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Is the coronavirus epidemic China’s ‘Chernobyl moment’? · Global Voices
Filip Noubel

Meme circulating on the Chinese social media platform, WeChat. Author unknown. The image is a portrait of Soviet dissident writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and one of his quotes translated into Chinese: “We know they are lying, they also know they are lying, they know we know they are lying, we also know they know we know they are lying, yet they continue to lie.”
What could possibly link the Chinese city of Wuhan to Chernobyl, the site of one of the worst nuclear disasters in history? At first glance, not much, except that the term 切尔诺贝利 (the transcription of Chernobyl in simplified Chinese) has surged on Chinese social media when discussing the outbreak of COVID-19, the flu caused by the coronavirus first reported in Wuhan. As public outrage mounts, Chernobyl has become a code word to discuss an extremely sensitive issue — the political future of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
The Soviet Union was officially disbanded in December 1991. Its dismantling was due to a mixture of economic, military and ethnic factors as well as an ideological opening in the form of glasnost, or transparency, that started in 1986.
This commitment to increased transparency in the USSR was led by then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev who believed that reforms were inevitable. One of the many accelerators of glasnost is recognized by historians as the April 1986 nuclear disaster that happened in Chernobyl:
Few Westerners were convinced that the new leader’s reforms would be serious in 1985 and 1986. Yet by 1987, the year following Chernobyl, glasnost had taken hold of Soviet society, with sudden openness dominating the press and the public forum. Outrage over the catastrophe began to spread among even loyal citizens who had never questioned the infallibility of their government.
As Gorbachev gained influence, he was able to reform communist rule to the point that the party was dismissed after 74 years in power. His May 1989 Beijing visit is well remembered in China among intellectuals and critics of the CCP. It happened less than three weeks before the June 4 Tiananmen massacre and illustrated the sharp contrast between reformist communism in the Soviet Union and conservative communism in China.
In a country where freedom of expression in public spaces has become increasingly curtailed, using coded messages to comment on political and social issues is a matter of professional and personal survival. It has become second nature for those who dare to criticize or disagree with government policies and statements, whether they are journalists, academics, activists, doctors or regular citizens.
A telling example is what happened to the Hollywood production Avatar when it screened in China in 2010. The film became so popular that the Chinese government limited its screening. But the reason was not only that it caused home production to pale in comparison, but also because Chinese viewers gave Avatar a politically charged interpretation as this article explains:
To many Chinese bloggers, Avatar is unmistakably a fable about unscrupulous city enforcement officials, known as chengguan, forcefully evicting residents in the name of local development.
Several stories, all including the term 切尔诺贝利  (Chernobyl).
A more recent example of Chinese government's zero tolerance for criticism can be seen in the fate of Doctor Li Wenliang. In December 2019, before the public knew about the novel coronavirus, the young doctor shared his observations about a series of mysterious infections among Wuhan patients in a small online chat, for which he was then questioned by the police. He eventually contracted the virus and died of the infection on February 6, 2020.
For those familiar with the Chinese online space, it comes as no surprise that Chinese netizens have adopted yet another foreign reference to express their anger and frustration at the total moral failure of the CCP and top Chinese officials in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak.
There may be a number of reasons why Chernobyl has become the latest symbol: the HBO mini-series, Chernobyl, is popular among Chinese viewers and allows them to hide their comments as discussions about the show. Those who are familiar with late Soviet history also use the term to talk about an absolutely taboo topic — the possible demise of the CCP in China.
On February 5, the top trending stories on WeChat, the most popular Chinese social media platform, included several stories with the term 切尔诺贝利  (Chernobyl).
References to Soviet-era political dissidents and writers are also part of the Chernobyl narrative. In early February, several memes were circulated over Chinese social media quoting Soviet dissident and writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Solzhenitsyn is regarded as one of the most powerful critics of communism in the Soviet Union. His most popular quote, as seen on the top photo, says:
我们知道他们说谎, 他们也知道他们在说谎, 他们知道我们知道他们说谎, 我们也知道他们知道我们知道他们在说谎，但是他们依然在说谎。
We know they are lying, they also know they are lying, they know we know they are lying, we also know they know we know they are lying, yet they continue to lie.
Another popular meme uses another quote by Solzhenitsyn and adds to the previous quote:
索尔仁尼琴
“我们知道他们在说谎，他们也知道他们在说谎，他们知道我们知道他们在说谎，我们也知道他们知道我们知道他们在说谎，但是他们依然在说谎。”
“世界正在被厚颜无耻的信念淹没，那信念就是，权力无所不能，正义一无所成。”
为自己而活着，而不是为谎言活着！ pic.twitter.com/ddS2i0z4M7
— 米线 (@paris_mixian) April 20, 2019
“The world is being engulfed by the brazen conviction that power is everything and justice is nothing.”
We should live for ourselves, not for the lies!
[The text printed in white on the black background is another quote by Solzhenitsyn] “In this world, the most depressing thing is when the literary life of a nation is destroyed by violence. It is not just forbidding the freedom of public opinion, but forcibly plunging the mind of a nation and eradicating its memory. In this case, the entire nation nothing but a dead body. Solzhenitsyn.”
This message of dissidence is not falling on deaf ears. A number of intellectuals have recently spoken out publicly on issues many Chinese citizens are forced to keep to themselves. On February 4, Chinese legal academic Xu Zhangrun published a powerful online essay openly criticizing the Chinese government, called 愤怒的人民已不再恐惧 (“When fury overcomes fear”). He writes:
Ours is a system in which The Ultimate Arbiter [an imperial-era term used by state media to describe Xi Jinping] monopolizes power. It results in what I call “organizational discombobulation” that, in turn, has served to enable a dangerous “systemic impotence” at every level. A political culture has thereby been nurtured that, in terms of the real public good, is ethically bankrupt, for it is one that strains to vouchsafe its privatized Party-State… while abandoning the people over which it holds sway to suffer the vicissitudes of a cruel fate. It is a system that turns every natural disaster into an even greater man-made catastrophe. The coronavirus epidemic has revealed the rotten core of Chinese governance; the fragile and vacuous heart of the jittering edifice of state has thereby shown up as never before.
The essay starts with a quote by Boris Pasternak, an opponent to Stalin:
February. Get out the ink and weep!
Sob in February, sob and sing
While the wet snow rumbles in the street
And burns with the black spring.
—Boris Pasternak
Translated by Sasha Dugdale
Since the release of Zhang's essay, censored in China but circulated by people who have access to VPNs or friends abroad, other daring initiatives have occurred. Most recently, a petition signed by hundreds of doctors, intellectuals and citizens is now circulating and demanding changes:
The petition, addressed to the National People’s Congress, lists five demands for Beijing: to protect people’s right to freedom of expression; to discuss the issue at NPC meetings; to make February 6, the day Li [Doctor Li Wenliang] died, a national day for free speech; to ensure no one is punished, threatened, interrogated, censored or locked up for their speech, civil assembly, letters or communication; and to give equitable treatment, such as medical care, to people from Wuhan and Hubei province.
As the CCP is preparing for a major political event, the March 5 “Two Meetings” (两会 in Chinese), the annual plenary sessions of the two bodies that vote on political decisions at the national level, it will have to consider mounting pressure in the form of rare displays of public frustration that haven't been witnessed in years.
the impact of the Wuhan coronavirus


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New report makes grim predictions for ‘Fortress RuNet’ · Global Voices
RuNet Echo

