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Marmara Sea covered by “sea snot”, with possible dangers to environment · Global Voices
Doga Celik

Boats blocked by slimy sea snot. Screenshot from a video from Al Jazeera's Youtube channel, named “Turkey's ‘Sea snot': Dense algae choking wildlife.”
The Marmara Sea is a pristine body of water, extending from the Dardanelles Strait to the Bosphorus. Since late May, the Marmara sea has been making international headlines for an unfortunate reason.
A slimy, organic foam named “sea snot”, officially known as “marine mucilage” has surfaced in Marmara. It is mostly composed of phytoplankton, microscopic algae. While phytoplankton alone isn’t harmful to the environment, when mixed with rising water temperatures, wastewater, pesticides, and global warming, it flourishes and can reproduce at a harmfully rapid rate, affecting biodiversity, blocking sunlight from entering the water and reducing oxygen levels in the sea.
According to the Anadolu Agency, it is not the first time this phenomenon has occurred. It was first seen in 1997, around Dardanelles and Marmara, and afterward in 2007. But this year's outbreak is by far the worst in recent history. It was first observed in January 2021, but over time its density increased, and by June, the sea coasts were completely covered by it. It has penetrated 80–100 meters below the sea surface and may continue sinking to the sea bed.
In an interview with The Scientist, Alice Allredge, oceanographer and professor emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara, defines “sea snot”:
Sea snot is a colloquial term for the mucus that is exuded by a lot of different phytoplankton species. It also can include the mucous material that is secreted by bacteria, and it could even include cells that have broken open from, say, a virus attack or something, and released their protoplasm. So you get this gooey mess. It’s mostly polysaccharide material — excreted material from phytoplankton — but it does have these other possible elements.
Allredge said her main worry is if the algae continues sinking, it may harm marine biodiversity and impact the ecosystem. It could potentially kill corals, fish and crustaceans because they won’t have enough oxygen due to the mucilage. Much of marine life's survival depends on a sufficient levels of dissolved oxygen — oxygen molecules dissolved in water. At the current pace, as the algae dies and decomposes, it consumes most of the dissolved oxygen otherwise available for fish and other aquatic life.
Professor Bayram Öztürk of the Turkish Marine Research shared similar concerns and expressed them in an interview with the BBC:
Due to the overgrowth of the mucilage, several species are under threat, [including] oysters, mussels, sea stars… It’s a real catastrophe.
Experts blame the sea snot on a “combination of pollution and global warming, which speeds up the growth of algae responsible for the slimy sludge”. In an interview with Reuters, Hydrobiologist Levent Artuz urged people to change their behavior to prevent environmental disasters like this one. “As long as we carry on with those practices, it does not make much sense to expect different results. We will continue to encounter disasters like this,” said Artuz, citing the increased rate of sewage discharge into coastal waters in recent years.
Fishing is one of the biggest income providers in Marmara. The fish population includes migratory fish such as bluefish, gar-fish and horse mackerel, which come from the Mediterranean and pass through Marmara to reach the Black Sea. Mackerel, swordfish and comber also reside in Marmara and provide income for many fishers. Because of the mucilage, some fish have been dying at unnatural rates.
Others fear the snot will affect tourism, an industry already struggling due to COVID-19 restrictions.
The government has promised to act fast. On World Environment Day, June 5, President Erdogan attended a meeting at a national park opening in Istanbul where he announced the government would get rid of the mucilage as soon as possible. He also mentioned the sea snot bloom was triggered by people and companies dumping waste into the Marmara. The government has dispatched a 300-personnel team to inspect areas affected by the sea snot.
“If Allah wills, we will save our sea from this darned mucilage. I fear that it may spread to the Black Sea. We should do this [clean it] as soon as possible… This mucilage problem can be managed with the collective efforts of our organizations.”
Additionally, a 19-member committee was created to inspect and investigate the mucilage and its causes for three months. Environment Minister Murat Kurum tweeted on June 15 that in 7 days, they have cleaned 2,684 cubic meters of mucilage from the affected areas. In one of his latest tweets, he gave further information about their cleanup plan.
3⃣ Marmara Denizi'mizde müsilaj temizleme çalışmalarımızla birlikte denetimlerimizi de yoğun olarak sürdürüyoruz. ?
15 Haziran itibarıyla toplam 3.219 denetim gerçekleştirerek yasal yükümlülüğünü yerine getirmeyen işletmelere 10 milyon 495 bin TL idari para cezası uyguladık.
— Murat KURUM (@murat_kurum) June 16, 2021
“We are continuing our efforts to clean mucilage intensively, conducting investigations. Since June 15, we have finished 3.219 investigations and for organizations which do not follow their legal obligations, we have imposed a fine of 10 million 495 thousand TL.”
Environment and Urbanization Minister Murat Kurum said in a June 16 statement, that a total of 3,288.2 cubic meters of mucilage was transported to the landfill facilities near the Sea of Marmara. As of June 20, a total of 5,000 cubic meters of mucilage was collected with operations conducted at 293 locations.
In a statement on June 22, Kurum said, the cleaning teams will be using oxygenation technology delivering oxygen to a depth of 30 meters from 4 points in the Gulf of Kocaeli and a location off the coast of Istanbul’s Pendik district. This is a pilot attempt, and if successful, the ministry will authorize the same technology at other locations affected by the sludge. Until now, cleaning teams were using sea surface-cleaning and barrier-laying boats, while 18 other vessels, were working to prevent the spread of the mucilage. In the meantime, authorities have suspended the activities of 14 industrial facilities that had been polluting the Marmara and vowed to introduce new protections for the Marmara sea by the end of 2021.
But despite the ongoing cleaning attempts, the problem persists. On June 16, a group of divers, investigated the extent of the damage by diving 30 meters below sea level near an island off the coast of Istanbul. According to Hurriyet news, the divers discovered that the damage has worsened in the past week, with the sea snot, making underwater vision impossible as the web-like mucilage continues to cover the sea bed and harm the marine life.

author: Doga Celik


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Pashinyan claims landslide victory in a snap parliamentary vote in Armenia · Global Voices
Arzu Geybullayeva

Nikol Pashinyan casting his vote on Sunday snap parliamentary election. Screen shot taken from DW report on the vote, available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQyCGcaV9MY
Preliminary results for Armenia's June 20th snap parliamentary election suggest that the Civil Contract party won with 58 percent of the vote — a victory for current Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, whose position in the government to be determined during the first session of the parliament. As is customary, Pashinyan resigned from his seat ahead of the June 20 election but has since declared victory for his party, urging his supporters to gather in the main square of the capital Yerevan on Monday evening. Around 50 percent of Armenia's 2.6 million eligible voters cast their ballots in the Sunday election.
The election was not entirely without incident. On Sunday night, Armenia's general prosecutor office reported a total of 319 violations observed and documented during the voting day and said it has opened six criminal investigations, as reported by the BBC.
The Central Election Commission said elections were largely in line with national legal norms. According to RIA news, nationwide turnout stood at 49.4 percent when polls closed at 16:00 GMT.
The era of rigged elections in Armenia is over, Pashinyan said, thanking the police, the national security service for ensuring this. “The government in Armenia, moving forward, will be formed through the will of the people.”#ArmVote21
— EVN Report (@evn_report) June 20, 2021
Though Pashinyan was heavily criticized for the 2020 war with Azerbaijan, his landslide victory is a testament to his overall popularity.
Pashinyan remained true to his commitment that in #Armenia governments can be formed only via people’s vote. Despite enormous pressures after war, virtually all ‘elites’ demanding his resignation, incl church, threat of military coup, he withstood them & made #ArmVote21 possible.
— Mika (@unzippedblog) June 19, 2021
Pashinyan rose to power after leading a revolution in 2018, promising economic reforms and ousting the previously dominating oligarchs and monopolies. However, his popularity suffered in November 2020 when the country lost the Nagorno-Karabakh war with its neighboring Azerbaijan. The war ended with a Moscow-brokered cease-fire which restored Baku's sovereignty over a swath of Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts and was largely seen as a failure for Pashinyan.
In the following months, as recriminations grew over the PM's handling of the war, he stepped down, as required by law, to allow an election to take place while remaining the country's leader. Polls ahead of the Sunday vote predicted Pashinyan's victory despite his tarnished popularity. As Pashinyan addressed his supporters rallying in Yerevan at the city's central Republic Square on June 17, the former PM said, “The people of Armenia will certainly and undoubtedly win with a crushing percentage [of votes,]. And yes, everything is decided because the people of Armenia have already decided everything in their minds, hearts, and souls.”
His main rival was former president Robert Kocharyan, whose Armenia Alliance came second, securing a little over 20 percent of the vote:
Results from all polling stations in Armenia are in:
Civil Contract – 53.92%
Armenia Alliance – 21.04%
I Have Honour coalition – 5.23%#ArmVote21
— OC Media (@OCMediaorg) June 21, 2021
Robert Kocharyan's defeat was attributed to his murky past. “Accused of presiding over a heavy crackdown on protests after a disputed election in 2008, when at least 10 people were killed, and has also faced investigation over bribery allegations,” Kocharyan was viewed as an embodiment of the past, and a government that was ousted in 2018 revolution.
The third coalition was headed by Armenia's former President, Serj Sargisian. A total of 21 parties and four alliances took part in the election (the original list included 22 parties, but one party withdrew before the vote). There were a total of 2,623 candidates, including 965 women (37 percent).
The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights interim report, published on June 8, 2021, detailed how Armenia's electoral system works.
Voters will elect a minimum of 101 members of parliament for a five-year term, under a newly adopted closed-list proportional system in one nationwide constituency. The system incorporates a representation threshold and compensatory mandates aimed at guaranteeing a stable majority while ensuring an opposition representation of at least one-third of all seats. The change, adopted in April 2021, from the previous two-tier proportional system, in which candidates were elected from a single national list and 13 open territorial lists, had been advocated for by many political parties and civil society organizations.
The organization released its final report on Monday, June 21 that indicated an overall positive and peaceful election despite minor incidents “of party or alliance proxies interfering in the process, frequent overcrowding, general disregard for COVID-19 protection measures, tension or unrest,  isolated indications of vote buying and pressure on voters.”
Similarly, the report concluded that the vote count was assessed positively in most polling stations with”very few significant procedural errors or serious violations” even though the IEOM observers noted: “In a number of TECs, poor organization, insufficient space and overcrowding negatively affected the process and transparency.”
According to the most recent projections, “Pashinyan’s Party will maintain its two-thirds majority in the Armenian parliament with 71 out of 105 seats. The Armenia Alliance will receive 27 seats, and the I Have Honour coalition — despite not passing the 7% threshold for electoral coalitions —  will receive 7 seats, as a minimum of three parties or blocs must enter parliament.”

