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Ignoring Pro-Democracy Protests, China’s Media Trumpets Pro-Beijing March in Hong Kong as the ‘Majority’ · Global Voices
Abby Liu

Chinese political cartoonist Wang drew a cartoon of the Hong Kong protest. It shows mainland Chinese marching in matching T-shirts, organized into groups. The left banner says: “Let us show the Hong Kongers what patriotism is.” Photo from Twitter.
China's media gave minimal coverage last month to a pro-democracy campaign in Hong Kong demanding greater say in choosing the candidates for the city's chief executive election in 2017.
But on Aug. 17, when tens of thousands marched through Hong Kong to protest one group's plans to stage a massive sit-in calling for genuine democratic elections, mainland media was quick to report on the pro-Beijing event.
Official press agency Xinhua called the rally a victory for Hong Kong's “silent majority”:
Opinion of the silent majority should not be kidnapped by a handful of people. So, they stepped forward Sunday and told the extremists that any action or proposal violating the laws, such as occupying Central and civil nomination for chief executive candidates, are not popular in Hong Kong.
Government mouthpiece People’s Daily said the rally represented the wish of most Hong Kongers. It called Occupy Central With Love and Peace and the demand for citizen nomination illegal.
China has promised Hong Kong, a former British colony, a direct vote for the next chief executive in 2017, but insists that a committee approve the candidates. Protesters suspect Hong Kong will only have pro-Beijing candidates to choose from, defeating the purpose of the election.
Local police said the march attracted a crowd of 110,600 people, though researchers at the University of Hong Kong estimated that between 79,000 and 88,000 participated. Mainland media said the rally on Sunday had gathered over 193,000 people.
By comparison, the university estimated that a pro-democracy rally on July 1 drew between 154,000 and 172,000 people, while organizers put the number at more than 500,000. After that rally, more than 500 people were arrested at a rehearsal sit-in for the Occupy movement.
Some participants at the pro-government were paid to join the rally, while from State Corporation were required to participate, according to various media reports. Mainland Chinese were reported among the protesters. South China Morning Post, an English-language newspaper in Hong Kong, said that the rally had “mainland flavor”.
On Twitter, Jeremy Wong from Hong Kong criticized the march:
The #antioccupycentral march today has turned Hong Kong into a laughing stock. Couldn't even find better actors #fail #hongkong
— Jeremy Wong (@Its_Jeremyyy) August 17, 2014
On China’s popular microblogging site Sina Weibo, some users compared China's attitude towards this rally with the previous pro-democracy protest in July. Lawyer Zhang Zhiyong wrote:
媒体上反对占领中环轰轰烈烈！谁又来科普什么叫“占领中环”
Media reported extensively about the counter protest against Occupy Central! Who can tell us the background about Occupy Central?
“Qing Lijun” echoed the same sentiment:
你们知道为什么占领中环么？知道所谓的普选到底怎么回事吗？如果不清楚，你们到底为什么就第一反应是占领中环的都是“煞笔闹事”的？为什么会因为一个一看就奇怪的反占领运动而感激涕零，爱国情绪高涨呢……
Do you know why we Occupy Central? Do you know what the election is really about? If you are not sure, why do you assume Occupy Central means to make trouble? Why do you suddenly become so moved and patriotic by the strange counter Occupy movement?
Referring to the 2012 China anti-Japanese demonstrations that were believed to have been “almost certainly sanctioned by the Chinese authorities”, user “Suohua Buliu” wrote:
其实共产党资助的“反占中”游行已经在占领中环了，只不过不是本港激进分子，而是大陆腐败政权。这种侮辱人民群众智商的事两年前就发生过一次–全国各地声势浩大的保钓大（da）游（za）行（qiang）。狗急跳墙，这是自取灭亡的先兆吗
In fact, the counter Occupy Central movement supported by the Chinese Communist Party has occupied the central district, although not through radical Hong Kong groups, but through mainland political power. Such a protest aiming to fool people happened two years ago. They're so eager, is it the forecast of self-destruction?
Professor He Weifang from Beijing University's law school called for fair reporting:
过去占中活动也是规模浩大，官方媒体绝不报道。到了反占中，就连篇累牍，这无助于香港问题的解决。全面报道，反而能让港人感到公平，也让大陆人全面而切实地了解香港舆情和港人的多元化诉求。这自信，那自信，不敢直面民意民情的真相，鸵鸟战术，谁都看得出来，你没有自信！
State media didn't report on the previous Occupy Central movement. When it comes to counter Occupy Central, there are countless articles. It doesn't help solve Hong Kong's problems. Only with comprehensive reporting will Hong Kong people feel treated fairly. It also helps mainlanders understand Hong Kong's situation. When you dare not face the real situation and people's real demands, everyone can see that you don't have confidence.
Web user “Baihua Niuzai concluded:
理论自信，是因为他们手里有枪；制度自信，是因为他们掌权；道路自信，是因为除了他们自己，谁对怎么走路都说了不算！__他们雇佣人员到港游行，那是在信息如此发达的今天拿自己的屁股当脸，给全世界看
The so-called confidence is that they have guns and power in their hands, so no one else can meddle with their decisions. They hired people to protest in Hong Kong, but in a world where information is so widespread, the whole world can see their real intention.
Follow our in-depth coverage: Hong Kong's Umbrella Revolution

author: Abby Liu


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How ISIS Came to Leave Its Black Stain on Syria · Global Voices
مرسيل شحوارو

An ISIS camp in Aleppo. Photo source: Lens Young Halabi (Facebook)
This post is part of a special series of articles by blogger and activist, Marcell Shehwaro, describing the realities of life in Syria during the ongoing armed conflict between forces loyal to the current regime, and those seeking to oust it.
When I was asked to write about the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (ISIS), I left the blank page open on my computer for several days. How was I to write about ISIS for others, for people who have not suffered the same amount of violence and chaos? And what responsibility do we as Syrians carry, compared to the rest of the world, for creating ISIS?
For starters, I need to clarify that the Syrian people did not have the opportunity to go shopping at the “Victory Supermarket”, where items such as the option of Assad fleeing in the style of Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, or stepping down like Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, were on sale. Nor did we have enough oil to buy the NATO option, like Libya. Instead, we purchased Al-Qaeda, which we found wrapped in yellow tape in the discount bin.
Simply put, we Syrians did not have the luxury of choice, while others had plans to dispose of their damaged goods on our land, using the blood of our youth.
Six months after it began, the Syrian Revolution, which has been in progress for four years, sent out an SOS call on the day of protests known as the “Friday of International Protection”. It then called for the establishment of a no-fly zone, an end to the extending of deadlines, the expulsion of Ambassadors, support for the Free Syria Army, and international intervention.
The Revolution requested that everyone live up to their responsibilities towards humanity, and being an open appeal, it was—unfortunately—answered by Al Qaeda.
So are we Syrians the only ones responsible for the emergence of ISIS? ISIS is not the product of our streets nor our plans. We didn't need them in order to terrorise others, and they didn't need our permission to come through our closed airports.
Contrary to what some people say, they came to us through open boundaries. They came to us via other airports, carrying the passports of their countries. They came to us thanks to the prejudice against and fear of bearded men, distracted by the sight of the blood of the child that the man was holding in his hands.
I do not want, even for a second, for us to wash our hands of our responsibility, as Syrians, from the growth of this cancerous creature across our lands. In the end, some paid allegiance to ISIS because of poverty. Assad's old henchmen—those lovers of power and lickers of boots—did the same in anticipation of new power, for to them there's little difference between gaining power in the name of ISIS or Assad.
In their naivety our rebels continued, believing that ISIS had come to our rescue, saying that it would be ungrateful to speak of their flaws, which quickly turned into crimes. Thousands of hypocrites, profiteers and merchants of religion and war continued to wallow in cowardice, exemplified by the number of clergymen who were too afraid to warn the youth against paying allegiance to ISIS.
The poor fighters of the Free Syrian Army were dazzled by the gear of the ISIS combatants, which, compared with their own sad rifles, looked like something out of the video game Counter-Strike. Gradually, they surrendered their sense of belonging to their homeland, and some began to belong to the killers.
They perpetuated our bloody political and ideological divisions until we were drowning in the stench of blood, to the point where some were ready to enter into an alliance with the devil just so this war would end. And this is what happened: we aligned ourselves with the devil. And they made us fear our secularism, on the pretext that it would destroy our unity. And in order to protect the priorities of battle, they made us fear our dreams of a democratic civil state.
If all this is our responsibility, then we are also the ones who paid with our blood to fight this entity. And until lately, we were the ones who suffered most from its extremism and its occupation of our land. We have also suffered from its attempts to brainwash our youth. It was us rebels, who, in a split second, became wanted by two states, appealing to other countries to show some interest in a future we are sure will be a crime—a crime not just for us as a nation, but a crime that will impact the whole of humanity. What will this extremism give birth to in the future? And who, among the world's innocent, will it target?
ISIS occupied our land because they consider that Syrians have no nation to speak of. To them, what we have is a product of the infidel West. The occupation of our country was announced on Al Jazeera on April 9, 2013, and from that moment ISIS has been fighting us. They have been fighting us as a revolution they do not acknowledge, insisting on burning our flag and kidnapping and disappearing our rebels. And unlike our other opponents, no one dares to ask questions.
I still remember the time I was travelling between Aleppo and Turkey via the countryside route and saw many ISIS checkpoints along the way, and the painful realisation that they had forcefully changed the names of villages in our countryside. There is little now to show that this is Syria. They painted all the revolution flags black. They erased the names of villages, replacing them with huge black stones which read “The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria Welcomes You”.
I am afraid to ridicule this shameless occupation. I am afraid, because the Palestinians once ridiculed what they thought was the concept of a nation which could not be implemented on their land, and because Iranian rebels once laughed at the notion that a theological state could gobble up their revolution. I am afraid to make fun of the situation, and petrified at the thought that I might enter the first stage of grief, which is denial, and end up kissing and compromising.
The words of the bus driver who noticed my sadness still ring in my ears. “Tomorrow, it will rain, and all this black will go away,” he said. And I do pray that it will rain on Al Raqqa, Al Bab, Manjib and Mosul and all the areas occupied by the ISIS. But before all that, in order for the clouds to reach them, it needs to rain on Damascus.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: مرسيل شحوارو


