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They Don’t Speak Spanish in the Philippines?  · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

Panorama of Manila. Photo by joiz on Flickr, used under the Creative Commons license Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-ND 2.0).
The Philippines, a Southeast Asian archipelago of more than 7,000 islands, is like Latin American countries a former colony in the Spanish Empire. The Philippines was under Spanish rule for three centuries, in fact, belonging specifically to the Kingdom of New Spain. During this time, the dominant language of the colonial government in the islands was Spanish, only to be replaced by English, after the Spanish-American War, when Spain ceded control of the islands to the United States for $20 million.
Throughout the 20th century, the use of Spanish declined, particularly after the destruction of the Spanish stronghold in the Battle of Manila. The country's subsequent modernization and World War II left English the nation's most common language.
In 1946, the Philippines gained independence from the United States, but it retained English as one of its two official languages, Filipino being the other. Currently, Filipinos have English or one of the local languages as their mother tongue. It is estimated that less than 1% of the current Filipino population speaks Spanish.
In 2008, Gaspar Canela wrote in the Reino de Siam blog that the state of the Spanish language in the Philippines was actually much worse because, in his opinion, the Spanish never succeeded in replacing local languages:
Intramuros. Image by shankar s. on Flickr, used under the Creative Commons license Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0).
Muchos filipinos, los menos estudiados, hasta desconocen que estuvieron sometidos a un reino ibérico durante más de tres siglos. Los estadounidenses, tras expulsar a los españoles, trajeron a Filipinas barcos repletos de profesores de inglés. Tuvieron más éxito que los españoles en extender el uso de su idioma, pero tampoco todos en las islas dominan hoy día la lengua de Shakespeare.
Many Filipinos do not even acknowledge that they were subjects of an Iberian kingdom for more than three centuries. The Americans, after expelling the Spaniards, brought ships full of English-language professors to the Philippines. They had more success than the Spaniards in extending the use of their language, but still not everywhere on the islands does the language of Shakespeare reign.
Nonetheless, Spanish did not disappear from everything. Traces of the Spanish language are present in the surnames of many Filipinos, in the names of cities and historic sites, as well as on the country's streets and plazas. Moreover, classic Philippine literature was written entirely in Spanish, even during much of the twentieth century. Among the many works of classic Spanish Philippine literature is Noli me tangere, by writer José Rizal, who, scholar say, played a significant role in the consolidation of Filipino nationalism.
Rizal, now considered a national Filipino hero, was executed on December 30, 1896, on charges of sedition by the Spanish authorities. The night prior to his execution, he wrote a poem titled “My Last Farewell”, which describes his love for the Philippines. YouTube user Hispanic Filipino uploaded a video where he recites the poem:
But is Spanish a dead language in the Philippines? Hardly. Spanish remains strongly rooted in the islands, even though it's difficult to notice at first. Guillermo Gomez Rivera, director of the Manila weekly Nueva Era, is optimistic about the future of the language in the Philippines and shares his opinion on web blog, Filipinas Única where he states that Spanish is very easy for any Filipino who speaks Tagalog, Visayan, and Ilokano:
El español es bien fácil para cualquier filipino que hable tagalo, bisaya, bicolano e ilocano porque en estas lenguas indígenas están incrustadas miles de hispanismos. En estos idiomas indígenas todas las prendas que se llevan en el cuerpo se llaman en español: sombrero, camiseta, cinturón […] Todos los muebles y enseres que se encuentran dentro del hogar se llaman en español: cocina, cuarto, sala […] Todo lo que es infraestructura de urbanización se llama en español: […] esquinita, avenida, plaza…
Spanish is very easy for any Filipino who speaks Tagalog, Visayan, and Ilokano because thousands of hispanisms are embedded in these indigenous languages. In these indigenous languages, all articles of clothing are referred to in Spanish: sombrero (hat), camiseta (shirt), cinturón (belt) […] All furniture and appliances that are found in the home are referred to in Spanish: cocina (kitchen), cuarto (room), sala (living room) […] All urbanization infrastructure is called in Spanish: […] esquinita (corner), avenida (avenue), plaza (square)…
Internet user Neptuno Azul demonstrates this principle with Eloidoro Ballesteros's poetry, written in Chavacano, a creole language derived from Spanish and various local languages:
Recently, there are signs that interest in Spanish might be rising, thanks to efforts by the Cervantes Institute and other Spanish and Philippine institutions, as well as people who want to rescue the legacy of the Philippine language. These groups even got some official support from the former government of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who started the partial reinstatement of Spanish in secondary education in 2009. Outside schools, the business community's interest in Spanish is also rebounding.
One useful demonstration of Spanish as a living language in the Philippines is this YouTube video, titled “Teaching Spanish in the Philippines”, where several Filipino students show what they've learned in school.


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A First Glimpse of Christmas in Trinidad and Tobago · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Christmas in Trinidad & Tobago; photo by Edmund Gall, used under a CC BY-SA 2.0 license.
It's the Christmas season, which means celebrations and lots of food and music in countries around the world. Anticipating the tastes and sounds ahead, food blog Trini Gourmet has published a series of stories about the music and dishes that accompany Christmas in Trinidad and Tobago. GV's Caribbean team will be profiling some of the best stories and recipes from the series in an effort to share a Caribbean Christmas with you, dear readers!
Parang
Parang music, a folk-hybrid with roots in Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago, mixes Latin and African beats with Spanish-language lyrics to pay homage to the birth of Christ. Parang bands, or “paranderos,” typically act as carollers, going from house to house to serenade people (and hopefully be invited in for food and drink). This tradition is dying, but it can still be seen in more rural communities, like Paramin and Lopinot. More popular today are parang festivals and competitions, where enthusiasts pay to attend.
Parang singers in Trinidad & Tobago; photo by Edmund Gall, used under a CC BY-SA 2.0 license.
Trini Gourmet calls parang Trinidad and Tobago's “soundtrack to Christmas,” highlighting parang greats like Daisy Voisin and The Lara Brothers. These parang pioneers may have died long ago, but there is a new crop of performers who are putting a more modern spin on the genre, incorporating elements like soca and chutney music for an entirely new take on tradition, mostly with English lyrics. As Trini Gourmet puts it:
In the past 2 decades the lines between carnival soca and parang soca have become increasingly blurred. The parang soca of Sharlene Flores’ day seems downright languid compared to the faster rhythms of today’s fete joints, first by melding calypso rhythms to become parang soca, and most recently by incorporating classical Indian rhythms and tonalties to form ‘chutney parang soca’. Much like our cuisine, the possibilities for musical fusion seem endless!
Sorrel
All that singing makes you thirsty, and sorrel—a rich, red fruit drink—is the perfect solution. Trini Gourmet's description is enough to make anyone want a cup:
Sorrel bud; photo by Janine Mendes-Franco, used with permission.
Sorrel, made from the sepals of the sorrel flower is fruity and fragrant. I have fond memories of sitting at my aunt’s feet as a child, helping her to handpick the flowers. The seed of the sorrel is covered with fine prickly hairs that eventually find their way into the pads of your fingers. They are not painful but definitely annoying! A friend once told me that the petals are quite delicious raw with some salt. At first I thought she was insane but once I tried it I was hooked.
Similar in taste to hibiscus tea, sorrel becomes even more heavenly with the addition of rum. Made properly your sorrel should be thick and syrupy. Fear not, just dilute it with some cold water or club soda when serving.
Black Cake
Trinbagonians will find a way to consume alcohol even when eating. Black cake, also called fruit cake, is perhaps the proof of the pudding. Trini Gourmet calls it a “Christmas institution” in Trinidad:
Made predominantly of alcohol drenched prunes, currants and raisins, variations abound (and I love taste testing when we make the visiting rounds). Still, the best black cake is always the recipe that one grew up with. […]
You’ll notice the insane amount of liquour that goes into this dessert. Not only does that make the final cake unbelievably moist it also renders it virtually ageless. My aunt makes a batch of these at xmas time, keeps them in ‘old time cake tins’ and even in July and August we are still eating the remnants!
Black cake and ice cream; photo by Steve Loya, used under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license.
Because of its long shelf-life, this dessert is also the traditional choice for wedding cakes in Trinidad and Tobago, and frozen leftovers are traditionally consumed on a couple's first wedding anniversary. The newlywed couple takes a slice of cake saved from their big day and digs in to celebrate their first year of marriage.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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As the Sydney Siege Comes to an End, Hundreds of Thousands of Tweets Show Solidarity with Muslims  · Global Voices
Manuel Ribeiro

