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No Shame: How an online initiative in Kazakhstan is helping youth protect their sexual health · Global Voices
Karlygash Kabatova

All images used with permission of Darya Sazanovich and UyatEmes.kz.
As the agai entered the classroom full of 11th grade boys, he was no doubt pondering how he would execute the difficult task handed to him by the school principal.
This agai—as male teachers are addressed by students in Kazakhstan's Kazakh-language schools—was a physical education teacher, standing in for the principal in the “valeology”, or “health” class she usually taught.
The task assigned to him was to have a conversation with 16- and 17-year old male students about staying “safe” in their relationships with girls. None of his prior training had prepared him for this.
“Abai bolyndar!” the agai began—which means “be careful” in Kazakh.
The unspecific instruction was met with a chorus of embarrassed giggles that somehow dissipated into a discussion of the football game most of the class had watched the night before. Talking about football felt more comfortable for both the students and the agai, so he swiftly abandoned his mission.
This was my cousin's first and last experience of sexual education in the school from which he graduated last year, located in a prosperous industrial city in northeastern Kazakhstan. Sex is considered an inappropriate topic for classrooms in this former Soviet Muslim-majority country.
Nevertheless, according to a nationwide study conducted by the UN office for Population Activities (UNFPA), “64.6 percent of 15-19-year-olds have their first sex in school years, and 13.6 percent – before they turn 15.” In a country of 18 million, local news sources regularly cite figures of 6,000 to 10,000 births by teenage girls annually, a figure that does not include births not registered with the state, nor take into account pregnancies terminated by legal and illegal abortions.
Even though pre-marital sex is not uncommon in Kazakhstan, it is deeply stigmatised. As a result, the consequences of unwanted pregnancies can be disastrous. There are frequent reports of new mothers abandoning newborn babies on roadsides in trash bins or in highway toilets. Many of these babies are born without medical assistance, as minors can only access medical services legally when accompanied by a parent.
Our own research found that uyat, a Kazakh word that describes a deeply felt shame, is among the key reasons sexual health literacy is so lacking across the country. It is uyat for parents to talk about sex and contraception with their children. But the majority of parents don’t want these conversations to happen at school either, because they think it is too early for their children to receive this information. If sexual education is broached at all inside the school walls, it is the responsibility of teachers like my cousin's agai, who want nothing to do with it.
Kazakh and Russian are the main two languages spoken in Kazakhstan, and while social conservatism is common across the country, it is strongest in Kazakh-speaking communities.
When asked the question, “Who should provide sexual education for youth?” a majority of the 15-30-year-old Kazakh-speaking respondents I surveyed as part of our research cited their parents. Most Russian-speaking respondents, on the other hand, said it was the responsibility of schools. Only one Kazakh-speaking respondent and seven respondents from the Russian-speaking group out of a pool of 57 acknowledged ever having had a “sex talk” with one of their parents.
While young people often agree over the need to learn more about sexual and reproductive health, the taboo surrounding the topic makes them ashamed of asking questions.
Uyat is a broad concept that informally regulates the lives of Kazakhstan’s citizens.
Lately it has been in the public spotlight in its capacity as an instrument used by men to humiliate women, whom they shame publicly for not complying with conventional societal ideas of how Kazakh women and girls should look, dress and behave, or even whom they should date or marry.
One famous Kazakh cartoonist came up with a term for such men—uyatmen. Uyatmen often use violence and intimidation tactics to compel others to follow their example. Last March a man who named himself “moral police” took to the streets of Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, and beat ethnic Kazakh prostitutes with a whip.
Teenage girls who get pregnant and adolescents as a whole are shamed and stigmatised for being sexually active. But if 65% percent of youth are in fact having sex but are left to fend for themselves with regard to sexual knowledge, what does that say about Kazakhstan as a society?
Turning a blind eye to a problem does not eliminate it. Meta-analyses of 89 sexual education programs in the United States proved that restrictive approaches that stress abstinence from all sexual contact do not help the cause either. In addition to swelling the populations of state orphanages, sexual health illiteracy leads to teenage abortions, poor reproductive health, early marriages and poor educational and economic opportunities for young parents. Overwhelmingly, Kazakhstan's government and civil society have chosen to ignore this problem.
This is why I launched a youth-friendly online platform UyatEmes.kz. The website's name means “No Shame” or “Not a Shame” and provides short articles on topics like puberty, bullying, relationships, sex, contraception and others.
UyatEmes.kz offers young people a space where they can anonymously ask our consultants questions about sexual and reproductive health, even extremely personal ones. They can also share their experiences and read stories written by adult contributors recalling difficult experiences in adolescence.
The platform is not only for youth, but parents as well. It exists in both Kazakh and Russian, which is important, as Kazakh-language resources on sexual health are virtually non-existent.
UyatEmes.kz is a work in progress. In the future I plan to add an interactive game that would teach young people practical decision-making skills around issues such dealing with sexual harassment and peer pressure.
The main message I want to deliver through UyatEmes.kz is that sexual and reproductive health is not a shameful subject, and that having knowledge about these matters is the right of every person.
Unsurprisingly, shortly after the launch of the platform, some uyatmen showed up. In the comments section under my interview on YouTube they discussed how a woman like me deserves to die and put forth proposals on how exactly that should happen. When I had recovered from the initial shock, I reassured myself that there would be no need for a project like mine if everybody agreed that Kazakh youth were in need of better sexual health awareness.
After all, if my cousin’s agai had not been afraid of talking frankly with his students, those boys would probably have found the courage to ask him questions they could not ask anyone else. If the state and society had taken active measures to educate youth on safe sexual practices, many young women would not resort to abandoning their babies on roadsides. If each of us makes a personal commitment to educate ourselves on sexual and reproductive health and to start discussing such issues in our families, maybe adolescents will have more trust in us and share their problems.
One online platform cannot solve all these problems. But if UyatEmes.kz helps at least one boy or girl towards a better future, I would consider that I'd made a change.
Karlygash Kabatova is the founder and manager of UyatEmes.kz.

author: Karlygash Kabatova


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Students occupy Dhaka streets demanding road safety in Bangladesh · Global Voices
পান্থ রহমান রেজা (Pantha)

Students protest the death of two students in a road accident on Dhaka Airport Road. Image: Wikimedia Commons by Asive Chowdhury CC: BY-SA 4.0
Wearing school uniforms and carrying school bags, tens of thousands of students have spilled their anger while shouting slogans on the streets of Dhaka, Bangladesh since last Sunday, July 29, when two college students died in a road accident.
Diya Khanam Mim (17) and Abdul Karim Rajib (18), students of Shaheed Ramiz Uddin School and College, were killed and a number of students were injured when a speeding bus lost control and ran over a dozen students waiting for transport on Dhaka Airport Road.
Hundreds of their classmates initially took to the streets in protests that gained momentum as thousands more joined in solidarity on a daily basis, shutting down traffic with their demands.
They are calling for increased road safety, harsher punishment for drivers involved in accidents and that authorities ensure that only authorized drivers would get behind the wheel. Parents and non-students have also supported their demands.
The students’ rage was sparked by a remark by Shajahan Khan, the Shipping Minister and executive president of Bangladesh Road Transport Workers Federation when he questioned the high school students why they had not reacted to the news that 33 people died in a bus crash in India on Saturday.
After widespread condemnation and demands for his resignation, Shahjahan Khan apologized for his comments but said he will not resign.
Bangladesh's capital Dhaka is one of the most densely populated cities in the world with 14 million people and standstill traffic. In the 2016 Global Liveability Survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit, which ranks cities for their quality of life, Dhaka ranked 137 out of 140 cities. According to one study, more than 7,000 people were killed in road accidents in Bangladesh in 2017 and more than 16,000 were injured.
A study by the Accident Research Institute of the Bangladesh University of Technology reveals that 37 percent of the causes of accidents were due to reckless driving and 53 percent related to driving over the speed limit. According to a research by Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), the largest non-governmental organization in the world, 59 percent of drivers in Bangladesh do not follow the rules and many are not aware of street signs and safety lights.
There are approximately one million different types of registered vehicles in the city and according to interviews by the Daily Star, the city does not deploy enough traffic police to manage the heavily congested streets. They are over-worked, underpaid, prone to corruption, and exposed to hazardous situations, the Daily Star reveals.
Moreover, many of the public transport drivers do not even have a valid driving license:
Hard facts in #Bangladesh- For driving over 3.5 million registered vehicles there are only 1.9 people with valid driving licenses. Many of the small public commutes (Lagoona, Tempos etc) are driven by underaged without licensed drivers prone to accidents https://t.co/bTeinc6V2Q pic.twitter.com/AAfBiHBtdT
— r҉e҉z҉w҉a҉n҉ (@rezwan) July 31, 2018
A recent survey revealed that 87 percent of public transport violates traffic rules in Dhaka. And these buses are not in a great shape (properly maintained) as this video depicts:
The students have said enough is enough by taking matters from police into their own hands. The protesters were seen enforcing traffic rules by checking licenses and pointing out traffic rule violations to unsuspecting drivers. The activists did not spare ministers or police if they violated rules. This kind of intervention has drawn accolades from netizens who have flooded social media channels with praise:
Young novelist Shokrito Noman termed these acts ‘unimaginable’ in a Facebook post:
এ এক অভাবনীয় দৃশ্য। মনে হচ্ছে ফকনার, হুয়ান রুলফো কিংবা গার্সিয়া মার্কেজের গল্পের মঞ্চায়ন হচ্ছে বাংলাদশে। রং সাইড দিয়ে যাওয়ার সময় একজন প্রভাবশালী মন্ত্রীর গাড়ি ফিরিয়ে দিয়েছে বাচ্চারা। একজন মেয়রের গাড়ি আটকে দিয়েছে। মেয়র পুলিশকে ফোন দিচ্ছেন। পুলিশ বলছে, আমাদের কিচ্ছু করার নেই। কী অভাবনীয় ঘটনা! প্রতিটি গাড়ির কাগজপত্র চেক করছে বাচ্চারা। বাদ যাচ্ছে না পুলিশ-র্যাবের গাড়িও। অসীম ক্ষমতাধর পুলিশ-র্যাব তাদের গাড়ির বৈধ কাগজপত্র দেখাতে বাধ্য হচ্ছে। রাজধানীর যানবাহনগুলো কী সুন্দর লাইন ধরে চলছে।
This is an unimaginable scene! It seems the depiction of a (magic realist) story of Faulkner, Juan Rulfo or García Márquez. The students have turned around a car of a minister which was traveling in the wrong side of a road. They have stopped a car of the mayor. The mayor is calling the police. The police is telling, we have nothing to do. What an unimaginable event! The children are asking for papers from each vehicle. Even the cars of the police or the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), the elite force, were not spared. The almighty police and RAB are forced to show the papers fo their vehicles including the driving license. Now see that the vehicles are plying in a straight line.
Tanbirul Alam tweeted:
Thats how you do it! Those #students are the future of our nation.
#নিরাপদসড়কচাই#RoadSafety #WeWantJustice #bangladesh pic.twitter.com/eqAdWNT1t5
— Tanbirul Alam (@tanbirulalam) August 2, 2018
The students found that most of the government vehicles do not carry updated vehicle papers nor do the drivers have a proper license.
Shahida Rima declared that the students’ actions filled her with pride:
Our girls ???they can do everything ???? she is just a school kid but perfectly she controlling traffic system ??? lots of love and dua baby ???you made your senior sis proud ???
#RoadSafety #নিরাপদসড়কচাই #Bangladesh#WeWantJustice pic.twitter.com/5fltuecVo7
— NINI's ? Rimi? (@IamNinisRimi) August 1, 2018
They are also cleaning the streets, reminded Shahriar Fahim:
Just look at them
They were protesting
BUT? they cleared the road.. they managed the traffic better than anyone. #নিরাপদসড়কচাই #WeWantJustice #RoadSafety pic.twitter.com/vzo9QYjkoF
— Shahriar Fahim (@Shahriarfahim69) August 2, 2018
There have been widespread concerns about the safety of these students protesting on the streets. Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Commissioner Asaduzzaman Mia has directed the police to tackle the students peacefully without using any force.
However, the police have reportedly used force on students at several points and a number of students were injured.
Police are beating students black and blue at Mirpur, Dhaka.
Spread it people! That's the least we can do for them! #studentsdemandingjustice #StudentProtest #RoadSafety #Bangladesh pic.twitter.com/Sqz0TJMvXu
— Nayeema Mahfuja ?? (@NayeemaMahfuja) August 2, 2018
As authorities continue to cautiously observe student protests, their actions have already prompted the Prime Minister’s Office to order a crackdown on rogue drivers.
One of the main reasons that these accidents persist is the impunity of rogue drivers. Existing laws are outdated and a driver who causes a death due to reckless driving faces a minimum fine.
The government has long been trying to update the Motor Vehicle Ordinance 1983. But the effort was pushed back by strong lobbying by the public transport owners and the transport workers’ associations. The good news is student protests have fast-tracked the process and the government has said that it will pass the amendment soon.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: পান্থ রহমান রেজা (Pantha)


