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Another top-down concession is unlikely to satisfy the need for redistribution in Kazakhstan · Global Voices
Paolo Sorbello

Peaceful protesters in Almaty's Republic Square on January 6. Screenshot from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's YouTube channel.
The government's anti-terrorist operation concluded last week in Kazakhstan, as the country's leadership laid the blame on a foreign-trained group of 20,000 for the violent clashes that led to over 200 dead in Almaty, the largest city and former capital, and dozens more in other cities.
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev lodged accusations of incompetence and treason against his security apparatus. He also addressed the underlying problem that helped the initial protests spread across the country: inequality.
As Tokayev laid out a new plan for reforms during one of his many speeches in January, he announced the creation of Kazakhstan Khalkyna (Kazakhstan for the people), a public fund that the largest companies and businesspeople should contribute to — on a voluntary basis — in a show of support for social services. The fund will help finance projects in “health care, education, social support,” a press release said.
[The Fund will] attract assistance from international charitable organizations [as well as] mandatory contributions from the lottery and betting operators. Of course, I emphasize that we expect regular significant contributions to the fund from big business.
The detachment of the fund from the public budget and the expectation of sizable contributions from large businesses places the responsibility on the private sector to voluntarily give away part of their profits as a redistributive measure.
The “charitable” aspect of the fund is in line with the top-down approach that the government has routinely taken toward socio-economic issues.
To put this in perspective, a similar top-down solution to society's problems was established in July 2019, one month after Tokayev's election, through the creation of the National Council of Public Trust, designed as a public platform to discuss and propose solutions to the country's socio-economic issues. Most observers say the council has failed its task.
Similarly to the council, the fund displays a “separate authoritative supervisory board” which is supposed to maintain it independent of the government. Yet, most of the board members have been or still are close to the country's leadership.
To better understand the rationale and the effects of the fund, Global Voices reached out to Maurizio Totaro, PhD candidate at the University of Gent, who focused his research on the Mangistau region, its history, spaces, and people.
Global Voices: Is the creation of the fund in line with Tokayev's plan for “de-oligarchization”? And who benefits from this?
Maurizio Totaro: The creation of the fund is a first non-repressive measure in reaction to the street protests in the country. It's an attempt to follow through on Tokayev's call for a de-oligarchization of the country. If we analyze the whole of Tokayev's speech, however, we find that this is not a redistributive measure, but a charitable action. The fund is a way for certain elite groups that have benefited from the Nazarbayev system to demonstrate their contribution to society. Being set up on a voluntary basis, the fund doesn't oblige the companies and individuals to contribute.
GV: So it's essentially a way to offer a donation in exchange for a better reputation?
MT: The fund is also a way to counterbalance the criticism about the legitimacy and the legality of the wealth that these groups amassed. By making this a charitable contribution, a company's donation to the fund becomes a way for the company to gain a certain moral legitimacy within the system. This way, oligarchs and big companies essentially legitimize their role in the “new course” that Tokayev claims to have embarked on.
GV: In his speech, Tokayev also reassured people that this fund is not going to hinder the principles of market economy. Why was this an important aspect to stress?
MT: Tokayev also mentioned explicitly that this is not a tax — and actually would possibly entail tax benefits for those who contribute. And his stress on the principle of private property also sets a boundary against recent calls from workers to nationalize certain extractive enterprises. These two plain statements serve as a guarantee for the business climate and for foreign investments.
Summing up his analysis, Totaro told Global Voices that the fund “looks like an exercise in smoke and mirrors, a wholly insufficient measure to face the structural inequalities that gave rise to the protests in January.”

author: Paolo Sorbello


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In Azerbaijan, a man arrested for disrespecting a flag · Global Voices
Arzu Geybullayeva

“Azeri and Turkish flags” by Francisco Anzola is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Political activist Fuad Ismayilov, 36, was sentenced to thirty days in administrative detention on February 1, 2022, after being arrested for lowering a Turkish flag that was hung outside a restaurant in Azerbaijan's capital Baku. According to an official statement by the Ministry of the Interior, he was arrested for “disrespecting the State Flag of the brotherly Republic of Turkey” and charged with disobeying police according to the Code of Administrative Offenses Article 535.1. The activist was caught on security cameras cutting the rope holding up the flag.
His arrest, prompted a discussion among Azerbaijani users on Facebook and Twitter on the use and perceptions of national symbols such as flags.
Narmin Shahmarzade, a feminist activist wrote,
Bayrağı "təhqir etdi" adı ilə kimisə həbs etmək, mənə görə, ən mədəni adı ilə quldurluqdur. Heç nə insan həyatından daha…
Posted by Narmin Shahmarzade on Saturday, January 29, 2022
To arrest someone under the name of “insulting” the flag is, in my opinion, a robbery. Nothing is more valuable than human life. What you sanctify as a state is to serve the people. The main duty of the state is to protect the citizen, their freedom of expression. Who determines the state symbol? In general, why should a person respect the state symbol? What is this absurd idea? Why should citizens who do not support the idea of the flag and express this belief in practice be arrested?
According to national legislation, there is no reference to a criminal offense for disrespecting national symbols of foreign countries. “The Criminal Code of Azerbaijan contains rules regulating only conduct towards the state flag and state attributes of Azerbaijan,” said lawyer Fariz Namazli in an interview with OC Media.
Emin Abbasov, an independent lawyer also tweeted:
Baku police arrested a man who pulled the rope of the Turkish flag & dropped it to ground.
But Azerbaijan Administrative Offences Code establishes responsibility only for the irregularities in raising and placing the foreign state& Intl Org flags but not the dropping them down.
— Emin (@legalactivism) January 29, 2022
Another independent lawyer, Subhan Hasanli, addressed in a Facebook post the division the case of the activist created in the society, with some calling for his immediate punishment, while others question the reasoning.
First of all, the flag in this country can be considered, a piece of cloth by some, and a sacred symbol by others. We must accept this. In a society, if we live together, we have to think of not only those who think alike, but those who think differently. It would be good if we consider, not to hurt those who think differently, not to disrespect symbols and values they consider sacred. Second, I cannot understand those who keep going on about the importance of the flag this time around. Weren't you applauding when LGBTQ+ symbols and flag were being burned? Or described those acts as freedom of expression? But now, when someone stood against your values you asking for a punishment? We must respect other's values, considered valuable, principled, or sacred. Even when those symbols can be shocking, and annoying.
But it is not only about tolerance and respect. “Symbols are powerful, and psychological research suggests that the increasing use of the national flag could actually have a damaging impact on social cohesion,” wrote Amit Katwala in this Wired piece. Quoting Markus Kemmelmeier, a social psychologist at the University of Nevada, Katwala notes, “Flags are tricky. If you allude to a collective and say, ‘This is us,’ there’s always somebody that’s not included.”
Kemmelmeier breaks down this argument in a research paper titled “Showing Patriotism, But Reaping Nationalism? Consequences of Exposure to the American Flag.” He and co-author David G. Winter write, “National symbols are central to any nation state. The provide an outward representation for a collective, its history, and its achievements.” The authors argue, “Salience of one's national identity engages the process of self-stereotyping,” which leads to individuals behaving in ways “they consider normative or desirable for their national identity. In sum, national symbols likely bring out in nationals that for which they believe their nation stands.”
In the case of the arrested activist, the flag in question was the Turkish flag. The two countries describe each other as having fraternal relations. The unequivocal support of Azerbaijan by Turkey during the Second Karabakh war culminated in further reinforcing these relations, as well as a trend of hanging Turkish flags in front of establishments across the country, including, cafes, restaurants, banks, and retail shops. Much of social media and traditional media criticized  Ismayilov for disrespecting the flag of the “brother country, Turkey.”
This is perhaps the first instance of strong public backlash against someone disrespecting a foreign flag in Azerbaijan. Journalist Shemshed Agha looked into previous instances where a foreign flag was disrespected and documented at least six examples in which the flags of Russia, Iran, Israel, US, Armenia, and Colombia were disrespected, but not in one case the perpetrators were arrested. “That is why, the Ministry of the Interior should refer not to its brother, but the existing laws and make decisions based on that,” wrote Agha.
Ironically, Ismayilov said after his arrest that he cut the rope not because he disrespects the Turkish flag but because he felt the flag was displayed at inappropriate places (cafes, restaurants), reported BBC Azerbaijan service.
In the meantime, Ismayilov's lawyer, Javad Javadov told BBC Azerbaijan service that they will be appealing the decision.
On a broader note, as Moises Naim points out in this opinion piece for the Washington Post, “flags and nationalism go together, and we are living in times of heightened nationalism. We surely need a deeper understanding of the dynamics of nationalism and the powerful appeal of political symbols.” One may only add the need for selective relationships some countries may have towards others, especially the ones perceived as “fraternal.”

