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A Blogger, Tortured to Death One Year Ago · Global Voices
Farid

Rights lawyer Nasreen Stoudeh with Sattar Beheshti's mother at a memorial event for the murdered blogger. Photo via “Exile Activist”
On the first anniversary of the death of Iranian blogger Sattar Beheshti in prison, human rights activists, friends and family members gathered on October 31, 2013 to remember him in Robat Karim ,Tehran Province.
Beheshti was arrested at the end of October 2012 and was pronounced dead some ten days later. At the time, forty-one political prisoners bravely published [fa] a statement saying they witnessed signs of torture on Sattar's body.
Iranian blogger Arsalan Rahimi celebrates that Nasreen Stoudeh, a lawyer who defended several political prisoners and was jailed herself, and Mohammad Nourizad, a political activist and former journalist in conservative Keyhan, both made an appearance at the memorial event.
The blogger writes [fa], “What activists in exile do and say, cannot have the same impact as the presence of these two people…. it does not matter what they believe, or whether they meet with Khatami [former reformist president]. What is important is they are fighting against oppression… Long live them and all who struggle inside country.”
Another blogger, Bala-vision, says [fa] that according to several judicial sources Sattar Beheshti was tortured. In recent days, several other netizens were arrested too.
Another blogger, “Exile Activist” shared photos from the anniversary event (above) and reminds us that Beheshti was a blogger who spoke out for the working class.
Oppressed Mother
During a speech at the event (see video below), Mohammad Nourizad comforted Sattar Beheshti's mother, and chastised Iran's leaders, called them “the real face of an oppressor.” Speaking to Beheshti's mother he said, “The revolution was carried out to protect people like you, but all 290 members of the Iranian parliament saw the blood of your son and deny it.”
Remembering Sattar in Stockholm
Political activists lit candles in Stockholm, Sweden. The protesters remembered several other political prisoners too.
Several Iranian bloggers are still in jail and recently Amnesty International warned that jailed blogger,Mohammad Reza Pourshajari was being denied adequate medical care.
About four years ago, another blogger, Omid Reza Mirsayafi died in prison under suspicious circumstances.

author: Farid


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The Caribbean Tweets for NBC’s The Voice Contestant Tessanne Chin · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Music and the Caribbean are practically synonymous, what with annual Carnival celebrations, dibs on the only surviving new musical instrument to be invented in the 20th century and giving the world some of the greatest musicians it has ever seen. No surprise then, that regional netizens have been faithfully tuning in to NBC's The Voice to support one of their own – vocal powerhouse Tessanne Chin, who hails from Kingston, Jamaica, has toured with reggae legend Jimmy Cliff and according to her coach Adam Levine, “could easily win” the Season 5 competition.
This past Monday night was the first of the live shows – and it was a special one for Chin, who put her own spin on the iconic Jimmy Cliff song, Many Rivers to Cross.
The day before she took the stage, netizens were anticipating that she would bring down the house:
@Tessanne @adamlevine Well I hope dem have carpenter/ electrician pan standby cause Tes ago mash up di stage, dung di place.
— yaniefreck (@Yaniefreck) November 4, 2013
Chin, the last performer of the night, received a standing ovation from both her coach and the live audience; Twitter was also on its feet:
I'm so torn between wanting @Tessanne or @katrowbeeshow to win #NBCTheVoice … Tessanne KILLLLED it tonight @NBCTheVoice
— Killer Queen (@KillerrQueenn) November 5, 2013
After her performance, Chin tweeted a message of thanks to Jimmy Cliff:
@THEJIMMYCLIFF Sir Cliff I hope I made you proud !!!Thank you for giving me the honor to be able to learn from one of the best :)All my love
— Tessanne Chin (@Tessanne) November 5, 2013
Congratulatory messages were coming in from all over the Caribbean:
@Tessanne U R Amazing just wanted to say that….. U r an inspiration to many – Love From #StVincent #TheVoice
— Colin Hitman Graham (@HitmanGraham) November 5, 2013
Some Twitter users were moved by the choice of song:
@Tessanne u r so humble and awesome to close out the show with such a motional song #thevoice
— Huyen nguyen (@HuyenJet2003) November 5, 2013
Tessanne chin just completely distroyed the chains of slavery with that performance…my vote is in..Proud a u trust mi….PROUD
— keisha Quest (@niksky29) November 5, 2013
@OnstageTV @Tessanne that performance was an anthem for everyday people. A true heartfelt vocal with the ability to move you emotionally.
— Love Unlimited (@LoveUnlimited0) November 5, 2013
@Tessanne Tessanne Chin #LoveThatSong #SoManyRiversToCross and I do believe you crossed them all with your version of the #JimmyCliff song.
— Sydney Senhouse (@SenhouseDesigns) November 5, 2013
Others were already sold on Chin as a performer in her own right…
@Tessanne I'm ready to buy your album girl! @adamlevine @NBCTheVoice #VoiceTop20
— marlene_EOL (@marlene_EOL) November 5, 2013
…and many have been longtime fans:
Every week @Tessanne performs on #TheVoice and I'm so proud! I remember when she was luvin'up on @Kestheband in the “Loving You” video!
— BattyMamzelle (@BattyMamzelle) November 5, 2013
@Tessanne Always will be a huge fan of yours ever since your Blind Audition! Blew me away :) #yougotthis
— Felisha Lujan (@_TfKaay_) November 5, 2013
But support for Tessanne was understandably the most vocal from her homeland:
I bet you somewhere in Jamaica somebody said “Beg yuh ah call pon yuh phone nuh suh mi caan vote fi @Tessanne !” #TeamTessanne #TheVoice
— Jr. Nembhard (@JrNembhard) November 5, 2013
@Tessanne giiiirl…u badd! So deserve to win! U never disappoint. :*
— Ashleigh Elizabeth (@sassipinki) November 5, 2013
Naturally, many netizens were reminding people to do their part to help her win by voting for #TeamTessanne:
Can’t wait to hear @Tessanne on #TheVoice tonight. When it comes to #JamaicanMusic, she’s doing us proud! Rember to vote! #TeamTessane
— Mr Boombastic (@DiRealShaggy) November 4, 2013
By the next day, US mainstream media were also praising her performance:
Tessanne Chin Steals the show – according to People Magazine! #theVoice #TeamTessanne #Jamaica http://t.co/91GLRZdO6W
— Creative Industries (@jamprocreative) November 5, 2013
Jamaica's media, however, were way ahead of the game, doing their part to help secure votes:
Amazing this Tessanne Chin frenzy in Jamdown…radio shows are co-ordinating voting drives for her!
— anniepaul (@anniepaul) November 5, 2013
The media were not the only ones; in Jamaica, musicians – and fans – were happy to support their own:
One of the BEST things associated with @Tessanne performance on @NBCTheVoice : how many OTHER Jamaican artists tweet their support. #UNITY
— Junior Rodigan (@JuniorRodigan) November 5, 2013
Nokia! Startak! iPhone! Samsung! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! For @Tessanne !!! 877-553-3710. If you're in Jamaica buy the single on itunes..it counts!
— Yendi Phillipps (@IAMYENDI) November 5, 2013
In the end, though, it was really all about a strong and moving performance:
Saving the Tess for last #TeamTessanne
— Wayne Marshall (@Wayne_Marshall) November 5, 2013

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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The FIRE Awards Winners for Internet Development in Africa  · Global Voices
Lova Rakotomalala

The FIRE programme awards, an initiative of AFRINIC, acknowledge the actors from the African region who strive to provide solutions to internet development for the African Continent. The 2013 FIRE Awards Winners are :
Below is the presentation of the MEWC initiative :

author: Lova Rakotomalala


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Beijing’s Air Pollution Scares Rafael Nadal · Global Voices
Abby Liu

The Li-Ning Tower details how Beijing's air pollution has affected world's top tennis players such as Rafael Nadal and how it may affect future tournaments in China.

author: Abby Liu


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Bring Your Tapes: Welcome to the Post-Digital Era  · Global Voices
Sara Moreira

