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Hong Kong’s Plan to Phase Out Domestic Ivory Trade · Global Voices
Expat Writer

One day before the Hong Kong government policy address, wild life conservation organizations presented 66,159 signatures to the chief executive, demanding a ban on the domestic ivory trade. Photo: WildAid HK / Twitter
The authorities in Hong Kong have announced plans to impose a ban on the import and export of elephant hunting trophies, phasing out entirely the domestic ivory trade.
In 1990, following an international ban on the ivory trade, Hong Kong prohibited the import and export of ivory, though it continued to allow the licensed trade of ivory products domestically. In 2014, there were still 447 licensed shops and artisan workshops dealing in ivory.
In addition to the legal domestic trade, there is a huge black market for illegal ivory. In 2013 alone, the customs department seized 8,041 kilograms (more than 17,700 pounds) of smuggled ivory bound for Hong Kong. According to the Legislative Council's records, around 60 percent of the illegal ivory smuggled into Hong Kong ends up in mainland China. Some smuggled ivory also finds its way to the domestic retail market, where there is high demand for luxury items by mainland tourists.
Following China's announcement that it is committing to a near complete ban on ivory, Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun Ying also included plans to kickstart legislative procedures to ban the import and export of elephant hunting trophies. He also indicated that the state will actively explore other appropriate measures to phase out the domestic ivory trade.
Given that Hong Kong's standing as the world’s largest retail market for ivory and has served as a hub for the illegal ivory trade into mainland China, many wildlife preservation groups are calling the government's new vow a breakthrough. WildAid is one of the organizations that have been very vocal in trying to make the ban on ivory trade a reality in Hong Kong. It celebrated the news:
Fantastic news out of Hong Kong today! Much work 2 do but a hopeful sign of things to come, via @wildaidHK https://t.co/03CSkZwTcW
— WildAid (@WildAid) January 13, 2016
Indeed, the government has much work to do to save the elephants. First, the resistance from the licensed ivory dealers is not easily exaggerated, and there are still fears that it could be too late for elephants, by the time concrete measures are introduced.
As animal lover, Kaz commented:
Their business will be extinct ANYWAY in a few year as there will be no more ivory, thanks to no more elephants…. https://t.co/X9FkwCYhNa
— Kaz (@kaz_hk) January 14, 2016
A study published in 2014 indicated that ivory-seeking poachers have killed 100,000 African elephants in just three years (between 2011 and 2014).
Second, Hong Kong's current laws offer many loopholes that sustain the city's status as the world's largest ivory trading center. In fact, many licensed shops are involved in illegal smuggling businesses, according to an undercover report released by WildAid three months ago:
Undercover Footage Unmasks Hong Kong Ivory Trade Loopholes from WildAid on Vimeo.
The dealer in the video says state officials have no idea how to regulate the ivory trade and they don't pursue leads about the locations of ivory stockpiles.
The value of raw ivory in China reached an average wholesale price of USD 2,100 per kilo in 2014 and only dropped to USD 1,100 by November 2015. These numbers make the ivory black market a multi-million-dollar underground industry.
In 1990, the registered amount of stockpile in Hong Kong was 474 tons. By 2000, it shrank to 261 tons. However, since then, the decrease in local stockpiles has slowed, and in 2008 there were still 232 tons of registered ivory domestically.
According to media reports, Hong Kong's authorities have never implemented annual audits on the amount of registered ivory stockpiled by licensed shops or cross-checked their sales records. This is how illegally smuggled ivory finds its way relatively easily to store windows.
Thus far, the Hong Kong government has not put forward any concrete time-table on banning the domestic trade, wild life conservation groups are trying to draw attention to the policy, in hopes of making it harder to reverse in the future:
Fine by us! More people will learn HK will ban #ivory trade. The more people that know, the less chance of a U-turn! https://t.co/iVQfZXYWqd
— WildAid Hong Kong (@WildAidHK) January 26, 2016

author: Expat Writer


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Did a Text Message Lead to the Arrest of This Recently Released Iranian-American Prisoner? · Global Voices
Mahsa Alimardani

Guars looking into a prison cell in Iran. Photo by Babak Farrokhi on Flickr. (CC BY 2.0)
Details of the arrest of Iranian-American Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari, the fourth person released in the January 18 prisoner swaps between Iran and the US, have surfaced in a report by the independent news site IranWire.
The prisoner, relatively unknown compared to Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, the former US marine Amir Hekmati and pastor Saeed Abedini, appears to have been arrested due to mass surveillance of SMS messages by Iranian authorities.
News about the prison exchange broke right before long-standing economic sanctions on Iran were lifted on January 18 as part of a historic nuclear deal reached between Iran and the US in July of last year.
IranWire reports that Khosravi-Roodsari, who was born in Iran but moved the US in the early 1980s, began work as a freelance consultant for the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 2013. Shortly thereafter, he returned to Iran to visit his mother, where remained and began teaching English.
Through interviews with Khosravi-Roodsari's family and his cellmates, IranWire explains:
One night, at a gathering with friends, Khosravi saw a report on BBC Persian television about Robert Levinson, a CIA consultant and former FBI agent who disappeared in Iran in 2007. Khosravi sent a text message to an FBI contact indicating that he knew Levinson’s whereabouts. Later, during interrogations and in conversations with cellmates, Khosravi said that he sent the message under the influence of alcohol, which is illegal in Iran. His cellmate and family members say that Khosravi had no information about Levinson’s fate, and had simply lied to impress his FBI contact. The Iranian government has denied any knowledge of Robert Levinson’s disappearance, a claim that appears to be accepted by the White House.[..]
Despite the government’s denial of knowledge of Levinson’s whereabouts, his case seems to be a thorny issue for the authorities. The words “Robert” and “Levinson” are reportedly keywords monitored by Iranian intelligence. All cell phone providers in Iran are either owned by or affiliated with the Iranian government. According to security experts, Iranian intelligence, similar to NSA, collects and monitors millions of text messages everyday. Khosravi’s cellmate and his family members believe Khosravi was under surveillance from the moment he sent his FBI contact a message about Levinson.
Khosravi’s lawyer told IranWire that he was charged with espionage and sending “secret information” to “a hostile government” by intelligence officers.
Iran practices different methods of government data collection, from DPI to telephone wiretapping, to collection of all unencrypted data that flows through the Telecommunications Company of Iran (TCI), in charge of mobile and telephone communications as well as the main ISP of Iran through the Data Communication Company of Iran (DCI). In essence, all unencrypted traffic through phones and the Internet is subject to government access.
Another notable case of mobile phone data collection leading to an arrest is the case of Isa Saharkhiz in 2009, who was hiding from authorities due to his involvement in the Green Movement protests.
Both Iran's constitution and criminal code uphold the right of citizens against unlawful surveillance. See Article 25 of the Constitution and Article 104 of Iran's Criminal Code of Procedure.
This case highlights the tenuous conditions for freedom of expression and free flow of information in Iran and the need for digital security precautions among Iranian Internet users.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Mahsa Alimardani


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Netizen Report: Change is on the Horizon for Iran. But Let’s Not Forget Human Rights. · Global Voices
Netizen Report Team

This image was created by Rich Black and the Wikimedia Foundation to spread the word about inappropriate surveillance. Art by Rich Black (CC BY 3.0)
The lifting of nuclear sanctions and the release of Iranian-American prisoners including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian on January 16 seemed to bring new hope for progress in Iran.
But while the world watched Iran re-establish ties with the west, Iranian blogger-activist Hossein Ronaghi-Malaki was spending his last hours with his family before returning to prison to serve his 15-year sentence for dissident commentary about the 2009 Presidential elections.
Ronaghi-Malaki  was released on June 14, 2015 to receive medical treatment, but was recently summoned back. Shortly before returning to prison he tweeted about his determination to get justice.
Might be last post but I'm determined to gain my freedom bec I'm innocent.The response to opinions is not prison. pic.twitter.com/esIZjSLh9j
— Hossein Ronaghi (@HosseinRonaghi) January 19, 2016
Another prisoner released in the swaps, Iranian-American Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari, appears to have been arrested to due to mass surveillance by Iranian authorities. His SMS messages were surveilled and were used to arrest him.
Khosravi-Roodsari was reportedly working as a consultant for the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) before returning to Iran in 2013. An IranWire investigative report claims Khosravi-Roodsari saw a report about former FBI agent Robert Levinson on BBC Persian and in an effort to impress his contact at the FBI, sent a text message saying that he had information on Levinson’s whereabouts, which in fact was not true. Iranian intelligence monitoring of the words “Robert” and “Levinson” led to his arrest and exposed his connection to the US government.
A three-year ban on YouTube recently came to an end in Pakistan after Google launched a local version of the site that gives the government greater capacity to request that certain videos be removed from the site. At the same time, the country’s Ministry of IT is pushing to pass a cybercrime law that would tighten restrictions on online speech considerably, leading to a debate over the impact of censorship. As leading Pakistani digital rights advocate Sana Saleem writes, “With or without YouTube, it is up to each of us to determine whether we would like to think critically and claim our right to unhindered access to information, or embrace a state-crafted version of it.”
Polish citizens took to the streets on January 23 to protest a draft surveillance law that would grant authorities broad access to citizens’ Internet and telecommunications data without court approval or any other form of meaningful oversight. The bill has passed the lower house of parliament but has not yet been approved by the upper house. Alongside protests, Polish netizens are sharing information about how to protect themselves from surveillance using encryption, VPNs and Tor. Thousands of citizens have also signed an online petition opposing the law.
A new cybercrime law in Kuwait sets strict limits on free expression online, according to human rights groups in the Gulf region. The new law criminalizes online activities that would “prejudice public morality”, without clearly defining what would fall under this category. It also institutes stricter punishments for online journalists who criticize state leaders or the constitution, and those who incite breaches of public order or violation of public laws. The law came into force on January 12, 2016.
Four journalists and three human rights advocates facing prosecution in Morocco on charges of “receiving foreign funding” and threatening the “internal security of the state” appeared in court on January 27, only to have their trial postponed for the second time since the charges were filed. Blogger and activist Hisham Almiraat, a member of Global Voices who is among the accused, tweeted:
Our trial is postponed to March 23. Pressure works. Thank you for your overwhelming support #morocco #Justice4Morocco
— Hisham Almiraat (@almiraat) January 27, 2016
Russian LGBT activist Sergey Alekseenko was found guilty of distributing “propaganda of homosexuality among minors” on the Internet, via Russian social network VKontakte. Curiously, the “propaganda” was actually a quote from a report by Roscomnadzor (Russia's state media regulator) about Elena Klimova, founder of the “Children-404″ LGBT youth support group, who faced the same charges in 2014. The offending sentence read: “Being gay means being a brave and confident person who has dignity and self-esteem.”
In the face of threats, intimidation and multiple assassinations of secular bloggers in Bangladesh, many bloggers have stopped writing and some have gone into hiding. Blogger and online activist Mahmudul Haque Munshi is among them and recently took exile from the country after receiving multiple death threats.  In a recent post on his blog Swapnokothok (Dreamweaver), he described his experience. Global Voices’ Bangla editor Rezwan translated an abridged version of the post. He writes:
I never thought that I would leave my country…But then I saw that I was being followed everywhere. I became very afraid. I remembered Niloy [another blogger, slain in August 2015] said that they started following him two months before his death.
[…]
Those who wanted me to die in vain, I would like to tell them, you will not win. I will live, I have to do a lot of things. I cannot die before achieving some of that.
Android users of the Facebook app can now connect to the social media service via Tor’s mobile browser, Orbot. With the changes, anyone on Facebook can now use Tor’s anonymity features to hide their geographic location when they log in. The tool that will improve users’ capacity to circumvent controls in places like China and Iran, where Facebook is blocked. While this does not mean that users can access Facebook anonymously (the social media platform continues to maintain its Real Name Policy), it does expand Facebook’s reach.
January 25th marked the fifth anniversary of the protests in Egypt’s Tahrir Square. Global Voices commemorated the anniversary by remembering leaders of the Egyptian Revolution.
Amira Al Hussaini, Mahsa Alimardani, Ellery Roberts Biddle, Weiping Li and Sarah Myers West contributed to this report.