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Arzu Geybullayeva


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Pro-democracy Hongkongers vow to resist on the anniversary of anti-China extradition protests · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Cropped from Apple Daily's front page advertisement on June 12 2021.
June 12, 2021, marked the second anniversary of Hong Kong's anti-China extradition protests. Overseas Hongkongers rallied in 52 cities around the world to advocate for the city's liberation while those who choose to remain in Hong Kong vow that they will continue to resist.
After one million people rallied on June 9, 2019, Hong Kong police fired tear gas at peaceful protesters who were gathering outside the Legislative Council on June 12. The crackdown turned the single-issue protest against the amendment of extradition law into a city-wide movement demanding a democratic and accountable government. The proposed bill would authorize Hong Kong to extradite crime suspects to mainland China for trial.
Over the last year, Hong Kong authorities have used pandemic control measures as an excuse to ban public gatherings. Additionally, many civil society leaders were either already in jail or arrested for their involvement in the 2019 protests or primary elections in a pan-democracy camp in 2020. Because of this, there have not been any large gatherings within Hong Kong to commemorate the people's movement.
On the contrary, overseas Hongkongers have organized rallies and gatherings in 52 cities around the world to speak out against Beijing’s political suppression in Hong Kong:
There are marches & rallies on the 2nd anniversary of #June12thProtest in many major cities all around the world except in #Hongkong herself. These are from Shinjuku Japan today: pic.twitter.com/OAy6CfTktZ
— Studio Incendo (@studioincendo) June 12, 2021
The politicization of Hong Kong's diaspora communities
This continuous crackdown on dissent and suppression of freedom in the city has triggered a mass emigration wave as some Hongkongers seek out other communities to call home. Besides political exiles, the majority of those who choose to leave are middle-class families who want their children to grow up in democracies where there is freedom of expression.
In the third quarter of 2020, the Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Authority had received 8,100 applications for early withdrawal of retirement funds from citizens claiming they were “leaving the city permanently”.
Because of the erosion of freedom in Hong Kong, on January 31, 2021, the United Kingdom introduced a British National (Overseas) visa program that allows Hong Kong citizens to migrate to the U.K. Within three months, the U.K government has received more than 34,000 individual applications under the program.
The BNO visa program can cover up to 5.4 million Hongkongers out of the 7.5 million total population including the dependents of the eligible individuals — those who were permanent residents in Hong Kong before July 1, 1997, when Hong Kong was handed over to China.
The Canadian government has also introduced a special student visa program and a three-year work permit visa for Hongkongers who want to settle in the country after the enactment of NSL.
The Majority of overseas Hongkongers used to be political moderates or conservatives. However, political scientists, such as Simon Shen, anticipate that the current mass exodus triggered by Beijing’s imposition of the national security law in Hong Kong will politicize overseas Hongkonger communities who may then advocate for the city's freedom.
Thousands rallied in London marks the 2nd anniversary of #HongKongProtests
When a family which has just moved from HK to the UK saw “Liberate Hong Kong” flags flying in the air, the tears welled up in their eyes.
“So sad that we can only see these in another country.” pic.twitter.com/2xLJSqL1tg
— Chloe Leung (@chloeleungys) June 12, 2021
#Those-who-stay
At the same time, despite the harsh political climate, a large population of pro-democracy Hongkongers are choosing to stay in the city.
On June 12, Hong Kong Apple Daily News published a frontpage advertisement inviting pro-democracy Hongkongers who have decided to stay in the city to talk about their plans on social media with a hashtag #Those-who-stay (#留下來的人).
The advertisement is a huge cartoon in which a person in black is holding a yellow umbrella in a ruined city. Both the black outfits and yellow umbrellas are symbols of the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement. The headline, “I will stay behind in Hong Kong and continue to ….”, invites readers to fill in the blank.
Many who have been politically harassed or prosecuted still choose to stay. Raymond Yeung, an elementary school teacher who was blinded by an alleged police projectile during the 2019 protests is among one of those who refused to leave. Despite being harassed by pro-Beijing partisans and losing his teaching position, he posted the political cartoon on his Facebook page and wrote:
政治與司法制度崩壞，我們更要堅守信念，在生活各處行公義、揚善抑惡，做好自己、做一個良好的香港人。
As the political and justice system has fallen apart, we have to stick to our beliefs. Do the right thing, uphold justice, stand by the good. Be genuine to yourself and be an upright Hongkonger.
Human rights lawyer and activist Chow Hang Tung, who was arrested for revealing her plan to commemorate Tiananmen on June 4 in Victor Park said:
「我會留喺香港，繼續做自己」#留下來的人
最近有好些人說我勇敢什麼的，我總是有點愧不敢當。因為我只是在做自己一直會做的事，說真心想說的話。
只是真誠地做自己，竟也變成值得稱頌的事，這多麼可悲。在這個不正常的時代，或許繼續做自己，不讓自己被環境扭曲，就是每個人都可以做的最重要的小事吧 pic.twitter.com/jXfdPkpuYH
— Hang Tung Chow 鄒幸彤 (@zouxingtong) June 12, 2021
I will stay in Hong Kong and continue to be myself. #Those-who-stay Recently many people commented that I was courageous to do things that I did. I don’t think so. I am just doing what I have been doing. I just want to be myself and speak out what I want to say. To be true to oneself is now worth praising. This is so pathetic. In this abnormal time, to be genuine to oneself and keep oneself from being distorted by the environment is probably the most important practice that everyone of us can do.
Chow has also been charged with inciting and participating in the June 4 vigil in 2020 with two dozen other activists. The court's hearing has been scheduled for November 1, 2021.
Activists who are currently in jail have told their friends to deliver their messages through Facebook
Figo Chan, convenor of the Civil Human Rights Front who is currently serving an 18-month jail term for organising an unauthorised assembly in 2019 said that he will stay and continue to resist.
Lester Shum, a student leader in the 2014 pro-democracy protests who is currently serving a six-month jail term for participating in an unlawful assembly in 2020 and awaiting a subversion trial for participating in the democratic primaries in 2020, said he will stay and always be an upright person.
Avery Ng, the chairman of the League of Social Democrats, who is serving a 14-month jail term over his participation in an unauthorised assembly in 2019, vowed that he will continue fighting against dictatorship.

author: Oiwan Lam


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Security police interventions force closure of Apple Daily, Hong Kong’s 26-year-old pro-democracy news outlet · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Apple Daily’s inaugural editorial. Photo from Allan Au Ka-lun. Used with permission
The 26-year-old pro-democracy news outlet Apple Daily announced it will cease publication of both its print and digital editions this week. The print team will shutter its operations on June 23 and publish its last edition on June 24, while the digital team will cease operation by Saturday, June 26. The decision to shutter the print edition follows the arrest of its editorial opinion writer, Yang Qing Qi, by Hong Kong security police on June 23.
Earlier this week, board members from Next Digital, the news outlet’s parent company, stated that Apple Daily would be forced to shut down by June 25 unless the government agreed to unfreeze its assets to allow them to pay staff salaries and other operational costs.
Apple Daily to shut in days unless government agrees to last-ditch plea to unfreeze assets
Read: https://t.co/B0UEXiDNYB#AppleDailyENG
— Apple Daily HK 蘋果日報 (@appledaily_hk) June 21, 2021
The board meeting was called following the arrest of five Apple Daily executive staff members on June 18. Next Digital’s CEO Cheung Kim-hung and Apple Daily Chief Editor Ryan Law were charged with conspiracy to collude with foreign forces in violation of the national security law.
The Security Bureau also froze 18 million HK dollars of the three companies’ assets — Apple Daily Limited, Apple Daily Printing Limited and AD Internet Limited — on the grounds that they were subject to a national security investigation.
Apple Daily's request that their assets be un-frozen was ignored. The city’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam defended the police's action and stated that freezing assets is an internationally accepted practice designed to prevent people from endangering national security:
HKFP_Live: Chief Exec. Carrie Lam refused to comment on the possible closure of Apple Daily. Referring to the security law, she said: “We will implement this law. This law will not exist in name only. The police would have collected sufficient evidence before taking action.” pic.twitter.com/AmUs7Ogs2T
— Hong Kong Free Press HKFP (@hkfp) June 22, 2021
In the past few days, many staffers have resigned and a number of production teams, including those from the Video News, English News, Finance News and Twitter have ceased operation.
Editorial opinion writer Yang Qing Qi, whose arrest on June 23 was one of the catalysts for the shuttering of the outlet's print edition, wrote in his last editorial that intellectuals and media workers should not abandon their integrity at critical moments.
The security police warned that they would carry on their investigation and might arrest other staff members.
Apple Daily was founded on June 20, 1995, by garment businessman Jimmy Lai, who had become a political activist after the Chinese government crackdown on the pro-democracy student movement in Beijing in 1989. It was the first paper to practice tabloid journalism in Hong Kong, and quickly became the most popular and influential newspaper in the city.
The Hong Kong “Apple Daily” was launched on June 20, 1995. The name was conceived by Jimmy Lai. He appeared in the first advertisement. After taking a bite of an apple, he said, “An apple a day, no one deceives me.” “Apple Daily” is scheduled to stay by this Friday at the latest pic.twitter.com/BG50bI4yjW
— Motherfucker sagittarius (@head_leopard) June 22, 2021
Its inaugural editorial, titled “Apple Daily: we belong to Hong Kong”, stated:
We want to be a newspaper for Hongkongers. […] Are we not afraid of the changes 1997 could bring about? We are, but we are not willing to be daunted by fear. We are not willing to be beclouded by pessimism. Positively and optimistically, we will face the future, for we are Hongkongers!
Despite its tabloid-style approach, in its 26 years of operation, the paper continually lived up to its promise of being critical of the government authorities.
After the mass rally against the national security legislation in 2003, many major property developers in Hong Kong stopped advertising in the newspaper due to pressure from Beijing. In 2013, three major banks in Hong Kong also pulled their advertising, reportedly because of political pressure from Beijing.
However, the media corporation withstood the political pressure, thanks to the support of subscriptions from half a million pro-democracy Hongkongers.
Beijing’s pressure on the city’s media sector began escalating following the anti-China extradition protests in 2019. Apple Daily soon became the only print newspaper to uphold a critical stance.
As journalist Yuen Chan highlighted on Twitter, on July 1, 2020, the date the Beijing-imposed national security law was enacted in Hong Kong, all other newspapers ran a political advertisement welcoming the legislation on their front pages. But Apple Daily's front-page headline was “The enactment of draconian law signifies the end of Two Systems.”
In one picture: why the crushing of @appledaily_hk in this way is a devastating blow.
Hong Kong front pages on 1 July 2020, after the implementation of the National Security Law. pic.twitter.com/ZlGecK6jif
— Yuen Chan (@xinwenxiaojie) June 21, 2021
Beijing became determined to shut down the independent news outlet after the 2019 anti-China extradition protests. Activist tycoon Jimmy Lai was the primary target. With the national security enacted on July 1, Jimmy Lai was arrested on August 10 for alleged collusion with foreign forces, and the headquarters of Apple Daily were raided for the first time.
Lai was released on bail but was arrested again on alleged fraud on December 3. A week later, on December 11, he was charged with conspiring and colluding with foreign forces to endanger national security. He was granted bail for a week around Christmas but was denied by the Court of Final Appeal.
On April 16, Lai was sentenced to 14 months in prison for participating in an authorized assembly in August 2019, while awaiting the court hearing on foreign collusion charges, the maximum penalty for which would be life imprisonment.
Yet, Apple Daily continued to operate without Lai. On May 14, the police froze Lai’s assets, including his shares in Next Digital and all local bank accounts. On May 28, he was handed an additional 14 months in prison for taking part in another unauthorized assembly in October 2019.
Then, two weeks ahead of both the 24th anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong to China and the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party on July 1, Hong Kong security police targeted the five executive staff of the news outlet. As Hong Kong lawyer Senia Ng posted at the time on Twitter:
Reports say that 5 directors of @appledaily_hk are now being arrested by the #HK police under the National Security Law #NSL. The authorities are wiping out all dissenting voices in #HK, essentially so before July 1st, the 100th anniv of #CCP. Blatant political persecution!!!!
— Senia Ng (@NgSenia) June 16, 2021


