text:
Taking Hong Kong’s temperature: What future for the protest movement? · Global Voices
The Stand News

Watery protest in Hong Kong. Image from the Stand News.
Hong Kong's anti-China extradition protests are now a year old. Hong Kong online media outlet Stand News curated a series of articles to reflect on the opposition movement. Global Voices is publishing edited versions of these posts under a content partnership agreement. The original Chinese version of the post below was written by Francis Lee, Professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
The month of June marks the one-year anniversary of Hong Kong's anti-China extradition protests.
Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in late January, the Hong Kong police has banned all public assemblies and rallies, citing disease control regulations known as the Prohibition on Group Gathering.
The regulation has made it impossible for any organization to call for massive protests. The risk for individual protesters braving the streets, meanwhile, is growing, as Beijing prepares to impose a game-changing national security law on Hong Kong.
Today, the protests are much smaller than they were in June 2019, when hundreds of thousands of people regularly took to the streets in the biggest anti-government demonstrations in history.
But opinion polls show that Hong Kong people’s anger towards the police and government authorities remains unchanged.
A recent poll conducted by The Chinese University of Hong Kong's Center for Communication and Public Opinion Survey* in late May showed 45.8 percent of interviewees felt zero trust towards the government and 47.5 percent felt zero trust towards the police.
Against the backdrop of the national security law controversy, 41.4 percent expressed zero satisfaction with the implementation of “One Country Two Systems” in Hong Kong.
Over 60 percent of the interviewees opposed Beijing’s decision to enact a new national security law, bypassing Hong Kong Legislature. This finding differs markedly from Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam's claim on June 16 that only a small minority opposed the law.
The interviewees in the poll were also asked if they support or oppose the continuity of the anti-China extradition protests, regardless of form or strategy. The poll found that 39.1 percent support the protests with 39.2 percent opposed. Supporters of the pro-China establishment claimed the result indicates that the movement is losing support. That interpretation may not reflect the reality, however.
Historically, polls have shown that around 20-25 percent of Hong Kong citizens did not support anti-extradition protests in the first place. The global COVID-19 pandemic meanwhile has exerted further pressures on the city's economy, further weakening the appeal of protests.
With that in mind, the fact that the protests that brought the city to a months-long standstill have retained support from a solid two-fifths of respondents is nothing short of remarkable.
This result bears comparison with a poll in November 2014, two months after the debut of pro-democracy Umbrella Protests.
That poll saw 70 percent of interviewees support the termination of the massive peaceful sit-in protests.
Responses in the CCPOS survey differ significantly across age groups.
Among those aged 15-24, the rate of support for continuing anti-China extradition protests is 71.9 percent. In the next age category, 25-39, support drops to 51.9 percent. The protests have only 35.6 percent support in the 40-59 age range and 20.3 percent support among those aged 60 and older.
For some who oppose the continuation of the anti-China extradition protests, opposition is strategic rather than hostile towards protests per se.
Commentaries on various social media outlets in recent weeks have highlighted doubts that protests can generate positive effects in the current repressive political environment, since riot police are able to use as much force as is needed to overwhelm and arrest protesters.
These commentaries often stress that with Beijing determined to dismantle ‘One Country, Two Systems’, Hong Kong's future depends on diplomatic interplay between the U.S and China, rather than on street protests.
This cost and effect calculation is particularly evident in responses regarding Beijing’s imposition of a national security law on Hong Kong.
Although 63.5 percent of interviewees worried that the law would harm Hong Kong citizens’ freedom and rights, only 59 percent of those same respondents supported the continuity of the anti-China extradition protests, while 15.1 percent opposed further protests.
Although restrictions enforced during the COVID-19 pandemic have limited the scale of protests, they have not stopped them completely. Beginning in late April, a number of “protest song” flash mobs sprang up in major shopping malls.
Moreover, small monthly protests were held to commemorate the Yuen Long Mob Attack Incident (July 21, 2019) and the Prince Edward Station Attack Incident (August 31, 2019) — two incidents that spotlighted excessive police force against protesters.
On May 24, thousands participated in an illegal rally against Beijing’s decision to impose the national security law on the city — the first large protests since COVID-19 restrictions went into force.
Then, on June 4, tens of thousands joined up for an annual candlelight vigil in Victoria Park and a dozen other districts across Hong Kong. This year was the first time the vigil was outlawed by authorities, who cited disease control restrictions.
Finally, on June 9, thousands of protesters rallied in Central district to mark the anniversary of the one million-strong rally against the China Extradition Bill.
All these actions have taken place despite the likelihood of arrests for participating in illegal assemblies.
Doubts over the sustainability of the anti-China extradition protests have been raised since the protests were less than a month old.
But as the crackdown on protesters has expanded, so too has their repertoire of contention.
Eventually, massive mobilizations in June gave way to district-level rallies and the setting up of Lennon Walls all around Hong Kong in July, followed by the peaceful sit-in at the city's International Airport and the formation of human chains across the city in August 2019.
When schools restarted in September 2019, school campuses and shopping malls turned into protest sites.
After the victory of the pro-democratic alliance in the district elections in November, supporters of the movement have started advocating for the idea of a “yellow economic circle”, wherein pro-establishment businesses are subjected to popular boycotts, while “yellow”, or pro-movement businesses, receive popular support.
Supporters have also called for the setting up of professional groups and labour unions to prepare for a future general strike.
This is the likely future direction of the protests, with resistance seeping into everyday activities, leaving the  establishment facing a long war of attrition.
Then again, disease control restrictions cannot last forever, and the possibility that Hong Kong will once more witness massive mobilizations — the increased cost of collective action notwithstanding — cannot be discounted.

author: The Stand News


text:
As election looms, Serbia’s leading party wants to defend citizens from dinosaurs · Global Voices
Filip Stojanovski

Photo: Screencap from video clip featuring dinosaur chasing a time traveler by Serbian Progressive Party.
Serbia has entered a an election silence before a vote scheduled for Sunday, June 21, which is probably a good thing.
Since the biggest opposition parties have declared a boycott, blaming the government for a failure to provide conditions for fair elections — including freedom of media — the issue of voter turnout has taken on particular importance.
In order to undermine the legitimacy of the ruling parties, some opposition groups like “Don’t Let Belgrade D(r)own” (“Ne da(vi)mo Beograd” in Serbian) staged protests.
The most recent one was in front of the Parliament, featuring their symbol, the rubber duck.
Danas ispred Skupštine #Bojkot2020
sutra na završnoj reči na suđenju Jutki u Kruševcu.#PravdaZaMarijuLukić#PravdaZaSveŽeneBrusa pic.twitter.com/zHwooq8uXf
— Ne davimo Beograd (@nedavimobgd) June 18, 2020
Tweet: Today in front of the Parliament #Boycott2020, tomorrow at the closing of the trial to Jutka in Kruševac  #JusticeForMarijaLukic #JusticeForAllWomenOfBrus
Video: Today we are in front of the Parliament. We call upon the citizens to join the boycott of the fake elections on Sunday. While the fight for free and democratic Serbia is taking place, another  struggle is taking place tomorrow in Kruševac, the trial of [suspected sexual predator] Milutin Jeličić Jutka and we hope for justice for Marija Lukić and all women of Brus.
On June 17, the day before the silent period, the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) concluded its series of controversial election videos with one addressing people who would abstain from voting.
The video titled “Don't remain in the past, vote for the future!” vent viral across the Balkan region. In a warning tone, the clip presents citizens who would stay at home on election day on Sunday as potentially responsible for the demise of the economy and chaos that would ensue if the opposition unites.
This messaging was complemented by a footage showing “people going crazy” — fighting in the streets and looting.
If the video had ended there, that would be pretty standard scaremongering.
However, the campaign ad then went to a very strange place.
Када схватите да сте направили велику грешку, јасно вам је да не можете платити кирију. Када схватите да не можете платити кирију, једино што вам преостаје је да направите времеплов, вратите се назад кроз време и гласате. Када употребите времеплов који сте направили како би сте се вратили уназад и гласали, случајно се вратите у далеку прошлост и поједе вас диносаурус!
Зашто би сте хтели да вас поједе диносаурус? Немојте остати у прошлости, гласајте за будућност!
By the time you realise you've made a big mistake, it will be clear that you can't pay the rent. When you can't pay the rent, the only thing left for you to do is build a time machine, go back in time and vote. When you use the time machine you've built to return back in time and vote, you might accidentally travel to distant past and get eaten by a dinosaur!
Why would you like to be eaten by a dinosaur? Don't remain in the past, vote  for the future!
The ruling SNS has named it's electoral list after their leader Aleksandar Vučić, who is currently the president of the country, despite these elections being parliamentary rather than presidential ones.
The SNS has spent its campaign promoting Vučić's cult of personality, drawing on the president's time during a pandemic and generally draining state resources. This is unlikely to earn the party any attention from anti-corruption authorities, however.
Screen shot of the website of Socialist Party of Serbia, with their election slogan “We stand firm” (Ми стојимо постојано) in the header.
Its nominal competitor, the Socialist Party of Serbia, a junior member of the populist ruling coalition, has made campaign missteps of its own.
That party botched its initial campaign video based on the phrase “Count on us” — a phrase made famous in a once-popular Yugoslav patriotic song — by making zombie-like animations of voters the centrepiece.
Their follow-up slogan “We stand firm” (“Mi stojimo postojano” in Serbian) was taken directly from the song “Hey Slavs” – the anthem of disbanded Yugoslavia.
Ми стојимо постојано
Кано клисурине,
Проклет био издајица
Своје домовине!
We stand firm
like the big cliffs,
May he be damned, the traitor
of his homeland!
SPS official campaign videos tend to use music from former Yugoslavia, such as anti-fascist partisan songs from World War II like “Through valleys and over hills.”
The irony of the fact that this party, and its late leader Slobodan Milošević, were among the chief perpetrators of the bloody destruction of Yugoslavia, has been largely ignored by the mainstream media.
Also glossed over are ideological inconsistencies. Such as the fact that the socialist party's website has as a key feature a photo of its leader the Serbian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ivica Dačić posing with Donald Trump — a politician who would usually be considered an opposite of socialist.
All these paradoxes aside, Serbia is getting ready to vote. The number of people who are supporting the boycott will remain unknown until Sunday evening.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Filip Stojanovski


text:
The Kano COVID-19 deaths: Forced relocations and disinformation creates widespread confusion (Part II) · Global Voices
Nwachukwu Egbunike

