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Revelation Blows a Hole in Trinidad & Tobago President’s Explanation of Controversial Housing Allowance · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Rhoda Bharath, showing netizens the stack of documents relating to the alleged misconduct in public office on the part of Trinidad and Tobago's president. Screenshot taken from Bharath's Facebook Live session of January 1, 2017.
Rhoda Bharath, the university lecturer who has made it her mission to get the bottom of a controversial housing allowance granted to the country's president, began 2017 by posting a Facebook Live video updating netizens on the latest developments.
While there are several aspects to Bharath's argument as to why Trinidad and Tobago's president, Anthony Carmona, should be investigated for alleged impropriety, she has homed in on the issue of the housing allowance because she believes that there is “a strong case” there. Carmona received TT $28,000 (approximately US $4,180) per month from July 2013 until May 2015, while living in state housing. All guidelines on the matter clearly state that a president may be the recipient of state accommodation, or a housing allowance to afford him suitable housing — not both.
In reviewing the documents, a UK-based senior attorney advised that there were grounds for a criminal investigation into misconduct in public office on the part of the president, his secretary at the time and the then chief personnel officer, but Bharath's request for a probe has not yet been acknowledged by the police. Her attorney, Justin Phelps, has sent correspondence to two acting chiefs of police on four occasions since Bharath's press conference on October 27, 2016.
The plot thickens, however. On September 28, 2016, President Carmona publicly stated that he commissioned a consultant firm to do a report (the results of which apparently support the decision to grant him the housing allowance), that the Salaries Review Commission (SRC) authorised the payment based on that report, and that the report itself is lodged with the auditor general's office.
The SRC has since made it clear that it “has not been involved in the alleged decision” to grant the allowance — a stance which contradicts the president's assertions that the chairperson and members of the SRC, through the chief personnel officer, decided that due to the “deplorable conditions” of the state housing he was afforded, the allowance would be given.
The SRC also insisted that it had never seen the consultant's report that the president allegedly commissioned. In fact, in a letter dated July 9, 2013, the then chief personnel officer approved a housing allowance of TT $15,450 (approximately US $2,305) “only during the period in which [the president] occupies such temporary accommodation”, even though “as a principle, where an office holder is provided with accommodation by the State, a Housing Allowance is not payable for an period during which he/she is provided with such accommodation.” The figure was later increased retroactively to the $28,000 per month, but no correspondence to date references an independent consultant's report.
Bharath says she requested a copy of the report from the auditor general's office, but was told that because the subject matter is linked to the president, that office is exempt from responding to Freedom of Information queries. It is a curious position, and one which Bharath believes is a dangerous precedent. While the office is charged with the responsibility of overseeing spending in the public service, the auditor general is appointed by the president.
Tracking down that report is a key issue for Bharath, as she says its contents — and the date on which it was issued — are critical for the country:
What is the date of the report, because if the [chief personnel officer] gave permission on July 9, was the report done before or after [Carmona] got the allowance? And, at this stage, because I feel I cannot trust you, Mr. President, how much did that report cost us? What were its parameters?
Bharath maintains that to date, no one with the authority to grant the housing allowance that she has spoken to has seen this report, and spelt out what this means to the citizens of the country:
What the president did was remain in housing that was beneath his standards and put the money in his pocket. Six hundred thousand dollars that never gets taxed and gets put directly into his pocket. That is the kind of foolishness that we have going on here.
While there are a few gatekeepers intended to hold the president to account — the accounting officer at President's House, the auditor general, the police — all of them, in Bharath's opinion, are not making an effort to do so. She called on the media and social media users to put on the pressure. She also noted that civil society and even the country's prime minister, Dr. Keith Rowley, have been quiet, but conceded that it would probably be premature for Rowley to comment on the matter until the police launch an investigation:
So again I’m going to ask why is the [chief of police] not responding?
We have to take this seriously, Trinidad and Tobago — we cannot allow silence and apathy to take us over. […]
I think it is very important that [the president] remain accountable to us […] as the highest office holder in the land […]
We must insist that he be held to account because if he can get away with taking money that does not belong to him, then we have no right locking up people for petty crime.
There has been no further comment on the issue from the Office of the President.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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Veteran Journalists in Hong Kong Launch Non-Profit News Site in Defense of Press Freedom · Global Voices
inmediahk.net

Citizen News Press Conference. Image provided by Citizen News.
The Chinese version of the post was written by Macro Mak for inmediahk.net and published on January 1, 2017. An edited English version appears below as part of a republication partnership.
A new non-profit Chinese-language news site called Citizen News launched on January 1, 2017 in Hong Kong.
The site, which was founded by 10 veteran journalists, stresses in its mission statement:
在紛時局裏，明辦是非；於不安躁動中，堅持公正理性；處身急風暴雨，站穩專業自主。
In a time of chaos, we must distinguish right from wrong; when society is restless, we must stick to reason and fairness; inside the storm, we must maintain autonomy with professionalism.
And the site's launch press release further declared:
The Chinese name of Citizen News carries the word “public” (眾). This is because we believe news must serve and be accountable to the public. We will promote public participation in journalism, including news production and subsidy for operation.
The site’s editor-in-chief is Daisy Li Yuet-wah, the former chief executive of the online news division of Taiwan's Apple Daily News. During the press conference for the launch, Li said the site aims to help the public understand the context behind fragmented pieces of news and information circulating online. In addition to in-depth reports and data journalism, the site will cover views from across the political spectrum and subsidize citizen news reporting.
The site is run by 10 full-time editors, many of whom have worked in the news industry for three decades, such as Daisy Li Yuet-wah herself; Keung Kwok Yuen, the former executive chief editor of Mingpao Daily; and Chris Yeung, a former political news editor for the South China Morning Post.
Former Hong Kong Journalists’ Association chairwoman Mak Yin Ting, who is also a non-executive director of Citizen News, warned in her remarks that Hong Kong's press freedom is eroding and professional journalists must stand up to the challenge.
Hong Kong is ranked 69 out of 180 in Reporters Without Borders’ 2016 Press Freedom Index, lagging behind Taiwan, which came in at 51. The city, which is a special administrative region of China with a high degree of autonomy from the mainland, was ranked 18 in 2002 when the index was first launched. The deteriorating media environment is the result of self-censorship in mainstream media outlets and political intervention from Beijing through the management of newsrooms.
Mak Yin Ting said the idea behind Citizen News is to help professional journalism survive into the next generation:
採訪資助計劃是希望能做到擴大知識面和關注不同議題。她認為公民存在於社會，當中接觸的議題均有新聞價值。麥續指，計劃設評審委員會，包括學者、新聞業界及熟悉該範疇所專業人士 […] 在完成採訪後會在《眾新聞》的平台發布。
The plan to subsidize citizen new reporting is to reach out to the community, turning their knowledge and concerns into news stories. As a member of society, citizens’ concerns have news value. […] the proposals will be reviewed by a committee of academics, professional journalists and experts in different fields. The subsidized reports will then be published on the site.
Kevin Lau, the former chief editor of Mingpao Daily who survived an attack by two men with a cleaver in 2014, is a non-executive director of the site’s holding company, Civic Journalists Limited, registered as a company limited by guarantee. He explained that the inspiration to create Citizen News came during conversations with friends while he was recovering from the attack in the hospital. After he was discharged, he held a monthly gathering with them to prepare for the new endeavor.
Joseph Chan, a journalism professor and one of the founders of the site, said during the press conference:
社會目前面對資訊疲勞及新聞碎片化，所以需要平台提供正確和重要的資訊。[…] 很多媒體已喪失立場，只為大集團服務，香港需要較獨立的媒體。
Society is inundated with fragmented information. It is necessary to have a platform that aggregates important information from trusted sources. […] The majority of mainstream media is serving the interest of big corporations, and Hong Kong deserves more independent media sites.
The site will start crowdfunding for its operation costs. Its annual target is HK 5 million, or approximately US $129,000, which would cover the citizen news subsidizing scheme.

source: news-globalvoices

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


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A Japanese Researcher Tweets Vintage Photos Colorized Using Neural Networks · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

