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It’s Not a Food Truck. It’s a Mobile Kitchen Feeding Refugees Around Europe. · Global Voices
PRI/PRX's The World

Ghafoor Hussain and his brother Fazel stand outside Ghafoor's bus-turned-mobile kitchen. They're supplying 3,000 hot meals a day, and 10,000 cups of tea. Credit: Adeline Sire. Used with PRI's permission
This article by Adeline Sire for The World originally appeared on PRI.org on February 10, 2016, and is republished here as part of a content-sharing agreement.
No matter where they are located, most refugee camps need an army of volunteers to help with distributing blankets, clothing, and especially food and water.
Some of those volunteers are particularly committed.
For years, Ghafoor Hussain has been offering his time to help feed and clothe the needy. Last fall, he traveled from his home in Stockton-on-Tees in northeast England to migrant camps in Croatia, Slovenia and Austria.
But when he was in at a camp in Austria, he saw that refugees were given cold sandwiches. And he decided they needed hot food — and that he would be the one to deliver.
Now he doesn’t just bring himself to camps, he brings a bus, which he bought online last December and retrofitted with special equipment.
“We took it back to the garage where I work and we stripped it all out and my nephew gave me some help to kitty it all out into a full mobile kitchen,” says Hussain, who’s 44.
Ghafoor Hussain (second from right) with his team of volunteers. When he saw refugees being fed cold sandwiches, he decided to supply them with hot meals. Credit: Khalid Siddiqi. Used with PRI's permission
The bus is a rolling professional kitchen equipped with two prep tables, a double-drainer sink, five commercial gas stoves and a 260-gallon water tank. Gas containers and storage are in the back and underneath. Buying and retrofitting the bus cost him about $9,000 but he got help from friends and colleagues.
“Everyone started chipping in and we got a fund going,” he says. “People have donated food and clothing and everything. And they also gave me donations, as in money, so this morning we went out to the warehouse and bought two pallets of water.”
Since mid-January, Hussain’s mobile kitchen has been stationed at the Grande-Synthe migrant camp near Dunkirk, in northern France. His brother-in-law drove it over from the UK. Hussain had originally planned to stop at camps along the route of migrants traveling up through Central Europe, but he got a phone call telling him the living conditions at the French camp were bad and that they needed his help. He left his son in charge of the family garage to give his full attention to his mobile kitchen.
Now Hussain supplies about 3,000 hot meals per day for people living in tents at the camp. Hot drinks too.
“We do about 5,000 cups of tea in the morning; then we do another 5,000 cups of tea in the evening,” he says. “As you can feel, the temperature is very cold, and this morning everything was frozen. And there’s no hot beverages anywhere in this camp apart from what we supply.”
As for meals, Hussain says they cook rice, lentils, chickpeas, red kidney beans, black-eyed beans, pasta and porridge. Truth be told, porridge didn’t go over too well in this camp of mostly Kurdish refugees. Because most of the people here are Muslim, like Hussain, he cooks vegetarian meals to avoid the need for Halal meat. It’s expensive and hard to get in this small French town.
Ghafoor Hussain is the chef in his mobile kitchen. He says his family thinks he's “a bit mad.” Credit: Tally Oliver. Used with PRI's permission
Preparing 3,000 meals a day cost him about $450, but he's not worried about running out of money. He says he’s getting donations from all over Europe, as well as Abu Dhabi and Pakistan, where he was born.
“The way the things are going with my friends and family,” he chuckles, “I don’t think my funds will run out. They’re very kind.”
And he says he is in it for the long run, as long as he can get the backing. But what does his family think about him being away?
“They think I’m a bit mad,” he says with a laugh, “but I have the full support of my family. I’m hoping to go back [home] for a few days next week, and then come back again and keep going.”
In fact, Hussain just bought another bus, soon to be a fully-equipped kitchen, to meet the growing demand at the camps for hot meals.

author: PRI/PRX's The World


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Malaysian Police Threaten Internet Users for Sharing Clown Memes of Prime Minister · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Clown memes mocking Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak are being shared on the Internet after the police threatened an activist graphic artist for uploading an altered image of the premier.
#KitaSemuaPenghasut means “We are all seditious.” Image from the Facebook page of Grupa
On January 31, 2016, artist Fahmi Reza posted a tweet denouncing the Sedition Act, accompanied by a clown image of Najib.
In 2015, the Sedition Act was used 91 times. Tapi dalam negara yang penuh dengan korupsi, kita semua penghasut. pic.twitter.com/OSwbxFxYSF
— Fahmi Reza (@kuasasiswa) January 31, 2016
In 2015, the Sedition Act was used 91 times. But in a country full of corruption, we are all seditious.
The Sedition Act is a colonial-era law which has been used by successive governments to silence and arrest the opposition and other critical voices in Malaysia. Najib promised to repeal the law in 2012 but instead of doing this after winning a new term as prime minister, he urged parliament to strengthen the measure by citing the need to improve national security.
After Fahmi Reza posted the tweet, he got a quick reply from the Police Cyber Investigation Response Center through Twitter:
AccTwitter @kuasasiswa, acc anda dibwh pengawasan PDRM.Gunakan dgn berhemah&berlandaskan undang2.@KBAB51 @PDRMsia pic.twitter.com/2SJ5ABEYkc
— PCIRC OFFICIAL (@OfficialPcirc) January 31, 2016
You are now under police watch. Use your account responsibly and according to the law.
Friends of Reza from the Grafik Rebel Untuk Protes & Aktivisme (Grupa), or Rebel Graphics for Protests & Activism, immediately accused the police of harassment. They started a campaign urging the public to post clown photos of Najib in support of Reza. The hashtag #kitasemuapenghasut, which means ‘we are all seditious’, was used and instantly became popular in Malaysia.
In a Facebook post, Fahmi Reza defended parody and satire as a form of artistic expression:
In a country where cartoonists and satirists have been censored, intimidated, arrested and incarcerated for their art, it is important that this vital form of artistic expression – parody and satire as a form of political protest – is continued to be practiced and to be defended at all costs.
Perhaps to stop netizens from sharing the clown images of Najib, a government agency warned the public that those guilty of humiliating national leaders can face prosecution.
This elicited another reply from the artist:
I designed the warning poster, as a piece of political satire and parody to highlight the absurdity behind the warning issued by the police against spreading the clown pictures; which is a form of internet censorship that goes against internet freedom.
The human rights group Suaram urged the government not to equate satire with crime:
Recalling the nature of office hold [sic] by any government official, public scrutiny and criticism is [sic] part of the democratic process that serves as the foundation of Malaysia. Satirical images and comments made against government official[s] should not be considered as a crime.
Here are some of the clown memes of Najib that were shared by the graphic artist collective, Grupa:
Ladies and gentlemen, we present to you, our Clown-in-Chief. #KitaSemuaPenghasut #grafikrebel pic.twitter.com/DIJr0e58kE
— GRUPA (@grafikrebel) February 3, 2016
May the force be with you? #KitaSemuaPenghasut #WeAreAllSeditious #GrafikRebel #Grupa pic.twitter.com/nnJWnlxtxD
— GRUPA (@grafikrebel) February 12, 2016
Who hired this clown? #KitaSemuaPenghasut #WeAreAllSeditious #GrafikRebel #Malaysia #LaughterIsMedicine #BadutNegara pic.twitter.com/hSlNhQZ7JK
— GRUPA (@grafikrebel) February 9, 2016
Send out the clown! #KitaSemuaPenghasut #GRUPA #GrafikRebel #MalaysiaProtestArt #Jibby pic.twitter.com/p3dxLf4nzb
— GRUPA (@grafikrebel) February 8, 2016
Sometimes laughter is most subversive weapon of all. #KitaSemuaPenghasut pic.twitter.com/4UGdZDmPtm
— GRUPA (@grafikrebel) February 4, 2016
One tweet referred to a corruption scandal involving Najib, who is accused of receiving 600 million US dollars from a state-run investment firm. Najib claimed the money in his personal bank account is a political donation from a royal family in Saudi.
Hail to the King of Donation. #KitaSemuaPenghasut pic.twitter.com/O3aLUXK6oO
— GRUPA (@grafikrebel) February 7, 2016
Another reminded people of Najib's 2012 election pledge to repeal the Sedition Law:
Eating his words or biting his tongue? #KitaSemuaPenghasut #grafikrebel pic.twitter.com/8vGsiwfQ60
— GRUPA (@grafikrebel) February 2, 2016

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Mong Palatino


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North Carolina High Schoolers Could Be Deported to “Certain Death”, Despite Teacher and School Board Opposition · Global Voices
Danica Jorden

