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A Syrian Family in California Feels the Post-Paris Chill · Global Voices
PRI/PRX's The World

Gasem Al Hamad and his son, Mohamad, at their new home in Turlock, California. The Al Hamad family fled war in Syria and, after a three-year journey, arrived to the US as refugees. Credit: Monica Campbell. Used with PRI's permission
This article by Monica Campbell for The World originally appeared on PRI.org on November 30, 2015, and is republished here as part of a content-sharing agreement.
When I first visited the family, Gasem Al Hamad, the dad, was about to take his driver’s test. Good news. He passed. When we pull up to their apartment complex, so does Al Hamad, driving his minivan.
Was the test easy?
“Yes, easy, easy!” he says, with a laugh. (Al Hamad is still most comfortable in Arabic, and took the written test in that language and the driver’s test in Arabic, too, with an interpreter in tow. He had to prove that he could read all road signs in English though.)
It was an accomplishment, and a baby step toward a new life in the US. Al Hamad, his wife, Wajed Al Khlifa, and their children only arrived here in February, after fleeing war in Syria. It was a nearly three-year journey, from when they left their house [since bombed] in the city of Homs and touched ground in Turlock, California, a rural city two hours east of San Francisco. They were picked up and resettled by the International Rescue Committee, which has an office in Turlock.
Now, after that long wait, life is full steam ahead. Two-year-old Mohamad is learning his first words in English and his three siblings, all girls, are in school, learning fast. Eight-year-old Arwa, the eldest daughter, is in fourth grade and boasted of passing a test the other day. “It was about multiplication. Easy, easy!” she says.
Arwa, left, Marwa, center, and Rawan, right, tackle their homework on a recent afternoon. The sisters arrive to Turlock, California, in February, after fleeing war in Syria. Credit: Monica Campbell. Used with PRI's permission
The parents also take English classes every morning. Their progress is slower. But learning the language is a priority, so much so that Al Hamad, 35, no longer works at a nearby halal slaughterhouse — a job he picked up within weeks of arrival — and is focusing on English. With no income for now, the family receives food stamps and other California state-funded public assistance. Al Hamad’s ultimate career goal? “I’d like to have a farm,” he says. “I dream to have a farm.”Cows, goats, chickens. Like he did back in Syria.
Meantime, the family’s friendships here deepen. The parents’ met most of their new friends at the local mosque. There’s Kiefa Aziz, a Palestinian American, who says she and Al Khlifa have become “best friends.” On a recent afternoon, Aziz helped Al Khlifa with shopping for the family’s first Thanksgiving Day meal. “I’ll show her the recipes,” Aziz says, who also helps care for Mohamad.
The childrens’ drawings in the bedroom of their new home in California. Arwa, 8, drew Syria's flag to “not forget where I'm from.” Credit: Monica Campbell. Used with PRI's permission
At the same time, Al Khlifa and Al Hamad are also learning about the harsh realities of America and its politics. They've kept up with the governors — now representing more than half of the US states — who oppose taking in Iraqi and Syrian refugees following the terrorist attacks in France based on worries that the refugees are not vetted enough.
The couple worries the pushback will slow their other relatives, including a brother and nephew, hoping to come to the United States next. “It’s going to be difficult,” says Al Khlifa. She now tells her family that, after Paris, it might take much longer to get here.
They also don’t understand the questioning now over security and refugees. The family’s refugee application process in Jordan was long. There were many interviews and background checks.
“They asked me questions for a year and half,” says Al Hamad. “Do you have tattoos, wounds on your body? When did your dad die? And your mom? Were you in the army? When did you serve? Where?” Al Hamad remembers arriving for one in-person interview with a US official in Jordan at 8 a.m. and leaving at 9 p.m. “There were long breaks, and then more questions,” says Al Hamad.
And since Paris, they feel a shift. Al Khlifa, who wears a hijab, says people stare at her when they wouldn’t before. “Since Paris, what happened in Paris, things changed,” she says.
“I hope this time will pass,” her husband says. “I hope for peace soon, in Syria, and all over the world.”


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American Bombs Made It Inaccessible, But Viewing This Historical Site in Laos Is Possible Again Thanks to Drones · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Plain of jars in north Laos. Photo from the Flickr page of damien_farrell (CC License).
New drone footage provides a rare aerial view of the mysterious Plain of Jars in north Laos.
The Xieng Khouang province is home to more than 2,000 stone jars that are believed to be 2,000 years old. Most scholars think the jars are mortuary urns left behind by an unknown civilization. The archaeological site is relevant and unique in Southeast Asia, but it remains mostly unexplored because it is littered with unexploded deadly bombs dropped by the Americans during the Vietnam War era.
Laos, a neighbor of Vietnam, became the most heavily bombed country in the world during the Vietnam War. An estimated 2 million bombs were dropped on Laos between 1964 to 1973, but about 30 percent failed to detonate. These unexploded bombs continue to injure and kill Laotian farmers today.
The Plain of Jars is among the many provinces in Laos littered with landmines and bombs, preventing archaeologists from studying the mysterious artifacts.
The Southeast Asian Archaeology Newsblog explains the importance of the jars and why scientists are unable to conduct a deeper investigation of the archaeological site:
The mysterious plain of jars in Northeastern Laos is still one of the biggest uninvestigated archaeological sites in Southeast Asia—largely uninvestigated because of the huge amount of cluster bombs dropped there by US forces 40 years ago. From what little that has been investigated, it seems that the jars were places of transition in the funerary rite where bodies were left to decompose before going through a final burial.
Now, however, thanks to advances in technology, drones can bring us aerial footage of a landscape made too dangerous for people. This three-minute video gives a glimpse of Laos’ enigmatic archaeological site. The video also shows several bomb craters and trenches—sad relics from the Vietnam War:
Hopefully, this will create more awareness about the jars and lead to better conservation efforts. As scholar Lia Genovese noted, there are several challenges facing efforts to preserve the jars:
…conservation efforts are being largely hampered by other factors, such as rapid urbanization, farming activities, looting and neglect.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Mong Palatino


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Famed Post-War Japanese Cartoonist Mizuki Shigeru Dies · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

