text:
Netizen Report: Uganda Vows to Step Up Online Censorship · Global Voices
Netizen Report Team

Telco ad on a van in Kampala, Uganda. Photo by futureatlas.com via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
A series of recent stories on Internet policy in Uganda paints a grim picture of the online-speech environment in the country. On October 6, Internal Affairs Minister James Baba announced plans to enforce new regulations governing the use of social media for Ugandans. Little more is known about the regulations at present, but the bill likely bodes poorly for Uganda’s tense speech environment. Advocates at Unwanted Witness, a local human rights and free expression organization, worry that the law will compound the chilling effects of already-existing cyber laws in the country such as the Computer Misuse Act, the Anti-Pornography law and the Communications Act.
Meanwhile, new research from the London-based advocacy group Privacy International shows that the Ugandan government purchased the invasive spying software FinFisher in an effort to eavesdrop on the communications of opposition politicians and supporters, journalists, and activists. Documents show that President Yoweri Museveni launched Operation Fungua Macho (“open your eyes”) in response to widespread political unrest that erupted over alleged corruption, police brutality, and high living costs following the 2011 election.
These stories come as no surprise to Ugandan journalists and media freedom advocates who have long faced harassment and legal threats from authorities as a result of their reporting.
After 18 months in prison, four of Ethiopia’s Zone9 bloggers were acquitted of terrorism charges brought because of their writings on social and political issues in Ethiopia. Three were released on October 19, while Befeqadu Hailu was released on bail on October 21. The Global Voices community welcomed the news and has pledged to keep fighting for the cause of free expression in Ethiopia and around the world. Community members stressed the importance of supporting other bloggers and tech experts currently facing criminal charges in Ethiopia, such as Zelalem Workagenegu, a blogger who was jailed after applying to participate in a social media and digital tools training.
A Myanmar citizen was arrested on October 15 for sharing on Facebook a photo of a man stomping on a portrait of military Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing. The man in the photo was wearing a Kachin-style longyi, a traditional sarong-like garment worn in the ethnic minority region of Kachin, where an armed independence movement has been under way since the 1940s. Police told regional news outlet The Irawaddy that Patrick Khum Jaa Lee, who is the husband of a well-known Kachin women’s rights and peace activist May Sabe Phyu, has been charged under Myanmar’s Telecommunications Law after an army colonel filed suit against him.
Tanzania is testing out its recently passed Cybercrimes Act, charging two citizens for posts on Facebook. In one case, a student was charged for publishing information that was “false or not verified by relevant authorities.” The post in question alleged that Tanzania’s Chief of Defence forces had been hospitalized after consuming food that had been poisoned. In the other, the individual was charged with “misuse of the Internet” for a post saying Tanzania’s Prime Minister “will only become a gospel preacher.” Little more is currently known about either case.
Ukraine's law enforcement ranks will soon feature a special division tasked with preventing cyberthreats and apprehending criminals in the information sphere. In an announcement on Facebook, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said new cyberpolice officers, who will work as part of the Ministry of Interior, will deal with Internet and digital crimes including scheming, cash-trapping, carding, phishing, online money laundering, digital piracy, card sharing, malware and even less tangible crimes such as social engineering.
Ellery Roberts Biddle, Hae-in Lim and Sarah Myers West contributed to this report.

author: Netizen Report Team


text:
Overturning Lower Court, Maldives Supreme Court Saves Convicted Adulteress From Being Stoned to Death · Global Voices
Rezwan

Jumhooree Maidan (Independence Square). Male's central square with the giant flagpole and the Shaheed Hussain Adam Building in the background, Male. Wikimedia Commons by Jpatokal. CC BY-SA.
The Maldives’ Supreme Court has acted swiftly to overturn an island court's decision to execute a woman for adultery. The woman had been sentenced to be stoned to death. According to the Supreme Court, the lower court's ruling violated the “judicial and legal procedures to be followed in such cases.”
The Republic of Maldives is an archipelago of more than 1,110 islands in the Indian Ocean with a population of roughly 400,000 people.
On Sunday, October 18, 2015, the magistrate court of the remote island Gemanafushi (400 kilometers south of the country's capital, Male) sentenced a woman (a mother of five, no less) to death by stoning. According to the news website Haveeru, the woman confessed to the crime after giving birth out of wedlock. In the Maldives, the usual punishment for unlawful sexual intercourse is imprisonment for 6-to-24 months, depending on the offender's marital status.
News of the death sentence evoked surprise and outrage on social media:
A sad day for Maldives for the first time in the over 800 yrs Islamic history of Maldives a woman has been sentenced to death by stoning.
— Ahmed Naseem (@KerafaNaseem) October 18, 2015
Planning a holiday in the Maldives? Then don't, unless you agree with stoning women to death #boycottMaldives
— Ｓｕｅ Ｖｅｎｅｅｒ (@sueveneer) October 18, 2015
Luxury honeymoon on one island, gun-running on next, stoning women on next, gang retreat next, jihadist camp next…#IslandHopping #Maldives
— AzraNaseem (@Manje) October 20, 2015
Writing on Facebook, Amani Naseem described her frustration with the ruling and the “horror” to come:
First time in the history of Maldives a woman has been sentenced to death by stoning, it is a very sad and shameful day.
I wish I could be in Malé to protest this horror. Please don't let them kill her!.
According to a report in the online newspaper Maldives Independent, the verdict was issued under section 1205 of the penal code, which states that Islamic Sharia punishments must be meted out to persons found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of committing a crime for which punishment is prescribed in the Sharia law, “even if it is stated otherwise in criminal laws.” The penal code previously allowed only punishments prescribed in the Holy Quran and there is no reference to stoning in the Quran.
The Maldivian Penal system is predicated on Islamic Sharia Law with mix of English common laws. The Maldivian Courts limit punishment to the following:
1. Fines
2. Compensation payment
3. House Arrest, Imprisonment
4. Flogging
5. Banishment to remote island
According to a recent legal amendment, the Supreme Court must pass a final judgment on all cases where the defendant is convicted of offenses carrying penalties prescribed in Islamic Sharia.
Iyaz, a senior member of the religious conservative Adhaalath Party, praised the “courage” of the magistrate court, which ordered the adulteress stoned to death.
The Secular Democratic Maldives Movement said on Facebook:
Death by stoning: Literature shows that not all Islamic scholars agree on the penalty of death by stoning, sanctioned for hadd or hudud offenses.
Voice of Women, an Women's rights organization, said:
This sentence comes at a time of increased national and international pressure on the government of Maldives regarding conduct of the judges, questionable judicial impartiality, arbitrariness and general lack of confidence in the judiciary of Maldives
There are still 15 countries that practice or formally permit stoning to death women who have premarital sex.
Maldives emerged from decades of authoritarian rule in 2008, when it saw a new democratic constitution and the first multi-party elections, with Mohamed Nasheed being elected as president. But the country’s transition to democracy faced a setback in 2012, after Mr. Nasheed’s government was forced from office in an uprising, which some call a coup. New elections brought to power Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom, the half brother of former ruler Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who ruled the Maldives for three decades until 2008 and his party's political alliance, the increasingly powerful Adhaalath Islamic political party.
Maldives police drag former President Mohamed Nasheed into court. Image by Shirukhan Adam. Copyright Demotix. February 23, 2015.
Last March, former President Mohamed Nasheed was jailed for 13 years, after being convicted under the country's anti-terrorism laws for ordering the arrest of an allegedly corrupt judge in 2012.
Reports say the country is slowly sliding back into authoritarianism.
Velezinee Aishath writes on Facebook:
Supreme Court nullification of sentence to stone a woman to death shows;
1. Gov can, and do, order SC what to do.
2. Gov is feeling international pressure and don't want any more trouble.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Rezwan


text:
Two Sides of the Reality: A Summer Lesson in Chios Island · Global Voices
Artemis Touli

A family of refugees sits on the ground in Piraeus Harbour, watching out towards the sea, waiting for the bus to bring them to the metro station. Photo by Michael Debets Copyright Demotix (28/9/2015).
By Artemis Touli
This summer was a hard one—and please, let's not start with the typical, “Come on, it's still September….” Summer has ended; autumn is here. And this past summer brought a lesson that will continue through autumn and winter and long after, as long as the misery inside and outside our country persists.
Amidst the whole universe of crisis, polarization, destitution and resentment in Greece, we had a tourist season here in Chios that wasn't in crisis at all, and I can attest to that as an eyewitness.
And then came the vast numbers of refugees. Or “illegal migrants”? Immigrants? I will simply call them “hunted people”, people seeking hope. And added to the local people's need to survive was that of the foreigners. And then they became one.
Every day at Chios Port there's the same image repeats itself: the Coast Guard patrol vessels bring ashore the people they collected during previous night and early morning. The same is done by small boats sailing from Psara and Egnousa, two small islands near Chios. Throughout the summer, the disembarkations were taking place in the daytime and early evening at every beach across the Turkish shores. Some time afterwards, buses would arrive to collect the people and transfer them to Port Authorities, where the Red Cross was on hand to offer first aid or any other medical help.
Every morning, the port becomes one giant drying rack piled with clothes, shoes and personal items that sundown will find dried, packed into backpacks and moving on to their trip of hope. Every day, the same people  guard the coastline on rotating shifts, collect castaways, register them, provide them with the necessary documentation and allow them to continue their trip of hope. Every day. Every morning. At the port. Port authorities, Red Cross workers, volunteers, rescuers. Simple everyday people that go to Chios Public Garden and donate whatever they can afford.
Of course, there are instances of misconduct, misbehavior and disasters. People disappear among the crowds, quarrels take place, innocent souls are punished for something outside their control. But we shouldn't forget, for any reason, that there are some people on duty 24 hours a day, every day, who save others. We see them every day. Every morning. We shouldn't let anything prevent their work.
One day I met a Syrian couple looking for a bureau de change. It was Sunday. They asked what country this was, and its currency—they thought they had landed in Italy. Moreover, since many refugees arrive at Turkish coastline at night, they are told, as make the crossing, that they are merely traversing a big river. One of the most emotional moments I've experienced was when a refugee asked me if there was a mosque on the island, because he wanted to pray. I felt badly that all I could tell him was that “Yes, one exists, but you can't even get close to it, because it's permanently ‘under construction’.” The images and experiences are many and will stay forever in our memories, because it was a different season, a different summer than usual, and it changed all our ideas and perspectives.
Summer passed. And we learnt how to be human, we learnt to organize our needs; we learnt that there are always worse situations than ours, and and that nothing in life should be taken for granted. We learnt that if we have something spare, we should give it to our neighbor, whoever that happens to be, and not throw it away. We learnt to throw nothing away and re-use everything. We saw both sides of the reality.
This article was originally published in Greek on the portal StasiNews.