Map from Agora and Roskomsvoboda's report “Internet Freedom 2019: Plan ‘Fortress'” showing incidents of internet shutdowns across Russia in 2019 (Moscow: 3, Ingushetia: 2, Buryatia: 1, Archangelsk Region: 1, Pskov Region 1.)
The past year marked many milestones in the Russian government's long struggle to bring the internet under control. Laws were passed against distributing “fake news’’ or disrespecting the authorities online. Fines were increased against digital companies which refused to hold data on Russian users on Russian territory. A law was published extending the concept of “foreign agents’’ to individual internet users. Last but not least, the long awaited bill on a “Sovereign Internet’’ finally entered into force.
For ten years running, Agora, a Russian legal organisation, and Roskomsvoboda, an NGO monitoring digital rights in Russia, have released a joint annual report on the state of internet freedom in Russia. Their most recent report, published on February 4, draws some troubling conclusions about what lies in store for the RuNet in years to come.
The report notes a significant rise in attempts to disconnect certain regions or areas from the internet at times of political strife. This ability, while permitted by Russia's federal law on communications, had not fully been utilised by the authorities on a large scale until 2019 — which saw internet shutdowns in the Arkhangelsk Region, Buryatia, Ingushetia, the Pskov Region, and most notoriously in Moscow, during protests against the authorities’ refusal to permit independent opposition candidates to run in local elections.
Nevertheless, the report also cites a marked decrease in numbers of criminal prosecutions for activities online: from 384 cases in 2018 to 200 in 2019. The authors attribute this to the partial decriminalisation of the controversial Article 282 of the criminal code, on incitement to hatred. The partial decriminalisation of this act resulted in an additional act to the administrative code under which criminal liability for inciting hatred now only occurs after repeated violations within the space of a year. In the first six months of last year alone, 158 people were prosecuted under this new administrative act. However, the full force of Article 282 is still being brought to bear, as shown by the high profile case of the blogger Vladislav Sinitsa, who was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment last year for his Twitter comments about the fate of the children of riot police who were responsible for beating protesters in Moscow. Prosecution for online activity is apparently becoming a more common tactic to supplement existing convictions against political opponents, as shown by attempts to restrict internet access to Yegor Zhukov, the libertarian activist with a large following on YouTube.
A further administrative act which had repercussions for RuNet users was the vaguely worded law against disrespect for state authorities and bearers of federal power online. In 2019, it was applied 78 times, 44 of which specifically concerned disrespectful language about Vladimir Putin.
Undoubtedly, the report notes, one of the biggest developments was the country's “Sovereign Internet’’ drive. This package of laws and amendments is designed to allow the state to take control over digital infrastructure in Russia in times of instability, thus severing the RuNet from the rest of the global network. Accordingly, report's authors predict a marked intensification of pressure on IT firms and internet providers, who will be responsible for implementing increasingly unwieldy demands for surveillance and DPI inspection of all incoming traffic. Digital companies are already subject to increased fines for refusing to hand over user data to the Russian authorities, which also mandated all digital devices sold in the country to come with pre-installed government approved software.
Authors also link these trends to the arrest of Alexei Soldatov, a leading figure in the foundation of the RuNet, on charges of fraud. Prosecutors accuse him of sending hundreds of thousands of IP addresses previously administered by a Russian research institute to foreign control. Given that the Sovereign Internet drive also mandates the creation of a national domain system, the report speculates that the arrest was motivated by Soldatov's refusal to transfer control of the .su (for “Soviet Union”) and .rf (for “Russian Federation”), historically been controlled by Soldatov's Internet Development Foundation, to the state.
Blocking of “undesirable’’ websites continued apace. Over the first nine months of 2019, Russia's state communications watchdog Roskomnadzor and the Ministry of Internal Affairs together listed over 270,000 webpages as undesirable — almost a third higher than the same period in 2018. The authors note that a further 4.74 million webpages, while not blocked themselves, are associated with IP addresses on the authorities’ block list. Last year also saw a final block of secure messaging service ProtonMail and further failures in the state's long battle to restrict access to the banned messaging service Telegram. Several popular independent news websites, including Meduza, The Village, and Batka, Da Vy Transformator, fell foul of the state's attempts to restrict online information about narcotics, and were unavailable in Russia at various points. Nevertheless, many users reported that they were still able to access these websites and other blocked resources via VPNs, despite access to them formally being blocked.
The burgeoning amount of legislation, bold goals for digital control, and unwieldy expectations now being put on digital companies will make 2020 a difficult year for the RuNet. But the authors conclude that while the outlook is bleak, the resourcefulness of RuNet users is not to be underestimated:
Чиновники постепенно перестают считать ограничение свободы слова исключительной мерой, применяемой в крайних случаях, рассматривая блокировки сайтов, преследование пользователей и ограничение прав российских и зарубежных СМИ как инструмент политической борьбы и способ противостоять Западу в информационной войне. […]
Власти после ряда колебаний несколько лет назад определились с основным вектором политики в отношении российского сегмента интернета — контроль, цензура и изоляция. Конечная цель — создание суверенного интернета наподобие китайско-северокорейского. В ушедшем году для достижения этой цели были приняты ключевые нормативные акты.
Главная интрига заключается в том, насколько удастся реализовать задуманное. Пока подобные инициативы либо даже не стартуют (пакет Яровой о хранении и расшифровке трафика), либо не удаются (блокировка Telegram, запрет криптовалют), либо легко обходятся (многочисленные блокировки сайтов). Как и прежде, пользователи интернета довольно быстро обучаются, подстраиваются под среду, а технологии идут вперед, бесконечно расширяя фронт борьбы с охранителями и усложняя методы противодействия свободному распространению информации.
Officials are gradually ceasing to regard restricting freedom of speech as an exceptional step to be taken in extreme situations. Blocks of websites, harassment of users, and limitations on the rights of Russian and foreign media outlets have become [regarded as] instruments in a political struggle, and a means to counteract the West in an information war […]
The authorities, after several hesitations a few years ago, have determined their political trajectory in relation to Russian sector of the internet: control censorship, and isolation. The ultimate goal is the creation of a sovereign internet resembling the Chinese and North Korean models. In the past year, several key acts were passed to in order achieve this goal.
The key intrigue lies in the extent to which this plan can be realised. For the time being, these initiatives have either not been started in earnest (such as Yarovaya's package on storing and decrypting traffic), failed (such as the blocking of Telegram and the ban on cryptocurrencies), or can be easily evaded (such as the multiple blocks of websites.) Much as before, internet users are quickly learning how to adapt to the new environment, while technology goes forward, limitlessly expanding the horizons for the battle against the enforcers, complicating methods of constraining the free flow of information.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: RuNet Echo


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Coronavirus-related xenophobia spreads to Central and Eastern Europe · Global Voices
Filip Stojanovski

Macedonian authorities have installed a fever scanner at Skopje airport to check passengers arriving from Asian destinations for symptoms of virus infection. Photo by Global Voices, CC BY.
Widespread disinformation related to the outbreak of the 2019n-CoV coronavirus, which originated in the city of Wuhan in China’s Hubei province, has caused paranoia, resulting in racist abuse and discrimination against Asian people across Central and Eastern Europe.
In the Balkans, for instance, disinformation about the outbreak had been used as click bait, with various web portals falsely claiming the virus had arrived in the region, even though no infections had been reported there.
Quite a few Chinese and East Asian people visit the Balkans as tourists, either as part of European bus tours or connected to cruises that include bus tours between ports. If a cruise ship docked in Dubrovnik, Croatia, for example, passengers might take a tour that could include cities in Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, and finally, Greece, where they would re-join the ship in Thessaloniki.
Some media chose to track the movement of buses carrying Chinese tourists traveling from Italy via Slovenia through Croatia and Bosnia in a sensationalist manner, from the moment they crossed the border, to the safety measures taken in each town along the way.
These stories sometimes included a human aspect, such as the one about a “state of siege” on the Croatian border after buses arrived with Chinese tourists. The report described how two girls from Shanghai “cried and were apologizing to the other [non-Chinese] passengers” for the delay.
Screen shot of the results of Google image search with keywords “nismo iz Kine” (“not from China”). Fair use.
Photos of Taiwanese tourists who walked the city of  Šibenik with a sign “Nismo iz Kine” (“We are not from China”) went viral after they were posted on the Facebook page Dnevna doza prosječnog Dalmatinca (“Daily dose of an average Dalmatian”). These photos were lauded as a touch of cuteness in the otherwise grim situation depicted by media within the region and beyond.
Croatian newspaper Večernji list published an interview with Xiaotong Chen-Li, owner of five Chinese/Asian restaurants in Zagreb. She said that even though people seem more cautious, she has experienced no decline in the number of customers — her restaurants primarily source local ingredients, and import the rest exclusively from other European Union member countries.
North Macedonia has also seen an increase in the number of Asian tourists in recent years, arriving in a country that has been fertile ground for disinformation. One local newspaper promoted an absurd claim, attributed to a Bulgarian doctor, that the intake of alcohol could cure the disease.
On January 29, 2020, a Skopje resident posted a video of himself accosting a group of bewildered Asian people on a street in the center of the capital. The clip, which shows a group of two men and three women stoically trying to ignore the expletive insults the man is hurling, hit a nerve in a country that is multi-ethnic and highly sensitive to public displays of racism. Netizens shared the clip on Twitter and Facebook as evidence of the wrongdoing.
At first, the victims were assumed to be tourists, but the local daily, Sloboden Pečat, revealed that they were members of a South Korean religious organization called Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light (HWPL). The group later told the media outlet SDK.mk that it was an isolated incident, and that they had been warmly welcomed by Macedonians over the past four years as they conducted school workshops on peace and tolerance.
The mayor of Skopje, Petre Šilegov, apologized for the xenophobic attack, which he said “brought shame to the city and the country” and is “completely opposite to the core values of Skopje as a city of solidarity, cosmopolitanism and togetherness”. Caretaker Prime Minister Oliver Spasovski also issued a public apology for the hate speech, and demanded swift action from the Ministry of Interior.
Skopje-based journalist Dehran Muratov commented on the issue in an op-ed titled, “Don't be afraid, the coronavirus is afraid to get infected from you”:
Лек за корона вирусот сигурно ќе се најде, но за идиотизмот, глупоста, просталукот, малограѓанството, несолидарноста, за говорот на омраза, расизмот… лек тешко дека ќе се најде.
Среде Скопје да навредиш група на граѓани кои ти заличија на Кинези само затоа што на ТВ, интернет, Фејсбук виде дека некаде во Кина досега стотици се починати, а илјадници заразени од смртоносната болест, и наместо да има жал и сочувство, ти да ги навредиш и опсуеш, навистина треба да си опериран од чувства.
A cure for the coronavirus will be discovered, but it would be hard to find the cure for the idiocy, stupidity, boorishness, petit bourgeois mindset, lack of solidarity, hate speech racism…
One has to be incapable of emotions in order to insult a group of citizens for looking Chinese, only because one saw on TV, [the] internet or Facebook that somewhere in China, hundreds of people have died, and thousands infected by the deadly disease. To insult and swear instead of expressing sorrow and compassion.
In Belarus, where there is a significant Chinese community due to the political rapprochement between Minsk and Beijing, a recent case of discrimination illustrated how coronavirus-related xenophobia can affect average citizens. On February 11, a Kazakh resident identified only by his first name, Nursultan, ordered a taxi. When the car arrived, the driver refused to unlock the door and drove away. Nursultan communicated with the driver to try and understand what happened and shared screenshots of their conversation on a local portal:
Nursultan: Why did you leave? lol
Driver: You looked Chinese
Nursultan: This is what the lack of information does to people!
Driver: I don't see the why I should risk my life for 3 roubles. Good luck. Haha!
Nursultan later contacted the taxi company, which apologized and said they would no longer work with that driver.
In the Czech Republic, home to a large ethnic Vietnamese community, an Asian restaurant caused outrage for posting a sign on its front door which read, “To protect public health, the restaurant will temporarily not accept Chinese customers.”
Facebook page The Prague Geezer published this photo with the caption: “Coronavirus panic in CZ: Restaurant in Vinohrady, Prague, refuses to accept Chinese customers ???.” Used with permission.
A photo of the notice was first posted by the Facebook page the Prague Geezer, and was shared hundreds of times.
Public outcry soon forced the restaurant to remove the notice, and to issue an apology on their Facebook page, blaming their “lack of knowledge about the disease” and expressing regret that the “improperly formulated” sign caused “more harm than good”.
Discrimination based on race is a criminal offense in the Czech Republic, but in this case, the police were not alerted.
Displays of xenophobia have been more common in Western Europe, which is a popular destination for global travelers. Italy, for instance, is home to more than 300,000 people of Chinese descent, and as many as five million Chinese tourists visited the country in 2018. Yet, Italy seems to be responding to xenophobia in ways that the rest of the region would do well to emulate:
#Coronavirus On a train in Italy. A teenage Chinese boy boards the train. A woman comments loudly: “There you go, we are all going to be infected.” He replies in perfect Italian with a Roman inflection: “Ma’am, in my whole life I’ve seen China only on google maps.”
Applauses.
— Tommaso Valletti (@TomValletti) February 1, 2020
the impact of the Wuhan coronavirus

author: Filip Stojanovski


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Russians rally against torture after verdict against ‘terrorist cell’ · Global Voices
Maxim Edwards

