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Netizen Report: Can Brazil’s Government Use Google to Manipulate Public Opinion? · Global Voices
Netizen Report Team

Anti-Temer protest in São Paulo, August 2016. Rovena Rosa/Agência Brasil via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)
A January 12 article on the website of O Globo, one of Brazil’s most widely read daily newspapers, alleges that Brazil's government is seeking to work with Google to customize search results for Brazilian users, based on their location and possibly other characteristics.
According to the O Globo article, which did not name its sources, the government is hoping to tailor search results related to a controversial pension reform bill, which the Congress is scheduled to vote on in the near term. Google has made no public statements on the matter.
O Globo reports that members of President Michel Temer’s administration met Google representatives in early January to discuss the viability of directing users’ queries to official content produced by the government. According to the article:
It would work more or less like this: a rural worker who searches ‘pension reform’ would see content that explains that this category of worker won't be affected by the current version of the bill.
The highly unpopular pension reform bill is the boldest component of Temer's austerity package, which is aimed at keeping the public deficit under control. Since late 2016, the government has been struggling to secure support for the bill in Congress, and has since proposed a more moderate version of the bill. The stakes are even higher now as lawmakers worry that approving such an unpopular bill will hurt their chances of re-election in October.
If Google were to agree to such a proposal, the company would undercut its own previous arguments about the service it provides. In numerous court challenges, including multiple cases in Brazil, Google’s lawyers have argued that the search engine is a “neutral intermediary,” a algorithmic system designed to show users “relevant” information, according to a set of (highly subjective) metrics intended to determine relevance.
The idea also raises significant questions about the reach of Brazil’s Marco Civil da Internet, or Civil Framework for the Internet. Passed in 2015, shortly before the impeachment process began for former President Dilma Rousseff, the law protects network neutrality by prohibiting “discrimination or degradation of traffic for commercial purposes while permitting it for emergency and public calamity situations.” It does not explicitly address content discrimination for political purposes.
A series of government documents and chat logs, leaked by sources suspected to be inside the regime, reveal that the Ethiopian government is paying social media commenters to influence online conversations in the government’s favor. Among the documents is a list of individuals and the precise amounts of money paid to them for pro-government and anti-opposition postings. Most of the people on the list are already government employees. The revelations are consistent with increasingly aggressive pro-government, anti-opposition online campaigns, which have coincided with a rise in online hate speech online and persecution of independent journalists.
Indigenous Community Telecommunications, Mexico’s first and only association of community indigenous service providers, may be forced to stop operating after being charged one million pesos by Mexico’s national communications regulator for the radio frequencies it uses. Indigenous Community Telecommunications requested an exemption from payment as they are not-for-profit and have no commercial use, which was accepted as part of their initial licensing agreement. One year after they began operations, their request for exemption from the fee was denied. The group is challenging the resolution.
This week, faculty and staff at the University of Jammu, in the northern Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, learned that a 2017 regulation restricting state employees from certain types of speech on social media will extend to university employees as well. The 2017 regulation indicates that “no government employee shall engage in any criminal, dishonest, immoral or notoriously disgraceful conduct on social media which may be prejudicial to the government.”
The protests in Iran that broke out in late December could open an opportunity for the government to put into practice the country’s Access to Information law, which was passed in 2009, but has yet to be fully implemented. In the wake of the protests, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani gave a speech on the importance of transparency in governance, arguing, “We have no way other than clarity for rooting out corruption; we must all go inside a glass room so that people can see every measure we take.”
Twitter blocked the account of satirical magazine Titanic under the newly implemented German anti-hate speech law, NetzDG. The magazine’s account was shut down for 48 hours after it republished a deleted post parodying the anti-Muslim tweets of a far-right German politician, according to Columbia Journalism Review. The law gives social media platforms 24 hours to remove posts reported by users as being illegal.
The UK government is setting up a dedicated national security task force to counter disinformation spread by state actors, amid an investigation of claims that Russia interfered in the 2016 Brexit referendum campaign. No further details have yet been revealed about the operations of the new unit.
A new report from The Intercept reveals that the US National Security Agency has technology that can identify people by the sound of their voices, which is captured in a unique file called a “voiceprint.” The report draws on classified documents dating from 2004 to 2012, and indicates that US intelligence agencies have been using the technology in counterterrorism operations since as early as the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. The report raises legal concerns about the right to privacy, particularly as voice identifiers are a unique form of biometric data.
The United Nations Broadband Commission announced new targets for 2025 to support the expansion of global internet access, with the ultimate aim of connecting the 50% of the world who are currently offline. The 2025 targets urge countries to establish national broadband plans, make internet access more affordable and increase opportunities to build digital skills.
The commission also lowered the threshold for internet access “affordability” from 5% to less than 2% of monthly gross national income (GNI) per capita, reflecting increased sensitivity to income inequality. These proportions were first proposed by the Alliance for Affordable Internet in their 2016 Affordability Report. The targets also call for gender equality in all areas of internet use, acknowledging that women and girls are among the groups least likely to benefit from the digital economy.
Afef Abrougui, Ellery Roberts Biddle, Mohamed ElGohary, Rohith Jyothish, Inji Pennu, Karolle Rabarison, Elizabeth Rivera, Taisa Sganzerla, and Sarah Myers West contributed to this report.

author: Netizen Report Team


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Rejected by Australia and Condemned to Detention in Indonesia, Refugees Protest Life in Limbo · Global Voices
Nicole Valentini

Refugees Protes Photo by Asif Rahimi
Asif is a young, clever man of 28 years. Despite all the difficulties posed by life in a war-torn country like Afghanistan, he managed to study International Relations at Kabul University and become fluent in four languages, some of which he taught himself.
In a different time and place, Asif could easily have become whatever he wished—a professor, a diplomat—but not today, and not in the place in which he is currently forced to stay.
Four years ago, Asif decided to leave Afghanistan, after seeing the situation there becoming more drastically unstable year after year. He left in the hope of reaching Australia, a place to start a new life far from the war. During his journey, he found out that his wife was pregnant. He eventually reached Indonesia, and one month later, while being held captive in a detention center, he became the father of a beautiful little girl whom he has never had the chance to meet. But Asif is not a criminal—he is a refugee detained for the past four years in an immigration detention center in Balikpapan, Indonesia, along with other 183 other people.
Balikpapan detention center – Photo by Asif Rahimi
The detainees range in age from 14 to 62 years old, and include people from Somalia, Iran, among other countries. 181 of the detainees are Afghan Hazaras, an ethnic group that in the past decades has been targeted by the Taliban, and now by Daesh.
The Balikpapan detention center is a building fenced around with electrified barbed wire, originally designed to house those charged with crimes such as human smuggling, drug dealing, and cyber-hacking. The Balikpapan inmates are not allowed to study or work, and don't receive adequate medical care. Among them is at least one teenager and many adults who need urgent medical attention.
In Indonesia, there are 13 immigration detention centers with a total capacity of 1,300 detainees. These detention centers are usually unsanitary, overcrowded and prone to flooding in the rainy season. Since January 17, 2018 the refugees at the detention center in Balikpapan have been protesting against these conditions.
The refurbishing and enlarging the detention facilities was funded by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), using funds received from several Australian government agencies. Australian NGOs have denounced this “Indonesian Solution”, arguing that their government is paying Jakarta “hundreds of millions of dollars to detain and warehouse asylum seekers. Indonesian law permits immigrants to be detained for up to 10 years without judicial review.
Even though the IOM is not a humanitarian organization and does not have a mandate to assist asylum seekers and refugees, the Indonesian immigration authorities or the UNHCR refer asylum seekers and refugees to its care. In Indonesia, the IOM has effectively been helping Australia manage its border controls, but this is far from the only case where the organisation seems to be going against many aspects of its mission. The IOM has been criticized by researchers for its involvement in humanitarian work and in controversial projects in different parts of the world. In Libya, a country that has yet to recover stability following a NATO-led military intervention in 2011, the IOM has received tens of millions of dollars to bolster a system intended to prevent people from departing for Europe.
Indonesia has not ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention or its Protocol, and Southeast Asia has no human rights treaty. As a result, processing asylum applications falls to the UNHCR, which provides certificates recognizing individuals and families as refugees.
Almost all the people now detained in Balikpapan have been granted asylum by UNHCR, but Indonesian law does not allow them to be recognized as refugees.
As Human Rights Watch reported:
Even with recognition from UNHCR, refugees have no viable future in Indonesia. They have no legal status under Indonesian law, cannot work, and have limited access to education (…) The impact of prolonged, indefinite immigration detention is particularly severe for children, many of whom experience post-traumatic stress disorder or depression. Most unaccompanied children are detained with unrelated adults at risk of violence and exploitation. The situation is particularly harsh for children, who are arbitrarily detained in terrible conditions for months or years, without knowing how long they will be held.
Like the people in Australia's immigration detention centres in the Nauru and Manus Islands, the residents of Balikpapan remain hostages—both to a surge in anti-migrant sentiment, and to politicians keen to capitalise on that sentiment to win votes.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Nicole Valentini


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Veto Viber? Tax Telegram? Such Are Tajikistan’s Tech Company Conundrums · Global Voices
Salam Aleik

