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K-Pop band BTS targeted by Chinese netizens over Korean War comments · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Screen shot from BTS ‘Dynamite’ official MV on Youtube
China's online patriots are targeting internationally famous K-pop band BTS after the group's leader Kim Nam-joon paid tribute South Korea's and United States's war veterans on October 8.
Nam-joon, also known by his stage name RM, made the remarks at a recorded acceptance speech for the James A. Van Fleet award, a prize granted by US-based non-profit Korea Society. Here are the words by Nam-joon that angered Chinese nationalists:
This year’s Korea Society 2020 Annual Gala is especially meaningful as this year marks the 70th Anniversary of the Korean War. We will always remember the history of pain that our two nations [US and South Korea] shared together, and the sacrifices of countless men and women… As members of the global community, we should build deeper understanding and solidarity to be happier together.
Approximately 3 million people lost their lives in the Korean War (1950-1953), half of them civilians. After Japan surrendered at the end of World War II, the Korean peninsula was divided into two separate states, one in the north backed by the USSR and another in the south backed by the United States. Both governments claimed sovereignty over the whole peninsula, and the war began after the North Korean Army invaded the South in June 1950.
The war claimed the lives of 406,000 North Korean soldiers, 217,000 South Korean soldiers, 600,000 Chinese soldiers, who fought on the North Korea side, and 36,574 US soldiers, according to statistics compiled by CNN.
Chinese netizens were angry that Nam-joon did not acknowledge the sacrifices made by Chinese people. Comments such as “BTS get out of China” have flooded Weibo and, on October 11, BTS became the top search result on the social media platform.
Anticipating calls for boycott, South Korean companies who do business in China such as Hyundai and Samsung removed all BTS-related promotional material from China's online stores. Meanwhile, Chinese fan clubs of BTS suspended purchases of the group's new album.
Chinese state media applauded netizens’ reactions. For example, Reference News, an outlet affiliated with state news agency Xinhua, posted on Weibo:
BTS引发风波背后，触碰的是很多中国网民心中对历史问题、国家主权问题的“红线”。… “国家面前无偶像。”这句话又一次在社交媒体上被反复提及，这不仅是很多中国网友的心声，也是对某些境外艺人的提醒。
BTS touched the “red line” of history and national sovereignty that Chinese netizens share (…). Chinese netizens believe that the nation should come before their idols. This should also serve as a signal to other foreign artists.
Shen Yi, a professor of international relations at Fudan University, said on Weibo that the mere act of receiving the Korea Society's James Van Fleet Award renders BTS into “American propagandists.”
Such accusations have been widely reported in South Korea, triggering a backlash — including from BTS fans. Some Korean columnists even suggested that South Korea and its allies in the Korean War launch a counter-boycott against China.
On Twitter, many users have reacted against the Chinese response:
They did not even mention China in the first place. Stop being fucking delusional
Also, as a Chinese, when you commemorate events such as the 2nd Sino-Japanese War, do you ever mourn for the 700K Japanese who died or only the Chinese who died?
你这只是惹事生非
— ℙ?ℤℤ? ??????ℝ? (@pussysaysmeowz) October 11, 2020
Some found the Chinese argument incomprehensible and unreasonable:
I'm in my 50's and the Korean war happened before I was even born. North Korea started the war by invading South Korea. China was allied with North Korea at the time. The US was allied with South Korea. If not for that alliance then South Korea would not exist as it is today. 1)
— SaltyGrandma_is_BTS_Army_Now (@Grandma_Is_Army) October 12, 2020
this whole china things is the jimin b0mb shirt all over again. cant you let bts feel patriotic about their own country without you feel attacked about what your ancestors did to other countries and it was all in the past?
— ᴮᴱris ⁷ ? semi hiatus (@smurfjoon) October 11, 2020
@Solitude_Sola sees the incident an ideological struggle over history waged by the Chinese Communist Party:
防弹少年团这一波被辱华，标志着辱华猎巫进入2.0阶段：以前你要牵扯到中国才算是辱华，但现在只要你违逆了粉蛆的历史观，与我们的”正确集体性记忆“不一样，那么对不起，你辱华了。
在此我奉劝天下名流：早日积极主动辱华，以防有朝一日被辱华。 pic.twitter.com/Yb7B3krR3h
— 空空? 狞猫世界第一可爱！ (@Solitude_Sola) October 12, 2020
If what BTS has done is insulting to China, that means that the witch hunt of China offenders has entered the 2.0 stage. In the past, they only targeted comments which were directly related to China. Now, if your comment is different from their understanding of history, or if your memory is different from their politically correct memory, then you will be considered to be humiliating China. So the right way is to proactively “shame” China rather than passively being labelled as such.
Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong called on other netizens to stand with BTS:
4. When our BTS leaders are under unreasonable attacks during these difficult times, we #ARMYs everywhere around the world should stand with them and express our relentless support. #BTSARMYS #FOREVERBTS
— Joshua Wong 黃之鋒 ? (@joshuawongcf) October 12, 2020
Korean Military Manpower Administration Commissioner Mo Jong Hwa spoke out in defense of BTS:
The fact that BTS mentioned Korea’s alliance with the US is an encouraging thing. Chinese netizens should be ashamed to talk about this issue. I think they are 100% wrong when they claim that BTS should’ve recognized the harm the allies of North Korea suffered as well.
To contain the damage the incident could do to China and South Korea's relations, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian attempted to cool down the patriotic sentiment in the ministry's regular press briefing on October 12:
We all should learn lessons from history and look forward to the future, hold dear peace and strengthen friendship.


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‘Lazy’ Nigerian youth mobilize #EndSARS protest from social media to the streets · Global Voices
Nwachukwu Egbunike

Protesters hold up their placards in front of the Lagos State House, October 11, Photo by TobiJamesCandid via Wikimedia CC BY 4.0.
This past week, Nigerian youth spearheaded widespread protests demanding an end to police brutality, from Lagos to Enugu, Port-Harcourt to Asaba, Kaduna to Uyo, as well as expatriate Nigerian communities around the world.
The protests specifically target the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a unit of the Nigerian Police Force that is notorious for arresting, intimidating and killing citizens outside the ambits of the law.
Between January 2017 and May 2018, Amnesty International documented 82 cases of torture and extrajudicial execution by SARS.
Nigerian youth have had enough of this intimidation and are strongly making this known through protests across the West African nation.
Enugu!!! The protest today was epic! ???? #EndSARS #EndPoliceBrutality #NigeriaYouthsLiveMatter pic.twitter.com/ZnqNV8lz8N
— Flavour of Africa (@2niteFlavour) October 13, 2020
The online #EndSARS protests started on October 3, when a video of SARS brutalizing a young man in a Lagos hotel went viral.
As of October 9, the hashtag #EndSARS had racked up 2.4 million tweets and was the number one Twitter trending topic in several countries.
I WAS SHAKING WATCHING THIS! WHAT????? GOD BLESS THE CREATORS. #SarsMustGoNow #SARSMUSTENDNOW #EndSars pic.twitter.com/NeTXKubLEH
— Olayinka ? (@YinkaPost) October 13, 2020
This social media activism soon spiraled into street protests in various Nigerian cities.
The protagonists of this protest are Nigerian youth. About 60 percent of Nigeria’s 200 million population comprises citizens within a median age of 18 years.
Described as “lazy” by Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari, with over 13 million unemployed, usually stereotyped as “unserious,” these youth are currently organising and sustaining one of the greatest mass protests in the country.
Nigerian youth are victims of police intimidation, harassment and torture.
Everything about #SARS in one minute; pic.twitter.com/Ba07NzQ3iT
— Amnesty Int. Nigeria (@AmnestyNigeria) October 9, 2020
It is not surprising because this demographic of Nigerians employed their own media — social media — in coordinating and mobilising the protests.
Asides from using Twitter, the decentralized organisation of the protests made use of WhatsApp for information dissemination.
Social media is also a forum for fundraising for the protests and also ensuring accountability for funds expended.
Jimoh Isiaq, 20, Moshood Ganiyu, 22 and Taiwo Adeoye, 25 are among the 10 protesters killed when the police “fired live ammunition” on the protests across the country.
Nonetheless, the youth are neither backing down on the nationwide protests nor avenging the hated inflicted on them.
How do we respond to the loss of live and to the wounds inflicted by those who hate and hurt us?
Is it possible to sit with love, before those who have hated us and hurt us?
What does it take for eyes to meet across the streets crowded with differences? pic.twitter.com/Tk1BOiP5Gq
— © sir INYENE (@SIRInyene) October 13, 2020
Rather, they are countering this narrative by lobbying for the release of wrongly arrested protestors, organising medical supplies to protesters and also sweeping clean the sites of the protest daily.
Asides from the effective use of social media, the #EndSARS protest has been successful because it is nonpartisan, devoid of ethnoreligious prejudices, possesses a genuine call-to-action for peaceful protests and is a collective that is not tied to any single individual or group.
In contrast, Nigeria’s political space, online and offline, is caustic and divisive. Twitter was a landmine for ethnoreligious heat during the 2019 national elections.
#EndSARS protest credibility stems from being politically neutral and nonalignment with any political party. They are also not demanding a regime change.
Hence, the movement has focused exclusively on their message of ending police brutality. This message is a unifying movement and moment in Nigeria’s contemporary history.
Even when some youth from the northern region tried to label #EndSARS with an ethnic agenda, it did not stick as it was disowned by Nigerians from that area.
If you love the North, then you have no business staging a counter #EndSars protest. A fully functional police force works for ALL of Nigeria but especially the North with its high level of insecurity. Oppose this just protest & you would be bitting your nose to spite your face
— Kadaria Ahmed (@KadariaAhmed) October 10, 2020
Building authentic mass movements in Nigeria have always been plagued by ethnoreligious fault lines.
Nigeria’s over 250 ethnic groups are also encumbered by the religious divide between the predominantly Christian south and Muslim north, with are fodder for clashes of near bestial proportions.
However, Nigerian youth have been able, so far, to side-step these landmines by building an authentic mass movement that cuts across the divides of creed or ethnicity.
They were able to achieve this by channeling their frustrations against police brutality into a call to action. Many Nigerian families bear a scab from the atrocities inflicted by SARS.
By anchoring the message of their movement on this widespread anger, the youth were able to mobilise — even defying heavy downpour — and channel the otherwise depressing victimhood into peaceful mass action.
In addition, the #EndSARS protests is an organic movement, decentralised but well organised, with protesters taking shifts.
This means a horizontal power structure among peers without a centralised hierarchy. The movement is neither tied to the apron of any trade union nor panders to the whims of any celebrity or social media influencer.
Hence, no individual has the mandate to call off the protest unilaterally.
Sadly, the opposite, a vertical power structure was the undoing of the #OccupyNigeria movement, a national protest against the hike in gas price in 2012.
The Occupy Nigeria protest hit the rocks when organised labour and some leaders of the movement entered into an agreement with the government, leaving their followers shriveling in the cold.
Eventually, the protest simmered down while some of protest leaders got government appointments.
In 2012, you, me and a few friends sat in the middle of ketu ojota expressway demanding good governance. After the journey we all went back to your house for lunch. You said no one can ask you to stand down because Nigeria must change. Nigeria didn't change, YOU changed. https://t.co/e03OMGkMwL pic.twitter.com/mcPYdytCfR
— Nimah A (@MsNemah) October 11, 2020
The organic equality of all protesters within the #EndSARS movement is a great asset.
It has equally neutralised the scheming of some Nigerian “power merchants” who have tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to usurp leadership of the protest or centre the movement around themselves, for personal gains.
The apparently “lazy” and frivolous Nigerian youth are working more effectively than their predecessors.
Regardless of how the #EndSARS protests pan out, for the mere fact that the once-derided youth are now at the forefront of upturning societal injustice is already victory.
Proud of this country. I no longer believed Nigerians could get up, for real, anymore, for anything. Cynical, apathetic and self-defeating. And yet here we are, a genuine uprising. #EndSARS #EndSarsNow https://t.co/MfMVVONRIR
— Molara Wood (@molarawood) October 10, 2020
The aspirations of Nigeria’s founding fathers as encapsulated in the national anthem: “help our youths the truth to know” seem to have been granted.
Nigerian youth, desirous of a brighter future and a better country, have birthed a unifying movement. Nigeria’s divisive old guard should be afraid — very afraid!

