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Tuberculosis Survivors Advocate To Eradicate The Disease From India · Global Voices
Rezwan

TB Survivor Dipti Chavan (34) tells her story. Image via Survivors Against TB. Used with Permission.
March 24th marks World Tuberculosis (TB) Day. TB is one of world’s leading infectious diseases and affects more than 2.4 billion people — almost one-third of the world’s population. According to World Health Organisation (WHO) statistics, India is the country most heavily burdened by TB and many feel that the country isn't doing enough to stay ahead of the disease.
Survivors Against TB (SATB), an advocacy group lead by TB survivors in India, is working to strengthen India’s fight against TB. Their latest effort is the beta version of a free app called Talking TB (टीबी पे चर्चा), a multilingual patient education programme which includes a set of patient education films available on the app and on YouTube and a patient support app. The films, as well as the app, are in four regional languages, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, and Malayalam.
#Tuberculosis is one of the three main killer infectious diseases, along with malaria and HIV/AIDS. TB kills one person every 18 seconds, yet the disease can be prevented, treated and cured #WorldTBDay2018 pic.twitter.com/xyJ0xgJFMA
— MSF INDIA (@MSF_Ind) March 20, 2018
Out of a global incidence of 9.6 million cases, 2.2 million cases of TB are from India. This continues to cause a severe health and economic crisis in India as the disease costs the country close to $24 billion each year.
In 2007, the prevalence of TB per 100,000 people was relatively high in Asia, and was highest in sub-Saharan Africa. Image from Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain
Many feel that the existing support and awareness to fight TB In India is not adequate for patients. In a Huffington Post piece, Dr. Madhukar Pai speaks about the challenges involved with fighting TB in India:
India also has the highest number of patients with multidrug-resistant TB in the world, including cases nearly impossible to cure.
Although India has the world's largest TB epidemic, quality of TB care remains suboptimal, especially in the private and informal sector, where most patients seek initial care. The average TB patient is diagnosed only after several months and seeing multiple providers, most of whom do not follow standard guidelines. Most patients who start treatment are not tested to see if their TB is drug resistant.
Apart from poor care, TB in India is fueled by broader socioeconomic factors, including extreme poverty, high prevalence of malnutrition, smoking, and diabetes.
In India, nutrition, poverty, and TB are very much linked. People affected with TB frequently face severe economic barriers to health care, such as high expenses related to diagnosis and treatment, and suffering due to loss of income. A health ministry proposal for a monthly cash benefit of Indian Rs 500 (US$ 8) to all tuberculosis patients is facing resistance.
The Indian government has taken a number of steps to eliminate TB from the country. This includes developing the Standards for TB Care in India, introducing daily drug regimens and rolling out molecular and drug-susceptibility testing. The government of India has also made TB a notifiable disease, that means all private doctors, caregivers and clinics treating a patient suffering from TB will have to report every single case of the air-borne disease to the government.
Tackling TB: @MoHFW_INDIA issues notification criminalising non notification of Tuberculosis. Docs, chemists can face jail up to 2 years under IPC Sections 269, 270 for not reporting TB cases to local health authorities @ddgtb2017 @JPNadda @PMOIndia @thetribunechd
— Aditi Tandon (@anshumalini3) March 21, 2018
On 13 March 2018, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched an ambitious campaign to eradicate TB from India by 2025. The globally set deadline is 2030.
Sharing my remarks at the ‘Delhi End-TB Summit.’ During the programme we also launched the TB Free India movement. https://t.co/uQSDUdAqyt pic.twitter.com/CUWRm8qNIL
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 13, 2018
Govt of India commits to eliminate TB by 2025. India alone accounts for 25% of global TB cases.Govt of Uttar Pradesh, catering to 220 million citizens is committed to lead the country’s campaign against TB through universal access to quality diagnosis & treatment for all
#UPvsTB pic.twitter.com/OWlqvbD59T
— Pooja Bhatt (@PoojaB1972) March 15, 2018
But reports cast doubt on this target as India is lagging behind in its national decline rate. Many feel that a lot of efforts are needed from government and non-governmental sectors to tackle this challenge.
Community mobilisation is key to ending TB. We can't fight alone, we need to fight together: GCTA CEO @blessi_k @SpeakTB @MoHFW_INDIA @StopTB @TBHDJ @GHS pic.twitter.com/nOBuY9lryR
— Global TB Coalition (@G_C_T_A) March 12, 2018
Dr. Zarir Udwadia, a Mumbai-based physician and a researcher, talks about this disease and India's struggle to tackle it at an independently organized TED event in Mumbai in February 2018:
In the video, he states that one Indian dies of this disease every minute and he goes on to share the story of one suffering patient who was diagnosed with Totally Drug-Resistant-Tuberculosis (TDR-TB).
For many, it is hard to understand a TB patient's plight unless it is told by a patient/survivor itself. Last year, at a TEDxGSMC event in Mumbai, Dr. Saurabh Rane, a public health specialist, runner, cyclist and mountaineer, talked about how he turned around after being diagnosed with XDR TB (Extensively Drug-Resistant TB) at the age of 20. In the video, Dr. Rane talks about how he tackled this disease and advocates for every person's right to be diagnosed, treated correctly and provided with life-saving drugs.
Launched in August 2016, Survivors Against TB (SATB) is a movement led by a group of TB survivors who are working to strengthen India’s fight against TB. These survivors have had their struggles with TB and based on their own experiences, they advocate for a patient-centered approach to effective TB prevention and control in India. It is run and managed by Chapal Mehra, a public health specialist and columnist.
India has 2.2 million cases of #Tuberculosis
An average TB patient consumes 14600 pills to cure it.
To take in it #SurvivorsAgainstTB is born. What do they provide? … It's HOPE! #TEDxGateway @foodrecyclebin
— Monis Khan (@ItsMonis) February 4, 2018
In 2017, Survivors Against TB launched India’s first Hindi digital interface on tuberculosis. The portal aims to help TB affected communities by offering them important information about the disease. Another feature of this platform is to profile numerous TB survivors who work as advocates that disseminate stories and information about treatment, mental health, gender and stigma.
In the above video, Deepti Chavan, an MDR-TB (multi-drug resistant TB) survivor based in Mumbai, tells the story of her fight against TB in the Hindi language.
Last year, SATB launched a book, Nine Lives — Women and Tuberculosis in India, which profiled nine female TB survivors who, despite stigma and discrimination, successfully fought TB.
SATB's Talking TB app focuses on disseminating information about key issues related to TB including side effects, stigma, nutrition, and treatment.
https://t.co/KXH3tEkx2Z – A multilingual patient education program comprising films and an app. Watch our #Malayali protagonist talk about the importance of #TB treatment and completion. Share widely #TalkingTB @ChapalMehra @WSJ @nytimes @TIME @VidyaKrishnan @shibuvij @StopTB pic.twitter.com/xmeRwmdRxa
— Survivors Against TB (@SATB1231) March 20, 2018
When a #TB patient decides to speak, the world is forced to listen. https://t.co/KXH3tEkx2Z – India's first multilingual Patient Education Program, led by survivors to offer information to TB. @VidyaKrishnan @RPrasad12 @menrao @scroll_in @SrBachchan @RonnieScrewvala @thewire_in pic.twitter.com/mvwcGEmEiu
— Survivors Against TB (@SATB1231) March 19, 2018
TB survivor Dipti Chavan advocating directly observed treatment or short-course DOTS (also known as TB-DOTS), a tuberculosis (TB) control strategy recommended by the World Health Organization. Image via Survivors Against TB. Used with Permission
There are also many efforts by other organizations to fight against TB in India.
“#TB survivors release report identifying key issues patients face” Tuberculosis – India's Ticking Time Bomb- The Survivors’ Manifesto https://t.co/UMNtgrhYUk @ChapalMehra @doctorsoumya @deepticomesback @foodrecyclebin @bsindia @WHOSEARO @DrSinghAtAIIMS @shibhu@paimadhu @acftbup pic.twitter.com/eYq7kQAhIq
— Survivors Against TB (@SATB1231) March 22, 2018
Mumbai, which suffers so terribly from TB and drug-resistant TB, lights up red to #EndTB. Dynamic local TB program going all out! @ddgtb2017 @DrRaghuramRao @arunkjhaies @StopTB @MoHFW_INDIA @GHS @sreenivas_nair @paimadhu pic.twitter.com/O6LLeCyfK4
— Puneet K Dewan (@puneetkdewan) March 21, 2018
Four brave women, including @almostbutnotyet of @SpeakTB on ‘Women in India:Leading the fight against TB in India’ at #AmCenterND with @US_CDCIndia @usaid_india #EndTB pic.twitter.com/rBRLHVy4fZ
— REACH (@SpeakTB) March 19, 2018
SATB hopes that TB survivors stories will help people understand the numerous challenges that these people and their families face in the fight against TB. The demands of the TB survivors are out in the public domain and ask for support from decision makers. Dipti Chavan shares her hope in an interview:
Hopefully, these stories will spur decision makers to act on these recommendations.

author: Rezwan


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False Reports Spread Online After the Murder of Brazilian Activist and Politician Marielle Franco · Global Voices
Fabíola Hauch