author: Netizen Report Team


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Think Twice Before You Insult Peruvian Food · Global Voices
Radio Ambulante

In Peru and in other Andean countries, they eat cuy or Guinea pig. Photo: Radio Ambulante.
In Peru, you’re allowed to criticize everything, except for the food. Radio Ambulante executive producer Daniel Alarcón traveled to his native Peru to talk with two people who dared to insult Peruvian cuisine. An edited version of the story, originally published on Radio Ambulante's website titled “Against Peruvian Food”, appears below.
Simple. Practical. Easy. If you’re Peruvian and you live abroad, like I do, then this is something that usually happens to you: you mention your country, and after name-dropping Machu Picchu, people immediately talk about the food.
It happens all the time. Now you can find Peruvian restaurants in every major European city. Tourists from the United States travel to Peru just to visit the new chic restaurants in the capital. In Lima, there are more culinary schools than in Paris, and chefs are even interviewed by the local press about their opinions on politics, the economy, and the culture. I’m not exaggerating. A few years ago, I visited a maximum security prison, and to my surprise, I found that one of the prisoners had opened a gourmet restaurant. I remember the chef told me that his dream was for people on the outside to come to the prison to try his food. For him, that would be success.
Anyway, that is the situation. But there’s another aspect to this reality, something that has become very clear to me. If anyone speaks ill about our food, we don’t always respond that well.
We’ll take a look at two cases and get to know the two people that dared to insult Peruvian cuisine, because I think it reveals something about our idiosyncrasies, and because I think it shows that maybe, something has changed. And so that no one accuses me of not having enough national pride, let’s start by getting one thing clear: I love Peruvian food.
Three years ago in Lima, a book called “Cocinero en su tinta” was published. The author, Gustavo Rodriguez, also works as a communications consultant. Hence, he knows a lot about marketing. In the case of his novel, the publisher had decided to sell it as the first Peruvian novel dedicated to our cuisine, something he didn’t appreciate at all.
“It was a silly way of pigeonholing it because my book isn’t about that,” Gustavo says.
But it makes sense in a way, doesn’t it? The main character is a chef. So if that detail is nothing more than a pretense for telling a more intimate story, in terms of marketing, it made sense. And well, the press release from the publisher found its way into the hands of another author: Peruvian writer and blogger Iván Thays, who lives in Lima.
At the time, Ivan wrote a literary blog for the Spanish newspaper El Pais, and he wrote a post — “not because of the book, which I hadn't read yet” — exploring the fascination with Peruvian cuisine and “how much time should have to pass before a new phenomenon could become literature.”
But aside from that literary and theoretical question in his post, Iván confessed something very serious: he didn’t like Peruvian food that much. And he didn’t say it in the nicest way either.
“I said a lot of things that sounded pretty bad such as being unable to digest Peruvian food, that it was a bomb of carbohydrates, that I liked Italian food a lot more in general, and that I didn’t think Peruvian food was out of this world by any means.” Iván says.
And that he wasn’t even thankful for this supposed gastronomic boom. The next day, the post had comments from about 20 people and some likes. Gustavo also saw it because Iván had tagged him in a note on Facebook. Both didn't think much of it.
But while Gustavo was on a flight from Bogotá to Lima, everything changed. El Comercio, a newspaper in Lima, had published a link to the blog with an alarming headline: “Peruvian writer in Spain says that Peruvian cuisine is bad.” El Comercio is the most important and most read newspaper in Peru, and with this blog, Iván and his comments on Peruvian food became news. Many also interpreted his comments as a critique on Gustavo’s book, and therefore, the author saw himself get involved in this mess.
“So there I realized that what I had said was going to be taken much more seriously than what it really meant to me, you know?” says Iván.
And the media storm began.
Continue listening to the story with English subtitles below (beginning at 5:50) to learn how the ordeal ended and how another man experienced a very different public reaction a few years later when he made fun of Peruvian food:
Or listen to the episode in Spanish below:

author: Radio Ambulante


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Court Ruling Reignites Hope That White Collar Crime Could Actually Be Punished in Trinidad & Tobago · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

The Port of Spain International Waterfront Centre, which houses Trinidad and Tobago's Parliament. Photo by David Stanley, used under a CC BY 2.0 license.
In Trinidad and Tobago, there is a law under the Administration of Justice (Indictable Proceedings) Act — Section 34, to be precise — which the country's previous government tried to amend. The rationale for the change appeared logical on the face of it: to remove preliminary inquiries from the magistrates’ court level, where matters can linger for several years before being sent to trial.
Under the short-lived amendment, which was quickly repealed by the country's parliament on September 12, 2012, Section 34 would have made it possible for people whose cases have not been heard for 10 years or longer the right to have their pending matters dismissed. The exception to the rule was blood crimes — including treason, murder, drug dealing and ammunition trading — which had no sell-by date for conviction.
White collar criminals, however, could walk away scot-free — and this is what created the huge Section 34 scandal for the previous Kamla Persad-Bissessar administration. Two of her party‘s financiers, Ishwar Galbaransingh and Steve Ferguson, who are facing charges of money laundering and fraud over alleged bid rigging on contracts for construction of the Piarco International Airport, could have had all their charges dropped.
In fact, as soon as the law received final decree on August 31, 2012 — the anniversary of Trinidad and Tobago's 50th year of independence, when most of the country was distracted with celebrations — attorneys for the duo applied for a dismissal of the corruption charges. When the people, outraged, demanded accountability, the government deemed it an oversight.
Fast forward to the unanimous judgment of the Privy Council (the high court of appeal, based in the UK, that is used by many Commonwealth countries that follow the Westminster system of government) in the appeal of the two financiers, which was given on January 25, 2016. Its conclusion?
These appeals will be dismissed.
The state has won the judgment, which means that the criminal charges the appellants sought to avoid will now be reinstated, and their halted trials in Trinidad and Tobago will resume in the near future.
In an unsurprising response to the judgment, former Minister of Justice Herbert Volney, under whose watch the Section 34 fiasco took place and who was fired from his post over the controversy, said:
It is sad to hear our very highest court cast a blind eye to the outrageous and obscene status of our criminal list and the consequential injustice to hundreds of young men who languish for years upon years at the state prison deprived of liberty without trial. The Privy Council had the opportunity to stand on the principle of justice delayed is justice denied and demand meaning to be had for the axiomatic paradigm of the presumption of innocence. State indifference to closure in criminal causes should in the modern world carry a statutory sanction.
Instead, the Privy Council very tersely applied cold principles of law rather than vary them to the reality of the failed present day criminal justice system in Trinidad and Tobago in order to save a seemingly stillborn prosecution from an inevitable embarrassing end.
Volney even set the stage for Kamla Persad-Bissessar, who now holds the post of leader of the opposition, to claim vindication for her government:
Certainly the administration of Kamla Persad Bissessar has been exonerated from its share of blame by its correcting a parliamentary oversight hammered out in the wee hours of the morning in the Senate during a period of public emergency. At that time crimes of violence dominated the mindset of legislators.
Indeed, the website of the United National Congress, of which Persad-Bissessar is leader, published two press releases about the judgment, one of which states:
It is a clear vindication of the decision which was immediately taken to repeal section 34. The judgment highlights the swift action taken by the then government to convene the Parliament on an emergency basis to repeal a law that was unanimously passed with the support of all Members of Parliament with the noble intention of improving the system of criminal justice.
Current Prime Minister Keith Rowley immediately challenged the opposition leader's claim:
With respect to the recent ruling at the Privy Council, the simple outcome is that persons who are charged with criminal offences will be made to face a trial, despite all attempts to do otherwise.
This being the undisputed fact then, the public utterances of the Opposition Leader claiming vindication is insulting to the population.
I want to remind Mrs Persad-Bissessar that it is a Government which she led that produced legislation into which Section 34 was buried, with the intention of creating an opening for persons to avoid a trial.
Most netizens supported this position and found the claims of vindication laughable. Facebook user Rhoda Bharath asked:
If Kamla vindicated, the 20,000 people who marched against S34 are what?
#UNCDonkeyLogic
On Twitter, one reporter tried to clarify the finer points of the judgment, explained by the country's attorney general…
AG Al Rawi: The law had to be repealed so that the original intention of the law could be upheld @cnewslive
— Peter Christopher (@petedchris) January 25, 2016
…while the news station he works for tweeted:
Commenting on the marches in the wake of #Section34 Al Rawi has described the ruling as a “victory for the people”. pic.twitter.com/X9aHJKzEiQ
— C News (@cnewslive) January 25, 2016
Diapora blogger Jumbie's Watch was supportive of the Privy Council's ruling, saying:
The judgment is clear, well-reasoned and gives very precise reasons for the dismissal of the appeals.
Finally, in the midst of all the political spin being put forward, Twitter user Danielle Francois humourously tried to put things in perspective:
On the bright side – everyone has been vindicated EXCEPT Ish and Steve.. #section34
— danielle francois (@dead_goddess) January 27, 2016