Cartoon by Hussam Al-Zahrani.
In an attempt to stem a cash flow crisis, Tajikistan is taking up increasingly hostile postures towards digital communications companies.
In recent months, the government has made moves to monopolize the internet service provision and revoke licences for cheap IP-based call services. It has also been reported that restrictions are being placed on popular mobile messaging applications.
These changes all could make life costlier for users in Tajikistan, the poorest country to emerge from the Soviet breakup.
At the beginning of January 2018, the state Communications Service ordered local, privately-owned internet service providers (ISPs) to purchase internet infrastructure only from the state-owned company “Tojnet” (managed by the state's telecommunications monopolist “Tojiktelecom”) instead of buying it directly from neighbouring Kyrgyzstan, as was their custom.
This was made worse when on December 18, 2017 authorities revoked ISPs’ licenses to provide IP-based cheap call services through a protocol known as NGN (New Generation Network).
At the start of 2018, users reported problems making calls through call and messaging app Viber, and suspected that the government was blocking the app.
Although state officials claimed that they took these measures in the interest of “national security” “because of extremists’ threats”, motivations for revoking NGN service and blocking Viber's audio and video call features appear to have been more economic than political. Both had become a thorn in the side of state-run Tojiktelecom, as they allowed millions of citizens with friends and relatives working abroad to keep in touch without using costly international calling services.
Over a million Tajiks are migrant workers outside the country, mostly in Russia. If it weren't for apps like Viber, Tajiks would likely be using international phone lines to call their relatives, and thus generating revenue for Tojiktelecom, the government-run international exchange point for telephony. Or they would simply call home less often.
While massive numbers of users complained Viber had become inaccessible at the beginning of the year, problems using the app later evaporated under mysterious circumstances.
Viber began working again some days ago, but its functionality has been inconsistent, with some users reporting that they are unable to make calls, while others say it is full functional. IMO, another popular messaging app, remains fully functional.
Curiously, the news website Akhbor, claimed that the (perhaps only partial) revival of Viber was the result of an intervention by Rustam Emomali, the 30-year-old mayor of capital city Dushanbe, who is also the son of long-reigning autocrat Emomali Rakhmon.
While the news report is seemingly based on the testimony of a single anonymous government source, the claim is believable.
Viewed as his 65-year-old father's most likely successor, Emomali has used social media and apps to boost his public profile in his new role, after prior stints in charge of the customs service and state anti-corruption agency.
According to regional news website EurasiaNet.org:
Only three months ago [Emomali] ordered the creation of a channel on Viber through which the general public could get in touch with the city government, so he is hardly likely to want to see the app being squeezed out.
Few major companies operate in Tajikistan. The country of 8.5 million is largely agrarian and strongly dependent on cash transfers sent by migrants working in Russia, which have dropped as a result of the economic downturn there.
That has left telecom companies and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) among the most significant contributors to Tajikistan's state budget. And beyond taxes, the companies have made other contributions to the state coffers.
At the beginning of 2017, at least three large telecommunications companies, two of them Russian (Megafon and Beeline) and one European (Tcell), faced large fines for tax evasion, ranging from USD $17 million to $35 million. The companies took the case to a local court but lost their legal battles. The only locally-owned major telecom, Babilon-M, was fined around USD $55 million in 2014.
Tajikistan also expects global tech firms to line up and pay. At the end of 2017, media reported authorities were looking to tax Google, Alibaba Group, and Telegram.
The basis for the reports was a letter from the head of the local tax committee to the government of Tajikistan dated September 2017  but leaked in December 2017. In it, tax chief Nusratullo Davlatzoda complained the Russian state budget had seen billions of rubles in income from Google, Apple, Alibaba, Amazon and others in 2017.
Davlatzoda suggested that mirroring Russia's approach could help Tajikistan solve its budget deficit.
The same letter also supports the idea that the attempted block on Viber was rooted in economic concerns.
The official blamed mobile messenger apps including Viber, WhatsApp and IMO for allowing Tajik citizens to communicate with their relatives in Russia free of charge:
Зарурат ба миён омадааст, ки барои ба танзим даровардани амалиёт дар интернет чораҳои дахлдор андешида шавад. Ҳамчунин, ба қонуни андоз ворид кардани талабот оид ба нигоҳ доштан ва ба буҷет гузарондани андозҳо аз хидматрасонии электронӣ, аз ҷумла ҷорӣ кардани андоз аз Интернет, ба мақсад мувофиқ мебошад
There is a need to take appropriate measures to regulate all actions carried out via the Internet. It is necessary to introduce a provision in the tax legislation that provides for the obligation to pay taxes for provision of services in electronic form, including tax from Internet.
Akhbor news site meanwhile recalled the words of the same official from a few years ago, when he was asked why the country was raising taxes on mobile companies:
Ҳозир ҳар як пойлуч соҳиби телефони мобил шудааст…
Now even barefooted ones have a mobile phone…
While the latest restrictions on online activity seem to stem from the country's dire economic situation, major platforms have been blocked for political and security reasons n the past.
YouTube famously became inaccessible in 2013, after a video of President Rakhmon singing and dancing at Rustam's wedding went viral. Russian social media website Odnoklassniki went down in 2014, apparently due to its popularity among Tajiks who had joined extremist groups fighting in Syria. Facebook, a hub for online opposition to the Rakhmons, has also been blocked on numerous occasions. All these come alongside many other blocks on small websites and blogs.
Most of these blocks are attributed to the country's communications director, Beg Sabur, who is related to the ruling Rakhmon family by marriage.
Sabur (formally called Beg Zokhurov) gained international notoriety in 2012 after he summoned Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to meet him in Dushanbe “during [his] office hours”. Needless to say, Zuckerberg didn't respond.

author: Salam Aleik


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Iranian Calligraphy Meets Comic Books and Western Pop Culture in Jason Noushin’s Art · Global Voices
Omid Memarian

Jason Noushin works in his studio in Connecticut. Photo provided by Jason Noushin and used with permission.
In his exhibition “All Her Number’d Stars”, currently on at Susan Eley Gallery in New York City, Iranian-British artist Jason Noushin explores the dynamic interplay between the two cultures that undergird his identity.
Noushin left Iran when he was 13 years old, but Persian culture still permeates his life, and in his artwork his Persian identity is thrown into stark and beautiful relief by his immersion in the culture of the west. The most stirring pieces in the show meld these different influences.
“Returning to the language of his childhood home, Noushin incorporates Persian calligraphy in many of his paintings and sculptures,” the Susan Eley Fine Art Gallery states in its press release for the show. “Farsi transliterations of poetry written by British literary greats such as Keats, Hawthorne and Shelley, are drawn across his canvases and reflect a reconciliation of the cultures that have shaped him.”
In addition to paintings and sculpture, the exhibition includes several of Noushin's drawings, demonstrating his skill and understanding of different media. “I've been drawing since I could hold a pencil,” Noushin said.  “It was always the most accessible form of art available and still today, is the foundation of everything I create.”
Sonnet III, a Jason Noushin painting with Persian calligraphy from “All Her Number'd Stars” collection at the Susan Eley Gallery. Image provided by Jason Noushin.
Noushin’s grandfather kept him supplied with drawing pads and pencils. His aunt Massoumeh Noushin Seyhoun was a painter, and one of the most important influences in her nephew’s life. According to Noushin, his aunt “early in her career recognized her passion was in promoting her peers in the nascent Iranian art market.” She launched Seyhoun Gallery in Tehran in 1966, which, from its inception, represented some of the most important Iranian artists of the twentieth century. Massoumeh Noushin Seyhoun passed away in 2010, but the Seyhoun Gallery lives on as the oldest art gallery in Iran.
Noushin stuck with drawing through his childhood. Painting came many years later. “My good friend Philippe gave me an easel, brushes, oils and a canvas in Paris when I was 24 and said knock yourself out.  That's how I learnt to paint, by trial and error and free-form experimentation.”
In an interview, I asked Noushin about his current exhibition, the significance of collage and calligraphy in his paintings, his use of a variety of media, and his sources of inspiration. Coming from a rich artistic background, Noushin’s paintings reflect an illuminating conversation about culture, identity and traditions mixed with familiar elements like pieces of comic books, which turn up in his paintings in subtle, harmonious and compelling ways.
Jason Noushin: “All Her Number’d Stars” was the direct result of another show, Beyond the Ban: Iranian Contemporary Art, held at Susan Eley Fine Art Gallery in the summer of 2017. The show was a benefit for the Center for Human Rights in Iran. I donated several canvases which were well received in the show. That led to a studio visit, and the rest is history, as they say.
JN: I'm a restless person and can lose focus—even interest—if I work on any one thing for a prolonged period. When I was younger, I'd translate that restlessness into working extremely fast to finish a painting in a single day. As I only work in oil, that meant working wet on wet, which can create particular challenges. To remedy this, I started painting on cardboard, which forces the paint to dry quicker. With more maturity I slowed down and allowed paintings to rest before being reworked. That, naturally meant working on several pieces at any given time, creating a more cohesive body across disciplines.
Working in two and three dimensions and trying to solve the same problem in multiple ways furthers my understanding of the practice of art. I have no formal art education and don't feel bound by rules. I see this as a limitless opportunity to learn and experiment. Making art is like a puzzle that changes with time and place.
JN: I was an antiquarian book collector/seller for over a decade. In that business, a small percentage of purchases are unsellable due to their condition. I started recycling pages from these old books as a support for my ink drawings and years later the same procedure created the comic book collages. As you say, there is a connection to identity. Art is not made in a void; it all comes from somewhere. I suppose my favorite memories (maybe somewhat exaggerated) are from my childhood in Tehran before the revolution. I enjoyed reading comic books and playing street soccer as boys do in Tehran. So, yes, these comic book collages are reminders of a time and place that no longer exists.
Jason Noushin's ‘All Her” from the “All Her Number'd Stars” collection at the Susan Eley Gallery. Image provided by Jason Noushin.
JN: Surprisingly, I've lived in the United States longer than any other country. I came here 20 years ago with the intention of returning to France after a year but, that didn't come about. Although I haven't been back to Iran since I left at age 13, being Iranian, with all the richness of its culture and language, is present in my everyday life. It is who I am no matter where I live.
JN: I find women more interesting than men. The majority of people I know are women.
This might be the result of being raised by two extraordinarily strong women, my grandmother and aunt.  My grandfather was a very quiet and private man. So it's not surprising that my work reflects that. The female protagonist is almost always the same person but, she wears different skins, such as calligraphy or comic book leaves, which were an important influence in my teens.
Jason Noushin's ‘Hit Me’ in the “All Her Number'd Stars” collection at the Susan Eley Gallery. Image provided by Jason Noushin.
JN: I've always been fascinated with human history. As a schoolboy, I was captivated with the ancient Egyptians after a visit to the British Museum and for a couple of years thereafter, I tried learning to read hieroglyphs. I like the smell of history and prefer old to shiny new. That is the source of my interest in antiquarian books. Nostalgia is not tangible but, if you want to capture some of it and make it your own, art is the best vehicle. Art has the power to transport you to a different time and place. My imagination is more active when I think of the past rather than the future.
JN: A painting always starts with choosing the linen, stretching and sizing it with rabbit-skin glue, then staining, folding or otherwise manipulating the canvas. I spend just as much time creating a support as I do painting, drawing or building upon it. I find these stretched canvases so beautiful, that at times I fear I'd be ruining them with an added image.
: I really don't know. I’m still exploring. Obviously, the influence of pop culture and traditional Persian calligraphy are at odds with each, but their combined visual impact is harmonious. It's stylistic, it's decorative, it's deeply enthralling and engaging at the same time.
: The practice of art is always in flux for me. I try not to constrict myself with rules or get comfortable and lazy repeating the same work. Mixing Western pop with Eastern calligraphy is a fun and recent challenge. However, a change is bound to happen sooner than later.
Visual references can come from anywhere. Ideas can sometimes they stay dormant for long periods, years even before I can adequately execute them. I spend a lot of time reading about art, walking through galleries and museums, absorbing the process and methods of others. Nature, too, is a singular source of inspiration.
These three are headed to Brown University's @watsoninstitute and the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities this morning. The show runs from October 27, 2017 to January 27, 2018. Opening is November 8th. CROSSING BORDERS, curated by Judith Tolnick Champa and @jocelyn_foye #art
A post shared by  Jason Noushin (@jnoushin) on
: Persian calligraphy is a beautiful art form. Although it's the same alphabet Arabs use, Iranians have perfected and mastered this art form. Calligraphy is extremely versatile and I’m experimenting with its limitless possibilities as an extension of line drawings.
: I have met some very talented Iranian artists here in New York. Some travel back and forth to Iran. I haven't but, I miss it, especially the street food. I'd love to have a show in Tehran. That'd be the perfect excuse for a visit.

