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In State of Emergency, Turkey Jails Six Human Rights Defenders Pending Trial · Global Voices
Arzu Geybullayeva

Demonstrators on World Press Freedom Day in Turkey 2013. Image by Amnesty International Turkey.
An Istanbul court ruled on 18 July that six of the 10 human rights defenders detained in Turkey since 5 July will be remanded in pre-trial detention. The remaining four detainees will be released on bail.
The judge cited “aiding an armed terrorist organization” as the reason for keeping six of the rights defenders in custody.
The arrests took place while the group was gathered for a digital security and information management workshop on one of Istanbul's islands, Buyukada. Police raided the workshop, detained the participants, and confiscated electronic equipment including computers and mobile phones.
According to Amnesty International, the six jailed human rights defenders are İdil Eser (Amnesty International), Günal Kurşun (Human Rights Agenda Association), Özlem Dalkıran (Citizens’ Assembly), Veli Acu (Human Rights Agenda Association), Ali Gharavi (IT strategy consultant) and Peter Steudtner (non-violence and wellbeing trainer). All are Turkish nationals, with the exception of Gharavi, who is a Swedish national, and Steudtner, who is a German citizen.
On 17 July, all 10 defenders were brought to the public prosecutor's office for individual questioning, after having been questioned by the police on 16 July. Videos posted by the Free Rights Defenders Twitter account showed the detained rights defenders at the courthouse speaking with their supporters:
Savcılık ifadesi sonrası Özlem Dalkıran'ın mesajı: “Çok iyiyim. Hiç merak etmeyin.” #HakSavunucularinaDokunma https://t.co/03rQQk2Rq4
— HR Defenders Turkey (@humanrights_tr) July 17, 2017
After the statement Ozlem Dalkiran's message: “I am well. Do not worry.”
Local civil society contacts told Global Voices that the six are arrested pending a trial over accusations that they aided an armed terror group, though it remains unclear whether or not they have been formally charged, and authorities have cited no evidence to support this accusation. All of those detained on July 5 demonstrate a commitment to peaceful, constructive protection of the rights of all Turkish people as enshrined in local laws and international human rights norms.
The four rights defenders who have been released are barred from traveling abroad and must report regularly to the police.
German media outlet Spiegel Online described the situation as “repression reaching a new dimension” in Turkey.
The Guardian quoted Amnesty International chief Salil Shetty as saying:
This is not a legitimate investigation, this is a politically motivated witch-hunt that charts a frightening future for rights in Turkey.
The group faces the same charge as Amnesty Turkey head Taner Kilic, who was detained just a month ago.
Daniel Ó Cluanaigh, Berlin-based human rights consultant and colleague of Gharavi and Steudtner, said in a press statement:
We are shocked that Ali and Peter's support for peaceful human rights defenders has led to their imprisonment. The accusations of aiding an armed terrorist organisation against them are groundless. Workshops of this kind are common, essential education for human rights organisations, so that they can protect sensitive information, such as testimonies from witnesses of human rights violations or personal information of victims. We demand the immediate and unconditional release of Ali Gharavi and Peter Steudtner as well as their four colleagues.
On the same day, the Turkish government voted to extend the state of emergency in the country for the fourth time, by an additional three months.
Turkey's state of emergency has been in place for exactly a year. Minutes ago it was extended for the fourth time — for another 3 months.
— Piotr Zalewski (@p_zalewski) July 17, 2017
Supporters of the rights defenders used Twitter to share anger and sadness at the decision, under the hashtags #FreeRightsDefenders, #Istanbul10 and #HakSavunucularınaDokunma (hands off human rights defenders).
The director of Europe and Central Asia for Amnesty International tweeted:
In defiance of reason, truth and justice the #istanbul10 have been charged. 6 remanded, 4 on bail. No rights defenders safe in turkey now. pic.twitter.com/dHL6Dfa2TG
— John Dalhuisen (@DalhuisenJJ) July 18, 2017
Andrew Gardner, Turkey researcher for Amnesty International, was at the courthouse tweeting updates:
Scandal:6 rights defenders including Amnesty's İdil Eser remanded in prison custody on basis of false accusations lacking evidence or logic.
— Andrew Gardner (@andrewegardner) July 18, 2017
In Istanbul, supporters and friends went to the courthouse to show their support:
At the courthouse, waiting for the arrival of the detained human rights activists who will be seeing the prosecutor #FreeRightsDefenders
— Düşünce Özgürlüğü (@dusundusun) 17 de julio de 2017
gözaltına alınan arkadaşlarımız için on üç saattir adliye önündeyiz. ifadeler bitti, beklemeye devam…#İnsanHaklarıSavunucularınaDokunma pic.twitter.com/GbOqNWTADF
— reha ruhavioğlu (@ruhavi) July 17, 2017
We have been in front of the courthouse for the last 13 hours in support of our friends. They have concluded giving their statements. We continue to wait.
Since their detention, protests have been held around the world calling for their release.
.@IFEX believes human rights defenders need to be defended not imprisoned in Turkey. #FreeRightsDefenders
— Annie Game (@AnnieGame) July 18, 2017
Belgian director of Amnesty locked himself in a cage in front of Turkish embassy 2 protest arrest of his colleague in Turkey pic.twitter.com/HguGMZIYLw
— Georgi Gotev (@GeorgiGotev) July 10, 2017
We are joining @AmnestyIreland at 1 pm today outside the Turkish Embassy in Dublin to stand in solidarity with #AmnestyTurkey & #Istanbul10 pic.twitter.com/HlYprwAZkP
— Front Line Defenders (@FrontLineHRD) July 12, 2017
2day our activists, in chains, outside the Turkish embassy demanded release of human rights defenders. Join them: https://t.co/iUaLPvKpdP pic.twitter.com/4pSxjganQN
— Amnesty UK (@AmnestyUK) July 12, 2017
Observers call the court decision a “new low”. But in a country where “new lows” have become the norm since the failed coup attempt in July 2016, this may be an understatement.

author: Arzu Geybullayeva


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One Year Later: Why the Purges in Turkey Were Always in the Pipeline · Global Voices
Sarphan Uzunoglu

Protesters action during Gezi park night protests. Events of June 15, 2013. Photo by Mstyslav Chernov.
When it comes to Turkey, representatives of European Union countries—aided and abetted by Turkish liberals who got the ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) wrong to begin with—are in a state of denial and shock. Their distress is rooted in the idea that prior to say, 2013, the conservative government led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan was leading the country down a path of hope and democracy. Of course, that was never the case.
For the last four years, certainly, Turkey has been caught in a vicious spiral of authoritarianism. During this time, government crackdowns spurred as much by infighting within the Turkish state as broadening resistance to AKP rule, have come to define the country in the eyes of the international media.
Now, as the country marks one year since military officers launched a bloody and abortive coup attempt, a website tracking the subsequent government purge claims that well over 100,000 teachers, civil servants, military officers and judges have been dismissed from their positions, supposedly in connection with the plot.
Against this background, nostalgia for the pre-2013 era is perhaps inevitable.
At meetings I've attended, representatives of European non-state actors, in particular, are keen to mourn this period. According to their approach, the investigative journalist Ahmet Şık was never imprisoned before 2013 for writing a book about Erdogan’s erstwhile ally Fethullah Gulen; and the Kurdish political movement was never suppressed and secularists and socialists never fell victim to government conspiracies.
Their conclusion is as simple as it is unfounded: everything was great before 2013, and yet somehow something didn’t work out.
Others foresaw traces of manypost-2013 trends in the post-2006 period. During this time, the institutionalization of injustice that had been visible from the very beginning of the AKP period in 2002 gathered strength, while checks on the government gradually disappeared as the AKP cemented control over more and more facets of public life.
AKP’s discourse was socially conservative, but at the same time anti-establishment and populist; they pledged to peg back the power of the army, and portrayed progressive politics as the root of most of the country's problems.
But at the same time, the party set about weakening those institutions in Turkey—chiefly media and civil society—that offered substance to the very idea of Turkish democracy.
While this was happening, the European Union that has for so long dangled the carrot of club membership in front of Turkey stood by passively. International financial institutions deeply embedded in the country applauded the government as a facilitator of robust economic growth.
An optimistic view of the country was bolstered by a group of serious intellectuals, some of whom are now imprisoned. They tragically failed to predict the imbalances caused by the so-called democratization process, which was actually never anything more than AKP majoritarianism.
By 2013, the flaws in Turkish democracy under AKP were abundantly clear to observers inside and outside Turkey. In May of that year, frustrations surrounding alleged corruption in the AKP government, and Erdogan's increasing intolerance of opposition to his policy agenda boiled over with the youth-driven Gezi Park protests in Istanbul. At least 22 people died as police resorted to the use of force and made close to 5,000 arrests.
But even before, there were signs that AKP's growing hold over society could cause conflict. The government's seeming obsession with biopolitics suggested a desire to cast the country's families in its own traditionalist image. A 2010 referendum the party won redesigned the legislative branch in such a way so as to boost the ruling faction's powers and loosen controls over parliament.
A rapidly collapsing justice system, a weak and divided opposition and the shredding of the free press; these are all legacies of AKP rule that began 15 years ago, not in 2013.
On April 16, Erdogan and the AKP came out on top in a close referendum in which Turkish voters were asked to vote on the expansion of presidential powers. It was held in a state of emergency that has been in force ever since the abortive coup attempt—one year and counting.
A host of violations suggest that Turkish elections are yet another democratic institution in the process of being eroded. The president can now dismiss the parliament and appoint ministers and other high-ranking officials without vetting processes.
He can appoint half of all senior judges, call further referendums, declare emergency situations such as the one Turkey has been living under since the coup attempt, and issue decrees with the force of law. The amendments signalled the end of Turkey's parliamentary republic.
What has happened in Turkey is a tragedy, made all the more tragic by the fact that the loudest voices in the chorus said the wrong things at the wrong time. Partly to blame is the Turkish opposition, which could not band together at key moments when the AKP agenda had presented a clear threat to its existence. The other guilty party is the international elite that ignored the injustices taking place in Turkey for as long as they possibly could, steadily trumpeting a success story that had all the ingredients for failure.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Sarphan Uzunoglu


