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For Refugees at Katsikas Camp, Life Remains in Limbo · Global Voices
Martin Waldman

A partly cloudy afternoon over Katsikas camp. Photo by Cristina del Campo Martín. Used with permission.
Sitting on the matted floor of his tent with an arm spread across a military-provided cot, Mohanad takes a long, pensive drag off a cigarette. “We didn’t leave because we wanted to. We had homes, we had jobs, we had cars.”
Months of bitterness and frustration are palpable through a caustic smile. “And now I just wait. They might take months, or years, of my life. I don’t know.
“This isn’t living – this is surviving.”
In early March, in the hopes of finding a safe place to start a family, Mohanad left his home near the Syrian city of Homs and, like hundreds of thousands before him, made his way via Turkey, the Mediterranean and the island of Lesvos to mainland Greece. Today, he is one of roughly 800 people living at Katsikas camp, a military-administered refugee camp six kilometres outside the city of Ioannina in northwestern Greece, and one of roughly 40 such camps that have emerged across the country since late winter.
Arriving at Katsikas in mid-April, I was immediately struck by the contrast in settings: picturesque, snow-capped mountains dominate the horizon, with rolling green foothills in the foreground; while the camp is a dusty sea of large jagged rocks and row upon row of identical triangular tents.
Each large tent is given a letter-number combination, and the rows and sections of tents coincide with ethnic and linguistic communities: Palestinian-Syrians, Iraqi Kurds, Yazidis, Afghans, and so on. The weather in the region is volatile and intense, alternating between clear blue skies with punishing sun, and incessant heavy rain, usually for two or more days in a row.
Clothing hangs out to dry between tents in row A. Katsikas, northern Greece. Photo by author.
When she first made her way to Katsikas in March to continue her volunteer work in Greece, María Peñalosa was under the impression that she would primarily be helping distribute milk, diapers and other basic supplies in the newly established camp. “There were seven of us to 1,200 refugees when we arrived,” she recalls. “Everyone was freezing, and there was absolutely nothing in the entire camp besides the tents themselves, without floors. People didn’t have shoes, socks or proper clothes – it was a desperate situation.”
After an especially turbulent first few weeks, a support network began to take shape. A few small NGOs arrived in Katsikas, as did growing numbers of volunteers and increasing donations of food, clothing and other basic supplies from across Europe. With the exception of a small core of long-term mainstays such as María, the roster of volunteers fluctuates regularly, usually numbering around 40.
Through creativity and tenacity, the volunteers at Katsikas have managed to improve the day-to-day conditions for those living at the camp. They have set up equitable distribution systems for clothing and basic supplies, they lead language classes and movie nights, they cook hearty meals to supplement the barely edible and nutritionally inadequate military rations, and they have built communal spaces and private bathing cabins for women, among many other initiatives.
Despite these efforts, however, the living conditions at the camp remain poor. Tents flood when it rains and are stiflingly hot on warm days; toilets, of the portable variety, are extremely unsanitary; drainage systems are inadequate, with puddles of standing water providing a breeding ground for insects. There is a lack of communal spaces for women. Children, who make up about one-third of the camp’s population, are especially vulnerable to diseases—and are perpetually bored.
Children play on an improvised swing next to their tent in Katsikas. Photo by Cristina del Campo Martín. Used with permission.
Still, Katsikas is far from the worst of Greece’s military-run camps. Especially since Greek police evacuated the enormous improvised refugee camp at Idomeni in late May and dispersed the thousands of refugees remaining there to new, official sites, reports have surfaced of extremely poor conditions in many of the camps across the mainland.
On another afternoon in Mohanad’s tent, he mentions a brief WhatsApp chat he had with an acquaintance from back home who is currently stuck in a detention centre on the island of Chios.
“I guess I was one of the lucky ones.”
He is referring to his date of arrival in Greece, March 19, one day before the EU-Turkey deal came into effect and the registration “hot-spots” on the Greek islands off the Turkish coast became closed detention centres.
Of course, none of the vague promises or absurdly convoluted proposals in the deal were ever going to be made a reality, not least because many of the suggested measures contravene international human rights law, and because the idea of actually granting visa-free travel to Turkish citizens within three months was never really on the table. The deal was a transparent political maneuver to take pressure off EU leaders seen as doing little to manage—or, more accurately, stop—the continued refugee influx from Turkey into Greece.
An illustration by a refugee living at Katsikas camp shows the details of his journey to Greece. Photo by Andrew Huang, drawing by Kawa. Used with permission.
This crass political move has serious human consequences. The core concept of the deal is the same notion that continues to inform migration policy in the EU and beyond: deterrence. Make life increasingly miserable for those who arrive, and those yet to come will get the hint and stay home; offer safe and dignified living conditions, and the floodgates will open. It is an approach that shows a complete lack of understanding of the gravity of the situation in conflict areas, and one that abandons any notion of human rights or basic compassion.
Over five weeks I spent volunteering at Katsikas, I was told of lives left behind in cities that have become shorthand for despicable atrocities and brutal violence: Raqqa, Mosul, Sinjar, Palmyra, Aleppo. Yet, the act of fleeing some of the most dangerous places in the world is currently being punished with substandard living conditions and a maddening, perpetual state of limbo and uncertainty; the same principle of deterrence is in effect.
In late May, the UNHCR announced that it would be collaborating with the Greek Asylum Service to begin pre-registration of refugees at camps across the mainland, a necessary part of the protracted process of applying for asylum in Greece or elsewhere in Europe. By late June, no one at Katsikas has been able to pre-register yet; the latest indication is that this will start in mid-July, but official predictions are rarely taken seriously anymore. In a multi-step process that moves at a glacial pace, the refugees at Katsikas are still at Step 0. As many enter their fourth month at the camp and the Greek summer intensifies, they will continue to be pushed to their limits—and beyond. For them, as for some 50,000 other refugees stuck across Greece, there is still no end in sight.
A refugee at Katsikas camp takes a throw-in in a game of football on a nearby field. Photo by author.

author: Martin Waldman


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Puerto Ricans Won’t Accept US-Imposed Austerity Without a Fight · Global Voices
Ángel Carrión

The fiscal control board was approved by both Republican and Democratic legislators and signed into law by President Obama on June 30, 2016. In the picture, protesters in front of the Federal Court building in the capital of San Juan, who organized a permanent civil disobedience camp. Picture taken from the public Facebook page Campamento Contra la Junta.
June 30 was a historic day for Puerto Rico, albeit an unhappy one. US President Barack Obama signed into law the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA), which imposes a fiscal control board with extraordinary emergency powers over the government of Puerto Rico. The islands, which are a US territory, are grappling with more than $70 billion of debt, and the board was promoted as a kind of relief measure.
But Puerto Ricans have no say whatsoever. Many see the board, whose powers go well beyond those of other fiscal boards found in recent US history, as colonialism at its plainest.
The junta, or “board” in Spanish, will be composed of seven members appointed by the president, some of whom are chosen from lists provided by Congress. Members will have complete control over the budget, revenues and operation of the government of Puerto Rico. Its decisions are final and cannot be appealed, nor are its members held accountable if something goes wrong.
On the night of June 29, after the US Senate approved the bill in a 68-30 vote, social media users who were following the Senate's proceedings expressed feelings of sadness, uncertainty and most of all, impotence. For Twitter user and research director of the Center for a New Economy, Deepak Lamba-Nieves, PROMESA is an act of violence:
The #PROMESA vote was another violent spectacle of imperial power. They slowly braided the whip they will try to use against us.
— deepak lamba-nieves (@deepakln) June 30, 2016
Immediately after President Obama signed PROMESA into law, citizens organized a permanent civil disobedience camp in front of the Federal Court building in the capital city of San Juan.
🚨 ¡PIQUETE COMBATIVO! “Esa deuda es ilegal, no la vamos a pagar” #NiJuntaNiColonia #MovilízateJuventud 📢 pic.twitter.com/LEkOreXRMy
— Juventud Trabajadora (@Juventud_PPT) July 4, 2016
Social media has proved vital to their efforts. Through their Facebook page, Campamento Contra la Junta (Camp Against the Board), they document their activities and ask for necessary supplies.
On the night of July 3, personnel from the Federal Court building lit lamps powered by generators that emit carbon monoxide gas near the protesters, presumably to break up the civil disobedience camp, as stated in this Spanish-language post from their Facebook page. Both the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Amnesty International have urged the federal government to guarantee the safety of the protesters.
A recent post on the civil disobedience camp's Facebook page clearly states their goals and intentions:
Somos un grupo de Boricuas que desde la convocatoria del #CampamentoContraLaJunta el 29 de junio de 2016 adoptó la postura de resistencia pacífica en contra de la imposición del proyecto HR5278 mejor conocido como PROMESA o la Junta de Control Fiscal. Además, nos encontramos acampando en contra de la deuda, que NO reconocemos como nuestra, y el coloniaje. Queremos ser clarxs y transparentes por esa razón repetimos: SOMOS UN CAMPAMENTO DE RESISTENCIA PACÍFICA. CUALQUIER TIPO DE VIOLENCIA EJECUTADA EN EL ÁREA NO SERÁ PROPICIADA POR NINGÚN MIEMBRO DEL CAMPAMENTO.
We are a group of Boricuas (Puerto Ricans) who since the call went out for the Camp Against the Board on June 29, 2016, have assumed a position of peaceful resistance against the imposition of HR 5278, better known as PROMESA, or the Fiscal Control Board. We also protest against the debt, which we do NOT acknowledge as ours, and against colonialism. We wish to be clear and transparent on this matter, so we repeat: WE ARE A PEACEFUL RESISTANCE CAMP. ANY TYPE OF VIOLENCE PERPETRATED IN THE AREA WILL NOT BE CONDONED BY ANY MEMBER OF THE CAMP.
“Respect the existence, or expect resistance.” Memes and digital art against PROMESA have flourished. This image was widely distributed on social media.
An editorial published by independent news site El Post Antillano urged Puerto Ricans to disobey whatever austerity measures the fiscal control board ultimately imposes. The strategies to be used, however, can and should be pluralistic:
Siendo esta una relación entre un gobierno autoritario y despótico, y un pueblo esclavizado, es momento de medir y ponderar de forma profunda cual debe ser nuestra respuesta. Y atención, que no debe de haber una sola respuesta en específico, pues no somos un pueblo homogéneo. Somos muchos pueblos, mucha gente, muchas personas, en un solo pueblo.
This being a relationship between an authoritarian and despotic government and an enslaved people, it is time to measure and ponder deeply what our answer should be. And mind you, it shouldn't be a single specific answer, since we are not a homogeneous people. We are many peoples, many persons, in one single nation.
Blogger and feminist activist Amárilis Pagán Jiménez called on everyone to “reclaim the political sphere,” which is usually associated with corruption due to the actions of the old political parties that have alternated power for the past decades:
En este momento estamos obligadas a rescatar el espacio político cedido gracias a la manipulación perversa de los partidos antiguos y de los sirvientes que se benefician del estatus colonial y de las desigualdades.  Ya hemos pagado un precio demasiado alto: asesinatos por homofobia, una colonia endeudada, violencia hacia las mujeres, medio país en pobreza, cierres de escuelas, gente sin servicios de salud.
Hablemos de política, seamos políticas y políticos sin miedo y sin vergüenza porque la política no es sucia ni degradante. Lo que sí es sucio es dejar el país en manos de la politiquería que nos vendieron como única posibilidad. Nos merecemos mucho más. Y ahora mismo el país necesita mucho más para combatir los efectos de la Junta de Control Fiscal.
In this moment it is our obligation to reclaim the political space we have yielded thanks to the perverse manipulation of the old political parties and the servants who benefit from the colonial status and inequalities. We have already paid too high a price: killings by homophobes, an indebted colony, violence against women, half the country in poverty, school closings, people with no medical services.
Let's talk about politics, let's be political without fear and without shame because politics is neither dirty nor degrading. What is dirty is to leave the country in the hands of partisan politics, which was presented to us as the only possibility. We deserve much more. And right now the country needs much more to fight the effects of the Fiscal Control Board.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Ángel Carrión


