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Mainland Chinese netizens face ‘pink terror’ of patriotic trolls amid Hong Kong protests · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

The state media network CCTV launched the “1.4 billion national flag protectors” campaign on August 4, 2019. Screen capture from CCTV
The propaganda machine of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has shifted from censoring most content on the Hong Kong demonstrations on mainland Chinese news outlets and social media to smearing the protesters — and harassing mainland citizens who show support for them.
From early June to the middle of July, state and party-affiliated media outlets had few reports about Hong Kong's anti-extradition protests. Information about the protests on social media was always quickly removed. However, in early August, since the Chinese government labeled the Hong Kong protests as another “Color Revolution” allegedly instigated by foreign forces to undermine the Chinese government, the propaganda campaign started to depict Hong Kong protests as part of a pro-independence movement. It also mobilized mainland Chinese citizens to oppose the movement.
A large number of Weibo and WeChat media outlets lauded the Hong Kong police for its use of force to deal with the protesters. Also, music videos or so-called “rapaganda” were released to rebuke foreign forces while pushing for Beijing's military intervention to stop the protests. The latest one is “Hong Kong's Fall” by a popular Sichuan band:
Moreover, celebrities and corporate businesses were told to demonstrate their love for China on social media by taking an oath to protect the dignity of the Chinese national flag. The “1.4 billion national flag protectors” campaign was launched by the China Central Television on August 4, 2019, in reaction to the throwing of the national flag into the sea by some Hong Kong protesters.
The campaign also mobilized a massive number of patriotic trolls known as “Tiny Pink” into monitoring chats and comments online. Those who do not toe the official party line are identified and subjected to doxxing. Doxxing is the practice of revealing someone's personal information without their permission, with the intention to threaten or intimidate. Usually, the trolls would reveal all the social media accounts of an individual and then they will file massive “complaints” to platform operators demanding the banning of the victim's accounts citing reasons like violating socialist values, defamation, vulgarity, etc.
Byron Chen, an independent scholar residing in Shenzhen, is one of the victims of organized doxxing and collective bullying which he calls “pink terror”. He wrote about his experience in a Facebook status on August 10 (via the Stand News):
Dear friends on Facebook. There is a pink terror on Weibo in mainland China. Unfortunately, I was victimized by this terror. On July 14, I traveled to Hong Kong to attend a local journalist protests against Hong Kong police violence. I took a photo at Tai Wai station and shared it on WeChat. That photo was screen captured and published in a Weibo public page accusing me of supporting “Hong Kong independence”. Trolls on Weibo kept doxxing my private information and later I was interrogated by police officers. All my social media accounts, including Weibo and Duoban were banned. All my books and writings have vanished. Those who attempted to defend me were also doxxed.
Now the Tiny Pink has moved to Facebook. They search around, look for mainland Chinese accounts and check if they have posted content related to Hong Kong. If the contents are not in line with the official discourse, they would receive the label of being pro-Hong Kong independence. Their details will be published on Weibo public page and the trolls will dox the individuals and organize crowd bullying.
My mainland Chinese Facebook friends, please be careful.
Chen was interrogated by Shenzhen police officers the second time after he posted the Facebook message. He told his friend through chats that the police officers were less intimidating than the “Tiny Pink”.
Another victim of “Tiny Pink” was former journalist Rose Luqui from Phoenix TV and now an assistant professor at Baptist University. She has 8 million followers on Weibo and now she is targeted by trolls because of her critical comments on Twitter.
Her tweets criticizing the China Central Television for spreading fake news on Hong Kong protests were screen captured, reposted on Weibo with political labels and hateful comments attached. Below is a typical hate speech comment directed against her on Weibo when searching Luqui's name on the platform:
闾丘露薇，一个在Twitter 推特上的双标狗！
上学时老师还说闾丘露薇有多牛逼，看了她的twitter真的是活生生的美帝的带路党
没有大V能来管管@闾丘露薇 这个港独英国狗吗？看看在twitter上的这些言论！最可气的竟然还是内地长大的！臭不要脸！
平日抖机灵也就算了。大是大非面前，一些真正的汉奸嘴脸是藏不住的。建议对它们微博封号，永久禁止进入中国领土。@闾丘露薇
My teacher once told me in class that Rose Luqui was a great reporter. I read her Twitter, she is a living example of a US imperialist spy [Dailu Dang].
Any influential opinion leader can give Rose Luqui a lesson. Isn’t she a pro-Hong Kong independence British dog? Look at her comments on Twitter. She grew up in mainland China. Shame on her.
She has been a smart ass. However, in black and white matters, she reveals her true traitor face. Her Weibo account should be banned forever and she should be banned from entering China forever.
In addition to public insults, Rose Luqui has received thousands of private messages on her Weibo inbox. She commented that she would not be affected by the messages and invited the trolls to publicize the messages on her post's comment thread.
The “Tiny Pink” not only targets political comments, but also the artistic preference of individuals. A mainland Chinese Facebook user revealed that many of her friends were doxxed and threatened because they are fans of popular singers like Denise Ho, Anthony Wong among others who have been labeled as pro-Hong Kong independence. Because of this, a growing number of mainland Chinese netizens are adjusting their social connections while some are shifting to more secure chatting apps.
The effect of “Pink Terror” is double-edged. It has successfully terrified and silenced dissenters, but it is also self-destructive – the massive banning of rational voices on Weibo could ruin the public sphere completely as pointed out by a Weibo user who has disabled the comment function on his post:
Sudi [a famous blogger in Quora-like Zhifu platform] has his account banned. I am speechless, totally speechless. Among those who have left were Chow Bo Chong [associate professor from the Chinese University of Hong Kong], Byron Chen and Deng Ai [liberal scholar]. What’s the nature of those who were left behind? I really don’t want to talk.


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Pakistan’s government suspends relations with India in show of solidarity with Kashmiris · Global Voices
Qurratulain (Annie) Zaman

Ragpicker rides his bicycle trailer as an Indian army convoy moves near a gun-battle site in Pantha Chowk area, on the outskirts of Srinagar. June 2017. Image via Instagram by Ieshan Wani. Used with permission.
Thousands of Pakistanis reacted to the scrapping of Article 370 in Indian-administered Kashmir and the bifurcation of the region on 5 August 2019 with sporadic protests across the country. The Pakistani government soon responded with a series of actions to voice their disapproval of India's actions and to show support for Kashmiris.
After India announced its decision to revoke Article 370 which gave special governmental privileges to the Jammu and Kashmir territory, Pakistan decided to expel Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan Ajay Bisaria, suspend trade and airspace access, and downgrade ties with its neighbor. Pakistan also stated that it will not send its high commissioner to his post in New Delhi. According to Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi:
Our (Pakistani) ambassadors will no longer be in New Delhi and their counterparts here will also be sent back.
The move came after Prime Minister Imran Khan chaired a high-level National Security Committee (NSC) to discuss how to react to India's action in Indian-administered Kashmir. Khan's government also said that the country will challenge India's decision to abolish Article 370 at the United Nations, including the Security Council.
Nuclear-armed neighbours India and Pakistan have fought two wars over Kashmir. The most recent clash happened in February 2019 after a terror attack in Indian-administered Kashmir which killed more than 46 Indian soldiers. The dispute over Jammu and Kashmir territory goes back seven decades and both countries claim that Kashmir territory belongs to them.
After Narendra Modi's government in India scrapped Article 370, many Pakistanis asked the ruling party to take action. Military expert Dr. Ayesha Siddiqa tweeted:
Why doesn't @ImranKhanPTI now ask those 9,000 or 30,00 (according to PTI) supporters that gathered in Washington DC to lobby for Kashmir's human rights? The same for the UK
— Ayesha Siddiqa (@iamthedrifter) August 6, 2019
The Chairman of Pakistan Peoples Party or PPP Bilawal Bhutto Zardari tweeted:
Atrocities in IOK unabated. Extremist Indian govts intentions clear. President must immediately summon Joint session of Parliament in wake of Indian aggression in IOK. #KashmirBleeds
— BilawalBhuttoZardari (@BBhuttoZardari) August 5, 2019
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari further said:
تاریخ ہم سے پوچھے گی کہ ہم کہاں تھے جب کشمیر کے بچوں کو نابینا کیا جارہا تھا، سیاسی مقاصد کیلئے بیٹیوں کی عزت اچھالی جا رہی تھی، کلسٹر بم گرائے جارہے تھے اور کشمیر کی سالمیت پر حملے ہو رہے تھے۔ تاہم ہمیں ڈٹ کر تاریخ کی اس سمت کھڑے ہونا ہے جہاں فخر سے سر اونچا رکھ سکیں۔
(3/3) pic.twitter.com/daTRuQs0xV
— PPP (@MediaCellPPP) August 6, 2019
History will question us where were we when the children of Kashmir were being blinded; when daughters of Kashmir were dishonoured for political purposes, cluster bombs were thrown and integrity of Kashmir was being attacked. However, we have to stand firmly in that side of history where we can keep our head high in pride.
Veteran journalist Muhammad Ziauddin said:
India has created new ‘reality’ in Kashmir like so many the Israelis created in occupied territory. 2 day displaced Palestinians R being punished for fighting against the new realities as D world has already accepted D original reality of forced occupation.
— Muhammad Ziauddin (@MuhammadZiauddi) August 6, 2019
Leaders of left parties, civil society, and peace activists condemned the annexation of Kashmir by the Modi government and warned that a humanitarian crisis in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir could spiral into a dangerous conflict between India and Pakistan.
SAFMA conference on Kashmir held in Lahore. Picture courtesy of Farooq Tariq. Used with permission.
The leaders called for a joint response by the people of Pakistan and India for the rights of Kashmiris and peace in the region. According to Imtiaz Alam:
Kashmir has become a jail for the seven million people living under curfew for the last 12 days. It is important to focus on the Kashmiris’ rights.
PEMRA (Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority) issued a letter dated 14 August 2019 announcing a ban on advertisements featuring Indian artists or produced in India as part of country's protest.
Prohibition of TVCs produced in India / carrying Indian talent pic.twitter.com/IOtZrqzcfi
— Report PEMRA (@reportpemra) August 14, 2019
PEMRA  invoked Section 27(a) of the Pemra Ordinance 2002. The International products mentioned by PEMRA for airing Indian talent in their advertisements include:
Pakistan observed ‘Black Day’ on 15 August (India's Independence Day) to protest India's actions in Kashmir. Pakistan also observed its Independence Day as ‘Kashmir Solidarity Day’.
Solidarity with Kashmir rally organised at D-Chowk #Islamabad by ICTA (@dcislamabad) today to support Kashmiris in their right to self-determination. Pakistan dedicated its #IndependenceDay to Kashmir.#PakistanStandsWithKashmir #KashmirDeserveFreedom pic.twitter.com/7D4Ai0NKob
— Sana Jamal (@Sana_Jamal) August 14, 2019
Check out Global Voices’ special coverage of the situation in Kashmir.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Qurratulain (Annie) Zaman


