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A Hong Kong reporter’s account of the crackdown on press freedom under the national security law · Global Voices
The Stand News

Leung Ka Lai. Image from the Stand News. Used with permission.
This is the final installment of a story, originally published in Chinese, on The Stand News. It was translated into English by Global Voices and will be published here in five parts with permission. Read parts one, two, three, and four.
Freedom of speech is under siege in the city of Hong Kong following the enactment of the national security law.
Many foreign journalists have reportedly failed to renew their work visas, pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily was raided and its founder Jimmy Lai arrested, accused of collusion with foreign forces.
The latest drama concerned the arrest of Choy Yuk-ling, a reporter who had worked for the city's public broadcaster, Radio Television Hong Kong. On November 2, police arrested Choy as part of an investigation into the Yuen Long mob attack incident. The incident occurred on July 21, 2019, when a pro-Beijing mob attacked protesters returning home inside the Yuen Long subway station. The police claimed that the reporter violated the Road and Traffic Ordinance for making a false statement during her research on the details of a vehicle involved in the attack.
All the signs thus far suggest that working in the field of journalism has become a dangerous endeavor.
Beijing announced its plan to enact the draconian national security law in Hong Kong in May 2019. As the term “national security” is so vaguely defined, critical speech could be interpreted as provoking hatred toward the authorities. This has led to a silencing effect that swept across the city.
A number of prominent columnists including financial experts Simon Lee and Michael Suen on Apple Daily news terminated their columns in the newspapers, several influential Facebook public pages were deleted by their administrators — including one ran by former Secretary of the Civil Service Joseph Wong — a number of websites vanished, and many social media users deleted their user accounts.
The risk of speaking out under one's real name is getting higher and higher.
Leung Ka Lai, a journalist working for Apple Daily, interviewed protesters and written feature stories about the anti-China extradition protests.
On August 10, the date when Jimmy Lai was arrested and Apple Daily’s office was raided by about 200 police officers, she was shocked. Yet, she somehow anticipated this as she had removed all the interviewees’ details and notes from the office and deleted all the chat records from her mobile phone in July.
She also deleted a public page on Facebook which was opened on August 31, 2019, after a major city-wide anti-China extradition protest. She used the page to share videos that she took and some of her journalistic notes. One of her videos showing riot police officers beating up young protesters inside a church in Sai Wan Ho on November 11, 2019, had attracted 2 million views. Through the page, she also received a large number of tips. At the same time, she was doxxed and harassed online.
Her major concern is to prevent the leaking of information regarding her source:
I don’t worry about myself. The safety of my interviewees is more important than mine and I don’t want to risk the exposure of their details.
She lived with the fear that she would eventually be arrested for being a journalist. This year, when she was reporting on the anniversary of the protests on June 12, she was trapped in a police kettling. Riot police pulled her backpack and grabbed her phone while she was live-streaming. She was searched and detained for 45 minutes.
Apple Daily used to have reporters’ byline in each of its reports. Such practice has been suspended since July 1 as the NSL was enacted. The most worrisome fact about the national security law, as pointed out by the paper's legal consultant is that the interpretation of the law is at the hands of Beijing.
Leung has been a journalist for about 15 years. She believes that the aim of the police raid was to instigate fear.
On August 27, about two weeks after the raid Chinese state-funded media, the People’s Daily, stated that Apple Daily is a dangerous “political organization.” Such political labels could lead to the shutdown of the media outlet under the draconian law.
The crackdown on Apple Daily has extended to its supporters. During the raid, netizens expressed their support to the paper by buying stocks of its parent company Next Media Group, which led to a rocket surge of its stock price. Two weeks later, on September 10, police arrested 15 stock buyers under the charge of “conspiracy to defraud” and “money laundry.” In the past, abnormal activities in the stock market would be investigated by the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong and the Securities and Futures Commission.
Leung is worried that Beijing would outlaw media outlets that are not loyal to them:
The space for free press is diminishing… I fear that very soon we will be forced to leave the industry, or they will shut down Apple Daily. If you want to remain a journalist, you have to work for pro-establishment media outlets such as Wen Wei Po or Ta Kung Pao.
The situation is extremely scary. But I will continue to stay in the industry until there is no more space. I am prepared to work as a freelance journalist. What we are facing now is not just the survival of Apple Daily but the whole independent media sector.
She wants to continue her journalism career and safeguard the truth:
We have to prevent the scenario that after 30 years, people would say that June 4 had never taken place. We have to carry on with our work until there is no more space.

author: The Stand News


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Conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh raises scrutiny of Israel’s arms sales to Azerbaijan · Global Voices
Maxim Edwards