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Where are the voices of Central Asian and Russian Uyghurs? · Global Voices
Elmira Lyapina

Tatar activist, member of the Union of Tatar Youth ‘Azatlyq’ holding a poster reading ‘We demand to stop the genocide of the Uyghur people in the People's Republic of China’ in Russian, and calling for support of Chinese Uyghurs in Tatar (“Uyghurs! Our hearts are with you”), June 21, 2021. Image from Facebook, used with permission.
Despite large Uyghur populations in Central Asia and Russia, these communities remain relatively passive in condemning human rights violations against Uyghurs in China, compared to their counterparts in Western countries. Are they actually “passive,” as some commentators suggest, or simply less visible? Is it a cultural-social issue, as human rights activism in Russia and Central Asia is still in transition, unlike in Western democracies? Is it a political issue, where outspoken activism is being silenced by states to please a lucrative economic partner? Or is it because of a lack of awareness of the issue, given its scant coverage in local languages?
Like many other ethnic minorities in China, Uyghurs, a Turkic Muslim ethnic community of 12 million people, have since the early 1990s been steadily losing their legal and political status and culture. Since the start of 2021, the world has witnessed documented cases of unprecedented human rights violations and dehumanization of this minority. Despite condemnation from academics and human rights defenders and sanctions applied to China by Western states, including the European Union, United Kingdom, Canada, and the U.S., the situation has not improved but is, in fact, deteriorating.
China has responded with reciprocal sanctions, and not many countries can afford to confront such an economic giant. For instance, some Muslim Arab countries, which could have been expected to support Uyghurs as their Muslim “brothers” are, on the contrary, among those who have supported the Chinese state on Xinjiang-related issues and have even deported Uyghurs.
The other “brothers” from whom support for Uyghurs could be expected are fellow Turkic states such as Turkey, Azerbaijan, and countries in Central Asia.
Outside of China, the highest concentration of Uyghurs is in Greater Central Asia, where, according to official statistics, their population is about half a million: there are reportedly 300,000 Uyghurs in Kazakhstan, 50,000 in Kyrgyzstan, 20,000 in Uzbekistan, and around 10,000 in Turkey. In Western countries, the Uyghur communities are much smaller: for example, in Germany, there are fewer than 1,000 Uyghurs, and about 15,000 live in the United States.
The smaller populations of Uyghurs in Western countries are more active, however. Non-governmental organizations such as the World Uyghur Congress, in Germany and the Uyghur Tribunal in the U.K. are prominent in the international arena.
Sofiya, a representative of the World Uyghur Congress, told me:
Mostly, we receive support from our own community, Uyghurs around the world. Turkish community has been also showing us a great amount of [moral] support for a long period of time.
Since information from official sources fails to provide the full picture, I posted questions on social media pages, in different Turkic-related groups and communities, regarding Turkic support for Uyghurs.
Uyghur NGOs in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia also recognize the support of the Turkish people. However, a Turkish commenter on a Facebook page noted that although Turkey provides greater moral support to Uyghurs than other countries, it is less than what it provides to the Palestinian state, referring to the house arrest of a Uyghur human rights activist during the visit of Chinese officials, which was justified by Turkish officials as an anti-COVID-19 measure.
Kazakhstan’s Uyghur diaspora is by far the largest, with more than 100,000 Uyghurs in the city of Almaty alone. Several cultural organizations operate in Kazakhstan, including an informal association behind the Facebook group “Uyghurs of the World.” It is also involved in socio-political activity and organizes educational meetings to study the history and realities of Chinese Uyghurs. One of the Kazakhstan-based activists, interviewed by me, describes their activity on the ground:
The Uyghurs here in Kazakhstan are trying to bypass the “Uyghur issue.” … Conferences or gatherings are not prohibited in Kazakhstan, but there are no official rallies or pickets; they are not supported at the official level. On the contrary, when something of this kind is planned, there is always communication with the state security. Therefore, it happens so that a picket is planned, but the Uyghurs are not there. <….>Uyghurs in Central Asia rely more on Uyghurs in Europe or the United States … where the Uyghur issue is openly discussed.
In Russia and Central Asian states, though, the discussions are not as open, and authorities sometimes even support China's policy, akin to their Arab counterparts.
In their responses to my post on social media, some users referred to a lack of information in official mass media, while others, such as a user in the group We are Turkic/BİZ TÜRKLER, were supportive of integration:
They, Uyghurs, shall integrate to the vertical and horizontal structures of their state – China, and stop being a source of Islamic extremism there. If not, then they should either leave their homeland, or be violently assimilated. Integration is better than assimilation…<…>
In the group Turkic beauty/Tilde, Fikirde, İşte Birlik!, one post called for a discussion among participants of different ethnic backgrounds. Several stressed the inactivity of Uyghurs themselves in the Central Asia region:
In Almaty Kazakhs are three months in a row picketing the General Consulate of PRC against tortures and camps in East Turkistan, however not even a single Uyghur has joined.
Another user agreed:
Uyghurs in Central Asia are very passive, for what concerns the Uyghurs historical homeland. They, it could be said, are indifferent to the problems of the genocide in XUAR.
Uyghur activists in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan responded similarly, mentioning the strategic partnership of these countries with China, Chinese lobbying, and the Uyghur position as a national minority or even a diaspora in the region.
In an interview I conducted with Farkhat Ibragimov, of the World Uyghur Congress in Kyrgyzstan, explained some of the difficulties in these countries:
There are, of course, also differences: when rallies or pickets are organized by ethnic Kazakhs in Kazakhstan or Kyrgyz in Kyrgyzstan, and when they are organized by national minorities, especially in support of the Chinese Uyghurs. A summons for interrogation, a fine, and even detention can arrive here. In addition, many of Uyghurs themselves are afraid both for their own lives and families and for their relatives in China.<…>
Ibragimov adds that most Uyghurs lost connection with their relatives in Xinjiang in 2016 when it was dangerous to even make a call there.
Rafkat Sadykov, of the Russian interregional association the National Cultural Association of Uyghurs in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, confirmed this view and mentioned the relatively small number of Uyghurs in Russia: 4,000 in the whole country, about 400 in the Moscow region and only 182 in all of Moscow city.
Sadykov said that in Russia, Uyghurs and their supporters are free to organize cultural and educational events, and can even organize and participate in single-person pickets in front of the Chinese embassy; however, larger events are not welcome.
…there is no oppression based on nationality in Russia. We live freely and organize events. There is rather a tacit ban on a political stance towards China. Russia does not welcome support for China's declared “separatism.” For Russia, China is a strategic partner. We understand [the] Russian position in relation to China. After all, a conflict with such an international partner can hurt the country's economy, and it will affect everyone …
When asked about the relative inactivity of Uyghur communities in the region, Sadykov said:
[The] Uyghur’ issue for us is not the past or something distant. We are all worried not only for our relatives, but also for our compatriots; this is a sore point for us. And we are not silent, albeit through culture, or single pickets, we try to convey information to people, we talk about it wherever possible. True, our voices are not as audible as the voices of the Uyghurs in Germany, for example.
Reflecting on the limitations of organizing social and political events on Uyghur issues, the Kazakhstani activist points to the bigger picture:
The human rights activism is not important just for Uyghurs, but rather for others, in order to learn and avoid such a destiny.
Considering the above, the inaudibility of Central Asian and Russian voices does not always mean silence or passivity, but rather a lack of wider coverage and, in turn, the lack of awareness.

author: Elmira Lyapina


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In Turkey, Pride Picnic draws police violence · Global Voices
Arzu Geybullayeva

