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Police raid on rehab centre in Trinidad reveals inhumane conditions · Global Voices
Flora Thomas

Screenshot of the Transformed Life Ministry Rehabilitation Centre in Arouca, Trinidad, taken from a YouTube video testimonial. The facility was raided by police on the morning of October 9, 2019.
In the wee hours of the morning of October 9, 2019, in the town of Arouca, situated along Trinidad's east-west corridor, police entered the compound of Transformed Life Ministry — a rehabilitation centre for ex-prisoners and other socially displaced people — and rescued scores of nationals who had been locked in cages and allegedly tortured over several years.
The organisation states that it provides “safe transitional housing, developmental and rehabilitation programmes” for its charges, “to promote healthy reintegration into society”, and promotes a philosophy of “empowerment and responsibility”.
Yet, the two-month investigation that led to the raid, reportedly in cooperation with Trinidad and Tobago Police Service, revealed a litany of questionable conditions, including the use of “seclusion rooms” to constrain violent residents.
At the facility, police detained six people — including the rehab centre founder, ex-prisoner-turned-pastor Glen Awong — and took them to the station for further inquiry. Rescued residents were shuttled to health facilities for medical treatment. Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith confirmed tasers and batons on the premises.
Guardian Media, which owns the TV station and daily newspaper that broke the story, reports that Commissioner Griffith called the situation “one of the biggest pertaining to human trafficking” in the country. He also described the situation as “virtual modern-day slavery”.
Residents stay at the facility for long periods of time, often with support from relatives who pay monthly fees for these services, which average around 5,000 Trinidad and Tobago dollars per month (741 United States dollars). Many of the centre's clientele, ranging in age from 19-70, suffer from mental illness and addiction.
Some reports suggest that family visits were restricted and staff closely monitored visits in common rooms. One employee said that staff was “continuously warned and threatened not to talk about the operations.”
Nevertheless, at least one rehab centre supporter claims that the whole thing is being blown out of proportion and that any restrictive measures were to “prevent [inmates] from running away”. The person also confirmed that the families “sign contracts and agree” and that they view the facility before making the decision to board a loved one there.
Some netizens even questioned the commissioner's use of the term “human trafficking” and “modern-day slavery” to describe the situation, saying this is not entirely accurate.
Pastor Awong has called on Commissioner Griffith to apologise. Yet, various comment threads on Transformed Life Ministry's Facebook page reveal scepticism about its modus operandi.
For mental health organisations to receive state assistance, they must meet specific criteria, including being officially registered with the state and operating for at least one year while meeting at least 40 percent of costs.
Between 2010 and 2015, when the previous People's Partnership administration was in office, Transformed Life Ministry met the criteria for state assistance and received approximately $7.4 million TT (approximately $1.1 million US). It received its last payment on August 6, 2015, prior to the new People's National Movement government taking office that September.
In an interview on i95 Radio's morning show, Minister of Social Development and Family Services, Cherrie-Ann Crichlow-Cockburn, said that the new government cited concerns about the facility and withdrew financial support. But Crichlow-Cockburn also said that because it was a private facility, her ministry did not have any further authority in the matter.
However, the Minister of Health Terrence Deyalsingh said that Transformed Life Ministry was making the necessary improvements to qualify as an approved mental health care facility when the police raid took place.
On July 1, the Mental Health Division of of the country's Ministry of Health, along with the Northwest Regional Health Authority (NWRHA), made a site visit and found that “seclusion rooms” were used to house violent clients and that during the visit, the team observed all but one resident in “common gathering areas” with no restraints.
Pastor Awong insists he is no monster. He believes the police raid is linked to his court case — he is suing the state for non-payment of $1.4 million TT ($207,511 US) that he claims is owed for work that the centre performed under a Ministry of Social Development programme.
Netizens quickly took to Facebook to express dismay over the state of mental health care and what the raid revealed about state-supported care.
Activist Nazma Muller critiqued how easy it was for the facility to receive state support despite the staff's lack of psychiatric training:
So, it is that easy to open a mental health care facility in this country? Sounds like something Terry [Terrence Deyalsingh] just made up. He admits he knew about the cages and apparently was just giving Pastor Awong some time to bring things up to mark…once Awong had followed the recommendations, Transformed Life would be transformed into an approved mental health facility…with nobody having any psychiatric training they were left in charge of these 69 people.
And Deyalsingh still has a job…
Tisha Marajh commented:
Um..the cages didn’t call for a complete cessation?!! Are we THAT backward?
Secretary of the Association of Psychiatrists of Trinidad and Tobago (APTT), Varma Deyalsingh, said on a local morning television programme that he knows of reports of abuse and suicide coming out of the rehab centre, which turned the focus to authorities’ failure to monitor these facilities and the state's scant attention paid to mental health issues.
Some suggested that Transformed Life Facility was better than St. Ann's, the state psychiatric hospital, but Facebook user Sievan Siewsarran weighed in:
Humans caged or placed in cells is inhumane. Humans that are mentally ill and have to be caged for their “own good” is sickening!
Trinidadians rallying behind a pastor/ church/ rehabilitation centre saying ‘look at St Ann's’, have completely and utterly lost the point and fallen into the political and social scheme that is this scam.
One FB user shared first-hand descriptions of the dark, “jail-like” conditions: a heavily bolted reception area; burly security guards; lunch served in ice-cream containers; “horrifying” cages and the mercenary nature of “the pastor”:
…There is another story [here] about [our] broken our mental health system, about the choices we are faced with between a public mental health system that is far from adequate and private homes that are not regulated run by mercenaries.
…The mental health system is not broken because it was never whole. It is deeply flawed. However, when this news cycle goes past the next 24 hours of incredulity and maxi taxi talk, I hope to God we can begin to talk about mental health and how we provide for the most vulnerable in a very serious way.

author: Flora Thomas


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Young Jamaican senator makes ‘inappropriate’ comments in parliament about breast cancer · Global Voices
Emma Lewis

Breast cancer public art. Photo by Steve Snodgrass, CC BY 2.0.
Like many countries around the world, Jamaica recognises October as Breast Cancer Awareness Month. What better way to raise awareness than to have a breast cancer survivor — who also happens to be a senator — stand up in parliament and share her experience?
After Saphire Longmore made her statement in the Upper House on October 4, 2019, an opposition senator, André Haughton, took the floor. After extending sympathies to Senator Longmore, and speaking of an aunt who had died of the disease, Haughton continued:
As a child growing up I always loved breasts. My mother always said I am a breast man. Even though I was one years [sic] and two months, I was still drinking breast milk, yes…so I am a breast man. When asked which part of the female you prefer – breasts […] I prefer the breast.
Senator Haughton went on to tout the use of cannabis oil as a cure for cancer, urging the government to conduct more research, but journalist Damion Mitchell immediately picked up the “I'm a breast man” comments, tweeting:
@DrAndreHaughton rises in Senate to pay tribute to breast cancer survivors. Said he was aware of the issue as an aunt died of the disease. Then he said: “I'm a breast man, if you ask mi which part of di female I prefer, I'm a breast man.” Not good for Dutty Fridaz nor the Senate.
— Damion Mitchell (@DamionMitch) October 4, 2019
With a growing number of breast cancer diagnoses among women 25 to 59, the reactions to Haughton's comments were full of shock and surprise.
One young Jamaican woman protested:
Mi shame so till….? There is no excusing this level of crassness. No no no…this is not okay! https://t.co/u2IQwOs47F
— Ayesha Constable (@EshaSensei) October 5, 2019
Civil society activist Carol Narcisse added:
@DrAndreHaughton How is declaring what part of a woman's body (as if discussing chicken, beef or some other piece of meat), either appropriate or relevant in a Parliamentary (or any other public/formal discourse)?
— Carol Narcisse (@CarolNarcisse) October 5, 2019
Those whose lives have been impacted by breast cancer also felt the comment was uncalled for:
There are days that this App makes me cheer and there are other days I want to delete it. Today, In breast cancer month, after losing at least three close friends and an aunt to the beast called breast cancer I am struggling. If you can’t be decent at least be quiet.
— Arlene Graham (@Shaedye) October 5, 2019
Others, women included, defended the senator’s remarks as harmless:
Senator André Haughton spoke about the breast. Not everyone has been fortunate in this life to have been nurtured by the breast. How was his statement sexual? […]
I am a woman and, frankly, see nothing for which to apologise. They have made a mountain out of a molehill. Haughton’s statement could help many men and women to undergo mammograms and check their breasts daily.
It’s the Jamaican man’s behaviour to say they love breasts. And if I am not mistaken, there is a jingle that says, ‘Breast is best.’
Twitter user Dimitri Lyon felt that a defence of Haughton spoke to a concerning trend:
The fact that there are people defending @DrAndreHaughton, and his refusal to retract the statement; demonstrates society’s endorsement of the objectification of women.
— Dimitri Lyon (@DimitriLyon) October 5, 2019
The issue remained a hot topic as Senator Haughton vehemently defended himself in interviews, accusing first the tweeting journalist and then the media in general of misinterpretation.
Haughton posted his entire speech on his Facebook page, where he received supportive and respectful comments. Many simply dismissed criticism of Haughton as an obsession with trivialities and character assassination.
In one particular interview on “Smile Jamaica… It's Morning Time,” a popular morning television show, the senator said that Jamaican media “is not interested in sensible things”. The show's host retorted, “The media is talking about it because you said it.”
Despite overwhelming public sentiment that the comment was disrespectful, Senator Haughton continued to hold his ground, tweeting:
The mammary gland (breast) is the defining feature of all mammals, it is the critical feature that sustain and maintain life among us humans, children who don’t suckle on breast are at a disadvantage… so everyone in this breast cancer month should embrace and love breast… https://t.co/bQq5BcQAdq
— Dr Andre Haughton (@DrAndreHaughton) October 4, 2019
This prompted another wave of annoyance and calls for an apology. Journalist Damion Mitchell did not back down:
The abject self-imposed mockery of @DrAndreHaughton’s disgust over media coverage of his Senate blunder: He complains about negative press yet tells @clarkecooper on #SmileJamaica “If you don't say anything outrageous in the Senate it don’t come on the news.” Sir, #ShadowYuhBrake pic.twitter.com/DV4i3WOoJW
— Damion Mitchell (@DamionMitch) October 7, 2019
Four days later, the embattled senator finally tweeted an apology:
In my enthusiasm to contribute to the debate on the tragedy of breast cancer, a section of my comment elicited some negative responses.
I wish to emphasize my respect for women and the serious issue of breast cancer and apologize for any concern my comment may have stirred. ?
— Dr Andre Haughton (@DrAndreHaughton) October 8, 2019
The reaction was mixed. Some grudgingly accepted the apology, while others were prepared to move on. One Twitter user suggested the whole debacle was just another example of fake online outrage:
See he apologized guys we can find something new to be mad about now https://t.co/NHPal2bop5
— ?? (@yaaadmanting) October 8, 2019
Facebook user Suzanne Haik-Hynes was not so forgiving, convinced the senator still did not understand the reality of breast cancer:
…At what point did our people become so crass, insensitive and disrespectful to tastelessly take the discussion on breast cancer awareness to such a low level as to try to be comic about the issue, and resort to trying to make it one of sexual context?
Does the senator realize the vastness of the effects of breast cancer on significant numbers of women […] or what any woman and family goes through from diagnosis, to treatment, to remission, expensive and painful conditions along the way, or final breath? Does he have any concept of the immensity of the social and economic impacts? …
Netizen Romayne Edwards worried that Senator Haughton's comments overshadowed the main message of breast cancer awareness and the importance of breast exams:
I hope with all this outrage about part of the tribute by @DrAndreHaughton we are not missing the BIG PICTURE which is we all need to examine our breasts at least once monthly and get our Mammograms,Ultrasounds n MRIs as appropriate! As Dr Simpson said we may not know prevalence
— Romayne Edwards (@glamarous00) October 7, 2019

