text:
The right to privacy in Sudan: A call to enact a data protection act · Global Voices
Mohamed Suliman

Graffiti art of surveillance camera. Published and labeled for reuse on Pixabay.
The former totalitarian Sudanese regime used various types of unethical and rights-infringing tactics to remain in power, including privacy invasion through unjust laws and surveillance tactics via imported technologies.
The regime, deposed after a series of pro-democracy protests ended 37 years of power earlier this year, now faces intense critique over its violations. Sudan is now at a critical moment in history to stir up a debate about the interplay between the state, private sector and citizens in terms of privacy rights.
As Sudan embarks on a three-year transition toward democracy and civilian rule, transitional authorities must consider reforms aimed at promoting and protecting the right to privacy.
To spy on users and citizens, the deposed regime used surveillance and tracking technologies sold by Western companies. The regime had to import these technologies secretly due to US sanctions that prohibited the regime from acquiring them.
In July 2013, Citizen Lab, a Toronto-based interdisciplinary laboratory that does research at the intersection of technology and human rights, identified the presence of the Blue Coat ProxySG device on Canar network, a privately-owned Sudanese internet service provider. The device, sold by the California-based company Blue Coat Systems, before it was acquired by another American software company in 2016, allows for the interception of users’ encrypted sessions on the internet.
In February 2017, Citizen Lab published another report that mapped the use of spyware sold by Hacking Team, an Italy-based company, to governments across the world, including repressive regimes. The study found that 21 governments, including Sudan, used the company's Remote Control System (RCS) which ‘’enables government surveillance of a target’s encrypted internet communications, even when the target is connected to a network that the government cannot wiretap.’’ According to the same report:
RCS’s capabilities include the ability to copy files from a computer’s hard disk, record Skype calls, emails, instant messages, and passwords typed into a web browser Furthermore, RCS can turn on a device’s webcam and microphone to spy on the target
This collaboration between Hacking Team and the Sudanese government did not go unnoticed and the international community questioned it. In June 2014,  the United Nations asked Hacking Team to provide information about its sales to the Sudanese government. According to a report by the Intercept, “the internal records proved that Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Service paid  960,000 euros [$1,071,504 United States dollars] for Remote Control System.”
Sudanese protesters gather in front of government buildings in Khartoum, Sudan, to celebrate the final signing of the Draft Constitutional Declaration between military and civil representatives, August 19, 2019. Photo by Voice of America, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Under Sudanese law, authorities could access user data after obtaining an order form a prosecutor or judge. Article 74 of the 2018  Telecommunications and-Postal Regulation Act clearly permits interception, surveillance and eavesdropping — only on order from the prosecutor or a specialized judge — and violators are punished with five years in prison, fine or both.
Unauthorised interception and eavesdropping is illegal. For example, the 2007 Cybercrime Act prescribes a punishment of up to three years in jail, a fine or both against anyone “who taps, captures or intercepts any message through an information network or computer hardware or similar without permission from the public prosecutor or the competent authority or the party to which the information belongs.’’ The term ‘’competent authority’’ is not defined, making the law subject to abuse.
Article 28 of the 2007 Electronic Transactions Act punishes anyone who discloses encrypted data for any unauthorized party or access any piece of information without approval, with ten years in prison or fine or both. The Act deals with financial transactions such as online payments and legal contracts.
While the 2016 Anti-corruption Act cherished the privacy rights of whistleblowers, punishing anyone who reveals their personal data with two years in prison, or fine or both.
While these laws offer some protection, in practice they are not enough to protect Sudanese users’ privacy and data from government surveillance.
In fact, the use of surveillance tools such as Hacking Team’s RCS system and Blue Coat ProxySG by the former regime, is evidence of how it was possible for the authorities to violate users’ privacy, without needing to obtain a court order.
The use of vague terms such as  “competent authority”— as in the 2017 Cybercrime Act — without any clear definition, gives telecommunications companies a pretext to hand over user information to security agencies — even in the absence of a court order.
Independent supervision over how the government and the private sector handle personal data is lacking in Sudan. For example, in February 2014, the Sudanese parliament publicly discussed the invasion of privacy by the National Intelligence and Security Service ( NISSthrough ISPs and telecommunication companies, such as MTN-Sudan, ZAIN, SUDANI and CANAR.
No independent investigation was launched and local media reported that the then-telecommunications minister refused to answer whether or not monitoring of phone calls and online activities was legally taking place.
In fact, Sudan has no data protection authority and no data protection law that regulates the collection, storage and use of personal data by governments and the private sector. A basic principle of an effective data protection law is the establishment of an independent regulator that oversees the law’s implementation. In the absence of such a legal framework, personal data will remain at risk of misuse and abuse not only by the government but also the private sector.
The current, existing legal framework does not include any provisions that require companies, websites and organizations to share or have a written policy that explains their data collection and sharing practices.
Sudanese websites, applications, online platforms MUST have (Terms and conditions of Use ) and (Privacy policy ) hich explains how information about customers is collected, used disclosud and analysed. #privacylaws #Sudan
— Amr Mohsen (@AmrMohsenadvo) October 31, 2019
For example, emerging online businesses in Sudan that depend primarily on e-payment, lack transparency about how they handle their users’ information. Online shopping platforms Dukan, Maglag and  Sahla publish privacy policies that reveal limited to no information on data collection, retention and sharing. Others such as e-commerce site ma3roud do not publish privacy policies. Ride-sharing applications such as Tirhal, lemon and Tarha provide privacy policy links on their app pages, perhaps as an attempt to fulfill registration requirements for Apple and Google Play stores. These only direct users to their websites — which do not actually include privacy policies.
As part of a power-sharing agreement to guide Sudan’s three-year transition toward civilian rule, the Transitional Military Council and the political coalition that represents the protesters, Forces of Freedom and Change, signed the Constitutional Charter for the 2019 Transitional Period.
Article 54 of the charter enshrined the right to privacy. It states: ‘’No one’s privacy may be violated, nor shall it be permitted to interfere in the private or family life of any person in his home or correspondence, except by law.”
However, in the absence of reforms aimed at reinforcing and protecting privacy, this right remains under threat. An effective data protection law in Sudan is crucial to fulfilling legislative gaps, in accordance with the international human rights standards and best practices for data protection.

author: Mohamed Suliman


text:
Why is Pakistan trying to broker Iran-Saudi peace talks? · Global Voices
Rabiya Jaffery

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan and the President of Iran Hassan Rouhani. Collage via Flickr and Wikipedia. CC: BY-SA.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan met Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman in October 2019 following a two day trip to Iran to discuss regional tensions. Despite many unresolved domestic issues, Pakistan's role towards brokering an Iran-Saudi peace talk is being widely criticized at home and abroad.
Tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran — both bitter regional foes — escalated recently after Saudi oil facilities were attacked last month, dramatically impacting the kingdom’s oil output and causing oil prices to spike globally. Yemen’s Houthi rebels, that have been at war with a variety of Yemeni groups backed by a Saudi Arabia-led military alliance since 2015 and are alleged to be backed by Iran and North Korea, claimed responsibility for the attack.
Iran has denied involvement and warned of “total war” in the event of an attack on its territory. Pakistan, which has generally maintained very close ties with Saudi Arabia (and has drifted away from Iran over the years) is now trying to step up to ease tensions between the arch-rivals, despite staying officially neutral in this regional rivalry.
“Pakistan attaches high importance to bilateral ties with Iran,” Khan stated according to a press statement. “Pakistan is willing to play its role towards strengthening peace and stability in the region.”
Imran Khan has often stated that he wants Pakistan to become a relevant and responsible actor on the regional and global stage and has previously also been requested to serve as a broker between US and Afghanistan as well as US-Iran.
Global Voices talked with Robert M. Hathaway, Asia Program director and global fellow for Woodrow Wilson Center on this issue. Hathaway stated:
Facing multiple crises at home, PM Khan – like many previous leaders from all over the world – would love to achieve a triumph on the international scene. Failing that, he would love to be seen as a power broker and a substantial global figure, even if his current mediation efforts fail to bear fruit.
Hathaway, adds that it is difficult to imagine how Khan could broker a settlement that would satisfy the political, security and domestic needs of both Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Just In: Meeting between Prime Minister Imran Khan and Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques His Majesty King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud has started – This as Pakistan PM tries to mediate and facilitate direct talks between Iran and Saudia after visiting Iran – Pak at Center Stage! https://t.co/AtXmtBEG0B pic.twitter.com/MQmAtk37r2
— Anas Mallick (@AnasMallick) October 15, 2019
Hathaway adds:
Khan must take care not to alienate the Saudis, given his dependence on Saudi favour. This will limit his ability to act as a genuine ‘honest broker’. Iran will not trust him and Saudi will resent any attempt by Khan to act as a neutral.
Ties between Iran and Pakistan have been rooted in mutual mistrust in recent years for a number of reasons. Both countries have been accusing each other of supporting separatist movements against the country in the province of Baluchistan, which is demarcated between the two country’s state borders.
And with Raheel Sharif, Pakistan's ex-army chief, now heading the Saudi-led military alliance against the Shiite Houthis in Yemen, has made Iran wary of Pakistan and made Khan’s task more difficult.
And while Pakistan cannot distance itself from Saudi Arabia nor undo decades of military cooperation between the two Sunni-majority states, Hathaway adds that Khan can also “not afford to lean too far in Saudi Arabia's direction” in this possibly escalating conflict. He states:
Pakistan’s relations with Iran are already troubled. The last thing Khan (or Pakistan) needs is heightened tensions with Tehran.
Despite these potential impacts of escalating tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia, many Pakistani analysts, as well as civil society members, do not support Khan’s involvement in Iran-Saudi tensions.
Unbroken chain of delusion, from Khilafat Movement’s 1926 effort to address ‘The Hijaz Issue’ to Imran Khan’s ‘mediation effort’ between Saudi Arabia & Iran. Why cant Pan-Islamist subcontinent Muslims/ Pakistanis focus on problems at home before saving the ummah? ? pic.twitter.com/WjviUlWnfv
— Husain Haqqani (@husainhaqqani) October 13, 2019
Global Voices also spoke with K Akhtar, a foreign policy expert based in Islamabad:
Both Saudi Arabia and Iran will be looking out for the best interests and Pakistan should do the same. And that means not getting actively involved in the conflict and maintaining good relationships with both countries.
Iran, however, despite being aware of Pakistan's cooperation with Saudi Arabia, has welcomed Pakistan’s gesture. Akhtar states that Iran will want to maintain “for the very least, neutral” relations with its neighbouring countries, despite its concerns.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani also visited Pakistan in March in an attempt to convince its government to remain neutral in the conflict.
President Rouhani during a meeting with Pakistani President Aref Alavi on the sidelines of the NAM summit in Baku: #Iran & Pakistan have good capacity to expand cooperation. Iran expands cooperation with regional countries & It has made #Pakistan a top priority in its policies. pic.twitter.com/74S3vXq9z8
— Embassy of Islamic Republic of Iran- Islamabad (@IraninIslamabad) October 25, 2019
At a joint press conference after talks between the two countries in October 2019, Rouhani stated that the gesture for peace was welcomed.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei tweeted:
Iran sees #Pakistan as a neighboring brother. With this unprecedented opportunity, the relations of the two countries should be better than what they currently are. Security of the borders should be enhanced, and suspended projects like the gas pipeline should be completed.
— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) October 13, 2019

