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Public Anger Only Grows After Guatemala Appoints Controversial Vice President · Global Voices
Renata Avila

Protests in Guatemala against government corruption on April 25, 2015. Photo by Flickr user Surizar published under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial license.
Less than a week after Guatemalan Vice President Roxana Baldetti resigned amid a corruption investigation, the Guatemalan Congress elected Alejandro Maldonado Aguirre, former jurist and politician from the country's conservative right, as the new vice president.
He will serve until January 14, 2016.
@CongresoGuate aprueba acuerdo para declarar a Alejandro Maldonado como Vicepresidente. 118 a favor y 29 en contra. #NuevoVice
— PlazaPública en Vivo (@PzPenVivo) May 14, 2015
Guatemalan Congress approves Alejandro Maldonado Aguirre as the next vice president. With 115 votes in favor and 29 against.
His election on Thursday, May 14, 2015, sparked a huge controversy among different sectors, especially those working in transitional justice. Maldonado Aguirre was the judge leading the effort to save former dictator Efrain Ríos Montt from his genocide sentence. He was the one declaring the Guatemalan genocide trial invalid.
Ríos Montt and his then head of military intelligence Mauricio Rodriguez Sanchez are charged with genocide and crimes against humanity for massacres committed in 1982 and 1983. Prosecutors allege that Rios Montt was responsible for the killing of 1,771 indigenous Mayans, the displacement of 29,000, and the rape and torture of others during 15 massacres. Ríos Montt is due to be retried, but it is not certain when proceedings will get underway.
Maldonado Aguirre's election stirred up heated reactions online.
Ya tenemos un nuevo vicepresidente para gritarle: vos también #renunciaYa porque #SiHuboGenocidio
— Lucha (@liberalucha) May 14, 2015
We have a new vice president to shout at: You must resign because yes, there was a genocide.
Impunity alive & well in #Guatemala. New VP was one of judges who torpedoed the #genocide conviction of #RiosMontt https://t.co/xbaXghUtbG
— Jo-Marie Burt (@jomaburt) May 14, 2015
OPM y su gobierno han sido además de corruptos, represores y han negado que #SiHuboGenocidio, apoyados x las mismas estructuras en el OJ — Las venas abiertas (@KimyOrion) May 14, 2015
OPM [Otto Perez Molina, current president go Guatemala] and his government have been, on top of corrupt, repressive, denying that yes, there was a genocide, supported by the same structures inside the Ministry of Justice.
Former Vice President Roxana Baldetti resigned on May 8 after her closest aide was linked to a big government corruption scheme, known as La Linea. The investigation is still unfolding, with Baldetti stripped of her immunity and two judges potentially involved.
As the new vice president was elected, good news arrived from Switzerland, where Guatemala's ex-police chief Erwin Sperisen got a life sentence for the extrajudicial killings of Guatemalan citizens. The case was prosecuted in Switzerland (Sperisen is a Swiss-Guatemalan dual national) proving how hard is to achieve justice where the judiciary is so close to the powerful.
Philip Grant, the director of TRIAL (Track Impunity Always), whose goal is to put the law at the service of the victims of international crimes (genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture and forced disappearances), mentioned the role played by the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) in this case:
Today’s ruling in the #Sperisen case: a powerful recognition of @CICIG’s mandate and struggle against impunity in #Guatemala
— Philip Grant (@PhilipGrant40) May 12, 2015
As citizens take in the news of the appointment, protests are likely to continue online and in the streets in the following weeks and months. The people continue to demand increased justice and accountability, an investigation into the president for suspected crimes against humanity during the 1980s and the president's resignation. Popular sentiment is that no political party is bringing about real change, therefore citizens cannot rely on their elected representatives and must take to the streets, pick up a banner and megaphone and scream, “Enough is enough”.
The Guatemala human rights commission called attention to a planned nationwide protest in the coming days:
Despite the removal of #Baldetti, citizens in #Guatemala will move forward with a nationwide protest set for May 16 https://t.co/nXYFKRuoP5
— GHRC/USA (@GHRCUSA) May 13, 2015

author: Renata Avila


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Turkey’s Selfie-Taking Ottoman Prince Statue Is Down but Not Out · Global Voices
Ece Basay

Amasya, Turkey. The statue of a selfie taking Ottoman prince, constructed by the Municipality. Image taken from mynet. Widely shared.
Turkey has been displaying impressive bad taste when it comes to statues lately.
As is the case in most countries, statues in cities across Turkey used to represent what was well-known or important to that particular place.
Amasya in northern Turkey is well-known as the City of the Princes (şehzade), which makes a statue of an Ottoman prince an entirely logical architectural embellishment for the city.
Except in keeping with a recent trend towards post-modern effigies in the country, the one Amasya's municipal authorities put up in the city was not a regular Ottoman prince but an Ottoman prince taking a selfie:
So people, it’s actually real: A statue unveiled in Amasya of 16th-century Ottoman Prince Mustafa… taking a selfie: pic.twitter.com/nsKthXiFTo
— Alex Christie-Miller (@AChristieMiller) May 10, 2015
Reactions poured in from the moment the media found out about the monument. Many people took what might be called a ‘selfie squared’ — a selfie of themselves with the selfie-taking statue — while others listed similarly anti-historical sculptures elsewhere in the country:
Amasya'da Selfie çeken şehzade, Ankara'da transformars, Bodrum süperman, Jedi Yoda'nın heykeli nerde lannn 😄😄 pic.twitter.com/j7J8okmv9X — MA (@mavigozluzencii) May 14, 2015
Selfie-taking Ottoman Prince in Amasya, Transformers in Ankara, Superman in Bodrum, where is the statue of Jedi Yoda?!? :D :D
Allah'ım şok geçiriyorum o telefon niye Samsung? Şehzade Mustafa nasıl bi i-phone alamaz? pic.twitter.com/dU0sOhGgzz
— Dr. Freud'un Gelini (@yemeklibivagon) May 9, 2015
My God, I am shocked, why is that phone a Samsung? How come Prince Mustafa cannot afford an iPhone?
But while tweeps were basking in selfie-mania, Prince Mustafa's likeness suffered two cruel blows: the statue's phone and sword were broken in two separate incidents on May 10 and May 11 respectively.
Despite the fact that the seeming attacks on the statue raised the possibility of a politically motivated crime, the captured suspects explained that they had no political motivations and that the cell phone and the sword simply broke off as soon as they touched them.
After hearing these testimonies, the local prosecutor released both suspects. The statue, on the other hand, was taken under police custody.
selfie çeken şehzade heykelinin elindeki telefonu kırmışlar. Şehzade yeni telefon için 2 sene beklesin 5G'ye geçicez pic.twitter.com/ISkXNmboaz
— Levent (@fevri_sosyolog) May 10, 2015
People have broken the phone of the selfie-taking Ottoman Prince. He should wait two years to buy a new phone, by which time we will have made the leap to 5G.
Amasya, Turkey. A man pretending to have a selfie taken with the statue. Image taken from Onedio.
Amasya municipality later explained that the statue was not representative of any particular prince. While it bore a resemblance to Mustafa its goal was aesthetic rather than to make a historical statement, officials explained. Following the attacks, the municipality promised they would reconstruct the damaged parts of the statue.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Ece Basay


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Under a Shaky Ceasefire, Yemenis Struggle to Stay Connected to the World · Global Voices
فهمي الباحث

A picture taken of a shutdown gas station due to the lack of oil – Photograph by Fahmi Al Baheth.
Rebels and Arab coalition forces in Yemen are currently under a ceasefire agreement, but violent clashes between the groups have left much of the country in great disrepair. Along with architectural and municipal infrastructure, the conflict has had a disastrous impact on communication technologies in the country. Cuts in electricity and telecommunications services have become commonplace, and some fear that communication infrastructure in the country could begin to collapse altogether, leaving Yemenis literally cut off from the global Internet.
Arab coalition forces led by Saudi Arabia began pounding Yemen with airstrikes on March 26. More than 1400 people, mostly civilians, were killed in 7 weeks. Their assault has gone far beyond military sites and the main target of the campaign, the tribal militia Houthis, who took control of Yemen's capital Sana'a in January. There is also massive destruction in the southern port city of Aden, where the Houthis have been retaliating along with militias loyal to Yemen's former president, Ali Abdulla Saleh, who was forced to step down after three decades in power, following popular protests in 2011.
Power plants and both fixed line and mobile telecommunications networks are out of service in many cities in Yemen, with more joining the list everyday. Engineers are not able to reach stations to maintain them and put them back in operation. The country is also being forced to ration oil, on which power plants and telecommunications stations operate. In many areas, this has meant cutting all telecommunication services, including the Internet.
Even before this conflict, Yemen had a weak infrastructure in both telecommunications and energy sectors. Oil pipelines, power plants and fiber optic cables have long suffered repeated attacks by armed and tribal groups over the past years.
Yemenis fear that they will soon face longer periods of electricity and telecommunications cuts. In some areas, these have already stretched as long as four weeks at a time. If this happens, it could leave millions of Yemenis cut off from the rest of the world in a situation where offenses on civilians are continuously increasing. An Internet activist who preferred to remain anonymous told us:
نحن قلقون بأننا لن نتمكن من نشر وتوثيق انتهاكات حقوق الإنسان والوضع الإنساني الصعب بشكل مباشر على الإنترنت خلال الأيام القليلة القادمة، لا إنترنت، لا اتصالات، حتى هواتفنا المحمولة لن نستطيع استخدامها لعدم توفر الطاقة الكهربائية.
We are worried that we will not be able to document and publish human rights violations and the difficult humanitarian situation live on the internet in the coming few days. No internet, no telecommunications, even our mobile phones will become useless, we will not be able to use them if there is no electricity.
Social media has become a very important tool for international media outlets that could not stay in Yemen to cover the events there. They have instead come to depend on local activists who film and publish videos and reports of what they are seeing and hearing on a daily and sometimes hourly basis.
According to officials at telecommunication companies, phone and internet traffic has dropped by over 30 percent. Other sources also confirmed that the number of peak time internet users has dropped by over 60 percent in the past few days compared to previous months. These numbers continue to grow as the current situation heads to the worst.
Dr. Ali Nosary, the Chief Executive Officer of TeleYemen, expects that Internet and telecommunications sector will face great disturbance in the coming few days. He says:
مع استمرار الوضع الحالي وانعدام المشتقات النفطية لفترة أطول ربما لن تتمكن معظم شبكات الاتصالات من العمل لأكثر من بضعة أيام وليس أسابيع.
If the current situation and the lack of oil continue for longer maybe the majority of telecommunications networks will not last few days, let alone weeks.
TeleYemen offers internet services via satellites but the service prices are very high ($600-$1400 to set up, $48 for 5GB and $1110 for 100GB). Clearly only a limited number of users can benefit from it. The number does not exceed 1,000 subscribers, the majority of which are employees of private companies and banks.
As the owner of YemenNet and TeleYemen, are both subsidiaries of the government's Public Telecommunications Company, the Yemeni government has a monopoly on fixed line telecommunications services in the country. This arrangement has held the Yemen back from developing a more robust telecommunications sector, leaving it to rely on fragile infrastructure that depends on copper cables and old infrastructure which was made for voice, not data communications.
As for mobile services, three of the four operating companies work on GSM, offering 2G technology. The fourth which is a public company, with the government as a share holder, works on CDMA, offering very limited 3G internet service in some areas.
Despite the accelerated growth in the numbers of internet users in Yemen, the percentage is still too low compared to neighboring countries. Various reports state that the percentage of Internet users in Yemen fluctuate between 14 and 20 percent.Thus one can see that digital isolation is a not-so-remote possibility.
In the face of a disastrous humanitarian situation, widespread poverty, and persisting armed conflict, isolation from the Internet could be disastrous. The Internet is a crucial tool for journalists who work on reporting conflicts, and for activists who spread the news and document human rights violations and the overall humanitarian situation, and for regular people to know what's happening on the ground and communicate with loved ones outside of the country.