author: Omid Memarian


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Polarized by Populism, Czech Society Braces for a Second Round of Presidential Elections · Global Voices
Jan Lockenbauer

Czech presidential candidates Miloš Zeman and Jiří Drahoš. Wikipedia photos by OISV and Jindřich Nosek (NoJin), CC BY-SA 4.0.
The Czech Republic's presidential election was held on January 12 and 13, but none of the nine candidates obtained an absolute majority of votes. Therefore, the second run-off will take place on January 26 and 27, including a face-off between the top two candidates from the first round: Miloš Zeman, current head of state, and Jiří Drahoš, former chief of the country's Academy of Sciences.
The election has driven ardent debates among citizens both on and offline. As a parliamentary republic, the president has very limited executive powers delimited by the Constitution, yet the election has polarized an already divided Czech society.
During his office, Miloš Zeman has largely contributed to the deepening of social divisions due to his zero-tolerance approach toward his opponents and his populist attitude toward supporters.
According to the pre-election Facebook analysis entitled “What do the voters of the candidates read on Facebook?” Zeman's supporters on this social network are largely readers of alternative news websites with unclear funding, often designed as propagators of pro-Russian fake news.
One Twitter user refers to Zeman's questionable ties to Russia:
Pokud vycházíme ze 2 premis A:hybrid válka RFvsČR, pomocí dezinf webů B: MZ=kandidát RF(+mafie v RF podnikající-PPF,Nejedlý, Zbytek),graf ukazuje jasně,že dezinf válka zcela nasála příznivce MZ jako houba.
Dle grafu konzumují jen čistě produkty RF propag.
Co čtou voliči kandidátů pic.twitter.com/eCDm3ixHr2
— Karel Paták (@KarelPatak1) January 8, 2018
Given two premises A (there is a hybrid war of Russia federation against Czech Republic by means of disinformation websites) and B (Zeman is a candidate of Russian Federation and the Mafia doing business in Russia – PPF, Nejedly and Zbytek ), then this graph shows clearly that the disinformation was sucked in Zeman’s supporters like a sponge. According to this graph they consume only products of Russian propaganda.
News sites such as aeronet.cz/news, parlamentnilisty.cz and euportal.cz mobilize news that stokes nationalist sentiments, placing a strong emphasis on the military and political independence of the Czech Republic from European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). These sites portray refugees of war and economic migrants from the Near East and Sub-Saharan Africa as dangerous Islamic terrorists.
Zeman’s supporters often refer to these sites when accusing the Public Broadcasting Service of lacking objectivity in their reporting. Zeman reinforces this notion through his open expression of distrust toward the public media.
In 2014, many journalists criticized Zeman for his Eastern bias in foreign affairs and for his use of foul language on Czech Public Radio. In response, he chose only to give interviews with alternative news websites and tabloids presses, designating public television as “a can full of spoiled meat.” He talked regularly on his own television show on a private channel.
Through his communication channels, Zeman designated an unspecified group of his opponents as the “Prague café,” fueling the stereotype of the intellectual liberal from the big city who lazes around all day in cafes and merely feigns tolerance for others.
Zeman’s diehard supporters use “Prague café” as a derogatory expression to designate famous artists, actors, academics, intellectuals and anyone else who publically criticizes Zeman. The expression is also used to refer to anyone who continues the legacy of Vaclav Havel, a former president deceased in 2011 who aligned the nation with Western values and policies after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Havel's human-rights based foreign policies stand in stark contrast to Zeman's exclusively economical approach.
Those loyal to Zeman refer to his critics as ‘traitors of the nation’ paid by George Soros, an American philanthropist who supports a wide range of non-profit organizations, including those that support refugees. [Editor's note: Global Voices is a grantee of the Open Society Foundation, which is part of the Soros network.]
Before the second round of the presidential election, Zeman constantly highlighted topics appearing on alternative news websites. He tried to portray Jiri Drahoš, his opponent, as a weak person who intends to destroy the nation through lax immigration policies supporting Muslim refugees.
Jiri Drahoš is not widely known and has no direct political experience except for eight years in the semi-political post as the head of the Academy of Science. With a background in chemistry, he has invented several patents and has a reputation in some circles as decent and polite yet indistinct. His supporters believe he brings impartiality and politeness to the presidency.
As an opposition candidate, Zeman's supporters immediately labeled him as a member of the ‘Prague café’ who wants the Czech Republic to lose its autonomy and submit to the demands of larger European nations.
One Twitter user exclaimed:
Slyšíte to ticho, pražská kavárna se bojí o výsledek voleb, ví že to má nahnutý, cítí konec kultu Havla
— Žarko Raptor (@ZarkoRaptor) January 12, 2018
Can you hear the silence? Prague café fears results of election. They know it is their end. They feel the end of the cult of Havel.
Another user makes jokes about Zeman's populist rhetoric and anti-immigration policies by calling attention to the topless Ukrainian civic activist who lunged toward Zeman with shouts of protest at the polling booth on January 15. Zeman, getting ready to cast his vote, seemed shocked and defenseless:
Soudruh Zeman se neubrání polonahé holce, ale chce bránit národ před imigranty. A já se ptám, jak to chce udělat???
— Radek Hlava (@RadekHlava) January 13, 2018
Comrade Zeman can’t manage to defend himself against nude girl and wants to defend the nation against immigrants. And I am asking myself how he want to do it?
Another proclaimed that he knows why the “Prague café” doesn't want Zeman to be president again:
Proc kavarne,alias neziskovkam,alias Soros globalistum,ten Zeman tak vadi?Proc tam davaji “megaslusneho”chemika,ktery vubec nechtel byt prezidentem?.Asi proto,ze chteji rozbit V4,Visegrad,abychom se my postkomunisticke zeme nemohli branit diktatu,Nemecka a Bruselske nomenklatury.
— Jerry V (@napajedlacek) January 18, 2018
Why (Prague) cafe i.e. non-profit organizations, i.e. Soros’s globalists, can’t stand Zeman? Why they nominated “mega polite” chemist, who has never want to be president? Maybe because they want to destroy the Visegrád Group in order that we, post-communist countries, can’t defend ourselves from the dictate of Germany and Brussels nomenclature.
Yet another refers to an official survey by broadcast television, pointing out that the chances of both candidates are almost equal:
OVM: Zeman 45.5 Drahoš 45 neví 9.5
— Petr Holy (@petrholy) January 21, 2018
Survey for OVM: For Zeman is 45.5 per cent, for Drahoš 45 per cent. 9.5 percent don’t know yet.
Likely, the election will be resolved by previously undecided voters who have made their decision during the last two weeks on the basis of television debates and campaign-related events.

author: Jan Lockenbauer


text:
Since 2016, Myanmar Courts Have Convicted 100% of People Charged Under Telecom Law 66 (d) · Global Voices
Qurratulain (Annie) Zaman

Journalist Wunna Tun (left) in conversation with poet and activist Maung Saungkha at the Myanmar Digital Rights Forum 2018
In 2016-17, every person charged under Section 66 (d) of Myanmar's Telecommunications Law was convicted and sentenced to prison.
The notorious Section 66(d) provides for up to three years in prison for “extorting, coercing, restraining wrongfully, defaming, disturbing, causing undue influence or threatening any person using a telecommunications network.”
New research by Free Expression Myanmar (FEM), a local NGO, shows that the use of Section 66 (d) has produced a 100 percent conviction rate and that penalties issued under the law have disproportionately harsh. “Every court has given a prison sentence and none has given a fine,” the group stated in the report titled “66 D: No Real Change”.
The FEM report monitored 106 cases from November 2015 to November 2017, observing that there has been an increase in the number of cases since the National League for Democracy (NLD) assumed power in 2016. NLD is led by Nobel Laureate Aung Sang Suu Kyi, who for many years had criticized the military-led government for suppressing free speech in the country.
One prominent example of how local officials have used section 66 (d) to harass the media came with the case of Democratic Voice of Burma journalist Wunna Tun. While working on an investigative story about irregularities in irrigation loans to farmers in the Bago region, village officials accused him of being corrupt and distributing inaccurate information.
Another Section 66 (d) case involved Swe Win, the editor of Myanmar Now, who was arrested over a complaint filed by a member of the ultra-nationalist Ma Ba Tha movement over a Facebook post in which he suggested that its leader, U Wirathu should be expelled from the monkhood for lauding the murder of NLD legal advisor Ko Ni. Ko Ni was a rare prominent Muslim political leader in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.
FEM lead researcher Maung Saungkha also has been charged for violating Section 66 (d). The prominent poet and social activist shared a summary of his case:
The government arrested me and put me in the prison because I wrote a poem about the president on Facebook. Since I have to face my trial from the prison, I was at a great loss. The sentence was six-month imprisonment. Since I have already stayed in prison for seven months, I was released immediately after the sentence.
In the poem, the narrator describes having an image of an unnamed president tattooed on his genitals.
Saungkha was charged under section 66 (d) of the Telecommunications Law and section 505(b) of the penal code. He still stands for his artistic rights as a poet and is at the forefront of the campaign to repeal section 66 (d).
According to him, the FEM report confirmed worries that the changes made in 2017 to the law were not sufficient.
In this research I manage to let the public know that there are still cases being charged under 66D and freedom of expression is still limited in the country.
The report notes that several provisions of the law are vaguely and narrowly described and subject to different interpretations. For example: section 66 (d) does not adequately define what actions would be considered “disturbing”, or “causing undue influence.”
The Burma Campaign – UK explained how the law undermines freedom of expression:
It is widely used against journalists and activists. Some media even refuse to publish articles which criticise the military or the government to avoid being sued and jailed. The law puts such control on the media that it leads to self-censorship. It also appears that some NLD leaders find Section 66 (d) useful to suppress criticism towards the government.
Human Rights Watch commented that the law “has opened the door to a wave of criminal prosecutions of individuals for peaceful communications on Facebook and has increasingly been used to stifle criticism of the authorities.”
Free Expression Myanmar was established by a group of human rights defenders who are leading a new civil society coalition that seeks to challenge the Telecommunications Law, and advocate for the removal of Section 66 (d).
The coalition is called the Movement for the Telecommunication Law Reform and Section 66 (d) Abolition. To promote awareness about the issue, the group launched a new website that contains a database of all section 66 (d) cases.