Hostages taken at Lindt Chocolat cafe in Martin Place – Sydney. Photo by Demotix/Richard Milnes
The 16-hour hostage situation at Lindt Café in Martin Place at Sydney's busy Financial District came to an end with commandos storming the cafe killing the lone gunman Man Haron Monis, but coverage of the siege continues to bring the best and worst of mainstream and social media in Australia.
In between thousands of tweets, hours of live broadcast and hundreds of web pages, some facts have proven to be inaccurate and misleading, and some angles had dangerous Islamophobic overtones.
Early on the gunman made the hostages hold up a black flag with Arabic writing at the cafe window. Many reports that followed had angles which alarmed some Sydney social media users who joined a hashtag campaign #IllRideWithYou. The campaign is meant to show solidarity with Sydney's Muslims who might feel uncomfortable taking public transport following the cafe siege. The hashtag has been used hundreds thousands of times and gone viral all over the world.
The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper reports “Monday's siege in the CBD has seen a number of myths circulating on social media and in the press.”
Keith Fitzgerald, a crisis negotiator expert, after seeing the front page of a special edition newspaper, asked journalists in Australia to condemn the Daily Telegraph:
Could the real journalists pls condemn the Daily Telegraph (Aus)? Really not helping. #sydneysiege pic.twitter.com/INxC8Xb47q
— Keith Fitzgerald (@keithmfitz) December 15, 2014
2GB radio presenter Ray Hadley also created several rumours live and on air during his daily show. According to The Sydney Morning Herald, the disinformation in this article could create race-based discrimination. The ironic Twitter user ‘The Daily Rupert‘ tweets:
Only thing this Murdoch tabloid front page achieves is to further terrorise family members of #SydneySiege hostages pic.twitter.com/ry0UP6TIlL
— The Daily Rupert (@TheMurdochTimes) December 15, 2014
And some headlines could raise unnecessary panic like this one published on Twitter by an ABC News reporter:
@MaxBlumenthal A ‘journalist’ on @ABCNews24 actually said “city under siege”. Sounds better than ‘cafe under siege’ SMH #sydneysiege
— Kingslayer (@2squig) December 15, 2014
Chris Graham, the founder of the New Matilda blog wrote ten predictions of what is going to happen in the aftermath of the siege. The first is the “possible raise of violence directed against Muslims, in particular Muslim women”.
On Twitter, 33-year-old blogger Tessa Kum created the hashtag #illridewithyou in solidarity with Muslims who might feel uncomfortable riding public transport in Australia after the Sydney siege was reported with racial undertones.
@sirtessa my bad attempt at a pic to help get the message out #illridewithyou pic.twitter.com/kFld1eNVgv
— Bhakthi (@bhakthi) December 15, 2014
This solidarity movement started after a journalist tweeted a screen grab from a Facebook update by a Sydney-based teacher and dancer named Rachel, regarding her experience on a Sydney train posted as soon as the siege started:
This, this is what good people do. #sydneyseige #MartinPlace pic.twitter.com/zxbHLWzxEp
— Michael James (@MichaelJames_TV) December 15, 2014
She said “a Muslim Woman sitting besides her silently removed her hijab because she didn´t want to show signs of her religion for fear of misplaced retaliation from commuters in relations to the siege situation that was occurring in Martin Place, Sydney.”
SirTessa RTed Michael James tweet and tweeted:
If you reg take the #373 bus b/w Coogee/MartinPl, wear religious attire, & don’t feel safe alone: I’ll ride with you. @ me for schedule.
— Sir Tessa (@sirtessa) December 15, 2014
Maybe start a hashtag? What’s in #illridewithyou?
— Sir Tessa (@sirtessa) December 15, 2014
The hashtag took over within an hour.
Following @sirtessa‘s example, #426/425 bus 2 Burwood, If u wear religious attire, & don’t feel safe alone: I’ll ride with you. @ 6:30 ish.
— Hannah Groff (@PalindromicGirl) December 15, 2014
The one beautiful thing that has come from today's shocking events at the #Lindt Cafe. http://t.co/S1LhpZV40b #illridewithyou
— Mamamia (@Mamamia) December 15, 2014
As the campaign took off the teacher and dancer whose Facebook post gave the impetus for the hashtag tweeted:
1/2 #illridewithyou overwhelmed. Mine was a small gesture because of sadness that someone would ever feel unwelcome because of beliefs
— Rachael Jacobs (@rachaeljacobs) December 15, 2014
2/2 I’m not the story. Anyone joining #illridewithyou is incredibly inspiring, creating a path to peace for all of us. Thank you @sirtessa
— Rachael Jacobs (@rachaeljacobs) December 15, 2014
The police evacuated the area and created safe distance zones for the media, but these safe areas were also full of people that wanted to stay close to the action, as if they were watching a movie. Though it was a very real and dangerous situation some even took selfies and posted them on Twitter:
Bystanders taking selfies at scene of Sydney hostage siege. http://t.co/OgTn7iAO1W pic.twitter.com/FkxZWo6dSs — Jim Roberts (@nycjim) December 15, 2014
Aisha Dow from the newspaper The Age, writes “Cheerful onlookers have been snapping mobile phone “selfies” at the perimeters of the Sydney siege as a still unknown number of hostages remain prisoners of a gunman.”
The punters are back taking selfies 100m from the Lindt Cafe #sydneysiege pic.twitter.com/JoAa9JO0Ep — Let it Di Stefasnow (@MarkDiStef) December 15, 2014
During the afternoon five hostages managed to flee from Lindt Café, it is not clear if the gunman freed them or they managed to run away.
Footage of the escaped hostages @abcnews #sydneysiege https://t.co/g2nfN0843c via @vine
— Ryan Doyle (@ryandoyleshow) December 15, 2014
17 hostages were caught up in the siege, four were injured. Besides the gunman, two hostages were killed after getting caught in the crossfire.
The 50-year old hostage taker was an Iranian asylum seeker, who had been living in Australia since 1996.  Authorities believe he acted alone in the siege. He was well-known to the police and was in court recently. He had faced dozens of charges on indecency and sexual assault. In 2013, he pleaded guilty to sending hate letters to the families of deceased Australian soldiers. He was also implicated as an accessory in the murder of his ex- wife.
Within Sydney's Muslim community he is believed to be an outsider. Reports suggest he had been sidelined by Shia leaders, who had urged federal police to investigate  him over his claims to be an “ayatollah”, or leading cleric. Reports from his blog, which has now been taken down, suggest he converted to Sunni Islam last week. He also reportedly claimed on his blog to be an expert in astrology, numerology, meditation and black magic.

author: Manuel Ribeiro


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Behind Prison Walls, Violence Against Women Is Often Ignored in Argentina · Global Voices
Laura Schneider

Photo by Flickr user Rock & Rejas: Sonidos de la Cárcel (Gira 2003). CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
The rights of women in Argentinian prisons, where gender inequality, violence and exclusion can flourish, are systematically violated. Gender violence behind bars can often result in attacks on a woman's body.
A study done by Procuración Penitenciaria de la Nacion in Argentina found institutional violence is an increasing problem in jail, given that the number of woman in jail has increased. Several studies examining the situation in which they live have shown that not much is being done to protect women's rights there.
Comunicar igualdad is an Argentine civil organization which focuses on expanding gender issues in the media as an strategy to obtain an equitable society. In a post titled “Woman in Jail“, it analyzed different cases of violence against woman deprived on freedom:
La violencia es simbólicamente mayor cuando es ejercida por las instituciones. ¿Por qué no pensar entonces que la invisibilización hacia las mujeres es muchísimo más potente cuando hablamos de aquellas que se encuentran privadas de su libertad? El enfoque de género aplicado al sistema carcelario podría ser una herramienta eficaz que amplíe y diversifique la concepción vigente de derechos humanos y proponga un ámbito no tan recorrido por donde transitar hacia un estado cada vez más democrático.
According to the blog Women and prison, prison affects women in a different way than men — since the number of woman in prison is much lower than men, prison facilities for them lack amenities such as sports and leisure activities. Women also endure the lack of contact with their families, the abandonment of their partners, and poor health care.
At the same time, if they are foreign they face irregularities such as peculium payment due to the fact of taxing situation.
The lack of interpreters is another problem facing foreign women imprisoned in Argentina. Reyna Maraz, a Bolivian citizen living in the country who doesn't speak Spanish, only Quechua, was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of her husband, after three years in jail without being allowed to appear before a judge or having access to an interpreter.
The UN Committee Against Torture is the body of 10 independent experts that monitors implementation of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment throughout the world. A recent book debuted at the National University of La Plata City, Argentina, “Kick the gate. Gender, confinement and access to justice: women imprisoned with their children in the province of Buenos Aires” presented the Committee's report:
Entre las conclusiones a las que arribó el equipo, subrayan que los jueces legitiman la violencia de género, que solo consideran a las mujeres en tanto madres, y que legitiman la presencia de niños y niñas encarcelados.
The blog Atrapamuros described the actual situation of women deprived of freedom:
La violencia de género es posible dentro de lo que conocemos como sistema patriarcal. Entender políticamente al sistema patriarcal nos permite examinar con mayor profundidad el rol que ha venido jugando el Estado ante los casos de violencia de género que terminan en actos ilegales perpetuados por las mujeres. Siempre ausente en las políticas de prevención y detención de la violencia de género, el Estado hace su entrada en la vida de las mujeres cuando puede juzgarlas y castigarlas.
The Procurator's Office of the Nation, an institution that aims to protect the fundamental rights of persons deprived of liberty in Argentina, wrote in its annual report of 2012, about violent practices carried out during the humiliating searches:
varias detenidas se vieron obligadas a “sacarse su ropa interior, voltearse y abrirse las nalgas con ambas manos para que el personal penitenciario las observe”. Ello sucedió momentos previos a que las detenidas concurriesen a una actividad académica en la Universidad de Buenos Aires. Varias detenidas desistieron de la salida para evitar este tipo de medidas ultrajantes, incluso una de ellas fue sancionada por negarse a ser revisada en el modo anteriormente mencionado.
In its investigation into women in prison, the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS) analyzes not only the conditions that female prisoners endure in Argentina, but also the constant violent violations of their rights, as told by the convicts. It is up to the state to assume the political and ethical responsibility of the consequences:
La investigación describe minuciosamente todas las violencias, abusos y vulneración de derechos que sufren las presas, así como las gravísimas consecuencias que su encierro provoca en cuanto al desmembramiento de sus hogares y al desamparo de sus hijos. Ello, con el objetivo de abrir un debate que involucre tanto al poder legislativo como al judicial y al ejecutivo, en el marco del cual se evalúen alternativas menos nocivas que el encierro carcelario. Si pese a todo deciden no revertir la situación, ya no podrán alegar desconocimiento de la situación para no asumir la responsabilidad política y ética de sus consecuencias.
See Global Voices’ special coverage: 16 Days to End Violence at Home and Around the World

author: Laura Schneider


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Is Argentina Really ‘Infected With Foreign Criminals’? Or Just Xenophobic Politicians? · Global Voices
Laura Schneider