Israeli-manufactured Harop drone of the type used by Azerbaijani armed forces in Nagorno-Karabakh. Paris, 2013. Photo CC BY 4.0: Julian Herzog / Wikimedia Commons. Some rights reserved.
After 44 days of war, a Russian-brokered deal has bought an uneasy peace to Nagorno-Karabakh. On September 27, Azerbaijan launched an offensive to retake this mountainous territory, which it had lost to ethnic Armenian forces in the 1988-1994 war. Baku has succeeded, but the war has cost several thousand lives.
That peace deal, announced on November 10, has redrawn the map of the South Caucasus. Over the next two months, Azerbaijan will receive control of all the districts surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh, which also fell under Karabakh Armenian control during the first war. The status of that section of Nagorno-Karabakh which Azerbaijan did not conquer, including the heavily bombarded capital of Stepanakert, remains unclear. Some 2,000 Russian peacekeepers will patrol the region, as well as a strategically important road linking it to Armenia.
Azerbaijan's victory came in no small part due to external support. NATO member state Turkey, which Azerbaijan has close cultural and economic ties, has weighed in heavily on Baku's side — offering political support, military expertise, and mercenaries from Syria.
Baku's friendship with Israel has also been crucial to its battlefield successes. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Israel supplied 60 percent of all Azerbaijan's arms imports between 2015 and 2019. Among them are the SandCat armoured car and several rifle models.
Importantly, these imports helped Azerbaijan amass a fleet of military drones, which overwhelmed Armenia's air defence systems and turned the tide in Baku's favour. As a senior source in the Israeli military told the Asia Times on October 14, “Azerbaijan would not have been able to continue its operation at this level without our support”.
Not everybody in Israel sees those words as a cause for pride.
Azerbaijan's use of sophisticated armaments like these has killed civilians in Nagorno-Karabakh. The majority of the ethnic Armenian population is now believed to have fled the territory. In recent weeks, Israeli-made Harop drones have been seen in the skies above Stepanakert, as the city's residents cower in basements far below. These so-called “kamikaze drones” were also used by the Azerbaijani military in clashes over Nagorno-Karabakh in 2016.
Israeli-made cluster bombs have also appeared in Nagorno-Karabakh. In statements October 5 and 23, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch stated that on multiple occasions, the Azerbaijani military had fired Israeli-produced M095 DPICM and LAR-160 cluster munitions at residential areas of the city (there is also evidence to suggest that in one instance on October 30, Armenia fired a Smerch cluster munitions rocket at the Azerbaijani city of Barda). Neither Armenia nor Azerbaijan (nor Israel) are signatories to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which bans the use of such indiscriminate weaponry.
The Israeli government may not have commented on the conflict, but Armenians feel that these arms deals say all that needs to be said.
Armenian foreign ministry spokewoman @naghdalyan: "For us, Israel's supply of ultra-modern weapons to Azerbaijan is unacceptable, especially now, in the conditions of Azerbaijan's aggression with the support of Turkey"
— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) October 1, 2020
Since the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh began, journalists and flight trackers in Israel have noted a surge in the number of cargo flights from SilkWay Airlines, a carrier linked to Azerbaijan's Ministry of Defence, landing at the Ovda military airbase in southern Israel:
Third Azeri heavylifter from Ankara this week. Was in Israel yesterday
4k-az40 pic.twitter.com/mi2WJKX1i5
— avi scharf (@avischarf) October 1, 2020
Armenia has reacted forcefully. In early October, just two weeks after opening an embassy in Tel Aviv, Armenia recalled its ambassador for consultations. When subsequently asked by Israeli President Reuven Rivlin whether Armenia would welcome humanitarian aid, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan exclaimed: “Humanitarian aid from a country selling weapons to mercenaries, which they are using to strike a peaceful civilian population? I propose that Israel send that aid to the mercenaries and terrorists as the logical continuation of its activities”.
In an interview with the Jerusalem Post on November 3, Pashinyan stressed that Israel's support for Azerbaijan has put it on the same side as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan — somewhat awkwardly, given the strained relations between the two countries. Tel Aviv had, he concluded, aided and abetted genocide against Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh and that sooner or later, Turkey would turn its “imperialistic ambitions” towards Israel.
For nearly thirty years, the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh has eluded outsiders’ attempts to fit in neat templates. On the face of things, Israel and Azerbaijan may not be the most obvious partners. But that is exactly what makes their friendship so symbolically important.
Until Israel's recent detente with the Gulf States, Azerbaijan was one of the few Muslim-majority states in the Near East with which Tel Aviv could say it had genuinely warm relations. Baku might be expected to have some sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians given parallels with the hundreds of thousands of ethnic Azerbaijanis expelled from Nagorno-Karabakh in the 1990s — Azerbaijanis who will finally get to return to their homes.
Yet this friendship requires otherwise. As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put it in 2016, Israel and Azerbaijan are “an example of what relations can and should be between Muslims and Jews everywhere”. For this reason, paeans to Azerbaijan and President Ilham Aliyev periodically surface in the Israeli press and Jewish community newspapers worldwide, though are more circumspect about Azerbaijans's abysmal human rights record.
These often highlight Azerbaijan's Jewish community, which numbers in the tens of thousands enjoys good relations with the rest of Azerbaijani society. In recent weeks, the Azerbaijani authorities have taken pains to juxtapose their country's multiculturalism, in particular its Jewish community, with comparatively monocultural Armenia. A case in point is this video of Daniel, a young Azerbaijani of Mountain Jewish heritage, who explains why he was ready to fight for Azerbaijan:
#Azerbaijan is home to many ethnicities & religions, inc. 30,000 #Jews who have peacefully lived in Azerbaijan for 2000 years. Here is the story of #Daniel, a Mountain Jew, who volunteered to fight for his homeland, defending its territorial integrity against invasion by #Armenia pic.twitter.com/yZUCIwV3Dn
— Nasimi Aghayev ?? (@NasimiAghayev) October 17, 2020
Furthermore, approximately 70,000 Azerbaijani Jews live in Israel, where they have campaigned in support of Baku during the recent war.
This friendship is also deeply practical, for Azerbaijan shares a long border with Israel's arch-foe Iran.
That provides Tel Aviv with plenty of strategic opportunities, says Jeff Halper, an Israeli analyst, activist and author of War Against The People, a 2015 book about Israel's security state. For decades, noted Halper in an email exchange with Global Voices, Israel has pursued a “strategy of the periphery” to encircle the Arab world with political and military allies, which since the 1990s has included post-Soviet states such as Azerbaijan.
“Israel provides Azerbaijan with advice and weaponry in counterterrorism, including against its internal opposition, while Azerbaijan provides Israel with a battlefield laboratory for cutting-edge military technologies”, Halper explains. Azerbaijan's energy supplies are also a draw; Baku started exporting oil to Israel in 1999, and now supplies 37 percent of all Israel's imports.
According to Zaur Shiriyev, Caucasus researcher at International Crisis Group, the turning point in Israeli-Azerbaijani relations came in 2010, and had little to do with Iran. Around this time, Shiriyev told Global Voices, Baku recognised the urgency of modernising its military, while deteriorating relations with Turkey compelled Israel to search for new partners. “Israel also complemented Turkey in another role: lobbying in Washington for Azerbaijani interests”, Shiriyev added.
Armenia could not compete with that offer.
However, the people of Armenia and Israel share something no less tangible — the trauma of the twentieth century's greatest atrocities. Both are the nation states of genocide survivors. They are also both states which, in more recent decades, triumphed over their neighbours in vicious conflicts — sharpened by the fear that history might repeat itself.
For Armenians, this makes Israel's refusal to recognise the Armenian Genocide of 1915 particularly unforgivable, driving relations into a dead end. This may well inform negative attitudes towards Jews in Armenia, as recorded by the Pew Research Centre in 2019 public opinion polling. Some in the country's small Jewish community have felt very torn about Israel's support for Azerbaijan; as one Armenian Jewish respondent asked in an interview with the Israeli daily Ha'aretz, “Armenia is David. Why is Israel arming Goliath?”
Israeli officials have floated the idea of recognising the Armenian Genocide on several occasions. However, these have largely coincided in shifts in relations with Turkey, where the mass murders are referred to as “deportations”. Some Israelis believe that their country has an ethical imperative for recognition, and that the refusal to do so suggests a prioritisation of geopolitics over justice.
Several of the loudest voices in Israeli society calling against the sale of arms to Azerbaijan are two prominent genocide scholars — Israel Charny and Yair Auron — who have called for Israel to recognise the Armenian Genocide. In 2014 Auron, author of two books on Israel and the Armenian Genocide, suggested in an op-ed for Ha'aretz that arms sales to Azerbaijan could make Israel complicit in ethnic cleansing in the Caucasus. In 2016, Charny took the argument even further, asking in the Times of Israel whether Israel would sell arms to Adolf Hitler.
Activists against Israel's arms trade also launched legal challenges as the war in Nagorno-Karabakh raged. However, on October 12 Israel's High Court of Justice rejected a petition by the activist Elie Joseph to ban arms sales to Azerbaijan, refusing to hold a hearing on the grounds there was insufficient evidence that such weapons would be used in war crimes against Armenians. The Israeli human rights lawyer Eitay Mack attempted to supplement the legal case with a moral one, arguing in +972 magazine that arms exports emboldened the Azerbaijani authorities to follow through on its bellicose threats towards Armenia.
This legal challenge is one of several launched by Elie Joseph, a British-born Israeli human rights activist, who held a hunger strike this year against Israel's arms exports to human rights abusers.
“People abroad know more about these arms sales than people in Israel. As Jews and human beings, we have to stop being involved in this type of thing, to stop the silence. There is a very strong connection between this trade and the non-recognition of the Armenian genocide. Yesterday it was us, tomorrow it could be us again, and today it's somebody else.”
In a telephone call with Global Voices, Joseph stated that he planned to launch a third appeal against Israeli arms sales to Azerbaijan and was willing to hold another hunger strike. One day, he hopes that a law will be passed by the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, banning arms sales to human rights abusers.
“We have set our minds to waking up the nation, whether it's about arms sales to Azerbaijan, Myanmar, South Sudan or Vietnam”, declared Joseph, who emphasised that his was a pro-Israeli and patriotic position.
Yet Halper remains doubtful that such exports will stop, at least in the foreseeable future. The trade is too lucrative, and Azerbaijan too strategically important for Israel. Moreover, he told Global Voices, activists such as Mack and Joseph may face an uphill battle when it comes to raising public support:
“Nothing about Israeli arms or deployment is an issue in Israel, not in the OPT [Occupied Palestinian Territories], not when employed among Palestinians in Israel and not in international use. It's a non-issue. Or, Israelis feel a great pride in their military and security prowess”.
In any case Azerbaijan's victory, supported with Israeli arms, is also a significant victory for Ankara, which has deepened its role in the South Caucasus. For Armenians, that is calamitous. For Israelis, it is a conundrum, particularly if Erdoğan's belligerent political style outlives the Turkish prime minister's time in office.
To some degree, Aliyev will be indebted to Turkey. What does that mean for Israel's ties with Azerbaijan?
Shiriyev concludes that Baku has many years’ of experience balancing ties with Ankara and Tel Aviv, even when tensions were at their highest. “In the South Caucasus, I would say that Turkey's power is growing and plays a balancing role for Azerbaijan against other powers, especially Russia. I don't think Israel has such a role”.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Maxim Edwards


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Latin American Facebook users weigh in on US election results with memes · Global Voices
Melissa Vida

“And the wall?”. Meme widely shared in Guatemala as a commentary of the U.S. 2020 presidential elections’ results.
On November 7, Joe Biden beat out Donald Trump in the 2020 US presidential elections. News outlets quickly began covering reactions from Latin American leaders, but how has Biden's election win (and Trump's loss) been discussed on Facebook?
A simple search on Crowdtangle, a Facebook monitoring tool, gave some anecdotal results. A search using the word “elecciones” (elections) from November 7 to November 9 brought up the most shared images on Facebook per country.
While not a comprehensive polling of people's sentiments, this method offers a glimpse into local political narratives, humor, and commentary.
On November 7, the meme with the most shares in Guatemala refers to the Trump administration's construction of the wall between the United States and Mexico. Tens of thousands of Guatemalans try to migrate to the United States every year as jobs and food are scarce in some parts of Guatemala. Guatemalan children have died in U.S. immigration custody in 2019.
?
Posted by Memezer on Saturday, November 7, 2020
*Trump loses the election.
Us: and the wall?
The Venezuelan meme that was most shared supports the view that the United States, with Biden at the helm, is in danger of becoming “socialist”. Many Venezuelan American voters supported Trump in the hopes that he would put more pressure on Nicolas Maduro's government which has been accused of authoritarianism and crimes against humanity.
The meme below shows a dog who would rather move to Norway than the United States.
A propósito de los resultados de las elecciones…
Posted by Valeranísimo on Saturday, November 7, 2020
About the results of the elections…
“Bye-bye American Dream
Next destination: Norway”
The most shared post from Mexico was a meme that expressed the frustration of a news cycle that is focused primarily on US elections. In most parts of Latin America, “gringo” means a US citizen or a foreigner who does not speak Spanish.
YA BASTA
Posted by Filosóraptor on Saturday, November 7, 2020
Every day I wake up
And it's still the elections of the gringos!
The most shared post from Argentina is a comic strip by cartoonist Cristian Dzwonik (“Nik”) and creator of Gaturro.
Elecciones 2020
Posted by Gaturro on Sunday, November 8, 2020
Elections 2020
“Joe Biden won…
And Trump is in the acceptance process…”
In Colombia, Facebook users shared a self-deprecating post illustrating how people from around the world have been closely following the US elections and expressing relief at Biden's win — and Trump's loss.
— Breathin.
Posted by Infinity ∞ on Saturday, November 7, 2020
Me celebrating the victory of Biden from my third-world country #Elections
The most popular meme from Peru on US elections is a scene from Quentin Tarantino's film “Once upon a Time in Hollywood”. Trump insulted Mexicans as rapists during his 2016 presidential campaign, slapped trade tariffs on Mexico and continued to build a wall between both countries. In the meme, Melania Trump is asking him to wear sunglasses and not show his tears to Mexicans.
Sos grande Trump.-El Poli
Posted by Cinexceso on Saturday, November 7, 2020
You're great, Trump.
“Melania consoling Trump after he lost the elections”
“Put these on.
Don't cry in front of the Mexicans”
In Paraguay, a popular meme features streetfood seller Don Uptaciano Melgarejo who became an internet sensation after renaming his hotdog and choripan (chorizo sandwich) business to “Donald Trump” because of his own likeness with the US President. Melgarejo's business flourished.
Donald Trump ya por Paraguay al perder las elecciones presidenciales en Estados Unidos ??
Posted by Conozca el Paraguay on Saturday, November 7, 2020
Donald Trump is already in Paraguay after losing the U.S. presidential elections ??
Chile's most shared meme is a political commentary on the 2019 protests that erupted in Chile over the inequality and privatization of the economy. These protests were violently repressed by Sebastian Piñera's administration.
The meme uses an image of Piñera's congratulatory tweet to Biden and adds a doctored reply by Biden. The photoshopped Biden reply says he does not speak “perkin” which is Chilean slang for a “puppet” or someone who has low willpower.
Ahora si
Posted by Oposicion a Piñera on Saturday, November 7, 2020
Now we're talking
Sebastian Piñera: Congratulations @JoeBiden, next President of the United States and to @KamalaHarris, for your victory in the election. Chile and the United States share values like freedom, defense of human rights as well as challenges such as peace and protection of the environment.
Joe Biden: Sorry, I do not speak perkin.