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Nwachukwu Egbunike


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Caribbean alphabet series provides lots of laughs on TikTok · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

TikTok users @wellonyc and @stephon23, who each do a version of the “Letter of the Day” series. Screenshots taken from their respective TikTok feeds.
Caribbean people are well-known for using humour as a means of social commentary and processing serious issues.
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, with many regional territories having strict safety measures in place — including restrictions on public gatherings — laughter has become a critical coping mechanism, fuelled by humourous offerings on apps like TikTok.
A TikTok user from Guyana, whose handle is @wellonyc, began posting a series of short-format videos — “Sesame Street “style — that featured a “Letter of the Day.” The hook is, of course, that the words he features are all part of the Guyanese (and at times, broader West Indian) dialect.
The phonetic spellings of some of the words poke fun at regional pronunciations, while the backgrounds — like this one for the word rukshun [ruction] — provide additional layers of humour:
Screenshot of @wellonyc's TikTok “Letter of the Day” video, “R is for Rukshun”.
His work has inspired another online humourist, who has also been getting a lot of laughs and social media attention for his efforts. Stephon Felmine dubbed his version of the videos the “Trini Alphabet Series”: He features words in Trinidad and Tobago dialect, provides definitions, and shows examples of usage in hilarious sentence scenarios, made all the more amusing by his serious expression, reminiscent of a strict headmaster:
Screenshot of TikTok user Stephon Felmine's version of the “Letter of the Day” series.
It seems, however, that fans of both series are also having discussions around the issue of ownership. On September 29, Felmine posted a public status update on his Facebook page:
For those of you who are saying that I did not give credit to Guyanese TikToker @wellonyc on the ALPHABET SERIES, that is a lie! If you go back to the first letter that I did, “A”, I credited and tagged him. Prior to this I even messaged him on TikTok and told him that I was thinking about doing a Trini version. He never responded but I did my due diligence. Trivial matters like these should not take center stage especially when we have more pressing issues at the fore. The best medicine at the this time is laughter and I am sooooo happy that I could spread it throughout T&T ??. Let us press on […]
Despite Felmine's crediting of @wellonyc in his first post, it appears tension may be brewing between the two TikTok users. On October 5, @wellonyc — who has a spinoff business selling merchandise based on his social media content — posted:
I am the originator of this series! I have not given anyone permission to replicate it. Be inspired but don’t replicate.
Carla Parris, a Trinidad-based entertainment and sports lawyer who produces and hosts the YouTube series “The Business of Carnival,” spoke with Global Voices via Facebook about the issues at play when it comes to intellectual property and social media:
This is a very interesting matter, and one that will certainly continue to become even more relevant as the role of the Influencer becomes more entrenched in Caribbean society.
The question at hand [regarding the TikTok videos] is one of Intellectual Property Law and whether or not a party can claim that his work was infringed. Although many people believe that Intellectual Property protects ideas, it does not protect ideas, concepts or procedures. It in fact protects the expression of an idea and that idea must be original to the creator.
A key question that arises here is whether either of the parties can claim to have created original work and work that would meet the threshold of originality under their respective Copyright Acts? It will be quite interesting to follow to see how this evolves.
Intellectual property issues aside, both series continue to get a lot of social media engagement, and are typically shared across several channels, including Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, and Felmine has since appeared in an advertisement as his “Letter of the Day” persona.
Caribbean viewers, both within the region and in the diaspora, have been discussing the words (some of which they'd never heard before), sharing what they understood the meaning of some terms to be, suggesting additional words for various letters, and lauding the talent and ingenuity of the two TikTok stars.
The videos are undoubtedly an entertaining way to learn some colloquial Caribbean terms, immerse yourself in the unique lilt and rhythm of the regional dialect, and have a few laughs while you're at it.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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New book tells stories of suffering and resistance from Iran’s female prisons · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

An illustration depicting Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi being congratulated upon her release from prison, while other Iranian women are arrested. By Assad Binakhahi, Germany-based cartoonist. Used with permission
Content warning: This story includes descriptions of torture that some readers might find disturbing.
White torture is a psychological torture technique in which inmates are held in all-white cells for very long periods of time. It is aimed at producing complete sensory deprivation and isolation in the victim. It is one of the torture methods used in Iranian prisons, alongside physical torture.
It is also the name of a new book by Narges Mohammadi, a leading Iranian human rights activist and journalist. “White Torture,” printed in Persian by Swedish publisher Baran, features interviews with 12 female political prisoners, as well as the experiences of the author, who spent eight and a half years in an Iranian prison herself.
The 12 interviewees are journalists, members of religious minorities groups, and political activists. Their stories reveal the appalling state of Iranian prisons: Disastrous sanitary conditions and tiny and lightless cells are commonplace; prisoners face intentional deprivation of medical care, long hours of interrogation, threats to their family members, and the use of solitary cells as an instrument of torture.
Reza Kazemzadeh, a Belgium-based leading Iranian psychologist who works with victims of torture, wrote about the white torture technique:
It can be argued that if physical torture is used at the beginning of an arrest to make a prisoner talk (providing information), the purpose of the psychological torture is to infiltrate the identity and influence his or her personality in the long run.
The book reveals that the 12 women interviewed were not arrested for crimes they've committed, but because Iranian security and intelligence services consider them useful in investigations. They put these prisoners under extreme duress to extract confessions or force them into collaboration.
Those are the women Mohammadi interviews: Nigara Afsharzadeh, Sima Kiani, Sedigheh Moradi, Atena Daemi, Mahvash Shahriari, Zahra Zahtabchi, Hengameh Shahidi,Reyhaneh Tabatabaei, Mary Mohammadi, Nazila Nouri, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, and Shokoofeh Yadollahi.
Cover of “White Torture,” a book by Narges Mohammadi. Photo used with permission.
In the book, Mohammadi also tells of her own experiences in prison, including time in the solitary cell and interrogations. As she details, the interrogators usually had all the information they needed, but still demanded she declared resignation from Defenders of Human Rights Center, a group founded by prominent Iranian lawyers including Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi.
Mohammadi, who is also a campaigner against the death penalty, writes in the book:
The solitary cell is not just a location, but a place where all elements concur to make to have the imprisonment impact us. This includes the indifference of doctors towards our pain, blindfolding prisoners, dirty curtains, dead cockroaches on the floor, unfitting prison clothes, and long periods of sitting in interrogation cells.
Each prisoner reacts to the circumstances in a different way. Nigara Afsharzadeh, a Turkmen national given a five-year sentence in 2014 for alleged spying, explains how talking to the ants in her cell helped her cope: “I just wanted to share my cell with another living being,” she says.
Baha’i former prisoner of conscience Sima Kiani says: “I would rather be interrogated than be left alone in a cell.”
The interrogators also use medical and family information to pressure prisoners. Mahvash Shahriari, another Baha’i citizen who spent 10 years in prison, says threats made against her husband and son were “the most difficult” aspects of the interrogations.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, an Iranian-British citizen, explains how she was denied medical care in prison, including prescribed medicine.
Christian convert Mary Mohammadi, who served six months in prison for being a member of a house church, tells how guards constantly insulted her, her parents, and her Christian faith. “They would call the church a gambling house,” she says.
The book explains how the interrogation tactics are aimed at turning prisoners into collaborators. An interrogator declared his love to Hangameh Shahidi, a journalist and women's rights activist, and asked her to marry him in exchange to closing her file. She rejected the offer harshly, saying she would rather serve her sentence than meeting him again.
In this context, several of those prisoners still managed to undertake hunger strikes to defend their dignity and rights.
For most prisoners, the psychological impact of torture persists for a long time. Mansour Borji, executive director of Article 18, a London-based Christian advocacy organization that helps former Christian prisoners overcoming trauma, told Global Voices:
Awareness about this kind of torture and the ways to identify the symptoms in victims’ behaviour and moods is key. It is essential that the victims, their families, and the broader community know about the root causes of the unusual behaviour in some specific circumstances and are able to react in an appropriate way. Former prisoners re-live trauma and suffering caused by torture repeatedly. You should not respond lightly to the way they react stressfully to the ring of a phone, or to some smells and noises. Awareness will help them gradually improve their mental wellbeing.
Kamran Ashtary, the director of Arseh Sevom, an organization promoting democracy, human rights, and civil society in Iran, himself a victim of torture as a teenager in an Iranian prison, tells Global Voices:
Any form of torture can cause psychological trauma. But it’s especially bad for young people under 25 because their brains are still forming. It becomes permanent and life-long (…). Unfortunately, for all of us who have experienced trauma, there is no returning to the people we once were. There is only finding ways to dim the nightmares.