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Will Zimbabwe succeed in overturning a ban on the ivory trade? · Global Voices
Prisca Daka

Photo by Pawan Sharma on Unsplash.
Zimbabwe, along with three other Southern African nations, has submitted a proposal for the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Specials of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) to be amended to allow trade in ivory. The proposal will be debated during the meeting of the CITES Conference of Parties (CoP) taking place in Switzerland from August 17-28. Zimbabwe has hinted that it will withdraw from CITES if the proposal is rejected.
The proposers’ argument is that southern Africa has plenty of elephants—Zimbabwe has the world’s second largest population—and the ivory trade should be allowed to continue. Cash-strapped Zimbabwe also has a stockpile of ivory seized from poachers valued at $300 million which it is forbidden to monetize under the current rules. The proposed amendment seeks to permit trade in ivory carvings and “registered raw ivory”, including “whole tusks and pieces”, subject to certain conditions. It includes a provision stating that proceeds from the ivory trade would be “used exclusively for elephant conservation and community conservation and development programmes within or adjacent to the elephant range.”
Globally, there is no consensus on the best solution for protecting elephants. There’s also a lively political debate around whether or not the commercial trade of ivory could in fact benefit the animals. Some countries and organizations advocate for “non-consumption use”, while others—Zimbabwe included—believe that wildlife should pay for their own protection costs.
To understand the context, it’s important to examine the current status of elephants under CITES and the solutions currently being explored to protect them from poachers and from extinction.
Under CITES, African elephants are listed under two different appendices – Appendix I and Appendix II. Species listed on the former can be traded internationally, but not for commercial purposes. Species on Appendix II are not necessarily considered “endangered”, and may be traded for commercial purposes, including live animals and sport hunting, but are monitored for changes in the impact of trade on their survival. Both appendices prohibit the commercial trade in ivory.
Just a few decades ago over a million elephants roamed the African continent. Today, thanks to the demand for ivory, elephants are walking the road to extinction—the population today is estimated at about 625,000.
To figure out how we got here, we have to turn the clocks back to the 1970s, when the demand for ivory skyrocketed. In response, CITES officially banned trade in ivory in 1989, but in 1990 and 2008 allowed the one-off sale of government-owned ivory stockpiles owned by Appendix II nations to designated trade partners Japan and China.
The aim of the exercise was to flood the market with ivory in the hope of reducing demand—but it did quite the opposite, triggering an escalation in elephant poaching. There’s a strong likelihood that this new proposal, if agreed to, will do the same, as southern African nations are already experiencing a poaching crisis and an increase in illegal trade.
There is nothing preventing Zimbabwe from withdrawing from CITES if the proposal is rejected. But the assertion by the government that it will do so has not sat well with conservationists, especially when the underlying reasons are considered.
While Botswana has been the target of much recent angst regarding elephants … bad news also coming from Zimbabwe. They want to sell their ivory stockpile and leave CITES to do it. Awful! https://t.co/ruyXWnbhn1
— ? Danny G ????? (@itsdannyg) June 10, 2019
Article XXIV of CITES provides for any party to be able to withdraw from the convention through a process of denunciation. In the entire history of the Convention only one country has ever done this—The United Arab Emirates, which withdrew in 1988 then signed on again in 1990.
If Zimbabwe does withdraw, it could theoretically sell its stockpile of ivory without the interference of CITES regulations, but it would also face serious obstacles. Zimbabwe could, for instance, find that prospective buyers have banned commercial trade in ivory (as China did in 2017), or been subjected by CITES to suspensions prohibiting commercial trade.
Moreover, the power dynamics under CITES are such that rich and powerful nations could punish smaller ones. It is not just western countries, however, arguing against Zimbabwe’s proposed amendment. The Kenya-led African Elephant Coalition (AEC), a consortium of 32 African states are also strongly opposed.
For the ivory trade proposal to pass, Zimbabwe would need a two-thirds majority vote at the CoP18 meeting currently in session. Proposals have been rejected before, and it could be argued that this one is even more likely to fail based on the fact that illegal trade is ongoing.
Zimparks DG, Fulton Mangwanya implores parly to do all it can to engage the international community in order to block an attempt to abuse the CITES process through interference in the sustainable management of wildlife particularly elephants, whose population is 84 000 in Zim. pic.twitter.com/oXEdjw1K7u
— ZBC News Online (@ZBCNewsonline) June 10, 2019
Being a party to CITES means that a state relinquishes its sovereign-right claims and becomes legally bound to CITES decisions. It is no secret, however, that conservation is very expensive. The Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (Zimparks) lacks  financial resources and is not government-funded. A scarcity of staff, especially field rangers, makes wildlife highly vulnerable to poaching.
“Let those who forbid us to sell (ivory) give us money to manage our parks,” said Zimparks spokesman Tinashe Farawo in a recent interview with Agence France Presse. “The CITES should regulate the trade in endangered species, if there is no trade at all, it is no longer useful.”
The argument is that instead of simply prohibiting Zimbabwe from selling its ivory, a feasible solution should be offered. One solution could be to create a fund specifically to assist poor nations in managing their elephant populations. In such as case, CITES parties would have to agree on how funds would be acquired and put in place measures to ensure that receiving parties use the funds for elephant conservation.
There is much debate about the issue online in Zimbabwe, with some petitioning for a vote of no confidence to be passed against CITES on the grounds of ineffectiveness—while the Convention has been in force since 1975, petitioners argue, the illegal wildlife trade is very much alive today.
Vote of NO Confidence .." Long enough .. they have faciliated #China's crimes on #Nature .. #Petition .. Take Action #CITES .. ?? Please sign RT .. #Cop18 message must be loud & clear .. > .@CITES .. #ZimWildTrade  ????? https://t.co/dxNRuFDo5t https://t.co/cR7AsCgWeI
— Anika (@anikasleem) March 4, 2019
But people also need to understand how international Conventions and international law work. CITES is a global agreement between governments, not an organization. Its focus is very narrow, confined to regulating international trade in listed wildlife species only, nor does it protect habitats. One cannot simply pass a vote of no confidence in CITES and expect the Convention to be dissolved, as its dissolution is governed by a treaty.
Under CITES, the European Union (EU) wields great influence as a voting bloc, with its 27 member states, and could very well be the deciding factor in any proposal. At previous CoP meetings the EU has expressed the view that a “balanced position” should be taken and that range states should be deferred to, suggesting that it was not entirely opposed to the ivory trade as long as it did not facilitate illegal trade in wildlife.
Regarding the current proposal, however, the EU has made its position quite clear, stating in a recent press release that:
“On 8th June the Council of Environment Ministers agreed to support the transfer of the African elephant to Appendix I of CITES and called on the Commission to propose measures for an immediate import ban on ivory.”
Whether the ivory trade proposal will pass, and whether Zimbabwe will withdraw from CITES if it doesn't, will be seen when the CoP meeting concludes on August 28. But at the centre of it all is Africa’s dwindling elephant population—for whom the ivory trade is literally a matter of life and death.

author: Prisca Daka


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In São Paulo’s outskirts, mothers’ face challenges to access ‘humanized childbirth’ · Global Voices
Agência Mural