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After years of silence and denial, Assad regime issues death certificates to ‘disappeared’ prisoners · Global Voices
Mazen Hassoun

Satellite image shows the notorious Saydnaya military prison. Source: Google Earth.
After several years of waiting for news and updates, hundreds of Syrian families were able to confirm the death of their disappeared loved ones through certificates issued by the government.
Since July 2018, the government has been updating the civil registry records of the governorates of Damascus, Damascus suburbs, Homs, Hama, Lattakia and Hassaka where hundreds if not thousands of forcibly disappeared citizens were already identified as dead years ago.
At least 82,000 Syrians were forcibly disappeared by the Syrian regime between 2011 and 2018, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), among whom at least 13,066 allegedly died under torture.
The city of Daraya alone, an agricultural city near Damascus besieged by the regime for four years from 2012 to 2016, saw around 1,000 of its citizens on that updated list of dead persons.
Imagine a town anywhere in the world, where the government detained thousands of young citizens and years later, mark 1000 of them as “dead by torture.” This happened in #Daraya, a suburb of Damascus. This is the new #Syria – no more hiding war crimes, now they just brag.
— Lina Sergie Attar (@AmalHanano) July 27, 2018
“Most of the arbitrarily detained were not brought to trials but only a few were sent to three kinds of courts: the court of terrorism cases, the military court and the field court,” Noor Alkhateb, the director of the detainees department at SNHR told Global Voices (GV).
SNHR's report condemned the Syrian regime and held it responsible for the deaths of thousands in its custody. The report also emphasized that 90 percent of the detainees have suffered torture “using the most horrendous methods of brutality”.
Yehya Shurbaji (known as “The Man With The Roses” or “Abu Al-Ward” in Arabic) and his brother Mohammad (known as Maan) were two of the first Syrian activists in the anti-Assad demonstrations in Daraya in 2011.
The brothers participated in the coordination of peaceful demonstrations in 2011 in the early months of the Syrian revolution. In September of that year, Mohammad was arrested by a Syrian intelligence officer, who forced him to call Yehya and drive him out of Daraya, claiming that he is injured and needs urgent medical care. Six hours later, Yehya drove to Sahnaya town along with Ghiath Matar, another prominent Syrian activist.
Read: Daraya, Symbol of Non-Violent Revolution and Self-Determination, Falls to the Syrian Regime
However, what they found there was an ambush by Syrian intelligence forces. Ghiath was injured and passed away a day later. Yehya was thrown in jail.
GV spoke with Ahmad Shurbaji, Yehya and Mohammad's brother, who spoke about Yehya's role in nonviolence resistance to the Assad regime:
Yehya was well known in Daraya. He believed that freedom and democracy must come through a peaceful struggle. He kept calling the demonstrators to avoid violence.
The Shurbaji brothers were held in Saydnaya prison, the prison now notorious for its mass hanging of up to 13,000 people between 2011 and 2015 alone. Amnesty International described it as “the human slaughterhouse“.
Over the last seven years, relatives of the Shurbaji brothers couldn't get a visit or even an official statement regarding the fate of the two, Ahmad told GV. A year ago, they received unconfirmed reports that Yehya was executed in Saydnaya years ago and that Mohammad passed away due to illness and lack of medical care in prison.
Ahmad was able to confirm this last July 2018 when he asked one of his relatives in Damascus to retrieve the birth certificates of his brothers from the civil registry. They found out that Yehya was declared dead on January 15, 2013 while Mohammad was also listed as dead on December 13 during the same year. No reason for the deaths was written in the documents.
Birth certification for Yehya Charbaji with his alleged death date. Source: Ahmad Charbaji, used with a permission.
Ahmad told GV that Yehya was first arrested in 2003 and remained in detention for two years:
Mohammad was a football player who played in the Damascus-based ‘Union football club’  Yehya was well known through his history of struggle against the regime. He was arrested in 2003 for two years and stripped later of his civil rights.
Ahmad recounted Yehya's role, along with Ghiath Matar, in giving out flowers and bottles of water to Syrian regime soldiers, a now-iconic moment of the early months of the Syrian revolution.
Yehya proposed in the beginning of the Syrian Uprising an idea of giving the Syrian security in the demonstrations roses and a bottle of water, as a symbol of peace. Therefore, people started calling him “The Man With The Roses”, he added. But even for a guy like Yehya, demanding freedom was an unforgivable sin.
This our revolution
This #daraya the town of 1000 under torture martyrs pic.twitter.com/12c9JSDGRA
— Afraa.hashem (@3fra2_hashem) July 27, 2018
The name of Islam Dabbas, a young Syrian activist described as shy with a funny personality, was also among the confirmed names in the updated list of the dead. Dabbas participated in demonstrations and coordinated them along with prominent lawyer and activist Razan Zaitouneh. Zaitouneh and three other activists – called the ‘Douma 4′ – are widely believed to have been kidnapped by the rebel group Jaysh Al-Islam in Douma, Eastern Ghouta.
Read: The fall of Syria's Eastern Ghouta
On July 22, 2011, Islam was demonstrating near Al-Imam mosque in Daraya city with hundreds of other Syrians demanding freedom and political reform in the country when they were attacked by state security forces. The attack was carried out despite the non-violence tactics used by Islam and his fellow activists who were holding roses and bottles of water.
Islam was surrounded by security forces who took his rose and bottle and beat him before arresting him. He was taken from one security branch to another and ended up in Saydnaya prison. Islam's sister, Hiba Dabbas, who is in exile in Egypt, told GV that:
We visited him twice and paid a bribe of 75,000 Syrian Pound (approximately 170 USD) to a military officer in order to see him for three minutes. The second time we visited him after many attempts was in November 2012. He didn't seem to be tortured and his was in good health. He seemed as we used to know him.
During the last time they saw him, Islam said that his trial is scheduled on January 2013:
He told us that he has a trial in the next January, but when the jailer heard that he hit him on his back. Islam told him I didn’t say anything wrong, but the jailer answered ‘We'll see, we'll see”.
And that was the last time Hiba and her mother saw him.
News about Islam was cut off later and for around six years they heard nothing about his fate. Hiba was afraid that he would suffer the same fate of the detainees in the 1980s when hundreds were forcibly disappeared during the fight between the Syrian Army and the extreme group ‘Fighting Vanguard’ in Hama.
One of their relatives in Damascus went to the civil registry after she heard that the records have been updated. That's when they found out that Islam was also written as dead on January 15, 2013 although the relative couldn’t extract his death certificate.
“As long as Assad remains in power, there will be no justice for Islam and his friends,” Hiba said.
Many Syrian families have paid huge bribes, sometimes reaching millions of Syrian Pounds, to Syrian officers in the hope of finding out about the fate of their beloved ones, although they rarely get accurate information.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) described it as a ‘bureaucracy of death‘.
With the continuing expansion of pro-regime forces across Syria, it seems that the Assad government doesn't fear any repercussion from the release of these death notices to the public.
“It's obvious that the Syrian regime saw that it did so many violations in Syria and can now acknowledge that thousands have died in its prisons without accountability or consequences”, Sara Kayyali, a Syrian researcher for HRW told GV.