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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Crowdsourced Photography Website Showcases the Beauty of Everyday Life in Myanmar · Global Voices
Juan Cebu

Photo from Featured Collectives by Thet Paing Htay. Life of Ferry Boats. Yangon, Myanmar. 2015. CC License
A crowdsourced photo blogging website, Featured Collectives, encourages submissions from photographers who capture the day-to-day of Myanmar's ordinary people.
Photographer Chit Min Maung, who is running the site, told Global Voices that the online project is intended to showcase the creativity of Myanmar's photographers and link them to the international community. He said:
In Myanmar, we usually shoot landscapes and portraits and we don't make much choices. So, we wanted to show that we still have different types of photography other than those two.
Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, was under military dictatorship for more than 50 years until it transitioned to constitutional democracy in 2010. During the military rule, Myanmar largely remained detached from the rest of the world, preserving a unique culture and way of life. Last year, the opposition defeated the military-backed party in a historic election that could usher in a new era in Myanmar society.
As Myanmar prepares to pursue more reforms in the next few months, websites like Featured Collectives are essential in documenting everyday life in a rapidly changing society.
The photoblog features photo essays and individual photos submitted by photographers from both inside and outside the country. For example, one collection shows a man creating wooden beads.
Photo from Featured Collectives by ThuYein. © ThuYein Photography. CC License
The essay reads:
ပုတီးဟာ မြန်မာလူမျိုးတွေရဲ့ မရှိမဖြစ်အသုံးအဆောင်ပစ္စည်းဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ အမျိုးသမီးများရဲ့ အဆင်တန်ဆာအဖြစ် အသုံးပြုခဲ့ကြခြင်းကတော့ အထင်အရှားပါပဲ။ လွန်ခဲ့တဲ့ နှစ်ပေါင်း ၂၀၀၀ ကျော် ပျူခေတ်က ပျူပုတီးတွေဟာ ထင်ရှားတယ်။… အဆင်တန်ဆာပုတီးကိုသာ ကင်းအောင်နေနိုင်သူရှိချင်ရှိမယ်။ စိပ်ပုတီးကိုတော့ မြန်မာလူမျိုးတိုင်း မကင်းနိုင်ကြပါဘူး။… စိပ်ပုတီးကို အများဆုံးပြုလုပ်တာကတော့ သစ်သားနဲ့ပါ။ အထွတ်အမြတ်အနေနဲ့မို့ မွှေးရနံ့သင်းတဲ့ နံ့သာဖြူ၊ နံ့သာနီ၊ ကရမက်အသားတွေနဲ့လည်း ပြုလုပ်တယ်။… တစ်ပြည်လုံးအတွက် စိပ်ပုတီးတွေကို မန္တလေးက ပြုလုပ်ဖြန့်ချိတာများပါတယ်။… ပုတီးစေ့တွေကို ပန်းပွတ်စက်နဲ့ပြုလုပ်ပြီး ကျလာတဲ့ လွှစာမှုန့်တွေ ပုတီးဖောက်ပြီး အသားပြားလေးတွေကလည်း ပစ်စရာမလိုဘူး။ တစ်နှစ်လုံးစာစုထားပြီး တပို့တွဲလ မဟာမုနိဘုရားကြီးပွဲတော်ရောက်တော့ တပို့တွဲလဆန်း ၁၄ ရက်က လပြည့်အကူး အရုဏ်တက်မှာ ရုပ်ရှင်တော်မြတ်ကြီးကို မီးပုံးထင်းပူဇော်တော့ ဒီပစ္စည်းတွေနဲ့ မီးပုံးထင်းအဖြစ်ပူဇော်ကြတာပါ။…”
Beads are an essential object for Myanmar people. It is evident that it has also been a form of women's jewelry. Bead necklaces from the Pyu era 2,000 years ago were famous. […] Ornamental beads may not be used by everyone but meditation beads are important for every Myanmar Buddhist. […] Meditation beads are primarily made from wood. As it is considered sacred, they are made using fragrant wood. […] Mandalay is the centre for providing almost all of the country's meditation beads. […] Leftover fragrant wood from the production are not simply thrown away after making beads. They will be used during the holy festival, called Da Poe Twe, to offer fire to the Buddha image.
Here are some more of our favorite photos that depict everyday street scenes in Myanmar. Make sure to visit the website to see more amazing photos.
Photo from Featured Collectives by Phyo Hein Kyaw. Childhood. Mandalay, Myanmar. 2015. CC License
Photo from Featured Collectives by Khant Min Htun. Mandalay, Myanmar. 2016. CC License
Photo from Featured Collectives by Thant Zaw. The Coffee Shop. Yangon, Myanmar. 2015. CC License
Photo from Featured Collectives by Myat Thu. Rakhine State, Myanmar. 2015. CC License
Photo from Featured Collectives by Zarni Phyo.Novices. Lashio, Shan State, Myanmar. 2015. CC License
Photo from Featured Collectives by Zarni Phyo. Yangon, Myanmar. 2015. CC License

author: Juan Cebu


text:
‘Don’t You Touch My Sister’: Guinean Citizens Rally Against Rape · Global Voices
Abdoulaye Bah