author: Artemis Touli


text:
What You Need to Know About Russian Social Networks to Conduct Open-Source Research · Global Voices
Aric Toler

Image created by Kevin Rothrock.
This article is part of a larger guidebook by RuNet Echo to help people learn how to conduct open-source research on the Russian Internet. Explore the complete guidebook at the special project page.
Outside of the familiar English-language social networks of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and too many more to name, there is a handful of social media platforms used either exclusively or primarily in the post-Soviet world. While the instructions and tips laid out here are meant specifically for Russia's homegrown social networks, the general approach is the same for research conducted on any such website—especially regional networks.
Contents
VK is by far the most important and popular social network in Russia and Ukraine. The same is true in Belarus, Kazakhstan, and other Russian-speaking former Soviet states. In 2014, there were more than 60 million VK users in Russia, compared with only 10 million Facebook users. Learning the ins and outs of this social network is essential in conducting open-source research on the RuNet.
Because you need to have an account on VK to access much of the information available on the website, you should register an account, if you do not already have one. If you are using VK purely for monitoring and research, there is no need to enter your real name or personal details—all you need is a valid phone number to receive a confirmation SMS.
You must have a way to receive an SMS message to confirm your account.
The account-setup process is very similar to Facebook's, with user-inputted personal information, pictures, a place for “posts” (similar to a Facebook timeline), and a list of friends. Note some of the highlighted sections in the image below, which are of use when tracking Russian, Ukrainian, and separatist soldiers, for instance:
The search functions on VK are much more robust than on Facebook, and very easy to use. If you were to look for soldiers from Pskov, Russia serving in 2014, the search parameters below yield numerous results:
You can also use more advanced options in specific cases, to narrow your results to show just users with certain kinds of employment, military service, or education, past or present. For example, if you wanted to conduct research on corruption in Kyiv, you could search for specific job titles, such as civil clerks, police officers, judges, and so on, then scavenge the available open-source information to find signs of conspicuous wealth or lavish trips.
In the example below, the search parameters are set for residents of Kyiv who list “police” (милиция) in their employment field.
Of course, not every one of these results will be police officers. For example, one search result is someone who is part of the “Group for the Support of the Police,” and is likely not an actual police officer. Additionally, there are hundreds of other police officers who are simply not on VK, or did not list their job titles in searchable fields. If you're looking for someone who isn't discoverable using this kind of search, it's important to track networks of contacts (partners, relatives, colleagues, and so on) who might provide more information for your research topic.
Odnoklassniki is the second-most popular social network in Russia. Like VKontakte, Odnoklassniki is very popular in post-Soviet, Russian-speaking countries, including Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Georgia. In 2014, Odnoklassniki had around 40 million registered users in Russia and 65 million in total. The service's users are typically older and more likely to be women than any other Russian social network.
Registering for Odnoklassniki is a bit easier than VK, since you do not need to provide SMS confirmation. However, unlocking extra account features requires SMS confirmation.
After registering, you will be greeted by the home page, which looks quite a bit different than VK (and, by extension, Facebook).
Odnoklassniki is unique among modern social networks in that it provides users with the identities of people who visit their accounts pages. Therefore, if you are trying to conduct a discreet open-source investigation, it is important either to search anonymously, or to “Enable Invisible Mode.”
Browsing Odnoklassniki anonymously, however, is not free—it costs “OKs,” a sort of digital currency on the site.
100 OKs, which allows 50 days of anonymous use, costs 100 rubles (not even $2). You can buy these credits with a variety of payment methods, including credit cards.
Like VK, Odnoklassniki has a robust set of search parameters:
The third-most popular Russian social network is Moi Mir, an offshoot of the Mail.ru web service, not unlike the relationship of Google+ to Gmail. As of 2014, Moi Mir had about 25 million Russian users—roughly the same number of active Russian Facebook users in the same year.
Moi Mir users set up their accounts through a Mail.ru e-mail address. As with Odnoklassniki, no SMS verification is required to complete registration on Moi Mir:
After selecting “Join now” on the signup screen, registration for a Moi Mir account is complete.
As with Odnoklassniki, optional account verification via SMS will unlock a Moi Mir account's full features, but this isn't necessary to use the site's basic features.
The search functionality of Moi Mir has many of the same features as VK and Odnoklassniki, but it is clearly aimed at being more of a dating site. Many of the search parameters are based on physical appearance, or (in what is likely unique for any social network) the user’s “Chronotype,” signifying when someone typically wakes up and goes to sleep.
As you can see from the screenshots above, you need to be able either to read Russian or to copy and paste in Russian city names to search users based on location, as the site is not accessible in English.
***
These three social networks are the largest such websites specific to Russian and post-Soviet users, but Russians also use Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and other sites. There has been continued Russian-language growth on these networks from all angles, whether we're talking about the strong community of anti-Kremlin opposition users on Facebook, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov's infamous antics on Instagram, or popular pro-Kremlin Twitter accounts. If you want to conduct research using the networks with the largest numbers of ordinary Russian speakers, however, you need to gain some fluency in using VK, Odnoklassniki, and (to a lesser extent) Moi Mir.
Next week, the third installment to RuNet Echo's guidebook will outline how to conduct open-source research in Russian, without speaking Russian.

author: Aric Toler


text:
How Yarn Is Making a Difference in the Lives of Women in Nepal and India · Global Voices
Sarah Green

Photo by skinnydiver. CC0 Public Domain
Nicole Snow is an American entrepreneur and founder of Darn Good Yarn, an online creative lifestyle and yarn trade platform that connects women across the globe. Nicole’s initiative has helped Nepalese and Indian craftswomen distribute quality yarn and goods worldwide and turn their traditional skills into economically viable entrepreneurial ideas.
Darn Good Yarn hand-selects more than 300 skillful women from India and Nepal to work on collecting and recycling textile waste and produce high-quality yarns. This way, the manufactured waste that would otherwise be sent to landfills is re-purposed to provide raw goods, while the distribution of the products takes place online via the company website, Amazon, or Etsy.
All these factors combined helped Darn Good Yarn grow from $16,000 company in 2008 to $1 million in 2015. Nicole talked about this recently at the US Chamber of Commerce Small Business Summit, where she said it took several years until she could start working on this particular project full time. Today, Darn Good Yarn has an active social following, does knitting and weaving classes in their facilities and plans to open a dedicated fiber studio.
I spoke with Nicole to learn more.
Sarah Green: A few weeks ago, New Delhi hosted a conference that gathered women entrepreneurs from South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) nations to help them promote their crafts and fabrics. Do you feel this initiative is related to what Darn Good Yarn does? How?
Nicole Snow: Both Darn Good Yarn and this conference share the same goal – encouraging Asian women to take a more active role in the economic development of their respective countries. By enabling them to build connections with other like-minded women and inspire each other, such initiatives create new business and social opportunities.
When I first traveled to Asia, I was amazed to see the extent to which the work of these women is underestimated.
They possess highly valuable skills and talents and it’s a shame that the world has insufficient understanding of it. I also noticed there is a lack to basic supply in the poorest regions of these countries. This exacerbates issues of under-employing these women.
This is why any initiative aimed at helping the world recognize such skills can make a great impact onto the way these women live and work. Similar to Darn Good Yarn, which is an online space for trading quality yarn, the New Delhi conference does something beyond simply creating marketing opportunities. It connects the two sides of the market and promotes valuable crafts by Nepalese and Indian women.
Sarah Green: Tell us more about the way Darn Good Yarn is changing social opportunities for women.
Nicole Snow: In addition to enabling women with similar interests to share their ideas, I think that Darn Good Yarn’s major value is the fact it managed to change the living for hundreds of women in Nepal and India.
Namely, when I first started collaborating with these women, their average salaries were less than $2 a day and now they earn $13-$16 a day!
All this was achieved by opening a global market for them using a single resource available to everyone – the Internet.
Sarah Green: You mentioned travelling to Asia. Is this when you first got the idea of starting Darn Good Yarn?
Nicole Snow: The very idea was conceived based on my personal experience with buying yarn. After leaving Air Force, I started being interested in knitting and realized that much of the yarn you can buy in the US stores is low quality. I started looking for a way to get better quality yarn for myself, which is how I discovered this huge market gap. The realization of the fact that its production in Nepal and India is highly underestimated only added up to my idea, enabling me to create something that has a market value and, at the same time, improves the living of other people.
I personally never expected that the project would be as successful and make such a deep impact on both yarn trade industry and economic opportunities for women in Nepal and India.
Sarah Green: Previously, women in Nepal and other Asian countries mainly produced clothing, food and jewelry for personal use or the use of their close community. Today, we’re seeing more innovative initiatives by women in these regions having a global impact. What has changed?
Nicole Snow: Like in most other industries, the availability of the Internet created new opportunities for product sales and promotions, which many women from these regions recognized. If I could pinpoint a single most important benefit the globalized village has brought about, it would definitely be the openness towards creative initiatives that finally found the medium to monetize their efforts.
Sarah Green: Being a woman entrepreneur yourself, what do you most frequently advise other young people when it comes to entrepreneurial opportunities? What if they are coming from conservative or otherwise constrained societies?
Nicole Snow: The easiest thing to say is that these women only need to focus on what they do best to eventually gain recognition for their work. However, the truth is that they need to go through various challenges and adopt new approaches to the world around themselves in order to succeed. They need to be ready to invest so much energy and time into creative processes that they will often feel completely powerless.
And it is this powerlessness that should inspire them for constant improvement. I believe everyone is powerful enough to make a significant change for themselves or the world around them, which is a fact they should never forget.