author: Mazen Hassoun


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In the Caribbean’s carnival capital, a Pride parade makes its debut · Global Voices
Guest Contributor

“The feeling of joyfully roaming the streets of the city where I was born and grew up, the same streets where it is acceptable, year in and year out, for thousands of revelers to parade during the bacchanal of Carnival.” PHOTO: Maria Nunes. Used with permission.
By Andre Bagoo
I am still smiling because of Saturday 28 July. History was made in Trinidad and Tobago with our first Pride parade. Since that day, I’ve been processing the experience. The feeling of joyfully roaming the streets of the city where I was born and grew up, the same streets where it is acceptable, year in and year out, for thousands of revelers to parade during the bacchanal of Carnival. What was different last Saturday? The difference was that all of us actually had a reason to parade: we all had an important statement to make. So many of my LGBTQ friends—some of whom flew back to Trinidad after emigrating to seek a better quality of life abroad, a life where they are covered by basic provisions which shield them from discrimination in the workplace, in accessing government services, and where they are fully recognized as human beings on an equal footing with anyone else.
Many friends privately told me they never thought they’d see the day Trinidad would have a Pride parade. I could feel their emotion as they recalled years of experience in this country where LGBTQ people are subject to discrimination on a daily basis in the most ordinary of places: at school, at home, at the barbershop, in the supermarket, in their professions, in church, on the playing field, and, yes, just walking on the street. Saturday’s parade was a moment of pure joy and love.
Since then, I’ve noted the reactions of religious officials. One described the parade as “worrying”. Another implied minority groups should not be protected: “The country as a whole has a right to determine the values it wants to promote.” All of this has been said with a straight face (pun intended). But there was more from the holy men. One official questioned whether LGBTQ people are born gay. “The evidence is nowhere that people by nature are born that way.” He said being gay is a choice. And well, the natural implication was that all of us who marched on Saturday are choosing our subjugation.
Another went so far as to say gay people isolate themselves: “They take up this position socially and isolate themselves that everybody is against them, but what they are practicing is against normal social operations.” This official seemed to suggest it is gay people who are policing the bedrooms of others, who have left colonial-era homophobic laws on the books, who have explicitly inserted a provision in the anti-discrimination law removing themselves from the State’s protection. This is his version of “normal social operations”.
I have some news for these pundits—and for those who feel gay people have suddenly landed from a space-ship. LGBTQ people have been around for centuries. Ask the hundreds of thousands who were persecuted and slaughtered by the Nazis. Ask Shakespeare. And gay people have been in Trinidad long before last Saturday. To claim we are a sudden foreign import is an act of revisionism so willfully blind as to be hateful.
You see, what really upsets religious leaders is not any facile argument about biology (whether you are born gay or made gay the fact is you are gay). Nor is it the question of religious rights (no one seeks to change their private doctrine). What bothers these leaders is not anything relating to some kind of principled preference for ochlocracy (otherwise their own members would rise against them and would be able to recommend changes to backward church doctrines). Nor is it some fidelity to the Bible (which has taught them everything but love).
What really upsets religious leaders is the fact that there are gay people in this country and we are not ashamed.
They may take away my right to equality using whatever bigoted sophistry they wish to devise. But you know what they will never take away? Thanks to the organizers of the TT Pride Arts Festival they will never take away my #Pride2018.
Andre Bagoo is a Trinidadian poet and journalist. His fourth poetry collection, The City of Dreadful Night, was published in May 2018.

author: Guest Contributor


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Bangladeshi photojournalist Shahidul Alam detained over student protest coverage · Global Voices
GV South Asia

Image via the Facebook page of DRIK.
Late on the night of August 5, 2018, Bangladeshi photographer and activist Dr. Shahidul Alam was forcibly abducted from his house in Dhanmondi, Dhaka by men in plainclothes.
Alam is the founder of both the Drik Picture Library and the Pathshala South Asian Media Institute and a vocal journalist on issues related to rule of law and the public interest.
It was soon confirmed that a team of the Detective Branch (DB) of police had detained Shahidul from his residence, with the intention of interrogating him over his Facebook posts about ongoing student protests in the capital, Dhaka.
Secondary school students of different educational institutions in the Bangladesh capital have taken to the streets since July 29 demanding improved road safety and rule enforcement, after two of their classmates were killed due to reckless driving by public bus. The students are also demanding justice for the victims.
Shahidul Alam has been covering the ongoing student protests in Bangladesh in his Facebook and Twitter accounts and discussing the protests on Facebook Live.
More than one hundred students were injured over the weekend as the police resorted to excessive force, including firing rubber bullets and tear gas at thousands of peaceful student protestors.
remains of my video camera https://t.co/MJjt0PW4o5 I was filming Chhatra League members wielding metal rods and sticks chanting “Joy Bangla” slogans and chasing students. They saw me filming and turned on my attacking me and smashing my camera. #democracy #education #politics pic.twitter.com/AJZcdhH9gB
— Shahidul Alam (@shahidul) August 4, 2018
The protests took a violent turn on August 4 when rumors of student protestors being kidnapped, raped and killed began to spread online, but independent media sources at the Dhaka Tribune along with students themselves and a fact-hecking Facebook group called Jaachai (fact-check) have denounced these messages as false and debunked doctored photographs. Nevertheless, many students came out to the streets to protest the deaths. Several violent confrontations between protestors and police have ensued since. Mobs allegedly associated with Bangladesh's ruling party have also attacked demonstrators and journalists who were covering the attacks.
Emergency medical teams say they have treated more than 100 protestors who have been injured.
In an attempt to curb rapidly-spreading rumors, mobile internet speed was brought down to a minimum level (2G) shutting down 3G and 3G broadcasts.
Alongside his social media coverage of the protests, Alam apparently angered the authorities and the ruling party after he gave a TV interview on Sunday evening with Qatar-based broadcaster Al Jazeera where he talked about the recent situation in Bangladesh and criticized the government.
Expat blogger Rumi Ahmed posted a transcript of the interview on Facebook. Here is an excerpt:
I think what we need to do is to look at what has been happening in the streets today. The police specifically asked for help from these armed goons to combat unarmed students demanding safe roads. I mean how ridiculous is that. Today, I was in the streets, there were people with machetes in their hands chasing unarmed students. And the police are standing by watching it happen. In some cases, they were actually helping them…
According to the latest reports, the police have received a seven-day remand to question Shahidul Alam in connection with an ICT Act case filed on August 6, 2018. He was taken to the court barefoot and barely able to walk. He appears to have been beaten while in custody.
Exiled journalist Tasneem Khalil Tweeted:
Shahidul Alam says he was not allowed to have a lawyer, despite his demands. And that he was beaten by his captors who wanted to coerce him into giving a statement. Video via Arfun A. #freeshahidul pic.twitter.com/Y57PatOVAY
— Tasneem Khalil (@tasneem) August 6, 2018
“I was hit (in custody). (They) washed my blood-stained punjabi and then made me wear it again,” said Shahidul Alam as he was taken to a Dhaka court for remand hearing, reports Shafiqul Alam (AFP bureau chief in Dhaka)
Photo: Sabuj Shahidul Islam
#freeshahidul pic.twitter.com/kj05xcReAB
— Tasneem Khalil (@tasneem) August 6, 2018
The police have not yet mentioned why he was detained but referred to the case which accuses him under section 57 of the ICT Act of “abusing” an electronic platform in order to spread “lies” among the population and with the intent to “invalidate and question” the government on the international stage, damage law and order, spread “fear and terror”.
The provisions of Section 57 of Bangladesh's notoriously broad 2013 Information and Communication Technology Act of Bangladesh have been used to slap hundreds of lawsuits against journalists and online activists to curb the freedom of speech online over the past few years.
Blogger and activist Vaskar Abedin writes on Facebook:
শহীদুল আলম কোনো গুজবকে সত্যের মতো অভিনয় করে প্রচার করেননি। একজন অ্যাক্টিভিস্টের মতো করে ডেটা, ফ্যাক্ট আর নিজের তোলা ছবি নিয়ে ফেইসবুক লাইভে গেছেন। তিনি কাউকে আহ্বান জানান নাই উস্কানি দিয়ে, তিনি কেবল পরিস্থিতি বিশ্লেষণ করেছেন নিজের উপস্থিতি জানান দিয়ে। বেশিরভাগ লাইভ ভিডিওতে তিনি ইংরেজিতে কথা বলেছেন। যেসবের ভোক্তা এই আন্দোলনের মূল নিউক্লিয়াসের কেউ নয়।
অথচ তার বিরুদ্ধে তথ্যপ্রযুক্তি আইনে আন্দোলনের উস্কানিদাতা হিসাবে মামলা হয়েছে। এমন বিষয়গুলো খুব বিব্রতকর।
Shahidul Alam did not make up stories to spread rumors. Like a true activist, he presented the facts on Facebook live with his photographs and data. He did not provoke anyone or direct anyone, he just analyzed the situation explaining what he saw on the streets. He spoke in English mostly in his Facebook Live broadcasts and the target audience of which are not the people involved in the protest, but the wider (international) community.
But he was sued under the ICT act for acting as a provocateur. This is very embarrassing.
Amnesty International has released a statement which read:
Shahidul Alam must be immediately and unconditionally released. There is no justification whatsoever for detaining anyone for solely peacefully expressing their views. His arrest marks a dangerous escalation of a crackdown by the government that has seen the police and vigilantes unleash violence against student protestors.

author: GV South Asia


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Iran’s telecommunications company illegally rerouted Telegram app traffic · Global Voices
Center for Human Rights in Iran