Children sit in a classroom window, Roni, Jigawa State, Nigeria. Image by Global Partnership on Education, July 14, 2016 (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Editor’s note: This story is part of a two-part series on the COVID-19 “mysterious” deaths in Kano, Nigeria. Read Part I here.
In northern Nigeria, a series of “mysterious” deaths in April — during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic — sparked a flurry of confusion and denial by government officials.
As social media narratives began to piece together possible reasons for the spike in deaths, dis-and misinformation were driven by ethnoreligious tensions in the predominantly Muslim northern region.
To complicate matters, a series of forced relocations of boarding school children from Kano, northwest Nigeria, back to their home villages sparked concern about possible exportation of the coronavirus to other parts of the country.
In this complex, layered context, it has been difficult to gain a full understanding of the reasons behind the mass deaths in Kano State.
In Nigeria, children known as Almajirai (“religious migrants”), are sent to Islamic boarding schools in the predominantly Muslim northern region of the country. These children are usually from very poor homes and cannot afford formal education.
Almajirai children in this region often beg from house to house in groups, “scrambling over a small plate of food” or “singing the yar bakara [‘begging songs’],” asserts journalist Farida Adamu.
In the middle of the pandemic, this vulnerable group of children was relocated from Kano State to their home states and in the process, some allegedly exported COVID-19 to other states in the region.
On May 2, The Cable, an online newspaper, reported that 6 out of 38 Almajirai who were forcibly relocated from Kano by the state government to Bauchi State, had tested positive for COVID-19.
Six almajiri kids from #Kano among new COVID-19 cases in Bauchi.
From Bauchi to Kaduna, Kano is seriously exporting #Covid19 cases.
— Adetutu Balogun, MBA (@Tutsy22) May 2, 2020
In Kaduna State, 65 out of 169 relocated children tested positive for the coronavirus. In Jigawa State, 91 out of 168 relocated children were infected and in Gombe State reported eight out of  48 deported boys tested positive, reports the BBC.
Almajirai constitute a significant portion of Nigeria’s 13.2 million out-of-school children according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). With an average school attendance rate of 53 percent in northern Nigeria, this means that more than half of these children do not attend school.
Eight years ago, President Goodluck Jonathan spent 15 billion naira (about $39 million US dollars) to build Almajirai schools across northern Nigeria, with the aim to integrate these children into the formal education system. The schools are now in ruins — the plan was rejected by influential northern leaders, including the Kano State Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje.
The region also experienced other forms of community-based transmission that resulted in “mysterious deaths.” On May 6, Sahara Reporters, an online news portal, reported that over 155 people died in Yobe State in northeastern Nigeria. A day earlier, Premium Times reported a spike in community transmission in Jigawa State resulting in “strange” deaths.
In these cases, the fatalities displayed symptoms similar to COVID-19. Cemeteries reportedly overflowed with corpses — which set these communities on edge.
Kano City from top of a mosque (1960). This image by Mary Gillham Archive Project was uploaded on October 24, 2017, CC BY 2.0.
The mass deaths in Kano State fueled long-standing ethnic and religious tensions between northern and southern regions that were on full display in heated conversations on Twitter.
When two prominent figures died — Sheikh Goni Modu and Emir of Rano — confusion and disinformation ensued along ethnoreligious and regional lines.
Both figures were buried on May 3, 2020, but videos began to circulate online that spread disinformation about the circumstances of these burials.
The Emir of Rano, Tafida Abubakar ll, died on May 2, as reported by Daily Trust, a Nigerian newspaper. The Emir was one of the four newly constituted kingdoms in Kano.
A video claiming to be the burial of Emir of Rano began trending on Twitter:
Burial of the Late Emir of Rano in Kano today. The cases of new cases that will be coming from kano in the next 1week will be alarming. I doubt if they are aware of coronavirus @NCDCgov #COVID19Kano #COVID19 #StaySafeNigeria #COVID19Nigeria pic.twitter.com/UD8ZnPrTTL
— Omowumi (@Estiebarbie) May 2, 2020
But it was false:
The remains of late Emir of Rano buried inside his Palace approximately an hour ago, with less than 20 people attended the burial, but a fake video of thousands people has been trending throughout the day, purported to be his burial, it was not, Rano Emirate official told me.
— Bashir Ahmad (@BashirAhmaad) May 2, 2020
Rather, the video was that of the burial of Sheikh Goni Modu, in Borno State, who was buried on May 3. Contention surrounded the lack of social distancing during the burial.
This individual gave false information in his tweet, stating that the video showed the burial of Sheikh Goni Modu from three years ago. He refers to “animals” who share this video as “evil machinations against the north.”
A screenshot of a tweet by Dan Arewa @Fulanihausa1 [May 2, 2020; 4.02 pm] had 29 Retweets, 67 Likes and 1K views before it was deleted.
These heated conversations about the burial videos clearly degenerated into ethnic and religious mudslinging that drew from long-held stereotypes between northern and southern regions of Nigeria.
Comments by the Twitter users below derided the “ignorance” of northerners or described them as “illiterate”:
These comments precipitated a clap back, with this Twitter user saying that southerners are “usually waiting” for the slightest opportunity to deride the north as “backward and illiterate”:
Left to right: screenshots of tweets by @OndoFirstBorn [10:05 pm, May 2, 2020] and @ComedyMasinga [11:39 pm, May 2, 2020].
It is because those who are just waiting on the edge of their seats to insult ‘backward and illiterate Hausa Muslims’ (that everyone in the North apparently are’) can't tell the difference between spoken Kanuri and Hausa. Ignorance fuels bigotry.
— HRH Asiya R., Queen of Æ (@AsiyaRodrigo) May 2, 2020
This deep mistrust was also evident in other conversations.
The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) considered the deaths in Kano as a “deliberate attempt” to depopulate Nigerian Muslims. Meanwhile, the Northern Elders Forum claimed that some states were “playing politics” with COVID-19 statistics to get more funding from the federal government.
MURIC — “COVID is a crusader”. A screenshot of a satirical Facebook post by Teju Olaoye [1:45 p.m., April 28, 2020].
The Kano State Government (KNSG) was “evidently unprepared” and acted “reactively” to the pandemic, according to a report by the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD).
After Kano’s index COVID-19 case was established, it took over a month — until April 11 — to set up a testing center at Aminu Kano Hospital. Yet, the government continued to relax lockdown restrictions in the state for frivolous reasons — despite rising death rates.
I hope when this is over, the people of #Kano will remember that their governor put their lives on the line for a few more dollars and that a good number of people in the state, because of ignorance, gullibility, fanaticism or sheer stubbornness, played right into his hands.
— Abubakar Adam Ibrahim (@Moonchild509) May 1, 2020
Nigerian writer Abubakar Adam Ibrahim aptly summarizes this tragedy. Sadly, the KNSG deflected responsibility onto everyone else but themselves.

author: Nwachukwu Egbunike


text:
The Kano COVID-19 deaths: Stories untold (Part I) · Global Voices
Nwachukwu Egbunike