author: فهمي الباحث


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Afghan Rapper Escaped Teen Marriage by Singing About It · Global Voices
PRI/PRX's The World

Afghan rapper Sonita Alizadeh narrowly escaped a forced marriage at 14 by writing the song “Brides for Sale.” She recently visited West Oakland, California, and was surprised that the US, like Iran and Afghanistan, has poor neighborhoods and homeless people. Credit: Shuka Kalantari. Published with PRI's permission.
This article and radio report by Shuka Kalantari for The World originally appeared on PRI.org on May 12, 2015, and is republished here as part of a content-sharing agreement.
I met Sonita Alizadeh when she flew into town to perform her first US concert. We were talking a walk when she suddenly stopped and stared at a man playing with his two daughters.
“Here in America a dad sets aside time to take his daughters to the park,” she said. “Where I come from, you don’t see that.”
Sonita comes from Afghanistan. She’s 18-years-old, has long black hair and a small frame. If things had gone according to her parent’s plan, she’d have been married by now. “I sometimes I think about the fact that I could have been a mother right now — with a few kids. It’s not a thought I like.”
Sonita grew up in Tehran, Iran’s capital city. Her family fled Afghanistan when she was 8 years old because of war. She found a non-profit that taught undocumented Afghan kids. There she learned karate, photography, guitar, and she started singing and rapping.
Her music quickly got recognition. Sonita met an Iranian director who helped her polish up her style and make music videos, and that led to a few awards. Everything was perfect. Until it wasn’t. “One day my mom told me, ‘You have to return to Afghanistan with me. There’s a man there who wants to marry you. Your brother’s engaged and we need your dowry money to pay for his wedding.’”
Sonita was devastated. So she wrote the song “Brides for Sale.” The song starts “Let me whisper, so no one hears that I speak of selling girls. My voice shouldn’t be heard since it’s against Sharia. Women must remain silent… this is our tradition.”
The video shows Sonita wearing a wedding dress — with a barcode on her forehead. Her face is bruised. She pleads with her family not sell her off.
Sonita was worried what her parents would think about the video — but they actually loved it — and they also told her that she didn’t have to get married.
“It means so much to me that my family went against our tradition for me. Now I’m somewhere that I never imagined I could be.”
The attention around Sonita’s music landed her a full scholarship to an arts academy in Utah, and that led to the concert here in the San Francisco Bay Area. But before the show, Sonita needs to rehearse. We hop into my car and drive to nearby West Oakland.
Sonita was shocked by this neighborhood in West Oakland. “Are you telling me in America there are places where you can’t walk alone at night?” she asked. Credit: Shuka Kalantari. Published with PRI's permission
The rehearsal studio is in a neighborhood covered in graffiti. Both sides of the street are lined with homeless people. Sonita is shocked — because it reminds her of home.
“I grew up in a neighborhood where everybody was poor and the houses were run-down,” Sonita says. “I couldn’t go outside at night because it was really dangerous. Are you telling me in America there are places where you can’t walk alone at night, too? Then where else can a person find refuge?”
Not long after the concert, Sonita read about a woman named Farkhondeh who was stoned and beaten to death in Afghanistan for allegedly burning a Koran. Sonita was heartbroken. So she did what she knew best: wrote a song about it.
“Rap music lets you tell your story to other people. Rap music is a platform to share the words that are in my heart.”
And sometimes rap music is a way to express a sadness, an anger, that Afghan women are told they’re not supposed to show. Even though Sonita now lives over 7,000 miles away from home, she says she’ll always sing about what’s closest to her heart: The people of Afghanistan.

author: PRI/PRX's The World


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Egypt’s Former President Mohammed Morsi Sentenced to Death for 2011 Prison Escape · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

A cartoon by political cartoonist @Khalidalbaih comparing between ancient Egypt and Egypt today, shared by @_amroali on Twitter
Egypt's first democratically elected president Mohammed Morsi, along with more than 100 other people, were sentenced to death on May 16, 2015.
The case of the Muslim Brotherhood member, who is already serving a 20-year sentence for ordering the arrest and torture of protesters while in power, has now been refered to the country's top religious authority, the Mufti, to be rubberstamped, before the sentence can be carried out. The next hearing is set for June 2.
Today's sentence was handed to Morsi for collaborating with foreign militants to free Islamists during a prison break from the Wadi Natroun prison amid the Egyptian revolution in January 2011. Among his 105 co-defendants were some 70 Palestinians, accused of being members of Hamas, who were charged and tried in absentia. And among the Palestinians sentenced to death, Hassan Salameh has been in an Israeli prison since 1994, and Raed Attar is already dead.
Egypt sentences Palestinians Hassan Salameh & Raed Attar to death – one has been in Israeli prison since 1994, other is dead #MorsiTrial
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) May 16, 2015
According to the case brought against Morsi, Hamas militants used tunnels from Gaza to enter Egypt, where they besieged prisons, freeing Islamists jailed by Mubarak. Among those freed were 30 top Muslim Brotherhood members, including Morsi, as well as up to 20,000 inmates.
Morsi was the president of Egypt for one year after the revolution, which overthrew Hosni Mubarak early 2011, who ruled Egypt for more than 30 years. Morsi's reign was cut short in July 2013, following massive protests calling for his ouster. Then, the Egyptian Army took command, under the leadership of Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian Armed Forces and Minister of Defence General Abdul Fattah El Sisi, who is now Egypt's president.
Since being deposed of power, Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood movement was banned in Egypt, and thousands of its supporters arrested. Among them are brotherhood supreme guide Mohamed Badie and MB leader Mohamed Beltagy, who have also been sentenced to death.
According to journalist Sarah El Sirgany, who has 85K followers, and who was at the trial:
Referral to the Grand Mufti indicates a death sentence. His opinion is only advisory. The judge will announce the actual sentences on June 2
— Sarah El Sirgany (@Ssirgany) May 16, 2015
She adds:
To recap: In espionage trial 16 were referred to Mufti. Morsi not included. In Jailbreak trial Morsi & over 100 were referred to the Mufti.
— Sarah El Sirgany (@Ssirgany) May 16, 2015
News of Morsi's sentence drew a storm of reactions online, with commentators across the religious and political spectrum denouncing the trial as politically motivated.
From Prisoner to President
The turn of events in Morsi's life from prisoner to president is not lost on Rana Allam, who wonders how someone who had escaped from prison was allowed to run for president in the first place. She tweets:
Egyptian court seeks death penalty for former president Mursi http://t.co/eojr6HLKoe For jail break in 2011..yet left to run for president!!
— Rana Allam (@Run_Rana) May 16, 2015
Many predict that Morsi would not be executed, as such cases can be appealed and can take years in court.
Egyptian Amr tells his 4.5K followers:
Unless #Sisi has lost his mind #Morsi will never be executed. BUT Any remaining shreds of respect 4 #Egyptian judiciary were executed today
— Amr No 2 CC (@Cairo67Unedited) May 16, 2015
And Fustat, with 3.9K followers, adds:
Neither Morsi or Muslim Brotherhood Muhamed Badie is likely to be executed in the end , their sentences will be commuted. #MorsiTrial #Egypt
— fustat (@fustat) May 16, 2015
Human rights organisations described the trial as a sham.
After the verdict, Human Rights Watch (HRW) Executive Director Kenneth Roth tweeted:
Morsi got 20 years based not on evidence but police conjecture & court bias: @HRW analysis. http://t.co/XM7IUhIr4w pic.twitter.com/s67NIFSgLv
— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) April 26, 2015
His colleague, HRW European Media Director Andrew Stroehlein added:
Court sentences ousted president Morsi to death. More proof Egypt's respect for rights is zero http://t.co/hZg9iFgnWD pic.twitter.com/NGB5GKvElo
— Andrew Stroehlein (@astroehlein) May 16, 2015
Netizens from across the region followed suit.
Omar Ghraieb from Gaza notes:
Many people have told me that they no longer understand #Egypt or the judicial system there. I agree. #Gaza
— Omar Ghraieb (@Omar_Gaza) May 16, 2015
And Bahraini Adel Marzooq writes to his 39.1K followers:
سؤال: عرف العار؟ الإجابة: #قضاء_مصر وما أرساه من قوانين وآليات وإجراءات وما صدره لباقي الدول العربية (ومنها #البحرين ) من قوانين وقضاة. #مصر
— Adel Marzooq (@adelmarzooq) May 16, 2015
Define shame? The answer is: The Egyptian judiciary, and the laws, mechanisms and procedures it has instilled and exported to the other Arab countries (including Bahrain) which follow Egyptian laws and appoints Egyptian judges

author: Amira Al Hussaini


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For Pakistan’s Struggling National Airline, Balochistan Comes Last · Global Voices
Balochistan Point