The Japanese Emperor visits Disneyland, accompanied by Mickey Mouse. Image source: Hidenori Watanave.
Hidenori Watanave, an associate professor at Tokyo Metropolitan University, has been exploring a tool created by researchers at Japan's Waseda University that colorizes images using neural networks and posting some of his results to Twitter.
Waseda University's online project, called Neural Network-based Automatic Image Colorization, was developed by researchers Satoshi Iizuka, Edgar Simo-Serra and Hiroshi Ishikawa. Neural networks are computer systems that work in a way that's similar to the human brain. Anyone can use their web-based tool to add color to black-and-white images.
Watanave has used the tool in several projects devoted to preserving and mapping eyewitness testimony from World War II, including an interactive map of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings, and the Battle of Okinawa in 1945. Watanave is also the creator of a similar innovative mapping project that tracks the last moments of the victims of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
@AtomicHeritage @WWIImuseum A-Bomb cloud from Kure, Hiroshima. Automatic colorization by a neural network. pic.twitter.com/LjpcxLOUw0
— Hidenori Watanave (@hwtnv) December 22, 2016
Often, however, Watanave experiments with a variety of images, which he then posts to Twitter. Watanave has used the neural network-based technique to colorize a variety of photos from Japan's experience during the Second World War.
米軍機から撮影された沖縄本島爆撃のようす。渡久地と周辺の島から爆煙が上がっている。ニューラルネットワークによる自動色付け。沖縄平和学習アーカイブより。 https://t.co/IcLM5VCIph pic.twitter.com/iXFRjdfDc4
— Hidenori Watanave (@hwtnv) January 4, 2017
Image of bombardment on Okinawa filmed from an American military aircraft. Smoke rises from the islands around Toguchi, Okinawa. From the Peace Learning Archive in Okinawa (沖縄平和学習アーカイブ). Colorized by neural network.
1945年2月から3月，日本軍と連合国軍の間で行なわれた「マニラの戦い」で破壊された市街地．ニューラルネットワークによる自動色付け．写真はこちらから． https://t.co/eA8dPdPTR0 pic.twitter.com/qzCWRgsek2
— Hidenori Watanave (@hwtnv) January 5, 2017
In February and March 1945, Japanese forces and the Allies fought the Battle of Manila, which destroyed the city. Colorized photo originally from http://www.vintag.es/2016/12/18-rare-vintage-photographs-that-show.html
Many of the colorized photos he posts are ones he collected and curated as part of his projects detailing oral histories of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.
被爆直後の長崎。破壊された浦上天主堂。ニューラルネットワークによる自動色付け。ナガサキ・アーカイブより。 https://t.co/0JvaERYLpA pic.twitter.com/LdaQLmccmh
— Hidenori Watanave (@hwtnv) January 4, 2017
Nagasaki immediately after the nuclear blast. A demolished Urakami Cathedral.
被爆直後の広島。紙屋町交差点の北側から南西に向かって。ニューラルネットワークによる自動色付け。ヒロシマ・アーカイブより。 https://t.co/EJcybdeTEw pic.twitter.com/jZlAyIl8pK
— Hidenori Watanave (@hwtnv) January 4, 2017
Hiroshima immediately after the atomic bombing. Looking southwest from the north side of Kamiya-machi crossing. Photo from the Hiroshima Archive.
Not all of Watanave's experiments have to do with the war. Many photos depict scenes from Japanese history over the past century or so.
1975年10月、カリフォルニアのディズニーランドを訪れた昭和天皇。ニューラルネットワークによる自動色付け。 pic.twitter.com/gHIAXJp2en
— Hidenori Watanave (@hwtnv) December 22, 2016
In October 1975, Emperor Hirohito visits Disneyland in California.
1930年代，別府の海岸で砂風呂を楽しむ女性たち．ニューラルネットワークによる自動色付け． pic.twitter.com/CZZyLGR8am
— Hidenori Watanave (@hwtnv) January 3, 2017
Women enjoying a hot-sand bath in Beppu sometime in the 1930s.
1908年にArnold Genthe氏が撮影した写真。場所はどこだろうか。ニューラルネットワークによる自動色付け。 pic.twitter.com/Pk4ureVhXc
— Hidenori Watanave (@hwtnv) December 29, 2016
Photo taken by Arnold Genthe in 1908. It's unclear where in Japan this photo was taken.
And not all of Watanave's colorization experiments have to do with Japan. This interesting photograph provides a window into the Korean War:
朝鮮戦争出兵中の兵士たちを慰問するマリリン・モンロー．1954年撮影．ニューラルネットワークによる自動色付け． pic.twitter.com/SutKWH17cJ
— Hidenori Watanave (@hwtnv) January 3, 2017
Marilyn Monroe entertains troops deployed in 1954 during the Korean War.
Watanave's Twitter feed can sometimes produce interesting results. Here, a Twitter follower appears to recognize a colorized photo of her own mother taken nearly 50 years ago in Tokyo:
晴れ着に日本髪で初仕事に就く電話交換手の女性たち。昭和45年1月5日、東京都千代田区。ニューラルネットワークによる自動色付け。 pic.twitter.com/vW4stLY1fC
— Hidenori Watanave (@hwtnv) January 1, 2017
Dressed in their Sunday best and in a traditional Japanese hairstyle, young women enter the workforce [around the time of the annual Coming of Age Day] on January 5, 1970, in Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo.
@hwtnv ありがとうございます。自分の母の若い頃を見るようです。
— ほっぴー@この世界の片隅に (@hoppe714) January 1, 2017
Thank you for posting this photo. That looks like my mother when she was young.
Technical details of the Waseda colorization tool can be found here. The browser-based tool is available for use at http://hi.cs.waseda.ac.jp:8082/. The creators note that the tool is intended for non-commercial purposes only.

author: Nevin Thompson


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After 71 Days on Hunger Strike, Arash Sadeghi Sees Iranian Authorities Release His Wife on Bail · Global Voices
Center for Human Rights in Iran

A photo of Golrokh Iraee, released on bail after pressure by her husband through a 71-day hunger strike. Photo from ICHRI.
A version of this article was originally published on the site of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.
On the 71st day of her husband's hunger strike, Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee was granted a short furlough from prison and promised a review of her sentence by the Judiciary. Iraee was charged after Iran's Revolutionary Guards raided her home, looking for evidence against her civil rights activist husband, Arash Sadeghi, who has been in prison since March 2016. Sadeghi began his hunger strike in protest of his wife's arrest.
“The [Tehran] Assistant Prosecutor Mr. Hajilou accepted that my case was wrongfully handled, but said it would take time for it to be reviewed,” Iraee told the Campaign for Human Rights in Iran on the first day of her temporary leave from Evin Prison on January 3, 2017.
“The law says that when a wrongful ruling is made, the accused should go free until a new ruling is issued. I was offered furlough even though I didn’t ask for it. But Arash was in critical condition, so I agreed to take it.”
Iraee was sentenced to six years in prison in March 2016 for “insulting the sacred” and “propaganda against the state” for writing a fantastical story she never published and for a “few” of her Facebook posts. The story, which she had written in a notebook that was later confiscated during a raid of her home by the Revolutionary Guards, is about an enraged woman who burns the Quran after watching a film about stoning in Iran.
She was released on furlough after posting 500 million tomans (approximately US $155,000) bail. She told the Campaign that Branch 33 of the Supreme Court has been appointed to review her case.
“I have been given a four-day leave and have to go back to prison on January 7,” she said. “But I should be allowed to be free until they review my case because the judiciary has agreed my sentence was wrongfully issued.”
Public concern for the endangered life of Sadeghi—who is serving a 15-year prison sentence for his peaceful activism especially on social media—appears to have forced the judiciary to retreat from its usual hardline stance.
Iraee told the Campaign for Human Rights in Iran that after going 71 days with no food, her husband could barely walk, was vomiting blood, and suffering from serious kidney, intestinal and lung problems.
On January 3, she told the Campaign: “The prosecutor’s office has issued a permit allowing Arash to be transferred to the hospital, but as of 8 p.m. tonight, he’s still in prison being looked after by the clinic staff, even though he needs immediate hospitalization,” she said.
“When I visited Arash in prison, I asked him to end his hunger strike,” she added. “I was worried for his health, but I left the decision to him… I tried not to let emotions get in the way of what he was trying to accomplish.”
On December 20, 2016, the #SaveArash hashtag became a trending topic on Twitter, with more than half a million participants expressing serious concern and support for Sadeghi’s plight.
Sadeghi was arrested with his wife and friends Navid Kamran and Behnam Mousivand on September 6, 2014, at the couple’s stationary store in Tehran by agents of the Revolutionary Guards’ Sarallah headquarters.
Sadeghi was charged with “assembly and collusion against national security,” “propaganda against the state,” “spreading lies in cyberspace,” and “insulting the founder of the Islamic Republic” for his peaceful civil rights activism. He began serving his 15-year prison sentence in June 2016.
Read further reporting on the matter in ICHRI and Global Voices here and here.

author: Center for Human Rights in Iran


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Death, Beatings Highlight the Horrors of Australia’s Manus Island Refugee Detention Centre · Global Voices
Kevin Rennie

Gosford Anglican Church message to Australian Immigration Minister Peter Dutton. Courtesy Fr Rod Bower's Twitter account
A number of disturbing cases concerning the offshore Asylum Seeker Detention Centre on Papua New Guinea's Manus Island have recently captured online attention in Australia and beyond.
As reported in an earlier post, since 2013 asylum seekers arriving by boat without a valid visa are sent to offshore centres on Manus Island and Nauru. There is currently no possibility of being allowed to settle in Australia.
The Australian government announced in August 2016 that it intends to close the Manus centre, but the facility continues to generate controversy, most recently with the death of a Sudanese asylum seeker and the beating of two Iranian asylum seekers allegedly by police.
Faysal Ishak Ahmed from Sudan died on Christmas Eve in the Australian city of Brisbane following his evacuation there from Manus. Many people have blamed poor medical attention on Manus for his death. A number of vigils and protests have taken place:
Blockading St Kilda Road in memory of #Faysal, died on Christmas Eve after detention on #Manus #BringThemHere #closethecamps pic.twitter.com/IZL5oZ40sE
— Franc Pen (@FrancPen) January 3, 2017
Many people have gathered in Melbourne for Vigil for #Faysal. People standing and calling for fairness and decency. pic.twitter.com/iKgoqHYuvL
— ASRC (@ASRC1) January 3, 2017
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Immigration Minister Peter Dutton copped much of the criticism. One Twitter user compared it to the case of Ms Dhu, an Aboriginal woman who recently died in police custody:
How frightening to know you are dying have medics say you're faking. #MsDhu #Faysal Rest in peace. @PeterDutton_MP @TurnbullMalcolm
— Lynne Murphy (@lynnemurphy1) December 26, 2016
The arrest of two Iranian asylum seekers on New Years Eve has also resulted in accusations of police brutality:
Refugees bashed on NYE: the Australian govt is ultimately responsible (distressing images) https://t.co/OJGzz2dKbO #Manus #BringThemHere
— RAC Sydney (@rac_sydney) January 1, 2017
Iranian journalist and fellow asylum seeker Behrouz Boochani has been trying to cover the story on his Facebook account:
Manus prison.I just visited the refugees who were beaten by PNG immigration yesterday. They are in police detention now. I could only talk with them behind the wire for a few minutes because the guard did not allow me to see them. The refugees were so scared and distressed and they said the police did not give them any food or medical treatment. Mohammad is in a critical situation and said he is pissing blood and has stomach pains. Some local people gave them food but Mohammad vomited the food and Mehdi has started to hunger strike. He has pain in his hand and thinks his hand is broken. The detention cell is such a dirty place and they sleep on the concrete floor. Their wounds are getting infected.Here is two new photos from them
Manus island refugees beaten by authorities. Courtesy Behrouz Boochani Facebook page
PEN International, defender of freedom of expression, has called on the Australian government to:
end the offshore processing of asylum seekers in Nauru and Manaus, and ensure that asylum seekers and those in immigration detention in offshore processing centres, including Behrouz Boochani, are provided with adequate legal protection in line with Australia’s commitments under international law.
The detention centres have received critical attention from world media, especially The New York Times. Roger Cohen's ‘Broken Men in Paradise’ was tweeted numerous times. Cartoonist Gavin Aung Than was one of those:
“Close this foul chapter that stains Australia and echoes the darkest moments in its history” Broken Men in Paradise https://t.co/51B3H4BUow
— Gavin Aung Than (@zenpencils) December 27, 2016
Part of Behrouz Boochani's own refugee drama is covered in this New York Times article.
A deal was announced in November 2016 with the United States to resettle some of the successful asylum applicants, but it has yet to be implemented. Many question whether the incoming Trump administration will overturn the agreement.
A deal is being done with US. Our morally deficient govmt is sending the detainees on manus to the US…I wonder what Trump thinks
— Daniel Gratton (@iDGiam) November 13, 2016
Deal or no deal, the long-term fate of those who do not resettle in the U.S. is unclear. According to the independent non-profit Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, possibilities may include returning to their home country or a 20-year visa for Nauru.
On a brighter note, there has been a positive response to a crowdfunding appeal for one Manus detainee, made by Tasmanian academic Helen Merrick and refugee advocate Anne Moon.
Please donate and share #Manus #refugee #auspol https://t.co/jyD8awgwqR via @Chuffed
— Dr M (@helenmerrick) January 5, 2017
On the crowdfunding site Chuffed, Merrick and Moon said the money would be used to hire legal representation for a man who has been maintaining a record of abuse and harassment that he has witnessed while in detention and now is “falsely accused and charged with a crime”. So far, the campaign has raised AUS $3,155 of its $4,500 goal.