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Arzu Geybullayeva


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Trinidad & Tobago’s Carnival lovers will only be getting a ‘taste’ of the festival this year, but do they even want it? · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Frame grab of a Blue Devil, a traditional Trinidad and Tobago Carnival character, from the NGC “This is Home” Carnival series. Image by Walt Lovelace, used with permission.
If these were “normal” times, Trinidad and Tobago's world-famous Carnival season would already be well underway, with fetes and soca concerts drawing large crowds, and the early rounds of steel pan and masquerade competitions in full swing, all leading up to the two-day street parade on the Monday and Tuesday preceding Ash Wednesday, which falls on March 2 this year. But these are times of pandemic and, with the 2021 festival cancelled and creatives feeling the fallout, the government devised a way to make a version of Carnival happen for 2022.
Enter “A Taste of Carnival” — an attempt to allow every sector of the Carnival landscape to have events at three designated “safe zones”. These three COVID-19 protocol-compliant venues — the Queen's Park Savannah, the traditional mecca of the local festival, and Queen's Hall, both located in the capital, Port of Spain; as well as the Naparima Bowl, a performance art space in south Trinidad — will only be accessible to fully vaccinated patrons and performers.
Unlike the recently staged Miami Carnival, the approach involves the use of pods, whereby people will be physically distanced from one another within their own social bubbles while patronising any of the carded events. Most notably, the beloved J'ouvert celebrations, which herald the start of the street festival, and the Parade of the Bands will not be on offer, but other events are scheduled to begin on February 4.
Public reaction to the news has been mixed. Not only is Trinidad and Tobago in the throes of community spread of the Omicron variant, with daily new positive cases at around the 600 mark and an estimated 49.5 per cent of the population fully vaccinated, but the thought of the government dedicating what was initially said to be just over TTD 30 million (just under USD 4.5 million) on an untried and scaled down version of the festival seemed like fickle economics to some cultural activists.
Following some criticism, the budget has since been reduced to TTD 20 million (just under USD 3 million), with the lion's share being allocated to three key stakeholders: Pan Trinbago, the Trinbago Unified Calypsonians Organisation (TUCO), and the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival Bands Association.
It was a move that did not go down well with facebook user Nigel A. Campbell, who said:
[S]lashing the budget for ‘A Taste of Carnival’ does not make the event better, and worse does not make the public outcry go away. Pods build without confirmation of an expenditure budget. Why Gypsy [calypsonian Winston “Gypsy” Peters, chair of the National Carnival Commission] still have a job? Why NCC still spending government money? Why it so late in execution and marketing? A $15M ‘signal that the entertainment sector is reopening’ is one way of spending the People's money. The sector response is muted as high demand talent has left these shore to explore the markets overseas: foreign exchange, jobs, and audiences. A plan that began too late is now reduced to thing to show that ‘we care.’ Not good enough.
On Facebook, Rubadiri Victor noted:
How this money is to be allocated should be underpinned by international Best Practice understandings of the role of government money and the role of practitioners.
Some of the measures he suggested include a merit-driven grant funding evaluated by peer-based assessment, respect for the artistic process, and corporate sector support.
On Twitter, photographer David Wears shared a statement by the estate of the late Carnival designer Wayne Berkeley:
The estate of #WayneBerkeley has spoken on @ncc_tt‘s #TasteOfCarnival. pic.twitter.com/bJ0mb3hPls
— DavidWears🇹🇹 (@DavidWearsPhoto) February 3, 2022
Social media users also raised concerns about transparency, the wisdom of prioritising an event of this nature given citizens’ current economic and healthcare needs, and the fact that the majority of the nation's school age children have been out of physical classes since March 2020.
Photographer Abigail Hadeed asked:
33 Million allocated for carnival and some goat pens [referring to the pods] and we cannot use this money to get children back to school! Really?
Allan Karim quipped:
Over the past two years, 50,000 children went without education because they couldn't afford a laptop…$35 million in laptops could have given them a Taste of Education.
In a follow-up Facebook post, Rubadiri Victor pushed back:
I loathe whenever a Creative Sector ‘spend’ is revealed and the first national outcry is ‘dey [They] shoulda spend dat money on Education! Or Health.’ The fact remains that Arts has the historic lowest government subvention [….] stack up that advantage over the years!
On the other end of the spectrum, certain sectors — including the chosen hosting venues and certain Carnival enthusiasts — welcomed the initiative, with Andy A. Neils saying:
The hard hit Entertainment sector in Trinidad and Tobago can breathe a sigh of relief as some events can happen in 2022, with proper health and safety protocols in place.
Even as NCC chairman Winston “Gypsy” Peters maintains that “for now, and for the foreseeable future, there will be so such thing as our ‘normal’ Carnival,” the coming weeks will tell whether the “Taste of Carnival” will be savoured, or leave a bad taste in the mouth.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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Vietnam’s human rights situation off to an ominous start in 2022 · Global Voices
The 88 Project

Vietnam political prisoners Le Trong Hung (left), Le Chi Thanh (upper right), Le Manh Ha (bottom right). Photo from The 88 Project
This article was originally published on The 88 Project, an independent news site covering Vietnam, and an edited version is republished on Global Voices as part of a content-sharing agreement.
Following a flurry of high-profile trials in the last two weeks of 2021, the People’s Court in Vietnam kept on rolling as the new year began. Eight citizens were arrested in the first two weeks of 2022 for changes related to “anti-State propaganda” or speech violations, with a few multi-year sentences tacked on for good measure.
The trial that garnered the most international attention was for independent journalist and author Pham Doan Trang, who was not even notified of her December 14 trial until one day before it was scheduled to take place. After the trial, news of her shocking nine-year prison sentence barely got a chance to sink in when it was followed by three more trials in rapid succession.
Trinh Ba Phuong and Nguyen Thi Tam were convicted and sentenced on December 15 to 10 years and six years in prison, respectively, for helping Dong Tam villagers publicize their story about an attack on their village that resulted in the death of three police officers and one villager. The next day, long-time activist Do Nam Trung was sentenced to 10 years under Article 117 — a part of Vietnam’s criminal code often used to silence activists.
Christmas Eve 2021 was marked with the appeal trials for mother and son Can Thi Theu and Trinh Ba Tu. As expected, the court upheld the eight-year sentence each for the two long-time land rights activists who were also involved in helping victims of the deadly Dong Tam police raid. Unsurprisingly, both defendants were defiant and forcefully told the judges that they had broken no laws.
Then on New Year’s Eve came Le Trong Hung’s turn. The constitutional advocate ran for a seat on the National Assembly as an independent and was tried and sentenced to five years in prison for “anti-State propaganda.” Hung’s wife was not even allowed into the courtroom to hear her husband defend himself.
As if that’s not bad enough, the new year opened with a highly unusual and bizarre case. Le Tung Van, the 90-year-old founder of a temple and orphanage in Long-An Province, was arrested along with three of his foster children. His temple, Tinh-That Bong-Lai, does not belong to any religious tradition or organization sanctioned by the state. For years it’s been known for producing successful singing acts that have won many game show awards. In fact, one of its YouTube channels has millions of subscribers.
Initially, police charged Van and his temple with three crimes: financial fraud, incest, and abuse of democratic freedoms. On Facebook, rumors began circulating that the old monk had fathered illegitimate children and then had sex with some of them, producing even more offspring. The salacious allegations created a social media maelstrom that seems to have been timed to distract from a massive “COVID-19 Test Kit” kickback scandal involving several ministries and hundreds of millions of dollars. But as the public began to question the veracity of the claims and the motives behind the outlandish rumors, the authorities quickly withdrew the first two charges against the temple.
Le Tung Van was later released but remains under house arrest. The three men who remain in custody are Le Thanh Hoan Nguyen, 32, Le Thanh Nhat Nguyen, 31, and Le Thanh Trung Duong, 27. It is not yet known what these men will ultimately be charged with.
In the meantime, the unofficial “incest” accusations are still being spread like wildfire by Facebook groups and pages suspected of being a part of Force 47 — the cyber attack army run by Vietnam’s Ministry of Propaganda. What their ultimate goals are is still unclear at this point.
On January 5, police broke into YouTuber Nguyen Thai Hung’s house as he was live streaming and arrested him while the camera was still rolling. The surreal video clip, which captured the sounds of breaking glass and shouting men, has since gone viral. Hung’s wife, Vu Thi Kim Hoang, was also arrested. Hoang’s sister later told Radio Free Asia that the men who broke in were not wearing police uniforms, leading her mother, who lives next door, to mistake them for robbers, and she started screaming for help.
At the time, the couple’s family was neither shown any warrants for arrests nor offered any explanation. It was only a few days later that the authorities told them Hoang had been charged with “abusing democratic freedoms” under Article 331. Hung is yet to be charged with any crime and the couple remains in custody.
A week later, plainclothes police abducted Le Manh Ha on January 12 while he was traveling in Tuyen Quang Province. Ha runs a YouTube channel where he discusses legal matters related to land grabs, as he himself was a victim in the past. Ha’s wife, Ma Thi Tho, said police took her husband back to their home, where they conducted a search and seized a number of electronic devices and equipment. Even though the men were not uniformed, they did nevertheless show a warrant for the search and arrest. Unsurprisingly, Le Manh Ha has been charged with “anti-state propaganda” under Article 117.
On January 14, police in Ha Tinh Province arrested Nguyen Duc Hung, 31, and charged him with “anti-state propaganda” as well. It is not clear yet at the time of this writing what illegal activities Hung was accused of, but he’s the eighth person arrested so far this year.
Several trials also took place during the first two weeks of 2022. Mai Phan Loi, the highly respected founder and director of the nonprofit Center for Media in Educating Community (MEC), was sentenced to four years in prison on “tax fraud” charges on January 11. He was also ordered to pay a fine of nearly USD 90,000.
An independent journalist for the past five years, the low-key Loi has been quietly educating his readers about Vietnam’s Constitution and the law. He was arrested in July last year along with his associate Bach Hung Duong, who was also sentenced to 30 months in prison on the same charge. “Tax fraud” is often used by the government to silence critics who are business owners. Dang Dinh Bach, director of the nonprofit organization Law and Policy of Sustainable Development (LPSD), will be brought to trial on January 24, 2022, facing the same charges of alleged tax evasion.
Finally, in an alarming case of prisoner abuse, police captain Le Chi Thanh was sentenced to two years in prison for “obstructing officials carrying out government duties.” Thanh ran a YouTube channel where he regularly posted stories about police abuse and corruption. Thanh’s lawyer, Dang Dinh Manh, said his client claimed in court that he had been tortured and beaten and even hung by his legs for days in a room full of human feces. The lawyer noted that Thanh, once a strong and muscular policeman, had to be helped walking into court. A photo of Thanh appears to show bruises on parts of his body. After Thanh’s sentence was announced, the prosecution said it would add a new charge of “abusing democratic freedoms” under Article 331, virtually guaranteeing that more prison time will be added.
As the lunar new year, the Year of the Tiger, gets underway, human rights observers are waiting to see if the president of Vietnam will issue any goodwill pardons. But if the first few weeks of 2022 are any indication, it’s highly doubtful any political prisoners would make it onto such a list.