Antifluffy and The Futureplaces Impromptu All-Star Orchestra at Maus Hábitos, Porto, on November 2, 2013. Photo by Luis Barbosa for Future Places on Facebook (used with permission).
I was surprised to see remnants of magnetic tape on people's hair and clothing at the closing session of Future Places, a digital media festival in Porto, Portugal, reinvented this year as “media lab for citizenship”. Since 2008, the annual event has been hosted by the University of Porto in partnership with the University of Texas at Austin under a program called Collaboratory for Emerging Technologies.
Scholars, artists, musicians, scientists and technologists came together from October 28 to November 2, 2013 for a rich program that included a series of workshops, debates and performances, as well as a doctoral symposium on digital media.
The dark-tape character among the participants who caught my attention was Antifluffy, whose bio simply read “our glorious mascot”. I had the chance to “meet” this fictional character (created by art director and co-curator Heitor Alvelos) at the end of the show, and he was exhausted. Antifluffy had just wrapped his audience in VHS tape during an exercise on ‘post-digital’ immediatism.
The performance explored the idea that part of our past is recorded in analog form. The metaphor of the magnetic tape was also an invitation to consider magnetism between human beings. Can wrapping strangers in tape be a “visible rendition of human connections”? In a post-digital era, Antifluffy believes so.
Building on the concept of immediatism coined by insurrectionist philosopher Hakim Bey in a manifesto from 1994, Antifluffy invites us to partake in “non-mediated experiences” (such as a writing a letter by hand) because it's humanly and psychologically important to build bridges, encounter strangers, and explore new ground.
“The very idea that the future is digital is somehow dissipating. We have entered the post-digital [era] to an extent that there isn't even a possible separation anymore,” says Antifluffy. “Gadgets have entrenched themselves in our lives to an extent that it doesn't even make sense to think of them as being in their own space. They have already taken root in our daily lives.”
Interview with Antifluffy
Global Voices (GV): Who are you, Antifluffy?
Who is Antifluffy? “Antifluffy contemplates a sea of winter, a cold bleak landscape, a metaphor for contemporaneity, for the utopia that crumbled…” Concept: Heitor Alvelos. Poster for Future Places by Manufactura Independente.
Antifluffy (AF): I am a mascot of a media lab in Porto. I am an icon, because I have an image and a catchy name. And I am an idea about how the world can be better a place.
GV: Do you mean the real world or the digital world?
As Antifluffy I don't really make a distinction, it's all connected. Essentially what I try to convey is the thought that there is nothing really fundamentally different from new media if we don't consider its repercussions on the existential level. There is a kind of underlying determinism about media – and even what people call post-media – that is this road to go towards the future without actually considering what it is doing to us and what kind of choices we really have.
GV: Do you choose to be on social media?
Yes, of course, I should say that I have many Facebook accounts and many Twitter accounts in the sense that being an idea, I am essentially something that is in everyone's brains. Antifluffy is a way of describing a quality that every human being has that is called obliquity. It's the capacity that every human being has, intrinsically, to think outside-the-box, to innovate, to not just go with the flow, to not just let themselves be seduced by the mirror of everyday gadgets right away.
Ultimately Antifluffy is the belief that people can get a better deal out of what media is offering them. One thing that strikes me is to realize that we all have incredibly powerful tools at our disposal right now and yet it seems that rather than working in our favor they are acting against us, making us more anxious, more deterministic, more alienated.
Where is the healing aspect of new media? I haven't quite figured it out yet and I think we have a duty to find it and nurture it. Of course I am making a huge generalization, there are people doing something fundamentally right, but they are the exception rather than the rule…
Participant of the citizen lab “We are the fluff” wrapped in magnetic tape. Photo by Luís Barbosa for Future Places (used with permission)
GV: Who is the “We” of the “We are the fluff” performance that has just happened
When I say “we” I mean ‘We human beings’, ‘We creatures that happen to be alive in this moment’. I am an invitation for people to develop the obliquity they have within themselves. To reconsider the parameters of their connection with contemporary culture…
Antifluffy was partially inspired by a TV commercial for a mobile phone company that in my opinion represents a syndrome. The ad shows an abridged story of the 20th century, including among other things, historical footage of soldiers on the battlefield. The fact that a mobile company uses images of human beings that very likely didn't make it back home, and then says that the solution is to change your contract for a better deal, 4 cents a minute, is somehow going to do what? In terms of historical heritage, in terms of what our ancestors deserve?
Fluff is the kind of crap that says history can and should be revisited as a mechanism… for what? For fluff! It's just stuff!
GV: Earlier today I saw a crowd on the street led by an orchestra. What initially looked like a spontaneous musical performance was actually a sponsored (and filmed) event with the logo of a mobile company everywhere…
I am not against the fact that there are companies providing access to culture. I think that is absolutely fine, but what it seems to me right now is that it has all become a bit of a minefield. It used to be – or at least it seemed to be – easier to read the cultural and the social landscape, and at the moment it has all become very ambivalent. With those kind of experiences. You know, one little detail can suddenly shift the whole experience into a different territory, from the cultural to the commercial in this case. Not to say that bridges cannot be built, of course they can, but at what price?
GV: Would it be easier to get more people out to the streets in Porto every time there is an anti-austerity demonstration if the call for protest was sponsored by a brand?
The 15th of September, 2012, was a key moment to the understanding of what is going on socially in Portugal. On that day we had what a lot people say it was the biggest demonstration since the revolution of 1974. Avenida dos Aliados [Porto's main avenue, where the City Council is] was filled with hundreds of thousands of people protesting because the government was going to propose a nasty kind of tax. And the strange thing is that a mobile phone company was organizing an outdoor rave party that night.
Usually in my presentations I show two slides: one with the crowd filling out the Avenida dos Aliados at 3pm, and the next slide is the same crowd at Praça Filipa de Lencastre at 1am having beer and listening to some DJ. So what you are describing is actually what we already have. I am sure there was a connection between these two events that was planned.
But my concern is exactly this… what's the word, it's not polarization, but schizophrenia. Is this kind of schizophrenia in which you are either on party mode or on protest mode, and I don't think this is healthy. It's actually very damaging to our integrity as individuals.
It worries me that I don't see that many people proposing new social geometries. The only time when people all come together is to say NO. But what I never see is that same huge group of people proclaiming an alternative together as a whole.
Tape remnants at Maus Hábitos. Photo by Luis Barbosa for Future Places (used with permission).
GV: Do you think that digital media can help bring people together to accomplish alternatives?
… I think the first condition for us to get out of this nasty situation is to rearrange the ways in which we connect… I mean how can we be healthy as individuals and as citizens if we keep being bombarded by all of these messages and images of a catastrophe and at the same time we get all this stuff which is all saying ‘Hey it's all great and fine and fun’ you know? There has got to be a middle way, there must be a way to harmonize these two schizophrenic moments. We are hostages of this polarization and being bombarded with the idea that it is all going down hill and then up the next minute. After the TV presenter reads all the tragic news – let's have a commercial break, and it's all about fluff, and love and iPads, and it's not healthy to listen to these messages.
GV: Are you fighting against these kind of alienating messages?
Despite the ‘anti’ in my name, I like to think of Antifluffy more as an invitation first of all, to optimism. You know there are things that will never be taken from us, and one of them is affection. Let's be generous with one another, let's value one another, let's not be afraid to say it. It's about optimism, it's about connecting, and it's also about not insulting people's intelligence. Antifluffy is a way of saying that some things take time to unravel, to be understood, they are complex. Let's take it easy, it's alright, you don't have to understand everything right away, as opposed to the vertigo that is happening on social media and in old media.

author: Sara Moreira


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Cuban Government Agency Investigates Incident of Homophobic Violence First Reported Online · Global Voices
Sandra Abd'Allah-Alvarez Ramírez

[All links lead to Spanish language pages.]
The Cuban intellectual Alberto Abreu Arcia reported in his blog Afromodernidades about an incident of physical violence against a group of homosexual men in the city of Cardenas, in the western province of Matanzas, on October 4. The National State Center for Sex Education (CENESEX in Spanish) then started an investigation.
This is yet another example of how events in Cuban society which are first reported on social networks and digital spaces ultimately find resonance in official institutions.
La madrugada de hoy jueves estos actos de agresividad adquirieron connotaciones más violentas cuando varios hombres en un coche se presentaron en el Rápido ubicado en la esquina de Ruíz y Coronel Verdugo, frente a la Plaza Malacof, justo al doblar de mi casa, donde acostumbran a reunirse muchos de ellos y comenzaron a agredirlos verbal y físicamente, recibiendo uno de ellos, en la espalda, varios planazos machete.
This morning at dawn these aggressive acts became more violent when several men in a car came to Rapido located on the corner of Ruiz and Coronel Verdugo, in front of the Malacof Plaza, just before turning towards my house, where many of them began to verbally and physically attack them, getting one of them on the back, and several fell face down after being attacked with a machete.
Abreu, who, in addition to being an activist is a renowned cultural studies scholar, later writes about about the implications of homosexuals simply exercising their citizen rights, and the responsibility of state institutions:
La actitud de este grupo de gays viene a recordar aquello, de que los derechos y los espacios no se mendigan, sino que se conquistan. (…) Y allí pienso estar, al lado de ellos, porque lo cierto es que a pesar del machete, los planazos, los fustazos, el coche, los cocheros y otros atributos de un entorno pre, uno se cansa. Si las leyes y las instituciones llamadas a ampararnos llegan: perfecto, sino ya da igual. Los maricones tan bien tenemos sangre en las venas, y vamos descubriendo otras formas de empoderarnos, quizás no tan civilizadas (contenidas, disciplinadas), pero son las armas, el otro saber: el saber de gente, que vamos encontrando noche a noche, para el vivir, pensar y enfrentar la calle.
The attitude of this group of gays reminds the issue of of rights and spaces not being begged for, but conquered (…) And I plan to be there, next to them, because truthfully in spite of the machete, falling face down, the whippings, the car, the drivers and other characteristics of a beautiful setting, it gets tiring. If the laws and institutions called to shield us arrive, then that's perfect, but it's not enough. We faggots also have blood in our veins, and we're figuring out other ways to empower ourselves, perhaps not so civil ones (neither contained nor disciplined), but they are our weapons, the other way of knowing: the way of knowing about others, that we are finding out night after night, to live, to think and confront the street.
On the bog, messages supporting the post were received continuously from other digital spaces:
Todavía hoy continúan llegando correos de solidaridad por el texto Cocheros homofóbicos agreden a grupo gays en Cárdenas, firmados por diferentes blogueros, activistas y luchadores contra la homofobia entre los que se encuentran el Proyecto Arcoiris y el sitio Afrocubaweb.
Even to this day, letters of solidarity still continue to arrive […] signed by different bloggers, activists, and fighters against homophobia; among them the Rainbow Project and the Afrocubaweb site.
Additionally, the reprinting of the initial post signed by Abreu was uploaded onto the Rainbow Project and replicated from @bitacorasdecuba's account:
On October 8, the National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX), which is under the Ministry of Public Health, posted a note on their official site where they recognized the information: “For several days, information about supposed protests of violence against homosexual people in the Matancera city of Cardenas has been circulating online and through alerts received by LGBT activists (..)”.
Later, the Center specified its intention to investigate this matter:
Por lo que esto representa para la población LGBTHI cubana, y por su repercusión en materia de respeto a los derechos sexuales como derechos humanos mismos, el Servicio de Orientación Jurídica del Centro Nacional de Educación Sexual (CENESEX), desde que tuvo conocimiento del asunto desarrolla un proceso de indagación sobre los mencionados acontecimientos, el cual permitirá determinar su veracidad, darle seguimiento, y en próximos días publicar en este sitio nuestra versión de lo ocurrido.
Because of what this represents for the Cuban LGBT population, and its impact on sexual rights as being equal to human rights, the Service for Legal Advice of the National Center for Sex Education has developed a process of inquiry about the events since we have known about this matter, which will allow us to determine the veracity, monitor it, and in the coming days, to publish our version of what occurred on our site.
So specialists from the institution moved to the place where the facts were, as Abreu reports from his blog, in the post published on October 22:
De igual forma el pasado miércoles 16 de octubre un grupo de CENESEX visitó la ciudad de Cárdenas y realizó una minuciosa investigación sobre los sucesos descriptos en mi texto. Los resultados de la misma, según me comentaron, serán publicados en su sitio web.
In the same way, on Wednesday, October 16, a group from CENESEX visited Cardenas city and conducted a thorough investigation of the incidents described in my text. The results will be published on their website, according to what they told me.
Abreu is currently waiting for the conclusions of the investigation.

author: Sandra Abd'Allah-Alvarez Ramírez


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Dominican Republic and Haiti: Two very different versions · Global Voices
Ángel Carrión