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Tax Evasion or Political Journalism? Private Newspaper’s Battle With Zambian Government Continues · Global Voices
Isabella Mukanda-Shamambo

A screenshot of The Post newspaper headline announcing the shutter.
In a new twist following the seizure of assets belonging to the country's main independent newspaper on June 21 2016, Zambian police arrested and released on bond The Post's owner Freddy M'membe, winner of the 1995 CPJ International Press Freedom Award; his wife Mutinta Mazoka M'membe and its managing editor Joseph Mwenda, for allegedly attempting to make forced entry into the newspaper's premises. The officers allegedly beat them up before taking them to the police station.
The three went to The Post's offices to take possession of the instruments necessary to the running of their business, after the Tax Appeals Tribunal ordered the Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) to allow the newspaper to resume operations — a ruling which the ZRA ignored. ZRA claims that The Post owes outstanding taxes estimated at K68 million (US$6.1 million), dating back to 2009. The newspaper disputes this amount and has been asking the authorities to reconcile their figures.
The Post is known for its investigative reporting and criticism against successive governments. Some netizens, local and international media organisations and donors have expressed their suspicion about the timing of the arrests and seizing of assets. The United States government released a statement saying that the closure of the newspaper only weeks before these important elections in Zambia is of deep concern. Come August 2016, Zambians will be going to the polls to vote in its general elections; the newspaper has been the main platform for the opposition candidates, as the public media is owned and controlled by the government.
Speaking on behalf of the police, Acting Spokesperson Ray Hamoonga denied reports that the M'membes and Mwenda were beaten up by the police, challenging critics to obtain medical reports from the hospital and, if incriminating, report the incident to any police station in the country. He added one caveat however, saying that the police are allowed to use minimum brutality on individuals who resist arrest.
But his statement has not inspired confidence. Many Zambians routinely question the professionalism and neutrality of the country's police, and often remind them that they are not a force but a service. Zambia's police used to be known as the Police Force, but to change the attitude of the public and foster better working relations, the name was changed to Police Service — therefore, the police fall under a public service entity.
Moses Munsaka wondered what minimum force entailed:
The men and women in Uniform should be challenged on the issue of using minimum force. How much is minimum? Can that be measured? No need for self defence (sic). If the people were emotionally and psychologically abused, what more do the men and women in uniforms require from the trio. Please act professionally and not politically. You are a service and not a force. Maintain professionalism. Just concerned.
Sylvester Chisanga observed:
Very funny but sad at the same time. Its not possible for the Zebras to report to the Lions about the brutal behaviour of Lions on the Zebras and expect to be positively assisted! The lions will simply be happy to use the Zebra's meat as ‘Colgate’ for cleaning their teeth with.
Charles Nalishebo complained:
which police are they going to report to coz zambia police is being controled (sic) by pf [the ruling Patriotic Front]. we no longer trust police coz they are de (the) most corupt people
Wrote Bwalya Katongo:
We are back to one party brutal state! And it will be too late for carders (sic) to realize this!
However, not everyone is on the side of The Post newspaper. Some netizens feel that M'membe is putting on a show to win public sympathy. Mike Mubanga said:
Only a fool would say that Mmembe was beaten by the police. Is that how a person who has been by the police looks like. He is just mocking that cadre who was beaten at woodlands police.
In Zambia, anyone who supports a particular political party is called a ‘cadre’ — especially those who are visibly active. Mubanga's Facebook comment highlights one example of the level of violence that the country has been experiencing in the lead-up to its August elections — and infers that the editor's claim that the police beat him undermined the stories of those who were actually beaten by the police for their political engagement.
Mubanga later responded to this comment, saying:
He has been advised to get a medical report and the report the assault to the police. If he was really beaten he was going to do that because he claims to be lawyer and he knows how to deal with an assault case.
Brian L. Kasoka attributed the entire saga to a miscalculation on the part of the newspaper's owners:
Mmember's Bitterness Has Gone Too Far Hence Taking Him To Police Custrd (custody) How I Wish He Was Listening To Othr People's Advise, The Post By Now Could Have Been Opened.
Among many, the feeling on the ground is that The Post should pay the money it owes. The ongoing struggle lies in making people aware of the importance of having sustainable independent media that can communicate an unbiased perspective — in this election year and beyond.

author: Isabella Mukanda-Shamambo


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The Radio Soap Opera That Revived a Genre and Put the Ecuadorian Lesbian Community on the Map · Global Voices
Laura Vidal

Two women at a gay pride parade in Guayaquil, 2013. Wikimedia Commons.
Almost 20 years after Ecuador decriminalized homosexuality, the daytime drama show “Mariana Is So Lesbian” is widely available on the radio and the Internet. The series tells the story of Mariana, a young woman living in Quito, who comes to accept her sexuality within the context of extreme homosexual repression. The story takes place in Ecuador during the 1990s—a time when federal laws classified LGBTQ communities as criminal. The radio soap opera was inspired by Foundation Causana, “a feminist lesbian group that advocates human rights for dissident identities.” The show was first broadcast on public radio in March this year, and was made available on Youtube the same month.
According to Diana Maldonado, who spoke to the local newspaper El Telégrafo on behalf of the Foundation, the show revives a storytelling genre that used to be very popular in the region to tell the stories of many women whose private lives were limited by the law. In Maldonado's eyes, these women have been talked about very little, even after the decriminalization:
Es una iniciativa buena, porque de una manera dinámica han abordado un tema del cómo fue el diario vivir de una mujer lesbiana en una época en la que la homosexualidad era considerada un delito. Es importante traer esto al día de hoy, en el que muchos jóvenes y chicas no conocen de esta realidad, que se puedan enterar de lo que era vivir en esa época y crear conciencia de lo que tiene que ver con nuestros derechos.
It's a good initiative that has found a dynamic way to address the idea of what it was like to live a day-to-day life as a lesbian woman during a time when homosexuality was considered a crime. It's important to bring this to today's world, in which many young people and girls don't know this reality, so they can grasp what it was like to live during that time and create an awareness of our rights.
The soap opera has a total of 11 episodes and is available on the Foundation Causana's YouTube channel.
According to one anonymous blogger writing about the “legal framework of sexual diversity in Ecuador,” the legalization of the LGBTQ community was a watershed moment in the country's history, but the decriminalization was “only a partial victory,” considering the Constitutional Court's questionable rationale:
El Tribunal Constitucional no motivó su resolución de anular el delito de homosexualismo consentido bajo criterios de libertad de conciencia, de autonomía y soberanía corporal, tampoco de respeto a la diferencia, a la intimidad, al proyecto de vida y a la identidad y menos aún por la consideración de que la diversidad fuera valiosa y tuviera relevancia en el ámbito de los derechos culturales. El 516, inciso 2do, se despenalizó bajo tres consideraciones: Primera, que el homosexualismo era una enfermedad, segunda, que la condición de enfermedad eximía la responsabilidad delictiva; y tercera, que despenalizar esta enfermedad evitaría que se propagara en las cárceles.
The Constitutional Court did not decriminalize homosexuality based on ideals of freedom of conscience, autonomy, or bodily sovereignty, nor was it done out of respect for differences, intimacy, life plan, or identity. Nor was there any consideration that diversity is valuable and has relevance in the realm of cultural rights. Instead, Amendment 516, section 2, decriminalized homosexuality based on three considerations: first, homosexuality was a sickness; second, the condition of this sickness exempted all criminal responsibility; and third, decriminalizing this sickness would avoid the need to expand prisons.
While same-sex marriage remains illegal, Ecuador adopted same-sex domestic partnerships almost a decade ago, in 2008. Today, the country's LGBTQ community is still fighting for many basic rights, but stories like Mariana's and the stories of other women who appear on the radio show help shed light on persecution and love that has generally been kicked to Ecuador's social margins.

author: Laura Vidal


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This Is What Happens When You Suddenly Cancel Moscow’s Electronic Music Bonanza · Global Voices
Yulia Savitskaya

A glow-stick cocktail. Image edited by Kevin Rothrock.
The first weekend of July was supposed to be a big one for Moscow's fans of electronic dance music (EDM). Roughly 10,000 people bought tickets to attend the “Outline Festival”—a bonanza featuring more than 50 of the top electronic music artists from Russia, the UK, Germany, and the US. The concert would be held at an old factory, which also featured art installations by urban artists from around the globe.
Ten hours before the festival was scheduled to kick off, however, organizers suddenly posted an update on Facebook announcing that the show had been called off. “Attention!” the notice read. “The festival is canceled due to the reasons beyond our control. Ticket costs will be refunded.” The reason remained unclear, but word quickly spread that Moscow city officials had decided unexpectedly to ban the event.
Yelena Rossokhina, a spokesperson for the Moscow district attorney, told reporters that the festival's organizers failed to get the proper permits to hold the event. Rossokhina highlighted public safety risks, specifically the threat of a fire. “It's not a ban—it's a preventive measure,” she explained.
Nobody likes canceling their plans, and the day Moscow banned this enormously popular music festival was the day Russian Facebook users transformed into apparent experts on event management.
Some Russians admittedly agreed with the district attorney, remembering a fatal incident from 2009 that occurred at a nightclub in Perm, where 156 people died in a fire. Facebook users shared a blurry, scanned document apparently showing that the Outline Festival's organizers were late to contact the Moscow prefect's office, and failed to address several fire-safety concerns. People claiming to be familiar with the situation have confirmed that the document is real, but many Internet users have gone ahead with an online petition demanding a more detailed explanation from the district attorney. (The petition attracted 773 signatures before it was closed and sent to officials.)
Others on Facebook stood by the concert's organizers, using the scandal as an opportunity to criticize Moscow's authorities. Anton Nossik, a media entrepreneur and popular blogger, drew some far-reaching conclusions, arguing that the festival's cancellation should be reason enough for Russians to emigrate. Nikolai Kononov, another figure in the Russian media, blamed the “urbanists” who he says have put their personal success before the interests of democracy, arguing these people ignored Russia's authoritarian creep and are now paying the price.
Yekaterina Dementieva, the chief editor of Afisha magazine, praised the festival's organizers, harshly criticizing the district attorney in an expressive Facebook post that she capped of with a quote from Bogdan Titomir’s 2010 song “Moskva Govno” (“Moscow Is Shit”).
Not everyone recognized the quote. Alexey Kikot, from the pro-Kremlin media outlet Life.ru, wrote a wordy Facebook post criticizing Dementieva's abuse of Moscow, blaming the festival's organizers exclusively for the cancellation of the event. Soon thereafter, the DJ Dmitry Fomichev created an online petition, demanding that Russia's government censor, Roskomnadzor, fire Dementieva from Afisha for insulting Moscow. Fomichev found especially offensive Dementieva's speculation that the cancellation of the Outline Festival was a trial run for cancelling the 2018 FIFA World Cup, to test what kind of public backlash there might be in response to losing a popular event.
Fomichev's petition fizzled, however, failing to attract more than 130 supporters. Also, technically speaking, Roskomnadzor lacks the authority to remove chief editors from their jobs. Fominchev did succeed, however, in stirring up a new controversy, drawing accusations that he was repeating the kind of behavior that fueled the Stalinist Great Terror.
In other words, it was an ordinary weekend on the RuNet.