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Rabiya Jaffery


text:
At a standstill: Can Haiti find a way out of its unending crisis? · Global Voices
Joseph W. Alliance

President Jovenel Moïse (right) tours rice lands and an egg farm with Haitian entrepreneurs in the Dominican Republic. Photo by PresidenciaRD, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Haitian president Jovenel Moïse has weathered successive waves of violent protests during his two-year presidency. Since social unrest first erupted in July 2018 over the PetroCaribe scandal — along with the government's decision to increase fuel prices — his administration has been unable to prevent an already abysmal socio-economic crisis from spiraling downward.
Moïse is desperate to get control of a volatile political climate. Inflation, which was at 15 percent last year, now hovers at around 20 percent, and the country has been without a ratified prime minister since March 2019. In the meantime, Haiti's overall situation has only deteriorated: the Global Competitiveness report released in August 2019 ranked the Caribbean nation 138 out of 141 countries.
In the cycle of protests that have typified Moïse's presidency, this current phase is unparalleled. Once again, violent civil protests have taken centre stage, with the country locked down for more than eight weeks now thanks to massive street demonstrations, roadblocks (often with burning barricades), and limited public services in operation.
The first calls for his resignation emerged during the February 2019 protests, during which the country was locked down for about 10 days due to large-scale civil unrest. In June, following the May 31 release of a second piece of the Petrocaribe report, in which Haiti's High Court of Auditors detailed more evidence of the president's alleged ties to the scandal, social mobilisation against corruption escalated to even greater heights.
Other protests revolved around demanding justice for the November 2018 La Saline massacre, the collective rape of young female students, the spread and increase of gang activity and overall insecurity. The recurring fuel shortage issue, which happened mostly during August and September 2019, brought more chaos and pushed Haitians deeper into the dark tunnel of basic survival.
In early September, allegations that five senators received $100,000 United States dollars in bribes to ratify Fritz William Michel, President Moïse's fourth pick for prime minister, reignited the population's anger and mistrust in the government's ability and willingness to address Haiti's security and socio-economic challenges.
Virtually all sectors of Haitian society have joined the current protests asking for the president to resign:
Après les universitaires, les artistes, les religieux, les policiers, les ouvriers du secteur textile, aujourd'hui ce sont des professionnels de la santé qui vont manifester pour exiger de meilleures conditions de travail et une revalorisation de leurs salaires. #Haiti
— Amélie Baron (@Ameliebaron) October 30, 2019
After academics, artists, religious, police, workers in the textile sector, today it is health professionals who will protest to demand better working conditions and a revaluation of their salaries. #Haiti
Even as scenes like these unfold, the general feeling is that President Moïse has not been responsive to the concerns of the people. Many social media users say he seems more interested in focusing the debate elsewhere, such as pointing fingers at private sector groups which appear to have disproportionately benefited from state energy contracts:
On peyi ap vi on KAWO politik, ekonomik, sosyal, jiridik, enstitisyonèl, konstitisyonèl kote on volim lajan disparèt, gang ap fè kenken, peyi lòk, represyon, lekòl ak lopital fèmen, masak, epi w ap pale de franchiz, kontra kouran, avoka… @moisejovenel OU SERYE? @congressdotgov
— Gilbert Mirambeau Jr?? #PwosèPetrocaribeA (@GibszZZz) October 30, 2019
A country is living on a political, economic, social, legal, institutional, and constitutional level chaos where the lion's share of money disappears, gangs are fighting, the place is landlocked, there is repression, schools and hospitals are closed, massacres happen, and you are talking about franchises, power deals, lawyers…@moisejovenel ARE YOU SERIOUS? @congressdotgov
The government has engaged the services of some law firms to defend the state against these private companies. However, one businessman who was targeted in this initiative mocked the strategy as a way to shy away from public pressure, while ignoring other cases of alleged corruption that involve the president and his inner circle, including his wife:
Eske nouvo kabinè sayo ap tou analize dosye petro yo, dosye elikoptè yo, Dèmalog, Sofidai, san nou pa blye kit skolè yo, transparans pou tout moun, se sa demokrasi a mande…
Sinon se kabinè pèp la kap pran dosye sa yo#JeSuisTonRegard
— Dimitri Vorbe ?? (@dimitrivorbe) October 30, 2019
Will these new law firms also analyse Petrocaribe files, helicopter records, Dermalog [a German firm that won a lucrative contract for the production of national ID cards, which allegedly involved the first lady], Sofidai [a company linked to Moïse], without our schooling, transparency for everyone, this is what democracy requires…
Otherwise the people will have to get to the bottom of these issues themselves. #IAmFollowingYourGaze
Si @moisejovenel te gen menm lanmou pou kontra kouran pou #PwosèPetroCaribeA lè konsa mwatye zanmi l ak alye l t ap nan prizon.
— Etant Dupain (@gaetantguevara) October 30, 2019
If @moisejovenel had the same love for the #PetroCaribe deal then half of his friends and allies would be in jail by now.
This long period of incapacity has paralysed the country at all levels — schools, hospitals, markets, money transfer institutions, banks and hotels have basically shut down. The government, meanwhile, has been increasingly relying on force to crack down on protests, but with no results:
Our digital experts have verified multiple instances of police using excessive force during six weeks of anti-government protests in #Haiti in which at least 35 people were killed, with national police implicated in many of the deaths https://t.co/gyTfrRNKEU
— amnestypress (@amnestypress) October 31, 2019
In fact, the government appears to have lost control — everywhere throughout the country, major roads are blocked:
VIDEO: the current situation on many major roads in #Haiti after opposition calls to grow barricades & intensify pressure on the president to resign. Last night, the gvmt said they would clear the streets but are nowhere to be found today. pic.twitter.com/10C0l62c0z
— Etant Dupain (@gaetantguevara) October 30, 2019
Even the president has to go through the barricades in order to reach the national palace:
WOW: The same day @Amnesty condemns police violence in #Haiti, video emerges of masked National Palace Guard telling journalist to work from further away because when he “starts shooting [he] doesn’t have control of surroundings.” https://t.co/8UPpIGbE8g
— Etant Dupain (@gaetantguevara) October 31, 2019
While the streets, civil society actors and members of the opposition remain mobilised, perhaps understanding that President Moïse wants to remain in power at all costs, ordinary citizens are becoming overwhelmed by a sense of hopelessness. Citizens desperately want a way out of this seemingly unending crisis:
Retire barikad nou yo, sispann bay presyon nan radyo, sispann fè mesaj bandi ame sikile sou rezo sosyo, epi gade pou w’ wè si “pèp” la pap tchipew epi li al nan aktivite l’.
Depiw nan barikad sa vle di majorite pèp la pa kwè nan mouvmanw la. Se fòse w'ap fòse l’.#FèTwitSaMache
— Djim C. Guerrier (@Dguerrier0306) November 4, 2019
Pascal ADRIEN: The country has always been on “LOCKDOWN” for the poorest people
Djim C. Guerrier: Remove our barricades, stop pressure on the radio, stop sending armed bandits messages on social networks and [stop] checking to see if the “people” will give up and not carry on. From behind the barricades, the majority of people do not believe in the movement. You are forcing them to do it. #MakeTwitterProtest
Paradoxically, many Haitians have been expressing their desire for the United States to play a more decisive role in helping to resolve the crisis, although some observers feel that the burden of disentangling the situation primarily lies with local stakeholders:
“Ultimately the ball is in the hands of Haitians. If they want to change the situation, they have to do it, and they have to do it on their own and not expect any significant assistance from the external community.”
Read more here: https://t.co/206cc4LugW
— Jacqueline Charles (@Jacquiecharles) October 30, 2019
The presence of an American hospital ship in Haitian waters has already created some confusion as to whether, as officially stated, the ship is there to provide humanitarian assistance, or whether it simply serves as a trojan horse to disguise a U.S. military presence on the ground:
Folks helicopters belong to hospital ship, the Comfort. From my #Haiti piece on Friday: “But there will be no U.S. soldiers handing out food rations, said the USAID official, noting that distributions will be made by the United Nations’ World Food Program. https://t.co/oHpZiVJH7M
— Jacqueline Charles (@Jacquiecharles) November 4, 2019
Fo twit, fo nouvèl fè kenken.
Yo lage 2 foto pou fè konprann blan pran kontwòl peyi a.
Premye a fèt 3 Mas 2004. Foto a pa pou @shtagg men pou getty images men lyen an ?https://t.co/jTUGfo0d0g
Nan 2e nan, inifòm sou mesye yo ansyen, se pa bagay jodia.
Nèg yo stil ap ranse? pic.twitter.com/bftfnBk12A
— Mario Andresol (@Mario_Andresol) November 5, 2019
False tweets, fake news.
They released 2 photos to help foreigners understand how to take control of the country. The first is from March 3, 2004. The photo is not by @shtagg but by Getty Images. [Link] In the 2nd photo, the uniform the men are wearing is not the current uniform. The style guys are getting screwed ?
Will Haiti's traditionally self-serving socio-economic and political elites ultimately use this unprecedented crisis to reach a deal in the country's best interest? Or will some other ill-fated solutions, once again, come from elsewhere?