author: Qurratulain (Annie) Zaman


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Uzbekistan and its Migrants: A Tale of Two Presidents · Global Voices
Salam Aleik

Map of Central Asia. More than fifty migrants from Uzbekistan (red) died in a bus fire in Kazakhstan (green) en route to Russia on January 18. Author: Cacahuate. Own work based on the blank world map. CC 2.0.
Citizens from Uzbekistan represent one of the largest migrant communities in Russia and play a major role alleviating the poverty experienced by families back home. Up until recently, however, the Central Asian country's government has been slow to acknowledge them, with late President Islam Karimov even referring to them as “lazy” during a typically incendiary speech in 2013.
Shavkat Mirziyoyev, his successor, has taken a different tack. When commenting on the horrific death of 52 Uzbek migrants in a bus fire en route to Russia earlier this month, he blamed his own government and officials for creating an economic environment that has forced more than two million people to seek low-paying jobs abroad.
During a visit to a local mausoleum, he prayed for the victims of the bus blaze and expressed condolences to the families:
Кечаги бўлган палакатлар кўп нарсадан далолат беради. Халқимизни олдида ҳали қарзимиз кўп. Одамларизга шароит яратмаганимиз учун, улар бегона юртларга бориб иш қидириб юришибди. Бу албатта давлатчилик, давлат раҳбарияти, ҳамма тизимдаги раҳбарларнинг хато ва камчиликлари ўз вақтида бартараф этилмаганидан далолат беради.
Улар бегона юртларда сарсон-саргардон бўлиб юрибди деган гап, бу бекор гап эмас. Бечора уларнинг ҳам умидлари, орзулари бўлган албатта. Худодан не ниятлар қилиб, боламни боқаман, отамга бир сўм олиб келаман, деб йўлга чиққан. Қандай ёш-ёш йигитлар, мўмин мусулмонлар, ҳаммаси ўзбекистонликлар”
The tragedy that has happened is evidence of many things, including the fact that we still owe people a lot of things. People have to look for jobs in other countries because we have not created conditions for them. It shows the state, the government, and all leaders of this system were unable to eliminate shortcomings in time.
They wander in other countries in search of jobs — poor them. They also have dreams, of course. They go to earn a piece of bread for their children or a little bit money for their fathers. Very young guys, all Muslims, all Uzbekistanis.
Mirziyoev took charge of Uzbekistan in September 2017 after 13 years serving as Prime Minister under Karimov, who died of a stroke. Karimov's reign of three decades began during the country's pre-Soviet independence.and was well-noted for its brutal brand of authoritarianism.
Mirziyoyev has given only limited nods to democracy and human rights since coming to power, but has embraced populism as a governing strategy. The 60-year-old has scored points with a downtrodden population by eschewing some of the worst policies of his predecessor, and saying the right things at the right time.
Karimov, by contrast, never seemed to care how he was viewed. His trolling of migrants nearly five years ago was symptomatic of a man who had long ago lost touch with the daily realities faced by his people:
Дангасалар деб кимни ҳисоблайман? Ҳўв Москвани бориб кўчаларини, майдонларини супурадиганларни. Ўтта нима йўқ… Одам жирканади, ки ўзбек миллатидан шунақа бориб, ўзига бир бурда нон топиш учун шу ёққа бориши керак экан. Ҳа, Ўзбекистоннинг ўзида ҳеч ким очликдан ўлаётгани йўқ
Who do I consider lazy? Those, who go to Moscow to sweep streets, squares. What is there for them? This is disgusting. The Uzbek nation is so ashamed [of them] — it turns out that for a piece of bread you have to go so far. But in Uzbekistan no one dies of hunger, thank God!
Shortly after the tragic bus fire that occurred in neighbouring Kazakhstan January 18, Mirziyoyev also issued a decree relaxing restrictions that effectively prevented many internal migrants from seeking work in the Uzbek capital Tashkent.
The measures in place before January 22 had reduced demographic pressures on the capital while further fuelling the outflow of citizens to Russia.
The strict ‘propiska’ registration system still remains in place, but registration documents now no longer serve as pre-requisites for finding work in the city of 2.5 million people.
Nevertheless, it seems not all state officials are ready to go soft on migrants.
The regional governor of one of the country's most densely populated regions was recently caught on secret audio cursing people hailing from the area where 16 of the 52 migrants that died in the January 18 bus fire hailed as “bastards”.
Governor Shukrat Ganiev accused them of having “shamed” his region by allowing young male citizens to seek work abroad in comments relayed by media on January 24.
He also appeared to publicly regret the compensation given to the families of victims by the state, and threaten to cut the region's quota for the hajj pilgrimage.
In one of several furious comments underneath a RFE/RL report on the leaked audio, a reader vented:
Обвиняя всех людей района и называя их ублюдками Шухрат Ганиев позорит честь Узбекистана, честь правительства страны. Таких крыс, как этот хоким, нужно гнать пинками. Президент признал проблемы, выразил соболезнование, а какой то каримовский манкурт говорит обратное. Да кто он такой, чтобы перечить нашему президен.
By accusing everyone in that district and calling them bastards, Shukhrat Ganiev dishonours Uzbekistan and its government. Rats like this governor need to be kicked out. The President acknowledged [economic] problems, expressed his condolences, and this Karimov-type traitor [is caught] saying the opposite. Who is he to contradict our president?
Ganiev remains in his post as of this writing.


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Who Is Responsible for Ending Sexual Violence in Somalia? · Global Voices
Faaris Adam

Internal Displaced Women at Madina Camp. Photo by Faaris Adam
In October 2017, 16-year-old Faiza Mohamed Abdi was shot in the “pelvic area” for declining the sexual advances of her attacker in the port town of Bosaso, Somalia. Abdi was brutally wounded by Abdikadir Warsame, a solider with the security forces in Somalia’s semi-autonomous region of Puntland. Since December 2017, Faiza has been undergoing treatment in a hospital in Turkey. Radio Dalsan reports:
Faiza was reported to have been attacked by a Puntland state navy soldier who wanted to rape her while she was in Bosaso town but she struggled hard to defend herself from her attacker. On realizing that he can’t succeed in his mission, the soldier who was named as Abdikadir Warsame shot her at the private part leading her to sustain serious injury. She was later moved to Mogadishu for treatment but unfortunately, doctors said that she requires a specialized medical attention that is beyond their level.
Unfortunately, Faiza is not alone. Although some of Somalia's semi-autonomous regions have made recent attempts to push through anti-rape legislation, a general culture of impunity allows many violators to go unpunished — and tales of rape abound.
In Somalia, more than two decades of civil war and famine have forced many people to flee their homes and live in IDP camps. Women and girls who live in camps outside the main cities are the most vulnerable to sexual assault. They do not have any protection and most rape cases occur in the middle of the night or when they are collecting firewood in remote areas. At the same time, due to the breakdown of the criminal justice system, victims often do not have access to the legal assistance necessary to seek justice.
Fiican, a 45-year-old single mother and Buulo Ba'alay IDP camp resident, was raped in front of her children. She described the event in an interview with GV, stating:
It was a midnight when an armed man with Puntland police uniform cracked my home, took me out by force and raped me. Not only did he rape, he tortured me and left me with severe wound on my body that still cause lot of pain up to now.
The night of Fiican's assault, men from Puntland Police went to the Bula Bacley IDP camp in the central city of Galkayo. The men broke into tents, taking Fiican and another mother by force. Both women were raped. Unfortunately, the victims have yet to receive justice for the violations they suffered. The assailants were arrested but have neither been charged in court nor sentenced for their crimes.
According to the Puntland Human Right Defenders, 80 rape cases were reported in Somalia’s semi-autonomous region of Puntland in 2017. The real number of rapes is thought to be much higher because many victims do not speak out due to fear of stigmatization, a lack of trust in the criminal justice system and a lack of prepared health facilities.
Aside from the issues of justice, another obstacle for survivors of sexual assault is the lack of health infrastructure, modern tools, and equipment that are required in this sector. The health system also lacks the qualified personnel to handle rape-related cases.
Local culture can also be an obstacle to justice because of a regional custom which obligates victims to marry their assailants or accept “camels or livestock” as compensation for their assault:
Rape is pervasive and often goes unpunished in much of Somalia, where decades of conflict have fueled a culture of violence and weakened institutions meant to uphold the law. Traditionally, rape victims are forced to accept compensation – often in the form of camels or livestock – and marry their assailants in a centuries-old practice designed to end war between rival clans.
On 9 Sept 2017, the semi-autonomous region of Puntland made headlines when it opened the first forensic lab to handle rape cases in the city of Garowe.
The year before, in September 2016, Puntland also became the first administrative region in Somalia to pass an anti-rape law.The House of Parliament voiced resounding support with 42 out of 45 members voting in favor of the bill which was later officially made into law.
On 6 January 2018, the Parliament of self-declared state Somaliland followed Puntland's lead and also proposed a new anti-rape bill.  However, there is still a long way to go before it is passed by the Guurti (House of Elders) and is signed into law.
Although the rape issue has attracted attention from the Somali government as well as the international community in the past years, sexual violence against women and children remains rampant and the number of assault cases continues to grow.

author: Faaris Adam


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A Victim of Police Brutality in Myanmar Seeks Justice While Confronting Racist Comments on Social Media · Global Voices
Guest Contributor

