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At Least 86 Killed in Explosions at Ankara Peace Rally · Global Voices
John Lubbock

Ankara – image by Jorge Franganillo. Creative Commons.
Twin bombings hit a peace rally organised by leftist groups in Ankara on the morning of October 10 in what has proven the deadliest bomb attack in Turkish history. The interior ministry initially announced a death toll of 30 people. The health ministry updated the figure to 86 during the day, while The Turkish Medical Association which participated in the rally puts the total killed at 97 with scores injured.
The attacks come ahead of a snap November 1 election called after a tense and historic vote in June failed to deliver the dominant Justice and Development Party (AKP) its customary majority in the parliament.
Since that time the government has carried out military strikes on the brutal ISIS terror group in the Middle East and recommenced its war with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a militant group that favours Kurdish independence from Turkey but which had reached a truce with the government in 2013.
The build-up to the vote has been characterised by an atmosphere of fear, violence and intimidation, especially in Eastern Turkey where state security forces have reportedly been harassing the local population, ostensibly in an effort to root out the PKK.
Selahattin Demirtaş, leader of the left-leaning pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) whose success in the June election shattered AKP's hold over the parliament, was quick to lay the blame for the blast at the door of the state security services.
Our Co-Chair #Demirtaş: This attack is not targeting our state and national unity, it is perpetrated by the state against the people.
— HDP English (@HDPenglish) October 10, 2015
The General Secretary of the union DISK who organised the rally also blamed the police, who attacked those trying to help the injured with teargas according to several reports.
Ankara'daki patlamada DİSK Genel Sekreteri Arzu Çerkezoğlu “Doğrudan polis tarafından yapılan bir saldırıdır bu” dedi HÜKMÜ VERMİŞ BİLE! — hacı yakışıklı (@haciykk) October 10, 2015
‘DISK General Secretary Arzu Çerkezoğlu said the attack in Ankara was “directly done by the police” He already made the judgement!’
The circumstances of the bombing were reminiscent of the Suruç bombing in July that left 32 people dead. The Suruç attack in eastern Turkey was claimed by ISIS and like the Ankara attack targeted Kurdish and leftist groups. The groups were gathering to help reconstruct the battered Kurdish-majority town of Kobane in Syria.
Security officials reported that the October 10 bombing was also carried out by a suicide bomber, who has yet to be identified.
NTV footage showing steel marbles scattered around the blast area in Ankara https://t.co/n8mjqtIPgd
— NOT MY… (@Meralink) October 10, 2015
The attacks have exposed again the polarised nature of Turkish society, with supporters of AKP accusing the HDP of bombing its own supporters to gain sympathy before the November 1 general election with the hashtag #HDPsVoteBomb.
Baraj için yaptığın bu katliamlar yanına kalmayacak! @hdpdemirtas #HDPninOyBombası
— Esma Nur Yıldırım (@Esma_Nur_Yldrm) October 10, 2015
You will not get away with the murders you did to pass the [voting] threshold #HDPsVoteBomb
bir yerde bomba patlıyorsa ya siz koymuşsunuzdur, ya da sizin çocuklar. diyarbakır mitinginizi de suruç'taki gençleri de böyle patlattınız.
— esat ç. (@esatreis) October 10, 2015
If a bomb explodes somewhere, either you or your kids put it there. You bombed your Diyarbakir rally and the young people in Suruç like this as well.
In return, anti-government accounts blamed President Erdogan and the intelligence agency boss Hakan Fidan.
Hakan Fidan MİT müsteşarı olduğundan bu güne hangi katliamı önledi? Roboski, Reyhanlı, Suruç, Diyarbakır, Ankara… Yüzlerce can gitti.
— Özde-Mîr (@highlanderarda) October 10, 2015
Since he became head of MIT (intelligence agency), which murders did Hakan Fidan prevent? Roboski, Reyhanlı, Suruç, Diyarbakır, Ankara… hundreds of people have died.
On October 9, Turkish mafia boss Sedat Peker held a rally in support of the AKP government where he warned that “rivers of blood” would flow before the election.
“There'll be streams of blood as if the world's throat is slit.They'll understand when rivers of their blood flow.” http://t.co/i4ncVqcpWI
— Aykan Erdemir (@aykan_erdemir) October 10, 2015
Shortly after the bombings, the PKK declared a unilateral ceasefire, a move dismissed as an election ‘tactic’ by the AKP. HDP leader Selahattin Demirtaş also called for the cancellation of all HDP rallies before the election.
The latter move puts further in doubt the likelihood that the election — which may yet be postponed — can be held in a fair and open climate. Many view the very notion of a vote in the current political environment as completely untenable.
As speculation and arguments about the bombing increased on social media, the government appeared to block access to Twitter.
There we go – Turkey turned Twitter off and I'm back on VPN.
— Ankaralı Jan (@06JAnk) October 10, 2015
Grateful for the VPN on my phone. It seems that #Turkey has blocked Twitter in the aftermath of today's devastating bombings in #Ankara
— Lucy Kafanov (@LucyKafanov) October 10, 2015
The block was accompanied by a broadcast ban on coverage of the Ankara attack, limiting the likelihood of impartial information about the bombing. (Turkey's independent media has come under intense pressure from the government and nationalist thugs in recent times).
#Ankaradayız eylemine yapılan bombalı saldırı sonrası Başbakan Yrd. @Y_Akdogan “yayın yasağı” aldırdığı anlaşıldı. pic.twitter.com/Km9GEIlTJr
— TABLdotTV (@TABLdotTV) October 10, 2015
On Saturday afternoon, Deputy Prime Minister Akdogan addressed a statement to RTUK (Radio Television High Commission) to impose a temporary broadcast ban about the bombings for reasons of ‘national security and public order’
Many on the ground in Turkey believe that the government bears some responsibility for tacitly approving attacks on the HDP. Outside the hospital in Ankara where the wounded were taken, a crowd gathered to chant ‘Murderer Erdogan’.
“Murderer Erdogan” people are shouting in front of hospital in #ankara after bombings killed dozens of people. https://t.co/bcjiTJbYq6
— Capulcu Tonella (@diehimbeertonis) October 10, 2015
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has announced three days of mourning following the October 10 blasts.
On scale of today's terrorist attack in #Turkey from a historical perspective. Source: http://t.co/CcNptbjKUi pic.twitter.com/BdW1Xyto2Q
— Erik Meyersson (@emeyersson) October 10, 2015

author: John Lubbock


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Belarus Catches Up to Russia With Its Own Pro-government ‘Troll Factory’ · Global Voices
Sergey Kozlovsky