A diverse coalition of around 35,000 social justice activists mobilized by the Moral Monday Movement rallied in downtown Raleigh on February, 2014. Photo taken from the Flickr account of Stephen Melkisethian
On the night of Thursday February 11, 2016, the administration of Durham Public Schools in North Carolina unanimously passed a resolution condemning the arrests and intended deportations of its students. Immigration and Citizenship Enforcement (ICE), an agency of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has targeted Riverside High School, which has the highest proportion of Latino students in the Durham public school system (23%), as well as other high schools in the area, with at least six young people already being held in detention out of state.
Durham School Board passes resolution to oppose student #immigration raids
https://t.co/llKsR7LN1f Try IP https://t.co/6hWB6qnHAw
— Immigration Post (@ImmigrationPost) February 13, 2016
One of the recent ICE victims is high schooler Wildin David Guillén-Acosta, who was arrested in front of his home as he was leaving for class on January 28. The new DHS guidelines announced over the New Year's holidays are specifically aimed at the large numbers of Central American children who made their way across the Mexican-U.S. border over the last two years. During this time, increased Mara Salvatrucha and 18th Street gang youth recruitment, extortion and murders have been reported. Young Central American immigrants, often fleeing from extreme levels of violence in their homeland, are recruitment targets for these notorious gangs. Wildin, who was a minor when he left Honduras in 2014, escaped their net — but that hasn't stopped ICE from arresting him.
Waiting outside as the board deliberated, Wildin's mother, Dilsia Acosta, speaking in Spanish and assisted in English by NC Dreamteam activist Viridiana Martínez, tearfully described her son's good character and college aspirations: “He's a good person with no bad habits who has never been in trouble.”
Wildin's distraught sister spoke of her brother's persecution by gangs in Honduras and his decision to cross the border two years ago to rejoin family members, explaining that if Wildin is sent back to Honduras, he faces “certain death….The 18th Street gang was threatening him. He was told to either join, or they would kill him.”
Wildin is currently being held at an ICE facility in Georgia, away from his family and supporters. There has been no response from DHS since the Jan 4 declaration iterating their firm decision to deport all the Central American kids who arrived last year.
There is a Move On petition to free the NC 6, with instructions for contacting DHS on behalf of Wildin and the five other North Carolina-based youth who now find themselves threatened with deportation.
Support for the students is growing. A vigil was held in Charlotte on February 12 for the teens who are in ICE prisons awaiting deportation, despite the fact that none of them have criminal records, all of them are now either 18 or 19 years old having crossed the border as minors, all have legitimate fears about returning to their country of origin (which should qualify them for refugee consideration), and all are, by DHS's own standards, low priority for arrest and deportation.
Durham high school sees attendance drop 20% after immigration raid https://t.co/haVajGi2PT via @wncn
— John Davis (@JDsoundbite) February 13, 2016
Speaking on behalf of fellow teachers, Durham's Bryan Proffitt posted a video message on Facebook in which he said, “Every time you take our kids, the teachers will respond.” The next vigil, this time for another student, Edwin Yonatan Alvarez-Galvez, will take place in town of Cary on February 13.

author: Danica Jorden


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Salvadoran Women Respond to Violence with Community Service, Music, and Individual Efforts · Global Voices
Rocío Pérez Domenech

Member of the Barrio 18 gang in Cárcel de Mujeres (Women’s Prison), El Salvador. According to the author of the photograph, Oscar Leiva: “Sometimes we simply demonize gangsters and we don’t really ask ourselves what had happened that led these people to be a part of these criminal structures to which many often gravitate looking for a family, identity, belonging.” This photo is taken from his Flickr account (Oscar Leiva Marinero / Silverlight) and is reproduced here with permission.
Outside of the peace negotiations that resound in the media and governmental organizations, one of the strongest solutions to the scourge of gang violence in El Salvador has come from individual initiatives and groups dedicated to women. This work with female youth and ex-gang members, both in and outside of prison, is part of a movement that seeks to collaborate with peace processes in which women have rarely been taken into account. At the same time, it addresses the social structure that intensifies violence against women.
The feminist association Las Dignas (The Dignified Women) emerged in El Salvador in 1990 out of one of the organizations involved in bringing about the Chapultepec Peace Accords  that officially ushered in an end to the conflict which had kept El Salvador at war for more than a decade. Las Dignas have carried out a variety of diverse projects over the years with the goal of helping women in vulnerable situations, especially those involved in gangs.  In this way, the organization conducts  programs aimed at preventing violence against Salvadoran women, based on economic justice and political protection for women.
The group focuses not only on the violence against women at the hands of gangs; they also seek to directly engage the problem of structural violence. Its objective is to educate and guide women and anyone else who seek to understand the problems created by social conventions that separate the genders. One of Las Dignas’ initiatives, described on their YouTube channel, is a campaign called Have a Coffee With Us (Tómate un café con nosotras). The project was created in 2014 as part of the struggle for the decriminalization of abortion and seeks to raise awareness about  the realities faced by women in El Salvador, one of the most restrictive countries in the world with regard to abortion laws:
Demandamos respeto [para poder] decir “sí queremos” y “cuándo queremos” ser madres. Deseamos que la interrupción voluntaria del embarazo sea despenalizada. No queremos más mujeres presas o muertas. Tenemos derecho a vivir la vida que queremos. Sobre mi cuerpo y sobre mi vida decido yo.
We demand the respect to be able to say ‘Yes, we want to [be mothers],’ when we want to be mothers. We demand that the voluntary interruption of pregnancy be decriminalized. We do not want any more imprisoned or dead women. We have the right to live the life we want. About my body and my life, I decide.
Another project that has translated into opportunity for many young women with gang-related histories involves the Female Orchestra of the Salvadoran Institute for Children and Adolescents (ISNA). This initiative began during the truce reached in 2012 between the Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 gangs, two of the most powerful gangs in the country, whose constant fighting had kept several areas of the country in check. The challenges were not few. Karina, one of the members of the orchestra, revealed to the AFP:
Lo más difícil fue saber que íbamos a estar junto a las de la otra mara, costó sentarnos a la par, pero luego ya cuando nos comenzaron a enseñar a tocar los instrumentos nos concentramos en eso para sacar adelante a la orquesta
The hardest part was knowing that we would be together with women from the other gang. It was difficult sitting together, but as soon as we started learning to play the instruments we concentrated on that to get the orchestra off the ground.
Nevertheless, the project bore fruit. A few of the girls who took part affirmed as much in a report shared by ISNA’s YouTube channel. In It, the pair who took charge of the project, as well as some young girls who participated, recounted their experiences:
One of the girls states:
Cuando toco el violín me siento bien porque siento que […] puedo liberarme, porque mi cuerpo está encerrado, pero no mi mente. Por medio [de la música] puedo […] viajar a otro lugar.
When I play the violin I feel good because I feel like […] I can be free, because my body is locked up, but not my mind. Through [music] I can […] travel to another place.
For her part, the instructor emphasized the significance of music in the rehabilitation of the participants:
La música es una forma en la que nos podemos comunicar con los demás. Eso es algo también que hacemos con ellas: proyectarles la paz, proyectarles la armonía… ¡Proyectar todo! De hecho, la música es eso: armonía.
Music is a form through which we can communicate with others. That is also something that we do with them: project peace, project harmony…Project it all! In fact, music is just that: harmony.
Other cases reflect how individual determination can often generate great force. Susana, who has dedicated part of her life to fighting against the marginalization of people who have belonged to gangs, is one example. Susana was part of the Salvatrucha gang from adolescence and passed through some of the most difficult rituals to earn respect. Her story was reported on by Dona Decesare for VICE in 2012:
Las historias de violaciones y maltrato por parte de la MS13 o en el Barrio 18 abundan. [Sin embargo, Susana] tuvo un lugar digno, incluso temido, dentro de la MS. Pero cada vez crecían más los sentimientos encontrados. Por un lado, los lazos que formó a través de los años dentro de la pandilla seguían fuertes, como los de una familia, pero al mismo tiempo se decepcionaba al ver cómo la pandilla victimizaba a inocentes. Corría la década de los noventa cuando regresó a El Salvador y vio que aquel grupo de jóvenes que se unía para protegerse, se convirtió en el enemigo #1 del país. Todavía se sentían las repercusiones de más de 12 años de guerra civil.
Stories of rape and abuse by the MS13 or in Barrio 18 abound. [However, Susana] had a respected, even feared, position within the MS. But Susana increasingly grew to have mixed feelings. On one hand, the bonds that formed through years within the gang were as strong as those of a family, but on the other hand Susana was disappointed to see how the gang victimized the innocent. The 90s had passed by the time she returned to El Salvador and saw that the group of young people that had joined together to protect themselves had become the #1 enemy of the state. The repercussions of more than 12 years of civil war can still be felt.
During her time in the gang, Susana was involved in incidents of extreme violence and had the opportunity to abandon the gang, a chance that few gang members have:
[Susana] se ganó su derecho. Cumplió sus compromisos dentro de la pandilla, fue herida de bala por una pandilla rival en Los Ángeles y estuvo presa en un penal de máxima seguridad en California. Ya podía caminar tranquila sin miedo a que la quisieran matar. Le dieron ‘el pase’, el cual antes se le otorgaba a los pandilleros que se hacían cristianos o después de cumplir sus compromisos se querían dedicar a sus familias –algo que sí existe en Estados Unidos, pero no es un proceso formal en Centroamérica–. ‘La mejor manera de compararlo sería cuando a un soldado le dan de baja honorable del ejercito’, anota.
Susana had earned the right. She fulfilled her commitments to the gang, she suffered a gunshot wound at the hands of a rival gang in Los Angeles, and she was imprisoned in a maximum security prison in California. Now she is able to walk peacefully and without fear that someone wants to kill her. She was given ‘the pass,’ which is traditionally given to gang members who become Christians, or after they have fulfilled their duties and want to dedicate themselves to family – a process that is customary in the United States, but is not formally recognized in Central America. ‘The best comparison is the way that a soldier is given an honorable discharge from the army,’ she notes.
Her life after the gang experience is now aimed at helping vulnerable groups who may fall into the world of violence:
Ahora ella se dedica a abogar por niños y jóvenes indocumentados en Estados Unidos, a través de educación pública, de abogacía a nivel política pública, y provisión de servicios directos. Su trabajo consiste en evitar que otros chicos tengan su misma suerte e ingresen a las pandillas. La ‘vida loca’, explica, sólo tiene tres salidas: prisión, hospital o muerte. Ella previene que pase esto.
Now she is dedicated to advocating for children and young undocumented immigrants in the United States, by means of public education, advocacy at public and political levels, and providing direct services. Her work is devoted to preventing other kids from succumbing to the same fate and joining gangs. The ‘crazy life’, she explains, only has three ways out: prison, hospital, or death. She keeps this from happening.

author: Rocío Pérez Domenech


text:
Finally, a Wall to Unite People, Not Divide Them · Global Voices
Sheema Khan

