text:
The Mexican indigenous artists who are defying labels and stereotypes · Global Voices
Isela Xospa

The people from Malacateticpac, 2015, by the author, Isela Xospa.
My name is Isela Xospa and I am a freelance illustrator and editor. The graphic design project that I am developing is the result of a personal journey to find ways of asserting my indigenous identity in a contemporary and transnational context. Discovering and embracing my indigenous identity has given me the tools to build new ways of sharing an inner world that is heavily influenced by the culture of the indigenous people living south of Mexico City.
Night of the paper balloons, 2019, by the author, Isela Xospa.
For the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples on August 9, I decided to share the work of young illustrators of indigenous origin and I am sharing them again in this article. I wanted to do this because there are not many illustrators out there who identify as indigenous. The other reason was that, far from trying to stereotype, I believe it is important to publish their work as a provocation that seeks to challenge the imagery and labels assigned to indigenous people and their representations.
We must not waste these opportunities to question the formats and styles that are used to represent indigenous groups in the world of illustration. These should be treated as windows of opportunity to rebel against the imposition of the non-indigenous, to make our political stances known and to put forward suggestions, outcomes and ideas to encourage the creation of new narratives and readings, made by and for the indigenous population.
For us, the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples is not a celebration of labels, customs or exoticisms. Instead, it must acknowledge the systematic attempts to erase us and to integrate us into a nation-state project, which has led to the loss of languages, territories, clothing, knowledge, health and opportunities of indigenous peoples.
From the small place that inspired our creativity, some of us with our political views and others with the prevailing need to express ourselves vividly and visually, we will continue to create narratives for children, young people and adults from native populations. We hope that our stories will touch, transform and impact future generations of graphic storytellers who return to, use and embrace their culture.
From our creative spaces, we share with you our visual libraries.
Social media:
Xospatronik
XospatronikNYC
@EXospatronik
Mitzy Juárez is an illustrator and graphic designer from the Chocholteco Ngiba indigenous tribe in Oaxaca, southern Mexico. She was born and raised in a small, remote town on the plains of the Mixteca region of Oaxaca, home to the area’s most beautiful natural springs. The inspiration for Mitzy's drawings comes from the people, the language and the traditions with which she grew up. Through drawing, she has found a way of preserving the knowledge that she inherited from her community—the knowledge that she carries with her wherever she goes.
¡De la Milpa a la ciudad vino el elotito en el viento, cruzando mares y ríos, llanos, veredas y cerros! (Gabriel del Río) ¡Tchíxa! ¡El elotito! #inktober #chocholteco #ngiba #lenguasoriginarias #ilustración #winsorandnewton #pentel #ilustradoramexicana #elote #maiz #corn #illustration #nativelanguages
A post shared by  Mitzy Juárez (@mitzyjuarez.jpg) on
The little corn was carried by the wind from the Milpa farms to the city, crossing seas and rivers, plains, roads and mountains! (Gabriel del Río) It's Tchíxa, the little corn!
Social media:
Mitzy Juárez
Mitzy Juárez
David Canul is originally from the Mayan territory of Campeche on the Gulf of Mexico. His hybrid work as a professional illustrator ranges from research books, poetry, content for children and even ceramics. He is also involved in organising, managing and promoting children’s and young adult literature festivals in the Yucatán Peninsula.
Fantasías en bicicleta  Técnica: scratch y color digital #scratch #pajarotojilustrador #drawing #illustration #illustratoroninstagram #illustragram #ilustracióninfantil #lij #illustrationartists #illustrationartist #illustrated #librosparaniños #illustracion #moreillustrations #illustrationnow #theillustrationroom #illustrator #illustratrice #illustrationoftheday #illustratorsoninstagram #instaart #instaartist #instartists #xolo #childrensbooks #creativeart #art_spotlight #artwork #artistoninstagram #art
A post shared by  PájaroToj Ilustrador (@pajarotoj.ilustrador) on
Bicycle Fantasies
Technique: scratch and digital colour
Social media:
Pájaro Toj Ilustrador
El Pájaro Toj
An element that stands out in Griss Romero's work is the jaguar, also known as “tekuani” or “tiger” and is one of the most important identity symbols in the state of Guerrero. Griss finds inspiration in the ancestral roots and culture of the Nahua community in Acatlán. She uses her art as a tool to raise awareness of the indigenous peoples in the state of Guerrero in southwestern Mexico, and to showcase their agricultural beliefs and rituals.
Griss currently has a piece featured in the Poetics of Colour virtual art exhibition and will soon feature in the virtual exhibition “FROM MY WINDOW — Longing of an Artist in Quarantine”.
A post shared by Griss Romero (@grisssromero) on
Social media:
Griss Romero
Griss Romero
Cuauhtémoc Wetzka is a graphic designer and illustrator who has exhibited works in Argentina, Colombia, Spain, France, Estonia, Poland, China, Canada and the United States. Cuauhtémoc is from the Nahua community of the Sierra de Zongolica located in the central region of the state of Veracruz, which lies along Mexico's Atlantic coast. In 2015, he was awarded first place in the Mexican National Council for Culture and Arts’ 25th Catalogue of Illustrators for Children's and Young Adult Publications. In the same year, he was also a finalist in the Art Contest and Exhibition for Children by Hispanic Artists in Las Vegas, Nevada. He has also spoken at various international conferences and has been recognised for his work on printed posters.
A post shared by Cuauhtemoc Wetzka (@cuauhtemocwetzka) on
Social media:
Behance: Cuauhtémoc Wetzka
Cuauhtémoc Wetzka
Wetzka Temo
Gilberto Kupyum is from Tlahuitoltepec Mixe, an indigenous community located in Oaxaca's northwest region, an area of fog and forest. In his work, he uses themes such as nature, oral tradition and music, which he captures in various media, for example, painting, screen printing, engraving, lithography and ceramics. His real name is Gilberto Delgado but is called Gil Kupyum or Mish Kupyum by his friends, which means “woodpecker boy” in the Ayuujk language. He identifies with this bird because wood carvings are used in graphic design.
Gilberto Kupyum also works with women and young people from his community. Together they make bags, shirts, notebooks, prints and other products to create a source of community employment.
#rompecabezas
A post shared by  Gil Kupyum (@kupyum) on
Social media:
Gil Kupyum
Gilberto Kupyum
Valentín Peralta Betanzos belongs to the Mazatec indigenous group and is originally from the town of Eloxochitlán de Flores Magón, one of the 45 municipalities that make up the Cañada region of Oaxaca.
Valentín admits that he is attracted to the contemporary world and incorporates new concepts and materials into his current works while focusing on variety since he believes that art is a language and an expression of all the senses.
MARIA SABINA  Un homenaje a maria sabina ,mujer mazateca ….. conocida como la "sacerdotisa de los hongos sagrados" . Algo que me gusto mucho hacer , cuando te acuerdas de aquellas montañas tan llenas de vida…. a la gente que te rodea ,los rostros y las miradas …. modelado en plastilina. #arteoaxaca #modelingclay #plastilina #art #plasticine #hechoamano
A post shared by  Valentin peralta (@plastivaleando) on
MARIA SABINA
A homage to Maria Sabina, a Mazatec woman known as the “priestess of the sacred mushrooms.” This is something I really enjoy doing…when you remember those mountains that are so full of life, the people that surround you, the faces and the gazes…modelled in plasticine.
Social media:
Valentín Peralta
Valentín Peralta
Victoria Gaspar Teodocio is a Zapotec woman descended from the San Melchor Betaza community in Oaxaca. She is an illustrator who studied Graphic Design at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Vics uses her illustrations on handmade notebooks and silkscreen prints in different media, and also enjoys working on documentary and portrait photography. The protagonists in Vic's art are women expressing their freedom, passion and love. Her illustrations are a tribute to her mother, grandmothers, and all the women who have had an influence on her life. Vic is part of the mountain group called Dill Yel Nbán, which focuses on promoting the Zapotec language.
Mujeres músicas de la Sierra Norte de Oaxaca, de San Melchor Betaza y Villa Hidalgo Yalálag. La música serrana es identidad, herencia, canto, luz, fortaleza, alegría, sabiduría, memoria, danza, es historia bordada en huipil, en refajo que no dejará de florecer en comunidad. . ? . #ilustracional #illustration #ilustración #ilustradoresmexicanos #ilustradoresmexico #artistasmexicanas #artistasmexicanos
A post shared by  Vics Gaspar ? (@vics_gate) on
Female musicians from the towns of San Melchor Betaza and Villa Hidalgo Yalálag in the Sierra Norte de Oaxaca region. Music from the mountains is identity, inheritance, song, light, strength, happiness, wisdom, memory, dance, it is history embroidered in a huipil, in a skirt that will not cease to flourish in the community.
Social media:
Vics Gaspar
Vics Gaspar

author: Isela Xospa


text:
Uzbek DJ with a mission to popularize vintage Soviet music · Global Voices
Filip Noubel