PIA's staff posing for a picture in front of a newly acquired ATR-72. A small plane that carries 72 passengers, which has been assigned to most routes in Balochistan. Image tweeted by @Official_PIA on April 10, 2015.
This is an edited version of a post originally written by Adnan Aamir for The Balochistan Point and is published according to a content sharing agreement.
Like thousands of other Pakistanis, Sajid Baloch works as a construction worker in Dubai. Every six months he visits his family in Quetta, Balochistan province's capital and largest city.
Sajid used to fly directly to his hometown from Dubai on the national carrier Pakistan International Airlines (PIA). Life was easy for him back then.
When he visited Pakistan in April this year, Sajid had to fly an extra hour and a half covering the 680 kilometers between Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, and Quetta. PIA had closed down all of its Quetta-Dubai flights.
“I work tirelessly to meet the ends of my extended family. I cannot afford extra expenses, which I have to bear now when I travel to Karachi to board a Dubai-bound flight,” lamented Sajid in a desperate tone.
The extra travel can cost him between $250-550.
Sajid Baloch is one of many people in Balochistan who say they suffer due to the incompetence, discrimination and apathy of PIA administration towards Pakistan's vast southwestern province. Balochistan makes up about 44% of Pakistan's land mass, but is home to less than 5% of the country's population. The province is Pakistan's least developed and poorest. Many turn to the Middle East for employment.
On the other side, with 17,000 employees and only 36 planes, some say PIA is one of the world's worst managed airlines. It ran losses as high as 207 billion rupees (US$2.03 billion) in 2014. Despite this PIA services 70 percent of the domestic market in Pakistan, overshadowing three smaller commercial airlines.
The Balochistan Point dug deeper into PIA's operations in Balochistan, one of Pakistan's four provinces. We found six troubling issues with the national airline.
The PIA administration based in Karachi and Quetta was not available for comment when we contacted them. Many of the issues below were corroborated by sources within PIA that want to stay anonymous. If you have more information or a correction you'd like to share, please add it in the comments section.
PIA is the only airline that services six cities in Balochistan. Besides the Quetta route, PIA replaced all of its planes in Balochistan with small ATR-72 aircrafts. Previously, PIA operated large aircrafts B-737, A-310, A-320 and B-777, which could carry hundreds of passengers. ATR-72 planes can only carry 72 passengers.
Interior of PIA's latest acquisition. #ATR72. #KarachiAirport. Photo by Zain Maqsood. #PaxEx #Cabin @RunwayGirl pic.twitter.com/GzfYXVYbZc
— Mo Firaas (@raisinganchor) April 12, 2015
Over the years, PIA has also cut down the number of flights that serviced the province. Some airports only receive two flights a week.
As a result, not as many people from Balochistan can avail aviation services. Private airlines operate only a few flights a week from Quetta. No private airline services other cities.
Another issue with ATR-72 planes is that it has to reduce the weight it carries when temperature rise to 35C (95F). So on a warm day, passengers have to fly without their luggage. They have to wait several hours as their luggage is transported by road.
The national carrier provides no international flights from Balochistan's largest city Quetta. There is not even a direct pilgrimage flight from Balochistan to Saudi Arabia, the most popular traveling destination in the country.
As of now, there are five international flights that PIA operates from two small cities that are only 76 miles a part in massive Balochistan, which covers 134,050 square miles. They use those small 72-seat airplanes.
Once a week, a small PIA aircraft flies back and forth between Gwadar, Pakistan's over-invested and under-developed port city, to Muscat, Oman. Close by in Turbat, every week, another small aircraft flies to Muscat, and three small planes fly to Sharjah in the UAE.
People from Quetta, Zhob, Noshki and Chaman and other cities in Balochistan travel in high numbers to the Middle East for business and employment. They are forced to travel via Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city or the two smaller cities in Balochistan.
Besides the capital Quetta, PIA flies to these smaller cities: Dalbandin, Panjgur, Zhob, Gwadar, Quetta and Turbat.
A source within PIA told The Balochistan Point on condition of anonymity that, “PIA can shut down the flights from smaller stations of Balochistan just like it close down international flights to Dubai and replaced larger planes with ATR-72.” PIA source further added, “Shutting down smaller stations would be a catastrophe for people of Balochistan and people would strongly protest.”
The source estimated that of PIA shuts down these routes, every day about 1,000 passengers could be affected.
Health services in Balochistan are abysmal. Critical patients are often flown to Karachi, which has better medical facilities for treatment.  Aviation sources told The Balochistan Point that ATR-72 doesn’t have the facility of carrying stretcher patients. Other airlines already don’t provide this facility. So, effectively, the PIA administration has also cut down medical facilities to the people of Balochistan.
Before the change, Maqbool Zaheer, a 48 year-old trader told The Balochistan Point how flying his ill mother to Karachi saved her life “She was very ill and doctors in Quetta told me to take her to Karachi for further treatment. I booked a stretcher for her on a PIA flight and managed to take her to a hospital in Karachi just on time,” said Mr. Maqbool. “Depriving us from the facility of stretchers in planes is equivalent to homicide,” added Maqbool.
Balochistan is known for its dry and fresh fruit. Traders in Balochistan used PIA flights to send their fruits to countries around the world. With the prevalence of ATR-72, most cargo needs to be transported to Karachi by road and then booked from Karachi's airport as cargo. This increases transportation costs and the likelihood of perishable fruit going bad.
Some employees of PIA in Balochistan also claim they face discrimination at the hands of PIA's administration. Out of a total staff of 17,000, about 400 employees are from the province.
PIA has over 30 international stations where employees of PIA are posted for two-three years. These postings are considered to be life-changing and lucrative. According to anonymous sources at PIA, at the moment, there is not a single PIA employee from Balochistan posted in any international station. Employees are supposed to be selected on the basis of seniority but our sources tell us this is the case for employees from Balochistan.
In addition, our sources tell us that PIA employees from Balochistan are often ignored for promotion. Like other provinces, Balochistan is allocated a “human resource” budget. Our sources claim this budget is over used in the rest of Pakistan but it’s under used in Balochistan.
Furthermore, Gilgit-Baltistan, like Balochistan, is a remote area where PIA employees prefer not to go. PIA offers extra pay to employees stationed in Gilgit-Baltistan, as an incentive to work there. There is no such incentive for PIA employees working in Balochistan.
PIA training centers are located in all major cities of Pakistan including Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and Islamabad but not in Quetta. These training centers teach courses of aircraft engineering, aircraft technicians, flight operations and passenger handling. Students of Balochistan have to travel to other cities to study these courses. This pushes up their living expenses increase and under-privileged people can’t afford this education.
PIA is the national flag carrier and it has a duty to serve all provinces without discrimination. It’s quite clear that PIA administration is treating Balochistan as a less important part of the country, which is unacceptable to people of the province.
The people of Balochistan urge the Prime Minister of Pakistan, the Civil Aviation Authority and all the concerned authorities to investigate all these issues at PIA.

author: Balochistan Point


text:
Mr. Bureaucrat, Russia’s ‘Wrinkled’ Young Women Would Like a Word · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

Pavel Astakhov, Vladimir Putin's ombudsman for children's rights, has inspired a flashmob on Instagram, after going on the radio and implying that it is “prude” to have concerns about a widely publicized marriage in Chechnya between a 17-year-old girl and a much older police captain.
A selection of #WrinkledWoman flashmob participants. Instagram screenshot.
“In the Caucasus,” Astakhov told Russian New Service, “girls are emancipated and mature earlier [than elsewhere in Russia], so let’s not be prude about this. There are places where women are all wrinkled by the age of 27, and they look about 50 by our standards.”
In response, young women online have started posting selfies on Instagram with the hashtag #сморщеннаяженщина (#WrinkledWoman). In the photos, they scrunch up their faces to simulate the appearance of wrinkles. Many of the selfies include sarcastic greetings to Astakhov.
The woman behind the campaign appears to be Bella Rapoport, a prominent Russian feminist writer. Rapoport was recently at the center of another media debate, when she authored a widely read opinion piece on Colta.ru that crticized the gender insensitivity of another Russian news outlet, Meduza. (Full disclosure: yours truly writes for Meduza’s English-language version.)
According to Instagram’s timestamps, Rapoport was the first to use the “Wrinkled Woman” hashtag in this flashmob. The second contributor appears to be Tonia Samsonova, a popular journalist at Echo of Moscow with a large online social media following. Within 12 hours or so, the hashtag has attracted more than 120 contributions.
#сморщеннаяженщина 35 лет передает привет детскому омбундсмену
A photo posted by Евгеньевна (@belkitz) on
A #WrinkledWoman of 35 years says hello to the children's ombudsman
Сморщенная женщина, 28 лет, передает привет детскому омбудсмену #сморщеннаяженщина
A photo posted by Tonia Samsonova (@toniasamsonova) on
A wrinkled woman, 28-years-old, says hello to the children's ombudsman #WrinkledWoman
#сморщеннаяженщина может и порчу навести, аккуратнее там.
A photo posted by Ekaterina Sultanova (@katerinasf84) on
A #WrinkledWoman might put a hex on you. Better watch out.
#астаховавотставку #сморщеннаяженщина
A photo posted by Elijah (@iosav) on
#AstakhovResign #WrinkledWoman
#сморщеннаяженщина
A photo posted by Anna (@marmousetttt) on
#WrinkledWoman
#Сморщеннаяженщина  а мне как раз #27лет :)
A photo posted by Alice Shpiller (@aliceshpiller) on
A #WrinkledWoman and I happen to be 27! :)
Elena Milashina, a reporter for the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, is responsible for breaking the story about 17-year-old Heda Goilabieva marrying Nazhud Guchigov, a much older, already-married police captain. The story—published on April 30—launched a major public scandal because Milashina claimed Guchigov was forcing Goilabieva into the marriage, going so far as setting up roadblocks around her village to keep her family from evacuating her. Milashina said the girl’s sister even appealed Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of the Chechen Republic, for help.
Kadyrov soon got involved, later refuting Milashina’s version of events, saying Goilabieva was marrying consensually and with the approval of her parents. On May 15, Kadyrov even invited “one and all” to attend the couple’s wedding in Grozny on May 16, joking that the nuptials seemed to attract more attention than the ceremony for Prince William and Catherine Middleton.
On May 12, the government-friendly television station LifeNews published an interview with Goilabieva and her mother, where the 17-year-old expressed her happiness about marrying Guchigov, who it turns out is 46-years-old, not 57, as Milashina reported.
According to Heda Saratova, Chechnya’s human rights ombudsman, Guchigov’s first marriage is only recorded according to Muslim customs, not Russian law, meaning he is unmarried, legally speaking. His first wife is reportedly unperturbed by the looming arrival of a younger additional wife. “She [the first wife] even helped buy gifts for the girl [Goilabieva],” Saratova told the BBC.
Milashina, who fled Chechnya on May 14 after allegedly being threatened by the Chechen police, says she thinks Goilabieva and her relatives are being pressured into going ahead with the wedding. Milashina says the father has suspiciously avoided journalists, and Guchigov initially denied ever knowing the woman he plans to marry tomorrow.

