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What will a US ban on WeChat mean for Chinese netizens? · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Image from Stand News. Used with permission.
United States President Donald Trump signed on August 7 two separate executive orders that will ban TikTok and WeChat from operating in the country within 45 days if they are not sold by their Chinese parent companies to US firms.
The orders will prohibit “any transactions by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States,” with ByteDance Ltd in the case of Tiktok and Tencent Holdings Ltd in the case of WeChat.
While ByteDance is in negotiations with Microsoft over the purchase of TikTok, WeChat will probably face a straight ban as it is unlikely that Tencent will sell the app to a US company.
Both apps have been under fire by the Trump administration, which cites “national security” concerns as relations between the US and China are increasingly hostile.
With the majority of the Western social media and messaging apps such as Facebook, Twitter, and Telegram all blocked in China, WeChat remains a major channel for business and social communication between mainland Chinese people and their overseas contacts.
A complete ban could force them to establish other channels for future communication. In fact, within a day, the messaging app LINE has seen a surge of 213 percent in downloads following the news of the WeChat ban. Small businesses that rely on advertising income from WeChat could also be affected if US banks forbid transactions with Tencent.
While many in the West have criticized Trump's ban, citing violations of free speech and distraction from more pressing domestic issues, some overseas Chinese dissents see the decision with positive eyes.
For example, anonymous mainland Chinese Twitter user @ayanami789 tweeted:
微信被禁之后，可以让境外华人远离党的洗脑网络，开始接触新的世界，多好。
— 七濑⁷⛩Ω-7型自动冲塔少女? (@ayanami789) August 7, 2020
WeChat ban could free overseas Chinese from the CCP brainwshing network. They would start exploring the new world. This is great.
Chinese political cartoonist Badiucao also defended the ban in a series of tweets:
Wechat surveillance controls and manipulates its users regardless where about and nationalities.
It is the the most important mean for Chinese government to export its propaganda and censorship beyond its soil […] tolerating WeChat like apps create a paradox for free speech.
and because its made in China, its technically not possible to fix or regulate it either […]
App like WeChat is like a mobile “Great Fire Wall”.
it changes people’ habit of free speech via its user attachment with Chinese market.
Banning WeChat will push people seek alternatives inside and out China
TikTok, a video-sharing mobile app that reportedly has been downloaded 175 million times in the US has been criticized for automatically collecting location data and digital traces such as browsing history and shopping lists.
In November 2019, the app shut down the account of a US teenager after she highlighted the Chinese government's human rights abuses in Xinjiang on a makeup tutorial. TikTok later reactivated the user's account and apologized for what it said was a “human moderation mistake.” A report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute alleges that ByteDance plays “an active role in disseminating party-state's propaganda on Xinjiang.”
As for WeChat, a multi-functional mobile app that provides a variety of user services including content sharing, news subscription, electronic payment, messaging, and online shopping, there have been a number of reports indicating that the app monitors and censors private conversations, filters out content at the request of the Chinese authorities, and has deleted content posted by politicians in Canada and Australia who used the app to reach out to their Chinese diaspora constituents.
Trump’s executive order is the administration's first concrete step since the announcement of the expansion of the Clean Network Program by State Secretary Michael Pompeo on August 5. The program intends to exclude telecommunication networks, applications, smartphone manufacturers, cloud hosting services, and undersea cables from “untrusted People’s Republic of China,” as the press release says, from accessing the US market.
The spokesperson of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Wang Wenbin, criticized Trump’s ban as violating “free-market principles” and urged Washington to “correct its mistakes.”
BBC’s Chinese correspondent Stephen McDonell suggested that the Chinese official reaction was ironic given that a number of US apps have been banned in China for years:
From today’s #China Daily: With Facebook, Google, Twitter, YouTube etc etc all blocked here I don’t know how they can put the paper together with a straight face. The #US has “abused national power to suppress and contain high tech enterprises”… “violates fair competition”. pic.twitter.com/yfO2uA9yrp
— Stephen McDonell (@StephenMcDonell) August 7, 2020


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‘Wiki Loves Africa’ 2020 features images of a continent on the move · Global Voices
Amanda Lichtenstein

“My Homeland,” photo by Mohammed Yousry, Lake Burullus, Egypt, February 23, 2019, via Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0.
A quick search for images from or about Africa on Google often drudges up reductive, cliché and exploitative images of a monolithic continent in perpetual despair.
Wiki in Africa, a South African-based nonprofit founded in 2016, aims to diversify the “single story of Africa” that Nigerian writer Chimamanda Adichie lamented in her renowned 2009 TED Talk, “The Danger of a Single Story.” Their founders asked:
By 2020, Africa’s community of mobile users is expected to swell to 725 million. With so many Africans being exposed to a ‘single story’ about their continent – will they, too, believe that this narrative is true?
To “rebalance the type and diversity of information and perspectives” of Africa online, the organization has hosted a continent-wide photo contest since 2016 called “Wiki Loves Africa,” that encourages photographers to contribute Africa-relevant media to Wikimedia around a particular theme. This year, the theme is transportation — to capture the widest range of images of Africa on the move.
On Wikimedia, with 18 billion page views and nearly 500 million unique visitors each month, there is a dearth of acceptable images of and about Africa. “Most content relating to Africa has been written by editors who have no connection to Africa,” explains Wiki in Africa. In fact, Wikimedia content providers are “disproportionately male, young, and from countries in the Global North.” Half are under 22 and at least 91 percent of Wikimedia editors are male, according to Wikimedia.
Between February 15 to April 15, 1,904 competitors submitted 16,982 media files of Africa-related content from about 53 countries. Top winners received cash prizes based on decisions made from an international jury. These images were viewed approximately 3.1 million times in June 2020 alone.
Here are the award-winning images of Africa on the move in 2020:
“My Homeland,” by Mohammed Yousry, Lake Burullus, Egypt, February 23, 2019, via Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0.
“Bread delivery by bicycle,” photo by Abd Elhamid Fawzy Abd Elhamid Tahoun, Egypt, 2020, CC BY-SA 4.0.
“A Mess,” photo by Summer Kamal Eldeen Mohamed Farag, Alexandria, Egypt, 2020, CC BY-SA 4.0.
“Salt transport by a camel train in Ethiopia,” photo by Olivier Siret, Lake Asssale (Karum) Ethiopia, 2020, CC BY-SA 4.0.
“Me and You,” photo by Mohamed Hozyen, Egypt, via Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0.
“Busy schedule,” by Kelly Bissue, Accra market, Accra, Ghana, CC BY-SA 4.0.
“Crazy horse ride,” photo by Ewien van Bergeijk Kwant, Senegal, 2020, via Wikimedia CC BY-SA 4.0.
“Khartoum, Africa road tunnel,” photo by Mohammed Abdelmoneim Hashim Mohammed, Khartoum International Airport Road, Sudan, March 13, 2020, via Wikimedia CC BY-SA 4.0.
And a prize-winning video “Le Transport Lagunaire a Abidjan realisé par Bouba Kam's,” or “Lagoon Transport in Abidjan, realized by Bouba Kam's,” by filmmaker Aboubacar Kamate:
In addition to overall winners, national teams also identified winners per country.
For example, Team Tanzania announced their winners on Twitter:
Team Tanzania announces their Wiki Loves Africa winners! 1st prize is for A transportation van at sunset by RahimMngwaya; 2nd place goes to Makunduchi, Zanzibar by Erasmus Kamugisha and 3rd to African Sport utility vehicle by Rasheedhrasheed. https://t.co/mpu5P6uCQ4 pic.twitter.com/IcWPFY9GsF
— WikiLovesAfrica (@wikilovesafrica) June 11, 2020
Team Ghana announced their local winners:
Team Ghana has announced the Ghana winners for Wiki Loves Africa 2020. 1st prize to Africa's Coastal Transport by User:Wisdom Kwesi mensah Abekah, 2nd prize to Train In Accra 004 by User:NanaYawBotar and 3rd to Transport hors gabarit by User:Cyriac Gbogou https://t.co/8dmgbY4djr pic.twitter.com/XJJLzVK0Hs
— WikiLovesAfrica (@wikilovesafrica) June 23, 2020
And Wikimedia Nigeria announced its first prize photo entitled, “Moving upstream”:
@Alaminjos is the overall winner of the just concluded Wiki Loves Africa 2020 in Nigeria with his photo titled, Moving upstream. CCBY-SA4.0. The gift was presented by proxy to one of his friends in Lagos.https://t.co/nXnzqzKFHW@WikiCommons @Wikipedia @Wikimedia @wikilovesafrica pic.twitter.com/0CZLEWkbIc
— Wikimedia Nigeria (@WikimediaNG) July 30, 2020
Activists, writers, scholars and photographers have worked hard especially over the last 10 years to diversify content and counter negative narratives about Africa online, but colonial, racist narratives persist through images that dominate with just a few keyboard clicks.
Clearly, Africa is not just its despair, but it is also not just its riches — or its past. When American singer Beyoncé recently put out her visual album, “Black is King,” there was major backlash over its reductive representations of Africa that perpetuate narrowly imagined fantasies of the continent.
South Africa writer Pababllo Chauke takes issue with this “corrective representation,” or — “showing Africa solely as ‘better off’ through a capitalist lens.”  In his essay, “Black is not king, queen or peasant — black is complex,” Chauke writes:
Africa is many things, not just one: We need to treat it with complexity.
“Motherlandization” is the term Chauke uses to describe the “process, conscious or subconscious, overt or covert, intentional or unintentional, by African Americans to romanticize and reduce Africa to a monolithic, frozen and fixed ‘motherland’ that serves their views. They treat Africa as a repository for their use and consumption,” he writes.
By encouraging submissions of more diverse open-source photos of Africa in all its complexity, Wiki in Africa hopes that:
[T]ruthful information, correctly placed on a platform that is open and accessible to all, can fundamentally change how people both within and outside Africa view and interact with the continent.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Amanda Lichtenstein


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In Pakistan, a man accused of blasphemy was shot dead in a courtroom. His killer was hailed as a hero. · Global Voices
R Umaima Ahmed