Kyaukdata police station in Yangon, Myanmar. Photo via Google Map Streetview.
A Myanmar man is facing a backlash online and in the justice system, after reporting that he was arrested arbitrarily by the police.
On his Facebook account, the young man described how a group of men in civilian clothes — who claimed to be police officers — attempted to arrest him while he was on the street using his phone at night of January 18.
Frightened by the situation, the man ran inside a nearby hotel to ask for help. The hotel staff refused to help and turned him over to the same police officers, who then took him to the police station. The man said the plainclothes officers verbally and physically abused him while they were en route to the station.
“ရဲတွေမှန်ရင် ဖမ်းဝရမ်းပါလား၊ ခင်ဗျားတို့ ကျနော့်ကိုဘာအမှုနဲ့ ဖမ်းမှာလဲ”လို့ ကျနော်ထပ်မေးပါတယ်။ […] “ဖမ်းဝရမ်းပါစရာမလိုဘူး၊ ငါတို့ကရဲတွေကွ”ဆိုပြီးကျနော့်ကို ၆ယောက်လုံးက လုံးထွေးပြီး ရိုက်နှက်ပြီးကားနောက်ဖုံးထဲကို အတင်းစောင့်တွန်းပြီးတင်ပါတယ်။
[When I was caught, I asked them] “If you are police, do you have warrant to arrest me? On what charge do you arrest me?” […]
Then they said: “We are police, we don't warrant” and then all 6 of them beat me together and pushed me into the back of the car.
He was released on the same night when his father arrived at the police station. A week after he was released, he wrote about his experience on his Facebook page.
The story quickly went viral, receiving over a thousand shares in just one night, and was subsequently reported on by mainstream media. In his post on January 26, the man recounted his experience and explained why he had to post his story on social media:
နောက်တစ်နေ့မနက်မှာ ကျနော့်သူငယ်ချင်း မောင်ဆောင်းခနဲ့အတူ မြို့နယ်ရဲမှုးဆီကို သွားရောက် တိုင်တန်းပြီး ဒီလိုမျိုး အပြစ်မဲ့တဲ့ နိုင်ငံသားတစ်ယောက်ကို ဥပဒေဘောင်တွေ ရဲလုပ်ထုံး လုပ်နည်းတွေကျော်လွန်ပြီးရိုက်နှက်ဆဲဆို၊ ခြိမ်းခြောက်ဖမ်းဆီးခဲ့တဲ့ကိစ္စကို အရေးယူပေး ဖို့ပြောဆိုခဲ့ပါတယ်။ ဒါပေမယ့် ရဲမှူးကအထက်ကို အမြန်ဆုံးတင်ပြပြီး ဆောင်ရွက်ပေးပါ့မယ်လို့ပြောပြီး ယနေ့ထက်ထိအရေးယူခြင်းမရှိသေးပါဘူး။
The next day I went to the township police officer to report this case and asked them to take action [against the plainclothes officers] for intimidating, unlawfully beating, and arresting an innocent citizen without a warrant. Although the township police officer has promised to bring justice, no action has been taken to this day.
Many Facebook users rallied behind the unlawfully arrested citizen and expressed their support.
One activist invoked provisions in the constitution that guarantee the right to protection and privacy of citizens:
ကျမတို့ အကာအကွယ်တွေ ရပြီး လွတ်လပ်လုံခြုံနေပြီလား ???
ကျမတို့တွေရဲ့ ပုဂ္ဂိုလ်ဆိုင်ရာ လွတ်လပ်မှုနှင့် ပုဂ္ဂိုလ်ဆိုင်ရာလုံခြုံမှု ကိုရော ကာကွယ်ပေးနေကြရဲ့လား ???
၂၀၁၇ခုနှစ် မတ်လ(၈)ရက်နေ့က အတည်ပြုပြဋ္ဌာန်းထားတဲ့ “နိုင်ငံသားများ၏ ပုဂ္ဂိုလ်ဆိုင်ရာ လွတ်လပ်မှုနှင့် ပုဂ္ဂိုလ်ဆိုင်ရာလုံခြုံမှုကို ကာကွယ်ပေးရေးဥပဒေ” မှာ အောက်က အခန်းနှစ်ခန်းပါပါတယ်။ ဖတ်ကြည့်ပါ။
[…]
Are we free and safe now? Do we have protection now? Is our right to privacy and the right to personal safety being protected?
In “Citizen Privacy and Personal Safety Protection Law” prescribed on March 8, 2017, there are two sections [that protect his case]. Read below
[…]
Thaw Htet highlighted the fact that the police were not wearing uniforms:
Seems like Burmese police aren't police but thugs who beat up people for no apparent reason. Well, no surprise there.
After the story went viral, the police station's Facebook page denied the accusation and even insinuated that the person had fabricated the incident and his injuries. It also exposed the personal identity of the complainant and mentioned that his religion is Islam, a detail that has no relevance to the incident, but could make the man more vulnerable, due to religious tensions in the country. The post was later deleted.
Screenshot of the post published on the Kyauktada police station Facebook page that was later deleted.
Myat Thu questioned the relevance of citing the religion of the complainant:
လမ်းဘေးမယ် ငုတ်တုပ်ထိုင်ပီး ဖုန်းပွတ်မိလို့
ရဲအရိုက်ခံရတဲ့ ကိုသန်းတိုးအောင်ကိစ္စကို ကျောက်တံတားရဲစခန်းက ပြန်ရှင်းထားတာမှာ
ဘာကြောင့် အစ္စလာမ်လို့ ထည့်ရေးထားတာလဲ?
ပြီးတော့ အဖမ်းခံရချိန်မှာ မင်း ကုလားလား၊ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံသားလား ဘာညာလည်း မေးတယ်ကြားတယ်
Hate Crime လေလား
When Kyaukdata Police Station released a statement to explain the situation, why did they need to mention ‘Islam’ in their statement? They arrested and beat him while he was using his phone on the street at night. And from what I heard, they asked if he was ‘kalar’ or a citizen of Myanmar while he was being arrested.
Could [we] even call it a Hate Crime?
The word “kalar” is derogatory term, typically used to refer to people of east Indian origin in a racist manner. In recent years, it has been used by ultra-nationalists and religious fundamentalists to attack Muslims in Myanmar, especially the Rohingya minority in the northwest part of the country. Rohingya Muslims born in Myanmar are not recognized by the government as an ethnic minority group and thus are typically not recognized as citizens of the country at all, despite it being the place of their birth.
While there were many comments criticizing the actions of the police and their failure to bring the perpetrators to justice, there were also racist comments under his post.
After the story went viral, hate speech comments attacking the complainant based on his facial features, skin color, and ethnic identity became more prominent than the original issue of police brutality.
Hate speech on social media targeting religious minorities in Myanmar has been a disturbing trend since the rise of the ultra-nationalist movement in 2012. The increasingly large number of people who subscribe to extreme Buddhist nationalist ideology in the country have been targeting the Muslim minority and Rohingya people on social media with racist hate speech.
The Yangon Police say they will conduct a thorough investigation of the incident.

author: Guest Contributor


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Meet ‘Uyatman’, the Kazakh Superhero out to Stop Women Behaving Indecently · Global Voices
Eurasianet

Uyatman, a superhero satirizing the real-life moral guardians in Kazakhstan. (Illustration by Murat Dilmanov. Published on EurasiaNet.org)
The following is a partner post from EurasiaNet.org written by Almaz Kumenov. Republished with permission.
A new superhero called Uyatman appeared on the scene in Kazakhstan a couple of years back. As long as Uyatman was on patrol, the public could rest safe in the knowledge that women would not be caught out and about behaving indecently.
Uyatman was the brainchild of cartoonist Murat Dilmanov, who developed the character as a way of poking fun at a creeping mood of censoriousness in the country. The superhero’s name was a waggish compound of the word uyat(shame) and man.
In the past weeks, there has been another wave of moralizing vigilantism that suggests the trend shows no sign of abating, and may even be deepening. It all began when Aizhan Baizakova, a 22-year old actress and social media celebrity, was thrown into jail for three days on charges of hooliganism after a party on December 17 at her Almaty nightclub, Zakova, got out of control. Law enforcement officials acted after receiving a tip that Baizakova had offered cash prizes to tempt women partying at her club to strip naked onstage.
More indignation followed. Baizakova was inundated with abuse and threats of violence. A video widely shared online showed a group of burly men, a couple of them uneasily clenching their fists, making a collective statement of condemnation of Baizakova and her actions. The only person speaking in the video, an unnamed middled-aged man in a padded blue jacket, issued a sweeping condemnation of female promiscuity and enjoined Kazakh men to stop women from indulging in such behavior.
“To strip and then wear a saukele [traditional Kazakh bridal headdress]. What is this disgrace and shame? We address this video to anybody who has honor and pride. Support us!” the man in the video says.
Sure enough, a few days before New Year, a large group of rowdy men turned up for an impromptu rally outside the Zakova nightclub.
“Can we not forbid this kind of thing? If they had not arrested her for three days, we would have gone in and smashed up her club,” Talgat Ryskulbekov, a rabble-rousing activist with a conservative group called Zheltoksan Ruhy, told reporters at the scene.
A few days later, Baizakova relented and closed up shop. She had fallen victim to uyat, the label used to describe the phenomenon of public shaming campaigns — almost all of which are directed at women.
Uyatman, a superhero satirizing the real-life moral guardians in Kazakhstan. (Illustration by Murat Dilmanov. Published on EurasiaNet.org)
The archetypal uyatman — the term has now entered popular usage — and the inspiration for Dilmanov’s cartoon character was one Talgat Sholtayev, who enjoyed a brief flash of notoriety in 2016. In spring that year, social media users got hot under the collar after a statue depicting a man and a woman chastely standing side by side was unveiled at a central location in the capital, Astana, not far from the president’s palace. Prim denizens were shocked that the female figure was sculpted in a flowing but slight gossamer garment showing the outline of her body — a detail that they felt was a shameful to the honor and dignity of Kazakh women. Authorities shrugged off the complaints, insisting the monument violated no rules on indecency.
Not happy with that, Sholtayev amended the monument by shrouding it in a colorful robe that he felt protected not just the statue’s modesty, but that of all Kazakh women.
“To be quite honest, it is shameful even to look at it,” Sholtayev told KTK television station at the time. “It breaks my heart. Most of all, this dishonors our mothers and sisters.”
Drawing inspiration from this episode, Dilmanov recast Sholtayev as Uyatman, a slightly plump character complete with a dreary grey suit and a weaponized cape in the colors of the robe used to cover the Astana statue.
The superhero is a satirical creation, but the underlying intent behind it is serious. Dilmanov told Eurasianet.org that he believes that moral guardians are doing little but restricting people’s basic freedoms.
“Uyat in Kazakhstan comes in different shapes — it can be creative and destructive. In the first instance, it is to educate children. In the latter, it is about harassment and aggression,” Dilmanov told Eurasianet.
Asel Bayandarova, a doctor from Almaty, is the poster girl for everything that uyatmen despises. She is vocal about the rights of Kazakh women to live freely as they choose and, for good measure, she regularly poses in scanty dress in photoshoots for glossy magazines.
Bayandarova first achieved notoriety for an April 2016 status update on Facebook in which she declared that Kazakh women should not have to submit to the “stupid” conditions of traditional society. The text was accompanied by a selfie of Bayandarova wearing just the bottom half of a two-piece swimming suit. The message was a calculated provocation and had the desired effect — 20,000 likes, 8,000 comments and 1,000 reposts. Responses were a mix of crude insults and whole-hearted messages of endorsement.
In the wake of that post, other social media users replicated Bayandarova’s stunt in a pointed protest against the outrage expressed by moralists.
“A woman in Kazakhstan does not feel free. You have to be very strong to resist the pressure of society. For regular women, it is hard to take that weight,” Bayandarova told Eurasianet.
Uyat, said Bayandarova, is a result of infantilism and immaturity in society at large in Kazakhstan. A graphic representing Bayandarova (right) does battle with Uyatman in the Mortal Kombat-themed video below.
But those who argue in favor of a moral resurgence, like Nurbol Akhanov, a doctor at the National Research Center for Cardiac Surgery in Astana, said that fighting promiscuity is indispensable for the good of the country.
“There’s a saying: ‘If a man is spoilt, it destroys a family. If a woman is spoilt, it destroys a nation.’ We are not just dealing here with the disintegration of moral, cultural values,” Akhanov told Eurasianet. “The main audience affected by this behavior are teenagers, who have weak powers of critical analysis and copy certain examples just to be trendy. And that is how we get the rising numbers of abortions and teenage pregnancies in Kazakhstan, and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV.”
There is certainly nothing new about morality panics, although the way collective opprobrium plays out has changed dramatically. As publicist Madi Mambetov has noted, if the image of the self-appointed moral guardian in Kazakhstan was traditionally one of a tut-tutting granny sitting on a bench outside an apartment building, that role has been taken over by mainly young, self-identified heterosexual, ethnic Kazakh men. And the shaming campaigns, as almost everywhere else today, first pick up momentum online.
In 2016, when video footage surfaced of a young woman, Danara Kulzhanova, carrying Kazakhstan’s national flag at a gay parade in New York, the reaction was immediate. Such was the onslaught of online abuse that Kulzhanova felt compelled to delete her online accounts.
Gulmira Ileuova, president of Almaty-based Strategy Center for Social and Political Studies, contends the underlying explanation is that Kazakhstan is a predominantly rural society dominated by patriarchal and conformist attitudes. In the absence of a coherent and unifying cultural idea — and failure by the government to provide direction on that front — people assert their identity in a spontaneous and ad hoc fashion, Ileuova said.
That frequently gives rise to confused priorities and skewed values.
“It is easier for a girl in Kazakhstan to have a baby and then abandon it, than to raise the child outside marriage. In this moral system, the first seems more decent than the second, strange as it may seem, since local morality forbids a girl from engaging in sexual relations before marriage,” Ileuova told Eurasianet.