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Lessons from Marcus Garvey, Jamaica’s First National Hero  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

A depiction of Marcus Garvey; photo by Mark Gstohl, used under a CC BY 2.0 license.
This past weekend marked the 127th anniversary of Marcus Garvey‘s birthday. One of the Pan-Africanism movement's staunchest supporters, Garvey is celebrated as the first National Hero of Jamaica.
Two Jamaican bloggers, one from the diaspora and one who lives on-island, chose to commemorate the day by focusing on different aspects of his life. Litblogger Geoffrey Philp says that the example of Garvey's life and work helped him to understand a critical question for people of African descent: What does it mean to be a man? Philp explained:
After travelling through the Americas and into the center of colonial power in the West Indies, Garvey realized that […] in order to survive the brutalities of slavery [Africans] had been reduced to a childish state in which they had relinquished personal and collective power. Cowed into submission, Africans at home and abroad lived in fear of outside forces over which they had no control, and even after gaining ‘freedom,’ their existence was based on the level of servility to their former masters.
As Garvey saw it, Africans […] could either live in a reactionary state in which they only responded to crises […] or take control of their lives by assuming personal and collective responsibility.
This philosophy of personal and collective responsibility, organised around the principles like self-respect, purpose, community and education, was key to Garvey’s ideas about manhood and nationhood — and it struck Philp that nearly 75 years after his death, and in the context of the shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, “and other daily insults to Africans at home and abroad, either we can continue living in a childish, reactionary state where we do not assume responsibility for our lives or we can organize and plan accordingly. The choice, as it was then and now, is ours.”
In contrast, Carolyn Cooper, who blogs at Jamaica Woman Tongue, examined Garvey's love life, saying that Amy Jacques, his second wife, offered “an intriguing account of Marcus Garvey’s first marriage to Amy Ashwood in her book Garvey and Garveyism.” From all accounts, the first Mrs. Garvey was quite demanding and Garvey soon discovered that he could not balance his first love, the advancement of Africans, with her needs — so they divorced and he remarried. Jacques, his second wife, devoted herself to not only Garvey, but also to his work; many of his books and papers would probably not have been published without her help, but she paid for the efforts with ill health. Cooper surmised:
Having sacrificed her health for Garvey’s cause, she fleetingly rebels against the callous regime of domestic servitude she had willingly embraced.
Perhaps, Amy Jacques should have followed Amy Ashwood’s example and made a lucky escape. But who would have ensured the completion of The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey and so consolidated the great man’s reputation?
The moral of this love story is quite complicated: Great men often need self-sacrificing wives.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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Five Million People Have Had Enough of Myanmar’s Current Constitution · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

The lower house of Myanmar's parliament. Photo by Htoo Tay Zar. Wikipedia.
Almost five million people have signed a petition calling for constitutional amendments in Myanmar. The country's opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), and an activist network called 88 Generation Peace and Open Society submitted the petition to parliament late last week.
The campaign, launched last May, gathered 4,953,093 signatures in more than 300 towns across Myanmar.
Myanmar’s military government drafted the nation's current constitution in 2008. Petitioners argue that there are numerous undemocratic provisions, such as Article 436, which stipulates that any constitutional amendment requires the approval of 75 percent of the parliament. In effect, this means amendments must have the parliament's total support, as a quarter of the legislature's seats are reserved for the Army.
The difficulty of changing the constitution also leaves in place Article 59(f), which bars citizens with foreign spouses and foreign-born children from running for president or vice president. This prohibition affects prominent public figures like global democracy icon and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. (With Article 59(f) in place, Suu Kyi cannot run for president in next year's election, because of her British husband.)
Many in opposition see constitutional reform as essential to Myanmar’s transition to democracy. The country's current president, Thein Sein, has dismissed the reform campaign as a threat to national stability, however:
Nobody wants to endure the instability that these issues are causing. It will hurt the people … I would like to urge all people and monks who love this country to protect it from instability.
Suu Kyi, on the other hand, hailed the petition as “breakthrough for democracy,” noting that the campaign is the first of its kind in Myanmar’s history. Indeed, the petition gained national popularity as students and young volunteers across the country participated in the signature drive.
Artists like Shwe Min Thar were among those who signed the petition. Min Thar urged the military to follow the will of the people:
Everything depends on the military. If they don’t change, we can’t do anything. But it is possible for them to change. The constitution is written by human beings, so it is easily within our power to change it. All of us here want to amend it. If the government follows the will of the people, then they will change it. I think it all depends on them.
During the campaign, government authorities frequently tried to intimidate volunteer workers. The Network for Human Rights Documentation recently issued a report detailing the government's harassment of campaigners:
Rather than addressing these problems, the government has repeatedly arrested protesters. Without amendments to the constitution, the growth of democracy in Burma will be jeopardized and the possibility for future human rights abuses remains.
Despite pressures on activists, Myanmar’s parliament responded to the petition by forming a committee to review the possibility of constitutional reforms. Surprisingly, the committee has suggested amending more than 450 of the constitution's 457 articles, including Article 436.
Some in the parliament, however, are hesitant to embrace the reform initiative unquestioningly, calling for the verification of the petition's five million signatures. Moreover, some of the people who wrote their names, says MP Tin Maung Oo, might not have fully understood what they were signing.
There are few people who actually read the constitution and are aware of the benefits and disadvantages of it.
I had an experience with a taxi driver in Yangon who I recently talked to. He admitted that he signed the petition for amendments to Article 436 at about 10 different places.
Khin Zaw Win, director of the policy advocacy group Tampadipa Institute, supports the reform campaign, but warns against moving too quickly:
There are quite a few items in the constitution that need to be revised. Those that would allow more decentralisation and devolution of power will be widely welcomed, especially at a time when peace talks are entering their final stage.
Constitutional reform could prove crucial to Myanmar’s democratic transition, reducing the military's voting rights in the parliament and facilitating a greater role for the opposition in the country's government.

author: Mong Palatino


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Pop-up Ad Inventor’s “I’m Sorry” Upsets Celebs, Raises Fears of an “Apology Avalanche” in Silicon Valley · Global Voices
Allen Smithee

If pop-up ad inventor Ethan Zuckerman's apologising ways prove contagious, facepalms like this could become a common sight in tech enclaves like Silicon Valley. PHOTO: Henri Vidal's Cain, Jardin des Tuileries, Paris by Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain).
Maybe it wasn't “the greatest apology since Plato's account of Socrates’ defense,” as one overenthusiastic commentator put it, but the ripples caused by Ethan Zuckerman‘s recent mea culpa have certainly been felt across the globe.
Media outlets from Bolivia to Bhutan have been linking to and quoting widely from an article penned by Zuckerman for The Atlantic, in which the Global Voices co-founder/MIT Center for Civic Media Director atones for his role in the creation of the pop-up ads pioneered by the early Internet startup Tripod.
“We ended up creating one of the most hated tools in the advertiser’s toolkit…” wrote Zuckerman. “I wrote the code to launch the window and run an ad in it. I’m sorry. Our intentions were good.”
Zuckerman’s apology has pissed off at least one major celebrity—British entertainer Sir Elton John, who reportedly criticised Zuckerman for calling the central thesis of one of the singer's hit ballads into question. “Sorry seems to be the hardest word for everybody except Ethan Zuckerberg (sic),” an openly peeved Sir Elton has been quoted as saying.
Singers Tracy Chapman and Madonna, both of whom have songs entitled “Sorry” in their repertoires, could not be reached for comment, nor could any member of the band Chicago, whose ballad “Hard to Say I'm Sorry” made it to number one on the Billboard charts in 1982. Another artist who could not be contacted was “No, je ne regrette rien” (No, I regret nothing) singer Edith Piaf, as the séance scheduled to communicate with the French cabaret legend (Piaf died in 1963) proved unsuccessful.
One artist who did weigh in was Taylor Swift, who warned that Zuckerman’s apology shouldn’t necessarily be taken at face value. “Men say things like that all the time,” said Swift, who released a song called “You're Not Sorry” in 2008.
Zuckerman’s admission has, unsurprisingly, caused serious consternation in Silicon Valley, where inventors of other ubiquitous but totally annoying digital tools and features have expressed concerns that Zuckerman’s penchant for penitence could set off an “avalanche of hair-shirt-wearing and hand-wringing” in their community.
“If this apology thing goes viral, I’m pretty much f***ed,” said one developer, who spoke on condition that neither he, nor his impossible-to-avoid web browser feature that everyone hates be named.
“There's a bunch of us out here that have a ton to answer for,” said a member of the team that developed Google Wave. “And if we're shaking in our boots down here, you can imagine how petrified they must be up in Redmond [Washington, where Microsoft has its headquarters].”
At Global Voices, the international citizen media network Zuckerman founded, along with Rebecca MacKinnon, in late 2004, staffers and authors are said to be spending long hours in meetings, pondering what Zuckerman might apologise for next.
“In my country apologies, like deaths, come in threes,” said a Global Voices contributor who asked to be identified only as belonging to a country located somewhere between the Arctic Circle and Antarctica. “I’d be very surprised if an apology for the Cute Cat Theory isn’t forthcoming within the next few weeks.”
Some believe the next thing Zuckerman will apologise for is his 2008 “Cute Cat Theory of Digital Activism.” PHOTO: 1905 cat postcard by Harry Whittier Frees, from Wikimedia Commons.