“Stop torture! #NetworkCase” reads this protester's placard outside the FSB headquarters in Moscow, February 14, 2020. Photo (c): Marc Bennetts. Used with permission.
A trial in the Russian city of Penza, south-east of Moscow, has brought a close to one of the country's most disturbing criminal cases of recent years. On Monday 10, seven anarchists and anti-fascists were sentenced to long prison sentences under Article 205.4 of Russia's criminal code, concerning “participation in terrorist activities,” along with several drugs and weapons charges. The youngest, Ilya Shakursky, is just 23 years old; the oldest, the musician Vasily Kuksov, is 31. Their prison sentences range from six to 18 years. The length of these sentences, which amounts to 87 years overall, have shocked the country — the 18 years handed to Dmitry Pchelintsev is longer than some sentences received by convicted murderers in Russia.
The “Network Case,” named after the terrorist group to which the young men are alleged to belong, has prompted a nationwide discussion about the use of torture by Russia's law enforcement bodies. Prominent human rights defenders argue that key evidence for the existence of “The Network” was obtained through torture. Over the past week, hundreds of protesters have held solitary pickets outside the headquarters of the FSB, the Russian security services, in Moscow and several other cities. They have launched an online flashmob under the hashtags #делосети (the Network case), #мывсевсети (we are all Network), #судебныйбеспредел (lawless courts), and #НетПыткам (no to torture.)
Пыточное дело “Сети” – история о страхе. Напугавшееся до истерики ФСБ хочет этими дикими сроками напугать кого-то, кого себе там в ужасе напридумывала. Но в реальности лишь убеждает народ, что ФСБ сейчас – дикая истеричка, нестабильная, недалекая и злобная
— Олег Козырев (@oleg_kozyrev) February 10, 2020
The “Network” torture case is a story about fear. Hysterically fearful, the FSB wants these harsh sentences to terrify somebody who they have conjured up in the midst of their own horrors. But in reality, all this has done is convince the people that the FSB has become wildly hysterical, unstable, myopic, and vicious.
Such accounts are not uncommon in Russia today. According to a poll by the Levada Centre last year, as many as one in ten Russians claim to have been tortured at the hands of law enforcement, while an analysis of court data in 2018 indicated that most perpetrators face only mild repercussions. The “Network” case has been marred by accusations of torture since its inception, in keeping with harsh repression of anarchists and antifascist groups in recent years.
In mid-October 2017, Yegor Zorin, a student from Penza, was arrested and charged with terrorist conspiracy. His acquaintances suggested that he had been tortured in custody, during which the first allegations of the existence of “The Network” were made. Then in January 2018, two Russian antifascists, Viktor Filinkov and Igor Shishkin, went missing in St Petersburg. Filinkov stated that FSB agents demanded that he admit to membership of a terrorist cell known as “The Network,” alongside several acquaintances from Penza, who had been arrested in 2017. He later provided a detailed testimony of torture and retracted his confession. Shishkin, on the other hand, did not make any allegations against the authorities despite a medical report indicating signs of torture. He instead pled guilty and agree with the investigators’ account of events. He received three and a half years’ imprisonment. By 2019, “The Network” was officially designated an extremist organisation.
The young men in Penza whom Filinkov incriminated were a group of local activists from Penza's anarchist and antifascist scene. According to independent publication Novaya Gazeta, there is reason to believe that several members of the group did not know one another. Other members of the accused had filmed videos of themselves playing AirSoft, which was presented by the prosecution as evidence of military training to prepare for attacks. Investigators also claimed that the group, which they claimed had cells in Belarus, St Petersburg, and Moscow, planned to target the 2018 World Cup and presidential elections in Russia, charges which were not included in the final case against them.
Several members of the group, such as Ilya Shakursky, Dmitry Pchelintsev, and Ilya Kapustin, also provided detailed testimonials of torture at the hands of FSB agents, all of which allege severe beating and electric shocks all over their bodies. Nevertheless, Russia's investigative committee repeatedly refused to open a comprehensive investigation into the allegations of torture; in 2018, officials even concluded that the bruises and electrocution marks on Kapustin's body were the result of bedbug bites.
These graphic and often disturbing testimonies have resonated with a society already deeply disturbed by state officials’ lack of accountability. The political beliefs of the convicted men have also prompted some soul-searching among the opposition about the meaning of solidarity. In March 2018, Novaya Gazeta correspondent Yan Shenkman called on Russians to understand that, whatever their political differences, the Network case sets a disturbing precedent for all citizens:
В Петербурге и Москве есть выработанные механизмы помощи. Есть независимые журналисты, правозащитники. В Пензе ничего похожего нет. Имеет значение и среда. «Болотное дело», по которому село много леваков, в том числе я, было важным для всей либерально-демократической оппозиции. Это история, понятная среднестатистическому журналисту из столицы. А тут люди, которых обвиняют по очень жестким статьям. Не либералы. Не московские активисты. Нужно прорывать предубеждение по отношению к ним […] Но это дело не про анархизм и даже не про антифашизм, а про то, что завтра могут прийти и за тобой — по любому поводу. Электрошокер не отличает своих от чужих.
In St Petersburg and Moscow there are developed systems of assistance. There are independent journalists and human rights defenders. There's nothing like that in Penza. The context also matters. The Bolotnaya case, under which many left-wingers, including myself, were sentenced was important for the entire liberal-democratic opposition. It was a story which the average journalist from the capital could understand. And here are people who face extremely harsh accusations. They're not liberals. They're not Moscow activists. We need to cut through the preconceptions towards them […] This case isn't about anarchism and isn't even about antifascism, but about the fact that tomorrow, they could come for you — for whatever reason. The electric shocker doesn't distinguish between “us” and “them.”
That solidarity took some time to materialise. But over the two years since Shenkman's column, the case has come to broader public awareness. In December 2018, the celebrated theatre company Teatr.Doc staged a production based on the torture testimonies of the accused men from Penza. On 12 February, prominent academics published an open letter against the “fabricated” case, and the following day prominent opposition campaigner Alexey Navalny harshly criticised the “barbaric” court verdict on his popular YouTube channel. The following post by Dmitry Bavyrin, a journalist for the Vzglyad newspaper, is a good indication of the mood among Russia's online opposition:
Я не пытался разобраться в деле “Сети”, так что присяжным могу быть только на поверхностном уровне.
Верите ли вы, что компания “антифашистов” и анархистов обсуждала на пьянках и в мессенджерах гипотетическую возможность насильственного свержения государственного строя? Да, легко верю.
Верите ли вы в то, что фсбэшники могли применять к задержанным по этому делу пытки? Да, легко верю.
Что, по вашему мнению, представляет большую общественную опасность – разговоры студентов про свержение режима или пытки в СИЗО? Разумеется, второе.
I haven't attempted to dig into the details of the “Network” case, as I can only act as a jury on a superficial level.
Do you believe that, on messengers or over a few drinks, a group of anti-fascists and anarchists might hypothetically discuss the possibility of overthrowing the state by violent means? Yes, I can easily believe that.
Do you believe that FSB officers might apply torture to their detainees in this case? Yes, I can easily believe that?
Which of these, in your opinion, represents a greater danger to society: students’ chats about overthrowing the regime or torture in detention centres. I think it's the second one.
— Dmitry Bavyrin, Facebook, 14 February 2020
The popular video blogger Yury Dud voiced a similar sentiment, alongside a film by Yevgeny Malyshev, a journalist for the independent media outlet 7×7, about the case. It features interviews with over 40 acquaintances of the convicted men.
И обязательно посмотрите вот этот фильм. Никакой героизации подсудимых (среди них были вполне проблемные чуваки), просто пошаговое исследование дела. От этой пошаговости волосы на голове шевелятся еще сильнее https://t.co/NECTn4nTsR
— Юрий Дудь (@yurydud) February 10, 2020
You must watch this film. There's no heroisation of the defendants (among whom are some wholly problematic guys), just a step-by-step investigation of the case. And it's that step-by-step analysis which will make your hairs stand on end even more.
Unsurprisingly, some of the loudest voices raising the alarm over Monday's verdict are from the left wing of Russia's opposition — such as the activist Sergey Udaltsov and singer Kirill Medvedev. Placards held outside the FSB building in Moscow frequently featured the logo of the opposition RSD, or Russian Socialist Movement. The verdict in the “Network” case also comes at a resonant moment for Russia's antifascists — a month after the ten year anniversary of the murder of antifascist human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova.
Responses to the verdict also suggest that the Russian opposition is aware that whatever their political differences, the threat (and sometimes experience) of torture unites them. Comparisons to Stalinist show trials are not uncommon. On February 9, the independent politician Alexey Minyaylo posted a picture of himself holding a placard which asked the question “What would you confess to under torture?” He soon received an answer from Ildar Dadin, who in 2015 became the first Russian to be imprisoned for repeated violation of the country's draconian law on non-violent protest. Dadin, who was released in 2017, alleged brutal torture at the hands of his guards at a prison colony in Karelia, in Russia's north-west. His answer drew on this trauma:
Во-первых, я бы слово “признался” поставил в кавычки. Так как лжеоговаривать себя под пытками в том, к чему тебя принуждают преступники-террористы, в том, чего ты не совершал, вряд ли можно назвать признанием.
Во-вторых, я – тоже сломался. В карельской пыточной колонии, во время дикой физической пытки […] В итоге скажу лишь, что под страшными, сопровождающимися долгой, дикой, сводящей с ума болью, уверен, абсолютное, подавляющее большинство не только скажет чего угодно, чего не было на самом деле, но и готово будет прямо предать, оговорить САМЫХ БЛИЗКИХ (как бы это дико для нормальных людей не звучало). Так как когда ты испытываешь дикую, непрекращающуюся боль в тебе выключается все человеческое, выключаются все человеческие принципы, понятия, нормы морали – они просто тонут во все нарастающем под этой болью животном инстинкте, который требует, орет, кричит лишь одно – прекратить эту дикую, невыносимую, сводящую с ума, буквально выключающую разум, боль. Все человеческое в этот момент в вас скорее всего выключит эта боль, причиняемая нелюдями-садистами.
Firstly, I would put the word “confessed” in quotation marks. When criminal terrorists force you to incriminate yourself under torture, that can hardly be called a confession. Secondly, they also broke me in the Karelian torture colony, through savage physical torture […] As a result, I can only say that under conditions of terror and wild, prolonged, maddening pain, I'm convinced that the overwhelming majority of people would not only say they did things they did not do; they'll invent anything, be ready to betray their NEAREST AND DEAREST (no matter how wild that sounds to ordinary people.) When you experience that maddening, ongoing pain, all your human principles and concepts, your moral compass, are all turned off. They are overwhelmed by the animal instinct which grows under that pain, which demands, screams, just one thing: end this maddening pain, which literally switches off your mind.
Russian society's attempts to make sense of this harsh verdict speak to the unease at relations with the state. As the political scientist Ekaterina Shulmann writes, draconian measures in the name of “anti-extremism” are self-defeating, and are more likely to convince ordinary Russians that there are no legal ways to express their discontent.
Perhaps, in those circumstances, the authorities are merely determined to remind the opposition that the truth is often what those in power wish it to be, however it is extracted.