Belarusians are noticing suspiciously similar comments under news articles—are government trolls to blame? Images mixed by Tetyana Lokot.
As the relations between Russia and the West soured over the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, Kremlin officials have been intensifying their information manipulation efforts. This summer for the first time the world found out about Russian troll factories—the secretive agencies that hire people to write and spread pro-Kremlin propaganda on the Internet.
It turns out, there is a online troll factory in Belarus as well. Several months ago local media detected accounts posting similar positive comments about the Belarusian ruble to US dollar exchange rate. The dollar exchange rate has soared almost six-fold during the last five years, with the Belarusian ruble heavily dependent on the state of neighboring Russia's economy, which is currently in deep trouble. At the end of August, 2015, the US dollar surpassed 17,000 Belarusian rubles—a record high. For reference, at the beginning of 2011 one US dollar cost 3,000 Belarusian rubles.
It was in August of this year that journalists of the opposition newspaper Nasha Niva (Our field) first noticed that some users were praising the ruble, at the time when it was so unstable. The suspected trolls would write that they “believed in ruble” and that Belarusians would overcome all temporary difficulties: “Don’t panic! Everything's gonna be alright!” Journalists dutifully copied all the “suspicious” comments and published a collection of them on their website (many original comments have since been deleted after the “unmasking.”)
In general, the Belarusian trolls are seen using three main tactics. First, one should say that everything is alright and that any concerns about the issue are simply a sign of panic.
Решили посеять панику? Зря. Валюты в обменниках хватает. Покупайте! И вообще-то, в стране все под контролем)))
So you decided to spread panic? It's no use. There is enough currency in exchange offices. Buy it! And, by the way, everything in the country is under control.
Second, one should mention that Belarusians don't need dollars, because they spend their money in Belarus, not in the US.
Навошта мне гэтая амерыканская валюта!? Я усе свае дабро берагу у беларуских рублях. Я жыву у Беларуси, а не у Амерыцы
What do I need this American currency for? I keep all my savings in Belarusian rubles. I live in Belarus, not in America.
And thirdly, always blame the West.
Все мы понимаем, почему происходит падения рубля: сейчас это явно спровоцировано из вне. И если бы власть сегодня «показушно» сдерживала курс, то неизвестно к чему бы это привело к концу года. Всё это мы неоднократно проходили… вон, лучше на природу съездите, отдохните… а то стоять в очереди за несчастными 50 долларами – только больше нервов потратите.
We all understand why the [Belarusian] ruble is falling: right now this is being instigated by external forces. And if the authorities held back the exchange rate today just for show, no one knows what the consequences would be by the end of the year. We've been through this… Why don't you go to the countryside instead, chill out… Because you'll just waster your nerves standing in line for the lousy 50 bucks.
Of course, there is no proof that these commenters are definitely trolls. But recently, the ElectBy election observation project received some evidence that there might indeed be a troll factory operating in Belarus. Anonymous users provided ElectBy with screenshots of e-mails that appeared to be sent by the pro-government Belarusian Republican Youth Union to its local chapters.
In these letters the sender writes to “dear colleagues” asking them to comment on certain news articles (links are provided) about an opposition rally. Commenters are expected to write that the calls to protests are a run-of-the-mill provocation and that those who did attend the rallies got themselves four-year prison sentences. Trolls are also asked to provide screenshots as proof of their “work.” “Grants are for provocateurs,” – says the letter's author, suggesting one way to comment on the articles. If we look at some of the comments about the recent opposition protest collected by Nasha Niva, it's easy to see that the most common words in the collected comments are “provocation,” “provoke,” and “provocateurs.”
Бред! Как пришли,так и ушли люди!Обычная провокация
What a bunch of drivel! People came and then they left! A regular provocation
The “troll” situation is becoming all the more fascinating since the Belarusian presidential election is drawing close. In one of the leaked letters, trolls are allegedly asked to comment on the pre-election manifesto of the current President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, published on the popular (politically neutral) news site TUT.BY. On one important condition—the comments should be “positive.”
Dear colleagues,
URGENT work needed on this news story
COMMENTING TODAY-TOMORROW
First deadline – today 16.09 at 5:30pm
Second deadline – tomorrow 17.09 at 9:45am
Write everything in a positive tone. Feel free to take up additional points and expand on them.
We need screenshots for these articles!!! And also, when you write the comments, try to vote the previous ones down or up (especially on TUT.BY)
And I hope I don't have to explain to anyone that this article is SPECIAL, so it needs your GREATEST attention!!!
Respectfully,
Vitebsk OK
Again, simply writing positive things about Lukashenka doesn't prove that these users are paid or organized trolls. But the TUT.BY readers also passed their sentence—all the favorable comments have been overwhelmingly downvoted.
The next presidential election takes place this Sunday, October 11. There is no doubt that Lukashenka, who has kept his place at the top since 1994, will win again. After the election, the trolls’ activity will likely die down—the current (and probably future) president is known for his ability to rule the country with an iron fist, so manipulating public opinion in the online comments won't be as necessary. Still, the introduction of a “softer” means of impacting Belarusians’ minds points, perhaps, to a willingness to try new methods of influence and a more complicated politics at play in Belarus.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Sergey Kozlovsky


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Political Cartoons Defy Censorship to Expose Thai-Style ‘Democracy’ · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

