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Egypt: No to Succession  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Political forces in Egypt are rallying against succession. Zeinobia writes about how politicians are campaigning against President Hosni Mubarak passing on the torch to his son Gamal. Dalia Ziada has more here.


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Haiti: Creole Day · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Repeating Islands draws attention to Haiti's International Creole Day.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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India: Life As A Single Woman · Global Voices
Rezwan

“Even in this day and age, even in urban India, people find it difficult to accept that a woman can choose to remain single and lead a healthy, happy and full life,” tells Ramapriya Gopalakrishnan at Ultraviolet. She explains the difficulties a single woman face in India.

author: Rezwan


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India: Maharashtra Assembly Election Results · Global Voices
Rezwan

Offstumped site for Assembly Elections 2009 is live blogging the results of the Maharashtra Assembly Election in India.


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Kenya: Transforming sports coverage through blogs · Global Voices
Richard Wanjohi

From the span of most sporting disciplines, Africa is known to produce sports personalities with sterling performances in most of their sports. This is seen in football, athletics, rugby and even ‘gentlemanly’ sports such as golf and cricket.
The last 10 years has seen an explosion of sorts in sports coverage across the continent. The now famous SuperSport is an African powerhouse in pay TV for satellite users and subscribers. This has given Africa and indeed most states a platform to be able to showcase their best.
With recent developments of social media, the sports world is bound to take another leap beyond the current rut it seems to be attracting in terms of growth and expansion to the rest of the world. Fibre optic landing and other developments such as social networks and mobile telephony will be the leads.
There has been a rather unseen force in the name of blogs in the aforementioned social networks. These forums have been stealthily making in-roads as alternatives to sports coverage and offering opinions and news about sports.
Kenya is not unique to this and has seen its share of budding blogging enthusiasts. They range from the best of football to general sports with the highest sport being for obvious reasons rugby (thanks largely to the sevens success in recent years).
Say we also have a blog on the Grand Prix (Formula One) which has seen a growing fan-base in the country and the region too. I am one of those falling into the trap of running around the local joints looking for screens showing the GP on a Sunday morning or afternoon.
Starting with the rugby scene, there are more than 3 blogs including a club blog for one of the teams playing in the rugby league. The major blog on this is Rugby Kenya, which has more than one contributor. The blog is updated regularly especially after the weekend fixtures.
It linksup the rugby fraternity with both the local and international circuit. It is currently ranked as the top sports blog from Kenya and 24 among top blogs from Kenya on the African blog aggregator, Afrigator.
SportsKenya for which yours truly is a contributor covers general sports from anything relating to current events to offering opinions on sports issues as well as a lashing or two every so often to the sports associations. This blog has quite a number of followers and is ranked 2 among Kenyan sports blogs on the African blogs aggregator.
Another blogger closely related to this is Cricket Kenya whose main focus is the cricket world and samplings of other sporting disciplines. This blogger is not located in the country most the time but somehow manages to stay and keep tabs with the cricket and sports scene.
One most interesting blog is Gitau Grand Prix. This blogger has dedicated his blog to Formula One exclusively to be able to appeal to the fan-base which follows this sport. It has very incisive and well-researched articles. It has few graphics making it a hard sell to most sports enthusiasts’ but all the same has its fair share of followers.
Compared with the region, Kenya has most of the Internet users and thus by default has more bloggers. It is because of such forums as the Bloggers Camp that has seen the blogging world grow in good numbers in the country.
Developments in sport and coverage of live events as well as updates have seen the use of blogs become a must even for mainstream media which has sought to converge their offering on their websites and web portals. It is almost a given that most if not all the editors and writers of newspapers or magazines have a blog they write to or contribute.
There are other sports blogs which include Daily Running Tips, which offers tips on jogging and is currently involved in offering free tips for marathon runners both amateur and professional. This is particularly helpful given the fact that there is the Nairobi Marathon (sponsored by Standard Chartered) which has become an annual event in the Kenyan city circles.
The impact of blogs in bringing sanity to sports has started being felt with a vocal voice in Kenya Football. The main contributor and administrator, Francis Gaitho admits that this forum has brought much prominence to issues which were not previously featured in other media.
In fact, it was used by SuperSport to research about Kenya football. The impact that SuperSport has had on the Kenyan game is enormous and the games on the pitch are evident to the pedigree we can get and are looking to develop (if one our football administrators were a little more concerned and focused on developing the game rather than satisfying their insatiable appetites).
The forum has also become a source of information for FM radio stations, most of which have sports segments and the Kenya Premier League features prominently. But of course, it is no bed of roses as it would seem. Gaitho laments the way Kenya football officials especially clubs with shadowy management boards have tried besmirching his work.
Quoting from one of the Agenda issue in one of Kenya Premier League meeting’s minutes;
3 Minute: Governance and Policies …on www.kenyafootball.com and its owner Managing Editor, Francis Gaitho, the directors noted
“…that Francis Gaitho…started a malicious campaign on his www.kenyafootball.com website in which he repeatedly made unsubstantied allegations and accusations on embezzled funds, bribery, match-fixing and other corrupt practices against the KPL and its Board and staff…”
On most counts though, sports blogs have helped their administrators learn better and understand their world of sport. It has also meant interaction with sports personalities, administrators and gets more first-hand accounts from those mentioned.
It has also seen mainstream media start appreciating different opinions and not necessarily leaving to their own machinations. The audience is the biggest beneficiary since most of the blogs are easy to read and language that makes them relate to the writers and sport alike. The impact of this will eventually expand into the greater East African and African region as a whole.  With the 2010 World Cup around the corner, this is our time sports bloggers. Stand up and let’s hold our own!

author: Richard Wanjohi


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Mexico: The Internet as a Necessity, not a Luxury · Global Voices
Issa Villarreal

An increase in taxes was approved by the Chamber of Deputies of Mexico to be enforced in 2010, which will include the Special Tax on Products and Services (or IESPS for its initials in Spanish) that will add a 3% tax to Internet and cable services.
A month earlier, as part of the discussions of the IESPS taxes, the Public Tax Administration Secretary, Agustín Cartens, recognized that half of the money spent on telecommunications belonged to 20% of the richest households in the country, according to a story by Mexican magazine Proceso [es]. He stated that since rural and public telephony services are exempt from the IESPS, citizens in difficult economic situations would not be affected by the tax. However, those low-income families that do use these services at home will be hit harder because of the assumption that the Internet is a luxury only used by those able to afford the service. With these words, the Mexican electronic community condemned the idea of Internet as luxury and began their protest on Twitter with the hashtag #internetNecesario (“Internet is a Necessity”) with great urgency because the final debate and vote started on October 20. The law was passed in the early morning on October 21.
Photo by Mark Schoneveld and used under a Creative Commons license.
The protest movement displayed the importance of Internet to Mexicans, and received coverage from national television and newspapers, as well as from high-audience blogs, such as Boing Boing. The Twitter service WhatTheHashtag estimates that the protest has gathered around 35,000 tweets from more than 7,000 participants.
These are some of their comments on Twitter.
MexiComunicado @mexicomunicado [es]:
Me voy a ir a finlandia a twittear haya [sic: allá] es un derecho y me cuesta 3% menos hacerlo #internetnecesario
Luis Macedo @Luismacedo [es]:
Lujo es el suel[d]o que se imponen como los bonos de fin de año y aguinaldo, nola comunicación #internet necesario
Citlali Avilés @missblissdior [es]:
Por que debo de pagar por algo que es necesario para mi profesión? No nos dejaremos!!!! #InternetNecesario!!!
@Neodevelop [es], quoting another user [whose account is now closed]:
Internet es nuestra única opción para llegar a tener un gobierno transparente #internetnecesario
The Mexican Internet Association (AMIPCI for its initials in Spanish) also showed their disagreement through Twitter [es] joining the protest:
Aprobación del IEPS a Internet alejará aún más a los gobiernos y a los legisladores de los ciudadanos. #InternetNecesario
Moreover, Mexican bloggers also rose against the tax before its approval. In Pixelaris [es], blogger Jitten considers tax increase as an error, especially in comparison with the actions of other countries:
Las propuestas de qué tipo de productos y servicios gravar suponen medidas inteligentes y planeadas en las cuáles los ciudadanos paguen lo que consumen pero recibiendo servicios de calidad.
El gran problema de los impuestos en un país como México es que las políticas fiscales van en contra de la lógica de otros países e incluso expertos en los temas económicos, en las que, por una causa u otra, se grava lo que en otros países se le considera un derecho humano e incluso un servicio básico garantizado.
Proposals on what products and services to tax assume intelligent and well-planned measures in which citizens pay what they consume, but receive quality services.
The big problem of taxes in a country like Mexico is that tax policies go against logic of other countries and even experts on economic subjects, in which, for one reason or another, they tax what in other countries is considered a human right and even a basic guaranteed service.
Blogger Darinka publishes in her blog a manifesto [es] about the importance of Internet during difficult economic situations:
Somos nosotros, los blogueros y twitteros, los que nos despedimos para siempre del papel, no por convicción ecologista o afán ambientalista, sino porque leemos el periódico on-line a falta de diez pesos para el diario impreso y nos hacemos de libros en pdf ante el encarecimiento ruin de la industria editorial.
A recent study from the Berkman Center for Internet & Society of Harvard University (available online) about broadband Internet compared Mexico to other 30 countries, showing that it is the country with the least amount of broadband and 3G penetration from the whole group. In addition to this, Mexico appears at the top of the list of countries with higher prices for lower speeds-tier, as Internet users pay approximately twice of what it costs in the United States.
This affects approximately 30 million Mexicans who have access to Internet nowadays, an equivalent to one fourth of the total population of the country, following numbers from the Mexican Internet Association [es], as quoted by El Universal. Although there has not been a detailed study of Mexican Internet users, reports have given several key facts that cannot be ignored about their distribution in the different socioeconomic levels: in one, National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) in 2001 [es] reported that half of all computers in the country belonged to families that earned less than 800 pesos per month (approximately 62 USD). In AMIPCI's report of 2006, it was recognized that at least 10% of the Internet users live in rural areas and that more than 40% of the Internet users come from the two lower socioeconomic levels in Mexico.