author: Yulia Savitskaya


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A Photo Contest Captures the Stunning Flora and Fauna of Macedonia and Albania’s Lake Ohrid · Global Voices
Elena Nikolovska

Photo: Marina Sadikoska/OhridSOS, used with permission.
Entries to a photo contest called “The Voice of the Lake” showing lush scenery, majestic wildlife and discarded man-objects at Lake Ohrid, which straddles Albania and Macedonia, have recently sparked interest among many Macedonians.
The contest was organized by the Citizen Initiative OhridSOS, which is fighting to stop harmful urbanization projects that threaten to destroy the magnificent lake, which is the largest natural lake in Macedonia and the oldest lake on the European continent.
Shots capture mute swans, various freshwater fish and crustaceans and even some house furniture in the lake waters and shores.
The three images below featuring beautiful landscapes and an underwater resident of Lake Ohrid were chosen as the contest winners by those who voted on Facebook.
OhridSOS activists decided to also award their own favorite photo. The winner? The lovely image below featuring a sunset scene with reed and gulls on Lake Ohrid.
Photo: Nebojsha Gelevski/Ohrid SOS, used with permission.

author: Elena Nikolovska


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Afghan Refugees: “Nobody ‘Wants’ to Leave. It Is About Survival.” · Global Voices
Samea Shanori

Afghan refugees in Athens, Greece. Shared via Afghan Community in Europe Facebook page.
Thousands of Afghans flee increasing violence, instability and poverty in Afghanistan in the hope of a better life and future. According to Europe's statistical agency, Eurostat, Afghans make up the second largest group of asylum seekers in Europe after Syrians. In 2015 alone around 64,000 asylum applications were filed by Afghans.
Afghanistan's national unity government was set up in 2014 in the wake of a disputed election result in an attempt to unite Afghans for the purpose of a stable and peaceful Afghanistan.
Nevertheless, economic and political instability, as well as unemployment are rising in the country.
In 2001, there were more than 3.8 million Afghan refugees, according to the United Nations’ High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
With the presence of US-led ISAF forces and tentative signs of stability in Afghanistan, the number of refugees decreased sharply in the years that followed.
However, by the end of 2015, the number of Afghans seeking shelter outside the country had spiked back up to 2.6 million following US troop withdrawals that have encouraged a growing anti-government insurgency spearheaded by the Taliban.
According to UNAMA, 2015 was the worst year for civilians, especially women and children in Afghanistan, as the insurgency peaked. The new year, meanwhile, has picked up where the old year left off.
Unsurprisingly, the deteriorating security environment has proven toxic for the economy.
Afghanistan's Central Statistics Organization reported that between February 2015 and February 2016, the unemployment rate in Afghanistan shot up by 15 percent, bringing the total rate close to 40 percent across the country.
Western politicians and sections of the mainstream media in Europe continue to characterise the current tide of refugees seeking safe haven abroad as young, male and opportunistic.
Those few Afghans who have had the opportunity to speak to media or use social media to express their plight have painted a different picture, however.
Speaking to Aljazeera, Ajmal Sherzad, 32, who left Afghanistan for good with his family in February last year, cited war and economic instability as the main reasons he and his family were forced to leave the country in search of a better life:
Everybody is leaving Afghanistan. The only people who will be left there are [President] Ashraf Ghani and [Chief Executive] Abdullah Abdullah.
Fully acknowledging the dangers of the journey to Europe, Wahid Qaderi, a dentist, and Rana Qaderi, an obstetrician, chose to leave Afghanistan with their children anyway.
In an interview with the New York Times, Qaderi said:
If we die, we die one day. If we live here, we die everyday.
The main route for citizens leaving the country is through Iran, then over the mountainous Iranian-Turkish border, and onto Greece, where thousands are effectively trapped and prevented from journeying on to other European countries.
#AfghanRefugee carries a baby as reach the Greek island of #Lesbos,#Greece,#refugeesGr June 16 pic.twitter.com/GtuKcAxOSc
— ✌☮#UpTheRebels☮✌ (@Chara_fc) June 17, 2015
The proportion of fleeing Afghans who have been  granted asylum in European countries remains small.
Abdul Basir, who had worked with Lithuanian soldiers on logistics in Ghor, Afghanistan since 2005, was one of the lucky ones. He was admitted to Lithuania after his plea on YouTube from a refugee camp in Greece went viral.
Most refugees have less luck.
One happy end: Afghan refugee flown to Lithuania from #Greece after social media plea https://t.co/HN86IrG78cpic.twitter.com/XK01ikjs1s
— Melissa Fleming (@melissarfleming) April 7, 2016
The total number of Afghans currently living in Greece is unknown, but estimates place the number at around a third of the 50,000 people that are presently trapped in refugee camps in the country.
#Afghan kid at a refugee camp in Athens Greece during protests yesterday. #Afghanistan pic.twitter.com/SpQu8kZk3e
— shafi شفيع شريفى (@ShafiSharifi) June 4, 2016
And living in abandoned old buildings:
#Afghan refugees at an old airport in #Athens #Greece #Afghanistan pic.twitter.com/wwmTtUUfwE
— shafi شفيع شريفى (@ShafiSharifi) May 30, 2016
Or at terminals across the Greek islands:
#Afghan refugees camped at an old terminal in #Athens.An estimated 15K Afghans are stuck in #Greece #WorldRefugeeDay pic.twitter.com/AO9gttmP5m
— shafi شفيع شريفى (@ShafiSharifi) June 22, 2016
During a recent visit to Afghanistan, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grande warned that “the world is losing sight of Afghanistan and the plight of millions of its people […] unfortunately the attention of the international community seems to have slipped.”
Toba Shahabi, an Afghan artist who has been paying visits to and raising funds for a number of refugee camps, shared on Facebook traumatic excerpts from conversations she had during her visit to the Calais “Jungle” refugee camp located in northern France.
Toba Shahabi with a group of Afghan refugees in the Calais “Jungle” refugee camp in France. Shared via Toba Shahabi's Facebook page.
One asylum-seeker told her:
How long have I been here? 4 months, yes my wife and children are still in Afghanistan and I am anxious to get out of here to a safer place of course! But the media really twists things, I never wanted to leave my beloved watan (home country) and I am not what they call an ‘economic migrant’. It's from helplessness, from futility and fear that I have left everything I know and find myself in this state. What do I want for my future? I want to return to my home, I want peace and harmony where I can raise my family. Nobody ‘wants’ to leave. That is beyond one's control; it's about survival.
It is for their survival that Afghans leave Afghanistan for European countries, where the record for welcoming them is generally poor and where political uncertainty is extending their miserable lives-in-limbo by the day.
They live this life because Afghanistan — a country torn apart by local conflicts and foreign interventions — cannot offer an existence that is any better.

author: Samea Shanori


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Africans Aren’t Staying Silent About a Scottish Woman’s Patronizing and Factually Inaccurate Gap Year Memoir · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