author: Melissa Vida


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What election observers are saying about Myanmar’s election · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Myanmar voters observed social distancing in polling stations. Photo by Radio Free Asia. Copyright © 1998-2020, RFA. Used with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036. https://www.rfa.org.
Myanmar conducted its election on November 8 which was described by official observers as peaceful despite several challenges that threatened to undermine the voting process.
The Myanmar-based People’s Alliance for Credible Elections (PACE), the Thailand-based Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL), and the United States-based Carter Center have already released preliminary reports with their observations. All of them acknowledged the “success” of the elections while noting reforms that still need to be enacted to make the process more credible and inclusive in the future.
Myanmar was under a military regime for several decades until a civilian-led government ushered in the country’s democratic transition in 2010. During the 2015 election, the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) clinched a historic landslide victory by defeating Union Solidarity and Development Party, a military-backed party.
Based on unofficial results, the NLD continued to dominate this year’s election. This could be interpreted as another vote of confidence for the leadership of NLD which is headed by Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. It could also mean that the majority of voters continue to reject the return of the former ruling party established by retired military officials.
But the re-election of NLD does not mean the military has already lost power and influence in the government. The military-drafted 2008 Constitution has guaranteed that the Tatmadaw (armed forces) will get 25 percent of the seats in Parliament as well as retain key positions in the government like defense and border control.
Global Voices has published articles which echoed some of the key issues highlighted by election observers such as the censorship of campaign speeches, the cancellation of voting in several ethnic communities, the disenfranchisement of the Rohingya ethnic minority, the rise of religious nationalism during the campaign period, and the restriction of free speech targeting critics and activists.
What follows are additional issues included in the reports published by PACE, ANFREL, and The Carter Center.
PACE deployed 1,888 short-term-observers on election day. Aside from recognizing that voting was peaceful, it also noted that health protocols were enforced in polling stations.
All polling stations were well prepared for COVID-19 precaution measures. The majority of polling stations were able to enforce the voters to wear masks, but at more than one-fourth of polling stations, the safe distance was not met during the queue.
Health protocols were observed in polling stations, according to the monitoring of PACE. Source: Facebook
The pandemic restricted campaign activities favoring certain candidates. PACE elaborated how the ‘stay-at-home’ orders affected the campaign strategies of candidates:
This created an uneven playing field between those who have better access to financial resources, media and social media and those with limited resources, as well as between incumbent and the rest of the parties.
For its part, ANFREL has 13 long-term observers deployed for 24 days, eight short-term observers deployed for 8 days, and three additional election day observers. ANFREL was able to visit 225 polling stations on election day.
Its observers reported some inconsistencies in the implementation of polling procedures but it also concluded that “the integrity of the vote was not affected.”
ANFREL welcomed some adjustments in the voting procedure as an improvement in comparison to the 2015 election:
…a few welcome revisions were made to election by-laws, for instance enabling internally displaced people, migrant workers and students to vote more easily in their area of temporary residence, and prohibiting polling stations located inside military compounds.
It also identified a possible reform that can allow members of religious orders to vote:
Another unfortunate feature of the legal framework for elections is the entrenched disenfranchisement of large sectors of the population. First, Article 392(a) of the Constitution disenfranchises all members of religious orders, whose numbers are considerable: the Buddhist clergy alone accounts for well over half a million people. Christian and Hindu priests or nuns are also unable to vote.
Meanwhile, The Carter Center had 43 observers who visited 234 polling stations in 10 states and regions. Their overall impression reflected the reports of PACE and ANFREL: “…voters were enthusiastic and able to freely express their will at the polls and choose their elected representatives.”
There were election-related violent incidents but these were considered isolated cases:
The campaign environment was generally calm and peaceful. However, there were isolated instances of clashes between party supporters, leading to one death, as well as acts of vandalism and destruction of campaign materials in several locations.
However, the Carter Center recorded online violence during the campaign which targeted women candidates and an LGBTQ+ candidate:
Harassing and hateful content directed at candidates was also observed throughout the campaign period. In some instances, women candidates were attacked in posts containing sexist and other derogatory language. Myanmar’s first openly gay candidate also faced online harassment.
Despite most reports affirming the success of Myanmar elections, the USDP said the results are tainted. It is now demanding that a new election should be held under the supervision of the military.

author: Mong Palatino


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How Hong Kong authorities are gradually taking over public broadcaster RTHK · Global Voices
Hong Kong Free Press

RTHK's freelance producer Bao Choy speaks with reporters in front of a court on November 10. She faces charges under Hong Kong's Road Traffic Ordinance in a case ostensibly politically motivated. Protesters chanted “journalism is not a crime.” Image from the Stand News. Used with permission.
The following post was written by Rachel Wong and originally published on Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP) on November 11, 2020. This edited version is published on Global Voices under a content partnership agreement.
Hong Kong’s government-funded broadcaster, Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK), is under fire again.
Last week, police arrested freelance TV producer Bao Choy Yuk-ling under allegations that she made a false statement to obtain information on car owners, claiming that she had violated the Hong Kong's Road Traffic Ordinance. Choy obtained the information during her reporting for the documentary “7.21: Who Owns the Truth,” aired on the program Hong Kong Connection.
The documentary investigated individuals potentially involved in the Yuen Long attacks of 2019, in which a pro-Beijing mob of over 100 men stormed the Yuen Long MTR station wielding steel rods and canes and attacked protesters returning home from an anti-extradition demonstration. The incident left 45 people injured, including journalists and commuters, and became one of the most notorious events of Hong Kong's year-long protests.
Using surveillance footage from the nearby area, the documentary producers were able to track down the legal owners of the cars who took the rod-wielding men to Yuen Long.
Hong Kong reporters have for years used car plate records in their reporting for media outlets of different political camps, most commonly by crime, traffic, and entertainment beat reporters. Choy is the first to be arrested for the practice. If convicted, she could face a HK$ 5,000 (645 USD) fine and six months’ imprisonment.
Choy – who appeared in court on November 10 – told reporters her case was no longer a personal matter but involved the public interest and press freedom. Dozens of members of the media gathered outside the court to show support. Her case was adjourned to January and she remains free on bail.
But this wasn't the first time the government appeared to have cracked down on RTHK, which in theory enjoys editorial independence despite receiving public funding and has traditionally been allowed to cover politically sensitive topics.
Amid the political turmoil since the pro-democracy movement erupted last year and the national security law was enacted in July, the public broadcaster has been under fire from various quarters as the government appears to tighten its grip. Below is a list of some of the recent developments.
Most of RTHK staff is employed on civil service terms. The government has decided that all those who joined the civil service on or after July 1, when the national security law came into force, should pledge allegiance to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and promise to uphold its constitution known as the Basic Law.
In addition to newcomers, the requirement also applies to existing staff members whose employment is confirmed after completing probation, when contracts are renewed, or when they are up for promotion.
Questions arise as to whether the public broadcaster can stay impartial in its reporting after staff have been compelled to pledge allegiance to the government.
The public also raised eyebrows when the deputy director of broadcasting Kirindi Chan resigned in June after serving less than a year in the position. She cited health and personal reasons.
At that time, the broadcaster was criticized for airing a 20-episode programme about the national security law that was perceived to be sympathetic to Beijing. The program attended a direct request by RTKH's government-appointed advisory board, who instructed the broadcaster to ease public concerns about the then-looming law.
Chan served more than 30 years at the broadcaster and had overseen numerous current affairs shows, but in her latest position, she was not directly involved in the production of the controversial programmes.
Amen Ng, director of corporate communications and standards at RTHK, said Chan’s main duty was administration and the decision was not political.
RTHK has also come under pressure to rein in reporters who ask “disrespectful” questions of senior officials.
In September, the public broadcaster reopened an investigation into Nabela Qoser, an assistant programme officer who had provoked complaints from the public when she confronted the city’s leader Carrie Lam at a press conference after the July 21 Yuen Long mob attack on MTR travellers.
Lam was asked: “Did you learn about it only this morning? Were you able to sleep well last night?” and Qoser also asked her to “speak like a human.”
An initial investigation found that Qoser had done nothing wrong, but shortly before completing her three-year probation period, she was informed that it would be extended for another 120 days for further inquiries.
Union chair Gladys Chiu slammed the decision and said asking difficult questions should not hinder a reporter’s prospects of promotion or confirmation of employment. Lam refused to comment on the case, which she described as a human resources issue.
In March, RTHK News programme The Pulse was criticised by the Hong Kong government for allegedly breaching the One China policy after its producer Yvonne Tong asked questions about Taiwan’s efforts to join the World Health Organisation.
In a video call, Tong asked the WHO’s Dr. Bruce Aylward to comment on the Taiwan government’s performance in containing the COVID-19 pandemic, and whether the organisation would reconsider the island’s membership. Aylward appeared to have hung up the call and evaded the question after reconnection.
Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Edward Yau said the programme breached the principle that there is only one sovereign China. The Director of Broadcasting Leung Ka-wing should be held responsible for RTHK‘s deviation from its charter, Yau added, and RTHK should educate the public about One Country, Two Systems.
In July, the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau set up a team to review RTHK’s governance and management, following the Communications Authority’s findings of bias, inaccuracy and hostility to the police force.
The review aimed to ensure the broadcaster complied with the service charter and codes of practice on programming standards issued by the authority. Charles Mok, the lawmaker representing the IT sector, said he feared the review would compromise the station’s editorial and creative freedom.
In May, the satirical show Headliner received a warning from the Communications Authority after the authority ruled as “substantiated” complaints that an episode aired in February had denigrated and insulted the police force.
The episode implied that police had more protective gear than healthcare staff when the COVID-19 pandemic first emerged.
Eventually, the 31-year-old show suspended production after airing the final episode in June.
In April, the Communications Authority warned the broadcaster over its personal view programme Pentaprism, after it substantiated complaints that an episode contained inaccuracy, incitement of hatred to the police and unfairness. It featured a guest host who criticised the police handling of unrest around the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in November last year.
Complaints about four other episodes which featured guest hosts commenting on police anti-protest operations were also substantiated in September. RTHK decided to suspend the programme in early August, before it received the warnings.
The latest development is that starting from November 16, 2020, the Chinese National Anthem – March of the Volunteers – will be aired at 8am every day ahead of news reports on all RTHK radio channels.
Spokesperson Amen Ng said that according to its charter, the public broadcaster should enhance citizens’ understanding of One Country, Two Systems and nurture their civic and national identity. The new arrangement is necessary, she said.