author: Issa Villarreal


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Online Tools to Monitor Climate Change · Global Voices
Lester Bolicenni

Leading up to the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP15) in December 2009, here is a sample of online tools to monitor climate change. Using these tools, ordinary people can learn more about the effects, and help push decision makers to deal with solutions.
In the field
Tracking climate change impacts generally starts in the field. James Balog, a photographer, has been to Alaska, USA, to record time-lapse ice cap melting. You can see the stunning results of his photography in this video:
If you don't have expensive cameras and spare-time to journey to Alaska, another approach would be to read the experiences of people on the frontline.
On the Frontline of the Climate Change is a project cataloging first-hand stories on the impacts of climate change, in indigenous communities, on small islands, and other vulnerable communities. The forums contains numerous recent contributions by email, mostly from South Asia and Africa. One contributor and consultant for African development, George Katunguka, writes from Uganda:
The impact of climate change has not received much prominence in my country Uganda but such changes and its effects are painfully being felt. In 2025, Uganda is likely to experience water stress according to recent report on water resources. People are dying of starvation and hunger like the recent case in Teso Region, Eastern Uganda; there are changes in water ecosystems like the dwindling levels of Lake Victoria; unpredictable seasons, loss of soil fertility and loss of agricultural output and hence increased household poverty and its implications. What are we doing to avert this looming catastrophe?
From outer space to Google Earth
Observation from the field can be double-checked from high ground. Space is the lookout from which to observe and analyze earth as a whole. It's difficult to get a seat on a spaceship, but fortunately, it's easy to find online satellite images from above.
Besides space agencies and companies offering their services to NGOs, scientists and common people, the United Nations Environment Programme created an online atlas indexing the changes occurring in different parts of the world through decades. All the satellite pictures can be viewed on Google Earth's virtual globe, as their official blog reports:
In collaboration with the Danish government and others, we are launching a series of Google Earth layers and tours to allow you to explore the potential impacts of climate change on our planet and the solutions for managing it.
Many more resources can be found on blogs and websites of international organisations. Readers, feel free to add your own sources in the comment section.
Science for decision makers
Observation is a core issue for decision makers. Governments initiate surveys to understand the phenomenon and how to mitigate the impacts.
The European Commission and European Space Agency initiated a space program in 1998, called the Global Monitoring Environmental Security (GMES), to sketch real-time changes from multi-source data. The project is due to report back in 2014, with an annexed security segment.
Developing countries impacted most directly by climate change, have taken a similar steps like the recent satellites launch by India to study climate change. Such information can help countries plan for new environmental and economic policies.
In South Africa, a new economy-oriented tool has been created for exactly this purpose. AllAfrica reports :
Now, an analytical tool based on a study, Mapping South African Farming Sector Vulnerability to Climate Change and Variability, has been developed to help policy-planners identify the communities most vulnerable to climate change and help them prepare for radically different farming conditions.

author: Lester Bolicenni


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Pakistan: A Dissenting Voice On War Against Terror · Global Voices
Rezwan

Liaquat Ali Khan at Pak Tea House opines: “under coercion, Pakistan has started a civil war that will consume its economy, national security, and tear apart its social fabric. [..] It is not yet too late for Pakistan to return from the precipice of national suicide. Pakistan must take a U-turn and preempt the civil war.”


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Puerto Rico: Crime Solution?  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

If the majority of Puerto Rico's crime comes from the island's reputation as a drug smuggling transshipment point, Dondequiera suggests having “the travel and shipping authorities change Puerto Rico to become an International destination…that way, all of the travelers going between Puerto Rico and the United States would be forced to comply with the rules and procedures of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.”


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Sri Lanka: Should We Believe Our Eyes? · Global Voices
Rezwan

Dan Verderosa at The Hub critically examines the alleged doctored video from Sri Lanka that shows eight men, stripped nude, bound, and blindfolded, coldly executed by soldiers on a muddy field.


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Trinidad & Tobago: A Mockery of Parliament · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

“Yesterday, as PM PM took to the floor to mash up his former loyal friend and watchdog, Parliament became the #1 entertainment house in the country once again”: Trinidad and Tobago's This Beach Called Life is not impressed at the behaviour of elected officials.


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Trinidad & Tobago: No Hope? · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

As a legendary Trinidadian artist's sculpture is given a coat of paint to “spruce it up”, Nicholas Laughlin says: “This…is a telling symptom. It tells me how unaware we are, as citizens, of the civic spaces we live and work in, and how irresponsibly we behave towards them. It tells me how little respect we have for the work of our artists and thinkers, and how eagerly the powers-that-be package that work in more palatable forms. It tells me we're far too fond of quick, superficial solutions to our problems.”


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Activism and Motherhood in Asia · Global Voices
Daniel Chandranayagam

What does a woman sacrifice for the cause she fights for? How are her children affected by persecution taken against her? This post explores briefly the lives of women activists in Asia who are also mothers.
Irene Fernandez is a women and migrant rights activist in Malaysia. For more than ten years, Irene has been faced with a ‘criminal defamation’ charge (which has now been dropped) for having published a memorandum, asking the Malaysian government to look into alleged atrocities taking place in migrant camps in the country.
Aside from being an activist, which had led to her receiving the Right Livelihood Award in 2005, Irene is also a mother to three children, Camverra Jose Maliamauv, Tania Jo and Katrina Jorene, and several foster children. It is hard to imagine what goes on the mind of an activist like Irene, when she thinks of her children. During her sentencing at the initial trial in 2003, Irene was reported to have said:
I want my children and the children of all the people I work with as head of Tenaganita to enjoy and live in a society that is peaceful, where we do not fear state violence.
Irene’s role as a mother perhaps can best be reflected in the eyes of her daughter, Katrina Jorene, who wrote on the Micah Mandate (a Christian-based blog seeking to raise public interest advocacy):
I celebrate my mother who brought me up to be constantly vigilant in life and to be clear and maddeningly persistent for the truth and for what is just, true and right. I celebrate the countless heroes who have been present in my life especially my family members and the family at Tenaganita [the organization Irene Fernandez leads]. I celebrate all who have worked silently, tirelessly and with so much care all these years for the greater good of others.
It appears Irene’s teachings have caused at least one of her children to take on the same activist mantle as herself. Now Katrina  writes advocacy pieces dealing with minority rights and protection.
Unlike Katrina Jorene, unfortunately, Alexander and Kim Aris, sons of Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, have not had the opportunity to learn from their mother for more than a decade. So strong was Ms Suu Kyi’s passion for Myanmar, she has spent close to fourteen years under detention in a lakeside villa in Yangon, choosing to stay for fear that the military junta would not allow her in again if she left. Womensphere, a blog by and about women, writes:
[Ms Suu Kyi] British husband, the Oxford scholar, Michael Aris, died of cancer in 1999 at the age of 53. She was unable to see him as he was dying – the junta refused to give him an entry visa, and she feared that, if she left Burma, she would not be allowed back in. She has not seen either of her two sons, now men in their thirties, for a decade.
Little has been written about (or by) Alexander or Kim. However, in 1991, Ms Suu Kyi’s older son, Alexander, accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on her behalf. Again, looking through the lens of her child, we might be able to better understand Ms Suu Kyi as a mother:
Speaking as her son, however, I would add that I personally believe that by her own dedication and personal sacrifice she has come to be a worthy symbol through whom the plight of all the people of Burma may be recognised. And no one must underestimate that plight.
…
We must also remember that [her] lonely struggle taking place in a heavily guarded compound in Rangoon is part of the much larger struggle, worldwide, for the emancipation of the human spirit from political tyranny and psychological subjection.
…
Although my mother is often described as a political dissident who strives by peaceful means for democratic change, we should remember that her quest is basically spiritual.
…
It is my hope that soon my mother will be able to share this feeling and to speak directly for herself instead of through me.
Meanwhile, many activist mothers in Asia still face persecution. For example, Fan Guijuan, whose house was said to have been demolished as a result of the Shanghai World Expo project, was arrested in Beijing and sent back to Shanghai, placed immediately in detention. Her son has no place to live, due to the demolition. Meanwhile, in the Philippines, Dr Edita Burgos, mother of Jonas Burgos, fights for justice for her activist son, who is said to have desaparecido (“disappeared”). Dr Burgos is the chair of Desaparecidos (Families of Desaparecidos for Justice), an organization seeking justice for the many unaccounted for, said to be a hallmark of the Arroyo regime.
Now, in Iran, humanitarian activist mothers are fast becoming global icons for human rights causes worldwide. In silent public protest, the ‘Mourning Mothers of Iran,’ known in Tehran as the ‘Mothers of Laleh,’ peaceably seek justice for their dead or incarcerated children.
“A mother is a mother as long as she lives.”

author: Daniel Chandranayagam


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Adoption: Securing the Rights of Mothers and Children · Global Voices
Juliana Rincón Parra