author: Sarah Green


text:
Ukraine’s New Banned Websites Registry: Security Measure or Censorship Tool? · Global Voices
Tanya Lokot

News of Ukraine's new banned websites registry has Internet users worried. Images mixed by Tetyana Lokot.
When Ukraine's Interior Minister announced the initiative to form a new cyberpolice unit on October 11, the focus of the media coverage—and of Minister Avakov's statement—was very much on fighting online crime and beefing up the information security practices of the Ukrainian government. The launch was touted as successful, with over three thousand Ukrainians applying to join the cyberpolice force in the first 24 hours after the announcement. But amid the robust response to plans for the cybercrime unit, an arguably less popular element of the initiative flew under many Ukrainians’ radars.
Along with other measures to improve information security, the Ministry plans to establish a registry of websites and webpages blocked for distributing “forbidden content.”
A slide from the Ukrainian cyberpolice launch presentation. Image from mvs.gov.ua.
Coming soon in the cyberpolice
The creation of online platforms for registration and further blocking of Internet resources that are used to distribute and share forbidden content.
The presentation slide featured above, which was published on the Interior Ministry's website, indicates that websites featuring pirated content violating copyright, child pornography, malware and viruses, and phishing content will be listed on the banned website registry. It's unclear whether social media websites, where any user can potentially upload these and other kinds of content, will bear the brunt of responsibility for these materials — they could be blacklisted and blocked in their entirety, or authorities could take a more nuanced approach, blocking only the pages with prohibited content. It is also unclear whether the cyberpolice forces will be required to seek court approval in order to add a site to the blacklist and subsequently block it, or if the blockings will occur extrajudicially.
The Internet blacklist mechanism is already broadly used in Russia, where many websites, media outlets, and social network pages have at one time or another ended up on the registry. RuNet Echo has covered many of these cases, where webpages were banned for anything from obscenities and celebrity memes to “extremist content” (a vague category that includes, for instance, this anti-fascist Disney cartoon). Wikipedia, Lurkmore, Facebook, VKontakte, YouTube, and Google+ have all appeared on the RuNet blacklist. RosComSvoboda, a Internet rights initiative monitoring content restrictions on the RuNet, estimates that hundreds of thousands of webpages with unquestionably legal content regularly end up on the blacklist due to vaguely worded laws and inconsistent implementation of the laws by regulators.
The self-proclaimed separatist Donetsk People's Republic in eastern Ukraine also got its own Internet blacklist in June 2015 to restrict access to pro-Ukrainian websites with “content banned in the republic.”
In January 2014, in the midst of the Euromaidan protests, Ukrainian lawmakers passed laws restricting online public space and introducing web blocking, along with a string of other measures limiting free expression and civic activity. The set of laws, ostensibly aimed at cracking down on the protesters, in many ways resembled similar Russian legal norms. Then-president Victor Yanukovych even signed the laws into effect, but the new norms angered the Euromaidan protesters and caused an uptick in protest activity, ultimately resulting in Yanukovich's exit and the repeal of the restrictive anti-protest legislation. Given Ukrainians’ reaction to the 2014 laws, the newly proposed banned websites registry is unlikely to get an enthusiastic response from Internet users.

author: Tanya Lokot


text:
Did a Russian Journalist Just Out Vladimir Putin’s Secret Daughter By Accident? · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

Daddy Vladimir. Image edited by Kevin Rothrock.
There’s a woman in Moscow who goes by the name Katerina Tikhonova. She works as the director of the Innopraktika Foundation, which is busy developing a real estate project at Moscow State University that’s estimated to be worth almost $2 billion. This week, on October 22, the news agency Interfax published an interview with Ms. Tikhonova, where she spoke at length about Innopraktika’s work with Moscow State University, explaining how her group is busy “establishing systematic interactions with the business community” and “analyzing” different groups’ opinions about the development project coming together at the school.
But nobody seems terribly interested in Tikhonova’s billion-dollar project. The one question on everyone’s mind was also the thing Interfax never asked her: is she the daughter of Russian President Vladimir Putin?
Speculation about Tikhonova’s “high birth” began in January this year, when journalist Oleg Kashin ran a story on his website claiming as much, following a large investigative report in RBC about Tikhonova’s development project at Moscow State University. Following Kashin’s claims, anonymous acquaintances of the Putin family allegedly confirmed to Reuters and Bloomberg that she is indeed Putin’s daughter. When reporters asked Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, about the rumors, Peskov said ambiguously, “I am unable to assess that.”
Today, following Interfax’s interview with Tikhonova, there seemed to be additional confirmation that she is the President’s child, when Yuri Pogorely, Interfax’s online projects director, intimated her ties to Putin.
Pogorely’s comments occurred on Facebook, in a discussion with Tatiana Lysova, an editor at the newspaper Vedomosti, and Elizaveta Osetinskaya, the chief editor of RBC, who criticized Interfax for the interview with Tikhonova. Midway into the exchange, Pogorely seems to let the cat out of the bag:
Yuri Pogorely Лиза, тебе часто дочь Путина даёт интервью? Нам она дала вот на таких условиях – только про МГУ. И без фотографии. Нам окей.
Tatiana Lysova Юрий Погорелый и письменно, похоже
Elizaveta Osetinskaya что ж вы не упомянули то, кто вам интервью дает?
Yuri Pogorely Таня, я понимаю, вы с Лизой бы её послали, мы как агентство, решили, что это будет интересно широкому кругу читателей.
Tatiana Lysova Ну широкому кругу интереснее было бы интервью с дочерью Путина
Yuri Pogorely Читателей агентства smile emoticon
Yuri Pogorely Не забывайте, что наш сайт – это лавка при фабрике. А ваши сайты – это сама фабрика.
Tatiana Lysova а это только на сайте вышло? или подписчикам тоже?
Yuri Pogorely Это как раз подписчикам. А они знают, кто дочь Путина.
Yuri Pogorely: Liza, does Putin’s daughter often grant you interviews? She granted us one on the following conditions: that it would be only about Moscow State University, and that there’d be no photos. We were okay with that.
Tatiana Lysova: And the whole thing was done in written form [over email], it seems.
Elizaveta Osetinskaya: Why didn’t you mention in the text “who” was giving you the interview?
Yuri Pogorely: Tanya, I understand that you and Liza would have told her to get lost, but we as an agency decided that it would be interesting to our wide circle of readers.
Tatiana Lysova: Well, an interview with Putin’s daughter would have been even more interesting to a wide circle of readers.
Yuri Pogorely: I’m talking about the agency’s readers. :)
Yuri Pogorely: Don’t forget that our website is just the tip of the iceberg, while your sites [Vedomosti and RBC] are the whole icebergs.
Tatiana Lysova: But did this go out only on the website? Or did it go out to your subscribers, too?
Yuri Pogorely: This one was precisely for our subscribers. They know who Putin’s daughter is.
Many in Russia’s media community interpret Pogorely’s final remark above to be an admission that Tikhonvoa is in fact Putin’s daughter. Ilya Klishin, the chief editor of Dozhd television’s website, called out Pogorely on the comment, which the Interfax editor immediately tried to walk back, claiming to have misspoke.
Yuri Pogorely Короче, Илья, я не подтверждаю, опровергаю, и считаю идиотизмом спрашивать руководителя сайта Интерфакса, кто дочери Путина. Спросите у первоисточника.
Ilya Klishin “Yuri Pogorely Лиза, тебе часто дочь Путина даёт интервью? Нам она дала вот на таких условиях – только про МГУ. И без фотографии. Нам окей.” Вы сообщили, на каких условиях дочь Путина дала вам интервью. Вы отказываетесь от этих слов? Они были сказаны в публичном пространстве. Не в подзамочном посте
Yuri Pogorely Да, конечно, отказываюсь. И с Дождем не общаюсь. И выступаю как частное лицо.
Yuri Pogorely Что-то ещё, Илья?
Ilya Klishin Я вас услышал, спасибо
Yuri Pogorely: Let’s cut the crap. Ilya, I don’t confirm—I deny—[that I know who Tikhonova’s father is], and I think it’s idiocy to ask the Interfax online editor who Putin’s daughter is. Ask the source.
Ilya Klishin: “Yuri Pogorely: Liza, does Putin’s daughter often grant you interviews? She granted us one on the following conditions: that it would be only about Moscow State University, and that there’d be no photos. We were okay with that.” You explained the conditions on which Putin’s daughter gave you an interview. Do you deny this statement? It was said in a public space, not some private post.
Yuri Pogorely: Yes, of course I deny it. And I’m not commenting to Dozhd television, and I’m speaking as a private citizen [not a representative of Interfax].
Yuri Pogorely: Will that be all, Ilya?
Ilya Klishin: I’ve understood you. Thanks.
So did Pogorely let slip that Tikhonova’s relationship to Vladimir Putin is a known secret in the world of informed society, or was he merely speaking out bombastically, perhaps annoyed about the disapproval Interfax’s interview has provoked? Whatever the truth of the matter, Pogorely seems certain that only an idiot would turn to him for answers.

