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Hong Kong activists Joshua Wong, Agnes Chow and Ivan Lam sentenced to jail · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Image from the Stand News. Used with permission.
Prominent Hong Kong activists Joshua Wong, Agnes Chow, and Ivan Lam were sentenced to prison on December 2 on charges of organizing an unauthorised protest against police brutality outside the police headquarters in June 2019.
Wong was sentenced to 13.5 months, Chow to 10 months, and Lam to 7 months behind bars. The trio pleaded guilty to the charges last week in their first trial and had been in police custody since, as the court rejected their bail applications.
Via his lawyer, Wong tweeted:
#JoshuaWong 13.5m in jail – via lawyers, “it’s not the end of the fight. Ahead of us is another challenging battleground. We’re now joining the battle in prison along with many brave protestors, less visible yet essential in the fight for democracy and freedom for HK. pic.twitter.com/1ZGmfUDf7k
— Joshua Wong 黃之鋒 ? (@joshuawongcf) December 2, 2020
Chow burst out into tears in court as her application to be released on bail until an appeal was denied. The activist celebrates her 24th birthday on December 3. Her social media acquaintances tweeted:
Dec 3 is the birthday of #AgnesChow, she's ill these days during detention, but she doesn't have the chance to go home and celebrate her 24th birthday with family now? pic.twitter.com/4UO9gGfE4H
— 小白鼠先生? (@shiroihamusan) December 2, 2020
Agnes Chow is spending her first night in prison, for the “crime” of standing outside a police station during a protest against police brutality.
Something achingly sad about the Twitter balloons for her 24th birthday floating over the tweet announcing her 10 month sentence. pic.twitter.com/vVSQOBBSwc
— Hong Kong Hermit (@HongKongHermit) December 2, 2020
Exiled Hong Kong activist Nathan Law made plead for international solidarity with his three friends, and urged Washington to keep the pressure on China in regards to Hong Kong:
4. Sentences could pile up. To be honest, I have no idea when the trio could step out of the prison if Beijing pledges to impose the hardest charges on them arbitrarily. Please support them and offer them encouragement, to remind them that they are not alone.
-END
— Nathan Law 羅冠聰 ? (@nathanlawkc) December 2, 2020
Washington must craft a China policy that puts human rights front and center, but without neglecting the urgent need, too, for environmental protection, greater respect for labor rights and fair trade.
Mr. Biden, Keep the Pressure on Hong Kong https://t.co/5uQ43HCNn3
— Nathan Law 羅冠聰 ? (@nathanlawkc) December 3, 2020
The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), a cross-party group of legislators primarily from European and North American countries focused on relations with China, issued a statement condemning the sentence:
BREAKING: #IPAC statement on the sentencing of Joshua Wong, Agnes Chow and Ivan Lam.
We stand in admiration of the courage and determination shown by the three individuals sentenced and offer solidarity to all Hong Kong people during this dark time. pic.twitter.com/Nc2ZH6j3xc
— Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (@ipacglobal) December 2, 2020
The punishments given are illegitimate and wholly disproportionate with the actions that the Hong Kong authorities claim to be crimes.
This sentence has made a mockery of the rule of law in the city and demonstrates the continued determination of the Chinese government to deny Hong Kong citizens the fundamental freedoms promised to them in the hong Kong Basic Law and Sino-British Joint Declaration. […]
The United Kingdom Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab urged Beijing to stop the crackdown on political dissent in Hong Kong:
As 3 Hong Kong activists begin prison sentences, I urge the Hong Kong and Beijing authorities to end their campaign to stifle opposition.
Prosecution decisions must be fair & impartial. Rights and freedoms in Hong Kong must be upheld. https://t.co/4jOwbQFOYQ
— Dominic Raab (@DominicRaab) December 2, 2020
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen praised the three young activists for their courage:
I'm saddened by the news that @joshuawongcf, @chowtingagnes & Ivan Lam have been jailed for their activism. These brave young people are symbols of freedom & democracy in #HongKong, values that we will never stop fighting for. pic.twitter.com/DLFf024cJU
— 蔡英文 Tsai Ing-wen (@iingwen) December 2, 2020
The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee described the sentence as “despicable:”
Today’s sentencing of Joshua Wong, Agnes Chow, & Ivan Lam in #HongKong for supporting pro-democracy protests is despicable. I had the pleasure of meeting with Joshua in DC in Sept. 2019, & will continue to support the aspirations of the Hong Kong people. https://t.co/Ipyb2BU7Dv pic.twitter.com/AHmZkgqpe2
— U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee (@SenateForeign) December 2, 2020
AFP tweeted a detailed illustration showing the escalation of Hong Kong's crackdown on dissent:
Hong Kong crackdown on dissent, from the passing of the National Security Law at the end of June to the jailing of Joshua Wong, Agnes Chow and Ivan Lam on Dec 2@AFP pic.twitter.com/xoBMYIVhfm
— AFPgraphics (@AFPgraphics) December 2, 2020


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Our new normal doesn’t have to be dictated by the monopolies of information technology · Global Voices
Erick Huerta Velazquez

Photograph by Gabriel Vasquez/Flickr (CC BY 4.0)
This article by Erick Huerta Velázquez was originally published on the Comunicares website, and an edited version is published with permission by Global Voices.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the news, especially that related to the telecommunications sector in which I work, seems to reveal that the post-COVID “new normal” is one where Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) will play a significant role. This is especially due to the most horrifying aspects associated with surveillance, such as artificial intelligence.
It seems that we are able to survive thanks to Amazon or to the incredible possibility that all movements are monitored through our cell phones, or with the help of ICT, children can continue to have classes, no matter if that experience is rewarding or not.
But the new normal doesn't have to be dictated by the monopolies of the information technologies and their discourse about the benefits of 5G, artificial intelligence, and Big Data. The new normal can be one that brings us closer to nature, and the indigenous and peasant communities are great teachers who could help us achieve this.
I am fortunate to work with indigenous communities in Mexico, because of being in quarantine in a rural area. The resilience of these communities, not to the virus, but to the state of siege that the pandemic has created, is impressive. Many of them continue to carry out their daily lives without major changes (except closing their communities to outsiders).
Photograph of the community in Santa María Yaviche, Oaxaca, Mexico, by Erick Huerta Velazquez.
When some journalists express to me their concern that children in indigenous communities do not have access to internet connectivity in order to continue their school classes normally, I ask myself: how can I explain to them that this is actually a great opportunity for children to learn essential knowledge for life that their communities can teach them, such as the cultivation of a milpa (cultivated field), the understanding of nature, art and the conservation of the territory?
The resilience of communities to the isolation imposed as a result of the pandemic is not based on their telecommunications systems—in fact, they have the worst internet connection, in most cases—but it is based on their way of life. We all were closer to this way of life in the past, but unfortunately, we have been moving away from it, and even convincing many communities to distance themselves from it.
As far as we know, the coronavirus that produces the COVID-19 disease is directly related to the impact on ecosystems and the depredation of wild specimens, the consumption of animals, such as the bat, essential in pollination.
The devastation of forests and jungles has worsened in recent years. World leaders, like the presidents of Brazil and the United States, for example, have turned away from discourses that considered it at least an act of decency to talk about environmental protection. Instead, they openly support actions that involve the destruction of forests and jungles in multiple and visible ways: logging, mining, fracking, pipelines, energy projects.
I dream of a new normal that establishes urban development that prioritizes wildlife conservation, build biological corridors, and set construction standards with large percentages of green areas or conservation. It would create a model where life has priority, but not only in policies, but also in academia, in engineering and architects’ colleges, in schools and in the media, generating a new social idea of growth, where conservation of communities’ ecosystems counts more than mining, urbanization and tourism.
Forest in Guatemala. Photograph by Melissa Vida, used with permission.
Another aspect learned from indigenous peoples is sustainable food production. People in cities are increasingly disconnected from the sources of the food they eat. This has caused a loss of the country's culinary culture, which led to a less diversified diet or the adoption of diets rich in refined foods and fats prone to causing obesity, diabetes, and hypertension. During this pandemic, these have been essential factors in the high fatality rate of the virus in Mexico.
I imagine the new normal with urban gardens in each neighborhood, where people who do not have space at home could ask for a plot of land to produce food in a sustainable way. I visited two such places in Washington and Stockholm, and I'm sure many people would enjoy something similar in our cities.
It is necessary that unemployed people be at least able to feed themselves. Studies estimate that, in the following decades, the progress of artificial intelligence and automation will cause the loss of 47 per cent of jobs in the United States and around 70 per cent in countries such as India or Thailand.
I also imagine a reassessment of the role of agricultural areas near cities, to protect them from urbanization and recognize their economic and cultural importance as the primary source of the food we consume in cities.
Urban garden in San Diego, USA. Photograph by Osbornb/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
The other aspect of the new reality is a radical change in education, which has had the worst results during this pandemic. While in Mexico we think that it is important to increase the number of class hours, in the Nordic countries the school day and the work day have been reduced so that people can spend more time with their family; the result of this approach has been a success, with an increase in the levels of learning.
I imagine a less invasive education that recognizes the vast knowledge that exists in the communities and allows the space to acquire it. I think of a less alienating school that, instead of imposing knowledge, establishes a dialogue that allows different cultures to enrich each other.
Lastly, I think the new normal would need a new urban architecture. Another lesson learned from indigenous and peasant communities relates to their settlements which have an urban area and a planting area. The houses are small, but the patios are large enough to plant vegetables, raise farmyard animals, and for children to play. A lockdown in those areas can be quite pleasant, taking into account that there are also the agricultural lands that I mentioned earlier.
Vegetable garden. Photograph by Carlos Zambrano/Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
In contrast, cities increasingly show signs of overcrowding, modern houses for high-income people resemble hotels, those for the low-income people look like prisons, and few have green areas, or they are very small.
The new normal would have more green spaces in neighborhoods, more parks, better protection for urban forests, and a new type of urban plan in which all developed lands have green areas.
The current crisis brings to light the problems generated by the dominant civilization paradigm whose solution cannot be found in the technology that supports its expansion and that currently is viewed as a panacea. Instead, we should look for the answer in the ways of life that indigenous peoples maintain and that have allowed them to survive for thousands of years, together with the ecosystems they inhabit.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Erick Huerta Velazquez