Bodies of Marielle Franco and her driver Anderson Gomes were watched over in the Chamber of Councillors in Rio de Janeiro with great public outcry. Image: Jeso Carneiro/Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0
In the middle of the national outcry following the murder of human rights advocate and politician Marielle Franco, fake rumors about her personal life and activism began to spread through the Brazilian internet.
Marielle was elected in 2016 as Rio de Janeiro city council member with the party Socialismo e Liberdade (PSOL) with more than 46,000 votes. She was shot to death on the night of 14 March 2018 in Rio de Janeiro while she was returning from an event for black activists. She was accompanied by her driver Anderson Pedro Gomes, who was also killed; and her press officer Fernanda Chaves, who survived.
While thousands took to the streets in various Brazilian cities to protest Marielle’s murder, which is being investigated as an assassination, others spread rumors about her online.
On 16 March, the magistrate of a Rio de Janeiro appeals court, Marília de Castro Neves, posted a Facebook comment accusing Marielle of being linked to the Comando Vermelho (red command), the largest criminal faction in Rio de Janeiro, and that she was “an ordinary corpse like any other”.
A desembargadora afirma à Folha que não conhecia Marielle e nem tinha ouvido falar dela anteriormente, dai vem a público e faz esta acusação sobre Marielle. Em qualquer outro país a desembargadora perderia o cargo no minimo. pic.twitter.com/SIXyUvt2UY
— J Godinho (@lgodan) March 17, 2018
Tweet image: The question is that this Marielle was not only an “activist”; she was connected to criminals! She was elected by the Comando Vermelho and broke “commitments” made with her supporters. She, more than anybody “away from the favela”, knows how the debts are charged by the groups that she dealt with. Even we know that. The truth is that we will never know for certain what determined the death of the councillor, but we are sure that her behaviour, shaped by her political engagement, was determinative in her tragic end. Anything else is whining by the left trying to add value to a corpse as ordinary as any other.
Tweet text: The magistrate told Folha [newspaper] that she did not know Marielle and had not even heard of her before, from there she comes to the public and makes this accusation against Marielle. In any other country the magistrate would at least lose her job
Before she deleted the comment, however, her statement was taken up by the mainstream press, which unleashed a wave of disinformation that had massive reach.
Folha de São Paulo, Brazil’s largest daily newspaper, reported the magistrate’s comment dealing with the defamation in the text but not in the title, leaving it ambiguous: it could be understood as if the endorsement of the magistrate confirmed the rumours.
Following Folha's story, the right-wing page Ceticismo Político (political skepticism) published a piece entitled “Magistrate breaks the PSOL narrative and says the Marielle was involved with criminals”. The Movimento Brasil Livre, also right-wing and with 2.5 million Facebook followers, shared the piece, contributing to the spread of the false accusation.
A study by São Paulo University points to the piece at Ceticismo Político, a small website with only 25,000 followers on Facebook, as a crucial node in the fabric of fake news that followed Marielle's death. The piece was shared 361,000 times on Facebook and made more than a million impressions on Twitter over the course of three days.
Also on 16 March, Alberto Fraga, federal deputy for the Democratas and member of the bullet benches – as the parliamentary group supporting unrestricted access to firearms for civilians is known – tweeted similar false accusations. He deleted the tweet after his comment went viral.
Alberto Fraga apagou, mas eu guardei. pic.twitter.com/MsjuL5XRcP
— Cadê a Democracia? (@RoseFreitas18) March 17, 2018
Tweet image: Meet the new myth of the left, Marielle Franco. Pregnant at 16, ex-wife of Marcinho VP, marijuana user, rival faction defender and elected by the Comando Vermelho, she recently exonerated 6 members, but who killed her, it was the Military Police.
Tweet text: Alberto Fraga deleted it, but I kept it.
Various initiatives appeared online to combat the fake news machine. The PSOL, the party to which Marielle was affiliated, created a website specifically to refute these and other lies.
Protest in São Paulo after the murder of Marielle Franco. Demonstrations happened in various Brazilian cities. Image: Romerito Pontes/Flickr, CC BY 2.0
The false accusations against Marielle reflect a distorted conception of human rights, a cause for which she campaigned. For a significant part of Brazil’s population, the defence of human rights contributes to the country’s soaring crime rates. There is wide perception that the solution is in harsher punishments.
A poll by the research centre Datafolha Institute, published in the 2016 Brazilian Annual of Public Security, reveals that 57% of the population agreed with the statement “a good criminal is a dead criminal”, and at the same time 70% also agreed with the statement that “the Brazilian police exaggerates on the use of violence”.
The contradiction shows that support for harsher sentences goes alongside the observation that the apparatus implementing them is violent.
This may be compared with another survey made by the Centre of Security and Citizenship Studies (Cesec) of the Cândido Mendes University, which showed that in Rio de Janeiro, the phrase “a good criminal is a dead criminal” was rejected more than in Datafolha’s poll, which examined attitudes across the country.
However, the survey of Rio de Janeiro residents still showed that 73% of those interviewed think that the defence of human rights is incompatible with controlling crime and that 56% think that those who defend human rights are defending criminals.
Even if the rates of approval of the phrase “a good criminal is a dead criminal” vary, the understanding of human rights in Brazil is confused. In an interview with Nexo, the researcher Julita Lemgruber, who conducted the study in Rio de Janeiro, explained:
Há uma clara falta de compreensão sobre o significado do termo ‘direitos humanos’, pois outros percentuais da pesquisa mostram claramente que os entrevistados rechaçam o que está, na prática, contra os direitos humanos. Nós, que trabalhamos com essas questões, temos de receber isso [o rechaço de 73%] como um alerta, um aviso de que é preciso trabalhar a expressão ‘direitos humanos’ no Brasil, de maneira a divorciá-la definitivamente da ideia de que se trata de defender privilégios para bandidos
There is a clear confusion over the meaning of the term “human rights”, as other parts of the survey clearly show that those interviewed reject what is, in practice, against human rights. We, who work on these questions, have to take this [the rejection at 73%] as a warning, a sign that it is necessary to work on the articulation of “human rights” in Brazil, so as to divorce it definitively from the idea that it is a question of defending privileges for criminals.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Fabíola Hauch


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From Informal Sales to Market Intelligence: The History of the Largest Afro-Descendant Fair in Latin America · Global Voices
Shirley Campbell Barr

Promotional poster for the 2017 Feira Preta fair.
Every November for the last 16 years, the city of São Paulo, Brazil hosts Feira Preta (‘Black Expo’), the largest Afro-descendant fair in Latin America. It is an event of great importance for the black community in Brazil, a country with a majority black population.
Musical events, exhibitions of fine arts, cinema, dance, literature, fashion, gastronomy, etc., take place during this two weeks fair. Thousands of visitors — entrepreneurs in the footwear and clothing industry as well as stylists, designers, communicators and many others — come to the event to find out about, buy and promote products from the more than 100 exhibitors participating in the event. The Feria Preta is not only a space to do business, but also a meeting place of diverse initiatives that feed off of and complement each other to facilitate their individual growth.
In 2017, Adriana Barbosa, president and chief executive of the fair, was recognized as one of the 200 most influential people of African descent in the world by the MIPAD (Most Influential People of African Descent) global list. This award is part of the UN initiatives within the International Decade for People of African Descent programme. It was the first time that a black woman from Latin America was considered for this award, a prize already given to important personalities from the African diaspora such as Jamaican athlete Usain Bolt and thinkers from contemporary Africa like Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. In an interview with Afroféminas, Barbosa emphasized that:
Este premio internacional me trajo una visibilidad nunca adquirida a lo largo de mis 16 años de trabajo. Fue a partir de este reconocimiento que ocupe la portada de la mayor revista de emprendimiento y negocios del país y recientemente recibí el premio de destaque en el tema de negocio de impacto social promovido por Facebook Brasil y por la Revista Pequeñas Empresas & Grandes Negocios.
This international award brought me a visibility that I had never achieved in my 16 years of work. It was because of this recognition advertised on the cover of the largest entrepreneurship and business magazine in the country and the recent award that I received for a standout business of social impact promoted by Facebook Brazil and the Small Companies & Large Businesses Magazine.
However, the fair began in a much less glamorous place. In an interview for the Brazilian website UOL, Barbosa said that the idea started out of need rather than a dream. In 2002, Adriana Barbosa had been fired from the company where she worked so she had to start selling clothes at street fairs. When she visited Vila Madalena, an upper-middle-class bohemian area in São Paulo, she saw the great potential for a market:
Tinha um enorme público de jovens negros, o DJ era negro, as hostess eram negras, mas os donos eram brancos. E eu pensava: como a gente consegue fazer circular dinheiro sendo produtores de um conteúdo cultural, mas no fim da noite a gente não está com esse dinheiro.
The market had a huge audience of young black people: The DJ was black and the hostesses were black, but the owners were white. And I wondered why is it that we black people manage to circulate money as producers of cultural content, but we do not have any money.
She then decided to organize an event, and in November 2002, she gathered about 40 exhibitors—in addition to musical shows and cultural events—in the Benedito Calixto square, an area that is famous in São Paulo for its outdoor fairs. It was a total success and the event attracted about five thousand people, a high number for a first edition.
Sixteen years later, Feira Preta went from the small square in São Paulo to Anhembi Morumbi (one of the largest convention centers in the city) and more than 700 exhibitors — of which 70% are women. Around 140,000 people have participated in the fair since its opening, and in 2017, it was organized for the first time in a decentralized manner. The fair also featured music, literature and film festivals, as well as professional training workshops. The Feira Preta extended to include multiple events in São Paulo and became even more significant in November, which is Black Awareness Month in Brazil.
Other ideas have emerged within the Feira, such as the Black Codes, a communication and market intelligence consultancy with an emphasis on racial issues. Ideas like this are due to the growth of the fair which is the result of multiple efforts to obtain support, financing and sponsors. According to Barbosa, support for many of these initiatives has been limited mainly because of ignorance and racism which added to the fear that the fair is merely an “ethnic” event:
Sempre foi difícil fazer os potenciais patrocinadores entenderem que a Feira é um negócio, já que mais da metade da nossa população é negra, com uma enorme capacidade de consumo, capaz de criar muitas oportunidades de negócios.
It has always been difficult for potential sponsors to understand that the fair is a business, because more than half of our population is black [which is a significant population], with a big capacity for consumption, and able to create many business opportunities.
Data from the Brazilian Support Service for Small and Medium Enterprises (SEBRAE) confirm Barbosa's theory. According to the agency, there was a 27% growth among micro-entrepreneurs, of whom 50% are Afro-descendants. The income and the educational level are key factors in that change. Between 2002 and 2012, the average schooling time for black people grew by 38%, from 4.7 to 6.5 years. Among the white population, the increase was 21%. The monthly income of black people rose 45%, from R$786.00 (approximately $241) to R$1,138.00 on average ($349, approximately). White people went on to earn 33% more (from R$1,843.00 to 2,460.00, or approximately 565 to 755 dollars).
Adriana Barbosa has stated in several interviews that her intention was to establish a small fair and ended up creating an ecosystem that has opened a whole market which connects various sectors and entrepreneurs. For the last 16 years, this has developed a demand and a growing market for diverse products and services that traditional Brazilian commerce does not offer.
Regarding the importance of Feira Preta, in an interview with Afroféminas, Barbosa states that:
En los festivales con formato de mercado, como es el caso de “Feira Preta”, es el espacio en el que se dan trueques de bienes materiales y simbólicos, donde preservamos nuestras raíces y transferimos conocimiento para las futuras generaciones. La Feira Preta ha ejercido, a lo largo de los 16 años que lleva en funcionamiento, un fortalecimiento y puesta en valor de la identidad negra brasileña. La población negra en Brasil representa más del 54% y, si llegamos a ese porcentaje, no se debe sólo a que hayan nacido muchas personas negras sino, sobre todo, a que la población negra brasileña ha comenzado a reconocerse como tal a partir de las acciones afirmativas, en las cuotas de las universidades, en los grupos culturales y por los artistas que, a través del arte y de la calidad estética traen un posicionamiento político en cuanto a su reconocimiento y afirmación como negros.
Festivals with a market format, like Feira Preta, are spaces where material and symbolic goods are exchanged, where we preserve our roots and transfer knowledge for future generations. Throughout the 16 years since its founding, Feira Preta has succeeded in strengthening and emphasizing the Brazilian black identity. The black population in Brazil represents more than 54% of the total population. This percentage is due not only to a high number of black people but, above all, because the Brazilian black population has begun to recognize itself as such through affirmative actions, quotas at the universities, cultural groups, and artists who, through their art and aesthetic quality, make a political statement in terms of their recognition and affirmation as black people.
Initiatives like the Feira Preta and the ways in which it revindicates and creates visibility for the efforts of black people in Brazil, gain even more importance in the context of the assassination of City Councillor and activist Marielle Franco. As Franco is mourned by those defending black people's rights around the world, spaces giving strength to Afro-descendant communities’ projects and movements become ever more important.