The blog Repeating Islands republished two letters to the editor of the New York Times that paint two very different pictures on the situation regarding the recent decision of the Constitutional Tribunal of the Dominican Republic to strip citizenship from all descendants of immigrants who entered the country extralegally, retroactive to 1929. The first letter is from Aníbal de Castro, Ambassador of the Dominican Republic to Washington, who considers the Dominican Republic unduly pressured by the international community:
The Dominican Republic has a legitimate interest in regulating immigration and having clear rules for acquisition of citizenship. It should not be pressured by outside actors and other countries to implement measures contrary to its own Constitution and that would be unacceptable to most other nations facing similar immigration pressures.
The second letter is signed jointly by authors Mark Kurlansky, Junot Díaz, Edwidge Danticat, and Julia Álvarez, who dispel the assurances of the ambassador that no one will be negatively affected by the Constitutional Tribunal's ruling:
The ruling will make it challenging for them to study; to work in the formal sector of the economy; to get insurance; to pay into their pension fund; to get married legally; to open bank accounts; and even to leave the country that now rejects them if they cannot obtain or renew their passport. It is an instantly created underclass set up for abuse.

author: Ángel Carrión


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Egypt: In Search of a Home  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Where does one feel at home? Egyptian blogger Tarek Shalaby shares his opinion saying:
Some people say home is where your bed is, others argue that home is where your wifi connects automatically. I can say that home is where your salaries have been transferred to

author: Amira Al Hussaini


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Egypt: Not Morsi Or Sisi  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

For those chanting Morsi and Sisi, the first won't return and the second isn't my president shared by @DoAaNaDa on Twitter
On Twitter, Doaa Nada shares this cartoon above. She tweets [ar]:
ياللي بتهتف (مرسي- وسيسي ) لا دة هيرجع ولا دة رئيسي
@DoAaNaDa: For those chanting Morsi and Sisi, the first won't return and the second isn't my president
Muslim Brotherhood member Mohamed Morsi was the president of Egypt for one year. His reign was cut short last July, following massive protests calling for his ouster. Then, the Egyptian Army took command, under the leadership of Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian Armed Forces and Minister of Defence General Abdul Fattah El Sisi. Both have followers and critics in Egypt.


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Hong Kong: ‘If Men Can Have Affairs, Why Can’t Women?’ · Global Voices
inmediahk.net

Ashley Madison, a US-based dating website that advocates adultery, has recently launched its localized version in Hong Kong. With women as their main target for users and a security setting that allows private interactions, some conservative religious and social groups criticize the platform.
To address the moral panic from a gender and feminist perspective, contributing reporter for citizen media portal inmediahk.net N Chan interviewed an affair-seeker, Miss T, and a local feminist, Lee Wai Yee, about Hong Kong's sex culture. The article was originally published in Chinese on 29 October 2013. This trimmed English version was translated by Loh Yuen Ching and republished on Global Voices as part of a content-sharing agreement.
Screen capture image from Hong Kong version of Ashley Madison.
Adultry has recently become a hot news topic in Hong Kong with the recent launch of dating platform Ashley Madison. While some have slammed the website for encouraging infidelity, some have pointed out that there are increasing numbers of women seeking out affairs who will become active users of the platform.
Local forums and chatrooms for affair-seekers have long existed in Hong Kong, and the launch of a Ashley Madison website should not be such a big deal. It is impossible for a new dating site to suddenly stir up the sexual desire of women. However, the mainstream media's reports and comments about the new website are full of moral panic. What is so threatening about women's sexual desire? I interviewed an affair-seeker, Ms T, and feminist sex therapist Lee Wai Yee on whether then Internet can liberate women and allow them to express their desire.
Ms T has a stable relationship but is still looking for different sexual partners. She said there are many adult sites in Hong Kong that provide matching services for affair-seekers. Many women are openly seeking a sexual partner in the adult forums of Hong Kong Forum and Uwants. Some platforms are specially designed for that purpose, such as Adult Friend Finder. And people who are shy could also make good use of more private chatrooms and mobile apps.
If you are looking for an affair, it's as easy as a shake of your smartphone – “Shake” is mobile application from text and voice messaging service Wechat's feature which connects you to other users who are within 100 meter. The feature has been used to find friends and romantic connections.
Ms T said: “Regardless of the gender difference, the affair-seeking community is expanding.” She found her sexual partners mainly through adult forums and friend-finder sites, and she stressed that there wasn't money or material gain involved in the relationships. They are purely for sex. She could not enjoy sex with her husband anymore and had to seek sexual relationships elsewhere: “I have been married for five years. Surely my husband has sexual needs, but he did not ask me and chose to have an affair outside of our marriage. I know most men will do so, but I have my sexual needs too. I even asked him for sex but he did not respond to my request. I need an exit out of the situation. So if men can have affairs, why can't women?”
Yet, according to Mr A, a user of the Ashley Madison website, “Most women users here are looking for a deal that involves monetary exchange instead of serious relationship, and it is hard to find a good partner on it.”
Lee Wai Yee, a part-time lecturer on gender studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, columnist and sex therapist, pointed out that even though the online affair-seeking community has long existed, it has suddenly caught the mainstream media's attention because there is an increasing number of women looking to cheat, an intimidating phenomena for mainstream society.
Lee pointed out that sex was still a taboo in the 1970s, but in the past decade, assisted by private online community platforms, more women have started discussing their sexual experiences among peers, and topics related to sex have ceased to be off limits. The change has created spaces for women to face their own sexual desire. […]
The mainstream media is lagging behind in sex culture. They continue to report sex and erotic news in a negative manner. Women involved in an affair are frequently depicted by the media as sluts, while it is normal for men to cheat. When women take an active role in sex, the mainstream media creates a moral panic out of the story as if the increasing number of female affair-seekers is a danger to society and men.
In fact, instead of calling Ashley Madison a dating website, local media has called it an “adultery site”. On the first day of its launch, the website had 14,000 registered male users and 7,500 registered female users. With men outnumbering women on the site, it is hard to support the argument that its mere existence will encourage women to be unfaithful, so newspapers reports packed the story with the fact that there is also a 20 percent increase in the number of men seeking counseling for their wives’ extra-martial relationships.


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‘How Can We Stay Indifferent?’: A Concern for Niger’s Orphans · Global Voices
Eduardo Avila

A sobering statistic found in UNICEF's annual “State of the World's Children” report revealed that the country of Niger has 970,000 orphans living within its borders out of a total population of approximately 17 million people. Those children left orphaned as a result of the death of one or both parents may face difficult times ahead, including lower school attendance and being obligated to work at a much younger age to support themselves or other siblings.
This video produced by UNICEF follows the story of a 15-year-old Nigerien girl who found work as a street vendor, during which she was indecently propositioned by older men. She then took a job as a domestic household employee at the age of 12, eventually leaving the house because of the abusive family:
The heartbreaking stories of these orphans affect many Nigeriens, including one of the new bloggers from Rising Voices grantee project Mapping for Niger, which chose to address this topic. Fatiman writes in the Mapping for Niger blog: “To be an orphan in Niger is a very important problem, and a situation very close to my heart – as I live surrounded by orphans.”
She continues by summarizing some of the troubles that orphans may face without a parental figure in their lives [fr]:
Mais malheureusement je constate que l’orphelin, quelque soit la société, vit dans des problèmes sérieux de plusieurs ordres. Surtout au niveau de l’éducation, car n’ayant pas profité de l’amour parental. Il s’est trouvé sans modèle, sans guide ou maitre qui soit le garant de son avenir et de son devenir. Par ailleurs, il faut aussi rappeler que la famille constitue le premier moyen pour l’enfant de s’épanouir. La société vient en second lieu. Et en plus ce dernier reste toujours insensible à la situation des orphelins, pire, elle les utilise pour d’autres fins. A ce niveau, les enfants orphelins sont voués à plusieurs phénomènes sociaux tels que : le grand banditisme, la délinquance juvénile, les travaux forcés, l’esclavage moderne. Cet ainsi que les enfants issus des milieux défavorables sont les plus touchés, car n’ayant aucun revenu dans ce monde purement matérialiste et capitaliste.
Religious organizations play a major role in providing relief and care to orphans in Niger. Both Muslim and Catholic organizations have helped build facilities where orphans can receive food and shelter. Alher takes a photograph of one of these orphanages built by a Qatari-based organization, which is located near his house:
Photo of an orphanage in rural Niger taken by Alher with his permission
Fatiman concludes by asking a serious and reflective question [fr]:
En définitive, il faut noter que l’orphelin, en tant qu’être délaissé pour son propre compte, est exposé à des sérieux problèmes. Cependant, le soutien de l’État reste à désirer dans ce sens, bien que la situation des orphelins doive toucher au plus profond de notre humanisme. Comment rester insensible face à la situation que vivent les orphelins du monde?

author: Eduardo Avila


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Mobile App Offers Indian Women Lifeline in Fight Against Rape  · Global Voices
Rezwan

Rape is the most common crime against women in India, where the number of rape cases have doubled between 1990 and 2008. Amidst the search for a solution, people are turning to technology, such as easy-to-use and free mobile application for the ubiquitous cell phone.
The Smart Suraksha App is an Android application focused on giving Indian women a greater sense of security. It can send a distress message to five pre-chosen contacts at the press of a single button. Along with the message for help, it also sends information about the user's current location even if the GPS option on the cell phone itself is switched off. Thus, women can be reassured that their call for help will always reach someone.
Indian blog directory Blogadda recently arranged a blog competition titled “I wish I had Smart Suraksha” to spread the words.
Kalyan Panja, a contestant, wrote about the app:
The App has as main objective to make smartphones, today a commonly used tool, a valuable ally for the safety of women in situations of potential or actual danger, providing a simple and timely aid, such as sending SMS rescue, and a set of rules that allows us to take conscious behaviour in case of need. [..]
The program allows to configure a list of 5 phone numbers to send a standard text such relief message (along the lines of: “I'm in trouble, call me!”), as well as to communicate your location, using GPS technologies or relying on a network Wifi. [..]
The operations are designed to be carried with ease and in the shortest possible time, precisely in order to ensure the use of the app also under difficult and uncomfortable situations. The focus is directed on prevention, with tips and tricks that they do not want in any way undermine women's freedom, but to advise the appropriate behaviors to be taken in dangerous conditions in the interests of defense.
Click the image for link to the app
Blogger Prava Vathi, another contestant, wrote:
This app is primarily created for women’s safety, which can track your whereabouts and at a single touch will text to the pre-listed five contacts simultaneously and also the police. It comes with an additional feature to give details of the would-be offender, and allows you to record info like model of the car or clothes he is wearing, in your text, provided if you are in such a situation. Use this app as a weapon that can prevent you from becoming an unfortunate victim.
Blogger Confused Humanity wondered if an application like Smart Suraksha would have made a difference in the lives of rape victims:
The BPO employee who was raped and killed by the car driver, who changed the route and took her to a remote place. If she had this app with her, could she have alerted her friends/family or company authorities. With the approximate GPS location, could they have found her and saved her life?
In the case of the latest Mumbai rape case, could the victim or her friend have pressed the button and alerted their company or friends about the suspicious behavior of the culprits, without inviting their attention and could the tragedy been have averted?
The blogger also suggested additional features, such as recording the snapshot of the perpetrator:
Now only if the state would set up a helpline or something, that could accept and act on such emergency messages (which comes with the location of crime) by informing the nearest police station or patrolling team(or medical centers), wouldn’t it be a miniature emergency service system like the ’911′ in itself?
Afshan Shaik asked in a poem, “if only people were smarter than the apps”:
If only people were smarter than the apps.
If only every one had the courage to face the mobs.
If only wits, actions and bravery over powered the fear.
If only we had super powers we would have saved a tear.
If only every one was loved , protected and fathered.
If only instead of an app a fellow human being bothered!
Your confidence is the best weapon, says Knitha Urs, and this app can give women the confidence. Its better to be prepared than be sorry, reminds Swati.
Shivani Gayal provides a list of other apps that are similar to Smart Suraksha.
Check out more submissions to the contest in the comment section of this post and on this Facebook page.