The adoption of a child either within your own country or across borders creates opportunities for children and prospective parents as well as risks for human rights abuses. On the internet, people worldwide share varied experiences from the point of view of adoptive mothers, birth mothers and adoptees themselves. One thing most people seek, is more openness and dialogue about a process with many consequences hidden from view.
Babygate: trafficking children to cover demand
Malinda, an adoptive mother of two Chinese girls,  writes in her blog Adoption Talk about the lengths some corrupt individuals are going to ensure the steady flow of adoptable babies to people able to pay the pricey adoption fees. In her post Adoption Corruption: Trafficking in the news she highlights recent cases in Cameroon, where children are kidnapped in order to be placed for adoption; Korea, where young parents put their baby on sale on the Internet; Guatemala, where the army abducted and sold more than 333 children for adoption and where recently babies and children were put up for adoption without parental consent; and Ethiopia, where unregulated agencies are convincing families to give their children up for adoption, promising them the children will later return to them or that the agency will help support the remainder of the family. Similar cases have been seen in numerous other countries.
Mothers coming together to secure their human rights
Some adoptive mothers do what they can to ensure one woman's right to motherhood doesn't go against the reproductive rights of another mother.
One such option is open adoptions, a sometimes controversial decision where the child remains in contact with the birth mother and is aware that due to other circumstances, she wasn't able to take care of them.
One woman in the United States, Leigh, writes a blog called Open Adoption Round Table about the challenges of giving her child up for adoption in a semi-open arrangement.
Another blogger and writer Dawn Friedman tells a story in her blog from the opposite perspective of adopting her daughter, Madison, while keeping an open line of communication with the birth mother. Friedman is also an activist for adoption reform in the United States. She believes pregnancy counseling in unplanned pregnancies too easily pushes women towards giving up their babies for adoption without informing them adequately of how difficult it is. Friedman also recommends that the process of adoption counseling should include a post-labor session where women are accompanied through the decision making process and advised of their rights and possibilities after giving birth, in case they are having second thoughts or have additional concerns.
Birth mothers
Lorraine Dusky in the United States, who runs the Birth Mother, First Mother Forum had medical history that made her think that birth control pills she took during pregnancy could have affected the child she placed in adoption, but when she tried to contact the adoptive family through the agency to let them know, they refused to send over the information.
She relinquished her child with no particular coercion, but the laws for “closed records” in adoptions may have cost her daughter's life.
But what about natural mothers in developing countries? Where are their voices? Some of them have written letters to the children they've placed for adoption, as Pam Conell of families.com tells us in her book review of I Wish for You a Beautiful Life: Letters from the Korean birthmothers of Ae Ran Won.
Others are telling their stories through documentaries, or after being reunited with their natural children. And there are some others who tell of women who don't regret giving their children up for adoption, considering it was the best alternative. However some women, like  Malinda in the USA,  adoptive parent of Chinese Girls who writes AdoptionTalk believes that these last representations have to be taken with a grain of salt:
These representations of foreign birth mothers allow us to divorce ourselves from the experience of these birth mothers, to minimize their pain, and to justify how much better off our children are with us than with them.
The Voices of the Adopted:
Mary Grace in China by endbradley
The voices of the adoptees are as varied as any of the other parts of the adoption triad. But in general they share some points of view in common: The desire to know about their origins and the reason for their adoption and the hope that their birth mothers made an informed decision to part with them.  They also believe in the right to know their history if they choose, to know about their adoptee status from early on and have it acknowledged as part of their identity.
For example Susan from ReadingWritingLiving, an adult adoptee born in the 1960's, identified with TV drama Mad Men, particularly in their portrayal of adoptions in that time period, where women hid their shameful unwanted pregnancies until giving birth and how adopted children where seen as discards. She sums it up in her post Mad Men: A Window into my Own Past
Yes, it was painful to hear this but also WILDLY refreshing to have someone just come out and SAY it.
In the I am adopted [es]blog in Spanish, David Azcona writes about his difficult childhood, adoption at the age of 6 and the instability and inability to bond with people [es] he's felt since. It is also a place for other adoptees to post their adoption stories, and to share their experiences. In the comment threads of his about page, stories about apropriated babies [es] with no knowledge of their birth parents, twins separated at birth[es] by nurses who told parents one of the babies had died[es] and requests from birth mothers trying to contact their children as well as the other way around.
An adoptee answers a question asked on a website regarding love between adoptees and adoptive parents:
I was adopted as a baby by the two most loving, caring and supportive parents a child and young adult could ever wish for. I also have a younger adopted brother.
I don't think my biological parents could have loved me more than my adoptive ones.
Other adoptees with similar experiences chime in, some with relationships with both natural parents and adoptive parents and others who have only known their adoptive families. In this particular thread, the experiences are overwhelmingly positive towards adoption.
Some adoptees advocate against adoption. Lost Letters, an adoptee herself who writes in the Anti-Adoption livejournal community believes that instead of using so much money to aid in adoption processes and fees, it should be spent in improving the conditions of the birth parents so they can take care of their family. She adds:
I understand that my actual position on adoption is going to piss people off because people want to believe that adoption is a win/win/win situation for everyone, because people think that middle class white women deserve children no matter what, because people think that our western society is so wonderful that all children should be bought up here.
AmyAdoptee who posts in the Adult Adoptees Advocating for Change forum writes:
The adoption industry intentionally pits us against each other.  We are letting them do it.  In fact, the adoption industry gets a wonderful kick out of this.  Here is an article that supports generally our point of view but they ask that we refrain from attacking adoptive parents.  There is nothing wrong with a healthy discourse.
PhilM, in the same forum thread discussing how adoptive parents perceive them, clarifies:
I’m angry at a society that ignores the problems of adoption, and the harm it causes. I’m angry that when I try to talk about these things, I am marginalized and dismissed with comments along the lines of “well, everyone experiences it differently” and “most adoptees I know love their adoptive parents” and others. I am angry that, because I speak out about adoption, people question my love for my adoptive family. And, I admit, I get angry when individuals parrot these messages.
I don’t need a lecture for how to behave in dialogue. I need people willing to engage in it.
The way forward
As with any delicate issue, it touches a sensitive chord for all those involved: adoptive mothers, birth mothers and adopted children. However, it seems they all meet and agree on one important point: Transparency in the adoption process is vital to safeguard the human rights for the mothers and the children, and discussing adoption openly encourages transparency.
EDITED TO ADD:
We have removed a reference to a blogger who didn't wish to be quoted or mentioned in this post. To her, our apologies, it was in no way our intention to infringe on her or offend, but to provide a multiplicity of visions regarding a sensible subject.

author: Juliana Rincón Parra


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Africa: Predators of Art, Entrepreneurship and Poet Ramblings · Global Voices
Njeri Wangari

There are predators and there are art predators and Gwendolyn Alley   is one such predator.
It is not often that you hear that one is an art predator, an enthusiast or aficionado maybe but not predator and this is what made me become very curious about Alley’s blog where she confesses her love for art.
This is what she says of herself:
Coleridge defines the aesthetic as that which engages the whole soul. Art Predator prowls for that which engages her soul and yours too, covering literary, visual, performing and culinary arts, environmental and social activism, outdoor pursuits including camping, hiking, biking, skiing, and climbing, and festivals including Coachella, Lightening in a Bottle, and Burning Man.
In her blog, one will find her poems, information on upcoming art activities as well as many other things that are of interest to her. Perhaps one might find the title of her blog a bit prudent as the artsy stuff gets lost in most of the other posts but this is her diary to write all her experiences whether arty or otherwise.
Her poem on a professor quite interesting.
The Professor had all the
Big Words on his side
of the plate.
And he was pushing
pushing pushing her words
around with his fork.
It remains to be seen
what it was they were
really arguing about it
It always starts with the words
and goes downhill from there.
Read the full poem here
Injete Chesoni is a multitalented artist with an entrepreneurial edge to cap it all. She has 2 blogs, one of them is Poetry and Art by Injete Chesoni. It features her creative expressions i.e her poetry, stories and art.
Injete also runs poetry Gifts, a blog for gifts ideas, gifts and poetry gifts. In this blog, she offers advice on how one can create poetry gifts as well as an introduction to Ekphrastic poetry.
She also features a range of products like poetry posters, books, magnets and even scary poems for Halloween
We sample one of her scary poems, Mystery in Old Town Mombasa
She had an air of mystery about her
as she sat in the window and stared
I was walking in Old Town Mombasa
and I remembered what they said
That ghosts haunt this town
and things are not always what they seem
There are genies dressed up as cats
and men in women’s bui-buis
So I stared in her eyes and scurried
Even as my mind paused to think
Was she really a woman in clothing
Or a supernatural being
Hon. Mwangi S. Muthiora has quite a lengthy title for someone his age, he is the Junior M.P, Githunguri National Youth Parliament in Kenya.
Born in 1982 in a family of nine, Simon Mwangi Muthiora is a member of Kenya National Youth Parliament and is the Junior M.P. for Githunguri Constituency.
Muthiora is also a writer and has written several Short stories, tenths of poems a full length Play among others. He writes for pleasure and his blog is a true testimony to this bold claim.
Two Hours Before  is the name of his blog and this is how he arrived at the befitting blog name;
IMAGINE TWO HOURS FROM NOW HOW THE WORLD WILL HAVE CHANGED, OR WORSE STILL IMAGINE WHAT WOULD HAPPEN OR THE EVENTS THAT WOULD FOLLOW YOUR DEATH “TWO HOURS FROM NOW.” WELL, DON'T POSE AGAIN, “TWO HOURS BEFORE” WILL KEEP YOU ENTERTAINED. KENYA'S NEWEST POET IN THE HOUSE.
His kind of poetry is bereft of the emotional torrents that most poets venture into when writing love poetry. He speaks out on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), Wife battery, death, wife inheritance, war among many other vices that are in Kenya, Africa and the world in general.
Sample his poem on FGM, A Woman's Meat
A WOMAN’S MEAT
Early in the morning
Before the birth of the sunlight
And the death of the moonlight
The old gypsy woman appeared
Her motive open
Clad in the humor of guilt
For a woman’s meat
Was all her target
In the name of cleanliness
Grinning, she closed in
Ha ha ha ha, ha ha ha……..
“It is not painful granddaughter”
Read the rest of the poem here
Kojo Bafoe is a man, a father, a son, a brother, a husband, a friend, a poet, a writer, on a quest to make sense of this reality, with words. He lives in Johannesburg South Africa.
Kojo runs two blogs, Imperfectpoetry which is purely dedicated to his poetry and kojobaffoe a wordpress blog  where he writes his ‘ramblings’ as he calls them. The latter features anything from sports, to technology to poets who inspire him and encounters with Neo soul music.
His Imperfectpoetry blog gives one an insight to Kojo who renders himself as an imperfect poet who writes imperfect poems, quite a humbling self assessment which prods one to read his poems more keenly to see the imperfections.
When one reads his poem ‘Just words’  one feels that he had understated his poetry abilities. The brevity and precision in his poem has  not hint of imperfection.
Burn down the walls of madness
Get high off the fumes
Rage against the machine
But be home in time for supper
Throw off the shackles
Drink from the well of freedom
Live off the land of your fathers
But don't forget to pay rent
Read the rest of the poem here
He has been running the blog for 3 years now and though his last post was in February this year, one need not ask what has been keeping him distracted when they read his other blog. Every once in a while, one does need to ramble.

author: Njeri Wangari


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Azerbaijan: Musings & Poetry · Global Voices
Onnik Krikorian

With the number of English-language blogs from Azerbaijan increasing, Emotions on Air, Mind Mute sets a precedent for musings and poetry. Often dark and melancholic, the blog shows that new media can also be a medium for other forms of self-expression.

author: Onnik Krikorian


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Bhutan: Smooth Transition To Democracy · Global Voices
Rezwan

Tshering Tobgay, the Leader of the opposition party in the National Assembly of Bhutan, comments that: “the transition to our democracy has, indeed, been uniquely smooth. So smooth that most of us weren’t even paying attention.”