author: Shirley Campbell Barr


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A Romanian in the UK: On the Thin Line Between ‘Undesirable Migrant’ and ‘Welcomed Contributor’ · Global Voices
Filip Stojanovski

Alexandra Bulat, photo from her official page at UCL, used with her permission.
What is the human side of the Brexit, the UK ‘divorce’ from the EU? Numerous controversies remain, as well as the need to fix the system in order to avoid further suffering for millions of people caught in a bureaucratic uncertainty or facing arbitrary and unjust rules and regulations.
According to the newspaper The Sun, around 3.6 million EU nationals currently live in the UK, including nearly 600,000 children. Among them, eastern Europeans have been specially branded by Leavers (those who support UK's separation from Europe) as “unwanted” immigrants. They often are tagged as “benefit scroungers, here to steal jobs”. This sentiment is not new, as they already felt like second-class citizens because of working restrictions initially put on migrants from central and eastern Europe when they joined the EU. Arguably, UK's decision to open its labor market to these countries is what led the voters to become so opposed to migration from the EU.
Photographer Deividas Buivydas shared some captivating images from Boston, Lincolnshire, where tension against eastern Europeans is evident and post-Brexit anxiety is bubbling. This town registered the highest Leave vote in Britain, at 75.6 per cent and was dubbed “the capital of Brexit”. It also is home of the largest proportion of Eastern Europeans in the country.
The life story of Alexandra Bulat, a young scholar from Romania who made a career at top UK academic institutions also offers a telling example, as she referred to a famous phrase by UK Prime Minister Theresa May, uttered in January 2017:
I am a Romanian PhD student, teaching assistant & researcher. One of @theresa_may‘s praised “brightest and the best” whose “contributions are welcome”.
This #TuesdayThoughts I want to share my story. Until I got to this point, I was in many ways an “undesirable migrant” ⬇
— Alexandra B (@alexandrabulat) March 6, 2018
Ms. Bulat shared her story in a series of much-retweeted tweets which are summarized bellow.
My first experience in the UK was in 1997. My father got a temporary #NHS [National Health Service] contract as there was a skill shortage. I attended the hospital's nursery for 7 months but my family chose to return to Romania. My mum was unemployed and my father had limited rights to work.
Meanwhile my parents got divorced. I attended a free school and skipped many classes in the last college years. Grew up mainly with “working class kids” sometimes doing dangerous things. But I achieved the highest grade in the Romanian Baccalaureate and this opened many doors.
I returned to the UK at 18 to study. I passed an IELTS exam but this was not enough to understand even half of what my British colleagues were saying. Should I have been “sent back” then as I could not properly engage in English conversations in my first few months?
Three years later I graduated with a first class degree from Sociology department at Sussex University. It was a fun but difficult time. My mum came looking for work when I was in my second year and we shared a studio room at some point. I worked various part time jobs. Met my British partner.
In 2015 I received offers from both University of Cambridge and University of Oxford to do my Masters. In the summer I worked as an intern in London to save money. We had no savings and definitely not enough to pay the 10,000 pounds tuition fee. Should I have given up my dreams?
I borrowed money from the bank for my fee and accepted my Master of Philosophy (MPhil) offer at Cambridge. I had barely enough to cover the first term of college accommodation and no idea what to do next. My mum was made redundant and things were not going well.
Meanwhile one of my colleagues was shocked to hear my experience of college – “So you did not have prep classes for Oxbridge interviews???”. Nope. This is maybe why I failed my Oxford interview for undergrad despite passing the written test. Oh, also my poor English.
I read my MPhil handbook saying we should not do any paid work. I did paid work throughout my MPhil and finished with 72% overall. Meanwhile mum got a job and things got back to normal around graduation time, after a year of familiarizing myself with Sainsbury's Basic [a supermarket chain offering low cost produce].
Should me and my mum have been deported due to insufficient resources in those times? “If you do not make a net contribution you should be sent home”, some claim. Life is not a tick-box as the immigration categories are.
Alexandra Bulat. Courtesy photo used with her permission.
In 2016 after a summer of work on a temp contract I accepted my fully funded PhD at University College London School of Slavonic & East European Studies. This was the best thing that happened to me. I was sad to leave Cambridge uni but I could not have afforded a PhD with no funding. Funding is very competitive in social sciences.
My mum's job was again subject to restructuring in 2017. After a few months of job searching she decided to leave to Germany. She also was concerned about #CitizensRights after Brexit. They are not guaranteed yet. She is working in Germany now, the UK lost a skilled professional.
In 2018 all things go well. I speak fluent English, have a lovely British partner and I am halfway through my PhD. But I, like all @The3Million and @BritishInEurope are still @InLimboBrexit. Our reduced #CitizensRights are not secured in case of no deal.
In the mind of many people rudely commenting on #CitizensRights posts such as the stories shared in @cliodiaspora‘s articles, we should be sent back home unless we are a constantly producing tax payment machine. It is important to realize the complexity of migrant stories. According to these people's logic, my mum should have been deported every time she lost her job and I should not have been allowed in with little English or “insufficient resources”. We have not claimed a single benefit all these years, not even job-seeker's allowance.
To everyone that tells me to stop criticizing settled status because “I will be fine, cos I am a PhD student and skilled migrant”, I am saying: no. I will not close the gate behind me just because I managed to become a “desirable migrant”. #CitizensRights were promised for all.
On 1 June 2016, few weeks ahead of the Brexit Referendum, the “Vote Leave” campaign issued a statement by Michael Gove, Boris Johnson, Priti Patel, and Gisela Stuart, claiming that:
Second, there will be no change for EU citizens already lawfully resident in the UK. These EU citizens will automatically be granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK and will be treated no less favourably than they are at present.
In October of the same year, David Davis, Brexit Secretary tried to downplay the concerns of people like Ms. Bulat's mother, by claiming that “Five out of six migrants who are here either already have indefinite leave to remain or will have it by the time we depart the [EU].” However, the UK fact-checking service FullFact concluded:
This is not fully substantiated by the evidence and will depend on the arrangements we make upon leaving the EU. Whatever happens, EU citizens are not going to be forced to leave en masse.
FullFact also noted other points of uncertainty, which depend on the outcome of the UK-EU negotiations which are still in the works, and are supposed to end by March 2019. For instance, the right to permanent residence under EU law may or may not survive Brexit and might depend on meeting criteria for permanent residence such as “whether they’re working, looking for work, self-employed, studying or self-sufficient…”
Instead, automatic grant of all existing rights promised by Vote Leave is still uncertainty for both EU migrants in UK and British in EU27. Many areas remain unclear and are under negotiations such as some family reunification rights and political rights (EU migrants can vote in local elections only)…
A recent protest by the group Highly Skilled Migrants, which says it represents over 600 doctors, engineers, IT professionals, teachers and their families in Britain attempted to raise profile of ‘discriminatory’ Home Office rules. The ‘harsh migration policy’ affects both immigrants from ‘overseas’, and those coming from the EU member countries. Latest data indicates large drop in the number of EU nationals seeking jobs in the UK due to Brexit uncertainty.
Ms. Bulat concluded her story with the following tweet:
We need a solution to protect all #CitizensRights, just as promised by Vote Leave. No more “bad migrant”-“good migrant” division games. People's lives do not fit in a tickbox. Politicians should listen to more real migrant stories to understand. #peopleb4politics
— Alexandra B (@alexandrabulat) March 6, 2018

author: Filip Stojanovski


text:
Photos of Japanese Soldiers in the Trenches During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

“Japanese water guard protecting the camp's supply from contamination.” (source)
Recently, the excellent blog Public Domain Review shared just a small selection of colorised images depicting Japanese soldiers and camp life during the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905. The colorized stereographs provide a fascinating glimpse into a war that in many ways was a precursor to the events of the 20th century, including trench warfare that resulted in massive numbers of casualties thanks to the incorporation of advanced technologies on the battlefield.
The stereographs were captured by American photographer T.W. Ingersoll, who in 1904 traveled to Port Arthur (now Lyushunkou, a district of Dalian in northeastern China), the scene of a long and bloody battle during the Russo-Japanese war. Ingersoll, who is mostly remembered today for his stereographic scenes of the United States at the turn of the last century, managed to document daily life behind Japanese lines in a series of about one hundred images.
The stereographs, while appearing to be mostly staged, document the challenging conditions faced by soldiers forced to deal with trench warfare, including finding and protecting sources of clean water, getting enough to eat or being cared for after being injured.
Ingersoll's images have now entered the public domain, with no known copyright, and are hosted online by various institutions, including Boston Public Library, Monash University and the Skillman Library at Lafayette College. The Lafayette collection is particularly interesting because images are accompanied by explanatory captions that appear to have been written by Ingersoll himself.
“Japanese Recruits Just Off the Transport.” (source)
[…] The futile assault on the fortress lasting from August 9th to August 26th cost 25,000 men. The transports were kept busy bringing fresh troops to Dalny. (source)
“A Japanese trench guard at mess.” (source)
[…] The men were not allowed to leave the trenches for any purpose. Here they had to watch and wait, eat, sleep and drink. The filth was sickening, the cold intense, and a bursting Russian shell might at any moment maim or kill them, while it was certain death to show a head above the protecting wall of the trench, only fifty or a hundred yards from the muzzle of a Russian sharpshooter's gun. (source)
“Manchurian Merchants on Market Day in Dalny.” (source)
[…] On May 25th Dalny was occupied, and became the base of the besieging army. Manchurian merchants flocked here in great numbers and did a thriving business. (source)
“Japanese soldier washing his camp dishes.” (source)
[…] Every Japanese soldier carried what he called his “panican” which somewhat resembled the American workman's dinner pail. It had several compartments, and in these the soldier carried his “iron” ration of rice, dried fish, bacon, salt and sometimes a pickle or a little sweetmeat. It is the belief of European and American physicians that the marvelous power of recovering shown by the wounded Japanese soldier was due to their simple diet. (source)
“Scene in the Japanese trenches.” (Source)
[…] The Japanese during the siege dug over eighteen miles of these [trenches], not counting the zigzag approaches from one parallel to the next. The trench shown in the picture is one before redoubt “P” that was taken in the so-called third grand assault from October 29th to November 1st, retaken at night by the Russians and again retaken by the Japanese. It was here that one regiment, ordered to storm the redoubt, refused to obey, and was promptly sent behind the firing line, while the ninth regiment was led forth and covered itself with immortal glory by taking the redoubt […] (source)
“Japanese Wounded Entering Hospital at Dalny.” (source)
[…] Many of the Russian government buildings and store houses were used for hospital purposes, to make room for the thousands upon thousands of wounded who kept pouring in. The hospitals were so full at times that new arrivals had to be deposited in the street, where they staid until a place could be provided for them.
Unlocking Breech of an “Osaka Baby” (source)
The enormous coast defense guns which the Japanese brought over from Japan to use against Port Arthur were christened “Osaka Babies” by the war correspondents. These guns were designed to defend the coast of Japan against a naval attack, and were not expected ever to be moved from the foundations on which they rested. But when it became evident that the Russians had taken the heaviest naval guns from the useless warships in Port Arthur and had mounted them on their posts, it became necessary to have weapons of equal power to combat them. (source)
Recreation in a Japanese Army camp. Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) (source)
The Japanese have a wonderful way of acquiring Western ways. They investigate everything, and whatever they think will improve their way of living or working they readily accept. They even had a commission examine the advantages of Christianity over their own religions, but the commission reported that the Japanese were much gentler and more honest and moral people than any Christian nation as a whole, and that the Christian zealots and hypocrites had no counterpart in Japan. Our picture shows Japanese private soldiers dancing a quadrille under the instruction of an American war correspondent. The Osaka band is playing and these soldiers are practicing with an earnestness as if all Japan had their eyes on them. Their pastimes were all innocent sports with nothing rough about them, games like fox and geese, and occasionally the low singing of an endless victory-hymn by General Fukishima, who fought under Marshal Oyama. (source)
More images can be found at the Boston Public Library collection on Flickr, in the Monash University collection and in the Skillman Library at Lafayette College collection.
All images from Boston Public Library official Flickr account under license Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0). Image captions by T.W. Ingersoll, retrieved from Lafayette College Libraries and other sources, public domain (no known copyright).

author: Nevin Thompson


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A Muslim Scholar Seeks to Link Israel and Indonesia Through the Hebrew Language · Global Voices
Juke Carolina

The cover of the Hebrew-Indonesian Dictionary. Courtesy of Sapri Sale, remixed, used with permission.
Could the Hebrew language be the common thread that ties Israel and Indonesia — the world's largest Muslim-majority nation — together? One Islamic scholar thinks so.
Muslim academic Sapri Sale, who studied Arabic at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, wanted to establish a better understanding between Indonesians and Israelis by teaching Hebrew to Bahasa-speaking students.
Indonesia and Israel do not have formal diplomatic ties. In fact, Israel is often portrayed negatively in Indonesian media because of its policies towards Palestine. En route to his historic state visit to Australia in 2017, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was forced to avoid the Indonesian airspace. Could something as simple as a language be the key to discovering commonalities?
Global Voices talked to Sapri Sale about how he came to learn Hebrew while studying Arabic, his inspiration for teaching Hebrew in Indonesia, and the struggles he faced in writing and publishing the first Indonesian-Hebrew dictionary.
Sapri Sale among his students in Jakarta. Photo courtesy of Sapri Sale, used with permission.
Global Voices (GV): How and why did you come to learn Hebrew in the first place?
Sapri Sale (SS): I want the world to know that not all Indonesians are (Muslim) militants. Our country is diverse. To me, Hebrew culture and language are no different to Arabic ones, and if Arabic can exist (in Indonesia) among Indonesian local languages and culture, then Hebrew has an equal right to exist in the country as well.
In 1989, I was an Arabic Literature student at Al Azhar University of Cairo. I was very much interested in Middle Eastern geopolitics; however, I became aware that in Egypt, Israel was portrayed negatively. At the time, the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt was already going on for about a decade. Yet, the media fuel anti-semitism sentiments among the general population. I refused to concur with hate and decided that to truly understand what was happening, I needed to learn Hebrew to know what Israel is all about without prejudice.
Ironically, despite the Egypt-Israel diplomatic relationship, trying to get my hands on Hebrew language books was not easy. Mind you, my sojourn took place during the pre-Internet era; I had no clue if there was an Israeli cultural center, and asking the Israeli Embassy was too daunting. With a bit of luck, I found some Hebrew books and started learning autodidactically.
After learning Hebrew for several years, I discovered an Israeli center in Cairo, and began to attend classes there in 1993. An Egyptian called Amer tutored me. Understandably, in the beginning, my presence was seen as odd, suspicious even, by the Israeli communities at the center: I look Asian and furthermore, I was a student at Al Azhar. There were 600 Indonesian students in Cairo, and I was the only one who developed an interest in Hebrew language and culture.
In 1996, I moved to Lebanon to pursue my career. Unfortunately, I had to stop learning Hebrew altogether, due to political reasons. In 1999, I found a new job with the Permanent Mission in New York. Over there, I'm free to rekindle my passion for learning Hebrew, and began to draft the Indonesian-Hebrew bilingual dictionary in 2006, after two decades of learning Hebrew.
GV: Tell us about the dictionary. What have been some of the challenges in having your hard work printed?
SS: It's a 450-page bilingual dictionary of modern Hebrew and Indonesian. It's a reference for Indonesians who want to learn Hebrew and for Hebrew speakers who want to learn Indonesian. This is the answer to my calling to bridge Indonesia and Israel, linguistically and culturally.
There were many challenges, as you can imagine. The Indonesian and Hebrew languages are worlds apart. I often stumbled in finding word pairings. This is where my Arabic knowledge came in handy, as Arabic and Hebrew are similar. Arabic became my reference in translating Hebrew words into Indonesian.
In 2016, once I finished writing, I had to deal with rejections. Popular publishers aren't so keen on anything Israeli, so naturally, my dictionary was dismissed as irrelevant, unmarketable, and politically incorrect. One day, I discovered an indie publisher in Yogyakarta, who was willing to do the job, once I personally funded the print run. But I encountered another roadblock while registering the ISBN. Normally, ISBNs are assigned in less than a month; I had to wait three months to obtain the ISBN for my dictionary.
GV: Israel remains a sensitive topic. Have you experienced any uncomfortable situations as a Muslim Hebrew teacher and author?
SS: I don't care about being mocked or bullied. Due to my choices and my work, cynics have nicknamed me ‘Sapri the Jew’. My extended family has shunned me, my former Al Azhar classmates have shunned me. My wife, who has followed every dictionary draft since day one, kindly reminded me that it's a waste of time. But I'm in top deep: 25 years of learning and practicing — it's too late to stop now.
I'm also being called a fraud; that my works are phony. To the naysayers, I'll just speak matter-of-factly — that my work is, as a Hebrew saying  goes, ‘Not by might and not by power, but by spirit.’
I told my family that what I'm doing might have uncertain consequences, but it's something that needs to be done.
GV: If we were to attend your Hebrew class, what could we expect?
SS: About 70% of my students are Christians and 30% are Muslims. Many of my Christian students — academics mostly — wish to understand the Bible better. I expect that in the future, there will be more students from Pesantren (Koranic schools). Those from Pesantrens have an upper hand because they already know how to read Arabic texts, so learning Hebrew will be easier for them. My classes are held at the Indonesian Conference on Religion and Peace (ICRP), the only organization that's willing to take me in. Each class is one and a half hours long. I developed a learning method for my fellow Indonesians, so that after eight meetings they can read modern Hebrew, and after that they can learn autodidactically.
GV: Any future projects?
SS: Well, book writing mostly. My modern Hebrew grammar book is on the way and will be ready for printing soon. I also plan to publish another book: conversational Hebrew for Indonesian speakers.
The modern Hebrew-Indonesian dictionary is available by ordering directly from the author.

author: Juke Carolina


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LGBTQI Rights Defenders Sound Alarm over Costa Rica’s Presidential Election · Global Voices
Sandra Abd'Allah-Alvarez Ramírez

