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As Putin preaches ‘sovereignty’ and tech modernization, experts lament loss of online freedoms · Global Voices
RuNet Echo

In his annual state of the union speech, Vladimir Putin promised Russians a faster, more reliable internet; it definitely won't be any freer, say experts. // TASS/kremlin.ru under CC2.0
On February 20, Vladimir Putin addressed the Russian parliament in his annual state of the union speech. He pledged massive investments in social programs and civil infrastructure, notably the county’s IT backbone:
Уже в текущем году необходимо принять генеральную схему развития инфраструктуры цифровой экономики, включая сети телекоммуникаций, мощности по хранению и обработке данных. И здесь также нужно смотреть вперёд. Задача ближайших лет – организовать повсеместный доступ к высокоскоростному интернету, начать эксплуатацию систем связи пятого поколения, 5G.
This year we must adopt a master plan for developing the infrastructure of a digital economy, including telecommunications networks, as well as data storage and processing capacities. Here we need to look ahead as well. The task for the next few years is to provide universal access to high-speed internet and start using 5G communications networks.
Improving internet infrastructure and ensuring that all Russians are online may sound progressive. But these developments will come about in an era of unprecedented online information control in Russia.
In February, two reports came out that noted a sharp, continuous downwards trend in online freedoms. Indeed, it seems that while more Russians will have access to the internet, it will be an internet governed on the state's increasingly strict terms.
One study compiled by Agora, a human rights group, lays out the different ways the Russian authorities are clamping down on individual users, social networks and online media. The most significant trend, Agora says, has been a wave of laws and regulations that force internet service providers and tech giants to “police” online content on the Russian government's behalf.
On more than one occasion, internet service providers have been forced to block access to websites for publishing information about court proceedings, or exposing government corruption. In one high-profile case, providers were made to block access to the website of Alexey Navalny, a prominent opposition activist and anti-corruption campaigner. Agora's report says:
Власти подготавливают почву для блокировки сервисов, которые считают основными катализаторами массовых протестов, пытаясь представить ее как требование соблюдать национальное законодательство. Делегирование полицейских и цензорских функций частным игрокам не только минимизирует ущерб репутации, но и, очевидно, более оправдано с точки зрения расходования ресурсов и эффективности контроля
The authorities are paving the way for blocking online services that they see as catalysts for mass protests, while attempting to present this crackdown as simply a requirement to follow national laws. Delegating policing and censorship functions to private actors not only minimizes reputational damage, but also ensures more effective control and spending.
Agora also notes a sharp increase in restrictions on individual pieces of content: a total of 662,842 items were censored in 2018, in comparison to 115,706 in 2017. This includes blocked websites and individual URLs, online news articles, social media posts deemed “extremist” or “inflammatory” etc.
In a rare instance of good news, one of the most infamous items of the Russian criminal code, Article 282 (“Incitement of hatred or enmity, as well as abasement of human dignity”,) responsible for the majority of prosecutions for online speech, was reined in by an amendment passed in December 2018. This appears to have brought a decline in prosecutions related to online speech. However, legal experts are skeptical about the possible “liberalization” of Russian laws.
Agora’s report predicts that public prosecutors may shift towards using other, less severe articles in both the criminal and administrative codes to punish dissent. This could enable them to silence individual users and organizations, while triggering less visible public backlash.
Agora also notes that western IT platforms are increasingly acquiescent towards the demands of the Russian authorities, a trend that Runet Echo covered previously. Citing Google's Transparency Report, Agora says that in June 2018 Google satisfied 79 percent of all data removal requests from the Russian government, while only 62 percent of similar requests from the US authorities were complied with. Google's report shows that requests for content removal from the Russian government multiplied by more than five-fold in six months in 2016 from 2,045 in June to 11,164 in December.
To Google's credit, it didn't comply with any of the 94 removal requests from the Russian government which it classifies under “Government criticism.” Google also provides some examples of the content they're removing, and a significant part of is genuinely dangerous to the public: ads for illegal casinos scamming people out of their hard-earned rubles, violent racist propaganda, online drug markets selling dangerous substances etc.
But Google readily complied with requests for removal of activist videos calling for rallies against corruption — because these rallies were arbitrarily declared “unsanctioned” and thus in violation of a pointedly restrictive law aimed at stifling public dissent.
Twitter, Google and Facebook have all shown that they're willing to remove content or make it unavailable to Russian users upon receiving requests from the Russian authorities to comply with the local laws. There is little indication that the companies take into consideration the exceedingly restrictive nature of some of these laws, or that they are weighing these requests against Russia's constitution.
Another report by the Internet Protection Society (OZI) is even darker in its predictions: it’s titled “The New Year Pessimism,” and it notes the longest and sharpest drop of its online freedom of speech index since the measurements began in 2016. OZI lists seven events that impacted the index in January, all in a negative way: from new pieces of legislation to landmark cases, such as the prosecution of Yana Antonova, a pediatric surgeon in Krasnodar, who was targeted for sharing a video by Open Russia, an activist media outlet declared an “undesirable organization.”
Being associated with an “undesirable organization” — the government-mandated list also includes the National Endowment for Democracy and the Open Society Foundation — is an offence punishable by a law introduced in 2015 by a range of penalties, from a heavy fine to a prison term. Sharing a Facebook video also counts as “collaborating with an undesirable organization,” which Antonova learned the hard way.
The OZI report also emphasized the potential damage of the “Klishas bill”, which came as part of the package of restrictive pieces of legislation currently reviewed by the Russian parliament.
Named after its author, senator Andrey Klishas, the bill aims to create a “sovereign” infrastructure for the Russian internet, ostensibly to shield it from foreign interference. The other, an “anti-fake news” bill also co-authored by Klishas, is even more controversial and almost universally condemned by experts. Yet both passed in the first reading thanks to the overwhelming majority that the ruling United Russia party holds in the parliament.
It seems that the Russian government is finally confident in its ability to control online activity — so confident that it can now offer internet access to all Russians, without fearing the consequences.

author: RuNet Echo


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Netizen Report: Both Bangladesh and South Korea are waging a ‘war on porn’ — and paving the way for political censorship · Global Voices
Netizen Report Team

Photo by Cory Doctorow. (CC BY-SA 2.0)
The Advox Netizen Report offers an international snapshot of challenges, victories, and emerging trends in technology and human rights around the world. This report covers news and events from February 15-21, 2019.
Over the past week, authorities in both Bangladesh and South Korea have publicized plans to double down on censoring pornography and other content they see as objectionable.
Bangladeshi telecommunication authorities issued a ban on more than 18,000 websites that allegedly contained pornography or “obscene” content. A list of targeted sites that was sent to internet providers and later made public included Somewherein.net, the internet’s largest Bengali language-based blogging platform, and Google Books. Posts and Telecommunications Minister Mustafa Jabbar described the effort as a “war” against pornography.
Although users reported that they were unable to access their blogs, Somewherein.net posted a notice on February 18 stating that their system was functioning properly and that they had not received official notification from the authorities about any disruption in service. Although the site is included on an official list of banned sites, it was accessible in the country as of February 22.
Established in 2005, Somewhere in Blog or Badh Bhangar Awaaz (The Voice of Breaking Barriers) was the first public blogging site built for the Bengali language. An average of 60,000 bloggers post or comment on the platform each day.
Along with these sites, and sites that do contain explicit pornographic material, a number of high-profile social media users have been asked to remove their accounts or take down specific pieces of content by government authorities.
Meanwhile in South Korea, the Korean Communications Standards Commission, a state regulatory agency, issued a press release on February 12 confirming suspicions among tech experts that authorities are using new, technically sophisticated methods to identify and block pornography and pirated content online. Using a technique known as SNI eavesdropping, authorities are now able to block HTTPS content with increasing ease.
The production and circulation of pornography are illegal in South Korea, and the country heavily regulates intellectual property rights, thanks in part to its trade agreement with the US. But experts and free speech advocates are warning that this new approach could lead to censorship of sites that do not contain pornography, and thus begin to chip away at people’s rights to access information and express themselves freely.
A petition has been filed on the official website of South Korean president Moon Jae-in expressing strong condemnation of the move, and arguing that this aggressive and costly effort to filter online content will be a waste of taxpayer money, as users will likely turn to VPNs and other types of circumvention tools to access sites that interest them. More than 250,000 people have signed the petition.
Venezuela has been in political deadlock since mid-January, when opposition politician Juan Guaidó declared himself acting president of the Republic, in an open challenge to sitting President Nicolas Maduro. Several waves of public protests and confrontations between the Maduro-aligned military and opposition demonstrators have coincided with a series of network shutdowns, in which residents have been intermittently unable to access the internet and major social media platforms.
On February 19 and 20, the local technical research group VE Sin Filtro reported that YouTube was blocked for all subscribers to the country’s largest internet provider, state-owned CANTV. The group noted that in this instance, in contrast to previous shutdowns of the video platform (which is owned by Google), other Google services such as Gmail and Google Drive did not appear to be affected.
Facebook, YouTube, and the Russian social media site VKontakte began working in Uzbekistan on February 19, just in time for a two-day conference focused on internet connectivity in the Central Asian region. All three sites have been blocked in the country since September 2017. Users are wondering whether the block has been lifted for good, or if the measure was only taken for the benefit of important conference delegates from neighboring countries.
Uzbekistan’s authoritarian system has relaxed somewhat under President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, and Facebook has emerged as one of the places where citizens can discuss and debate changes taking place in society — as long as they know how to use a VPN.
On February 21, Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry announced plans to crack down on online hate speech, emphasizing its presence on social media and suggesting that social media monitoring would help curb the problem. Although hate speech is officially criminalized under Pakistan’s Electronic Crimes Act, the 2016 law does not offer a concrete definition of the term “hate speech.” Experts have noted that this omission could lead to an overly broad interpretation of the law.
Following a visit to Pakistan by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, the Interior Ministry ordered relevant authorities to block the social media pages of five groups associated with Shia Muslims, included two student groups. The order alleged that the groups’ pages were publishing “propaganda” against a “VVIP” delegation visit to Pakistan. Those targeted presume that the delegation in question was that of Bin Salman.
The non-governmental Kenyan Human Rights Commission filed a legal challenge against a plan to build a national digital identification system for Kenya, which was approved on December 31, 2018. Under the newly amended law, Kenyans wishing to take advantage of public services would be required to register in the so-called “National Integrated Identity Management System” and provide multiple pieces of personal data as means of authentication, including their name, photo, gender, date of birth, citizenship, phone number, e-mail address, physical and permanent residence and marital status.
Jackson Awele, who serves as counsel for the Kenyan Human Rights Commission, argued before the court that the system violates Kenyans’ constitutional right to privacy, as it “permits the State to require from citizens all manner of private information, including DNA information, without their consent” and offers no assurances that this massive trove of data would be protected from misuse or theft.
Dutch internet security researcher Victor Gevers found a massive database of surveillance video from western China sitting online, open to scrutiny by anyone who happened upon it. Gevers alerted Chinese authorities to the vulnerability, but not before reviewing some of its contents, which included the personal data of more than 2.5 million people, and their estimated locations, which appear to have been based on surveillance camera footage and mobile phone tracking data.
All the geographic coordinates listed in the system correspond to China’s western Xinjiang region, where the central government is known for its aggressive surveillance and detention programs targeting Uyghur Muslims and other ethnic minority groups.
A landmark copyright reform effort that would radically upend the dynamics of big content platforms has been making its way through the legislative process in the EU and could be brought to a vote as early as mid-March.
Although final language is still up for debate, draft versions of the directive would require platforms such as YouTube to assess the ownership of a piece of content — whether it be video, audio, text or image — before a user can successfully upload the file. Another provision would require for-profit publishers to pay other online sources if they wish to quote from them. Although non-profit publishers would be exempt from the requirement, this shift that would still likely discourage many websites from linking to valuable online sources.
Ellery Roberts Biddle, Marianne Diaz, Mohamed ElGohary, Rohith Jyothish, Oiwan Lam, Talal Raza, Rezwan, Chris Rickleton, Taisa Sganzerla and Sam Woodhams contributed to this report.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Netizen Report Team