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Pakistan to introduce tougher punishment for rape—including chemical castration · Global Voices
R Umaima Ahmed

Pakistani women perform “Aur Woh Rapist Ho Tum” (“The rapist is you”) song. Screenshot from YouTube, by Aurat March.
Pakistan's government approved in-principle on November 24 tougher laws against sexual assault which will include chemical castration for repeat offenders.
The laws, called the Anti-Rape (Investigation and Trial) Ordinance 2020 and the Penal Code (Amendment) Ordinance 2020, have been approved by Pakistan's Federal Cabinet and await sanction by President Arif Alvi.
The set of ordinances are broad in scope and address several aspects of the criminal process, including women’s roles in policing, measures to fast-track rape cases, protection for survivors and witnesses, and the creation of a national database of sex offenders.
One salient point is the expansion in the legal definition of rape. Currently, Pakistan's penal code defines rape as when a “woman below 15 years of age engages in sex, with or without consent.” The amendment will extend the definition to include women of all ages and men below the age of 18, and will include the words “transgender” and “gang-rape” in it.
The two-finger virginity test, widely used in Pakistan during medico-legal examinations to determine whether a rape has occurred, will also be prohibited by the new laws.
The change in legislation comes in the wake of three years of mass protests against gender-based violence, triggered by highly-mediatized rape cases such as the rape and murder of a seven-year-old girl near Lahore in 2018, or the rape of a mother of two in September this year after her car broke down on a motorway.
The new laws will prescribe capital punishment by hanging and increased jail terms for those convicted of rape, but their most controversial point remain the inclusion of chemical castration to sex offenders, which will only be carried out with the offenders’ consent.
There have been mixed reactions in Pakistan about that last point.
Women and children's rights activists, as well as religious leaders, criticized the introduction of chemical castration. Nabila Feroz Bhatti, an executive with Child Rights Movement Punjab, told the Union of Catholic Asian News:
Conviction is required before implementation of the punishment. We need to strengthen the systems like police investigation, medical process and judiciary. Our problem is not of punishment but of conviction. At least 97 percent of rape accused in the country never get convicted because of the flaws in the system.
Twitter user Maheen Agha said she approves of chemical castration as a form of punishment for rapists:
The punishment of chemical castration of rapists has been approved by the federal cabinet of Pakistan and prime minister. This is a huge achievement. Fingers crossed for its implementation. #ChemicalCastrationOfRapists #imrankhanPTI
— Maheen Agha (@Lady_Says11) November 24, 2020
Journalist Zarrar Khuhro pondered:
Chemical castration is an ongoing debate globally and is indeed practiced in some countries and US states. No one is saying its a silver bullet and ofc you need holistic measures here. However I think this ordinance (i'd like to see it enacted by parliament) is good overall. https://t.co/RrmKLZ44lR
— Zarrar Khuhro (@ZarrarKhuhro) November 25, 2020
Reema Omer, a legal adviser for the International Commission of Jurists, opposes the use of this kind of exemplary punishment. She tweeted:
Very unfortunate Govt. is moving ahead with “punishing” repeat sex offenders with chemical castration
In addition to rights concerns, shows complete lack of understanding of what chemical castration entails and reduces rape – primarily a crime of power – to a crime of lust https://t.co/xczSoneSUy
— Reema Omer (@reema_omer) November 24, 2020
In an Op-Ed in Pakistani newspaper The Nation, engineer Rabia Aslam also raised concerns about chemical castration:
A person who rapes is called a rapist because of his imbalanced hormones and frustration. If he goes through chemical castration, he would probably hate women, even more, considering the gender as the cause of his shame. Ultimately, the rapist can even murder a woman. The chronological order of transforming a rapist into a murderer could become a pattern.

author: R Umaima Ahmed


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Australia-China relations hit rock bottom after provocative tweet by senior Communist Party official · Global Voices
Kevin Rennie

Screen Shot of Lijian Zhao tweet- SBS News video 30 Nov 2020
Australian-Chinese relations have taken a dramatic dip following a tweet by China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian that included a doctored image depicting an Australian soldier slitting the throat of an Afghan child.
The tweet said: ‘Shocked by murder of Afghan civilians & prisoners by Australian soldiers. We strongly condemn such acts, &call for holding them accountable.’ It is a clear reference to the report into Australian special forces war crimes in Afghanistan.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison demanded the tweet's deletion and an apology. In reply, the Chinese government attacked Australia’s motives: ‘One is to deflect public attention from the horrible atrocities committed by certain Australian soldiers. The other is to blame China for the worsening of bilateral ties.’
Many Australians were outraged by the image, whilst others have focused on the atrocities themselves:
It s absolutely disgusting and offensive, as well as Fake #ChinaTweet pic.twitter.com/1XuChWn0qq
— JimsIrrigation (@IrrigationJims) November 30, 2020
Human Rights Watch Australia's Elaine Pearson called out the Chinese government's human rights record:
As I told @guardian, a Chinese diplomat's tweet re ??inquiry into war crimes is breathtakingly, gobsmackingly hypocritical. We are waiting for independent investigations into widespread systematic abuses by China in Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong etc. https://t.co/HTdHWMu5XN
— Elaine Pearson (@PearsonElaine) November 30, 2020
Many Twitter responses centred on criticism of the Australian government response. Some believed Scott Morrison had given the Chinese Communist Party just what it wanted:
Remember, Twitter isn't accessible in China, so the fake image tweet wasn't for the domestic audience. It was designed to remind us of our impotence, and Scott duly obliged.
— marquelawyers (@marquelawyers) November 30, 2020
Relations between the two nations have been deteriorating over several years and came to a head when Australia called for an independent inquiry into the coronavirus. In mid-November, China identified 14 grievances against Australia in a document leaked by the Chinese Embassy in Canberra. China's complaints include: blocking of foreign investment in Australia; banning of Huawei Technologies from the 5G network development; foreign interference legislation; and the growth of closer defence ties with allies such as the United States and Japan.
Australia has been reeling from a series of trade disputes with China, which have seen some exports to its biggest trading partner blocked and crippling tariffs imposed on others. Australian wine exporters face tariffs that exceed 200 percent in some cases. A recent threat by Australia’s trade minister, Simon Birmingham, to take these cases to the World Trade Organization may have been the catalyst for China’s provocative social media attack.
Birmingham even suggested that consumers might boycott Chinese goods:
Trade Min. Simon Birmingham says a Chinese official's tweet might make Australians think twice before buying Chinese-made goods.
“… terrible, appalling, shocking images … will reverberate in their minds as they make those purchasing decisions.”#SenateQT #auspol @politicsabc
— Tahlia Roy (@TahliaRoy) November 30, 2020
Chinese political artist Fu Yum, who is responsible for the original image, has threatened to produce another in retaliation for criticism of his image. Chinese Australian artist Badiucao responded with his own graphic images, pointing out CCP hypocrisy:
New Art
Australia‘s war crime in Afghanistan is indeed a national disgrace & must b condemned.
However i wander when China will allow an independent investigation on its own genocide on #Uyghur #Tibetans & brutal crackdown on HK？！@ScottMorrisonMP @MarisePayne @SenatorWong pic.twitter.com/KLSmLWKurk
— 巴丢草 Badiucao (@badiucao) November 30, 2020
Australia has received strong public support from close allies, though Donald Trump has been silent. New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern raised her concerns directly with the Chinese government.
This campaign is a small token on the economic front:
China boycotted Australian wine because the Australian government spoke up about human rights, the Uighur genocide and oppression in Hong Kong. Please buy Australian wine in solidarity with Australia and to tell the Chinese Communist Party where to stick their boycott https://t.co/QlnScWihjm
— Bill Browder (@Billbrowder) December 1, 2020
However, many Aussies do not look forward to the prospect of a trade war:
Looks like Morrison is going to destroy the village to save himself and drape himself in the national flag. This China spat is going to be disastrous for the economy. #auspol
— Eddy Jokovich (@EddyJokovich) November 30, 2020
The Australian government would clearly like to reset the relationship but there is no clear path ahead at present. Talk of softening the conflict with China seems to be going nowhere. Scott Morrison has even taken to the Chinese social media platform WeChat to put his point of view to Chinese Australians and the people of China:
The post of a false image of an Australian soldier does not diminish our respect for and appreciation of our Chinese Australian community or indeed our friendship with the people of China.
The PM may be caught in a no-win situation:
Not sure if this is impressive or what Chinese citizens will think #China #Australiahttps://t.co/H9gvDVN9GG
— Lid MyZen.Blog ?☘??? (@Lid05) December 1, 2020
To add fuel to the fire, another scandal involving Australian troops in Afghanistan has emerged:
What are we to do with this kind of evil? It goes so far beyond language. Australian soldiers in Afghanistan used a dead Afghan's prosthetic leg as a drinking cup, a trophy they used and played with for months. https://t.co/kU4IEmTM4f
— Omar Sakr (@OmarjSakr) December 1, 2020
The BBC’s Ros Atkins summed up a dreadful week:
China offers Australia ‘advice’ on how to deal with its actions in Afghanistan, Scott Morrison posts on WeChat, there's a campaign to drink Australian wine – and as this row escalates, it's underpinned by a global power struggle. Produced @CourtBembridge https://t.co/ai5KMXc5aQ pic.twitter.com/IcykSLYn1e
— Ros Atkins (@BBCRosAtkins) December 1, 2020
Well-known Australian commentator Jane Caro expressed the fears of many fellow Australians:
A question. The end game of this spat (please god, that’s all it is) between Australia & China. Does anyone have a strategy whereby this works out well for us? If you do, please share it. Many business people are currently tearing their few remaining hairs out.
— Jane Caro (@JaneCaro) November 30, 2020
Meanwhile, the diplomatic downward spiral has continued with the removal of Scott Morrison's post by WeChat. Even that has been a target of ridicule on social media:
WeChat deletes Morrison’s message to Chinese Australians while Twitter allows the “offensive” Tweet by China to stay up.
Morrison is not going to win this chest thumping bout.
He should never have started it#auspol #china https://t.co/Lm65sAi1GK
— Maralyn Parker (@MaralynParker) December 2, 2020

author: Kevin Rennie


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‘Don’t come back, or you will disappear’: Uyghur mother pleads with her daughter abroad · Global Voices
Guest Contributor