This cartoon by Sia features several countries urging Thailand to restore democracy. The response of the junta is this: “Y'all don't understand… We're returning happiness to Thai people.” The cartoon was widely shared on social media when Sia was “invited” by the army for “attitude-adjustment.” Image from @Thai_Talk.
Despite strict media regulation in Thailand, some political cartoonists continue to highlight the harsh impact of military rule on the country's freedom of expression.
French cartoonist Stephane Peray, more popularly known as Stephff, and Thai cartoonist Sakda Sae Iew or Sia have been consistent in depicting the anti-democratic policies of the military-backed government led by former army chief and now Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha.
The army grabbed power in 2014 and drafted an interim charter that became the basis in establishing a civilian government known as the National Council for Peace and Order. Prayut vowed to restore elections, but only after the military had completed the implementation of political and electoral reforms in the country.
Despite the lifting of martial law, protests are still banned and some critics continue to be “invited” by the army for so-called “attitude-adjustment.” Last month, a veteran journalist was summoned by the army for spreading “misinformation” about the junta.
Last October 4, political cartoonist Sia was interrogated in an army office for “content in some of the cartoons that do not represent the facts.” Sia’s cartoons are published on Thairath, the biggest circulation newspaper in Thailand. The cartoon that was criticized by the junta refers to the speech made by Prayut at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
The cartoon features Prayut affirming the government’s adherence to principles of human rights and free speech, despite the long list of abuses committed by the authorities.
Famous cartoonist “Sia Thairath” summoned by junta for mocking Prayut's #UNGA speech & reality in #Thailand. pic.twitter.com/bti2W28dzj
— Sunai (@sunaibkk) October 4, 2015
Sia was eventually released but was told to stop “misrepresenting facts” in his cartoons. Below is an excerpt of Sia’s interview with the media:
…they said that from now on, if they see that my drawings and cartoons do not represent facts, they will take legal action against me, and I will be held responsible.
One of those who expressed support for Sia was fellow artist Stephff, who is also editorial cartoonist for the Thai media outlet The Nation:
cartoon for the nation tomorow – I really hope they will publish this one in order to defend a fellow cartoonist pic.twitter.com/361acRVUGM
— stephff art (@stephffart) October 4, 2015
Reacting to Sia's plight, Stephff went to town on Twitter, posting a string of artistic reflections on Prayut's rule. Many of Stephff’s cartoons are helpful in understanding and explaining how the coup and subsequent junta rule have undermined democracy in Thailand. For example, this cartoon shows army chief Prayut appointing himself as the country’s prime minister:
best of Prayut – toon 1 pic.twitter.com/E3x9ywl8E2
— stephff art (@stephffart) October 4, 2015
One of the protest symbols against the junta is the three-fingered salute inspired by the Hollywood movie “Hunger Games.” This cartoon mocks the order of the junta to ban three-fingered salutes in the country:
best of Prayut – toon 15 pic.twitter.com/oC1mK5uAWP
— stephff art (@stephffart) October 4, 2015
Stephff also parodied the junta's “attitude-adjustment” technique through a cartoon about Prayut's recent visit to the UN:
best of Prayut – toon 30 pic.twitter.com/UAS76VysPP
— stephff art (@stephffart) October 4, 2015
Meanwhile, this cartoon tackles the proposal of the government to filter and monitor Internet content by establishing a single gateway for traffic into and out of Thailand, which critics have dubbed the “Great Firewall of Thailand”:
cartoon of the day – Prayut's great Firewall pic.twitter.com/EzFd80ymLg
— stephff art (@stephffart) October 5, 2015
Prayut has said his government has managed to eradicate corruption, but this cartoon echoes the criticism of some analysts that the junta did not stop the corrupt activities of its allies:
best of Prayut – toon 29 pic.twitter.com/pm7xAzjfaL
— stephff art (@stephffart) October 4, 2015
Finally, this cartoon adopted the theme of the Hollywood animated film “Inside Out” to portray Prayut’s obsession with Thaksin, an ousted prime minister who now lives in exile in another country:
best of Prayut – toon 14 pic.twitter.com/sqH35Wlup7
— stephff art (@stephffart) October 4, 2015

author: Mong Palatino


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Say Goodbye to the Biodiversity at Europe’s Oldest Lake? · Global Voices
Elena Nikolovska

A new plan to build a ski center, as well as a road, in Macedonia's Galichica National Park threatens the existence of more than a hundred rare and endemic species, jeopardizing the ecosystem of Europe's oldest lake.
In late August 2015, the Macedonian government announced a 10-year urbanization plan for Lake Ohrid and Galichica National Park, much to the dismay of the international scientific community and many Macedonian citizens. Construction is scheduled to begin in the middle of Galichica National Park, which is part of the Prespa-Ohrid Transboundary Biosphere Reserve—one of only 15 remaining in the world. The unique national park is also part of a larger UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Galichica is home to more than 5,330 different types of plants and animals, of which 114 are endemic and do not exist anywhere else in the world. More than 1,500 species of butterflies and moths live in the meadows of Galichica, among them the endangered Appolo butterfly (Parnassius Apollo). Another fascinating resident of Galichica is the small Crocus Cvijicii flower, which, like the Appolo, is also on the IUCN list of vulnerable species.
The recent decision by the Macedonian government to build a ski center, an expressway, and three tourist development zones inside the biosphere reserve came as a shock to local ecologists and members of the Macedonian public, some of whom have decided to protest the decision through media and petitions against the urbanization plan.
At the last hearing for the Strategic Environmental Assessment for the Management Plan for National Park Galichica, one of the authors of the assessment, Elizabeth Van Zyl, explained that some areas need to be rezoned. Van Zyl proposed that the site should be excluded from the Zone of Active Management (ZAM) and transferred to the Zone of Sustainable Use (ZSU), to allow project infrastructure to be developed there. A total of approximately 604 hectares from within the ZAM are set to be reduced in status into the ZSU.
Despite these suggestions, Van Zyl also pointed out that such rezoning should be avoided where possible:
Downgrading the zoning is the last resort and should be avoided where and when possible.
To compensate for the loss of valuable biodiversity, offset measures will be used and areas of the park that may be negatively affected by the planned development projects will be replaced with other areas with the same species, found anywhere else in the country.
“The problem with this plan is that climate change will completely change the landscape, and in a year we might see beech growing where there is now oak. Which makes this plan completely useless,” said Mr.Lazo Naumoski, a local ecologist.
This seems to be just one of many issues regarding the UNESCO heritage site in question and Macedonia might have a large-scale ecological disaster on its hands because of the close connection between Lake Prespa, Mount Galichica, and Lake Ohrid. According to recent research conducted by scientists from the University of Cologne, Ohrid Lake is over 1.2 million years old, making it the oldest lake in Europe.
“The water in Lake Ohrid comes from 40 springs, 17 in Macedonia and the rest are on the Albanian side. Most of those springs are very high in nutrients and have an unstable PH value, but the springs coming from Galichica are full of calcium which balances things out. There is an underground connection between Lake Prespa and Lake Ohrid as Galichica Mountain is limestone, allowing the water to flow from Lake Prespa and towards Lake Ohrid. You’d be endangering two out of three natural lakes in Macedonia,” said Mr. Lazo Naumoski.
Three tourist development zones are also planned around the coast of Lake Ohrid. Resorts, luxury accommodation, and artificial beaches will replace the protected reed belt that now serves as a filter and provides nutrients to the lake and its inhabitants.
“Destroying the shorelines and the reed belts due to construction work, increased infrastructure, and a rise in the amount of tourism will lead to elevated nutrient input to the lake, which may, in turn, cause destruction to large parts of the habitats of Lake Ohrid’s unique fauna,” explained Dr. Bernd Wagner from the Institute of Geology and Mineralogy, University of Cologne.
To raise awareness about the flora and fauna that these projects will endanger, the civic initiative dubbed Ohrid SOS has released a declaration and launched an international petition. The declaration has already been signed by 250 international experts, as well as tourists who have visited Macedonia, and scientists from across the globe who have reached out to acknowledge the importance of Lake Ohrid.
Given Macedonia’s track record in urbanization so far, with the capital Skopje now being the most polluted city in Europe due to increased construction projects since 2012, this natural treasure might be in serious danger and the country stands to loose much more than just its UNESCO world heritage status in Ohrid.

