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Chinese State Media CEO Challenges Tencent’s Power Over Online News · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Newsstand in Beijing. Photo by Ernie via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
The WeChat account of Chinese news outlet News Breakfast was recently suspended for “spreading rumors.” News Breakfast has 400,000 subscribers in WeChat and is operated by East Day, a Shanghai city government-affiliated media outlet.
The so-called rumors appeared in a News Breakfast article entitled “Uncover the Truth: Why Are Devious Roast Ducks Sold for RMB 19 Yuan? The Truth Will Shock Everyone.”
The incident compelled Xu Shiping, the CEO of East Day, to write two open letters to Pony Ma Huateng, the chairman of WeChat's parent company, Tencent, questioning the monopolized status of the Internet giant and its arbitrary power over online content and censorship. Like many other Chinese news outlets, News Breakfast publishes some stories only on WeChat, rather than publishing on its website and then promoting on the social media and content service.
Xu, who has 33 years of experience working in media, is now openly expressing concern that Internet corporates may soon be more powerful than the state and the party.
At the center of the controversy is a typical “click bait” article, attempting to amass lots of views. The article maintains that most of the roast ducks sold on the streets in Shanghai are diseased, and that this is the reason why they are only sold at RMB 19 yuan each [approximately USD $3].
A few years back, People Daily reported that these claims had caused harm to one roast duck shop which sold duck meat at a low price to the poor, while selling duck livers and intestines to the rich for much more. But the report could not rule out the fact that some roast ducks sold on street were diseased. Many similar posts remain in circulation online.
In China, where all media outlets are either state or party affiliated, it is customary for managers of media outlets to directly negotiate with government censorship administrators to lift a website's access ban after sensitive content has been removed. But as social media increasingly becomes the main channel for media outlets to distribute their contents, much of this decision-making power lies in the hands of Internet companies, and each company has different house rules.
In the first of two open letters to Tencent Chairman Ma, published on November 4, Xu contends that Tencent’s rules are more rigid than those of the Party and state censor authorities:
这两天，我睡不着了。因为，我认为我碰到了一件重大的事情。这件事，看上去不算什么。然而，它关系到中国的舆论生态和新闻尊严。不能不说。
掐指算来，我从事新闻媒体工作33年了。1982年从中国人民大学新闻系毕业，分配进入中国历史最悠久的报纸《新民晚报》工作，体育部、新民体育报、评论部，后来又参与东方网建设，长期担任总编辑。这样的经历，让我明白，无论是过去的“同仁报纸”，还是现在的媒体机构，新闻和媒体的生态，都是有管理秩序的，行业管理也好，导向管理也罢，总之，我们都认，也都服。毕竟，管理者都是专业的。
可悲与可叹的是，不知道你马先生是志存高远呢？还是狂妄无知？你领导下的腾讯，也开始准备充当行业管理者的角色了。是的，你的企业足够大，微信足够牛，许多地方政府和众多媒体，天天都在拍你的马屁，但这不说明你有行业管理者的能力和资格。因为，你至少不专业。
I couldn’t sleep for the past two days. Because I feel that I have encountered a very serious matter. This is not a big issue on the surface but it concerns the dignity of the ecology of Chinese public opinion and journalism. I have to speak out about it.
I have been working in the journalistic field for 33 years. I graduated from the journalism department of Renmin University in 1982 and was assigned to “Xinmin Evening News”, a newspaper with the longest history in China. I worked on sports news and commentary section and Xinmin’s sport post respectively. Later I helped found the East Day and have been their editor ever since. This experience has made me understand that with all media, whether they are conventional newspapers or new media organizations, there are certain management [i.e. censorship] tactics…intended to shape news and media ecology and we have to abide by them. The administrators are professionals.
Unfortunately, I don’t know if Mr. Ma has the ambition to take this to another level, or if you are simply bold but too ignorant. Under your leadership, Tencent is ready to become the administrator of the [journalism] industry. Right, your corporate is huge, WeChat is awesome, so many local governments and media have to kiss your ass. But it doesn’t mean that you have the ability and qualification to become an administrator. Because you are not professional.
News Breakfast received a 7-day account suspension notice issued on November 2 and his failed to up lift the sanction through official propaganda channel:
我的手下很天真，赶紧通过网络进行申诉。我当然知道，这种申诉是没有用的。[…]
毕竟，我曾经担任过上海网宣机构的负责人，希望通过正式行文的方式，请腾讯帮忙解决这件事。我知道，这事很无奈，也很可悲，一家媒体的命运，就这样握在他人之手。[…] 但是，我还是决定去做。没办法，环境如此。“两微一端”，现在都被官方认可，也成为转型融合的标志，各种官方的排名，都用微信说事 […] 毕竟，我们还都端着饭碗，要养家糊口，要活下去。
My staff are very naive, they filed an appeal online. I [learned from my Tencent personal account experience] that these appeals are useless…
Since I had the experience of running a Shanghai propaganda authority’s website, I want to appeal to Tencent on the matter through an official channel. I know it is pathetic that the fate of media organization depends on others […] but I'm still going to do it. The circumstances compel me to do so. The official policy is that government and party authorities have to pick up new media communication by making use of mobile news outlets through Weibo and WeChat. And the impact of the news outlet is mainly based on the number WeChat subscribers […] We have to keep our rice bowl, feed our family and live on.
In order to have influence in the online media environment, many state and party affiliated news media also use content farm strategies to increase their subscriber base.
Xu eventually made calls to two friends who work for censorship authorities, seeking their help to resolve the problem. But his effort was in vain:
朋友们都回复，将信息转达了。打完这个电话，我才放下心，睡觉了。当然，我也天真了。第二天睡来，第一时间去看“新闻早餐”，依然没有解封。我很失望，只得安慰手下：“耐心等吧”。我希望公文能起到效果。
My friends told me they had delivered the message [to Tencent]. I was relieved and went to sleep. But I was too naive. The next day, “News Breakfast” account was still suspended.
WeChat censor. Remix image.
Feeling desperate, he criticized Tencent’s monopoly as being harmful to the state:
腾讯是什么，只是一家互联公司而已，他的资本结构，不能代表全民的利益吧？[…]这两年，你马先生成为地方政府的“座上客”，轻松地将许多本应属于全民的数据资原，以各种高大上的名目，纳入旗下，最要拿的是，这种交换，并没有评估和对价。[…] 一个一统天下的腾讯，对国家绝对是一种危害。不信走着瞧。它今天可以对媒体露出狰狞威权，明天就会对国家权威提出挑战。[…]
写这封信，我很犹豫。许多人劝我，还是算了，息事宁人吧，毕竟《新闻早餐》还是要活下去，东方网还是一堆的公号，要呆在微信的平台上，你的业绩，还需要数据的支撑。等等。但是，我最终还是想明白了，我是媒体人，媒体人应该有尊严，不应为五斗米折腰。如果有朝一日，中国的媒体，都成为腾讯的走卒，我们还会有“中国梦”的美好期许吗？
What is Tencent? It is an Internet company. It has a capital structure and cannot represent people’s interests […] In the past two years, Mr. Ma has been a guest of local governments which have provided corporate access to data which should be belong to the public. There is no evaluation of the capital value of such data access. […] Tencent’s monopoly is harmful to the state. Wait and see. Today it can exercise its unrestrained power on media outlets, tomorrow it will challenge state authority. […]
I have been hesitating to write this letter. Many have warned me against this move as “News Breakfast” has to survive and East Day still have a bunch of WeChat public accounts. The business profile depends on WeChat data etc. But I am a media person and should have dignity. I should not bow for my rice bowl. If one day, all China’s media outlets are under the rule of Tencent, can we still have our “China Dream”?
WeChat’s administrator or cybersecurity team quickly replied to the open letter making four brief points:
1. The roast duck content has been flagged as rumor by various official media outlets since 2014 as it would result in social panic.
2. This is not the first time “News Breakfast” has broken rules on spreading rumor and copycat behaviors. When violating the rules, the content will be deleted and the account will be automatically suspended when the violation has accumulated to a certain points.
3. Tencent has a pre-existing appeal system, the case has been filed and sanction maintained.
4. The administrator applies the same judgement to all media outlets. For “roast duck” related content thus far WeChat has deleted more than 2000 posts and sanctioned 1000 accounts.
Tencent’s 2016 first quarter report showed that WeChat has 762 million monthly active users. About 80% of the users are subscribed to public accounts.
As Xu’s first open letter has been taken down on major social media outlets, he wrote a second open letter, restating his points in a more moderate tone of voice.
The suspension appears to be a result of China's recently-passed cybersecurity law, which makes censorship a corporate obligation. Under the law, all Internet service providers must maintain an internal corporate censorship system. Tencent combines this with a system through which individual users can file abuse reports, in accordance with foreign social media platforms such as Facebook.
Many analysts see the introduction of cybersecurity law as a legal basis for China's Great Firewall and for the codification of censorship practices. The laws also provide a legal framework for corporations to establish a self-censorship system, a move intended to reduce the labor costs of censorship for the government.
Though many Chinese Internet users are critical of censorship, in this particular case, they are not standing by Xu because they feel that what Xu really cares about is who control the power of censorship. A Weibo user pointed out:
East Day’s CEO is shameless. Many have misread his open letter. It’s main argument is not only that “Only Dad can hit me, you don’t have the power to do so” but “You son of bitch don’t leave the back door open to me. This is a lawless act against one party rule.”
While there have been many criticisms of the Cybersecurity Law from the foreign Internet companies, some may see a clearer set of written laws on existing internet censorship practices (which quite often are arbitrary and inconsistent) can help the business to develop a legal strategy when entering China. But in a country where the party is still on top of the law, and now one party cadre has spoke out his discontent on report-based self-censorship system. New rules will keep emerging.

author: Oiwan Lam


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The Year is 2021, and the Trump Republic is in the Throes of a Succession Crisis…. · Global Voices
Peter Paul Rankin