Guineans march against sexual violence. Photo via Facebook – Les Observateurs. Used with permission
At the end of 2015, the Guinean blogosphere voiced their outrage in unison after a video circulated on social media that seemed to depict an attempted rape of a girl by a well-known rapper in Conakry, Guinea.
Civil society organizations organized a march against rape and violence against women in Conakry in response to the video, with bloggers spreading the word under the hashtag #TouchePasAMaSoeur (Don't You Touch My Sister).
According to the Guinean website Gnakry Live, the video that ignited the outrage appeared on October 28. In it, a young woman is threatened at knifepoint to disrobe, and she complies. The video is filmed from the alleged rapist's point of view.
The accused, rapper Tamsir Toure, despite denying any wrongdoing on his Facebook, was eventually arrested over charges of sexual violence.
In a conservative society such as the Guinean society, rape and other forms of violence against women are shrouded in a veil of hypocrisy, forcing the victims to remain silent on what they have endured.
The citizen rally started after Fatou Baldé Yansane, president of the Association of Leading Women in Guinea, appealed to others through a post on her Facebook page:
Ça n'arrive pas qu'aux autres. 75% des filles sont victimes de tentative ou de viol entre 8 et 20 ans. Dans la zone spéciale de Conakry, on estime à 96% de femmes victimes des violences basées sur le genre. Ces chiffres proviennent d'une étude multi sectorielle PNUD, autorités policières et judiciaires de guinee sur une durée de trois ans.
It does not only happen to others. 75% of girls aged between 8 and 20 are victims of attempted rape or rape. In a specific borough of Conakry, around 96% of women are estimated to be victims of gender-related violence. These numbers came from a United Nations Development Programme study and included data taken from the Guinean police and judicial authorities over a three-year period.
After being informed of the intention of these civil society organizations to rally, the members of the Guinea Bloggers Association reacted fast to help. First, they started by condemning the acts individually on their blog, just like Cireass did on his blog Rivières du sud (Rivers from the South):
Aujourd’hui, les violences sexuelles en Guinée ont un visage [faisant allusion à l'accusé du viol en question dans la vidéo qui circule sur les réseaux sociaux]…
Nous devons soutenir cette victime présumée dont nous n’avons pas forcément besoin de connaître la personnalité. Nous devons la soutenir parce qu’en Guinée des femmes sont souvent violées dans l’impunité totale. Oui, nous devons la soutenir parce que nous avons des mères, des jeunes et grandes sœurs, des tantes, des nièces, des cousines, des amies et des femmes ou des petites amies que nous aimerions être en sécurité.
Nous devons soutenir cette femme parce que les relations sexuelles doivent être un plaisir partagé entre les deux partenaires. Pour la première fois, il faut que ces hommes comprennent que le sexe ne se force pas mais plutôt se négocie, et qui parle de négociation s’attend à des réussites et/ou à des échecs.
Today, sexual violence in Guinea has a face…
We should support the alleged victim without necessarily having to know her personality. We should support and stand by her since in Guinea women are often raped in total impunity. Yes, we should support her since we have mothers, younger and older sisters, aunts, nieces, cousins, female friends and wives or girlfriends that we wish to keep safe.
We should support these women since sexual relations should be a shared pleasure between two partners. For the first time, these men should understand that sex should not be imposed but negotiated. And whoever talks of negotiation should be prepared to both succeed and/or fail.
Cireass provided more information on the laws against sexual violence, underlining that rape should in theory be taken very seriously in Guinea, citing Article 321 of the penal code. But in practice, that's not always the reality. Here is the content of the article, as explained in his post:
Le viol n’est pas une petite infraction. Selon l’Article 321 du Code pénal, “Tout acte de pénétration sexuelle, de quelque nature qu’il soit, commis sur la personne d’autrui par violence, contrainte ou surprise, constitue un viol. Le viol sera puni de la réclusion criminelle à temps de 5 à 10 ans. Toutefois, le viol sera puni de la réclusion criminelle à temps de 10 à 20 ans lorsqu’il aura été commis soit sur une personne particulièrement vulnérable en raison d’un état de grossesse, d’une maladie, d’une infirmité ou d’une déficience physique ou mentale, soit sur un mineur de moins de 14 ans, soit sous la menace d’une arme, soit par deux ou plusieurs auteurs ou complices, soit par un ascendant légitime, naturel ou adoptif de la victime ou par une personne qui a abusé de l’autorité que lui confèrent ses fonctions. La tentative de viol sera punie comme le viol lui-même.
Rape is not a benign infraction here. According to Article 321 of the Penal Code, “Every act of sexual penetration, whatever its nature, perpetrated on another individual using violence, coercion or surprise, constitutes a rape. Rape shall be punished with 5 to 10 years in criminal detention. Nonetheless, rape will be punished with 10 to 20 years in criminal detention when it is perpetrated on an individual particularly vulnerable due to pregnancy, illness, infirmity or physical or mental deficiency, on a minor aged less than 14 years, at gunpoint, by two or more perpetrator or accomplices, by a legitimate, natural or adoptive ascendant of the victim or by any person who has abused the authority conferred on him/her by his/her functions. Attempted rape shall be punishable as rape itself.”
Subsequently, Alfa Diallo, one of the founding members of the Guinea Bloggers Association (like Cireass), published the following rallying call on Facebook. He asked all members of the association to join the protests:
Des activistes de la société civile guinéenne ont décidé de ne pas laisser cet acte impuni. Ils ont accompagné la victime à la police pour porter plainte et projettent une manifestation.
Mais vu que le présumé coupable n'a pas été arrêté, les risques que les autorités abandonnent l'affaire, s'il n'y a pas de pression, sont bien réels.
Je propose donc qu'Ablogui, en tant qu'organisation citoyenne, se joigne aux autres organisations pour maintenir la pression sur nos autorités notamment sur internet.
Cela passe d'abord par la création d'un hashtag puis une campagne sur les réseaux sociaux.
Activists from the Guinean civil society have decided to speak out against this act of impunity. They have taken the victim to the police to file a complaint and intend to hold a protest.
However, since the supposed culprit has not been arrested, there are real risks of the authorities abandoning the case if there is no pressure being exerted on them. I then suggest that the Guinea Bloggers Association, as a citizen organization, should join the other organizations to maintain pressure on our authorities mainly online.
We can start first by creating a hashtag, then a campaign on social networks.
Poster to denounce sexual violence in Guinea via Alfa Diallo. Used with permission
After a brief debate, the members of Ablogui adopted the hashtag #TouchePasAMaSoeur (Don't You Touch My Sister) that they mainly used on Twitter and Facebook to engage people into joining the campaign:
There has been other hashtags too, such as #NonCNon (No Means No), #HalteAuViol (Stop Rape), and #LaPeurDoitChangerDeCamp (The Offenders Should Live in Fear Too).
Regarding the rapper accused of rape, Kindy Dramé wanted to avoid any confusion with the music band with which he worked with in the past. Dramé wrote the following:
Petite précision, il n'est pas membre du groupe. N'oublions pas le groupe @BanlieuZart est finaliste du Prix RFI Découverte. Prudence #Halteauviol en Guinée.
Just a small matter to clarify, he is not a member of the group. Don't forget that the group @BanlieuZart was a finalist for the Radio France International Prize. Be careful #HalteAuViol (Stop Rape) in Guinea
Abdouraim Bah shared a publication by Ousmane Fédérateur Guinée Yattara on his Facebook, page in which one can read:
Nous savons tous qu'elles sont nombreuses à subir quotidiennement les agissements de cette société injuste. Nous vivons dans une societe où il y'a bcp de facteurs rétrogrades et où les femmes ont peur de decrire certaines mésaventures  Cette histoire serait certainement méconnue si ce criminel n'avait été aussi sûr de lui [jusqu'à filmer et publier la scène]. Les guinéens doivent soigner leur société. 28 octobre fut le résultat d'une impunité érigée en mode de gouvernance et de l'absence d'une éducation qui prend en considération la dignité et de la vie humaine
We know that there are many women who suffer daily from the actions of an unjust society. We live in a society where there are many retrograde factors that make women afraid of describing certain misadventures. This story would've remained in the dark if the criminal was not so sure of himself [to the extent of filming and publishing this scene]. Guineans should heal their society. October 28 was the consequence of entrenched impunity in the governance and the absence of an education that takes into consideration dignity and human life.
After the rally, discussion continued within the different groups on Facebook and on Twitter.
In his answer to a question from the President of the Guinea Bloggers Association, Kouyah Kouyate, Guinean blogger Solo Niaré revealed the complexity of the victim's legal status and state of mind:
C'est méconnaitre l'état d'esprit d'une victime d'agression sexuelle en général. Elle n'entreprendra aucune initiative, si tu veux bien savoir. C'est à nous d'aller très vite vers elle. Renseigne-toi, stp, sur la psychologie des victimes de viol, que ce soit en Afrique ou ailleurs, c'est pareil. Elles se recroquevillent sur elles-mêmes et, au final, tombent dans un trouble aux conséquences très graves.
Moi, ce que je dis, si on veut participer à sa réhabilitation ou la sauver en un mot, c'est de prendre cette initiative car nous sommes les mieux placés pour l'instant à le faire.
The state of mental distress of the victim of sexual aggression is difficult to grasp in general. It is possible for a victim to not take any initiatives, if you care to know. We should be the ones who reach out to her to provide guidance and support. Please, try to be informed on the rape victims’ psychology. Whether it happens in Africa or elsewhere, the conundrum is the same for the victim. These girls and women might isolate themselves from the rest of the world and eventually face additional mental disorders with graver consequences. I personally think that if we wish to participate in her recovery or in her well-being, we should take this initiative since we are the one who, for now, are in a better mental place to do so.
This rally against rape and violence against women is a premiere in Guinea and could mark a shift in the approach concerning this important problem. Awareness needs to be increased, which could be achieved by regularly holding information campaigns.

author: Abdoulaye Bah


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Japanese TV Personality’s Career Demolished After Affair With Married Musician · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

Television personality Becky (L) and singer Kawatani Enon (R). Main captions, from upper left: Adultery update! LINE chat leaked just before planned public apology… BUT WHY? Image from YouTube.
Japanese television personality Becky (ベッキー, Bekkī) experienced a stunning reversal of fortune earlier in January when tabloid media reported that she was having an affair with Enon Kawatani, 27, a vocalist in the popular band Gesu no Kiwami Otome.
As details of the affair became the subject of daytime talk shows and social media chatter throughout the month, Becky found herself dumped entirely as a television host, with her lucrative television commercial contracts torn up as well.
Up to ten commercial sponsors have said they will not renew their contracts with Becky on January 31. Meanwhile, Kawatani is still scheduled to appear with his band, Gesu no Kiwani Otome, on popular television program Music Station to promote a new album due to be released in February.
Becky, 31, has been a popular presence on Japanese television since 1999. With a British father and a Japanese mother, Becky is known for being a lively and virtuous hafu (as people of mixed ancestry are known in Japan) television personality, or “talent” (tarento). Due to her energy, cheerfulness and squeaky-clean image, Becky is said to have appeared in more television commercials than any other tarento in Japan.
In fact, much of social media vitriol has been directed at Becky, while Kawatani seems to be regarded as as wayward accomplice.
A reverse image-search using Becky's Twitter profile photo comes up with the image search suggestion “Becky, a partner in an illicit love affair” ( ベッキー 不倫 相手).”
A reverse image-search using Becky's Twitter photo comes up with the image search suggestion “Becky, a partner in an illicit love affair” ( ベッキー 不倫 相手).
Much of this probably has to do with Becky's relative fame and popularity compared to Kawatani.
However, according to a mainstream Japanese sensibility, the details of Becky's fling with Enon Kawatani contrasted sharply with her public image as a “good girl.” Flings are not unusual among Japan's entertainment personalities, but Becky was a single woman and Kawatani was married, and this is what matters the most to advertisers.
According to Japanese custom, if proof can be found that illicit meetings took place, the aggrieved party, in this case Kawatani's wife, has the right seek damages (慰謝料, isharyo) from Becky as a furin aite  (不倫 相手), an instigator of the affair. Because his wife does not plan to divorce him, Kawatani himself is off the hook.
What made matters worse for Becky was that an apology to her fans when the scandal broke was perceived as being inauthentic. Tabloid Shukan Bunshun has published what appear to be leaked LINE conversations between Becky and Kawatani where they both make light of the situation.
Some Internet commenters speculate Shukan Bunshun had actually hacked into Becky and Kawatani's LINE accounts and the published conversations were made public before either of them knew the tabloid had proof they were having an affair.
Another scenario is that Kawatani's wife notified Shukan Bunshun of the affair in the first place and gave the tabloid access to her husband's LINE account, with the calculated intention of totally demolishing Becky's career. However, there is no proof this is the case.
The result is that while Kawatani has been allowed to sheepishly return to his life, for the time being it looks as though Becky's career is ruined. While Kawatani's status is based on his music, Becky's marketability has been based solely on her image as a chaste, nonthreatening personality, and that image has been destroyed.
Japan's entertainment world can be very harsh on female talent. When Shukan Bunshun reported Minegishi Minami, a founding member of Japanese pop idol ensemble AKB48, might be having an affair, she was quickly demoted and appeared on YouTube sporting a shaved head.
Minami Minegishi apologizes after adultery allegations. Caption: “I'm to blame for everything. I'm very sorry.” Screencap from widely shared YouTube video.
Becky and Minami's treatment also illustrate the precarious position many performers occupy in Japan's entertainment world.
Japanese performance ensemble SMAP also made the headlines in January when they said they planned to break up after nearly 30 years. Japan's tabloids were even more stunned when SMAP did an about-face, saying they would stay together after all. While some commentators suggested the tired and aging act might actually be androids, others said SMAP's rapid reversal demonstrated the power of Japan's talent agencies, and how Japan's talent system is a microcosm of the Japanese working world as well.
Like salaried employees in Japan, at mid-career personalities such as Becky have little opportunity to change jobs and try something new. One misstep and they're out the door.
Not everyone is following the saga of SMAP and Becky, however.
芸能ニュースがトップニュースの日本。そのとき世界で何が起こっていたか。 https://t.co/CXqekJ8O6L @acthouse_さんから
— Sali Ikuta （生田サリー） (@Sali_I) January 26, 2016
So the entertainment world is front page news in Japan. What the hell is going here?

author: Nevin Thompson


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Journalist Claims Australian Broadcasting Corporation Barred Him From Reporting on National Broadband Network · Global Voices
Kevin Rennie

