iran's potential influence over conservatives in the Caucasus country.
Inside Iran, millions of Azeris are not allowed to receive education in their own language. This fact is in notable contrast to the position of diaspora Armenians in Iran, who according to various sources number between 70,000 and 150,000 and are able to receive Armenian-language schooling there.
As if these long-standing bones of contention were not enough, tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh are also mirrored in discourse between the two communities.
Anger over the disputed territory was on full display during Pashinyan's visit to Tehran at the end of February that culminated in a number of protests, mainly by fans of Tractor Sazi Tabriz  FC, a football club based in the Azeri-populated northern Iranian city of Tabriz that has become a hub for Azeri activism in recent years.
The protesters were particularly unhappy that Pashinyan had chosen to visit Iran on February 27, immediately after the anniversary of one of the bloodiest chapters in the six-year Karabakh war, known to Azeris as the Khojaly massacre of February 26, 1992.
Many Azeris perceived Pashinyan's visit as a betrayal. Compounding this discontent was the fact that a poster that read “Karabakh is Armenia. Period” was raised during Pashinyan's meeting with Armenian diaspora representatives.
Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan shared a selfie with Armenians in Iran in his Instagram account. The poster in the background reads: “Karabakh is Armenia. Period”.
A total of twenty-eight supporters of Tractor Sazi were detained by Iranian police March 1, whilst leaving Sahand stadium following the Tractor-Sepahan game on that day.
The arrests followed some 50,000 fans chanting the slogan “Karabakh is ours and will remain so” in the stadium where the Armenian flag was set alight.
On March 3, protesters in Azerbaijan's capital Baku picketed the Iranian embassy in a show of support with their Southern bretheren. Iran's ambassador in the country Mahmoud Vaze’i insisted that relations between Iran and Azerbaijan were solid and resilient in an apparent response to the picket. Vaze’i said Iran “will not let any interior or exterior forces damage our good ties with Azerbaijan.”
The scandal over Pashinyan's visit also reached Iran's legislature where an ethnic Azeri MP from Iran's Azeri-populated Urmia (Ormiyeh) region, Ruhulla Hazratopour, reiterated complaints over timing and called for Iran to clarify its position on Karabakh at a March 17 session.
MP Hazratopour said:
I am addressing the [Iranian] Foreign Affairs Ministry. What was the point of the Armenian Prime Minister’s visit to Iran on the anniversary of the massacre of Muslims in Khojaly, which caused a number of problems? As the leader has stated, and as the Azerbaijani people believe, Karabakh is the land of Islam. I am asking you now – what is the difference between Palestine and Karabakh? The Islamic Republic [of Iran] is an important Muslim country. We must play the role of a unifier in the region and protect all oppressed Muslims across the world.
The MP finished his speech with a poem in the Azeri language.
Typically, opposition to the Pashinyan visit was amplified on Facebook. One Facebook page used by Iranian Azeri activists is Gunay Azerbaycan (Southern Azerbaijan), which has around 20,000 followers. On March 3 the page carried a photo from Pashinyan's meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani accompanied by graphic footage from the Khojaly massacre, where women and children were among more than 600 killed by Armenian troops, according to Azerbaijani authorities.
The same page also posted a doctored photo from the Armenian prime minister’s meeting that showed an illustrated corpse of a small child laying in front of the two officials — another reference to the victims of Khojaly massacre.
Of the dozens of Iranian Azeris that liked and shared this image, many were seemingly not born at the time of the Khojaly incident. But as Baku and Yerevan inch gingerly towards the negotiating table on Karabakh, the era of social media has lent fresh life to the conflict.

author: Aisha Jabbarova


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Slovenian officials rebuff Hungary, refuse to censor cartoon satire ridiculing Viktor Orbán · Global Voices
Filip Stojanovski

The 22 March cover of Mladina (left) featured a caricature of Slovenian far-right politicians surrounding Hungarian president Victor Orbán. The headline reads: “We would give up Europe, but we would never give up on Orbán.” On the right is a “repaired and friendly” version published online in response to Hungarian ambassador's letter.  Images (c) 2019 Mladina, used with permission.