author: Maxim Edwards


text:
Hong Kong’s labor laws aid and abet the abuse of foreign domestic workers · Global Voices
Katie McQue

Foreign domestic workers take a break on their rest day in central Hong Kong. Photo by author.
Her body is heavy with fatigue after a 17-hour shift, but Janey*, 29, finds it impossible to fall asleep. She scrolls through her Facebook newsfeed in an effort to distract herself from the hunger pangs. It’s midnight, and her working day will begin again in six short hours.
Janey traveled to Hong Kong from the Philippines two years ago to take up a job as a live-in domestic maid for a family. She knew the work was going to be hard, but she didn’t expect her living conditions to be so difficult. Janey told me in an interview that:
The food here is very limited. My employer just gives me instant noodles, you have to train yourself to be able to eat them every day. I can also eat leftovers but sometimes there isn’t enough.
Families that employ maids are legally obligated to provide them with a private room, yet Janey sleeps on the sofa in the living room of the 700-square-foot apartment that houses the five people she waits on. She keeps her possessions in bags.
Hong Kong’s 350,000 domestic workers come mainly from poorer Asian countries such as the Philippines and Indonesia and are essential to the functioning of the city. Getting a job as a maid enables these women to send money back home to provide much-needed support to their families. Janey, a graduate in computer programming, is ambitious and determined to start a career in her field, but there aren't jobs in the Philippines, she says.
According to a 2017 report by Mission For Migrant Workers, a Hong Kong-based NGO, nine out of ten maids suffer from insufficient rest, two out of five do not have a private room, one in five have reported ill-treatment by their employers, and 25 percent are given insufficient food.
Much of the abuse these maids face is abetted by employment laws. For instance, Hong Kong’s domestic workers are legally required to live with their employers. This rule has created a breeding ground for abuse. According to Nicole Lai, Organisation Secretary at the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions:
Because maids have to live with their employers, the hours are long. They either work or sleep. Sleep may also be interrupted; they are often asked to work and are often caring for children and the elderly, which can involve working at night.
Living with their employers affords maids very little privacy, and makes them more vulnerable to physical and sexual abuse. In cases where this happens, it is very difficult for them to get help. They are afraid to report cases to the police and cannot easily leave the home to do so anyway, adds Lai.
It is commonplace for Hong Kong households to have at least one maid. The busy and expensive city has a scarcity of daycare facilities for young children. By law, the minimum wage for a domestic worker is HK$4,630 (595 US dollars) per month. Families who may not be able to comfortably afford this sum may be tempted to squeeze as much work as possible from their domestic worker.
Gabriela*, 32, from Mindanao island in the Philippines, reports experiencing this. She took out a loan to pay a recruitment agency US$ 1,200 to place her with a supposedly reputable employer. The agency assured her that she would be treated well and would work a standard eight hours per day, six days per week, in her new home. She told me:
When I arrived at my employers’ house, I gave them my contract. But they told me that it is just a piece of paper that doesn’t mean anything, and I must live by the family’s rules because they paid a lot for me.
In reality, Gabriela is made to work from sunrise until past midnight, doing everything from cooking, helping look after three children and two elderly parents, and cleaning and washing the family car:
I can’t sit down for even one second because my employer doesn’t want to waste it. Sunday is my holiday but I still work 8 hours then, when I’m supposed to have the whole day off.
But leaving is almost impossible. Gabriela must earn money to pay back her loan, and she needs to send money home to support her elderly mother. She’d like to complain to Hong Kong’s Labour Department, but she’s afraid of being fired.
Breaking an employment contract through resignation or by being fired puts foreign maids in an impossible situation, because immigration laws stipulate that a domestic worker must find a new employer within two weeks, or leave Hong Kong. Finding a new job in the space of two weeks is highly unlikely. As Lai points out:
The Hong Kong labour department can’t issue new documents in that time even if they do find a new employer. It also takes four to six weeks for the immigration department to issue new visa documents.
Leaving and re-entering Hong Kong also means incurring the expense of costly recruitment agency fees and flights all over again.
Should a domestic worker get pregnant, Hong Kong's maternity laws are often not upheld by the employer. In such cases, a domestic worker is typically fired, meaning she swiftly loses her income, home, residency visa and access to healthcare.
Children born to women who overstay their visas inherit the same immigration status as their mothers — undocumented.
Migrant workers who become pregnant often seek help from Pathfinders, a local NGO focused on helping foreign domestic workers which operates several shelters for migrant workers who are pregnant or have recently given birth. Pathfinders’ CEO, Catherine Gurtin, told me that:
Our beneficiaries often arrive hungry, sick, undocumented and homeless. They are often unable to return home financially, or because they are too pregnant to fly or because their Hong Kong-born baby is undocumented.
Jessie*, from Luzon island in the Philippines, is in her early 20s. She was just eight weeks from her due date when I interviewed her in one of Pathfinders’ shelters. She learned she was pregnant after taking a mandatory pregnancy test before beginning a new contract as a maid, and then lost her job. She says she’s too scared to tell her family and can’t go home out of fear of her safety.
Pregnant maids not fired by their employers still encounter significant challenges. Under the government’s live-in rule, domestic workers have to live in their employer’s home even during their maternity leave. Unsurprisingly, most employers are unwilling to accommodate a baby, so they are often left in the care of the state until the mother can take them home.
A joint statement provided to Global Voices by the Hong Kong government’s Labour and Immigration Department said:
Any change to the “live-in requirement” that foreign domestic helpers must reside in employers’ residences will go against the rationale for importing Foreign Domestic Helpers and the fundamental policy that local employees (including local domestic helpers) should enjoy priority in employment.
The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government does not tolerate and takes stringent actions against any abuse or exploitation of foreign domestic helpers. Any reported case of physical abuse or violation of the statutory provisions such as non-payment/under-payment of wages, non-granting of weekly rest days and statutory holidays, etc. will be thoroughly investigated, and if there is sufficient evidence, the culprits will be prosecuted.
*Names have been changed to protect identities.

author: Katie McQue


text:
India’s forgotten persecution of Chinese migrants · Global Voices
Rezwan

Screenshot from the documentary “The Fading Chinatown of Kolkata” by 101 India
Protests against an amendment of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the proposed nationwide updating of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) have been taking place across India since December 2019. Authorities are building several detention centres throughout the country, especially in Assam, where 1.9 million Indians, suspected to be “illegal migrants”, face the possibility of becoming stateless.
As Indian feminist Rita Banerji reminded her countrymen, the situation has echoes of the past. Deoli Camp was another such detention centre, created in 1962 during the Sino-Indian war, at which the treatment of Indians of Chinese origin impacted thousands of lives:
2/ A book every Indian supporting the #NRC_CAA_NPR protests #MustRead if you really want to know how deep racist persecution runs through Indian history. Similarly, most Chinese rounded up and sent in trains to #detentioncentres in Deoli, Rajasthan, were from #Assam & #Bengal. pic.twitter.com/FQ3dXc2yiD
— Rita Banerji ✍ ⚖ (@Rita_Banerji) February 8, 2020
At present, there are almost 200,000 ethnic Chinese living in India, including around 7,000 expatriates.
Chinese migrants started to emigrate to India in considerable numbers during the 1770s, which marked the beginning of the British colonial period, as dockworkers in the port of Kolkata. They later set up businesses in the Bow Bazaar or Tiretta Bazaar of the city, which was then the capital of British British India. From 1838, the British started bringing in Chinese labourers, artisans, tea growers and tea makers for the tea gardens in the Indian state of Assam.
After India gained independence from Great Britain in 1947, it was one of the first nations to recognise Mao Zedong's communist regime when it took power in China in 1949. Although both countries shared a poorly-defined Himalayan border, they harboured good relations.
When China invaded Tibet in 1950, India did not interfere. In 1956, the Tibetan resistance movement started and, during the 1959 Tibetan uprising, the 14th Dalai Lama fled to India. The country gave him asylum and he remains the spiritual leader of the Tibetan diaspora residing in Dharmashala, in the state of Himachal Pradesh.
China, unhappy about this and unable to reach consensus on disputed territory along the 3,225 kilometre-long Himalayan border, launched attacks in Ladakh in Kashmir and across the McMahon Line at the Tibetan border on October 20, 1962. The war ended on November 20, 1962, when China declared a ceasefire.
The estimated 20,000-40,000 Indians of Chinese origin became the scapegoats after the end of the war with China, with the Indian government and political elites systematically stereotyping them as spies. Writing for The Hindu, Rita Chowdhury explained that as soon as the war ended, Chinese people were rounded up by the armed forces and compelled to leave their houses.
In December 1962, India passed the Defence of India Act and Defence of India Rules, which allowed the “apprehension and detention in custody of any person [suspected] of being of hostile origin”. Under this broad, draconian law, any person with Chinese surnames, ancestry, or association by marriage could be detained.
What followed was thousands of people of Chinese origin being arrested all over India: Calcutta, Bombay, Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Jamshedpur, and the Northeast. When they were given orders to leave India, approximately 7,500 people complied and left for other places, including Australia, Britain, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Pakistan, Taiwan, and the United States.
People who didn't have money to travel or were unwilling to leave were sent to a prison camp at Deoli city in the Indian state of Rajasthan. At one point, the camp had more inmates of Chinese origin than its capacity of 3,000 persons, 60 per cent of whom were children or seniors.
The “Deoli Diaries“, an online collection of interviews with camp survivors, details the terrible conditions the Chinese detainees faced in the three to five years that followed. One of them, Wong Ying Sheng recalled how the internees were kept under armed guard at all times.
In 1964, India announced that all remaining internees at Deoli would be deported to China. Some of them were forcibly sent after China sent ships to collect “their people”; children were separated from their parents. As many as 2,500 stayed back, however, as they had nowhere to go. India began to release the remaining detainees in 1965; the last batch was freed in 1967, only to find that their homes and businesses had either been looted or taken over by locals.
The Indian government has never apologised for its actions against the country's Chinese community. Outlook magazine published an article by S.N.M. Abdi about the treatment of the people of Chinese origin after the 1962 war:
Sadly, even 50 years later, the Indian state has no regrets. There are no pangs of conscience, no symptoms of soul-searching.
“From Border to Border“, a documentary by Taipei-based educator Chung Shefong, asked an important question about this multi-faceted issue:
Will ethnic Chinese in India always be perpetual foreigners? Is there a way to reconcile 1962’s history without forgetting it?
Indian blogger and author Dilip D’Souza co-wrote “The Deoliwallahs: The True Story of the 1962 Chinese-Indian Internment” with Joy Ma, who was one of the five children born in Deoli Camp. The book narrates this little-known story of how India incarcerated these “foreigners.”
In an interview with Quartz India, D’Souza drew parallels between those incarcerations and the new thrust towards citizen registration:
There’s the idea of detention camps. The one under construction in Assam’s Goalpara even carries an eerie reminder of Deoli in the number of internees it is designed for: 3,000, the same as the number of incarcerated Chinese-Indians. There’s the promulgation of laws to spell out who is “foreign” and who isn’t. There are the prejudices, hatreds and stereotypes that, arguably, are codified in these laws. There is the fear that naturally rises in people who think the process will target them. Above all, there is the notion of citizenship itself. Who is really Indian, how do we define and determine that, and what should it all mean?
D'Souza added:
If this episode destroyed so many lives, what kind of chaos, let alone wholesale injustice, can we expect with citizenship laws and tests applied much more widely than in 1962?
Check out Global Voices’ special coverage page “Who is paying the cost of India’s declining democracy?“

