text:
Journalists face sedition charges under cybercrime law in Pakistan · Global Voices
Qurratulain (Annie) Zaman

Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) was passed by the National Assembly of Pakistan in 2016. Screenshot from the Act.
Three Pakistani journalists were charged with sedition between September 11 and 16 under Pakistan's 2016 Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA), a law that has drawn widespread criticism for impacting citizens’ rights to expression and privacy.
The journalists are Asad Toor, a producer of a prime time TV show called “Sawal with Amber,” which is often critical of the government and the military; Bilal Farooqi, news editor of the Pakistani daily The Express Tribune; and Absar Alam, a former chairman at the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) and a former anchor at AAJ news channel.
Toor was booked following a complaint filed by someone called Hafiz Ehtesham Ahmed, a resident of the city of Rawalpindi, who claimed that the journalist “used derogatory language to refer high-level government institutions, including the Pakistan Army.” Toor posted a copy of the complaint on social media:
Ok #Rawalpindi police charge me under PECA and registered this FIR on 12 September 2020 on the complaint of proxy Hafiz Ehtisham. Here is the copy of the FIR. This is a sad development for me being a journalist because I never wish to be a news myself.#Pakistan @ICJ_Asia @rcfp pic.twitter.com/fBVVwmTmNZ
— Asad Ali Toor (@AsadAToor) September 14, 2020
Toor told Global Voices via WhatsApp that the First Information Report (FIR) was registered under sections 499 (defamation), 500 (punishment for defamation) and 505 (statements conducing to public mischief) of the Pakistan Penal Code, and sections 11 (hate speech), 20 (offences against the dignity of a person), and 37 (unlawful online content) of the 2016 Pakistan Electronic Crimes Act (PECA).
On Wednesday, September 16, 2020, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) granted one-week protective bail to Toor.
Farooqi was detained outside his home on the night of September 11 after a complaint was lodged by a resident of Landhi, Karachi, alleging that Farooqi shared “highly objectionable material” and “defamed” the Pakistan Army on his Twitter and Facebook accounts.
Journalist Mubashir Zaidi tweeted:
FIR registered against @bilalfqi for posting anti-military and alleged sectarian social media posts pic.twitter.com/R3rob77uzc
— Mubashir Zaidi (@Xadeejournalist) September 11, 2020
Farooqi was released in the early morning of September 12 on a “personal guarantee” of his lawyer Jibran Nasir.
A similar FIR was filed against Alam in the city of Jhelum by Khursheed Alam, a lawyer, who claimed Alam used derogatory language against state institutions and personalities on his Twitter account and asked that he should be charged with sedition.
Both Farooqi and Alam are facing charges under Section 20 (offences against the dignity of a person) of the 2016 PECA.
Alam said that these charges and cases are a medal for him and he won't be pressured.
ایسے غداری کے مُقدمے تو اعزاز ہیں ایک فسطائی نظام کے خلاف جدوجہد کرتے ہوئے۔
ہمیں تو مُشرف نا دبا سکا تو میری جان، جنرل باجوہ، کس گُمان میں ہے
رسیداں کڈو#bajwaleaks pic.twitter.com/R4TsTWgaI5
— Absar Alam (@AbsarAlamHaider) September 11, 2020
Facing a trial of treason is an honour in the struggle against a fascist regime. If Musharraf could not suppress us, my love, then what does General Bajwa think? Give Receipts #Bajwaleaks
“Show us the receipts” in this context refers to an investigation by website Fact Focus that exposed corruption in the Pakistani military.
According to a report by Freedom Network, there have been more than 90 cases of attacks and violations against journalists in Pakistan between May 2019 and April 2020.
Farieha Aziz, co-founder of Bolo Bhi, a local digital rights organization, tweeted:
I can't even begin to express the absurdity. Defamation sections from the PPC and Sections 11 and 20 of PECA (both non-cognisable) fit pattern in FIRs. But what's new is the addition of Section 37 which is not even an offence under PECA! What creativity.https://t.co/a3HeQd65tx
— Farieha Aziz (@FariehaAziz) September 14, 2020
Similar complaints were recently registered against a Pashtoon human rights activist Ihtesham Afghan.
A day ago I saw this news item that an FIR has been registered against me for being “Anti state and for propagating against the army on social media”. Very similar to the way @bilalfqi @AbsarAlamHaider @AsadAToor have been targeted. Such tactics will not silence me. pic.twitter.com/2nbsgJZ3xl
— Ihtesham Afghan (@IhteshamAfghan) September 14, 2020
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan issued a statement in solidarity.
The alarming increase in such actions against journalists confirms that the government is bent on muzzling freedom of expression. HRCP demands that the rights of citizens be respected and that both the government and state adopt course correction.
Former Supreme Court judge Justice M B Lokur stated on September 14, 2020, that “the government is using the sedition law with an iron hand to curb free speech in an overreaction to people's opinion.”
On September 17, Pakistan's National Assembly passed an amendment to the penal code that criminalises attempts at ridiculing armed forces personnel.
The bill was proposed by MP Amjad Ali Khan from the ruling party PTI. The bill states that “deliberately mocking, tarnishing or defaming the armed forces or its members would be considered a crime. Those who do so could face up to two years in prison and a fine of Rs 500,000 or both.”
Gul Bukhari, a journalist and commentator tweeted:
The new Bill criminalizing criticism of the army is a fascist attempt by the military to transform Pakistan into North Korea, where none can question its wrongdoing/ criminality; where impunity for it is written in law. I warn ALL parliamentarians against even THINKING about it.
— Gul Bukhari (@GulBukhari) September 16, 2020

author: Qurratulain (Annie) Zaman


text:
Artists from Gabon to Mozambique interrogate the meaning of ‘Global South’ in new online exhibition · Global Voices
Amanda Lichtenstein

“Where is South” features 90 artists and creatives from various cities who interrogate the notion of the “Global South.” Photo courtesy of the Moleskine Foundation.
The “Global South.” It's a loaded, highly political term often used to define regions of the world in opposition to each other.
More than 90 young artists and creatives from Gabon, Mozambique, the UK, the USA, along with refugees, asylum-seekers, and migrants from Nigeria, Gambia, and Cameroon living in Italy, interrogate the concept of the “Global South” in a new, virtual exhibition called “Where is South?” that launches next month.
In a press release, exhibition organizers say that using the term “Global South” is sometimes a “shortcut for labeling one part of the planet inferior, less developed, or impoverished.” Others use it interchangeably with the “third world,” another problematic, misleading term that emerged during the Cold War to describe countries with lower economic status who were also not aligned with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) or the Warsaw Pact.
“No matter where we are in the world, there is always a ‘south,'” said the exhibition's co-creator and curator, Simon Njami, who continues:
These young people reclaimed their power to define the word as a very intimate notion that varies according to the place where they are and where they want to reach. The exhibit powerfully reveals that there cannot be any south without the gaze we invest it with.
The exhibit will take over the Moleskine Foundation Instagram from October 1 through October 30, 2020.
The works are the creative outcomes of the Foundation’s AtWork initiative, “an itinerant educational workshop designed to unlock the creative potential of young people through critical thinking, intense debate and self-discovery.”
AtWork started in 2012 in Dakar, Senegal, and has since traveled throughout Africa and beyond “to inspire a Pan-African and global network of creative thinkers,” according to the Moleskine Foundation.
Frank Noel Makosso, AtWork Libreville 2019 participant. Photo by Bunny Studio.
The artists, all between the ages of 18 and 27, challenge notions of independence, identity, borders, and history.
Showcasing more than 90 hacked, decorated and transformed notebooks created by artists and creatives in each of the AtWork cities where workshops took place in 2019, the exhibit “redefines the ideologically charged word at a moment when people are debating how to create a more equitable society in a post-pandemic world,” according to the press release.
Libreville's AtWork workshop attracted 24 young choreographers, designers, entrepreneurs, slam poets, film directors, actors, visual artists, photographers and educators who gathered to “debate, exchange and find their personal ‘souths.'”
Frank Noel Makosso, a poetry slam champion from Libreville, Gabon, participated in the AtWork Libreville workshop in 2019. He defines the word “south” as his “inner self.” For the exhibit, Makossa created a collage of French and English words and phrases from newspapers and magazines in an artwork called, “How to express the ineffable?”
“How to express the ineffable?” by Frank Noel Makosso, Libreville, Gabon. Courtesy of Moleskine Foundation Collection.
Here is a sampling of artworks produced during the AtWork Libreville 2019 workshop:
AtWork Maputo 2019 included a 5-day workshop conducted by Njami in partnership with Pfwura Ndzilo and Anima, in November last year, during which 25 local artists gathered at the National Museum of Mozambique to explore and debate the meanings of “south.” The workshop culminated in an exhibition at the National Museum between November 2019 and January 2020.
Here is a sampling of artworks produced during the AtWork Maputo 2019 workshop:
“Our goal is to create a welcoming and creative space where young people can think differently, get out of their comfort zones, and are free to question the society around them,” said Adama Sanneh, CEO of the Moleskine Foundation.
Simon Njami (left) and AtWork participants at AtWork Libreville, Gabon, 2019. Photo by Bunny Studio.
The coastal city of Libreville, Gabon's capital, is called the “free city” because it was officially declared a city for freed slaves in 1849. Today, it's one of the top five most expensive cities in Africa, but creativity is still not valued. Art centers and galleries have been nonexistent and cultural programming centers around its Institut Français.
Bunny Claude-Massassa, AtWork Kampala 2018 alumna and AtWork Libreville 2019 partner. Photo by Bunny Studio.
Bunny Claude-Massassa, a multimedia artist and 2018 AtWork alumna, decided to address Libreville's lack of spaces for independent culture by founding her own nongovernmental organization, Mukasa.
Initiating the city’s first non-institutional space dedicated to conversations about culture and creativity, Mukasa hosted the AtWork 2019 workshop, “Where is South,” in partnership with the National Museum of Gabon and Institut Français.
Mukasa is inspired by the concept of dwabi, which means, in Gabon's Punu dialect: “basket holder,” made of woven ropes.
The object — used by both men and women to transport heavy loads over long distances — has become a metaphor for all of Mukasa's activities, aspiring to serve as a strong link between art, culture and audiences.
Mukasa aims “to create, develop and support a creative artistic ecosystem” to strengthen the  Gabonese artistic scene and take a leading role in the region's arts scene and commercial market. The center will include a media library and an exhibition space as well as a place for artists to convene and relax.
Construction was postponed due to COVID-19 but is now back underway, with plans to host a series of documentary screenings focused on questions of identity by November that will follow all COVID-19 protocols.
Mukasa building in Libreville, Gabon, provides a space for artists to convene, study and exhibit. Photo courtesy of Moleskine Foundation.
This year, Gabon's Ministry of Culture and Arts escalated governmental support for the cultural and creative industries (CCI), designing its first legal framework to harness emergent social and economic opportunities, according to UNESCO.
This catapults Gabon to the forefront of Central Africa’s move toward a formal creative economy.
Since the pandemic, some of the continent's creative economies — mostly fueled by informal sectors — have taken a hit. Musicians and visual artists who usually tour and participate in live exhibitions have had to press pause on their programs due to coronavirus-related cancellations. But overall, the continent's cultural goods sector employs approximately half a million people and generates $4.2 billion in revenue across Africa.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Amanda Lichtenstein


text:
Fearing the national security law, Hongkongers change their social media habits · Global Voices
The Stand News