Bronze statues of Mizuki Shigeru and some of his creations in Sakaiminato, Tottori Prefecture. Image from Wikipedia.
Renowned Japanese manga illustrator, folklorist, and pop-culture icon Mizuki Shigeru (水木しげる) died on Monday, November 30, 2015. He was 93. In many ways, Mizuki represented the pacifism and humanism of post-War Japan.
A veteran of World War II, Mizuki served as a conscript in the Japanese Imperial Army, and was stationed on New Britain Island in Papua New Guinea.
His horrible experiences of war on the island (many of which he documented in a variety of books that are available in English translation), which included losing an arm and then being cared for by the local inhabitants of the island, influenced Mizuki's work for the rest of his life.
After surviving the war and being demobilized in 1945, like millions of other returning soldiers, the one-armed Mizuki struggled to find a way to make living in rural Tottori Prefecture.
He would go on to become a best-selling author, publishing hundreds of books.
Mizuki Shigeru published hundreds of books during his long career. All of them explored and often remixed Japanese folklore in cartoon form. Image by Nevin Thompson.
Thanks to the inspiration of Non Non Ba and other sources, Mizuki Shigeru drew rich depictions of traditional Japanese yokai. However, Mizuki was careful to pay attention to and record the unique traditions of everyday Japanese people from typically obscure parts of Japan.
Traditional depiction of a gashadokuro. Mizuki made it his life's work to explore and document the source of Japanese mythical ghosts, monsters, and spirits known as yokai. Source: Wikipedia.
While Mizuki started out as an entertainer, his knowledge and deep appreciation for the lives of everyday Japanese “folk” have sometimes led him to be compared with the pioneering Japanese folklorist Yanagita Kunio.
Like Mizuki, Yanagita also avoided creating chauvinistic tropes that could stereotype Japan as a homogeneous culture and nation, and instead described practices and beliefs unique to each region of Japan.
Mizuki Shigeru is probably best known for his long-running manga and anime series Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro, which tells the adventures of a one-eyed ghostly boy, and his dead father who has been reincarnated as a talking eyeball.
衝撃だ… 鬼太郎を生んでくれてありがとう。水木先生。 また水木しげるロードいきます。 ご冥福をお祈りします。 pic.twitter.com/dqXt4dBqdk
— M!Ho (@miho8516) November 30, 2015
What a blow [that Mizuki Shigeru has died]. Thank you for creating Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro, Mizuki-sensei. I'll make a trip to Mizuki Shigeru Road again someday. May you rest in peace.
Alongside his yokai friends, Kitaro fights various monsters and demons from Japanese and Western folklore.
The manga series has become so popular that Mizuki's birthplace, the small seaside city of Sakaiminato, has dedicated an entire street to the series, and to the cartoonist himself called Mizuki Shigeru Road.
It is now a popular tourist attraction about three hours by train from Osaka in western Japan.
Mizuki Shigeru (born Mura Shigeru) was born in rural Tottori Precture in the small port town of Sakaiminato on the Japan Sea.
At this time, Japan had been “open” to the West for less than a hundred years, and many old traditions still remained.
ホームセンターで買ってきた寄せ植え用ミニ観葉植物を「美しいね･･･」と愛でる水木しげる。森の精のような1枚になりました！ pic.twitter.com/sOeuVzIJ6f
— 水木プロダクション (@mizukipro) September 30, 2015
Mizuki Shigeru bought some little potted bedding plants at the local DIY center…  “Aren't they beautiful? It's like the spirit of the forest [in my office].” — Mizuki Production Company
Mizuki wrote that his deep interest in the Japanese spirit world was fostered by conversations with an older woman known locally as Non Non Ba (のんのん婆) whose family was said to have connections to the local pagan (or “Non Non”) Shinto community of the region.
Shigeru Mizuki: My “Non Non Jinsei” (autobiography). Image source, CC BY-SA 2.5.
For the rest of his life, Mizuki Shigeru sought out folk customs and beliefs from every corner of Japan, and would eventually title one of his many autobiographies “A Non Non Life.”
While “non non” can mean “aimless” or even “drunken” in colloquial Japanese, it's obvious that Mizuki felt a deep connection to the Japanese spirit world, as well as to ordinary Japanese people and communities often forgotten or overlooked by the mainstream.
Shigeru Mizuki and father, circa 1943. Source: Wikimedia.
After losing an arm in the war, while stationed on New Britain Island in Papua New Guinea, Mizuki experienced the generosity of the locals, who provided food and shelter to occupying troops.
Mizuki was also struck by the similarity between the animist beliefs of the Tau people in New Britain, who helped care for him during the war, and the folklore and pantheon of yokai in rural and regional Japan.
Thanks to Mizuki's enormous success as a manga illustrator, storyteller, and cultural icon, it's possible to say today that Melanesian culture has played a role in the development of post-War Japanese pop culture.
While Mizuki Shigeru is known for his whimsical and often surreal depictions of the Japanese spiritual world, he also took pains to document the history of Japan's Showa era, which last from 1926 until 1989.
A great many dramatic events occurred during the Showa period, including Japan's invasion of China and the South Pacific, as well as a war with the United States and other countries, before Japan surrendered unconditionally in 1945.
Even as Japan “miraculously” recovered following the war, Mizuki Shigeru observed and remembered Japan's experiences during the war in his manga works.
His four-book Showa History series, which has been been translated into English and published by Canada's Drawn & Quarterly, includes descriptions not only of the horrors of war that he himself experienced, but also atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers in Korea (a Japanese colonial possession until 1945), China, and other countries.
While post-War neoconservatives such as Kobayashi Yoshinori have also taken to manga to promote a revisionist view of Japan's wartime conduct, none of them have enjoyed the success of Mizuki Shigeru, whose manga characters—all presenting Mizuki's humanist and pacifist worldview—have gone on to be featured in everything from feature movies to nail art.
鬼太郎ネイル、前にしたよなぁ。 これして水木しげるロード歩き回ったり水木しげる記念館行ったり…はぁ…_:(´ཀ`」 ∠):_ pic.twitter.com/yyzYLDtbKz
— ゆか (@yuka071009) December 4, 2015
Here's my Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro nail art. I'm going to wear it and stroll down Mizuki Shigeru Road on my way to the museum.
Mizuki Shigeru's death on November 30 sparked an outpouring of grief:
あぁ水木しげる先生…子供の頃から、先生の素敵な作品に出会えたことを、あらためて感謝しています。先生がよく仰っていらした「人は幾つになっても、お勉強できるし、また、おりこうさんになれるんだよ」という言葉を忘れません。でも、淋しいです。ありがとうございました。愛と感謝を込めて。合掌。
— 金丸淳一 voice actor (@junichisonic) November 30, 2015
Ah, Misuki Shigeru-sensei… Just remembering when I first encountered your splendid creations as a child, my appreciation for you has been rekindled. I'll never forget your words, “No matter how old a person is, we never stop learning and can become a better person.” But I'm crushed [to hear about your death]. Thank you very much for all that you have, and I pass on my love and sincere appreciation.
A popular illustrator shared his own thoughts about Mizuki's passing with his Twitter followers:
水木しげるさんの話で印象に残っている話がありました。戦争中真っ暗なジャングルをさまよっていたら突然大きな壁にぶつかり、ゆく手を遮られ、そのまま倒れて眠ってしまったそうです。目が覚めるとあったはずの大きな壁はなくなっていて、目の前に見えたのは海へと連なる断崖絶壁だったと。続く
— ぽにお (@nishiponi) December 2, 2015
1/2 There is a story Mizuki Shigeru told that has really left an impression on me. During the war Mizuki said he was once in the pitch-black jungle when he suddenly bumped into a wall. The wall totally blocked his way, and he fell down, immediately falling fast asleep. When he awoke he discovered the wall had disappeared, and that he was standing on the edge of a cliff above the ocean.
水木さんはそれを妖怪ぬりかべに助けられたのだと言っていました。妖怪見たことはないですが私もいると思います。その方が世界がもっと面白く感じますよね★水木しげるさんご冥福をお祈りいたします。自分はちなみに一反もめんが一番好きです pic.twitter.com/faAeVE4g6O
— ぽにお (@nishiponi) December 2, 2015
2/2 Mizuki says that ghostly “nurikabe” wall saved his life. While I've never seen a ghost, I think Mizuki really did encounter something in the jungle. If we think that way, the world becomes a more interesting place, doesn't it?—May Mizuki Shigeru rest in peace. I myself have always liked Ittanmomen.
Someone else posted some words by Mizuki Shigeru that inspired them:
自分の好きなことをやる。 そのために 人は生まれてきたのだ。 （by 水木しげる） pic.twitter.com/aN6Gfit69P
— でらっくす (@macchan358) December 5, 2015
Do what you like to do. That's why we are born in the first place.
For readers who are interested in learning more about Mizuki Shigeru, Drawn & Quarterly Press offers many translations of Mizuki Shigeru's works.
This post has been updated to reflect that Drawn & Quarterly is based in Canada.

author: Nevin Thompson


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Pakistan’s Tougher Migration Policy Sends Unverified Deportees Back to Greece · Global Voices
Sana Jamal

Greece: Lesbos, 2015. The migrants at Moria Identification Centre, who come from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Eritrea and many other countries, are detained by the police. Photo by International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, used under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license.
Europe is considered by many as a region offering security and ample opportunities — but this view may be changing, as the recent refugee crisis (the worst since World War II) and the increasing threat of terrorism has led several European countries to deport some migrants.
Greece, which has recorded the highest migration numbers, recently deported 49 people to Pakistan, but the situation took a rather surprising turn when the airplane transporting them landed at Islamabad Airport. Only 19 out of the 49 allegedly undocumented migrants were allowed to enter Pakistan; the authorities refused to take in the remaining 30, who could not prove their Pakistani nationality. Pakistan later turned back the Greek chartered plane with the 30 passengers — deportees sent from Greece, Bulgaria and Austria — who now remain stateless.
The 30 “unverified deportees” from Greece are now en route back to Greece, Pakistan says. 19 deportees allowed to enter after verification.
— Asad Hashim (@AsadHashim) December 3, 2015
JUST IN: #Pakistan refusing to allow 30 migrants deported from #Greece to disembark from plane in #Islamabad pic.twitter.com/Wgmd3WQ6IJ
— Khaleej Times (@khaleejtimes) December 3, 2015
An airplane full of illegal immigrants being ping-ponged b/w Greece & Pak. Greece deported, Pakistan won't accept unless proper documents.
— Nida F (@nidaFsameer) December 3, 2015
Pakistan’s refusal to accept the migrants impelled the ambassadors of the three countries to rush to the Islamabad airport to try and convince immigration authorities to take the remaining people into custody, but their efforts were in vain. Nineteen people, from the provinces of Gujrat, Mandi Bahauddin, Dera Ghazi Khan and Dera Ismail Khan, who were accepted in were shifted for detention.
According to Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, the Greek government had deported the immigrants to Pakistan without providing satisfactory proof of their nationality. The ministry further issued a statement saying that illegal deportees without proper documentation will be sent back. Describing the migrants as “unverified deportees”, Pakistan's position is that the European Union (EU) has violated Pakistani laws subsequent to the settlement between EU and Pakistan relating to undocumented migrants and their deportation.
Some Pakistanis lauded this effort. Ch. Adnan Tahir writes in Facebook:
Wow ch nisar ali khan rocks first time in pakistan's history he have send back a Greece jet with 30 pakistani deported citizens . Greece send them back without conformation from pakistani consulate.
Muhammad Maqsoodur Rehman vows:
We won't let the world to treat us like a trash can! Pakistan sends deported migrants back to Greece.
Sherjeel Butt comments:
Pakistan refuses to allow 30 migrants deported from Greece to disembark from a plane. Man of his word ‘Interior Minister’.
Pakistan stiffened its policy on readmitting migrants in November 2015 after a meeting between EU Commissioner and Minister Nisar to settle a dispute over forced deportations to Pakistan. Nisar had earlier said that two EU states were sending Pakistanis home on “baseless terrorism charges”.
Last month, the EU agreed to address Pakistan’s concerns, which led to the suspension of the Pakistan-EU readmission agreement on migrants. While the EU Commissioner said that deportees from Europe would now be sent to Pakistan under a clearly defined standard operating procedure, Minister Nisar stressed that under the agreement, Pakistan will not allow any plane carrying deportees to land, “unless we verify their nationality and get details about the charge and evidence against them.”
Globally, as many as 90,000 people were deported back to Pakistan last year for a variety of reasons, including some who had been sent back without proper proof that they were Pakistan nationals, according to an interior ministry spokesman. About 50,000 Pakistanis travel legally to Europe for work each year — but close to 21,000 Pakistanis who were in Europe without permission were ordered to return home in 2014.
Greece insists that all the passengers on that airplane were Pakistanis. A Greek police official said that “action will be taken” when the migrants returned to Greece, but he did not elaborate. Yiannis Mouzalas, the Greek migration minister, said it was the responsibility of the European Union to intervene.
Overwhelmed by the scale of the migrant crisis, Greece has toughened its laws and border security and laws, but with over 700,000 people arriving on its shores since January 2015, it is still the most popular entry point for asylum seekers in Europe.
A Moroccan man recently died on the Greek-Macedonian border during clashes between police and migrants who were stranded for weeks. The man was among some 3,000 people, mostly from Morocco, Pakistan and Iran, stranded near the Greek town of Idomeni, since Macedonia began limiting entry to refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. His death, the first on the land border between Greece and Macedonia, has prompted Greece to protect migrants — Mouzalas recently said the country would take steps to address the worsening situation.
Europe has seen a constant increase in number of refugees fleeing Middle Eastern wars or turmoil in other countries. More than 900,000 refugees and migrants have arrived in Europe this year alone, according to the latest report by the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Greece recorded the highest migration inflows in 2015 with approximately 751,873 arrivals by sea — which means around 7,000 refugees and migrants arrive on Greek soil every day.