author: Hong Kong Free Press


text:
Spain’s official linguistic institution steps back from gender-neutral pronoun · Global Voices
Romina Navarro

The facade of the Royal Spanish Academy, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), a cultural institution dedicated to the linguistic regulation of the Spanish-speaking world, inaugurated the “Observatory of Words” portal on October 27. The portal is a provisional collection of terms and expressions that do not appear in the Spanish Language Dictionary (DLE) but have generated public debate or confusion.
Media outlets began writing about the inclusion of gender-neutral pronoun elle in the Observatory collection almost immediately, prompting the RAE to reiterate that it did not officially approve the pronoun's use nor include it in the dictionary.
The pronoun elle can be used as an alternative to el/ella (he/she). The Observatory of Words defined the pronoun elle as follows:
El pronombre elle es un recurso creado y promovido en determinados ámbitos para aludir a quienes puedan no sentirse identificados con ninguno de los dos géneros tradicionalmente existentes. Su uso no está generalizado ni asentado.
The pronoun elle is a solution created and promoted in certain sectors to refer to those who may not feel identified with either of the two traditionally existing genders. Its use is not widespread or well-established.
After the Observatory's launch, academics, journalists, and the public weighed in on the pronoun's inclusion in the RAE's latest initiative.
Many people understood the move as a sign that the RAE was beginning to accept the new third-person pronoun and could potentially warm to other linguistic proposals that seek to neutralize sexism embedded in the language.
Hola, la RAE incorporó el pronombre ELLE. Este es un reconocimiento muy fuerte, dadas sus resistencias. La RAE es un poco como el Papa: no nos importa lo que digan, pero que lo digan es una batalla ganada.
— Ana Fornaro (@anafornaro) October 27, 2020
Hello, the RAE incorporated the pronoun ELLE. This is a very strong acknowledgement, given their resistance. The RAE is a bit like the Pope: we don't care what they say, but that they say it is half the battle.
Are Romance languages becoming more gender-neutral?
However, the RAE was quick to refute this suggestion by reiterating that the institution's position on the use of elle had not changed and it was still not being considered for incorporation into the dictionary.
The RAE went one step further and removed the portal entry “to avoid confusion” on October 31.
Gracias por su interés. Debido a la confusión que ha generado la presencia de «elle» en el «Observatorio de palabras», se ha considerado preferible sacar esta entrada. Cuando se difunda ampliamente el funcionamiento y cometido de esta sección, se volverá a valorar.
— RAE (@RAEinforma) November 1, 2020
Thank you for your interest. Due to the confusion generated by the presence of “elle” in the “Observatory of Words,” it has been considered preferable to remove this entry. When the role and functioning of this section is more comprehensive, it will be reassessed.
Reactions to this abrupt shift were swift:
¿Qué creeeen? Que la @RAEinforma borró «elle» de su Observatorio de Palabras. ¿Será que están corrigiendo? ¿Será que a Pérez Reverte, Vargas Llosa y compañía les dio el tramafat? ¿Ustedes qué creen? https://t.co/qXDfNChXfF pic.twitter.com/mjxttLbzKy
— Paulina Chavira (@apchavira) October 30, 2020
What do you thiiiiink? That @RAEinforma deleted “elle” from its Observatory of Words. Could it be that they are being corrected? Could it be that Pérez Reverte, Vargas Llosa and company had a heart attack?
What do you all think?
[Note: Arturo Pérez-Reverte is a prominent Spanish writer, journalist, and academic at the RAE since 2003, and Mario Vargas Llosa is a Peruvian writer and politician, also with Spanish citizenship, winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature, among other awards, and academic at the RAE since 1996.]
Debido a que había gente que no tenía clara una idea, ¿lo mejor era dejar de explicarla? No tiene mucho sentido… En todo caso, debido a que hay gente a la que le molesta que el lenguaje evolucione, la RAE renuncia a hacer su trabajo, que es reflejar esa evolución. — ? Andrés Jurado ☂ (@TresPuntos_es) October 31, 2020
Since there were people who did not have a clear idea, it was best to stop explaining it? That doesn't make much sense… In any case, since some people are bothered by language evolving, the RAE gives up doing its job, which is to communicate that evolution.
He hecho una cosa, aunque llego un poco tarde a Halloween  pic.twitter.com/Sf9oa9CQUF
— Luna Pérez (@LunaPerezAbela) November 2, 2020
I did a thing, even though I'm a little late for Halloween
Gracias RAE por cuidar nuestra lengua y no dejar que la atrofien con este invento ridículo.
— SOFI ? (@GirasolSofi) October 30, 2020
Thank you, RAE, for taking care of our language and not letting it deteriorate with this ridiculous invention.
In English, the pronoun “they”, which is commonly used to refer to the third person plural, began to be used frequently to refer to a third person singular. Its use became increasingly common on social networks and in the media, and a large number of entertainment figures asked to be referred to with the singular personal pronoun “they/them”. This new usage prompted many studies and inquiries until Merriam-Webster Dictionary included the new meaning in the entry for “they” and named it the Word of the Year in 2019.
In Swedish, the neutral pronoun hen is used as an alternative to han  (he) and hon (she). It was first proposed by feminists during the 1960s and was later incorporated into trans activism circles. Since the language has no gendered endings in other parts of speech, it became easier to incorporate the new pronoun into everyday speech, especially among young people. In late 2015, the Swedish Academy added it to the dictionary.
One of the oldest neutral personal pronouns, the Finnish hän, which can be equivalent to “he” or “she” interchangeably, was the inspiration for Swedish feminists to come up with a neutral pronoun in their own language. This pronoun has been registered in Finnish since 1543.
It should be noted that including a neutral personal pronoun in a Romance language such as Spanish is much more cumbersome than in the cases mentioned above, as the grammatical gender marker is not limited to third-person pronouns, but also manifests itself in nouns, adjectives and determiners, and that makes it very difficult to avoid gender in fluent speech. Consequently, using elle correctly would imply a very profound structural change in the grammar we know — this change has already been proposed.
Every living language undergoes constant and imperceptible evolution, but morphological changes, in particular, take centuries to settle into natural speech, and frequency of use is a key factor in normalizing new forms. This is why feminist and LGTBQ+ groups have sought to promote forms of communication that would break with sexism, traditional binary systems and, especially, the predominance of masculine forms.
For now, the RAE has suspended the assessment of elle in its Observatory of Words, but in light of the recent abrupt changes, it's possible to think that it could be reinstated at a later time.

author: Romina Navarro


text:
The history of the Sarajevo Haggadah, the medieval Jewish book that survived the Inquisition, the Holocaust, and the Yugoslav Wars · Global Voices
Balkan Diskurs