author: Allen Smithee


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Prominent Egyptian Activist Alaa Abdel Fattah Goes on Hunger Strike · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Image design by Hugh D'Andrade, Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Egyptian activist and blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah has entered an open-ended hunger strike until he is released from prison, his family said in a statement posted on Facebook yesterday.
The 31-year-old, convicted of violating a controversial protest law that prohibits unauthorized demonstrations and attacking a police officer, was sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison this past June along with 24 other activists. Abdel Fattah announced his decision after he was permitted to visit his sick, unconscious father Ahmed Seif El-Islam, a prominent human rights lawyer, in the hospital on Tuesday. His 20-year-old sister, Sanaa Seif, who is also jailed for taking part in a demonstration demanding the release of those unjustly imprisoned in Egypt, was also allowed to see her father for a few minutes separately.
An initial statement, posted by the family on Facebook, read:
On August 18, Alaa has begun an open-ended hunger strike to challenge his third detention since Jan 25, this hunger strike comes on heels of news of his father's deteriorating health condition and continued imprisonment of his sister Sanaa since June 21st.
Alaa mentioned to his family that his hunger strike stems out of a decision that he will no longer cooperate with the country's broken injustice system.
A longer post explains that Alaa told his family: “I will no longer play the role they've written for me.”
Alaa has been jailed or investigated under every Egyptian head of state who has served during his lifetime. In 2006, he was arrested for taking part in a peaceful protest. In 2011, he spent two months in prison, missing his first child’s birth. In 2013, he was arrested and detained for 115 days without trial. And he now faces 15 years in prison.
The family describes the situation that has led Abdel Fattah to take this decision:
At 2 o’clock on the morning of Sunday August 17, Alaa visited his father, Ahmad Seif, in the ICU Unit of Qasr el-Eini hospital, after Seif had become unconscious.
Three days earlier we’d been on our latest visit to Alaa in Tora Prison. His father’s health at that point had been relatively good. Since then there had been no way for us to inform him that his father had gone into crisis. And so Alaa arrived at the hospital in the small hours of Sunday happy to be visiting, carrying flowers, looking forward to talking with his father. He found him unconscious in an ICU cubicle.
That spectacle crystalised matters for him. By the end of the few-minute visit Alaa had decided that he would withdraw co-operation with the unjust and absurd situation he had been put in – even if this cost him his life.
Alaa informed us of his decision when we went to see him next day at Tora. And it has been hard for us, his family. But, ultimately, we understand Alaa’s anger and his frustration, his need to inject something real into the tragic farce he has been made to live. Alaa’s decision is proactive and positive; his action reflects the seriousness of what is happening in his personal life. His action tries to match his pain.
The statement continues:
Alaa is in prison for the third time since the beginning of the revolution of January 2011. Each time, the authorities – whichever they were – have charged him with ridiculous, invented crimes. This has cost him a great deal: the authorities have deprived him of being with his wife at the birth of their first child, they separated him from his family, they impeded his professional career in the software company he established. Then they imprisoned his youngest sister, Sanaa, because she demanded – on the Ettehadeyya march June 21 – his freedom and the freedom of all those unjustly detained. And now, finally, they have done that which he cannot bear: they prevented him from being at the side of his father, to support him as he went into open-heart surgery, and they prevented him from visiting until his father fell unconscious.
We, the family and friends of Alaa Abd El-Fattah, hold the authorities responsible for depriving Laila Soueif and Ahmad Seif from the support of their son at this most difficult and dangerous moment in their lives, and we hold them responsible for the safety and well-being of Alaa himself.
Alaa is now on full hunger strike, starting the evening of Monday 18th August and continuing until he achieves his freedom.
According to his wife Manal Hassan, Abdel Fattah's lawyers were not able to meet with him today.
منعوا المحامين من زيارة علاء و نوبي و وائل النهارده بالرغم من وجود تصاريح، غالبا بسبب دخول علاء في إضراب عن الطعام. قلقانة عليه #FreeAlaa
— الحريةلعلاء#FreeAlaa (@manal) August 19, 2014
They have prevented the lawyers from visiting Alaa […] today despite the presence of permits. Most probably it is because of Alaa's hunger strike. I am worried about him
The sentences borne by Alaa and the 24 others are the longest yet in a string of crackdowns on freedom of expression, assembly, and opinion in the country. The protest law has been used to jail other prominent activists, including outspoken human rights lawyer Mahienour El-Massry, and April 6 movement founder Ahmed Maher. In June, three Al Jazeera journalists were sentenced to seven and ten years in prison for “reporting false news.” Activists in Egypt believe Alaa's case and others are merely political in nature, and meant to keep prominent activists behind bars while intimidating others to keep them away from the political process.

author: Amira Al Hussaini


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Russians Don’t Care for Bloggers, Approve of Bloggers’ Law · Global Voices
Tanya Lokot

Alexey Navalny and Dmitry Medvedev are still the most popular bloggers, but RuNet users don't think too highly of them. Images mixed by author.
Russians are mostly unaware of the new bloggers’ law, and those who do know about it think it's a good idea, a new public opinion poll has found.
In the Internet-themed part of a larger survey, FOM (Public Opinion Foundation) asked Russians about their attitudes to bloggers and social networks. While the term “blogger” is familiar to most Russians (48% of the general population and 73% of active Internet users), they mostly don't think of those blogging online very highly. The predominant opinion is that bloggers do both harm and good—so say almost a quarter of those familiar with the notion. Alexey Navalny, PM Dmitry Medvedev, and design guru Artemy Lebedev remain among the most popular bloggers in Russia.
Odnoklassniki & Vkontakte are far and away the most popular social networks in Russia (see chart), with Facebook in Twitter in the top 5, but lagging behind. LiveJournal, the refuge of politically minded bloggers, only has a tiny percentage of the overall social media audience.
Social network preferences among Russian Internet users. Screenshot courtesy of fom.ru.
FOM also asked Russians what they know about the new bloggers’ law, which came into power on August 1, 2014. Over half of the people surveyed had never heard of the law, and others knew very little about it. Of those who'd heard of the law, the majority thought it was a good idea, since bloggers should be responsible for what they publish. Facebook and Twitter users were more likely to have a negative opinion of the bloggers’ law than users of other social networks. Some of the people who considered the new regulations a negative development said they represented a violation of freedom of speech and human rights.
The recent efforts of the Kremlin to crack down on Internet users in Russia have caused alarm among the independent media and active netizens, but it seems most Russians are blissfully unaware of the dangers these new regulations might bring.

author: Tanya Lokot


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The Egyptian Government Asks the U.S. to “Show Restraint in Ferguson” and Twitter Users Respond With This Brilliant Hashtag · Global Voices
Afef Abrougui

Egyptian and non-Egyptian Twitter users are giving tips to U.S. police on how to deal with the ongoing unrest in Ferguson, Missouri.
The sarcastic hashtag #EgyPoliceTipsToUS was launched on Twitter in reaction to a statement by the Egyptian government urging U.S. authorities “to show restraint” in Ferguson, where local police in military-grade riot grade and protesters have been facing off for 11 days, after an officer killed an unarmed black teenager. The police in Ferguson are predominantly white and have been strong-arming journalists on the scene, using tear gas and rubber bullets on protesters.
According to Twitter users, Egypt should be the last country to provide such advice to the U.S., given its track record in handing its own unrest, from the start of the Egyptian revolution on January 25, 2011. The hashtag brought up some the atrocities committed by Egyptians authorities against protestors since, including one of the bloodiest days in modern protest history, when more than 800 protesters were killed in Rabaa on August 14, 2013.
MENA research associate at the Committee to Protect Journalists Jason Stern tweeted at his followers:
What #EgyptPoliceTips do you have for the US police in #Ferguson?
— Jason Stern (@IbnLarry) August 19, 2014
He shared the following tips with videos showing Egyptian police brutality and tactics:
3. When things get out of hand, let thugs on camels do your dirty work #EgyptPoliceTips https://t.co/nQJB24w4FG
— Jason Stern (@IbnLarry) August 19, 2014
4. Don’t just threaten journalists that you will shoot them. Actually shoot them #EgyptPoliceTips https://t.co/rOf3GY9gXm
— Jason Stern (@IbnLarry) August 19, 2014
1. If you rip a woman's clothing while beating her, make sure to cover her before beating further. #EgyptPoliceTips https://t.co/SVz8xXWRNJ
— Jason Stern (@IbnLarry) August 19, 2014
Other Twitter users followed with their own tips.
User @befroggled, with 760 followers on Twitter, referred to the forced virginity tests conducted by the Egyptian military on female protesters in Tahrir Square in 2011.
Round up female protesters for virginity tests. This was President Sisi's favourite way to deal with female protesters. #EgyPoliceTipsToUS
— B (@befroggled) August 20, 2014
She also hinted at the authorities’ use of counter-terrorism as a pretext to crackdown on protesters:
If you're concerned your crackdown on protesters will result in a public outcry, ask for a mandate to combat terrorism. #EgyPoliceTipsToUS
— B (@befroggled) August 20, 2014
Bilal Zrebel tells his 5,200 followers:
Civilian dressed police do a double job kill protesters & frame protesters of being armed! Win-win #EgyPoliceTipsToUS pic.twitter.com/9o1kP199aj
— لاوطن تحت حكم العسكر (@bilalZrebel) August 20, 2014
And in reference to the Rabaa massacre, in which Egyptian government forces killed more than 800 protestors in one day a year ago, burning some of them to death, he writes:
Burn them dead and alive, “supposedly” fire leaves no evidence! #EgyPoliceTipsToUS pic.twitter.com/uVIVlm7GDZ
— لاوطن تحت حكم العسكر (@bilalZrebel) August 20, 2014
OthmaNation, with 1,500 followers, mentioned the beating of the ‘blu bra protester’ by members of the Egyptian army during an anti-military protest in December 2011.
When you tear females clothes up, claim they did it to themselves to frame your decent agents. #EgyPoliceTipsToUS pic.twitter.com/u5bhgpLbkf
— الفلويد® (@OthmaNation) August 20, 2014
And lawyer Sherif Saaadni shared this advice with his 3,902 followers:
Don't implement gradual & life-preserving steps while disbursing crowds. Where's the fun & deterrence in that? #EgyPoliceTipsToUS
— Sherif Saadani سعدني (@ssaadani) August 20, 2014

author: Afef Abrougui


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SMS Death Threats Stoke Fears on Fate of Abducted Journalist in Maldives · Global Voices
Rezwan