Argentina's Security Secretary Sergio Berni. Image from Security Ministery Flickr account under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
A politician is facing accusations of xenophobia over his comments on crime committed by foreigners in Argentina, where insecurity is increasingly a concern.
Debates about insecurity are becoming more frequent among residents, media and officials, although Argentina has a low rate of violent deaths (5.5 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants) compared with its regional neighbors, according to a report from United Nations Developoment Program (UNDP). However, the real dimension of the problem is difficult to measure since Argentina stopped publishing official crime statistics in 2009.
A common theme among many of the discussions has been the idea that a large portion of the crimes are committed by foreigners, which has turned the debate into a question of expelling immigrants or not.
Argentine Security Secretary Sergio Berni weighed in on the issue rather controversially when he said in October 2014, as relayed by news website Infobae:
Estamos infectados de delincuentes extranjeros
His remark was met with accusations of xenophobia. Sites like the blog Seminario de Teoría Constitucional y Filosofía Política (Seminar on Constitutional Theory and Political Philosophy) focused on what needs to be done legally, while the blog from Lucas Raffa reviewed the underlying issues behind crime:
El tema tiene unos puntos claves de los que no se habla:
The topic has some unspoken issues:
And therefore concluded:
El problema es el Estado, no los extranjeros. Y este país, para el que no tenga memoria, al igual que Estados Unidos, se formó con extranjeros.
The blog Peruanos en Argentina (Peruvians in Argentina) argued that it isn't new for the Argentine government to put the blame on other people for not taking care of its own responsibilities. Paraguay Ñane Retá, a newspaper for the Paraguayan community in Argentina, published crimes statistics to shed some facts on the debate:
El año pasado, la Corte Suprema de Justicia presentó un relevamiento sobre homicidios dolosos en Capital Federal y en los departamentos judiciales de San Martín y La Plata, con datos referidos a 2010 y 2011. En cuanto a los victimarios, ese informe indicó que en Buenos Aires el 15% de los imputados es extranjero (paraguayos, 7% y peruanos, 3%). En La Plata, el 10%; en San Martín, el 4%.
Meanwhile, the Argentine National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism (INADI) called for public officials to be choose their words carefully when they characterize insecurity in the country:
Hay que ser cuidadosos al expresar públicamente desde el Estado hechos y situaciones tan complejas como son las que giran alrededor de la seguridad, porque mas allá de la intencionalidad con la que se manifiestan esos dichos, lo que termina sucediendo es que se legitiman discursos y prácticas racistas y xenófobas de sectores que, no casualmente, son los mismos que critican los avances en materia de Derechos Humanos desde 2003 hasta esta parte.
According to news agency Telam, Berni defended himself from those who criticized his position as xenophobic, saying he was not drawing conclusions, but simply doing his job of “telling society” what is happening.


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Thousands Flood Lima’s Streets in Largest-Ever Latin American Climate March · Global Voices
350.org

Indigenous communities at the forefront of the climate crisis led the march in Lima. Photo credit: Hoda Baraka
This article was written by Hoda Baraka for 350.org, an organization building a global climate movement, and is republished on Global Voices as part of a content-sharing agreement.
Last week, over 15,000 people from across the region marched in the streets of Lima, making this the largest climate march in the history of Latin America.
Regionally, climate change is seen as an environmental, developmental and human rights issue; thus, it was no coincidence that the march was planned for December 10, which marks International Human Rights Day. Calling for a ‘System Change, Not Climate Change’, the march brought together numerous constituencies from across the spectrum demanding real and concrete actions to address the climate crisis.
Groups marching included: indigenous communities, farmers, workers, miners, youth groups as well as faith groups. This People’s Climate March in Lima comes on the heels of the recent massive People’s Climate March in New York and reinforces the growing momentum for the global climate movement.
Below a series of photos reflecting the power, vibrancy and diversity of the march.
“Let's Save Lake Titicaca” reads a banner held by a woman traveling from an Andean region in the border between Peru and Bolivia calling for action to safeguard the largest lake in Latin America. Photo credit: Hoda Baraka
Thousands of workers from various labor unions also joined the march. Photo credit: Hoda Baraka
Youth showcasing the colourful artwork produced for the march at the art space run by Peruvian climate activist group TierrActiva Peru. Photo credit: Hoda Baraka
Women from rural Central Latin America travelled from afar for the chance to put a spotlight on the environmental plights in their region. Photo credit: Hoda Baraka
“Desde El Yasuni Para El Mundo.” Indigenous environmental activists from Yasuni, Ecuador, relay a message to the world for the urgent protection of the Yasuni Amazon region from oil drilling. Photo credit: Hoda Baraka


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After Grozny Gun Battle, Human Rights Defenders in Chechnya Under Attack · Global Voices
Karena Avedissian

“Committee Against Torture” activists poses with an Amnesty International banner. June 27, 2014. Bashkortostan, Russia. Pytkam.net.
After Grozny’s December 4 gun attack, unidentified men retaliated by burning down the homes of the militants’ families, apparently fulfilling a threat by Ramzan Kadyrov, head of the Chechen government.
Sergei Babinets is a lawyer and staff member of Joint Mobile Group, the Grozny branch of the Committee Against Torture, a Nizhnii Novgorod-based NGO. After the arsons, Babinets posted online some of the first pictures of the destroyed homes, providing evidence that Kadyrov is actively pursuing his stated policy of punishing the relatives of suspected militants.
Less than 10 days later, Joint Mobile Group’s office, which doubled as living quarters for Babinets and his colleagues, was itself set on fire.
Back on December 4, when Chechen security services in Grozny were still fighting the last of the militants, Novaya Gazeta journalist Elena Milashina surmised on Facebook that the second stage of the counter-terrorist operation—the authorities’ retaliation—would be worse for civilians. Milashina noted that the militants, on the other hand, were careful to avoid civilian casualties:
Это не случайно. Они не добрые люди. Но они – отличные стратеги. Они прекрасно знают, какая обратка последует от Кадырова… Кадыров прикажет мстить родственникам боевиков. И дальним, и ближним. Непропорционально жестоко. Тем самым вызывая в республике уже даже не страх, потому что бояться еще больше невозможно. Предел достигнут. Именно поэтому сегодняшние погибшие боевики будут восприниматься как герои… Потому что простые люди И ТАК под огнем в Чечне.
It wasn't just a coincidence. [The militants] are not nice people. They are, however, excellent strategists. They know well what reaction will come from Kadyrov… Kadyrov will take revenge on the militants’ relatives, distant and close, with disproportionate cruelty. [But] in doing so, he can't even invoke fear, because it's not possible to be more afraid. The limit has been reached. This is why the militants killed in Grozny will be regarded as heroes… because common people are ALREADY under fire in Chechnya.
The counter-terrorist operation's second phase has proceeded according to Milashina's grim expectations. Groups of unidentified men, presumably Chechen special forces, soon descended on the homes of suspected militants’ families in Gudermes, Yandy, and other towns. An informant in Kotar-Yurt in the Achkhoi-Martan District described the campaign to the website Kavkaz Uzel:
Они окружили дом, принадлежащий семье Бютукаевых, разбили там окна и двери, а затем подожгли. Несмотря на то, что огонь грозил перекинуться на другие дома, тушить огонь не разрешали. Людей отгоняли криками и угрозами.
They surrounded the Byutukaevs’ home, broke the windows and doors, and then set it ablaze. Despite the fact that the fire threatened to spread to other homes, they did not allow us to put it out. They drove people away with shouting and threats.
So far, ten homes have been set ablaze. Human Rights Watch's Russia director, Tatyana Lokshina, says the practice goes “against the Russian Constitution, Russian law, [and] against Russia's international obligations.”
In rare effort to hold the Chechen authorities accountable for breaking the law, Igor Kalyapin, head of the Committee Against Torture, appealed to Attorney General Yury Chaika and Russia's top federal investigator, Alexander Bastrykin, to explore the legality of Kadyrov's promise to destroy the homes of militants’ relatives. This was the first time a civic activist publicly criticized Kadyrov in five years, since the assassination of human rights worker Natalia Estemirova in 2009.
The aftermath of the fire that consumed Joint Mobile Group's office in Grozny. December 14, 2014. Photograph by Sergei Babinets.
Kadyrov's response to Kalyapin was almost instant. Writing on Instagram on December 10, Kadyrov wondered publicly if Kalyapin was working with the gunmen who attacked Grozny, funneling them money from Western intelligence agencies, whom Kaydrov accuses of supporting North Caucasian terrorists. The next day, while speaking at a press-conference in Moscow, unidentified men pelted Kalyapin with eggs.
Next, on December 13, a large rally, ostensibly “against terrorism,” took place in Grozny. Demonstrators registered their support for Kadyrov, and many in the crowd also carried banners antagonizing local human rights activists. One placard, for instance, read, “Kalyapin Go Home $.” On social media, some people suggested the protesters were there against their will or without really understanding the rally's purpose.
That evening, Joint Mobile Group’s office was burned down. Babinets and his colleague say they saw masked, armed men following them after the fire, as well. When they phoned the police to file an official report, two men in camouflage detained them instead, holding them for several hours and seizing the organization's computers and technical equipment.
So far, no one on Babinets’ team has been charged with any crime, leaving it unknown how far the authorities will go to antagonize the group.
Joint Mobile Group is one of the last remaining independent human rights organizations in the Chechen Republic. The group's lawyers offer Chechens a rare means to address social problems that no one else discusses. If recent incidents ultimately force the organization from Chechnya, the loss to the local population—with its many victims of kidnappings, torture, and murder—would be difficult to exaggerate.
In an interview with BBC, Babinets said:
За свою безопасность мы, естественно, опасаемся, но выезжать за пределы республики мы не планируем. Потому что у нас очень много работы, и завтра будет и судебное заседание по одному из наших дел. Поэтому нам надо продолжать работать.
Of course we are concerned about our safety, but we do not plan to leave the republic. Because we have a lot of work to do, and tomorrow there is a court hearing for one of our cases. That is why we must continue to work.

author: Karena Avedissian


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Serbian Government Agency Publishes Personal Data of Over 5 Million Citizens · Global Voices
Danica Radisic