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What Will it Take to End Child Marriages in Afghanistan? · Global Voices
Anais Wardak

Photo for illustration purposes only. Taken by Flickr user SAM Nasim. Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0).
Earlier this year, Afghanistan took an unprecedented policy step in the battle against the ‘child bride’ custom by launching the National Action Plan to Eliminate Early and Child Marriage. Activists are hopeful the plan will become more than a piece of paper, despite clear challenges ahead and the government's poor record for implementation.
Today, according to Girls Not Brides, one in three girls in the developing world are married before they turn 18. This practice is particularly an issue in Afghanistan, where the child marriage rate was 33% in 2016. Although rights groups claim that any marriage before 18 is a violation of human rights, it is still taking place today in Afghanistan, where the legal age of marriage for girls is set at 16 by the Afghan Civil Code.
Those unions typically take place in rural areas in Afghanistan, rather than in the big cities such as Kabul.
The National Plan was developed by the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and the Ministry of Information and Culture, and approved in April.
The First Lady of Afghanistan, Rula Ghani, has been one of the National Plan's strongest supporters:
“I urge all Afghan families to avoid child and forced marriages. Your girls face a huge risk when they get married at a young age. Early marriage robs them from their childhood and future opportunities.”
Eliminating child marriage and promoting education is one of 17 Sustainable Development Goals launched by the United Nations.
National Action Plans have a weak record in Afghanistan in terms of enforcement. Neither the 2007 National Action Plan for the Women of Afghanistan, nor the 2009 Law on the Elimination of Violence Against Women, nor the plan to enforce the pro-women United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 can be considered successes.
Moreover, the National Action Plan to Eliminate Early and Child Marriage in Afghanistan does not seem to be publicly available. Thus, it is hard for non-policymakers to determine if measures are being put in place to discourage child marriage, and what mechanisms there are to turn words into action.
Less than a year ago, on July 18, 2016, a story broke that Zahra, a 14-year-old girl who was married and four months pregnant had been burned to death (news report features distressing footage) by her husband’s family. Her father, Muhammad Azam, told the New York Times that her daughter’s in-laws, as well as her husband, stabbed and beat Zahra when she refused to work in the opium field because of her pregnancy.
Zahra’s father claimed his daughter was set on fire to cover up the physical abuse she had suffered before death.
Zahra was a victim of ‘baad’, a traditional practice which involves giving a girl to another family to resolve a dispute. Indeed, she was sold because her father eloped with a woman from Zahra’s husband’s family. She was used to settle the dispute between the two families.
Unfortunately, Zahra’s story is one of many. Each child bride has her own tale, but happy endings are a rarity.
Many factors need to be taken into consideration when evaluating how families come to the decision to sell their daughters. However, it is important to note that the decision to sell off girls is nearly always made by the men of the family rather than by the women, who have little or no say.
The key factor is poverty. A lot of families in rural areas in Afghanistan sell off their daughters in exchange for money or livestock. In some cases, families cannot feed their children, so they have no choice but to sell them. Sheep, cows, and money, unfortunately, can be more valuable to Afghan fathers than their daughters.
Perhaps for this reason, Khan Wali Adil, a teacher and activist for women’s rights who camped out in front of the Afghan Parliament for a month in 2016 to protest against the traditional practice of “baad”, complained that in Afghanistan, “[girls] are treated like animals.”
A lot of child brides, like Zahra, fall into marriage as barter in “baad” debt-settling agreements.
In other cases, child brides are traded between families. For example, in Afghanistan, boys hold more ‘value’ than girls, thus sometimes, a father takes the initiative to exchange his daughter for a wife for his son. This practice is a traditional one, and is called “baadal.”
While both “baad” and “baadal” are prohibited by the 2009 Law on the Elimination of Violence Against Women, those practices still occur today.
The most obvious and potentially fatal consequence of child marriage is early pregnancy. The bodies of young girls are not mature enough to endure pregnancy or deliver a child. Girls who marry at a young age might also suffer from internal damage due to sexual violence.
The lack of medical facilities and proper medical care in rural areas compounds the problem because girls cannot get any treatment or assistance during their pregnancy and delivery, which often contributes to their death.
Some young girls also suffer physical and psychological abuse in their new families. In addition, because they ‘belong’ to a new family, they often cannot go to school and are not able to work. It is impossible for them to become financially independent.
Many girls believe that the only way out of a marriage is suicide. Bora Gull Heha was 16-years-old when she decided to set herself ablaze with an oil lamp.
Monika Hauser, the gynecologist who founded Medica Afghanistan, told Rawa News that “the suicide rate is rising particularly in towns because women are fighting against forced marriages there”. Girls who live in rural areas tend to be less educated and more likely to suffer in silence.

author: Anais Wardak


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A Water Weed Is Damaging Ethiopia’s Largest Lake and Putting Livelihoods at Risk · Global Voices
Endalkachew Chala

The outlet of the Blue Nile River. Photo by Richard Mortel via Flickr. CC BY 2.0
Since 2012, an invasive weed known as the water hyacinth has been subsuming tens of thousands of acreage of the surface of Lake Tana, as well as adjacent wetlands and ranches surrounding the lake.
About two million Ethiopians directly depend on the lake as well as adjacent wetlands and ranches for their livelihood, according to Nature And Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU), a German non-governmental organization focused on sustainability and conservation in the region. The steady growth of the water hyacinth has taken a toll, particularly on the western side of the lake, an area populated by fishermen, farmers, and ranchers whose work depends on it.
The vast, 832-square-mile body of water is Ethiopia's largest lake, and is packed with ecological, cultural and historical charm. It is situated in the highlands of Ethiopia’s second-largest region, Amhara administrative state.
Ecologically, Lake Tana is home to rare and endangered bird species such as the black-crowned crane and also hosts several migratory birds.
Lake Tana is also notable for being the headwaters of the Blue Nile river that flows westward before it merges with White Nile at Khartoum, Sudan’s Capital.
The Blue and White Nile are the two major tributaries of world’s longest river, the Nile. Along the way, the Nile is fed by numerous smaller streams before it flows northward into Egypt, but the Nile gets more than 80 percent of its water from Blue Nile. Describing the eminence of Lake Tana, the renowned adventurer and geophysicist Pasquale Scaturro said, “The riches of Egypt is a gift from Lake Tana.”
Now, the lake is a very different symbol — of the dire state of Ethiopia’s natural resources at a time when the country’s fast-growing population needs more of everything.
When first spotted in 2012, the massive water hyacinth blooms were first confined to areas covering about 77 square miles of the shallow water and shores of the lake around its western edges. Since then, the floating weed has grown rapidly, devouring large swatches of the surface of the lake. As a result, the average expanse of the lake in the western province of Dembiya has steadily shrunken, residents told state media.
According to experts who spoke to government media, the water hyacinth has grown nearly 100 percent from 2012 to about 155 square miles, though a relatively dry winter season in 2016 slowed its expansion.
The spread of this invasive alien species is the result of human activity around Lake Tana. According to a paper written by two academicians, the rapid growth of the pernicious weed is caused by the inflow of nutrient rich water from urban and agricultural runoff and products of industrial waste, threatening other Ethiopian lakes as well such as Lake Hawasa, and Lake Zeway.
Since 2015, UNESCO has recognized Lake Tana as a World Heritage site for its unique ecological biosphere reserve, due to NABU's efforts to secure this status as part of its conservation efforts in the region. UNESCO also recognizes the islands’ rich historical, cultural and religious significance with deep ties to the Ethiopian Coptic Orthodox Church.
The lake is also home to historical monasteries and churches. Their relatively isolated location on islands has aided their preservation, but as the menacing water hyacinth threatens to clog the entire lake, their survival is at stake as well as the livelihoods of all who live near and depend on Lake Tana as a natural resource.

author: Endalkachew Chala


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China’s Xinjiang Residents Are Being Forced to Install Surveillance Apps on Mobile Phones · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

A personal communication device check point in Xinjiang via Twitter user 即时中国大陆映像
Residents of Xinjiang, an ethnic minority region of western China, are being forced to install spyware on their mobile phones.
On July 10, mobile phone users in the Tianshan District of Urumqi City received a mobile phone notification from the district government instructing them to install a surveillance application called Jingwang (or “Web Cleansing”). The message said the app was intended to “prevent [them] from accessing terrorist information.”
But authorities may be using the app for more than just counter-terrorism. According to an  exclusive report from Radio Free Asia, 10 Kazakh women from Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture were arrested for messages sent to a private WeChat group chat soon after they installed the app.
The notification from police said the application would locate and track the sources and distribution paths of terrorists, along with “illegal religious” activity and “harmful information,” including videos, images, ebooks and documents.
Jingwang's website describes the application as follows:
净网卫士是江苏电信面向家庭宽带用户推出的家长、小孩上网分级防护服务，主要提供色情网站拦截；网络诈骗、病毒木马、钓鱼网站阻断；上网时间控制提醒；手机远程管理等安全防护服务。为未成年人筑起一道网络安全屏障，为孩子的健康成长保驾护航。
Jingwang is a protection service with an adult and child categorization system introduced by Jiangsu Telecom. The main function is to block pornographic websites, online scams, trojan horses, and phishing sites; to alert users of how much time they spend online; and to enable remote control of one's home network. The tool is intended to help kids develop a healthy lifestyle by building a safe web filter for the minors.
Of course, any tool with these capabilities could be used in multiple ways. For example, the app's “remote control” feature could enable state actors or even hackers to manipulate or steal from a person's home network.
The move is consistent with other measures of control over digital activities in the region. While stories of digital censorship in China often focus on the experiences of users in major cities in the east and south, the reality is often more bleak for those living in remote, embattled ethnic minority regions such as Xinjiang and Tibet. Seeking to contain unrest and discontent in conflict areas, authorities often impose extreme censorship and surveillance measures and routine Internet shutdowns.
A Twitter-based media outlet, “Images from mainland China” (即时中国大陆映像), which covers censored news in China, posted photos taken from a checkpoint where police officers randomly checked residents to see if they have installed the surveillance app:
新疆各部手机检查安装净网卫士官方软件，短信通知十日内安装，临检发现没安装拘留十天，科技倒退，逼老百姓用老年机，什么叫禁锢，这种全面监控就是禁锢。回到长毛时代 pic.twitter.com/zUnLXc9tFA
— 即时中国大陆映像✊✊✊ (@o66071443) July 18, 2017
Authorities from Xinjiang are checking to make sure that people are using the official Jingwang application. A mobile notification demanded people install the app within 10 days. If they are caught at a checkpoint and their devices do not have the software, they could be detained for 10 days. This is a setback on the development of technology. They forced people to use devices designed for the elderly. It is a form of confinement by through surveillance technology. We are back to Mao's China.
“Images from mainland China” (即时中国大陆映像) also posted a product description of Jingwang which explained that the tool can negate the password requirement of a Windows operating system and access the computer hard disk with no restrictions.
新疆人民电脑手机，净网卫士强制安装后，相当于电子手铐 pic.twitter.com/NIF4dffCIO
— 即时中国大陆映像✊✊✊ (@o66071443) July 18, 2017
Once installed with Jingwang, computers and mobiles in Xinjiang, would become electronic handcuffs.
The Jingwang requirement may be a response to the city party committee’s instruction to crack down on the distribution of illegal content. All government branches and government and party affiliated institutions, including universities and research organizations, are obligated to follow instructions from the Cybersecurity Office on managing their computer and communication networks.
A recent report from Freedom House, a US-based human rights group, also touched on the new surveillance practices:
In Xinjiang, authorities in a district of the regional capital Urumqi issued a notice on June 27 instructing all residents and business owners to submit their “personal ID cards, cell phones, external drives, portable hard drives, notebook computers, and media storage cards” to the local police post for “registration and scanning” by August 1.
[…]
The goal is ostensibly to identify and purge any “terrorist videos,” but the action violates the privacy rights of Urumqi's three million residents and exposes them to punishment for a host of other possible offenses, including those related to peaceful religious or political expression.