author: Kevin Rennie


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Outspoken Fashion Designer Arrested By Turkish Authorities · Global Voices
John Lubbock

Turkish fashion designer Barbaros Şansal with friends in March 2015. Photo by the author.
Barbaros Şansal is a celebrity fashion designer in Turkey, an LGBT rights campaigner and political activist who took part prominently in the 2013 Gezi Park protests. For a number of years, the Turkish authorities have harassed him through court cases, and he has previously been attacked by an unnamed assailant while entering his studio near Istanbul’s Taksim square.
Şansal is a controversial figure in Turkey, and has not made a habit of toning down his criticism of the government and various scandals involving those connected to President Erdogan’s ruling AK Party. He has also been one of the most prominent gay public figures in a country where many people still do not accept homosexuality. He has hosted programmes on Turkish television, published books and is highly visible on social media, especially Twitter, where he often posts provocative videos criticising issues in Turkish society.
On New Year’s Eve, Şansal was at his home in Turkish-controlled Northern Cyprus, from where he posted a video filled with innuendos and criticism of Turkish society, saying:
“Are you still celebrating the new year while so many journalists are under arrest, so many children are being harassed and raped, there is so much fraud, bribery and bigots share crap on the streets together with religious annunciators”.
Barbaros Şansal @barbarosansalfn got deported & lynched by Erdogan's mob b/c of this video. He is in Regime hands! pic.twitter.com/q83cq7qbhU
— Turkey Deeply (@TurkeyDeeply) January 3, 2017
Şansal’s closing phrase, “Drown in your shit, Turkey”, seems to have caused particular offence to nationalist politicians like Ankara Mayor Melih Gokcek, a man also known for his strange behaviour on social media.
Şansal was deported from Northern Cyprus, and on arrival in Istanbul was attacked by passengers and airport crew with shouts of ‘traitor’. Gokcek said on Twitter that the Turkish nation ‘reacted against him’ and told the designer ‘don’t irritate people!’
Many social media users in Turkey came to Şansal’s defence, calling him a ‘gentle soul’, ‘outspoken’ and ‘spontaneous’. Şansal had around 300,000 followers on Twitter, but since his arrest his account has been removed.
I only pray for barbaros to be released asap.. he is a gentle soul. When they go low we go high…
— Pinar Tremblay (@PinarTremblay) January 3, 2017
The World needs People like Him. #BarbarosSansal
Outspoken. Spontanious. Uncensored. https://t.co/T2mFYgknlM
— ISTANBUL THEMES (@ISTANBUL_THEMES) January 4, 2017
Others suggested that Şansal had paid the price for his notoriety and lack of anonymity, and that the arrest was a ‘warning’ to other dissidents.
He had the guts to say what most of us couldn't say. He wasn't anonymous, was clear& right! @barbarosansalfn #barbarossansalyalnizdegildir
— The Nile (@atmiyus) January 2, 2017
The treatment of Barbaros Şansal is intended as a warning to anyone in Turkey with a dissenting opinion, anyone who stands out from the herd
— Ankaralı Jan (@06JAnk) January 2, 2017
Meanwhile, judicial authorities have released on bail a number of suspects being tried for their affiliations to ISIS. Many people criticised the incongruence between the treatment of a fashion designer critical of the state and those accused of terrorist connections.
With many opposition politicians, journalists and even celebrities now behind bars in Turkey, it looks as if President Erdogan will be able to secure the votes needed to make changes to the Turkish constitution that will grant the office of President greater executive powers, and allow him to remain in charge for a decade or more to come.
Turkish Dep. PM Kurtulmus:”Social media shares that dont comply w nation's & public interests may constitute a crime https://t.co/MWfpPkboLL
— ilhan tanir (@WashingtonPoint) January 5, 2017
Turkey is facing multiple challenges with its intervention in Syria and the breakdown of peace talks with the Kurdish PKK militia. With the judiciary now largely under Erdogan’s control, prosecutors seem to be reinterpreting the law to go after any critics who anger them.
To many in Turkey, it is a reminder of the dark days of the 1990s in which government critics were often charged with ‘insulting Turkishness’, and when the economy suffered from high inflation and erratic exchange rates.
Kurdish politicians such as Layla Zana, who was imprisoned for taking her oath of office in Kurdish, is back behind bars once again. The arrest of a public figure like Şansal, who is unaffiliated with any political party, has many other government critics fearing they could be next.

author: John Lubbock


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Is the World Ignoring Possible Genocide in Southern Kaduna in Nigeria? · Global Voices
Guest Contributor

A man riding a horse in Kaduna. Image released under Creative Commons by Flickr user Allan Leonard.
In a series of attacks throughout the past months, armed bandits have left over 800 people dead and many others displaced in southern Kaduna, a Nigerian state with a history of ethnic tensions, according to local Catholic Church leaders.
The gunmen have raided dozens of villages, the church officials stated:
The herdsmen and their ilk turned the towns into killing fields and killed mostly women, children and the elderly who couldn’t run for cover.
The level of barbarity was such that pregnant women got their wombs blown out and massacred before their children. And these innocent children were not spared either.
Many of the those targeted have been farmers, who have referred to the assailants as herdsmen (cattle-rearers). The farmers are accusing the herdsmen of trespassing on their farmland to graze their cattle, thereby destroying their crops. An aggrieved farmer who did not want to be named said:
that’s why they attack villages – they don’t just attack because of quarrels with villagers. They burn homes and farms so that we will have to start again somewhere else. But we can’t, and will not leave because this is our land.
Some residents also feel the attacks are part of an effort to get farming communities to leave their land, allowing the herdsmen to settle without competition for resources.
Southern Kaduna is a Christian-dominated community in Kaduna, and some residents have termed the crisis as an attack on Christians. Others on social media have gone so far as to call the violence a genocide.
Among those killed recently was Gimbia Morik, a senior secondary school student and the daughter of local politician Gideon Morik. Speaking to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Kafanchan, Morik said:
the attackers just stormed the village and started shooting; they killed six people including my daughter and five others.
He said that the attackers injured many others and burnt several houses in the village of Goska. A senior officer of the Nigerian police who confirmed the incident there described the destruction as “very devastating.” He said the corpses had been deposited at the Kafanchan General Hospital where the injured were also being treated.
Reacting to a related attack in October last year, Rev. Danladi Yarima, the secretary of the Northern Christian Association of Nigeria – responsible for the 19 northern states and the Federal Capital Territory – blamed the state government for failing to stop the killings:
We are disheartened that despite the re-occurrence of the attack, the government has not come out with a security plan to stop it […] We expected that the government should have mobilised more security personnel to the area. Every day, Christians are being attacked and killed and their homes and property destroyed. The killings have continued unabated and we are very worried. We urge the government and well-meaning Nigerians to stop the killings
The state's Governor Mallam Nasir El-Rufai has continuously condemned the attacks and vowed to fish out the attackers.
Kaduna is among Nigeria's north-central states, which is dominated by the Hausa and Fulani ethnicities and the Muslim religion. Christians are a minority, and tensions between the two groups have boiled over many times in recent Nigerian history. According to Musa Simon Reef, a respected journalist and media professional, Kaduna “represents the symbol of the long war of attrition that has existed between the Hausa-Fulani hegemony and its northern minorities” and “is best described as a theatre of blood letting.”
Ndi Kato (also known as YarKafanchan on Twitter) is a political commentator, philanthropist and indigene of southern Kaduna. She shared a video of Evangelical Church Winning All representative, Barrister Wakili Kadima, speaking about the alarming situation in Southern Kaduna:
Barrister Wakili Kadima spoke with us on Thursday. The situation with our people; their lives and their farms is dire. #SouthernKaduna pic.twitter.com/aHN5aSmgdo
— Syria's mummy (@YarKafanchan) December 31, 2016
In the video, Kadima said:
…one of the major message we really like to pass on to the international community and particularly the government in their deployment of troops, is that the farmlands of all these refugees that you see here have been ravaged and grazed upon by cattle, have been set on fire and the youth of these communities have been fighting raging battles in the farmlands with the Fulanis for the past more than two weeks, we have had to bury some of them who have been killed in the battlefield, in the farmlands…
Yarkanchan, emotionally scarred by the gruesome murders of her people, revealed some images showing the enormity of the mayhem and accused the country's leaders of not doing enough to stop the violence.
The 14 year old daughter of Barrister Gideon Morik, former Chairman of Jema'a LGA, was killed in last night's attack. ?#SouthernKaduna pic.twitter.com/QuSVzrFwwu
— Syria's mummy (@YarKafanchan) December 25, 2016
This is what is left of Goska in Jema'a LGA. No Christmas for my people. We need answers. This is genocide. #SouthernKaduna pic.twitter.com/L5FZdHRdxY
— Syria's mummy (@YarKafanchan) December 25, 2016
LGA stands for local government area. NAN reports that Jemaa as well as Kaura and Zango-Kataf were put under a 24-hour curfew following incessant attacks by unknown gunmen.
She also posted photos of young people protesting against the attacks, with a banner that read, “Stop killing us”:
So today, after enduring FIVE MONTHS of MURDER AND MAYHEM, the Youths of Kafanchan came out to protest. #SouthernKadunaGenocide pic.twitter.com/T3W4FKIrjZ
— Syria's mummy (@YarKafanchan) December 19, 2016
The images in YarKafanchan's tweets have not been independently verified. However, Global Voices contacted YarKafanchan on the authenticity of these images. Her response:
The images are real. We have been sending supplies to the affected areas, so we have our people on ground who also send us these images and reports.
Ahmed Maiyaki, a media and communications specialist, also tweeted:
Oh Lord, grant Southern Kaduna and indeed the entire Kaduna State peace & tranquility now and forever, ameen! pic.twitter.com/nMzeEYH7M0
— Ahmed Maiyaki (@ahmedmaiyaki) December 23, 2016
Audu Maikori, an indigene of Kaduna State, public speaker and social activist, pressured politicians to speak out:
I haven't heard any message of empathy from our leaders Mr president , Governors, Senators or House of Reps! How heartless!#Southernkaduna
— AuduMaikori (@Audu) December 25, 2016
Professor Chidi Odinakalu, who not long ago was the chairman of the National Human Rights Commission of Nigeria, called for a consensus in the campaign to stop the killings in Southern Kaduna. He urged his followers:
Spread the word & join the campaign to #StopSouthernKadunaKillings @Audu@Omojuwa@ogundamisi@AnthoniaOrji@YIAGA pic.twitter.com/qNvHENHROR
— Chidi Odinkalu (@ChidiOdinkalu) December 27, 2016
Yamai Patrick, a graphic artist, made an illustration to call for an end to the killings:
#SouthernKaduna #StopSouthernKadunaKillings #StopKillingUs pic.twitter.com/yPPDqtjtgX
— The Fashion Guy (@YamaiPatrick) December 28, 2016
In reaction to the crisis and the displacement of residents in the area, some citizens have taken to the internet to crowdsource funding for relief materials.
Thanks everyone for your kindness. We will not forget this and thanks to @Jollz and @YarKafanchan l. We just spoke to the Goska people too https://t.co/NdvD6WQsYY
— AuduMaikori (@Audu) December 27, 2016
Please follow hashtags #blanketdrive and #SouthernKaduna we need donations to buy blankets for displaced citizens. Thanks
— AuduMaikori (@Audu) December 26, 2016