Screenshot from an Austrian TV interview with Mehbube Abla posted on YouTube.
The identity of the author of this story has been kept anonymous for safety reasons.
Global Voices interviewed Mehbube Abla, a 38-year-old Uyghur from Ghulja, a city in western Xinjiang. In 2004, she left China to study abroad and has never returned. All the members of her family who stayed in Xinjiang have been imprisoned.
There are 11 million Uyghurs, a Muslim Turkic nation, living in the western province of Xinjiang in China. Widely portrayed as “motherland separatists” or simply “terrorists” in Chinese mainstream media, this group has been targeted more systematically since Xi Jinping became president of China in 2012.
According to Human Rights Watch, the Uyghurs have been deprived of basic human rights, including freedom of religion, of movement, and also of using their native language. And according to various testimonies and sources, over 1 million Uyghurs – as well as other Muslim minorities — are in internment camps. Some camp detainees are also sent to Xinjiang’s vast prison system.
Given the secrecy surrounding these internment camps, which China describes as “vocational training centers“, the exact number of people currently detained is difficult to ascertain, but hundreds are believed to have died in internment. More detailed information is available in the Xinjiang Victims Database.
Abla is active on social media, where she advocates for Uyghurs’ human rights. This interview was conducted over the phone in Uyghur and edited for brevity and style.
Global Voices (GV) When did you leave China?
Mehbube Abla (MA): In 2004, I left Xinjiang to study in Germany, and a year later I moved to Austria, where I have been living ever since. Back then, before getting on the airplane, I looked around me, and told myself this was the last time I was seeing my homeland. I knew that I was never going to return. As soon as I had settled in Europe, I started to join meetings and protests for the Uyghur cause. My two younger sisters also live abroad.
Mehbube Abla's  parents. Photo used with permission
MA: It is my parents and my younger brother back home who have really paid a price for me using my freedom to condemn China. Since I became an activist, members of the Chinese police force have gone to parents’ home, and taken my father and brother in for questioning a number of times. But my family never accused me of giving them trouble. The only thing my mother kept saying was “Don't ever come back! If you do that, you will disappear for sure!”. So in all these years I've never gone back.
But it was no problem for us to talk over the phone, until April 2017. That's when my brother, Adiljan Ablajan, who was in his early thirties, was taken to a so-called re-education camp. In September 2017, my mother Peyzohre Omerjan, was taken. And in October the same year, they took my father Ablajan Hebibulla.
MA: My mother and brother were held in the same camp at first, close to our home. I don't know anything about the location where my father was held. In June 2018, my mother and brother were sentenced to 20 years in prison, but in October 2018 I learned that they were both taken back to the camp because the verdict was deemed faulty. In November 2019, I got the information that my mother had again been sentenced, this time to 19 years in prison, while my brother got a five year sentence. My brother was married and had a one-year-old daughter when he was detained back in 2017. I heard that his wife was sent to a camp as well, and I have no idea what happened to their daughter. At the same time I also learned that my father was sentenced to eight years in prison. From what I heard, my mother is being held in a women's prison in Ghulja, in the west of Xinjiang. I don't know where my father and brother are held. But there has been news about Uyghur prisoners from Ghulja being moved to other parts of China.
Mehbube Abla holding a photo of her parents. Photo used with permission.
MA No. I inquired at the Chinese embassy in Austria and was given the very general answer that my family “is doing fine, and those who broke the law are in prison”, and that's it. But my family are law-abiding citizens. My mother works as a tailor, she designs clothes. My father is a businessman who used to run his own shop selling imported goods. And my brother studied biomedical analysis, but was always very interested in cars and ended up starting his own car business.
I believe that by sentencing my family, the Chinese authorities want to put pressure on me and my sisters, and break us down mentally. But I will not let them! I'm even more dedicated now!
MA In September, my aunt suddenly called my sister in Norway, saying that she had visited my mother in prison, and that my mother sends her greetings to us. According to my aunt, my mother is doing fine, and is allowed visits twice a month.
I believe that the authorities forced my aunt to call us, as a way to calm me down, in the hope I would quit my activism. Any contact with relatives abroad is dangerous for Uyghurs these days, so there is no way my aunt called on her own initiative. When answering the phone she told my sister: “Don't ask me anything, just listen to what I have to say.”
Until I can talk to my mother myself I don't believe anything I am told about her. This call from my aunt came just after a period when I had been very active on social media. The Chinese authorities want to show that: “Look, Uyghurs can actually contact their relatives abroad.” I believe my activism is pressuring them.
In Chinese prisons, relatives have to pay 300-400 Chinese renminbi (US$ 45 to 61) every month, to provide a prisoner with food and clothes. I know that my aunt is paying this sum for my mother, but what about my father and brother? It's just the close family, like siblings, parents and children, that are allowed to visit a prisoner. So who is caring for my brother? Both his parents are in prison too, and his siblings are now abroad.
MA Of course, when I got the news of what happened to my family I was devastated. I cried for months. I would have been less sad if they had just died. The thought of what they are enduring in the Chinese prison is so painful, it is such a heavy burden. But I can't just stay home and cry. I have to be strong – I have two children to raise. And I have beautiful dreams about taking care of my parents. The more active I am and the more things I do, the more positive I get. This is something I learnt from my dear mother. I will keep fighting for my family.

author: Guest Contributor


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Tanzania launches mobile app to help victims report gender-based violence · Global Voices
Susie Berya

“Orange the World,” a UN global campaign to end violence against women, hosts a march in Kibondo district, Kigoma region, Tanzania November 28, 2017. Photo via UN Women/Flickr, CC BY ND 2.0.
“Change Begins with Me” is Tanzania's chosen theme for this year's 16 Days of Activism to End Gender-Based Violence (GBV). The theme was announced by Mr. Prudence Constantine, the head of the communications unit at the Ministry of Health and Community Development.
Constantine explained that “the theme is a call to action for every one of us to take responsibility to end GBV by tackling persistent social norms that devalue women and girls and ensure survivors can access comprehensive support service,” he said.
The annual global campaign supported by the United Nations commenced on November 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and runs until December 10, which is Human Rights Day. With the color orange being the international symbol for the campaign to end GBV, this year's global theme is “Orange the World: Fund, Respond, Prevent, Collect!”
“As the world retreated inside homes due to the lockdown measures introduced to curb the COVID-19 pandemic, reports showed an alarming increase in the already existing pandemic of violence against women,” according to UN Women.
Due to the pandemic, mobility restrictions, information deserts and increased isolation have led to a 30% decrease in reporting sexual and gender-based violence in Tanzania, according to Relief Web.
The Tanzanian-based GBV coalition known as MKUKI kicked off the 16 Days of Activism against GBV by launching an app called Taarifa, or Information, which is a tool that offers information concerning gender-based violence that will also enable victims to report their cases to authorities.
Twitter user Viola Julius explains:
MKUKI Leo wamezindua GBV taarifa app ambayo Ina lengo la kusaidia mtu kupata taarifa Za Ukatili Wa Kijinsia lakini Zaidi mtu anaweza kutoa ripoti endapo atafanyiwa Ukatili #MabadilikoYanaanzaNaMimi pic.twitter.com/GVwWbbLdGE
— viola julius (@VwalaViola) November 25, 2020
MKUKI today launched GBV nation app with the purpose of helping someone get information about GBV but even more so, that person can file a report on their abuse.
Hon. Dr. Tulia Ackson, the recently reelected deputy speaker of the 12th National Assembly, was the guest of honor at the launch of Taarifa app. The deputy speaker expressed that the app was an important intervention toward the ultimate goal to eliminate all forms of gender-based violence. Ackson said she hoped the app would help tackle the stigma that surrounds reporting acts of intimate partner violence, according to the Daily News, a local media site.
“We are all aware that GBV has been prevalent in our society for a very long time, thus various interventions are needed to eliminate it,” said Ackson. This mobile app [will] assist many people who are afraid to come out and report such incidents.”
During the 16 Days of Activism, Mkuki is touring Tanzania to launch the app at various universities in different towns and cities.
Netizens from different universities have been sharing information about Mkuki's visit.
Twitter user Holy reported from the town of Njombe:
Njombe
Msafara wa mtandao wa kupamvana na ukatili wa kijinsia MKUKI wapo chuo cha Afya Njombe
~ Kuzindua dawati la kijinsia
~ Kutoa elimu ya ukatili wa kijinsia
~ Kuzindua GBV Taarifa App#MabadilikoYanaanzaNaMimi pic.twitter.com/8P0mOXyS3m
— Holy (@yose_hoza) December 2, 2020
Njombe MKUKI's online anti-violence network is located at Njombe Health College ~ Launch the gender desk ~ Provide education on sexual violence  ~ Launch GBV Notification App
And from the city of Iringa:
Iringa
Team ya Caravan imewasili Iringa kuzungumza na wanachuo kikuu cha iringa juu
~ Madhara ya ukatili kijinsia
~ Rushwa ya ngono vyuoni
~ Kuanzisha dawati la kijinsia
~ Kuzindua GBV Taarifa App#MabadilikoYanaanzaNaMimi pic.twitter.com/1V7yhZCJVB
— Holy (@yose_hoza) December 1, 2020
Iringa The Caravan team has arrived in Iringa to talk to Iringa University's top students ~ The effects of sexual violence ~ Sexual corruption in colleges ~ Establish a gender desk ~ Launch GBV Notification App
And this Twitter user tweeted from the University of Mzumbe:
Leo katika chuo kikuu cha Mzumbe umefanywa uzinduzi wa GBV Taarifa App ambapo wanachuo watapata nafasi ya Kusoma habari kisasa,kutoa maoni na kutoa taarifa za ukatili kijinsia.#MabadilikoYanaanzanaMimi #EndGBV #16DOA pic.twitter.com/tpwiLfnj3Y
— winharder_ (@winharder_) November 30, 2020
Today, at Mzumbe University, a GBV Information App has been launched where students will have the opportunity to read the latest news, comment and report on sexual violence.
The app is already a hit among netizens as they are campaigning to encourage others to download it.
Pakua Leo GBV taarifa App uweze kunufaika Na mafunzo lakini kubwa kuliko utaweza kutoa ripoti unapofanyiwa kitendo cha Ukatili Wa Kijinsia #MabadilikoYanaanzaNaMimi #SafeSpacesTZ pic.twitter.com/sW6YPpnQ1E
— viola julius (@VwalaViola) November 27, 2020
Download the GBV Info app today! You can benefit from training but even more so, you will be able to report when you are subjected to an act of sexual violence. #ChangeBeginsWithMe #SafeSpacesTZ
And Mbundi John chimed in with a similar message:
Pakua leo #GBV App kupata elimu juu ya ukatili wa kijinsia, ambayo itakuwa jukwaa la watu wote kutoa taarifa, kujadili na kujifunza masuala tofauti kuhusu ukatili wa kijinsia kutoka sehemu mbalimbali za nchi.#MabadilikoYanaanzaNaMimi pic.twitter.com/dIL3FgJRce
— Mbundi John (@JohnMbundi) November 26, 2020
Download today the #GBV App to get an educated on sexual violence. It will be a platform for all people to report, discuss and learn about different issues of sexual violence from different parts of the country. #ChangeBeginsWithMe
Netizen Careen Joel, a Tanzanian journalist, writer and social change pioneer, has been actively advocating against GBV with a poem called “I Would Cry,” in honor of GBV victims in Tanzania.
Joel writes:
I still sleep with the hope of a changed sunrise,
Like our days in the pine trees and the honey words,
When I was your star and not your punching bag.
Even the winds are amazed.
Rebeca Gyumi, among those listed on BBC's 100 Women 2020, is steadfast on her mission against early marriage. Often referred to as “child brides,” this term neglects the fact that young girls not in the position to choose their partners and therefore, these types of unions are considered a form of violence.
In alignment with the global Msichana (Young Woman) Initiative, a nongovernmental organization founded by Gyumi, they recently hosted a roundtable discussion on ending child marriage in the Shinyanga region. In partnership with KIWOHEDE, a nonprofit organization focused on health and human rights for women and children, the meeting targeted religious leaders and was also attended by UN representatives.
Tunamshukuru Mkuu wa Mkoa wa Shinyanga kwa kushiriki kwenye mkutano wetu uliokutanisha viongozi wa kidini na kimila, kamati ya amani ya mkoa kwa ajili ya kujadili nafasi yao kwenye kumaliza #Ndoazautotoni #16days @AddouHodan @MsichanaUwezo @UN_Women @SemaTanzania pic.twitter.com/CjvfgIp12p
— RebecaGyumi (@RebecaGyumi) December 4, 2020
We thank the Shinyanga Regional Commissioner for participating in our meeting which brought together religious and traditional leaders, the regional peace committee to discuss their role in the end. #ChildMarriage #16Days
Leaders in the Kigoma region also took part in the national movement against GBV. A community development officer educated residents of the Kibirizi ward about the impact of GBV on women:
Kigoma Ujiji Community Development Officer Adressing the Community Members on the Effects of #GendarBaseViolence to Women during the #16DaysOfActivisim of Gendar Base Violence at Kibirizi. @WeWorldOnlus pic.twitter.com/kS3V85h1f5
— KIWOHEDE (@KIWOHEDE1) December 4, 2020
The Foundation for Civil Societies in Tanzania also joined the movement by campaigning online against GBV:
@FCSTZ is joining global movements, events and conversations today that are marking the beginning of #16DaysOfActivism against Gender Based Violence. We believe in this global power against #GBV #TogetherWeCanEndGBV pic.twitter.com/CyLnNUxmIx
— Foundation for Civil Society (@FCSTZ) November 25, 2020
The FCSTZ pointed out that one of the factors that put women and girls at risk is toxic masculinity.
Mifumo Dume katika Jamii inawaweka wanawake na wasichana katika hatari ya ukatili wa kijinsia. #TogetherWeCanEndGBV #16Days #16DaysOfActivism #MabadilikoYanaanzaNaMimi pic.twitter.com/oF9jFoCaT2
— Foundation for Civil Society (@FCSTZ) December 1, 2020
Patriarchal systems in society place women and girls at risk of sexual violence.