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Emma Lewis


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This Tanzanian youth advocate has a vision for inclusive education · Global Voices
Goodhope Amani

Saul Mwame, from Tanzania, speaks at the United Nations during a session focused on education, Goal 4 of the  Sustainable Development Goals. Photo used with permission by Saul Mwame.
Saul Mwame, a 20-year-old high school student at DCT Mvumi Secondary in Dodoma, Tanzania’s capital city, stands at the forefront of a fight for inclusive education for diverse learners — including learners with disabilities.
Mwame co-founded the Connections-Based Learning (CBL) club in January 2019, to advocate especially for visually-impaired learners, because he saw his visually-impaired classmates struggling without adequate support. Mwame also started the club to help sensitize all students to those with special needs.
Mwame found inspiration for the club after reading a book about CBL, “an approach to teaching and learning that leverages the connected world,” and meeting CBL book author in Uganda.
In an interview with Global Voices, Mwame explained how he got started:
“I started CBL … after observing that fellow students with special needs lack cooperation. So, this was the way to sensitize cooperation so that visually-impaired students can have access to academic materials …to help them achieve their goals.”
DCT Mvumi Secondary is one of the only schools in Tanzania with its own visually-impaired unit to support students with visual impairment or full blindness. The 10 or so visually-impaired students at Mwame's school have access to Braille machines (a system of raised dots used by visually-impaired people to decode text) and can take notes in Braille through dictation with the help of classmates.
But most visually-impaired students in Tanzania do not have access to school textbooks and learning materials that use Braille even though there’s a Braille printing press in Dar es Salaam, the capital.
Saul Mwame (centre) with member of CBL club. Photo used with permission of Saul Mwame.
In a short period of time, the club has amassed 38 members who meet on the weekends to receive life skills training and entrepreneurial education workshops. Volunteers from the club also conduct events at local schools to teach life skills to students with visual impairments and other special needs, pending available funds.
Mwame has been doing disability advocacy work since 2016 when he established Building Africa's Future Foundation:
Throw back 2017 — It's works, keeping hope alive,working with the visually impaired to realize their potential,Disability is Not Inability. Proud to see Erick Mlasani a visually impaired being the best student in the country now joining University of Dar es Salaam to be a Lawyer. pic.twitter.com/qeIhVVdI3u
— Saul Paul Mwame (@SaulMwame) June 22, 2019
A recent study conducted by HakiElimu, a Tanzanian nonprofit education organization, found that even in schools deemed “inclusive,” the learning environment was still not very friendly for students with visual impairment. Very few schools exist in Tanzania specifically for people with disabilities of any kind.
Tanzania has joined a global movement to create inclusive, quality education for diverse learners, including students with disabilities. In 2004, it introduced a national disability policy that emphasized the need for a conducive learning environment for people with special needs, and the Ministry of Education adopted it in 2009.
Saul Mwame (with blue t-shirt) stands with a group of students with special needs. Photo used with permission by Saul Mwame.
Yet, schools still face several challenges in terms of inclusive, quality education. The government has worked to improve teacher training and build schools specifically for students with disabilities.
But the HakiElimu report revealed that many students still face unqualified, incompetent teachers and inadequate teaching materials for visually-impaired learners.
Mwame was born in Kibaigwa, Tanzania, and comes from a poor family. He said he faced a lack of cooperation from his community in his vision for better learning environments for visually-impaired students.
But advocacy is his calling.
The responsibilities and destiny of our nation is upon the youth. How do we as youth prepare for it?
As a Global Youth Ambassador for Tanzania through TheirWorld, an education nongovernmental organization, Mwame committed to campaign for two years specifically on Sustainable Development Goal 4: inclusive and equitable quality education for all.
In 2017, Mwame represented Tanzania at the United Nations General Assembly High-Level Sustainable Development Goals even focused education.
To honor his hard work, Mwamwe won the 2019 Princess Diana Award, given to young people who make a positive impact in their communities. This award has motivated Mwame to work harder.
Sometimes people do not understand and appreciate what you are doing, especially when you get such an award, they still don’t care! But, for sure, this has made me understand that there are people who see what I’m doing and I want to put more effort to connect with different people [in order] to bring developments [to] my community.
Mwame believes in the power of connections to help him achieve his vision. These connections have given Mwame the courage to continue as a leader and advocate for diverse learners in Tanzania.

author: Goodhope Amani


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Youth join Climate Strike in Japan as government invests in fossil fuels · Global Voices
Ilgin Yorulmaz

Thermal coal terminal at the Hokuriku Denryoku electric generation plant, Tsuruga, Fukui. Photo by Nevin Thompson, CC BY 3.0
Arao Hinako noticed something odd when she went for a swim in the Setouchi Inland Sea with a cousin’s young son.
“Normally, if you stay even just a bit longer in that sea, you start turning blue (from cold). But this summer, the weather was so hot and humid, and the water was unusually warm,” the environmental activist and filmmaker recounted.
Arao is an experienced field organizer in Japan for 350.org, an international organization working with student activists from Fridays for Future Tokyo (FFF) — a Japanese offshoot of Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg’s movement of the same name — to keep the global rise in temperature below 2 degrees Celsius.
Arao and others have noticed Japan has had its share of the consequences of climate change for some time.
Not only has the ocean in places like the Inland Sea been gradually warming up, but unprecedented torrential rain and subsequent landslides during the typhoon season each August now regularly prompt local governments to ask for help from the Japanese Self-Defense Force, including assisting with evacuating 870,000 residents following heavy rains in southwest Japan in August 2019. Typhoon Hagibis, a powerful super typhoon, is poised to hit Japan on October 12.
Japanese people are starting to take action. On September 20, 2019, as nearly as 5 million activists in 115 countries around the world joined the Global Climate Strike, some 2,500 young Japanese protesters marched from the U.N. University in Tokyo’s trendy Omotesando avenue to the famous Shibuya crossing, shouting slogans amid hundreds of visibly surprised pedestrians standing by.
i-Dで取材してきました。800人近く参加してたらしい。学校帰りの高校生が結構いてたよ。 #FridaysForFuture #GlobalClimateStrikes #グローバル気候マーチ pic.twitter.com/Pglg9IF9zm
— 平岩壮悟 (@sogohiraiwa) September 20, 2019
I went to the march to report for i-D magazine. Close to 800 people showed up. A lot were high schoolers on their way home from school. #FridaysForFuture #GlobalClimateStrikes
Iwano Saori, 16, a senior at a public high school in Tokyo and a member of the Fridays For Future Tokyo creative team, explained hers and her classmates’ decision to start the Tokyo leg of the global march for climate at 5 p.m., at the end of the school day, even as students in other parts of the world organized school strikes: “I cannot betray the public who’s paying for my education,” Iwano said.
“We don’t even have a proper word in Japanese for ‘climate change’,”  said Kajiwara Takuro, a college senior who co-organized the march. “Instead, the rather vague term ‘extraordinary weather events’ (異常気象) is used,” Kajiwara said.
As the host of the 1997 signing of Kyoto Protocol — the first global treaty setting internationally binding targets on carbon emission reductions — and of this year’s G20 — where it introduced a deal to reduce marine plastic waste — Japan was twice in a prime position to lead climate action.
However, despite evidence of climate change’s impact on Japan, the central government has been sluggish to respond to the climate emergency that Kajiwara, Arao, and others are desperately trying to draw attention to.
Instead, Japan is promoting more GHG-producing coal- and gas-fired electric plants all over the world, exporting the technology to build them to countries such as Vietnam and India. In early October, only days after the climate strikes, Japanese plant engineering specialist JCG Holdings won a 3.73 billion USD contract to build a liquefied natural gas plant in Mozambique as part of a consortium of major oil and gas players that include Exxon Mobil.
In 2018, Japan rolled out a new energy plan that sets targets of generating 22-24 percent of electricity from renewable sources by 2030. This plan is an amendment of a 2002 strategy, whose goals, according to the Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Environment, have only been partly accomplished. As a result, Japan wasn’t even invited to speak at the latest U.N. Global Climate Summit in New York on September 23, 2019.
Young Japanese activists understand very well the challenge world governments face when trying to promote economic growth while avoiding environmental sacrifice.
Sasaki Isao, a 16-year-old high school senior and a fierce environmental activist, dyed his hair green in support of the first environmental strike in March 2019. Sasaki told Global Voices about his high school’s trip to a plantation in Borneo, Malaysia not long ago, where he saw first-hand the workers clearing forest land to cultivate crops — clearances much like the ones that contributed to the recent massive fires in the Amazon forest.
“The striking thing was that I could [understand] the perspective of those workers, too. Plantation sustains their livelihood,” Sasaki said.
There are signs that environmental responsibility may be gaining popularity among big Japanese financial institutions, which are at the center of fierce criticism from climate activists.
In early October 2019, Mitsubishi UFG became the first Japanese bank to issue so-called “green bonds”, which were used to fund low-carbon buildings and renewable energy in Australia. But Sasaki is worried that these attempts are becoming popular among investors “only because all the others are doing it as a trendy thing.”
One man who can apparently change the government’s abysmal track record on the environment is Koizumi Shinjiro, Japan's charismatic new Environment Minister and son of a popular former prime minister.
Koizumi has said fighting climate change needs to be “sexy, fun and cool.”  Whether or not he can light the fire of environmental passion among Japan’s 126 million consumers remains to be seen.