author: Elena Nikolovska


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Documentary Explores What It’s Like to Be Black in Japan · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

The documentary features interviews with several individuals who identify as black living in Japan. Screenshot from YouTube.
Rachel & Jun is a popular and engaging YouTube channel that takes a bilingual approach to explaining all things Japanese.
With tens of thousands of Twitter and Facebook followers and a YouTube vlog that regularly racks up millions of views, Rachel & Jun has become the go-to place on the Internet to get almost any question about Japan answered.
Popular videos include Japanese perceptions of who is overweight and who is not, how to date a Japanese person or even how to buy a house in Japan.
While Rachel & Jun adopt a fun and lighthearted approach when vlogging about Japan and Japanese culture, they also provide some unique insights about life in the country.
One of their most popular videos is a documentary, Black in Japan.
The documentary spends two hours exploring the experiences of seven non-Japanese residents of Japan who identify as black.
The interviewees talk about being black in Japan, comparing their experiences with those of other non-Japanese in Japan. The seven subjects of the documentary also discuss how life in Japan is different, sometimes in positive ways compared to where they are originally from, typically the United States.
After watching the documentary Japan Times writer and Yokohama blogger Baye McNeil commented:
About this video, I will say this though: the black male experience in Japan is vastly different from the black female experience (as is the case in the US and other places as well…notice the vast majority of cop shootings are of black males…we are truly the endangered species there and the walking threat here–in the eyes of some).
[…] The VAST majority of black people in Japan ARE males! I would have liked to hear from more men. The two […] gave a bit of how intense it gets here in Japan with the fear / ignorance-induced behaviour of J-folk. And that gave the video an applaud-worthy balanced perspective.
Overall, this is by far the BEST video representation of the black experience in Japan I’ve seen to date […]
McNeil writes the Black Eye column for the Japan Times, and recently wrote a series profiling black women who have married Japanese men in Japan.

author: Nevin Thompson


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Execution of Palestinian Fadi Alloun, 19, in Occupied East Jerusalem Causes Nationwide Outrage · Global Voices
Elia J. Ayoub