author: Susie Berya


text:
The power of ‘personal experience’: An interview with Egyptian artist Youssef Nabil · Global Voices
Omid Memarian

Youssef Nabil, Self-portrait, Essaouira, 2011. Hand-colored gelatin silver print, courtesy of the artist and Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris/Brussels
The Palazzo Grassi Museum in Venice, Italy, is hosting an exhibition of more than 120 photographs and three films by the renowned Egyptian artist, Youssef Nabil, until January 10, 2021. “Once Upon a Dream,” curated by Matthieu Humery and Jean-Jacques Aillagon, “gathers together more than 120 works that trace the artist's whole career.”
Born in Egypt in 1972, Nabil is one of the world's most iconic photographers and artists, whose works have been featured in exhibitions and museums worldwide in the past decade. Nabil paints on black-and-white photos and creates compositions that depict his subjects as unattainable. His technique mixes painting and photography, inspired by hand-painted movie posters of the 1940s and 1950s, and is reminiscent of the pre-digital world.
Nabil's photographs are a combination of nostalgia and idealism, deconstruction and beauty, reality and illusion, and ultimately, the product of the photographer's sensitive intervention in shaping the final work. In the process of forming his work, painting is as important as photography. He says that each of his photographs is the product of his personal connection with the subject—a relationship that differs from one photo to another and which ultimately makes every photo different from another.
Nabil eventually turned to making films. In an interview with Global Voices, he explains his use of this new medium for artistic expression, his photography, and his relationship with Egypt.
Excerpts from the interview follow:
Youssef Nabil at his exhibition at Palazzo Grassi Museum in Venice, Italy, September 2020. Photo courtesy of the artist, ©Matteo De Fina
Omid Memarian: You are well known for your photography and your portrait-paintings, in particular. You have also made three films, Arabian Happy Ending (2016), I Saved My Belly Dancer (2015), and You Never Left (2010). What does making a movie give you, as a medium, that you don’t get from photography?
Youssef Nabil: In my mind, I’m always making a film when I’m doing my photography. I always prepare in a way that I’m telling a story. I take care of every detail. I want the photos to feel like scenes taken from a film. So films have been the inspiration behind my photography and the reason I started taking pictures in the first place. Even technically, the painting on my photography comes from the cinema, from the old hand-painted movie posters, portraits of movie stars, and Technicolor films. I wanted this vintage feeling to be in my photography, with a contemporary approach. I never wanted to use color film. We are talking about a time before the digital era. In the early 90s, everybody used color film, and I still wanted to shoot in black and white and use the same old photography technique for painting. So moving from photography to films was a natural progression. It was something that had to come. Now I’m thinking of doing a long feature.
Youssef Nabil, Marina Abramović, New York, 2011. Hand-colored gelatin silver print, courtesy of the artist and Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris/Brussels
OM: How did you start doing portrait photography?
YN: They are the people I wanted to meet: all the actors and actresses are iconic figures I grew up watching on TV and in the cinema. I just wanted to meet these people because I have this significant awareness of the moment, an awareness of the time people die, as those did before us and the ones after us. I discovered this at a very young age, and for me, the camera was maybe the only medium that could freeze a moment and make it eternal. Whether they were actors or my friends and members of my family or even myself, for me, it’s an encounter, a meeting, a moment with people I might meet once, and whatever is left is the work we did together.
OM: You grew up in Egypt and left in 2003 when you moved to Paris for an art residency, and then lived in New York from 2006 until 2018. How has your upbringing affected your art, mainly your uniquely hand-painted portraits?
YN: All my work, whether it's the technique or the subjects, comes from my personal experience. What inspired me to paint my photos came from Egypt. When I was a kid growing up, I used to sit in the back of my family's car. My favorite thing was to spot and watch all the movie billboards along the way. Cairo was big in cinema. We called it “Hollywood on the Nile.” I grew up watching all those movie posters in the streets, all hand-painted. At our house, we also had a lot of hand-painted family portraits. I wanted to keep that in my work. It comes from the experience that I was in touch with and what life offered me over there.
I wanted to study art or cinema, but for two years, every art school in Egypt rejected me. It was a difficult time for me, so I decided to make my own art. I called my friends from school, and I borrowed a camera and a few years later I wanted to paint the black and white pictures that I took of my friends. Being inspired by old films, I refused to use color films and learned how to paint black and white prints. I had to learn the technique from the old and last remaining studio “retouchers,” as they were called. I wanted my work to look like a painting. I loved the combination of photography and painting. Of course, I took all that with me from Egypt to New York. It came naturally, not something I decided to do.
Youssef Nabil, Self-portrait With Roots, Los Angeles, 2008. Hand-colored gelatin silver print, courtesy of the artist and Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris/Brussels
OM: How do you choose which color to use for a photo?
YN: It's a very personal and spontaneous decision. I like a certain degree of the color blue, and I use it a lot in my work, and from that, a lot of people now can tell it's my work. And the same with the skin color or a particular red that I like and I use a lot. All decisions that I make are very personal.
OM: All three of your movies deal with social issues of our time in a troubled region: from speaking of sexuality to exploring the feeling of “leaving and longing, many years after you left Egypt, to freedom. What has been the reaction of the art world to raising these issues in your work? Has this also affected how you do your photography now?
YN: When I talk about personal feelings or personal experiences, concerns, and the culture I come from, I always try to link it on a universal level. So everyone can relate to it. In “I Saved My Belly Dancer,” I talked about this art being always attacked indirectly by some people in the Middle East because they say, it’s immoral. The film is more about what you want to save in your memory to live with you, even if it’s no longer a part of reality. In my case, I chose to speak about a belly dancer. It could be someone you love that is no longer a part of your life or memories from childhood in your country that do not exist in the country you choose to live in. So for me, it was about memory. In “You Never Left,” I’m talking about the idea of when you decide to leave home and go somewhere else, your country never leaves you. I felt a mini death happening to me, and I had to be born again in a new place, and I think anyone who decides to choose a new place as a home can relate to it.
Youssef Nabil, Your Life Was Just A Dream, 2019. Hand-colored gelatin silver print, courtesy of the artist and Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris/Brussels
OM: In your photos, you somehow remove the element of time and reality and take them to a unique space that seems to belong to our memories. What’s your thought process in creating such qualities?
YN: I never plant it. Some things come from me, my character, my life, how I see people, how I express myself, how I want the message to be felt and seen, and all the things that I cannot put into words. That’s why I take pictures. That is my vision of the world I want to share. That’s probably why I don’t make people laugh or why I photograph myself from the back. I don’t decide these things. Even with paintings, how can you choose when the work is done? When it says what you wanted to say. So I make decisions in a very natural and spontaneous way.
Youssef Nabil, Catherine Deneuve, Paris, 2010. Hand-colored gelatin silver print, courtesy of the artist and Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris/ Brussels
OM: Which artists have the most influence on your work? And how have they shaped your artistic experience and the way you look at art?
YN: It’s definitely cinema that shaped my vision. Old movies. Whether Egyptian, European, or American. I grew up in the 80s in Cairo. That was before the internet, cable TV, and mobile phones. Later on, I learned about other artists, especially in New York, like Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Keith Haring. I was very interested in what was going on with the American art movement in the 80s. Especially Andy Warhol, but I don’t want to say that he is my inspiration. In the 90s I went to New York and discovered more artists; Frida Kahlo’s first biography book was just out in March 1993, and I was reading that in New York and I was very touched, moved, and fascinated by her story because she was mainly turning her pain into art, she was only making art related to her personal life. I love Jean-Michel Basquiat. I love every artist whose work is personal—no matter their medium or what they do. I just need to feel that there is something personal.
Palazzo Grassi and Punta Della Dogana are the Pinault Collection‘s contemporary art museums in Venice, Italy.