Slovenia may not be well known as a haven for free speech. But when Hungarian officials expressed outrage over a cartoon caricature of Hungarian president Viktor Orbán that appeared on the cover of Mladina, a national political magazine, Slovenian officials jumped to their defense.
On 22 March, Mladina published story chronicling Slovenian right wing politicians’ support for Hungary's ruling Fidesz party, under the mantle of the center-right European People's Party (EPP). At a recent meeting, EPP suspended Fidesz's membership within this largest and most powerful group of political parties within the European Union due to its authoritarian practices.
The Mladina headline read: “We would give up Europe, but never give up on Orbán.” The story criticized the Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) for “siding with Hungarian autocracy rather than democratic Europe.”
The article also noted that the EPP had previously threatened Fidesz with an exclusion in April 2017, due to the Hungarian government's various efforts to dismantle key institutions in Hungarian civil society, its drive to destroy the Central European University (CEU), and its use of anti-Semitic language in its Stop Brussels campaign.
Various other media have pointed that Orbán continues to exploit anti-Semitism for political gain.
The front page of the magazine featured a caricature of Viktor Orbán with his hand raised, in reference to the Empirial Roman salute in the style of Asterix comics, though a similar gesture with the palm level to the ground was used by fascists. Three SDS officials huddle around Orbán affectionately. One holds a flag with a design similar to the flag of Slovenia, whose colors had been replaced by Hungarian color scheme.
National flag of Slovenia (left) and Hungary (right). Source: Wikipedia.
When the magazine appeared on newsstands, Hungarian Ambassador to Slovenia Edit Szilágyiné Bátorfi sent a letter to Mladina which the magazine published in full. She accused them of undermining the friendship between the two nations with their articles about Hungary. She said it was “unacceptable” to suggest that Orbán had some connection with “the dark forces of the past” and insisted that her government has never promoted anti-Semitism.
On 28 March Mladina published an article with a “repaired and friendly” cover. In a tongue-in-cheek response to the dust-up, editors claimed their “foolish cartoonist” Tomaž Lavrič had decided to apologize by drawing a new image of the ambassador's “dear leader.”
“This time, it's more beautiful and more friendly. Long live the love between Orbán and Janša!” the editorial quipped.
The new caricature shows Orbán holding an olive branch (symbol of peace) with a flower in his hair, hippie-style. The modified Slovenian flag in this version shows rainbow colors, referencing the LGBTQ flag, a symbol of tolerance.
In a note sent to the Slovenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 29 March, the Hungarian Embassy in Ljubljana protested the “politically irresponsible front page” of the weekly Mladina, and asked for help in “preventing similar incidents in the future.”
According to Politico.eu, the Slovenian ministry replied saying that “[we] strictly respect the freedom of speech and freedom of the press and would never interfere in any of the media’s editorial policy.”
On 1 April, Hungarian government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs attacked Mladina in a post on his blog calling it a “sad example of the intolerance of the Left.”
In a 5 April commentary titled “Hungary's attempt to control Slovenian media”, Mladina noted that the diplomatic note shows how serious the situation is, and that the encroaching influence of illiberal Hungary is not only a problem for Slovenia, but for all of Europe.
“A country which dares to demand from another country's government to act against journalists means a serious security threat to the entire region,” editors wrote.
Journalistic investigations in Slovenia and North Macedonia have shown that Orbán's regime has attempted to interfere with domestic politics and elections of these two countries by providing support to extreme right-wing forces. Corporate figures with proven ties to the Hungarian government have provided financial backing to alt-right media outlets in Slovenia and media partly owned by the far-right parties of both countries. And in North Macedonia, Hungary facilitated former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski's escape from criminal punishment, after he was convicted of corruption. After Hungarian diplomats transported him through three other Balkan countries, Gruevski was granted political asylum in Hungary.