The cover of the book In Congo’s Shadow.
The hashtag #LintonLies has been trending on social media since British newspaper the Telegraph published an extract of a book written by US-based Scottish actor Louise Linton about her “nightmare” gap year volunteering in Zambia.
Zambians, other Africans and friends of Africa are using humor to criticize the book's factual errors, deceptive generalisation and misrepresentation of Zambia, a peaceful nation in southern Africa, as a rebel-infested country.
In the extract, Linton says she “had come to Africa with hopes of helping some of the world's poorest people,” but describes being forced to later flee for cover “deep in the Zambian bush” under the “dense jungle canopy” when armed rebels from neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo raided the village where she lived. “As the night ticked interminably by, I tried not to think what the rebels would do to the ‘skinny white muzungu with long angel hair’ if they found me,” she wrote.
My innocent dreams of teaching the villagers English or educating them about the world now seemed ridiculously naïve […] I soon learned that Africa is rife with hidden danger. I witnessed random acts of violence, contracted malaria and had close encounters with lions, elephants, crocodiles and snakes. As monsoon season came and went, the Hutu-Tutsi conflict in neighbouring Congo began to escalate and then spill over into Zambia with repercussions all along the lake. Thousands of people were displaced and we heard brutal tales of rape and murder.
There has never been Hutu-Tutsi conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. That conflict took place in Rwanda, which does not share a border with Zambia. The country has never experienced a civil war, either. Also, Zambia does not experience monsoon season nor does it really have jungles.
Her geography was wrong, her knowledge of African politics is wrong. Somebody educate this imbecile. @BBCWorld. #LintonLies
— Kaluba Chaikatisha (@kaluba101) 6 July 2016
Besides the factual inaccuracies, people are also criticizing Linton for having a “white savior complex” — the patronizing, colonial attitude that only white people can “save” Africans — and resorting to the tired characterization of Africa as a dark and dangerous place.
#Whiteprivilege is having a book deal on experiences that cannot be verified. #LintonLies
— Sisi Majok (@modernemeid) 4 July 2016
On Twitter, users picked apart Linton's book, some with a sense of humor. Masuka Mutenda quipped:
The only thing missing from @LouiseLinton jungle caper was Tarzan swinging to her rescue 😂😂😂 #LintonLies
— Masuka Mutenda (@MasukaMutenda) 4 July 2016
She also pointed out Linton's mistake in describing the environment of Zambia:
This #LintonLies special was the kicker for me. You were in Southern Africa honey, not the rainforest https://t.co/I2mERZIjJ0
— Masuka Mutenda (@MasukaMutenda) 4 July 2016
Nadia Rizk highlighted glaring factual errors in her book:
Hutu-Tutsi conflict in Congo? Monsoon season in Zambia? Rebels? Yeah, you're full of shit Louise Linton. #LintonLies
— Nadia Rizk (@hoodgeek718) 6 July 2016
While Abel Chungu Musuka joked:
Apparently Louis Linton believed the myth that putting something in a book would hide it from us black people. U gon learn today!#lintonlies
— Abel Chungu Musuka (@AbelMusuka) 5 July 2016
The account for a documentary out of Kenya called Hashtag Poor People promoted a clip compiling tweets showing off the worst of voluntourism — when a volunteer's sole focus is to promote themselves as better people, not effect lasting change or treat the subject of their efforts with respect:
Our generation has the chance to change this outdated ‘single story’ of Africa #LintonLies #PoorPeopleTheDocumentary pic.twitter.com/7Q9wQs6ze2
— HashtagPoorPeople (@HashtagPoorPpl) 6 de julio de 2016
And Lukama Bwite posted the photo below:
Looking for Zambias bad image #LintonLies pic.twitter.com/CFE6SFfjtR
— lukama bwite (@lbwite) 6 July 2016
In the book, Linton says she formed a special bond with a girl named Zimba, a “gap-toothed child with HIV whose greatest joy was to sit on my lap and drink from a bottle of Coca-Cola.” Lusé Fiasco mocked Linton by posting a photo from the satire Instagram account Barbie Savior, which challenges perceptions surrounding volunteer work in Africa:
Taking care of Zimba, while dodging Rebels,& wildlife close calls in Africa's darkest jungles of Zambia. #LintonLies pic.twitter.com/iSDs0JO9x1
— Lusé Fiasco (@Skip_toMyLu) 4 July 2016
Xhaka Zulu reinterpreted a waterfall using “white savior” logic:
Rebels blew up the main water pipe to the village in Northern Zambia . Locals think it's a waterfall #LintonLies pic.twitter.com/6Nqyqbet5P
— Xhaka Zulu (@MaceWimbu) 5 July 2016
While Chishala Chitoshi Jr asked for prayer from Linton:
#LintonLies we are about to enter this town that has a population of 80 rebels,pray for us @LouiseLinton pic.twitter.com/m0o6BsgQ4d
— Chishala Chitoshi Jr (@geshgroove) 5 July 2016
And Andrew Jackson came up with hair shampoo named after Linton and “inspired by the Zambian jungle”:
Had to give the #LintonLies my personal touch pic.twitter.com/BzQp4AQn7j
— Andrew Jackson (@AJacksonDesign) 5 July 2016
However, one US-based Twitter user, Heyoka, came to Linton's defence:
To all banging on #LouiseLinton: you say she lied,but the facts are in her favor.
NOW WHAT HAVE U DONE FOR AFRICANS? pic.twitter.com/LqdyzHAZaW
— Heyoka;╪ͥͥͥͥͥͥͥͥͥͥͥ (@knightcali) 5 July 2016
Millie G challenged Heyoka to produce the facts:
@knightcali “the facts are in her favor”? What facts? When was the last time Zambia was @ war? Since when is then monsoon in Africa? Com'on
— Millie G. (@msmiraiga) 5 July 2016
While Moses replied to Heyoka's tweet by saying:
@knightcali I'm still looking for those 12 inch spiders #LintonLies
— Moses (@MosesObserver) 6 July 2016
There is no record of 12-inch spiders found in Zambia, as Linton claims.
Following the outrage, Linton apologized on her Twitter account. “I am genuinely dismayed and very sorry to see that I have offended people as this was the very opposite of my intent,” she tweeted, but later deleted her Twitter account entirely. In response, Zarina Khan said:
Zambian savage rebels just had her deactivate her account 😂😂#lintonlies
— Zarina khan (@M1ssKhan) 5 July 2016
William Chilufya had the following advice for fellow Zambians:
Zambians learn to write about #Zambia yourselves otherwise #LintonLies will do it for you! Sofar u ve scored A+ for reading. Try Writing
— William Chilufya (@wchilufya) 6 July 2016
Adedana echoed similar sentiment:
To everyone railing against #LintonLies, let this be a reminder that WE have to tell our own stories. Write a blog/short story/etc. CREATE.
— Adedana (艾丹娜) (@AdedanaAshebir) 6 July 2016

author: Ndesanjo Macha


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Why Did Facebook Remove a Post Criticizing Singapore Police? · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Teo Soh Lung (left) and Roy Ngerng, another activist who has been investigated for political activities. Photos from International Service for Human Rights and The Heart Truths (Roy's blog).
When Singaporean police interrogated political activist and civil rights lawyer Teo Soh Lung, and searched her apartment and electronic devices without a warrant, Soh Lung spoke up. She wrote about the May 2016 incident on Facebook, and her lawyer posted video of the search on YouTube. The posts went viral.
But Soh Lung's most recent Facebook post about the incident met a different fate: censorship. Soh Lung reported that her post (see below) denouncing abuses of power by police in Singapore was removed by Facebook for ‘violating community standards.’
Teo Soh Lung received a notification that her post criticizing the Singapore police was removed on Facebook for violating community standards. Photo from the Facebook page of Singapore-based blogger Kirsten Han.
Police had investigated Soh Lung along with fellow activist Roy Ngerng “for publishing several online articles and postings that may be tantamount to election advertising” on the day prior to election day to “reflect rationally on various issues raised at an election before heading to the polls.” Campaign advertising is also banned on election day. These restrictions apply mainly to online news outlets, not individuals. Soh Lung and Ngerng suspected that they were targeted by authorities because of their previous political activism.
Teo Soh Lung published her most recent post on the Facebook page of Function 8, a socio-political website, describing her encounter with police in late May. Her post (some of which is pictured above) continued:
The police have robbed me of my properties and gravely inconvenienced me. They have mined my data. They have seen and read all my private documents and know who are my friends. They have invaded my privacy. They have committed a crime. I am angry. But where is my recourse? We do not have a national human rights institution which our so called less developed neighbors have – Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Myanmar.
This is my Singapore. This is your Singapore. We are a police state. For the slightest irritation, Singaporeans run to the police. But when the police commit a wrong, where do we run to?
According to Function 8, the post was mysteriously removed from Facebook:
Latest post by Soh Lung in this page was automatically unpublished by facebook!! Those people who shared that post also have theirs removed automatically from their walls.
Soh Lung was also banned from posting on Facebook for one day. After signing back on Facebook, she confirmed that her post was blocked:
I have joined rank with Andrew Loh. My latest post on F8 facebook and which I shared here has been removed by facebook. It is titled “Police Terror”.
Indeed, this is not the first time a post criticizing Singapore authorities has been censored on Facebook. Soh Lung cited the case of blogger Andrew Loh whose post criticizing the policies of the Singapore government was also removed on Facebook. He was also blocked from accessing Facebook for three days. Subsequently, Facebook apologized for the ‘accidental’ removal of the post and the three-day blocking of Andrew Loh from the social networking site.
Soh Lung has been given no further information about why her post was removed. Facebook's automated message states that it violated the company's “Community Standards,” but did not specify which of the standards was violated.
Soh Lung re-posted the message on her personal page:
I am testing if there is a computer glitch on FB side since I don't know where to write to in order to complain about the removal of my earlier post.
Singapore-based blogger and Global Voices author Kirsten Han suspected that other users might have complained or reported the post using Facebook's “Report Abuse” mechanism. She is worried that it could be a “new tactic to silence” criticism in Singapore:
It's bizarre that Facebook would remove a post about police powers and due process in Singapore because it violates community standards – what standards have been violated here? Then again, it's not the first time – I had a post removed ages ago, and it happened to Andrew Loh recently.
It is possible that the post was removed because it was reported by a large number of people….If this is the case, then it's troubling how this could be a new tactic to silence.
Facebook policy documentation asserts that the company does not remove posts based on the volume of abuse reports that they receive. Any post that has been reported for abuse is said to be reviewed by a real person, who determines whether or not it violates the Community Standards.
It is possible that Soh Lung's post was removed in keeping with Facebook's standards regarding “Attacks on Public Figures.” Their policy on this issue reads:
We permit open and critical discussion of people who are featured in the news or have a large public audience based on their profession or chosen activities. We remove credible threats to public figures, as well as hate speech directed at them – just as we do for private individuals.
Did the company read Soh Lung's post as a “credible threat”? Her reference to a friend pledging to “set her dogs on the police” might have justified this move. On a different note, given that the company is on increasingly high alert regarding terror-related activities on the platform, it is possible that Soh Lung's use of the word “terror” may have triggered the response. Either way, Soh Lung hopes that her future speech on the issue remains online, for all to see.

author: Mong Palatino


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A Quarter of a Century Ago, the USSR Went Nuts for Its First McDonald’s. Now That Joy Belongs to Siberia. · Global Voices
Anastasia Denisova