Alliances of politicians, young and progressive groups are alarmed by one of the presidential candidates, Fabricio Alvarado, who comes from a religious background and has suggested that Costa Rica should separate from the Inter-Aamerican Human Rights Court for ruling in favor of defending LGBTQI people's rights.  Photo by Julieth Méndez. Used with permission.
Fabricio Alvarado Muñoz and Carlos Alvarado Quesada will vie for president of Costa Rica in a closely contested election scheduled for April 1, 2018. Defenders of human rights and the LGBTQI community are concerned that if religious candidate Fabricio Alvarado wins, they face grave risk.
Fabricio Alvarado, a psalmist and Christian singer, belongs to the Partido de Restaruación Nacional (National Restoration Party–PRN), representing the most conservative party on the Costa Rican political scene. Carlos Alvarado Quesada represents Partido Acción Ciudadana (Citizen Action Party–PAC).
Costa Rican feminist groups are most alarmed by Fabricio Alvarado's campaign proposal to convert the National Institute of Women (a ministerial institution) into the “Family Institute.”
During the campaign for the first round of votes, Fabricio Alvarado focused his political platform on the rejection of sexual education currently delivered in public schools as well as “gender ideology“, a concept circulating among conservative political circles that rejects the idea of gender as a social construct.
To the surprise of many, Fabricio Alvarado won the second round with 25 percent of the vote.
The Inter-American Human Rights Court issued a Consultative Opinion (OC 24/17) in response to a 2016 request by the Costa Rican government. OC 24/17 mandates the State to guarantee certain individual rights linked to same-sex couples and the personal construction of gender identity.
Fabricio Alvarado declared opposition to the ruling as part of his campaign platform, earning him the support of the most conservative and religious groups in the country.
The consequences of this debate have seriously impacted the LGBTQI community. According to the Front for Equal Rights, reports of verbal and physical attacks on sex-diverse people have multiplied since the election.
On February 3, independent journalist Diego Delfino highlighted the seriousness of Fabricio Alvarado's proposal to withdraw from the Inter-American Human Rights Court. For Delfino, Fabricio Alvarado's position constitutes a threat to the advancement of human rights:
Todo lo que se nos aplaude y reconoce en el exterior por la abolición del ejército se vendría al suelo si nos convirtiéramos en un país que desconoce la Convención Americana sobre Derechos Humanos firmada en 1969 […] Imaginen aquel escenario de bochorno global, Costa Rica, coqueteando con la Edad Media y pidiendo entrada en los rincones más oscuros del fundamentalismo que aún subsisten en el planeta.
All the applause and recognition we receive abroad for the abolition of the army would fall away if we become a country that rejects the American Convention on Human Rights signed in 1969 […] Imagine what a global disgrace, Costa Rica, flirting with the Middle Ages and asking to enter the darkest corners of fundamentalism that still exist on the planet.
Fabricio Alvarado began his public life in the evangelical community and professed his vision for a secular government “but not without God.” He sat at the center of several controversies including the prohibition of elected deputies from making statements to the media and avoiding debates and interviews with the press.
Speaking to Global Voices, activist Julia Ardón explains:
Fabricio deja de asistir a los debates donde estaba confirmada su asistencia y anuncia un equipo económico “de lujo”, un “dream team” con lo más selecto de la banca privada, economistas neoliberales, sin una propuesta sólida pero claramente comprometido con privatizaciones y el desmantelamiento del Estado de Bienestar, al mismo tiempo que denota un desdén absoluto por el respeto de los derechos humanos y los compromisos sociales del gobierno.
Fabricio doesn't attending debates where his appearance has been already confirmed and announces a “top notch” economic team, a “dream team” selected from the private banking sector, neoliberal economists, with no solid proposals but clearly committed to privatization and the dismantling of the Welfare State, while also showing a complete disdain for respect for human rights and the government's social commitments.
Fearing the rise of fundamentalism, various unprecedented initiatives arose throughout the country. The first “Coalition for Costa Rica” meeting took place on February 10 and was called by students and youth from various parties as well as participants with no political affiliation.
The common objective of the Coalition is to support the Partido Acción Ciudadana (Citizen Action Party–PAC) presidential candidate Carlos Alvarado whose platform includes human rights referring to LGBTQI people, even though a significant number of Costa Ricans reject the idea of equal marriage.
The following video explains the Coalition's vision and mission.
[In the video]: On Saturday February 10 hundreds of people came together in the first meeting of the Coalition for Costa Rica. This was replicated in many parts of the country throughout the day and is planned to continue all week. Working groups were formed based on cantons (administrative divisions) and common interests, regardless of political preferences. Because #WhatUnitesUs is stronger. On April 1st let's vote for Costa Rica.
On February 5, Leftist party Frente Amplio (Broad Front) called for supporters to vote against PRN candidate Fabricio Alvarado. Leonardo Garniere, former Education Minister of the Partido de Liberación Nacional (National Liberation Party–PLN) has explicitly expressed support for Carlos Alvarado's government programme, among other Costa Rican political personalities.
Former Health Minister María Luisa Ávila, also from PLN, confirmed that she while she would not join the PAC, she would still vote for Carlos Alvarado in the second round:
Es que lo que tenemos es una balanza y hay que decidirse. En mi caso, lo hice por Carlos, que tiene experiencia y una postura moderna en derechos humanos. Creo que es un muchacho que tiene la oportunidad de demostrar que aprendió de errores de su propio partido. […] Además, esto no es una adhesión al PAC, es solo apoyo para esta segunda ronda.
What we have here is a balance and we have to decide. In my case, I went for Carlos, who has experience and a modern position on human rights. I think he is a young man with the opportunity to show that he has learned from his own party's mistakes. […] Furthermore, this is not me joining PAC, it's just support for this second round.
PLN's founder Enrique Obregón expressed his concern for the state of the contest and the narrowness of the decision which voters are facing:
Tenemos un pastor protestante que emergió de la nada, con un partido político inexistente y que, de pronto (pretendiendo gobernar desde la religiosidad) cuenta con un apoyo popular inesperado. Y del otro lado, a un joven que apenas ha comenzado a hacer pinitos en la política, con un partido de cierta tradición pero con un gobierno sumamente cuestionado, presidido por un señor que nunca había sido de ese partido y a quién le cayó del cielo el cetro de presidente. Este es el hecho concreto al que se aboca la ciudadanía costarricense sin otra alternativa, sin otra posibilidad.
We have a protestant pastor who came out of nowhere, with a non-existent political party and who, suddenly (with the intention of governing from a religious position) finds himself with an unexpected level of popular support. And on the other side, a young man who has only just begun to take his first steps in politics, with a party that has some history but whose government is very much in question, led by a man who had never been a member of the party but who had the sceptre of the presidency fall into his lap. This is the hard reality that Costa Rican citizens are facing with no alternative, no other possibility.
Former presidential candidate Rodolfo Piza, from the Social Christian Union Party (Partido Unión Social Cristiana, PUSC), has been the most-discussed alliance. On Thursday, March 8, Piza signed an agreement to establish a national government with PAC, according to La Nación:
Carlos Alvarado puede ayudarnos a garantizar un gobierno para todos los costarricenses y a garantizar el respeto a sus derechos y el respeto a la igualdad y a la equidad (…). Pude haber dejado que todo siguiera su curso, pero mi participación en política es un ejercicio de responsabilidad”,
Carlos Alvarado can help us to guarantee a government for all Costa Ricans and guarantee respect for their rights and respect for equality and equity (…). I could have just let things run their course, but my participation in politics is an exercise of responsibility.
Several polls show that Fabricio Alvarado could win the April 1 vote. Nevertheless, the last analysis released by the University of Costa Rica predicts a technical stalemate with Carlos Alvarado with 43 percent of the vote and Fabricio Alvarado with 42 percent.
Meanwhile, young and progressive circles are focusing on rallying people to vote by combating abstentionism that reached 34 percent in the first round. LGBTI defenders are depending on it.

author: Sandra Abd'Allah-Alvarez Ramírez


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Top Manta: A Brand and a Victory in the Fight of Street Vendors of Barcelona · Global Voices
Elisa Marvena

Members of the Trade Union of Street Vendors in Barcelona. Photo by: Playground Do (Used with permission)
The second week of March has been especially tragic for Spain's street vendors after the death by cardiac arrest of Mame Mbaye, of Senegalese origin, after running from the police.
This event contrasts, however, with two hopeful successes: the massive participation in the rallies in solidarity with Mbaye and the success of a crowdfunding campaign to finance a project that seeks to improve the living conditions of the collective in Barcelona: its own commercial brand, Top Manta [meaning “top blanket,” referring to the blankets on which many street vendors display their wares].
“Ya está aquí el proyecto en el que tanto hemos trabajado, que nos permitirá ayudar a mejorar las condiciones de vida de lxs vendedorxs ambulantes, seguir luchando contra el racismo, compartir lo que sabemos: #TOPMANTA #Crowdfunding Colabora y difunde!https://t.co/RAQfYu8Sf0
— Sindicato ManteroBCN (@sindicatomanter) March 13, 2018
“The project which we’ve worked on so much is now here. It will let us help improve the living conditions of street vendors, continue fighting against racism, share what we know: #TOPMANTA #Crowdfunding Collaborate and share!https://t.co/RAQfYu8Sf0
— Sindicato ManteroBCN (@sindicatomanter) March 13, 2018
The project has been launched by the Trade Union of Street Vendors in Barcelona, an association formed by migrants hailing from various countries in Africa who have found a form of subsistence in street vending because of the administrative obstacles to working under the requirements of the law.
Under the slogan “Surviving is not a crime,” the Union was created in 2015 as “a way to support [themselves] in the face of the harshness of selling in the street day to day, and as a way to defend [themselves] in the face of institutional racism, persecution, and criminalization.”
Preceding the creation of the Union and the Top Manta brand is over a decade of fighting, self-organization, and construction of solidarity networks.
The idea of creating Top Manta was already announced by the collective in 2017, along with a promotional video released by online media Playground Do that has already reached more than 1 million hits. In it, Aziz Faye, spokesman of the Union and tailor by profession, explains how after eight years without employment, he discovered the dignity of this street vendor work despite police harassment, discrimination from other people, and an income that barely reaches 200 euros a month.
How do they do it? According to Faye in the video, “Because we have many ideas and we have many riches.”
In the video, Faye reflects on the sudden media attention and how it contrasts with the intense invisiblization and rejection that characterize the images that are spread about them:
Hace poco hemos lanzado nuestra propia marca, la marca Top Manta (…) de pronto, la gente que nos ignoraba o rechazaba, nos tenía admiración. Los medios querían entrevistarnos, los diseñadores querían conocernos (…) ¿Qué había cambiado? Dos cosas. Primero se descubrió que no somos solamente inmigrantes ilegales, sino que somos individuos creativos con ideas y ambición, como tú. Segundo, empezamos a hablar el lenguaje del capitalismo.
Not long ago we launched our own brand, Top Manta (…) suddenly, the people who would ignore or reject us, had admiration for us. The media wanted to interview us, the designers wanted to meet us (…) What had changed? Two things. First, it was discovered that we aren't just illegal immigrants, but that we're creative individuals with ideas and ambition, like you. Second, we began to speak the language of capitalism.
On its webpage, the Top Manta brand describes itself as something beyond a commercial project: an instrument of resistence and recognition, a “collective, simple, rebellious, and dignified” brand, against borders, contempt, and obscurity.
At the moment and after less than one week active, the crowdfunding campaign to finance the project's implementation has already passed its minimum goal and continues to grow. Those who collaborate can choose between different compensations, like shirts and sweaters, designed by the collective and produced in a caring, just, and sustainable manner (shipping to Europe, Latin America, and Senegal is available).
According to a report by the City Council of Barcelona, in 2016 there were 400 street vendors in the city, and more than half of them were in irregular administrative situations. The report also denies that the mafia is behind the manteros [slang for street vendors, loosely meaning “sellers in blankets” or even “people with blankets”] as the ultimate beneficiaries of their activity, a rumor widely spread on the street and the Internet.
Thanks to pressure exercised by different migrant collectives, in 2010 the depenalization of street vending was achieved, and it went on to become a minor infraction. But again in 2015, the conflictive penal code reform, carried out by the conservative government of the People's Party (PP), returned to considering street vending an offense sanctioned with punishments of between six months and two years of jail.
An important consequence of this penalization is that it helps to perpetuate the situation of the vendors’ legal vulnerability. The crime remains reflected on their records and impedes them from regularizing their administrative situation. As a consequence, getting legal work other than street vending becomes even more difficult. This is the case of many manteros, who remain “without papers” despite being in Spain for over a decade.
As the “Manifesto for the Depenalization of Top Manta” highlights:
…cuando un mantero es condenado por vender, esto cierra de facto cualquier posibilidad de regularización futura debido al tema de los antecedentes penales. Esto es lo que llamamos criminalización de la pobreza.
…when a mantero is convicted for selling, this is a de facto closure of any possibility of future regularization due to the issue of criminal records. This is what we call criminalization of poverty.
Initiatives like that of Top Manta and their acceptance by the Spanish public open the door to a large number of hopes and possibilities. However, each success will be small until they no longer confront the insidious social and institutional racism that normalizes police violence, insistently denounced by the collective: “Violence carried out against us has long been accepted as natural. (…) We have many colleagues with legs and hands broken from police operations.”

author: Elisa Marvena


text:
A Journey for Justice in the Americas, Part 1: Three Women Tell Their Stories in Kingston, Jamaica · Global Voices
Emma Lewis

(L-R): Shackelia Jackson (Jamaica), Katrina Johnson (USA) and Ana Paula Riveira (Brazil) at Kingston Harbour with photographs of their deceased relatives. Copyrighted photo by Amnesty International/Mario Allen, used with permission.
Three women from three very different countries met recently in Kingston, Jamaica. Under normal circumstances, their paths may never have crossed, but these inspiring activists have one thing in common: each of them lost a relative at the hands of the police.
As part of their effort to draw attention to the issue of police brutality, Shackelia Jackson from Jamaica, Ana Paula Oliveira from Brazil, and Katrina Johnson from the United States, recently accompanied an Amnesty International delegation to Jamaica.
Their visit coincided with the International Day Against Police Brutality on March 15. The women took part in a public conversation at the University of the West Indies Mona campus entitled “A Journey for Justice in the Americas,” hosted by Amnesty International Caribbean/Caribe/Caraibes and supported by local human rights lobby group Jamaicans for Justice.
They used the occasion to deliver 64,331 letters and signatures as part of a global petition which, since December 2017, has gathered more than half a million supporters worldwide who are calling on the Jamaican government to end impunity for unlawful killings by police.
Generated through Amnesty International’s Write for Rights campaign, the petition includes thousands of messages of solidarity with Jamaican human rights defender Shackelia Jackson, whose 29-year-old brother Nakiea was shot dead by police in downtown Kingston on January 20, 2014.
In 2016, Amnesty International released Waiting in Vain: Unlawful Police Killings and Relatives’ Long Struggle for Justice, a report detailing illegal tactics used by police across Jamaica to make it difficult for victims’ relatives to get justice.
But such tactics have not stopped Jackson from trying. She openly expressed her disappointment at the low turnout for the event, which was live-streamed on Facebook, but the reality is that many Jamaicans are ambivalent about extrajudicial killings. Instead, their focus is on the country's rising homicide rate (over 1,600 murders in 2017) and growing concern about personal security.
In fact, it is common for Jamaicans to openly (or tacitly) support “hard policing” methods. There was recently some measure of public support for Reneto Adams — a “tough” retired policeman who was allegedly involved in extrajudicial killings during his time as head of the controversial Crime Prevention Unit — to be appointed to the post of police commissioner.
Adams was involved in operations in the inner city community of Tivoli Gardens in 2001 which resulted in many deaths. The subsequent 2010 incursion by security forces in the same community, in which 72 people are alleged to have died, continues to reverberate. Prime Minister Andrew Holness eventually apologised in Parliament for the incident last December — a year after the publication of an Amnesty special report on the relatives’ long struggle for justice after extrajudicial killings.
According to a report by the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM), which probes abuse by the police, after a downturn in police-related deaths between 2014 and 2016, 2017 saw an alarming increase of 51%. Thus far, 2018 has seen 31 fatal shootings by the police and INDECOM itself is now in a state of uncertainty after a March 16 Appeal Court ruling held that an organisation is not a legal person and therefore cannot arrest, charge or prosecute.
In Orange Villa, Kingston, Shackelia Jackson reads letters from some of the thousands who corresponded and sent social media messages of solidarity through the “Write for Rights” campaign in November/December 2017. Photo by Amnesty International/Robin Guittard, used with permission.
Against this discouraging backdrop, Shackelia Jackson remains a determined, eloquent and charismatic spokesperson on behalf of Jamaican families whose loved ones have been killed by the police. These families often suffer other consequences, including stigmatisation, threats, intimidation and an unsatisfactory conclusion to the investigations.
Jackson (SJ) spoke to Global Voices (GV) about her family's journey:
SJ: I lost my brother, Nakiea Jackson, on January 20, 2014, after he was fatally shot by a police officer in Jamaica.
It was alleged by the police that they were chasing a Rastafarian-looking man who robbed a gas station. In pursuit of the individual, my brother was approached while carrying out his routine operations in his cook shop/restaurant; gun shots were later heard. He was pronounced dead at approximately 4:20 that afternoon.
Our immediate reaction was one of disbelief, because of who I know my brother to be. It had to be an error we thought, but in the same breath, I was aware of the history of our police force and some members’ disregard for the right to life. Hence, to take my innocent brother’s life was another manifestation of their deviation from the duty to care.
To stop [my activism] would mean that I am giving another police officer permission to kill another of my brothers, or anyone else for that matter. The campaign for justice became that more critical because of my participation in our judicial process: I realised justice was fictitious and that the system was plagued with structural barriers and a history of police impunity that force families to give up before seeking judicial remedy. Campaigning for justice meant living or dying.
The violation and egregious act committed against my brother, the suffering, the harassment and the plight of so many other families gave me strength and were my impetus in campaigning. I continue because the work is necessary, the threat is growing and its normalisation has to be refuted by the need for policy and legislative changes that could contribute to national development.
GV: What about strategies to address the problem of extrajudicial killings in Jamaica? Could legislation, public awareness and education campaigns and better training, for example, be useful?
SJ: We have employed some of these strategies to try and curtail extrajudicial killings; however, there is an unwillingness to commit to long-term solutions. As such, I think legislative changes would serve as a deterrent and positively impact and influence the areas of public awareness/education and police reform.
Nevertheless, Shackelia added:
I am an optimist at heart, it is the hope that dwells in me that compels me to run this marathon and to take other families on the journey with me. My resolve is that change is necessary and achievable.
For Jamaicans who may be skeptical about her campaign, Jackson explained:
You are one indiscretion or violation from becoming the next Nakiea Jackson, who is emblematic of so many in Jamaica.
I would like my fellow Jamaicans to know that our pursuit is not an anti-government stance, but one that seeks to right a history of wrong. [It is a campaign] geared towards preventing another family from experiencing a similar fate.
Her message to anyone concerned about human rights — locally, regionally and globally — is to support non-governmental organisations “that work to bring victims out of obscurity, [give] them a safe space to grieve, and work tirelessly to preserve human rights and dignity”.
Shackelia Jackson — like her colleagues Ana Paula Oliveira and Katrina Johnson, who Global Voices will feature in the two follow-up posts in this series — may be broken, but she is not destroyed.

author: Emma Lewis


text:
DRC’s Joseph Kabila Isolated as Delays to Organise the 2018 Elections Continue · Global Voices
Alassane ndoumbe

Limete, Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Some members of the Electoral Peace Committees  (community and religious leaders, young people and women) CC-BY-20
This article is part of the follow-up brief of the pre-election period in the DRC. The first article from the brief can be found here.
While the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) drags on, the Kabila regime is attempting to gain support in the region as best it can.  Meanwhile, the opposition is still mobilising the public to push for the organisation of elections.
Since the end of Kabila's term in 2016, there have been calls to bring an end his hold on power and to the denial of civil liberties, a situation that many say has gone on for too long. Since last December, those who oppose the regime have stepped up demonstrations which have been met with force by the police.
On 19 March, a lengthy letter landed on the desk of the Secretary-General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres, the successor to Ban Ki-moon. In it, the Catholic Lay Committee of the DRC (CLC) asked that the MONUSCO mandate be renewed to prevent any pre-electoral tension and that the United Nations, therefore, come to the aid of the DRC in organising elections.
Contradicting the government release figures, the Joint Commission of Inquiry 31 21 estimates that the demonstrations held on 31 December and 21 January reportedly led to the death of 14 protestors, 12 of whom were shot dead and 2 from tear gas inhalation. Around 40 people were reportedly arbitrarily arrested then subjected to degrading treatment during brutal interrogations. On 25 February 2018, a 35-year-old man named Rossy Mukendi Tshimanga and a second individual were both killed during the protests. On 1 February, the Joint Commission of Inquiry 31 21 was organized under the patronage of the Minister of Human Rights and included delegates representing the Ministry of Human Rights, the Ministry of Justice, the National Human Rights Commission, members of civil society, the United Nations Joint Office for Human Rights and the African Union Liaison Office.
On 11 March, this very commission urged the government to:
lever l’interdiction générale des réunions et des manifestations publiques et pacifiques et de mettre à la disposition de la Justice tous les moyens nécessaires pour mener des enquêtes judiciaires et poursuivre les auteurs de violations et atteintes aux Droits de l’Homme en lien avec les manifestations publiques du 31 décembre 2017 et du 21 janvier 2018.
Lift the total ban on public and peaceful demonstrations and assemblies and also make any necessary means available to the Judiciary in order to carry out judicial inquiries and prosecute those responsible for violating and attacking human rights in connection with the public demonstrations held on 31 December 2017 and 21 January 2018.
A few days later, on 15 March the IRDH (Research Institute in Human Rights) requested that these recommendations be extended to the telecommunication companies (PDF) in the country. The cuts in internet access the day prior to these demonstrations are a particular focus of this request.
At the same time, the opposition movement is still calling for the departure of Kabila and the rapid organisation of the elections. On 12 March, several opposition leaders and activists made a three-day trip to South Africa to rally behind leading opposition politician Moïse Katumbi. The message of this candidate is clear:
…together I suggest we build an alternative Congo.
Since being voted in as presidential candidate by the G7 coalition in March 2016 (the G7 is a coalition of opposition political parties), the former Governor of the Katanga Province has been the target of repeated attacks from the regime. Sentenced to three years in prison after a real estate fraud accusation that many felt was likely controlled by the regime, Katumbi has been living in exile since May 2016. Katumbi is expected to return in June to submit his candidacy to the presidency.
This three-day assembly in South Africa was, therefore, an opportunity for the opposition to show their support for the 53-year-old opponent who has been calling for “credible and transparent” elections. For several weeks, the Kabila government has been saying it would like to set up an electronic voting system, something that the opposition criticises as being an attempt to rig the elections.
For his part, Kabila is attempting to gain support. After being put under pressure by the United Nations Security Council who condemned the demonstration crackdowns; after being abandoned by Belgium, a historic ally of the country who broke off its bilateral relations with the DRC at the end of January; and after being criticised by the European Union who requested that an International Criminal Court Inquiry be opened, the regime is attempting to win over its neighbouring countries.
The president was expected to attend the extraordinary session of the African Union on 20 March in Kigali. Despite first sending Minister of Justice Alexis Thambwe Mwamba and a delegation intended to prepare the groundwork —  this will be no easy feat.
While President of Rwanda Paul Kagamé appears to be a historic ally of Kabila, supporting him today seems to be increasingly difficult for the other African leaders. Several countries that are traditionally friends of the DRC, like Zimbabwe, Angola, South Africa and even Botswana, are breaking their solidarity with the regime. Although increasingly isolated, Kabila shows no sign of standing down. This is a worrying situation for many analysts who fear that the country will sink further into a political stalemate.

author: Alassane ndoumbe


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From the 2017 Global Voices Summit in Colombo, Sri Lanka: Into the Deep Podcast · Global Voices
Sahar Habib Ghazi

Last December, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in a small hotel game room with decent acoustics — and with a tropical storm brewing outside — ten Global Voices contributors from around the world gathered in a room to talk about international friendship, cross-cultural collaboration and the value of community.
They were among the hundred authors, translators and editors from 60 countries who had gathered at the Mount Lavinia hotel for the biennial Global Voices summit to discuss the future of media, community, and the organization itself.
Into the Deep is the Global Voices podcast where we dig deep into one topic that isn’t getting the media coverage it deserves. And in this podcast we are going to be giving you a glimpse of the latest Global Voices summit.
Global Voices is an international network of passionate people who keep tabs on the online conversations happening in their regions. Our more than 1400, mostly volunteer, contributors cover stories from 167 countries and translate them into more than 30 languages. Together, we’ve been building bridges of understanding, as we like to call them, through our digital reporting since 2005.
In this episode, we featured Creative Commons licensed music from the Free Music Archive, including Rite of Passage, Quasi Motion, and Tikopia by Kevin MacLeod.
The photo used in the feature image is a selfie by Faaris Adam from the Global Voices Summit in Colombo. Used with permission.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
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author: Sahar Habib Ghazi


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In the Wake of a Fatal Fire in Russia, Official Numbness and Online Trolling Stoke Outrage · Global Voices
Christopher Moldes

Vladimir Putin visited a makeshift memorial to victims of the Kemerovo mall fire as Russians complain about the numbness of the country's official reaction to the tragic incident // Credit: kremlin.ru. CC BY 4.0
On March 25th, a large shopping mall in the Siberian city of Kemerovo burned down and killed over 60 people —  many of whom were children. In the days and hours that followed, the city’s residents have heavily criticized the regional and city administrations for their botched crisis management, and the first responders for what they feel was a slow response.
As these residents take to the streets and the internet, the online Russian bot machine, geared as it is towards domestic conversations, has focused on downplaying the residents’ outrage and shifting blame away from state officials.This campaign also reflects the dismissive and often heavy-handed treatment state officials have been doling out to the families of the deceased.
As opinions heat up, both on the streets and in the online sphere, many feel that the use of online trolls has lead to an environment of misinformation and mistrust.
The fire seems to have started near a children’s play area and quickly spread, trapping many people including dozens of other children who were in the mall’s movie theater. As reported in Meduza, a Latvian-based Russian news website, the families of those still trapped in the blaze stood in disbelief as the first responders took a seemingly long time donning their gear, dissuading distraught onlookers from going into the mall to rescue their children. Though this last point is, perhaps, a standard procedure to prevent untrained individuals from subjecting themselves to further risk, people were nevertheless angry. However, they saved most of their anger for the regional and city leadership.
Igor Vostrikov, a grieving parent who lost his sister, wife and three children in the fire, took his views to VKontakte, a popular Russian social media network. His message has been seen by more than 700,000 people at the time of writing and shared almost 8,000 times:
Моей семьи больше нет. Виноват правящий режим в моей стране.
Каждый чиновник мечтает воровать как Путин. Каждый гос служащий относится к людям как грязи(так же как и его выше стоящее руковотство к нему,и ко всем кто ниже)
Назначат козла отпущения и закроют тему,а угрозы(халатное отношение, тотальная коррупция, спаивание и деградация населения никуда не денется!)
Путин так и будет сам всех лично(точечно) наказывать-Указ проверить все Т.Ц. ,а ведь у нас ещё есть много других заведений, есть просто ветхие дома старые больници- трагедии могут случиться где угодно!
27.03 в Кемерово состоится митинг с 9.00 на площади советов. Приходите ко скольки сможете.
Максимальный репост.
My family’s gone. My country’s ruling regime is to blame. Each bureaucrat dreams about stealing as much as Putin. Each civil servant treats people like dirt (just as their bosses do to them, and to everyone beneath them). They’ll find a scapegoat and drop the subject, but the dangers (negligence, all-out corruption, inebriation and the degradation of the population) aren’t going anywhere! Putin will of course personally punish everyone narrowly, like an order to inspect all shopping malls, but we have a lot of other places, like dilapidated homes, old hospitals: there can be a tragedy anywhere!
There’ll be a protest on 03/27 in Keremovo at 9.00 on Square of the Soviets. Come for as long as you can.
Share this message as widely as you can.
News of exactly how many perished was not released in a timely manner, and as the deceased’s relatives grew angrier, so too did the city’s population. Thousands gathered at the place and time mentioned in Vostrikov's Vkontakte post, with many lingering for ten hours.
As people began to gather, police presence increased dramatically, making for some terrible optics as riot police descended with truncheons in hand. Some who excoriated public officials were themselves in turn accused by these same officials of “self-promoting through the tragedy” —  one of them turned out to be the same Igor Vostrikov whose entire family perished in the fire.
This incredibly dismissive and outright hostile treatment of the survivors was mirrored in online activity. Meduza also reported that videos of the disaster were inundated with dislikes and comments urging people not to jump to conclusions and blame city officials.
Waves of dislikes are commonly observed with explicitly oppositional material. Some Russians are doubting the official figures of 64 dead, and some Twitter accounts have started to harass them, accusing them of lying and trying to distort facts.
Some have taken to doxxing, or publishing the contact information of people who have criticized the Keremovo city response online. Most times, these bot or sock puppet (a real user behind an account that signal boosts other such accounts) can be recognized by their wild usernames:
Обратите внимание, как называются и выглядят аккаунты тех, кто обвиняет кемеровских протестующих в «пиаре на костях». #ФабрикаТроллей pic.twitter.com/3dzfIgjQoK
— Илья Яшин (@IlyaYashin) 27 марта 2018 г.
Pay attention to the names of those accounts [a reference to this particular account's handle, which is a long string of  alphanumeric characters and a profile picture of Sergey Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister] that are accusing the Kemerov protesters of “self-promoting on the bones [of the dead]” #TrollFactory
It can be difficult to definitely prove that there is a coordinated online campaign against these protestors, but the fact that such campaigns have existed for years is undeniable. Global Voices was one of the first Western news outlets to expose the true extent of state-sponsored online trolling in Russia. There is an anonymous channel on Telegram, a popular messaging service in Russia, allegedly run by an employee of one of the troll factories (when journalists reached out to them, the channel's owner turned down their requests, citing fears for own safety.) Named “Confessions of a Kremlinbot”, the alleged troll posted on March 26:
Да, ребят, нас реально заставляют писать комменты в поддержку правительства по ситуации в Кемерово.
Смещаем вину на отдельных личностей: застройщиков, администрацию, охрану.
Перекрываем настроения против власти. “Причем тут Путин? Он же не может всё контролировать!”
Это главная цель. Параллельно хвалим МЧС, пожарных, очевидцев, кто помогал, выражаем соболезнования.
Я не знаю, зачем им это всё, но ничего более омерзительного ещё не было.
Yes, guys, they really are forcing us to write comments supporting the government on the Kemerovo situation.
We’re shifting blames onto various people: construction workers, the administration, security guards.
We’re offsetting the anti-government attitude: “What does Putin have to do with this? He can’t control everything!”
This is our main goal.  At the same time, we’re praising the Ministry of Emergency Situations, the firemen, witnesses who offered help, and we’re giving our condolences.
I don’t know why they need all this, but this has been the most ghoulish thing we’ve done.
Some public officials have continued dragging some of the more outspoken protestors through the mud, calling them the opposition and insisting they have involved themselves against the will of the local residents. On March 28, the official national day of mourning, Vladimir Chernov, the vice governor of the Russian coal-mining region of Kuzbass, told the state agency RIA Novosti:
Мы делаем выводы, что это была четкая, спланированная акция, направленная на дискредитацию власти… Очень много было “подогретой молодежи”… Люди присутствовали, совсем не понимая, что они там делают.
We have come to a conclusion that this [the mass rally in Kemerovo on Monday, March 26] was a pointed, planned action aimed at discrediting the authorities… There were so many “heated up” youths.. People were present without fully realizing what they were doing there…
The trolls echoed this sentiment, blaming both the fire itself and subsequent protests, variously, on the agents of Ukraine, United Kingdom and Western security services, with the aim of derailing Vladimir Putin's inauguration which is happening in May.
The Ukrainian angle may have some truth to it: as it transpired, the rumors of morgues in Kemerovo overflowing with charred corpses in much larger numbers than the officially declared figure of 64 were deliberately stoked by Dmitry Volnov. The notorious Ukrainian prankster had been calling the hospitals in Kemerovo and, presenting himself as a first responder on the scene, told them to prepare enough gurneys and storage to accommodate at least 300 dead bodies.
Rumors quickly spread on Russian social networks, with numerous users passing around screenshots from Whatsapp and other popular messengers which cited the 300+ body count from a “trusted source in Kemerovo.” One such post on Yandex.Zen, a publishing platform, has already accumulated at least 113,000 views.
The tragic Kemerovo incident exposed not only the Russian officials’ numbness to popular grief and poor crisis management skills, but also the society's susceptibility to online trolling, both state-sponsored and external.

author: Christopher Moldes


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Overseas Chinese Nervous About the Cancellation of Household Registration Back Home · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Hukou document from Wikipedia. CC: AT.
On March 21, 2018, the Shanghai Public Security Bureau announced a new policy banning dual citizenship.
The Shanghai Permanent Residency Management Rule, which requires mainland Chinese who acquired foreign nationality or took up residence in other countries to either cancel their resident registration or face the consequences of the hukou system, which becomes effective on May 1, 2018.
The hukou, or household registration system, goes hand in hand with certain rights, especially for residents of big cities, who can enjoy freedoms like electing their district representative, holding a bank account, purchasing local property at a lower rate, and accessing education and retirement pension. Many mainland Chinese who have bought property and migrated to other countries have not cancelled their hukou.
While the parameters of the policy are not yet clear, it appears that for those who fail to cancel their hukou, power reverts to the police, who would do a mandatory cancellation.
According to the Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece Global Times, the new rule is to assist government’s anti-graft campaign as it would create another barrier blocking corrupt officials from leaving China.
But, as @FightEagle2017 pointed out on Twitter, the policy implication is a big deal for overseas Chinese:
【强制注销中国户籍】最近上海率先执行对侨居海外的侨民实行取消户籍的强制措施，全国也将迅疾跟进。这个人群大多在国内有房产、存款。多以中国身份证为留底凭证。户籍注销、身份证就废了。拿外国护照或绿卡去办房产或存款手续时，都将处处碰壁被刁难。一个没有户口的房子该如何合法保留？ pic.twitter.com/lhDwUJ8uKd
— 小旋风 (@FightEagle2017) March 23, 2018
[Mandatory cancellation of Chinese hukou] Recently Shanghai has become the first to announce the mandatory cancellation of household registration targeting overseas mainland Chinese. The policy would be implemented in other regions as well. Majority of [the dual citizenship holders] have properties and bank deposits inside China. They kept their Chinese ID card for their accounts. Once their hukou is cancelled, they can’t use their ID card. It is very difficult to hold property and bank accounts with foreign passports or green cards. Moreover, how could they keep their properties legally is another question.
People have been sharing their diverse opinions on Weibo, one of the most popular social media platforms in China. For those who support the policy, they regard dual citizenship as the equivalent of wanting to have your cake and eat it too:
都出国定居了，还不注销原所在地户口，这跟一个人有两个不同地址的身份证有什么分别？？什么人能有这样的特权？为什么给他们这样的特权？
You have left the country and settled down in other countries, but you refuse to cancel your household registration. This is like carrying two ID cards with two different addresses. Why should some people enjoy such privilege?
没错，国外定居生活是没占据资源，但是你也没创造财富！吃喝拉撒全在国外，连一个子儿的税都收不了你的，参与的是别人国家的建设，并没有和大家一起同甘共苦，又凭什么要求保留国籍把坑占住？为的是骑墙两头押宝两头占好处吗，想的还真是周到。这对于忠诚于这片土地上的其他人来说简直是天大的不公平！
Yes, it is true that when they live in a foreign country, they don't draw on our resources, but they also have not created wealth! They spend money overseas and don’t have to pay taxes here. They participate in building other countries, but don't work with our own people. Why then, do they still keep their nationality and household registration? They just want to take all the benefits from both sides. This is unfair to those who are loyal to our land.
Those against the policy, meanwhile, are pointing out the difference between citizenship and nationality:
自己没能力出国居住的，请不要嘲笑别人。华人华侨很多是“身在国外心在汉”，很多也是在为国家做贡献，户口没了让人心寒吧。
Please don’t laugh at those who have the ability to settle outside China. Many overseas Chinese are still loyal to China and want to contribute to the country. The cancellation of hukou will chill their hearts.
出国定居拿绿卡又不是加入外国国籍了，只是一个长期居留签证而已。就好比我现在深圳住，拿了深圳居住证，那我老家能因此注销我户口吗？
Taking up residence outside China and getting a green card don't mean that I have changed my nationality. [The green card] is just a resident visa. It is similar to the resident document issued in Shenzhen; they cannot cancel my household registration back in my hometown.
出国的原因很多，有的也是为了谋生，就象从乡下到城里打工一样，最后要回国的，而且在国内还有资产，取消户籍没道理。当然加入外国国籍的取消户籍是合理的。
There are many reasons for leaving the country. Similar to rural peasants working in the cities, some people are just taking jobs. Eventually, they will return and still keep their property and assets back home. Of course, if the person has changed their nationality, it is reasonable to cancel their household registration.
The news has shaken overseas mainland Chinese communities, as the cancellation of hukou may imply that they might not be able to receive their retirement pension or sell properties they own. Many are also concerned that other big cities will follow in Shanghai's footsteps and ban dual citizenship.
Amidst this panic, the Shanghai public security department explained that the details of the policy have not yet been decided upon, since the authority is yet to provide a clear definition of what “taking residence in other countries” means. At this stage, those who live overseas but have not changed their nationality or acquired dual citizenship, appear to be exempt.
Still, the clarification is too vague and has failed to address people’s concerns. @dd201704 mocked the tone of the policy change:
上海房价要跌了伐？
注销户口的闹剧一发布，因引起广泛华侨强烈反弹，政策又缩回去了…虚惊一场？
政策说变就变，今天露个头，一看民众一片哗然，说收就收，将来呢?？谁还敢把自家的财产放中国啊？我身边多位朋友都表示要马上卖了上海的房产，取光银行里的钱…说不定哪天再来一次打土豪分田地呢？跌? pic.twitter.com/HzVA12iYFG
— 点点 (@dd201704) March 25, 2018
Shanghai’s property prices were about to drop? The policy has been retracted… false alarm? The policy can change all of a sudden, today it is made public and people are in shock, then it's withdrawn. What will come next? Who will still dare to keep property in China? Many of my friends are planning to sell their property and withdraw money from the bank… just in case another round of land seizure [similar to the 1950 land reform] might happen.
There is also much speculation over the rationale behind the policy:
"出国定居将被注销户口"规定，虽打击了那些国内外两头通吃之人，但其真正用意恐是增加那些“全家移民并将资产移出中国“的难度。今后你若全家移民，难度很大，你须首先完成户口和身份证注销，那你名下房产和银行存款怎么办？只能暂时过户到亲戚名下，这会给你带来风险。以后全家移民只能一个接着一个来。
— 草祭 (@caojitw) March 22, 2018
The policy concerning the cancellation of hukou would be a hard blow to those who get double benefit from their dual citizenship. However, the real intention is to make it more difficult for those who want to move their whole family and all their assets outside of China. If you decide to have your family migrate to another country, you have to cancel your hukou, and your property and bank accounts would have to be transferred to your extended family members to be taken care of. This will induce risk and it means that in the future, people will use the strategy of chain migration, leaving the country one by one instead of the whole family together.
注销户口的原因是国内经济不行了，停发出国人员退休金。上海的出国人员退休金是个天文数字，很多人特地办早退后才出国，停发可省很多钱，欧美成熟社保体系下，出国人员每年离境半年以上，取消各种福利，回国定居一段时间后恢复，莫非中国也要如此？此做法是正确的，既然人不在该国，就无义务对其保障
— 蝶韵 (@tpydy) March 22, 2018
The reason behind the hukou cancellation is the worsening of the economy — they want to cut the retirement pension for those who have left the country. The amount of pension received by those who have left the country is huge. Many people applied for early retirement before they left the country. The cancellation of their hukou would end up saving a lot. The social security system in many Western countries would not cover overseas citizens [unverified claim]; maybe China is following the practice. Such a policy is correct: if they are not living in China, the government does not need to be responsible for their social security.

author: Oiwan Lam


text:
‘Women Make the News’: Online Database Connects Journalists to Thai Female Experts · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

‘Women Make the News’ website
Alarmed by the low number of women experts interviewed on mainstream media, UNESCO Bangkok has launched a website that links Thai journalists and researchers to female academics, government officials, corporate leaders, and NGO activists.
The “Women Make the News” database was launched in 2017 to advance gender equality in the media and society. It provides a list of contacts of female experts to feature more women voices in news reports.
UNESCO Bangkok cited a 2014 study by Thai Public Broadcasting Service which found that only one in four experts interviewed in one month of Thai TV news reports were women.
But women experts are not lacking in Thailand. Another study revealed that about 53 percent of all scientists in the country are women. In addition to this, women comprise about 37 percent of those in top business positions. Thailand is also one of six countries in the world where there are as many women starting businesses as men.
“In Thailand, about 53% of all scientists are women. Women make up about 37% of those in top business roles. Thailand is only 1 of 6 countries where as many women are starting businesses as men. However, only 24% of experts interviewed by the media in Thailand are women.” Source: UNESCO Bangkok
In response to the dominant representation of women as victims, family figures and sex objects, the “Women Make the News” project was conceptualized. It has three specific objectives:
Link journalists based in Thailand with female experts voices.
Increase the visibility of Thai female experts and female voices in the news.
Highlight the diversity of female expertise in Thailand and encourage greater participation of women in society.
As of this writing, the database has almost 300 women experts in topics where gender imbalance in news coverage has been noted. These include media, ICT and innovation, culture and history of the Association of Southeast Asian Nation, and environment and climate change. The public are enjoined to nominate more experts as well as inviting other women leaders to be part of the database.
Screenshot of the website ‘Women Make the News’
Using the database is quite easy. The search function of the tool allows users to find experts based on expertise, location, sector and theme.
When this author searched an expert on the “internet” in Bangkok, the database listed several experts who have affiliations with institutions like the Thammasat University and Chulalongkorn University, as well as a former deputy minister of education.
Each profile contains a contact information and a brief biographical background of the expert. For example, here’s the profile of human rights leader Angkhana Neelapaichit:
Screenshot of the profile of Angkhana Neelapaichit. Source: ‘Women Make the News’
A year after the launch, UNESCO Bangkok acknowledged the limited impact of the tool:
A UNESCO survey to gauge the reach of the database found that while half of the women in the database have been contacted for an interview, the majority of journalists surveyed were not aware of the database.
To remedy this, a workshop was organized with several Thai media groups in time for the celebration of the International Women’s Day early in March 2018.
Learn more about how the database is being used in Thailand today by watching this brief video:

author: Mong Palatino