author: Oiwan Lam


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Ethiopia’s Music of Resistance Stays Strong, Despite Repression · Global Voices
Endalkachew Chala

Screenshot from one the more melancholic music videos of Teferi Mekonen viewed more than 200,000 times from the group's YouTube channel.
In Ethiopia, journalists and bloggers have long been subjected to imprisonment and terrorism charges, but musicians have been relatively free — until recently.
Over the past year, what activists call “resistance songs” have flooded a tiny corner of the Ethiopian internet. But as political music has become more visible in public life and online, Ethiopian authorities have expanded their political repression tactics to musicians whom they see as sympathizers with opposition.
Since December 2016, multiple popular Ethiopian musicians aligned with the country's growing opposition movement have been arrested and jailed. Last month, the prominent group of rising start singer Seenaa Solomon was charged with terrorism for “inciting” lyrics and uploading their music video to YouTube.
The contentious political environment in which these arrests took place has grown out of the Ethiopian government's plan to expand Addis Ababa, the nation's capital. In 2014, the ruling EPRDF party announced plans to expand the capital into adjacent farm lands of Oromia, Ethiopia’s largest region that is primarily home to the country's largest ethnic group, the Oromo.
The plan led to wide-scale protests and a violent government crackdown, ultimately resulting in a state of emergency declared in October 2016 and still effective today. Some say the state of emergency, which was extended to four more months in March 2017 has brought some calm after two years of political unrest.
While the state of emergency may be curbing the demonstrations, feelings and narratives of resistance remain alive and well. And Afan Oromo (the region's language) musicians have begun to rise as a visible — and audible — driving inspiration for the opposition movement.
For Oromos, resistance songs have long been at the heart of their political movements. However, over the last few months the ‘resistance songs’ have grown louder and angrier in tones and have gained a much larger following. And of late, even Amharic singers who have not sung overtly political songs have joined the chorus resistance songs. Prominent Amharic singer Yehune Belay released a popular Amharic song in which he pleaded with Ethiopian soldiers to stop killing people.
Large numbers of YouTube channels and Facebook pages have sprung up, documenting the cultural aspects of the protest. Websites and blogs frequently post resistance songs.
On YouTube, channels carrying montages of protest images linked to the resistance songs regularly garner hundreds of thousands of views.
Addis Ababa in the late afternoon. Photo by Amanda Lichtenstein.
Offline, street CD vendors and small CD rental shops are part of an informal chain of supply of resistance songs for Ethiopians who don’t have internet access.
The government has tried all methods to censor ‘resistance songs’. It has arrested singers, denied them gigs and even driven them out of Ethiopia. It haas blocked YouTube channels and jammed diaspora-based satellite television stations.
But the government’s tactics in repressing critical singers often seems only to increase the popularity of resistance songs. For example, Yai Gulalle Film, the YouTube channel run by Seena Solomon and her colleagues before their arrest, has been viewed more than 3,525,996 times.


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How the Assault on Independent Media in Bahrain Silenced a Trusted Regional Watchdog · Global Voices
Bill Law

Karranah, Bahrain, February 2014. Demonstrators marched towards the Lulu (Pearl) Roundabout on the anniversary of February 2011 protests. Security forces dispersed the crowd with tear gas. Photograph by Sayed Baqer Alkamel. Copyright: Demotix
Last month in Bahrain, one of the Gulf region's few truly independent media outlets, Al Wasat, closed its doors.
On 4 June, the Bahraini Ministry of Information informed Al Wasat that it would immediately suspend the newspaper’s online and print editions over a column that included “a defamation of a sisterly Arab country.” The opinion piece in question, published on 4 June, addressed the wave of protests calling for jobs and economic development in Al Hoceima and other cities in Morocco.
Al Wasat, which covers Bahrain and other countries in the Middle East and North Africa regions, is unique in that it has no ties either to government or to individuals close to a ruling family.
In a statement released on 14 July, Amnesty International said the shuttering of the newspaper and online site was an “arbitrary decision” and part of an “all-out campaign to crush freedom of the press” in the Gulf island kingdom of Bahrain.
Amnesty also called on the authorities to renew the accreditation of prominent journalist Nazeeha Saeed and other journalists and for Saeed’s conviction for working without a permit to be quashed.
Bahrain, a Shia Muslim majority country ruled by a Sunni Muslim royal family, has seen ongoing protests over the past six years. In February 2011 in the capital Manama, tens of thousands of peaceful protesters calling for democratic reform took over a prominent landmark, Lulu (Pearl) Roundabout, only to be driven off with force. In the days and weeks that followed, dozens of people were killed, hundreds wounded, thousands were rounded up and approximately 5000 people were arbitrarily sacked from their jobs. Most of those affected were Shia.
Al Wasat covered the story of the occupation of Lulu Roundabout and its aftermath and in doing so paid a high price. When its offices and printing press were attacked and wrecked by a vigilante mob in 2011, the police did not intervene. And in 2012, Al Wasat co-founder Karim Al Fakhrawi was murdered.
Al Wasat co-founder Karim Al Fakhrawi was beaten to death while in police custody Photo: kareemfakhrawi instagram account.
When Al Fakhrawi complained to police that authorities were about to bulldoze his house, he was detained. A week later, he was dead. Authorities initially claimed his death resulted from kidney failure, but a subsequent investigation indicated that he was beaten to death in custody.
In December, 2012, two police officers were convicted of manslaughter and received sentences of seven years each, subsequently reduced to three years on appeal.
This conviction came about largely due to an inquiry by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI), an independent group of human rights analysts convened by the Bahraini government in June 2011 in response to international condemnation of their handling of the protests.
In November 2011, BICI delivered a damning indictment of the regime, noting the use of excessive force and the impunity with which police arrested and tortured  and killed protesters.
In the section dealing with media harassment, the report noted:
It is clear that the media in Bahrain is biased towards the GoB (government of Bahrain). Six of the seven daily newspapers are pro-government and the broadcasting service is State-controlled. The continuing failure to provide opposition groups with an adequate voice in the national media risks further polarising the political and ethnic divide in Bahrain.
The seventh newspaper was Al Wasat.
The BICI report recommended that the government “consider relaxing censorship and allowing the opposition greater access to television broadcasts, radio broadcasts and print media.” But despite promises of King Hamad to carry out in full all of the recommendations of the BICI report, and despite Article 24 of the Kingdom's Constitution, which affirms freedom of the press, the situation of media freedom in Bahrain remains dire.
Like all the other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, Bahrain has enacted and enforced draconian legislation aimed at silencing its critics. In 2014, the government amended the penal code to specify a prison sentence of one to seven years and a fine of up to 10,000 Bahraini dinars ($26,500) for anyone who publicly insults Bahrain’s king, flag, or national emblem. In 2016, the Ministry of Information approved a decree introducing a licensing scheme for electronic media.
Al Wasat’s editor in chief Mansoor al Jamri has long been recognized for his dedication to the values of objective, free and independent journalism. Despite facing constant pressure from the ruling family, he has remained true to his belief that what Bahrain and the Gulf need is a media that speaks truth to power, and that only through a free and unfettered media would Bahrain and the other Gulf states begin to build inclusive societies.
Working under this ethos, Al Wasat faced near constant harassment. It has been suspended several times, its journalists have been denied accreditation and arrested and the government has withheld advertising from the site to cut off its resources. Individual staff have been subjected to online hate campaigns that have included death threats. And yet still Al Wasat and its editor continued working to hold the government to account.
But on 24 June, Al Wasat’s board of directors informed its staff of around 185 full and part-time employees that in light of the suspension and the continuing refusal of the government to meet with it, it had no other option but to terminate their contracts.
As a Bahraini journalist who asked to remain anonymous said at the time:
…freedom of expression is under sustained attack here and with the shuttering of Al Wasat, there is no real journalism left.

author: Bill Law


text:
In Bangladesh, Fear Drives Headline-Making Spate of Snake Killings · Global Voices
Rezwan