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Brazil: Between democracy and doubt · Global Voices
Marta Cooper

Since January’s World Social Forum in Belém, where alternative media were heralded for bringing progressive and pluralistic information to the fore, online independent initiatives have been flourishing in Brazil. Alongside well-established community media, the Independent Media Center has collectives based throughout major Brazilian cities, Web 2.0 hosts countless blogs,  alternative news websites [pt], forums and interfaces, and cyberactivism [pt] is quickly taking shape.
These examples are fortifying themselves through city- and state-level meetings with civil society organisations and academics in preparation for Brazil’s first National Conference of Communication in December. Entitled ‘Communications: a Means for Building Rights and Citizenship in the Digital Era’, it signals a very first step in democratising Brazil’s communications system.
But in spite of alternative sectors showing democratic trends, Brazilian media are famously epitomised by high concentration within the hands of under ten families. Unsurprisingly, then, the players in the fight for media democratisation have numerous proposals, including strengthening Brazil’s public service broadcasting, fine-tuning the elusive regulatory framework, expanding former Minister of Culture Gilberto Gil’s programme of digital inclusion and investing more in alternative and community sectors.
The blogosphere remains divided into which proposal is the most important. Several feminist blogs, for instance, remind us that regulation, monitoring and reviewing the press law are all fundamental. These may also fall under the umbrella of social control, which, for blogger Alessandra Terribili,
É garantir que eles não podem dizer o que querem, reforçar esteriótipos, legitimar preconceitos, seduzir pelo consumo, informar pela metade, esconder uma parte… não podem fazer isso impunemente.
But for cyber-activist site Trezentos [pt], digital inclusion remains paramount. Their proposals go beyond expanding broadband and connectivity infrastructure across Brazil to also stressing the digital rights of citizens:
“Todos os brasileiros têm o direito ao acesso à Internet sem distinção de renda, classe, credo, raça, cor, opção sexual, sem discriminação física ou cultural […]  Todo cidadão tem direito de acessar informações públicas em sites da Internet sem discriminação de sistema operacional, navegador ou plataforma computacional utilizada. Toda pessoa tem o direito a escrever em blogs e participar de redes sociais com seu nome, com codinome ou anonimamente.”
How far these proposals will come into effect, given 2010’s presidential election, is debatable. Further, communication is not widely recognised a human right, and alternative vehicles are seldom collectively mobilised. Brazil’s gradual digital inclusion of 34% of the country having Internet access, with only 5% benefiting from broadband, also stands in stark contrast to the 98% of the population watching television. However counter-hegemonic the fight to democratise communication is, it is ultimately overshadowed by the monopolistic mainstream.
Whilst the conference may see more public involvement in policy-making and a more joint, active role played by alternative media players and civil society actors, both Brazilian media and democracy are fragile and ongoing. But it is of the essence that they strengthen together: for blogger Pablo Pedroso [pt]
“Parte do esforço para a profunda transformação socioeconômica do Brasil, passa pela democratização dos meios de comunicação.”
Therefore, the Conference is just the first step in the long ‘ant-work’ Brazil faces in its democratic development. We will simply have to wait and see how much converging technologies result in converging interests.

author: Marta Cooper


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China: A foreigner’s life in a Beijing jail · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

A foreign man who spent the last seven months in the Beijing No. 1 Detention Center sent DANWEI a detailed account of his daily life in Jail.

author: Oiwan Lam


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Georgia: New Media Forum assessed, bloggers interviewed · Global Voices
Onnik Krikorian

Following the recent New Media Forum, an event staged for media students and professionals in Tbilisi, Georgia, comes coverage in the local press. Although lagging behind its neighbors in the South Caucasus, interest in the online world is increasing and there are signs that the situation will change considerably in 2010, and especially in the area of the media and civil society. Georgia Today reports on the forum.
Radio Free Liberty journalist Niko Nergadze talked about a blog, which he has been running for over a year. After the lecture, he told Georgia Today that the participants were very active at the forum.
[…]
Nergadze added that forums like these are important for Georgia as new media exists, but is limited.
“Still we are very far from claiming that the Internet and new media have a serious influence on events. But we are heading toward something,” he said.
Ruso Panozashvili, a journalist and another forum participant, agrees with Nergadze about the event's importance.
“The importance of new media is high in Georgia where television and so-called traditional media outlets are strongly controlled,” she said. “This is not good for quality. This is why it is important to develop media with alternative tools, which in this case is new media.”
Global Voices Online's Caucasus Editor also made a presentation at the event, and was later interviewed by the same publication.
Last week Georgia Today published a story about Media Forum, an event that took place last week in Mtatsminda Park. This week we offer an interview with Onnik Krikorian, a British-Armenian journalist and photographer based in Armenia, the Caucasus editor for Global Voices Online, and the Armenia editor for Oneworld.net. During the New Media Forum he presented the Global Voices Web site and talked about the importance of new media in the Caucasus.
At the event, Global Voices Online interviewed three local bloggers, Dodka, Dv0rsky and Sweet. A second, longer interview by Polish new media specialist Jakub Górnicki, who was also presenting at the forum, is now available online.
Video discussion with Dodie Kharkheli (aka Dodie Kissie, Dodka), Giga Paitchadze (aka Dv0rsky), Mari Talakhadze (aka Sweet) about their blogs, what pushed them into blogging and how blogosphere developing in Georgia and South Caucasus. Show was broadcasted live on October 15th 2009 from Tbilisi.


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Global: International Creole Month  · Global Voices
Fabienne Flessel

October has become the month of the worldwide celebration of Creole language and the Creole blogosphere is paying attention.
What is Creole, exactly?  This is probably one of the most debated topics among linguists worldwide – it is an incredibly complex and diverse language.  The fruit of migrations and population mingling, Creole language has been, since the distant times of slavery, a vernacular language, either prohibited or underrated.  But things started to change in the 1980s, as explained by the Creole-oriented Reunionese blog, Renyone [Cr, Eng]:
In 1981 scientists having Creole as their mother tongue started asking themselves questions about the methods that could be used to promote the Creole language, following a scientific symposium organised by the international committee for Creole studies working on the theme: a Creole / Creoles, continuity and creativity in the Creole world.
Renyone gives more details about the establishment of what has become a tradition in most Creolophone countries [Eng]:
In 1982 the Seychelles government organised a Creole week.
[…]
The first international BANNZIL KREYOL day took place on the 28th October 1983. Ever since, the 28th October has been celebrated annually in all Creole countries the world over.
Since then, the preservation of this vernacular language, sometimes called a dialect, has been a great concern for many people as shown by this statement of objectives published by the International Organization of Creole People. A Facebook group named “Annou Palé Patwa” (Creole for “Let's speak Patois/Creole) relays this concern since in a topic entitled Creole Month, a Trinidadian user wonders about this year's celebration [En]:
Well October is Creole month the world over, what can we do to promote it in Trinidad?
[…]
What do you think will be the best way to go if we were to do something national?
Initiatives to promote, preserve or celebrate Creole are local field work as much as governemental policy. Here is a post published by Dominican blogger Living Dominica two years ago in which we can see that in some countries, this celebration is not just a token gesture [En]:
This month is Creole time here on Dominica, which is my very favorite celebration. This time of year is a festival honoring all things Dominican. Everyone gets into the spirit of things in the days leading up to Independence Day (Nov. 3) and the World Creole Music Festival (Oct. 26-28)
Mentioned above, the World Creole Music Festival was born 13 years ago from the Dominican government's will to associate the International Creole Month to its celebration of the Independence of the island on November 3rd 1978.
From all this, it is quite obvious that Creole Month and Creole Day, October 28th, are not uniformly celebrated worldwide.  Here are some posts about 2009 Creole Day events:
From London, the group MBMB “Minm Biten, Minm Bagay” (Guadeloupean and Martinican Creole phrases which mean “it's all the same”) wrote a post in order to invite people to the event that took place on Sept. 27th 2009 and also to recall previous editions of their “MBMB Kreyol Day”.
In Canada, the Creole-oriented organization Kepkaa invites people for “Mwa kréyol la nan Monréyal” (Haitian Creole for “Creole Month in Montreal”) in a post entitled “Ann fété kilti kreyol nou yo” (Haitian Creole for “Let's celebrate Creole cultures together”).  Another Canadian event was announced on Miss Creole Canada Pageant and relayed on Facebook, it was the first of its kind, crowning of a Miss from Creole heritage, which took place on October 17th, as part of the celebration of the Creole Month.
In Paris, blogger Anba pyé mango-la announces a cultural evening called “Tan Kréyol” (Creole for “Hear Creole”) where the oral transmission of Creole is given a place of honor [Fr Cr]:
Senn-la wouvè ba tout moun : poèt, chantè, slamè, makè, kontè, mizisyen… .
In Guadeloupe, the local authorities have organized a month-long program taking place in different locations, in order to celebrate “Mwa òktòb kréyol an mouvman” (Creole for “October, Creole in motion). Here are the two main points of this program posted by guadeloupe.coconews [Fr Cr]:
1. Prèmyé dékatman ba tout moun
2. Dézyèm dékatman èvè zanfan-lékòl
Finally, from Martinique, montraykreyol publishes a post which questions the Creole Month celebration there and most precisely the relevance of celebrating Creole in a week-long festival [Fr Cr]:
Es ou ka kwè ki an sel simenn pou défann kréyol adan tout lanné-a sifizan ?
CLAUDE MARLIN : Dapré mwen non, sa ja an pal pou kréyol-la menm manniè ki tout travay-la ki za fet asou lang-lan. Men fok pandan tout lanné-a, ni travay ki pou fet, fok véyatif toulong, pas menm si kréyol ka rantré latélévizion, laradio, nan piblisité kontel, bien délè sa ka an kréyol toubònman, tjòlòlò ek sa pé désèvi lang-la.

author: Fabienne Flessel


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Haiti: No Justice? · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

As an ex-priest is extradited to Canada to face charges of sexual abuse of minors in Haiti, The Haitian Blogger says: “The international community has evidently concluded that there is no justice in Haiti. Sexual predators who have been operating with impunity in Haiti are being extradited to their countries of origin to face criminal charges.”