Scene in the old town of Kano, Kano State, Nigeria. Image by Shiraz Chakera, September 13, 2005 (CC BY-SA 2.0).
Editor’s note: This story is the first part of an investigation on the COVID-19 “mysterious” deaths in Kano State, Nigeria. Read Part II here.
For months, confusion and conjecture surrounded the story of mass deaths in Kano State, northwestern Nigeria, that occurred in April during the COVID-19 pandemic.
After several weeks of speculation and official denial, on June 8, Nigeria’s Health Minister Dr. Osagie Ehanire confirmed that a surge of mysterious deaths recorded in Kano State was “triggered by or due to COVID-19.”
Ehanire stated that Kano witnessed 979 deaths “at a rate of 43 deaths per day” in April. The deaths, within eight local government areas of Kano State, affected people 65 and over with pre-existing conditions.
This official validation ended the conjecture regarding the cause of this death spike in Kano. Ehanire, on May 5, stated that there was “no evidence” linking the Kano deaths to the coronavirus. This claim came a day after the head of the presidential COVID-19 task force said that the deaths were indeed caused by the virus.
Social media narratives, as well as investigations and documentation by both citizen media and journalists, may aid in understanding the full scope of this story.
With the Global Voices’ Civic Media Observatory on COVID-19, I conducted qualitative, ethnographic monitoring of Nigeria’s social media space that revealed several dominant narratives about the Kano deaths on social media, including denial and suppression of news about the deaths, disinformation, ethnically and religiously divisive messages, political rivalry and the outbreak of similar mysterious deaths in neighboring states.
In late April, images like these of freshly dug graves in Kano began circulating on Twitter.
PRAY FOR KANO :
GRAVES EVERYWHERE
COVID-19 Or Strange Death.
150 people were reported dead in 2 days, no action but silence from Nigerian Govt.
PRAY FOR KANO pic.twitter.com/Z6zmKjqLFT
— Temitope (@Topeyardpipu) April 26, 2020
There is both reality and disinformation about #Kano mass deaths. Our report will clarify. pic.twitter.com/6lBlADp0yQ
— Hamza Ibrahim (@hamzaish) May 1, 2020
However, there was confusion regarding the exact number of deaths.
A chilling news report by Nigeria’s national TV channel shared on April 21 by activist Badero Olusola, on the Concerned Nigerians Facebook page, garnered 13,000 views, 127 likes and over 300 comments. The report showed that in just three days, April 17 to 19, over 150 people had been buried in Kano. Gravediggers had a hard time keeping up with the fatalities, with as many as 40 people reportedly buried daily in a cemetery in Kano metropolis.
However, an investigation by Dr. Zainab Mahmoud, a Kano youth activist, put the number at over 100, as shared on Twitter on April 25:
Three days ago my colleagues and I decided to investigate the deaths in Kano. By day 2, we had received reports of over 100 deceased people. A large number highly suspicious for COVID 19.
— Zainab Mahmoud (@iNabmahmoud) April 25, 2020
That same day, the Nation, a Nigerian daily, tweeted a report containing a list of about 20 prominent people who had died in Kano. Premium Times, a Nigerian online newspaper, also reported about the death of seven professors in Kano.
The Kano casualties were no longer faceless individuals.
Media narrative surrounding the Kano deaths revealed that the Kano State government (KNSG) tried to suppress the news, denied the existence of a political rivalry in Kano that may have interfered with a prompt COVID-19 response and failed to account for the absence of proper documentation about the deaths.
On April 26, KNSG stated that the deaths were “caused by complications from hypertension, diabetes, meningitis and acute malaria and not the COVID-19 pandemic,” reported Reuters.
Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje of Kano debunked a report by Nigeria’s Daily Trust newspaper as “fake news.“
However, not everyone accepted the state government's position.
Usman Yusuf, a professor of hematology-oncology, in an op-ed by BusinessDay newspaper, stated that “KNSG lacks the will, capacity, compassion, transparency, or the trust” to mitigate the crisis. Yusuf further asserted that the government was “in denial and doing all in its power to hide these deaths.”
Nigerian investigative journalist Fisayo Soyombo in a Facebook post attributed the deaths and sluggish COVID-19 response in Kano to the “collapse” of three agencies after their personnel tested positive to coronavirus, including the testing laboratory, the team responsible for retrieving patients and the state committee on COVID-19.
Soyombo wrote that the situation was further aggravated because “the state government played needless politics” by initially declining the offer by the Federal Ministry of Health to take over the COVID-19 response.
The KNSG also rejected a donation of a hospital as an isolation centre due to political rivalry.
FLASH: Ganduje rejects Kwankwaso’s Hospital as isolation centre.
But why reject donation of a newly-built 60-bed hospital as isolation center for Coronavirus patients?
Is Kano aware they will need any free beds they can get? Are we still playing politics with people’s lives?
— #OurFavOnlineDoc ? (@DrOlufunmilayo) May 1, 2020
Former Kano State Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso had on April 20 donated the 60-bed Amana Hospital in Kano, owned by his foundation, to the state government as a coronavirus isolation center, but the government denied receiving any such donation.
There has been a political war of attrition between former governor Kwankwaso and his erstwhile then-deputy Ganduje (now governor) since 2015.
Kano is predominantly Muslim, with existing tensions between science and religion that can sometimes affect the government's handling of burials and death certification.
Conducting autopsies is a sensitive issue in Kano because “a lot of things in science and medicine are not accepted by all,” said Dr. Sanusi Bala in an interview with Punch newspaper. Bala, head of Kano State chapter of the Nigerian Medical Association, said that autopsies could not be carried out without express consent from relatives of the deceased.
Mubarak Bala, a self-proclaimed atheist and activist from Kano, also observed in a Facebook post that the lack of birth and death certifications and the inability of health officials to conduct autopsies also had an impact on mass deaths in Kano State.
Instead, KNSG conducted a “verbal autopsy” on April 28 to investigate the cause of the deaths. A verbal autopsy is an epidemiological method that uses techniques developed by the World Health Organization to examine the cause of death in populations lacking proper documentation systems.
Screenshot of Mubarak Bala’s Facebook post [Sunday, April 26, 2020, 1.24 pm]
The result of the verbal autopsy conducted by three doctors in Kano, Maryam Nasir, Zainab Mahmoud and Khadija Rufai, was frightening. Within 48 hours, the researchers discovered “183 deaths in Kano metropolis that occurred between 18 to 25 April 2020.” The symptoms, “a trend of febrile and respiratory illness that progresses to death within one to two weeks,” were consistent with COVID-19.
Dr. Osagie Ehanire's admission in June — linking the Kano deaths with the coronavirus — finally confirmed information that had already been circulating in Nigeria’s digital public square since April.


text:
Fish prices spike as Cameroon’s mangroves face total depletion  · Global Voices
Boris-Karloff Batata

A man walks through the mangroves in a wildlife reserve in Manoka, a town and commune in the Littoral Region of Cameroon, Manoka island, south of the Wouri estuary, within the Douala Edéa Wildlife Reserve, Cameroon. Photo via Piqsel, public domain.
In Cameroon, extensive mangrove systems provide an abundance to the communities that surround them. From firewood to fish, communities have depended on mangroves, locally known as matanda, for years.
These low-lying, tide-resistant shrubs grow in salty water and cover nearly 60 percent of the southwest region alone, but also spread across three regions: Rio de Ray, Wouri Estuary Douala and Ntem South, according to Ekwadi Songe, southwest regional delegate of environment, nature protection and sustainable development.
Due to overfishing and overharvesting its wood, mangroves have seriously depleted in recent years. Sea level rise due to climate change also threatens the mangrove ecosystem. Now, during the COVID-19 pandemic, a spike in the price of fish is largely blamed on mangrove depletion.
Jocien Siyir Kinyuy, a student living in Buea, the southwest regional capital, told Global Voices that the price of fish has definitely increased in the market during the pandemic. “I used to buy a kilogram of fish for 650 francs [$1.11 United States dollars] but now I get it at 750 francs [$1.28 USD], sometimes 800 [$1.37 USD],” she said.
Kinyuy notes that most fish at the market is now imported, driving the prices up even higher. “From my experience, it’s even more expensive to buy from the petit traders down at Limbe beach who buy from the fishermen,” adding that foreign companies dominate the market and pay high taxes. However, Cameroon placed a temporary ban on importing fish from China due to the coronavirus in February.
As of 2010, Cameroon’s mangroves were nearly 75 percent depleted, but today’s figures are likely much higher, according to the Andalou Agency.
“If mangroves go extinct, fish will finish in Cameroon,” said Songe, the southwest regional delegate.
Mangroves offer a variety of benefits to surrounding communities, providing a favorable environment for most fish species — including crabs — to reproduce, according to Chechua Manzo, a master’s student in natural resource management in Cameroon. They are also home to many migratory birds.
Mangrove roots act as good speed brakes for waves, providing calmer waters for toddler fish and crabs to lay eggs. In 2009, over 5,000 tons of fish were sourced from the mangroves, according to a study reported in BusinessCameroon. “Bossu, bar, mulet, machoiron are some of the types fished in these mangroves — the most sought after by consumers,” the report said.
This year, the Ministry of Livestock, Fisheries and Animal Industries reported that it imports 200,000 tons of fish yearly to make up for its low national production and a national demand estimated at about 400,000 tons of fish per year.
Over the years, fishing communities have placed immense pressure on mangroves, where over 80 percent of the population relies on mangrove wood to smoke and preserve their fish.
“Passing along the village streets of Yoyo [Littoral coastal Sanaga-Maritime area], one can see hips of harvested mangroves … and the people say it’s comfortable … to use [the wood] as fuel to smoke their fish,” Manzo explained.
On Twitter, Regina Fonjia Leke explained how this crisis plays out in the town of Mouanko, Sanaga-Maritime area:
2500 cubic metres of #Mangroves are lost everyday in #Mouanko #Cameroon. They are harvested to smoke fish n this pressure has led to a drastic reduction in the pop of this vital https://t.co/dX4mGIydMI local NGO,CWCS is trying to turn the tides. Watch how https://t.co/vXFsxI1utc
— Regina Fonjia Leke (@ReginaLeke) December 28, 2018
“The main threat to mangroves is the Nipa palm [variety],” Manzo told Global Voices, adding that extensive construction in Cameroon’s Littoral region has seriously threatened its extinction in this region.
Meanwhile, Cameroon’s Ministry of Forests and Wildlife sells mangrove timber used for construction on destroyed mangrove areas for less than one dollar, according to the Andalou Agency.
The government has made several efforts to safeguard Cameroon’s mangrove ecosystems. In 2006, Cameroon signed the Ramsar Convention, the only international legislation that focuses specifically on wetlands conservation. In March 2007, Cameroon created its own National Ramsar Committee on Wetlands.
At that time, the Ministry of Environment decreed that 30 percent of Cameroon’s land should be preserved for natural resources, including mangroves, and “this 30 percent … is divided across five agroecological zones,” explained Songe, the southwest regional environment delegate.
In 2006, the government worked with the Food and Agriculture Organization to encourage local communities to find alternate ways to smoke fish instead of harvesting mangrove wood.
These efforts continue in various ways:
Visit to Manoka island with @CIFOR, where the #Cameroon team is working with a local women association to develop a more efficient technology to smoke fish using less wood to protect the mangroves! pic.twitter.com/81fuc4Csyz
— Ahtziri Gonzalez (@ahtzirigonzalez) March 4, 2020
Fishing (for men) and fish smoking (for women) are the only livelihoods in the island. This is why @CIFOR and its partners are helping the community to better manage natural resources. pic.twitter.com/wvuOwRRgL6
— Ahtziri Gonzalez (@ahtzirigonzalez) March 4, 2020
In 2011, the government invested in reforestation efforts, “but the wood is often cut down in less than three years and with the government’s permission,” explained Langmi Moses, who heads a mangrove conservation agency, to Andalou Agency. He continued:
By cutting down mangrove trees that have been planted in less than three years and with the government's permission, operators are destroying the mangroves and preventing their regeneration. … We can't reforest all the time when our work is destroyed after two years.
In 2013, Cameroon spent 3 billion francs or $5,123,043 USD on mangrove conservation and managed to preserve over 195,000 hectares.
However, overexploitation continues to be the main cause of mangrove depletion, according to Jean Marie Tchouala Wabo, a Cameroonian forest manager.
“These mangroves are being vandalized under the watchful eye of the government,” he told Anadolu Agency.
Netizen Magdalene Ngeve laments that “Cameroon's mangroves could vanish without action”:
What a sad reality about the mangroves of my home country! I have been studying these mangroves for a while now and I must say something urgent needs to be done to turn the tides around.
Cameroon's mangroves could vanish without action https://t.co/ROdAczQbR1
— Magdalene Ngeve (@MagdaleneNgeve) January 25, 2020