Screenshot taken from the video about a Pride march held in the Turkish city of Izmir in 2014. The video is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXSOMgTR7Qk
Turkish police, violently dispersed a group of people, celebrating Pride week at Maçka Park, one of the city's remaining green spaces in the district of Şişli on June 22. Police intervention began reportedly after the Şişli Governor's Office issued a statement, banning the picnic because it could result in “public disorder.”
The Istanbul Pride Week Committee tweeted that as a result, one person was detained and several were battered during the police intervention.
Police attacked the vegan picnic we held in Maçka today. One of our friends was arrested, many of our friends were beaten. We will not be silenced, we are not afraid, we won't obey!
— İstanbul LGBTİ+ Onur Haftası (@istanbulpride) June 22, 2021
Award-winning Turkish-British novelist Elif Şafak also shared the images in the following tweet:
Birlikte bir ekmeği bölüşmek, bir şarkı mırıldanmak, bir tutam dostluk dayanışma, yalnız olmadığını bilmek şu dünyada….ama güzel olan herşeye düşman bu sistem. Kadın katillerine iyi davranan polis, barışçıl piknik yapan masum gençlerden ne istediniz? #PiknikYasaklanamaz #LGBT pic.twitter.com/9QAldkBsPJ
— Elif Shafak (@Elif_Safak) June 22, 2021
Sharing a piece of bread together, humming a song, a pinch of friendship and solidarity, knowing that you are not alone in this world… but this system is hostile to everything beautiful. Police, who treats nicely the murderers of women nicely, what did you want from the innocent young people having a peaceful picnic?
According to reporting by Gazete Duvar, an online news platform, the picnic was originally planned at Istanbul's Heybeliada (one of the Princes’ Islands off the coast of Istanbul) but was then banned by the police directorate of the Princes’ Islands.
Police intervention was criticized under the hashtag #PiknikYasaklanamaz [A picnic cannot be banned].
Journalists, activists, and other members of the public flooded Twitter with images and videos of the police intervention. One detailed thread was shared by citizen journalism platform Dokuz8Haber:
? Maçka Parkı'nda Onur Haftası pikniği düzenleyen kitle polislerce ablukaya alındı.#dokuz8/@puleragema pic.twitter.com/MYUFThNb11
— dokuz8HABER (@dokuz8haber) June 22, 2021
The crowd that organized the Pride Week picnic in Maçka Park was blockaded by the police.
A member of Boğaziçi University's LGBTI+ community, was left with a broken arm as a result.
BİR ARKADAŞIMIZIN KOLU KIRILDI. FAİLLERİ BELLİDİR!
— Boğaziçi LGBTİ+ (@bogaziciLGBTI) June 22, 2021
Our friend's arm was broken. The perpetrators are known.
Similarly, the Istanbul branch of the Progressive Lawyers’ Association (ÇHD) reported several of its members had been beaten:
İstanbul Valiliği'nin usulsüz yasak kararını gerekçe gösteren polis, maçka parkındaki pride pikniğine köpeklerle saldırdı.1 kişi gözaltına alındı, çok sayıda meslektaşımız ve birçok LGBTİ+ darp edilerek işkenceye uğradı. Maçka parkında bekleyiş sürüyor. Polis nefret suçu işliyor!
— ÇHD İstanbul Şube (@CHDistanbul) June 22, 2021
Citing the illegal ban decision of the Istanbul Governor's Office, the police attacked the pride picnic in Maçka Park with dogs. 1 person was detained, many of our colleagues and many LGBTI+ were beaten and tortured. Waiting continues in Maçka park. The police are committing a hate crime!
The Şişli Governor's Office also informed the Istanbul Pride Week Committee that all of the activities planned for the week will be banned for the next 30 days, reported another local paper Evrensel.
This is not the first time, Pride events have been banned for public safety and disorder. In 2015, Turkish police fired tear gas and water cannons at Pride march participants. In 2016, the march was banned in Istanbul citing “safeguarding security and public order” as the main reason. In 2017, in the capital Ankara, the government imposed an indefinite, blanket ban on Pride events, relying on its “state of emergency” powers vested in the government following a military coup in 2016. Similarly, in Istanbul, the Pride parade was banned due to security concerns the same year. The event was yet again banned in 2018 on security grounds even though many defied the ban by marching in Istanbul before police intervened, using tear gas canisters and water cannons.  In 2019, police intervened as crowds celebrated Istanbul's 17th pride march. Last year, the march was canceled due to COVID-19 restrictions.
The last authorized march took place in 2014.


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Turkey moves to ban pro-Kurdish political party · Global Voices
Arzu Geybullayeva

Leader of the People Democratic Party, Selahattin Demirtas at the 2015 General Election in Turkey. Photo by Hilmi Hacaloğlu, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Turkish_general_election,_2015_-_Peoples%27_Democratic_Party_(Turkey)_Selahattin_Demirta%C5%9F.jpg
Turkey's Constitutional Court accepted an indictment seeking the closure of the opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) on June 21. The Constitutional Court, the country's highest court, has the power to rule on the closure of political parties in Turkey.
The 843-page indictment was first filed by the chief prosecutor of Turkey's Supreme Court of Appeals, Bekir Şahin, in March 2021 accusing the party of collaborating with the outlawed Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) militant group. The PKK is recognized as a terrorist organization in Turkey and by its western allies, including the US and the EU. The indictment also demands that the party's assets be frozen and all 400 plus members of the party be banned from future political activity. HDP denies any such links.
While critics say, Turkey's President and the ruling Justice and Development Party are using the country's top courts to suppress political dissent against its government. “Prosecutors and courts have become little more than an instrument of the executive, a party to the power struggles within the state,” said Emma Sinclair Webb, senior Turkey researcher for the New York-based Human Rights Watch in an interview with Bianet.
Following its original submission in March, the Constitutional Court, rejected the indictment, citing incomplete details. Four months later, the prosecutor refiled the case on June 7.
According to Turkish News organization T24, the indictment said:
The activities of the HDP were found to be in violation of the independence of the state, the unity with its country and nation, and human rights. The defendant party has, at the same time, through almost all of its organs, members, and organisations committed these major crimes, while inciting and encouraging them.
The chief prosecutor's office indicted 108 people for initiating fatal protests in 2014. According to reporting by VOA, these protests were sparked by Ankara's refusal to offer support to Kurdish fighters who were besieged by the so-called Islamic State group, in the Syrian town of Kobane on Turkey's border. The most recent arrest took place in March when at least three senior HDP members were detained. Three days earlier, the chief prosecutor filed a case with the Constitutional Court to dissolve the HDP.
HDP is determined to fight the controversial bid to outlaw the party. “We will not let the HDP be disbanded, we will defend the HDP. The HDP will ever grow,” said Mithat Sancar, co-chair of the party, in a statement. The party secured six million votes in the 2018 parliamentary election becoming Turkey's third-largest party in the parliament.
The party has been subject to pressure in recent years. Scores of HDP's senior party members, including former co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş, were arrested on terrorism-related charges.
According to Human Rights Watch report, the charges against Demirtaş include “membership of a terrorist organization,” “spreading terrorist propaganda,” and many other crimes. If convicted, Demirtaş is facing a life sentence. On November 20, 2018, the European Court “made the rare ruling that there had been a violation of Article 18 of the European Convention, meaning that the extension of Demirtaş’ detention had been pursued for ulterior purposes and as such was an abuse of power.”
The court ordered Demirtaş’ immediate release. Days after the European Court's ruling, the Istanbul regional court of appeal expedited a review of a conviction against Demirtaş concerning a political speech he has made in Istanbul in 2013 and sentenced him to four years and eight months for “spreading terrorist propaganda.” Other members of the party have lost parliamentary seats.
The June 21 ruling came just days after an armed gunman stormed the party's headquarters in Turkey's city of Izmir, killing HDP member Deniz Poyraz. “I entered the building with the intention to kill everyone who might have been in the office at that time indiscriminately and shot around,” said gunman, Onur Gencer, according to Hurriyet Daily News.
The leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) which is in a coalition with the ruling AKP, was quick to label Poyraz a terrorist. “I'll tell you who the killed person, Deniz Poyraz, was: She was in charge of the PKK's rural recruitment, a militia accomplice in the ring that sends PKK sympathizers who want to go to the mountains,” said the leader of the party Devlet Bahçeli during a party meeting on June 22.
Meanwhile, the HDP has accused AKP and MHP of the attack in a statement:
Our friend, Deniz Poyraz, was murdered in the attack on our İzmir district building. The instigators and abettors of this brutal attack are the AKP-MHP government and the Ministry of Interior which constantly targets our party and our members.
Pundits say the government is tightening restrictions on HDP ahead of the 2023 election. If HDP is dissolved, then Erdogan has a higher chance of securing an electoral advantage in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeast, which is traditionally split between the HDP and the AKP.
The US State Department statement issued in response to the attempts to shut down the HDP, noted, doing so, “would unduly subvert the will of Turkish voters, further undermine democracy in Turkey, and deny millions of Turkish citizens their chosen representation.”
Similarly, in an interview with FT, political scientist Sezin Ozey said, “The scapegoating produces the polarisation that distracts from other problems during the coronavirus pandemic,” she said. “Demonising the HDP also helps neuter the rest of the opposition.”


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Turkey: Pandemic restrictions out, new restrictions in · Global Voices
Arzu Geybullayeva