Snakes are killed in rural Bangladesh when they are found in human habitat. Image from Flickr by Vipez. CC: BY-NC-ND 2.0
July 16th was World Snake Day, a day to celebrate the reptiles and raise awareness about their conservation. Bangladesh is one place where snakes might need a little more care, because according to media reports, there's a snake killing spree in the northeast and southeast regions of the country due to popular fears of the animal as well as a lack of specialized rescuers on staff in local governments.
Recently, these regions have seen an increase in snake sightings, leading to news headlines like “12 cobras found inside fast food shop”, “Snake pit with 125 cobras found in a Rajshahi kitchen”, and “116 cobras found in Kushtia”. In most of these cases, the people in these rural areas of the country have resorted to killing the snakes found inside their homes or other establishments.
There have also been more snake bites, and according to reports, the local farmers in certain rural areas are refusing to work in the field as the number of snake bites have risen. A local volunteer organization distributed some rubber boots to mitigate their fears.
Dr Monirul H Khan, an associate professor of zoology at Jahangirnagar University, said in an interview with Dhaka Tribune that snakes are already known for settling near human habitats because of the prevalence of rats near homes. Snakes also breed during monsoon season, so it's not surprising that people are seeing more of them. Each snake can lay up to 50 eggs, and the recent snake killings have mostly been people killing baby snakes.
Experts say that due to intense floods in the past few years, many poisonous snakes migrated from neighboring India to Bangladesh and they are taking refuge in human habitats, especially village homes built with mud and bamboos. The local government hospitals have asked for more supplies of anti-venom as snake bite cases have increased, but no deaths from snake bites has been reported.
The truth is that most snake species in Bangladesh aren't poisonous, and as the president and founding member of the Wildlife Conservation Team of Bangladesh, Mohammad Quamruzzaman Babu, reminded, snakes help in agriculture as they help minimize the population of plant-eating rats, and there will be disruptions in the ecosystem if snake populations are diminished.
Banner via Facebook page Snakes of Bangladesh
Snake conservation and awareness Facebook page Snakes of Bangladesh shared an article by Abdur Razzaque, a researcher of Dhaka University, on why people are killing snakes:
বিগত কয়েকেদিন যাবৎ দৈনিক খবরের কাগজে প্রায় চার শতাধিক এর বেশি সাপ মারার সংবাদ এসেছে। এবছরেই যে মানুষ এতবেশি সংখ্যক মেরেছে তা নয়। প্রতি বছর হাজার হাজার সাপ মানুষ মেরে ফেলছে। [..] আমাদের দেশে প্রায় ৯০ প্রজাতির সাপের মধ্যে প্রায় ২৭ প্রজাতির বিষাক্ত এবং বাকিগুলো অবিষাক্ত সাপ। কিন্তু মানুষের কাছে সাপ মানেই আতঙ্কের নাম, সেটি বিষাক্ত হোক কিংবা অবিষাক্ত। [..] সাপ দেখলেই মারতে হবে ব্যাপারটা এখন আমরা শুধু বংশপরম্পরায় নয় বরং যেন জেনেটিকালি বহন করে বেরাচ্ছি। যে প্রাণিটি মানুষ এত ভয় পায় সেটি প্রকৃতিতে থাকার কোন কি দরকার আছে? কিন্তু বিজ্ঞান বলছে, প্রাকৃতিক ভারসাম্য বজায় রাখতে, খাদ্য শৃঙ্খল অটুট রাখতে এদের দরকার আছে। [..]
সাপ প্রকৃতিতে যেসব পরিবেশে থাকতো সেগেুলো আমরা নিজেদের প্রয়োজরে ধ্বংস করে ফেলেছি এবং প্রতি বছর ব্যাপকহারে সাপ মারার কারণে প্রাকৃতিক পরিবেশে এখন খুব কম সাপ দেখা যায়। [..] সাপ খাবারের প্রয়োজনে, প্রজননের সুবির্ধার্থে বর্ষাকালে মানুষের আবাসস্থলে ঢুকে পড়ছে। [..] বসতবাড়িতে সাপ ঢুকলে মানুষ না মেরে কি করবে? কেননা দেশে সাপ উদ্ধারকারী দক্ষ লোক নেইে। আর উদ্ধার করলেও, এগুলোর দায়ভার কেউ নিতে চান না।
In recent weeks we have read reports of the killing of more than 400 snakes in several districts. This is unfortunately not out of the ordinary. Each year people in our country kill thousands of snakes. […] There are more than 90 species of snakes in our country and only 27 from them are venomous. But for common people a snake is a fearful animal irrespective of being venomous or non-venomous. […] It seems we carry this notion genetically that whenever we see a snake we have to kill it to save us and our families. People fear this animal so much. So do they deserve to live? Science says snakes are vital to the ecosystem, and they act as natural pest-killers. […]
The natural habitats of snakes are being destroyed by humans for their own need. Each year more and more snakes are being killed and their population is decreasing. […] During monsoon season they sneak into human habitats for breeding and food. […] When people find snakes nesting in their homes, what should they do when there are not enough snake catchers or preservationists? Even if the snakes are rescued, there are no facilities to keep these snakes and nobody wants to take responsibility.
Razzaque also suggested that organizing a volunteer team of snake catchers in the localities could save these snakes. A member of this Facebook community Borhan Biswas Romon reported:
Today we rescued 17 cutie cobra babies and a matured female Spectacled cobra from a villagers house, location, Poba Rajshahi.
Children play with a captured baby snake. Image from Flickr by Vipez. CC: BY-NC-ND 2.0
State Minister for Foreign Affairs Shahriar Alam expressed concerns over the killings of snakes in a Facebook post:
কয়েকদিন থেকে দেখছি রাজশাহী থেকে শুরু করে বাংলাদেশের আনাচে কানাচে সাপ খুজে খুজে মারা হচ্ছে। প্রায় সব পত্রিকা সেটা গ্রহণযোগ্য ভাবে প্রচার করছে। না বুঝে নতুন করে মানুষ সাপ মারতে উৎসাহিত হচ্ছে। এইসব জায়গার কোথাওই সাপেড় কামড়ে সম্প্রতি কেউ মারা গেছেন তাও শোনা যায়নি। কিন্তু তবুও চলছে সাপ মারা। [..]
ঝুঁকি মনে হলে বাসায় কার্বলিক এসিড রাখবেন। খুব সমস্যা মনে হলে সাপ ধরে (গ্রামে সাপ ধরার মানুষ পাওয়া যায়) বন বিভাগ বা প্রাণী বিভাগে দিয়ে দিবেন কিন্তু অযথা মেরে নতুন বিপদ ডেকে আনবেন না দয়া করে।
I am concerned that in recent weeks snakes are being killed in different parts of the country, including Rajshahi. The mainstream media is spreading the news with enthusiasm. This is leading to more people being interested in killing these animals. However, nobody has heard that these snakes have killed anybody. And the indiscriminate killing is still going on. […]
If you think snakes are a risk, keep carbolic acid (as a deterrent) in homes. If snakes nesting at home seems to be a problem, catch them (with the help of snake charmers) and hand them over to the forest or zoology department. But don't create new problems deciding to kill them by yourselves.

author: Rezwan


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Is the Legalisation of Marijuana in Trinidad & Tobago an ‘Idea Whose Time Has Come’? · Global Voices
Flora Thomas

Marijuana leaf pattern; photo by Jurassic Blueberries, CC BY 2.0.
Even as many parts of the world moves towards the decriminalisation of marijuana, Trinidad and Tobago still considers its cultivation and use illegal.
As early as 2014, activists in neighbouring regional territories were agitating for the “freeing up” of the herb. By February 2015, Jamaica became the first Caribbean nation to decriminalise marijuana when its House of Representatives passed a law allowing possession of up to two ounces of cannabis. The new legislation also allows users to grow up to five plants for personal consumption, and guidelines are being established for the cultivation and distribution of both medical marijuana and use of the herb for religious ceremonies.
In a region whose justice systems are plagued with a backlog of minor possession offences, decriminalisation has been a welcome move to many. In Jamaica, not only has use of the herb been decriminalised, it's been largely normalised — there's talk of ganja cooperatives and the potential of pot tourism. In fact, in late 2015, the country's first Rastafari Rootzfest celebrated the emancipation of marijuana, though some insist the development of Jamaica's legal ganja industry isn't happening fast enough.
Trinidad and Tobago's stance on the issue, meanwhile, remains the polar opposite. The official Twitter feed of the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) often posts photos and updates about the quantities of marijuana that are seized and destroyed:
Police destroy TT$650,000 worth in marijuana found in Las Cuevas. pic.twitter.com/etE1gaD7OP
— T&T Police Service (@TTPoliceService) July 17, 2017
Some netizens feel that the legalisation of ganja would separate its use from the dangerous and violent illegal drug trade and ease the burden on the country's justice system, but the TTPS continues to lump them all together, proudly noting that its 2017 marijuana seizures have increased by 29.7% from the year before.
The other facet of the issue is, of course, medical marijuana. In September 2015, C420, a cannabis law reform NGO in Trinidad and Tobago, threatened to sue the country’s ministry of health, saying that it had neglected to make known that legislation pertaining to the lawful possession of marijuana does exist in the country.
Back in October 2015, writer Nazma Muller, who has been a strong advocate for decriminalisation, wrote a guest post about the issue for Global Voices. In it, she noted that this “updated legislation has also been mysteriously overlooked by the legions of lawyers who earn astronomical fees defending clients charged under the Dangerous Drugs Act. In the 15 years since it was introduced, it has never once been used as a defence in the thousands of marijuana possession cases that have been clogging the country’s judicial system.”
Muller's work as an activist and leader of the Caribbean Collective for Justice, a political party that recently campaigned on a green platform that focused on cannabis legalisation, has convinced her that all the United States’ War on Drugs has managed to accomplish is the incarceration of predominantly “poor, young black men“.
She is not alone; her online petition, which calls for the government to “address the fact that as long as ganja remains illegal, it will always be under the control of criminal gangs”, has been signed by more than 3,000 people, and there is a documentary film about the subject. In a public Facebook post that Muller shared, she noted that a former University of the West Indies lecturer, Dr. Onwubiko Agozino, wrote the country's prime minister and suggested that the legalisation of weed would see a dramatic drop in crime:
The only ones benefiting from keeping marijuana illegal are the drug gangs and they will be forced out of business by legitimate dealers who would be licensed and who would pay taxes on their sales to generate more revenues. Other products could also be manufactured from hemp to help diversify the economy.
The government will also save money from ending unnecessary prosecutions by directing police officers to cease and desist from going after non-violent marijuana users. […]
If the government is afraid of the electoral consequences of legalization, then call a referendum on the policy and let the people decide. Otherwise, encourage a bipartisan bill to be presented in parliament for legalization. Or encourage citizens to sue the government for the deprivation of liberty and let the courts decide. The more courageous move would be for the Honourable Prime Minister to lead the policy change with an immediate directive to the Law Revision Commission to reclassify marijuana as a legal substance.
In a post for the popular satirical sports and politics site Wired868, blogger Jabal Hassanali presented his case for “making the marijuana move”:
With legalisation, academic research into marijuana—its positive medicinal benefits as well as its harmful effects—would be a lot less encumbered and, although we are very late to join the party, I feel sure we would be able to produce innovations and findings that would not only be relevant globally but useful to our own local context as well.
Over time, these findings would feed back into public policy, helping us to chart the best way forward in literally uncharted territory. […]
We cannot allow ourselves to be paralysed by inaction because we are trying to develop the perfect system.
Perfect in this regard is the enemy of good and, no matter how much due diligence we undertake, it must be recognised that there will always be kinks and blind spots in the early stages of the experiment. Still, even the creation of an imperfect legal market can go a long way toward seriously disrupting the black market.
To derive maximum benefit from so doing, we shall have to ensure that we keep the barriers of entry into the industry so that it is made easily accessible to persons from disenfranchised communities.
The post also addressed the “elephant in the room”, which is that the United Nations — despite many of its signatory countries’ movement away from prohibitionist drug policies — continues to criminalise the non-medical or scientific use of cannabis:
Bear in mind that, once the UN does make the necessary adjustment [to at least decriminalise, if not legalise marijuana] the floodgates will open and the rest of the world—including major bandwaggonists Trinidad and Tobago—will all of a sudden see this as a non-issue. So if we take the risk now, where, realistically, in the Western Hemisphere would the diplomatic backlash come from?
Certainly not the USA, who are skidding along on a technicality, state by state, and have lost the moral authority to protest. […]
As a diversification option, this opportunity represents relatively low-hanging fruit that can be plucked in the short-to-medium term if we play our cards right.
We can simultaneously reduce crime and boost tourism and the economy.
One stone(r), two birds.