Lea Maestro, a young Bosnian Jewish woman standing behind the Haggadah in the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Photograph by Midhat Poturović/Transitions, used with permission.
This story by Adelisa Mašić was originally published on Balkan Diskurs, a project of the Post-Conflict Research Center (PCRC). An edited version is republished by Global Voices as part of a content-sharing agreement.
For more than 100 years, and throughout Bosnia's turbulent history, the people of Sarajevo have protected the Sarajevo Haggadah, a written collection of Jewish regulations and traditions. Its home is the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which the Haggadah has had to leave several times in order to be preserved.
The Haggadah is a written collection of religious precepts and traditions used to mark Passover, the holiday that celebrates the liberation of the Jewish people from Egyptian slavery. Jewish families traditionally read Haggadah texts during Passover, which means that there is a relatively large number of such books. The Sarajevo Haggadah is probably one of the most famous of them.
The National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina notes that the Sarajevo Haggadah was written in Barcelona around 1350. Because of the persecution of Jews in Spain, it traveled around Italy in the 16th and 17th centuries, as notes in its pages attest, before arriving in Bosnia and Herzegovina at an unknown point in time before the end of the 19th century.
The Sarajevo Haggadah contains unique figural depictions and is the only Haggadah from that era that has been preserved in its entirety.
“The Sarajevo Sephardic Cohen family, due to a bad financial situation, decided to sell their Haggadah. At first, they offered it to various Jewish associations, but nobody could afford it. Since the National Museum was founded by the Austro-Hungarian government, it had enough funds to redeem it, and so in 1894, it bought the Haggadah for a sum of 150 crowns. We still have the purchase agreement in our documents,” says curator Lejla Bečar.
The Haggadah was then sent from Sarajevo to Vienna for analysis and returned to Bosnia and Herzegovina, with certain vicissitudes, after a few years.
Then, in 1941, Nazi Germany occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina and, with the help of the puppet regime the Nazis had installed in Croatia, perpetrated the Holocaust against Bosnian Jews. Over the following four years, 10,000 Jews were killed in Bosnia, out of a population of 14,000. Bečar explained what happened with the precious book during that time:
Lejla Bečar. Photo by Mustafa Öztürk. Used with permission.
Njemačke vojne snage su po cijeloj Evropi sakupljale jevrejske umjetnine kako bi formirali muzej uništene civilizacije. U Sarajevu su željeli isključivo Hagadu. Za nju je bio zadužen kustos Derviš Korkut, koji je bio iznimno učen čovjek. Kada ga je tadašnji direktor muzeja Joza Petrović obavjestio da su stigli Nijemci, on je Hagadu sakrio u pantalone i rekao da su je predali drugom oficiru to jutro. Nijemci su otišli tražiti tog oficira, kojeg su Derviš i Joza izmislili, dok su oni ostali razmišljati šta će uraditi sa Hagadom.
German military forces were collecting Jewish art throughout Europe to form a museum of a perished civilization. Sarajevo wanted the Haggadah exclusively. Curator Derviš Korkut – a learned man – was in charge of it. When the director of the museum at the time, Joza Petrović, informed him that the Germans had arrived, he hid the Haggadah in his trousers and said that they had handed it over to another officer that morning. The Germans went to look for that officer, who had been created in the minds of Derviš and Joza, while the two of them stayed to think about what they would do with the Haggadah.
Korkut, at great risk, hid the Sarajevo Haggadah in a mosque in a Muslim village in the Bjelašnica Mountain, where it remained until the end of World War II. Afterwards, it was returned to the National Museum in Sarajevo.
The Sarajevo Haggadah was again at risk during the siege of Sarajevo (1992-1996). The National Museum found itself on the front lines of the war and suffered severe damage. Along with many other valuable items, the Haggadah was transferred to the National Bank’s vault, where it remained until the end of the Bosnian War.
Pages from a turbulent history. Photo by the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Used with permission.
The Sarajevo Haggadah has survived the Inquisition, two world wars, and the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. “It has Bosnian nafaka (blind luck),” Bečar says vividly.
For Luka Bošković, a longtime volunteer at the National Museum, while Bosnia and Herzegovina’s cultural wealth is invaluable, younger generations have little awareness of Haggadah’s importance.
“On the museum’s birthday and for European Museum Night, I see the same friends who sometimes manage to bring some other people. Young people have no inclination to go to museums,” he says.
His advice for young people is the following: “When visiting the National Museum, take a better look at the exhibits, read the inscriptions and mention on social networks what [you have] read and learned during that visit. Don’t ever rush those things like we’re used to rushing through our whole lives”
Sarajevska hagada je, od danas, ponovo dostupna posjetiteljima u redovnim terminima utorkom i cetvrtkom od 12 do 13h, kao i svake prve subote u mjesecu u istom terminu!
Dobro nam dosli #zemaljskimuzejbih #sarajevohaggadah #sarajevskahagada pic.twitter.com/7Ia6WEaBlE
— Zemaljski muzej BiH (@Zemaljskimuzej) June 2, 2020
Sarajevo Haggadah is from today, again available to the visitors in the regular time slots on Tuesday and Thursday from 12:00 to 13:00 hrs, as well as every first Saturday of each month during the same time slot.
The Sarajevo Haggadah, one of the most valuable and unique items in the collection of the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, has been publicly exhibited only on very rare occasions before 2018 — usually on Passover and the museum’s birthday — for lack of appropriate conditions.
Thanks to funds by the French Embassy at Bosnia and Herzegovina and UNESCO, the Haggadah is now exhibited twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12:00 p.m. to 1 p.m., as well as every first Saturday of the month during the same time slot. In addition to that, the museum provides special visits with experts.

author: Balkan Diskurs


text:
The victims of forced sterilizations in Peru continue to demand justice · Global Voices
Miryam Rivera Holguin

Somos 2074 y Muchas Más demonstration calling for justice in the case of forced sterilizations, on September 17, 2020, in Lima, Peru. Photograph by Rosa Villafuerte for DEMUS, used with permission.
In Peru, during the government of Alberto Fujimori, 244,234 women and 20,693 men were irreversibly sterilized as part of national family planning policies (1996-1999). These forced surgical procedures were denounced as violations of human rights, especially of indigenous populations in rural areas. Currently, 1,321 women continue to pursue the legal process of seeking justice against a policy that infringed their rights over two decades ago.
On September 17, the activist groups of victims gathered to embroider their names on the Peruvian flag, to highlight their case. Dressed in the red and white colours of the national flag, they held a demonstration on the beach in Lima—socially distanced as a measure to prevent the spread of COVID-19—as they continued to denounce the ways in which the Peruvian justice system turned its back on them. Andean women travelled over a thousand kilometers from the mountains to seek justice in the capital. Despite their frustration, they have not given up, but they continue to fight to achieve justice for themselves and for the thousands of other women who have been abused.
The case was opened 18 years ago and a court ruling is still pending in Peru's national justice system. Faced with this situation, five of the victims have appealed to international justice. Their complaint against the Peruvian State was filed before the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) at the end of September 2020. Peru is being sued at the international level for these state practices that violated the bodies of indigenous women. The complaint calls for reparations for those who were harmed by these policies.
Somos 2074 y Muchas Más demonstration calling for justice in the case of forced sterilizations, on September 17, 2020, in Lima, Peru. Photograph by Rosa Villafuerte for DEMUS, used with permission.
The failure to attain justice in their country re-victimizes women and maintains impunity for human rights violations. This case of forced sterilizations is a clear example that questions the progress of democracy and transitional justice — an adequate redress for victims of mass atrocities during conflicts. It is unacceptable that these violent systemic acts are followed by justice processes that disrespect international agreements to which Peru is a signatory. For this reason, in a country like Peru, where respect for human rights is not guaranteed, where torture by the State and femicide are urgent problems, and where citizens’ protest is criminalized, the victims have few ways to claim justice nationally.
The search for justice means facing a flawed legal and judicial system that exposes victims to indifference and mistreatment by the authorities. On the one hand, the case of forced sterilizations was presented to different national authorities and filed repeatedly for more than a decade. The case opened at the national level as the criminal complaint that Prosecutor Luis Landa filed against Fujimori and the former ministers of health for their responsibility in the implementation of these policies, and it continues to be unjustifiably delayed. On the other hand, the government unfunded its National Registry of Victims of Forced Sterilizations (REVIESPO) after receiving 6,526 applications in two years.
Indigenous women embroider their names on the Peruvian flag as part of the  Somos 2074 y Muchas Más demonstration on September 17, 2020, in Lima, Peru. Photograph by Rosa Villafuerte for DEMUS, used with permission.
Unfortunately, this case reflects the tendency of the Peruvian justice system to obstruct justice, including by delaying court cases or going back and forth on sentences already given. A well-known example is Fujimori's attempts to evade justice after receiving a 25-year prison sentence for crimes against humanity, and later being granted political pardon, which was then overturned. Afterwards, he was forced back to prison.
Therefore, one of the imperative challenges regarding the defense and protection of the victims of this type of human rights violations is to recognize the re-victimization that takes place during the legal processes in matters of sexual violence. An example of re-victimization is to expose the complainant to repeated physical and psychological evaluations that result in reliving the traumatic experience.
When the victims talk about their experiences of suffering, they are asked to provide information to which they did not have access, such as the full names of the health authorities at that time. If they speak about their fear after receiving threats, they are questioned about the physical force used when they were taken to the health center. Thus, after experiencing the violation of their bodies and the disruption of their lives by irreversible surgical interventions, the victims are once again exposed to neglect and marginalization. Therefore, it is essential to demand a legal process that respects the rights of victims, the implementation of protocols that include measures consistent with gender and intercultural approaches, and the inclusion of a psychosocial approach in this type of legal process.
It is also imperative to recognize that the lack of justice generates additional psychological impacts on the victims, as it has been the case in other judicial processes for violation of human rights. These events further affect and stigmatize the victims, damaging their integration into society.
In contrast, there are other possible approaches, such as the active participation of victims in formulating proposals for reparation and monitoring of international judgments. For example, the Sepur Zarco cases in Guatemala or Rosendo Cantú and Fernández Ortega in Mexico recognize the active role and the use of capacities of the victims themselves. This approach allows to build a collective identity and prevents the struggle for justice to become a new challenge in the stigmatization and social exclusion of victims.
Somos 2074 y Muchas Más demonstration calling for justice in the case of forced sterilizations, on September 17, 2020, in Lima, Peru. Photograph by Rosa Villafuerte for DEMUS, used with permission.
In Peru, Rute Zúñiga, a leader from Cusco and chair of the Association of Peruvian Women Affected by Forced Sterilizations (AMPAEF), calls for the inclusion of women victims when planning reparation policies, which is still an unmet expectation.
The forced sterilizations in Peru and the justice process during the last two decades place the Peruvian State as an offender of human rights infringements for two reasons: the violation of the women's bodies and lives by surgical interventions against their will, and for not imparting justice to its citizens. Despite these obstacles, the victims are claiming their rights and continue to resist, while fighting for guarantees that this injustice will not happen again.
Somos 2074 y Muchas Más demonstration calling for justice in the case of forced sterilizations, on September 17, 2020, in Lima, Peru. Photograph by Rosa Villafuerte for DEMUS, used with permission.

author: Miryam Rivera Holguin


text:
Scandal over Kremlin advisers heats up Moldova’s presidential election · Global Voices
Vladimir Thorik