author: Fred Petrossian


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

The slave trade triangle; photo by Ben Sutherland on Flickr, CC BY 2.0. The text reads: “During the 1700s Britain was the leading slave-trading nation. A half of all Africans transported across the Atlantic into slavery were carried in British ships.”
This is the second article in a series that highlights the question of slavery reparations in the Caribbean. (The first is here.) It is based around issues discussed in the NGC 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.
In commemoration of the International Day for Reparations, NGC Bocas Lit Fest, the Caribbean's premier literary festival, hosted a session discussing issues around the need for slavery reparations in the region.
In this instalment of the series, Global Voices examines the many ways in which former colonial powers can make amends for their deliberate underdevelopment of the Caribbean.
As part of the terms of Caribbean independence, Britain's former colonies asked for development funds to help put key infrastructure and public services in place, but were dismissed out of hand, prompting Eric Williams, Trinidad and Tobago's first prime minister and one of the architects of the independence movement, to say:
The West Indies are in the position of an orange. The British have sucked it dry and their sole concern today is that they should not slip and get damaged on the peel […]
Interestingly, Britain's colonies in the East Indies received 50 million British pounds [approximately 65,083,000 US dollars] under the Colombo Plan, which helped facilitate their transition to sovereignty. Sir Hilary Beckles, chair of the CARICOM Reparations Commission, attributes Britain's rejection of the West Indies’ request for funding to the fact that the region was “the home of their white supremacy culture.” Black people, he said, were seen as not entitled to nor deserving of a development plan; in fact, former Prime Minister David Lloyd George once suggested that the West Indies were evidence of “a slummy empire” that would diminish Britain's global prestige.
The position of the CARICOM Reparations Commission is that Britain has a debt to the region based on the value of 200 years of free labour from 15 million enslaved people. That outstanding debt, Sir Hilary estimates, is worth about £7 trillion [just over US $9 trillion], which is more than the country's gross domestic product (GDP). To settle it, there needs to be a major injection of capital into the Caribbean in order to lay the infrastructure for sustainable development — and building on what's known as the “Arthur Lewis paradigm” is proposed as the way forward.
Sir Arthur Lewis was a St. Lucian economist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1979. Lewis had worked out a development model for the Caribbean based on drastic action to support economic reform and more equitable wealth distribution. Lewis proposed the Marshall Plan through which “wealthier nations should institute a system of grants-in-aid to enable poorer countries to improve their public service,” once writing:
The British […] are responsible for the presence in these islands of the majority of their inhabitants, whose ancestors have contributed millions to the wealth of Great Britain, a debt which has yet to be repaid.
Tangible measures that include debt cancellation, and investments in education, agriculture and public health would go a long way in helping the region find secure economic footing.
In the wake of global protests around George Floyd's murder and the revelations in the University College London database of the legacies of British slave ownership, the Bank of England and Lloyd's of London were among various organisations that recently apologised for their “shameful” role in the transatlantic slave trade.
The CARICOM Reparations Commission, however, has made it clear that saying sorry is not enough. The way forward, Sir Hilary maintains, is an investment development fund to help at the site of the extraction, a model successfully used by the Colombo Plan as an investment for the public good. He views it as an integral part of the region taking responsibility for itself:
We transformed these broken colonies into functional democracies without any support. […] We have been borrowing money to support our development from Day One and now we have this debt crisis because we were abandoned by those who […] plundered our wealth. We had to go and borrow money from them to fund our own development. This is the cycle in which you are trapped into poverty. Reparations is one of those instruments that will help to break that cycle.
Calling the reparatory justice movement “the greatest political movement of the 21st century,” he added that it would unite people from all over the world who have been colonised, sending the message that they are no longer accepting this system of “civilisation” and that they want justice.
Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders, along with the CARICOM Reparations Committee, have been fastidious about taking the region's demands to the United Nations, but they are still hoping for support from Africa, because of its tremendous global influence and advocacy weight within the African Union.
Some bilateral discussions have already taken place, but Sir Hilary believes that once African states “step up” into the conversation, it is going to be “the game-changer.” Far too many, he suspects, has “fallen victim to the notion that […] their antecedent governments were partners” in the atrocities of the slave trade — a narrative he calls “absolute mythology.”
You cannot have an international crime without a local partner […] but the presence of the local partner does not make the nation and the people of that society a partner.
Comparing the transatlantic slave trade with the illegal narcotics trade, he explained that European slave traders were so well equipped — both in numbers and in weaponry — that the lives of African leaders were often in jeopardy if they stood in the way. Nevertheless, there were many Africans who resisted and fought to end the trade.
The third and final instalment of this series will discuss the importance of universities in the movement toward reparatory justice — and the triple threat currently facing the Caribbean.


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The struggle to end Nigeria’s brutal SARS police unit continues · Global Voices
Aremu Adeola, Jr.

Protesters gather to end SARS on October 13, 2020, in Ikeja, Lagos. Photo by Nora Awolowo, used with permission.
Over the last week, Nigerian youth have risen up in masses to wage war against a unit of the Nigeria Police Force known as The Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), notorious for extrajudicial killings, extortion, kidnapping, and rape since the unit was created in 1992.
More than 100 people have reportedly been killed by SARS in past four to five years, according to Amnesty International.
Nigerian youth — often the target of SARS — have, on several occasions, clamored for a total scrap of the unit, to no avail. But this time, several recent arrests and killings in Lagos State sparked the zeal to make this a reality — after the SARS was disbanded about four times in four years — has driven mass action on the streets.
This war against police brutality has also created a wave of awareness and generated a lot of conversations in the media space.
Protests have erupted in at least 12 of Nigeria’s 36 states, including Abuja, the federal capital, and Lagos, where protesters have blocked toll gates and airports within the state, hoping it makes an economic effect so elected leaders can acknowledge the protesters’ wishes in no time.
Here are the protesters’ demands:
The demands #EndSARS #EndSarsNow pic.twitter.com/SHEYENsTZR
— Asa (@Asa_official) October 11, 2020
Nigerians in the diaspora have also taken to the streets to show their displeasure with the notorious SARS unit which has, for years, committed crimes with impunity. Protesters have gathered to denounce SARS in London, England, Dublin, Ireland, Ottawa and Toronto, Canada, Cologne, Germany, Moscow, Russia, Pretoria, South Africa, as well as Texas and Washington, DC, in the US.
President Buhari, we have a message for you sir. END SARS NOW.
•
Nigerians and lovers of Nigeria, please pull up at the #EndSARS protest in London (Nigeria High Commission).
•#EndPoliceBrutality #EndSarsNow #EndSARSProtest pic.twitter.com/1RN7fe1p6q
— Dr. Kelechi Anyikude (@KelechiAFC) October 11, 2020
At least 10 protesters have been killed during the protests, according to Amnesty International. Among those killed is Jimoh Isiaq, killed in Ogbomosho, Oyo State, and Ikechukwu Ilohamauzo, killed at the Surulere protest in Lagos, whose names both went viral on social media.
Medical doctors have begun to accompany protesters in cases of emergency.
Protesters gather to denounce SARS, Monday, October 12, 2020, in Yaba, Lagos. Photo by Aremu Adeola Jr., used with permission.
Inspector-General of Police Muhammad Adamu disbanded the unit a few days ago, but Nigerians are not convinced this will take effect as the previous disbandment of the unit never yielded positive results.
On Monday, President Muhammad Buhari of Nigeria assured citizens that the disbandment will be effective immediately and that the federal government will establish a presidential reform panel to look into police welfare and other critical areas, ensuring the demands of the masses be put into action.
Some lawyers and human rights activists among youth activists have been working hard to release detained protesters.
Protesters have made it clear that the fight to end SARS is not politically motivated, warning politicians, including members of opposition parties, not to hijack the protest for individual, party or political gains.
Protesters insist that there are no leaders in their movement and that every person who comes out to protest is a leader and follower alike. They insist that the presidency and/or the Inspector-General of Police address all grievances at once and not just a few selected individuals.
The question about who controls the police and SARS has not been adequately answered. The constitution vested control of the police to the presidency under the supervision of the police chief.
But that chain-of-command and control seems to have broken.
To release protesters at Surulere, Lagos State, for example, it took calls from State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, speaker of the federal house of representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, and Desmond Elliot, Lagos State House of Assembly members representing Surulere and a few lawyers.
On October 12, the governor of River State, Nyesom Wike, announced through a tweet that no protest — especially the #EndSARS protest — is allowed in his state.
That doesn't sit well with citizens. Several individuals responded through various platforms that the constitution which made him governor also gave citizens the fundamental right to protest.
Who are you to prevent any individual from exercising their constitutional right to move & assemble peacefully?! https://t.co/94TdNAxv0g
— Bop Daddy (@falzthebahdguy) October 12, 2020
However, Wike recanted and addressed the protesters, expressing support for their cause.
The protests continue in several parts of the country including River State. Protesters have promised not to back down until signs of compliance are seen by police and also the federal government.
On Tuesday, October 13, protesters reported on Twitter that at Iwo Road, Ibadan, members of the Nigerian Army were marching with protesters in solidarity.
Heard soldiers of the Nigerian army are currently marching with #ENDSARS protesters in Ibadan. ?❤ pic.twitter.com/pm5XxB5xUR
— /\/\|) ? (@MDee_01) October 13, 2020
Also on October 14, Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu walked with protesters, reassuring them of the commitment of the government to end the menace.
Governor @jidesanwoolu (in blue baseball cap) has agreed to a Protest Walk with us in Alausa. #SARSMUSTEND pic.twitter.com/lcv30Mo0xG
— Tola Badekale (@BadekaleTola) October 13, 2020

author: Aremu Adeola, Jr.