author: Flora Thomas


text:
Lost in Translation in Central Asia: Keep it in the Family · Global Voices
Bermet Zhumakadyr kyzy

A Kyrgyz family in the village of Sary-Mogol, Osh province. Photo by Betta27. Image for illustration purposes only. Creative commons.
The following post is part of a special Global Voices project, ‘Lost in Translation in Central Asia’, that explores the quirks of the region's languages.
In the HBO hit serial The Sopranos, lead character Tony Soprano tells his son, AJ: “In the end your friends will always let you down. Family: they're the only ones you can depend on.” This is a sentiment that many Kyrgyz would appreciate.
The Kyrgyz word tuuganchylyk consists of two parts. ‘Tuugan’ translates as a relative, or kin, while ‘chylyk’ is a suffix used to express the essence of a certain quality. Hence, tuuganchylyk is a word that signifies the primacy of family and kinship.
Listen to a native Kyrgyz speaker say, “You should adhere to tuuganchylyk because regardless of what situation you are in your kins will always be there for you”:
Tuuganchylyk is the core idea behind the familial support networks which have helped Kyrgyzstan wade through more than a quarter of a century of economic struggle following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Yet it is also a debilitating disease that gnaws away at the country's body politic.
Reflective of the centrality of tuuganchylyk to Kyrgyz people is the fact that the Kyrgyz language has specially designated words for each extended family member. For example, the ‘younger sister of your husband’ is a kainsingdi, while the ‘younger sister of your wife’ is a baldyz. In English, both words would be translated simply as ‘sister-in-law’.
Scenes from a Kyrgyz wedding. Photo taken by Aleksandr Kun some time in the 1860s. Creative commons.
The boundaries of tuuganchylyk, i.e., the people a Kyrgyz person includes in his or her conception of family, can vary depending on the context. In everyday life, you give first preference to your immediate family members, then to your paternal cousins. After your paternal cousins come the great grandchildren of your paternal great grandfather; your second cousins on your father's side. But tuuganchylyk can be expanded to include more than one tribe or region if the context is important enough.
Every traditional Kyrgyz, especially men, should know their forefathers up to at least seven generations. This means that family trees often appear to sprawl towards infinity. One local joke runs that Hitler once ordered a Kyrgyz man shot dead without questioning. Had he questioned him, Hitler suspected, the Kyrgyz would have shown him proof that they were somehow related.
Kyrgyzstan Facebook user Malika Bayaz shared a news article on US President Donald Trump appointing his son-in-law Jared Kushner as a senior adviser with the ironic caption: “Our person!”
Tuuganchylyk can be a source of either personal pride or shame. When a member of a given tribe has achieved something outstanding, that pride is dispersed across other members of the tribe. If a member of an extended family or tribe has done something shameful, fellow members will work hard to play it down in front of outsiders.
This support network is particularly useful for divorced women, who suffer social stigma. Often a tribe will make an effort to include their divorced female kin in important events such as feasts, weddings and funerals, in order to show them their support and to reinforce the centrality of the family.
Some Kyrgyz tribes struggle under the weight of long-standing stereotypes. For example, a stereotypical sayak tribe member is crafty and mischievous, while a stereotypical solto tribe member should be brave and honourable. According to an oft-quoted saying, “Solto are the sated ones, while sayak are the naughty ones.”
Kyrgyzstan's 2010 revolution left around a hundred protesters dead but succeeded in ejecting the nepotistic Bakiyev family. Photo by Brokev03. Creative commons.
In the post-independence period, the word tuuganchylyk has become increasingly synonymous with a powerful culture of political nepotism. Typically, when there are elections to village councils in Kyrgyzstan, people will cast votes based on tuuganchylyk, even if the candidate they are voting for is unscrupulous. At the national level, the North-South geographic divide is likely to be an important factor deciding the outcome of fiercely contested presidential elections scheduled for October.
Tuuganchylyk proved the undoing of both of Kyrgyzstan's first two presidents, Askar Akayev and Kurmanbek Bakiyev, however.
Akayev, a distinguished physics professor who ruled the country from 1990 to his ouster in 2005, elevated his daughter, Bermet Akayeva, to important public posts, while his son, Aidar Akayev, and son-in-law, Adil Togonbayev, dominated the country's business sector.
Bakiyev came to power on the back of the street protests that felled Akayev, but repeated all his predecessor's mistakes. Moreover, as one of seven brothers, Bakiyev's tuuganchylyk was particularly strong.
The most loathed of the Bakiyev siblings, Janysh, dominated the country's security services, and was convicted in absentia in 2013 for ordering the murder of the president's former chief of staff. The same former chief of staff claimed to have received a severed human ear in the post when he first began plotting against the regime. Nearly a hundred protesters died in the revolution that ejected the Bakiyev family from power.
Директор по маркетингу @facebook сестра Марка Цукерберга #тууганчылык
— Улан Мухамед (@UlanMuhamed) January 21, 2015
Facebook's director of marketing is Mark Zuckerberg's sister. #tuuganchylyk
Although a Kyrgyz word, the idea of tuuganchylyk is alive and well in other cultures. In the tweet above, for instance, a Kyrgyz Twitter user hashtagged tuuganchylyk to draw attention to kin-based nepotism in the upper ranks of Facebook.
The ruling Trump clan in the United States, meanwhile, is nothing less than a tuuganchylyk fun-fest.
With Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump both enjoying senior roles in the White House, and Donald Trump junior emerging as a key figure in the Trump-Russia investigation, social media users in Kyrgyzstan and other Central Asian countries have been keen to point out that their region isn't the only part of the world where the phenomenon exists.

author: Bermet Zhumakadyr kyzy


text:
Mexican-American Researchers Reclaim Heritage to Radically Change the Way We Eat · Global Voices
Laura Vidal

‘Decolonize Your Diet’ Luz Calvo (right) garnishes desserts with Adilia Torres (left) during a fundraiser dinner for the East Bay Meditation Center on April 2016. Photo: Facebook public profile. Used with permission.
Like many cultural practices, what we eat and consider healthy is part of our surroundings, which are also the result of myriad cultural, historical, political and economic influences. Inspired by this concept, two researchers from Cal State University in the United States, Luz Calvo and Catrióna Rueda Esquibel, created the project and cookbook ‘Decolonize Your Diet’ to underscore the way eating habits connect with empires and to illuminate the wisdom of communities abandoned by modernity.
Calvo and Rueda Esquibel collect strategies from ancient Mexican culture and Chicanx (Mexican-American) traditions:
Decolonize Your Diet will walk with you as you reclaim your culture by sharing recipes, cooking techniques, and discussions of ingredients. We believe that food is medicine and we share information about the health benefits of ancestral foods, herbs, and teas. We encourage you to talk to your elders, relatives, and traditional healers in your community to learn from their wisdom and knowledge. We honor cultural knowledge by contributing what we know. We encourage you to do the same […] As US-born Latinos/as, we have much to learn from the way our ancestors ate. Eating our ancestral foods can help us prevent and treat the diseases that result from adopting the Standard American Diet. […]
Luz Calvo (LC): We are theorizing decolonization from the point of view of Mexican American (our preferred term is Chicanx) peoples. Decolonizing our diets means that we are trying to reconnect with healthier ways to nourish ourselves. This means connecting to our ancestral knowledge—knowledge that has been passed down for thousands of years in the Americas. We research pre-Hispanic era foods in order to better understand the wealth of indigenous food knowledge that is the root of much of contemporary Mexican cuisine. So to us, decolonizing our diets is a political stance, one that rejects white supremacy and Eurocentrism as the organizing narrative of “healthy” food and recognizes the cultural knowledge held by our immigrant communities.
GV: Where did the idea come from? What inspired it?
LC: There are a lot of reasons that we felt compelled to write this book. We’re Ethnic Studies professors in the business of teaching culturally relevant history to Cal State students. We found that many of the models of healthy eating emphasized the Mediterranean diet, which is really just the Greco-Roman model of western civilization. We wanted to emphasize how the native foods of America had a profound influence on cuisines all over the world. All the chiles, tomatoes, corn, potatoes, squash, many of the berries, most of the beans in the world all originated in indigenous American cultures.  So we wanted to shift the focus to show how a Meso-American diet is traditionally healthy: with a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, plant-based proteins, and an amazing array of flavors.
GV: Why do you think we need to decolonize what we eat? In what way is it colonized?
LC: A lot of people think that eating healthy means eating to lose weight, or going without. One student told us that she had tried and tried to eat more healthy, to eat salads instead of her regular meals. “I failed,” she said. This student, a child of Mexican immigrants, had internalized dominant US culture’s narrative about what constitutes healthy eating (largely eating salads and being skinny). There is a misconception that Mexican food is inherently unhealthy. However, the diet of rural Mexico is rich in fruits and vegetables: corn, beans, squash, chiles, nopales, and wild greens are all central to the rural Mexican diet. Once this student examined her diet by reading ingredients and tracking the content of the foods, she realized that the tamales, vegetable soups, salsas did not need to be eliminated! Instead, she cut out the sugary drinks like soda. She talked to her family about alternatives, such as water and unsweetened or lightly sweetened agua frescas. As a young mom, she has continued to practice healthy eating following our principles. And she is raising her son on home-cooked Mexican meals!
Through our research, we have come to understand that most ancestral diets (pre-1950s) were healthy, including the Meso-American diet. We find it objectionable that doctors will often recommend a “Mediterranean diet” to their Mexican patients, without understanding that the beans, corn, and vegetables that are central to the Mexican ancestral diet is just as, if not more, healthy.
GV: What other ways of colonization can be seen in daily life?
GV: What other projects exist online with these same goals?