author: Kevin Rothrock


text:
#FeesMustFall Brings South African Universities to a Standstill · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Students argue that fee hikes will exclude the children of poor, mostly black South Africans families, such as the ones living in this poor township, Khayelitsha. Photo by Tomasz Grzyb, copyright Demotix. January 9, 2008.
The South African government intends to increase university tuition fees in 2016 by as much as 12 percent. Students argue that the increase will keep poor, mostly black South Africans from higher education. Protests against the proposed university fee hikes, which started at Witwatersrand University (also known as Wits) last Wednesday, October 14, have spread to other major universities, such as the University of Cape Town, Rhodes University, the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, University of Limpopo, and Cape Peninsula University of Technology.
Hundreds of students stormed the gates at the South African Parliament on Tuesday, chanting “fees must fall.” On the same day, members of the opposition group Economic Freedom Fighters were kicked out of parliament, after showing their support by shouting the protesters’ slogan.
President Jacob Zuma will meet students leaders on Friday, October 23, to discuss the issue. Wits University, where the protests began, has decided to suspend temporarily its plans to raise student fees 10.5 percent.
According to an Associated Press article by Christopher Torchia, the average tuition fee for a first-year undergraduate student studying the humanities at Wits is between $2,200 and $3,200 this year and there is a one-time payment of $730. (The cost of textbooks and accommodations is not included.) Student protesters and their supporters are asking for a “zero increase.”
In his analysis of the protests, Wits University Student Representatives Council President Mukhove Masutha  asserts that restoring communities’ dignity and disrupting the “revolving door of poverty” are the main aims of the protests:
If this revolving door of poverty and marginalisation is not militantly disrupted today, the majority of South African sons and daughters will follow in my mother’s footsteps of normalized pain and conscious submission to a humiliating system. This is the lens through which one must look at the revolutionary, anti-fee increase movement led by Students Representative Council at the University of the Witwatersrand and other campuses across the country. It is for this reason that I argue that free higher education will be the biggest salary increment our mothers will ever receive in their lifetime.
Restoring the dignity of our communities and safeguarding our future and that of our country is an ideal that we must beg no one for. The current wave of protest must mark a declaration of war to all those participating in the commodification of higher education as a product in the market. The time for rhetoric has come to an end, we must take it from here.
Looking at the issue from a legal perspective, law professor and blogger Pierre de Vos warned that limiting poor students’ access to higher education could be unconstitutional. Higher education in South Africa, he observes, is a right and not a privilege:
Given this disastrous state of affairs a good argument can be made that the state and University managements have been infringing on at least two of the constitutional rights of those who have the ability and inclination to further their studies but are hampered from accessing higher education by their lack of funds or are prevented from succeeding because of a lack of academic support.
First, section 29(1)(b) of the Constitution states that everyone has the right “to further education, which the state, through reasonable measures, must make progressively available and accessible”. Unlike the other social and economic rights contained in section 26 and 27 of the Bill of Rights, this right is not qualified by requiring the state to make further education available and accessible only “within its available resources”.
This means the state will not automatically be able to justify its failure to make further education available and accessible to more students, on the basis that no resources are available to do so. The drafters of the Constitution thus decided to treat education differently from the right to housing, health care and sufficient food and water, which the state has a duty to make accessible progressively but only within its available resources.
Blogging at “Africa Is a Country,” Vito Laterza discussed how the protests are evolving to tackle other issues like the outsourcing of university personnel.
Protesters’ requests include the end of outsourcing of all university personnel – cleaning staff is one such example, fetching very low pay under precarious contracts. Outsourced workers have already started to join, showing that a broader convergence of interests is a real possibility. (For example, 3 of the 23 people arrested at UCT on Tuesday where workers. At some point campus security and a bus shuttle service drivers also joined the protests)
This alliance would give university students the role of ‘spokespersons’, articulating demands for racial and economic justice coming from across the country. From informal settlements and townships to disenfranchised rural areas, people have been expressing discontent with their conditions in their own specific ways and contexts, and are calling for change. Their voices remain largely unheard in a national debate dominated by a strong bias towards university-educated citizens – that’s why university protests attract widespread media attention and can have a significant impact on policy-making.
The YouTube video below shows members of the Economic Freedom Fighters being kicked out of parliament for chanting “fees must fall”:
On Twitter, students, parents, politicians, and celebrities are using the hashtag #FeesMustFall to voices their anger and disapproval of the hikes.
Legafele summarized the benefits of the protests to the country:
There are future benefits for the country in the #FeesMustFall. The child of a domestic worker can become an engineer as that of her master!
— Legafele (@AceMgedeza) October 22, 2015
Referring to students who have been arrested since the beginning of the protests, one Twitter user remarked:
All of us who are able to, please can we do same. We need to fill all holding cells to overflowing. Make mockery of injustice. #FeesMustFall
— si-kwe-θlɑː-ni (@MrPhamodi) October 21, 2015
Writing about the same issue of arrested students, Sentlese said:
If those kids get a criminal record, the ANC regime would have meted out a double blow: No education and criminal record. #FeesMustFall
— Sentletse (@Sentletse) October 21, 2015
Mathew Buckland could not fail to note how multi-racial the protesters are:
Just love how multi-racial the protesting student crowds are #FeesMustFall #united
— matt (@matthewbuckland) October 21, 2015
Lelo Amaka B pointed out that the students are not even demanding free education, which is guaranteed by the ruling African National Congress:
Students aren't even demanding the promised Free Education, they are just saying don't increase our already exorbitant fees. #FeesMustFall
— Lelo Amaka B (@MsLeloB) October 21, 2015
Some Internet users worry that South Africa might even be showing signs of becoming a police state.
To suppress freedoms of expression via brutal force is tell-tale signs of a developing police state. #FeesMustFall
— Nande N (@nandnz) October 22, 2015
Police have been using rubber bullets, teargas, and stun grenades against the students.
Chris tweeted, referring to some of South Africa's bloodiest-ever protests: the Soweto uprising, Marikana killings, and Sharpeville massacre.
Guns in #June76,#marikana & #shapville have not stopped us from voicing our dissatisfaction against the system.#FeesMustFall
— Chris wa Le TOP 7 (@kcshupsta) October 22, 2015
Some students are relatives of the police officers, Sentletse wrote:
“My father is a cop. I want to see him shoot me” #FeesMustFall pic.twitter.com/yMk6X0COSb
— Sentletse (@Sentletse) October 21, 2015
Khaya Dhlanga congratulated the students for their bravery:
“Let the kids liberate us from our own blindness. Viva youth of 2015 viva!” #FeesMustFall
— Khaya Dlanga (@khayadlanga) October 21, 2015
He also advised the ruling African National Congress:
Vast majority of people in the country are young. Largest voting block. The ANC must act fast. Be a friend of the youth. #FeesMustFall
— Khaya Dlanga (@khayadlanga) October 21, 2015
The protests are teaching other African countries, such as Kenya, the power of words:
Where South Africans say ‘must’, we (Kenyans) often say ‘should’. Power of framing. We are learning. #FeesMustFall
— Nanjira (@NiNanjira) October 21, 2015
Finally, Dr. Achille Mbembe addresses the elephant in the room, politically speaking:
The big question (and fear) in the ANC is whether, in what is going on, one might identify the seeds of an “Arab Spring”.

author: Ndesanjo Macha


text:
The Dark Historical Context Surrounding Chinese President Xi’s Arts Speech · Global Voices
Jack Hu

China President Xi Jinping gave a speech on the role of arts in a symposium attended by artists and propaganda officials in 2014. Image released from state news wire Xinhua.
A year after China's President Xi Jinping delivered a speech on the role of the arts during a symposium in Beijing attended by leading artists and propaganda officials, state-run media outlet Xinhua published the full text on October 14, 2015.
There was no explanation offered for why the transcript of Xi's speech, which called on artists to serve the people and be consistent with communist thinking, took so long to be published. At the time, Chinese intellectuals fearfully pointed out that it resembled Chairman Mao Zedong's talk on the political function of the arts at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art in 1942, a speech that marked the beginning of the Rectification Movement, a campaign within the Chinese Communist Party for turning the liberal and independent Chinese intellectuals into party mouthpieces. It also took more than a year for the full text of Mao's speech to be officially published on party mouthpiece, Jiefang Daily.
China’s leaders have long viewed the arts as a powerful weapon in the party's ideological armory and given direction as to what direction creative works should follow. But since economic reforms in the 1980s opened up the Chinese market to the world, Chinese artists have tried to push the boundaries those previous boundaries.
In his speech, Xi was critical of the market-driven culture, deeming some works to be “cultural garbage”. Below is a translated excerpt of the speech from the New York Times’ Sinosphere blog:
In some of their work, some artists ridicule what is noble, distort the classics. They subvert history and smear the masses and heroes. Some don’t tell right from wrong, don’t distinguish between good and evil, present ugliness as beauty, exaggerate society’s dark side. Some are salacious, indulge in kitsch, are of low taste and have gradually turned their work into cash cows, or into ecstasy pills for sensual stimulation. Some invent things and write without basis. Their work is shoddy and strained, they have created cultural garbage.
Xi Jinping's so-called “Chinese Dream” of a national revival involves defending Chinese morals. One way this has translated to the real world is strict controls imposed on media outlets and the Communist Youth League's millions of “civilization volunteers” to fight the ideological battle online.
Since the full text of Xi's speech was released, major social media platforms and sites were flooded with flattering comments echoing Xi's view.
For example, Xinhua's commentary has been reposted many times:
无视民族复兴的大时代而津津乐道于物欲主义的小时代，这是某些文化人的自我侏儒化。任何理解时代与个人辩证关系的文艺工作者，都会感受到讲话的深刻召唤力，会为中国精神的构建添上自己的一笔。
Some cultural workers belittle themselves by ignoring the great era of national revival and submerging themselves in the tiny era of materialism. Any artists who have a bit of knowledge about the dialectics of the era and the individuals would be drawn by the speech and contribute to the spiritual construction of China.
The Communist Youth League and its branches, of course, joined in the praise:
不负人民期待，不负时代召唤！文艺是时代前进的号角，文艺是人民心灵的家园。一年来，在讲话精神的指引下，文艺事业发展呈现崭新气象。坚持“以人民为中心”，是讲话的一条主线，指明了推动文艺事业的根本所在。做到“无愧于时代”，是讲话的一个重点，指出了繁荣文艺创作的关键所系。
Shouldn't disappoint people's expectations and the call of the era! Art is the trumpet of the era, it is the home of people's spirit. Under the guide of the spirit of the speech, the development of art and literature has opened a new phase. The insistence on having people at the core is a major guideline, it builds the foundation of art and of literature. We have to bear the responsibility of the era, that's the main message and the key to the prosperous development of art and literature.
Many individual users called on others to “learn” from the talk:
再读习大大在文艺工作座谈会上的讲话，在指出现在中国文艺创作中存在的问题一部分，真是一针见血，言简意赅，太痛快了！[good]客观又全面，深刻又易懂，炒鸡棒~
Review Uncle Xi's speech on the art and literature forum again. The part on the problem of contemporary art and the creative sector is so sharp. Simple and precise. This is really great! Good. Objective and comprehensive, deep and easy to understand. Extremely good.
时隔一年后，习大大在去年10月15日召开的文艺座谈会上的讲话近日公开。在这篇讲话中，习大大旁征博引，提到了112位中外著名文学家和艺术家。小编略略一看，简直是半部人类文明史！快来学习
After one year, Uncle Xi's speech on the art and literature forum on 15 October was published. In this speech, Uncle Xi quoted from so many references and mentioned 112 artists and literature writers from China and all over the world. It is like covering half of the history of human civilization. Come and learn.
No wonder some analysts said the speech, apart from being a revival of Maoist ideology, is an attempt to burnish Xi's image as a new cultured type of Chinese leader, rather than a traditionally rigid communist party leader.
Though direct criticism of the speech could not be found online, attentive readers can still find some subtle reminders of the brutal repression of intellectual thought throughout Chinese contemporary history. This comment referenced Wang Shiwei, a writer who was expelled from the communist party and executed on Mao's order in 1947 during the Rectification Movement:
我们的文化一直在政治的垄断之中延安讲话确定了文艺的单一，丰富多彩没有了，王实味说了真话，被杀之后。说假话成了时髦。今天假的代替了一切，
Our culture has been monopolized by the political system, and [Mao's] talk in Yan'an has resulted in the lack of diversity in art and literature works. Wang Shiwei told the truth and got himself killed. Then telling lies becomes a trend. Today, lies have replaced everything else.
Apart from the Rectification Movement, which led to the deaths of about 10,000 intellectuals, the anti-rightist movement in the 1950s also led to the persecution of hundreds of thousands of intellectuals:
官媒刊习一年前文艺讲话吁“百花齐放”但须“坚持社会主义”—-矛盾[哈欠]1956年，中共推出“双百方针”，即“对艺术工作主张百花齐放，对学术工作主张百家争鸣”。但一年后，全国就开始反右运动，响应“双百方针”的许多人被打成右派。1967年人民日报曾撰文称“双百方针”其实是引蛇出洞的“阳谋”。
The state run media published Xi's speech on art and urged “a hundred flower bloom” in alignment with socialism — isn't that contradictory? Back in 1956, the Chinese Communist Party introduced the principle of “a hundred flower bloom and a hundred school of thought speak” in the art and literature sector. One year later, the anti-rightist movement was launched and those who spoke up against the “double hundred” principle were labelled as rightist. The People's Daily newspaper admitted in 1967 that the “double hundred” principle was a trap to catch dissent.
In fact, Mao's edict on aligning arts with the party's objectives went to the extreme during the Cultural Revolution, with the Red Guards attacking and destroying Chinese traditional artifacts as well as foreign arts. The interpretation of the Yan'an talk led to a party-sanctioned form of political art and the purge and torture of many well-known artists and cultural figures for alleged wrongdoings.
Since 2012, after Xi become state leader, a series of developments has suggested a revival of Maoist ideology in China. In 2012, 100 artists copied Mao's words by hand for a commemorative edition to mark the 70th anniversary of his Yan'an talk. The contribution of several top writers, including Nobel laureate in literature Mo Yan, triggered widespread criticism that they had endorsed an assault on artistic freedom.
One Twitter user pointed out that there's not much of a difference in rhetoric between Mao's doctrine of art “serving the party” and Xi's view of art “serving the people”:
Xi: “在大家共同努力下，我国文艺园地百花竞放” Be worried, be very worried….
— Victor Shih (@vshih2) October 15, 2015
Xi: “With everyone joining their hands together, our country's art and literature will have a hundred flowers blooming”. Be worried, be very worried…

