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The Internet Presents Opportunities and Challenges for Revitalizing Tasmania’s Aboriginal Language · Global Voices
Eduardo Avila

Horace Watson recording the songs of Fanny Cochrane Smith, one of the last fluent speakers of a Tasmanian language, using an Edison phonograph. The original photograph and a recording are at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. From Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)
During British colonization of Tasmania which began in the early 1800s, the Aboriginal people living on the island located to the south of Australia’s mainland not only suffered loss of life, but also loss of their languages. Between six and 12 Tasmanian Aboriginal languages are estimated to have disappeared because few families from the different communities survived and very little of the languages were documented. The only documented audio recording was made by Dr. Horace Watson with Fanny Cochrane Smith in 1899 (photo above).
As a way of rebuilding, the different communities came together to form the Tasmanian Aboriginal Community and created a new composite language called palawa kani retrieved from elements from the original languages. palawa kani is lowercase on purpose — the language does not use capital letters in the same way as English.
Since the early 1990s, the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre (TAC) has been playing a major part in the language revival by teaching and promoting the use of palawa kani in the classroom setting, including in three Aboriginal Child Care centres, as well as with adult education. Camps and workshops are organized on Aboriginal-owned land to provide an immersion experience. One can also hear palawa kani in public settings, such as during the 2004 funeral for Tasmanian Premier Jim Bacon, whose eulogy was given in the Aboriginal language. In popular music, Tasmanian Aboriginal singer Dewayne Everettsmith, a former contestant on Australian Idol, performed songs in palawa kani on his international tour. One of the songs that he performs is called milaythina nika mana mapali (This Land is My Land).
Technology and the internet also play a role in helping new learners of palawa kani access multimedia in the language and practice with others. TAC’s regional offices offer digital dictionaries containing a database of words and their histories, as well as a library of videos and audios. And TAC’s online presence on Facebook and YouTube shares interviews, events, and other activities related to language revitalization. The youth from the Centre also took part in the Mother Language Meme Challenge, which was co-organized by Rising Voices in commemoration of International Mother Language Day.
Meme created by youth from the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre.
One of TAC’s newest project involves helping to adapt the animated show Little J and Big Cuz, which features two young Aboriginal children and their family. Each show focuses on a different Aboriginal language. The TAC’s Language Program auditioned local children, helped translate the script into palawa kani, and collaborated with the production. The process is featured in this promo video provided by TAC. The episode, titled “wurakara/Hopalong,” was aired on National Indigenous Television.
The examples documented above and many more like them are made possible by the technologies available today; however, it also can present a challenge for a community that holds a clear idea of with whom and how the language should be shared online.
Annie Reynolds, coordinator of the palawa kani Language Program at TAC, cautions that this information should not yet be available to the general public, “until Aborigines themselves are familiar and competent with it.“
Because of that community policy, there was disagreement whether or not information about the language should be made available on platforms such as Wikipedia. Reynolds said in an interview with Rising Voices:
We caution people against the Wikipedia page which claims to present information on palawa kani. This page is completely unauthorised and most of the information on it is incorrect. Some of the information has been copied from materials produced by the palawa kani program and distributed throughout the Aboriginal community. No permission was ever sought from us to reproduce any of that material. The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre contacted Wikipedia’s legal department to have the page removed, but were unsuccessful.
This disagreement was highlighted in an article on The Verge, which explored the complexity of this issue of intellectual property on the internet, especially as it applies to Indigenous and Aboriginal communities.
Despite these challenges, it is clear that the TAC sees the enormous potential of the internet and digital technologies to engage community members of all ages through the various channels available. Reynolds added:
The presentation of palawa kani online is to us an opportunity to showcase and promote the language sharing information about the language which the Aboriginal community chooses to share. Most of the online and social media use of palawa kani is in written form. The overall aim of the revival of palawa kani, however, is to have Aborigines speaking our language again, in family and community life. So the focus of our activities is mainly on teaching and encouraging Aborigines of all ages to actually speak it to each other in real life.


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In China’s Ideological Battle, ‘King of Glory’ Game is a Top Target · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

King of glory's online poster. From Tencent QQ.
Chinese Internet giant Tencent startled users — and stockholders — this week when it set new age requirements for several of its online games, including King of Glory.
Tencent’s new policy restricts players under 12 from playing for more one hour each day, and older teens from playing for more than two hours each day. The company has also increased parental controls and improved the game's identity verification system.
The new policy is a response to government concerns about gaming addiction, and comes at significant financial risk for the company — the multi-player battle game has more than 200 million registered players, 20 percent of whom are under 17 years old.
But Chinese Communist Party media and commentators have objections to the game that go beyond its supposedly addictive nature. They are concerned about the game's storyline, which they say “subverts Chinese history.”
A July 3 editorial in the Chinese Communist Party-controlled People’s Daily newspaper called the new policy “inadequate” and called for heavier censorship.
The People Daily's piece in March quoted a history scholar who argued that the game is effectively “cutting off the bloodline” of Chinese culture:
“说得重一些，随意涂抹和戏说历史，就相当于‘抛弃历史文化传统’，‘割断民族文化血脉’，让我们的文化发展‘迷失方向和目标’
“If we deliberately narrate history in a playful or mocking manner, it is equal to abandoning historical cultural tradition, a cutting off the bloodline of our national culture, which will result in the loss of our cultural direction and goal.”
This critique of historical nihilism has been a major points of ideological contention since 2012. Any historical interpretations and literary works that deviate from the CCP's interpretations are viewed as distortion or subversion of history.
Blogger Jia Zhi Xian suggested that the move signified a shift by Tencent away from a “profit-maximization” corporate governance model to one of social governance, in which the company commits to reflecting the interests of different stakeholders in society. But in a country like China, where people cannot freely express their views, who represents people and society at large?
From Tencent's game promotion page.
This is not the first time People's Daily has come down against the game. Party-affiliated media outlets have had their eyes on Tencent since early 2017.
In March, People's Daily criticized the King of Glory for “subverting Chinese history,” pointing to the game’s main characters who are based upon real historical figures, but have reimagined the traditional legendary heroes.
For example, legendary hero Jing Ke who attempted to assassinate the King of Qin – the first emperor of middle kingdom (China), is depicted as a seductive woman in the game (see image above). The character has become one of the most popular figures among players.
The latest People’s Daily commentary continued to slam Tencent’s King of Glory for bringing harm to people’s lives (陷害人生):
对孩子的不良影响无外乎两个方面：一是游戏内容架空和虚构历史，扭曲价值观和历史观；二是过度沉溺让孩子在精神与身体上被过度消耗。
it [King of Glory] has two adverse effect on kids: First, the content of the game is built upon imaginary history and it has distorted their value system and historical view; Secondly, being too indulged in the game would harm children’s health and spirit.
It also reminded its readers of existing regulations and called for more censorship:
即便几年前就发布了《关于保护未成年人身心健康实施网络游戏防沉迷系统的通知》，但监管的滞后性仍旧明显。是否强化游戏审核？如何建立游戏监管规范？可否实行手机游戏分级制度？这些问题都需要相关部门抓紧论证、出台并落实。“汝之蜜糖，彼之砒霜。”游戏究竟是魔鬼还是天使，不能让研发者一人说了算，监管主体有必要让游戏多一些“善意”。
A few years ago, the regulation on Anti-addiction Systems in Online Games for Protecting the Physical and Psychological Health of Minors was passed. But the implementation of the regulation is lagging behind. The authorities should step in to discuss issues related to strengthening online game censorship, norms on game regulation and online game age categorization systems. “Your honey is another’s poison.”
Whether an online game is a devil or an angel should not be decided by the designers alone. The regulators should make sure games carry a more positive spirit.
But the People’s Daily editorial has not been well-received by all readers. Below are some popular comments on a Weibo news thread:
家长和社会的责任，推到别人游戏厂商身上，有本事自己完善未成年人网络条例别整天阴阳怪气的说一句说一句，而且人民网还有资格说架空扭曲历史
Parental and social responsibilities have been turned into the responsibility of the online game company. Why don’t you just improve the Internet regulation on minors? Don’t keep commenting on this and that. I don’t think People’s Daily has any place talking about hijacking or distortion of history.
还要说吗，这种游戏必须应该取缔啊。。。另外还有很多人看报纸瘾大，比如我每天沉迷看报纸，我觉得应该把各种日报社给关了。
No need for discussion. Such game should be banned… also many people are obsessed with reading newspapers, like me, I am so obsessed with reading newspapers everyday, I think the news outlets should be shut down.
On the other hand, state-affiliate media outlets continued to write news features criticizing Tencent and the game. In one newspaper, two parents from Suzhou wrote a long piece criticizing “King of Glory” and expressing concern about its distortion of historical knowledge. Another media outlet wrote of a 13-year-old girl stole 50,000 yuan from her mother to visit a 14-year-old friend whom she met via “King of Glory” (新余13岁女孩偷妈妈5万 去见玩王者荣耀的14岁网友).
Since the policy was implemented on July 3, Tencent has lost more 10 billion Hong Kong dollars (approximately US$1.28 billion), with the company’s stock price plunging by four percent on the Hong Kong stock market on July 4. This was a major blow for King of Glory, which since its November 2015 launch has become the world’s highest grossing game, with an estimated first-quarter revenue of around 6 billion yuan (approximately US$833 million dollars).
Though Tencent's stock price has slowly climbed up since the market digested the news, other game-related stock values which have also fallen remained weak as people anticipate further controls being imposed on some of China's other popular online games.
According to Tencent, on the first day of the implementation of new measures, during the peak hour, 340,000 game players were restricted from accessing the game. Thus far 450,000 player accounts’ have been registered under the parent control platform. But the measures may not prevent all young users from participating.  Social media users are reporting that minors are already finding ways to circumvent the new restrictions – an identity market has emerged for buying adult player accounts to log into the game.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Oiwan Lam


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Turkish Authorities Detain Top Human Rights Defenders at Training Workshop · Global Voices
Arzu Geybullayeva