National Broadband Network fibre optic cable being laid in Australia. Photo courtesy Bidgee via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0 AU )
A journalist's allegations that Australia's national broadcaster prevented him from reporting on the contentious National Broadband Network has refocused the country's attention on the at times controversial digital development project. Debates around the initiative have touched issues of access, cost overruns, Internet speeds, and modes of delivery.
Nick Ross had been technology and games editor at the government-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) for five years before his departure at the start of January 2016. In an Ask-Me-Anything session on Reddit, which took place shortly after his departure, Ross described how managers told him to stop covering the Nation Broadband Network in 2013.
I knew when I was told to stop publishing on the NBN (three years ago) that this day would be inevitable. It's been a constant source of amazement that management have acted like people wouldn't notice me going from full-on NBN coverage to absolute zero and not ask why. They've been asking me constantly throughout this time – such is the interest in ABC and NBN – to the point where it's literaly made me ill and I'm still recovering. I hope this will start drawing a line under things and let me move on, but let's face it, the stink caused here will linger.
The session has attracted over 1,200 comments.
The ABC has denied Ross's allegations, according to media and marketing site Mumbrella, which also raised the issue of his objectivity:
Ross’s coverage of the NBN has at times been controversial with the ABC’s own Media Watch program highlighting in 2013 concerns about a lack of perspective in some of the reporter’s coverage relating to the NBN and whether fibre-to-the-premise was a better approach than fibre-to-the-node.
ABC's Media Watch segment, titled The difference between advocacy and analysis, aired in March 2013.
Quentin Dempster, investigative journalist and former staff-elected member of the ABC board, called for a formal inquiry into the matter.
@newmatilda ABC has case to answer on editorial ‘self-censorship’ of its NBN analyst Nick Ross. External, procedurally fair inquiry needed.
— Quentin Dempster (@QuentinDempster) January 24, 2016
Dempster received support:
@pascalg15 @QuentinDempster @whitfitzsimmons It's time some courage was shown. Abbott was the barbarian at the gate. He's gone.
— Tim Jones (@Forthleft2) January 24, 2016
In 2009 Kevin Rudd's Labor government began a program to create a countrywide broadband network using a combination of fibre and fixed wireless and satellite technologies. At the time, then-opposition spokesperson Malcolm Turnbull of the conservative Liberal Party attacked the plan, arguing that it was too costly and technically ill-conceived.
When the Coalition conservative party took power in 2013, the plan was modified to suit a wider range of technologies. It has since come to represent a key issue that parties across the spectrum use to demonstrate their political commitments. Turnbull deposed Abbott as prime minister and leader of the Liberal Party in September 2015.
Another part of Ross's documentation is an audio recording of a conversation with his ABC manager, Bruce Belsham which took place in 2013, a few months before the federal election. To further complicate the issue, Ross secretly (and thereby illegally) taped the conversation.
New media website New Matilda published the transcript of the conversation and gave support to Ross in a series of posts tagged “False Balance“. In the transcript, Belsham appears to be asking Ross to write a story that is critical of the Labor party's NBN plan to avoid the ABC being attacked by the Coalition, another political party:
So you know, I dunno, I think, I’m just trying to, what I’m saying to you is, I can’t let you publish something about the copper and then about all the terrific benefits of [INDECIPHERABLE] that’s not going to happen with the Coalition, because basically, the world, the Turnbull camp and my superiors are going to come down on me like a tonne of bricks. We’ve got to give you some kind of insurance policy, you know. An insurance policy is an article where you are hard-headed about something to do with the NBN’s failings, or, you know, potential failings. One of the quite basic failures is it’s not going to happen. That’s a fundamental failing. The fact they’ve got to September 2013 and it’s not rolled out and it’s not in enough homes and it’s not in enough places to materially affect the vote is a failing.
Steven Maras at academic blog site The Conversation explored the ethical side of the interaction presented in the transcript:
The transcript gives us a rare glimpse of the subtle ways political considerations can influence and shape the work of editors and journalists on the ground. The ABC has said that the request to do a piece on Labor and the NBN “was the editorially responsible thing to do” following “an almost 11,000 word article severely criticising the then-opposition’s policy on the NBN”.
But Belsham goes further. What does he mean when he says “it’s going to be really kind of difficult for you” to publish more articles critiquing the Coalition’s plan? How does this work in terms of the ABC’s culture of independence?
New Matilda National Affairs Correspondent Ben Eltham had a broader critique of the ABC's coverage:
…after a close reading of much of the ABC’s coverage, what emerges is a pattern of relatively positive coverage of the Malcolm Turnbull’s policy agenda. In covering the NBN, the ABC has tended to make a relatively critical assessment of the NBN under Labor, and, in contrast, a relatively benign assessment of the progress of the NBN under the Coalition.
Financial journalist Jim Parker, aka Mr. Denmore, highlighted Ross's dilemma on his blog Failed Estate:
If the role of a highly specialist expert like Nick Ross is to do no more than parrot the established lines of the rival parties and treat a technology story as just another political one, why not leave it to the press gallery? How is it “political advocacy” to conclude as a subject matter expert that one policy position is superior to another?
Conclusive evidence of the “gag” claim has yet to be presented. As a result New Matilda has copped its own criticism:
I finally read that New Matilda article and Nick Ross misrepresented the ABC hugely by claiming he was being gagged
— josh (@punchhappiness) January 23, 2016
Meanwhile New Matilda's editor Chris Graham is promising to ‘“irrefutably” prove that Ross was gagged, according to the latest “False Balance” post: “The Ifs, Buts And Maybes Of The ABC Belsham-Ross Story“.
Though many Australians may have lost faith in the capacity of the major political parties to deliver a quality national network, the popularity of #IwantmyNBN Twitter hashtag shows that it is still a simmering issue down under.
We can expect that the NBN's toxic mix of technology, politics and the media is far from spent.

author: Kevin Rennie


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Raising the Roof on Trinidad & Tobago’s Housing Scandal · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago's densely developed capital city. Photo by Downing Street, used under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license.
The Trinidad and Tobago Housing Development Corporation (HDC), the state agency charged with providing affordable housing options for the country's citizens, is mandated to focus on the needs of the low and middle income bracket. Imagine the uproar, then, when a list of people who received state housing under the previous Kamla Persad-Bissessar administration—which allegedly included everyone from government advisors to media personnel—was leaked at the beginning of this week.
The information comes at an already fraught time for the organisation, as the HDC is in the midst of an independent audit to figure out whether millions of taxpayers’ dollars were taken to settle “political debts” under the tenure of now suspended former Managing Director Jearlean John. Although John had implemented a system whereby the minister of housing, rather than her office, was in charge of housing allocation (the minister can legally allocate up to 25% of state housing at his or her discretion), the investigation still seeks to determine whether John knew about the alleged favouritism in providing houses to party supporters.
But it's not just the former government that is in the hot seat—accusations have also been levelled at current Minister of Housing Marlene McDonald. Satirical political blog Wired868, referring to the issue as “the furore surrounding Marlene McDonald’s request for a home for her boo“, explained that eight years ago, when she was culture minster, McDonald used her influence to secure an HDC house for her romantic partner Michael Carew. Carew, in turn, rented out the property.
One of the reasons that the housing allocation involving McDonald's partner is problematic for her is because the property has been rented, in breach of a clause in the lease which prohibits sub-letting. McDonald's reputation can also be compromised under the tenets of the Integrity in Public Life Act, which assumes impartiality in conducting official duties, especially when such decisions have the capacity to affect “the improper advancement” of personal or financial interests.
Anti-corruption blogger Afra Raymond added his perspective:
The ongoing and serious allegations against Housing & Urban Development Minister, Marlene McDonald, and UDECOTT Chairman, Noel Garcia, [which Global Voices covered here] are obvious distractions launched for plainly political reasons. That is not to dismiss the details of those serious allegations, since at this early stage it is impossible to make any real judgment as to guilt or blame. The current furore over these allegations detracts from any serious discussion of real issues about public housing, while at the same time being emblematic as to the depth of the problem.
Subsidised housing is an important part of the ‘welfare state’ provided by our Republic’s wealth and it is therefore necessary to establish the most effective policies and operational arrangements to maximise the benefits to the most needy.
It is now time for us to convene a comprehensive and transparent review of our housing policies and delivery mechanisms.
Raymond examined the current housing allocation policy and noted that an unfortunate outcome is that “the low income group has been substantially disadvantaged”, yet noted that:
In light of the provisions of the existing housing policy, it seems clear to me that the alleged recommendation made by McDonald was not in breach. This is the result of bad policy and those provisions need to be changed.
The blogger “Mr. Live Wire” had a host of questions that are as relevant to the accusations against McDonald as they are to the leaked list of alleged housing recipients under the previous administration, leading him to conclude that both political parties are standing on shaky moral — if not legal — ground:
What is the point of the housing lottery for members of the public, if a minister could circumvent it with a phone call?
If ministers could prioritise whoever they wished, doesn’t this mean that party members or friends, relatives and sweet men of ministers and influential party members would hold an unfair advantage over other citizens?
Doesn’t this imply an implicit or potential violation of the HDC credo, which reads: ‘the Trinidad & Tobago Housing Development Corporation does not discriminate on any basis’ inclusive of ‘political affiliation’?
Political blog The Eternal Pantomime weighed in heavily on the most recent accusations of housing for party supporters. Referring to a 2014 report in which “a woman from Central Trinidad alleged that she was made to perform sexual acts on a government Minister in exchange for state housing on two occasions”, the blogger, Rhoda Bharath, said:
Poverty, need, neglect and vulnerability are not new conditions, nor are they new political tools. All contemptuous governments use and exploit the needs of citizens to gain political mileage and votes. The circumstances Patricia Singh describes are dire – single mother, old uncle – given the HDCs stated policies, where need is a criteria for receiving housing, surely Patricia Singh qualified based on need. Unfortunately, our electoral system has safe seats. And HDC houses are political currency. If a house is being distributed it is linked to political exchange. The receiver of said house has to be doing a favour for the state. The favour might stem from kick backs to being the visible face of a vote. Patricia Singh, a visibly Indian woman, in the [political party United National Congress] heartland had no political currency. She was always ever going to be exploited, sexually or otherwise because such is our political climate.
She concluded by saying:
Just like there are a million ways to skin a cat, there are many ways to give a blow job. The real question here is who exactly screwing whom?
Because while government officials are absolutely wrong for exploiting our housing needs and resources in this way, it is us, we, citizens who are agreeing to become part of the corruption and undermine the very systems that we complain are not working.