author: Jack Hu


text:
A Canadian First: A Somali Immigrant Wins a Seat in Parliament · Global Voices
PRI/PRX's The World

Justin Trudeau on the campaign trail, visiting then-candidate Ahmed Hussen in his Toronto district. Ahmed Hussen won the race, becoming Canada's first member of parliament of Somali descent. Credit: Adam Scotti. Used with PRI's permission.
This article and radio report by Carol Hills for The World originally appeared on PRI.org on October 22, 2015, and is republished here as part of a content-sharing agreement.
In 1993, Ahmed Hussen arrived in Canada alone, a 16-year-old refugee from Somalia. This week, the lawyer and father of two was elected to Canada's parliament, the first-ever member ever of Somali descent.
“I think it really breaks new ground,” he says. “It shows that Canada is one of the greatest countries in world where you can integrate quickly into the mainstream and be all you can be.”
Hussen will represent the York South-Weston, a heavily immigrant district of Toronto. Canada is home to an estimated 150,000 Somali Canadians. “For a community that's relatively new and relatively insular, I think a lot of Canadians of Somali background and a lot of young people who I've worked with see this victory as something that inspires them to achieve more.”
Hussen's road to Parliament is a kind of Horatio Alger-in-Canada story (Alger was an American novelist famous for his stories about boys who escape poverty through honesty and hard work). After he arrived from Somalia as a teenager, Hussen finished high school, lived with family members in public housing and worked at low-paid jobs to save money for college. He also volunteered for local politicians. That led to recommendations for paid work and eventually Hussen got a job working for a Liberal Party candidate who eventually became Premier of Ontario.  He left that to become president of the Canadian Somali Congress and community organizing. But Hussen is adamant: “I'm Canadian first, and Somali second.”
If America is famously a melting pot, Canada holds to a different metaphor: a mosaic.
“Melting pot means you come and everyone just assimilates into one giant hole,” says Hussen. “In Canada, we encourage folks to cherish their heritage and their culture but also try to embrace common Canadian values, such as the respect for human rights, the respect for minorities.”
Like the United States, Canada is made up of people from all over the world and Hussen says the country's strength comes from that diversity.  “Unlike other countries that have been pulled apart because of differences of religion and ethnicity. Canada has somehow managed to a large extent to remain strong and united despite all these differences.”
Ahmed Hussen says the Canadian-Somali community brings with it certain natural strengths. “There's a very rich history way back from Somalia of entrepreneurship, a willingness to take business risks in places that have been written off. They've brought this to Canada as well.” Hussen says In Edmonton, Alberta, Canadian Somalis have revitalized entire neighborhoods, opening small businesses, restaurants and shops.
The Canadian-Somali community is not without its struggles. There's unemployment, poverty and youth violence. And Canadian officials say they've intercepted or intervened in a number of cases involving Canadian youths set to join the Somalia-based militant organization al-Shabaab. But Hussen says the numbers are very small. “The vast majority of the community is moving forward. They're integrating. The young people are graduating from colleges and universities. They are increasingly able to access jobs and professions.”

author: PRI/PRX's The World


text:
Bomb Attack On Shia Gathering in Dhaka Raises Questions in Bangladesh · Global Voices
Rezwan

A policeman stands guard at the site of a bomb attack at Hussaini Dalan, a holy place for Shia Muslims, in Dhaka early on October 24. Image by Farid Ahmed. Copyright Demotix (24/10/2015)
Sectarian violence on Shia minorities is an increasing phenomenon in Pakistan and a few other countries. So far, Bangladesh has been immune to such atrocities, as Shias and Sunnis had been living in harmony for decades in the country.
But with extremism becoming a global phenomenon, Bangladesh is also facing some of the heat. In the early hours of Saturday, October 24, an unprecedented bomb attack on a large Shia gathering in the capital Dhaka's Hussaini Dalan killed one 14-year-old boy and injured nearly 60 other people. Hussaini Dalan is the venue for religious gatherings of Shias held during the month of Muharram.
The first explosion was heard around 1:30am while the Shia community members were preparing for their traditional Taziah procession. After five minutes two more bombs went off consecutively. Two other unexploded devices were later found in the premises.
The police has announced a three-member probe committee to investigate the incident. According to a ruling party spokesman and the police, this attack is a ploy to destabilise the country and tarnish its image.
Bangladeshis turned to social media to express their outrage.
Local Facebook user Shah Jalal Sagar wrote:
“I am shocked by the senseless attack on a Shia Ashura gathering outside Old Dhaka, and offer my deepest condolences to the victims and their families. Bangladesh has a long tradition of religious tolerance and communal harmony.”
Journalist Mahfuz Sadique tweeted:
Dhaka's Shia Muslim leaders say Saturday attack part of global attacks on sect, not isolated. (Shia-Sunni schism unheard of in #Bangladesh.)
— Mahfuz Sadique (@MahfuzSadique) October 24, 2015
Despite the attack in Hussaini Dalan thousands of Bangladeshi Shiite Muslims took part in the annual Asura procession in Dhaka on Saturday. Image by Fahad Kaizer. Copyright Demotix (24/10/2015)
According to US-based SITE Intelligence Group, the militant Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the bombings on Hussaini Dalan.
Rita Katz, Director of SITE Intelligence Group tweeted:
1) #ISIS claim on the blast in #Dhaka:”Soldiers of the #Caliphate in #Banglades detonated several explosive devices” pic.twitter.com/53NJ0K5dYC
— Rita Katz (@Rita_Katz) October 24, 2015
2) This is the 3rd operation claimed by #ISIS in #Bangladesh in less than a month. pic.twitter.com/0iPLHhldw2
— Rita Katz (@Rita_Katz) October 24, 2015
A Bengali website sympathetic to IS also published this message supporting this attack:
Screenshot from At Tamkin site
Breaking news: Bomb attack in the temple of Rafida Mushriqs:
In the grace of Allah the army of Khilafah has carried out a successful attack on Shia rafida mushriqs. Around a hundred people died or were injured when they exploded I.E.D.s (improvised explosive devices) and to Allah belongs all praise.
User Noor Uddin pointed out that Islam does not support killing of innocent people:
Whoever doing this it's not acceptable to us. Killing any innocent people is a big sin in Islam, if anyone do this he will never go to ‘Jannah’ its clearly mentioned in ‘Holy Quran’.
Tahsina Arshad Ahmed was angry at the silence of the common people:
There is no hiding from the fact that extremism is on rise in Bangladesh. What surprises me is that I have hardly heard of this act of terrorism from anyone today, except one friend. So, raising your voice against injustice towards Shia Muslims is not worth your time?
Ali Riaz wrote at Kathakata blog:
বাংলাদেশে বিরাজমান রাজনৈতিক পরিস্থিতি এবং গত কয়েক মাসে যেসব ঘটনা ঘটছে তার প্রেক্ষাপটেই এই হামলাকে বিবেচনা করতে হবে। রাজনৈতিক অনিশ্চয়তা, অস্থিরতা ও অস্থিতিশীলতা, আইন-শৃঙ্খলা পরিস্থিতির ক্রমাবনতি, মত প্রকাশের ওপরে নিয়ন্ত্রন, শক্তি প্রয়োগের ওপরে ক্ষমতাসীনদের অতিমাত্রায় নির্ভরতা, কার্যকর বিরোধী দলের অনুপস্থিতি, স্থানীয় জঙ্গী গোষ্ঠীগুলোর শক্তি সঞ্চয়, বিদেশি নাগরিকদের হত্যার পটভূমিকায় এখন সম্প্রদায়গত সহিংসতা পরিস্থিতিকে আরো জটিল করবে। সেই সব দিক বিবেচনা করেই আমার কাছে মনে হয়েছে দেশে সেক্টারিয়ান ভায়োলেন্স বা ধর্মীয় সম্প্রদায়গত সহিংসতার ক্ষেত্রে এক নতুন মাত্রা যোগ করার ঘোষণা হচ্ছে এই বোমাবাজি।
This attack should be seen in the light of the current political situation and the tragic attacks of the past few months. The factors at play are political uncertainty, instability and agitation, deteriorating law and order situation, control on freedom of speech, the misuse of power by the authorities, absence of a functioning political opposition, increasing of power of local extremist organisations and the recent killings of two foreigners. Analysing all these I think that this attack is the announcement of a new front – sectarian violence – another avenue of religious extremism.