Screenshot of part of the documents containing personal information of citizens that were available on the official site of the Privatization Agency of the Republic of Serbia. Image by SHARE Foundation, used with permission.
A link from the official website of the Privatization Agency of the Republic of Serbia began circulating on social networks in early December 2014. The link led to 19 gigabytes of text files on the agency's site that revealed the personal information of over 5 million Serbian citizens who had registered for free stock of state-owned companies in 2008. The files included the full names of citizens who had registered, as well as their Unique Master Citizen Numbers (JMBG), a number given to each citizen from which a birth date, place of birth and other information can easily be deduced.
The link was caught on Twitter during the week of December 8, 2014, by the legal team of SHARE Defense, the think tank unit of local non-government organization SHARE Foundation that conducts research and offers legal aid in the realm of human and civic rights. The foundation's team analysed the documents and reported the issue to the office of the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection of the Republic of Serbia. The links were removed from the agency's website in the afternoon hours of Friday, December 12, but it is impossible to know who downloaded the information in the meantime.
Citizens have started reacting on social networks, many calling this an “unforgivable” offense by a government agency. Twitter user Vladan Joler tweeted a common sentiment:
Najveći bezbednosni propust u sferi zaštite informacionih sistema i privatnosti građana do sada u SR @ShareConference http://t.co/WO96P4IBTU
— Vladan Joler (@TheCreaturesLab) December 15, 2014
The biggest security breach in the realm of information systems protection and citizens’ privacy to date in RS [Republic of Serbia] @ShareConference http://t.co/WO96P4IBTU
— Vladan Joler (@TheCreaturesLab) December 15, 2014
It remains unclear why the documents were published on the site, if by mistake or otherwise. The office of the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection took on the case immediately and it is expected that it will follow through with an investigation.
In the meantime, SHARE Foundation's legal think tank team has warned any and all who have downloaded the data that any use of part or all of the information in these files would represent a a criminal offense and has recommended that anyone who has retained a copy of any or all of the documents delete them permanently.

author: Danica Radisic


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The Incredible Courage of Women Human Rights Defenders in the Middle East · Global Voices
Gulf Center for Human Rights

Zainab Al-Khawaja & her daughter Jude / Razan Zaitouneh
The Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) is an independent, non-profit and non-governmental organisation that works to provide support and protection to human rights defenders (including independent journalists, bloggers, lawyers, etc.) in the Gulf region and its neighbouring countries by promoting freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly. This post was originally published on December 10, 2014, and an edited version is republished on Global Voices with permission.
On International Human Rights Day, the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) paid tribute to the courage of women human rights defenders across the Gulf region and its neighbouring countries. The region is not hospitable to human rights defenders in general and women are even more at risk in some of the most dangerous countries in the world to speak your mind, such as Iraq, where a critical comment can get you killed; or Syria, where being a human rights defender means risking your life and liberty; or Bahrain, where tearing a photo of the king could land you in jail for seven years; or Saudi Arabia, where women have been arrested for trying to drive; or Iran, where protesting about acid attacks on women will incur punishment.
The crisis in Iraq and Syria has made the wider Gulf region more unstable and the situation of women human rights defenders even more dangerous, particularly with the rise of the Islamic state group known as ISIS. As ISIS has spread across Iraq and Syria, women have been murdered or even enslaved.
One example of the widespread damage that ISIS inflicted on ancient Mosul
On 22 September 2014, Iraqi lawyer and women’s human rights defender Samira Saleh Al-Naimi was murdered by a group of masked armed men belonging to ISIS, who opened fire and killed her in a public square in the very heart of Mosul. GCHR reported that she was kidnapped by ISIS from her home the week before after she described the widespread damage that ISIS inflicted on ancient Mosul as “barbaric”.
Razan, Wa'el, Samira and Nazim
The capacity of human rights defenders to carry out their work within conflict zones and elsewhere in Syria has been severely restricted. Women’s human rights defenders have been jailed or kidnapped, like Razan Ghazzawi or Razan Zaitouneh, and driven into exile or hiding in Syria since the conflict began.
This week also marks one year since Zaitouneh and her three colleagues from the human rights monitoring group that she heads, the Violations Documentation Center (VDC), were abducted in Duma, a city near Damascus under the control of armed opposition groups. Zaitouneh, a lawyer, has defended political prisoners in Syria since 2001 and since the beginning of the crisis in 2011 has played a key role documenting violations. GCHR joined over 50 other NGOs calling for the release of Zaitouneh, Wa’el Hamada, who is also her husband, Samira Khalil and Nazem Hamadi.
Civil society activists, humanitarian aid workers, writers, journalists, lawyers and those who document human rights violations are deliberately targeted by all parties to the conflict. Tens of thousands have been detained in dire conditions, many dying in prison. Reports of unlawful killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention and systematic torture, including rape, and other ill-treatment at the hands of both government security forces and armed opposition groups were received by GCHR since the conflict began in 2011.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) has also documented violence, including sexual assault, against women in Syria at the hands of government forces, ISIS, Kurdish fighters and other armed opposition groups. In a recent report, they note that Syrian women hold an important role as human rights defenders — documenting violations, organising protests and offering humanitarian aid — in many cases also becoming the sole providers for their families.
Bahrain
It is not only in countries with open civil war where women are suffering. In Bahrain, women’s equality is fairly advanced, particularly compared to Saudi Arabia. Women have the right to drive, be elected to Parliament, hold high-level professional jobs and even become ministers — but women also can be fired from their jobs, jailed and even tortured alongside men.
A week before elections were held on 22 November, over a dozen young women were arrested in Bahrain, some during highly traumatising night raids, including two pregnant women and one woman with a baby. According to the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR), they were charged with “establishing and organising a public referendum” for organising polls before the elections, yet some of them were reportedly tortured and severely mistreated.
In addition, the Bahraini Ministry of Interior continues to detain Zahra Al-Shaikh and her baby, who was born prematurely and has health issues. She is reportedly mentally distressed and suffering greatly. She was arrested on 27 October 2014 as she visited her husband in jail, and charged with illegal gathering. She has been arrested several other times in violation to her right to freedom of assembly.
Maryam Al-Khawaja & Zainab Al-Khawaja
Zainab Al-Khawaja, a leading Bahraini human rights campaigner, gave birth last month barely a week after being freed from jail. She was sentenced to three years in prison on 4 December for ripping a photo of the king during one of her many hearings on 14 October, and then sentenced in other cases on 9 December to 16 months in prison effective immediately on charges of insulting a public servant and destroying public property. She had been freed on 19 November following international advocacy on her behalf by GCHR, BCHR and many other NGOs and members of European Parliament. She also has three hearings on 9 December and faces five other charges which, according to her lawyer, clearly violate her right to free expression.
Her sister Maryam Al-Khawaja, co-director of the GCHR, was also jailed for 19 days upon arrival in Bahrain on 30 August and falsely charged with assaulting two policewomen. She was given a one-year prison sentence on 1 December, in a trial which she boycotted. In reality, Al-Khawaja herself was assaulted and her shoulder muscle torn, yet nobody has been called to account for this assault. She had made the trip to try to see her father, whose life was at risk following a hunger strike in prison.
Ghada Jamsheer
Also in Bahrain, women’s human rights defender Ghada Jamsheer was jailed on 15 September 2014 on charges of defamation via Twitter after she tweeted about corruption at King Hamad University Hospital, which is headed by a member of the ruling family. She was released this week but re-arrested within hours on sham charges, to the great distress of her mother and daughter. Jamsheer is the president of the Women's Petition Committee (WPC), a network of Bahraini women human rights defenders who campaign for the codification of Bahrain’s family laws and their reform.
Souad Al-Shammari
Saudi Arabia
In neighbouring Saudi Arabia, women’s rights are severely restricted, and it is risky to advocate for women’s rights in any way. According to the Monitor of Human Rights in Saudi Arabia women’s rights defender Souad Al-Shammari was arrested on 28 October 2014 in Jeddah. She was interrogated for tweets she published on her Twitter account and faces alleged charges of “calling upon society to disobey by describing society as masculine” as well as “using sarcasm while mentioning religious texts and religious scholars.”
Dr. Hala Al-Doseri
Women who advocate for the right to drive have been arrested, interrogated, defamed, had their cars confiscated, and faced serious family conflicts due to the authority's insistence on involving their guardians in their activities, reported Dr. Hala Aldosari, a women’s rights defender who worked on the Saudi Women’s Driving Campaign. She spoke at a UN side event in September 2014, organised with GCHR, the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), CIVICUS, and the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA).
Samar Badawi and her husband Waleed Abu Al-Khair
Saudi human rights defender Samar Badawi also travelled to Geneva for the 27th Regular Session of the UN Human Rights Council in September to raise awareness of women’s rights as well as the many human rights defenders who are currently imprisoned in Saudi Arabia, including her husband and brother.
“We ask for the right of women to be elected, to drive vehicles,” she said.
She told the UN Council that it “bears the responsibility” for human rights violations in Saudi Arabia “because Saudi Arabia is a member of the Council.” She has previously been jailed in Saudi Arabia for her women’s rights activism, and was banned from travel on 2 December while preparing to fly to Belgium for the 16th European Union (EU) NGOs Forum on Human Rights.
Nasrin Sotoudeh
Iran
Moving to Iran, women human rights defenders are routinely jailed, interrogated, threatened and harassed for their work. Following protests against acid attacks on women that were held in Tehran and Isfahan on 22 October, a number of women’s rights activists were detained including prominent human rights defender and lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh. Both protests ended in the violent beating and arrest of several activists as well as the use of tear gas to disperse the crowds that had gathered.
Mahdieh Golrou, a student, human rights and women’s activist as well as a member of the Council for Defense of Educational Rights, was arrested after a raid on her house following her rigorous participation in the acid attacks protests. She had stated on one of her Facebook posts after the protests: “I am a woman. I am an Iranian woman who is afraid and is always worried. […] I am a woman, and these days, my womanhood scares me.”
This is only a small sample of the threats that women human rights defenders face across the region, one of the most restrictive areas on earth to be a woman, let alone a woman who dares to speak out against human rights violations. The GCHR is campaigning for an end to judicial harassment of women human rights defenders, including their jailing and sentencing on trumped up charges, as well as for an end to all attacks on women human rights defenders in the Gulf region.

author: Gulf Center for Human Rights


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Women’s Reproductive Rights in Croatia: Is the Clock Ticking? · Global Voices
Marinella Matejcic

An image widely shared on the web, promoting reproductive rights as human rights.
The status of women's reproductive rights have been a subject of concern recently in Croatia. A protest organised in Zagreb, Croatia declared “Illegal abortions – we won't go back” on 28 November, and on 11 December a joint meeting of The Committee for Gender Equality and CESI (Center for Education, Counseling and Research) was held regarding reproductive rights in Croatia.
Those two events occurred after the mass media started asking questions around the topic, provoked by independent activist portals like Libela.org (which is the only portal in Croatia constantly writing about reproductive rights) and research done and published by CESI — “Grey area – question of abortions in Republic of Croatia”. In Croatia, women have been able to have abortions, with no questions asked until the tenth week of pregnancy since 1978, thanks to a law that was instated while Croatia was still a part of the former Yugoslavia and has been valid since.
Over the last 23 years, since Croatia's independence, several religious and neo-conservative groups have tried to oppose such laws and forbid legally induced abortions. None of them have, for the time being, tried to put pressure on legislators in a way that would actually ban abortions altogether, although many have organized protests and anti-freedom-of-choice campaigns like “40 days for life”. None of the organizations rallying against women's rights have discussed contraception, education, and social-economic factors involved in abortion rates and practices.
There is no institutional sexual education in schools, and the groups that are “praying for life” are opposed to introducing education on the matter and expanding basic knowledge of reproductive rights and contraception in the country. Such actions have only raised the stigma and shame directed at women who have decided to have an abortion.
An even bigger threat to women's reproductive rights in Croatia is conscientious objection, which allows gynecologists to choose not to perform abortions and amniocentesis, subscribe contraception, or some aspects of medically aided fertilization. If the procedures regarding female sexual health aren't reconciled with his or her moral grounds, he or she is then allowed to deny performing them.
Pro-choice protesters gathered in Zagreb on November 28, 2014, carrying a banner that reads: “We don't want to go back to illegal abortions”. Photo by Center for Civic Courage, used with permission.
Considering that the Croatian health system is on the verge of collapsing, due to outdated systems and new reforms, and because of an unstable economy, many women simply aren’t in the financial situation to ask for healthcare in private institutions of their choice. This has created a situation in which women simply aren’t allowed to make decisions about their own bodies.
Because elective abortion isn’t part of the basic national healthcare program, prices generally range from 100 euros to 400 euros (about 124 to 500 US dollars). In some cases, hospital boards have gone as far as to decide not to perform abortions in their institutions, which is a direct violation of existing laws, but authorities have let such decisions slide.
Recently, the Ministry of Health has made some improvements and obligations that induced abortion will be available as a medical service in every hospital which has a gynecology department. Nevertheless, while attempting to create access to legal abortions, the same ministry is allowing Sv. Duh from Zagreb to be exempt from that obligation. Although Croatia is a secular state, the Catholic Church in Croatia still has extreme influence in creating laws and opinions.
Last year, 3,816 induced abortions were performed in Croatia, which make up only 35% of all abortions in 2013 in the country. Another 65% were medically necessary abortions due to malformations or other medical reasons. These statistics do not paint an entirely true picture, because pro-choice activists in Croatia have noticed that some of the abortions are performed outside of medical institutions equipped for performing them and some procedures get registered other medical conditions.
Although in 2014 the Croatian government granted “fast internet connection” of 1Mb/s, allegedly allowing more access and freedom of information, Croatia is still coping with low GDPs, high unemployment rates, growing nationalistic tendencies, including extreme religious influence in society and state affairs, and regression regarding woman’s reproductive rights and health issues.

author: Marinella Matejcic


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Does the Caribbean Have a Rape Culture?  · Global Voices
Flora Thomas

No more rape. Image by chrisjtse, used under a CC BY-ND 2.0 license.
Are societal attitudes and laws against rape in the Caribbean doing women a disservice? Trinidad and Tobago's attorney general set himself up for criticism last week in a speech to Parliament, where he warned women to be especially responsible during the Christmas and Carnival seasons because the use of date-rape drugs rises.
Presumably he intended to encourage women to be vigilant, but the public announcement meant that sexual predators were reminded about the availability of such drugs. Putting the onus of responsibility on the potential victims, rather than the perpetrators, also struck a sour note with many citizens.
Meanwhile, in Barbados, the Men’s Education Support Association (MESA) actively lobbied for legislation in which fines would be imposed on women for making false accusations of sexual assault. According to the head of the organisation, schoolgirls regularly “tear off their clothes” and blame men for what—apparently inevitably—happens next.
The blog “Code Red,” which regularly examines regional feminist issues, was not impressed with this reasoning, saying of the situation in Trinidad and Tobago:
Girls are either raping themselves, lying about rape, dressing immorally or failing to parang [folk music originating in Trinidad and Tobago that is popular around Christmas time] responsibly.
The [attorney general] conveniently did not mention what, if anything, the government planned to do to address rape, since by his own analysis it is a fact of life.
The blog also challenged MESA's reasoning:
In the Caribbean, a girl who is raped at age 12 can expect to see her case come to court when she is 20, that is, if the social stigma, family and community pressure have not already forced her and her family to discontinue the case. […]
To argue that legislation should deter women and girls from reporting crimes against them is not in men’s interest. It is in the interest of rapists.
We are left with empty advice. Rapists’ interests confused as men’s interests. A relentless culture of misogyny that is literally costing us our lives.
Unfortunately, the misogyny cited above is pervasive throughout the Caribbean. Just last month, a Jamaican parliamentarian was criticised on social media for a flippant quip about rape during a debate about a proposed flexi-work bill. When a female senator made the point that women leaving work after dark could be at higher risk for sexual assault, Minister AJ Nicholson saw it fit to make a joke.
The laws are also skewed against women when it comes to sexual assault. Some groups are trying to do what they can to push back. Earlier in the year, this Guyana-based human rights NGO promoted an online petition to get the marital rape laws changed:
#Petition: #Caribbean Community- #CARICOM- Leaders, Change marital #rape laws and build more shelters for survivors: http://t.co/XP2JAWNl3L
— SASOD Guyana (@SASODGuyana) February 12, 2014
A few months later, another Twitter user drew attention to the rape of children in state institutions and the response of one politician who said that “girls are no angels”—a typical “blame the victim” reaction:
#rape of children in state care in #Caribbean. #jamaica #Guyana politician says girls are no angels! #vaw #catchafyah http://t.co/PthRD3KPLi
— tonya@CODE_RED (@redforgender) April 24, 2014
Code Red blog cites research in the United Kingdom that indicates as many as two-thirds of rape allegations are dismissed without going to trail, thanks to a host of common “criteria,” such as claims of disability, mental illness, being in a relationship with the attacker, consuming drugs or alcohol before the attack, and so on. The head researcher in the UK, Betsy Stanko, concluded that “rather that seeing these women and girls as unreliable witnesses, police investigators need to take a person’s vulnerability as evidence that they are more likely to be raped and investigate whether that vulnerability was exploited by the suspect.”
Trends in the Caribbean are no better. Code Red says the region's “rates of investigation, trial and conviction in cases of rape and sexual assault are extremely low.” In Guyana, where there are on average 140 reported cases of rape, “in the years 2012 and 2013, only 22 cases had enough evidence to go to court and none resulted in a conviction, even with the Sexual Offenses Act in 2012.” That works out to an average conviction rate of 1.4 percent:
This year it was reported that Guyana did not have enough rape kits. In other cases rape did not even get investigated until women took to the streets in protest.
Popular perceptions could be changing, however. Judging from this letter to the editor, some Guyanese women are no longer prepared to accept the status quo:
We are tired of paper rights. We are tired of being abused, violated and not being able to get justice. […] We are tired of being ignored as our lives and the lives of our families grow more and more dangerous from all forms of violence including sexual violence. We are most of all tired of the hypocrisy, deception, lies, corruption, ignorance and ‘eye pass’. We are sick and tired of the wasteful and empty consultations and empty promises. We know the truth, and the truth is: in this dear land of Guyana, women and children pass for grass.
Well no more! We are not prepared to accept that there is no money for comprehensively addressing the scourge of sexual violence.
Guyanese activists are demanding urgent action to address the threats to women, including the dismissal of the attorney general and chief justice, for their alleged poor judgement in matters relating to sexual offenses. Activists are also calling for the establishment of properly funded institutions within the justice system “armed with progressive human rights based policies to support and secure justice for victims of sexual violence.”

author: Flora Thomas


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El Salvador Imprisons 17 Women Who Lost Their Newborns as Murderers · Global Voices
NACLA