Images mixed by Tetyana Lokot. Graphic by stephan salt for Noun Project.
Below is an edited version of an article that first appeared on the Center for Human Rights in Iran website.
In a new move aimed at tightening the state-imposed ban on the Telegram messaging app, the Telecommunications Company of Iran (TCI) temporarily rerouted Telegram app traffic on July 30, in clear violation of domestic law.
For one hour, the routing or pathway of Telegram’s internet protocol addresses changed so that users’ traffic was routed to the TCI instead of Telegram’s servers. This rendered the app unusable, even when users employed censorship circumvention tools such as virtual private networks (VPNs).
What does the border gateway protocol do?
The BGP protocol enables internet routers to find each other. For example, if you want to access the Telegram app, the best path to the app’s servers will be determined by routers that connect you to their stored IP addresses, which are updated when changes take place. As such, BGP allows routers to exchange information on how users can best access desired destinations.
Speaking to the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), internet security expert Hamid Kashfi explained that this type of “hijacking” is like changing your home address to receive mail at someone else’s residence. He explained that the method used “border gateway protocols” (BGPs), which enable routers to find one another.
“When you don’t have physical access to a target network inside the country, the easiest way to control its traffic is by hijacking internet data through BGPs,” Kashfi told CHRI.
This is not the first time Iran has resorted to illegal methods to expand its filtering policies. But this time, the move could have global implications. By altering the routing of Telegram traffic, Iran may cause other servers in the world to also update their routing. This will likely result in a spate of incorrect IP addresses that could also disrupt internet traffic in other countries.
Commenting on the development, Wall Street Journal telecom reporter Drew Fitzgerald tweeted on July 30:
Translation: a bunch of Telegram messages from around the world ended up taking a detour thru Iran https://t.co/94jXPYHNRJ
— Drew FitzGerald (@DrewFitzGerald) July 30, 2018
The TCI hijacked border gateway protocols, which manage how data is transferred across the internet. This is not only a violation of Iran's Computer Crimes Law, it also seals the reputation of Iran’s Telecommunications Ministry as a violator of internet freedom.
Responding to this action, Iran’s Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi tweeted on July 30, “Based on reports I’ve received so far, between 4 and 6 a.m. on July 30, the TCI was engaged in changing its topology and consolidating its provincial network in Shiraz and Bushehr [cities].”
“If confirmed, the TCI’s misdeed, whether intentional or not, will trigger a heavy fine,” he added. “The matter is under investigation by the Communications Regulatory Authority (CRA) of The I.R. of Iran.”
By blocking international access to the website, the TIC committed sabotage and hacked the network in violation of articles 736 and 737 of Iran’s Computer Crimes Law, a crime punishable by up to two years in prison and a maximum fine of 40 million rials (approximately $906 USD).
Further investigations by CHRI
Research by CHRI show that on July 17, 2018, Iran also attempted to block international access to banned domestic websites by sabotaging and interfering in the data traffic, in violation of its own Computer Crimes Law.
When a user outside Iran tried to access fileniko.com, the Telecommunication Infrastructure Company (TIC) inserted code into that website that redirected users to a different website, http://peyvandha.ir/, which displays a list of websites recommended by Iranian authorities.
The list is no longer displayed because authorities have removed the filter on the website.
The responsible authority for this action was the TIC, which operates under the Telecommunications Ministry. All ministries in Iran operate under the president, who appoints the head minister.
It is unknown how many websites in Iran have been made inaccessible via this method.
Screenshot of the code inserted into the fileniko.com website.
Implemented less than two months after Iran blocked access to Telegram, the move appears to be designed to strengthen the ban by rerouting access requests to servers inside Iran. This method was previously used by the government of Pakistan in February 2008 when it extended its filtering to international BGP routes and redirected most of YouTube’s traffic to Pakistan.
Although this filtering method can be temporarily effective, it is also easily recognizable and can be corrected by international routers within a maximum of two to three days.
Kashfi commented: “Despite what the public might think, this kind of attack is technically very simple. In truth, it’s a deliberate mistake intended to change the main route of internet service providers.”
Asked if he thinks Iran’s action was accidental or deliberate, Kashfi responded, “Governments usually do it deliberately and then say it was accidental. Since blocking Telegram in Iran is a strategic matter, it’s very, very unlikely it was accidental.”

author: Center for Human Rights in Iran


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Landmark ruling in Angola acquits journalist Rafael Marques of all charges · Global Voices
Dércio Tsandzana

Rafael Marques de Morais | 2015 Allard Prize ceremony | Wikimedia Commons | CC-BY-SA 3.0
A court in Luanda has acquitted journalist Rafael Marques and editor Mariano Brás of charges of insulting the Angolan state in what many considered a milestone for the country's press freedom.
Marques was charged in June 2017 after publishing an article in October 2016 alleging that then-Attorney General João Maria de Souza had engaged in corrupt dealings to acquire beachfront property where he built a residential compound. The article was published on independent news website Maka Angola, of which Marques is the founder and editor.
Mariano Brás, the chief editor of the newspaper O Crime, which published the article in print, was facing the same charges. Marques was additionally being accused of “offending an organ of sovereignty” for allegedly having offended the ex-president José Eduardo dos Santos in the same piece.
At the latest hearing on July 6, judge Josina Falcão, who was presiding the case at Luanda Provincial Court, stated that the journalists merely “fulfilled their duty to inform” and dismissed all the accusations against both men.
While this was not the first time that Marques was brought to trial for his journalistic work, it was indeed the first time that the Luanda Provincial Court acquitted him — in the previous cases, he merely had the sentence suspended.
The case was followed by various news outlets as well as activists on social media. This is one of the first highly profile court cases during the government of João Lourenço, who succeeded the long-serving president José Eduardo dos Santos in September 2017.
Angolan activist Luaty Beirão, who was present at the trial, tweeted as it unfolded, up to the moment of the sentence:
“É do entendimento deste tribunal que verdade existe na matéria publicada pelo réu e que mais não fizeram do que cumprir com a sua obrigação de informar o público. Não entendemos que houvesse intenção de difamar o ofendido”. https://t.co/NOKY5AbSNo
— Luaty Beirão (@LuatyBeirao) 6 juillet 2018
“It is the understanding of this court that truth exists in the text published by the defendant and that he did nothing more than fulfil his obligation to inform the public. We do not perceive that there was any intention to defame the plaintiff”.
“Ficou provado neste tribunal que o processo de aquisição do terreno na base do artigo do réu que despoletou o julgamento que hoje chega ao fim, está ferido de irregularidades”. Conclusão? Quem cometeu crime? Quem devia estar neste banco dos réus? O messangeiro? https://t.co/AZdMnb6mYl
— Luaty Beirão (@LuatyBeirao) 6 juillet 2018
1st Tweet: “It was proved during this trial that the process of land acquisition, at the origin of the article by the defendant which triggered the case which today comes to its end, is tarnished by irregularities”. Conclusion? Who committed a crime? Who should have been in the dock? The messenger?
2nd Tweet: The day of passing sentence
Depois de 3 horas a ler o que parecia uma tese de doutoramento, vamos ao que interessa: Mariano Brás, absolvido de todas as acusações, @RafaelMdeMorais, absolvido de todas as acusações. https://t.co/1UMA6HpRXa
— Luaty Beirão (@LuatyBeirao) 6 juillet 2018
1st Tweet: After 3 hours of reading what seemed to be a doctoral thesis, we get to the interesting part: Mariano Brás, innocent of all charges, @RafaelMdeMorais, innocent of all charges.
2nd Tweet: “The court understands that we would be erring if, as a society that wants to evolve, we decided to punish the messengers of bad news. In taking public positions, it is necessary to become used to being scrutinized and criticized. If you cannot stand the heat, you cannot work in the kitchen”
After the hearing, Marques, who was awarded World Press Freedom Hero in 2018 by the International Press Institute, said that the court's decision was “historic”. He ensured the public that he “will continue denouncing all those who harm the country”.
Some civil society organizations are hopeful that the court’s decision recognizing Rafael Marques’ innocence marks the beginning of a new era in Angola’s court press freedom.
In an interview with DW África, Alexandre Solembe, president of the Institute for Social Communication in Southern Africa in Angola, said he had no doubts that the result would have been different if José Eduardo dos Santos, the former Angolan president for several decades, was still in power.
Under the former president’s time in office, there were numerous cases of harassment of journalists and activists who were critical of the government.
Similarly, the news was welcomed by the African Federation of Journalists, an organization which brings together professionals in social communications from across the continent:
FAJ Hails the Release of Rafael Marques and Mariano Bras on 6 July, and Calls on #Angola Authorities to Review the Media law, Decriminalise libel, and create a conducive environment for journalists to work @lamumu07 @UNESCO @IFJGlobal @makaangola https://t.co/OI7EzBNyTc
— FAJ (@fajournalists) 12 juillet 2018
For Human Rights Watch, it was a victory for press freedom, as highlighted by the organization's researcher for Africa, Zenaida Machado:
The unexpected ruling is a victory for freedom of the press in a country where the media has been on a tight leash, with authorities often repressing coverage of cases of corruption involving government officials, through intimidation and abusive use of defamation laws. Following today’s historic court ruling, the Angolan government should now go further and seek to amend the 2017 media law so that journalists are able to do their jobs in a free environment.
The African network of reporters, RSF África, also welcomed the case, stating that it was a positive sign for investigative journalism:
#Angola: #RSF is relieved to learn that Rafael Marques and Mariano Bras were acquitted on July 6th, but asks the authorities to “overhaul the draconian press legislation” which threatens the freedom to informhttps://t.co/OjkqILKAyu pic.twitter.com/QZoMjMqSmR
— RSF Africa (@RSF_Africa) 9 juillet 2018