Image from the Stand News. Used with permission.
The following story was originally published on The Stand News in Chinese. It was translated to English by Global Voices and it will be published here in five different parts with permission.
Beijing's national security law has transformed Hong Kong into a city of fear.
Since its enactment in July, people have been arrested for their mere presence near a past protest site. The election of the Legislative Council was postponed until next year. The police raided the office of Apple Daily, a pro-democracy newspaper, and arrested its founder Jimmy Lai under allegations of collusion with foreign forces. Teachers have been punished for pro-democracy expressions on social media.
Between August 29 and September 1, The Stand News asked its readers, through a series of online polls, how the national security law impacted their lives. The results of the survey, in which 2,587 people took part, are published in this story, which comes along with interviews with protesters, journalists, civil servants, teachers, and others. We wanted to find out how they are managing their fear under the new draconian law.
According to the polls, the proportion of respondents who report feeling “very intense” (level 9) and “extremely intense” (level 10) fear has surged from 23.4 on May 21, when Beijing announced the national security law, to 38.4 on June 30, when details of the law were released. It spiked on July 29, when four student activists were arrested for inciting secession.
Respondents say their sources of fear are: Speech criminalization (96 percent), suppression of free press (93 percent), suppression of protests and arrests because of protests (84 percent), extradition to China for trial (77 percent), being reported for “political misconduct” by an acquaintance (76 percent), and police surveillance (71 percent).
Reasons to fear national security law, according to an online poll by The Stand News. Image from the Stand News, used with permission.
As for the emotions elicited by the national security law, the respondents chose: Anger (88 percent), worry (75 percent), helplessness (73 percent), hate (70 percent), despair (57 percent), anxiety (51 percent), sadness (50 percent), fear (43 percent), happiness (1 percent), and relief (1 percent).
The poll also asked whether readers had adopted any safer means of communication — 69 percent said “yes.” Precautions include use of VPNs (37 percent), reviewing social media connections (28 percent), using encrypted messaging tools such as Signal (28 percent), deleting chat histories (23 percent), hiding or deleting social media posts (20 percent), using secret chat functions (12 percent), change of social media usernames (12 percent), opening new social media accounts (8 percent), using anonymous mobile SIM cards (8 percent), and using a separate phone for secured communication (6 percent).
During the year-long anti-China extradition demonstrations between 2019 and 2020, “Rebecca” (not her real name) provided food coupons and emotional support to more than 50 young protesters whom she calls “her kids.”
When the details of the national security law first emerged on June 30, she realized she could get in trouble for her past actions — providing material or monetary support for those who committed crimes listed on the law is punishable with 5 to 10-year imprisonment.
Rebecca still showed up on Causeway Bay the next day at a protest against the national security law. But instead of black, she wore a dress this time.
Like thousands of other protesters, Rebecca manages her fear by taking small precautions. In order to prevent potential harassment of her family and friends, she has restricted her communication with them. Even before the national security law was enacted, she would delete sensitive messages on her phone every day.
But on June 30, she acquired a “ghost phone” with a pre-paid SIM card. She registered the iPhone's Apple ID with an anonymous email address. She then distributed other iPhones with a similar set up to a dozen protesters who have decided to carry on with their activism.
Also on June 30, she transferred all her sensitive communication to the ghost phone and sent messages to protesters reminding them to delete messages on a regular basis, deactivate face and fingerprint ID unlock functions, enable two-factor authentication on all apps, and enable an auto-erase function after 10 failed password attempts, among other measures.
In addition to communications security, Rebecca also prepared a backup plan in case she was arrested — she entrusted a friend with her identification number and a lawyer's phone number to prepare for a bail. She also packed all protest-related items in a box and asked her friend to clean up the house in case an arrest is confirmed.
On the protest day, she and her husband had lunch at Causeway and kept the restaurant's receipt in case they were arrested and needed to explain why they were in the protest area.
After she went home, she heard the news that several of her “kids” had been arrested at Times Square. As it is customary for the police to check arrested protesters’ mobile phones and social media accounts, Rebecca quit several Telegram groups she participated along with the arrestees. Hong Kong activists frequently dismantle social media groups following arrests in order to avoid jeopardizing their networks.
A number of Telegram administrators have been arrested for “inciting to join unlawful assembly” since the anti-China extradition protest broke out in 2019.
Eventually, her “kids” were only bailed out after 30 hours as they refused to unlock their phones to the police.
Rebecca is now living a double life — on both social media and real life, she seldom comments on politics and protests. Wherever there is a surveillance camera, she only performs apolitical activities such as playing online games. But in private, she keeps looking after her “kids”.

author: The Stand News


text:
How indigenous peoples resist COVID-19 in South America · Global Voices
Gabriela Mesones Rojo

Farmers from the Brazilian Reforma Agraria Popular distributed about six tons of food to indigenous peoples during the pandemic. Photo credit: Vinícius Braga/Fotos Publicas (CC BY 3.0)
In Latin America, indigenous people are at higher risk of COVID-19 infection due to lack of data and historical political neglect, according to indigenous communities and human rights organizations. Malnutrition, anemia, and obesity rates are high and resources to build nearby hospitals are low. In Bolivia, for example, the Bolivian Center for Legal Studies and Social Research (CEJIS for its initials in Spanish) also warned about the risk of the “ethnocide” of indigneous groups in the context of COVID-19. Similar concerns have spread throughout the continent.
To face the lack of access to basic sanitary services and absent public authorities, indigenous peoples are finding ways to cope with COVID-19. Here are ways the peoples of Yek'uana, Kayapo Mekranoti, São Gabriel da Cachoeira, San Antonio de Lomerío, Multi-Ethnic Indigenous Territory and Tsimané community in Venezuela, Brazil, and Bolivia are resisting the pandemic.
This map outlines all indigenous territories in the South American Amazon and highlights communities featured in this story. The shapes were created by Global Voices based on a database compiled by Amazonia Socioambiental, filtered using QGIS and edited on Photoshop and Illustrator.
In Venezuela, information has gotten even rarer after indigenous leader and journalist Melquíades Avilás was arrested on March 13 in the state of Delta Amacuro mining area. He was detained after asking, “Will our hospital be ready for coronavirus?” on his Facebook account. The post was later deleted, as medics and other activists in the area denounced state negligence during the pandemic more anonymously. While the exact number of indigenous people who have contracted and died of COVID-19 in Venezuela is not clear, the UN estimates that nearly 5,000 indigenous Venezuelans have fled to Brazil due to the pandemic.
In late June, three indigenous leaders from Yek'uana people in the southeastern Bolívar state read their official statement resuming how the pandemic and the quarantine measures have affected the lifestyle and reported 302 indigenous stuck outside of their communities. At the time of publication, they have not been able to come home because of the quarantine and lack of gasoline. The letter is read in the video below:
To find less individual ways to protests their situation, indigenous peoples and human rights activists also supported a virtual protest throughout July #HoyMeUnoAKapeKape (#TodayIJoinKapeKape) organized by the NGO Kapé Kapé and aimed at indigenous communities in Amazonas state to denounce the lack of food, cash, water, gasoline, public health system, access to medicine, and the violation of their democratic rights. They most frequently complained about the electoral authorities’ decision to eliminate the indigenous peoples’ direct voting methodology.
Felicito a @ackapekape por un nuevo aniversario. Y me uno a la campaña de respecto al derecho de la salud integral que tienen los pueblos indígenas, debido a falta de políticas públicas adecuadas, situación que se agrava por el #Covid_19 en la región #HoyMeUnoAKapeKape pic.twitter.com/GOIatwrJhf
— Olnar Ortiz Bare (@olnarortiz) July 29, 2020
I congratulate @ackapekape on their new anniversary. And I join the campaign to respect the right to integral health of indigenous peoples, due to the lack of adequate public policies, a situation that is aggravated by #Covid_19 in the region #TodayIJoinKapeKape
The pandemic reached Brazilian indigenous communities in the midst of a battle to maintain basic rights. On August 18, dozens of Amazonian indigenous leaders denounced the social inequalities in their region by blocking a strategic road for transporting grains to the state of Mato Grosso. Armed with bows and arrows, the Kayapo Mekranoti settled on the BR-163 highway near the city of Novo Progresso, in northern Brazil, about 80km from the village where the Kayapo people live, for ten days.
The Kayapo sent a letter during the blockage to the Fundação Nacional do Índio (Funai), the government agency responsible for implementing policies concerning indigenous peoples in Brazil. In it, they claimed that they were being forced out from their lands and had little to no access to basic preventive measures against COVID-19.
This community lives on Badjônkôre territory, an officially demarcated indigenous land since 2003 that is extremely valuable to gold miners, cattle owners, and wood companies. There is a national tendency, illustrated by the fires in the Amazon and Pantanal forests, to strategically exploit these areas which are legally attributed to indigenous communities. Since President Jair Bolsonaro took office, there has been a tug of war to remove protective measures on demarcated lands alongside guarantees of access to healthcare and basic sanitary conditions from indigenous communities.
On September 15, the Kayapó people won their first legal victory on that matter; the Brazilian State now has to comply with indigenous environmental protection demands in this region.
No más deforestacion del Amazonas !
No más abandono ante #COVID19 !
Pueblo indígena Kapayo de #Brasil en resistencia. #vidasindigenasimportam pic.twitter.com/xXs9tqQQtW
— ???í? ?????? ??á???? (@noelia_arauz) August 19, 2020
No more deforestation in the Amazon!
No more abandonment in the face of #COVID19!
Indigenous people of Kapayo from #Brazil in resistance
#indigenouslivesmatter
Even though COVID-19 spread fast in Brazil, the Brazilian city with most indigenous populations managed to extinguish its COVID-19 related deaths in July. Located on the border with Colombia and Venezuela, São Gabriel da Cachoeira is known for having more than 90% of the population composed of indigenous people who belong to about 23 different ethnicities. When the pandemic started, they established a curfew and organized local information campaigns, which included the production of podcasts and the circulation of a sound car through the city streets carrying information in indigenous languages, in order to prevent the disease from spreading.
This was done in May, almost two months after the arrival of COVID-19 in Brazil, with the help of indigenous leaders who collaborated with foreign institutions, such as Doctors without borders and a national fund that aggregates donations from banks, hospitals, and members of civil society. Together, they have donated R$ 800,000 (150,703 US Dollars) to build nine mobile health units and start a massive testing campaign.
A recipe book, a handmade syrup, and a health protocol are what indigenous peoples from the low plains in eastern Bolivia advise to face the pandemic.
The leaders of the Multi-Ethnic Indigenous Territory (TIM for their initials in Spanish), who own land through collective title according to Bolivian law, published Remedios del Monte. Remedios del Monte can be loosely translated to remedies of nature, the forest, or the bush. Paulina Noza, the president of TIM's women's council, explained why to local press:
“San Antonio del Pallar community, multiethnic indigenous territory of Bosque de Chimanes, Bolivian Amazon”. Page 6 of Remedios del Monte [Remedies of Nature]. Photo by Fátima Monasterio Mercado, used with permission.
Hicimos este recetario, preocupados por la pandemia que brotó este año. (…) Por eso nosotros seguimos conservando [esos saberes] y ahora queremos que la gente lo conozca
We made the recipe book because we are worried about the pandemic. (…) We want people to know the age-old wisdom we preserve.
The lawyer and researcher Fátima Monasterio told local press that the use of natural medicine is a survival strategy due to the absence of the state. In fact, the recipe book’s presentation says:
En esta lucha por la vida, que se remonta a la memoria de los antiguos, seguiremos exigiendo el cumplimiento de nuestros derechos.
In this struggle for life, which dates back to our ancestor's memory, we will continue to demand the fulfillment of our rights.
The recipe book contains instructions to increase the body's natural defenses, cure colds, treat symptoms such as fever, diarrhea, and cough, and also shares recommendations to improve human's spiritual relationship with nature.
Also, the Tsimané community, which belongs to TIM,  developed a health protocol together with doctors and anthropologists that consists of special care for the elderly, controlling entry points into their territory, caring for quarantined people, contact tracing, and dissemination of information in their indigenous language. In the video below, TIM President Paula Noza explains the community's help and how entry points work.
Meanwhile, José Parapaino Chuvirú, from the indigenous territory San Antonio de Lomerío, launched the traditional syrup “Sabor Original Kutuki” [“Kutuki Original Flavor”], made of the medicinal herb kutuki and macerated with a mixture of roots and leaves. According to testimonies mentioned in the platform Salud con Lupa, the beverage has been effective in calming COVID-19 symptoms.
#NO_ESPERES_MÁS..😎🤙y#QuedateEnCasa..🏡..
Posted by Chochio on Sunday, June 14, 2020