#FindMoyaMeehaa photo campaign. Screenshot from Dhahau Naseem Facebook page.
Ellery Roberts Biddle contributed reporting to this story.
Since last week, fifteen Maldivian journalists have reported receiving anonymous SMS messages threatening them for their coverage of recent deadly street violence in the small island nation, which lies southeast of Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean. The messages came a few days prior to the unexplained disappearance of journalist and democracy advocate Ahmed Rizwan Abdulla, who works for Minivan news, a private news website. “Minivan” means “independent” in local language Dhivehi.
A free speech advocate and prolific social media user, Rizwan is one of the Maldives’ first bloggers and writes on many subjects, including religion, politics, and the environment. Supporters have built a campaign website on his behalf.  Rizwan was not threatened by SMS, but did cover the story for Minivan News.
On the morning of Aug. 20, Aishath Aniya (@Aniya_A), another journalist working in the radio 97Minivan, received a death threat. She tweeted:
A threat msg I recieved just now. Today I tagged @PoliceMv & made a couple of tweets. Why does ISIS need me alone? pic.twitter.com/q4oSjq70FN
— Aishath Aniya (@Aniya_A) August 20, 2014
According to Minivan News, Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) MP Mariya Didi also reported a threat. A message sent via text, from the same number as the message sent to Aishath, warned the MP: “we will not hesitate to disappear you. Have you forgotten you have a small daughter?”
Facebook user Shiu Naeem, writing under the #FindMoyaMeehaa hashtag, suggested that the messages were sent by a party representative suspected of working with ISIS:
All the SMS death threats which you are receiving are sent by a former MDP activist now in the control of Minister Adheeb named Shumba Gong. So be ware guys. This guy says that he've talked with #ISIS. Trying to be Mr. IKNOWEVERYTHING. This is 100% confirmed. #FindMoyameehaa
Despite the certainty she espoused, the allegation has not been confirmed.
The Facebook page of the Secular Democratic Maldives Movement raised some pertinent questions about the SMS threats, referencing the #FindMoyaMeehaa campaign to locate Ahmed Rizwan Abdulla.
Aishath Aniya receives a message from an unlisted number identified only as ISIS saying that she is next with the tag “#FuckMoyameehaa”. This raises several questions in relation to #FindMoyaMeehaa:
1. Does this confirm that Ahmed Rizwan was abducted?
2. Does this mean that the people trying to instate an “Islamic State of Maldives” have a relation to the abduction?
3. How do they have the capability to send such messages?
4. To what extent do they control or have access to telecommuncations and other infrastructure?
5. To what extent have they infiltrated the police, defense forces and other government agencies?
6. In the light of such questions, can the police even be trusted at all by the average citizen for their protection, let alone to find Ahmed Rizwan?
Political unrest has plagued Maldives since its first democratic presidential election in 2008. The young democracy climbed on Reporters Without Borders’ Press Freedom Index immediately following the vote to a peak of 51 in the ranking. After the alleged ouster of President Mohamed Nasheed, however, and journalists considered to be his supporters were threatened and attacked, the country plummeted to its latest ranking of 103.  The instability has lead to a rise in gang violence and may be linked to the events of the last two weeks.
#FindMoyaMeehaa campaign posters in Maldives. Photo by something like art via Facebook.
It is clear that these combined threats against journalists have hit a nerve among citizens and democracy advocates in the country. As Minivan News editor Daniel Bosley put it:
Whose face will be next on the posters? This will not stop until until people raise up from apathy.
While one million come to the Maldives to forget their worries each year, their money is used to ensure that local citizens cannot even voice their own.
This is not about religion. It is about power and political opportunism. Don't allow yourselves to be convinced otherwise.
Rilwan hasn't.
http://minivannews.com/politics/finding-missing-journalist-of-“high-priority”-says-police-89678
Global Voices will continue to monitor this story as it unfolds.

author: Rezwan


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Take a Lyrical and Visual Trek Through the Back Streets of Almaty, Kazakhstan  · Global Voices
Chris Rickleton

Memorial plaques are just one of the many things in Almaty that Keen has documented. Photo by Dennis Keen, used with permission.
Buy the Central Asia Lonely Planet guide book and turn to the section dealing with the Kazakh city of Almaty. The “to see list” probably doesn't include hand pumps, handpainted signs and heating stations. But then again, what is a city without these things?
“Walking Almaty” is not Dennis Keen's point of entry into Central Asian blogging. That would be “KeenonKyrgyzstan“, perhaps the most entertaining English-language resource on traditional Kyrgyz culture ever produced. Between them came “EurasiaEurasia” and the “Central Asian Falconry Project“, the former a mix of history, cultural trivia and music in Central Asia, the latter a veritable archive of resources for anyone interested in big bird watching in the region.
But having traipsed across jailoos in Kyrgyzstan, reflected on the Western world's fawning over female eagle huntress in Kazakhstan and Mongolia, and mused on the reggaefication of the Kazakh dombra — a traditional lute-like instrument — we now find Keen in more urban settings. If you thought you could never get excited about bus stops and dead stairwells in the former Soviet Union, have a read: Keen makes the banal beautiful.
Sary the eagle hunter was a regular and compelling feature in “KeenonKyrgyzstan”. Photo taken from the blog, used with permission.
Almaty, home to roughly 1.5 million people, is Kazakhstan's biggest city and one that is rapidly changing. Every day Dubai-style skyscrapers are thrown up on the back of the republic's burgeoning natural resource wealth. Some neighbourhoods are undergoing aggressive gentrification while others are being forgotten about completely. Giant, sprawling bazaars are under threat amid the rise of mall culture.
As the new Almaty makes itself known, the older version is in desperate need of someone to catalogue it before it disappears from sight. With a big camera and a gift for prose, Keen is just the person.
Many of the sojourns the blog describes are off the beaten track. Take Keen's recent walk in the Almaty neighborhood Tatarka, for instance:
One of Almaty's oldest neighborhoods is Tatarka, which means “Tatar woman.” Wait, that didn't make things any clearer? If you're an American reader, you might not know that Tatars are Turkic Muslims who live mostly in Russia.  Don't worry, I'm sure they'll forgive you. Tatars used to live mostly in this hilly corner of town northeast of the center, and by some accounts they still do. These days, Tatarka is remarkable for being one of the few parts of Almaty that actually carries a neighborhood name, and one that is known by most.
The houses here are rich in wooden plats, carved eaves, and intricate windowframes. There are a lot of improvised trash cans, too, perhaps because the hilly terrain kept the roads here off of regular collection routes. I was twenty minutes walking from the center districts, but it felt like a faraway village. When I picked up a small bottle of Russian-style lemonade in a convenience store, the owner's lack of pretension certainly seemed characteristic of such a little town. “We just got those in today!” he said, and as things tend to do here, conversation soon verged from lemonade to the fall of the American empire.  “If you're looking for a sparring partner”, I warned him, “you're talking to the wrong guy. I'm a migrant to Kazakhstan with a thing for Russian soda.”
While Keen's appreciation of carved eaves is a recurring theme of Walking Almaty, he is scathing about other features of the city-scape. Here he launches a broadside against aluminum facades:
The most unfortunate Kazakh design trend of the last ten years has to be the iodized aluminum facade. The metal panels [металлокассеты; metallokassety] are supposed to look futuristic, covering up aging concrete surfaces with a 21st century composite material. In practice, they warp, stain, and look smudged.
Other everyday objects that come under the scrutiny of Walking Almaty are neither beautiful, nor vulgar, but still tell a story:
Like paving tiles, manhole covers are a perfect illustration of disregarded infrastructure; they are literally right under our feet yet we pay them no attention. Yet if other pedestrians are anything like me, there have plenty of attentional surplus to burn. How about instead of checking out girls or fondly remembering your lunch, you train your eyes on the ground and make some mental notes? You might see a cast-iron disc, stamped with a bygone year, or molded in a beautiful pattern, or marked with a mysterious code. The power of observation can open entire worlds you never knew were there.
Visitors to Walking Almaty are able to retrace the urban walks Keen describes with the app mapmywalk.
Below are a selection of photos from the blog:
Communist-era mosaics are still everywhere in Almaty and other post-Soviet cities. Photo by Dennis Keen, used with permission.
Doorbells on houses in Almaty are sheltered from the elements by cut-off plastic bottles. Photo by Dennis Keen, used with permission.
Shoe repair shops are familiar to anyone who has travelled through post-Soviet Central Asia. Photo by Dennis Keen, used with permission.
Josef Stalin's taste for architecture was better than that of his successors. Photo by Dennis Keen, used with permission.
A house in Kökzhiek, an Almaty suburb. Photo by Dennis Keen, used with permission.
Smashed blue ceramic adds color to a wait for the bus. Photo by Dennis Keen, used with permission.
Central Asian cemetries are aesthetically impressive by day, eery by night. Photo by Dennis Keen, used with permission.

author: Chris Rickleton


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The Alexander Sodiqov I Know, by Global Voices Contributor Mahina Shodizoda · Global Voices
O