Following a June 21 Cabinet meeting, President and ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Turkey would be lifting remaining restrictions imposed as a result of the pandemic starting July 1, 2021. Addressing the nation from Ankara, the President also added that as of July 1, all music events would have to end by midnight. “Excuse me, but nobody has the right to disturb anyone at night,” said Erdoğan. The hashtag #Kusurabakiyoruz (we don't excuse you) began trending immediately on Turkish Twitter, with scores of citizens and musicians expressing their displeasure with the new ban.
“music” by [phil h] is licensed with CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/
After 00:00, there is a ban on music in our country. Yes, this is Turkey. They are trying to block everything related to art and culture! They are taking away our freedoms one by one.#KUSURABAKIYORUZ #SendenNefretEdiyoruz
— Melike Günaydın (@melikegunaydnn) June 22, 2021
Herkesin aynı yeşil kareli ceketi giyip, sadece aynı etek ve bıyık boyuyla sokağa çıkabildiği, televizyonda günboyu yalnızca onu izleyip seçimde bir tek ona oy verebildiği bir Türkiye istemiyorsak, “Yeter artık. Dur” dememiz şart.#KUSURABAKIYORUZ https://t.co/cold9GncxO
— Can Dündar (@candundaradasi) June 22, 2021
If we don't want a Turkey where everyone wears the same checkered jacket, the same skirt, and the same mustache when going on the street, watching him on television all day long, voting for him, we must say “Enough is enough. Stop”
Some suggested the ban was rooted in an emerging cultural conflict in Turkey, rather than COVID concerns.
Rapper Ezhel not mincing his words on the arbitrary music ban which has zero to do with COVID and everything to do with a culture war waged on anyone who wants to have fun in this short life.
“Stop going to Turkey for tourism purposes. There is no fun left anyway.” pic.twitter.com/S0IdAA24n6
— Can Okar (@canokar) June 22, 2021
The satirical online platform Zaytung, shared the following headline in response to the new restrictions: “Flash news. The presidency announced new normalization plans: “everyone shall be in bed by 23.30. All lights switched off by midnight. There will be no noise!”
The response is not surprising, given public outcry when the government announced its plan to ban alcohol sales during the pandemic-related mandated curfew.
Turkey introduced its most recent lockdown on April 26 in a bid to curb rising COVID-19 infections that had reached 60,000 new cases per day.
Another worrying trend during the pandemic was rising suicide rates in Turkey. This was particularly true for musicians. According to the Musicians and Performers Union's (Müzik-Sen) statistics from September 2020, at least 100 musicians committed suicide during the pandemic. Many of the country's one million registered musicians have no insurance and therefore cannot claim state support benefits. With an on and off country-wide ban on weddings and large music events since March 2020, musicians have lost all of their traditional sources of income.
After a 17-day full lockdown in May, the government announced that as of May 17, there would be a curfew from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. on weekdays and Saturdays (and full lockdowns on Sundays with only essential shopping allowed), however, restaurants, bars, and cafes could operate until 9 p.m. As of June 1, the curfew period was pushed to 10 p.m. with gyms and movie theaters allowed to operate at 50 percent capacity. Shopping centers were also reopened, operating six days a week, between 7 a.m to 9 p.m. As the country starts to reopen, many families are planning to hold wedding ceremonies that had been delayed or restricted due to the pandemic.
Despite the gradual reopening in the second half of May and June, musicians were still banned from performing indoors. In an interview with AFP, Bulent Ertugrul, professor and board member of the Turkish Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, said these restrictions made no sense. “If you justify (the music ban) by citing the risk of contagion, then you also have to close everything else down.”
The new restrictions naturally drew even more criticism among Turkey's struggling musicians. With some likening the new restrictions to ideological war.
Member of Redd band, Gunes Duru shared a tweet with a picture of the historical Rumelihisari open air concert area that has since been replaced by a mosque:
mesele çok başka…
mesela biz burada konser vermiştik, Rumelihisarı. pic.twitter.com/wmqHwj8Q5H
— Gunes Duru ? (@gunesduru) June 22, 2021
the issue is something else… for example, we gave a concert here, in Rumelihisari.
While the band itself said the new restriction is a clear example of the government interfering with people's lives:
“Müzikle ilgili sınırlamayı 24.00’ye çekiyoruz, kusura bakmasınlar kimsenin kimseyi rahatsız etmeye hakkı yok. “ demek bilimsel bir gerekçe olamaz. yaşam biçimine müdahaledir.
müzik halk sağlığı sorunu değildir.
#kusurabakıyoruz https://t.co/NO5MYnRFuX
— Redd ? (@reddseyirdefter) June 21, 2021
Saying, “We are pulling the restrictions related to music to midnight, excuse me, but no one has a right to bother others” cannot be a scientific reason. This is an intervention to people's lives. Music is not a public health issue.
Another singer tweeted:
Rahatsız oluyorsan dinleme beyefendi #kusurabakıyoruz
— Gaye Su Akyol (@GayeSuAkyol) June 21, 2021
If you are bothered, then don't listen sir.
Izmir Musicians Association said in a statement, “Musicians are being targeted. We can't stand it anymore. We call on the political power to give up the discourse and policies that polarize people, build walls of hatred, divide and marginalize them, as soon as possible.”
The Presidency Communications Director Fahrettin Altun defended the decision, dismissing the criticism as “manipulative” and “distorted.” With elections just two years away, the ruling party is struggling to lure in disenchanted voters, largely due to the country's fluctuating economy.


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Was Michael B. Jordan’s ‘J’ouvert’ rum cultural appropriation or a missed opportunity for Trinidad and Tobago? · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

American actor Michael B. Jordan speaking at the 2017  Comic Con International for ‘Black Panther,’ at the San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, California. Photo by Gage Skidmore on Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.
After African American actor Michael B. Jordan launched his new rum brand on Juneteenth, the day that commemorates the emancipation of enslaved people in the United States, social media users from Trinidad and Tobago besieged the internet with cries of “cultural appropriation” over the rum's name. J'ouvert (from “Jour Ouvert”: literally “the opening of the day”), or the more Creolised “Jouvay,” is the elemental ritual that begins the country's annual Carnival festival.
J'ouvert has its roots in the celebration of the end of slavery and “Canboulay,” which after full Emancipation was finally declared in 1838, became a fixture around August 1, the date Trinidad and Tobago marks as Emancipation Day. In a piece for Caribbean Beat, Attillah Springer, a self-described “jouvayist,” explained how J'ouvert is viscerally connected to the 1881 Canboulay Riots, in which the descendants of former slaves fought against the colonial authorities for what was essentially their freedom of cultural expression. In a Twitter thread, she addressed Jordan:
Do you understand how much this smacks of the contempt that some African Americans have for Caribbean people and our place in the history of Pan Africanism and resistance to all the western capitalist bullshit we’ve been fighting for centuries?
— Tillahwillah (@tillahwillah) June 20, 2021
J'ouvert is, therefore, a symbol of resistance that goes much deeper than the explanation on Michael B. Jordan's rum package, which reads, “J'OUVERT Rum is a tribute to the party start.”
Posting a photo of herself playing J'ouvert, Springer also retorted on Instagram:
You cannot trademark our desire to be free
You cannot trademark our desire to be seen
You cannot trademark our desire to create joy
In the midst of the outrage, Jordan remained silent for a few days—listening, he said, to the numerous opinions on the matter, including that of Trinidad-born, U.S.-based rapper and songwriter Nicki Minaj—before eventually releasing the following statement on his Instagram story on June 22:
I just wanna say on behalf on myself & my partners, our intention was never to offend or hurt a culture (we love & respect) & hoped to celebrate and shine a positive light on. Last few days has been a lot of listening. A lot of learning & engaging in countless community conversations…
We hear you. I hear you & want to be clear that we are in the process of renaming. We sincerely apologize & look forward to introducing a brand we can all be proud of.
While the intention of Jordan and his business partners—one of whom has Trinidadian connections—may have been to pay homage to the roots of struggle from which the joyous festival emerged, much seemed to have been lost in translation, starting with the etymology of the word itself.
Trinidadian linguist Jo-Anne Ferreira was irked by an image of the brand's trademark documentation, which stated, “The wording ‘J'OUVERT’ has no meaning in a foreign language.” Presuming “foreign language” means a language other than English, Ferreira explained:
This is a denial that [the term] belongs to two languages—English Creole and French Creole, which is a massive insult and ignorance. [It shows] the utter lack of reference to specialists, including linguists and lexicographers. The other hypocrisy is the reference to Antillean Creole French, so the suggestion is that it is now part of English [only]…
In a blog post about the issue, she noted:
As we loudly express our views on the matter, as exploited and culturally appropriated victims of US arrogance and dominance in our region, let us consider what we can do as authors of our own fate and captains of our own sailing.
We can agitate to have Tobagonian English Creole and Trinidadian English Creole recognised as official languages of this country, accept standard writing systems for them which should be taught in schools and used in public signage. At that point, no one can proclaim that J’Ouvert has no meaning in a foreign language.
The main area of contention for many Trinbagonians, as expressed on Twitter, was the issue of cultural appropriation:
Killmonger turned into a muthaeffing coloniser. pic.twitter.com/04tTm518IP
— Jennifer (@JennfromBim) June 21, 2021
Can we all sue on behalf of the Ancestors?
— ??&??in my ??®WEAR?WASH UR?????#BLM (@MissSocaCandy) June 20, 2021
The brand's initial reaction didn't help matters:
The rum people locked the IG account yes.
They now having a ‘oh shit’ moment perhaps?
— Chef Brigette (@chefbrigetterj) June 20, 2021
Meanwhile, an online petition calling for the trademark application to be dismissed based on its “fraudulent and inaccurate statement” about the word J'ouvert began to circulate, implying that Angostura—an internationally recognised indigenous rum manufacturer—may have been part of the venture. Angostura's products, including its world-famous bitters, were included in product giveaways at the J'ouvert rum launch. On June 23, the company stated it was not involved with Jordan's rum brand.
On the flip side, some Twitter users did not see the big deal, claiming that Black business—no matter where it comes from—ought to be supported by the community. Many others disagreed:
Def not my place but supporting black workers and supporting black capitalism are two extremely different things. Better than many alternatives I can think of but that doesn’t make it inherently good.
— Henry Merrilees Posting Their L’s Online (@henryamerrilees) June 21, 2021
Not the African Americans telling us it’s not that deep just because Michael B Jordan is black?. pic.twitter.com/zhJehyFHdo
— Jasmine Cumberbatch (@jazzycumbers) June 22, 2021
For the Americans who acting like we are ‘over reacting’ to Michael B Jordan trademarking J'Ouvert… Lets Trademark Juneteenth next then. pic.twitter.com/cVATP9j9H8
— Sincerely, Alexandria? (@i_amAlexandria) June 22, 2021
Several US-based netizens called out what they felt was “Caribbean gatekeeping”:
Lol so when it comes to African American holiday's oh we all black but when it come to rum in Trinidad liniage matters GTFO
— Dontavious??TribeOfCalafia. (@tribeofcalafia3) June 21, 2021
You tropic nggas didn't do it… Don't get in your feelings when an #FBA does it.
We get shit done.#B1 #FBA
— Black Gravity ?? FBA (@xBlackgravityx) June 21, 2021
The acronym FBA stands for Foundational Black American.
Another facet of the online discussion involved the legal implications of Jordan's use of the term J'ouvert. On Facebook, attorney Saelese Haynes, who co-hosted a Clubhouse session on culture and trademark protection with a US-based legal counterpart, said:
One fantastic thing coming out of the J’ouvert mark discussion has been that there is a long overdue focus on local IP – especially IP as an engine for economic growth and development.
Attorney Justin Koo, who specialises in intellectual property matters, took to social media to try to clarify exactly what trademark law allows, including the fact that it does not prohibit anyone else from using the trademarked term in a descriptive way, as some incorrectly assumed it would:
A quick word on the ‘JOUVERT’ rum scenario. Thoughts are my own and the video does not constitute legal advice. pic.twitter.com/pg2Kl4aTWn
— Justin Koo (@justkoo90) June 20, 2021
Trinidad and Tobago is a member of the Madrid Protocol, an international treaty designed to simplify the international trademark registration process and which would have guidelines addressing how cultural festivals can be branded.
I reached out to Richard Aching, the manager of technical examination at the IP office of the Ministry of the Attorney General for clarification on these legal parameters, who said that he was not at liberty to discuss it. He did, however, say that it was important “to start with education,” and that the IP office had embarked on an education drive around trademark issues.
Michael B. Jordan is not the first celebrity to be accused of cultural appropriation. Barbadian pop icon Rihanna recently faced criticism for wearing a pendant of the Hindu deity, Lord Ganesh, in a risqué photograph that many deemed to be disrespectful, and Kim Kardashian experienced something similar when she tried to trademark the Japanese word, kimono.
It is also not the first attempt to co-opt Caribbean culture. The Ministry of Legal Affairs’ IP office, for example, has had to thwart several US-based moves to patent the steelpan, Trinidad and Tobago's national instrument.
Conversely, Grenada—Trinidad and Tobago's Caribbean neighbour—boasts a Jouvay chocolate brand that has not attracted this type of ire, likely because the initiative is owned by local cocoa farmers and the nation has its own J'ouvert tradition—as do other regional territories.
While some cultural stakeholders we interviewed felt that the online indignation was misguided and would be better directed towards local cultural custodians who fail to be good stewards, co-optation often hits a sour note because outsiders generally have access to greater resources and broader audiences. Amanda Choo Quan addressed this in a Facebook post:
People dismissing this as “misinformed activism” are misreading the response of a people who are tired of not being — or not being allowed to be — custodians of their own culture. They are tired of being sidelined when it comes to music, art, culture on an international stage, watching on from the audience as non-Trinis or as the Trini diaspora, with greater access to more robust marketing and markets, runs with aspects of our culture while people in Trinidad literally try to eat a food.
This goes deeper than a trademark to me. It speaks others to enjoying the capital inherent within our culture but not allowing us to make it and to profit from it; it speaks to the failure of our Government to consider our artists; it speaks to our population never receiving the kind of marketing blitz or audience for their products on a global stage — while our culture sold back to us from overseas.
There is nothing new about this power dynamic, rooted in colonialism and mercantilism. Trinidad and Tobago was structured to literally be a ‘resource.’
Once the dust settled and Jordan announced he would rebrand the rum, regional discussion turned to the safeguarding of Caribbean culture:
I hope Barbados realizes that this j’ouvert/Trinidad/Michael B Jordan moment is a canary in a coal mine for us. We need to respect #, appreciate and cherish our cultural products and industries
— Big Nas X (@lukeyism) June 23, 2021
Koo made the point that this would need to include talks about intellectual property rights:
Hoping the Michael B Jordan scenario with ‘JOUVERT’ leads to a kickstart of international trade mark protection for ?? brands. If we don’t do it, someone else will. Video incoming on trade mark protection
— Justin Koo (@justkoo90) June 20, 2021
Still, Twitter user Rhoda Bharath mused:
Im not sure if we won a battle or lost an opportunity. I hope the victors and victrices now make good on the hard work needed to protect and preserve.
— rhoda bharath (@rhodabharath) June 23, 2021