Israeli police execution of #FadiAlloun as captured by 2 cameras, in sync: https://t.co/UpZDfcTymP #BDS #apartheid pic.twitter.com/HQQrLRZdy1
— ronnie barkan (@ronnie_barkan) octubre 10, 2015
A video showing the murder of Fadi Alloun, a 19-year-old Palestinian man who was shot dead by Israeli police in Musrara neighborhood beside Jerusalem’s Old City, is sending shock waves around the world as clashes between Israeli settlers and Palestinians escalated over the past three weeks.
According to witnesses, Alloun was being followed by around 70 Israeli Jewish settlers surrounded by the Israeli police on October 4. Moments later, we hear the mob yelling at the police, ‘It's a terrorist, shoot him!’ and ‘Don’t wait! Shoot him!’ followed by his execution. Alloun is not seen as posing any threat in the video, being surrounded by numerous armed men, and the settlers are seen rejoicing in his death, repeating ‘Yes! Yes!’ and ‘Son of a bitch’.
The video below (warning: graphic content) shows what happened in the moments before Alloun was shot and how he was killed:
While Alloun was accused by Israelis of having stabbed someone, Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Intifada points out that a police officer had asked one of the mob, after shooting Alloun, “Did he stab anyone?” to which the youth replied that he did not. While details of the alleged stabbing remain disputed, his execution is being credited as having caused further outrage among Palestinians.
Israeli authorities separated Fadi Alloun from his mother. Then they executed him in cold blood. https://t.co/tLIm1NCZXc via @Budour48 — Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) octubre 9, 2015
The mentioned separation from his mother was reported by activist and journalist Budour Hassan for the Electronic Intifada as yet another consequence of Israel's apartheid system. To quote parts of the story:
Last week, Fadi Alloun celebrated his 19th birthday with friends in Issawiyeh, a village in occupied East Jerusalem. He was thrilled that he had recently obtained a driving license. As a birthday gift, his father promised to help him buy a car.
Fadi had no stable job but was eager to find enough paid work so that he could realize this dream.
The Israeli police claim Fadi had tried to stab an Israeli teenager. But video evidence from the scene of Fadi’s killing on Sunday does not corroborate this claim.
Rather, the videos show the Israeli police executing Fadi in cold blood. A group of Israeli Jews was filmed rejoicing at his death.
Fadi’s experience with Israel’s apartheid system began when he was less than two years old.
His mother, who carried a Jordanian passport, travelled to Amman at that time to visit her sick father, taking Fadi’s younger brother with her.
The Israeli authorities banned her from returning to Jerusalem, tearing the family apart. For nearly 18 years, Fadi was unable to see his mother and brother. He could only talk to them on the phone or via the Internet.
Even after his death, the Israeli authorities have not yet granted his mother and brother a permit to pay Fadi a final farewell.
Because of the ban imposed on his mother, Fadi was raised by his father as an only child. His father, in his turn, refused to marry again, entirely devoting himself to his son, whom he described as “my heart and soul and everything in my life.”
The Electronic Intifada also talked to Alloun's father Sami, who said:
He was everything to me, the most precious thing in my life. I was his father, his mother and his best friend. Our relationship was very special.
The horrifying video, translated by Israeli activist Ronnie Barkan, is being widely shared online, prompting Mondoweiss to call it the video that ‘shocked global audience’.
For the past several days, residents of Jerusalem's Arab neighborhoods have described being terrorized as far-right Jewish mobs march through the streets with their infamous “Death to Arabs”, “A Jew has a soul, an Arab is a son of a whore” and “Kahane [notorious ultra-Zionist rabbi and member of the Knesset] was right” chants. Once again, the Electronic Intifada has led the way in documenting these rarely reported events with this article by Rania Khalek.
As reported by several Palestinian and Israeli activists:
Right wing mob moving toward East Jerusalem chanting ‘Death to Arabs.’ Police on horseback trying 2 contain somewhat pic.twitter.com/m2erFmI31N
— Laura Dean لورا دين (@lauracdean) octubre 8, 2015
Crowds of Israelis are chanting “death to Arabs” behind live report on Channel 2
— Mike S. Omer-Man (@MikeOmerMan) octubre 7, 2015
Right now- right wing attempt to march to the old city screaming “death to Arabs” among other things pic.twitter.com/0PGsAdop1b — Elisheva Goldberg (@ShevGoldberg) octubre 8, 2015
Among the crowd were members of Lehava, notorious for their practice of ‘anti-miscegenation’, meaning denouncing marriages between Jewish women and non-Jewish, particularly Palestinian, men. Lehava is short in Hebrew for LeMeniat Hitbolelut B'eretz HaKodesh, literally “Organization for Prevention of Assimilation in the Holy Land.” They were among those yelling “burn them in their villages” barely weeks after a Palestinian family was burned to death by settlers in the occupied West Bank, including 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh.
Lehava leading the pack. “Death to Arabs” “Muhammad is dead” “arabs are whores” pic.twitter.com/5y45FAc6nW
— Elisheva Goldberg (@ShevGoldberg) octubre 8, 2015
Police running, frantic and looking pretty scared. Mob headed to Yafo. Latest chant: “burn them in their villages” pic.twitter.com/OgRgBhChLh
— Elisheva Goldberg (@ShevGoldberg) octubre 8, 2015
As of Saturday, October 10, at least nine Palestinians were killed by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in Gaza, including 12-year-old Marwan Barbakh and 15-year-old Khalil Othman, as hundreds of Palestinians there took to the streets in protest against Israeli policies. On Monday, a 13-year-old Palestinian from the Aida refugee camp died after being shot by Israeli soldiers. According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, at least 1,600 Palestinians have been injured since October 3. In the first week of October alone, there have been over 122 attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians (a list was compiled by Mondoweiss) and the mayor of Jerusalem has called for Israeli citizens to militarize themselves. At least four Israelis have also been killed between October 1 and October 3. A round-up of the past 24 hours was made by Natasha Roth for 972mag.
Clashes between Palestinians and Israeli settlers — residents of Israeli settlements built in occupied areas of Palestine often surrounded by Israeli police and the IDF that the international community considers to be illegal — have been ongoing for three weeks following Israel's decision to restrict access for Palestinians at Al-Aqsa Mosque during Jewish and Muslim holidays.

author: Elia J. Ayoub


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Is Beirut the Codeswitching Capital of the World? · Global Voices
PRI/PRX's The World