author: Joseph W. Alliance


text:
Behold Russia’s new ‘sovereign internet’ · Global Voices
Maxim Edwards

Russia's “sovereign internet” law has worried digital rights activists and ordinary users alike. Illustration by Tom Venner. Used with permission.
On November 1, Russia's controversial “Sovereign Internet” bill entered into force.
Supporters argue that the move is necessary to shield Russia against cyberattacks from abroad, while human rights and free speech defenders argue that the bill poses a dangerous new threat to freedom of expression online. For now, ordinary users of the RuNet won't sense much of a difference. At least not until a (vaguely defined) “crisis situation” is declared — in those circumstances, the Sovereign Internet would kick in, separating the internet in certain regions of Russia, or indeed the entire country, from the global network.
Russia's “sovereign internet” bill was was drafted by senators Andrey Klishas, Lyudmila Bokova, and Andrey Lugovoi, and passed by the Duma, Russia's parliament, in April. President Vladimir Putin signed it into law on May 1. This law is one of several recent moves by the Kremlin to crack down on cyberspace; this year alone has seen two seemingly politically motivated internet blackouts, in Moscow and Ingushetia. Furthermore, laws banning “fake news” and “obvious disrespect to the authorities” online came into effect in March. Putin recently suggested adding to this raft of laws by proposing a new bill to criminalise “drug propaganda” online.
As is the case with most Russian legislation of this nature (such as Russia's laws against the online promotion of “extremism”), their enforcement has been unpredictable and inconsistent — RuNet users often don't know where the red line is until they have crossed it.
Read more: Kremlin's new law against ‘online disrespect’ proves hard to implement
So while there are already multiple laws to police content online, the Sovereign Internet plays a distinct, if related role. Namely, it's about the “critical infrastructure” of the RuNet, rather than just its content. For example, the new law obliges internet service providers to route incoming international traffic through internet exchange points (IXPs) based in Russia, ensuring the centralised operation of the internet in a crisis situation. It also obliges service providers to install special devices which would assist Roskomnadzor, the state's communications watchdog, to block undesirable internet traffic. These would send data to a central monitoring facility which could examine such traffic in real time using DPI (deep packet inspection), a method considered far more effective than blocking distinct IP addresses. The bill also calls for the creation of a domestic version of the domain name system (DNS) or the phonebook of the internet, given that in the event of an internet cutoff, Russian service providers would be unable to connect to foreign DNS servers. On September 27, Roskomnadzor announced that it would launch tests of the systems in the southern Ural region, to some local disgruntlement. The results were not made public.
But what is the political logic behind Russia's “sovereign internet”?
Putin has long seen Russia's dependence on foreign digital technology as a security threat, and stated on at least two occasions that the internet was a project created and managed by western security services. As Kirill Rogov wrote on October 29 for the Russian daily newspaper Vedomosti, social media today “mobilises and shapes political loyalty in Russia to the same degree that television did when Vladimir Putin first came to power.” In that light, recent moves to constrain online freedoms have some uncanny similarities to the state's approach to critical media outlets over the past decade. In one case, they are mirrored almost exactly: in late July, a bill was proposed to restrict foreign owners from holding more than 20 per cent of shares in any “significant” Russian online company (in 2014, an analogous law was passed concerning print, radio, and television news outlets). The move was suggested by Lev Gorelkin, a lawmaker from the ruling United Russia party, apparently acting on the orders of the presidential administration. Once the media got news of it, the stock price of Russian tech giant Yandex plummeted.
In an interview with Global Voices (GV), Andrey Soldatov, an expert on digital governance in Russia and co-author of The Red Web, a history of the Russian internet, explained the authorities’ motivation as follows:
The Kremlin’s offensive on the Internet freedoms started in 2012 and over this period they learned a few things. They understand now that the most dangerous content is not generated by some hostile forces from abroad, but inside the country, and this content is not always produced by the opposition or political activists – it might be the news of some incident, like environmental catastrophe or natural disaster, disseminated and shared by ordinary users. And the Sovereign Internet bill is designed to prevent precisely this kind of content from spreading – it requires the installation of the system which would enable the government to control remotely the way the traffic goes in the country, cutting of a particular region from the rest of the country, if necessary.
So while it is easy to portray the Sovereign Internet as a creation by an ageing elite out of touch with today's digital realities, such a view can be dangerously misleading. Moves to split the internet into more tightly-controlled national digital fiefdoms are part of a widespread global trend, and not one undertaken by autocratic governments alone. Soldatov added that the Russian government frequently points to similar moves elsewhere to buttress the legitimacy of its own policies towards the internet:
Russian lawmakers love referring to the Western experience in Internet legislation — after all, we got Internet censorship in the country under the pretext of following the British example, as we were told by the Duma. Of course, the concept of the Sovereign Internet is not exclusively Russian —apart from China, there were many European countries that started talking about the need of something sovereign, especially after Snowden’s revelations. But these days, the problem is not what the government could do about the cables and the ways the traffic goes — it’s the content and where it’s stored. In many countries there are debates over how to make global platforms store the data of users in their respective countries: German users of Facebook in Germany, French in France and so on. This could be really dangerous, especially given the fact that to store data closer to users has a practical sense to the platforms as well.
Nevertheless, Soldatov stressed that the temptation to draw parallels between Russia's “sovereign internet” and China's “great firewall” is misleading:
The Chinese model of surveillance and censorship was integrated into the Chinese Internet from the beginning, while the Russian Internet was left alone for a very long period of time: from the very beginning in the early 1990s to 2012. It makes things more difficult for the Russian censors, and the most striking difference between the two countries is that blocking isn’t effective in Russia — we have lots of websites banned and blocked, but one could use VPNs and other means to circumvent it pretty easily. The government war with Telegram messenger was also not successful — lots of people still use this messenger, including government officials.
Consequently, the highly integrated place of the RuNet within global networks could complicate the introduction of the sovereign internet. Nevertheless, Soldatov stated that as 90% of Russian internet traffic is already routed through domestic internet exchange points, the RuNet's separation could also be technically easier than envisaged:
As I said, the main idea of the Sovereign Internet is to use it during the crisis, not every day of the week. This means that if the Kremlin will be smart, they could almost avoid financial losses – the costs of introduction of such a system is a different matter.
But introducing that system could take a great deal of time and, by some estimates, several tens of billions of rubles. In fact, the law itself states that more than 30 acts need to be passed to ensure that full compliance with its multiple provisions can be reached by 2021. On October 19, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov even admitted in an interview that the country is not technologically prepared for full isolation, meaning that the law's provisions would have to be implemented gradually to ensure the “sovereign internet” could run smoothly. Or, we might add, to avoid the bureaucratic and scandal-ridden fate of Russia's other initiatives to regulate cyberspace, such as the so-called Yarovaya Laws on telecommunications, or the state's frustrated attempts to ban Telegram.
Read more: Despite ban, Telegram survives in Russia — but for how long?
Nevertheless, the RuNet's users are good at being one step ahead. Some websites have already prepared advice on what to do in case of the RuNet being isolated, though experts worry that activating the “kill switch” would isolate Russian users from tools such as VPNs which they currently use to evade government blocks. On social media networks, the move is either being mocked or mourned. Lev Perulkov, a member of the popular art collective MXD, has posted a series of works dedicated to the “sovereign internet” to VKontakte, which quickly went viral. Critical users have Christened it the “Cheburnet” (#Чебурнет), a portmanteau of “internet” and Cheburashka, the popular Soviet-era cartoon character.
В России с сегодняшнего дня заработал суверенный духовный и скрепный интернет, построенный по принципу Пятиединства Войновича – Народности, Партийности, Религиозности, Бдительности и Госбезопасности.
Все россиянам просьба привести внешний вид ЭВМ к новому ГОСТу: pic.twitter.com/8yXs0Zc522
— ⭐Максим Мирович (@maxim_nm) November 1, 2019
In Russia, from today onwards, a sovereign, spiritual, and secure internet has been launched, constructed according to the principles of [the dystopian novels of famous late Soviet writer] Voinovich: nationality, party membership, religiosity, vigilance, and state security.
All Russians are requested to modify the appearance of their computers to conform with new government standards.
— ⭐Максим Мирович (@maxim_nm) November 1, 2019
The Sovereign Internet, then, is designed to create a parallel digital infrastructure which can be activated at the flick of a switch. But even if that never happens, the bill's multiple demands of internet service providers could help the state more effectively enforce its growing number of laws regulating cyberspace. And in that sense, it's a sign of the times.
“The law is a formidable weapon,” said Alexander Zharov, the head of Roskomnadzor, during an interview in April. But he hoped that “like the nuclear weapons that several countries possess, it will remain in a dormant state.”