Six of the human rights defenders who were detained on July 5, 2017. Images shared widely on Twitter under the hashtag #İnsanHaklarıSavunucularınaDokunma.
Eight of Turkey's best-known human rights defenders were arrested during a digital security and information management workshop on one of Istanbul's islands, Buyukada, on July 5.
Two trainers were also arrested along with the rights defenders. Police also briefly detained the owner of the hotel where the event was held. Among those arrested is the director of Amnesty International Turkey, Idil Eser.
Independent media outlet Bianet reported that police in plainclothes raided the workshop, detained the participants, and confiscated electronic equipment including computers and mobile phones. The eight Turkish citizens will be held for seven days pre-trial.
Less than a month ago Amnesty International's Turkey chair, Taner Kilic was also remanded in prison. Amnesty International released a statement on July 6:
(Idil Eser's) incommunicado detention and that of the other human rights defenders attending a routine training event, is a grotesque abuse of power and highlights the precarious situation facing human rights activists in the country. Idil Eser and those detained with her, must be immediately and unconditionally released.
The reaction at home and abroad has been immediate, with Twitter supporters clamoring for the release of the eight advocates, all of whom are experts in their field, using the hashtags #İnsanHaklarıSavunucularınaDokunma and #freehumanrightsdefenders.
8 Turkey human rights defenders detained on eve of @JHahnEU Ankara visit. Release them now, drop investigation @omerrcelik @bybekirbozdag pic.twitter.com/QzKXLSolqp
— Emma Sinclair-Webb (@esinclairwebb) July 5, 2017
Locations of all 10 detainees now known – they are in 5 different places. Now release them all. #insanHaklarıSavunucularınaDokunma
— Andrew Gardner (@andrewegardner) July 6, 2017
avukatlara gazetecilere vekillere bilgi verilmiyor. sanırsın çok gizli çok tehlikeli 1örgüt çökerttiler #İnsanHaklarıSavunucularınaDokunma!.
— gulseren adakli (@gulserendipity) July 5, 2017
No information is given to lawyers, journalists, and attorneys. They act as if they just cracked down on some very serious, and very dangerous organization.
The pro-government news agency Ahaber was quick to denounce the rights defenders as “agents”, calling to mind a similar incident that took place before the 15 July 2016 coup attempt in Turkey:
15 TEMMUZ TOPLANTISINI AKILLARA GETİRDİ Büyükada'da bir otelde, 15 Temmuz darbe girişiminin yapıldığı gün giriş yapan, çoğunluğu yabancı 17 kişilik grup, 2 gün boyunca toplantı yapmıştı. Toplantıda CIA'ya çalışan ABD'li profesör Henri Barkey'in de bulunması dikkat çekmişti.
ON THE HUNT FOR AGENTS
A group of 17 people, consisting mostly of foreigners, checked in at a hotel in Buyukada on July 15. They held meetings for two days. One of the participants who attracted the most attention was a CIA employee, American professor Henry Barkey.
Ahaber referred to the training event as “reminiscent of a meeting ahead of July 15,” but did not offer any details about the who attended the supposed meeting last year.
Turkey's AKP (Justice and Development Party) leadership is routinely accused of using last year's coup attempt as a justification for purging the government of non-loyalists and dissolving what remains of civil society and independent media in the country.
The country remains in a condition of “emergency rule” that grants broad powers to security services.
Responding to the story in Abaher, one of Turkey's best-known lawyers tweeted:
Bu ülkede her an herkes terörist ilan edilebilir. Hayatı yaşamı savunmakla geçmiş olanlar bile #İnsanHaklariSavunucularınaDokunma
— Kerem ALTIPARMAK (@KeremALTIPARMAK) July 5, 2017
In this country, anyone can be announced being a terrorist at any time. Even those who have those have only protected the right to life and living.
Haberde adı geçen insanlar hayatlarını insan haklarına vakfetmiş kişiler. Gün gelir bu aşağılık haberleri yapanların haklarını da savunurlar https://t.co/UF1k6BRX98
— Kerem ALTIPARMAK (@KeremALTIPARMAK) July 6, 2017
The people mentioned in this news story are people who have dedicated their lives to human rights. A day will come when they will stand for the rights of those behind these vile news stories.
Turkish pro govt media smears detained human rights defenders as “agents” – a lie we have seen so many times before https://t.co/120mEQaJ5j
— Emma Sinclair-Webb (@esinclairwebb) July 6, 2017
The detentions occurred on the eve of EU Commissioner Johannes Hahn's July 6 visit to Ankara to discuss Turkey's troubled accession bid, after the European parliament called for a suspension of negotiations.

author: Arzu Geybullayeva


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What’s It Like to Live in a Brazilian Prison Cell? Cramped, Dirty, and Dangerous to Your Health · Global Voices
Fernanda Canofre

Prisoners in Acre, northern region of Brazil, where the military police is responsible for the prison security | Photo: Luiz Silveira/Agência CNJ. Used with permission.
Imagine sharing a room with 40 other people in a space made for 12. Imagine having to hang your mattress close to the ceiling because the sewage system often clogs and floods the room with dirty water up to 40 centimeters high. The place is so filthy that your skin breaks out in a rash that will soon worsen into a festering wound. Diseases such as AIDS and tuberculosis spread like epidemics, but if you get really sick, only one type of medicine will be prescribed, no matter your symptoms.
And you might not even have been convicted to a crime. It could be years before before you get a hearing, let alone a trial and a court sentence.
This is life in Brazilian prisons. Brazil's prison population grew 400 per cent in the past 20 years, when its actual population increased by only 36 per cent in the same period. That's a yearly surplus of 40,000 of people. Brazil's large prison population ranks it fourth in the world, only behind the United States, China and Russia. All of Brazil's 27 states have more people in prison than they have slots available.
According to the National Council of Justice, as of February 2017 there were over 600,000 people incarcerated in Brazil. Among them, more than 220,000 are still awaiting trial — that waiting period varies between 172 and 974 days.
The overcrowding, the health crisis, and the torture that some detainees experience have also increased the power of gangs, criminal factions and druglords that use prisons as their actual headquarters.
A group of Brazilian human rights advocacy NGOs recently launched a campaign to call attention to all this. The Network of Criminal Justice (Rede de Justiça Criminal) created a 360º video showing what it's like to live in a overcrowded prison cell in Brazil, and in three days it reached more than 9 million views and 55,000 shares on Facebook (and a considerable amount of both positive and negative reactions).
The cell featured in the video isn’t real. But the man hosting the viewer through it, Emerson, did endure life in prison for four and a half years, sharing a nine-square-meter cell with 40 other men.
An NGO campaign aims to show the reality in Brazilian prisons. Photo: Screenshot/Conectas
“Mass incarceration is not justice” is the campaign's motto. Its website says:
O encarceramento em massa não é  só desumano, mas também é contra a lei. Há milhares de pessoas que seguem presas sem julgamento, por falhas do sistema penal brasileiro.
Mass incarceration is not only inhumane, but also against the law. There are thousands of people in prison without a sentence, because of flaws in the Brazilian legal system.
The campaign's message is that there is little room for social reintegration when a person loses rights and dignity. In Brazil, a common saying is that prisons are merely “crime schools”. This perception is so widespread that it has been said by three very different people recently: the president of the Supreme Court; a former minister of justice; and a goalkeeper convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend and feeding the corpse to his dogs, who's been in prison for six and a half years now (not counting a brief release earlier in 2017).
Prisoners wait in a Brazilian prison unity. Photo: Luiz Silveira/Agência CNJ. Used with permission.
For Human Rights Watch, the main reason driving the growing prison population is Brazil's drug law, sanctioned in 2006 by then President Luís Inácio Lula da Silva.
While that law decriminalized drug use, the text does not offer clear definitions of what differentiates “use” and “trafficking,” leaving police officers and judges to decide on a case-by-case basis.
The consequence has been that even more people have been convicted of trafficking. Today, one in every three prisoners in Brazil is in on drug-related charges. It used to be just 8.7 per cent of all convictions in 2005; in 2017, it's 32.6 per cent.
In the case of female prisoners specifically, it is even worse: close to 70 per cent of all convictions.
In comparison, only 12 per cent of people now in prison were put there on murder charges, and that's in a country where, between 2011 and 2015, there were 278,839 homicides. That's more than in Syria during the same period.
The Central Prison, in the south of Brazil, was once categorized as the worst one in the country | Foto: Luiz Silveira/Agência CNJ. Used with permission.
A 2014 study by the Prison Information report (Infopen) shows that 96.3 per cent of all Brazilian inmates are male, 67 per cent are black and 53 per cent only studied up to primary school. Only 1 per cent have a college degree, and another 1 per cent went to college but didn't graduate.
Brazil is country that jails black, young, male and poor people, but prison isn't exactly helping them or society: another study by the Institute of Applied Research and Statistics (Ipea) reveals a 30 per cent rate of repeat offense.
So how can a collapsed system hope to recover anyone? For Pastoral da Prisão (a branch of the Catholic church that provides assistance to prison inmates), nothing will be achieved by building new prisons, although that's something President Michel Temer expressed interest in doing after a series of prison riots earlier this year. Father Valdir, president of the Prison Pastoral, mentioned in a Senate hearing:
Quanto mais se prende, quanto mais se aumenta a pena, mais aumenta a criminalidade no País, assustadoramente (…) As respostas dadas até agora para as questões da violência têm sido altamente equivocadas, gerando retorno de violência ainda maior para a sociedade brasileira.
The more you jail, the more you increase in sentencing, the more criminal rates in the country grow alarmingly […] The answers given so far to issues of violence have been highly wrong, generating an even greater backlash of violence for Brazilian society.
In 2015, Brazil's National Justice Council created a program for appeals courts to ensure people caught in the criminal act have a hearing within 24 hours of their arrest. It's one of Brazil's few initiatives to counter what some call a “culture of incarceration,” which has been an object of international concern, from the UN Human Rights Council to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States (OEA)
The Conectas campaign is yet another attempt to raise awareness of the dire conditions of the Brazilian prison system.

author: Fernanda Canofre


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A Pop Star Who Sings About Social Justice Is Uganda’s Newest Legislator · Global Voices
James Propa

Bobi Wine at one of his rallies. Photo courtesy of Bobi Wine's official Facebook page. Used with permission.
Following a high-profile election campaign that culminated in his arrest at his final rally, Ugandan pop star Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, famously known as Bobi Wine, is now officially a politician.
Wine is not new to activism. His music has for a while been focused on social justice issues. But singing about policy issues is not enough. On 29 June, he finally crossed the line to become a policy maker after securing a parliamentary seat in Kyadondo, winning 75% of the votes in a by-election.
He began singing about social justice in 2005. During the 2016 general election he refused to take part in a song that praised and campaigned for incumbent President Museveni — who has been in office for three decades — to stay in power. Many top musicians took part in the song that Wine refused to take part in.
One of his more popular songs, “Ghetto”, talks about police brutality against people residing in the slums of Kampala and the inadequate services that delivered to them.
Wine refers to himself as “The Ghetto President” and “Omubanda Wakabaka,” loosely translated as “The King’s Gang Star”. He is the fifth person from the country's art fraternity to go into politics, following in the footsteps of Ali Ndawula Wowoto, Sulaiman Madada, Judith Babirye and Kato Lubwama, who now serve as members of parliament.
His campaign was characterized by music, with large numbers of musicians, radio personalities and TV presenters turning up and using their social media accounts to push his message to the electorate, employing the hashtag #BikwaseKyagulanyi, which means “hand over everything to Kyagulanyi”.
At his final rally, he was arrested by the police, who alleged that Wine was holding the gathering in a wrong venue close to where President Museveni was campaigning for his candidate. The video below by NTV Uganda, a local broadcaster, shows him being detained. He pleads with the police, saying he is fighting for people's rights.
Nevertheless, he won the by-election handily. He secured 25,659 votes, defeating Sitenda Sebalu, the ruling NRM party candidate, who only received 4,556 votes. Wine's platform focusing on unemployment and other issues that affect youth, who he believes are misrepresented, captured huge amounts of support.
After he was announced as the winner of the election, he tweeted to his 28,000 followers that something profound has happened in Uganda's electoral politics.
THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN
This 29th day of June marks a turning point in the politics of our country! History has… https://t.co/4cIbj3mHXu
— BOBI WINE (@HEBobiwine) June 29, 2017
Ugandans took to social media to congratulate the 35 year-old celebrated artist on his election into Parliament. The list of supporters included politicians, musicians and ordinary people on the media platforms.
A few hours before the electoral commission announced the results, NRM Secretary General Justine Lumumba tweeted his message of congratulations:
Congratulations to the people of Kyadondo East, congratulations to @BobiWineOmuband Kyagulanyi Robert Sentamu.
— JustineKasuleLumumba (@JustineLumumba) June 29, 2017
And Kizza Besigye, the first runner up in the 2016 presidential campaign, also came out to applauded Bobi Wine's victory; Besigye never campaigned for him as his party had fronted another candidate in the election:
Landslide victory for the HE Bobi Wine. Congratulations-PEOPLE POWER!! That's why Wakiso people weren't allowed to vote 2016. @FDCOfficial1 pic.twitter.com/8wV7HwuQbY
— Kifefe Kizza-Besigye (@kizzabesigye1) June 29, 2017
Fellow artist Jose Chameleone congratulated Bobi Wine on his win:
When we believe, We Achieve.
Congrats to Hon. Robert Kyagulanyi,Family,Friends and Kyadondo East for the remarkable victory .
Leaders are chosen by God.So, May he guide you as you deliver Kyadondo East to the promised Land.
Fellow musicians Radio and Weasel also thanked Bobi Wine for his efforts towards giving the poor a voice through his music and now in politics as well:
You Have Brought The Ghetto UpTown. Congrats Broda Bobi Wine
In the past, Bobi Wine was known for the use of marijuana and beefing with fellow musician Bebe Cool. Yet the people of Kyadondo East were willing to overlook those things and elected him to parliament. The challenge for him going forward is to ensure that he works hard to catch up to his fellow parliamentarians that have been in the legislature for more than a year and deliver on the expectations of the people he represents and the country at large.

author: James Propa


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Early Typhoon Brings Torrential Rains and Deadly Flooding to Japan · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

Caption: “Record-Breaking Rain In Kyushu — 7 dead in Fukuoka and Oita Prefectures.” Screencap from ANN News Network official YouTube channel.
At least seven people are dead and dozen are missing, and at least 1,000 people have been evacuated from their homes following “once in a lifetime” torrential rains in Japan since July 4 in the wake of Tropical Storm Nanmadol and a seasonal rain front that continues to hang over the western Japanese island of Kyushu. With dozens still missing and rains forecasted to continue into the weekend, the death toll will likely rise.
Downpours of at least 55 centimeters have been recorded in Asakura City, Fukuoka Prefecture, since Wednesday, July 5—about 50 percent more than usual for the month of July. So far the hardest-hit communities have been Asakura in Fukuoka Prefecture, where at six are dead following landslides, and Hita, in neighboring Oita Prefecture, where flooding has swept away roads and railway lines and left hundreds stranded.
九州北部地方は局地的に記録的な大雨となりました。気象庁は特別警報（大雨）を、福岡県内１６市町村と大分県内１５市町に発令しました。気象庁によると九州で特別警報を発令するのは２０１３年に運用が始まってから初めてです→https://t.co/bhtOAnonLb pic.twitter.com/xKh7onroNO
— 毎日新聞写真部 (@mainichiphoto) July 5, 2017
Localities in northern Kyushu are all receiving record amounts of precipitation. A special weather warning from Japan's national meteorological service has been issued for 16 communities in Fukuoka and 15 in Oita. This is the first time a special weather warning has ever been issued for Kyushu since the warning was put into effect in 2013.
As torrential, record-breaking rains continued throughout the week, the military was mobilized in order to evacuate thousands, and search for survivors.
【豪雨 6000人規模で救助本格化】福岡・大分両県では早朝から自衛隊、警察、消防が救出活動を本格化。陸自が福岡県朝倉市で豪雨で孤立した地区の救助活動を開始。 https://t.co/kiEFevQUXX
— Yahoo!ニュース (@YahooNewsTopics) July 5, 2017
Rescue and relief operation out into place to help 6,000 affected by flooding — In the early hours of July 5, police, military and fire rescue personnel have been deployed in rescue operation. Japanese Land Self-Defense Forces have begun operations to help people stranded due to heavy flooding in Asakura City, in Fukuoka.
A challenge in the initial days was that the chaos of widespread flooding made rescuing survivors difficult.
大雨による被害で、
福岡県朝倉市山田の実家と会社が大変なことになってます。
近所の家はほとんど流されてます。
工場の二階に7人避難出来ずに取り残されてます！
地元の消防は来れないと…
どうにか助けてもらえないでしょうか pic.twitter.com/ZKlAR8SBhH
— ぴこ (@ek2eoiNcRUqmnMI) July 5, 2017
Daily life has been disrupted in Yamada, in Asakura City in Fukuoka Prefecture. Houses in my neighborhood have mostly been swept away. Seven people who have taken refuge on the second story of a factory here have been unable to be evacuated and have been left behind. If the local firefighters can't get in… I just hope someone can help us.
【更新】福岡県警「６人の安否不明」　九州北部で記録的大雨：朝日新聞デジタル https://t.co/AseOsIJFZc pic.twitter.com/DzKizBNjKB
— 朝日新聞デジタル編集部 (@asahicom) July 5, 2017
UPDATE: 6 missing — Fukuoka Police. Northern Kyushu receives record-breaking rain.
中国に続き九州で２度目の「線状降水帯」形成　大分県にも大雨特別警報　「これほどの大雨珍しい」 https://t.co/zToE2fDWtc pic.twitter.com/OkYqe8XUEQ
— 産経ニュース (@Sankei_news) July 5, 2017
Western Honshu and Kyushu experience another round of heavy rain fronts as Oita issues a warning of torrential rains. “This amount of rain is very rare.”
Some of the most striking images of the disaster came from Yamada, in the city of Asakura, in Fukuoka Prefecture. Raging rivers swept piles of debris into the center of the community, blocking roads and hampering rescue operations.
https://t.co/g7MryzzSST
福岡県朝倉市の山田地区。国道３８６号線には流木が散乱しています。（啓）#大雨 #朝倉市 #福岡 pic.twitter.com/C0juaXAcj0
— 朝日新聞 映像報道部 (@asahi_photo) July 5, 2017
Yamada Ward, in Asakura City in Fukuoka. Route 386 has been blocked by flood-borne logs and driftwood.
In Oita Prefecture, a rail line and bridges were washed away, and thousands of residents were left stranded.
数十年に１度、３０万人超に避難…子供ら６人が不明か　九州北部の大雨で福岡の朝倉市・うきは市・久留米市 – 産経ニュース https://t.co/RpABhpt3pC @SankeiNews_WESTさんから pic.twitter.com/BzUrPelx4w
— 産経ニュースＷＥＳＴ (@SankeiNews_WEST) July 5, 2017
As a result of once in a lifetime flooding, more than 300,000 people have been evacuated and 6 children are missing. Flooding in northern Kyushu hits Asakura, Uki, Kurume in Fukuoka Prefecture.
The rains affected northern Kyushu the most, where some areas in Fukuoka and Oita Prefectures (shaded in purple in the map in the tweet below) received over 50 centimeters of precipitation.
【大分】県内でも19:55に大雨特別警報が発表されました。https://t.co/Atn6m2XHna pic.twitter.com/GKmvSW8UOc
— ウェザーニュース (@wni_jp) July 5, 2017
Oita: As of 19:55 (on July 5), a special warning for torrential rains has been announced.
The weather pattern was extremely unusual for Japan, combining the effects of the seasonal rain front and the remnants of a large tropical storm to drop torrents of rain on Kyushu.
【豪雨 1万5000mの巨大積乱雲】九州北部を襲った豪雨では、福岡県朝倉市の上空に巨大な積乱雲が連続して発生していた。線状降水帯が長時間とどまり被害拡大か。 https://t.co/KoGIexkPsX
— Yahoo!ニュース (@YahooNewsTopics) July 7, 2017
Giant cumulonimbus clouds 15 kilometers high deliver torrential rains — As northern Kyushu is assaulted by torrential rains, a procession of giant cumolonimbus clouds appear over Asakura City. There are worries that (continual) bands of heavy precipitation will increase destruction from flooding.
By Friday, July 7, as the rains continued, so did rescue operations in a desperate struggle to find survivors of mud slides and flooding.
記録的な #豪雨 に見舞われた福岡、大分両県では６日、自衛隊や消防などが不明者の捜索や住民の救助活動を続けました。写真は福岡県 #朝倉市 です。（撮影・遠藤望）＜尚＞https://t.co/zTP6VrYI42 pic.twitter.com/r6hLvH0sSj
— 共同通信写真部 (@kyodo_photo) July 6, 2017
As Fukuoka and Oita continued to experience record-breaking flooding on July 6, search-and-rescue operations by the Japan Self-Defense Forces and emergency personnel continued. This photograph was taken in Asakura City, in Fukuoka.
大きな #被害 が出ています。写真は福岡県 #朝倉市 #杷木 で撮影。 #赤谷川 が流木や土砂で埋まっています。（６日午後、大久保忠司撮影） 記事はこちらです→
豪雨で６人死亡、４人不明…ほかにも複数不明か https://t.co/NptbtBOabA #水害 pic.twitter.com/FtE505yKDx
— 読売新聞写真部 (@tshashin) July 6, 2017
It's become apparent there has been massive destruction. This photograph was taken in Haki, in Asakura City in Fukuoka Prefecture. The Akatani River has carried along the aftermath of a mudslide and flooding debris.
As of Friday, July 7, rain was still forecast for Kyushu and western Japan.
【きょうの天気は？】西日本では大雨になる所があるでしょう。九州や中国、四国は雨が降ったりやんだりで、九州を中心に非常に激しい雨が降りそうです。土砂災害や低い土地の浸水、川の氾濫などに、引き続き警戒してください。（7日 6:06 更新） pic.twitter.com/c6X9xXarC1
— ＮＨＫ生活・防災 (@nhk_seikatsu) July 6, 2017
What's today's weather? Parts of western Japan will see heavy rains. Kyushu and the Chugoku region, and Shikoku will patches of rain; central Kyushu will see extremely heavy rain. Warnings have been continued for landslides, lowland flooding and cresting rivers.

author: Nevin Thompson


text:
In Effort to Stop Anti-Korean Hate Speech, Osaka Mayor Wants to Loosen Internet Privacy Laws · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

Zaitokukai Anti-Korean March in Tokyo, March 2013. Image by Flickr user Kurashita Yuki. License: Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)
The mayor of Osaka is taking on Internet hate speech — or at least trying to — one online video at a time.
For more than a decade, Osaka and other communities with large populations of ethnic Korean residents have struggled to deal with far-right organizations that target ethnic Koreans and other minorities through demonstrations and online campaigns.
Expressions of hate speech have stoked tensions between Japan and neighboring countries, and led to claims that Japan is not following its obligations under the UN's International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
The issue has surfaced repeatedly around online videos that put the activities and messages of these demonstrations on public display. The Asia-Pacific Human Rights Information Center transcribed and translated remarks made at a February 2013 rally and captured on a YouTube video, which has since been deleted:
Hello, all shit-Koreans living in Tsuruhashi. And hello to all the fellow Japanese present here. I hate the Koreans so much that I can’t stand it and I just want to kill them all now. If Koreans behave with this arrogance further, we will carry out Tsuruhashi massacre like Nanking massacre! (other participants shouted “yeah that’s right!”) If Japanese get angry, it will happen! We will start a massacre! Go back to your country before the massacre gets started! This is Japan, but not Korean peninsula! Go back! (other participants shouted “go back!”)
This video is just one among many. On June 1, the city of Osaka published the online username of another video blogger who the city says posted videos containing racially discriminatory hate speech, and thus violating the city's anti-hate speech ordinance.
According to the city of Osaka, a person working under the username ダイナモ (“Dynamo”), from an IP address located within Osaka city limits, uploaded a variety of videos where demonstrators at several different rallies repeatedly used offensive and defamatory words targeting Korean residents of Japan. The videos appeared on the popular Japanese sharing site, Nico Nico Douga on February 24, 2017.
In April, at the request of the Osaka municipal government, Nico Nico Douga removed two of the videos. A third video had already been removed by the blogger. Nevertheless, a panel of experts appointed by the mayor, as per the procedure outlined in Osaka's hate speech ordinance, recommended on June 1 that the city publish Dynamo's legal name and request the videos be removed from Nico Nico Douga.
As the videos had already been removed from Nico Nico Douga, this request was moot. But the panel's second request, to reveal Dynmo's legal identity. was not so easy to fulfill. Under Japan's current privacy laws, a city government cannot compel a sharing site (in this case, Nico Nico Douga) to provide the real name of user who has not committed a federal crime, as this goes against national privacy laws.
Osaka mayor Yoshimura Hirofumi publicly mused throughout the month of June about asking Japan's central government to somehow reform Internet privacy laws so that he could more directly expose Dynamo and make his/her actual identity known to the public. Yoshimura made headlines and briefly trended on Twitter at the end of June when he vowed to push Japan's national government to loosen Internet privacy laws.
Japanese daily Mainichi Shimbun reported that, on June 28, Mayor Yoshimura said that:
通信の秘密との兼ね合いがあるが「違法なヘイトスピーチを不特定多数に知らしめる人の氏名を保護する必要はない」
While it's important to protect the privacy of online communications, “there's no need to protect the (real) names of those who are communicating “illegal hate speech” to a wide audience.”
In the same interview, Yoshimura also announced he was considering introducing a motion in Osaka City Council in February 2018 that would revise and toughen the city's anti-hate speech ordinance (特定の民族や人種).
The mayor's ambitions come into conflict not only with guarantees of freedom of expression and assembly under Japan's Constitution, but also with Japan's Act on the Protection of Personal Information (APPI). The APPI provides strong protections for personal privacy online. For example, Japan's rules on data collection are so strict local authorities will sometimes not release the names of people listed as missing in flooding, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other disasters, citing the need to protect personal information.
Japan's national parliament, the Diet, passed the country's first-ever law addressing hate speech in May 2016, within Japan's civil code.
The law does not ban hate speech and sets no penalty for committing it. Instead, it compels the central government, prefectures and municipalities (such as the city of Osaka) to devise measures against hate speech. So a month after Japan's national hate speech law was passed, the city of Osaka enacted its own, much tougher municipal ordinance targeting hate speech.
According to an unofficial translation by the Asia-Pacific Human Rights Information Center, a non-profit based in Osaka, the municipal ordinance defines hate speech by the following criteria:
(a) that it is undertaken for the purpose of any of the following:
i. to exclude individuals with particular racial or ethnic attributes or groups of such individuals (hereafter referred to as “particular individuals or groups”) from society;
ii. to restrict the rights or freedoms of particular individuals or groups; or,
iii. to incite hatred or discriminatory attitudes or violence against particular individuals or groups (when such a purpose is explicitly acknowledged).
(b) that its content or style falls under any of the following
i. it amounts to significant contempt or slander targeting particular individuals or groups; or,
ii. it threatens particular individuals or a significant number of the individuals of such groups;
(c) that it is undertaken at a place or in a manner that makes it possible for the public to know its content.
The ordinance is targeted primarily at far-right groups such as the Zaitokukai (short for ‘在日特権を許さない市民の会’, Yurusanai Shimin no Kai, or “Citizens’ Group Opposed to Special Rights for Korean Residents of Japan). While anti-Korean sentiment has festered online in Japan for more than a decade, the Zaitokukai, now boasting 10,000 members, is relatively more recent. The far-right group gained notoriety in 2009 when it protested outside an ethnic Korean school in Kyoto.
Despite a Supreme Court ruling in 2014 against the Zaitokukai that levied fines and imposed a restraining order, similar demonstrations of nationalists targeting ethnic Koreans and other minorities have appeared in Tokyo and other cities.
Osaka's mayor says he will continue press the central government to increase punishments for people found to be publishing hateful content. In the meantime the Osaka panel will determine, if petitioned, if more hate speech activity is being committed online.


text:
Netizen Report: Working in the Public Interest Can Get You Arrested · Global Voices
Netizen Report Team

An anti-Lese Majeste law protest in Thailand. Photo by Matthew Richards, Copyright @Demotix (12/10/2011)
The risks of working in the public interest — whether you do it as a journalist, an activist, or an advocate for government transparency and accountability — seem to be on the rise worldwide.
On July 5, Turkish police raided an information technology training in Istanbul where they arrested two trainers and eight of the country’s best-known human rights defenders and confiscated their electronic equipment including computers and mobile phones. The detainees have not yet been charged and will be held for seven days while their cases are being assessed. Among those arrested is the director of Amnesty International Turkey, Idil Eser.
The organization’s chair, Taner Kilic, was remanded in prison less than one month ago. Amnesty International immediately issued a statement on the detainees’ behalf:
(Idil Eser's) incommunicado detention and that of the other human rights defenders attending a routine training event, is a grotesque abuse of power and highlights the precarious situation facing human rights activists in the country. Idil Eser and those detained with her must be immediately and unconditionally released.
Two days prior, Myanmar’s military government charged three independent online journalists under the Unlawful Associations Act, which criminalizes membership in an “unlawful association” and could face up to three years in prison. The reporters were arrested in late June in the country’s northern Shan State while working to gather information about drug operations in an area controlled by the ethnic armed group Ta’ang National Liberation Army, which has long been in political conflict with the federal government. A hearing for the journalists is scheduled for July 11, 2017.
The journalists work with The Irrawaddy and Democratic Voice of Burma, which are among the few independent media organizations that reported on political issues when Myanmar was still under military rule. The Irrawaddy is a content partner of Global Voices.
Kyaw Zwa Moe, editor of the English edition of The Irrawaddy, warned that the arrest of the three journalists could have a chilling effect on society:
The arrest and charges demonstrate that either Myanmar’s military leaders don’t understand the nature and purpose of the media, or that this was a deliberate act intended to frighten journalists away from covering sensitive issues that could lead to criticism of the armed forces.
Mexican digital rights groups last month released ample evidence that their government purchased and used spyware from the Israeli company NSO Group to target journalists, activists, and human rights defenders. A new technical report from the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab revealed that the targets also included three opposition politicians, all of whom are members of the socially conservative National Action Party (PAN). Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto called the allegations “false” and asked the attorney general’s office to investigate the charges. Nine of those targeted have filed charges with the authorities.
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram were blocked in Venezuela on the evening of June 28, along with a number of other social media platforms. The blocks were instituted through the DNS servers of state-managed Internet service provider CANTV, and were lifted late on the evening of the June 28. In response, Venezuelans shared technical advice on how to circumvent the blocks, including how to use free VPN services and change a DNS address. The blocks appear to follow a similar pattern to other instances of censorship, including the blacklisting of 41 sites in May, and occurs alongside a wave of opposition protests challenging the serious economic, food and health crises in Venezuela.
Philippine Senator Joel Villanueva filed a bill in late June that would criminalize the “malicious distribution of false news.” The bill defines fake news as “those which either intend to cause panic, division, chaos, violence, and hate, or those which exhibit a propaganda to blacken or discredit one's reputation.” It assigns steep jail time penalties to those who publish “fake news” and even to those who share it, potentially criminalizing social media users who may not fully understand the implications of simply sharing an article with friends.
Spain marked two years since a controversial law restricting freedoms of expression and assembly went into effect. The Citizens Security Law, popularly known as the “gag law” (or “Ley Mordaza”, in Spanish) and its related reforms to the country’s criminal code place heavy fines on a variety of offenses, including disseminating photos or video of police officers, “disrespecting” police officers, using social media to rally people to protest, and participating in “unauthorized” demonstrations. In the first 18 months after its enactment, the Spanish state handed out about 286,000 fines, collecting more than 131 million euros. An effort to reform the law is underway in Spain’s divided parliament, but activists and experts say the proposed changes don’t go far enough to protect free speech.
In a historic decision, Brazil’s Superior Court of Justice ruled in favor of the satirical website Falha de Sao Paulo, ending a seven-year court battle. The site parodied the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo in name and content — the title is a wordplay with the word “folha” (which means paper in Portuguese) and “falha” (which means failure) — and was created to draw attention to the paper’s supposedly biased coverage of the 2010 elections. The Frias family, which owns Folha de S. Paulo, filed an injunction after the site had been online for only 17 days, initiating an extended court battle over the freedom to parody under Brazilian copyright law. Ultimately, the court ruled patent law allows parody and the right to irreverence and entertainment. The creators of the site have not yet decided whether to put Falha back online again.
Ellery Roberts Biddle, L. Finch, Mong Palatino, Elizabeth Rivera and Sarah Myers West contributed to this report.

author: Netizen Report Team


text:
Philippine Senator Moves to Criminalize ‘Fake News’ — Could This Lead to Censorship? · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Those who spread fake news through the social media are also liable under the proposed bill. Flickr photo by Stanley Cabigas (CC BY 2.0)
Philippine Senator Joel Villanueva filed a bill in late June that would criminalize the “malicious distribution of false news.” Media groups are warning it could lead to censorship.
Villanueva’s Senate Bill No. 1492 or “An Act Penalizing the Malicious Distribution of False News and Other Related Violations” defines fake news as “those which either intend to cause panic, division, chaos, violence, and hate, or those which exhibit a propaganda to blacken or discredit one's reputation.”
The bill assigns penalties to those who publish “fake news” and even to those who share it, potentially criminalizing social media users who may not fully understand the implications of simply sharing an article with friends.
Prison sentencing under the proposed law depends on the status of the entity who publishes or spreads the so-called “fake news”. A private individual found guilty of publishing or spreading fake news can face a prison term of up to five years. A government official's sentence would be double that of a private individual. And a media entity or social media platform spreading fake news could be detained for up to 20 years.
Villanueva explained the rationale behind these penalties:
The effect of fake news should not be taken lightly. Fake news creates impression and beliefs based on false premises leading to division, misunderstanding and further exacerbating otherwise strenuous relations.
He added that the passage of the bill “will encourage our citizens, especially public officers, to be more responsible and circumspect in creating, distributing and/or sharing news.”
Journalism Professor Danilo Arao reviewed the four-page bill and summarized his objections:
Definition of “false news or information” under Sec. 2 is so broad that it includes practically anything perceived to cause, among others, panic and hate (obviously hard to define)…
Media organizations could be subjected to censorship under Sec. 3 of the proposed law because even fair commentary or investigative reports that are perceived to tarnish the reputation of a public official could be flagged as “false news”.
Arao further disputed the need for a special law mentioning public officials, reasoning that they are already assumed to be following a code of conduct.
In a TV interview, a spokesperson from the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility said the proposed legislation is unnecessary because Philippine libel law already addresses the issues raised by the senator.
A member of the House of Representatives proposed that instead of criminalizing fake news, the congress should work to approve a pending Freedom of Information bill that he says would help counter the irresponsible sharing of false information on media and the Internet.
AlterMidya, a network of independent media groups, denounced Villanueva’s bill as “irresponsible, unnecessary and dangerous attempt to impose a form of censorship on free expression and press freedom.”
How does one distinguish between a false report based on an honest mistake and one maliciously spread through print, broadcasting and online?
It would endow the bureaucracy with the arbitrary power to declare any media issuance contrary to government interests as fake news, while approving, loudly or otherwise, even the most fraudulent report from either private or State media so long as it favors whatever regime is in power.
Veteran journalist Luis Teodoro reminded the senator that there are better ways to fight fake news:
Accountability in the exercise of the right to communicate is best enforced, not by the State, but by the media community itself as well as by a public media-literate and responsible enough to detect and not to spread fake news.
Philippine Star newspaper columnist Jarius Bondoc warned that if the bill becomes law, it could be abused by authorities who want to silence critics:
The bill is prone to abuse. A bigot administration can apply it to suppress the opposition. By prosecuting critics as news fakers, the government can stifle legitimate dissent. Whistleblowers, not the grafters, would be imprisoned and fined for daring to talk. Investigative journalists would cram the jails.
This is not the first time that a Philippine legislator has filed a bill that seeks to address the negative impact of fake news. Early this year, the Speaker of the House of Representatives proposed regulating social media to prevent the spread of fake accounts and fake information.

author: Mong Palatino


text:
Scenes From Market Day in Shan State’s Thandaung Village in Myanmar · Global Voices
The Irrawaddy

Thandaung village, about a one-hour drive from Nyaung Shwe, is on the west side of Inle Lake. (Photo and caption by Chan Son / The Irrawaddy)
This photo essay by Chan Son is from The Irrawaddy, an independent news website in Myanmar, and is republished by Global Voices as part of a content-sharing agreement.
The five-day market rotating around Shan State’s Inle Lake area is famous for its rustic, bustling scenes, as tradespeople of different ethnic backgrounds, including Intha and Pa-O, migrate daily from one site to another to sell their produce and ware.
While several lakeside villages such as Indein, Nampan, Thaung Tho and Khaung Daing host the market, the main five places are in Nyaung Shwe (Yawnghwe), Heho, Taunggyi, Maing Thauk and Shwe Nyaung. The market calendar is lunar: there are no markets on full and black moon days.
On the west side of the lake, about a one-hour drive from Nyaung Shwe, Thandaung village has a less touristic market day than Indein and Nampan. It offers an authentic chance to see how locals trade. Sellers arrive at the marker before dawn to prepare for the day, and the market usually lasts until around noon.
Thandaung market has a less touristic market day than neighboring Indein and Nampan. (Photo and caption by Chan Son / The Irrawaddy)
The Thandaung bazaar is a five-minute walk from the lakefront. (Photo and caption by Chan Son / The Irrawaddy)
Flower sellers at Thandaung bazaar. (Photo and caption by Chan Son / The Irrawaddy)
A couple makes ironware at the bazaar. (Photo and caption by Chan Son / The Irrawaddy)
Men at the front of the bazaar, where chickens are traded. (Photo and caption by Chan Son / The Irrawaddy)
Scenery on the way from Nyaung Shwe to Thandaung bazaar. (Photo and caption by Chan Son / The Irrawaddy)
A woman makes her way to Thandaung market early in the morning. (Photo and caption by Chan Son / The Irrawaddy)

author: The Irrawaddy


text:
The Fraught Relationship Between Ethiopia’s Capital City and Largest State · Global Voices
Endalkachew Chala

Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa was built after 1941 to commemorate the liberation of Ethiopia from Fascist Italy. Photo by David Stanley via Flickr. CC BY 2.0
At the end of June, the Ethiopian Council of Ministers revealed a bill that seeks to address questions of social services, language, education and culture involving the country’s capital, Addis Ababa, and Oromia, Ethiopia’s largest region within which Addis Ababa is located.
The government and its supporters say the law is needed to redress the historical injustices that the people of Oromia suffered since the establishment of Addis Ababa. Critics see the law as a tactic to disenfranchise the residents of Addis Ababa. Some go further in their allegation that the law is intended to worsen the already sensitive ethnic relations in Ethiopia.
Most of the debate about the bill has fallen along the lines of regional elites against more cosmopolitan elites, tradition against modernity, and ethno-nationalists against civic nationalists — divisions that are often a source of strife in Ethiopia.
On the map of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa is a stretch of high plains inside the state Oromia. With just 0.047 percent of the country's territory, Addis Ababa is the largest metropolitan area in Ethiopia. Numerous ethnic and religious groups from every corner of Ethiopia live in Addis Ababa; a significant number of Addis Ababa’s 4 million residents generally present themselves as cosmopolitan, liberal and post-ethnic.
Oromia, meanwhile, is home to the Oromo people, the single largest ethnic group comprising at least 34 percent of Ethiopia’s 100 million population, but which has also historically been politically marginalized. Addis Ababa is the seat of the current government —  EPRDF, which is dominated by the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front — and although it is inside the state, Oromia does not control the city; the federal government does and has since 1991 when Ethiopia was transformed into a federation of nine ethnic-based regional states.
The Ethiopian constitution, however, accorded Oromia what the government called “Special Interest” over Addis Ababa when it was adopted in 1995 due to the city's unique location.
The purpose of the new draft law is to legislate the “Special Interest” provisions of the constitution and solve other problems that have arisen between Addis Ababa and Oromia, such as the possible expansion of the city's boundaries, which would have meant the eviction of Oromo farmers whose subsistence depends on farmlands that are located around the city.
The expansion, among other things, was at the heart of protests mounted by Oromo students from 2014 to 2016. The Ethiopian government cracked down on the movement hard; according to rights organizations, hundreds were killed and thousands were arrested before Ethiopian government declared a state of emergency in October 2016.
The proposed law is contentious, but many expect that it will be passed over the next few days.
Addis Ababa's skyline provides a backdrop for Meskal Square, site of military parades and rallies during the Communist era which ended in 1991. Photo by David Stanley via Flickr. CC BY 2.0
There are about 13 “titles” in the bill, each dedicated to the “Special Interest” of the state of Oromia over Addis Ababa.
In its major provisions, the bill would incorporate Oromo (known as “Afaan Oromo”) as a working language of the municipality, mandate that the city government provide education for residents of Addis Ababa whose mother tongue is Afaan Oromo, and preserve Oromo cultural enclaves and buildings within the city. The bill also sanctions the use of Finfine (in Oromo language) as an alternative name of Addis Ababa and allows the renaming of streets, public squares, and neighborhoods in Addis Ababa with names memorializing Oromo culture and identity.
This part of the bill has been discussed widely on social media as it deals with the history, identity and language use of Addis Ababa.
Opponents fear it causes division and strife by appealing Oromo nationalists, and some have further claimed the problems these provisions claim to solve don’t actually exist.
However, many Oromo nationalists support this part of the bill, albeit with qualms.
Oromo nationalists, however, categorically oppose a different part of the bill that deals with the ownership of land in Addis Ababa.
In the current practice, the federal government owns the land and the bill explicitly asserts that Addis Ababa is a federal land. But the bill would warrant the state of Oromia to acquire and develop land for government activities and public services free of occupancy payment.
For critics, that doesn't do enough to grant Oromia its rightful and historical ownership of the city of Addis Ababa. As a guest author of the pro-government news analysis site the HornAffairs wrote:
The constitution clearly provides that territorially the Ethiopian State is structured into only nine regional states. The territory of Ethiopia comprises the territory of these member states.
Apart from the member states territory there is no piece of land belonging to the federal government or any other kind of administration. Any conception of Addis Ababa as an administration with its own separate territorial jurisdiction outside of Oromia or as a federal territory is ruled out from the beginning.
Anyone living in Addis is living in Oromia Regional State.
Non-Oromo opponents of the bill claim that this section will allow discrimination against Addis Ababa residents, who usually present themselves as post-ethnic and cosmopolitan.On Facebook, the former chairman of Addis Ababa Chamber of Commerce, Kebour Ghenna, wrote:
Very soon, I will be celebrating my sixtieth birthday in Addis Ababa. My son was born in Addis Ababa. I was born in Addis Ababa. My father was born Addis Ababa. My grandfather also!
Last week’s EPRDF arbitrary edict, offering Addis Ababa an absurd affirmative action model has come as a surprise and shock to me… I am sure to many others too. This decree reinforces further the attempt of the government to divide of Addis Ababians according to ethnic lines, and disenfranchises a huge number of residents.
But Oromo nationalists argue back that they were forcefully removed from the land over the course of numerous bloody disputes, so it makes sense for Oromia to be guaranteed some level of influence over the city. In his response to Kebour Ghenna, Birhanemeskel Abebe wrote:
No Armageddon! No Apocalypse at the return of Addis Ababa’s as an Oromia City and Capital!
Another important component of the bill deals with jobs, social and health care services.
Under current practice, all Ethiopians including Oromos in Addis Ababa are entitled to jobs, social and health care services. But the bill would institute opportunity structures for Oromo youth who live in and around the city of Addis Ababa, seeming to imply that there is discrimination against Oromos in Addis Ababa. Opride, a news analysis site wrote:
…the draft further alienates and excludes the Oromo people from the city by misconstruing basic constitutional and human rights as Oromia’s special interest. For example, a key provision on health care states that Oromos living in towns and rural areas around Addis Ababa can “access health care services at government hospitals and medical facilities like any resident of the city.” This is laughable. It implies that there is a law in place that currently  Oromos from seeking medical treatment at public hospitals and clinics in Addis Ababa. Or that Addis Ababa residents currently enjoy preferential access and treatment at public health institutions in the city.

author: Endalkachew Chala


text:
Violence in Arsal Is a Reminder of How Vulnerable Syrian Refugees Are in Lebanon · Global Voices
Hassan Chamoun

Bekaa Valley, Lebanon. Photo credit: UNHCR/L. Abou Khaled. Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-ND 2.0)
Syrians who fled the war at home for the Lebanese border town of Arsal are once again caught up in the violence between Lebanese forces and Syria-based militant groups.
This latest incident has raised fears of renewed hostility towards refugees. Arsal has a history of Syria-related bloodshed due to its proximity to the country, and it is often the case that refugees end up being scapegoated after armed conflict.
On June 30, 2017, Lebanese soldiers raided two Syrian refugee camps in the border town of Arsal, in the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon, to “search for terrorists, weapons, and explosives.” They were met with five suicide bombers, according to Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA). A young Syrian girl died when a suicide bomber detonated himself.
At least 350 people were detained in the raids; by July 4, 315 had been released, according to the Lebanese newspaper Daily Star. No news has come out as to the whereabouts of those still in custody. Global Voices contributor Ruslan Trad's own relatives were among the detained.
As the news came out of violence in Arsal, pictures of detainees with their faces on the ground surrounded by soldiers were widely shared on social media and were met with criticism.
#Lebanon Army raided #refugee camp in Arsal & arrested 150 men pic.twitter.com/JtElxyRWh5
— Mark (@markito0171) 30 June 2017
But others supported the army's actions. Lebanese blogger Claude El-Khal wrote that these online criticism constitute “attacks on the Lebanese army”.
And Da7yeh, a popular news website with an editorial stance that is pro-Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese political and militant group, shared a photo to its more than 400,000 followers of some of the detainees, mocking them and calling them ISIS. Hezbollah has fought in the Syrian war on the side of President Bashar al-Assad's government and Iran, claiming their intervention was to “protect Lebanon” and “fight against terrorists”.
The caption reads: “the heroes of the Lebanese army wrote ‘mule’ on an ISIS person’. Source: ‘Da7yeh’ Facebook Page.
But on Tuesday July 4, the army shared another statement claiming that four of the Syrian detainees died in custody “due to health complications”, raising questions about the way the detainees are being treated.
Many Syrian activists have claimed that the men were killed, or that the Lebanese army was guilty of abusing them before they died. A number of human rights organizations have called for independent investigations, including Human Rights Watch and the Lebanese Center for Human Rights, which specifically condemned the use of torture by the armed forces:
نستنكر بشدة ما حصل منذ يوم الجمعة المنصرم، من نشر صور مهينة لعمليات التوقيف والتعذيب والحملة الممنهجة لترهيب كل من رفع الصوت لانتقاد الإجراءات غير القانونية المتبعة من قبل القوى المسلحة.
We strongly condemn what has happened since last Friday, the spread of degrading images that document the arrests, the torture of detainees and the systematic campaign of intimidation against any person or organizations who raised their voice to criticize the illegal procedures used by the armed forces.
But those who criticize or even question the army's methodology often received scorn and intimidation. The saying “the army is a red line” (الجيش اللبناني خط أحمر) is a popular one in Lebanon, and denotes the widespread belief that the army is beyond criticism.
For example, the Facebook page entitled “The army is a red line” (in Arabic) asked its more than 40,000 followers to demand the arrest of lawyer Tarek Chindeb, who criticized the army on his Twitter account.
Furthermore, government agencies have targeted human rights groups who raise allegations of torture. In 2011, several organizations called on the government to “cease harassment of human rights activist for documenting torture”.
For his part, the Lebanese human rights minister has called for an investigation into the events following Arsal, citing the need to “preserve the army's image and prevent any rumors that may be malicious”.
And Lebanese blogger Kareem Chehayeb, while pointing out that evidence shows torture is “routinely practiced by Lebanon's police and army”, argued that what transpired at Arsal demonstrated a larger issue surrounding refugees in Lebanon:
Whatever happened, we have to recognize that the response towards these attacks where refugees/Syrians are all assumed guilty is inhumane
— Kareem Chehayeb (@chehayebk) 4 de julio de 2017
Screenshot of Google Maps showing the location of Arsal in Lebanon. Source: Google Maps.
Arsal has long been affected by the Syrian revolution and subsequent civil war due to its proximity to the Syrian border.
Between November and December 2013, the infamous Battle of Qalamoun in Syria between pro- and anti-regime forces pushed 100,000 refugees into neighboring areas in Lebanon, notably Arsal. The battle resulted in a decisive victory for the Assad regime and its ally Hezbollah.
In a matter of months, Arsal's population was tripled.
Just a few months later, on August 2, 2014, the Lebanese army arrested a commander from Nusra, Al Qaeda's affiliate in Syria, and was subsequently attacked by both Nusra and ISIS. The extremist groups took over the town the same day, trapping refugees and residents between two warring parties for a few days.
The Battle of Arsal followed, and would last until August 7, 2014. It would take the lives of 30 militants, 17 soldiers and up to 42 civilians, with 19 more soldiers missing. The groups eventually withdrew from the town, and the Lebanese army focused its efforts on retrieving its own.
On August 30, ISIS beheaded one of the captured Lebanese soldiers, Ali Sayyed, in a gruesome video released online. On September 7, ISIS beheaded a second Lebanese soldier, Abbas Medlej.
It was soon revealed that Nusra had also executed two soldiers.
On December 1, 2015, 16 Lebanese prisoners were exchanged with 13 Nusra members during a swap in Arsal. The deal, which took a whole year, was brokered by Qatar.
Wounds that Syrian refugee “Ali” sustained after being attacked in his home in Jnah and shot with a pump-action shotgun on September 19, 2014, by men he believed belonged to a Lebanese political party. Source: Human Rights Watch. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US
The latest out of Arsal has some worried Syrians could become targets of reprisals.
After the 2014 Battle of Arsal, Human Rights Watch documented 11 violent attacks against Syrian refugees or people perceived to be Syrians. One refugee at the time told the organization:
When I first arrived, Lebanese people were very hospitable to me, they treated me like a refugee, someone who needed protection and had fled from the war. Now they treat me as if I am a terrorist or a security threat.
Lebanese Defense Minister Yacoub Sarraf claimed the recent incident showed the importance of tackling the refugee crisis in Lebanon. According to the UNHCR, approximately 1.01 million Syrian refugees are in Lebanon.
Several members of parliament support the idea of sending back Syrian refugees to “safe areas” in Syria, which would mean working with the Assad government, a highly controversial proposition to take in Lebanon.
The Lebanese public are largely weary of Assad's rule due to Syria's past occupation of their country, which ended in 2005. This was the so-called Cedar Revolution, triggered by the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister and anti-Assad politician Rafik Hariri.
Furthermore, refugees themselves are resistant to the idea out of fear of going back to regime-held areas. The Daily Star cited an anonymous source who said many refugees from Arsal have requested being moved to rebel-held Jarablus in Syria.
And some political movements in the country argue that Syria has no legitimate government, and that therefore it would be impossible to coordinate with any one power on returning refugees. The Lebanese minister of refugee affairs insists on a UN-coordinated return of Syrian refugees, refusing to deal with Assad.
The Assad government's ambassador to Lebanon, Ali Abdel-Karim Ali, accused anti-Assad politicians in Lebanon of “trying to override historical and geographical realities” in response.
Meanwhile, the UN said that it was ‘too early’ for large numbers of refugees to return to Syria.

author: Hassan Chamoun


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Teodorín N. O. Mangue, Son of the President of Equatorial Guinea, Faces Justice in Paris · Global Voices
Abdoulaye Bah

Teodorín N. O. Mangue and his father at the United Nations – public domain
Despite his attorneys’ many objections, the trial of Mr. Teodorín Nguema Obiang Mangue, vice president and son of the dictator of Equatorial Guinea, opened in Paris on June 19, 2017. The Parisian court will examine the charges against Teodorín, including “laundering of misused public funds”, “embezzlement of public funds”, “violation of the public trust”, and “corruption”. The suit  was brought by two non-governmental organizations, Sherpa and Transparency International.
The website ccfd-terresolidaire.org explains the origin of this case of “ill-gotten wealth“:
En mars 2007, le CCFD-Terre solidaire mettait en ligne un document de travail intitulé « Biens mal acquis… profitent trop souvent. La fortune des dictateurs et les complaisances occidentales ».
Téléchargée plus de 100 000 fois et support des plaintes déposées en France contre Omar Bongo, Denis Sassou Nguesso et Teodoro Obiang Nguema, et en Espagne contre ce dernier, cette étude allait faire date.
Deux ans plus tard, en 2009, l’étude fut entièrement réécrite et actualisée dans un nouveau rapport actualisé« Biens mal acquis, à qui profite le crime  ? ». Ce rapport passait en revue les avoirs détournés de plus de 30 dirigeants de pays en développement.
Le CCFD-Terre Solidaire estime qu’au cours des dernières décennies, entre 105 et 180 milliards de dollars ont été volés par une trentaine de dirigeants autoritaires et kleptocrates de plusieurs continents (Afrique, Asie, Amérique du Sud).  Pour leur part, la Banque Mondiale et les Nations unies estiment que ce sont entre 20 et 40 milliards de dollars qui, chaque année, fuient les pays en développement du fait de la corruption.
In March 2007, CCFD-Terre Solidaire (Catholic Committee Against Hunger and For Development) posted a discussion paper online entitled ‘Ill-Gotten Gains…Too Often Won: The Wealth of Dictators and Western Complacency’. The landmark study, downloaded over 100,000 times, backed up the charges made in France against Omar Bongo, Denis Sassou Nguesso, and Teodoro Obiang Nguema. The latter was also pursued in Spain. An updated version of the report was published two years later in 2009, entitled:  ‘Ill-Gotten Gains… Cui Bono?’. This report reviewed the diverted assets of more than thirty leaders of developing countries. The CCFD-Terre Solidaire estimates that in the last few decades between 105 and 180 billion dollars were stolen by about thirty authoritative leaders and kleptocrats on several continents (Africa, Asia, and South America). For their part, the World Bank and the United Nations estimate that developing countries lose between 20 and 40 billion dollars each year to corruption.
Il y a dix ans de cela, les ONG Sherpa et Transparency International déposaient leurs premières plaintes à l’encontre de Teodorin Obiang pour des « biens mal acquis».
Le temps qui s’écoule entre ces premières plaintes et l’ouverture de ce procès est émaillé d’un enchaînement de rebondissements politico-judiciaires, marqué de saisies des biens du fils du président, voitures et montres de luxe et immobilier à Paris…
L’accusé n’a pas daigné faire le déplacement parisien et s’est fait représenter par trois avocats dont la stratégie, selon Africanews, a consisté à mettre en avant l’immunité diplomatique dont il bénéficie en tant que deuxième personnage d’un Etat.
Ten years ago, the NGOs Sherpa and Transparency International filed their first complaints against Teodorin Obiang concerning his ‘ill-gotten wealth’. From that point until the opening of the case against the president’s son, there was a series of legal twists and turns and asset seizures: exotic cars, luxury watches, and real estate in Paris. The defendant did not deign to travel to Paris and was represented by three lawyers there. According to Africanews, their strategy consisted in arguing that he benefits from diplomatic immunity, as he is vice president of a foreign government.
Though its population totals just 759,451, Equatorial Guinea is the seventh highest oil-producing country in Africa. In 2008, the income per capita reached the sum of $41,267.13 , higher than that of Germany in 2015, at $41,178.50. The country’s economy depends on this production and the income per capita decreased to $14,439.60 in 2015  due to the fall in oil prices over the past few years. This is still higher than several European Union member states, and Equatorial Guineans are the richest Africans on average.
For example, the vaccination rates are some of the worst in the world. Vaccination against tuberculosis in newborn babies and infants fell from 99% in 1997 to 35% in 2015. More than half of the population of Equatorial Guinea does not have access to safe drinking water nearby, a rate which hasn’t changed since 1995. In 2012, 42% of primary school-aged children (46,000 children) did not attend school, ranking seventh in the world.
Prestige spending  has increased, absorbing enormous sums for the benefit of a privileged minority. In a statement on hrw.org, researcher Sarah Saadoun called on President Macron to go further in the fight against money laundering and  condemned  such practices:
The most expensive and perplexing project is the new capital, Oyala, right in the middle of the jungle. It's the third capital in this country of one million inhabitants. After spending billions on the construction of ministerial buildings in Malabo, the current island capital, and in Bata, the continental capital, the government budgeted an additional eight billion dollars (more than seven billion euros) for Oyala according to the IMF, which estimates this would make up half of the country’s 2016 budget.
Troubling elements have led us to believe that this massive spending on infrastructure will likely be used for personal benefit. For instance, it seems that the president, the first lady and Teodorin together own the construction company and have a monopoly on cement imports. The new capital’s construction has also attracted foreign entities, including some French companies. One example is Egis Group, which is responsible for the design of the city.
Between prestigious residences in enchanting locations, luxury cars, collections of Hollywood and sports memorabilia, and tax havens, the vice president of Equatorial Guinea doesn’t hold back on his self-indulgence. For example, the site vesper.media reveals that the value of his two yachts, Ebony Shine, 75.75 meters long and Ice, 90 meters, is equivalent to ten times the annual education budget in Equatorial Guinea and seventeen times that of the public health. The maintenance alone of Ebony Shine would cost “approximately $800,000 per month, not including fuel”.
His father, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, has been in power since 1979 and was reelected in 2016 with 93.7% of the vote. As usual, he named a new government in which the juiciest positions went to family members and allies. In an article entitled‘Equatorial Guinea: The State in the Hands of the Presidential Family’, published last September, Ondo Ololobi lists the presidential family members who are part of the government and reveals the immense wealth of Mrs. Constancia Mangue de Obiang, the most powerful personage in the regime. Excerpt:
She is Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo’s wife. The president has fallen completely under her influence. She uses all kinds of subterfuge and abuse of authority to elevate her first son, Teodorín Nguema Obiang Mangue, to the Equatorial Guinean presidency. She is very discreet, a multibillionaire, and she rarely appears on the political scene. She is, however, the one pulling the strings at the presidential palace behind the scenes. Through her cunning, she was able to place 30 out of 70 ministers (for a country of 710,000 inhabitants) in the government, all of whom come from the presidential clan.
The site diariorombe.es tells us  that on the day the trial began, Mr. Jerónimo Osa Osa Ecoro, secretary general of the ruling party, the Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea (Partido Democrático de Guinea Ecuatorial, or PDGE), invited the population to take part in a peaceful — but obligatory — demonstration of support in front of the embassy of France in Malabo. This baron among the barons, who seems to like cash, had his residence burglarized twice. The first time, the thieves allegedly got away with more than  39 billion FCFA [48,640,000 euros] .

author: Abdoulaye Bah


text:
Trinidad & Tobago’s Secondary School Entrance Exam: Elitist, Divisive, Irrelevant? · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Material for an expo by Trinidad and Tobago's Ministry of Education. Photo by Colin Campbell, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
On July 4, 2017, parents across Trinidad and Tobago were anxiously awaiting the results of an examination that would determine which secondary school their pre-teens would attend for the next five years. The Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) exam, which was introduced by the education ministry in 2001 as a replacement for the Common Entrance exam, is essentially the same as its predecessor: a placement test.
Trinidad and Tobago touts itself as providing free universal education for all, but in reality not all schools across the country are equipped with the same level of facilities or trained staff. Schools are also not zoned, so there is great pressure for children to gain entrance to “prestige” schools, not necessarily close to their places of residence, in order to secure a solid secondary education. From the ministry's point of view, this may be a practical consideration—there are supposedly more children leaving primary school than there are secondary school places, hence the need to stream children academically. But the fact that all youngsters who sit the exam are placed in a school blows a hole in that argument.
The examination ends up being a mechanism through which students who test well end up at better schools. Social class and connections are also a factor. Parents have been known to pull strings in order to get their children into schools of their choice.
Every year, parents complain about the test and call for the ministry of education to do away with the exam, but nothing changes. A former employee of the ministry explained it this way: “If they decided on zoning, it would mean that a whole lot of schools would need work to get them up to standard across the board. Which parent would be prepared to sacrifice their child by having him or her attend those schools while the upgrades are being made? I can't name one. And that's exactly why the SEA exam will continue to exist.” This despite the fact that the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has expressed concern that “the Caribbean and Latin America was the region with the largest learning gaps, while pointing out that children from wealthy families were learning a lot more than those from lower socio-economic families.”
Educator Patrice Cox-Neaves told Global Voices that in the mid-1990s, the then Chief Education Officer, Dr. Claudia Harvey, created an education plan that involved assessment of children's portfolios by a panel of independent subject experts at different stages of their school careers. If, at the Standard 2 stage (8 years old), there were learning gaps, children would be kept back and given access to remedial courses. Their coursework in Standards 3 and 4, the years when academic pressure for the upcoming exam usually starts to build, would account for 40%, while their Standard 5 portfolio—the year they sit the exam—would account for 20% of their final assessment. The three secondary school choices each child is currently allowed would remain, except that two of the three schools would be in the area of residence. Dr. Harvey's plan was designed to render the exam obsolete within five years, but it was never implemented.
More than 20 years later, the debate continues. After the 2016 exam, writer Nazma Muller mused on Facebook that:
An education system that rewards a few at the expense of the rest—at the age of 11—is not about education at all; it's about divide and conquer. Until the day ALL our children – even the disabled – have access to a relevant, empowering education that will liberate their minds and prepare them for real life, we must fight to dismantle this oppression and divisiveness.
The 2017 exam attracted further ire from social media users because of an error on the test that caused students great mental anguish. By the time the results were about to be released, both family-oriented websites and well-intentioned Facebook users were posting advice to parents about how to deal with the results. It was later revealed that more than 2,000 students scored less than 30% on the exam, calling into question the efficacy of the education system's ability to create critical thinkers.
In a public Facebook post, playwright Tony Hall wrote:
i hope these poor children are able to survive this irrelevant 19th century education system. i almost didn't. they have my utmost sympathy. i am lucky to be still alive. come to think of it, maybe i did not survive.
Nazma Muller concurred:
Fire bun SEA. Elitist, divisive child abuse. Fifty how much years after independence and we still on this shit?
There was a lot of talk online about the SEA's elitist tone. Artist Dave Williams said:
A SUPERIORITY COMPLEX IS AS AWFUL AS SHAME. SEA season has provoked a lot of talk about the shame of the kids who didn't do all that well […] The shitty thing about the system is that we don't seem to see the equally destructive superiority that we inculcate in the ‘successful’ children. […] Our Exhibition (pre-CE), Common Entrance, and now SEA have been successful at ensuring that we're all deeply damaged one way or the other and that our society will never escape classism, inequality, and credentialism or a status quo from which none of us are escaping unscathed. Nevertheless, people have been acknowledging that the system causes shame – powerful shit causing kids to feel that they are inside themselves wrong, inadequate, and not good enough – scars-for-life shit – but we keep it in place because we either are or wish to end up on the ‘good’ side of it. This country has had too much money for us to be putting ourselves through this over and over again.
In a similar vein, Jill Lian Goddard suggested:
Every year, at this time, I post words of grief regarding the SEA and the damage it does to our society. But I think it's important for me to face some realities. The SEA is there to line us up in order in the class and status system. It's just part of a system that does this. Even if we got rid of it tomorrow, saving children from the deep damage which it causes in probably 75 percent of the national population, it will change nothing unless we change the idea that ‘some people are worth more than others.’ Most of us in TT believe this. Some people are worth more than others. The worthy get the resources and the unworthy don't. Most of your order in the line is predicated on where, in the line order, you were born. It includes skin color, hair texture, family financial resources, neighborhood, education level of parents, etc. You know the drill. And a few people, very few, who have a specific skill set or combination of circumstances, are allowed to shift their place.
While some social media users were grappling with the big picture and its daunting effects, others took a more practical approach.
Fulbright scholar Lesley-Ann Noel thought it was time for action:
Parents it's time for us to develop strategies to boycott and get rid of this classist exam! #civildisobediencetime
Criminologist Renee Cummings was concerned about the tradition of publishing the results in the newspapers, in light of the problem of escalating crime:
Publishing SEA results in the newspaper is a major safety/security risk. The entire country has access to such private information. That concept has outlived its usefulness, if it ever was useful. Does the Ministry of Education secure a release from parents giving permission for the name of the child and the school to be published? I find it most irresponsible and it needs to stop. Back in 50s, 60s, 70s, it was probably a big thing or a proud moment for the entire village or community to see a child's name and ‘achievement’ in the newspaper. For the child who didn't live up to expectations, it was certainly a public shaming. But in these high crime times, it is not safe.
Karel Mc brought the discussion back to basics, offering parents valuable advice:
It is at this stage especially that the gap begins to widen between kids who have access to prestige education, and those who now gamble with the chance of going to a school that is not considered prestige, but may have dedicated teachers, or worst-case scenario… not-so-dedicated teachers. And I don't say this to be a killjoy, but to make us all aware of the societal gap that widens between the child who made 91 and 95 and the child who made 83 and 60. We all have made those types of grades – or worse – at some point in our lives, but at junctures like these kids feel it in different ways.
Depending on where they go, expectations may decrease thereby decreasing children's output. It is even moreso now that our kids need our support, dedication, and encouragement. We must sit and read with them, supervise their schoolwork, and investigate the quality of education at school and at lessons. Let teachers know that we don't play with our kids’ education. Fire lessons teachers who are doing minimum for maximum pay.
And we must teach our children to be bold. Some institutions teach our children to be sheep. To be slaves. To be buffers. […] Do not let the system teach our children to be subservient. They sometimes try to kill their spirit and independence. Sociology teaches us that education socialises us into serving different purposes in wider society. Do not let a secondary school determine who your child is, and who they will be. […]
Our Government and our Ministry of Education are not doing anything to ensure that our kids are inspired and empowered in schools. So we must do it. […] I hope our future generation will be bolder than us, and create the change that we have failed to create. But they need us to place that seed in them first.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


text:
Turkish Opposition Looks to Build Momentum as Their Justice March Reaches Istanbul · Global Voices
John Lubbock

CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu on the Justice March – Image by Ziya Köseoğlu. Used with permission.
“If we’re going to have a true democracy, we have to start with justice,” said Turkish Republican People’s Party (CHP) member of parliament Selin Sayek-Böke.
Sayek-Böke was speaking to an interviewer from the BBC while participating in the 432-kilometre Justice March from Ankara to Istanbul called by the CHP’s leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu in response to the jailing of one of the party’s MPs, Enis Berberoğlu. Berberoğlu was jailed for 25 years for leaking footage of Turkey’s MIT security agency sending trucks full of weapons over the border to Syria. The March, which, according to Kılıçdaroğlu, has attracted around 40,000 protesters, is due to end on Sunday, July 9 at the Istanbul prison where the lawmaker is being held.
#AdaletYürüyüşü müzü @BBCNews e, yürürken anlattım. Kelimenin tam anlamıyla nefes kesen bir röportaj oldu:) pic.twitter.com/DORtXvCKMF
— Selin Sayek-Böke?? (@selinsayekboke) July 3, 2017
‘I talked about our #JusticeMarch to @BBCNews. It was literally a breathtaking interview.’
The accusation that Turkey’s government lent material support to terrorist groups in Syria is one about which the ruling Erdogan administration is particularly sensitive. It is one of the main reasons the administration decided to block Wikipedia entirely in May, after two articles appeared on the site mentioned Berberoğlu’s leaks while he was the editor of Hurriyet newspaper in 2014.
President Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) would appear to be in an unassailable position, having won every election since coming to power in 2002, including the constitutional referendum in April 2017 to change Turkey’s politics to a Presidential system that would allow Erdogan to remain in charge until 2029.
Yet the CHP’s Justice March and its obvious symbolism have rattled leading figures in Erdogan’s party. Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said “it is starting to taste sour. It is time to end it,” while Erdogan himself accused the marchers of being allied to the Kurdish PKK militia and Fethullah Gülen’s religious movement—the group the AKP accuses of instigating last year’s 15 July coup attempt. Erdogan has frequently associated his political opponents with terrorism in the past.
“This [#JusticeMarch] started tasting sour, it is time to stop it”
PM Yıldırım pic.twitter.com/2VlTZfOStD
— dokuz8 NEWS (@dokuz8_EN) July 7, 2017
Perhaps a key objection is the appropriation of the word Justice—”Adalet”, a core element of Erdogan’s party name—to indicate that the perceived injustice is now coming from Erdogan’s religious conservative movement itself. The AKP was founded as a moderate Islamic party seeking greater freedom of religion for the large number of conservative Muslims who were previously discriminated against in areas of public life such as courts and universities. But now these restrictions no longer exist, this aspect of the conservative platform has lost its meaning. The party itself has become less moderate, as it seeks to expand the influence of political Islam into education, the courts, and the military.
The Justice March approaching Istanbul – Image by Ziya Köseoğlu. Used with permission.
Another symbolic aspect of the march is the comparison of its leader Kılıçdaroğlu to Gandhi. Kılıçdaroğlu is often physically compared to Gandhi, and the latter’s 1930 Salt March against unfair taxes imposed by the British eventually led to India’s independence from British colonialism. For many, the Justice March represents new and exciting shift in tactics by the CHP, who have previously been cautious about overt displays of direct action to challenge the government.
Among 1000s at Turkey opposition's #JusticeMarch is a visually-impaired man: Walked 400 km so far!
Via @tugbatekerekpic.twitter.com/kvZEf9PhBn
— Mustafa Yilmaz (@MustafaEdib) July 7, 2017
But as the political situation in Turkey has worsened, few other groups besides the CHP are in any position to resist. In recent months, MPs from the pro-Kurdish HDP party have been imprisoned, along with hunger-striking teachers, journalists and hundreds of others accused of participation in banned organisations, sometimes for offences as minor as opening an account at a bank affiliated with Gülen’s Cemaat movement. Even members of Turkey’s local Amnesty International branch were arrested in the middle of a human rights training session they were holding. This is especially ironic, as Erdogan had once been adopted by Amnesty as a Prisoner of Conscience in 1998, when he was briefly arrested by the Turkish government on accusations of stoking religious violence by reading a poem at a rally.
In 1998, @amnesty adopted @RT_Erdogan as a prisoner of conscience and campaigned for his release. Now he jails its director and chair pic.twitter.com/1D6bL4CHor
— Omar Waraich (@OmarWaraich) July 6, 2017
The CHP’s previous inaction had led to criticism that Kılıçdaroğlu was weak and ineffective, a charge that seems less credible the more AKP criticises the Justice March, which will end in Istanbul on Sunday with a large rally.
So far, a number of people have had heart attacks while participating in the 432-kilometre journey from Ankara to Istanbul, and AKP supporters have tried to disrupt the protest, one going as far as to dump a truckload of manure in front of the march.
CHP MP Hüseyin Yıldız has heart attack on justice march. https://t.co/p2ak7BqVHN
— Ankaralı Jan (@06JAnk) June 30, 2017
However, as the number of participants has increased to the tens of thousands, the March seems to have taken on greater momentum. Among the protesters is a man who looks surprisingly like a shorter double of Kılıçdaroğlu, who one Twitter user jokingly referred to as his ‘powerbank’.
kılıçdaroğlu powerbank taşıyo yanında pic.twitter.com/p1xAC60GVi
— Ahmeliyat (@yatzibarlan) July 7, 2017
‘Kılıçdaroğlu carrying his powerbank with him’
The marchers were even joined by members of the pro-Kurdish HDP party, with whom the CHP has historically had a less than friendly relationship. In May 2016, CHP representatives voted with the government to support a bill that would allow MPs to be stripped of immunity and allow the government to prosecute them. As a result, 13 HDP MPs and countless other officials have been jailed.
The CHP is a nationalist party that would not easily speak out against the jailing of Kurdish politicians; but now that the prosecutions have reached its own MPs, it has found that many other groups are willing to follow its critical lead. The challenge now is to keep that opposition unified.
On the 19th day of the “Justice March” Turkey's 2nd main opposition party, the HDP, has joined the march & called on justice for all people. pic.twitter.com/KQPxbkj2RT
— Turkey Untold (@TurkeyUntold) July 3, 2017
The march reached Istanbul on Friday, 7 July and will culminate in a big protest rally over the weekend. At the moment, there do not appear to be any specific proposals from the CHP about what its next steps will be. CHP MP Selin Sayek-Böke has said that “We need to achieve what we couldn't do following Gezi and 16 April [the date of the constitutional referendum], we need to show the decisiveness that would bring the energy of the social opposition to politics.”
In an interview with CNN Turk, Kılıçdaroğlu said that the result of the march is that people have overcome their fear of speaking out against the government. What remains uncertain is how the AKP government responds to the voices raised against it. But if the CHP can galvanise the anger of many groups who feel marginalised and fearful of the state, it could lead to greater success for the party in the Parliamentary and Presidential elections which are both due to be held in 2019.

author: John Lubbock