Wall of Kindness in Peshawar. Photo: Serve Mankind Facebook page
Throughout history, walls have been a symbol of separation, segregation, and division. However, a new phenomenon called “walls of kindness” (Deewar-e-Meherbani) is doing just the opposite. Faced by cold weather, Iranians began outdoor charity drives for the homeless and needy by building “walls of kindness.” The walls feature clothing hooks beside the phrase, “Take one if you need it. Give one if you don't.” Iran's campaign to clothe the poor has developed into an international onslaught of donations, coats, hats, trousers, and warm apparel.
What started in Mashhad, Iran, has now spread to China and Pakistan. Here are some of the heartwarming images and stories of “walls of kindness” across countries
It all started with a bit of snow in Mashhad:
Beautiful #Snow in #Mashhad#MustSeeIran #MustSeeMashhad #Iran @angelacorrias @lcmporter @AliAraghchi #Travel #Trip pic.twitter.com/vEpNA4kRwj
— Hamzeh Bojnordi (@QExtender) January 29, 2016
While it makes for scenic photos, winter is specially harsh for those without shelter. Slowly, the hashtag دیوارمهربانی# (wall of kindness) started filling up with photos, as citizens took up helping the needy:
#دیوارمهربانی #کرمان واقع در خیابان خواجو، قبل از چهارراه خواجو، سمت چپ
شب #یلدا در #کرمون
آفرین به مردم pic.twitter.com/x4whqOxQ1Q
— چراغ جادو (@HaaDooK) December 21, 2015
Wall of Kindness #Kerman located on Khajoo street, before the intersection on Khajoo, on the left #yalda in #Kerman
#دیوارمهربانی
اصفهان/پل چمران/روبروی هنرسرای خورشید pic.twitter.com/WcRKZLX47w
— FariN (@_far_in) December 13, 2015
#wallofkindness
دیوار مهربانی در شهسوار ، جنب مسجد شهسوار محله pic.twitter.com/7cCRFQb2u0
— دیوار مهربانی (@DivarMehrabani) December 20, 2015
Wall of kindness in Shahsavar, next to the mosque neighborhood of Shahsavar
It didn't take long before pictures of “walls of kindness” in China started popping up on social media. The Chinese reports suggest the clothes are for “people in need”:
“Walls of Kindness” in Chengdu, China. This is the city where Mrs. Gibbs went to college. 👍 pic.twitter.com/h6fBgFuqYi
— Medina City Chinese (@MCSChinese) February 6, 2016
#Liuzhou city in #China set a #WallOfKindness to help city's homeless during #winter https://t.co/V7vQZfoegh pic.twitter.com/F8fT05C3Eo
— Mailman Group (@MailmanGroup) February 2, 2016
Iran's ‘Wall of Kindness’ now in China too. This definitely a public dimpomacy achievement by Iran. pic.twitter.com/zlGtJ9hsnx
— Ali S. R. (@a__s_r) January 30, 2016
Ismat Ali and Maria Waqas, teachers at Bahria College in Karachi, announced plans to set up their own wall of kindness:
So, my dear friends and family…I come to you again. This time in collaboration with my senior, Ma'am Ismat Ali. We are starting a wall of kindness in karachi. Area will be mentioned later. Please donate generously your clothing or shoes that are just sitting in your cupboards and can help the needful. Truly grateful. Let's begin 2016 with a new heart!!
Posted by Mariya Waqas on Tuesday, December 29, 2015
Wall of Kindness in Karachi. Photo courtesy of the Wall of Kindness Pakistan Facebook page.
Citizens in Peshawar and Lahore have also created walls of kindness in their cities, too. In Peshawar, a group of people from the NGO Serve Mankind wrote:
A lady is donating clothes to wall of kindness at pahse 3 Hayatabad #Peshawar. Visited today pic.twitter.com/o3OQXUfUdw
— Rahat Shinwari (@RahatShinwari) February 2, 2016
Wall of kindness: great effort to help those who need clothing. Pl donate spare clothes. Hayatabad phase 3 Peshawer pic.twitter.com/pj76xtUz54
— Amir Mateen (@AmirMateen2) February 4, 2016
As for Lahore, people took to Twitter to spread the word.
“Wall of Kindness” Near Jam e Sheeren Park, Firdous Market Lahore.
Please donate your clothes to the needy ones. :) pic.twitter.com/Zqqez6yRzM
— Yasmin (@YoTweetWali) February 5, 2016
The wall of kindness in #Lahore is located near Jam e Shereen Park, Firdous Market. Please donate for a good cause and help people out :)
— Haider (@hain_jee) February 7, 2016
Iranians are giving away food, too. Here's a bakery that's giving away bread to the homeless and hungry. The box reads, “Bread is free for those who can’t pay.”
دیوار مهربانی به نانوایی مهربانیم رسید…. pic.twitter.com/WEvHOQqeEv
— عمه ِالام (@3LiDry) January 3, 2016
The wall of kindness has arrived at the bakery of kindness.
I'd just like to say, that last tweet, was a bakery in #Iran .it reads: “bread free to those who cannot afford it” …just think about that
— Gus (@Mr__Gus) January 14, 2016

author: Sheema Khan


text:
A Brief Twitter Guide to Uganda’s Elections This Month · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

A screenshot of Uganda's main presidential candidates. Public Domain and Creative Commons photos from U.S. State Department, Flicker user Dispatch Uganda and U.S. Department of Defense.
Uganda goes to the polls on Thursday, February 18, to elect a president amid fears of election-related violence. President Yoweri Museveni, who has been in power since 1986, is seeking a fifth term. (There are no presidential term limits in Uganda.) The main opposition candidates are Dr. Kizza Besigye from the Forum for Democratic Change, who is running against Museveni for the fourth time, and Amama Mbabazi, an independent candidate from the GoForward advocacy group. Both men are Museveni's previous allies, before he dismissed them (reportedly for harboring presidential ambitions).
Other candidates are Abed Bwanika, Benon Biraaro, Venansius Baryamureeba, Joseph Mabirizi, and the only woman running for president, Maureen Kyalya.
Ugandans will also vote in parliamentary and local elections on the same day.
Below is a brief Twitter guide for updates, news, analysis, and reports related to Uganda's elections this month:
Key hashtags to follow are #UgandaDecides, #IChoosePeaceUG, #GoForward2016, #WesigeBesigye, #UGDebate16, #SteadyProgress, and #IPledgePeaceUG, which was launched by the Young African Leadership Initiative Network (YALI) with support from the U.S. Embassy in Uganda.

author: Ndesanjo Macha


text:
Following a Summit-less 2015, This Year Will See Record Attempts to Reach the Peak of Everest · Global Voices
Sanjib Chaudhary

Mount Everest from base camp one. Image from Flickr by Rupert Taylor-Price CC BY 2.0
Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world, challenges adventurers and record seekers every year.
Each year, the determination to trek to the summit of Mt.Everest brings thousands of adventurous travelers to Khumbu pic.twitter.com/u299yDVJGB
— AmiPlanet (@AmiPlanet) January 9, 2016
In 2015, however, Everest remained invincible — no-one could summit the peak for the first time since 1974. The devastating earthquake that killed around 9,000 in Nepal didn’t even spare the highest mountain in the world and its aspiring summiteers.
In its wake, nobody could climb Everest during the seven- to ten-day window of opportunity that presents itself each May, as the quake took down the ladders and pathways that provided safe access. Attempting to climb the mountain at any other time is even more dangerous, as conditions at the top are very harsh, with temperatures of between -32 to -41 degrees centigrade and winds of more than 150 miles per hour.
For the first time in 41 years, nobody reached the summit of Mount Everest. 22 died. Via @SCMP_News @NatGeo pic.twitter.com/fcmkTdVnP4
— Patrick McGee (@PatrickMcGee_) December 28, 2015
In spite of the harsh conditions and deaths happening every year during ascents, people never seem to get over the thrill associated with climbing Everest.
Historically, for every 100 climbers who have made it to the summit of mount everest, 4 have died
— bharat (@BeingStupid1) December 30, 2015
Unfazed by earthquake and avalanche, this spring will once again see hordes of mountaineers, adventurers and daredevils rushing to the Everest region seeking to ascend to its peak.
Everest summiteer Alan Arnette, in his blog Summits Don’t Matter, wished, for the good of the country, that it were different:
Yes hundreds will probably return next spring to attempt Everest. Some operators will shift to the north, quietly, or in some case loudly, saying it is safer. People with nothing more than a Kilimanjaro summit will claim to have the proper experience – until something goes wrong. Guides will continue to save lives, doing what they do; and the Everest machine will continue even though it is clear it is time to let Nepal recover.
Since Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Sherpa (Sherpas are an ethnic community from the Himalayas) first made the climb to the top of Everest, 4,093 people have reached the peak an astounding 7,001 times.
Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing become the the first people to reach summit of Mount Everest (May 1953) pic.twitter.com/NqoL3BRqLN
— Photos of Change (@photosofchange) December 25, 2015
Tenzing's son has been critical of “the charade that Everest has become”, catering to the heavy traffic of Western climbers at the expense of the upkeep and integrity of the mountain. Everest may have become a business, but it is one that is still attracting a lot of customers.
One of the worst avalanches in the mountain's history, in 2014, nearly resulted in a Sherpa boycott of their guide services at Everest, after the families of some of the Nepalese killed in the disaster were offered paltry compensation for their deaths. More died in April 2015 due to the avalanche triggered by the Nepal earthquake. Compared with the huge sums of money paid by climbers for the privilege of climbing Everest, Sherpas are paid nominally for their expertise — the lion's share of the money is divided between the tour companies and the Nepalese government.
For those who want to understand how difficult it is to conquer Everest, two-time Everest summiteer P K Sherpa shared his moments of glory in pictures. The journey typically starts with landing at the Lukla airport — one of the most dangerous airstrips in the world — then trekking to the village of Namche Bazaar.
A bird’s eye-view of Namche Bazaar. Used with permission.
The hike from Namche Bazaar to the Everest Base Camp (EBC) is breathtaking — and often a once in a lifetime experience. The trek through the Everest region may be harsh, but it is also full of adventure.
A continuous 11-day trek from Lukla takes you to the EBC at around 5,400 metres. Between 5,500 – 6,100 m lies the Khumbu Icefall. Climbers generally rely on the help of ladders and ropes to cross this dangerous section.
Climbers at the Khumbu Icefall. Used with permission.
P K Sherpa poses for a picture at the Khumbu Icefall. Used with permission.
Alan Arnette explained:
The Khumbu Icefall is a 2,000 foot climb on a moving glacier complete with deep crevasses and towering seracs. Climbers step over the crevasses on aluminium ladders with crampons on their boots. More people have died in the Icefall than anywhere else on Everest's south side in recent years.
Once past this dangerous section though, climbers then navigate through Camp 1, Camp 2 and Camp 3 until they finally reach Camp 4 at 8,000 m — otherwise known as the “death zone”.
Climbers trading their way to Camp 3. Used with permission.
Collecting garbage at Camp 4. Used with permission.
P K Sherpa's personal experience has given him a lot of respect for this section of the climb: “When I reached the Camp 4 or the death zone, I saw dead bodies scattered here and there. The tragic scene was heart-wrenching. The sad moment cannot be expressed in words.”
Climbers usually start for the summit around midnight. MountEverest.net shared a bit about the experience:
It’s completely silent. Nobody talks. If you do, you whisper. It is absolutely terrifying and you climb and climb, awaiting [the] first ray of dawn. It’s desperately cold. It's steep and at parts very icy. The ice axe and the crampons cut skin deep into the ice.
Climbers capturing their moment of glory at the summit. Used with permission.
So what does it feel like to reach the peak?
According to P K Sherpa, it felt like he “had conquered the world”.