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Samoa arrested blogger ‘King Faipopo’ accused of defaming prime minister · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Blogger Malele Paulo also known as King Faipopo. Source: Facebook
Samoan police arrested Australia-based blogger Malele Paulo on 8 February while he was visiting the country to attend his mother’s funeral. Malele is a known critic of the government who writes under the pen name King Faipopo.
The police confirmed that Malele was arrested for “making false statements with the intention of causing harm to a member of our Samoan communities’ reputation.”
In August 2018, Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi filed a defamation complaint against Malele, which appears to have set the stage for his arrest after he entered the country in early February. He was released on bail on 9 February, and was able to attend his mother’s funeral.
In 2013, Samoa withdrew libel from its criminal law as a media reform initiative. But the change didn't last long. At the end of 2017, the parliament of the Polynesian island nation unanimously voted to revive its criminal libel law after Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi said it is needed “to fight ghostwriters and troublemakers,” despite opposition from media freedom advocates. The Tuilaepa government said the law will be used against anonymous bloggers and Facebook users who spread lies and misinformation.
The prime minister cited this law in his complaint against Malele, whom he accused of posting false information about him and Samoan politics. Malele reportedly wrote on his blog that Tuilaepa committed murder, corruption, theft, and gun smuggling.
Tuilaepa insisted that he is not against citizens expressing their views:
I am not prohibiting anyone from exercising their freedom of speech or freedom of expression but I take issue when the rights of the innocent, like myself are violated through lies and deceit. This kind of lying and attacking members of the community through social media is what the law was designed to prevent.
After Tuilaepa filed the defamation complaint, his government sought the extradition of Malele from Australia.
A police statement concerning Malele's arrest also cautioned the public to avoid making defamatory statements on social media:
The damage that defamatory statements on social media outlets and cyber bullying has done to several members of the community is a matter that these laws are designed to address. Where complaints are laid with the police, we will do our best to assist those being victimised on social media platforms by false statements.
Pacific Freedom Forum Chair Bernadette Carreon of Palau described Malele’s arrest as an attack on freedom of speech:
Focus on fighting corruption, not freedom of speech.
New legislation, based on old criminal libel laws from colonial times, forces Samoa leaders to look backwards, not forwards.
Another critic of the government, blogger Ole Palemia, criticized the decision to arrest Malele:
What the people need to know and always remember is that corrupt PM Tuilaepa and all the politicians are public figures therefore they are subjected to public criticism – that's what you call democracy.
Malele’s arrest has sparked intense debates in Samoa. A news report surveyed the views of some citizens who expressed concern about the timing of the arrest while others agreed with the defamation case and urged critics to show respect to the country’s prime minister.
Malele is scheduled to appear before the court on 5 March.

author: Mong Palatino


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Catalonian football team expelled from competition after players insult female squad · Global Voices
Lourdes Sada

Terrassa Football Club promotional ad spot #Orgullosa (Proud), aimed to encourage young women's participation in their club. Screenshot of video by the Terrassa FC official YouTube channel.
Football players of Catalonia's Terrassa Football Club were expelled from competition after they've proffered sexist insults at the female club mates during a match, sparking a broader discussion on social media about sexism in male-dominated sports.
On February 2, the Terrassa veterans, who play in the Spanish league's third division, had a match scheduled to kick off immediately after another match between the club's second division female team and rival Villadecals. As the male players warmed up, a female footballer suffered a severe injury on the field, which delayed the end of the match.
The veterans turned restless and began demanding the women's match to be concluded, while also insulting the players. According to the referee's minutes, the veteran players yelled: “get off the field, it's time for us to play. This game should have been suspended. You shouldn't [even] be playing.”
The female players rebuked them and were quickly joined by some members of the public. Then the men's insults turned sexist: “Go to the kitchen, go wash dishes, you pieces of shit. You're sluts,” were some of the expletives cited in the minutes of the match.
Fearing further escalation, the referee suspended the women's match, to which the female athletes from both teams responded by sitting at the center of the field to impede the men's match from taking place. A video shared by local YouTube channel “Diari de Terrassa” captured the moment:
An later investigation by Terrassa FC concluded it had been only two male players who proffered sexist insults, but once the team refused to identify said players, the club decided to withdraw the entire team from the rest of the competition. In a public statement, the club asserted that “sexist insults is a grave violation,” and added:
El nostre club, que ha treballat i continuarà treballant d’una forma molt activa i enèrgica per la igualtat, vol ressaltar que els nostres valors estan molt allunyats de la imatge que es va donar.
Our club has worked and will continue to very actively and energetically work towards equality. We want to state that our values are very far from the image that has been presented [by the veterans].
The incident swept over social media. Noemí López, one of the Terrassa FC players, tweeted her discomfort about what happened and included other people's posts about the case, as well as a copy of the referee's minutes:
Que pena que aún tengamos que estar viviendo este tipo de situaciones…#sentadascontraelmachismo pic.twitter.com/XehAvjfonX
— Noemi Lopez (@Noemi821513) 3 de febrero de 2019
It's such a shame that we still have to go through these kinds of situations … #SittingAgainstSexism [The text in black and white reads: “It seems unbelievable that we are well into the 21st century…yesterday, two teams, playing the sport we like the most, had to put up with sexist comments by a team of veterans. To think that many of them are parents. Such a shame.”]
Many Twitter users expressed support for the women's team:
Parece que cada vez que el #futfem da un paso adelante, algunos tienen que salir de la cueva para llamar la atención. Totalmente lamentable lo de los veteranos del @TerrassaFC ??♀https://t.co/Z3SkXAAq8r
— Margota Piñero (@Maargootaa) 4 de febrero de 2019
It seems that every time #futfem takes a step forward, some men have to come out their caves and make a scene. The veterans’ actions were absolutely deplorable @TerrassaFC ??♀https://t.co/Z3SkXAAq8r
The Royal Spanish Football Federation also condemned the sexist acts on a press release, where it affirmed that “such behaviors are not acceptable in our football.”
Some people, however, tried to defend or justify the veterans’ actions by arguing that men were also victims of insults. A reader (identified only as “mr nice”) commented on website 20 minutos:
No es que quiera justificarlo, pero a los jugadores hombre también se les pita e insulta y no van llorando por las esquinas y se ponen en plan me enfado y no respiro. Si quieren igualdad, eso es lo que les hacen a los hombres.
It's not that I want to justify it, but male players are also teased and insulted, and they don't go around crying and whining about it. If you want equality, that's what they do to men.
Another reader, identified only as “Makoque,” replied to that comment by explaining the differences between both situations:
…Que se insulte en un partido de fútbol está mal, pero es lo que hay. Pero que hombres adultos se pongan a insultar a chavalas con frases del rollo de vete a fregar o tira a la cocina, es machista. Y que además sean los de su propio club, es de ser gilip0llas. Cuando a un negro en el partido le llamas hijodepvt@, está mal. Que le llames negromierd@, es racista.
…To be insulted during a football game is bad, but it is what it is. However, when adult men insult young women with phrases such as “go do the dishes” or “get back in the kitchen”, that's sexist. And the fact that, on top of that, [those insulting] belong to the the same club, that's just behaving like jerks. Calling a player of African descent a son of a bitch is bad. Calling him a black piece of shit is racist.
Many on social media have lauded the firm and swift punishment wielded by the club's directors to the veteran players:
Señores/as del @TerrassaFC, simplemente ??????????https://t.co/wGaUK3aK8i
— José Ángel Morales (@sopa_de_ganso) 5 de febrero de 2019
Misters/Misses @TerrassaFC, simply ??????????https://t.co/wGaUK3aK8i
The club's actions, along with the public's positive response, seems to signal a shift on the sexist culture surrounding football, a sport traditionally reserved for men where women players and referees are systematically discriminated.

author: Lourdes Sada


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Mozambican’s garbage-themed act wows audiences on Italian TV talent show · Global Voices
Dércio Tsandzana