In an opinion piece entitled “Endangered Sovereignty of Slovenia,” Mladina editor Grega Repovž wrote:
Pismo je bilo še en kamenček v mozaiku, ki tako jasno kaže, s kakšno politiko imamo opravka v sosednji državi in kaj se je zgodilo v državi Evropske unije, ki naj bi bila nekakšna zveza demokratičnosti. In pismo je bilo še en dokaz, kakšna sramota je, da Evropska ljudska stranka ni zbrala moči, da bi izključila Fidezs Victorja Orbána iz svojih vrst – o čemer je govorila naslovna tema, ki je razburila madžarsko politiko.
The [ambassador's] letter was just another tile in the mosaic that shows the kind of politics we have to deal with in the neighboring state [of Hungary] and what is the state of affairs in this European Union member country, which once was a union of democracy. The letter just gives us another piece of proof that it was for shame that EPP didn't muster the strength to exclude Viktor Orbán's Fidesz from its ranks – the issue of the headline topic which upset Hungarian politics.
Following its launch in 1920 as a publication of the Youth Section of the Yugoslav Communist Party in Slovenia, Mladina (meaning “Youth”) built up a reputation of speaking truth to power. The magazine was banned by the dictatorship of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, but re-surfaced in 1943 as part of anti-fascist resistance.
During the 1980s, it became the foremost dissident newspaper in socialist Yugoslavia, challenging the system, the personality cult of Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito, and the then all-powerful Yugoslav People's Army. In 1988, the Army put four Mladina staff members on trial, for leaking alleged top secret documents, but this did not result in the magazine's defeat. The trial became the focal point of Slovene resistance to abuses, inciting massive protests and fueling the drive for independence and demands for democracy.
After Slovenia declared independence, Mladina survived the transition to democracy, continuing to keep the political elite accountable. For instance, they have meticulously scrutinized the work of their former reporter Janez Janša (one of the four convicted in the famous trial), who became a politician in 1989. He was appointed a defense minister of Slovenia in 1990, and twice served as prime minister (2004-2008, 2012-2013). Today he is the leader of Slovenian Democratic Party, a member of European People's Party and close ally of Orban's Fidesz. As such, he was featured on the controversial front page.
Commentators from former Yugoslav region were surprised by the Hungarian governments’ lack of awareness of Mladina's reputation, which may explain their failure to anticipate the backlash. Croatian news portal Express noted “Even Tito couldn't stop them, and now Orbán is charging against them.”
Media in Hungary wrote about the scandal too, promoting the caricature even further. Hvg.hu wrote that Orbán was “depicted as a Nazi” surrounded by the “local leaders of the  extreme right” in Slovenia. Magyar Narancs weekly wrote that “Hungarization of the Slovenian flag in the caricature is a warning that the real danger for Slovenia is Orbánisation.”
Many cross-border social media reactions about the scandal were also in line with the demand for freedom of speech:
Na Mladinin FB že cel dan pišejo Madžari, ki se bodisi opravičujejo za Orbana, bodisi prosijo za “zloglasno” 12. številko Mladine ali pa predlagajo prodajo majic z njenim motivom.
— Staš Zgonik (@SZgonik) April 5, 2019
Hungarians have been writing on Mladina's Facebook page all day, either apologizing for Orbán, or asking to purchase “the infamous” 12th issue, or proposing selling t-shirts with the image.


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The story—and uncertain future—of a Barcelona occupation that is both shelter and cultural center · Global Voices
Pere Montiel

The Casa de Cádiz, now occupied. Photo: Pere Montiel
Close to the Sagrada Familia cathedral, a popular tourist destination in Barcelona, a group of homeless people occupy a building called “La Casa de Cádiz.”
Formerly the cultural center of the Andalusian city of Cádiz, the building had been abandoned for 10 years when its current residents occupied it in November 2019. The place is now called Okupa Casa Cádiz — and it's more than just a shelter. It hosts painting workshops, free Spanish and Catalan classes for refugees and migrants, “philosophy cafes” with group readings, and concerts.
Refugees, migrants, pensioners, and whole families who cannot afford the expensive rents in Barcelona live here, where they all manage the household's chores and activities.