author: Guest Contributor


text:
The Weird and Wonderful Work of a YouTuber Stay-at-Home Dad · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

Today you can find dozens of music videos shared on YouTube by a channel called “Kids Learning Tube,” where an anonymous American man has spent the past two years uploading educational singing cartoons. This might not sound like much, but the channel now has more than 60,000 subscribers and its videos have been viewed more than 60.1 million times.
Image: Pixabay, edited by Kevin Rothrock
The subject matter for these songs is all over the map — many actually feature anthropomorphic maps of different countries, and other music videos are dedicated to topics as sundry as metalloids, dwarf stars, the larynx, the bladder, U.S. currency, Thomas Edison, the Tyrannosaurus rex, and more.
On Dec. 23, Kids Learning Tube uploaded a five-minute song explaining the 85 federal subjects of the Russian Federation. At the time of this writing, the video has more than 186,000 views. The tune includes lyrics like “We’re the 9 Krais / Which are the Territories of Russia / Join us to learn our names / We promise that we won’t rush ya.”
It’s somewhat unclear what has made this video and its many YouTube siblings such a hit. When it drew attention to the cartoons, the Russian news website Meduza described the songs as “very weird.”
I caught up with the man who writes these songs and creates the animations. He told me that he intends to conceal his identity until he reaches 1 million subscribers on YouTube. “That is my promise to my Kids Learning Tube students,” he said.
What I did learn about him is that he’s a stay-at-home dad and a musician and an animator, living in the United States. “The reason I started my channel is to teach children at their most absorbent and impressionable age,” he told me. “When my child was born I couldn't find anything at all on YouTube that was educational and sticky enough for kids to learn from. So having a musical background and teaching myself how to animate, I decided to give it a shot. It's been working very well so far.”
And this man is not exaggerating, when he says he is enjoying success online. Kids Learning Tube has attracted such a following that its most popular video is a 40-minute compilation of ballads about the Solar System. The montage has more than 7 million views.
The man says he hopes to write songs about the geography of every country in the world, releasing a new video every Friday. “I watch my child full time during the day and work at night. So I can only produce one video a week, presently,” he told me, as though his YouTube activity isn’t impressive enough.
Asked why he chose to make a video about Russia, he acknowledged the influence of the current political climate in the United States, though he shied from debating politics. “Russia was an easy subject to choose, because of the recent U.S. election and assumptions that Russia hacked and supposedly rigged the system. I'm not exactly sure what's true or not on that subject. I'm just a dad trying to teach his and all kids,” he said.
When I pointed out that his song about Russia rather controversially embraces Moscow’s territorial claims on Crimea and Sevastopol — land that most of the world still recognizes as part of Ukraine — the man behind Kids Learning Tube seemed to be taken aback.
“I was just going by Russia's own map,” he said.
Part of these videos’ appeal is undoubtedly the curiously American pronunciation of various regions around the world. In the Russian song, there are also some noticeable grammatical flubs, like lines that read “Hello I’m Chechen and I am Chuvash” (rather than “I’m Chechnya and I’m Chuvashia”), which make it sound like parts of the Russian map are literally members of ethnic minority groups.
This, at any rate, is what Russian journalist Vasily Sonkin seemed to enjoy, when he created a looping video on Coub.com showing Kids Learning Tube’s Chechnya introduce himself, over and over.
These music videos are more than just Internet oddities, however. When you speak to the channel's creator, it's hard not to be struck by the passion he has for work. And he’s aware that his pronunciation isn’t perfect, he says. “Though I don't always succeed, I do try my hardest.”
He says he’s noticed that his songs work best with children between the ages of three and four. “I believe music is the key to learning. It's fun and if it's catchy you have a perfect combination to educate anyone,” he says.
After speaking to this father/musician/animator, I showed the Kids Learning Tube video on Russia to my six-year-old daughter. She smiled while she watched it, and told me afterwards that she liked it. “I liked the funny faces and the singing,” she told me.

author: Kevin Rothrock


text:
Survey Finds Young Social Media Users in Hong Kong Tend to Distrust the Government · Global Voices
Hong Kong Free Press

Image from HKFP.
This post was written by Kris Cheng and originally published on Hong Kong Free Press on January 4, 2017. The version below is published on Global Voices under a partnership agreement.
Social media is the major source of news information for some 46 per cent of young people in Hong Kong, and more than 77 per cent among this group of social media users do not trust the government, a recent survey has found.
The poll was conducted by the Centre for Youth Studies at the Chinese University’s Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies. It showed that Facebook was the most frequently used platform with 67.7 per cent of interviewees saying it was the social media site they visited most often. It was followed by WhatsApp at 14.4 per cent and Instagram at 12.2 per cent.
Those surveyed were aged between 15 and 29. A total of 829 people were interviewed by phone between October and November 2016.
The survey also found that despite young people’s frequent online activity, most of them seldom participated in offline political events. And if people with radical political beliefs professed them publicly, more than 60 per cent said they would find it objectionable to varying degrees.
As quite a number of large-scale protests, such as the anti-national education movement in 2012 and the pro-democracy sit-in at the end of 2014, were led by young activists, the public in general believes that young people in Hong Kong are getting more and more radical.
Scholars overseeing the survey also urged the government to communicate through social media.
For all young people interviewed, 66.6 per cent were not quite satisfied – or very dissatisfied – with the government, whilst 63.5 per cent said they were quite – or very – distrustful of the government.
Young people who used social media as their major source of public affairs information were significantly more dissatisfied with the performance of the government, and significantly less trustful of the government — 77 per cent of interviewees who read news from social platforms tended to distrust the government, and among those who accessed news from other sources, only 51.1 per cent found the government distrustful.
Other findings:
Stephen Chiu Wing-kai, a professor at the university’s sociology department, said the results reflected the fact that few young people were active in political activities. He said it showed that the idea of young people becoming politically radicalised was unfounded.
Wilson Wong Wai-ho, an associate professor of government and public administration, said few government departments have social media accounts, and that if the government truly wishes to communicate with young people, it should strengthen communication on social media.