author: Boris-Karloff Batata


text:
Timor-Leste plans to restore criminal defamation law amid concerns about its free speech impact · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Computer course in Timor-Leste. Photo by José Fernando Real. Wikimedia Commons. (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Media and civil society leaders in Timor-Leste have expressed concern about the possible reintroduction of a criminal defamation law in the country.
On June 5, the Minister of Justice said that the draft law, which he plans to present to the Council of Ministers, will restore to the country's penal code the offence of criminal defamation that was removed when the government adopted a new Press Code in 2014.
According to the draft, any person who “imputes/asserts to another person a fact or utters an offensive opinion of his/her honour and prestige, or transmits that imputation/assertion or opinion to a third party” can be held liable for criminal defamation. The penalty is one-year imprisonment or a fine, but violators face up to three years in prison if the plaintiff is a public official, or if the offensive statement is made through traditional or social media. Any person who defames a company, a former government official, or a deceased individual also faces a penalty under the law.
The document cites the widespread use of social media as one of the reasons for the amendment to the penal code:
…through the media and social networks, the offenses against honour, good name and reputation are amplified, thus causing repercussions that affect more seriously the dignity of those targeted, and also the dignity of the State, who should also be responsible for protecting its own dignity.
But Nobel Laureate and former president of Timor-Leste José Ramos-Horta cautioned the government about the possible impact of the proposed law on freedom of expression. He also doubted whether the country’s problems could reasonably be blamed on the widespread use of social media:
I do not see that over the years the proliferation of social networks has affected in any way, the security, peace or development of the country and the dignity or prestige of the government.
If we do not want the media and social networks to report embarrassing things that do not dignify, let us behave with greater civility.
The last sentence refers to a violent confrontation that took place among members of parliament during a sitting in May.
Civil society group La’o Hamutuk asserted in a June 15 statement to the government that “people should not be afraid to speak the truth.” The group warned about the potential effects of the proposed law on ordinary citizens:
This draft law threatens everyone, particularly vulnerable people without political connections or financial resources. The law has the potential to silence women who have experienced violence or sexual assault, and prevent them from writing or talking about their experiences without hard evidence.
La’o Hamutuk added that the authorities could possibly use the defamation law to undermine the work of civil society groups:
If we suggest that policies promoted by politicians to spend hundreds of millions on roads and airports rather than on health and education endanger the lives of ordinary people, could the Government file a case against us? If we oppose military leadership using armed force to limit election campaigning, will the state put us in prison?
Virgilio Guterres, president of the Timor-Leste Press Council, criticized the “hasty public consultation” and the untimeliness of introducing this measure “in the midst of a state of emergency when the majority of the population concentrates their worries on the measures to prevent Covid-19.” He also reminded the authorities about the suppression of free speech during the country’s fight for independence when it was occupied by Indonesia from 1975 to 1999:
Over the years of occupation, many have been jailed for free speech. In order to value and dignify sacrifices, we have to ensure that there can no longer be a citizen imprisoned for expressing himself or for having a different opinion.
Timor-Leste Press Union accused the government of trying to silence critics:
The government is trying to use a national emergency opportunity to endorse this bill with the aim of punishing those who berate leaders and politicians, but in our opinion this is to criminalize journalists and all citizens not to criticize the government.
Jane Worthington, the Asia-Pacific director of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) highlighted an alarming provision in the proposed law.
This proposed law contains ill defined ‘offences’ and switches the focus of any complaint to the journalist and/or publisher to ‘prove’ the subject to the complaint. Put simply, it places the legal burden of proving that a story is true upon the journalist and/or publisher.
Jim Nolan, IFJ’s legal expert in the Asia Pacific, noted that Timor-Leste already has a mechanism on how to address complaints against media reporting without criminalizing free speech.
The government assured stakeholders that it will review the comments and suggestions of all those both in favor of and opposed to the measure.

author: Mong Palatino


text:
Viktor Tsoi: The undying icon of Soviet dissident rock · Global Voices
Filip Noubel

The Viktor Tsoi wall in central Minsk, where the Chinese character “崔” is used to write his Korean surname. Photo by Filip Noubel, used with permission.
June 21, 1962, is the birth date of Viktor Tsoi, a Korean-Russian rock star from the late years of the Soviet Union who now enjoys cult status across Russian-speaking countries, 30 years after his tragic death.
Tsoi was born in Leningrad to an ethnic Russian mother, Valentina Guseva, and an ethnic Korean father, Robert Tsoi. Tsoi's father traces his origins to today's North Korea via Kazakhstan, as his family was deported to Soviet Central Asia during Stalin's rule.
Viktor Tsoi studied art, but soon dropped out of school and started playing rock music in the 1970s. During that period, rock was mostly banned by Soviet authorities as a symbol of “Western decadence” incompatible with communist ideology.
After meeting one of the most influential alternative Soviet musicians of the time, Boris Grebenshchikov, in 1980, Tsoi's career would take a turn. By 1982 Tsoi had created his own band, Kino, which propelled him to rapid fame across the Soviet Union. Kino's first album, “45”, was recorded in 1982 together with Grebenshchikov's band, Akvarium. Another album, “Noch,” was recorded in 1986 and released in the US on a double-album titled “Red Wave: 4 Underground Bands from the USSR.”
Portrait of Viktor Tsoi on his memory wall in Minsk in Belarus. Photo by Filip Noubel, used with permission.
Altogether Tsoi composed and recorded over 90 songs that became instant hits through unofficial channels, including underground concerts and bootleg tapes, at a time when, due to censorship, tape recorders were difficult to obtain.
Regardless, the lyrics of his songs spread by word of mouth, attracting underground audiences with their messages of youth empowerment, independent ideas, and absence of praise for the Communist Party. The song “And from now on we are the ones in charge” (Дальше действовать будем мы), for instance, has a line that goes: “So we came here to claim our rights: yes!”  (И вот мы пришли заявить о своих правах: “Да!”)
After perestroika, which allowed more space and tolerance for alternative ideas, particularly in the arts, Tsoi and Kino would be allowed to perform officially and to be interviewed on Soviet television.
In 1988, Tsoi appeared in a film called “The Needle” (Игла) by director Rashid Nugmanov that was filmed in today's Kazakhstan. It caused a sensation with its depiction of drug addiction, an issue that was unmentionable under Soviet ideology and considered an exclusively “Western” condition, in spite of affecting many young Soviets, particularly after the Soviet war in Afghanistan.
The movie, which also features songs by Kino, is available on YouTube:
On August 15, 1990, Tsoi died in today's Latvia at the age of 28, after his car collided with a bus. His untimely death became the subject of many myths, including the idea that he had committed suicide, or had been killed by the Soviet secret service.
Thirty years after Tsoi's death, he continues to have countless fans in Russian-speaking countries and communities and has inspired a wide range of people, from musicians to astronomers.
On YouTube, some videos of his songs have over 37 million views. Some of his hits have also been covered by contemporary stars of the Russian rock and pop scene, such as the Tatar-Bashkir singer Zemfira in her remake of the song “Cuckoo” (Кукушка):
His songs are also remixed and played by DJs across Russian-speaking countries and communities. Global Voices talked to DJ Hem, a native of Tashkent who lives in Helsinki and runs live DJ sessions of Soviet music on YouTube, including a special Tsoi Birthday Party on June 21. Here is DJ Hem's take on the Tsoi phenomenon:
Группа Кино была второй питерской группой, которую я когда-то услышал, это была песня Алюминиевые огурцы. Она, эта песня – как в смысле содержания, текста – каким-то, пожалуй, даже кардинальным образом скорректировала моё отношение как к року вообще, так к русскому року в частности.
Думаю, популярность Кино объясняется прежде всего общей «героической» аурой Цоя – его манера держаться на сцене, манера исполнения, голос, весь его образ… Всего этого не хватало не только на сцене. Всего этого не хватало в жизни.
Тогда это было проблемой всей страны, только что сменившей полностью курс. И вот эти поколения и поколения людей, выросших на героизации подвига – у всех этих людей с перестройкой образовалась где-то внутри пустота. Опыта жизни без героя не было. Значит, герой должен был появиться, и это произошло с Виктором Цоем.
Его лирические тексты вряд ли когда-нибудь устареют. А его песни с гражданским пафосом в какие-то моменты и нынешней российской жизни оказываются актуальными, и уместными как никогда. Что удивительно, российская рок и поп-сцены ведь так и не породили ни одной группы, ни одного исполнителя, который бы умудрился своими условными тремя аккордами зацепить «струны души» такого большого количества людей!
The band Kino was the second band from Leningrad that I had ever heard, with the song “Aluminium Cucumbers“, which with its content and lyrics somehow dramatically changed my perception of rock of and Soviet rock.
I think Kino's popularity is due mostly to Tsoi's heroic aura — his bearing on stage, his style of performance, his voice, his entire image… This was missing on the [Soviet] stage, and in life.
Back then this was an issue for the entire country that had just completely changed its direction. Generations of people who had grown up on images of [Communist] heroes suddenly experienced an internal vacuum because of perestroika. People had no experience of living without heroes. Thus, a hero had to show up, and this happened with Viktor Tsoi.
The lyrics of his songs are unlikely to get old. And the songs with a civic subtext sound very contemporary in the context of the current Russian life, and still relevant. What is extraordinary is that the Russian rock and pop scene hasn't produced to this day any group or singer who could just with three chords touch the soul of such a large number of people!
Here is DJ Hem's Tsoi Birthday Party session:
In 2018, Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov made a film called “Leto” (Summer, in Russian) about Tsoi's life and the making of Kino's first album in the early 1980s. The movie was selected for the Palme d'Or category at the 2018 Cannes film festival.
Tsoi is also an inspiration beyond the world of music and movies: he is an icon of the contemporary urban landscape in a number of post-Soviet cities that display murals, statues, and graffiti celebrating his songs. One popular Tsoi-related graffito is “Tsoi is alive” (Цой жив!).
In Minsk, the capital of Belarus, there is a memory wall devoted to Tsoi in a park in the city center:
Tsoi wall in Minsk. Photo by Filip Noubel, used with permission.
In Almaty, the former capital of Kazakhstan, a statue of Tsoi was erected on June 21, 2018 in honour of his numerous connections to the country. This tweet from May 2019, when the country experienced anti-government protests, features the Tsoi statue in dissident icon mode:
“И больше нет ничего
Все находится в нас»
Виктор Цой вышел с плакатом «Перемен» в Алматы pic.twitter.com/tWCSiOfvlD
— Timur Nusimbekov (@mr_mysyk) May 30, 2019
“And there is nothing else
All is within us.” [Lyrics from Tsoi's song “Changes” (Перемен)]
Viktor Tsoi came out to protest in Almaty with a poster saying “Changes”
Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, also has its own Tsoi wall as can be seen in this video:
Tsoi has even inspired the astronomers from Crimean Astrophysical Observatory at Nauchnij, who have named the asteroid 2740 Tsoj after him.
But there is no doubt the thing that will continue to inspire new generations of fans are his lyrics, which people still learn by heart and are quoted and referenced in daily life by Russian speakers around the globe. Among some of his best are the following, from the song “A pack of cigarettes” (Пачка сигарет):
Я сижу и смотрю в чужое небо из чужого окна
И не вижу ни одной знакомой звезды.
Я ходил по всем дорогам и туда, и сюда,
Обернулся – и не смог разглядеть следы.
Но если есть в кармане пачка сигарет,
Значит все не так уж плохо на сегодняшний день.
И билет на самолет с серебристым крылом,
Что, взлетая, оставляет земле лишь тень.
Sitting and looking at an alien sky from an unfamiliar window
I do not see a single familiar star,
I walked all the roads, here and there,
Turned around – and couldn’t find my tracks.
But if you have a pack of cigarettes in your pocket,
Then things are not that bad for today.
And an air ticket to sit on a plane with silver wings,
That as it takes off, leaves nothing but a shadow on earth.