author: Dércio Tsandzana


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As Malaysia’s new government marks 100 days in office, is free speech still under threat? · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Activists gather in support of lawyer and activist Fadiah Nadwa Fikri who was summoned by the police for allegedly posting a seditious blog article about the monarchy. Photo from Facebook page of Daniel Mizan Qayyum
As it approaches its 100 days in office, has Malaysia's new government fulfilled its promises to protect freedom of expression?
On May 9, 2018, the Pakatan Harapan (PH) party defeated Barisan Nasional (BN) which had held power for the past half century.
During the campaign period, PH released a manifesto pledging to review and potentially abolish regulations that undermine free speech. These include the Sedition Act 1948, Prevention of Crime Act 1959, Prevention of Terrorism Act 2015, Communications and Multimedia Act 1998, and the Anti-Fake News Act 2018.
Since the election, Malaysians have seen some improvements. Independent news websites such as the Sarawak Report and Medium have been unblocked. The travel ban on political cartoonist and activist Zunar, a fierce critic of former PM Najib Razak, has been lifted. But other outspoken voices are still under pressure.
The Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ) warned that despite the campaign pledge of PH, “violations against freedom of expression are still occurring.”
The group cited the case of lawyer and activist Fadiah Nadwa Fikri who was summoned by the police last July for questioning the role of monarchy in politics in her blog. Fadiah is now under probe for posting an allegedly seditious online content.
CIJ advised the police and the government to stop using draconian laws while parliament is considering the repeal of these measures:
We call upon the Government to make clear its stand on freedom of expression; to condemn this investigation; and to speedily institute a moratorium on all oppressive laws pending their repeal and/ or amendment…If Malaysia is to undergo true democratisation critical, respectful discourse and debate needs to be fostered and protected.
Kua Kia Soong, adviser to the human rights group Suaram, defended Fadiah and appealed for tolerance of dissenting views:
The article written by Fadiah certainly did not constitute incitement to hatred or violence. She was expressing an opinion on an issue of public interest.
Her right to freedom of expression as a social activist and intellectual must be respected because such are the demands of pluralism, tolerance and broad-mindedness that our founding fathers and mothers wanted for our democratic society and especially now, the supposedly “new Malaysia”.
Deputy Minister Hanipa Maidin, in Prime Minister's Department, reiterated the commitment of PH to repeal repressive laws but asked for patience as the government prepares for broader reforms in the bureaucracy:
I only hope the people can be a little more patient with us, just as we have been very patient with BN over the past 60 years…This is because there is far too much damage left by the previous regime for us and for you. This is not an excuse, but a sincere request from us.
Another official affirmed the intention of the government to remove controversial laws such as the Anti-Fake News Act and the Security Offences Special Measures Act (SOSMA).
A welcome development was the decision of the government to withdraw the nine sedition cases it filed against political cartoonist Zunar. This was confirmed by Zunar himself through his Twitter account:
FREE AT LAST!!
All sedition charges (9 altogether) against me has been dropped. The “Fight Through Cartoon” prove to be worthy. But the battle is not over yet. Dangerous “Cartoon-O-Phobia” virus is now infecting all politicians around the world pic.twitter.com/ykD3a14pDc
— Zunar Cartoonist (@zunarkartunis) July 31, 2018
Zunar was a prolific and prominent cartoonist who criticized the corruption and other abuses of the previous government. Aside from being charged with sedition, his drawings were confiscated by the police and he was prevented from leaving the country.
The Penang police also said they will return a collection of Zunar's books, t-shirts, and other artworks that they confiscated from him in 2017.
Malaysians continue to face significant challenges as they campaign for greater freedom and democracy in a society undergoing transition in governance. It is reassuring that the new government has not yet reneged on its vow to pursue legislative reforms that will strengthen media freedom and human rights protection.
But a growing number of Malaysian citizens and civil society groups are reminding the government to take decisive action. This was also the message of 36 civil society groups which signed a statement calling for the upholding of freedom of expression:
We hope this new government is in fact new, and will back up their rhetoric with committed and decisive action. In these crucial early days, as the government sets the tone for its administration, we hope to see a genuine departure from the old oppression, and a transition into a Malaysia where all ideas can be discussed peacefully and our constitutional rights exercised maturely.

author: Mong Palatino


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With refugees evicted, France’s ‘Calais Jungle’ is now a nature preserve · Global Voices
Diego Jenowein

How the patch of land where the “Calais jungle” once was looks like today. Image: screenshot of Youtube video by AFP
A short wooden path winds through the lonesome expanse of sand, bushes and the abandoned bunkers built by the Germans in the 1940s. It leads to an observatory, from which one can gaze at the rather underwhelming landscape against the backdrop of a busy motorway and the factories that dot Calais industrial city.
This is the nature reserve inaugurated at the northern French town in June 2018 on the patch of land where the “Calais Jungle” once stood — and where up to 10,000 exiles from Afghanistan, Sudan, Syria, Eritrea, Iraq, and other countries used to live.
Amid controversy and intense media coverage, the site was dismantled and razed to the ground in October 2016, taking away not only the shelters of its inhabitants but also all of the other makeshift establishments — including restaurants, shops, a mosque and a church.
Local authorities developed in its place a wildlife park, advertised as an “ecological and landscaping reconquest”, which would promote the growth of “beautiful flora such as orchids, and the presence of birds, like snipes and sand martins”, the official website says.
However, some speculate that the project had been motivated by a desire to clear the city's spaces of undesired people, rather than protecting the area's wildlife.
Since the “jungle” was demolished, the French authorities have engaged in similar such projects in other parts of Calais. Another redevelopment enterprise seeks to transform a small wood, where a community of Eritreans live, into a park — the distinction being that woods are always open, whereas parks can be closed.
Tucked between a motorway, a high school, and a residential area, the 2.5-hectare woods is officially called the Chico Mendes Wood, while its Eritreans inhabitants have dubbed it Little Forest. Every day, local associations provide them with food, water, and personal care items.
Little Forest is also within close proximity to other local communities. Sharing such close quarters has sometimes led to tensions, particularly about waste disposal. According to Help Refugees, a charity, the authorities have failed to provide the forced migrants with adequate waste collection facilities.
On June 12, 2018, the Calais town hall convened a public meeting in which mayor Natacha Bouchart presented its plans for the woods. The meeting was attended by Global Voices.
There was a lot of discussion around the fact wood being the last reminder of the area’s history as a “beautiful marsh” (the literal translation of “Beau-Marais”, the name of the district where it is located), and one local resident reminded the audience that the woodland is home to a vast array of natural species, including salamanders that dwell close to the area’s central pond.
But no mention had been made of the wood’s human occupants until one resident timidly suggested, fifteen minutes into the meeting, that a solution should be found for “the people who live there”.
According to the city's plans, when the woods finally becomes a park, it will be surrounded by a fence to prevent entry outside of opening hours, and there are plans to attach cameras to the park’s street lamps. According to the mayor, this will help identify the owners of dogs that may defecate in the park.
Several other suggestions were put forward at the town hall meeting, including the installation of a playground, footpaths, and a pétanque ground. No suggestions of toilets and water fountains were put forward. The redevelopment should cost the city a total of 1.5 million euros.
The timeline of the project suggests that some elements are more important than others: while most of the construction is planned for the beginning of 2020, fences are scheduled to be installed in August 2018.
How the Calais Jungle looked like on January 17, 2016. Photo: malachybrowne/Flickr CC BY 2.0
The proposed redevelopment of the Chico Mendes Wood is happening in the context of ongoing settlement clearings in Calais — some almost daily, and at least once a week. Under the new policy of “no fixation points“, authorities routinely destroy, tear-gas, or discard tents, tarpaulins, sleeping bags, and blankets.
These operations often take place at night or at dawn, without forewarning, and under heavy police presence. Not only are refugees’ homes taken away, but all too often their belongings are also confiscated, and various instances of police brutality against forced migrants, including minors, have been reported.
We can never know what Chico Mendes, who bestowed his name upon this small wood, would have thought of Bouchart’s proposal. The Brazilian activist, assassinated in 1988, dedicated his life to fighting for the preservation of the Amazonian rainforest as well as for the rights of peasants and indigenous peoples who lived in it.
In the words of Michel Agier, senior Researcher at the French Institute of Research for Development (IRD) and author of the book “The Jungle: Calais's Camps and Migrants“, the redevelopment projects are, effectively, an attempt at erasing the tumultuous history of this “draft of a city“:
Il y a un ensemble de crises politiques qui font qu’il y a des gens qui sont mis dans l’obligation de circuler. Ce qui indigne les gens de Calais, c’est le mauvais traitement des gens qui sont là, et, en passant, la mauvaise image de leur ville à cause de cela. Ce n’est pas littéralement le camp ou les migrants eux-mêmes, c’est plutôt cette absence de solution.
There is a set of political crises that cause people to be forced to move around. What outrages the people of Calais is the mistreatment of the people who are there, and the bad image of their city because of that. It is not literally the camp or the migrants themselves, it is rather the lack of solution for their plight.

author: Diego Jenowein


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India’s biometric ID system takes more heat, after Google admits it coded helpline numbers into Android phones · Global Voices
Subhashish Panigrahi