McDonald's restaurant in Moscow. Photo: Adam Baker / Flickr / CC 2.0.
About 25 years ago, the chance to buy a burger and fries wrapped in translucent paper, decorated with a golden “M,” was a luxurious treat in Moscow. On January 1, 1990, roughly 30,000 Muscovites famously lined up outside the Soviet Union's first-ever McDonald's restaurant, located in Moscow's prestigious Pushkin Square.
While the world's biggest fast-food chain might no longer thrill the denizens of modern-day Moscow, McDonald's is still breaking new ground elsewhere in Russia, and causing public frenzies that resemble its memorable arrival in the USSR. Last month, the chain opened its doors for the first time in the city of Barnaul, which is home to 600,000 people in southern Siberia. Large crowds of people—mainly teenagers—waited in line for hours before the restaurant even opened.
On Russian social media, many Internet users wondered—perhaps as a joke, or maybe out of genuine concern—that the craze in Barnaul over McDonald's signaled a “return of the 1990s.”
Ну вот и 90е вернулись. Кто хотел повтора – радуйтесь #Барнаул #Макдональдс https://t.co/GoODiPNwrt
— Хомячий Корм (@HomKorm) 1 July 2016
The 1990s are back. Those who wanted a recap, rejoice #Barnaul #McDonalds
Others joked that the criticisms of McDonald's and the folks waiting in line were just sour grapes from people who arrived too late get a good spot in line.
и тут Барнаул разделился на два лагеря: тех, кто острит про Макдональдс в соцсетках и тех, кто стоит в очереди на открытии
— Daria Melnik (@dannimelnik) 1 July 2016
And then Barnaul divided in two camps: those who joke about McDonald's on social networks, and those who stand in line at the grand opening
Given McDonald's status as an icon of American industry, some Twitter users were happy to get a little political, adapting the “KrymNash” (“Crimea Is Ours”) meme to the American restaurant chain's arrival in southern Siberia:
Проклятые пиндосы оккупировали Барнаул и под дулами автоматов, согнали жителей в очередь МакДональдс! БарнаулНаш! https://t.co/4xFRaXD9HT
— Януковича НЕТ! (@KodeksuNET) 1 July 2016
The fucking Americans have occupied Barnaul and rounded up its people at gunpoint, making them stand in lines outside McDonald's! Barnaul Is Ours!
The news media has struggled to explain Barnaul's apparently massive interest in McDonald's, which Russians in Moscow are accustomed to thinking of as “yesterday's news,” having had their first taste of the food chain back in 1990. The news website the Village even interviewed social science researchers and psychologists, who reasoned that McDonald's today—with its appealing “Western vibe”—is trendy within the country's youth culture. According to these experts, McDonald's in Russia's regions currently enjoys the “coolness” factor that chains like Starbucks have managed to harness in the gentrified areas of many European cities. (Starbucks, incidentally, has yet to arrive in Siberia.)
Young people in Barnaul have undoubtedly been conspicuous about their consumption of McDonald's food and brand, adding banal, life-affirming hashtags to their Instagram photos from the restaurant that are straight out of the company's own viral marketing, writing (in Russian) things like #summer, #city, #imlovinit, #lovelyday, #summermood, #happiness, #selfie, and #smile.
Сегодня этот день войдёт в историю ведь я попробывала еду в макдаке!#макдональдс #арина #лето #Барнаул
A photo posted by @sonya_kuzm on
This day will go down in history as I have tried McDonald’s food! #McDonalds #Arina #summer #Barnaul
Many young women dining at the Barnaul McDonald's shared selfies with captions about how the importance of health and beauty shouldn't preclude the occasional guilty pleasure.
Едем лакомиться фастфудом  #макдональдс #диетазадолбала #хочужрать #лето #любовь
A photo posted by Катя Германович (@thegermanovich) on
We are going to indulge in fast food :) #McDonalds #IAmTiredOfTheDiet #WannaEat #Summer #Love
Russian teenagers—particularly those in Barnaul—might be relative latecomers to the table of American fast food, but the rituals surrounding McDonald's that they act on social media are surprisingly similar to what has been observed throughout the world. According to the media scholars Andrew L. Mendelson and Zizi Papacharissi, teenagers around the world use social media to document rigorously their road trips, visits to fast-food chains, and attendance at parties.
Susan Albers, a psychologist, says posting photos of friends at places like McDonald's is almost never about the food, but rather about an individual's ego, and is meant to convey a person's social significance, or even someone's cry for help (if, for instance, the eating habits featured are dangerously unhealthy).
The conspicuous consumption on display in Barnaul last month fits the patterns described by Mendelson, Albers, and others. Perhaps the same behavior would have been observable in Moscow in 1990, had platforms like Instagram existed for youngsters sharing a meal among friends. Those photos of the Soviet Union's first bona fide burgers and milkshakes would have been a sure viral hit.

author: Anastasia Denisova


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Angola’s 15+2 Activists Released From Prison as They Await Appeal · Global Voices
Manuel Ribeiro

Nito Alves (second from the left) during the trial in March 2016. Photo: MakaAngola (GV archive)
Nito Alves, one of a group of activists dubbed the “15+2″ convicted of charges related to preparing rebellion against the Angolan government, was released from prison on 5 July. He joined the other 16 who had been released on 29 June following the habeas corpus request made by the defence lawyers.
The news was shared on the Facebook page of one of the activists, Luaty Beirão:
ÚLTIMA HORA
Nito Alves acaba de sair da cadeia.
O activista que foi julgado sumariamente a 6 meses de prisão efectiva pelo tribunal de primeira instância por injúria aos magistrados do julgamento, por proferir as palavras “não temo pela minha vida, este julgamento é uma palhaçada” acaba de sair da cadeia e aguarda recurso do Tribunal Supremo em casa.
BREAKING
Nito Alves has just left prison.
The activist – who was summarily sentenced to six months in prison by the magistrate’s court for insulting the court's judges by uttering the words “I am not afraid for my life, this trial is a farce” – has just been released from prison and is awaiting the Supreme Court appeal at home.
Alves later confirmed the news himself in an interview given to German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle.
Nito Alves and his companions are now all free and waiting for the Angolan Supreme Court’s decision on an appeal of their case filed by their lawyers. The 17 activists were originally detained in June 2015 by Angolan police for alleged “acts of rebellion and attempted coup d’état”. The group denies this, saying they simply had met together several times to discuss peaceful methods of protest. In particular, they were examining ideas from the book “From Dictatorship to Democracy” by Gene Sharp.
Of the 17 activists, 15 awaited trial judgement in prison. The other two, two young female activists, were not held in pre-trial detention, but in March 2016 all the prisoners were sentenced to prison terms between two and eight and a half years, and they were subsequently put behind bars.

author: Manuel Ribeiro


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Arashiro Yukiya Wins Red Jersey in Tour de France, and Japan Is Ecstatic · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

Arashiro Yukiya. Screencap from Tour de France Saitama Criterium official YouTube channel.
While Mark Cavendish won the stage outright on Thursday, July 7, Japanese cyclist Arashiro Yukiya received a “combativity award”, the prize for most aggressive rider in the sixth stage of the Tour de France.
Arashiro won the award for going on a breakaway and staying ahead of the pack for 137 kilometers of the 190.5-kilometer, mostly flat stage traveling from Arpajon-sur-Cère to Montauban in southern France. Afterward, the hashtag #敢闘賞 (combativity award) trended on Japanese Twitter. Arashiro received lots of support from cycling fans back in Japan:
#jspocycle
ユキヤ、敢闘賞獲得で各界から喜びの模様。 pic.twitter.com/f3OGmpt5Oe
— オイラもイチロー (@1623Ichiro) July 7, 2016
Everyone's going to be so stoked after Yukiya snags the “combativity award.”
新城幸也選手、ツールドフランスで敢闘賞！勇気もらえます！ pic.twitter.com/6TF2tD3UTU
— オオホリミキオ (@i_produce) July 7, 2016
Cyclist Arashiro Yukiya wins “combativity award” on Tour de France! He inspires us all!
Arashiro prize as the most combative rider of the day means he will have the honor of wearing the special red jersey in Friday's stage, concluding in the high Pyrenees.
Arashiro is racing in his sixth Tour de France. In 2009, he became the first Japanese rider to complete the Tour when he crossed the finish line on the Champs-Elysees ahead of fellow Japanese cycling superstar Beppu Fumiyuki.
In 2012, Arashiro won his first competivity award in the Tour de France on the fourth stage.
【速報】ツール・ド・フランス第6ステージ、敢闘賞は新城幸也に。
4年ぶり2度目の受賞#TDF2016
— サイクルロードレース実況中継 (@CRRmoromoro) July 7, 2016
Breaking: Arashiro Yukiya wins red jersey on sixth stage of Tour de France. This is his second award in four years.
Riding for Lampre-Merida, Arashiro recently put in a strong showing at the Tour of Japan in June 2016.
Arashiro has been a long-time crowd favourite, not only because of his sunny disposition and the fact that he lives in France and speaks French, but also because his pet dog travels with him as part of the Lampre-Merida entourage.
今日のツール・ド・フランスは新城選手の住む町から車で約1時間足らずの街アンジェがゴール。 #地元　RT @LeTour @YukiyaArashiro pic.twitter.com/T7ufM2JKpK
— フランス観光開発機構【公式】 (@franceiine) July 4, 2016
The third stage of the Tour de France takes cyclist Arashiro Yukiya to Angers, just an hour by car from where he lives. — French Tourism Authority (in Japanese)
Following Arashiro's red jersey win, there are high hopes that this year will be the year a Japanese-born cyclist wins the Tour de France.
敢闘賞を獲得した新城の勇姿です。次は勝利を期待しましょう！ pic.twitter.com/8bK9tejsvd
— CYCLINGTIME.com (@cyclingtime) July 7, 2016
Today Arashiro Yukiya wins the red jersey. Will he win the next stage?

author: Nevin Thompson


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China Bans News Sourcing From Social Media · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

The Great Firewall of China. Image from Digital Trends.
China's Cyberspace Administration, the top level Internet regulator, has banned news outlets from citing social media messages as sources. The new policy is part of an ongoing crackdown on “fake” news and rumors.
All media outlets received an official notice of the ban in early July, according to press release posted on the Administration's website late on the evening of July 3. The press release, which quoted several cases of “fabricated news” circulated online, said authorities had penalized one dozen online news outlets including Sina, Caijing, Tencent, and NetEase and forced them to delete a number of columnists’ accounts due to their use of social media sources.
The notice stressed:
要求各网站始终坚持正确舆论导向，采取有力措施，确保新闻报道真实、全面、客观、公正，严禁盲目追求时效，未经核实将社交工具等网络平台上的内容直接作为新闻报道刊发。[..] 各网站要落实主体责任，进一步规范包括移动新闻客户端、微博、微信在内的各类网络平台采编发稿流程，建立健全内部管理监督机制。严禁网站不标注或虚假标注新闻来源，严禁道听途说编造新闻或凭猜测想象歪曲事实。
All websites must adhere to the correct guidelines on channeling public opinion and adopt measures that ensure the news reports are true, comprehensive, objective and fair. The race to break news stories by using unverified facts distributed via social media platforms is forbidden. […] All websites should take responsibility for managing mobile news services as well as Weibo, WeChat and others to make sure that editorial flows are being monitored. Websites are strictly prohibited from quoting from unnamed or fake news sources and fabricating news based on hearsay, guesswork or imagination.
Two days later, commentary published by state news agency Xinhua advocated even more severe punishment for media outlets that failed to implement the new policy. The post has been widely distributed on social media, with many messages echoing the negative impact of fabricated news on the society.
The Cyberspace Administration mentioned various stories that included “false” news, with headlines such as:
The first two news items were fabricated from pre-existing news stories. For example, the bus arson was rewritten from a news report back in 2010.
The latter two cases were short stories published online to stimulate discussion about gender relations in China, but were then mischaracterized by media outlets as real incidents.
There are certainly cases in which journalists have failed to verify facts taken from social media, but what the Cyberspace Administration intentionally ignores is the positive impact of sourcing news from social media.
Take the Wei Zexi incident, which was sourced from social media. Wei was a 21-year-old college student who died in April of synovial sarcoma, but not before his family spent thousands on a phony treatment that exacerbated his condition. They had based the decision on what they thought was a search result on Baidu, the dominant Internet search engine in China, but was actually an advertisement. This particular story, which included video testimony from Wei taken shortly before he died, led to widespread discussion about the problem of search engine advertisement practices and the disorder of the Chinese health system. Eventually, the Cyberspace Administration stepped in to tighten the regulations on advertising on search engines.
Chang Ping, a prominent Chinese journalist who now resides in Germany, pointed out that though some “fabricated” stories are indeed spread by online media outlets, most of them are just sensational local news that have little to no consequences when compared to government-fabricated news that affect the country's development:
从历史上看，离政府越近的媒体越容易造假，更不用说政府直接控制的媒体，比如人民日报、新华社及中央电视台，从小麦亩产万斤到天安门广场没有发生过“六四”屠杀，从人民公社万万岁到伟大的中国梦，从无产阶级专政到依法治国，无一日不在谎言之中。
From a historical perspective, media outlets that are close to government have a higher tendency to fabricate news. The track record of state-controlled media outlets is even worse. For example, the China Daily, Xinhua News and Chinese Central Television have been producing lies that claim that 10,000 catty of wheat were grown on one mu [0.667 hectare] [during Mao Zedong's socioeconomic program called the Great Leap Forward], the June 4 massacre never happened in Tiananmen [in 1989], that promote the glory of the People's Collective Communes, the glory of the China Dream, the dictatorship of the proletariat [Maoist political theory during the Cultural Revolution] and rule by law [under current Chinese President Xi Jinping].
Since April 2015, the Cyberspace Administration has been introducing a series of policies to tighten control of online portals and news sites. Blogger Lanjinger compiled a timeline:
• 4月28日国家网信办发布“约谈十条”，网站存在未及时处置违法信息情节严重等9种情形的，企业相关负责人将被约谈，约谈整改不力的网站将被吊销许可证。9种情形将被约谈，并约谈了百度、腾讯。
• 去年10月24日，国家网信办召开各界人士座谈会，讨论“全面推进网络空间法治化。
• 今年5月6日，国家互联网信息办公室依法批准了人民网、新华网等6家中央重点新闻网站157个地方频道的开设申请。
• 6月21日，国家网信办召开全国跟帖评论专项整治视频会议，部署集中治理跟帖评论存在的突出问题，指出，跟帖评论乱象扰乱信息传播秩序、破坏网络舆论生态，人民群众深恶痛绝，必须下大力气整治。
• 6月28日国家互联网信息办公室发布”APP管理规定”，加强对移动互联网应用程序（App）信息服务的规范管理，促进行业健康有序发展，保护公民、法人和其他组织的合法权益。
• April 28, 2015: The Cyberspace Administration announced “10 rules for interviews.” The rules demanded that website administration attend “an interview” with authorities after the sites fail to manage illegal information. There are nine scenarios listed in the rules and for those sites which fail to improve their management after the interview, their business license can be cancelled.
• October 24, 2015: The Cyberspace Administration held a roundtable with representatives of the industry to discuss “the implementation of rule of law on cyberspace.”
• May 6, 2016: The Cyberspace Administration granted six state-controlled websites including Renminwang and Xinhua Net permission to operate provincial news channels. [The local news licensing system has made illegal other provincial news channels operated by all other portal websites. The six licensed sites are Renminwang, Xinhua, China Radio International, China Daily, Guangmingwang and China National Radio.]
• June 21, 2016: The Cyberspace Administration held a national video conference on the clean-up of news comment threads to draw up a plan in dealing with news comments on social media. The authorities said the news comments on social media have disrupted the order of online information distribution, the online opinion ecology. People hate such phenomena and more management effort is needed.
• June 28, 2016: The Cyberspace Administration announced the app management regulation to tighten management of Internet applications, to enhance the healthy development of the sector and to protect the rights of citizens, legal entities and other organizations. [The regulation demanded real-name registration of app users. There are more than 4 million applications on app stores in China.]
The current crackdown on online news and social media news comments is consistent with the broader ideological struggle under President Xi Jinping, who wants to restore the Chinese Communist Party's leadership in both new and conventional media.