9 months pregnant, Janaína Normandia chose to have a humanized delivery in the second pregnancy after suffering obstetric violence in the first | Photo: Paula Rodrigues/32xSP
This story, authored by Jéssica Bernardo, Lara Deus, and Paula Rodrigues, was originally published by Agência Mural. An edited version is published below through a content partnership with Global Voices.
“But you had fun when you made the baby, right?” At the age of 23, Janaína Normandia was waiting for the birth of her first child when she heard those words from a doctor in a private hospital in São Paulo. Those words are among the several bad memories of that day.
After the birth was medically induced, Rafael was born. “They showed me my baby but then took him to receive assistance. I only saw the baby on Tuesday. He was born on Monday at 10:45,” she said.
So that experiences such as Janaína’s are not repeated, the Brazilian Ministry of Health established the Ordinance No. 569 in 2000, which guarantees a humanised, dignified and welcoming care for pregnant women and new-borns. “Humanised delivery” focuses on minimising medical intervention during childbirths.
For those living in the outskirts of São Paulo, however, this type of assistance is rare.
Sixteen years after Rafael's birth, Janaína is pregnant again and waiting for baby Benjamin. When she searched online for information about humanised childbirth, she found Casa Angela, a birth centre a few minutes from her home.
Located in the Campo Limpo district, in southern São Paulo, it is one of the area’s two free birth centres — along with the Casa do Parto of Sapopemba, in the eastern part of the city. Both are run by Brazil's public free health system SUS (Single Health Service).
The two institutions are specialised in performing natural and humanised births, following the recommendations of the World Health Organisation.
The centres are equipped with ambulances and specialised teams. Different to hospitals, those who assist the births are not doctors, but midwives with higher training in obstetrics, focused on techniques for caring for pregnant women. They are known as “professional midwives”.
Andressa Fontes Guedes, 27 years old, had her son Zion at Casa Angela, over 30 km from where she lives, in Jardim Apuanã, a northern area (Paula Rodrigues/32xSP)
The demand for these type of spaces has increased in recent years. In 2018, 440 deliveries were made at Casa Angela. This is 46 per cent higher than the previous year, when 300 children were delivered there.
However, despite the increased demand, the São Paulo city government has no plans to open new birth centres soon.
Home birth is not available in Brazil’s public healthcare system in general, but the Ministry of Health has requirements to pregnant women if they choose to give birth at home. These include that the woman should be accompanied by a professional midwife, and that she should have quick access to a maternity ward if she needs an emergency transfer. In this case, Casa Ângela is 10 minutes away from Campo Limpo hospital, which is the public referral ward.
Letícia Faustino, 23 years old, knows she's an exception as she's been able to deal with the costs. She decided to give birth at home, in the northern Parada Inglesa neighbourhood, and she spent R$ 7000 (about 1700 US dollars), paid in instalments, on a team including a nurse, two midwives and a doula assistant.
Doctor Melania Amorim, a specialist in humanised childbirth, says that “because it is not available as a public health policy, [home birth] is only accessible to those who can pay. For the woman from the outskirts, it will not be available in most parts of the country.
The World Health Organisation has recommendations for a positive experience of child delivery, such as having a companion during the process, allowing the mother to be fed and being hydrated, breastfeeding and contact between mother and child right after the birth, not using the “Kristeller manoeuvre” — pressure on the mother's abdomen to speed up delivery — or any methods to accelerate the process.
“The good practices of humanised birth are being implemented in all our maternity wards,” says Sonia Raquel Leal, coordinator of São Paulo city hall’s Women's Health program.
In practice, though, professionals working in the majority of hospitals and basic health units do not have training in humanised childbirth practices. For Melania Amorim, one of the great challenges for the public system in practising humanised delivery is the resistance of health professionals to change what was learned in the past.
“This happens exactly because people are perpetuating the model of childbirth assistance that they have learned on the college benches and which are characterised by interventions that are unnecessary and can be harmful,” she adds.
Analysing the rates of vaginal deliveries performed in hospitals, for example, it can be seen that in São Paulo’s five regions the rate of caesarean sections is higher than that recommended by the World Health Organisation, which is a rate of 10 to 15 per cent of all births.
Brazil is the country with the second-highest rate of caesarean sections, at 55 per cent of all births. In São Paulo, of the 69 places that delivered births, 34 were above the Brazilian average for caesarean sections.
Among the places with rates closer to the World Health Organisation’s recommendations, 83 percent were in the outskirts (29 hospitals or birth centres). The data are from a ranking published by the Municipal Health Office of São Paulo city covering all hospitals and institutions that had more than 50 deliveries in 2018.
Earlier this year, Jair Bolsonaro's Ministry of Health had vetoed the use of the term “obstetric violence” to describe cases of neglect in the care given by doctors before, during and after delivery. The argument given was that “neither the health professional nor those from other areas, have the intent to harm or cause harm”.
However, following the reaction of the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office, the government changed position and recognised the term’s legitimacy.
It has been argued over at a city level as well. For the coordinator of São Paulo city hall’s Women's Health program, Sonia Raquel Leal, medical staff are not trained to hurt a woman during labour.
“Are we [talking] about a social-political concept or are we in our area of action which is healthcare? I understand the term violence [to be] outside of healthcare”.
This is refuted, though, by legal professionals, women's rights advocates and women who have suffered some kind of mistreatment when giving birth.
Speaking on the outlet Lunetas, the lawyer Marina Ruzzi said the Health Ministry's position is inadequate because “one can see that the current ministry's concern is not to protect women and guarantee them their rights and assurances as citizens, but to protect the medical class from accusations of this nature”.
Pregnant women’s option for action when they have suffered some kind of abuse or disrespect is to communicate with professional team or file a complaint through the patient service portal 156 of São Paulo city hall.

author: Agência Mural


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Mozambique pushes for SIM card registration, raising privacy concerns · Global Voices
Dércio Tsandzana

mCel, is one of Mozambique's three mobile operators ordered by the government to register SIM cards. Photo: Dércio Tsandzana, July 16, 2019. Used with permission.
Mozambique is pushing for the registration of prepaid SIM cards despite concerns related to privacy and the measure's potential interference with election monitoring efforts.
On 28 June 2019, the Mozambican Communications Authority (ARECOM), a public entity that regulates the postal and telecommunications sectors and manages the radio frequency spectrum, launched a 10-day ultimatum for operators to urgently register all users of prepaid SIM cards. According to the newspaper O País:
In three letters sent by the Mozambican Communications Authority to Vodacom, TmCel and Movitel, the regulator accused the mobile operators of violating the regulations for registration and activation of the SIM card subscriber identification modules, approved by Decree No. 18/2015, of August 28.
In the letters, the regulator issued five notes to the operators, through complaints from customers and the Defense and Security Forces that there are unregistered and/or irregularly registered SIM cards in the market.
1-Block all unregistered and irregularly registered numbers within 10 days from the date of receipt of this letter, according to the Article 6 (a) and (b) of the above mentioned Regulation.
2 – Ensure compliance with Article 11 (1) which stipulates that “operators and providers of public telecommunications services, as well as sales agents or distributors are authorized to register SIM cards”.
3 – Collect all SIM cards that are outside the official establishments of the operators, agents and distributors, because they are not under the conditions set out in paragraph 2 of the regulation.
4- Block all numbers that violate the recommended in paragraph 3 of article 10, of the above mentioned legislation.
5- Inform subscribers to regularize their situations.
This push dates back to 2010 when the government led by then-President Armando Guebuza approved a ministerial decree that required users of mobile phones to register their SIM cards within a month.
The decree came in the aftermath of violent demonstrations that took place in the capital Maputo against high living costs. The protests caused at least 13 deaths, as well as a scenario of destruction in the Mozambican capital city.
During those demonstrations, protesters used mobile phones and social networks to invite people to the streets.
At the time, concerned bloggers and netizens viewed the decision as an intimidation attempt, as referenced in the blog entitled Reflectindo sobre Moçambique (reflecting about Mozambique, in Portuguese):
A pergunta que temos que fazer é porquê só depois de uma manifestação convocada por sms, o governo corre para bloquear os serviços da telefonia móvel? Porquê não fez isso quando o deputado José Mascarenhas foi ameaçado por sms e posteriormente assassinado?
We want to ask why only after a demonstration, promoted by sms, the government want to block the services of mobile communication? Why they did not do it when the Deputy José Mascarenhas was threatened by sms and later and then assassinated?
Mozambique's three mobile operators
A subsidiary of Vodacom Group, which is partially owned by the multinational corporation Vodafone, Vodacom Mozambique provides voice and internet services in Mozambique since December 2003.
TmCel or Moçambique Celular is a state-owned company that was founded in November 1997. It was the first mobile communications company to operate in Mozambique.
Movitel is a joint venture between the Vietnamese company Viettel and Mozambique's SPI (Management and Investment), which the Mozambican market in 2010
Although the initial deadline to register the SIM cards was extended by one month to January 7, 2011, and a second ministerial decree was issued in 2015, none of Mozambique's three telephone operators, namely Vodacom, TmCel and Movitel, canceled the unregistered SIM cards, prompting the government to issue its June 2019 ultimatum.
TmCel and Movitel accepted the ARECOM ultimatum to block the unregistered numbers, as reported by O País.
On July 15, the electronic newspaper A Carta revealed that all three operators were the target of a hearing by the National Criminal Investigation Service in the northern city of Nampula to investigate irregularities in SIM card registrations.
The Mozambican government maintains that the registration of SIM cards will help it fight crime and fraud. However, privacy groups view the registration of these cards as an infringement on users’ right to communicate privately.
According to the Privacy International, SIM card registration ”undermines the ability of users to communicate anonymously and one’s right to privacy”:
This poses a threat to vulnerable groups, and facilitates surveillance by making tracking and monitoring of users easier for law enforcement authorities.
The Mozambican government's latest ultimatum came just a few months before the country's general elections this year, scheduled for October 15. Mobile phones have proved to be an essential tool for election monitoring in Mozambique, where citizen observers use them to send photos and videos that can illustrate issues on election day as well as contribute to the transparency of the voting process.
As a result, measures aimed at blocking unregistered prepaid SIM cards could affect citizen participation during the elections. Authorities will be able to identify owners of registered SIM cards as well as infer or trace whoever is making a call or sending an SMS.
In 2014, the use of mobile phones enabled electoral observation through digital and mobile platforms such as Citizen's Eye and Txeka-lá. In the 2018 municipal elections, the Votar Moçambique web platform and its mobile app were used by electoral observers to monitor the election in many cities of the country.
This year, a number of civil society organizations are also preparing to monitor the elections through digital platforms, including the Center for Democracy and Development, the Citizen's Eye and the Center for Public Integrity.
The Eye of the Citizen and Txeka-lá use the Ushahidi platform (meaning “testimony” in Swahili), which allows citizens to send alerts about elections, as well as voice and SMS messages, to the ”situation room”. Most recently, the Center of Support on Information and Community Communication (CAICC) — a civil society organization, based in Maputo, launched a designated platform called Othanla (“choose”, in English). The platform, which is designed entirely for Android mobile devices, will enable its users to share and receive real-time information related to the upcoming elections, including the voting process and the results.
Even though in the last few years there has been an increase in the use of internet in Mozambique, according to the National Statistical Institute (INE, 2017), internet penetration remains low at 6.6 percent, trailing behind Southern Africa's average internet penetration of 51 percent, the region with the highest internet penetration rate in the entire continent according to the Hootsuite 2018 report.
However, the number of mobile phone users in Mozambique continues to grow. According to Hootsuite, mobile phone penetration was estimated at 46 percent (14 million of the total population) in January 2019. According to the same source, in January, ninety-four percent of mobile internet connections were prepaid, and of Mozambique’s 2,5 million active social media users, 2,20 million were mobile social media users.