text:
‘A Fearless Song’: Guatemalan women protest violence against women through music · Global Voices
María Jossé España Cabrera

Photo by the author María Jossé España.
On October 10, hundreds of women peacefully took to the streets in several Guatemalan cities, equipped with musical instruments, handkerchiefs, posters, and masks to demonstrate their rejection of violence against women.
The demonstrations coincided with the weekend dedicated to International Day of the Girl Child but they were also a response to the recent disappearance and death of student Litzy Cordón Guardado, and the murder of 22-year-old teacher Laura Hernández Guevara, both in the same southeastern department of Zacapa. Twitter was flooded with messages and songs supporting the protests, along with the hashtags #NiUnaMenos, #JusticiaParaLitzy, and #JusticiaParaLaura.
According to the Women's Observatory of the Public Prosecutor's Office, there are approximately 200 complaints of gender violence per day in Guatemala, two of which are for femicide. From January to September 2020, 350 violent deaths of women were registered according to the National Institute of Forensic Sciences.
The women sang the hymn “Canción sin miedo” (Fearless Song) by the Mexican singer and songwriter Vivir Quintana, whose lyrics describe the feelings of injustice, sadness, and fear felt by women in situations of violence:
Every minute of every week; They steal our friends, they kill our sisters […] We sing without fear, we ask for justice; We shout for every disappeared woman. […] Let it be loud: We want ourselves to be alive! Let the murderer fall hard!
?Este fin de semana en la Ciudad de Guatemala, Huehuetenango, Xela, Comalapa, Cobán, Escuintla, Petén, Chiquimula y en toda Guatemala, ¡todas!, unidas en una sola voz para pedir justicia por las que nos faltan. #NiUnaMenos #JusticiaPorFemicidio#JusticiaParaLitzy ‼ pic.twitter.com/IFfbhCZp6P
— Ruda (@ruda_gt) October 12, 2020
?This weekend in Guatemala City, Huehuetenango, Xela, Comalapa, Cobán, Escuintla, Petén, Chiquimula and all over Guatemala, all united in one voice to ask for justice for those who are missing. #NotOneLess #JusticeForFemicide#JusticeForLitzy ‼
Here are photos of the demonstration organized in the Plaza de la Constitución in the Guatemalan capital:
Photo by the author María Jossé España.
Photo by the author María Jossé España.
Photo by the author María Jossé España.
Photo by the author María Jossé España.
Photo by the author María Jossé España.
Photo by the author María Jossé España.
Photo by the author María Jossé España.

author: María Jossé España Cabrera


text:
#AnswerUsElonMusk: Russia’s indigenous peoples campaign against Arctic pollution · Global Voices
Vera Shcherbina

Indigenous rights activists across Russia join an online flashmob against pollution in the Arctic. Collage by Vera Shcherbina.
Across the Russian Arctic, indigenous peoples are asking Elon Musk not to buy nickel from Norilsk Nickel, one of the largest nickel and palladium mining companies in the world. For the past three months, they have been holding a media campaign trying to draw attention to the company's environmental practices and lack of compliance with international law.
Musk, the CEO of US electric vehicle and clean energy company Tesla, addressed the world mining industry this July, saying: “Tesla will give you a giant contract, for a long period of time, if you mine nickel efficiently and in an environmentally sensitive way.” Indigenous peoples of the Russian North raised the alarm, stressing that the country's nickel plants are not environmentally sustainable and are damaging the fragile Arctic environment. Their campaign consists not only of the customary open letters, but also online flash mobs on social media: indigenous people share their own photos where they, in traditional clothes, hold posters with hashtags ‘#AnswerUsElonMusk’, ‘#NoNickelfromNornickel, and #DefendIndigenousArctic.
In Russia, this is an unusual take on environmental rights: Using Musk's media persona, indigenous people are addressing their complaints about pollution not to the state but to a foreign industrialist, in an attempt to compel Russia to comply with their legal demands.
Be that as it may, their approach actually makes a lot of sense, says Dmitry Berezhkov, an indigenous rights activist and member of the Russian Aborigen Forum, one of several groups supporting the campaign. “We consider environmental well-being as a part of indigenous people rights. The number of ways to defend the indigenous people rights in Russia is reducing day by day, as the state together with industrial companies try to impose more control on people lives. Theoretically, indigenous people could defend their rights with the help of international organisations, appealing to international law and calling for United Nations resolutions first. But Russia stopped paying much attention to UN resolutions some time ago. Now, there are only two working solutions: European Court of Human Rights and the Council of Europe. That’s why we are trying to be inventive and find new ways to defend our rights. In this case, by organising international media campaigns”, Berezhkov, who is based in Tromsø, Norway, told GV in a phone interview.
Read more: Pipeline problems for indigenous peoples on Russia's Yamal peninsula
Taking on Norilsk Nickel is no small feat. The company, also known as NorNickel, was established in the 1930s by the Soviet state as one of its great ‘tundra conquering’ projects. In the 1990s, the company was privatised by various means — including the notorious ‘loans for shares’ scheme — and today it is majority-controlled by the Russian oligarch Vladimir Potanin, one of the richest people in the country. The company's operations focus on two areas, both in the Russian Arctic: the Taymyr Peninsula, through its main plant in the nearby city of Norilsk, and the Murmansk region (or more specifically, the Kola Peninsula) on the very western border of Russia, where three smaller plants are located in the towns of Nickel, Monchegorsk and Zapolyarny. All these territories are also traditional homelands for indigenous peoples: the Dolgan people in the Taymyr Peninsula and the Sámi people in Murmansk Region.
On May 29, NorNickel made headlines for causing one of the worst environmental disasters in the Rusian Arctic. A corroded fuel storage tank belonging to a local power station owned by NorNickel burst open, flooding local rivers with up to 17,500 tonnes of diesel fuel which melted ice and contaminated the water. It eventually reached Lake Pyasino and the linked rivers, making its way into the Arctic Ocean. All in all, it contaminated at least 140 square miles across the Russian Arctic. The spill brought an unusual level of public attention to NorNickel: On June 4, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared a state of emergency and personally criticised Potanin on television.
On September 18, Lake Pyasino was declared “dead” as a result of the spill. Ecological monitoring results demonstrated that, alongside diesel fuel, the MAC (Maximum Allowed Concentrations) of heavy metals in the lake waters had been exceeded. That same day Elena Penzina, a Deputy of the Legislative Assembly of Krasnoyarsk Region, wrote on her personal Telegram channel that the level of concentration of pollutants in the water indicate that NorNickel had been contaminating the lake for many years. The toxic gases and heavy metal particles had also contaminated the air, she added.
Yet even after the spill, the state agency PORA (Project Office for the Development of the Arctic) ranked NorNickel third among Russian companies operating in the Arctic and seventh among international companies in their “Polar Index”, a directory of the most environmentally sustainable Russian companies.
The Dolgan people largely live along the shores of this lake and the rivers which feed it. Gennady Shchukin is a veteran Dolgan activist who has attempted to draw attention to environmental disaster and the violation of indigenous people’s rights for many years. Today, he is the chairman of the Association of Indigenous Peoples in Taimyr, executive secretary of the aforementioned Aborigen Forum, and a leader of Amyaksin, the local Dolgan community organisation. Speaking to GV by telephone, he said, “so far our appeals to Norilsk Nickel and to the authorities have brought no results. That is why we are forced to address to the possible buyers of Norilsk Nickel's production, so they could help to bring attention to the lack of environmental sustainability of the plants. The oil spill was the last straw for our patience”.
Shchukin explained today's indigenous communities in the tundra of the Taymyr survive from fishing, hunting and bartering, exchanging fish and meat for sugar, medications, and whatever other products reach them despite vast distances and bad roads. “There is no money in the tundra”, he says. For Dolgans, the deadly pollution of Pyasino and all the linked rivers is not only an environmental disaster but also a financial and a cultural one – families have lost their only source of income and now face either starvation or exile from their homeland at least for the next 50 years, because that is how long it could take for the affected land and waters to be restored.
A letter that Shchukin, as a deputy of a district council, sent to Norilsk Nickel and local authorities after the disaster lists 33 recommendations on how the company could make up for the lost 50 years. Shchukin's letter, seen by GV, recommends compensating Dolgans for the cost of resettlement and providing professional education for Dolgan youths who now cannot learn their traditional lifestyle.
“In the last decade”, says Shchukin, “there was no significant activity in cleaning of refuse deposits, adding purification plants or filters, and we cannot control any changes. We have no voice on any environmental programme in the region, and even the idea of our representatives being experts on the commission is nonexistent. However, we have no choice but to fight because we simply have nowhere to go. Most of Norilsk Nickel's workers have roots somewhere else in Russia, so they can say: ‘Let locals deal with it’ – and move elsewhere. But we live here, so we need to take action”.
In their last statement, released on September 15, PORA claims that their research found 700 indigenous people personally affected by the spill and eligible for compensation. When asked about PORA's fact-finding mission, Shchukin said: “They contacted me not as a representative, but as an individual. However, the expertise they were providing was ethnological, not ecological one. It is also important, but not the same”.
The campaign is also supported by the Sámi people, who live in the Murmansk region where NorNickel operates its western division. As Sámi politician Andrey Danilov told GV, the aim is not to bring NorNickel to their knees but to establish constructive communication on environmental issues and give indigenous representatives a voice in the company’s planned activities, in accordance with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. “Honestly, it is a unique situation” says Danilov, “when two different communities of indigenous people from two regions thousands of kilometres apart have joined together in an attempt to provoke and establish a dialogue with the same company — the dialogue they have the right to by international law”.
“It's a funny thing”, Danilov continues, “as soon as we started the campaign, the local press started talking about how much NorNickel supports the Sámi community. We, on our end, remember only two such projects: a celebration in honour of the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples, and a book in the Sámi language, full of grammar and spelling mistakes”.
Ecological concerns have also been raised in Murmansk region for many years. NorNickel's products (nickel, copper, and cobalt) are all produced from a type of ore that usually contains a large proportion of sulphur. This means that the extraction process is associated with high concentrations of sulphur dioxide (SO2). The company website acknowledges that for 2019, emissions from all NorNickel plants reached 1,953,000 tons of sulphur dioxide per year – this is approximately five thousand tons per day and an increase on the previous year. When that gas is released in the humid Arctic air, it reacts with water droplets and produces an unstable version of sulphuric acid, leading to acid rain. Consequently, as a recent Novaya Gazeta article about NorNickel put it, the nickel plants are surrounded by a “lunar landscape” which stands in stark contrast to the Arctic tundra. A recent research paper in dendroclimatology showed serious consequences of NorNickel's pollution for boreal forests, as well as for the climate in general.
Andrey Zolotkov, who heads the environmental organisation Bellona-Murmansk, explained in a phone interview with GV that air pollution has been a thorn in Russian-Norwegian relations since the 1990s. One of NorNickel’s plants is visible from Kirkenes, a Norwegian border town. There's even a popular environental movement in Norway, established in 1990, called “Stop the Soviet death clouds”. In 2016, the movement tried bringing the issue of NorNickel pollution to the attention of the main nickel buyers: Apple and Tesla. The last international scandal happened in January 2019, when a cloud of sulphur dioxide drifted over the border and forced the Norwegian municipal authorities to trigger a health-warning alarm.
Zolotkov agrees that there has been some progress. In 2016, NorNickel modernised the processing at its plant in Zapolyarny, bringing pollution levels almost to zero. Over the last 18 years, the quality of air in Monchegorsk has reached acceptable range again – except for two separate episodes in the last two years. According to NorNickel's May 2020 report, the company officially promised to close its melting workshop in Nickel by December 25, 2020. Furthermore, in 2019 NorNickel launched the “Sulphur Project”, a drive for sustainable development which promises an 85 percent reduction of total sulphur dioxide emissions from the company's Kola division by 2021 and a 90 percent reduction from the Taymyr division by 2025.
Indigenous Sámi people are not yet convinced by these promises. But many international organisations are on the campaigners’ side. On September 7, the Saami Council – an NGO representing indigenous people based in Finland, Norway, Russia, and Sweden – put out a rare statement in support of indigenous peoples of the Russian Arctic and their campaign against NorNickel. Furthermore, the indigenous rights organisation Cultural Survival is gathering signatures for an open letter to be delivered to Tesla’s offices in Palo Alto, California. More than 70 indigenous, clean energy, climate, and mining justice organisations around the world support their plea, which in turn leads to the hope that this campaign could set a precedent.
Meanwhile, on September 26 Vladimir Potanin gave an interview to the Vesti news programme to clear his company's name. He explained how NorNickel paid for cleaning procedures after the spill. He complained that the record $2.1 billion fine imposed on the company by Rosprirodnadzor, Russia's environmental watchdog, was too high.
He also expressed confidence that Russia's response to unprecedented ecological disasters like this, “confirms its right to hold a chairmanship of the Arctic Council in 2021-2023”.