text:
Drug Trade and War Against Organized Crime Create Ghost Towns in Mexico · Global Voices
Connectas

Ocurague, a ghost town. This was once a school. Photo courtesy of citizens of Ocurague, used with permission.
The original version of this article was written by Silber Meza and Francisco Cuamea and was published on CONNECTAS’ website.
Every night, the inhabitants of Ocurague, in the Sierra Madre Occidental area of western Mexico, used to sneak away from their homes to hide among the bushes. They would listen from the shadows to the explosion of weapons, the sounds of the 4×4 vehicles and the trucks that flattened the dirt tracks.
When silence fell again, they would calm their fears and return to their homes. It was the signal that the danger had passed. For that night, at least.
This is what life was like in 2011 in this town in the Sierra Madre Occidental, part of the municipality of Sinaloa de Leyva in the Northwest of the country and very near to Badiraguato in the State of Sinaloa. The location forms part of the so-called “Golden Triangle” of the Mexican drug trade, which includes the mountainous parts of the States of Durango, Chihuahua, and Sinaloa.
As the months passed, the locals’ fear grew when violence in the region spiralled into murders stemming from confrontations between organized crime groups. At the beginning of 2012, an armed group kidnapped and killed a young man from the neighbouring town of San José de los Hornos. Esperanza Hernández, a woman in her 50-s, who is originally from Ocurague and moved to the city of Guamúchil in the municipality of Salvador Alvarado in Sinaloa, remembers the following episode:
Cuando mataron al muchacho ese de San José de los Hornos los hombres no se atrevieron a ir a levantarlo, por eso las mujeres fuimos por él, acompañadas del Comisario. Ahí habían dejado un papel donde se atribuían el asesinato; el papel decía que eso les iba a pasar a todos los ‘dedos’ (soplones) de (el narcotraficante Joaquín Guzmán) ‘El Chapo’, que porque ahí era puro Beltrán Leyva (los hermanos Marcos Arturo, Alfredo, Héctor y Carlos Beltrán, antiguos aliados y ahora rivales)
When they killed that boy from San José de los Hornos the men didn't dare to go and get him, and so us women went for him, accompanied by the police inspector. They'd left a piece of paper there claiming the murder; it said that this was going to happen to all of “El Chapo's (the drug trafficker Joaquín Guzmán) ‘fingers'” (informers), because this area was now Beltrán Levya's (the brothers Marcos Arturo, Alfredo, Héctor, and Carlos Beltrán, old allies and now rivals).
This new criminal group gave the people in the town a choice: join them, abandon their homes, or die at their hands, Hernández recalls:
Asesinaron a una familia entera. Los cuerpos quedaron ahí tirados. El Comisario, antes de salir, dio aviso a la cabecera municipal de Sinaloa de Leyva. Fue una cosa muy difícil y muy fea: imagínese tener que dejar ahí a los cuerpos, y la gente tener que venirse por el miedo. Una persona decía que venían los Beltrán Leyva a quemar el rancho y a matar al que encontrara
They murdered an entire family. Their bodies were left lying there. Before he left, the inspector warned the municipal council of Sinaloa de Levya. It was a horrible thing to do and very difficult: imagine having to leave the bodies there, and other people having to come in fear. Someone said that the Beltrán Leyvas were coming to burn the ranch and kill anyone they found there.
Hernández talks with a vague expression, as she remembers the murders of 30 people from the area, and the exodus of 96 families that had lived in Ocurague, now reduced to a ghost town.
The terror became too much: Esperanza fled on January 12, 2012, along with her family and the entire town. She left the grocer's shop where she worked, her house, her allotment, her living. Everything.
Since then, this single mother has become an activist, fighting for the improvement of conditions for the displaced. She's made a register of those who ended up in Guamúchil and has compiled a list of those who went to the north of the State, especially the families who settled in Guasave and in Choix.
The trauma caused by this exile has been huge, explains Hernández. To begin with there's the lack of a home and a job, and then there's the unfamiliarity of city life, where everything has a price, even water:
No podemos acostumbrarnos a vivir aquí: allá, si se acaba el gas, hay leña; tenemos gallinas que producen huevo, tenemos carne, queso; tenemos agua. Ocurague significa lugar donde nace el agua; hay un arroyo que nunca se seca. Nunca carecemos de fruta: ¡aquí hay que comprarla!
We cannot get used to living here: there, if you run out of gas, there's firewood. We have chickens that produce eggs, we have meat and cheese, we have water. Ocurague means “the place where the water is born”; there's a stream that never dries out. We never run out of fruit there, but here you have to buy it!
The temperatures are another change: in Ocurague they lived among pine trees, but now they are suffering in temperatures of over 40 degrees Celsius. Many of the displaced don't even have a fan.
The majority of the exiles’ demands continue to be the same as they were at the beginning: the return of their families to their towns with guarantees for their safety, or else help finding a job, education, and compensation for the lands and everything else they have lost at the hands of the drug gangs.
On March 6, 2015, Esperanza Hernández was threatened by the criminal groups and forced to flee again, this time to the country's capital, the Federal District. After weeks of paperwork and with help from national human rights organisations, the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights (CIDH) awarded her and her relatives protection from the Mexican State. Afterwards, she returned to Sinaloa and is now continuing to work on behalf of the displaced victims.
According to figures from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre of the Norwegian Council for Refugees (IDMC-NRC) used by the UN, towards the end of 2013 there were at least 33.3 million refugees in the world. The huge numbers were mostly caused by armed conflict, generalised violence, and violations of human rights.
By the end of 2013, at least 6.3 million people had been subjected to internal displacement in the Americas. The vast majority are in Colombia, where this figure has been constantly rising. In Mexico, forced exile has become more common since 2006, when Felipe Calderón became President of Mexico and began a direct, military-style battle against the drug trade. In response, the criminal groups have fragmented, among them the Sinaloa cartel.
Since 2008, the “federation” in Sinaloa has divided: Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera and Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada are now against the Beltrán Levya brothers. This has led them to fight for territory all over the country, particularly the area that produces the most marijuana: the mountainous areas of Sinaloa, Durango, and Chihuahua.
Forced displacement has not stopped since then, and despite its advancement, the Mexican State still has not implemented any clear policies to put a stop to it.
Laura Rubio Díaz Leal, an academic from the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM) and one of the few who have studied the phenomenon of displacement, criticises the Mexican government for not wanting to accept that there is a lack of security amongst the people as this would seem like an institutional weakness.
Durante el gobierno de Felipe Calderón se negaba abiertamente que existiera un problema de desplazamiento, y con (Enrique) Peña Nieto simplemente no se habla de eso: no sé qué es más grave, una negación o una omisión del tema.
During Felipe Calderón's time in government, he openly denied the fact that there was a displacement problem, while (Enrique) Peña Nieto simply does not talk about it. I don't know which is worse, denying the topic or ignoring it.
Since 2011, Díaz Leal has managed to document 121 instances of massive displacements in Mexico.

author: Connectas


text:
New Nicaraguan International Cooperation Policy Raises Questions of Transparent Finances · Global Voices
Connectas