Illustration by RISE Moldova. Used with permission.
The Republic of Moldova goes to the polls this coming Sunday in the second round of presidential elections, pitching incumbent President Igor Dodon against Maia Sandu of the Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS). Dodon has served as Moldova's president since 2016, when he beat Sandu in a close run-off.
Dodon is the former leader of Moldova's Party of Socialists (PSRM), which is widely regarded as pro-Russian. He relinquished the party leadership upon assuming the presidency and formally runs for reelection as an independent candidate, though has the party's strong support.
Temperatures were running high as soon as campaigning began. But they climbed higher still on October 19 when journalists from RISE Moldova and the Dossier centre published the first chapter of Kremlinovici, a four-part transnational investigation about the influence of the Russian intelligence services on Moldovan politics.
In response, on the day of publication, Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) released a statement warning about “preparations for the arrival in Moldova of a group of American ‘colour revolution’ specialists with political tasks”.
The first round of the election was held on November 1. No revolution occurred, “coloured” or otherwise, and nobody could point to the mysterious American specialists. In the meantime, journalists of RISE Moldova had published evidence that Igor Dodon's headquarters had been in close contact with a group of political strategists from Russia, whose involvement in the election campaign had not been declared to the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) by the candidate — as required by Moldovan law.
As one of the authors of the Kremlinovici investigation, I interviewed experts and analysts to learn their views about the Kremlin's possible influence on Dodon, and what might distinguish the second round of this election from the first.
According to the official results of the first round, Sandu took a slim lead over Dodon in the first round, taking 36.2 percent of the vote compared to his 32.6 percent.
Four of the eight candidates who ran in the first round have since voiced their support for Sandu. These were Andrei Năstase of the Dignity and Truth platform, Tudor Deliu of the Liberal Democratic Party, Octavian Ţîcu of the National Unity Party and Dorin Chirtoacă of the Liberal Party. Renato Usatîi, the Our Party candidate who came third with 16.9 percent of the vote, called on Moldovans simply to vote against Dodon.
Both Dodon and Sandu have changed the focus of their electoral campaigns since the first round.
Maia Sandu no longer emphasises alleged electoral fraud, but calls for a broad political alliance against the incumbent president.
“Once again she's calling for early parliamentary elections, an interesting proposal to those participants in the race were eliminated in the first round but can help Sandu with their votes in the second”, says Sergey Manastîrlî, director of the Balkan-Center institute for analysis, research and forecasting.
Meanwhile, explained Manastîrlî in an interview with GlobalVoices, Dodon has started campaigning for the second round by strongly criticising Sandu personally as well as Moldovan voters abroad, many of whom are her supporters.
“Previously, he deliberately did not pay attention to Maia Sandu and even ignored her invitations to debates. And now he dedicates his first public speech to comparing himself to his opponent”, notes Manastîrlî.
Alexei Tulbure, director of Moldova's Institute for Oral History, agrees that the tenor of the second round has been quite different.
“Dodon has made an aggressive start to the second round. There is none of the certainty, even haughtiness, observed during the first. Igor Dodon intimidates the electorate with the horrors which will befall the country if Sandu is elected. This indicates that on the whole, there's nothing to be held accountable for”, Tulbure told GlobalVoices.
Tulbure, who is also a former parliamentarian and ambassador, draws attention to the fact that the president's statements have lacked nearly any mention of other topics such as the fight against corruption, judicial reform and human rights.
“The priorities of Igor Dodon are barely connected to the country's real agenda”, Tulbure concludes.
The fourth instalment of Kremlinovici concerns a group of Russian political strategists who met with figures from Dodon's entourage before the first round of elections. The investigation also found that the press secretary of Dodon's campaign headquarters was present.
Several experts and political analysts shared their thoughts on what the investigation reveals — and the urgent
questions it raises.
“Political strategists from abroad, including Russia, have always worked in Moldova. They have always been paid under the table, so you won't see the costs for their services in official accounts. In Dodon's case, now that the involvement of Russian political strategists has been unveiled, it's necessary to demand a report on costs”, explains Tulbire.
“During this election campaign, teams of political strategists from France, Germany, Romania, Russia, Ukraine and other places worked for different candidates. Everybody who knows the political consulting market in Moldova knows this very well, but it is not done to discuss it out loud”, acknowledges Balkan-Center's Manastîrlî.
“Inviting foreign political strategists has long since become the rule for Moldovan elections. In general, candidates are afraid to publicly admit that they use the services of these foreign specialists. Perhaps they fear that doing so might make them look weak compared to competitors who do not disclose their list of foreign consultants”, Manastîrlî continues.
“Consulting firms and individual political strategists may indeed work under contract during elections in other countries, but it should be done openly, just like any other commercial contract”, remarks the Russian political analyst Alexander Morozov.
“Otherwise, it is no longer an issue of political consultancy, but toxic interference. The team [of political strategists] is hiding this, refusing contact with the press, and is being hidden by Dodon's apparatus. This is not merely ‘business’, but a ‘special team’ which directly connects Dodon's headquarters with the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation. That is to say, this amounts to direct [foreign] interference [in the elections]”, wrote Morozov in a November 5 Facebook post reacting to the RISE Moldova investigation.
The first revelations in the Kremlinovici investigation were possible thanks to the “Chernov Archive”, a batch of working documents obtained by the Dossier centre as a result of a leak from Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation, which were then provided to RISE Moldova.
According to documents published in the investigation, Moldovan politicians (including Dodon) would send Moscow advance copies of the texts of their speeches for domestic and international consumption. These would be reviewed by the Kremlin's “Moldova office”, under the auspices of a directorate of the presidential administration led by SVR General Vladimir Chernov. Sometimes the Russian staff would edit the texts of these speeches for their Moldovan partners, developing talking points they could use in the public arena. They even suggested possible fake stories to undermine their Moldovan colleagues’ competitors.
Dumitru Manzarari, a research associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), told GlobalVoices that RISE Moldova's investigations were “extremely disturbing”.
“[Dodon's] actions create the impression that he uses the presidential office for personal benefits. Given the extensive and documented business interests of Dodon in Russia and the fact that Russia is the only country maintaining military troops in Moldova, against the will of Moldovan authorities, Dodon's interactions with Russian officials makes him look like an agent run from the Kremlin's department covering Moldova”, suggests Manzarari. “Moreover, Moldova's president needs to follow specific procedures to share classified documents with unauthorised interlocutors, in particular foreign officials. Similarly, coordinating his policies and actions with Russia is a questionable step, undermining the presidential office, Moldova's sovereignty, and national security”.
Boris Gamurari, a former security services officer and former Moldovan Minister of Defence, sees these revelations as a sign of incompetence.
“Throughout his term, President Dodon frankly shown carelessness in matters of state security […] The security services are obliged to be in the know and inform him about everything in the fullest detail. But to do that, you need a service with professional staff, not former police officers, with its own style and signature way of working”, observed Gamurari in an interview. “Neither he nor they know the golden rule of such a service — there can be friendly countries, but there cannot be friendly intelligence agencies”.
Moldova’s political turmoil

author: Vladimir Thorik


text:
The pandemic in Bangladesh through the lens of its independent filmmakers · Global Voices
পান্থ রহমান রেজা (Pantha)

Short films of the “Tong Isolation Diary” series capture people's lives during the pandemic. Screenshot from the Tong-Ghor Talkies site.
Things have been tough for filmmakers in Bangladesh. COVID-19 restrictions disrupted much of the film production industry and, although movies theatres reopened in October after a seven-month shutdown, halls remain mostly empty as the pandemic rages on.
Confined to their houses, many filmmakers are doing movies about just that — coping with the pandemic.
Among those films, there is “Tong Isolation Diary” by filmmaking collective Tong-Ghor Talkies. It's a series of nine short films, portraying different characters and their lives in the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tong-Ghors are the small tea shops that line the streets and lanes of Bangladeshi cities and where both ordinary people and creatives gather to meet friends, discuss the latest news, or just relax.
Global Voices spoke with Tong-Ghor Talkies co-founder Zuairijah Mou about the “Tong Isolation Diary” series and the challenges independent filmmakers face in Bangladesh.
Global Voices (GV): Could you talk a little about how the idea for the “Tong Isolation Diary” series came about?
Zuairijah Mou (ZM): Since the very beginning of the pandemic, the Tong-Ghor team thought of capturing the lives of people affected by COVID-19 through film. So we coined the term isolation diary and began work on the series. In April 2020, we released the first film of this series. Following that we started releasing other films of the series one by one. We have so far released a total of nine films from Bangladesh and West Bengal, India under the “Tong Isolation Diary” series.
Zuairijah Mou, co-founder, director and producer of Tong Ghor Talkies. Image by Nishita Hossain Zenin. Used with permission.
GV: One of the films produced by your team is called “Landscape of Soul,” in which the main character is seen dancing in isolation. What does that mean to you?
ZM: In this series, we have two films produced by our team. “Landscape of Soul” and “On the Porch of the Unwell Earth.” The second film has been produced by Mitul Ahmed, a founding member, director and producer of Tong-Ghor Talkies.
“Landscape of Soul” is basically a dance film (this genre exists in a lot of festivals or websites in the international arena, but we haven't seen much work on this in Bangladesh).
The film was released on the International Dance Day. We wanted to portray the psychological state of a unique person, especially during the pandemic, through music and dance. At least, I wanted to see if this creativity resonates some response in the viewers’ minds.
GV: You have highlighted films of Bangladeshi as well as Indian producers. Is there an intention to highlight stories of a pandemic-stricken world that transcends geographical boundaries?
ZM: We have previously released short films from various countries on our YouTube channel and website. In January 2020, we did an online distribution of short films from Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, United Kingdom, Morocco, Italy, Sri Lanka, Egypt and some other countries, cities and places. We have released four international short films on March 2020 celebrating the International Women's Day.
In the Tong Isolation Diary series, we focused primarily on Bengali language films. We wanted to see how the filmmakers from in Bangladesh and West Bengal, India wanted to portray the effects of COVID-19 in peoples’ lives.
Two Bangladeshi producers, Asma Beethe and Debashish Majumder, released their first films in the “Tong Isolation Diary” series, which is also our achievement and we are proud about it.
GV: Why did you choose YouTube as a platform for online distribution? Although this presents the opportunity to reach more people across geographical boundaries, the videos did not generate many views. What do you think is the reason behind this?
ZM: We have released the short films for online distribution both on YouTube and our website. There is, of course, a goal to reach out to a wider section of viewers. But at the same time, we know that the audience of independent short films is limited, especially for the kind of films we are making. We have released films covering a variety of genres from different countries, including those screened at prestigious international film festivals. We feature a variety of non-fiction films — however, it appears, there are not many people around the world interested in these films. There is another thing: although Tong-Ghor Talkies has been producing since 2017, we have started film distribution from only January 2020. The response we have received so far from the audience has been our inspiration.
GV: What do you think are the current challenges the independent filmmakers face in Bangladesh?
ZM: I think its only fair to look at the challenges from the individual level rather than focusing on the whole industry. What would be the presentation of a good story or idea/topic, what would be the filming style — that varies from filmmakers to filmmakers. I think we need to take a deep look at what story we need to feature and how we want to portray it — those are very important. And the funding issues have always been there; still is a big challenge. There is nothing more to say about this.