Amós’ performance. Screenshot YouTube (Italia’s Got Talent – 25.01.2019).
Mozambican circus artist Vasco Massingue‘s presentation at an Italian TV talent competition has moved audiences in Italy and in his home country.
Amós, as Vasco likes to be called, made it to the semifinals of Italia's Got Talent after beating over two thousand candidates with an act titled “Plastic Dance” — a portrait of the capital Maputo's severe garbage pollution and the people it affects.
Amós, 32, was born in Rossano Garcia, a Maputo province, and is a member of Cirque Du Soleil, the largest circus company in the world. He specializes in the aerial hoop, trapeze, and rigging.
When explaining his performance to the jurors, Amós mentioned Hulene, Maputo's single waste disposal site where a garbage slide in 2018 killed 16 people.
Despite being lauded by the jurors, Amós did not progress to the contest's following stage.
Several people in Mozambique shared the Amós’ video, which as of now was viewed over 25,000 times on Italy's Got Talent official YouTube channel.
André Manhiça, a prominent broadcaster in Mozambique, said on Facebook:
Bom dia. Um vídeo da performance no Italia's Got Talent de um moçambicano, preocupado com o problema do lixo e do plástico em Maputo. ??????
Good Morning. A video of the performance in Italy's Got Talent of a Mozambican, worried about the problem of garbage and plastic in Maputo.
Also according to O País, Amós worked in Switzerland, Korea, Colombia, Tunisia, and Germany before moving to Italy.

author: Dércio Tsandzana


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Singaporean activist sentenced to 16 days in jail after hosting video chat with HK youth leader Joshua Wong · Global Voices
Hong Kong Free Press

Jolovan Wham, via Twitter.
The following post is originally written by Holmes Chan and published on Hong Kong Free Press on 21 of Feburary, 2019. The edited version is republished on Global Voices under a content partnership agreement.
Singaporean activist Jolovan Wham has been handed a 16-day jail sentence for refusing to pay a fine for a public talk he hosted with Hong Kong democracy activist Joshua Wong via Skype in 2016. He is out on bail pending appeal.
Wham is an activist known for his campaigns promoting the rights of migrant workers, free speech in Singapore, and reform of the country’s laws on detention and the death penalty.
Last month, Wham was convicted of illegal assembly over a November 2016 forum he hosted on the topic of “civil disobedience and social movements,” which featured Joshua Wong and local media activists. Wham was told by police that he needed a permit for Wong to speak, but he went ahead without one.
On 21 February, the court fined Wham S $2,000 (USD $1476) for organising a public assembly without a police permit. He also received a fine of S $1,200 (USD $886) for failing to sign a police statement.
Singaporean media reported that Wham chose not to pay the fine, and that the court sentenced him to 16 days in prison for failure to pay the fine. Aside from illegal assembly, Wham was also charged for refusing to sign his police witness statement. He said at the time that he chose not to sign because he was not given a copy.
Wham intends to appeal the judge’s decision. He has been released on a bail of S $8,000 (USD $5,906), according to media reports.
The forum in question was organised by Community Action Network, a non-governmental group concerned with freedom of expression in the city-state. According to Wham, the police told him it was compulsory to get a work permit and police permit if any of the participating speakers were not from Singapore – even if they spoke remotely via video link.
After the event, Wham was questioned by police for 45 minutes. He was finally charged in November 2017, but the case did not come before a judge until January 2019.
Joshua Wong told HKFP that Wham’s prosecution was “an embarrassment and a terrible injustice,” and that he deeply regretted the judgment.
Jolovan generously invited me to share and exchange my experience in Hong Kong’s fight for freedom and justice with the Singaporean community – the irony is not missed here that Jolovan has become a subject of injustice as a result.
I’d like to express my respect and admiration for Jolovan’s perseverance of his values, and my wish for the Singaporean people to one day be able to enjoy true freedom and democracy.
Singaporean journalist and Global Voices collaborator Kirsten Han, who was also a guest speaker at Wham’s forum, decried the sentence as “outrageous.”
[The forum] posed no threat to public order whatsoever, and the stretching of the law to declare a forum illegal simply because a non-Singaporean Skyped in shows how broad Singapore’s public order laws are, and how they can be used to restrict Singaporean’s civil liberties…There’s no sentence that I’d consider fair, because he should never have been charged.
Han also disputed the prosecution’s account of events. According to Channel NewsAsia, the prosecution argued in court that “thousands” were invited to the forum and 366 people indicated they were interested in attending.
However, Han said the event only had slightly more than 60 attendees and was “pretty standard.” “The venue wasn’t that big anyway,” she added.

author: Hong Kong Free Press


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‘Space is about dreaming’ — an interview with International Space University president · Global Voices
Gwenaëlle Lefeuvre

Juan de Dalmau, president of International Space University. Photo reproduced with permission.
This is the second of two parts in the Global Voices interview with Juan de Dalmau, president of International Space University (ISU). The first part of the article is here.
The International Space University (ISU) is a private university founded in 1987 to train future leaders in the exploration and development of space. Global Voices spoke with university president Juan de Dalmau on his efforts to continue his institution's traditions of interdisciplinary and peaceful development.
GV: How did you achieve women's enrollment at 40 percent when meanwhile so many industrialized nations struggle to even convince young women to pursue scientific studies?
JdD: This improvement is recent for us as well, but it is the result of many years of efforts and partnerships. One of those is a multi-year agreement with the European Space Agency, which has just been renewed for three years. It allocates funds to give scholarships to the best ESA candidates, in an effort to increase the number of women.
As for my part, it is about years of communication and education at ESA. What is missing are role models for girls to emulate. So we are working with the Irish dollmaker Lottie to develop a collection of “professional” dolls. … [Now] there is Astronomer Lottie, the marketing of this new doll was done by Lottie in collaboration with ESA.
Also, three students in this year's class have decided to conduct a research project on gender parity in the ISU. Which includes all the students, faculty, and external stakeholders. This student group is drafting recommendations to improve gender parity, especially at the external stakeholder level, and I look forward to seeing their findings.
GV: Your mission was founded on the premise of peaceful technological development. How do you navigate current geopolitical tensions?
JdD: When I have to deal with a difficult political subject, I refer again to the credo of ISU founders : “ISU is a place where students and faculty from all backgrounds are welcomed; where diversity of culture, philosophy, lifestyle, training and opinion are honored and nurtured”. And you will note that the words “space” or “technology” were not mentioned therein. That is our philosophy.
We have partners in the United States, China, South Africa, Japan … Sometimes, like in the summer school program in Shenzhen, China, this is a problem for some stakeholders. In fact, unless there are policy changes made in the United States, NASA employees cannot travel to China.
I learned a lesson in 1989 when I was studying at ISU: One has to respect the geopolitical facts, but not concede to them. Do not believe that something is impossible when actually, with a little imagination, it is possible.
Our group had imagined a project to build an orbital space station, which would be the research base for the study of physical and biological effects of weightlessness. To prepare for future missions on the Moon and Mars, where the force of gravity is six times and three times lower, respectively, than gravitation on Earth. We had imagined an international station launched from each country, the USA, the USSR, et cetera, and assembled in orbit. Our professor told us that our idea was “very beautiful, but politics always wins”. And then, just a few years later, U.S. President [Bill] Clinton invited the Russians to participate in the International Space Station …
GV: The conquest of space is no longer a purely institutional playing field, with the entry into the scene by private companies, like SpaceX and many others: What is the position of the ISU with respect to the private development of aerospace ventures?
JdD: We are trying to show an evolution in the perception of space. We make a comparison with the way humanity has used the oceans. Similar to oceans, space is a place, not a prerogative of governments, nor of the private sector. If we act responsibly, we can accomplish a lot in space: to do research, and to harness resources that are almost limitless. And, if possible, in a sustainable way (the surface of the Earth receives enough solar energy in two minutes to cover global energy consumption for one year!). But space can also provide an external platform for Earth observation, and can become a destination for space tourism, which will one day be affordable.
We hope that space will not become a space of confrontation. Military defense is not an area covered by the ISU program, although we do invite speakers on the subject.
We are now proposing two-week course modules entitled “New Space”. We are seeing a lot of new businesses that want to do ventures in space, and those are often run by ISU alumni.
GV: Is ISU working to make optimistic science fiction a reality? What is your vision of the future — a permanent colony on the Moon, human exploration of Mars, better use of terrestrial resources …?
JdD: I really like that term, “optimistic science fiction”, that's really what it is. Space is about dreaming. When you ask an audience “who here knows someone who was fascinated by space when he or she was a child”, 90 percent of the audience raise their hand. Space makes children dream, but so, too, for all of humanity.
In the future? There are people who dream of living permanently on the Moon or on Mars. What is interesting is that, most of the time, their plan intends to reproduce what exists on Earth …
We must maintain the dream! Companies such SpaceX or Blue Origin want to support not just a dozen, but up to a million people, on the Moon. To do this, we will need to inject funds, to build modules, et cetera. These companies are hiring continuously.
Space can also help us to preserve what we have on Earth, and to make the most of it. The two aspects come together: space can help us take care of the Earth. The United Nations started an initiative a few years ago, which aims to see how space can help achieve its 17 sustainable development goals. In education, health, nutrition, disaster prevention, et cetera. To inhabit the Moon in order to preserve the Earth, is a concept that did not exist 10-15 years ago.

author: Gwenaëlle Lefeuvre


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Tension between India and Pakistan mounts after terror attack in Kashmir · Global Voices
Vishal Yashoda Manve