author: Filip Noubel


text:
Who are the ‘rioters’ facing jail time after the anti-China extradition protests in Hong Kong? · Global Voices
The Stand News

Screen capture from the Stand News youtube video.
Hong Kong's anti-China extradition protests are now a year old. Hong Kong online media outlet Stand News curated a series of articles to reflect on the opposition movement. Global Voices is publishing edited versions of these posts under a content partnership agreement. The original Chinese report below was published on June 12, 2020, on the Stand News.
A key turning point of the Hong Kong anti-extradition movement in 2019 was the June 12 protests that took place near the Legislative Council.
In order to stop the Legislative Council (Legco) from enacting the Fugitive Offenders and Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Legislation (Amendment) Bill 2019, better known as the China extradition bill, tens of thousands peaceful protesters gathered outside government headquarters. Later that afternoon, a minority of the protesters attempted to charge the Legco building.
In response, riot police indiscriminately deployed tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the protesters, including against those situated in peaceful sit-in areas.
On the same day, Stephen Lo, the city's then-police commissioner, defined the June 12 protests as a “riot”, implying that those who participated could be subjected to a charge carrying a maximum term of 10 years in jail.
Chief Executive Carrie Lam stood by the commissioner's judgment and the riot label. However, a majority of Hong Kong citizens disagreed with the definition.
Four days later, on June 16, two million Hongkongers took to the street chanting slogans that included “students are not rioters,” “we are not rioting”. The five major demands of the anti-extradition movement also included “the withdrawal of the riot label.”
However, the government has not responded to the demands and protesters continue striking. The number of arrested protesters continues to rise.
The Stand News submitted an inquiry about the number of arrests to the police authority.
Between June 9, 2019, and May 31, 2020, Hong Kong police arrested 8,986 individuals during protests. So far, the department of justice has pressed charges against 1,808 protesters and the most frequent charge is “rioting”.
In one court case heard at a district court on May 4, a 21-year-old lifeguard who participated in the June 12 protest pleaded guilty to a charge of rioting.
The magistrate stressed that the anti-extradition protesters “directly undermined the rule of law” and “disregard law and the safety of police officers.” As a result, the sentence has to take account of public interest and act as a deterrent to future crimes, the magistrate said.
The starting point for riot charge sentencing is six-year-imprisonment. However, as the defendant pleaded guilty, the sentence was reduced to four years in jail.
The 612 individuals presently facing rioting charges will have to go through similar judicial processes.
Once they are found guilty, they will have to spend a few years of their youth in jail, their plans for the future put on hold.
Below is an infographic of the age profile of 598 “rioters” who have their cases registered at courts (14 of the 612 cases have not reached court yet).
Age 11-15 (14 cases); Age 16-20 (207 cases); Age 21-30 (324 cases); Age 31-40 (37 cases); Age 41-50 (11 cases; Age 51 and above (2 cases). Image from the Stand News.
The average age of defendants is 23. The oldest is 61 and the youngest just 13. Fourteen of the “rioters” are under 16 years old. Around a third are younger than 20.
The infographic below shows that just over 38 percent of the “rioters” are students:
Student: 38.29%; Catering sector: 4.85%; Construction sector: 4.68%; White collar: 4.35%; Service sector: 2.68%; Education sector: 1.51%; Medical sector: 1.34%; Others: 20.40%; Unemployed: 5.69%; None disclosed: 16.22%
Below is a breakdown of their arrests.
More than 46 percent of the arrests took place during violent clashes between protesters and riot police at the Polytechnic University on November 18, 2019:
June 12, 2019, protests outside legislative council — 1 case
June 26, 2019, protests outside the Police Headquarter — 1 case
July 14, 2019, clashes with police in Shatin — 3 cases
July 28, 2019, protests in Western Hong Kong island district — 42 cases
August 5, 2019, clashes with police in Wong Da Sin district — 1 case
August 11, 2019, clashes outside Tsim Sha Tsui police station — 29 cases
August 13, 2019, peaceful sit-in at Hong Kong International airport — 3 cases
August 24, 2019, protests in Kwun Tong district — 3 cases
August 29, 2019, protests outside Shum Shui Po police station — 17 cases
August 31, 2019, protests in Hong Kong Island district — 17 cases
September 7, 2019, clashes at Shatin Metro station — 2 cases
September 21, 2019, assembly at Yuen Long Metro station — 3 cases
September 21, 2019, protests in Tuen Mun district — 1 case
September 22, 2019, shopping mall protests in Shatin — 3 cases
September 22, 2019, clashes outside Mongkok police station — 2 cases
September 29, 2019, protests at Admiralty district — 99 cases
October 1 2019, China national day, guerrilla-style protests in various districts across Hong Kong — 49 cases
October 6, 2019, protests against mask ban — 28 cases
October 13, 2019, protests in Tseung Kwan O district — 2 cases
November 3, 2019, clashes in Mongkok — 1 case
November 10, 2019, clashes in Mongkok — 1 case
November 11, 2019, roadblock action at Chinese University of Hong Kong — 9 cases
November 13, 2019, roadblock action in Sheung Shui district — 2 cases
November 16, 2019, clashes in Mongkok — 6 cases
November 18, 2019, police siege of the Polytechnic University — 284 cases
January 19, 2020, assembly at Central district — 3 cases


text:
New law forces Hungarian transgender people to choose exile · Global Voices
Sara Pasino

Transgender people protesting against article 33. Credit: Bankó Gábor/Prizma
Being a transgender person in Hungary is about to become even harder, after the government passed a law that will demand all citizens write their “sex at birth” on their national IDs. And the response in this field cannot be changed.
“I have no hope of getting my gender recognised now,” said Ivett Ördög bitterly, sitting behind her home desk, which has now become her office, with her dark hair and eyes, a colourful floral shirt, and big earrings.
She is a software developer, a very successful one, but she has struggled a lot in the workplace. Why? Because she was biologically born as a man.
She told her story with half a smile and plenty of concern and desperation. Desperation over what is happening in her country.
Ivett Ördög. Courtesy photo, used with permission.
Ivett is a transgender woman who said that her rights “are being violated by an European Union (EU) country.”
On May 19, the Hungarian Parliament passed the Omnibus Law, by 134 votes to 56.
This is the law whose 33rd article forces all citizens to write “sex at birth” on their national IDs.
This result of the law is that no Hungarian citizen will be able to legally change their gender and those who have undergone a physical transformation are vulnerable to potential discrimination upon document-checking.
Document checks are fairly frequent in Hungary, where identification is required to pick up a parcel, pay with credit card and get on a bus.
“It could become dangerous,” said Ivett, explaining why she doesn’t use public transport or go to the doctor’s anymore.
She didn’t get her gender legally recognized, so anytime that someone checks her ID, they will see that she was a man, and this scares her.
Just  imagine […inaudible…] being pulled by policemen, and you show your ID and they don't believe you it's your ID. What do you do then? Policemen can get quite brutal at times, and then I can't even call the police! Because – they are already there. […] Especially in a country that is so homophobic, and, obviously also trans-phobic, it's not safe. Definitely not safe.
Hungary has shed 8.46 percentage points on the 2020 ILGA-Europe Rainbow Map — an online index that ranks all 49 European countries to see how laws and policies impact LBGTI people's lives. That was the most drastic drop in Europe.
Click to see infographic about LGBTQI discrimination in Hungary.
Dorián Palai, a transgender man, explained that when someone checks their ID, they might be tolerating, but they might also start to make fun of them, “out” them or even attack them.
“Your whole life will depend on other people’s kindness,” Palai said .
Despite the fact that Palai secured recognition of his gender, he has still been discriminated against by medical professionals. Their rudeness, especially when he took his clothes off, left him utterly dejected.
When I left the medical center I started to cry, because it was not just frustrating — it was very frightening. And also very disheartening.
Hungary doesn’t have a law that regulates gender recognition and for the last 3 years nobody could get their gender legally changed.
Ivett told Global Voices that she has sent all the papers to have her gender recognised, but she was told the government was “reorganizing” legislation for gender recognition.
Little did she know that this reorganization was actually Article 33 of the Omnibus Bill.
Many transgender people believe that the law was passed precisely to close the debate on gender recognition and prevent all transgender people from getting their gender recognized.
One such person is Zsófia Szabó, who left Hungary because she was discriminated for being a transgender woman. She now lives in Sweden and manages the Prizma organisation to help the transgender community in Hungary.
She said the purpose of the Omnibus bill is to “throw transgender people to the trenches.”
But Zoltán Koskovics, an analyst for the Center for Fundamental Rights, a conservative research institute in Hungary, said in an interview with Global Voices that the legislative procedure was transparent and necessary to “fill a legal gap”, because the Hungarian law didn’t have a legal definition for “sex”, so it was creating uncertainty.
He noted that the Hungarian constitution doesn’t recognize the category of “transgender,” but protects every citizen from discrimination.
Palai disagrees with that take and said that he doesn’t feel like “a real citizen”.
But where is the EU in all of this? Hungary is, after all, a member of the European Union, as of May 1, 2004.
Dunja Mijatović, the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe tweeted that the new omnibus law is against the European Court of Human Rights’ jurisprudence.
I regret that parliament in #Hungary adopted today a law that makes it impossible for #transgender people to obtain legal gender recognition. This is contrary to @ECHR_CEDH jurisprudence & a blow to trans people's human dignity.
Trans rights are human rights. #Drop33
— Commissioner for Human Rights (@CommissionerHR) May 19, 2020
But a spokesperson for the EU Commission said in an interview with Global Voices that “the procedures for legal gender recognition are a matter of national competence and fall outside the scope of EU law.”
Ivett said that the EU has failed to enforce respect for human rights in countries like Hungary. She now wants the chance to leave the country and obtain citizenship somewhere else, in order to have her gender legally recognized.
The problem is that she would have to live in that new country for at least 10 years, without moving away, before she can get the citizenship.
“What the EU can do right now is to help transgender people to leave Hungary and get citizenship elsewhere really quickly,” she said.
In the meantime, Hungarian activists are trying to fight this law.
Áron Demeter, the program director of Amnesty Hungary, said Amnesty will ask the Hungarian Commissioner for Fundamental Rights to bring the law to the Constitutional Court, which is the only institution that could annul article 33.
Please spare a moment and TAKE ACTION NOW to protect trans and intersex people's rights in #Hungary?https://t.co/2eQV3vMm2R@budapestpride @hattertarsasag pic.twitter.com/1t4SC6SS7l
— Amnesty Hungary (@AmnestyHungary) June 2, 2020
“It’s the only hope we have,” Demeter told Global Voices via email.