Screenshot from Hamdam Zakirov's YouTube video channel on Uzbek and Soviet vintage music.
Popular hits are often associated with a specific moment in time, and the concept of vintage, or retro, music has become—thanks to social media—a culture of its own. This is also true for the Soviet musical heritage, and to find out more about its fans, I spoke to Hamdam Zakirov, a DJ from the city of Ferghana in Uzbekistan, who now lives in Finland where he runs his own music YouTube channel, DJ Hem—Soviet Grooves from Helsinki.
The interview was edited for brevity and style.
Filip Noubel (FN): How did you become a DJ of Soviet music and what's the reason for moving from your native Uzbekistan to Finland?
Хамдам Закиров (ХЗ): В 1994 году я уехал из Узбекистана в Москву, где прожил 8 лет. В Финляндию я попал с женой  – москвичкой с финскими корнями. В Финляндии я с 2001 года, a собирать пластинки я начал лишь 5 лет назад. Как-то, лет десять назад, один финский коллега спросил, что я знаю о советском фанке. Я ответил, что такого не было и нет. В голове-то у меня, понятно, тут же заиграл Джеймс Браун. Я сказал тогда, что фанк – это такая сексуальная музыка, которой априори не могло быть в асексуальном Советском Союзе (не знаю, вспомнит ли кто из ваших читателей легендарную фразу участницы одного из первых телемостов, если верно помню, Москва — Нью-Йорк, которая заявила, что «в СССР секса нет»).
Мой товарищ утверждал обратное, и я пообещал поискать что-то в этом стиле. И нашел! Конечно, ничего такого, что напоминало бы драйв Джеймса Брауна, но очень много интересного джаз-фанка, диско-фанка и фанковых элементов в аранжировках.
Эту историю я вспомнил, когда начал собирать пластинки. Я прослушивал пластинки советских исполнителей, которые мне попадались, в поисках ответа на давнишний вопрос коллеги. В итоге, когда появилась возможность сыграть свой первый диджей-сет, у меня уже был готов солидный плей-лист.
Hamdam Zakirov (HZ): In 1994, I left Uzbekistan and moved to Moscow where I lived for eight years. Later, I ended up in Finland with my wife, a Muscovite with Finnish roots. I've been living in Finland since 2001 but started collecting vinyls only five years ago. About 10 years ago, a Finnish colleague asked what I knew about Soviet funk. Hearing in my mind the music of James Brown, I answered that there was no such thing. I told him back then that funk was a sexual form of music that could not possibly exist in the asexual Soviet Union (as one participant in a tele-bridge between Moscow and New York once said in a legendary sentence: “There is no sex in the USSR”). My colleague disagreed, and I promised to enquire. And I did find something! Of course nothing similar to the energy and style of James Brown, but, indeed, very interesting jazz-funk, disco-funk and elements of funk in musical arrangements. I recalled that story when I started to collect vinyls. I listened carefully to discs by Soviet artists that came my way, in order to find an answer to my colleague's question. In the end, when I had the opportunity to play my first DJ set, I already had a solid playlist.
FN: Where do you play Soviet music? And for whom?
ХЗ: Первые мои сеты были дома, для тесного круга друзей. Но в январе 2016 года я познакомился с оргкомитетом фестиваля Tusovka, который проводится в Хельсинки с 1999 года. Этот фестиваль объединяет на одних площадках финских музыкантов с их коллегами из стран постсоветского пространства. В том году я сыграл свой первый публичный сет. И с тех пор я – хост-диджей фестиваля. Это очень почетно. Несколько раз я играл в узбекском ресторане. А один раз даже на свадьбе! ))) Моя аудитория – это, конечно, в первую очередь наши соотечественники. Но и финны, которым интересны теперь уже многочисленные государства за восточной границей.
HZ: My first sets were performed at home for a small circle of close friends. But in January 2016, I met the committee in charge of organizing the Tusovka festival, which has been taking place in Helsinki since 1999. This festival merges musicians from Finland and from former Soviet countries over shared platforms. That same year I played my first set. And since 2016, I have been their guest DJ, which is a great honor. I've played several times in an Uzbek restaurant, and once at a wedding. My audience are former Soviet citizens, but also Finns interested in the many places eastwards of their borders.
FN: You also promote Uzbek music from the Soviet period. Why?
ХЗ: У меня в коллекции полсотни пластинок узбекских исполнителей. В  начале этого года я решил наконец собрать узбекскую программу из композиций и песен, которые уже отметил для себя, потом углубился – в тексты, истории исполнителей, авторов песен, и решил, что правильнее сделать подкаст. На данный момент я опубликовал две части подкаста. Их можно найти на моём ютьюб-канале.
Когда в марте начался карантин, совпавший с праздником Навруз, я провёл свой первый онлайн диджей-сет, который состоял из по большей части узбекской эстрадной музыкой. Этот онлайн набрал более 2000 просмотров!
О любимых исполнителях: я нашел в сети несколько песен Батыра Закирова. И вдруг понял, что это были первые песни, которые я помню. Помню в том смысле, что 4-5-летним ребенком впервые вслушивался в слова. Можно наверное смело сказать, что “Седая любовь”, “Песня о счастье” повлияли на моё поэтическое творчество. Уже в старшем школьном возрасте я услышал и влюбился в группу “Оригинал”. Также хотел бы упомянуть, что в число любимых узбекских артистов я совсем недавно включил и Насибу Абдуллаеву. Две её первые пластинки начала 80-х – это уникальные, в каком-то смысле передовые для тогдашней узбекской эстрады аранжировки.
HZ: I have about 50 discs of Uzbek artists in my collection. Early this year I decided to select a program of Uzbek music from pieces I had noticed, then went deeper into the texts, the history of each performance, the authors of the songs, and decided the best thing to do would be a podcast. For now, I have uploaded two parts of my podcast that you can find on my YouTube channel. When the COVID-19 quarantine started this year—on the same date as Nowruz, the Central Asian New Year—I played my first online DJ set made mostly of Uzbek pop music. It got over 2,000 views!
My favorite artists: I found online a few songs by Batyr Zakirov, and suddenly realized that these were the first songs I ever remembered, in the sense that at the age of four or five was when I was paying attention to lyrics for the first time. I can probably state that Zakirov's songs “Седая любовь” [Gray Love] and “Песня о счастье” [Song of Happiness] shaped my poetic worldview. During the years I attended school, I heard and fell in love with the band “Оригинал” [Original]. I would also like to mention that I have added Nasiba Abdullayeva among my favorite Uzbek artists. Her first two discs from the 1980s are unique, avant-garde musical adaptations in the context of Uzbek pop music.
Here is a playlist focusing on other big names of Soviet Uzbek music, including Batyr Zakirov:
FN: How do you find your vinyls?
ХЗ: Сейчас у меня в коллекции порядка шести тысяч пластинок. Вначале я собирал всё, что слушал в разные периоды своей жизни. Со временем я стал меньше бегать по блошиным рынкам, и теперь выискиваю какие-то определенные пластинки или композиции. Новые издания я покупаю у производителей или в больших интернет-магазинах. Если это старые пластинки, то для их поиска существует несколько интернациональных площадок в сети. И хотя рекорд-лейблов становится больше, и всё больше альбомов, как новых, так и старых, которые издаются на виниле, пластинки зачастую выходят мизерными тиражами. Иногда это 200-300, а то и 100 экземпляров. Но и это не предел: у меня есть эксклюзивные издания тиражом 50 и даже 30 экземпляров.
HZ: I have about 6,000 discs in my collection now. In the beginning, I used to collect everything I had heard at different periods of my life. Over time, I started spending less time in flea markets, and now I look for very specific discs and songs. I buy new releases from the producers or large e-shops. As for older discs, there are several global online platforms for that. And while there are more and more disc labels, and albums released, both old and new, discs often come out in ridiculously small prints. Sometimes 200 to 300, or even 100 copies. And that's not even the smallest figure: I have a few exclusive prints that were released in 50 or even 30 copies.
A musical instrument store in Tashkent selling both traditional Uzbek and Western ones. Photo by Filip Noubel, used with permission
FN: I noticed in your YouTube videos you mention the beauty of the music of the Soviet era but insist this has nothing to do with any nostalgia for the Soviet system. Can you explain?
ХЗ: Часто мои слушатели среднего и старшего возраста начинают ностальгировать. И часто я слышу слова о том, какую, мол, прекрасную музыку (песни) исполняли в советские времена. Но в том-то и дело: то, что я использую в своих сетах и миксах – это лучшее из лучшего.
Все те композиции, которые я отмечаю для себя, которые использую в своих миксах и подкастах – это или удивительные, свободные от «советского» тексты, либо поразительные аранжировки, в которых музыканты умудрялись показать всё то лучшее, что они умели. А также знали – из современной им западной популярной музыки. Все эти их опыты и эксперименты, которые спустя 40-50 лет я обнаруживаю на старых пластинках, а потом в меру сил популяризирую среди своих слушателей, можно смело назвать героическими. Музыканты тех времен, как партизаны, преодолевали массу преград, стоящих на их пути и желании исполнять ту музыку, которую они хотели бы исполнять. Можно сказать, я воздаю должное их героическим усилиям.
В этом контексте интересно восприятие узбекской частью моей аудитории песен советских времен. Мне несколько раз говорили, что, мол, многовато песен на русском языке. Это такой интересный показатель двоякого отношения к советскому в нынешнем узбекском обществе. Но для меня нет значения на каком языке песня. Когда я готовлю свои программы, я смотрю прежде всего на тонкое и редкое сочетание глубины и профессионализма, исполнительского мастерства, креативности аранжировок, и в итоге – суммы всех этих вещей должны непременно вызвать какой-то отклик не только у узбека или человека жившего или бывавшего в Узбекистане, но у человека из любого уголка мира.
Ну, а насколько я это угадываю пусть судят слушатели. ))
HZ: Very often my listeners who are middle-aged or older start to feel nostalgic. I often get comments saying that during Soviet times, artists played and sang wonderful music and songs. But the point is that in my sets and remixes I use the best of the best. All the songs that I select, and use in my remixes, sets and podcasts are either lyrics that are unusual and free from Soviet ideology, or are astonishing musical arrangements in which musicians managed to show the best of their talent, their knowledge about contemporary and Western pop music. All their experiences and experiments that I discover 40 and 50 years later in old vinyls, and spread amongst my listeners, can be described as heroic. The musicians of the time, like war partisans, overcame a great number of obstacles standing in their way to perform the kind of music they wanted to play. One can say I am paying tribute to their heroic efforts.
In this regard, the way the Uzbek part of my audience relates to the songs of the Soviet period is very interesting. I was told several times that I use too many songs in Russian. This is a sign of the conflicted relationship contemporary Uzbek society maintains towards its Soviet heritage. But for me, the language of the song is irrelevant. When I prepare my program, I pay attention primarily to the refined and rare combination of depth and professionalism, the art of performance, the creativity of the musical arrangements, and as a result, the sum of all those elements have to trigger a sort of response, not just for an Uzbek listener, or a person who lives or has lived in Uzbekistan, but for anyone from anywhere.
But I will let my listeners be the judge of whether I have succeeded or not!