author: Sanjib Chaudhary


text:
‘Georgian Dream’ Looking Increasingly Dreary After Year to Forget · Global Voices
Joseph Larsen

Bidzina Ivanishvili, billionaire backer of the Georgian Dream coalition. Wikipedia image by Michał Koziczyński.
Three years after a stunning election victory brought the Georgian Dream coalition (GD) to power — ending the nine-year rule of Mikheil Saakashvili's United National Movement (UNM) in the process — many citizens in ex-Soviet Georgia are wondering what it is they voted for.
2015 was a trying year for GD, as it lost popularity while displaying some of the more abhorrent character traits of the government that preceded it.
While the 2012 elections were rightfully hailed as a watershed moment in the Caucasus country's democratic development, it is the next parliamentary elections, in October 2016, that will determine whether GD has left a lasting mark on Georgia's future.
A survey conducted in February last year by the International Republican Institute (IRI) found 55 percent of Georgians felt the country was going in the “wrong direction”, an answer only 33 percent had provided in 2014.
Enthusiasm for “the dream” only waned as the year progressed.
An April 2015 survey published by the National Democratic Institute/Caucasus Research Resource Centers found that if elections were held the next day, 24 percent of Georgians would vote for GD, compared to 16 percent for UNM.
By August, that had fallen to 11 percent, with a plurality (13 percent) actually favoring UNM, the party that Georgians cast out of office in 2012 for its heavy-handed rule and lack of accountability before the public.
GD’s popularity has eroded due to a number of factors, not all of them within the coalition’s control.
But as a general economic malaise sweeps the former Soviet region, the government has heaped pressure on itself with poor decision-making and PR blunders.
The Rustavi 2 court controversy is a case in point.
Rustavi 2, a pro-UNM television station with the largest market share in Georgia, became embroiled in an ownership dispute last fall that called into question GD's commitments to media freedom and judicial independence.
Rustavi 2 had long been controlled by majority stakeholders Levan and Giorgi Karamanishvili and Director Nika Gvaramia until their shares were seized by the Tbilisi Municipal Court in October.
The seizure and resulting court case resulted from claims made by plaintiff Kibar Khalvashi, who co-owned the broadcaster from 2004-2006.
Khalvashi claimed that in 2006 he was forced by the UNM government to sell his shares.
Claiming he had been unlawfully threatened by Saakashvili, he asserted himself as the rightful owner of 100 percent of the company.
Court proceedings were controversial from the outset.
Khalvashi is rumored to be close to former Prime Minster and GD financier-in-chief Bidzina Ivanishvili, feeding speculation that the case was politically motivated.
As early as 2012 Ivanishvili had publicly stated his belief that Khalvashi was one of the station's legitimate owners along with co-founders Davit Dvali and Jarji Akimidze.
On November 3, 2015, a court ruled in favor of Khalvashi. The backlash was immediate.
According to a report by EurasiaNet, the plaintiff’s legal team did not provide “any documentary evidence to justify his client’s claim that former President Saakashvili forced the 2005 and 2006 sales of Khalvashi’s shares.”
The ruling was instead based on “reasonable grounds”, with the plaintiff depending largely on his own oral testimony of the conversation between himself and Saakashvili.
The ruling sparked public outrage and was roundly criticised by NGOs and international observers.
Adding fuel to the fire, Tbilisi Municipal Court ruled two days later that control of the station should be immediately transferred to a court-appointed temporary management team.
By stripping the station’s directors of editorial control and replacing them with appointed managers, critics argued, the Georgian government was putting itself in charge of Rustavi 2’s editorial policy.
Freedom House wrote at the time:
The appointment of new management at Rustavi 2 ignores orders by the Constitutional Court and undermines democracy in Georgia. The government is breaking the promise it made to voters, which was to uphold higher standards than its predecessor in protecting the rule of law and the fundamental principles of democracy, including freedom of the press. We urge the Georgian government to end its interference in the media.
While the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe's Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatović noted:
Editorial decisions should be made in news rooms, not court rooms. Attempts by the courts to unduly influence an editorial policy of a media outlet are nothing short of the abuse of the rule of law and democratic foundations in a society. I call on the judiciary to fully respect the right of Rustavi 2 to editorial independence.
Wary of the potential PR fallout, GD officials were swift to deny any connection between the party and the decision of the Tbilisi Municipal Court.
Garibashvili issued a written statement on the day of the ruling in which he framed it as a triumph of the rule of law:
Whilst Rustavi 2 changed hands more than 20 times under the previous regime due to political interests, ownership of this TV station has for the first time been determined by the independent judiciary. This sets an important precedent and marks another welcome step forward for media freedom and pluralism, democracy and the rule of law in Georgia.
Garibashvili would not see out the end of the year as Prime Minister.
He announced his resignation without explanation on December 23 and was replaced one week later by Giorgi Kvirikashvili, previously the country's Minister of Foreign Affairs.
But it seems dark clouds are gathering over the once-optimistic Caucasus democracy regardless of who heads the government.
In 2015, Gross Domestic Product grew by only 2.8 percent — a disappointing figure for a developing economy accustomed to rapid growth — and the Georgian Lari has fallen 40 percent against the dollar since November 2014.
Public resentment is also growing against the government as it holds negotiations with Russian state energy firm Gazprom, less than 8 years after Moscow's military bombarded the country, ostensibly in support of Georgia's breakaway states Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
With this in mind, and the Georgian Dream's apparent failure to build the democratic system it promised, the ownership change at Rustavi 2 appears to make more political than legal sense.
On the surface at least, the verdict handed down by the Tbilisi municipal court last year has done the coalition a timely favour, comprimising the opposition's loudest voice ahead of a vital election in October.

author: Joseph Larsen


text:
How More and More Schools in Brazil Are Teaching Kids to Eat Their Vegetables · Global Voices
PRI/PRX's The World

Sixth-graders at the Leão Machado school in Sao Paulo. School gardens have become a popular way to help kids learn to eat healthier in Brazil. Credit: Rhitu Chatterjee. Used with PRI's permission
This article by Rhitu Chatterjee for The World originally appeared on PRI.org on February 11, 2016, and is republished here as part of a content-sharing agreement.
On a hilly slope in São Paulo City, a group of sixth graders is busy at work. They’re armed with seeds, soil and a range of gardening tools. Upside-down soda bottles, filled with water, outline a series of rectangular garden plots. A boy named Felipy Pigato tells me they are preparing the soil for planting.
“Yesterday we mixed regular soil with coconut fiber,” he says. “The coconut fiber holds the seeds in the soil.”
Today, he says they will add in the compost. As the students dig, they pull back chunks of dirt, creating shallow pits, where earthworms wriggle in the freshly dug soil.
Mateus Feitosa de Almeida, 12, slowly pulls back the soil around a worm. “We have to pull like that so we don’t hurt the worms,” he explains. “If we take them out, it’s bad for the soil.”
This digging is going on in a quiet middle-class neighborhood, in a garden that belongs to Leão Machado School, a large public school.
The students are working under the guidance of two teachers, Daniel Giglio Colombo and Marta Martins.
This is the second year of the project, says Colombo, who helped start the garden. “We’re going to grow the same things we did last year — arugula, lettuce, radishes.”
The vegetables they grow are used in school meals. But the real aim of the school garden is not to supply ingredients, he says, but to teach students where food comes from, so they can develop a connection to their food.
“When we ask students where lettuce comes from, they say the market,” Colombo says. “They have lost contact with nature, the soil, sowing, and growing of crops.”
And that is reflected in their diets, he says, which are increasingly unhealthy.
Students say the school garden project is teaching them a lot about how to grow food, though it's still hard for some of them to appreciate vegetables. Credit: Rhitu Chatterjee. Used with PRI's permission
Just like in the US, highly processed foods like fast food, soda, and high-fructose corn syrup have become all too popular here in Brazil. And obesity rates are rising, even among children. It is a nation-wide problem that has alarmed the government and public health experts in the country. Brazil’s government has banned sodas, cakes and cookies in school meals. It has restricted the amount of salt and sugar in them as well. It also requires at least one daily serving of fruits and vegetables.
Initially, students used to reject fresh food, says Martins. She and her colleagues hoped that the school garden would change that.
“We wanted to create better habits with this project,” Martins says. “We wanted them to improve their eating and become healthier.”
That idea is behind flourishing school gardens across Brazil. The program started 12 years ago as a pilot program in five schools, as part of a project by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Program. Today, there are a few thousand school gardens in 700 cities and towns. Many are run independently by schools. Others are supported by city governments.
It’s hard to know yet whether school gardens have improved children’s health, says Albaneide Peixinho, who ran Brazil’s school meal program for 13 years. But she says schools are reporting that the gardens have made students more aware of their food.
“With school gardens, they see that food comes from the Earth,” Peixinho says, and they are eating healthier. Some studies even show that the students are influencing how their families eat. “Parents say that the kids are eating a lot of fruits and vegetables, and they insist on eating those foods at home.”
Sarah Campos (left) and Juliana Santos, former students of the Leão Machado School. Campos says she tried her first radish after working in the school garden. Now she loves them. Credit: Rhitu Chatterjee. Used with PRI's permission
Sarah Campos, 14, took the school garden class last year at Leão Machado in São Paulo. “I had never eaten radishes before,” she says. But she tried some when she and her classmates cooked radishes they had grown in the school garden.
“I loved it so much that I even had a second plate,” Campos says. Now, she says she eats radishes often. “I ask my mom to make them for lunch sometimes. She puts them in the salad with carrots, and with potatoes. It’s very good.”
She and her classmates say they are more open to eating vegetables now. They try to avoid fast food and they’re more conscious of their diets.
Out in the garden, I ask Mateus, the student who told me about protecting earthworms, what he has learned in his gardening class.
“Many things,” he says. “Like digging, what organic fertilizer is, what animals do to make the soil better.”
“What did you learn about vegetables?” I ask.
“That they are good for our health and well-being.”
“Do you eat vegetables?”
“I’m not so keen on them, but I guess I do now with this project,” he says, laughing sheepishly.
The hope is that by the end of the school year, he will really enjoy them.
This story was produced with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.