author: Laura Vidal


text:
Poles Rally to Defend the Independent Judiciary From Ruling Party’s Reforms · Global Voices
Anna Gotowska

Residents of Warsaw gathered in front of the Presidential Palace. Photo by Anna Gotowska, CC-BY.
2017 marks a century since the establishment of the Polish Supreme Court, but instead of celebrating, Poles are taking to the streets in defense of the country's independent judiciary.
The ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, which has held power for a year and a half, has in rapid succession taken over the public prosecution authority, the Constitutional Tribunal and — on July 12, 2017 — the National Council of Judiciary, which appoints and promotes judges.
And now the ruling party has its eyes on the Supreme Court. A set of legislative changes, introduced last week and voted to a parliamentary committee on July 18, provides for an on-the-spot purge of the entire cadre of Poland’s highest appellate panel, which consists of 83 top judges. The dismissals would take place one day after the law’s promulgation. The only exceptions are to be made by the minister of justice, also a member of Law and Justice. The aforementioned National Council of Judiciary, under the influence of the party, will then fill the empty seats.
The revamped Supreme Court would have final appeal powers over all civil and criminal cases. The bill also provides for the establishment of the new Disciplinary Chamber within the Supreme Court, which will make final determinations on disciplinary actions against all judges in the country.
In a surprise move on July 18, as the bill was being debated, President Andrzej Duda, a former member of Law and Justice party, announced he will not sign the bill regulating the Supreme Court until his new amendments to the National Council of Judiciary bill passed the week before were incorporated. These amendments provide that the members of the council are to be elected by a three-fifths parliamentary majority, instead of the ordinary majority suggested by the original bill, making it much harder for Law and Justice representatives to elect their candidates. However, many consider the new law to be unconstitutional and argue that the president's proposal, if adopted, wouldn't change that fact.
In response, the residents of Warsaw and other major Polish cities took to the streets urging the president to veto the bill entirely. The gatherings were a continuation of demonstrations that began over the weekend and grew more massive on the day the parliament was debating the controversial bill.
Thousands of people with candles in front of the Supreme Court of #poland #Warsaw #KOD #ZamachLipcowy #ObrońmyDemokracje #ŁańcuchŚwiatła pic.twitter.com/Daqhmwcj48
— Karolina Stawinska (@kstawinska) July 16, 2017
The protests were organized by Polish Judges Association “Iustitia” and Akcja Demokracja (Action Democracy) in 33 cities across Poland.
The video below, taken by the author on July 18, shows participants in Warsaw singing the Polish national anthem:
And in this footage, residents of Warsaw shout, “We want the veto! Free judiciary!”
The hashtags initiated by Akcja Demokracja include #ŁańcuchŚwiatła (meaning “chain of light”), #wolnesądy (meaning “free judiciary”) and #chcemyweta (“we want veto”).
Warsaw rally for #democracy and #ruleoflaw in #Poland continues… Candles symbolise hope for freedom and a better future. pic.twitter.com/QizU5OCZdp
— Bartosz T. Wieliński (@Bart_Wielinski) July 18, 2017
A heated discussion in the Parliament lasted almost until midnight, with the opposing minority trying to stop the Supreme Court bill from being passed. The final vote is expected to take place on July 19.

author: Anna Gotowska


text:
A Look Back at Japan’s Transformative ‘Showa Era’ · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

A Showa-era utility truck in Fukui Prefecture. Image by Nevin Thompson
As Japan heads into high summer, it's a reminder that the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo is just three years away. While there are worries the Tokyo summer games may be too expensive and may leave the Japanese capital cluttered with “white elephants,” this will be in fact the second summer Olympics that Tokyo has hosted.
Tokyo hosted its first Olympics in 1964, and the summer games that year were intended to showcase the economic miracle of Japan as it rose from the ashes of the Second World War.
One blog and Twitter account, “A Tour of Spots from the Showa Era” (@昭和スポット巡り, Showa Spotto Meguri), preserves this postwar history, combing encyclopedias, photo magazines, guidebooks and other sources for nostalgic images from Japan's postwar recovery:
昭和42年　ダイハツ　フェロー　広告 pic.twitter.com/HY2JaCliUN
— 昭和スポット巡り (@showaspotmegri) July 13, 2017
Advertisement for a Daihatsu “Fellow” in 1967.
The Showa era in Japan stretched from 1926 to 1989 and the death of Emperor Hirohito, and covers Japan's descent into military dictatorship, war and subsequent defeat until the country's economic rebirth and growth into the world's second-largest economy in the 1980s.
昭和39年　江戸橋JCT　　日本案内「日本」より pic.twitter.com/drtzfiQTU9
— 昭和スポット巡り (@showaspotmegri) July 17, 2017
1964: Edobashi Junction. From the guidebook “Japan.”
The 1964 Olympics in Tokyo were a defining symbol of this period. Tokyo, already obliterated and rebuilt following the war, was once again reshaped ahead the games, notably with new elevated expressways.
昭和40年代　日本橋兜町　「大日本百科事典」より pic.twitter.com/opBXeeV1Xc
— 昭和スポット巡り (@showaspotmegri) July 13, 2017
The Showa era of the mid-60s to mid-70s. Kabuto-cho, Nippponbashi in Tokyo. Image from Encyclopedia Nipponica.
Besides massive new infrastructure projects such as highways and high-speed rail lines, the Japan of the 1960s and 1970s had become a consumer culture with its unique style.
昭和35年　テレビの天気予報　台風情報 pic.twitter.com/RFHTkvvY2J
— 昭和スポット巡り (@showaspotmegri) July 12, 2017
The television weather report with typhoon updates in 1960.
The decade around the 1964 Olympics also provided some striking designs.
昭和43年頃　国電　「大日本百科事典」より pic.twitter.com/8WS8f7Peoo
— 昭和スポット巡り (@showaspotmegri) July 9, 2017
Trains of Japan National Railways around 1968. Image from Encyclopedia Nipponica.
The “A Tour of Spots from the Showa Era” Twitter account doesn't just explore the Tokyo of the 1960s. There are photos from the 1950s, when Japan was already rocketing to economic recovery, and from different cities, such as this nostalgic image of Osaka:
昭和20年代　道頓堀 pic.twitter.com/kp7mFiTiUX
— 昭和スポット巡り (@showaspotmegri) July 12, 2017
Dotonbori (an entertainment district in Osaka) in the 1950s.
The 1970s was also an iconic time in Showa-era Japan, with its own unmistakable style.
70年代　キッチンタイル pic.twitter.com/xxaG1wN42t
— 昭和スポット巡り (@showaspotmegri) July 12, 2017
Kitchen tiles in the 1970s.
洋菓子喫茶　富士 https://t.co/aBZ3qNWOIE pic.twitter.com/yJZYLZqP9D
— 昭和スポット巡り (@showaspotmegri) July 11, 2017
“Fuji,” a Western-style cake shop.
加茂市　コーヒー ＆ レストラン　ピノキオ https://t.co/Z93T9YNd73 pic.twitter.com/AMeSMRiKUP
— 昭和スポット巡り (@showaspotmegri) July 10, 2017
“Pinocchio,” a coffee shop and restaurant in Kamo City.
’70s国産車のお尻いろいろ pic.twitter.com/tb1VrwVFZM
— 昭和元禄 アングラポップ (@BlackXjs) July 7, 2017
The rear ends of various domestic-model cars in the 1970s.
The Twitter account also captures the look and feel of Japan's postwar cities. Most were built in a hurry, with cheap, utilitarian ferro-concrete architecture that is still a defining characteristic of Japan's fading regional cities in 2017:
岐阜市　レンガ通り商店街 https://t.co/R4vwFtglaw pic.twitter.com/vM2BmQgZT4
— 昭和スポット巡り (@showaspotmegri) July 10, 2017
“Brick Road” shopping street in Gifu City. For more photos, click here: http://showaspotmegri.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/2016/11/post-a2c3-15.html
“A Tour of Spots from the Showa Era” also captures parts of Japanese postwar culture that have mostly vanished in 2017:
昭和38年　長距離列車の網棚で寝ているところを警乗員に注意される乗客（国鉄）　「アサヒグラフ」より pic.twitter.com/7TtXilLtic
— 昭和スポット巡り (@showaspotmegri) July 6, 2017
1963: A man sleeping in a luggage rack on a long-distance train is admonished by a train conductor (Japan National Railways). Image from “Asahi Graph.”
To provide a glimpse of how Japan has transformed since the 1964 summer games, earlier in July, Kyodo, a news agency and wire service based in Tokyo, published an online gallery of images that compare Tokyo in 1964 with images of the city in 2017:
GALLERY: “#Tokyo now and then – 1964/2017″ – #history #photography #olympics
https://t.co/dQuvcrmugU
— Kyodo News – English (@kyodo_english) July 12, 2017
More photos of Showa-era Japan can be viewed Twitter and on the Showa Meguri Spotto blog.