author: Hong Kong Free Press


text:
Turkey Discovers Syrian Artists · Global Voices
Syria Untold

Arthere in Istanbul’s Kadiköy is an independent art space taken in Istanbul, Turkey on December 12, 2016 by Derya Yücel/SyriaUntold
This story was originally written for Syria Untold by Nathalie Rosa Bucher. It is republished here as part of a partnership agreement.
Istanbul’s art market and its artistic scene have gradually been opening up since the mid-90s and reaching out to other countries. However, exchanges to Syria, were non-existent five years ago.
A few individuals and collectives, consisting mostly of Syrians but also Turkish, Arab and European nationals have set up structures to promote Syrian culture, work towards creating bridges with the local host community and art scene and provide meeting points for Syrian refugees in Istanbul, where they were estimated to number 330,000 in 2014. They also help newly arrived artists.
With the exception of the early 2000s, Turkish-Syrian relations have been tense for decades and due to no shared national language very limited. Turkey’s political landscape has become even more polarized in the last years. It is against this backdrop that Syrian artists, representing an art scene Turkish audiences and cultural practitioners were neither familiar with nor connected to, started to settle in the metropolis.
Pages, Istanbul’s first Arabic bookshop, opened its doors to meet the needs of the Syrians in the city and to bring the host and Arab immigrant communities closer. Founded by Syrian artists and publishers together with Turkish and non-Turkish partners, it has a café and a space for children and hosts cultural events.
A cozy room full of books in Arabic, Turkish, English and French greets visitors on a cold December night. Upstairs Arabic voices fill the café. “Every Thursday we have free legal advice available [for Syrian refugees],” one of the volunteers explained.
Pages Bookshop Café is Istanbul’s first Arabic bookstore and has become an important meeting place bringing both Syrians and Turks together for cultural and other events. Taken in Istanbul, Turkey on December 1, 2016 by Nathalie Rosa Bucher/SyriaUntold
Established in 2014, Arthere Istanbul, which has a commercial status, is an art centre and café in Kadıköy that recently started to offer art residencies. Since inception, it has sought to engage with the local art community and welcomes artistic experimentation.
On the ground floor behind an open window-paneled façade are tables, and a self-service kitchenette. The first floor is an art studio and in the basement is a dark room and bunk bed for emergency accommodation.
Arthere co-initiator and Syrian photographer Omar Berakdar has welcomed numerous Syrian artists. Many of them decided to depart Turkey, leaving instruments, shoes and a collection of suitcases at Arthere. Berakdar has also set up an archive to safe-keep art of artists abroad or frequently moving to avoid it getting damaged.
Istanbul, like Beirut, has become a pit stop for Syrian artists. The painter Hasko Hasko based himself here before travelling to Germany and Mohammed Zaza, also a painter who originally came to see a friend, has decided to stay — for a while.
Syrian visual artist Ali Abdulkerim, known as ʻAli Omarʼ, declared that his will would make him stay in Istanbul, but he has to cope with financial constraints. “Anywhere in the world, to make a living from art is not easy, maybe it is even more difficult in Turkey, and I was fully aware of this when I made my choice of being an artist. The market in Istanbul is not as strong, less people buy art and few have the means to do so. This affects all artists, including Turkish ones,” he explained.
His recent work – large portraits in rich hues – was among the drawings and paintings displayed at Arthere when a group of Turkish Art Management students from Bilgi University and their lecturer Derya Yücel came to visit on 1 December 2016.
“It was a very interesting experience to meet Arthere for my students,” Yücel reported later. “The students were interested in some artworks. They even told me that they would come to Arthere again. My students have never known such groups of artists before, and for this reason such meetings are exciting for them.”
“This year we want to work with Arthere in the project that we will prepare within the course. Through this project more students will meet Syrian artists. We will make announcements and people from the Turkish art scene will participate as audience. This will increase awareness,” Yücel outlined.
Turkish Art Management students listening to a presentation by Arthere co-initiator Omar Berakdar. Arthere is an art centre and café in Kadıköy that recently started to offer art residencies. Taken in Istanbul, Turkey on December 1, 2016 by Derya Yücel/SyriaUntold
Asked about the connection to Arab and in particular Syrian art that Turkish art institutions had before 2011, Asena Günal, program coordinator at Depo Istanbul, replied: “Few of us speak Arabic, we were meant to leave our Ottoman past behind [in line with Ataturk’s legacy] and Turks are quite Orientalist when it comes to Arabs…”
Depo is one of few institutions that has collaborated or showcased Syrian art. Popular SALT gallery Galata branch hosted Apricots from Damascus, a zine and exhibition project on diasporas past and present, organized by Atıf Akın and Dilek Winchester earlier this year, Günal pointed out. In spring, Depo teamed up with Şenay Özden, a member of Hamisch, a cultural house founded by Syrian and Turkish artists and intellectuals, for SaturDox 2016.
“What about the Syrian voices?”, asked Günal, “We don’t hear that! We don’t hear good representations of the Syrians from Turkish or Western media. So we organized six screenings of documentaries about Syria [SaturDox] that were all followed by discussions. It was really informative.”
Decades of limited freedom of expression left an indelible mark on Syrian artists and their output. “We had censorship in cinema during the Asad regime and this raises questions of verbal and non-verbal restrictions and self-censorship. We had, for example, the screening of Meyar al-Roumi’s Silent Cinema as part of our Synema series in October 2016. It is important to find a way around restrictions and barriers to deliver an honest message; asking questions not providing answers,” Berakdar argued.
“It is crucial to have Syrian and Turkish collaborations also given that Syrian artists, notably filmmakers, have for decades had to find ways around prohibitive working conditions.”
Günal defined Depo as “an alternative space, where dissident voices and Syrian voices are on the agenda. Part of the exhibition by Mohammad Zaza, who like many artists wanted to share his work with Turkish audiences, we used this opportunity to have a debate around art, oppression and creativity.”
Based in Istanbul for the past four years and fluent in Turkish, Berakdar advised the students from Bilgi University. “The first challenge you’ll face is money, of course. I studied media, art and chemistry and I do side jobs for pharmaceutical companies that bring in some money. […] Grants run out.”
The next day, Berakdar explained that Turkish society was still getting used to Syrian artists. “The students yesterday were excited, so you need to reach out. Here in Turkey people are more into concerts and theatre than galleries and fine art,” he said. “You just can’t expect the same interest and turnout in visual arts exhibition openings as in Lebanon or Syria.”
Arthere has successfully opened to the artistic community and the neighbourhood, allowing for networking and collaborations. Taken in Istanbul, Turkey on December 20, 2016 by Omar Berakdar/SyriaUntold
To empower Syrian artists and broaden their understanding of the local art scene, Arthere has been running many workshops and hosting talks, screenings, performances and concerts. Especially the latter have attracted new audiences, including a medley of experimental music, and various ensembles — even a 15-piece orchestra that performed traditional Turkish songs.
Istanbul boasts a marvelously diverse music scene, which is also one of its biggest artistic sectors. Among the Syrian artists that have moved to Turkey since 2011, musicians have indeed found it easier to establish themselves.
At Arthere, Syrian artist Abdulwahed al-Khamrah introduced audiences to Syria’s musical heritage and Saba Barada, featuring well-known oud player Wassim Mukdad, collaborated with two Turkish musicians. Arthere’s strategy and engagement over the past two years has changed, the aim is to be an artist agency rather than a gallery.
Much of Depo’s work has been depending on philanthropies and European funding but the latter is now at risk, especially after the withdrawal of Turkey from Creative Europe in October 2016. “We need to raise funds for exhibitions and get no Turkish funding at all when it comes to Syrian artists,” said Depo program coordinator Asena Günal.
“Gezi 2013 has been a turning point, society has become highly polarized. In cinema and theatre change has been drastic — for us less so. Being financially independent from the state makes us flexible and in terms of content we don’t face censorship. […] We receive less and less applications from abroad for collaborations. Many local artists are very depressed, they don’t want to stay here.”
Asked about Syrian artists’ contribution, Günal felt that as the focus was always on the West, Syrian artists allowed for new perspectives and to gain insight into Syria’s artistic production.
For Bilgi University lecturer Yücel, the presence of Syrian artists has manifested itself in the last two years, especially. “There has been an awareness of immigrant artists in the contemporary art scene in Istanbul also due to the media. And collective formations like Arthere have gained visibility. Not only Syrians, but also all independent artists should be supported in Istanbul’s art environment.”
Berakdar believes that Arthere had an effect on the local scene and the neighborhood. “We were the first to start an atelier open to the public, working together, we made it more international, we brought a lot of collaborations with the Turkish community here and that was beneficial to our artists. They break this feeling of alienation, they start to feel more at home here.”
After centuries of common history and decades of separation, facing — some shared — challenges, Syrian artists are permeating the Turkish art scene and creating important institutions and networks for both themselves and the host community.

author: Syria Untold


text:
‘Europa’, a Guidebook to Help Migrants and Refugees Understand Europe · Global Voices
PRI/PRX's The World

“Europa: An Illustrated Introduction to Europe for Migrants and Refugees” tells the story of European immigration. Credit: Courtesy of the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture
This story by David Leveille originally appeared on PRI.org on January 2, 2017. It is republished here as part of a partnership between PRI and Global Voices.
The thick, colorful book titled, “Europa: An Illustrated Introduction to Europe for Migrants and Refugees,” aims to broaden the perspectives of Europe's newest immigrants, with plenty of historical photos, maps and individual accounts and factual information.
That's according to Alia Malek, a Syrian-American journalist who was one of the book's editors. Overall, the guidebook tries “to introduce Europe to people who [are] arriving now, through the lens of conflict and migration. It tells the story of the last 100 years of Europe as it was formed because of these two forces that you tend to find together — conflict and then the displacement that it causes,” says Malek.
“The idea was that by telling this version of Europe to people who are coming from places that are facing the same kind of destruction Europe witnessed not even 100 years ago, that there might be a way to recognize some of their experiences in this ‘other.’”
Malek says she’s encountered many refugees who had varying degrees of understanding as to what awaited them in Europe, and in many cases, they didn't realize that Europeans had gone through similar experiences.
“I had the most surreal conversations. People would say to me — because there is a lot of waiting, walking and a lot of sitting in fields — things like, ‘What happened in Syria and Iraq has never been seen before in human history, the way neighbor turned on neighbor, the way the very fabric of society came apart has never been seen in human history,’ and we were having these conversations on the border of Croatia and Serbia, a border that we had to be very careful on because they were still land mines from the Yugoslav war.
“So there was irony in that for me. The reality is actually there's not such a dissimilar history and we were walking it as we spoke,” says Malek.
“Europa,” according to its website, is also designed to be a practical guide for migrants and refugees, so it's written in four languages: Arabic, Farsi, English and French. There are sections explaining Europe’s different political systems, geography and traditions, as well as popular films and books of interest, and there’s a helpful list of organizations that offer assistance to migrants and refugees.
“Europa” also features first-person testimonies — from residents, immigrants and refugees, old and new — who tell personal stories in their own words of “war, solidarity and reconciliation,” says Malek.
“We have the story that I love of the Greek grandmothers who themselves are the daughters of Ottoman Greek refugees who fled out of the Ottoman Empire as it came apart and resettled on islands such as Lesbos, and then almost a century later, they’re helping Syrian, Iraqi and Afghan women arriving with their own children … we also have the oral histories of people who have made the journey like an Afghan doctor, who, all he ever wanted 10 years ago was to get to Greece because Greece is where the Hippocratic oath came from, and he’s now a practicing doctor in Greece and he’s working with refugees … we have architects from Syria who really wanted to get to the Netherlands, and now they want to take their ideas of urban planning that they're seeing in Amsterdam back to Syria.”
Over her several years of reporting on immigration and editing “Europa,” Malek says she’s been inspired by the immigrants she’s met along the way:
“You know you’re always horrified by the negative reactions, but I have been moved and pleasantly surprised by the warmth and the openness of people’s hearts, not just volunteers who rush out to the train stations to meet people, but people who have an openness in their hearts, or they knew about their grandmothers, their uncles or their aunts — that at the same time that I was so devastated by the failure of humanity to learn its lessons, my heart was moved, and it was compelling to see how many folks also do see something in what is happening that isn't as much of an ‘other’ experience as the loud politicians would make us think.”
A free, electronic version of the book, optimized for mobile devices, is available online in all four languages.