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Filip Noubel


text:
New evidence indicates Hong Kong police helped China arrest 12 activists fleeing for Taiwan · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Activists protested outside Government Flying Service's headquarters on October 8. Photo posted by Joshua Wong on his Facebook profile.
Flight records and newly leaked documents belonging to Hong Kong Government Flying Service (GFS) suggest that the Hong Kong police tailed 12 fleeing activists until they were arrested by mainland Chinese coast guards on August 23.
The Hong Kong police had previously denied knowledge of the activists’ escape plan to Taiwan by speedboat and claimed to have learned about the arrest only on August 28 upon notification by mainland Chinese authorities.
But evidence surfaced this week suggest that the Hong Kong authorities were aware of the plan and may have assisted mainland Chinese authorities in the arrest operation.
Aged between 16 to 30, the 12 activists had been previously charged in Hong Kong with crimes ranging from police assault, arson, and rioting to collusion with foreign forces for their protest activities in 2019.
Penalty for those crimes could be up to 10 years in prison, in the case of rioting, or life imprisonment in the case of collusion with foreign forces under the newly-enacted national security law.
While they were on bail, the 12 activists attempted to flee Hong Kong by speedboat to Taiwan, where they would seek asylum. They were arrested by the Chinese coast guard and charged with illegal border-crossing. They are now detained in Shenzhen.
The 12 have been incommunicado since their capture and lawyers hired by their families were denied visits.
Since the arrest, activists in Hong Kong have been hunting radar records from nearby vessels and other available information to verify whether the speedboat was indeed captured in Chinese waters — if proven otherwise, the arrest would be deemed illegal.
This week, Apple Daily News obtained records from a flight-tracking application called Flightware which indicate that a fixed-wing B-LVB government-owned aircraft tailed the activists’ speedboat on August 23 until they were outside of Hong Kong waters.
Activist Joshua Wong, who is a member of the concern group “Save HK 12 youth,” posted the news on Twitter:
#Breaking news by @appledaily_hk: #12hkyouths’ speedboat was allegedly tracked by #Hkgov aircraft before capture. Family members suspect that #HK gov cooperated w/ #China and helped Chinese cops to arrest the 12 #AsylumSeekers after their #refugee route was known. #save12hkyouths pic.twitter.com/439gfBCapz
— Joshua Wong 黃之鋒 ? (@joshuawongcf) October 5, 2020
GFS refused to comment on the story. Chief Executive Carrie Lam reaffirmed on October 6 that the Hong Kong government has had no role in the arrest of the 12.
Two days after Apple Daily News’ story was published, “Save HK 12 youth” received the flight logs of the fixed-wing B-LVB aircraft showing it was involved in a GFS operation on August 23:
Internal document proved that HKPF involved in GFS operation on 23 Aug morning. The Government Directory has deleted the contact details of the entire Operations Unit of GFS from its telephone directory.#save12hkyouths pic.twitter.com/inVNbx079J
— save12hkyouths (@save12hkyouths) October 8, 2020
Joshua Wong highlighted that the mission was marked with “P-OPS,”  an abbreviation for “police operations”:
2.2/ Time record of mission coincided with that of speedboat;
2.3/ helicopter unit, usually deployed for anti-smuggling or illegal immigrants operations, was instead left unattended;
2.4/ Fly Program stated ‘P-OPS’ (police operations) – aerial surveillance led by Police. pic.twitter.com/ObclpdREiR
— Joshua Wong 黃之鋒 ? (@joshuawongcf) October 8, 2020
On October 8, the concern group and the activists’ families staged a protest outside the GFS demanding a full explanation of the August 23 flight mission:
Protest of families of the 12 detained in Shenzhen outside the government flying service headquarters; soon surrounded by police pic.twitter.com/I0WjCqRXIS
— Kris Cheng (@krislc) October 8, 2020
The mounting evidence has led many more Hongkongers to believe that the police has assisted with the detention of the 12 activists by China, where the chances of them facing a fair trial are slim:
It’s obviously that hk gov knew the details of this event but they are lying now. It seems that hk police planned with ccp’s authorities to kidnap the 12 hk youth. That’s absolutely ridiculous. Please #save12hkyouths ?? pic.twitter.com/49J0JJq1RT
— 懷疑人生嘅六角恐龍 (@lalAgayauah9753) October 8, 2020

author: Oiwan Lam


text:
In rural Malawi, inadequate health care facilities is a matter of life or death · Global Voices
Kondwani Magombo

Mother Mphatso Gumulira, 15, with her son Zayitwa in the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Blantyre, Malawi. Photo via DFID/Flickr, CC BY 2.0.
Editor's note: This story was written by Kondwani Magombo as part of the UK government-funded PROTECT project for ARTICLE 19 and is published here through a partnership-sharing agreement.
When Jazira Afiya, a 27-year-old mother of 3, voted in Malawi’s rerun presidential election in June, she cast her vote with one wish: that the incoming government would bring health services to where she lives.
Afiya lives in Kanyenga, a remote village in the country’s lakeshore and tourism district of Mangochi. The nearest public health facility is 40 kilometers away, so the easiest way to get there is by motorbike taxi, for a return fare of 6,000 Malawi kwacha (about $8.02 United States dollars) — a huge price for subsistence farmers like Afiya.
Malawi’s minimum wage is 1,346 MK ($1.80 USD) per day, making the motorbike fare the equivalent of five days’ income.
Residents of Kanyenga are all too familiar with the sick dying on the way to the hospital, or pregnant women giving birth during the journey and sometimes losing the baby in the process.
Afiya was one of those who went into labor and struggled to reach the hospital in time.
“I searched the village for a motorbike to hire, but I couldn’t find any,” she told ARTICLE 19. “At around 3 a.m. I gave birth to a baby boy right at home with the help of women from the neighborhood.
“The following morning, I managed to hire a motorbike and when I got to the hospital, I was told that the baby had caught severe pneumonia, apparently due to exposure to cold on the way; and just like that, I lost my baby,” Afiya explained to ARTICLE 19.
Access to health services is a struggle for the majority of Malawians and in particular, the 84 percent of the population who live in rural areas. At the center of Malawi’s vast gaps in health care provision are women and children who require specialists’ services such as ante-natal, maternity care and under-five care.
The Health Sector Strategic Plan II (2017-2022) states, “56 percent of Malawian adult women still cite distance to health facilities as a key barrier to healthcare access.” The health system suffers from weak human resource capacity and an average vacancy rate of 67 percent for key clinical, nursing and technical posts.”
The situation falls far short of both Malawian and international targets. Malawi’s constitution commits to “provide adequate health care, commensurate with the health needs of Malawian society and international standards of health care.”
The UN and the World Health Organization are aiming for Universal Health Coverage by the year 2030.
Due to these problems, health services became a central campaign issue in recent elections. The new government of the Tonse Alliance was elected on a range of promises, including the delivery of essential health care in the country.
As Afiya and her neighbors wait for the new government to deliver on those promises, civil society organizations in the country are heeding the calls of the local community and calling for action.
“Through the National Advocacy Forum, we make our presentations to the government on issues that impinge on the rights of the people,” explains Emma Kaliya, a gender activist and executive director for Malawi Human Rights Resource Centre (MHRRC). “We have presented our manifesto to the president with regard to access to essential health care for women and children.”
Kaliya is calling upon the government to urgently introduce mobile clinics to access remote and hard to reach areas such as Kanyenga village.
“Issues around maternal and child health care must be a priority to help reduce mortality and morbidity rates, which are still very high,” says health care advocate and lobbyist, Dorothy Ngoma who, until 2018, was president for Malawi’s National Organization for Nurses and Midwives.
Ngoma wants to see the government construct more maternity waiting homes and maternity units, and recruit more nurses, doctors and other clinical staff.
“I would like to say to the new government that both civil society and the people of Malawi are watching, and will not accept anything less,” she told ARTICLE 19.
The government says it will continue to work to resolve these issues, assessing the interventions and resources available to people, particularly those living in rural areas.
Dr. Charles Mwansambo from Malawi’s Ministry of Health told ARTICLE 19: “We have developed a plan which, among other things, prioritizes the construction of health facilities in remote and hard-to-reach areas in order to improve the access to essential health services for all Malawians. However, the resource envelope is limited and as such we can only construct at a slower pace than preferred. The Ministry is therefore also working on mobilizing more resources from local and international development partners so we can construct more facilities.”
Alongside the strain on health services during the pandemic, another major challenge has arisen: a surge in the number of child pregnancies and child marriages. Mangochi district recorded nearly 7,400 teen pregnancies from January to June in the year — an increase of more than 1,000 compared to the same period in 2019.
Ngoma fears possible complications ahead, as many may opt to have an abortion, which is legal in Malawi only in cases where the woman’s life is at risk.
“We must be ready to provide post-abortion services to pregnant girls, and we will need to support the parents whose daughters have been affected,” she said.

author: Kondwani Magombo


text:
Rights groups in Tunisia mobilize against police protection bill · Global Voices
Rima Sghaier

A police officer kicks a protester during a demonstration against the police protection bill on October 6. Image credit: Nawaat, used with permission.
As the Tunisian parliament considers a controversial police protection bill, protests erupted in the city of Bardo to oppose it. On October 6 and 8, human rights groups and a youth-led citizen movement dubbed Hasebhom (translated as “hold them to account”) rallied outside the parliament building against the bill, which, if adopted, would grant security forces immunity from prosecution for their use of unnecessary lethal force.
The Tunisia parliament’s decision to hold a plenary session to discuss the bill —weeks before the 10th anniversary of the revolution that toppled the Ben Ali dictatorship— was met with criticism from human rights groups and activists who have been opposing the bill since it was first submitted to the parliament in 2015.
As activists mobilized against the bill, police targeted them on- and offline. These attacks on freedom of demonstration and speech are alarming and confirm the concerns of human rights organizations that serious rights violations and persisting gaps in legal protections of rights threaten Tunisia’s strides in protecting human rights since the revolution of 2011.
In the meantime, the parliament announced on October 8 that it will delay discussion on the bill, while activists remain determined to have it completely withdrawn.
The latest version of the draft law No.25/2015 on the Prosecution of Abuses Against the Armed Forces presents a number of improvements compared to the initial version, submitted to parliament on April 13, 2015. For example, this earlier version envisaged criminal penalties against speech deemed “denigrating” toward the police.
Yet, changes introduced to this recent version have not appeased the concerns of human rights organizations.
On October 6, more than 20 civil society organizations signed a joint statement and launched a campaign dubbed “An Alarming Parliamentary Return,” urging the parliament to reject the police protection bill, along with other bills raising rights concerns, including a state of emergency draft law and draft amendments to the decree regulating broadcast media. According to the statement, the police protection bill “continues to pose a threat to the rights and freedoms of all citizens, despite the amendments that have been included.”

The proposed law violates Article 21 of the Tunisian constitution of 2014, which states that “all citizens are equal before the law without any discrimination.” Article 7 of the proposed law, which grants security forces immunity from prosecution for the use of excessive and lethal force against citizens in situations deemed “dangerous,” is contrary to Tunisia's international human rights commitments — particularly with regard to respect of the right to life and the fight against impunity.