author: Omid Memarian


text:
‘Godmother’ of Caribbean literature, Marina Salandy-Brown, made honorary fellow of Royal Society of Literature · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

The Royal Society of Literature's elected Honorary Fellows 2020. Marina Salandy-Brown, founder of the NGC Bocas Lit Fest, is in the bottom left-hand corner. Screenshot taken from the Royal Society of Literature's website.
For the last 10 years, Marina Salandy-Brown has been expanding the scope and reach of the NGC Bocas Lit Fest (named for its title sponsor, the National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago), now widely considered the Caribbean's premier literary festival, but she's been a reader all her life. Her passion for the region's literature has now earned her an honorary fellowship in the Royal Society of Literature (RSL), which is celebrating its 200th anniversary this year.
She first learned about the RSL's intention to make her an honorary fellow back in August, and the plan was for her to travel to the UK for the ceremony in October. However, the COVID-19 pandemic changed everything: London is currently on a Tier 2 (high coronavirus risk category) lockdown, and Trinidad and Tobago's borders remain closed.
Still, she was invited — as new fellows are each year — to select an eminent writer's pen with which to sign her name in a roll book that dates back to 1820. Her choices included George Eliot, Charles Dickens, Jean Rhys and Andrea Levy.
Marina Salandy-Brown, founder of the NGC Bocas Lit Fest. Image courtesy the festival, used with permission.
Whenever she makes it to London to sign the register, she plans to use Levy's. “She's a woman, she had a deep connection to the Caribbean, and I met her when she was a judge for the Saga Prize,” she tells me in a telephone interview. The now-defunct Saga Prize was a literary award started by actress Marsha Hunt to celebrate new, British-born, Black writers.
The significance of the honorary RSL fellowship is not lost on Salandy-Brown. “It's an enormous thing,” she says, “particularly for someone working outside of the metropolis, and working in a way that some may consider peripheral, in Caribbean literature.”
It can be argued, however, that Caribbean literature is also huge — and Bocas has been an integral part of that journey. Salandy-Brown is clear about the fact that the recognition does not belong to her alone, but to the festival's many sponsors, and the dedicated team of people who help make the festival a success each year. “This RSL Fellowship is also an honour for Caribbean literature and for the NGC Bocas Lit Fest,” she explains. “They can't ignore us anymore. Caribbean writers are winning prizes, they're getting book deals, and many of those writers give the festival some of the credit for it.”
Pointing out that Ingrid Persaud's novel “Love After Love” has just been shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award and Monique Roffey's “The Mermaid of Black Conch,” for the Costa Novel Award, that Ayanna Gillian Lloyd has signed a book deal with Hamish Hamilton, and that Caroline MacKenzie's “One Year of Ugly” has been optioned by Netflix, Salandy-Brown says that Bocas’ seminars, workshops and master classes have helped create this new generation of regional writers — and build a marketplace to give their writing somewhere to go. Some have even taken to calling themselves “Bocas writers,” because the festival helped them hone their craft.
Authors Ifeona Fulani (left) and Bernardine Evaristo (right) chat at the 2014 NGC Bocas Lit Fest. Photo courtesy the festival, used with permission.
“We've always been writing in the Caribbean,” she explains, “but before Bocas, no one had really created a space — at home — with the power to put regional writers on a pathway to the international publishing industry. Where else would you get the likes of Marlon James, Bernadine Evaristo, Kei Miller or Olive Senior to read your stories and give feedback on them?”
Established writers benefit too, as there are always international agents, academics and publishers present at the festival. Accomplished novelists, most of whom are based abroad, get the opportunity to come back home and interact with Caribbean audiences, and the up-and-comers get to run shoulders with their heroes. “Publishing is a touchy-feely business,” Salandy-Brown says.
When she founded the festival a decade ago, however, did she envision it would reach this far? “We did our thing and people started to notice,” she tells Global Voices. “Very often, representatives from organisations like the RSL, the British Council and the Commonwealth Foundation would attend the festival. We just got on with doing our work with excellence. We didn't set out to win prizes or get accolades; it's about the work. We don't let ourselves get distracted by those things, but it's lovely to be acknowledged.”
Novelist Marlon James on stage at the 2019 NCG Bocas Lit Fest. James’ “A Brief History of Seven Killings” won the 2015 Man Booker Prize. Photo courtesy the NGC Bocas Lit Fest, used with permission.
The NGC Bocas Lit Fest has itself instituted a prize that acknowledges luminaries. The Henry Swanzy Award for Distinguished Service to Caribbean Letters recognises those in support of regional literature. Swanzy, who inherited the British Broadcasting Corporation's (BBC) “Caribbean Voices” programme in the late 1940s, helped validate writers like Walcott, Lamming, and Naipaul, by turning the series into a home for Caribbean literature and facilitating patronage of its writers. For his efforts, Swanzy became known as the godfather of the golden age of Caribbean literature.
In this new age, Salandy-Brown may well be its godmother — and the RSL isn't the only one noticing the difference she and the NGC Bocas Lit Fest have made. Chile awarded its inaugural Ferdinand Magellan Award for Innovation to Salandy-Brown for her “her enormous work in promoting the art of writing in Trinidad and Tobago and throughout the English-speaking Caribbean.” The country's ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago, Juan Aníbal Barría, called Salandy-Brown “an explorer like Magellan, who, thanks to her discipline, work and innovation, has managed to build an educational space that crosses the frontiers of knowledge and contributes to the dissemination of the rich Caribbean culture.”
A key component of the NGC Bocas Lit Fest has been CineLit: a Latin-American/Caribbean film festival woven into the literary agenda. “The most important thing about CineLit is that the films are all linked to books, to writers and their stories. The Caribbean and Latin America are so close geographically that we wanted to reach out — and one of the best avenues to communication that can easily bridge a language gap is film,” Salandy-Brown explains. The minifilm festival showcases both feature films and documentaries, including adaptations of literary classics from Latin America and the Caribbean. “It was a way of showing films not ordinarily seen here,” she adds, “and opening peoples eyes to the literature of our neighbours.”
Quite fittingly, the Magellan award was presented to Salandy-Brown encased in a compass — a salute to her pioneering spirit. As part of a reforestation project in Punta Arenas, the capital city of Chile's southernmost region, a tree will also be planted in her name. It's a gesture that means a lot to a woman who never really felt like she'd put down roots.
“I was off to university on my own at 17 years old,” she says. “I've lived in so many different countries that I tend to be be a bit of a hoarder, because I hang onto things that I feel anchor me. I can tell you exactly where every book I have came from.” She hopes to visit the tree with her four-year-old grandson once the pandemic is over, and perhaps explain to him how her love of Caribbean stories gave the region and its writers a lasting connection with the world.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


text:
Nepal’s Sapana Roka Magar, who provides Hindu funeral rites for unclaimed bodies, listed in BBC’s 100 Women of 2020 · Global Voices
Benju Lwagun

Sapana Rokka Magar being interviewed by astrologer Harihar Adhikari. Screenshot from YouTube video by Marga Darshan.
The BBC included Sapana Roka Magar, an 18-year-old crematorium worker from Nepal, in its 100 Women of 2020, a yearly list of inspiring and influential women from around the world.
Sapana works with the Homeless Management and Rehabilitation Center, a Nepalese charity providing assistance to homeless people. For the past three years, Sapana and her team have provided traditional Hindu funeral rites for abandoned and unidentified deceased bodies.
With COVID-19 disproportionally affecting homeless people in Nepalese cities, Sapana's work became vital to this vulnerable population, who are so often deprived of dignified funerals.
After Sapana's team identifies and collects deceased bodies from the streets or mortuaries, they send them for postmortem examination in hospitals. If the body remains unclaimed for 35 days, the organization takes them to a crematorium and performs Dagbatti, a traditional final rite in Hindu religion.
Dagbatti rituals are usually conducted by the male members of the deceased's family. Sapana, however, has performed the rituals herself for hundreds of unclaimed bodies at the Pashupati Aryaghat (cremation ground), on the banks of Bagmati river in Kathmandu, Nepal.
Sapana was born into a middle-class family in a small village of Nepal's Myagdi district, in Gandaki province. She is said to have been a brilliant student during her childhood and pre-teen years. At age 14, she moved to Beni, Myagdi's biggest city, to study — and that's when her life took a sharp turn for the worse.
She married a teenage boy against her parents’ will. The relationship broke down just after a few months, and Sapana found herself shunned by her home village. She distanced herself from her family and became homeless.
While living in the streets, she became acquainted with the Homeless Management and Rehabilitation Center, and began to work with them. Sapana now calls the president of the organization, Dinesh Jung Basnet, her godfather.
Gender roles remain strict in Nepal, with women generally expected to manage the household and take care of the family. The pandemic has worsened gender inequality in the country when it comes to education, employment, and income.
In the Hindu religion, women are not allowed in cremation grounds; in the villages, only male members of the family are permitted to participate in funeral rites.
But by providing final rites for people whose bodies were abandoned, Sapana does a job that most men wouldn't accept.
Nepali social media users were elated by seeing Sapana included on the BBC list and shared congratulatory messages.
Freelance writer Dil Nisani Magar tweeted:
You may have had a lot of pain, stress and problems while working, but this news has definitely made all Nepalis happy. Supana Baini, congratulations to you, you are a source of inspiration for the youth. https://t.co/yHnMako5Qm
— Dil Nisani Magar (@dil_nisani) November 24, 2020
Educator Santosh Upadhyaya tweeted:
I am so happy to see the name of at least one Nepali among the list of a hundred women published by the BBC for 2020. Congratulations Ms. Sapana Roka Magar. we are proud of you. https://t.co/svburWqFzx
— Santosh Upadhyaya (@santoshdhungel9) November 25, 2020
Youth activist Nikita Bhusal tweeted:
After becoming homeless for three months, Sapana travelled to Kathmandu where she became involved in an organisation that cremates unclaimed bodies.
More power to you Sapana Roka Magar for being BBC's 100 influential women of the year#BBC100Women https://t.co/jZlyHYW50X pic.twitter.com/QaeXuTsMuo
— Nikita Bhusal (@bhusalnikita) November 25, 2020
Former UN Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF tweeted:
Bless you, Sapana Roka Magar for your noble efforts. What an amazing turn in life! https://t.co/rk6bneGDoA https://t.co/pXCV139GfL
— Kul Chandra Gautam (@KulCGautam) November 25, 2020
Entrepreneur Kushal Sundar Shrestha complained that Nepal recognized Sapana only after she received the BBC honour:
Technically, as a country I don’t know where we lack to recognize these Heroes and their actions, but next day it gets noticed in @BBC and we start to acknowledge and congratulate them. Hats off Sapana Magar and to all the women who made difference to their society and country.
— Kushal Sundar Shrestha (@iamkushal) November 28, 2020
In 2019, Bonita Sharma, a social entrepreneur from Nepal, was also listed in BBC's 100 Women, in the knowledge category.