author: Sara Pasino


text:
Sri Lanka prepares for twice-delayed poll amid militarized COVID-19 response · Global Voices
Rezwan

An election propaganda vehicle in Dharga Town, Sri Lanka. Image via Flickr by Hafiz Issadeen. Creative Commons Cc BY-ND 2.0.
Sri Lanka is set to hold its parliamentary elections on August 5 which was delayed by more than three months due to the Coronavirus crisis.
The election was originally scheduled on April 25 but it was postponed to June 20 because of COVID-19 health concerns. The June election was postponed again for the same reason.
The August election was announced after Sri Lanka had started to ease its lockdown restrictions.
Sri Lanka is doing better in containing the spread of COVID-19 compared to its South Asian neighbours. At the time of writing this report, Sri Lanka has recorded 1,950 Covid-19 infections and 11 deaths with the number of active cases dropping and the number of deaths remaining stagnant for a couple of weeks.
#COVID19 in Southasia: New confirmed cases reported in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Myanmar Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. 693,586 total cases and 17,827 deaths in Southasia as of 19 June 2020, 1.00 pm UTC. #Coronavirus #Southasia pic.twitter.com/9KTEobpD6x
— Himal Southasian (@Himalistan) June 19, 2020
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was elected in the November 2019 presidential elections, used his constitutional power to dissolve the parliament on March 2. This was six months ahead of schedule which he insisted was necessary because the opposition-dominated parliament has been undermining his power. One of the goals of the Rajapaksa's party, Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), is to regain its majority in the 225-member parliament. Rajapaksa has called for a snap election on April 25 which was criticized by many as untimely since the country is facing a pandemic.
Human rights lawyer Bhavani Fonseka tweeted about the appeal to postpone the election:
The Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV) is urging the Election Commission to postpone General Election 2020 scheduled for April 25, 2020, in light of the escalating CORVID-19 pandemic @cmev #COVID19 #coronavirus #SriLanka #lka https://t.co/sv9scZfJP4
— Bhavani Fonseka (@bfonseka) March 17, 2020
Amid calls from the opposition and civil society to postpone the polls, Election Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya announced the indefinite postponement of the election on March 19, citing the COVID-19 threat.
Harim Peiris writes on Groundviews about the declaration:
Given that the electoral process requires a mass domestic human migration or movement of people and that campaigning makes social distancing impossible, the decision of the Elections Commission was inevitable. Perhaps in hindsight, the hasty dissolution of parliament when Covid-19 was known as a global pandemic was unwise.
On March 22, Sri Lanka imposed a seven week-long strict lockdown to prevent the surge of COVID-19 cases.
On April 20, the Election Commission announced that the parliamentary election will take place on June 20.
Analysts immediately pointed out that the new election date violates a constitutional provision which requires an election within three months after the dissolution of the parliament. Asanga Welikala writes about this issue on Groundviews:
The Constitution requires even a dissolved Parliament to be recalled in an emergency to fulfil the requirements of legislative oversight of the executive (including the exercise of any emergency powers), and to approve appropriations of public funds for government expenditure. The President, however, has steadfastly refused to do so. Coupled with this refusal, the practical inability to hold an election during the pandemic has resulted in the Election Commission having to set 20 June as the new date for the election. This is a date that is prima facie in breach of the constitutional stipulation that an election must be held, and a new Parliament must meet, within three months of the date of the dissolution of the old Parliament.
Many questioned the practicality of holding an election during a pandemic. They also accused the government of mobilizing the military to consolidate power. Tisaranee Gunasekara warned about the dangers of militarizing the COVID-19 response:
The danger of holding an election in such an atmosphere is obvious. The government will not hesitate to arrest opposition activists and voters for violating this or that anti-virus rule while giving a free pass to its own supporters. But postponing the election repeatedly carries its own dangers. It will habituate the president into acting outside the constitution and strengthen those who are advocating Gotabaya rule.
On June 2, Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court dismissed a number of petitions challenging the decision of the election commsion to hold the polls on June 20. This was regarded by many as a vindication of Rajapakshe's actions to dissolve the parliament and his refusal to call the parliament into session.
#Maurata Cartoon. #SLConstitution #SriLanka #lk pic.twitter.com/LUbxsGq6Xa
— Shanika Somatilake (@Nikshazz) June 7, 2020
However, educator Dr. Asanga Welikala disagrees with the court decision:
Sri Lanka enters contra-constitutional rule today, 2 June 2020.
No Parliament elected and meeting. No legally scheduled date for election or meeting of another Parliament.
The Constitution set aside, when there’ll be another Parliament is now at the sole discretion of one man.
— Dr Asanga Welikala (@welikalaa) June 2, 2020
On June 10, Election Commission Chairman Mahinda Deshapriya announced that the date of the election will be rescheduled for the second time to August 5.
Along with the announcement of the August 5 polls, the Election Commission also published its health guidelines for conducting the election amid the COVID-19 outbreak. Salient features include:
The Election Commission has so far arranged two mock polls to test the preparedness of people during the pandemic.
LOOK: The Asian Network for Free Elections (@Anfrel) is at the Menerigama Primary School in Kalutara District today, 14 June 2020 to observe the mock poll of the Election Commission of #SriLanka. #Election pic.twitter.com/HnbW0M3Wlc
— ANFREL (@Anfrel) June 14, 2020
Many election candidates are spending on social media ads for their political campaigns. According to reports, Facebook will release information on the advertisement spendings of Sri Lankan political candidates.
The European Commission, meanwhile, has decided not to send a full-fledged observer mission for the August 5 polls citing COVID-19.
Very worrying. Amid rampant militarisation + repression of dissent in Sri Lanka- and just 9 mos after an election which saw a large # of electoral violations, incl voter intimidation – a Parliamentary poll w/o meaningful ext monitoring carries huge risks https://t.co/PKYJLQTwM2
— Sri Lanka Campaign (@SLcampaign) June 19, 2020
As Sri Lanka is set to open its borders to tourism once again on August 1 as a step towards resuming normalcy, it remains to be seen how free and fair the election will be.

author: Rezwan


text:
In the wake of Black Lives Matter’s protests, death of black 5-year-old becomes symbol of Brazil’s racism and inequality · Global Voices
Fernanda Canofre

A protester holds a sign saying ‘what if it was the employer’ son? Justice for Miguel. Image: Mídia NINJA/CC BY-NC 2.0
On June 2, Mirtes de Souza, a domestic worker at an upper-class family home in the northeastern Brazilian city of Recife, brought her 5-year-old son Miguel to her workplace. While nurseries and schools have been shut in Recife since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mirtes wasn't granted time off by her employers.T
That day, Mirtes asked her white boss to mind Miguel while she went out to walk the house dog. When she came back, she found her son on the ground floor of the building after an apparent fall. Miguel was taken to the hospital alive, but didn't survive.
CCTV images obtained by the police later showed Mirtes’ boss, Sari Côrte Real, placing Miguel into an elevator by himself, and pressing the button to one of the top floors of the building. Images then show Miguel leaving the elevator on the ninth floor where, authorities later deduced, he climbed an unprotected gallery with air-conditioners, and fell.
Côrte Real was arrested and charged with manslaughter but released after paying a 20,000 BRL bail (around 4,000 US dollars). Police says it's investigating the possibility that Miguel was pushed from the ninth floor.
In the wake of George Floyd's protests in Brazil, the case sparked outrage on social media, with many considering Miguel's death yet another example of the racism Brazil's black citizens endure.
When local media avoided releasing Sari's name and photos (social media users eventually uncovered them), Mirtes gave an interview to TV Globo that went viral:
Se fosse eu, meu rosto estaria estampado, como já vi vários casos na TV. Meu nome estaria estampado e meu rosto estaria em todas as mídias. Mas o dela não pode estar na mídia, não pode ser divulgado. (…) Espero que a Justiça seja feita, porque se fosse o contrário, eu acredito que nem teria direito a fiança. Foi uma vida que se foi, por falta de paciência para tirar dali de dentro. Deixar uma criança sozinha dentro de um elevador, isso não se faz. Uma criança que foi confiada a ela.
If it was me, my face would be on the front pages, as I’ve seen happening many times on TV. My name would be on the headlines and my face would be everywhere. But hers can’t be in the media, it can’t be made public. (…) I hope that justice is served, because if it was the other way around, I think I wouldn’t even have the right to post bail. A life is gone, because of a lack of patience. To leave a child on their own, in an elevator, you can’t do that. A child that was entrusted to her.
Miguel's story quickly became national news. Many have seen it as a symbol of the worst in Brazil, especially its systemic racism against black citizens.
Brazil forcibly brought around 5 million Africans to work as slaves in a period spanning 400 years — over ten times more than the United States. Brazil was also the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery (in 1888).
But Miguel's death was also a reminder of Brazil's rampant corruption and inequality, and how both have been exacerbated in the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mirtes had no choice but to keep working during the pandemic in order to provide for her family. She wasn't an exception: The first COVID-19 death registered in Rio de Janeiro, in March, was of a domestic worker who was also impeded to quarantine by her employer.
In an interview, Mirtes said that she, her mother, and her son Miguel all had tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19's virus), but their symptoms were mild.
Brazil registered over one million cases of the new coronavirus as of June 22, and over 50,000 deaths. It's second on both counts only to the United States.
Meanwhile, Mirtes’ employer Sari, a white woman living in one of the wealthiest areas of Recife, was a member of a traditional political family in the state of Pernambuco. Sari's husband, Sérgio Hacker, is the mayor of Tamandaré, a small town 100 km away from Recife to where Mirtes says she was frequently brought over by the family.
Following Miguel’s death, it was revealed that Mirtes had been hired as a public employee of Tamandaré. According to the registry, Mirtes had a management position in the city hall, earning 1,517 BRL — Brazil’s minimum wage is 1,045 BRL (282 and 194 US dollars respectively). Mirtes said she never worked for the city hall and denied knowing that she was officially hired as such. The case is under investigation.
QUEREMOS JUSTIÇA POR MIGUEL!
Em Recife, manifestantes realizam intervenção em protesto na frete do local onde Miguel morreu, o condomínio de luxo conhecido como Torres Gêmeas.
20 mil é a vida de uma criança negra pobre e a dor de uma mãe.
Fotos: Ernesto de Carvalho pic.twitter.com/6CdwWQgEU5
— Mídia NINJA (@MidiaNINJA) June 5, 2020
WE WANT JUSTICE FOR MIGUEL!
In Recife, protesters make an intervention in front of the place where Miguel died, the luxury condo known as Twin Towers. 20,000 is the life of a poor black child and a mother's pain.
Miguel’s death sparked protests in the streets of Recife and on social media. The building where it happened made it even more symbolic to activists: its construction has been marred in controversy as it's located in a protected historical area.
On June 5, dozens of protesters, alongside Miguel’s family, marched towards the buildings, where Corte Real and her family lives. People laid down on the street to remember how the child died.
“Eu quero minha mãe”, manifestantes protestaram hoje no Recife, em memória e por justiça ao pequeno Miguel, de 5 anos. #justicaparamiguel pic.twitter.com/0fYVW5kKZA
— Mídia NINJA (@MidiaNINJA) June 6, 2020
“I want my mother”, protesters today in Recife, in memory and asking for justice to little Miguel, age 5.
Miguel's death was also remembered in Brazil's protests against racism in the wake of the death of George Floyd in the United States and the Black Lives Matter movement.
Another case remembered at the protests was of João Pedro, a black 14-year-old killed by the police inside his own home in Rio de Janeiro on May 18.
A collective of daughters and sons of domestic workers, created in March to ask for social isolation rights for their parents, published a note reminding that what happened to Miguel could have happened to any of them:
O que aconteceu com Miguel, 5 anos, escancara mais uma vez a DESIGUALDADE, o RACISMO, o CLASSISMO.
O direito negado ao isolamento que nossa mães vivem.
Quantos de nós morreram na casa grande?
Quanto terão que morrer nos prédios para algo ser feito?
What happened with Miguel, 5 years-old, opened wide the INEQUALITY, RACISM, CLASSISM. The denied right for isolation that are mothers are facing. How many of us died in the big house? How many will have to die in the buildings until something is done?