Collecting an image of a man's iris for Aadhaar. Photo by Kannanshanmugam, via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 3.0
The debate on interception of private communications in India took a new turn recently after the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) — a federal agency responsible for India's national ID database, Aadhaar — denied inputting a UIDAI helpline number in several Android user's devices.
The Aadhaar Sampark Kendra (helpline in Hindi) number, 1-800-300-1947, was intended to provide automated and agent-based support to users. But it no longer works. It was replaced with the simpler four-digit 1947 about two years back.
While there is no inherent harm in having the phone number in one's phone contacts, some Indians were unhappy that they were not asked for their consent before the number was added to their devices. While some found that it was there from the time they obtained the device, others report that the phone number appeared following a software update.
These instances have left people suspicious that UIDAI might be capable of accessing personal data from their devices.
Hi @UIDAI,
Many people, with different provider, with and without an #Aadhaar card, with and without the mAadhaar app installed, noticed that your phone number is predefined in their contact list by default and so without their knowledge. Can you explain why?
Regards,
— Elliot Alderson (@fs0c131y) August 2, 2018
After more than a week of discussions in many media publications and social media, Google admitted that in 2014 it had “inadvertently coded” two numbers into the Android SetUp Wizard — distress helpline number 112 and the general helpline number, 1-800-300-1947.
pic.twitter.com/vlASMAW7AR
— Google India (@GoogleIndia) August 3, 2018
The Aadhaar system is now used widely for identity authentication in myriad public and private institutions, from banking to healthcare to employment. While it is not intended to be used for individual profiling, this could be an outcome of the massive use (and misuse) the system, a reality that has elevated fears of India slowly becoming a surveillance state. With a growing list of incidents of system malfunctions and personal data leaks, Aadhaar has failed to gain public trust.
In a recent attempt to prove the strength of Aadhaar to the public, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) chairman Ram Sewak Sharma on July 28 shared his Aadhaar number publicly on Twitter, hoping to show that no harm could be done by revealing the same.
This impulsive step provoked hackers and developers, who soon found Sharma's cellphone number, email and physical addresses, date of birth, airline miles number, an alleged photograph with a family member, and a prank of ordering a phone in his address with a cash on delivery option.
He nevertheless continues to defend Aadhaar as being leak-proof and protective of privacy.
This probably was the best of the lot. #Aadhaar #RSSharma
???? pic.twitter.com/58BLoVXHRO
— Arijit (@SaintIGNUtius) July 29, 2018
Despite of UIDAI's tweet asking users to not reveal their Aadhaar numbers publicly, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of Electronics and Information Technology and of Law and Justice, followed the lead of Sharma and revealed his own Aadhaar number during a public meeting.
This is brutal. Prof. Sandeep Shukla also calls @rssharma3 clueless. pic.twitter.com/xt8lKm4a5Q
— V. Anand | வெ. ஆனந்த் (@iam_anandv) August 6, 2018
Aadhaar has been criticized largely for what technical experts say is a defective design that in many cases has made the privacy of many Indian citizens vulnerable.
That might be true if banks, landlords, hospitals, schools, telephone & internet companies were prohibited by law from asking for your #Aadhaar number. But any Indian can tell you they're asked for their number by non-government entities––and those companies have databases too. https://t.co/WsKC9wR6sj
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) January 21, 2018

author: Subhashish Panigrahi


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The abortion legalization movement in Argentina gets a boost of global solidarity · Global Voices
Romina Navarro

Argentinians hold a public demonstration in front of Argentinian Congress. Activists dress as handmaids from The Handmaid's tale, a dystopic television series centered on women's rights. Screenshot from the video shared on YouTube by LaVacaTV.
On Wednesday, August 8, members of the Argentinian Senate will debate and vote on a controversial bill to legalize abortion. The bill was presented by the National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe and Free Abortion and was approved to be discussed on June 13 following an intense debate while activists held a street-vigil outside Congress.
News of the historical milestone in the Chamber of Deputies made global headlines and gained the attention of organizations, news media, and netizens who are now watching closely as Argentina waits for the Senate's defining vote.
The organization National Campaign for Legal, Safe and Free Abortion called for an “International Green Handkerchief Rally” and feminist organizations responded favorably across the globe. Seen in numerous images of protests and rallies, the green handkerchief symbolizes Argentina's pro-choice movement.
New national vigils are planned to be held outside Congress and in the country's principal cities during the debate alongside demonstrations throughout the world.
The feminist fight and this green tide are international! From London, we shout together: Legal, Safe and Free Abortion in Argentina. Come and join us, solidarity is our weapon! ✊?#SeraLey #PanuelazoInternacional pic.twitter.com/YkSDA6Tdw5
— Ni Una Menos UK (@niunamenos_uk) 2 de agosto de 2018
el miércoles concentramos en barcelona para que el aborto legal, seguro y gratuito sea ley en argentina #AbortoLegalYa #QueSeaLey pic.twitter.com/vn5a7PaaSQ
— ?arbe1e? (@P_ppes) 6 de agosto de 2018
Wednesday we will gather in Barcelona so that Legal, Safe and Free Abortion is legalized in Argentina.
A highly sensitive social issue, legalizing abortion touches on the political and ideological to the personal and religious. On social media and in the streets, demonstrations and debates for and against the bill are intensifying.
The National Campaign convoked “Green Tuesday” rallies held in front of Congress every Tuesday. Several manifestations against the bill were carried out, including a massive march convoked by religious groups and anti-abortion organizations on August 4 that occupied a large section of the Avenida 9 de Julio in the capital city Buenos Aires.
When the Argentian Journalist Union staged a performance-demonstration by recreating images from The Handmaid's Tail, the dystopian novel by Canadian author and activist  Margaret Atwood, the action received international attention. Demonstrators wore red capes and white bonnets as they marched and lined up in front of Congress. The novel, which later informed the eponymous popular television series, tells the story of Gilead, a new world order in which women lose their reproductive rights under an imagined fundamentalist Christian regime.
During the performance, a demonstrator read some of Atwood's words explaining the context surrounding the novel and the ideas behind its creation. The phrase “blessed be the fruit” refers to the ritual greeting of Gilead residents, reducing women to the role as child-bearers.
Support for the movement has expanded on social media to include similar struggles in other counties. In Chile, they are currently reconsidering the partial decriminalization of abortion. A regional campaign called #VivasNosQueremos (We Want Ourselves Alive) has also emerged, drawing attention to the problem of femicide in Latin America and the Caribbean, where 14 of the 25 countries with the highest murder rate of women are located.
Screenshots of various online campaigns from around the world that support the Argentinian movement to legalize abortion, images collected by the author of this post.
Hours away from this historic debate, a very close vote is expected. A continuously updated count of senator's voting intentions reveals an inclination against legalization. The count suggests that very few senators are still undecided, even though possible abstentions and last minute surprises are not being ruled out.
For both sides, faith in the force of the fight in the streets has not been lost:
¡8 de ABORTO!
Manifestación por el aborto legal
en ARGENTINA y PUERTO RICO
miércoles, 8 de agosto de 2018 | 12:00pm
Royal Bank Building, Hato Rey
Cruce Calle Bolivia / Ave. Ponce de León
¡La que decide es ésta, ÉSTA QUE ESTÁ AQUÍ!#AbortoLibre #AbortoLegalSeguroGratuito pic.twitter.com/zhfB10W4Uy
— Colectiva Feminista (@ColeFeminista) 6 de agosto de 2018
[The tweet retakes the text in the image]
8th (August) for ABORTION!
Demonstration for legal abortion in ARGENTINA and PUERTO RICO
Wednesday, August 8, 2018, 8 pm
Royal Bank Building, Hato Rey
Cruce Calle Bolivia / Ave. Ponce de León
The one who decides is the one who's here [me].
Este 8A, desde #Ecuador estaremos con toda la energía en #Argentina frente al fallo del @senadoargentina, es un gran avance en derechos para #Nuestramérica.
Educación sexual para decidir, anticonceptivos para no abortar, aborto legal para no morir#VivasNosQueremos pic.twitter.com/512MV85otn
— Sofía Romero Yánez (@sofyromeroyanez) 6 de agosto de 2018
[In the image: We're with you]
This 8A from #Ecuador we will be focusing all our energy on #Argentina facing the decision of the @senadoargentina, it is an important advance in rights for #Nuestramérica
Sexual education to have a choice, contraception to avoid abortions, legal abortion to avoid death #VivasNosQueremos pic.twitter.com/512MV85otn
Nos sumamos a la convocatoria de la @Coordinadora8m al Pañuelazo Internacional a la espera de la votación del proyecto de #AbortoLegal en el senado argentino.
Este 8 de marzo el aborto será ley en Argentina, y mañana lo será en toda América Latina! #NoBastan3Causales ??? pic.twitter.com/NZewrLMb49
— NuevaDemocracia (@ND_Chile) 6 de agosto de 2018
[In the image: Today, Argentina. Tomorrow, the whole of Latin America]
We will join the call of the @Coordinadora8m International Green Handkerchief Vigil to wait for vote for the bill #AbortoLegal by the Argentinian Senate.>
This August 8, abortion will be law in Argentina and tomorrow it will be legalized in all of Latin America! #NoBastan3Causales ??? pic.twitter.com/NZewrLMb49

author: Romina Navarro


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To see the full brutality of ICE’s impact on immigrants, look inside U.S. borders too · Global Voices
Hamid Yazdan Panah

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) SWAT officers in 2004. PHOTO: Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
The policy of separating children from their parents at U.S. borders pursued by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has been the target of significant outrage and condemnation over the past few months. Yet little attention has been paid to the manner in which immigration enforcement is carried out by ICE within U.S. borders. In July 2018, ICE carried out one of its largest raids in years, arresting more than 140 people in the state of Ohio. The Trump administration has attempted to justify aggressive immigration enforcement by claiming it helps make cities safer, yet the opposite may be true. Simply put, the enforcement policies of ICE are destroying the social fabric of communities in the U.S.
Immigration advocates have raised concerns about ICE’s track record of abuse, militarized operations and propensity to identify themselves as the police. So far this year, seven immigrants have died while in ICE custody, with reports citing lack of medical care as a primary factor. The cavalier attitude with which ICE conducts operations should be a cause of concern for everyone, especially given that ICE has negligently detained or deported more than 20,000 U.S. citizens since 2003.
The terror that ICE raids sow in communities affects us all. In immigrant communities this fear often results in a reluctance to call the police, cooperate with authorities or show up in court, the effects of which have already started to show. In 2017, sexual assault reports by Latinos in Los Angeles fell by 25 percent, while domestic violence reports declined by 10 percent. In Denver, Colorado, prosecutors reported that victims of domestic violence have refused to testify out of fear following ICE arrests in the local courthouse.
The threat to our collective security extends to public health as well. Widespread fear has led to immigrants forgoing healthcare for themselves and even their U.S. citizen children, increasing health risks for all. ICE's violence also has direct and tangible effects. A 2017 study by the University of Michigan documented health outcomes following a 2008 ICE raid in Iowa. The study found that Latina women, including those who were U.S. citizens, were more likely to give birth to low birth-weight or premature babies following the raid.
While the immediate effects on health and safety have been documented, the long-term effects will take decades to be fully understood. This includes not only the great trauma inflicted on children separated from their parents while in immigration custody, but also the devastating disruption of their education due to ICE raids. After raids took place in eastern Tennessee earlier this year, more than 500 children missed school the following day.
The fear and instability that accompanies these raids have thrust school officials into a role that has now become all too common for teachers, health-care professionals and social workers attempting to provide some sense of guidance and reassurance in a time of immense uncertainty. A survey of 5,400 teachers, principals and counselors conducted by the Civil Rights Project at UCLA found that 68 percent of administrators cited absenteeism among immigrant students as a problem, and 70 percent of principals and counselors reported academic decline among immigrant students.
These collateral consequences are rarely cited in conversations on immigration and enforcement, but they highlight the human costs that we collectively pay. The United States detains more immigrants than any other country in the world, and ICE’s ballooning budget and expansive detention policies run the risk of reshaping the character of our country.
Evidence documenting the destructive effects of ICE enforcement paints a clear picture as to the devastating toll these policies are taking on our society. We must stand together to protect our communities and call for an end to destructive policies that separate our families and destroy the social fabric of our communities.
A version of this article was originally published on Common Dreams.