author: Benju Lwagun


text:
Bangladesh bids farewell to Argentinian football legend Maradona · Global Voices
বিজয়

Football fever spreads in Bangladesh. Playing football in front of a wall colored with different national flags of the participants in the FIFA World Cup. Jatrabari, Dhaka. Image by Sourav Lasker. Copyright Demotix (8/6/2014)
Argentinian football superstar Diego Armando Maradona is as popular in Bangladesh as he is in his own country. Maradona's death at his Buenos Aires home on November 25 came as a shock to Bangladeshi fans, who took to social media to express what the football legend meant to them.
Twitter user Akteex summed up the feelings of a nation in one succinct post:
I can hear Bangladesh crying
— t (@akteex) November 25, 2020
Noting that Maradona had became a household name in Bangladesh, football fan Sabbir responded:
I knew his name tracing back to the very first memories I have. At that time I was a kid who lived in a remote village in Bangladesh, and thought if I could walk far enough I would fall off this world because it's flat, but I knew the name Maradona. That's how great he is.
— Sabbir (@sal_b2bg) November 25, 2020
The very next day, Bangladeshis paid tribute to Maradona during different events, such as in this cricket match in the capital, Dhaka:
1 minute silence observed by all today's 4 teams for football Legend Diego Maradona. The event took place immediately after the post-match presentation of the first match. pic.twitter.com/jWmtdcVQBV
— Bangladesh Cricket (@BCBtigers) November 26, 2020
Although the South Asian country ranks very low in the FIFA World Football ranking, the sport is very popular. Most Bangladeshi football fans follow Latin American football leagues and revere icons like Maradona and Brazil's Pele. Some fans simply could not believe that Maradona is no more.
Anisul Kabir, associate editor of the satirical magazine Unmad, wrote on Facebook:
পৃথিবীতে ম্যারাডোনা নামের অবাক করা মানুষটি নাই, ব্যাপারটা বিশ্বাস করতে কষ্ট হচ্ছে। ফুটবল বিশ্ব সেরাদের মধ্যে সেরা একজন লিজেন্ড হারালো। খারাপ লাগলো খবরটা শুনে।
The wonder named Maradona is no longer around, this is hard to digest. The football world has lost a legend. I am very sad today.
Sports enthusiast Noman Mohammed added:
ডিয়েগো ম্যারাডোনা মারা গেছেন। খবরটা মিথ্যা হোক, খুব করে চেয়েছিলাম। বিশ্বের বিভিন্ন দেশের ওয়েবসাইটে ঢুকে বুঝতে চেয়েছি, কেউ যেন এটিকে গুজব বলে। কিন্তু তা হল না।
I wanted the news of the death of Maradona to be a hoax. I tried to browse different international websites to find out the truth. But my wish did not come true.
Meanwhile, iTazin tweeted:
Football Legend Diego #Maradona left us on Wednesday 25th November.
As like rest of the World Bangladesh has huge fan following since his football career. We brought up seeing his magic on the ground.
Rest in Peace Maradona
My condolences to his #Family & #Friends We LOVE You ❤ pic.twitter.com/0ZcrIp6x1L
— iTazin (@htajin) November 26, 2020
Most Bangladeshis became loyal supporters of the Argentine football team because of the amazing skills Maradona displayed during its 1986 World Cup victory. On Facebook, Sakibur Rahman Khan explained:
অবৈধভাবে ক্ষমতা দখল করে স্বৈরাচারী হোসেন মোহাম্মদ এরশাদ ১৯৮২ সালে বাংলাদেশে প্রথম চমকটি দেখান সরাসরি বিশ্বকাপ ফুটবল টেলিভিশনে দেখিয়ে । বাংলাদেশের সকল মানুষের সাথে আমিও সেই বাল্যকালে নেশায় বুঁদ হয়ে ব্রাজিলের ভক্ত হয়ে যাই । সেই ওয়ার্ল্ড কাপ ফুটবলে বাংলাদেশের মানুষ ম্যারাডোনাকে খুব একটা চিনলো না। ১৯৮৬ সালে যখন ওয়ার্ল্ড কাপ ফুটবল শুরু হয় তখন আমরা দেখি ম্যারাডোনার জাদুকরী ফুটবল খেলা । বাংলাদেশের প্রায় অর্ধেক মানুষ ব্রাজিল ছেড়ে আর্জেন্টিনার সাপোর্ট করা শুরু করে। ঢাকা শহরের আমিনবাজার, Old town তখন ছেয়ে যায় আর্জেন্টিনার পতাকায় । তার পরের ইতিহাস শুধুই ম্যারাডোনার।
In 1982, the dictator Hossain Mohammad Ershad surprised the nation by telecasting the World Cup live on television for the first time in Bangladesh. This was my childhood watching the games, I became a fan of Latin-American football, especially Brazil, like many others. At that time, we did not know much about Maradona. When the 1986 World Cup began, many Bangladeshis were mesmerized by Maradona's magical football skills. Opinions in Bangladesh became divided. About half of the people in Bangladesh rooted for Brazil and the other half supported Argentina. Parts of Dhaka, especially Aminbazar, were then covered with the Argentine flag. Maradona ruled in the following couple of decades.
Expat Bangladeshi Sardar Jobayer Hossain recalled how Maradona became an icon in Bangladesh:
স্কুলের খাতায় ম্যারাডোনা, বাজারের ব্যাগে আর্জেন্টিনা, বাড়ির চার দেয়ালে আকাশি-সাদা ডোরা, আমাদের শৈশব ছিল ৫ ফুট ৫ ইঞ্চির ম্যারাডোনাময়। ধানমন্ডিতে মিরপুরের রোডের উপর চাইনিজ রেস্টুরেন্টের নাম ছিল ম্যারাডোনা। পাড়া মহল্লায় আর্জেন্টিনা- ব্রাজিলের নামে ফ্রেন্ডলি ফাইটিং পর্যন্ত চলত। ৮৬ সালের পর বাঁশের আগায় দুইখান পতাকা রাখতাম ঘরে। একখান আর্জেন্টিনা, আরেকখান ঢাকার মোহামেডান । আহা দিন!
Maradona's image was printed on school pads and shopping bags, the Argentinian colours – sky blue and white — printed on the walls. Our childhood was filled with the image of the 5 foot 5 inch Maradona. A Chinese restaurant at Mirpur Road in Dhanmondi was named after Maradona. There were friendly football matches in our locality between teams named after Brazil and Argentina, which sometimes led to clashes. After 1986, I used to keep to flags hoisted at home — one of Argentina and one of Dhaka Mohamedan [a local football club]. Ah, those days!
So intense was Maradona's popularity in Bangladesh that people would treat Argentina's wins — or losses — as their own. In the 1990 World Cup, when Argentina lost to Germany in the final, Bangladesh cried with Maradona. In fact, many fans, unable to accept the defeat, took to the streets to protest the referee's actions.
That same year, Moudud Ahmed, then vice president of Bangladesh, announced that Maradona was to make a visit to the country, but it never came to pass. It was later alleged that the purpose of the announcement was to subdue growing protest movements against the regime of the time.
There were subsequently other attempts to bring the football hero to Bangladesh: in 2008, when he visited neighbouring India, and ironically, in 2020, the year of his death. He was supposed to visit the country to celebrate the birth centenary of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the “Father of the Nation” and the first President of Bangladesh.
In 1994, Maradona played his last World Cup. During the event, he was banned from the game for doping, forcing Argentina to withdraw from the tournament. Interestingly, Bangladeshi fans were not angry with Maradona, but with FIFA.
Documentary filmmaker Asef Hadi tweeted about that time:
“When he [Maradona] was kicked out of the ‘94 World Cup: several hundred people in #Bangladesh had attempted mass suicide as a result. It is impossible to overestimate the scope and intensity of #Maradona’s popularity” – #RIPDiego pic.twitter.com/l7YSHqn23P
— Asef Hadi (@AsefHadi) November 25, 2020
Despite Bangladeshis love for Maradona, some didn't like his lifestyle. Exiled Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin tweeted:
Addiction killed Maradona.
— taslima nasreen (@taslimanasreen) November 25, 2020
Maradona undoubtedly led a complex life, but amidst all the ups and downs, he was aware of how Bangladeshis felt about him: the South Asian country's passion for the South American soccer star was referenced in Maradona's autobiography “El Diego” — and for some Bangladeshis, that is enough.