author: Vera Shcherbina


text:
Devastating fires rage in Argentina as economic interests become key suspect · Global Voices
Romina Navarro

Fire in the Paraná Delta north of Buenos Aires. Image from the Ministry of the Environment, Wikimedia Commons, August 2020.
Wildfires have been raging in central and northern Argentina for months where more than 400,000 hectares (988,422 acres), comparable in size to more than 560,000 soccer fields, have burned to date. According to the latest data from the National Fire Management Service, thirteen of Argentina’s twenty-three provinces are affected, with a consequential loss of natural ecosystems and biodiversity.
The first wildfire outbreaks were registered in the Paraná River Delta in February and reached a peak in August when another large wildfire began spreading in the central province of Córdoba.
The Argentine federal government is now joining forces with affected provinces, bringing in fire brigades and equipment along with aid from other provinces.
Human activity, specifically clearing land for livestock or farming, is thought to be the main culprit for the fires according to the Secretary of Environmental Control and Monitoring in an interview with Argentine media outlet Chequeado:
Satellite image of fires in the province of Córdoba. Photo by NASA FIRMS, Wikimedia Commons. September 2020.
En el Delta [del río Paraná], creemos que la mayoría o la totalidad fueron provocados, no casuales ni accidentales. Inferimos que la motivación fue la limpieza de terrenos para la producción ganadera o agrícola; por eso el ministro [de Ambiente] Juan Cabandié se presentó como querellante ante la Justicia.
In the Delta [of the Paraná River], we believe that most or all of them were not incidental or accidental, but provoked. We infer that the motivation was to clear land for livestock or agricultural production, which is why the [Environment] Minister Juan Cabandié has made an appearance as a plaintiff before the Justice.
Climate factors such as high temperatures, strong winds, and extreme droughts have aggravated the situation, causing the out-of-control fires to move increasingly closer to urban centers.
Shocking images of the wildfires from the city of Córdoba have caused public outrage as reports continue to point to agribusiness and real estate projects in protected areas and native forests as the cause for the wildfires. The public is also blaming the irresponsible management of the so-called “controlled burning” of grasslands. Philosophy professor Constanza San Pedro and activist Clarisa Mensa wrote in a local outlet:
Necesitamos construir políticas a largo plazo, con las familias campesinas e indígenas, que tengan por objetivo el arraigo, el desarrollo y el buen vivir de la población en armonía con el medio ambiente.
We need to build long-term policies with the  objective of cultivating roots, development, and wellbeing for peasant and indigenous families, in order for our population to live in harmony with the environment.
People expressed their indignation and sadness through Twitter and other social media platforms with tags including #ArgentinaEnLlamas, #ApaguenElFuego, #BastaDeQuemas and #LeydeHumedalesYA (In English: Argentina in Flames, Stop the Fire, Enough Burning, and Law for Wetlands NOW), among others.
“Sólo después de que el último árbol esté muerto, sólo después de que el último río haya sido envenenado, sólo después de que el último pez haya sido atrapado, sólo entonces nos daremos cuenta que no nos podemos comer el dinero”#ArgentinaEnLlamas literalmente. #LeyDeHumedalesYa pic.twitter.com/ViTZ0zNX5J
— Guillermina (@GuilleBrun0) October 2, 2020
“Only after the last tree is dead, only after the last river has been poisoned, only after the last fish has been caught, only then will we realize that we cannot eat the money”#ArgentinaEnLlamas, literally.
#LeyDeHumedalesYa pic.twitter.com/ViTZ0zNX5J
— Guillermina (@GuilleBrun0) October 2, 2020
¿Quiénes están quemando la Argentina?
Se está llevando adelante un #Ecocidio. Los Humedales en el Paraná, la sierra de Córdoba y más lugares por todo nuestro país.
Se habla de las quemas, no de quienes las están quemando.
[Abro Hilo?]#LeyDeHumedalesYa#ArgentinaEnLlamas pic.twitter.com/XxxTyqhtWS
— Lisandro Citta (@LisandroCitta) October 3, 2020
Who is burning Argentina?
An #Ecocide is taking place. The Wetlands in the Paraná, the Sierra de Córdoba and more places throughout our country.
They talk about the burning, not about those who are burning it.
[Open Thread?]#LeyDeHumedalesYa#ArgentinaEnLlamas pic.twitter.com/XxxTyqhtWS
— Lisandro Citta (@LisandroCitta) October 3, 2020
El país arde por el agronegocio y la especulación inmobiliaria. Donde hubo fuego, hoy hay soja y máquinas listas para la construcción… #ArgentinaEnLlamas pic.twitter.com/TzEohagBYB
— ?Cele Fierro? (@Cele_Fierro) October 2, 2020
The country burns because of agribusiness and real estate speculation. Where there was fire, today there are soybeans and machines ready for construction…
#ArgentinaEnLlamas pic.twitter.com/TzEohagBYB
— ?Cele Fierro? (@Cele_Fierro) October 2, 2020
Un amigo, que está combatiendo los incendios en la zona del Delta, hizo un compilado con la situación de todo el país. Están pidiendo que el reclamo llegue a la ONU. Difundir!!@unep_espanol #ArgentinaEnLlamas #ONUHelp pic.twitter.com/fhQBep86Ih
— Lucila Guevara (@LalaBonariensis) October 2, 2020
A friend, who is fighting the fires in the Delta area, made a video compilation of the entire country's situation. They are asking that this reach the UN. Spread Word!!
@unep_espanol #ArgentinaEnLlamas #ONUHelp pic.twitter.com/fhQBep86Ih
— Lucila Guevara (@LalaBonariensis) October 2, 2020
Although a Forest Law was passed in 2007 which established a national fund for native forest conservation, several reports indicate non-compliance by authorities and continued illegal logging. This is a big reason why different political parties, organizations, and activists are working to promote more specifically tailored laws that prohibit the sale of burned areas in order to discourage arson.
During the last few months, thirteen wetland protection bills were presented, mainly for the Paraná Delta area. It is hoped that mounting social pressure will encourage and speed up the process of approval before it is too late.
#LeyDeHumedalesYa #CorrientesEnLlamas pic.twitter.com/88U8B8Rf2H
— Casandraadalis (@Casandraadalis2) October 3, 2020

author: Romina Navarro


text:
In the Ural regions of Russia, Finland’s linguistic roots live on · Global Voices
Filip Noubel