author: Oiwan Lam


text:
If I Had a Gun · Global Voices
Jeremy Adam Smith

PHOTO: Public domain from Pixabay.
Listen to Jeronimo Yanez‘s voice after he shot Philando Castile. Here's what I heard: The voice of a man who hoped to be the good guy with the gun, being confronted with the fact that he might be the bad guy—the fearful guy, the boy who protects himself against the dark, and is not protecting others from an imminent threat, as he may have imagined himself doing as a police officer.
Or, at a minimum, I heard in his voice the realization that shooting a man with a woman and child in the car is villainously terrible, and not at all heroic. To my ears, there was nothing but pain and fear in his voice.
I've also been thinking about Castile. He carried a firearm because he imagined it might keep him safe. Perhaps he too had fantasies, or stories he told himself, of using the firearm to protect the people he cared about. If neither man had had a firearm, Castile would be alive, free to keep making mistakes and loving and hating and growing, Yanez would have already forgotten about that ticket he wrote for the broken tail light, and Diamond Reynolds and her daughter would not be plagued by nightmares for the rest of their lives.
I've been thinking about all the times violence has swept into my life, and mentally inserting a gun into my hand. A couple of weeks ago, my son and I saw a man attack a woman on Telegraph. I jumped up and said something stupid like, “Hey, stop, that's not right!” That broke the spell. The guy looked at me, blinked, and walked away. Then he came back and apologized to her and to me (in a weird screwed-up way, but that's another story–and yes, I did call the police, or try to–but again, that's another story). What if I'd had a gun under my jacket? My hand would have gone right toward it. The presence of the gun may have led to tougher, more confrontational words. My son may have ended up seeing me shoot that man, or shoot a bystander. Or I could have even shot my son, if something had gone horribly wrong.
But none of that happened. Everyone lived. When I think about the times I've been attacked or threatened or I've seen violence, I can't think of one instance when a gun would have improved the outcome. Which is not to say that there will never come a time when a gun might help. But my experience tells me that this time will be the exception, not the rule.
Over the weekend, my partner and our boys walked past a store that sold weapons. Of course, the boys wanted to go in and gawk at the swords and knives and guns. I understood: they've been fed images of good guys with guns for their entire lives, and they wanted to slip into those fantasies for a moment. I have little doubt that Jeronimo Yanez and Philando Castile were once just like my boys.
Bored, I looked at the signs being sold on the walls of the store: Keep out! Owner is armed and dangerous! Gun control is being able to hit your target! Everything said fear and isolation. Nothing said: Breathe and count the good things in life, and remember that we're all fallible and precious.

author: Jeremy Adam Smith


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One Twitter User’s Frame-by-Frame Analysis of the Dallas Shooting Media Coverage · Global Voices
Georgia Popplewell

Floor tiles at the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome. The pattern creates an illusion of three-dimensional boxes. PHOTO: Public Domain
Social networks have been buzzing today with news of the July 7 shootings of police officers and civilians at a Dallas, Texas protest against the extrajudicial killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile earlier this week. Instead of just following and commenting on the news, however, Trinidad and Tobago twitter user @battymamzelle decided go deeper. “I think that's what I'll do today,” she tweeted. “Point out news frames and how they slant the story.”
Here are some excerpts from @battymamzelle's running commentary.
Think critically about what is reported and how it's being said. More importantly, look for what's being left off the page and why.
— Catherine Young (@battymamzelle) July 8, 2016
Riffing also off tweets from other users, @battymamzelle highlighted features of the Dallas media coverage such as the comparison of the killings with 9/11, although “police were not the main target of 9/11“.
Comparison w/o context. 9/11 did not target police. Note also lack of quotes from civilians. https://t.co/xMjbohGjtx pic.twitter.com/ao8w7H6oX6
— Catherine Young (@battymamzelle) July 8, 2016
The characterisation of the Black Lives Matter movement as a terrorist organisation:
This is an active choice to implicitly link BLM to violence against police. Watch that.https://t.co/uivqbXs3CI
— Catherine Young (@battymamzelle) July 8, 2016
The positioning of the shooter as “militant and anti-police” by selecting a photo of him wearing a dashiki instead of his army uniform:
Clearly, that does not align with the story. The war is supposed to be ON the police and armed forces, not FROM them.
— Catherine Young (@battymamzelle) July 8, 2016
And the repeated use of the shooter's middle name—”Xavier”—arguably to link him with Malcolm X:
Then we tie him to a civil rights leader who advocated violent retaliation as a justified response. Slowly, the picture takes form.
— Catherine Young (@battymamzelle) July 8, 2016
The New York Daily News’ was singled out for special mention, on account of the last-minute replacement of its original cover—which featured the names of black victims of police violence—with one about the Dallas events:
Again, agenda-setting. They are implicitly telling us that dead cops matter more than dead black people.https://t.co/wB32W9YJ7w
— Catherine Young (@battymamzelle) July 8, 2016
@battmamzelle staved off accusations of rabble-rousing by reminding the Twitterers of her credentials:
This thread isn't to be petty or rile people up btw. My BA is in journalism and my MA in Media Studies. I am just watching theory play out.
— Catherine Young (@battymamzelle) July 8, 2016
Follow along or read the archive of @battymamzelle's Twitter dialogue here.

author: Georgia Popplewell


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‘Talking Dictionary’ Transmits Language of Japan’s Indigenous Ainu People · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