author: Dércio Tsandzana


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Tonga threatens to ban Facebook over anti-monarchy posts · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Students from Tonga's Tailulu College making the most of new high-speed broadband services at 2013 World Telecommunication and Information Society Day celebrations in the the Tongan capital, Nuku'alofa. Nukua'lofa, Tonga. Photo and caption: Tom Perry / World Bank Project. Source: Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
The government of Tonga in considering a ban Facebook as a measure against posts deemed ‘slanderous’ toward the royal family.
Tonga has around 62,000 Facebook users out of an estimated population of 100,000. It has the last Pacific monarchy which continues to wield power and influence in society.
The monarchy also has critics but it is unpopular to publicly disparage this institution. Some found it convenient to comment on the royal family and other public figures on social media, especially Facebook, by hiding their real identities.
But a recent “allegation of a sexual nature” against the king and his daughter angered the prime minister who later formed a multi-agency working group to consider the banning of the popular social media platform to protect the reputation of innocent individuals. The prime minister said that his cabinet, in consultation with parliament, will decide this week whether to temporarily ban Facebook, although he did not mention if this will require a court approval or a simple executive directive to internet service provider Tonga Cable to block the access to the platform.
What the prime minister did not mention is that some of his supporters are accused of maintaining Facebook pages that are behind some of the attacks against the royal family
There are pending bills in parliament that seek to clip some of the powers of the monarchy. But loyal supporters of the monarchy have used Facebook as a platform to defend the institution and push back the efforts of some political parties to weaken the role of the royal family in the country’s transition from a hereditary monarchy into a system of modern democratic governance. Some think the pro-monarchy forces are getting more support on Facebook and so the proposed ban could be simply an attempt by the government to control information.
The proposal to ban Facebook was criticized by various sectors. An editorial published by Kaniva Tonga news service pointed out that the ban would undermine freedom of expression:
The decision the Tongan government faces is not an easy one. To simply shut down Facebook would not stop offensive comments being made.
It could also damage the kingdom’s economy and severely inconvenience those ordinary Tongans who use the online forum sensibly.
More importantly, it would, however hard it is to accept, strike a blow against freedom of speech, something that should not come from a democratic government.
Philip Cass, also writing for Kaniva Tonga, warns about the futility of banning Facebook:
…it would be easy to get around any ban on Facebook with the right software and in any case, the perpetrators of the posts seem to live in Australia and will not be affected.
A wholesale ban on Facebook would be unlikely to succeed and would upset the majority of Tongans who use the site for legitimate purposes.
By trying to impose a ban the government will simply make itself look foolish or ineffective.
Jope Tarai, an academic based in Fiji, told the media that the proposal is unfair to Facebook users in Tonga:
It would be very heavy handed if the rest of the majority of active account users in Tonga would have to pay the price for a group that is been [sic] accused of being a fake Facebook group.
Some comments on Twitter advised the Tongan government to focus on more important social issues. Others emphasized that Facebook is useful for families connecting with their loved ones who are living in other countries. A youth leader has a proposal for the government:
While our nation faces serious issues around corruption, illicit drugs, crime, etc, the Minister for Police is worried about @facebook . The solution isn’t to take away this as an option it’s it educate our people & be transparent. https://t.co/8w2cyUJexe
— Elizabeth V Kite (@ElizabethVKite) August 10, 2019
Meanwhile, the police said they are pursuing an investigation about the ‘slanderous’ Facebook comments against the king and the princess and they are already preparing to file either defamation, sedition, or treason charges.

author: Mong Palatino


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Twitter reveals China’s information operations on Hong Kong protests · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Derivative image from Flickr user mkhmarketing CC: AT Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)
On August 19, Twitter  revealed that 936 accounts originating from mainland China were ”attempting to sow political discord” in Hong Kong in order to ”undermine the legitimacy and political positions” of the anti-extradition movement on the ground.
Upon investigations, Twitter believed that the information operation was state-backed in a coordinated manner.
Although Twitter is blocked in China since 2009, some of the above accounts had accessed Twitter from specific unblocked IP addresses originating in mainland China, the company explained. Moreover, the 936 accounts were merely the most active ones and there existed a larger network of approximately 200,000 accounts created as part of this operation. The company said that it suspended all of the accounts for a number of violations of its ”platform manipulations policies”, including spam, coordinated activity, fake accounts, attributed activity, and ban evasion.
Although Twitter stated that the company was ”committed to understanding and combating how bad-faith actors use [their] services”, a simple search could still bring the audience to a huge number of disinformation about the protests in Hong Kong on the platform.
One coordinated spread of disinformation was about the protest crackdown on August 11. Several state-run news outlets including China Daily reported that one protester was using a US-made M320 grenade launcher to attack the police.
A protester fires a US-made M320 grenade launcher at an illegal assembly in Tsim Sha Tsui amid escalating violence in Hong Kong on Sunday night. pic.twitter.com/NJj42ustw9
— China Daily (@ChinaDaily) August 11, 2019
But there has not been any evidence that the “gun” appearing in the video was in fact M320 or just an imitation firearm and there has not been any police officer reported to have been hurt by M320 or other types of firearms.
At the same time, China Central Television alleged that the woman whose right eye was badly injured after Hong Kong police fired a round of bean bags outside Tsim Sha Tsui police station was actually injured by other protesters. The report also included a photo in which the woman was handing money to another person, suggesting that she was a middle person paying young people to join the protests.
The fact is Hong Kong police admitted that they had fired a maximum of 10 rounds of bean bags outside Tsim Sha Tsui police station near where the woman was shot. The woman is a first aider as identified by others in the medical team.
Today, when Global Voices searched for terms and expressions like “stupid fellow protester” (猪队友) in Chinese, and “M320 Hong Kong” on Twitter, the generated results still included a considerable amount of fake news depicting the Hong Kong protests as terrorist activities. Below is a typical example of a tweet disseminating the two fake news stories mentioned above:
笑屎人了，自己被猪队友射中还甩锅给警察，天大的笑话，布袋弹穿透力会拐弯?穿透力这么强?打穿广告牌后还精准射中那个有眼店铺看不清现实的港独暴徒?，你们所做的事都是危害社会的，打着和平示威的口号，袭击香港警察，镭射笔，砖头，雨伞，燃烧弹甚至连外国的M320榴弹发射器都使用，你们就是恐怖分子 pic.twitter.com/7BgFcXof16
— Mato (@Mato16552237) August 13, 2019
Hilarious, shot by stupid fellow protester and blame the police. This is such a joke. How could bean bags shoot through the obstacle and take a turn? The rioters were behind a billboard. What they did are harmful to the society. They attacked the police in the name of peaceful protest, laser pens, bricks, umbrellas, fire bombs and even foreign made M320 grenade launcher. You are terrorists.
After the August 11 brutal crackdown on the protests, the Chinese government stated in a press conference on the next day that the Hong Kong demonstrations had shown signs of terrorism. However, the claim about “signs of terrorism” is not grounded but built upon massive amount of fake and distorted information spread on social media inside and outside mainland China.
Twitter is just one of the battle sites outside China; Instagram and Facebook, also blocked in the country, faced similar information operations.
Facebook said that it identified “deceptive tactics” deployed by accounts associated with the Chinese government. The company said it only removed seven pages, three groups, and five accounts originating from mainland China that were used to disseminate dubious information related to Hong Kong.
China online patriotic trolls had launched several crusades to overseas sites, in particular, Facebook, to pick fights with other users. The latest was on August 17 and 18, when more than 10 thousand mainland Chinese online patriots had taken part in the crusades. On Facebook, they spammed comments of independent and citizen news outlets with Chinese flags and slogans to support the Hong Kong police. Apple Daily News had to close the comment function in its live-streaming of the protests on Facebook.
Hong Kong media outlets’ Facebook pages were spammed with Chinese flags posted by patriotic trolls. Screen capture via China Daily's WeChat
They have also filed massive reports to social media platforms such as Youtube and Instagram demanding removal of images citing reasons such as “explicit content”, “copyright”, “discrimination”, “defamation,” etc.
What’s worse, many supporters of the protests were harassed through social media platforms’ direct messaging functions. C.A Yeung posted one example and asked Twitter to act upon it.
This is the kind of online bully ethnic Chinese Twitter users who tweet about #antiELAB have to endure from pro-CCP trolls. What has @Twitter done about it? Nothing. Reports of harassment are ignored. https://t.co/KjK0JIhWrh
— C.A. Yeung (@WLYeung) August 18, 2019
It is good news that Twitter decided to disclose their investigation on the disinformation operation, but global platforms are yet to take more proactive countermeasures to stop state-sponsored campaigns and bullying of internet users.

author: Oiwan Lam


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As a top government official is arrested in Trinidad & Tobago, the corruption debate rages · Global Voices
Jada Steuart