author: বিজয়


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Calls to legislate ‘private hire’ vehicles and stop victim-blaming as another woman is murdered in Trinidad & Tobago · Global Voices
Flora Thomas

Stop Violence Against Women. Image by Roel Wijnants on Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0.
Violence against women is once again the issue of the day in Trinidad and Tobago after 18-year-old Ashanti Riley went missing on November 29. The teen, who was last seen getting into what is known as a Private Hire (PH) car, called her boyfriend to alert him that she was on her way, but she never arrived at her destination. Her body was found on December 4.
Two men, including the driver of the car, have been detained in connection with her murder and police are searching for a third suspect.
The outrage on social media was instant, and the manner in which she was preyed upon hit far too close to home for many, including the mother of Shannon Banfield, a young bank teller who was found dead on December 8, 2016.
Social media users erupted after Banfield's murder as well, saying, “Enough is enough!” but four years later, despite petitions and protests, gender-based violence and femicide remain a real threat.
Riley's death comes in the midst of UN Women's 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, which aims to draw worldwide attention to what it calls “the already existing pandemic of violence against women.”
Facebook user Jenelle Arlene Bedeau recounted her own experience at the age of 18:
One morning I took a taxi […] and the taxi driver passed my stop and apologized said, “It’s ok I’ll turn around and drop you.” He then proceeded to a back street and said he’s just making the rounds and started taking the windows up. Immediately I started shouting and asking what he was doing. He started caressing my leg and saying, “It’s ok I’m just putting on the AC.” I started opening the lock and tried opening the door and fumbled with it while trying to fight him off and had to throw myself out of the moving car.
I keep asking myself had I not done that what would have happened! I can imagine the fear she felt because I was so panicked that it took me quite sometime before I could even breathe.
It’s so depressing that as women a routine trip to work or visiting a relative can result in sexual assault whether verbally or physically or in many instances death. I pray for her mother…now being a mother myself it’s heart wrenching and I do pray that we stop telling women to be vigilant but instead ensure that men do better.
In a statement about the recent murder, the country's prime minister, Dr. Keith Rowley, noted that there was a discrepancy between requirements for registered taxi drivers (who need a certificate of good character to operate) and the “PH” system, which he said contributes to the “danger of every Tom, Dick and Harry being allowed to manage a vehicle and then you end up with this as an outcome.”
He admitted that the question now is, “What do we do about it?” The existing Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act stipulates that “no person shall use a motor vehicle for a purpose other than that for which it is registered.” There is currently no allotted designation for PH vehicles, but the practice is very common and not policed.
The PH arrangement is an informal one whereby a private car is used for hire, often by multiple riders at the same time. It differs from ride share apps like Uber, in that the car is neither summoned by nor tracked through technology. There is also no way of knowing whether or not the driver is plying a legitimate trade, making it a risky choice.
When asked what options women have when traveling at times or to places in which only PH drivers operate, Rowley responded, “Given the practicalities of the situation, we have to be always cognisant of our personal safety […] Just be careful.”
In 2017, after Jamilia Derevenax was murdered by someone she knew in the car park of a popular multiplex, Prime Minister Rowley controversially advised women to choose their partners wisely. The statement was widely interpreted as victim-blaming, a stance that netizens have continuously called out in the wake of femicide, even as they attempt to refocus the blame where it belongs.
On Facebook, Son Du posted:
Men whom I admire and respect have told me that this wanton violence against women won’t stop until men talk seriously to other men about their behaviour. So please, men, talk to each other – NOW.
Another critical aspect of the issue is police training, both in terms of forensics and with regard to interacting with the families of victims. Criminologist Renee Cummings noted:
[…] the question is not how many women (I will also include men) have gone missing in TT, turned up dead or not turned up at all.
The question is who cares?
After billions spent on policing and national security, TT is yet to design any sensible or scientific strategy to analyze information about homicides, about no-body homicides, missing persons, sexual assaults, and other violent crimes involving unidentified human remains.
This is as tragic as all the lives lost!
Riley's uncle shared a heartbreaking Facebook post in which he confirmed that despite members of the anti-kidnapping unit being “a beacon of light,” there were other police officers who, when taking the family's statement for the missing person report, “made sarcastic and demeaning comments about Ashanti, much to our horror.” Other reports and social media testimonies pointed to similar examples of callousness.
Amidst calls for justice for Riley and the countless other women who have been killed or gone missing, the Guardian newspaper reports that as many as 47 women and girls have been killed thus far in Trinidad and Tobago in 2020. With the country's murder count currently at 362, women comprise approximately 13 percent of homicide victims.
The same report states that, according to the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service, of the 745 people reported missing in 2020, 416 — more than half — are women and girls.
On Facebook, poet Shivanee Ramlochan poignantly put the country's emotions into verse:
For women, for us who go barefoot out the front door to pick pommecythere from our own pregnant trees, may we not die. […] May we arrive to birthday parties with arms full of cake and ice cream and metallic discount-bag balloons. May we arrive to fetes in the very tiniest of pumpum shorts with our glittery purses packed full of pepper spray we don’t have to use. May we arrive to the churches alive, to the lover’s house alive […] may it not matter so much where we’re going, holy or profane, except that we are allowed the right to get there breathing, unmolested, our lungs not riddled with knifemarks, our vaginas untorn. […]
Maybe it may also be that if we are killed, though this is a prayer against death, the first questions will not be how many men we took between our thighs or lips, how many children we had with how many men, how many men we liked were gunmen themselves. May our eulogies not be peppered with should have known betters […]
May it be that we can outstretch our hands and catch the hands of our sisters before someone extinguishes her life. May we become more and more of what we already are – powerful, collective, brave enough to fight and brave enough to weep hard – that we make murderers fear us. That we bring love to a table where only terror is being served, and ask ourselves to eat til we are full. May we all wake up to pray again tomorrow.
Awomen. Awomen. Awomen.

author: Flora Thomas


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Hong Kong suppresses political dissent by freezing bank accounts · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Boycott HSBC campaign image circulated widely on social media.
Hong Kong’s recently enacted national security law has empowered the security police to freeze suspects’ bank accounts during an investigation, which has eroded public trust in the banking system.
In the past few months, there have been several cases which indicate that the banking system is being been weaponized by the national security police in order to crack down on activists and pro-democracy NGOs.
The most controversial case involves the freezing of the bank accounts of exiled Hong Kong legislator Ted Hui and his family members.
Hui, a former pro-democracy lawmaker, declared his exile status during a visit to Denmark for a conference on December 3, after his family had also left Hong Kong. Two days later, on December 5, Hui said that his bank account and those of at least five of his family members had been frozen without explanation by several banks, including HSBC.
HSBC’s frozen the accounts of Ted, the exiled former lawmaker, and his family members. HSBC is facilitating CCP’s political persecution, which endangers political dissents, and shockingly, their families. The UK govt should act to show no tolerance to collusion with autocracy. pic.twitter.com/XRdOWSYbjr
— Nathan Law 羅冠聰 ? (@nathanlawkc) December 5, 2020
The banking giant's actions triggered a public uproar, as members of Hui’s family had not been known to have violated any national security law. Critics said the banks’ had acted on political, not legal, grounds. The bank unfroze the accounts of Hui his family briefly the next day, refroze them again on December 7, after the Hong Kong police issued a public statement accusing Hui of colluding with foreign forces and of using his family's bank accounts for money laundering purposes.
Independent journalist Timothy McLaughlin summed up the Hong Kong police's allegations against Hui as follows:
“Li claimed that calls from some people to canvass support from the international community constituted acts of collaborating with foreign forces, a crime under the national security law, which was imposed by Beijing on Hong Kong on June 30.” https://t.co/BgA3tcKNkJ
— Timothy McLaughlin (@TMclaughlin3) December 7, 2020
Ted Hui was originally charged with nine offences that involved disrupting meetings in the Legislative Council, participating in unlawful protests, and deleting photos from the mobile phones of staff of the Legislative Council. None of these charges was linked to the offences listed in the national security law and money laundering, until after Hui announced his exile status.
The police's new allegations pointed to a crowdfunding campaign to raise money to bring a lawsuit against a taxi driver who had driven into a crowd of protesters, and a police officer who shot at a protester in a close range during last year's anti-extradition protests. The crowdfunding campaign was in fact handled by a law firm which has no connection to Hui or members of his family. Hui rebuked the police on Facebook:
This is clearly the regime’s attempt to take political revenge via economic oppression, and to use collective punishment to oppress my family to persecute dissenting voices.
Under the national security, however, the security police are empowered to freeze bank accounts during an investigation without a court order, and there is no existing channel through which affected individuals can appeal such actions.
Despite public concern over this arbitrary exercise of power on the part of the national security police, the Hong Kong government refused to answer questions about whether the ability of the police to demand suspension of bank accounts would undermine public faith in the banking system in Hong Kong, a global financial center.
The latest case involves the suspension of bank accounts belonging to the Good Neighbour North District Church as well as personal accounts of the church’s pastor, Roy Chan, and his wife. Twitter user Karen Tse reported the news after it broke:
The HSBC bank account of the Good Neighbour North District Church was frozen without any prior notification nor justification provided. Personal accounts of Pastor Roy Chan and his wife have also been frozen. Roy Chan is the organiser of Protect the Children group.
Photo: FB/NYT pic.twitter.com/V9yx03RmIt
— Karen Tse (@ktse852) December 7, 2020
The church was established in 2014 and obtained charity status in 2016. Since its establishment, it has provided shelters to homeless people. The church has described the suspension of the church’s sole account as “an act of political retaliation”:
This is no doubt an act of political retaliation. In the past year, our group “Safeguard Our Generation” mainly comprised of middle-aged and elderly volunteers was determined to offer humanitarian aid to protestors at the frontline…
The church urged HSBC to unfreeze its sole bank account, as not doing so would result in the immediate termination of their service to the homeless.
An increasing number of voices on Hong Kong social media are using hashtag the #boycottHSBC to express their distrust of the corporate giant.
When Greed for Money overwhelms basic human values. #BoycottHSBC pic.twitter.com/ghr0wU8sAx
— Laurent Clark (@Laurent_Clarkk) December 6, 2020
Let's trend
#boycottHSBC #sanctionHSBC
— Arne Melsom ???? (@melsom62) December 5, 2020
In August, HSBC froze the personal bank accounts of Jimmy Lai, founder of Apple Daily, and other top management of the popular newspaper's parent company Next Digital, following their arrests over national security, fraud and other alleged offences.
In June 2020, prior to the enactment of the national security law, the Hong Kong Association of Banks issued a statement in support of the legislation, claiming that the law would foster a stable business environment. Global banking giants HSBC and Standard Charter followed suit and issued their own statements of support.