Ainu singers at the Ainu Museum in Hokkaido, Japan. Screencap from Andrew Jones Productions YouTube channel.
An online “talking dictionary” first launched in 2009 is attempting to preserve and pass on the Ainu language spoken by the indigenous inhabitants of Japan's northeastern island of Hokkaido and Russian island territories to the north. According to UNESCO, there are eight languages in Japan that are critically endangered, and the Ainu language tops the list with the highest degree of endangerment.
The project involves collaboration between Ainu speakers, the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme (ELDP) of School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), the Arcadia Trust, and Anna Bugaeva, a linguistics researcher at the Waseda Institute for Advanced Study (WIAS) in Japan. The purpose of the online project, completed in 2009, is not only to help preserve and transmit the Ainu language, but also to provide a safe long-term repository of language materials, to enable people to see what documentation has been created for a language, to encourage international co-operation between researchers, and to provide advice and collaboration for similar projects with other endangered languages around the world.
The Ainu Talking Dictionary preserves and presents conversational Ainu in an online, searchable format. There is also an interface for linguists, and detailed notes about how to use the online resource.
Screenshot of online ‘Ainu Talking Dictionary’ language learning tool.
There is an urgent need to preserve the Ainu language. Although numbers are difficult to determine — questions about ethnicity are not included in the Japanese Census — it's estimated that just 25,000 Ainu remain in Japan, with fewer than 10 native speakers of the Ainu language. The Ainu people are the indigenous inhabitants of Hokkaido in northeastern Japan, as well as a string of islands to the north of Japan in Russia's Far East. When Japan decided to colonize Hokkaido and Sakhalin in the 1850's the Ainu were assimilated, placed on reservations, and succumbed to newly introduced diseases.
Today, Ainu culture in Japan mainly lives on at tourist attractions and in folk museums in Hokkaido and Tokyo.
ムックリという楽器に挑戦しているそう。名前がいいなあ（は）アイヌ伝承の舞いや演奏体験　善通寺でイベント：朝日新聞デジタル https://t.co/OtoVTrlg1D pic.twitter.com/2pYbr111ZE
— 朝日新聞高松総局 (@asahi_takamatsu) June 23, 2016
Students try out the mukkuri, a traditional Ainu instrument. “That's a cool name for an instrument!” Students experienced dances, storytelling, and other cultural traditions. ― Asahi Digital.
In the 20th Century Ainu elder and politician Shigeru Kayano, who died in 2006, helped popularize Ainu language culture in Japan in well-known books such as ‘Our Land Was A Forest.’ Kayano also produced a simple Ainu phrasebook that is still in print.
@yumerise まずは１冊目
萱野茂のアイヌ語辞典
昔からアイヌ民族に興味があったので迷わず購入したもの。
格闘ゲーム嫌いの自分がサムスピだけやるのもナコルルがアイヌと知ったからなのよね（汗） pic.twitter.com/1pTFxynKcO
— ゆめりむ (@yumerise) July 3, 2016
[…] Here's the first volume of the Ainu Conversational Dictionary by Shigeru Kayano. I used to be really into Ainu culture and bought this book. Although I hate Street Fighter-type video games, I did learn the names of the Ainu characters in the Samurai Shodown games by SNK.
The Ainu Talking Dictionary goes beyond Kayano's series of Ainu-Japanese print dictionaries. The talking dictionary is part of research project “Documentation of the Saru Dialect of Ainu” by Anna Bugaeva, a PhD Assistant Professor of Linguistics at the Waseda Institute for Advanced Study (WIAS), Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan.
The project is based on a dictionary compiled by by Kotora Jinbo and Shouzaburo Kanazawa, first published in 1898. Jinbo, a surveyor, had learned Ainu to communicate with indigenous people living Hokkaido. Kanazawa, a linguist, documented words and phrases to create the dictionary that would help transmit the Ainu language into the 21st Century.
According to Bugaeva:
The original dictionary by Kotora Jinbo and Shozaburo Kanazawa contained mistakes, misheard words, and even broken phrases (expressions that are inconceivable with original Ainu grammar). We deleted all questionable words and examples, items that were extremely different from Setsu Kurokawa’s audio, and words that Setsu Kurokawa was unfamiliar with. Double entries were basically consolidated to one entry. However, since the video data and audio data were recorded separately, there are cases where the Ainu expression is different in the video and audio. In those cases only, we decided that these were separate expressions, and listed both. In the end, we had 3467 headwords. For particularly rare words, we checked whether they were used in existing dictionaries, and added notes to them.
[…]
In addition to the original notations, various information that can aid learning the Ainu language including the colloquial translation, Modernized Roman character transcriptions and katakana [a Japanese phonetic syllabary] transcriptions of the Ainu word, interpretation (glossary) and English translation, etc., are provided. With the help of Setsu Kurokawa, a native speaker of the Saru Dialect of Ainu (Nukibetsu), we were able to upload audio of the Ainu language onto the web. We received many responses and comments from students and researchers regarding these contents. However, we were faced with budgetary restrictions when building the dictionary, and some technical problems remained.
Bugaeva worked with Setsu Kurokawa to record the pronunciation of words and phrases used in the Ainu talking dictionary. Kurokawa, an Ainu elder born in 1926 in Nukibetsu, in southwestern Hokkaido, grew up hearing the language:
When Setsu Kurokawa (born, January 5, 1926) was a child, in the late 1920's, many Ainu families had already stopped speaking Ainu at home. Considering this, Setsu Kurokawa's proficiency in Ainu is relatively high. This can be explained by the fact that she was often taken care of by her grandfather and grandmother. However, since Ainu is not used currently in everyday life, it was difficult to record the spontaneous utterances of the language. In this audio material, the words and expressions are not the spontaneous utterances of Setsu Kurokawa, but instead are audio data initiated based on the Ainugo kaiwa jiten [Ainu conversational dictionary]. In the actual recording process, Anna Bugaeva read the words and expressions in the Ainugo kaiwa jiten, and Setsu Kurokawa repeated these in her own manner. The Ainu language expressions in this audio material are based on the Ainugo kaiwa jiten, and do not completely match Setsu Kurokawa's idiolect.
Bugaeva's finished dictionary was presented to a group of Ainu community members in Tokyo at the Ainu Cultural Center (which itself has online resources dedicated to transmitting the Ainu language) in February 2009. The online tool created in collaboration with Japanese co-editor Shiho Endo and programmer David Nathan (ELAR director, SOAS, University of London) and with an art input of the Ainu community, with web-design by Tamami Kaizawa.


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There’s Wisdom and Humour to Be Found Painted on the Back of Nepalese Trucks · Global Voices
Sanjib Chaudhary

Next time you're in Nepal, you might notice something special about the trucks plying the country's roads. Like in Pakistan, Nepalese trucks carry quirky, witty verses and contextual satire.
This truck carries the message: If you want to pluck a flower, don’t lop off the branch; if you want to lead a life, don’t deceive [anyone]. Image by Flickr user Jana Reifegerste. CC BY-SA 2.0
The messages range from politics and philosophy to love, humour and even expletives. These days, they aren't limited to trucks, but show up on public buses and safa tempos (battery-powered tuk-tuk) too.
There are a few initiatives in Nepal to compile these expressions. According to columnist CP Aryal, a magazine called Bus Sahitya, meaning “bus literature,” was launched several years ago in a move to acknowledge the literary value of the verses splashed on the back of vehicles. And Subid Guragain, a journalist and teacher, published a compilation of 700 such messages titled Truck Sahitya, meaning “truck literature,” in 2011. Aryal writes:
What drives people to scrawl these lines on their vehicles? And why do so many do it? Govinda Lamsal, who drives a truck, says that in a line of work that is so mechanical, these words or images are a way of showing some creative flair and personal philosophy. “People perceive us as hardened folk without emotions,” he says. “Well, we have feelings too, and this is usually our only means of showing them while on the road.”
Social media is full of examples of these verses. This truck carries a message mentioning Facebook and Twitter:
ट्रक साहित्य!! pic.twitter.com/rPiqijRzMU
— HBD@laxmeeeदि निरज (@Nijvt1) October 6, 2015
If you can’t have Facebook, go for Twitter;
If you can’t win a girl, make her [your] sister.
Many of the messages are lovelorn and cannot stop talking about sisters-in-law:
ट्रक साहित्य । 👏👏👏👏 pic.twitter.com/M3hM3BuKyY
— भरत (@bringitonguyz) November 6, 2015
Whether it’s uphill or downhill, hope there’s an in-law’s house on the hill;
Whether she’s dark or white, hope there’s a sister-in-law at the in-law’s house.
And they don’t spare the country’s politics and politicians:
#ट्रक साहित्य
(फोटो फे.बु बाट लिएको हो) pic.twitter.com/AEK4VU2YLv
— Alok Atreya (@alokforensic) January 30, 2016
In America, young lead the country;
Old get the pension.
In Nepal, old rule the country;
Young get the tension.
Some messages have philosophical overtones:
This truck is conveying the message: Don’t lose your cool in sorrow; don’t cross your limit in happiness. Image by Prabin Gurung. Used with permission.
This one is similar:
ट्रक साहित्य pic.twitter.com/246AYQ8uwp
— PHALANO™ (@phalano) April 23, 2013
Spend money for honour,
Don’t spend honour for money.
Other messages talk about a driver’s life and the difficulties they face:
Kati ramailo :) #trucksahitya pic.twitter.com/bJB210Qh2t
— Sabeena Karki (@sabeenakarki) August 15, 2015
A baby’s food, biscuit and cake;
A driver’s life, steering and brake.
Some messages are satirical, like this one aimed at those who cannot stop talking about Nepal being the birthplace of Buddha:
ट्रक साहित्य pic.twitter.com/sGqPGNXilf
— प्रवेश शर्मा (@prabesss) December 27, 2015
Surrounding are hills, in the middle is a lake;
There is dearth of wisdom in the country where Buddha was born.
And here's a message for anyone who is impatient:
ट्रक साहित्य pic.twitter.com/c7vv0wQs3Z
— लुरे सरकार (@Nikamma23) December 16, 2015
Please don’t blow the horn,
My country is sleeping.
If you are contemplating a long drive on a Nepalese highway, these short messages are sure to break the monotony of your journey and bring a smile to your lips.

author: Sanjib Chaudhary


text:
Iraqi Society Frowned Upon His Moonwalk, But He Kept Dancing Anyway · Global Voices
PRI/PRX's The World

Adel Al-Jaf, known by his stage name “Adel Euro.” Credit: Jonathan Hollander/Facebook
This article by Lucy Martirosyan originally appeared on PRI.org on July 6, 2016, and is republished here as part of a content-sharing agreement.
The moonwalk was easy for him. He could mimic almost all of Michael Jackson's moves. But Adel Al-Jaf, known by his stage name “Adel Euro,” would have to dance in isolation while living in Iraq.
He fell in love with dancing after watching Michael Jackson and Britney Spears perform together. That was the moment he decided to become a dancer. Since then, he would start collecting Michael Jackson's CDs and mimic the performer's dancing.
But men who sing and dance are judged differently in Iraq, Al-Jaf said in an interview with the BBC in 2015. They're derided as feminine, weak or homosexual.
His parents warned him that his breakdancing and rapping could lead him into trouble.
Al-Jaf was one of the 250 people killed in the Baghdad bomb attack claimed by the ISIS militant group on July 3 at the  district.
“They told me what I'm doing could be dangerous in Iraq — because this is not our culture,” Al-Jaf said in that 2015 interview. “I cannot be dancing in the street or doing these moves outside. They said that this will bring you more trouble in your life. There is no future for this art, for this thing or this hobby you like in Iraq.”
Al-Jaf kept dancing, singing and rapping anyway. He would choose isolated areas within parks to practice his moves. When the police would stop him, he'd say he wasn't dancing, he was performing martial arts — a more masculine and therefore more acceptable physical activity for Al-Jaf to practice.
Through YouTube and Skype, he would receive feedback on his dancing from Jonathan Hollander, the founder of a New York dance group, Battery Dance.
Al-Jaf later performed with Battery Dance in the Jordanian capital of Amman.
This was Al-Jaf's first time performing in front of an audience. Here's the video of his first performance.
When he returned from Jordan to Iraq, Al-Jaf said he fell into a depression.
“In our culture, they'll fight these kind of hobbies. A man who dances is not a real man,” he said.
But he pushed himself to keep dancing anyway, despite the negative connotations his society had with men and dancing.
“One day I'll leave Iraq and go to a place where people love dancing and they're not fighting it.”

author: PRI/PRX's The World


text:
‘Visions From The Inside’ Illustrates the Struggles and Resilience of Migrants Caught in US Detention Centers · Global Voices
Nidia Bautista