Photo by Donald Tong/Pexels. Used under Pexels License.
A 57-year-old man was shot dead in a Peshawar courtroom as he was being trialed for blasphemy on July 29. The killer, 24, was arrested immediately — it's unclear how he managed to bypass the court's security with a fire weapon.
Tahir Ahmad Naseem was a Pakistani-American citizen who used to post videos online claiming he was some sort of prophet. In 2018, he was arrested by Peshawar police and charged with multiple counts of blasphemy after a madrassa student lodged complaints against him.
The student presented to the authorities private online conversations in which Naseem claimed to be a prophet of Islam, which is a violation of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws.
Muslims believe that Prophet Muhammad was the last messenger of God and that any subsequent claim of prophethood is heresy.
Naseem was facing the death penalty in the trial for “defiling the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad”.
Twitter user @bohutkhoob said:
Tahir Ahmad Naseem was gunned down today in a court hearing. He was accused of blasphemy 2 years ago by a teenager, who had documented their conversation in an online platform and then filed a case against him to the local police.
— amina (@bohutkhoob) July 29, 2020
Soon after the incident, people in the courtroom were seen pulling out their phones to take photos and videos of the victim. A video showing Tahir's body lying on a bench went viral on Pakistani social media. Another viral video showed the killer in police custody saying that Prophet Muhammad had appeared in his dreams and told him to kill Naseem.
Journalist Naila Inayat shared photos of Tahir laying dead in the courtroom after being shot:
Man under trial for #blasphemy shot dead inside a courtroom in Peshawar. Shooter said he ‘defended Islam’ by killing accused. Tahir Ahmed was booked for claiming to be a prophet in 2018. He had told the court that he suffered from mental illness & was unaware of the consequences. pic.twitter.com/MoF37nkaSU
— Naila Inayat नायला इनायत (@nailainayat) July 29, 2020
Initially, some claimed that Naseem belonged to the Ahmadiyya community, which has faced persecution and hate campaigns since a Constitutional Amendment declared its members to be non-Muslim in 1974. An Ahmadiyya community spokesperson tweeted that Naseem had left that group many years previously:
In a tragic incident today a man was shot dead in front of a judge in Peshawar. It is being reported that he was Ahmadi, which is not true. He was born Ahmadi but left the community many years ago. /1
— Saleem ud Din (@SaleemudDinAA) July 29, 2020
On July 31, thousands of people rallied in Peshawar in support of the killer. They carried placards praising the act and demanded his release from jail, alleging that the government is “too slow” in prosecuting blasphemy cases.
Ihsan Tipu, a Journalist covering Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province for The New York Times, tweeted a video of the rally that was held in support of the killer:
Thousands rallied on Friday in Peshawar to express solidarity with a man who killed Tahir Ahmad Naseem, an American citizen, accused of blasphemy inside a courtroom in Peshawar. pic.twitter.com/PMcoC5DOke
— Ihsan Tipu Mehsud (@IhsanTipu) July 31, 2020
Pakistani celebrities such as actor Shahroz Sabzwari publicly praised the killer, and hashtags in his support also went viral. The senior leader of Jamiat Ulama-e-Islam – Fazl (JUI-F), Mufti Kifayatullah, tweeted in support of Khalid:
ملکی تاریخ میں آج پہلی دفعہ عدالت میں انصاف دیکھنے کو ملا https://t.co/C4iWzt1A2U
— Mufti Kifayatullah (@MuftiKifayatJUI) July 29, 2020
In the Country's history this is the first time we have witnessed justice in the court of law.
As the killer was taken to custody, lawyers and police officers posed for selfies with him.
Ihsan Tipu tweeted:
Peshawar elite police squad poses for a selfie with Faisal alias Khalid who last week killed Tahir Ahmad Naseem in a courtroom over blasphemy charges. pic.twitter.com/vpNw5fmj5C
— Ihsan Tipu Mehsud (@IhsanTipu) August 3, 2020
This shows how deep the issue of blasphemy runs in Pakistan: Facebook page & profile apparently of this leading figure in the country's ruling party's branch in Sindh Province has changed profile pics to that of the killer who shot an alleged blasphemer in court in Peshawar today pic.twitter.com/dfqoxK69oJ
— Secunder Kermani (@SecKermani) July 29, 2020
This is not the first time an incident of this nature has taken place in Pakistan. On January 4, 2011, the Governor of Punjab Salman Taseer was shot dead by one of his guards in Islamabad after he expressed negative views of the blasphemy laws.
Even though no one has been formally executed under Pakistan's blasphemy laws, since 1990 at least 77 people have been extrajudicially killed in connection with those accusations, according to a tally by Al Jazeera. Since 1987, over 1,500 people have been charged with blasphemy in Pakistan, according to the New York Times.
In Pakistan's polarized society, such extremist views are accepted, while those who disagree avoid speaking for fear of harassment, especially online.
Still, many went public to condemn the murder:
Khalid, the man who murdered a mentally unstable man accused of blasphemy at a court in Peshawar yesterday, is a disgusting criminal like Mumtaz Qadri & deserves strong punishment. Stop glorifying murderers please; nobody has the right to kill.
— Usama Khilji (@UsamaKhilji) July 30, 2020
The murder of Tahir Ahmad, who is reported to have a mental disability, in the Peshawar Sessions Court this morning is yet another example of how Pakistan’s blasphemy laws embolden vigilantes to threaten or kill the accused.
— Amnesty International South Asia (@amnestysasia) July 29, 2020
How the Peshawar blasphemy killer is being revered as a hero, Ghazi or yet another Ilm-ud-Din or Qadri. This is what happens when you weaponise religion for decades. My column. #LetterFromPakistan https://t.co/iwmXZz2tUJ
— Naila Inayat नायला इनायत (@nailainayat) July 30, 2020
An editorial in the online portal ProperGaanda said:
It is high time Pakistanis stop hailing the murderer as a hero and recognize him for what he was. That will be the first step in cultivating an atmosphere wherein potential extrajudicial murderers think twice before breaking the law and imposing their judgements on whether or not a human has the right to live.

author: R Umaima Ahmed


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A rare, golden turtle — first of its kind — discovered in Nepal · Global Voices
Sanjib Chaudhary

A rare golden Indian flapshell turtle found in Nepal. Photo by Dev Narayan Mandal. Used with permission.
After news of the existence of a yellow turtle in India's eastern state of Odisha went viral this past July, Nepalis wanted to remind the world that they made a similar discovery first — on April 14, 2018, to be exact — when a rare, golden turtle  — but a different species — was found for the first time in southeastern Nepal’s Dhanushadham municipality.
According to a research paper by Kamal Devkota, Dev Narayan Mandal and Hinrich Kaiser, which was published in the journal Herpetology Notes, the turtle was released into its natural habitat after pictures were taken as proof.
In an email interview with Global Voices, Devkota explained:
Our team member, Chandradeep Sada, rescued this rare golden turtle from Dhanushadham Municipality, Nepal on April 14, 2018. Later, Dev Narayan Mandal identified it as an Indian flapshell turtle [scientific name Lissemys punctata]. We further researched it and found that the colour aberrations are quite rare in nature. The lack of body pigmentation made the turtle appear golden coloured, with only the eyes showing a dark pigmentation.
This is the first chromatic leucism in L. punctata in Nepal, which is the first for the northern subspecies of L. punctata and the fifth documented observation in the species. That's why it is very important for conservationists and researchers.
A normal Indian flapshell turtle. Photo by Dev Narayan Mandal. Used with permission.
A normal Indian flapshell turtle is greenish-grey in colour, with yellow marks on its head and neck. It has a grey carapace dotted with dark yellow spots and derives its name from the femoral flaps at the plastron, the ventral part of the shell.
These turtles are found in Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, most typically in ditches, lakes, ponds and paddy fields with stagnant water. Omnivorous in nature, they eat anything from leaves and flowers to snails, fish and frogs.
This is an Indian flap shell turtle, who (like many turtles) is hideous but wildly photogenic. He has something called “femoral flaps” which sounds revolting. pic.twitter.com/F7mjYcxu2Z
— SaraKateW (@SaraKateW) November 7, 2018
While a normal-coloured flapshell turtle can easily camouflage itself in the murky, greenish water, its golden-coloured variant — a turtle with chromatic leucism — is easily recognisable and therefore more vulnerable. Its luminous golden colour, in particular, makes it a prized pet.
The congenital disorder of albinism creates a complete absence of pigmentation in the skin, hair and eyes due to the lack of tyrosinase, an enzyme involved in the production of melanin. Researchers estimate that albinism occurs once in every 10,000 mammal births.
Leucism, on the other hand, is an extremely rare genetic condition in which animals have reduced pigmentation. Most leucistic animals have normal-coloured eyes, whereas those with albinism tend to have red or pink eyes.
Nepal is home to 16 species of turtles, of which four are critically endangered: the three-striped roofed turtle (Kachuga dhongoka), the red-crowned roofed turtle (Kachuga kachuga), the Indian narrow-headed softshell turtle (Chitra indica) and the elongated tortoise (Indotestudo elongata).
Though turtles play an important role in reducing pollution by feeding on insects, vegetation and dead animals, factors like habitat loss, fragmentation and degradation have been threatening their survival.
According to “Turtles of Nepal – A Field Guide for Species Accounts and Distribution,” the draining of wetlands for irrigation and fishing, the excessive use of agrochemicals which eventually seep into waterways and unsustainable fishing methods all negatively impact turtle populations.
Adding to their woes is the illegal trade for keeping turtles as pets, as well as their use in traditional medicine. Some people believe in eating turtles and their eggs to achieve improved health, longevity and virility. Turtle shells are also used to make curio items.
Despite such threats to Nepal’s turtles, conservationists and other local bodies, such as the Turtle Rescue and Conservation Center in eastern Nepal, have been working to save these magnificent creatures.

author: Sanjib Chaudhary


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Belarus shuts down internet as thousands protest election results · Global Voices
Maxim Edwards