Marlene McDonald tours a Carnival “mas camp” during her 2008 ministerial tenure. Photo by Trinidad News, CC BY 2.0.
Trinidad and Tobago member of parliament Marlene McDonald, who held the portfolio of Minister of Public Administration, was arrested in Trinidad on August 8, 2019 on corruption charges. McDonald, who was also dismissed from her position as deputy political leader of the governing People's National Movement (PNM), faces several criminal charges, including money laundering, conspiracy to defraud, and misbehaviour in public office.
McDonald is not a stranger to controversy. In early 2016, she was fired from her position as Minister of Housing and Urban Development after allegations that she was misusing her position. On that occasion, she was accused of granting her common-law husband a house through the state housing agency; of offering him and other relatives jobs in her constituency in breach of ministerial hiring procedures; and of starting a non-governmental organisation in order to gain access to public funds.
Despite the poor optics, Prime Minister Keith Rowley appointed McDonald Minister of Public Utilities on June 30, 2017, a job she held for mere days: she was fired soon after her swearing-in ceremony, thanks to the public outcry over the presence of a “community leader” (a popular local euphemism used to describe gang leaders) who posed with McDonald in photographs at the President's House.
Yet McDonald was again rehired: she began working in the Ministry of Public Administration in April 2018:
FOCUS: Recently dismissed Port of Spain South MP Marlene McDonald has held three ministerial positions within the Keith Rowley Administration – the shortest of which was just two days; here's a look at her ministerial timeline from September 2015 pic.twitter.com/Io1rBHX1uR
— Kevz Politics (@KevzPolitics) August 12, 2019
Four others were arrested along with McDonald: her common-law husband Michael Carew, and three friends (Victor McEachrane, Edgar Zephyrine and Wayne Anthony). All four are tied to the initial accusations that came to light in 2016. At the time, an investigation of the allegations by the country's Integrity Commission did not find “sufficient evidence”.
A more recent investigation undertaken by the Professional Standards Bureau (PSB), however, found sufficient evidence by tracing money from the NGO to the suspects’ personal accounts. All of the accused were arrested on the same charges: defrauding the government by procuring public funds via the Calabar Foundation, and money laundering.
McDonald was also charged with misbehaviour in public office. Her bail was set at TT $2 million (approximately US $295,000), but before she could make a court appearance she fell ill and was admitted to a private hospital. On August 12, 2019, all four accused were granted bail.
McDonald's arrest has put her back in the national spotlight, sparking a general debate about corruption in the country. In Transparency International's 2017 and 2018 Corruption Perceptions Index, Trinidad and Tobago was Number 41 out of 180 countries, a slide from 2016's score of 35.
Leader of a new youth-based political party, Nikolai Edwards, commented that it was good to see the police going after the “big fish”, referencing a common public perception that while corruption is perceived to be rampant, those suspected of it are rarely arrested. Hailing the work of the Commissioner of Police and the Professional Standards Bureau, he added that McDonald and other corrupt public figures deserve no sympathy.
Opposition Leader Kamala Persad-Bissessar said McDonald is entitled to a fair trial, while the prime minister noted that “no one is above the law” and that her arrest should be seen as a bright hope for the country.
The public, however, remains incredulous, as McDonald was allowed to be in public office for so long. Some social media users questioned the political culture of enabling:
The PM can fire Marlene Mcdonald for the 96th time and in 2021 out of the thousands of suitable candidates available still reappoint her to cabinet
— Darrenethis (@fudgie8) August 8, 2019
One Twitter user suggested that by not speaking out against corruption and entitlement, citizens themselves were part of the problem:
The fact that people want Marlene McDonald to get special treatment (even tho is ALLYUH money she thief) cuz she’s an MP is EXACTLY what is wrong with Trinidad and Tobago. Bunch of enablers.
— ThickerThanUrAvg. (@__tanialorraine) August 13, 2019
Nevertheless, McDonald's arrest is an important moment in Trinidad and Tobago's politics, with many hoping it will be the first of many as more corrupt leaders are called to account. Several netizens view the minister's detention as a small but vital step in dealing with a larger national problem.
McDonald and her co-accused will go back to court on September 9, 2019.

author: Jada Steuart


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Remembering the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia · Global Voices
Filip Noubel

Soviet tanks in central Prague on August 21, 1968. Photo by Václav Bradáč, used with permission from the Czech Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes
History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon, Napoleon Bonaparte once said. In the Czech Republic, conflicting views about the meaning of the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia by Soviet troops are gradually eroding what was a largely consolidated narrative of condemnation since the fall of communism in 1989.
Moscow was concerned that political reforms taking place in Czechoslovakia in 1968, known as the Prague Spring, could undermine the Communist Party’s grip over society, and would set a precedent for liberalization of other countries under Soviet dominance in Central and Eastern Europe. On the night of August 21 of that year, Soviet troops, aided by the other members of the former Warsaw Pact, invaded the country.
Until the fall of the Soviet Union, the official narrative was that Czechoslovakia had been “liberated” by Warsaw Pact troops after having fallen victim to a Western plot to overthrow the communist government. Photos or film footage depicting resistance to the so-called liberation were banned, and destroyed if discovered. Owners of such documents were at great risk if found out, and thus kept them hidden.
But the memory of those events was passed on orally to trusted family members and close friends. From the 1990s, the official narrative flipped: August 21 has been marked in the Czech Republic by extensive media coverage as well as demonstrations in major cities.
More recently, open-air exhibitions of previously unseen, often hidden photos and film footage became more common, and data about the events of 51 years ago continue to surface: while it had long remained unclear how many people died as a result of the invasion, new historical research updates the total to 137 Czech and Slovak victims.
But cracks in that narrative are now slowly beginning to show.
According to a poll conducted in 2018, 35 percent of young Czechs between the age of 18 to 34 are unable to make a link between the date of August 21, 1968, and the Soviet invasion.
Most notably, the current pro-Russia president Miloš Zeman says little on the issue. He joined the Czechoslovak Communist Party in 1967, and claims that he was expelled in 1970 for condemning the 1968 invasion. However, last year, which marked the invasion's 50th anniversary, he refused to speak publicly or to acknowledge the event.
His silence seems to echo the views of contemporary Russian public opinion, which is either unaware or supportive of the 1968 invasion, as public polls indicate.
Today, activists are using a variety of strategies to keep the memory alive in the public consciousness, including reinvigorating old collections and archives of photos, films, and music from that period, using interactive maps, and multiplying street action to revive historical memory for younger generations.
Last year, the Prague City Hall organized an exhibition of 21 telling pictures by various photographers of the 1968 invasion presented together for the first time, showcasing the violence of the military intervention, resistance by Prague residents, and the depth of the political crisis.
The Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, a research and education foundation, also maintains and updates photo archives testifying of the growing body of now available photos:
Soviet tanks on the iconic Old Town Square in Prague on August 21, 1968. Photo by Václav Bradáč, used with permission from the Czech Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes
Prague residents surrounding a Soviet tank. Photo by Václav Bradáč, used with permission from the Czech Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes.
In 2016, a short film was released presenting newly discovered footage of Prague residents setting Soviet tanks on fire, demonstrating on the streets, and gathering around a radio station that would become a center of resistance. Affiliated radio journalists opposed the censorship and informed the population about what was happening in the city until they were shut down by the Soviets.
Activists are also taking a creative approach to portray the events in more attractive ways to young people. For example, this longer film mixes film footage and photos with popular Czech and Slovak songs from the Prague Spring period.
Music played a key role at the time as political reforms allowed for greater tolerance of songs and music that outside of the frame of socialist ethics, and included elements of Western rock, punk, and jazz. Musicians who openly supported the Prague Spring and opposed the 1968 invasion had their careers cut short after August 1968, or had to go entirely underground.
Another initiative is the online map celebrating the 137 victims who fell in the days around August 21 uploaded by the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes.
On August 21, 2019, opposition political parties, as well as activist movements, held several demonstrations across the country to condemn the 1968 invasion, as well as the silence of the top leadership of the government, namely President Miloš Zeman and Prime Minister Andrej Babiš.
One such group is the citizen movement One Million Moments of Democracy, which held the biggest anti-government demonstration since the 1989 Velvet revolution on June 23. Today, it organized a march of several thousand people that started on Prague's Wenceslas square, a traditional space for protests and commemorations. The march paid tribute to the 1968 events as much as it bashed Zeman and Babiš.
In the photo below, the red underpants are a reference to the work by Ztohoven, a group of activists whose name can mean “out of it,” but also “one hundred shits” (written differently but pronounced similarly in Czech). The round sign on the right is also a play with words using the first name of Zeman in a tweaked form of the expression “lick my ass” (vyliž mi prdel in Czech).
Czech demonstrators of different generations joining the march organized by the Million Moments for Democracy movement to commemorate the 1968 invasion. Photo by Filip Noubel, used with permission.
The march passed in front of the headquarters of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, which doesn't clearly condemn the invasion and refuses to use the term “occupation” to describe the post-August 1968 period (even though the Soviet Union maintained military bases in Czechoslovakia from 1968 until 1991). In the 2017 parliamentary elections, the party obtained seven percent of the votes.
Protestors then distributed chalk and encouraged everyone to leave messages on the pavement to express their views. On the picture below, three key dates are presented: 1948, which is when the Communist Party took over post-war Czechoslovakia, 1968, the date of the invasion, and 1969, the date when Czech student Jan Palach immolated himself to protest against the 1968 invasion.
Photo by Filip Noubel, used with permission.
The battle for the memory will need to be waged even more creatively in the years to come if younger Czechs are to know what happened on a certain night from August 20 to 21, 1968.

author: Filip Noubel


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Netizen Report: The shutdown in Kashmir continues · Global Voices
Ellery Roberts Biddle, Netizen Report Team