Image Rommy Torrico. Courtesy CultureStrike.
A migrant woman stands dressed in a navy blue sweatshirt adorned with big white letters that reads “detention center” across her back. Her face is unseen but images of a deportation order, restless children, and a plane destined for the Czech Republic alludes to the mother’s fate.
The woman is Ms. Horton, a migrant originally from the Czech Republic who was detained, torn away from her sons, and deported because of a loitering charge in New Jersey.
After a decade of living in the US, Ms. Horton was forced to leave her family, equipped with only the clothes on her back, a green shower bag and the memories of her family that only magnified her pain.
Currently, Ms. Horton is back in the US but is being held in a New Jersey detention facility.
Undocumented, queer, trans visual artist of color Rommy Torrico created the illustration based on a letter and three drawings Ms. Horton made of her children. A note from the artist accompanies the illustration:
As I read her letter explaining her twisted, torturous nightmare, I kept thinking about the baby in the drawing, the heartache and desperation of being torn away from your children and family for a loitering charge, and the trauma of being dehumanized and broken by a system that does not want you here, and trying to survive the days by just holding on the memories of a past that already seems too far away.
Torrico’s art forms part of CulturalStrike’s Visions From The Inside, a project that asked 14 artists to create illustrations based on letters and interviews from migrants detained in for-profit detention facilities in the US.
The project includes the work of artists with a strong social justice background including queer and trans people of color.
Image Breena Nuñez. Courtesy CultureStrike.
CultureStrike, a national pro-migrant arts organization, worked in collaboration with End Family Detention, Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement, and others, to collect letters from migrants detained in centers located in New Jersey, New York, Louisiana, Washington, California and Texas.
The idea for the project came after members of CultureStrike visited an immigration center and saw firsthand how important handwritten letters were for detainees. Letters from families and friends on the outside became conduits of support for migrants living the closed off, often inhumane, lives in detention centers.
Now is its second year, Visions From The Inside is a unique and necessary initiative aimed at exploring the various migrant identities and experiences both inside and outside of the for-profit detention system.
The project taps the power of art to illustrate the breadth of traumas and resilience experienced by detained migrants.
Last year’s inaugural Visions From The Inside focused on letters written by mothers at Karnes Detention Center in Texas. This year the focus has expanded to include the stories of people released from detention to illustrate the ongoing effects of trauma through the immigration enforcement process.
Julio Salgado, artist projects coordinator at CultureStrike, explains the move to expand the focus of different migrant identities and experiences to include their experiences outside of detention:
There's this idea that once you are detained and released, your problems are over. But many folks who are released have to deal with various issues, one of them being ankle bracelets. That's not freedom. It's a reminder that they're being watched and that is the price they have to pay to be out of a detention center.
In addition to Ms. Horton’s story, Visions From The Inside shares the stories of transgender women, men suffering from cancer, young mothers, and loving sons, illustrated in vibrant images.
In this work, human stories come to life, challenging the terrible tendency to reduce the human rights crisis of immigration to statistics and numbers.
“Resistance, hope.” Image Cristy C. Road. Courtesy CultureStrike.
While migrant testimonies describe the horror and injustice inflicted by the inhumane, transphobic, and racist immigration system, their letters, as transmitted through a vast network of activists and artists, seek to illustrate and empower detained migrants and their communities.
Ultimately, the project aims to fight against the voiceless immigrant narrative and the violent immigration system bent on dehumanizing migrants in the US.
As demonstrated by last year’s Visions From The Inside, the circulation of defiant migrant testimonies has inspired more migrants to share their stories.
Iris Rodriguez from End Family Detention has said that the project has had “a positive domino-effect as more families began writing their own letters once the art pieces were publicly shared.”
A growing number of other detainees began to get released, then openly share their testimonies in public forums.
And for artists like Torrico, and many other participants and viewers, projects like Visions From The Inside, help bring awareness of the realities inside of detention facilities while continuing to teach us about the resiliency of the migrant spirit.
“This is what’s happening. This is [Ms. Horton’s] reality and the reality of so many other women and mothers in detention. As an undocumented artist, to have had the privilege of working on this piece and sharing this mother’s story is something I truly will not forget,” says Torrico.
It is also Torrico's second year participating in the initiative, and they express great interest to continue supporting CultureStrike's Visions From The Inside.
I also believe it's our responsibility as artists and cultural workers to center these issues, share these stories and amplify the message. We artists have the great honor and opportunity of shaking up the narrative through our work, and I plan on taking part in that as often as possible.
CultureStrike plans to release more illustrations for Visions From The Inside. You can follow the project on their tumblr, here: http://visionsfromtheinside.tumblr.com/

author: Nidia Bautista


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With 2 Months Before Parliamentary Elections, Russia’s Internet Censor Swings Into Action · Global Voices
Christopher Moldes

Image edited by Kevin Rothrock.
Many across the world are focused on the American contest between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, but elections are coming to Russia, too, where voters will choose a new State Duma this September. According to reports, the Central Election Commission is spending upwards of 20 million rubles (about $313,000) on voter outreach, subsidizing items like bumper stickers and advertisements on radio, television, and the Internet, in the hopes of boosting turnout.
Though Russian elections have become less competitive in recent years, some experts today are speculating that the Communist Party—which enjoys enduring popularity among older voters and, some say, is increasingly appealing to younger people—might consider mounting a genuinely oppositional campaign this contest, despite the likelihood of election fraud allegations.
The Kremlin, meanwhile, presumably wants the elections to go smoothly, most of all. Earlier this year, President Putin addressed the Federal Security Service (the post-Soviet successor to the KGB), warning the agency that “enemies at the gates” are preparing to meddle in Russia's parliamentary elections, alluding unsubtly to Western powers. He charged the federal security apparatus with stopping anyone who tries to use radical slogans and other means to “polarize” Russian society.
Enter Roskomnadzor, the federal agency tasked with regulating the Russian media, including the Internet. Roskomnadzor is best known for its broad-sweeping powers when it comes to policing the Web, for which it maintains a blacklist of banned online resources. Today, the agency announced it had blocked four websites that published calls to boycott Russia's elections this September, along with broader plans for protests to disrupt the voting.
According to a press release, Roskomnadzor says it was responding to orders from the Attorney General's Office:
Деятельность по организации срыва выборов в нижнюю палату парламента подрывает основы конституционного строя РФ, согласно которым высшим непосредственным выражением власти многонационального народа РФ являются референдум и свободные выборы.
Calls for the disruption of elections to the lower house of parliament undermine the basis of the Russian Federation’s constitutional order, according to which the highest direct expression of authority of the multinational people of Russia is referenda and free elections.
When reached for comment, Roskomnadzor spokesman Vadim Ampelonsky clarified the agency's decision, explaining that it blocked the websites because of “calls to action,” and not exclusively for promoting an election boycott. Roskomnadzor has, however, made a point of drawing attention to the boycott component of these websites’ illegal activism, mentioning it three times in its original press release. Ampelonsky told the news website TJournal that “such propaganda” is “pure extremism.”
The Russian media later learned that one of the four blocked websites belonged to Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s oppositionist movement Open Russia, which was soon unblocked after it removed the content identified by law enforcement. The other three websites on Roskomnadzor's list were relatively unknown resources. One has complied with Roskomnadzor's takedown order and is no longer blocked. Of the other two websites, only one—a rather frightening-seeming page on blogspot.ru—is still online. It features a picture of a killer clown skull and the words “A presentation of ‘Elections-2016.’”
Update (July 10, 2016): In a statement published online, Open Russia claims no part of its website was ever blocked by Roskomnadzor. The organization also says, however, that it offers a blogging platform with certain rules, and it bans writers for breaking its rules. “Sometimes Roskomnadzor notices violations [of our rules] sooner than we do. And that's what happened this time,” Open Russia explains, suggesting that Russian government censors did exert at least some influence on the website.

author: Christopher Moldes


text:
Amazing and Surreal Photos of Fireflies In Japan · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

Fireflies. Photograph by Flickr user 禾 Lin. License: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 (No derivatives).
Each year in early summer in Japan, if you're lucky you'll catch a glimpse of fireflies in late May and early June. Fireflies (Japan is home to the Asian firefly, Luciola parvula) require clean, running water, and have long been a associated with rice paddies, which are flooded in Japan each May.
However, as Japan's farming population ages and rice fields are turned into subdivisions, there are fewer chances to see fireflies every year.
As part of a photography contest held by Tokyo Camera Club in June 2016, a number of photographers submitted amazing and surreal photographs of fireflies from around Japan.
Nakanishi Shingoさんの作品。リツイート＆いいね！大歓迎です。
https://t.co/xphLCJilGN https://t.co/L9P7Edmvzt pic.twitter.com/CvtuoKnGMo
— 東京カメラ部 (@tokyocamerajp) July 6, 2016
Image by Nakanishi Shingo
— Tokyo Camera Club / @tokyocamerajp
s_t_523さんの作品。リツイート＆いいね！大歓迎です。
https://t.co/G3N5craQri https://t.co/iZjjKbED4O pic.twitter.com/ZWEGgEfSTV
— 東京カメラ部 (@tokyocamerajp) July 1, 2016
Image by Instagram user s_t_523
— Tokyo Camera Club / @tokyocamerajp
Takao Sudoさんの作品。リツイート＆いいね！大歓迎です。
https://t.co/M7J95Qv0Yo https://t.co/sSSzjMVlzm pic.twitter.com/7AKS0yC8Uk
— 東京カメラ部 (@tokyocamerajp) June 28, 2016
Image by Takao Sudo
— Tokyo Camera Club / @tokyocamerajp
Hiroyuki Shinoharaさんの作品。リツイート＆いいね！大歓迎です。
https://t.co/opgTR92Kqu https://t.co/RR5UmyZpwB pic.twitter.com/SScBrY6KH4
— 東京カメラ部 (@tokyocamerajp) June 26, 2016
Image by Hiroyuki Shinohara
— Tokyo Camera Club / @tokyocamerajp
リツイート＆いいね！大歓迎。東京カメラ部2016写真展 in Hikarie出展者のTakahiro Besshoさんの作品。（出展作品ではありません）https://t.co/FScvXHw9Lr pic.twitter.com/ctJ5QrHHY1
— 東京カメラ部 (@tokyocamerajp) June 23, 2016
Photo by Takahiro Bessho
— Tokyo Camera Club / @tokyocamerajp
リツイート＆いいね！大歓迎。東京カメラ部2016写真展 in Hikarie出展予定者のApple Manさんの作品。（出展作品ではありません）https://t.co/zMsXGGNJkp pic.twitter.com/CxEyZzhs9v
— 東京カメラ部 (@tokyocamerajp) June 22, 2016
Photo by Apple Man
— Tokyo Camera Club / @tokyocamerajp
「源氏と菖蒲の共演」 （2016.6.5 岐阜県揖斐郡） #tokyocameraclub #東京カメラ部 #igersjp #lovers_nippon #icu_japan #wu_japan #bns_japan #webstagram #wounderful_places #nightphotography #phos_japan #picturetokeep_night #japan_night_view #team_jp_西 #special_spot_vip #color_of_day #奥行き同盟 #写真好きな人と繋がりたい #写真撮ってる人と繋がりたい #ファインダー越しの私の世界 #instagramjapan #instagood #instagrammers #岐阜 #love_nippon
A photo posted by 淳 (@atsushi.k.photography) on
“Genji and sweet sedge duet.” (Ibi, Gifu, June 6, 2016)  #tokyocameraclub #igersjp #lovers_nippon #icu_japan #wu_japan #bns_japan #webstagram #wounderful_places #nightphotography #phos_japan #picturetokeep_night #japan_night_view #special_spot_vip #color_of_day
Tokyo Camera Club tweets in Japanese, and also posts to Instagram and on its own website. Submissions to Tokyo Camera Club photo contests can be followed on Instagram with the hashtag #東京カメラ部.