author: Rezwan


text:
Positive energy floods Chinese social media as over 60,000 infected with COVID-2019 · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

School kids are mobilized to spread positive energy and express their support for Wuhan. Viral image from Weibo.
The recent death of Dr. Li Wenliang, the physician whose warnings about the potential outbreak of the strain of coronavirus now known as COVID-19 went unheeded, set Chinese social media on fire. Now, Chinese netizens have turned their grievances into courageous demands for political reform, pushing the term “freedom of expression” to the top of Weibo‘s search results.
Public discontent, however, has not stopped the propaganda authorities from prosecuting independent voices and censoring the web. Commentary criticizing the failure of Chinese political systems was censored on social media platforms, including WeChat and Weibo. Two citizen journalists reporting from Wuhan, the capital of China’s Hubei province, where the virus originated, have disappeared. Chen Qiushi has been missing since February 6, 2020, the night of Dr. Li's death; three days later, Fang Bing also disappeared.
As of February 15, there are 66,577 cases of infection from the virus, and a death toll of 1,524. Yet, over the past week, Chinese social media has been flooded with encouraging messages coming from Wuhan. “How to turn a depressing crisis into positive news?” — Chinese journalist Michael Anti showcased a typical propaganda piece with the Global Times’ headline screen capture:
环球网公众号手把手教你怎么利用坏消息做出振奋人心的正能量来 pic.twitter.com/Q3a8Jqrfw4
— Michael Anti (@mranti) February 14, 2020
Global Times’ public [Twitter] account teaches you how to turn bad news into happy news, full of positive energy.
On February 13, China reported 15,111 new infections from the virus and 252 deaths — a 742 percent surge from the figures just the day before — a result of the change of leadership at Hubei province's Health Commission. While Chinese netizens were still in shock over the rise, the Global Times headlined its February 14 report, “New infections from coronavirus in Hubei dropped more than 10,000 when compared with the previous day!”
Such examples are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the positive energy campaign; there is a more sophisticated effort at work in controlling the narrative of the COVID-19 outbreak, which involves turning the crisis into a heroic story of a strong nation.
While the majority of Chinese netizens see Dr. Li Wenliang as an ordinary hero who resisted the authorities’ initial cover-up of the outbreak, pro-government online discourse accused people of politicizing the incident. In response to the February 12 commemoration of Li's death outside the Beijing Liaison Office in Hong Kong, for instance, @usltuvS59jt41H0 said:
请你们搞清楚一件事，李医生不是死于“新闻自由”言论，病毒肺炎才是夺走李医生生命的罪魁祸首，我们感动于李医生在患病之际仍然希望病愈后与疫魔继续做抗争，而你们这些利用那疫情，制造“罢工”，无视身为医生的职业道德，把病人的生命当做你们可利用的政治筹码的人，根本没有资格祭奠李医生
Li Wenliang’s death had nothing to do with his talk about freedom of the press. The coronavirus is the sole cause of his death. We are touched by his will to fight against the virus so that he could return to work. But you [the Hongkongers] used the epidemic as an excuse to launch a ‘strike’, putting aside the professional ethics of medical workers. Those who use patients’ lives as political chips have no right to memorialize Dr. Li.
At the same time, a large number of posts, images and comments emerged from Chinese social media platforms, depicting medical workers as heroes led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP):
医务人员是国家的财富，是真正的国家宝藏。广大医务人员工作在战疫第一线，连续奋战非常辛苦。他们主动请战逆行到前线，大家都很感动敬佩，想着一定不能亏待他们。现在国家都给安排上了！守护医者仁心，唯有真心和恒心，因为他们，是我们的真心英雄。相信在中国共产党的领导下，中国必将战胜武汉肺炎。 pic.twitter.com/Btaglf9snK
— 游衍 (@P6peQ8DcM0ADsL4) February 13, 2020
Medical workers are the wealth of the state, they are really the country’s treasure. They are fighting at the front line against the coronavirus, they volunteer themselves to work in the front line. Everyone is touched and is paying tribute to them. The nation is at their back! We have to safeguard their selfless hearts with trustful hearts and patience. They are our true heroes. Under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, China will overcome the Wuhan coronavirus.
Guancha.cn, a CCP-affiliated outlet, published a sensational story on social media about a nurse returning to the COVID-19 front line just ten days after having a miscarriage, as an exemplification of the “selfless” heroine. The story has gone viral, with heavy criticism directed at the propagandists for their heartless cruelty.
Instead of showing images of sickness, fatigue and death at the front line, video clips of medical workers and patients dancing in hospital wards have gone viral on Chinese social media. @duqiaoxiaoyao republished one of the video clips on Twitter:
转：自从把那300名正能量宣传者送到抗役前线，舆论的方向一下子不一样了。刚看到一个网友的评论：撼山易，撼傻逼难！ pic.twitter.com/47W50EOMvH
— 独俏逍遥 (@duqiaoxiaoyao) February 13, 2020
Repost: ever since the 300 positive energy propagandists arrived at the front line of the coronavirus battlefield, the direction of public opinion channelling has shifted. A netizen just commented: it is easy to beat down a mountain, but difficult to out beat a bunch of idiots.
On February 4, China Central Television reported that more than 300 journalists working in state-affiliated media outlets had been sent to Wuhan and Hubei to report from the front line. Zhang Xiaoguo, a director at the Central Propaganda Department said the authority would coordinate propaganda of epidemic prevention and control according to the party's main political themes (主旋律).
As @AxVYJhw7FQX1XAn pointed out, led by the propaganda drive, people in quarantine camps are also dancing in the wards, regardless of the health risk:
知道什么叫娱乐至死吗？这就是。上千人封闭隔离，有的可能是病毒感染者，有的可能仅仅就是感冒发热，本来就有交叉感染风险，这样剧烈运动，搅动空气，增大肺对空气的吸收量，组织者难道还嫌感染不充分吗？病毒固然可怕，但愚昧更可怕！ pic.twitter.com/N2VCp5SzEI
— 雾海危岩赵中元 (@AxVYJhw7FQX1XAn) February 10, 2020
Look at this political entertainment! In such a huge quarantine camp where hundreds of people are sharing the space and some may be coronavirus or other virus carriers, there is clearly a human transmission risk. Doing exercise in such a setting would increase the breathing in of air into the lungs — do the organizers of such activities want to see more transmission? The coronaviris is scary, but stupidity is more overwhelming.
Even more terrifying? Having a birthday cake in the coronavirus patients’ ward:
#在中国??，记录美好生活#
火神山医院白衣天使为80岁新冠肺炎患者庆生，暖心一幕让人感动落泪…… pic.twitter.com/uBs2LxCaEf
— 廖小宝 (@ayIu1jAMqEY9TUp) February 13, 2020
#Recording the beauty of life in #China The white angels are holding a birthday party for an 80-year-old coronavirus patient in the Huoshenshan hospital. This is so touching that tears keep falling…
The CCP also viewed the crisis as an opportunity to spread the tale of Lei Feng — a party-loyal, self-sacrificing figure constructed during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. On Weibo, grassroots party organizations such as the Youth League and Women's Federation have been using Lei Feng to mobilise volunteers, as this excerpt of a report published by the Heilongjiang Women's Federation illustrates:
当前，新冠肺炎疫情防控工作正处在关键时期，龙江广大巾帼志愿者积极响应妇联组织号召，大力弘扬志愿精神和雷锋精神，舍小家顾大家，在抗击疫情的基层工作中主动作为，着力社区防控，着重邻里关爱，着眼守护家门，做了很多强信心、暖人心、聚民心的好事实事，进一步彰显了龙江女性在社会生活和家庭生活中的独特作用，她们是龙江大地疫情阻击战中一道美丽的风景线！
At this critical period in the fight against the new coronavirus, Women's Federation volunteers are the living spirit of Lei Feng: they put aside their family’s need in service of the bigger family’s need, and fight against the epidemic at the grassroots level by taking care of their neighbors, guarding the front gates of residential districts. They have done so many good deeds to warm people’s hearts, and manifest the distinctive role of women in the family and in society. They have become beautiful backdrops of Heilongjiang’s front line battle against the coronavirus!
The propaganda surrounding 2019-nCoV also has an international thrust. The story about the donation of 100 euros by the Comoros China Association for Friendship has been republished on many Chinese social media outlets. The Chinese Communist Youth League posted the story on Twitter:
【非洲岛国科摩罗友协捐助100欧元支持中国“抗疫”，背后的故事更让人感动！】在中国合力抗击新冠肺炎疫情之际，非洲岛国——科摩罗的“科中友好协会”捐出的“100欧元”，这两天却受到中国网友的格外注意，有网友表示“千里送鹅毛，礼轻情意重”。 pic.twitter.com/SxneOjZfi3
— 共青团中央 (@China_CCYL) February 12, 2020
[The story about the 100 euro donation presented by the Comoros-China Association for Friendship is so touching!] As China is fighting against the coronavirus, the 100 euro donation presented by the East African island nation Comoros has caught Chinese netizens’ attention. One comment said: A feather that comes from a thousand miles away, carries more weight than the gift.
The video attached to the post highlights the fact that Comoros is one of the poorest countries in the world.
Meanwhile, online news outlets highlighted the support coming from South Korea:
【中国抗击新冠肺炎疫情 韩国高校和政府积极声援】#新型冠状病毒 #肺炎（#COVID19）#疫情 扩散以来，#中国 政府和人民抗击疫情的消息感动着 #韩国 人，各大高校和韩国驻华机构纷纷声援，与中国站在一起。#NEWSPIM https://t.co/oKwJ7I1Alu pic.twitter.com/4yCdodghNI
— 韩国纽斯频（NEWSPIM）通讯社 (@NEWSPIMCHINA) February 13, 2020
【中国抗击新冠肺炎疫情 韩国高校和政府积极声援】#新型冠状病毒 #肺炎（#COVID19）#疫情 扩散以来，#中国 政府和人民抗击疫情的消息感动着 #韩国 人，各大高校和韩国驻华机构纷纷声援，与中国站在一起。
[The South Korean government and universities expressed support for China's battle against the coronavirus] #Newcoronavirus #COVID2019 As the #epidemic spread, major #South Korean universities and government organizations in China are touched by the Chinese government and people's battle against the virus. They expressed their support and are standing with China.
On February 14, the China Lei Feng Engineering Committee (中國雷鋒工程辦公室), China Lei Feng Post（中國雷鋒報), and Learn From Lei Feng Office（全國學雷鋒辦公室）issued a joint notification that “touching stories” should be collected from overseas Chinese; it is therefore quite likely that there will soon be a spillover of positive energy from Chinese social media to the world wide web.
the impact of the Wuhan coronavirus