author: Nevin Thompson


text:
Caracas the Deceiving City (and Other Forms of Pain) · Global Voices
Aglaia Berlutti

Caracas, Venezuela, viewed from El Avila National Park. PHOTO: GustavoMelero via Wikimedia Commons
This post is the fourth of a series originally published by the author on Medium. Click on the links to read the first , second and third installments.
I cannot put it any other way: I'm afraid of the city where I was born. These are strong, painful words, but it's a sincere expression of my feelings. Caracas scares me, in a deep and distressing way. But I’ve grown used to being afraid, and unfortunately, I'm not the only one. Fear has become an inherent part of the way we experience the city, the way we live, create and build it, both in our minds and in reality. And it hurts to be so afraid of the place where you were born and raised.
Fear is part of this society made of bewildered citizens afraid of what the future might hold. In my case, it has become almost an obsession. I'm afraid of everything, from robbery to an incident in the street that could trigger a dangerous event. An intricate web of small occurrence where the only common factor seems to be my fear of violence. Violence is always there.
My dread of violence is with me whenever I take the bus or subway, when I walk down the street, when I drive down a busy avenue. Because violence in Venezuela is part of daily life, whether we are aware of it or not. It is part of the urban way of life we associate with cities.
I've been writing about Caracas to the point of exhaustion, I've been walking through its streets, camera in hand, trying to overcome my own fear in order to capture what I love most about it. Somehow I can see my own story reflected in its neglected streets and avenues. And yet I continue to endure it, with this feeling of bitter disenchantment that seems almost like a betrayal of my innocence. Because I used to love Caracas very much. My city was my first source of inspiration, and it was through its history that I started perceiving myself as part of it.
We talk a lot about fear in generic terms, but we hardly ever acknowledge it as our own. I think about this as I'm sitting in El Calvario Park, looking down on Caracas, a silent, and in its own way an almost simple city in its chaotic beauty. So remote. Caracas is mine, it is part of my history.  You and I  are united, Caracas, by this vision of the world that we once shared. Is that enough, I wonder, as I lift my camera. I look at you through the viewfinder my lens captures your most hidden treasures and slowly focuses on them. And then it reveals the Caracas of my dreams.
When you live in the second most dangerous city in the world, you always have to consider the possibility of random violence, at any times, anywhere. An invisible, latent identity marker of a country that is broken to pieces. An unhealed wound.
My mother feels uneasy when I talk about these things. During the last few years, we have had arguments and confrontations because of the fear that permeates our lives. You can call it what you like: these arguments come in different shapes and sizes, but they are all triggered by fear. It expresses itself in warnings like, “Don't be late”, “Watch where you go,” “Be careful what you do.” This in spite of the fact that I'm over 30, quite independent, and that I'm generally careful and take care of myself. But for my Mom that's not enough. It will probably never be enough. Because for her, Caracas is more than a city—it represents a threat.
“It's not about taking care of yourself. Caracas is dangerous because it's unpredictable,” she says to me.
“But it's more than that,” I say. “It is about the concept of Caracas as the sum of its troubles and flaws. Caracas is Caracas”.
“That is philosophy,” she says. “Caracas has never been so dangerous or cruel. Earlier…”
“Like how long ago?”
Mom purses her lips. We've had this conversation so many times before that it seems like the same argument over and over again. Mom remembers a Caracas that is no longer there, and that I can't even grasp: a city with lively streets and a radiant nightlife. A modern, advanced and cosmopolitan Caracas, a city seeking to overcome simple problems of urban development.
The Caracas I know is a different city: a tough one, destroyed by indolence, broken by the weight of pain, poverty, and indifference. A city of closed doors and security grills. One that witnesses death and pain on a daily basis. My Caracas, the city I know, is not the same as my Mom's Caracas.
“Caracas is the consequence of this country's history, more than any other region or place in Venezuela,” she tells me. “Caracas started as a dream: Guzmán Blanco dreamed of a beautiful, Frenchified, but at the same time, phony city. Then Pérez Jiménez turned it into a symbol, rebuilt it, placed it inside his concept of how the country should be—that is, organized and under the military rule. Partisans from the political parties “Acción Democrática” and “Copei” have fought for it. Chavismo uses it.”
All this is true, but in spite of the profusion of symbols, ideas, and approaches, Caracas keeps going against all odds. In spite of this constant transformation, the insistence of looking at it as part of history and at the same time as a metaphor for a young, nascent country, Caracas becomes what we want it to be.
Caracas can be this broken and chaotic city, with its old quarter halfway rebuilt and the diverse neighborhoods that grew around it. It might be history itself, a history that considers itself forward-looking and that is retold day after day. But Caracas is also a memory of what it could have been. Of what it will no longer be. My Mom smiles when she tells me the first time she went to Teresa Carreño Theater and how impressed she was by its dimensions and also its importance.
“A world-class theater,” she tells me. “That was the first thing that came to my mind as I ascended in the huge escalator, looking at the place in wonder. The brand new theater, a symbol of “Saudi Venezuela”. There was no other building in the country that could compare to it and I thought: I wonder what awaits us in the future.”
And although I don't say a word, I feel sad. A few months ago I went to Teresa Carreño Theater and it was totally different from my mother's memories. Cracked walls. Tarnished floors. The whole place smelled of decay. Yet for me it retained some of its beauty. Despite the dried-up vegetation, the small signs of deterioration that no one cares to repair. It’s just like Caracas, lots of makeup to hide the wrinkles, its mouth hardened into an expression of pure bitterness. But it's Caracas, and I love it.
“We have no choice but to love Caracas,” says F, a fruit juice seller in front of the Church of Altagracia. I go wandering around there from time to time, trying to rediscover Caracas, to remember how it was even if I did not know the city by then. But F is an optimist: even in these hard times when it's difficult even to get sugar for the juices he sells and the oranges are so expensive he can barely afford them. But he keeps selling fruit juice because it is “good for the heart” and his customers still buy it. Like me. I savor the tartness of freshly-squeezed oranges with an almost childish thrill. It tastes like history, like small miracles in the midst of this city that has stopped believing in anything.
“Sometimes I feel so scared of how hard it is to love this city,” I tell him. My friend shakes his disheveled but venerable head and his wrinkled face breaks into a smile.
“It is easy to be scared. It's quite straightforward—one can be afraid of just about everything. But Caracas is different, it has a sense of identity. There is fear for sure, but there is also the happiness of small things. The smell of the experiences one has had in it. The small hidden treasures.”
How poetic, I think, as I finish my juice. What a wonderful moment, where Caracas becomes almost beautiful with the dome of the church gleaming in the sun and this warm, pleasant feeling of eternal summer. And the smell of the city: pungent, hard, distinctive. The mixture of odors. Leaning against a half-built wall, talking to F, I feel that life goes very fast, and sometimes it can even taste good. I guess that's how my mother remembers Caracas.
But I experience the city in a different way. For me it is the anxiety I feel when I walk its streets. The feeling of having to look constantly over my shoulder. But there is also the El Ávila National Park” a place so dazzling that makes me angry. What a pleasure it is to spend time marveling at the exuberance of its vegetation. How delightful to smile and contemplate its unforgettable green. But even then, it is not enough. Not in the midst of so much anguish, scrambling, and fear.

author: Aglaia Berlutti


text:
Dhaka Citizens Show Mayors Red Card for Failure to Control Mosquito-Born Diseases · Global Voices
পান্থ রহমান রেজা (Pantha)