author: The 88 Project


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Ex-Yugoslav music fans mourn the death of Macedonian-Croatian rock star Aki Rahimovski · Global Voices
Metamorphosis Foundation

This story is based on original coverage by Meta.mk. An edited version is republished here under a content-sharing agreement between Global Voices and Metamorphosis Foundation.
Music fan signing book of condolences on Macedonia Square in Skopje, North Macedonia. The banner slogan in the background “Our street is sad [since you are no longer here]” is lyrics from the song “Moja je pjesma lagana” (My song is slow). Photo by Meta.mk, CC BY-NC 2.5.
Rock fans across the region of former Yugoslavia have been mourning the death of Macedonian-Croatian musician Aleksandar “Aki” Rahimovski (66), lead singer of the Croatian band Parni Valjak (“Steamroller”), who passed away on January 22. According to the Croatian media, the musician, who suffered a stroke four years ago, had been taken to hospital in Novo Mesto after experiencing a seizure, where he later died.
News of his passing, which was shared via Parni Valjak's social media accounts, incited a wave of reactions by fans hailing from the countries that succeeded former Yugoslavia, as well as from a wider circle of music lovers from the Balkans region.
Aki's funeral was scheduled to take place in Croatia's Zagreb cemetery, but to prevent overcrowding in keeping with COVID-19 provisions, the band asked fans who wished to pay their respects to do so at a designated spot in the city center. Hundreds of citizens left flowers or candles next to Aki's photo:
Dirnuti smo odazivom i brojnim osobnim porukama u spomen na Akija koje ste položili uz njegovu fotografiju kod Zdenca života. Od srca hvala svima ❤ pic.twitter.com/8gJT3grV42
— Parni Valjak (@parnivaljak) January 25, 2022
We are touched by your response and the numerous personal messages in memory of Aki left next to his photo at the Well of Life. We thank you all from the bottom of our hearts!
In the main square of Skopje, the capital of North Macedonia, Aki's friends from the local radio station Buba Mara organized a similar space, where citizens could pay homage by signing a book of condolences, leaving flowers, or lighting candles.
Even President Stevo Pendarovski paid his respects by participating in the event:
Music fan signing book of condolences at event honoring Aki Rahimovski. The slogan in the background “Our street is sad [since you are no longer here]” is lyrics from the song “Moja je pjesma lagana” (My song is slow). Photo by Meta.mk, CC BY-NC 2.5.
Аки Рахимовски остави неизбришлив белег и трајни вредности коишто се инспирација за сегашните и идни генерации музичари. Неговиот придонес, изразен низ безвременските песни, ќе биде длабоко врежан во колективната меморија на целиот регион. Нека почива во мир. Вечна му слава. pic.twitter.com/axRw7Dk9dn
— Stevo Pendarovski (@SPendarovski) January 26, 2022
Aki Rahimovski left an indelible mark and lasting values that are an inspiration for current and future generations of musicians. His contribution, expressed through timeless songs, will be deeply engraved in the collective memory of the entire region. Rest in peace. Eternal glory to him.
On the evening of January 27, a day before the funeral, fans gathered in Skopje to sing Aki's songs. Similar events took place in other cities across former Yugoslav space, including Novo Mesto in Slovenia, where the musician had resided in recent years.
Music fans gathering on the main square in Skopje, North Macedonia to pay tribute to Aki Rahimovski on January 27, 2022. Photo by Meta.mk, CC BY-NC 2.5.
Aki Rahimovski was born on June 5, 1955 in Nish, Serbia. His father, a music teacher, moved the family to Skopje, North Macedonia, where Aki spent his formative years. A friend reminisced about when they used to sing in a high school choir:
Како денес се сеќавам кога дојде на хор и рече дека ќе оди во Загреб да пее. Го следеше својот сон и успеа многу. Капа доле друже. https://t.co/s0UPUZuQ3K
— Aleksandar Tortevski (@atortevski) January 22, 2022
Tweet: I remember as if it were today, when he came to choir practice and told us he's going to leave for Zagreb to sing there. He followed his dream and succeeded big time. Hats off, my friend.
Video: Parni Valjak song Jesen u meni (“Autumn inside me”) at a concert dedicated to the late Macedonian singer Toše Proeski (1981-2007)
As a teenager, Aki joined several bands, including Vakuum, Blood Brothers and Thor, moving to Zagreb, Croatia, at the age of 19 and participating in the Zagreb Festival in 1975. That same year, he met guitarist and composer Husein “Hus” Hasanefendić, and singer and guitarist Jurica Pađen, with whom he would form Parni Valjak, under the guidance of their music manager, Vladimir Mihajlek–Miha. Aki sang lead on 18 Parni Valjak albums.
Unlike many other 1970s and '80s rock bands creating music after the breakup of Yugoslavia, the multiethnic Parni Valjak didn't pander to patriotic or nationalistic sentiments, nor did they blend their work with turbo-folk. By remaining true to their original hard rock style and their main themes of love, lust and loneliness, they retained a loyal following across political divides.
The song Moje zastave (“My flags”) is a hymn lauding the individual dignity of those who follow their own path, and one of the few Parni Valjak songs that can be interpreted as indirect social commentary, decrying nationalist flag-waving and opportunistic changing of allegiances.
Moje zastave – uvijek su iste boje
Nad njima ljubav caruje
Moja zastave – nikad na pola koplja
Ljubav se ne predaje
My flags don't change their colors
Love rules over them all
My flags are never at half mast
Love never surrenders
One song that exemplifies their eclectic style is Sve još miriše na nju (“Everything still smells of her”), which melodically tells the story of a man who confesses his obsession with another woman to his current lover, all while longing for youth. This 1993 video is one of the few performances from the first half of their five-decade career that is available online:
Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, Parni Valjak supported the work of medical professionals by staging online concerts and re-issuing some of their famous songs, like Ljubavna (“A love song”) under the motto #StayAtHome.
First you have to crawl if you want to walk
And when everything
Presses you to the wall, raise your head
Don't give up, just keep singing love songs
Shed a tear when no one looks your way
Although Parni Valjak's songs are in Croatian, Aki would sing in many other languages — including his native Macedonian — on solo projects. Offstage, he led a quiet and private life, with those who knew him describing him as a good neighbor and friend: “A great man! A simple, modest man who was always ready to help.”

author: Metamorphosis Foundation


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Senegal inches closer to grabbing Africa’s football trophy · Global Voices
Beng Emmanuel Kum

Senegalese fans in a match against Poland at the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia. Image by Екатерина Лаут rch via Wikimedia Commons, 20 June 2018 (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Senegal's desire to win the celebrated Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) as confirmation of being a continental superpower has eluded the team for far too long. This year, however, as they hover tantalizingly close to ending their trophy drought, fans are hoping that their habitual struggles at the tournament will become a thing of the past.
On February 3, the Teranga Lions took a significant step to end their search for the much coveted trophy after reaching the final of the African Nations Cup for the third time in history, having also qualified for the finals in 2002 and 2019.
After agonizing defeats to Cameroon and Algeria respectively on those occasions, the West African nation will face another North African foe as it faces the record champions Egypt in the final at Cameroon's Olembe Stadium on February 6.
It could be the greatest year of the country's history, a moment the entire nation has been awaiting. Celebrations after their victory against Burkina Faso in this year's semi-final was barely a glimpse of the joy that will consume Senegalese football fans should their team win the final:
Semifinal mood for #TeamSenegal 🥳 pic.twitter.com/BjyEKBnUvw
— B/R Football (@brfootball) January 30, 2022
Rond point Yoff 🔥#TeamSenegal ❤ pic.twitter.com/4km8pSN9mX
— MLD 🇸🇳 (@mamadoulemind) February 2, 2022
Senegalese football journalist Saikou Seydi, who is in Cameroon covering the tournament for Emedia Invest Group, told Global Voices:
This can be our year. I think that since 2017, we have been asking if it is the right time. But there is more hope for this year. The main strength of the team this year is their spirit of togetherness. The entire nation is behind this team. We have never seen such support in the previous years and it shows they want to win this trophy.
Senegal’s has featured at the biennial AFCON tournaments 16 times, only missing two editions (2010 and 2013) since 2000. They are currently the best ranked football nation on the continent, but have no trophy to show for it.
Despite being regarded as a heavyweight in African football, the Teranga Lions have remained under the shadow of its more successful rivals Nigeria, Ivory Coast, and Ghana, all of which have won the converted trophy at least twice.
Over the years, Senegal has grown accustomed to failure, but Seydi believes winning the Nations Cup will take Senegal “out of the dark”, and will mean a lot to their fans around the world:
Senegalese fans are not the only people expecting Senegal to win the trophy. Many African nations believe Senegal has to be compensated because they deserve it. It would be a big relief. It would be a perfect reward to all the previous generations who fought hard to ensure football in Senegal attains this height. Our prayer is to see this current generation win the trophy. They are reaping the fruit of what they planted.
Many generations of talented players have represented Senegal, but their failures may just be the driving force for the current team. Two-time African Player of the Year El Hadji Diouf, who played at the 2002 final, told CAF Online last month:
It’s hard. When you look at the generations of [talent] that have come and gone in the national team, it’s unbelievable that we haven’t yet managed to win the trophy. But I am convinced when Senegal wins their first trophy then it would be very difficult to dislodge them from the top.
Diouf is confident of Senegal’s chances to win. Anything other than that, he insisted, would be catastrophic, in light of the fact that they have such a talented squad. They also have one of the most formidable spins in African football with Chelsea’s Edouard Mendy in goal, Napoli’s Kalidou Koulibaly in defense, Paris Saint-Germain’s Idrissa Gueye in midfield, and Sadio Mane leading the attack.
Sadio Mané has three goals and two assists in six AFCON games for #TeamSenegal ✨ pic.twitter.com/d5uCMxMugm
— B/R Football (@brfootball) February 2, 2022
Sadio Mane, the Liverpool forward, has been the most outstanding player of his team in the tournament, scoring the most number of goals (3) and assists (2). He also helped his club end a 30-year wait for a Premier League title and won the UEFA Champions League with the Reds in 2019. The 29-year-old has achieved several honors at club level, but winning a trophy with Senegal has always been elusive.
Seydi explained:
Having a player like Sadio in your team is hugely beneficial. [He] has always had an impact. If we [have been] able to get to this stage of the competition, it is thanks to him. We can really count on him to win this trophy.
Expectations going into the 2021 Nations Cup were therefore sky-high, despite few signs such predictions would come to pass. Senegal was strangely lacking in their Group B opener against Zimbabwe, and needed a stoppage time penalty to beat the Warriors for a winning start. After two goalless draws with Guinea and Malawi, they finished top of their group unbeaten and without conceding.
Then, they clicked into gear during the knockout stage and grew in confidence, outclassing a nine-man Cape Verde side (2-0), convincingly beating Equatorial Guinea (3-1) in the quarter-final, then knocking out Burkina Faso (3-1) to roar into the finals.
Seydi continued:
I’m not surprised we reached the final. We have a good squad with most of our players on the books of most top European clubs. […] Our objective has always been to win the trophy.
Thus far, Senegal has braved the odds. Due to several COVID-19 cases recorded in the team, they have played the lion's share of their games without most of their key players, while others were ruled out for injuries. There was also a tussle between the Senegalese Football Association and Watford, an English premier league club, over the release of Ismaïla Sarr, who made an immediate impact, despite arriving midway into the competition.
Aliou Cissé, Senegal’s football coach. Image by Екатерина Лаут via Wikimedia Commons, 19 June 2018 (CC BY-SA 3.0)
There is arguably no one more desperate to win the Africa Cup of Nations with Senegal than Aliou Cisse.
In 2002, the former captain of the Teranga Lions was one of the players who missed a penalty during the shootout in the final, when they lost to defending champions Cameroon. Thirteen years later, he was appointed coach of Senegal's national team, and has since then helped them become a dominant side — but he hasn’t been free from criticism over the years.
Questions about his suitability for the job amplified after a premature quarter-final exit from the 2017 Afcon, when the team lost to Cameroon; and in 2019, when they lost to Algeria in the final. Although Cisse has been able to win the hearts of some critics, he will certainly be vindicated if Senegal wins the AFCON on Cameroonian soil.
In Seydi opinion, Cisse's “biggest nightmare has been against Cameroon, and so winning [the Cup] in Cameroon would be good. It [would] be a reward for him.” It would also be a reward for the players who have worked so hard, and for the many Senegal football fans around the world who want to see the team deliver on its potential.

