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A Lavish Iranian TV Series Revises the History of the 1953 Coup for the Post-Nuclear Deal Age · Global Voices
Ajam Media Collective

A still from “Shahrzad” recreating scenes of the chaos in the streets of Tehran during the period of the 1952 coup d'etat (Source: shahrzadseries.com)
By Mahdi Ganjavi
As was long widely believed, and confirmed by documents declassified a few years ago by the CIA, the Iranian coup of 1953 was initiated as the result of United States’ increasing fear of Iran’s possible turn toward communism. It resulted in the toppling of democratically elected Prime Minister Dr. Mohammad Mosaddeq. Mosaddeq was the leader of the National Front, an alliance of politicians who shared anti-imperialist sentiments toward Britain.
The National Front advocated limited judicial reforms and the limiting of the authority of the Shah in accordance with the Constitution of 1905. They nationalized the oil industry, which led to an embargo by Britain, which in turn pushed Mosaddeq’s government to completely cut diplomatic and economic relations with the British.
The oil crisis and the economic depression that followed, along with the increasing class consciousness of the working class and peasantry, especially in the northwest of Iran, intensified the struggle that already existed between Iran’s traditional ruling class (including the Shah, landowners and the clerics), the bourgeoisie, and the proletariat/peasantry. This ignited fears of communism among world powers, motivating the CIA and MI6 to to sponsor and plan a coup against Mosaddeq, with the assistance—or at least moral support—of Iran’s ruling class. On the day of the coup, a hired mob played a crucial role on the streets of Tehran, creating chaos and attacking several newspapers offices.
A press release drafted by the US State Department anticipating the successful overthrow of Mosaddeq, and crediting “the Iranian people, under the leadership of their Shah.” Mosaddegh was ousted two weeks later (Source: NSA Archive)
In the Iranian television series “Shahrzad”, it is the accidental killing of a member of that mob that changes the course of the protagonists’ lives. Written by Hassan Fathi and Naghmeh Samini, the first season premiered in fall of 2015 through domestic DVD and online distribution. The most expensive production of its kind ever produced in Iran, Shahrzad has been so successful that, according to the BBC Persian program Pargar, it has become an engine of the cultural industry, generating sales of jewelry and commodities inspired by its story and characters.
“Shahrzad” is the story of the romantic relationship between two characters, Shahrzad and Farhad, and how it is affected by the coup of 1953. Farhad, whose name alludes to a figure from medieval Persian romantic literature, is a journalist. His father owns a carpet shop in the bazaar. His beloved, Shahrzad, is pursuing her dream of becoming a doctor. Shahrzad’s father has a restaurant in the city. Economically speaking, both Shahrzad and Farhad’s fathers are completely subordinate to a big landowner and Godfather-type figure called Buzurg Aqa.
On the day of the coup, Farhad accidentally kills a member of the mob that attacks his office. Consequently, Farhad is arrested and sentenced to death by the post-coup government. Although Farhad is granted a pardon, Buzurg Aqa—who is secretly the commander of the mob—forces Shahrzad to marry his son-in-law Qubad. This is the only way for Shahrzad to secure Farhad’s safety, and it is also desirable for Buzurg Aqa, whose own daughter is unable to bear a child and give him an heir to his wealth. Farhad and Shahrzad’s fathers, driven by their indebtedness to Buzurg Aqa, also push for Farhad and Shahrzad to separate.
“Previous to “Shahrzad”, almost all post-revolution dramas and narratives stressed the decisive role of imperialist forces, even to the extent of neglecting or downplaying domestic agency altogether.”
As in any historical narrative, what is omitted is as important as what is revealed. Like other forms of cultural production that happen in Iran through official channels, TV series distributed through domestic DVD and online distribution networks are also meticulously monitored by governmental censorship organs, though it is widely claimed that censorship is less stringent for works distributed through these channels. A look into the deeper historical context of “Shahrzad”, however, reveals some bold omissions.
According to the “Shahrzad” narrative, the political players in post-coup Iran were divided into three categories: the sympathizers of Mosaddeq, the leader toppled by the coup, exemplified by both Shahrzad and especially Farhad; the oppressive ruling class (the Shah, landlords, etc.); and the communist Tudeh Party. These three are depicted in the series as ‘the good,’ ‘the bad’ and ‘the ugly’, respectively, and they dominate the narrative’s presentation of history, which conspicuously omits the role of the working class, which, to be fair, is almost always omitted, or only depicted if and to the extent that it is under the leadership of the clerics.
Also absent from the “Shahrzad” narrative are religious forces. Not only are there no clerics in the series, but no key figure exhibits any explicit religious convictions. Most significantly, perhaps, there are no American agents or civilians in the movie. Even though the coup has been attributed to the secret agencies of the United States, with President Obama referring to it as “well-known history” in a 2009 speech at Cairo University, in “Shahrzad” the coup’s main protagonists are nationals: the Shah, his court and landowners. Why?
Let us start with the erasure of US forces. President Obama’s 2009 acknowledgment of the US’s role in the 1953 coup was one among a series of reconciliatory gestures for “moving forward.” The election of President Hassan Rouhani in 2013 was a sign that this shift, and the possibility of moving forward, had advocates not only in the United States, but also in Iran.
A resident of Tehran washes “Yankee Go Home” graffiti from a wall in the capital city of Iran, Aug. 21, 1953. The new Premier Gen. Fazlollah Zahedi requested the clean-up after the coup d'etat which restored the Shah of Iran in power. (PHOTO: Pahlavi Dynasty via Wikimedia Commons)
Previous to “Shahrzad”, almost all post-revolution dramas and narratives stressed the decisive role of imperialist forces, even to the extent of neglecting or downplaying domestic agency altogether. They placed this coup in an ahistorical setting in which, in the absence of any concrete social and economic relations, it is the imperialist forces that have the final say.
The omission of US antagonists from “Shahrzad” might therefore be read as a response to those earlier works—as well as a contribution to the effort to “move forward” and forge stronger ties with the US in post-nuclear deal Iran.
For this process of “moving forward” to be effective, however, requires a concrete knowledge of the social and political events that resulted in the coup. The fading out of the US role in “Shahrzad” is not accompanied by a more concrete narration of social and economic relations and class struggle before and after the Revolution. Which brings us to the more provoking elimination of religious forces mentioned above.
Not only does it glorify the deposed Mosaddeq, “Shahrzad” also purges its narrative of Ayatollah Kashani, the spiritual leader of Fada’iyan Islam. Kashani was the most powerful political cleric of his time. He shared anti-imperialist sentiments with Mosaddeq and became the head of parliament for a period during Mosaddeq’s government. However, as history unfolded, the alliance of the National Front and Kashani became a fragile one. Kashani withdrew his support of Mosaddeq during the coup, and, as several historians suggest, probably even assisted the coup plotters. In “Shahrzad” the character of Buzurg Aqa, with his authority over the mobs, functions as a Kashani figure in disguise.
Ayatollah Kashani and Mohammad Mosaddeq. (PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons)
The omission of clerics from the narrative also forces us to consider the ideological historiography of the Islamic Republic. Although the the Islamic Republic’s official history has changed over time, including some issues and putting aside others, it has been very insistent and consistent with regard to certain subjects. From an official standpoint, for instance, no state-sanctioned cultural product of Iran should glorify nationalist forces (exemplified by Mosaddeq and the National Front) when the alternative of the religious front is available. Put differently, the overriding “Good” in any historical account can only be the religious front.
This is clearly the case with depictions of the revolution of 1979, or of the student movement of the 1970s. The Islamic Republic’s official historiography even rearticulates the religious sentiments of medieval Persia as a quest for the ideal society which was eventually established centuries later by Ayatollah Khomeini. One example of such revisionism is “Jalal Al-Din”, a series narrating the first few years of life of the famous medieval poet Rumi. In the series, Rumi’s father advocates exactly the system of governance practised today in the Islamic Republic.
“As the story of “Shahrzad” shows, the political and economic aspirations, desires, and interests of any historical moment entail a revision of what happened in the past.”
Unlike these previous TV series, “Shahrzad” glorifies nationalist forces. Not only are the protagonists followers or sympathizers of the National Front, but the erasure of all the leftist sympathizers who were killed after the coup effectively renders Hossein Fatemi, Mosaddeq’s foreign minister, the coup’s only “martyr”. In this sense, in its clash of interests with the revolutionary historiography of the Islamic Republic, the series can be said to adhere to an Islamic “bourgeois” historiography.
While both versions are part of the official historiography of Islamic Republic, they appeal to a different audiences. The Islamic bourgeois version attracts the young, urban middle class, as sometimes it blurs religious messages and instead emphasizes a nationalist discourse, which in turn could easily have appeal in conservative circles with deep roots in the military forces.
Yet, while the dominant “revolutionary” ideology fears nationalist viewpoints, making only seasonal uses of them at times such as during an economic crisis, the bourgeoisie finds them to be of general economic benefit.“Shahrzad” reveals the ways in which the historiography of the Islamic bourgeoisie is both different from, and similar to, the dominant “revolutionary” historiography. Both versions, for instance, dismiss leftist groups as tools of the Soviet Union, thereby negating any contribution by the working class to the cause of the nationalization of the oil industry. And both versions share a hatred of the Shah and his court.
Faulkner’s famous quote, “the past is never dead. It is not even past,” applies very much to Iran’s 1952 coup and its contested narratives. As the story of “Shahrzad” shows, the political and economic aspirations, desires, and interests of any historical moment entail a revision of what happened in the past. It shows that it is not only the present and future, but also the past, that is a site of constant political struggle.
Most importantly, it shows us that any effort to “move forward” redefines the past, only to confine it with a new, but temporarily beneficial, frame.
Mahdi Ganjavi is a Ph.D. student at the department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education in University of Toronto. His essays, reviews, and translations, have appeared in the International Journal of Lifelong Education, Encyclopedia Iranica, BBC Persian, the Bullet, and Radio-Zamaneh. A version of this essay that originally appeared on the Ajam Media Collective online space.

author: Ajam Media Collective


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Fidencio Sanchez’s Inspiring Story Highlights the Best of Social Media—and the Plight of Latino Immigrants · Global Voices
Andrea Arzaba