author: Maxim Edwards


text:
Environmentalists raise alarm over hydropower boom in the Balkans · Global Voices
Elena Nikolovska

Construction site of a small hydropower plant on the Krapska Reka river, in the Jakupica mountain, North Macedonia. The area is part of the Emerald network of nature protection areas. Photo by Eko-svest, published with permission.
Activists across the Western Balkans are protesting the construction of small hydroelectric power plants which experts say threaten the environment and freshwater sources. More than 2,700 small hydroelectric plants are either planned or under construction in North Macedonia, Bosnia- Herzegovina, Serbia, Albania, Montenegro, and Croatia.
The Balkan countries have turned to hydropower in the haste to meet targets set by the Energy Community Treaty, an agreement between the European Union and its neighbors by which signatories must, among other things, obtain 27 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020.
But critics say governments are rushing construction without properly assessing its environmental impacts — and that projects are marred in corruption.
A 2017 study by Bankwatch, a network of civil society organizations from Central and Eastern Europe, visited eight European-financed hydropower plants in the region and discovered that all of them are in protected areas or ecologically-sensitive areas. They found that most plants have caused river beds to dry and hindered local villages’ water sources. Field visits to plants in North Macedonia in 2017 found that construction materials dumped in the riverbed have disrupted the migration of fish and other organisms. The study says:
All of the plants visited are in urgent need of increased impact monitoring as well as restoration measures. In most of the cases flagrant violations of national laws and international financial institutions’ standards are visible.
Macedonian biologist Ana Colovic Lesoska, from local NGO Eko-svest, expressed concern about the trend in a statement for Global Voices:
All water bodies are invaluable to us. The survival of the rivers depends not only upon the survival of the ecosystems they run through but also on the survival of the local population that depends on them for food and water. Destruction of rivers means the silent destruction of all villages and settlements along with traditions and history.
Colovic recently won the Goldman environmental prize for her efforts in stopping two large dams being constructed in the Mavrovo National Park, home to the endangered Balkan Lynx.
The Bankwatch report also found that, all over the region, companies that won concessions to construct and operate small hydropower plants are owned either by politicians in power or their relatives. The report says:
North Macedonia’s Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs, Kocho Angjushev owns at least 27 small hydropower plants, and the president of the main opposition party, Hristijan Mickoski also holds at least five concessions. In Serbia, companies connected to Nikola Petrović, the best man (kum) of President Aleksandar Vučić, are among the top beneficiaries of hydropower support.
In North Macedonia, locals from the village of Zhirovnica, with the help of civil society organizations, won a legal battle this year against two power plants in the Mavrovo municipality. Local authorities canceled their construction after concluding they had failed to comply with international and national regulations.
In neighboring Kosovo, protests against hydroelectric plants have united local Serb and Albanian residents of the municipality of Štrpce, on the Šar Mountain near the Macedonian border. Since mid-2018, they have staged a series of protests at the construction site. On October 8, one of those protests was met with excessive force by the national police, who used pepper spray on attendants, including children, and left 20 injured. Three residents of the nearby Lower Biti village were arrested and released after questioning.
Protests against MHPP in Strpce: Matkos Group halted construction on private land plots https://t.co/JZwYB54sov via @KoSSev
— KoSSev (@KoSSevnews) October 2, 2019
The bridging of ethnic divides in a country that was ravaged by ethnic cleansing only twenty years ago has attracted the attention of regional media attention. One article from August 2019 was titled “Štrpce: An ethnic Serb and an ethnic Albanian arrested for burning bulldozers.” A similar story was also published by BBC in Serbian.
Most of the energy in the Western Balkans comes from coal. In 2018, only 3.8 percent of the region's electricity was generated by hydropower dams. All of the countries have high solar potential, but only one percent of the region's capacity has been installed.

author: Elena Nikolovska


text:
#iamrabipirzada campaign supports Pakistani actress Rabi Pirzada after nude photos leaked · Global Voices
Qurratulain (Annie) Zaman

Rabi Pirzada became a trending topic in Pakistan on November 4, 2019. Image via Flickr by Trending Topics 2019. CC BY 2.0
Yet another actress in Pakistan fell victim to cybercrime and harassment after her personal photos and videos were leaked online. Pakistani pop singer Rabi Pirzada recently sold her phone and someone hacked the password, leaking her private pictures and videos. After her intimate photos and videos were shared online, it went viral and she declared that she is quitting showbiz.
میں رابی پیرذادہ شوبز سے کنارہ کشی اختیار کرتی ہوں ۔ اللہ تعالیٰ میرے گناہوں کو معاف کرے۔ اور میرے حق میں لوگوں کا دل نرم کرے۔
وَتُعِزُ مَن تَشَاء وَتُذِلُ مَن تَشَاء#SaveaSoul
— Rabi Pirzada (@Rabipirzada) November 4, 2019
Translation: “I, Rabi Pirzada, am quitting showbiz. May God forgive my sins and soften the hearts of people in my favour. #SaveaSoul”
Pirzada recently came into limelight when she released a song in support of people of Indian-held Kashmir in which she was wearing a suicide jacket. She also released a video where she is surrounded by snakes and threatened Indian Prime minister Narendra Modi.
People started an online campaign with the hashtag #iamrabipirzada in support of Rabi. The trend was initiated by Fouzia Gillani, a Pakistani expat law student:
Its my choice to support #Rabipirzada in this way. If people don’t get offended by nudity while watching the porn then they shouldn’t even get offended to see a naked woman supporting a cause.#iamrabipirzada
Thank you everyone for support.❤ pic.twitter.com/Y86516CUxD
— Fauzia Ilyas (@FauziaGilani) November 3, 2019
She wrote in her Facebook post:
Nude pictures of Rabi Pir Zada were leaked by another person, however Pakistani people were cursing her instead of demanding an investigation against the person who leaked those photos and videos.
Just wondering after reading many women that why she took such photos.
There are several cases where men harassed woman by sending their nudes in women inbox. Then they don’t feel shame but if a woman come up with those ideas then their so called values hurt.
It’s a hypocrisy and it should be ended now.
Alishba Zarmeen, a Pakistani expat in Canada tweeted:
Let’s demystify human body and take away slut-shaming. That’s the only way to move forward. Luckily, my entire business is built around the very concept & empowering women to embrace all they’re made of.
In solidarity with #RabiPeerzada and Qandeels of the world.#iamrabipirzada pic.twitter.com/zFcWsQqrAN
— Alishba (@SecularlyYours) November 3, 2019
Another Twitter user thought it's not the right way to defend Rabi, and tweeted:
And this is the shittiest way supporting her.
— Aisha Jamil (@ItsssAisha) November 3, 2019
Farhan Virk, a Pakistani blogger and MBBS doctor tweeted:
رابی پیرزادہ کی حمایت میں لوگ کپڑے اتار کر اپنے مخصوص اعضا پر #IamRabiPirzada لکھ رہے ہیں۔ یہ کیا جاہلانہ طریقہ ہے کسی کی حمایت کا؟ ان لوگوں کا دماغ ٹھیک ہے؟
اس ٹرینڈ #IamRabiPirzada
پر کلک کریں اور جہالت کو دیکھیں pic.twitter.com/XJBBRKy6CV
— Dr Farhan K Virk (@FarhanKVirk) November 3, 2019
In support of Rabi Pirzada people are taking off clothes and writing #iamrabipirzada on their private parts. What is this silly way of supporting someone? These people are not in their senses. click on this tree and look at this ignorance
In Pakistan, cinema gets backing and support by the propaganda wing of the military ISPR. The ISPR director general, Asif Ghafoor is active on Twitter and came in support of an item song in the film, Kaaf Kangana, an ISPR project.
Pic 1. The item song is by an indian girl in the movie as per her role, you may watch movie to know the context.
Pic 2. It is neither at GHQ (GHQ is at Rwp not Islamabad) nor of an event organised for ISPR as such.
— Asif Ghafoor (@peaceforchange) October 28, 2019
Rabi exchanged a tweet with the DG ISPR and called him out for supporting an item number. Dance or item numbers are looked down upon in Pakistani society where actresses shame each other for showing skin. The song's lyrics take a dig at India and was a point of interest for Pakistani Twitterati.
Rabi shamed the DG and tweeted:
Seriously disappointing, @OfficialDGISPR we all make mistakes but never refuse to admit it or explain it like this ?#chotisibaat pic.twitter.com/2SQHJPtSaz
— Rabi Pirzada (@Rabipirzada) October 31, 2019
Many Pakistani Twitter users are blaming Director-General of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Major General Asif Ghafoor for leaking Rabi Pirzada's private videos and pictures. However, there are no direct links or proof that it is more than Twitter chatter.
A Twitter user commented:
she criticized asif ghafoor and her pictures and videos got leaked after 1 hours
— Maaz Siddiqui (@m_siddiq7) November 1, 2019
leaks came after she criticized ghafoor for defending item song.. hence everyone doubting him
— Muhandis (@TheMuhandiss) November 1, 2019
Rabi's incident not only shows how victims of a data breach are dealt with in Pakistan but also highlights the hypocrisy and double standards of society as a whole.

author: Qurratulain (Annie) Zaman


text:
Museums of the mind: Why we should preserve endangered languages · Global Voices
Anna Luisa Daigneault