Kashmiri woman protestor dares a policeman to stop her from moving ahead during restrictions imposed in 2017 in Srinagar, the largest city in Kashmir. Photo by Ieshan Wani, used with permission.
The Advox Netizen Report offers an international snapshot of challenges, victories, and emerging trends in technology and human rights around the world. This report covers news and events from August 9 – 21, 2019.
The Indian region of Kashmir has been in a communications blackout since August 5, when the Indian government revoked the region’s special autonomous status.
Protests in response have led to violent confrontations between demonstrators and Indian military and police authorities, who are actively patrolling the streets. Hundreds of protesters and others caught in the fray have been detained since August 5.
The internet censorship research group Netblocks reported on August 4 that severe network disruptions were already underway:
Urgent: Severe internet disruption registered in #Srinagar, #Kashmir with backbone access largely severed by India from 18:00 UTC; information blackout poses immediate risk to safety and rights of individuals; incident ongoing #KeepItOn
? https://t.co/ENx1iLc4nQ pic.twitter.com/jv0KMbp3CM
— NetBlocks.org (@netblocks) August 4, 2019
Internet outages are nothing new for Kashmiris — the region boasts the dubious title of having weathered more short to medium-term internet shutdowns in 2018 and 2019 than any other in the world.
But the communications blackout extended far beyond internet access. For 12 consecutive days, mobile and even fixed-line telephone services were shut down, leaving Kashmiris all but cut off from neighboring areas and the rest of the world. A report from AFP described how Kashmiris in the region’s largest city, Srinagar, were queuing for hours at government offices where they can use an outside phone line — for just two minutes per person.
While internet access remains off-limits in Kashmir, many Pakistanis have taken to Twitter to denounce the change in Kashmir. But they too have been subject to censorship — journalists, activists, and now even Pakistani government authorities are reporting that multiple accounts have been suspended after tweeting in support of Kashmiri’s rights or criticizing Indian government actions in the region.
On August 12, the Indian home ministry asked Twitter to ”suspend” eight  accounts for spreading ”misinformation and rumours to disturb peace and calm” in Kashmir. On August 20, Pakistan’s Telecommunication Authority filed a complaint with Twitter, asserting that 200 accounts had been suspended wrongfully, and apparently (according to Pakistani authorities) after tweeting messages about or showing solidarity with Kashmir.
Connections to YouTube and other services offered by Google went dark for several hours in Algeria on August 18. The outage appears to have been in response to a viral video showing former Defense Minister Khaled Nezzar calling on the army to “realize the demands of the people,” a message that appeared to express support for the public ouster of military general Ahmed Gaid Salah. Protests that began in March in Algeria led to the resignation of long-time ruler Abdelaziz Bouteflika.
Omoyele Sowore, a prominent human rights activist and the publisher of investigative news site Sahara Reporters, was arrested on August 3 by Nigerian security services after calling for a nationwide demonstration against bad governance. Using the hashtag #RevolutionNow, Sowore pointed to the multiple armed conflicts happening in the country and their deadly consequences for civilians. “Nigeria has failed as a state and until we take that necessary big step [of a coordinated protest movement]….Nigeria will not attain its potentials.”
He was detained under the 2011 Terrorism Act which allows the Department of State Services (DSS), a unit of Nigeria’s State Security Service, to detain anyone planning to “commit an act of violence.” If charged and convicted, Sowore could face life in prison, a fine or both. Despite his arrest, protests still took place across the country in four states and in the capital Abuja.
Mauritanian blogger Mohamed Cheikh Ould Mkhaitir, who was sentenced to death for apostasy in 2014 over an opinion article published on the website of the newspaper Aqlame, was released from prison on July 30. Although his sentence was reduced on appeal in 2017, he had remained in prison since his original arrest. He has since been escorted to another country for safety reasons.
In his article, Ould Mkhaitir criticized the use of religion to justify Mauritania's discriminatory caste system, while citing examples from the lifetime of prophet Muhammad. His release came just two days before the inauguration of Mauritania’s now-current president, Mohamed Ould Ghazouani.
Since early July 2019, Hong Kong residents have been reporting on social media that their mobile phones are being checked when they travel to mainland China. The border police officers appear to be scanning devices for anti-extradition photos, videos and group chats. Travelers who show evidence of having joined protests have been subject to further interrogation. Some have been pressured to write letters of reassurance that they won't join the protests in the future. In at least one case, the police asked a person who they had identified as an active protester for a DNA sample.
Two new resolutions from Cuba’s Ministry of Communications have put local area networks — community-built IP-based networks that do not connect to the global internet, also known as LANs — on the defensive. Resolutions 98 and 99 place hard restrictions on this type of technology and require that anyone seeking to build with it obtain a state-issued permit first.
The rules could force the closure of dozens of locally-run networks across the country, including the SNET, Cuba’s largest independently-run LAN, which has been operational for 15 years and serves an estimated 40,000 people in Havana. Originally built by gamers and young computer science students, the network now includes home-grown social media sites, blogs, spaces for buying and selling goods, and a static version of Wikipedia.
The SNET has long been readily accessible for anyone with a computer who can access one of the network’s above-ground cables, which are visible from street level, connecting one apartment building to the next. But with the new rules, this unique community-led solution to Cuba’s lack of internet access may not last.
Russia’s media regulator is pressuring Google to discontinue push notifications and other features promoting videos and livestreams of protests that they say are illegal. On August 10, demonstrations took place across Moscow, with citizens demanding free and fair elections, after several opposition candidates were disqualified from an upcoming vote.
Google is re-opening its Egypt office years after moving its offices to Dubai in 2014, following the coup d’état that left president and former military general Abdel Fattah Al Sisi in power. The office will re-open on the premise that the country has regained political stability, despite concerns from activists that the company’s practices and employees will become vulnerable to government pressure, as was the case for the company during its tenure in China.
An Ankara court ordered Twitter to suspend four user accounts on grounds of protecting national security and public order. The accounts belong to an opposition party politician, a music band, and two entities connected with the Gezi Park protest movement.
Twitter has not yet complied, but if it doesn’t, it could risk being blocked in Turkey. In 2014, the Turkish government blocked Twitter after users disseminated audio recordings that seemingly implicated people close to then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in a corruption investigation. At the time, the government said Twitter had not responded to court rulings to remove some links that they said violated local laws.
On August 19, Twitter suspended 936 accounts originating from mainland China that were “attempting to sow political discord” in Hong Kong in relationship to the anti-extradition movement on the ground. After investigating account activities, Twitter concluded that the information operation was state-backed and had violated multiple platform policies. The company offered full documentation of the accounts and their message histories as part of its announcement.
Although Twitter has been blocked in China since 2009, some of the above accounts had accessed Twitter from specific unblocked IP addresses originating in mainland China, the company explained. Moreover, the 936 accounts were only the most active ones within a larger network of approximately 200,000 accounts created as part of this operation.
Not long after it suspended hundreds of pro-Beijing accounts for their Hong Kong-related activities, Twitter announced plans to curb certain kinds of state-sponsored media outlets from buying advertising on its platform. The company says that the new policy will not prevent such media from tweeting — it will only bar them from buying ads.
Which kinds of media outlets will be affected by the rule? An official statement asserted that the policy “will not apply to taxpayer-funded entities, including independent public broadcasters,” but that it would apply to “news media entities that are either financially or editorially controlled by the state.” This may leave some outlets in a legal grey area, and will likely raise more questions about the role of private internet companies in adjudicating speech by publicly-funded entities.
Afef Abrougui, Nwachukwu Egbunike, L. Finch, Rezwan Islam and Oiwan Lam contributed to this report.


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Reducing carbon footprint and waste generation is the need of the hour, says Indian environmentalist · Global Voices
Vishal Yashoda Manve

Clean-up activities in Versova and Dana Paani beach. Image by Afroz Shah. Used with permission
Indian lawyer and environmentalist Afroz Shah divides his time between the courtroom and separating mounds of plastic. Shah, prominently known for launching the world's largest beach clean-up drive in India's financial capital, Mumbai, won the United Nations’ “Champions of the Earth” award in 2016 and has successfully managed beach clean-up drives across India. From the initiative's humble beginnings as a clean-up drive with his 84-year-old neighbor, the Versova Residents’ Volunteers (VRV) now boasts having involved nearly 70,000 school students and 1,200,000 citizens in various clean-up initiatives.
Global Voices spoke with Shah about the dangers of plastic waste, the beginnings of the VRV initiative, and how social media has allowed him to turn a beach clean-up drive into a movement.
India produces over 62 million tonnes of garbage every year and landfills rank third for greenhouse gas emissions. For Shah, fossil fuels need to be phased out to protect the planet from climate change-induced destruction including flooding, heatwaves, and the reduction of forest cover:
Fossil fuels are a big problem and manufacturing plastic is a by-product of it clogging the environment. To tackle the climate crisis, youngsters need to step up and find solutions. Greta [a 15-year-old Swedish environmental activist] is keeping the politicians on their toes by frequently highlighting the current state of the environment which is suffocating everyone.
Shah added that enforcing laws will not yield results but rather sensitizing people about the dangers of pollution is the only solution.
Detergent powder, toothpaste, milk pouches, and shampoo sachets picked up from the beach.
Versova Beach Cleanup. Image by Afroz Shah. Used with permission
While looking for solutions to dispose of the plastic, I visited Dharavi since it is the largest slum with micro-enterprises in Asia. Socio-economic problems cannot be solved by just floating tenders and spending money. Instead of laws conversing with us, we should converse with people and decide what is good for our surroundings.
During his visit to Dharavi, Shah was alarmed by the amount of garbage, especially plastic waste, and how they ended up across the beachfront in Mumbai and other Indian states.
“People were burning plastic, which is dangerous. There was garbage and plastic everywhere and each piece of garbage had feces in it due to open defecation,” Shah said during an interview at his sea-facing apartment in Mumbai.
India's coastal zones are rich in marine and coastal life but decades of pollution, destruction of mangroves and plastic dumping on Mumbai's beaches have resulted in coastal degradation and the disappearance of many species including the native Olive Ridley turtles. Despite the environmental damage being done to the coast, Shah's initiative is already beginning to make a difference. In 2018, the Olive Ridley turtle was sighted at Versova beach. Shah, whose team of volunteers spotted the baby turtles wading their way through the sand, was ecstatic and in tears.
It was nature's blessing that Olive Ridley turtles returned to Mumbai's coastline after years of disappearance due to pollution and garbage dumping. I was crying when the news came out as we spent years wading through muck collecting tonnes of plastic and hoping to clean our environment.
Image by Afroz Shah. Used with permission
In 2016, United Nations Environment Project (UNEP) chief Erik Solheim visited a trash-filled Versova beach and said he had “never seen such a horrendous sight”. After his visit, Solheim announced support for the citizen's clean-up initiative led by Shah. By October 2018, the beach had been transformed with tens of thousands of volunteers chipping in their weekends to separate plastic for recycling.
Solheim went on to launch the global ‘Clean Seas ‘ campaign and joined hands with Shah's initiative.
Vijay Samnotra, head of the UN Environment’s country office in India, praised Shah and his volunteers in a press statement:
UN Environment is proud of the inspiring and mostly back-breaking work that Afroz and his small band of volunteers have been doing in Versova. He has shown how commitment and single-minded devotion of an individual to the cause of environment can mobilize citizens in conserving and protecting the environment.
But, Shah, who began his journey single-handedly realized he had to involve youngsters and citizens if he hoped for long-term sustainable change. As a social media novice who started out his clean-up drive with an 84-year-old neighbor, Shah initially approached people to help who were walking on the beach:
There is an inertia in the government and it is not responding as it should to our environmental needs. I started in October 2015 and there was barely any response from people as they would shy away. I wasn't social media savvy and would call 80-100 people on the phone every weekend requesting people to come and join us for cleanups. I would randomly approach people explaining them the problem of plastic dumping and destruction of mangroves and beachfront.
Eventually, the initiative was able to draw the attention of young people who joined in response to the environmental crisis.
Highlighting concepts of the circular economy, Shah says families and communities worldwide need to judiciously reduce their carbon footprint and reduce waste generation.
Week 193 Beach cleanup in Versova and Dana Paani. Image by Afroz Shah. Used with permission
The beach clean-up was the tipping point and people moved out of their comfort zones and realized they need to start giving back to our environment. Shah, who lives a frugal lifestyle with minimal usage of plastic, says his teams have worked with local slum-dwellers in Mumbai to create awareness about sanitation, plastic usage, and garbage disposal.
There is a lot to be done for the environment and millions of species inhabiting the earth around us. The state of Mumbai is bad and every hundred meters has a garbage dump filled with wet and dry garbage and we dump these in landfills.
Despite the initiative's successes, the challenges environmentalists face are daunting and there is still much to be done.
Besides oceanic pollution, India also routinely deals with alarming levels of air pollution, one of the worst globally. Rivers surrounding New Delhi, the Ganges and Yamuna, face ecological threats due to the dumping of garbage and waste, with government campaigns to clean them yielding negligible results.
In 2018, amid Mumbai's incessant rainfall, the sea pushed back tonnes of garbage including plastic to polystyrene on the beaches highlighting how the city had turned the sea into a dumping ground. Besides this, a landfill in the Indian capital New Delhi's Ghaziapur measuring over 65 meters (213 feet) and Mumbai's Deonar landfill which are bursting at the seams is worrying officials.
Watch the United Nation's Champion of the Earth video featuring Afroz Shah below:
Vishal is a Climate Tracker South Asia hub fellow.