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Rising Voices Welcomes Five New Indigenous Language Digital Activism Grantees · Global Voices
Rising Voices

Training workshop at Indigenous Language Digital Activism workshop in Cusco, Peru.
Rising Voices is pleased to announce this year's microgrants awarded to five indigenous language digital activism projects in Argentina, El Salvador, Mexico, and Nicaragua.
As part of our work supporting initiatives using digital media and the Internet to revitalize and promote native languages online, we launched an open call for proposals in late 2015 inviting communities to submit their ideas for digital activism projects. As a result, we received 63 proposals from 12 countries across Latin America, each with a unique proposal to teach their local communities how to take advantage of digital tools to promote their native languages, as well as to address a specific related challenge. Applicants were also invited to share their ideas on how they would work towards achieving a greater impact employing online and offline advocacy strategies.
Communities were asked to share their proposals through the Activismo Lenguas site, where other applicants and network members were able to leave comments, provide feedback, or share words of encouragement. One of the site's objectives is to facilitate connections between communities from the same geographic location, speaking the same language or using similar digital platforms.
Following a thorough review and selection process that included the participation of many members of the indigenous language digital activism network, five projects were chosen to receive microgrant funding and mentoring, beginning their project in early 2016. These grantees will share their work on the Activismo Lenguas site and on Rising Voices through regular blog posts highlighting their progress. Another important element of this project includes the connections that will be facilitated among the grantees themselves, but also with the wider network for peer mentoring and other technical support, as well as amplification and translation of their project.
The five projects are:
Various collectives and organizations such as Kom Kim Mapudunguaiñ Warria Mew, CEPPAS, and Mapuexpress will train Mapuche communities in Buenos Aires how to create audio documentaries focusing on poetry and music, as a way to highlight the need for Mapudungun language revitalization in migrant urban communities.
A collaborative project between the Salvadoran National Coordinating Indigenous Council (CCNIS, for its initials in Spanish) and local indigenous leaders will teach Lenca and Kakawira youth how to develop digital multimedia educational materials in the Potón and Pisbi languages to help raise awareness of the current state of these languages.
Miskito and Mayangna indigenous students attending a leadership school of the University of the Autonomous Regions of the Nicaraguan Caribbean Coast (URACCAN, for its initials in Spanish) in Puerto Cabezas will learn how to create videos, blogs, and work collaboratively on an online dictionary, exploring ways that students at the university can be a driving force to encourage others to learn or maintain their native languages.
Four women in the state of Tabasco have been working tirelessly to teach others the Yokot'an (Chontal) language through classroom teaching. Now they would like to bring this outreach work to the digital world through workshops to create an online radio station broadcasting in the Yokot'an language, as well as produce audio podcasts with health and educational messages for the community.
Students of all ages in San Luis Potosí will be invited to take part in this project to work with the Tének (Huastec) language on the Internet. By reaching out to students with technology, there is a better chance to pique their interest in retaining their language. The students will be shown how to create short audio clips and make illustrations to narrate video stories.
Please join us in welcoming these new projects, and keep an eye out for updates and self-introductions from each projects very soon.

author: Rising Voices


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The Nazi Plan to Relocate Jews to Madagascar, One of World War II’s Forgotten ‘What Ifs’ · Global Voices
Lova Rakotomalala

Soldiers on the beach of Madagascar – via Blog My asa with permission
History is filled with ‘what ifs’. Writers and historians alike are keen on imagining alternate scenarios had one event turned out differently. For instance, what if the Axis powers had won World War II (as imagined by American writer Philip K. Dick)? What if Napoleon had successfully invaded Russia in 1811? And what if US President John F. Kennedy had survived his 1963 assassination?
One of those lesser-known ‘what ifs’ is the Madagascar Plan, which nearly came to fruition during World War II. The Madagascar Plan was a suggested policy by the Nazi government of Germany to relocate the Jewish population of Europe to the island of Madagascar at the height of the war. The idea, put forth by Franz Rademacher, head of the Jewish Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was to hand over Madagascar, then a French colony, to Germany as part of the French surrender terms. The project was approved by Adolf Hitler and on 15 August 1940, he ordered Adolf Eichmann to start the resettlement of a million Jews per year for four years to Madagascar as a police state under the SS. The project was eventually shelved as the Nazis opted for the systematic genocide of the Jewish population instead.
Magnus Brechtken, a German associate professor at the University of Nottingham who specializes in the study of this aspect of World War II, explained in further detail in the following video (in English) what the Madagascar Plan entailed:
One of the reasons why the Madagascar Plan was abandoned is linked to the fact that Germany failed to defeat Britain and take control of the Navy fleet, a necessary step in order to implement the logistics of the deportation. The project was still being considered by Hitler until 1942, when British forces eventually wrestled control of Madagascar away from Vichy France, putting a definite end to the plan.
The Malagasy blog My Asa Mada retrieved a collection of historical archives that depict battles that occurred between British forces and Vichy France in Madagascar in 1942. Here are some of the photographs and videos from that period from their blog post:
RAF in Madagascar via My asa blog with permission
The following video shows the British Navy fleet arriving in Madagascar accompanied by the Free French Forces:
On the day after Holocaust Memorial Day in the United Kingdom (27 January), Malagasy people took to the Web to ponder the implications of the question, “What if the Madagascar Plan had come to pass?”
Tomavana, a Malagasy blogger based in Geneva, Switzerland, wrote that alternate history has too many variables to project with pertinence:
Bien que l'idée 1) d'épargner plusieurs milliers de vies me soit séduisante, j'avoue manquer d'imagination pour imaginer un monde meilleur avec seulement des “si”.  Jour après jour, mon action est plutôt dictée par le désir de léguer à nos descendants un monde moins pire que celui que nous avons reçu de nos parents … et inutile de dire que ce n'est pas aussi aisé
Although the idea 1) of potentially saving thousands of lives is evidently appealing to me, I confess that I lack the imagination to foresee a better world based on ‘what if’. What I try to do day after day is to conduct myself in a way that means I can hopefully leave future generations a world less worse than the one we received from our parents … and needless to say, it is not an easy task these days.
Randiana, a Malagasy citizen in France, wonders whether the situation in Madagascar would be similar to the situation in Palestine today had the Madagascar Plan been implemented:
Given the conflict in the occupied territories in Palestine today, the most pessimistic voices during the implementation of the Balfour Plan (the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people) have now been overtaken by the harsh reality. Imagination, at that time, wasn't gloomy enough to predict the human tragedy of modern Middle East. (As for Madagascar), the Colonial period had left too many wounds, and some of them were still wide open long after liberation. A nation, after all, reacts to difference like an individual. You can only accept the other if you are at peace with yourself. Anyway, the Madagascar Plan had the same evil roots as the Ghetto and the Final solution plan: a racial pyramid, glorifying the Aryen race, where Africans, of which Malagasy, Tziganes were not even considered as humans.
We will never know what would have happened had Germany implemented the Madagascar Plan. But what we know is that Madagascar was central to many decisions taken during the WWII, yet the fate of its people did not seem to be taken into account in most of the decisions that were made then.

author: Lova Rakotomalala


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The Rest of the World Is Finally Noticing the Touristic Charms of Central Asia · Global Voices
Abdulfattoh Shafiev

Irkht, Badakhshan, Tajikistan. Photo by Bakhriddin Isamutdinov. Used with permission
The glorious natural beauty of Central Asia is breathing some fresh air into the region's international reputation, so often sullied by the authoritarian rulers who hold power there.
Tajikistan ranked second on the list of fastest growing tourist destinations that the United Nations World Travel Organisation released recently, registering a whopping 94% increase in visitors during 2015.
And a couple of weeks ago, Kyrgyzstan made it into UK newspaper the Financial Times‘ list of top seven travel destinations for 2016 according to industry insiders.
That the former Soviet Stans are attracting the attention of the world's media as undiscovered, exotic, virgin tourist destinations is a nice change for Central Asia, which more often than not appears in international media for instances of violence, military clashes, human rights abuse, economic collapses, and absurd laws.
Last year, Global Voices profiled the stunning nature of Tajikistan in pictures and offered potential visitors a guide of the main spots to check out. Now let's return to the topic and take a look at the magnificence of five Central Asian Stans, with the help of drone footage and promotional videos.
The ninth largest country in the world by area, Kazakhstan has much to offer, from its traditional nomadic culture and newly built capital Astana to its steppes, taiga and rock canyons.
The Financial Times has a few suggestions for its readers who visit Kyrgyzstan:
Hiking in the Tian Shan mountains, riding over the grass-covered steppes or mountain biking on ancient Silk Road routes, and staying in traditional yurts surrounded by wilderness.
For nature lovers, the land of Tajikistan is 93% mountainous with ethereal alpine lakes dotted all over. For history buffs, the country's past is full of battles against invaders, starting from Alexander the Great to Cengiz Khan. And for the spiritual, you can find the largest Buddha statue in nirvana, visit the ancient Zoroastrian temple, and speak the mother tongue of Imam al-Bukhari.
Internationally famous Akhal-Teke horses, first-class handmade carpets, desert and camels, cities peppered with golden statues – all that is in Turkmenistan, the country that possesses the world’s fourth largest natural gas reserves.
Be charmed by the ancient cities of Bukhara and Samarqand, relive the history of past empires on the Silk Road stops, and meet both Turkic and Persian civilizations in Uzbekistan, often called the pearl of Asia.

author: Abdulfattoh Shafiev


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Young Actors Bring Greek Mythology and Psychology to the Stages of Venezuela · Global Voices
Juan Ernesto Páez-Pumar