author: Ilgin Yorulmaz


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A Crimean Tatar journalist’s defiant last words in court · Global Voices
RuNet Echo

Crimean Tatar civic journalist Nariman Memedeminov at court. Photo courtesy of Crimean Solidarity, used with permission.
This piece was co-written and translated by Maxim Edwards, editor of RuNet Echo, and Tom Rowley, lead editor of openDemocracy Russia (oDR), in a joint publication by GlobalVoices and openDemocracy.
Since Crimea was annexed by Russia five years ago, the peninsula has been gripped by a constant counter-terror operation against Crimean Tatars. And on 3 October, journalist Nariman Memedeminov received a 2.5-year prison sentence for “public justification of terrorism.”
Memedeminov, 36, was arrested in March 2018, and since then has been held in investigative detention. The Memorial Human Rights Center believes that the case against Memedeminov is connected with his rights advocacy and his journalism, as well as criticism of Russian law enforcement. The evidence consists of videos that Memedeminov posted online in 2013 and 2014, in which he makes reference to the fundamentalist Islamist movement Hizb ut-Tahrir.
While the organisation is legal in Ukraine, Hizb ut-Tahrir is banned as a terrorist group in Russia under a 2003 Supreme Court ruling. This ruling has been used to target Crimean Tatars on terrorism charges since 2014.
In March 2019, for example, Russian security services detained 20 Crimean Tatar men who were involved in the Crimean Solidarity group on terrorism charges for their alleged adherence to Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Read more: Meet the civic activists documenting abuses in Crimea
In June this year, five men from Simferopol, Crimea (Rustem Ismailov, Teimur and Uzeir Abdullayev, Aider Saleidinov, and Emil Dzhemadenov) were sentenced to lengthy prison sentences for alleged participation in a “Hizb ut-Tahrir terrorist group.”
Here we publish an abridged version of Nariman Memedeminov’s final address to the court.
Я, Мемедеминов Нариман Ибраимович, 7 мая 1983 года рождения, уроженец Узбекистана, раскаиваюсь в содеянных мной преступлениях и признаю свою вину», – вот это хотят слышать все те, кто причастен к преследованиям и репрессиям относительно крымских татар, мусульман Крыма.
Для чего?
Все очень просто: чтобы говорить: «Мы арестовываем террористов, экстремистов» – как, помните, заявила Поклонская после арестов: «Это не татары, это террористы»? Чтобы оправдаться перед представителями других стран, международными организациями, даже перед своими гражданами. […]
Но ведь это, действительно, нонсенс: жили себе люди, жили десятки лет, после возвращения из мест депортации, а теперь вдруг, в одночасье стали террористами, экстремистами. Стали теми, кто угрожает безопасности государства… Причем, они таковыми стали как раз после того, как вооруженные люди эту безопасность нарушили…
Ах да, о чем это я? Ведь это другое, не наше: «Там можно, а тут, у нас – уж извините, но нельзя. Вы с чем-то не согласны? Вы выделяетесь из общей массы? Так! Значит, мы арестовываем, судим, а вы приходите и начинаете своим мобильным телефоном, да своими репортажами, статьями показывать происходящее… Ой, то есть, своими репортажами и статьями начинаете угрожать безопасности нашего государства… Вот вам 205-я статья – терроризм, а в вашем случае 205.2 – публичное оправдание терроризма!».
Вот поэтому я сейчас не пью кофе с любимой супругой, после того, как мы проводили наших детей в школу, а нахожусь в Ростове-на- Дону, в Южном окружном военном суде, и говорю свое очередное слово, которое, дай Бог, не является последним!
Но беда-то в том, что мои слова должны быть адресованы суду, который не по своей воле является не слышащим. Да-да, именно не слышащим. Та статуя, называемая Фемидой – она с завязанными глазами, и это символизирует объективность, справедливость. В нашем же случае Фемида – с берушами в ушах. Странно, правда? Человечество использует беруши от посторонних шумов, а для российской Фемиды посторонние шумы – это слова правды, истины. Однако, если наша правда не совпадает с шаблонами, то это все – посторонние шумы.
Шаблонное право, или шаблонное судопроизводство – так можно назвать производство в судах и право в России. Почему? Как ни странно, все так же просто. Вот решение Верховного суда России от 14 февраля 2003 года – признать Хизб-ут-Тахрир террористической (организацией – КР). 2019 год: судят Мемедеминова (как осудили Зейтуллаева, Мамутова и других крымских политзаключенных) за публичное оправдание терроризма, так как в видеозаписях, которые ему вменяют, есть слова о Хизб-ут-Тахрир или связанные с Хизб-ут-Тахрир.
Стоп! Но ведь публичное оправдание терроризма – это… Фу, какое отвратительное разъяснение… Вот у нас решение Верховного суда 2003 года: ты говорил о Хизб-ут-Тахрир, или связанное с Хизб-ут-Тахрир – все, значит, публично оправдал терроризм.
Абсурдно? Согласен! Вот только я за решеткой полтора года из-за этого абсурда!
Вот еще пример «шаблонного права»: «Признать Меджлис крымскотатарского народа экстремистской организаций». Так, ты – член меджлиса или сочувствуешь меджлису – на тебе 282-ю статью – экстремизм.
– Как это? Но история народного движения крымских татар насчитывает десятилетия и десятки тысяч человек из народа…
– Так, а ну-ка молчать! Что там насчитывает, нас не интересует, ясно? Вот решение: «Меджлис – экстремисты», значит, и ты экстремист!
Конечно стоит отметить, что опыт, катастрофический и горький опыт шаблонов и ярлыков, уже был в истории моего народа. Там тоже в одночасье наложили ярлык «предатель» и депортировали стариков, женщин и детей (больше некого было). Мой отец пятилетним ребенком ехал в вагонах для скота в Среднюю Азию.
Хочу спросить: что, история повторяется? Что, очередная ложь и новые ярлыки?
Уже нет давно тех, кто посмел посягнуть на мой народ, уже давно все эти «палачи» канули в лету, и история о них только осталась: позорная, низкая, никчемная, осуждаемая. А мой народ вел мирную ненасильственную борьбу и работу повсеместно. И что? И добился своих целей, по милости и дозволению Всевышнего.
В 2019 году мы имеем то, что крымские татары – это «террористы и экстремисты», поэтому слова чиновника из Крыма: «Это не татары, это террористы», меня нисколько не удивили.
Также и не удивило меня поведение силовиков, которые взялись арестовывать всех, кто вышел на одиночные пикеты в поддержку соотечественников с плакатами «Наши дети не террористы и не экстремисты».
Также меня не удивили слова прокурора: «Может, подсудимый сочувствовал арестованным?».
Я скажу почему, меня это все не удивляет (кстати, говорить я должен суду, и говорить буду суду, но если российская Фемида – в берушах, то услышат остальные присутствующие). Хотя я убежден, что и суд слышит и понимает, но…
Так вот, не удивляет меня это все, потому что никак не укладывается в эти просветленные головы структур, государственного обвинения и им подобных: «Ну что вы не сидите дома, что вам приходить на суды и стоять под зданиями? Что вам стоять с этими плакатами, зачем эти пикеты вообще? Что вам деньги носить этим семьям? Зачем собирать монетки на штрафы?».
Ну, не понимают они, природа у нас такая, культура. Когда кому-то из нас плохо, всем не комфортно, поэтому и солидарны друг с другом… Вот где единство!
Сказанное выше – понятно, объективно, обоснованно и отмечено в резолюциях ООН, ПАСЕ, ОБСЕ.
Но, что этот Мемедеминов кричит все время о журналистике? Извините, но тут тоже предельно просто!
Вот он – Крым: зеленые леса, красивые заповедники, море и… террористы, экстремисты, появившиеся вдруг. Их арестовывают, обыскивают, допрашивают, следят. Но никто об этом не знает.
Продолжайте работу в этом отношении, в опровержении обвинений, которые становятся решениями, наподобие решений Верховного суда России от 2003 года, или несправедливыми приговорами, наподобие приговоров крымским политзаключенным.
Продолжайте работу в этом отношении, и даст Всевышний, у вас получится избавить население от шаблонного обвинения.
Журналисты, коллеги – не оставляйте этот процесс, «дело гражданского журналиста Наримана Мемедеминова», так как это – удар по всей журналистике как таковой. Это пример искоренения независимых представителей СМИ, даже в их зачатках и становлении!
Что касается обвинения и суда, то хочу напомнить вам две очень простые мысли: когда завтра прохожие будут, показывая на вас, говорить: «Смотри, палач идет!» – не удивляйтесь. И этому учит меня моя религия: «Между мольбой притесненного и Господом Богом нет никакой преграды!».
А что касается меня – хвала Всевышнему Аллаху за то, что ни на мгновение я не стыдился за своего отца, деда, и весь народ, в то время, когда их несправедливо обвиняли, потому что знал, что это ложь!