A postcard in a mix of French, Arabic and English that reads, “I love you, my dear, so much.” Spotted at Tawlet Souk el Tayeb Restaurant in Mar Mkhael, Beirut. Photo by Flickr user Ted Swedenburg. CC BY-NC 2.0
This article and radio report by Dalia Mortada for The World originally appeared on PRI.org on October 5, 2015, and is republished here as part of a content-sharing agreement.
At this high-end organic farmer’s market in downtown Beirut, buyers and sellers speak a mishmash of languages, usually Arabic and English or French.
Just trying to pay for juice I have to switch back and forth from English to Arabic. The stand clerk starts in Arabic, “Here you go,” before switching in English, “these two [juices]?”
Pia Bou Khater is at the market with me. At the juice stand, she switches too. “Oh, I think I have change,” she says in English, before she continues in Arabic, “3000.”
Codeswitching this way is one of the characteristics that defines life in Beirut for visitors and for many Lebanese.
“When I'm interacting with people, like buying things or trying to bargain, I rarely switch,” Pia explains. “I do try to often figure out what the green leafy thing in question is, like, oh, is this the same as that in English? And then the word in French comes up,” she laughs, “and I'm like oh no I don't know it in French, please stop making this difficult.”
Multilingualism the way Pia knows it isn’t uncommon in Beirut. Many people here codeswitch to varying degrees, says linguist Loubna Dimachki. “Codeswitching, what does it mean? When you're combining two languages in one sentence or in the whole interaction,” she says, before she seamlessly uses the French word, “merci,” to say thanks to our waiter. Dimachki is considered “Francophone” — meaning, her dominant second language is French.
But that’s not the only reason she used “merci.” In Lebanon, hellos, thank-yous and how-are-yous are often said in French. Arabic is the core language, but kids are taught in French or English at school. French- and English-language schools have been around since the 1800s, when Catholic and Anglican missionaries arrived in the region. Then, after World War I, the French ruled Lebanon until the 1940s.
But another linguist, Lina Choueri, says the regular mixing of the three languages in everyday life actually didn’t happen until much later. “I just remember it being there and my father being upset about it,” she recalls.
Choueri’s dad’s generation just communicated in Arabic. Choueri — who went to school in the 80s — codeswitched. “My father hated it! He would say, ‘When you start with a language, just stick to it! Don't switch to another language!’”
Back at the market Pia agrees with Choueri’s dad. She’s not crazy about the idea that people should be expected to know English or French. “What if you don't know the other two extra languages that come in the country? It's like linguistic racism,” Pia says. English and French, even more so, were imposed through colonialism and occupation, and they’re remnants of that complicated history.
But linguist Dimachki sees all this code switching in a different light. The way people codeswitch in Beirut is unique. It’s not necessarily determined by age or ethnicity, she says, and it’s not relegated to home or school or the juice stand at the market. Multilingualism really is everywhere. Street signs are in Arabic and French, government websites often include English. Menus in lots of restaurants or cafes are in all three languages, and you’ll hear people switching between them.
That’s what makes Beirut different from cities like Barcelona, Jerusalem or Los Angeles. A person in LA might speak Spanish at home and English at work. But in Beirut, “They're all Lebanese, talking with Lebanese, so why all this code switching?” Dimachki asks. “You’ll never see two French speaking to each other in German or in Spanish or Chinese, unless maybe there is a reason. But here, it’s a way of speaking in a sense.”
Lebanese joke that this mishmash of languages is the “Lebanese mother tongue.” “When you have ‘Lebanese mother tongue,’ it's part of your identity in a way,” Dimachki says. “Or this is what you're claiming to be part of your identity.”
There’s even a Lebanese mother tongue T-shirt: “Hi. Keefak? Ca va?” it reads — greetings in English, Arabic and French.
My friend Pia calls it “the bastard sentence that sums it all up.”

author: PRI/PRX's The World


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Orthodox Serbian Village ‘Threatens’ to Convert to Islam in Bid to Restore Local Church · Global Voices
Danica Radisic

A street in the village of Šopić. Photo by Dungodung, used under CC BY-SA 3.0 license.
Residents of Šopić, a village just outside of Belgrade, threatened to “collectively convert to Islam” if their damaged Orthodox church wasn't reconstructed by the parish in October 2015. In a letter to Patriarch Irinej of the Serbian Orthodox Church, the parish members appealed to the leader of the Church to support the reconstruction of the small 150-year-old Šopić church that had been damaged in a natural disaster the previous summer.
According to Serbian daily Alo!, the trouble began when a tornado badly damaged the church within minutes in July 2014, ripping the roof off, and damaging the church bells and structure. In the meantime, the parish priest made the decision to have the church torn down and a new temple built on the site, despite the complaints of local residents to preserve the century and a half old structure. In the letter addressed to the leader of the Serbian Orthodox Church, the parish members say:
Ako ne dobijemo vašu podršku, koju očekujemo kao vernici i vaši ikreni mirjani, bićemo prinuđeni da, bože me prosti, pređemo kolektivno u islam kako bismo po pozitivnim zakonima Republike Srbije dobili bolju zaštitu za naše objekte i da kao naši stari mučenici na taj način čpuvamo našeg Gospoda Isusa Hrista u srcu, a na glavu stavimo bilo koju kapu koja će nam omogućiti da od bahatosti i bilo čije samovolje zaštitimo naše svetinje.
If we don't receive your support, which we expect as members of the faith and your faithful followers, we will be forced to, may God forgive us, collectively convert to Islam so that we can, in accordance with the positive laws of the Republic of Serbia, receive better protection of our temples and to keep our Lord Jesus Christ in our hearts as our ancient martyrs did, and to place on our heads whatever cap will allow us to protect our shrines from the arrogance and tyranny of anyone.
The parish members of Šopić added in statements to the media that they are not entirely opposed to the construction of a new church, as long as the old church is preserved and reconstructed, stressing that they feel their faith is not as protected as other minority faiths in Serbia.

author: Danica Radisic


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Refugees Take Over Danish Daily Newspaper For a Day to Tell Their Stories · Global Voices
Pernille Baerendtsen