author: Oiwan Lam


text:
Russian pranksters target Bernie Sanders · Global Voices
RuNet Echo

Screenshot from Vovan and Lexus’ YouTube video of their prank call with US Senator Bernie Sanders.
In the heat of the US Democratic primary, Senator Bernie Sanders would appear to be the latest international politician to fall victim to Russian pranksters Vovan and Lexus, the pseudonyms of Vladimir Kuznetsov and Alexey Stolyarov. At least, that's what the pranksters claim: the Vermont senator's campaign office has not yet commented on the recording's authenticity.
On 13 February, an animated video was uploaded to the comedians’ YouTube channel featuring the audio of Sanders’ 11-minute call with whom he believes to be Greta Thunberg and her father Svante. “Greta” praised the senator's ecological proposals and offered to provide an endorsement for his presidential campaign. The video soon descends to the strange when the pranksters suggest that Sanders would gain the youth vote if he starred in a rap video with Kanye West and Billie Eilish. The senator laughs cordially at the suggestion that he would have to wear gold jewellery.
It doesn't take long for Russia to feature in the call, when “Greta” and her father express their concerns about an upcoming trip to the country and ask Sanders for his advice. The senator tells them that “to the best of [his] knowledge, Putin is very bad on climate change,” warning them against “just walking in there and getting used as a photo opportunity,” and advising them to research the ecological situation in Russia and urge the Russian leadership to “transform their energy system.”
Sanders is then asked whether he believes it is possible to “lead the United States towards communism,” to which he responds that democratic socialism has far more in common with governance in Sweden than in the Soviet Union.
Then things go downhill when “Greta” and her father express interest in Sanders’ visit to the Russian city of Yaroslavl in 1988. They jokingly suggest that he was a sleeper agent for the KGB, the Soviet secret police, which has altered the senator's memory in case the CIA discover the truth. “Is this what you really believe?” asks Sanders, incredulously. “Greta” responds that it is time for her to activate him with a special phrase. The call abruptly ends.
It is not known when Vovan and Lexus recorded their latest call, but they did allude to a prank with Sanders in a Tweet shortly before its release:
Сделать ли нам пранк с Берни Сандерсом? / Should we do a prank with Bernie Sanders?
— Пранкер Вован (@evilprank) February 12, 2020
Sanders, if the voice is indeed the senator's, was not the first politician pranked by Vovan and Lexus and will probably not be the last. This January, they used much the same script against Califonia Congresswoman Maxine Waters, and then in a call with actor Joaquin Phoenix. The duo shot to international prominence in 2015, when they phoned Elton John posing as Vladimir Putin — the singer believed he was speaking to the Russian president via a translator.
The mischievous pranksters insist that they have no political agenda, stressing that they have also pranked celebrities. Nevertheless, it has not escaped the attention of international media that their choice of victims seems to coincidentally align with whoever is in the Kremlin's bad books — particularly if they are Ukrainian politicians and western public officials deemed hostile to Russian interests. These have included French President Emmanuel Macron, former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, North Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin, the Ukrainian oligarchs Ihor Kolomoiskyi and Rinat Akhmetov, and many others. There has been much speculation as to how two pranksters are able to dial through directly to foreign heads of state with such ease — leading some to suspect, such as the lawyer Mark Feygin, that they may have a helping hand from the Russian security services.
The pranksters laugh off that suggestion, but have been asked on several occasions why they have never once prank called Putin. In a January 2019 interview with Ukrainian news portal Strana.Ua, they claimed that Putin knew who they were, and cited technical problems in reaching him:
Путину так просто не дозвониться. У Путина и еще некоторых глав государств совершенно другая система связи. Путин не имеет телефона, во-первых. Связь, по которой он общается, шифруется. Если мы возьмем территорию СНГ, то у каждого президента связь зашифрованная. И теоретически, даже если бы мы захотели, мы бы не дозвонились.
It's not that easy to call through to Putin. Putin, and several other heads of state, have a completely different system of communications. Putin doesn't have a telephone, first of all. The channels through which he communicates are encrypted. If we're talking about the CIS states, then every president has encrypted communications. Theoretically, even if we wanted to, we wouldn't be able to reach them.
In a March 2016 interview with the BBC's Russian service, Lexus was more open about their reticence:
Мы все-таки направлены на то чтобы делать то, что необходимо России, и мы понимаем, что некоторые записи, в том числе компрометирующие, нанесли бы вред нашей стране, потому что этими записями бы стали спекулировать другие политические силы, получая на этом свои дивиденды. Мы считаем, что с коррупционерами и прочими чиновниками надо в любом случае бороться. Но надо рассматривать каждый конкретный случай и сделать так, чтобы в политическом плане это не навредило стране.
We are nevertheless aimed at doing what is necessary for Russia. We understand that some recordings, including incriminating ones, would be harmful to our country; other political forces would play on them and get dividends. We believe that corrupt officials and others have to be fought in any case. But every concrete case needs to be assessed so that the country does not suffer politically as a result.
Questions about Vovan and Lexus's intentions will no doubt continue to be asked — until and unless the pranksters be their boldest yet by trying to dupe a prominent Russian politician.


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The feminist translators and interpreters revolutionizing the profession in Argentina · Global Voices
Romina Navarro