Ни у кого нет никакого права сегодня говорить на мой народ: «террористы, экстремисты», потому что это также ложь. И наши дети, дети всех крымских политзаключенных, будут знать, что их отцы не предатели своей культуры, своей основы, своей религии!
Поэтому: «Я – политзаключенный Мемедеминов Нариман Ибраимович, 7 мая 1983 года рождения, гражданин Украины, сын крымскотатарского народа, испокон веков исповедующего Ислам. Журналист, отец троих прекрасных детей, любящий муж, любимый супруг и сын. И, с дозволения Всевышнего, это мое не последнее, а очередное слово!».
I, Nariman Ibraimovich Memedeminov, born on 7 May 1983, a native of Uzbekistan, repent for the crimes I have committed and admit my guilt.
This is what those who are responsible for persecuting and repressing Crimean Tatars, Crimea’s Muslims, want to hear from me.
Why? The answer is very simple. They want to be able to say: “We are arresting terrorists and extremists.”
Remember, after a round of arrests [in 2016], [Prosecutor General of Crimea] Natalya Poklonskaya said: “These people aren’t Tatars, they’re terrorists.” They want to be able to justify themselves to representatives of other countries, international organisations, and even to their own citizens.
But this is really a lot of nonsense.
Our people lived, they minded their own business for decades after returning from deportation. And now, suddenly, they became terrorists and extremists, they became people who threaten the security of the state.
They became this immediately after armed men destroyed this security [when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014].
Oh, what’s this I’m talking about? This is another topic, not one for discussion. “Over there [in Ukraine], it’s allowed. But here, well excuse me, it’s forbidden. Do you disagree with something? Do you stick out from the crowd? Well! That means we’re arresting you, prosecuting you, and then you turn up and start to show what is happening in your reports and smartphone videos. Which means that your articles and reports start to threaten the security of our state. Here you go: here’s Article 205 [of the Russian Criminal Code] on terrorism, or, in your case, Article 205.2: Public justification of terrorism!”
This why I’m not drinking coffee with my beloved wife after taking our kids to school, but am in Rostov-on-Don, in the Southern Regional Military Court, and hope that my next words, inshallah, will not be my last!
But the problem is that I should address my words to the court, which cannot listen to them – not of its own accord. Yes, the court cannot hear. The statue they call Lady Justice is blindfolded, symbolising objectivity and justice. In our case, Lady Justice wears ear plugs. Isn’t that strange? People use ear plugs to avoid background noises. Russia’s Lady Justice uses them to avoid hearing the truth. However, if our truth does not fit into their formulas, then it becomes background noise.
Formulaic law or formulaic legal proceedings — this is how the activities of Russia’s courts can be described. But again, why?
Surprisingly, the explanation really is very simple. Here is the ruling by Russia’s Supreme Court from 14 February 2003, when it recognised Hizb ut-Tahrir as a terrorist organisation. In 2019, they prosecute Memedeminov, just as they had prosecuted [Ruslan] Zeytullayev, [Enver] Mamutov [Crimean Tatars prosecuted in a Hizb ut-Tahrir case, sentenced by a Russian court — ed.] and other Crimean political prisoners for public justifications of terrorism, as well as video recordings in which Memedeminov uses the words “Hizb ut-Tahrir” or words connected to Hizb ut-Tahrir.
But wait!
Public justification of terrorism… what an appalling explanation… Here we have the 2003 ruling of the Russia Supreme Court, you’ve been talking about Hizb ut-Tahrir and use [words] connected to Hizb ut-Tahrir. That’s it! You publicly justified terrorism! Absurd, isn’t it? I agree with you! I’ve been behind bars for one and a half years because of this absurdity!
Here’s another example of “formulaic justice”: the “recognition of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People as an extremist organisation” [in 2016, a Crimean court banned the Mejlis, Crimean Tatars’ ruling body, as extremist]. There you have it! Are you a member of the Mejlis or do you sympathise with the Mejlis? You’ll face Article 282, on extremism. How is this the case? The Crimean Tatar national movement has a decades long history and has involved tens of thousands of people from the community… Oh, keep quiet. Those who are counting us are not at all interested, got it? Here’s the ruling: “the Mejlis are extremists,” so you’re an extremist, too!
Of course, it’s worth pointing out my people have already had a bitter and catastrophic experience of being labelled, branded. Back then, they called our old people, women and children (there was no one else left) “traitors” and immediately deported them [Soviet security forces deported Crimean Tatars from Crimea in 1944].
But wait! The people who dared to attack my people are long gone, those “executioners” have long fallen into the River Lethe, and only history remains: a shameful, low, pointless and condemned history. Meanwhile, my people continued their peaceful and non-violent struggle and work everywhere. And what? And they achieved their aims, with the grace and permission of the Almighty!
In 2019 we face a situation in which Crimean Tatars are “terrorists and extremists”, and therefore when a Kremlin official repeated them (“They aren’t Tatars, they’re terrorists”), I was not at all surprised. I also wasn’t surprised by the behaviour of the siloviki [law enforcement, security services, military], who came to arrest people who held single pickets in support of their countrymen: “Our children are not terrorists or extremists”. I also wasn’t surprised by the prosecutor’s speech: “Perhaps, the defendant sympathised with the detainees?”
I’ll tell you why none of this surprises me. Although I should tell the court, and I will, but if Russia’s Lady Justice, Themis, is wearing earplugs, then at least everyone else present will hear me. I’m sure that the court will hear and understand me, but…
I’m not surprised because it won’t fit into the enlightened heads of our public officials, the state prosecutor and everyone else like them. “Why don’t you stay at home, why do you attend trials and stand outside the courthouse? Why do you protest with these placards, why do you even need these pickets? Why do you give money to those families? Why do you collect money to pay off fines?” They don’t understand that this is our character, our culture. When one of us is in bad shape, everyone is uncomfortable, and this is why we feel solidarity towards one another. This is our unity.
What I’ve said is clear, objective, grounded and reflected in resolutions passed by the UN, PACE and OSCE. But why, you ask, is that Memedeminov constantly shouting about journalism? Excuse me, but it’s clear why.
This is Crimea: green forests, beautiful nature reserves, the sea and… Extremists and terrorists who came out of nowhere. They are arrested, their homes are searched, they are interrogated and surveilled. Yet no one knows about this.
My journalist colleagues, don’t let this trial be the “Case of Civic Journalist Nariman Memedeminov”. This trial is an assault on journalism as a profession, it’s an example of how independent journalists are being wiped out, at the very beginning of their career.
Keep your work on the right track: refuting accusations that will become decisions like that of the Russian Supreme Court in 2003, or become unjust verdicts, like those against Crimean political prisoners.
As to the prosecution and court, I want to remind you of two very simple things: when people point at you tomorrow and say “Look, there goes a murderer!”, don’t be surprised. This is what my religion teaches me: “Between the prayer of the downtrodden and the Almighty there can be no barrier!”
As to me, glory to the Almighty – I have not felt shame for a single moment for my father, grandfather and whole people when they were unjustly accused, because I knew it was a lie!
No one today has the right to call my people “terrorists and extremists”. This is also a lie. And our children, the children of all Crimean political prisoners, will know that their fathers did not betray their culture, their ideals, their religion!
So, I will end my speech like this:
I am Nariman Ibraimovich Memedeminov, a political prisoner born on 7 May 1983. I am a citizen of Ukraine, a son of the Crimean Tatar people, which has since time immemorial professed Islam. I am a journalist, the father of three wonderful children, a loving husband, a beloved husband and son. And by the grace of God Almighty, these will not be my last words.