author: Gabriela Mesones Rojo


text:
In Pakistan, women stage nationwide protest in response to shocking rape incident · Global Voices
R Umaima Ahmed

Aurat Azadi (Women's liberation) March at Lahore Liberty Roundabout on September 12, 2020. Screenshot from YouTube video by Ilme Alim. Translation: Why liberal women are against capital punishment?
Pakistani women staged mass demonstrations in the country's major cities on September 12 demanding justice and accountability for sexual violence following a widely-publicized rape incident in the Lahore region.
On September 9, a woman who was travelling with her three children from Lahore to Gujranwala (97 km) at night was robbed and raped at gunpoint by three men after her car ran out of petrol in the Lahore-Sialkt Motorway.
According to Punjab's police, the newly-opened motorway does not have police patrol.
Social media went furious after the capital city police officer (CCPO) of Lahore, Umar Sheikh, blamed the incident on the victim's decision to travel at night during a TV interview.
Shortly after, a hashtag demanding the Sheikh's resignation began making the rounds on Twitter,
Pakistan's federal minister for human rights, Shireen Mazari condemned the CCPO's declaration:
For an officer to effectively blame a woman for being gang-raped by saying she should have taken the GT Road or question as to why she went out in the night with her children is unacceptable & have taken up this issue. Nothing can ever rationalise the crime of rape. That's it.
— Shireen Mazari (@ShireenMazari1) September 10, 2020
Barrister Khadija Siddiqui, who in May 2016 was brutally assaulted by a male classmate in a street in Lahore, also rebuked the CCPO:
Ccpo claiming that in our society women/children arent allowed to go outside after 12:30 am! Who are you to set time limits for us?
I was stabbed 23 times in broad daylight! Dont tell us that ‘time’ is directly connected to the commission of offence! #motorwayincident pic.twitter.com/8z9ERuJ3Rc
— khadija siddiqi (@khadijasid751) September 10, 2020
A major slogan of the September 12 rallies was “Mera Jism Meri Marzi” (“my body, my choice”).
The organizers of Aurat March (Urdu for “Women's March”), who helped organize the protests in different cities, published a charter of demands, which includes opposition to hangings and support for judicial and police reforms to ensure “our bodies are safe and there is accountability for violence.”
Our charter of demands for the protest today at 5 PM liberty roundabout.
We oppose public hangings and call for meaningful reform to ensure our bodies are safe and there is accountability for violence.#MeraJismMeriMarzi pic.twitter.com/1lV5QWj03s
— عورت مارچ لاہور – Aurat March Lahore (@AuratMarch) September 12, 2020
We, as the organizers of the protest that's being held in light of the heinous motorway attack, demand swift justice for all victims of sexual violence BUT we oppose capital punishment & violence begetting violence. Here is our list of demands. #EndRapeCulture #MeraJismMeriMarzi pic.twitter.com/r7m4ca3RC3
— Aurat Azadi March Islamabad (@AuratAzadiMarch) September 11, 2020
We, the organisers of the Mera Jism Meri Marzi protest in Karachi, demand justice, accountability, an end to violence, and structural reform. We demand radical change within our public institutions to ensure that this culture of patriarchal violence and control comes to an end. pic.twitter.com/6fmCIMAc2r
— Aurat March – عورت مارچ (@AuratMarchKHI) September 12, 2020
In 2019, 3,881 cases of rape and 1,359 cases of child sexual abuse were registered in Punjab only. According to data by the Punjab police, 2,043 rape cases were registered in the first six months of 2020.
The police is investigating the motorway incident. While suspects have been identified, no arrests have been made yet.
Whenever a rape incident gains media attention in Pakistan, people demand that men accused of rape are punished with death. This time was no different, and the hashtag #HangRapistsPublically trended on social media.
The women's wing of Jamat e Islami, a religious political party that also organized protests in response to the motorway incident, was among those who tweeted the hashtag.
General Secretary of JI Women Wing, Ms Durdana Siddiqui spoke from the protest today at Khi Press Club. She asked for the Women Protection & demanded to #hangrapistspublicly #تحفظ_فوری_انصاف pic.twitter.com/Sb1dmXrT8u
— Jamaat e Islami Karachi (Official) (@KarachiJamaat) September 11, 2020
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan also defended hangings in an interview. “They [rapists] should be given exemplary punishments. In my opinion, they should be hanged at the chowk [intersection],” Khan said.
The federal cabinet also endorsed the PM's views, while favoring “chemical castration” as punishment in order to protect the country from Western criticism.
I personally think pedophiles & rapists must be hanged publicly but I'm told that we have international repercussions. EU's GSP status for trade with Pakistan will be affected by public hangings. Hence I think chemical castration must be conducted on those criminals #PMIKon92News
— PTI (@PTIofficial) September 14, 2020
But others expressed opposition to such punitive measures. Journalist Mehreen Zahra Malik said:
EU’s Generalized System of Preferences (GSP-plus) status, granted to Pakistan in 2014, is contingent upon observation of international conventions, such as human rights. Don't think they'll be too happy with #chemicalcastration & public executions. #motorwaycase #motorwayincident
— Mehreen Zahra-Malik (@mehreenzahra) September 14, 2020
Reema Omer, a legal advisor at the International Commission of Jurists, said:
In addition to public hanging, certain MNAs have also suggested “chemical castration” as punishment for rape
A similar proposal was made to J. Verma Committee (constituted for law reform after the Delhi gang rape) in India
The Committee rejected it for the following reasons: pic.twitter.com/IfD09BYqeV
— Reema Omer (@reema_omer) September 14, 2020
Journalist Zarrar Khuhro tweeted:
Systemic reform is what we need to be talking about. Chemical castration, public hanging, dissolving in acid…all that has to come later. Most #rape cases go unreported because of police, legal and societal problems. And of those who go to court, 96% are acquitted.
— Zarrar Khuhro (@ZarrarKhuhro) September 14, 2020

author: R Umaima Ahmed


text:
In Turkey, women rise up to stop withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention · Global Voices
Arzu Geybullayeva

Screenshot from Anit Sayac home page.
A website called Anit Sayac (Turkish for “monument tracker”) indicates the number “276” on its home page at the time of writing this story. It represents the number of women who were murdered in domestic violence attacks in Turkey—just in 2020. The counter is updated every day. But it is the names of the victims, written just below it, that strike the site's visitors.
Among them is 27-year-old Pinar Gultekin, whose murder by her partner in July sparked public outrage and protests. On the same day that Pinar's body was found by the police, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) announced it would withdraw from the Istanbul Convention, a treaty signed by member states of the Council of Europe to prevent violence and domestic abuse against women. In 2012, Turkey became the first country to ratify the treaty—with support from the now-ruling AKP. The treaty came into force in Turkey in 2014.
Nowadays, the party led by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan perceives the Convention to be antithetical to “Turkish family values.” Numan Kurtulmus, deputy chair of the AKP, said on a July 2 TV interview that it was “wrong” for Turkey to have ratified the convention. “There are two issues in this convention which we do not approve of,” he said. “First is the gender issue, and the other is the sexual orientation issue. There are also other issues but these two have been the concepts which have played into the hands of and create spaces for the LGBT and marginal elements to work within.”
The party's position resonates with Turkey's conservatives. Abdurrahman Dilipak, a popular Islamist columnist, described the convention in 2019 as “a devil with an angel’s face” and “a trap” set to destroy the traditional family.
Meanwhile, local women's rights organisations who help with survivors domestic violence fear that Turkey's withdrawal from the convention will be devastating to their work—as well as to the families seeking justice for loved ones who were victims of femicide.
Mor Cati, a leading Turkish NGO working to prevent and document domestic violence, argues that any government attempt of withdrawal from the treaty could face a legal challenge. “According to the Turkish constitution, international agreements on human rights are above internal laws,” said Mor Cati lawyer Meline Cilingir, on an interview with Middle East Eye. “If the parliament tries to overturn the convention, women's rights organizations will try and take it to the constitutional court to request its cancellation,” she added.
Not everyone within the ruling party is in favour of withdrawal. The Women and Democracy Platform (Kadem), an organization co-founded by Erdogan's daughter Sumeyye Erdogan Bayraktar in 2013, has publicly defended Turkey's membership in the treaty. On a July 10 statement, Kadem said that “in a relationship where there is no love and respect and one party is tormented with violence, we cannot talk about ‘family’ anymore.”
Pinar Gultekin's murder helped spark a movement in support for the convention, expressed online by the hashtag #istanbulconventionsaveslives.
“Her death was emblematic of longstanding forms of structural violence made possible by acts of omission and commission by the state and its policing functions,” said Asli Bali, faculty director of the UCLA School of Law's Promise Institute for Human Rights.
The overwhelming public outcry seems to have made an impression on the AKP—a decision that was meant to be announced in early August has been postponed.
Action to save #IstanbulConventionSavesLives needed today – now! Please promote.????? @PoetsVersus @jaeger_julia @AnnetteLawson1 @RedGSagoo @LaurainLondon https://t.co/CWm55HSOXU
— Alice Fookes (@alicefookes) September 22, 2020
”We are the best opposition, that’s why the government wants to control us,” says feminist lawyer Canan Arın. As a part of our series on #DefendingHumanRights in #Turkey, we share her story ? https://t.co/KN5vDbHJ7F#istanbulSözleşmesiYaşatır#IstanbulConventionSavesLives
— NL Helsinki Comité (@NHC_nl) September 21, 2020
Why does the #IstanbulConvention matter?
Short answer: Because the #IstanbulConventionSavesLives
If you've got three minutes for a longer answer, watch @kadinih‘s latest videohttps://t.co/7rqWtkC2q0
— equalitynow (@equalitynow) September 16, 2020
Hashtag #istanbulconventionsaveslives & black/white selfies are being posted in protest over threats by Turkey's govt to withdraw from European treaty to protect women, & in solidarity w/ murder victims often reported in Turkish newspapers.https://t.co/uqBN31S9ef @sophiedaviesed
— equalitynow (@equalitynow) September 12, 2020
No state has ever withdrawn from the Istanbul Convention but, like Turkey, others are considering to do so. Among them is Poland, where conservative politicians have described the Convention as “endangering” to the traditional family. In May 2020, the Hungarian legislature refused to ratify the Convention, objecting to its definition of gender as “socially constructed.” Like Hungary, Bulgaria and Slovakia are signatories to the Convention but haven't ratified it.
In 2018, 440 pairs of high heels were placed on the façade of a building in Istanbul. The installation by Turkish artist Vahit Tuna was a memorial to 440 women murdered by their partners or family members in that year alone. As Turkey weighs its membership to the Convention, women ask: How many more pairs of shoes need to be displayed to convince the government that those human lives are at stake?

author: Arzu Geybullayeva


text:
Thai protesters submit petition for monarchy reforms, install ‘people’s plaque’ · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

A massive protest in Bangkok, Thailand held on September 19, 2020. Photo by @Darikulica / EngageMedia, a content partner of Global Voices
September 19 drew a massive crowd in Bangkok during a protest that called for the dissolution of the Thailand parliament and the drafting of a new constitution. On September 20, protesters installed a ‘people’s plaque’ but was removed the following day. The protesters claimed a symbolic victory after they succeeded in submitting a petition to the king’s Privy Council about their demands to reform the monarchy.
Thailand enforces one of the strictest Lese Majeste (anti-Royal Insult) laws in the world. During the pandemic, the government has been accused of using the Lese Majeste law to detain critics and harass the opposition.
The Saturday rally was the biggest anti-government protest since the military grabbed power in 2014. Estimates vary but some participants said that the assembly reached more than 100,000. The protest proceeded despite reports of police intimidation and threats of arrests. Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, the former army general who led the 2014 coup, also made a televised address discouraging people to go out since the rally could cause a spike in COVID-19 cases.
The protest activity started at Thammasat University while the main program was held at the Sanam Luang city park field.
IN PHOTOS: #Thailand anti-government protest, where thousands gathered to demand democratic reforms. Call for solidarity with Thai protests and #StopHarassingPeople#19กันยาทวงอํานาจคืนราษฏร #WhatsHappeninginThailand
?: @Darikulica pic.twitter.com/R4gqClajeI
— EngageMedia (@EngageMedia) September 19, 2020
Speakers took turns highlighting the three demands of the protest movement: dissolve the parliament, rewrite the military-based constitution, and end the intimidation and arbitrary arrests of critics of the government.
READ: Why are young people protesting in Thailand?
The youth-led protest was supported by various sectors. A veteran activist couple shared their thoughts about the protest during an interview by Coconuts news website:
Today I came to support the children’s generation. I disagree with this dictatorship government and always have. The constitution must come from the people, and there need to be checks on government officials and transparency. Inequality happens under this current system.
We think we may have reached 100,000.
Photocredit: Niranam Plodhack. pic.twitter.com/PtpuLpQWya
— Thai Enquirer (@ThaiEnquirer) September 19, 2020
Many protesters camped-out in the evening in preparation for the September 20 activity.
Almost 2 am. I’m still at Sanam Luang with thousands of protesters who intend to camp out here overnight.
Tomorrow, they will place a brass plaque – a nod to the 1932 revolution that ended absolute monarchy – that declares “the country belongs to the people, not the monarchy.” pic.twitter.com/GDI8teVLlG
— Patpicha Best (@patpichatan) September 19, 2020
Many protesters stayed overnight in Bangkok. Leaders have said that today they will declare “the country belongs to the people, not the monarchy’ in front of the Grand Palace. #19กันยาทวงอํานาจคืนราษฏร #WhatsHappeningInThailand pic.twitter.com/5psHUzMLbZ
— Matthew Tostevin (@TostevinM) September 19, 2020
On September 20, protesters installed a ‘people’s plaque’ on the ground of Sanam Luang which has the following inscription:
The 2.0 People's plaque at a glance. The inscription states:
(Inside) At dawn of 20 Sep. 2020.
(Edge) People shall know, that this country belongs to the people, not the king as they lied.
3 fingers can be seen in there.#whatshappeninginthailand #19กันยาทวงอํานาจคืนราษฎร pic.twitter.com/VxoMY0ghMi
— Prachatai English (@prachatai_en) September 20, 2020
The plaque also features the ‘Hunger Games’ three-finger salute which has become the symbol of the democracy movement in Thailand.
pic.twitter.com/ITbzk0cunj
— Karl Vandenhole (@Vanaule) September 21, 2020
The plaque is similar to what the People’s Party installed in 1932, the year when Thailand’s absolute monarchy ended and gave way to the establishment of a democracy. The 1932 plaque has this inscription:
At this place, on the dawn of June 24, 1932 we the People’s Party have birthed the Constitution for the nation’s progress.
But in April 2017, the plaque was removed and replaced by a new one honoring the monarchy with this inscription:
Long live Siam forever! Happy, fresh-faced citizens build up the power of the land!
[Siam is Thailand’s former name.]
No one was arrested for removing the 1932 plaque but many suspected that it was done by pro-royalist forces.
On September 21, journalists reported that the ‘people’s plaque’ 2.0 had been removed.
The new plaque has is now gone I less than 24 hours. This is probably a clear answer from the powers that be about what they think of the demands to reform the monarchy. Just took this photo. Unceremoniously removed. #WhatHappensinThailand #Thailand pic.twitter.com/wf5sH3b0Aj
— Pravit Rojanaphruk (@PravitR) September 21, 2020
The police said they are readying a case against the protesters for installing the plaque in a government site without coordinating with authorities.
Youth leaders led a delegation in presenting their letter to the Privy Council. They were initially blocked by the police but their letter was eventually received by authorities.
Thai student activist Panusaya “Rung” Sithijirawattanakul talks to police to hand over a list of demands for King Maha Vajiralonkorn after a march was blocked in Bangkok. By @Athit_P #19กันยาทวงอํานาจคืนราษฏร #WhatsHappeningInThailand pic.twitter.com/81HaiF6rmc
— Matthew Tostevin (@TostevinM) September 20, 2020
Protesters clarified that they are not clamoring for the abolition of the monarchy, which is a beloved institution in Thailand. What they are seeking is to make it relevant in the 21st century and compatible with the requirements of a constitutional democracy.
Protest leaders said the next action will be on September 24 to pressure the constitutional drafting committee of the parliament. They are also calling for a general strike on October 14.
This video provides an overview of the weekend protest:

author: Mong Palatino


text:
What Weibo and Chinese media are saying about TikTok’s pending sale to US companies · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Image from The Stand News. Used with permission.
Since United States’ President Donald Trump threatened to ban TikTok in the U.S. as long as the social media app remained in the hands of a Chinese company, the app's parent company ByteDance has been scrambling to sell part of its operation to American investors.
An agreement with U.S. companies Walmart and Oracle to establish a new joint-venture called TikTok Global finally received Donald Trump's blessing on September 19 — only to jar against new obstacles days afterwards.
Two different interpretations of the deal emerged this week: While ByteDance says it will retain 80 percent of TikTok Global, Oracle said that ByteDance would lose all of its stake in the new company. Commenting on the turmoil on a television interview, Trump stressed that the Chinese firm would “have nothing to do with it, and if they do, we just won’t make the deal.”
The confusion seems to stem from the fact that 40 percent of ByteDance is already owned by American investors, which would render the total American shareholding of TikTok Global above 50 percent.
Meanwhile, the editor-in-chief of Chinese state-affiliated outlet Global Times Hu Xijin tweeted on Monday that the deal with Oracle and Walmart could still face opposition from Beijing. He said:
Based on what I know, Beijing won't approve current agreement between ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, and Oracle, Walmart, because the agreement would endanger China's national security, interests and dignity.
— Hu Xijin 胡锡进 (@HuXijin_GT) September 21, 2020
While Beijing's position on the Oracle/Walmart agreement is not yet official, in the recent past other government-affiliated news outlets have correctly anticipated the Chinese Communist Party's decisions around the sale.
Following an editorial by China Daily slamming a potential agreement between ByteDance and Microsoft as “theft,” Beijing implemented a new set of rules restricting Chinese exports of AI technology.
The new rules forced ByteDance to limit tech transfers in the agreement with Oracle and Walmart — although the U.S. companies will still be able to see TikTok's source code, ByteDance said.
On Weibo, some Chinese netizens have expressed support for the Oracle/Walmart deal. A popular economics blogger on the platform called “Tianjin hero in the stock market”（天津股俠）says that the agreement could establish a model for future disputes:
TT的最终方案真是大利好了，一波三折没想到这个结局。第一字节保住了TT控股权，第二，没有转让核心技术和算法，第三保住了美国业务，第四引进甲骨文和沃尔玛，给20%股权，相当于引进战略投资者，第五即将新一轮融资，融资主要给甲骨文和沃尔玛没有损害原老股东利益。这个版本是目前为止中资企业面对美国打压下的最优方案了。
TikTok’s agreement is a good deal. First of all, it keeps ByteDance’s ownership of Tik Tok; Second, it has not sold its core technology and algorithm; third, it saves its U.S business; fourth, it only gives 20 percent holding to Oracle and Walmart as strategic partners; fifth, the new round of capital investment is confined only to Oracle and Walmart and does not harm the existing investors. This is the best solution in dealing with the suppression of Chinese corporations in the U.S.
But for Chinese nationalists, the deal will harm China's interests. A Global Times’ editorial on September 21 said that the deal would be a de-facto transfer of core technology:
甲骨文可以访问审查TikTok Global的源代码和所有更新内容。由于TikTok的源代码和抖音的源代码应是同源的，这意味着美方将能够洞悉抖音的核心技术。
TikTokGlobal将掌管TikTok 除中国以外世界各地的业务，同时它将阻止中国大陆的IP访问该程序。这意味着美国人通过这一次交易就可以掌控TikTok的全球业务，而且歧视性地排斥中国人访问它。
Oracle would be able to review TikTok Global’s source code and content data. If the source code of Tik Tok and Douyan [the Chinese version of TikTok] is shared, it means that the Americans would be able to access Douyan’s core technology.
Once TikTok Global takes over TikTok’s business over the world, it would block Chinese IPs from visiting the application. This means that Americans can take control of its global business in one single deal and impose discriminatory measures against visits from Chinese netizens.
The editorial also described the deal as an “unequal treaty” — in a reference to the treaties signed between the Qing Dynasty and colonial Western powers during the 19th and early 20th century — and disavowed it as a model for future conflicts:
这些条款非常充分展现了华盛顿的霸凌做派和强盗逻辑，同时损害了中国的国家安全、利益和尊严。字节跳动是一家中国的普通商业公司，美国动用国家力量对它进行打压，强迫它签城下之盟，但中国作为一个国家，而且同样是大国，不会屈服于美方的恫吓，接受一个针对中国企业的“不平等条约”。
…美国是个大市场，如果TikTok受美方控制的重组成为一个模板，意味着中国每一个成功的企业一旦去了美国发展，而且一旦它们有自己的核心竞争力，都会被美国盯上，通过巧取豪夺把它们变成受美方控制的公司，把那些公司在全球打开的市场也都顺势植入美国利益的导向。
The agreement reflects Washington’s bully and thief-like logic. It would harm China’s national security, interest and dignity. ByteDance is an ordinary Chinese corporation and the U.S. has resorted to state power to repress its development and impose an agreement. However, China is also a strong country and it would not submit to U.S. threats and its “unequal treaty” imposed on a Chinese corporation…
The U.S. is a big market. If the restructuring of TikTok becomes a model to enable U.S. control, it means that other Chinese corporations will face the same fate once they become competitive in the U.S. market — they might be taken over by the U.S. and their development in the global market would be serving U.S. national interests
As anticipated, Global Times’ rhetoric has attracted a lot of support on Weibo. Here are two popular responses to the editorial in question:
其实从特朗普种种表现来看，他不敢真的封禁Tik Tok，这涉及到选票。张老总最需要的是硬气，只要敢破釜沉舟，和美国以退出市场为威胁硬刚，必然置之死地而后生！
Judging from Trump’s performance, he would not dare to ban TikTok. Such action would affect the number of votes. ByteDance’s CEO needs to be tough and get prepared to withdraw from the U.S. market. This is an ultimate survival strategy.
大话不要讲了，只有开骂，中国绝不要接受米国的这种算计。想把中国人当傻子一样耍，华为有预见，坚决不和这种流氓国家有任何瓜葛，公平买卖，做得成就做，做不成就算了，你打压，我自强，此路不通，还有其他路
Stop bluffing. China should not accept such calculative deal. They take us as fools. Huawei has had the gut to cut ties with such a thug-like country. No deal should be made if it is not fair. Self-strengthening is the way to deal with oppression, there will be another way out.

author: Oiwan Lam


text:
Press freedom impeded in Hong Kong as police limits definition of recognized media representatives · Global Voices
Hong Kong Free Press

Screen capture from a video taken by reporter Leung Pak-kin from online media Rice Post.
The following post was written by Kelly Ho and originally published on Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP) on September  23, 2020. This edited version is published under a content partnership with Hong Kong Free Press.
Hong Kong police announced a controversial decision on September 22 to redefine “media representatives” by limiting them to government-registered and “internationally recognised” agencies, newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations. As a result, press cards issued by local journalist groups would no longer be accepted as valid accreditation.
Under the new policy, freelance journalists, journalists from student press outlets, documentary filmmakers, journalists who work for local media organizations which have not registered under the Government News and Media Information System (GNMIS) and journalists who work for foreign media outlets which are not “internationally recognised and reputable” will not be recognized as media representatives. This also implies that the police could arrest them when they are reporting from protest sites.
The police force said the proposed change of the Police General Orders, a set of guidelines for Hong Kong police officers on law enforcement, would help facilitate frontline policing and reporting. It would also help them identify members of the press and bar “self-proclaimed” journalists from protest sites.
The new guidelines drew widespread criticism from journalists, as eight press unions and associations slammed the move as “seriously impeding press freedom” in the city.
They asked the police to scrap what they consider a de facto accreditation system, stressing that :
Police unilaterally made such a major amendment without discussion and consultations, destroying a relationship that was built over many years.
Journalism schools from seven local universities also issued a joint statement expressing their “gravest reservations” over the  new policy presented by the police force:
In our view, the police have every right to take action against anyone engaging in illegal activities; however, this proposed policy is in effect restricting the freedom of reporting. We are concerned that the new policy would amount to giving clear instructions to officers to disperse non-mainstream journalists who have done no wrong and are only exercising their right to gather information.
Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents’ Club said the new scheme would deliver a “serious blow” to freelance journalists and student reporters, who had provided “compelling reporting” during last year’s large-scale unrest.
HKFP has examined key moments from the city’s year-long pro-democracy protests that were captured by freelancers and student media.
Many of the clips gained viral traction and were shared freely with local, as well as international media. Student and freelance reporters often faced great personal risk in capturing iconic protest moments, yet received little reward, lacked protection from large news outlets and bore the brunt of police-protester actions. Here are some of the main key moments of the protests covered by such media.
Warning: some of the videos include graphic scenes of violence.
September 6: riot police tackle a teenage girl
The HKUST Radio News Reporting Team captured footage of riot police pinning a young girl to the ground after she tried to flee during a demonstration in Mong Kok on September 6.
Although the teenager was not arrested, the police reaction sparked outrage from children’s rights groups who demanded the force apologise. Police later defended the response, saying officers had used the “minimum necessary force” to subdue the girl.
August 31: police pepper spray pregnant woman
The online website NineTeen Media filmed a pregnant woman who appeared to have been affected by police pepper spray at a demonstration in Mong Kok on August 31. Independent outlet Studio Incendo, which shares its images under a Creative Commons license, also shot widely-shared photographs of the incident.
July 1: protester stabs police officer
The Hong Kong Baptist University Students’ Union Editorial Board captured the moment when a protester stabbed a police officer in the arm on July 1, the 23rd anniversary of the city’s handover to China. Thousands of Hongkongers had defied a police ban to march between Causeway Bay and Wan Chai in protest of the Beijing-enacted national security law.
November 11, 2019: police fire three live rounds in Sai Wan Ho, striking a protester
Cupid Producer documented a police officer firing three live rounds at two protesters at close range in Sai Wan Ho on November 11, 2019, during a general strike action across the city. One of the rounds hit a protester, who had a kidney and half of his liver removed as a result.
October 1, 2019: police shoot an 18-year-old with live round at close range
Last year, on October 1, the campus TV of the University of Hong Kong recorded graphic footage of police shooting an 18-year-old protester with a live round in Tsuen Wan. The teenager – Tsang Chi-kin – who appeared at the time to have a rod in his hand, was shot in his left lung. He was left in a critical condition and underwent surgery to remove the bullet, which was three centimetres from his heart.
October 1, 2019: National Day turmoil in a 360° view
HKFP freelancer Thomas Broader shot a 360-degree video on October 1, 2019, presenting an all-immersive view of the citywide turmoil. Hong Kong saw clouds of tear gas, petrol bombs and vandalism that day as protesters “mourned” the Chinese National Day.
August 31, 2019: police storm Prince Edward Station
Reporter Leung Pak-kin from online media Rice Post shot a video inside Prince Edward MTR station on August 31 last year, which showed police beating people with batons and deploying pepper spray while making arrests. Journalists and medics were expelled from the station, according to local media, leading to unverified rumours of civilian deaths during the incident.
July 27, 2019: police beat protesters inside Yuen Long MTR station
An HKFP freelancer, who does not wish to be named, captured chaotic scenes inside the Yuen Long MTR station on July 27, 2019. In the video, Special Tactical Squad officers were seen beating crowds as protesters set off fire extinguishers. There appears to be blood on the floor.

author: Hong Kong Free Press


text:
#FreeMuay: Groups call for release of Laotian net idol and environment advocate · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Activists from several Asian countries are supporting the #FreeMuay campaign.
Several human rights and media groups have called for the release of Houayheuang Xayabouly, also known as Muay, who has been in detention since September 2019 for posting a Facebook video criticizing the Laos government’s response to a flooding disaster. Since September marks the first year of Muay’s detention, civil society groups launched a campaign calling for her release.
Muay is a 31-year-old mother, tour guide, shop owner, and a prominent environmental advocate. Her videos highlighting local corruption and illegal business practices have made her a net idol (term for social media influencer in countries like Laos and Thailand).
After a flooding disaster in late August and early September 2019, Muay went on Facebook Live to express her dismay over the slow arrival of government aid for victims. In the video, she said:
In this emergency situation, I am not in need of food and water yet, but yesterday [September 4], a huge flood came and people here were up on the roofs of their houses trying to escape. Where is the helicopter for rescuing those people?
I cannot be silent as we have been in the past. The era of the regime keeping the eyes and mouths of the people closed has come to an end.
The video ran for 17 minutes and has been viewed more than 170,000 times.
She was arrested on September 12 and faced investigation for criminal defamation and distributing anti-state propaganda under article 117 of the Criminal Code. The Lao state media reported that she confessed her crime. She was convicted in November and sentenced to five years in prison.
Civil society groups which are campaigning for Muay’s release believe that she was jailed because of her social media posts exposing government anomalies such as exorbitant toll collection, corruption in the hiring of state employees, land grabbing, anti-environmental practices of Chinese investments, the impact of big dams on villagers, and negligence in providing aid to flood victims.
Manushya Foundation sums up Muay’s case:
She contributes to the protection and respect for the rights of the Lao people, by highlighting the harms caused from business activities and corruption, as well as calling for solutions to redress the same.
As a result of Muay's contribution to ensure the protection and respect for the rights of the Lao people, she was made an example of by the government of Lao People’s Democratic Republic.
The long prison term for Muay is meant to deter the public from criticizing authorities, said Andrea Giorgetta from the Bangkok office of the International Federation for Human Rights.
The incredibly harsh prison sentence against Mouay is designed to send a warning to the entire population that no dissent and no criticism of the government is acceptable.
UN Human Rights Experts have sent a letter to the Laos government seeking information about Muay’s case aside from expressing concern about her prolonged detention.
We wish to express our concern regarding the sentencing of human rights defender Ms. Xayabouly for the legitimate exercise of her right to freedom of opinion and expression. We are particularly concerned that the arbitrary detention and lengthy prison sentence handed down to her may have a chilling effect on civil society in the Lao PDR discouraging human rights defender and other members of civil society from sharing opinions on the observance of human rights in the country.
This was confirmed by Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, in a tweet posted on September 17
Joint communication sent to the Government of #Lao on 13 July 2020 on the sentencing of #WHRD Houayheuang Xayabouly now available: https://t.co/Q7191yZ9tZ @ManushyaFdn pic.twitter.com/5NPp2w2IB5
— Mary Lawlor UN Special Rapporteur HRDs (@MaryLawlorhrds) September 17, 2020
An article written by Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal and Suppakrit for New Bloom magazine narrates Muay’s journey from being a tour guide, shop keeper, and environment advocate into a net idol with thousands of following.
This dark time in Laos makes us realize that young people in Laos who grew up in a time when information is not that easily controlled are challenging the long obstruction of freedom and human rights which has lasted for over 40 years in Laos. Muay was one of their most important inspirations.
The article appeals for global solidarity for Muay:
Muay is a regular person who loves her country, her community, her land, and the forests there. She was not afraid to speak out, speak up for the people, for the trees which are being destroyed to build dams, against corruption in Lao and against Chinese companies.
Muay bravely stood up to protect the environment. She was acting on behalf of Laos and the world in doing so. Muay does not deserve to be let alone imprisoned from taking this stand.
Laos imposes a strict control on news reports. Because of this, many Lao citizens have been looking for alternative stories on the internet, including Facebook.
Muay’s case reflects the increasing harassment faced by Lao internet users for voicing out their sentiment on social issues. On August 26, Sangkhane “Thitsy” Phachanthavong was arrested for complaining about corruption on Facebook.


text:
The untold plight of imprisoned women in Africa, the Americas, and Asia under the pandemic · Global Voices
Adetomiwa Isiaka, Giovana Fleck, Romina Navarro, Juliana Harsianti, Saoussen Ben Cheikh, Emma Lewis

Photo credit: Pexels, under public domain.
When COVID-19 hit prisons around the world, it entered overcrowded, insalubrious, and forgotten places in which women are a minority and face specific risks. Women represent between two and 10 percent of the world's incarcerated population, but their numbers are growing faster than those of men.
Yet, women are rarely shown in data disaggregated by gender. News reports on them are rare, if non-existent. For example, there have been reports of COVID-19 spreads in prisons but rarely does the public know whether incarcerated women are part of the affected demographic.
Olivia Rope, Director of Policy and International Advocacy at Penal Reform International, says that:
The smaller proportion of women in prison populations is one reason criminal justice systems too often remain designed and run with men in mind, and often by male decision-makers. Where governments have taken action to prevent or address COVID-19 in prisons, they too seem to have men in mind, mostly overlooking the different and unique impacts they may have on women.
The majority of women spend years in pre-trial detention or in prison for minor offenses, low-level drug crime, self-defense from gender violence, and, depending on the countries, abortion, miscarriages or political activism.
In May, the Marshall Project reported that 13 women died from COVID-19 in US prisons and wrote that “[their stories] also reflect the all-too-common ways they get there in the first place: Drug addiction and violence involving the men in their lives.”
In these secluded contexts, women also face a higher risk of sexual abuse and insults of a sexual nature. For example, in April, reports about the alleged suicides of two female inmates in two different Argentine provinces have highlighted institutional gender violence in the prison system that was already severe before the pandemic.
Leaders of UN Women and other organizations wrote in May:
Not only are women at risk of contracting COVID-19, they are also exposed to an increased threat of sexual violence during the pandemic due to decreased security in prisons.
Women, who typically receive fewer visits than their male counterparts, received none under COVID-19 restrictions. In Jamaica, Maria Carla Gullotta, founder of an NGO working in the area of prisoners’ welfare and rehabilitation called Stand Up for Jamaica, told Global Voices:
Now, with the pandemic, contact with their children is non-existent, apart from an occasional Skype session.
This adds a sense of isolation for women. At the beginning of the pandemic in Brazil, the Brazilian organization Pastoral Carcerária Nacional stated in an open letter:
Ouvimos relatos do quão terrível está sendo enfrentar a pandemia dentro da prisão, sem poder receber visita ou ir à escola, que fica dentro do presídio. Não basta estar presa, a mulher tem que ser oprimida, se despir de toda a sua individualidade. Agora que elas não têm atividade nenhuma, até esquecem quem são, perdem a identidade.
We have heard reports of how terrible it is to face the pandemic inside the prison, without being able to receive a visit or go to school, which is inside the prison. It is not enough to be in prison, the woman has to be oppressed, undressing all her individuality. Now that they have no activity, they even forget who they are, they lose their identity.
In some contexts, such as in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) or in Argentina, a lack of visitation rights also means a lack of food, medicine, clothing, and menstrual and hygienic products. According to human rights groups, these visits are a critical lifeline for women who rely on them for essential items. Pastoral Carcerária recently pointed out that the ban on visits to prisoners did little to stop COVID-19 in Brazilian prisons and that the ban makes it difficult to monitor torture in jails.
In Venezuela, for example, 80 percent of incarcerated people already depended on their relatives’ visits for food and essential products in 2018 as they suffered from malnutrition. Reports from 2019 show that many imprisoned women are victims of sexual violence or have to trade sex with prison staff for food. There has been almost no coverage on imprisoned women’s particular situation during the past months of lockdown, except for a few reports on specific events, such as hunger strikes and death by malnutrition.
In July, the NGO Observatorio Venezolano de Prisiones [Venezuelan Observatory of Prisons] highlighted the case of 107 detainees in a police station “begging” the courts to open in order to resume their judicial processes which had been closed for four months as a result of COVID-19 lockdowns.
107 mujeres detenidas en la comisaría Eduardo Ramón Vizcaino en San Félix claman por celeridad en los procesos judiciales, pues ya cumplen 4 meses sin ser atendidas por los tribunales del estado #Bolivar
A post shared by  Oveprisiones (@oveprisiones) on
107 detainees call for speedy proceedings. 107 women detained in the Eduardo Ramón Vizcaino police station in San Félix demand faster judicial processes, since they have already served 4 months without being attended to by the courts of the #Bolivar state
As exemplified in the video above, prisons and police stations are often overcrowded, heightening the risk of contagion. According to the International Drug Policy Consortium, Thailand detains about 125,000 more people than its normal capacity; Cambodia's largest prison holds five times more people than its maximum capacity, and overcrowding in Philippine jails reached 534% in March this year.
While Latin America also has some of the most packed prisons in the world, European countries and the United States — the latter has the highest incarceration rates in the world — have also been flagged for overcrowding. In U.S. immigration detention centers, whistleblower reports of widespread medical neglect regarding COVID-19 and enforced hysterectomies on women have grabbed headlines.
The Nigerian government sought to decongest Nigerian prisons to minimize the potential impact of COVID-19 and released “low-risk prisoners” and other groups in May. Yet, reports show that only one woman out of 2,600 prisoners benefited from the government's program.
Release in the Middle East and Northern Africa have also been inconsistent. Even though thousands of detainees have been conditionally released in the past months, those considered political prisoners have remained behind bars. Last July, two Egyptian women were sentenced to two years in prison for “violating family values” on TikTok. In Saudi Arabia, feminist activist Loujain al-Hathloul, who campaigned against the ban on women driving, is still detained with little-to-no contact with the outside world.
In Brazil, the courts continue to ignore a measure adopted by the Supreme Court in 2018 as more than 3,000 mothers and pregnant women are still imprisoned instead of serving under house arrest. Later, the Intercept revealed how everyday sexism weighs heavily on the judges’ decisions. The majority of women who are imprisoned in Brazil committed crimes without violence; 62 percent of women in Brazilian jails are Black and 74 percent are mothers, according to data from Infopen Mulher.
Amid these hardships, some local independent media strive to make imprisoned women's stories known. In Indonesia, the progressive magazine Magdalene has trained female inmates to write and publish stories behind bars, so they can share what they are doing, thinking, and hoping for.