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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Yemen stalemate deepening its long-ignored human rights crisis · Global Voices
Saoussen Ben Cheikh

An activist speaking to a woman with disabilities while documenting human rights issues in Taiz, Yemen. Photo by Watch Team, used with permission.
The latest peace talks in Oman have fallen apart, and for Yemenis, that means going back to square one. Escalations in Marib have worsened the dire humanitarian situation and the suffering of civilians in a conflict that has entered its sixth year.
There was optimism when, in a major shift away from the Trump administration, U.S. President Joe Biden announced that the war had “to end” and that he would terminate “all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen.” But this is easier said than done. Once again, the conflict has reached a deadlock. Arms are speaking louder than political negotiations. A major military offensive by the Houthi forces, in the strategic oil-rich Marib—the last province the recognised government still controls in the north—is underway, and nothing seems to be stopping it.
Yemen is often woefully labelled as the world’s “worst humanitarian crisis.” The conflict that broke out in 2015 had a devastating impact on the already impoverished population. The needs are enormous and countless media have shown heartbreaking images of malnourished children or poor living conditions—but this inhuman situation is not new to Yemen.
The country has for decades been at the bottom of most international indices, including on education, women’s rights and freedom of expression. Well before the conflict, a long dictatorship had prevented the emergence of rule of law and development. Yemen was marked by high illiteracy, unemployment and poor infrastructure. Forms of gross human rights violations were occurring, including human trafficking, female genital mutilation and child marriage.
The glimpse of hope and freedom gained in the Arab Spring in 2011,  has been all but wiped out by the civil war. The Houthi rebels, backed by Iran, have installed an oppressive theocracy in the north, home to about 70 per cent of the population, while the recognised government in the south—accused of widespread corruption—has failed to provide basic services and good governance.
All parties are hostile to human rights and “show no regard to international law or the lives, dignity and rights of the people of Yemen,” read a statement accompanying a 2020 report from a group of international and regional experts. “A pandemic of impunity in a tortured land” is the title of the third United Nations report documenting human rights abuses in Yemen. According to the report, “The scale and nature of violations should shock the conscience of humanity. Yet, too often Yemen is the forgotten conflict.”
The @UN Group of Eminent Experts has published a comprehensive report on the #HumanRights situation in #Yemen.
It details how Canada, France, Iran, the UK + the US have perpetuated the conflict by continuing to supply the parties with weapons.https://t.co/ZPLZ23BOFQ pic.twitter.com/fsFYh6BABb
— UNA-UK (@UNAUK) September 10, 2020
The war has plunged the already impoverished, closed nation into further chaos and lawlessness, making women, and young people more vulnerable to multiple forms of exploitation and abuse. The population lives in a climate of fear and insecurity because of shelling and repressive local authorities. Kamel Jendoubi, one of the UN experts, reported that “Yemen remains a tortured land, with its people ravaged in ways that should shock the conscience of humanity.”
A pervasive culture of unaccountability perpetuates the cycle of impunity and violence. The Saudi-led coalition forces conducted numerous airstrikes that indiscriminately killed and injured civilians.  Since any semblance of the rule of law and justice has disappeared, armed tribal groups maintain local law and order by force. There have been numerous accounts of arbitrary detention, torture and extrajudicial executions.
The scale of violence is likely to be higher because of underreporting. Dissident and progressive voices are censored or, because of social pressure, self-censored. With families pushed deeper into poverty, parents are marrying off their daughters earlier and children are forced to work or be sent to the battlefield. Violence against women, which was already widespread, increased exponentially, including domestic and sexual violence abuses, kidnapping and forced labour.
An activist documenting human rights issues in the city of Taez, Yemen. Photo by Watch Team, used with permission
The war has not only worsened daily life and exhausted coping mechanisms but has also put human rights on hold. The collapse of the economy and the repressive environment has caused the shutdown of local media and civil society organisations advocating for human rights. Harassed and attacked, many Yemeni journalists and human rights activists have gone into exile, while many who stayed have had to leave the profession. Several have shifted their focus from reporting and advocacy to humanitarian work. Dawla, a human rights activist, told me:
We were struggling to survive before the war, and everything was a challenge. We could not believe it could get worse. Since the war broke out, it has all imploded. Now there are even more children in the streets and fighting, young women begging and married too young, activists harassed and with no resources.
She continued:
I used to be a journalist, but the local media can’t pay journalists. Many have left, especially women. The situation is so bad that I have started volunteering in a local organisation to provide aid for poor families.
I’ve since been recruited by the organisation so I can at least support my family. But I don’t have time anymore to report and tell the stories.
The relocation of the scarce skilled human resources into the aid sector is a by-product of the conflict. This is because the humanitarian sector is where funding and paid jobs are. Yemen, the world's largest humanitarian crisis, is underfunded and international donors are more keen to fund aid than human rights programs. This has resulted in a perverse effect that supports short-term emergencies rather than long-term peace and reconciliation efforts that would lay the ground to end the conflict. Aid has been criticised for contributing to fuelling the conflict. Worse, all parties have been accused of impeding or diverting humanitarian operations. Some aid agencies have had to temporarily suspend their programs in the north because of corruption.
As other conflicts have shown, there cannot be peace without justice. To bring an end to the conflict that has decimated the population, the UN experts urged the Human Rights Council to ensure that human rights in Yemen are high on the agenda. As Jendoubi stressed, “The international community has a responsibility to put an end to this pandemic of impunity, and should not turn a blind eye to the gross violations. After years of documenting the terrible toll of this war, no one can say, ‘We did not know what was happening in Yemen.’ Accountability is key to ensure that justice is served to the people of Yemen and to humanity.”
Military actions having failed. Ending a war entrenched in a complex regional geopolitical stalemate requires a new strategy that emphasizes diplomacy over arms, with human rights high on the agenda.

author: Saoussen Ben Cheikh


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Confronting ‘vaccine hostility’ in Japan · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