author: RuNet Echo


text:
Meet the civic activists documenting abuses in Crimea · Global Voices
Maxim Edwards

Since the annexation of Crimea in 2014, the Russian authorities have detained and arrested hundreds of Crimean Tatars and other activists. Illustration by Tom Venner, used with permission.
Since Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014, Moscow's security services and criminal prosecutors have been working flat out. They have increasingly targeted pro-Ukrainian activists, political dissidents, and above all members of the Crimean Tatar minority.
Crimea's majority-Muslim Tatars have had a troubled history with Russia ever since the peninsula was first annexed by Moscow in 1783. Then in 1944, the Soviet authorities accused the Tatars of treason and deported the entire ethnic group to central Asia. They returned home in the 1980s and 1990s to newly-independent Ukraine, but the memory of that deportation lives on. So when Moscow imposed control on their homeland again, Crimean Tatars were suspicious — and that suspicion is mutual.
In 2016, the local prosecutor-general banned the Majlis, the Crimean Tatar communal governing body, on grounds of “extremism” and “sabotage.” Today, the Russian authorities also present many of the arrests and detentions of Crimean Tatars as anti-extremist operations, alleging that they are attempting to crack down on Hizb-ut-Tahrir, an Islamist organisation banned in Russia since 2003 but permitted in Ukraine. While it is not implausible that the organisation has a presence on the peninsula, Russian law enforcement has cast a far wider net. Human rights defenders suggest that this is deliberate, and that the arrests of Crimean Tatar men and their families amount to a systematic attempt to silence vocal Crimean Tatars. One movement in particular, they argue, is in the crosshairs: Crimean Solidarity.
9 апреля 2016 в Севастополе Крымская контактная группа по правам человека впервые организовала встречу всех семей мусульман, арестованных российскими правоохранителями в Крыму. На встречу также были приглашены и адвокаты обвиняемых. Выступивший тогда на встрече адвокат Эмиль Курбединов сообщил, что этот день стал «днём создания площадки совместных действий семей арестованных в Крыму мусульман».
Позже объединение «Крымская солидарность» стало открытым не только для родственников обвиняемых российскими правоохранительными органами в принадлежности к организации «Хизб ут-Тахрир», но и для семей других политзаключенных Крыму, а также похищенных и пропавших мусульман.
On 9 April 2016 in Sevastopol, the Crimean contact group for human rights first organised a meeting of the families of all Muslims who had been arrested by Russian law enforcement in Crimea. The lawyers of the defendants were also invited to the meeting. The lawyer Emil Kurbedinov gave a speech in which he said that the day had become “the foundation date for a platform for joint action by the families of Muslims arrested in Crimea.”
Later, the Crimean Solidarity association was opened not only to relatives of those accused by Russian law enforcement of membership in Hizb-ut-Tahrir, but also to families of other political prisoners in Crimea, as well as kidnapped and missing Muslims.
— “About” section of Crimean Solidarity's Facebook page
Crimean Solidarity arose from the need to coordinate financial and legal assistance to the Crimean Tatar families left without husbands and fathers after the arrests. Their absence left families in need of financial and legal assistance. According to Dilyaver Memetov, a coordinator for the group, Crimean Solidarity also plays a pre-emptive role. The group holds seminars advising people in “risk groups” (meaning activists, lawyers, journalists, or bloggers) how to conduct themselves during a search or interrogation, Memetov told OVD-Info, a Russian website monitoring violations of freedom of assembly and speech.
The movement has become known for its high-profile online flash mobs such as the rolling Crimean Marathon, in which hundreds of Crimean Tatars pledge to donate ten rubles to pay defendants’ hefty fines with the slogan “единство дороже штрафов” or “unity is more precious than money.” Furthermore, in late 2018, hundreds of Crimean Tatars uploaded photographs of themselves standing alone (so as to evade Russia's ban on mass protests) holding banners reading “Crimean Tatars are not terrorists” and “our children are not terrorists.” In July 2019, several dozen Crimean Tatars stood on Moscow's Red Square holding placards with the words “the fight against terrorism in Crimea is a fight against dissent.”
Outside Crimea, Crimean Solidarity is best known for its role as a civic journalism project. Human rights activists and journalists say that without Crimean Solidarity they would be in the dark about many of the arrests and detentions on the peninsula. The group's volunteers are frequently seen documenting and photographing detentions and court cases and even live-streaming court proceedings to Crimean Solidarity's popular Facebook page.
“When searches of Crimean Tatar homes started to intensify in 2016, locals started streaming the arrests and raids on their phones and upload them to social networks. Once that caught on, the authorities became even more repressive, and the movement grew in response,” explained Tamila Tasheva, co-founder of CrimeaSOS, an NGO providing humanitarian assistance to displaced people from Crimea. “Since 2017, they've become increasingly professional in how they cover these trials and arrests. They're practically the only independent source of information left permanently on the peninsula because there is no independent journalism left there,” explained Tasheva in a café in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital.
“I would say that over the past few years that they've been in existence, they've really developed their blogging skills in a very impressive manner. If you want to know what's happening with human rights in Crimea, your first source of information is Crimean Solidarity,” said Tanya Lokshina, associate director for Europe and Central Asia at Human Rights Watch. Lokshina added that after the occupation in 2014, many independent media publications and Crimean Tatar community media were shut down. “Apart from those few Russian journalists who travel to Crimea on a regular basis, who also naturally work with them, Crimean Solidarity is the only permanent source of information who is constantly on the ground there,” Lokshina stated.
Presumably, this is why Moscow has had enough of Crimean Solidarity.
The first months of 2019 saw the arrest of several prominent Crimean Tatar civic journalists and bloggers on terrorism charges. In March, Remzi Bekirov, Osman Arifmemetov, Rustem Sheikhaliyev, and Marlen Mustafayev were all arrested — all of these men had taken photos or livestreams of security services’ raids on Crimean Tatar houses and hearings in courtrooms (Bekirov is also a correspondent for the Russian independent news website Grani.RU.) On 3 April, Crimean Solidarity issued an appeal to Ukraine and the world for assistance, warning of a complete “cleansing” of opposition and independent media in Crimea. “In response to the never-ending arrests, searches, and court cases, citizen journalism had to be created in Crimea. This happened under duress: people understood that without information, there was no other way to defend the peninsula from repression,” read the statement.
“They had started targeting Crimean Solidarity in 2017, when they became too independent and too prominent,” explained Tasheva. “On 27 March 2019, when mass searches of Crimean Tatars’ homes were launched, basically all those detained with a handful of exceptions were activists from Crimean Solidarity. And then in March 2018, Nariman Mehmedeminov, who was an organiser for Crimean Solidarity, was arrested.”
Read more: A Crimean Tatar journalist's defiant last words in court
Lokshina stressed that the Crimean Solidarity's information was invaluable to the work of human rights defenders. She continued that while the Russian authorities have pursued Hizb-ut-Tahrir members elsewhere, in Crimea they do not necessarily target Crimean Tatars who are particularly religious. Instead, she says, they go after “those who happen to be particularly and vocally active in opposing the occupation. There is only one way to view this, and that is that these bogus arrests were aimed at silencing Crimean Solidarity and intimidating the activists into silence,” concluded Lokshina.
Alimdar Belyalov is one of those activists. Since he fled the peninsula two and a half years ago, he has not remained silent. Belyalov, now based in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, says that he has been unable to return to Crimea for six months. He says that the voluntary and decentralised nature of Crimean Solidarity ensures its survival.
Структура нашей организации — идеальна за счёт помощи друг другу. Например, в данный момент 68 политзаключенных. Для каждого политзаключенного в месяц нужно двести долларов на передачу, то есть, это поесть, покушать, одеть. Теперь 180 детей, минимум для каждого ребенка — 100 долларов в месяц. В итоге получаем больше 30000 долларов в месяц. Вот эти деньги собирает народ. Никаких финансовых потоков нет. Народ не оставит своего брата, сестру, друга в обиде. Исходя из этого, структура не распадается и не распадется. Потому что садят одного, выходят десять. Садят десять, выходят сто. Посадят сто, выйдет триста.
The structure of our organisation is ideal for mutual support. For example, at the moment we have 68 political prisoners. Every political prisoner needs around 200 dollars a month, in order to clothe and feed himself. Altogether, there are 180 children; the minimum amount needed for each child is $100 a month. That all comes to over $30,000 a month. That money is collected by the people. There are no flows of funding. The people won't leave their brothers and sisters in penury. From that example you can see that the structure isn't falling apart and won't fall apart. If they imprison one of us, ten will come out [in support.] If they imprison ten of us, 100 will come out. If they imprison 100, then 300 will come out.
As Belyalov puts it, the grassroots and decentralised nature of Crimean Solidarity is precisely what makes it such an effective civic movement. But these are not new tactics to the Crimean Tatars; in the latter decades of Soviet rule, a vibrant and vocal Crimean Tatar dissident movement emerged, demanding that Moscow recognise their mass deportation in 1944 as an injustice and allow them to return to the peninsula. The tactics are not new, and neither, as Crimean Tatar refugees have told this reporter, is the experience of state repression. What's new are the devices allowing the Crimean Tatars to document their experiences.
У кого есть фотоаппарат, у кого-то айфон. У кого чего-то есть, он снимает на этот аппарат и начинает вкладывать и делиться эту информацию. Но дело в том, что таких людей, стримеры, так скажем, они под большой угрозой. Потому что если ты там, допустем, стримнешь или снимаешь, если очень большая вероятность, что ты всядишь в тюрьму. Любое инакомыслие который не нравится этому государству пресекается. Либо тебя прослушивают и снимают, либо ты сидишь в тюрме. Два пути есть. […] Они волунтеры, готовы сидеть за решеткой за справедливости и за свой народ. Тем больше несправедливости, тем больше этих волунтеров. Я не боюсь предположить, что их за сотню.
Some people have a camera, others have an iPhone. Whatever somebody has, he uses it to film and starts sharing that information. But the thing is that these guys, the streamers, are under the greatest threat. Because if, say, you try to stream or photograph there, there is a great probability that you'll end up in prison. Any form of dissent which the state doesn't like is suppressed. Either they'll eavesdrop on you and photograph you, or you'll end up in jail. These guys are volunteers, who are ready to sit behind bars for the sake of justice for their people. And the more injustice there is, the more of these volunteers there will be. I would hazard a guess that there are over 100 of them today.
Whatever happens, Crimean Solidarity will be watching. And so, by extension, may the whole world.

author: Maxim Edwards


text:
Thai judge shoots himself in court after alleging political interference in courtroom decisions · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Soldiers in Yala, Thailand. Photo and caption by Tarik Abdel-Monem. Source: Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
After acquitting five individuals accused of murder in southern Thailand on 4 October 2019, Judge Khanakorn Pianchana read a statement inside the Yala provincial courtroom alleging political and judicial interference. After this, he took a handgun and shot himself in the chest. The incident became a national issue and led many to question the independence and credibility of the courts. Judge Khanakorn sustained injuries and is now recuperating.
Judge Khanakorn issued a 25-page statement explaining his actions. Khanakorn wrote that he was ordered by his superiors to convict the accused despite insufficient evidence to hand out a guilty verdict. This was uploaded on Facebook on the day of the shooting but it quickly disappeared.
In 2018, authorities in southern Thailand arrested five suspects who were charged with murder, secret association, conspiracy, and gun-related crimes. If convicted, the accused could be sentenced to death.
Tension has been brewing in south Thailand for years with many groups asserting their right to self-determination. The region has a large Muslim population in a Buddhist-dominated country. The government has imposed emergency measures which means state forces can arrest individuals without a warrant and detain suspects for a given time.
Judge Khanakorn believed that evidence obtained during interrogation and detention under the emergency rules of the government cannot be considered lawful.
In his statement, he urged legislators to amend the Court of Justice law in order to prohibit a review of rulings before they are read. At present, senior officials in the Judiciary can review the verdict of judges even before the ruling is announced in the trial. Senior judges can compel subordinates to rewrite their initial decision. Judge Khanakorn also asked the government to give ‘financial fairness’ to judges.
Return rulings to judges. Return justice to people.
My statements might hold weight as light as a feather, but a judge’s heart must be as firm as a mountain.
Judge Khanakorn feared that his decision to exonerate the accused would trigger an investigation and ruin his career. But at the same time, he could not convict the suspects for lack of evidence. Seeing no way out, he decided to shoot himself.
The shooting quickly gained national attention. Some supporters of the military accused the judge of staging a drama to stir political controversy. Some believe it is part of a conspiracy to aid the opposition in probing the judiciary.
Court of Justice officials insist that the country’s judicial system remains fair and independent and stated that the Judge Khanakorn shooting incident could be an indication that he’s facing several ‘personal issues.’
Just the same, the government has set-up an inquiry into the allegations raised by the judge to protect the credibility of the judiciary
Atiya Achakulwisut, a columnist for the Bangkok Post newspaper, summed up the reaction of many Thais:
His putting his life on the line to call for attention to what he believes is a malady eroding the justice system is as outrageous as it is sickening, especially when considering what amount of despair could have driven the judge to the point of self-sacrifice.
Bangkok Post’s editorial highlights the complex political landscape of south Thailand:
…that it is an extremely complicated issue which can easily result in innocent people being wrongly punished or scapegoated. When that is the case, such injustice only fuels resentment among the Muslim majority and hinders state attempts to bring peace to the troubled region.
Cross-Cultural Foundation, an NGO based in southern Thailand, has a recommendation:
Immediately transfer all persons involved in Judge Khanakorn’s predicament out of their posts: Such an order will ensure that an ensuing investigation will be fair for all parties, free from internal influence and the designated inquiry team should also include external advisors. The investigative findings should also bring about preventive measures to guarantee a non-recurrence of interference in the judicial independence.
Frederick Rawski, the Asia director of the International Commission of Jurists, reiterates the need for political and judicial reforms in Thailand:
This unfortunate incident again shows the need for sustained reforms of law enforcement and particularly of the independence of the judiciary in Thailand.
This case again shows how misuse of emergency decrees in southern Thailand has aggravated the political pressure exerted on judges.
The number one cause for suicide is untreated depression. Depression is treatable and suicide is preventable. You can get help from confidential support lines for the suicidal and those in emotional crisis. Visit Befrienders.org to find a suicide prevention helpline in your country.

author: Mong Palatino


text:
Was the Nobel Peace Prize for Ethiopia’s prime minister premature? · Global Voices
Nwachukwu Egbunike

PM Abiy Ahmed at an inauguration event in Addis Ababa, November 19, 2018. Flickr photo by Aron Simeneh (CC0).
On October 12, barely 24 hours after Ethiopian Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed Ali was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2019, the organizers of a protest were arrested and prevented from addressing a press conference in Addis Ababa.
I have learned that my former prison inmate, Nathanael Yalemzewed, is rearrested today for organizing a peaceful demonstration called by @eskinder_nega‘s movement, Balderas council. It didn't take 24Hrs since the @NobelPrize selected @AbiyAhmedAli for #NobelPeacePrize 2019. pic.twitter.com/tKypCt93sk
— Abel Wabella (@Abelpoly) October 12, 2019
The demonstration, scheduled for October 13 in Meskel Square in the Ethiopian capital, was organized by the Baladera Council movement to protest the “ownership claim by Oromo politicians over Addis Ababa,” and the “suppression” of political parties and civil society. The Baldera Council is led by Eskinder Nega, an Ethiopian journalist and blogger who has been jailed several times by the government on various charges.
As many feared the gov't of @PMEthiopia failed the first post- @NobelPrize test of respecting the right to protest in #AddisAbaba. While a pro-Abiy demonstration is allowed in haste, a protest planned much earlier is denied. This is unacceptable, dangerous trend of ODP operarives https://t.co/zbufmn7PBJ
— Mesfin መስፍን (@mesfine) October 13, 2019
The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced the Nobel Peace Prize for 2019 on October 11, citing Dr. Abiy Ahmed Ali's “decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighbouring Eritrea.”
@PMEthiopia I hereby join the rest of Africa and the world at large in celebrating with the great people of Ethiopia and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed for winning the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize Award. The Government & People of Liberia extend warmest felicitations for this noble feat. pic.twitter.com/vbZqyfUuJK
— George Weah (@GeorgeWeahOff) October 11, 2019
The news was received with enthusiasm, but also some ambivalence.
Abiy, a 43-year-old former intelligence officer, became the fourth prime minister of Ethiopia on April 2, 2018. He immediately launched a series of reforms that were not only unprecedented but which would have seemed impossible five years ago.
His predecessor, Hailemariam Desalegn, governed Ethiopia with an iron fist, stifling free speech, sending opposition leaders and journalists to jail and violently suppressing political dissent.
Ethnically-motivated conflicts are not new in Ethiopia, which has over 80 ethnic groups. But the unrest and protests in Ethiopia's two largest regions, Oromia and Amhara, sparked by encroachment on Oromia lands resulting from the expansion of the Amhara region, practically tore the Horn of African country apart from 2015 to early 2018 — and drove Desalegn to a “surprise” resignation in April 2018.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sits with Minister of Defense Lemma Megersa, November 24, 2017. Photo by Odaw via Wikimedia Commons CC BY 4.0.
Abiy contested the elections of the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), winning 108 votes out of 180 to replace Desalegn as party chairman and, consequently, as prime minister of the country.
An ethnic Oromo with a mixed Christian and Muslim background, along with military experience and expertise in military intelligence, Abiy was seen as a figure capable of easing the turmoil in the country. One Chatham House analyst writing about the elections ascribed his victory to the “secretive and complex alliance-building” among the four political parties that make up the EPRDF, and noted that he “seems early on to have persuaded many he can bring stability, unity and reform to the country.”
In relatively short order, Abiy lifted the state of emergency the previous administration had imposed to quell unrest, and released thousands of political prisoners. The rapid turnaround of the political landscape paved the way for the return of exiled dissidents and the unblocking of hundreds of websites and TV channels. Notably, Abiy amended that draconian tool of political repression, Ethiopia’s anti-terrorism law.
But his most outstanding achievement has been the historic peace deal with neighbouring Eritrea, which netted him the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize:
Abiy Ahmed quickly worked out the principles of a peace agreement to end the long “no peace, no war” stalemate between the two countries. These principles are set out in the declarations that Prime Minister Abiy and President Afwerki signed in Asmara and Jeddah last July and September. An important premise for the breakthrough was Abiy Ahmed’s unconditional willingness to accept the arbitration ruling of an international boundary commission in 2002.
But Abiy’s reforms have not proceeded without opposition. In June 2018, he survived an explosion that killed two other people during a political rally in the Tigray province. As Tanzanian MP January Makamba, one of Abiy's generational peers, has noted in an otherwise laudatory tweet: “Ethiopia is a tough and complicated place.”
Ethnic violence resulting in 2.9 million displacements in 2018 and a failed coup in the Amhara region last June are arguably two security threats capable of undermining the national elections scheduled for next year. In addition, Ethiopia still has the highest poverty prevalence rate in the world despite strong economic indices. Abiy's “liberal reformer” image hinges on his ability to transform the Ethiopian economy.
Ethiopia, under Abiy’s watch, also continues to shut down the internet amidst dynamics “more complicated than they had been prior to the start of the political reforms.” A nationwide internet blackout occurred from June 11-14, during which SMS messaging services were also inaccessible.
On September 26, Dr. Getahun Mekuria, Ethiopia's Minister of Innovation and Technology, represented by State Minister of the Productivity Enhancement Sector Ato Jemal Beker, stated in his opening remarks at the Forum on Internet Freedom in Africa (FIFAfrica), that although the government has opened up digital space in the country, there remains “a strong need to temper internet freedom with mechanisms in place to control hate speech and mis- and disinformation online.”
As the incident described at the beginning of this essay shows, Abiy's ability to sustain freedom of expression and political dissent in this Horn of Africa nation hangs on a fragile thread.
In spite of the problems that continue to plague Ethiopia, however, it is easy to see understand why Abiy has been welcomed as a breath of fresh air. In a continent ruled by elderly and sometimes ailing leaders, the dynamic 43-year-old represents a break from an old guard which, in many cases, has clung to power against all odds.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed with President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh of Djibouti. Photo by Odaw via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Uganda’s 75-year-old President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has held on to power since 1986, consistently shrinking the political space in the East African country by destroying any opposition to his rule.
John Magufuli’s Tanzania is a practically a police state with the recent clampdown on opposition politics, human rights and press freedom.
Nigeria’s Muhammadu Buhari, 76, also has scant regard for human rights, freedom of expression, or political dissent.
But given the weakness of the competition, might it be rather too early to definitively sing Abiy's praises?
We really can afford to withhold praise & accolades from ANY African leader without a spotless record on free speech & human rights.
Heaven will not fall.
Our biggest problem is that most of our leaders, both smart & inept, become oppressors.
So freedom must be our #1 test.
— Andy Obuoforibo (@andyRoidO) October 11, 2019
After awarding the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama in the early days of his administration, one would have thought that the Nobel Committee would be more circumspect about awarding another fledgling sitting president. Obama, for instance, did not keep the peace in Libya; rather, he created a situation of chaos that rages there until now.
Other laureates have also failed to live up to their promise, notably Myanmar politician Aung San Suu Kyi, who won the prize in 1991 while under house arrest and has since, as de facto government leader of the country, presided over the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims.
North Vietnamese leader Le Duc Tho famously rejected the award — jointly presented to him and the controversial Henry Kissinger in 1973 — on the grounds that peace had not yet been restored in his country.
And the Nobel committee jumps on the “Ethiopian Spring” train. A peace price for Abiy Ahmed!
He's made a lot of progress very quickly. But things are pretty fragile, and there are a lot of ways that the committee could end up regretting this. pic.twitter.com/3MIzTxbIQn
— John Ashbourne (@JohnAshbourne) October 11, 2019
One assumes the Committee grants such awards in the anticipatory hope that it would encourage the laureate would to remain on a promising path of progress. But it would make more sense to wait until the end of an administration and objectively assess whether an individual has in fact lived up to their promise and really deserves the award.
Another reason for caution is that most of the African leaders mentioned above did not start out as despots. Museveni fought and kicked out the murderous dictator Idi Amin. When Magufuli took the reins of power, he was the poster boy for transparency and frugal governance. Buhari’s integrity and apparent zero-tolerance for corruption made him the “Messiah” for which Nigeria long yearned. Even the late Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe was once one of Africa’s foremost freedom fighters — only to leave office in disgrace after 37 tumultuous years.
Critics also say that the PM “relies on his charisma to drive change,” rather than make use of institutional structures of government. While this might be efficient and useful for cutting through government bureaucracy, it might not provide an adequate foundation for sustainable long-term reforms.
Will Abiy be different from the others and continue on the path of peace and reform? Or will he follow the infamous route that his contemporaries in the continent have travelled? For both Ethiopia and Africa’s sake, I hope it is the former.

author: Nwachukwu Egbunike


text:
Zimbabwe government continues to weaponize information online to control citizen engagement · Global Voices
GV Sub-Saharan Africa

Protesters demand the removal of then-President Robert Mugabe (now deceased) from power on November 18, 2017. Photo by Flickr user Zimbabwean-eyes (Public domain).
In the early morning of November 15, 2017, Zimbabweans woke up to the news that former strongman, the late Robert Mugabe, had been deposed in a coup d'etat, and was under house arrest with his family at the presidential residence, State House.
Major General Sibusiso Moyo, now foreign affairs minister, announced on state television that the president was safe under state custody and that “the situation has moved to another level.”
Almost immediately following General Moyo’s announcement, Zimbabweans fervently took to social media — in particular, WhatsApp, Twitter and Facebook — to get updates on the situation. This newfound popularity of social media to access information and mobilise protests took root for the first time among Zimbabweans, when protesters took to the streets and helped push Mugabe out of office.
The new government, led by Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa, took notice of social media’s power. As a former state security minister, Mnangagwa also appreciated the importance and value of disinformation in Zimbabwe’s political terrain.
In a calculated move to consolidate newfound political power and ensure an electoral victory during the presidential and legislative elections scheduled for next year, Mnangagwa instructed his ruling ZANU PF (Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front) party youth league to “enter the social media and online firmament and batter the opponent,” back in March 2018.
In post-Mugabe Zimbabwe, this has exacerbated a mis- and disinformation crisis, leaving Zimbabweans with few credible and accurate sources of information to stay informed about the country’s transition and and anti-government protests.
While the new government decried “fake news” pertaining to any news circulated on social media that they perceived to threaten the country’s status quo, it also deployed tactics aimed at misleading the public about its handling of anti-government protests.
Zimbabwe has witnessed a significant rise in mobile internet and social media usage over the past few years. The internet penetration rate increased by 41.1 percent, from 11 percent of the population to 52.1 percent between 2010 and 2018, while mobile phone penetration increased by 43.8 percent from 58.8 percent to 102.7 percent over the same period. This means that half the population is now connected to the internet, compared to only 11 percent in 2010.
However, mis- and disinformation have found fertile ground to flourish owing to a variety of factors: extreme polarisation in the media, proposed government controls over social media, poor official communication methods and low digital literacy among internet users.
During the anti-government protests of January 2019, when state security forces arrested and beat hundreds of protesters, news of these clampdowns competed with government claims of “fake news” or their absolute denial. The government restricted access to internet services to disrupt the flow of information and contribute to widespread confusion. They and their supporters also resorted to public misinformation about the protests and discredited any truthful information or reports as “fake news.”
In Zimbabwe, citizens usually regard general statements issued by government ministers as official policy.  For example, Deputy Information Minister Energy Mutodi sought to convince people that everything was normal and that videos and images of the military patrolling the streets were the work of “a few rogue individuals.’’ Mutodi further misled the nation when he claimed on state television that there was no internet shutdown but rather a “congested” network.
In another suspected case of possible government-sanctioned disinformation, millions of people remained cut off from social media during the January protests. Others downloaded Virtual Private Network (VPN) applications to stay informed, but messages circulated that downloading such applications would lead to arrests, creating further panic and apprehension.
When in March 2019, Human Rights Watch (HRW) tweeted a report denouncing the government’s use of “horrific violence’’ during the January 2019 protests, government supporters took to Twitter to discredit and attack HRW.
One user tweeted that the organization is ‘’spreading blatant lies’’ and described HRW as “neo-colonial organization… hired to malign innocent countries to push the US's hegemonic goals.” Another repeated government claims and blamed the violence on “rogue elements who are trying [sic] destroy the image of the president.”
And disinformation about government policies and other events of public interest have continued well beyond the January protests.
Most recently, ruling party ZANU PF members took to Twitter to misinform the public about the disappearance of Dr. Peter Magombey, acting president of the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association (ZHDA). He was abducted on September 14, 2019following the announcement of a strike in the health sector. The ZANU PF secretary for youth affairs described Magombey as a ‘’buffoon’’ and “an embarrassment to the profession.’’ An account under the name of ZANU PF Patriots said that his abduction was “fake.” Others disseminated false claims that doctors “killed many patients’’ because of the strike, including more than 500 people in one hospital.
Media control in Zimbabwe bears its origins in colonial policies of the 20th century, which were tainted with violent subjugation to political authority. The Ian Smith-led Rhodesian government valued propaganda and centralised information control as a weapon of choice, not only to endorse the regime’s believed legitimacy but to spread disinformation about the war.
The colonial government passed a plethora of laws to suppress free expression or dissent against Smith’s racist policies and they brutally enforced these laws to target liberation leaders. Information blockades were the norm even before independence in 1980, and this set the government's tone in terms of communication policies and media management for years to come.
As renowned South African journalist and writer, the late Heidi Holland, wrote in her acclaimed biography, “Dinner with Mugabe: The Untold Story of a Freedom Fighter Who Became a Tyrant”:
So many in ZANU PF's hierarchy have lived with similar appalling violence woven into everyday life as if it were normal. The bush war, or Second Chimurenga, has never really ended in Zimbabwe.
Today, Mnangagwa continues this legacy, suppressing voices of critics through online disinformation tactics and internet shutdowns.
This article is part of a series of posts examining interference with digital rights through methods such as network shutdowns and disinformation during key political events in seven African countries: Algeria, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tunisia, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.  The project is funded by the Africa Digital Rights Fund of The Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA).

author: GV Sub-Saharan Africa


text:
Internet censorship in Sudan: Rethinking laws and tactics that served an authoritarian regime · Global Voices
Mohamed Suliman

For over thirty years, Sudan was ruled and controlled by a military regime under Omar al-Bashir until a revolution earlier this year ousted him from power. What started as protests against the rising price of bread became a movement against the Bashir regime, who committed mass crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide in Darfur. The regime often used laws and tactics to silence and oppress opponents — including systematic internet censorship.
Cartoon by Khalid Albaih [CC BY 2.0].
Today, as Sudan embarks on a three-year transition toward democracy and civilian rule, transitional authorities need to take steps to guarantee internet freedom and cut ties with censorship practices and policies of the former regime.
Transitional authorities have already taken small steps toward improving the climate for internet freedom, such as shifting regulatory power away from the military and making commitments to open up the press —but these remain inadequate.
In September 2019, The Sovereignty Council of Sudan, sworn in last August as part of a power-sharing agreement to guide Sudan’s three-year transition toward civilian rule, issued a decree that places the Telecommunications and Post Regulatory Authority under the council’s subordination instead of the Ministry of Defense.
The move is a welcome step toward ensuring the independence of the regulator from the full control of the military authorities, given that six of the 11-member-council are civilians. Five of these civilians were chosen from the Forces of Freedom and Change — the political coalition that represents the protesters.
However, the rules and policies under which the regulator functions are still unchanged. In fact, the authority has been a key player in deciding and implementing the former regime’s censorship policies with its filtering and blocking system.
According to a document explaining the regulator’s filtering practices, 95 percent of all banned materials pertain to pornography, while the rest of the banned content relates to “drugs, bombs, alcohol, insults against Islam and gambling.’’ Yet, these categories have been vague and lack definition, leaving the door open for those in power to decide what to block.
The regulator’s so-called filtering unit also has a form that allows users to submit requests to block or unblock certain websites or webpages. These decisions are made without a judicial order and the regulator explains that the unit treats these requests ‘’seriously and expeditiously’’ before orders are submitted to the Internet Service Providers (ISPs).
To filter and block content, the former regime used technologies it imported secretly from abroad. For example, a 2013 report titled “Some Devices Wander by Mistake” by Citizen Lab, a Toronto-based interdisciplinary laboratory that studies information control and content filtering, concluded that Sudan was among 83 countries that installed the Blue Coat ProxySG and PacketShaper devices on its public networks.
According to Citizen Lab, these devices “can be used to secure and maintain networks, but it can also be used to implement politically-motivated restrictions on access to information, and monitor and record private communications.”
In another positive step, Prime Minister Abdulla Hmadok signed the Global Pledge to Defend Media Freedom and stated that “never again in the new Sudan will a journalist be repressed or jailed,” during the 2019 United Nations General Assembly (UNGA):
“Never again in the new Sudan will a journalist be repressed or jailed.” @SudanPMHamdok speaking at #UNGA where Sudan has signed the Global Pledge to #DefendMediaFreedom pic.twitter.com/9dM4dkCoWf
— UK at the UN ?? (@UKUN_NewYork) September 25, 2019
Under the Bashir regime, print newspapers that faced repression offline found respite online. A 2017 report by France 24 noted that “about a dozen internet papers have been launched in the past year alone as agents of the powerful National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) continue to confiscate entire print-runs of newspapers over articles opposed to President Omar al-Bashir's regime”.
However, authorities also targeted online newspapers, often blocking them without a judicial order.
For example, during the anti-regime protests of June 2012, authorities blocked access to three online newspapers: Hurriyat Sudan, Sudanese Online and al-Rakoba, without a judicial process. At that time, SudanTribune reported that the ruling National Congress Party (NCP)  accused “some websites of launching a campaign to distort the country’s image in collaboration with opposition parties and the United States”. Access to online newspapers was later unblocked. Hurriyat Sudan, however, ceased publications in April 2018, due to lack of funding.
To enforce and implement its censorship policies, authorities under the former regime resorted to laws that were vague and open to misinterpretation.
The right to freedom of expression is recognized at the international level through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), in 2003 in Geneva, Switzerland, and in 2005 in Tunis, Tunisia, reaffirmed ”as an essential foundation of the Information Society” that “everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; that this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers” as outlined in article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Articles 14 to 17 of the 2007 Cybercrime Act, criminalizes the dissemination of content deemed in violation of “public order, morality, religious beliefs or the sanctity of private life and online defamation.” Despite the fact that the Act delineated on the punishments, with sentences up to five years in prison, fines, or both, definitions were still vague and lack clarity, allowing for abuse by authorities.
Article 25 gives the court the right to confiscate the “hardware, software or media used in the commission of any of the offenses provided for in this Act and of the funds proceeding from them”.
Bashir’s regime used these laws to restrict online content and target newspapers and news websites as well as individual citizens’ online and social media activities.
A 2018 report by the African Center for Justice and Peace Studies documented “four incidents where four Sudanese citizens have been charged with defamation under the Cybercrimes Act, 2007 and Criminal Act, 1991, as well as breach of public order and morality under the Cybercrimes Act following statements shared via social media platforms.” The report highlights the case of Saad Ahmed Fadul, who was charged in April 2018 under the Cybercrimes Act for “sharing a video via WhatsApp narrating a story of how she was dismissed from the Sudan Communication Company and replaced with Hind Abdalla Hassan Albashir, a niece to Sudan’s [then] President, Al Bashir.” She was charged with blackmailing and threatening another person, breach of public order and morality and violation of religious beliefs or the sanctity of private life.
PM Hamdok’s public commitment to press freedom and the Sovereignty Council’s decree to reduce the influence of the military in the regulator are two steps in the right direction toward the guarantee of internet freedom.
However, lingering laws place vague restrictions on these fundamental rights and allow authorities to block and filter content without a judicial order. These laws allow authorities to jail individuals and journalists for exercising their right to freedom of expression.
Transitional authorities should rectify these laws and take additional steps to ensure that the telecommunications industry regulator is independent of government interference. The regulator should focus on protecting users’ rights to access the internet instead of serving as a political tool that silences dissent.