Some members of Feminist Translators and Interpreters of Argentina (TEIFEM). Photo by Lía Díaz, used with permission.
Feminism is always growing and diversifying, and the need is arising for feminists to come together and create areas of common interest and practice unique forms of activism that move away from hegemonic feminism, the manifestation of the movement that is most visible to the general public.
The world of translation is no exception, and that's the reason I joined the Feminist Translators and Interpreters of Argentina (TEIFEM). We are a group of women and gender-nonconforming translation and interpreting professionals, students and teachers, who have come together in order to “speak up in favour of gender equality and to challenge the structures established within the profession” and to promote growth and solidarity amongst colleagues.
Bookmarks designed for the Mujeres colectivas book launch. Credit TEIFEM.
TEIFEM was created in May 2018, when Argentina was debating the draft bill to legalize abortion. At that time, several professional groups were voicing their support and some feminist translators wanted to do the same. Within a few hours of its creation, 100 members had joined, and 178 signatures had been collected on a letter of support. After fifteen days there were four hundred of us! There is no doubt that we very much needed something like this.
I joined TEIFEM days after its creation. A friend and colleague who was already a member recommended it to me, and it was something entirely different from what I was used to seeing in other translation groups. It was a pleasant surprise to find several acquaintances (fellow students, teachers and professionals) whom I very much respected.
It's also been a pleasure to engage with debates and questions concerning various feminist issues that are presented and explained with respect, without arrogance or belittling of others’ lack of knowledge, and by considering what we have in common when arriving at agreements.
Although the abortion law failed to muster enough votes in the Senate to be enacted, TEIFEM continued beyond its initial aim of gathering support. We therefore sought new ways to practice a different style of activism, both professionally and linguistically, through activities where we could debate the various aspects of our work.
Non-binary language is another major debate that has created considerable controversy in Argentina and several other Spanish-speaking countries. Also known as inclusive language, it involves modifying the Spanish language in order to introduce a neutral gender to refer to individuals whose gender expression isn't fixed, or a group of individuals with various genders.
For example, because third person pronouns either have a feminine or masculine gender in Spanish, where the “-a” ending generally indicates feminine and the “-o” indicates masculine, it has been suggested that the neutral gender pronoun “elle/elles” be used in place of “ella/ellas” and “él/ellos” (“she/they” and “he/they”). When adjectives are used to describe nouns or pronouns it is also important that they agree with the gender of the noun or pronoun, which is why the use of alternative neutral gender characters such as “x”, “@” or “e” has been suggested for the endings indicating the gender of adjectives and nouns—”todes” as opposed to “todas” or “todos” (all/every).
During the first TEIFEM Meeting, 28 September 2019. Credit: TEIFEM.
Interestingly, it is in the field of translation and interpreting, professions practiced mainly by women, where linguistic sexism is most evident. Each time that articles or comments concerning inclusive language are published, or when it is used in a written text, the most common reactions from many translators tend to be outright rejection, and sometimes forceful jibes, insults and attacks, as can be seen in the comments of this post from Las 1001 Traducciones, a well-known page dedicated to translation that shared a news story about TEIFEM.
Although TEIFEM's members are not unified on the subject of non-binary language, we have arrived at a basic consensus on how to deal with it. Mariana Rial, one of the group's creators, summarized this perspective in the translation podcast series En Pantuflas:
Si somos profesionales de la lengua, tenemos que estar atentas a estos fenómenos que se están dando, independientemente de lo que a cada una le parezca bien o mal, le guste o no le guste, le parezca que lo puede aplicar o no… Básicamente, mirarlo con ojo profesional.
As language professionals, we have to be mindful of these phenomenona, irrespective of what seems good or bad to people as indviduals, what they like or dislike and what they think they can or cannot use… Essentially, it's about looking at it from a professional perspective.
Personally, except for in special circumstances, I'm not in the habit of using non-binary language in daily or work communications, although I do closely monitor this phenomenon with great interest. For me, it's a way doing my part, linguistically, to highlight a social and political issue: It has nothing to do with “forcibly” changing the language, but rather with showing how language reflects the social order.
The reality is also that many publishers, LGBT+ and trans rights organizations, and even official and international bodies have already started to consider using non-binary or gender-neutral language in some of their communications. The phenomenon has become difficult to ignore, and from a practical perspective, for those of us who translate, it's way to broadens our professional horizons.
The practice of translation is known for being relatively lonely and highly competitive. A translator or proofreader spends many hours in front of a screen, virtually connected to the world; a simultaneous interpreter generally spends hours in a booth with a headset and notes.
At TEIFEM, we are always looking for reasons to organize meetings that remove us from this isolation, that celebrate the professional achievements of our colleagues and encourage professional solidarity.
A post shared by TEIFEM (@teifem.argentina) on
Many TEIFEM members are also members of other feminist and human rights organizations, giving us many opportunities for collaboration and strategic exchanges of knowledge and tools in order to achieve common objectives.
One example of this is the translations done by a few colleagues for the book The tragedy of woman's emancipation and other texts, a compilation of the writings of Emma Goldman produced by Red Editorial in which non-binary language was used. Also, as part of some of our activities, we donate menstrual hygiene products to  organizations that distribute them to people living on the street or in extreme poverty.
A flyer for TEIFEM's participation in the Modern Languages information seminar of the University of La Plata, 2019.
Since it began almost two years ago, TEIFEM has become a highly active community, organizing and participating in talks, seminars and meetings. Some of its members have been interviewed for news articles, podcasts and there is even a chapter to us in a book published in 2019 called Mujeres colectivas.
On the time the Spanish version of that article was published, TEIFEM had more than 1,100 members. We maintain a private Facebook group, but many of the ideas that arise within it are shared externally on an Instagram account and on Twitter using the #TEIFEM hashtag, including information, recommendations, cultural stories and a variety of feminist- and linguistically-themed activities.
Like the languages we work with, TEIFEM is active and dynamic, developing in step with these fast-changing times in order to deal with new challenges creatively, professionally and, above all, through sisterhood between women.
For me, TEIFEM was the best way to get closer to feminism. I found a community where I am completely at ease, where the only rule is respect and tolerance, where I can ask questions without apprehension and share opinions that inspire us and make us all grow.

author: Romina Navarro


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Groundbreaking film on Russia’s HIV epidemic goes viral · Global Voices
Filip Noubel

“A hundred people per day,” reads this screenshot from vlogger Yury Dud's YouTube documentary about Russia's HIV epidemic. This was the average number of victims on a daily basis in 2018.
One of Russia's most popular vloggers or video bloggers, Yury Dud, has released a documentary movie describing the HIV/AIDS situation in Russia. Since its launch on February 11, Dud's movie has received nearly 13 million views.
That makes Dud's documentary one of the most viewed YouTube videos in Russia today. And it couldn't have come at a more urgent time.
Russia faces an HIV epidemic. By the end of 2019, Russia's Ministry of Healthcare estimated the number of HIV positive Russian citizens at one million, meaning that the syndrome affects around one percent of Russia’s adult population. Meanwhile, the Russian government remains silent. As sociologist Iskander Yasaveyev wrote last November for independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta:
Из миллиона четырехсот тысяч случаев ВИЧ-инфекции, зарегистрированных в нашей стране с 1987 года, более половины — около 750 тысяч — зарегистрировано с 2012 года, когда начался третий путинский срок.
Of the 1,400,000 cases of HIV infection registered in our country since 1987, more than half —around 750 thousand — were recorded after 2012, the starting year of Putin's third presidential mandate.
Luckily, Russia's booming vlogosphere is there to say what goes unsaid elsewhere. Vloggers such as Dud have a significant following as they offer a rare alternative in a country whose media is heavily censored and controlled by the government. Television is the predominant source of information in Russia, meaning that most alternative media, with the exception of online television station Dozhd (Дождь), are newspapers and radio stations. This means that vloggers’ popular YouTube channels are the only real independent competition for state-owned television channels.
Dud, a former sports journalist, is one of Russia's leading vloggers, with over six million followers on his YouTube channel. He often interviews Russian-speaking celebrities but has also produced several professional documentaries on controversial issues in Russian society.
His considerate and thoughtful approach to some truly tricky topics has made Dud nothing less than a superstar on the RuNet. Global Voices asked Zhenya Snezhkina, a Prague-based Russian journalist and expert on Russian vloggers, to explain the popularity of video bloggers in Russia today and Dud’s success in particular:
Быстрая обратная связь дала создателям контента возможность наиболее точно попадать в свою аудиторию. По мере наступления цензуры в России, все больше людей старались уйти из-под ее влияния и переходили на площадку, которая в силу ее устройства не дает российским властям цензурировать контент. Также как и несколько десятков миллионов пользователей предпочитают неподцензурное медиа.
С самого начала своей карьеры на Youtube Дудь говорил о себе как о человеке, который задает неудобные вопросы и старается докопаться до реального положения дел. Без осуждения, но с пониманием. Фактически он переоткрыл жанр интервью, отменив “приличия” поведения героев. По мере развития канала количество вопросов росло, как и количество тем, о которых Дудь рисковал говорить. Рекордами прошлого года стали фильмы “Колыма” и “Беслан” (у обоих по 19 миллионов просмотров). Оба фильма вызвали ярость российских пропагандистов. Логично, что одной из тем для следующих фильмов должна была стать ситуация с ВИЧ в России, потому что положение дел тут трагическое.
Quick feedback that gives content creators the ability to better assess their audiences’ needs and expectations. As censorship has intensified in Russia, more and more people have tried to find ways to avoid it, transferring to platforms whose structure doesn't allow the Russian authorities to censor them so easily. So today, several tens of millions of users now prefer uncensored media.
From the very beginning of his YouTube career, Dud spoke about himself as a person who asks inconvenient questions and digs up the reality of various situations. Without judgement, but with understanding. He's basically reinvented the format of the interview, moving beyond the need for “well-behaved” interviewees. As his channel developed, its scope expanded to including topics that are risky to discuss. In 2019, his record breakers were his films about Kolyma [part of the Russian Gulag] and Beslan [a terrorist attack on a school in the Russian Caucasus]. Both movies have over 19 million views each. Both incensed the pro-Kremlin propagandists. It was logical that the HIV situation in Russia should become one of his next topics, because it is a tragic situation.
The title of Dud's latest documentary translates as “HIV in Russia — the epidemic that no one talks about” («ВИЧ в России — эпидемия, про которую не говорят») and runs for nearly two hours. It starts by citing key statistics, including the fact that on average, in 2018, 100 people died of the virus every day. The film includes several testimonies by HIV positive people and their partners, touching upon diverse topics: couples in which one partner is HIV-positive and the other isn't, HIV-positive children, HIV and drug consumption, myths about HIV transmission, HIV activism, the need for sexual education in schools, and the authorities’ silence. The movie is revolves around real life stories and is conducted, as are Dud's other videos, in a colloquial style which differs significantly from the tenor of official media in Russia.
It is hard to overstate the impact this film is having in Russia — views are rising day by day. But its impact cannot simply be measured in digits. One netizen wrote the following in a YouTube comment under the video:
I work in a clinic and my first patient today was a young man who came for an HIV test, and he said he did so because he saw this video. It's amazing.
— Anastasiya Botushan, YouTube, February 13, 2020
Apparently, the success of the movie has also made the authorities sit up and take notice. The Duma, Russia's parliament, organised a screening of the movie on February 14:
А у нас в Госдуме такой вот немного неожиданный выбор для Дня Святого Валентина. Показывают Юрия Дудя. pic.twitter.com/R8kkjeamur
— Валерий Рашкин (@RashkinV) February 14, 2020
And for Valentine's Day, we made an unusual choice at the State Duma. We are being shown Yury Dud's film.
On February 16, the Accounts Chamber of Russia, which oversees financial control of the state budget, announced that would review the effectiveness of measures aimed at supporting HIV-positive Russians. Its head Alexey Kudrin praised Dud's movie on Twitter:
Юрий Дудь снял нужный фильм об эпидемии ВИЧ  в России. Уже инфицировано  более 1 млн. В 2018 году от СПИДа умерло 37 тыс человек. В среднем по 100 человек в день. Сравните с коронавирусом. #ВИЧ пока в нашей стране – гораздо более реальная угроза https://t.co/5UkqKEnZV3 @yurydud
— Алексей Кудрин (@Aleksei_Kudrin) February 16, 2020
Yury Dud has made a much needed movie about HIV in Russia. More than one million people are infected. In 2018, 37,000 died of AIDS — that's on average 100 persons a day. Compare that with the coronavirus. #HIV in our country remains a much more real threat.
Snezhkina, the Prague-based journalist, does not believe that the authorities’ approach will change overnight. Nevertheless, she is optimistic about the prospects of wider social awareness about HIV in Russia:
Условно говоря “власти” услышали слова Дудя и его героев – фильм был показан в Госдуме и Министерстве здравоохранения России. Я не думаю, что сам фильм приведет к каким-то радикальным результатам. А вот то, что гораздо больше людей открыли для себя, что доступное тестирование на ВИЧ и доступные лекарства, это может иметь гораздо более широкие последствия.
Basically the “authorities” have heard the words of Dud and his heroes — the movie was shown in the State Duma and at the Ministry of Health. I don't think the movie will bring any radical changes. But the fact that so many people have found out about HIV-testing and the existence of drugs [for the condition], will have much more significant consequences.
One of the most poignant moments in Dud's film is his interview with Katya, a former drug user who died while the film was shot. Throughout their conversation, Katya, insists several times that:
Мы не прокаженные. Я надеюсь, что пойдет поток информаций
We are not lepers. I hope there'll be a free flow of information [about us].