‘The New Normal is life with Covid-19,’ by MIKI Yoshihito on Flickr, (CC BY 2.0)
After getting off to a slow start, Japan's COVID-19 vaccination efforts have picked up steam. At the beginning of June, an average of 500,000 people a day were being vaccinated. Three weeks later, by June 24, the number of vaccinations had risen to around one million people a day. However, even as younger and younger cohorts are being invited to register for a first dose of the vaccine, small but intense pockets of “vaccine hostility” are spreading misinformation and even threats of violence against vaccination efforts.
Overall, according to a recent poll by news outlet FNN, about 70 per cent of Japanese people say they intend to get vaccinated or had already been vaccinated. About 20 per cent of people who responded to the FNN poll said they had worries about the vaccine, while approximately 10 per cent of those polled said they refused to get vaccinated. Opposition or hesitancy to vaccines was more prevalent among people in their 20s and 30s.
According to a recent report by wire service Jiji, vaccine hesitancy can shift into outright “vaccine hostility” (ワクチン敵視), which has become a serious problem, especially on social media platforms.
Municipalities all over Japan have reported receiving death threats when announcing vaccination programs, particularly for teens and adolescents. Typically, abusive phone calls and email messages also mistakenly claim that the COVID-19 vaccine poses more danger to teens and adolescents than the virus itself. Facebook is reportedly used by anti-vaccination groups to organize and coordinate efforts across Japan.
Misinformation and hoaxes have spread online since the beginning of the pandemic in Japan. In the first half of 2021 and the start of mass vaccination in Japan, some common anti-vaccination internet memes in Japan stated that the COVID-19 “vaccines change the human genetic structure,” “the Pfizer vaccine causes infertility,” and the vaccine “causes the human body to become magnetic in the presence of 5G radio waves.”
Social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have worked to block or remove inaccurate information about COVID-19 with varying degrees of success. Social media sites have also allowed medical experts in Japan to directly provide accurate information about COVID-19 and vaccinations.
That said, misinformation is easily spread online.
On June 13, a Japanese Twitter user noticed that the top-ranked book on Amazon's Japan site was one attacking the safety of COVID-19 vaccines (the #2 bestseller on Amazon on June 13 was a pre-order for an upcoming book, unrelated to COVID-19 or vaccines, about life after death by New Age guru and blogger Ise Hakusando).
Amazon @amazon should take responsibility for potentially killing many Japanese people by showing anti-vaccine books as the top best-selling books in Japan. This is an act of terrorism against public health in Japan and should not be overlooked. #Amazon #AntiVaxConspiracy https://t.co/yJU2AY5A2e
— sekkai (@sekkai) June 18, 2021
Translation of original tweet: Is an anti-vaccine book the number-one book on Amazon right now? Makes you think.
Promoted as featuring a “dialogue” with noted American anti-vaccine campaigner Robert Kennedy Jr., in English, the title of the book (医師が教える新型コロナワクチンの正体 本当は怖くない新型コロナウイルスと本当に怖い新型コロナワクチン) translates as “A medical doctor exposes the truth about the COVID-19 vaccine: harmless COVID-19 versus a truly scary vaccine.”
The book is by Utsumi Satoru, a medical doctor and long-time vaccine and “science skeptic” who vlogs about “How to avoid being deceived by the Big Lie that is medicine” (“大ウソ医学に騙されない極意”) and other topics on his YouTube channel, which has 86,000 followers. Utsumi is also followed by 162,000 people on Facebook, where he posts about vaccines and manages yet more affiliate Facebook groups devoted to discussing vaccines and health topics, and coordinating the activities of tens of thousands of vaccine-hesitant people across Japan.
Some political leaders in Japan are making an effort to combat misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines. Kono Taro, the colorful government minister responsible for Japan's vaccination rollout, has regularly and publicly identified hoaxes as a problem during the pandemic.
Taro Kono seems to be the only person in Japan’s government I can see confronting and calling specific anti-vaxx conspiracy rumour bullshit (like vaccines “sterilizing” people). https://t.co/VnceSjyiyi
— Hikosaemon (@hikosaemon) June 20, 2021
Translation of original tweet: During an interview broadcast on June 20, 2021, Kono Taro, minister responsible for the vaccine roll-out said, “They say you'll be become infertile if you get a vaccine shot, but it's all a hoax.” Kono then emphasized “We have to explain that, scientifically, there is just no such thing.”
In a blog post published on June 24, Kono stated that the misinformation spreading online may be a result of the effort of foreign governments:
ＥＵの対外行動庁（ＥＵの外務省にあたる）が４月に公表した報告書によれば、中国やロシアが、ファイザーやモデルナのｍＲＮＡワクチンの信頼性を傷つけるような情報発信をソーシャルメディアなどを使って複数の言語で行っています。
According to a report published in April by the EU's Foreign Affairs Agency [European External Action Service (EEAS)], China and Russia use social media and other methods to disseminate information intended to damage the credibility of Pfizer and Moderna's mRNA vaccine.
In his blog post, Kono laments “licensed medical professionals” who spread misinformation, and then proceeds to debunk various COVID-19 vaccine hoaxes, one by one.
Responding to the claim that all cats used in COVID-19 vaccine testing have died, Kono states:
現に、ファイザー社のワクチンの研究でネコが使用されたことはありません。
In fact, cats have never been used in Pfizer's vaccine research.
While some observers suggest that the anxiety, doubt, and confusion over the pandemic may in part be responsible for doubts about vaccines, in an article exploring “vaccine hostility” in Japan, the academic says it is important to avoid mocking and alienating those who are hesitant about vaccines:
ワクチンへの不安や警戒感だけでなく、そうした気持ちを理解されない『疎外感』がある」と分析。「接種を受けたい人も受けたくない人も、互いの判断を尊重し合うべきだ」と訴える。
“When feelings of uncertainty [about the safety of vaccines] and proceeding with a sense of caution are not recognized and accommodated [by the wider society], a sense [of] alienation will develop,” said one expert. “People who want to get vaccinated and those who don't want to get vaccinated should respect each other.”
The source, Tsuchida Shoji, a professor of psychology and risk communication at Kansai University, says that alienation can lead could lead to more profound social problems, as the vaccine-hesitant are embraced by more extreme groups:
「『ワクチン反対派はおかしい』などと安易にラベリング（レッテル貼り）して突き放すことは、事態をさらに悪化させる」と危惧。「社会が不安に寄り添わず、親身に話を聞いてくれるのはカルト集団や陰謀論者だけ、という状況は非常に危険だ」
Labeling and ostracizing [the vaccine-hesitant], such as saying ‘those who oppose vaccinations are strange’, makes things even worse. It is very dangerous for society when the only people to listen to and engage with the vaccine-hesitant are cults and conspiracy theorists.

author: Nevin Thompson


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How I awoke from the lasting Cuban deception · Global Voices
Luis Rodriguez

Photo by The Capture/Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
This article was written by an author in Cuba, under the pseudonym “Luis Rodriguez.”
I was born in a small village in the south of Cuba, surrounded by the poverty that my family endured, but filled with the type of love and affection that I have never known again in my life. This was the Cuban version of the Macondo described by Gabriel García Márquez in “One Hundred Years of Solitude”—a time when poverty and migration had not yet deteriorated and fractured the Cuban family.
It took me a long time to manage to wake up from the deception that has led me and many of my generation to have defended the Marxist ideology and its utopian vision of the world. This awakening has been full of clashes.
The distant memories I have of my childhood are associated with sugar—azúcar—a magical word that Celia Cruz, the Cuban singer exiled in the U.S., always used to sing about, because the small village where I grew up was part of a region that depended economically on the sugar industry.
Back then, no one in Cuba would have suspected that Fidel Castro would shut down the sugar mills in 2004. In addition to the structural weaknesses of the Cuban government, such as excessive bureaucracy, corruption, the centralized economy, and the drastic restriction of private initiative, the combined problems caused by drought, the collapse of its major sugar partner, the Soviet Union, and the U.S. blockade worsened the country's economy.
But this is how it felt to me: the Cuban Revolution wrecked everything, it was disrespectful to tradition and our identity. Cuban sugar as well as coffee, rum and tobacco are symbols rooted in the social consciousness. Many of the thousands unemployed from the sugar industry had to either fall back to the hard work in the fields, to self-employment, or to sink into the darkness and the uncertainty of depending on the black market, considered in Cuba as one of the main escape valves.
When I return to my hometown from time to time to visit my relatives, it pains me to see the decline and misery that plagues the everyday life of many villages formerly living off the sugar industry in Cuba, and I am moved by the longing that many people feel for a world that has collapsed before their very eyes.
This world, frustrating and decadent, has been masterfully depicted in the Cuban film Melaza by independent filmmaker Carlos Lechuga.
Human beings in Cuba are subjected to indoctrination during childhood in elementary schools. The daily ritual consisted of absurd and repetitive morning lessons filled with slogans that made no sense to me. It was a mechanical process where each child repeated the words “pioneers for communism, we will be like the Che.”
When I was a boy I saw reality as something natural, as if this totalitarian world that repressed human dignity was something natural and accepted by everyone. You were not allowed to have ties with foreigners either, but at that time the only tourists I had ever met were Soviets and others coming from communist countries, who saw the Cuban reality as something very natural.
Fortunately, as I grew up and gained access to information, I found out that the communist paradise that was described to me as if it were the gospel, the so-called reign of the “New Man” was, in fact, the complete negation of what I had been taught, the farthest thing from the reign of social justice that it was proclaimed to be. Rather, it was nothing short of hell, not only because of the scarcity and shortages that have always plagued the daily lives of the Cuban people but also because of the lack of liberty, a tragedy that has worsened with the passing of time. Nowadays, expressing your ideas in the Cuban public space is a risky act, and exercising independent journalism can lead you to jail.
Notwithstanding, I enjoyed that period of my existence, bathing in the rivers and drinking the exquisite guarapo, sugar cane juice, that I used to drink when I traveled on a rickety bicycle to the nearest sugar mill.
Photo from Seb/Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Among the saddest memories I have of those early years of my life is one of me walking past a church as if it were a forbidden place. The ideology of state atheism reigned in Cuba in the eighties, and you could not practice any religion, whether evangelical or Yoruba.
In high school, I joined the Union of Young Communists (Unión de Jóvenes Comunistas, UJC, in Spanish) with the same inertia that many adolescents and young people in my country did, and then I went to split my pre-university studies with agricultural work under adverse conditions in the countryside. On several occasions I contracted skin diseases because I did not have soap to bathe and wash the sheets I slept in, but the greatest impact it left on me, and I will never forget it, was the verbal abuse that a young, religious man, whom I have never seen again, used to endure at night.
Every time I went to visit my family during that period I was very shocked to see them cooking with firewood and having hardly any food to offer me, and the tears that silently rolled down my face awakened in me the question of whether that reality was fair and whether it had any connection with the Marxist-Leninist doctrine that I was taught. Such a bleak picture was the beginning of the awakening of my conscience, of my conviction that another way of life was possible.
Photo from Seb/Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
My awakening to libertarianism and the realization of the injustice caused by totalitarianism was a long and painful process. Many people have experienced the feeling of prolonged deception. There was an unbridgeable gulf between the reality Cubans lived and the communist rhetoric touted by its leaders. The luxurious life practiced by the leaders contradicted the discourse of austerity they promoted.
At a time when I had no access to literary works such as George Orwell's 1984, Eudocio Ravines’ The Great Swindle, or Gene Sharp's From Dictatorship to Democracy, I became convinced that the only way to live a dignified life was in a democratic society, even though I knew practically nothing about democracy.
Little by little, the interactions with Cubans living in exile on their trips to the island to visit their relatives were the best examples of life in a free country and of the deceit of the communist rhetoric about capitalism.
Photo from Cary Lee/Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0)
My awakening came to maturity when I was studying art history at university and I discovered the immense horizon of information that the internet opened up for me.
From then on, I had access not only to the aforementioned literary works but also to other texts such as Karl Popper's The Open Society and The Unbearable Lightness of Being by the Czech author Milan Kundera, The Man Who Loved Dogs by the Cuban Leonardo Padura, German films such as The Lives of Others (2006) about the persecution of intellectuals by the STASI in the former German Democratic Republic, Goodbye Lenin and the documentary film Overthrowing a Dictator about the resistance of the Otpor (“Resistance” in English) organization and its role in getting rid of Slodovan Milosevic's regime in Serbia. These works had an extraordinary influence on my thoughts on democracy.
The internet is a liberating tool that has enabled me to interact with the rest of the world and experience the advantages of the global village, to experience the sensation that, behind the iron curtain surrounding Cuba, there is a world resting on the pillars of freedom and progress.
This long journey has convinced me that there is no alternative for Cubans but to fight for our freedom, the only way to rebuild our country on the ruins of the sugar mills—symbols of a past and of a stolen hope.