text:
Is Tajikistan’s President ‘Preparing Himself a Parachute’ with Constitutional Changes? · Global Voices
The Echo of Central Asia

Emomali Rakhmon and family. Wikipedia image.
On May 22 Tajikistan will hold a referendum on the Rakhmon family that has ruled it for over two decades against a backdrop of economic dysfunction, pervasive corruption and political repression.
On the day at least, the family is almost certain to get its way.
Tajikistan is the poorest of the 15 countries to emerge from the ruins of the Soviet Union in 1991.
As soon as the country gained independence, it fell into a five-year civil war that saw Emomali Rakhmon and his allies emerge as the country's decisive political force.
Rakhmon, 63, is sometimes likened by citizens in the country to the shah of Iran overthrown in the 1979 Iranian Revolution, due to his intolerance of the religion of Islam followed by over 90% of the country's citizens.
Amendments to the constitution that will be voted on in May include a ban on political parties created on religious grounds, as well as a stipulation that will allow ‘The Founder of Peace and National Unity, Leader of the Nation’ to stand for president an infinite number of times.
Rakhmon's Leader of the Nation title was awarded him by parliament in December.
In speech to the deputies the speaker of the lower chamber MP Shukurjon Zuhurov said:
“Этот закон не нужен президенту Эмомали Рахмону, он нужен нам, народу, чтобы закрепить взятый им курс, нацеленный на мир и процветание. Принятый документ – это дань уважения трудам и заслугам великого сына страны. Эмомали Рахмон – спаситель нации, объединивший таджикский народ после тысячелетнего разобщения. Он спас и возродил таджикскую нацию. История услышала боль народа и подарила ему смелого, заботливого, честного, любящего и миролюбивого руководителя, лидера”
President Emomali Rakhmon does not need this law, we, the people need it, in order to strengthen the course he has taken, which aims at peace and prosperity. The adopted document is a tribute to the works and merits of this great son of the country. Emomali Rakhmon, the saviour of the nation, united the Tajik people after a thousand years of separation. He has saved and revived the Tajik nation. History heard the nation's pain and gave it a brave, caring, honest, loving and peace-loving leader.
On a practical level the Leader of the Nation status allows Rakhmon and his family immunity from criminal prosecution, and the inviolability of their properties among other things, even after he leaves office.
As one commenter on the Tajik service of RFE/RL commented:
Готовит себе парашют.
He is preparing himself a parachute.
The way things are going, he might need it.
Tajikistan is currently in dire economic straits, with the Russian ruble crash telling on the health of the most remittent-dependent economy in the world.
As migrants in Russia send home steadily less money, the national somoni currency is under huge pressure, with the government resorting to banning currency exchanges in a bid to artificially secure the its relationship to the dollar.
Perhaps sensing the magnitude of the problems ahead, Rakhmon has clamped down on meaningful sources of opposition to his rule.
The moderate Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) was declared a terrorist group following violence in the country in September and the government has arrested the bulk of its leadership, despite the party protesting its innocence in relation to the armed attacks on government troops in the capital Dushanbe and the provincial town of Vahdat.
The communist party was also booted out of the parliament in disputed elections in March, leaving only sycophants in the national legislature.
As things worsen, Rakhmon is following a Central Asian tradition in appointing members of his family to lofty posts in the government.
In March 2015 he appointed his son Rustam Emomali — previously head of the customs service — to lead the anti-corruption agency, while earlier this year his daughter Ozoda Rahkmon became Rakhmon's de facto chief of staff.
Ozoda Rakhmon's husband Jamoliddin Nuraliev is also a powerful figure in the regime, holding the post of first deputy chairman of the National Bank of Tajikistan.
Tajiks are too frequent witnesses of such nepotism at every level of government to be at all surprised by the new appointments.
With another change in the constitution lowering the presidential age limit from 35 to 30, many are mentally preparing themselves for a dynastic succession.
It is Rustam, who is currently 28, rather than 38-year-old Ozoda, that appears to be the main beneficiary of that change.
The young man is surrounded by dark rumours, such as one widespread in the country that he shot his uncle dead in an argument over a strategic bank in 2008.
For the moment, whether under the leadership of Rustam or Emomali, the Rakhmon family's grip on power looks incontestable — with seven of Rakhmon's other offspring waiting to join Ozoda and Rustam in the halls of power, the clan will have reinforcements as and when they are needed.
Then again, as a deepening economic crisis reverberates through a disaffected and long-suffering population, no-one can say for certain what the future holds.

author: The Echo of Central Asia


text:
Mexicans Unanimously Welcomed Pope Francis This Weekend. Or Did They? · Global Voices
J. Tadeo

Pope Francis during his recent visit to New York. September 25, 2015. Photo: Flickr user Marcela. CC 2.0.
Millions of Mexicans were anxious to catch a glimpse of Pope Francis this weekend, during the pontiff's long-awaited visit. Not everyone is rolling out the red carpet, however, with many people criticizing the state's extravagant preparations ahead of Pope Francis’ arrival.
A year ago, tensions flared between the Mexican government and the Vatican, following controversial remarks by the pope about the apparent need to avoid the “Mexicanization” of Argentina (Francis’ homeland). His comments addressed the growing influence of Mexico's drug cartels, which have reportedly begun expanding their activities into Argentina.
Pope Francis’ concerns about “Mexicanization” appeared in a private email to a friend (an Argentinian lawmaker), “who is very involved in the battle against drugs and who had himself used this phrase,” a spokesperson for the Vatican later explained.
This diplomatic frictions appears to be water under the bridge now, given the pope's warm reception in Mexico this week, not to mention the generous state resources poured into “optimizing venues” for his visit. Areas that received facelifts include Ecatepec (a low income area on the outskirts of Mexico City) and Juarez City (which is on the US border).
“If the pope comes as a state representative, he comes to deal with political issues, not spiritual ones. If this is the case, he should pay his own costs and not use the tax money of a country whose people earn such miserable wages. Messages of hope don't fill our belly.” Protest of the pope's visit to Mexico by Jorge Mario Bergoglio. Photo by TRC.
According to government data, 89 percent of Mexicans identify as Catholic, though experts like anthropologist Elio Masferrer Kan have debated these figures, accusing the state of “politically manipulating” the numbers in order to exaggerate the country's Catholic population.
Other groups unhappy about the pope's visit (and its steep price tag) include groups tied to the disappeared Ayotzinapa students and others who have supported their cause. Despite a petition campaign, the pontiff has no known plans to meet formally with the students’ families during his visit this week.
The Ayotzinapa victims’ families similarly tried and failed to gain an audience with the pope during his visit to the United States last year. “We yelled at him, we raised our voices, but still he didn't pay us any attention,” one mother said at the time, according to the website SDP News.
Football trainer Ricardo Antonio La Volpe also complained about the pope's visit, saying his team's final match was relocated to accommodate the pontiff's trip.
In Chiapas, where La Volpe's soccer game was originally scheduled to take place, Victor López wrote on the website Paginaciudadana.com a piece titled “Welcome to Mexico: Between Misery and Riches!” Writing before Francis arrived in Mexico, López lamented the low quality of life enjoyed by most people:
Nuevamente Chiapas volverá a ser sitio de visita de “un representante de Dios en la tierra” […] A pocos días de la llegada de su Santidad Francisco a las ciudades de Tuxtla Gutiérrez y San Cristóbal de las Casas, y a 26 años de la visita de Juan Pablo II, no hay nada de qué presumir en esta parte de México, donde el dolor humano es una forma de vida para la inmensa mayoría en el día a día, tolerada e incluso promovida por la ruindad de las autoridades en turno a nivel federal, estatal y municipal.
Yet again Chiapas will be the site of a visit from “a representative of God on Earth” […] It's just a few days before the arrival of his Saintliness Pope Francis to the cities of Tuxtla Gutiérrez and San Cristóbal de las Casas—26 years after the visit of John Paul II—and there´s no reason to put on airs [of caring] in this part of Mexico, where human pain is a part of life for the majority of the population on a day to day basis, and is tolerated and even promoted by the baseness of the government authorities at the federal, state, and municipal level.
Others online have mourned the wide scale extermination of street dogs, which Mexican authorities have undertaken, in an effort to improve the appearance of urban centers. Officials have been especially ruthless against the feral animals in Ecatepec:
Gracias a la visita del papa francisco, están asesinando perros callejeros en ecatepec @Pontifex @Pontifex_es @eruviel_avila #NoVengas
— Guillermo C. (@sinks25) January 27, 2016
Thanks to the visit of Pope Francis, they're killing street dogs in Ecatepec @Pontifex@Pontifex_es@eruviel_avila#NoVengas [#Don'tCome]
Twitter user Darko Abbadie felt much the same:
Pues sí,están eliminando perros callejeros en ECATEPEC,esto por la próxima visita del papa Francisco.
— Darky Abbadie. (@pati_ivan) January 25, 2016
Of course, they're eliminating street dogs in ECATEPEC, for the visit of Pope Francis.
Using the hashtag #NoVengas [#Don'tCome], other residents of Ecatepec similarly conveyed their unhappiness about the preparations for Francis’ visit.
Gracias @Pontifex_es ,vas a colapsar #Ecatepec con tu visita,2 días van a cerrar comercios y 3 días pararan los servicios de taxi #noventas
— Daniel de Abrego (@snoop_retailer) January 26, 2016
Thanks to @Pontifex_es, #Ecatepec will be flooded with people for your visit, [and] for 2 days businesses will close and for 3 days there will be no taxi service #Don'tCome
In an opinion piece for the newspaper El Nuevo Herald, journalist and writer Andrés Oppenheimer called on the pope to address the issue of migration between Mexico and the US, in part to respond to outlandish comments by Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump. On Twitter, Oppenheimer shared a statistic that would likely flip the wig that Trump insists he doesn't wear:
En ultimos 5 años, 1 millon de mexicanos regresaron de EEUU a Mexico, mientras que 870 mil se fueron a EEUU: https://t.co/x5oYBShljs @qtf
— Andres Oppenheimer (@oppenheimera) February 1, 2016
In the last 5 years, 1 million Mexicans have returned from the US to Mexico, while [only] 870,000 left for the US.