Alex Sodiqov with his wife and daughter. Shared via www.freesodiqov.org
This post is part of our campaign #FreeAlexSodiqov: GV Author Detained in Tajikistan. It is a translation of a post originally written in Russian on Google Plus by Mahina Shodizoda.
Alexander Sodiqov has been the focus of many publications recently. He has been written about by journalists, scholars and international organisations, all of whom have highlighted the fact he is a member of the academic community, not a spy. But I would like to concentrate on another facet of his personality: Alexander as a blogger, netizen, patriot of his country and the former editor for Global Voices Central Asia.
Alexander was one of the first Tajik bloggers. He began writing for NewEurasia.net as early as 2005, recounting his trips around Tajikistan and discussing important political developments in the country.
Judging by visitor comments, his own English-language blog, TJ Monitor, was extremely popular both inside and outside Tajikistan. Although his posts were often dedicated to issues covered by other media, they were marked by a more balanced approach, since he always tried to reflect the widest possible spectrum of opinions and views.
Even before becoming personally acquainted with Alexander I knew him as an active Facebook user. Although he was not among my friends in this social network, I often saw Alexander’s comments in various public groups. Even then Alexander came across as a patriot. I remember him sharing links to photo reports by Russian and foreign tourists who visited our country and fell in love with it, and suggesting we make them “public diplomats” of Tajikistan. He was upset by the persistent stereotypes of our country and pointed out that the state could harness the tourists’ experiences to form a positive image of our country on the international scene at minimal financial expense.
He also showed his patriotism when he engaged in Facebook polemic with members of the so-called “opposition” living abroad. These “oppositionists” urged Facebook users to actively confront the authorities. Alexander heatedly argued with them trying to convince other users that, in fact, these “opposition leaders” had nothing to offer except calling for confrontation. He wrote that they should make constructive proposals for improving the lives of Tajik people. Alexander insisted that slogans and appeals alone were not enough to make anyone “a leader”.
Alexander always had a nuanced understanding of a given situation. In December 2013, Ukranian TV travel program “Oryol i Reshka” (“Heads and tails”) came under fire from Tajik Internet users after an unflattering portrayal of Tajikistan in one episode. The Tajik users overwhelmed the programme's Facebook page with insults. Unfortunately, most of these responses only strengthened negative perceptions about Tajikistan among the programme's audience since they contained explicit language, insults, mistakes of all kinds and on the whole showed our citizens as being unable to engage in discussions and defend their viewpoint in a proper and civilised manner.
At that moment I liked Alexander’s stance because he pointed out the mistakes and stereotypes in the program articulately and without anger. Not only did he do this, but he backed up his words with references to works by scholars who had been to Tajikistan and photo reports by Russian and Ukrainian bloggers who had visited our country and formed an opinion that was different from the one held by the “Oryol i Reshka” protagonists.
For two years Alexander worked as the editor of Global Voices Central Asia. During that time there was a large volume of interesting posts about the countries of the region on the website. He involved many blogers in the the project. Although many articles were of a critical nature, he constantly encouraged writers to produce positive posts as well,and find ways to advertize Tajikistan to a wider audience.
Finally, I would like to write about Alexander as father. It was through his photos on Facebook that I realised how much he loves his young daughter. He regularly posted photos with his wife and daughter on this social network. Moreover, he often shared links to articles about child development, demonstrating his broader interest in raising children, and arguing for compulsory vaccination in the interests of all children.
This is Alexander as I know him. I strongly hope that the Tajik authorities will tackle this situation and withdraw all charges against him. There should be more people like him – well-educated, competent and patriotically-minded.

author: O


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The Fight Against Mining’s Destructive Consequences in Colombia · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

Mining activity. Photo on Flickr from user Bert Kaufmann (CC BY 2.0).
This post was originally published on the blog Globalizado.
In recent years, mining activity in Colombia has taken on greater economic importance, so much so that newly re-elected president Juan Manuel Santos tends to refer to it as the “mining locomotive” to describe the great generator of resources that allows the state to finance social interest projects and generate more jobs to thereby reduce poverty.
Nonetheless, mining also generates social conflict, human rights violations for vulnerable populations, and a negative environmental impact, among other problems. Even at the governmental level, problems whose solution is considered a priority have been detected, such as the unsatisfactory qualifications of mining land, the use and contamination of water resources, toxic waste management and unstable environmental legislation.
Citizen initiatives like the one posted on blog No to Mining have emerged in this context. The blog showcases information and displays the actions managed by several groups that are concerned about the impact of mining on human rights and the environment in Colombia. These groups range from academics to community and indigenous organizations.
In May 2011, the Collective Action and Mining Megaprojects Gathering was organized at the Javeriana University of Bogotá. Professor Aída Quiñonez, one of the organizers, commented:
La idea era conocer las problemáticas de las regiones más allá del contexto inmediato, con la conciencia de que este tipo de prácticas económicas, fundamentadas en maximizar beneficios, traen consecuencias estructurales y culturales para el país en cual se asientan.
The idea was to understand the problems of the regions beyond the immediate context, with the awareness that these types of economic practices, based on maximizing profits, bring structural and cultural consequences to the country in which they settle.
During the meeting, people could hear firsthand testimonies from various communities:
Se expusieron los procesos de la Asamblea SUR en Bogotá D.C.; la permanente resistencia del pueblo Nasa en el Norte del Cauca; los graves riesgos de violación de derechos humanos que amenazan a las comunidades afrocolombianas e indígenas por la explotación minera en La Toma-Suárez-Cauca; la defensa del territorio por la explotación de las minas en los casos de Caldono, Cauca, la resistencia del resguardo Uradá-Jiguamiandó, el proyecto Mandé Norte, la defensa de Marmato-Caldas, las resistencias frente a la mina la Colosa y por la defensa del territorio -en Cajamarca Tolima, la defensa del páramo de Santurbán en Santander, y el despojo y desalojo de la comunidad de Tabaco en la Guajira por el macroproyecto del Cerrejón.
The processes of Asamblea SUR in Bogotá D.C. were exposed; the permanent resistance of the Nasa village in northern Cauca; the grave risk of violating human rights that threaten the Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities due to mining exploitation in La Toma-Suárez-Cauca; territorial defense by mining exploitation in the cases of Caldono, Cauca, resistance in the Uradá-Jiguamiandó shelter, the Mandé Norte project, the defense of Marmato-Caldas, resistance against the Colosa mine and defending the territory -in Cajamarca Tolima, defending the Santurbán wasteland in Santander, and the dispossession and eviction of the Tabaco community in Guajira by the Cerrejón macro-project.
After the meeting, a manifesto was drawn up with audience participation and among other conclusions, they recommended:
Es necesario que se convierta en una responsabilidad de la sociedad colombiana abordar el problema de la megaminería y en general de los problemas sociales y ambientales ligados a los efectos que con esta incursión se generan en las economías extractivas, Asimismo es necesario entender las relaciones que se tejen en marco internacional y en tal sentido identificar los dispositivos para que se asuman las responsabilidades de quienes producen, consumen y contaminan.
Addressing the problem of mega-mining in addition to the social and environmental problems related to the effects generated with this attack on extractive economies needs to become the responsibility of Colombian society. It is also necessary to understand the relationships woven into the international framework and as such identify the mechanisms so that those who produce, consume, and contaminate take on the responsibilities for doing so.
A few months ago, Global Voices had the opportunity to talk to professor Quiñonez, seen in this video:
Another organization that shares the same concerns is Conciencia Campesina, created in April 2009 by farmers in Cajamarca following the 2008 announcement by La Colosa, an AngloGold Ashanti gold mining project in a forest reserve. The following was posted on their Facebook page:
Creemos que la movilización pacífica, social organizada tiene un papel importante en nuestra lucha para proteger nuestro territorio. En estos años hemos organizado marchas pacíficamente, defendiendo nuestra oposición a La Colosa. […]
En las zonas mineras a menudo hay una alta incidencia de violaciones de derechos humanos, delincuencia y prostitución, queremos preservar nuestra identidad cultural como una comunidad agrícola y tradicional.
We believe that peaceful, organized, social mobilization has an important role in our fight to protect our land. In these years we have organized marches peacefully, defending our opposition to La Colosa. […]
In the mining zones there is often a high incidence of human rights violations, crime, and prostitution. We want to preserve our cultural identity as an agricultural and traditional community.
Some cases represent a broader resistance, such as that of Sath Tama kiwe in Cauca, who have said “no” to mining and also to any activity that puts them at risk, like planting coca, as they feel they are forced to exercise authority in their territories:
[…] estando en un proceso de Autonomía Territorial, cuyo objetivo era buscar minería legal o ilegal para la explotación del Oro, encontramos grandes extensiones de siembra de Coca para el procesamiento de alcaloides, por lo cual tomamos la decisión de arrancar y destruir estas plantaciones, pues según se dijo, ya el Ejercito Nacional, en rondas realizadas días antes le habían manifestado a los dueños del laboratorio que siguieran trabajando que por ellos no habría ningún problema.
[…] during a process of Territorial Autonomy, whose objective was to seek legal or illegal exploitation of gold mining, we found large stretches of coca sowing for the process of alkaloids, so we decided to uproot and destroy these plantations, as it was said, since the National Army, in rounds made days before had manifested itself to the owners of the laboratory who continued working since there would be no problem for them.
The resistance activities carried out over the years have had serious consequences, including the murder of leading activists under unexplained circumstances. Nevertheless, activities continue much like the increasing investment in new mining projects throughout the country.
Related articles:
Colombia: Mining Debate Continues as New Minister is Appointed
Colombia: The Environmental Heritage of the Country is Threatened by Mining
Colombia: Miners Flee from Killings and Attacks
Colombia: A trip to Colombia's gold mining region

author: Juan Arellano


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The Internet Never Forgets: Join a Global Conversation on the EU’s ‘Right to Be Forgotten’ · Global Voices
Ellery Roberts Biddle

As the saying goes, “an elephant never forgets.” Illustration by W.H. Drake, from Rudyard Kipling's “The Jungle Book,” 1895. Copyright expired, image released to public domain.
Oiwan Lam contributed to this post.
Everyone has something to hide — but when it comes to the Internet, should we all have the right to be forgotten? Last May, the EU Court of Justice decided in favor of this proposition, ruling that anyone within the EU may ask search engines to remove “outdated” or “irrelevant” information about them from search results. Companies like Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft have spoken out against the decision, which leaves them responsible for determining what information fits these qualifications.
Technically, anyone can now exercise this “right” — there is no fee or special procedure limited to people with power and connections. If you are an Internet user in the EU, you have to do nothing more than submit a form with your name and the relevant information about the content you want removed from search results. Since the EU Court of Justice ruled to uphold and codify the Right to Be Forgotten last May, Google has received over 91,000 requests for removals, roughly half of which were granted.
Free expression activists fear that the decision will open the door for corporate and government powers to remove unsavory information about themselves from search results. And the fact that it will be incumbent on tech companies like Google and Yahoo to make these decisions is no small matter — taking this decision out of the hands of the judiciary is a serious blunder in the field of online rights.
The issue cuts at some of the core challenges we grapple with as a community each day. We agree that there are certain kinds of information that deserve some degree of protection. Financial data and information about one’s health or sexuality are easy examples — we think people have a right to keep these things private. But information about a person’s political activities are rarely so easy to judge. Grey areas abound.
A few months after the ruling was announced, Advox China editor Oiwan Lam raised concern about the policy on our community list. She asked: “How can we prevent the potential threat to the online public sphere when such a right is implemented?”
The ensuing conversation revealed that many members of our community fear that the law will undercut the capacity of journalists, activists, netizens, and human rights advocates to gather and preserve evidence of rights violations, corruption, and other wrongdoing that they seek to expose.
Egyptian author Rasha Abdulla, a communications professor at the American University in Cairo, posed the question: What happens when information that is important to the public interest suddenly disappears from our search results? She wrote:
I can just imagine right now in Egypt every police officer with a video on YouTube and every corrupt official who ever said something on video or in a newspaper article would LOVE to be forgotten. The digital archives are all we have to document some of the atrocities that have taken place.
“How will we be guaranteed that lots of inconvenient (but relevant) information will not just disappear?” asked Leila Nachawati, a Spanish-Syrian author and communications scholar at Carlos Tercero University in Madrid. She continued:
[We] will have to rely on corporations deciding if the information is “of public interest”, which we all know is very slippery…The EU has referred to “the need for balance between privacy and free speech”, but unless more specific criteria are listed that's not saying much.
This conversation inspired our community to ask our colleagues — Internet law experts around the globe — to comment on the ruling and describe what impact it has had on policy and political debate in their countries since it was issued. Oiwan Lam and I have sent the following questions to our community list and to several experts who we know and trust:
We invite experts and interested individuals to answer these questions for us — please feel encouraged to respond to this post in the comments section or to send your thoughts to us at advocacy [at] globalvoicesonline [dot] org. We look forward to publishing them and continuing the conversation.