In a statement by Amnesty International, deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, Emna Guellali said:
Time and time again, Tunisian and international civil society organizations have fought against this bill, warning of the detrimental impact it would have on the rule of law. If adopted, this draft law would reinforce the culture of impunity and send an alarming message to the security forces that they have the green light to use force as they see fit without worrying about being held accountable.
Security forces unions cite the rising threat of terrorism in post-revolutionary Tunisia to pressure parliament to adopt the bill. Yet, there are numerous laws and decrees that regulate or protect security work and severely punish criminal acts that target security forces.
During the October 6 protest, demonstrators raised signs and slogans against police brutality and impunity, while members of LGBT groups, Damj and Outcasts, were present to denounce police violence against LGBTQI+ individuals.
Footage and testimonies shared by citizen journalists and independent citizen media Nawaat showed police physically assaulting protesters. Four were detained in the Bardo police station for three hours and were denied access to lawyers — a blatant violation of their rights under Tunisia law. Some deputies who joined the demonstrators were also assaulted, including Yassine Ayari, who talked about the assault to a local radio program.
Global Voices spoke with one of the detained activists, Asrar Ben Jouira, a Hasebhom campaign coordinator and member of the Tunisian Human Rights League. Jouira said that she herself was subjected to and also witnessed verbal and physical assaults by police — both uniformed and undercover. She said that a police officer sexually harassed by touching her breasts and also harassed other female demonstrators, by touching their buttocks and verbally abusing them. She also reported that police officers used their personal mobile phones to film her and the other demonstrators, despite the presence of the technical police that used professional cameras.
When she heard that two activists were detained, she went to Bardo police station to check on them and to make sure they had lawyers. She was lured inside the police station by an officer who led her to believe she could check on the activists, but quickly closed the door and informed her that she would also be detained for “rioting,” explaining that her face had been spotted in a video filmed during the protest.
Another police officer showed her on his phone a post on the Hasebhom Facebook page that translates the draft law from legalese standard Arabic to the Tunisian dialect, telling her: “We know you wrote this.”

Asrar and the other detainees were only released after the intervention of a number of deputies.
In a Facebook live stream organized on October 6, Al Bawsala and other civil society organizations to denounce draft laws that threaten human rights, Yosra Frawes of the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women (ATFD) denounced police unions for their “illegal practices” such as “organizing coordinated harassment campaigns on social media against citizens and discriminatory speech based on gender identity.”
On October 7, Activist Myriam Bribri received a summons from police based on her social media posts critical of the draft law. A public prosecutor later charged her with “insulting others through social media.” She remains free as she awaits trial on December 14. Bribri was also subjected to attacks on social media. In a statement supporting the activist, the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES) said:
This summons comes after she was systematically harassed whether through her page on social media or threatening phone calls coming from personal and administrative phone numbers of police union members.
The abuse of power by police and security forces remains undoubtedly a serious problem in Tunisia, particular as it remains under a continuous state of emergency since November 2015, a period marked by criminal prosecutions for peaceful speech online and offline, attacks against journalists, arbitrary arrests by the police, and numerous cases of police brutality and torture.
As Hasebhom organized the second round of protests on October 8, the parliament ended its plenary session without discussing the bill, postponing its adoption to an undetermined date as was the case in 2017.
Activists celebrated this small win but are not taking a break from their persistent fight until the bill is withdrawn or rejected. While civil society continues the fight against the police protection bill, Tunisian authorities must respect the right to peaceful protest and avoid arbitrary detention even under this everlasting state of emergency.

author: Rima Sghaier


text:
New literary magazine makes contemporary Japanese fiction accessible to English readers · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

MONKEY magazine is successor to the much-loved Monkey Business literary journal. Screenshot from Monkey website.
October saw the launch of Monkey, Japan's newest English literary magazine. The journal, which features some of the world's best known writers and translators, publishes contemporary Japanese fiction in English translation.
The literary journal's debut issue translates a plethora of Japanese literature both old and new, and facilitates discussion about the translation itself. A few highlights include “The Visitor”, a graphic narrative by Jon Klassen with text by Yōko Ogawa translated by Lucy North, and Naoya Shiga's “The Razor”, translated by Ted Goossen, with remarks by noted filmmaker Hirokazu Koreeda.
Founded by Japanese translator Motoyuki Shibata, who has translated Paul Auster and other notable writers into Japanese, Monkey is a resurrection of sorts of the venerable Monkey Business, which Shibata ran for several years with Ted Goossen, the noted translator of Japanese literary superstar Haruki Murakami. The duo were able to resurrect the magazine with the help of Tadashi Yanai, the founder of Japanese clothing retail giant Uniqlo.
While the lineup of authors and translators can be exciting — even dazzling — for fans of Japanese literature, according to Eric Margolis, who interviewed Shibata for the Japan Times prior to launch, the intent of Monkey is to be sophisticated, yet accessible:
At the risk of oversimplifying, the Japanese literary scene can be split between serious literary fiction — the type that goes up for the prestigious Akutagawa Prize — and popular literature — the type that goes up for the Naoki Prize. Shibata says that Monkey falls somewhere in the middle.
Subscribers to the Monkey newsletter receive a free PDF download of “The Thirteenth Month”, a translation of short story by Mieko Kawakami:
A brilliant literary magazine “MONKEY New Writing from Japan” @monkeybizjapan is now offering a free digital download of my short story “The Thirteenth Month” in English which originally appeared in “Monkey Business Volume 5″! https://t.co/blnXiXdhAD
— 川上未映子 (@mieko_kawakami) October 5, 2020
Kawakami's recent novel “Breasts and Eggs”, described as “a multifaceted consideration of the fundamental question: What does it mean to exist?”, has received acclaim both in Japan and around the world. A favorite of Haruki Murakami, Kawakami has published a book-length interview (in Japanese) with the novelist. She also generated attention for her on-stage, face-to-face critique of Murakami's 2017 novel “Killing Commendatore”, where she suggested that Japan's literary darling — among other obsessions — perhaps focuses too much on women's breasts.
With translations of cutting-edge novelists like Kawakami and others, Monkey promises to be a lively, exciting literary journal. Electronic, downloadable e-pub versions of the first issue can be purchased in a variety of formats on the Monkey website, with a printed edition becoming available in December 2020.

author: Nevin Thompson


text:
A Kashmiri medical student paints on leaves to beat COVID-19 stress · Global Voices
VideoVolunteers

Tabish Aijaz Khan. Screenshot from Youtube Video.
This post originally appeared on Video Volunteers, an award-winning international community media organisation based in India. An edited version is published below as part of a content-sharing agreement.
Tabish Aijaz Khan, a young medical student from Anantnag district in Kashmir, is using her natural ability to paint to beat the stress caused by exams and the COVID-19 pandemic.
On March 9, 2020, the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir saw its first confirmed case of COVID-19. The latest COVID-19 numbers as of October 11 for Jammu and Kashmir are 83,064 with 1313 deaths.
Kashmir saw over 413 internet blockades since 2012, the longest one is from August 4, 2019, to March 4, 2020, as per Internetshutdowns.in. Internet services are currently restricted to 2G. According to research by Sheikh Shoib and S. M. Yasir Arafat published in The Lancet in September 2020, the combination of communication blackouts with lockdowns in Kashmir is likely to cause loneliness and escalate psychological distress.
Tabish Aijaz started painting in Fourth Standard and since then it has become her hobby. She is currently studying to be a doctor. As her medical course is exhaustive and involves a lot of studies and examinations, Tabish has taken up painting to lessen the stresses caused by the pandemic and the studies.
Rayees Ahmad, social worker and a community correspondent with KashmirUnheard, has interviewed her to learn about her efforts:
Instead of spending time on screen like others, Tabish spends time to mostly paint on chinar (Platanus orientalis) leaves and uploads it on her social media channels. One painting can take from four hours to seven days to complete.
painted skies with blue. ,illustrated pine ? tress with branches ,real grass ,with stone And the hotels made of hard paper and finally it became a beautiful valley inside it
I love to create beautiful things from waste❤ #kashmir @JKAACL @Nidhi @AartiTikoo @SyedAbidShah pic.twitter.com/FaHQUwhCYo
— Tabish aijaz khan (@tabish99) October 6, 2020
"Gar firdaus bar-rue zamin ast, hami asto, hamin asto ,hamin ast" #acrylic on real #chinar leaf ?  I am always so excited to paint chinar leaves .. ❤❤❤  #kashmirart #kashmirculture  #art_realism_ #kashmir #jktourism #kashmiri #kashmiriartist #girlartist #viral #explorepage #exploremore #likesforlike  #artaccount #art_4share #artsy #artist #artwork #artsanity #artisfun #arts_help #artdiscover #artcurator #artcollector #artnerd #dailyart #art_daily #artistic @kashmirobserver @rjmehakz @kashmir__valley @kashmir_update @i_explore_kashmir @kashmirlifeofficial @page.of.kashmir @artists_of__kashmir @srinagar__ @srinagar_news_times
A post shared by  tabish aijaz khan (@artby_tabishkhan) on
“If there is a heaven on earth, it’s here, it’s here, it’s here.”
Recently, Tabish has received a lot of appreciation for her efforts raising awareness about the Kashmiri culture and about the spread of COVID-19.
Kabbah shareef ❤
In the times of #COVID-19 ..
Pilgrimages maintaing #socialdistancing while performing #hajj2020 ..
The place where #peace lies even in this pandemic
Hope this pandemic vanishes away ..
AMEEN #hajj2020 #tabishaijazkhan #kashmir pic.twitter.com/V6Pn3huB8m
— Tabish aijaz khan (@tabish99) August 31, 2020
Tabish, who also uses stones and discarded material to create art, has exhibited her works at local art exhibitions. As an aspiring doctor, she uses her art to highlight the service that doctors, nurses and other health workers are giving to the nation in eradicating the pandemic.