author: J. Tadeo


text:
The Daughters of Violence Fight Back Against Street Harassment in Mexico with Art · Global Voices
Gabriela García Calderón Orbe

In the banner: The harrasers: “Babe, I'd got you pregnant”. These are the healthy children of patriarchy”. Banner used during International Week Against Street Harassment in 2014. Photo on Flickr by OCAC Chile (CC BY-NC 2.0).
Street sexual harrasment is a reality that many women in different countries face on a daily basis, and it's a pest that Global Voices has written about in the past more than once. In Mexico, the feminist group Las hijas de Violencia (The daughters of Violence) has resolved to fight back against that verbal assault that women face daily through art:
Las hijas de Violencia […] Buscamos, a través del arte performático, el punk y el video, abordar la violencia machista legitimada socialmente.
[…]
Así nació la idea de realizar un proyecto artístico que además de buscar una propuesta estética, sea un grito público que invite a la reflexión de los temas que abordamos.
[…].
Nosotras somos las hijas de Violencia, cargamos años de transitar en un espacio público hostil que no da cabida al cuerpo femenino como un cuerpo transitante sino un cuerpo para el goce y disfrute externo.
The daughters of Violence […] We look, through art, punk and video, to address chauvinist violence socially legalized.
[…]
That's how the idea of carrying out this art project was born, that besides being an esthetic perspective, it might be a public outcry that invites to reflect upon the topics we address.
[…].
We are the daughters of Violence, we carry along years of walking through a hostile public space that has no place for woman's body as a circulating body but as something for external joy and pleasure.
Ellas son ‘Las Hijas de Violencia': las mexicanas que se defienden del acoso callejero https://t.co/He5OVAmdcM pic.twitter.com/gNtnYHStEl
— Belelú (@Belelu) febrero 4, 2016
They are “The Daughters of Violence”: Mexican girls who stand up for themselves from street harassment.
The members of the group are Ana Karen, Ana Beatriz, Elisa Gutiérrez, Verónica Bravo, Betzabeth Torres and Patricia Rodríguez, and together:
[…] han decidido responder al acoso callejero disparando simbólicamente a sus agresores con pistolas de confeti y cantándoles su tema Sexista Punk, en el que denuncian el acoso callejero como acto de agresión machista.
[…] have decided to respond street harassment by symbolically shooting their attackers with confetti guns and singing their song Sexista Punk (Sexist Punk), where they denounce street harassment as a chauvinist aggression action.
In their song Sexist punk, part of the lyrics says:
Eso que tú hiciste
hacia a mí se llama acoso.
Si tú me haces eso
de esta forma yo respondo.
No tienes derecho y lo que haces es de un cerdo
[…]
Imagino el día en que pueda ir a caminar
Sin cuidarme, sin tener mi cuerpo que ocultar
Sexista, machista ¿Qué es lo que quieres?
¿Mostrar tu hombría? ¡A la mierda de mi vista!
What you did
to me it's called harassment.
If you do that to me
like that I respond.
You don't have the right and what you do is typical of a slob
[…]
I imagine the day when I'd be able to walk
Without having to take care of myself, without having to hide my body
Sexist, chauvinist. What do you want?
Show off your manhood? Go fuck yourself!
The daughters of Violence have a strategy when they react:
Salen a la calle y esperan a que un tipo les grita ‘mamacita’ o lo que sea. Lo persiguen, le disparan con una pistola de confeti y le gritan una rola que dice, en resumen, ‘eso que tú hiciste hacia mí se llama acoso’. La idea no es mala ]…] sugieren que la víctima se defienda de manera lúdica.
They walk by the street and wait for a guy to call out ‘you, gorgeous’ or something like that. They chase the guy, shoot him with a confetti gun and sing a song that, summing up, says, ‘what you did to me is called harassment’. It's not a bad idea […] they suggest that the victim fights back in a playful way.
With the idea of spreading their witty and peaceful way of fighting back against street harassment, The daughters of Violence invite all women to join them:
[…] recomiendan que la respuesta ante estas situaciones tiene que ser divertida ‘para que no te quedes con la sensación de la violencia que acabas de sentir, para que tu te vayas tranquila y sepas que puedes seguir teniendo un día increíble’.
[…] they recommend that the answer to these situations has to be fun ‘so you may not keep the feeling of the violence you've just been through, so you may go on your way with calm and knowing that you can still have an awesome day’.
On her blog Pornucopia, Estefanía Vela Barba makes us reflect and shows us that women are neither alone nor helpless:
¿Por qué al discutir la violencia sexual, siempre nos imaginamos a un hombre que es más fuerte que una mujer —a quien siempre nos imaginamos desarmada, inútil, frágil—, en un callejón oscuro, vacío y sin salida? Sí. Este escenario es posible. Pero no es el único. No lo es. El performance de Las hijas de Violencia es extraordinario precisamente porque nos demuestra otra posibilidad: no nos presenta a una mujer, indefensa, aislada, presa del pánico que no puede más que sucumbir a la fuerza desmedida de un hombre.
Why is it that when discussing sexual violence, we always think of a man that is stronger than a woman — who we always imagine unarmed, helpless, fragile –, down a dark alley with no way out? Yes. That's a possible scenario. But it is not the only one. The performance by The daughters of Violence is extraordinary exactly because it shows a different possibility: it doesn't show a helpless, isolated woman, in a panic who can do nothing more than surrender when faced with a man.

author: Gabriela García Calderón Orbe


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This Valentine’s Day, a Crash Course in Thinking Critically About Love · Global Voices
Laura Vidal