author: Beng Emmanuel Kum


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The ABCs of Trinidad and Tobago Carnival, TikTok style · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Screenshot of TikTok user Stephon Felmine's new CarnivALPHABET series.
Just in time for Trinidad and Tobago Carnival 2022 (or at least the pandemic manifestation of it), comes a brand-new TikTok series by popular teacher-turned-online humourist Stephon Felmine, who launched himself into the social media limelight in 2020 with his “Trini Alphabet” performances.
The Carnival-themed version, cleverly dubbed the “CarnivALPHABET,” has already been making the rounds on social media channels. Felmine's approach focuses on Carnival-related terms from A to Z: he explains what they mean (useful for non-locals) and then uses the word in a sentence designed to solicit laughter. Throughout the series, he has been wearing bits of old Carnival costumes, making the skits all the funnier.
It's early days yet, but Felmine began with “A”, for Ash Wednesday, which he describes as the day that signals the departure from the “wine and jam” of Carnival bacchanalia to the “quiet and docile” tone of the Christian Lenten observation:
‼New series Alert‼
Welcome to the Trinbago CarnivAlphabet!🇹🇹 The Letter of the Day is A! A is for… pic.twitter.com/v12gHuZ2QE
— stephon felmine (@stephon23_) February 1, 2022
He has also explored the traditional Baby Doll Carnival character, and the relevance of Canboulay celebrations to the modern incarnation of masquerade.
Felmine even managed to put a pandemic-related spin on Dimanche Gras (Big Sunday), the event at which the King and Queen of Carnival, as well as each season's Calypso Monarch, are crowned:
The Letter of the Day is D!🇹🇹 D is for…#stephon23 #carnivalphabet pic.twitter.com/VjJhhbxxDQ
— stephon felmine (@stephon23_) February 4, 2022
You can follow the series on TikTok or Twitter.


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Travel bans, Japan, and me · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

Used-books store in Jinbocho, in Kanda, Tokyo. On annual visits back to Japan, I set aside several days just to visit bookstores. I visited this bookstore 872 days ago. Photo by Nevin Thompson. (CC BY-NC 2.0)
It has been 879 days — 2 years, 4 months, and 26 days — since I last set foot in Japan. This is my longest absence from the country in 27 years — 10,009 days, to be exact. Thanks to Japan's strict, and, in some ways, incomprehensible COVID-19 travel restrictions for foreigners, it's hard to say when I'll be able to return. On the other hand, others stuck outside of Japan have it far worse.
Japan has effectively banned the entry of non-Japanese visitors to the country since the beginning of April 2020 and the start of the pandemic. Where the country welcomed at least 32 million visitors in 2019, by the end of 2021 that number had shrunk to just 190,000.
In response to the emergence of the COVID-19 Omicron variant in late November, unelected bureaucrats imposed even more draconian entry restrictions. For a few days last December, no one could enter Japan, leaving Japanese citizens stranded outside the country until elected politicians intervened.
However, it remains practically impossible for any non-Japanese person besides permanent residents (which I am not) to enter the country. Even if I could persuade the consulate in Vancouver to allow me to travel to Japan, I would still need to quarantine with my family for seven days in an approved hotel, at my own expense. With a family of four this is very expensive, potentially very claustrophobic, and very boring, and also cuts into what little time we might have to spend in the country in the first place.
I'm not allowed into Japan, anyway, so, I continue to count the days.
Toro Nagashi (Lantern Festival), Tsuruga Bay, Japan, 899 days ago. Each year at the end of Obon, the annual festival of the dead, lanterns symbolizing the ancestors are set sail for the afterlife. Photo by Nevin Thompson.  (CC BY-NC 2.0)
Almost every non-Japanese person who spends a significant amount of time in the country marks their “Japanniversary” each year. For me, it's September 6, 1994, the anniversary of my arrival in Japan. I remember flying over the glittering sprawl of Osaka in the early evening, riding a wine-colored Hankyu train with green seats and faux-wood paneling to Nishinomiya, and my first meal, tuna-fish onigiri (rice ball) from Lawson.
I relocated from Japan with my family, including a dog, 3,506 days later, on Tuesday, April 12, 2004. I had decided to move to Canada in April 2004 in hopes of doing something else besides teaching English conversation. But I had few prospects “back home,” and very little money. I thought I would never be able to return to Japan. I became depressed.
Happily, 759 days later, we returned to Japan. Ever since then, I've been able to spend at least part of the year in Tsuruga.
What is my connection to Japan? Why do I feel the need to return to Japan regularly, in order to feel whole? I know I'm not the only person to feel this way.
I don't return to “Japan.” Instead, I return to Tsuruga, a small city on the Japan Sea Coast that most Japanese people couldn't find on a map. My mother-in-law lives there, as does my sister-in-law and her family. My sons are both Japanese citizens, and they need to maintain a significant connection to their country and their culture. The family graves are in Tsuruga, the family dead come home each August to Tsuruga, for Obon, the festival of the dead. We try to be there for them.
In our home in Canada we speak the Tsuruga dialect, which can sound strange to other Japanese people living here in Victoria. Tsuruga has its own flavour of soy sauce and miso, and rice grown right in the neighbourhood. There are hot springs nearby, beaches, and a swimming hole up in the hills.
The Kuroko River swimming hole, in Tsuruga, Fukui. I last visited here 895 days ago. Photo by Nevin Thompson. (CC BY-NC 2.0)
Arriving in Japan in my early twenties, I matured into an adult there. Many of my tastes, interests, and sensibilities were deeply connected to Japan, such as the taste of the soy sauce, miso and booze, all local to the small rural town where I lived.
TV shows, newspapers, magazines, libraries — on annual visits back to Japan, I set aside several days just to visit bookstores.
Until COVID-19 effectively banished me from the country, Japan had been a part of who I am, my identity. But the connection is fading now, the attraction harder to explain.
Many others, however, have it far worse than I do. Entire lives put on hold or destroyed by Japan's COVID-19 travel ban. Between 150,000 and 370,000 students and workers are blocked from entering Japan, giving up jobs, scholarships, and academic careers.
Families have been split up by seemingly punitive, cruel, and nonsensical border entry regulations.
Your Irony of the Day: the Japan foundation is funding a multidisciplinary conference on “COVID and Japan,” but because Japan won’t admit foreigners, they’re holding it in . . . Bangladesh.
— John Whittier Treat (@johnwtreat) January 20, 2022
We're fortunate, though. While we would dearly love to see our family in Tsuruga as soon as possible, my wife and I can still afford to wait, absorbed in the life we have built on this side of the Pacific.
While the Japanese public is largely unaware of the issue, Japanese businesses, which had been increasingly relying on immigrant workers before the COVID-19 travel ban, are becoming impatient with the Japanese government. Protests against Japan's COVID-19 ban are also being organized around the world.
In response, the Japanese government has let in just a few students. Some politicians are suggesting that entry restrictions be relaxed in the coming months.
I'm still counting the days. Can I return to Tsuruga for the start of summer vacation in 148 days? Or will I need to wait for winter holidays in another 316 days? Or, will I even be able to get in this year at all?
However, most people with work, school, or other connections to Japan must wait. Or must make other plans.