Dhaka citizens show mayors the red card for not solving the rampant mosquito problem. Image by Gazi Manjurul Alam Zuboraz. Used with permission.
On Saturday, the 15th of July 2017, a cross section of residents of the Bangladesh capital of Dhaka went on a demonstration in front of the National Museum at the Shahbagh intersection showing red cards to mayors of both Dhaka North and South City Corporations for their failure to handle the mosquito-borne chikungunya outbreak in Dhaka.
A Facebook event was created with a call out to ‘writers, artists, students, teachers, journalists and citizens’ to which a few thousand people responded. According to the event spokesperson, one in every ten Dhakaites bear the risk of suffering from chikungunya and the disease is spreading like an epidemic. The recent monsoon season resulted in a mosquito outbreak and both of Dhaka's city corporations have failed to take measures to eradicate the problem. If mosquitoes cannot be controlled, the city is in danger of a dengue epidemic as well, the event spokesperson explained.
Screenshot of Dhaka citizens showing their red cards on the Facebook event page. Image via Sangita Ghosh. (Click on the link to see full size images)
Chikungunya is an infection caused by the chikungunya virus which is spread between people by two types of mosquitos: Aedes albopictus and Aedes aegypti. Symptoms include fever, headache, nausea, fatigue, rashes, and severe muscle and joint pain. Worse, even after months of remission, long-term musculoskeletal pain persists. Although the risk of death is around 1 in 1,000, the disease is practically unbearable for the very young, and elderly people with health complications.
Harry Faisal suffered from chikungunya and writes in Facebook about the unbearable disease:
এই মুহূর্তে শুধু ডানহাত ১০০% চালু। বাম গোড়ালি আর বাম কব্জি ফুলে আছে এবং হাটার জন্য পা ফেললেও ব্যাথার চোটে মাথা ঝিমঝিম করে উঠে।
বন্ধু, সিনিয়র -জুনিয়র, অফিস কলিগ – সবার কাছে দোয়া প্রার্থী।
At this moment only my right hand is working. My left ankle and the left wrist have swollen. I cannot walk as the unbearable pain hurts my head.
I seek prayers from my friends, colleagues and dear ones.
The mosquito problem in Dhaka is a perennial one. Dhaka's unclean water bodies including an inadequate sewage system are blamed for the growth of mosquitos and the diseases they spread. Both mayors of Dhaka North and South City Corporations won the election with the promise to eradicate mosquitoes from this mega city.
Chikungunya mosquito. Image from Flickr by CDC Global. CC BY 2.0
The disease has also spread to other parts of Bangladesh and health experts have publicly stressed cleanliness in and around the house to eradicate the disease-carrying mosquitos.
Recently Annisul Haque, mayor of Dhaka North City Corporation gained infamy by commenting that he cannot go to each home and kill mosquitoes and that the people should take measures to keep themselves safe from mosquitoes. Writer and publisher Robin Ahsan wrote in response on Facebook:
না মেয়র, আপনাকে কেউ ঘরে এসে মশারি টাঙাতে বলেনি। আমাদের যাতে মশারি না টাঙাতে হয় সেই দায়িত্ব আপনাকে দেওয়া হয়েছিল। আপনিও আর দশটা রাজনীতিবিদের মতোই চটকদার কথা বলে দায়িত্ব এড়ালেন।
No, Mr. Mayor, nobody has called you to fix mosquito nets inside their homes. You were given the responsibility to kill mosquitoes so we don't require mosquito nets. You just shifted your responsibility like other shrewd politicians.
Journalist Kabir Ahmed asked:
মেয়র আনিসুল হকের প্রতি প্রশ্ন, নগরের নাগরিক জীবন নির্বিঘ্ন করা যদি আপনাদের কাজ না হয়, তাহলে কী কাজ আপনাদের?
My question to Mayor Annisul Haque, if you cannot ease the lives of the citizens by fixing solvable problems, then what exactly is your job?
Rashes of a chikungunya patient. Image from Flicker by Pan American Health organization. CC BY-ND 2.0
On the other hand, the health minister blames the city corporations who failed to control the spread of mosquito-borne diseases. The Dhaka North City Corporation with 36 wards has only 279 staff members and the Dhaka South City Corporation  with 56 wards has only 284 staff members. Last year, the budget for mosquito control in Dhaka North was only 232.5 million Taka (US$ 2.87 million) and in Dhaka South only 115 million Taka (US$ 1.42 million). That is certainly inadequate for Dhaka metro with a population of 19 million.
In response to citizen outrage in recent times, the city corporations have intensified their mosquito control program by launching special larviciding and fogging activities at different corners of the capital. Wahiduzzaman Khan, a banker, commented:
মশা-জলাবদ্ধতা-পাব্লিক ট্রান্সপোর্টের অভাব এগুলোর সাথে থাকতে থাকতে আমরা অভ্যস্ত হয়ে গেছি। আর এই অভ্যস্ততার সুযোগ নিচ্ছে পাব্লিক অফিস হোল্ডাররা। আমাদের উচ্চকন্ঠে অসন্তোস প্রকাশ তাদের টনক নড়িয়ে দিবেই।
People are being accustomed to civic problems such as traffic, mosquito, lack of public transport, etc. These executives of public offices are taking this to their advantage and are slacking. We have to cry out loud in protest to make them get back to work.
The protesters on Saturday formed a human chain under the banner “Writers, Singers, Students, Teachers, Journalists, and Citizens” and vowed to show their red cards again at the head offices of both city corporation if sufficient measures are not taken.

author: পান্থ রহমান রেজা (Pantha)


text:
I Dread Setting Foot on U.S. Soil While Trump is President · Global Voices
Lova Rakotomalala

Winter time in Indiana. Photo by the author and used with permission
The United States was my country of residence from August 1996 to October 2010. Since then, I have returned to visit friends stateside four times, and it was always a great pleasure to touch base and reminisce about the good old days.  Many of the happiest moments of my life occurred in one of the five cities I lived in: meeting my future wife, finishing graduate school, getting my first job and travelling across the country with friends and family.
I miss my US friends dearly, but it is impossible for me to visit them for a while, I am afraid. It would mean having to overcome too much frustration over how the country I used to know has changed.
I have tried to give the benefit of the doubt to the new Trump administration despite all the evidence to the contrary, from the acrimonious 2016 presidential campaign to the inauguration. This administration has been as terrifyingly incompetent, reckless and cruel as I'd feared.
Six months after Trump assumed power, I have seen the despair in my friends’ eyes increase with each asinine decision or tweet by their president, including the efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, the travel ban and the more than 135 false statements the president uttered publicly.
I have also admired the resolve many US citizens have shown in resisting the Trump onslaught—their resilience is remarkable. But the empowerment of so many acts of villainy by the current political elite is just too much for me to handle.
Not visiting my friends and relatives is not a decision I have made lightly. These are people who have meant the world to me for 14 years. People who showed me how to navigate this fast-moving world without losing my wits. People who welcomed me when I felt utterly lost in this new country and made me feel at home. This is the version of the country I want to remember. It is heartbreaking to see it at the mercy of a few bitter ignoramuses.
I still remember when I first arrived in Washington, D.C. 21 years ago. The Georgetown University campus above the Potomac river was a sight to behold, and I thought of how fortunate I was to have been given this opportunity. I am still so grateful for the education I received in DC and many other places across the country. So it is even more maddening to learn that folks much more deserving than I of such an opportunity, the members of the Afghan all-girls robotics team, were denied entry without a second thought.
Visa restrictions were already strict under previous administrations. But you didn't feel that any random person arriving at a United States border could be detained for no reason whatsoever. In February the French historian Henry Rousso landed in Houston to attend a conference at Texas A&M University. The immigration officer told Rousso he wasn't “allowed to give a lecture and receive an honorarium” on his tourist visa.
I confirm. I have been detained 10 hours at Houston Itl Airport about to be deported. The officer who arrested me was “inexperienced” https://t.co/SdIKWKQbnr
— Henry Rousso (@Henry_Rousso) February 26, 2017
This is just one of many incidents that have occurred since Trump entered the White House. Canadian schools have cancelled visits to the US based on the uncertainty of immigration policies, as have other frequent visitors from north of the border.
How could things so quickly have taken a turn for the worse?
The list of incomprehensible measures taken by this administration is endless. Going through all of them would be pointless, and most of them have already been analyzed, dissected and debated at length. Still, any bill that removes health coverage from 23 millions citizens seems like the questionable measure par excellence. And a policy that prevents soldiers who fought for your cause from entering the country make as little sense.
I am from Madagascar, which in the past decades has become one of the poorest countries in the world. It is thanks to idiotic policies and incompetent rulers that we have arrived at such a dire situation. But I would still take any of our former presidents over the current US president,  any day of the week, and twice on Sunday. At least, none of them thought that fake-tackling a news outlet WWE-style was something worth publishing on their social media profile.
This kind of senseless behavior is the reason I dread going back to the United States. If a president feels entitled to make a mockery of the media and shows no remorse for physically assaulting the press (even in jest), why would his supporters think they need to show restraint? Trump has empowered all the radicals and lunatics to act out their impulses. Bravado is celebrated while reason is belittled. As somebody who is visibly a minority, in the current climate, it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect that some idiot could ambush me just to show off to his equally idiotic friends. The numbers support this: the Southern Poverty Law Center reports that as of February 10, 2017, there were 1,372 post-election hate crimes reported.
Hate crimes also took place under the Bush and the Obama administration, of course. I had just started graduate school when 9/11 happened. A Sikh friend of mine was assaulted in front of his home two days after. While I often did not agree with the Bush administration, you could at least expect some decency in times of crisis. The Obama administration's foreign policy did its part in antagonizing the rest of the world, but Obama was always quick to condemn hate crimes whenever they occurred. The behavior of Trump's two predecessors demonstrated a respect for the office of President. I see none of that in the current administration.
Trump's brashness does get him attention, and the man certainly loves attention. You don't let go of being a reality television star that easily, I guess. News about Trump has taken over my social media feed for months. It got so out of hand that I have considered filtering out the word Trump altogether, for as a wise man once said:
I do hear the people who argue that the world needs less sarcasm and more understanding. I hear that the polarization of politics is a dangerous trend to accentuate. But if such behavior by a political leader does not galvanize you, what will? When a person in a position of power picks a fight against your community, should the answer honestly be to try to understand where he's coming from?
That is one of the reasons I ‘d rather not visit the US.  Just thinking of the nonsense Trump sputters aggravates me. I do not want to be subjected to non-stop gaslighting. Above all, I do not want to start equating his behavior with a new norm in the US. My friends don't deserve that.
There has been enough reporting on the many decisions by this administration that have gone wrong. But there has not been much writing that reflects how sad (and worried) the rest of the world is to witness the charade developing in the United States. Most people in the world were not ever naive enough to go along with the whole “leader of the free world” notion. To begin with, we were never sure what that meant, and we certainly understand that nations seek their self-interest first. But The United States was perceived as an ally, one that you could talk to when a disagreement arose. Not anymore.  A few of the US's overseas allies have started to turn away from the Trump administration.
The bottom line is, as Trump himself would say, that America is America's issue first. In theory, this only concerns people from outside the US if they choose to go there. So I won't. But it does affect the rest of the world. A nuclear war is now within the realm of possibility because of things Trump has said on Twitter:
Trump is playing with fire here – nuclear fire. He could literally get us in to a war with his tweets. 13/
— Laura Rosenberger (@rosenbergerlm) July 4, 2017
I am not the only one who feels uncomfortable visiting the US in the current circumstances. A report in the LA Times estimates that visits to the US will decline by 6.3 million visits by the end of next year. Of the reasons cited by those not willing to travel to the US anymore, many cite the “atmosphere of fear at the nation’s airports”. The fear of an authoritarian Trump regime has already galvanized citizens to act. Several protests took places in cities across the country before the 4th of July to demand Trump's impeachment.
As for me and my US-based friends and family, this is where I say goodbye for now. I hope to see you again in four years, if not sooner. Please forgive my absence, and know that I miss you and I wholeheartedly support the homegrown resistance against ignorance and in favour of the return of sanity.

author: Lova Rakotomalala