author: Rezwan


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Pilots’ Strike Leaves Caribbean Travelers Grounded · Global Voices
Matthew Hunte

Regional airline Leeward Island Air Transport (LIAT) was forced to ground its flights this week becasue of a pilots’ strike, apparently as a reaction to the indefinite suspension of Captain Carl Burke, the leader of the Leeward Islands Airlines Pilots Association (LIALPA).
According to Barbados Today, the suspension was due to Burke's intervention on the behalf of a suspended pilot, Captain Neil Cave:
…the action against Captain Neil Cave and LIALPA boss Captain Carl Burke followed the grounding of an aircraft for technical repair on Saturday.
Cave, who was scheduled to fly the plane, was apparently not satisfied that the appropriate test procedure was used before bringing the aircraft back into operation.
He also reportedly highlighted discrepancies with the official paperwork and this led to his suspension the same day.
Cave reported the matter to LIALPA and Burke tried to intervene on his behalf during a meeting with Director of Flight Operations Captain George Arthurton, but he was also placed on suspension.
The pilots are now demanding the immediate retraction of both suspensions and a written apology from the airline.
Earlier, Burke had warned of an impending “meltdown” due to ongoing problemsat the airline including what was considered the poorly coordinated upgrade from Dash-8 to ATR planes.
There was a petition being circulated which called for the shareholder governments to completely revamp the management of the airline.  (LIAT is collectively owned by the governments of Antigua & Barbuda, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Barbados.)
LIAT released a statement informing the public of the flight cancellations and advising them of the necessary actions to take:
LIAT wishes to advise its passengers that due to action taken by its airline pilots’ trade union LIALPA, pilots who were scheduled to fly this morning, Tuesday, November 5, 2013, have not reported for duty. The company has not been provided with the required notification of industrial action as required under its agreement with the pilots.
As a result of the action, some of the company’s morning flights have been disrupted. This is also likely to affect service for the remainder of the day.
The statement continued:
LIAT also wishes to advise that passengers who decide to travel but are unable to complete their journey due to the disruption, will not be provided with meals, transportation, hotel accommodation, etc. Passengers with onward connections are advised to contact their respective carriers.
Fifteen flights across the region were affected. According to reports, until the issues with management are dealt with satisfactorily, the pilots will remain off the job. There was a meeting scheduled yesterday  between LIAT's management and the union, but there has been no word on the outcome.
Despite being the main regional carrier, LIAT does not have a great reputation for being well run; his was reflected in the reactions on social media, which saw the strike as just the latest example of the company's dysfunction:
@liatairlines pilots are on strike, will consumers notice anything different that normal? Doubt it.  http://t.co/Nm3zlOuZWE
— Jake Levenson (@JacobLevenson) November 5, 2013
@princesshadmoss was hardly surprised at the shutdown:
There is always something with LIAT
— •B•α̣̣̥B̝̊̅♈̷̴HÅИdž (@princesshadmoss) November 5, 2013
Robert Tonge thought the company should file for bankruptcy and re-organize:
Liat pilots on strike, SMH. LIAT file bankruptcy and start all over. With great management
— Robert Tonge (@RobertTonge) November 5, 2013
@ShonelleBaker expressed support for the striking pilots:
I int vex wid LIAT pilots tho…if wanna owners/managers effin round den strike. Ppl jus trying to make a living
— XII.VI.XXII♡Le'Kera♥ (@Shonelleee) November 5, 2013
Natasha B. was just relieved that she got home before the strike began:
Thank you Liat pilots for waiting until I got back home to strike! #BlessYou
— Natasha B. (@legal_regal) November 5, 2013
At Barbados Underground, David implored the shareholders (i.e.: the governments) to intervene for the sake of the travelling public:
These disruptions by LIAT simply cannot continue. We are seeing an impact upon the lifes (sic) of Caribbean people in a way which has gone passed (sic) being unacceptable. Surely the Chairman can do better than the pompous and arrogant mouthings which he offered yesterday by way of an apology. Next time he should encourage his Communication Specialist to give him a script.
Enough is enough, will the real shareholders please stand up!
In the Facebook group St. Lucians Aiming for Progress, Dane Gibson suggested that the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our Americas (ALBA) bailout LIAT:
ALBA/PetroCaribe- is an international cooperation organization based on the idea of the social, political and economic integration of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. What better links the islands than a regional airline…… Put ALBA to the test …….Let ALBA bail out LIAT, put and agreement in place to purchase its fuel at the offered bargain prices, reduce operating cost for LIAT, and since their agreements are the best thing since slice bread broker a restructuring for LIAT . Open up the routes to promote travel and tourism with Latin America and the Caribbean. Lets not make it about largess. Lets make it about open transparent agreements, that benefit all the PEOPLE.
Leigh Allan believed that the governments should relinquish control of LIAT:
Government should stay out of LIAT because time and time again government around the world have proven they can't manage businesses. Not too long ago the board of directors gave themselves a huge Pay Increase or Bonus rather than pay cuts or paying their bills. Corporate governance lacking has always been a huge problem in the Caribbean.
Sandra Inglis disagreed:
LIAT started out as an investment by some of the govts in these islands, to generate inter island travel, first of all. Now you're saying these Govts need to get out of LIAT'S affairs? But LIAT is their affair!
In Antigua, Joya Martin noted that after their initial release, LIAT hasn't given any updates on the situation:
No fb updates from Liat on pilot strike action in almost 48 hours. It would be nice to be pleasantly surprised once in a while. They wouldn't dare to be so lax in communicating if we islanders had a strong alternative choice in regional air travel.

author: Matthew Hunte


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Egypt: Police Violence Video Revives Fear of Return to Old Regime · Global Voices
Victor Salama

A screen grab from RASSD's exclusive video showing a man being tortured at a police station in Egypt
Police brutality has once again grabbed Egypt, after a leaked video allegedly showing a man tortured and humiliated by police officers surfaced. The video was broadcast by RASSD News Network, reminding Egyptians of the police abuse committed during the reign of former president Hosni Mubarak, ousted at the beginning of the Egyptian revolution.
The video, released on November 2, 2013, on RASSD  and its accompanying YouTube page does not give a date to when the abuse took place.
In what looks like a police station, a man is seen being whipped and asked to confess that his name is Sawsan (a girl's name) – and that he wants to be f**ked. The man is forced to repeat this sentence over and over again. (Caution: Strong language)
On Twitter, RASSD says:
#تسريبات_رصد| تسريب جديد حصلت عليه شبكة #رصد يظهر وحشية و لا إنسانية الانقلاب من داخل مركز شرطة أبو قرقاص بمحافظة… http://t.co/c3JsJkcbBI
— شبكة رصد (@Rassd_News) November 3, 2013
A new leak obtained by RASSD Leaks, which shows the brutal and inhumane manner of the coup [government] inside a police station in Abu Qurqas, in Minya governorate.
Although police violence had never disappeared from the Egyptian streets, this new video has sparked outrage, disgust and also despair among netizens.
Farah Saafan exclaims:
الأمل إن في يوم تكون وزارة الداخلية عاملة إجتماع و مدعو فيه كل أفراد الداخلية واحد واحد.. و تحصل المعجزة و الأرض تنشق و تبعلهم
— Farah Saafan (@FarahSaafan) November 2, 2013
My only hope is that one day all Ministry of Interior personnel are gathered in the same place… and then a miracle happens: the earth splits and swallows them all!
Blogger Mostafa Hussein sees a relation between the uncondiotionnal support given to the police and army by part of the Egyptian population and this kind of violence:
مشكلة موضوع الشرطة والشعب أيد واحدة ان أول ما الشرطة بتسمع كده بتعمل اللي في الفيديو ده في الشعب. http://t.co/dmPNoWzgio أيه الحل مع الشرطة؟
— Mostafa Hussein (@moftasa) November 2, 2013
The problem with the Police and people are one hand mantra is that as soon as the police hears that, they do the kind of thing we see in this video
Amr Abdel Halim adds:
الفيديو المسرب لتعذيب مواطن في قسم أبو قرقاص، على بشاعته، يظهر الحد الأدنى فقط لما تمارسه الداخلية يوميا من تعذيب منهجي متوحش
— Amr Abdel-Aleem (@AmrAleem) November 2, 2013
As horrendous as it is, the leaked video that shows a police officer torturing and humiliating an Egyptian citizen. This seems to be the minimum amount of daily and systematic monstrous torture the Ministry of Interior administers
On Facebook, a reader comments:
هل تعتقدوا ان ده بيحصل في اقسام اي دولة متحضرة في العالم حتي لو المتهم قاتل قتيل ممكن يهينوا كرامته لفظيا وبالضرب والاهانة بالشكل ده؟؟؟ وبتسموا الانقلاب ثورة ههههه هي فعلا ثورة بس ثورة مضادة لارادة الشعب المصري يعني ثورة العسكر عالشعب
Do you think this happens in the police stations of any civilised countries? Even if the accused is a killer, they may humiliate him verbally but will they whip and torture him in this manner? And they are calling the coup a revolution haha. It really is a revolution – but a counter-revolution against the will of the Egyptian people. It is the revolution of the Army against the people.
And Fatima Said adds:
Many innocent civilians are being subjected to torture by security forces in #Egypt. We're witnessing a return to Mubarak's police state.
— Fatima Said (@fattysaid) November 6, 2013
Over the years, several police torture videos and allegations have surfaced online. The most famous was the gruesome torture to death of Khaled Said, a 28-year-old man from Alexandria, allegedly murdered by police. A photograph of his disfigured corpse, which surfaced on the Internet, sparked anger and protests that contributed, seven months later, to the fall of Mubarak.