author: Nevin Thompson


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Yet another Trinidadian woman is abducted, murdered and dumped, leaving citizens frustrated and fearful · Global Voices
Flora Thomas

View from a cottage located in the forested hills of the Heights of Aripo, an area that some fear is becoming a ‘dumping ground’ for the bodies of murdered women in Trinidad. Photo by Georgia Popplewell, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Nearly a year after the body of 23-year-old Andrea Bharatt was found in the Heights of Aripo, a heavily wooded area in northern Trinidad, another young woman, Keithisha Cudjoe, was found dead in the same area.
Cudjoe had been missing since January 24, after reportedly travelling in a car her friends had arranged to take her home, circumstances that are unsettlingly similar to the manner in which Bharatt and another young woman, Ashanti Riley, had been abducted. However, in Cudjoe's case, a missing person's report was not made to the police until a few days later.
We keep failing young women in this country at all levels, then we tell them that it's their fault, that there was more they could've done. I'm tired of losing young women to elements we never had control of
Hope crushed: Keithisha Cudjoe confirmed dead
https://t.co/jcLl32pe5j
— Neeks (@MsAmbiguous) February 2, 2022
As has become the norm, Cudjoe's photo was circulated on social media once she had been reported missing, though some social media users lamented the fact that the outcry was not as great as when Bharatt disappeared:
I'm looking at the limited commentary on Keithisha Cudjoe's murder and I'm not surprised nor disappointed. We really are a sad state of selective empathy and performance outrage.
— Samantha Maria 🌞 (@MissSamShine17) February 2, 2022
One Twitter user even noticed the glaring difference in the media narrative:
Let's also pay attention to how journalists write their stories in comparison :)
For example, Keithisha Cudjoe was a missing woman while Andrea Bharatt was a Court Clerk…
May seem like nothing but watch it again and read the articles again https://t.co/dfu1L370Vy
— 👀 (@Krixydrews) February 2, 2022
It is a phenomenon that writer Shivanee Ramlochan, who regularly shares her views about Trinidad and Tobago's plague of gender-based violence, recently examined.
Of Cudjoe's murder, Ramlochan lamented:
Keithisha Cudjoe should still be with us.
Should never have been forced into a position of bodily peril. Should never have been endangered, alone and terrified and at the mercy of someone, or someones, who would violate her.
But since she was. Since she is now dead.
We ought to have seen more of her: her face, description and relevant particulars, plastered over social media, in the news, on telephone poles and billboards, on WhatsApp statuses and in the public prayers recited at the beginnings of Mass, mosque and mandir services. #FindKeithisha should have been trending. Every one of us ought to have known, even if every one of us might not have cared. And you know many of us didn't and don't care.
She continued:
Perhaps it is no one's fault that the public campaign to find Keithisha alive was barely recognizable. And perhaps it is no one's fault that Keithisha is referred to in the press, not primarily by her occupation, but by the fact that she was a '21 year-old mother of one’. Maybe there is no one to blame but the killer, or killers. But now that she is dead, which she should never have been, I want us all to be interested in knowing more. […]
If every one of us cared about the kidnapping and murder of Andrea Bharatt, and we ought to have, then we should care as emphatically about Keithisha Cudjoe. We should care that Keithisha's family already believes this killing will not be solved. We should care that the Heights of Aripo, verdant and dimly lit, is turning into a cradle for the smashed-in skulls of our women.
No matter their level of education. No matter the colour of their skin or the accessories they used to adorn their hair. No matter their sexual status, the number of men or other partners they took to their beds. No matter their citizenship. No matter their religion or accent or the type of their nails. No matter if they behaved in ways the Archbishop, Maha Sahib or your pastor might disdain.
Twitter user Marcus Sanaton observed:
Been thinking about Keithisha Cudjoe the last few days. Remember the candle light vigils and protests? So much changed, right? We aren't being listened to and women are still dying
— Marcus Sanatan (@marcussanatan) February 4, 2022
The Candelight Movement, which had been very outspoken after Bharatt's disappearance and murder, issued a statement on Cudjoe's death, and renewed its call for the government to do more to protect the nation's women, including making pepper spray and licensed firearms “more available.”
Since Bharatt's murder, parliament has passed the Evidence Bill, which paves the way for more cutting edge evidence-gathering techniques in criminal trials, and approved pepper spray for self-defense purposes, to be accessed via a permit system. However, other pressing measures, such as the legislation of “private-hire” vehicles, have not been addressed.
Facebook user Dionne Ligoure was one of many expressing her frustration:
I am fed up of crime…of women being brutalized, ensnared, murdered like prey almost daily!
WHY ISN”T THERE SOME KIND OF POLICE POST IN GUANAPO OR ARIPO WHEN IT IS CLEAR THAT THIS AREA IS A DUMPING GROUND FOR KILLERS!!
How many more women must die? How many more children must be motherless? How many more families must be left to grieve?
Deepest Condolences to family & friends of Keithisha Cudjoe 🕊 Fly high Angel 🙏🏽 When will girls and women be safe ? We walking around with targets on our backs in a constant state of fear. I’m sorry that we failed again 😢
— LittleMissArima☀ (@NessaPreppy) February 3, 2022
Trinidad-born, New York-based criminologist Renee Cummings added:
I’ve said it repeatedly and will say it again, what’s missing from T&T’s response to homicide and violent crime is IMAGINATION, INNOVATIVE THINKING, CRITICAL THINKING, CRITICAL DATA ANALYSIS and DATA INTERPRETATION, INFORMED EVIDENCE BASED DECISION-MAKING and DATA-DRIVEN LEADERSHIP with a comprehensive understanding of CRITICAL CRIMINOLOGY. We have some excellent police officers and solid police leaders but their playbook needs a real time upgrade.
As newspaper editorials advocate for a greater commitment to crimefighting and citizens pray and hope for justice, Shivanee Ramlochan recommended something else — action:
[S]tand in that gap of ignorance and fear that says some girls are inherently good, and others are whores. That some girls, even if no one wants to say it out loud, deserve to be saved more than others. Stand in that gap and use your advocacy and your art, your politics and your time, to teach at least one person how wrong it is to think this way about black women and girls, how abjectly wrong it is to think some women are more killable, and that's just how the world works. It isn't. And listen. If it's too soon for you to teach, or if it feels all too much, because it is, then grieve. Take the time to grieve.
Keithisha Cudjoe.
I am so sorry that we know your name because you're gone.

author: Flora Thomas


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Everyone is talking about the Minsk Agreements, but what do they mean for Ukraine? · Global Voices
openDemocracy

