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COVID-19 exposes gaps in services for Azerbaijan’s elderly · Global Voices
Chaikhana.media

Under the country's strict quarantine regulations, Azerbaijanis over the age of 65 are not permitted to leave their homes. Illustration (c): Leyla Ali for Chai Khana. Used with permission.
The following is a story by Chai-Khana.org and is republished by Global Voices under a partnership agreement. Text by Aytan Farhadova.
Check out Global Voices’ special coverage of the global impact of COVID-19.
Ninety-five year old Sanuber Alakbarova should be able to sit in the garden and enjoy the spring weather in Sumgayit, a seaside city not far from Azerbaijan's capital Baku.She should be surrounded by her children, who used to come by to check on her and keep her company.
Instead, Sanuber is confined to a sofa facing the door because her family fears she could catch the coronavirus.
Azerbaijan has adopted some of the strictest measures in the South Caucasus as its government tries to slow the spread of the coronavirus, which has already infected over 1,500 people in the country. Under the new restrictions, no one over the age of 65 can leave their house at all until April 20. Everyone else needs permission from the police to leave their residences, and outings are supposed to be limited to a special set of jobs or an emergency.
Read more: Azerbaijanis required to send SMS notification before leaving their homes
Now Sanuber’s daughter-in-law cares for her the best she can, limiting her contact with the outside world and frequently washing her hands. Sanuber’s grandson, who is allowed to leave the house to work, has been forbidden from spending time with his grandmother, out of fear he could pass the virus to her.
“We told all our relatives not to visit us. My mother-in-law is old, and there is no hope that we will save her if she catches the virus. We often wash her hands with alcohol. Since it is a courtyard house, in hot weather she sits only on the sofa in front of the door, and so on. We also do not leave the house,” Chimnaz Alakbarova, her daughter-in-law, says.
“I control everything. At work, my son was given a mask. I bought disposable gloves for him and told him to change them hourly. I also forbade him to see his grandmother. My mother-in-law also knows that we do everything to prevent her from getting sick.”
The strict measures have received some praise as governments scramble to contain the coronavirus.
“It is commendable that the Azerbaijani government responded to the pandemic crisis in a timely manner and implemented a model of social isolation to protect the population from this rapidly spreading virus and in this case, special attention was paid to the elderly population, which is more susceptible to COVID-19,” says Farid Babayev, head of the Azerbaijan country office for the UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund).
But critics note that the Azerbaijani system was launched without much thought put into how it would effect the elderly, who comprise 6.8 percent of the population.For those who live alone, the new restrictions have made it impossible to do anything — even get their pensions or buy food.
The Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of Population’s Call Service – 142 is now helping citizens aged 65 and older. But residents say they have to pay for the goods they receive — and that is not possible without their pensions.
By April 2, the call center had received 27,486 appeals, out of which 5,278 were related to the provision of social services.
Fazil Talibov, head of the ministry's public relations and communications department, wrote on Facebook on March 26 that in some cases citizens were calling 142 to ask for food assistance or free taxi service.“Social services do not include food aid. Social services include assistance in household chores, purchase of basic necessities, medicines, utility payments, etc. at their own expense,” he stressed.
Economist Togrul Valiyev says the problems with the system illustrate that the government caught by surprise and rushed to implement measures without thinking about the consequences. “If you make it a rule that people over the age of 65 can't go out, then you should have thought through the policy. For example, the government thought that they could pay pensions and that’s it,” he says.
“But now, how to solve the problem of withdrawing pensions from ATMs if people cannot go out? They [authorities] say that they can ask a relative or a social worker to withdraw money from their card. That is actually against the law, you cannot give your PIN to a stranger, how can you control how much they take? […] And even the social services available do not work very effectively,” continued the economist.
In response, grassroots efforts have started popping up in Baku and elsewhere.
One group of volunteers created the Qaranquş Aid Fund to help people during the quarantine. The members and volunteers work with shops to provide the elderly — and others in need — with food and essential goods. Initially, the idea was to shop and then deliver the supplies to people’s homes.
“We have discussed with the team how to minimise human contacts while providing people with food, cleaning supplies and other essential needs. We spoke with one supermarket chain in Baku, Bizim Market, and established a card system and started transferring donations to the supermarket’s bonus cards… So far, we have distributed 45 bonus cards to people in need,” explains Vahid Aliyev, a member of the initiative group.
But economist Nijat Garayev warns that ad hoc solutions will not be sufficient to help those in need during the quarantine. “Retail assistance and support (food distribution, etc.) campaigns by various government agencies or their affiliates (agencies, initiatives, government-funded youth and deliberate actions, etc.) are not strategic and sustainable,” he says.
Garayev notes that the government is facing a double challenge right now because it was not ready for the virus and the international price of oil has dropped dramatically. Nevertheless, he adds that some traditions in Azerbaijan concerning the elderly relieve pressure on the state:
“The fact that the majority of older people are at home and that there is strong family support for older people in society makes the government's job easier. This means that they do not have to deal with hundreds of thousands of elderly people who are in dire need of money and care,” Garayev says. “On the other hand, there are many families today who are at home, unemployed, and their sources of income are completely cut off. It is likely that there are thousands of families in need of old-age pensions, especially in urban areas.”
The only sustainable solution, according to Garayev, is for more proactive assistance from the government. “It would be good if they created a centralised crisis management structure, a social defence structure. They are trying to do that, but it doesn't seem to be a strategic effort. As a result, they cannot achieve the necessary level of social isolation [to stop the spread of the virus].”
For now, the elderly living alone in Azerbaijan have to try to get by as best as they can.
Mavsukha Nasirova, an 81-year-old Baku resident, says she has not received any assistance yet, but is trying to survive with help from her neighbours.
“My young son died… I have been alone since then. I called the ministry once. They said, ‘if you can pay, we will go to the store and buy things [for you],’” she recalls. “But I said, ‘if I had money, I would ask my neighbour, he would buy it,’” notes Mavsukha.
Mavsukha suffers from high blood pressure and diabetes so her biggest problem is that, due to the quarantine, she cannot visit her local clinic to receive free medication. She finally decided to ask a neighbour to go to the clinic to get her free medicine for her.
“I need medicine; the rest is up to whoever gives it. When there was no quarantine, I went to the clinic, where my injections were done free of charge,” explains Mavsukha.
“But ordering medicine home costs money. I receive a pension of 230 Manat [US$135]…But I have not died of starvation yet; I'll probably survive.”


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In Colombia, solidarity movements multiply during the COVID-19 pandemic · Global Voices
Lully

Children who received supplies from a volunteer group at the Diego Echavarria Misas School in Florencia neighbourhood. Photo taken by the author, Lully Posada
Following the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in Colombia and the national lockdown, planned to last until May 11, Colombians are joining solidarity movements to help protect the vulnerable. At the time of writing, Colombia had 4,149 confirmed cases of the virus, 804 recovered and 196 dead.
According to some estimates, Colombia is one of the world’s 10 most unequal countries, with almost half of the population depending on informal work. Many are homeless or unemployed. There are also 1.4 million immigrants from Venezuela affected by the measures taken to stop the spread of the virus. To support these groups, citizens, private entities, and government leaders in several municipalities have organized solidarity initiatives.
Citizens who have financial capabilities are making campaigns and collections to provide supplies to those in need. In the following video taken by the author, you can see the solidarity group of the Diego Echavarria Misas school, made up of teachers, current and former students, and parents, who together make donations and manage the deliveries to members of poor communities in Medellín.
There are also initiatives coming from the private sector. #TodosParaTodos is a campaign made by the National Traders’ Federation, which includes a hotline for volunteer doctors or psychologists to provide support and share their knowledge with people who need it during the quarantine period.
#TodosParaTodos busca reunir profesionales de diferentes ramas, que de manera voluntaria deseen compartir tiempo desde su casa para asistir a quienes tengan dudas sobre diferentes temas. La idea es generar una red de apoyo durante la cuarentena en Colombia.#Covid_19 pic.twitter.com/lGiMQHJkoZ
— Fenalco Atlántico (@Fenalco_Atl) March 28, 2020
#TodosParaTodos seeks to bring together professionals from different fields, who wish to voluntarily share their time from home to assist those who have doubts about different issues. The idea is to create a support network during the quarantine in Colombia.#Covid_19
The city of Medellín, the capital of Antioquia, created temporary shelters with integrated logistics and coordination. There, entire families who have been affected by the measures taken due to the virus can come to rest.
Temporary shelter in Florencia neighbourhood. Photo taken by the author Lully Posada.
These shelters were established on the premises of Medellín’s Institute of Sports and Recreation. One is in the Belén neighborhood, for people over 18 years of age, and the other is in the Florencia neighborhood, intended for 30 families, with at least one child per family. In other Colombian cities, similar isolation measures were organized in various stadiums and sports centers.
A successful “donatón”, a donation marathon, was also convened by the mayor of Medellín, called #DonatónPorMedellín, to raise funds for other vulnerable people, as well as for the supply of ventilators and equipment for medical personnel who attend to COVID-19 patients.
La #TeletonPorMedellin convocada por @QuinteroCalle será un indicador muy importante para saber que tan solidarios somos aún con el conocimiento de muchos sobre la grave situación económica  que se viene según los expertos
— Mauricio Correa (@emecorrea) April 10, 2020
The #TeletonPorMedellin organized by @QuinteroCalle will be a very important indicator to see how much solidarity we still show, with many knowing about the serious economic situation that is coming according to the experts
While these government initiatives are happening, there have also been complaints and suspicions of corruption at the state level. For example, institutions such as the Comptroller General's Office and the Public Prosecutor’s Office have found exaggerated spending, which could imply a misuse of public resources by some government leaders for projects related to supplies for hospitals or aid linked to COVID-19. Investigations have been opened.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Lully


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Jamaican activists spent Earth Day at home, online · Global Voices
Emma Lewis