text:
In Trinidad & Tobago, citizens defend sou-sou savings against pyramid scheme comparisons · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Trinidad and Tobago money. Photo by Mark Morgan on Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
With the COVID-19 pandemic has come a worldwide rise in financial fraud. On September 22, the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) arrested nine people and seized at least 21 million Trinidad and Tobago dollars (just over 3 million United States dollars) in conjunction with what they suspect was an illegal pyramid scheme.
Because the group dubbed itself a sou-sou, or cooperative savings system, there has been an outcry over the conflation of the term — which describes an age-old, community-minded savings practice rooted in West African tradition — with illegal financial rackets.
Facebook user Rubadiri Victor was adamant that the term sou-sou should be distanced from all insinuations that it is illegal or illegitimate:
A properly run sou-sou is a traditional African-derived plan of savings and pooling with a fixed set of participants in a revolving payment of collective deposits. It has been used successfully for over 150 years here. A pyramid is an exploitative con scheme whereby there is an intentional growing network of depositors where the latter entrants are doomed to never get paid.
In a 2011 post, Outlish magazine described how the practice works:
A sou-sou is structured where one person will be in charge of collecting monies from a group of people. All the monies collected will be given to one person in the group, on selected dates, and it rotates that way until each person has received what they call, a ‘hand.’
In December 2019, when the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago demonetised the country's existing $100 bill and replaced it with a new, more secure polymer note, people rushed to the banks to trade in their old currency before the deadline.
But Karen Darbasie, president of the Bankers Association of Trinidad and Tobago (BATT) and chief executive officer of First Citizens, a state-owned bank, said that on the required Source of Funds declaration form, banks would “not accept sou-sou money as […] legitimate,” even though the practice is well-entrenched in the local culture. “From a banking perspective,” she said, “it is impossible for us to validate a sou-sou.”
Back then, Facebook user Tillah Willah explained:
The media never fails with its lack of acknowledgement of anything African, so I'm not surprised at the description of sou-sou as ‘an informal, cooperative loan system…popular in Trinidad and Tobago and throughout the Caribbean.’
This empty and limited description dismisses the fact that this practice is a centuries-old financial institution and can be found among West African populations and was brought to this part of the world through enslavement and has survived and thrived as a system of cooperative economics for African people for whom the banking system was not set up and systematically excluded until well into the '70s.
Many social media users echoed this stance. Politician Lovell Francis proudly noted that many of the opportunities he was afforded in life came as a result of his parents being involved in “non-predatory sou-sous”:
In this new age of VERY OLD get-rich quick schemes, it has become popular to bad-talk traditional methods of savings in the absence of a clear understanding of the roles they played in the economic development of historically disenfranchised communities here. The sou-sou is a prime example of this.
He went on to explain that after emancipation in 1838, Black people were still denied an equal chance at development thanks to “draconian laws, strictures against the selling of land to the formerly enslaved and quite significantly, the denial of access to mainstream financial institutions for loans to establish businesses or for savings”:
Interestingly, the historical response to this was a culture of self-reliance and self-development. It saw the creation of institutions […] to provide financial access, and the utilsation of traditional West African norms like the gayap [from the Indigenous word kayapa, describing how people come together to complete an otherwise daunting task] to physically build houses and communities. And of course, the sou-sou to help recreate a CULTURE of savings and to provide the capital needed to invest in their own activities.
While pyramid schemes capitalise on the trust that names like sou-sous or “blessing circles” invoke by adopting the names, they have very different characteristics.
The scheme in which the money was seized on September 22, for instance, reportedly had about 8,000 members — significantly larger than a typical sou-sou — and invited people to join via WhatsApp, whereas the participants in real sou-sous are generally part of a community and have confidence in one another's savings habits. It also promised members a 450-percent return on investment, while authentic sou-sous don't usually offer interest.
Prior to the bust, in a joint statement on August 20, the Trinidad and Tobago Securities and Exchange Commission (TTSEC), the Central Bank and the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) warned of such rackets but were careful to note that pyramid schemes and sou-sous were two distinct things:
Pyramid schemes […] are often falsely presented as new investments including different types of securities, foreign currency trades and even traditional ‘sou-sou’ arrangements. […] They rely on the recruitment of new members in order to ensure high pay-outs — this is very different from ‘sou-sou’ arrangements [which] do not require recruitment of new members and are not profit-making ventures.
Similar schemes, also on the police service's radar, required participants to recruit others into the group after making their “investment,” which is contrary to the tenets of an authentic sou-sou. After one scheme crashed and people lost their money, the group's administrator reportedly responded: “Call it blessings; Call it Pyramid; Call it SouSou: It was a non-refundable RISK!”
The statement could be interpreted as proof-positive that the group was not a sou-sou: While pyramid schemes inevitably collapse and the people at the bottom lose their money, sou-sous are sustainable and have great longevity, because they are built around the well being of everyone involved.
The joint statement by the TTSEC, the Central Bank and the FIU said that “any individual or entity promoting investment opportunities must be registered with the TTSEC.” In response, Rubadiri Victor suggested that the time has come to register authentic sou-sou circles:
We cannot allow the demonization of a traditional alternative to exploitative banks. Nor can we allow it to be corrupted. It may be time to start their registration — not with police — but with municipal local government authorities.
Activist and writer Attillah Springer agreed. In a conversation with Global Voices via Facebook Messenger, Springer noted that regulation is par-for-the-course in West Africa, where the practice originated:
It would just be a matter of acknowledging that this is a way that people save money. The sou-sou is all about community accountability and cooperative economics. I don't see why there shouldn't be a way for it to be regulated.
The fact that we don't acknowledge sou-sou as a legitimate form of savings, specifically for people who were not served by the banks in the first place, is further proof that it creates a loophole for people to exploit the system.
Outside of Trinidad and Tobago, sou-sou is pretty mainstream: there are apps and mobile banking systems adept at transferring money. Within the country, however, it's still misunderstood or scoffed at — which helps create the conditions necessary for pyramid schemes to flourish under the guise of an authentic savings system.
While that debate continues, however, there has been a curious turn of events: Hours after the seizure, police officers — without the knowledge of Commissioner Gary Griffith or the staff of the Financial Intelligence Bureau — returned the money to the administrators of the scheme.
At least one newspaper headline still referred to the source of the money as a sou-sou.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


text:
It’s time to remove Sudan from the US’ state-sponsored terrorism list · Global Voices
Mohamed Suliman

Friends gather in Khartoum, Sudan's capital. Photo via Pikist, a royalty-free photo database.
In April 2019, the Sudanese people deposed the military regime that had ruled the country for 30 years. Among its many devastating inheritances, the country has had to deal with being on the United States’ list of state sponsors of terrorism.
It’s been a year since Sudan established a transitional government, but the US is still reluctant to delist Sudan, and this seriously impacts Sudan’s economy and its future.
Sudan was listed as a state sponsor of terrorism in August 1993 based on the rationale that under then-President Omar al-Bashir, Sudan was “supporting international terrorist groups, including the Abu Nidal Organization, Palestine Islamic Jihad, Hamas, and Hizballah.” Sanctions that followed this designation include those put on US foreign assistance, financial restrictions, and a ban on the sale of defense exports. There are penalties that can also affect other countries that engage in certain trade dealings with countries deemed state sponsors of terrorism.
Sudan’s civilian-led transitional government asserts that these named terrorist organizations do not exist in Sudan today. Abdalla Hamdok, the prime minister of Sudan, confirmed in his September 2019 speech at the UN General Assembly that these were the acts of the deposed regime. Yet, Sudan remains on the SST list, and this has real implications in terms of government sanctions, including requiring the US government to oppose loans by the World Bank and other international financial institutions. Sanctions also include recent restrictions on student visas.
Last August, the Sudanese government reached an agreement with the Trump administration to “deposit $335 million in an escrow account for the families of victims of terrorist attacks that the former Sudanese regime played a role in supporting two decades ago. The attacks covered in the agreement are the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania and the 2000 terrorist attack against the USS Cole.” This deal was supported by Edith L. Bartley, a spokesperson of families of Americans who were killed in the bombings.
These efforts, however, may be jeopardized by some of the victims of the 9/11 attacks who argue that Sudan took part in these terrorist attacks. In this year’s anniversary of the attacks, US Senator Bob Menendez issued a statement describing the negotiation between the Sudanese government and its US counterpart as a “slap in the face of the 9/11 victims and families” and saying he will oppose any legislation “that does not treat 9/11 victims and family members with the respect and dignity that they deserve.”
These accusations are clearly unfounded. Noureldin Sati, the Sudanese ambassador to the US, fully denied these claims, stressing that no court has ever corroborated them. More importantly, the 9/11 independent commission report noted, “… [n]or were bin Laden's assets in Sudan a source of money for al Qaeda.” The report also confirmed that “[w]hen Bin Laden was pressured to leave Sudan in 1996, the Sudanese government apparently expropriated his assets and seized his accounts, so that he left Sudan with practically nothing.”
Most US lawmakers from both parties favor moving forward with the deal, but two senators oppose it for the aforementioned reason. Recently, however, US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, sent a letter in support of passing the impunity act. In it, he said the deal was a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to gain compensation for the many victims of these terrorist attacks, as well as provide support for the young democracy in Sudan, after the country had rid itself of the al-Bashir dictatorship.
Many US experts in Sudan support the deal, arguing it will benefit both countries.
Cameron Hudson, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Africa Center, and former chief of staff to the US special envoy to Sudan, wrote an article arguing that the US Congress should work to remove any obstruction.
David L. Phillips, a senior adviser and foreign affairs expert at the US State Department and director of the program on peace-building and rights at Columbia University's Institute for the Study of Human Rights where he co-chaired the Two Sudans project, recently published an article in which he supported the deal. He said that delisting will benefit the US economy because Sudan is “rich in hydrocarbons; it is also home to gum arabica that is harvested from Acacia trees by women’s cooperatives in Darfur. Expanding gum arabica production, widely used in food processing and cosmetics manufacturing, could be a windfall for companies like Coca-Cola, Chobani and Estee Lauder, that require reliable and high-quality supplies of gum arabica.”
Most recently, Sudanese in the US took to social media, sending messages to the senators opposing the deal, and calling for the removal of the SST list, some calling on Schumer and Menendez to stop politicizing the issue.
Meanwhile, Sudan today is rife with severe, unprecedented crises, including economic spiraling and extreme flooding. In early September, the current government declared a state of economic emergency following a sharp fall in the currency, with inflation having hit a high of 143.78 percent in July. These harsh economic conditions are similar to the last period of the ousted al-Bashir regime and have definitely put the whole transition period at risk.
It is obvious that none of the conditions that once legitimized Sudan’s place on the SST list are still valid and that delisting Sudan is critical to the nation’s stability and growth for the future.
Sudan now has a fledgling democracy that needs international support. The US’ removal of Sudan from this list is a crucial step in tackling the ongoing economic crisis. Moreover, it will strengthen the civilian-led government with, undoubtedly, long-term benefits to both Sudan and the US.

author: Mohamed Suliman


text:
A media adversary’s long battle with Japan’s new Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide · Global Voices
Atsushi

New Japanese Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide (L) and Tokyo Shimbun Reporter Mochizuki Isoko (R). Image sources from ANN official YouTube channel and Sakata Mokoto official YouTube channel. Image remixed by Nevin Thompson.
In late August, after eight years in office, and one day after becoming Japan's longest-serving prime minister since World War II, Abe Shinzo announced his resignation. By September 16, Suga Yoshihide was chosen to lead the governing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and become Abe's successor as the new prime minister of Japan.
Suga, long-regarded as Abe's “right-hand man” in government, has promised to continue with Abe's policies, including economic revitalization. However, there are fears that Suga will continue his pattern of shutting down and even bullying journalists who ask questions that hit too close to home.
In the days leading up Suga's to ascension as head of the LDP and prime minister of Japan, one longtime media adversary wondered what his leadership might mean for journalism in Japan. Writing in the business weekly Toyo Keizai several days before Suga became prime minister, veteran journalist Mochizuki Isoko asked:
#東洋経済 に執筆。菅首相誕生でどうなる？政権とメディアの関係
メディア対応尋ねる質問に #菅義偉 氏はゼロ回答。コロナ理由に1日10分前後の官房長官会見も「十分」。失望した記者も多かったことだろう。 https://t.co/XEkgGEg1E5
— 望月衣塑子 (@ISOKO_MOCHIZUKI) September 13, 2020
My newest for #ToyoKeizai: How will the media fare under a Suga administration?
So far, when the media asks a question, Suga has given zero answers. Using the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse, media availability (press conferences) has been reduced to ten minutes from start to finish, with Suga stating “it's enough time.” Many reporters have been left disappointed by this.
Suga has a long history with Mochizuki Isoko, who reports on national politics for Tokyo Shimbun. Since at least 2017, Mochizuki has earned a reputation in Japan as an especially aggressive journalist, frequently pressuring Suga, in his former role of chief cabinet officer, to answer questions.
In 2017, as former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo struggled to contain two political cronyism scandals, Mochizuki doggedly posed a series of 23 questions during daily pressers that remained unanswered by Suga and other government spokespeople.
In a 2019 press conference, Mochizuki demanded the disclosure of the specific budget breakdown and details of a controversial and exclusive event organized by Abe Shinzo. However, Suga interrupted Mochizuki, asking her to “simplify and shorten” her questions, and then cut the journalist off.
The most infamous exchange between Mochizuki and Suga occurred in December 2018, during intense scrutiny of a construction project at a new US military base in Okinawa prefecture. Mochizuki regularly grilled administration officials about the environmental impact of the new base, revealing potentially illegal political interference.
In response, Suga, acting as a government spokesperson, refused to answer Mochizuki's questions, calling her statements about the base project inaccurate.
Suga's staff then sent memos to major journalism outlets in Japan obliquely calling Mochizuki a liar, stating that she had asked “inappropriate questions” that would “spread misinformation” to both members of the press pool covering the base issue — and to the general public.
Since then, government officials refuse to recognize her or answer her questions, effectively freezing out Mochizuki from government press conferences.
Mochizuki's determination as a journalist, and the efforts by the government to silence her, have not gone unnoticed. The November 2019 docudrama i ―新聞記者ドキュメント, (“A First-Hand Account of Being a Journalist in Japan”), based on Mochizuki's experiences as a female reporter, started a national conversation about press freedom in Japan.
In May, “The Journalist,” another film about Mochizuki Isoko swept the 43rd Japan Academy Film Prize awards, receiving six prizes, including Picture of the Year.
Besides inspiring popular films, Mochizuki's battles with Suga and the previous Abe administration that he served have ignited a public conversation about press freedom in Japan, which former United Nations special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression David Kaye has reported is under threat:
[…] A significant number of journalists I met feel intense pressure from the government, abetted by management, to conform their reporting to official policy preferences.
While Mochizuki is sometimes criticized by commentators for “jamming” press conferences with her questions, the Tokyo Shimbun reporter has also gained widespread support. Opposition politician Okuno Soichiro has spoken out in Mochizuki's defense, stating:
国民の知る権利を封じることに繋がらないでしょうか
[The Japanese government is] violating freedom of press, freedom of speech, and the people’s right to know.
Journalists have long noted now-Prime Minister Suga's seeming hostility toward the press. In February 2019, Asahi Shimbun reporter and former head of the Japan Federation of Newspaper Workers’ Unions Minami Akira stated:
官房長官の記者会見を巡っては、質問中に司会役の報道室長が「簡潔にお願いします」などと数秒おきに質疑を妨げている問題もある。報道機関側が再三、改善を求めているにもかかわらず、一向に改まらない。国民の「知る権利」を保障する「取材の自由」に対する重大な挑戦だ。#質問できる国へ
— 南 彰 / MINAMI Akira (@MINAMIAKIRA55) February 5, 2019
Regarding how (Suga, as chief cabinet secretary) runs press conference, it's a real problem when Suga says (to reporters ‘Keep your questions brief’ during Q&A, interrupting the flow of questions every few seconds. Even though the media has repeatedly requested (Suga stop doing this), things never change. It's a serious challenge to ‘freedom to report’ that guarantees the people of Japan the ‘right to know.’ #TowardsaCountryThatCanAskQuestions
In early September, during Suga's race to become Abe Shinzo's successor as prime minister of Japan, Mochizuki questioned him directly about his attitude toward the press. Suga, as the facilitator, cut off Mochizuki's questions rather brusquely, saying:
限られた時間の中でルールに基づいて記者会見は行なっております。ですから早く結論を質問していただければお答えできると思います。
The press conferences have a limited amount of time, and follow certain rules. Therefore, I would appreciate if you can keep your questions concise.
Suga did not provide an answer to Mochizuki's questions about how he, as prime minister, will work with the press in Japan.

author: Atsushi


text:
After documenting land grabs in their reserve, 18 indigenous and black leaders detained in Nicaragua · Global Voices
Melissa Vida

Princess Barberena along with other Kriol community members. Photo taken by the author in November 2019.
Princess Barberena, a black Kriol environmental and feminist activist from Nicaragua has been detained by Nicaraguan soldiers on September 27, along with Kriol forest ranger Roger Joseph and 16 other black and indigenous leaders, lawyers, and forest rangers from the indigenous Rama-Kriol community. The 18 activists were held in a house near Boca de Sabalos, in the southeastern region of Nicaragua, and 17 were released later that same night. Jaime McCrea Williams, president of the Territorial Government of Rama and Kriol, has been taken by the army and not seen since. According to journalist Gerall Chavez, McCrea has been allegedly taken for investigation at Boca de Sabalos.
The Rama and Kriol leaders were deprived of liberty when they were documenting environmental degradation and land grabs in their Indio Maiz biological reserve, according to local environmental NGO Fundacion del Rio. 70 percent of the reserve legally belongs to the Rama and Kriol, who have political territorial rights over their land since 2002. Indio Maiz is one of the two Nicaraguan reserves recognized by UNESCO for its diversity. It is crucial to the Mesoamerican biological corridor. Since 2015, self-trained Kriol and Rama forest rangers monitor deforestation and land grabs in the biological reserve, as state forest rangers have become rarer and rarer.
In Nicaragua, pressure has been mounting on autonomous indigenous and afro-descendant communities on the Caribbean Coast in the last decade. President Daniel Ortega planned on receiving investments from Chinese company HKND to build an inter-oceanic canal through Nicaragua, thereby encroaching on indigenous land. This was met with widespread resistance by indigenous communities and the wider public. The plans of a canal are dormant for now, but for lawyers, scholars, and local Rama and Kriol people, it explains why the government of Daniel Ortega apparently is failing to stop deforestation in the reserve. The settlers are farmers, miners, and Christian pastors who put cattle, build communities, sell acres of land, or find natural resources to sell. Between 2000 and 2018, Indio Maiz lost 52 percent of its tree cover. The Nicaraguan environmental NGO Centro Humboldt warned in 2017 that if deforestation continues at this pace, Nicaragua's forest would be gone by 2028.
Kriol forest rangers. Photo taken by the author in November 2019.
The Ortega government has intensified its repression against political opposition and NGOs since 2018. During anti-government protests, more than 300 youth died under the bullets of the state's anti-riot security forces and paramilitaries. Daniel Ortega is accused of committing crimes against humanity. Since then, more than 50 journalists fled the country and 86 democracy activists and members of the political opposition remain behind bars, nearly a year after 96 political prisoners were released. Many have alleged to have suffered torture in Nicaraguan prisons.
The indigenous and Creole communities of Nicaragua have obtained legal rights over their land through the 445 Law in 2002, which lays out their Communal property regime. In the video below, Princess Barberena explains to the head of military barracks that they have legal rights over their land. This was during the detention.
Así llegó amenazante el jefe del cuartel militar de esa comunidad indígena, acuerpado por varios efectivos del Ejército, con fusiles AK para amedrentar a los líderes indígenas que intentaban documentar las invasiones de sus tierras, las cuales han sido alentadas por el FSLN. pic.twitter.com/coxwDnhZYA
— Artículo 66 (@Articulo66Nica) September 28, 2020
This is how the head of the military barracks arrived at this indigenous community, flanked with several members of the army, with AK rifles to intimidate the indigenous leaders who were trying to document the invasions of their lands, which have been encouraged by the FSLN. pic.twitter.com/coxwDnhZYA
Barberena and other afro-indigenous women demand the soldiers to stop pointing their AK-47 weapon on indigenous president Jaime Williams when they took him away. According to the press release later published by the Nicaraguan Army, the armed forces were doing a routine identification check on the people going through the reserve.
Una escuadra del Ejército Sandinista secuestra a líderes indígenas del gobierno territorial Rama Kriol. Aquí se observa el ademán agresivo de los militares que apuntan sus AK-47 contra el hombre desarmado y sin ningún gesto de resistirse. #Artículo66 #DerechoAInformar pic.twitter.com/Yf6uthU62D
— Artículo 66 (@Articulo66Nica) September 28, 2020
A contingent of the Sandinista Army [Army of the Government of Daniel Ortega, leader of Sandinista party] takes indigenous leaders of the Rama Kriol territorial government hostage. Here you can see the aggressive behavior of the soldiers who point their AK-47s against a disarmed man who does not have any gesture of resistance.

author: Melissa Vida