author: Victor Salama


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Russian Maternity Ward Turns Away Illegal Immigrant in Labor · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

Shaira Urlasheva, lying on the roadside outside the Vladivostok maternity ward that turned her away, 6 November 2013, YouTube screenshot.
The night staff at a Vladivostok maternity ward reignited Russia’s immigrant debate yesterday, when obstetricians refused to admit a woman in labor [ru], because she lacked both health insurance documentation and the 25 thousand rubles (771 US dollars) to pay the hospital’s child delivery fee. Shaira Urlasheva, a 28-year-old citizen of Uzbekistan, came to Russia more than three years ago, but she has been living illegally in Vladivostok since 2011, when her registration expired. When doctors denied Urlasheva access to the maternity ward, she walked out into the cold and collapsed on the roadside, where passersby soon discovered her and called both the police and paramedics. After lying on the ground and managing contractions for roughly an hour, the paramedics and police finally convinced the hospital staff to admit Urlasheva into the maternity ward, where she soon gave birth to a boy—her fourth child.
The story of Russian doctors turning away an illegal immigrant in labor has sharply divided bloggers. While nearly everyone reacting online seems to agree that forcing a woman into the street to give birth is a regrettable tragedy, the split between Russian nationalists and Russian liberals largely determines whom people tend to blame for the calamity.
Liberal reactions
In a Facebook post [ru] that has attracted over 375 comments and more than 200 “likes,” Olga Tukhanina asked readers to imagine that Urlasheva had been a Russian citizen, who merely forgot her wallet and papers.
Из Москвы в гости приехала, ага. Гулять пошла на девятом месяце, воздухом океанским дышать. […] И тут – ага! – воды отходят, и начинаются роды. А у мобильного зарядка села. А врачи говорят ей: иди, иди, тетка, отсюда. Вон, в кусты иди. Потому что не положено.
Так лучше?
[Let’s say] she came from Moscow [to Vladivostok] to visit friends. She goes for a walk, nine months pregnant, to breathe the ocean air. […] And then—bang—her water breaks, and she goes into labor, and her mobile phone’s battery is dead. But the doctors tell her: you get out of here, lady. Go into the bushes or something. Because we don’t help without papers and money.
Is this better?
Writing from Sweden, a woman named Maria von Josefsson commented [ru] on Tukhanina’s post, expressing disbelief that doctors could have refused to help a woman in labor:
Ё-моё, кто-нибудь из вас вообще рожал??? Как можно не пустить в роддом рожающую женщину??? Что вы все к это роженице прицепились, врачи не оказали экстренную помощь нуждающейся в ней женщине. Блин, что-нибудь человеческое вообще в людях осталось? […]
Christ, have any of you ever given birth??? How can somebody deny a woman in labor access to a maternity ward??? You're all on this pregnant lady's case, [but what really happened was that] doctors refused to give her essential help. Jesus, is there anything human left in people?
Worries about “unsanitary” immigrants & beggars
Others on Facebook, like Pravda.ru correspondent Nadezhda Alekseeva, acknowledged that the Vladivostok doctors broke the Hippocratic Oath, when they turned away Urlasheva, but worried that admitting undocumented people off the streets could pose a health risk to patients already hospitalized. Alekseeva explains that migrant workers, like homeless people panhandling in the Moscow metro, have exhausted the public’s charity. On the threat to maternity wards’ sterility, she writes [ru]:
[…] не стоит забывать о том, что принимать в стерильный роддом женщину, которая не сдала ни одного анализа и жила в подвале – риск для других рожениц и их детей. Беда не в гастарбайтерах, а их количестве.
[…] we shouldn’t forget that it’s a risk to the other new mothers and their children to accept into a sterile maternity ward a woman, who hasn’t undergone any examination and who lives in a basement. The problem isn’t the migrant workers, but their numbers.
While the hospital staff has emphasized sanitation concerns, it's worth noting that a news report by OTV Primorye (accessible on YouTube) recorded the negotiations between paramedics and doctors. When one of the paramedics tried to evoke sympathy for Urlasheva by asking a woman on the hospital staff if she has children of her own (at 2:46 in the video), the latter explodes in anger, yelling, “[Urlasheva] already has three kids! Why does she need to come to Russia to have another one!”
Nationalist reactions
For many bloggers, the incident in Vladivostok is a bitter reminder that illegal immigrants who give birth in Russia without medical insurance do so at the expense of taxpayers. Writing on Facebook, DemVybor’s Kirill Shulika accused [ru] both the Kremlin and “progressive society” of supporting a flawed immigration policy that encourages Central Asians to exploit Russia’s healthcare system, where “even the dirtiest maternity wards are better than what they have back home.” Therefore, Shulika claims, “they come here in their ninth month, without any kind of visa, and calmly have their babies, at our expense.”
The nationalist website [ru] Sputnik & Pogrom also addressed Urlasheva’s story, calling her actions “maternity tourism,” framing it as evidence that illegal immigrant labor is in fact not as cheap as some claim:
И всякий, рассказывающий про “дешевую рабочую силу”, по сути хочет залезть к вам в карман, заставив общество платить за обслуживание рабской рабочей силы. И труд даже самого негодного русского работника лучше труда самого лучшего таджика именно потому, что русский со своей зарплаты вносит свои социальные взносы, поддерживая российскую социальную инфраструктуру, тогда как таджик ее грабит.
And anybody who tells you about this “cheap workforce” really just wants to slip his hand into your pocket, forcing society to pay for the maintenance of his slave labor. The labor of even the most useless Russian worker is better than the labor of the best Tajik, precisely because there are social insurance taxes on the Russian’s wages, supporting Russia’s social infrastructure, which the Tajik then robs.
Calls for a visa regime against immigrants from Central Asia and the Caucasus have circulated in Russia for years now. Most recently, prominent blogger and oppositionist Alexey Navalny launched a federal petition [ru] to introduce such legislation, after an ethnic riot outside Moscow last month. In connection with the Vladivostok hospital incident, Sputnik & Pogrom now advocates a new tax on all new immigrants, designed to finance possible medical and deportation expenses, like those Urlasheva cannot afford.

author: Kevin Rothrock


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Saudi Releases Writer Tariq Al Mubarak · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Saudi writer Tariq Al Mubarak, detained for supporting women in their right to drive in the absolute monarchy, has been released.
Tamador Al Yami tweets:
After 8 days in detention, Tariq Almubarak supporter of #Women2Drive #oct26driving is Free now.#FreeTariqAlmubarak
— تماضر اليامي Tamador (@TamadorAlyami) November 3, 2013


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Tajikistan: The Elections Boycott That Wasn’t · Global Voices
Mahina Shodizoda

After the only genuine opposition candidate pulled out of the presidential race in Tajikistan, the outcome of the November 6 polls was foretold. Out of the six candidates whose names were put on the ballot papers, one was the incumbent leader ruling the country for 20 years, while the other five individuals were virtual nobodies. In the absence of a real choice, the country's main opposition groups chose to boycott the polls and called on their supporters to stay at home on the election day.
Boycott on Platforma
Many social media users have also said they would boycott the vote. Platforma, the largest Facebook group for the discussion of politics in Tajikistan, took the lead in popularizing the idea of a boycott among its participants. One day before the polls, the group even replaced its cover photo with the one reading, “Boycott. Nobody to Choose From”.
Platforma cover page since November 5. “Boycott. Nobody to Choose From”.
One of the group's moderators also wrote [ru]:
Как настроение, друзья? Столько я ждал этот день – 6 ноября 2013 года, и вот он наступил, а теперь и не знаю зачем я его ждал. Такое разочарование… Ежу понятно кто будет “победителем” этих “прозрачных и демократических” выборов. Понятно, что ваш голос украдут вне зависимости от того, пойдете вы завтра на голосование или не пойдете. И все же, чтобы у вас была чистая совесть, прежде всего, перед самим собой не ходите завтра на голосование. Просто останьтесь дома, синоптики обещали дождь, сидите в тепле и смотрите ТВ…  Это не конец. Не расстраивайтесь. Все будет хорошо.
How is your mood, friends? I was long waiting for this day, 6 November 2013, and now when the day has come, I don't know why I was waiting for it. Such a disappointment… We all understand who will be the “winner” or these “transparent and democratic” elections. It is clear that your vote will be stolen whether you go to the polling station tomorrow or not. Still, in order to keep a clean conscience, do not go to the polls tomorrow. Stay home, particularly because the weather forecast suggests it will rain; stay at your warm place and watch TV… This is not the end. Don't be disappointed. Everything will be fine.
Many memes urging Tajikistanis to boycott the vote have been posted on Facebook over the last two months.
“Are you electing a slave owner for yourself? No elections. Only the boycott! Image circulated anonymously on Platforma.
“Hey, Tajik! Don't forget that you are a human being! Do not go to vote for a wolf”. Image circulated anonymously on Platforma.
“Don't go! Don't vote! Don't believe! Don't wait! They will not make things better! Don't recognize!” Image circulated anonymously on Platforma.
Almost identical posts and images were also circulated through the “Group-24″ page on the Russian-language social network Odnoklassniki. The page is run by the supporters of Umarali Quvvatov, the leader of the exiled opposition movement Group-24. Many journalists in Tajikistan believe that Facebook-based Platforma is run by the same people that administer the Odnoklassniki-based “Group 24″ page.
This image shows the head of Tajikistan's election commission, saying “Stay home! We will fill in [your ballot paper] for you”. Image circulated anonymously on Platforma.
Beyond Platforma
Discussions of the boycott were much less frequent outside Platforma. On ASIA-Plus, an anonymous individual wrote a blog titled “Why I Am Going to Boycott the Elections” [ru]. The blog counters an argument made by Rahmon's campaign officials that the veteran leader's rule has ushered in an era of economic prosperity in Tajikistan. It suggests that economic stagnation, underdevelopment, and missed opportunities characterized Rahmon's 20-years-long presidency:
Единственной преградой к экономическому чуду Таджикистана является нынешняя система власти, и поэтому я не иду на эти выборы и призываю всех бойкотировать их ради процветания и достойной жизни следующего поколения!
The only obstacle standing in the way of Tajikistan's economic miracle is the current system of power. This is why I am not going to vote in these elections, and I am urging everyone else to boycott the elections for the sake of prosperity and dignified life of the next generation [of Tajikistanis].
On Twitter, too, some users said they were not casting their votes on November 6. For example, after Jasur Ashurov asked his followers whether they knew which candidates ran in the elections, Parviz Khamdamov responded [ru]:
@tomiristj @jashurov помоему шесь кандидатов. эмомали рахмона знаю, больше никого. не пойду на выборы. на хрен?
— Парвиз Хамдамов (@mr_parvizon) October 22, 2013
i think there are six candidates. i know emomali rahmon and don't know anyone else. i will not vote in the elections. [why would i]?
The boycott was also heavily discussed in the comments sections of the most popular news websites covering political developments in Tajikistan.
Has boycott failed?
According to the official estimates [ru], almost 87% of eligible voters went to polling stations on November 6. This shows that the idea of boycotting the polls was not very popular with the voters. Obviously,there are major doubts about the reliability of official statistics:
Выборы завершились, больше 80% проголосовали. Верится с трудом, ведь так много людей собирались бойкотировать выборы http://t.co/r0h66pBYlp
— Jasur Ashurov (@jashurov) November 6, 2013
The elections are over, with the turnout exceeding 80%. I find this hard to believe because so many people were going to boycott the polls http://t.co/r0h66pBYlp
On Platforma, Shokir Fayzulloev asked [ru] on the day of the elections:
Пока ЦИК не объявил результат, как думаете какую цифру назовут? Явка 93%, за Рахмона 75%, Коммунист 8%, Гаффоров 6%, еще двое по 4% один 2% и 1% против всех…. А реальные цифры сами знаете…
Before the [Central Elections Committee] announces the results, what numbers do you think they would give? Turnout 93%, 75% of votes for Rahmon, 8% for the Communist, 6% for Ghafforov, another two candidates will get 4% each, one candidate 2%, and 1% will be against all… And you all know what happens to the real results…
Only a handful of netizens have shared images of spoiled ballot papers (one of the tactics advocated by those calling for the boycott) on Facebook.
Ballot paper with the names of all six candidates crossed out. The name of the person who shared this image on Facebook is withheld on his request.
Despite the possible faults of the official results, observers of the election agree that the majority of voters did go to the polling stations to cast their votes on November 6. Therefore, the boycott did not happen, and those netizens that stayed home or spoiled their ballot papers failed to influence the outcome of the polls. Perhaps the major reason why the boycott failed was that the idea was not very popular in the country. Even on the Facebook-based Platforma and its Odnoklassniki-based twin – the main spaces where the idea of the boycott was discussed – support for the “stay home” campaign was limited, most likely because netizens distrusted the motives of those who ran those groups.