Screenshots of attempts to access Apple's App Store, YouTube, and the Golos website during presidential elections in Belarus on August 9, 2020. Photo (c): Franak Viačorka. Used with permission.
A loudspeaker on a stage in Minsk plays Viktor Tsoi‘s “Change,” as a man in a suit tries frantically to pull out the power cable. The video recording shows that he succeeds, only for other loudspeakers nearby to continue blasting out the classic late Soviet era rock song. He flounces off, exasperated. According to onlookers, he is a Belarusian security agent from the Belarusian government attempting to silence their protest anthem.
That anthem is being sung by Belarusians enraged at an attempt by longtime president Alexander Lukashenka to win a sixth consecutive term. Since Lukashenka took office in 1994, the country has never held a free and fair election — the latest vote, and the run-up to it, appeared to continue that trend. In May, the popular opposition blogger Syarhei Tsikhanouski who had declared his intention to run for president was arrested. A second contender for the presidency, Viktor Babarika, was arrested on charges of criminal conspiracy. A third, Valery Tsepkalo, fled the country fearing political persecution. In mid-July, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Tsikhanouski's wife, registered as a presidential candidate in his stead. If elected, she promised to rule for six months and hold free and fair elections; she drew crowds of thousands and inspired a nationwide protest movement.
When election day came on August 10, numerous observers on the ground wrote of ballot stuffing and falsification (the OSCE's mission was not accredited promptly enough to monitor the vote.) This morning, the country's electoral commission reported that Lukashenka had won 80.3 percent of the vote and Tsikhanouskaya 9.9 percent. Opposition supporters widely suspect electoral fraud; “I will believe my own eyes: the majority was for us,” said Tsikhanouskaya during a press conference.
Last night, mass protests broke out across the country. Police responded with water cannon, rubber bullets, and stun grenades. Some 3,000 protesters have reportedly been arrested, several of whom were seriously injured. Tsikhanouskaya has denounced the violence and called for peaceful protest to continue over the course of the week.
Hence the August 6 video from that protest stage was a perfect illustration of how many see relations between the rulers and the ruled in Belarus today. It is also a fitting metaphor given that in the run-up to the vote, the Belarusian authorities apparently attempted to pull the plug on a larger scale — by forcing the country offline.
Multiple internet providers in Belarus lost routing on the morning of August 9, as polls opened; several journalists present in Belarus during election day confirmed significant disruption to LAN, WiFi, and mobile data networks. Some were able to access websites by using VPN services.
Internet in Minsk is very bad. Many reporters got offline. And we receive significantly less of UGC.
Websites are down. You can still send some text via Telegram (w Proxy), Signal (unstable), Facebook Messenger (sometimes it works for texts.) Slack is the best so far.
— Franak Viačorka (@franakviacorka) August 9, 2020
Users who complained about lost internet access to their service providers and mobile operators received automated messages from bots apologising for the service outages, but offering no concrete explanation.
Друзья! Сегодня по независящим от нас причинам наблюдаются сложности с доступом к сервисам через мобильный и фиксированный интернет. Как только наш вышестоящий провайдер продолжит корректное обслуживание, доступ будет восстановлен автоматически.
— А1 Беларусь (@a1belarus) August 9, 2020
Friends! Today, for reasons beyond our control, we are observing difficulties in accessing services via mobile and fixed internet. As soon as our upstream provider restores proper service, access will be restored automatically.
As of the morning of August 10, Belarusian internet users were still experiencing difficulties getting online. The country's three largest telecom providers (A1, Life, and MTS) all apologised for outages caused by “reasons outside our control,” reported the website Tut.By, a popular search engine and news aggregator.
The blocks also appeared to be extended to specific websites. On the morning of election day, Zubr.in was inaccessible; the latter is a grassroots driven platform which allows users to submit reports of electoral law violations via a Telegram bot. Similarly, Naviny and Tut.By which are the country's two largest independent news platforms, as well as the website of newspaper Nasha Niva, all became inaccessible just after polls closed.
Golos, a grassroots platform which includes an alternative vote counting system, was also the target of a DNS attack which attempted to collect users’ personal data.
However, this block did not come as a surprise. On July 19, mobile internet in Minsk was also interrupted for a short period during a large rally at which Tsikhanouskaya was present. By July 29, popular Telegram channels and social media accounts were already sharing user guides for how to evade impending internet shutdowns, offering links to free VPN services and advice on how to install the Tor browser.
On August 4, the popular Telegram channel NEXTA shared a screenshot of an email apparently from an employee of a Belarusian bank, advising a customer that any digital banking services were likely to be unavailable over the coming days. Furthermore, on Saturday 8, journalists from the Russian newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets in Minsk reported that when they attempted to purchase local SIM cards, they were warned by a sales assistant that they would be unlikely to work as mobile data and internet connectivity would be shut down across the city the following day.
NetBlocks, an NGO monitoring internet shutdowns worldwide, has released the following statement:
Network telemetry from the NetBlocks internet observatory confirm that internet connectivity in Belarus has been significantly disrupted as of Sunday 9 August 2020 amid tense presidential elections. Outages increased in severity through the day producing an information vacuum as citizens struggled to establish contact with the outside world. The incident is ongoing as of Monday afternoon.
An open letter expressing concern about the internet block, signed by over 20 NGOs and human rights defenders on August 10, described the attempt as follows:
The Belarusian authorities have not denied that internet users have faced difficulties. Novaya Gazeta reports that when asked to explain the interruptions, general director of Beltelekom Vadim Shaybakov suggested that large volumes of foreign traffic were to blame; the National Digital Response Centre also claimed that internet connectivity problems began due to a large wave of DDoS attacks on Belarusian telecom operators’ infrastructure.
This may be what President Lukashenka was referring to in an August 10 interview in which he stated that Belarus's internet had been “switched off from abroad,” and that the interruptions were “not the authorities’ initiative.”
The Telegram messaging service, which is particularly popular across the Russian-speaking world, appeared to remain operational during the internet outages. Although users complained of slow upload speeds, they were able to send videos of clashes between protesters and riot police to popular channels.
Two of these channels, NEXTA and Belamova, have proven indispensable in providing videos and updates from a country which had largely gone offline during the height of the protests (perhaps helped by the fact that NEXTA's owner is a Belarusian blogger based in neighbouring Poland). On election day, the former faced attempts to close its popular Twitter account, which was eventually restored:
Hey @TwitterSupport. Why are you banning @nexta_tv, the only independent channel streaming out of Belarus during the pro-democracy uprising?
— Yakov Feygin (@BuddyYakov) August 9, 2020
These pieces of footage and photos from Telegram will play a crucial role in understanding the recent upheaval in Belarus, in light of restrictions on the media and other online sources. However, it is unlikely that they will cause the authorities to change their tune, days after a controversial victory. As the Ministry of the Interior's Spokeswoman Olga Chemodanova recently stated, you can't trust everything you read online.

author: Maxim Edwards


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Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai arrested under national security law · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Photo from Apple Daily's Twitter account.
Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai, a prominent supporter of the city's pro-democracy protests, was arrested in the early morning of August 10 for “colluding with foreign forces,” which is a violation of the new national security law.
Lai is the founder of Next Digital, which owns Apple Daily News and Next Magazine. His two sons, who are not in the media business, and four other top members of his news corporation were also arrested under the draconian law. His personal assistant, Mark Simon, is currently aboard is wanted by the Hong Kong police.
Upon the the arrest, about two hundred police officers raided the office building of the two news outlets in Tseung Kwan O.
Images from inside @appledaily_hk‘s building. Yes, this is #HongKong. pic.twitter.com/lgPyOoiLhs
— William Yang (@WilliamYang120) August 10, 2020
The incident has drawn the attention of international media and NGOs. Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch Phil Robertson reacted on Twitter:
Outrageous and unacceptable! #HongKong authorities doing #China‘s bidding, arrest tycoon & activist Jimmy Lai under national security law. Clear human rights abuse, & blow to HK's rapidly shrinking press freedom. #mediafreedom #PressFreedom #JimmyLaihttps://t.co/UGi5rz1885
— Phil Robertson (@Reaproy) August 10, 2020
Steven Butler, the Asia program coordinator of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said in a statement:
The arrest of media tycoon Jimmy Lai bears out the worst fears that Hong Kong’s National Security Law would be used to suppress critical pro-democracy opinion and restrict press freedom…Jimmy Lai should be released at once and any charges dropped.
During the raid, the police sealed off Apple Daily's building and barred journalists from other news organizations from entering:
#HongKong police barred most reporters from going near the @appledaily_hk building, including public broadcaster and govt dept RTHK. They said only local, large scale media which “didn’t obstruct police operation before” are invited. #Pressfreedom pic.twitter.com/SSAB8M51aJ
— Frances Sit (@frances_sit) August 10, 2020
Apple Daily’s reporters live-streamed the police raid from inside the office. The video showed Jimmy Lai and executive director of Next Media Cheung Kim-hung being handcuffed and escorted back to the building during the search.
Jimmy Lai is now handcuffed from behind the back & is being escorted back to the Apple Daily building. Reporters estimate over 50 officers were part of the escort.
Police have still failed to point out which #NationalSecurityLaw regulation was used for the search. pic.twitter.com/zev6kC8nVJ
— Hong Kong – Be Water (@BeWaterHKG) August 10, 2020
An internal message circulating among Apple Daily’s staff stated that the search warrant did not include reporting materials, but according to a police press briefing, officials went through the newsroom's desks and have taken away 25 boxes of evidence after a four-hour search.
When attempting to monitor the police operation, the paper’s chief editor Law Wai-kwong was threatened:
Chief editor Law Wai-kwong of @appledaily_hk got heckled and pushed away by a group of police officers. One officer in white shirt shouted at Law while pointing finger at his face that if Law refused to stay away after warnings, he could be arrested. pic.twitter.com/O7Y2HJ6YKP
— Xinqi Su 蘇昕琪 (@XinqiSu) August 10, 2020
While people in Hong Kong had anticipated that freedom of speech would shrink under the national security law, the arrest of Jimmy Lai’s two sons has sent shockwaves through the city. A Twitter user posted photos of police searching Lai’s second son Lai Yui Yan’s restaurant:
#HkngKongPolice searched restaurant, which owned by Jimmy Lai's son. It's all about suppression of HK freedom.#StandWithHongKong pic.twitter.com/eDgCsnkmKO
— Mingfung??☝ (@Mingfun26273762) August 10, 2020
Wang Dan, an exile mainland Chinese activist, expressed outrage at the arrest of Jimmy Lai’s sons:
Although it was expected, the arrest of Jimmy Lai was still very outrageous because his two sons were also arrested, which was obviously an attempt by the authorities to destroy Lai's will through family ties.
I call on the international community to take immediate action ！
— 王丹 (@wangdan1989) August 10, 2020
While mass mobilization has become extremely difficult under the national security law and the COVID-19 lockdown, some Hongkongers have found ways to express their support to Apple Daily News by buying stocks of Next Digital.
Stock market response to @appledaily_hk owner @JimmyLaiApple ‘s arrest.
Hong Kong people bought its shares to show support to LAI & Apple Daily, and I believe as a whole the Freedom of the Press. pic.twitter.com/ZRtNWY4Muv
— LO Kin-hei 羅健熙 (@lokinhei) August 10, 2020
At around 3 p.m., the stock price of Next Digital increased 300 percent in relation to the previous day and later leveled back to 187 percent as the market closed.
Jimmy Lai has been a critic of Beijing since the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989, after which he started in the publishing business. He has sponsored major pro-democracy political parties in Hong Kong and, in 2014, joined the front-line activists of the pro-democracy Umbrella Protests.
Lai had already been arrested in February and April 2020 on charges of attending unauthorized assemblies in 2019 and 2020. This time, the charge of “colluding with foreign forces” under the national security law could lead to a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