Widely used image of Pakistani social worker and journalist Sehyr Mirza, who launched the #AntiHateChallenge on social media. Via her Facebook page.
The tension between India and Pakistan has heightened in the past week after a terror attack in Kashmir which killed more than 46 Indian soldiers.
Last week, India's foreign ministry claimed that Pakistan had offered JeM leader Masood Azhar ‘full freedom to operate and expand his terror infrastructure in territories under the control of Pakistan and to carry out attacks in India and elsewhere with impunity”.
Soon after the attack, Pakistani actors were banned from working in the Indian film Industry. The Indian government has also withdrawn trade privileges for Pakistan while blocking cross-border services.
Indian Hackers Deface 200 plus Pakistani Websites for Pulwama Attack Tragedy#PulwamaAttack #Pulwamaterrorattack #Pulwamaattackrevenge #protest #Kashmir #indian #Hacker #TOI #Terrorist #Revenge #WebsiteHacking #CyberSecurity #Deface #Pakistan #synjintel #Ahmedabad #Gujarat #India pic.twitter.com/smlHnMDcrz
— SYNJ Intel (@synjintel) February 20, 2019
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who belongs to the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) vowed to ‘give a befitting reply’ and blamed Pakistan:
The dastardly attack in Pulwama has anguished the nation.
Yes, this is a time of great sadness.
But, I assure every family that a befitting reply will be given! pic.twitter.com/k9eSlfAePf
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) February 16, 2019
He even promised to isolate Pakistan internationally for supporting the militant groups.
In an emergency cabinet meeting, Modi said India's security forces had been given a free hand to deal with terrorists further adding, the “blood of the people is boiling”.
“I want to tell the terrorist groups and their masters that they have committed a big mistake. They have to pay a heavy price.”  — Narendra Modi
But Pakistan rejected these claims and brought the Kashmir issue and human rights abuses to the forefront:
In her meeting with Ambassadors from #EU FS Tehmina Janjua underscored Pakistan's position on #PulwamaAttack. She categorically rejected Indian government's remarks of Pakistan's involvement in the attack(1/2) pic.twitter.com/ilVnpNPY8b
— Spokesperson 🇵🇰 MoFA (@ForeignOfficePk) February 16, 2019
In a rebuttal, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan denied these claims and warned his neighbor that a response would be imminent if attacked — something which would lead to an all-out war between the nuclear-armed rivals.
In India, while the political class including Indian National Congress (INC) Rahul Gandhi backed the government in responding to the terror attack without offering many nuances, citizens rallied, protested and are crowdfunding on social media to help family members affected by the attack.
Indian actor Akshay Kumar and business leader Anand Mahindra tweeted a link to a donation drive to help the families of armed soldiers who perished in the attack:
#Pulwama is something we cannot & will not forget.We’re all angry & it’s time to act. So act now,donate to the martyrs of Pulwama on https://t.co/5j0vxsSt7f There’s no better way to pay homage to them & show your support.This is the only official site,pls don’t fall prey to fakes pic.twitter.com/sYruUtzgKY
— Akshay Kumar (@akshaykumar) February 16, 2019
Numerous Indian sportsmen, religious institutes and citizen groups donated to help grieving families. Meanwhile, another jingoistic narrative developed wherein cricketers, artists and movies became the casualty amid the ongoing war of words.
#India has banned all our products. India has removed us from #MFN status. India has cancelled #PSL broadcast. India has blocked all websites with #Pakistani songs. Etc. Etc. Etc.
Why are Indian Actors’ based TV Commercials still running in Pakistan ?
Peace is a 2 way street.
— Mir Mohammad Alikhan (@MirMAKOfficial) February 19, 2019
Meanwhile, many television channels including ABP news, Republic TV, India Today and Times Now were seen instigating audiences with their sensationalized news coverage and name-calling:
Here's what Ziaa Fouad wrote:
Neither ?? nor ?? can afford a war. Neither does ?? have a valid reason to start one! Please use this hysteria driven time to see how nationalism often brings the worst out of people! #Pulwama #Kashmir
— Fouad Ziaa (@ziaafouad) February 19, 2019
Zaid Hamid highlighted the alienation Kashmiris face due to brutal occupation and subsequent youngsters joining militancy:
Getting kicked in the back, getting slapped and abused by kids & youth — India has surely "won" the war of hearts and minds in Kashmir…
The 'mighty" army is being utterly disgraced in their attempt to hold on to a population which will go to any extreme for freedom.#Pulwama pic.twitter.com/G4lofvoix4
— Zaid Hamid (@ZaidZamanHamid) February 16, 2019
Kashmiri Student leader Rashid also spoke about the ignominy of everyday violence as numerous reports of violence against Kashmiris across India were reported in the local media:
Brilliant piece of investigative reportage by Yashraj Sharma who documents step by step how the Dehradun attacks on Kashmiri students were planned and executed over FB & Whatsapp.https://t.co/NBDOZGfVa3#SOSKashmir #UnHateNow #SafeHaven #KashmirDistressAlert #HateKiNoEntry
— Shehla Rashid (@Shehla_Rashid) February 17, 2019
Amidst all the provocations in India, some citizens are also calling to restrain from jingoism. Samir Bhatia tweeted:
Disrespecting a country's flag is just insulting and despicable. Imagine deriving pleasure from such obscene display of jingoism. https://t.co/igxt9DgSGp
— Samir Bhatia (@SamirBhatia8) February 16, 2019
Monazza Aarfa from Bihar, India writes:
Even #Pakistan has faced terror attacks in the past.Lost their loved ones.The point is we can't blame the whole Pakistan and target even the innocent citizens for the tragic #PulwamaAttack and  this is what many journalists are talking about.
HATE begets HATE!#AntiHateChallenge pic.twitter.com/Okn7H2bqE2
— Monazza Aarfa (@aarfa_monazza) February 20, 2019
Pakistani social worker and journalist Sehyr Mirza launched the #AntiHateChallenge on social media:
Thank you @SehyrMirza for doing the right thing.#AntiHateChallenge pic.twitter.com/G3ter6o8lz
— Saira Shah Halim سائرہ 🇮🇳 (@sairashahhalim) February 19, 2019
Many Pakistanis were also seen condemning the Pulwama violence in social media:
‘Whether blood be ours or theirs, Its the blood of humankind. Whether wars be waged in the east or west, It is the murder of world-peace. War is a problem itself. How will war resolve problems?’ – Sahir Ludhianvi #AntiHateChallenge #NoToWar #CondemnPulwamaAttack pic.twitter.com/dmK2oZWjvZ
— Maryam Saeed (@msm_mirza) February 19, 2019
Indian actor Swara Bhaskar responded to all the images and said:
Thank you friends from #Pakistan for this message of condolence and peace. Laudable initiative by young Pakistanis. We hear you! 🙏🏿🙏🏿❤❤ #Pulwama pic.twitter.com/pJIZKI2c5O
— Swara Bhasker (@ReallySwara) February 19, 2019
Sathiya Prasanth tweets:
These Pakistani ladies have marched forward with placards in hand to declare that their hearts bleed for the martyrs of India.
Ma'ams, humanity is alive in Pakistan because of people like you. You have a spine and most importantly, A HEART.#AntiHateChallenge #PalwamaAttack pic.twitter.com/k126qPOwM4
— Sathiya Prasanth (@smokeraider108) February 20, 2019
The terror attack, when looked through Kashmir's brutal occupation presents a complex view of Indo-Pakistan relationship and the tragedies faced by Kashmiris including rapes, enforced disappearances, the Kunan-Poshpora gang rape, pellet gun violence and many other documented struggles as reported by Global Voices.
Militancy, once prominent in the 1990s in Kashmir, has spiked again since 2016 after Indian security forces killed Burhan Wani, a local militant who was revered as a freedom fighter by locals in Kashmir.
Here's what Pakistani senator Sherry Rehman said to India's response to Pulwama attack highlighting the decades-old Kashmir issue:
Pulwama Responses like cutting off cultural exchanges and delisting Pakistani songs will not help change the mood of anger in Kashmir nor give any talks a chance: Indian T-Series unlists new Atif Aslam song from YouTube post warning by Raj Thackeray's MNS  https://t.co/V1aIKlsXnC
— SenatorSherryRehman (@sherryrehman) February 17, 2019
The Pakistan government has described the reaction from the Indian government and several Indian media outlets as irresponsible, baseless and immature, and an attempt to twist the upcoming polls in India for political gains. With the general elections just around the corner, this gives the opportunity to India's Modi to galvanize the Pulwama attacks like he did the 2002 riots in Gujarat that claimed hundreds of lives. This augurs well for the government which was staring ahead at a divisive election amid falling employment numbers and a resurgent opposition that has silenced itself after the Pulwama attacks.
Prem Shankar Jha wrote in Wire.in:
Modi has followed a single-track policy of repression without dialogue. As a result, from believing that peace was only an arms length away, Kashmiris have crashed into an endless night of violence with no dawn at its end. That is the seed from which suicide bombing has been reborn.
However, amidst the political upheaval, some are urging the public to remember that when there is violence — everyone suffers:
Left India
Right Pakistan
The Pain is same! Nothing vl b achieved by going into a war excpt fr more & more loss on bth sides. Negotiations can solve all the problems. Don't let more Men in Uniform die. They have a family too.#India #Pakistan #Peace #PulwamaAttack pic.twitter.com/2fI3rxXtjj
— Mir Hamza (@mir_yahoo1) February 21, 2019

author: Vishal Yashoda Manve


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Albania’s democracy hangs by a thread as opposition quits parliament, launches mass protests · Global Voices
Alida Karakushi

Albanian opposition protests in Tirana, 21 February 2019. Courtesy of Ivana Dervishi/BIRN Albania, used with permission.
Thousands of Albanians participated in an opposition-led rally on February 21 in the capital Tirana. They demand fresh elections after an investigation by Voice of America and the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network alleged government officials collaborated with criminal gangs in a vote-buying scheme in the 2017 elections.
The rally climaxed with the resignation of 57 opposition lawmakers from the Democratic Party and Socialist Movement for Integration Party. With parliament closed off for the day, the MPs joined the protests where they made speeches denouncing the government's alleged vote-buying scheme. They have stated that they are relinquishing their mandates “so to give them back to the people and become simple citizens.”
The EU and other Western powers criticized the lawmakers’ decision. NATO-member Albania aims to begin full EU-membership negotiations in 2019.
VoA and BIRN's story fanned the flames of an already burned up relationship between government and opposition. The Socialist Party took office in 2013 and has since passed comprehensive reforms including a judicial one — with the support of the opposition — that is key to Albania's EU ascension. However, the opposition claims Prime Minister Edi Rama has managed to subvert the system and has captured the state institutions so that he can rule without checks and balances.
As of yet, Albania's Prosecution's Office has not filed formal investigations following VoA's and BIRN's allegations.
The February 21 rally was one of the largest to be held in Albania since the 1990s. It followed another massive demonstration on February 16, which had minor violent acts that were countered by the police with tear gas. While the February 21 protest was peaceful, authorities blocked internet and phone signals for several hours, preventing journalists from live-streaming the event.
If the opposition decides to push forward with the boycott, it will be the first time since the fall of communism in 1992 that Albania will have a parliament ruled by a single party.
Representatives of the European Commission, the EU's highest executive body, Federica Mogherini and Johannes Hahn released a statement on February 21 urging the opposition not to boycott the political process and condemning the violent tone some opposition lawmakers displayed during the demonstrations.
Read my joint statement w. @FedericaMog in the latest developments in #Albania. We strongly denounce any rhetoric by pol leaders calling for violence. The relinquishing of mandates hinders #democracy and undermines progress made on the #EU path. https://t.co/HCjWmH9mZD
— Johannes Hahn (@JHahnEU) February 21, 2019
The USA embassy was blunt when it called “on all MPs to rise above the political fray, reject calls to abandon their mandates, and defend the ideals and principles central to any vibrant democracy. If you fail to do your job, you fail the people you are privileged to serve.” Its official statement added:
Furthermore, the decision by the opposition to relinquish their mandates seriously hinders the functioning of democracy in Albania. The Parliament is the place where reforms and relevant developments should be discussed and taken forward, not boycotted. These decisions and acts are counterproductive, go against the democratic choice of Albanian citizens and undermine the progress the country has made on the European Union path.
The head of the opposition Lulzim Basha responded to the statements in a speech:
Ask me whatever you want and I will do so. But do not ask me to accept for my people someone you would not accept for your people! We want for our country what is demanded from our European and American allies. We are not the people of violence, we will never accept a PM gangster caught in the act of buying votes.
Many activists and analysts agree that Albania's democracy has retroceded since the 2008 overhaul of the Electoral Code, which swapped the mixed electoral system to proportional regional, while simultaneously collapsing the electorate's 40 zones into only 12. The largest parties benefited from the system, and critics claim the legislative procedure that birthed the new directive was conducted in a non-transparent manner.
Political apathy is also rife in Albania: surveys report that 62 per cent of citizens does not trust the current political parties. A study has shown that Albania's youth unemployment is the highest in Europe and another that one in every two Albanians would like to migrate to richer countries.
As the Albanian opposition advances into uncharted territory, it remains to be seen whether the majority will react constructively to resolve the impasse.