Silvia Rucks. Photo taken by Nicaraguan site Confidencial and republished with permission.
The current version of this article was completed by Confidencial (Nicaragua) and republished by CONNECTAS and Global Voices Latin America thanks to a content distribution agreement.
The stepping down of Silvia Rucks, the diplomat who was resident coordinator for the United Nations (UN) in Nicaragua, could be interpreted as a sign of significant shift in the handling of international cooperation, a sensitive aspect of Daniel Ortega's administration. According to Confidencial, a local Nicaraguan portal, consulted citizens believe that the real motives that led the diplomat to leave her position suddenly on Friday, October 9, 2015, should be uncovered. The government justifies this political move saying that those projects previously supported by international organizations should be handled directly and without a middleperson. For others, this shows a will from the government to reduce spaces of citizen participation that could be influenced by third parties.
In an official press release at the beginning of the week, the resident representative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) announced that “in the context of a new policy for international cooperation management [by the Nicaraguan government]”, a change in leadership within the institution was considered appropriate, in order to “facilitate the transition to a UN programme that corresponds to the cooperation model adopted by the nation.”
The statement generated concern in the local diplomatic circles. There is fear that the event may be related to the support that UNDP offers to local NGO's as well as to Rucks herself. The image of the Uruguayan diplomat within the government is that of “a very independent person, that does not react submissively when it comes to [NGO's]. This is a matter of strength,” said one of the sources.
The video below, shared by Confidencial, explains how the government of Nicaragua decided, rather suddenly, to handle most of the projects linked to international cooperation itself. This meant the suspension of around 18 projects that were previously managed and funded by international cooperation bodies. According to the video report, it is still not clear which of the projects will be suspended or what the social impact of these changes will be.
The makers of the video also point to other opinions circulating around these proposed changes. According to them, the Nicaraguan government might be aiming to limit external influences on spaces involving citizen participation and transparency. The goal of this would be to avoid protests like the ones that took place in Guatemala earlier this year and ended with the end of Otto Pérez Molina's presidency.
Unofficially, speculations indicate that the shutdown of seven UNDP programmes on government's orders and the reduction of UN operations in the country caused the resident UN coordinator to step down.
For Francisco Aguirre Sacasa, former nicaraguan Foreign Minister, the diplomat's exit is an absolute mystery, given that Rucks has only served in the country for 15 months, in a role that was supposed to last four years.
Members of the government, when approached by Confidencial, denied that Rucks’ retirement had been requested from the United Nations, yet they did confirm that the State wants to take direct control over external cooperation initiatives, foregoing intermediaries:
Resulta irracional que se consigan fondos externos para que sean ejecutados por terceros, si el gobierno cuenta con unidades ejecutoras que lo pueden hacer bien o mejor
It seems irrational to have third parties managing external funds when the government has managing units that can perform the task well or even better.
This policy, cited by the UNDP in their press release, aims to centralise the official management of external cooperation, so as to align it with the government's political and economic strategy. In a meeting held by bilateral and multilateral donors at the end of September, the Ortega administration justified the measure by arguing that Nicaragua is a country of average income, hence all management of such relationships and implementation of projects should take place without any intermediaries.
Mario Arana, an economist, businessman, and former president of the Central Bank, noted that the cooperation organs of each country should consider whether the State has sufficient maturity and the necessary capacity to manage the resources in such a way. The former government official Enrique Bolaños, warned that transparency is vital to guarantee the implementation of the model in question. He also mentioned that lack of access to key information, mainly economic indicators, has generated concern at the union level:
Cualquier país necesita transparencia o rendición de cuentas, sino te exponés a todo tipo de problemas. Primero, porque el mercado pierde Norte sobre lo que está ocurriendo en el país y eso es fundamental para que una economía de mercado funcione y se creen las condiciones idóneas para que haya inversión. Si Nicaragua quiere aumentar su crecimiento económico, debe crear condiciones institucionales y reglas de juego estables que permitan el desarrollo de la inversión…
Any country needs transparency or accountability, or else it is exposed to all kinds of problems. Firstly, because the market loses grip over what is happening in the country, this is fundamental for a market economy to function and for the ideal conditions for investment to arise. If Nicaragua wants to increase its economic growth levels, it should create the necessary institutional conditions and stable ‘rules of the game’ that will allow investment to develop…
According to Mauricio Díaz, member of the Central American Parliament for the Independent Liberal Party, the application of a model without intermediaries is a question of political will and institutionalism:
¿Por qué hasta ahora deciden abrir esa “caja”, después de que lo manejaron como un secreto de Estado, sin rendirle cuentas al país, como ha sucedido con la cooperación venezolana? Sólo tenemos estimados, sabemos que son casi cuatro mil millones de dólares. ¿Dónde están? Esa es la pregunta que todos nos hacemos (…) Esto podría ser una manera de intentar demostrar al mundo que las cuentas se manejarán de forma transparente, pero ya corrió demasiada agua sobre ese puente.
Why is it that they have decided to open this “box” if until now they were handling it as a State secret without making the issue accountable to the people? What happened with Venezuelan cooperation? The amount is estimated at four billion dollars. Where is this money? This is the question that we all ask (…) This could be a way of trying to show the world that finances will be handled in a transparent manner, but a lot of water has run under the bridge already.
On his account, former minister Norman Caldera explained that this model could bring advantages for the country, since it would allow for a more efficient handling of the projects, as opposed to them being managed by means of intermediaries.
Pero el problema, de nuevo, radica en la transparencia (…) Para que esto se dé, los donantes requieren de transparencia absoluta en el manejo de los fondos, y es allí donde difícilmente se podrá implementar en Nicaragua. Hemos visto lo poco transparentes que han sido (el gobierno) en el manejo de la cooperación venezonala.
However the problem, yet again, concerns transparency […] For this to work, the donors require absolute transparency in the management of the funds, and that will be difficult to implement in Nicaragua. We have seen how they (the government) have not been very transparent in handling the Venezuelan cooperation.
According to daily newspaper Panorama, Nicaragua received 4.251 million US dollars from Venezuelan cooperation between 2008 and the first semester of 2015, the majority of which are preferential loans for oil imports, as noted by the Nicaraguan Central Bank.
So far, it seems, these abrupt changes in the multilateral mechanism of governing Nicaragua's international cooperation have left more questions than answers.


text:
The Story of an Ethiopian Girl Who Fought Abduction, and the Lawyers Who Saved Her Life · Global Voices
PRI/PRX's The World

Tizita Hagere (right) plays the role of 14-year-old Hirut Assefa in ‘Difret.’ Credit: Truth Aid Media.
This article and radio report by Joyce Hackel and Julia Barton for The World originally appeared on PRI.org on October 22, 2015, and is republished here as part of a content-sharing agreement.
The word “Difret” has many shades of meaning in Ethiopia's language Amharic: it can mean both “to dare” and “to have courage,” but also “to be violated.”
Like its title, the film “Difret” represents many things: it's a work of fiction based on a true story of courage and change; it's one of the only films from Ethiopia shot on 35mm film; and it's got big name recognition in the form of executive producer Angelina Jolie Pitt. But above all, the film tells the story about a traditional practice through the experience of one frightened girl caught in a whirlwind beyond her control.
“Difret” is based on the story of Aberash Bekele — called Hirut in the film — a girl who was abducted by men on horseback outside her rural Ethiopian village. It's the day she's promoted to 5th grade in school. Her captor — who failed to get her father's permission to marry her — insists he now has the right to marry her according to a tradition known as telefa. But she fights back, accidentally killing him. She faces a death sentence until attorney Meaza Ashenafi steps in to fight for her. The resulting courtroom drama riveted the nation in 1996, when it took place.
“People started to talk about abduction all over again,” Meaza Ashenafi recalls now. “It was a given, especially in the south of the country, women have been abducted for years. There was no question about it. But this case opened up a discussion and dialogue around this traditional practice.”
Ashenafi had just established the Women Lawyer's Association two years earlier to fight for the rights of women according to Ethiopia's then-new constitution.
A scene from “Difret” depicts the horseback kidnapping of the main character. Credit: Truth Aid Media
“Difret” played to sold-out audiences in Addis Ababa for six weeks. When the filmmakers looked to take it abroad, they sent it to Jolie, a well-known advocate for women's rights in Africa.
“A foreign-language film from Africa has a tough road ahead for it in terms getting to an audience,” filmmaker Mehret Mandefro admits. “So having her support really helped us … reach people I don't think we could ever reach.”
Despite the big-name support and the success of “Difret,” Ashenafi and Mandrefo say their work is not done: they estimate that at least 20 percent of marriages in the south of Ethiopia are coerced through some form of telefa.
“This has to stop,” Ashenafi says. “This should not be tolerated at all.”
As for the subject of the film itself, Mandrefo says she had a hard life — after the case, she wasn't allowed to return to her village or family. She attended boarding schoool, and later decided to change her name and leave Ethiopia. But she's recently returned and working on the issue of telefa, hoping to keep girls from facing an ordeal like she did.


text:
Transgender Activist’s Death Shows That Argentina’s Fight Against Gender Violence Is Far From Over · Global Voices
Mary Aviles