Picture shared by Pixabay.com and labeled for reuse.
The personal is political has been the rallying slogan for women movements since the late 1960s. But can love and the way we think about it, also be part of this concept?
Researchers have dug into the elements that make love painful, scientists have established passionate love as a relief for pain, and feminist activists have denounced the connection between romantic love and violence against women.
For many social scientists and feminist activists, love is an endless subject that we have only just begun to understand.
This Valentine's Day, we present six radically different ways of thinking about love.
On TED's educational channel, Skye C. Cleary guides shows us how philosophers Plato and Bertrand Russell tried to understand the need for love in this five-minute video:
Also on YouTube, The School of Life devoted a whole playing list to the subject of love and romance, in which they think critically about the ways that society sees, encourages and judges love.The School of Life also has videos reflecting on marriage and divorce, how to handle crushes, break ups and intimacy. In this particular two-minute video, they explore the confusions around the idea and the concept of love:
In the Latin American comedy channel Flama, Joanna Haussman focuses one of her “rants” on famous couples and the way they influence the idea of love in popular culture, in this five-minute video:
From the side of feminist thinkers, Mexican author Marcela Lagarde tackles the issue of love as a social phenomenon. In this one-hour video, the author argues that love has been decisive in the concept of success in women's personal lives, and underlines the idea that love is constructed in the social imagination though myths and ideas that can undermine personal and professional development:
La construcción del amor [en la cultura] es muy particular. Me refiero sobre todo a las sociedades occidentales, que son las que colocan el amor [conyugal] como el centro de aspiraciones en la vida de las mujeres. Crecer, hacer cosas, estudiar, trabajar, y muchas cosas que hoy tenemos por delante las mujeres, tienen, además, sentido secundario o paralelo a encontrar el amor. El amor idealizado, fantaseado y construido con una enorme cantidad de mitos, de leyendas e ideologías que permean nuestra consciencia y educan nuestros afectos.
The construction of love [in the culture] is very particular. I'm talking about mostly about Western societies, which put [marital] love in the center of aspiration of women's lives. Growing, doing things, studying, working and many other things that woman have ahead get a secondary sense, or a parallel sense to finding love. [And this love is] an idealized one, it's a fantasy built over a big number of myths, legends and ideologies that penetrate out consciousness and educate our affections
Lagarde's point of view is shared by Spanish researcher Coral Herrera Gomez. Gomez argues that romantic love concentrates on a specific kind of socialization and questions the reasons why societies, specially in the West, are so inclined to encourage lives in heterosexual couples of two.
Her work also underlines the links that romantic love can have with violence against women, and some of her projects think about love, relationships and sex. Her research led her to create the Lab of Love and a Facebook group called Ladies Who Have Stopped Suffering for Love. The Lab of Love also features testimonies of women around Latin America and Spain. In this five-minute interview in Spanish, Gomez explains that the Lab of Love is based on sharing experiences and also thinking with others about self esteem and the need to understand emotions:
In an interview shared in her blog, Gomez says:
Tenemos que desmontar la asociación entre sufrimiento y amor, acabar con la cultura del aguante femenino, poner de moda el buen trato y construir colectivamente una ética del amor que nos permita aprender a querernos bien, más y mejor
We need to debunk the attachment between suffering and love, end the culture of women's endurance, put in fashion the idea of treating others well and build collectively a love ethics that can let us love ourselves [and others] well, more and better.
Another researcher in social sciences from Israel, Eva Illouz, wrote a sociological explanation to Why Love Hurts that is connected to the possibilities that the Internet can give in choosing a partner. In a recent article published by Hareetz, Illouz questions the celebration of love and the way that love, as we understand it, represents a big background of painful failures:
Anyone with eyes in his head can see that the road to romantic love is paved with an unfathomable amount of indignities: disappointing first dates; empty and demeaning one-night stands; broken promises, unenthusiastic commitments; princes turned into angry frogs; shared lives that end in lies and betrayal. Worse than these indignities are the shared lives that never end at all, and keep on staging their own tired exhaustion and powerless rage.
In the same article, Illouz reflects on the idea of friendship, and the way it can be an attachment based on love, but lacks most of the elements that cause suffering:
While we almost always recognize the feeling of falling in love, it can take us quite a long time to realize we have found a friend in someone. Friendship, then, has no dramatic, foundational beginning, nor does it entail clear social ritual or “rules of engagement” (as courtship does), nor the urgency of love. It goes along with the movements and flow of our life, and lacks the dramatic, theatrical trappings of love. Precisely for this reason, friendship is not a disease of the imagination: We rarely suspect friendship of being a figment of our imagination.

author: Laura Vidal


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When They Lock Up the Truth: Khadija Ismayilova and the Latin America Connection · Global Voices
CONNECTAS .org

Khadija Ismayilova (Foto:Aziz Karimov)
This story by CONNECTAS was originally posted on their website and republished here under our content sharing agreement.
In Latin America, little is known of Azerbaijan.
Perhaps some recall this Caucasus country as the sponsor of Atlético Madrid, the successful Spanish football club coached by Argentinean ex-football player Diego Simeone. On the team’s strip, the country's name was accompanied by the slogan “Land of Fire.”
But behind this advertising slogan hides a dark reality.
Azerbaijan, a former Soviet country with remarkable oil and gas reserves has been controlled for decades by the Aliyev family.
It was Heydar Aliyev who led the country into independence in 1991 before passing passing power to his son Ilham in contested elections following his death in 2003. The country has become a kind of family estate, where criticizing the government means taking a serious risk.
The latest victim of this vampire-like regime is investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova, sentenced last September to more than seven years in prison on charges of embezzlement, tax evasion, illegal business activities, and abuse of power.
Most international organizations have no doubt that the sentence is political — a warning to those who dare criticize abuses of power in the country.
Ismayilova, who was born in the capital of Baku in 1976, worked for numerous local media outlets and managed the local bureau of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty for two years.
She is one of the most prominent reporters of OCCRP (Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project), a prestigious network that supports various journalistic efforts in the former communist world.
Obsessively, she exposed official corruption, particularly in the inner circle of President Aliyev. She uncovered lavish contracts and found properties belonging to the boss’s children and wife.
She also showed that the Aliyev clan controlled gold mines, airlines, and cell phone companies in the country, among other businesses.
Le monopoly version Azerbaijan cc @loloric @EliseLucet @AzAmbassadeFr @REZAphotography @AboutFirstLady @presidentaz pic.twitter.com/Lw1qII7piv
— NO Turkey/Azerbaijan (@StopTurkishGov) September 9, 2015
One of Ismayilova’s most scandalous revelations has a Latin American connection.
As the daily newspaper La Estrella de Panamá reported, there is an ongoing conflict between a British mining company working in western Azerbaijan and the community of Chovdar, which fears the exploitation of subsoil resources is affecting the rivers that supply the town and its people.
What was not known was that the Aliyev clan controls part of the gold and silver mine through three companies in Panama headed by Leyla and Arzu Aliyeva, the president’s two daughters. This is one of several Panama-based companies, whose affiliation to the family was uncovered by OCCRP and Ismayilova.
The first attacks against Ismayilova began in 2012, when a website published an intimate video of her and her partner in an effort to attack her for “immorality.”
Instead of backing off, however, she showed that a telephone company employee had illegally installed cameras in her home.
Her fearless attitude infuriated those in power. In October 2014, a politician sued her for defamation and two months later, authorities imprisoned her for allegedly inciting a colleague to attempt suicide.
While in prison, police raided the office of Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty Baku bureau, seizing equipment and documents.
Two months later, Khadija was charged with embezzlement, tax evasion, and abuse of power. Her trial began on August 7, 2015 and just three weeks later she was sentenced to seven years and a half years in prison. Critics decried the trial as a farce.
.@edwardcrmiller update on #Azerbaijan and #KhadijaIsmayilova‘s 7 1/2 yr prison sentence http://t.co/teNEhWehD8 pic.twitter.com/ai2YgN3xsf
— ImportantCool (@ImportantCool) September 14, 2015
But Ismayilova isn’t the only one. According to Reporters Without Borders, 11 journalists are imprisoned in Azerbaijan, where the organisation describes “a real harassment of the media.”
Meanwhile, Amnesty International reported that the conviction was based on “fabricated charges” and shows the regime “has intensified its brutal crackdown on political activists, journalists, human rights defenders and, in short, anyone who dares to criticise [it] publicly.”
But it won’t be so easy for the Azerbaijani government to silence Ismayilova. Before her sentence, she warned, “Yes, I'll be in jail, but the work continues.”
Azerbaijan jails investigative journalist, Khadija Ismayilova, for exposing President’s… http://t.co/t24dewHh4b pic.twitter.com/2cI8F3gqC1
— Premium Times (@PremiumTimesng) September 2, 2015
Global Voices author Arzu Geybullayeva contributed to this version.

author: CONNECTAS .org


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Abandoned Shoes Protest Calls Attention to Macedonia’s Massive Emigration Problem · Global Voices
Vasko Lazarevski

Citizens’ protest: “How many shoes remain unworn.” Photo by Vancho Dzhambaski (CC BC-NC-SA)
Hundreds of citizens of Macedonia placed the shoes of their loved ones who have emigrated in front of the government building in protest of authorities’ failure to improve the situation.
One of the biggest mysteries in contemporary Macedonia is simply how many people live in the country, and how many have left in search of a better life elsewhere. The law requires that the government conduct a population census every 10 years, but the last one took place in 2002, which set the number of inhabitants to just over 2 million. In 2011 the government stopped the census mid-way, without providing a reason why. When in August 2015, 46 organizations reminded the public about that issue, neither the government nor the ruling parties responded. Instead, pro-government media intensified their ongoing campaign of defamation and hate speech against civil society.
Information from the World Bank claims that over 600,000 citizens have left their homes in the past 10 years. For perspective, that’s approximately 25 percent of the population in Macedonia. Regardless of the preciseness of that figure, it is unarguably common for Macedonians to have a friend, a cousin, an ex-lover who is living abroad.
Macedonia is not a war-torn country, but times are tough for the Eastern European country. The unemployment rate is somewhere between 25 and 30 percent; youth unemployment approaches 50 percent. The average monthly salary is 350 euros (about 390 US dollars), but more than a half of those employed receive not more than 200 euros. Macedonia leads Europe in poverty and unemployment.
But the crippled economy is not the only reason people leave Macedonia. According to some reports, the environment has become so politicized and so dominated by the ruling political parties (VMRO-DPMNE and DUI) that political allegiances can influence a person's ability to get hired. One young man blogged his experience of, as he put it, having to join VMRO-DPMNE to get a job.
While the ruling coalition publicly ignores the “exodus” issue, parts of its propaganda machine have been also trying to rationalize it. For instance, one of the most prominent government apologists Tanja Karamisheva-Jovanovska (who is a state university law professor, legal expert on call for TV talk shows, radio host, columnist, and also an appointed state functionary and representative to a European Council's advisory committee)  wrote a column arguing that the reason for emigration is not the economy, but “spiritual emptiness, frustration over personal inadequacies, and the feeling of lack of love within their families.”
Many affected citizens saw this as an insult, commenting under the hashtag #Каракамишева (the columnist's surname). US-based United Macedonian Diaspora condemned her remarks as an “attempt to insult and humiliate the diaspora.”
Citizens leaving the shoes of their loved ones in front of the government in Skopje. Photo by Vancho Dzhambaski (CC BC-NC-SA )
Those were the reasons why on February 13, 2016, activists from many NGOs, under the banner ”We deserve better“ called upon citizens to bring the shoes left behind by their friends and family members who emigrated from Macedonia and line them up in front of the seat of government.
One of the organizers was the co-author of this article, Vasko Lazarevski. He added his personal account:
It was raining, and we thought that only a couple of dozens of people will show up, but, people kept coming and coming with shoes in their hand, placing them on the asphalt. Pretty soon the street was covered with shoes left behind by their owners. The scene was sad. We only have short time to make things better, to keep our youth here. To make everybody understand: We deserve better.
Organizers also uploaded footage of the protest, under the title “Fatherland, I love you like old shoes” (a quote by Cervantes):
The protest also had a humanitarian aspect. After drying and sorting, the gathered shoes will be donated to refugees who are passing through Macedonia on the way to the relative safety of Western Europe, with the help of NGO Legis.