author: Alida Karakushi


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Global Voices becomes primary source for global translation competition in Czech Republic · Global Voices
Filip Noubel

Strč prst skrz krk. No, this is not a typo caused by a cat walking over the keyboard—it's an actual Czech sentence that means ‘stick a finger through the throat’. Perhaps not the most useful sentence, but this tongue-twister is often cited as an example of the near ‘impossibility’ of learning this archaic Slavonic language spoken by 10 million people in Central Europe.
The sound ř, only encountered in Czech, adds another layer to the difficulty of mastering the language
Yet a growing number of foreigners ignore the warnings and bravely take on the Kafkaesque grammar structure and practise twisting their tongues to articulate the impossible-to-pronounce “ř” sound. Some do it for the love of Czech literature, but most do it to gain access to the Czech job market. The Czech Republic currently enjoys one of the lowest unemployment rates in Europe.
As a result, the Czech government has created several initiatives over the last few years to teach Czech as a foreign language. It is in this context that two institutions have come together to launch an annual translation competition for foreign students of Czech. Since 2015, the Institute for Language and Preparatory Studies (ÚJOP), part of Prague’s Charles University (one of the oldest universities in continental Europe), and the Directorate General for Translation of the European Commission (DGT) have been organizing an international conference which includes a translation competition. For their 2019 edition, they have elected to use Global Voices as the source of their texts for translation.
As Jan Faber, field officer at the DGT in Prague, and himself a translator of English and Polish, explains:
“The competition poses a very specific challenge for the organizers. We have participants from China, France, Slovenia, Poland, Russia and Italy this year, and we need to identify a text of similar length, style and difficulty. For this year’s edition, we decided to select an article published in Global Voices in most of the languages mentioned above. Global Voices is just perfect, as it provides articles on interesting and fresh topics that come in several language versions, translated by native speakers, and using contemporary language and an accessible style”.
GV wishes all participants the best of luck, and looks forward to interviewing the happy winners in April.

author: Filip Noubel


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How Saudi leaders are using religion to consolidate power and silence critical voices · Global Voices
Afef Abrougui

When Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was killed last October in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, it cast a long shadow on the exercise of free speech for journalists from Saudi Arabia and across the Arab region.
The Great Mosque of Mecca, considered the holiest city in Islam. Photo by Wikimedia user Basil D Soufi [CC BY-SA 3.0].
The resulting political fallout also shook some of the most powerful institutions and voices in Islam.
After the circumstances of Khashoggi's disappearance and death came to light, multiple world leaders openly accused Saudi crown prince Mohammad Bin Salman of ordering the journalist's murder. In what appeared to be a response to these accusations, the Imam of the Grand mosque in Mecca delivered a Friday sermon on October 19 in which he exalted Bin Salman, the Kingdom's de facto ruler.
Sheikh Abdulrahman al-Sudais lauded the “modernizing reforms” of Bin Salman and denounced attacks against “these blessed lands” in his sermon, which was pre-approved by Saudi authorities. He went on to conclude that “it [was] the solemn duty of all Muslims to support and obey the king and the faithful crown prince, the protectors and guardians of the holy sites and Islam.”
Responding in a opinion piece for the New York Times, UCLA School of Law professor Khaled M. Abou El Fadl said the sermon had “desecrated and defiled” the podium of the prophet.
“By using the Grand Mosque to whitewash acts of despotism and oppression,” he wrote, “Prince Mohammed has placed the very legitimacy of the Saudi control and guardianship of the holy places of Mecca and Medina in question.”
With its theocratic system of governance, this is not uncommon in the ultraconservative kingdom. In fact, Saudi leaders have long used religion as a tool of political power since the Kingdom's inception.
Saudi Arabia is home to Islam’s two holiest sites, Mecca and Medina.
Every year, millions of Muslims from around the world travel to Mecca to perform Hajj or pilgrimage, one of Islam's five pillars. This has allowed the Saudi government to claim a special form of religious legitimacy in Islam. The Kingdom has exploited this legitimacy to gain and maintain political power.
When the first Saudi state was established in 1744, Muhammad ibn Saud, emir of the small oasis town of Diriya, made a pact with religious leader and theologian Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. Abd al-Wahhab started an ultraconservative religious movement (today known as Wahhabism) based on an austere interpretation of Quran and prophetic traditions.
Fanack, an independent media and analysis site focused on the MENA region, explains that the union was intended to “create an Islamic realm ruled by a strict interpretation of Islam.”
This first Saudi state collapsed decades later, and a second state was established in 1824, only to collapse again in 1891. In 1924 and 1925, the Ibn-Saud family invaded Mecca and Medina (Islam’s two holiest cities) respectively, with the help of Wahhabi fighters. In 1932, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was established. Ever since, Saudi rulers have continued to use religion to serve their political interests.
Today, the kingdom's history is at the top of mind for many Saudis as they grapple with rising levels of repression under the leadership of Mohammad Bin Salman. Religious clerics are enlisted to treat those who denounce rights violations or call for reform as “enemies of Islam,” and state authorities continue to deploy religious discourse to serve the political interests of rulers.
In January 2019, Saudi Minister of Islamic Affairs Abdullatif Ibn Abdulaziz Al-Sheikh condemned the Arab uprisings of 2011 and 2012, describing them as “poisonous and destructive to the Arab and Muslim human.”
In an implicit reference to criticism targeted at the kingdom after Khashoggi's murder, the Minister denounced what he described as ”unjust attacks from the enemies of Islam” and accused Muslims who are critical of the kingdom and its policies of “spreading sedition, bringing discord, and inciting against their rulers and leaders.”
Reflecting on the link between Wahhabism and political oppression, Saudi human rights activist Yahya Assiri, who lives in exile in London, tweeted on January 13
الاستبداد منظومة متكاملة..
وتمكن عندنا باستخدام الدين، عندما تحالف ابن عبدالوهاب مع ابن سعود، فنشأت #السعودية و #الوهابية كتوأم خبيث، لن تنجو بلادنا إلا بالخلاص من الاستبداد السعودي الوهابي… وكلما قلنا ذلك قال البعض بحسن نية أن الوهابية حركة دينية! بينما هي سياسية صرفة!
يتبع
— Yahya Assiri يحيى عسيري #المقسطون (@abo1fares) January 13, 2019
Oppression is a comprehensive system, and [in our country] it is enabled by religion. When Ibn Saud and Ibn Abd al-Wahhab allied, Saudi Arabia and Wahhabism grew as a malignant twin. Our country will not survive unless we get rid of the Saudi Wahhabi oppression. As we have said this, others, with a good intention, have said that Wahhabism is a religious movement, while it is purely political
But the voices of people like Assiri are silenced in Saudi Arabia.
Another such voice is that of Abdullah Al-Hamid, one of the founders of the now-dissolved Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA), who is currently behind bars.
Al-Hamid is serving eleven years in prison for his human rights activities, on charges that include “breaking allegiance to and disobeying the ruler,” and “inciting disorder by calling for demonstrations.” He was convicted in 2013 by the infamous Specialized Criminal Court, established to try terror-related cases but often used to go after human rights activists.
Rights groups reported that Al-Hamid began a hunger strike on 17 February. In a statement attributed to him and published by the MBS MeToo human rights platform, Al-Hamid announced that he’s demanding the release of imprisoned human rights activists and political prisoners.
Abdullah Al-Hamid. Photo from his Goodreads account.
In addition to his human rights activism, Al-Hamid is a poet and an academic. In his writings, he has used Islamic texts and traditions to call for democratic reforms, advocate for human rights, and to critique the religious institutions that enable repression in Saudi Arabia such as the Council of Senior Scholars, the kingdom’s highest religious body which advises the king on religious matters.
He once accused the Council of serving to support ”those who steal the people’s money, dignity and freedom” and of playing a role in ”harming citizenship, plurality, tolerance” and ”producing violence and extremism.”
He also has advocated for a “modern religious discourse that embraces a consultative rule” and he opposed what he described as the “common religious discourse” in the kingdom which “calls for prayer behind a unjust Imam…even if he violated [one's] freedom, justice and equality.”
While silencing those who challenge the government's official discourse, Saudi Arabia has also taken a hard line against clerics who are not sufficiently supportive of the Crown Prince's policies and actions.
Saudi clerics Sheikh Salman Al-Awda, Ali Al-Omari and Sheikh Awad Al-Qarni were all arrested in September 2017 on various charges that include their alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Rights groups say the charges were brought on because the clerics did not vocally support the severance of diplomatic and economic ties with Qatar by Saudi Arabia and its allies. And all three may face the death penalty.
At 62, Sheikh Salman Al-Awda is a prominent cleric with a massive social media following, not only in Saudi Arabia but across the Arab region. The combined number of his followers on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube is more than 22 million. He previously expressed support for the Arab uprisings of 2011 and called for democratic reforms in the kingdom and the region.
Amnesty International and other human rights groups linked his arrest to a tweet posted on 8 September, in which he reacted to news reports of a potential reconciliation between the nations. In the second part of the tweet, he wrote: “May God harmonize between their hearts for what is good for their people”.
Ali Al-Omari is a religious scholar and the chairman of 4Shbab, a youth-focused Islamic TV channel. In contrast to others, he was not vocal on political issues in the Kingdom. He even once tweeted in support of the Kingdom’s leaders, and posted a tweet praying for Bin Salman’s success when he was appointed crown prince back in June 2017.
Sheikh Awad Al-Qarni faces a number of accusations that include supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, outlawed in Saudi Arabia, and slandering the Kingdom, its policies and its systems.
Several other clerics are also currently behind bars in Saudi Arabia. Some have called for democratic reforms in the kingdom, like Al-Awda, while others voiced opposition to Bin Salman’s policies or social reforms. Others like al-Omari previously expressed support to Saudi rulers and the Crown Prince.
What these cases confirm is that under Bin Salman’s de facto-rule, silence is no longer enough. Beyond a mandate to stamp out “independent” voices — the words of anyone who is not writing in service of the Kingdom's leadership or political agenda — clerics must go the extra mile and outwardly praise the Crown Prince and Saudi leadership.
The opinions and ideologies of those prisoners of conscience currently behind bars in Saudi Arabia, including women’s rights defenders, human rights defenders, Shia protesters and religious clerics, may vary. But under the de facto rule of Bin Salman, these individuals are all subject to injustices at the hands of Saudi authorities including arbitrary detention, solitary confinement, torture, and enforced disappearance. To legitimise and whitewash these acts of oppression, Saudi rulers never hesitate to use religion as a cover-up.