Ukraine's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Kuleba, speaks at the Meeting of the President of Ukraine with heads of diplomatic missions of foreign states and international organizations, January 28, Kyiv, Ukraine. Image: Presidential Office of Ukraine, CC BY 4.0.
This article by Isobel Koshiw appeared on OpenDemocracy on February 4, 2022. It is republished as part of a content-sharing partnership and has been edited to fit the GV style.
The Minsk 2 peace agreements between Russia and Ukraine, intended to stop the fighting in the Donbas region of Ukraine, were signed in February 2015, when Ukraine was experiencing some of its heaviest losses against Russian-controlled forces. Hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers had been killed and many more were injured after being surrounded for a month in and around the Ukrainian town of Debaltseve. The losses came just after another crushing defeat for Ukraine at Donetsk Airport.
While the first section of the Minsk Agreements establishes a ceasefire, prisoner exchange and military withdrawal from the line of contact, the second deals with the Ukrainian government restoring control over its eastern border and holding local elections in the occupied territories, followed by the reintegration of Donbas into Ukraine via a special autonomy status.
Seven years on, the two sides want diametrically opposed outcomes and have two interpretations of the agreements. Yet talks, with the participation of France and Germany, continue.
The Minsk Agreements have only ever achieved a reduction in the intensity of the fighting, and even that is never permanent and changes constantly. And the political provisions designed to provide a real solution to the conflict lean in Russia’s favour.
Representatives of Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany — the so-called Normandy Format — are due to meet on February 10 in Berlin in an attempt to de-escalate Russia’s military presence around Ukraine. But the Format has so far failed to unlock the stalemate and this week, Russia moved forward with planned military exercises along Ukraine’s border with Belarus, worrying Kyiv and the West.
“The key political provisions are incompatible, in my opinion, with Ukraine’s existence as a sovereign country,” said Duncan Allan, a fellow at Chatham House who specialises in the Minsk Agreements.
In his analysis, the Minsk plan for the political reintegration of Donbas was put together hastily and contains contradictory points, which has led to the two sides arguing for interpretations that are advantageous to them.
Indeed, other analysts suggest that if Kyiv was pressured into implementing Russia’s version of Minsk, there could be a severe backlash from ordinary Ukrainians that could destabilise the country internally.
Allan believes that the agreements have a “very convoluted and confused sequencing procedure.”
Under the agreements, Ukraine wants Russia and its proxy forces to withdraw and allow Ukraine to take back control of the border before the proposed local elections under international standards take place. Then, instead of granting the territories the special status that Russia has argued for, Kyiv would give the territories some extra powers but essentially incorporate them into its existing decentralisation programme.
Ukraine’s interpretation of the agreement envisions alterations to some of the prickliest political elements, but in doing so, it negates what Russia has shown it wants from Minsk — the ability to continue to control the territories and through them have a say in Ukraine’s national affairs on an ongoing basis.
If Ukraine fulfilled Russia’s interpretation of the agreements, it would give the occupied region special status. In Russia’s eyes, this would include its own police force, described as a ‘people’s militia'; the right to choose judges and prosecutors; support from Kyiv of the region’s transnational cooperation with Russia; amnesty for anyone involved in the fighting on the Russian side; and elections. All of this would happen before the Russian-controlled and Russian forces withdrew.
The principle of elections and giving special status to a territory that has been through the horrors of war and occupation seems like a reasonable model.
But experts, like sociologist Oleksandr Shulga from the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, say that Ukrainians fear the reality would differ from the principle, and that Russia resists properly defining how the processes would work in practice.
Firstly, Shulga says, it is difficult to envision Russia or its forces in eastern Ukraine allowing the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to organise free and fair Western-style elections in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Even if they did, according to Shulga, there is a strong possibility that candidates might be members of the former authorities, who have killed Ukrainian soldiers. Amnesties for these people would be extremely controversial.
According to Shulga, people living in separatist territories have been exposed to extreme anti-Ukrainian propaganda since the war began eight years ago, and this adds another level of difficulty to any election: “How can elections take place in these circumstances? Their whole frame of reference about the war is completely different.” The official line from the authorities in the occupied territories follows Russian state propaganda, which describes Ukraine as perpetrating a genocide against eastern Ukraine.
Russia’s idea of special status provision for Donbas would more likely than not see Russia use its proxies to have a say in Ukraine’s parliament for the indefinite future. And the ‘people’s militia’ which would theoretically be integrated with the Ukrainian police force, would very likely be de facto subordinated to Russia. However, probably hardest for the Ukrainian public to stomach, according to Shulga, would be seeing former warlords, many of whom are Russian citizens, sitting in Ukraine’s parliament or even as members of Ukraine’s police force.
He believes that if Ukraine’s leadership did give in, viewing their predicament as a choice between Russia’s version of Minsk and more death and destruction, they could face a backlash internally.
“Notice that [Ukrainian president] Zelenskyi is not connecting the escalation on Ukraine’s borders with the implementation of Minsk, because he knows that the implementation of Minsk could be more dangerous for Ukraine’s stability than what’s happening on the borders,” Shulga said.
In 2015, four national guardsmen were killed outside Ukraine’s parliament when members of a far-right nationalist political party threw a grenade to protest a law which would have introduced elements of the special status for the occupied regions. The first draft of the law was initially passed but it did not get any further and has since been rescinded.
Far-right expert Michael Colborne believes that if Kyiv’s government tried to implement Minsk, there would be backlash from large swathes of the Ukrainian population.
“With Minsk, it would not even be explicitly the far right. I think it’s mostly the nationalist civil society [in Ukraine] that would be the driving force, though the far right would certainly try to frame themselves as the vanguard of such efforts,” he said.
Colborne defines nationalist civil society as those, including many veterans, who hold non-ethnically exclusive nationalist views, which they see as compatible with liberal democratic government. Colborne sees some parallels with the anti-imperialist elements of Irish nationalism.
“It’s what I call the general patriotic turn in Ukrainian society after 2014, which, again, is understandable. It’s something that’s going to happen in a country at war,” he said.
Meanwhile, there have been no signs that Russia will embrace Ukraine’s interpretation of Minsk, even amid its worries about its future relationship with the West, but some argue that perhaps Ukraine should refocus on Minsk to create ‘breathing room’ amid the alarming buildup along the borders.
Volodymyr Artiukh, an anthropologist at the University of Oxford, believes that if Ukraine were to make overtures to Russia’s version of Minsk, it could give Russia the face-saving opportunity it needs to back down and perhaps make it more willing to offer concessions.
“This could be one small hope for avoiding the immediate kind of danger — the immediate destruction of the [Ukrainian] state that exists right now,” Artiukh said. “It will probably elicit some sort of concessions from Russia. They would have to tone down their rhetoric.”
“It will not solve all the problems, but it could give some breathing room, a room for manoeuvre for probably further negotiations,” he added.
The recent build-up of Russian troops along Ukraine’s borders are a signal that Russia is willing to use further military force to achieve its desired outcome. This could be through pressuring the West to make Ukraine implement Russia’s version of the agreements, or other, yet-to-be determined, policies.
The West periodically reiterates its support for the Minsk agreements by issuing statements such as promising to “lift EU sanctions against Russia after the implementation of the Minsk Agreements,” but it does so without defining whose version of the agreements it supports.
In an article, Allan urged the West to decide: “Is Ukraine sovereign, as Ukrainians insist, or should its sovereignty be limited, as Russia demands?” But, Allan said, he worries that “there are some Western policymakers who don’t want to face up to the stark reality.”
If Russia’s problem with Ukraine was about a single policy issue, like the language laws, the decommunisation laws, the EU or even NATO membership, and it used only diplomatic methods, then perhaps a solution could have been reached through mediated talks.
But Russia started a war in 2014 because it wants to control Ukraine on a permanent and everyday basis. It continues to fuel the war because it is unable to accept that Ukraine does not want to be controlled by Russia.

author: openDemocracy


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The invasive Cuban Tree Frog gives Jamaicans the jitters, but it’s a serious problem · Global Voices
Emma Lewis

The Cuban Tree Frog. Photo by Larah McElroy on Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0.
Many Jamaicans have a somewhat superstitious fear of anything slippery and slimy — in other words, amphibians and reptiles. Lizards (in particular the endemic Jamaican Croaking Gecko, Aristelliger praesignis), frogs (which are associated with “obeah,” Afro-Creole spiritual healing beliefs and practices), and snakes are almost universally shunned — to the point where people's reaction to these creatures can be extreme. Now, local scientists anxious to protect endemic species feel the same way about the Cuban Tree Frog.
Described as a “voracious nocturnal predator that eats any prey that it can grab,” the invasive Osteopilus septentrionalis is a threat to native tree frogs, both in Jamaica and across the Caribbean. Scientists have recommended humane euthanisation in order to reduce the damage these frogs can do to native species.
So, what is the best method of doing away with this unwelcome guest? A recent webinar organised by the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA), explored precisely that. During the discussion, Dr. Steve Johnson of the University of Florida's Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, explained that the species likely arrived in the United States during the 1920s in cargo from Cuba, and is now widespread throughout Florida and in at least two or three other southern states. While the frog is native to its namesake country, as well as the Cayman Islands and some parts of the Bahamas, it has been spotted in several other regional territories as an invasive.
The Cuban Tree Frog arrived in Jamaica approximately 17 years ago, possibly through agricultural produce or equipment, since one of its earliest sightings was in Denbigh, Clarendon, the site of a major agricultural show. Since then, it has become increasingly common in both urban and rural areas of southern Jamaica.
Biologist Damion Whyte, who regularly uses social media to educate the public on a range of biodiversity issues, shared a photograph from a “citizen scientist”:
Thanks Sharon for sharing a pic of a Cuban Tree Frog from St Catherine.
Did you know that it is able to thrive in Urban Areas (buildings) compared to the majority of our locals Jamaican frogs that can only thrive in forested areas?#Roostersworld #Jamaica #biolgist pic.twitter.com/PE1qL6VsMw
— Roosters_World (@Roosters_World) January 27, 2022
Cuban Tree Frogs have large, sticky pads on their feet, allowing them to climb walls. Unlike native tree frogs, which go by the endearing names of “Laughing Frog” and “Snoring Frog,” they emit a loud, harsh croak. In a range of colours and with warts on their backs, they are being increasingly found in and around Jamaican homes, hiding in plumbing systems, kitchens and bathrooms during the heat of the day. They are larger than other tree frogs and eat smaller lizards and frogs, insects, and even small birds and their eggs.
Unlike Jamaica's four endemic tree frogs, which are all listed as Endangered and live in bromeliads and well-forested areas, the Cuban species prefers to dwell in still, fresh water, including areas housing stored, uncovered water, which are mosquito breeding sites. Scientists have been urging the public to discourage the frogs — and by extension the mosquitoes — by properly maintaining their yards and reducing opportunities for the species to breed at such sites.
In the event that Jamaicans should encounter a Cuban Tree Frog, experts recommend catching the frog in a plastic bag, quickly sealing it, and placing the bag in a freezer:
Experts warn the Cuban tree frog is having a detrimental effect on Jamaica's environment. So, if you see one, kill it. To do so, capture the frog in a scandal bag and put it in a freezer. Substances are also sold by pest control companies that kill the animal.#TVJNews pic.twitter.com/lTqHhzoaDV
— televisionjamaica (@televisionjam1) January 26, 2022
Jamaicans were horrified. One tweeted:
Put pizen [poison] frog in the same freezer that my lobster tail and pack shrimp inna? https://t.co/EcbBXVwA58
— Obika G (@kingofkgn) January 26, 2022
A local vet said he would have to be suitably compensated to place a frog in a freezer:
Please do not call me to humanely euthanize a Cuban Tree Frog unless you readily have 10k in hand to compensate me for TRAUMA, gas and drugs etc
— Jaxisms (@JAX_inUrbox) January 28, 2022
On Facebook, one asked why salt could not be used to kill the frog? In local media, scientists have insisted that neither chemicals, bleach, nor hot water should be used, although “blunt force trauma” might be an alternative to the freezer method.
One Facebook thread, in which the Jamaica Star newspaper did a “vox pop” on the subject, received 340 comments, most firmly rejecting the “scandal bag” (plastic bag) idea, while a hilarious video, in which a polite lady wearing a “church hat” called NEPA to find out more information about the Cuban Tree Frog, went viral.
Environmental Officer at NEPA, Damany Calder, was soon obliged to clarify the “scandal bag” issue since single-use plastic bags were banned in 2019. He suggested, as an alternative, the utilisation of paper bags or old newspapers in handling and snaring adult frogs, but made the point that people's hands should be protected against possible exposure to the toxins which coat the skin of the Cuban tree frogs.
Last summer, a teacher in Clarendon recounted that she had, in fact, been poisoned, although the frog is not usually as toxic as another invasive, the Cane Toad.
Despite Jamaicans’ shock at the idea of placing frogs in a freezer alongside their meat and frozen vegetables, scientists have stressed the important role the 21 endemic species of frogs play in Jamaica's ecosystem, and have tried to reassure the public that there is no reason to fear them. Calder explained:
Many of us have been conditioned to think they are not cute [but] we need to find beauty in the diversity of our wildlife.
Invasive species specialist Damion Whyte, while urging citizens to report Cuban Tree Frog sightings, had the last word:
It is our duty to protect what we have. Our native frogs are a part of our culture.