author: Mahina Shodizoda


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Unveiling the Many Mysteries of the Monthly Energy Bill in Puerto Rico · Global Voices
Firuzeh Shokooh Valle

“Everything you need to know about your energy bill.”
The non-profit think tank Center for the New Economy (CNE), based in Puerto Rico, has launched the innovative and creative online campaign “The Mysteries of Your Energy Bill” [es] in which they explain the unexplainable: Where do all those increases in the energy bill come from? What do those formulas and cryptic phrases in your bill mean? Do they make any sense? The answer is no, they don't. According to the CNE, many of the increases in energy have more to do with the inefficiency of the state-run energy agency Autoridad de Energía Eléctrica (AEE).

author: Firuzeh Shokooh Valle


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GV Face: Dreams of US Immigration Reform · Global Voices
Solana Larsen

“Time Is Now” Immigration Reform Rally in Washington, DC (April 10, 2013). By David Sachs/SEIU (CC BY-NC-SA)
Is immigration reform just a dream?
Millions have emigrated to the US, for family, opportunity or in the pursuit of a better life. Today, there are 40 million immigrants in the United States, of which an estimated 11 million, live and work without legal status. Fear of deportation drives many to live in the shadows, making them vulnerable to violations of basic rights protected under US and international law.
In this week's GV Face, l talk to activists and experts about the movement for immigration reform, and discuss what the proposed reform could mean for the daily lives of millions of immigrants.
Activist Marisol Ramos talks to us about the various youth immigrant movements offline and online.
Alfonso González author of Reform Without Justice and editorial committee member of the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) questions whether guest worker programs can solve the deadlock over immigration.
Global Voices author Robert Valencia talks about the various times reform seemed within reach but then got sent to the back burner.
Global Voices Managing Editor Solana Larsen will be leading the discussion.
Read our Special Coverage page Migrant Journeys for background (in partnership with NACLA).

author: Solana Larsen


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Newfound Oil Met With Hope, Concern in Benin · Global Voices
Sinatou Saka

The Benin government announced the discovery of a source of oil in the Sèmè-Podji region on October 24. The announcement was made by the Minister for Energy and Oil Exploration, Barthelemy Kassa [fr]:
Quelques 87 millions de barils du pétrole sont disponibles sur le bloc 1 du champ pétrolifère de Sèmè-Podji et feront l'objet d'une exploitation sur quatorze ans, à raison de 7500 barils par jour  à compter de la date d'exploitation
Minister Barthelemy Kass via ‘nouvelles mutations’ website. Image used with permission.
It is believed discussions will take place with Nigerian company South Atlantic Petroleum (Sapetro) for a production sharing contract.
However, some in Benin remain skeptical and are asking many questions about the announcement. Journalist Marcel Zouménou raised certain inconsistencies on the Nouvelle Tribune [fr] website:
Selon des sources proches du dossier, la quantité trouvée n’est pas pour autant importante, et n’est qu’un résidu de ce que le Bénin a exploité dans les années 70 et 80, par Saga Petroleum.
Les 12.000 milliards de recettes annoncées, reviennent-ils au Bénin uniquement ? Combien gagne Sapetro dans cette opération.
According to sources close to the project, the quantities found are not all that great, being only a residue of what Benin, via Saga Petroleum, exploited during the 1970s and 1980s.
Will the 12 billion in revenue announced be solely for Benin? How much will Sapetro earn from this operation ?
Even certain members of parliament in Benin are far from trusting of the country's current president in relation to management of this new source of oil. Candide Azannai is one such member. According to an article posted on his Facebook page [fr], he learned that President Boni Yayi allegedly could be preparing to use a portion of the oil exploitation revenues to buy a plane so he is able to rapidly cover all counties of Benin to win over locals for his potential candidacy in the next presidential elections.
For the president then, enlightened management is necessary so that the Benin people can finally be happy about this oil which has always existed under the soil.
Another member of parliament, Lazare Sehoueto, stated that the information broadcast was a matter of propaganda. He too explained this on his Facebook page [fr]:
Pour que chacun se fasse une idée juste, notons que le Nigeria produit 2,5 millions de pétrole par Jour soit 25 millions de barils en dix jours. L’exploitation de nos 20 millions de baril de pétrole résiduel pourra être effectif vers Septembre 2014. Pour combien de jours ? Qu’est ce qui nous restera quand l’inconnue société qui bavarde actuellement aura retiré ses “billes”, il restera quoi à mon pays ?
Mais tout espoir n’est pas perdu. Sur le Bloc 4, un consortium travaille actuellement. Il s’agit d’un consortium composé de sociétés sérieuses (Shell, Petrobras du Brésil et d’une société “béninoise” créée par un Portugais). Il y a de bons espoirs que ce consortium pourra forer jusqu’à 2000 à 3000 m en profondeur dans la mer afin de nous confirmer si nous cernons effectivement la nappe de pétrole. Nous avons du pétrole comme nous avons de l’eau. Mais il faut que les forages “tombent” sur la nappe.
In summary, for the moment there is still nothing new in King Behanzin’s country (a.k.a. Benin). It is undoubtedly still too early to be pleased about the potential of these new energy resources.

author: Sinatou Saka


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No Justice for Battered Russian Journalist · Global Voices
Daniel Alan Kennedy