author: VideoVolunteers


text:
How I learned not to hate · Global Voices
Arpi Bekaryan

The sun over the South Caucasus. Photo (c): OC Media, used with permission.
This article originally appeared on OC Media. It is republished here with permission, edited in accordance with GV house style.
We must confront our anger and our trauma without resorting to hate.
I have seen the seeds of hatred growing slowly in people who were chanting for peace just days ago, a week ago, two weeks ago … I have seen nationalistic posts from the people who taught me how to go beyond my nationality, how to have empathy towards “others,” how to learn their stories and understand their pain. I have been crying hysterically at the posts of people who were once my role models, wishing with all my heart that I just don’t understand something in the texts I am reading.
On social media, someone justifies the shelling of [the de-facto capital of Nagorno-Karabakh] Stepanakert, another makes jokes about those whose houses were shelled in [the Azerbaijani city of] Ganja, a third celebrates a “liberated” village, while the soldiers of both sides lay dead on that “liberation,” and a fourth shouts for “victory”.
And the spectacle goes on and on and on … Maybe it’s easier to open up the eyes in the morning when you wait for “victory” or “liberation.” Maybe it’s easier to handle the deaths of 18-year-old boys who had nothing to do with this conflict when you can cover up the blood with the romantic ideologies you have been taught since your first breath.
A year and a half ago, Facebook reminded me about the posts I made in April 2016. At that time, I became the kind of person I would never want to talk to. All my posts were hateful and militaristic.
My first thought was to delete them all. Then I decided to close them to the public but to leave them for myself, to remind me every year who I was and who I could still be if I didn’t start questioning my views.
There are times people tell me “you wouldn’t understand,” “you didn’t lose a loved one to this,” “you are not from Artsakh/Karabakh.” I agree, maybe I won’t and never will. But let me tell you how I started questioning my hatred in the first place.
In May 2016, I went to the home of one of the soldiers who was killed during the April War to interview his family. Hatred had been boiling in me for a month, and I was expecting 10 times more of that from them. Instead, I heard, “Their mothers are in the same pain now. They also lose children. Who needs this war?”
This was like a punch to the face. From that day on, I would think to myself, “How can I have so much hatred in me if a woman who just lost her child thinks of ‘their mothers?'”
My experience studying at the Georgian Institute for Public Affairs (GIPA) and my life in Tbilisi forced me to look deeper into this conflict.
Over the past two years, I have interviewed 10 refugees who fled Azerbaijan 30 years ago. One woman who witnessed the Baku pogroms, who lost her house, her friends, who had been living in a dormitory for decades, told me with a smile on her face how she had packed a box of baby girl clothes to send to her Azerbaijani friend who had just had a granddaughter.
Another woman, whose son was seriously wounded during the April War, said, “He was wounded by an Azerbaijani bullet, but once an Azerbaijani family saved his life. They took care of him for months when the tensions started 30 years ago.”
I might never understand the pain of people who have lost their homes or their loved ones, but it’s the people who have lost the most who taught me not to lose myself to hatred.
One of my Azerbaijani friends reminded me about this today while I was having a break-down, wondering if I might also lose myself to hatred if I were to lose a loved one to this war. We started reminding each other of the people on both sides who have every right to hate, yet never do.
One of those people is my closest friend, who is from Stepanakert. She got married and moved abroad two weeks ago. While she was still unpacking and adjusting to her new home, she woke up to the news of war.
Her brother is on the frontline, her relatives are in Stepanakert. She sees her city being shelled every day. Yet she is someone who has never uttered a single hateful comment, she is someone who asks me about my Azerbaijani friends and their well-being during these days, and she gets angry about nationalistic posts on social media.
I have met people from the other side who lost everything in their childhood, who had to run away, leaving their homes and their cities behind. These people were the kindest to me and never shared a warmongering text during all these days and before.
A year ago, during our conflict transformation dialogue, I had to talk about Ramil Safarov, the Azerbaijani soldier who murdered an Armenian colleague during a NATO training exercise in Hungary. I started crying after two words. My Azerbaijani friend held my hand so that I could breathe and lean on someone.
When I was talking to him on the phone some days ago, he was shouting to me, “I should go to the border, stand there and try to convince both sides, try to make them agree on something. I know they won’t kill me. They won’t kill me.” This time he was crying, and I was laughing hysterically at his sincerely naive wishes.
Waking up every morning has become hell, as there are no good mornings anymore. I wake up to discover that my worst nightmares have become reality. I look through the names of dead soldiers each day, praying to some universe that I do not recognise any of the names on the list. But there are others finding their loved ones on that list every day.
We all have traumas from this conflict that we have passed down through the years. We are now giving birth to new ones. As I woke up in the morning to go to talk to a family that was displaced not 30 years ago, but yesterday, I felt hopeless and powerless as never before.
It might be that this war has postponed a peaceful settlement for several more years.
The violence sometimes feels like a circle that will never come to its end. But then I remind myself: everything ends sooner or later, and wars are no exception. There have not been countless wars on this planet. People will live together peacefully once again.
Till that day comes, I can only promise myself every other morning that I will not give space to hatred and will not become someone who spreads it, no matter what.
Editorial note: The author uses certain terms to describe territories and locations that reflect her own perspective. These do not imply an editorial position on their status.

author: Arpi Bekaryan


text:
The Caribbean’s case for reparations: Part I · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Screenshot of the Facebook live stream of Bocas Lit Fest's “The Case for Reparations,” a conversation with Sir Hilary Beckles (right), chaired by Andy Knight (left), which took place on October 11, 2020.
This is the first article in a series that highlights the question of slavery reparations in the Caribbean. It is based around issues discussed in the NCG Bocas Lit Fest's live stream event, “The Case for Reparations,” which featured an in-depth conversation with Sir Hilary Beckles, chair of the CARICOM Reparations Commission.
On October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus forever changed the trajectory of the “New World” by planting the seeds of colonisation: centuries later, the region still grapples with the debilitating ripple effects of occupation and unspeakable acts of violence, including genocide and slavery. To draw attention to the issue, the CARICOM Reparations Commission, chaired by Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, an academic and historian who is also vice-chancellor of The University of the West Indies, decided to commemorate this date as the International Day for Reparations.
On Sunday, October 11, the NGC Bocas Lit Fest live-streamed a conversation with Sir Hilary on the topic as part of its calendar of online events celebrating 10 years of the annual literary festival. Titled, “The Case for Reparations,” it garnered thousands of views from across the region.
Calling colonisation “one of the phenomena that has most disrupted humanity [leaving] a deep and lasting impression on all continents,” the commission has connected the dots to prove that the effects of this inhumane system go way beyond the psychological, to include economic, cultural, demographic, political and ecological fallout:
When a wrong has been committed, it must be repaired. If you recognise that colonization has been a source of massive crimes against humanity, then reparations are legitimate. If you refuse these reparations, then you deny the criminal nature of colonial crimes.
This is why we are forcefully demanding reparations, and this demand is non-negotiable.
There has been some success thus far, most notably the signing of a historic 20 million British pound [26,130,000 United States dollar] agreement for slavery reparations between The University of the West Indies and the University of Glasgow in 2019. However, the Commission believes that more needs to be done.
In addition to its 10-point action plan, it is advocating for a high-level Caribbean reparations summit aimed at turning mere apologies into action that can herald a developmental turnaround for the region.
In this instalment of the series, Global Voices takes a look at how the legacy of slavery made the murder of George Floyd possible, and why colonisation in the Caribbean is an ongoing process.
The international attention being given to the Black Lives Matter movement has offered the Caribbean an opportunity to draw attention to the need for reparations.
Andy Knight, who interviewed Sir Hilary for the live stream, noted that it took “the 21st-century lynching of a 46-year-old man […] displayed on television for all the world to see, to finally spark that sense of indignation globally” as Floyd begged for his life. His dying words, “I can't breathe,” have since become symbolic of the asphyxiation of opportunities “that Black people around the world have had to endure for over 400 years.”
Sir Hilary made the link between George Floyd and the legacy of slavery by referring to a key point in his book, “The First Black Slave Society — Britain's ‘Barbarity Time’ in Barbados, 1636-1876,” which was published by The University of The West Indies Press in 2016. It was the moment in which he says Black lives only mattered in relation to an economic paradigm: in 1636, Barbados’ British colonisers passed legislation — known as the Barbados Slave Code — that marked the first framing of the notion of Black people as property.
This code then spread across the region and to the United States as “the template for plantation America” — a framework in which Black people were perceived as being valuable only as tools for extreme wealth accumulation. The brutal manner in which George Floyd died 384 years later, according to Sir Hilary, is a graphic pictorial of the consequences of this code, underscoring how easy it is to dispense with Black life as a spectacle and a display of power.
While most of the Caribbean resisted the Europeans’ attempts at occupation, in Barbados, the British encountered an abandoned island. The Spanish and Portuguese who had come before had taken its Indigenous inhabitants to work in Mexico and Brazil. Those who evaded capture fled to hillier islands where they had a better chance of hiding, leaving British colonisers with a place they could fashion into a society built on slavery — a model deemed by the investor class to be “in the national interest.” Any dissenters who opposed slavery on moral grounds were therefore brushed aside.
By the time emancipation came in 1834, Britain — which had already built itself into a globally competitive powerhouse on the backs of slaves — turned the narrative on its head, saying slavery was no longer in the national interest. At this point, Sir Hilary says, the British government's position was that it would not be a party to the destruction of a social and economic culture that it had created.
By classifying 600,000 enslaved Africans as property, Britain was able to compensate the slave owners to the tune of £20 million [US $26,130, 000] in cash, with another £25 million [US $32,662,500] to be paid off in labour by the slaves themselves, who were made to work for free for another few years to fund their own emancipation. The white supremacy model, Sir Hilary says, “spins the narrative and suppresses the truth.”
To help balance the scales, the CARICOM Reparations Commission is proposing a reparations summit between the Caribbean and Europe — to include universities and civil society groups — aimed at igniting serious discussion to honour that debt and roll out a development plan for the Caribbean.
The violence of colonisation is not an incomplete process. The Caribbean is still a colonised space, which is why the commission plans to appeal to the United Nations’ Special Committee on Decolonization to continue the work it began in the 1960s. Colonisation, in Sir Hilary's words, is “contemporary history” and Britain must, therefore, “come back to the table.”
The next instalment of this series talks about the underdevelopment of the Caribbean and the ways in which Britain can begin to settle its outstanding debt to the region.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


text:
A new book honors female resistance during Brazil’s 21-year dictatorship · Global Voices
Fernanda Canofre