author: PRI/PRX's The World


text:
‘Gasolinazo’: How Gasoline Price Gouging Has Spurred “Collective Bad Temperedness” in Mexico · Global Voices
J. Tadeo

Pemex. Photo taken from Flickr ivera. Used under licence CC 2.0
For many Mexicans, 2017 has got off to a shaky start. This is due primarily to increasing fuel costs for cars, which spiked by around 20% overnight (it now takes 20% of the minimum daily wage to buy 1 liter of gasoline) thanks to a practice known as gasolinazo, or “gasoline price gouging”. Another reason for mass dissatisfaction is the appointment of a controversial figure at the forefront of Mexico's foreign policy. Together, these issues have resulted in daily protests online and on the streets, highlighting the extent to which social discontent has increased across the country.
The consistent gasoline price hikes are in direct opposition to the promises made by politicians, including President Enrique Peña, following revisions to constitutional laws on “Energy Reforms” outlined by the president in August 2013, as well as subsequent amendments relating to treasury matters.
As stated by the president at that time:
2) Gracias a la Reforma Hacendaria, por 1era. vez en 5 años, ya no habrá incrementos mensuales a los precios de la gasolina, diésel y gas LP
— Enrique Peña Nieto (@EPN) January 5, 2015
2) As a result of the Treasury Reforms, for the 1st time in 5 years, there will be no monthly increases to the price of gasoline, diesel and LP gas.
Alongside the essential aspects of the reform set forth by the president and approved by the legislature, permission has also been granted to allow private companies to generate and distribute products derived from petroleum and electricity thus opening the industry up to competition. This has weakened the prior monopoly held by the state over all energy-based activities.
However, far from benefiting the general population, the price of gasoline has increased, even as global petrol prices have fallen.
Thousands of citizens have voiced their dissatisfaction with the government following the latest gasolinazo which took effect on January 1.
No cabe duda que éste año como Frida Kahlo, pinta de la chingada #ford#gasolinazo#Dolar
— el choco!!! (@Elpinchechoco) January 4, 2017
There's no doubt that this year is going to be pretty fucked up #ford #gasolinazo #Dolar
Detrás del #gasolinazo estan los #saqueos de la #ReformaEnergetica aprobada x todos los partidos.
URGE QUE LOS TRABAJADORES SALGAN A LUCHAR!
— Anti-imperialista (@MariposaConejo) January 5, 2017
Behind #gasolinazo is the looting (#saqueos) from the Energy Reforms (#ReformaEnergetica), approved by all parties. I URGE ALL WORKERS TO STAND UP AND FIGHT!
Ricardo Kossak gave the following explanation:
Falso que #gasolinazo sea por precio mundial de la gasolina Es por impuestos derivados del boquete fiscal dejado por la #reformaenergética
— Ricardo Kossak (@Kossak87) January 5, 2017
Not true that #gasolinazo has to do with global gasoline prices. It has to do with taxes caused by the financial hole left by the Energy Reforms (#reformaenergética)
Political analyst and director of Grupo Consultor Interdisciplinario, S.C., Alfonso Zárate commented:
Creo que el tema no es el gasolinazo, éste es solo el detonante de un hartazgo ante corrupción desbordada y cinismo de la clase gobernante.
— Alfonso Zárate (@alfonsozarate) January 4, 2017
I don't believe this is about gasolinazo, that is just the trigger for the discontent caused by overwhelming corruption and the arrogance of the ruling class.
Outrage has not been restricted to social media. People are also blocking streets and highways to protest the hike in prices. Some owners are choosing to close service stations in which the fuel is being sold — other stations have been forcibly shut down by protesters — thereby creating a shortage.
Twitter user Leonadro Delgado was amongst those calling for a blockade of service stations:
Sal a protestar, bloquea gasolineras, no compres gasolinas, o haz lo que creas conveniente ¡PERO HAZ ALGO! #ReversaAlGasolinazo
— Leonardo Delgado (@Leonardo11mx) January 4, 2017
Go out and protest, block the service stations, don't buy gasoline or do whatever you think best; BUT DO SOMETHING! Overturn Gasolinazo (#ReversaAlGasolinazo)
Naturally, increases to prices for public transport, food and practically all other services are expected as a result of gasolinazo, which would further inflame the hard-up general public.
President Peña, who, in April 2016, noted a “collective bad temperedness in Mexico”, had been out of the limelight for nearly two weeks due to annual leave.
He reappeared on January 4 to make a controversial announcement which only served to further fuel the discontent.
El Presidente @EPN designó nuevos titulares de @SRE_mx y de la Secretaría de @cultura_mx https://t.co/Rfdr2cl9NB pic.twitter.com/YJnfpu2cKG
— Presidencia México (@PresidenciaMX) January 4, 2017
The President @EPN has appointed new ministers to @SRE_mx [Secretariat of Foreign Affairs] and @cultura_mx [Secretariat of Culture].
https://t.co/Rfdr2cl9NB pic.twitter.com/YJnfpu2cKG
Peña placed Luis Videgaray in charge of the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs, commonly known as the Cancillería (Chancellor's Office). This controversial decision came after Luis Videgaray's removal as head of the Secretariat of Finance and Public Credit at the end of 2016, after it was revealed that he was the driving force behind the highly criticised visit by then-US presidential candidate (now US president-elect), Donald Trump.
Another user, Val, commented on the announcement:
Obedeciendo órdenes de #Trump #videgaray regresa a experimentar a cancillería https://t.co/HcH9qDx9JM
— Val (@valery360) January 5, 2017
Obeying #Trump‘s orders, #videgaray returns to try his hand in the Chancellor's Office
https://t.co/HcH9qDx9JM
Journalist David Monroy gave his thoughts on the appointment:
Luis Videgaray, ex secretario de Hacienda, regresa al gabinete en Relaciones Exteriores. Ponen al país a las órdenes de Trump.
— David Monroy (@DavidMonroyMx) January 4, 2017
Luis Videgaray, former Finance Secretary, returns to the Foreign Affairs cabinet. They are subjecting the country to Trump's orders.
The sentiment was shared by opposition congressman Agustín Basave:
La táctica apapachadora de @EPN y @LVidegaray hacia Trump es la del niño que le lleva dulces al bully de la escuela p’ que deje de agredirlo
— Agustín Basave (@abasave) January 4, 2017
@EPN and @LVidegaray‘s tactic of cosying up to Trump is like the kid who accepts sweets from the school bully because he's stopped beating him up
Twitter users became even more enraged following the minister's first public speech upon assuming his position:
No soy diplomático, nunca he tenido más allá de los encargos propios de la Secretaría de Hacienda en la representación de nuestro país. Ustedes han dedicado su vida entera a ello. Se los digo de corazón y con humildad: vengo a aprender de ustedes, vengo a hacer equipo con ustedes en un momento en que México nos necesita a todos.
I am not a diplomat, my only responsibilities in representing our country have been those undertaken within the Secretariat of Finance. You have dedicated your whole lives to it. I am telling you from the heart and with humility: I am here to learn from you, I am here to build a team with you, at this time when Mexico needs us all.
Following his declaration, artist Rubén Ochoa commented:
“Vengo a SRE a aprender” dice el nuevo flamante secretario Videgaray. Del tamaño de su cinismo es nuestra pendejez por tolerarlos.
— Ruben Ochoa (@rubenochoaa) January 5, 2017
“I am here at the SRE to learn” says Videgaray, our shiny new secretary. The vast extent of his shamelessness matches our stupidity for tolerating it.
As such, the beginning of the new year has proved full of unease and uncertainty for a great number of ordinary Mexicans, whose government appears oblivious to their demands and indifferent to their concerns.

author: J. Tadeo


text:
How Russia’s Conservative Movement Broke Through Online · Global Voices
Fabrice Deprez