author: পান্থ রহমান রেজা (Pantha)


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Angolan police violently cracked down on protest against postponement of local elections · Global Voices
Dércio Tsandzana

Police face protesters in Luanda. YouTube screengrab taken on October 26, 2020.
On October 24, activists and members of opposition political parties took to the streets of the Angolan capital Luanda in protests against the postponement of local elections, which were met forcefully by police forces.
The protest, which also called for more employment for young people, came in the wake of the September demonstrations against police violence.
Since Angola's independence in 1975, its municipalities have been governed by committees appointed by provincial governors, who in turn are appointed by the country's president. This year would be the first time that Angolans would elect municipal leaders by popular vote.
The vote’s suspension was due to the delay in adopting legislation to regulate it. In an official statement, President João Lourenço, of the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) party, even denied that the elections had been postponed, saying that they had not even been scheduled. The explanation did not convince opposition parties.
The police arrested 103 people for “disobedience” and “rioting” during the demonstration, according to Jornal de Angola. Deutsche Welle Africa reported that six journalists were among those arrested:
Trata-se de um grupo composto por 90 homens e 13 mulheres, acusados de arruaça e desobediência às autoridades. A tentativa de manifestação decorreu em atropelo ao novo Decreto Presidencial sobre a Situação de Calamidade Pública, que restringe os ajuntamentos na via pública a cinco pessoas.
A marcha, frustrada pela Polícia Nacional, contou com centenas de participantes, incentivados por activistas da sociedade civil e por membros da direcção da UNITA.
They are a group made up of 90 men and 13 women accused of rioting and disobedience to the authorities. The attempted demonstration took place in violation of the new Presidential Decree on the State of Public Emergency, which restricts street gatherings to five people.
The march, frustrated by the police, had hundreds of participants, encouraged by civil society activists and members of the [opposition party National Unity for the Total Independence of Angola] UNITA leadership.
The police were on the streets of Angola's capital in the early hours of the day, when the first arrests reportedly occurred.
Demonstrators in front of police in Luanda. Screengrab YouTube taken on October 26, 2020.
In a report published by the Angolan newspaper Jornal de Angola, the Executive Secretary of the Permanent Committee of the Political Commission of the party National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), the largest opposition party, said:
A marcha organizada pela sociedade civil é um direito constitucional que deve ser respeitado…não estando o país sob Estado de Sítio ou Emergência, os únicos capazes de restringir o exercício destes direitos, nada justificava o impedimento de uma manifestação com o uso da força desproporcional pelas autoridades, tal como se assistiu.
A march organised by civil society is a constitutional right that must be respected… the country is not under a state of siege or emergency, the only [powers] that may restrict the exercise of these rights; nothing could justify preventing a demonstration with the use of disproportionate force by the authorities, as has been seen.
A member of parliament from UNITA told Agencia Lusa that he had been detained for about an hour, accusing the authorities of “excessive use of force” and of acting illegally.
One of the voices speaking out in favour of the protests was communicator Silvio Nascimento, who was indignant at the police treatment of protesters. Silvio said that the Angolan people “woke up to reality” and that “it is time to fight for the future”.
Similar accounts came from other participants in the protest, according to VOA:
Houve uma repreensão bastante violenta. Não havia razão para o regime usar uma força desproporcional, porque a manifestação era pacífica.
There was a really violent reaction. There was no reason for the regime to use disproportionate force, because the demonstration was peaceful
Speaking to DW África, Luston Mabiala, a young man who was at the demonstration, said that he had been assaulted together with his friends. He says he saw police firing real bullets and tear gas canisters in the area where there were street vendors.
Fomos agredidos fisicamente e de imediato fomos escorraçados da via pública e empurrados nos becos do bairro que eu desconheço. Somente lembro que foi nas imediações do Mercado dos Congoleses.
Resistimos à pressão da polícia e regressamos novamente ao mercado, onde fomos surpreendidos por uma centena de polícias armados das unhas até aos dentes que começaram logo a disparar à queima roupa
We were physically assaulted and quickly dragged out of the public street and pushed into the alleys of a neighbourhood that I don't know about. I only remember that it was near the Congolese Market.
We resisted the police pressure and returned again to the market, where we were surprised by about a hundred policemen armed from to the teeth who immediately started shooting at close range
In the same report from DW África, one of the protest organizers said that he was a victim of police brutality. The activist said that the protest only aimed to peacefully demand the holding of public elections across Angola's 164 municipalities:
Pretendíamos apenas exigir que o Presidente João Lourenço marque a data das eleições autárquicas. Angola está atrasada 45 anos, desde que se tornou independente. Por isso, acho que é necessário que o Presidente esteja preparado para partilhar o poder, para que Angola esteja ao mesmo nível de desenvolvimento com os outros países.
We only intended to demand that President João Lourenço set the date for the local elections. Angola is 45 years behind, since it became independent. So I think it is necessary that the president be prepared to share power, in order for Angola to be at the same level of development as other countries.
The police spokesman in Luanda, Nestor Goubel, said on October 24 that the police force did not have an assessment of operations to allow them to respond to people's complaints. The police official also denied the arrest of journalists who were covering the demonstration.
According to Jornal de Angola, the ruling MPLA party urged its members to use social media to support the government:
Perante dezenas de militantes e dirigentes de distintas estruturas e organizações internas do partido, Daniel Neto notou que a desvalorização dos esforços do Governo, notória nas publicações feitas por alguns jovens, confirma a influência nociva das mensagens de formações políticas da oposição sobre os investimentos, projectos e perspectivas para o desenvolvimento da vida das populações.
Devemos contrapor a deturpação das mentes por discursos preparados para confundir os lúcidos e arrastar os menos informados.
In front of dozens of activists and leaders of different internal party groups and organizations, Daniel Neto remarked that the undervaluation of the government's efforts, common in the comments of some young people, shows the harmful influence of messages from opposition political groups about investments, projects and prospects for the development of people's lives.
We must combat the distortion of minds by discourses designed to confuse the lucid and draw in the less informed.

author: Dércio Tsandzana


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As typhoon causes floods in the Philippines, cellphone ‘load’ becomes disaster relief · Global Voices
Kodao Productions

The flooding disaster which hit the eastern stretch of Luzon Island, including several cities in Metro Manila, was described by residents as the worst in years. Photo by Altermidya
This article by Raymund B. Villanueva was originally published on Kodao, an independent news site in the Philippines. An edited version is republished on Global Voices as part of a content-sharing agreement.
Many Filipinos have found a novel way of sending immediate aid to victims of the ongoing floods affecting Luzon, the Philippines’ largest island, caused by Typhoon Vamco (known as Ulysses in the country): free cellphone load.
Across the Philippines, the majority of cellphone users rely on prepaid load. They need to load or top up a certain amount in order to send SMS or access the internet. The system also allows sending or receiving a load from another cellphone user.
This is precisely what Michael Ramos Pagulayan, who is originally from the Isabela province in Luzon but now lives in Manila, decided to do: He offered to send 50 Philippine pesos (1 US dollar) worth of cellular load to those who need them in his home community of Auitan, San Pablo, Isabela.
Asked how much he was able to share so far, Pagulayan said he was able to send 50 pesos each to his former elementary school classmates.
I try to help because I have no way of going home because of the coronavirus pandemic restrictions. I can’t fly home, I can’t drive. So I thought of sharing mobile phone loads to flood victims who need to contact relatives here in Manila.
Not many have taken up his offer, however, probably because they have run out of batteries or have no mobile phone signals.
Pagulayan's home community in Auitan has been underwater since November 12 in what many of its residents say is the worst flooding in decades. Many victims in the community have been staying on their roofs as rescue efforts are frustrated by strong currents.
Anna Balasbas who resides in Pasay City in Metro Manila, also gave 30 to 100 pesos (0.6 to 2 USD) cellular phone loads to nearly 30 flood victims from the Cagayan and Isabela provinces of Luzon.
Netizens are storming social media demanding information about their families in severely flooded areas.
Mobile phones are a reliable way for families to exchange information during disasters in the Philippines when power and communication services break down by strong winds and flooding, as this image posted on Twitter shows:
CAGAYAN VALLEY NEEDS HELP. Unprecedented flooding is being experienced by communities in Central Isabela and Aparri, Cagayan after seven floodgates of Magat Dam were opened due to heavy rains brought by #UlyssesPH.
Read more from @kodao : https://t.co/vhZaIud3gn pic.twitter.com/xU9kyX0b1S
— AlterMidya (@altermidya) November 14, 2020
Ares Gutierrez, an officer with the Quezon City Disaster Response and Relief Management Council that coordinates city relief operations in that part of Metro Manila, says communications is the most crucial yet oftentimes neglected area in disaster and emergency management.
Communications bridges everything. Disaster managers need an efficient communications system to enable them to efficiently coordinate response efforts and save more lives.
Gutierrez said timely and frequent communication also prevents disinformation and assure the public that help is on its way.
Effective communications from the ground up will also enable decision-makers to determine whether response plans are working or need calibration, as well as what type of further assistance is needed, he said.
In times of disaster, the public wants to know how or where they can get help, what risks or dangers they face, and how they can protect themselves and their families.
Gutierrez, a crisis and disaster risk management expert, said citizens offering mobile phone loads is indeed a way of compensating for the perceived lack or breakdown of disaster communications.
Humanity kicks in when you see people crying for help. You want to jump in and help. Sharing cellphone credit can be a lifesaver.
Gutierrez, however, warned that such gestures are useless if the phone network is totally down.
A disaster-prone country like ours should have all types of communications platform in place so we don’t get cut off during crucial moments.
Gutierrez also urged the government, the private sector, and the academe to act together to implement the many disaster preparedness and communication plans that languish on the drawing boards of various institutions and lack implementation.

author: Kodao Productions


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Thai LGBTQ+ activists and pro-democracy protesters march together for equality · Global Voices
Prachatai

Protesters holding a large Pride flag as the march move onto Silom Road. Photo and caption from Prachatai
The original version of this article was published by Prachatai, an independent news site in Thailand, and was edited and republished by Global Voices as part of a content-sharing agreement.
Thai women, members of the LGBTQ community, and pro-democracy protesters joined a Pride parade on November 7 in Bangkok to call for equality for all marginalized groups, as well as for Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha’s resignation, a new constitution, and monarchy reform.
The march, organized by the gender equality activist groups Seri Toey Plus and Women for Freedom and Democracy, started at the Samyan intersection in central Bangkok. Carrying several large rainbow flags as well as placards calling for gender equality, marriage equality, abortion rights, and legalization of sex work, protesters marched along Rama IV Road, before stopping on Silom Road, a landmark in the center of the city.
During the march, the Women for Freedom and Democracy group, joined by a group of drummers from the theatre group B-Floor, organised a performance of a Thai version of the Chilean feminist anthem “A Rapist in Your Path” to protest against sexual violence, victim blaming, and rape culture.
Originally conceived by the Chilean feminist collective Las Tesis and sung in Spanish, the song has been translated and sung at women’s rights protests across the world as a way of speaking out about sexual violence and the patriarchal power structure that represses women.
The Thai version was translated by the Women for Freedom and Democracy Group. The lyrics state that “the state that ignores our voice is the state that rapes us”, and name “the police, the military, the courts of justice, the entire country, the monarchy” as complicit in gender-based violence.
The Thai version also uses imagery from the Sanskrit epic Ramayana, which is also popular in Thai culture. The story refers to Rama’s wife Sita, who was forced by her husband to walk through fire to prove her purity after her long captivity by Rama's rival Ravana.
Arriving at the Saladaeng Intersection, the protesters sat down and hold up their hands in the three-finger ‘Hunger Games’ salute while the national anthem is played from speakers on the truck leading them. Photo and caption from Prachatai
The march stopped under Bangkok skytrain Saladaeng BTS Station, where protesters used the truck that led the march as a stage for dances and speeches on various social issues, such as legalization of sex work, abortion rights, gender-based discrimination in STEM fields, sexual harassment against women activists, being LGBTQ in a Muslim community, ethnic group and immigrant rights, and the patriarchal power structure in the Thai monarchy. The event included a performance by a group of drag queens.
The activists also spoke out against sexual harassment and called for women and LGBTQ people to be represented on protest stages, and stated the pro-democracy movement’s three demands, which are Gen Prayut’s resignation, a new constitution, and monarchy reform.
LGBTQ rights and sex worker rights activist Sirisak Chaited dressed in a towel with the message “sex work is not a crime” during the march to call for the legalization of sex work. Photo and caption from Prachatai

author: Prachatai


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How Japan followed the US presidential election · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

“Congratulations to Caroline Kennedy on her appointment as US ambassador to Japan.” A banner at Obama train station in Fukui prefecture. While Kennedy had served as ambassador to Japan since 2013, the banner still remained in place until at least May, 2016. Photo by Nevin Thompson. Image license: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
To get away from social media and election night, I took a long walk in the chilly November gloom through my neighborhood. Stretching up into the pitch-black dank darkness of late afternoon, nearly every window in every apartment tower or condominium block was lit up with the glow of gigantic flat-screen televisions, all displaying the identical talking heads and the red and blue election results of CNN. Even in Canada, the election was inescapable.
Returning home, our big screen TV was dominated by Minecraft, not CNN. The stereo in the kitchen played not the news, but an old album by Okuda Tamio as we prepared dinner. My wife, like many people in Japan, follows US politics, but keeps her opinions to herself. The tension I had felt about the election before going for a walk and going offline temporarily evaporated.
In Japan, Trump is not always regarded with the dismissiveness or loathing that is so common in the United States or even in Canada. While coverage of the US election dominated Japanese media for the week or so during and after the election, the presidential race was treated as a spectacle, with little of the existential angst common in Western media. Who would win?
If there are any worries about the U.S. election, they are generally limited to whether or not President-elect Joe Biden will forsake Japan and pivot (or “suck up“) to China. It's hard to tell if this is a serious worry, since the people most likely to express fear about Joe Biden's supposedly close links to China are ultra-right-wing cranks, such as disgraced politician Tamogami Toshio, or celebrity plastic surgeon Takasu Katsuya, a shameless neo-Nazi who, because of his clout as an advertiser, still remains a popular commentator on Japanese television.
While there was serious discussion about the election, by the day after the election, when it looked obvious that Joe Biden would, indeed, win the election, a sense of whimsy started to prevail.
For example, on Twitter, someone noticed how a food court in central Osaka could be easily renamed to take advantage of the incoming president:
新バイデン食堂街 pic.twitter.com/Va5UEHaxPB
— 赤坂朝霞 (@akasaka_moon) November 4, 2020
“The New Biden Food Court”
NOTE: 梅田 in Osaka, pronounced as UMEDA, could also be pronounced BAIDEN. So, here we have the SHIN-BAIDEN (umeda) SHOKU-DO-GAI, or “The New Biden Food Court”. The 新梅田食道街 is actually an expansive collection of eateries beneath Osaka's main rail hub.
An actual politician named “Jo Baiden” and a “Baiden” bus stop were both unearthed in rural Japan. Meanwhile, production of Joe Biden masks was dramatically increased in Japan following the election, while a restaurant chain created a “Biden Burger” to fete the new president-elect:
Japanese restaurant makes its US election projection with the Biden Burger https://t.co/HC5vOM8bOH
— Jesse Johnson (@jljzen) November 6, 2020
Sometimes, it seems that for most average Japanese people, awareness of American politics comes down to simple name recognition. For example, when Barack Obama was elected US president in 2008, at least two rural towns in Japan attempted to take advantage of the presidential name.
The rural hot spring town of Obama in Nagasaki prefecture adopted its namesake president. Years after his presidency, a likeness of Barack Obama still graces hand towels and other tourist kitsch for sale in gift shops all over town. A crude and somewhat ludicrous Barack Obama manikin welcomes visitors to the backwoods hotspring resort.
US president-themed tourism kitsch in Japan. Images, clockwise from top right: A Barack Obama-branded vending machine paired with a bust of the former US president, in Obama, Fukui; Barack Obama-branded washcloths for sale at Obama Onsen, in Nagasaki prefecture; a life-size cardboard cutout of Barack Obama, located in a tourist visitor center in Obama, Fukui prefecture. Photos taken in 2016 and 2017 by Nevin Thompson.  Image license: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
Nearly one thousand kilometers to the east, in Fukui prefecture, the city of Obama, a seaside fishing town on the Japan Sea, north of Kyoto, developed an entire branding campaign that featured the American president. An Obama-inspired logo was slapped on everything from traditional sweets to vending machines.
Presumably capitalizing on its tenuous connection to the president, Obama, Fukui attempted to form a relationship with Caroline Kennedy, US ambassador to Japan from 2013 to 2017, but it's unclear if anything happened. The presidential-themed souvenirs are still in gift shops.
Meanwhile, the media started to compare the golf handicaps of Japan's prime minister with the president-elect:
Wall-to-wall hourly coverage of the presidential election notwithstanding, Japanese TV has now moved to the serious business of comparing golf handicaps … for that all important diplomacy. Trump 3, Biden 10, Suga 30. pic.twitter.com/tVX6nvCd5N
— Donna Weeks (@psephy) November 5, 2020
In any event, the relentless sense of anxiety about the election that has been so common in the media, on social media, and even in the workplace across North America seems to be toned down in Japan.
To a large degree, Donald Trump is not the polarizing figure in Japan he is in the United States, and is more of just another media personality, if not a way to sell more tourist kitsch. Why not?
For one thing, the United States tends not to dominate the media in Japan quite like it does in other places. Japan is also an ocean away from Donald Trump, and the country has its own obsessions and concerns, including continuing to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic and ward off the resulting economic collapse.
It's also possible that, in the context of Japanese politics, Donald Trump isn't particularly unusual. With his gauche clothes, obvious wig, and generally bombastic, mean-spirited, incurious worldview, Trump is like any of the male Japanese politicians who typically run the government.
Now, two weeks after the election, media coverage of Donald Trump and Joe Biden has mostly receded, and has been replaced by stories about the star-crossed love life of a Japanese princess, how COVID-19 will affect a popular annual “naked festival“, and a potential new vaccine that could end the pandemic.
In short, Japan has moved on from Donald Trump. Hopefully, the rest of the world will, too.

author: Nevin Thompson