Ville Ropponen in the Kolyma, a region in the Russian Far East. Photo used with permission.
Russia's linguistic diversity is as expansive as the country itself.
One language grouping represented in Russia is the Uralic languages, whose name comes from the Ural mountains, located in Central Russia at the geographic border between Europe and Asia. They include 38 languages, most of them spoken in the eponymous region. There are around 25 million speakers of Uralic languages worldwide. However, there are vast differences in their status.
Three Uralic languages benefit from state protection as they are official and the predominant languages in their respective countries: Estonian, Finnish and Hungarian (the latter also enjoys official protection in Hungary's neighbouring countries). The remainder are spoken by much smaller communities living mostly in Russia, as well as Latvia, Norway and Sweden. While some Uralic languages, such as Mari or Udmurt, have between 500,000 to 300,000 speakers, others have about 30,000 speakers, such as the Sámi languages. Others, such as Nganasan, are now believed to be spoken by fewer than 100 people. In Russia, while Uralic languages are officially recognised in the constitution and in theory provided certain cultural rights, new laws have further threatened the passing of minority languages to the next generation of speakers.
The status of smaller Uralic languages is of great interest to Finns, Hungarians and Estonians. For them, the Mari, Udmurt, Komi and Erzya are distant cousins — and endangered ones. One such Finn is Ville Ropponen, a traveller, non-fiction writer, poet and literary critic. He has visited Russia's Uralic communities extensively over the years and in 2012 published Uralilainen ikkuna (“The Window of the Urals”), a collection of essays on language and travel.
Ropponen shared his thoughts about the past, present and uncertain future of the Uralic languages and their speakers. The interview was edited for brevity and style. Links and notes were added in quotes to provide more background.
Filip Noubel (FN): How did you get involved in this field as a Finn who speaks a Uralic language and decided to travel to Russia where most indigenous Uralic people live?
Ville Ropponen (VR): As I described in my book of essays ”The Window of the Ural”, I first got involved with Uralic languages and people from the Finno-Ugric territories of Russia when I studied in Estonia as an exchange student at the beginning of the 2000s. After that I made several trips to Finno-Ugric areas, the regions of Mari El, Udmurtia and Mordovia [in the Russian Federation], and in 2005 a longer journey which included areas in Siberia to gather information and material. I wanted to write more deeply about the Finno-Ugric languages, cultures and peoples in Russia today. Of course for a Finn, the Volga River and Ural mountains are half-mythological places, where you imagine your ancestors once lived before they decided to rush to the West.
In the 19th century many Finnish scholars travelled to Russia to research the languages and cultures of the Uralic peoples. It was also connected to the rise of Finnish cultural nationalism. Before and after Finnish independence [from Imperial Russia] of 1917, there were many connections between Finland and Russia, among cultural circles that sometimes included Udmurts and other Finno-Ugric nations. But Stalinist purges during the 1930s ended this and all connections between [us] were lost for decades.
In my book of essays I also try to imagine what it is to be a representative of a small linguistic minority in the era of globalisation, global warming and ecological crises, and once again, rising nationalism and imperialism. Of course today the rights of indigenous and minority peoples are more widely discussed at the national and international level.
VR: At this moment, there is no common Uralic identity. Or if there is, it is only constructed and shared by the Finno-Ugric intelligentsia the way Benedict Anderson describes the notion of ”imagined community”.
Ethnofuturism is an artistic movement which began in Estonia 1989 as a form of postmodernist and nonconformist thinking and as a postcolonial movement. One of its goals is to combine local as well as national cultural tradition with international cultural influences, the world of internet and robotics, together with the world of rituals, myth and ancient customs. During the 1990s, ethnofuturism became widely popular in Finno-Ugric areas of Russia. That was understandable, because both Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union were empires, based on the rule of Russian language, of Russian and Slavic people. During the 1990, the minorities of Russia succeeded to improve their cultural and linguistic rights. But unfortunately during the Putin era, thus since the year 2000, almost all of these rights and autonomy have been lost.
Decentralisation, the deconstruction of hierarchy and the dissolution of binary opposites are important factors in the philosophy of ethnofuturism. The idea is to move the cultural focus from the center of empires to the outskirts, the wilderness, liminal points between civilisations. Ethnofuturists want to learn from aboriginal cultures and thinking, while maintaining a connection to the postmodern world.
FN: What about the politics around Uralic languages? More recently Russia passed a law that makes the learning of minority languages no longer compulsory in schools of areas with significant speakers of minority languages. Why is this issue so sensitive in Russia given the extremely small number of speakers of Uralic languages?
VR: After the collapse of Soviet Union, there was much hope in Russia about democracy, multiculturalism and a pluralistic society. But especially since the 2010s ”thaw” ended, everything which is independent, even in the slightest form, and is not mainstream is considered a threat. As always, it is a question of money and power.
I have been denied a visa once, that was in 2005. The official reason of denial was that we didn't “register our visas properly”, which was of course a false reason. Russian security service officials interrogated us after a visit to the Mari El Republic, where we had interviewed cultural activists and people who had been politically oppressed. During that time the Mari El Republic was one of the first Russian regions to witness such state-sponsored harassment of ethnic minorities.
Unfortunately Russia is falling back to becoming an authoritarian empire, and today some scholars are even speaking about fascism. This is very sad. Russia and its people deserve better.
FN: What are your views on the survival and future of those languages? Is digitalisation happening for them and can it save them, or some of them? Or are other means more effective?
VR: I think they will survive. One hundred years ago, we asked the same questions: ”Will these small languages survive?”. They still do. But of course today there are more threats to minority languages, because the volume and power of big majority languages, which are sometimes called ”killer languages” is so huge. Digitalisation and the internet have helped some languages, for example Mordvian or Udmurt. There is a project to make Wikipedia pages in Mordovian languages (in both Erzya and Moksha). And in Udmurtia, there are many interesting linguistic projects, which try to improve the language's situation using the internet.
What is to to be done? That is a difficult question, because it is a political one. For example, these kind of laws you mentioned are very bad for minorities. Over the last 20 years, Russian law has been constantly changed to the detriment of minorities. But we have to hope for the better. Maybe there will be a change in Russia, who knows, maybe quite soon, and Russian politics will again take a more democratic and pluralistic direction.

author: Filip Noubel


text:
Australian sexual assault victims blast Tinder dating app’s safety practices · Global Voices
Kevin Rennie

‘I saw you on Tinder’, Graffiti in Trastevere, Italy 2014 – Image courtesy Flickr user Itmost (CC BY 2.0)
An investigation by Australian radio program TripleJ Hack has raised disturbing allegations about the way dating apps handle sexual assault cases.
Triple J, a youth-oriented program that is part of the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), aired ‘Tinder: A Predators’ Playground’ on ABC TV’s Four Corners on October 12.
More than 400 people responded to a TripleJ callout about safety on dating apps and 175 respondents told the journalists that they had experienced a sex offense by someone they met on the app Tinder, owned by dating services company Match Group. Around 48 of those said they had reported the offense to Tinder with only 11 receiving a response.
The video and transcript are available here.
According to the investigation, predators were able to unmatch themselves, erasing evidence and becoming untraceable for victims. This feature was apparently originally designed to protect users, certainly not predators. Women complained that not only was it hard to get a response from Tinder but also to get predators removed from the platform. There were also complaints that some police “didn’t do their jobs”. However, a senior police spokesperson from the State of New South Wales maintained that “it is always difficult to get information” from apps about sexual assault cases.
There was a number of interviews with victims, which contained disturbing, graphic details of assaults including rape. It was also revealed that one of the victims had taken her own life following the trial of a serial rapist who had multiple profiles on Tinder.
Dr. Oscar Vorobjovas-Pinta's tweet typified social media reactions:
I watched this program with horror. I’m appalled how @Tinder handles the cases of sexual abuse.
— Dr Oscar Vorobjovas-Pinta (@DrOscarVP) October 14, 2020
As did Kelsey Menzies’ concern about dating apps:
Nearly every single friend of mine has a story about a dodgy #tinder date or a ‘match’ that’s edged himself a bit too close. This. Story. Is. Important. Thankyou @triplejHack @4corners ?????? https://t.co/7G4czpshHi
— Kelsey Menzies (@KelseySMenzies) October 11, 2020
Tinder has been downloaded over one hundred million times since its beginning in 2012. Its global revenue exceeded $1.2 billion US dollars in 2019. The impact of the allegations on the number of women using the app was raised by Booboo Kittiefukk:
Ugh. I wonder if @tinder had a massive reduction of female profiles in Australia thanks to @4corners & @triplejHack. Journalists keeping women safe because @tinder won't. Shame on you @tinder. #tinder #datingapps #4corners #triplej #triplejhack
— Booboo Kittiefukk (@boobookittifukk) October 12, 2020
Verity Hawkins raised an ongoing concern about how women's voices are regarded:
Yet again, women are not believed, and are diminished and devalued. Horrific stories of sexual assault and harassment ? @4corners @AvaniDias #believewomen #genderequality #4corners #EndViolenceAgainstWomen
— Verity Hawkins (@Verity_Hawkins) October 12, 2020
Tinder has published a written statement defending its “processes and policies” on its blog while vowing to improve its safety measures:
We have heard from survivors and we are acting. We strive to continually improve our safety systems and are always ready to take further action when shortcomings are identified.
[…] We are grateful to all who have spoken up about violence or assault by someone who they met through our platforms. We value and respect their courage and determination to report these incidents so we can remove these offenders from our sites and better protect our users.
Apparently, it has not agreed to an interview with TripleJ. Jack Gramennz clearly wants greater accountability:
Tinder couldn’t put anyone on camera to defend the company on Four Corners but of course the morning after there’s a X,000 word blog post about how hard they try https://t.co/QMfjIYE8Cb
— jack gramenz (@JackGramenz) October 13, 2020
Journalist Hannah Ryan was outraged by Tinder's reply:
Pathetic response from a company accused of enabling sexual assault perpetrators to escape accountability and reoffend using their app https://t.co/IudJBHfy2y pic.twitter.com/T52RWrJDlq
— Hannah Ryan (@HannahD15) October 11, 2020
The Tinder controversy has roused many on other social media sites. Four Corners’ Facebook page has several posts with hundreds of comments. TripleJ’s short video on Instagram has received over 19,000 views.
Rosalie Gillett and Nicolas Suzor, of Queensland University of Technology, looked at some broader issues on The Conversation website, arguing:
Tinder isn’t alone in failing to protect women — our attitudes matter a lot as well.
All the major digital platforms have their work cut out to address the online harassment of women that has now become commonplace. Where they fail, we should all work to keep the pressure on them.
Those who are contemplating keeping or creating dating profiles, for either serious relationships or casual encounters, have two key issues to consider: How can Tinder, and other dating apps, better protect users from predators? How can it properly support the victims? Tinder has partnered with Noonlight to offer a safety backup. A phone alarm alerts emergency services such as police and first responders. However, it is currently only available in the United States.
Meanwhile, TripleJ Hack has continued its investigation, looking at whether victims could take legal action against the dating service.
In the latest development, the Australian Minister for Communications, Paul Fletcher, has met with representatives of Match Group to discuss improving user safety. Merryn Redenbach responded to this news on Four Corners Facebook:
Will Tinder now release data on all complaints of sexual assault received from Australia to the police sexual offences units in each State and Territory, or another body established to investigate this abuse? And comply quickly with all Police requests for data? Any other response from the company is just marketing spin.