The leading article is written by Lawja Jawad Mohammadi, who came to Denmark in 2002 from Iragi Kurdistan, where she used to work with a local women's association, a crisis centre for women, and as a journalist at Yeksani (Freedom). Her article is about what happens to the women when the men flee.
In Copenhagen, the Danish daily Information let 12 refugees, some newly arrived, all professional journalists, take over the entire 48 pages of the newspaper on Friday, October 9.
Lotte Folke Kaarsholm, a features editor at Information, explained in an interview to The Guardian on October 9:
Refugees are almost all we talk about in Denmark these days,[…] We thought we would shut up and let refugees set the agenda. What we got is radically different from what politicians are discussing.
The newspaper has shared the initiative on its Facebook page, including the initial process of identifying guest journalists. The idea did not come out of the blue but was spurred on by the wave of other citizen-driven actions trying to lend more gravity and nuance to the refugees’ situation.
Denmark's reaction to the refugee influx
The issue of refugees and its handling in Denmark has been on the agenda for years. However, during early September Denmark experienced a large influx of refugees, as seen in other parts of Europe, which increased the polarization of the debate in Denmark.
The minority Liberal administration, which came into power in June 2015, is supported by the populist Danish People's Party. This has meanst a shift to a harsher right-winged policy on refugees and immigrants. In September the Danish government placed adverts in Lebanese newspapers basically warning refugees going to Denmark. Ironically, the publication of these adverts collided with one of the most massive waves of refugees in decades.
The Danish government has been criticised for not taking a proactive and constructive approach to provide conditions for refugees, and several citizen-driven initiatives to welcome refugees have emerged as responses to the government's inaction. Amongst others, a group called “Citizens Reaching Out” produced counter-reaction crowdfunded adverts welcoming refugees and apologising on behalf of the Danish people. On September 27 another group, “Forsamlingen” (the Assembly), hosted an event gathering many citizen-driven initiatives working to support refugees.
Last week the government introduced demands for stricter rules on obtaining citizenship, and significantly lowered financial and practical support to refugees.
Giving a voice to the voiceless
Several European newspapers have included refugees and their stories on their pages, but the Danish initiative stands out for allowing refugees themselves to write and edit every word. Reactions have been very positve, and many international media are picking up the Danish daily's initiative, Huffington Post and The Guardian among them.
The Danish MP Uffe Elbæk tweeted:
Kæmpe ros til @informeren der i dag har overladt spalterne og de redaktionelle valg til en gruppe flygtninge #dkpol pic.twitter.com/6NqyqIRZY0
— Uffe Elbaek (@uffeelbaek) October 9, 2015
Huge praise to @informeren which today left the columns and the editorial choices to a group of refugees #dkpol
Radio host Anders Stegger also commended the initiative:
Hvis du skal købe én avis i år, så køb Information fra i dag. Den er kun skrevet af flygtninge og er helt overdrevet interessant @informeren
— Anders Stegger (@AndersStegger) October 9, 2015
If you buy only one newspaper this year, then buy Information from today. It is written only by refugees and it is wildly interesting @informeren.
Much to many people's surprise, the newspaper's former editor, Lars Hedegaard—who later became a widely-known critic of Islam and in 2011 was convicted of hate-speech—has offered praise for the courageous editorial decision, recommending people buy the newspaper. In a radio interview with Radio24syv Hedegaard reviewed the unique issue and said that publishing it was a good idea, since it could enrich the debate about the fate of refugees.
Information's Editor-in-Chief Christian Jensen and administrative director Mette Davidsen-Nielsen explained their choice to hand over the reins:
They (the refugees) are numbers in a statistic, and they are stand-ins in a political debate, in which they often feel estranged. We all talk about refugees but today the refugees are speaking to us.
Each and everyone of them have their story, their destiny, their profession and dreams for the future. But we hear them too seldom and only too sporadically.

author: Pernille Baerendtsen


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The Murky Ethics of Publishing Data on Russian Servicemen ‘Bombing Syria’ · Global Voices
Aric Toler

Why are Ukrainian citizen sleuths exposing Russian military participating in Syrian airstrikes? Images from Luis Prado and Pavel N. for the Noun Project.
On October 8, the Ukrainian website Mirotvorets (“Peacemaker”) published a list of nine Russian servicemen who were supposedly responsible for the death of Syrian civilians in Russia’s ongoing air bombing campaign in Syria. The exposure of personal information about these individuals raises questions about the thin line between social media verification, open-source investigation practices and the responsibility for appointing blame in an already messy conflict.
Mirotvorets, a civic initiative run by “academics, investigative professionals and journalists,” states its mission as using open source information to conduct “investigations of signs of crimes against the national security of Ukraine, peace, human security and international order.” The website allegedly has close ties with the Ukrainian Security Services (SBU) and Ministry of Interior (MVD), although it lists no official connections to these institutions and only suggests that law enforcement is “welcome to use their findings.”
The website's database controversially lists extensive personal details of Russian and Ukrainian citizens who were found to be either separatist fighters or were seen as “agents of the Kremlin.” Myrotvorets does not only list local separatist fighters and Russian volunteers and servicemen fighting in eastern Ukraine, but also the administrative workers working in separatist government offices in Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
With Friday’s publication of the names of Russian servicemen fighting in Syria, it seems the scope of the site has expanded outside of finding “enemies of the state” solely in Ukraine.
Among the individuals named by Mirotvorets are the pilots and commanders connected to the airstrikes in Syria, including a SU-25 pilot accused of “mass murder of civilians in Syria during air strikes.” The website published various photographs of the soldiers taken from their social media accounts, links to their profiles on popular Russian social media site VKontakte, their home addresses, and information regarding their military service record. In one case, Mirotvorets investigators even published the social media account of a Russian soldier’s wife.
Earlier, Russia launched a criminal case against Anton Gerashchenko, a Ukrainian official and adviser to Ukraine's interior minister, who shared a message from one of his Facebook “friends” with a call to publish photos of Russian servicemen fighting in Syria, so that their opponents could “exercise their revenge.” Gerashchenko also invited his Facebook readers to submit relevant information to the Mirotvorets website. The official's Facebook profile was then allegedly blocked, but is now back online.
Mirotvorets sleuths did not cite their sources or any grounds for naming these nine servicemen as participants in the Russian airstrikes in Syria. While Mirotvorets often does include such unsubstantiated information in its profiles of fighters in Ukraine, most other sites carrying out similar open source investigation, such as InformNapalm, Gruz200, and Bellingcat, make a point to never publish claims without available open source evidence to support them. Mirotvorets likely came to their conclusions by researching military unit 69806 of the Russian airforce, as each of the nine (except a higher-ranking commander who also happens to be the Russian Defense Ministry's official spokesperson) named servicemen serve in this unit. However, as previously noted, no open source evidence is cited in the website's accusations of the “mass murder of Syrian civilians” against the nine Russians named.
Investigating Russian military presence in Syria may seem outside of the initiative's previous scope of activities (so far, it has mostly dealt with Russian interventions in Ukraine), yet it does list “international law and order” as one of its mission objectives. The ethics of publishing the personal information of enlisted soldiers in an announced military operation in another country is more murky.
Exposing data about Russian servicemen fighting in Ukraine was justified by Mirotvorets as a tool of bringing to light the so-called hybrid warfare, given the Kremlin's denials about their troops on Ukrainian soil. However, putting aside the horror of civilian casualties for a moment, it is much more difficult to clearly justify publishing personal information of Russian pilots involved in airstrikes sanctioned by the Syrian government.
As the international relations and tensions between Ukraine, Russia, the U.S. and other countries involved in the various conflicts become more complicated, open source investigative teams like Mirotvorets will likely want to be more circumspect about the allegations they expose and the proof they find to support them. Otherwise, their readers might find it hard to trust their stated goal of transparency in the fog of war.