Cover of the “Heroines of this story — Women searching justice for relatives killed by the dictatorship” book, that reunites 15 profiles of women who fought for memory, justice and truth in Brazil | Image: Used with permission.
Marli witnessed a military policeman killing her brother. Clarice‘s husband was tortured and his death was disguised as a suicide. Damaris was arrested, tortured and forced to watch her partner being murdered in front of their family. Crimeia was a political militant who joined the armed guerrilla forces. These are some of the 15 women who are profiled in a recently published book, “Heroinas desta historia” (Heroines of this History), about their experiences during the 1964 to1985 military dictatorship in Brazil.
The dictatorship, which began with a coup d'état in 1964, led to five military presidents over the course of 21 years, and at least 434 dead and disappeared. The publication is the first of a larger project by the Institute Vladimir Herzog, named after a journalist whose death at the hands of Brazilian army agents in 1975 was disguised as a suicide. His wife, Clarice Herzog, fought for decades against the official version of her husband's death and is one of the ‘heroines’ in this recent publication.
Global Voices interviewed Tatiana Merlino, one of the project's coordinators, via email about women's role in the resistance and why it's important their stories are being told during a Bolsonaro presidency.
Global Voices (GV): What role did women play in the opposition to the 1964 Brazilian dictatorship?
Tatiana Merlino: Elas participaram dos espaços de resistência na cidade e no campo, nas universidades e movimento estudantil, nos clubes de mulheres nas periferias, entraram em organizações de esquerda, na luta armada, enfrentando até os próprios companheiros de organização que não acreditavam em sua capacidade de resistir. Participaram da guerrilha do Araguaia; participaram de greves operárias, como a de 1968, em Contagem (Minas Gerais, a primeira grande greve sob o regime militar) e Osasco (SP). A de Contagem foi a primeira e dirigida por uma mulher, Conceição Imaculada de Oliveira, do Sindicato dos Metalúrgicos. Nos anos de 1970, ainda sob a vigência do AI-5, as mulheres da periferia tiveram seu protagonismo ao saírem às ruas, nos movimentos contra a alta do custo de vida. As mulheres que lutaram contra a ditadura foram presas e torturadas. Foram alvo sistemático de violações sexuais. Sofreram estupros e abortamentos forçado devido a chutes na barriga ou foram colocadas em “cadeiras do dragão”, levando choques elétricos na vagina, na barriga, nos seios, na cabeça. Houve aquelas que tiveram seus bebês nos DOI-CODIs.
Tatiana Merlino: They took part in spaces of resistance in the cities and in the countryside, in universities and student movements, and in women's clubs in the peripheral areas. They joined leftist organizations, fought among guerrilla groups, and even faced their own comrades who did not believe in their capacity to resist. They participated in the Araguaia guerrilla [one of the main armed movements against the dictatorship], in blue-collar workers strikes such as the ones organized in Contagem (the first major strike under the dictatorship in the state of Minas Gerais) and Osasco (São Paulo). The one in Contagem was the first and it was led by a woman, Conceição Imaculada de Oliveira, from the Metalworkers Union. In the 1970s, still under Institutional Act Number 5 [AI-5, the issuing that suspended rights and gave the regime power to punish those that opposed them], women from peripheral areas had leading roles while marching in the streets against the high cost of living. The women who fought against the dictatorship were arrested and tortured. They were systematically objected to sexual violence. They were raped, some underwent forced miscarriages due to kicks to their stomachs or for being put in the “dragon's chair“, suffering electric shock in their vaginas, bellies, breasts, heads. Some of them even gave birth inside the DOI-Codis [department subordinated to the Army].
Carolina Rewaptu, indigenous woman and leader of the Xavante Marãiwatsédé people who were expelled from their lands during the dictatorship. She is one of the women profiled in the book | Image: Mariana Leal/Instituto Vladimir Herzog/Used with permission.
TM: Partimos de uma pesquisa longa nos principais documentos e livros que tratam dos atingidos pela ditadura: o relatório final da Comissão Nacional da Verdade, o livro Direito à Memória e À Verdade (editado pela Secretaria dos Direitos Humanos) e o Dossiê Ditadura Mortos e Desaparecidos Políticos no Brasil, da Comissão de Familiares de Mortos e Desaparecidos. Lemos as histórias dos 436 mortos e desaparecidos (o Dossiê lista 436 e a CNV 434) e fizemos uma grande lista com todos os casos onde havia mulheres citadas. (Destaco aqui o protagonismo dos familiares de mortos e desaparecidos na luta pelo direito à memória, verdade e justiça e sobretudo das mulheres). Fizemos uma lista com mais de 70 nomes. Também ressalto aqui que certamente havia uma mulher na busca por memória e verdade nos demais casos, mas nossa pesquisa só conseguiu fazer o levantamento das que já estavam citadas nos dossiês.
A partir dos 70 nomes utilizamos alguns critérios para chegar aos 15 escolhidos. Também achamos importante ter uma diversidade de perfis de mulheres: mulheres que também combateram a ditadura, as que nunca tiveram militância e viraram ativistas após a morte de familiares, estudantes, intelectuais, operárias, camponesas, indígena e uma mulher que teve familiar assassinado pela violência policial.
Outro critério foi a diversidade regional, já que nos preocupamos em não ter só perfiladas do eixo Rio-São Paulo. Temos também histórias de demais Estados do país, que mostram a abrangência da violência cometida durante a ditadura civil-militar.
TM: We started by researching in archives and books about the victims of the dictatorship: the final report of the National Truth Commission (CNV), in the book ‘Right to Memory and Truth and the Dossier on Political Dead and Disappeared during the Dictatorship on Brazil’ compiled by the Commission of Families of Dead and Disappeared. We read the stories about the 436 dead and disappeared (the Dossier lists 436 and the CNV lists 434) and made a big list with all the cases that had women involved. (I want to highlight the leading part played by the families in the search for memory, truth and justice — especially female relatives). We made a list with over 70 names. There were certainly women in every one of those cases, but our search could only get to those mentioned in the files.
From those 70 names, we had some criteria to get to the 15 women chosen for this book. We also thought it was important to have diversity among those profiled: women that fought against the dictatorship; those who were not political militants, but became activists after the death of relatives; students, intellectuals, working women, indigenous women; and people who had their relatives killed by police violence.
Another criteria was regional diversity, since we were worried about only having women from the Rio de Janeiro-São Paulo axis. We also have stories from other states, which shows the breadth of the violence perpetuated during the civil-military dictatorship.
TM: O Brasil fez uma transição para a democracia e demorou muito a fazer a chamada Justiça de Transição. O trabalho da Comissão Nacional da Verdade foi super importante, mas demoramos muito, décadas, para que ela fosse criada. Por isso, o ônus de buscar provas sobre as circunstâncias em que os mortos e desaparecidos foram assassinados, quem foram os autores, testemunhas, documentos, ficou sob a responsabilidade dos familiares, em especial as mulheres, que tiveram grande protagonismo e que não havia sido bem documentado até então. Veja, se ainda lutam para conseguir o esclarecimento de todas as circunstâncias em que os atingidos foram mortos e se ainda não conseguiram justiça pelos crimes, fica ainda mais complicado haver espaço para falar desse protagonismo de luta. Por isso que a abordagem desse livro é inédita. Até hoje essas mulheres, com algumas exceções, eram desconhecidas, tratadas como “a mulher de..”, “a irmã do…”, etc. Era mais do que hora de dar-lhes o devido lugar na história, o de heroínas. É o que pretendemos com esse livro.
Brazil has made a transition to democracy and it took the country a very long time to have so-called transitional justice. The work of the National Truth Commission was really important, but it took us decades to create it. So, the onus of searching for evidence about the circumstances around which dead and disappeared person was murdered, who were the killers, witnesses, documents, were all the responsibility of families, especially women, who had a leading role which was not very well documented until now. See, if people are still fighting to clarify the circumstances around the deaths, and if they still don't have justice for the crimes committed, it is even more complicated to make space to talk about their leadership in this fight. That is why this book's approach is new. To this day, these women, with some exceptions, were unknown and treated as someone's wife, sister, etc. It was about time to give them their due place in history — as heroines. That was our intention.
Clarice Herzog‘s husband, journalist Vladimir Herzog, was tortured and his death disguised as suicide by the regime | Image: Carolina Vilaverde/Instituto Vladimir Herzog/Used with permission
TM: Porque temos um presidente que nega a ditadura, exalta tortura e torturadores, ataca mortos e desaparecidos. Além do elogio à tortura e torturadores, há um movimento forte de negacionismo, revisionismo. Além disso, esse governo destruiu as políticas de memória e verdade, quando demitiu a procuradora regional da República, Eugênia Augusta Gonzaga da presidência da Comissão de Mortos e outros membros e no lugar colocou defensores da ditadura. A Comissão de Anistia também foi ocupada por revisionistas e negacionistas. O que esse governo não consegue destruir, ele esvazia.
O tema da memória é verdade da ditadura é alvo do Bolsonaro. E isso não é novidade, afinal as homenagens dele à Ustra antecedem sua chegada à Presidência. Quando do processo de impeachment de Dilma, seu voto de homenagem à Ustra deveria ter sido motivo de prisão, responsabilização. E ele não poderia ter se candidatado à presidência, já que quem defende crimes de lesa humanidade não pode se candidatar à presidência.
Mas se candidatou, ganhou e segue nessa investida contra o tema da ditadura e todas nossas conquistas ao longo de décadas de luta. Por isso é fundamental, imperativo contar essas e outras histórias sobre a ditadura: lembrar que ela existiu, matou, torturou, sequestrou e que centenas de famílias e mulheres dedicaram décadas para conseguir verdade e justiça por esses mortos e desaparecidos.
TM: Because we have a president who denies the dictatorship, worships torture and torturers, attacks the dead and the disappeared. Besides the praise of torture and torturers, there is a strong movement of denial and historical revision. This government has also destroyed the politics of memory and truth when it decided to fire the Union's Regional Attorney, Eugênia Augusta Gonzaga, from the presidency of the Commission for the Dead and Disappeared alongside other members, replacing them with dictatorship defenders. The Amnesty Commission [responsible for evaluating compensations due to the violations committed by the regime] was also occupied by deniers and revisionists. What this government cannot destroy, it voids.
The theme of memory and truth is a target of Bolsonaro. This is not news, after all his homages to Ustra [Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra was one of the main torturers during the civil-military dictatorship] preceding his presidency. During Dilma Rousseff's impeachment voting process, Bolsonaro's dedication of his vote in Ustra's name should have been enough to send him to prison for accountability. And he shouldn't have been able to run for presidency since those who defend crimes against humanity can't run.
But he did it, he won, and he continues with his onslaught against the theme of dictatorship and the accomplishments that were conquered over the years. This is why it is fundamental to tell these and other stories about this period: to remember it happened, that they killed, tortured and kidnapped, and that hundreds of families and women have dedicated decades to getting truth and justice for the dead and disappeared.
GV: In other South American countries that also went through dictatorships, such as Argentina and Uruguay, women had a leading role in the fight for memory, truth, and justice. How has Brazil's process compared?
TM: Aqui a liderança e o protagonismo também foi de mulheres, elas se juntaram, se apoiaram, criaram o Comitê Brasileiro de Anistia, a Comissão de Familiares de Mortos e Desaparecidos, entraram com ações na Corte Interamericana de Direitos Humanos, pesquisaram os arquivos do IML, pressionaram para a criação da Lei 9140. Elas fizeram e fazem muito, mas a luta delas é menos conhecida que a das Mães da Praça de Maio, por exemplo, por conta das diferenças como os países lidaram com a questão após o fim da ditadura. A Argentina revogou a lei de ponto final e de obediência devida, puniu os torturadores. Aqui, até hoje, não conseguimos responsabilizar penalmente nenhum agente envolvido nas mortes e desaparecimentos. Seguimos com a pendência em relação à Lei de Anistia, e embora o MPF tenha movido dezenas de ações contra agentes, a Justiça brasileira não aceita as ações com base na lei de anistia. E segue a impunidade, que reflete no Brasil que vivemos hoje.
TM: In Brazil, the leadership and main roles were also taken up by women who got together, supported each other, created the Brazilian Committee for Amnesty, the Commission of Families of Dead and Disappeared, entered actions at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, researched morgue files, and exerted pressure to create Bill 9140 [the law recognising those disappeared between 1961 and 1988 due to political reasons, as dead]. They have done and still do a lot, but their fight is not as well known as the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo [in Argentina], for example, because the countries dealt very differently with the aftermath of the dictatorship period. Here, to this day, we still haven't managed to hold any of the agents involved in the deaths and disappearances criminally accountable. We still have this pendency with the Amnesty Law [which gave equal pardon for political prisoners and government agents involved in the repression]. Even though the Federal Prosecutor's Office has brought dozens of legal actions against agents involved with the regime, the Brazilian Justice system does not accept them with the Amnesty Law as basis. And impunity continues, which reflects the Brazil we live in today.