author: Oiwan Lam


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Pious, assertive, and ‘mother of all Bolivians’: The political narrative of President Jeanine Áñez · Global Voices
Fabiola Gutiérrez

Jeanine Áñez assuming Bolivia's presidency on 12 November 2019, with her daughter Carolina Ribera to her left. Image by Wikimedia Commons, open content modified by Global Voices.
Throughout her campaign and current presidency, President Jeanine Áñez has created an image of herself as a pious Christian, a mother, and an assertive authority in Bolivia.
Despite leading a constitutionally secular country, Áñez has built her Christian image through political practice and religious speeches, earning her comparisons to President Trump and President Bolsonaro.
In an April 15 Instagram photo with the caption, “Flight of blessings. God bless La Paz”, Añez can be seen waving to one of the four helicopter flights made by the Bolivian Air Force to bless the cities of Cochabamba, Tarija, La Paz, El Alto and Montero.  Each flight lasted about an hour with passengers that included priests, evangelical pastors and legislators who brought along holy water and religious statues.
The flight over Tarija reportedly cost the state 11,500 USD in addition to the, at least, 9,000 USD for flights over the other cities. The amount is equivalent to five and a half years’ income for someone on minimum wage, which is currently 307 USD.
Blessings on the ground were also organized. In La Paz, the police paraded their patron saint, the Virgin of Copacabana, trying to lift people's spirits at the beginning of the quarantine. In Santa Cruz, evangelical leaders played the shofar, a Jewish instrument, and drove around the city in twenty vehicles for five hours on the “day of prayer and anointing” organized by the Ministry of Defense and the House of Prayer Church. One of this church's ministers is Áñez's brother, Juan Carlos Añez, who is also a candidate for city representative in Santa Cruz.
People have reacted strongly to this situation:
Hipoclorito de Sodio
Posted by La Envidia on Friday, April 10, 2020
El cloro, más barato que el alcohol, se ha popularizado como elemento básico para la desinfección de superficies y personas en la pandemia.
Facebook post:
“What are they spraying?”
“It’s holy water”
“Does it at least have chlorine in it?”
Captions: Chlorine, cheaper than alcohol, has become popular as a key ingredient for disinfecting surfaces and people during the pandemic.
In addition, President Áñez twice called for people to fast and pray during the COVID-19 quarantine. The calls were rejected in graffiti messages, Twitter, and NGO communications. “It is offensive and humiliating when there are people dying of hunger,” writer Paola Senseve told the newspaper El Deber. Meanwhile, there was a murder-suicide of a girl whose family had not eaten for two days. Her case is one among the projected 453,000 Bolivians who will be driven into extreme poverty this year, as predicted by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).
The phrase “God bless Bolivia” is recurrent in her speeches, as it is in her official government plan. Áñez has also been known to ask her ministers to pray. In her first moments as president, she carried a Bible and said: “The Bible is returning to the Palace”.
When asked by the BBC about her faith as contrasted with Bolivia's secularism, Áñez said that secularism was imposed by former President Evo Morales’ party on the constitution and that “Morales is an atheist”.
Journalist Javier Badani analyzed Añez's positions on Facebook: “Religious views are protected by the constitution. What is wrong is to preach personal beliefs while using the state's public resources, prioritizing your beliefs over others. Áñez and Morales have breached basic regulations. It is just as inappropriate that the cross and the Bible “return” to the Palace, as it is that ch'alle and k'oa [Andean rituals] are performed in this state space. It is not correct to seek political gain by instrumentalizing beliefs so deeply rooted in our country.” In his time, Morales was also questioned for instrumentalizing Andean religious rites.
Los poderes políticos y sus intereses mezquinos nos están matando. ¡Ni Evo ni Medioevo! ¡Paz y justicia!
Posted by Muy Waso on Monday, November 18, 2019
El meme compara a Evo Morales con el personaje apodado “El Rey Loco”, de Juego de Tronos, pues prefería destruir su reino antes que dejar el trono; y compara a Jeanine Añez, con la orden cristiana y militar de los caballeros templarios.
Facebook Post's comment: The political powers and their narrow interests are killing us. Neither Evo nor Medioevo! Peace and justice!
The meme compares Evo Morales to the character nicknamed “The Mad King” from Game of Thrones, as he preferred to destroy his kingdom rather than leave the throne; and compares Jeanine Añez to the medieval Christian military order of the Knights Templar.
In Bolivia, 88.7 percent of the population identifies as Christian, and there is a syncretism of indigenous and Christian elements as a result of colonization. The country has declared itself secular since 2009, but even so, the state budgeted 1.7 million dollars for the Pope's visit in 2015. The church was also one of the mediators during the 2019 electoral crisis, and the police and military have their own Catholic statues of Mary, those of Copacabana and Carmen.
Religion is also a part of half of the presidential candidates’ campaigns. While the use of religious symbols in campaigns is prohibited, it is not a crime. “Religion can be a key factor in attracting voters. This was shown in the last election by the votes gained by an unknown evangelical pastor. Áñez knows how to use this to her advantage. The conflict occurs when her religiosity interferes with public administration, creates costs for the state, and uses public goods, which is to be condemned from all perspectives,” journalist María Silvia Trigo told Global Voices by email.
Along with religious references, “assertiveness” is another term frequently used in Áñez's speeches. She tries to show herself to be strong, determined and intolerant of corruption, even though this projected image does not match the real actions of her government, Trigo said.
She also emphasizes the fact that she is a mother. “I ask you as a mother” is one of her most repeated phrases. “Proud mother” of her children is part of Áñez’ description on Twitter and Facebook. Áñez dressed up as “Mrs. Santa Claus” to give presents to children at the Government Palace. Her presidential campaign clip begins with her saying, “We had to put the house in order” and shows her leading the management of a home with a group of people. During the quarantine, Áñez's daughter, Carolina Ribera, claimed: “My mother is the mother of all Bolivians”.
Picture credits: Danitza Luna,, member of Mujeres Creando. Used with permission.
Rejecting this, Danitza Luna, a member of the feminist group Mujeres Creando, responded: “I don't accept you Jeanine Añez as my mother” and made a caricature of Añez as the Virgin Mary. The angel has the face of right-wing Minister of Government Arturo Murillo, and the cross on the crown is a symbol of Santa Cruz, the region where the 2019 protests began. The rest of the crown shows the constant threats of prison as a part of her rule, Luna said. Her veil has the U.S. flag and military camouflage, which allegedly supported her takeover. Her halo is made of weapons and at her feet are the police and military.
Luna defined Añez's government as “authoritarianism disguised with blessings.”

author: Fabiola Gutiérrez


text:
Human rights defenders and journalists under attack in Southeast Asia · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