CCTV footage of the assault on Oleg Kashin [WARNING, GRAPHIC]
Three years ago, on November 6, 2010, Russian journalist Oleg Kashin was severely beaten with an iron rod[Global Voices report] outside his Moscow home by two unknown men. He was rushed to hospital with numerous broken bones and skull fractures. Kashin remained in a critical condition for over a week, underwent several operations and ended up losing a portion of a finger. The event caused outrage among Russia's tightly-knit clique of liberal journalists and activists, who picketed Moscow's police headquarters for days and sent an open letter to then-president Dmitriy Medvedev. The authorities immediately opened a criminal investigation into attempted murder, under the personal supervision of Russia's Prosecutor General. Three years later no one has been charged with the crime.
The motive behind Kashin's beating has never been concretely established. His reporting has earned him many enemies, including the pro-Kremlin youth movements NASHI and the United Russia Young Guards. The Young Guards, in particular, had posted a photograph of Kashin with the words “Will be punished” stamped across it on its website before the beating. The image was promptly removed in the aftermath. Some friends of Kashin [ru] suspected that the motive could be his reporting on the illegal construction of a highway in the protected Khimki forest outside Moscow. Kashin, for his part, believes the attack was personally ordered by NASHI leader, Vasily Yakemenko and carried out by members of Moscow's football hooligan movement with links to the organization.
On this third anniversary of his beating, Kashin took the opportunity to reexamine the case. In an interview [ru] with Vera Kichanova in the online news portal Slon, as well as in a column [ru] in the web publication Colta, Kashin said that the Investigative Committee and the FSB started deliberately sabotaging the investigation after President Putin's reelection:
Открытым текстом они объяснили мне (хотя я и сам догадывался), что масштабное и качественное расследование моего дела было обусловлено прежде всего вмешательством президента Медведева […] И чекисты сказали мне, что после ухода Медведева никто мое дело расследовать не будет, потому что (и это тоже дословная цитата) «в деле замешаны влиятельные люди».
They openly told me (although I had my own suspicions), that the large scale and high quality investigation of my case was predicated on the involvement of President Medvedev [who personally promised Kashin to find the assailants] […] The “secret police” told me that after Medvedev leaves noone will investigate my case, because (and I quote) “there are influential people mixed up in it.”
Masha Drokova, a journalist (former Nashi member) takes part in an individual picket demanding justice for Oleg Kashin. CC 3.0 Inmediahk
Many twitter users, including opposition activist (and one time Kashin friend) Ilya Yashin, dragged up a tweet from Medvedev's official account, which was posted in the wake of Kashin's beating, in which the President pledged to order “the office of the Prosecutor General and the Interior Ministry to take the case of the attempted murder of the journalist Kashin under special control. The criminals must be found and punished.” Yashin posted a screenshot of Medvedev's tweet and sarcastically made reference to a meeting between Medvedev and Kashin:
Прошло ровно три года после нападения на Олега Кашина. Три года как Медведев обещал “оторвать голову преступникам”. pic.twitter.com/BcDrBb5DUp
— Илья Яшин (@IlyaYashin) November 6, 2013
It's three years since the attack on Oleg Kashin. Three years since Medvedev promised to “wring the necks of the criminals.”
Alexey Navalny also referenced Medvedev's tweet and used the lack of progress in Kashin's case to highlight what he sees as the incompetence and waste of Russia's bloated security apparatus. Citing a Bloomberg graphic that showed Russia had more police per capita than any other country in the world, Navalny sardonically wrote [ru]:
Никто не найден и не наказал. Сурков и Якеменко со своими бандитами, которых и искать-то не надо, до сих пор даже не допрошены. Зато “правоохранители” съедают немыслимо огромную часть нашего бюджета, а по их количеству на душу населения Россию не обгонит никто
No one has been found or punished. Surkov and Yakemenko and their bandits, who you don't even have to look for, still haven't even been questioned. Meanwhile “law enforcers” eat up an unthinkably large part of our budget and their number per capita in Russia exceeds anywhere else in the world.
Kashin's case remains emotional to this day. Journalist Stanislav Kupriyanov, for example, expressed his regret on his facebook [ru] for not taking part in a demonstration on behalf of Kashin after the attack:
Скажу вот как: я никогда не испытывал каких-либо сожалений по поводу своего отсутствия на Болотной (и проч. соответствующих митингах), но мне до сих пор стыдно, что я не участвовал в одиночных пикетах у здания ГУВД в знак поддержки Oleg Kashin.
I'll say this: I've never had any regrets about not attending the Bolotnaya demonstrations (or similar rallies), but I'll feel ashamed to this day that I never took part in the single-person pickets outside the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as a sign of support for Oleg Kashin.
Oleg Kashin now primarily resides in Switzerland, though he returns to Moscow regularly and continues to work as a journalist and political commentator in Russia. Journalists there continue to face harassment from a variety of sources — even though the country has become much safer for them in the last decade (with the notable exception of the North Caucasus). It's unlikely, however, that these improved statistics will be of much comfort to Kashin while his attackers remain at large.

author: Daniel Alan Kennedy


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Peru: Day Without Shadow in Arequipa · Global Voices
Gabriela García Calderón Orbe

At 11:29:51 am on Thursday, November 7, 2013, while the 6th Latin American Congress of Photobiology and Photomedicine in the Peruvian city of Arequipa was taking place, locals stopped their activities to contemplate the day without shadow [es].
This event happens twice a year in cities located between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, that is, between Northern Mexico and Northern Argentina (in America). The next day without shadow for Arequipa will be on February 3, 2014.
On Twitter, Paula Gonzalez warned:
Arequipa: Alta radiación ultravioleta por el Día Sin Sombra http://t.co/cSru3r6CLK
— paula gonzalez (@pgpaulagonzalez) November 7, 2013
Arequipa: High ultraviolet radiation on the Day Without Shadow.
Meanwhile, Renzo Vargas explained it with 140 characters:
El dia sin sombra, solo sucede 2 veces al año por unos minutos, ya que el sol se coloca en un angulo de 90°. #quelocura
— Renzo Vargas (@renzovargas) November 7, 2013
The day without shadow only happens twice a year for some minutes, as the sun puts itself in a 90° angle. #quelocura [this is crazy]
With the sun on a perpendicular position, ultraviolet radiation in Arequipa on Thursday, November 7, reached up to 16 units, considered extremely high.

author: Gabriela García Calderón Orbe


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PHOTOS: ‘Silent Protest’ Demands Elections in Maldives · Global Voices
Saffah Faroog

There is both excitement and tension in the air as the Maldives gears up for presidential elections to be held on November 9. The country has gone through politically turbulent times recently as the first election to be held after the controversial transfer of power of February 2012 has been postponed on multiple occasions. On September 7, a first round of voting was held, only for the results to be annulled by the Supreme Court, which ruled that there were electoral irregularities. Another attempt to have the election on October 19 was cancelled at the last minute. The Elections Commission of the Maldives alleged that its work was obstructed by the police, a claim which the police denies.
After several months of intense campaigning, people have grown restless with prolonged delays in holding the election, even more so as politicians blamed one another for the hold-up. Even with the country's judiciary, executive and the parliament entangled in what appeared to be a looming constitutional crisis, the people's desire for a free and fair election has not been dampened.
Photographer Shaari documented a ‘Silent Protest’ held on October 21 calling for an election in the following series of photos (images used with permission):

author: Saffah Faroog


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Portraits of ‘Children Who Have Children’ in Guatemala · Global Voices
Silvia Viñas

Heidy, from Guatemala, was 12 when she became a mother. Photograph by Linda Forsell, used with permission.
Swedish photographer and journalist Linda Forsell has just started a Tumblr blog where she will be sharing her project “about young girls that have been sexually abused and have babies as a result of it.” Forsell explains:
Through a strong photographic depiction following the lives of a few of the young girls that are also mothers, I will depict the situation in Guatemala as well as give sexual abuse of girls in general, a face. They idea is to spend much time with 3-5 girls, dispersed over 3 trips to the country. I will aim to depict their normal lives with problems and hope. I will also do audio-recorded interviews to use as an addition in a final slideshow published on the web and hopefully through external media. The material will also result in an exhibition that I hope to travel from Sweden to Guatemala and abroad.
You can also follower her on Twitter.

author: Silvia Viñas


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21km of Jeddah’s 655km coastline accessible to public · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Do you live near the sea but feel it's unreachable? That is the case for people living in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Ahmed Al Omran tweets:
Total length of coastline within Jeddah Governorate is 655km. Only 21km of that is properly accessible to public http://t.co/64gTbTSEV3
— Ahmed Al Omran (@ahmed) November 9, 2013


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Bad Cop, Good Cop and Other Cops in Iran Nuke Talks · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Six world powers and Iran are discussing Iran's nuclear programme in a two-day meeting in Geneva. Lebanese satirist Karl Sharro comments on Twitter:
The Western sides at the P5+1 talks with Iran are playing good cop, bad cop, over-enthusiastic cop and insufferably pretentious cop.
— Karl Sharro (@KarlreMarks) November 9, 2013


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Bulgarian Students Occupy the Country’s Future · Global Voices
Nevena Borisova