author: Eurasianet


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Myanmar Digital Activists Come Together to Protect People’s Rights Online at #DigitalRightsMM · Global Voices
Juan Cebu

Photo taken from Phandeeyar's Twitter. Used with permission.
Since 2011, Myanmar's mobile penetration rate has soared from 2.5 percent to more than 90 percent, bringing millions of citizens online as the country transitioned from military dictatorship to constitutional democracy.
The sudden burst of connectivity enabled by market liberalization was met with major challenges: the need to improve digital literacy, a preponderance of online hate speech, prevalent hacking and other cyber attacks. All these issues laid bare the need to protect user privacy, address digital exclusion, and resolve the lack of an effective legal system to protect the rights of Internet users.
On January 18 and 19, Myanmar's Yangon City hosted the country's second Digital rights Forum, where citizens were invited to explore and debate these issues in an open setting.
This is the second time Myanmar hosted its largest digital rights forum, bringing experts of diverse backgrounds such as corporate leaders, civil society groups, government agencies, tech industry leaders and human rights activists. A local tech hub in Yangon, Phandeeyar, took the lead in organizing the forum which was attended by more than 150 people.
The organizers were women leaders from different organizations working on technology and policy reform.
Wow MDRF 2018 organizers … #digitalrightsMM @EthnicConcern pic.twitter.com/L3a4M0hhMl
— Jimmy Rezar Boi (@JRezarBoi) January 18, 2018
The Digital Rights Forum tackled a variety of issues that Myanmar faced after the “connectivity revolution” which saw the number of mobile users increasing to cover the whole country within a 5-year period.
Key issues in privacy protection in Myanmar: lack of legal framework in privacy, hacking attacks, digital ID, lack of user awareness, low capacity on data security & privacy of private sector #digitalrightsMM pic.twitter.com/FZzu6mqCsu
— Nica (@nicadoom) January 18, 2018
Like many other countries, Myanmar lacks a legal framework for protecting internet user privacy in the face of unlawful surveillance and the commercialization of user data.
79% of MDRF participants think that #onlineprivacy and #DigitalSecurity has got worse in 2017 in #Myanmar #digitalrightsmm pic.twitter.com/SqZnB3F3oJ
— Phandeeyar (@Phandeeyar) January 18, 2018
CCTVs are starting to install in Yangon city now but there are no systematic rules and might be misuse of personal data privacy. Yangon Regional MP @NayPhoneLatt on Guaranteeing user privacy panel at #digitalrightsMM
— Gar Gar (@gargar_hn3) January 18, 2018
For many social media users in Myanmar, understanding digital security is essential — but most people don't have strong skills in this area. It is especially a serious problem for human rights activists, public figures and journalists, whose online accounts face hacking and phishing attacks that can expose their personal information and putting them in danger.
If you are concerned about your digital security, come and be consulted by us at our digital security clinic at #MDRF2018 about your digital health.#MIDO #DigitalSecurity #ICT4D #DigitalRightsMM pic.twitter.com/mdd3c7I9x1
— MIDO (@myanmarido) January 19, 2018
There is also a lack of awareness about the importance of cyber security among private companies, their clients, and consumers in Myanmar.
not sure if financial sector attended #mdrf2018. Lots of informal data sharing of client/company info seems to be happening on different unsecured messenger platforms. such a nightmare #DigitalrightsMM
— Amazing Yaya (@yaya_amazing) January 20, 2018
Myanmar has also seen a disturbing rise of hate speech on online social platforms. The worrying trend was first observed in 2012 when Facebook became a popular public sphere for political discussions and activism. Hate speech was especially abundant among nationalist groups attacking religious minorities, especially the Rohingya Muslim minority.
The event also included a discussion on how to protect freedom of speech amid soaring cases of online hate speech. Youth activist Thinzar Shunlei Yi expressed her concern about the danger of hate speech by quoting one of the speakers in the forum:
Freedom comes with responsibility. Freedom of Speech is not Hate Speech. In Myanmar, the authoritarians have successfully propagated the freedom of speech as threat. Be aware about it.
U Thein Than Oo, @Myanmar Digital Rights Forum, #DigitalRightsMM
Participants also discussed the importance of engaging lawmakers, policymakers, judges and other key leaders in the legal system to become more aware of digital rights.
Nay Phone Latt, a Member of the Parliament who attended the forum, said that the government and other stakeholders in the private sector need to work together.
There is little to no public consultation when it comes to developing new legislation or regulation. The absence of consultation makes the work all the more challenging. The Citizen’s Privacy and Security Law, for example, was not well-designed and, in some ways, violates digital rights of citizens.
Youth activist Thinzar Shunlei Yi asserted that digital education, rather than regulation, is what the country needs today:
Myanmar Digital World needs more Education, not Regulation. #DigitalRightsMM
— Thinzar Shunlei Yi (@thinzashunleiyi) January 18, 2018
Guaranteeing equal Internet access is still a major challenge. For example, buying mobile SIM cards requires the presentation of an official identification card. Many ethnic people in Myanmar, like the thousands of Rohingya people who are denied citizenship (despite being born in Myanmar), do not have this document.
Transgender policy advocate Yaya explained the situation:
Privacy laws lack protection and access to SIM cards depends on having a gov issued ID card which is not the case for everyone #digitalrightsMM
— Amazing Yaya (@yaya_amazing) January 18, 2018
The Digital Rights Forum also launched a website promoting the campaign for the abolition of the repressive law called 66(d), an online speech law that has allowed authorities to arrest social media users who “defame” or “disturb” others online, with special provisions for public officials. There has been 106 cases of people arrested since the law was introduced in 2013.
Launch of #SayNOto66d website at Myanmar Digital Rights Forum. Monitors section #66d cases and provides data driven insights. Visit on https://t.co/Poovy25AdO #digitalrightsMM pic.twitter.com/hudwdpWQC4
— Phandeeyar (@Phandeeyar) January 18, 2018
Another setback for cyber development in Myanmar is that the Myanmar script does not have a standard font on the Internet that conforms to the international font system, called Unicode. Currently, the nation uses a non-standard font called Zawgyi that was developed while the country was under international sanction. However, its use has become so ingrained that it is now difficult to migrate to Unicode system. The biggest drawback of using Zawgyi is its inability to integrate characters of the country's ethnic languages, which undermines the goal of improving online inclusion.
Nyein Chan Ko Ko, a tech developer and Unicode activist, explained why using a standard font is important.
Nyein Chan Ko Ko speaks about how not having a Unicode systems for Burmese languages makes it inaccessible as it cannot be read by screen readers. Makes using ethnic languages even more difficult. #digitalrightsMM
— Point of View (@povmumbai) January 18, 2018
Standardization should be priority
before we implement E- government. #myanmar#digitalrightsmm
— Nyein chan ko ko (@nyeinchamkoko) January 19, 2018
You can find out about all the conversations about Myanmar's digital rights using the hashtag #digitalrightsMM.

author: Juan Cebu


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The ‘Girls of Revolution Street’ Protest Iran’s Compulsory Hijab Laws · Global Voices
Mahsa Alimardani