author: Kevin Rothrock


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Venezuela Bans 22 Media Editors and Executives from Leaving the Country · Global Voices
Global Voices Latin America

Over 20 members of three Venezuelan media groups, El Nacional and Tal Cual, as well as news site La Patilla, are now prohibited from leaving the country. Caracas judge María Eugenia Núñez ordered the restriction on the opposition media figures, who are “accused of ‘continuing aggravated defamation'”, according to broadcaster NTN24.
Venezuela places travel ban on opposition media execs – VideoNewsUs http://t.co/ZAvKZNM7k9
— Democracy News Ven (@DemNewsVen) May 13, 2015
The court order was requested on April 28 by the National Assembly president, Diosdado Cabello, seen as one of president Nicolás Maduro’s closest allies in government and member of the ruling PSUV party. It was stated that these media organizations had affected the government's reputation by featuring “unscrupulous” publications from ABC, a Spanish daily newspaper.
The reports published in January alleged that Cabello was connected to drug trafficking in Venezuela.
As a result, Cabello sued for defamation everyone of importance at newspapers El Nacional, La Patilla and Tal Cual; as well as 22 members of the respective boards, including Miguel Henrique Otero, editor-in-chief of El Nacional, Teodoro Petkoff, from Tal Cual, and Alberto Ravell from La Patilla.
Alberto Ravell and Miguel Henrique Otero found out about the court rulling while travelling outside the country. They declared, respectively, that they will return to Venezuela in a few days to face the charges, and that their editorial lines will not change.
Despite what it seems like a violation of freedom of speech, even international treaties exempt such reproductions of news items from legal liability, except for the source.
Teodoro Petkoff, director of TalCual, and one of Venezuela’s most outspoken government critics, has already been banned from leaving the country because of another defamation lawsuit filed by Cabello last year. Petkoff recently received a prestigious journalism award in Spain, but was unable to collect it in person. The award was instead received on his behalf by former Spanish president Felipe Gonzalez, who spoke about attacks to freedom against expression in Venezuela.
According to Venezuelan law, the Court needs to notify each of the defendants, something that has yet to be done. Also, under no circumstance can a judge rule this prohibition without having talked to them first.
This defamation case had a very timely consideration and resolution, something noticeable in a country where the average prisoner has not seen a Judge in the first few months after its detention, or has spent around two years in prison without sentence, something analyzed in the blog The Devil's Excrement.

author: Global Voices Latin America


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Along Morocco’s Border With a Spanish Enclave, Women Shoulder Twice Their Weight ‘to Earn a Morsel of Bread’ · Global Voices
PRI/PRX's The World

Moroccan women wait at a border crossing with loads of 100-200 pounds of commercial goods on their backs. Credit: Maggy Donaldson. Published with PRI's permission
This article and radio report by Maggy Donaldson and Thalia Beaty for The World originally appeared on PRI.org on May 14, 2015, and is republished here as part of a content-sharing agreement.
The North African enclave of Ceuta is a little piece of the European Union just an hour by boat from mainland Europe. Its land border with Morocco is the gateway for a brisk trade. Commercial goods delivered to the Spanish port are sold in Moroccan souks, just beyond the high dividing fence.
It’s on this border that Moroccan women line up in the middle of the night for the chance to earn $5 a day carrying huge, heavy packages of goods.
These women — known in Spanish as porteadoras, or in French as femme mulets, “mule women” — do not pay any official customs fee or tax at the border. Thanks to a legal loophole tolerated by both the Spanish and Moroccan governments, the goods they carry, which could include anything from Red Bull to cheap diapers, are considered “personal luggage” and are therefore untaxed.
Women wait in hopes of getting a package to carry across the border. Spanish guards keep them in a strict line. Credit: Maggy Donaldson. Published with PRI's permission
The profits on both sides of the border are high. The American Chamber of Commerce in Morocco estimates that this irregular trade represents a third of the economic activity of the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. The trade also directly supports tens of thousands of Moroccans in the surrounding areas.
Men who work in the Spanish warehouses strap a bundle onto the back of a porteadora, so she can carry it to markets in Morocco. Credit: Maggy Donaldson. Published with PRI's permission
Aicha Al Azzouzi has been coming to the border to work on and off for 20 years. Along with hundreds of other Moroccan women, she crosses into the Spanish city as early as possible to secure a spot in line. Many women actually arrive the night before, and sleep in the road outside the warehouses on pieces of cardboard. Al Azzouzi says that more and more women have been coming to work at the border, escalating the competition between them.
Ceuta is one of two Spanish enclaves on the African continent that share land borders with Morocco. Credit: Maggy Donaldson. Published with PRI's permission
Spanish border guards oversee the women’s work. Both parties share at least one concern: holding an orderly line. When commotion breaks out among the women, the guards intervene. Many women, including Al Azzouzi, point to places on their bodies where guards have hit them.
“It’s humiliating; they are treated like mules,” says Mohamad Chtatou, who researches women and economic development in Morocco’s capital, Rabat. “They are not humans. They are used for their muscles.”
Women who make it to the front of the line strap huge bundles wrapped in plastic, weighing anywhere from 100-200 pounds, across their shoulders. Bent over at their waists, they hobble through a narrow chain-link fence, often carrying additional packages in their arms. It’s a half-mile walk through the border crossing to the Moroccan side.
Women wait with their loads to cross the border. Credit: Maggy Donaldson. Published with PRI's permission
The Spanish border guards close the gates at some point in the early afternoon, at their discretion. Many women leave having earned no money. Or, as Al Azzouzi puts it, “a morsel of bread.”
On days when she comes home empty-handed, she says she kisses the walls of her apartment, which she owns. Al Azzouzi lives with her four children, two of them still in primary school, in the seaside town of Mdiq, a half-hour shared cab ride from the border.
Aicha Al Azzouzi with her four children in their home in northern Morocco. Credit: Maggy Donaldson. Published with PRI's permission
Her youngest children have to study at their aunt’s house because Al Azzouzi has not been able to pay her utility bills. They have not had water or electricity in four months.
She’s considered sleeping outside the gate to ensure that she’ll get work, but her youngest son, Ilias, begs her not to go.
“Sometimes I come back, and I am crying, and I say to them, ‘Tomorrow I will sleep in Ceuta,’” she said. But she’s never done it, in part because of Ilias. “My son cries, and says, ‘No Mama, stay here with me.’”
Al Azzouzi hopes her daughter Salma can avoid ever working at the Spanish-Moroccan border. Credit: Maggy Donaldson. Published with PRI's permission
At 21, Al Azzouzi’s oldest daughter, Salma, says she’s also looking for work. She did well in school, but can’t afford to finish college.
A technical college nearby allowed her to enroll, for a nominal fee, in a course for operating machinery like forklifts. She’s applied for jobs at the nearby Moroccan port, where such skills are needed, but they told her they don’t hire women.
Salma has been to Ceuta just once, to see where her mother works. She’s determined never to return.
But the next day, Al Azzouzi will return to the border, as she’s been doing for nearly half her life. She has to, she says, to earn a morsel of bread.
Reporting for this article was supported in part by a grant from the global and joint studies program at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University.


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#IFellAsleepToo: Sleeping Latin American Doctors Go Viral · Global Voices
Global Voices Latin America

#YoTambienMeDormi Atte:@kellypeto pic.twitter.com/00hXx8iJBe
— Iván Hernández (@DrIvanHdez) Mayo 12, 2015
I Fell Asleep Too. Sincerely: @kellypeto
It's a trending topic under the hashtag  #YoTambienMeDormi (#IFellAsleepToo). In one week, there have been 17,500 comments on Twitter. The stories of tens of thousands of doctors in Mexico and Latin America who are sharing pictures of them sleeping during their long hospital shifts have gone viral.
It all started when a blogger criticized a physician whose photo showed him sleeping, according to the BBC. “We know this work is tiring, but they have the duty to fulfill their responsibilities while there are dozens of sick people who need their attention at any moment,” Noti-blog site reports, showing the photo of a medical resident at General Hospital 33 in Monterrey, México, who fell asleep at 3 am while filling out the records of that night's patient number 18.
#YoTambienMeDormi porque no somos maquinas somos seres humanos como los demás
—  Sabiel Ramirez (@SabielRamirez) Mayo 9, 2015
I Fell Asleep Too, because we are not machines but human beings like everyone else
In addition to showing solidarity, the spontaneous campaign has also been a way to put a face to the sacrifices people in the profession must make, including long meal-less, sleepless shifts, for which they are not always financially compensated nor provided with the necessary basics to perform the job.