author: Fernanda Canofre


text:
Remembering Amadou Diallo, a Guinean victim of police brutality in the USA · Global Voices
Abdoulaye Bah

Amadou Diallo anti-police brutality march in front of the White House, February 15, 1999, Elvert Xavier Barnes Protest Photography via Flickr CC BY 2.0.
The recent surge of Black Lives Matter protests in the United States highlights a long history of police brutality targeted against Black Americans.
On May 25, George Floyd, a Black man, was killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Since his death, protesters and activists have taken to the streets, speaking out the names of countless others who have died at the hands of the police, including the assassination of young Guinean Amadou Diallo who came to the USA to study.
Diallo, 23, was brutally shot 41 times at the entrance of his apartment on February 4, 1999, by four New York City plainclothes police officers who were part of a now-defunct “street crimes unit.” The four say Diallo was a rape suspect and that they thought he had a gun on him — he was only carrying his wallet, however.
The four cops, Edward McMellon, Sean Carroll, Kenneth Boss and Richard Murphy, were all charged with second-degree murder, but were all acquitted — as is often the case that police benefit from total impunity in American courts. This acquittal enraged many Americans of all races and led to national protests.
Police officer Boss remains on the police force but was “reassigned his gun” in 2012. Officer Carrol offered an “emotional apology” to the family, but not until much later, according to writer Janus Marton.
New York “has been the world’s greatest experiment in multiculturalism for centuries, drawing ambitious people with dreams and talent from across the country and the world to its five boroughs,” recalls Marton, who remembers how the four officers’ trials took place in Albany, a nearby city, because of concern that they “could not obtain a fair trial in the Bronx,” the New York City borough where Diallo was killed.
Decades after Diallo's murder, Black Lives Matter protesters remember the circumstances of his brutal killing by New York City police officers, citing New York Governor Andrew Cuomo for his passivity on police accountability.
Jesse McKinley, Albany bureau chief for the New York Times, wrote:
NEW: Families of victims of NYPD police killings – Amadou Diallo, Ramarley Graham, Kimani Gray, among others – issue scathing letter to @NYGovCuomo, saying he has been “one of the most consistent obstacles” to police accountability.
Letter here: https://t.co/oFTSof5SE3
— Jesse McKinley (@jessemckinley) June 15, 2020
Amadou Diallo anti-police brutality march in front of the White House, February 15, 1999, Elvert Xavier Barnes Protest Photography via Flickr CC BY 2.0.
Diallo was born in Liberia to Guinean parents, Saikou Diallo and Kadiatou Diallo, as the oldest of four, explains Ayodale Braimah, an African writer. His parents exported gemstones between Africa and Asia, giving Diallo the chance to study in various countries, including Thailand, where he lived for a time with his mother after his parents divorced.
Kadiatou Diallo, Amadou's mother, is a fighter who married at the age of 13 and was pregnant with Diallo at 16. She educated herself and started a business in Thailand.
As an English student, he was drawn to American culture. In 1996, Diallo followed his family to New York City and started a business with a cousin. He worked for a while as a street vendor with aspirations to study English and computer science.
Kadiatou Diallo, Diallo's mother, was in Guinea when she received the news that her son had been shot by police officers. She traveled to the USA and started fighting for his memory, becoming “a symbol of the struggle against police brutality” in the United States who uses her experience to empower others, wrote Charisma Speakers, a blogger.
“Mrs. Diallo humanizes the tragedy of racial profiling and police brutality and continues to aggressively work with community leaders to bring about change,” Charisma Speakers continued.
The Diallo family sued the New York Police Department in a $61 million wrongful death lawsuit and eventually settled for $3 million, according to Alexandra Starr with Public Radio International, who wrote about the legacy of Diallo's killing in 2014, on the fifteenth anniversary of his death: “They used some of that money to create the Amadou Diallo Foundation and scholarship fund in 2005,” and students continue to receive scholarships until today.
On the fourth anniversary of Amadou Diallo's death, New York City unveiled a sign for Amadou Diallo Place in the Bronx to honor his memory.
Kadiatou Diallo has worked with 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, a legal advocacy group to improve policing in New York City, and has also worked with local politicians to pass a racial profiling law in Albany, New York.
In 2004, Kadiatou Diallo wrote an award-winning book called, “My Heart Will Cross This Ocean: My Story, My Son, Amadou.” She was featured in the documentary, “Death of Two Sons,” in 2006, and “Every Mother’s Son,” about three mothers who each lost an unarmed child at the hands of the New York Police Department.
Diallo's tragedy has inspired more than 20 songs, five docuseries and two films.
The Black Lives Matter protests that erupted in response to George Floyd's murder by police prompted many Twitter users to invoke the name of Amadou Diallo, over 20 years since the brutal killing.
Netflix's docuseries “Trial by Media”, ep.3 “41 Shots”.
4 NYPD officers in 1999 shot 41 shots at Amadou Diallo, 19 of which struck and killed him, outside his apartment. Diallo was unarmed. All 4 officers were charged with second-degree murder, but all 4 were found not guilty.
— clara || BLM (@quiteclara) June 16, 2020
I’m old enough to remember AMADOU DIALLO and ABNER LOUIMA. Enough is enough. More than 20 years later we have not turned the page. Stop telling black people what they should have done or what they should do to not get killed. It’s the other way around.
— Marla Wolfson (@marla_vous) June 15, 2020
So African (@Mx_chichi), an anthropologist, writes:
This is the same New York police that promoted Kenneth Boss of of the men who killed Amadou Diallo. After shooting Diallo 41 times & bullets hitting his body 19 times. The NY cops involved were never held accountable. They said “bas! Tumesema sorry!” & They were “forgiven” https://t.co/ObcCcrVU9u
— So African (@Mx_chichi) June 10, 2020
Felonious Munk, an Ethiopian American comedian, writer and actor, recalls the names of other Black American men who were killed at the hands of police in the United States:
Obama was president when Mike Brown, Eric Garner, amd Tamir Rice we're killed. Clinton was president when Amadou Diallo (and countless others) were killed. Who do we vote for to get them to stop killing Black people with impunity? https://t.co/BNUblvl3E9
— Felonious Munk ?? (@Felonious_munk) May 30, 2020

author: Abdoulaye Bah


text:
Wikipedia project boosts Taiwan’s hundreds-strong Sakizaya-speaking community · Global Voices
Subhashish Panigrahi