Women in hijab protest on Monday, January 29. Mashup up of #دختران_خیابان_انقلاب images from Omid Memarian's Twitter post.
A spate of defiant Iranian women have taken to the streets of Tehran to protest against compulsory veiling.
Photos of their demonstrations have been widely circulated online under the hashtag #دختران_خیابان_انقلاب (translated to #Girls_of_Enghelab_Street). As of the afternoon of January 29, at least two women (of the six women appearing in the photos) have been arrested.
The protests come on the heels of a similar move by an Iranian woman named Vida Movahed, who was arrested on December 27, 2017, after a photo of her silently waving her hijab above her unveiled head on Tehran's Enghelab Street (“enghelab” means “revolution” in English) went viral. Movahed was released from prison on January 27.
Following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the hijab became compulsory in various stages. The law was first introduced in March 1979; Iranian women, initially in support of the revolution against the monarchy, came out in the hundreds of thousands to rally against it. The following year it became mandatory in government and public offices until 1983, when it became mandatory for all women.
Flashback: 1979 anti-hijab rally in Tehran, Iran, a day before theocratic regime forcibly and violently began imposing veil on women pic.twitter.com/IzSPSVjIqA
— Borzou Daragahi ?? (@borzou) March 19, 2017
The photo of Movahed's hijab protest, standing atop an electrical box on Enghelab Street, went viral in the context of a wave of anti-government protests that swept the country beginning on December 28, 2017.
An unveiled woman in Iran stands defiantly at anti-government rally. We must keep the international eyes focused. There have been brutal crackdowns in recent past by state. We cannot let that happen again. RT using #Iranprotests pic.twitter.com/RVfFpbczm0
— Andy C. Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) December 29, 2017
But Movahed's defiance was, in fact, a mistaken icon for the nationwide protests. She had, in fact, performed the act as part of her own singular protest on December 27, 2017, for the White Wednesday campaign, in which Iranian women posted photos online of themselves wearing white while discarding their headscarves with the hashtag #whitewednesday. This was part of the My Stealthy Freedom movement founded by exiled journalist Masih Alinejad against mandatory hijab for women.
Human rights organizations such as Amnesty International started to advocate for Movahed's release after it became known she was arrested shortly after her stand on Enghelab Street's electrical post. By January 28, Nasrin Sotoudeh, a human rights lawyer inside of Iran, known (and often persecuted) for defending activists and opposition members, announced on her Facebook page that Movahed had been released the previous day:
دختر خیابان انقلاب آزاد شد.
در مراجعه‌ای که برای پیگیری پرونده‌ی دختر خیابان انقلاب به دادسرا داشتم، مدیر دفتر گفت که وی آزاد شده است. خوشحالم که او دیروز به خانه برگشته است. امیدوارم با پرونده‌سازی قضایی، وی را که از حقی ساده و یقینی استفاده کرده است، مورد اذیت و آزار قرار ندهند. او هیچ کاری نکرده است تا مستحق تعقیب قضایی باشد. دست‌تان را از سر او کوتاه کنید.
The girl from revolution street has been freed.
When I returned to the prosecutor's office to follow up on the case of the girl of Enghelab Street, the head of the prosecutor's office told me she was released. I am happy to hear that she returned home yesterday. I hope this judicial case will not be used to harass her for taking up her rights. She has done nothing to justify prosecution. Please do not lay your hands on her [directed at authorities].
A day after the news of Movahed's release, several women emulated Movahed, standing on electrical posts on Engheblab Street:
یک منبع آگاه به کمپین حقوق بشر در ایران گفت #نرگس_حسینی یکی از زنان معترض، امروز دوشنبه نهم بهمن در خیابان انقلاب بازداشت شده است.#دختران_انقلاب pic.twitter.com/mS8A6o1Lz2
— کمپین حقوق بشر در ایران (@ICHRI_Fa) January 29, 2018
An informed source told the Campaign for Human Rights in Iran that Narges Hosseini, one of the protesters on Enghelab street, was was arrested on January 29. #girls_ofRevolution
Other women took similar stands, taking off their hijabs on different streets in Tehran, and in one instance in Isfahan, a city in central Iran, according to crowdsource reports on Nariman Gharib's www.enghelabgirls.com. However, the symbolism of the initial protests taking place on Enghelab Street, translated into “Revolution Street”, was not lost on those following the events.
Interesting fact: The first woman protesting, -then anonymous- did it on “revolution” street. And she quickly got the title of “girl of the revolution street” this soon turned into the hashtag #دختران_انقلاب “girls of revolution” after others joined her.#دختران_خیابان_انقلاب
— Nima Fatemi (@mrphs) January 29, 2018
By the afternoon of January 30, several more women were spotted in Tehran taking off their veils, in addition to a man.
Powerful: an Iranian man protests against the compulsory hijab mimicking act of defiance by women via @valaamagham #دختران خیابان انقلاب #پسران_خیابان_انقلاب pic.twitter.com/Pzm28PauHZ
— Golnaz Esfandiari (@GEsfandiari) January 30, 2018
عکس دریافتی: تقاطع خیابان ولی‌عصر و خیابان رشت #تهران#نه_به_حجاب_اجباری pic.twitter.com/5oiW8xxepY
— Vahid Online (@Vahid) January 30, 2018
Incoming photo: the intersection of Vali Asr Street and Rasht street #Tehran #no_to_compulsory_hijab
My Stealthy Freedom, which organized White Wednesday, the campaign that Movahed was participating in with her original act of defiance, was founded by Masih Alinejad. Alinejad and her movement are controversial in Iran, and sometimes subjected to smear campaigns by Iranian media, and associated with opposition activism inside of the country.
On the “My Stealthy Freedom” Facebook page, Alinejad welcomed those who had previously attacked her campaign but are now engaged in discussing and opposing compulsory hijab in light of the #girls_of_Enghelab_street:
Our #WhiteWednesdays campaign has been making an unstoppable impact and we are more than overjoyed. We are gratified to realize that the compulsory veil is no longer something than can be easily dismissed. It has always been an important issue as it relates to women's freedom of choice. It is our most basic right. Our campaign has come a long way. We have also realized that people who attacked us yesterday are now onboard supporting our struggle. We warmly welcome them. We at my #StealthyFreedom do not judge people; our campaign is based on mutual respect.
One notable female voice on Iranian social media, Zahra Safyari, declared her support for the #Girls_of_Enghelab_Street and the right of Iranian women to choose to wear or not wear the hijab:
من چادری ام.خودم انتخاب کردم که محجبه باشم،نه اجبار خانواده بود و نه جبر محیط یا شرایط کار.از انتخابم خیلی خوشحالم ولی با حجاب اجباری مخالفم و #دختران_خیابان_انقلاب رو تحسین میکنم.در دین و حجاب هیچ اجباری نباید باشد
— زهرا صفياري (@zahrasafyari) January 29, 2018
I am a chadori [wearer of a full-body-length cloak called a chador]. I have chosen for myself to be veiled, not for the force of my family, nor for my environment or conditions of my work. I am very happy with my choice but I am against mandatory hijab and I support the #Girls_of_Enghelab_Street. With religion and hijab there should be no force.
Safyari made a point to distance the protests from Masih Alinejad or any opposition movement aiming at overthrowing the Iranian establishment:
#دختران_خیابان_انقلاب نه برانداز هستند و نه از مسیح علی نژاد پیروی می کنند و نه از جایی پول می گیرند.دختران ایران زمین هستند که در پی حقوق اولیه خود هستند.
— زهرا صفياري (@zahrasafyari) January 29, 2018
#Girls_of_Enghelab_Street are neither overthrowers, followers of Masih Alinejad, or the recipients of any money. They are the girls of this Iranian land who are following their basic rights.

author: Mahsa Alimardani


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After Two Decades, Will Ghana Finally Pass a Right to Information Law? · Global Voices
Kofi Yeboah

Kwame Nkrumah memorial in Accra. Photo by Flickr user jbdodane. CC BY-NC 2.0
Ghana was way ahead of many African countries when in 1999 lawmakers drafted a Right to Information (RTI) bill that would allow citizens to access public data.
But after nearly 20 years, it remains just that — a bill. It was presented to parliament in 2010, but debate failed to result in anything concrete. Promises from previous President John Mahama, who served from 2012 to 2017, that the legislation would be passed similarly went unfulfilled.
In 2017, current President Nana Akufo-Addo pressed for the bill to be passed “very soon,” although the year came and went without much progress on the issue.
However, earlier in January 2018, the Ghanaian parliament proposed July 2018 as the new deadline to finally approve the bill.
If passed, it would give effect to the constitutional right of access to any information held by public institutions and private entities which perform public functions with public funds.
Why such a long wait for the law? Many fear it has to do with politics, as politicians fear what could come to light if the public has access to government information. Private legal practitioner Ace Ankomah explained:
Political players from both divides are afraid of passing the RTI bill because they believe it will not go in their favor.
Corruption is a problem in Ghana, and many Ghanaian's believe that the fight towards transparency and accountability in governance will not be achieved if the Right to Information bill is not passed in due time.
Penplusbyte, a non-profit organisation committed to enhancing governance by deepening citizen participation through information and communication technology, argued:
No administration has given concrete reason why the RTI Bill can not be passed! In #Ghana the Bill is currently languishing in cabinet. “We don’t want any excuses in 2018”! @KojoPumpuni #NanaAt1
— @penplusbytes (@penplusbytes) January 12, 2018
And Adikah Mends tweeted:
The current happenings in Ghana is more reason why we should pass the RTI Bill. Without it, our fight against corruption is a mere rhetoric.
— Adikah Mends Xorlali (@MendsGh) December 22, 2017
A newly appointed special prosecutor backed the bill to become law because it would mandate him to investigate corruption involving public officers, politically exposed persons and individuals in the private sector implicated in corrupt practices, and to prosecute them under the authority of Attorney General Martin Amidu.
Twitter user @monsieur1_pk said:
A Right to Information bill and the office of the special prosecutor will eventually rid Ghana of her oldest and deep-rooted disease. Now, we have Martin Amidu but where is RTI? #GhanaSaysNo #corruption #martinamidu #kromay3d3 #newsfile
— Martin Amidu (@monsieur1_pk) January 13, 2018
In an article for the news site Modern Ghana, Gordon Offin-Amniampong expressed high hopes for the RTI bill:
The RTI Bill will seek to empower the citizens, promote transparency and accountability in the working of the government or the Executive. Plus it will help contain corruption and make our democracy work for the people in real sense. “It goes without saying that an informed citizen is better equipped to keep necessary vigil.”
And did you know one can ask any questions from the government or seek any information. It makes governmental works more transparent. Transparency means clarity of information, which means everything should be open and disclosed to all. We the people that are common citizens put our faith in the system expecting them to work efficiently, fairly and impartially. But that hasn’t been the case as we continue to find ourselves in the cesspool.
However, others such as anti-corruption campaigner Sydney Casely Hayford believe that the passage of the Right to Information bill will do little to solve the issue of corruption because the constitution already includes a right to information in its “fundamental freedoms”.
Ghanaian entrepreneur Bright Simons also shared a similar thought on his Facebook timeline:
The “Right to Information” law is heavily overrated. We already have judicial precedent to the effect that a constitutional right to public/official information exists when and where it matters. The problem is not “raw information” in the vaults of government agencies but poor treatment and presentation of relevant information due to weak media practice; a stagnant academia; and the hollowing out of the public sphere. In fact, in many instances, data is not even being collected and handled in the right way due to a general culture that disrespects intellectual activity and constantly depresses its value.
In response to Simons’ argument, Justice Sai, a former teaching assistant at Harvard Law School, offered a different view:
I think there is a little misunderstanding of what legislation does and what case law does. Case law gives principles. For example, the RTI decision of the High Court merely confirms the constitutional position that a person may not be denied access to public information. In fact, earlier cases have already stated the principle.
A legislation on the other hand goes way beyond the statement of the principle. It gives you an administrative set up for the enforcement the right and the implementation of the principle. In fact, a properly drafted legislation would resolve some (if not most) of the challenges you have listed above. For example, a good legislation would deal with issues of funding, packaging of information and the responsibility to do so, decentralization, etc.
Secondly, without a legislation, anyone who is denied public information would have to go to the Human Right High Court for a remedy. Under a well-constructed legislation, there would be accessible administrative (rather than full judicial) complaint mechanisms available.
I think a legislation is fundamental to the issue of right to information.