author: Afef Abrougui


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Is your favorite movie promoting toxic masculinity? Mango Meter can tell you · Global Voices
Juke Carolina

On February 16, 2019, the Indonesian feminist online magazine Magdalene (also a Global Voices republishing partner), launched Mango Meter, a movie review mobile application created to address gender representation in movies and film industry.
As the Mango Meter team notes, the “seventh art” is one of “the most effective media to spread norms and values in society,” and movies “largely reinforce gender and racial stereotyping, sexually objectify women, and normalize gender-based violence, as the film industry insists it is only meeting market demands.”
Screenshots of the Mango Meter mobile app.
These effects became especially visible in 2018, when the series of sexual abuse allegations against film producer Harvey Weinstein triggered #MeToo and Time’s Up, a movement started by writers, producers, and actresses in response to Hollywood’s toxic culture of sexual abuse, institutionalized stereotyping and discrimination.
Inspired by the well-known movie rating site, Rotten Tomatoes, the team named the app Mango Meter as a tribute to one of Asia’s favorite fruit. According to the app creators, a feminist movie embodies inclusion and diversity, has strong female characters who are not merely bound by societal norms like marriage and motherhood, and portrays healthy relationships. The app's rating system scores a movie on a scale 1 to 5, with one mango indicating that the movie is at the sexist end of the spectrum, and five mangoes meaning that it fully respects feminist norms.
The mobile application is the brainchild of a group of a group of feminist journalists, activists and academics from six Asian countries, including Magdalene’s Editor-in-Chief, Devi Asmarani.
Speaking to Global Voices, Asmarani said:
We spent a lot of times debating the best statements to apply to the rating system, before we all agreed on the set of 11 statements that represent a host of concerns, from representation of women, agency, the concept of beauty, sexuality, relationship and proportional representation of marginalized communities.
The creators of the Mango Meter app. Photo courtesy of Magdalene and used with permission.
Responding to the question of why the people should use the app, the creators said:
Let the film industry know that we do not buy tickets to their movies for misogynist, gender and diversity-insensitive content. One opinion at a time would validate someone else who is thinking just like you. We have every right to enjoy entertainment that does not demean us, and we certainly have a right to voice our views and opinions.
Development of the Mango Meter app was supported by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) Office for Regional Cooperation in Asia. It is available on iOS and Android.

author: Juke Carolina


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Journalists, teachers, and activists targeted in attacks on free speech in the Philippines · Global Voices
Karlo Mongaya

Press freedom advocates denounce the arrest of Rappler CEO Maria Ressa. Source: College Editors Guild of the Philippines
The recent arrest and detention of Philippine journalist Maria Ressa, CEO and executive editor of the news site Rappler, is just the tip of the iceberg of intensifying attacks on Philippine media.
As assaults on press freedom in the Philippines multiply, they come in various forms: red-baiting against members of media included in “military hit lists” of suspected communist rebels, distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on alternative media sites, and a systematic use of trolls and bots against government critics on social media.
Yet media is not the only target: teachers and activists also experience harassment in what they describe as a ‘constriction’ of freedom under the Duterte government.
A vocal critic of the government of President Rodrigo Duterte, Ressa was named a 2018 Person of the Year by TIME Magazine. The globally acclaimed investigative journalist was arrested on 13 February on charges of cyber libel, stemming from a Rappler 2012 story that linked businessman Wilfredo Keng to former Supreme Court Justice Renato Corona, who was impeached in 2012. The Rappler story cited news reports linking Keng to illegal drugs and human trafficking.
While Ressa was allowed to post a bail of PHP100,000 (US$1,917) on 14 February and is now free, press freedom advocates assert that the charges are politically motivated. The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) had originally dismissed the charges against Ressa but subsequently retracted its decision, despite the fact that Ressa was not acting as Rappler editor when the article was published in May 2012. On top of this, the article in question was published four months before the Philippine Cyber Crime Prevention Act became effective.
The arrest warrant vs Maria Ressa is being served at the Rappler HQ now, an officer part of the serving party who introduced himself to be part of the NBI tried to prohibit me from taking videos — WHICH IS PART OF MY JOB pic.twitter.com/TElJzSjJer
— Aika Rey (@reyaika) February 13, 2019
In the past, media practitioners have been regularly red-tagged as members of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed wing, the New People’s Army. This includes critical media organizations like the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), which has been accused of acting as a “CPP front” in spurious reports published in Manila-based tabloids.
Cong Corrales, an associate editor at the Cagayan De Oro City-based community paper Goldstar, has been included in a list of “communist terrorists”. The list, which also mentions some of his family members, is being widely circulated by suspected military agents. Unsurprisingly, this orchestrated witch-hunt coincides with the launching of Hustisya-Northern Mindanao, an organization defending the victims of Martial Law, which was imposed on Mindanao Island, the second largest island of the Philippines, in May 2017.
[#Philippines] RED TAGGING: Hands off @nujp-Cagayan de Oro member Cong Corrales and familyhttps://t.co/YKBqdidKIa#pressfreedom #defendpressfreedom #journosafe pic.twitter.com/mzlO3glfYV
— SEAPA (@seapa) February 24, 2019
At the same time, alternative media sites Bulatlat, Kodao Productions, and Pinoy Weekly have been subjected to massive DDoS cyber-attacks since December 2018 that resulted in the repeated takedown of their websites from the internet. Most recently, Bulatlat and Kodao Productions, considered to be among the oldest alternative media organizations in the Philippines, have been specifically targeted, resulting in their shutdown on 25 January.
Bulatlat, an alternative online news magazine, is being subjected to a cyber attack as of the moment. IT experts looking into this said a “crazy amount” of attacks have been launched to bring down one of the country’s longest running news website.
More details to follow. pic.twitter.com/m0uJYbg9mi
— Bulatlat (@bulatlat) January 25, 2019
The NUJP website also came under attack in early February, receiving a record 615 gigabytes of total bogus traffic. When Bulatlat sought the aid of Qurium Media Foundation, a Sweden-based secure hosting provider for threatened media, it noted that:
…the attackers used nearly 2,000 computers to saturate the website and make it unreachable. In another attack, they sent 3 million packets per second of bogus traffic.
Altermidya, an independent network of alternative media, has concluded that the cyber-attacks have the markings of systematic and well-funded machinery:
Clearly, this is not just the handiwork of a hacker acting alone. Several international studies, including one from the University of Oxford, revealed how government is funding cyber-attackers to manipulate public opinion over the internet. We believe that there is no one else that could possibly be behind these attacks than the Duterte administration itself, which has taken increasingly bold steps to curtail press freedom and the people’s right to know.
A unity statement by NUJP, AlterMidya, Bulatlat, Kodao Productions, Pinoy Weekly, and writers and artists alliance Let’s Organize for Democracy and Integrity reads:
The attacks are an affront against the ordinary people whose perspectives define the stories of the alternative media. These are attempts by those in power to drown out the voice of the marginalized and the oppressed, displaying Duterte’s fear of committed journalism that seeks to inform, educate and guide the public in decision-making.
Anyone publicly criticizing Duterte's policies such as the violent anti-drug campaign, or the imposed military rule over Mindanao is subject to surveillance, intimidation, and threats. This is particularly true of one group: members of the teachers’ union, who have become targets of profiling at the behest of the Philippine National Police and the Department of the Interior and Local Government. Fortunately, one umbrella organization, the Alliance of Concerned Teachers is openly denouncing such violation of freedom of expression:
TINGNAN: Alliance of Concerned Teachers, nagkilos-protesta sa Camp Crame, QC upang kondenahin ang umano’y profiling o pag-iimbentaryo ng PNP sa mga gurong miyembro nito @DZMMTeleRadyo (? ACT) pic.twitter.com/nzEutKmfGz
— Zhander Cayabyab (@zhandercayabyab) January 7, 2019
LOOK: Alliance of Concerned Teachers conducted a protest action at Camp Crame, Quezon City to condemn the profiling or inventory by the PNP of its member-teachers.
Another group the authorities are eager to watch closely are the students. This week, the government's National Youth Commission has publicly requested that President Duterte revoke the scholarship of students who join “anti-government protests”.
Police are constricting the flow of people to the EDSA anniv[ersary] commemoration mob — ironically on the day we are cherishing the democratic right to assemble and protest. Takot sila sa bagong [Are they afraid of a new] EDSA [uprising]! pic.twitter.com/vYUG2EZs7y
— Carlos M· (@jcmaningat) February 23, 2019
Police are constricting the flow of people to the EDSA anniv commemoration mob — ironically on the day we are cherishing the democratic right to assemble and protest. They are afraid of the new EDSA!
EDSA is shorthand for Manila's Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, the site of the February 1986 public demonstration that ousted US-backed dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
But Filipinos are not taking the constriction of their democratic space lightly. Thousands of ordinary people, rights advocates, and activist groups came together at the EDSA shrine on 23 February to oppose what they say is the increasingly dictatorial regime of President Duterte. This outspoken expression of frustration comes at a particularly sensitive time: February 25 marks the anniversary of the popular uprising that overthrew late dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986.