author: Ellery Roberts Biddle


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One Year Ago Today, Assad Attacked Al Ghouta with Chemical Weapons  · Global Voices
Hiba Dlewati

A Twitter artwork commemorating the chemical attack on Syrians in Al Ghouta last year shared by @KindaHibrawi (Twitter)
A year ago today, almost one thousand civilians were gassed to death in Syria. In a small besieged town a few miles from the capital, the Assad regime used lethal sarin gas on its own people, killing 429 children.
The images that spread stood in stark contrast to those usually associated with the Syrian conflict. There was no blood. Piles and piles of motionless bodies—but no blood. The world had perhaps grown accustomed to photographs of Syrians blown to bits by barrel bombs and mortar shells, hollowed out with bullets, beaten to death. The only instance of red was the “red line” Obama had declared, and that Assad had crossed.
The international community, was, as always, “concerned”. The UN Secretary General was “shocked”, though it's unclear whether it was at the crime against humanity or at Assad’s audacity to cross a world power’s line.
A year later, and nothing has changed—for the better, that is. In a classic example of impunity, Assad has gotten away with it. Yes, he begrudgingly handed over his stock of chemical weapons as mandated by the international community. But he missed deadlines, and certain chemical weapons were excluded from the deal brokered by the US and Russia. It seems it is acceptable to die by means of certain chemical weapons—chlorine gas, for example, which has been used repeatedly on civilians throughout Syria since the sarin gas attack—but not others.
Chemical weapon attack survivors visited and toured the US, speaking to college students and community members. They sat down with senators and members of the US Congress, testified in hearings, made countless media appearances.
Syrians continue to die daily. An average of 85 per day, I believe, was the last estimate. There are a plethora of ways to die of course: chemical weapons, barrel bombs, mortar shells, sniper bullets, hunger, lack of health care, siege, torture and of course, increasingly, at the hands of ISIS. The media, understandably, chooses to cover less tedious subjects.
I learned a new term a few days ago: echo chamber. This essay and others like it, articles released today, and the little media coverage of any memorials held for the chemical attack victims will circulate among our usual limited circles, what I like to categorize as “people who care”. And then our voices will fade. Ostensibly our voices will never fade, but its hard to not acknowledge the despondency of the “people who care”.
Yesterday I learned of the death of another friend, a neighbor, in a regime prison. This was his second time detained. He was sweet, good-natured, thoughtful. Everyone loved him. He had long wavy hair and a goatee. He was tortured to death.
Maybe when his death receives international condemnation, something will change. Maybe when world leaders don’t need a thousand killed in one day to be “concerned”, something will change. Maybe when journalists don’t need to be decapitated for their words to be heard, something will change. Maybe when international condemnation means something more than a few press conferences and a slap on the dictator’s wrist, something will change, for the better.

author: Hiba Dlewati


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Bahamian Women Battling for Equal Rights · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

You would think that a nation which spent so much of the 20th century doggedly pursing equality would be united today over equal rights for women to pass on citizenship to their children and spouses. You would think that a constitutional provision to prevent discrimination against more than half the population would be entirely non-controversial.
But you would be wrong.
Blogging at Bahama Pundit, Larry Smith says that “the main point is simply that Bahamian women and men should have the same rights under the law.”


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Crisis Data at Your Fingertips · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

CrisisNET is a Ushahidi initiative that puts crisis data at your fingertips:
CrisisNET finds, formats and exposes crisis data in a simple, intuitive structure that’s accessible anywhere. Now developers, journalists and analysts can skip the days of tedious data processing and get to work in minutes with only a few lines of code.

author: Ndesanjo Macha


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Cubans Join Authorised Users of Google Chrome  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Google Chrome finally becomes “legal” in Cuba and blogger Yoani Sanchez says that she gleans great satisfaction from “knowing that the opinions of citizens interested in the free flow of information and technology influenced the elimination of this prohibition.”


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Iran’s Hardliners Impeach Moderate Minister Over 2009 Green Movement Protests  · Global Voices
Mahsa Alimardani

Anti-government protesters battle in the streets with riot police armed with shields, batons and tear gas in Tehran, Iran, on 27 Dec., 2009. Millions took the streets in the months following the 2009 elections. Photo by A.A. Copyright Demotix
Iran's hardline parliament voted to sack moderate President Hassan Rouhani's Minister of Science, Research and Technology Reza Faraji-Dana during a parliamentary impeachment session in what some have described as the first major political clash between the country's conservatives and reformists since the start of Rouhani's presidency.
A total of 145 members of parliament gave Faraji-Dana a vote of no confidence, while 110 voted in support of him and 15 abstained, illustrating the divide between hardline and moderate members of Iran's 9th sitting parliament.
The head of Iran's Principalist faction, Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel, explained to Fars News Agency, “The parliament is cooperating with the Rouhani administration, but MPs are sensitive to issues associated with the sedition.” Sedition refers to the protests associated with the Green Movement against the results of the 2009 presidential elections, which saw conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's reelection. Officials called it a landslide victory, but millions believed the vote was rigged and took to the streets. After months of massive demonstrations, authorities brutally suppressed the movement.
During the parliamentary impeachment session, a number of MPs accused Dana of being an extremist associated with opposition elements in 2009. He was criticized for allowing university students who were expelled because of the protests to return to school, as well as hiring employees not approved by Iran's Ministry of Intelligence.
The hashtag  #استیضاح, which means impeachment in Persian, has been trending amongst Persian-language tweets as news and commentary of Faraji-Dana's sacking is shared on social media.
Iran's hardline newspapers printed their front page headlines in condemnation of Faraji-Dana's alleged “extremism.” In the tweet below from the account for conservative online website Mashregh News, the front pages of Iran's Vatan Emrooz and Kayhan are featured. Vatan Emrooz is a conservative newspaper with strong ties to both the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and former President Ahmadinejad. Kayhan's management and editorial policies are known to be directly associated with the office of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. Both are well known and widely read newspapers within Iran:
#تیتر #استیضاح تیتر یک کیهان و وطن امروز؛ وطن امروز: “نه” مجلس به افراط کیهان:مجلس شاخ فتنه را شکست @vatan_emrooz pic.twitter.com/ok92igPiVN
— H.Soleimani (@MashreghNews_ir) August 20, 2014
#Impeachment #headlines. Headlines for Kayhan and Vatan Emrooz; Vatan Emrooz: Parliament says NO to extremism. Kayhan: Parliament defeats the horns of conspiracy.
Many reformists, such as former President Mohamed Khatami, have come to Faraji-Dana's defence, claiming his disassociation from the events of 2009:
شهادت می‌دهم که #فرجی‌دانا به هیچ وجه اعمال گرایش‌های سیاسی نمی‌کند. #دانشگاه #استیضاح
— Mohammad Khatami (@khatami_ir) August 19, 2014
“I can testify that #FarajiDana is in no way involved in acts of political opposition #university #impeachment.”
President Rouhani was absent during the impeachment, attending a provincial tour. In a statement following the vote, Rouhani went on to say, “During Faraji-Dana's management in the Ministry of Science, he put his utmost effort in expanding science and knowledge and creating a relaxed atmosphere within our universities.”
Rouhani named Ali Najafi as the interim head of the ministry. Najafi was initially appointed by Rouhani as the head of Iran's Cultural Heritage, Handcrafts and Tourism Organization, but later resigned from the position and continued to serve in Rouhani's administration. Rouhani noted that he would like Najafi to continue the ministry in the direction Faraji-Dana had been leading it.
The overall sentiment by moderate politicians, especially those associated with Iran's reformist factions, has been to concentrate efforts to elect a more reform-minded parliament during the 2016 parliamentary elections. Former 2013 reformist presidential candidate Mohammad Reza Aref was quoted in the reformist Etemaad newspaper urging Iranian youth and students to correct parliament's decision by ensuring victory in 2016. He stated, “The future parliament is a place for youth. We do not want to challenge the system, but to enter the election through the constitutional framework. The real fight is against those who do not want to participate in the elections.”

author: Mahsa Alimardani


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Movement Calls for Review of Imprisonment of Cameroon’s Former Chief of Staff · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Marafa Watch is:
A U.S.-based, grassroots movement for appropriate international review of the politically motivated conviction and corresponding imprisonment of former Secretary-General (Chief of Staff) at the Presidency, Mr. Marafa Hamidou Yaya of the Republic of Cameroon.
Marafa Hamidou Yaya was sentenced to 25 years in jail in 2012 on corruption charges linked to a deal to buy a presidential plane.