author: Fernanda Canofre


text:
Vietnamese activist and journalist Pham Doan Trang arrested for ‘anti-state propaganda’ · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

A 2018 video interview with Pham Doan Trang. Source: Screenshot of YouTube video by Člověk v tísni
Prominent Vietnamese activist and journalist Pham Doan Trang was arrested by the police on October 6 for charges related to “conducting propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam” under Article 88 of the 1999 Penal Code, and “making, storing, spreading information, materials, items for the purpose of opposing the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam” under Article 117 of the 2015 Penal Code. She faces up to 20 years in jail if convicted.
Doan Trang is part of the editorial board of The Vietnamese Magazine. She founded the online legal magazine Luat Khoa. She was also one of the founders of the Liberal Publishing House whose books on democracy have been confiscated by authorities. She also co-founded the Vietnam Legal Initiative, a United States-based NGO working to promote human rights in Vietnam.
Doan Trang authored the following books: Politics for the Common People, A Handbook for Families of Prisoners, On Non-Violent Resistance Techniques, Politics of a Police State and Citizen Journalism.
Doan Trang was previously arrested by the police for her role in protests against China’s incursion into Vietnam’s maritime territories and a community action protesting environment pollution. In several interviews, she narrated the attacks and harassment she endured in the hands of the police.
Pham Doan Trang, the night she was arrested. (October 6, 2020) pic.twitter.com/4sCqNnH6fi
— Will Nguyen (阮英惟) (@will_nguyen_) October 9, 2020
It is not clearly stated what prompted her arrest. It could be related to articles she wrote about the government crackdown on land rights defenders or her work with the Liberal Publishing House. Another reason could be linked to security preparations for the plenum of the Communist Party this month since previous meetings were accompanied by similar arrests targeting dissidents and independent writers.
Doan Trang, who faced constant threats and surveillance from the police, anticipated her arrest as early as May 2019. She instructed her friend to release a letter titled “Just In Case I Am Imprisoned” if ever she was arrested.
Pham Doan Trang left this letter with me, to publicize upon her arrest. Please share. pic.twitter.com/lVt52Kpkea
— Will Nguyen (阮英惟) (@will_nguyen_) October 7, 2020
In her letter, she asked those who will campaign for her freedom to prioritize other prisoners of conscience. She also wrote about the need to campaign for democratic reforms in Vietnam:
I don’t need freedom just for myself, that would be too easy. I want something much greater: freedom and democracy for all of Vietnam. It might see like some grand goal, but it's totally possible, with your support.
She added that she will not “admit guilt, confess, or beg for leniency” because she is innocent. She has a personal appeal:
Send me my guitar and try to have the wardens accept it – For me, the guitar is like my Bible.
Several human rights advocates and media groups have issued statements in support of Doan Trang. Tran Quynh Vi, editor-in-chief of The Vietnamese Magazine, wrote about the importance of Doan Trang’s work as a journalist and activist:
Pham Doan Trang is a highly-respected journalist who has diligently expanded the political and legal information for the masses in Vietnam, encouraging people to practice the universal values of freedom and democracy that are stated clearly in Vietnam’s Constitution and which the government has also supported in many of the international treaties it has signed.
Hugo Setzer, president of the International Publishers Association, praised Doan Trang’s efforts to publish books on democratic reforms:
Pham Doan Trang took these risks knowingly in defence of freedom of expression. I salute her bravery and her strength of conviction. We hear her call for election reform in Vietnam, but we must also denounce her arrest and urge the Vietnamese authorities to release her.
As of this writing, Doan Trang’s family was already able to send some items for her personal needs but they have yet to see and talk to her in person.

author: Mong Palatino


text:
After three months of anti-government protests in Bulgaria, what’s at stake? · Global Voices
Veni Kojouharova

Protest in front of the Parliament in Sofia, Bulgaria on July 15, 2020. Photo by Veni Kojouharova, used with permission.
The evenings in Sofia's Independence Square have been noisier than usual this summer. Crowds have been gathering at this spot in front of the parliament since early July. “Ostavka,” they chant; it means “resignation” in Bulgarian.
What started as outrage at a prominent politician who treated a public beach as his private property evolved into mass nationwide demonstrations demanding the total overhaul of a political system perceived as corrupt and inefficient.
The rallies are the largest witnessed in Bulgaria in almost a decade — in Sofia, they have attracted up to 30,000 people at times, according to different estimates. Smaller protests have also been taking place in other Bulgarian cities as well as abroad. A poll by Sova Haris, a private survey company, showed that 70 per cent of 1,000 people interviewed supported the protests.
It all began on July 7, when the leader of the opposition party Yes Bulgaria, Hristo Ivanov, attempted to plant a national flag at Rosenec, a beach located in a public park. By law, public parks should be accessible to all Bulgarians, and Ivanov wanted to test whether his rights would be upheld at Rosenec.
Live-streaming his flag-bearing mission on social media, he approached the beach by boat, as no open roads connect to the area. As soon as he stepped foot onto the beach, he was approached by security guards. After a tense discussion, they shoved Ivanov into the water.
The guards were patrolling the summer residence of Ahmed Dogan, the honorary leader of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), the political party representing Bulgaria's Turkish minority.
A former state security agent during the communist times, Dogan has remained an influential figure in Bulgarian politics to the present times. He's seen as a key ally of Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, and Hristov calls him the “patient zero of lawlessness in Bulgaria.”
Later, it was revealed that the guards were also law enforcement agents, whose salaries are paid for with taxpayers’ money.
Below is a short version of Ivanov's live stream:
The affair became known in the media as “Dogan's Saray” (saray being “palace” in Turkish) and, predictably, was met with public anger. But like other scandals before it, the saray affair could have easily followed a cycle so familiar to Bulgarians: It dominates the headlines for a couple of weeks before it slips into oblivion. This time, however, things turned out differently.
A significant turning point was when Chief Prosecutor Ivan Geshev ordered a raid of the presidential office, supposedly in retaliation of President Rumen Radev's remarks condemning the private occupation of Rosenec beach. Geshev is seen as a close ally of Dogan, while Radev, from the opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), is an outspoken critic of the government.
Three hours after Geshev's men barged into the presidential office, people were out at the Independence Square in the first of the many protests that would come.
For many Bulgarians, the protests aren't necessarily in favor of Radev, but of democratic institutions and accountability. The chants are directed against Borisov and Geshev, but also call for judicial reform and a clear separation of the powers.
Dimitar Bechev, a researcher at University of North Carolina and frequent contributor to Al Jazeera, CNN, Foreign Policy and OpenDemocracy, tweeted of one of the demonstrations:
“We want no BSP, we want no GERB. We want change.” – protest directed against both the governing center-right party and the Socialist opposition.
— Dimitar Bechev (@DimitarBechev) July 12, 2020
Antoaneta Dimitrova, a political scientist at the University of Leiden, also commented:
#protests in Bulgaria continue. For context, this is not the first time that people protest about the shadow power of oligarchs using and controlling state institutions for own gain. It is encouraging that protesters, many young, understand this is not what democracy is, but 1/
— antoaneta dimitrova (@antoanetadl) July 14, 2020
In 2013, protests erupted across Bulgaria following the controversial appointment of Delyan Peevski as chief of the State Security Agency. Peevski's appointment was eventually revoked, but he remained an influential figure as a media magnate. He allegedly has links to the Bulgarian mafia, who reaches deep into Bulgarian institutions.
At that time, demonstrators were left disenchanted; in the end, one corrupt government was replaced with another. After learning that difficult lesson, this time protesters are demanding more than individual resignations. But it remains to be seen whether real change will come through.

author: Veni Kojouharova


text:
Facebook to include Holocaust denial in its definition of banned hate speech · Global Voices
Metamorphosis Foundation