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India: Blogger Journalist Mediates Cop’s Release · Global Voices
Rezwan

In the Indian State of West Bengal there is a battle raging on between the Maoist guerrillas (Naxalites) and the national and paramilitary forces. Last June the government of India banned the the Communist Party of India (Maoist), an underground and non-parliamentary political party, under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act naming it a terrorist organization.
Aradhana Jhunjhunwala at OpenIndia explains the background of the conflict.
On the 20th of October dozens of Maoists attacked the Sankrail police station in West Midnapore district and took away all the 10 guns and the ammunition from the depot. Two policemen were killed and they kidnapped the officer in charge police inspector Atindranath Dutta.
India under attack and other musings!! describes the circumstances in which the attackers were successful:
There were 13 constables, 5 home guards, 3 national volunteer force members and 3 sub-inspectors at the police station when the Maoists struck. Not one policeman was armed. For, the practice here is to keep the weapons locked in trunks. [..]
Why? Policemen say one reason is the weapons are no match to those used by the Naxals — so keeping them locked up is “safer.”
The Maoists held the police officer hostage and demanded a swap, with the release of 14 tribal women, who were arrested by the police suspected as Maoists.
Sans Serif reports that yesterday two BBC journalists including blogger Subir Bhowmik “helped broker a compromise between the State government and Maoists, leading to the safe release” of Mr. Dutta. The move followed a court order to release the 14 tribal women on bail.
According to a report in The Times of India, the BBC journos stepped in and acted as “facilitators and served as a bridge between the rebels and the government” when the leader of the Maoists Koteshwara Rao alias Kishenji, refused to deal directly with State officials.
The blogger compared this incident with other incidents where journalists in the line of duty played a part in unfolding news events.
Dr. Ujjal K. Pal reminds us:
The abduction episode ended with a happy note.
However, in glaring contrast, two other cops Kanchan Garai and Sabir Ali of West Bengal Police, kidnapped three months back are not as lucky as Sankrail OC . No body knows where they are or if they are alive at all. Perhaps administration is not that eager to trace them.
Nirmalya Nag from Kolkata strikes the core of the problem:
Thank you government for blindly allowing the police to arrest anyone as Maoist and letting the policemen eke out their meager security, thank you opposition for not condemning murders by Maoists, thank you human rights activists for condemning the proposed crackdown on Maoists but keeping mum when people get killed by them.
Now let us wait for the next abduction.


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India: Brands On Blogs And Twitter · Global Voices
Rezwan

Bhatnaturally informs that increasing number of Indian brands are embracing social media including blogs, Twitter etc.


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Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago: Dealing With H1N1 · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

KnowTnT.com and Jamaica's Girl With a Purpose blog about the H1N1 virus in their respective countries,


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Morocco: Education Under Bloggers’ Scrutiny · Global Voices
Hisham Almiraat

High rates of illiteracy are often presented as a proof of what many observers describe as an archaic and unfair public education system that, 50 years after independence, failed to live up to the expectations of many Moroccans.
Torn between insistent calls for modernization and a powerful conservative drive; caught in an excruciating debate over which languages  to include in its programs; overburdened by an opaque and centralized administration, the Moroccan education system has long been the target of passionate critiques, not least among bloggers.
Mohamed [Ar], who's a university student, laments about a methodology based primarily on blind, unquestionable memorization that seems to prevail throughout the official curricula. He writes:
Beside damning rates of illiteracy, figures suggest that high numbers of children are unable to access schools, whilst others abandon education at an early age, as Ammar al-Khalfi [Ar], writing on Nebrass E'shabab, argues. He writes:
إن السبب المساهم في الهدر المدرسي إن لم نقل السبب الرئيسي هو تدني مستوى التعليم العمومي، فحسب الدراسات وحسب تجربتي الشخصية فإن علاقة
الطفل المغربي بالمدرسة أصبحت علاقة نفور، إذ تلاشى الرابط بين التلاميذ ومدرسيهم بسبب العنف والتهميش.
كما تعاني المدرسة المغربية من نقص في التجهيز التربوي وندرة في الأنشطة غير التعليمية، وضعف في تكوين المدرسين لمواجهة حاجات الأطفال ومشاكلهم. وتطول لائحة الأسباب الخارجية المنفرة للأطفال من المدرسة، كالتفكك الأسري، وأمية الآباء والأمهات، وتأثير الشارع، والمخدرات والبطالة، والرغبة في الهجرة إلى الغرب.
The overall budget allocated to education on a yearly basis remains poor. This materializes more blatantly when one looks at the dilapidating infrastructure of some schools. Abderrazak E'ttabi [Ar], blogging on ‘Akrab al-Net reports on the case of a collapsing public school in Ksar al-Kabir. He writes:
The author publishes those pictures taken by a teacher at the school:
The broader issue of language often appears as a major concern. French is held as the medium for higher education in a country where most people speak vernacular Arabic. Although Berber languages (or Tamazight) have recently been incorporated into the official curricula, some like Ibrahim Murabit [Ar], blogging on Nebrass E'shabab, think it is too little too late. He writes:
وإذا كان معلوما أن كل حضارة تقاس قوتها بمدى انتشار لغتها وثقافتها، والأمر عندنا في المغرب أكثر وضوحا عندما نشاهد الصراع الثقافي المحموم بين المراكز الثقافية الفرنسية والاسبانية والانجليزية، لنشر ثقافتها ولغتها بمقابل رمزي أو مجاني في أحيان كثيرة. فما بالنا نتنكر لأنفسنا ونحقد على تراثنا وثقافتنا، خصوصا إذا تعلق الأمر بأمازيغية المغرب وثقافته وتاريخه؟
Each civilization is measured by the extent and influence of its language and culture. Here in Morocco, we have been witnessing a heated struggle for influence between French, Spanish and English cultural centers, to disseminate their culture and languages, offering their services for symbolic fees; or mostly for free. Why are we self-loathing our culture, history and languages, especially Tamazight, and holding them in contempt?
Mirroring the Moroccan society, conservative and progressive groups often try to fill in the cultural vacuum within universities, animating debates and arranging meetings and lectures. This doesn't always happen without clashes. From Tangiers, Vamprita [Ar] recounts the story of a meeting she succeeded in organizing with fellow undergraduates, inviting some prominent Moroccan comedians. What looked like a successful gathering, soon turned into chaos by some angry conservative students:
كانت الأمور تجري على ألف ما يرام ، فقد جهزنا ما أمكننا لاستقبال الضيوف ، و قام كل مسؤول فينا بتقديم ناديه ، ثم توجهنا لقاعة جهزناها خصيصا لهذه المناسبة حيث جلسنا في حوار مفتوح تدخل فيه كل الطلبة الراغبين بذلك
إلى أن خرب الجلسة أعضاء من الاتحاد الوطني لطلبة المغرب ، من الفصيل القاعدي ، وهجموا على القاعة بكل همجية ووحشية ووقاحة ، وقاطعوا الجلسة بطريقة فوضوية محتجين لماذا لم يتم اخبارهم بهذا النشاط وأي نشاط يجب أن يتم بعلمهم ، و قالوا بأن أنشطتنا كلها هي مضيعة للوقت في ظل مشاكل أهم تعاني منها الجامعة
Despite successive and ambitious “make-believe” reforms, bloggers seem to echo a wider popular sentiment of the fiasco of a public education system that fails to deliver, leaving the way for a prosperous and lucrative private school system, spread across urban centers and inaccessible to a wide range of the population.

author: Hisham Almiraat


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Nepal: The Maoist Insurgency · Global Voices
Rezwan

Neil’s Nepal, a Maoist expert, posts an analysis of the implications of the present Nepali conflict from the perspective of the US military.


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Pakistan: Who Is Responsible? · Global Voices
Rezwan

Talkhaba opines that both civil and military establishments of Pakistan are responsible for the present deteriorated situation of the country.