author: Karlo Mongaya


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A ‘digital nomad’ from the UK advocates for solar power in all island nations · Global Voices
Emma Lewis

Installing solar panels on the roof of the Office of the Prime Minister in Jamaica as part of the global Solar Heads of State initiative. All photos in this post are courtesy James Ellsmoor, used with permission.
What does the future have in store for the islands of the world? James Ellsmoor, a 26-year-old Englishman who made Forbes magazine's list of 30 Under 30 in 2017, is a self-described “digital nomad” who believes in the viability of solar power to make a difference to island populations worldwide.
In the Caribbean, “sustainability” has become a catch-all expression encompassing critical areas of island economies, including environmental protection; disaster preparedness in the face of climate change; tourism; economic growth and jobs; agriculture and fisheries; and renewable energy. With respect to renewables, a Kingston-based think tank sums up the challenges:
Energy prices in the Caribbean are amongst the highest in the world, having a crippling effect on industry, businesses and households of the region. The energy economies of the Caribbean have particularities which make the Caribbean energy situation unique: high dependence on imported oil resources, relatively small markets, largely centralised energy production and distribution, outdated energy generation equipment and significant electricity theft in some countries, and a relative abundance of renewable energy resources.
Nevertheless, investment in renewable energy is growing, with Jamaica aiming to bring the largest solar power plant in the Caribbean to date on stream by mid-2019.
Global Voices recently caught up with Ellsmoor in Kingston, Jamaica, to find out what solar can bring to island life and what keeps him moving and dreaming about a better world.
“Digital nomad” James Ellsmoor.
Global Voices (GV): Solar Head of State was an initiative to help world leaders become green leaders. How did it come about?
James Ellsmoor (JE): Solar Head of State started as a campaign by a group of California-based activists to ask [then United States] President Obama to install solar panels on [the roof of] the White House.
While this campaign was underway, President Mohamad Nasheed of the Maldives approached the group. He is a prominent climate activist who made global headlines by holding an underwater cabinet meeting to raise awareness of the threat posed to his country by rising sea levels. With Solar Head of State, he later became the first world leader to install solar panels on a government residence.
After I joined, we decided to take the campaign global, asking all world leaders to install solar panels on public buildings. Since then we partnered with governments to install solar on Saint Lucia’s Government House and Jamaica’s Office of the Prime Minister. We are now working on similar projects with the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States and the Pacific Island Development Forum, which together make up over 20 small island developing states (SIDS).
At the handing over ceremony of the solar panels on October 17, 2018, Jamaica Prime Minister Andrew Holness presents an award to Ryan Bent, who produced the winning video in the Jamaica Solar Challenge, while Tameka Lee of the Caribbean Climate Innovation Centre looks on.
GV: What has it been like promoting solar energy in the Caribbean?
JE: This year we organized the Jamaica Solar Challenge, a competition in partnership with two local youth organizations: the Commonwealth Youth Council and Caribbean Youth Environment Network.
We asked students to create a song, video, poster or something creative that would share the benefits of solar energy with their peers. We were so happy with the results and are excited to be launching similar competitions in Grenada, Guyana and Belize next year!
The winning video from Jamaica has an upbeat, dancehall feel:
GV: Do you feel the movement is gaining some traction? Do Caribbean citizens and politicians “get” renewables?
JE: The Caribbean is no different to other parts of the world. Most people do not think about where their electricity is being generated. The big difference is the phenomenal cost of electricity in the region — islanders pay three to six times more than U.S. customers per unit of electricity consumed. This makes the need all the more pressing and with the political turmoil in Venezuela, there is an economic and environmental imperative for the region to move away from fossil fuels. I think people are starting to wake up. Renewables make sense for their wallets as well as the climate. This is going to be what moves the needle.
We need greater collaboration [among] utilities, government, the private sector, academia and nonprofits. All these organisations are integral to the energy sector, but are still operating in silos. If the region is going to transition it will need cooperation!
We also need to move beyond the low hanging fruit of electricity generation and solar power. Shipping, transportation and waste management are huge sources of pollution that need greater attention. Moving towards batteries for renewables is great, but we also must ensure that there is a plan for batteries to be safely disposed of at the end of their life.
Members of the solar panel installation team on the roof of the Office of the Prime Minister in Jamaica.
GV: You recently graduated with a Master of Letters in Island Studies at the University of the Highlands and Islands, and you publish an online newsletter. What drives your fascination with islands?
JE: I am from a very rural part of England and so the relationship between communities and their natural environment has always interested me. The master's in island studies allowed me to explore the complexities of living in smaller, isolated communities and the differences needed in governance and business for these communities to prosper.
Many people find the idea of “island studies” confusing. It is simply an interdisciplinary approach to studying island communities, incorporating geography, sociology, political science, environmental studies, and more.
I started the Island Innovation newsletter because I wanted to disseminate all the information I was receiving about different island communities worldwide, to a wider audience.
GV: What do you think islands have in common, globally — if anything? Does every island have its own set of complexities?
JE: There are definite commonalities globally [among] island communities. Key issues such as energy, transportation, housing and climate change come up frequently.
There are obviously cultural and climatic differences. No two islands are the same … All too often, I see communities trying to reinvent the wheel when neighbouring islands have already found creative solutions to an issue.
Moving the solar panels prior to setup.
GV: Do you have a favourite island?
JE: Now you are asking for trouble! I can’t have favourites working with so many different island communities. Each one has its ups and downs.
I have loved spending so much time in Jamaica and getting to know more about the culture and history. It has been a really special experience and I have been so impressed by the resilience, passion and entrepreneurship of the Jamaican people. The cultural output relative to the population of Jamaica never ceases to amaze me and it is remarkable the impact this island has had on the world.

author: Emma Lewis


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After an unarmed teen is killed at a supermarket, netizens share stories of growing up black in Brazil · Global Voices
Fernanda Canofre

The security guard kept restraining Pedro even after he lost consciousness. Image Screenshot of video by unidentified author, widely broadcasted in Brazil. Uploaded by Poder360.
On the two-minute-long video widely shared online, it is possible to see 19-year-old Pedro Henrique Gonzaga face down on the floor of a supermarket store in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, both hands lying motionless beside him while security guard Davi Amâncio lies on top of him, grabbing him by the neck.
A passer-by yells: “His hands are limp”; another one says: “He is unconscious”. But the guard refuses to let go. A man approaches whoever was shooting the scene and asks: “Why are you recording this? Are you from the police? You cannot shoot inside.” A woman shouts that Pedro didn't do anything, and the guard rebuffs her: “You are lying!”
It was a Thursday, February 14. Pedro was taken to a hospital and was pronounced dead by cardiac arrest less than an hour later.
The store's management released a note stating Pedro had tried to steal Amâncio gun. CCTV footage shows Pedro talking to him and falling to the ground twice before he was restrained.
Young black man is suffocated to death, by white security guards, from a supermarket in prime area of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. pic.twitter.com/vbh4BsC1zu
— Santiago, Raull. (@raullsantiago) February 15, 2019
Amâncio was arrested on the spot, but was released on bail soon after. He hasn't yet been charged with a crime. The police chief who's investigating the case told the press that the Amâncio “overreacted in self-defense”.
Pedro’s relatives, who were at the store when he was killed, told the police they were on the way to take Pedro to a rehabilitation clinic for drug addiction and had stopped by to buy supplies.
The death of an unarmed young black man at the hands of a security officer has hit close to home for a lot of people in Brazil.
A third of the 60,000 homicides registered every year in the South American country are of black males below the age of 20. Every 23 minutes, a black man is killed. Many grow up accustomed to being mistaken for a criminal by the authorities or society at large.
Fioti, a famous rapper and entrepreneur in Brazil, remembered on Twitter the first time he was stopped by the cops:
Meu primeiro enquadro foi com 11 anos de idade, pasmem estava indo para o Shopping D com meu irmão, iamos no cinema. No Ponto de ônibus a polícia na frente de todos nos fez levantar a camiseta e apontou a arma para nós. Eu achei que fosse morrer, esse foi apenas o primeiro.
— Fioti (@fiotioficial) February 16, 2019
The first time I was stopped and frisked I was 11 years old. Believe it or not, I was on my way to the mall, with my brother, we were going to the cinema. At the bus stop, in front of everyone, the police made us lift our shirts and pointed their guns at us. I thought I was going to die, this was just the first time.
Activist Rene Silva remembered past cases of murdered black children and teenagers who subsequently were portrayed as criminals on social media.
Não sei se vocês lembram, mas quando o Eduardo morreu aqui no Complexo do Alemão, tentaram de toda forma incriminar o menino de 10 anos de idade que estava com celular no portão de casa. Até surgiu uma foto de uma criança armada e disseram que era ele.
— Rene Silva ✊? (@eurenesilva) February 16, 2019
I don’t know if you guys remember, but when Eduardo died here at Complexo do Alemão [a slum in Rio de Janeiro], they have tried every possible way to incriminate that 10-year-old boy, who was playing with his cell phone at the doorstep of his house. A picture of a child carrying a gun even popped up and people said it was him.
A Maria Eduarda, que morreu DENTRO DA ESCOLA, enquanto estava na aula de educação física, inventaram que ela andava de moto com meninos de fuzil. É sempre a mesma história. Tentam nos incriminar de todas as formas!
— Rene Silva ✊? (@eurenesilva) February 16, 2019
[With] Maria Eduarda, who died INSIDE HER SCHOOL while at physical education class, people invented that she was riding motorcycles with guys holding shotguns. It’s always the same story. They try to incriminate us in every way.
Eduardo de Jesus, 10, was fatally shot in April 2015 by a police officer, who wasn't charged. Investigators concluded he acted in self-defense, reacting to gunfire coming from an unidentified shooter — which contradicts the accounts by eye-witnesses who say there was no gunfire.
Maria Eduarda da Conceição, 13, was killed by three gunshots in March 2017 at her schoolyard during a shootout between the police and drug gang members. A police officer was charged with murder.
On a Twitter thread, singer MC Carol recounted her early experiences of racism. After winning a contest at school, she was awarded the role of the “bride” at the nativity of Saint John, a traditional celebration in Brazil, but was rejected by her pair, a white boy who she says didn't want to dance with her. Carol said she grew up fearing white people.
Esse foi um dois primeiros contatos com o racismo. Na verdade o primeiro foi no PRIMEIRO DIA DE AULA. No primeiro dia eu fui trancada no banheiro por meninas brancas! (Eu já postei sobre isso e eu fui questionada por lembrar disso tão pequena, deve ser pq quando doi muito, marca) pic.twitter.com/c3k5HPXZUu
— MC Carol (@mc_caroloficial) February 17, 2019
This was one of my first contacts with racism. Actually, the first one was on THE FIRST DAY AT SCHOOL. On my first day, I was locked in the bathroom by a group of white girls! (I’ve posted about it before and I was questioned for remembering something that happened when I was so young, I must remember because it hurt a lot)
Writer Ale Santos, who became known on Twitter for his threads about Brazilian history, summed up what the murder of Pedro Gonzaga represents:
O racismo brasileiro é um crime perfeito: ele cria as condições que espalha a violência e ao invés de curar a sociedade, prefere exterminar os jovens que batem com a descrição racista de um bandido
É um verdadeiro genocídio evidenciado pelas estatísticas #VidasNegrasImportam
— Ale Santos (@Savagefiction) February 15, 2019
Brazilian racism is a perfect crime: it sets the conditions to spread violence and instead of healing society, it prefers to exterminate young people who match their racist description of what a criminal looks like. It’s a true genocide, as statistics show. #BlackLivesMatter
Three days after Pedro’s murder, protests erupted in five major cities around Brazil with the banner “vidas negras importam”, a direct translation in Portuguese of “black lives matter”, a movement born in the United States in 2014 that has gained traction in recent years in Brazil.
As a 19-year-old student Lyz Ramos told The Guardian: “We have to take a position against this to stay alive. It’s a basic issue.”