Image used with permission
This article, written by Jocelyn Viterna, was originally published on the NACLA (North American Congress on Latin America) website. Jocelyn Viterna is an associate professor of sociology at Harvard University and the author of “Women in War: The Micro-processes of Mobilization in El Salvador (Oxford University Press, 2013)”.
One night in November 2011, María Teresa awoke in San Salvador with stomach cramping. She had felt fine all day, working at her factory job, and spending the evening laughing, talking, sharing dinner with her family, and helping her six-year-old son with his homework. When she later stumbled to the latrine outside her small, one-room home clutching her abdomen, she was horrified to feel a “little ball” drop from her body.
She cried for help and passed out, hemorrhaging severely. Her mother-in-law, Ana, called an ambulance. When hospital doctors realized she had just given birth, they asked what had happened to her baby. Stunned, María replied, “What baby?” The police were contacted, and they soon found the dead fetus in the latrine.
Originally charged with “abortion,” María Teresa’s charges were upgraded to “aggravated homicide” and she was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
There are 17 women like María Teresa languishing in El Salvador’s prisons, and women’s activists throughout the country are working hard to bring international attention to these cases. On April 1, a caravan of approximately 200 activists led by the Citizens’ Coalition for the Decriminalization of Abortion travelled from the Ilapongo’s Rehabilitation Center for Women, where many of the 17 women are being held, to the national Legislative Assembly, where they submitted requests to pardon these women, who are all imprisoned for the “homicide” or “attempted homicide” of their newborns. But as the Citizens’ Coalition argues, these women actually suffered a range of obstacles beyond their control, from stillbirths to complications resulting from self-birthing that led to the infant’s death. They have each been sentenced for 12 to 40 years, despite the absence of direct evidence of wrongdoing.
In court, María Teresa testified that she never knew she was pregnant, that her stomach never grew, and that she had been bleeding regularly, as if menstruating, for months prior to the stillbirth—all intimate details she has encouraged through written correspondence that I publish so her case be well known and accurately reported. Her mother-in-law, Ana, reports that María Teresa had regularly visited the doctor prior to the surprise birth, but that even the doctors had failed to recognize that she was pregnant. “She went a lot for back pain,” Ana said. “They even told her, because she’s really big breasted, that maybe the pain was caused by her chest.”
Medical experts at María Teresa’s trial determined that the fetus was “full term,” but the evidence for this conclusion was sparse and contradictory. There were no marks on the tiny body to suspect foul play; the umbilical cord was torn and not cut, substantiating María Teresa’s claims that the baby fell directly into the latrine; and the autopsy found no evidence of feces in either the lungs or the stomach of the fetus, suggesting that it likely never took a breath. Nevertheless, the judge concluded that María Teresa must have known she was pregnant, and had the specific intention of killing her newborn.
María Teresa’s family and neighbors were astounded to learn she had given birth. Ana explained, “I lived in the same house, and I never saw that pregnancy. The whole world, the neighbors…we were all shocked.” While unusual, María Teresa’s lack of knowledge of her own pregnancy is actually common for a statistically significant percentage of women. A 2002 German study in the British Medical Journal concluded that one out of 475 pregnancies go unrecognized by the pregnant woman herself until late in the gestation.
Women most at risk for not knowing they are pregnant are often overweight and continue to have vaginal bleeding through gestation, like María Teresa. According to Dr. Christine Curry, a Boston-based obstetrician, María Teresa’s presentation of intermittent, painless bleeding could have been caused by what she calls “cervical incompetence,” a condition in which a woman’s cervix “dilates with few, if any, painful contractions.” For Dr. Curry, it’s not uncommon for women with this condition to “deliver into toilets due to their feeling of extreme pressure without pain.”
Outside of these 17 cases, the large majority of Salvadoran women who experience a stillbirth or newborn death are not accused of murder, as those deaths often occur in a medical facility under the watchful eye of staff. However, under current legislation, Salvadoran women who enter the hospital post-partum, having already lost the fetus, are at high risk of being accused of homicide, especially if they have no witnesses to support their account.
All 17 women seeking the pardons in El Salvador’s courts gave birth outside a medical facility, and typically without any support. Like María Teresa, most were transported to the hospital with heavy bleeding and retained placentas, often losing consciousness. Some, like María Marina, testified in court documents that their babies were born dead, and medical reports provided no evidence to the contrary.
A legal review of the court documents suggests that judges’ decisions in nearly every case are based on a presumption of the mother’s guilt. In many cases, exculpatory evidence is dismissed, and judgments center on whether women may have hidden their pregnancies, cheated on their male partners, or acted inappropriately according to presumed natural laws of motherhood.
Over the last several decades, abortion laws in Latin America have undergone striking changes. Previous laws for the most part outlawed abortion except when the life of mother is at risk, the pregnancy is a result of rape, or the fetus is severely deformed. A few places, like Uruguay and Mexico City, have recently followed the example of Cuba and liberalized women’s access to abortion. Others, such as El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Chile, and the Dominican Republic, criminalized all forms of abortion, while also amending their constitutions to define “life” as beginning at conception. Abortion laws have also recently been the subject of intense debate in a host of other Latin American countries, including Brazil, Colombia, Bolivia, and Costa Rica.
In El Salvador, a powerful pro-life movement led by the organization Yes to Life began campaigning for the total criminalization of abortion during a planned revision of the penal code in 1994. The right-wing National Republican Alliance (ARENA) political party allied with the pro-life movement, and in 1997, voted into law a new criminal code. The new code eliminated the previous law’s allowance of abortion in cases of rape or grave fetal deformation, or when it would save the health of the mother. The left-wing Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) initially challenged ARENA, arguing that pregnant women should maintain limited options for safe abortions, particularly when pregnancy put their lives at risk. But the FMLN had too few votes to stop the passage of the total abortion ban.
In 1999, ARENA brought a constitutional amendment defining life as beginning at conception to the legislature for its final vote, and the left party again did not have enough votes to stop the amendment from passing. The major media outlets in the nation, long affiliated with the political right, had strongly criticized the FMLN’s stance in favor of limited abortion rights, and the party was divided and losing public support. The FMLN leadership decided to let party members “vote their conscience” instead of proposing a party line. The overwhelming majority of FMLN deputies voted in favor of the constitutional reform. Although the FMLN has supported several other initiatives to improve women’s rights since winning executive power in 2009, they have remained silent on the issue of abortion since 1999.
Amnesty International, the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, and the Inter-American Court on Human Rights have all criticized the Salvadoran law, arguing that requiring a woman to sacrifice her life for a fetus, or requiring a woman to carry an unviable fetus to term constitutes torture, discrimination, and a fundamental violation of human rights. Despite the right’s powerful control over the Salvadoran media, the Salvadoran feminist movement has made slow but significant gains in educating the public about the consequences of the total abortion ban. Nearly 97% of Salvadorans supported some form of anti-abortion legislation in a 2012 nationally-representative survey, but only 40% opposed abortion in situations where the pregnant woman’s life is at risk. The Citizen’s Coalition believes this number has decreased even further since the publicity surrounding the case of Beatriz, a woman whose life was recently endangered when Salvadoran law prohibited the abortion of her non-viable pregnancy.
While abortion rights movements around the world have reported on the Salvadoran legislation extensively, what is perhaps most compelling about the current cases is that the imprisoned women appear to have not purposefully ended a pregnancy, but rather to have suffered from a combination of obstetrical complications and poverty. When they sought medical attention in public health centers, they were reported to the police for suspected abortion, often by the very medical staff that treated them. Given that the anti-abortion law in El Salvador provides a two- to five-year sentence for abortion accomplices and those who fail to report a possible abortion, as outlined in the Salvadoran Criminal Code, such actions by medical personnel are understandable. As Morena Herrera of the Citizens’ Coalition explained to me, “With the 1997 change in the legislation, the Attorney General’s office became more interested in prosecuting the act of abortion. What happened was that prosecution shifted its focus to the public hospitals.”
The cases of these 17 Salvadoran women are complicated by the failure of the Salvadoran criminal code to provide any legal definition of abortion, while the newly amended constitution explicitly defines life as beginning at conception. This blurs the legal line between abortion and homicide.
Dennis Munoz Estanley, a lawyer for the Citizens’ Coalition, explained to me in July how this blurring denies women the presumption of innocence: “At first, these women are accused in the public hospitals of abortion, but this is done without determining if there has been an induction of any sort. Then, as the investigation evolves, the medical experts say that the case doesn’t actually deal with abortion, as the uterine contractions that these women had were spontaneous. But if this was the case, then there was simply no reason for the abortion accusation in the first place.”
In the three months since the Citizen’s Coalition formally requested pardons on behalf of the 17 women, the Coalition reported to me in July that six more women have been charged with murder in El Salvador for what appear to be obstetrical emergencies. Several, like 19-year-old Kenia, have already received 30-year sentences.
In Kenia’s case, she called the authorities for help when she went into labor, but help never came—probably due to the high level of gang violence in her community, as the Coalition alleges. After she gave birth alone, her baby died. Kenia left the baby in her family’s storehouse, and went, bleeding, with the placenta and the umbilical cord still attached to her uterus, into the street to look for the police. She had lost almost two liters of blood. The police took her to the hospital, and like in the other cases, she was charged with homicide and sentenced to 30 years.
Image used with permission
María Teresa’s son Oscar’s eyes filled with tears as he spoke with me in July. The now nine-year-old boy hasn’t seen his mother in almost two years because his grandmother says he becomes seriously depressed after visiting her in prison, and because the trip requires many hours and financial resources that she cannot spare. Ana regularly struggles to make ends meet with the little store she runs out of their home, buying food in bulk and selling it piecemeal. If she earns two dollars a day, she reports, she feels very lucky. Oscar’s schoolwork has suffered, even though neighbors help him because his grandmother is illiterate. And he has begun showing other signs of psychological stress as well.
When his grandmother announced that she could no longer continue to pay his tuition, his face fell. Ana desperately wants to avoid transferring him to the public school, where she says teachers have too many students and where violent gangs recruit their youngest members. But the funds are simply not there.
“Without María Teresa, I’ve felt very bad, in every way. She was like a daughter to me,” recounted Ana. “Now it’s a fight to figure out how to get by. She was the one who worked for all of us. Oscar misses her so much. She had paid for him to go to the mission school since he was in kindergarten, because she knew that the child would do well there, because education was always really important for her. She was everything to her child.”
In a country overwhelmed by poverty and violence, Oscar once seemed to be a child with a chance at social mobility. But when the judicial system imprisoned his mother for four decades, they also sentenced Oscar to limited educational opportunities, extreme psychological distress, and little escape from street violence. In its efforts to protect the life of the unborn, the Salvadoran legal system may be systematically destroying the lives of children like Oscar who are already here.

author: NACLA


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Have the Japanese Become ‘Numb’ to Earthquakes? · Global Voices
Sayuri Ishiwata