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Russia: Soviet Legacy and Street Names · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

It is, of course, an exaggeration, but back in September and early October, it seemed as if every single Russian blogger took the time to write something about the re-naming of Anti-Soviet Shish Kebab Restaurant in Moscow, dissident journalist Aleksandr Podrabinek‘s protest article (RUS, Kerkko Paananen's English translation is posted at A Step At A Time) and Nashi youth movement's counter-protest activities.
In the English-language blogosphere, Sean Guillory of Sean's Russia Blog took the time to summarize the ordeal:
[…] Long story short: After a summer of renovations, the owner of kebab restaurant on Leningradskii prospekt decided to call his place “Anti-Soviet” to poke fun at the Soviet Hotel across the street.   The name went well the the restaurant’s dissident theme of photos of “anti-Soviet” figures of the past. […] Vets, however, didn’t see the humor and complained to the local district administration, demanding the restaurant be renamed.  The “anti-” in -Soviet Kebab House, they said, hurt their feelings and denigrated their sacrifice in saving Russia from Nazism.  Within days, the district’s “crusading environmental inspector,” Oleg Mitvol, paid the -Soviet Kebab House a visit ordering the “anti-” be removed. The owners begrudgingly complied. […]
[…]
Enter Alexander Podrabinek, the famous Soviet dissident and now Putin foe. Having had enough of the “restoration of the Soviet past,” Podrabinek pounded out a diatribe “Letter to Soviet Veterans,” where he called the name change as “great pity” and lambasted the complaining veterans as “idiotic, base, and stupid.”  He then went on to charge the vets as “the ones who served as whipmasters in labour camps and prisons, political commissars of anti-retreat units, and executioners at firing grounds.”  According to Podrabinek, he and others who defied the Soviet regime are the country’s real heroes.  The letter was published on Podrabinek’s blog and on the website of the liberal rag Ezhednevnyi zhurnal.
[…]
Enter Nashi.  Nashi has been aimless since the election of Dmitry Medvedev.  With “colored revolution” vanquished, a number of its chapters liquidated, and little need for mass street protests, the kids in Nashi don’t know what to do with themselves. […]
[…] Soon after Podrabinek’s diatribe hit runet, Nashi began mobilizing its apparatus of outrage.  Members began pickets outside of Podrabinek’s apartment, released his phone number and address on the internet, and vowed to run him out of the country. According to Nashi’s GenSek, Nikita Borovikov, all these actions are “of the most democratic in nature.”
Fearing for his life, Podrabinek went into hiding.  Not because of Nashi, whose actions he considers a “propaganda stunt” and an “imitation of public outrage” (which it is), but because of  “information from reliable sources” that “serious people” want him taken care of.  That is “taking care of” in the bullet-in-head sense of the phrase.
More outrage ensued.  Ezhednevnyi zhurnal began an online petition in support of Podrabinek, which now sports over 3000 signatures, a virtual who’s who of the Russian liberal intelligentsia.  Not to be outdone, Nashi claims to have over 5000 signatures against Podrabinek. […]
On Oct. 8, LJ user mrfilin wrote a post (RUS) on how the questionable Soviet legacy kept on surviving in street names in his native city of Tula, alluding to the shish kebab restaurant scandal that has caused such an avalanche of online and offline response:
Why isn't there a central street named after Adolf Hitler in Berlin, or a square named after [SS], an avenue named after [Paulus], or, at least, a dead-end street named after [Goebbels]? Perhaps, because it's not appropriate for a bürger to walk down a street named after murderers of the people, ruthless bandits, who only valued power and whose favorite pastime was bloodthirsty fighting for it. An anti-fascist shish kebab restaurant wouldn't be subjected to persecutions by municipal authorities.
In Russia, on the other hand, since ancient times, people have had tender feelings towards tyrants and sadists. An individual sense of identity of a poor wife tortured by her despotic drunkard of a husband has transformed into a mass consciousness: if he beats me, it means he loves me. And when this alcoholic chokes on his own filth and dies, his widow will carefully preserve all kinds of memory of him, posting his photographs all over the apartment. The ones on which he is portrayed wearing his only suit and being his normal self for once.
In the same manner, in every remote place there'll always be a Lenin street, a Red Army avenue or a [Dzerzhinsky] street. And in bigger towns, there'd be a couple of these. But if in Moscow you may get lucky and settle on a street named after a decent person, in the provinces street names carry nothing but the communist heritage. Here, for example, are streets I'm familiar with in Tula:
1. […] My grandmother lives on a street named after the unknown to me Zhabrov Brothers. I've failed in my attempt to find out who they were, but the street perpendicular to theirs is named after an unprincipled loser-terrorist [Khalturin], who [caused deaths] of 11 heroes of the Russo-Turkish campaign.
2. Grandmother #2, together with grandfather, live on an avenue named after the army that has killed more decent Russian people than any other army in the world, except for the [Nazi German army].
3. Not far from here is a hospital named after informer [Semashko] and General [Frunze], who caused deaths of tens of thousands Red Army soldiers during the fight against the remains of the [White Army]. Frunze used his people as cannon fodder, and was ruthless towards the Whites, too, of course. The general's army liked to rape Russian women, while the general himself preferred to attend theater premieres in Moscow. Only, for some reason, not the pro-Soviet nonsense, but the half-legal [Meyerhold].
4. My parents are somewhat luckier – they live on [Perekop] street – [Crimea]'s edge where the same Frunze and [Denikin] fought one another.
5. Et cetera.
And who is the street you live on named after?
Below are some of the comments to this post:
gogol1:
My street is named after painter [Vasnetsov].
mrfilin:
lucky you
***
tanis_konig:
[Gorky] street probably exists in every city except for the Default City [Moscow]. And the name of our city – ‘[Kaliningrad]’ – is a bit too much [named after Mikhail Kalinin]. Though the German ‘[Königsberg]’ isn't nice, either.
***
cakcon:
Syromolotov street – named after a local Bolshevik :(( [in Yekaterinburg]
***
amidala_rainy:
I've been lucky in this sense – I've nothing against Turgenev, after whom my street is named :)
But there's a neighborhood in our city [Simferopol, Crimea, Ukraine] where the following streets cross with one another: Communist, Bolshevik, Proletarian, Lenin, [Sovnarkom] lane, [Rosa Luxemburg], Karl Marx, [Kirov] and [Karl Liebknecht]. All this within one square kilometer (
***
ka_lan:
I've been sort of lucky. In [Krasnoyarsk], it was [Tchaikovsky] street, here [in Moscow] (temporarily) – [Lomonosov] avenue.
Of the relatives who live on streets named after Soviet activists, I only recall grandmother and grandfather – Vodopyanov street in Krasnoyarsk. But I don't think I have anything bad to say about him.
In general, my native city has somehow been lucky with this – the whole sovok is limited to the standard package of “Lenin-Peace-Marx” (three main streets in the center). Bad toponyms don't stick here, and that's it.
***
steelberry:
Coppistrasse. Hans and Hilde Coppi were some fighters against the Nazi anti-Soviet propaganda, who were murdered by the fascists. A friend lives on Karl-Marx-Allee )))
mrfilin:
Berlin?
steelberry:
jawohl!
***
josefreicher:
I live on Lake street, in Ochakov. This used to be the village of Ochakov in Moscow region, with many lakes and swamps, on which they were building houses for those exiled from Moscow after serving sentences for murder and rape. Now this is a residential district of the capital with some really tough – iron – gene pool =)

author: Veronica Khokhlova


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Taiwan: Future of the Taiwanese language · Global Voices
David Reid

Stocks and Politics discusses the fate of the Hoklo Taiwanese language and expresses concern about its decline. There are also some comparisons with the use of Cantonese.

author: David Reid


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Trinidad & Tobago: 350 Action · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

“Trinidad and Tobago is a wealthy small island developing nation rich in oil and natural gas. But we are also seeing the damaging effects of aggressive industrialisation on our islands.  This is an opportunity for women’s voices to be heard”: Attillah Springer is getting involved in 350's climate action tomorrow.


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Trinidad & Tobago: Trini To The Bone? · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

“Every day that I go through the news I become more convinced that I want to quit the ‘I am a Trini’ club and head off to somewhere else”: Coffeewallah has had it with everything from crime to taxes.


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Trinidad & Tobago: Twenty 20 · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

This Beach Called Life and Trin are excited about Trinidad and Tobago's prospects in today's Champion's League Twenty 20 Cricket final.


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Bahrain: Burning Tyres 101  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

From Bahrain, Satrawicool posts the following video on YouTube, which shows young men burning tyres on streets in protest against the arrest of activists and youth in connection to other riot acts.

author: Amira Al Hussaini


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Colombia: Solidarity With Hiperbarrio After Library Robbery · Global Voices
Cati Restrepo