author: Fernanda Canofre


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Life, death, and puppets: the stop-motion animation of Tomoyasu Murata · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

Screencap from 木ノ花ノ咲クヤ森 (Ki-no Hana-no Sakuya Mori) by Tomoyasu Murata.
Tomoyasu Murata is a Japanese stop-motion animator and artist whose short films and installations explore the themes of life and death.
Murata, born in 1974, has produced films since at least 1998 and has recently gained attention outside of Japan. His works have appeared on the specialty movie service MUBI, and in February 2019 Murata's films were screened for the first time in North America by the Japan Society in New York.
Murata uses puppets and stop-motion animation rather than CGI, and his dreamlike films typically mix realism and fantasy as they straddle the living world and the afterlife.
Murata's most recent series of films centered on the Great East Japan Earthquake, the 2011 shock and tsunami that destroyed dozens of coastal towns, killed at least 20,000 people and resulted in a nuclear accident that contaminated several rural communities.
In the first of a trilogy of short films about the 2011 disaster, Ki-no Hana-no Sakuya Mori (木ノ花ノ咲クヤ森, ‘The Wood of the Flowering Trees’), an amnesiac wolf traces his past and escapes from hunters.
In an essay for MUBI, Murata writes:
The Japanese archipelago is a unique island formed by about 2000 active faults. They cause huge earthquakes all over in Japan in 100-year, 300-year, 500-year and 1000-year units. The earthquake caused the most serious damage in Japan on March 11, 2011 is one of the huge earthquakes that occur at intervals of a hundred years [sic]. Everyone was just stunned by the images we have never seen before of a tsunami attacking. Nearly 18,000 people died. I felt rather powerless and prayed deeply for the victims of the tragedy.
Japanese public broadcaster NHK produced a short documentary about Tomoyasu Murata in 2017 that can be viewed online with English and Chinese-language captions.
More samples of Murata's work can be found on his YouTube channel, on Vimeo, and his official website.
A film distributor has also uploaded a selection of clips of Murata's films.

author: Nevin Thompson


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Russian cathedral choir’s performance of a song about US nuclear annihilation shows that parody doesn’t quite work in 2019 · Global Voices
RuNet Echo

Photo: Public domain via Pixabay
Many social media users have been baffled by the recent appearance of a video clip of a choir in St. Petersburg's landmark cathedral, Saint Isaac’s, performing a song about total nuclear annihilation of the United States.
The song includes the following lyrics:
На подводной лодочке с атомным моторчиком
Да с десятком бомбочек под сотню мегатонн
Пересек Атлантику и зову наводчика:
“Наводи, говорю,- Петров, на город Вашингтон!”

 Тру-ля-ля, тру-ля-ля,
 Все могу за три рубля!
 Здравствуй, новая земля
 Неприятеля!
On a submarine with a nuclear engine,
Carrying a dozen hundred megaton payloads,
I’m crossing the Atlantic and calling on my spotter:
Hey, Petrov, I’m telling him, set your aim for the city of Washington!
Chorus:
Tra-la-la, tra-la-la,
There’s nothing I can’t do for three rubles!
I salute you, strange and hostile land!
The song was performed by the St. Petersburg Concert Choir on February 23, which is celebrated in Russia and some ex-USSR countries as the Defender of the Fatherland Day. Immediately after Vladimir Putin’s state of the nation speech on February 20, a Russian state TV network had also run a segment showing the map of potential nuclear targets in the US, and many expressed alarm and disgust over the apparent triumphant militarism of the song and the inappropriateness of the circumstances of its performance: St. Isaac’s is a functioning church where Russian Orthodox masses are held daily.
Some then pointed out that the original song, which was written in 1980 by a Soviet dissident songwriter, was clearly intended as a parody of Soviet sabre-rattling propaganda (its original title is “On a submarine, or About the salary of [Soviet] servicemen”), while its most recent performance in 2019 could be taken as a tongue in cheek reference to the current political climate:
Тут такое дело. Знающие питерские люди говорят, что это адище про разгром Вашингтона в храме – сознательный стёб и провокация руководителя хора. Получив приглашение спеть на концерте 23 февраля, он в ответ на атмосферу безумия решил довести ее до абсурда по принципу “больше ада”: https://t.co/SiRbLUTFQd
— VASILY MAXIMOV (@vasilymaximov) 26 февраля 2019 г.
People in the know in St Petersburg are saying that the hellish piece about the destruction of Washington, DC in a church is a deliberate prank by the choir’s conductor. Having been invited to perform a concert for February 23, he decided to respond to the atmosphere of madness by carrying it to the point of absurdity, operating under the principle of “to hell with it all.”
After the clip became a media sensation, the Concert Choir of St. Petersburg posted a statement on their Vkontakte page, rebuking the allegations that the performance could be an act of political subversion:
Не можем не ответить мастерам политической аналитики:
Не стоит всерьёз вникать в рассуждения про путинские и антипутинские концерты. Это отвратительно само по себе. А для понимания того, что было на нашем концерте, достаточно знать две вещи. Во-первых, песни, которые мы поем – это документы эпохи, среды, уникальные и вполне оригинальные. Разумеется, мы не переписываем тексты ради политкорректности или какой-то ещё конъюнктуры.
Во-вторых, концерт в храме не обязывает петь только литургические произведения. Мы поздравили наших слушателей, мы показали им, что ценим их праздник, их прошлое, их труд. Что мы вместе с ними. И они были рады это услышать и прочувствовать.
Приходите на концерты, не занимайтесь политиканством!
We can’t but respond to masters of political analysis:
Don’t waste your breath on debating whether concerts can be pro- or anti-Putin. It’s disgusting as it is. To better understand what happened at our performance you need to understand two things. Firstly, the songs that we perform are original documents of the era, unique to their environment. Naturally, we aren’t rewriting their lyrics to pander to political correctness or to fit in any other trends. Secondly, while performing in a church, we are not obliged to limit ourselves to psalms or hymns. We congratulated our audience, showed them that we care about their holiday, their past and their labors. That we are together. And they enjoyed listening to us and feel that we did care.
Come to our concerts, quit politicking!
Despite the choir's conductor insisting that it all was a good-natured joke, the song's author, Andrey Kozlovsky, wasn't thrilled about the performance. “Nothing good will come of it,” he told a local news website when approached for comment.  And Russian Orthodox Protodeacon Andrey Kurayev, who is also a theologian and public intellectual and often sharply critical of the Orthodox hierarchy, wrote on his Livejournal blog that the parody might have fallen on deaf ears:
Песня сама по себе старая, из советского андеграунда. Тогда она была шуткой и даже сатирой на советский агитпроп. Но сегодня после путинских “мультиков” и “шуточек”, да еще в таком суперсерьезном исполнении это никак не смотрится шуткой. Питерская подворотня перестала быть подворотней. Она рулит. И исповедует принцип “ударь первым”. Потому что пролетариату нечего терять, кроме трех рублей.
The song itself is an old one, born in the depths of the Soviet underground movement. Back then it was a joke, a satirical take on Soviet agitprop. But today, after Putin’s “cartoons” and “jokes,” and in very serious circumstances, it doesn’t look like a joke at all. Because the thugs of St. Petersburg’s backstreets [a popular reference to Vladimir Putin’s tough upbringing] aren’t just thugs today. They are in power. And their ruling principle is “throw the first punch.” Because the proletariat today has nothing to lose except their three rubles.
With so many layers of context and in the current political climate—which includes weather reports on Russian state TV discussing possible nuclear strikes against the US—it's unsurprising that the choir's performance caused this much indignation and alarm. While appropriate for its time, the Brezhnev-era parody of Soviet agitprop might not be best suited for the social media age.