Fidencio Sanchez, 89, pushes his popsicle cart through Chicago's Little Village neighborhood. He recently attempted to retire but had to return to work to make ends meet after the death of his daughter. (Photo Joel Cervantes Macias / GoFundMe)
Chicago-born Joel Cervantes Macias was driving in the windy city (the name given to the US city of Chicago), when he spotted a 89-year-old Mexican paletero man called Fidencio Sanchez. In Mexico, a paletero man is a street seller of popsicles and ice-cream, which are sold from a pushcart called a paletería. Fidencio migrated to the United States from Mexico decades ago. Cervantes was so impressed by the effort the man was putting in pushing such a heavy cart around the city that he took a picture of the vendor. He posted it to his Facebook, and commented: “I respect this man to the fullest.”
After Cervantes took the picture and bought some popsicles, he had a long conversation with Fidencio. The paletero told him that his daughter passed away recently, leaving him in charge of her two children. Fidencio had to work every day to make enough money to support his grandchildren and wife. Cervantes was shocked. He knew he needed to do something. One his friends, Joe Loera, had the idea to start an online campaign to raise funds for “a community retirement” for this hard-working man.
Mr. Fedencio Sanchez and his wife recently lost their only daughter and are still heartbroken about the situation. His elderly wife was selling paletas also to help pay bills, but she fell ill and can't work anymore. We're trying to raise money to help him with whatever we can. Anything helps. Let's all pitch in and help make life a little easier and brighten both of their day.
The initial goal of the GoFundMe campaign was set at $3,000 USD. Surprisingly, it reached $13,000 USD in the first four hours. During the campaign, 17,000 people participated, and the campaign raised more than $380,000 USD.
Twitter users in the United States and in Mexico made many uplifting and positive comments about the aid the paletero received, using various hashtags such as #FidencioSanchez and #JoelCervantesMacias:
some sunshine in a rough week. thx to #JoelCervantesMacias for reminding ppl of their humanity. amor para #FidencioSanchez -you deserve this https://t.co/FZUb4KxCzt
— andrea.flores (@snuffketeer) September 22, 2016
I heard about this story and I had to contribute…God bless this sweet man and to Joel Cervantes Macias who… https://t.co/Wrnt04dGwW
— Tanna Marshall (@TannaMarshall8W) September 15, 2016
That total feel good moment for a #Chicago #SMB! Congrats and enjoy your retirement paleta vendor Fidencio Sanchez! pic.twitter.com/FWk4EGyvFg
— Vincent Williams (@bizbyvince) September 22, 2016
Most social media users left positive comments. However, other bloggers and journalists reflected on deeper problems related to Mexican and other Latino migrants in the United States. For example, a correspondent for the TV channel Fusion, Juan Rivas, wrote an article on the ugly truth behind the vulnerability of Fidencio, especially regarding the evident racism against Mexicans in the US elections:
At a time when [US presidential candidate] Donald Trump is calling Mexican immigrants drug dealers and rapists, the image of this hard-working Mexican immigrant has become a defiant symbol that challenges hateful stereotypes.
Rivas also mentioned what many old Latinos face: not enough money saved for retirement. Sadly, this reality is worse if the person lives in the United States without documents:
One-fifth of adult undocumented immigrants lives in poverty, according to the Pew Research Center. And folks who are struggling to put food on the table every night are not usually saving for retirement.
‘Street vendors are living day to day,’ said Martin Unzueta, executive director of Chicago Community and Workers’ Rights, a group that works with street vendors. ‘There are some street vendors who have social security cards, but that doesn’t mean they can send money [for retirement] to the Social Security Administration.’
Michele Chen, from progressive news organization TruthOut, reflected on Fidencio's narrative, and invited her readers to think about the inequality faced by many aging immigrants of color in the United States. She also proposed long-term solutions that could help people like Fidencio “to live with dignity” when they most need them:
Beyond GoFundMe, immigrant seniors need an infrastructure that allows them to live with dignity. The real solutions come through strengthening public services for the aging community — and rebuilding social welfare to be cognizant of structural racism and historical inequities. Seeing an elderly man like Sanchez pushing his cart should evoke sympathy, yet it's not just misfortune, but enforced inequality, that weighs upon the weary bodies of migrant elders.
Meaningful financial safeguards would be a basic step toward equity, with measures for debt relief and legal assistance to fight housing distress and eviction in communities of color. The foreclosure epidemic, the recession's fallout, compounds decades of systematic predation, payday lenders and other exploitative credit systems that feed on poor communities and has hit older Latinos at twice the rate of their white peers.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Andrea Arzaba


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Jordanian Government Ignores Public Backlash, Signs Gas Deal With Israel · Global Voices
Tara

A protest in Amman, part of a national campaign by activists, syndicates, and unions, as well as political parties, to stop a gas deal between Jordan and Israel. Source: Khaled Al Shakaa on Twitter.
On September 26, 2016, the Houston-based firm Noble Energy Inc. announced that it and a consortium of energy companies have signed a deal to supply natural gas from the Israeli-occupied Leviathan natural gas field to the National Electric Power Company Ltd. (NEPCO), which is wholly owned by the Jordanian government. The announcement was met with condemnation and backlash from the Jordanian public, who still largely oppose any form of normalization with Israel, despite two decades passing since the signing of the Wadi Araba peace accords between the two countries.
Jordanian writer Samar Saeed said that this deal makes every citizen de-facto complicit in Israel's wars.
By signing gas deal, Jordanian regime made every citizen a normalizer.We will subsidize future wars. cant live with this #غاز_العدو_احتلال
— Samar Saeed (@Samarsaeed) 26 de septiembre de 2016
The deal was described as “historic” by the energy consortium, fulfilling Israel's ambition since the discovery of the field in 2010 of becoming a natural gas exporter. It will help Israel overcome the initial cost of developing the Leviathan field. According to energy consultant Amit Mor, “The development of the Leviathan project is crucial for the national security of Israel, which is currently getting all its gas from one field, the Tamar field. Thus, the diversification of gas sources is a must, and this will be enabled by the Jordanian market.”
This is not the first natural gas deal between Israel and Jordan. In February 2014, Israel signed a $500-million deal to supply 1.8 BCM of gas from the neighboring Tamar field to the Jordan Bromine and Arab Potash companies. Both deals have been widely unpopular among Jordanians, particularly among the anti-normalization and BDS movements. A poll conducted in February by the Jordanian TV station Ro'ya showed that 90 percent of respondents were against importing gas from Israel.
استفتاء برنامج نبض البلد في شهر ٢ يشير الى ان ٩٠٪ من الشعب الأردني ضد صفقة الغاز مع العدو #غاز_العدو_احتلال #الأردن_تقاطع #غاز_العدو_احتلال pic.twitter.com/ydYS91Z6hW
— Samar Saeed (@Samarsaeed) 26 de septiembre de 2016
Nabd Al Balad poll in February points out that 90 percent of Jordanians are against the gas deal with the enemy.
The National Campaign to Overturn the Gas Deal With the Zionist Entity, a coalition of activists, syndicates, political parties, and former members of parliament founded in January 2015, has been leading the national opposition to the gas deal with the hashtag campaign #غاز_العدو_احتلال, which translates to “The Enemy's Gas Is Occupation.” The campaign had held a “people's court” earlier this month, accusing the government and the companies involved of jeopardizing national security and of supporting Zionist terrorism.
صور وفيديو: الحملة الوطنية لاسقاط اتفاقية الغاز تعقد محكمة شعبية لصفقة الغاز مع الكيان#غاز_العدو_احتلال #الشعب_يحاكم http://t.co/hItgNMk4yA
— مسار تحرّري (@taharruri) 6 de septiembre de 2015
Pictures and Video: The National Campaign to Overturn the Gas Deal holds a people's trial for the gas deal with the Zionist Entity
In response to the newly announced deal, the campaign released a strongly worded statement that lamented the government's decision to go ahead with the deal despite continued Israeli violations of the 1995 Peace Accords. The campaign went on to call for a protest on Friday, September 30, which is expected to be the first major Friday protest on the streets of Jordan since the 2011-12 uprisings.
Campaign organizers also supported a call by the Herak Shababi, a youth movement that has been active since the 2011-12 uprisings, which held a sit-in on Tuesday evening in-front of the NEPCO headquarters. ِThe sit-in managed to attract almost 200 participants on short notice, before dispersing peacefully with a call to return to the street on Friday:
سنبقى نهتف بأعلى صوتنا، لا للاحتلال لا للتطبيع القصري لا سلام حتى عودة الحقوق #غاز_العدو_احتلال pic.twitter.com/vSMcNPWwry
— Samar Saeed (@Samarsaeed) 27 de septiembre de 2016
We will chant as loud as we can, no occupation, no forced normalization and no peace until the rights are returned.
Jordanian writer Hisham Bustani posited in an article for 7iber, stating, “Jordan does not need to import gas from Israel, after all, it does not need alternatives any time soon, as government press releases admit, Jordan's energy needs are secured from what we import through the liquefied petroleum gas platform that was opened last year in Aqaba.” Bustani went to showcase the variety of alternative energy projects that Jordan has launched in the past few years that have the potential to cover Jordan's energy needs.
Safa’ Al Jayousi, an environmental expert and advocate, also tweeted about the potential of renewable energy sources for Jordan.
مصادر الطاقة المتجددة – وخاصة الشمسية – يمكنها أن توفر كهرباء أكثر بمقدار 60 مرة من احتياج الأردن للكهرباء بحلول العام 2050 بدون صفقات
— Safa’ Al Jayoussi (@Safaaljayoussi) 26 de septiembre de 2016
Renewable energy sources—particularly solar—can provide Jordan with 60 times the amount of its electricity needs by 2050 without any deals.
Bustani also questioned the timing of the deal, which was announced a few days after Jordan held its national elections, and a day after the current government rendered its resignation, leaving no institution to be held accountable for the deal.
Jordanian writer Bara’ Hasaniya also lamented the hypocrisy of the deal happening so soon after the elections.
كيف يوهمونا بوجود الديموقراطية في الوطن وهم يتجاهلون مطلب شعبي للملايين من ابناء الوطن بعدم توقيع اتفاقية مع دولة العدو. #غاز_العدو_احتلال
— Bara’ Hasaniya (@4Bara) 26 de septiembre de 2016
How can they trick us to believe in democracy in the country when they ignore the demands of millions of countrymen to not sign a deal with the enemy.
Twitter user Anadareee expressed her disdain that the signing of the deal came no later than two weeks after Israeli forces shot dead Said Al-Amro, a 28-year-old Jordanian from Al-Karak.
سجل التاريخ عندك 26-9..اليوم وقعنا اتفاقية ذل وعار مع العدو الصهيوني ولسا دم العمرو ما برد. #غاز_العدو_احتلال
— أنداري (@Andareee) 26 de septiembre de 2016
Write down the date 26-9, today we signed the deal of shame and subjugation with the Zionist enemy while the blood of Al-Amro isn't cold yet.
Jordanian writer Jaber Jaber expressed his concerns about the government resorting to censorship in order to limit media coverage of the deal, referring to the government's tendency to release frequent media gag orders, which Global Voices Advox reported on recently.
لحقوا اكتبوا عن صفقة الغاز مع العدو الصهيوني قبل ما يمنعوا النشر فيها. #غاز_العدو_احتلال
— jaber jaber (@jaber87) 26 de septiembre de 2016
You better write quickly about the gas deal with the Zionist enemy before they release a gag order.
Jordan is unlikely to back down from the deal due to its strategic importance to the country's allies, namely the United States and Israel.
With Egypt discovering its own strategic gas reserves, and the rest of the region embroiled in war, this leaves Jordan as the only viable customer for Leviathan. The development of the strategic gas field will open the way for a potential gas deal with Turkey, which needs to resolve its political differences with Cyprus first, before any deal can be made. This will break the Russian monopoly over natural gas in Europe, to the collective relief of the US and its allies across the Atlantic, as well as anchor Israel's economy and security, effectively hitting two birds with one stone.
The outcome of the protest on Friday will show if the Jordanian regime will be successful in weathering the initial backlash and wearing down local opposition to the deal.

author: Tara


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Puerto Rican Unity, a Bright Spot in the Darkness of an Archipelago-Wide Blackout · Global Voices
Ángel Carrión

Workers from the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) at the Aguirre power plant near the southeastern coast of Puerto Rico during the blackout which affected all the islands of Puerto Rico on Wednesday, September 21. Screenshot taken from video.
Things have more or less gone back to normal in Puerto Rico after a power failure on the afternoon of September 21 practically paralyzed the entire archipelago for three days, though for some people electricity was restored much later. Not even the island municipalities of Vieques and Culebra could escape the effects of the blackout, or apagón, as it's called in Spanish.
Immediate economic losses for the blackout have been estimated at around US$1 billion. The Department of Education reported that the amount of food that spoiled in the public school meal program due to the power failure is equivalent to at least $103,941. And some of Puerto Rico's reservoirs, like La Plata, have no emergency backup power, which meant that about 250,000 people were also left without water service.
Amid the darkness, Puerto Ricans’ solidarity with fellow neighbors shone brightly.
During the blackout, things ran fairly smoothly, considering the almost complete collapse of basic services. No looting and no violence related to the blackout were reported. Because traffic lights weren't functioning, the roads were tricky (see video below), but no major accidents were reported either. At the busiest intersections, police were dispatched to direct traffic, which helped immensely.
The blackout meant hardship for Puerto Ricans, but it also brought out the best qualities of many. Many people who either had emergency power plants or who had their electricity restored offered friends and neighbors—and sometimes, complete strangers—the chance to either cook some food or recharge their electric fans, radios or smartphones. (Needless to say, the blackout did not prevent people from using social media to communicate and to keep up to date on the power authority's progress on restoring electricity.)
It also did not stop the commemoration of the Grito de Lares (The Cry of Lares) on September 23, which marks the day when the independence movement of the 19th century in Puerto Rico launched a rebellion against the Spanish government in the mountainous town of Lares in 1868. Back then, Puerto Rican freedom fighters were in solidarity with Cubans struggling for their own independence.
The cause of the blackout remains unclear as of this writing. A fire at the Aguirre plant located near the southeastern coast of the main island of Puerto Rico is what provoked the collapse of the entire system, but it is not yet known what caused the fire, pictured in the video below:
Puerto Rico's electrical needs are provided solely by the Autoridad de Energía Eléctrica (AEE) or Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) in English, a public corporation which has been in the news for the past few years due to the approximately $9 billion debt it is trying to renegotiate. Unsurprisingly, after the government has already spent $43 million hiring debt restructuring experts for the public corporation, some are calling for the privatization of PREPA, ignoring the implications that privatization would have on a country where over 40% of the population is considered to live below the poverty line.
Renewable energy has long been mentioned as the way to go for PREPA. Indeed, Puerto Rico has no shortage of options when it comes to alternative forms of energy. Because of its geographic location in the Caribbean, Puerto Rico could easily harness the power of the sun, wind and sea to satisfy its energy needs. But historically, the government has only halfheartedly, at best, pursued these options, opting instead to rely on fossil fuels to meet its energy demand.
The blackout also hit when Puerto Rico, a US territory with limited rights of citizenship, was already smarting from recent decisions taken by the US government that diminish its autonomy. The greater significance of the apagón was probably best expressed by Maritza Stanchich, a professor of English at the University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras, who wrote for the Huffington Post a rather poignant observation:
The blackout spells the collapse of the Free Associated State—or “Commonwealth” as Puerto Rico has been called euphemistically—in even more tangible terms than all the seismic events of the past year, including two U.S. Supreme Court rulings that annulled Puerto Rico’s Constitution and sovereignty—or exposed it as the apparent lie it always was.
The blackout also portends the coming storm of the federally-imposed fiscal control board, instituted as part of PROMESA, the Orwellian-sounding law named for its acronym, Spanish for “promise.” President Obama’s recently announced appointees to the fiscal control board promise neoliberal economic austerity to do the bidding of vulture hedge funds, as well as social unrest.
With such distressing political and economic context, Puerto Ricans’ kindness and cooperation with their neighbors during the blackout was indeed a bright spot.

author: Ángel Carrión


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Russian TV Airs ‘Separatist Coca-Cola’ Prank Video As Real News Footage · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

Mikhail Pashkov. Image: YouTube
A YouTube video purportedly made in Ukraine has been causing a stir on the Russian Internet. In the video, a man stands in the doorway of a convenience store, holding a bottle of Coca-Cola that he has presumably just purchased. He notices that the bottle's label is adorned with a map of Ukraine—without Crimea. The words “For real patriots!” are printed above the map. The man approaches the sales clerk, shakes the bottle, and demands an explanation. She tries to reason with him, but eventually loses her patience and kicks the man out of the store.
The video was aired on Russian network television, presented as evidence of ethnic tension in Ukraine. This would make sense if it were real. But it's not—it is a prank video made by Russian Internet comic Mikhail Pashkov.
Indeed, “Separatist Coca-Cola” is one among various episodes of Pashkov's YouTube-based “Provocation Show.”
At the time of this writing, the video had almost 820,000 views on YouTube—including thousands of reactions shared by Internet users rejoicing at a Ukrainian woman rebuffing the frustrations of a “patriot” bemoaning the loss of Crimea, and thus appearing to side with Moscow’s annexation of the peninsula.
The initial response was so nasty that Pashkov uploaded another video about two weeks later, explaining that the “Separatist Coca-Cola” was a prank and admonishing viewers for leaving hateful comments on YouTube.
It is hard to know if Pashkov is being sincere here, given that his April 1 prank seems engineered to provoke exactly this sort of unkind reaction. According to his Vkontakte page, moreover, Pashkov also recently interviewed Graham Phillips—a British video blogger notorious for criticizing the Ukrainian government and championing Russian-backed separatists.
To prove that the footage was staged, Pashkov showed how the phony Coke labels were created, and published an alternate take of the same scene in the convenience store.
Far fewer people ever saw this second video, which attracted just 5,500 views.
Then, months later, a talk show on Pervyi Kanal—Russian network television—used the video in a segment about the political situation in Ukraine, airing the footage as if it were real. After showing the clip, the show’s host, Artem Sheinin, called it “very nice,” and praised the woman in the video (who is actually an actress), saying she represents the real Ukraine.
Amused by the apparent mixup, Pashkov uploaded the segment from Pervyi Kanal to his YouTube channel. Before long, however, he says he was hit with a “strike” by Google, following a copyright complaint by Pervyi Kanal, apparently knocking out his ability to monetize videos and reducing the length of the videos he can share. This has happened to various super users, leading to concerns about overly strict enforcement of YouTube's copyright policies.
Pashkov says he tried to appeal the decision, arguing that he’s merely reclaiming content that Pervyi Kanal took from him without his permission, but Google has reportedly sided with the Russian TV station, refusing to offer more details about its decision.
For the past week, Pashkov has been sharing more content on the social network Vkontakte, where his channel has about half as many followers. He is also active on the Russian Internet forum Pikabu, where he’s fond of sharing “lifehacks” about navigating Russia’s legal system.
Meanwhile, the TV show that aired on September 21 is still archived on Pervyi Kanal’s website and remains accessible to anyone. There is no indication on the channel’s website that the video was actually an April 1 joke.

author: Kevin Rothrock


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The Week That Was at Global Voices Podcast: We, the People · Global Voices
Sahar Habib Ghazi

The Week That Was at Global Voices podcast takes a look at some of the stories that have recently come out of the Global Voices newsroom. This week, we speak to our contributors Elizabeth Rivera, Giovanna Salazar and Juan Tadeo about popular discontent with politics in Mexico.
We also take you to Colombia, India, Syria and the United States, where we meet adults and children alike who are driven to make a difference.
Many thanks to Joey Ayoub, Gabriela García Calderón, Tori Egherman, Palash Ranjan Sanyal, and all our authors, translators and editors who helped make this episode possible.
In this episode, we featured Creative Commons licensed music from the Free Music Archive, including Please Listen Carefully by Jahzzar (CC BY-SA 4.0); First Steps on Earth by David Szesztay (CC BY-NC 3.0); Backward by David Szesztay (CC BY-NC 3.0); Making A Change by Lee Rosevere (CC BY 4.0); Breezin by Podington Bear (CC BY-NC 3.0); Indian Summer by Zero V (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0); and Cree by Satellite Ensemble (CC BY-NC 3.0).
The feature photo in this story is from the Facebook page of Pedro Kumamoto and says “No nos soltemos, los muros sí caen” (Don't let go, the walls will fall).
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
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author: Sahar Habib Ghazi


text:
Vietnamese Land Activist Cấn Thị Thêu Has Braved Violence, Arrest and Prison · Global Voices
Loa

Can Thi Theu has been detained twice for organizing citizen petitions against land evictions.
This edited article by Giang Nguyễn is from Loa, an independent news website and podcast that broadcasts stories about Vietnam, and is republished by Global Voices as part of a content-sharing agreement.
It tells the story of land rights activist Can Thi Theu, who was arrested last June for ‘causing public disorder’ during a demonstration. On September 20, she was sentenced to 20 months in prison.
Cấn Thị Thêu, 53, became a resident of Dương Nội, a village just outside of Hanoi, after marrying a local farmer. In late 2007 the family lost their land to the government, and she became a land rights activist. She told Loa this:
Dương Nội is where I lived. I want my children to have a home. When I lived in Dương Nội, I was a successful farmer. I owned 40 to 50 buffalos, fruit and vegetable gardens, fish ponds. We did well. But when they came to ‘take it back”, they destroyed everything, the sheds, the ponds. We lost our livelihood. Now, life is very difficult.
Thêu uses the word “take back” because in Vietnam, the land does not belong to the farmer, or technically anyone. The economy of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is largely agriculture-based and land is considered the “people’s property”. Individuals have usage rights, but they never own the land. That means a city dweller must give up part of his front yard to become a street if the government demands it. A peasant family can have its fields confiscated, even after they have farmed it for generations.
The government is the administrator of its usage. With Vietnam propelling towards rapid economic development in the past three decades, and rice fields making way for new developments, the tenuous system is beginning to crack.
Theu explained the unfair treatment they received:
They paid us only 200,000 đồng ($9 US) per square meter, but on the market, they sell it at a starting price of 31 million đồng per square meter. That’s almost 200 times what they paid us. With this unfair price, and with people unable to find new jobs, so many people are driven into poverty and unemployment. That’s why we oppose the repossession of our land. These prices are robbing us blind.
Cấn Thị Thêu, her husband and two sons are just one of more than 350 families in Dương Nội alone who have been taking their case to local authorities to petition for redress.
“There are probably thousands and thousands of them,” says Dũng Mai, an artist from Hà Nội. He has been running a group called Cứu Lấy Dân Oan (Assistance for Land Petitioners) since 2012.
Mai and the volunteers of the Assistance Land Petitioners use private donations to provide daily necessities for these petitioners while they are camped out in Hanoi. He says some are able to find odd jobs, like washing dishes, while they are in the capital, but many just barely survive.
They don’t have any jobs, any home. Just recently, we had to buy canvasses to shield them from the rain and sun, so they can find some shelter by sidewalks, trees or on the side of houses with big roofs for shade. We bought them canvasses to lie on. The ground gets very cold and without a canvass, they would get wet. It’s very hard for them.
People are protesting the trial of land rights activist Cấn Thị Thêu, while family members and supporters are being barred from entering the courtroom. Their signs read: “Cấn Thị Thêu is innocent” and “Arresting people and stealing their land is an evil act.” Photo from the Facebook page of Trịnh Bá Phương
According to a recent report from the Corporate Social Responsibility in Asia, an estimated 80 percent of all complaints filed by aggrieved citizens to the authorities are related to land disputes and unfair compensation.
That number is growing and women seem to make up a vocal majority.
It’s perhaps because these disaffected women as well as men have nothing left to lose, that they are willing to risk everything.
Amateur videos taken of land grabs show beatings perpetrated by men in uniform and thugs who farmers allege are undercover police.
Thêu remembers one confrontation well.
On April 25, 2014, about a thousand security police and civil defense forces came to raze the land, which we hadn’t gotten paid for yet. We were empty-handed, but they had sticks, batons and guns. I was standing on a hut that we built to look over the cemetery. I was just standing there to film the scene, the oppression from the authorities against us. They arrested people down below, they beat them savagely. I just filmed. Then they came for me. They took my camera, they beat me. I don’t know when I fell unconscious. When I woke up, I was inside police quarters in Hà Đông district.
Both she and her husband were beaten and arrested, she says. She spent the past year in prison, charged with “resisting persons in the performance of their duties” under Article 257 of the penal code. She says her sons have been beaten bloody on other occasions as well.
After having spent almost eight years fighting, she was again found on the front lines mid-September with several dozen Dương Nội neighbors and fellow petitioners from afar, sleeping overnight in front of the police inspector’s headquarters. They denounced recent police intimidation and smear campaigns.
Thêu says the group scored a victory when after negotiating the timing and attendees of the meeting, the next day an official told her that the people have a right to petition without interference and that they were allowed to receive money donations and wear protest t-shirts.
Thêu says whether it’s through petitions, protests or local empowerment, she won’t rest until her land is hers again.
They can kill all five of my family members. But I think, you live only once and you die only once. So I will live in a way that they will see that their brutality will never threaten our will to fight. We land petitioners will hold on to our land until the end.
Meanwhile, Thêu’s old property still remains abandoned and undeveloped, almost eight years after her eviction.
Listen more to the story of Cấn Thị Thêu through this podcast:

author: Loa


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‘When Your Palms Itch, You Will Receive Money’, and Other African Myths · Global Voices
Prudence Nyamishana

Three-legged pots commonly used in Botswana. If a young woman eats out of a pot, she supposedly will not get married. Creative Commons image by Rach151.
Africans, like people elsewhere in the world, use Twitter in many ways. Sometimes it's to have a laugh at themselves. Sometimes it's to find common ground across countries and cultures. Sometimes it's both.
For example, @IGtiz, a Kenyan student, has started the #100AfricanMyths hashtag to share myths that are passed on from generation to generation in African countries, mostly orally.
Myths in Africa serve different socio-cultural needs. Parents, for instance, use myths to keep their young ones in check.
Here is a sample of some of the more hilarious African myths.
Faith Mulungi, a Ugandan radio presenter, tweeted:
When your palms itch,you will receive money#100AfricanMyths
— Faith Liam Mulungi (@Omulungi_Hawt) September 27, 2016
@PatohShanqueels explained a common myth that went around schools where caning took place:
#100AfricanMyths putting Onions under your armpits made you faint when the teacher beat you 😂😂😂😂😂😂
— Soldier ↪ (@PatohShanqueels) September 27, 2016
Do not cut your nails at night, according to @xolelwandengane in South Africa:
U can't cut ur nails at night, coz the witches will come and pick them #100AfricanMyths
— Amanda black 🌹 (@xolelwandengane) September 27, 2016
Flo Letoaba, a South African radio talk host, added this one to the mix:
If you eat out of a pot while cooking, you won't get married #100AfricanMyths
— Flo Letoaba (@florenceletoaba) September 27, 2016
Whistling at night can be very dangerous — supposedly:
#100AfricanMyths If you whistle at night, a snake will visit your room
— The Usual Suspect (@Jude_Mugabi) September 27, 2016
Children were taught not to laugh at the disabled, according to @NaughtyMilz in Uganda:
If you laugh at a lame person you would give birth to a lame child…. #100Africanmyths
— ռɨʟօtɨċ (@NaughtyMilz) September 27, 2016
An owl is a messenger of death, says @iGitz_:
If an owl screechs near your house, someone is gonna die. #100AfricanMyths
— African President👑 (@iGitz_) September 27, 2016
Do not sweep away luck from your house, Vinnie from Kenya warned:
Never sweep dirt from your house at night, that is like throwing away luck from your home #100AfricanMyths
— Vinnie (@vinny_wa) September 27, 2016
Myths were also used to getting children to concentrate in class:
#100AfricanMyths
Sitting in the front row at school will guarantee you a pass
— Tumi Sole (@tumisole) September 27, 2016
Although the myths were from various parts of Africa, Dickens Jnr, an African American in the US state of Michigan, said that he had heard all them:
Relating to most of the #100AfricanMyths tweets is just 😂. I swear I have heard almost each one Of them.
— Dickens jr (@iickens) September 27, 2016

author: Prudence Nyamishana


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Azerbaijan Holds a Referendum Marred by Violations. Does Anyone Care Anymore? · Global Voices
Arzu Geybullayeva

Azerbaijani flag interpretation. Pixabay image licensed to reuse.
Children growing up in post-independence Azerbaijan are mandated to take a class on the oil-rich country's ever-changing constitution, but lessons on the document mostly take the form of recitals, with critical reading and discussion discouraged.
Perhaps that is why at least 70% of Azerbaijan's electorate turned out to support almost unanimously 29 constitutional amendments that further empowered reigning President Ilham Aliyev in a September 26 referendum, notably granting standing presidents mega-terms of seven years instead of five.
Or, perhaps there were other more underhanded reasons for such a ringing endorsement of the corrupt ruling family and their bid to rejig Azerbaijan's political system to suit their needs for a third time since 2002?
Linked is a sample ballot. What voters saw on that piece of paper on September 26 is merely the text of a proposed amendment. There is no reference to the title of the article being amended, nor the article itself.
Moreover, none of the changes were publicly explained to the voters. In interviews conducted by Radio Free Europe's Azerbaijan service, most respondents admitted they were unaware of what the new amendments entailed.
Based on observations on the ground courtesy of independent media outlets such as RFE and Meydan TV, as well as citizen journalists, it is apparent that electoral violations were utterly brazen and probably unprecedented in scope.
These two women, captured in an RFE video, were caught voting twice at different precincts, for instance.
Below, in a video published on Meydan TV's YouTube channel, a member of the election committee is shown merrily stuffing ballots into the ballot box.
And here, a box full of ballots is placed on the table.
In the meantime, social media was full of interesting reports of carousel voting and updates under the #AzReferendum hashtag.
Karuselçilər iş başında #AzReferendum pic.twitter.com/EbWsdnlRGy
— Islam Shikhali (@mikrobloqqer) September 26, 2016
Carousel voters at work #AzReferendum
Biri var fərd kimi əxlaqsızlıq edəsən, biri də var vətəndaş əxlaqsızlığı edəsən.Dünən topa bülleten atanlar misalı #AzReferendum
— Gunel (@gunelbudagova) September 27, 2016
It is one thing when you commit an unethical act as an individual. It is another when you do it as a citizen. Like those stuffing ballots yesterday #AzReferendum
Popular citizen blogger Hebib Muntezir enlightened his followers with a “how to” guide for Azerbaijani referendum rigging:
Bu referendumda yapokratların seçki texnologiyaları #Topabulleten #AzReferendum pic.twitter.com/cS8nrIGO2n
— Həbib Müntəzir (@muntezir) September 26, 2016
The election technologies of yapokrats [those from the ruling party of New Azerbaijan] in this referendum #ballotstuffing #AzReferendum:
1. Carousel voting — when one group of people walks from one precinct to another [to vote multiple times], sometimes in new changes of clothes so as not to be noticed;
2. #Ballotstuffing — after stuffing a box full of ballots , a member of the election committee picks it up and shakes it so as to mix up the evidence;
3. Voters vote for their parents who are absent (without an official document authorising the person to do so);
4. Votes are cast in the name of sick patients unable to attend the vote(again, without a official document authorising the person to do so);
5. Those employed by government institutions were handed pre-signed and filled in ballots in order to vote Yes;
6. Empty ballot boxes were replaced with full ones waiting [in backrooms] at precincts;
7. There was no secrecy as was the case in previous years — elections were being rigged openly, in front of cameras;
8. The voter turnout at 69% was a message to Europe. Come and see how elections are done and learn from us.
But in a day that went smoothly for the regime, there were still isolated incidents of outright defiance, suggesting Azerbaijani society has not had its resistance completely broken.
Several citizens took pictures of ballots despoiled with political slogans:
Down with monarchy!
#boycott Don't rape the constitution. Down with monarchy!
Young people are looking for a country to run away to. But the time will come when you won't find a hole to hide little Heydar [referring to the son of Ilham Aliyev].
As a result of the changes passed, Aliyev, who took over the presidency after his father Heydar Aliyev's death in 2003, will next face a vote in 2020, rather than 2018.
By that time, he no doubt hopes, the country's sliding economy — hammered by low global oil prices — might regain some swagger.
One other amendment worthy of note is the lowering of the minimum age for election to the legislature and the minimum age required for election to presidency from 25 to 18.
These changes appear to favour Ilham's son 19-year-old Heydar, who is named after his grandfather and reportedly owns nine waterfront mansions in Dubai in a testimony to the ruling family's largesse.
With critical voices increasingly marginalised, it seems there is little citizens can do to peg back the former Soviet Union's only dynastic dictatorship.

author: Arzu Geybullayeva


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Facebook Live Video Triggers Presidential Controversy in Trinidad and Tobago · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Anthony Thomas Aquinas Carmona (centre), candidate from Trinidad and Tobago, speaks at the ICC Judicial Candidates Forum in New York on October 25, 2011. President Carmona became Trinidad and Tobago's president in March 2013. Photo by Coalition for the ICC, used under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license.
A Facebook Live video has sparked a controversy involving Trinidad and Tobago’s president, Anthony Carmona, and allegations of financial mismanagement by his office.
On September 20, 2016, researcher and university lecturer Rhoda Bharath hosted a Facebook Live video session in which she enquired about alleged irregularities in the management of the president’s house and office. Bharath is well-known in Trinidad and Tobago for her political commentary on her blog, on Facebook, and on local broadcast media.
Bharath’s information and line of questioning was quickly picked up by local mainstream media, which posed questions about matters such as the procurement procedure for wine purchased by the President’s house, and President’s Carmona’s decision to meet privately with National Security Minister Edmund Dillon without “reference” to the country’s prime minister, Dr Keith Rowley.
Under Trinidad and Tobago’s constitution, the president is ceremonial head of state, elected by parliament; while the prime minister is head of government, elected by the country’s citizens.
Accounting inconsistencies in the president’s office were first identified in the 2015 Auditor General's Report on the Public Accounts, which was released on April 29, 2016. A section of the Report titled “Individual Areas of Concern” states that the accounts submitted by the president’s office contained:
“…85 instances of incorrect classification of expenditure totalling $2,685,236.90 in contravention of Financial Regulation 65 which stipulates that a vote may not be applied to a purpose for which it was not intended.”
The Auditor General’s Report also raised questions about inventory control and pension and leave records.
On September 24, during his annual Republic Day speech, President Carmona appeared to respond to these claims with a general swipe at the media, stating that:
“There are some journalists…who denigrate without evidential basis, engaged in armchair journalism who hear something by the way and it becomes reliable news….Theirs has become the language of obscenity and racial slurs—yes, that small circle that is leading the national dialogue, you are not the voice of the people because you have unfettered and unfair access to the press and media, because you have created vlogs and videos that rely for viewership and followers, not on proper and responsible research and wisdom but on distortions and sensationalism.”
In another Facebook Live video posted on September 27, Bharath said that the office of the president had called her employers at The University of the West Indies and threatened her job.
The Media Association of Trinidad and Tobago (MATT) took President Carmona to task for his comments, stating in a September 25 media release that it was “wrong to use his Republic Day message to deflect legitimate questions raised in the media about the use of public funds by President’s House.”
Bharath posted another video on the evening of September 28 in response to President Carmona’s address to the nation a few hours before, expressing dissatisfaction with his explanations for the financial irregularities and for his acceptance of a TT$28,000 (just over US$ 4,000) monthly housing allowance while living in state-funding housing. She also noted that the president never adequately addressed matters such as alleged nepotism, and the possible misappropriation of public funds.
Bharath's Facebook Live videos have attracted a wide and vocal audience, and she has pledged to continue doing them in order to seed information and help the country's media and citizens hold public officials to account.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


text:
I Am Lucky to Have a Syrian Passport · Global Voices
مرسيل شحوارو

Image: Pixabay
This post is part of a special series of articles by blogger and activist Marcell Shehwaro, describing the realities of life in Syria during the ongoing armed conflict between forces loyal to the current regime, and those seeking to oust it.
Dear Officer,
I am lucky to have a Syrian passport. You see, if it weren’t for this passport, random selection wouldn’t have chosen me, randomly and coincidentally, for investigation in all airports I’ve ever been through.
If it weren’t for my Syrian passport I would have passed through like all the rest, or, to be accurate, like most of them. I would have passed through failing to notice the unfortunate ones singled out for investigation. I would have had the privilege of reaching my destination on a schedule known beforehand.
Imagine that happening! It would be as if my time actually mattered. If that were the case I would definitely have failed to notice those coming from countries that are worth less under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
If it weren’t for my Syrian passport I would never have heard that extremely polite phrase: “Would you please wait on the side by the wall, Miss?”, and I would not have remembered my childhood school punishments.
What is this world punishing us for? Don’t you think that all borders should be opened specifically for us, Syrians, with a word of apology?
“I wouldn’t have noticed how we, the suspects, are led with extreme politeness to defend our innocence and to denounce terrorism; we, who have been more targeted by terrorism than any of those investigating us about it.”
If it weren’t for my Syrian passport I wouldn’t have noticed how we, the suspects, are led with extreme politeness to defend our innocence and to denounce terrorism; we, who have been more targeted by terrorism than any of those investigating us about it.
The real terrorism flies to you in private jets, and into private airports, after killing us silently, and occupies the pages of your newspapers and gets your media to discuss the elegance of his wife—the “Desert Rose”.
Your politeness, Sir, kills me more than your discrimination. “Would you please….” “We’re sorry to keep you…” “We’re sorry you have to go through this….” They sound like the clichés a man offers a woman he doesn’t love. “It’s not you, it’s me…” An over-politeness to sugarcoat a bitter truth. To make one feel good about oneself. You send us to be investigated on no charge but our identities, but you do it with extreme politeness.
It was a pure coincidence that half of those waiting in the investigation hall raised their hands when the investigator called for “Mohammed”. It was a pure coincidence, among so many other similar coincidences.
Please excuse me: I am obsessed with identifying patterns. If it weren’t for my Syrian passport I probably wouldn’t have noticed the recurring pattern—a purely coincidental recurring pattern, of course.
I sit there and wait with the rest. I take out an Arabic book by Ibrahim Nasrallah, a Palestinian writer who talks about resistance and love. I remember when I was an activist fighting for freedom and democracy, going out on protests and running for shelter, and writing. I look at the book in my hand. Now my biggest act of resistance is holding an Arabic book in an airport.
Excuse me, Sir, if I made reference to how problematic your interrogations of Syrians are. You see, some of us have experienced the unimaginable during interrogations, so we aren’t intimidated by something this polite. Others are so afraid of anyone in uniform that they confess to things they don’t even know. So what “truth” is it that you are trying to get out of us?
I also ask your pardon, for I didn’t mean to say “No” with such pride when you asked me to unlock my mobile. You see, this request echoes deeply in our collective conscience as Syrians. This request takes me back to the checkpoints in my country, where saying no to such a request could simply get you killed. I said “No” with pride because I wanted to inhale some of your democracy.
Do you understand the meaning of half a million of my own people dying in search of a democracy? What it means to be able to say no without getting killed?
“I will try to look cheerful and happy in the airport, but allow me to give you a small tip: if you see a cheerful and happy Syrian in an airport, it’s then you should really be suspicious.”
You ask me about my purpose for being in your country? I don’t know. I came to talk about death. They tell me I’m so good at talking about death that some of you even applaud me when I finish. I have seen so many human remains in Aleppo and it seems I am good in marketing that in English.
That’s what I came here to do. To look for allies I can convince that we deserve less death, and that maybe, just maybe, bombing a school is a shame for all humanity.
Do I look angry to you? I apologize! I haven’t yet mastered your manners. Appearing angry makes one suspicious, I know, and you know how emotional we are. You see, we haven’t yet learnt how to be less angry while all the planes in the world are helping our government bomb us day and night. I will try to look cheerful and happy in the airport, but allow me to give you a small tip: if you see a cheerful and happy Syrian in an airport, it’s then you should really be suspicious.
Do I appear fidgety to you? Maybe it is because I don’t understand how someone would ever answer “Yes” to the question: “Are you a member of a secret banned organization?”
No! No! All the secret peaceful groups I have ever been a member of were destroyed by our regime, their members displaced and their youth killed under torture. Have I ever used guns? I once suggested to a guy I liked to go shooting to release some anger, but he advised that we better avoid that, because it wouldn’t look good on our official papers as Syrians. But I only suggested that because I really liked the guy, and you know how love makes us do foolish things. But I have no intention of going near a weapon in my life. No Sir, I don’t use weapons, I hate weapons, even water guns will not find their way into my house.
Despite all that, I am lucky to have a Syrian passport, as thousands are deprived a passport by virtue of a political decision. Millions of others, who are not as good in marketing death as we are, or whose stories are less exciting to the audience, don’t get visas to travel, so they come to you by sea. Some of them die just to cross to you, so what’s four hours in the waiting area compared to that?
I am lucky to have my Syrian passport. Imagine—after all that I have been through, I still have nightmares where I lose my passport and wake up terrified.
I have an OCD habit of checking my passport every five minutes when I’m travelling. As if I lose it, I don’t know if any of those concerned international entities would help me get another travel document, in the event that the teenager Bashar Al-Asaad refused to consider us citizens and punish us for escaping the leash by denying us passports.
Nor do I want to add to the refugee crisis in your countries, God forbid.
I am lucky to have my passport. Could you please return it to me?
Thank you.

author: مرسيل شحوارو


text:
Khodorkovsky Announces ‘Open Media’ Project To Support Investigative Journalism Startups · Global Voices
Isaac Webb

Source: Chatham House, Flikr. CC 2.0
On Thursday, exiled Russian oil oligarch and opposition activist Mikhail Khodorkovsky announced the launch of “Open Media,” a project that will provide financial and technical support—including legal, accounting, and promotional services—to journalists and civil society activists working on investigative projects.
As reported by RBC, Open Media will support five to seven projects, providing between 3 and 30 million rubles (around $50,000 to $500,000) of funding to each. In addition to accepting applications from journalists, the commission is interested in project proposals from people who don’t have direct experience in the field, including activists and public figures, according to Khodorkovsky’s press secretary, Kulle Pispanen. Projects involving research on economics, culture, and the relationship between business and the authorities are likely to be considered. Each project will have a chief editor and a small group of staffers. Khodorkovsky said Open Media will give people an opportunity to “try out their ideas; if they don’t work out, it’s no big deal, it will another time.”
RBC quoted Khodorkovsky as saying:
СМИ — важный элемент гражданского общества, и нельзя позволить его угробить …стране нужен кадровый резерв в этой сфере, не убитый привычкой соглашательства с властью.
Media is an important element of civil society and we can’t let it be ruined …the country needs a talent pool that isn’t crippled by the habit of compromising with authorities.
Khodorkovsky, the former CEO of Yukos, once the largest oil company in Russia, was jailed in 2003 on charges many believe were brought for political reasons. Since being released from prison in 2013, Khodorkovsky has been involved in a number of different civil society media projects: he and businessman Boris Zimin spent $250,000 to help launch Meduza, now one of the most popular independent Russian news websites. In the spring of 2014, he hired the former deputy chief editor of Kommersant to launch “Open Russia,” a civil society initiative aimed at “bringing together citizens living both inside and outside of Russia, who share the European values of a strong, dynamic, and forward-looking state founded upon effective democratic institutions and the rule of law.”
Khodorkovsky says that although creating a separate website for each Open Media project is an option, doing so may ultimately be too time-consuming. He said that Open Russia may serve as a platform for these projects, which will be in a testing phase until they are officially launched December. Either way, the projects will be social media-focused, with each team running their own social media accounts and sharing their investigations there.
Khodorkovsky is reportedly also planning a separate, large-scale project that will conduct sociological research—perhaps spurred by the recent inclusion of the Levada Center, Russia’s leading independent survey company, on the Kremlin’s list of “foreign agents.”

author: Isaac Webb


text:
Kuwait Detains Activist Sara Al-Drees for Insulting the Country’s Ruler · Global Voices
Afef Abrougui

Emir of Kuwait Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah (center) with the Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (left) and the King of Bahrain Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. Photo by “Tribes of the World” via Flickr. (CC BY-SA 2.0)
On 26 September, authorities in Kuwait ordered the detention of activist Sara al-Drees for 21 days over tweets deemed “insulting” to the Emir, the country's ruler. The activist turned herself in to the authorities on Sunday, after the public prosecutor's office issued an arrest warrant for her.
Sara al-Drees. Photo via Twitter.
Al-Drees is a teacher, a pro-democracy activist, and an active Twitter user with 178 thousand followers. She tweets and writes about women's rights, human rights and political oppression in Kuwait.
She faces charges over comments she made on Twitter about a pardon she received for a previous jail sentence she was serving, also for insulting the Emir. On 17 July 2013, a court sentenced her to 20 months in prison, with hard labor, over tweets critical of the ruling family, the country's ruler, and the government's crackdown on local protests in 2012. She was pardoned by the Emir and released from prison on 30 July of the same year. However, her legal troubles did not end there. She now risks jail time for the same charge over tweets she posted in September this year. In those tweets, al-Drees commented on her pardon, responding to critics who kept telling her be grateful to the Emir after her pardon.
لما صدر العفو و طلعت من السجن
سنه و السذج يقولون لي “اشكري اللي عفى عنج”..
كل ما كتبت شي قالوا “انتي ما تتوبين؟”
لأنه عفى صرت في خانة المسيء
— سارة الدريس (@saraaldrees) September 7, 2016
after I was pardoned and released, for a year the naives kept telling me: “be grateful to the one who pardoned you”. Whenever I wrote something they would say: “you do not repent?”. I am now guilty, because he pardoned me
مع إن المفروض أن لا أسجن أساسا
كيف نسجن ظلما .. على رأي!
و يعفى عن المظلوم و كأنه مسيء
— سارة الدريس (@saraaldrees) September 7, 2016
and I should not have been jailed in the first place. How can we be unjustly jailed…for an opinion! Then the oppressed is pardoned as if he/she was guilty
In November 2015, she was also arrested in relation to tweets deemed “insulting to prophet Muhammad”, a crime punishable by up to ten years in jail with hard labour in Kuwait. Though she was acquitted earlier this year from this charge, al-Drees could once again be jailed for insulting the Emir, a crime punishable by up to five years in jail under the country's national security law.
Commenting on the routine legal harassment she faces, al-Drees tweeted on 19 September:
ينهكونك و يستنزفون طاقتك بقضية تلو الأخرى.. حتى تنشغل بنفسك و تتعبك همومك فتيأس و تتوقف عن نضالك
إن توقفت نالوا مرادهم و وصلوا لغايتهم
— سارة الدريس (@saraaldrees) September 19, 2016
they exhaust you and drain you out of energy with one case after another until you become concerned about yourself, and get tired by your ordeals. So you give up and stop fighting. When you stop, they get what they want and they achieve their goal
In Kuwait, no one is immune from legal prosecution when criticizing the Emir and the ruling family. Earlier this month a court convicted Sheikh Abdullah Salem Al Sabah, a grandnephew of the emir, of insulting his own royal family. He was sentenced to three years in jail and ordered to pay a fine of USD $16,500 for posting Snapchat messages critical of the government, which is presided over by a member of the royal family, and in which royals hold a majority of key positions. In recent years, dozens of opposition activists, including former members of parliament, were jailed for insulting the Emir. This summer, the parliament approved an amendment to the electoral law, banning those convicted of the offence from running for office.

author: Afef Abrougui


text:
Luxury ‘Mosquito-Sized’ Flats Are Not Good News for Hong Kong’s Poor · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

How the urban poor are “trapped” in subdivided units. Photo by Benny Lam. Non-commercial use.
Many of you have probably heard that Hong Kong's housing market is the most expensive in the world. How exactly do such high property prices affect real people's lives?
Well, much of Hong Kong's urban working class are stuck living in poor quality subdivided units, which are popularly described to be “mosquito-sized.” Now, to make matters worse, the wealthy are buying up luxury mosquito-sized apartments for investment purposes, thanks to the Hong Kong government's market-oriented housing policy. This, of course, doesn't bode well for the poor.
Just take a look at the price tag of the recently launched apartment development One Prestige in North Point, a commercial and residential district in Hong Kong Island. The building has a total of 128 flats, and 126 of those are open studios with sizes from 163 to 207 square feet. The size of the smallest unit is more or less equivalent to a parking space for a school van. The bed is right next to the open kitchen table according to the unit’s floor plan below.
But the low square footage doesn't mean low prices. The average price per square foot is sold for up to 24,000 Hong Kong dollars, approximately 3,094 US dollars per square foot. The smallest 163-foot unit will cost you up to 3.9 million HK dollars, more than half a million US dollars. Moreover, the monthly management fee per square foot is around 5.60-7.60 HK dollars, which means the buyer of the smallest unit will have to pay about 1,000-1,200 HK dollars, or 120-150 US dollars, to the developer every month.
The floor plan of the smallest unit in One Prestige. Adapted from Apple Daily's photo.
In 2016, three similar mosquito-sized apartment projects have been launched thus far. With each development, the sizes have been shrinking, but the prices have been ballooning. The developers justify their projects by arguing that the market demand for small apartments is high in urban areas and the development of mosquito-sized units can effectively increase the supply. These projects are also in alignment with the government's land policy which encourages developers to build high-rises on tiny strips of land in already dense urban residential areas in order to meet its target of 480,000 new homes in 10 years. Some land plots are less than 500 square meters; Hong Kong people have nicknamed them “needle-type” apartment buildings.
It has been estimated that the city will see 5,000 tiny apartments introduced to the market annually until 2019. However, the projects are not catering to the needs of local residents, but to investors’ interests. Approximately 70 per cent of the buyers of the luxury small units are investors.
In order to make a stable return of their investment, the monthly rent per square foot in One Prestige will be up to 80 HK dollars, which means the monthly rent for the smallest unit will be 13,040 HK dollars, or 1,678 US dollars. It seems inevitable that such expensive rent will worsen the already crazy urban apartment rental market.
Hong Kong indeed has a strong demand for small units in urban areas, but the demand comes from poor households rather than the young middle class.
According to the Hong Kong government's statistics department, in 2015 there were approximately 200,000 people living in 88,800 subdivided units. The average per capita living space was 5.8 square meters or 62.5 square feet. The median monthly household income is 12,500 Hong Kong dollars, and the median monthly rental payment is 4,200 Hong Kong dollars.
The living conditions of the subdivided unit are usually very poor. Benny Lam, a photographer who spent two years taking photos of the urban poor living in tiny flats, reflected on his project on Facebook:
Over the last two years, I have taken photos of the poor living conditions in Hong Kong. Every photography experience in the old districts is literally suffocating, as I experience the way that a single apartment is divided into numerous tiny units: there are no windows for ventilation; and the beds there are too short for the residents to lay their bodies down flat.
There are tens of thousands of low-income families packed in such suffocating spaces in Hong Kong. You may wonder why we should care, as these people are not part of our lives. However, I would like to tell you that they are exactly the people who come into your life every single day: they are serving you as the waiters in the restaurants where you eat, they are the security guards in the shopping malls you wander around, or the cleaners and the delivery men on the streets you pass through. The only difference between us and them is that their homes are sub-divided rooms, or even just boxes measuring 6 x 2.5 feet. After their tedious and tiring work, they have only earned enough to live in a space that small. I believe that this is not only a problem related to poverty, but also a significant social problem.
The reason why many working-class people choose to live in such a cramped living environment is because they are in the service sector and have to work long hours for a modest salary. Living downtown can save them about two hours of travelling time and save them 30-40 HK dollars (5 US dollars) in transportation costs daily. So the increase in the supply of luxury urban mosquito-sized units will not help them.
On the contrary, the demand for investment opportunities has resulted in a surge in the rent for small units and will probably also result in higher rents for subdivided units in urban areas too. In fact, between 2013 and 2015, the average rent for a subdivided unit in Hong Kong saw a 10 percent rise, and the trend is unlikely to cease unless the government increases the supply of affordable urban public housing.
Benny Lam's photos about Hong Kong grassroots housing will be exhibited in Hong Kong Art Center between October 3-9.

author: Oiwan Lam


text:
Mexico’s Attorney General Secretly Purchased Costly Spyware (Again) · Global Voices
Giovanna Salazar

‘Big Brother is watching you‘. Image by Flickr user Photon, reproduced under the license CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Mexican news outlet Reforma recently confirmed that Mexico's Attorney General (the government agency in charge of investigating and pursuing federal crimes in Mexico) acquired surveillance software from the Israeli company NSO Group in 2014 and 2015 for a sum of 15 million dollars. According to Reforma:
La PGR compró en la Administración de Jesús Murillo Karam el software de espionaje Pegasus, hasta ahora el más sofisticado en el mercado y capaz de escuchar, ver, capturar texto, imagen y contactos de cualquier teléfono inteligente.
The AG (Attorney General), under the Administration of Jesús Murillo Karam, bought the espionage software Pegasus, which is so far the most sophisticated spy software on the market and is capable of listening, viewing, and extracting text, images, and contacts from any smart phone.
This information emerges a few weeks after the North American newspaper the New York Times published an article revealing that, according to e-mails to which the Times had access, the Mexican government has held multimillion-dollar contracts with the NSO company in order to conduct three projects over three years since 2013.
The New York Times emphasized that in August 2016, investigators from the specialized centers on digital security issues Citizen Lab and Lookout detected attempts to tap into the cellphones of human rights advocate Ahmed Mansoor from the United Arab Emirates and of Mexican journalist Rafael Cabrera (one of the journalists behind the “Casa Blanca” investigation that involved Mexico's presidential couple in acts of corruption) with technology made by the same NSO Group. Here is what Cabrera announced on his Twitter account:
Tweet translation: “I have received these two messages, supposedly from UnoTV, from this number: (55) 6106 7277. This is not funny”
Image translation: Message on the left reads, “Presidency will sue for defamation those who published the White House report.” And message on the right says, “By issue of the White House, the Presidency could incarcerate reporters while it investigates.”
The spokesman for the Mexican embassy in Washington, Ricardo Alday, responded by telling the New York Times that all intelligence systems acquired by the Mexican government have the required legal backing and that they are not being used against journalists or activists.
In spite of this, according to Mexican NGO Network in Defense of Digital Rights (R3D in Spanish):
Las revelaciones son preocupantes, puesto que hasta ahora la adquisición se manejó en completa opacidad; además, la empresa NSO Group tiene antecedentes de haber vendido su equipo a gobiernos que no respetan los derechos humanos, como el caso de los Emiratos Árabes Unidos.
Pegasus permite capturar imágenes, mensajes de texto, escuchar llamadas telefónicas y robar información de cualquier smartphone, lo que lo convierte en un software altamente intrusivo.
The revelations are worrisome, given that until now the acquisition was handled in complete obscurity; in addition, the company NSO Group has previous records of having sold its equipment to governments that do not respect human rights, as is the case with the United Arab Emirates.
Pegasus allows the extraction of images, text messages, listening to telephone calls, and stealing information from any smartphone, which makes it a highly intrusive software.
This is not the first time that the Mexican government has been seen buying surveillance technologies and using them for purposes that lie beyond public interest.
‘laptop-spying‘. Image by EFF Photos on Flickr. Used under license CC BY 2.0.
In April 2013, the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab detected the surveillance software FinFisher, sold by the British company Gamma Group, operating on the telecommunication networks of the companies Iusacell and UniNet, which is a subsidiary of Mexican telecommunications company Telmex. The software, which also has been used by various governments in the Middle East and Asia, typically infects computers and smartphones disguised by a seemingly harmless link or attachment. Once it has installed itself into a person's device, it allows the perpetrator to monitor communications without the user's knowledge.
That same year, an investigation done by the organizations Propuesta Cívica and ContingenteMX and published by Mexico City newspaper La Jornada found that FinFisher was used extensively by at least four federal dependencies: The Secretary of Public Security (SSP in Spanish), the Republic's Attorney General (PGR), the Center for Investigation and National Security (CISEN in Spanish), and the Presidential General Staff (EMP in Spanish).
In July 2013, the representative of the collective ContingenteMX, Jesús Robles Maloof, reported that he had been a target of espionage in his column, “Smile, They are Watching You” for the digital journal SinEmbargo:
El pasado martes 7 de mayo de este año [2013], mi familia y yo recibimos una amenaza. Nos hicieron saber que accedieron a mis comunicaciones, leyendo incluso algunas de ellas. Denuncié los hechos penalmente y estoy en espera que la autoridad determine el origen y los programas usados para este. Acepto, como todos mis colegas, los retos que significan defender los derechos humanos, lo que de ninguna manera implica que nos quedemos cruzados de brazos. Al defender la Constitución, defendemos la vía de la transformación democrática.
No se es paranoico cuando se revisan periódicamente las medidas personales de seguridad. Se es paranoico cuando crees que necesitas espiar a toda la población. Instalados en la irracionalidad están los gobiernos que nos tienen miedo. La democracia es incertidumbre en el cambio de poder, querer controlar todo es muestra de autoritarismo.
This past Tuesday, May 7 of this year [2013], my family and I received a threat. They made it known to us that they had gained access to my communications, even reading some of them. I reported these criminal acts and am now waiting for the authorities to determine their origin and the programs used for this. I admit, like all of my colleagues, the challenges that come with defending human rights, which in no way implies that we keep our arms crossed. In defending the Constitution, we defend the road to democratic transformation.
It is not paranoid when one periodically reviews one's personal security measures. It is paranoid when you believe that you need to spy on the entire population. The governments that fear us are settled in irrationality. Democracy is uncertainty in the change of power; to want to control everything is proof of authoritarianism.
The 2014 Global Information Society Watch (GISWatch) report on surveillance technologies included a chapter on Mexico, created by the organization SONTUSDATOS. In the chapter, they point out that they found traces of the program FinFisher in the mobile devices of different human rights activists.
At the end of July 2016, the magazine Proceso demonstrated as well that Mexico acquired simulators of cell phone towers (also known as IMSI catchers) belonging to the Finnish technology company Exfo Oy in 2014, which have the ability to intercept cellular traffic and communications content, to collect information from mobile devices, and to track and locate users.
Additionally, in 2015 a leak by Wikileaks showed that Mexico spent almost 6 million euros over four years in order to acquire the program Remote Control System (RCS), from the Italian company Hacking Team, which is capable of invading any electronic device. According to the report “Hacking Team: Spy Malware in Latin America,” published by Digital Rights together with Aristegui Noticias:
[el programa] Remote Control System accede a contraseñas, contactos, mensajes y correos electrónicos; llamadas telefónicas; que además controla micrófono y webcams; tiene acceso a nuestras redes sociales; puede saber dónde estamos en todo momento y registra cada una de las teclas apretadas, clics del mouse y sitios de internet visitados.
[the program] Remote Control System accesses passwords, contacts, messages, and e-mails, telephone calls, and also controls the microphone and webcams. It has access to our social networks, it can know where we are at every moment and register each one of our keystrokes, mouse clicks, and visited internet sites.
This report concludes that these types of technologies violate rights to privacy, freedom of expression, and due process, and underscores the importance of the Mexican government being transparent in its information regarding the purchase and use of these types of surveillance tools.
Unfortunately, the federal government does not seem to have any intention of making this type of information public, as demonstrated by its recent refusal to disclose which people and devices were tapped by the Center for Investigation and National Security (CISEN) during 2014 in response to a request for information filed by the Network in Defense of Digital Rights (R3D). Nevertheless, as indicated by R3D, in 2016 the National Institute for Transparency, Access to Information, and Protection of Personal Data (INAI in Spanish) determined that such information should be public knowledge.
El @INAImexico obligó al CISEN a decirnos cuántas personas espió en 2014. @EPN quiere que la @SCJN lo impida: https://t.co/EL8QmRZf4q
— R3D (@r3dmx) September 13, 2016
The @INAImexico compelled the CISEN to tell us how many people it spied on in 2014. @EPN wants the @SCJN to block it.
(In image: Presidency does not want you to know how many people it spied on…)

author: Giovanna Salazar


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Afghanistan Prepares Warily to Welcome Back One of its Most Explosive Sons · Global Voices
Rustam Ali Seerat

Photo from YouTube video.
For most in Afghanistan, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is a name that needs no introduction.
The warlord leader of the Hezb-e-Islami (Islamic Party), is commonly referred to as the ‘Butcher of Kabul’ for the crimes committed by his forces over the course of the country's protracted civil conflict, and is loved and detested to extremes by different parts of a divided population.
Yet the Afghan government is hoping that by pardoning and rehabilitating him, the chances of peace in the fractured republic will be bolstered.
On September 29 the government drew up an accord with Hekmatyar's party which will allow him to appear in Kabul under conditions of immunity from prosecution by the Afghan government once his name is removed from a US blacklist of designated terrorists.
Hezb-e-Islami, ironically, was the biggest recipient of the CIA aid during the Afghan jihad against the Soviet invasion.
In the 1990s, his troops participated in some of the most bitter internecine fighting among the Mujaheedin movement that succeeded in evicting the red army, only to fail spectacularly to hold together as a cohesive government.
When the Taliban later emerged in the southern city of Qandahar, his troops withdrew and the Taliban took the areas which were under the control of Hezb-e-Islami.
Since the US-led invasion in 2001, Hekmatyar and his followers have waged a war against the Afghan government and the ISAF coalition,while alternately cooperating and competing with the Taliban. His fighters have been involved in numerous suicide attacks, shootings, bombings and killings of military and non-military personnel.
Although Hekmatyar's current whereabouts are unknown, he is believed to be residing either in a remote part of the country, or Pakistan.
His son, currently based in Kabul, rejected an appeal by the Afghan Human Rights Commission, which asked Hezb-e-Islami to apologise to the Afghan people for its crimes, saying the party has done nothing wrong.
This is in keeping with the general position of Afghanistan's warlords, who, with the notable exception of the brutal Abdul Rashid Dustom, have collectively refused to acknowledge the suffering they have inflicted on the Afghan people over the years.
While their reluctance to take ownership of a slew of alleged war crimes has undoubtedly set back the process of peace and reconciliation in the country, many Afghans also wearily accept the need to bring the warlords into the domestic political fold to build a coalition that can peg back the Taliban and restore stability.
Naser Chemran, a teacher based in Kabul, took a wait-and-see approach to the accord with Hekmatyar's followers:
در مجموع پیوستن آقای حکمتیار و طرفداران مسلح شان را که با دولت عملاً در جنگ بودند به فال نیک میگیریم.
اما اینکه نیروهای مسلح غیر قانونی وی چی زمان و چگونه خلع سلاح خواهند شد و یا اصلاً درین مورد ترفندی در کار خواهد بود گذشت زمان پاسخ خواهد داد.
Posted by ناصر چمران on Thursday, September 29, 2016
Over all we take Hekmatyar and his fighters’ joining the government as a good omen. But, only time will tell whether his illegal insurgents will be disarmed or if some conspiracy will arise. Posted by ناصر چمران on Thursday, September 29, 2016
Other social media users have opposed the deal outright, recalling the rocket attacks staged by Hekmatyar's forces on Kabul during his struggle with the post-Soviet Mujaheddin government in the 1990s, and posting black profile photos in protest.
The United Nations reported that 1,800 civilians died in rocket attacks in Kabul between May 1992 and August 1995, and 500,000 people fled the city.
Haroon Yousifi, an Afghan satirist based in London, played with Hekmatyar's destructive reputation in a post on his Facebook page enquiring as to when he will appear publicly in the capital.
حالی چه وقت آقای حکمتیار به کابل «اصابت» می کند؟
When will Mr. Hekmatyar be launched at Kabul?
Posted by Haroon Yousofi on Sunday, September 25, 2016
In a country where considerations of ethnic balancing are central to government calculations, Hekmatyar claims a broad base of support among the Pashtuns of Afghanistan as well as a smaller base of support among Tajiks in the northeastern regions of the country.
He also has a reputation for exploiting these explosive ethnic fissures, warning that non-Pashtun minority groups in favour of foreign troops being stationed in the country “will face such a punishment so as to remain a lesson for their coming generations” in an address on the Muslim holiday of Eid in 2013.
Afghan politics is complicated and messy. One person's hero is another's mass-murderer, and while Hekmatyar remains very unpopular among most Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks, he still commands respect among people old enough to remember the original Mujaheedin groups.
The Afghan government now faces a challenge to integrate him in such a way that will avoid inflaming other power-brokers, while Afghan society must somehow come to terms with the reemergence of one of the nation's most explosive sons.

author: Rustam Ali Seerat


text:
An Iranian-Canadian Academic Is Released, but Iran’s Crackdown on Women’s Rights Activists Continues · Global Voices
Mahsa Alimardani

Iranian-Canadian Academic Homa Hoodfar was released after months of imprisonment for her “feminist” activity. Her case was part of a larger crackdown on women's rights activity before and after the 2016 parliamentary elections. Remix image of Hoodfar and a woman receiving a ballot to vote in Iran.
Some good news reached Canada this week when Homa Hoodfar, an Iranian-Canadian anthropologist, was released after months of incarceration in Iran. Hoodfar is known for her research on women and Islam, especially women's participation in Iranian elections.
Her arrest highlighted two particular areas of sensitivity for Iranian hardliners: the presence of dual nationals, and any activity related to women's rights in Iran. Hoodfar was therefore particularly problematic amongst the hardline Iranian institutions of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and the judiciary. These two bodies have been responsible for the arrests and incarceration of many activists, journalists, and dual nationals. They operate independent of the elected government, and often work to undermine the relatively progressive tendencies of the moderate Rouhani administration.
Hoodfar's status and persecution as a dual national has been widely discussed. However, what has been given less focus is the Iranian government's recent crackdown on activism and discourse around women's rights, in which Hoodfar's case was also entangled.
Women's participation in Iran's parliamentary elections in February 2016 was unprecedented since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Women won 17 of the 209 parliamentary seats. These gains for women marked the first time since the revolution that there are more female politicians than clerical politicians in the parliament and signalled a shift in public support away from hardline Islamic conservatives. This female participation was the subject of Hoodfar's research when she spent time scouring the Iranian parliament's library on her February visit to Iran.
Following the beginning of her detainment in June, Tehran's prosecutor general gave a media interview stating that Hoodfar’s “criminal” case was connected with “her entry into fields concerning feminism and national security offences”. Days earlier, media outlets affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards ran articles claiming that the 65-year-old Concordia University professor was “the Iran agent of a feminist network building operation” and the Campaign for Changing the Male Dominated Face of Parliament was “her latest project”.
The Campaign for Changing the Male Dominated Face of Parliament worked to promote women's participation within parliament; it is not clear if Hoodfar has any direct affiliation with them.
An image from the Campaign to Change the Male Face of Parliament's introductory video. On the left, the number 50 with the female symbol incorporated placing her election ballot. On the right, the number 50 again with the female symbol in a parliamentary chair. The text reads: “The work of women for women in parliament” is equal to “women for the change of laws for equal rights.”
Those who participated in it belong to a large network of women in Iran with a solidarity network from within the Iranian diaspora, including prominent activists inside Iran such a Noushin Ahmadi Khorasani, who has previously faced arrest and imprisonment for her women's rights work on campaigns such as the One Million Signatures Campaign to Repeal Discriminatory Laws and the Feminist School.
The Feminist School explained on its website that its goal was to move beyond the right to vote towards the right to be elected — women only held 3% of the seats in the Iranian parliament before the February elections:
We need our parliamentary representatives to be committed to equal human rights for women and other citizens. It’s because of this that we have initiated our campaign for changing the male-dominated face of the parliament. […] Women hold critical responsibilities at all levels of society from the household level to economic, social and cultural arenas. It’s now time for the place of women in the legislative body to change commensurate with the responsibilities they hold.
Participation in the political management and legislative processes is a justified demand that has been stipulated in clause 25 of the Islamic Republic’s constitution: “All citizens irrespective of their gender are protected by the law and enjoy political, economic, social and cultural rights consistent with Islamic standards”.
The campaign's goal was to elect 50 female parliamentarians. While the total of 17 women elected fell short, they had significant success in generating an unprecedented amount of candidates. Official numbers calculated 1,234 women registered to run for parliament — a three-fold increase compared to the previous parliamentary elections in 2012 — and at least 16 women applied to become candidates in the Assembly of Experts. There were mass disqualifications by the Guardian Council, the body that vets all candidates running in different elections in Iran, and no woman was vetted to run for the Assembly of Experts, the body that will be responsible for electing the country's next Supreme Leader.
As the February elections neared, the Revolutionary Guards started an intensive campaign of repression against women's rights activists. In January, they started linking any collective initiatives in the field of women's rights to criminal activity, much like Hoodfar's case. Many with associations to the Campaign for Changing the Male Dominated Face of Parliament were summoned for interrogations by the Revolutionary Guards, according to Amnesty International. Their efforts promoting female political participation were cast as Western-orchestrated plots — Iran's hardline elements often view the expansion of a woman's role beyond the home as stemming from Western influence, as opposed to a homegrown desire by Iranian women to have a stake in their country's laws and policies.
In an interview with Basij news agency — the Basij being the volunteer militia under the authority of the Revolutionary Guards — Zahra Nasiri, a female member of the women's branch of the hardline Islamic Society of Students, explained that she was dismayed that elements within the Rouhani government were encouraging these “Western” derived efforts to promote women in parliament:
It’s not surprising to see feminists popping up every once in a while and shouting slogans about equal rights, but what’s unfortunate is seeing government officials supporting these ideas and allowing them to creep into government positions…These days it seems like the Arrogant Powers [Western governments] are trying to infiltrate our country through feminist forces.
President Rouhani and members of his administration had expressed their encouragement of women's participation in the February elections on numerous occasions, such as this December 2015 statement:
Women should be present in the elections for the Assembly of Experts and especially for [Parliament] because their presence in the mix is important for us…We are not doing women a favor [by bringing them into government]. This is their natural right…There’s no difference between women and men as far as Creation, art, intelligence and closeness to God are concerned.
Nasiri's opinions however, were echoed amongst many other hardline figures, including the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, whose notable theories on women include the following from May 2013:
One of women’s greatest responsibilities is to bear children. That’s the art of being a woman.
Khamenei's many speeches concerning women often discourage women from participating in activities outside of the home.
Many women however are hopeful that the election of the new female parliamentarians, mostly from within the more progressive reformist camp, will indeed push back against traditional policies regarding women through parliamentary legislature.
These hardline sentiments were indeed the reason for the mass disqualifications by the Guardian Council, and the crackdowns on members of the Campaign before and after the parliamentary elections.
The interrogations the women faced had to do with their affiliation with both the Feminist School and Campaign for Changing the Male Dominated Face of Parliament. As a result, many working on the initiative either suspended or heavily self-censored their activities. The Campaign told Amnesty many of its active campaign members have ongoing national security-related cases against them.
The most tangible outcome of these crackdowns can be seen in the fact that neither the Feminist School website or Facebook page have been updated since February 2016. Additionally, Iran's renowned women's rights magazine Zanan-e Emrooz ceased its publication after years of struggle with the government over its content. The magazine was shut down in April 2015 and reopened again later in the year, only to be finally shuttered for good in July 2016.
While Hoodfar's release as well as the international attention are in large part due to her status as a Canadian academic and dual national, the continued persecution of women's rights activists with ties only to Iran should not be forgotten.

author: Mahsa Alimardani