Eranti Dolbera is a speaker of a threatened tribal language known as Lanjia Sora, spoken in Rapjingtal, India. Photo by Opino Gomango for Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages as part of a Sora documentation project. Used with permission.
In commemoration of the United Nations’ Year of Indigenous Languages (IYIL 2019)
Mrs. Dora Manchado, the last speaker of Tehuelche, passed away on January 4th, 2019, at the age of 86. She was well known in her native community in Patagonia, and beloved by many. Linguistic anthropologist Javier Domingo worked with Mrs. Manchado during the last few years of her life, recording her speech and also becoming a close friend. Upon her passing, he noted, “Dora Manchado was regarded as the ‘last speaker’ of Tehuelche as well as the spirit of the Tehuelche ethnic recognition and revival. She knew perfectly well that language is not only about interaction, but also about trust, complicity […] and sharing with others. Thanks to the recordings she made, the rest of the community members now have, if they want, the possibility of affirming their past and reconstructing their identity.”
Known locally as aonekko ‘a’ien, the future of the Tehuelche is now in the hands of several dozen community activists in Patagonia who seek to keep the language alive through local meet-ups, learning groups and immersive cultural activities. But without any remaining fluent speakers, the future of Tehuelche remains uncertain.
Languages are a living manifestation of humanity’s long history on this planet.Reaching across time like a tapestry weaving generations together, languages transmit centuries of accumulated wisdom related to human adaptation and survival. They contain vital information related to land management, subsistence patterns, kinship and social relationships, local customs, cosmology and much more. Every language represents a unique way of interpreting and conveying the human experience in a specific cultural and environmental context. Languages are ever-evolving—they are shared museums of the mind. Nor are they static; they adapt and change over time, depending on the speakers’ expressive needs and social context.
Each human language has its own rules, its own sound patterns and its own ways of structuring information for ease of communication and comprehension. A language is not only a lens through which one perceives the world, but a vehicle one actively uses to navigate it. A language is a doorway that accesses the human imagination. Sayings, poetry, song lyrics – all are possible because of the expressive power of language. Proverbs, idioms and jokes reveal the subtle nuances of a culture through rhythm, rhyme and punchline. A language’s creative potential goes beyond the lifespan of a single individual. It is the sound of a collective soul that lives and dies within each speaker. When a language is transmitted to a subsequent generation of speakers, its soul keeps on living. When a language ceases to be spoken and transmitted, its essence effectively fades away. Without systematic documentation, there is little evidence left that the language even existed at all.
There are over 3,000 threatened languages in the world, many of which may disappear by 2100, or sooner. While it is natural for languages to come and go over time, we are currently living through a period of steep decline in linguistic diversity. Recent studies indicate that one language goes extinct every 3.5 months, which means that several times every year, the last speaker of a language passes away, and there are no new speakers to take their place. Once a language is gone, it is very difficult to bring it back, although it’s not impossible. Language reconstruction and revival can be accomplished through access to legacy materials and recorded resources.
Why do languages die? Language shift and language death are complex processes that play out differently depending on the history, geography and socioeconomics of a place. For each language and its dialects, the story is a bit different, but many of the overarching factors are similar.
Language endangerment is related to the loss of ancestral identity, resulting from the long-term impacts of colonization, systematic oppression and cultural assimilation by dominant groups. Language survival is therefore also about cultural survival and transmission from one generation to the next. But it can be difficult to overcome the heavy toll of subjugation by colonial forces, dispossession of traditional lands and lifeways and other factors such as infectious diseases and warfare. Also contributing to the erosion of languages over time are the ripple effects of racist and discriminatory policies that seek to stamp out cultural and linguistic diversity in favor of a unified national identity under one or few languages.
We live in a crucial time for language preservation. With sustained grassroots efforts, public support and funding for language training and immersion programs, visibility in the media, and status recognition by local and federal governments, endangered languages may have a chance of reversing their decline and stabilizing. Sustaining endangered languages involves transforming the ways speakers of these languages are perceived in their own communities, how the languages are portrayed in the local and national media, and how the matter is treated by governments.
Languages are a fundamental right and are the cornerstone of humanity’s diverse cultural identity. Speaking a dominant language does not mean that communities have to give up the right to maintain and promote their ancestral language. But for some languages whose last fluent speakers have passed on, adequate documentation is key for revitalization.
In the case of the Tehuelche language, Mrs. Manchado’s recordings now provide a window into the past, but also lay a framework for the future revival of the Tehuelche language among her people. On one of the last nights that anthropologist Javier Domingo spent working with her, Mrs. Manchado said, “Aio t nash ‘a’ieshm ten kot ‘awkko” – maybe tomorrow someone will speak in Tehuelche.

author: Anna Luisa Daigneault


text:
Quichua, a language that sets us free · Global Voices
Belen Febres

A group of students studying quichua, one of the ancestral languages of Ecuador. Submitted image, used with permission.
I was nine years old when, sitting at my grandma’s kitchen table, I was doing my homework one afternoon after lunch. The exercise entailed rendering in a drawing the subject of an assigned text about the way the Incas buried their dead. I've approached the hundreds of academic assignments I’ve done since then with a great measure of perfectionism, but there've been few times I put in as much effort as I did that day. It was as though, through my drawing, I was hoping to honour the character the text described, along with a whole culture that—according to what the assignment told me—had died as well.
In later history classes I was taught about colonization and miscegenation. From my teachers I learned about the formation of the Republic of Ecuador, the country of my birth. They taught us the names of Ecuador's presidents and took us to visit Catholic churches in the historic center of the city of Quito, where I was raised. I don’t remember any other mention of indigenous cultures in my school years, except for a brief encounter with the novel Huasipungo when I was close to graduating from high school.
My everyday reality, however, was different. A variety of indigenous clothing, traditions, and cultures had always been very present in my daily life. Moreover, my vocabulary, just like that of other Spanish-speaking Ecuadorians, was full of words borrowed from Quichua, one of the ancestral languages of Ecuador. I still play football on a ‘cancha,’ say ‘achachay’ when I’m cold, and I refer to my sister as my ‘ñaña.’ But until recently, Quichua was for me a language with which I cohabited, but I didn’t really know.
“Traditional education renders the languages, traditions, knowledge, cosmovisions, and philosophies of indigenous people invisible,” says Rasu Paza Guanolema, a member of the Puruhá community of Balda Lupaxi in the Ecuadorian province of Chimborazo. “They portray us as something from the past but, despite centuries of exclusion, we are still very much present.”
Rasu remembers having a positive relationship with education was while he lived in his community. But when he moved to Quito to study when he was 12 years old, his teachers made him abandon Quichua, his mother tongue, and adopt the traditions and knowledge associated with a language with European roots.
“It was a terrible experience,” Rasu says. “I felt bullied by my teachers and classmates because I was not one of them. They made it very clear to me that in their world, there wasn’t space for me. They led me to believe that the members of millenary cultures don’t have the capacity to learn, much less to contribute using our own knowledge.” After two years, Rasu went back to his community and started to work. When he was 20 years old, he resumed his studies at Chaquiñán College, where he was once again taught Quichua and invited to take pride in his culture, philosophy, and spirituality. In that way, he fell in love with his culture again.
Rasu’s love for language inspired him to pursue a university degree in Hispanophone literature. This time, he was able to confront the teachers who tried to make him feel that his culture and language didn’t have the same value as Spanish.
Rasu's commitment to his Quichua roots eventually motivated him to apply what he had learnt to the teaching of the language, which is a member of a linguistic family with variants spoken in seven South American countries.
Armed with the goal of increasing the number of Quichua-speaking people in Ecuador, Rasu joined Tinkunakuy in 2008. This organization, based in Quito, takes its name from the principle of relationality that is fundamental in the Ecuadorian indigenous philosophy. “In our view, people, nature, and the cosmos are related, we are all part of the same fabric,” Rasu explains. “It's an interaction among peers based on respect.”
This is the guiding principle under which the members of Tinkunakuy have taught Quichua to the more than 1,000 students who have attended the organization's classes in its 15 years of existence. Tinkunakuy also promotes political, promotional, spiritual, educational, and economic initiatives. Rasu also plans to write literary works to keep communicating indigenous knowledge in Quichua. “My objective is for as many people as possible to grow to love this language, and through it, learn to value a way of life different from the one imposed by the current system,” Rasu says.
With me, he achieved that goal. I have always liked the sound of Quichua, but because I have lived outside Ecuador for the past eight years, there was no opportunity for me to learn the language. Collaborating with a few indigenous communities through Rising Voices’ Reframed Stories project, however, had whetted my desire to learn Quichua, and when, almost seven months ago, I saw an advertisement for Rasu’s classes on Facebook, I asked him if I could take them online.
To my surprise, he said I could, and I had my first lesson the following Monday. Since then, I speak with Rasu through WhatsApp for 90 minutes each week. He creates a Google Doc, and I follow what he writes in real time. We also use an e-book with exercises that we review together, and I take notes by hand.
It's been less than a year since Quichua lessons have been available online. Initially, Rasu didn't have the technical knowhow to do this, but when he was invited to teach at a language institute he sought training in the use of digital tools. Now he's eager to keep exploring possibilities of creating audio files to support phonetic learning. Until then, he gives me music tracks with lyrics in Quichua that I can listen to while I clean my house or am out walking.
“It’s nice to know that distance is not a barrier anymore,” says Rasu, “and that anyone interested can learn the language from anywhere in the world.” I agree. I am learning Quichua from Canada, and there are students doing the same from the United States and Sweden. In this way, Rasu is able to share his heritage with us and we can make it our own from abroad.
Although most of my daily interactions take place English, a language that is not my own, thanks to the Quichua classes I feel closer to my country than ever before. And not only to the urban Ecuador where I grew up, but also to the ancestral knowledge to which I was not always exposed while living there.
Catharina Blomquist, another of Rasu’s students, has also learned about a new world thanks to Quichua. “I am from Sweden, and Swedish is my mother tongue, but I feel that Quichua is my language,” says Catharina. “I can’t quite explain why.” She remembers that when she visited Ecuador for the first time in 2017 she didn’t know Quichua existed, but as soon as she heard the language she fell in love with it and knew she had to learn it. She looked for classes online and found Rasu’s. “Quichua has a different way of thinking; it is a language that I find very profound,” she adds.
Quichua has its own logic, which changes our way of understanding and inhabiting the world. I’ve learned, for example, that in Quichua “I” (ñuka) is part of “us” (ñukanchik), and that one can’t exist without the other. I have also come to understand that time and space can be as inseparable as the two sides of the same page, that the future is the succession of the past, and that the present guides us. I have learned that illness can be regarded as something that visits us to show us that certain aspects of our lives might not be in harmony, and that death can be perceived not as an ending, but as part of the eternal return to life.
For Rasu, it’s only through a profound understanding of the language that we can truly comprehend these enriching ancestral concepts without emptying them from their true value. That is the reason he combines the teaching of this knowledge with grammar and vocabulary lessons. He finds it gratifying to see how they transform us, how inspired by the classes, some students have re-embraced the traditions, clothing, and traditional ways of life they had abandoned. Others have committed to supporting the language and the needs of indigenous people from their own spaces and experiences.
Nor can Rasu conceive of teaching Quichua without addressing topics such as the lingering consequences of colonization, still so prevalent in the present, racism, and land rights. Talking about these issues is essential to rectifying historical wrongs and to evaluate not only what we have learnt, but also what we have not. It sets us free.
“Quichua liberates us from repeating past mistakes and from others speaking for us,” Rasu says. “It allows us to express ourselves from our own views and perspectives, to denounce injustice, and to work together for diverse futures where we can live in this time-space-world-universe in harmony and mutual respect among people of different languages,” he adds. And thus I understand that Quichua bridges gaps—gaps that have been open for far too long.