Pixabay
We've come a long way since the days when Russian Internet users could be expected to fill their blogs with praise for democracy, freedom, and an end to the Putin regime in Russia. In the last few years, we witnessed a conservative renaissance on the RuNet, though it's unclear where the community goes from here.
Whatever happens, it's safe to say that Nikolai Starikov, Russia's conservative writer, activist, politician, and Internet sensation, had a good 2016.
On Nov. 15, security services arrested Economic Development Minister Aleksey Ulyukaev on charges of corruption, accusing him of having solicited a $2-million bribe. The news delighted Starikov, along with many other conservative figures, who say the minister's liberal policies only weakened Russia. “Ulyukaev's arrest: our brothers go to work!” he exclaimed on Twitter.
Неуемное желание либералов распродать госсобственность вызвано банальным желанием урвать себе пару млн $. Мы так и думали, теперь уверены.
— Николай Стариков (@nstarikov) November 15, 2016
The liberals’ irrepressible desire to sell the State’s property was caused by a banal desire to get their hands on a few million dollars. We thought so, and now we're sure.
Three days after Ulyukaev went down, Starikov got another reason to celebrate, when a Moscow court upheld the blacklisting of the Levada Center, Russia's last major independent pollster. As a leading figure in the pro-Kremlin “Anti-Maidan” movement, Starikov pushed hard to get Russian officials to list Levada as a “foreign agent,” saddling the organization with crippling new regulations.
Сегодня суд подтвердил статус “НКО иностранный агент” для Левады Центра. Закон должен выполняться – такова позиция Антимайдана.
— Николай Стариков (@nstarikov) November 18, 2016
A court confirmed today Levada Center’s “foreign agent” status. The law must be observed — that is the position of the Antimaidan.
You might not expect it, but Nikolai Starikov claims to be a member of Russia's opposition. The “Great Fatherland Party,” which he founded in 2013, was barred from participating in the 2016 parliamentary elections—a decision Starikov says was “political.” His brand of opposition politics has an especially narrow focus.
“Of course, we support our president on matters of foreign policy, but we believe that the continuation of policies started by the Medvedev government—the privatizations, the freezing of pensions, the sale of state property—all this is very dangerous for Russia,” Starikov told me in an interview.
Starikov criticizes the Medvedev government, especially the economic policies he considers to be “liberal,” but his most important belief is the need for stability against “external enemies.” In this context, Vladimir Putin's legitimacy as the head of state is not a matter up for discussion.
Nikolai Starikov / Wikipedia
Starikov’s opinion, which he shares relentlessly on social media and his two blogs, potentially carries serious influence on the Russian Internet. His page on Vkontakte boasts nearly 200,000 subscribers, and another 51,000 accounts follow him on Twitter. His Youtube page has more than two dozen videos with a total of 100,000 views, and his LiveJournal page is one of the most-read blogs on the network.
“All without doping,” Starikov laughed.
It may seem obvious that Russian conservative groups would dominate the RuNet, given Putin’s sky-high popularity ratings, as well as the Russian government's increasingly tighter grip on the media and certain kinds of political expression. But conservatives actually came very late to the party, says Dr. Galina Nikiporets-Takigawa, the dean of Moscow's Russian State Social University's Humanities Faculty and a lecturer at Cambridge University, who co-edited and co-wrote a book on Russian online political movements.
“Conservatives started using the Internet after the liberals, after the nationalists, after the religious groups, [and] after the civil activists, because they were the only ideological movement that had full access to all Russian media—including state television,” Nikiporets-Takigawa says.
Throughout the 2000s, the Web was one of the few places Russian liberals still felt free to express themselves. Conservatives, meanwhile, felt no need for any refuge; they were, overall, satisfied with getting published in Kremlin-friendly newspapers and speaking on state television, according to Nikiporets-Takigawa's research.
Like other conservatives, Starikov was mostly absent from the Internet in its “independent heyday.” He published his first two books in 2006, titled “Who Killed the Russian Empire? The Biggest Secret of the 20th Century,” and “The Liquidation of Russia: Who Helped the Reds Win the Civil War?” In the books, he claims that the fall of the Tsarist Empire and the Communists’ victory in Russian Civil War was the result of a British (and Western) special operation to destroy Russia. At that time, websites listing his books were Starikov's only online presence.
Things changed in the late 2000s. By that time, according to Nikiporets-Takigawa, the Russian state and social groups sympathetic to the Kremlin realized that the Russian Internet had become an overwhelmingly “liberal space,” Nikiporets-Takigawa argues, describing this moment as a wake-up call for many conservatives, who started challenging liberals’ dominance on the Web.
“I’m not a very technological person, but there are people who told me a few years ago that I should create a website and record videos, so that’s what I did. But I didn’t do anything in particular to promote myself,” Starikov told me.
In 2009, he launched a blog, as well as pages on LiveJournal and Vkontakte, right around the time when, according to Nikiporets-Takigawa, conservatives started being more active on the RuNet. By 2011, Starikov had published nine books, with eloquent titles such as “Russia vs. the West: Russia’s Main Enemy,” “Who Finances the Collapse of Russia? From the Decembrists to the Mujahideens,” and “Chaos and Revolution: The Dollar’s Weapons.” He was even appearing on local and even national television channels, like Rossiya 1 and NTV.
Starikov's popularity got a boost online when a community developed around his blog. A post published in July 2011 titled “I Am Against Dmitry Medvevdev’s Program” received more than 1,500 comments, the majority of which supported his view on the danger of privatizations. One of his books, “Who Forced Hitler to Attack Stalin?” also made him popular with historical revisionists. In that book, Starikov argues that France and England fully supported Hitler’s rise to power and militarization, and thus bear responsibility for the war.
By the time winter protests rocked Moscow in 2011 and 2012, Starikov was already a well-established ultraconservative figure on the Internet. But the protests, as well as Russia's parliamentary and presidential elections, proved a pivotal moment for the pro-Putin movement on the RuNet, where groups proclaimed their support for Vladimir Putin in a breakthrough on Russian social networks.
Those groups, says Nikiporets-Takigawa, were in part a crude attempt to imitate Barack Obama’s successful digital campaign strategy, but many of them “had a post-electoral life,” and “kept functioning as communities, where people would express their support for Putin.”
Vladimir Putin's re-election in 2012 had another effect, writes Alexander Bibkov, the director of Moscow’s State University Center for Modern Philosophy and Social Sciences. In a 2015 article about Russia’s “conservative turn,” Bibkov notes that it was around Putin's re-election that “moral activists” and “conservative writers” starting being the first in the news to comment on political news stories. Rather than waiting for statements by high-ranking officials, the mainstream news shifted to “increasingly hysterical” reactions from figures prominent online, where their audiences also promoted their content. It was now often several days before state officials intervened to dismiss often radical statements.
This, according to Bibkov, allowed the state not only to disavow decisions that later proved unpopular, but also to appear as a moderate force and a guarantor of stability. This also meant that ultra-conservative voices like Starikov's gained even more prominence, online and in the news media.
In March 2012, Starikov’s Vkontakte page had 21,000 subscribers. Another illustration of his growing legitimacy in the ultra-conservative sphere came the following year, when he joined the “Izborsk Club,” a think-tank that has welcomed figures like Eurasian ideologue Alexander Dugin, which Russian academic Andrei Yakovlev described as “a reflection of views of the conservative wing of the Russian elite.”
For Starikov, real Internet fame came with the conflict in Ukraine. As Russia annexed Crimea, following a triumphant but internationally unrecognized referendum, Starikov’s rhetoric about a never-ending plot by the West to destroy Russia gained appeal beyond the usual ultra-conservative audience. Indeed, Moscow’s argument about a Ukrainian revolution fomented by the West and about the threat of a similar attempt in Russia paired nicely with Starikov’s belief that the West has always tried to stir up revolution in Russia, and that any successful protest in Russia could only be the result of outside interference.
As a result, Starikov's popularity soared massively: in February 2014, at the bloodiest moment of the Ukrainian revolution, Starikov’s Vkontakte page reached 66,000 followers—about 40,000 more than two years earlier. But just five months later, when the conflict in eastern Ukraine was in full swing, he'd already doubled that number, with 144,000 subscribers. The number of his followers on Youtube also nearly doubled in the same period, from 27,000 in January 2014 to 49,000 in August 2014.
Then, in January 2015, he participated in the creation of the “Antimaidan” movement.
“People saw that I had been right all along, that what I talked about in my books and on my website happened exactly as I said. I’m successful simply because I tell people the truth, I like to think,” Starikov told me.
Around this time, he started appearing regularly on Russian national television, either as a geopolitical expert or as the head of the “Great Fatherland Party.” Starikov is now a regular guest on “Sunday Evening with Vladimir Solovyov,” a debate show that airs on the national network Rossiya 1. He also appeared on a similar show on NTV, a private but strongly pro-Kremlin television channel.
Может надо побомбить США, чтобы у них всё наладилось, наконец? pic.twitter.com/D5NqFWnLfd
— Николай Стариков (@nstarikov) October 8, 2016
[After saying facetiously that Washington seems to believe it helps nations’ development by bombing them] Maybe the U.S. should be bombed, so everything finally works out for them?
As Russian society “consolidated” around support for the annexation of Crimea, conservatives—as well as leftists and nationalists—found a new common target: Ukraine. Several new groups dedicated to “supporting the Donbas [eastern Ukraine]” or to the general cause of “Novorossiya” appeared on the RuNet and received wide coverage in Russian media.
Conservative groups online not only rose in popularity among the general Russian population, but also proved to talented actors online, where they helped recruit and support Russian “volunteers” to fight in Ukraine, and raised money to fight Russia's “domestic enemies.”
In May 2014, members from Starikov’s “Great Fatherland Party” went to Donetsk for the First Congress of the “Novorossiya” Party. Just like the opposition had used the Internet to organize itself in the 2011-2012 protests, conservatives now used the digital sphere to mobilize and gather support.
The next year, Leonid Volkov, one of opposition leader Alexey Navalny's closest allies and advisers, told the New-York Times that “the myth that the Internet is controlled by the opposition is very old, but [it has not been] true since at least three years.”
Of course, nothing online is static, and the mobilizing effect of the Ukrainian conflict has diminished, as the conflict in the Donbas has become frozen. In this environment, it's not impossible to imagine an Internet comeback by Russia's democratic opposition. The struggle for the RuNet isn't ever over.

author: Fabrice Deprez


text:
In Uzbekistan, a YouTube Video Sparks a Debate about Homophobia · Global Voices
Eurasianet