author: Oiwan Lam


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Singaporean activist who staged a solo protest with a ‘smiley’ placard charged with illegal assembly · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Jolovan Wham standing in front of a police station while holding a ‘smiley’ placard. Source: Facebook
Activist Jolovan Wham was charged with illegal assembly on November 23 for holding a “smiley” placard in front of a police station on March 28.
Wham staged the stand-alone protest in solidarity with two young climate activists who each held a placard calling attention to Singapore’s role in abetting the climate crisis. One of them stood in front of Exxon Mobil’s office on March 13 with a placard that has these words: “planet over profit”, “school strike 4 climate”, and “ExonMobil kills kittens & puppies”. The other young activist held a solo protest in front of a police station on March 22 with a placard that reads “SG is better than oil”.
The police summoned the two young activists, confiscated their phones, and placed them under investigation.
Wham was also investigated after his solo protest.
In response, Wham launched the #smileinsolidarity campaign to highlight the curtailment of free speech in Singapore. He explained the theme of the campaign:
I wanted to come up with a way for people to participate in this discussion about civil liberties through a fun, clever and non-aggressive way.
Photos using the hashtag can be accessed via Instagram and Twitter.
It was only in November that the police announced the filing of charges against Wham. He reported this on Facebook:
I was there solely to take photos for the purpose of uploading them on social media. I barely stayed in the area for more than several seconds. Yet, what I did has been deemed as a public protest by the State.
I barely stayed in the area for more than several seconds. Yet, what I did has been deemed as a public protest by the State. #FreedomOfExpression #freedomofassembly pic.twitter.com/WBXx8x5ZK4
— Jolovan Wham (@jolovanwham) November 19, 2020
News about the filing of a case against Wham has revived an online petition calling for the review of the Public Order Act. Under the law, protests without a police permit are only allowed at the Speaker’s Corner park. Public assemblies outside this park require police permission. But the petitioners claim the law provides a broad definition of “public assembly”:
The definition of ‘public assembly’ in the law is so broad that one individual handing out flyers on the street or collecting signatures for a petition, will be deemed to have committed an offence if they did not have a permit to do so.
Our ability to advocate for change and speak up against injustice are severely restricted by regulations which do not allow us to assemble freely outside of Speaker's Corner. We must have the right to do so even if such acts are uncomfortable to those in power. This is how a democratic society functions and citizens should not be punished for speaking their truths.
Reacting to global news reports about Wham’s case, the Singapore High Commission in Canberra sent a statement to ABC Australia’s radio show explaining the government’s stance on the matter:
If protests or demonstrations are allowed all across Singapore, we will have to consider how business interests, and ordinary Singaporeans, among others, would be affected, having observed how disruptive and destabilising protests elsewhere have been. It is also not possible to determine what size a protest would or would not hurt public order. Even a one man protest can cause some disruption to public order, or can escalate.
Wham made a rejoinder via Twitter:
It is a bad sign when law enforcement is overbearing to the point that it invites ridicule, the criminalisation of displaying an emoji being a case in point, all to prevent a protest precedent being set. It’s tragic that Singapore's leaders have so little faith in their people to responsibly exercise the same basic civil liberties that citizens of countries with similar development and income levels enjoy. And it’s plainly dishonest how the government cherry picks unrest stories from abroad to argue the necessity of rights constraints.
Human rights groups have expressed support to Wham. Amnesty International has called on the Singapore government to immediately drop its “absurd case” against Wham:
The charges are emblematic of how restrictive laws such as the Public Order Act are routinely used as tools for intimidation, harassment and political repression by the Singaporean government.
If found guilty, Wham faces a maximum fine of S$5,000 dollars (3,740 US dollars).
This is not the first time that Wham has faced prosecution for his activism. He was charged in 2017 for organizing an illegal assembly in relation to an indoor forum featuring Hong Kong youth leader Joshua Wong who spoke via Skype.

author: Mong Palatino


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Sudan faces second COVID-19 wave amid drug shortages and doctors’ strike · Global Voices
Khattab Hamad

Khartoum Teaching Hospital, Khartoum, Sudan. Photo by Petr Adam Dohnálek via Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 CZ
November was a bitter month in Sudan as citizens faced a second COVID-19 wave that left several well-known figures dead due to the virus. A pharmaceutical shortage and doctors’ strike demanding better working conditions is compounding the crisis.
Since November 1, cases of the coronavirus began to increase, with 4,006 new positive cases in November, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 17,810 by  November 30. The death toll rose to 1,249. There were 6,259 active cases by the end of November, compared to October, with only 146 confirmed cases.
The Ministry of Health announced several measures to avoid any possibility of lockdown that could throw Sudan’s fragile economy into a further downward spiral.
Precautions include enforcing corporate and governmental officials to provide personal protective equipment and hand sanitizer and to work at 50 percent capacity in order to practice social distancing. Measures also include the provision of paid leave for those who are older than 55, because they are at higher risk for contracting the virus. The government also directed universities and higher institutes to suspend studies if one positive case is registered with students or employees.
Dr. Abdalla Hamdok, the prime minister of Sudan, said in an interview with Sudan national satellite TV: “The Sudanese government does not seek to impose a second lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19, although the second wave of the corona[virus] pandemic is more severe in Sudan than the first.”
Sudan has lost many citizens to the virus such as Imam Sadiq al-Madi, who died on November 26, after suffering due to complications from the virus. Sadiq was the last elected prime minister of Sudan, before the 1989 coup that put Omar al-Bashir in power for 30 years. An official military funeral was held to honor this former supreme commander of the Sudanese Armed Forces, and an official period of mourning was announced for 3 days.
من المراسم الرسمية تشييع إمام الأنصار و رئيس حزب الأمة السابق و آخر رئيس وزراء منتخب -الصادق المهدي-
له الرحمة و المغفرة pic.twitter.com/hU7UCqtQh6
— Khattab – خَطَّٰاْبّ?? (@ga800l) November 27, 2020
Sudanese officials received many condolence messages from around the world. The British ambassador in Sudan said:
Shocked and saddened to hear of the passing of Imam Alsadiq Almahdi. A true patriot and leader of the nation. My deepest condolences to all the Sudanese people on this loss. Allah Yarhamhu. Inna Lillahi Wa Inna Ilayhi Alrajioun.
— Irfan Siddiq (@IrfanUKAmb) November 26, 2020
Also, several professors and academics have died due to COVID-19. Sudan lost Qassim Osman Nour, a professor of library science and documentation at the University of Khartoum. The Prime Minister’s Office mourned him on Twitter.
Resident doctors in Sudan have been on strike since November 4.
They demand permanent jobs with the Sudanese Board of Medical Specialties, who currently recognize residents as “trainees” until they complete official training as specialists. The training program is split into two paths: Some start their training upon paying a fee, skipping a long waiting list, and working two years for free. Others wait indefinite periods until called by the council to begin a paid training period. Despite this waiting process, the stipend for paid training is less than $10 United States dollars per month.
The strike covered 64 hospitals and health centers around Sudan, according to the resident doctors on strike.
After many days on strike, the resident doctors agreed to a full withdrawal from medical services, including emergency cases. As a result, a moving story about a woman whose uterus burst, according to many news agencies, circulated all over Sudanese social media, calling attention to the consequences of the strike: there were not enough doctors to serve patients in critical conditions.
Mutwali, a Sudanese netizen, commented on this issue saying:
عدد ضحايا الاضرابات الفئوية ممكن “في مرحلة ما” يفوق عدد ضحايا الدعم السريع https://t.co/3jHbB31UyR
— M.Mutwali (@Mutwali_M) December 6, 2020
“The number of victims of factional strikes is possible ‘at some point’ more than the number of victims of Rapid Support Forces.”
The Minister of Health called the doctors’ strike during a public health emergency “immoral”:
وزير الصحة: إضراب الطبيب الكامل عن العمل بالطوارئ غير مهني وغير أخلاقي https://t.co/FITgSj11XH#سونا #السودان pic.twitter.com/kVBPqBAqKh
— SUDAN News Agency (SUNA) ?? (@SUNA_AGENCY) December 5, 2020
“The doctor’s complete strike on emergency work is unprofessional and immoral.”
Two days into the strike, the office of the Prime Minister said they welcomed an agreement made with the strike committee but didn’t mention the details. As of December 7, the strike committee has not made a comment on this announcement — which produced many questions from citizens.
Global Voices has previously reported on the pharmaceutical crisis in Sudan. Now, the crisis has been aggravated due to the second wave of the coronavirus in Sudan.
A major shortage of life-saving medications and oxygen threatens the lives of everyday citizens, who often have to travel from one pharmacy to another to find necessary drugs.
On Sudanese social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, timelines fill with requests from people in search of various types of drugs that are difficult to secure.
Below are some examples:
@amn79930311
وين القى الحبوب دي في الخرطوم pic.twitter.com/3z5bwa2i19
— ? ? ? ?? اسأل السـودانيـين (@Sudanese_Spt) December 4, 2020
“Where can I find these pills in Khartoum?”
⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕
بسال وين ممكن القي الحبوب دي ضروري شديد خالتي محتاجاهم ??
اعملو رتويت لو سمحتو لازم نلقاهم ليها
⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕⭕ pic.twitter.com/SSOm6k79fi
— Honey?? (@Shahdhamid5) December 2, 2020
“I’m asking, where can I find the pills, this is very necessary, my aunt needs them. Retweet please, we must find them for her.”
In response, the Minister of Health, Dr. Osama Ahmed Abdel-Rahim, announced the state's commitment to fund drugs at a value of USD 60 million, as a first step toward stabilizing the drug shortage in Sudan. However, this only covers 60 percent of the total value of needed drugs in Sudan. The Sudanese people hope this commitment toward stability will halt the uptick in deaths due to the coronavirus and other illnesses.

author: Khattab Hamad