Trump tower. Pixabay image.
The following is a piece of satire by a Global Voices contributor who has chosen to remain anonymous.
The infamous Trump Tower seemed to cast an even longer shadow than usual over Trump City, the capital of the closed-off Trump Republic on Tuesday, after rumours about the health of ageing autocrat Donald Trump began swirling following his failure to surface on Twitter for more than 36 hours.
Key members of the reigning Trump regime were believed to be hunkered down somewhere in the 423-square-metre edifice that replaced the White House—famously described by Trump as “really average”—as the seat of the US presidency three years ago, with experts suggesting the clan is thrashing out a succession plan in the event that Trump never tweets again.
With local media fully under the Trump family's control and swamped with infomercials for Trump-branded products, Donald Trump's Twitter handle remains a key source of insight into the workings of one of the world's most bizarre dictatorships for the coterie of foreign journalists and academics that manage to feed off the republic's misery without ever having to spend an extended period of time there.
“The place is a bit of a black hole, to be honest,” said Marie Rosales, a lecturer in Psychology at the University of Guadalajara, who is also the author of F***ing surreal: Cognitive Dissonance and the Trump Factor in Trump's Unlikely 2016 Election Win and Trumpian Truths: Actually Just Lies.
“I'd be doing a Trump if I said I knew a lot about it!” she added.
The one-and-a-half day silence came on the heels of a fairly run-of-the mill barrage of Trump tweets late on Sunday, mostly targeting the 75-year-old ruler's perceived enemies in the wider diplomatic community.
On this occasion, popular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whose government accepted millions of US asylum seekers after Trump's first election win five years ago, took the brunt of the abuse.
A spokesperson for Trudeau's government said Monday that Canada hoped “our one-time ally can work through its many issues and move to normalise bilateral relations in the spirit of peace, diversity and love. This would be for the benefit of both our peoples and actually for the benefit of all people of every race, creed and colour everywhere.”
“Because after all, it is 2021,” the spokesperson chimed.
But critics fear that the Trump Republic is not even close to normalising. Just months after Trump's landslide electoral victory last year, the regime was moved to suppress a mutiny led by Vermont separatist Bernard Sanders and his bong-toting hipsters with tear gas and water cannons. A Russian monitoring mission brought in to oversee the vote had noted approvingly that ballot stuffing and other violations “were pretty flagrant even by our standards.”
Trump's two nearest competitors, daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner, scored less than 10% of the vote, with both campaigning under the wordy slogan ‘Making the Trump Republic Even Greater But Not Quite as Great as Donald Trump Will Make it. (Again).’
Chris Christie, head of security for Trump Tower, was also a candidate in the uncompetitive 2020 election, but is not viewed as a realistic successor. “He just orders their pizza,” Marie Rosales of the University of Guadalajara told Global Voices. Creative Commons.
Trump apologists in the ruling Trumpublican Party pointed out that reported violations would not have made a difference to the outcome since large parts of the electorate that disagreed with Trump's policies fled the country long before Trump was able to complete the construction of four financially ruinous walls across its southern border (“to stop ‘em coming in”), northern border (“to stop ‘em going out”) and eastern and western coasts (just to block the view of the sea).
One of the few people with intimate knowledge of the regime's workings said Trump's paranoia and burgeoning cult of personality had reached “devastating proportions.”
Tony Blair stopped consulting for the regime after they offered to begin paying him in Trump Tokens. Creative Commons.
“Donald has become incapable of functioning unless surrounded by either his family members or by images of his likeness at all times,” former British Prime Minister Tony Blair told Global Voices. Blair worked as an image consultant for Trump from 2016 to 2020.
“It reached the point that on one of his few trips abroad last year, to visit the Philippines and President Rodrigo Duterte, Duterte was asked to wear a Trump face mask just to reassure him that another Trump was looking back at him.”
Blair, who has also worked for septuagenarian Kazakh dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev, opined that it was unlikely Trump would stop tweeting for “non-health reasons”.
“My suspicion is that he has overdosed on himself,” said Blair. “It's a really tragic story with vast geopolitical implications, and one I will be happy to tell in full for the right fee.”
With #Trumpnottweeting trending over parts of the world that still pay attention to the country the dictator has brought to its knees, speculation is growing as to who may take over the handle in the short term.
Kushner and wife Ivanka, who are rumoured to own swathes of the faltering economy, including most television channels in a country where that medium is known to strongly influence public opinion, are widely viewed as contenders, with presidential son Donald Trump Junior and Trump's brother Robert Trump perceived as having been elbowed out of the inner circle.
Trump Republic-watchers have said daughter Ivanka's surname would be an important asset in any potential succession struggle. Creative commons.
But Rosales of the University of Guadalajara speculated that Third Wife Melania Trump is likely to favour a “regency” scenario in which she tweets on an interim basis while her 14-year-old son Barron Trump is prepped by close advisors, including ruling family physician Ben Carson, to take over on a full-time basis.
Asked whether such a scenario might help precipitate vital democratic and economic reforms in the Trump Republic, however, Rosales was pessimistic.
“Did you not see Joffrey's time as Lord of the Seven Kingdoms on HBO classic Game of Thrones?” she said. “All the indicators suggest this country will get worse before it can get better!”

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Peter Paul Rankin


text:
Smog Engulfs Tehran—Again · Global Voices
Mahsa Alimardani

The cover of the Tehran daily Javan, with the headline (in the photo): “The peaceful death of citizens in the polluted air.” Screenshot from Jaaar.com.
Iranians were issued a smog warning for this week, starting their Monday off by being told to stay indoors or don face masks if they venture outdoors.
Tehran is known for many things — a vibrant city full of culture, life, the capital of the nation and the third biggest metropolitan city in the Middle East (after Cairo and Istanbul). But one thing that has uniquely set it apart from its neighbouring metropolises is its persistent smog.
In recent years the problem has escalated. In December 2015, Tehran was put under an unprecedented warning that contaminants in the air were seven times the maximum level recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). The record high of last year was not reached, but on 13 November, 2016 similar warnings were issued for contaminants being three times over the the WHO recommendation.
Schools were shut down on Monday and continue to be closed into the week, as ordered by the Ministry of Education. Residents were warned not to go out unless absolutely necessary, with particular warnings to remain indoors for the elderly, children, pregnant and those with respiratory problems. The pressure is expected to lift on Wednesday when a wind us expected to push through the stagnant and polluted air.
Smog becomes a matter of national concern every year as the weather cools. Cold weather traps the high levels of exhaust within the city, fuelled by the millions of ageing cars and motorbikes in a city of 10 million residents.
The issue has become a political talking point, especially as hardliners blame the moderate administration of Hassan Rouhani for failing at their environmental policy. It's no surprise that the hardline Javan newspaper ran a headline on Monday claiming “the peaceful death of citizens in the polluted air.” Their front page article referenced a 2014-2015 study that claimed 5,158 residents of Tehran had lost their lives owing to respiratory problems caused by the pollution.
It appears that this week, many of the residents of Tehran are continuing about their daily activities as per usual, although many with face masks or with efforts to use the cities developing metro system.
Tehran's Milad Tower on a clear day. Photo from Wikimedia commons by Nima J72, CC BY-SA 4.0.
One reoccurring image that has been springing up on Iranian Instagram and Telegram accounts is Tehran's iconic Milad Tower, either engulfed by the smog or wearing a face mask to deal with the smog. Below are some samples of various Tehran based Instagram users depicting versions of the tower amidst the city's smog.
In the first, the tower screams out “komak,” Persian for “help,” as it's surrounded by polluted air:
بدون شرح #آلودگی_هوا#تهران#برج_میلاد#آلودگی_هوای_تهران#غلظت#دود 🔻 #ایران#ایران_من#ساخت_ایران#زنده_باد_ایران_و_ایرانی#پاینده_باد_ایران_ایرانی#ایران_من#کار#شغل#اشتغال#آینده#آینده_شغلی#دولت#مسئولین#made_in_iran#made_in_iran_98#
A photo posted by made_in_iran🇮🇷ساخت_ایران (@made_in_iran98) on
Without explanation #air_pollution #Tehran #Milad_Tower #air_pollution_Tehran #density #smog_Iran #my_iran #iran_creation #long_live_iran_and_iranians #lasting_wind_iran_irania #my_iran #work #profession #occupation #future_profession #made_in_iran #made_in_iran_98 #velt #officials
In the second post, a user uses the occasion of smog to make a romantic sonnet for a lover who has left, only to leave smog behind in her absence:
؁ تا تو تهران را ترک کردی آلوده شد – به دود، به نبود – برگرد حال ما را خوب کن . #امید_دیوسالار . . #امیددیوسالار #دود #دل #قلب #راه #هوای_خوب #دیوسالار #شعر #ماسک #ادبیات #تایپوگرافی #تایپوگرافی_فارسی #typography #تهران #برج_میلاد #Design #illustration #photography #photo #هوای_آلوده #هوای_پاک #شعرسپید #عاشقانه #غزل #برگرد #iloveyou #illustrator #فتوشاپ
A photo posted by امید دیوسالار ﴿شعر و گرافیک﴾ (@omiddivsalar) on
Just when you left Tehran the pollution started — towards smog, towards absence — come back and make us better. #hope_divsalar #hope_forSalar #smog #heart #Tehran #milad_Tower #typography #heart #way #good_weather #divsalar #poetry #mask #literature #typography #farsi_typogaphy #iloveyou #polluted_weather #white_poetry #romantic #sonnet #comeback #photo #photography #illustration #design #photoshop #illustrator
The last photo, a cartoon of the tower with Tehranis blindly reaching up towards it, is posted with a somber caption describing the poisoning of the city's population:
#پست_موقت . . #تصویر_نوشت . آمدم بیرون فقط در آسـمان‌ها #دود بود در هـوای شهر من تنها هوا کمبود بود . . . . . #دود_نوشت . حاشا به #دود و گرد و غبار آنکه حل شود #تهران برای مردم دنیا مثل شود . . . . . #طنز_نوشت . از #دوده‌های اگزوز ماشین دلم گرفت این کله ترسم عاقبت آخر کچل شود . . . . . . #سرب_نوشت . سرب است و #دوده آنکه به حلقم فرو برم باشد که سهم دشمن و مشتی دغل شود . . . . . #پی_نوشت . زهر است اگر چه #دوده، در این وضع شهرما آخر گمان کنم که برایم عسل شود . . . . . . #تهران_آلوده #آلودگی_هوا #نفس_تهران_گرفت #آسمان_لاجورد_تهرانم_آرزوست #آلودگی_و_دود_دم_وضع_شهر_ما #دود_این_شهر_مرا_از_نفس_انداخته_است
A photo posted by mahdibonyad (@bonyadmehdi68) on
#temporary_post… #writer_image. I came out onto the heavens. #smog was within my city's atmosphere and there was a shortage of air… #wrote_smog #for it #the_smoke_anddust_to be resolved #Tehran for the people is like the world…#irony_written #smoke from car exhausts have clogged my heart and brought my fearful head to finally bald…#wrote_lead. #a wound and #smog has gone down my throat and taken the portion of my enemy and rogue enemies…#foundation_written. #poison it is #smog, in this situation I think turn us to honey…#tehran_polluted #weather_pollution #Tehran's_breath_taken #lazuli_sky_ofmyTehran_mywish #pollution_and_smog_ourcity's_situation #smog_has_taken_our_breath_away

author: Mahsa Alimardani


text:
UN Chiefs Chat Trump, Climate Change, Migration, and Water with Global Voices · Global Voices
Abdulfattoh Shafiev

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon before his interview with Dag Hammarskjöld Journalism Fellow and Global Voices author Abdulfattoh Shafiev. Photo by the United Nations, published with permission.
Dag Hammarskjöld Journalism Fellow and Global Voices author Abdulfattoh Shafiev conducted interviews with Ban Ki-moon, United Nations Secretary General and Peter Thomson, President of the UN General Assembly on November 11 and November 10 respectively in their offices at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. The two UN chiefs answered questions relating to the impact of Donald Trump's surprise election as US President on the organisation's work in key areas such as climate change and migration, as well as questions on other topics such as authoritarianism and water policy.
Donald Trump's shock victory in the US presidential elections last week did not just throw question marks over the future of the world's biggest economy and most powerful international actor. Trump's promise at the Republican National Convention in July that “Americanism, not globalism, will be our credo” cast shadows over the very future of multilateralism and the international organisations that emerged from the wreckage of World War Two, while his views on key global issues such as migration and global warming have been well-documented.
But over at the United Nations Headquarters in New York there were no visible signs of panic at Trump's election, and two of the organisation's top-ranking figures appeared in relaxed spirits as they offered their views on some of the most important questions of the day.
This author's conversations with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and UN General Assembly President Peter Thomson began with a review of the US president elect's statements on two of the most important deals overseen by the organisation in recent times, and moved on through authoritarianism, migration and water in Central Asia.
One issue that claimed a lot of column inches during Trump's presidential campaign was his suggestion that he might rip up the deal reached between Iran and the so-called 5+1 (Britain, France, Germany, Russia, the United States and the European Union) over its controversial nuclear programme.
On this topic, UN Secretary General Ban said:
This is a deal which has been agreed upon by five members of Security Council and Germany and is fully supported by the Security Council. The US has played a crucial role among the members and the UN has been fully supportive of this agreement. Of course this deal may not be a perfect agreement, but we are not living in a perfect world. If there is anything that may not be satisfactory to newly elected president, he should discuss it with the parties concerned. What is important is the implementation of this agreement in a faithful manner. Whatever he might have said as political rhetoric during the presidential elections, I feel sure that once he becomes the president in January, he will be committed to the agreement. Since the UN was established, we have seen many changes in US administration from the Democrat party to Republicans. But all of them have honoured such agreements.
President of the UN General Assembly Peter Thomson (right) and Global Voices's author Abdulfattoh Shafiev (left). Photo by the United Nations. Reused with permission.
While refusing to be drawn on Trump's specific comments about global warming and the Paris climate agreement (before becoming a presidential candidate, Trump is on record as calling global warming a hoax invented by the Chinese, comments that during the campaign he denied having made) UN General Assembly President Peter Thomson doubted that one man would be able to overturn the growing international consensus on the topic:
I don’t’ want to speculate on what he believes in and what he is going to do, but what I’d say it is that that it is very obvious that mayors, community groups, individuals, large swathes of America, realise that America’s best interest and humanity’s best interests lie in the clean energy future. If you are mayor of Miami, you don’t need somebody to tell you that the sea level is rising, you just walk down the street and see the water coming up through the grills in the street and see that you have got to do something about it. My point here is that while governments are obviously extremely important, it is people that will make the change. We are now seeing that renewable energy is moving towards being as competitive and even more competitive than fossil fuels in some instances, and what is good for business will be good for this country and the world, so I am not too skeptical about any of that.
Two months ago when addressing the opening of the 71session of the General Assembly, Ban Ki-moon took advantage of the opportunity to use his last major speech as UN Secretary General to implore the world's tyrants not to tinker with constitutions in order to cling to power.
Global Voices asked Ban to expand on these comments:
One of the regrets and disappointments I experienced during my ten years serving as Secretary General is that I have seen some leaders, who are not committed to democratic principles and try to cling to power against the will of people. It is important that leaders should listen carefully to the voices of people, their expectations and challenges. But when you shut down for years such voices and this becomes the source of grievances, these grievances, if not addressed properly, can turn into demonstrations, resistance and even violence by people.
Most of the world’s problems which we are seeing were not caused by people. Unfortunately, they were caused by the leaders themselves, because they are not listening to the people’s voice. Whenever I went to very important meetings and summits, whenever I could talk to the leaders, I said: When your constitutional term comes to the end, please, do not try to change the constitution, please, do not cling to power. This has been my consistent message.
Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary General answers Global Voices's Abdulfattoh Shafiev's questiona. Photo by the United Nations. Reused with permission.
Ban's own time in office ends on December 31 when he will be formally replaced as UN Secretary General by ex-Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Guterres, who was elected in October. The UN boss told Global Voices on November 11 that he thought Guterres would be the ideal man to formulate the organisation's response to the refugee and migration challenge that has come to dominate headlines in recent years.
This author comes from a country, Tajikistan, where over a million nationals are forced by economic circumstances to seek work in Russia. A lack of protection for migrants abroad has led to countless tragedies impacting millions of families across the world, while politicians such as Trump and Europe's emergent nationalist parties continue to use them as political cannon fodder.
Ban told Global Voices he believed the UN had a key role to play in ensuring the human dignity of migrants and refugees:
My successor Antonio Guterres served for ten years as UN High Commissioner for Refugees. So you will find him most experienced, most able and most committed in addressing migrants’ and refugees’ issues. We have 65 million refugees and migrants at this time. This is the most number of refugees since World War II. Without going into any specific cases, we are deeply concerned about the trend of discriminating against and abusing the human rights of migrants and refugees who had to leave their homes because of persecution, danger, and threats to their lives, as well as for hopes of a better future and better opportunities. No discrimination, no xenophobia, and no mistreatment of refugees – this is a fundamental principle of human rights.
A final challenge faced by many regions of the world including this author's home region of Central Asia is the use and management of increasingly scarce water resources. Tajikistan, which is one of Central Asia's comparatively water-rich countries has consistently raised its fears over regional water issues at the UN General Assembly.
Global Voices asked Peter Thomson, on the eve of his participation at the upcoming Water Summit in Budapest from November 28-30, how he viewed the future of global water policy.
That is precisely why I’m going to be at the Water Summit in Budapest. Hungary, Tajikistan, Finland and a couple of others have been really instrumental in driving progress towards Sustainable Development Goal Six (ensuring availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all). I recognise that the politics of fresh water is going to be big part of the 21st century and it’s important to understand that everything in the world is about sharing and inclusivity. I know that Tajikistan is very responsible in this area and this is one of reasons why it takes the lead in SDG 6 matters — because it has such a stake in the game.
There are big problems in Central Asia with sources of water. Glaciers are melting at a frightening rate and along with the weakening Indian monsoon, this has implications for future water supplies in the region. These are all things we are going to be discussing in Budapest. But I do think the world is starting to wake up to the fact that the problems Central Asia is facing are going to be problems experienced around the world. That is why I have called for a meeting in Budapest outside the summit where we will talk about what we can practically do on SDG 6 in terms of [cooperation on] water politics, which will be a growing concern for humanity as climate change kicks in around the globe.

author: Abdulfattoh Shafiev


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Activists Want to Build a Monument to Russia’s Most Famous Movie Gangster · Global Voices
Isaac Webb

Sergei Bodrov Jr. Source: Youtube.
Shortly after the EuroMaidan Revolution and the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, Roman Sergeev, a 36-year-old video art director from Moscow, decided it was time to realize a long-held dream: to build a monument to Sergei Bodrov Jr., the actor who played Danila Bragov in the Russian cult classic films Brat (1997) and Brat II (2000). With Russia supporting a separatist movement in eastern Ukraine and waging an aerial campaign in Syria, Sergeev and the other founders of the “Brat Danila” project wanted to monumentalize Bodrov Jr. and the vision of Russian power he has come to represent: “More than ever,” they write on their website, “we felt the need for a symbol of the protection of the [Russian] land and its people.”
Now, more than two years later, the project is beginning to take shape: since launching a crowdfunding campaign in June, Brat Danila has raised more than 300,000 rubles ($4,650), or around 85 percent of its 350,000-ruble goal. (This sum is only for the preparatory work on the statue; taking into consideration taxes and construction and mounting costs, the monument is expected to cost 2,685,000 rubles, or $41,622.)
The Brat Danila team wants to build a bronze statue in Moscow or St. Petersburg, where Brat and Brat II were filmed, with the exact location to be determined by a poll conducted on the project's website and in cooperation with city officials. St. Petersburg is currently leading the online poll by a wide margin.
The Brat duology tells the story of a Danila Bragov, a Russian soldier who returns home after fighting in the First Chechen War and gets involved in St. Petersburg's violent criminal underworld. He quickly becomes one of the city's most feared killers, embodying the cutthroat attitude of the “wild west” world of 1990s Russian organized crime.
The Brat films elevated Bodrov Jr. to stardom, though his life and career were cut short in 2002, when he and 27 members of a film crew were killed in a landslide in the Caucasus Mountains. Bodrov Jr.'s legacy grew after his tragic death, and Bragov remains one of the most famous movie characters in post-Soviet film: Bodrov Jr.'s portrayal of Bragov epitomizes a kind of gangster machismo—one of power, honor, and loyalty—that occupies an important place in contemporary Russian masculinity.
The Brat Danila initiative comes amidst a broader effort by Russian authorities to monumentalize historical figures: a statue of Vladimir the Great was recently unveiled outside the Kremlin, and the city of Oryol erected a statue of Ivan the Terrible in October. There are even plans to build a statue of Mikhail Kalashnikov, the inventor of the eponymous rifle.
Similarly, Brat Danila hopes their monument will “secure Danila’s image as an important touchstone of patriotic culture” and “create a symbol that will help bring people together.” On the project's crowdfunding page, the Brat Danila founders write that they believe “Danila Bagrov will be able to unite our people and make a clear statement about [Russia’s] national idea.”
Аналогов российская культура не создавала более пятнадцати лет. Появившись на экране во время глубочайшего кризиса нашей страны, Данила стал настоящим примером и опорой для многих ребят того времени, росших без отца или старшего брата.
Russian culture hasn't created anything like him in 15 years. Appearing on the screen during our country's deepest crisis, Danila became a real role model and means of support for many children at the time who were growing up without a father or older brother.
The initial sketches, drawn by Vasily Goncharov, show Bodrov Jr. dressed as Bragov, wearing a thick sweater and carrying a backpack. The statue will be made of bronze and sculpted to scale.
A sketch and description of the monument to Sergei Bodrov, to be built in Moscow or St. Petersburg.
The phrase “I think power lies in truth,” excerpted from perhaps the most famous scene in Brat II, in which Danila asks an American about the relationship between money, power, and truth, will be written at Bodrov Jr.'s feet.
Вот скажи мне, американец, в чём сила! Разве в деньгах? Вот и брат говорит, что в деньгах. У тебя много денег, и чего? Я вот думаю, что сила в правде: у кого правда, тот и сильней! Вот ты обманул кого-то, денег нажил, и чего — ты сильней стал? Нет, не стал, потому что правды за тобой нету! А тот, кого обманул, за ним правда! Значит, он сильней!
Tell me, American, what is power? Is it really money? My brother says it's money. You have a lot of money, but so what? I think power lies in truth: whoever is right is strong! You've screwed someone out of money, and so what — did you get any stronger? No, you didn't, because you weren't right. And the guy who got screwed, he was right. That means he's stronger.
It's easy to see why, in the midst of a deep economic recession and with elevated anti-American rhetoric coming from state officials and institutions, a statue of Bodrov might resonate with Russians.
Brat Danila has built a significant social media presence, managing accounts on Instagram, VKontakte, and Odnoklassniki. In a promotional clip posted on their website, Sergeev asks supporters to photograph themselves embracing friends and relatives with the hashtag #БратДАНИЛА
Instagram users have been eager to use the hashtag in the months since the project kicked off.
A photo posted by Брат Данила (@bratdanila) on
#братДанила #брат #брат2 #силавправде #данилабагров #вчемсилабрат #братство #объединяйтесь #сила #родина #памятник #сергейбодров #культура
A photo posted by Брат Данила (@bratdanila) on

author: Isaac Webb


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Bulgaria Elects a New President, But Who Knows What Happens Now to Its Prime Minister · Global Voices
Nevena Borisova

Changing of guard in Sofia, outside the Bulgarian Presidential Office. Photo by Wikipedia user Apostoloff, CC BY-SA.
Following Bulgaria's presidential election earlier this month and Prime Minister Boyko Borisov's subsequent decision to submit his resignation to parliament, the country finds itself in a tense political situation.
Borisov's letter of resignation came on November 13, after Tsetska Tsacheva, a member of his political party Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB), lost a runoff vote in the presidential election to Rumen Radev, an independent candidate backed by the Bulgarian Socialist Party.
Western media outlets like Reuters and some reporters in Bulgaria have described Radev as a politician with “pro-Russian” views.
After beating out 20 other candidates, Radev will take office on January 22 of next year. That leaves the current President Rosen Plevneliev roughly 2.5 months to form a new government. In a letter to the members of Bulgaria's government, Prime Minister Borisov said he is prepared to remain at his post until a replacement is named. Borisov explained his wish to step down as a necessary response to the recent elections, where voters clearly indicated their dissatisfaction with the government's current course.
Alongside this month's presidential election, Bulgaria also held a referendum on possible changes to the country's electoral system and rules on funding political parties. Due to low turnout, the result failed to meet the quorum, but the proposals received support by slim majority and will still have to be debated in the National Assembly.
In an analysis published in the newspaper “Dnevnik,” editors sketched out several different scenarios that could play out in Bulgaria, following the change in leadership. According to the newspaper, another national political crisis isn't out of the question.
Parliament accepted Borisov's resignation on November 16. Now, the president will offer the prime minister position to a member of GERB, which is the country's largest political party. The party has the right to reject the offer. One reason they might do so is to build up support for their party — the ensuing political chaos could cast the relative stability of their rule in a more positive light. If that happens, the offer would fall to the parliament's second-largest party. If rejected again within a week, the president can then make the offer to any parliamentary party of his choice. If this, too, failed, he would need to form a “caretaker government,” while calling for early elections in March 2017.
Though the parliament had the right to reject the prime minister's letter of resignation, Borisov had ruled out this possibility.
“Виждам много грешки, само че ние сме партия, която се учи от грешките си, вземаме си поуки”, добави лидерът на ГЕРБ като обяснение на решимостта си и бе цитиран от медиите на пресконференцията след изборите.
“I see many mistakes, but we are a party which learns from its mistakes, we take our lessons,” Borisov said as an explanation of his decisiveness, as quoted during a press conference after the vote.
His conviction has provoked a variety of reactions in the media and online, ranging from dire panic to lighthearted jokes.
“We face a crisis that could have been avoided,” Nayden Zelenogorski, the co-chairman of a right-center coalition, said on national television. The representative of a political party with a presence in the parliament, Zelenogorski warned that the government won't function for at least another six months, thanks to the recent turn of events.
Politician and economic analyst Vladimir Karolev disagreed with this forecast, listing on Facebook a series of “completely untrue political statements by advisers to politicians and authors of analyses in the media.”
Many Bulgarian internet users opined that this turn of events is not random. In a Facebook post, Ianna Georgieva suggested:
Защо всички си мислят, че Борисов се прави на сърдито дете след изборите. Не мисля, че е толкова глупав и още повече обиден, мисля че ако искаше да спечели президентките избори не това щеше да избора му за президент и вицепрезидент. Мисля че това е добре премислена загуба.
Why does everybody think that Borisov is like an angry kid after the vote? I don't think that he is so dull and offended, as he attempts to present himself. I think that if he wanted his candidate to win the presidential election, he would have made a different choice for a president and vice president. I think it's a well-calculated loss.
Jeni Koleva tweeted  her observations of the general mood among people:
Следизборни настроения на опашката за самолета – ок са, че Радев станал президент, ама защо Бойко бил подал оставка…
— Jeni Koleva (@jenikoleva) November 15, 2016
The post-election mood, while waiting in line to board a plane: everyone is okay that Radev has become president, but they're asking why Boyko has resigned…
“RobotPanda,” another Twitter user, commented on the fact that a member of GERB has resigned from the prime minister's position for the second time in just four years:
ГЕРБ за втори път подават оставка в рамките на 4 години. Всеки, който гласува за тях на които и да е избори трябва да е тъп
— Robot (@_RobotPanda) November 14, 2016
GERB had resigned for the second time in four years. Anyone who votes for them in elections must be dim.
Another Bulgarian citizen, Vladimir Lukov, asked ironically on Facebook what comes next, and what Bulgarian immigrants and retired people should expect in the future:
Добре, нов президент – е, и…
Добре, предстоят пак избори, ново правителство – е, та…
Трите милиона прокуденици ще се върнат ли в България?…
Двата милиона старчоци ще заживеят ли в тиха радост покрай внуците си?…
Трите милиона и нещо наемници ще получават ли някога “европейски” заплати?
….
Well, a new president, so…
Well, there will be polls again, a new government, so, well…
Will the 3 million self-exiled people go back to Bulgaria…?
Will the 2 million elderly start living in quiet peace around their grandchildren…?
Or maybe the 3 million hired hands will start receiving “European”-level salaries?
Popular musician and mayoral candidate Ventsi Mitsov quipped on November 14:
Да ви кажа снощи правителството подаде оставка и мен ме заболя зъб.
Тази вечер от 18 часа съм на зъболекар.
НЯМА НИКАКВА СТАБИЛНОСТ ВЕЧЕ!!!
Let me tell you that yesterday the government resigned and I got a toothache.
I have scheduled an appointment with my dentist at 6 p.m.
THERE IS NO STABILITY ANYMORE!!!

author: Nevena Borisova


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Cameroonian Government Launches Campaign Against Social Media, Calls It “A New Form of Terrorism” · Global Voices
Dibussi Tande

A train station in Douala Cameroon. Social media played a vital role in providing an alternative narrative to official accounts about the train accident in the town of Eseka, some 75 miles from the capital Yaounde. Creative Commons photo by Z. NGNOGUE.
The government of Cameroon has launched a campaign against social media, which according to the government-controlled daily, Cameroon Tribune, is “fast becoming a threat to peace and a secret instrument of manipulation” promoting “character destruction, destabilisation of public opinion and deformation of facts among others.”
According to the bilingual daily, which published a special edition headlined “Dérives sur les réseaux sociaux : la cote d’alerte” (“The downward spiral on social media has reached alarming levels”):
A careful analysis of the situation tells of a phenomenon that is proving to be dangerous for society if no measures are taken to scale it down. This is important especially as elections are approaching. People with political ambitions may dive into it and use it to fight their opponents.
Other government media outlets, particularly the state-controlled Cameroon Radio Television (CRTV), have also joined the campaign to highlight the alleged ills of social media and the need for social media regulation in Cameroon. This was the case, for example, of the French (audio) and English (audio) language radio newscasts of November 1.
The immediate cause of the government’s outrage was the deadly train derailment in Eseka, some 74 miles west of Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, which resulted in the death of at least 80 people and injured over 600 on October 21, 2016. While social media users were nimble in sharing information about the disaster in real time, government officials and government-owned traditional media were slow to respond to, and inform the public about, the accident. In fact, pictures and videos of the tragedy were already being posted on Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms when the government and Camrail (a subsidiary of the French conglomerate Bolloré that manages the railway system in Cameroon) were still denying that an accident occurred.
Once government officials finally conceded that there had been a train accident, social media played a vital role in providing an alternative narrative to official accounts about the derailment, for example, making the case that overcrowding and defective Chinese-made carriages were likely contributing factors, not just speed as Bolloré officials claimed.
For example, in an ironic tweet, user @pahedipoula posted a picture of one of the overcrowded carriages of the ill-fated train:
#cameroun #Eseka “Dans le train, tout le monde était assis”@ #camrail
J'adore l'humour des gens de #Bolloré * pic.twitter.com/halgHOC89D
— Pahe (@pahedipoula) October 25, 2016
#Cameroon #Eseka. “Everyone was seated in the train” according to Camrail. I love the humor of the folks at #Bolloré”.
It was also on social media that questions were primarily raised about the official death toll as individuals on the ground talked to friends, relatives, and the local and foreign media. For example, Radio France International’s interactive program, Appels Actualité, tweeted the statement of an eyewitness who put the death toll at more than three times the official figures: “From what I could see first-hand, there were not just 79 corpses, there were at least 200, 250!”
#LT Ruben “De visu il n'y a pas que 79 morts dans l'accident, il y en a au moins 200,250!” #Cameroun #camrail #appelsactu @RFI
— RFI Appels Actualité (@AppelsActu) October 25, 2016
Most significantly, many Cameroonians criticized President Paul Biya on social media for what they perceived as his lukewarm attitude towards the tragedy – not only did the president send a message of condolence to the victims from Switzerland (incidentally via social media), he did not return home immediately after the accident. [For a detailed analysis of the role of social media in bringing attention to the accident, watch this French language report by VoxAfrica TV.]
Twitter user @237pleure lamented: “Tragedy in Cameroon. Where is Paul Biya? No doubt in a luxury hotel in Geneva making fun of Cameroonians.”
Drame tragique au cameroun*ou ést paul biya?Sans doute dans un Hotel de luxe à geneve en train de se payer la tete des camerounais.** pic.twitter.com/s1RkmJW7l0
— 237pleure* (@237pleure) October 23, 2016
After President Biya declared a national day of mourning from Switzerland, Twitter user Yannick T lashed out: “What else do you know how to do aside from this? You have become the President of the Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva. What a fiasco.”
@PR_Paul_Biya en dehors de cela tu sais faire quoi encore ? N'importe quoi. Tu es devenu le président de l'hôtel continental à Genève,fiasco
— Yannick T (@yannickt34) October 23, 2016
Stung by the accusations of negligence, incompetence and presidential indifference, the government played the victim:
Le sinistre d’Eséka s’est vite transformé pour certains en défouloir, un alibi commode, un exutoire rêvé pour asséner des coups, porter l’estocade, assouvir des appétits bassement politiciens… Des déclarations qui ne visaient manifestement qu’un seul objectif : accabler, embarrasser au maximum le chef de l’Etat et en tirer les dividendes politiques conséquents.
Some individuals quickly transformed the Eseka disaster into a convenient alibi, an ideal outlet to strike, to deal the death blow and satisfy their despicable political appetites… [Their] statements obviously had a single objective: overwhelm and embarrass the President of the Republic to the maximum, and benefit from the political fallout.
During a press conference days after the accident, the Minister of Communication and Government Spokesperson, Issa Tchiroma, responded:
Les gens de l’internet sont en permanence fâchés… c’est leur nature… les réseaux sociaux ne nous inquiètent pas. C’est un espace qu’il faut rationnellement occuper.
Internet users are constantly angry… it is their character… we are not bothered by social media. In any case, it is a space that we have to logically occupy.
The anti-social media campaign was taken a notch higher on November 10 when, in a speech to parliament, the Speaker of the National Assembly, Cavaye Djibril, complained about “the social malaise” caused by the “insidious effects of the social media” in Cameroon, which he described as “a new form of terrorism”:
Social media… is now being used for misinformation, and even intoxication and manipulation of consciences thereby instilling fear in the general public. In fact, it has become as dangerous as a missile… In a nutshell, social media has become a real social pandemic in Cameroon… I urge the appropriate authorities to see the pressing need to track down and neutralize the culprits of cybercrimes… we should know that there is a limit to freedom, for freedom without limit stifles freedom.
The speaker’s statement seemed to confirm persistent claims that the government is drafting a social media bill to stifle speech on social media.
The recent attacks on the Internet in general, and social media in particular, are not new. The government of Cameroon has had a longstanding policy of entrenched hostility towards cyberspace.
In 2014, the Director General of National Agency for Information and Communication Technologies, ANTIC, revealed that the agency constantly monitors social media to detect illicit content that may potentially threaten the national security and image of Cameroon.
President Biya himself joined the bandwagon in 2015 when he warned against online manipulation during his annual Youth Day speech: “Do not be misled notably by birds of ill omen, dreamers and enthusiasts of virtual calls for destabilization through the social media. These irresponsible prophets are desperately seeking to manipulate you.”
The President ordered his cabinet ministers to implement a more proactive social media communication strategy earlier this year. This came after the Monique Koumateke scandal in March 2016, in which social media users expressed outrage over the death of a pregnant woman who was denied access to a local hospital due to her inability to pay for care. According to a report by the Paris-based weekly, Jeune Afrique, only six ministers in the Biya cabinet had personal Facebook pages as of April 2016, and only two of them also had Twitter handles. The president’s order has so far had limited impact as government officials are constantly reacting to, rather than shaping, online events and conversations.
Although Cameroon does not have laws that specifically address social media, a 2010 law relating to cybersecurity and cybercriminality contains two key sections that sanction online activity.
According to Section 77:
(1) Whoever uses electronic communication or an information system to act in contempt of race or religion shall be punished with imprisonment for from 02 (two) years to 05 (five) years or a fine of from 2 000 000 (two million) to 5 000 000 (five million) CFA francs or both of such fine and imprisonment.
(2) The penalties provided for in Subsection 1 above shall be doubled where the offence is committed with the aim of stirring up hatred and contempt between citizens.
According to Section 78:
(1) Whoever uses electronic communications or an information system to design, to publish or propagate a piece of information without being able to attest its veracity or prove that the said piece of information was true shall be punished with imprisonment for from 06 (six) months to 02 (two) years or a fine of from 5,000,000 (five million) to 10,000,000 (ten million) CFA francs or both of such fine and imprisonment.
(2) The penalties provided for in Subsection 1 above shall be doubled where the offence is committed with the aim of disturbing public peace.
According to Internet World Stats (IWS), a website that tracks regional and global Internet usage, there were about 4.3 million Internet users in Cameroon as of June 2016, with an Internet penetration rate of 17.7% (up from 6.4% in 2013).
According to a recent survey by Mediametrie, a French audience measurement company, Facebook is the most popular social media platform in the country (IWS puts the number of Facebook users at 2,100,000) followed by Google+, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn. The survey reveals that 73.3% of individuals between the ages of 15 and 24 have social media accounts.
Social media is increasingly becoming a rallying point for those who want a change at the helm of the state. No surprise, therefore, that the Biya regime views social medial as a subversive space that must not be left unchecked
L’Etat du #Cameroun s’est résolument engagé dans une lutte contre les réseaux sociaux, afin de préserver l'image du pays pic.twitter.com/L9zZGKnMsg
— #AFRICA24 (@AFRICA24TV) November 14, 2016
The State of Cameroon is resolutely committed to the fight against social media so as to preserve the image of the country.
It appears that for the Biya regime, social media users must either be co-opted or coerced into submission if they wish to continue expressing themselves online.

author: Dibussi Tande


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Civil Society Slow to Pressure Trinidad & Tobago’s President on Misconduct Allegations · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Rhoda Bharath and attorney Justin Phelps at the October 27 press conference in Port of Spain. (Screengrab from Facebook Live video)
On October 27, 2016, just over a month after university lecturer Rhoda Bharath asked a series of questions of Trinidad and Tobago's president on Facebook Live regarding allegations of financial impropriety and misconduct in public office, she held a press conference in Port of Spain. The event was also streamed on Facebook Live.
In her statement to the media, Bharath zeroed in on the issue of the housing allowance of TT $28,000 (approximately US $4,180) per month that President Anthony Carmona received from July 2013 until May 2015, while living in state housing. She explained that she had instructed her attorney, Justin Phelps, to seek the advice of a senior attorney in the UK with regard to documents she had in her possession, to determine whether there were grounds for a criminal investigation into misconduct in public office on the part of the president, his secretary at the time and the then Chief Personnel Officer (CPO).
The UK attorney, Cathryn Mc Gahey QC, who has extensive experience in judicial review challenges to government policy, advised Bharath that a request for such an investigation was justified. McGahey told Bharath that “the case is finely balanced but I believe that there are at the moment reasonable grounds to suspect that the offence of misconduct in public office has been committed.”
Bharath reported the matter to Harold Phillips, the then acting Commissioner of Police, but is yet to receive a response either from Phillips or from Stephen Williams, his replacement. On November 11, 2016 attorney Phelps sent a follow-up letter to the Commissioner on Bharath's behalf.
This incident marks the first time in the history of Trinidad and Tobago—and, according to Bharath, the entire Commonwealth—in which a citizen has asked for an investigation into an individual who holds such high public office. Bharath has also made it clear that her writing to the police does not suggest the people cited are guilty of any offence, but she believes there is sufficient evidence to warrant investigation.
Phelps told Global Voices that, without wanting to interfere with the work of the police, there was additional evidence that could be revealed in due course. At the press conference he said he his expectations regarding the outcome of the matter were conservative. “Based on the historic record…,” he said. “We will have to wait and see.”
The guidelines of the country's Civil Service Act states that officers who are not provided with government accommodation are entitled to receive a special housing allowance. In a public statement on September 28, 2016, President Carmona maintained that the guidelines were different for the head of state, arguing that the SRC mandate says he was entitled to the $28,000 per month allowance because the state-funding housing he occupied was sub-par.
The housing allowance matter is not new. Kits provided to media at Bharath's press conference included copies of a letter dated July 2013 from the then Chief Personnel Office to President Carmona's secretary, which advised that “as a principle, where an office holder is provided with accommodation by the State, a Housing Allowance is not payable for an period during which he/she is provided with such accommodation.” In that same letter the CPO approved a housing allowance of TT $15,450 (approximately us $2,305) “only during the period in which [the president] occupies such temporary accommodation”. The figure was later increased retroactively to the $28,000 per month.
Screengrab of the CPO's letter to the president's secretary, one of the documents upon which the Queen's Counsel based her opinion.
Newspaper reports from 2014 quoted the attorney general at the time as saying, “The secretary of the [Salaries Review Commission] (the CPO) cannot, of her own volition, make a decision on the President’s housing allowance. That is a matter for the SRC alone.”
In 2014, there were newspaper editorials calling for an explanation. Senior Counsel (SC) Martin Daly publicly questioned the legal grounds on which the housing allowance was granted, and former head of the public service, Reginald Dumas, called the president's receipt of both state housing and the allowance “ethically reprehensible”. More recently, however, parliament and civil society organisations have—with a few exceptions—remained silent, with Bharath one of the only people continuing to pursue the issue.
On November 15, 2016, however, activist group Fixin’ T&T sent a letter to the president asking him to answer another question that Bharath initially raised, namely, whether his mother-in-law was ever employed at the Office of the President. If so, the group has called for the president's resignation on grounds of nepotism.
Global Voices also spoke with Dion Abdool, the recently installed chair of the Trinidad and Tobago Transparency Institute (TTTI), the local chapter of the global anti-corruption coalition, Transparency International. Abdool said that coming out of the concerns raised about several ministries in the 2014/2015 Auditor General's Report, the TTTI has embarked upon a project in conjunction with the AG's office, the Ministry of Finance and other stakeholders. The steering committee will submit a report by March 30, 2017, after which they will share its findings and recommendations with the national community.
Abdool believes that social media — along with the country's parliament and civil society — are the appropriate platforms on which to keep the issue of the housing allowance alive and says that he continues to look forward to the president, as the head of state, providing answers. Should additional evidence be revealed, he says, the TTTI would be willing to lend its voice to the issue.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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#NotMyPrince Hashtag Uses Prince Harry’s Upcoming Caribbean Visit to Resist ‘Colonisation of the Mind’ · Global Voices
Flora Thomas

HRH Prince Harry at an announcement for the 2014 Invictus Games. Photo by Defence Images. Photographer: Sergeant Steve Blake RLC. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Despite the fact that most Caribbean territories have been independent from Great Britain for decades — some of them for more than half a century — the mother country continues to wield a curious influence over its former colonies.
Most regional territories, still members of the Commonwealth, follow the United Kingdom's political and judicial systems, for instance. Cricket is a hugely popular sport. People drive on the left side of the road, attach value to speaking “the Queen's English” and in many cases are captivated by all things royal, so there is some measure of excitement surrounding Prince Harry's impending visit to the Caribbean — except when it comes to a popular hashtag.
On Twitter, #NotMyPrince describes itself as an “anti-colonial welcoming committee for Prince Harry […] resisting against the colonization of the Caribbean mind”. The aim, according to the project's Tumblr, lies in “breaking the bonds of empire”.
The prince's tour is scheduled to start in Antigua on November 20, 2016. Over the course of two weeks, he will also visit St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, Guyana and Barbados, where he is due to meet Barbados-born superstar Rihanna.
One of #NotMyPrince's content creators, Nalini Mohabir, finds the whole thing ironic. She posted several tweets with the hashtag in order to bring other social media users into the discussion surrounding colonialism and Caribbean identity:
Prince Harry who used racial slur against fellow soldier (called him a Paki) is visiting Guyana (w/ pop over 40% South Asian heritage) https://t.co/v15iPIV4RJ
— Nalini Mohabir (@BrownGirlEnvy) November 13, 2016
In 2009, a video emerged of Prince Harry joking around with his Sandhurst collegaues, one of whom he referred to as “our little Paki friend”. There was outrage at his use of the derogatory term, even though the prince may not have intended it as an insult.
In 2015, Barbados’ prime minister, Freundel Stuart, announced that by November 2016, he wanted to make “little England” — the country has long been viewed as the most colonial in the archipelago — a republic, replacing the Queen with a ceremonial president as head of state. Mohabir may have been referring to this when she asked:
Why is it necessary for the 👑 to have any symbolic, ceremonial or constitutional role in the 21st century Caribbean?
— #NotMyPrince (@NotMyPrince) November 14, 2016
While Prime Minister Stuart has been using decolonisation rhetoric, it appears the country has come no closer to installing a president over the queen, prompting #NotMyPrince to tweet about the subject.
Still no republic – https://t.co/SMWmuzDOyc pic.twitter.com/uY5rCQPtvy
— Barbados Today (@BarbadosToday) November 15, 2016
The conversation soon accelerated, with British online magazine Consented tweeting:
Prince Harry and the palace call out racism despite having profiteered off of the loot of colonized people of colour for centuries.
— Consented (@consenteduk) November 8, 2016
The UK has refused to entertain any dialogue about paying reparations to the region for its part in the transatlantic slave trade.
By quoting several accomplished West Indians — from former presidents to writers — #NotMyPrince was keen on making the point that this is not a new storyline; that Caribbean people have been singing the same song for decades:
Ellis Clarke on colonialism in 1964: https://t.co/QfW6r6BCk9 pic.twitter.com/E6nrxoSTMh
— #NotMyPrince (@NotMyPrince) November 14, 2016
“They don't seem to know that this empire business was all wrong…” – A Small Place – Jamaica Kincaid #NotMyPrince pic.twitter.com/o1Xcx3uUkT
— #NotMyPrince (@NotMyPrince) November 15, 2016
“The colonial experience is a continuing psychic experience….” – George Lamming #NotMyPrince pic.twitter.com/PiqLxkxvKe
— #NotMyPrince (@NotMyPrince) November 15, 2016
Prince Harry has recently made headlines for dating mixed race actress Meghan Markle. In an unprecedented move, Kensington Palace released an official statement which warned the paparazzi that “a line has been crossed” and criticised the media's treatment of the prince's new girlfriend.
#NotMyPrince cleverly used the actress’ own words to make its case:
Meghan Markle, Prince H's gf: “You create the identity you want for yourself, just as my ancestors did when they were given their freedom”
— #NotMyPrince (@NotMyPrince) November 15, 2016
It seems that the identity many Caribbean citizens want for themselves no longer includes the British Crown.

author: Flora Thomas


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Omani Film Critic Sentenced to Jail Over Facebook Posts · Global Voices
Afef Abrougui

An army checkpoint in Salalah, the capital city of the southern Dhofar region in Oman, where leftist rebels launched a rebellion against the rule of the former Sultan in 1962. Dhofar was also a hotbed of anti government protests in 2011. Photo by Juozas Šalna.
On 8 November, a primary court in the Omani capital Muscat sentenced poet and film critic Abdullah Habib to three years in jail and a fine of 2,000 Omani Rials (US $5200) over his Facebook posts addressing religion, politics and human rights in the Sultanate.
According to the Omani Monitor for Human Rights, Habib was convicted of blasphemy, religious contempt, and “using the Internet in what would prejudice the state public order,” under Article 19 of the country's Information Technology Crimes Act.
Abdullah Habib. Photo shared by the Facebook page: Freedom to Omani Intellectual and Writer Abdullah Habib
Habib's arrest was triggered by a Facebook post calling for the Omani government to reveal the burial sites of rebels killed amid civil unrest in the region of Dhofar between 1962 and 1976. Leftist and Arab nationalist rebels then sought to overthrow the rule of the previous Sultan, the father of the current ruler Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al Said, and instead to establish a communist state.
Habib was first arrested when he appeared for investigation before the Omani Internal Security Service (ISS), in April 2016. The 53-year-old was detained upon arrival and held incommunicado before his release in early May.
He was arrested again on 11 July over posts addressing fasting and the Muslim call to prayer. According to a Facebook support page, in those posts, Habib denounced what he deemed “religious and social hypocrisy as exemplified in exaggerated feasts” during Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting, and the use of loudspeakers to air Adhan or the call to prayer, particularly during times of rest in densely populated areas.
In a 10 May 2016 statement on the case, Amnesty International wrote:
Oman imposes arbitrary restrictions on the right to freedom of expression and in recent years many peaceful activists, government critics and others have been arrested and detained, often on public order charges or under vaguely worded penal code provisions that criminalize insulting the Sultan. Those detained are often held for several days before being released. Abdullah Habib’s case is an example of the pattern of intimidation by Omani authorities, including the ISS, of people who are simply exercising their right to freedom of expression.
Habib's experience forms part of a longer trend. Following unprecedented protests denouncing corruption and demanding jobs in February 2011, the Omani government launched a crackdown on independent media, activists, writers and bloggers. In the same year, the Sultan issued a cyber-crime law containing vague provisions that restrict free expression online. Article 17 of the law prescribes a prison term between one month and three years against those convicted of using information and communication technologies to distribute materials that “might prejudice or violate the public ethics”. Article 19 punishes by the same prison sentence those found guilty of distributing and possessing content that “might prejudice the public order or religious values”.
Attacks on free expression continue unabated in Oman today. On the same day of Habib's sentencing, an administrative court upheld a previous verdict confirming the Ministry of Information's decision to ban the daily independent newspaper Alzamn over a report on government interference with the judiciary.
Abdullah Habib, film critic
With a graduate degree in Critical Film Studies from the University of California at Los Angeles, Abudllah Habib has directed five short films and published twelve books in poetry and shot story collections. He also won several awards for his work including the Abu Dhabi Cultural Association Award in 1992, for his film This is Not a Pipe, and the General Secretariat of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) award for excellence in cultural production in 2013. A member of the founding committee of cinema in the GCC, Habib translated into Arabic, writings in film criticism and literary theory including Robert Bresson’s Notes on Cinematography, and the Space of Literature by French writer Maurice Blanchot.
In an interview given to the online news site Al-Araby Al-Jadeed in February this year, Habib described the 2011 protests in his country as an “Omani spring”, adding that those protests represent “an unprecedented development in the modern Omani history, since they broke the barrier of fear within the Omani citizen.” He also described the “Arab Spring” as a “continuation of his generation's dream of freedom and a life of dignity”:
As long as there is a human being exploiting a human being, there are revolutionary dreams, and dreams make the future.

author: Afef Abrougui


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Puerto Ricans Consider a Future Under Governor Rosselló and President Trump · Global Voices
Ana Gabriela Calderón

Illustration by Kike Estrada. Used with permission.
On November 8, the pro-statehood candidate Ricardo Rosselló was declared the winner of Puerto Rico's elections. Rosselló has conservative views similar to those of US President-Elect Donald Trump, and Puerto Rican human rights activists wonder how his administration's policies will affect the archipelago, including the rights of women's, persons with disabilities, immigrants, and LGBTQ groups. Puerto Rico's economic instability is also a concern, naturally.
Trump's critics across the United States spent Wednesday, November 9, in mourning. This was also true in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory where people have U.S. citizenship but are barred from voting in the presidential election, unless they reside in one of the 50 U.S. states.
Rosselló is president of the New Progressive Party, which advocates statehood for Puerto Rico, and is also the son of a former Puerto Rican governor under whose administration corruption was rampant. Last week, after narrowly winning 41.8 percent of the vote, Rosselló announced that the pursuit of statehood would be one of his administration's top priorities. Although Rosselló is a Democrat, key points of his political program align with the U.S. Republican Party. The Republican Party's platform is committed to support statehood for Puerto Rico (although this has not materialized in past Republican administrations).  He has also promised to work in concert with the US imposed Fiscal Control Board to negotiate Puerto Rico's debt.
Roselló's main adversary, David Bernier (from the pro-Commonwealth party), lost with 38.9 percent of the vote. The rest of the electorate supported independent candidates and other members of the pro-independence Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño and Partido del Pueblo Trabajador parties, getting 19.3 percent of the vote.
In the Senate, meanwhile, some independent and pro-independence candidates won seats.
The Gender Equality Education curriculum, approved by Puerto Rico's Department of Education, might be amended or eliminated under the New Progressive Party's administration, according to previous remarks by Rosselló. Educators, however, say the new curriculum represents progress in the struggle for human rights, as well as years of advocacy work by various social movements. Last year, the department introduced the program's various goals, along with orientation materials for teachers in public schools:
La enseñanza de equidad de género es, sobre todo, un enfoque de análisis, una manera de aprender a mirar la realidad que nos ayude a repensar las construcciones sociales y culturales de la distribución de roles que afectan nuestra sociabilidad. Lo que se pretende es evitar las desigualdades existentes en la sociedad; acabar con las discriminaciones, no solo por sexo o identidad de género, sino por diversidad funcional, origen nacional, creencias religiosas o políticas, entre otras; y promover el desarrollo integral de las personas, independientemente de su sexo o de la identidad de género con que se identifiquen.
Gender equality education focuses on a particular analysis: a new way to look at a reality that helps us rethink social and cultural constructions regarding the established gender roles that affect our sociability. We intend to avoid the existing inequalities in our society, and end discrimination, not just by sex or gender identity, but by diversity, national origin, religious, or political beliefs, among others, and promote integral human development, independently from sex or gender identity.
Ricardo Rosselló  in a press conference. Screen shot from NotiCel Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVVSRFeQPI4.
Following his election, Rosselló announced that he would not repeal the legislation used to implement the new curriculum, but he vowed to amend the Gender Equality Education program to reflect his administration's values and vision.
José Rodríguez Irizarry, a coordinator for the Proyecto Instituto del Género y Educación de Avanzada (Gender Institute and Advanced Education Project), expressed his concerns regarding Rosselló's plan, stating that his party has consistently been a staunch enemy of the LGBTQ community and fails to comprehend the indispensable importance of this curriculum.
Meanwhile, Partido del Pueblo Trabajador (PPT) candidate and lawyer Mariana Nogales Molinelli released a statement on her public Facebook page reiterating her party's opposition to President-elect Donald Trump's xenophobic, misogynist, and homophobic discourse. Nogales Molinelli affirmed that she and her party will continue to work for a just society:
Niños blancos en las escuelas cantan a niños mexicanos sobre la muralla que ha de construirse y excluirlos, un joven gay es brutalmente atacado, algunos gritan improperios discriminantes desde los carros y lanzan hasta amenazas de muerte por la raza u origen étnico y religioso. Se destapó la olla de grillos y con el mal ejemplo de Trump, ¿ahora cómo volvemos a contener ese odio y ese discrimen? […] Nuevamente se crea una categoría superior: hombre, blanco, cristiano, heterosexual. En contraposición con las diversidades y contra nosotras las mujeres […] Nada peor que la injusticia y el discrimen.
Seguiremos trabajando por una sociedad justa y equitativa en donde el respeto a la dignidad del ser humano sea inviolable y respetemos las diversidades.
White children chanting “build a wall” to their Mexican classmates, and a young gay man is attacked. Some scream expletive insults from their cars and even threaten people for their race or ethnic-religious origin. Racism was unveiled with Trump's bad example, and now how will we contain this hate and discrimination? […] Once again, a superior category is created: male, white, Christian, heterosexual. In contrast with diversity and against women […] There is nothing worse than inequality and discrimination. We will continue working for a fair and equal society where respect for human dignity and diversity are a priority.
Earlier this year, President Obama signed the PROMESA law, creating the Fiscal Control Board, an unelected group of policy and financial “experts” responsible for administrating and dictating Puerto Rico's path towards economic recovery. Trump opposed the bailout when questioned about the Commonwealth's debt in a CNN interview, declaring that Puerto Rico “has too much debt, so you can't just restructure it.” Grassroots activists made their demands clear on Election Day, when hundreds marched outside Puerto Rico's Capitol Hill, declaring “Se acabaron las promesas” (Promises are over) in resistance against the Control Board and its draconian powers.
Angel R. Rosa, a professor and political analyst from the University of Puerto Rico, published a video on Facebook, giving his own take on the US election. Rosa pointed out that, while the distress surrounding Trump's victory is reasonable, critics must understand that the US political system is designed so that no branch is given absolute power over the other. He assured readers that every decision needs to be approved by Congress, where admittedly only a handful of Latinos are currently active members. Republicans retained their majority in the House and Senate, making conservative policies even easier to approve under Trump.
Many Puerto Ricans are also eager to know if President Obama will consider releasing political prisoner Óscar López Rivera. The final two months of Obama's presidency might be his last chance for freedom because there is no expectation that a Republican would consider his release. There is a petition on the White House's website to this effect, and if it gets 100,000 signatures within 30 days, the government would be required to address the issue. At the time of this writing, there are roughly 4,300 signatures.
Protesters in San Juan, Puerto Rico demonstrated against the PROMESA law on November 8th, 2016. Photo by Ricardo J. Rodríguez Ríos. Used with permission.

author: Ana Gabriela Calderón


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Expand Your YouTube Horizons With These Award-Winning African Online Video Creators · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Award for Tanzanian journalist Millard Ayo. Image shared on his Twitter page @millardayo.
YouTube celebrated African online video creators at the inaugural Sub-Saharan African (SSA) YouTube Awards on Friday November 11. The event took place in Johannesburg, South Africa. The awards have been held in other regions since 2007.
Twenty-four creators were announced winners in 22 categories. Creators were required to have a minimum of 50,000 subscribers and be based in one of eight Sub-Saharan African countries to qualify. Participating countries, where YouTube monetisation has been enabled, were Ghana, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda and Senegal.
Here is a glimpse of videos from the winning creators:
The video below is from Ramscomics / Supastrikas, the winner in the Comic category:
Skinny Girl in Transit is a video from NdaniTV, the winner in Entertainment category:
Jim Nduruchi won in the Nonprofit category:
Kansiime Anne won the Top Subscribed Creator in Uganda:
The Top Subscribed Creator in Nigeria features 6-year-old comedian Emmanuel Samuel:
Diamond Platinumz is Tanzania's Top Subscribed Creator:
South African music channel Yellow Brick Cinema received a special mention for reaching 1 million subscribers:
See the full list of winners here.

author: Ndesanjo Macha


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The World According to Russian Stereotypes · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

Image: Pixabay
In early November, Vladimir Putin suddenly signaled his support for new federal legislation designed to clarify the government’s formal understanding of “the Russian nation.” A vague, symbolic initiative, the Kremlin’s push to codify the meaning of Russia as a nation-state has reignited a centuries-old debate about “the Russian idea,” as well as work on this subject from intellectuals and scholars across the world.
Alexander Uspensky's map of Russian domestic stereotypes. Image: Yod News!
It was in this spirit that Alexander Uspensky published a map on the website Yod News featuring Russia’s various regions and ethnicities, labeled with stereotypes gleaned from autocomplete suggestions generated by the website Yandex, Russia’s most popular Internet search engine. To make the map, Uspensky searched for the word “why,” followed by the name of a group of people, such as “Muscovites,” “St. Petersburgers,” and so on.
Uspensky used the autocomplete suggestions to determine the top stereotype for people of a particular region in Russia. Muscovites, for instance, were found to be “unkind,” while the defining characteristic of people from St. Petersburg is that “they don’t like Muscovites.”
RuNet Echo has applied Uspensky’s methodology to groups across the world, in order to uncover Russian Internet users’ most common stereotypes about foreigners. The list below is far from complete, but it features the most popular searches on the RuNet, when it comes to foreigners. Unlike Uspensky’s study, we have listed Yandex’s top three searches for each group.
Why do Americans say “oh my gosh”?
Why are Americans afraid of Russians?
Why are Americans afraid of clowns?
Why do Mexicans flee to the United States?
Why are Mexicans so brutal?
Why do Mexicans eat spicy food?
Why don’t Cubans like Americans?
Why don’t Cubans like Russians?
Why did Cubans support the revolution?
Why did Canadians play without helmets in 1972?
Why don’t Canadians like Russians?
Why are Canadians the villains in [the TV show] South Park?
Why don’t Brazilians like Argentinians?
Why do Brazilians speak Portuguese?
Why are Brazilians so good at soccer?
Why don’t Argentinians like the British?
Why are Argentinians white?
Why do Argentinians say Mexicans descended from the Aztecs?
Why do Europeans wear their wedding rings on their left hands?
Why did Europeans seek a sea route to India?
Why did Europeans know so little about the peoples of Africa during the Middle Ages?
Why don’t the British like to sit on their hands?
Why did the British oppose new public telephone booths?
Why do the British want to leave the European Union?
Why don’t the French like Russians?
Why do the French eat frogs?
Why are the French unable to pronounce “r” and “l” properly?
Why didn’t Germans like the Jews?
Why did Germans exterminate the Jews?
Why were Germans afraid of hand-to-hand combat?
Why don't Poles like Russians?
Why do Poles hate Russians?
Why don't Poles like Russia?
Why don’t Italians get fat?
Why do Italians look like people from the North Caucasus?
Why do Italians like Russian women?
Why don’t Ukrainians like Russians?
Why do Ukrainians kneel?
Why do Ukrainians say “h” and not “g”?
Why are Estonians slow?
Why don’t Estonians like Russians?
Why do Estonians take the front seat, when sitting down in a taxi van?
Why don’t Latvians like Russians?
Why do Latvians still call Russians “krevz”?
Why don’t Latvians like Lithuanians?
Why don’t Lithuanians like Russians?
Why don’t Lithuanians like Belarusians?
Why are Lithuanians tall?
Why don’t Belarusians like Russians?
Why are Belarusians so built and handsome?
Why don’t Belarusians speak Belarusian?
Why are Armenians so wealthy?
Why are Armenians so clever?
Why do Armenians wear their wedding rings on their left hands?
Why are Africans black?
Why do Africans run so fast?
Why don’t Africans become more advanced?
Why did Egyptians worship Amon-Ra as the supreme god?
Why did Egyptians call Nefertiti “the mistress of happiness”?
Why did Egyptians worship cats?
Why do Arabs write backwards?
Why do Arabs like Russian girls?
Why were Arabs able to conquer large territories easily?
Why don’t Jews like Armenians?
Why don’t Jews eat pork?
Why are Jews smart?
Why can’t Israelis come to a peace settlement with Palestinians?
Why aren’t Israelis Christians?
Why do Israelis marry Russians?
Why don’t Muslims eat pork?
Why don’t Muslims use toilet paper?
Why do Muslims say “amen”?
Why don’t Iranians wear neckties?
Why are Iranians fighting in Syria?
Why are Iranians Shiites?
Why aren't Syrians fleeing to Russia?
Why are Syrians fleeing to Europe?
Why don't Syrians fight for their own country?
Why don’t Turks like Armenians?
Why do Turks drink coffee with water?
Why do Turks call all Russian women “Natasha”?
Why don't Indians kiss?
Why do Indians shake their heads?
Why don't Indians swim in the sea?
Why do Asians look younger?
Why are Asians shorter?
Why do Asians eat with chopsticks?
Why don’t the Chinese get fat?
Why don’t the Chinese drink milk?
Why don’t the Chinese like amber?
Why don’t the Japanese age?
Why are the Japanese thin?
Why do the Japanese live so long?
Why don’t Koreans sweat?
Why do Koreans wear masks on their faces?
Why are Koreans thin?
Why do the Vietnamese wear masks?
Why don’t the Vietnamese like the Chinese?
Why are the Vietnamese thin?
Remarkably, Russian Internet users’ chief searches for various nationalities appear to mirror significant geopolitical events relevant to Russia. For instance, one of the most common questions Russian Internet users ask about people from different countries is why those people dislike Russians, and this question is most common in searches for information about nations with which Moscow's relations have recently deteriorated.
Popular Internet searches in regions where Moscow has less invested politically and fewer cultural ties, meanwhile, seem to focus on questions that are physiological, and sometimes outright bizarre, like those about weight and aging.

author: Kevin Rothrock


text:
1990s Japan Is Alive Online Thanks to One Man · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

Tokyo. Photo by Lyle Hiroshi Saxon. licensed as Creative Commons Attribution 3.0.
As reported recently by MetaFilter user timshel, Lyle Hiroshi Saxon has been documenting his life in Tokyo for more than 25 years. His sprawling website offers plenty of diversions, and it spans the history of the Internet itself. Saxon's many online projects include simple HTML-encoded pages from the dawn of the World Wide Web, to blogs, YouTube, and finally social media, including Twitter. His photos and videos document life at the end of Japan's affluent “Bubble Economy” 25 years ago.
Saxon's online presence is massive, and his frequently updated blog, Twitter account, and YouTube channel are the best ways to begin exploring his body of work, which basically catalogues Japan since the 1990s.
Of particular note are the LL-Letters, an archive of blog posts and letters home about Saxon's life in Tokyo over the years. YouTube provides the easiest way to can a glimpse of life in Tokyo in the 1990s. Saxon has uploaded dozens of videos to YouTube, and has arranged many of them in playlists according to year:
Here's a video taken “here and there” in Tokyo in 1990:
Here's a video of busy Shinjuku Station taken in Tokyo in the same year:
In an FAQ about his massive collection of images and videos, Saxon says the underlying philosophy behind his project is that “what is mundane in one local is exotic in another, and underlying the daily events in all of our lives, there is profound truth lurking in the seemingly mundane details of living.”
Saxon also says:
I started the LL-Project when it occurred to me that, while people used to have no other way of communicating with other groups than to appoint a representative who would travel to distant lands to represent them, now that the Internet enables people to directly communicate with each other, they should do so! The further up you go in politics and (too often) in business, the fouler it gets, so for quality communication and – dare I say it – the future of the human race, we have got to start/maintain effective lateral networking.
The home page of Saxon's main website also features links to various subsections. A photo gallery includes dozens of links, while a photo index is a good place to search for photos about specific topics.

author: Nevin Thompson


text:
Chinese Authorities Execute an Anti-Land Seizure Folk Hero for Murder · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Jia Jinglong (1985-2016) via RFI
In China, Jia Jinglong was executed on November 15, 2016 for murdering a village chief, He Jianhua, with a modified nail gun in February 2015.
The killing was revenge for the forced demolition of Jia's newly renovated house that he had prepared for his wedding back in 2013. The demolition had ruined his wedding, and his fiancee subsequently left him.
The 30-year-old man was found guilty and sentenced to death by Shijiazhuang Intermediate People’s Court in November, and the execution sentence was approved by Hebei Provincial High People’s Court in May 2016.
Though the case is that of a well-planned murder, Jia had gained public sympathy as he was viewed as a victim of land seizure in the name of development. Moreover, he had confessed to his crime to the police soon after he was arrested. It is not unusual for the court to suspend the death sentence of a cooperative convict. Even state-affiliated China Daily recognized Jia’s desperate condition in its commentary when reporting on Jia's family's appeal to the Supreme People’s Court for his sentence to be suspended:
As in many similar cases, Jia used to be an ordinary citizen concerned primarily about living a normal life […] Like others who ended up desperate, vengeful and hurting themselves and others to have their injustices noticed, Jia would probably not have acted as he did if his loss had been properly taken care of.
But the family's appeal was rejected. One day before Jia's execution, on November 14, a dozen legal experts and lawyers made an open appeal to the Supreme People’s Court as a last-ditch effort to save the man's life. The open letter argues that the court should see Jia as a victim.
The final appeal, however, was also in vain. Jia's life was taken away the next morning. His last words to the world were in the form of a poem titled “Farewell”:
Jia's farewell poem written in jail. Via Twitter
今当刑离，半梦消断，一往无前。
纵万般洒脱，玉石莹莹，清白颠覆，自有堪堪。
绛河澄澈，皓月婵娟，思凝眸。
哀空残月，待憔悴，或余日无多，肝胆涅槃。
世间何其涟滟，常愁余放风倚阑看，念香花幽草，犹忆偏爱，蛐鸣蝶舞，览尽风姿。
一任孤掷，贾在高营，惟是泯仇愧泽酬。但已矣，恨有幸人来，泪与君别。
Separated by the death penalty today. The dream has to end halfway. Everything ends without a future.
Though carefree and clean. The subversion is crystal clear. The story behind is loaded.
Bright moon in clear river. Missing your gaze.
Empty and lonesome moon. Pale and haggard longing. No more remaining days. Passion and rage rest in Nirvana.
Life is colorful ripples. Leaning on a fence watching wind pass by with sorrow. Missing the fragrance of flowers and grasses. Cricket songs and butterfly dances are favorite memories. Have all the glamour in view.
Capriciously cast away everything. Jia in Gaoyin [Jia's hometown]. But vengeance is not rewarded. All has passed. Wish my love comes. Let my tears say farewell to you.
Many netizens questioned why the court refused to suspend the death penalty. Stories about ordinary people standing up to rural landlords and thugs are highly praised in Chinese communist education, and Jia’s story fits that narrative. As one netizen pointed out:
贾敬龙跟陈胜吴广没什么区别，当一个传统中国人，连自己的家园都无法照顾作为一个中国男人，他不是罪犯，更加不该被核罪为死刑，他只是在执行自己作为男人守护家园的使命，为什么推土机一直扰乱中国人的家园
Jia Jinglong is no different than Chen Shen Wu Kuang’s [peasant revolt during Qin Empire]. For any traditional Chinese man, he has to stand up to protect his home. He is no criminal and should not be sentenced to death. He was just taking up his role as a man to safeguard his family. But the excavators have been ruining Chinese people’s homes…
Many have also pointed to the suspended death sentence of Gu Kailai, who murdered British businessman Neil Heywood. Most of the discussion on social media platform Weibo was deleted, but similar posts can be found on Twitter, such as:
谷开来故意杀死英国人海伍德免除死刑，而贾敬龙为维护自身权益怒而杀死作恶者，反倒被判死刑。前者是赵家人杀死非赵家人，后者是非赵家人杀死赵家一条狗，赵家法律当然得维护赵家人利益。赵家法律从来没有公正可言，难道这还有疑义吗？
— 吾囗 (@FifthDimen) November 15, 2016
Gu Kailai murdered the British businessman Neil Heywood and she got a suspended death sentence. Jia Jinglong defended his rights and killed the villain and he was sentenced to death. The former is a member of Zhao’s family [the elite], the latter is a non-Zhao who has killed Zhao’s dog. Zhao’s law, of course, defends Zhao’s family interests. There is no justice in Zhao’s family law, isn’t that clear enough?
Others have argued ordinary people have been disenfranchised by a violent model of development that includes land seizure and force demolition. Chinese writer Xin Ke’s comment on the court’s decision not to suspend Jia's sentence has been widely quoted and circulated:
为什么贾敬龙会死，道理很简单，我告诉你，其实跟法律（死刑存废）没多大关系，也没有太深刻的政治含义。原因只有一个，以后还搞不搞强拆？如果不搞了，那实在没必要杀掉他，让人骂，何苦呢 […] 如果继续搞，那他大概非死不可，否则谁以后还敢强拆呢？如果你找到了以后他们要不要继续强拆的答案，自然会得出他会不会死的答案。
Why did Jia Jinglong die? The reason is very simple. Let me tell you. It has very little relation to the law and has little political implication. There is only one reason: whether in the future forced demolition is allowed or not. If it is not allowed, there is no need to kill him. They don’t have to take the blame [for the killing]. If [forced demolition] is to continue, he has to die, or no one dares to take up the task. If you have the answer about the forced demolition [policy], you have the answer concerning Jia’s life.
Another mainland Chinese writer, Shishusi, addressed the issue is a more positive tone on Weibo:
用射钉枪打死村支书的贾敬龙终于被执行死刑。之所以引起强烈社会反响，背后承载了多少人对拆迁的意见和对基层组织的不满情绪，却足以引起更深的关切[…] 枪毙贾敬龙甚易，但平复这样常年累积的情绪却非朝夕可就。加油，中国的改革，法治和平等。打捞沉默的声音永不迟到。
Jia Jinglong, who used nail gun to kill the village head, has been executed. The fact that this incident has attracted so much public attention is related to the widespread discontent over forced demolition and grassroots party organizations. In fact, this is a more significant issue to be addressed.[…] It is easy to shoot Jia Jinglong to death. But it is difficult to address public sentiments [on forced demolition]. Add oil, China’s reform, rule of law and equality. It is never too late to address the voice of the silent majority.
Despite being positive, Shishusi’s comment was removed from Weibo. Soon after the legal experts’ public appeal was released on November 14, Chinese state propaganda labelled all public opinion surrounding Jia Jinglong’s case as a challenge to the authority of the judiciary and web censors have started deleting all the related online discussion.