Pixabay image. Licensed for reuse.
The following is a partner post from EurasiaNet.org. Republished with permission.
Social media in Uzbekistan was set abuzz this week after a video appeared online (since deleted “for violating YouTube's policy on harassment and bullying”) showing a young man in make-up and a wedding dress being jeered and assaulted as he walked through the Ferghana Valley city of Andijan.
The incident has sparked lively debates online about homosexuality and tolerance and given vent to much dismay at the actions of the mob shown in the clip. It has not been ascertained, however, that anybody shown in the video is, in fact, gay, despite widespread assumptions to that effect.
As far as can be divined from the footage, the victim of the attack is dressed as the Russian snow maiden fairy tale character Snegurochka and is accompanying another individual in a Father Frost (Ded Moroz) costume in what appears at first glance to be a poorly thought-out festive season stunt.
Screenshot from YouTube video that was later deleted. Screenshot appeared on original Eurasianet article.
As the mob crowds around the target of their attacks, some people are heard demanding to know why the man is wearing the dress and wig. In reply, the young man replies that he was attending a New Year’s party.
Undeterred, one man rips the wig off the man and another strikes him in the face. One person shouts for him to go back to his hometown, nearby Asaka, while another suggests he should leave for Namangan, a nearby Ferghana Valley city popularly believed in Uzbekistan’s homophobic street lore to be a hotbed of homosexual activity. Later on, the young man is again kicked repeatedly, at least once in the face.
Within a few days of appearing online, the video has been viewed ten of thousands of times, on YouTube and on Facebook. Social media users deluged comments boards with their thoughts.
One circulating theory was that this may have been a stunt for money. Many, however, expressed their disgust at the abuse on show.
“Nothing can justify those humiliating and beating the actor. These ‘people’ come from the lowest tier of society and have no concept of human rights and international law. The victim could pursue a serious punishment for them. At the very least, may God be their judge,” one Facebook user, Dinara Omonova, wrote.
But a great many comments were outright hostile and instead supported the actions of the crowd.
“Women with foam at their [mouth] are trying to prove that he was simply dressed up to entertain children … And I suppose it is nothing that he was in make-up and a wedding dress?!” another Facebook user, Ramin Nassim, wrote. “I do not in any way justify those that beat him, but… I don’t want our people to be tolerant of these kind of sick freaks. I suppose tomorrow we will start being tolerant of pedophiles too?!”
Andijan journalist Muattar Ibrayev said that the reaction of the crowd in Andijan was to be expected.
“Of course if a young guy in make-up and woman’s dress strolls around our streets it will provoke an aggressive reaction among men. How else were they supposed to behave with him?” Ibrayev told EurasiaNet.org.
Intolerance of alternative lifestyles enjoys implicit official support among the country’s socially conservative authorities.
Last year, the late President Islam Karimov declared at a meeting of local officials that he considered same-sex relationships a “vile phenomenon of Western culture.” Homosexual acts are on paper still illegal in Uzbekistan and are punishable by prison sentences of up to three years.

author: Eurasianet


text:
Remembering Iran’s Gholamreza Takhti, the Much-Loved Sportsman Who Wrestled with the Shah · Global Voices
Hamid Yazdan Panah

Gholamreza Takhti (middle) in an undated picture in Iran. (Source Wikimedia Commons)
January 7 marks the anniversary of the passing of one Iran’s most heroic athletes, Gholamreza Takhti. The legacy of Takhti is notable not only for his athletic feats as a gold medalist in wrestling on the world stage but also for his humility and political principles and the fight for freedom against the dictatorship of the Shah. His life and death symbolize the struggle of the Iranian people, many of whom have sacrificed a life of comfort and privilege to stand for their principles.
Born in 1930 to a poor family in Tehran, Takhti found an outlet through wrestling and soon became one of Iran’s most talented athletes. By 1950 he had won his first Iranian championship and by 1956 he was an Olympic gold medalist.
Nicknamed “Pahlevan” (champion), for his heroic feats, dignity and honorable nature, Takhti was known for his chivalrous behavior both on and off the wrestling mat. His penchant for fairness and justice earned him respect among his opponents and love from the masses. This included refusing to take advantage of injuries to opponents, and treating them and their families with great respect.
Though Takhti’s prowess as a wrestler was unmatched, it was his political activities which turned him into a mythical figure in Iran.
Takhti was a supporter of Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh and his efforts to nationalize Iran’s oil and gain independence. This support often put him at odds with the Shah. After an earthquake took place in Qazvin in 1962, Takhti personally led an effort to raise aid for the inhabitants, and bypassed the Shah’s efforts to fundraise. These acts of defiance towards the dictatorship led Takhti to gain a reputation as a Robin Hood figure among Iran’s masses.
Tragically, Takhti’s opposition to the regime would also be his own undoing. On January 7, 1968, his lifeless body was found in a hotel room. Authorities claimed his death was a suicide, however his political activities led many to believe that he was ultimately targeted and assassinated by SAVAK, the Shah’s secret police.
The 45th death anniversary ceremony of Gholam-Reza Takhti in 2013 was held at Ibn-e Babouyeh cemetery in southern Tehran, where he was laid to rest. Photo from Mehr News.
The unrealized potential of Takhti and his steadfast belief in standing up for his principles is symbolic of Iran’s past and present. Iranians sacrificed much in their fight against the Shah, only to see Khomeini steal their revolution. Yet legends like Takhti continue to inspire future generations to stand up and fight for their beliefs, and to scorn a life of comfort in the face inequality and injustice.
Gholamreza Takhti should be remembered not only as an incredible athlete, but as a complete human being who used his talents and good fortune to aid those who were less fortunate and to confront injustice and repression. Takhti was a hero who was sacrificed in  Iran’s long and continual path towards freedom and democracy.
This piece was originally published on Iran Focus

author: Hamid Yazdan Panah


text:
An Indonesian Village’s First Female Chief Ended Illegal Logging With Spies and Checkpoints · Global Voices
PRI/PRX's The World

Hamisah, the first female village leader in the region of western Borneo, rallied her community to end illegal logging there. Credit: Carolyn Beeler
This story by Carolyn Beeler originally appeared on PRI.org on December 30, 2017. It is republished here as part of a partnership between PRI and Global Voices.
A main road through the district of Sedahan Jaya in western Borneo is just a ribbon of brown dirt. But that’s better than the muddy mess it used to turn into after heavy rains.
“The road was so bad when kids went to school, they came back with their legs covered in mud,” says a resident named Hamisah. “This was really sad to me.”
Hamisah, 43, has two sons and lives in one of the small houses nestled along that dirt road. From her yard, you can see some of the hills of the roughly 400-square-mile Gunung Palung national park rising in the distance.
That’s where the floodwaters would come from, and they caused problems bigger than muddied legs. Many of the 900 or so residents of Hamisah’s village are farmers, who work iridescent green rice fields that sit below the park.
“It always flooded when the farmers were about to harvest their rice, so we would lose our crops,” Hamisah says.
The problem, Hamisah says, was made worse by illegal logging in the park.
“Because of illegal logging, some hills don’t have a lot of trees anymore, so the land cannot absorb the water from the rain,” Hamisah says. “And so every year, there were big floods.”
I spoke with Hamisah in the front room of her small wooden house, where she rolled out a thick purple carpet for us to sit on.
She spoke emphatically and with her hands, looking crisp and professional in the withering tropical heat, even while getting up every few minutes to shoo chickens out her front door.
Hamisah never went to high school, and people say she used to be shy. But the flooding and the problems it was causing her community pushed her out of her comfort zone.
“I thought it was time for me to be brave and run for village leader,” Hamisah says.
There had never been a female village leader in the area. But Hamisah had some built-in support. She knew a lot of people through her work as a health aide, working for a local clinic to help people take their tuberculosis medication.
“Maybe because I’m a woman, I’m a mom, a lot of people came to me when they had a problem,” Hamisah says. “I listened and tried to suggest solutions. And so after a while, people started telling me I should run for office.”
She did, and she won, in 2013 becoming village leader of Sidorejo in the district of Sedahan Jaya.
Hamisah set to work trying to stop the illegal logging, beginning with the village’s women.
Hamisah says at the time, there was only one logger who actually lived in her village, and so she talked to his wife about the dangers of his job. What if her husband cut himself with his chainsaw, she asked? What if a tree fell on him?
“I started to make the wife talk to her husband about this, and push him to stop logging,” Hamisah says.
It worked. He gave up his chainsaw and got a job doing construction.
“In other cases, I talk to women about the future they want for their kids, with the forests and the same kinds of wildlife they had growing up,” Hamisah says. “So this is my strategy, telling the women about why we need to protect the village.”
But most of the loggers who were cutting down trees in the forested land surrounding Hamisah’s village actually came from outside of it. So once Hamisah had the locals on her side, she recruited some of them to help her catch outsiders driving through the village to get to the adjacent forests.
Hamisah called her helpers her “spies.”
Indonesia's shrinking forest area. See the full interactive map on PRI.org.
One was a shopkeeper named Selamat, who works in a little snack stand a few minutes down the road from Hamisah’s house.
“She asked me to tell if I saw anyone with a chainsaw driving by,” Selamat says, standing among the individually wrapped snacks hanging in his shop. “I said yes because I want to help.”
When Selamat spotted a logger, he would call the next spy down the line. A guy named Ridwan, down the road, would stop the car and try to convince the logger or loggers to turn around.
Ridwan recalled one of the stops he made in August 2014.
“[The logger] was angry, he told me he didn’t want to sell the wood, he just wanted to use it to build a house,” Ridwan says. “He argued a lot, but finally he left.”
Hamisah’s spy network caught five loggers in this way in the first year and a half she served as village leader. Ridwan says people don't try to log around the village anymore, and he attributes the change in large part to Hamisah’s leadership.
“She’s not like a man who can get angry easily, she has more discipline,” Ridwan says. “She’s direct and tough, but she’s the kind of leader who can get everyone to cooperate with her, follow her lead.”
The village also got cheaper health care at the clinic where Hamisah works because they stopped the logging. (The clinic incentivizes conservation by giving discounts to people who live in villages that have stopped or decreased illegal logging activity.)
Hamisah’s village is just one small place. Just six loggers have been stopped there so far. Meanwhile, forests across Indonesia are still being lost on a massive scale, and much of that’s happening legally. All that deforestation has helped the country become one of the biggest greenhouse gas emitters in the world.
Hamisah knows all this, but she says she’s been happy with what she’s been able to achieve.
“And not just me,” Hamisah says. “All of the women around here feel like we’re winners because we’ve been able to stop this logging.”
Hamisah says her experience is proof that if she can make a small difference in her own community, just about anyone can.
And those small differences can add up to something big.