author: Filip Noubel


text:
Azerbaijan’s snap parliamentary election produces the normal results · Global Voices
Arzu Geybullayeva

President Ilham Aliyev votes in Azerbaijan's snap parliamentary elections on February 9, 2020. Screenshot from AzTV's YouTube video “Prezident İlham Əliyev səs verib“
Who remembers Paul to the Octopus, who predicted the winners of several World Cup games from his tank? Paul was given two boxes with food, each decorated with the national flag of the team playing that day. Paul's prediction was based on which of these boxes he ate from first. One may ask, what on earth Paul has to do with a recent election in Azerbaijan?
Judging by the peculiar results, elections in this country on the shores of the Caspian Sea might as well be controlled by an octopus. On February 9, Azerbaijan held an early parliamentary election, nine months ahead of schedule. Although the decision was first proposed by the country's National Assembly, where 99.8 percent of deputies voted to dissolve parliament, the move was pushed forward by longtime President Ilham Aliyev who accepted the proposal in November and dismissed the legislature in December. Aliyev's decision to hold a snap election caught many observers by surprise. After municipal elections on December 23, the country's opposition had little time to turn around and start preparing for February 9.
Paul was given a fair choice. Although Azerbaijan's voters faced a choice of over 1,300 candidates, many pundits inside the country believed that the results of the election had been determined in advance. Nevertheless, Azerbaijan's authorities made an effort to convince the world of the transparency of their electoral system and integrity of the country's democracy — international human rights watchdogs remain to be convinced.
That's why some opposition parties boycotted the election. Others decided to participate, regardless of the predictions and aware that their chances of victory were very low. Nevertheless, candidates seen as loyal to the ruling New Azerbaijan Party won all but one of the 125 seats in the National Assembly. And although some observers had been wondering whether the authorities were planning to bring new faces into Azerbaijani politics, 87 parliamentarians kept their seats.
Turnout was low at just 48 percent.
“The restrictive legislation and political environment prevented genuine competition,” reads the preliminary report by election observers from the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe), released on February 10. The report also spoke of “significant procedural violations” in vote counting and tabulation. One of these incidents, featuring member of parliament Jale Aliyeva, is an illustrative example.
I would like to thank everyone who bravely fought in this election, when needed, throwing folders at people; grabbing phones out of hands, and throwing them on the ground [then, quickly correcting herself: “almost to the point of throwing them on the floor”]… Let me just say, we worked as one team.
This was Jale Aliyeva's fourth reelection as deputy for Zerdab, a city in central Azerbaijan.
Much like previous elections, it seems that this one featured all the usual vote-rigging techniques. Journalists have attested to carousel voting, ballot stuffing, rigging tabulations, and harassment of independent observers.
Meanwhile, there were reports of international observers with dubious credentials:
Fake international observers are massively deployed in #Azerbaijan today. Shame on you! #AZVote2020 #secki2020 https://t.co/Gl6wCB8Dyb
— Anar Mammadli (@MammadliAnar) February 9, 2020
Mamadli also offered a more detailed post-mortem of the election:
With the help of smartphones and social media, the ruling political team were shamed at home and abroad. As a result, reactions both internationally and locally increased. The political regime is living through difficult times as a result of social/economi discontent. This is precisely why, they changed the election dates, so to prevent organising and political maturity of the society. Now, by going against a few of their supporters in 4-5 constituencies they are trying to do damage control. This is why, it is important to focus on the legal violations rather than political results. Overall, without finishing the struggle on legal violations discussing the results of the election from a political point of view, does not really help with protection of democratic freedoms. Basically, the election were held in an emergency rule, with mass police intervention. An adeqaute response to this situation would be pursuing legal proceedings and public shaming. In short, legal disputing play an irriplaceble role in the process of losing confidence and political influence of the authoritarian regimes.
Anar Mammadli (also spelled Mammadov) heads the Election Monitoring and Democracy Studies Centre, the only independent election observation organisation in the country. The four or five election precincts he mentions are a reference to the CEC (Central Electoral Commission) decision to cancel election results in at least four constituencies due to electoral fraud. On February 13, the head of the CEC Mezahir Penahov went as far as to even thank social media users in helping to document these violations, something unheard of in a country where members of the parliament regularly criticise social media platforms and often suggest ways to control and monitor their use.
The ample amount of evidence circulating online and mentioned in the reports of international observers forced a response not only from the CEC but also from president Aliyev himself. On February 10, the president had said that these were free and fair elections. But just four days later, vowed to thoroughly investigate all allegations of violations at voting stations.
International partners have also voiced concern about how the elections were conducted, such as this statement by the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office:
The United Kingdom is disappointed that Azerbaijan’s parliamentary elections did not meet international democratic standards, according to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
And this Tweet by Germany's Foreign Office:
The restrictive legislation and political environment prevented genuine competition during parliamentary elections in #Azerbaijan according to @osce_odihr. We call on ?? to implement recommendations of @osce_odihr – which we stand ready to support with EU. https://t.co/a8DAOm299E
— GermanForeignOffice (@GermanyDiplo) February 11, 2020
Independent observer Javid Agha wrote the following reflection on the election for Open Caucasus Media:
The next day, when I read the Central Election Committee’s results, I was in shock. According to them, out of 1,121 registered voters, 482 arrived to vote and 96 of them voted for New Azerbaijan Party candidate Mikhail Zabelin. But according to all observers, and my own eyes, the number of voters couldn’t be any greater than 123.
On February 11, a group of candidates, journalists, and political activists gathered outside the CEC's offices in the capital of Baku to protest the election results. Police detained more than 20 independent and opposition candidates and used excess violence against them. The police have since been driving protesters out to remote regions of the country and dumping them there.
Due to these irregularities, some citizens have called for the election results to be cancelled.
#azvote2020 #seçki2020 #səsiniucalt #vətəndaşamsusmuram #challenge #hamısınıləğvet #kəlağayılıxala ?✌ pic.twitter.com/OLLeF474Us
— NəyşəliydiBilmemNe (@janmirzayeva) February 14, 2020
In the video above Jan Mirzayeva, who acted as an independent election observer, shared her experience of election day:
“On February 9, 2020, during the snap election, I witnessed teachers going out of their way to falsify an election; aunties in headscarves visiting one precinct after another [referring to the carousel voting], and dead people coming to vote [referring to deceased voters whose names were used to falsify results as voters]. I don't consider this election valid. I am a citizen. And I don't intend to be silent”.
This is why some Azerbaijanis are now taking to social media to demand the annulment of the election results. They are using hashtags such as #hamısınıləğvet and#YeniSeçkilər (“cancel it all” and “new elections” in Azerbaijani).
#Hamısınıləğvet #YeniSeçkilər #seçki2020
— Elvin Abbasli (@elwinabbasli) February 13, 2020
It is hard to predict how the authorities will respond to these calls. As mentioned earlier, when the decision to hold the snap election was announced there was some sense of hope that indeed, new faces (alas not many) would be allowed to enter into the parliament. Azerbaijani society is increasingly angry at economic stagnation and recent investigations exposing official corruption.
Nevertheless, there has been some internal political reshuffling. Two months ahead of calling for the snap election, Ramiz Mehdiyev, the powerful head of presidential administration and a Soviet-era apparatchik, was dismissed from his post. As political analyst Farid Guliyev explained for New Eastern Europe journal:
The Mehdiyev-linked group (also known as the “old guard”) is dominated by people from the Nakhchivan region, and includes the former Minister of Internal Affairs Ramil Usubov and ex-presidential advisor Ali Hasanov, all appointed by [Ilham] Aliyev's father, [Heydar Aliyev]. The “old guard” was considered one of the key factions in Aliyev’s ruling coalition. Its power could only be rivalled by the rising influence of the first lady Mehriban Aliyeva’s Pashayev group. The first lady-linked Pashayev group and its business conglomerate Pasha Holding have grown stronger over the past decade. The popular view is that Aliyeva holds ambitions to become the nation’s first woman president. In 2016, the constitution was amended to establish the post of the vice presidency and the following year she was appointed as the first vice president.
As “old guard” officials were dismissed, they were immediately replaced by younger, seemingly technocratic cadres. For example, Mehdiyev was replaced in his post by a 44-year-old Duke University graduate named Samir Nuriyev. Another American-educated official, Mikail Jabbarov, was appointed as the new minister of the economy, having previously held other ministerial posts.
Some country observers interpreted these changes as a gathering momentum for reform, a shift of power from the “old guard” to the emerging group of young cadres (dubbed “technocratic reformers”). Some pundits evoked the model of “authoritarian modernisation”.
The average Azerbaijani citizen does not care for these political games among the elite, but about something much more fundamental: whether they are heard. These elections appear to prove that isn't the case.

author: Arzu Geybullayeva