Image by Flickr user NATSUKO KADOYAMA from March 14, 2011. CC BY NC-ND 2.0
A 6.8-magnitude earthquake rattled Japan's Nagano Prefecture in November 2014. Forty-one people were injured and 54 buildings collapsed, making for sensational coverage in the media.
【余震も】長野北部の地震　家具が倒れ、道路に亀裂　新幹線は緊急停車（画像） http://t.co/VKEvzWka1w pic.twitter.com/MRPEUVMvdw
— ハフィントンポスト日本版 (@HuffPostJapan) 2014, 11月 23
Aftershocks: The earthquake in northern Nagano has left furniture strewn in cracked streets. Shinkansen bullet train services were suspended.
However, there was not as much media coverage of the recent Nagano quake compared to the past. One reason may be that no one died in the recent Nagano earthquake. While the media was quick to report on the Nagano quake, in-depth reporting afterwards quickly trickled off.
Even though a relatively strong 6.8-magnitude earthquake had occurred, the approach to coverage had changed. People took notice of the reduced coverage and voiced their opinions online.
これだけの規模の地震なのに、テレビが地震慣れし過ぎて、速報からすぐに、ワイドショーネタに、すぐさま戻ってしまったのが、とても怖い事態だと思うんだが…
— TETSU (@mediaplaning) 2014, 11月 22
Although the earthquake scale was large, the fact that television coverage quickly switched back to prime time programming is pretty scary.
On the other hand, countless tweets about the earthquake were produced in a steady stream. Some Twitter users were wondering about the dearth of media coverage about the quake, while others were wondering why it was so easy to brush off such a big quake.
地震が来ても恐怖に怯えるどころかなんかtwitterが賑わうあたり日本って地震慣れしてる感ある
— kamini． (@kamini_doll) 2014, 11月 22
With all of the Twitter chatter expressing fears of another quake, it's easy to understand that Japan has become a country that has become used to earthquakes.
‘It's crazy that we've become used to this’
Japanese attitudes toward earthquakes certainly seem to have changed by the experience of the “3.11 Tohoku Triple Disaster“, referring to the deadly March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami that triggered a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
As the earthquake that occurred Nagano in November 2014 illustrates, people living in Japan have become used to earthquakes (indeed, there is actually a new expression in the Japanese language that describes this phenomenon, 震慣れ (jishin-nare) or “used to earthquakes.”)
On Twitter, relatively large earthquakes like the one that occurred in Nagano this past November would have at one time would have been taken quite serious. Nowadays there isn't as much of a sense of fear and anxiety being expressed there or on other social media networks.
震災の前はちょっとした地震も怖くて、震度３とか死ぬと思ってたくらい本当に怖かったんだけど、あの震災の地震を体験してそれ以降もずっと頻繁に揺れてたからびくともしなくなった。慣れってこわい。だから震度4でも普通にテレビみてる自分あぶないって思う
— 宮地☆みっちゃん (@sajun1022) 2014, 11月 22
In the past, people thought even small tremors were scary. People thought they were going to die even if it was a mild Shindo 3 earthquake. After experiencing 3.11 and following the incessant aftershocks in years since, that anxiety has disappeared. Earthquakes are scary, but we're used to them. So when I'm still calmly watching television even in the middle of a Shindo 4 quake, well, that's a little strange and unsettling.
Other Twitter users think the attitude of society itself towards earthquakes has changed since 3.11:
東北の地震くらい凄いものを体験したからなのか今回も凄い地震が長野で起きている筈だけど感覚が麻痺？何なのか東北の時みたいにザワザワしたままじゃなく割と普通に生活を送ってしまっている辺り慣れ？の感覚って怖いなぁって思う。
— Rei@11/25ぼっちキャラクロ (@Re1o627) 2014, 11月 23
Is it because the 3.11 Tohoku Triple Disaster was so terrible that we've come to expect that the Nagano quake will also result in terrible damage? It's almost like we as a society are in a state of paralysis. It's not like with the Tohoku triple disaster, when there was a constant background hum of discussion about what was happening. In the case of the Nagano earthquake this past November, people just resumed their daily lives. It's quite chilling to think about.
The sense of passivity in the face of crisis was already apparent to some observers just one year after the 3.11 Tohoku disaster.
Thanks to frequently occurring aftershocks even in regions far away from the most severely affected regions of Tohoku, regular, relatively frightening quakes which would have once upon a time been considered abnormal were now just regular life for many people.
岩手県沖震源で震度4か。普通なら大きな地震なんだけど、もはや報道すらあまりない。慣れって恐ろしい。麻痺してるんだ。
— John Neo (@Johnneosan) 2012, 7月 29
A M4 earthquake just off the coast of Iwate (about 300 km north of Tokyo). Normally this would have been considered a big deal but there's hardly any coverage. It's crazy that we've become used to this. As a society we have become numb.
As the word word 慣れ (nare, to become accustomed to) spread to become a meme in the months of aftershocks following the 3.11 Tohoku Triple Disaster, many expressed their unease at what this word was actually coming to represent.
海外の建物なんて日本で言う震度３でも全壊してしまうのもザラにあります。「地震慣れ」なんて寝ぼけたこと言ってないで建物から離れましょう。それは「慣れ」ではなく「麻痺」です。
— 妙見＠12/20クリーマクラフトパーティ (@myoken11) 2012, 8月 31
In other countries, it's pretty common for even a relatively minor Shindo 3 earthquake to collapse buildings. When an earthquake happens don't say you're “used to earthquakes.” Instead, seek safety. You're not “used to earthquakes”, you have simply become numb to them.
Note: Instead of the measuring by magnitude, Japan classifies earthquakes according to a “seismic intensity scale,” or shindo (literally “degree of shaking”). Although the shindo system doesn't measure the depth of an earthquake (which helps determine seismic intensity), it's possible to measure the effect of the same earthquake across different regions. A Shindo 7 earthquake like the one that struck off the coast of Tohoku generating massive tsunami waves is the most powerful earthquake.
Survivors’ noble stoicism
The perception of earthquakes in Japan is also connected to how people who themselves have been affected by earthquakes perceive what has happened to them.
In the weeks and months that followed the 3.11 calamity, aftershock after aftershock rocked eastern Japan, including the Tokyo region. The two words that have become most associated with the aftermath of the 3.11 triple disaster that completely wiped away so very many small towns off the face of the map were “reconstruct!” and kizuna, or “the bonds that tie us together as a community.”
However, as time went on, both the idea of reconstruction and kizuna have faded away, so much so that by 2013 that the journalist Ishijima Teruyo remarked that “the problem with the aftermath of the disaster is that only the word kizuna, or bond, itself remains, obscuring all that needs to be done to help the region recover.”
Ishijima reported listening to a university lecturer say, “The stoicism of the people of Tohoku is often presented as a moving and impressive tale, and that's the only story that is being told about the people living in the regions affected by the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster. And just a year after the disaster people were not able to hold out for much longer.”
Obscuring the very real suffering under a veneer of noble stoicism, the heartwarming story of the pluck and bravery of the 3.11 survivors has created an illusion. The themes of “strength” and “beauty” have obscured the real, ongoing plight of the people of Tohoku.
Just five days after the 3.11 earthquake and tsunami, the drive to understand what had happened was already being eclipsed by “concern” about the effects of the earthquake. As one Twitter user observed:
言い方がちょっと変だけど、地震への「関心」は高まったけど「意識」が低くなった気がする。決して震度５、６が小さいわけじゃない。被害者数だって「あの県は１人しか死者がでてない」じゃなくて、１人の人間が亡くなってしまった。すごく大きいことだ。慣れは怖い。
— 味噌汁 (@iam_misosoup) 2011, 3月 15
The way people are talking about 3.11 is changing subtlety. “Feeling for the victims of the disaster” is becoming more important than actually understanding what happened. Shindo 5 and 6 earthquakes are not small at all. We shouldn't be saying “only one person died in such-and-such place because of the earthquake.” One person dying in this day and age because of an earthquake is a big deal. Becoming accustomed like this to earthquakes is a very scary thing.
Political props
Following the 3.11 disaster, there were also many examples of earthquake victims being used as political props. In the lead-up to elections, politicians, in an effort to demonstrate they emphasized with people in the disaster zone, would criticize the attitudes and actions of other politicians towards earthquake survivors.
Other times, when the government itself was being criticized, such as at anti-nuclear demonstrations, politicians would position themselves as the foremost advocates of the 3.11 survivors.
Twitter users have been quick to notice:
大雪の時に天ぷらを食べてたとか昼のバラエティー番組にでたとか、相変わらず安部総理への下らない批判を繰り返す野党。仮設住宅に入れない被災者が何万人もいるならともかく、仮設住宅に何万人住もうが、それを理由に首相の行動が制約される理由はない。いい加減三陸や福島の政治利用はやめて欲しい。
— 高木 史郎 (@TakagiShirou) 2014, 3月 21
The opposition parties continue with their impotent criticisms of the [Prime Minister Shinzo] Abe government while ignoring the tens of thousands of people in the disaster zone still waiting for temporary housing. The politicians should leave the people living in the disaster zone out of politics
Yamamoto Taro, a television personality-turned politician who gained notoriety after ignoring protocol by passing on a letter to the emperor, has also been criticized for making political hay out of the plight of Tohoku residents.
山本太郎がたった１通の手紙を渡しただけで「天皇を政治利用した」と批判するのなら、その前に「天皇」も「拉致被害者」も「東日本大震災の被災者」も「福島第一原発事故の被害者」もカタッパシから政治利用してる安倍晋三のことを批判しろよ。
— きっこ (@kikko_no_blog) 2013, 11月 1
If we're going to criticize Taro Yamamoto for “politicizing the emperor” after passing on a single letter, we sure as hell had better criticize Shinzo Abe too for using the emperor as a tool for everything from North Korean abductions to the Fukushima nuclear accident and so on.
Others have noted that those who once claimed to champion the interests of those affected by the 3.11 disaster have now moved on.
反原発厨は、地震が起こると被災者への心配よりまず先に原発批判・自民批判を展開するのか。どっちが人でなしだか解らんな>RT
— 山極 由磨 (@YuumaYamagiwa) 2014, 11月 22
For the anti-nuclear movement, what seems to be more important than the plight of the 3.11 earthquake and tsunami survivors is criticizing nuclear power and the government.
Global Voices posts related to the 3.11 Tohuku Triple Disaster:
Strong Earthquake in Japan's Nagano Injures Dozens, Topples Homes
1,000 Days Since 2011′s Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami
20 Bitter Voices Rise From Fukushima After Japan's 2011 Nuclear Disaster
Mapping Earthquake Reconstruction in Tohoku, Japan
Fukushima: No Place Like Home
Earthquake Hits Awaji Island in Japan
Evacuate the Children of Fukushima
Fukushima's Children Are Getting Sick
Earthquake Debris Disposal Divides Japan
After Japan Earthquake, a New Local Newspaper by Citizens
Japan: Citizens Respond to New Nuclear Power Policies

author: Sayuri Ishiwata


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#IndiaWithPakistan: Indians Show Solidarity With Their Grieving Neighbors After Peshawar Attack · Global Voices
Rezwan