The Mythological Hýbris theatre group combines theatrical classics with the analytic psychology of the Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung. Photos courtesy of Chely Escalona / Hýbris
In a mirror-lined room of about six by four meters some twenty Venezuelan adolescents are preparing themselves for a new personal challenge. Although they're working as a team, for these young people—many with voices are still riddled with hormones—this is an immense adventure, and one which is creating profound change in their lives.
“Todo lo que experimentamos es un inmenso reto que nos hace mejorar”…“En mi casa están sorprendidos porque me ven más desenvuelto”…“Ahora me puedo defender mejor en los estudios, he perdido muchos miedos”.“Nos alejamos de la frivolidad propia de nuestra generación y estamos metidos en algo muy serio…”.
“Everything we're experiencing is a huge challenge that makes us better”…”At my house, they're all surprised at how much more self-assured I've become”…”I can stand up for myself better in class, I've lost a lot of my fears.” “We're moving beyond the frivolity of our own generation and are involved in something truly serious…”.
These are some of the sentiments expressed by the young people in the room, most of whom are still in high school, or “bachillerato,” as it is called in Venezuela.
The first thing you notice is the diction and manner of expression of those who make up the cast of the Mythological Hýbris theatre group. Here, you don't hear what is known in this South American country as “mandibuleo,” a complicated way of speaking used by certain divisions of middle- and upper-class youth, where shortened words abound and certain syllables and word endings disappear completely. Here it's the complete opposite: there's an emphasis on vocalization and respiration by the founder and director of the company, José Enrique “Chely” Escalona.
Here, you don't hear what is known in this South American country as “mandibuleo,” a complicated way of speaking used by certain divisions of middle- and upper-class youth, where shortened words abound and certain syllables and word endings disappear completely.
“Hýbris was born in February 1996. It's the result of a syncretism between my two great passions: Greek mythology and psychology,” Escalona says. He graduated in psychology from Caracas’ Universidad Católica Andrés Bello in 1998; his passion for the Hellenic world came much earlier, when he was hardly 12 years old.
But this theatrical experiment of nearly two decades has an extra ingredient. It's not about simple adaptions or reproductions of the classics. From the group's beginnings, Escalona made sure to add his personal stamp, in addition to being the author of all of the works brought to the stage.
“I'm blending theatre with the analytical psychology of the Swiss [psychologist] Carl Gustav Jung, who talks a lot about archetypes and studied Greek mythology. Archetypes are seen as a ‘combo’, so to speak, which are the sensations or emotions that predetermine certain behaviors at the collective level, and influence the crowd as much as each individual,” Escalona explains as they take a break from rehearsals for the revival of “The Pleiades,” which is focused on the place where Hýbris was born and still lives—the neighborhood of Los Corales in the coastal town of Caraballeda in the Vargas state, some 40 kilometers north of Caracas.
The company works with archetypes representing the Greek gods, and which, like them, predetermine certain behaviors. In representing these archetypes, the cast members derive a special enrichment from a therapeutic psychological perspective. “There has to be a benefit to the actors in their everyday lives as they prepare their character: how he feels, how he thinks, how he moves,” Escalona adds.
The current generation is labelled the kings of technology and social networking. But it's “an ocean of information with a millimeter of depth,” according to its critics. In the case of Hýbris, José Enrique Escalona seeks to break these habits and push his charges to investigate and study hard in order to prepare each production.
“Yo no soy conformista ni quiero que ellos sean conformistas. A pesar de su corta edad les exijo mucho, lo reconozco. Pero me da la satisfacción que los
alejo de ese mundo frívolo y superficial de hoy. Ellos deben seguir un trabajo de actor que se llama trabajo arquetípico, que es creación mía. Deben investigar
el mito en cuestión. Consultan varios autores. Y buscan el animal tótem que lo representa. Deben conocer el animal y sus costumbres para luego aplicarlo en la construcción
del personaje”, describe Escalona.
“I'm not a conformist, and I don't want them to be conformists. Despite their young ages, I demand a lot from them, I know. But it gives me satisfaction that I'm taking them away them from today's frivolous and superficial world. They have to follow a path as an actor called the “archetypal work,” which is my creation. They have to investigate the myth in question. Look at various authors. And search for a totem animal that represents it. They have to know the animal and its habits in order to later apply it to creating the character,” says Escalona.
Many members of the theatrical group, like their director, recognize that the challenge requires a significant intellectual effort, but that it comes from a place of pleasure: They have to enjoy it despite the deep psychology that they must confront, in some cases, from age nine.
“We situate ourselves in somewhere in the middle, between the methods of the Russian [director] Konstantín Stanislavski, which demanded that the actor ‘involve himself too much’ with the character, and those of the German [playwright and director] Bertolt Brecht, who proposed the complete opposite: that is, extreme distance,” explains the man who christened his creation Hýbris, which means “hubris“—”the arrogant excess of one who forgets the human condition and defies the will of the gods, who then end up cruelly hurting the guilty.”
According to Escalona, the “happy medium” between the two dramatic schools is that it allows for critical feedback between the role and the person who assumes it, in order to achieve the growth and individual learning which is one of the great objectives of this adventure in the performing arts, whose alumni include Alejandra Oraa, presenter of CNN Spanish, and actor Willy Martin.

author: Juan Ernesto Páez-Pumar


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Egyptians Call for the Release of Political Prisoners on the Fifth Anniversary of the Jan25 Revolution · Global Voices
Mira Nabulsi

A protest in Tahrir Square in June 2012. Photograph by Mosa'ab Elshamy from his flickr account. Used under (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Five years since Egyptians took to the streets calling for bread, freedom, and social justice, many still remember the January 25 revolution as a euphoric moment where what is called the “fear barrier” was shattered and where Egyptians and with them millions around the world followed with excitement what promised to be a new era for the country and people’s movements globally.
As observed following Egyptians over social media, at best the anniversary is bittersweet. Many remain staunch believers of the basic principles of the revolution and refuse to give up on the revolutionary spirit or consider #Jan25 a failure. Others chose good old Egyptian sense of humor to ridicule president Abdel Fattah El Sisi, the security forces, and even the revolution itself.
Amidst this spirit of reclamation and remembrance, Mada Masr reported that at least 150 opposition activists were arrested in the day leading up to the anniversary of January 25. Those arrested included 78 Muslim Brotherhood members in Giza and the administrator of the Revolutionary Socialists Facebook page, 24 year-old Mohamed Essam. The government did not release the ID numbers or names of those arrested.
I followed the two hashtags #النظام_خايف_من or #The_Regime_Is_Afraid_Of and #الحرية_للجدعان or #Freedom _For_The_Brave and captured some of what people have said to remember the political prisoners and commemorate this year’s anniversary. The Arabic word Ged’an, plural of Gadaa’, can translate literally to “brave” but it also means someone decent, reliable or noble and is used here to describe political prisoners.
Journalist Nora Younis, Editor in Chief of Al Manassa, tells me the hashtag is a riff on the Egyptian saying السجن للجدعان or “prison is for the gallant”, referring to the toughness of imprisonment, as well as the fact that it is often prisoners of conscience behind bars. A few years ago, a Facebook page was launched to publish news about political prisoners, and the founders chose to reverse the saying, with the name Freedom for the Gallant/Brave.
#Freedom_For_The_Brave is one of many hashtags concerning political prisoners in the country. Famous Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef started a hashtag #افتكروهم or #Remember_Them, and he dedicated his Twitter account to write about prisoners for three days for his over six million followers.
في #25_يناير يبقى في خاطري شهداء البهية وشبابها وشاباتها المعتقلين في السجون. #الحرية_للجدعان وتحيا مصر pic.twitter.com/MRiyGwzPk8
— fady ghantous (@ghantous44) January 25, 2016
What's left on my mind of #January_25 are the martyrs of the ‘bahiyya’ or the beautiful Egypt. Its young men and women imprisoned in jails. #Freedom_For_The_Brave and long live Egypt
In this tweet @journaliso says:
شنت القوات الامنية المصرية مداهمات على ما يقرب من 5 الالاف منزل في محافظة #القاهرة قبيل الذكرى الخامسة لثورة #25_يناير #مصر #الحرية_للجدعان
— Shereen Sherief (@journaliso) January 25, 2016
The Egyptian security forces raided nearly 5000 homes in the #Cairo governorate before the fifth anniversary of the #Jan25 revolution #Egypt #Freedom_For_The_Brave
According to The Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, the number of political prisoners including prisoners of conscience includes some 41,000 people. Egyptian President Sisi issued a pardon in late September for 100 prisoners. International organizations, such as Amnesty International, warned “the international community must not be fooled by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s veneer of reform and empty promises.” Although two Al Jazeera journalists and other activists were among those released, Amnesty warned that those spots will soon be filled again.
“Most of those pardoned by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi should never have been locked up in the first place because they were peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and assembly. But given the authorities’ intolerance of peaceful dissent, the space vacated in prison cells by those freed in the pardon will be filled up again all too soon,” said Said Boumedouha, Deputy Middle East and North Africa Director at Amnesty International.
Every year around this time there is a presidential pardon for criminal prisoners. Campaigns usually precede the pardon hoping to bring public attention to those behind bars. The number of prisoners to be released this year has been announced and sources said they will be “criminal” prisoners. However, many political prisoners are behind bars on trumped up criminal charges.
Indeed, human rights workers and lawyers working on defending political prisoners say that this work seems at times “pointless”. The crackdown on civil and human rights in Egypt has reached unprecedented levels and the sentiment is that no one is safe, including those defending human rights or prisoners’ rights. The story of Taher Mokhtar is a case in point. Mokhtar was a doctor offering treatment for prisoners and documented cases of torture inside jails as part of his role in the Freedoms Committee of the Doctors Syndicate. He was arrested and accused, with others, of violence and attacking security forces, an accusation that became all too common for those observing the political climate in Egypt.
Nour Lotfy explains why it is important to raise awareness about those in prison:
اكتبوا عنهم عشان فى يوم هتحتاجوا اللى يكتب عنكم ✋ #اعرفوهم #الحريه_للجدعان #الحريه_للمعتقلين
— nour lotfy (@nourlotfy) January 27, 2016
Write about them because one day you will need someone to write about you #Get_To_Know them #Freedom_For_The_Brave #Freedom_For_Prisoners
Among prisoners of conscience is Mahmoud Mohammad. Mohammad was arrested on January 25, 2014, on the revolution’s third anniversary, less than a month after his eighteenth birthday. He may be Egypt's youngest prisoner, and was arrested for wearing a t-shirt that said “a nation without torture”:
#النظام_خايف_من محمود محمد وتشيرت مكتوب عليه وطن بلا تعذيب سنتين حبس احتياطي يا حكومة كافرة
— باندا ☃ (@ShahdanMohamed1) January 25, 2016
#The_Regime_Is_Afraid_Of Mohammad Mahmoud and a T-shirt that says “a nation without torture”. Two years “preemptive” imprisonment government of infidels/evils.”
#النظام_خايف_من #الاحرار #ماهينور_المصري #لؤي_قهوجي #يوسف_شعبان #علاء_عبد_الفتاح #طاهر_مختار وكل الجدعان #المعتقلين ف #مصر #jan25
— – (@Fatnnnnnnnnna) January 25, 2016
#The_Regime_Is_Afraid_Of the #free #Mahienour_Al_Massri #Luai_Qahwaji #Yousef_Shaaban #Alaa_AbdelFattah #Taher_Mokhtar and all the brave political #prisoners in #Egypt #Jan25
Other prisoners remembered were prominent activists Mahienour El-Massry and Alaa Abd El Fattah. El-Massry sent a defiant letter from her prison cell, balancing her optimism by recounting the mistakes and lessons learned from the revolution. On political imprisonment she said:
[…] there is no individual salvation, and that desperation and the attempts to escape to the outside or the inside will not help us make our day better. When we only saw ourselves and started calling for freedom only for those we know, and did not move for freedom for the all people (for example, in prisons there are not only thousands of innocent political prisoners, but also thousands of citizens who have been framed, or fell in debt or are serving time instead of others, because of the economic system of the state, and many other cases) if we allow the regime to separate us from the street and from our goals, then they have won the last round.
The full translation of El Massry’s letter is available on the Free Mahienour Facebook page.
As Mahienour points out, of the 41,000 political prisoners and those unjustly in jail, many faces and names remain unknown. The Freedom for the Brave campaign, embodied in the hashtag of the same name, has made it a point to campaign for all political prisoners, prominent activists and public figures, as well those unknown, regardless of their political affiliation.
The campaign combines online awareness campaigns and with on the ground organizing. As it states on its Facebook page, the campaign started following the third anniversary of the revolution, where nearly 1,000 people were arrested at the anniversary celebrations. Those arrested included political activists as well as many, including children, arrested arbitrarily. People online remind us of some of those faces, names and conditions they went through in jails.
Here are their words:
More translated tweets by Meedan can be found here.