Students protest in front of the Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski. Photo courtesy of Early-wakening Students’ Facebook page. Used with permission.
“We build the future”, a group of Bulgarian students announced loudly on October 23, 2013 holding colorful signs, declaring a permanent blockade in key universities in the Eastern European country which only recently was rocked by anti-government protests. The students are demanding, along with other citizens, that the current Bulgarian government step down because of several controversial decisions by Parliament and widespread corruption in the country.
The organizers of the occupation called their spontaneous movement “The Early-wakening Students” and pledged they wouldn't meddle with any political force in the country. The blockade began when a group of indignant students occupied the largest lecture hall, number 272, of the St. Kliment Ohridski University in Sofia, the oldest and most prestigious Bulgarian university. The students announced their dissatisfaction with a decision of the Constitutional Court to reinstate the parliamentary rights of а contradictory deputy.
Previously, on June 14, 2013, a parliamentary vote to appoint Delyan Peevski to head the country's National Security Agency was the reason for an eruption of large anti-government protests of thousands of people.
In a few declarations, including the latest one in the first days of November, the students demanded that the ruling Bulgarian Socialist Party resign and that the 42nd National Assembly be dissolved. In a portion of their latest statement [bg] that the student group published on their Facebook page, which now has over 24,370 followers, they said:
Ние, Ранобудните студенти, сме обединени от убеждението, че държавата ни се намира в тежка политическа и още по-тежка ценностна криза. Обединени сме от възмущението си, предизвикано от липсата на морал и политическата безотговорност на народните представители. Протестът ни е срещу ежедневно демонстрирания от политиците цинизъм, задкулисие и липса на чуваемост. Смятаме, че настоящото правителство, олицетворява всички тези недъзи на българския политически и обществен живот. 42-то Народно събрание на Р. България е изчерпано откъм легитимност…
We, the Early-wakening students, are united by the conviction that our country is in a tough political and even tougher value crisis. We are united by our indignation, born from the lack of moral and political irresponsibility of the deputies. Our protest is against the daily demonstration of political cynicism, backroom deals and a lack channels for voices to be heard. We think that the present government embodies all those defects of Bulgarian political and public life. The 42nd National Assembly is depleted in terms of legitimacy…
The universities blocked are open for students to attend. There are no official statistics about how many students have joined the occupation. Konstantin Golev, a history PhD student at the university and one of the active “occupiers”, suggested that in one of the most crowded days in the first week of October, there were 400 or 500 people who came and sat in the main hall just on one of the first evenings. According to him, approximately 150 people are the core of the occupation of the main Bulgarian university, including people who work in shifts to guard the doors of the university and write lists of people who have entered.
The reasons of the occupation are said to be rooted in the action of three students from the University in Sofia, who stretched a placard in Parliament that said: “Aren’t you ashamed?!”. After less than a minute, they were being moved out of the hall and escorted to the cabinet of the National Assembly’s Chairperson, Mihail Mikov. According to the students and some media  [bg], Mikov said he doesn’t “care” about the students’ opinion.
Soon after the beginning of the blockade, over 200 university professors announced their support for the students’ initiative. At the same time, after a debate, the Sofia University Academic Council expressed disapproval of the blockade, announcing that the students have a right to protest, but should not hamper the university's work processes.
Meanwhile students from other universities in the capital and other cities supported the occupation in a similar manner. Students from the National Theater Academy made a protesting flash mob performance as a sign of solidarity. The inscription on the street mob was OSTAVKA (RESIGNATION) and parts of this performance can be seen in this video:
Student with a sign that says “resignation” on his back. Photo from the Early-wakening Students’ Facebook page. Used with permission.
Kiril Chukanov, another PhD student from the Faculty of History and one of the main representatives of the protesting student group, stated [bg]:
Това, което се случва в университета, е отражение на извънредното положение на събитията в страната.
Ние няма никога да отстъпим от тези принципи, които имаме, и окупацията ще продължи до оставка, защото знаете, че оставката за нас не е цел, тя е само първа стъпка за това, което ние се борим, а то е реална промяна в системата
The events happening at the university are a reflection of the extraordinary situation of the developments in the country. We will never step back from those principles that we have and the occupation will continue, because the resignation is not a goal for us. It is only a first step towards that for which we fight and this is a real change in the system.
In the public space and some media, there are opinions of support that express concern that no change is really possible in a country that has no political alternative. An editorial [bg] of E-vestnik, a Bulgarian alternative online media outlet, said:
Лошата новина сега е, че студентската окупация ще свърши зле. Зле за всички страни. Управляващите продължават да натрупват негативи и стават все по-омразни. Но не само те. И окупаторите и подкрепящите ги преподаватели, партии и т. н. също трупат негативи. Просто разделението в обществото продължава. Това, което е красиво и достойно за едни, е недостойно за други.
The bad news now is that the student occupation will end badly. In a bad way for every side. The authorities continue gathering negative points and they are gaining more disapproval. But they are not the only ones. And the people who occupy, the supportive professors and political parties are also heaping negative points. The division of society just continues. The thing that seems beautiful and full of dignity for some people is deprived of dignity for others.
It added:
Протестът не роди нов политически субект, а беше от полза на съществуващите партии – ГЕРБ и изпадналите от парламента десни. Протестът не роди нови политически лидери, не поиска конкретни реформи. Зацикли на посланията „Оставка”, „Червени боклуци” и „Кой издигна Пеевски?”. Няма как да събереш мнозинството българи под тези лозунги”.
The protest didn’t give birth to a new political subject, it gave benefits to the existing parties like the former ruling party of GERB and to forces from the right who remained outside the National Assembly. The protest didn’t give birth to new political leaders, it didn’t call for any specific reforms. It got stuck on messages like: “Resignations”, “Red trash” and “Who appointed Peevski?”. And one cannot gather the majority of the Bulgarians under those slogans.
According to research [bg] conducted from October 26 to 31, 2013, in different regions of Bulgaria, 60 percent of Bulgarian citizens support the occupation.
Ivaylo Dinev is one of the initiators of the of the Early-wakening occupation. Dinev, who holds a Master's degree in Cultural Anthropology and a Bachelor's in History and Contemporary Times in Southeast Europe, also heads a movement called “Change for the Students”. On the online platform Sofialive, Ivaylo said:
Окупацията не е толкова шокираща. В последните години всяка балканска държава имаше студентска окупация. При нас не е имало от 16 години и всеки е: „Оу, ау, какви са тия? Някакви екстремисти!” Ами, не, не сме екстремисти и, не, не сме нахълтали изведнъж. Ние от четири години организираме събития, прожекции, акции, конференции…
The occupation is not so shocking. In the last years every Balkan country had a student occupation. We didn’t have such in the last 16 years and now everyone says: “Oh, who are those people? Some kind of extremists!”. Well, no, we are not extremists and didn’t invade in a sudden. Since four years we organize events, movie projections, actions, conferences…
Ivaylo added:
Осъзнаваме, че сме се влели във времето. Или ще сме провал, или ще сме за пример.”
We realize that we are in line with the times. And we will either be a failure or an example for others to.

author: Nevena Borisova


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Egypt: The Sami Anan “Presidential Campaign” Goes Viral  · Global Voices
Victor Salama

Posters showing former chief of staff of the Egyptian Armed Forces Sami Anan wearing civilian clothes in what seems to be election campaign posters have gone viral. Are they the trailer for the real bid, a rumour or a way to test the waters and feel the pulse of the Egyptian street?
Anan was previously a prominent member of the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF), which ran Egypt in the interim period between the ousting of former president Hosni Mubarak and the election of the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi. On August 12, 2012, Anan too was ousted by Morsi. Now, rumour has it that Anan is tempted to join the presidential race, penciled in for 2014.
In September 2013, news surfaced that he was officially a candidate for the presidential elections, only to be denied a few hours later by the man himself, saying that “now is not the appropriate moment.”
For the last couple of days, Egyptian netizens have been commenting on the new pictures of Sami Anan wearing civilian clothes in what clearly appears as campaign posters.
The first one among them even carried a clear campaign slogan   Nothing indicates if those photographs come from an official, semi-official or an unofficial source.
First, it was about analysing what this could mean on a political level, especially vis-à-vis the campaign urging the current  Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian Armed Forces and  Minister of Defence General Abdel Fattah Al Sissi to step up as candidate.
Famous Egyptian blogger The Big Pharaoh tweets:
Sisi hates Sami Anan who looks like he's running for president. Also many accuse him of collaborating with the MB till they reached power.
— The Big Pharaoh (@TheBigPharaoh) November 3, 2013
Egyptian political analyst specializing in Egyptian army history Tewfik Aclimondos provides an additional insight [fr]:
Une info de youm 7 dit que le général Sami Inâne sera le candidat à la présidence des foulouls, les ennuis judiciaires de Shafiq étant plus sérieux qu'on ne le pensait. Si c'est exact, cela confirme les tensions entre les foulouls et al Sissi. Faut toutefois manier l'info avec prudence: Inâne a été présenté aussi; il y a quelques semaines, comme le candidat des frères. Deux choses sont certaines: il veut être candidat et son électorat sera contre révolutionnaire.
“News from the newspaper Al Yom al Sab'a (The Seventh Day) indicates that Sami Anan will be the felools'(remnants of the old regime) candidate as Ahmad Shafik's (Former presidential candidate and Mubarak's last prime minister) judiciary problems seem bigger than expected. If this is true, then it confirms the complicated relationship between the felool and general Al Sissi. One has to be cautious though: a few weeks ago, Anan has been presented as the Muslim Brotherhood's candidate. We can be sure of two things though: he wants to be a candidate and his voters will be counter-revolutionary
The Egyptian habit of mocking everything is untameable and Anan quickly became a laughing stock.
Twitter's favourite punch-liner Hecham Mansour quipped [ar]:
سامي عنان، أنا ممكن يكون عندي زهايمر، بس الواحد يحمد ربنا إنه ماعندوش زهايمر 2014
— Hesham Mansour (@Heshoz) November 5, 2013
Sami Anan, I may have Alzheimer but thank God for not having it
Anan's photographs became so popular that a hashtag [ar] #صور_سامي_عنان (#PicturesOfSamiAnan), a Facebook page (The Sami Anan presidential campaign so that we can learn Photoshop) and even a tumblr were created.
Egyptian blogosphere was literally flooded with images, comments and jokes.
Some seemed to love it:
The Samy Enan for president memes are killing me. Hilariousضحك هيستيرى pic.twitter.com/RNazs95zt2
— Dalia Ezzat (@DaliaEzzat_) November 7, 2013
… while others have clearly had enough:
Enough of Sami Anan memes for God sake ya people
— Zeinobia (@Zeinobia) November 7, 2013
The Sami Anan for President meme is the new Hazem Salah Abu Ismail meme. In the sense that neither are really all that funny. #Egypt
— Matt Bradley (@MattMcBradley) November 8, 2013
The resurgence of such a rumour is even more interesting knowing that Egypt's Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy has just announced that parliamentary voting will take place in February or March 2014, and the presidential poll in the ‘early summer’.
Anan may not be a candidate, let alone president, but he's already an iconic meme for Egyptian netizens.


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In Response to Danny Ayalon: The REAL Truth about Palestine · Global Voices
Leila Nachawati Rego

In a video released in July 2011, Israeli Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Danny Ayalon offered his version of the “Israel Palestinian Conflict: The Truth About the West Bank”. In the video he explained the meaning of terms such as Palestine, the West Bank and the Occupied Territories based on the official Israeli narrative that denies the existence of Palestine. In response, on November 6, 2013, two Palestinian young women react to Ayalon with historic facts and sources, from Herodote and Aristotle to Ariel Sharon´s birth certificate that identifies him as born in Palestine.

author: Leila Nachawati Rego


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Lebanese Man Microwaves Cat · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

A Lebanese man microwaved a cat, while his friend filmed the process. Blogger Joey Ayoub tracks down the culprits
A video of a young Lebanese man microwaving a live cat has gone viral. It seems that one man microwaved the cat – for kicks – while the other filmed him – and uploaded the video to Facebook. Blogger Joey Ayoub posts a call to identify the culprits on his blog and manages to track one of them down:
The cat seemed to have suffered a few (hopefully) minor burns but is not dead. I’ll remove the video as soon as the cat is found. The only reason I’m posting this video is because NGOs are already looking for him to confiscate the cat and get him/her the adequate care.
[…]
If you know where he is please let us know.
Ayoub names the culprits, saying:
Mohammad Jallad and Hassan Hammoud, if you’re reading this, we’re asking you to hand over the cat to NGOs such as Beirut for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (BETA) (70-248765) and Animals Lebanon (01-751678). Both are very easy to contact and will have someone collect the cat as soon as possible. There isn’t, can’t possible be, any justifications for what you did. It is sick, horrific and just plain wrong.
He adds:
Luckily, the cat seemed to have survived. Unluckily, your names are soon going to be – if they aren’t already – associated with sadistic tendencies often found in criminals of the worst kind. I am talking of the notorious connection between the pleasure of inflicting pain on animals and that very same pleasure later felt in the presence of human pain. This isn’t looking very good.
According to Ayoub, Hammoud microwaved the cat, while Jallad filmed him.
A reader comments:
No need indeed to watch the video.Exposing publicly the names of animal abusers for the first time on a social media in Lebanon is a big step for animal rights.You deserve all our respect,we animal lovers!
On Twitter, netizens were as angry.
Ahmad Yassine notes:
I watched the video of the guy putting his cat in the microwave now, #Lebanon is raising young criminals, he needs a therapy ASAP!
— Ahmad M. Yassine (@Lobnene_Blog) November 8, 2013
And Philip Farra dares the police to take action:
I dare #lebanon police to arrest Mohammad Jallad & Hassan Hammoud. Cat in microwave. @LOrientLeJour @LBCI_News_EN http://t.co/oBLN8JNAAc
— Philip Farra (@philfarra) November 8, 2013