author: Vishal Yashoda Manve


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Hong Kong protests through the eyes of a Filipino migrant worker · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

File photo of Filipinos gathering in Central, Hong Kong for a cultural event in November 2018.
There are more than 130,000 Filipinos in Hong Kong, a majority of whom are domestic workers. Every Sunday, many congregate in Central, the business and retail heart of Hong Kong, to spend their day off. This is also where the massive protests in the city have been taking place since June 2019. How have the rallies affected the lives of migrant workers? What are their thoughts about the protests?
Since June 2019, weekly protests in Hong Kong have brought together at least two million people demanding the scrapping of a bill that would allow the extradition of fugitives and other accused individuals to mainland China. Protesters say the bill could undermine democracy by allowing Beijing authorities to order the arrest of Hong Kong-based activists, dissenters, and even critical journalists. The bill has been withdrawn by the government but protests have continued to escalate as more people demand a probe into police violence, the release of arrested activists, and the granting of universal suffrage.
Through email, Global Voices interviewed Elena (not her real name), a migrant worker who has been living in Hong Kong for more than a decade. She is also a volunteer in several networks advocating for the rights of migrant workers.
Elena explains why most Filipino migrant workers are sympathetic to the protesters:
As most of the protesters are young people, many of them grew up in households where Filipino domestic workers took care of them when they were still very young.
The Filipino community also disagrees with the proposed bill. We have not seen anyone or any group publicly expressing support for it. Some Filipinos also joined peaceful marches from Victoria Park to Central.
While we are not prohibited to join the rallies, many are reluctant because of its possible implication to their work and visa status in Hong Kong.
The rallies have affected how Filipino migrant workers gather and interact every Sunday in several public areas. Elene shares how migrant workers have adjusted to the situation:
Some community groups have cancelled their scheduled events in Chater Road because of the protests.
Some workers reported that their rest days are no longer fixed on a Sunday and have become dependent on the schedule of protest actions. This also affects their ability to be with their friends and relatives during rest days. Other migrants just congregate from morning until 2:00 p.m. and will leave Central before 3:00 p.m. to avoid the protests and possible disruptions in the public transportation as well as potential police confrontations.
Some expressed concern about losing their jobs:
While the migrant workers are trying to understand the Hong Kong people's protest, there are of course fears among the Filipino community about their safety and job security as well.
There are also reports that some employers are taking advantage of the situation to deny their domestic workers their rest days.
Elena notes that migrant groups have rejected the proposal of the Philippine government to impose a temporary ban on the sending of workers to Hong Kong:
Filipino migrants are angered by the exaggeration of the Philippine government through the Department of Labor and Employment with their proposed “ban on deployment” of Filipinos to Hong Kong. We view this as overreacting and simply a PR stunt since the current situation does not merit such a drastic policy. This proposal, if implemented, does not make us safe and will only result in financial loss and deprive many of their livelihood and employment opportunity. In fact, many feel that the situation in the Philippines is more dangerous with the Martial Law in place in some regions and with ‘death squads’ roaming the country and targeting mainly poor communities and people's rights defenders.
Elena observes that the protest movement this year got favorable media coverage compared to the ‘Umbrella Revolution’ in 2014. But she also notes some inconsistencies in reporting:
The coverage is highly focused on the confrontations between the protesters and the police. There is also too much projection given to the US and UK flag bearers in the protest making it appear that the people in general are supportive of the US and UK intervention when it is not really the case. The people are more angered by the HKSAR [Hong Kong Special Administrative Region] government's handling of the situation especially the police's brutality and excessive use of force in dealing with the protesters.
Finally, Elena has advice for the protesters:
Take the initiative to mobilize ordinary workers by linking the struggle to address other pressing basic issues affecting the working peoples of Hong Kong such as low wages, extremely high housing rents, deteriorating social services especially in the health, education and elderly care sector.


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Human rights advocates petition the UN and AU over the detention of Nigerian protest leader · Global Voices
Nwachukwu Egbunike

Omoyele Sowore. Screenshot from CNBCAfrica interview, December 13, 2018.
Today, August 23, 48 advocacy and press freedom organisations petitioned the United Nations (UN) and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights over the arbitrary detention of Nigerian activist Omoyele Sowore.
The group of international and African organisations, which included Global Voices’ Sub-Saharan Africa section, Open Society for West Africa, Index on Censorship, and Article 19 West Africa, asserted that Sowore's detention grossly violated his human rights and is an affront to press freedom and investigative journalism in Nigeria.
Sowore, the publisher of the online investigative online news site Sahara Reporters, was a presidential candidate in the 2019 Nigerian elections held on February 23 this year. Sowore was detained under Section 27(1) of the Terrorism Act 2011. If charged and convicted, he risks life imprisonment, a fine or both.
Sowore was arrested in Lagos, Nigeria, on August 3 by Nigeria’s State Security Service (SSS) after calling for a “#RevolutionNow” protest movement against bad governance.
The 48 human rights and press freedom advocacy groups asked the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, and the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders to “secure the immediate release of Sowore”. In their appeal which—was also addressed to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights’ special rapporteurs on freedom of expression and human rights defenders—they said:
We request that you urgently intervene to secure the immediate release of Mr Sowore and declare his arrest and detention a gross violation of his human rights, including the right not to be arbitrarily detained as protected by Article 9(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and Article 6 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (the Banjul Charter); the right to a fair trial as protected by Article 14 ICCPR and Article 7 of the Banjul Charter; the right to freedom of expression as protected by Article 19 ICCPR and Article 9 of the Banjul Charter; the right of freedom of peaceful assembly and of association as protected by Articles 21 and 22 ICCPR and Articles 10 and 11 of the Banjul Charter; and his rights as a human rights defender as outlined in the 1999 UN  Declaration on Human Rights Defenders and 2017 African Commission Cotonou Declaration on strengthening and expanding the protection of all Human Rights Defenders in Africa.
Nigeria is a signatory to these treaties, so the continuous detention of Sowore is a direct violation of international law.
The international and local human rights and press freedom organisations further stated that Sowore's “arrest on apparent grounds of suspicion of terrorism is unfounded”:
Sowore did what he has done throughout his career as a journalist and human rights activist: exercise his right to freedom of expression and seek to bring about change through peaceful means, in this case a peaceful protest. The use of the emotive term “revolution” merely underlines his desire for transformative change in what he considers the shortcomings of the current government. There are strong suspicions that Sowore’s arrest stems from other motives than suspicions of terrorism. This is further highlighted by the fact that the authorities failed to define a charge against him for the first few days after his arrest; the investigations that were subsequently instigated against him under the Terrorism Act were clearly only created to serve the purpose of silencing Sowore.
Sowore has neither been arraigned before a competent court nor formally charged. However, an Abuja court had on August 8, granted a request from the SSS to detain him for 45 days in order to conduct investigations under the Terrorism Act. Efforts by Sowore’s lawyer Femi Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, to petition his release have been unsuccessful thus far.

author: Nwachukwu Egbunike


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In Prague, a bleeding monument reopens old wounds · Global Voices
Filip Noubel