Historically, libraries have been characterized as spaces for the free access to knowledge in the fields of literature, art, and culture, as well as becoming gathering places for the community. In this spirit, two years ago the Public Pilot Library of Medellín, Colombia at the La Loma site welcomed the participants of Hiperbarrio [es], one of the initial Rising Voices projects, where citizen journalism workshops have been taking place.
Photo of La Loma Library by Convergentes and used with permission. Click on photo to see a larger version of photo.
It is noteworthy that this library was created more than 50 years ago, as an initiative of the residents of La Loma, and throughout its service to the community it has offered classes in literature, painting, and music. The importance of its social role was described by Rezwan at the Rising Voices blog, who notes that that librarian's responsibility goes beyond the simple lending of books.
It is with those reasons that there were united voices of indignation surrounding the events that took place on October 13, which is described by @blueandtanit:
Ladrones robaron el equipo administrativo con información de La Loma, caja menor y El nica de Hiperbarrio en un asalto a la bpp de La Loma.
The director of Hiperbarrio, Álvaro Ramírez described his reaction upon hearing the news. He writes about the consequences of the robbery in his blog Ojo al Texto [es]:
Estoy un poco aturdido. Me concentro y trato de visualizar la modesta y hermosa Biblioteca de La Loma, sus estantes, las mesas y las sillas donde niños y grandes se sientan a diario a leer, a consultar libros, y a conversar.
Alcanzo a imaginar los computadores apagados y en la noche. Un par de intrusos llegan y logran penetrar por el techo. Entran con linternas y comienzan a sacar cosas
(…)
A la mañana siguiente llegan Gabriel Jaime y los otros empleados y encuentran el desastre. Un robo consumado. Un asalto a la comunidad de La Loma y un golpe duro para la Biblioteca Pública Piloto que ha venido dotando, con gran voluntad y paciencia a la filial más antigua de su extendida red de bibliotecas públicas: es decir gratuitas y abiertas para que todos podamos acceder a sus servicios.
(…)
Pienso en el daño que eso representa. En las personas que se van a perjudicar por no poder acceder gratis a los computadores.
I am a bit stunned. I concentrate and try to visualize the modest and beautiful La Loma Library, its shelves, the tables and chairs where children and adults sit to read on a daily basis, to read books, and to talk.
I am able to imagine the computers turned off at night. A couple of intruders arrive and are able to enter through the roof. They enter with flashlights and start to take things.
(…)
The next morning, (the library's coordinator) Gabriel Jaime and other employees arrive and find the disaster. A completed robbery. An assault on the community of La Loma and a hard blow for the Public Pilot Library, which has been providing, with a strong will and patience to the oldest branch in the extended network of public libraries: free and open services so that everyone can access its services.
(…)
I think about the damage that this represents. In the people that will be hurt and will not be able to have free access to computers.
Photo of La Loma library by blueandtanit and used under a Creative Commons license. Click on photo to see a larger version of the photo.
News of the robbery soon spread throughout different online networks, and the community also received notes from those who expressed their solidarity during the incident, showing that there is a strong network across the internet. For example, from Chile, Enzo Abbagliati sent a message of support on his blog Cadaunadas [es] after reading the post written by Ramírez:
Cadaunadas varias veces ha sido espacio para la alegría que desde una barriada de Medellín hemos recibido cotidianamente quienes creemos en las bibliotecas públicas como espacio de equidad y construcción de sociedades más democráticas. Reproduzco ahora una triste nota publicada por Álvaro Ramírez en ConVerGentes, quien desde el aturdimiento inicial nos avisa que han robado en la Biblioteca de La Loma. En Chile, en nuestras bibliotecas públicas, a veces sufrimos la misma suerte, la misma frustrante suerte.
¡Animo, amigos de La Loma! Sé que la comunidad estará con ustedes.
On many occasions, (the blog) Cadaunadas has been a space for daily joy received from a neighborhood in Medellín for those of us who believe in public libraries as a place for equality and the building of more democratic societies. I am now republishing the sad news written by Álvaro Ramírez from ConVerGentes, who tells us of the stunning news about the robbery of the La Loma Library. In Chile, our public libraries sometimes suffers the same luck, the same frustrating luck.
Cheer up, friends from La Loma! Know that the community stands with you.
Locally, the Colombian digital magazine Equinoxio [es] became one of the first sites to publish news about the acts of vandalism and wrote about the efforts to investigate the crime:
El director de la biblioteca se reunió con las autoridades y con efectivos de la Policía Nacional a fin de coordinar esfuerzos para recuperar los bienes que se llevaron los asaltantes y capturar a los responsables.
The library's director met with authorities and officers from the National Police to coordinate efforts to recuperate the items taken by the burglars and to capture those responsible.
Fortunately, the Golden Nicca prize was recovered, as it was found nearby, but the other objects remain missing. A member of Hiperbarrio, Catalina Urquijo of the blog $ujetate (Unknown II) [es] thanked those who sent messages through the different social networking sites:
Ofrecemos nuestros más sinceros agradecimientos a todos aquellos que nos acompañaron por diversos sitios de la red dándonos su apoyo tanto cuando creímos que nos habían robado el nica como ahora.
Finally, Libary Coordinator Gabriel Vanegas of the blog Esas Voces que Nos Llegan [es] summarizes the shock in which, as a public employee, he had to find out about the incident:
Duele ver la ignorancia de quienes perpetúan este delito contra el patrimonio de la comunidad, pero preocupa pensar en quienes dieron la orden de hacerlo y quienes sabiendo y viendo que se hacia no procedieron de manera correcta y oportuna ante las autoridades.

author: Cati Restrepo


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GV Blogger Interview: Sylwia Presley · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

Sylwia Presley is our Translation Manager for Global Voices Polska (Polish) and an occasional author for Global Voices Online, but that doesn't reflect what she really means in our community, where her contribution on the internal mailing lists is received as inspiring and proactive. A prolific blogger and Twitter and Facebook user, I still don't know how she manages to get time to do all these activities.. and these are not the only things she does! So let's get to know her a little bit better in the next lines.
- Hi Sylwia, tell us a bit about you and your life, please.
I was born in Poland and at the age of 18 moved to Hungary to study, and later to work in Budapest. I studied Hungarian, German and American linguistics. During studies and first years of employment at Nokia and TCS Hungary I supported a Montessori high school helping talented youth from local Romani minorities to reach higher education – basically teaching English during evening class. I worked with local Polish scouting group and stayed involved in organising subcultural cultural events. I also started my adventure with photography then.
In 2006, when my son was born, I relocated to the UK and joined a word of mouth agency, 1000heads, where I am until now using my personal passion for blogging in daily work.
- How did u get involved with GV?
I read about GV Summit 2008 in Budapest on a brilliant Polish blog written in Hungary and really regretted that I missed it (I already lived in the UK at the time). I noticed that GV Lingua had no Polish translation so I suggested helping out. I also posted few articles about Poland, but my main focus so far was ensuring the Polish Lingua goes live and grows gradually. Once this is accomplished I hope to spend more time on articles about Poland. I also want to get involved in Global Voices Advocacy one day fairly soon.
- What are the challenges you have faced at GV in Polish?
The first challenge was to create a dedicated team and I think that after few months we are there now. I think it's an on-going process though – the more content we have, the more exposure we get and thus more volunteers. There are eight girls working on GV Polska now – we all support each other not only in translating GV content but also outside of this voluntary work. It takes a certain amount of content for audience to understand what GV Polska is about, so I am glad we are working on this now. GV Polska went live recently and we have started working on other supporting mechanisms (mapping out the countries we post about on a Google map, so we do not focus on few regions too much, but try to show events in all parts of the world; engaging in conversations outside of Twitter and gradually establishing more personal relationships with Polish bloggers and social media fans). I think in another six months, we will see the results of our current work outside of the main platform.
- How do you insert GV Polska on the local blogosphere, have you had problems with it?
I think establishing an on-line presence is a lengthy process, and we are beginning to gain readership on the site, but also discussion in other platforms – Twitter, Facebook, Blip (Polish Twitter) and Flaker (also a Polish site). Our presence on Twitter has given us an amazing push in terms of readership, but also interactiveness – we talk about our articles there. Now we need to bring those discussions on to the Lingua blog :) Flaker is a good site for incorporating GV Polska‘s presence in Polish social media, so we work on that too. I also think it's a very complex process and consists of different elements (I would love to see what other Lingua teams think!). I think one, probably the most important factor is the demand for information. I think we need to target the right people and gradually we are doing so. Our challenge at the moment though is the fact that we only have one of our team members is based in Poland, so it's difficult to spread the word about the site in local communities if our private networks are based elsewhere. You also need to remember that we are reporting on discussions, we do not generate them, which restricts us in taking active part in discussions in local blogosphere. I think we need to gradually build up our content and think outside the box on how we can establish on-going strong relationships with Polish bloggers. What proves effective at the moment are the Twitter and Flaker engagements and our personal relationships with local bloggers. I think it's a good starting point.
– Sylwia, as a Translation Manager what do you perceive will be our challenge in the near future?
With GV Polska, we will now gradually work on other tools around the main blog to reach out to different audiences and to relate our articles to different topics in Poland. Now that we have reached our first 100 posts, we have something to show and we can develop a stronger presence in Polish social media. Our next challenge will be to encourage our readers not only to read, but also to comment on our posts and with this to have a large community of GV Polska readers who spread the word about GV's message, although with current trends of moving away from commenting on blogs to discussing blog content in other places online, we might instead invest our time there. I really hope that we will be able to do something offline for our Polish readers soon, to bring our message closer to every day reality of Polish citizens – simply to show them who we are, why we do it all for free and what is the aim. Quite frankly, I want to use my other projects, like Bar Mleczny and Barcamp Transparency (next year planned for Poland too) to help to spread the word about GV Polska. I also think that posting in English about Poland will help promoting work of GV Polska better, so that will be my next, personal task.
Now, in general terms, I am not sure if it's a challenge or just something to think about, and it depends on resources too, so might not be a short term plan but I think there is one bit of communication missing from the current model, which is addressing local issues and conversations in local languages. Somehow I feel it's a missing bit in closing the entire circle of information sharing. I also think it would help Lingua sites in addressing the local audience and promote Global Voices‘ message locally – I mean if I talk about discussions related to other countries in Polish to Polish audience it's great, but I think it would be also very exciting to be able to address Polish issues there. Now, I am not sure how the model would work – that would be another project, ‘Lingua Local’ if you like. We could have a separate team in place to post updates on local conversations, or engage translators (who are also authors in many cases) in this additional activity. I am confident that if the rest of the community is up for it, one day we will be able to consider this option too.
- As a translator, how has GV improved your skills?
First of all I do not work in translation at the moment so it's great to keep doing it for GV Lingua. My jobs were always related to translation but not specifically based on it, so it's good I can keep this learned skill active and practice it in my free time. It's one of those things that is worth keeping alive, and while you are doing it you develop constantly.
As a team we always discuss any problems in translations and support each other, which I find really helpful because there is sometimes need for second opinion. We use our Google group to post questions and quite recently we started weekly meet-ups on IRC to discuss GV related issues and gossip a bit;)
I also think I translate faster now, because I want to do the posts and all the other activities related to it – tweet it, map it, etc. The great thing about Global Voices content is that it is very rich in different topics and cultures – so we not only learn while working, but become exposed to various types of information which we might not always read about elsewhere.
- This is going to get a long answer I think. Sylwia, what other internet activities do you have?
Well, I have few on-going presences and more current projects. My first blog, written in Polish is very personal. My English blog is related to my work and interests (social media, ethics, activism, photography). My Hungarian blog is written for friends, but not too often. My son's blog is updated for his UK based family, but also for my friends outside the UK. I am considering bringing them all to one, self-hosted platform now.
I use Twitter (@presleysylwia) and FriendFeed for business networking and communicating with the local community, learning and sharing insights. Flickr is my photo sharing place where I meet interesting artists. Qik and YouTube are places where I share video updates – rather diary of what I do. I use Facebook, Nasza-Klara (Polish social network) and LinkedIn for networking – depending on whom I want to reach. And no, I do not spend all day on all those sites:) I use them each in its own rhythm, whenever required ;)
As for projects there is Bar Mleczny – blog aiming to bring UK-based Polish bloggers together and cross the bridge between British and Polish cultures. It's still a small, one-year-old baby, but with dreams to grow big and one day open an actual dairy bar in Oxford combined with arts, music and support for the local Polish community.
I have co-organised Barcamp Transparency this summer, where we talked about transparency issues in open government, social media and cyber-activism. We want to take this barcamp to Italy, Poland and Spain next year, as well as repeat the one in Oxford. I think barcamp is the best format for creative meeting of people from different business areas on a specific topic. It's free, flexible, but also very specific and practical.
I also got involved in Oxford Twestival in February and have repeated it now, in September. This event brings together all the important aspects of my life really (maybe apart from motherhood;)) – charity work, art and social media in real life. Sometimes people think or actually practice on-line presence completely separating it from every day life, but for me all the online places I am in simply document and enhance my reality. Thus, I am happy I can do a party for similarly minded people who all come over to a pub in Oxford to listen to good music and poetry and all this to raise money to support Oxfam's work in Mali. I am also happy that Oxford can be a part of this global initiative. We have managed to raise £1,570, which is a great sum for such a small community (60 attendees!). And we had fun! I am sure there will be another Twestival in Oxford in spring and I hope I can get involved in it too.
I have also helped out in social media strategy on few other voluntary projects, like World University Project for instance, and I hope to do so in the bear future.
I am very passionate about social media and the positive effect it can have in supporting work of individuals, as well as organisations. I am trying to feed as much information as possible to the GV community, but I also do not want to be monotonous:) so I am trying to feed the information which can be crucial for us. I am a strong supporter of Twitter in our work too, and I think it's great we are gradually moving to other types of social media and reaching out to different audiences. Global Voices as a site and as a community has a great potential and I am very happy I can be a part of it!
- Not all of us manage to succeed at promoting our sites on Facebook and Twitter. What suggestions can you give us?
I think one point is not to push it if you do not feel you enjoy doing it. So the first step is to check your options – mainly the local community of Twitter, Facebook or other online places. If you think you have good audience there and you can bring value to their community (you have people on Twitter who talk about citizen journalism, current events, social media, etc) it's worth trying to build a GV Lingua profile there. You do not have to update it on a daily basis – everyone has their own rhythm, but it's worth doing it in a genuine, natural, personal way. With the site content, which is strongly related to online communities we all bring value. And I am sure once you start talking to others and networking you will see that the presence is not only fun but also works in both directions – you will get fed with interesting facts, local social media events, projects. Just do it;)
- You mentioned photography as a personal interest, what is your approach to it?
Photography and poetry (recently also video) are my passions. I believe in harmony in life, and without art my life would be unbalanced – photography is a way of showing the world how I see it, how I feel about things, what stage of my life I am in. It is my private mirror, but also my statement, if that makes sense. I like experimenting with different ways of communication – it might be the linguist blood in me (my mother is a linguist;)), but generally the photos I take reflect the way I see the world: in details, working out the general trends form little bits and pieces – a mosaic of a kind. I take photos when I feel like, but I do have a target of one exhibition per year to ensure I do not neglect this bit of my life. So far I managed to over deliver on that front, so I can relax and invest more time in social media projects.
- What about other interests? Let's say books, movies, the usual thing?
I like fusion jazz and anything related or created in post-modern style, maybe this is why I like the interactiveness of the web so much. And I have my ‘the best’-lists:) Books: Umberto Eco ‘Name of the Rose’ (1), Anne Rice ‘Interview with the Vampire’ (2), basically everything from Erich Fromm and Jean Baudrillard (3). Films: ‘Total Eclipse’ (1), ‘Before the Rain’ (2), '28 Days After’ (3). Painters: Van Gogh (1) William Wharton (2), Georgia O'Keffee (3). I better stop now, it starts to look like a Facebook meme:D.
Thanks Sylwia.
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author: Juan Arellano