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Rohingya Boat Refugees Rejected by Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia · Global Voices
Zashnain Zainal

Non-recognition of Rohingya community from Myanmar government. Artwork by AK Rockefeller
Thousands of Rohingya boat refugees from Myanmar have sought asylum in nearby countries in Southeast Asia but those countries have all told them to seek help elsewhere.
The Myanmar government has refused to recognize the Rohingya as an ethnic group and treats them as illegal immigrants. Most Rohingyas are Muslims living near the borders of Myanmar and Bangladesh.
Escaping persecution by the military-dominated government, many Rohingyas have crossed borders to seek shelter and work in Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Some have been victimized by human trafficking groups.
Prior to the current ‘boat crisis’, a mass grave was discovered in Thailand which is suspected to be a ‘death camp’ for Rohingya illegal settlers in the country. More than 30 dead bodies were retrieved from the jungle grave early this month, which the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has blamed on ruthless smugglers.
Last week, there were reports that boats carrying Rohingya refugees were apprehended by coastal patrols of Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia. But instead of rescuing the refugees, the coastal authorities ordered the boats back to sea.
In Thailand, a helicopter dropped supplies into the sea instead of delivering them directly to the refugees. Later, the boat carrying about 300 Rohingya was turned away. Major General Sansern Kaewkamnerd, a spokesman of the military-backed government of Thailand, said the boat was sent back to the sea after its engine was fixed and after water and food were given to the refugees.
He defended the government's decision to reject the refugees:
Under Thai law, all illegal migrants must be repatriated or sent to a third country. They cannot settle here. We've done our best based on humanitarian principles. If we are to be criticised for this, we'd like to ask our critics to ask themselves what they would do if this happened in their own countries.
Meanwhile, the government of Malaysia has denied that it failed to provide humanitarian aid to the Rohingya despite its poor record of providing protection to refugees.
Mr. Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar, who is the Deputy Home Minister, said authorities have treated the Rohingya humanely despite their illegal entry in Malaysia. He added that the refugees and migrants should not be entering the country:
We have to send the right message, that they are not welcome here.
Nearby Indonesia has admitted to pushing back a refugee-packed boat earlier this month and re-directing it towards Malaysia, according to Human Rights Watch.
Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, criticized Myanmar for the persecution of the ostracized Rohingya and deplored the governments of Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia for refusing to give assistance to the boat refugees:
Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia have made things much worse with cold-hearted policies to push back this new wave of ‘boat people’ that puts thousands of lives at risk.
The UNHCR has expressed similar concerns. Volker Türk, the organisation's Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, explains that sea crossings are a symptom of desperation as people are left with no other choice but to risk their lives:
The first priority is to save lives. Instead of competing to avoid responsibility, it is key for States to share the responsibility to disembark these people immediately.
Charles Santiago, who is a Member of Parliament in Malaysia, condemned the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in a Facebook statement for its failure to take collective action to address the issue:
ASEAN is already lagging behind- the heads of states should have ironed out the thorny issue of the mass exodus of the Rohingya, which escalated further in June 2012 following state-sponsored violence, at the recently-concluded ASEAN summit. They failed to discuss about this crucial issue as it would entail looking at Burma's gross human rights violations against the Rohingya.
On Facebook, a pro-Rohingya group  lashed out against the “racial prejudice” of Malaysian officials:
Racial prejudice plays a part in Malaysia's decision to not allow marginalized Rohingya refugees into the country for protection, food, water and sanctuary. Maybe some aspects of our society prefer that Rohingya return to Bangladesh and Myanmar to face the genocide, persecution.
Many Twitter users from around the world shared the same sentiment about the unjust victimization of the Rohingya:
#Rohingya is a world problem. The world must be solve this problem together and they can land at any country.
— Liberal Democracy (@ThaiFarmer_Son) May 15, 2015
To those tt say not refugees,just want to go to Malaysia,look at these children begging for food #Rohingya pic.twitter.com/dKKvGrxkLd — Adrian Ng (@AdrianNCF) May 15, 2015
Some are angry that regional leaders are not confronting the government of Myanmar:
Every gov saying #Rohingya not our problem, can't let them in there's thousands more where they came from. But no one confronts #Burma gov.
— Jamila Hanan (@JamilaHanan) May 14, 2015
Save #Rohingya by Weadee Patani #humantrafficking http://t.co/o9vab6nA7h pic.twitter.com/0MX0oKOn9o — ♥ Moui ♥ (@moui) May 13, 2015
Action on #Rohingya is a real test of character for #ASEAN. Are we compassionate or heartless nations? https://t.co/J9YsbtqgYB
— แก้วมาลา Kaewmala (@Thai_Talk) May 14, 2015
As public outrage spreads over neglect of the rights of the Rohingya minority, it is hoped the international community will urge regional leaders to confront the government of Myanmar and end the abuse suffered by the ‘forgotten’ citizens of Southeast Asia.

author: Zashnain Zainal


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The Poetical Is Political as Tajik Wordsmith Declares ‘Death to Afghanistan’ · Global Voices
Abdulfattoh Shafiev

The Tajik-Afghan border. Photo courtesy of Caravanistan.
“Марги Фархундаи ноком ба ман мегӯяд,
Ки ба ҳар як дару девор нависам ба зуғол:
Марг ба Афғонистон!
Сангдевори занон!!
Маҳбаси зан!!!
Агар ин аст мусалмонии Афғонистон,
Ҳама он бомба, ки янки ба сараш рехт кам аст,
Кам аст.”
The death of ill-fated Farkhunda forces me
To write at each door and wall with charcoal:
Death to Afghanistan! Prison of women!
If this is Islam in Afghanistan
All those bombs shelled by the Yankees on its head
Still are not enough.
Thus runs the latest poetic offering penned by Bozor Sobir, one of former communist Tajikistan's most famous lyricists and certainly its most inconstant.
Sobir's condemnation of an entire country has earned him heat from the Afghan ambassador to Tajikistan as well as scorn on social media where several Tajiks — known for their love of poetry — have offered responses in verse.
Bozor Sobir at Nowruz celebrations in Khujand city, Tajikistan, March 2015. Picture from the poet's Facebook account.
But at 77, Sobir is unlikely to give a damn what anyone thinks.
The cantankerous old poet  bucked the Soviet literary trend by conspicuously failing to write lines in support of Lenin, Communism, Russia, or the Soviet Union, a trait that made it difficult for him to get a job for a long time.
His poem about the Tajik language, written on the eve of independence, became an anthem for Tajik nationalists of the time, while there are few grown-up schoolchildren from the 1990s that cannot recite it by heart.
Yet having fallen foul of the country's perma-strongman President Emomali Rahmon during the civil war (1992-7) Sobir fled to Iran, Russia and the United States, damning each with vicious verse as he went.
After that he returned to Tajikistan, heaped praise on Rahmon and earned himself a free flat in the capital Dushanbe in the process. These days, if anything, his poetry has a mostly pro-Moscow hue.
It was the barbaric murder of Farkhunda, a mentally ill woman beaten to death and incinerated for allegedly burning a copy of the Koran in Kabul, that Sobir says drew him to write the poem. But while Farkhunda's lynching was widely and thoroughly condemned across the world — including in Afghanistan — many have taken the view that Sobir's poem is nothing more than a cheap provocation.
The Afghan ambassador to Tajikistan, who gave an interview to a local news agency Ozodagon, is among those.
Dr. Abdulghafur Orzu, a poet himself, attacked Sobir’s poem as a “political slogan”.
Noting the shared ethnic, linguistic, religious, and historical heritage between the two countries separated by a river, Orzu said:
Ман бовар дорам, ҳар касе ба Афғонистон марг мегӯяд, ҳаргиз ишқ ба Тоҷикистон надорад. Агар муҳаббат ба Тоҷикистон медошт, муҳаббат ба фарҳанги ниёгон медошт, дар ин шеър ба фарҳанги ниёгон тавҳин намекард.
I do believe, that whoever wishes death to Afghanistan, cannot have any love for Tajikistan. If he loved Tajikistan, loved the culture of his ancestors, he would not humiliate their culture in this poem. Doesn’t Mr Bozor Sobir know how many dear Tajik citizens are being killed in Russia each year? To this day I have not seen that Bozor Sobir raised his voice about the murder of Tajik youth in Moscow.
When Ozodagon phoned the Tajik poet for his response, he blasted:
“Дурӯғ, дурӯғ, дурӯғ. Ман дар ин бора чандин бор навиштагиям. Нахондаанд. Ҳатто ҳамин хел навиштам, ки ин кори саҳюнистҳо аст. Ҳамин кушторҳое, ки шумо гумон мекунед, миллатгароҳои рус мекушанд, не. Инҳоро созмонҳои саҳюнистӣ мекушанд.”
Lie, lie, lie. I wrote about it repeatedly. He did not read them. I even wrote that Zionists are to be blamed for these murders. [Tajik migrants] were killed not by the Russian nationalists, but by Zionist organisations.
Afghan cartoonist reacts to the burning of a mentally ill woman to in Kabul by an angry mob.
The poet, whose country is heavily dependent on money earned by migrants in Russia, also refused accusations of anti-Afghan nationalism, noting he believes the murder was committed by his fellow Tajiks, which make up Afghanistan's second-largest ethnic group.
But this did not rescue him from online ire.
Rising religious star Abdulloh Mukammilov, the moderator of the most active Tajik group on Facebook, Tarbiyaye imoni, sent a lyrical retort:
“Магар ғайр аз мусалмон номусалмон нест дар олам?!
Магар ҷуз кишвари Афғон пурафғон нест дар олам?!
Магар мазлумкушон танҳо мусалмонанд?!
Магар бадбахтии инсониятро муҷрим эшонанд?!
Магар ҳеҷ кишваре қотил надорад?!
Магар ҳеҷ мамлакат ҷоҳил надорад?!
Aren't there any bad persons except Muslims in the world?
Isn't there another sad country except Afghanistan in this world?
Do only Muslims kill people or should they bear the burden for humanity's misfortune?
No other country has murderers? No other country has ignorants?
While Darius Rajabian, a well-known Tajik journalist, ripped:
“Чи тафовуте миёни худ ва он муллои тангназар мебинад, ки дастури қатли Фархундаро дода буд? Он мулло фарёд зада буд: “Марг бар Фархунда!” ва Бозор Собир мегӯяд: “Марг бар Афғонистон!” (Ҳамон Афғонистоне, ки Кремлини мавриди парастиши Бозор Собир ба чунин ҳоле афканд.)”
What difference does he see between himself and that ignorant mullah who ordered the killing of Farkhunda? That mullah screamed: “Death to Farkhunda!” and Bozor Sobir screams: “Death to Afghanistan!” That Afghanistan, which came to this condition because of the Kremlin [a reference to the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan in 1979], the same Kremlin that is now being praised by Bozor Sobir.

author: Abdulfattoh Shafiev


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Join the Gathering to Connect Indigenous Language Digital Activists in Colombia · Global Voices
Rising Voices

Photo of Plaza Bolívar en Bogota, Colombia by Daniele Pieroni and used under a CC BY-SA 2.0 license.
Colombia is linguistically diverse with more than 60 indigenous languages spoken by approximately 1 million people across the country. These living languages contain rich cultural traditions and knowledge passed down from generation to generation. Many indigenous communities face unique challenges as they seek to ensure that the next generation maintains their native languages. However, the rise of technology and the Internet has provided a special opportunity for communities to create new digital content in their native language, while connecting with others that share their same objective of language revitalization.
Internet users in Colombia actively utilizing the web and digital media tools to promote and revitalize their native languages online will have the opportunity to gather in Bogotá for a Gathering of Indigenous Language Digital Activism on June 18-19, 2015. This event, which is co-organized by Global Voices through its Rising Voices initiative, the Caro and Cuervo Institute, alongside research group Muysccubun with the support of Hivos, will bring together 15-18 participants from across Colombia to share experiences, learn and teach new digital skills, and take part in conversations about the challenges and strategies for indigenous language revitalization through the use of the Internet.
This event continues the work of the Indigenous Language Digital Activism network that started with a similar event held in Oaxaca, Mexico, in October 2014, when 25 digital activists from across Mexico came together to share their digital projects and connect with one another.
Please visit the open call for participants for more information about the event. Interested individuals can submit their applications using the online form. The deadline to apply is Wednesday, May 27, 2015 at 21:00 Colombian time. Partial and full scholarships are available to help pay for travel and accommodation costs for participants that live outside of the Bogota metro area.