author: Luis Rodriguez


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Pride month marred by crackdown in Azerbaijan · Global Voices
Arzu Geybullayeva

“lgbt” by stockcatalog is licensed under CC BY 2.0
As Pride month nears its end, one European country stands out for its dismal record when it comes to supporting the LGBTQI+ community. Azerbaijan, ranked last on Europe's International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association's (ILGA Europe) most recent Rainbow Map ranking, preceded by Turkey, Armenia, and Russia which rank 48th, 47th, and 46th respectively. ILGA has been surveying the LGBTQI+ community in 49 European countries since 2009 through their Rainbow Map and Index.
Meydan TV, an independent online news website covering Azerbaijan, prepared a video in response to the most recent ranking:
In its report, ILGA Europe describes in detail the types of attacks and rights violations the community is facing in Azerbaijan. Due to homophobic slurs, hate speech, physical attacks, and lack of police assistance, many in the LGBTQI+ community do not feel safe, protected, or free in Azerbaijan.
Ahead of Pride month, there were several incidents of violence against members of the community according to Minority Magazine, an online platform that covers a range of LGBTQI+ issues in Azerbaijan. One of the victims, mentioned in the report by Minority Magazine, was attacked on June 24 according to LGBTQI+ activist and rights defender Vahid Aliyev:
Bir neçə həftə əvvəl oteldə döyülən, daha sonra evindən qovulan trans qadına qarşı bu gün zorakılıq olub. Daha çox informasiya almağa çalışırıq. #LGBTQI #pride
— Vahid (@rafaeloghlu) June 24, 2021
The trans woman who was beaten at a hotel few weeks ago and then thrown out of her apartment was faced with violence today. We are trying to get more information.
According to Aliyev, the victim was a trans sex worker who was beaten by hotel staff after complaining about a client who refused to pay her and was rude. After beating her, the hotel staff kicked her out. When she went to the police to file a complaint, the police also behaved rudely. This was not the first time this woman had been beaten by a client according to Minority Magazine reporting:
On June 8, a trans sex worker was beaten by a client in a hotel room in Chinarli hotel. The victim and her friend complained to the police and went to the Republican Hospital. According to them, doctors refused to accept the victim and sent her to Sabuncu hospital. They faced the same transphobic behaviour at Sabunchu hospital. An emergency worker at Sabunchu Hospital refused to treat the trans woman, hid and did not provide the MRI disc and diagnosis taken at the Neurosurgery Hospital. Only two days after the incident, MRI results were obtained, which show that the victim's skull was injured and dented inward in the forehead part. Lawyer Jala Bayramova said that a complaint had been filed against health workers, but no action had been taken by the relevant agencies.
While homosexuality is legal in Azerbaijan, sex work is illegal. In recent years, the government intensified its efforts to crack down on the members of the LGBTQI+ community. In 2017, at least 83 people were detained by the police for being gay. “The detainees were tortured and blackmailed and were told that they were not allowed to walk around the central streets of Baku,” reported Meydan TV. At the time of the arrests, the Ministry of the Interior insisted “the raids were meant to fight prostitution and not against the sexual minorities” according to a press statement issued by the Ministry of the Interior. The same year, at least four members of the LGBTQI+ community committed suicide.
A year later, Meydan TV spoke with some of the community members who were detained in 2017:
In 2018, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the Azerbaijan government was using Israel’s Verint Systems surveillance equipment and software to identify citizens’ sexual orientation through Facebook. In an interview with the paper, one former employee who traveled to Azerbaijan to train the client was asked how to use the system “to check sexual inclinations via Facebook.”
There were more than a dozen LGBTQI+ arrests in 2019, most of whom were transgender sex workers who were solicited and then arrested according to Meydan TV and Minority Magazine reporting.
In March 2021, Minority Magazine reported a new movement calling itself “Pure Blood” which was mobilizing via Telegram to target members of the LGBTQI+ community in Azerbaijan.
In 2014, Azerbaijan's LGBTQI+ community was rocked after Isa Shakhmarli, 20, and the Chairman of a “Free LGBT” organization, committed suicide. His last post on Facebook read, “I am leaving. This country, this world is not for me. I am going to be happy. 59 Islam Safarli Str. I am leaving the door open. Tell my mother that I love her. You are all to blame in my death. This world is not strong enough for my colors. Goodbye.” Since Shakhmarli's death, Azerbaijan’s LGBTQI+ community has marked January 22 as a day to fight homophobic hate.
The recent wave of attacks follows an already difficult period for the members of the community. Restrictions imposed as a result of COVID-19 put pressure on an alienated community wrote Gulnur Kazimova reporting for IWPR. Trans people often struggled to find jobs, making it difficult to pay rent. Strict quarantine rules also left LGBTQI+ people particularly vulnerable to violence from their family members. At least one trans woman [warning graphic] was found dead in her apartment in June, after receiving multiple stab wounds from an unknown assailant.
In a statement issued in 2019, Freedom House, said, “Targeting the country’s most vulnerable citizens is a tool of the regime’s efforts to maintain control over society at large.” Two years later, the continuous targeting has not abated, leaving most of the community members still living in fear. That and lack of support from wider civil society only further alienates and dehumanizes those in the LGBTQI+ community. In his most recent opinion piece for OC Media, Vahid Aliyev, reflects on this, writing,
Unfortunately, we live in a region where conservative socio-cultural and political understandings contribute to a culture, or perhaps more accurately, a spiral, of silence. It is a region, in which many people remain quiet in the face of extraordinary moral issues when there’s a belief that their opinions or point of views are in the minority. As a result, what is publicly understood to be the prevalent opinion remains entrenched, and the suffering of queer communities continues.


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UNESCO proposes listing World Heritage Great Barrier Reef as ‘in danger’ · Global Voices
Kevin Rennie

Great Barrier Reef Coral Bleaching 2020 – Image courtesy AIMS ©Australian Institute of Marine Science 2011 (CC 3.0)
A World Heritage Centre report to UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) has recommended that steps be taken to protect the future of the Great Barrier Reef — the world's largest reef ecosystem which stretches off the coast of Australia.
The ‘State of conservation of properties’ report recommended that the reef be classified as an ‘in danger’ site and that the Australian government take ‘accelerated action’ on climate change to help preserve it, ‘in accordance with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change (2015)’. In addition to climate change, the report identified other key threats including coral bleaching, land-based run-off, coastal development and human interference.
The Australian Environment Minister Sussan Ley was ‘stunned’ to learn about the recommendation, calling it arbitrary and political. During a call to UNESCO’s director-general, Audrey Azoulay, she stated that the group deviated from normal processes. Ley argued that there had been a lack of consultation and that Australia was being treated unfairly:
I agree that global climate change is the single biggest threat to the world’s reefs but it is wrong, in our view, to single out the best managed reef in the world for an ‘in danger’ listing.
The Environment minister defended her government’s management of the reef, calling it the ‘gold standard.’
She has also stated that her government was ‘blindsided’ by a ‘backflip,’ claiming it had been assured that there wouldn’t be this kind of recommendation before the full committee meets in July.
The World Heritage Centre’s Dr Fanny Douvere has dismissed these concerns, stating:
There is no doubt, based on the scientific information, that the Great Barrier Reef is in danger and it is important that the international community is aware of that. There is no process or procedure that requires us to share the content [of reports].
She also rejected suggestions that the Chinese government had applied political pressure as part of its ongoing diplomatic dispute with Australia.
There has been considerable speculation in the mainstream media that China is responsible for alleged political interference with the report. Rupert Murdoch’s news media down under seemed to favor blaming the report on the Chinese:
Australia has been blindsided by a push by a China-chaired UN committee to declare the Great Barrier Reef “in danger” without proper consultation or scientific process. #auspol https://t.co/wJvNcSWaHP
— Greg Brown (@gregbrown_TheOz) June 22, 2021
Environmental consultant, Imogen Zethoven, presented a very different view on the online platform Pearls and Irritations:
The Government deliberately fuelled a conspiracy theory that China must have been involved in the UNESCO report. It is alleged that the Prime Minister’s Office backgrounded journalists along these lines for the first 24 hours of the release.
Freelance cartoonist, Fiona Katauskas, dismissed the China conspiracy theory:
Bizarre that the govt is blaming China for possibly classifying the Great Barrier Reef as endangered and not the fact that the reef is actually, y’know, endangered
— Fiona Katauskas (@FionaKatauskas) June 21, 2021
Many Australians were gobsmacked by Sussan Ley’s reaction and some turned to social media to voice their criticism:
I’m surprised the government is surprised about the listing of the Great Barrier Reef as ‘in danger’. UNESCO has been warning this for years & years . You can manage it as well as you like but climate change is killing it and we’re doing nothing about that in Australia .
— Sarah Macdonald ? (@sarahvmac) June 21, 2021
Shorter Sussan Ley: we agree climate change is destroying the Great Barrier Reef but we won't do anything about it.#auspol
— PrincessPooket (@JBPooket) June 21, 2021
US climate scientist Peter Gleick shared a similar viewpoint:
The Australian government seems more upset that the UN recommended that the Great Barrier Reef be classified as “in danger” than they are that it's actually in danger.
Sussan Ley and Terri Butler on the Great Barrier Reef being ‘in danger’ https://t.co/mW1D7Zbrmm
— Peter Gleick ?? (@PeterGleick) June 23, 2021
The Guardian has created a timeline detailing the ‘decades of damage’ that the reef has endured. The most recent incident in 2020 was the third mass bleaching event in five years.
Guardian cartoonist, First Dog on the Moon, poked fun at the Australian government and their reluctance to fully acknowledge the growing threat to the reef.
Good Dog. Who does Unesco think they are? Listing the Great Barrier Reef as ‘in danger’! After all we have done for it! | First Dog on the Moon https://t.co/3slbAY5NhZ
— grace pettigrew (@broomstick33) June 23, 2021
He continues, mocking the Australian government's response and apparent sensitivity:
Everybody is upset about the reef and “climate change” but nobody cares that the government’s feeling have been hurt. I mean who is the real victim here?!
The controversy has added fuel to divisions within the government over climate policy. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has yet to commit Australia to zero net carbon emissions by 2050 despite international pressure. On the same day, the report was released, his junior coalition partner, the National Party, elected a new leader, Barnaby Joyce, who takes over the role of Deputy Prime Minister. Joyce is a strong opponent of setting the 2050 target.
Australia is one of the 21 State members of the World Heritage Committee and will undoubtedly challenge the ‘in danger’ classification at the July UNESCO meeting.

author: Kevin Rennie