The Sakizaya people. Screen capture from Youtube.
In November 2019, Wikipedia editors who are native speakers of the Sakizaya language of Taiwan got the perfect gift — a Wikipedia for their own language.
There are 299 active Wikipedias in 299 different languages. The Sakizaya Wikipitiya, as it is called in Sakizaya language, currently has 1,759 articles written by around 40 active volunteer editors.
Like all Wikipedias, it is open to all for reading and contributions. Wikipedia editing largely involves creating new encyclopedic content, editing existing articles, and translating existing content from other languages on Wikipedia.
The Taiwan government only recognized Sakizaya people as a distinct ethnic group from 2007. For 129 years prior to that, the group had been classified as Amis in ethnic classifications. This was because people belonging to the Sakizaya group began to intentionally hide their ethnic identity after a devastating battle with Qing invaders in the late 19th Century which is referred to by the Sakizaya as the “Takubuwan Battle”.
Currently the indigenous community is based mostly in the cities of Keelung, Taoyuan City, New Taipei, and Hualien County.
The official population of the community was 985 as of January 2020.
Below is a short video on the history of Sakizaya people produced by The Council of Indigenous Peoples:
To learn more about the development of Sakizaya Wikipedia and the digital activism efforts behind it, Rising Voices reached out to Lami Tsai-Wei Hung, one of the active editors of the Wikipedia and a PhD scholar in the Department of Ethnic Relations and Cultures at the National Dong Hwa University in Taiwan.
Lami has also helped to run the Sakizaya mentor-apprentice program funded by Taiwan government.
What is the current state of the Sakizaya language and how is it used in everyday life, education and media?
: Along with six other indigenous languages in Taiwan, Sakizaya is classified as “critically endangered” by UNESCO. For its vitality, Ethnologue, a guide on living languages of the world, classifies the language as “institutional,” meaning the language has been developed to the point that it is used and sustained by institutions beyond home and community settings. However, Ethnologue’s assessment may not reflect actual status.
Though the 2020 statistics suggests that there are about 985 registered members of Sakizaya, the number of actual speakers could be as low as 590 as it hasn’t been fully passed down to the younger generation. Many Sakizaya elders above 55 might be fluent, yet urban dwellers and youths might not be.
While there’s no designated TV channel or radio station in Sakizaya, the Taiwan Indigenous TV (TITV) and the FM96.3 Alian Radio broadcast in local indigenous languages including Sakizaya. However, the lead anchors are in their sixties and therefore [lack] young audiences.
The government has become more aware of the [need to use] indigenous languages along with Mandarin for public announcements. While it has made policies more indigenous-friendly and brought more subsidies to language revitalization programs, this has not helped much in raising public interest.
: Can you elaborate more about the use of Sakizaya in education?
: So we have this mandatory “native language curriculum” for everyone till 9th grade, which takes place one hour per week. Students can enroll in any preferred language as long as the school has a teacher for it. And if a student intends to learn Sakizaya, the school is obliged to find them a teacher for the language. At the moment, there are about 15 teachers and 60 students for Sakizaya in elementary schools and junior high schools across the country.
: Wikipedia in a new language is always a huge challenge for the community as there is a need for published resources like noted newspapers, journals, books, etc. What resources have you provided to bring Sakizaya Wikipedia live?
: Some contributors built on existing entries in (traditional) Chinese and English Wikipedia by translating them into Sakizaya. This makes the job easier because they can use the references already cited in the related entries. Meanwhile, some referred encyclopedias when making entries on indigenous herbs. These are two practices that we recommended to our community as they save time. Some went further and did additional research on Google, YouTube, newspapers and academic publications for entries that weren’t covered yet in Wikipedia. Some even wrote about basketball players, comics books, American TV series and anything that interests them. Of course, elders with in-depth knowledge concerning the Sakizaya people, their history and their places of heritage usually work on [articles] on their own, with maybe some technical assistance from young people.
How large and active is the editor community at the moment? Do you have a specific focus area as a community?
We have about 30 active editors right now. -Ten of them are from the Mentor-Apprentice Program funded by the government. Tuku and I designed the Sakizaya program under this framework. It has been running for two years now and will conclude its first term by the end of 2020. To foster commitment, participants in the program are provided with long-term subsidies as they cultivate their language skills. And this program requires that they contribute to the Wikipedia project on a monthly basis — with entries or maintenance work. The remaining editors are those who have been contributing since the inception of Sakizaya Wikipedia on Wikimedia Incubator.
: Are there any ongoing initiatives to raise awareness of COVID-19 (coronavirus) on Sakizaya Wikipedia?
: COVID-19 is too enormous to be ignored. Because one of the Mentor-Apprentice program’s goals is to make Sakizaya part of our modern life, we designated a whole session of our class to it. So far, we have published two COVID-19 entries—  COVID-19 and “satebuc nu kitakit” (catastrophes worldwide).
: Tell us more about your future plans as a community.
: We definitely need to expand our editing community much more and encourage them to write on a regular basis. However, not all native speakers are familiar with Sakizaya grammar, use of computers and Wikipedia editing.
In contrast, those who are privileged with computer access and capable of editing are most likely not very fluent in the language. Many have difficulty incorporating Wikipedia editing into their daily routine. So I proposed a plan for training workshops and editing competitions and hopefully both will be rolled out soon. We will make circuits of workshops among seven of our tribes so that elders and youths can be paired up for editing. Young people can make drafts in Chinese and then ask the elders to rephrase or translate the content into Sakizaya, or the elders can orally narrate for the youth to type up. Still, we hope young people will be able to do it all by themselves some day.
We are planning to take advantage of social media in growing the community. For example, we will announce a topic every month on Facebook and invite followers who are native speakers and/or active learners to join us in strengthening Sakizaya Wikipedia. We hope this will help them stay engaged, while helping us locate potential candidates for further mentoring.
: How do you plan to collaborate with like-minded organizations and Wikipedia editors from Taiwan and other countries?
: While Sakizaya Wikipedia was being developed in the Incubator, we worked very closely with the Center for Aboriginal Studies at the National Chengchi University, which encouraged every indigenous language student to start a Wikipedia project in their own language on Wikimedia Incubator. We have also been in touch with Wikimedia Taiwan, an affiliated local Wikimedia Chapter. The Center along with Wikimedia Taiwan has provided our Wikipedia community with technical and consultative assistance. Both organizations have continued to support us to this day.
*****
Nuwatan o Kumud, a Sakizaya elder, told of his struggle to learn how to edit Wikipedia and encouraged young Sakizaya speakers to join the community in an audio message.
Below is an excerpt of the message transcribed and translated by Buting Nukay and Miku Kumud:
Step by step, I gradually learned to write and edit Wikipedia [entries]. What I have written down is everything I think needed to be documented. These are the footsteps and tribal affairs of our people. I want to put them all onto Wikipedia…I think you can do it — learning to edit Wikipedia [entries] while working with a mouse in front of the computer. If even I can learn to do so, youngsters like you with a flexible mind should have no problem at all.

author: Subhashish Panigrahi


text:
Beach destinations in Albania face an unusual summer tourist season · Global Voices
Ardi Pulaj

A beach in southern Albania. Photo by Ardi Pulaj, used with permission
Most years, reservations at the iconic Adriatik Hotel in the Albanian port city of Durrës are at a premium. But 2020, the year of the coronavirus pandemic, is not “most years”.
The hotel reopened its doors on May 18, as the country emerged from a lockdown that saw its beaches as well as its borders with neighbouring countries closed until the beginning of June.
Despite the relaxations, reservations are down 85%, according to general manager Nevila Dudaj.
“We had many reservations for the summer season 2020 from the fall of 2019 and they stopped during the first week of March,” she said.
“A few guests with valid reservations postponed their stay for the next year, but most of our guests asked for refunds, bringing financial difficulties to us,” said Dudaj, who also runs the U.S. based Adriatik Tours agency.
“The recovery of the tourism sector will take time one to two years at least,” Dudaj predicted grimly.
Anti COVID-19 measures displayed in Adriatik Hotel in Durrës beach, Albania. Photo by Ardi Pulaj, used with permission.
Not everyone has as much to complain about.
Dhërmi, in southern Albania, is a small coastal town located between Himarë and Vlorë. It is famous among Albanians and foreigners for its incredibly beautiful beaches and laid-back atmosphere.
2 Lips, a bar, restaurant and hotel located on Dhërmi's beach, typically welcomes tourists from the UK, Poland, Czech Republic, Belgium, Austria, France and Italy. Chinese tourists rocked up there for the first time last year.
Ernis Osmanaj, the owner of 2 Lips said that reservations this year are roughly equal with last year.
“The only difference is that for this season our customers are from Tirana, and not from the UK as last year,” said Osmanaj.
For Osmanaj, persuading customers to follow anti-COVID-19 protocols is the hardest thing. Customers have to submit to temperature checks and disinfection as they enter and exit the premises, he said.
Protocols put in place by Albania's government mandate that hotels and resorts employ an anti-COVID-19 “coordinator” to oversee such measures. Staff must wear masks and gloves at all times.
Moving further south, the coastal city of Saranda, has also been preparing for a difficult summer.
This is where tourists can see ancient ruins of Butrint National Park and enjoy a stroll on a charming promenade as well as the luscious beaches.
In February Saranda gatecrashed Tripadvisor’s annual ranking of up-and-coming travel destinations, coming second, after Kaliningrad in Russia.
Seaside Artist Hotel in Saranda, photo provided by the management, used with permission.
At the Seaside Artist, a family-run restaurant and hotel in Saranda, reservations are down by 60% in comparison with last year. August reservations include tourists from Italy, while September promises to bring tourists from Bulgaria, Germany and Greece.
“This season we have had many cancellations due to the uncertainty of the pandemic situation. We will work last minute this season. Saranda hasn't had a single case of coronavirus and is ready to welcome tourists,” Rudina Toska from Seaside Artist hotel and restaurant said.
Ejiris Shoshi helps hotels in Ksamil, close to Saranda, deal with bookings coming from online travel agencies. She is in direct contact with tourists who are spending their holidays on the Albanian Ionian sea coast. This year 72% of the reservations have been cancelled.
In Ksamil there has been a significant decrease in the number of Scandinavian tourists over the last two years — the destination is becoming popular with visitors from Poland, Ukraine, Romania and Russia instead.
The private beach of Abalone hotel in Ksamil. Photo by Ardi Pulaj, used with permission.
“The very few reservations that we received are for August and September. It's an unpredictable season, due to the fact that local tourists book last minute and foreign tourists — limited to those who will have the financial means to travel this year — are unclear on how they can come, ” Shoshi said.
“The main concern of foreign tourists has been the travel — the border closures not only by Albania, but also by all the transit countries.”
Shoshi's agency, in cooperation with hotels in the area, have poured money into advertising campaigns on social media, setting their sights firmly on the domestic market.
Nevila Dudaj from Adriatik Hotel and Adriatik Tours agency said that the contribution of the ethnic Albanian diaspora is very important for the recovery of the tourism industry.
“Even at the New York Times Travel Show in January 2020, where I participated, I appealed to all Albanians, wherever they are, to visit and spend their holidays in Albania, as Albanian tourism should be supported by them. And now, more than ever, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we need their support”, Dudaj says.
So far, tourists from Kosovo and the Western Balkans region have joined domestic tourists holidaying at Albania's beaches.
There are presently 2,047 registered coronavirus infections in Albania, which have resulted in 45 deaths.

author: Ardi Pulaj