author: Belen Febres


text:
Social media propelled ethnocentric disinformation and propaganda during the Nigerian elections · Global Voices
Nwachukwu Egbunike

Voting in progress at presidential election March 28, 2015, in Abuja, Nigeria. Photo by US Embassy / Idika Onyukwu (CC BY-SA 2.0)
This story is the first in a two-part series on online ethnic hate speech, disinformation and propaganda during the 2019 Nigeria elections. You can read the second part here.
Nigeria went to the polls to elect a new president and a national parliament on February 23, 2019. With two main contenders vying for the presidency, incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari obtained 15 million votes and triumphed over his closest rival, Atiku Abubakar, by a “margin of 56 percent to 41 percent.” Buhari was sworn-in for a second term of four years on May 29, 2019.
However, the election campaign was fought on different fronts, including social media. There was widespread dissemination of ethnic hate speech at the service of disinformation and propaganda online, particularly on Twitter.
Nigeria’s multi-ethnicity – over 250 ethnic groups and 500 languages – has at times been a source of conflict instead of strength. This becomes particularly obvious during elections when politicians use these divisions to campaign for votes. Naturally, online conversations in Nigeria have not been devoid of ethnic-induced hate.
During the 2015 elections, for instance, Twitter Nigeria descended into a bitter and binary sparring match between supporters of the then-two major contestants, Goodluck Jonathan (PDP, an Ijaw Christian) and Muhammadu Buhari (APC, a Hausa, Fulani Muslim). Twitter became a tool for propagating ethnic hate and party politics.
Some thought 2019 would be different because Buhari from the All Progressive Congress (APC) and Abubakar from the People's Democratic Party (PDP) are both Hausa, Fulani Muslims, but that was not the case. Their vice-presidential candidates – Yemi Osinbajo (APC), a Yoruba, and Peter Obi (PDP), an Igbo, are both Christians— but from different ethnic groups. It seemed like a repeat of 2015 but now with different protagonists.
The political atmosphere became ethnically-charged in 2017, two years before the elections, creating the conditions for an atmosphere of distrust. The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), a secessionist organization in the southeastern part of the country led by Nnamdi Kanu, also added to the heightened ethnic tensions brewing.
Desertification in predominantly-Muslim northern Nigeria led to a southward migration of Nigeria’s cattle herders that ignited violent conflicts with farmers. The southern Christian communities’ resentment of the influx of Muslim Fulani herders was “portrayed in some narratives as an ‘Islamisation’ force.’’ The failure of the Nigerian government to investigate these clashes and “bring perpetrators to justice” resulted in the death of about 4,000 people from 2015 to late 2018, according to Amnesty International.
Hence, ethnocentrism was already at an all-time high before the presidential elections in 2019. The prevailing distrust was a fertile ground for false information – online and offline – during the elections.
The number of internet users in Nigeria grew from 98.3 million in 2017 to 100.5 million in 2018. Facebook maintains the lead as the social media platform of choice with 22 million users, followed by YouTube (7 million+), Twitter (6 million) and Instagram (5.7 million).
The majority of Nigerian voters are young. Out of the 84 million registered voters for the 2019 General Elections, over half — 51 percent — are young voters aged between 18 and 35, whereas nearly 30 percent are between 36 and 50 years old. These two groups of voters, which include both digital natives and digital immigrants, form the majority of Nigerian voters who are digitally savvy.
Therefore, it was not surprising that digital media was one of the prominent battlegrounds for election campaigns in 2019.
As a result, the credibility of online information during the 2019 elections suffered great attrition. False and misleading information, promoted as gospel truth, was amplified by supporters of the two major parties in Nigeria: the All Progressive Congress (APC) and the People's Democratic Party (PDP).
Based on ethnographic participant observation conducted between October 28, 2018, and May 29, 2019, ethnic hate was employed as a tool for disinformation and propaganda by both sides of the political divide on Twitter Nigeria during the 2019 presidential elections. These observations were captured as screengrabs of tweets or saved URLs collected over this period.
In terms of ethnically-charged disinformation, some APC supporters accused Obi of being a bigot for purportedly deporting northerners while he was governor of Anambra State, in southeast Nigeria. Tweets went viral that claimed that Yoruba people were burning shops of Igbo traders in Lagos. Both stories were false and will be explored further in Part II of this essay.
Figure 1: Misinformed propaganda tweet by Festus Keyamo
Figure 2: The true location of the image that Keyamo shared.
In another example, a photograph was used to misconstrue facts. On October 28, 2018, Festus Keyamo, then-media director of the Buhari Campaign Organisation, tweeted an image (Figure 1) of a tree growing between an apparently abandoned Nigerian rail track: “This is how trees grew in-between rail tracks between 1999 and 2015… Now, this is the ‘Completion Era’ as the tracks are beginning to roar back to life.” The PDP government was in power between 1999 and 2015.
However, a Nigerian Twitter user later traced back the image to an original Arabic-language tweet (Figure 2) posted earlier that same month. According to the tweet, the photo is from Lebanon.
Keyamo's intention may have been to show that the Buhari government had surpassed previous administrations on the revamping of the morbid rail lines in the country. However, the use of an image from a different country made the so-called “gains” questionable.
Figure 3: Ethnic hate speech
Figure 4: El-Rufai later apologized for the “insensitive” tweet shown in Figure 3.
Online ethnic hate speech was also pronounced before, during and after the elections. In an ethnic slurred tweet (Figure 3) Bashir El-Rufai, son of the Kaduna State Governor, inferred that the Nigerian Civil War was ignited by the Igbo vengeance.
Between 1967 and 1970, Nigeria fought a bitter civil war with the secessionist state of Biafra inhabited mostly by the Igbo in the southeastern part of the country.
Hence, according to Bashir El-Rufai, the result of the 2019 elections which was won by his party, the APC, should also be taken as a sweet “revenge” from the Hausa, Fulani. He later apologized, after a backlash, for his previous “insensitive” tweet as shown in Figure 4. He also deleted the earlier tweet (Figure 3).
Ethnic-motivated false information on social media during the elections falls into two categories: disinformation and propaganda.
Miroslav Tudjman and Nives Mikelic, communication scholars at the University of Zagreb, Croatia, define disinformation as “intentionally deputed mistaken information with the purpose to mislead the user.” Hence, the intention to pass across inaccurate, distorted and false evidence as true, distinguishes dis-information from misinformation.
Tudjman and Mikelic assert that propaganda is much more than disinformation or misinformation. This is because propaganda “aims to manipulate the attitudes of the user” through an “accidental or intentional handling with information in [the] communication process.” Thus, propaganda weaponizes biased or inaccurate information for political interests and consequently manipulates perception.
Justifiable fears emerged surrounding 2019 elections because online disinformation and propaganda incites electoral violence but also poses “a threat to reconciliation after the elections.”
Part II of this essay will examine how this played out online, especially on Twitter, with specific examples.
This article is part of a series of posts examining interference with digital rights through methods such as network shutdowns and disinformation during key political events in seven African countries: Algeria, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tunisia, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. The project is funded by the Africa Digital Rights Fund of The Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA).

author: Nwachukwu Egbunike


text:
Bangladeshi migrant domestic workers are returning from Saudi Arabia with shocking tales of abuse · Global Voices
পান্থ রহমান রেজা (Pantha)