author: Rising Voices


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Atena Farghadani Goes on Trial Tomorrow in Iran for Her Cartoon About Access to Contraception · Global Voices
Mahsa Alimardani

Atena Farghadani stands trial on Tuesday, May 19 for charges that include insulting members of parliament and spreading propaganda against the system. Image taken from the ‘Free Atena’ Facebook page.
Activist and artist Atena Farghadani is scheduled to stand trial on Tuesday, May 19 for a cartoon that criticized the Iranian government. The 28-year-old faces charges of spreading propaganda against the system; insulting members of parliament through paintings; and insulting the supreme leader.
The image that led to her arrest depicts Iran's members of parliament as animals voting on law that will restrict access to contraception and criminalise voluntary sterilisation, severely curtailing women's rights.
Her initial arrest came in August 2014, when she was held in solitary confinement for prolonged periods of time in Evin prison. She was released in December, but was detained again after publicly discussing her mistreatment by the prison guards.
Athena's cartoon depicting members of the Iranian parliament as animals voting on the prohibition of voluntary permanent contraception, or vasectomies. Image taken from ‘Free Atena’ Facebook page.
Three weeks after her second confinement, Atena went on a hunger strike to protest the poor prison conditions, which her lawyer told Amnesty International resulted in her heart attack and brief loss of consciousness in February. Amnesty International has reported Atena has since been moved to another detention centre and stopped her hunger strike, but advocates remain concerned about her health.
Amnesty International is leading a call to action here, while the hashtag #freeAtena is being used to raise support and awareness on social media.

author: Mahsa Alimardani


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For Venezuelans, Job Opportunities Lie Just Over the Border in Brazil · Global Voices
Morelia Morillo

On the border with Brazil. Photo from Flickr account barloventomagico. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
This post was originally published on the blog Las Crónicas de la Frontera.
Vicner, Raquel and Eva never thought that they would end up working abroad to make a living. But as the opportunity arose, they made their calculations and headed for the other side of the border to work and make money in Brazilian reais.
At the moment of writing this post, the currency exchange rate in the market was 55 Venezuelan bolivars for 1 real, even if the official exchange rate is 2.19 bolivars for 1 real.
This does not mean that Vicner, Raquel and Eva are emigrants. None of the them live in Brazil. They work, eat and sleep there until they are paid, when they return to Santa Elena de Uairen in Venezuela, to exchange the money and use it to pay for whatever they and their families need to buy.
Vicner, separated from her husband and with two daughters, was looking for work at the beginning of the year, when a friend came to her house to ask if she wanted to work in a restaurant in Villa Pacaraima, on the Brazilian side of the border. She works a stone's throw away the village’s main shopping street.
Pacaraima, also known as BV8 or La Línea (The Border), is the closest Brazilian town to Venezuela, home to 5,000 people, most of them government employees, farmers or traders.
BV8 flourished between 1990 and 2005, while the currency exchange favored Venezuelans, who bought products like Brazilian sausage, beauty products, hammocks, hats, Havaianas sandals and T-shirts with the colors of the Brazilian flag. In those days, it was Brazilians who would come from Boa Vista and other places in the Roraima state to work in Santa Elena on the Venezuelan side of the border.
Vicner has a higher technical university degree in industrial hygiene and safety. But she has never pursued her profession. Her friends at university who managed to get a job are paid about 8,000 to 9,000 bolivars per month (the equivalent of about two US dollars). Once, she worked in a pharmacy as a saleswoman, making minimum wage. She was a full-time mother and housewife.
This afternoon, as she has been doing for the last month and a half, she will start working at five. With her hair tied up and a chef's hat on her head, she will wash her hands and prepare to serve about 25 dinners.
Although her mother has a restaurant, when she got married she did not know how to fry an egg. Now, she makes burgers and homemade food, rice and beans, meat, pasta and salad. She has learned how to cook without using too much seasoning. She says that Brazilians like their food plain.
Around 10 p.m., she will tidy up, clean and leave the business ready for the next day. She will finish by 11.
She works throughout the week, and she doesn't know when her day off is going to be yet. She worked for the last month and a half every day, without a single day off. She makes 700 reais (about 235 US dollars) plus room and board.
Tomorrow morning she is planning on going to Santa Elena, 15 kilometers away, to spend some time with her daughters and cook for them. Both of them, 5 and 11 years old, are living with their grandmother because in Pacaraima it is increasingly difficult to get a place in school for Venezuelans. It used to be easier — there are around 200 Venezuelan children studying in BV8 — but now those who want an enrollment have to place their names on a waiting list and manage to get a student visa. Vicner will probably be able to enroll them in 2016.
“I heard that some Venezuelans complain of mistreatment, but I did not had any problems (…) I'm happy here, I love what I do and I like the atmosphere. I love the weather, people are nice and the salary is not bad.” They make the equivalent of 40,000 bolivars with no expenses.
In those six weeks, she has met four other Venezuelans in similar circumstances: a girl who works in a lingerie store, who makes 500 reais (around 170 dollars) per month and works part-time; a man who works in supermarket cashier and makes 1,000 reais (around 340 dollars) working full-time, plus a woman that works in a beauty salon. “The boy told me that he came from Valencia (a city in the north of Venezuela) because of the lack of security and also because he was unemployed.”
As of January 1, 2015, the Brazilian minimum wage is 788 reais (about 330 dollars). A person must be paid at least 27.27 reais for a day work, or 3.58 per hour.
Venezuela implemented rigorous and complex regulations on currency exchange in 2003. Currently, it has four different exchange rates, three of them regulated by the state, and the fourth is the free dollar exchange rate.
Raquel and Eva alternate caring for an elderly lady in Boa Vista, the capital of the Brazilian state of Roraima, which is a city of about 350,000 people, located 220 kilometers from Santa Elena.
Right now, Eva is working and Rachel is back in Santa Elena.
Today, Eva will rise around 6 a.m., help the woman get out of bed and wash up, then she will prepare coffee with milk and bread for breakfast. They will spend the morning together. Eva will probably tidy up the house; make lunch, cooking fish from the river, chicken or steak, rice, salad and fruit juice; then they both will take a nap; afterword they will get up and pass the time talking; Eva will make dinner, cooking perhaps some vegetable soup, and finally she will help the woman go to bed.
“En Boa Vista me siento muy bien, no tengo necesidad de pagar comida ni habitación y por la situación que tenemos aquí, en Venezuela, que el dinero no da, esto me sirve. Yo allá no gasto nada. La señora hasta me paga el pasaje y en diciembre me regaló ropa para estrenar”, contó Raquel.
“I feel good in Boa Vista, I do not need to pay for room and board. And with the difficult situation we have in Venezuela, where one cannot make end meets, it suits me to work here. I do not spend any money while working in Brazil. My boss, she even pays for my commuting expenses, and in December she gave me brand new clothes to wear,” said Rachel.
Rachel makes 1,000 reais (around 350 dollars) a month, although she has heard that a Brazilian woman asks for around 50 reais ( around 18 dollars) a day to work from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
The second time she traveled on public transportation from Pacaraima to Boa Vista, she met a girl from Maracay, in the Venezuelan state of Aragua, which is located approximately 1,500 kilometers from the border. The girl said that she had an uncle working in the Santa Elena airport and that he put her in touch with the owner of a food kiosk in Boa Vista. She makes 700 reais (250 dollars) per month.
Soto, a professional musician, travels to Boa Vista each time a nightclub hires him. They pay him for the gig, food, board and transportation. In one night he can make between 200 to 300 reais (80 to 100 dollars). People tease him y saying that with this amount of money, a person may live for two weeks in Venezuela.
“En el por puesto, ya he conocido a varios obreros calificados, soldadores, albañiles, que están trabajando allá. Van durante el tiempo que dure el contrato y regresan”, dice.
“I have met many skilled workers, welders, bricklayers, who are working there. They cross the border for the duration of the contract and come back,” he says.
At its headquarters in Pacaraima, the Brazilian Federal Police areusually rigorous when checking the entry of foreigners. Usually, they grant residence permits for 30 days, which don't include the right to work. Those who leave the country after the visa has expired must pay a fine — in Brazilian reais.

author: Morelia Morillo


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Global Voices Checkdesk Tracking Reactions to Morsi’s Trial · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Faten Bushehri tracks reactions to the trial of former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi, who was sentenced to death on May 16, on Global Voices Checkdesk, a project in partnership with Meedan's Checkdesk to verify news.
Morsi is being charged with collaborating with foreign militants to free Islamists during a prison break from the Wadi Natroun prison amid the Egyptian revolution in January 2011. Among his 105 co-defendants were some 70 Palestinians, accused of being members of Hamas, who were charged and tried in absentia. And among the Palestinians sentenced to death, Hassan Salameh has been in an Israeli prison since 1994, and Raed Attar is already dead.
Morsi was the president of Egypt for one year after the revolution, which overthrew Hosni Mubarak early 2011, who ruled Egypt for more than 30 years. Morsi's reign was cut short in July 2013, following massive protests calling for his ouster. Then, the Egyptian Army took command, under the leadership of Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian Armed Forces and Minister of Defence General Abdul Fattah El Sisi, who is now Egypt's president.
The next hearing is set for June 2.
Follow the link to add more stories and help verify them. Please contact me if you are interested in joining the team.