No more “feminicides.” Image from Flickr user Lunita lu used under Creative Commons license.
Diana Sacayán's body was discovered in her apartment on October 13. A transgender rights activist, Sacayán was the coordinator of the Anti-Discriminatory Movement for Liberation. Police say there were signs of a struggle, leading to suspicions that she was murdered.
Diana Sacayán: Nuestra tarea es multiplicar su lucha http://t.co/xBKBKXtu2b pic.twitter.com/IjdIcoOT90
— Pablo Ferreyra (@PabloRFerreyra) October 13, 2015
Image: “I support the law for a trans workplace quota.”
Tweet: Diana Sacayán: It is our task to multiply your struggle.
Sacayán was the first Argentinian trans-woman to receive the country's new national ID card, which recognizes the right to gender identity. She won the right to this identity with the recent passage of the Trans Quota Act, which establishes that the public sector within the Province of Buenos Aires shall “employ at least 1 percent of people belonging to the transgender, transvestite, and transsexual communities.” This law also applies to companies and corporations owned and controlled by the state.
The Argentine Homosexual Community has denounced the activist's death, calling it a “hate crime.” The organization also highlights that there were seven such deaths recorded in 2014.
In the past month alone, Sacayán's death marks the third “femicide” committed against a trans-women, according to an announcement from the Argentine Federation for Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Trans, whose spokesperson, Esteban Paulón, stated:
La discriminación sigue matando, y no lo decimos figurativamente: casos como el de Diana Sacayán, Marcela Chocobar y Coty Olmos muestran con crudeza el efecto que esa discriminación tiene sobre las personas. Ante esta realidad, el Congreso no puede seguir mirando para otro lado sin brindar herramientas efectivas para la construcción de una sociedad igualitaria”.
Discrimination is still killing, and we don't say this figuratively: many cases, such as those of Diana Sacayán, Marcela Chocobar, and Coty Olmos, reveal in a harsh way the effect that this type of discrimination has over people. Faced with this reality, the Congress cannot keep on turning a blind eye and not providing effective tools to build an equal society.
Both Marcela Chocobar and Coty Olmos were also brutally murdered.
#JusticiaParaDiana Tercer #FemicidioTrans en un mes #Argentina. Esta vez, la activista #DianaSacayan #NiUnaMenos http://t.co/afnkUqGvB6 — 1 de cada 10 (@1decada10) October 14, 2015
Tweet: #JusticiaParaDiana Third #FemicidioTrans in a month. This time, activist #DianaSacayan
Link: Diana Sacayán, the activist who achieved that 1 percent of public employment are for the trans community. By Violeta Assiego (@vissibles) “We at the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association for Latin America and the Caribbean request that national judicial authorities release a clarification soon on Diana Sacayán's death and many other LGBTI women and people”
On social media, Internet users have boiled with outrage:
la dirigente Diana Sacayan creía en organizarse, tenía humor. Amaba decir q militaba en el MAL: Movimiento Antidiscriminatorio de Liberación
— Soledad Vallejos (@SoleVallejos) October 13, 2015
Trans leader Diana Sacayán believed in organizing, she had a sense of humor. She loved to say she was an active member of MAL: Anti-Discriminatory Movement for Liberation.
Even Argentinan President Cristina Kirchner released a statement about Sacayán's death.
This case is also an opportunity for the country to recall its many unsolved deaths, such as public prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who led the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association building bombing investigation. Nisman was found dead in an apparent suicide, hours before he was due to bring accusations against the president and several staff members of the ruling party for covering up Iran's involvement in the 1994 bombing that claimed 85 innocent lives:
La Presidente pidió esclarecer la muerte de la activista trans Diana Sacayán/Me asusté pensé que hablaba de Nisman pic.twitter.com/XE3wLueVmw
— CosaJuzgadaIrrita (@JuaniVilela) October 14, 2015
The President requested to clear up trans activist Diana Sacayán's death/I got a fright, I thought she was talking about Nisman
9 femicidios y1 travesticidio en 1 semana no es casualidad si no ensañamiento. Basta! X Diana y por todas, a las 11 en Viamonte 1147 — marta dillon (@martadillon) October 14, 2015
9 femicides and 1 “travesticide” in one week it is not coincidence but malice. It's enough! In behalf of Diana and many others, at 11 in Viamonte 1147
Meanwhile, the use of labels such as “femincide” and “travesticide” are fueling a major debate:
Hoy escuché la palabra “travesticidio”. Demasiada especificidad en la referencia a personas propende a la discriminacion.
— Niño Golpeador (@neopaulista) October 14, 2015
Today I heard the word “travesticide”. Too much specificity regarding people prone to discrimination.
A mi lo de “travesticidio” me hace ruido. No se bien por qué, y no se si está bien, pero porque no le decimos “femicidio” y y ya? — An Mallimaci (@anmallimaci) October 14, 2015
“Travesticide” sounds suspicious to me. I don't really know why, or whether it's right or wrong, but why don't we just call it “femicide” and that's it?
Since 2008, there have been more than 1,800 women murdered in Argentina every year, according to Casa del Encuentro, an NGO that assists gender-violence victims. Last June, dozens of people marched through the cities’ streets under the motto #NiUnaMenos (Not One Less) to protest against femicides in the country.

author: Mary Aviles


text:
Ukraine Goes to the Polls In Local Elections, But Not Everyone Gets a Vote · Global Voices
Tanya Lokot

Voting in local elections at a polling station in Kiev, on October 25, 2015. Image by Alexey_Ivanov from Demotix.
Ukraine held country-wide local elections on Sunday, October 25, with many new and old faces competing for positions of 10,000 mayors and 160,000 members of regional and local councils. The Ukrainian social media sphere has been abuzz with tracking voter turnout, election violations, and exit poll results, using the hashtags #elect_ua and #вибори2015 (#elections2015). But some citizens, who were left without an opportunity to vote, have also made their voice—and disappointment—heard on the Internet.
The October 25 elections are largely seen as a test for the post-Euromaidan Ukrainian political environment. If they are transparent and fair, observers say, this bodes well for the level of trust the international community will put in Ukraine as it continues to battle economic troubles and solicit global support for its struggle with Russian and pro-Russian interference in eastern Ukraine. While many commentators have pitched the competition in these local elections as pro-European vs. pro-Russian, it ultimately matters less which candidates win, and more whether the election process itself will be recognized as legitimate and transparent.
A total of 132 political parties are participating in the elections around Ukraine, with 82 Ukrainian and 14 international civic and non-profit groups observing the election process. The international organizations alone have sent 1500 observers to various regions of the country to keep an eye on the voting.
Online coverage of the elections has included both national marathons and local live blogs.
Given their decisive role, the turnout for the elections was fairly decent overall, and in some regions the levels were higher than previously anticipated. Overall, as of 8:00 pm on October 25, the Opora network reported an overall figure of 46.5 percent.
Явка, за даними ОПОРИ, на місцевих виборах станом на 20:00 годину – 46,5% виборців #вибори2015 #elect_ua #opora pic.twitter.com/jfn3IsjCzt
— Civil Network OPORA (@opora) October 25, 2015
Turnout at local elections, according to OPORA data, as of 20:00 is 46.5% of voters.
Many were disappointed with voter activity levels. Sasha Borovik, one of the leading candidates for the post of Odesa mayor, tweeted about his feelings.
Крайне низкая явка. По нашим данным на 17.00 не более 35%. Молодежь совершенно не активна. Это полный позор.
— Sasha Borovik (@Sasha__Borovik) October 25, 2015
Quite low voter turnout. According to our data, by 5pm there were no more than 35%. The youth is not active at all. This is an utter shame.
As in previous elections, civic activists from Opora maintained a crowdmap of election violations, collating and curating reports from observers and regular voters from around Ukraine. As of 11:00 pm Kyiv time on Sunday, the Opora map recorded 1093 violations of various kinds, with cases of illegal campaigning accounting for about half of them (542 reports).
A screenshot of the Opora crowdmap at around 11pm Kyiv time on October 25, 2015.
While some of the election-related issues were organizational troubles like polling stations that opened late, there were some significant violations, including fake ballots and voter fraud using the so-called “kosynka” (“scarf”) method, wherein groups of voters wearing a special ribbon (“kosynka”) were given ballots without showing their ID or signing their name in the voter roster.
In the town of Vyshneve in Kyiv region, voters were offered 300UAH ($13) to cast their votes for one of the local mayoral candidates and asked to take a photo of their ballots with a mark near the “correct” name. Similar scenes were spotted in the western Ukrainian town of Uzhhorod, where some voters were also caught using their phones to capture their voting results.
Фотографія на якій видна позначка #Ужгород #вибори pic.twitter.com/5YJyptYxWB
— hromadskezakTV (@HromadskeZak) October 25, 2015
A photo clearly showing a check mark.
Ukrainian election law forbids campaigning for any party or candidate on election day and the day before, but in the southern town of Odesa local mayor candidate Darth Vader and fellow supporter Chewbacca were detained by local patrol police for campaigning near one of the polling stations.
#Фото Одесская полиция задержала Чубакку. #выборы2015 #вибори2015 pic.twitter.com/LbKv5pN8LZ
— Новое Время (@tweetsNV) October 25, 2015
Odesa police has detained Chewbacca.
Much of the day's election reporting was centered around the towns of Mariupol and Krasnoarmiysk, where the voting was disrupted and the elections ultimately cancelled until a further date.
In Mariupol, a town on the frontline in Donetsk region, the members of the municipal territorial electoral committee decided they wouldn't accept the voting ballots printed at a local printer's after a incomplete and unsealed pack with 22 ballots was found in the print shop.
Local elections in Mariupol are likely not to happen: territorial election commission did not accept the ballots https://t.co/iGdAoSn6UE
— Euromaidan PR (@EuromaidanPR) October 25, 2015
The decision caused quite a stir, as the local electoral committee asked to postpone the election date. The head of Ukraine's Central Election Committee Mykhailo Okhendovsky, said the local electoral committee had likely violated the electoral law by “obstructing the voting process” and asked the Interior Ministry to conduct a full investigation into the matter. The election in Mariupol could be rescheduled to as late as November 15, 2015, as suggested by some of the political parties.
In a similar case in Krasnoarmiysk, also in Donetsk region, the local court disputed the choice of the local printer chosen by the electoral committee to print the ballots. As a result of the court decision, the majority of the members of the local electoral committee voted to recognize the ballots as invalid and to prevent them from being distributed at the polling stations. Though the decision was later disputed, the voters in Krasnoarmiysk weren't able to cast their votes.
No elections in Krasnoarmiysk Donetsk region: choice of private printing facility for ballots ruled illegal by court https://t.co/ADFFGx866O
— Euromaidan PR (@EuromaidanPR) October 25, 2015
Mariupol and Krasnoarmiysk weren't the only parts of Ukraine where local elections didn't take place. Election-less areas also included Crimea, currenty annexed and occupied by Russia, and the parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions currently under control of pro-Russian militants from self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics.
Another large group of Ukrainian citizens denied their right to vote were the IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons)—refugees from the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine. According to the Donetsk chapter of the Voters Committee of Ukraine, 2 216 307 internally displaced individuals were not able to exercise their voting rights on October 25. Another 1 872 743 voters currently live in occupied territory, where voting was impossible.
Current Ukrainian electoral law does not provide for a situation where internally displaced citizens can exercise their right to vote regardless of their location within the country. A more progressive version of the law accounting for current needs has been stalled in a parliamentary committee, never going up for a vote. Experts note that this is largely due to lack of political will and say that the only way IDP voters can dispute the current predicament is through court.
In the run up to the elections activists, many of them IDPs, launched a striking photo campaign online, showing internally displaced citizens posing with the names of their hometowns under a slogan “Registration that silences. IDPs don't get to vote.”
ВПЛ – внутренне-перемещённые лица. Граждане Украины, которых лишили права голоса, но пока не могут заставить молчать! pic.twitter.com/HXIlgGlu2f
— Lugansk News Today (@LUGANSK_TODAY) October 9, 2015
IDPs—internally displaced persons. Citizens of Ukraine, who were stripped of their right to vote, but have yet to be silenced!
While the final results are being counted and will show how many new politicians will come to usher change and fight corruption, and how many familiar faces will continue to play the same old game, these local elections are likely to leave a bitter taste for those who didn't get to cast their vote, no matter how transparent and fair the election process.