Monument to Marshal Konev splattered with red paint, and sprayed with the following words: “No to the bloody Marshal! We won't forget.” Photo by Filip Noubel, used with permission
As Prague residents mark the 51st anniversary of the Soviet invasion of then Czechoslovakia, a new controversy has emerged following the defacing with red paint of a statue of Soviet Marshal Ivan Konev in the municipal district of Prague 6.
The statue has been similarly vandalised before, but on the night from August 21 into August 22, a day after the commemoration of the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, this time the red paint was accompanied by the words “Ne krvavému maršálovi! Nezapomeneme [ “No to the bloody Marshal! We won't forget.] and “45”, “'56”, “'61”, “'68”, clearly references the years 1945, 1956, 1961 and 1968.
The base Konev's statue defaced with the numbers '56, '61 and '68. Photo by Filip Noubel, used with permission.
Following the defacing of the statue, the Prague 6 City Hall authorities have since made the following statement on their Facebook page:
“Koněv je zase pomalovaný…Abychom poškozování pomníku zabránili, už jsme toho udělali hodně a přestože desky vysvětlují, co všechno Koněv za svůj život „dokázal“, vox populi mluví jasně. Dejvice Koněva nechtějí. S ruskou ambasádou jsme v minulosti jednali o přemístění sochy a dokonce jim nabízeli, že si Koněva mohou odvézt na nedalekou zahradu velvyslanectví. O odstranění budeme jednat znova, a dokud nezačnou jednat konstruktivně, zůstane socha pomalovaná. ”.
“Konev is once again painted…We have already done a lot to prevent damages to the monument, and even though we have plaques explaining what Konev “achieved” during his life, the vox populi speaks clearly. We have in the past discussed with the Russian embassy the possibility of relocating the statue and offered them to take it to the nearby garden of the Russian Embassy. We will discuss it again, but until they don’t adopt a more constructive approach, the statue will remain painted”.
While some consider Konev a ‘liberator’ of Prague at the end of WWII, for others he is the mastermind of the brutal suppression of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising. The dispute has now gone international, as Moscow reacts to a series of events it perceives as denigrating the Soviet Union's role in recent Czechoslovak history.
Until the end of communism in 1989 in Czechoslovakia, and in 1991 in the USSR, the official narrative surrounding Konev was rather straightforward: twice awarded the highest distinction of Hero of the Soviet Union, he had liberated most of Eastern and Central Europe, and most famously Prague, from the Nazi occupation. He was celebrated as a hero in textbooks, films, monuments and children's books. He also symbolized the military and moral victory of the Soviet Union in WWII, as well as the price it paid in sacrificing an estimated 140,000 Soviet lives in Czechoslovakia alone.
Marshal Konev entering Prague in May 1945. Photo used under CC BY-SA 3.0
But a fact previously known mostly to Czechoslovak and Soviet historians resurfaced publicly in the early 1990s: Konev was neither the first, nor the only liberator of Prague and Czechoslovakia in 1945.
The first group to take up arms and strike back at the remaining Nazi German forces still controlling Prague was in fact the Vlasov army, a group of Russians who voluntarily joined Nazi Germany to fight the Soviet Union then turned against Hitler in 1945 while stationed in Prague, where they ended up fighting alongside members of the Czechoslovak resistance.
Also downplayed or censored outright from Soviet and Czechoslovak textbooks and the official discourse was the role played by US forces who entered Czechoslovakia as early as April 19, 1945 weeks before Prague was liberated in May of that year.
Now a military star trusted by Stalin, Konev continued his career in two critical historical moments that helped Moscow secure its grip over Central Europe: he oversaw the building of the Berlin Wall, and headed the suppression of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising that sought to liberate that country from communist and Soviet influence. Several thousands died and an estimated 200,000 Hungarians fled their country in 1956. It also emerged in the 1990s that Konev had led reconnaissance work to facilitate the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia.
This led to an initial controversy when in 2018, the local authorities of the Prague 6 district decided to affix a new plaque to Konev’s monument, which was erected in 1980 in then Socialist Czechoslovakia. The text of the new plaque acknowledges Konev’s role in 1945, but also mentions his roles in the construction of the Berlin Wall and in Hungary in 1956.
New plaque affixed to Konev's statue in 2018 by the Prague 6 municipality. Photo by Filip Noubel, used with permission.
In Central and Eastern Europe, the fall of communism initially manifested a government-coordinated “decommunization” of the urban landscape: monuments, statues and other symbols were taken down; cities, squares and streets renamed to erase references to communism.
But citizens rapidly reappropriated urban space. One notorious example was the painting in pink of the first tank to have allegedly entered Prague in May 1945, by now world-famous Czech artist David Černý, who was then just 23. The monument was removed after protests from the Russian embassy and guardians of Konev's image in the Czech republic.
Today, guerilla art tactics are amplified by social media. In Prague, the image of Konev has become a magnet for strong reactions to what opponents of President Miloš Zeman's pro-Moscow policy see as a growing and threatening Russian influence.
Sign for Konev's Street in Prague 3.  Photo by Filip Noubel. Used with permission.
In July 2019, a debate was initiated by residents of Prague 3 district, where one of the main streets is called Koněvova (Konev’s street in Czech). Prague 3 City Hall took heed and is currently investigating the case to see if the street could be renamed, in light the controversy surrounding Konev's legacy.
The sentiment in Russia, on the part of both the government and a large section of the public, is that Czech authorities are ‘rewriting history’ and thus insulting the memory of the Soviet people—and therefore the Russian people.
The Russian embassy in Prague tweeted photos of the splattered monument.
Комментарий Посольства Российской Федерации в Чешской Республике в связи с актом вандализма в отношении памятника Маршалу Советского Союза И.С.Коневуhttps://t.co/7fMtJkliiB pic.twitter.com/as91doHnGy
— Посольство России в Чехии (@AmbRusCz) August 22, 2019
The tweet also links to a statement on Facebook saying:
Атака вандалов произошла на фоне решения мэрии Праги не возвращать на свое историческое место на Старомнестской ратуше памятную доску, посвященную освобождению города в 1945 г. подразделениями 1-го Украинского фронта под командованием И.С.Конева. Своими действиями пражское руководство напрямую способствует вытеснению из общественной памяти чешского народа правды об освободительной миссии Красной Армии в ходе Второй мировой войны, о том, кто на самом деле освобождал Чехословакию и спас Прагу от уничтожения.
The act of vandalism took place in the context of the decision by the Prague Mayor's Office not to return to its historical place on the Old Town Square City Hall the memorial plaque dedicated to the liberation of the city in 1945 by the troops of the 1st Ukrainian front under the command of I.S.Konev. Through such actions the leadership of Prague directly contributes to the elimination from the public memory of the Czech nation of the truth about the liberating mission of the Red Army during WWII, and about who indeed freed Czechoslovakia and saved Prague from destruction.


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Trinidad & Tobago split over whether services like Facebook should pay local taxes · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Image by www.thoughtcatalog.com/
In mid-August 2019, the head of one of Trinidad and Tobago's largest conglomerates spoke out against online services like Facebook earning revenue in the country without being made to pay local taxes.
Norman Sabga, chair of ANSA McAL, which owns Guardian Media Limited (which comprises a daily newspaper, a television station and a radio network) among other companies, believes that Facebook undermines the impact and profits of local media houses that make investments and create jobs in Trinidad and Tobago. While some companies like Facebook do have local offices in some of their larger markets, it is not the norm.
The response to Sabga's statements has been mixed, with many social media users dismissing the comments as a demonstration of the sense of entitlement from society's “1%”. Several netizens expressed the view that social media was the “vox populi”, speaking truth to mainstream media's perceived agendas and political interests. Others maintained that Sabga has a point—and he's not the first one to make it.
France, for instance, tired of waiting for the rest of Europe to reach an agreement on the issue, introduced its own 3 percent digital tax in January 2019. Canada, has similarly honed in on Netflix (another company with numerous paid subscribers in Trinidad and Tobago) and has taken legislative measures to ensure that these global digital services companies are paying their dues. However, just as in France, Trinidad and Tobago consumers remain concerned that if similar measures were imposed locally, the additional costs would simply be passed on to them. When the Trinidad and Tobago proposed to introduce an online shopping tax in Trinidad and Tobago in 2016, consumers railed against the measure, and the legislation never came to pass.
July 2019 statistics estimate that Trinidad and Tobago has 714,700 Facebook users, accounting for 51.8% of its entire population, some of whom naïvely responded to Sabga's concern by saying, “Does he know that Facebook is free?”
“Free” is a loaded word. While it doesn't cost anything to use the platform, Facebook charges for advertising and gains revenues from boosting posts. And as Global Voices’ 2017 research project on Facebook's Free Basics service and many other commentators have noted, this comes at a price, as the platform collects and monetises users’ data. Despite the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which revealed that Trinidad and Tobago's 2010 election was a testing ground for more widespread data sharing, many local netizens still trust the Facebook platform more than traditional media and admit it is their primary source of news.
In the Trinidad and Tobago market, as in others throughout the world, mainstream media has being adversely affected by the immediacy and free availability of digital services like Facebook.
Another point Sabga raised is that companies like Facebook and Netflix are a burden into the country's foreign exchange reserves, since their services are paid for in US currency. In recent years the Trinidad and Tobago government has been increasingly concerned about the outflows of currency from the country, to the point where the Central Bank now limits the amount of foreign currency individuals and businesses can access, and local banks have enforced stricter credit card limits.
Those who agree that digital Goliaths like Facebook and Netflix should be taxed in each market in which they operate, believe that such legislation will give local Davids a fighting chance by levelling the playing field. It's a fair argument, but the virtual nature of the Internet has made this a very complex issue, especially for small countries and regions.
It's also noteworthy that players like Guardian Media also use Facebook as its primary digital advertising, marketing and communications platform, an irony that was not lost on users of the social network and which underscores both the power of these digital giants and the intricacy of the problem.
In one conversation thread in the closed Facebook group Wired868, journalist Lasana Liburd got down to the heart of the matter:
If the situation was reversed and a Trinidad and Tobago company was getting marketing and advertising revenue off US companies, do you really think Uncle Sam would not want a slice?
For me, Mark Zuckerberg is not a god. He is a businessman, His business earns revenue here. Therefore he should pay tax here. That's my point of principle. Nothing more.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco