text:
Facing Sweeping Surveillance Bill, French Public Falls Between Alarm and Indifference · Global Voices
Suzanne Lehn

Anti-surveillance demonstration in France. Photo via Amnesty International.
In the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attack, and despite vehement opposition from civil liberties groups, France's parliament passed in May 2015 a bill allowing the government to monitor the phone calls and emails of suspected terrorists without prior authorization from a judge. The bill also requires Internet service providers to install so-called “black boxes” that sweep up and analyze metadata on millions of web users, and forces them to make that data freely available to intelligence organizations. The bill also allows intelligence agents to plant microphones, cameras, and keystroke loggers in the homes of suspected terrorists. Under the law, the government can authorize surveillance for vaguely defined reasons such as “major foreign policy interests” and preventing “organized delinquency.”
Civil liberties groups including Amnesty International, Article 19, the Committee to Protect Journalists and Global Voices Advox joined a letter written by leading French digital rights group La Quadrature du Net, published on September 30 addressed to French MPs and suggesting a series amendments to the bill. They write:
With this new bill, parliament is about to approve new disproportionate surveillance measures to monitor international communications. Based on the principle of massive collections of data, the bill seeks to legitimise the civil and human rights abuses revealed by Edward Snowden about the practice of intelligence agencies such as the ones in the US and the UK. As a crucial part of the global Internet traffic goes through French submarine cables, this law would put France in the list of countries with sweeping surveillance capabilities.
Despite firm criticism from civil liberties groups, the bill has faced minimal opposition from the public and the political classes. French President François Hollande then asked the Constitutional Council to review the bill after it was definitively approved in June, marking the first time that a president has deferred to the courts before allowing a law to go into effect. French website Les Moutons enragés explained the process, summing up a detailed report by Nextimpact :
…le Conseil constitutionnel avait censuré un des articles du projet de loi gouvernemental, celui encadrant la surveillance internationale. Pourquoi cette censure ? Principalement, parce que la disposition législative renvoyait à décret en Conseil d’État le soin de définir les modalités d’exploitation, de conservation et de destruction des renseignements collectés. Un joli cas d’incompétence négative [puisque cette matière est réservée par la constitution au législateur]
[…] Après une longue période d’incertitude, le gouvernement a annoncé la semaine dernière le dépôt surprise d’une proposition de loi pour combler cette lacune. […] par ce biais, il évite le passage par un projet de loi, qui l’aurait obligé à publier une étude d’impact. Une étape potentiellement douloureuse où il aurait dû détailler le coût de ces mesures notamment.
Déjà, les articles sont beaucoup plus denses que la partie censurée par le Conseil constitutionnel. C’était prévisible puisque le gouvernement a dû (faire) replacer dans la future loi des dispositions qu’il tentait de publier dans un décret secret.
…the Constitutional Council struck down one of the articles of the government bill defining international surveillance.
Why? Mainly because the bill included a provision about the terms and conditions of exploiting, keeping and deleting the collected information in the form of a decree. A perfect case of reverse incompetence [according to the French Constitution, the subject pertains to Parliament only].
[…]
After a long period of vacillation, last week the government announced the surprise deposition of a bill designed to fill the gap […] thus avoiding passing legislation which would have made it necessary to undertake an impact assessment. The latter is a potentially troublesome step which would have involved revealing, in particular, details of the cost of these measures.
The articles are in fact more much involved than the part struck down by the Constitutional Council. This is hardly surprising, as the government had to replace the provisions  they had previously attempted to pass by secret decree.
For a detailed review of the provisions of this additional bill on international surveillance, read the comprehensive report published by French magazine l'Obs on September 9.
Civil liberties groups came immediately back to the fore after the broad validation of the law. Amnesty International France denouced the bill as a “big blow against human rights.”
La Quadrature du Net stated on its website on Sept. 15:
Such a mass surveillance system participates in a race for worldwide spying, and positions France as an enemy of fundamental freedoms. Since this bill clearly is a mere legalization of secret practices implemented since 2008, the time has come for the public opinion and its representatives to clearly express their views on this arms race of the 21st century.
On the legal front, action is also being taken before the French courts, under a coordinated effort by European Digital Rights (EDRI, a Brussels-based group.
On 3 September 2015, the non-profit Internet Service Providers (ISPs) French Data Network (FDN) and the FDN Federation (FFDN) as well as a digital rights advocacy group La Quadrature du Net announced the introduction of two legal challenges before the French Council of State against the Internet surveillance activities of French foreign intelligence services, Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE).
Mobilization around the bill is picking up speed, albeit on the late side.
@couragesnowden Let's hope for the sake of democracy we'll get a French ‘Snowden’ then.
— Yusuf (@Wangberg) 17 Septembre 2015

author: Suzanne Lehn


text:
Jamaicans Are Unimpressed With the UK’s Pish-Posh Attitude on Slavery Reparations · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

The sculpture at Emancipation Park in Kingston, Jamaica. Image by Kent MacElwee, used under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license.
The idea of reparations for the slave trade is not new, but it has gained some traction—especially within the Caribbean region—over the last eight years. Guyana was the first CARICOM territory to lend its voice to the issue, calling on European nations who were involved in the Atlantic slave trade to pay compensation. Four years later, Antigua and Barbuda made a passionate plea for reparations at the United Nations:
To help counter the lingering damage inflicted on generations of peoples of African descent by generations of slave-trading and colonialism, we call on those very States to back up their apologies with new commitments to the economic development of the nations that have suffered from this human tragedy.
The following year, both Jamaica and Barbados established reparation commissions, charged with leading the lobby for both formal apologies for the horrors and inhumanity of slavery as well as economic justice for descendants of slaves. Now, with the visit of British Prime Minister David Cameron to its shores, Jamaica is once again in the front line of the reparations discussion.
But the UK is having none of it, its point being that slavery is “centuries old”. It will, however, spend 25 million British pounds (approximately US $38 million) to build a new prison on the island, ostensibly to house all the law-breaking Jamaican immigrants who come to Britain. Cameron explained:
It is absolutely right that foreign criminals who break our laws are properly punished but this shouldn’t be at the expense of the hardworking British taxpayer.
That’s why this agreement is so important. It will mean Jamaican criminals are sent back home to serve their sentences, saving the British taxpayer millions of pounds but still ensuring justice is done.
The regional blogosphere was not impressed; the revelation felt like insult on top of injury. Jamaica-based Annie Paul, in a Facebook status update, said:
Jamaican Parliament should stand in stony silence as David Cameron enters…no clapping, no cheers. #Reparations
Further south along the archipelago, Trinidadian Facebook user Rhoda Bharath commented:
The Brits paid compensation to planters after having built an empire off the backs of African people…
Now Cameron telling Jamaica to move on from slavery…he not paying reparations…but he willing to build a prison for Jamaica.
Your move Sistah P [Portia Simpson-Miller, Jamaica's prime minister].
#AssBackwards
Prime Minister of Jamaica Portia Simpson-Miller, at the ceremony unveiling the winning design for the slavery memorial at the UN. Photo by United Nations Information Centres, credit to the UN Social Media Team, used under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license.
Of course, Cameron is not the first British prime minister to avoid the reparations discussion — Tony Blair deftly sidestepped the issue in 2006 — but Cameron's family history makes the whole topic a tad tricker for him, since a distant relative was found to have profited from the slave trade — and in Jamaica of all places. One Twitter user addressed that point by saying:
Also we can't forget that British Slave owners were compensated for their “losses of property” after the Abolition. #Jamaica #Reparations
— Alex…אלכס (@AlexTheBrotha) September 30, 2015
The concept of reparations is not unprecedented — a point duly made by Sir Hilary Beckles, the current vice chancellor of The University of the West Indies and chair of the Caricom Reparations Commission, who, in 2013, “urged Caribbean countries to emulate the position adopted by the Jews who were persecuted during the Second World War and have since organised the Jewish Reparation Fund.” This Twitter user echoed his sentiment:
#Reparations. A legal principle well established in international law. The rest is just politics. #Jamaica pic.twitter.com/HfKJvS5Ukr
— Mr Lee Jasper (@LeeJasper) September 30, 2015
Beckles, in addressing the UK's role in the slave trade and responsibilities to its descendants, said:
We ask not for handouts or any such acts of indecent submission. We merely ask that you acknowledge responsibility for your share of this situation and move to contribute in a joint programme of rehabilitation and renewal. The continuing suffering of our people, Sir, is as much your nation’s duty to alleviate as it is ours to resolve in steadfast acts of self-responsibility.
But the position of 10 Downing Street is that the prime minister “wants to look at the future”, not the past.”
Once it became clear that any talk of reparations was not going to be entertained by Cameron, Twitter exploded:
Wow. Britain wont pay #reparations to #Jamaica, but will built big prison instead. Wow.
— Bryan Boxtroll (@BPMiranda) September 29, 2015
Many felt that it was important to keep the pressure on, regardless of Cameron's stance, and several Twitter users were pleased that Jamaica had the gumption to bring up what was a difficult conversation to have — socially, economically and politically.
Other Twitter users were busy doing the math:
THE National Commission on #Reparations (NCR) says the #Caribbean is due £7.5 trillion for #slavery. #Jamaica… http://t.co/hxxhfdO0hz
— RasTafari TV™ (@RasTafariTV) June 25, 2015
The modern equivalent of £20m is £16-17bn. #reparations #Jamaica
— Joseph (@lordtflakojosef) September 29, 2015
Jamaica's cause was getting support in the UK, and many netizens were sharing links about films dealing with the reparations issue.
Detractors argue that for reparations to be a plausible request, it must be proven that descendants of slaves are still suffering the effects — economic and psychological — of slavery. Jamaican diaspora litblogger Geoffrey Philp's reply to this was in a poem, dedicated to Sir Hilary Beckles, called “Busha Day Done”:
Time show me I was wrong,
but I know that like justice, it longer than rope.
So, Busha, I not going bend: I not going give up hope.
And make me tell you plain: if you think this is ’bout money,
you wrong too. This is about Justice; your crime against my humanity.
For those who prefer less flowery language, this Twitter user put forward a clever summary of the argument for reparations:
A handy, easy to understand guide, for those for who dont get the #Reparations for #Jamaica debate. RT pic.twitter.com/bISz3OxIfR
— Mr Lee Jasper (@LeeJasper) September 30, 2015
There were a few voices crying in the wilderness, however, and Michelle Bradshaw at The Jamaican Blogs was one of them. In what is no doubt an unpopular stance, she supported Cameron's proposal to build the prison:
INDEPENDENT PEOPLE are supposed to find their own way. We cannot ‘cuss’ Backra Massah [‘Backra’ is a term for white plantation owners; ‘Massa’ a variant of ‘Master’] from one side of our mouth and then seek pittance from the other side.
Don’t curse Mr. Cameron, curse the tribalistic politics that has brought Jamaica to its current state from we received independence till now. For over 50 years we have been an independent nation and the only thing Britain can offer us is a BIGGER prison, and that for you is Jamaica’s political independence.
Not many netizens seemed to share her view; instead, they were uploading tongue-in-cheek YouTube videos about why Jamaica needs a new prison and arguing for investment in other sectors like education.
Jamaicans however, found the whole thing ironic. There have been widespread calls for the Jamaican government to reject Cameron's offer.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


text:
Netizen Report: Will Brazil Give Up On Defending Digital Rights? · Global Voices
Netizen Report Team

Protest image by Pixelated Team, shared on Twitter.
Brazil’s lower house of Congress is considering a bill that would double penalties for libel and defamatory speech when they occur online, and dissolve protections for communications privacy in criminal investigations.
The bill has a long way to go before it can reach the desk of President Dilma Rousseff—it needs committee and plenary approval in the lower house, in addition to Senate approval. But if enacted, it would dismantle privacy protections in the Marco Civil (Brazil’s so-called “Bill of Rights for the Internet”) by allowing prosecutors in a criminal case to request users’ personal data, including the content of private messages, without first obtaining approval from a judge. It would also “update” Brazil’s penal code by simply adding the words “social media” to a list of crimes defined as libel and doubling resulting penalties for violations, plus allowing claimants to request the permanent removal of online content that they could prove was harmful to their honor. The bill justifies these changes pointing to the “devastating” effects of libelous speech when spread through social media.
But history just might be on the side of human rights here. Civil liberties advocates have nicknamed this the “spy bill” (#PLEspiao) or the “digital AI-5,” calling up memories of AI-5, a decree issued in 1968 during Brazil’s military dictatorship that severely restricted freedom of assembly and expression. Online campaigns against the amendments have flourished and appear to have helped delay a vote on the bill that was scheduled to take place last week, but has now been postponed. A public hearing on the matter took place on September 29, and another vote has been tentatively scheduled for October 1.
The Beta Institute for Internet and Democracy, a Brazilian organization, argues in an article for HuffPo’s Brasil Post that there must be better ways to deal with crimes committed on the Internet:
Cyberbullying, revenge porn and other forms of harassment are serious problems. But to take those matters seriously means to find ways to guarantee protection to the victims without violating fundamental rights of everyone else.
The Center for Technology and Society at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, Brazil’s premier social sciences university, called the bill unconstitutional. “Who does this project benefit? Public interest as a whole or those who want to shield themselves from public scrutiny?”
Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa is asserting the right to be forgotten — but only for himself. Using millions of dollars in public funds, Correa hired a Mexican company to remove critical information about him and his wife from the Internet, including a documentary by filmmaker Santiago Villa, an electoral broadcast from a rival politician, and even a report on a jailbreak from an Ecuadorean prison, according to records obtained by BuzzFeed. The news adds to the growing list of roadblocks that Correa’s administration has put up against freedom of expression in the country: Just two weeks ago we reported on the closure of media freedom group Fundamedios, and in August the Hacking Team leaks revealed the aggressive investment by the Ecuador government in malware and pro-government trolls.
The Zone9 bloggers are not alone among Ethiopians charged under the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation for alleged offenses such as online activism and pursuing training in digital security tools. Three citizens, Zelalem Workagenegu, Yonatan Wolde and Bahiru Degu, whose cases only recently became public, were detained July 8, 2014 for applying to attend an online security training. Like the Zone9ers, their hearings have been delayed multiple times. They are next expected to appear in court between November 7-9 of this year.
Prominent technology blogger Arash Zad was detained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard at the end of July. The details of his arrest remain unclear, and it has been recognized as an arbitrary arrest by human rights organizations. Zad is well-known as an innovator and tech entrepreneur in Iran, and founded the tech start-up Zig Zag Labs, a UN Youth Award-winning company aimed at encouraging Iranian women to enter the field of technology and entrepreneurship.
Jailed activist and artist Atena Farghadani began a hunger strike in September to protest verbal abuse by prison staff. Farghadani’s mother Eshrat Ardestani has said she requires urgent medical care, and has also developed signs of lymphatic disease during her imprisonment. “Atena has lost everything as a young university honor student in prison. She has nothing more to lose. All this psychological torture against a young imprisoned girl is unnecessary,” her mother said.
On Thursday, October 1, France’s National Assembly will vote a new international surveillance bill that would amend a law passed last summer, in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack, that vastly increased the powers of French intelligence authorities to monitor and record electronic communications in the name of national security. The amendment will furnish the current law to allow for more pervasive surveillance of transnational and global communications through submarine Internet cables. Civil liberties advocacy groups including European Digital Rights and La Quadrature du Net are sounding the alarm with analysis and an open letter opposing the bill, signed by civil society groups around the world.
The EU Court of Justice is currently hearing the case of Max Schrems, an Austrian citizen and activist who has taken Irish data protection authorities to court in an effort to illustrate the undercutting of EU data protection laws by US companies like Facebook and Google. He criticizes the “mass, indiscriminate surveillance” practices of the NSA, whose ability to collect private user data within the US undermines the privacy offerings that companies like Google and Facebook make to their EU customers, who enjoy greater data protection guarantees than US residents.
While the Court has yet to make a decision on the matter, it could drastically change the nature and frequency of data transfers between the EU the the United States—a potentially crippling outcome for the US tech industry, and a critical powershift in global battles over the information privacy rights of Internet users.
Mary Aviles, Ellery Roberts Biddle, Taisa Sganzerla and Sarah Myers West contributed to this report.

author: Netizen Report Team


text:
New Leak Details Kremlin’s Plans For a Russian ‘National Internet’ · Global Voices
Aric Toler

What would an autonomous Russian Internet look like? Images mixed by Tetyana Lokot.
Over the past few years, the Russian government has made numerous moves to gain more control over the Internet, strengthening regulatory controls over online content and pushing foreign Internet businesses working in the RuNet, such as Apple and Google, towards data localization.
A new leak from the mysterious hacker group Anonymous International (also known as Shaltai Boltai or Humpty Dumpty) reveals that the Russian government has been hearing proposals for much more radical moves to isolate the Russian Internet. One of these involves the concept of a “national information platform,” which would effectively provide an alternative Internet exclusively for Russian use.
The leaked documents include several emails from Dmitry Panyukov (director of the Institute of Demography, Migration, and Regional Development) and Garald Bandurin (IT director of RusHydro), along with a June 22, 2015 document describing a proposed “national information platform,” that would allegedly eliminate Russia's dependence on western firms and technology. This particular document appears to have been put together by Bandurin and Sergey Ganzya of the Foreign Trade Bank, along with several other people. The opening sentences of this document outline the reasons for the development of a separate Russian Internet:
В интересах граждан Российской Федерации, российской государственности, развития экономики, ключевых предприятий и объектов инфраструктуры, предлагается создание национальной информационной платформы. Создание платформы призвано содействовать созданию независимого информационно-технологического базиса социально-экономического развития страны.
In the interests of the citizens of the Russian Federation, the Russian statehood, and the development of the economy, key enterprises and infrastructure, the creation of a national information platform is proposed. The creation of such a platform is designed to promote the establishment of an independent foundation of information technology for the country’s socio-economic development.
The idea that Russia could cast itself off from the global Internet and create its own, autonomous virtual space is not new: it has previously been floated either in cryptic comments (Putin calling the Internet a “CIA project”) or in calls from Russian lawmakers to prepare for a cyber-blackout. In the proposal document the authors point to specific threats to national security emerging from Russian dependency on foreign technology. The authors describe how Russia’s technological reliance on companies including Microsoft, Apple, and Google, has allowed the political ramifications of Russia’s actions in Ukraine to impact the nation’s technological operations.
Так, мы имеем недавний факт блокирования крымских пользователей компаниями Apple и Google. По мнению руководителя ведущей российской ИТ компании, Infowatch, Натальи Касперской, вероятность наличия в наиболее распространённой операционной системе Windows специальных «закладок», способных по внешней команде одномоментно блокировать большинство российских компьютеров и сетей, крайне высока.
We have a recent example of the blocking of Crimean users by Apple and Google. In the opinion of Natalya Kasperskaya, the head of leading Russian IT company Infowatch, there is an extremely high likelihood of the presence of special “bookmarks” in Windows, the most common operating system, that are capable of simultaneously blocking the majority of Russian computers and networks via external command.
According to the authors of the “national information platform” concept, the need for an independent Russian Internet goes beyond potential hiccups from particular western technology firms—it is, they believe, a matter of national security. The authors lay out a scenario in which the West could “paralyze” Russia due to its alleged technological dependency.
…сегодня не существует никаких объективных гарантий, что в случае эскалации конфликта с Западом, их спецслужбы не смогут парализовать, или хуже того, захватить прямое управление элементами ключевой инфраструктуры – стрелками железных дорог, кранами и насосами трубопроводов, не говоря уже об инфраструктуре связи и коммуникаций. Ведь все это работает на западных платформах.
…today there are no objective guarantees that, in the event of an escalation in the conflict with the West, their security services could not paralyze, or worse yet take direct control of elements of critical infrastructure—including railway points, valves and pumps of pipelines, not to mention the telecommunications infrastructure. After all, all of this works on Western platforms.
In addition to adapting to Western sanctions on Russia’s technological capabilities, the plan could give a needed boost Russia’s IT sector, in much the same way that Russia’s food sanctions against the west were ostensibly aimed at bolstering Russia’s agricultural sector with import substitution.
In April 2015, the Russian Communications Ministry presented Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev with its import-substitution plan for the IT industry, suggesting that by 2025, the proportion of foreign software without a Russian substitute used in Russia should fall to 50 percent.
However, the authors acknowledge that an initial hurdle to cross in order to grow Russia's IT potential is the availability of young minds to push for a technological boom in Russia. With the implementation of a “national informational platform,” they believe the ongoing “brain drain” of qualified Russian human resources and IT professionals could be reversed.
Потеря, утечка самых перспективных кадров, лучших отечественных умов – пожалуй, это главный вызов момента. Без передовых кадров, компетентных и конкурентных, на уровне мировых требований завтрашнего дня, Россий обречена быть зависимой и ведомой.
Perhaps the main challenge of the current moment is the loss and “brain drain” of the most promising cadres and best Russian minds. Without advanced human resources, competent and competitive ones in line with the global demands of tomorrow, Russia is doomed to being dependent and to following instead of leading.
While the Anonymous International leak does not specify exactly how high in the Kremlin's hierarchy the proposal has reached, and how seriously it was considered, it still provides a revealing glimpse of the technological concerns of Russia’s elite. The leaked emails and documents contain no talk about the ideological or moral concerns of Roskomnadzor (the Kremlin’s Internet watchdog), but they do display serious concerns about Russia’s strategic vulnerabilities in case its relationship with the West deteriorates further. As Russia continues to crack down on Internet freedoms, the end-game, as revealed in this leaked proposal, may leave the Russian Internet user with something closer to the walled-off Chinese web than the selectively though still heavily censored Turkish Internet.

author: Aric Toler


text:
Property Tycoon Angers Ideologues by Saying China’s Communism Has a Long Way to Go · Global Voices
Jack Hu

During the Cultural Revolution, the red guards believed that they were the successors of communism and were very active in class struggle. Historical photo from Ren Zhiqiang's blog.
Since China opened its doors to the world's business in the late 1970s, the country's private sector has grown rapidly. Today, China's economy may seem to have more in common with its capitalist Western counterparts than with a truly communist system based on collective ownership of the means of production.
While some might argue that China is no longer communist in a strict sense, it's still very much a feature of the ideological battle being waged under current Chinese President Xi Jinping. Slogans such as “uphold communism” or “communism is the greatest ideal” often pop up on social media, and public figures who don't profess their love for the motherland with enough conviction have become the target of online trolling.
The latest person to catch flak is real estate tycoon Ren Zhiqiang, who spoke out against a communist slogan and triggered a hot debate online.
Ren Zhiqiang, who has more than 33 million followers on Twitter-like Weibo, is nicknamed “the cannon” for his outspokenness. The phrase he took issue with was “we are successors of communism,” which appeared as a hashtag in a statement from the Central Communist Youth League, a party organization with 75 million members and a coordinating body of the “civilization” campaign to spread online messages that put China in a positive light:
【信仰】其实，对于我们共青团人来说，共产主义既是最高理想，也是实现过程。现阶段为实现中华民族伟大复兴、建设富强民主文明和谐的社会主义现代化国家而奋斗就是这一伟大实践的现实体现。 让我们理直气壮地高扬共产主义旗帜，因为，#我们是共产主义接班人#
Belief: Indeed, for members of the Youth League, communism is the ideal and a process [toward this ideal]. Our current stage is to fulfill the Chinese national revival and to build a democratic civilization that will bring about a harmonious socialism and a modernized state — all these projects are part of the process [toward communism]. Let us hold up the flag of communism with pride because we are the successors of communism.
“We are the successors of communism” was a theme song featured in the 1961 movie “Little Heroes” meant to spread patriotism among young people in the then newly established China. The lyrics speak of following in the footsteps of the forbearers of the communist revolution by struggling against and destroying the enemy for the cause of communism.
Upon reading the League's message, Ren commented, “I have been cheated by this slogan for over a decade.” In his day, Ren was one of the youth who believed in political struggle, but he has grown disillusioned looking back on the violence of the Cultural Revolution, a movement led by Chinese Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong throughout the 1960s to rid the party and country of people who were deemed not true communists. At the same time, Mao's disastrous economic policies contributed to the Great Chinese famine, during which millions died.
In a response article titled “Are we the successors of communism?”, Ren argued that today's young communists are not in fact the heirs of communism, calling Mao's rule a “dictatorship.” Below are excerpts of his piece via “What's on Weibo“:
我们从儿时就是听着哥哥姐姐们唱＂我们是共产主义接班人＂这只歌长大的。
小学三年级当我戴上了红领巾时，也学会了唱这首歌。每当看到五星红旗升起时，我们都会举起右手敬礼，并高唱这首歌。心中充满信心和希望！[…]梦想着可以接受伟大领袖毛主席检阅，当一名真正的共产主义接班人。
When I was in the third grade, wearing a red neckscarf, I also learned this song. Every time we saw the five-starred red flag raised, we saluted it with our right hand, and sang this song. Our hearts were full of confidence and hope! […] We dreamed of being seen by Leader Mao Zedong: a real successor of communism.
没想到的是文革开始几个月之后，我的父母就成了走资本主义的当权派，我也成了黑帮子女。还有个＂狗崽子＂的光荣称号。共产主义接班人的梦变成了可以敎育好的子女。
我们被欺骗了十几年。文革让我知道只有无产阶级专政下的阶级斗争再革命。而没有共产主义接班人！
I never thought that when the Cultural Revolution began a few months later, my parents would become ‘capitalist-roaders’, and I would be the child of criminals, and get the glorious title of a ‘son of a bitch’. My dream to grow up to be a next generation communist changed to being a child who had to be rehabilitated.
We’ve been deceived for years. The Cultural Revolution only let me know the class struggle under a proletarian dictatorship. And that there is no next generation of communism.
Ren wasn't arguing against communism itself, but the way in which the Chinese Communist Party has gone about realizing it in China.
He wrote that China should abandon the empty talk of communism and deal with its immediate problems — establish democracy and freedom to promote equality, stabilize incomes, strengthen the rule of law, and embrace the world's value system — to prosper. With more prosperity, China will inch closer to true communism, he said, but that will take time — communism isn't something that is achieved overnight or even within a few generations.
His comment polarized Chinese social media. Opponents accused him of attacking the party, while supporters applauded him for boldly speaking out.
The League quickly responded in an article written by its Propaganda Minister Jin Lin that insisted that communism is the existing base of the Chinese Communist Party and accused Ren as a party member of betraying his belief:
既然任志强先生这么公开鲜明、郑重其事地反对共产党员的共产主义理想，又指名道姓、断然决绝地指出现在共青团员接共产主义的班是天大的笑话，那么，作为整个共青团组织的一员，就有必要认真严肃、平心静气地对任志强先生进行回应。[…]作为一名社会人士，他有不信仰的自由；然而，作为党团组织、党团员，我们也有信仰共产主义的天然的、绝对的自由，谁也没有权利对此指手画脚，普通群众不行，社会名流也不行；党外人士不行，共产党员更不行。
Now that Ren Zhiqiang has openly opposed the communist ideal held by party members and specifically mentioned that the Youth League as the successor of communism is a big joke, as a member of the Communist Youth League I find it necessary to respond to Mr. Ren’s comment seriously and peacefully. […] As a public figure, he has the freedom to hold his beliefs. But as a party member, we have the freedom to believe in communism and no one can point fingers at us. Ordinary people can't do such things, celebrity can't, non-party member can't and party members shouldn't.
Jin Lin's claim that Ren, as a party member, opposes the communist party's beliefs was used as excuse for political persecution during the anti-rightist movement in 1950s and the Cultural Revolution.
Ren defended himself, penning another article refuting the League’s accusation and clarifying his view. He pinned the post at the top of his Weibo page with the following remark:
团中央发表了一篇与我榷的文章。心平气和的送了顶反党反共产主义的大帽子。只好再写几句。千万别让团中央用愚昧再去欺骗年轻的一代。千万别让改革开放退回到改革之前。我不在乎别人骂我，但团中央不能用无知欺骗社会！
The Central Communist Youth League posted an article discussing me, labeling me as anti-party and anti-communism. I have to write something warning against allowing the League to use ignorance to cheat the younger generation, against allowing China's reforms and opening up to be scaled back. I don’t care about being abused, but the League can’t use ignorance to cheat society!
In his long post, he pointed out:
不要以为对党的历史和现状提出批评就是反党。中共历史上有过无数次党的领导人的变更，也有过无数次党内的路线斗争。对党提出反对意见和批评最多的是毛，多少次的路线斗争都围绕着毛的领导地位而产生的。请问党内的斗争是反党还是爱党？
Don't confuse criticism of the party's history and current status as opposing the party. In the history of the Chinese Communist Party, the leadership and party lines have changed many times. In fact, Mao Zedong criticized the party the most and the struggles over party lines were mainly the result of the status of Mao's leadership. So how should you describe the internal party struggle? As opposition to the party or love for the party?
我反对的是急功近利的将“共产主义接班人”的口号放在今天空喊！这会误导大众，尤其是误导年轻的一代又一代。
What I oppose is sloganeering “successors of communism” for quick success and instant benefit today! It would mislead the public, especially the younger generations.
共产主义在有中国共产党的那天就不是只属于一个民族，一个国家的。共产主义天生就是个国际的主义！能不能实现也决不是一个政党，一个民族，一个国家的事。[…] 中国可以将马克思主义与中国的实际结合，建立有“中国特色的社会主义”。但这最多也只是“中国梦”，不是共产主义！
Communism since the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party does not belong to any nationality and state. Communism is internationalism, a project which cannot be fulfilled by any single party, nationality or state. […] What China can do is to combine Marxism with the country’s specific situation to build “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” But it is merely at most a “Chinese Dream” rather than communism!
Ren said he was forced to delete his introductory remark to the post on Weibo to settle the dispute, but you can still read the article on his blog.
Even though the League isn't an official department of the government or the party, it has been able to influence millions of youth through its enormous affiliates across the country. It’s also the power base of former President Hu Jintao, who was its previous general secretary, and has produced such luminaries as current Premier Li Keqiang and Guangdong party chief Hu Chunhua.
However, at a July central leadership meeting, Xi Jinping sent a warning signal to the powerful League to be less “aristocratic” and more in touch at a time of slowing economic growth within China.
As of the end of 2014, the League had recruited nearly 90 million members, who pay an annual fee and must be less than 28 years old, according to figures from its personnel department.

author: Jack Hu


text:
A Quake-Ravaged Nation Now Faces Indian Blockade. Welcome to Nepal. · Global Voices
Narayan Adhikari

Bikes queue up at the Sajha petrol pump in Pulchowk, Lalitpur, in Nepal. Image by Kristine Lau. Copyright Demotix (September 29, 2015)
Nepal is currently suffering from a major shortage of fuel and supplies, as several thousand trucks with goods from India are stranded at the India-Nepal border. The fuel shortage is so acute that the Nepalese government has introduced fuel rationing nationwide last Friday, September 25. Nepal is a landlocked country that has open borders with India on three sides and relies on supplies, most importantly food and fuel, from India.
Officials in Nepal have accused India of imposing an “unofficial economic blockade,” as it is preventing the trucks carrying supplies from entering Nepal near the Madhes border zone. On the other hand, India has claimed that ethnic Madhesi groups, who have protesting against Nepal's new constitution, are responsible for obstructing the border. Indian officials say they have merely halted traffic into Nepal for safety reasons.
On September, 20, 2015, Nepal's new constitution replaced the previous Interim Constitution, which lasted eight long years. Roughly 90 percent of the Constituent Assembly cast votes on the new Constitution, which won the support of 95 percent of the constituent assembly members who voted.
Nepalese people attend a celebration program to mark the beginning of constitution in the country. Image by Sunil Sharma. Copyright Demotix (September 9, 2015)
Many in Nepal have welcomed the new constitution, hoping it will end the tensions between the Maoists and other political groups.
lets join our hands together and make this day successful and memorable. https://t.co/xv3I1jcWyn # #WelcomeConstitution
— Unite For Nepal (@UniteforNepal) September 20, 2015
Several Nepali minorities, however, such as Madhesi, Tharum and Janjatis, have opposed the new constitution, saying it curtails their rights. According to these groups, the constitution fails to honor the Interim Constitution and other past agreements signed with the Madhesi and other forces. Those agreements dealt with the rights of choosing a province's official language, provincial autonomy, and provinces’ right to self-determination.
Amit Ranjan at Madhesi Youth explains why Madhesis are against the new constitution:
Madhesi including Tharus represent about 40-50 % of population of Nepal. With the new constitution Madhesi are looking for the equal representation in the state government and central government. There has been serious allegations made by madhesi leaders of an attempted division of madhesi and Tharu clusters which would limit Madhesi political representation. [..]
This is not a communal protest against any particular ethnicity or particular person. The government and leadership in the status quo has, however, attempted to make the agendas of Madhesi as communal and bring a split between Hill based people and Madhesi which is simply not the case.
In the past month, some protests against the new constitution turned violent and left dozens of people dead in several parts of Nepal. India complicated matters by dispatching Prime Minister Narendra Modi's special envoy, Indian Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, who tried to broker a deal between the country's ruling coalition and Madhesi-Tharu leaders, before the new constitution was adopted. India also advocated seven amendments to the new constitution, to ensure its acceptability to the Madhesis and Janjatis.
Many Nepalis have not taken lightly India's intervention. Some have pushed back online with the hashtag #BackOffIndia, which went went viral on Twitter:
“World's largest democracy” India punishing landlocked Nepal with economic blockade for adopting a constitution thru democratic process?
— आचार्य मधुरमण (@MadhuRamanACH) September 26, 2015
67%of India parliament members agreed their Constitution but In Nepal,87%of Parliament agreed.So #Stop to interfere&threat us. #BackOffIndia
— #BackOffIndia (@pzstha) September 22, 2015
The country is still recuperating from the devastating earthquake in April that killed more than 9,000 people and left millions more homeless and displaced. With Indian trucks carrying cooking fuel, gasoline, salt, sugar, and rice stopped at the border, public anger against the Indian government has continued to rise. The landslides caused by the earthquake have destroyed alternate supply routes from China, leaving Nepal dependent on imports from India.
To many Nepalis, India is punishing Nepal for ignoring its concerns about Nepal's new constitution.
To put blockade on a small neighbor country which is recovering from #nepalearthquake is at best, cowardly mentality. #IndiaBlockadesNepal
— समीरमणि दीक्षित (@smadixit) September 29, 2015
It is estimated that 3% of #Nepal‘s population has been pushed into poverty as a direct result of the earthquakes. Now #IndiaBlockadesNepal.
— Siromani Dhungana (@siromanid) September 30, 2015
Why international community isn’t speaking up against Indian blockade, by @writerbikash #IndiaBlockadesNepal http://t.co/oyvYl97bBf
— Ujjwal Acharya (@UjjwalAcharya) September 30, 2015
Kathmandu Airport has no aviation fuel 'cause supply hit by economic blockade of Nepal by India #IndiaBlockadesNepal https://t.co/FvXYjXSnXi
— Kanak Mani Dixit (@KanakManiDixit) September 29, 2015
In the streets of some cities, protesters shout anti-Indian slogans. Nepali cable television operators have blocked 42 Indian channels in protest against the alleged unofficial “blockade of goods” into the country. A Kathmandu movie theatre has also stopped showing Indian movies.
As per section 10, article 125, of the Convention on Transit Trade of Land-Locked Countries, Nepal has the right of access to and from the sea. Nepal and India have also signed the South Asia Free Trade Area Agreement. Some experts say India’s decision to halt supplies into Nepal is a breach of international conventions and multilateral agreements.
Some Nepalis are frustrated that the world is not taking more notice of the problem:
Current #Nepal situation: Effect of #IndiaBlockade International media coverage of Nepal: Possible age ban on Mt Everest
— Kunda Dixit (@kundadixit) September 29, 2015
Modi govts blockade in Nepal makes me wonder how India can break international policies and other countries remain silent! #BackOffIndia
— Raksha Pal (@RakshaPal08) October 1, 2015
Some protests have even occurred overseas:
First time in the US. Peaceful demonstration event against India's undeclared border halt ! #BackOffIndia pic.twitter.com/sBMNBbRpld
— #BackOffIndia (@SmiBhatta) October 1, 2015
Whatever becomes of these protests and the new constitution, there still appears to be no end in sight for the miseries visited on the people of Nepal.

author: Narayan Adhikari


text:
Kidnapped, But Sameera Is Ever-Present in the Memories of Syrians · Global Voices
مرسيل شحوارو

Yasin Al Haj Saleh and Sameera Al-Khalil. Photo from Yasin Al Haj Saleh's Facebook page.
He is surrounded by friends, who seek his advice on matters relating to their personal exhaustion. And why not, when he has lived all of this? He has been through all the stages of our Syrian struggle, and is still waiting for the end, armed with a degree of hope that makes you ashamed of your weakness.
Our friendship—and I am not entirely sure I should call it a friendship, as he is more like a godfather to me and my peers—started when I would write to him at the start of the Syrian revolution, each time I was invited to a conference or public talk. I was unaware of the most basic principles of public work, and I would ask for his advice in the smallest of details. Most of the time I would accept his opinion and follow his advice. I would send him my articles, which were full of spelling errors like a student in primary school, and despite his own erudition, he would read all that I wrote and encourage me like a father. He offered all the fatherly regard we yearned for in the clamour of youth.
Yasin Al Hajj Saleh is a teacher of hope. This article is not to praise his writings and personality but an attempt to convey to others the things about him that inspire us. It is an attempt to tell the world the story which, despite all its pain, sends a resounding message: if he was able to smile in the face of hope, what is your excuse?
Yasin was arrested when he was 19 and spent 16 years in prison. He was among the first to write about the Syrian revolution and live it. He carries that social awkwardness which he developed in his long years in prison. When you confront him about it, he would simply smile and say: “Sameera. Her strong point was social relations. Sameera was the one who gathered people around her.”
This, perhaps, is what this article is about: his love for his wife Sameera, who was kidnapped in Ghouta by the Islamic Army led by Zahran Alloush along with her companions Razan, Wael and Nadhem, and whose whereabouts remain unknown.
Every time you visited him at his rented house he would relate with pride the love story about a friend of his and her disabled Greek husband. Nothing has changed in that house except for the collection of books in Arabic and a tinted photograph of Sameera hung where he has a direct view of it from his study. She is ever-present in his conversations, his writings and the details of his everyday life. And he tried as well to etch her absence in the memories of Syrians. We remember her birthday. We worry about his guilt over her absence. We are defeated by our inability to change this state of affairs. Have we, as Syrians, let him down again?
We see her in his anger and his yearning, and in his defence for his right to be with us. We see her in his fatherly attitude towards me. Every time I see the pain in his eyes I realise that Sameera's absence from our lives is like losing my mother in the Syrian revolution all over again. Tomorrow, when Sameera returns—for none of us dares to think that she could not return—she will be shocked at the number of Syrians who can feel her presence, even though she doesn't know any of them.
Despite the painful thought of her absence and the disappearance of his brother in an ISIS jail, despite his own exile and memories of jail, Yasin still writes about manners and hope, and still teaches us that while the kidnappers can change the direction of our lives, but how we live in our hearts is entirely up to us.
His love for Sameera does not change with absence or guilt, nor is it affected by the insolence of the kidnappers. His love for her is not tarnished with accusations and rumours. His love for her forces us as Syrians to stand on the threshold of pain and wish them a happy beginning.
Let us close our eyes and wish for Sameera, Razan, Wael and Nadhem to come home, for them to stand up, like they have always done, for the rights of those imprisoned and marginalised women, for them to establish, perhaps together, a movement to defend the victims of forced disappearance.
Ex-political prisoner Sameera Al-Khalil, lawyer and human rights defender Razan Zaitouneh, her husband, engineer and activist Wael Hamadeh, and lawyer and poet Nazem Al Hamadi, went missing in Douma, Syria, in December 2013. Together they are known as The Douma Four. This blog is dedicated to their cause.

author: مرسيل شحوارو


text:
Man’s Beating Death Casts Harsh Light on India’s Beef Politics · Global Voices
Subhashish Panigrahi

Hundreds of Kashmiris clash with police after Friday prayers to protest against banning cow slaughter and the sale of beef by a division bench of Jammu and Kashmir high court in the Indian-controlled area of Kashmir. Image by Umer Aisf. Copyright Demotix (11/9/2015)
Communal attempts to banish the consumption or procurement of beef in India for religious reasons have taken a deadly turn. A mob consisting of 200 Hindu men lynched a Muslim man in the outskirts of the Indian capital of Delhi after rumors spread that his family was eating and storing beef.
Mohammad Akhlaq, 50, was beaten to death, and his 22-year-old son was severely injured. The two were dragged from their sleep at home in Dadri in the state of Uttar Pradesh after it was reportedly announced over the local temple loudspeaker about him possessing beef.
Nearly 80% of the country is Hindu, and many adherents abstain from eating beef. That leaves a sizable minority of 250 million Indians, including about 140 million Muslims, who do eat beef. Different states have different laws regulating slaughter and consumption. Hindu nationalists have pushed for tougher dietary restrictions nationwide with renewed fervor following the landslide victory of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party in 2014.
Blogger Saurabh Singh offered up a pertinent question following Akhlaq's death: “Will anyone in India ever dare to kill a beef-eating Hindu?”.
Was Akhlaq killed for being a Muslim? In today's India, can a fanatic mob get away with killing a beef-eating person, even if he is a Hindu?
We would be kidding ourselves if we think that's the case. No Hindu can ever be killed for eating cow meat in India. Muslims are always the usual suspects. Sadly, they have become the “others” in a country with the second largest Muslim population in the world.
There is a large number of beef-eating Hindus in India, but no one deems them as others, of course. If they choose to eat the meat, they are neither bullied nor looked down upon.
Social media was flooded with outrage from Indians at the news of the violence. Journalist Shivam VJ commented in Twitter:
If they think you killed a cow they will kill you because human life has no value for these Hindus http://t.co/ftVFNjOh8l
— Shivam Vij (@DilliDurAst) September 30, 2015
Sadanand Dhume wrote:
Dadri #lynching is morally repugnant. We need to condemn it without ifs and buts and strange detours into Gandhi's views on cow slaughter.
— Sadanand Dhume (@dhume) October 1, 2015
Harini Calamur urged for tough treatment of those involved:
why do mobs go on rampage – because they think they can get away with it. Throw the book at the murderers http://t.co/AvTik639oK #dadri
— Harini Calamur (@calamur) September 30, 2015
Six people have so far been arrested in connection with the killing.
Since the mob beating, certain members of the Bharatiya Janata Party have resorted to trivializing the issue to victim-blaming. A former Legislative Assembly member from the party called the accused “excited innocent children“.
For the BJP, murderers have always been ‘excited innocent children.’ Which explains why murderers are now their MPs: https://t.co/U3FtytgJNX
— lindsay pereira (@lindsaypereira) October 1, 2015
At the same time, Uttar Pradesh state police were criticized for not picking up the bloody clothing that Akhlaq and his son were wearing as evidence.
Suchitra Krishnamoorthi noted on Twitter the strange contrast between this hostile attitude toward consumption of beef and the fact that India is the world's largest exporter of the stuff:
Some get rich by exporting #beef, some die for consuming it?. WHat warped & perverse nationalism is this ban fanning http://t.co/JMfGQi1L7l
— Suchitra (@suchitrak) September 30, 2015
Banning meat has a long history in India. In August 2015, slaughterhouses in two neighborhoods in Mumbai, capital of Indian state of Maharashtra, were instructed to shut down for four and nine days respectively by the local municipality so that the local Jains, a small minority in India who are vegetarians, can practice a religious festival.
Social media users reacted strongly both in for and against under trending the hashtag #MeatBan on Twitter at the time. The annual temporary ban has been put into place since 1964, but received increased focus this year because of a controversial blanket ban placed on cattle slaughter in Maharashtra in March 2015.
Historically, banning the slaughtering of animals dates back to 16th century. Mughal emporer Akbar (1542-1605 CE) ordered people to abstain from butchering and selling of meat to respect the religious sentiments of the Jains.
Offstumped at Niti Central broke down the beef politics in India and how the different sides of the political spectrum along with the media all have it wrong:
The Right is wrong for moving the debate on “Cow Protection” from the personal domain based on personal morality and religious observances to the domain of the State, something which didn’t happen even during [ancient Indian jurist] Kautilya’s time.
The Left is wrong in questioning the legitimate Right of the State to legislate on matters that happen in public spaces, a Right which is not unique to India and a Right that is routinely exercised in liberal democracies of the West.
The media is wrong for having distorted the public debate by raising the bogey of personal freedoms when in fact there were no consumption bans. Rather than inform and clarify the media has vitiated the debate by playing up extremes on both sides by repeating crude generalisations and peddling vulgar oversimplifications.

author: Subhashish Panigrahi


text:
Meet ‘Droncita,’ Mexico’s First Graffiti-Artist Drone · Global Voices
Mas de 131

The collective project Rexiste, famous for writing “The state did it” in Mexico City's Zocalo Square in October 2014, has introduced a new member of its anonymous family: the flying drone, Droncita.
On the first anniversary of the Iguala mass kidnapping, Droncita's first act was to graffiti a portrait of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, demanding his resignation. “It's time to change everything,” the graffiti declares.
The 43 student teachers from Ayotzinapa, who disappeared on September 26, 2014, after they were attacked by local police, remain missing. Authorities concluded that a cartel killed the young people and incinerated their bodies, but parents of the victims don't believe the official account.
The Ayotzinapa case has shone a spotlight on the violence and corruption rife in Mexico — and Peña Nieto's failure to fix the deadly problem.
Watch the video with English subtitles above.

author: Mas de 131


text:
Thai Netizens Stage ‘Virtual Sit-in’ Against Single Internet Gateway Plan · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

From the Facebook page of “Citizens against Single Gateway”
Several major government websites were forced offline in Thailand on September 30 when Internet activists organized tens of thousands of people to visit and refresh their home pages until the websites were disabled due to high traffic.
The websites of the Royal Thai Armed Forces headquarters, Prime Minister's Office, Internal Security Operations Command, the Ministry of Communication Technology, and the Government House all went dark over the course of a few hours. Activists performed what they've described as an act of civil disobedience in protest of a recent proposal to create a single gateway for the Internet in Thailand.
The public was surprised to learn about the proposal when the minutes of a recent Cabinet meeting were posted on a government website. The document didn’t provide details of the single gateway mechanism, but did mention that the reform is necessary “to control the inappropriate websites and control the inflow of information.”
The Internet “gateway” denotes the infrastructure that connects the Internet in Thailand with the rest of the world. Since the deregulation of the IT sector in 2006, Thailand has built 10 international Internet gateways, only one of which belongs to the state. A single gateway could restrict Internet flows, which would allow the government to monitor and more easily censor Internet content. It could also could worsen online restrictions in Thailand, a particularly concerning development following last year's shift of political power to the military, which has since imposed strict media regulations. Protests are banned while critics of the military-backed government are given “attitude-adjustment” sessions.
The single gateway plan has been dubbed by critics as the “Great Firewall of Thailand,” alluding to the similar program implemented by China.
The ensuing online protest was organized by Facebook groups Citizens against Single Gateway and Gamers taking power back, who asked Internet users to simultaneously visit select government websites and continuously click the refresh button until the websites were forced to shut down due to an overabundance of traffic.
The organizers of the campaign said that one of their aims is to prove that a single gateway will not be beneficial to Thailand Internet users:
If the government can’t even protect its own websites from hackers, how can they be expected to set up and manage a single internet gateway for all of Thailand’s bandwidth?
Arthit Suriyawongkul, coordinator of the Thai Netizen Network, characterized the protest as more of a “virtual sit-in” rather than a distributed denial of service attack or DDoS:
DDOS attack tends to be linked to criminality. A more appropriate word is virtual sit-in or virtual blockade, which is a form of electronic civil disobedience. Well, strictly speaking, civil disobedience is about breaking the laws, but it is about breaking the laws in order to achieve principles that people believe to be more noble.
ICT Minister Uttama Savanayana confirmed that the number of visitors to the agency’s website went up from its daily average of 6,000 to 100,000 last Wednesday evening. Uttama referred to the cyber protest as a mere symbolic gesture and not a hacking crime. He also insisted that the government has no plans to censor the Internet:
The government does not have a plan to implement these things, but just to study it to look after the youth. People should not worry that Internet freedom will be taken away.
The government needs to be more persuasive in its explanation since many Internet users have already expressed concern about the negative impact of the single gateway mechanism. As of this writing, more than 142,000 people had already signed the online petition “Go against Thai govt to use a Single Internet Gateway” on Change.org.
The Twitter hashtag #SingleGateway trended in Thailand during the cyber protest. Some of the tweets accused the government of being inconsistent with its reasons for pursuing the proposal:
1st they said #singlegateway is for ”national security”, then for ”IT competitiveness”, now b/c of ”the youths”?! https://t.co/HlvRYCm46w
— Saksith Saiyasombut (@Saksith) October 1, 2015
Some also advised the government to focus on other Internet-related laws and innovations:
What Thailand should more focus on than #singlegateway : developing broadband for rural area & continuing debate on Internet governance.
— Supinya Klangnarong (@supinya) September 30, 2015
It is not only activists who are opposing the single gateway idea. Business owners are worried that it would slow down Internet connections which could hurt the e-commerce sector. They also disputed the argument of the government that a single gateway will reduce the cost of online transactions.
But police chief Somyot Pumpanmuang believes that a single Internet gateway will be good for the country’s security:
As long as Thailand still uses the [current] system, when these messages are sent in, we need to have people monitoring them, and rely on the media or the people to report offending messages individually to police. I have petitioned the government about this many times. There should be a single gateway in Thailand.
Bangkok Post newspaper published an editorial arguing that the single gateway for the Internet is an unnecessary measure that could violate the privacy of Internet users in Thailand:
The single benefit is to the government and security agencies. They will be able to secretly wiretap, filter, censor and monitor everything that is sent and received by every Internet user.

author: Mong Palatino


text:
Fears for Imprisoned Syrian Bassel Khartabil, Transferred to an Unknown Location · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

The FreeBassel poster from @freebassel on Twitter. Bassel Safadi has been imprisoned in Syria for almost four years and friends and activists fear for his life after he was transferred from his prison today to an unknown location
Activists are calling upon the Syrian government to immediately release imprisoned Syrian-Palestinian software engineer Bassel Khartabil, also known as Bassel Safadi, after he was moved from his prison to an unknown location earlier today.
Safadi, who has been in prison for almost four years, is also a well-known open-source software developer. He is a Creative Commons leader in Syria and active in projects like Mozilla Firefox and Wikipedia, and is credited with opening up the Syrian Internet and extending online access and knowledge to the public. According to the European Parliament, his detention is part of Syrian government efforts to restrict access to online communities and stifle freedom of expression in the country.
According to a Facebook page set up by supporters calling for his release:
تم نقل باسل من سجن عدرا الى جهة مجهولة بعد ان اتت دورية لا يعرف بالضبط الى اي جهة تتبع وطلب منه اخذ كل اغراضه
من المتوقع ان يكون نقل الى مقر المحكمة الميدانية في الشرطة العسكرية في منطقة القابون
قلق ومخاوف على مصير باسل بعد ان اصبح وضعه مجهولا من جديد
Bassel was transferred from Adra prison to an unknown location after a patrol, whose affiliation is not known, came to him and asked him to gather his things. It is expected that he has been transferred to the civil court headquarters at the Military Police in Al Qaboun area. We are worried and fear for Bassel after his whereabouts are unknown again
Khartabil was arrested on March 15, 2012, on the first anniversary of the start of the Syrian revolution. He was interrogated and tortured for five days by Military Branch 215. He was then transferred to the Interrogation Division Branch 248 and detained incommunicado for nine months. On December 9, 2012, Khartabil was brought before a military prosecutor without an attorney present, and charged with “spying for an enemy State”. He was then sent to the Adra Prison in Damascus, where he has been held, until today. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) notes that:
It was Bassel's visibility as a technologist and activist that made him a target for detention.
An online petition, initiated by friend and campaigner Mohamed Najem, is available at Change.org calling for Khartabil's immediate release. Please click the link to sign it.
Friend and freedom of speech campaigner Jillian C. York, who is also EFF Director for International Freedom of Expression, lends her support to the drive. She tweets:
My friend Bassel Safadi has been transferred from Adra prison in Syria, we don't know where-Please sign our petition https://t.co/sER4lWTXjB
— jillian c. york (@jilliancyork) October 3, 2015
We know petitions won't convince Syria (or anyone) but it's all we've got. Please help get the word out so Bassel stays safe.
— jillian c. york (@jilliancyork) October 3, 2015

author: Amira Al Hussaini


text:
Jamaicans to UK Prime Minister: Get Over Slavery? ‘You First.’ · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

“Slave shackles”; photo by National Museum of American History Smithsonian, used under a CC BY-NC 2.0 license.
The outrage over British Prime Minister David Cameron's response to the slavery reparations issue during his visit to Jamaica has not subsided. In fact, Jamaicans have only become more vocal online in their reactions to Cameron's admonishment to just “get over slavery.”
In a public post that has been widely shared on Facebook, Jamaican author Marlon James, whose latest novel A Brief History of Seven Killings had some of the world's toughest literary critics spouting superlatives, crafted one of the most well-reasoned responses:
People have been blowing up my phone non stop, asking for a response to David Cameron saying Jamaicans should get over slavery and move on. Not just that, but the whole idea of this dough-faced Tory coming to the colonies to tell the subjects what's what in our own damn house.
Listen David bae, I feel you. I'm with you on this forgetting slavery business, screw all the haters. I too am all ready to move past slavery and forget the whole thing.
I just have one condition: YOU FIRST.
You heard me. I promise to stop bitching about the legacy of Slavery and Colonialism (don't get it twisted, the latter was even worse) and move on if you also move on, by destroying every building, every landmark, every statue, every port, every bridge, every road, every house, every palace, every mansion, every gallery (Hello, Tate!), every museum, and every ship built with slavery and colonialism blood money.
That would mean that London, Bristol and Liverpool would all have to go.
Then we'd all be just about full free, David.
In a blog post, satirical news outlet The Ungrateful Soup, which calls itself “Jamaica's Most Reliable Informer,” had this to say:
Sensing a distinct lack of gratitude from the Jamaican people during his first official visit to the island, British Prime Minister David Cameron has formally agreed to strike a compromise with the local Government so we can stop nagging him about this whole reparations thing once and for all.
‘Wow, I can’t believe we’re still talking about this,’ began Cameron in his address to the Jamaican people. ‘But fine. Whatever. We promise we won’t enslave or colonize you people ever again. Happy now?’
The tongue-in-cheek post continued:
The statement, which the United Kingdom has described as the closest we will ever get to an apology, ‘so you can just forget about that,’ is the latest sign of goodwill from the nation who also graciously gifted us the opportunity to relieve some of the burden on British taxpayers with a brand new prison complete with convicted criminals.
‘You try to be nice to people and this is how they respond, by begging,’ continued Cameron, referring to what he has taken to calling ‘the R word.’
Interestingly, other British politicians are also steering clear of “the R word.” Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn, while acknowledging that the UK owed a huge debt to the Jamaican people, thought that the best way to repay it was not through reparations, but by investing in the country and treating it better when it comes to trade relations. (In the video below, the question about paying reparations to Jamaica comes at 4:05):
The Ungrateful Soup just couldn't help itself, quipping:
The British Prime Minister was later asked whether he really thought this new guarantee was enough for both countries to move on from their dark past. ‘Uhh…move on from what again?’ Cameron responded. ‘Oh right right. Slavery. See, it’s like it never happened. You’re welcome.’
One Twitter user raised the point that not only was the country's social order in shambles after colonialism and slavery, its systems and economic infrastructure were desperate as well:
None of the discussions on #reparations mention that, rebuilding after colonisation left #Jamaica over $7bn in debt to the West
— NativeSon (@adamec87) October 2, 2015
A fellow netizen, however, argued that even if the UK was to pay reparations, Jamaica would be ill-equipped to manage the funds:
Jamaica couldn't efficiently handle such financial #reparations from the UK. Let's not kid ourselves. #realistic
— Alex…אלכס (@AlexTheBrotha) September 29, 2015
Responders to the tweet felt that even if that were the case, it should not stop the monies from being paid. One British blogger, writing at “the red pill” blog, examined the different legacies that colonialism has bestowed upon both the masters and the slaves:
The legacy of slavery in the UK is seen today in the way our history books have largely avoided this evil part of our past, choosing to gloss over the realities of history, and instead focus on those we think ended slavery […]
The legacy of slavery in the UK is seen in the way British influence around the world far exceeds the size and resources of our island […] a global reach that was established, fuelled and maintained by slavery.
And every single day the legacy of slavery is seen and felt in the UK and internationally as racist attitudes and actions doggedly continue to blight our communities. […] I find myself asking if our nation's actions had been towards another European country whether we'd so quickly dismiss the notion of reparations, or indeed whether the global community would continue to turn a blind eye.
For generations wealth was extracted from Jamaica. […] And when slavery finally ended, it was the slave-owners who were financially compensated for their loss, with no payments made to enslaved persons for the years and lives taken in gruelling labour in the cruellest of conditions. […]
The blogger, Johnathan, pointed out that the legacy of slavery in Jamaica was still “a very present reality” and wondered how the UK could make up for “centuries of wealth being extracted.”
And how can two nations walk in partnership, when one has so grievously abused the other, and the legacy of that abuse continues?
It's not a matter of ‘dredging up the past’, but rather dealing with the present. For the UK, the stain of our past lingers, and we have dealt unjustly with Jamaica. It is the responsibility of the generation that is aware of the injustice to fix it. For us in the UK, it;s a matter of righteousness. We cannot lecture the world about how to govern their affairs when we ourselves have left unfinished the matter of once and for all dealing with slavery.
David Cameron must listen with an open heart and mind to the call for reparations, and have the courage to do what is right.


text:
Kyrgyzstan’s Youth ‘Against All’ on the Eve of Elections · Global Voices
Chynara Bakyt kyzy and Sagipa Chorobekova

Photo taken from Kloop.kg (Creative Commons).
Kyrgyzstan will host genuinely difficult-to-predict elections on October 4, quite a feat by the standards of post-Soviet Central Asia. But what excites the outside observer doesn't necessarily do much for ordinary Kyrgyzstanis, particularly young people, who feel alienated by empty political promises and persistent corruption.
In the build-up to the parliamentary ballot this weekend, Global Voices made a video in which young people were interviewed on their voting positions.
The verdict was clear: massive apathy.
Most of the young people canvassed said they would not cast a ballot.
Some doubted the fairness of the elections, while others said they knew which of the 14 parties would lead the vote and therefore doubted their votes could change anything.
Others will not have the chance to vote having not submitted their biometric data on time as part of a new requirement the government says will ensure the elections are clean.
The local newspaper Vecherniy Bishkek reported that only 2,751,414 citizens had submitted data, with a further million voters unable to vote after missing the deadline for submission on September 19.
The government resolution mandating biometric data registration for voters has raised privacy and security concerns in a country where data is not treated with integrity.
Nevertheless it was recognised as constitutional by a local court on September 14. Months earlier, Klara Sooronkulova, a high-ranking judge, was fired for trying to fight the resolution.
As Eurasianet reported in June:
A senior judge in Kyrgyzstan has been sacked after challenging the government’s plan to collect fingerprints and other biometric data from citizens.
Klara Sooronkulova had become a hero for civic activists who believe the top-down effort to force citizens to share their fingerprints in exchange for the right to vote is unconstitutional and at odds with their civil liberties.
Sooronkulova, a judge at the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court, was drafting a document declaring the 2014 Law on Biometric Registration unconstitutional. She had attracted legal expertise from abroad to reinforce her position.
She now seems certain to lose her position after the Council of Judges (kind of a judges’ board of directors) voted unanimously on June 18 to dismiss her, citing a breach of judicial discipline.
Amid public pre-vote dissatisfaction Bektour Iskender and others have been calling for registered voters to cast votes  “against all”, a common feature of ballots in many post-Soviet countries.
If a majority of citizens vote “against all”, he explains, the elections will have to be repeated. This would be a slap in the face for the government, and would provide people that wanted to vote but were hoping the constitutional court would overturn the resolution mandating biometric data submission an opportunity to register.
Although this in itself is an unlikely outcome, a large number of votes ‘against all’ will “frighten the government,” Iskender says.
Достаточно просто, чтобы количество голосов против всех было заметным. Чтобы в будущем граждане Кыргызстана смогли пугать государство голосованием против всех, если их что-то будет принципиально не устраивать в действиях власти”.
It would be enough for the amount of votes against all to be noticeable. This would mean that in the future citizens  would be able to frighten the government by voting against all again, if they are fundamentally dissatisfied with the actions of the authorities.
The Central Election Commission recently denied a group of activists representing the “against all” position free airtime as is permitted to the political parties competing in the vote.
But an online poll conducted by Zanoza.kg showed over a quarter of respondents wanted to cast their vote in this way, only slightly less than the number that voted for the Respublika-Ata-Jurt party that topped the poll.


text:
The Return of the Russian Government’s Wikipedia Meddling · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

After almost ten months of near total inactivity, the Russian government is once again editing Wikipedia anonymously. When it launched in July 2014, the Twitter account @RuGovEdits, which automatically logs any anonymous edits to Wikipedia made by computers with IP addresses known to belong to the Russian government, was busy indeed.
The return of Russia's Wikipedia edits. (Image by Kevin Rothrock.)
On July 18, 2014, @RuGovEdits made news headlines for exposing attempts by the All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company to revise the Wikipedia entry on accidents and incidents involving commercial aircraft. The revisions came hours after Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 crashed in eastern Ukraine, when Russian state-controlled media outlets were working hard to dispel reports that the plane was brought down by a Russian missile.
For months after @RuGovEdits launched, it logged dozens of anonymous edits from Russian government IPs. Then, suddenly on December 31, 2014, the trail went cold. Between New Year’s Eve and late September, the Twitter account logged just two edits to Wikipedia from Russian government IPs.
On September 23, 2015—five days ahead of Vladimir Putin’s recent trip to the United States, where he delivered a speech to the United Nations, and a week ahead of what would be the start of Russian airstrikes against targets inside Syria—@RuGovEdits again started tracking regular activity on Wikipedia by people using Russian government IPs.
None of the new anonymous edits approach anything like the July 2014 attempt to rewrite the article on aircraft crashes. Since September 25, @RuGovEdits has recorded 12 new revisions, on topics ranging from migration cards in Russia to the Thai economy. Someone in the Federal Protective Service (which is responsible for protecting Vladimir Putin and other high-ranking officials) even edited the Wikipedia entry on the chupacabra (a legendary cryptid rumored to inhabit parts of the Americas), adding information about the discovery of several mysteriously killed rabbits in a Russian village in September 2015.
“The Chupacabra.” Wikimedia commons.
So far, there is just one politically suspicious edit recently discovered by @RuGovEdits: on September 25, someone using a computer in Russia’s Federal Protective Service removed from former Chelyabinsk Governor Mikhail Yurevich’s Wikipedia page information about a 2012 criminal scandal implicating Yurevich’s cabinet. Wikipedia administrators immediately undid the changes and locked the page for a month from further edits by unverified users.
It’s unclear why @RuGovEdits is suddenly finding new Wikipedia activity by the Russian government’s computers. The last time these IP addresses were busy on Wikipedia, Russia was in the middle of a major intervention in eastern Ukraine, fighting what the Kremlin still openly calls an “information war.” With Moscow now shifting the focus of its foreign policy to Syria (where it’s launched a bombing campaign against the wishes of the United States, which has been attacking targets in Syria for years already), the sudden revival of the Russian government’s interest in Wikipedia could signal a return to old ways. Or maybe it’s only a coincidence.

author: Kevin Rothrock


text:
A Letter to the Rulers of Russia, From Oleg Kashin · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

Oleg Kashin. Photo: Facebook. Used with permission.
In the early morning hours on November 6, 2010, almost five years ago, a group of men attacked and nearly killed Oleg Kashin, one of Russia's most prominent journalists. They broke each of his fingers and smashed his head with a steel pipe. He was hospitalized in a coma, but he did not die.
Last month, on September 7, 2015, after a surprisingly exhaustive investigation by Russian police, Kashin revealed the names of his alleged attackers. The men appear to be linked to Andrey Turchak, the powerful governor of Pskov, and ex-employees of the security department of “Zaslon,” a company owned by Turchak's family that designs and produces aircraft electronics and weapons-targeting systems. Though the evidence against Turchak and his entourage has mounted in the press, he remains free and in office. He hasn't even been questioned.
On Saturday, October 3, Kashin published an open letter addressed to President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, where he discusses his case and the significance its abandonment has for Russia as a nation. That letter appears below, translated fully into English.
Dear Mr. Putin and Mr. Medvedev,
My colleagues have already written you open letters about my case. You haven’t responded (and, more importantly, neither has your Investigative Committee), though this actually makes perfect sense: you were asked to “sort it out,” but there’s no need for anything like that. I understand perfectly well that you “sorted it out” a long time ago, and you’ve known for just as long that it was your little Governor Turchak who was behind this crime against me—the same crime I once discussed with one of you, when one of you told me the heads of whoever was responsible would roll. But my case was solved a long time ago. You know this, and I know this. And I see no reason to pretend that the problem here is that you still need to “sort it out.”
Like I said: you’ve already sorted it out, and your decision not to act is clear.
You’ve decided to side with your Governor Turchak; you’re protecting him and his gang of thugs and murderers. It would make sense for somebody like me—a victim of this gang—to be outraged about all this and tell you that it’s dishonest and unjust, but I understand that such words would only make you laugh. You have complete and absolute control over the adoption and implementation of laws in Russia, and yet you still live like criminals. Every time, it’s something above the law. Consider Inspector Sotskov, who’s been handed my case and is now dutifully tearing it apart. Busy rescuing Turchak and his partner Gorbunov, Sotskov put it elegantly when he said recently: There’s the law, but there’s also the man in charge, and the will of the boss is always stronger than any law. Put bluntly: he’s right and that’s reality. Your will in Russia is stronger than any law, and simply obeying the law is an impossible fantasy.
I’ve known Inspector Sotskov for over a year now. He and I belong to the same generation. At one time, he was even a journalist at Narodnoe Radio. I can easily imagine him in his first year of law school, studying Roman law, still full of enthusiasm, honesty, and dreams about changing the world. And what’s become of him now? He’s a terrified bureaucrat, dreaming about keeping his job long enough to earn a pension, and he’s ready to do any foul thing to get it—even something criminal that could land him behind bars. Who made him this way? It was you.
For some reason, we weigh the last fifteen years of your reign purely in certain materialist terms. Oil costs so much, the dollar is worth so much, GDP rose so many percentiles, and so on. But it’s not about oil or GDP. History will judge these fifteen years precisely on the fate of men like Sotskov. It was you who turned an enthusiastic freshman—someone who hurried to the studio from lectures to read the news on an opposition radio station—into a uniformed cynic, who admits openly that the will of his superiors—his bosses—is for him (an investigator and an officer!) more important than any law. And I’ve got no right to judge him. When Sotskov looks around, what does he see? He sees an example being made of his colleague and friend, Alexey Serdyukov, the distinguished investigator who not long ago put behind bars Makhachkala Mayor Said Amirov. After he dared to solve my case, where Governor Turchak is a suspect, Serdyukov was basically suspended.
Your choice between the Serdyukovs and the Sotskovs is a principled one, of course. The former you simply don’t need, and the latter make up your most reliable pillar of support. The more flexible they’re capable of being, the safer it is for you.
But don’t flatter yourself: the last fifteen years haven’t been a revival for Russia, and the country hasn’t risen from its knees; this time has been a monumental moral catastrophe for our generation. And both of you, Mr. Putin and Mr. Medvedev, are personally responsible for it.
In Russian society today, even obvious questions about good and evil have become impossible. Is it okay to steal? Is it okay to cheat? Is murder ethical? With each of these questions, it’s become customary in Russia now to answer that things aren’t so simple. All your good works have left the nation demoralized and disoriented. Lies and hypocrisy are convenient tools you use to control the masses, and it works for you and it’s comfortable, but each time you use these instruments it’s another painful blow to society, and every next blow could be fatal.
But you carry on, managing your problems without even realizing that you’re digging the hole yourselves. “Things aren’t so simple,” is what the angry crowd will tell you in unison, when it comes time for you to run away. I suspect that you’re afraid of this crowd, but just remember that it was you who created it, and you’ve got nobody to blame but yourselves. For you, it’s an act of high valor to say, “It wasn’t me!” even when you’re caught red-handed. Do you seriously expect to be remembered as true heroes, with a record like this?
Having cut yourselves and your elites off from society, you’ve also cut yourselves off from reality. There’s a wall separating you from the rest of us, and everyone on our side shudders each time the next one of your goons decides to show what a thinker he is by stepping up to a podium and talking about how the population is being controled by computer chips, about the “Euro-Atlantic conspiracy,” or about how the Americans are weaponizing cellular research.
Even we can still experience surprise when we hear such things. In your isolation, on the other hand, this sort of thing is all you hear, and it’s all you believe. Your superstitions and your mysticism—your vision of the world that’s something out of those 1980s samizdat conspiracy theories about Freemasons, and your pseudo-Russian Orthodoxy (which would have appalled Christ)—it all long ago turned you into a totalitarian sect. Most importantly, this sectarianism merged and multiplied with your old friend, the criminal ethics that ruled St. Petersburg in the 1990s. It is precisely this combination of sectarianism and gangster ideas about the nobility of absolute loyalty that make you pick Turchak, when choosing between him and the law.
And if only Turchak were the only one! This year we’ve also had to learn the name “Ruslan Geremeev,” [who is suspected of a playing a leading role in the murder of Boris Nemtsov]. We’ve learned this name thanks to you, because thanks to you the closest men like him will ever come to being prosecuted is seeing “anonymous sources” whisper in the newspapers about their guilt. Criminal charges? Dream on.
It’s common today to say that Chechnya belongs to Ramzan Kadyrov, but really it’s yours. It was you who created it, and, for you, it’s become the perfect example of the Russia you want to rule over. The rest of the country can only hope to catch up, and that’s what Turchak’s Pskov (which, again, is really yours—not his) is trying to do.
You arrested the Komi Republic’s entire ruling elite, and you act like a gang at the top of government is an anomaly. But you yourselves know perfectly well that Vyacheslav Gayzer was a perfectly ordinary governor, and Komi is a perfectly ordinary region, just as Kushchevskaya [a mobtown that was the site of a massacre in 2010] was an ordinary town and not an anomaly. You inherited Russia with the word “federation” attached to the name of its government, and what a wonderful federation it’s become, based entirely on the principle of personal loyalty, with you giving away whole regions to friends, to the children of your friends, or even to random thugs.
When things started between Turchak and me, in our little online exchange, I said his appointment as governor was an insult to federalism, but I didn’t phrase it quite right. In Russia today, everything that’s formally called federalism is an insult to the citizens, to the law, and to basic common sense. This, too, is your personal accomplishment, and nobody else’s.
Whoever comes after you will have to create Russia all over again, from scratch. This is your only service to history—what you’ve spent fifteen years achieving. Your favorite justification for all this (the only one, there are no others) are the troubles of the 1990s, but it’s important to understand that you preserved and strengthened everything about this period that we’ve come to hate today. You didn’t fix anything. You only made it all worse.
You like to think of yourselves as the heirs to two empires, Tsarist and Soviet. But the tsars sent criminals to hang; they didn’t put them in governors’ chairs. You take pride in your neo-Soviet militarism, but if anybody told Dmitriy Ustinov, who created the USSR’s military-industrial complex, that a man was beaten with steel pipes and it was passed off in accounting as an official defense project, paid for with official state funding, Ustinov would have thought he was hearing a nasty anti-Soviet joke. Veterans of Turchak’s factory told me that, twenty years ago, the young future governor would ride around the grounds in a black Volga, firing from a pistol at stray cats. The portrait of your era and your elites will be full of details like this, and you’ve got no reason to expect anything more.
Your main problem is that you simply don’t love Russia. You treat it like another disposable resource that’s fallen into your laps. And whatever your confessors tell you, know that God won’t forgive you for this.
In recent days, I’ve heard many times that all the noise around my case is getting kicked up thanks to some war among the factions who surround you. This is another feature of the system you’ve imposed: nothing just happens, someone is behind everything, and there are conspiracies everywhere. As a participant in this so-called conspiracy, I can say that a battle among the factions is certainly raging, but the shared goal of all the factions is to save your Governor Turchak and his associates from criminal prosecution. I suspect this battle is won. I can see perfectly well that the worst thing Turchak faces now is a quiet resignation, timed long after any developments in my case. This is the only justice citizens can expect, and it means that your system isn’t capable of any kind of justice at all.
You do what you want, but I wonder how comfortable life can be, when you know that you yourselves won’t be able to count on justice or the law, sooner or later.
Oleg Kashin


text:
#StopLumadKillings Campaign Demands Protection for Anti-Mining Tribes in Southern Philippines · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Reacting to reports that paramilitary activities and mining operations are displacing Lumad tribes, many Filipinos have called for urgent government action to stop the violence against the indigenous peoples. Lumad is a collective term referring to the indigenous tribes in Mindanao, the Philippines’ second biggest island located in the southern part of the country.
“Oplan Bayanihan [a military counterinsurgency program] pushes Lumads to evacuate their lands, but also paves the way for corporations to take hold of the land, and use the Armed Forces of the Philippines as their own security force as they plunder and suck the Earth of its natural elements.” Image and caption by Anakbayan USA.
Lumad leaders from Surigao province reported that paramilitary groups have attacked their schools and communities, forcing more than 2,000 people to leave their homes in the mountains and seek shelter in the city center. Many came from Lumad communities which have actively resisted the entry of mining companies.
The National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), a government agency, described the violence against the Lumad as an attack on Philippine culture:
The NCCA recognizes these indigenous peoples and their leaders as the core and the backbone of the country’s intangible cultural heritage. They are the bearers of our unique artistic traditions. Their murder is the murder of our peoples’ soul. As the living transmitters of time-tested knowledge systems, skills and practices, to wound them is to damage the cultural basis for the sustainable development of our nation.
For several days in September, the Twitter hashtag #StopLumadKillings trended in the Philippines when Filipino netizens turned to social media to express their solidarity with the displaced Lumad. Below are some photos and memes showing support for the Lumad:
The banner reflects the stand of the Catholic Church in Tandag City where more than 2,000 Lumad evacuees have sought shelter. Photo shared on Facebook by Manassas Benedict L. Serrano.
Teachers in Manila join call for the protection of the Lumad. Photo from the Facebook page of Carl Marc Ramota.
Women activists in Manila show support for the Lumad. Photo from the Facebook page of Tudla
Facebook users were asked to share this profile photo created by human rights groups in support of the Lumad.
Students from St. Scho-Manila held a noise barrage in support to #StopLumadKillings. | Photos via Edd Gumban pic.twitter.com/CXimqdTcv0
— The Philippine Star (@PhilippineStar) September 15, 2015
The #StopLumadKillings campaign has also reached other countries. Below are photos showing international solidarity for the Lumad:
Filipino teachers in University of California Berkeley show support for the Lumad. Photo from the Facebook page of Joi Barrios-Leblanc
Filipino activists in New York City show support for the Lumad. Photo from Anakbayan USA
Solidarity from a Palestinian family. Photo shared on Facebook by Mark Moreno Pascual
Belgian activists show support for Lumad communities. Photo from the Facebook page of Tinay Palabay
Human rights activists attending a conference in Germany show support for Lumad communities. Photo from the Facebook page of Tinay Palabay
Activists in the Netherlands show support for the Lumad. Photo from the Facebook page of Marlon Toledo Lacsamana
The United Nations Special Rapporteurs on the rights of indigenous peoples, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, and on the situation of human rights defenders, Michel Forst urged the military to end its occupation of some tribal schools:
Military occupation of civilian institutions and killing of civilians, particularly in places such as schools which should remain safe havens for children from this type of violence, are unacceptable, deplorable and contrary to international human rights and international humanitarian standards
For its part, the military has denied that it organized paramilitary groups to harass the Lumad communities. It insisted that tribal war was the cause of violence in the Lumad areas. But the governor of the province disputed this and accused the military of creating and arming the paramilitary groups. The Philippines senate has committed to investigating the issue.