author: Sana Jamal


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After a Year Behind Bars, Journalist Khadija Ismayilova of Azerbaijan is Fearless · Global Voices
Arzu Geybullayeva

2014 Interview with Khadija Ismayilova published by the Council of Europe's video channel.
On December 5, Azerbaijan's 38-year-old award-winning investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova marked a year in jail on trumped up charges.
Ismayilova [also known as Ismayil] was arrested originally on a charge of inciting another person to commit suicide. However, the former colleague of Ismayilova's who filed the charge withdrew his complaint months later, citing his own “psychological problems.”
Nevertheless, Ismayilova remained behind bars. In February 2015, Azerbaijan's state prosecutor issued a series of additional charges including embezzlement, tax evasion, conducting illegal business and abuse of power. Khadija was sentenced to seven years and six months in prison based on the new charges.
Global Voices wrote this report shortly after her sentencing:
If Ismayilova is incarcerated, she will be Azerbaijan’s most globally famous political prisoner. She has received numerous international journalism awards and recognition for her investigations into corruption in the country.
A year on, Ismayilova has become more famous as a result of her incarceration, with awards pouring in as international advocacy groups use her case to highlight the rapidly deteriorating human rights situation in Azerbaijan.
“Free Khadija” postcard by PEN International. Cartoon by Sipress, licensed for reuse.
Since her arrest Ismayilova has won the John Aubuchon Press Freedom Award from the US-based National Press Club (NPC), PEN American Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write award, Human Rights Watch’s Alison Des Forge Award and most recently the “Holme of the Year” award of a distinguished Swedish liberal newspaper. She was also included in Foreign Policy magazine as a Leading Global Thinker of 2015 and was among three writers mentioned by PEN International’s “Imprisoned Writers” list.
She has also continued to expose mistreatment and rights abuses while in prison. During one of her hearings, she passed a message to her colleagues about the mistreatment of underage detainees at the Kurdakhani pretrial detention facility where she was being held before her transfer to the women's prison colony No.4 in Baku on November 27. She also used her incarceration as an opportunity to highlight the meager daily food rations in state jails, prompting immediate action on behalf of the prison's management. Shortly after this report, prison food significantly improved.
Moreover, the investigative stories exposing corruption in the upper echelons of the Azerbaijan government for which Ismayilova became famous have continued without her thanks to the vast network of colleagues who have continued her work.
Days after her sentence, Khadija sent the following message from prison:
If they ask me how I feel about the sentence “It is worth it!” I am jailed because of truth. And the right of people to free and prosperous life, and to know the truth is worth much more. What is a 7 1/2 year sentence? It does not frighten me. You should not be scared either. I am so much wealthier than all the corrupt men and women I have written about. Because I have values for which I am ready to even sacrifice my life.
In the meantime the following tweet from President Ilham Aliyev suggests it is business as usual in one of the former Soviet space's most corrupt dictatorships:
#Azerbaijan is about to complete 2015 with very good results. In 2016, all our planned programs will be implemented.
— Ilham Aliyev (@presidentaz) December 3, 2015

author: Arzu Geybullayeva


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Iranians Photograph the First Snow of the Season · Global Voices
Mahsa Alimardani

The credit of this picture goes to @GaryLewisUN. Snowy#Tehran. #Iran. ❄❤ pic.twitter.com/lalW6qnhog
— SdfNik (@SdfNik) December 7, 2015
On Monday 7 December, Iranians in the north of the country awoke to a country under a layer of fresh white snow.
There is a common misconception amongst those who are unfamiliar with the country that Iran has a tropical or desert-like climate. In reality, Iran experiences all four changes of the seasons. The capital city Tehran is surrounded by the Alborz mountain ranges, which boasts some of the best skiing resorts during the winter season.
Snow in December before the official start of winter is rare in Iran. In fact, the last such heavy snowfall occurred in February 2014, when some roads were closed off because of the unusual conditions. Heavy snowfall is such a rarity in Iran that in January 2008 a state of emergency was announced for two days, shutting down Tehran, the nation's capital.
The first snowfall of the year was documented by many on social media. Gary Lewis, the UN resident coordinator for Iran, posted pictures for friends outside of Iran to enjoy the beauty of Tehran's new white views.
Again within the space of a few days, #Tehran like I've never seen it B4. Friends/colleagues in diaspora, pls enjoy. pic.twitter.com/mtOuSQM8lw
— Gary Lewis (@GaryLewisUN) December 7, 2015
The teenage great-grandson of the founder of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, Ahmad Khomeini, posted a photo of a snow-covered tree in Tehran, describing it as “new snow, happy day of students.”
• برف نو ، روز دانشجو مبارك…
A photo posted by سيد احمد خمينى (@ahmadkhomeini) on
7 December is a national day of commemoration for students killed in clashes in 1953 at the University of Tehran by police forces belonging to the former regime of the Pahlavi dynasty.
Another Iranian Instagram user, Babak Rahimi, posted a picteresque view of Tehran's Milad Tower, captioning it with the hashtag “#snow! “#fall-y”.
#برف #پاييز ى! #❄ #🌨   A photo posted by Babak Rahimi (بابک رحیمی) (@babakrahimi) on
To follow Iran's social media photography of the first day of snow, follow the hashtag #برف  (#snow) on Instagram.

author: Mahsa Alimardani


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Herein Lie the Secrets of Geolocation · Global Voices
Aric Toler

Image edited by Kevin Rothrock.
This article is part of a larger guidebook by RuNet Echo to help people learn how to conduct open-source research on the Russian Internet. Explore the complete guidebook at the special project page.
With most photographs and videos, the most reliable way to conduct verification is through satellite images, allowing you to geolocate content by matching it to a known location. Sometimes, this requires observing changes in an area over time. Satellites have photographed almost every inch of the Earth, but there are special considerations when working in Russia and Ukraine concerning the availability of satellites and street-level imagery. This guide will provide instruction on using satellite images, with a focus on historical imagery, and available street-level imagery accessible for Russian and Ukrainian cities.
Contents
Likely the most useful single piece of software when conducting open-source geolocation research is Google Earth Pro, which can be downloaded for free here. Google purchases its satellite imagery from Digital Globe, a private company with numerous satellites in orbit.
Google Earth—which is a downloadable program—is not the same as Google Maps—which is what you access through your mobile apps or on a Web browser at http://maps.google.com. While Google Earth contains many of the same features as the more familiar Google Maps, Google Earth also provides easily accessible historical imagery, 3D terrain mapping, customizable locations, and markers that can be quickly imported and exported, as well as many other features. In short, Google Earth is geared towards the power user, while Google Maps is for more casual use.
Countless open-source reports use historical imagery comparisons in their analysis, but one recent example of this process can be found in a March 2015 Bellingcat report (note: this text's author, Aric Toler, also wrote the Bellingcat report) that analyzed a large Russian training camp near the Ukrainian border. Viewing the location of this training camp, just south of the village of Chkalova in the Rostov oblast, reveals an extremely large, well-travelled training camp.
Screenshot of a Google Earth image from October 9, 2014.
A question immediately comes to mind: is this training camp new, or has it been around for years, without any correlation to the Ukrainian crisis? Scrolling through the historical imagery on Google Earth will quickly reveal this answer.
After choosing the “Historical Imagery” option under View, a slider will appear in the top-left corner of your satellite imagery. After rolling back the imagery to a previous date, we see that this training ground was pristine farmland in October 2013—revealing that the camp sprung up anew after the Ukrainian crisis began.
Screenshot from Google Earth for October 19, 2013.
The Russian search engine Yandex operates a mapping service similar to Google Maps, including road maps, satellite imagery, and selective coverage of street-level imagery.
There are two ways to access Yandex maps—through maps.yandex.ru and through maps.yandex.com. As you'd expect, the latter is in English, and the former in Russian. They are largely the same, but the layouts are slightly different.
Top: English Yandex, Bottom: Russian Yandex.
The top version is the English site, and the bottom is Russian. For the remainder of this tutorial, the Russian version (bottom) will be used, but the English version is roughly equivalent and the instructions should mostly translate over.
Instead of “street view,” Yandex uses what it calls the “Panorama” view for street-level imagery of certain cities in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan (Astana, Almaty, and Karaganda), and Turkey. As evident in the map below, only fairly large cities and roadways have Panorama imagery available, indicated by the shaded blue areas. You can turn on Panorama imagery by clicking the Panorama (Панорамы) button in the top-right of the page.
A very nifty feature that is not available on Google is livestream videos from locations (most often traffic cameras). After selecting the video-camera option in the top-right corner (Видеокамеры), you can select the purple camera icons on the map (most often in densely populated urban areas) for a livestream of the location. See below with a traffic camera in central Moscow:
Like Google Maps, Yandex can place geolocated photos from users onto their maps, giving you additional views of a location from the ground.
In the above screenshot, the title of the photograph (which is “Untitled,” без названия) is available, along with the user responsible for uploading the image (bottom-left red box), and the date of the photograph’s upload (bottom-right red box). Turn on the photographs overlaid on the map by selecting Photographs (фотографии) in the top-right corner.
The Yandex satellite imagery, which is unique from the Google Maps (DigitalGlobe) satellite imagery, can also be accessed through Wikimapia.
Wikimapia combines an array of satellite services with user-inputted descriptions of locations, providing an impressive array of professional (satellite) and local (descriptions) information.
The available satellite imagery can be viewed in the top-right corner, including Google (DigitalGlobe) imagery, Google Terrain, Bing, Yandex, Here, OSM (Open Street Map), and Yahoo.
This tweet was posted a few hours before the MH17 disaster, showing a Buk anti-aircraft system supposedly in the town of Snezhnoe. By using Wikimapia, we can locate some of the landmarks mentioned in the tweet and verify the location of the image.
The five locations mentioned in the tweet above are reproduced below with English translations:
We can assume that the person posting this is not saying that the Buk is near a buffet of food or a little piece of coal, so we need to do some more digging to find the context of the words. The search function within Wikimapia is not very useful, so it is often better to search the site using Google, but restricting our results to those on Wikimapia by using the “site: search” function.
By following the first result, we find that “50 Years of October” is a street in the center of Snezhnoe. From Wikimapia, we can search the nearby location and look for the other landmarks mentioned in the tweet: Ugolek, Firshet, and Pirka.
Two of these are immediately clear on both sides of 50 Years of October (the street that runs vertical between the two landmarks). After clicking their entries on Wikimapia, we find that Furshet is a supermarket and Ugolek is a restaurant.
We do not know where Pirka is (though if you looked long and hard enough, you would see it is a shop in one of the apartment buildings in the area), but identifying four of the five landmarks—the city, street, and two locations—is enough to focus our search on this area for traces of the Buk in the photograph. From here, it's a matter of geolocation and matching angles, trees, and the road in the photograph.
For those wondering: the Buk was indeed in Snezhnoe, photographed approximately 3-4 hours before MH17 was shot down. The photograph was traced back a building on 50 Years of October, facing towards the apartment building on Karapetyana 13a.
***
Whatever a photograph's location, there are always geolocation options—whether it's a livestream from the street, or a blurry satellite photo from 2012. Using the resources described in this guide, you should be able to find the most accurate and helpful image available for locations in Russia and Ukraine, whether it's from Google, Yandex, Wikimapia, or sites less useful for Russia and Ukraine, such as TerraServer or Bing Maps.