A human chain in Dhaka to protest the torture of Bangladeshi female domestic workers in Saudi Arabia. Photo by Ekramul Haque. Used with permission.
They had high hopes for a better life and a chance to lift their families out of poverty. Many traveled to Saudi Arabia as domestic workers, paying money to agents in order to realize their dreams. But their dreams were shattered as they encountered various forms of domestic abuse including sexual harassment. Unable to continue, many of these domestic workers ran away from their employers and were forced to return home. So far this year, 900 female domestic workers have returned from Saudi Arabia before the end of their contracts. And the number of female domestic workers who have returned prematurely in the last four years is above 6,000.
It's not just the physical, mental or sexual abuse cases. More than 100 Bangladeshi maids have died in the Middle East during the first nine months of 2019 — including 36 who committed suicide.
In the past few years, a lot of online videos have surfaced telling tales of abuse towards these domestic workers.
Recently, a video went viral of a Bangladeshi maid in Saudi Arabia making a desperate plea to be taken home while hiding from her abusers inside a toilet.
25-year-old Sumi Akter said that she was physically and sexually assaulted by her employers, who had poured hot oil on her arms. She had been held captive for 15 days and barely had any food.
After returning to Bangladesh, another female migrant described that she was treated like a slave:
[…] After arriving in Saudi Arabia, I was first sold to a landlord. I escaped from that house after a lot of domestic abuse. Then they caught me and resold me to a company at 6 lakh Bangladeshi Taka (USD 7,000). I know that there are a few hundred more girls like me out there who are forced to prostitution. I managed to call home to my husband once and told him everything. Then he contacted the Bangladesh Embassy in Saudi Arabia and finally, I was rescued.
BRAC is known as the is the largest non-governmental development organisation in the world, which also works with the migrant workers in Bangladesh. They published a short film about female Bangladeshi migrant workers in Saudi Arabia which narrates the abuse many face:
The only recourse for this abuse is to report to the police which is a challenge due to language issues. In addition, as per the Ambassador of Bangladesh in Saudi Arabia, many victims become so traumatized that they want to return home quickly and many don't stay longer for the litigation process. So more often than not, action isn't taken against the abuser. According to the Bangladeshi ambassador, the Saudi Arabian government has been informed of these cases.
Since the 1970s, a large number of Bangladeshi male migrant workers have traveled to Saudi Arabia in search of work. However, despite the history of females joining the Bangladeshi migrant workforce being much shorter, today their numbers are substantial. Since 2015, there are more than 200,000 Bangladeshi housemaids in Saudi Arabia.
Cases of corporal abuse against members of the estimated 9 million migrant worker population in Saudi Arabia have caught public attention over the years. Earlier, Indonesia and the Philippines were the main sources of female domestic workers in Saudi Arabia. But, in 2015, citing cases of abuse and torture, Indonesia banned sending female workers to Saudi Arabia. Sri Lanka and the Philippines had stopped sending female workers earlier than that. The Saudi labour market had been closed to Bangladesh since 2008; however, in 2015, Saudi Arabia offered to hire workers from Bangladesh with a 2:1 male-female ratio. The Bangladeshi government agreed to the proposal and an official base salary of 800 Saudi Arabian Riyals (US$ 213) per month for female workers was set — much less than what the Filipinos or the Indonesians were getting.
A Saudi Gazette report stated that housemaids from Bangladesh were the most in-demand in Saudi Arabia as their recruitment was the cheapest.
There has been a lot of debate in the country after the rise of female workers returning to Bangladesh. Columnist Syed Ishtiaq Reza condemns sending women to Saudi Arabia in the name of boosting the economy:
The country's economy is indeed enriched by exporting manpower abroad. The economy of Bangladesh depends heavily on these foreign currency earnings. But the question is, should we continue to turn a blind eye to these abuses for the sake of the adverse impact on our economy it can bring? My question to the nation – What are the legal rights of these abused female workers? What platform they can lean on to defend themselves and their rights and finally get justice?
Muntaha Jahan tweeted:
সৌদি আরব থেকে গত ৩১ অক্টোবর দুপুরে গৃহকর্মী পারভিন আক্তারের লাশ দেশে আসে। তাঁর মৃত্যুসনদে লেখা ছিল ‘আত্মহত্যা।যদিও এটি মানতে পারছেন না পরিবারের সদস্যরা। তাঁদের দাবি,আরবে যাওয়ার পর থেকে তিনি অসংখ্যবার ফোনে নির্যাতনের অভিযোগ করেছিলেন।
সৌদিতে কোনো নারী যেন কাজে না যায়?? pic.twitter.com/U98B3logXr
— মুনতাহা জাহান (@montahajahan) November 3, 2019
On 31 October the dead-body of female domestic worker Parvin Akter was flown back to Bangladesh from Saudi Arabia. Her death certificate mentioned “suicide”. But her family members don't buy this. They say that she many times complained of abuses in her workplace.
I wish no more female worker would go to Saudi Arabia, ever. ??
Dr. M R Karim Reza asked the government why they are not doing enough to change the situation:
বর্বর সৌদি রাজ্যে নারী গৃহকর্মী প্রেরণ বন্ধ করার জন্য প্রয়োজনীয় ব্যবস্থা নিচ্ছে না কেন সরকার?
— Dr. M R Karim Reza (@Rezaderma) October 28, 2019
Why the government is not taking steps to stop sending female domestic workers to barbaric Saudi Arabia?
According to Selim Reza, secretary of the Expatriates’ Welfare Ministry, the Bangladeshi government has set up safe houses in Saudi Arabia for abused women and has taken steps to blacklist and sue “bad employers”.
Amidst all this, Bangladesh is not ready to stop the manpower export to Saudi Arabia said it's foreign minister. Journalist Ishrat Jahan Urmi wrote on Facebook:
## [..] Today, the Foreign Minister mentioned that thousands of workers are going to Saudi Arabia. He asked – “How many have complained that we should stop the market? What is the percentage?”
## The dead bodies that have returned had death certificates mentioning the cause of death as “suicide” or “heart attack”. The investigation stops there. The Saudi nationals are above law.
## A Saudi landlord has to pay expenses and fees of 170,000 BDT (USD 2,000) to get a Bangladeshi maid. They deem that they have bought a slave and can do anything with her.
## Many sexually abused workers return home only to find that her family doesn't want her back (stigma against raped women). This year the BRAC safe home program helped around 1300 female returnees.
## Above all we have our privileged society. [..] They think that these poor women are greedy and they go abroad for anything. These people are plenty in this society.
Against all these odds, we want that the export of female workers to Saudi Arabia be stopped. I don't know whether this cry would be heard by many. But what more can we do?

author: পান্থ রহমান রেজা (Pantha)


text:
Bulgarian prosecutor refuses far-right party’s request to close down human rights NGO · Global Voices
Filip Stojanovski

The seat of VMRO-BND in the center of Bulgarian capital Sofia. Photo by Filip Stojanovski, CC-BY.
Bulgaria's chief prosecutor Sotir Tsatsarov refused a request by far-right nationalist party VMRO-BND to shut down the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee (BHC), a leading human rights NGO in the country.
On September 30, Angel Dzhambazki, deputy chairman of VMRO-BND and member of the European Parliament, and Alexander Sidi, a Bulgarian MP, filed an official request with the prosecutor to dissolve the BHC for “interfering with the judiciary” and engaging in “anti-constitutional, illegal, immoral and openly anti-Bulgarian activities,” a party press release said.
In a statement dated October 8, 2019, Tsatsarov said that BHC's statute doesn't include any forbidden activity by Bulgarian laws. A story by the popular private  Nova Television said:
Главният прокурор може да поиска заличаване на неправителствена организация, само при данни, че тя е свързана с терористична дейност или финансиране на такава, уточняват от обвинението.
The prosecutor-general may request removal of a non-governmental organization [from the official registry of NGOs] only if available evidence suggests that it has links to terrorist activities or financing of terrorist activity, his office explained.
VMRO-BND's officials said they will start legal proceedings to reverse the prosecutor's decision.
More than 100 organizations have expressed support for the BHC, among them Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. On October 7, Dzhambazki, who was an unsuccessful mayoral candidate in Sofia in elections held on October 27, stated on a TV interview that “more organizations spoke out, about a hundred. I think all of them needed to be closed down as well.”
VMRO's request to de-register the BHC came after a high court granted parole to Jock Palfreeman, a 32-year-old Australian citizen who had been sentenced to 20 years in prison for killing a Bulgarian student during a brawl in Sofia, in 2007. The Bulgarian Helsinki Committee provided legal aid to Palfreeman, who has served 11 years of his sentence and maintains he has acted in self-defense.
Since his arrest, the case has been a polarizing issue in Bulgaria. VMRO-BND claims the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee has influenced the outcome of the case because the judges involved had attended human rights workshops organized by the NGO. After Palfreeman was given parole in September, nationalist far-right organizations have staged a series of street protests in reprisal.
BHC President Krasimir Kanev says that the NGO's activities consist of advocating for human rights in prisons and that has been misconstrued by VMRO's leaders as the same as shielding criminals from the law.
In the meantime, while Palfreeman's parole included an order of deportation to Australia, he has been detained in a Sofia immigration detention center since his release on September 19. On a statement dated October 8, Human Rights Watch demanded Bulgarian authorities to clarify the basis of his detention:
“Palfreeman was ordered released by a high court in a final decision not subject to appeal. He has his passport and plane ticket. Australia wants him back. Why is he still detained?” said Lydia Gall, senior Eastern Europe and Balkans researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Under the rule of law, you can’t just lock people up or prevent them from leaving just to make a point – there has to be a clear legal basis or it’s unlawful.”
VMRO-BND is allegedly one of the wealthiest political parties in Bulgaria, owning prime real-estate obtained with the help of the state in the 1990s. In 2014, it joined a coalition of nationalist parties called the Patriotic Front and, in 2017, that coalition joined the current Bulgarian government led by the center-right Prime Minister Boyko Borisov.