author: Emma Lewis


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Diaspora Diary: The account of a Nepali migrant worker in Qatar · Global Voices
Nepali Times

A construction site in Qatar. Photo via Nepali Times, used with permission.
This article was first translated from a conversation in Nepali and published in Nepali Times. An edited version is republished on Global Voices as part of a content-sharing agreement.
More than a million Nepalis work in the Middle Eastern countries and an estimated 12.5 percent of the Qatari population of 2.8 million are from Nepal.
In recent years, thousands of people were hired from Nepal to work on the construction of stadiums, hotels and other infrastructures being prepared for the 2022 FIFA World Cup to be held in Qatar, and there are reports of poor working conditions and a high number of unexplained deaths among migrant workers. Here is an account of a Nepali migrant worker in Qatar who returned home in 2021:
“I am sharing my story so others can learn about my experience. I prefer to remain anonymous.”
It has not even been three months since I said my goodbyes to my family, but I am already back in Nepal from Qatar.
I was promised a job in housekeeping in a five-star hotel but ended up at a construction site where they wanted me to carry around heavy stuff all day. I paid over Nepali Rupees 100,000 (USD 837) for this job, supported by loans and selling my sisters’ jewellery. But it was not what I signed up for.
Even then, I had no choice but to accept my fate. But after a month of physical labour, I fell ill and realised I was not cut out for this work. My company never once asked about my health while I was in the hospital, or recovering in my room.
I wanted to come home, but my employer was unwilling to let me go, and ultimately I had to escape without letting them know. Employers have been known to file cases falsely accusing people like me of stealing so workers cannot leave the country.
I only made it out because I had the support of some helpful Nepali brothers in Qatar. Not the embassy. Not the employer. Not the recruiter. Just some Nepalis with big hearts.
They were generous with their advice about what to do and provided me with a taxi fare. They pitched in for my ticket. They called me to remind me to keep my spirits high. Even now, in Kathmandu, my stay at this hotel has been financed by a fellow Nepali in Qatar.
In a foreign land, just being Nepali makes people bond together, and people go out of their way to help strangers — it is an inexplicable kind of brotherhood that I will never be able to forget, or repay.
Despite my bad luck, I have been lucky in many other ways. I am young, I sought help and help came spontaneously from many people. But I know it for a fact that there are many like me who have it even worse, are suffering silently, and struggling.
It is not bad for everyone. I know other Nepalis who have been in Qatar for years and are happy with their jobs. It is like a lottery, and I was dealt a bad hand this time. The company I was posted in happened to be the worst of the lot.
I have been lucky previously. I worked in Malaysia in a hotel for three years starting in 2011 and earned USD 480 a month (Nepali Rupees 57,356), which at the time was a huge amount for me. After returning, I worked in a hotel in Nepal. But I needed to earn more, and that would only happen if I found a job overseas again. I chose the Gulf this time but was unlucky.
As I sat in my room alone in Qatar when I was recovering and my roommates were at work, I used to reflect on many things, as I had so much time on my hands. You leave home for a few extra thousand rupees to a foreign land, but what all do you lose in the process?
Nepali migrant workers at the Dept of Interior in Doha. Photo via Nepali Times, used with permission.
My work in Qatar required me to get up at 4:00 a.m. for the bus that came to pick us up. We packed food that we cooked the previous night, but sometimes it went bad because there was no fridge at the construction site. You also cannot eat when you feel hungry; you can only eat when you are told to eat.
I even had to ask my supervisor to go to the toilet at the construction site. Our work would end at around 6:00 p.m., but by the time we reached our camp, it would be 8 o'clock. We would then have to cook dinner and our meal for the next day. By the time we were done and ready to wind down, it would be past midnight only to wake up at four the next day.
It went on and on like this. We were moved three times in the short period I was there. You don’t have a say in any of this, you just do as told, to do as they say.
I remember looking at fancy buildings in the past and wishing I could work on those. But it took me a terrible overseas experience in Qatar to realize that it is the people inside those buildings that matter. A Nepali in what they call a Wakala (small shop) was much happier than me.
When I was recovering alone in my room desperate to come home, I told myself I would never consider migrating overseas again. That I would do something in Nepal itself. I cannot explain the rush I felt when I finally held my boarding card in my hand at Doha airport. It was a well-planned escape that could have gone terribly wrong.
But reality hit soon after I came to Nepal. Where are the jobs? What will I do here? What will I earn? I have to feed my family and have loans to repay. You make a lot of sacrifices for a job abroad — even your dignity at times. But we also need those jobs.
I am sharing my story so others can learn about my experience. I prefer to remain anonymous. Besides my wife, no one in my family knows about what I faced abroad. I was in so much pain and stress, what is the point of getting my ailing mother all worried?
I am beginning a battle with my recruiter to get back my money, and he has shown some willingness to cooperate. I might eventually have to go back overseas one day, and sharing my story publicly may hurt my chances since I will be viewed as a “troublemaker.”
A fellow Nepali in Qatar who had not been paid for months was transferred and accused of being a “ring leader” among camp workers — just because he asked the manager for an overdue food allowance.
That is our reality. They want the quiet ones. The ones who can be silenced.

author: Nepali Times


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Community radio schools: educational alternatives in the context of digital divide · Global Voices
Muy Waso

Boys and girls from rural areas of Bolivia who were part of the Radio Escuela. Photo: Courtesy of CEPRA.
This article was originally published in our partner Bolivian outlet Muy Waso and was edited and republished by Global Voices.
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in Bolivia, the gap in access to education between schoolchildren in urban and rural areas has increased. An educational radio project has sought to fix it.
During 2021, educational activities in Bolivia were virtual and blended due to the pandemic, yet about 30 percent of students attend schools in rural areas with limited access to the internet and computers. The dropout rate in 2021 was around 20 percent in Bolivia, one of the highest in Latin America and the Caribbean.
According to data from the National Institute of Statistics from 2018, nine out of 10 households in rural Bolivia do not have internet access. In cities, the situation is not much better: only six out of 10 households have an internet connection. Four out of 10 Bolivian adolescents or young people indicated that they were not attending classes through any internet platform in a UNICEF opinion poll.
Boys and girls from rural areas of Bolivia who were part of the Radio Escuela. Photo: Courtesy of CEPRA
It was in this context that a radio school project from the non-profit radio organization Centro de Producción Radiofónica (CEPRA) emerged to provide educational materials to primary school children in 24 municipalities in the country in 2021. The project was managed by their own funds and donations.
CEPRA's radio school reached areas that received little to no resources from the State. It brought printed and radio materials such as booklets, radio stories, and radio dramas to support children's education.
“In 2021, this project aims to close the gap that left rural areas without any support or guidance at the end of the 2020 school year. (Following government regulations), radio and educational booklets are included, but with a lesson-based approach, giving only instructions to the students,” explains Juan Luis Gutiérrez, CEPRA coordinator.
CEPRA's radio school project also sought to recognize the different types of intelligence and ways of learning that children have “without qualifying or categorizing them.”
CEPRA reached children in four rural departments of the country: Potosí, Oruro, Cochabamba, and Chuquisaca. The booklets and radio materials include themes, characters, flora and fauna from each of these areas of Bolivia. The project addressed issues specific to each region.
The activities of the CEPRA project addressed community issues and the flora and fauna of the place. Photo: Courtesy of CEPRA.
The project not only focused on the distribution of materials but also included the training of teachers and community media broadcasters.
“Twenty-four community radio stations had an hour dedicated to children. It is something that had not happened until now,” emphasizes Gutiérrez, who is also a specialist in neuroeducation. It was not easy, some teachers said that trying to apply this project was “one more task for them to do,” but others cooperated with the project.
They had to evaluate the connectivity conditions and check if the students had internet and radio signals. This allowed them to carry out interventions in the households where they identified situations of violence.
“The 15 teams of educators who were going to implement the radio school sessions evaluated what was happening in the schools. During this process, we witnessed situations of violence from teachers, parents… so we set up spaces for psycho-pedagogical support and the pedagogues increased the number of visits to the households,” highlights Gutiérrez.
The initiative also sought to implement cultural, community, and environmental values, under the Montessori educational methodology. “Our educational approach includes more resources in the classroom and does not focus on the teacher. We want to support the student's perspective. We wanted to dignify the children, promote them as people with voice and decision power, and to create well-being with education,” says Gutiérrez enthusiastically.

author: Muy Waso


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Concerted attacks against Bangladeshi activists on Facebook · Global Voices
Samaya Anjum