On his YouTube channel, Largarder Danciu, a resident and a fierce advocate of the project, says that the participants would like to improve their current economic situation, and projects such as this can help them.
Okupa Casa Cádiz has complex and numerous challenges. The police came once to stop improvements following complaints by neighbors, and a second time after the city hall of Cádiz formally denounced the squatting. The mayor of Cádiz, José María González, known as “Kichi,” faced some criticism for that, as he presents himself as an anti-capitalist and an advocate against evictions.
Of all the challenges the project faces, the most critical is the fact that the Cádiz municipality has put the building up for sale. In January, after protests, they offered the current residents a temporary concession.
But they are skeptical of Cádiz’ offer because it requires them to open a legal association. This makes them feel “controlled,” as Danciu explained to newspaper La Voz de Cádiz.
The Okupa's residents are pushing for new terms, and they want two associations — the National Andalusian association, which is a civic and cultural organization devoted to promoting Andalusian culture, and the Carpa association, a network of artists working to promote and create cultural and artistic spaces  — to mediate the negotiation with the Cádiz government.
However, the spokesperson of the Cádiz government, Ana Fernández, told local newspaper La Vanguardia that “given its economic situation, the regional government of Cádiz can't pass up the income that would come from [the sale of] a site with these characteristics.”
Dinnertime at La Casa de Cádiz. Members gather around the table. Photo: Pere Montiel. Used with permission.
The word okupa is widely used in Spain and some Spanish-speaking countries to refer to occupations of abandoned lots and buildings without the owner's permission and with the intention to turn them into affordable residences or social spaces. In English, this is commonly known as “squatting.”
While the unlawful occupation of idle property has existed throughout history in different cultures, it is believed that the okupa grew into a coherent social movement in Spain in the 1980s.
Usually, the primary purpose of squatters is to respond to economic difficulties, but they also denounce real estate speculation and private property laws.
In addition to these issues, Okupa Casa Cádiz is also particularly concerned about what they call “privatization of social services.” In Barcelona, the government outsources social services such as home care (through which people with disabilities or physical conditions receive care in their homes) and social emergency care (provided to, for example, senior citizens or homeless people who have suffered from accidents or people in urgent need of shelter) to private companies.
In an interview, Lagardier criticizes those companies, saying they “make a business out of poverty.”
Okupa Casa Cádiz‘ webpage shows the activities as well as how they manage their budget.
The members do regular chores like cooking, cleaning, and laundry. A committee of residents awards points to those who complete their chores, allowing them to continue their stay. The image in the tweet shows a task schedule:
La participación en las tareas de la casa se muy importante en #OkupaCasaCadiz. Reforzar hábitos y hacer a las personas sin hogar sentir como suyo lo proyecto. Las instituciones nos tratan como si no fuéramos capaces de hacer nada. pic.twitter.com/md2kqnfqma
— Okupa Casa Cádiz (@SenseSostreBCN) 25 de febrero de 2019
Participation in household chores is very important at #OkupaCasaCadiz. Building habits and making homeless people feel like the project is theirs. Institutions treat us like we're incapable of doing anything. pic.twitter.com/md2kqnfqma
Other people involved in the project help residents organize initiatives such as book readings as well as artistic and therapeutic workshops:
Taller de pintura LandArt en #OkupaCasaCadiz. Las personas sin hogar aprendemos a gestionar nuestras emociones a través del arte. pic.twitter.com/avbgs01md0
— Okupa Casa Cádiz (@SenseSostreBCN) 28 de febrero de 2019
LandArt painting workshop at #OkupaCasaCadiz. Homeless people learn to manage our emotions through art. pic.twitter.com/avbgs01md0
Besides offering Catalan and Spanish language classes, they also host concerts of alternative music, like the one they held on March 23 with the hip hop duo “No Somos Tu Rollo” (We're not your problem).
Their crowdfunding campaign on GoFundMe has raised 3,400 euros out of a goal of 7,000, and they have also received help from the neighborhood.
Hip hop duo “No Somos Tu Rollo” performing at Okupa Casa Cádiz. Photo: Pere Montiel. Used with permission.

author: Pere Montiel