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HIV/AIDS Corruption Is a Business for Central Asian Bureaucrats · Global Voices
Censored Voice

For greedy politicians in the two poorest states of Central Asia, foreign aid is the gift that keeps on giving.
The logo for the The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Licensed to reuse.
Not for the first time, funds from The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, which helps provide impoverished countries with essential drugs to treat critical diseases, have been squandered by graft prone state agencies in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
On May 15, Vesti.KG reported that the Global Fund demanded Kyrgyzstan compensate it for a loss of over $120,000. The Global Fund believes it has proof of theft of grants by various Kyrgyz state officials. A similar story — only with slightly larger sums of theft — was reported in neighbouring Tajikistan two months ago and is still being poured over by local media.
A complicated arrangement
The Tajik scandal emerged after the Washington-funded Office of Inspector General (OIG), working at the request of the Global Fund, found forgery in the financial reporting of the Committee for Youth, Sports and Tourism of Tajikistan. The Global Fund promptly blacklisted the committee, barring it from receiving further funds.
OIG auditors reported that the Global Fund had allocated assistance amounting to $300,000 to the Tajik Youth Committee via the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and identified incidents of document falsification worth $116,726 in the Committee's financial reporting.
Ultimately the American auditors proved that the Committee — in collaboration with a shady private company called Komyob — had accounted for purchases of non-health products such as MP3 and DVD-players, notebooks, pens and health insurance packages with prices inflated by an average of 118% when compared to the market value of the products.
In April, after the scandal had broken, Nusratullo Salimzoda, Tajik Minister of Health, blasted donors for not notifying the government about the arrival of foreign auditors in Tajikistan.
‘Rob the state, buy a position, rob some more’
The saga raised a lot of concerns among readers of Tajikistan's Asia-Plus news agency. Most commenters condemned the Youth Committee for stealing the money that was supposed to tackle rising threats to public health.
A reader of Asia-Plus, Slujebniy, wrote:
…какой-то белый ВОРотничок госучреждения сейчас покупает очередной авто лексус…
…а тем временем вирусы-палочки туберкулеза путешествуют по голодающим и очень слабым организмом таджика…
…американец поймал вора…
…русские написали об этом…
…таджики в шоке…
Some white-collar state official is buying another Lexus, while the tuberculosis bacillus virus travels through the hungry and very weak body of a Tajik.
… An American caught the thief …
… Russians wrote about it …
… Tajiks are in shock …
Komgum, another reader, criticised corrupt officials for their irresponsibility:
Лозунг чиновника: Грабы государство, купи кресло и больше грабы. Такие махинации в стране сплошь и рядом. А по этой стати хочу сказать, эй чиновники а если в друг сами заблеете ВИЧ/СПИДом (не дай Бог конечно)- подумайте.
Slogan of a state official: Rob the state, buy a position and [use it to] rob some more. Such spivvery is everywhere in the country. Concerning the article, I want to say: hey officials, what if you get ill with HIV / AIDS (God forbid, of course) — think about it.
Given that Kyrgyzstan places 136th in Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index and Tajikistan 152nd, it is no surprise that in Kyrgyzstan's case at least, audits ordered by the Global Fund have identified irregularities before.
This time, in response to the news that the Fund is demanding money back, a reader of a Kyrgyz news website simply replied: “Too late. It has been eaten already.”
The Fund keeps a record of all the audits it has contracted to OIG dating back to 2007 on its website. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have also been the subject of critical audits in the past.
‘The fish rots from the head’
Pardahol, a commenter on Tajikistan's Asia-Plus website, believes that all state agencies working with international donors engage in fraudulent activities.
She argued:
С уверенностью могу сказать что все проекты при центрах управления проектами (ЦУП или ЦКП) финансируемые международными институтами коррумпированы. Не верите? Проверьте любого директора ЦКП или ЦУП у него вы найдете минимум два дома и несколько дорогих машин. Директора местных центров, комитетов управления назначаются только мэром или президентом.
I am confident that all of the projects financed by international institutions through the Project Management Centers (PMC) are corrupt. Do you not believe me? Check up on any PMC director and you will find at least two houses and several expensive cars. Directors of local management centers and committees are appointed by the mayor [of the capital Dushanbe] or the president.
A reader, who called himself TJK, mentioned that corruption starts from the top:
Представляю если в министерстве спорта приписали такую сумму, то что происходить в мин.фин и других министерств непосредственно работающие с грантами и инвестициями. Вся система коррумпирована, начиная от правительство. Рыба гниет с головы.
If the [Youth Committee] milked so much money, then imagine what happens at the Ministry of Finance and other ministries directly working with grants and investments. The whole system is corrupt, starting with the government. The fish rots from the head.
Finally, Salom, an Asia-Plus reader, criticized officials for blaming the auditors who published the fraudulent activities of the Youth Committee.
He wrote:
Вместо того чтобы просить прощение Министр провел контр атаку и обвинил аудиторов. Аудиторы должны были предупредить Министра чтобы у комитета было время все наладить, ох как глупа
Instead of apologizing, the Minister [of Health] counterattacked and accused the auditors. Apparently the auditors should warn the Minister [about their audits] so that the Committee has time to cover everything up. Oh, how stupid!
In total, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria has provided Tajikistan with $140 million and Kyrgyzstan with $91 million since independence. The fund claims that 3,000 aids sufferers are currently benefiting from donor-funded anti-retroviral medicine in the two countries.

author: Censored Voice


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Iran’s Evin Prison to Become a Park · Global Voices
Center for Human Rights in Iran

Cartoonist Touka Neyestani’s take on the news. Image produced for ICHRI, and used with permission.
This post first appeared on iranhumanrights.org and is published here in collaboration with the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.
Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said last week that the Tehran Municipality is prepared to enter negotiations with the Iranian Judiciary to convert the Evin Prison complex in northwestern Tehran into a public park.
For decades, the notorious Evin Prison has been one of the primary facilities where Iranian political prisoners have been detained, interrogated, tortured, and executed. Some of the worst testimonies about torture and forced confessions at Evin are related to at least three separate wards Iran’s Intelligence Ministry and the IRGC operate within the complex, unmonitored by the Iranian Judiciary.

author: Center for Human Rights in Iran


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ISIS Fighters Capture Ramadi in Iraq · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Ramadi, the capital of Iraq's Al Anbar province, has been captured by ISIS fighters. Joey Ayoub is putting the story together, tracking citizen journalists reports, news and testimonies, on Global Voices Checkdesk, a partnership project between Global Voices and Meedan's Checkdesk.
The city, in central Iraq, is about 110 kilometres west of Baghdad and 50 kilometres west of Fallujah. Hundreds of people have reportedly been killed, and thousands forced to flee their homes.
ISIS, an Al Qaeda off-shoot, has come to control larges swathes of land in Iraq and Syria, attracting news headlines for the horror it has waged against civilians in areas they have occupied.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, UN Assistance Mission for Iraq:
UN agencies are rushing humanitarian assistance to people fleeing Ramadi for the second time in a month.
Close to 25,000 people have fled Ramadi following ISIL attacks and fierce fighting in the city. Most of the displaced are fleeing towards Baghdad, with many trying to enter through security checkpoints.
The report adds:
Within the past month, UN agencies and non-governmental organisations have provided life- assistance to more than 130,000 people who fled Ramadi following ISIL attacks in April. Tens of thousands of kits and rations have been distributed to more than 35 locations across Anbar Governorate. Thousands of families who had fled earlier had returned to their homes in Ramadi, when fighting again broke out, forcing them to flee a second time.
In July, the food pipeline will break. “Nothing is more important right now than helping the people fleeing Ramadi. They are in trouble and we need to do everything possible to help them.” Lise Grande, the UN's Humanitarian Coordinator said. “Thousands of people had to sleep in the open because they didn't have places to stay. We would be able to do much more if we had the funding.”


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‘Lipstick Protester’ Jasmina Golubovska: Macedonians Want to ‘Start from Scratch’ · Global Voices
Danica Radisic