Sunset in Negril, Jamaica. Photo by VV Nincic on Flickr, CC BY 2.0.
April 22, 2020, was an extraordinary day — not just because the Earth Day movement celebrated its 50th anniversary, but because, as COVID-19 continues to affect lives the world over, the day was recognised through online activity.
The virus has cast a huge shadow over the Caribbean, with most territories in various stages of lockdown. As of the time of publication, the number of positive cases in the region has passed 9,000, with 385 deaths. On Earth Day, the Jamaican Government reported 19 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the island’s total to 252, with 131 of these originating from one workplace cluster.
Throughout the day, Jamaican netizens explored the connections between COVID-19 and climate change. In his Earth Day message, Daryl Vaz, the minister of parliament with responsibility for the environment, likened the determination needed to tackle climate change to the fight against COVID-19:
In this period of COVID-19, we have had to make significant adjustments to our lifestyles and our livelihoods. In like manner, we must consider the lessons from this new paradigm and apply it to tackling climate change. It demands the same commitment from all of us to guarantee the future we want. We all need to embrace the change if we are to realize the transformation necessary for a climate resilient and low carbon society.
Jamaican activist Jhannel Tomlinson, the most recent winner of the prime minister's youth award for environmental protection, also saw strong links between climate change and the virus. On Twitter, she urged her compatriots to post short videos on the topic, and ended up gathering a range of views:
@TeraLepido shares a very powerful message on the linkages between COVID-19 and climate change and urges us to do our part! ? #EarthDayAtHome #GoingGreenInQuarantine #EarthweekJa pic.twitter.com/aU4Hr9JM6P
— jhannel tomlinson (@Jaybritz) April 22, 2020
She even managed to enlist the support of the local United Nations Development Programme office:
Organizer of the #EarthDay #QUARAGREEN vid Challenge @Jaybritz has the last word:
▶We must take care of the vulnerable
▶Effective communication is key
▶Listen to the experts
▶Stay Green while in quarantine
UNDP was happy to participate. Thanks @ycca4earth https://t.co/V56NiBkJ7k
— UNDP in Jamaica (@UNDPJamaica) April 23, 2020
On her YouTube channel, mental health advocate Tameka Coley saw the COVID-19 crisis as an opportunity to “really reassess what we are going to do going forward” in terms of environmental protection, which she views as closely linked to mental well being. Envisioning a world post-COVID, she urged Jamaicans to rethink society in general and to make a change for the better.
Another young climate activist and podcaster, Dainalyn Swaby, used the hashtag #GirlsCARE to highlight her own thoughts on climate change and food security, as well as the views of other Caribbean women:
Adding some “spice” to this! Our Grenadian #climatechampion Kyanna Bubb encourages other women to step up in caring for the earth. #ClimateAction #GirlsCARE #EarthDay2020 pic.twitter.com/syOFk5crnZ
— Dainalyn Swaby (@LynnSwaby) April 23, 2020
One young Twitter user reminded her followers:
Earth Day reminder that you can purchase young trees for really cheap ($50 jmd or less) at the Forestry Department on Constant Spring Rd.
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is now” – Chinese Proverb ?✨ pic.twitter.com/VMWvlUAIzc
— Ayanna (@AyannaCurated) April 22, 2020
(Fifty Jamaican dollars is equivalent to about .36 USD cents.)
There was so much enthusiasm for Earth Day that online events are continuing all week in Jamaica. On April 24, activists and creatives will host a Zoom meet-up to brainstorm innovative ways in which to respond to environmental issues, and members of the public are invited to register and join the discussion.
The Kingston Creative team, which regularly organises free artistic events in the country's capital city and has established a vibrant street art presence in its historic downtown district, has moved its activities online and is going ahead — via IGTV on April 26 — with its chosen theme of arts and the environment in honour of Earth Day’s 50th anniversary.
While the optimistic days of Jamaica being a signatory to the historic Paris agreement on Earth Day 2016 may seem distant in the COVID-19 era, young Jamaicans are taking up the torch of environmental activism.
Now, it seems more important than ever to keep that flame alight and to hold it aloft.

author: Emma Lewis


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COVID-19 diaries from Wuhan: Feelings of insecurity · Global Voices
Winston Chiu

A dog barking at the world outside. Photo credit: Guo Jing. Used with permission.
The following post is the eighth in a series of diaries written by independent filmmaker and feminist scholar Ai Xiaoming and feminist activist Guo Jing. Both are living in Wuhan at the center of the COVID-19 pandemic. Here are the links to the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh part of the series.
Check out Global Voices’ special coverage of the global impact of COVID-19.
This installment was written between March 3 and March 5, 2020. The original Chinese diaries are published on Matter News.
弦子是我非常敬佩的一个人。…这次疫情期间，她也做了很多志愿工作。我就跟她聊了一下。
弦子负责对接医院的需求、采买物资。这些工作在封锁中困难度明显增加。不仅国内的医用物资匮乏，国外的医用物资也较平时短缺。有在国外的朋友跑药店找物资，海关一度对医疗物资管控比较严，她们就找人从国外人肉带物资回来。帮忙带物资的人知道物资是给捂汗的，就自己出了快递费。
弦子在采买紫外线灯管的时候，跟她沟通的店员自己花钱从店里多买了几个灯管一起寄给医院。有一次，一批防护服到了上海，很多快递都不往捂汗发货，她们通过各方联系，正好碰上百世快递要捐赠物资到湖北，就顺便帮她们把物资捎上了。
弦子说，医院在接受物资的时候都很谨慎，不接受除医疗物资外的物资，求助的医用物资只要最少的量，够用就建议分给别的医院。最常听到医生说的话是“少买”。医生都不愿意麻烦别人，他们能自己想办法买到的物品就自己买，比如买菜。
有个医生跟她讲：“不知道一切是为了什么。医院一开始还给开单接受社会捐赠，后来医院不让他们接收捐助。”有医生连续上了十几天班，想请假，但医院不批。疫情期间，一些医生住在酒店，但酒店没有人负责打扫。医生上下班的路上要多次停下来出示证件，有的社区工作人员还会要求医生必须下车。
弦子说，每天打开手机都是关于肺炎的信息，一度觉得捂汗就是人间地狱，不知道什么时候会停下来。不过，做物资捐赠不直接接触病人，有很多事情做，会让人不沉浸在情绪中。
Xianzi is a person who I really respect. She has done a lot of volunteer work during this pandemic, and I chatted with her about her work.
Xianzi helps hospitals buy supplies. This is not an easy task during lockdown. The shortage of medical supplies not only exists in our country, but also other countries. Some of her friends from overseas went to pharmacies to buy medical supplies. The Chinese customs office held up medical supplies at the early stage of the outbreak, many overseas Chinese ask acquaintances to hand carry these medical supplies back to China. Those who brought the supplies back to China have willingly paid for the delivery fee to Wuhan.
Once, when Xianzi was purchasing ultraviolet lights, the store attendants decided to pay for a few more from their own pockets. The volunteer network also received a load of protective gowns which arrive in Shanghai, but most delivery companies refused to bring it to Wuhan. Eventually they managed to get help from a delivery company, Bestax, which had planned to donate supplies to Hubei.
Xianzi said that hospitals are very careful about receiving the donated supplies. They only accept  medical supplies, and only the minimal amount. If the hospital has enough supplies, they will suggest the volunteers to donate supplies to other hospitals. The doctors usually reminded them “do not buy too much”. Those doctors are not willing to bother others. They would try work things out by themselves whenever possible, like buying vegetables. [
A doctor once told her, “I have no idea what's going on here. At first, the hospital would list what we need and receive donations. Later, policy changed and they were not allowed to receive donations.” Some doctors had worked for more than ten days continuously, and they have not been allowed to take a day off. During the pandemic, some doctors have stayed in hotels, but no one cleaned the rooms for them. When doctors traveled to and from the hospitals, they had to show their ID several times at checkpoints in streets and at the hospitals. Sometimes community workers even asked them to get off the bus.
Xianzi said, whenever she turned on her phone, the only information she received was about pneumonia and she felt as if Wuhan was like hell. No one knows when the pandemic will end. The voluntary work has distracted her from negative emotions as she mainly works on supply delivery rather than patient support.
A girl hanging a poster for ‘anti-domestic violence advocacy’. Photo by Guo Jing. Used with permission.
万飞是湖北省监利县公安局法制大队民警。从警30年，他接触了大量家暴案件，他看到了受害者求助难的问题。万飞发起成立了“监利县蓝天下妇女儿童维权协会”，并与妇联共同发起“万家无暴”公益项目，推动反家暴工作的多部门联动。
他在接受采访时说，“根据我们的统计数据，90％的暴力原因与COVID-19流行有关。”荆门监利县派出所在2月份收到162个家庭暴力的报警，是去年同期（47起）举报的三倍。一月份报告的案件数量也比去年同期翻了一番。
每个数字背后都是真实的伤痛，而这些数字还不是全部，还有很多家暴受害者由于种种限制和困难没能报警。
今天早上阳光还不错，有种久违的感觉。我到楼下散步。物业的三个工作人员在院子里聊天。
遛狗的男人见我天天下楼，就过来跟我搭话。他姓周，跟我住一栋楼，住在10楼。周先生的妻子在捂汗市人民医院工作，之前一直在上班，前几天才调休。他听妻子说，12月底，医院的人都在传费盐的事情，而且情况已经很严重，当时就有很多人去世，但不让外传。
他妻子在肿瘤科，肿瘤科的很多医护人员和病人都感染了费盐。医院现在只接受新·冠费盐的病人，其他科室基本都关了。
周先生是开酒店的，酒店一个月的租金就要11万。他的酒店有三十多个人，现在只能发一半的工资，都没有缴社保。这个月的十五号快到了，又要发工资了，他也很发愁。
平时酒店的营利比较少，只能保本，主要的营利时间是春节前后的两个月。春节前，周先生的酒店还进了几十万的野味，现在也没法处理。周先生说：“这次疫情之后，会有五六成的酒店倒闭。”
中午送煤气罐的人来了，他穿着防护服，只把煤气罐送到小区楼下，不上楼。我把煤气罐换上，又可以炒菜了。
Wanfey is a policeman in Jianli county, Hubei province. He has been a policeman for 30 years, and he has seen a lot of domestic violence cases. He thought it was very difficult for the victims of domestic violence to reach out and hence [in 2014] he initiated a NGO called “Association for the rights of all women and children in Jianli”. He also worked with All-China Women's Federation on a charity project called  “No domestic violence” which enhances cross-departmental anti-domestic violence action.
In an interview he said “Based on our statistics, .” Jianli police station received 162 calls about domestic violence this February, which is 3 times of what we had last February (47). The number of calls from this January is also higher than what they received last January. Each of these numbers represents a painful story and do not reflect the whole picture. Many victims of domestic violence could not find ways to contact the police.
It was sunny this morning. I haven’t seen the sun for a while. I went downstairs to take a walk. Three estate management staff members were chatting in the yard. A man with his dog talked to me and said that he had seen me going out every day. His family name is Chou. We live in the same building. He is on the 10 floor. Mr. Chou’s wife works in Wuhan Renmin Hospital, and she had been working since the lockdown and finally managed to take some days off a few days ago. His wife told him that staff in the hospital had been talking about pneumonia since last December. The condition was serious, and many people died. However, they were not allowed to tell other people.
His wife is in the Department of Oncology. Many medical staff and patients in her department were infected. Now the hospital only accepts patients diagnosed with COVID-19. All other departments are closed.
Mr. Chou runs a hotel. The rent for his hotel is RMB 110,000 Yuan (US$15,524 dollars). He hires more than 30 people, but now he can only pay them half of their salary. He no longer pays for their social insurance. He was distressed as he needs to pay his employees on the 15 this month.
Usually what he earns from the hotel goes to the bills. The main income of his hotel is what he can earn from the month before and after the Chinese New Year. He had spent tens of thousands of Yuan to buy food for his hotel before this Chinese New Year. Now he does not know what he can do with that food. Mr. Chou told me, “I think 50-60% of the hotels will be shut down after the pandemic.”
一个在湖北荆州的朋友说，昨天荆州网发了微信文章预测荆州各县市3月10日解禁，还写着“权威发布”。她说：“希望不要是假新闻。”我听到这个消息也很激动，任何一个城市的解封都是好消息，就问她要文章链接来看。她边找边开心地说：“解封了想去公园溜达。”
结果，找到的文章是《荆州10号解封是谣言，zf免费送10斤菜是真的！》。朋友立刻失落起来，叹了口气说：“一下子又觉得遥遥无期了。”
下午，团购的生活物资到了。我买了5瓶老干妈，下单的时候我就在想是不是没有必要买那么多，但还是没法理性地判断该买多少。最近跟很多朋友聊天的时候都谈到囤积癖。…这次疫情可能会增加很多人在物质方面的不安全感，不自觉地囤积物品。
A friend from Jingzhou, Hubei province said the city's media outlet had reposted a WeChat article, which predicted that the lockdown in Jingzhou would be lifted by March 10. That article emphasized that the news is from a “source with authority”. She said, “I hope it is not fake news.”
I was also very excited about it. Lifting the lockdown is definitely good news. I asked her for the article link. While she was looking for it she said “I want to go to the park to take a stroll after the lockdown is lifted.” In the end, she found out that the news was fake. But the news about the government giving out 10 kg of vegetables is real. My friend was very disappointed. She sighed and said, “Suddenly I feel that day will never come.”
In the afternoon, what I had ordered from the group buying arrangment arrived. I bought 5 bottles of Lao Gan Ma (a spicy sauce). When I placed the order, I was pondering whether I really need to buy so much. The decision is far from a rational choice. Many of my friends share similar stories about compulsive hoarding in our chat. This pandemic has made us insecure and we store things unconsciously.

author: Winston Chiu


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COVID-19 in the Middle East: Is this pandemic a health crisis or a war? · Global Voices
Saoussen Ben Cheikh

Egyptian Armed Forces started preparations for deployment across all Egyptian governorates to combat the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. Screenshot via YouTube Daily News Egypt.
The all-out war narrative to tackle the COVID-19 as a “faceless enemy” — initiated by liberal democracies — now echoes throughout the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA).
France's President Emmanuel Macron was one of the first global leaders to shape the COVID-19 response as an all-out war campaign. He used the word “war” eight times in his March 16 televised speech on unprecedented COVID-19 measures. Speaking solemnly, he asked for “general mobilization” and compared health service personnel to World War I soldiers fighting an “invisible enemy.”
United Kingdom's Prime Minister Boris Johnson declared himself head of a “wartime government,” and so did United States President Donald Trump.
This war narrative in the MENA region has shaped COVID-19 discourse that has sparked hysteria, fear and polarization among citizens. Media, observers and politicians have spun the military narrative by employing terms like “war economy,” “battle,” “front,” “curfew,” “martyrs” and “health care soldiers.”
This echoes a global trend toward war-like rhetoric that has allowed governments around the world to execute emergency powers and impose draconian measures that in all other circumstances would be unacceptable.
In the MENA region, health care services are, to say the least, overstretched or underfunded. Many of the region's health care systems have also been destroyed by wars or privatized.
Unlike wealthier countries, many MENA-based hospitals do not have the capacity to treat a high number of patients. If the coronavirus spreads, these health care systems would be rapidly overwhelmed. And this could lead to mass outbreaks across all social classes, including the privileged elite.
In this unusual public recognition of the potential failure of health care systems, several MENA governments enforced draconian measures early on — even when the number of COVID 19 cases were still low.
Jordan was one of the first to go under lockdown and a curfew on March 19 quickly followed in Morocco on March 20, Tunisia on March 22 and Algeria on March 24.
The Gulf region followed with lockdowns as well. The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain went under lockdown on March 26 and Saudi Arabia, where hundreds of members of the royal family are said to be contaminated, followed on March 29.
Countries across the region have aggressively enforced the measures by criminalizing anyone who violates the lockdown measures.
Thousands have been arrested. “Anyone who breaks the security rules will be treated as a criminal because failing to respect rules within the context of the pandemic is a crime,” said Tunisian President Kais Saied.
Tunisian soldiers pose for a photo. Photo by Dennis Jarvis via Flickr / CC BY SA 2.0.
While there is no military confrontation or physical “fighting” required in the COVID-19 crisis, several governments in the MENA region have heavily mobilized their armies to support the “war efforts” in terms of logistics, law enforcement and communication campaigns.
Jordan and Tunisia were two of the first to deploy the army to patrol the streets to enforce the lockdown.
Surrealist scenes of disproportionate displays of force emerged. In Tunisia, a military helicopter flew at a very low altitude to stop a football match played in a neighborhood:
Scène surréaliste ! Un hélicoptère de l'armée de l'air en #Tunisie contraint de voler à très basse altitude pour arrêter un match de football de quartier #covid19tn pic.twitter.com/2VVThjQBYy
— Hamza (@Hamza_Zhiou) April 10, 2020
Surreal scene! #Tunisia air force helicopter flying at very low altitude to stop a football match in a neighbourhood # covid19tn
Soldiers in tanks posted checkpoints between towns in Jordan and Morocco. Military aircraft were filmed bringing medical supplies.
In Egypt, in a public relations charm offensive, soldiers cleaned and sterilized the main avenues of Cairo, the capital.
These scenes were sometimes played with national anthems and waved flags.
In this war-like context, heroes and villains get defined by those who obey state orders.
While health care professionals are deemed “heroes,” those who don’t follow government orders — often poor people who can’t afford to stay home — are cast as villains, if not traitors.
In Tunisia, a health representative from the city of Tataouine, following a report of a new COVID 19 case in his constituency, declared “we are at war and those who don’t follow are traitors.” In a speech about food shortages and price inflation that have fuelled public anger, the Tunisian President Saied called food hoarders “war criminals.”
The media has also amplified the call for war and sacrifice with strong messages that mobilize and convince the population to follow orders.
In the sometimes infantilizing discourse that plays into fears rather than intentions to educate, citizens are instructed to stay indoors.
In April 2020, a Tunisian presenter on a TV talk show called “Adhak Maana” (“Laugh with Us”) via Attessia TV repeated the words:
“It is for your own good.… If you behave yourself well and stay home, you will be able to go out as you used to.”
Most TV channels in the region have presented the new motto “stay home” as a patriotic duty. Citizens are encouraged to participate in this “war effort” by observing and denouncing rule-breakers.
In Tunisia, authorities created toll-free numbers and social media platforms to report violations of government orders.
This war narrative has created a climate of a “rally around the flag” effect where people unite behind supposedly strong and decisive leaders. The war analogy invokes a virile imagination populated by male heroism in which women — while representing the majority of careers and key workers — are secondary.
The analogy drives patronizing, alarming language, and tones that generate division and stigmatization during the COVID-19 crisis. It also turns people against one another instead of creating a sense of civic responsibility and solidarity.
In Tunisia, fear of the virus has led to extreme behavior galvanized lately by the burials of COVID-19 victims. Local communities refused burials out of fear that it would contaminate the soil. Authorities, with assistance from the army, intervened and insisted that there is no risk of transmission from corpses.
Hijacking the language of war to respond to a health emergency is not only unproductive but it is also potentially damaging to the social fabric.
Citizens of Syria, Yemen or Libya know all too well what war means — it is chaos and destruction. Many citizens around the globe are now raising their voices to counter this hawkish wave.
In a rare televised address, Germany's president Frank-Walter Steinmeier declared:
No, this pandemic is not a war. Nations do not oppose other nations nor soldiers against other soldiers. It is a test of our humanity. … [This crisis] brings out the best and the worst of people. Let us show others what is best in us.

author: Saoussen Ben Cheikh


text:
Prosecutions mount as Russia intensifies fight against COVID-19 ‘fake news’ · Global Voices
Maxim Edwards

Red Square, Moscow, deserted during the COVID-19 pandemic, April 17, 2020. Photo (c): Marc Bennetts. Used with permission.
Check out Global Voices’ special coverage of the global impact of COVID-19.
Russia is once again at the heart of an international “fake news” scandal. Since February, some media have accused Moscow of unleashing a coronavirus disinformation campaign. This claim was repeated in an internal document drafted by the EU's foreign policy arm on March 18.
Amid these headlines, it's easy to miss that the Russian government is also fighting a war against disinformation of its own — and its definition of “fake news” is very much in the eye of the beholder.
At the time of writing, according to the Johns Hopkins University Map, there are over 68,000 confirmed coronavirus cases in Russia. The country is under strict quarantine measures. But for several weeks, Russia was an outlier, and recorded significantly lower deaths than other large countries and an unusually low rate of infections despite its comparatively large testing drive. There has been much speculation over this data, much of it focusing on the effectiveness of Russia's testing equipment. As late as March 21, the country only reported 306 confirmed cases — as hospitals started to fill up with unusually severe cases of pneumonia. “I have a feeling they are lying to us,” exclaimed Anastasia Vasilyeva, head of the country's medical union.
As the pandemic intensified in Russia, some citizens started to doubt the official figures. It appears to have been this tendency which led President Vladimir Putin to state on March 4 that claims of thousands of cases in Russia were “fakes” which most likely came “from abroad,” intended to sow panic among the population.
Disputes over the probable number of cases appear were at the centre of the first high-profile “fake news” row during Russia's epidemic. On March 20, independent radio station Ekho Moskvy removed the transcript and recording of a conversation with political scientist Valery Solovey from its website. The demand came from Roskomnadzor, the Russian state media watchdog, which on March 18 had threatened to remove Russian news outlets’ licences or block their websites if they published “fakes” about the coronavirus. Roskomnadzor explained that it had to “remove inaccurate socially significant information which posed a massive disruption of public order,” but did not specify the offending content in Ekho Moskvy's broadcast. It is now believed that what irked the authorities had been Solovey's estimation that the coronavirus had already claimed 1,600 lives in Russia, and comparison of the Kremlin's handling of the crisis to the Soviet Union's response to the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
At the same time, an online publication in Magadan also fell foul of Roskomnadzor. On March 20, Govorit Magadan was threatened with a large fine in connection with an article claiming that a man with a suspected coronavirus infection had died in the city in Russia's Far East. Although the man's infection was never confirmed, the publication defended its reporting; as an editor told state media outlet RIA Novosti: “either the patient wasn't in hospital, either he wasn't suspected of having the coronavirus, or he didn't die. All these things happened.”
When the local edition of prominent national newspaper Kommersant reported that 1,000 graves had been prepared for coronavirus victims in a single cemetery in the city of Ufa, on April 12 its editors received exactly the same call — Roskomnadzor demanded the removal of the article. And when Novaya Gazeta journalist Elena Milashina wrote a critical article about the Chechen authorities’ handling of the crisis, the Prosecutor General demanded its removal on April 16 due to inaccuracies. Milashina was later publicly threatened by Chechnya's leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
It is not only publications which have fallen foul of this trend. Several individuals in recent weeks have been accused of sharing “inaccurate socially significant information.” Or to translate from Russian legalese: ‘fake news’.
A law against publishing “unreliable socially significant information disseminated under the guise of truthful messages” entered force in Russia in March 2019. The law, which was introduced alongside a controversial ban on “offending” the authorities.
Read more: Kremlin's new law against ‘online disrespect’ proves hard to implement
The 2019 law had made fake news an administrative offence, punishable by fines. It was seldom, and inconsistently, used by prosecutors — until this March, when the number of trials under the law increased sharply.
On April 1 this year, Putin upped the stakes by signing a new law which makes sharing fake news a criminal offence. It was accompanied by another law which makes violating quarantine measures a criminal offence if doing so causes deaths. Criminal liability for sharing “fake news” could now mean a fine of up to two million rubles and prison sentences of up to five years. If disseminating “unreliable information” interferes with the operation of essential services, the perpetrator may be fined up to 400,000 rubles.
According to Stanislav Seleznev, a lawyer for the Agora International human rights NGO, one of the sticking points in the law is that authorities must prove that the culprits knew that the information was supposedly false before distributing it. This also allows the authorities to punish only one person rather than the entire chain of people who shared alleged “fake news” — imbuing it with more meaning with every share.
Seleznev and his colleagues fear that the law will have chilling effects on freedom of speech. Over the nearly three weeks since it entered force, RuNet Echo has identified at least six instances of criminal cases for spreading “fake news.”
The first criminal case was brought against St Petersburg resident Anna Shushpanova due to a post she made in the Sestroretsk Asset group on VKontakte on April 2, where she claimed that a patient at a local clinic was discovered to have mild coronavirus symptoms but was later sent home by public transport. Pavel Yasman, Shushpanova's lawyer, told Meduza that the case is tricky given that it is impossible to prove that Shushpanova was “knowingly sharing” fake news, as she believed her source to be entirely trustworthy. Shushpanova also told Meduza that she believes the case was linked to her activism.
Nevertheless, administrative cases for “fake news” continue to be announced — law enforcement appear to prefer them, and have launched at least 12 since administrative measures for the offence were tightened on April 1. These cases also largely concern social media users who have cast doubt on official reports about the pandemic.
For example, on April 9, the police in St Petersburg launched an administrative case against Vladimir Vorontsov, administrator of a group on popular social network VKontakte called “Police Ombudsman.” Vorontsov's offending post was a recording dated on April 2 in which Vorontsov had claimed that 70 percent of people at the FSB Institute in St Petersburg had been infected with the coronavirus. According to RBK, Vorontsov said that he had first discovered the accusation against him on the RT television network, and that VKontakte had already deleted the offending post by the time he went to look for it. More recently in Surgut, a young man was charged with an administrative offence on April 21 for disseminating fake news for arguing in a social media post that the local authorities were not within their rights to arrest non-infected people for not complying with the self-isolation regime.
It must be stressed that these charges have been brought against social media users making more dangerous claims: on April 15, a 38-year-old man from Vladikavkaz was arrested for sharing a video online calling on citizens to come out of isolation and insisting that doing so posed no threat to their health.
With COVID-19 on everybody's minds, it is clear that the Russian authorities cannot apply the new law against every social media user with a controversial opinion about the coronavirus. They may not intend to do so; on April 15, the opposition news website MBK-Media reported on a document allegedly from the Presidential Administration advocating “demonstratively” applying the fake news law against “a few bloggers” and “a couple of media outlets.”
Thus the mounting number of “fake news” coronavirus cases, both administrative and criminal, has left some RuNet users bitter about what they see as its selective application. When the videoblogger Alexander Thorn recorded a satirical video mocking COVID-19 conspiracy theories, he faced criminal prosecution under the new law:
Друзья, на меня завели УГОЛОВНОЕ ДЕЛО за вчерашний юмористический ролик, в котором я ВЫСМЕИВАЮ теорию заговора о происхождении коронавируса из Российской лаборатории. Причина: фейк о происхождении вируса. @sledcom_rf Вы в адеквате?))) *спрятался за диван*
— AlexanderThorn (@AlexanderThorn_) April 7, 2020
Friends, a CRIMINAL CASE has been brought against me for yesterday's comedy clip in which I MOCK conspiracy theories claiming that the coronavirus originated in a Russian laboratory. The reason: fake news about the origin of the virus.  @sledcom_rf [investigative committee of the Russian Federation]: are you alright in the head? *Hides behind sofa*
A stark contrast can be drawn with the appointment of Dr. Alexander Myasnikov as head of the state's Coronavirus Information Centre. Myasnikov, who regularly appears on TV as a guest of pro-Kremlin pundit Vladimir Solovyov, made several claims in February and March that the pandemic would not enter Russia, that it was “seasonal,” and that it would have abated by mid-April. He later backtracked, claiming that he recommended waiting for herd immunity.
Доктор Александр «Русских COVID не берет» Мясников будет представителем штаба по коронавирусу. Скажите, а у вас весь штаб там такой или вы на публику самого здравомыслящего все-таки подобрали? https://t.co/RmviXk1Gk9
— Plushev (@plushev) April 15, 2020
Doctor Alexander “COVID doesn't get Russians” Myasnikov will chair the headquarters on combating the coronavirus. Is your whole staff like that or have you just picked the one with most common sense to communicate with the public?
Among Myasnikov's duties will be to lead the fight against coronavirus-related “fake news.”
Russia is not unusual in advocating repercussions against those who spreading harmful misinformation which could harm public health. But as the number of administrative and criminal cases under the new law mounts, digital rights activists warn that it is being used particularly frequently against those who openly question the state's account of the fight against the virus or official statistics of coronavirus cases and deaths.
For now, anybody thinking of sharing their views about the pandemic on the RuNet would do well to take into account this advice from Sarkis Darbinyan, one of the founders of Roskomsvoboda, a Russian NGO defending freedom of information online. He suggested the following, in comments to TV Rain on April 11:

author: Maxim Edwards


text:
Out of 20,000 COVID-19 cases in the Balkans, more than a third are in Serbia · Global Voices
Metamorphosis Foundation

Man wearing a mask in Skopje, North Macedonia. Photo by Meta.mk News Agency, used with permission.
This story is based on reporting by Global Voices content partner Meta.mk News Agency, a project of Metamorphosis Foundation.
Check out Global Voices’ special coverage of the global impact of COVID-19.
Two months since the first case of COVID-19 was registered in Croatia, as the first Balkan nation to have officially confirmed the presence of the virus, there are now almost 20,000 inhabitants of 10 Balkan nations who have been infected with the virus.
The following video visualizes the number of officially reported cases in the Balkans between February 24 and April 24, 2020.
What’s most striking about the official statistics published by the World Health Organization, the Johns Hopkins University and Worldometer is that more than one-third of the confirmed cases are in Serbia, a Balkan country where the new pandemic was first ignored by a government that even made fun of it.
Serbian citizens on social networks criticized their government particularly because the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) organized large public gatherings days before declaring a state of emergency on March 15. The events were part of the preparation for parliamentary elections, originally scheduled for April 26, but then postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Packed queues of tens of thousands of SNS supporters lined the streets in close quarters to declare their loyalty to the party leader Aleksandar Vučić as part of a populist campaign, aimed at displaying the support of the people for the candidates of his list.
Da se ne zaboravi! Mart 2020! #Covid19 #Serbia #Srbija pic.twitter.com/8ZDvhacA88
— Miki Marjanovic (@miki_marjanovic) April 4, 2020
Never forget! March 2020. #Covid19 #Serbia #Srbija
Montenegro has the least number of COVID-19 cases with only 319.
Greece and Croatia have more than 2,000 cases, and Bosnia, Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Slovenia, all have more than 1,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases since the outbreak began.
Kosovo and Albania have identified around 650 cases each.

author: Metamorphosis Foundation


text:
Zanzibar relies on strong communities of care to confront COVID-19 · Global Voices
Amanda Lichtenstein

Nafisa Jiddawi (left) of Wajamama Health Center stands in front of Mnazi Moja hospital with Deputy Minister of Health Harusi (right) in Stone Town, Zanzibar, after distributing masks and other personal, protective equipment (PPE) to health care workers, April 8, 2020. Photo by LULURAY PHOTOGRAPHY, used with permission.
Check out Global Voices’ coverage of the impact of COVID-19 on communities around the world.
COVID-19 has not spared Zanzibar, the semi-autonomous islands off the coast of Tanzania in East Africa. With its stunning beaches and historical cities, Zanzibar's two main islands, Pemba and Unguja, have attracted travelers from around the world for centuries.
Today, those streets and beaches are nearly empty as residents brace themselves for the coronavirus in this tightly-knit community of approximately 1.3 million people among the two islands.
On April 9, health minister Ummy Mwalimu announced the first cases of COVID-19 acquired through community transmission in Zanzibar. As of April 24, there are now 98 cases on the islands, according to an official government press release.
Zanzibar thrives on community and, in the spirit of umoja or “unity” in Swahili, a wave of community-based health initiatives has ramped up their presence on the islands to raise awareness and educate islanders about the highly contagious disease.
In mid-March, even before Zanzibar saw its first cases, many hotels on the islands who usually receive thousands of travelers from COVID-19 hotspots like Italy and Spain decided to shutter their doors and practice preventive measures like physical distancing and frequent hand washing, as recommended by the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control.
On March 18, hoteliers along with the Zanzibar Tourism Local Development (ZTLD) group gathered on Zanzibar's East Coast to educate and inform community members about the virus and organized a plan to distribute hand sanitizer and water for home storage, in addition to educational posters.
Bwejuu-based hostel Mustapha's Place decided to keep their minds open even if their doors were closed. Mustapha's Place and ZTLD designed and built several “foot-operated, hands-free” handwashing stations and distributed them to strategic locations throughout the East Coast, an area comprised of small fishing villages.
Mustapha' s place is temporary closed, but our mind is open and creative! Desing and buiding "foot operated hands-free" hands washing stations. Together with our communities we fight the spread of corona virus, supporting each other, learning from one another. Big up #zanzibartourism&localdevelopment #staysafe #washstations #zanzibar #mustaphasplace #creativeminds  #coronavirusinafrica #coronavirus
Geplaatst door Mustapha's Place op Woensdag 8 april 2020
Last week alone, ZTLD members delivered several “no-touch” hand washers to local mosques, police stations, health clinics, hospitals and several villages in the area.
Zanzibar Tourism Local Development group installs a “no-touch” handwashing system at Charawe health clinic, April 14, 2020, Charawe, Zanzibar. Photo by Shebbi Shabban, used with permission.
Wajamama Health Center, based in Stone Town, Zanzibar, praised ZTLD's “no-touch” handwashing innovation, “minimizing the need for turning the faucet on and off or even touching the soap dispenser … We are amazed by the ingenuity of each system and are grateful to see these efforts taking place,” they wrote on their Facebook page.
Wajamama, which stands for watoto, jamii, mama or “children, society, mama” was founded by Nafisa Jiddawi, who saw a need to create a safe space for women to get high-quality healthcare informed by health and wellness practices.
Early on, Jiddawi and her team became first responders in the fight against COVID-19 on the islands, mobilizing to inform and educate islanders about the coronavirus when Zanzibar was first reporting its imported COVID-19 cases in late March 2020. Jiddawi and her team had distributed 100 handwashing stations around Unguja around this time.
They also reached out to local leaders on the latest information regarding handwashing, face masks and social distancing and encouraged citizens to keep calm and only share science-based information.
Tanzania's President John Magufuli was criticized for encouraging citizens to continue to congregate in places of worship despite strong scientific advice against gatherings. Magufuli closed schools and universities for 30 days but showed reluctance to impose an official lockdown, even after its first case on March 16. As of April 23, 284 people on mainland Tanzania have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to the BBC.
On April 10, Wajamama warned on Facebook: “This is NOT the time for conspiracy theories or get-togethers.” The following week, they wrote: “In our already fragile healthcare system and economy, limiting COVID-19 transmission in our community is our ONLY hope.”
A few days prior, Wajamama donated ample supplies of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for Zanzibar’s health care workers to the Ministry of Health, with support from the local Rotary Club of Stonetown and US funders.
They continue to work with local designers and community members to distribute reusable face masks to the community, including Recycle At Ozti, Kumi Zanzibar, Jenga Zanzibar, Zanzibar Apparels & Doreen Mashika, who joined the #mask4all movement.
Within ten days, Wajamama has been able to raise nearly $8,500 United States dollars toward its $10,000 goal to support COVID-19 response efforts.
Most people in Zanzibar live below the international poverty line and subsist on less than a dollar a day, said Pamela Allard, a program advisor with Health Improvement Project Zanzibar (HIPZ).
COVID-19 has added a layer of stress to local communities in Zanzibar, compounding existing stress from chronic poverty, poor health care infrastructure and dependency on a tourism industry that has come to a grinding halt.
For over a decade, HIPZ has worked in sync with Zanzibar's Ministry of Health to support Makunduchi and Kivunge hospitals in rural parts of Zanzibar, where health care is sorely insufficient. HIPZ also saw a critical need to amp up their mental health support to tackle COVID-19 and tapped into their mental health radio program to provide critical coronavirus-related health information to local communities.
This is one of the only community-based health initiatives on the islands that have recognized the mental health toll that this virus can take on societies.
HIPZ mental health coordinator Haji Fatawi took on the role of radio personality and on April 23, he made a visit to the outlying island of Tumabatu to host radio health talks designed to sensitize communities to all aspects of the virus and its impact on everyday life.
Haji Fatawi, leader of the mental health team with Heath Improvement Project, Zanzibar, takes on the role of mental health radio personality with specific outreach related to COVID-19. Photo used with permission by HIPZ.
As COVID-19 cases began to appear on the islands on March 21, HIPZ immediately began to support training workshops at local hospitals to demystify the virus and dispel fears among health care workers, according to Allard in an email to Global Voices.
Many staff believed many patients may be carriers of COVID-19, and therefore the health care could be improved due to a lot of fear-based assumptions within the local staff.
Allard continued that HIPZ has had to reassess their programs with a laser focus on keeping frontline health care workers safe and supported:
With an already fragile health system, we have had to reassess everything and try to prepare for COVID-19, focusing on keeping our staff as safe as possible to perform the critical work that will most likely be required of them. We have refocused many aspects of our budget to support the staff, with PPE and soap, and equipment and innovative systems of patient flow at this time. We have been fundraising like mad, and are preparing for the potential weeks to come, knowing that the curve in Zanzibar may not  be as flattened as it is in other countries due to the living conditions and socio-economic challenges that face most of the Zanzibaris.
As politician Seif Sharif wrote in African Arguments, the month of April has proved to be a decisive time for Zanzibar and Tanzania when it comes to COVID-19.
Neither government has issued an official stay-at-home order or announced any major debt relief or stimulus programs. Yet, Zanzibar's Ministry of Health has been working around the clock — alongside these local, community-based initiatives — to keep Zanzibaris safe and informed.
In Zanzibar, where the majority honor the holy month of Ramadan that began on April 24, this next month will also be defined by this spirit of solidarity to keep people connected through communities of care.

author: Amanda Lichtenstein


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‘Clean city-state’ image of Singapore shows double-standards in its treatment of migrants in times of COVID-19 · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

‘One Bag, One Book’ – a migrant worker-driven initiative promoting reading has become an informal channel to gather essential supplies and donations based on the needs of workers in dormitories. Photo from the Facebook page of ‘One Bag, One Book’. Used with permission.
Singapore has been consistently praised in global news reports for its approach in containing the spread of COVID-19. But since the first week of April 2020, the country has recorded a sharp rise in cases affecting mainly foreign workers. This situation has raised concern about possible neglect by the Singaporean government about migrant workers in its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
On April 7, the government announced the imposition of a ‘circuit breaker’ which practically placed the whole country and its 5.7 million population under lockdown. Singapore's Health Minister stated that:
We need to apply brakes, hard brakes, to slow the transmission. This is what we mean by a circuit breaker. Enhanced safe distancing is necessary to significantly reduce movement and interactions in both public and private places.
On April 21, the prime minister declared that the ‘circuit breaker’ will be extended until June 1.
As of April 24, Singapore recorded 12,075 COVID-19 cases, almost 80 percent of these are migrant workers who live in foreign worker dormitories. Singapore now has the highest number of COVID-19 cases in Southeast Asia, although the government claims this figure is high due to its extensive and aggressive testing.
Singapore has more than 300,000 Work Permit holders residing in dormitories. Most of them are men from South Asian countries like Bangladesh and India. They live in rooms with bunks for 12 to 20 persons which make social distancing difficult to practice.
Suddenly, many of these dormitories have become COVID-19 clusters where workers cannot leave their rooms as the government deployed medical teams to conduct testing and quarantine procedures.
Singapore quarantined nearly 20,000 workers in two dormitories after they were linked to at least 90 coronavirus infections. Migrant workers living in these camps say they are like a coronavirus time bomb waiting to explode https://t.co/BppsWDV1RT pic.twitter.com/liQSkdS2Hq
— Reuters (@Reuters) April 7, 2020
There was controversy about the decision to keep a separate category for COVID-19 patients living in these dormitories. The independent Southeast Asian news platform Coconuts reported that:
The government has also made the controversial decision to keep separate tallies: one for migrant workers, and one for Singaporean citizens and permanent residents. It has been accused of “othering” the migrant population, especially by euphemistically referring to citizens and residents as “the community.”
On April 13, the Singaporean Ministry of Manpower inspected the sanitary conditions in factory-converted dormitories (FCDs):
Minor lapses were found in 57 FCDs, with the most prevalent issue being a lack of sickbays and isolation areas. The cleanliness levels of some of these FCDs were also found to be unacceptable.
Minister of Manpower Josephine Teo responded to criticisms that the government should have conducted COVID-19 tests in the dormitories in February by saying:
Because at that time, healthy workers were going to hospitals in droves to ask for tests. The worry was that thousands would show up and overwhelm healthcare workers.
In a televised speech, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong assured migrant workers that the government will not abandon them:
To our migrant workers, let me emphasise again: we will care for you, just like we care for Singaporeans. We thank you for your cooperation during this difficult period. We will look after your health, your welfare and your livelihood. We will work with your employers to make sure that you get paid, and you can send money home. And we will help you stay in touch with friends and family.
Transient Workers Count Too, a non-government organization, has been providing assistance to workers in dormitories. It notified the media and the public about workers who were allegedly locked in their rooms by their employer. It also reported that certain medical conditions of workers are not being given proper attention, after the government decided to focus on containing the spread of COVID-19. It also countered the impression that workers are to be blamed for living in dirty dormitories.
The point here is that structural constraints play a huge part in whether a place is clean or dirty. Design of spaces; density of habitation; controls over movement; work-life balance demanded of foreign workers, management systems and procedures — all these count.
It’s not the men. It’s the system. Before blaming the workers at the bottom of the heap, look at the calibre of the people sitting atop it.
Lawyer and former diplomat Tommy Koh wrote on Facebook that the COVID-19 cases in dormitories should be a wake up call for Singapore to treat its workers better:
The government has allowed their employers to transport them in flat bed trucks with no seats. They stay in overcrowded dormitories and are packed likes sardines with 12 persons to a room. The dormitories are not clean or sanitary. The dormitories were like a time bomb waiting to explode. They have now exploded with many infected workers. Singapore should treat this as a wake up call to treat our indispensable foreign workers like a First World country should and not in the disgraceful way in which they are treated now.
Singaporean writer Kirsten Han wrote on Twitter that the problem is “simultaneously a public health issue, a humanitarian issue, a logistical issue, and an economic issue.” Her reminder sums up the lesson that Singapore and other societies need to take heed:
18/ What should we learn from this? I think what we're seeing in #Singapore is that even if you do most things right, if you're not considering or proactively looking out for the most vulnerable and marginalised in your society, you're not going to effectively fight #COVID19.
— Kirsten Han 韩俐颖 is on a “circuit break” (@kixes) April 24, 2020

author: Mong Palatino


text:
COVID-19 diaries from Wuhan: A fake performance · Global Voices
Winston Chiu

A cat at home. Photo credit: Ai Xiaoming.
The following post is the ninth in a series of diaries written by independent filmmaker and feminist scholar Ai Xiaoming and by feminist activist Guo Jing. Both are living in Wuhan at the center of the COVID-19 pandemic. Here are the links to the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and the eighth parts of the series.
Check out Global Voices’ special coverage of the global impact of COVID-19.
This installment was written between March 6 and March 8, 2020. The original Chinese diaries are published on Matter News.
The residents yelled ‘fake, fake’ when officials visited a community. (This photo is taken from a Youtube video.)
很多保障民生的措施看起来很好，但是否能够实施是另外一回事。昨天，中央指导组在捂汗市青山区翠-园社区开-元-公-馆考察的时候，有居民对社区假装让志愿者送菜送肉的行为十分不满，在家里透过窗户大喊“假–的，假–的，形-式-主义”。这不是在疫情中捂汗人民第一次发出不满的呼声。
Many measures have been presented to safeguard people's livelihood, but whether they can be implemented is another issue. Yesterday, when the COVID-19 supervision team from the central government visited the Cuiyuan Community in Qingshan district in Wuhan, local residents were angry that community workers had disguised themselves as volunteers delivering meat and vegetables to the district that is now under lockdown. They yelled out from their windows “Fake, Fake, it is all but a formal [performance]”. This is not the first time the people in Wuhan express their resentment.
前天有捂汗人对形式主义喊出了“假–的”，昨天市–委书–记王–忠–林就提出要在广大市民中开展敢嗯教育，似乎是在回应表达不满的人。
在灾难中开展敢嗯教育也是史无前例。
我们当然有很多人要敢嗯：一线的医护人员、环卫工、超市收银员、社区工作人员、志愿者等，他们在救助病人，他们在保障捂汗人民的基本生活。
为别人提供帮助的人也很少主动索要敢嗯。那到底是谁需要捂汗人的敢嗯呢？人民对真正为他们提供帮助的人不会吝啬敢嗯的。
有人发了一个链接可以输入地点了解周边感染新冠费盐的情况。湖北以外的城市早就可以查询相关的信息。捂汗今天终于也可以查询此类信息了。我点进去看了一下，早上，我住的地方1公里内有75个确诊病例，下午数字就变成了78。
Two days ago, some people in Wuhan yelled ‘fake’ in front of a formal [performance of so-called aid delivery to the people]. Yesterday, the Communist Party Secretary of Wuhan, Wang Zhonglin, proposed to educate the citizens of Wuhan to have them thank the Chinese Communist Party. His proposal seemed to come as a reaction after some citizens recently expressed their resentment [towards the government].
I think this is the first time in history that a one-party state asks its people to thank the party at a time of a disaster.
Of course there are people we should thank, like members of the medical staff, cleaners, cashiers in supermarkets, community workers, and volunteers. They are helping the patients and supporting our basic needs.
People who help others rarely expect others to thank them. Who on earth needs thanks from people in Wuhan? We never hesitate to thank those who help us.
Someone sent a link that allows you find the number of infected cases in your surrounding, based on your address. In other cities, people have already been able to search for this kind of information. Finally we can do it in Wuhan today. I tried this website today. There were 75 confirmed cases within one km of where I live this morning. It turned 78 in afternoon.
三八节是一个女权的节日，世界各地的女权行动者都在这一天聚集起来，表达女权的声音。新冠费盐如今扩散到世界各地，女权主义的集会也受到了影响，意大利的女权行动者将线下罢工改成了云集会。
费盐不是阻止我们发声的唯一因素。2018年3月9日，女权之声的微信和微博账号被封，而女权之声是中国最具影响力的的女权平台。代表女权行动者的声音在三八妇女节后却被关掉。一些女权主义者现在依然还在呼唤女权之声的归来。
今天有很多网友成为反家暴小疫苗，出门贴了反家暴的倡议书。
人们一直在黑暗和封锁中寻找光和联结，追求改变的渴望从未消失，而且随时会爆发出巨大的能量。
昨天，我的日记在微博和微信上都发了三四次，要么发不出来，要么发出来后很快被删。我有点气馁，想着我的日记也没那么重要，也想放弃。但有人私信我说怎么没看到昨天的日记，有人在被删除的链接下留言说看不到。有人在看，那我就要坚持发声。
昨晚梦到我想要去爬山，可是莫名地却回到了中学，必须要上课，不能逃课去爬山，就被困在了学校。
March 8 is a holiday celebrating women’s rights. On that day, women’s rights activists from around the world come together and speak up. But now, COVID-19 has spread to the whole world, and public gatherings of women’s rights activists are affected too. In Italy, women’s rights activists have turned their strike into cloud meetings.
The pandemic is not the only factor that stops us from speaking out. On March 9, 2018, the account of Feminist Voices in Weibo and Weixin was taken down. Feminist Voices was the most influential platform for women’s rights advocacy in China, yet its account was shutdown after Women’s Day. Some women’s rights activists are still seeking to have the Feminist Voices’ account brought back.
Many netizens have taken part in advocacy activities against domestic violence today. Some went out and pasted a joint-statement against domestic violence in their community.
People have been searching for light and for connections in the dark times of the lockdown. The desire to bring changes never disappears. Our hope can carry a tremendous amount of energy, and can explode at any time.
Yesterday, I tried to post my diary on Weibo and WeChat several times. The post either failed to be uploaded, or was deleted soon upon published. I was frustrated. I thought, perhaps my diary is not that important, so I thought about giving up. However, some people sent me private messages asking me why they did not see my diary yesterday. Some left messages below the link of the deleted diary, saying that they could not see it. There are people reading my diaries, so I must try my best to speak out.
Last night I dreamed about hiking. But suddenly, I was back in junior high school, and had to attend classes. I could not skip the classes to go hiking. I was trapped in the school.
盡管我也沒有病，但是每天我的寫作都被各種疫情信息所困。結果，坐在書桌前， 注意力像新型冠狀病毒一樣從桌面升騰而起，在東南西北前後左右上天入地，開成了各種冠狀蒲公英。最後呢？最後就找不到北了；進入午夜自責時分。然後我就帶著滿腦子的蒲公英入睡，夢見了眾多孤魂野鬼，血腥呻吟……
每天我都有惡火攻心之感，不是急火， 我這歲數，根本不急——用武漢話來說，急揍麼事撒，趕殺場？所謂惡火，主要是這世界，突然就滿地呈現出冠狀病毒那種開枝散葉、無以言表的惡之無名火。隨便舉幾個例子：
一位群友告，她的中學同學，夫妻倆都危重住院。媒體裏曾經報道過這一段，他們想在一間病房，以便互相照顧，醫生沒能同意。 就這樣，一墻之隔便是陰陽兩界。他多麼想知道，妻子曾在手機上留下什麼話？可是， 殯儀館把手機甩了！他目前雖說是情況稍穩定，肺部也受到嚴重損傷。試想，當他歷此一難回到家裏，暖窩已變空巢，情何以堪！
另一位群友告，後續還有醫療費報銷、火葬費等問題。聽一位死者家屬說過，醫院和火葬場都打過電話給他們，由於到死都沒確診，四天就產生了六、七萬醫療費。他家二十多天去世三人，慘啊！
Although I was not infected, I have been trapped by pandemic news. Whenever I sit in front of my desk, all I can think about is the novel coronavirus. News about the virus come from all directions – east, south, west, north, front, back, up, and down – and bloom like dandelions. Eventually, I have lost all sense of direction. Around midnight, I blamed myself [for my failure to focus on something] and fell asleep with dandelions in my brain. I dreamed about ghosts, blood and moaning…
Everyday, I feel as if my heart is on fire. It is not a hasty feeling. At my age, I don't feel the need to act fast – As we say in Wuhan, what's the point of being so hasty? Going to the battlefield? The fire in my heart comes from the sudden spread of this weed-like coronavirus, the feeling of how it burns me cannot be described with words. I can tell a few stories though,
A friend of mine told me that one of her classmates in high school and his wife were admitted to a hospital after they became very ill. The media covered that part of the story. They wanted to be in the same room, so they could take care of each other. The doctor did not agree. In the end, death and life separated them. He wanted to know what message his wife had left in her cellphone for him, but the funeral home threw her cellphone away! His condition is stable now, but his lung is seriously damaged. Try to think about that: how can he bear the scene of his home when he returns after the disaster, and finds out that his once sweet home has turned into an empty house!
Another friend told me that there will be a lot of bills to pay for medical expense and cremation later on. A family member of a diseased patient told me that the hospital and cremation place had called saying that the family had to pay 6 to 70,000 yuan (between USD 8,472 and 9885) for the 4-day medical expense, as the patient's status regarding the virus had not yet been confirmed by the time he died. Three members of the family had passed away within a little more than 20 days. How miserable!


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Russians under lockdown (re)create famous artworks online · Global Voices
Sasha Shapiro

Frida Kahlo's self-portrait (1940), recreated by RuNet user Maria Morozova, April 25, 2020. Screenshot from Facebook / Izoizolyacia.
Check out Global Voices’ special coverage of the global impact of COVID-19.
In 1868, Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote that “beauty will save the world.” A hundred and fifty years later, that remains to be seen; but one thing’s for certain — it can definitely distract us from the world outside during a global pandemic.
As people across the world are ordered to stay home, they are searching for creative outlets to keep boredom and the blues at bay. One particular photo challenge has swept like wildfire across social media: recreating famous artworks using ordinary household items.
Surgical masks and thermometers, symbols of the COVID-19 pandemic, are prominent props in these recreations. A man wearing a surgical mask, embellished with an open mouth drawn in marker pen, poses for a domestic version of Edvard Munch's The Scream. Toilet rolls (no less a symbol of this era) serve as a wig for a man sitting in front of a piano, mimicking a famous painting of Mozart. These are just a few examples of the boundless creativity of the Russian Facebook group “IZOIZOLIZACIA”. It is no exaggeration to say that the page has become a national obsession.
#изоизоляция pic.twitter.com/3G7tzFTj9r
— Vogel (@Artwings31) April 21, 2020
The group's name is a portmanteau of the Russian words “isolation” and “visual art.” To date it has over 500,000 members and more than 100 posts per day. And although most members of the lighthearted group are Russians, it connects people from all over the world during this time of heightened uncertainty. Izoizolyatsiya's slogan says it all: “a community of people with limited mobility and unlimited imagination”. The Facebook group’s founder, the 38-year-old Katerina Brudnaya-Chelyadinova, has just a few rules: props must be made out of whatever is found at home, no photo-editing is allowed, and neither are any more renditions of Kazimir Malevich’s “Black Square”— unless they're really funny.
For example, Brudnaya-Chelyadinova, who works for Russian digital giant Mail.Ru, started the challenge by sharing a photo of her husband as Vincent Van Gogh in a straw hat on Facebook. When asked her friends to share their own renditions of famous paintings, many rose to the challenge. To consolidate the immense amount of submissions, she created the Facebook group on March 30. Within a day, it had over 2,500 members.
In an interview on April 17 with the Russian news channel RBK, Brudnaya-Chelyadinova stressed that she is not alone in maintaining and managing the group, whose popularity has soared in the last month. “We have 11 moderators now who keep the group running at every hour of the day from America to New Zealand,” she said. “It's an enormous effort of friends from across the world.”
This international membership reflects the fact that Izoizolyatsiya is just one of many incarnations of the viral art challenge; since the COVID-19 pandemic began, the social media accounts of several art galleries around the world have launched similar initiatives.
Read more:  Moscow's revolution will be memed, online and on canvas
Not surprisingly, Izoizolyatsiya members have a particular love for famous artworks from Russia and the former Soviet Union. “It seems like we’re a bit more self-ironic in this group,” Brudnaya-Chelyadinova admitted in an interview for RuNet Echo.
Indeed, many of the shared pictures are wildly creative and self-deprecating in their recreation of Russia’s most treasured paintings. Vasilii Vereshagin’s mountain of skulls in “Apotheosis of War” is reimagined as scattered Lego heads. Another picture features a cat impersonating a saluting Lenin. Ivan Shishkin's iconic bears in “Morning in a Pine Forest” are represented by crackers against a background of lettuce.
There are some famous renditions of foreign artworks as well. “The Last Supper” is recreated with nurses in the place of apostles; Leonardo da Vinci’s “Saviour of the World” features a model-as-Jesus holding a jar of pickles instead of an orb. Some users wore tutus to recreate Edgar Degas’ famous ballerina paintings. Others donned an ushanka, a Russian fur cap with ear flaps, to portray Van Gogh's famous post-accident self portrait.
The constraints of the challenge has pushed many participants to become experimental with the everyday objects they have at home. One user from Israel posed as Salvador Dali, adorned in heavy makeup and with melting clocks made out of paper. One woman recreated Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s “Pandora”, only the golden box in the painting was replaced with a McDonald’s takeout container. A Jackson Pollock painting was represented by a pile of sticks.
One of the most popular posts in the group, by Natalia Shevchenko, depicts Henri Matisse's 1910 masterpiece “Dance”, recreated with shrimp and walnuts on a plastic bag. It has garnered over 39,000 likes.
Many of these reimagined artworks are also selfies taken by amateur models stuck at home during quarantine. Many more feature spouses, partners, pets, grandparents, and babies. Izoizolyatsiya's Facebook page is full of lonely faces looking for a connection — and clearly finding it.
So like all social media crazes, the challenge raises its own questions: is the recreation of famous art just a fad, or is there a deeper need for connection to art and to one another? Brudnaya-Chelyadinova thinks it is the latter. “On one hand, it’s true that this art challenge is a game,” she concludes, “but it’s also a different way to connect and engage with timeless art and to find comfort in community.”

author: Sasha Shapiro


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A selection of Latin American and Caribbean ‘coronavirus songs’ · Global Voices
Melissa Vida

Screenshot of the song “Cancion del Coronavirus” on YouTube, by “Los Tres Tristes Tigres” Mexican band.
In Latin America, artists did not stop creating music despite the pandemic and the subsequent mandatory confinement measures in place in nearly every country in the region. Music referring to COVID-19, in particular, gained a lot of traction on the internet since March.
Here are nine songs that Latin American artists have produced — from their homes, for the most part — in the past couple of months. Many of them have a humoristic tone. For example, Mexican artists usually enjoy using dark, or “politically incorrect”  humor, in their art, as a way to cope with negative news. Also, some of these songs were published before the virus hit the continent hard. Other songs, however, are more solemn in nature or have social protest messages in their lyrics.
The band Los Tres Tristes Tigres, a comedy band from Monterrey, Mexico, released several songs in the times of COVID-19. Their first one, “Canción del Coronavirus” (“The Coronavirus Song”) reached 3.7 million views on YouTube, and was taken up by Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny on his Instagram page.
The trio, whose band name is inspired by a famous Spanish language tong twister, is made up of Jesús Gallardo (accordion, iPad and maracas), Erick Ibarra (bass and double bass) and Pedro Palacios (guitar and vocals). They do stand up comedy and humorous songs, generally on based on regional Mexican music genres, such as the popular corrido.
La “Canción del Coronavirus” talks about the early stages of panic regarding the pandemic — when school classes and concerts got canceled and people rushed to stores to stock up on groceries. “They closed Disneyland, and this is scaring me,” they sing, while not censoring Mexican Spanish swear words.
One of Nicaragua's most important singers, Luis Enrique Mejía Godoy, published a song on YouTube solemnly encouraging people to stay at home to slow the spread of COVID-19.
Mejía, sometimes called the “troubadour of the revolution,” actively participated in the first revolutionary socialist and Sandinista government in Nicaragua, which lasted from 1979 until 1990. His songs are known in Central American for their social and political awareness.
In “Quedate en Casa” (“Stay at Home”), he sings, on the tone of a Spanish guitar, “Stay at home, don't insist so much [in going out], tomorrow we will be finally able to hug each other.”
Nicaragua, Central America's poorest country, has been criticized for not taking stringent measures to slow the transmission of the virus — schools and borders have remained open, for example, and President Daniel Ortega has been largely absent from the public sphere.
Yofrangel 911 was probably one of the first Latin American artists to release a song about COVID-19, on February 9. With 8,5 million views on YouTube, “Corona Virus” by Dembow singer Yofrangel tells people to “cover your mouth” while citing the most common symptoms of the disease on a catchy beat. According to Insider, many people reacted to the song on Twitter — activist Angy praised the song and asked the World Health Organization to prepare campaigns based on it, while some YouTube commentators believed that this video “is disrespectful to the people and businesses losing so much because of this virus.”
Yofrangel 911 released a new song called “Antidoto” (“Antidote”) on April 11.
Cuban singer Ariel de Cuba, currently living in Spain, produced the “Quedate en casa” (“Stay at home”) song to upbeat salsa and reggaeton melodies. The song includes lyrics such as “take care of grandma, take care of grandpa, if we are united, we will win,” and was completely produced at home. “The video was recorded by my daughter, in collaborated with my son, and edited by me,” he told Houston Chronicle. The song also inspired 44 fitness instructors in El Salvador, who filmed themselves dancing and working out to the song to promote home workouts during lockdown.
Internationally renowned salsa singer Rubén Blades, who won numerous Grammy Awards, produced a song with Ceferino Nieto to encourage the Panamanian people who are currently under lockdown. The video shows Blades, who seems to sing from his living room in New York, shots of Panama and a zoom-like edition with videos of at people home who sing the chorus “Panama.”
Panama has banned all international flights, implemented a curfew, and, since April 1, it has also put in place a gender-based lockdown — on certain days, only women can go out of the house, on other days, only men. It has been the first and most hard-hit country in Central America, with 144 deaths and nearly 5,000 confirmed cases.
Regarding the pandemic, Blades wrote in his “Diary of the pest” on Facebook that “this is an opportunity to radically alter our behaviors and create alternatives that help us all, and the environment. Let's look at all the possibilities and not limit our concern to the nostalgia of what we were doing before the crisis.”
The band “Los Chuguranos” from Peru sang this “COVID19″ song on Huayno musicality and rhythms. Huayno is a musical genre and popular dance that stems from Quechua and Aymara peoples. It is played throughout the Andean region, comprising Peru, Bolivia, northern Argentina, and northern Chile. Usually, Huayno is accompanied by popular dance.
Here, the band sings “Oh, Corona, my little Corona, you have arrived in my Peru,” followed by “what will become of my life? Surely you will take it”. Later, they sing, “Now that you have arrived, I want you to listen to me: take the settlers, but leave my Peru alone.”
Throughout Latin America, “settler” is the term used for people who enter indigenous territory and engage in activities relating to mining, deforestation, extraction, oil exploration, industrial agriculture, and evangelical churches. For example, indigenous communities in Peru and the NGO Amazon Watch called for a ban on outsiders entering the Amazon to prevent the spread of the virus among the natives.
The singers conclude by exhorting people to listen to public health safety measures and to wash their hands.
Venezuelan singer and humorist Cesar Muñoz, currently residing in Miami, regularly produces short songs on the hurdles of being in lockdown. For example, he sang on his nostalgia for taking a walk outside, a tribute to nurses worldwide, and everyday anxieties of being in lockdown.
In this song, “A Quarantine with Kids,” Muñoz speaks rapidly on a classical piano background reminiscent of a nursery rhyme.
Mexican artist Emma Mayte Carballo Hernández, known as Flor Amargo, produced a humorous cumbia song on the difficulties of spending all your free time in lockdown with a significant other. Cumbia is a musical genre played throughout Latin America with regional flavors.
Usually, Flor Amargo likes to mix cumbia with pop, classical piano, and folkloric music – a mix she calls “cathartic pop,” a sort of improvisation of music and singing without caring too much about the form.
Although the lyrics, intended to be funny, can come across as insensitive to some — she sings, for example, that she “would prefer to be infected and die” than to live 24/7 with her partner — the comments on YouTube seem to appreciate her humor.
René Pérez Joglar, better known as Residente, has recreated several of his biggest hit songs with a “Quarantine version.” He first released “Apocaliptico” and then his more recent autobiographical song “René“, which gathered more than seven million views alone. Every music video is composed of images of his musicians and singers playing from their homes.
Residente also published a quarantine version of his 2011 song “Latinoamérica,” which was originally produced by his band Calle 13 and won the Grammy Award of that year. According to El País, Latinoamérica is “considered an anthem against poverty and for Latin American identity.
The chorus of the song, led here by Kianí Medina, repeats: “You can't buy on the wind//You can't buy in the sun//You can't buy the rain//You can't buy the heat//You can't buy the clouds//You can't buy the colors//You can't buy my joy//You can't buy my pains.”

author: Melissa Vida


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Despite COVID-19, no respite for human rights crackdowns in Egypt · Global Voices
Afef Abrougui

Alaa Abd El Fattah, speaking at Personal Democracy Forum, 2011. Photo by PDF via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0).
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, jailed Egyptian activists, human rights defenders and politicians are at risk in the country’s overcrowded prisons.
Multiple calls to release detained human rights defenders have gone unheeded. In the meantime, prominent blogger and human rights activist Alaa Abd El Fattah, who goes by just “Alaa” in his community, went on a hunger strike, while arrests and detentions continue.
Alaa is currently on a hunger strike to protest his continued detention, his family said in a statement published on April 22.
According to the statement, on April 13, a prosecutor's office received a report from the Tora Maximum Security Prison, where Alaa is being held, that he started his hunger strike.
On April 22, the family was able to access another report concerning Alaa’s health and hunger strike:
Today we were able to see the medical report dated April 18, 2020, which stated that Alaa’s blood sugar level was at 54 mg/dL [milligrams per deciliter], heart rate at 76, blood pressure at 100/70, and that he refused to suspend a glucose drip.
This report confirms that Alaa is on a full hunger strike as opposed to the previous report that mentioned that he was only taking liquids, his sister Mona Seif wrote.
The prominent  blogger and activist has been in and out of prison since 2011. In 2011, he spent two months in prison, missing the birth of his first child, Khaled. In 2013, he was arrested and detained for 115 days without trial.
Alaa was arrested and taken from his family’s home in November 2013. More than one year later, in February 2015, he was finally tried and sentenced to five years in prison under a 2013 protest law that prohibits unauthorised demonstrations, for “organising” a protest against military trials. While he did take part in the protest held on November 26, 2013, Alaa had no role in organising it.
He was freed from prison on March 28, 2019. However, his freedom was conditional as he was required to be locked up at his local police station from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. under a probation period of five years. Alaa repeatedly spoke out against his conditional release — describing it as a “humiliation.”
However, even his “half freedom” did not last.
Authorities arrested him again on September 29, 2019, in the midst of a crackdown on rare anti-government protests since the 2013 military coup that toppled the democratically-elected president Mohamed Morsi, who died while in prison on June 17, 2019. Alaa did not take part in those protests, yet he was still arrested.  On the night of his arrest, “prison officers blindfolded him, stripped him of his clothing, beat and kicked him repeatedly, and subjected him to threats and verbal abuse,” Amnesty International said.
His lawyer, human rights defender Mohammed el-Baqer, was arrested later that same day when he appeared at Supreme State Security Prosecution (SSSP) to represent him. He was also subjected to ill-treatment.
They are both being held in the same case on bogus charges of ‘’spreading false news,” “joining an illegal organization,” “receiving foreign funding,” and “misusing social media.”
Their detention was last renewed for 45 days on February 20, 2020, at the demand of prosecution. Since then, they have both remained in illegal detention after the 45-day period expired without the renewal of their detention.
‘’Since the prosecution’s appeal to renew his detention was accepted on February 20, 2020, Alaa has not attended any further hearings, which makes his continued detention, and that of others with him, unlawful,’’ his family said, adding:
Exceptional circumstances do not cancel the rights of those held in temporary custody, nor should they be an excuse to strip them of their rights to counsel and defense.
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the crackdown on political prisoners in Egypt has shown no signs of respite. While the authorities released some prisoners —including 15 politicians and activists— as part of measures to contain the spread of the virus, tens of thousands remain in prison for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression, protest and assembly.
As of April 26, the country recorded 4,534 COVID-19 cases and 317 deaths, according to official figures. The country’s prisons are crowded and lack hygiene, raising serious concerns over any potential spread of the disease in such conditions.
As part of a campaign to release thousands of prisoners, the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies tweeted on April 14:
#Egypt: As the #Egyptian government imposes a #curfew, it continues to turn a blind eye to the country’s dozens of densely-populated prisons, which are reported to exceed their capacity by over 300%!! #COVID19
Sign the petition here:https://t.co/xvIpm54vYJ
— CIHRS (@CIHRS_Alerts) April 14, 2020
Yet, despite multiple calls to release political prisoners, the detentions and the arrests continue. On April 20, blogger Wael Abbas was arrested while taking photos at Wadi Degla, a nature reserve located 35 kilometers south of the capital, Cairo. Abbas was taking photos for his Facebook page, Planet Egypt 360, where he offers virtual tours of Egypt’s tourist attractions. He was released hours later.
In 2018, Abbas spent seven months in prison over fabricated accusations that included “spreading false news,” “involvement with a terrorist group,” and “misuse of social media.”
“I have been mistreated and discriminated against because I am a former political activist, although I have stopped my activism,” he said in a Facebook post about his most recent arrest.
Under the reign of authoritarian president Abdelfattah Sisi, who led the 2013 coup when he was army chief and defense minister, before claiming the presidency in an election that failed to meet international standards, thousands of people have been imprisoned for peacefully exercising their civil and political rights.
Those arrested on politically motivated charges are often subjected to enforced disappearances, torture, prolonged pre-trial detention and solitary confinement. Even under a health crisis like the COVID-19, the ordeal of these prisoners, who should not have been jailed in the first place, continues.
Learn about the physiological effects of a hunger strike with the infographic below, created by Global Voices’ partner, Visualizing Impact:

author: Afef Abrougui


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New video gives clues about motives behind attacks in northern Mozambique · Global Voices
Dércio Tsandzana

Mozambique army personnel. Photo by Steve Evans, CC-BY 2.0
For over two years, Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province has faced successive attacks from unidentified armed groups. More than 900 people have been killed since the attacks began, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED).
In February, Cabo Delgado’s provincial government released a report stating that more than 150,000 people have been affected by the conflict. The latest assaults took place in late March and early April 2020 and, after one of them, a district was temporarily occupied by the attackers.
While the group's motives remain unknown — although the local population calls it “Al Shabab,” it is not known if there is a connection with Somalia's Al Shabaab group –, a video released on April 7 seems to give some clues.
Recorded in Ntchinga village, the video shows the insurgents holding an Islamic State flag and a leader addressing the local population in the Kimwan and Kiswahili languages, gathered as if attending a rally.
According to Voice of America (VOA), the video suggests a change in the group's strategy by apparently seeking support from local people.
VOA reported that these are the words spoken in the video:
Nós queremos que seja respeitada a lei islâmica. Cabo Delgado nos pertence e vamos impor o Estado Islâmico, está bem?
Aqui entramos duas vezes, e desta, como todos vocês viram, não matamos ninguém e nem destruímos nada, e vamos vos deixar em paz.
Se vocês continuarem a colaborar com o Governo a denunciar-nos e a não seguir o islão, voltaremos uma terceira vez e vamos queimar tudo e matar todos, deixar isto vazio, está bem?
We want Islamic law to be respected. Cabo Delgado belongs to us and we're going to impose the Islamic state, okay?
We came here twice, and this time, as you all saw, we did not kill anybody or destroy anything, and we will leave you in peace
If you continue to collaborate with the government to denounce us and to not follow Islam, we will come back a third time and we will burn everything and kill everybody, leave this [place] empty, okay?
Days after the video’s release, the attackers destroyed a Catholic church in the region. Pope Francis then asked for a blessing for the people of Cabo Delgado:
Interior of the #Nangololo #Catholic mission, in Muidumbe district, vandalized, Thursday, by the #ViolentExtremists who have been terrorizing communities, and targeting military barracks, for two years, in #CaboDelgado, northern Mozambique. @CDD_Moz @TamukaKagoro77 @zenaidamz pic.twitter.com/hxdymq7evT
— Prof. Adriano Nuvunga, Ph.D. (@adriano_nuvunga) April 11, 2020
In late March, photos of the group bearing an Islamic State flag in what looks like the administration offices of the village of Quissanga circulated widely on social media (Global Voices has attempted to verify the authorship and date of the photo but could not):
Talvez aceitarmos logo de uma vez que o Estado Islâmico está em #Mocambique. pic.twitter.com/Tq943at1J5
— Alexandre (@AllexandreMZ) March 25, 2020
The central government stated that these attacks must stop and the perpetrators must be arrested and sentenced:
O Governo condena veemente os hediondos e violentos ataques e continuará a perseguir todos os assassinos, levando-os, como está a acontecer, à barra da justiça
The government strongly condemns the heinous and violent attacks and will continue to pursue all the killers, bringing them to justice
As well as the attacks, there are reports of disappearances of journalists. The most recent disappearance was that of a local radio presenter, RFI Portuguese reported:
De acordo com as informações do MISA-Moçambique Ibraimo Mbaruco saiu de casa para a Rádio por volta das 15,00 horas do dia 7 de Abril em curso, onde esteve a trabalhar até cerca das 18,00 horas do mesmo dia. O jornalista teria sido sequestrado quando regressava a casa, entre as 18,00 e 19,00 horas.
Esta instituição refere ainda que momentos antes, Ibraimo Mbaruco teria enviado uma curta mensagem (SMS) a um dos seus colegas de trabalho, informando que estava cercado por militares. A partir desse momento, não mais atendeu às chamadas, embora o seu telefone continuasse a dar sinal de estar ainda comunicável.
According to information from MISA-Mozambique, Ibraimo Mbaruco left home for the radio at around 15:00 on 7 April, where he was working until about 18:00 the same day. The journalist was reportedly kidnapped on his way home between 18:00 and 19:00.
MISA-Mozambique also stated that moments before, Ibraimo Mbaruco had sent an SMS to a colleague, saying that he was surrounded by soldiers. Afterwards, he answered no more calls, although his phone still signalled it was connected
In a report published on April 13 by the Institute of Economic and Social Studies (IESE), the researcher Sérgio Chichava argues that everything indicates the country is facing a radical Islamic group which wants to impose Islamic law.
For now, more research is needed to understand the changes the group has gone through over the last two and a half years, and the reasons for it choosing military means to achieve its goal, after initially favoring nonviolent action.
Quem é o “inimigo” que ataca Cabo Delgado? É o +recente #IDeIASn_127 de @schichava, que apresenta as diferentes hipóteses do governo moçambicano sobre a identidade e os objectivos do grupo que, desde 5 de Outubro de 2017, ataca a província. Leia-o aqui: https://t.co/7CROm9c85H pic.twitter.com/z5f5lwOI3q
— IESE (@IESE1) April 13, 2020
Who is the “enemy” attacking Cabo Delgado? The +recent #IDeIASn_127 of @schichava, presents the different hypotheses of the Mozambican government about the identity and objectives of the group that, since 5 October 2017, has been attacking the province. Read it here.
Recently, a group of local artists released a song in local languages to call for the attacks in the province to stop:
A primeira música https://t.co/s6KVAhgrCZ que acompanho condenando os ataques de #CaboDelgado. O grupo é de Mueda e canta em Maconde, Swahili e Português.
CORO:
Porquê nos matam, nos cortam como se fôssemos galinhas, porquê nos matam, nos injustiçam porquê. O que fizemos?! pic.twitter.com/oiwQCgvRRn
— Alexandre (@AllexandreMZ) April 15, 2020
The first song I’ve heard condemning the attacks in #CaboDelgado. The group is from Mueda and sings in Maconde, Swahili and Portuguese.
CHORUS:
Why they kill us, cut us like chickens,
why do they kill us, why do they wrong us
What have we done?!
The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) highlighted that if control over the situation is lost, a major crisis could be triggered throughout the southern African region::
Há uma necessidade da intervenção da SADC (comunidade de países da África Austral), é verdade que a SADC é aquela entidade que todos nós conhecemos, amorfa, mas tem que ser mobilizada para intervir aqui.
There is a need for SADC (Southern African Development Community) intervention, it is true that SADC is that entity we all know, amorphous, but it has to be mobilized to intervene here.

author: Dércio Tsandzana