author: Vasko Lazarevski


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‘An Unapologetic Independent Thinker’: A Conversation With St. Lucian Poet Vladimir Lucien · Global Voices
Emma Lewis

Poet Vladimir Lucien at the NGC Bocas Lit Fest 2015. Photo courtesy the NGC Bocas Lit Fest, used with permission.
Global Voices spoke to Vladimir Lucien, whose debut collection “Sounding Ground” (Peepal Tree Press) won the 2015 OCM Bocas Caribbean Prize for Literature. Lucien is the first non-Jamaican to take up the post of writer in residence at the University of the West Indies (UWI) campus in Mona. He will be reading at the Kingston Book Festival's “Love Affair with Literature” event on March 6 at the university's Faculty of Humanities, alongside esteemed Jamaican writer Olive Senior. He spoke to us about his inspiration and philosophy, as well as Caribbean culture and literature.
Vladimir Lucien; photo by Emma Lewis, used with permission.
Global Voices (GV): Tell us about your work in Jamaica. What is occupying your time, right now?
Vladimir Lucien (VL): As the 2016 Writer in Residence, I teach a weekly Creative Writing session at the Department of Literatures in English. I just arrived in Jamaica in mid-January, and this is my first visit here, so I am getting to know the place. I am participating in a number of events, including the Kingston Book Festival [March 5 – 12], which I am looking forward to. This month there is a lot happening on campus, including the Bob Marley Lecture [presented this year by Man Booker Prize winner Marlon James]. I will also be reading at the Calabash International Literary Festival [June 3 – 6] in St. Elizabeth. That will mark the end of my time here as Writer in Residence. Ending on a high note!
GV: Do you have time to write?
VL: Yes, I have time to write, and this is very valuable. In fact, as soon as I arrived here I started writing a novel. It is an enjoyable experiment. Basically though, I am a storyteller. And I feel — I am almost afraid — that if I don't continue to write, it is a gift that can be taken away at any moment. For a long time, I have wanted to write a narrative. I am very much drawn to magical realism, as a way to comprehend the world we're living in. Kamau Brathwaite discussed this in his book “MR” [2002], which inspired me. By the way, I am simultaneously writing a memoir and a book on aesthetics. Writing is a project for me.
GV: It sounds like you have a lot on your plate. Do you read a great deal, and what inspires you?
VL: I wanted to write prose because I have always been an avid reader of prose — Jamaican writers such as Roger Mais  and Marlon James, for example. I also enjoyed reading Diana McCaulay's “Huracan.” Two novels I especially treasure are Gabriel García Márquez’ “One Hundred Years of Solitude” and George Lamming's “In the Castle of My Skin.” After I read them I was actually upset at finishing them. I found myself actually missing the characters and wanting to know what they were doing! European philosophers like Nietzsche, Foucault, Henri Bergson; and an anthropologist named Talal Asad have all influenced my thinking.
GV: You are a poet; you are from St. Lucia. So, you are inevitably asked about the influence of Derek Walcott. What are your thoughts?
VL: In a recent blog post, I tried to answer this question — and I totally understand why people ask it. There is the great looming figure of Derek Walcott, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. When I first started writing poetry at the age of eighteen, I mimicked his work. But no — neither I nor other St. Lucian poets such as Kendel Hippolyte and Jane King have become carbon copies of him, nor am I now influenced by him. We respect Walcott as our heritage. We must recognize the largeness of our past, but I see myself as wanting to break it down, an iconoclast. There is an intimate circle of literati in St. Lucia; we are all different from each other, and we are all different from Walcott. He is industrious; as I wrote in my blog, he got his work done. He also made me recognize the importance of metaphor and image; and there is of course rhythm and visual imagination in his work too, that imbues St. Lucian poetry. Another St. Lucian writer, John Robert Lee, dedicated a poem to Walcott (“Lusca”).
Vladimir Lucien at his residence on the UWI Mona campus. Photo courtesy Emma Lewis, used with permission.
GV: You are an active blogger. What is your feeling about the impact of social media and blogging on your writing?
VL: I find blogging specifically to be a platform where I can write with a certain degree of abandon. Academic writing — which I am currently engaged in, alongside the novel — and even interacting with people and issues via Facebook and Twitter do not allow this freedom. With blogging there is no issue of ‘trending’ or ‘likes’ and all of that which can become a sort of measure of value. When I blog I really start with the assumption that I have no audience, but then there is a certain compulsion towards blogging on a current issue, as if I am producing my own little essays. So I use that compulsion to blog (to be part of all the online activity) while retaining the sense of privacy that the essay has, the sense of independence of vision. The other thing that it gives you is it influences the way you write, makes you write as if for an audience. So you are writing charmingly, you are writing to make your point but also to entertain. It makes a pretty interesting product at the end.
GV: Where is “home” to you? Do you regard yourself as a St. Lucian writer or a Caribbean writer, primarily?
VL: St. Lucia is home. And so is Trinidad, where my wife comes from. So I move quite a bit between the two. But you know, there is a particular place in St. Lucia I have in mind, a town called Monchy, and it is where my mother's family comes from. I went to school there. It is a special place — my reality. Overall though, I do see myself as a Caribbean writer. I write for all the Caribbean.
GV: What do you think about the current state of Caribbean literature?
VL: Caribbean literature nowadays is very much a mixed bag. I am concerned that Caribbean writing is being seen as a category, or a ‘brand’ — a form of cultural social capital in the world. It is a brand that makes a writer unique. I think it is several Caribbeans that we are seeing.
GV: Are religion and spirituality important to you and to your work?
VL: Well, I was brought up as a Catholic, most St. Lucians are Catholic. Now, our five-year-old son is the only Christian in the house! But I am beginning to understand that there are ‘several paths to market’. I have also realized that there is a kind of neutral, amoral force that we are not in control of. It is hurricane-like — we cannot ensnare it. In my writing, I am always [trying] to work out a way to not be completely ‘in charge’. I want to move people spiritually with my writing — to create an experience that is hard to articulate — just as Machel Montano does. He knows how to move a crowd. So I would say spirituality is important to me. I would also say I am an independent thinker, and I am unapologetic about that.

author: Emma Lewis


text:
Bahrain’s Government Continues to Strangle Dissent Five Years After Uprising Began · Global Voices
Batool Al Musawi

Around 300,000 Bahrainis marched to demand democracy and freedom in a protest that coincided with the anniversary of the outbreak of the revolution in the country on February 14. 2011. Photo by Sayed Baqer Alkamel. Copyright Demotix
Five years after the eruption of what came to be known as the “Arab Spring” protests that spilled over from Tunisia, Bahrain's regime continues to lock up opposition leaders, sending a message of its refusal to reform or change.
What is worst, though, is the continuing deterioration of the human rights situation in the country.
While one cannot understimate social changes brought about by the Uprising,#Bahrain is now less democratic than it was 5 yrs ago #Valentines
— Marc Owen Jones (@marcowenjones) February 14, 2016
The small island country of 1.3 million people has been witnessing a brutal crackdown following a popular uprising, which began on 14 February 2011. Activists have been tortured, killed or imprisoned.
Amnesty International, a leading human rights watchdog, released several reports ahead of the 14 February anniversary bringing attention to the dangerous reality in Bahrain for dissidents. James Lynch, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme, said:
“Today in Bahrain, anyone who dares to criticize the authorities – whether a human rights defender or political activist – risks punishment […] Despite pledges from the authorities to prosecute security forces responsible for human rights violations in 2011, the Bahraini people are still waiting for justice. Institutions set up to protect human rights have not only failed to independently investigate or hold perpetrators to account, but now increasingly appear to be used to whitewash continuing abuses.”
Five years on, demonstrations continue, but are smaller and quieter. Today, protesting, or rather “gathering”, is criminalized by law and villages are under day-and-night security watch.
اللي يقول الثورة البحرينية انتهت!
انزين ليش كل هالقبضة الامنية داخل البلدات😷 #فبراير_الثورة #الثورة_مستمرة #Bahrain pic.twitter.com/JVT1P08lK6
— ً❉حـنـــين❉ (@mariam82ali) February 14, 2016
Those who say the Bahraini revolution has ended, why all this security presence in the neighborhoods?
Despite the suffocating security presence around the country, people still organize rallies inside villages, as opposition party Alwefaq tweeted:
Peaceful prodemocracy rallies continue to call for justice , equal citizenship and democracy tonight in #Bahrain pic.twitter.com/GbVgoaG1qF
— AlwefaqEN (@AlWefaqEN) February 13, 2016
Recent analysis from Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, and the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy found that the country's authorities have made over 400 arrests in the last four months, with 76 percent of those being unlawful or arbitrary according to international standards.
Alongside this, Kate Kizer and Michael Payne of Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain mentioned in a column they wrote for news site Middle East Eye that at least 208 Bahraini nationals were stripped of their citizenship in 2015 alone. They also argued the world's lack of action is partly to blame for the widening human rights abuses in Bahrain:
On this fifth anniversary of Bahrain’s pro-democracy movement, it is clear that the authorities have continued to compound, rather than address, the grievances raised in 2011. They have been enabled to do so as a result of the silence of the international community, particularly the US and the UK
The US and UK have been in the spotlight for arming their small but strategic Middle Eastern ally. Paul Gallagher of the UK newspaper The Independent revealed:
Between February 2011 and September 2015, the UK has done deals with Bahrain worth £45m, covering arms such as machine guns, assault rifles and anti-armour ammunition, according to the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) organisation. The total for the three years prior to the uprising was £6m.
It is worth mentioning that Bahrain is home to the US fifth fleet, and recently, a new British military base that is primarily funded by Bahrain.

author: Batool Al Musawi