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Moscow Shutters 4 McDonalds for Poor Sanitation, But You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet · Global Voices
Tanya Lokot

Ronald McDonald would probably be horrified at this dysfunctional bathroom at a Russian hospital. Images mixed by author.
Russia has closed four McDonald's locations in Moscow for “sanitary violations” in what some say is just another stage of the sanctions war. The RuNet exploded with disbelief—and photos of Russian bathrooms.
The average Westerner might not think of a McDonald's restaurant as a clean and inviting space. The food is nothing to write home about, and the restrooms are usually gross. Not so in Russia, where most of the McDonald's locations are spotless and attract a crowd, not least due to free bathroom access. Public restrooms are still scarce in Russia, and even in major cities citizens continue to be grateful to places like McDonald's for “years of free WCs.” So when the Russian consumer watchdog inspected and promptly shut down four of the brand's restaurants in Moscow, including the oldest Russian McDonald's, Russians took to social media to complain.
The parody account Fake_MIDRF reminded readers that the first McDonald's was opened in Moscow in 1990, when the USSR was still (mostly) intact:
Закрыли первый "Макдоналдс" – восстановим и СССР! pic.twitter.com/tokAVfFmp5
— Мuд Роисси (@Fake_MIDRF) August 20, 2014
We closed down the first McDonalds—we'll rebuild the USSR too!
While there were plenty of jokes about the quality of the food and the sanctions (TJournal has a nice collection, in Russian), some of the discussions took a darker turn. As netizens expressed their disbelief at the usually spotless McDonald's being forced to close for “sanitary violations,” some started posting images of bathrooms and washrooms from their local hospitals. Twitter user @jamchronicle started the trend from Yekaterinburg:
В Москве закрыли 4 Макдональдса из-за санитарных условий. То ли дело городская больница №23 в Екатеринбурге pic.twitter.com/2MkXpNBVdm
— Уильям Шекспир (@jamchronicle) August 20, 2014
In Moscow 4 McDonald's were shut down for unsanitary conditions. Certainly no match for city hospital #23 in Yekaterinburg.
A trickle soon turned into a flood, as the original tweet gained hundreds of retweets. People started sharing their own stories of horrific hospital conditions in various parts of Russia.
User Алла tweeted a photo from Saint Petersburg:
@jamchronicle @navalny или больница Филатова в Питере pic.twitter.com/eo1JL0mpZz
— Алла (@HucklberryFinna) August 20, 2014
Or the Filatov hospital in Piter [Saint Petersburg].
Another user, vlad from Saratov, added some more shocking bathroom images:
@jamchronicle @navalny или в Саратове pic.twitter.com/kN3VYSHNQO
— vlad (@vladviol) August 20, 2014
Or in Saratov.
5strike5 on Twitter added this haunting corridor from a Moscow suburb, Balashikha:
@jamchronicle @navalny Да и не КВД в Балашихе. pic.twitter.com/VnEZKaXrTq
— 5strike5 (@5strike5) August 20, 2014
Nor a match for the Dermatology and Venereal Disease Hospital in Balashikha.
@drzky88 Да там реально жуть, можно хоррор снимать без декораций ) И это ближнее Подмосковье…
— 5strike5 (@5strike5) August 20, 2014
It's seriously scary, you can shoot a horror movie there, no props needed:) And this is a suburb close to Moscow…
As netizens shared stories about the awful conditions in hospitals, it seemed no one was shocked. Instead, user Викси reminded others that these hospitals were supposed to be run and maintained from the state budget, funded by the taxes ordinary Russians pay.
@vladviol @navalny @jamchronicle Смотрите и думайте,куда идут деньги налого-плательщиков
— Викси (@viksi761) August 20, 2014
Look at this and think: where is the taxpayers’ money going?
That a McDonald's closure escalated to horror stories of dilapidated restrooms, and that these testimonies have become a kind of digital activism tactic is not surprising, for Russia seems to have a history of underfunded hospitals, and the issue remains unaddressed. In March of this year, in a gesture of goodwill to the newly annexed territory, the governor of the Greater Moscow Area pledged 40 million roubles for renovation of a children's hospital in Sudak, Crimea. RuNet users ridiculed the decision and pointed out that the governor probably never bothered to visit hospitals in his own constituency, which were falling apart.
Irina Filippova retweeted a photo from a local hospital near Moscow that needed little comment:
"@iPetrowa: Губ-р МО выделяет 40млн руб. из обл.бюдж для реконст-ции больницы в Крыму.Он был в подмоск-х больницах?" pic.twitter.com/6WWHsJjKXe
— Ирина Филиппова (@fillip_ina) March 9, 2014
The Greater Moscow Area governor gives 40 million roubles from the regional budget to renovate a Crimean hospital. Has he been to Greater Moscow Area hospitals?
Twitter user Deni88 posted another photo of a roomful of children at a Korolevo hospital whose walls have seen better days:
На фото больница в Королеве, в Московской области. Той самой, чей губернатор выделил 40млн на ремонт больницы в Крыму pic.twitter.com/s1GKrOCHbQ
— Deni88 (@88iDEN) March 9, 2014
This photo shows a hospital in Korolevo, in Moscow region. The same region whose governor sent 40m to renovate a hospital in Crimea.
In the end, closing the McDonald's locations might not harm the chain (which has hundreds of other locations in Russia) or its fans (who can go to Burger King). What it has already done, however, is start a necessary conversation about the double standards of Russian authorities when it comes to “sanitary conditions” in state-funded institutions, as well as the pervasive corruption of local government. A free loo at a downtown location is a bonus, but a functioning and clean toilet at a children's hospital is a necessity.
The curious practice of photo witnessing emerges as a common tactic that Russians engage in when their rage with the government's decisions boils over. Might it be that the Kremlin is afraid of exactly these kinds of discussions online when it imposes new restrictions on Internet users? If so, it's in for a difficult time. Because Russians love to vent on social networks.


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Russia Finally Gets Its Color Revolution · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

Russia and Ukraine: caught in a war of symbols. Images mixed by Kevin Rothrock.
Russians and Ukrainians these days are trading a lot more than bullets and bombs in the conflict over Donetsk and Luhansk, where separatists believed to have Moscow’s support have waged a war against the young government in Kyiv. Last week, someone in Munich desecrated the grave of Stepan Bandera, Ukraine’s most celebrated nationalist. This week, a group of agile youngsters climbed one of Moscow’s “Seven Sister” skyscrapers, planting a Ukrainian flag and painting the old Soviet star atop the building in Ukraine’s national colors, yellow and blue. The authorities quickly repainted the ornament and charged four people, who deny any involvement, with an act of hooliganism. (All four suspects are now under house arrest.)
The race to desecrate national symbols seems to be taking its toll on Moscow city officials, who recently found it necessary to arrest a group of painters for coating an electricity tower with the colors yellow and blue. Muscovites awoke August 21, a day after vandals struck the Seven Sister structure, to learn that the Ukrainian yellow and blue had appeared on a new building in the city—an electricity tower.
The power company that manages the tower, however, soon revealed that the paintjob was an accident. The corporate colors of the Moscow United Electric Grid Company, it turns out, are yellow and blue. According to statements in the Russian press, the electricity tower was supposed to be painted yellow, blue, and either white or gold. (Reports about the intended third color are inconsistent.) The yellow and blue paint job, in other words, was just a mistake—not a political statement.
Moscow’s police apparently didn’t agree. They detained the painting crew, charging them with a still-unspecified misdemeanor. The colors yellow and blue, it seems, are no longer welcome in the skies of the Russian capital.
Many Russians online have had difficulty understanding how the painting crew can be charged with a crime, if the yellow and blue pattern was a mistake. Indeed, others still have wondered what the crime would have been, if the color scheme had been intentional. According to news reports, city authorities first became aware of the electricity tower’s provocative color thanks to phone calls from concerned citizens. That ordinary people were the catalyst for the criminal case led some RuNet users to lament that the Soviet custom of “informing” on one another is alive and well in contemporary Russia.
Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova was none too pleased:
Задержание за жёлто-синий цвет ЛЭП: “бдительные граждане позвонили в полицию”. Стукачи. http://t.co/aXv5WtkSiq pic.twitter.com/WQ86o6rW9P
— Надя Толоконникова (@tolokno) August 21, 2014
Detained for painting an electricity tower yellow-blue. “Concerned citizens called the police.” Narks.
Liberal politician Stanislav Yakovlev thought citizens’ apparent “concern” was a reminder that Josef Stalin didn’t accomplish the Great Terror on his own:
По перекраске ЛЭП: мы без конца проклинаем товарища Сталина и все же я хочу спросить – кто написал четыре миллиона доносов?
— Kreutzwald (@Kreutzwald) August 21, 2014
About the repainting of the electricity tower: we always go on without end about Comrade Stalin, but I’ll ask again all the same: who squealed on each other four million times?
Others online have been in a lighter mood about the power grid’s new colors. Some have even found humorous ways to connect the mishap to the never-ending saga of Russia’s humanitarian aid to Ukraine, which a convoy of freshly painted white trucks has carried westward for what feels like eons. The food and emergency supplies gifted to the suffering people of eastern Ukraine are aboard hundreds of KamAZ military trucks, recently painted white, presumably to avoid looking like an invasion force.
Oleg Kashin, one of Russia’s most prominent journalists and social media users, shared on Twitter a joke by one of his Facebook readers:
Про недокрашенную ЛЭП у меня в комментах шутят, что вся белая краска на гуманитарный конвой пошла.
— Kashin⚓Kashin⚓Kashin (@KSHN) August 21, 2014
About the not fully painted electricity tower: people are joking in the comments on my Facebook that all the white paint got used up on the humanitarian convoy.
Alexey Navalny, once the undisputed leader of the Russian street opposition and now a prisoner in his own home, has called attention to the yellow and blue corporate colors of the Moscow United Electric Grid Company (MOESK). On his blog, Navalny posted photographs from MOESK’s company events, announcing facetiously that a new front against the “Bandera” Ukrainian threat is now open.
Whether it’s a war of symbols or a war against symbols, none of this is terribly new in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. In December 2013, before the fall of the Yanukovych regime, Maidan protesters toppled a monument to Lenin in Kyiv, bashing the statue’s head into little bits. In March 2014, Moscow suddenly became home to curious graffiti welcoming the annexation of Crimea. For months now, different photographs of Ukrainian flags planted in the cracks of Red Square have bubbled to the top of trending tweet lists.
Whether it’s atop a Moscow Seven Sister or down in the dirt outside Saint Basil's, people are fighting to stake a claim on sacred space. This makes for a broad warzone, of course, and Moscow has waged a tireless information campaign against the “fascist enemy.” Russia fights this battle as much at home as abroad. The authorities show their fatigue, however, when they arrest a crew of hapless painters.