The crowd in front of the Criminal Court flashing the three-finger ‘Hunger Games’ salute after the ruling on Anon and Panupong's temporary detention request. Photo and caption from Prachatai, a content partner of Global Voices.
Since July 31, several human rights activists and journalists across Southeast Asia have been arrested, convicted, and experienced harassment which reflect the surge in state-backed attacks on freedom of expression.
In Thailand, a lawyer and student activist were arrested for their participation in democracy protests. A Cambodian union leader was detained for his statements expressing concern about farmers reportedly losing land at the Vietnam-Cambodia border. Three media offices in Malaysia were raided for featuring a documentary on the government’s treatment of migrant workers. And finally, eight defendants in Vietnam were convicted for ‘disrupting security’.
Human rights lawyer Anon Nampa and youth activist Panupong Jadnok were arrested on August 7 for their participation in democracy protests last month.
In recent months, protests were organized calling for democratic reforms in the country. Youth activists have issued three demands: stop harassing citizens, draft a new constitution, and dissolve parliament. They also rejected a military coup as a solution to the political crisis which intensified when the army grabbed power in 2014.
Anon and Panupong were released on bail the following day. They were also ordered not to repeat the offenses they allegedly committed. After release, Anon vowed to continue exercising his freedom of expression and added that he still intends to join a protest rally on August 16. He has a message to authorities:
We mean well to the country and respect those who think differently. We would like you to listen to us. We thank the officers who took good care of us, but as for those who do bad things, we are going to have to deal with them.
Anon Nampa after he was released. Photo and caption by Prachatai, a content partner of Global Voices
Cambodian union leader and Cambodia Watchdog Council member Rong Chhun was arrested on July 31 after the Cambodia Border Affairs Committee asked law enforcement authorities to charge him with ‘incitement to commit a felony or cause social unrest’ for spreading ‘fake news’ about a land issue at the Vietnam-Cambodia border.
After visiting the border on July 20, Rong Chhun released a statement for the Cambodia Watchdog Council expressing concern that farming communities had about the loss of their land which they blamed on the action of authorities.
Rong Chhun was later accused by the Cambodia Border Affairs Committee of distorting the issue.
Around 141 civil society groups signed a statement calling for the release of the union leader. They also highlighted the chilling effect of Rong Chhun’s detention:
This latest arrest of a respected union leader is a direct threat to every Cambodian who exercises their constitutional right to freely express their beliefs without having to fear a midnight visit by police and years lost in prison.
Yesterday authorities put up barriers in front of the Phnom Penh Municipal Court to block a group of people demanding the release of Mr. Rong Chhun, Cambodian Confederation of Unions president, who was arrested 31 July 2020 over a remark regarding the Cambodia-Vietnam border. pic.twitter.com/997sJjxY94
— CCHR Cambodia (@cchrcambodia) August 5, 2020
The police raided the Kuala Lumpur office of Al Jazeera which is being probed for sedition after it released a documentary on the government’s treatment of migrants during the COVID-19 pandemic. Malaysian media outlets ASTRO and UnifiTV were also raided for broadcasting the Al Jazeera documentary.
Authorities said the documentary ‘Locked Up In Malaysia’s Lockdown’ was malicious and inaccurate since it claims that migrants were mistreated at immigration centers.
But the Centre for Independent Journalism pointed out that the government has yet to formally debunk the allegations in the documentary. It advised authorities to focus on investigating the situation of migrants rather than intimidating the media:
We reiterate our call for the government to conduct an independent inquiry or investigation into the allegations, as reported in the documentary, and base its course of action on the results of said investigation.
Aside from the raid, the work visas of two Al Jazeera reporters were not renewed by the Malaysian government.
pic.twitter.com/ge7etyQqjn
— Al Jazeera PR (@AlJazeera) August 5, 2020
On July 31, a court in Ho Chi Minh City convicted eight defendants for charges of ‘disrupting security.’
One of the convicted was Ngo Van Dung, a journalist and member of a Vietnamese press freedom collective called Hien Phap (Constitution) Group. This network of journalists and activists is calling for the enforcement of a provision in Vietnam’s constitution which supposedly guarantees press freedom.
Ngo Van Dung was under pre-trial detention for nearly two years following his arrest in 2018. He was sentenced to five years in prison followed by two years on probation.
Another member of Hien Phap, Doan Thi Hong, was among those convicted despite her plea for release since she has a child who is below three years old. Vietnam’s law prohibits the detention of mothers with children under three years old.

author: Mong Palatino


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Kenyan families suffer spillover effects from school closures · Global Voices
Bonface Witaba

Kibera Primary School, Nairobi, Kenya, September 18, 2012. Photo via ARC / Flickr CC BY 2.0.
Editor's note: This post was co-written by Global Voices contributor Bonface Witaba and guest contributor Sri Ranjini Mei Hua, a researcher and writer from Singapore.
In March, the Kenya government announced the suspension of schools as part of its measures to curb the spread of COVID–19. The announcement threw the school curriculum into disarray, affecting 18 million learners nationwide. It also threatened to derail progress toward inclusive, equitable and quality education as described in Agenda 4 of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
As part of efforts to ensure continued learning while protecting the health, safety, and well-being of learners and educators, the Ministry of Education, in collaboration with education partners and stakeholders, designed the Kenya Basic Education COVID-19 Emergency Response Plan, with the objective to promote “out-of-classroom learning” through radio, TV, e-cloud, and mobile phones.
Today, in spite of efforts by the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) to expand online content delivery, an estimated 80 percent of learners still do not have access to remote lessons, according to a study carried out by Usawa Agenda (an education network).
This is due, in part, to unequal access to technology such as computers, laptops or smartphones, as well as prohibitive internet costs and unreliable internet access, especially for learners from disadvantaged families and marginalized communities. Even where the technology is available, there are concerns around young children’s unsupervised internet usage.
Prior to the lockdown, learners were able to access free meals at school. Girls were able to access sanitary towels through an initiative to provide free sanitary towels. However, with the prolonged shutdown, Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha declared the school calendar as “lost,” meaning schools will remain closed until 2021, leaving thousands of students in a dire situation as their families are unable to afford food and basic necessities due to recent unemployment.
In Kibra, for instance, an area deemed to be the largest informal settlement in Nairobi (and in Africa), most learners are unable to access KCID’s “out-of-classroom learning” curricula, and most do not have a place to study, much less play or exercise.
(For many years, the area was called “Kibera,” a mispronunciation of the word kibra, a Nubian word for “forest.” Kenya's Nubian community feels using “Kibera” robs them of their identity).
In a Skype interview with Asha Jaffar, a journalist residing in Kibra who covers stories about the plight of the Kibra community, Jaffar told Global Voices that there were a limited number of free libraries that allowed up to 10 learners at a time to do their homework. However, these learners are required to give up the space to the next lot of learners after about an hour. She added that free tuition initiatives for learners have had to scale down due to social distancing rules imposed by the government and health officials.
Asha Jaffar, a journalist and Kibra resident, points over Kibra settlement. Photo by Kibra Food Drive, August 2020, used with permission.
The long-term impact of school closures are wide-ranging and even more devastating to families living below the poverty line. As food security takes precedence over education, learners — particularly girls and young women — from vulnerable families often have to work on farms and contribute to household chores or care work instead of learning.  This played out during the lockdown which coincided with the peak planting season in March.
Some girls may even be subject to early marriage which puts them at a higher risk of dropping out of school, often as a result of early pregnancies. Hence, educational outcomes for the most vulnerable families will suffer as they have little reason to send their children back to school when it reopens.
In  March, Jaffar launched Kibra Food Drive to help alleviate hunger in the Kibra community through donations of food parcels to the most vulnerable families. It started through donation solicitation via M-Pesa (a mobile wallet), with the aim of feeding 100 vulnerable families a week, but with an increasing need for support, the initiative has fed 2,400 families, as of August 5. Jaffar recognizes that providing free meals is not enough because the families ultimately need support to start small businesses. However, the community remains in a deadlock as trade and economic activity stalls.
A volunteer delivers food to Kibra residents through the Kibra food drive in Kibra, Kenya, August 2020. Photo by Kibra Food Drive, used with permission.
Kenya anticipates a new academic year in 2021 — but this all depends on the number of COVID-19 infections — according to Education Cabinet Secretary Magoha.
Several education experts say that this period is an opportune time for the government to conduct a gap analysis of the education system and perform a complete reboot in the quest to provide equitable access to learning for all as envisioned in the Kenya Basic Education COVID-19 Emergency Response Plan. The first step would be to allocate budget toward improving the school infrastructure in terms of lighting, desks and chairs and providing reliable electricity supply — especially in rural areas. Next, the government could lower water and electricity tariffs for schools as these huge costs are hurting their operations.
Only when these priorities are sorted can efforts resume on a stalled digital literacy project initiated in 2013 by the government. The digital literacy program aimed to ensure that learners in lower primary school (grades 1-3) can use digital technology and communication tools, with an overarching objective to transform learning in Kenya into a 21st-century education system.
The project stalled barely got off the ground after its pilot phase due to failure to meet intended outcomes and educators being ill-prepared to scale out the initiative. To achieve success, the program requires extensive ICT training for educators so they can effectively use and troubleshoot these gadgets.
Kenya has progressed from a Universal Primary Education (UPE) agenda into an Education For All (EFA) agenda. UPE, the second goal in the United Nations Millennium Development Goal, aimed to ensure that by 2015, all children around the world completed primary schooling, whereas EFA, was a global movement led by UNESCO, aimed to bring the benefits of education to “every citizen in every society.” With these gains, Kenya cannot afford to roll back on progress.
Kenya’s next challenge is now to ensure that learners have access to digital literacy projects that provide not just conventional education, but holistic, skills-based, autonomous learning in order to meet its education vision and sustainable development goals by 2030.

author: Bonface Witaba


text:
Meet the artist embroidering Belarus’ protests · Global Voices
Filip Noubel