Victims of militants, who attacked an army public school situated on Warsak Road, are moved for treatment at a local hospital in Peshawar. Image by ppiimages. Copyright Demotix (16/12/2014)
People from all over the world have offered their support and sympathy on social media for Pakistan as the country reels from a horrific attack on a school in Peshawar that has left 141 people dead, most of whom were children.
But one particular hashtag is worth noting — Indians are putting aside their ardent rivalry with Pakistan and expressing solidarity with their neighbors at this difficult time under #IndiawithPakistan on Twitter.
Yes, I am Indian. So what? The pain of losing a child is universal. #IndiawithPakistan
— Dipankar #LDL (@deep_anchor) December 16, 2014
At around 11 a.m. Pakistan time on December 16, six Taliban militants entered the Army-run school in the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and took around 500 students and teachers hostage. The attackers were dressed as soldiers and opened fire at random, also detonating an unknown number of suicide bombs. A teacher was reportedly burned alive in front of pupils and children were shot in the head. One hundred and forty-one people were killed, most of whom were children, and hundreds injured in the siege. According to police, all the militants were killed.
The Taliban, in a statement to Reuters, said that they targeted the school because the army targets their families in an ongoing military offensive against Taliban strongholds near Peshawar. “We want them to feel our pain,” the statement said.
Dr. Asif Sohrab described on Facebook the horror in Peshawar:
2,3 funerals in every Street of Peshawar. In my street there are 3! Peshawar bleeds, Pakistan cries.
On such a sad day, #IndiawithPakistan generated a lot of good vibes:
No Indian I know is indifferent to the horror in Peshawar. Nothing can be worse than sending your children2school &not having them come back
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) December 16, 2014
Children are the first casualty of violence and war. It is time we all came together and #PutAStop to this violence. #PeshawarAttack
— Kailash Satyarthi (@k_satyarthi) December 16, 2014
These are the school children who were attacked in #PeshawarAttack today. Hold your heart people. #IndiawithPakistan pic.twitter.com/m5xWpJQ6hh“
— Muhammad Safeen (@SafeensS) December 16, 2014
Because bigots, radicals and murderers on either side of the border need to be wiped off from the face of humanity #IndiawithPakistan
— Rana Ayyub (@RanaAyyub) December 16, 2014
We want to live by each other's happiness, not each other's misery. #IndiaWithPakistan #PeshawarAttack pic.twitter.com/RPTYuboDz5
— India Loves Pakistan (@IndLovesPak) December 16, 2014
Share the pain of our Pakistani brothers & sisters grieving for children slaughtered by Taliban.Strength,solidarity,hope #IndiawithPakistan
— Sagarika Ghose (@sagarikaghose) December 16, 2014
In response to the attack, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced three days of mourning and has called an all party parliamentary meeting at the Governor House in Peshawar on Wednesday.
Men carry the casket of a victim of the Taliban shoot-out in a military-run school in Peshawar, Pakistan. Image by ppiimages. Copyright Demotix (16/12/2014)
Pakistani Twitter users have also taken to Twitter to express their anger and grief:
This is not my religion, not my politics. I would rather have no god than a god that justifies the mass murder of children. #PeshawarAttack
— Ali Dayan Hasan (@AliDayan) December 16, 2014
Which God, which religion allows u to kill 100 innocent children. Shame on Taliban! Shame, Shame, Shame. Taliban u r real enemy of God.
— Qamar Waheed Naqvi (@qwnaqvi) December 16, 2014
Don't call it resilience. Its our criminal silence in the face of violence that let terrorists play havoc.We mourn everyday w/out learning.
— Umar Cheema (@UmarCheema1) December 16, 2014
Mehr Tarar, a former op-ed editor for Pakistan's Daily Times, captured the heartbreak of many Pakistanis in a column for Indian news portal NDTV:
Today, I feel as if I have been punched in my stomach. In my heart. And in my soul. With an iron rod. As I hear of children who were killed in an Army school in Peshawar, I feel my heart stopping.
Children were shot in the face. Children were shot in the head. Children were dragged out from under the chairs, under the tables, and shot. At point blank. Methodically. Coldly. Clinically. They – who go by the name of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan – say it is to avenge the Army operation against them in the FATA. To avenge the deaths of militants who were wreaking havoc on innocent Pakistanis in myriad acts of terror. It's retribution, they say.
I have nothing to say here. You call yourself a Muslim, you call your fight a jihad, you call your way that of Allah. And yet you do what Allah forbids you to do: to perpetrate a war in His name where you kill children. Where you kill people who have never harmed you. You are not just Pakistan's enemy but you are also your own worst enemy.
Writing in independent Canadian news website Ricochet, journalist Jahanjeb Hussain offered his view on what good, if any, could come of the attack:
The best hope is that this attack would finally convince the country’s leadership that meaningful, concentrated, and long-term action needs to be taken across the board.

author: Rezwan


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Hungarian PM Receives Chocolates from Union Workers’ Children, Then Votes for Parents to Lose Jobs · Global Voices
Atlatszo.hu

Hungary's government monopolized the sale of tobacco goods in 2013, drawing criticism from all sides both for the monopoly and the restriction of the Freedom of Information Act that came with the secretive distribution of sales licenses for the goods. In a second round, Hungarian Parliament voted on Monday, December 15, 2014, to create a state-run national tobacco distributor. Trade unions protested against the law, arguing it would result in the loss of some 1600 jobs.
Photo from LIGA Trade Unions FB page, widely circulated on social networks.
Ahead of the vote, a trade union group sent bars of chocolate to Hungarian members of Parliament with pictures of children and a message asking the MPs to vote against the parents of these children losing their jobs. Vastagbőr blog reported that Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán also received a bar of chocolate, ate the chocolate, and then proceeded to vote in favor of creating the national tobacco distributor, which would leave hundreds of people unemployed. Photos of Prime Minister Orban consuming the chocolate bar before the deciding vote are included in the blog post and other local media.


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Murdered Teen’s Father Rallies Support for ‘Tijana’s Law’ on Serbian Social Media · Global Voices
Danica Radisic

One of the images widely circulated on the Internet in the impromptu social media campaign for Tijana's Law, with the question that everyone is asking: “Why hasn't Tijana's Law been adopted yet?”. Drawing by unknown artist.
The gruesome murder of 15-year-old Tijana Jurić in early August 2014 shook Serbian society so deeply that some people called for the death penalty to be reinstated. The young victim's father Igor Jurić, however, found what many think is a better solution, with the help of legal experts from the University of Novi Sad. Within weeks after his daughter's tragic death, Jurić presented the government of Serbia with a proposal for new legislature that may have saved his daughter's life.
The proposal for the new law has been dubbed “Tijana's Law” and was presented in late August 2014, but has not yet been passed by the Serbian government, nor has it been discussed in Parliament. Almost four months later, social networks have been flooded with the hashtag, #podrži (#SupportIt) and user-generated images on social networks asking the same question: “Why hasn't Tijana's Law been passed yet?”
Koliko jos dece treba da strada da bi ste usvojili Tijanin zakon? Ili je pravo pitanje cije dete ? #podrzi pic.twitter.com/ccpTJp2TuY
— Bobana48 (@Bobana48) December 15, 2014
How many more children need to die for you to adopt Tijana's Law? Or is whose child the right question? #podrzi pic.twitter.com/ccpTJp2TuY
The new suggested law proposes simply that police searches for minors should begin as soon as a minor is reported missing by parents or guardians and that Serbia's high-tech crime unit should be involved in the search immediately. The latter would enable police to locate the mobile phones of the missing minors as well as activity of mobile phones in the vicinity that may be related to these cases.
In the case of Tijana Jurić, her abductor and alleged murderer, who confessed to the heinous crime in court, was eventually located due to police tracing his mobile phone, but days after her death. Tijana had her mobile phone with her on the evening she was abducted and it is feasible that the phone could have been located in the time-span between her abduction and murder. Theoretically at least, had there been a law in place that allowed police to react immediately and the high-tech crime police unit to locate her telephone in time, Tijana's life might have been saved. This sort of immediate reaction from authorities is exactly what Tijana's Law proposes.
Igor Jurić has publicly asked people to help him push the law to be considered by Serbia's Parliament, stating that he deems this his life's mission after his daughter's death.
Igor Jurić, Tijana's father, holds a sign saying, “Help me get TIJANA'S LAW adopted.” This was one of the first images of the online campaign supporting the proposed law and has been widely circulated on social networks.
While some say that Serbia has adequate existing laws for such cases, many seem unsatisfied with the existing laws or their implementation. The #podrži campaign is abundantly present on both Twitter and Facebook. A Facebook page was created on December 14 to collect the images and support the online campaign for Tijana's Law and, within just one day, already garnered close to 5,000 fans. The page has also collected images from dozens of users supporting the proposed law and new images continue to pour in hourly.