author: Mira Nabulsi


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Facebook Finally Suspends ‘Pegida Macedonia’ Anti-Muslim Page · Global Voices
Adrijana Selmani

Facebook thumbs down.
“Pegida Macedonia”, a Facebook page in Macedonian known for Islamophobic messages, has been taken down after Macedonian users spent weeks reporting the page for hate speech.
Boasting over 1.1 million users in a country with approximately 2 million citizens, Facebook is the most influential social media platform in Macedonia. Facebook also is frequently used to disseminate discriminatory and hateful content aimed at a Macedonian audience. Like other Balkan countries, Macedonia has a long history of multicultural traditions and its demographic structure has been described as multi-ethnic and multi-religious. The largest religious groups are Orthodox Christians (65%) and Muslims (33%), generally coexisting in tolerance.
Though many Macedonian users regularly report hateful posts via Facebook's “Report Abuse” mechanism, much of the content they report remains live. Over the last several years, Facebook has rarely removed a page, group, post or event when it has been reported for spreading discrimination or hate speech, even in cases when such postings included direct threats to individuals or groups.
On December 15, 2015, “Pegida Macedonia” was created on Facebook, a page that clearly promoted Islamophobia. It is unclear if the page's founders have direct connection with the German political movement Pegida (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident), or if they are just imitators. The page's contents caused many people to report it, and also to call upon their friends to do the same. Given that reporting abuse on Facebook has shown few positive results in the past, many of those outraged remained passive or pessimistic about the page actually being shut down.
A profile picture of the page Pegida Macedonia on Facebook
Despite numerous reports, Facebook stated several times that the page did not violate its Community Standards, but some users nevertheless continued to report the page for abuse. Some directly addressed their friends who liked the page through tagging.
The number of calls to report this page on Facebook grew daily after the New Year and on January 26, 2016 Pegida Macedonia was finally shut down. One user, who reported the page for hate speech and wished to remain anonymous, received a notification explaining that this page violated Facebook's Community Standards.
Notification received by Facebook who reported the page because for violating Facebook's Community Standards.
The notification on Facebook boosted users’ hopes that such crowd-based efforts can bring positive results. Several Facebook users posted screen shots of the notification, which for many represented a sign that the quality of discourse in the community can improve with time. In addition, several local Macedonian media and campaigns that combat hate speech on the Internet wrote about this positive result achieved by the Macedonian Facebook users.

author: Adrijana Selmani


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Grandma March Day, the Balkan Tradition of Exchanging Handmade Amulets · Global Voices
Vasilka Dimitrovska

Tree decorated with amulets. Photo by Flickr user Niv Singer. (CC BY-SA).
In certain parts of the Balkans, there is a custom associated with the first day of March called Grandma March Day. On this day, loved ones exchange red-and-white tassels, pom-poms or braided bracelets to mark the approach of spring.
The hand-made amulets are known by many names: martinki (Мартинки in Macedonia), mártenitsa (Мартеница in Bulgaria), mărţişor (in Romania and Moldova), martis ( Μάρτης in Greece). They are worn, pinned onto clothing or tied onto the wrist until nature starts to bloom, and then they are hung on trees. This educational video by the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs explains their Mărţişor in more depth:
Four countries–Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania and Moldova–submitted a multinational application to UNESCO in 2013 to protect the Grandma March Day custom as intangible cultural heritage of the Balkan people. In December 2015, UNESCO invited the states to resubmit the application, and the process is ongoing.
In order to promote this common cultural practice, four organizations and cultural institutions from Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia have launched the ‘Happy Grandma March Day 2016’ project. It features a traveling exhibition of original handmade amulets from three of the countries as well as panels, documentaries, creative workshops and a bazaar where attendees can buy their very own amulet.
Hand-made ‘martinka’ from Macedonia. Photo by HAEMUS. Used with permission.
As part of the institutional cross-border partnership ”National Identities Within the United Europe”, this traveling exhibition with unknown final destination will first visit Skopje (Macedonia), then Vidin (Bulgaria) and Buzău (Romania) during March of 2016. The project is meant to directly support the multinational application to UNESCO to inscribe the amulet tradition in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
The fun associated with the springtime custom need not be limited to the Balkans. Wherever you are, you can join in by making your own martinka / mártenitsa / mărţişor / martis, as explained in this video tutorial from Bulgaria.

author: Vasilka Dimitrovska


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GV Face: He Left Brazil to Live like a Refugee in Europe · Global Voices
Sahar Habib Ghazi

Brazilian human rights and criminal lawyer Edgard Raoul used to work at a law firm in Sao Paulo. After a few months of feeling helpless while watching images and videos of people fleeing Syria and other conflict areas for a dangerous journey through Europe,  he quit his job and left his life behind.
He wanted to experience what refugees fleeing to Europe were going through. He started his journey in Turkey, then went to the Greek island Lesvos, Athens, through Idomeni onto Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Austria and Germany. All along the way he lived with refugees.
Our MENA contributor Faten Bushehri is interviewing Edgard in Amsterdam, where he is currently taking a break to prepare for his trip to the Middle East. He says he wants to understand where refugees come from.
In this episode of GV Face, we ask Edgard about what motivated him to leave his life behind and what he has learnt meeting and living with refugees.
Edgard holding a child refugee who barely made it crossing over turbulent waters from Turkey to Greece. Photo provided by Edgard. Taken in Lesbos.
During the interview, Edgard talked about one of his most haunting experiences through the journey — rescuing a little girl:
I was carrying a dead child in my arms (thinking) it’s not fair. It’s completely not fair.. it’s a child. I asked please, wake up, wake up, you just made it. It’s not fair to die right now. You arrived in Greece, let’s go. Let’s continue the journey. I put my hand on her chest to try to feel her heart.. and I could feel something. After 5 to 7 minutes, she started to open her eyes. And I took her to the doctors and then I ran to her father to give him the notice.. you know.. your daughter is alive, let’s go.. your daughter is alive! I’m sure it was the toughest moment, I was sure she was dead.

author: Sahar Habib Ghazi


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Russian Internet Users Turn to TV for News, But Trust Online Sources More, Study Finds · Global Voices
Tanya Lokot

Two thirds of Russians now go online regularly. Image from Japanexperterna.se, CC BY-SA 2.0.
Most Russian Internet users still rely on traditional media outlets for their daily news and information, according to a recent study by Foundation for Public Opinion. Almost half of the RuNet users go to multiple news sources to get the full picture.
The study, published on January 25, surveyed a thousand Internet users in over a hundred Russian cities about their information consumption habits.
An overwhelming 78% of Russian Internet users said they most often get their news from television. Online news websites lag slightly behind as a news source of choice with 60%, followed by conversations with friends and family (22%), radio (12%) and print media (10%). (Note: respondents could choose up to three answers to this question).
While 60% of Internet users in Russia rely on online news outlets as a key source, this figure is even lower for the 18-24-year-olds at only 54%. Instead, they are more fond of social media and blogs, choosing them almost twice as often (30%) as the average RuNet user overall (18%).
Almost 20% of those surveyed said they had not consumed any news online during the last month.
When asked to list the top five news topics they prefer to follow online, respondents put world news at the top with 39% of users seeking information on current world stories on the Internet. Russian politics and Russian government affairs are also popular (34% and 31%, respectively), followed by international relations and politics (30%). Women are much more interested in family and household news then men (33% vs. 9%), while men follow Russian military affairs more closely (31% vs. 8%).
An overwhelming 67% of users said they access their news through search engines, such as Yandex (55%) and Google (27%). 36% confessed they read news on social media platforms (VKontakte—in the lead with 26%, Facebook, Twitter, etc.), forums or blogs. Only 17% go to news websites directly to consume their news. The most popular news websites mentioned were vesti.ru (21%), RIA Novosti (17%), Argumenty i Fakty (16%), while TV Dozhd, Slon and Meduza got 3%, 2% and 1% respectively.
53% of those who used news sites said they had no particular preference for a source. At the same time, 29% Russian users said they preferred to use one or two sources to get their news, while 47% said they preferred to use multiple news sources to get a more comprehensive picture of current affairs.
48% of those surveyed said they trust information they see online (green), while 17% said they usually don't (red). Screencap of chart from fom.ru.
48% of respondents said they usually trust news they see online, while 17% said they do not trust Internet sources. At the same time, 37% of Russians believe Russian television and Russian online media report on important events in Russia and abroad in pretty much the same way, while an equal 37% said TV and online news coverage differs significantly. Among those who trust Internet sources more, 56% believe there's a difference between TV and online news coverage and comments.
In case messages and frames in TV news and online contradict each other, 32% of Russian Internet users said they would trust television news over online, and 30% said they would choose to trust the online sources. Respondents younger than 30 years old showed their trust skewed towards Internet media, with 36-37% trusting the online sources in case of contradictions, and only 25-28% trusting TV news.
According to a summer 2015 report from Foundation for Public Opinion, over two thirds of Russians (77.5 million) now go online regularly, so their opinions of online news sources and their consumption practices are key for those who seek to understand how (and whether) the Russian media sphere will change, given continuing state control over mainstream media and increasing pressure on the freedoms offered by the Internet.

author: Tanya Lokot