A clash between riot police and protesters, embroidered in traditional Belarusian style by Rufina Bazlova. Image (c): Rufina Bazlova, used with permission.
At first glance, no two words may seem as far removed as protest and embroidery. But in Belarus, where the opposition is disputing Alyaksandr Lukashenka's hold on power after the August 9 presidential election, the revolution is not being just broadcast over social media — it's being embroidered.
The official results of these presidential elections, announced on August 10, gave Lukashenka over 80 percent of the vote, while the leader of the recomposed opposition Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya gained less than 10 percent. Those results have not been accepted by Tsikhanouskaya, who decries mass electoral fraud, citing independent monitoring by activists, and demands official talks with Lukashenka. But for the government in Minsk, the elections are a done deal, and no further discussion is forthcoming. Furthermore, internet access has been cut off throughout the country since late August 9. This means that most Belarusians have great difficulty finding out about ongoing protests across the country, in which the police have used violence against protesters. Over 5,000 have been arrested and one death has been reported.
Read more: Belarus shuts down internet as thousands protest election results
Since Lukashenka came to power in 1994, this eastern European country of nearly 10 million has never held a free and fair election. Although these protests are the largest in recent years, previous elections in Belarus have prompted similar responses, followed by crackdowns and mass arrests. Historical memory of any trace of protest is thus erased from the public consciousness.
Embroidery by Rufina Bazlova depicting a police van and a crowd of protesters. Image (c): Rufina Bazlova, used with permission.
That's why one Belarusian artist has decided to immortalise the protests of August 2020 through embroidery. Rufina Bazlova, who lives in Prague and has studied art in the Czech Republic, has chosen an idiom close to the hearts of many Belarusians: red embroidery on a white background. For many years after independence, this kind of embroidery was a key part of Belarusian folklore, used to promote the country in tourist adverts.
But it also has a political connotation. During Belarus's independence after the collapse of the Russian Empire, the country used a white-red-white flag as its tricolour. It harked back to the days of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth of which Belarus was a component, but its newfound independence was short-lived: the state was reabsorbed into the Soviet Union in 1919. So when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, it once again became the flag of independent Belarus and asserted a Belarusian identity distinct from Russia. But in 1995, Lukashenka restored the green and red flag of Soviet Belarus (albeit without the hammer and sickle), thereby making the red-white-red flag a symbol of resistance to his rule.
That symbolism continues to this day. It is often seen in the current protests, where it serves as a symbol of resistance to the current regime, explains Max Ščur, a Belarusian-language writer and activist who lives in Prague, the Czech capital:
What we are witnessing now in Minsk and Belarus is a democratic revolution, civic society is being born. Belarusian cultural identity is complicated, but right now it's all about democratic values and an active anti-regime position. It's a “civic”, not “ethnic” model of society in progress
Ales Plotka, a singer and civic activist from Belarus also based in Prague, agrees. However, he says that the status of the flag is somewhat ambiguous:
The white-red-white flag is a common symbol of resistance against this unfair government. It was associated with the traditional opposition in the past, and demonised by Lukashenko ideologists, but is now used country-wide by all sorts of people. There is no official ban on it, as it is really a historical flag, known for over seven centuries. Sometimes people carrying it are attacked, usually by the police. During events celebrating the anniversary of the independent Belarusan Democratic Republic [1918-1919], it was widely used, and people leaving the area were temporarily arrested for carrying it. But today, the more it is used and recognised, the less often people carrying it are attacked.
Therefore Bazlova's work has a potent political symbolism. This can be seen in her choice of events to embroider, such as the case of two DJs who hacked a pro-Lukashenka event by suddenly playing a song by the late Soviet rock musician Viktor Tsoi about the need for change, which has become something of a protest anthem used by the opposition to rally people against Lukashenka.
Embroidery in honour of Kirill Halanov and Vladislav Sokolovsky, two Belarusian DJs who played Viktor Tsoi's protest anthem “Peremen” at a pro-Lukashenka public event. Image (c): Rufina Bazlova. Used with permission.
Bazlova, who is Belarusian but has lived in the Czech Republic since 2008, told GlobalVoices what motivates her work:
V České republice žiji již 12 let. Přestěhovala jsem se za studiem v roce 2008. Studovala jsem ilustraci na ZČU v Plzni a pak scénografii na KALD DAMU v Praze. Je to jednoduché – reaguji na to, co se děje v Bělorusku. Vycházím přímo z toho, co vidím ve správach a síti telegram. Běloruský ornament je v nějakém smyslu zakódovaná historie národa. Navíc červená barva na bílém lnu je symbolem života. Jak možná víte, původní vlajka Běloruské Lidové republiky vzniklé v r. 1918 měla červený pruh na bílém pozadí. Lukašenko z nějakého důvodu se nevrátil ke kořenům a rozhodl se pro novou variantu – současnou oficiální červeno-zelenou vlajku, která však taky má na sobě tradiční běloruský ornament.
I have lived in the Czech republic for 12 years, I moved here to study in 2008, I studied illustration in Plzeň and scenography in Prague. It is very simple: I am reacting to what is happening in Belarus. I find inspiration directly in what I see in the news and on Telegram channels. Belarusian ornaments are in a way a code for our national history. Traditionally, red colour on linen is a symbol of life. As you probably know, the original flag of the Democratic Republic of Belarus in 1918 has a red band on a white background. Lukashenka for some reason did not go back to the original flag and decided to go with a new version: a red-and-green flag that also incorporates traditional ornamentation on its side.
Embroidery by Rufina Bazlova depicting a demonstration in support of Belarus's protesters held in Prague, August 9. Image (c): Rufina Bazlova, used with permission
She also explains how she combines comics and embroidery into one form of expressive art:
To není moje první práce s vyprávěním příběhu prostřednictvím výšivek. Již před několika lety jsem vyšívala komiks Ženokol. Přestože taky pracuji v jiných technikách letošní národní probuzení si naprosto vyžádalo techniku lidové výšivky. Události posledních měsíců je naše velká historie, Bělorusko se změnilo, probudilo se, přicházejí velké změny které musí být zapsané do vyšívkového kódu! Mám v plánu vytvořit rozsáhlejší komiks o letošních volbach. Ale není to nejrzchlejší technika, takže to ještě nějakou dobu potrvá.
This is not my first work which focuses on telling a narrative thought the medium of embroidery. A few years ago I embroidered a comics series called Ženokol. Even though I use different artistic techniques, this year's national awakening simply demanded this technique of national embroidery. The events of the past months represent a portion of our great history, Belarus changed, woke up, big changes are coming that must be written into the code of embroidery! I am planning to create a lengthy comic about this year's [presidential] elections. But this is not the fastest technique, so this will take some time.
Rufina Bazlova's embroidery can be seen on Instagram

author: Filip Noubel


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Building safer online spaces in Myanmar · Global Voices
Guest Contributor

A monk using his phone at the Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, Myanmar. Photo and caption by Remko Tanis, Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
This article was written by Aye Min Thant, Tech for Peace Manager at Phandeeyar, an innovation lab in Myanmar.
Every person in Myanmar above the age of 10 has lived part, if not most, of their life under a military dictatorship characterized by an obsession with achieving autonomy from international influences. Before the economic and political reforms of the past decade, Myanmar was one of the most isolated nations in the world. The digital revolution that has reshaped nearly every aspect of human life over the past half-century was something the average Myanmar person had no personal experience with.
Recent reforms brought an explosion of high hopes and technological access, and Myanmar underwent a digital leapfrog with internet access jumping from nearly zero percent in 2015 to over 40 percent in 2020. At 27-years-old, I remember living in a Yangon where having a refrigerator was considered high tech, and now, there are 10-year-olds making videos on Tik Tok.
Everyone was excited for Myanmar's digital revolution to spur the economic and social changes needed to transform the country from a pariah state into the next economic frontier. Tourists, development aid, and economic investment poured into the country. The cost of SIM cards dropped from around 1,000 US dollars in 2013 to a little over 1 dollar today. This dramatic price drop was paired with a glut of relatively affordable smartphones and phone carriers that provided data packages that made social media platforms like Facebook free, or nearly free, to use. This led to the current situation where about 21 million out of the 22 million people using the internet are on Facebook. Facebook became the main conduit through which people accessed the internet, and now is used for nearly every online activity from selling livestock, watching porn, reading the news, to discussing politics.
Then, following the exodus of over 700,000 Rohingya people from Myanmar’s war-torn Rakhine State, Facebook was accused of enabling a genocide.
The ongoing civil wars in the country and the state violence against the Rohingya, characterized by the UN as ethnic cleansing with genocidal intent, put a spotlight on the potential for harm brought on by digital connectivity. Given its market dominance, Facebook has faced great scrutiny in Myanmar for the role social media has played in normalizing, promoting, and facilitating violence against minority groups.
Facebook was, and continues to be, the favored tool for disseminating hate speech and misinformation against the Rohingya people, Muslims in general, and other marginalized communities. Despite repeated warnings from civil society organizations in the country, Facebook failed to address the new challenges with the urgency and level of resources needed during the Rohingya crisis, and failed to even enforce its own community standards in many cases.
To be sure, there have been improvements in recent years, with the social media giant appointing a Myanmar focused team, expanding their number of Myanmar language content reviewers, adding minority language content reviewers, establishing more regular contact with civil society, and devoting resources and tools focused on limiting disinformation during Myanmar’s upcoming election. The company also removed the accounts of Myanmar military officials and dozens of pages on Facebook and Instagram linked to the military for engaging in “coordinated inauthentic behavior.” The company defines “inauthentic behavior” as “engag[ing] in behaviors designed to enable other violations under our Community Standards,” through tactics such as the use of fake accounts and bots.
Recognizing the seriousness of this issue, everyone from the EU to telecommunications companies to civil society organizations have poured resources into digital literacy programs, anti-hate-speech campaigns, social media monitoring, and advocacy to try and address this issue. Overall, the focus of much of this programming is on what Myanmar and the people of Myanmar lack—rule of law, laws protecting free speech, digital literacy, knowledge of what constitutes hate speech, and resources to fund and execute the programming that is needed.
In the frenzy of the desperate firefighting by organizations on the ground, less attention has been given to larger systemic issues that are contributing to the fire.
There is a need to pay greater attention to those coordinated groups that are working to spread conspiracy theories, false information, and hatred to understand who they are, who is funding them, and how their work can be disrupted—and, if necessary, penalized.
There is a need to reevaluate how social media platforms are designed in a way that incentivizes and rewards bad behavior.
There is also a need to question how much blame we want to assign to social media companies, and whether it is to the overall good to give them the responsibility, and therefore power, to determine what is and isn't acceptable speech.
Finally, there is a need to ask ourselves about alternatives we can build, when many governments have proven themselves more than willing to surveil and prosecute netizens under the guise of health, security, and penalizing hate speech.
It is dangerous to expect private, profit-driven multinational corporations to be given the power to draw the line between hate speech and free speech. Just as it is dangerous to give that same power to governments, especially in this time of rising ethno-nationalistic sentiments around the globe and the increasing willingness of governments to overtly and covertly gather as much data as possible to use against those they govern.
We can also see from the ongoing legal proceedings against Myanmar in international courts, and Facebook's failure to provide UN investigators on Myanmar with evidence of  serious crimes committed against the Rohingya and other ethnic minorities, that neither company policies nor national laws are enough to ensure safety, justice, and dignity for vulnerable populations.
The solution to all this, as unsexy as it sounds, is a multifaceted, multi-stakeholder, long-term effort to build strong legal and cultural institutions that disperses the power and the responsibility to create and maintain safe and inclusive online spaces between governments, individuals, the private sector, and civil society.
Aye Min Thant is the Tech for Peace Manager at Phandeeyar, an innovation lab which promotes safer and more inclusive digital spaces in Myanmar. Formerly, she was a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who covered business, politics, and ethno-religious conflicts in Myanmar for Reuters. You can follow her on Twitter @ma_ayeminthant.
This article was developed as part of a series of papers by the Wikimedia/Yale Law School Initiative on Intermediaries and Information to capture perspectives on the global impacts of online platforms’ content moderation decisions. You can read all of the articles in the series on their blog, or on their Twitter feed @YaleISP_WIII.

author: Guest Contributor


text:
Women’s cooperative in Srebrenica produces ‘protective masks for everyone’ · Global Voices
Balkan Diskurs