The image of protester Jasmina Golubovska taken by Reuters photographer Ognen Teofilovski quickly went viral on the Internet and remains one of the symbols of the on-going anti-government protests in Macedonia.
Mass protests erupted in Macedonia's capital on May 5, 2015, after opposition leaders released damning audio recordings of conversations between the country's top officials. In them, Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and Minister of Interior Gordana Jankuloska appeared to be discussing ways of covering up the death of a 22-year-old man, who had died as a result of injuries in an altercation with police in 2011. The officer involved was later convicted, the ruling showing evidence of excessive force.
In response, 5,000 people took to the streets of the capital Skopje. Five hours into a demonstration many eyewitnesses and international reports have described as peaceful, police cracked down, bringing out water cannons into the streets as warning and using excessive force and batons to disperse it.
As mass gatherings demanding the resignation and prosecution of several government officials involved in the Martin Neshkovski case continued throughout the country, images of the protests began making rounds on the Internet and international news. Some images stood out more than others.
On that first day of protests, a police cordon was guarding the main government building in downtown Skopje. As hundreds of people poured past, a Reuters photographer stood perched on a step next to the building for a better view of the crowd. Below him, a young woman approached the police cordon, and as the crowd of protesters shouted around her, she reapplied her red lipstick using one of the riot police officer's shields to view her reflection. As the photographer pointed his camera at her and snapped away, she left a bright red kiss print on the officer's shield.
This woman is everything pic.twitter.com/XKySELebVT
— Molly Crabapple (@mollycrabapple) Mayo 6, 2015
Her name is Jasmina Golubovska and the image of her reapplying her lipstick in the midst of an anti-government protest has wrapped itself around the globe several times over, getting play on viral websites such as Daily Dot and BuzzFeed as well as major international news outlets. To some she is a “badass”, to others “an icon” of the protests in Macedonia.
But Golubovska was not just a random woman touching up her makeup on the front lines of civic resistance: she is a rights activist and a representative of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Macedonia.
Along with others, Golubovska has been vigorously lobbying for amendments to some of Macedonia's more dubious legislation and speaking out publicly against human rights violations in the country for years.
Global Voices reached out to Golubovska and spoke to her about the history and future of ongoing protests in one of Europe's most impoverished countries:
Global Voices (GV): We know that the final trigger for the current mass protests were the leaked conversations between Prime Minister Gruevski and Interior Minister Jankuloska related to the 2011 death of 22-year-old Neshkovski. But taking a long-term view, what do you feel led to these protests demanding the current government's resignation? And do you believe that in leaking the audio recordings the opposition is attempting to create “public unrest”, as Prime Minister Gruevski claims?
Jasmina Golubovska (JG): There are more than a few reasons the revolt has spilled onto the streets which the so-called government and ruling parties did not take into consideration since they were too busy with their need for profit and establishment of full control over society.
First, the aggressive propaganda over the nine years of [Gruevski's] rule to divide civil society by labeling, creating mistrust among citizens, and forcing the idea of internal and external threats to the security of the nation has failed and backfired. Overwhelming exposure to nationalistic and religious propaganda through editorial control over national media, [intended to] present the executive branch as devoted patriots did not correspond with the real life of the citizens.
Second, the parties in power leaned too much on commercialization and marketing of their ideals and presented their “successes” as grandiose and perfect, while poverty took its toll on the citizens.
Third, aggressive tax policies that gradually increased obligation while limiting [citizen's] rights to social and health security, enormous fines, and penalties not corresponding with the living standard of people working for minimum wage. Nine percent of the population lives under the poverty line at two dollars per day, which increased the revolt of citizens.
Finally, open oppression and attempts to establish full control over society by reforming the educational system, especially attempting to override the autonomy of the State University was the final drop. In January of this year, students renounced the autonomy of the University, challenging the Ministry of Education and Science to back off the idea to examine the knowledge of students and diminish the role of the professors. The same ministry also applied its authority to elementary and middle schools which backfired with protests and boycotting of the new testing in high schools throughout the country.
As we speak, the kids are in tents in front of the Ministry's building. There were many issues throughout these nine years worth mentioning, so I will reflect on just a few non-formal movements: Prva Arhi Brigade and Ploshtad Sloboda in 2009, Stop Police Brutality following the Martin Neshkovski incident in 2011, Sloboden Index [protesting new university-related legislature] in 2009, Aman [protesting new utility price hikes] in 2013 and 2014, Parkobrani [to save the city parks from government construction projects] in 2013, eco-movements in many cities demanding clear air and improvement of ecological standards, women-driven movements against misogyny, the rise of workers’ rights movements, independent syndicates creating a social front, the case of little Tamara Dimovska who died due to limited [public] access to the state health insurance fund, people falling victim to police brutality, cases of torture in closed institutions, lack of transparent court proceedings, crime rates increased by up to 50% despite huge investments in the Ministry for Interior, lack of respect for voters rights in the election process, and so on.
These and many other events are the reason for the unrest, while the wiretapped conversations just confirmed our suspicions in regards to the ruling parties.
GV: Let's go straight to the question everyone has been asking upon seeing the viral image of you reapplying your lipstick in the police officer's shield during the protests — whatever possessed you to do that? Was it planned ahead of time or did it just come to you? Did you exchange any words with the officer?
JG: As we stood there, face to face for around two hours before we were dispersed on the streets, all of us tried to appeal to them to drop their shields and join us by disobeying their orders due to the fact that their obligation is to protect citizens. In other words, citing the Constitution as the highest legal act and the contract between the state and the people. We will continue to ask police to join us and not to forget that when they go home [after the protests], they are also civilians with families and a life that matters.
The red color is not an accident. It represents the people's struggle in poverty and a lack of workers’ rights. It just so happened at that moment that I had red lipstick in my bag, while the idea came up in conversation with a friend of mine, Biljana Ginova. I tried to draw a heart, but the police officer was reluctant, so he got a kiss instead, in remembrance of the lost lives of victims to the regime, including Martin Neshkovski's.
Standing in the frontlines of the protest on May 5, 2014, Golubovska's friend captured the red kiss left on the police officer's shield. Photo by Kire Vasilev, courtesy of Jasmina Golubovska, used with permission.
GV: Protests often look very different from the outside than they do when you are standing in a sea of fellow protesters. Most people under 45 in the Balkans have probably walked in at least one major protest, but others aren't familiar with that feeling. Can you elaborate a little on the atmosphere and sentiment you have personally sensed from these protests?
JG: The protests allow us to meet with each other and exchange opinions, even grieve for lives lost in vain. For example, collective grieving for the lost lives of eight police officers and many injured [in the incidents in Kumanovo due to the breach of security of the State, helped many people to release [themselves from] the tension and fear of far darker scenarios that were presented in the pro-government media outlets.
People need to understand that by staying at home they cannot express their revolt and will only affect their health [negatively]. By coming to the protests they can feel empathy and solidarity with their problems, from people who actually care and understand them since they are in the same or similar situations as well.
GV: Do you have any insight into how things might develop from here? Social networks tell us that the protests are planned to carry on throughout May and perhaps into the summer. Do you feel things will escalate or that these protests will result in some sort of permanent change?
JG: There is too much speculation via media outlets building on the political crisis. However, what civil society is demanding is a new beginning, a start from scratch. I like to associate that start with the formatting of our computers. You press “format disk” and start all over again, this time including the demands of the movements and interest of the citizens mentioned in the first question. Our people deserve a country based on the principles of peace, justice, and social solidarity. They need a new chance to live freely and in prosperity. In regards to escalation of the protests, no one can know for sure due to the fast development of the political and security crisis. Things are changing as we speak, but the people need to stand behind their demands for government resignation and accountability of all.
Protests continue in major cities in Macedonia every day, from 18:00 local time. On Sunday, May 17, 2015, Macedonia's political opposition, which has boycotted parliament since May 2014, claiming fraud in the electoral victory of Gruevski's party, led more mass protests. Various sources estimate that between 60,000 and 80,000 people were present at the united opposition and civilian-led protests in Skopje on Sunday, demanding resignations and criminal investigations of top government officials.

author: Danica Radisic


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Meet the Brazilian Congressman Trying to Christianize the Internet, One Domain Name at a Time · Global Voices
Fernanda Canofre

Eduardo Cunha, President of the Deputies’ Chamber. Photo: Valter Campanato/ Agência Brasil
Eduardo Cunha, the leader of Brazil’s lower house of congress, seems to enjoy being in the public eye.
Compared by one Brazilian magazine to Machiavellian House of Cards character Frank Underwood, Cunha is known for standing shoulder-to-shoulder with some of the most controversial religious figures in the country, and being a perennial target for LGBT and civil rights activists’ protests due to his pernicious conservative views.
Now Cunha has made the headlines for yet another controversy: in April, the website Pastebin posted a list of 288 web domains registered under his name, of which 154 refer in some way or other to Jesus Christ.
To maintain the domains, including jesusfacebook.com.br, gmailjesus, googlejesus, messengerjesus, youtubejesus and jesusblackberry, Eduardo Cosetino da Cunha spends around 8,000 reals (approximately 2,600 US dollars) a year, according to the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo.*
The congressman, who in the past has argued for an internet “only for Christians” has so far refused to comment on reports about the domain names.
A front with a frontman
Cunha’s religious zeal has heavy political overtones. The congressman — who defines himself in his Twitter bio as “Evangelic, economist, life and family defender” — is part of the so called Evangelic Parliamentary Front: a group that gathers evangelical congressmen from different parties under the same agenda.
Thus, while Cunha is officially a member of President Dilma Rousseff's ruling Worker's Party, his Front would be the third largest in the lower house if it were recognized as a party in its own right. As such it presents a real challenge to Rousseff and the rest of the political establishment in Brazil.
Cunha conducting a prayer inside the Congress building Photo: Eduardo Cunha's Official Website
Every week the Front’s congressmen gather in one of the congress building's auditoriums to pray. This practice is forbidden by the Brazilian constitution, that guarantees a secular state, but was seen again when Cunha was elected as President of the Deputies’ Chamber (lower house) in February.
The Front refuses to countenance alternative views on LGBT rights, abortion or drug policy, and has advocated for a reduction in the age of criminal responsibility from 18 to 16. Despite these controversies, the Front's membership grew by 14% after congressional elections last year.
Eduardo Cunha is called “The Republic's Saboteur”, in a magazine cover comparing him to the House of Cards’ character Frank Underwood.
In its reporting on the domains Cunha has registered, the Portuguese version of Spanish newspaper El País says that many evangelical churches encourage their members to buy internet domains as a way to preserve and further the faith.
They also argue that this is to prevent “cybersquatting”, which according to US Law means “registering, trafficking in, or using an Internet domain name with bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else”.
According to the same El País’ report, Spanish evangelical church Nuevo Tiempo, for example, was unable to register the domain nuevotiempo.com as that already had a owner — who was asking 80,000 US dollars for it.
In Brazil, the law that would prevent the practice has not been voted on since it was first proposed in 2011. The project, presented by deputy Claudio Cajado, would forbid:
(…) o registro de nomes de domínio de internet nas categorias sob o domínio .br idênticos ou bastante similares a nomes de marcas, de empresas ou de pessoas previamente conhecidas, sem autorização do titular. Também não serão registráveis expressões contrárias à moral e aos bons costumes, que ofendam a honra ou imagem de pessoas ou atentem contra a liberdade de consciência, crença e culto religioso.
(…) the registration of internet domain names in the categories under the domain .br identical or similar to brand, company or previously known person’s names, without the title’s holder authorization. Expressions contrary to moral and decency, that offend honor or people’s image or attempt against free conscience, creed or religious cult.
Eduardo Cunha was cautious enough to register his domains under the variations .net and .com.br. Besides Jesus, Cunha's domains also refer to his radio station (melodiafm) and to sales sites targeting a Christian public, such as “compradecrente”, which stands for “believer's purchase”.
Curiously, Cunha was talking up an “internet only for Christians” at the time these registrations were made in 2012 as he participated in a “March for Jesus” gathering.
El País cites comments Cunha made to other outlets at the time:
Em 2012, quando muitos desses registros foram feitos, aproveitando a mobilização de uma Marcha para Jesus, o deputado explicou à revista Época a iniciativa. “Disponibilizaremos contas de e-mails, teremos um buscador, recolheremos doações para igrejas, transmitiremos cultos, comercializaremos produtos cristãos, teremos uma rede social, em suma, é uma internet só para cristãos”, disse à coluna de Felipe Patury. À Folha de S.Paulo, Cunha declarou à época que mirava a “maior audiência evangélica do país”.
“We’ll make email accounts available, we’ll have a search engine, we’ll collect donations to churches, we’ll broadcast cults, commercialize Christian products, have a social network, in summary [we will have] an internet only for Christians.” […] Cunha declared at the time he was targeting “the country’s greatest evangelical audience”.
And it is a growing audience. Although Brazil remains the country with the largest Catholic population worldwide, the number of neo-pentecostal churches and people who identify as evangelicals is rising rapidly.
The latest census pointed to a 61% growth in the number of evangelicals over the last ten years. According to a poll from 2013, conducted by Datafolha, a research institute, 28% of Brazilians are now evangelicals.
Eduardo Cunha seems to know how to read this scenario better than most. Shortly before being elected to lead the lower house, he began to distance himself from one evangelical church, Sara Nossa Terra (Heal Our Earth), where he had been a member for 20 years, and began to be seen in cults of Assembleia de Deus (God's Assembly), one of the oldest evangelical denominations and the one with the largest number of attendants in Brazil. Both congregations are run by leaders with a strong influence among the country's political elite.

author: Fernanda Canofre