author: Aric Toler


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To Solve Gun Violence, Americans Need to Aim Higher · Global Voices
Jeremy Adam Smith

Gun Culture 2012. PHOTO: Christopher Dombres (CC BY 2.0)
As I write, news is breaking of two more gun massacres in the United States, one on the west coast, the other on the east. Americans are already starting to forget Friday’s politically motivated attack on a Planned Parenthood in Colorado, which killed three people and orphaned six children.
The amnesia breaks my heart. But the political response from both left and right here in the US is much more troubling. In the face of violence, we don’t just forget. We also lose our best selves.
I will admit that conservatives especially puzzle me. I have sincerely tried to understand them. For the past few months, I've been eavesdropping on, and sometimes participating in, dialogues with conservatives on social media, some of whom are family or friends. I carefully read right-wing comments on the pieces I publish in “mainstream” media venues. I've been thinking a lot about what I'm seeing and hearing, and trying to resist evaluating it through a single “I'm right” lens. This is difficult; I often fail.
It simply seems strange to me that right-wingers believe they can combine extremist language with a love of guns without producing right-wing violence. It also seems strange to hear adults (who should know better) point to, say, terrorism in the name of Islam as though it somehow cancels out domestic right-wing terrorism. It seems odd, furthermore, to highlight the dead Colorado police officer's pro-life values as though that somehow diminishes the magnitude and impact of what happened there.
“It simply seems strange to me that right-wingers believe they can combine extremist language with a love of guns without producing right-wing violence.”
American conservatives, who love to talk about personal responsibility, are clearly in the grip of a pathological effort to shift blame. It is always something else—like abortion or same-sex marriage—that is somehow to blame for gun violence, never the gun policies they have supported. They will never understand why this fecklessness infuriates people who do not live in their ideological bubble. They don't have the self-awareness. This I say with compassion, because I also struggle to see myself. Don't we all?
Today’s right-wing culture is not interested in evidence. Many conservatives have said so explicitly in social media conversations, crying “common sense” in the face of facts that seem to contradict their version of reality. But I think that's true of almost all people. Left, right, or muddling middle, minds are rarely changed by evidence or arguments. When, a few months ago, I asked on my Facebook wall for examples of when my friends had changed opinions about something, most cited experience (specifically cross-group contact) as their main teacher.
After the Colorado attack, many of my friends were enraged at the fact that the Colorado shooter, a white male, was captured alive. Their intent was to highlight inequity between the way they believe white shooters are treated and the way shooters of color can be mercilessly killed. But the cumulative effect of such language, I fear, is somewhat different than what most of the speakers intend. In aggregate, they end up sounding bloodthirsty. I fear, moreover, that this unintended effect reveals a subconscious desire for vengeance.
There's nothing progressive about that response, and a lot that can be called backward. Unconscious impulses are often reactionary ones. When they become “common sense,” bad things happen—not the least of which is that people who point out that the common sense may be wrong are shouted down. There’s a notion, much beloved on my Facebook feed, that mass shootings are primarily a white male activity. In fact, the evidence says the proportion of Asian mass shooters (9 percent) is almost twice their share of the US population (5 percent) (which I suspect very strongly is linked to attitudes toward mental health care in many Asian-American communities). Black people are 13 percent of the population and represent 16 percent of mass shooters. Latinos are the only group whose members do not appear to be prone to mass shootings. (My data source is Mother Jones.)
That doesn't minimize or erase the distinct, explicitly misogynist and racist motivations of white male mass shooters. But an honest analysis needs to account for the fact that other people beside white males go on killing sprees. Indeed, an honest analysis needs to grapple first and foremost with the fact that the demographic characteristic that does define mass shooters is gender. There are female mass shooters, but they are a tiny, tiny minority. In fact, more broadly, men commit 90 percent of all murders. It must also be noted that the percentage of American men who will ever kill anybody is vanishingly small, less than half of one percent. That includes combat veterans.
“Unconscious impulses are often reactionary ones. When they become “common sense,” bad things happen—not the least of which is that people who point out that the common sense may be wrong are shouted down.”
Most killers are men, but most men are not killers.
That's hard for the human brain to grasp, which is why we're so quick to seek scapegoats. Imagine the social response if, say, brown-eyed people committed 90 percent of murders, even if that involved fewer than one percent of them. History suggests we'd round them up and put them in camps. Would that be the right thing to do? I don't think so; I think it'd be unjust. My point isn't that we should whitewash the violence that masculinity seems to harbor. Rather, the point of my made-up example is that men's social power often insulates them from consequences unjustly meted out to other populations, which in turn protects and encourages the killers in our midst.
Maybe only women should be allowed to own guns, and a man would need permission from a woman in order to use them? The world would be a safer place, but it's hard to imagine such unequal treatment not setting a terrible precedent.
That's always the problem. When we treat any group unfairly, it normalizes unfairness. It's a funny thought experiment to imagine men needing to go through women to get guns, and what makes it funny is that it reverses the usual power differential. But imagine if it was that black people needed to go through whites to get guns. In fact, we don't need to imagine that. I just described a substantial chunk of American history, and it hasn't been very funny.
Here's my upshot: We all need to all hold ourselves to higher standards, even knowing that we're going to fall short. Left or Right, it's exceedingly difficult to put principles like due process and compassion ahead of that primal drive for vengeance.
But to me, doing that—forcing your human prefrontal cortex to override the animal amygdala—is what will really make the world a better place.
I'm angry about what happened in Colorado. I'm infuriated by the right-wing response. I’m equally filled with anger over the shootings in so many other places, no matter what twisted, dehumanizing vision motivates them. At the same time, I want to be true to myself and my values.
I don't always succeed. I make mistakes and I sometimes feel overwhelmed. I've ranted and raved, too, mostly to people who already agreed with me, without changing one mind.
Is that the best of me? No, I don't think so. I don't want to be defined by my weakest moments.

author: Jeremy Adam Smith


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Trinidad and Tobago’s United National Congress Retains Its Party Leader, But at What Cost? · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Kamla Persad Bissessar meets with Albert R. Ramdin, OAS Assistant Secretary General. Photo by OEA-OAS. CC 2.0.
Perhaps the second most anticipated elections in Trinidad and Tobago, other than the country's recent general elections, occurred last night, when voters cast ballots in internal elections for the leadership of the United National Congress (UNC), the main political party in the previous coalition government, which was ousted by the People's National Movement on September 7, 2015.
After losing the general elections, there were several camps within the UNC that blamed the party's defeat on the performance of its leader, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, the country's first female prime minister, whose administration was plagued by allegations of fiscal mismanagement and corruption (not to mention sordid accusations of misbehaviour).
Persad-Bissessar's two main rivals for the party's leadership were Roodal Moonilal, who was Minister of Housing, Planning, and the Environment in her government, and Vasant Bharath, who was the former Minister of Trade, Industry, Investment, and Communications. When the preliminary results were finally revealed early this morning, Persad-Bissessar had won with 15,477 votes, compared to Moonilal's 1,466 and Bharath's 1,102. Shortly afterwards, the official UNC Facebook page announced:
Congratulations to Political Leader Kamla Persad Bissessar S.C. MP and Team UNC.
#UNC Internal Elections Results. Congrats to Kamla Persad Bissessar. #Trinidad pic.twitter.com/HxyTmbstNl
— Keydell A. Kerr (@keydellkerr) December 6, 2015
Persad-Bissessar's road to victory was far from easy, with opponents throughout the campaign harshly criticising her leadership. Despite these tensions within her own faction, Persad-Bissessar has demonstrated her interest in focusing on the political battles to come, saying after her reelection:
We are all members of the one UNC family and at the end of tonight and tomorrow we have to unite because the real enemy is the People's National Movement.
Many netizens took this to mean that the UNC intends to continue its tribal approach to politics at the expense of the nation's interests. A comments thread exchange between Facebook users Rhoda Bharath (RB) and Barbara Jenkins (BJ) responded to a question about why people have followed this campaign so closely:
RB: Because we live here and are invested in the place. A strong Opposition Leader means strong Opposition means strong Governance in the houses.
BJ: we have a vociferous, misrepresenting, cantankerous, ill-advised and ethnically-partisan opposition. We do not have a strong opposition.
RB: Exactly! So this internal election meant there was the possibility to put forward better leadership material. They squandered that opportunity. And so, we are without an Opposition.
A fragmented opposition seems to be unavoidable, considering the spirit with which the elections were fought in the first place. Facebook user Patricia Worrell quipped:
I wonder what it's like to be Looneylal and the Lunatics this morning?
Because having made their real thoughts clear, they must now go home to the UNC, and humble to Kamz! KNOWING they got their asses soundly whipped too!
NOT a pleasant thought!
#hehehe
Even up to last night, Persad-Bissessar's challengers were raising doubts about the quality of the electoral ink that was used, suggesting that because it could be washed off so easily, it was possible that mischief-makers were voting more than once. In fact, Moonilal has said he will seek legal advice on the matter. There were also other hiccups: some voters complained that their names did not appear on the list, and there was a bomb scare at a polling station located in In Siparia, which is Persad-Bissessar’s constituency and the party's largest support base.
Still, there is no disputing that Persad-Bissessar has won by a landslide. In a public post, Facebook user Vedavid Manick said:
Not withstanding the irregularities of the elections being reported, it seems as though Mrs. Kamla Persad Bissessar has again emerged victorious on the internal election battle. Congratulations to her. Here is my wish list of her and her team. […]
Whatever you may think about Keith Rowley and the PNM, if their intentions are good, then in these hard economic times, it is in my personal interest that they be successful at a genuine objective. After all they are government, and in Westminster politics, it is their sole decision that guides policy. HOWEVER, it is in my personal interest too, that the opposition be a strong and united force that will logically voice the alternative philosophies that will keep our country safe. More than ever in these trying times is that voice important. This is what the country needs, a strong voice to protect the weak, and to be an opposition in waiting. […]
I expect you to work with all victorious or non victorious. This is your duty. This is what democracy is about. Everyone has a right to challenge, but now that the dust has settled, you are obliged to ensure that none feel persecuted for their stance.
Good luck. The nation is looking on.
While some netizens were hopeful, others, like the satirical website Wired868 and Facebook user Rhoda Bharath remained unconvinced:
3 months after a GE [General Election] wherein it won 18 seats and had roughly 280,000 people vote for it, the UNC's Internal Election can barely scare up 10,000 voters.
There is nothing for Kamla to celebrate.
The Opposition is non-existent as a force. The country has to be its own sentinel now.
The only song that should be on repeat today is Party Done.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


text:
Trinidad & Tobago Faces Economic Recession — But Who’s to Blame? · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Jwala Rambarran (left), governor of the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago, and Min Zhu (right), deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund. Photo by Reuniones Anuales GBM / FMI Lima 2015, used under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license,
Former Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago Kamla Persad-Bissessar won internal elections to retain her leadership of the United National Congress party, now in opposition, on December 7, 2015. The voter turnout, however, was low — one Facebook user joked that “there are mas [Carnival] bands bigger than the UNCs turnout today” — suggesting a level of disillusionment with the party's performance and the state in which it has left the country.
That state is a precarious one. Governor of the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago Jwala Rambarran, who was appointed under the Persad-Bissessar administration but has retained his post thus far under the new government, announced on December 4 that the country was “in a recession” and went on to identify some of the companies that are the largest users of foreign exchange. While some wondered whether this was information that should have been disclosed, many felt that this was overridden by citizens’ right to know how their money was being used.
According to Victor Hart, chairman of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative Steering Committee (EITI), the foreign exchange in question is being generated by the sale of the country's oil and natural gas exports — resources that belong to the people of Trinidad and Tobago:
This information therefore empowers civil society to lobby government on finding a more efficient use of the US currency that is earned by those natural resources. It is a tool for citizens to agitate for better management of our money. We've been too complacent as a people. We have an inalienable right to know how our natural resources are being used, because it is the people's patrimony that is generating the foreign exchange.
Rambarran might have been transparent in revealing the biggest sources of demand on US currency, but failed to be up-front with the new minister of finance, Colm Imbert, about the state of the economy. Given that he made the statement about recession without informing him, Imbert complained that the Central Bank governor was not doing what was required to keep the government properly informed of its policies, or to support the monetary policies of the government. Because of the drain on the Central Bank's foreign exchange revenues, even regular citizens have been having trouble accessing US dollars — most banks have been imposing a daily US $500 withdrawal limit on customers.
Facebook user Rhoda Bharath was incensed about Rambarran's modus operandi, and called for him to be sacked:
Jwala aware that he working for us?
Why is he being so difficult about communicating with the Finance Ministry?
I have no confidence in his professionalism or responsibility.
He has to go.
Fire his ass now!
Journalist Raffique Shah, guest blogging at the satirical website Wired868, shared the sentiment, saying that the recession Rambarran has suddenly noticed was predictable:
This recession did not creep up on us like the proverbial thief in the night. It was long in the making.
In fact, from as far back as the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, when Clico [a major, regional insurance company] collapsed and the price of oil plunged from a brief high of US$140 a barrel to US$30, informed, patriotic citizens were warning governments: to go easy on the wild spending, to set aside more savings in the Heritage and Stabilisation Fund [an account established to set aside energy revenues for a rainy day], to wean the population off dependency on subsidies, and, most of all, to diversify the economy from its over-reliance on oil, gas and petrochemicals.
He placed much of the blame for the country's current economic reality squarely at the feet of Persad-Bissessar's People's Partnership government, who spent wantonly amidst falling oil prices:
In the face of such stark realities and grim prospects, the PP Government increased spending, scraped the bottom of the NGC [National Gas Company] barrel for every available dollar, sold off some of the family jewels (FCB [First Citizens Bank] and PPG [Phoenix Park Gas Processors]-NGL shares), extracted everything it could from the Central Bank, and, on top of that, borrowed beyond the $70 billion debt ceiling it established in 2011.
The Eternal Pantomime concurred, referencing the parliamentary debate that took place last Friday, in which “Minister of Finance Imbert wanted to raise the debt ceiling”:
The moment I read the motion on the Parliament’s website, I got concerned. Raising the debt ceiling doesn’t affect the current work force. I’m currently paying off the debt [former Prime Minister] Patrick Manning’s years in office incurred. Raising the debt ceiling will be affecting the generations that are not yet old enough to vote and select a government. No, not the ones in secondary school. They will be paying off Kamla’s debt. The children just entering day care.
In summary, if we are to believe the details of the presentation read out by Finance Minister Colm Imbert, the UNC government led by Kamla Persad-Bissessar, had just as big a role in creating the recession we are now in as declining oil prices. What kind of government sees economic ruin looming and keeps borrowing and spending?
Of course, Trinidad and Tobago has been here before. While the Wired868 post recalled the economic recession of the 1980s and the lessons that should have been learnt from it, The Eternal Pantomime simply could not get over the brazenness of the Central Bank governor's announcement:
It was a calculated move on Ramberran’s part. Meant to stir up angry sentiment among the population just prior to a Parliament sitting asking for the government to be able to borrow more. But Ramberran’s counter-coup has blown up in his face. Because it appears that the Governor has been keeping secrets from the population. The Trinidad Express published a story in the middle of August 2015 wherein then finance Minister, Larry Howai, glibly stated that we were no where near a recession. Then we would have already experienced two consecutive quarters of economic contraction and entering into our third. […]
Was Governor Ramberran aware of the economy’s contraction? If he was, why was he silent then? Was he colluding with the former Minister of Finance to present a picture of a healthy economy? If he was not aware, why was he not aware? Can we trust him to have the country’s best interests at heart? Is he working with or against the current Minister of Finance? Can the obvious tensions between the two of them lead to even further economic crisis?
There are more questions than answers at this point, and significant public outrage:
I am […] very angry with those who led us down this trip to nowhere, this descent into hell. What hurts even more is that they will continue to live in luxury as the masses suffer the consequences.
How I wish they could be in jail instead.
Meanwhile, Kamla Persad-Bissessar and her administration refuse to take the blame for the country's economic crisis.


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Jaqaru Speakers in Peru Aim to Save Their Endangered Language · Global Voices
Gabriela García Calderón Orbe

Yauyos province, Peru, home to the majority Jaqaru speakers. Image: Flickr by user Toni Fish (CC 2.0).
In the Tupe district of Lima, the roads signs and signals are written in two languages: Spanish and Jaqaru. The latter is the language of the Aymara family; it's currently spoken by just 580 individuals—most of them women.
Jaqaru speakers have made several efforts to preserve their native tongue, as documented by a Facebook group called Portal Yauyos:
La comunidad de hablantes de este idioma está asentados principalmente en la provincia de Yauyos, en los centros poblados de Tupe, Aiza y Colca. Los letreros fueron colocados en las calles y en la municipalidad, las escuelas de Tupe, la I.E. Integrado San Bartolomé, la iglesia y el puesto de salud.
The community that speaks this language is settled mainly in Yauyos province, in the villages around Tupe, Aiza, and Colca. The signals were placed in the streets and the city hall, near the schools in Tupe, the San Bartolomé integrated school, the church, and the rural health post.
A website, also named Portal Yauyos, has more to say about the “Jaqaru universe“:
Tupe, ubicado en la provincia de Yauyos, encierra un sinfín de saberes ancestrales, donde destacan su forma de vestir y el jaqaru, el idioma propio de este pueblo.
[…]
Lo más resaltante de Tupe es su idioma: el jaqaru, un legado para la humanidad que nació durante los primeros siglos de nuestra era. Etimológicamente significa “lengua humana”, puesto que proviene de los vocablos Jaqi (hombre o humano) y Aru (hablar o lengua).
En la actualidad el jaqaru posee una gramática que se enseña en la escuela. Así se asegura la continuidad de un idioma ancestral que ha sobrevivido de manera oral y que tiene 36 consonantes y tres vocales. Más sonidos que el quechua y el aimara juntos.
Tupe, located in Yauyos province, has an endless ancestral knowledge, where the way of dress and Jaqaru, the language of the people, stand out. […]
The most outstanding thing in Tupe is its language: Jaqaru, the heritage for humanity that has its origin during the first centuries of our age. Etymologically, it means “human language,” as it comes from the terms Jaqi (man or human) and Aru (to speak or language).
Nowadays, Jaqaru includes a grammar that is taught at school. Thus, the continuity of an ancestral language that has survived orally is now assured as a language with 36 consonants and three vowels (more sounds than Quechua and Aymara combined).
According to blog Distrito de Tupe, the name of the city originates from a Jaqaru word:
Tupe proviene de la palabra Jaqaru, “Txupi”, que significa “juntos, tupido, pegado”, en este caso los cerros de Tupinachaka, Pupr´e, Wuaqaña y Kurgnichi, están juntos, pegados.
Tupe comes from the Jaqaru word “Txupi,” which means “together, dense, think.” In this case, the mountains of Tupinachaka, Pupr´e, Wuaqaña and Kurgnichi are together—right beside each other.
On Twitter, there are frequent updates about Jaqaru and the ways its speakers preserve the langage:
Y acá hay más información sobre cómo fue señalizado el pueblo de Tupe con carteles en jaqaru. La noticia ha… https://t.co/PiCOJKiVVA
— Basta de Racismo (@bastaderacismo1) noviembre 29, 2015
Here we have more information about Tupe village, using signals written in Jaqaru.
Señalizan en idioma Jaqaru calles y locales públicos de Tupe, en sierra de Lima https://t.co/DdhUWaPcaZ pic.twitter.com/Ysavdi9RoV
— Agencia Andina (@Agencia_Andina) noviembre 28, 2015
Streets and public shops use signals in Jaqaru language in Tupe, in Lima's highlands.
[EN VIVO] Alumna de la I.E. Bartolomé Herrera recita un poema en jaqaru demostrando q esta lengua está viva en #Tupe pic.twitter.com/8xVErvf7vK
— Programa Pensión 65 (@pension65_peru) noviembre 27, 2015
A student of Bartolomé Herrera school recites a poem in Jaqaru, showing this language is much alive.
#FOTOS | Tupe: El universo jaqaru. Conócelo aquí ► https://t.co/6DTIp1nz30 pic.twitter.com/7omPd60TRj
— Diario La República (@larepublica_pe) noviembre 15, 2015
Tupe: Jaqaru universe. Get to know it here.
Conoce más la Buena Práctica Intercultural “Registro Civil Bilingüe: el #RENIEC al rescate de la lengua Jaqaru” https://t.co/4ZmJFB0WwA
— RENIEC PERU (@reniecdigital) noviembre 3, 2015
Read more about Good Intercultural Practice “Registro Civil Bilingüe: Peruvian Civil Registry rescues Jaqaru language.”
La realidad lingüística es muy cambiante y el jacaru nos recuerda que la familia aymara no estuvo siempre donde… http://t.co/NP9lcWyJ39
— Lesli_Li (@Lesli_Li) octubre 6, 2015
Linguistic landscape is ever changing and Jacaru makes us think that the Aymara family was not always where we thought it was.

author: Gabriela García Calderón Orbe


text:
New Draft Law Enables Russia to Ignore International Human Rights Decisions · Global Voices
James Slater

Russia's new law seems to be aimed at avoiding decisions by the European Court of Human Rights (pictured), but recent changes to the draft text suggest a broader mandate. Image from Wikimedia Commons.
If you thought it couldn't get worse for civil society and human rights protections in Russia, you were wrong.
On December 4, the State Duma voted to pass a draft law № 931766-6, titled “On Amendments to the Federal Constitutional Law ‘On the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation.'” The bill is now before the Federation Council, Russia's upper legislative chamber. The draft law aims to create a “special legal mechanism,” which would allow the Russian Constitutional Court to review any international human rights decision against Russia. If the Court finds that a particular decision isn't in conformity with the Russian Constitution, it can simply get tossed.
What this means is that if you've complained to an international court or body that a Russian law has infringed upon your human rights, any money damages or other remedies authorized by the international court could be worthless to you if the Russian Constitutional Court finds that the international decision conflicts with the Russian Constitution.
By way of background, this special legal mechanism was contemplated by the Russian Constitutional Court in its July 14, 2015 decision finding that the Russian Constitution had supremacy over judgments executed by the European Court of Human Rights. In essence, supremacy means that if there was a conflict between a European Court of Human Rights ruling and the Russian Constitution, as interpreted by the Court, the Russian Constitution would win out.
Why did the Russian Constitutional Court do this? Because the European Court of Human Rights had slapped the Russian government with a $2.5 billion judgment in the Yukos case based on unfair tax proceedings in Russia.
The new draft law, however, goes far beyond the creation of a separate legal mechanism for European Court of Human Rights decisions. In fact, the language has been loosened up to broadly include any international human rights body.
For instance, there is no reference at all in the text of the bill to the European Court of Human Rights. Instead, the draft law broadly relates to “decisions of inter-state bodies for the protection of the human rights and freedoms.”
Moreover, as the draft law progressed through committee, the title shifted from decisions of “inter-state judicial bodies” to “inter-state bodies.” This shift occurred between first and second readings of the bill:
First Reading
6) дополнить Раздел третий Главой XIII следующего содержания:
“Глава XIII. РАССМОТРЕНИЕ ДЕЛ О ВОЗМОЖНОСТИ ИСПОЛНЕНИЯ ПОСТАНОВЛЕНИЯ МЕЖГОСУДАРСТВЕННОГО СУДЕБНОГО ОРГАНА ПО ЗАЩИТЕ ПРАВ И СВОБОД ЧЕЛОВЕКА
6) amend Section three with Chapter XIII containing the following:
“Chapter XIII. HEARING CASES ABOUT POSSIBILITY OF RENDERING COURT DECREES OF AN INTER-STATE JUDICIAL BODY FOR THE PROTECTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS
Second Reading
5) раздел третий дополнить главой XIII следующего содержания:
“Глава XIII. Рассмотрение дел о возможности исполнения решений межгосударственного органа по защите прав и свобод человека
6) amend section three with chapter XIII containing the following:
“Chapter XIII. Hearing cases about possibility of implementing decisions of an inter-state body for the protection of human rights and freedoms
Even the word “decisions” has mutated between readings from постановления (decree)—used when rendering court decisions—to the more innocuous решения (decision), which would ostensibly relate back to the decision of any international human rights body.
These changes to the draft law have caused debate within the Russian legal community.
Retired Constitutional Court judge Tamara Morschakova believes that documents produced by bodies like the United Nations Human Rights Committee could be sent to the Constitutional Court for review under the law.
Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Law and State Building Dmitri Vyatkin (United Russia), on the other hand, argues that bodies like the Human Rights Committee don't render “decisions” but rather produce reports, so they wouldn't be implicated under the law.
Vyatkin forgets, however, that Russia is a party to the First Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which allows the UN Human Rights Committee to render decisions based on individual complaints. In fact, the Human Rights Committee recently entered a decision against Russia, finding that a local anti-LGBTI law violates the International Covenant. Other international human rights bodies have similar decision-making mechanisms.
In sum, what was supposed to be a Court-blessed runaround against the $2.5 billion Yukos judgment (and similar judgments), has now turned into a tool for shirking Russia's international human rights obligations. For Russian civil society this spells disaster. When this law ultimately passes, the only avenue to protect fundamental rights—the international sphere—will only provide a superficial remedy. All the government would need to do to avoid sanctions would be to seek review by the Constitutional Court under the special legal mechanism.

author: James Slater


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Russian Film Festival Gets Official Warning After Promoting Anti-Corruption Documentary · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

Russian Cutlure Minister Vladimir Medinsky speaking at the grand opening if the Pomegranate Hotel in May 2014 in Greece. Edited by Kevin Rothrock.
The same day that the documentary film festival Artdocfest kicked off in Moscow, Russia’s Ministry of Culture issued an official warning to organizers, alerting them to potential liability for showing films without the proper distribution certificates. The government’s warning comes less than a week after Artdocfest announced that it is including in a special online competition a film by anti-corruption activist Alexey Navalny’s group about the corrupt business dealings of figures close to Attorney General Yuri Chaika (namely his son, Artem).
According to Vitaly Mansky, Artdocfest’s president, the festival is showing several films made in Russia without Russian distribution certificates, but the rights to the films were sold to a Latvian company, thus removing the need for such documentation, Mansky says.
Navalny's film, “Chaika,” leads online voting in Artdocfest's “Artdocset” competition. Screencap: Facebook.
Alexey Navalny published the documentary film “Chaika” on December 1. Since then, the video has attracted more than 3 million views and nearly 14,000 comments. It has 77,000 “up votes” and a bit more than 3,300 “down votes.” In the film, Navalny’s team from the Anti-Corruption Foundation lays out detailed evidence connecting Chaika’s son to business dealings that link him and other relatives of top officials in the Attorney General’s Office to known mobsters. In the first 90 seconds of the film, Vladimir Medinsky, Russia’s minister of culture, also appears in footage from the opening ceremony for a luxury resort in Greece partly owned by Chaika’s son.
Today, following news of the Culture Ministry’s warning to Artdocfest, Navalny released on YouTube the full video of Medinsky’s speech from the Pomegranate Hotel’s opening ceremony in May 2014. Navalny also repeated public demands for information about why the culture minister attended, who paid his airfare and lodging, and what his connection is to Chaika’s son and the hotel’s other owners.
Though Artdocfest has formally included “Chaika” in the festival, the film won’t actually be shown to audiences. Instead, the movie is in competition for “Artdocset” (ArtDocNet), where the festival’s Facebook community votes on its favorite films already released online. Currently, more than 1,200 Internet users have voted, and Navalny’s documentary leads with 792 votes.
According to the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which helped Navalny’s team produce its report on corruption in the Attorney General’s Office, spokespeople for the Culture Ministry have refused to respond to questions about links between the warning to Artdocfest and Medinsky’s apparent ties to the subject of Navalny’s film.

author: Kevin Rothrock


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Spot All the New Urban Murals in Kyiv With This Handy Interactive Map · Global Voices
Tanya Lokot

This recent mural by Ukrainian street art collective Interesni Kazki can also be found on the interactive map. Image from ilgorgo.com, CC-BY 3.0.
Street art and wall murals are becoming wildly popular in Ukraine: every week brings news of a new wall in one city or another filling up with the results of some artist's creative labor. One Kyiv citizen is trying to make it easier for art hunters to keep track of all the new works appearing on the capital's streets.
Sergii Gryshkevych created an online map of all the murals that have popped up in the city during the last two years. The interactive map already has over 30 locations marked, most of them in the city center.
The online mural map shows a dense concentration of art in the city center. Image from kyivmural.com.
Each object on the map shows a fairly exact location of the mural and is accompanied by a photograph that pops up when users click on the mark.
This striking mural with ravens is on Reytarska street—close to a semi-secret yard where a few actual ravens live in a large cage. Image from kyivmural.com
The website's creator seems to think the murals are a positive development for Kyiv, and notes that the new trend (and the availability of empty walls allowed to serve as canvas) has drawn many international artists to add their works to the roster.
Протягом 2014–2015 художники з України, Іспанії, Аргентини, Австралії, Німеччини, Британії та Португалії прикрасили муралами більше тридцяти будинків та цей тренд продовжується. Мурали вже стали справжньою прикрасою Києва та мають всі шанси стати його новою візитною карткою.
During 2014-2015 artists from Ukraine, Spain, Argentina, Australia, Germany, Great Britain and Portugal have decorated over 30 houses with murals—and the trend continues. The murals have already become a real jewel of Kyiv and have every chance of becoming its trademark attraction.
Gryshkevych expects to add more murals to the map in the nearest future, and is asking Internet users to send him tips about new locations where work is in progress and images of completed street art.
This handsome gentleman was finished on a wall near Kontraktova square in historic Podil just a few weeks ago. Image from kyivmural.com

author: Tanya Lokot


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Cambodians March for Land, Justice and Human Rights Despite Government Restrictions · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

The group in Kampong Speu reached the provincial capital Chbar Morn. The issue of land rights is a major political demand in Cambodia. Photo from Licadho, a human rights group.
Thousands of Cambodians across the country are marching towards the capital city of Phnom Penh to celebrate International Human Rights Day on December 10. Some of the activists were blocked by the police in several provinces and the government has already banned protests in Phnom Penh, but the march continues to receive public attention and support.
The protest march, which began on December 6 in 12 provinces, aims to highlight the theme of justice in time for the celebration of International Human Rights Day. The original plan is to submit a petition containing five demands addressed to the national government:
- For resolutions to land conflicts;
– Reform of the judicial system and the release of human rights defenders and activists;
– A raise in the minimum wage and respect for labor rights;
– An end to state-sponsored violence; and
– Respect for freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly.
In recent years, land conflicts have displaced thousands of farmers, indigenous groups, and villagers because of development projects and land concessions. The government is accused of using violence to evict residents from their homes. Some of the victims of these land rights violations are among the Cambodian farmers who are now marching towards the capital.
Meanwhile, the demand to raise the minimum wage highlights the poor conditions of workers in the country. Since last year, garment workers have launched strikes and other forms of protest to demand an increase in their monthly minimum wage, which is among the lowest in the Southeast Asian region.
This year’s human rights celebration is also politically significant since the ruling party, which has been in power for more than three decades already, is accused of persecuting the opposition and other critics of the government. The decision to ban protests in the capital’s freedom park is an indicator of rising political tension.
But despite these challenges, the march for land, justice, and human rights travels on. Below are some photos taken in the provinces of Cambodia of these grassroots activists asserting their right to celebrate International Human Rights Day:
Marchers spent the night in Tropeangkun pagoda, Samrong Tong district. The march aims to reach Phnom Penh, the nation’s capital. Photo from Licadho, a human rights group.
The group submitted two petitions to Koh Kong provincial government: one calling on the government to respect human rights, and the other calling for the release of three environmental activists. The arrested activists are leading the campaign in Areng Valley against a proposed hydroelectric dam. Photo from Licadho, a human rights group.
Grassroots communities in Koh Kong province are marching to celebrate HR Day, theme ‘Justice ‘ #Justicekh15 pic.twitter.com/5CCKddcCl3
— Mory Sar (@morysarss) December 8, 2015
In Banteay Meanchey, about 600 people joined a tractor and tuk tuk (traditional three-wheeled vehicle) procession from Poipet to the provincial government office in Banteay Meanchey town. Photo from Licadho, a human rights group.
Activists ride a tuk tuk (traditional three-wheeled vehicle) to reach Battambang’s Dragon Statue where they held a program discussing human rights issues. Photo from the Facebook page of Ridan Sun
About 700 people in Kampong Chhnang carry puppets to represent rights, freedom and good luck for all marchers. Photo and caption from Licadho, a human rights group.


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Ecuadorean Political Leader Who Criticized Government Nepotism on Twitter Gets 15 Days in Prison · Global Voices
Gina Yauri

Cevallos (left) during a press conference. Photo taken from his Twitter account.
On November 11, 2015, political leader Sebastian Cevallos was sentenced to 15 days jail for using Twitter to report an alleged case of nepotism within the Ecuadorian government.
Cevallos is the deputy leader of the leftist movement, Unidad Popular, and previously had written tweets claiming that 20 relatives of the Minister for Labor, Carlos Marx Carrasco, also occupy public offices.
The tweets he wrote made reference to the minister's daughters: Gabriela Carrasco, who holds the position of ministerial advisor, and Silvia Carraso, administrative director of Elecaustro, a company that oversees hydroelectric projects.
GABRIELA CARRASCO Hija de @CarlosMarxC asesora ministerial..!! Sueldo: 3000 dólares..!! #TuitearNoEsDelitopic.twitter.com/vvAORRKriq
— Sebastián Cevallos (@sebastcevallos) noviembre 11, 2015
GABRIELA CARRASCO daughter of @CarlosMarxC ministerial advisor..!! Salary: 3000 dollars..!!
#TuitearNoEsDelitopic.twitter.com/vvAORRKriq
— Sebastián Cevallos (@sebastcevallos) 11 November, 2015
Silvia Carrasco la otra hija de @CarlosMarxC dirección administrativa ELECAUSTRO xq #TwittearNoEsUnDelitopic.twitter.com/utSUOewHeX
— Sebastián Cevallos (@sebastcevallos) noviembre 11, 2015
Silvia Carrasco the other daughter of @CarlosMarxC administrative director of ELECAUSTRO xq
#TwittearNoEsUnDelitopic.twitter.com/utSUOewHeX
— Sebastián Cevallos (@sebastcevallos) 11 November, 2015
After the information was made public, Paula Rodas, an official of the National Institute of Cultural Heritage and niece of Carrasco, filed a lawsuit, challenging what Cevallos said. The filing read:
…through his use of twitter, Mr Rodrigo Sebastian Cevallos Vivar has uttered words of clear disrepute and shame in saying that by being the niece of Carlos Marx Carrasco the person in question has employment in the public sector.
[…]
…since the 21 of July, 2008, owing to the her tireless efforts and achievements, Paula Francisca Rodas Espinoza has held a permanent position in the public sector.
According to the newspaper El Universo, Rodas called upon article 396 of the comprehensive organic penal code (abbreviated as COIP in Spanish) that says “a penalty of 15 to 30 days jail will be imposed…for any person who, through any platform, makes defamatory remarks against another person.”
Pretende @CarlosMarxC atemorizar, amordazar, callar, a quienes decimos la verdad. No nos amedrentan. Seguiremos.!! pic.twitter.com/IxFi1PoQ0Z
— Sebastián Cevallos (@sebastcevallos) octubre 20, 2015
@CarlosMarxC tries to intimidate and silence those who speak the truth. You don't scare us. We will go on.!! pic.twitter.com/IxFi1PoQ0Z
— Sebastián Cevallos (@sebastcevallos) 20 October, 2015
The non-governmental organisation Fundamedios, which defends the freedom of speech of journalists and social media users, such as Cevallos, that are accused of corruption or are censored in the mass media, released a statement confirming the sentence. Fundamedios has also been threatened with closure by the Ecuadorian government in the past.
Fundamedios released a statement confirming the sentence, which was issued under article 66 of the Ecuadorean Constitution. According to Cevallos: “It's ridiculous that they are bringing up this article from the constitution, as it is in the name of freedom and freedom of expression they are sentencing me.” Article 66 protects the rights to both freedom of expression and opinion, and the right to honor. The statement continues, describing the three tweets of interest to authorities:
El juicio, que fue resuelto de manera expedita, inició el 19 de octubre, cuando Cevallos recibió la notificación. En la demanda planteada por Rodas Espinosa, la funcionaria aseguró que los días 21, 22 y 23 de julio de este año, Cevallos, identificado en la red social como @sebastcevallos, “ha proferido expresiones en franco descrédito y deshonra” en su contra, por tres mensajes de Twiiter que según la funcionaria se han manifestado “de forma absolutamente falaz, dolosa y con el profundo ánimo de irrogar daño”.
Los ‘tuits’ que se refiere la funcionaria son tres; en el primero, Cevallos convoca a una rueda de prensa para denunciar, según él, “actos de corrupción de un alto funcionario de Alianza País”; en el segundo, Cevallos pregunta a sus seguidores si saben quién es el presidente de la comisión de ética del partido de gobierno, con mención al Ministro y en el tercero, alude directamente a la demandante con el siguiente mensaje: “Paula Rodas sobrina @CarlosMarxC está en INPC- regional 6 Efectivamente es el Ministro de Trabajo de su familia”.
The trial, which began on the 19 of October, when Cevallos received the notification, was resolved quickly. The claim of Rodas Espinosa, the official, stated that on the 21, 22 and 23 of July this year, Cevallos, known on the social network as @sebasticevallos, “uttered words of blatant defamation” against her, over three Twitter message that according to the official were “completely false, hurtful and carried a deep intent to cause harm.”
There were three tweets that the official referred to. In the first tweet, Cevallos calls for a press conference to reveal, according to him, “acts of corruption by a high ranking official from Alianza
Pais”. In the second tweet, Cevallos asked his followers if they knew who the president of the ruling party's ethics commission was, with mention to the Minister. The third, alludes directly to the
plaintiff with the following message: “Paula Rodas, niece of @CarlosMarxC is in INPC- regional 6. He (Carlos Marx) is effectively the Labor Minister for his family.
After the verdict, Sebastian wrote on his Twitter account that he does not fear the injustices of this country, and that he will appeal the sentence.
#TuitearNoEsDelito lo esperábamos, en nombre de la “libertad de expresión” CULPABLE. No nos amedrentan, SEGUIREMOS..!!
— Sebastián Cevallos (@sebastcevallos) noviembre 11, 2015
#TuitearNoEsDelito [#Tweetingisnotacrime] we knew this would happen, in the name of “freedom of speech” GUILTY. We are not scared, WE WILL GO ON..!!
— Sebastián Cevallos (@sebastcevallos) 11 November, 2015
Thousands of Cevallos’ followers have shown their support with the Twitter hashtag #TuitearNoEsDelito [#Tweetingisnotacrime], as he is the first Ecuadorian to receive jail time for using social media to report nepotism in the government.
The Twitter account of Frente Popular Azuay (@FrentePopularA), the opposition movement lead by Sebastian Cevallos, wrote that this case should not involve the law.
#TuitearNoEsDelito Basta de utilizar a la justicia para perseguir y querer encarcelar a @sebastcevallospic.twitter.com/kzuFGXIJiG — Frente Popular Azuay (@FrentePopularA) noviembre 11, 2015
#TuitearNoEsDelito [#Tweetingisnotacrime] Stop using the law to presecute and lock @sebastcevallospic.twitter.com/kzuFGXIJiG — Frente Popular Azuay (@FrentePopularA) 11 November, 2015
User Byron Guaman (@byrong_23) made the following comment on social media.
El gobierno no se siente sólido para mantener crítica alguna, ni siquiera en el mundo del internet y las redes sociales #TuitearNoEsDelito
— Byron Guamán (@byrong_23) noviembre 11, 2015
The government can't handle any criticism, not even from the world of social media and the Internet. #TuitearNoEsDelito [#Tweetingisnotacrime]
— Byron Guamán (@byrong_23) 11 November, 2015
Caty Sarmiento P. (@caty_sp_20) stated that free speech must not be stopped.
Ni la cárcel, ni la negligencia nos callarán. La verdad la saben todos! #TuitearNoEsDelito — Caty Sarmiento P. (@caty_sp_20) noviembre 11, 2015
Neither jail nor negligence will quiet us. Everyone knows the truth! #TuitearNoEsDelito [#Tweetingisnotacrime]— Caty Sarmiento P. (@caty_sp_20) 11 November, 2015
Cesar Zea (@Cesar1983Z) tweeted in support of his friend.
Que orgullo ser tu amigo @sebastcevallos siempre has demostrado coraje para defender lo justo, solidaridad luchador #TuitearNoEsDelito
— Cesar Zea (@Cesar1983Z) noviembre 11, 2015
What an honor it is to be your friend @sebastcevallos, you have always had the courage to defend what is right. I stand by you; keep fighting #TuitearNoEsDelito [#Tweetingisnotacrime]
— Cesar Zea (@Cesar1983Z) 11 November, 2015
A group of experts from the United Nations and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights have argued that some of the current legislation in Ecuador violates freedom of speech and freedom of association in the country. Cases such as the memes from Crudo Ecuador that annoyed the president Rafael Correa, or the imprisonment of Francisco Endara for supposedly applauding during a demonstration, are still in the minds of residents.

author: Gina Yauri


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Four Months Later, Still No Answers About a Shootout with Salvadoran Police and Army That Left Five Dead · Global Voices
Connectas

An alleged armed gang member was detained during the search by the Salvadoran army and police. Photo: La Prensa/Francisco Alemán, used with permission.
The original version of this article was written by Suchit Chávez and Ezequiel Barrera for La Prensa Gráfica de El Salvador and was published on the CONNECTAS website, thanks to an editorial agreement on mutually disseminating content.
Five dead bodies discovered at a house in Panchimalco's Pajales region in El Salvador. That was the result of a joint exercise police-military operation in August this year.
According to the official version of events, police and soldiers joined forces to investigate after detecting the movements of gang members in the area. When they arrived, they say they were greeted with gunfire and so they fired back. When the dust settled, no police or soldiers had been killed.
Caught in the crossfire, but luckily managing not to be hit, were an elderly man, a woman, and three younger women with their children: a two-year-old girl and a four-year-old boy. Three days after the shootout, one of the young women disappeared.
This is the official version of events, but it's not the only account of what happened. According to the mother of one of the families present:
When the soldiers came in, behind the men, they weren't letting anyone leave. I was locked in the other room, screaming for them to let my daughters and grandchildren leave.
Camila, a young woman in her twenties who also lives at the house, says five men in the building were in fact armed, but she says they threw their weapons to the ground after hearing the children crying. According to Camila, once disarmed, the men were taken from the room where they hiding and brought to a small patio where the family keeps farmyard animals. Police and soldiers allegedly lined them up against the wall and peppered them with bullets, before dragging their bodies back into the house. (This version of events would explain why there was a pool of blood discovered on the patio, where no bodies were found.)
On the evening of August 19, three days after the incident, Camila disappeared while returning home from work.
The day the five gang members’ deaths became public knowledge, a series of gruesome photographs began circulating on social media. Reporters confirm that the house they visited matches the spot where the bodies were photographed. The clothes discovered also match the description of the five autopsies performed by the Institute of Forensic Medicine.
According to the autopsy report, Luis Benítez, one of the gang members, died from five gunshots. He received at least three bullets near his left shoulder and another two in his chest. In both areas, according to the medical examiner, there were “extensive areas of powder tattooing,” which is when gunpowder particles become embedded in the skin when fired upon at close range (at a distance no farther than 1.5 meters, or 5 feet).
Analyzing the photographs and comparing them to the autopsies, many online are asking how the bodies ended up in the positions they did, in a space so small during a firefight. How were none of the other seven people in the building injured during the crossfire? And why would police and soldiers have fired into a home with two children present (who were reportedly crying loudly).
The oldest victim, Miguel Benítez Jorge, was shot eight times. One of the bullets punctured Jorge's right lung, after entering his back and exiting his chest. If Benítez Jorge was in fact shooting and, as the official version states, died while confronting the police, how was he shot in the back? Also, if he was shot in the back, why was he found on his back? In the photographs, Benítez Jorge appears with a rifle on his person.
In a press conference on August 27, El Salvador's minister of defense, David Munguía Payés, confirmed that the Army is carrying out an internal investigation, as is standard procedure with any shootings involving soldiers. Payés says he hasn't yet received a final copy of the report, however, and so he remains unable to draw any conclusions. “But everything points to the fact that [the police and military] acted in accordance with the law,” he insists.
According to human rights attorney David Morales, “since last last year, several supposed confrontations between the police and criminals have occurred, many of which have ended with the deaths of said criminals, without any serious injury to the police themselves”:
We have determined that there isn't any serious oversight regarding these proceedings. It seems to us that there is the danger that these operations have produced arbitrary executions.
To read this article in Spanish, click the banner below.

author: Connectas


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Is There Really Such Thing as ‘European Values’? · Global Voices
Katrin Zinoun

Europe Day 2008: Participants at the Square of the European Promise. Photo: Sabitha Saul; published with permission
The idea of “European values” is hardly new, but given November's deadly attacks in Paris and the stream of refugees arriving to the continent — and the concerning uptick in nationalism and xenophobia that has followed — the concept is seeing renewed discussion.
Are there really a shared set of principles among the 28 member states of the European Union? If so, what are they? And is Europe living up to its own ideals?
German blogger Johannes Korten and artist Jochen Gerz have teamed up to invite all Europeans to take part in a blog carnival on the very subject. Korten writes:
These days, this idea is seriously being questioned. It becomes more and more evident that the idea of an “official” Europe had been marked specially by financial and economic interests. And as long as challenges and conflicts of interest could still be solved with money, the European idea seemed to be “OK”.
Now, hundreds of thousands of people are on their way to this very same Europe. They flee from war, violence and terror or they flee from economic hardship, which often results from our own consumer behavior or geostrategic interests. The challenges provoked by this influx of people who search for peace and happiness in Europe cannot be solved solely with financial resources. Europe is rich enough to accommodate these people. The challenges lie on quite different levels. They are cultural. They constitute a real test for what is often referred to as “European values” in major speeches, be it speeches for peace prices or for similar occasions.
Gerz is the artist behind the “Square of European Promise” in Bochum, Germany, due to be inaugurated on December 11, 2015. He has dedicated the last decade to the creation of the square, in which 14,726 names of people who have made a promise to Europe will be inscribed. The individual commitments remain secret, but their names etched in the square represent the promise of a diverse, unified Europe.
The starting point for the artist were two existing lists in the Christ Church, next to the square: one of 28 “enemies of Germany” from the year 1931 and another of the dead from the First World War. Gerz wanted to contrast these with a “list of the living”.
Korten continues his prompt for the blog carnival with a set of questions that many people in Europe are pondering at the moment:
These days, we need to find the answers to urgent questions. Our policy needs to, but so does each and everyone of us. What is our freedom worth to us? What is the others’ freedom worth to us? Do we realize and appreciate our good fortune to live in democratic societies? What is our education worth to us? Our culture, our cultures? How we deal with each other, in this Europe? Is there still something like a common idea? An idea of what this Europe could stand for, besides economic prosperity?
The initiators of the blog carnival want to start a dialogue on what Europe as a concept means to its citizens. Learn more on how to participate by clicking here.

author: Katrin Zinoun