Screenshot from an YouTube Video by Technical Cox explaining how to retrieve a Facebook account mistakenly marked as “memorialized”. Fair use.
In a recent collaborative attack by unknown perpetrators, the Facebook profiles of several celebrities, journalists, media personalities and activists from Bangladesh were mysteriously turned into tribute profiles, disabling their access, with the word “Remembering” next to the victim's profile name. The perpetrators may have abused the memorializing feature of Facebook to activate this.
The news came to light after the Facebook account of Bangladeshi–Swedish writer, feminist, secular humanist, and activist Taslima Nasrin found she had been unexpectedly memorialized on January 18, 2022. Her protest on Twitter requesting Facebook authorities to give her account back confirmed that she was not dead as some of her fans believed.
😮 @Meta @fbsecurity @facebookapp @MetaNewsroom @Facebook I am very much alive. But you memorialized my facebook account. What a sad news! How could you do that? Please give me back my account. pic.twitter.com/mwZNbcOopy
— taslima nasreen (@taslimanasreen) January 18, 2022
Nasrin, a highly controversial figure in Bangladesh since the early 1990s as a result of her public stance on religion, lost access to her account less than 24 hours after regaining it when she remarked that the memorialization had been triggered by the “provocations [of] Jihadi elements.”
People visiting her account saw the following message: “We hope people who love Taslima will find comfort in visiting her profile to remember and celebrate her life.”
Nasrin currently lives in New Delhi after being forced to leave Bangladesh in 1995, and later West Bengal in 2007, as a result of violent threats from Islamic fundamentalists. Many demanded a death sentence, including a Council of Islamic Soldiers that declared a bounty in return for her head.
But this was not the final ordeal. Her account was memorialized three times:
!! @Meta @Facebook @facebookapp You again killed me and memorialized my facebook account!! Jihadis want to see me dead. So because of their report, you buried me alive. Not once, three times!!
— taslima nasreen (@taslimanasreen) January 25, 2022
In her latest interview with news magazine Outlook India, Nasrin pointed fingers towards Facebook after she was attacked the second time in two days:
Facebook authorities need to make proper enquiries and see if they’re being led by Islamic terror groups into taking these actions. They need to improve their system. How could Facebook repeat the mistake in a matter of two days even after the first incident was widely reported in the Bengali and English language media?
Nasrin added:
I have suffered repeated censorship, my books keep getting banned, my very existence comes under banning. Social media is my only way to express my opinion freely. Facebook needs to decide whether they want to be driven purely by numbers or have some ethics as well.
Facebook introduced this feature in February 2015, which turns the accounts of a deceased a place “for friends and family to gather and share memories.” The contents of the profile marked “Remembering” (eg. statuses, photos, videos) remain on Facebook and are visible to the audience according to the share settings (selected friends or public).
The contents of the memorialized accounts cannot be changed as no one can log in to those accounts. If an account had assigned a legacy contact before, only that contact can manage the memorialized profile.
In November 2016, Facebook allegedly briefly declared every user dead, including the company's CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in a memorializing profile feature glitch.
It is not easy for a novice Facebook user to get the account back easily, but there is a way to contact Facebook to report that the account was mistakenly memorialized. The account holder needs to submit a photo ID to prove that he or she is the rightful owner of the account, which may be an issue for activists who use the account anonymously.
This YouTube video by Technical Cox’s explains how to retrieve an account that was mistakenly memorialized:
The attack — which appears to have been planned from within the country — happens to be more widespread. Asaduzzaman Noor, a Bangladeshi blogger known for his critical videos of revered Islamic preachers, such as Mizanur Rahman Azhari, has been in hiding in India since 2019. Having lost access to his public page since its memorialization on January 19, Noor alleged that the cyber-attack is the work of a group of hackers collectively known as the Bangladesh Civilian Force. He told the media about receiving an email from an address entitled “Team Khan” notifying the user that his account had been reported as a result of his expression of concern for Nasrin. “They also sent me proof showing it was them who reported my Twitter handle. They asked me to refrain from making comments against Islam,” he said.
Asad Noor shared in a Facebook post:
On January 28, in a live video, I debunked Bangladeshi controversial Islamist preacher Mizanur Rahman Azhari's falsehood and misleading information with evidence through this page. In response, Azhari's followers and Islamist spammers submitted fake reports against my page. Unfortunately, Facebook authority, without fact-checking, declared me ‘Dead’ and memorized my page. But I am alive.
This can be confirmed from the official Facebook page of the Bangladesh Civilian Force (BCF) which has taken responsibility for launching a concerted attack against activists and public figures who critique religion or religious figures.
Meanwhile, in January 2022, the accounts of Sweden-based journalist Tasneem Khalil, Dhaka-based actor Mehran Sanjana, London-based activist Lopa Rahman and activist Kaniz Fatema, the spouse of exiled religious critic Asif Mohiuddin, have faced the same fate as Nasrin. Sanjana and Noor are closely associated with the Bengali rationalist websites Muktomona and shongshoy.com, respectively. The selected group of people have been labeled as “haters of religion” by BCF.
This post on the Facebook page of the Bangladesh Civilian Force (BCF) on January 18, 2022 shows the memorialized profiles of Taslima Nasreen, Mehran Sanjana and Kaniz Fatema with only the number “1+1+1=3″.
On the same day, another post on the same page claimed:
ধ'র্ম বি'দ্বেষী লো'পা রহমান এর অফিসিয়াল ফে'ইসবুক একাউন্ট ও মৃত ঘোষণা করছে ফে'ইসবুক কমিউনিটি!
The hater of religion [ed: Islam] Lopa Rahman's official Facebook account has been declared dead by the Facebook community!
There has been no formal acknowledgement of the matter or steps taken by Facebook.
Secular activist Arifur Rahman Tweeted:
It's been almost a week now since my death. Facebook killed me prior to my physical death. They say @Meta Universe is ‘the’ future, it seems they'll be able to kill you too in their metaverse. @AtheistRepublic @TheCEMB @AmericanAtheist @Humanists_UK @HumanistsInt @taslimanasreen pic.twitter.com/ccNqOkdD0E
— Arif Rahman (@ARIFArifuk) January 24, 2022
The Facebook accounts of Bangladeshi bloggers, activists and journalists have been targeted before in a bid to silence them. As of February 2022, Facebook has a market share of over 93 percent among all the social media platforms in Bangladesh and is used by activists widely. Under a GNI-Internews fellowship, journalist Miraj Ahmed Chowdhury conducted research in December 2020 on 40 Bangladeshi journalists, bloggers, and activists who had their Facebook accounts disabled in the past few years. In most of the cases, trolls reported the profiles as fake which resulted in the suspension of the accounts. Some users were reported dead and the accounts were memorialized. Chowdhury interviewed 17 of them for a survey, and 56 percent said the attacks happened more than once, and, for some, their accounts were suspended even five or six times. These interviewees found fault in Facebook as they alleged that the social media giant did not do enough to “protect the sensitive speech on their platform.”

author: Samaya Anjum


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From Kosovo 1999 to Russia 2021: The ‘cheapfake’ photo trend fuelling dangerous propaganda · Global Voices
Dren Gërguri

Collage of a fake photo misrepresenting ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo and the original from Reuters in 1999.
This story by Dren Gërguri was previously published by the Hive-Mind and the European Journalism Observatory (EJO). An edited version is republished by Global Voices with the author's permission.
Manipulating images to give them a false context or convey untrue information is a common practice nowadays. Dubbed, “deepfakes,” the trend is being facilitated by access to expensive hardware and AI mechanisms capable of creating convincing, high-definition fakes. It has become a bane for the tech and media industries, which are finding it harder and harder to determine whether content is authentic or fake.
But recently, concerns about these practices have heightened, as the drop in consumer-grade graphical processing units has facilitated even easier access to deepfake tools. This has given rise to a different version of fakery called “cheapfakes” – a manipulation that includes speeding up or slowing down a real video or changing the background or other details of a real image. These crude productions differ from technically sophisticated deepfakes, which is fabricated content showing a person saying or doing something they have never actually said or done.
The motives for this emerging trend of cheapfakes range from harmless entertainment to potentially harmful political propaganda. And it is becoming more common because it requires only, basic computer or mobile-phone software. Just a slight manipulation is enough to alter a picture’s message.
A troubling example of cheapfaking is the editing of a Reuters photo, published in 1999 during the war in Kosovo. It shows an ethnic Albanian woman, Sherife Luta, who, along with 2,000 other refugees, was attempting to enter North Macedonia at the Blace border crossing.
Collage of altered picture published by Russian state institutions in 2021, compared to the original published by Reuters in 1999.
Two decades later, the same photo reappeared online. This time, however, it had been doctored for use as a propaganda tool. The edited picture aims to persuade the viewer that the same woman is a Serbian victim of a NATO bombing. The  Russian Embassy in South Africa posted this doctored image on their Twitter feed.
Today is 22nd anniversary of the day when NATO brought death & destruction to #Yugoslavia by attacking a sovereign state in total disregard for intl law. NATO’s 78 days long “humanitarian intervention” took lives of 2000 innocent people, turned thousands more into refugees pic.twitter.com/VCX43bRmDU
— Russia in RSA 🇷🇺 (@EmbassyofRussia) March 24, 2021
The idea of such propaganda, it appears, is to support Serbia’s and Russia’s narrative of wrongful NATO intervention in 1999 in Kosovo. The cheapfake ostensibly portrays a survivor of the NATO bombing. In truth, the subject is once again the Albanian refugee Sherife Luta, who was forced to leave her home by Serbian forces.
Debunking propaganda
Propaganda thrives on ignorance and misinformation. Russian diplomats used this picture very deliberately in a part of the world where people know little about Kosovo.
But though manipulated photos may fool some, they are easy to debunk. You can, for example, use clues and comparisons from the “search Google for image” option to determine whether an image has been doctored. Other image verification resources include TinEye, which tells you when the photograph was initially published online, and fotoforensics.com, a free tool that determines whether a picture has been edited and which parts have been altered.
This wasn’t the first time the Sherife Luta photo had been used for propaganda. The same photo appeared on a Russian state news agency broadcast in August 2014.
Screenshot of Russian state news agency 2014 broadcast about Ukraine, using doctored image of Sherife Luta.
That time, the Russians framed their subject as a Serbian victim of the NATO bombing. They erased the other refugees and added a bombed building into the background.
We do not yet know the full impact of cheapfakes on public opinion. But we know that for years, Russia has been spreading misinformation around the world about the war in Kosovo.
Photo manipulation can create narratives based on untruths, which can in turn influence people’s opinions. That is why it is important to raise awareness of the widespread use of cheapfake images and to acknowledge that some governments use the practice as a propaganda tool.
One of the most important lessons we can teach the next generation is to properly interrogate their sources and carefully evaluate all visual information to weed out misleading and dangerous fakery.

author: Dren Gërguri