author: Hamid Yazdan Panah


text:
What destiny for diversity in Afghanistan? The case of Sikhs and Hindus · Global Voices
Farkhonda Tahery

Afghan Sikh, running a shop in Kabul. By koldo hormaza from madrid, españa. CC 2.0.
If any one attack this year has spotlighted deepening insecurity in Afghanistan it was the July suicide bombing that killed 19 people and injured 10 as Sikh and Hindu representatives made their way to a meeting with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.
For the ISIS group who claimed the targeted suicide bombing in Jalalabad city, the bombing was a coup. Not only was the group able to create a deadly explosion in an area that should have been cleared for President Ashraf Ghani's arrival, they were able to kill a man who would have been the country's first ever Sikh representative in parliament's popularly elected lower house, Awtar Singh Khalsa. A prominent Sikh activist, Rawail Singh, was also killed.
Photo taken from Eliatroz.com and used with permission.
In total the attack killed 17 Sikhs and Hindus. As such, many social media users described it as an attack on the diversity they cherish, and that ISIS is known to loathe.
I’m really short of words to express our shock and sadness on the loss of our most patriotic Afghans in Jalababad – the least I can say: It was indeed an attack on Afghan patriotism, religious freedom, diversity, democracy, Indo-Afghan friendship and shared values! https://t.co/UEkvxL8Qdo
— Dr Shaida Abdali (@ShaidaAbdali) July 2, 2018
#RawailSingh and #Avtarsingh were voice of #Sikhs in #Afghanistan. Their killing along with 17 other Sikhs in #Jalalabad in an #ISIS attack has created a vacuum. Hope peace returns to Afghanistan. pic.twitter.com/w5YNtdhV11
— Zishan Haider (@ZishanHNaqvi) July 2, 2018
The Afghan constitution stipulates that the President of Afghanistan should be a Muslim. But electoral legislation supports the political participation of Sikhs, who number over a thousand in Afghanistan, and Hindus, of which there are only a few dozen remaining.
According to amendments to the electoral law in 2016, one seat out of 249 seats in the lower house is secured for a representative of either the Hindu or Sikh communities. Women's rights activist Anarkali Honaryar has held her seat in the upper house since 2010, following a presidential decree by ex-President Hamid Karzai, and has emerged powerful voice for minorities.
Awtar Singh Khalsa would have been the first representative from the two communities in the lower house had he not been killed in the attack. Now his son, Narinder Singh Khalsa will take his place following a request from the community, knowing that he has a target on his back.
While more than 300 Hindu and Sikh families currently live in Afghanistan, the number of Sikhs and Hindus entering higher education institutions is zero.
Rawail Singh and his daughter Komal, Rawail Singh's Facebook page.
Sikhs and Hindus overwhelmingly stop education during middle school, a trend driven by bullying (both from teachers and schoolmates) and economic pressures.
Research from the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom in 2009 showed that Sikhs and Hindus are effectively barred from most governmental positions and face wide-ranging social discrimination.
Many have relocated to Kabul after being displaced during conflicts in the Kandahar and Helmand provinces. Most commonly, they run grocery stores.
Data from 2016 suggests that 99% of Afghanistan's Sikh and Hindu citizens have left the country in the last three decades.
Back in the 1980s, when they numbered over 220,000, they were able to find jobs in politics and play a more significant role in society. Sikh and Hindu community intellectuals argue that in a country ruined by war, many Afghans have forgotten this role their community used to play.
The July 2 attack was followed swiftly by a protest of Sikhs in New Delhi, where Afghanistan's ambassador to India, Dr. Shaida Abdali, also joined the protesters.
But in the aftermath of the violence many of Afghanistan's remaining Sikhs see their future in Afghanistan's bigger neighbour, with which they have greater cultural and religious ties. A total of 25 Sikh families reportedly applied for Indian citizenship immediately after the bombing.
Many Afghans feel a sadness witnessing their fellow citizens leave the country:
So sad! I can’t imagine their grief and pain when leaving the country, especially, Avtar Singh’s family whose wounds are still fresh! We must make this country safe for everyone no matter what they beliefs are or to what ethnic group they belong. Otherwise it should parish all! https://t.co/ufjLTNuWxh
— Jawad Zawulistani (@Jawadniki) July 22, 2018
For those Sikhs and Hindus that remain, the patriotism and sense of community embodied by Rawail Singh and Awtar Singh Khalsa are the main motivations for staying in Afghanistan.
Mr.President @ashrafghani u have to revisit ur method for https://t.co/Dj8t2J0Ezr we lost one of the most patriot Afghans #RawailSingh.I m sure u remember the girl from photos, her eyes guard your capital from corruption. Now her eyes will be asking u where is her Baba?@MujMash pic.twitter.com/eTVcf0NRNg
— Lima Ahmad (@Limaahmad) July 1, 2018

author: Farkhonda Tahery


text:
“What followed horrified us beyond our wildest imaginations”: an eyewitness account of the Bangladesh student protests · Global Voices
Guest Contributor

YouTube screencap of groups of student protestors directing traffic in Dhaka, Bangladesh after the killing of two teenagers by speeding buses.
By Saleh Ahmad
Like other high school students, Abdul Karim Rajib, 18, and Dia Khanam Mim, 17 had many hopes and dreams for their lives. One had hoped to become an army officer, the other, a banker. On July 29, 2018, around noon, the two teenagers were killed in the streets of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, by three buses speeding against each other for no reason other than to arrive first and cram as many passengers into their already overcrowded interiors, for maximum profit.
This was not an isolated accident. Every year, more than 12,000 people lose their lives to road accidents in Bangladesh, and those are just the ones reported. 12,000 deaths that were completely preventable had the laws been followed. To say that traffic law enforcement in Bangladesh is lax is an understatement.
Traffic congestion near New Market in Dhaka, minus auto rickshaws, which are prohibited from using that street. PHOTO: b k via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)
This time, however, we said enough is enough. Young Bangladeshis like me are sick and tired of fearing for our lives on the roads—fearing being run over by a bus or truck simply because the driver values making money more than human lives. We are tired of forming human chains on roads only to be ignored by our leaders. We are tired of empty promises from people who travel in VIP entourages, never having to face the precarious reality of moving around on Bangladesh’s roads.
So we took to the streets and protested.
It began with the students of Shaheed Ramiz Uddin Cantonment School and College, Rajib and Mim’s high school, at the site of the accident on Airport Road, mere minutes after the incident occurred. On the second day, they spread across the city and by the third-day protests were taking place citywide, with participants from nearly every school in the city.
Students protest the death of two students in a road accident in Dhaka Airport Road. Image via Wikimedia Commons by Asive Chowdhury CC: BY-SA 4.0
Commandeering major intersections of the city, we protested the deaths of Rajib and Mim, demanding exemplary punishment and that the government get serious about implementing road safety measures, expressing our demands in a nine-point list.
We took over traffic control, making sure that vehicles stuck to their lanes, travelled on the right side of the road, and that a lane was kept clear for emergency vehicles. We made sure that—for perhaps the very first time in this nation’s history—traffic laws were strictly enforced, with everyone equal in the eyes of the law.
Screenshots from Facebook highlighting some of the effects of protestors’ efforts at traffic management.
We stopped the Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed’s entourage from driving on the wrong side of the road. We stopped the police deputy inspector general and found that his vehicle had no registration certificate, nor did his driver have a driving license. And when another police officer was unable to produce his own driving license, we made sure he was fined by one of his colleagues. These are just a fraction of the traffic violations we caught among the thousands of cars we stopped. And this was all done by students in our early to late teens, as our placards unapologetically announced.
These protests, in many ways, represent the grand unification of the students of our nation across the curriculum, gender, and social class. University students joined in, and parents and guardians supported us with food and water. For the first time in ages, one felt that burst of optimism often associated with youth.
A collage of photos taken from Facebook. Left: A student holds a placard that reads: “We don’t want 4G internet speeds, we want justice at 4G speeds”; Centre: A student holds a placard that reads: “Bumper crop of Lemons in Dinajpur”, above the BTV logo, a references to the fact that TV channel BTV has zero coverage of the protests; Right: A cartoon pokes fun at the students’ assuming control of traffic law enforcement.
Saturday came and we were as determined as ever to continue protesting. The government had by this point stated that they would agree to our demands, but as recently as April 2018, the same leaders had made promises to another group of protestors, then went on to distort the original demands and deem them unfeasible. We refused to leave the streets until they’d actually begun fulfilling our demands or presented a solid, detailed process for doing so. So we continued our protests. Until the Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), the student arm of the Awami League ruling party arrived on the scene.
Officially, the BCL’s purpose is to encourage youth engagement in politics and social change. In reality, they are a group of young party loyalists who, in return of political favors, act as goons for hire when the government wishes to avoid the international backlash that comes in response to shows of force by official bodies such as the police. Effectively a government force, they are essentially above the law, and they don’t hesitate to exercise their impunity.
It wasn’t a surprise. Rumors had been circulating that the BCL planned on inciting violence and that impostors would infiltrate the protests wearing school uniforms. The Home Minister had declared that state security forces would not “shoulder any responsibility if any act of sabotage takes place in the name of the student movement.”
We braced ourselves and put measures in place. We formed ourselves into concentric circles, with those in the outer circles vetting IDs before letting other protesters in. We knew there was a good chance of violence and that the police would stand by and do nothing—or even assist, as they’d done on August 2 when a group of unidentified assailants attacked students in Mirpur in the north-east of the capital Dhaka.
But what followed horrified us beyond our wildest imaginations. Jigatola and the surrounding areas in central Dhaka became the scene of a bloodbath.
The BCL’s intervention seemed designed not just to disperse the crowd but to inflict bodily harm: hundreds of students were heavily injured, as the images in this Daily Star article attest. As Al Jazeera reported, journalists from several news outlets were assaulted and even molested, with BCL making sure to destroy as much of the footage as they could.
Even more terrifying are the unconfirmed reports—largely from images on social media—of the alleged murder of at least four students and the rape of four female students by the BCL. There were also reports circulating about the BCL having taken students hostage, and one unconfirmed report that a victim's eyes had been gouged out. A fact-checking community in Facebook called Jaachai (fact-check) pointed out that although the reports of beatings and clashes etc. are true, many images circulating with claims of killings are fake. According to the UK Guardian, police detained a Bangladeshi actor “for spreading rumors after he allegedly said in a Facebook post that two protesters had been killed and another had had an eye gouged out.”
The government response to the reports of violence was swift. A press conference was called in a matter of hours denying that these horrific events had taken place or that anyone was being held hostage in BCL compounds. One BCL spokesperson who claimed he played no part in the violence had been photographed at the protests engaged in the very acts he denied carrying out. And the “student representative” who spoke at the press conference was revealed in photos to be a member of the BCL wearing a school uniform.
On television, there was a more or less complete blackout of coverage of the BCL’s actions. The government had begun cracking down at the beginning of August, citing the National Broadcast Policy-2014 and a litany of pre-existing laws, but on August 4 the media went dark. Cellular data speeds countrywide were slowed to a crawl, crippling protesters’ ability to communicate and organise. And the government has continued to deny having sponsored the violence, sending the following text message to many cell phones in the country:
“Reports of murder and rape of students in the capital’s Jigatola have no truth to them. This entire story is fictitious. Please do not be confused by this. Assist the police by providing information against people who are sharing this fake news – Ministry of Home Affairs”
On Sunday the protests continued. Many female students stayed away, fearing for their safety. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, at a conference about fiber optic technology, reiterated that reports of state-sponsored violence, murder and rape were “fake news”.
By noon that day, most protests across the city had been suppressed by the police and BCL, using tear gas and Molotov cocktails. Journalists were warned to not press the police for information. In Uttara in northern Dhaka, protesters somehow managed to hold out against the BCL assault until 4 pm.
The government is using the combined powers of every single body it has to crack down on the unrest as quickly as possible. On Sunday, the Home Minister said that law enforcement had been “showing patience”, and that the protesters should not believe they could “keep crossing the limit and we will sit idle and watch. We will go for tough action if the limit is crossed.” And the Education Minister has threatened to hold schools responsible if their students are out protesting.
All we wanted were safer roads where we don’t have to worry about our lives every single day. We have not demanded magical new laws: all we want is strict enforcement of the laws parliament itself passed, and that already exist. But the government has responded with this brutal crackdown. Our boundless optimism has finally met the grim reality of our country.
On Monday 6 August, Human Rights Watch issued a statement denouncing the Bangladeshi government's actions and urging them to “prosecute those, including members of the ruling party's youth supporters, who are attacking children with sticks and machetes.”
Saleh Ahmad is a student living in Dhaka, Bangladesh.