The infamous cynical phrase “Arbeit macht frei” (“Work sets you free” in German) at the entrance of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Oświęcim, Poland, now part of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum. Photo by Meta.mk/Bojan Blazhevski, used with permission.
This story was originally published by Meta.mk. An edited version is republished here via a content-sharing agreement between Global Voices and Metamorphosis Foundation.
Facebook is changing its rules to include Holocaust denial in its definition of hate speech, after facing criticism for not doing enough to tackle this form of disinformation.
Monika Bickert, VP of Content Policy published a blog post on October 12 announcing that the most powerful social media platform on the planet is updating its hate speech policy “to prohibit any content that denies or distorts the Holocaust.”
Facebook based this decision on the increased levels of online attacks against many groups worldwide by individuals and organizations promoting bigotries and racism. They have already “banned over 250 white supremacist organizations” and have taken down 22.5 million pieces of hate speech from their platform in the second quarter of this year.
Bickert also noted that Facebook took into account recent survey by the NGO Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference) which showed that young people in the USA have extremely low knowledge about the history related to the Holocaust, and that they hold numerous factually inaccurate positions that have been promoted by Neo-Nazi propaganda over the years.
Considering Holocaust education is key to preventing various forms of racism, including antisemitism, Bickert announced that the ban will be complemented with efforts to enable Facebook users to access verified information by providing them links to credible historical sources outside of Facebook within the search results.
In September, Meta.mk reported that human rights defenders had demanded that Facebook starts treating Holocaust denial as hate speech within its content moderation policies. For instance, in July 2020, the Claims Conference started an online campaign that featured short video clips by Holocaust survivors, who addressed messages to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg explaining why it’s important to make this change to the platform's rules.
#Day75 of #NoDenyingIt &
Mark Zuckerberg has not met w/survivors
& let them explain why #Facebook MUST remove#Holocaust denial
We know, his time is tight…
However, Holocaust survivors’ time is also dear
Plz watch & share this compilation of survivor messages to Mark Zuckerberg pic.twitter.com/WplTr5mVp2
— Claims Conference (@ClaimsCon) October 11, 2020
Holocaust denial is criminal offence in numerous countries around the world, including Germany, France and Russia. Laws of many other countries, like the Criminal Code of North Macedonia, consider the use of information systems for public negation, minimization, approval or justification of all forms of genocide and war crimes a felony.
The European Union has also enacted anti-hate speech policies and regulations, which include cooperation with international social media platforms.
However, Facebook’s domicile jurisdiction of the USA does not have federal laws prohibiting hate speech.
In 2018, Facebook founder Mark Zuckenberg attempted to clarify that even though his personal opinion is that Holocaust denial is abhorrent, at the time he didn’t consider that the company should enact new rules to ban all its forms because in many such cases it’s “hard to impugn intent and to understand the intent.”
Two years later, he explained the change of his position through an October 12 Facebook post:
I’ve struggled with the tension between standing for free expression and the harm caused by minimizing or denying the horror of the Holocaust. My own thinking has evolved as I’ve seen data showing an increase in anti-Semitic violence, as have our wider policies on hate speech. Drawing the right lines between what is and isn’t acceptable speech isn’t straightforward, but with the current state of the world, I believe this is the right balance.
In July 2020, the Anti Defamation League (ADL), a prominent international Jewish organization from New York, started a #StopHateForProfit supported by over 1,200 businesses and nonprofits calling for boycott of advertising on Facebook. The campaign goal was to pressure Facebook to tackle groups and forums which get away with publishing enormous quantities of contents that deny the Holocaust, and posts promoting bigotry, racism and disinformation.
Jonathan A. Greenblatt, ADL CEO, issued a statement saying that his organization is “relieved that Facebook has finally taken the step that we have been asking them to take for nearly a decade: to call Holocaust denial and distortion what it is – “hate speech” – and in doing so, to remove it from their platform. The Holocaust, the systematic murder of approximately six million Jews and several million others during World War II, is one of history’s most painstakingly examined and well-documented genocides.”
According to Greenblatt, Facebook now needs to show how they fulfil these pledges, including by publishing regular monitoring reports on the concrete measures taken.
While we are relieved to learn this news, we also would note that platform decisions of this nature are only as good as the companies’ enforcement. Facebook now needs to reassure the global community that it is taking meaningful and comprehensive steps to ensure that Holocaust deniers are no longer able to take advantage of Facebook’s various platforms to spread antisemitism and hate. We hope that Facebook will follow up with regular progress reports documenting the steps they are taking to ensure that Holocaust denial and distortion permanently is expunged from their platform.
World Jewish Congress, international organization that represents Jewish communities and organizations in 100 countries around the world, and local civil society organisations like the Organization of the Jews in Bulgaria (“Shalom”) also expressed support for the change of Facebook's policies related to Holocaust denial and distortion.
Facebook’s move met the approval of academic institutions that work to preserve memories of the mass murder from the past in order to prevent genocides in the future. The Illinois Holocaust Museum posted a statement on Twitter:
Illinois Holocaust Museum celebrates Facebook's decision to remove all Holocaust denial from its platform. As we continue to educate on this important history & advocate for a world without antisemitism, this is an important step. @ClaimsCon @YahooNews https://t.co/n8yrS5caLS
— Illinois Holocaust Museum (@ihmec) October 12, 2020

author: Metamorphosis Foundation


text:
Hong Kong civil servants forced to choose between freedom of expression and their jobs · Global Voices
The Stand News

Image by the Stand News. Used with permission.
This is the third instalment of a story originally published on The Stand News in Chinese. It was translated to English by Global Voices and it will be published here in five parts with permission. Read part one and part two.
Since the anti-extradition protests broke out in 2019, Hong Kong's 180,000 civil servants have been facing tremendous pressure to show loyalty to the government.
Following the enactment of the national security law, Hong Kong authorities included a “loyalty clause” in civil servants’ employment contracts demanding they “pledge loyalty” to the Basic Law and the government.
According to the Secretary for Civil Service Patrick Nip, participation in anti-government activities will be interpreted as a violation of the contract. However, what “anti-government” means for those purposes remains unclear.
Nip also warned that civil servants must pay attention to how others perceive their online activity. A number of civil servants have already received complaints about their social media posts — and at least one was fired after he criticized the Hong Kong police online.
On April 18, after the Hong Kong government accepted the China Liaison Office's reinterpretation of Article 22 of the Basic Law, Peter (not his real name), a civil servant in his mid-40s, decided to give up his monthly HK$ 100,000 (US$ 12,900) salary and quit his job. He had worked for the government for over a decade.
Article 22 of the Basic Law, Hong Kong's 1997 mini-Constitution, was written to prevent Chinese authorities from directly interfering in the city's domestic affairs. It states that “no department of the Central People's Government and no province, autonomous region, or municipality directly under the Central Government may interfere in the affairs which the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region administers on its own in accordance with this Law.”
On April 17, the China Liaison Office issued a statement claiming that the article should not apply to the two Beijing authorities present in the island, the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office and the China Liaison Office. The next day, the Hong Kong government accepted the proposal, despite the fact that the two bodies were officially established in 2000 under the restrictions enshrined by Article 22.
In May, after Beijing announced details of the national security law, Peter got in touch with an investment migration agency and prepared to leave Hong Kong for Taiwan.
He says he could not tolerate that the principle of “political neutrality,” previously expected of civil servants, has now been changed to “political loyalty”. One example of the effect of the change for civil servants was when the Home Affairs Office refused to provide administrative support to district councils — such as office expense reimbursements — after pro-democracy political parties won the majority of council seats in the November 2019 elections. Peter says:
You know, Hong Kong has changed. Now the principle of how things are done is not based on rationality nor public interest… In the past, people used to criticize Hong Kong people as being too materialistic and the Hong Kong government as being too utilitarian and calculative. You can say that the way society is operated is a kind of pragmatic economic principle. However, under such principle, there is a baseline, such as you can’t jail a person for his speech and thought. Even such a pragmatic principle has vanished in current Hong Kong. The totalitarian China and Hong Kong government has led HK into this — now the police can say that chanting a slogan is a crime!
Four years ago, Peter's face was captured in a widely circulated photo while he attended a public assembly. His supervisor then warned him that such an act was inappropriate for a civil servant, who should remain politically neutral. He was asked not to attend political activities again.
While Peter did not argue with his superior then, he says he has different views of “political neutrality.” For him, it means that he should not discriminate against those who hold different political opinions and that his actions shouldn't be influenced by whoever holds the office of Chief Executive. In other words, he says, he should uphold the existing system under any political circumstances. He asks:
If the Hong Kong government introduces a policy that would harm the interest of Hong Kong as a whole, as a Hong Konger, shouldn’t the civil servants voice out our opposition?
And adds:
The current situation is that the top government officials are forcing tens of thousands civil servants to lead Hong Kong into an authoritative path. [But] civil servants are also humans with independent thoughts.
Sub Bak (not his real name) is an officer in a law enforcement agency. During the anti-extradition protests, he took up the role of “parent,” donating food coupons and helping front-line protesters to leave protest sites safely.
He equipped himself with an anonymous ghost phone on July 1, when the national security law came into force. He says he believes Hong Kong will eventually adopt the China social credit system to control Hongkongers:
If you subscribe the pro-democracy Apple Daily News, you will get a demerit; if you put up a yellow ribbon on your Facebook profile picture, you will get a demerit; if you buy at a pro-democracy “yellow shop,” you will get a demerit (…) The national security bureau will create political profiles of many individuals, categorize them and turn all the information into a database. They will start with the law enforcement units as these units are politically more sensitive. Tens of thousands of civil servants will be profiled and eventually even the ordinary people will have their own political profile stored in the database.
He also expects that the widely used facial recognition surveillance system in China will soon be imported to Hong Kong.
As Sub Bak has a family to support and could not afford to lose his current job, he stopped protesting in early 2020. He decided to pretend to be a pro-establishment “blue ribbon” (an expression that means “pro-government,” as opposed to “yellow,” which means “anti-government”) and erased his social media history.
He says he also performs as a “blue” in his daily interactions, such as calling protesters “rioters” and even using the term “cockroaches” to describe them.
He once caught a glimpse of a WhatsApp group in which “blue” colleagues at work flagged “yellow” colleagues. He believed that anyone who was flagged as “yellow” would not be able to pass their probation or would not be promoted in the future.
Sub Bak says that he will take the loyalty oath in exchange for a better salary, but says he will probably quit his job if he is forced to perform duties that go against his conscience.

author: The Stand News