Activists (from left to right) Valentina, Hilda, Jelena and Željka in Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina (May, 2020). Photo by Ahmedin Đozić/Balkan Diskurs, used with permission.
This story by Ahmedin Đozić was originally published on Balkan Diskurs, a project of the Post-Conflict Research Center (PCRC). An edited version is republished by Global Voices as part of a content-sharing agreement.
Srebrenica is a town and municipality located in the easternmost part of Republika Srpska, an entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is a small mountain town with about 2,600 inhabitants, while the municipality has a population of around 13,400. Its main industries are salt mining and a spa. During the Bosnian War, Srebrenica was the site of a June 1995 massacre of more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys, which was subsequently designated as an act of genocide by the ICTY and the International Court of Justice.
A group of women from Srebrenica has responded to the coronavirus pandemic by hand-making protective face masks for people in their communities.
Valentina Gagić-Lazić, one of the founders of the association uniting the group of “empowered” women, Sara-Srebrenica, and a long-time activist in Srebrenica since moving there in 1995, explained the initiative’s origin:
“Nismo željeli potencirati da su to djela samog udruženja, već pojedinaca. Ibrima Halilović, zaposlenica fondacije MI BOSPO je reagovala prva. Javila nam se i rekla da želi da šije, ali da nema šivaću mašinu. Brzo smo razmijenili ideje i došli do rješenja. Stavili smo na raspolaganje sve resurse koje smo imali u Udruženju, poput mašina, materijala i konca. Ubrzo smo organizovale prostor koji smo formirali kao malu radionicu.”
“We didn’t want to do this only as part of an association, but rather as individuals. Ibrima Halilović, an employee at MI BOSPO, was the first one to respond. She got in contact with us and told us that she was willing to sew but that she didn’t have a sewing machine. We exchanged a few ideas and quickly came up with a solution. We gave her all the resources our association had, such as machines, materials, and thread. We also organized a small workshop space.”
The group began with just six women; three sewed and the rest washed, tailored, and ironed the masks.
“The idea was to show our fellow citizens that we stand with them during these troubling times. We hope that these masks will make them feel more protected. There are not a lot of us in Srebrenica and we need to stick together through communion and mutual care. Word of our work must have gotten out because more and more people started supporting us. Women began reaching out, offering to donate materials and help in other ways. Everyone should help as much as they can afford. The spirit of solidarity, in these times, can be felt,” Gagić-Lazić added.
Željka (left) and Hilda sew protective masks for residents of Srebrenica and surrounding villages. Photo by Ahmedin Đozić/Balkan Diskurs, used with permission.
The dynamic group includes women from different professional backgrounds who are all set on the same goal: supporting their community. Women in the group are Valentina Gagić-Lazić, Stana Medić, Željka Milovanović, Hilda Đozić, Jelena Bibić, and Ibrima Halilović.
Valentina Gagić-Lazić assists with the cleaning, tailoring, and ironing, while Stana Medić—one of the founders of Sara-Srebrenica—supports the efforts by sewing masks at her home because of her high-risk status.
Željka Milovanović joined this effort using her own machine. An employee of the EKONOMIK factory that makes prefabricated containers, she is said by her colleagues from Srebrenica to be a fierce fighter who doesn’t shy away from any job when it comes to assisting her community.
Hilda Đozić, an employee at House of Good Tones—a cultural project for children—and an active member of her community, contributes by tailoring and distributing the masks. Reacting swiftly to the health crisis, Đozić coordinated with the management of House of Good Tones to secure a workspace for the effort.
Another active member of her community, Jelena Bibić, together with her daughter, tailors and prepares masks for sewing.
Diligent hands of activists and members of the ‘Sara-Srebrenica’ association sewed over 1,000 protective masks in a very short time. Photo by Ahmedin Đozić/Balkan Diskurs, used with permission.
Collectively over 1,000 masks have been sewn and distributed to workers of local shops, pharmacies, older community members, and others, as well as to Srebrenica’s neighboring villages.
Sara-Srebrenica continues to respond to the needs of the local and expanded community working alongside the Red Cross and Civil Protection office in Srebrenica to ensure its resources are accessible to all. As mask production continues, the demand has increased with the implementation of mask-wearing requirements.
“The reason we all got together was to contribute. We wanted to do something concrete and useful, as we always do. We just instinctively reacted. It’s important that we share a spirit of solidarity in these troubling times. We must do everything in our power. I believe that has been the driving force for each and every one of us,” said Gagić-Lazić.
By assisting their neighbors in a time of great need, this innovative group that's helping in a range of capacities is a reminder of the power of determined women to support their communities.

author: Balkan Diskurs


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Abused and infected with COVID-19, Nigerian domestic workers are stranded in Beirut · Global Voices
Nwachukwu Egbunike

Up to 30 women stay in this safe house for domestic workers stranded in Lebanon after they were kicked out of their employers’ homes. Image by Dara Foi’Ella, used with permission.
Forty-three Nigerian women are currently holed up in three safe houses in Beirut, Lebanon, after they were kicked out of their employers’ home where they worked as domestic workers, following a massive explosion in Lebanon on August 4.
Thread on stranded Nigerian women in Beirut:
- 3 safe houses with up to 3o women in 1 room
– no furniture, substandard facilities
– no access to drinking water
– no access to food
– receiving daily threats by employers & agents (human traffickers)#sendthemhome #abolishkafala
— Dara Foi'Elle (@Dara_FoiElle) August 12, 2020
The explosion at a portside warehouse in Beirut caused adverse shockwaves that killed 135 and wounded 5,000 people, reports the Guardian. On August 10, following widespread protests, Lebanese prime minister Hassan Diab along with his cabinet resigned from office.
The explosion uncorked pent up anger of the Lebanese people who were already undergoing a stringent financial crisis exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic with increased job losses.
However, migrant domestic workers — mostly from countries in Africa — were the worst hit.
The Middle East Eye reports:
Migrant domestic workers are protesting outside the Kenyan Consulate in Beirut to demand authorities take action to help them get home. Many were expelled by their employers following the explosion last Tuesday. pic.twitter.com/Q5C0Cj7BAI
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) August 12, 2020
On August 13, the General Security Directorate, the Lebanese intelligence agency, arrested these protesting Kenyan migrant domestic workers:
Lebanon's General Security are now arresting the Kenyan women who protested to ask to be sent home.
Lebanon is hell for migrant workers. These people are literally just asking to be sent home and they're being arrested for it.
If Kenyan journos want to cover this reach out pic.twitter.com/2v7q5e5Df6
— #كلن_يعني_كلن (@joeyayoub) August 13, 2020
Even before the explosion, many African domestic workers were dumped on the streets of Lebanon by employers following an economic recession, aggravated by COVID-19. Without money and passports, some of the ladies were sexually exploited.
Under the Kafala sponsorship system, the immigration status of foreign domestic workers in Lebanon is tied to their employers. This slave-like labour law perpetuates exploitation and abuse.
Dara Foi’Ella, a Beirut-based human rights activist with Syrian Eyes, explained to Global Voices via WhatsApp that the Nigerian women are currently in three safe houses.
One safe house is crammed with 30 women in two apartments. Foi’Ella stated that this house is located in a “dangerous ghetto” where these women have allegedly suffered attempted physical and sexual assaults. “Some men tried to break into the house. The girls had to wedge the door with sofas to prevent them from breaking in,” Foi’Ella said.
Some of the Nigerian former domestic workers have tested positive for COVID-19. Image by Dara Foi’Ella, used with permission.
But unfortunately, since one of the women is COVID-19 positive, they cannot be relocated to a safer location. Syrian Eyes, in partnership with Doctors without Borders, are treating the Nigerian women infected with COVID-19.
A second safe house hosts seven women, while a third safe house has six women. These two houses are located in a safer area of Beirut. Some of the women staying in the second safe house were among those repatriated to Nigeria on August 12:
Our stranded girls in Lebanon.. Ecstatic to be back home pic.twitter.com/wdLmY4Nfqz
— Abike Dabiri-Erewa (@abikedabiri) August 12, 2020
Many of the women —  trafficked into Lebanon by Nigerian agents —  either ran away or were kicked out by the Lebanese employers after the explosion. None have valid Nigerian passports since they are forcefully kept by their employers.
According to various sources, many of the women continue to endure ongoing verbal harassment and trauma from their employers who are luring them back to their slave-like jobs.
Foi’Ella made several WhatsApp notes available to Global Voices from a source name “Lola” as evidence. Lola is a pseudonym to protect her identity.
Lola received five WhatsApp voice notes from her employers which started with pleas but soon degenerated into threats.
The first WhatsApp voice note from Lola’s employers — loosely translated from Arabic to English — said: “Lola, how are you? Just tell me where you are and why you left. Tell me where you are.”
The second WhatsApp voice note was an implicit threat: “Come get your passport. If you want to travel, get your passport.”
The third WhatsApp voice states: “I told the [employment] agency that if you want to travel, come get the passport and money and go.”
The fourth WhatsApp voice note was from the agent: “Lola, why did you run away from Madam? It’s very simple to tell Madam that you don’t want to continue. Your passport is with us. It’s better for us to talk with you, and settle this problem and go back there to Nigeria….”
The fifth voice note from Lola’s “madam” was explicit blackmail: “if you don’t come and get the passport, the police will come and get you. I told them you ran away.”
These stranded domestic workers have to rely on the Nigerian Embassy, according to Foi’Ella, who liaise with Lebanese security agencies to provide travel documents.
Usually, the women submit four passport photographs upon registration at the embassy and some get free flight tickets to return back to Nigeria.
When former employers make criminal charges against domestic workers alleging that they stole, like in Lola’s case, repatriation can get delayed. Even at the airport, with valid exit papers, these domestic workers may be arrested nd detained for three to four weeks and then kicked out again into the streets.
A livid Foi’Ella emphasized to Global Voices:
The Nigerian government needs to put pressure on both the Lebanese foreign and labour ministries to grant a general amnesty to all Nigerian domestic workers to be repatriated.
That’s the only way these women who have been “wrongly accused of crimes can be able to leave Lebanon without being arrested at the airports.”

author: Nwachukwu Egbunike


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Belarusian workers support protesters with growing strikes · Global Voices
Maxim Edwards