author: Filip Stojanovski


text:
‘Hypersensitive’ or ‘horror’? Trinidad church mired in fashion show controversy · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

The Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral in Port of Spain, Trinidad, neo-gothic in architectural style. Photo by David Stanley, CC BY 2.0.
On the evening of November 2, 2019, a fashion show was held at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Trinidad's capital, Port of Spain — but once the scantily clad models turned the church aisles into a catwalk, what began as an effort to help raise funds for repairs to the nearly 200-year-old landmark after it was damaged during the country's 2018 earthquake, ended in heated discussions over respect — and respectability politics.
Churches and fashion may be less of an oxymoron than you think. Like most Caribbean countries, Trinidad and Tobago is heavily religious, and churches often act as community gathering places to host a range of events that go well beyond traditional religious services.
Last year, for instance, the Carnival band K2K Alliance and Partners produced a visually stunning portrayal called “Through Stained Glass Windows”. The launch of the band's presentation took place at the All Saints Anglican Church, a smaller chapel bordering the city's main green space, and it was a tremendous success, with a portion of the proceeds going toward the church restorations.
A screenshot of the front page of the Daily Express, dated November 4, 2019, which highlights some of the swimwear on display.
It seemed a solid fundraising model: repurpose a beautiful public space for a good cause, attract an audience that can pay a premium for the performance, and put the proceeds toward maintaining the architectural integrity of the church. There was just one problem — church officials who approved the event did not anticipate that the organisers would sanction the kind of outfits and swimwear on display.
In a statement posted to the cathedral's Facebook page, Anglican bishop Claude Berkley apologised for “the misuse of the consecrated space within the Holy Trinity Cathedral, at a recently hosted fashion show”:
The depiction of scantily clad models parading along the aisle of the Church offended individual and collective sensibilities locally and internationally. […] Such a parade is completely out of order, inappropriate and it is strongly condemned. Our church has hosted fashion shows in the past and we have never come to this sad deterioration of respect and modesty. I am reliably informed that firm guidelines were in effect with the primary organizer, but that there was a deviation from the agreed guidelines. At the first sight of this deviation, the show should have been shut down. […]
Even though the church might promote the positive aspects of the culture in which it witnesses, due care must be taken to ensure that participants do not cross the line into negativity and impropriety.
Although the event's spokespeople praised the Anglican church for its progressiveness and lashed out at critics by suggesting those who took offence were “hypersensitive”, Christopher Nathan, the original creator of Style Week, quickly apologised, explaining that while he respected the need for artistic freedom, revealing looks should have been adjusted or omitted, given the location.
A screenshot of the front page of the Trinidad & Tobago Guardian, dated November 4, 2019, depicting some of the swimwear on display.
While most social media users were outraged at what they deemed disrespectful and inappropriate, the discussion also veered toward other issues.
A lot of time was spent apportioning blame — first to the designer, who some felt was going for “shock value”, then to the church itself for granting permission; others felt the media was just as complicit by splashing the images all over the front page.
Terms like “horror”, “blasphemy” and “last days” were bandied about, prompting some social media users to raise the issue of pedophilia [in the Catholic church], saying this fashion show “pales in comparison”.
Facebook user Jude Persad suggested the display was a commentary on the wider Carnival culture:
If they could jump carnival almost naked and go for ashes they could walk practically naked in the church.
Trinidad and Tobago's annual Carnival celebrations — a hallmark of which is a colourful array of barely-there costumes — take place each year on the Monday and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, which marks the start of the Lenten season. On Ash Wednesday, Christians, many of whom would have participated in the national festival, attend mass to receive ashes.
Prior to Bishop Berkley's statement, some online commenters attempted to explain what happened by pointing out differences between the Anglican and Roman Catholic faiths:
‘The Catholic Church acknowledges the presence of Christ at the altar while the Anglican Church doesn’t. Therefore the Anglican Church wouldn’t have an issue hosting a fashion show in the actual church building. There are actually a series of secular concerts in an Anglican Church in the UK (the home of the Church) this Christmas.’ [Original source of quotation unclear.]
Interestingly, Clifford Rawlins, a minister in the Pentecostal faith, weighed in on Facebook:
Christianity in T&T is influenced by Hinduism and Islam and many a time the value systems of all three religions crossthread and the generally ignorant and undiscerning public can hardly make out any differences and often assume that all religions preach the same things about dress and morals etc. […] As the Guardian newspaper article quoted the fashion house in question, no one need be ashamed of the human body which is created in the image of God. Our ideas from Islam and Hinduism are that it should be covered up to prevent the ‘sin’ of lust and the all-dreaded sexual activity, and that it is a thing to be ashamed of, stemming too from Jewish thought. If people can wear swimsuits at the beach and, the whole Earth is the Lord's where nothing is hidden from him, then why not in a human-made church building used for a secular purpose? […]
We ought not look at one through the eyes and lenses of another […] things can become too confused in the crossthreading of value systems and many get lost in the all too ready hurl of social media obsecrations and deprecations.
No sooner had the media got hold of Rawlins’ interpretation of the controversy than the Presbyterian Church of Trinidad and Tobago (PCTT) issued a statement distancing itself from his comments:
The said ‘Reverend Rawlins’ is not a PCTT Minister and has no authority to speak on the PCTT’s behalf. […]
The PCTT respects the sanctity of places of worship.
Quite apart from the religious discussion, however, the incident has raised questions about the idea of public spaces, how they might be adapted for different purposes and how such flexibility should be managed.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


text:
Racehorse slaughter divides nation over iconic Melbourne Cup · Global Voices
Kevin Rennie

Campaign poster. Courtesy of Coalition for the Protection of Racehorses.
Australia’s iconic horserace, the Melbourne Cup, has copped considerable criticism in 2019 following a recent story by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s 7.30 program.
The Final Race: The dark side of the horse racing industry exposed disturbing details about the disposal of retired thoroughbreds for food for human consumption. It showed video footage of so-called ‘wastage’ of those horses that were no longer required. It showed their slaughter in an abattoir with animals being beaten, given electric shocks and “trapped and trampled’. It claimed that up to 4000 horses disappear each year, a figure that has been disputed by racing authorities such as Racing Victoria.
Many viewers found the segment extremely distressing. This reaction to a short Facebook version echoed their feelings:
Peter Gill: I was going to go to the Melbourne cup this year the first time in 67 years I've just canceled I couldn't support such a horrible industry
The numbers were disputed by industry bodies such as Racing Victoria. Nevertheless, shortly afterwards they announced a $AU 25 million [USD 17 million] racehorse welfare program.
A number of related issues have been highlighted in the wake of the scandal. Injuries and deaths related to the running of the Cup have been an ongoing concern. The on course putting down of horses with broken bones has focused public attention on this side of the race and horse racing in general.
Calls to end the use of whips by jockeys during races have multiplied, with many expecting the practice to be banned in the near future:
#sportslaw animal welfare and sport, Melbourne Cup: Horseracing whips likely to be banned in future due to ‘perception problem’, official says https://t.co/E6bO69FagB via @abcnews
— Melbourne Sports Law (@sportslawMELB) November 4, 2019
Satirical video makers The Juice Media added this scathing response as part of their Honest Government Ad series:
Zushan Hashmi gave his assessment at online sports analysis site Sportageous:
It may never be the case though that people across the country and around the world, view this as the brutal sport that it is, simply because there is too much money, fun and entertainment involved.
The Coalition for the Protection of Racehorses suggested ways to take action including alternative events for the day and joining protests. There were protests at race meetings and during the Cup parade. Some tweets believed the negative media was having a real effect:
I have worked across the road from a pub for the last 10 years. Every #MelbourneCup day it’s mayhem, people queued outside to place bets from very early. This year not even a handful of people inside putting bets on. #NupToTheCup
— Trudi (@trudeofthecluse) November 5, 2019
Their twitter hashtag #NupToTheCup jockeyed for popularity throughout the day occasionally nosing in front of #MelbourneCup2019. These contrasting tweets show the opposing views very clearly:
WRONG#NupToTheCup pic.twitter.com/TdjtjLEeyK
— Hypocrite Free Zone ?? (@NotfakenewsMiss) November 4, 2019
I ❤ the #MelbourneCup2019 . Best time of the year. Great races , great stories. From the hard working #strappers to the #trainers you work hard for a living. It’s been a tough year but if only people knew how much you care about the horses you look after. #longlivehorseracing pic.twitter.com/FKG3EKXBLw
— Ivo da Silva (@Freoboy79) November 4, 2019
Traditionally, Cup Day stops the nation with much of the State of Victoria taking a public holiday and even Federal parliament adjourning to watch the race when it's sitting. This year attendance on course was 81,408, the lowest in 24 years despite sunny, dry weather. The record is 2003 with 122,736. The national TV audience was also much lower than recent years.
Gambling has also been affected with nationwide betting turnover reported to be nearly 6% lower than in 2018.
The race result itself was a public relations plus for Cup organisers. The winner, Vow and Declare, is the first local since 2009. It is a local horse with an Australian trainer, jockey and owners. At this stage, only one serious injury has been reported, with Rostropovich sustaining a pelvic fracture. He is expected to recover.
One netizen has some advice for those who might be troubled by this:
If you won money on the last placed Rostropovich, in an office sweep, consider donating it to an animal welfare charity. #MelbourneCup2019 #MelbCupCarnival
— geewhizz (@G19971998) November 5, 2019
[Racing sweeps are explained here.]
The controversy will no doubt reignite next racing spring carnival.

author: Kevin Rennie