author: Kevin Rennie


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Marine ecosystems and livelihoods at risk if Venezuelan oil tanker sinks · Global Voices
Zico Cozier

Screenshot of the FSO (Floating Storage and Offloading Unit) Nabarima, the vessel in danger of sinking and creating a huge oil spill in the Gulf of Paria, taken from a video uploaded by Fishermen and Friends of the Sea, the Trinidad and Tobago-based non-governmental organisation that raised the alarm about the situation.
This article was originally published on Cari-Bois News. An edited version is republished here with permission.
The FSO Nabarima, a huge oil tanker containing approximately 1.3 million barrels of crude oil, has taken on water and is leaning to one side off a remote stretch of Venezuela’s coast in the Gulf of Paria.
As authorities in Trinidad and Tobago, the twin island nation located approximately 11 kilometres (6.8 miles) off Venezuela's north east coast, grapple with how to respond to the crisis happening just beyond its borders, questions are being raised about the potential environmental impact of an oil spill of this magnitude in the Gulf of Paria — an ecologically sensitive area bordered by mangroves, which is also important for fishing.
The Cari-Bois Environmental News Network, an initiative of The Cropper Foundation and its partners, reached out to the team of scientists and environmental experts at the Trinidad and Tobago-based non-profit SpeSeas, to determine what the possible environmental impacts would be if such a spill were to take place.
Given the position of the FSO Nabarima and SepSeas’ knowledge of the general circulation pattern in the Gulf, they expect the Paria Peninsula to be most at risk.
The ecosystems which line the Gulf of Paria include mangrove forests, coastal lagoons, estuaries, beaches/sandy shores, rocky shores, open ocean ecosystems and their associated biodiversity. Depending on the trajectory of the potential oil spill, all of these ecosystems would be at risk.
The Gulf of Paria provides important migratory routes and habitats to megafauna, including birds, whales, dolphins, turtles and other marine fauna, as well as commercially important species such as shrimp and fish, all of which will likely be impacted.
Because oil typically floats on the surface of the water, the animals most affected are those that found at the sea surface or along shorelines, including fish and invertebrate larvae, as well as mammals and turtles that need to break the surface to breathe.
In most oil spills, sea birds are typically impacted in the greatest numbers. Oil can smother organisms, coating the feathers of birds and the skin of other animals. Skin and eye irritation can result from external exposure, while internal exposure can happen via ingestion or inhalation. Oil spills may also impair the marine organisms’ abilities to find food, avoid predators, breathe and reproduce. There may be a lower survival in offspring owing to the persistence of toxic chemicals in the food chain, which in turn causes organ damage.
If the oil comes into contact with land, it can affect coastal marine habitats and their residents: mangrove forests, shallow water reefs and other rocky habitats, beaches and mudflats, all of which are especially difficult to clean up. Any fauna closely associated with these habitats will also be negatively affected.
The extent of such impacts depends on a variety of factors, including the characteristics and volume of the oil spilled, wind strength and direction, water movement, circulation, and the clean-up response.
The Gulf of Paria is the most important fishing ground for shrimp and finfish in Trinidad and Tobago. More than 50 percent of all fishing activity in the country happens here.
Marine fisheries are important both economically and socially for the residents of many rural coastal communities, whose livelihood depends either entirely or partially on fishing. Any oil spill within the Gulf of Paria therefore has the potential to deal a significant blow.
Fisheries also contribute to food security, poverty alleviation, foreign exchange earnings, culture, recreation and tourism. The majority of fishery resources in Trinidad and Tobago are coastal, and accessed by a large number of small-scale fishers.
Oil spills can directly impact fishing communities in a myriad of ways. Oil on the surface of the water, for instance, creates added expense for fishermen to clean their vessels and gear. Those who cannot afford these costs may opt not to fish in order to protect their equipment, which translates into significant loss of income. Sales also tend to drop for a considerable period of time after an oil spill, due to consumer fears about whether the catch is safe to eat. This has occurred in response to previous oil spills in the Gulf.
Fish kills — the sudden and unexpected death of a number of fish or other aquatic animals in a specific area — are also a concern. If this were to take place, says SpeSeas, it would most likely occur in inland areas where there is less circulation, resulting in fish becoming trapped. Many of these inland areas also function as nurseries for less mobile larvae and juveniles.
Assuming the oil spreads to the beaches, fauna on mangrove roots — such as oysters and crabs — would also be affected.
Trinidad and Tobago has a National Oil Spill Contingency Plan (2013) that prioritises both human health and that of important marine ecosystems like coral reefs and mangroves. There is also a Bilateral Oil Spill Contingency Plan between Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela dating back to 1989, which will guide the response to any spill.
Response strategies for oil spills in open water generally include booming, skimming, removal, storage, dispersants and in-situ burning.
Methods of cleaning up any spilled oil must be carefully evaluated, however, as these processes can sometimes do further damage, especially along coastal habitats. Oiled wildlife, meanwhile, can be sent for rehabilitation. Other clean up options include replacing contaminated beach sand and replanting mangrove, marsh and seagrass beds.
Local and international reports have said the sinking of the FSO Nabarima could potentially result in the leaking of oil into the Gulf of Paria, with devastating effects — essentially turning the area into a “dead, contaminated sea.”
Noting that it was difficult to speculate as to the likely extent of the impacts, the SpeSeas team advised that due diligence should be exercised to prevent the spillage of any amount of oil. Given the considerable threats, they advised that the situation should be closely monitored.
The Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries (MEEI) has been in contact with the Venezuelan government regarding the condition of the vessel and the risk of an oil spill, and has offered its assistance.
At this point, the FSO Nabarima is still situated in Venezuelan waters and Trinidad and Tobago will likely not be able to act unless the Venezuelan government requests assistance.
In the interim, Trinidad and Tobago netizens have been signing a petition demanding that immediate preventative action be taken, that the country is prepared in the event of a spill, and that the public is kept abreast of all developments.

author: Zico Cozier


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Undaunted by the October 16 crackdown, protestors once again take to Bangkok’s streets · Global Voices
Prachatai

Thousands gathered in Bangkok in an anti-dictatorship protest despite the prohibition on mass gathering. Photo from Prachatai
The original version of this article was published by Prachatai, an independent news site in Thailand, and was edited and republished by Global Voices as part of a content-sharing agreement.
The October 16 police crackdown on protesters in Bangkok has not deterred the people’s will to express their opposition to dictatorship and criticize the monarchy. Instead, Thai demonstrators have shifted from communal protests to mobile leaderless ones.
Protesters turned up at many BTS Skytrain stations on the afternoon of October 17, in line with the strategy announced after the October 16 crackdown by the United Front of Thammasat and Demonstration, the Thammasat University student group protest organizers. The message stated that “Everyone is a leader.”
In response, the police held a press conference at 1:30pm warning against protests that obstructed transportation routes. The BTS Skytrain stations were ordered closed between the Ari and Phromphong stops from 2:30pm onwards. Phayathai Station on the Airport Link was closed, and all access points to Asok intersection were blocked.
Most police resources appear to have been deployed at the Victory Monument. But no protestors turned up there.
The police said that teargas would not be used against protesters, but that water coloured with chemical dyes would be used to mark protesters’ clothing to identify them for possible future arrest. Doctors confirmed that these chemicals were harmless.
All BTS Skytrain and MRT subway stations were also closed by the authorities as protesters started gathering.
Closing Skytrain and subway stations was a tactic which the authorities hoped would discourage protesters who had been demonstrating over the last several days against the government, calling for constitutional amendments, respect for human rights, and reforms to the monarchy.
A closed MRT station and people who raised 3 fingers at the BTS gate. Photo and caption by Prachatai,
But people started gathering in many different areas. At Asok station, protesters handed out sheets of paper for people to make signs. Protesters delivered anti-government speeches, demanding that the government “release our friends, release our children”. Some said they were going to Lad Phrao intersection.
At 3:35pm, at Lad Phrao intersection, people came down from the platform to the street in front of Central Plaza Lad Phrao and gradually took over the areas.
Protest groups formed at three main spots around the city: Udom Suk BTS station, from where protestors later moved to nearby Bang Na intersection; Lad Phrao BTS station, occupying the Lad Phrao five-way intersection; and Wongwian Yai BTS station.
An additional gathering point was at Samyan Mitrtown shopping mall opposite Chulalongkorn University (CU), which announced by the Spring Movement, an CU student activist group. The mall announced that it would close at 5:00pm.
Protesters exchanged stories of their experiences of the previous night’s crackdown. One protester said:
There is no more staying neutral, either you side with democracy or side with dictatorship that uses power unfairly.
Another also called for a boycott of graduation ceremonies presided over by members of the royal family in order to cause a shift in the cultural structure.
At 4:35pm, activist Sombat Boonngam-anong and a few other people deliverd a speech on the Asok station skywalk, as they could not travel anywhere else due to the transportation shutdown. There was also a protest at Ramkamhaeng University.
Protesters raising 3 fingers at Wongwian Yai. Photo by Prachatai
At Wongwian Yai, protesters asked the question, “Who killed King Taksin?” King Taksin ruled in the Thonburi era (1767-82) and died under mysterious circumstances that allowed King Rama I of the current Chakri dynasty to assume power. Wongwian Yao, where protesters were standing, is the location of Thonburi, the country's former capital. An equestrian statue of King Taksin is situated there.
At 4:40 pm at the Lad Phrao intersection, occupying protesters organized a guard and arranged barriers in preparation for a potential crackdown. Some came prepared with masks and helmets.
At 6:00pm, protesters at the various locations gave the three-finger salute while singing the National Anthem. Raising three fingers during the National Anthem, which has become a common protest action, was first proposed by Parit ‘Penguin’ Chiwarak, a student activist who is now in police custody.
The protests proceeded with no reports of any clashes or crackdowns. Then, one by one, the protests dissolved between 6:45 and 7:45pm.
On the day before, on October 16, the demonstrators moved the protest to Pathumwan after the police heavily deployed forces to occupy Ratchaprasong intersection, the original protest venue. But because it was only a few hundred yards from the original spot, it did not take long for riot control forces to redeploy and disperse the protesters with high-pressure water cannons, riot shields, batons and water mixed with a chemical irritant.
A new state of emergency was announced after the overnight protest on October 14. This emergency decree covers Bangkok and is aimed at quelling the ongoing protests, which the government can now call unlawful and claim that they endanger public safety.
Left to Right: “[I] pay taxes. [I] don't want tear gas from your father & We come peacefully. Why do we have to be cautious? Why must [you] hurt us? (Photo and caption by Prachatai)
The new emergency decree prohibits gatherings of more than 5 people, enables detention for 7 days without charge, authorizes high-ranking police officers to conduct searches without court orders, and prohibits civilians and media from publishing or broadcasting information which threatens the country's stability.
On October 17, Pol Major General Yingyot Thepchamnong, deputy spokesperson of the Thai National Police, said during a press briefing that political gatherings violate the emergency decree and the police have to respond according to the law. As the protesters have adjusted their tactics, the police will likely change their tactics as well.

author: Prachatai


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Understanding pandemic fatigue · Global Voices
GroundViews

Non-profit JKS Volunteers took initiative by providing the community of Jaffna, Sri Lanka with dry food packages and distributing 1,000 sanitary pads to women in need during the COVID-19 pandemic. Image from Flickr by SDG Action Campaign. CC BY-ND 2.0.
This post by Shashika Bandara originally appeared in Groundviews, an award-winning citizen media website in Sri Lanka. An edited version is published below as part of a content-sharing agreement with Global Voices.
Sri Lanka is seeing an uptick in COVID-19 infections with 1,307 total infections with 1,180 new cases confirmed within seven days, as of October 10. Amid this increase, an unhealthy narrative is starting to take hold—one centred on blaming others, imposing fear and frustration. The common refrain that goes, “Why could they not have been careful enough?” is harmful and often leads to stigmatizing vulnerable communities that are affected by the virus.
Understanding why we (and others) are struggling with maintaining safety measures is important for us to improve our safety habits and to shift from a culture of blaming to a culture that supports and leads with kindness.
What is pandemic fatigue?
I am sure that you have, by now, experienced growing tiredness related to safety measures, the anxiety that comes with missing a simple step, and frustration towards those who do not follow safety guidelines. This feeling of tiredness has probably seeped into your daily life and is constantly present. This is called “pandemic fatigue,” and it is common to all of us regardless of nationality, ethnicity, profession or religion. The only effective way to counter pandemic fatigue is to lead with practical measures of kindness, both towards others and ourselves. Practical measures of kindness should be employed at every level, including personal, organizational and at the national policy level.
How do we counter pandemic fatigue?
Be kind, not silent
At a personal level, support others who are struggling, by explaining that pandemic fatigue is a phenomenon that affects us all, but also reinforce the importance of continuing to be safe, and direct others towards helpful resources. Another important personal step is to minimize shaming, condescending, and acting with aggression towards those who miss safety steps in personal encounters and on social media. This does not mean remaining silent. It means offering kind reminders to follow health guidelines. The popular narrative that people respond to shaming or aggression is false and is not a sustainable method. If you are a leader of an organization, sending gentle reminders on pandemic fatigue and the importance of being kind while remaining vigilant will go a long way towards maintaining the morale and safety of those who work under you.
Use awareness, not fear
It is also crucial that the government understands that pandemic fatigue affects its population. Such an understanding is important if we are to stop treating those who are infected with aggression or in a manner that causes fear and stigma. One of the negative points of Sri Lanka’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic is the lack of effort by the government to counter stigma. Recent examples can be seen in the way that factory workers were treated after testing positive for COVID-19, and the continuing false narratives targeting Muslims. Sri Lanka should strongly consider relying less on using fear of punishment to enforce COVID-19 containment policies and providing more science-based explanations that integrate the public in the effort.
New Zealand’s success largely depended on making the public part of the effort as well as effective explanations by the government. Sri Lanka needs to put more effort into explaining and re-explaining the science behind policies. The topics could focus on asymptomatic, or the pre-symptomatic spread of COVID-19, long-term impacts of contracting COVID-19 beyond recovery, the impact on the health system, how stigma or spreading rumors can lead to more infection spread and the importance of community support during this difficult time. As an initial idea to communicate science to the public, Sri Lanka can look to the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 Science in 5 series, an ongoing video and audio series that explains in five-minute episodes each key concept related to COVID-19.
Equality in communication and in enforcement
Confusion about COVID-19 policies and experiencing the selective application of containment policies can contribute further to pandemic fatigue, and the government, therefore, also has a responsibility to be clear, to communicate in all three languages (Sinhala, Tamil and English), and to apply containment policies without favouritism. These and other factors, inaccessibility of government guidelines or confusion about guidelines, and not countering stigma are missteps other countries have made that we can learn from. For example, confusion around health guidelines, and selective enforcement of the guidelines have resulted in a crisis in the United States.
Source: Pandemic leadership: Lessons from New Zealand’s approach to COVID-19 by Suze Wilson
Combat poor journalism
Poor journalistic practices are as dangerous as the pandemic itself and are a major contributor to pandemic fatigue. Poor journalism ethics, both at the corporate and individual levels, that violate privacy, spread misinformation and stigma, provide an incomplete picture of the current status, and which favour political interests are extremely dangerous and intentionally put lives at risk. It is crucial that individual journalists and companies take the responsibility to follow ethical guidelines on reporting such as respecting privacy, not sensationalizing the news, providing accurate information, and using relevant headlines, as opposed to generating clickbait. International Media Support offers useful reporting guidelines as a start to improve or re-align harmful journalistic practices.
We are all tired and wish this to be over. Pandemic fatigue has taken hold of us at a personal level, and at the policy level governments across the globe struggle to maintain the safety and economy of their countries. While the new normal is not easy, understanding that pandemic fatigue affects us all, and countering it with kindness and methods grounded in science will be the most effective way to succeed.
The author is a former Policy Associate at the Center for Policy Impact at the Duke Global Health Institute and is currently a PhD candidate focusing on global health policy at McGill University.

author: GroundViews


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For journalists in Kenya, ‘2020 is the worst year on record’ · Global Voices
Victoria Rubadiri

An empty Nairobi street in Nairobi, Kenya, during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, April 22, 2020. Photo by the World Bank/Sambrian Mbaabu via Flickr CC-BY-NC-ND-2.0.
Editor's note: This story was written by Victoria Rubaridi as part of the UK government-funded PROTECT project for ARTICLE 19 and is published here through a partnership-sharing agreement.
Since the novel coronavirus outbreak in Kenya in March, more than 47 cases of arbitrary arrest, assault and harassment have been perpetrated against bloggers, online activists and human rights defenders, according to ARTICLE 19, a nongovernmental organization focused on freedom of expression. This compares to 15 cases in the previous five months (October 2019-March 2020).
“For online activists and journalists in Kenya, 2020 is the worst year on record,” said James Wamathai, director of the Bloggers Association of Kenya (BAKE). “The environment has grown much more hostile during the pandemic. I think it is a concerted effort on the part of the government to silence dissenting voices.”
Wamathai believes the crackdown is opportunism on the part of the Kenyan government. In most cases, online activists or bloggers are accused of publishing false information on COVID-19-related posts. All of the bloggers and activists identified are known to have previously posted material critical of the government.
In June, veteran online social justice activist Mutemi wa Kiama was taken from his home by police. Though he was later released without charge, an affidavit filed at a local court revealed investigators intended to charge him with publishing false information under the cybercrimes law, which can result in fines or detention.
Kiama told ARTICLE 19:
I retweeted a thread that gave a history of how power and capital was passed down from colonial chiefs to the current political brokers. It went viral and that didn’t sit well with some individuals.
ARTICLE 19 says the aggressive actions taken against freedom of expression online in Kenya is of great concern and is part of a wider regional trend of a systematic and aggressive crackdown on critical narratives online.
Mugambi Kiai, regional director of ARTICLE 19 Eastern Africa, said:
ARTICLE 19 Eastern Africa is concerned that the government seems to be using the coronavirus outbreak as an opportunity to further entrench repressive measures. Police must thoroughly investigate and prosecute the perpetrators. Journalists, like other essential service providers, should be allowed to access and report freely and accurately on the government’s actions to counter the effects and the spread of the coronavirus.
Human rights lawyer Victor Kapiyo agrees:
We are seeing a weaponization of the law with offenses such as publication of false information, which one would imagine is an attempt to deal with fake news, but in reality, they are used to silence people who are critical of government.
Such measures, he warned, further entrench a culture of intimidation that has persisted in Kenya for decades.
For female activists and journalists, the situation is particularly critical, with many experiencing malicious cyberbullying campaigns. The African Development Bank has suggested that women in Africa are 27 times more likely than men to be harassed online.
“I’ve been sexualized and had my physical appearance attacked. Some have even attacked my family online,” human rights defender Wanjeri Nderu explains. “We need digital protection training, or we will continue to see women’s voices muted.”
Journalists in Kenya are concerned that, as the pandemic continues and reliance on social media for connectivity grows, online crackdowns may become more frequent and hostile.
“The government feels it is losing control and wants to reclaim the online space,” Nderu says. “We have seen arrests, but also bloggers or online users paid by the government to malign online activists.”
In response to Nderu’s comments, Kenya's cabinet secretary for ICT, innovation and youth affairs, Joe Mucheru, told ARTICLE 19:
Our only agenda, when we communicate on social media, is to inform the public on development projects as well as security and health matters that will assist them.

author: Victoria Rubadiri