Workers stage a strike at the BelAz plant in Belarus, August 13, 2020. Photo by bnpunion / Instagram.
Taking to the streets in Belarus today is a brave thing to do. Riot police have used extreme violence against citizens, detaining over 6,000. Those citizens are protesting an attempt by longtime President Alexander Lukashenka, who has ruled the country since 1994, to remain in power for a sixth term after a dubious presidential election on August 9. They refuse to accept that Lukashenka received, as official figures have it, 80 percent of the vote compared to just nine percent for his challenger Svetlana Tsikhanouskaya, who has since fled to neighbouring Lithuania. At least two people have died; the detention centres are full, and there are credible accusations of torture and mistreatment.
Joining a picket line is also a brave thing to do in Belarus, which has strict laws constraining industrial action. The country essentially has “no guarantee of labour rights,” noted the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) in a recent statement on the turmoil. But Belarusian workers are not deterred; the first unrest began on August 10 at the immense metallurgical works in the town of Zhlobin. That same day, a call went out on the Мая краiна Беларусь (“My country Belarus”) Telegram channel, urging workers to demand that their bosses support a call for new elections and an end to police violence.
Over the days since, these have escalated across the country, and a variety of industries. In the capital of Minsk, trolleybus drivers went on strike in protest at the detention of one of their colleagues at a protest. Workers at a sugar factory in Zhabinka have gone on strike, as have engineers at the Minsk tractor factory.
The authorities have not stood idle. Police vans and paddy wagons have been seen outside several premises. Arrests followed. On August 11, Nikolai Zimin, the former president of Belarus's mining and chemical workers’ union, and Maxim Sereda, chairman of the Independent Miners’ Trade Union, were sentenced to several days’ imprisonment at a court in Soligorsk, where miners have been striking. In recent days, Lukashenka has dismissed protesters as “sheep” and as provocateurs in the pay of foreign powers. In a meeting on August 10, he described them as “criminals” and unemployed:
Основа всех этих так называемых протестирующих — люди с криминальным прошлым и сегодня безработные. Нет работы, значит, “гуляй дядя по улицам и проспектам.” Поэтому я по-хорошему прошу и предупреждаю всех: устроиться [надо] на работу тем, кто не работает
The [social] base of all these so-called protesters is people with a criminal past or those who are now unemployed. No work? OK, “let's go for a jaunt down the streets and avenues.” That's why I ask and warn, in good faith: if you don't work, you have to go and find work.
But it seems that many workers see things very differently. Although Belarus’ officially sanctioned trade unions are largely subordinate to the interests of the authorities, the country does have an independent trade union movement, represented by the Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions (BKDP). This movement has survived repression and intimidation and still has a presence in some workplaces. Its executive committee issued a full-throated statement on August 12 with a very clear position:
Белорусский народ не признал Лукашенко законно избранным Президентом и повсеместно в стране начались массовые акции протеста. Захвативший власть правящий режим с жестокостью, шокировавшей весь мир, учиняет расправы над участниками мирных акции протеста. Невиданная жестокость силовых структур повлекла за собой человеческие жертвы.
Мы требуем немедленного прекращения репрессий, расправ и убийств граждан страны, незамедлительного освобождения всех незаконно задержанных, закрытия всех уголовных дел, связанных с участием в массовых акциях протеста, освобождения всех политзаключенных.
Забастовки, которые уже происходят в стране, показывают растующую политическую активность рабочих. Незаконно удерживая власть режим ведет страну к экономическому коллапсу – банкротству и закрытию предприятий, потере рабочих мест, нищете народа.
The Belarusian people have not recognised Lukashenka as the legitimately elected president, and mass protests have broken out across the country. The ruling regime which has so viciously seized power, shocking the whole world, has launched reprisals against participants of peaceful protests. The unprecedented brutality of the security services has led to casualties.
We demand the immediate cessation of repressions, violence, and murders of the citizens of this country, the swift release of all those illegally detained, the closure of all criminal cases connected with participation in mass protests, and the release of all political prisoners.
The strikes now underway in the country show the growing political activity of working people. This regime, illegally clinging onto power, is leading this country towards economic collapse: Towards the bankruptcy and closure of businesses, the loss of jobs, and the impoverishment of the people.
This same letter did not call on workers to strike, explaining that doing so would pose a real risk of mass layoffs. However, it is also fair to say that the logic of this labour activism is somewhat different from traditional strikes in the narrowest sense of the concept: Workers are demanding that their managers, in the name of their places of work, formally denounce Lukashenka and his government.
This act has potent political significance in a country like Belarus, which has one of the highest rates of public sector employment in the world. Unlike Russia, Belarus did not undergo “shock doctrine” privatisation of the 1990s, leaving many key industries in state ownership. This won Lukashenka some plaudits for comparative social stability, even as he constructed a rigidly authoritarian state. Yet that offering began to wane in recent years, which saw moves to reduce some social welfare and even levy a tax on the unemployed, which inflamed a wave of protests. Tadeusz Giczan, a Ph.D. researcher on Belarus at University College London, told Global Voices that working people had largely started to lose their faith in this once-powerful social contract:
Lukashenko lost the support of the “ordinary people” after his 2017 tax against “social parasites”. But most importantly, the economy hasn't been growing since 2010 and there are no government plans to change that. The discontent has been growing for quite some time and erupted right now due to a number of indirect reasons, such as the mishandling of the COVID-19 crisis and the emergence of strong opposition leaders.
Unlike Ukraine, such large factories and workplaces are generally not in the hands of powerful oligarchs able to jockey independently for political power. Instead, appointed managers are accountable to the state above — and now to their employees below. Here is an example of the kind of petition they are facing, circulated by workers of the Belkard metalworking plant in the western city of Hrodna:
Прямо сейчас около двухсот работников МСП ОАО «Белкард» – это крупный производитель автомобильных компонентов для автомобилей всех типов и модификаций – вышли на территорию предприятия с требованием к руководству, чтобы оно обратилось к местным органам власти и в МВД с требованием прекратить жестокость и чрезмерное применение силы, а также необоснованные задержания со стороны силовиков.
Также работники Белкарда настаивают на освобождении задержанных граждан и проведении проверки Генпрокуратурой правильности подсчета голосов по каждому избирательному участку в Гродно.
Right now, around 200 workers of Belkard JSC, the large producer of components for cars, have gone onto company premises to demand that the directors appeal to the local authorities and the Ministry of the Interior to demand that an end to brutality and the use of force, as well as baseless detentions of people at the hands of the security services and police.
Furthermore, workers of Belkard demand that all detained citizens be freed and that the general prosecutor conduct an assessment into the accuracy of the tallying of votes in every electoral district in Hrodna.
— Усы Лукашенко, Telegram, August 14
As far as can be judged from media reports, demands like these are now being voiced in the country's largest enterprises, state-owned and private alike. Employees of the Azot Chemical Plant in Hrodna have circulated a similar letter, supported by the country's independent trade union. A potential game-changer is the strike at BelAz, one of the country's largest and best-known enterprises which produces heavy industrial vehicles. The company has around 970 million euros in yearly revenue and clients throughout the world.
Videos now circulate on social media showing tense meetings between workers and their bosses. The former make their loyalties clear:
In #Hrodna, #Belarus, city officials meet with striking workers of Azot chemical fertiliser plant.
- Raise your hands if you voted for Lukashenka.
- Only officials do.
- Raise your hands if you voted for Tsikhanouskaya.
- Neary all workers do.
pic.twitter.com/0pzzO4MWlj
— Alex Kokcharov (@AlexKokcharov) August 13, 2020
This video shows marching BelAz workers shouting “recount!” in Belarusian, referring to election results:
БелАЗ: «Пералiк! Пералiк!» pic.twitter.com/EojEqjGYrd
— Чай з варэннем (@belteanews) August 13, 2020
This activism does not stop with industrial workers. One of the most vivid videos of recent days has shown members of the Belarus National Philharmonic, singing while holding placards which read “my voice has been stolen”:
#SOUNDON ?Members of State Philarponia of #Belarus also joined the workers strike. The sound gives goosebumps. pic.twitter.com/3sFUO3akHU
— Belarus Free Theatre (@BFreeTheatre) August 13, 2020
As the situation in Belarus deteriorates, many observers now fear that Lukashenka has alienated any section of the opposition which could have once been prepared to negotiate with him. Thus petitions to the authorities from managers could be one of the few channels of dialogue left, argues Volodia Artiukh, a researcher from Ukraine who specialises in labour relations in Belarus who recently wrote on the social composition of the protests for openDemocracy:
What I wrote about organised labour as the only agent capable of articulating and pressing clear demands and forcing the authorities to listen, can be illustrated with a video from a meeting of BelAZ plant workers with the mayor of their city that happened today afternoon. Several hundred workers gathered at the plant gate and met with their director and the mayor of Zhodin, who promptly arrived. The conversation was heated but respectful. The mayor looked confused and timid. Workers demanded release of their colleagues and relatives from jails, expulsion of special police force from their city (“Why do we need wages if we are beaten up?”), recounting of votes. They insist their city is safe, they control the situation. The mayor couldn't make any clear promises, of course, but he agreed to meet with the workers outside of the factory in the evening to discuss their demands. He was cheered with “Thank you!” and “Mayor with the people” chants. The plant never stopped, but after watching the video I am less skeptical about the possibility of a real protracted strike with walkouts. So far this is the only channel through which the protesters can force the authorities into a sort of a dialogue on a local level. If the central authorities cut it, worse for them.
In a conversation with Global Voices, Artiukh cautioned against overestimating the scale of these strikes, but stressed that they were quite unprecedented and brave moves in the Belarusian context. Indeed, due to the internet block in Belarus during the election and protests, it has been hard to establish the scale of these workplace protests. As the country goes back online, the real scale has become more visible — and it is significant. If striking workers are able to benefit from the national strike fund announced on August 13, their numbers could grow larger still.
Meanwhile, the number of businesses and enterprises whose workers are declaring solidarity with the opposition continues to grow. On the evening of August 13, workers at MGTS (the Minsk municipal telecommunications network) announced a strike.
Belarusian workplaces are as much a site of struggle as the country's streets and squares — in fact, they may be just as crucial in coming days.