author: Kofi Yeboah


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‘Buy a New SIM Card’ and Await Further Interrogation: Russia’s Security Services Detain and Question a Reporter · Global Voices
Christopher Moldes

Pavel Nikulin, a member of the independent Journalists’ and Media Workers’ Union, pickets the headquarters of Russia's domestic security agency FSB, to protest against a colleague's detention. Photo by Igor Yasin, used with permission.
When state security officers arrived at his home early in the morning of January 31, Russian journalist Pavel Nikulin learned firsthand that punishment is not always timely.
Nikulin, a co-chair of the Journalists and Media Workers Union in Russia, was visited by members of the FSB, one of Russia’s security services, who searched his apartment and seized several of Nikulin's possessions including laptops, documents and copies of his independent magazine, Moloko Plus.
Posting on his channel on Telegram, a widely-used messenger service in Russia, Nikulin told his subscribers that the search was related to Article 205.3 of Russia's criminal code, a statute that deals with “undergoing training for the purpose of committing terrorist activity.” This was confirmed by a lawyer from Open Russia, an organization dedicated to the promotion of democracy and human rights in the Russian Federation.
Nikulin also took to Twitter to tell everyone the reason for the visit:
У меня обыск. Доброе утро. В рамках текста в The new times. Телефон отбирают.
— паша никулин (@mrzff) 31 января 2018 г.
They’re searching my apartment. Good morning. For my article in The New Times. They’re taking away the phone.
The article in question, “From Kaluga With Jihad”, drew on an interview Nikulin had conducted with a Russian national from the Kaluga region, who went to Syria to fight for the Al-Nusra Front, a splinter faction of al-Qaeda. When it was published in March of 2017 in The New Times, the interview immediately drew the attention of the Russian authorities.
Roskomnadzor, Russia's media regulator, issued a warning to The New Times for “signs of justifying terrorism” in the interview. The piece was later removed from The New Times’ website.
As The New Times’ chief editor later wrote on Facebook:
Путин публично говорит о том, что тысячи россиян воюют за ИГ, а писать о мотивах, почему русский парень из Калуги принимает ислам и уезжает воевать в Сирию — это „признаки оправдания терроризма“! По мне так это классическая цензура, которая запрещена Конституцией.
Putin publicly says that thousands of Russians are fighting for the Islamic State, but writing about motives, why a Russian guy from Kaluga accepts Islam and goes off to fight in Syria is “signs of justifying terrorism”! I feel this classic censorship, which is banned by the Constitution.
The search was not the end of Nikulin’s troubles, as one of his colleagues later posted on Twitter:
Пашу Никулина только что увезли на допрос, а вот так всё выглядит после обыска. сразу видно – старались! 8 часов потратили. изъяли три ноутбука, телефон, документы, все журналы moloko plus, все футболки, значки и стикеры. pic.twitter.com/CFfmeqgw6m
— Хайн (@ian_hain) 31 января 2018 г.
They’ve just taken Pavel Nikulin for questioning, and look at how everything looks after the search. It’s immediately clear that they put some effort into it! They spent 8 hours. Confiscated three notebooks, a phone, documents, all the issues of moloko plus, all the t-shirts, pins, and stickers.
As news of his detainment spread, the Journalists and Media Workers Union issued a statement condemning the move and demanding his release and the end of journalist harassment:
Friends, here's a statement from the independent Russian Journalists and Media Workers Union on Pavel Nikulin's case. We're posting it here so everyone has access to it :) pic.twitter.com/fMb9brnucL
— oDR (@opendemocracyru) 31 января 2018 г.
It later became clear that Nikulin himself was not being investigated under Article 205.3, but rather as a witness to terrorist training. After about two hours in FSB custody, Pavel wrote on Telegram “I’m free.”
He later told Mediazona, an independent news website that exclusively focuses on covering Russia's court and prison system:
Мы за 15 минут отстрелялись по 51-й [статье Конституции], и дальше мне было велено завести новую симку, связаться с калужским управлением ФСБ и договориться, когда я приду на допрос. Возможно, мне уже на допросе отдадут большую часть вещей, но компы они дольше всего будут отдавать.
It took us about 15 minutes to get through this once I invoked Article 51 [a constitutional guarantee against being forced to testify against oneself], and then I was told to buy a new SIM card, contact FSB's local directorate in Kaluga and set up a formal debriefing. I expect most of my stuff to be returned then, but they'll definitely hold onto my laptops longer.
Although it was a relatively short ordeal, this sort of unprovoked interaction is indicative of the pressure that Russian journalists are sometimes subject to. To arrive at a journalist’s home and detain them several months later speaks to either gross incompetence in investigating criminal matters or outright extralegal harassment. Neither possibility bodes well for government accountability in Russia.

author: Christopher Moldes


text:
Crowdfunded Rescue Saves French Mountaineer on Pakistan’s Nanga Parbat, but Her Climbing Partner Is Left Behind · Global Voices
Qurratulain (Annie) Zaman

Nanga Parbat (Naked Mountain) is the world's ninth highest mountain and the second highest in Pakistan (after K2). Image from Flickr by Ahmed Sajjad Zaidi. CC BY-SA 2.0.
The world's mountaineering community managed to crowdfund enough money to finance a rescue mission for French climber Elisabeth Revol, who had been scaling Pakistan's Nanga Parbat, the ninth highest mountain in the world. Her climbing partner, Tomek Mackiewicz, however, was not rescued due to poor weather conditions, and has now been declared deceased.
Revol and Mackiewicz were climbing the 8,126 meters (26,600 feet) to the summit, considered one of the most difficult climbs in the world, responsible for an estimated 60 deaths. It was her fifth attempt to reach the top, and his seventh, according to Pakistan Explorer.
On #Nanga Parbat @ZabRevol ?? & Tomek Mackiewicz @czapkins ?? are in Camp 3 (7300). Tomorrow they are starting to fight for summit (8126). Keep your fingers crossed, send good vibes & warm wishes to #Karakorum, Pakistan! Chill temp. on top is around -60C. Photo: @Polityka_pl pic.twitter.com/3FIUwpaFs7
— Michał Kaczerowski (@mkaczerowski) January 19, 2018
On January 20, the two were believed to have reached the summit, which would make them only the second team to ever manage a wintertime ascent to the summit of Nanga Parbat. They then began their decent afterward.
On January 26, Janusz Majer, a coordinator for the Polish winter expedition, announced on Facebook that Revol and Mackiewicz had become stuck at an altitude of 7,400 meters under the top dome. Due to the sun's UV rays — and suffered frostbites.
Revol continued down and signaled for help from a satellite phone.
Commercial company Askari Aviation, owned by the Pakistan Army, refused to send a helicopter until a certain amount of funds were deposited, which is reportedly standard practice. In response, two crowdfunding efforts were organized and quickly raised tens of thousands of euros to help. The government of Poland also reportedly assured funds.
Nicknamed “Killer Mountain”, Nanga Parbat is captured in infrared. Image from Flickr by Ahmed Sajjad Zaidi. CC BY-SA 2.0.
With the funds guaranteed, a group of four Polish climbers, who interrupted their climb of the second highest mountain in the world, K2, to help the effort, were flown by helicopter to Nanga Parbat to search for Revol and Mackiewicz. On January 28, Revol was rescued and flown to Islamabad for medical aid. She is reportedly suffering from severe frostbite on her hands and feet. Extreme weather conditions forced the rescue team to abandon their ascent to search for Mackiewicz.
Pakistani climber Karim Shah Nizari applauded the Polish rescue team:
The Heroes of Nanga parbat Polish climbers who stopped their K2 climb and saved life on killer mountain in the darkness
You showed the world what a human life means #NangaParbat #k2 pic.twitter.com/LP9LkJ6HCi
— Karim Shah Nizari (@shahnizari) January 27, 2018
Masha Gordon, a Russian-born British business executive who set up the second crowdfunding campaign posted on GoFundMe, reacted to Revol's rescue: “We are crying from happiness.”
That campaign collected more than $50,000 in about two hours, and the vast majority of the donations came from Poles, Mackiewicz's wife wrote on Mackiewicz's Facebook page. Funds continue to come in; as of January 30, the GoFundMe page shows 136,217 euros pledge of the 150,000 goal.
In its 10th message, the campaign called for more donations to support Mackiewicz’s wife and three kids:
This has been a very long and traumatic day. While Elisabeth is now convalescing in safety in Islamabad hospital with severe frostbites, we mourn Tomek. Please donate generously to help Anna and his beautiful three kids. We will be extremely transparent with expenses with all money ex-rescue costs going to the family.
Some Pakistanis praised the military for their part in the rescue mission. Omar Qureshi, a journalist, tweeted:
While much of the western media is busy praising the Polish climbers for rescuing Elisabeth Revol — a word of praise for the Pakistan Army helicopter pilots who flew the Polish climbers from K2 to Nanga Parbat and dropped them on the mountain at a height of 6400 metres
— omar r quraishi (@omar_quraishi) January 28, 2018
However, some prominent Twitter users criticised the Pakistan military for delaying the rescue operation because of money.
No SOPs man. Money $$$ more important than life in Pak. In civilised countries you first save life, than charge. If they had flown earlier (24h), the chances of saving both lives (Eli and Tom) would have been much higher. #nangaparbat
— Kosma Jurlewicz (@KJurlewicz) January 29, 2018
Shame on sleeping Pakistani media and dead Alpine club of Pakistan #NangaParbat #K2dlaPolakow
— Karim Shah Nizari (@shahnizari) January 27, 2018
While the world celebrates Revol's rescue, the situation for Mackiewicz remains grim. Rescue efforts were called off, and authorities presume he has died. His father, however, is requesting another operation to save his son:
#NangaParbat – I am begging you to resume the rescue operation for my son Tomek. I know, I feel that he is still alive. Tomek can survive for 6 days in a snow cave at a similar height. He is a tough and very stubborn boy – appealed to Witold Mackiewicz, the father of the climber
— Marek (@Marek54169902) January 28, 2018
Mackiewicz's sister spoke to Polish media saying that it would be a miracle if he survives.