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What happens when women report sexual assault in Japan? · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

“Chikan (groping / sexual assault) is a crime. There is no tolerance for chikan.” — poster in a train station in Tokyo, Japan. Image source: Tokyo Times Flickr account. License: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
One Canadian woman's recent experience of sexual assault on a Tokyo train, including the way the police responded, has prompted discussions on Twitter about Japan's ongoing problem with ‘chikan‘ (痴漢 or train-gropers in Japanese). The documented sexual assault experience resembles recent high profile cases in Japan involving journalist Shiori Ito, a blogger known as Hachu and stage actress Shimizu Meili.
In July 2018, a woman who goes by the name ‘Jenna‘ on Twitter began sharing a series of tweets that described being stalked and groped by a man on a train in Tokyo, and then what happened when the groper was arrested and she filed a report with the police.
In a series of tweets, Jenna reports:
About 20-15 or so minutes from Omotesandō a large man approached me from my left side. He was staring at me in a very lecherous way. He came right up against me and whispered “kirei” which means “beautiful” in Japanese. I ignored him and looked around at the people in the seats, some noticed his strange behaviour…
Generally, incidents of groping by ‘chikan’ are prosecuted by police under Section 176 of the penal code as “forcible indecency” (強制わいせつ). According to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, 1,750 cases of groping or molestation were reported in 2017. More than 50 percent of groping cases occurred on trains, the report says, with a further 20 percent occurring in train stations. However, survivors of sexual assault in Japan often lament that such cases are difficult to prosecute.
Jenna continues to describe her personal experience with train-groping throughout her Twitter thread:
…The Japanese man sat down when a seat opened up, and continued staring at me, mainly my face and my thighs (I was wearing a skirt). I felt quite uncomfortable, but honestly I've experienced similar things before, and was okay…
…He stood up again after a couple of minutes and came up to me again and asked me where I was going (in Japanese.) I said “huh?? What??” And he just stared at me…
In the same Twitter thread, Jenna said she considered getting off the train early to wait for the next train, but was afraid the man would follow. “I didn't really see any options and felt uncomfortable,” she explained in one tweet.
As her stop approached, Jenna got up and moved toward the carriage exit doors:
…I noticed the Japanese man looking up and noticing me at the door, he suddenly shot upright and practically ran up behind me, standing behind me and slightly to my left. I was quite scared at this point, and panicking about what to do, he was clearly going to follow me off the train.
This all happened within a few seconds, and within 10 seconds of him placing himself behind me, I felt his right hand touch my left butt cheek and squeeze hard, twice.
Jenna describes an adrenaline surge that prompted her to turn and strike her assailant, who then attempted to flee. She chased him onto the train platform, grabbing at his clothing while shouting in Japanese that she had been sexually assaulted. Station staff intervened and police arrived shortly thereafter.
According to her Twitter thread, Jenna was driven to a nearby police station for what would become nearly seven hours of questioning, but her frustrating experience with the police began in the car:
The driver made some, in my opinion, condescending comments about how I couldn't possibly know he groped my butt because I don't have eyes in the back of my head.
At the police station, after her cell phone, passport and other ID were taken from her, Jenna reported that she started to feel scared:
I was scared being alone with a bunch of possibly power hungry men with no phone after what just happened to me.
Eventually, police wheeled in a partition to provide privacy, but Jenna explained:
…Almost 10 male staff members decided to go around it and hang out in the doorway to my room listening to my story anyway.
A male translator was put on speaker phone, and during the time I was explaining the story to him, those nosy men were talking and laughing so sometimes I couldn't even hear or explain properly to the translator.
After telling her story, Jenna says police recommended that she not press charges because her alleged assailant was apparently still a minor. Undeterred, Jenna said she still wanted to press charges.
The police measured and photographed Jenna's body in a process that took more than three hours. Pressing charges also meant having to perform a reenactment, a common requirement when reporting a sexual assault in Japan:
We go into the Hall and there's a mannequin with a brown wig, plaid skirt and white shirt. That's me. They have a staff member acting as the chikan. They have to set up/reenact and photograph every moment that happened on the train. And I have to be in the photos pointing at the situation to confirm I agree that's what happened I guess? Protocol they say.
Jenna noted that no potential witnesses had been contacted and that the police would make the final decision about pressing charges or not (in Japan, police refer criminal cases to a prosecutor). They returned Jenna's cell phone and other belongings. Nearly seven hours after being sexually assaulted on the train, she was free to go home.
They ask if I want to get a drive to Omotesandō station or home. I pick home obviously, they groan, it's an hour drive. But damn if I don't at least get a drive home out of this, I don't want to pay $15 just to get groped and waste 6.5 hours in the police station.
After the grueling experience at the police station, Jenna concluded:
If this happens again I will feel more powerless knowing there's probably nothing I can do, and nothing the police will do. #groping #chikan #japan #sexualharassment #police #痴漢
In the days that followed, Jenna's tweets were shared and discussed by many people around the world who mostly showed support. Some Japanese Twitter users also shared their own experiences with harassment and sexual assault in solidarity:
Hi, I've read your tweets. I'm so sorry that you had to go through this. I wish I could put a curse on him! Absolutely unacceptable ??I used to be harassed by ‘Chikan’ almost everyday as a kid. I'm angry that abuse against women/children is never taken seriously in Japan!
— 鮎を止めるな！ (@KellyPaaBio) July 27, 2018
One Twitter user created a Twitter moment of Jenna's tweets:
We are with you.https://t.co/tsrFpVAGW2
— Koichi Kawakami (@koichi_kawakami) August 6, 2018
Others translated her tweets into Japanese:
As I tweeted about your experience, some Japanese guys criticized that it must be fake story. So I translated your all tweets into Japanese, regarding to groping. Here is the link of the translation. https://t.co/XxZZY646nD
— dia feliz (@diafeliz_latin) August 7, 2018
By late July, Jenna's assailant had reportedly confessed to groping her, but the police did not take further action. Jenna tweeted that police had finally made the decision to put the assailant's case on record and hoped this would be enough to deter him from groping in the future.
When Jenna announced that the police suggested she take down her tweets, her story was shared more than 2,000 times:
Lmao the Japanese police suggested I delete the posts I made about my sexual assault. Real nice Japan, try to hide your shitty treatment of me
— Jenna (@Jennamaryellen) August 1, 2018
Jenna later clarified the request:
Ok now the police are saying they wanted me to delete it for "my safety" not because they wanted me to hide anything. I don't know if that's true or they're just trying to conver their butts, but I can protect myself, since clearly they won't
— Jenna (@Jennamaryellen) August 1, 2018

author: Nevin Thompson