author: Mohamed Suliman


text:
Is Rihanna Barbadian or Jamaican? Jamaican Twitter claims the superstar as their own · Global Voices
Emma Lewis

Rihanna at Madame Tussauds Wax Museum, London, England. Photo by Daniel Ramirez, CC BY 2.0.
Yes, the superstar singer, Rihanna, is from the Caribbean island of Barbados, but for a while, some social media users wondered whether she was, in fact, from Jamaica.
Despite talk of regional unity, rivalry among Caribbean islanders is real. On social media, this usually boils down to little more than witty banter, point-scoring and humour, especially on quick-fire Twitter. But when Barbadian Twitter users poked fun at the Jamaican dollar exchange rate, Jamaicans did the next best thing — they claimed Rihanna as their own:
#RihannaisJamaican https://t.co/APtqAuqsl7
— ???????? (@shaquangordonn) October 9, 2019
Jamaicans, you know, if we pretend like Rihanna is Jamaican, the world will believe us, and there is nothing Bajans [Barbadians] can do about it.
Let's kidnap Rihanna's nationality, y'all.
— rihanna is jamaican (@DavidEatsViagra) October 9, 2019
Jamaican Twitter users — perhaps feeling a little jaded after a new corruption scandal — happily took up the challenge.
Wanting a bit of fun, they began to rewrite Rihanna’s history, with a lot of help from Photoshop — that allowed Rihanna to allegedly “win gold” for Jamaica in the Olympics, outdoing star track-and-fielder Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (who really is Jamaican!):
Rihanna Fenty ?? wins GOLD and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce ?? BRONZE in Women's 100M Final at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. #RihannaIsJamaican #RihannaIsJamaican #RihannaIsAJamaican #JamaicanTwitter pic.twitter.com/erY7U3j7s1
— Ajay Edwards (@edwards_ajay) October 12, 2019
She was also spotted at a KFC:
Saw Rihanna in KFC today#RihannaIsJamaican pic.twitter.com/dsWZ66txcb
— Chris dBoss (@ChrisDboss4401) October 12, 2019
A well-known Instagrammer even got the Jamaican prime minister involved:
A MESSAGE FROM OUR PRIME MINISTER @AndrewHolnessJM #RihannaIsJamaican #RihannaIsAJamaican pic.twitter.com/LWGzJFQ75r
— IG:itz_datjay (@jaychekkazz) October 12, 2019
Eventually, the whole thing became so huge that organisations began to play to the online interest it was drumming up —the United States Embassy in Jamaica, for instance, grabbed the opportunity to advertise their college fair:
Looks like Rihanna. Could it have been Rihanna at last year’s College Fair? Come on out to EdUSA’s College Fair! Kingston, Jamaica. You never know who may show up! pic.twitter.com/uoVqG4E1st
— US Embassy Jamaica (@USEmbassyJA) October 11, 2019
Small businesses jumped on the bandwagon, too:
I’m here @ Rhianna’s Boutique in Portmore #Rhiannaisjamaican pic.twitter.com/Po2696Amfp
— IG:theambitionboss (@TheAmbitionBoss) October 12, 2019
Jamaica's party politics naturally had to creep in, prompting one Twitter user to share a photo of Rihanna in party colours (both of the country's political parties claimed her as their own):
Yes I was so proud when she addressed the conference #RihannaIsJamaican pic.twitter.com/4nxQ7uvu0p
— Dr Khia Josina Duncan (@KhiaJosina) October 11, 2019
One especially popular photoshopped effort was the image of Rihanna on a 500 Jamaican dollar note, in place of national hero, Nanny — a clever dig at Barbadians’ original criticism about the weakness of the Jamaican dollar.
Indisputable proof! #RihannaIsJamaican pic.twitter.com/2JJjIzFrDc
— K (@FALCONINTHASKY) October 10, 2019
A Barbadian businesswoman based in Jamaica, A. Cecile Watson, shared an imaginary conversation with Rihanna:
Many have been calling on Rihanna to speak up to defend herself against the claim that she is Jamaican. Bajans are disappointed because she hasn’t spoken up and Jamaicans are tickled pink by her silence. And I wondered which side of the argument RiRi was likely to fall.
So I decided to ask her! And did she ever sing! […]
Me: So Riri what have you been up to whilst #RihannaIsJamaican was exploding all over Twitter.
RiRi: Werk, Werk, Werk, Werk
Me: So how did you hear about it?
RiRi: Pon de Replay
Me: What do you have to say to the Jamaicans?
RiRi: Love The Way You Lie
These were not the only musical connections made:
Yes sir that is @rihanna playing the music of her fellow country man @konshens at her book launch #RihannaisJamaican https://t.co/xEiwrIiVEF
— Sound Chat Radio (@IrishandChin) October 12, 2019
The superstar allegedly won a popular Jamaican dancehall contest:
Never forget when Rihanna won Magnum King and Queens of dancehall couple years back and release the song Tun Up with Baby Cham #RihannaIsJamaican pic.twitter.com/tp6tCUyiDW
— Canz?? ? (@Iam_canz) October 12, 2019
Let’s face it, Jamaicans asserted, Rihanna is fond of Jamaican music:
Plus Rihanna's new album is supposedly heavily reggae influenced and includes many Jamaican features and artistes with writing credits. #RihannaIsJamaican pic.twitter.com/YMxs03JMDZ
— ERIMA (@AzulaNeededHelp) October 11, 2019
One Jamaican singer pointed out, however, that Barbadians were not amused:
I guess I am naive. I really thought that #RihannaIsJamaican would be considered a brilliant joke by all. Not so! Some Bajans a bringle bad!
Lawd! Some tek it deep sah.
— NadineSutherland (@Nadinesutherlan) October 11, 2019
The fact that the hashtag even made it onto a Canadian television station (and that even virtual assistants like Siri were completely confused) proved the point that many wanted to make — don't mess with Jamaican Twitter:
#JamaicanTwitter look what y’all did we done made it on Canadian news ?????? this jus show how powerful Jamaican twitter is #RihannaIsJamaican pic.twitter.com/3PF7BRrWF9
— TroPicAl DëprêSsIõN???♀?? (@Iqqzfrfr) October 11, 2019
Even Siri knows now. #RihannaIsJamaican #RihannaIsAJamaican #Rihanna pic.twitter.com/37e4vZufiW
— King Leo (@The_Lil_Bro) October 12, 2019
Not only did Siri suggest at one point that Rihanna has dual nationality, but Google’s virtual assistant also produced the “fact” that Rihanna was born in Kingston, Jamaica:
#RihannaIsJamaican can't argue with facts. ??♂ https://t.co/eiswb4rOl0
— Wellington6ix? (@omarilisab) October 12, 2019
Rihanna’s Wikipedia page was also updated for a while to reflect her new birthplace.
Although this raised issues concerning where virtual assistants source their information — and how easy it appears to be to circulate “fake news” via social media by changing “facts”, Jamaican Twitter users didn’t back down. Rather, one noted wickedly:
The saddest thing for Bajans out of all this #RihannaIsJamaican saga is that it’s been going on for several days now and not once has Rihanna come out to deny any of the Jamaican allegations. ????
— Kemoy Lindsay (@KemziLinzi) October 11, 2019
Another Jamaican, however, pointed to the role of humour for Jamaicans in overcoming difficulties:
The now epic #RihannaIsJamaican heist is a great example that the Jamaican sense of humour, like our creativity, runs very deep (the penchant for humour also shines in the dynamics of our native language). It has been a valuable asset that has helped us survive many hard times.
— Tony Morrison?? (@TonycusGannicus) October 12, 2019
Meanwhile, Rihanna just launched a book and will soon debut her new album. She's focused on her fashion line and a month-long breast cancer campaign through her charitable foundation. The Barbadian is much too busy to respond — but maybe she's having a chuckle.