author: Kevin Rothrock


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Two Years Ago, Tens of Thousands of Macedonians Took to the Streets Against Poverty and Corruption · Global Voices
Filip Stojanovski

AMAN activists Zorica Dimovska and Vasko Lazarevski during a protest in Skopje. Photo courtesy V. Lazarevski.
Macedonian activists are using social networks to mark two years since the beginning of the massive “AMAN” movement, which protested against the tremendous social disparity and government corruption in the country.
The movement gathered tens of thousands people on the streets of several cities in Macedonia — Skopje, Bitola, Prilep, Kumanovo, Shtip, and Tetovo — and was possibly the most widespread grassroots protests in Macedonian history.
According to recent data, some 30 percent of the Macedonian population lives below the poverty line. The country has been ranked as one of Europe's poorest. In several of the regional languages, the word “aman” is used as a cry or a plea and is equivalent to saying “enough”, in this case referring to poverty and corruption in the country.
In August 2012, this grassroots movement began as a response to price hikes of state-controlled monopoly commodities, such as electricity, fuel, and central heating. The organized weekly protests lasted for months.
Protesters demanded the abolition of regulations imposed by the government's regulatory body that raised the prices. The regulatory body, controlled by the ruling party, went so far as to introduce obligations to residents in areas covered by central heating to pay fees to state-run heating companies, even if residents did not use the heating companies’ services.
A video created by the initiative, available in Macedonian and Albanian, condenses the initiative's messages for social justice and dignity for all citizens.
The second phase of protests consisted of gathering over 13,000 signatures for a legal initiative to urge the Parliament to do away with the new pricing regulations. In February 2013, a majority of votes in Parliament promptly refused to change the regulations, which had 3,000 signatures more than the legal requirement of ten thousand, gathered amidst abject apathy among citizens, caused by pressure exerted by the ruling political party and the government's non-responsiveness to citizens’ real needs. After the initial surge of protests, state administration employees were used to spread the message and “friendly advice” to protesters that those participating in the movement could be at risk of losing their jobs. Mainstream media mainly abstained from informing about the initiative as it unfolded, contributing to its disappearance from the public eye.
Marking the anniversary, activist Radio MOF, run by the NGO Youth Educational Forum, made a short interview with one of AMAN's most active members, Vasko Lazarevski, in Macedonian. Below is a translation:
Радио МОФ: Што претставува за Вас АМАН од оваа перспектива? Има ли разлика во Вашата перцепција за движењето тогаш и сега, по две години?
Лазаревски: АМАН беше спонтан изблик на револт кон уништувањето на животниот стандард. Во летото 2012 се случија огромни поскапувања кои сериозно го нарушија квалитетот на живот на огромен број граѓани и се отвори патот за организирање на социјални протести. Активистите кои се зафатија со организирање на движењето претставуваа совршен статистички примерок на граѓаните на Македонија, по националност, образование, класа… Сите бевме претставени во движењето и тоа неплански, едноставно проблемите со кои се фативме во костец подеднакво ги засегнуваат сите. Може да се каже дека АМАН застана во одбрана на социјалната држава, а против социјалната помош.
Од оваа временска дистанца, мислам дека АМАН ги изоде сите чекори кои може да го направи едно такво движење и во одреден степен успеа да нѐ научи кои се методите и тактиките за подолгорочно активно застапување со ограничени средства, човечки и материјални. Има некои замерки во однос на префрлањето на АМАН од движење на протест во движење кое бара легалистички лек на проблемот, меѓутоа, за нас неколкумината кои останавме до крај во движењето, беше неопходно потребно да се исцрпат сите можни модуси на дејствување додека уште имаме ресурси за тоа.
Радио МОФ: Постои ли начин да се „измери“ колку АМАН влијаеше врз граѓанската свест? Дали граѓаните сега се помалку или повеќе свесни за проблемите, за одговорноста на политичарите и властите, дали се поподготвени да се побунат?
Лазаревски: Случајно налетав на едно мерења не јавносто мислење во кое АМАН беше препознаен како движење кое се бори за обичниот граѓанин. Значи, имало и мерења кои се занимаваат со влијанието на АМАН и кои потврдуваат дека движењето извршило влијание врз свеста на граѓаните. Граѓаните се сосема свесни за проблемите и кој им ги предизвикува, точно се лоцирани сите адреси кои се жаришта на социјалните, културните и меѓуетничките проблеми, тоа се во исто време и центри на моќта во Македонија. Отсега па натаму, секое граѓанско движење, организација, или иницијатива ќе мора од почеток да биде свесно, дека кога се соочува со некој, макар и најбанален јавен проблем, се соочува и со политиките и политичарите со чија работа тој проблем да биде создаден. И дека во огромен број случаи некој има интерес работите да останат какви што се, да се одржи статус кво, а граѓаните да останат мирни и покорни додека се управува со нивните пари и животи.
Радио МОФ: Има ли уште потреба од АМАН? Со оглед на поскапувањата кои продолжуваат, дали е можно движењето да се активира? Има ли и други можности за борба против државните и приватните монополи?
Лазаревски: АМАН беше ад-хок акција, која се обиде да ја одржи тензијата и вниманието на јавноста кон социјалните проблеми. Сепак, социјалните и економските проблеми бараат поорганизирано и посуштинско делување. Бараат организирани, образувани и решителни луѓе кои ќе се занимаваат со системските недостатоци на општеството. Пристапот за кој зборувам, треба да се занимава со политика! А, прв чекор за да може така да се делува е поразување на концептот кој политиката ја гледа како ексклузивен домен на политичките партии. Тоа е долга и тешка работа и бара фронтовско делување на големи сектори од граѓанското општество кои ќе делуваат со заеднички цели и техники на нивно достигнување. Само создавањето големи ентитети, со здружени ресурси може да предизвика промена.
Radio MOF: What does AMAN represent from this perspective? Is there a change of your perception of the movement then, and now after two years?
Lazarevski: AMAN was a spontaneous act of revolt against the destruction of the living standard. In the summer of 2012, huge price spikes happened, which seriously damaged the quality of life of a huge number of citizens, paving the way for the organization of social protests. The activists behind the organization of the movement represent a prefect statistic sample of the population of Macedonia, according to their nationality, education, class… Everybody was represented in the movement, and it wasn’t made so by design. We simply struggled against problems that affected us all. You might say that AMAN was defending the social state, and against the social help.
Looking upon it now, I think that AMAN walked all the steps which can be made by such movement, and by certain degree it managed to teach us on the methods and the tactics of a longer-term active advocacy, with limited (human and material) resources. There are some remarks on the transformation of AMAN from a protest movement into one which seeks legal solutions for the problem, but for all of us who stayed in the movement until the end, it seemed necessary to exhaust all possible modes of acting while we still had the resources.
Radio MOF: Is there a way to “measure” how much AMAN affected civil awareness? Are citizens more aware of the problems or less? In terms of the responsibility of the politicians and the authorities, are they more prepared to revolt?
Lazarevski: I accidentally stumbled upon public opinion research, which found that AMAN was recognized as a movement fighting for the common citizen. So, there were measurements on AMAN’s influence, and they confirm that the movement changed the awareness of the citizens. Citizens are fully aware of the problems and who is causing them. There is a precise location of the addresses that represent the sources of social, cultural, and economic problems, and those addresses house the power centers of Macedonia. From now on, every civil movement, organization or initiative will have to be aware from the very beginning that when struggling for even the most banal public problem, it faces the policies and the politicians whose work created that problem. And that in an enormous number of cases it is in somebody’s interest to keep things as they are, to maintain status quo, and to keep citizens calm and obedient while managing their money and lives.
Radio MOF: Is there still a need for AMAN?
Lazarevski: AMAN was an ad-hoc action, trying to keep the tension and the focus of the public on the social problems. But tackling the social and economic problems demands more organized and profound action. This requires organized, educated and determined people working on the problems of the society’s system. The approach I am talking about is doing politics! And the first step towards acting in that manner is defeating the concept that sees politics as the exclusive domain of political parties. It’s long and hard work and asks for upfront actions by big sectors of civil society, working for common goals and using unified techniques to achieve them. Only the creation of big entities with combined resources can make a change.

author: Filip Stojanovski


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Watch How Conversations Between Strangers Help Bridge the Divide Between Indians and Pakistanis · Global Voices
Rezwan

Screenshot from the AIB Video
Over the years, India and Pakistan have seen a number of efforts trying to break the perpetuated animosity between the two countries. On India's Independence Day on Aug. 15, 2014), Indian comedy collective All India Bakchod (AIB) gave it another shot, releasing a video that features ordinary Indians talking over the phone to strangers in Pakistan.
In this video strangers from India and Pakistan speak to each other over the phone. They talk about what Indians and Pakistanis perceive about each other, learn about their personal lives and hobbies, find common grounds between themselves and congratulate each other on the Independence Day of both the countries.
The bad blood between India and Pakistan dates back to 1947, when the British partitioned India into the Dominion of Pakistan (later Islamic Republic of Pakistan and People's Republic of Bangladesh) and the Union of India (later Republic of India) primarily along religious lines, to stem growing tensions between the Hindu and Muslim communities. The divide devastated both countries, and their relationship to date is often strained, marred by wars, border disputes, military stand-offs and a continuing conflict over Kashmir.
If you still are wondering why such effort is necessary to reduce the notion of animosity between citizens of both the countries, then just gloss over the YouTube comments on the above video.
Indian blogger Farzana Versey offered her nuanced reaction to the video:
Will this bring people on both sides (we are not even speaking about the two nations) closer together? This was a ‘controlled’ atmosphere, and even if comments were not censored it was understood that the conversation was to be light. What we see is one reality – the coffee shop or corner store one. The young even on campuses are politically aware and most certainly come with a bagful of stereotypes about the other. It does not negate the awareness about Bollywood, cricket, or food. Yet, all of these can be politicised on the day there is a clash of films, a match or a culinary competition.
She also provided her verdict:
Love it…just don’t take it as the whole truth.