text:
Iran: A leading cartoonist arrested · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

Several bloggers such as Nikahang reported [fa] that Hadi Heydari, a leading Iranian cartoonist was arrested last week in Terhan.

author: Fred Petrossian


text:
Iran: Visiting ‘Hyperstar’ in Tehran · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

Bar Saheleh Salamat , an Iran based blogger,visted Hyperstar,the brainchild of Carrefour, in Tehran. The blogger says [fa] marketing to attract the clients is great in this store and parking is free.


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Pregnancy and Prisons: Women’s Health and Rights Behind Bars · Global Voices
Juliana Rincón Parra

Do all pregnant women deserve equal human rights, or do pregnant women in prison forfeit those rights?
There are a few questions that come to mind regarding a pregnant woman's right to live and to raise her child when she has been convicted for some sort of crime:
USA: women in labor no longer to be shackled.
Could you imagine a woman giving childbirth with her hands in handcuffs and her feet shackled to the bedposts? Malika Saada Saar, founder and executive director of the Rebecca Project for Human Rights,  tells us about this practice which still happens in the United States of America,  where pregnant women serving time have been routinely shackled during labor and childbirth as a common practice in some correctional facilities, even though it is dangerous for the health of both mother and child.  Following is a video interview included in the same article written for RH Reality Check, an online community on sexual and reproductive health and rights which does information and analysis for reproductive health:
What happens to an inmate's  baby after childbirth?
Different countries have different regulations regarding children in prisons. For example, in Argentina, according to Ajintem, an information portal for  migration information, a law was passed last year specifying that pregnant women, women with children younger than 5 and those with handicapped children would benefit from spending their prison term at home under house arrest. This law would benefit not only the mother, who in prison wouldn't receive suitable health care during her pregnancy, but also the child, who would either be raised in an unsafe environment deprived of freedom with deficient health controls and food, or be raised away from the mother, causing another series of problems. However, the message is for magistrates to follow the spirit of the law and grant this permission to those women not involved in violent crimes, to ensure that the rest of the civilian population doesn't see pregnancy as a get out of jail free card.
In the Canary Islands, according to the Prisiones y Penas blog, which writes about the issues surrounding jails and prisons, women are allowed to keep their children of up to 3 years of age with them in their cells, but in the company of other inmates, which isn't the best environment. Thus, pregnant women or women with children under 3 are told upon entry to the prison that it isn't good for the child to grow up behind bars, and options are given for them to send the child off to family members. This is also the case in Peru and Russia. In the US, there are only two correctional facilities which allow for this, in New York and in Nebraska, as told by renowned photographer Jane Evelyn Atwood in her 3 part photo documentary for Amnesty International,  called Too Much Time, where she visited dozens of prisons all over the world to record and document the lives of inmates.
Why does the US correctional system not generally allow women with babies to keep them? Atwood explains that due to the hostage situation, it is not allowed. In the Prison Photography Blog they address this claim:
Children are excluded from all but a couple of US prisons. The security threat is cited as the reason: a child inside a prison is a constant vulnerable life and constant hostage target. The claim seems a little bogus when penal systems of other countries are brought into consideration.
The Atwood documentary in the Amnesty International site features both a section on the process of giving birth in shackless as told in Vanessa's Baby and another on prison systems and motherhood, with fotographs of the women while the photographer reads an essay on her experiences visiting the prisons and taking the pictures.
Pregnancy as a bargaining tool?
Why are rights for pregnant women in prison so controversial? In Russia Today, a Russian broadcasting channel,  the subject is mentioned when discussing children born and raised in the Russian correctional system:
Skeptics think some mothers deliberately get pregnant simply to ease life in prison. Hospital leave, then lots of scheduled time with your child – it is all better than sitting in a stone cell, they claim.
And there are women for whom it seems that pregnancy is the only way to escape a sentence, as was the case back in June, when a British woman incarcerated and sentenced to death in Laos due to drug smuggling got pregnant in prison and escaped being executed, since the Laos government would not execute a pregnant woman.  The claims made according to the Daily Express, a British newspaper, are that she got artificially inseminated “to secure a more lenient term”.
In their words: Women tell of their children and prison life
Geraldin Rodríguez, an Argentinean spending time in an Ecuadorian jail due to drug trafficking tells Marcos Brugiati, a writer who contributes with the art related online publication Plastica-Argentina, the  story about acting and performing in jail, getting pregnant in prison and having her child.  She was allowed to keep her baby with her, but decided that the child needed to grow up free:
“Decidí que salga para vivir, tenía miedo que sufra de grande los traumas que hoy tengo. Se lo llevó al año mi hermano quien se hice cargo con su esposa”.
Juvinete is  in a Spanish prison, and was pregnant when she was incarcerated for drug trafficking. She tells her story to regional Spanish newspaper NorteCastilla. Three years after giving birth to her baby in prison, her child had to leave her side, and was sent to a foster family. Juvinete sees her daughter every 15 days and every two months she gets a 2 week leave to spend time with her. However, things don't seem to be looking up: there is a chance Juvinete will be deported to her natal Brazil, and she fears for the consequences this change would have on her child. She does have advice for any woman who decide to get pregnant while in jail:
-Intento convencerlas para que no se queden en estado dentro porque ver a un niño privado de libertad es muy duro, es irresponsable. Ellos no tienen que pagar nuestros errores.
In Woman and Prison, a website dedicated to visibilizing women's experiences in the correctional system, inmate Kebby Warner speaks of her own pregnancy while doing time in a US prison, and how she was treated during her pregnancy, labor and afterwards, when her child was taken away from her. Here is an excerpt where she writes about the birthing process:
During the labor, no one is allowed in the delivery room. My family didn't even know I was in labor or had her until after I left the hospital. During the three days some of the guards stayed in the room, but most of the time, when the nurses asked them to sit outside the door, they complied. I have heard horror stories of women being chained to the delivery bed. I am so grateful as to have not experienced this. Most of the nurses treated me as a human instead of a prisoner.
You can read more testimonies about growing up with a parent in prison and the different effects incarcerating women may have on their children in Women and Prison.
So what do you think? With pregnant women around the world not receiving health care of any sort, should additional efforts be made to benefit women who are in prison? Is there a difference between mothers serving terms in correctional facilities and those outside? Should they be treated differently?
Image used to illustrate post is “17 de noviembre” by daquella manera.