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A Year of Violence in Bangladesh · Global Voices
Rezwan

Some of the secular writers killed in recent years in Bangladesh. From top left clockwise: Faisal Arefin Dipan, Shafiul Islam, Oyasiqur Rahman Babu, Rajib Haider, Avijit Roy and Ananta Bijoy Das.
In less than four years, Bangladesh has seen at least 15 bloggers, writers, and activists killed for their progressive and secular views. There have also been an unusually high number of fatal attacks on foreigners and worshippers.
The spate of killings of writers and intellectuals known for their progressive views is not random. The names of nearly all of those killed in recent years appeared on a list of 84 people created by a group of conservative Muslim clerics who accused the bloggers of “atheism” and writing against Islam. The clerics submitted the list to a special government committee in 2013, and openly stated that many bloggers are “apostates” and should be “killed”.
Bangladesh is a non-religious parliamentary democracy, in which the right to free expression is enshrined by Bangladesh’s constitution. Yet the government, the judiciary and police forces have not taken sufficient measures to deter extremists from targeting the bloggers and the publishers.
On the contrary, authorities have blocked critical websites and arrested multiple bloggers from the black list. In 2015, just days after secular blogger Niloy Neel hacked to death at his apartment, Bangladesh's Chief of Police warned that “free-thinkers and bloggers should not cross the limit of tolerance while expressing their views on religion.” Many are skeptical of police efforts to investigate the murders.
These circumstances have prompted many bloggers and online activists to take refuge in safe havens abroad. However, this has not been easy for them, or their families. Blogger and online activist Mahmudul Haque Munshi, who is in exile in Germany, wrote in his blog Swapnokothok (Dreamweaver) earlier this year about choosing exile:
আমি কখনো ভাবিনি আমাকে আমার মাতৃভূমি ছাড়তে হবে। [..] মোবাইল নাম্বার ওপেন ছিলো ব্লগে তাই কল করে হুমকি ধামকি দিতো কিছু মানুষ। ব্লগে পোস্ট দেয়া হতো সরকার চেঞ্জ হলে কোন দশজন ব্লগারের লাশ পড়বে। আমার নাম থাকতো সেসব লিস্টে। আমরা পাত্তা দিতাম না। কারন ব্লগের লেখালেখির কারনে ব্লগার খুন হবে এটা ছিলো এক ধরনের হাস্যকর চিন্তা তখন। সেই হাস্যকর চিন্তাটাই সত্যি হয়ে দেখা দেয় ২০১৩-র ১৪ই ফেব্রুয়ারি। আমার খুব কাছের একজন মানুষ, একজন ব্লগার থাবাবাবা কে হত্যা করা হয় কুপিয়ে তাঁর বাসার সামনে।
I never thought that I would leave my country. […] My mobile number was mentioned in my blog so I got frequent calls threatening me. On other blogs, writers would say which ten bloggers would be killed if the current government falls. My name was on those lists. But I didn't let it bother me. Because back then killing bloggers for their writing was an unthinkable and laughable idea. But that laughable idea became a reality on 14 February of 2013, when one of my close friend, blogger Thaba Baba (Ahmed Razib Haider) was hacked to death in front of his home.
He went on to describe the guilt he feels in leaving his country:
আমার মনে একটি অপরাধবোধ আছে। যে যুদ্ধটা আমরা করছিলাম, সে যুদ্ধটা ছেড়ে চলে আসার অপরাধবোধ। কিন্তু এ কেমন যুদ্ধ? ছায়ার সাথে মানুষ কিভাবে যুদ্ধ করে? [..] যারা চাইছিলেন আমি দেশে থেকে যেন মারা যাই, তাঁদের বলতে চাই, আপনাদের চাওয়াটা পুরন হবে না। আমি বেঁচে থাকবো, আমার করার আছে অনেক কিছু। সব শেষ না করে মরে গেলে তো হবেনা।
I have a guilty feeling. The fight we fought but then abandoned, leaving the battlefield. But how is this war? How can you fight with shadows? […] Those who wanted me to die in vain, I would like to tell them, you will not win. I will live, I have to do a lot of things. I cannot die before achieving some of that.
The killings went on in 2016. Nazimuddin Samad, a student of law in the Jagannath University and a vocal critic of religious extremism was killed in April this year. Also in the same month, Rezaul Karim Siddique, an English professor at Rajshahi University, was found hacked to death near his home.
Xulhaz Mannan, the editor Bangladesh's first LGBT news site. Image courtesy of PEN International.
LGBT activist Xulhaz Mannan, along with theatre activist Mahbub Rabbi Tonoy, were killed on 25 April 2016. Mannan was the founder and editor of the country's first news website for LGBT citizens.
Ansar al Islam #Bangladesh /AQIS claims responsiblity for the murder of Xulhaz Mannan and Mahbub Tanoy. pic.twitter.com/Jing4yRsf7
— Tasneem Khalil (@tasneem) April 26, 2016
Many of these killings have been claimed on the Internet or on social media by accounts believed to be linked to ISIS, Ansar Al Islam or Ansarullah Bangla Team. These groups have also claimed responsibility for what appear to be random killings of regular citizens.
On the night of 1 July 2016, five young men in their twenties, some educated abroad and coming from affluent families, stormed into the Holey Artisan Bakery in the upscale Gulshan area in Dhaka, Bangladesh, which is frequented by foreigners. They took several dozen hostages, both foreigners and locals, and opened fire on police.
The next morning, a joint force combining the Bangladesh Army, paramilitary group Border Guard Bangladesh, the police and the elite force Rapid Action Battalion raided the Holey Artisan Bakery to end the hostage crisis. Some hostages were released, and others managed to escape, but 29 people were killed, including 20 hostages (18 foreigners and two locals), two police officers, five gunmen, and two bakery staff. This was the worst terror attack in the country's history.
Amaq News Agency, which is affiliated with ISIS, claimed responsibility for the attacks. Photos of the attackers, sporting the signature ISIS red keffiyehs and black punjabis and the bloody images of the slain hostages emerged on the Internet.
On the 7 July, militants attacked police guarding the congregation at Sholakia, where the largest Eid prayers in Bangladesh were taking place, leaving three dead. Later on that month police raided a terrorist den in the capital Dhaka and killed nine militants. The police reported they found bombs, ammunition and two black ISIS flags from the den.
The police have maintained that they all are not from ISIS, but members of the banned local militant outfit Jamaat-ul Mujahideen, Bangladesh.
Law enforcement authorities also have published a list of about 200 individuals who were reported missing over the last year and a half and who are feared to have dangerous motives. Some of the missing men were traced to flying abroad to Malaysia and Turkey and then their trail mysteriously disappears.
In the course of the following months the police continued to raid the homes of suspected militants, hoping to deter further attacks. Recently it has emerged that Canadian Bangladeshi Tamim Ahmed Chowdhury (alias Abū Ibrāhīm al-Hanīf) orchestrated the 1 July militant attack and he sought and won approval for it from ISIS. He was killed in a raid by Bangladesh police on 26 Septembe 2016. On 24 December 2016 police conducted another raid and captured a number of militants. Two militants died as they detonated their suicide vests.
Timeline: Militancy in Bangladesh https://t.co/P64GY0K2Yq
— Norrfika (@norrfika) December 3, 2016
The killings of innocents have stopped for now, but the danger looms large as the militants are active underground. Months after the Gulshan attack, Dhaka’s restaurants remain empty and foreigners have cancelled their travel to Bangladesh and amid increased security measures. 2016 was a landmark year for militancy in Bangladesh and it remains to be seen what the future holds.

author: Rezwan


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In 2016, These YouTube Channels From India Offered Meaningful Content · Global Voices
Rezwan

Six-year-old Chef Kicha from India has his own YouTube show and is known across the world. Screenshot from video.
YouTube has traveled a long way since its arrival in 2005. As the use of the video-sharing platform expanded in many countries over time, India lagged behind due to slow Internet speeds and low Internet penetration. But in the last couple years, it has taken an interesting turn.
The active internet user base in India has nearly tripled from 159 million in 2012 to 462 million in 2016. Meanwhile, Internet data prices have dropped and the number of smartphones has risen from 42 million in 2012 to 220 million in 2016. Prices of the cheapest smartphones have dropped down from $75 (Rs 4,950) to $45 (Rs 2,970). All of this has contributed to the growth of YouTube in India.
There were not a lot of YouTube stars only five years ago. In 2012, India's emerging YouTube sensations included Wilbur Sargunraj, a self-proclaimed singer from Madurai whose song “Love Marriage” went viral on YouTube, and Indian film actor, director, producer, writer, lyricist, and playback singer Dhanush, whose “Kolaveri Di” also went viral. In the following years in the forefront were also role models like All India Bakchod (AIB) and The Viral Factory (TVF). Now there are many more like BB ki vines, The Viral Fever Videos and Being Indian.
YouTube India has over 60 million unique users who spend more than 48 hours a month viewing content. Currently in India, some 20,000 active YouTube channels upload 380,000 videos per month generating billions of views and attracting millions of new customers.
While most of these YouTube channels belong to the movies, TV, entertainment and games/IT categories, several channels have something quite different in mind.
India's third most-viewed YouTube channel, Chu Chu TV, has nearly 7 million subscribers. Launched in 2013 by an Indian entrepreneur named Vinod Chander, Chu Chu TV is now the most-watched YouTube channel in Asia Pacific and the second-most watched children's “edutainment” channel in the world.
Screenshot from Children's YouTube channel Chu Chu TV
Chu Chu TV mainly offers popular nursery rhymes and introduces kids to early phonetic skills with colours, music, and beats. The videos help develop children's speaking and hearing skills and improve vocabulary and accent with repetitive syllables and tone. The rhymes also enhance kids’ imaginations by narrating stories that children can picture in their minds. The channel also encourages good behaviour, such as the importance of sharing and telling the truth. See Global Voices’ report for more.
Six-year-old Chef Nihal Raj, whose nickname is Kicha, is a first standard student of the Choice School in Thripunithura, Kochi, in the Indian state of Kerala. Kicha started his ‘Kichatube‘ channel in January 2015, and has since become an YouTube sensation. The first recipe to be shared by him on YouTube was of ice popsicles, and he has since expanded to jam cookies, orange jelly, coconut pudding, Oreo truffles and tandoori baby potatoes, to name a few. He now has 31 videos with hundreds of thousands of views.
In 2016 his popularity expanded across the world as he appeared on the popular US talk show Ellen DeGeneres, the youngest Indian to do so. The video of the appearance has generated more than 2.5 million views. See Global Voices’ report for more.
With a focus on India, community media organization and Global Voices partner Video Volunteers trains disadvantaged citizens in video journalism and data gathering so they have a voice in media and can demand their rights. The organization is represented by a network of more than 200 community correspondents, all of whom belong to disadvantaged communities. These correspondents use their mobile phones to record local instances of discrimination, oppression, negligence, corruption and culture.
These videos are uploaded to YouTube and are shared through Video Volunteers’ project IndiaUnheard, an alternative news platform which publishes news on their website.
TED Fellow Jessica Mayberry founded Video Volunteers in 2003 after spending a year training rural Indian women in filmmaking as a W.J. Clinton Fellow of the American India Foundation. Mayberry works closely with co-director Stalin K, an Indian documentary filmmaker and community radio activist.
As a content sharing partner, Global Voices featured many videos created by the community correspondents of Video Volunteers in 2016. The videos ranged from stories of how a citizen journalist in India took on the local government over pensions and won, how makeshift schools helped Kashmiri kids continue their education during long periods of curfew, videos depicting the lack of open space for kids in Mumbai, and how boys are favored and girls are discriminated against.
Video Volunteers has more than 500 videos on topics like child marriage, temple prostitution, insurgent conflict, atrocities against Dalits and peace between Hindus and Muslims. They have been seen by more than 300,000 people in live outdoor screenings in slums and villages. Its YouTube channel has more than 8,000 subscribers, and the videos have generated more than 6.8 million views.

source: news-globalvoices

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


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In the Social Media Age, How Should Jamaica’s Head of Government Communicate? · Global Voices
Emma Lewis

Screen grab of Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness’ Twitter page.
Just before Christmas, the Press Association of Jamaica (PAJ) issued a statement, urging Prime Minister Andrew Holness to hold a press conference — open to all media — to update the nation on various issues. In a press release, PAJ President Dionne Jackson Miller acknowledged Holness’ interviews with select media houses — including her own — but would like to see him hold a full briefing as early as possible in the New Year, and from there on, at regular intervals.
But how often is too often, and where should the balance between traditional and social media lie?
When it comes to using social media tools, the country's general elections in February 2016 demonstrated how Holness — along with the Jamaica Labour Party, which he leads — left political rivals in the dust. Although social media reaches a limited — although influential — audience in Jamaica, the prime minister's Facebook page, which is updated three or four times each day, has close to 200,000 followers. His Twitter account has nearly 28,000 followers. Blogger and Internet activist Ingrid Riley notes that 1.1 million Jamaicans (a little under half of the population of close to 2.8 million) currently use Facebook and just under 400,000 are on Instagram.
So is there a need for regular and wider outreach via traditional media? The journalism fraternity certainly thinks so, while the Jamaican public (those commenting online, that is) appears more divided.
Television personality and sports journalist Simon Crosskill commented:
@BigFren @djmillerJA @NestaJA posting pics and sending bday greetings is hardly informing public govt policy and results
— simon crosskill (@simoncrosskill) December 19, 2016
Commenting on Jackson Miller's own daily current affairs radio program, veteran journalist Claude Robinson observed:
Robinson: The PM runs a dangerous risk by selecting specific Journalists for a Press briefing. The Perception (from many) is “bias”#RJRBTH
— Giovanni R. Dennis (@GiovanniRDennis) December 19, 2016
On the same radio show, civil society activist Carol Narcisse noted that most Jamaicans in rural areas do not have Internet access:
@CarolNarcisse: What about Maas Tom in Gimmi me bit who is not on social media? Gov. has a responsibility to communicate with them2#RJRBTH
— Giovanni R. Dennis (@GiovanniRDennis) December 19, 2016
An editorial in the the Jamaica Observer newspaper suggested quarterly briefings, comparing the prime minister's availability with that of his predecessors and adding:
It seems to this newspaper that the hosting of regular press briefings must be an essential element in the overarching practice of transparency and accountability so central to good governance, to which Mr Holness has pledged.
Influential broadcast journalist Cliff Hughes concurred:
PM Holness is a media savvy leader who's accessible. Having 1/4ly press briefings is a best practice in improving governance. Over to u PM!
— Cliff Hughes (@cliffnationwide) December 19, 2016
Some non-journalists found the tone of the PAJ's demand a touch belligerent:
@cliffnationwide @Petchary The “demand” may be consistent but the bellicosity is new. And why are things at the “demand” stage anyway?
— Reasonable Man (@Yawd_Man) December 20, 2016
Another regular Jamaican tweeter commented:
There is a legitimate case for Anju to hold pressers but the PAJs tone was way off considering their relative quiet in adminis prior
— #BIGLY (@ja_cynic) December 19, 2016
He continued:
We want regular press conferences for what? 15 second sound bites, cuz that's all the individual media houses going to be getting
— #BIGLY (@ja_cynic) December 19, 2016
Television journalist Archibald Gordon admonished those who did not see the need for press conferences:
You're not everyone. If journalists are guilty of ignoring SM you're guilty of pretending we're all on twitter. Also arrogant and naive https://t.co/eODIgNXabQ
— Archibald Gordon (@ArchibaldKeane) December 22, 2016
Journalist Cliff Hughes also defended the PAJ against criticism, noting:
The PAJ President is consistent in demanding greater access to PMs. Debate the issue without the personal attacks. We've got to do better.
— Cliff Hughes (@cliffnationwide) December 19, 2016
Yolande Gyles Levy agreed with other journalists that the prime minister's social media presence was laudable, but asked:
Does the PM do one on one iviews with media? Yes. Does he need to do more press conferences with all media? Definitely. #GetOverUnnuSelves
— EmpressYolie (@jahmekyagyal) December 19, 2016
She added:
And yes all the PMs social media presence is great! Love it! But it does not replace the all important open Press Conferences.
— EmpressYolie (@jahmekyagyal) December 19, 2016
However, some non-journalists raised the issue of perceived bias in the traditional media:
.@BobbyPick2 @KesiAGardner do you know how many times I've had to take to social media to get the true ‘story'? Traditional media is dying!
— Kerry-Ann Morgan (@patrioticjam) December 18, 2016
Another Twitter user suggested traditional media is lacking in some areas:
PAJ members fi go do some heavy hitting investigative journalism and solidly researched stories. That's how they can keep relevant.
— BigBlackBarry (@BigBlackBarry) December 19, 2016
Quoting blogger and social media marketer Kesi Gardner, one young tweeter questioned the relevance of traditional media:
people no longer want the media to write the script for them… https://t.co/LYx9FelDmx
— Andrine (@AndrineS1) December 19, 2016
Gardner herself noted in a blog post:
The political landscape has changed significantly in Jamaica in the past couple of years. Social media and digital marketing in general have helped to transform it, as politicians use it as a tool to engage their voters. We saw this in the last general election. JLP [Jamaica Labour Party, the country's governing party] was very targeted in its approach, using online digital ads to reach female voters between the ages of 24-35 years old and mobilizing its MPs to use their social media accounts to inform and participate with their audiences.
Comparing the Jamaican prime minister's situation with the example of US President-elect Donald Trump, himself an avid Twitter user who avoids traditional media, Gardner noted:
[Trump] uses Twitter as a direct line to his now 17 million followers, side-stepping traditional media, sharing his unfiltered personal views. His influence is such that traditional media comments on his every tweet, with bated breath. Instead of the news reporting their views on a topic as given to them with privilege (either through press release or press conference), they are now forced to share the news direct from the source and then try to make sense of it.
Jamaica’s Prime Minister, Andrew Holness and many other heads of state, use social media to converse with their followers. The PAJ’s desire to have more access to the Prime Minister through more press conferences, is their way of making sure that they maintain access to this privilege.
To imply that the press is asking hard-hitting questions that only they are capable of asking, is negating the opinions of the public, who are the same ones that the press is asking the questions on behalf of.
Nevertheless, other Jamaicans on social media supported the PAJ's stance:
@Petchary @jahmekyagyal journalists probe, get depth and balance. SM lacks both and is more PR.
— Kenneth Russell (@tallawah) December 19, 2016
One point that was raised during the online discussion was that the PAJ had repeatedly complained about the unavailability of Holness’ predecessor, Portia Simpson Miller, during her four-year tenure –something which irked both journalists and the general public.
The issue of political leaders tweeting as opposed to holding press conferences is, of course, not only relevant to Jamaica at this point. As the discussion continued, US radio broadcaster NPR posted a timely tweet:
It has been 145 days since Donald Trump's last press conference. @tamarakeithNPR explains why that matters https://t.co/DD8JWuOlcP pic.twitter.com/dD7DiafGbv
— NPR (@NPR) December 20, 2016
Nevertheless, Kesi Gardner stressed the need for balance — and a different approach:
As a communications practitioner, I say integrated approach is still the best way to reach your audience. Using traditional media channels in conjunction with social media and PR is still important to building awareness…
But as someone who saw first-hand how biased the media can be, I say that social media will force the press to re-evaluate their model for how they approach reporting. News will have to become much more objective and integrated with social media. The future of the press relies on it.
While the prime minister has acknowledged the PAJ's request, no press conference date has yet been announced by his office. Perhaps this might happen next week when Jamaicans will have returned from the Christmas break. Meanwhile, the “traditional vs social media” debate is likely to continue.

author: Emma Lewis


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Iranian Civil Rights Defender Continues Hunger Strike, Protesting His Wife’s Arrest For Fiction Writings · Global Voices
Mahsa Alimardani

Arash Sadeghi and Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee, together before his arrest. Photo shared widely on social media.
The campaign to save civil rights defender Arash Sadeghi has reached a critical point. Two months into his hunger strike, many worry Sadeghi's life is on the line in Iran's Evin prison.
Sadeghi has been on hunger strike for 67 days, starting four months into his prison sentence when his wife, Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee was incarcerated on dubious grounds for the content of an unpublished work of fiction.
Sadeghi is serving a 15-year prison sentence on the charges of “assembly and collusion against national security,” “propaganda against the state,” “spreading lies in cyberspace,” and “insulting the founder of the Islamic Republic.”
In an interview with the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran (ICHRI) last March, Sadeghi explained his arrest as such:
I was charged with ‘collusion against national security’ because I supported a group of poor students who had been denied education and for supporting leftist students and visiting families of those who had been killed, and for taking part in peaceful gatherings, such as… protests against the execution of Gholamreza Khosravi and gathering in support of [imprisoned women’s rights activist] Narges Mohammadi.
His wife was arrested on 24 October after officials broke into her house and arrested her for writing an unpublished fictional story about stonings in Iran. The story follows the emotional response of a young woman who watches the film The Stoning of Soraya, which tells the true story of a woman who was stoned to death for adultery. Her response includes burning a copy of the Qur'an. Authorities found the draft story when they arrested both Sadeghi and Iraee in 2014.
Stoning to death is a form of capital punishment in Iran, often used for women convicted of adultery. Iran's practice of stoning has become controversial both globally and inside Iran after it sparked outrage in 2010 in reaction to the high-profile case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery. Iran eventually bowed to the pressure and released Ashtiani in 2014.
In a conversation with ICHRI last October, Iraee explained:
My stories and poems were confiscated the night agents searched our home. After the third day of questioning, the interrogators put me under pressure and accused me of insulting the sacred. I was interrogated dozens of times about the burning of the Quran in my story. Each time I explained: it’s only a story. I told them and I wrote [in my defense statement] that if what I did was a crime, then many scriptwriters and novelists should be arrested for committing the same crime. But they didn’t care, and in the end they gave me the maximum punishment.
Photos of Sadeghi's worsening condition have been widely shared on social media under the hashtags #freeGolrokh, #freeArash, #saveArash.
Arash Sadeghi Is In “Critical And Worrying” Condition After 64 Days On Hunger Strike In Tehran’s Evin Prison #SaveArash pic.twitter.com/vnKj3qonfM
— Nick Sotoudeh (@NickSotoudeh) December 26, 2016
Appeals to Iranian authorities to react to Sadeghi's worsening condition have been widely shared on social media.
Activists fear jailed activist Arash Sadeghi, on hunger strike for 2 months in Iran, risks losing life. Will @HassanRouhani act? #saveArash
— Saeed Kamali Dehghan (@SaeedKD) December 29, 2016

author: Mahsa Alimardani


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Japanese Prime Minister Observes Pearl Harbor Anniversary · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

(CAPTIONS) President Obama at Pearl Harbor: “The fruits of peace outweigh the plunder of war… The most bitter of adversaries can become the strongest of allies.” Screencap from ANN official YouTube channel.
On Tuesday, Dec. 27, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited Hawaii to observe the 75th anniversary of Japan's attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Abe's visit, with its theme of reconciliation, is seen as a response to U.S. President Barack Obama's historic visit to Hiroshima earlier in 2016, as well as an effort by the Japanese government to cement ties with the incoming President-elect Donald Trump.
Abe is the first trip by a Japanese prime minister to Pearl Harbor since a trio of Japanese prime ministers visited the site in the 1950's including Abe's grandfather, Prime Minister Kishi Nobusuke. The Japanese surprise raid on Hawaii in December 1941 resulted in more than 2,400 American deaths, including 1,177 officers and crewmen who still remain entombed in the submerged hulk of the battleship USS Arizona.
Outgoing American President Barack Obama and Abe Shinzo addressed an international audience from the Arizona Memorial, which lies above the remains of the battleship in Pearl Harbor. The transcripts of both speeches are available online, and feature themes of peace and reconciliation between the two countries.
POTUS alongside Japanese PM at Pearl Harbor: “I hope…we send a message to the world that there is more to be won in peace than in war.” pic.twitter.com/zMfdJFdGpL
— ABC News (@ABC) December 27, 2016
There was some question about who Prime Minister Abe's intended audience might be. Keiko Tsuyama, a New-York-based freelance journalist who regularly reports on the U.S.-Japan relationship for major Japanese news outlets, and who attended the ceremony at Pearl Harbor, wondered why Abe chose to conduct his address in Japanese:
I don't understand why PM Abe did his speech in Japanese when he and @POTUS Obama sent their message to the world! https://t.co/gVO3SS4N5n
— Keiko Tsuyama 津山恵子 (@keikoworld) December 28, 2016
It's possible that Abe intended to communicate with a domestic Japanese audience, to demonstrate he is doing all that he can to ensure Japan and the United States continue to enjoy a close relationship once outgoing President Barack Obama departs from office in January.
Some commentators interpreted Abe's visit as one of pragmatism, rather than as a messenger for peace.
Writing for the Japan Times, Stephen Nagy, a Japan observer remarked, “There is little doubt that geopolitics associated with the deepening Sino-Japanese rivalry is the primary motivation for Abe’s visit to Pearl Harbor.”
Commentary: In visiting Pearl Harbor, Abe again shows his pragmatic side https://t.co/4mDWaqazxV
— The Japan Times (@japantimes) December 28, 2016
Other commentators noted that Abe's speech at Pearl Harbor made no mention of the actual events of December 7, 1941, when Japan, which had already been at war with China since 1931, not only launched a surprise attack against Pearl Harbor, but also against European colonial possessions all across Southeast Asia.
Abe at Pearl Harbor speaks of “a war that commenced in this very place.” So the war didn't begin in Manchuria in 1931 or north China 1937?
— SNA Japan (@ShingetsuNews) December 28, 2016
Also, PM Abe, “a war that commenced”? How did it commence? Did war occur all on its own, without human agency or responsibility?
— SNA Japan (@ShingetsuNews) December 28, 2016
Tsuji Seiichi, who sits in Japan's National Diet as a member of the Communist Party, had a more ironic take on Abe's visit to Honolulu, taking issue with the perception that Japan has neither apologized nor atoned for starting the war in the first place.
安倍首相が真珠湾で演説。しかし、「和解の力」は加害国が謝罪と反省をすることからしか生まれない。 – Everyone says I love you ! https://t.co/1NabtT3Ec6
— 多可町議会議員 辻誠一（日本共産党） (@0702Stuji) December 28, 2016
Prime Minister Abe delivered an address at Pearl Harbor. However, “power of reconciliation” cannot begin without (true) apology and reflection from the aggressor. “But everyone *says* I love you!”
On Japanese Twitter, the hashtag “the power of reconciliation” (#和解の力) trended during Abe's visit.
Some Japanese netizens had fun with the hashtag, such as one Twitter user who uploaded a photo to show that, just like the U.S. and Japan, Arnold Schwarzenegger and his nemesis from the 1987 film, Predator, managed to become friends, too:
#和解の力 pic.twitter.com/6jgBxD9RPR
— Mt.ぐっさん (@mt_mkii) December 28, 2016

author: Nevin Thompson


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‘Learning to Live with the Narco in Mexico’, Stories from Survivors of the War on Organized Crime · Global Voices
Elizabeth Rivera

“For the victims of the war on drug traffickers”. Photo by Flickr user Martín García. Used under the CC 2.0 license.
Throughout the infamous “war on drug trafficking” in Mexico, both international and local media have regularly referred to the missing and the dead in statistical terms that fail to capture the enormity of human tragedy the war left in its wake. Moreover, coverage of drug barons like El Chapo Guzmán, head of the Sinaloa cartel, has seriously overshadowed the stories of the conflict's victims.
Little attention is paid to the bereaved the day after a violent event, or communities that have learned to live with daily pain. Every corpse, every bone found in each of the hundreds of clandestine graves, is the testimony of countless parents, sons and daughters, friends and spouses, who harbour wounds that may never heal.
Animal Político's digital project Aprender a Vivir Con El Narco” (“Learning to Live with the Narco”) aims to provide a voice to these victims by telling the stories of people who have been overwhelmed by the fighting between law enforcement and the cartels.
Below is their description of the project:
El crimen organizado no sólo nos hace temer por nuestra vida. Su impacto se siente más allá. Por ejemplo, en el cierre de tiendas de abasto popular por el acoso del narco, lo que obliga a comunidades enteras a viajar kilómetros para algo tan simple como comprar leche.
Organized crime not only makes us fear for our lives. Its impact is felt beyond that. Like when popular supply stores close because of harassment from drug traffickers, forcing entire communities to travel kilometers to buy something as simple as milk.
A video entitled “Lives Changed by Fear” provides an insight into these stories. One protagonist is Guadalupe, a father who dedicates his weekends to seeking out his son in clandestine graves. Another is Emma Veleta Rodríguez, who lost her father, her four siblings, her husband, and two of her nephews on the same day.
Sacerdote: “Nuevamente, como cada domingo, nos disponemos a realizar esta actividad que nos hemos propuesto de ir a buscar fosas, a buscar a nuestros seres queridos.”
Guadalupe Contreras: “Mi hijo se llama Antonio Ivan Contreras Mata. Cuando desapareció tenía 28 años. Es padre de tres niños. Trabajaba en un taller eléctrico en El Naranjo. El 13 de octubre salió de la casa, tenía que regresar el 15 y ya no regresó.”
Emma Veleta: “Es muy difícil para mí que me quedé con mis tres hijas para seguirles dando el estudio. Pues aparte tengo a mi mamá, que ella también está aquí conmigo. Ahorita ella no tiene ni una entrada de dinero. Mi papá le dejó sus seguros y todo pero ahorita nada puede cobrar porque le exigen el acta de defunción, ¿y de dónde la agarramos?”
Priest: “Once again, just like we do every Sunday, we prepare ourselves to carry out this task that we have set of going to look for graves, to look for our loved ones.”
Guadalupe Contreras: “My son's name is Antonio Ivan Contreras Mata. He was 28 years old when he disappeared. He's a father to three children. He worked in an electrical shop in El Naranjo. On October 13th, he left home and was to return on the 15th, but he never did.”
Emma Veleta: “It is extremely difficult for me because I have been left with my three daughters and need to provide them with an education. Aside from this, I have my mother, who is also here with me. Right now she does not have an income. My father left her his insurance and everything, but she cannot receive any of it because they are demanding a death certificate. And where are we supposed to get one?
The makers of “Learning to Live with the Narco” explain the pressing nature of the project from the outset:
No sólo porque es urgente retratar los rostros de quienes le plantan cara al miedo, sino porque los conflictos de los países, la fragilidad y la gobernanza están en la mira de la comunidad internacional.
Not just because we must urgently portray the faces of those who face fear, but because the conflicts, fragility, and governance of these countries are in the eyes of the international community.
The project relies both on stories told by readers and reports by journalists in high risk areas. Below are some excerpts from these stories.
KYHB, an Animal Político reader, wrote this tract from Taxco, in the state of Guerrero, located in the center of the country.
Her testimony reminds us that violence should never be normalised, however it manifests itself:
Desde hace algunos años que conozco el morbo y el amarillismo. Todos los días paso por puestos de periódicos, donde veo páginas exhibiendo imágenes qué sólo podrían estar en contexto en un libro de criminología o un expediente de un peritaje. Veo en esos cuerpos sin vida reflejada mi propia mortandad. Me desagrada y a veces siento que soy la única a la que le provoca disgusto o tristeza, que le parece una falta de respeto para la persona que alguna vez ocupó ese cuerpo. Yo no puedo entregarme a la indiferencia o normalizarlo.
For several years now, I have come to know morbidity and atrocious sensationalism. Every day, I pass newsstands where I see pages with images that could only otherwise be found in a criminology book or an expert's records. I see these lifeless bodies reflecting my own mortality. It puts me off and sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who feels disgusted or saddened, that it seems like a lack of respect for the person who once occupied this body. I cannot remain indifferent or normalize it.
She continues:
No, no es normal que mi primo de 10 años piense que de grande quiere ser narco, tampoco lo es que la gente vaya por la calle escuchando corridos que relatan las “hazañas” de la delincuencia. Esos corridos me parecen una burla para todos aquellos que perdieron a alguien y para los que tememos nos pase lo mismo. Veo nuestra fragilidad cuando las historias pasan a ser cifras en un conteo. Es increíble la apatía de algunas personas que justifican la muerte de seis personas y la desaparición forzada de 43 estudiantes en la ciudad vecina por “andar de revoltosos”. Creo que intentan convencerse de que la tragedia no los alcanzará mientras no se muevan y callen.
No, it is not normal that my 10-year-old cousin thinks that he wants to be a narco when he grows up, nor is it normal for people to walk the streets listening to ballads that tell the “feats” of crime. To me, they mock all of those who lost someone and those of us who fear that the same will happen to us. I see our fragility when stories turn into numbers in a tally. People's apathy is incredible to me, when they justify the death of six people and the forced disappearance of 43 students in a neighboring city because they were “being unruly”. I think they try to convince themselves that the tragedy will not reach them so long as they stay put and remain silent.
Maribel L., from Mexico City, wrote a passage “Four Months of Extortion in the DF: a Family Plundered by Threats“, where she talks about how the money that armed criminals took from her business month after month ultimately ended up destroying it and separating her family.
Piensas en todo lo que perdiste, en cómo unas personas te cambian la vida en días. El dolor nunca sana, el trauma se queda, el miedo persistirá a estar solos. Los hábitos cambiaron, los números telefónicos también, nos contactamos solo lo necesario. Entre más lejos estamos mejor.
You think about everything you lost, about how some people change your life in a matter of days. The pain never heals, the trauma remains, the fear will linger when you're alone. Habits change, as do telephone numbers. We only contact one another when necessary. The further we are from each other, the better.
And she concluded:
Deseamos que sean detenidas las demás personas, porque no sabes en qué momento te van a secuestrar o matar. Me he preguntado si llorar solucionaría los sentimientos arraigados durante esos horribles días, pero la respuesta es que no, porque se me ha olvidado como llorar, porque tengo que aprender a vivir con el dolor.
We want the other people to be arrested because you don't know when they're going to kidnap or kill you. I've asked myself if crying will resolve my deeply-rooted feelings during those horrible days, but the answer is no, because I have forgotten how to cry, because I have to learn to live with the pain.
Reporter Mario Gutiérrez Vega published “The Forgotten Children of the City of Juárez: a Generation Marked by Violence“. In his introduction, he raises questions such as: Who takes care of the child of a missing woman and a man murdered by organized crime? What is it like growing up in a marginal colony of the most dangerous city in Mexico?
No es como cualquier niño de su edad al que atienden sus padres. Bryan es huérfano y él mismo dice que ha tenido que aprender a cocinar un huevo, freír papas, calentar tortillas y “hacer la chichi” para los bebés que viven con él, como le llama a preparar el biberón con agua, azúcar y leche en polvo.
Cuenta que tiene nueve cicatrices en su pierna izquierda, las mismas que años de vida. Insignificantes en comparación con las heridas grabadas en sus ojos, inenarrables en un niño para quien la violencia ha sido la vida misma y tiene que aprender a vivir con ella.
A los cinco años le dijeron que su mamá había desaparecido. Pero la infancia de Bryan no se esfumó ese día. Ya había acabado dos años antes, cuando a unas cuadras de su casa, observó el cuerpo ensangrentado de su papá, recién asesinado por hombres armados que dispararon desde su vehículo.
He is not like other boys his age whose parents take care of them. Bryan is an orphan and says he has had to teach himself to cook an egg, fry potatoes, heat up tortillas, and make “chichi” for the babies who live with him, which is how he describes making them bottles with water, sugar, and powdered milk.
He talks about the nine scars on his left leg, equal to the number of years of his life. Insignificant compared to the wounds engraved in his eyes, unspeakable for a boy for whom violence has been life itself and who has had to learn to live with it.
At the age of five, they told him his mother had disappeared. But Bryan's childhood did not vanish that day. It had ended two years before, when, a few blocks from his house, he saw his father's bloodied body, murdered by armed men in a drive-by.
This was the situation in Juárez when Bryan was born:
Bryan nació en 2006, cuando la violencia por el crimen organizado y su combate se fue incrustando en los problemas sociales que ya existían en Ciudad Juárez. En 2008, 2009 y 2010 se convirtió en el lugar más peligroso del mundo por la cantidad de asesinatos, de acuerdo con informes del Consejo Ciudadano para la Seguridad Pública y del gobierno de Estados Unidos. Sólo en 2010, la fiscalía estatal contabilizó 3 mil 103, un promedio de 8.5 diarios.
Bryan was born in 2006, when violence from organized crime and its combat became embedded in the social issues that already existed in Juarez. In 2008, 2009, and 2010, it became the most dangerous place in the world due to the sheer quantity of murders, according to reports from the Citizen's Council for Public Safety and the U.S. government. In 2010 alone, state prosecutors counted 3,103 murders, an average of 8.5 per day.
These are just some of the hundreds of thousands of stories that organized crime is leaving behind in Mexico, permeating the country's soul. Few stories survive the latest news headlines, but this project reminds us of those who we mustn't forget.

author: Elizabeth Rivera


text:
‘Painting on Death’: One Syrian Artist’s Mission Under Siege in Douma · Global Voices
Elia J. Ayoub

Akram Abo Alfoz decorates a Christmas tree in besieged Douma. December 24, 2016. Source.
“We will stay here. Even if you scorch our land, we will stay in the cradle of civilizations to rebuild it again. We will make bridges from our bodies for the generations to cross to the future. We will build a new civilization from the ruins of our homes. We will make a Christmas tree from your shells and bombs, and light it for peace in our wounded Ghouta.”
These are the words of Akram Suwaidan, or Akram Abo Alfoz as he prefers to be called. Abo Alfoz is a 37-year-old artist from the city of Douma, in the Eastern Ghouta region of Syria.
Douma has been besieged by the Assad regime and its allies since the summer of 2014 (and partly besieged since October 2013) with an estimated 140,000 civilians still in the city out of a pre-war population of 500,000. In June 2016, some aid and food was allowed in, but the situation remains dangerous for residents, with one doctor telling the France-based international news agency AFP on October 3, 2016 that supplies were already running out.
This has left many feeling like there's no hope. But Abo Alfoz chose to fight that feeling. Doing his part to tell the world of what is happening in Eastern Ghouta, Abo Alfoz paints on death, almost literally. He transforms objects of war into pieces of art.
Some of Akram Abo Alfoz's work. Used with permission.
“Painting is a hobby that has been a companion since I was a child”, Abo Alfoz told Global Voices.
It stays with me even when I get busy with other things. Before the Syrian revolution, I carried my paint with me everywhere. When the revolution started, I initially distanced myself from my art. But when it became an armed revolution, I tried to revive my inner olive branch to draw the world's attention to our culture, thought, love for life and hope.
And so, in 2014, “Painting on Death” was born.
Some of Akram Abo Alfoz's work. Used with permission.
He continues:
I wanted to draw the whole world's attention to what's happening in Syria in general and to my city Douma in particular. While the children of the world are waiting for their gifts and presents from Santa Claus our children are receiving their gifts from the Syrian Santa Claus in disguise, Russia, the Syrian regime, and Iran, and his sleigh in disguise of a Russian MIG aircraft. I wanted to show the entire world that we are people made to live and love life, and that our revolution is a revolution of thoughts and manners.
Akram Abo Alfoz at work. Used with permission.
Global Voices asked if he could describe the current situation in Douma. He said:
The city of Duma was named the most dangerous city in the world in all aspects, the insane shelling by the regime and Russian air force claims the lives of many innocent people on a daily bases, beside the siege that has been ongoing since 4 years, and the power outage, water scarcity and communication outages in the city since that time in addition to becoming constantly psychologically overwhelmed, this feeling of psychological exhaustion that accompanies us through the difficulty of living.
Some of Abo Alfoz's work. Used with permission.
The situation in Douma is indeed dire. With the fall of Aleppo to the Syrian regime being finalized, residents of Douma and the wider Eastern Ghouta region fear that they will be next. According to AFP:
Activists said Douma residents were concerned that Monday's [October 3] air strikes were a prelude to a ground offensive much like the army's current push to take all of Aleppo city.
That fear was repeated by residents speaking with US-based alternative media outlet Vice as recently as December 27, 2016. Tariq (not his real name), an English teacher in Douma, told Vice:
People are very afraid of obligatory evacuation, like what happened in other parts of the Damascus suburbs and now Aleppo.
The Siege Watch project reported on the humanitarian emergency situation in Douma with the following:
The neighborhood of Douma was subjected to extremely high levels of attack from pro-government forces during the August – October 2016 reporting period, leading to a deterioration of the already dire humanitarian situation. On 10 September Douma was targeted with 10 airstrikes in one day. The next day on 11 September the town reported non-stop attacks with cluster munitions, one of which struck a center where children were playing. Incendiary and cluster munition use are frequently reported.
Asked if he had a ‘message to the world’, Abo Alfoz replied:
The world no longer cares for our messages. We are being slaughtered for the past six years in front of everyone and it did not move them. The entire world let us down. I direct my message to the people of my own country and to everyone with a conscience and tell them that we are a people who live in death but nonetheless carry hope with us and in the work that we do. There will come a day when we will gain our freedom and dignity. There will come a day when we will gain what we went out fighting for.

author: Elia J. Ayoub


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The 2016 Russian Words of the Year, Explained · Global Voices
Yulia Savitskaya

Source: https://tvrain.ru/words2016/
Last week, the independent television station TVRain (Dozhd) published a list of the 2016 Russian words of the year. Some of them come from major news stories and cultural trends, while the others are related to derivative memes and random social media fights. RuNet Echo has explained many of the words and trends in previous posts (scroll to the bottom of the page for the full list), but here are a few of the words that have been undeservingly neglected. Like many words in Russian, they can be explained but not quite translated.
In May, the newspaper Novaya Gazeta published a piece by Galina Mursaliyeva about “death groups” on the Russian social network VKontakte. Mursaliyeva was able to trace a spate of teen suicides to certain online groups that are notable for their depressing aesthetic—in particular, images of whales that are supposedly going to kill themselves because they do not want to grow old. Mursaliyeva accused administrators of these groups of recruiting depressed children and pushing them to suicide by depriving them of sleep and describing how exactly they should take their own lives. She also advised parents of teenagers to closely monitor their online activity.
Mursaliyeva’s article was harshly criticized by some of her colleagues for making the psychological state of teenagers worse by putting them under surveillance. In December, the Irkutsk Investigative Committee published instructions for parents that contained many of Mursaliyeva’s “red flags” for suicide-related online activity.
Beginning in June 2016, GPS navigators started going crazy when they came close to the Kremlin, where the Russian president lives in Moscow. They displayed the location of the Kremlin as “Vnukovo Airport,” which is 37 kilometers away. Internet users figured out the glitch pretty soon: the FSO (Federal Protective Service) was meddling with GPS devices to prevent drones from flying around the Kremlin (another, less convincing, explanation has something to do with a potential rocket attack on the Kremlin and a new world war). The fallout from the security measure infuriated Muscovites, who were left with enormous Uber bills, wrong fitness tracker stats, and, worst of all, an inability to catch Pokemons.
This one is an example of a very local conflict that went viral on social media. Patriarshiye Prudi is a nice residential area in the center of Moscow that became a pedestrian zone in 2016. Patriki had always been a place that attracted lots of rif raf, but this year the situation got much worse. But well-to-do local citizens were not about to suffer in silence: they flooded Facebook and some urban magazines with posts and columns criticizing “the locust from Biryolyovo,” referring to one of the least pleasant parts of Moscow. Despite being mocked on Twitter and Facebook, they managed to pull some strings and get their way. Currently, every shop and bar in Patriki must close by 11 pm, so the aforementioned “locust” has nothing to do but go back to Biryulyovo.
Monetochka became a Russian Internet sensation at the very beginning of 2016. At the time, Monetochka, whose real name is Liza, was a high school student from Yekaterinburg. She sang witty little songs with plenty of references to fashion, RuNet culture, politics, and her schoolmates. Here's one of her videos with a song about the online life of a modern Russian schoolgirl.
Liza currently lives in Moscow, where she is a student at the All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography. She still performs at some parties, but the hype is over—at least for now.
These two unpronounceable combinations of letters and numbers became popular after Alexey Navalny, a Russian opposition politician and anti-corruption activist, found them in Rosreestr (Federal Agency for State Registration, Cadastre, and Cartography) records. Navalny pointed out that the names of the owners of several luxury real estate holdings that used to belong to the sons of Russian Attorney General Yuri Chayka had changed to ЛСДУЗ and ЙФЯУ9. Navally assumed that this was done in an attempt to protect the privacy of Artyom and Igor Chayka, reminding his readers that information about property belonging to high officials’ relatives has disappeared from Rosreestr records.
Readers of Navally’s popular blog made some pretty funny comics and collages describing the situation, and Meduza, an independent media outlet based in Riga, Latvia, launched a game that showed everyone how their names would look in Rosreyestr.
“What's your son's name?”
“ЛСДУЗ ЙФЯУ9″
Somewhere in the depths of the Russian General Prosecutors Office
Source: various social media websites
Dozhd's 2016 Words of the Year that have been previously explained by Runet Echo:
Rusiano (Русиано), Vaper (Вейпер), and “There Is Just No Money, But Hang in There” (Денег нет, но вы держитесь)
Zabivaka the Wolf (Забивака)
Pokemon GO
#IAmNotAfraidToSay (#ЯНеБоюсьСказать)
How was the swim? (Как поплавали?)
FindFace
Neural Networks (Нейросети)
Wearing Louboutin Shoes (На Лабутенах)
Telegony (Телегония)

author: Yulia Savitskaya


text:
‘The Long Arms of the Kremlin?’: Kazakh Man Goes to Prison for Insulting Vladimir Putin on Facebook · Global Voices
Akhal-Tech Collective

Kazakh leader Nazarbayev and Vladimir Putin in the Kazakh capital Astana.
Sanat Dosov, a prominent Kazakh Facebook user, and businessman, was sentenced on December 27 to three years in jail for insulting the head of a foreign country — Russian President Vladimir Putin — on Facebook.
The case represents more evidence of the authoritarian Central Asian state's attempts to set criminal boundaries for online discussions. While relations with Russia are clearly important to Kazakhstan, Dosov's sentence could also be seen as part of a wider effort to bring political discourse on social networks into line with the Kazakh government's own thinking.
Writing for online magazine The Diplomat, Central Asia analyst Catherine Putz noted that Dosov received the sentence for regularly posting criticism of Putin and the Kremlin:
Profile pictures in support of Dosov.
Ratel.kz reported in late November on Dosov’s case that the […] posts criticizing and insulting Putin were what led to the charges. The article included photos of what appear to be court documents, outlining the offending posts, from late 2015 to early 2016.
For example, on December 4, 2015, Dosov shared a meme which depicted the faces of Lenin, Stalin, and Putin. A few days earlier he shared a news story from a Ukrainian site [describing a joint agreement between Turkey, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Georgia to bypass Russia in transporting goods between them] with a comment calling Putin “the enemy” and a “terrorist.” Dosov frequently shared news stories and memes critical of Putin and Russian policy, particularly with regard to Ukraine and Syria.
Putz also wrote about the problematic nature of the article under which Dosov was charged:
Dosov was charged under the infamous Article 174 of the Kazakh criminal code, which outlaws actions aimed at inciting “social, national, generic, racial, class or religious hatred” as well as the “insult of the national honour and dignity or religious feelings of citizens” and “propaganda of exclusivity, superiority or inferiority of citizens on grounds of their relation to religion, class, national, generic or racial assignment.”
Article 174 is about as vague as possible and Kazakhstan’s justice system has taken advantage of that vagueness to jail several in the past two years, particularly for social media posts. Last Feburary, Bruce Pannier outlined the cases of several victims of Article 174 for RFE/RL, commenting, “Listing those who have been detained and incarcerated on this charge, one could get the impression Article 174 is being used as a tool to remove inconvenient individuals.”
Dosov, whose profile also includes anti-semitic postings, may have been singled out because of his large Facebook following. He has nearly 5000 friends on the service.
Several of them posted pictures in his support. The profile pictures dared the Kazakh government to come after them: “Jail me too. I also think Putin is a dick.”
One Kazakh, a Twitter user, who shares Dosov's surname, joked:
Некого Досова садят в Казахстане на 3 года, за то, что тот считает путинскую Россию фашистской. Это такой серьёзный сигнал для всех Досовых.
— Эмиль Досов (@Dosov) December 27, 2016
Some Dosov has been put in jail for 3 years for his views that Putin's Russia is a fascist state. It is a serious warning to all Dosovs.
Another Twitter user whose profile is anonymous tweeted:
Длинные руки Кремля: в Казахстане посадили своего гражданина за критику режима Путина https://t.co/KVcOrS1BrB #Казахстан #Досов #срок #Путин
— Grom-ua (@gromuaorg) December 27, 2016
The long arms of the Kremlin: In Kazakhstan, they have jailed their own citizen for criticising Putin's regime.
Dosov's arrest appears to be consistent with the government's treatment of mainstream media, which is not able to report on politically sensitive topics such as ethnic conflicts in local communities. With media in the country heavily restricted, social media is an obvious forum for information warfare between the two groups.
Kazakhstan has jailed and put on probation several social media users for posts deemed to promote ethnic Kazakh concerns, in a country where over a fifth of all residents are ethnic Russians.
But this can go both ways. Kazakhstan also sentenced this month an ethnic Russian user of the Russian social media service Vkontakte to five-and-a-half years for calling on the north of the country to break free and join Russia. In the Northern Kazakhstan administrative region, ethnic Russians represent a plurality of the population but are weakly represented in national-level politics.
Generally, Kazakh nationalist complaints relate to the country's relations with Russia and the well-being of the Kazakh language. Although it is the “state language” under Kazakhstan's constitution, it is less frequently spoken than Russian (the country's “official language”) in several of the country's largest cities.
Moreover, while Russia is a key ally for Kazakhstan, Putin's military ventures in Ukraine have created major headaches for the country that 76-year-old President Nursultan Nazarbayev has ruled since before independence in 1991.
Kazakh authorities began targeting social media posts with renewed intensity in the aftermath of Russia's annexation of the Ukrainian territory of Crimea in 2014. The event fuelled rancour in Kazakh social media circles where many users were quick to side with either Moscow or Kiev.
Anti-Kremlin sentiment then peaked in August of that year after Vladimir Putin commented that Kazakhstan had “never had statehood” prior to independence from the Soviet Union, adding that the country had “a big territory” with a “small population.”
Whether the remark was a backhanded compliment to Nazarbayev — the two leaders are reportedly good friends — or “a shot across the bow” after Nazarbayev had declared his dissatisfaction with a Kremlin-backed regional integration project, the fallout was immediate.
Kazakhstan subsequently announced plans to celebrate the 550th anniversary of the founding of the Kazakh Khanate in 2015, which many Kazakh historians view as a precursor to the Kazakh state whose boundaries were affirmed during the Soviet period.
More recently Kazakhstan also pandered to ethnic nationalists by demanding — and securing — the return from Russia of the skull of a Kazakh rebel killed by the Red Army in the tumultuous early years of communist rule.
Tensions between Kazakhstan's anti-Moscow ethnic nationalists and Kremlin sympathisers are unlikely to subside anytime soon, and may grow as uncertainties over the post-Nazarbayev future of the republic deepen.

author: Akhal-Tech Collective


text:
What We’re Wishing for in 2017 · Global Voices
Georgia Popplewell

As the events of the last year reminded us, building bridges of understanding between people and communities, and of safeguarding basic rights, is never done.
As 2016 draws to a close, please make a donation to help us continue to combat the forces of hatred and intolerance that threaten to make our world a more dangerous place.
Donations to Global Voices help our worldwide community report stories that forge deep connections across cultures, languages and differences of opinion—work that's urgent as we seek to understand how to live harmoniously in a difficult global environment.
Thank you for your support, and wishing you a 2017 filled with joy and peace!
Donate now »

author: Georgia Popplewell


text:
A Satellite Launch Lights Up the Night Sky Over Japan · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

JAXA's Epsilon 2 rocket, just prior to launch on December 20, 2016. Screencap from JAXA official YouTube channel.
Thanks to a nighttime sky and good weather, a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) satellite launch on December 20 provided onlookers with an excellent view and plenty of images shared on social media.
JAXA successfully sent off the Epsilon solid-fuel rocket from the Uchinoura Space Center in southwest Japan with the purpose of launching a satellite that will study Earth's radiation belts. JAXA's Epsilon rocket programme is also intended to speed up and reduce the costs of launching satellites into space.
イプシロンロケット2号機。
打上げ成功‼
写真も成功‼
おめでとうございます٩(^‿^)۶#イプシロン#ロケット#内之浦宇宙空間観測所 pic.twitter.com/Z3jSoGox1B
— 鮫島雄也 (@yuya_sameshima) December 20, 2016
The Epsilon 2 rocket:
Launch is GO!!
Photos are also GO!!
Congratulations to everyone! (^‿^) #epsilon #rocket #uchiura space center
【夜空に美しい光跡】打ち上げが成功したイプシロン２号機を地上や上空から撮影した写真をアップしています。機体が見えなくなったあとの星と煙の夜空も美しい。　#イプシロン　#Epsilon　https://t.co/Wuhvsr2GcN pic.twitter.com/iSD9BFwQ3j
— 朝日新聞デジタル天文部 (@asahi_tenmon) December 20, 2016
“A beautiful glow in the nighttime sky.” Asahi Shimbun Digital has uploaded aerial and ground-based photos of the successful Epsilon 2 launch. After the rocket faded from view in the night, the stars and the rocket plume were beautiful in the night sky.
The nighttime launch offered a sight to onlookers from all over southern Kyushu, a large island in western Japan. Some had ringside seats in Kimotsuki, the small village that hosts the JAXA launch facility.
「感動してうるっとました」。初飛行を成功させてから約３年３カ月。イプシロン２号機打ち上げに１千人超のロケットファンが集まりました。　#イプシロン　#Epsilon　https://t.co/PUxEM4SKmE pic.twitter.com/In8ojz2fMV
— 朝日新聞デジタル天文部 (@asahi_tenmon) December 20, 2016
“It was really impressive.” It has been approximately three years and three months since the first Epsilon rocket was successfully launched. This time, more than a thousand rocket fans gathered to watch the launch of Epsilon 2.
内之浦漁港からのイプシロン#イプシロン2号機 pic.twitter.com/vp6GYa21bc
— ゆういちろう (@yuuitirou528) December 20, 2016
A view of the Epsilon 2 launch of Uchinoura fishing port [about two kilometers from the launch site].
However, the launch could also be seen in the city of Kagoshima, about 50 kilometers to the northeast.
#イプシロン ちょいズレてる笑 pic.twitter.com/AEKCw49Tm2
— はらさきやま (@bigmakers) December 20, 2016
We were located quite a ways away from the launch, lol.
一応イプシロン撮れたけど、、、
仕事終わって打ち上げまで時間なくて、ロケハンすらしてなかったから、こんなんしか撮れんかったよｗｗｗ#イプシロン#内之浦 pic.twitter.com/G0wcnHKppK
— ウルフ99 (@WolfRXM2) December 20, 2016
My attempt at a photo of the Epsilon launch…
I didn't have much time after I got off work to find a spot to shoot the launch, so this is all I was able to capture, lol.
More photos and videos of the launch can be seen by exploring the hashtags #イプシロン (Epsilon), #ロケット (rocket) and #内之浦 (Uchinoura).


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Bangladesh Blocks 560 Porn Sites · Global Voices
Palash Ranjan Sanyal

Image by Geralt via Pixabay. From Public Domain.
The Bangladeshi government has launched a campaign against objectionable Internet content by blocking 560 pornography websites, most of which are locally hosted. Internet service providers, gateway and mobile service providers were given a list of these websites, which has yet to be disclosed to the media.
Earlier this year, Bangladeshi authorities indicated their intention to block porn sites, which provoked mixed reactions. According to Tarana Halim, the State Minister of Posts and Telecommunication, easy access to pornography and offensive content is creating a negative social impact on all the citizens, including adolescents.
According to Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission, the number of Internet users in the country has risen to more than 62 million (out of a population of approximately 160 million). Ninety-five percent of those online access the Internet via mobile devices. And almost 30% of mobile data is reportedly used to visit porn sites. A recent survey by Manusher Jonno Foundation, an NGO, found that almost 77 per cent of the capital’s schoolchildren watch pornography via mobile phone and other means.
In November 2016, the Ministry of Post and Telecommunication formed a committee whose mandate is to make recommendations to restrict access to the porn sites. Thus far, it appears its primary solution has been to propose blocking such websites.
The committee submitted the list of 560 porn websites that were recently blocked. The ban instigated mixed reactions from netizens. Blogger Arifur Rahman in a Facebook post wrote:
…যৌনতা নিয়ে একদিকে ধর্মীয় কুৎসিত পাপবোধের জর্জরিত মেয়েটি যখন শ্বেতাঙ্গী নাট্যপটিয়সীর অবাস্তব পর্নো দেখে অদ্ভূত অবাস্তব আকঙ্খা-জর্জরিত বাদামী চামড়ার ছেলেটির সাথে জীবনে প্রথমবারের মতো যৌনতার মুখোমুখি, তখন আনাড়ী নারীর কাছ থেকে যে বিপুল আশাভঙ্গ হয় ছেলেটির, অথবা ছেলেটির অবাস্তব দাবিতে একদিকে মুষড়ে পড়া মেয়েটি নিজের অনাবিষ্কৃত যৌনতাকে আরো বেশি ঘৃনা করতে থাকে।
ফলাফল কারো জন্যই ভালো নয়। সুস্থ যৌনতা দরকার, এর সাথে স্বাস্থ্যের গুরুত্বপূর্ণ যোগ রয়েছে।
When a girl with ugly religious guilt have sex for the first time with a boy filled with anticipation from watching Caucasian skilled porn artists perform weird and unreal acts, the boy faces a wall of disappointment and the girl breaks down from the unreal demand of the boy. The girl hates her unexplored sexuality more than ever.
The result is not good for anyone. We need healthy sexuality, it has significant connection with good health.
B M Mainul Islam, an Assistant Professor at Institute of Information Technology, University of Dhaka wrote:
সত্যি কথাটা হচ্ছে, দেশে না বিদেশে জেনারেট হচ্ছে সেটা বড় কথা নয়। সব যদি বন্ধ করা না যায়, তাহলে মঙ্গল গ্রহে পর্ন জেনারেট হলেও সেটা যার খুঁজে নেয়ার সে খুঁজে নেবে। পর্ন একটা সমস্যা সেটাতে সন্দেহ নেই। কিন্তু, সেটাই এখন আমাদের প্রায়োরিটি কিনা সেটা ভেবে দেখার বিষয় আছে। যে সিদ্ধান্তগুলো নেয়া হচ্ছে সেগুলো নিয়ে বিশদভাবে পড়ে দেখার সুযোগ আমার হয়নি, তাই মন্তব্য করছি না। কিন্তু, এটা নিশ্চিত যে, সিদ্ধনাতগুলো ড্যাটা ড্রিভেন না। অ্যাট লিস্ট পত্রিকার খবর পড়েতো তাই মনে হচ্ছে।
The truth is, whether it is generated in the country or abroad, is not the issue. If you can't block all sites, those who need to find a porn made in Mars will find it. There is no doubt that porn is a problem. Whether it is a priority now—is something to consider. The decisions are being taken, I did not get the chance to read them in detail, so I can not comment. However, it is certain that these decisions are not data driven. At least this is what it seems from reading the newspaper reports.
While the Ministry was waiting for the report by the committee, a misquote of the State Minister for Posts and Telecommunication earlier created confusion and divided people in Bangladesh. Media misrepresented Telecommunications Minister Tarana Halim, quoting her as saying that authorities devised a mechanism that would expose porn consumers, an approach she believed would deter people from logging into porn sites, for fear they would be exposed.
The news created confusion and generated angry reactions from people. On 13 December the Minister published a statement on Facebook, explaining that she had been misquoted:
পর্ন সাইটের প্রবেশকারীদের নামের তালিকা করার কোন কথা কখনই বলিনি। এটি হবেও না। টেকনিক্যালিও সম্ভব নয়। মানুষের পরিচয় তথা ব্যক্তিগত তথ্যের সুরক্ষা দিতে আমরা বাধ্য ও বদ্ধপরিকর।
I have never mentioned that the list of names of porn website visitors will be published. Technically it is not possible. We're bound and committed to protecting private information and identity of people.
In 2012, Bangladeshi government approved an anti-pornography law which includes prison sentences of up to 10 years and fines up to half a million Taka. The Pornography Control Act prohibits “carrying, exchanging, using, selling, marketing, distributing, preserving, filming” pornography in Bangladesh.
World Map of The Legal Status of Pornography. Image via Wikipedia, public domain
Bangladesh is a Muslim-majority country, where many people have expressed concerns about the spread and consumption of online pornography. But it is also a democracy.
It appears that the government is focused on banning porn sites in order “protect young people and women from pornography”. But many in Bangladesh believe the government is trying to set standards of public morality. There is also no guarantee that blocking certain pornography sites will actually decrease porn consumption in the country. As one commenter put it, the government “needs to focus more on providing sex education to its citizens instead of hunting down porn sites.”

author: Palash Ranjan Sanyal


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Central Asia in 2016: The More Things Change…? · Global Voices
Akhal-Tech Collective

Map of Central Asia. Creative commons.
Despite occasional whiffs of volatility, Central Asia has remained remarkably resistant to real change, either the type that could see it deteriorate into a hotbed of violence and chaos as some have predicted, or the kind that might inch it in the direction of democratic rule and socio-economic wellbeing, which almost no-one suspects will happen.
Consequently, while a lot of things happened in the region this year, none of it will necessarily look meaningful when (or if) historians look back on Central Asia's 2016 in 50 years time.
As in 2015, Central Asia's rulers are still really, really powerful men aged over 55-years-old. The region's oldest and arguably most powerful ruler, Uzbekistan's Islam Karimov, got so old, that he actually died. Ignoring Kyrgyzstan, which has seen two revolutions in just over a decade and boasts fairly competitive elections, death is the only surefire way of removing a Central Asian president from office (see ‘comment of the year’).
Moreover, even if a standing Central Asian president does die, there is no promise his successor will be any better. In Uzbekistan, Karimov's successor, his prime minister of over 13 years, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, was elected this month with around 90% of the vote facing nobody in particular, including two of the very same nobodies that Karimov beat in a presidential vote last year. In Turkmenistan, President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has swapped his predecessor's cult of personality for his own and forced through constitutional changes that will enable him to rule for life. Emomali Rakhmon, whose Tajikistan is the former Soviet Union's poorest descendant, did something very similar, adding a new legal provision lowering the age limit for presidential candidates in the country. That is a change that will potentially benefit his son, who is the subject of a persistent if not fully substantiated rumour that he shot his own uncle in the neck in a struggle over a local bank.
Because mortality is the main source of opposition in local politics, all of these leaders are surrounded by constant speculation about their health. Shortly after Karimov's death, which likely occurred earlier than the government said it did, Kyrgyzstan's President Almazbek Atambayev was rushed to hospital with chest pains while abroad in Turkey. Few citizens took this at face value and the range of conspiracy theories surrounding the incident provides an insight into how little local populations in these parts trust official statements. The now recovered Atambayev has promised he won't be a “dragon” and seek further political office after 2017, when his presidential term expires. But after his impromptu appearance as a character in a textbook used in state schools, there are fears he might be getting ideas from his neighbours.
Other things that seem to be news might just be the intensification of existing trends. Turkmenistan's regime has been health-mad for quite a long time, but a particularly vicious assault on cigarettes this year earned it international infamy. Tajikistan is still cracking down on Muslims and their political representatives, but has done so more harshly and is increasingly extending the repression to their lawyers and relatives. This is state-driven Islamophobia in a country where over 90% of the population is Muslim. Then again, none of the other secular governments in the region are that fond of Islam.
Central Asia is still a really bad place for the media. In Kyrgyzstan, the president is kind enough to sue you in person if you write nasty articles about him. In Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, doing the same thing would probably mean either jail or disappearance, while in Kazakhstan, even insulting a foreign leader can can earn you a stint behind bars. The vacuum created by a lack of independent media in the region leaves people wondering whether diva-cum-businesswoman Gulnara Karimova has been murdered by her late father's government, as one news website claimed, or just kept under house arrest as most believe to be the case. Less crucially, it is also a real struggle to know whether or not Kazakhstan's capital Astana has really reached a million residents as President Nursultan Nazarbayev claimed it had earlier this year.
As for the honours:
Tajik hammer-thrower Dilshod Nazarov won his country's first Olympic gold and sent his compatriots into raptures in the process.
A Scottish miner made an ill-considered and inaccurate joke on Facebook about Kyrgyz people eating horse penis, lost his well-paid job in the country and got himself deported.
Anonymous commenter on Turkmenistan media outlet-in-exile Chrono-TM.org regarding Central Asia's long-reigning presidents:
Так чего мелочиться, надо сразу бессмертными себя назначать и смерти законно запретить их посещать.
Why do they mess about? They should just appoint themselves immortals and pass a law banning death from visiting them.


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In 2016, a Toxic Political Smog Spread Over China and Hong Kong · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Image from Open Studio Hong Kong's Facebook.
For more than two weeks, 23 Chinese cities have been under a red alert warning citizens to take extreme precautions in light of a toxic smog that has invaded their territories.
The smog cloud carries more than 300 micrograms of particulate matter per cubic meter, which is hazardous to human health.
Netizens have started calling the suffocating air “the new normal”, a dark comedic reference to the political term used by Chinese President Xi Jinping in recent years to describe the country's slowed economic growth.
The air pollution is linked to China's unrestrained pursuit of development, which has driven the country's gross domestic product (GDP) up in the past decade. But this model of debt-driven grown has also resulted in a banking crisis, with the national debt now worth 255 percent of China's GDP at the end of 2015. Exports remain weak, resulting in the yuan’s depreciation and capital flight.
As the government clings to state-owned enterprises for stability, the business environment remains unfavorable, and many have decided to invest elsewhere.
While actual smog looms over northern and central mainland China, affecting tens of million people as winter comes, some news commentators fear that the political smog plaguing the country is even more worrisome.
To prevent the economic crisis from bleeding into the political realm and threatening China's single-party regime, the government enacted a new counter-terrorism law, a cybersecurity law and a foreign NGOs management law, all in 2016. The crackdown on civil rights has rarely been so heavy-handed.
Campaign poster on the July 9 2015 crackdown of human right lawyer by China Human Right Lawyer Concern Group via HKPF.
A large number of human rights lawyers, who have defended citizens’ rights in accordance with Chinese law, have been arrested and detained. Some have been charged and convicted with subversion. A number of them, including lawyer Wang Yu, were forced to make public confessions that their work had been sponsored by foreign forces.
Most recently, Christian lawyer Jiang Tianyong, who had been campaigning for the release of his colleagues in the profession, was detained.
Journalists and citizen platforms have also experienced increased suppression. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 38 journalists in China were in jail in 2016. In July, the founder of a protest reporting site “Not in the News” was arrested and charged with “picking quarrels.” In November, an independent journalist who worked for the award-winning news site 64 Tianwang, Huang Qi, was arrested and is now facing charges of leaking state secrets.
In addition to the threats of arrest and prosecution, independent journalists have had to fight all kinds of censorship in order to get their work distributed. Even intellectual website Gongshi and reformist magazine Yanhuang Chunqiu, despite being run by Chinese Communist Party members, couldn't escape the fate of shutdown and takeover.
The day-to-day practice of online content censorship and user account suspension on major social media platforms such as Sina Weibo and WeChat has agitated both independent journalists and party-affiliated news sites. Such censorship is inevitable as the authorities have banned news sourcing from social media platforms to prevent “rumors” and “fabricated news” from spreading and to prioritize news with positive energy — even if the news is about disaster.
Activists and journalists are not the only groups targeted. Ordinary netizens also have been subjected to increased surveillance. People have come to see backdoors and spyware in their communication devices as a norm. Worse still, the real-name registration system equipped with massive surveillance technology has resulted in the abusive use and leaking of personal data.
Circumvention tools have been labelled as “terrorist software” and using them in sensitive regions such as Xinjiang can become an invitation for police investigation. Those who are outspoken are frequently bullied by “patriotic” trolls online and receive threats by party authorities in real life. Even making “toad worship” jokes is not allowed. And of course the Pokémon augmented reality game was a no-go in China.
Needless to say, smog itself has become a target of political activism and suppression alike, as citizen actions to raise public awareness about air pollution in Chengdu have become a target for crackdowns.
Despite all construction and industrial activities being halted in major cities under the air quality red alert, the pollution has not gone away and state-controlled media have started blaming restaurant cooking. Some netizens are arguing that the coverage is reflective of how much authorities want to deflect all attention away from any failures in their development model or environmental policy, just like when China made efforts to ensure flawless blue skies during the G20 Summit.
While ordinary people in China are wary of the toxic smog, some adventurers are fearless, like Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg who dared to jog in smoky Tiananmen Square while in Beijing — and inspired love and memes on China's Internet in doing so.
The political smog has not only affected mainland China, but also overseas Chinese societies, in particular Hong Kong, a special administrative region of the mainland.
Hong Kong’s autonomy under the principle of “One Country, Two Systems” as written in the Basic Law, the city’s constitution, has continuously been undermined by Beijing. The year began with the news of the abduction of five Hong Kong booksellers by mainland authorities. The latest blow has been Chinese authorities, in an unprecedented move, offering up their own interpretation of the Basic Law over two Hong Kong lawmakers’ inauguration oaths. Leung hung-hang and Yau Wai-ching pledged allegiance to “the Hong Kong nation” and called China “Shina” — a derogatory term used by Japan during the Second World War.
While Beijing claimed that their interpretation of law was to stop the independence movement from taking root in Hong Kong, the likely consequence is that more pro-democracy lawmakers will be disqualified for altering the wording of their oaths or displaying political slogans during oath-taking.
Following the disqualification of Leung hung-hang and Yau Wai-ching seats in the legislature by a local court, the Hong Kong government appealed to the court to disqualify four other pro-democracy lawmakers, including veteran activist Leung Kwok-hung, student leader Law Kwun-chung, university lecturer Lau Siu-lai and university professor Yiu Chung-yim. If the government wins the above four cases, more pro-democracy lawmakers will probably find themselves in the queue for disqualification.
Viral photo of CY Leung circulated online mocking at the number of votes he got in the 2012 Chief Executive election, via HKFP.
Funny enough, it's not only the pro-democracy camp that finds itself threatened with disqualification. The city’s Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying has also been ”disqualified” from running for re-election in May. Apparently, Beijing has plenty of loyalists in Hong Kong, and if giving up an unpopular one will help unite the pro-China camp, why not?

author: Oiwan Lam


text:
Russia’s Five Most Memorable Censorship Moments of 2016 · Global Voices
Natalie Duffy

Image: Pixabay and Kremlin Press Service, edited by Kevin Rothrock.
Roskomnadzor, the Kremlin's federal censorship agency, is responsible for regulating the Internet in Russia, which includes enforcing police orders and court decisions to ban websites and online services deemed “harmful” or “illicit.”
According to figures released in April 2016, Roskomnadzor has blocked more than 25,000 websites, though the actual number of sites affected by these bans is more than 600,000, say activists at RosKomSvoboda, because they share the same IP addresses as sites blacklisted officially.
Today, the number of banned websites in Russia is still rising steadily. As 2016 comes to a close, RuNet Echo looks back at the five most controversial, infamous, and even ironic actions this year by Russia's federal censors.
On January 25, a city court in Moscow ordered RuTracker.org, the biggest torrent tracker (enabling peer-to-peer file sharing), to be blocked in Russia permanently. RuTracker.org had an average monthly visitor count of 70 million individuals, not only from Russia, but across the former USSR and abroad. The original lawsuit was filed by one of the largest publishing houses in Russia, “Eksmo,” and “SBA Production,” a subsidiary of Warner Music Russia, which is owned by Warner Music Group, one of the fiercest promoters of copyright protections in the world.
The verdict illustrated a push by the Russian authorities to crack down on piracy—whatever the location of the copyright owners. When RuTracker.org learned of its imminent blacklisting, it began an “education campaign” to teach its users how to bypass the Russian regulators by using VPNs, proxy servers, and the Tor Network.
Roskomnadzor’s blacklist campaign took an ironic turn in July, when the agency briefly blocked “Comodo,” which was one of thousands of websites listed in a court ruling detailing a massive number of sites to be blocked.
The company is one of the world's largest providers of SSL certificates, a technical tool that many websites use in order to provide themselves and their users with an extra layer of reassurance that their traffic is actually being sent to and from the site they think they're interacting with. In fact, Comodo is so large that it is Roskomnadzor’s very own SSL-certificate provider.
By blocking Comodo, the watchdog’s site was rendered inaccessible, as well as were several other Russian government websites. Comodo was quickly removed from the federal blacklist following the realization of the gaffe, though Russian regulators revealed that enforcing sweeping court rulings sometimes means they are unable to review the very websites they are charged with blocking.
On September 13, PornHub was blocked across Russia. Referring to the federal law that Roskomnadzor used as a basis for this censorship, a legal analyst for the news website Gazeta.ru stated that “there is no legal prohibition of pornography in general.” Roskomnadzor later countered that any distribution of pornography on the Internet is illegal because it “allows minors to have access to these materials.”
In a further justification of the move against PornHub, Roskomnadzor encouraged the site's fans to “meet with each other in real life.” In a humourous twist, PornHub then tweeted at Roskomnadzor, offering the agency a premium account, free of charge. Sadly for the website, and for consumers of pornography across Russia, the proposition was promptly rejected.
In one of the most notable blacklist additions in 2016, Moscow’s Tagansky Court approved Roskomnadzor’s request to add professional networking site LinkedIn to Russia's federal blacklist in August. The courts ruled to uphold this decision, effectively blocking LinkedIn inside Russia on November 17.
There are numerous theories about why Russian state censors targeted LinkedIn. Roskomnadzor cited security concerns, pointing to a major cyberattack on the service in 2012, in which millions of passwords and and other account information was stolen.
Critics, however, say the crackdown on LinkedIn was a sort of trial balloon, and the service was selected because of its “second-tier status” in Russia, where the platform has never been extremely popular. In other words, state officials know they could ban LinkedIn without provoking the outcry that might follow from a similar action against, say, WhatsApp.
Analysts say Roskomnadzor hoped to intimidate larger social-media networks into cooperating with the Russian government — particularly a widely flouted 2014 law requiring online services to store user data on servers physically located inside Russia.
On December 5, Roskomnadzor spokesman Vadim Ampelonsky announced that news aggregation sites owned by foreign companies whose traffic is greater that 1 million visitors per day will have three months to register their legal entities within Russia and will be placed on a special register.
The sites — which would include Bing.com and, most notably, Google News under google.com — will have from January 1, 2017, until the end of March 2017 to change their registration data or set up subsidiaries in Russia. If they do not comply by that date, they risk, like so many websites before them, being placed on the government's infamous blacklist.

author: Natalie Duffy