author: Aric Toler


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Video Blog Provides In-Depth Insights Into How Japanese Politics Work · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

Tokyo on Fire is a regular video blog about Japanese politics produced by Tim Langley. Image from YouTube channel.
If you want to learn more about Japanese politics, Tim Langley has just the YouTube channel for you.
Tokyo on Fire is an engaging, informative English-language video blog (vlog) that offers in-depth insights into Japanese politics.
Produced by veteran Japanese media “fixer” Tim Langley (@langleyesquire) and frequently featuring noted English-language commentator Michael Cucek, Tokyo on Fire covers whatever is happening at the moment in Japanese politics, from the recently finalized TPP aggreement to the controversial passage of the new security bills.
In this episode, Langley and guests Cucek and Kyoto University lecturer Nancy Snow discuss opposition parties in Japan.
While there are plenty of publications that report in detail on Japanese politics from a variety of perspectives, it's pretty rare to come across English-language reporting that examines the minutiae of how the Japanese political system works. Non-specialist publications typically struggle to unpack and contextualize events in Japanese politics.
Thanks to the hour-long format of the vlog, Langley and his fellow commentators are free to explore topics at length and avoid the cliches so common to more established publications.
Tokyo Fire generally reports on mainstream politics in Japan from an American perspective, without providing much analysis from a social justice perspective.
Langley himself is a lawyer and consultant specializing in public and corporate affairs, and has deep ties to Japan. He graduated with a law degree from Tohoku University, and previously worked as an aid to a Japanese Diet (parliament) member.


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Futureplaces: Porto Hosts Do-It-Together Medialab for Citizen Initiatives · Global Voices
Sara Moreira

futureplaces.org | @futureplacespt | #futureplaces2015
The momentum to build bridges between culture, society, technology, and scientific research in Portugal will transform into a flurry of productive activity in futureplaces, the event that turns the city of Porto into a “medialab for citizenship” every fall.
Now on its 8th edition, the challenge remains to “address the dynamics between new media and the socio-cultural fabric“ through a “multitude of workshops, projects, talks, creative events and think-tanks”, points out the website futureplaces.org.
Poster of #futureplaces2015
The digital media festival, turned into a “medialab” in 2013, is organized by the University of Porto in partnership with the University of Texas in Austin since 2008.
This year’s program, running from October 20 to 24, includes the universities’ joint doctoral symposium on digital media, and talks by the co-founder and former director of MIT Center for Future Civic Media, Chris Csikszentmihályi, and Paul Stacey, from Creative Commons, who will close the event with an interactive keynote titled “Global Citizens in a Global Commons“.
A “scientific-pop” workshop by researcher and musician Anabela Duarte (former Mler Ife Dada), Vox Express, will instigate a concert where song lyrics are made of academic abstracts and excerpts of PhD thesis.
Jono Podomore, a British producer, composer, musician and professor of music who has been at heart of the underground since the 80’s, will play a recital on the Theremin, one of the first fully electronic instruments ever, patented in 1928 and controlled without any physical contact by the performer.
The event also features an installation by renowned Portuguese artist MAISMENOS, ±REC(LAIM) THE FUTURE±, a “Hack a Farm” lab in a food garden, video games, and the opening of a urban ethnography exhibition and online participatory archive, Porto Pelo Porto (Porto by Porto), that documents historic representations of the name of the city.
The 8th edition is also going to mark the launch of an extensive multimedia archive that documents the past eight years of activities, and the debut of futureplaces audiolab, “a curated channel for futureplaces audio editions, past, present and future.”
futureplaces.org | @futureplacespt | #futureplaces2015
Catharsis and emancipation
Curator and director of the PhD Program in Design, Heitor Alvelos, with critical views on the relationship between media and citizenship, wrote in an essay from last year’s edition (“Dissolution as Reinvention”) that “if all existence is to be mediated, then no tangible experience is possible.”
Futureplaces is an omen of post-digital emancipation. In an exclusive interview with Global Voices in 2013, the magnetic-taped mascot of the event, Antifluffy, warned that “people can get a much better deal out of what media is offering them,” and since its inception, one of the mottos of futureplaces has been for citizens to take media in their own hands.
Citizens and the media: a fertile engagement
New forms of cooperative approaches to the production of our material culture will be addressed in the opening keynote by Chris Csikszentmihályi, who has been recently appointed European Research Area Chairman of Human-Computer Interaction and Design Innovation at Madeira Interactive Technologies Institute (M-ITI). The technologist, humanist, designer, and artist started the Rootio project, a sociotechnical platform that mixes communities, telephony, networking, and radio to create new models of community information.
Together with experimental music, grassroots media is part of the soul of futureplaces. Community radio Manobras Futuras will be there and, once again this year, a series of interviews with researchers and PhD students will bring science closer to citizenship through Radio Science, a program where academic research projects are translated for the ordinary citizen.
Participants are also invited to contribute to what might sound like unusual “coverage” in present days: documenting futureplaces with no photography, no video, and no sound. Sketchbook diaries with illustration, drawing, collage, and written words become the new old media of the futureplaces experience.
Citizen Labs: where experts and citizens converge
A video mosaic from a futureplaces citizen lab on narratives from Porto's historical center – “Museum of Ransom” was interviewed for Rising Voices in 2013.
There is also a wealth of Citizen Labs offered by artists and researchers, whose titles provide some clues on the multitude of media contexts being addressed, such as A Lexicon for the Future, Image Symphony, Networked Practices or Rescuing Oral Memory, dedicated to mini-documentary filmmaking in historic neighborhoods of Porto.
The results of all labs will be shared on the last day of the festival, in The Academy of Citizens, an afternoon of teaching on the social and cultural construction fueled by futureplaces. Far from being designed simply to entertain, futureplaces rehearses new forms of action in everyday life, aiming at providing first steps for longer routes whose fruits only the future can reveal.
These are just a few glimpses of the activities. The full program is available at futureplaces.org. All activities are free.

author: Sara Moreira


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In Brazil, Where Abortion Is Illegal, a Domestic Worker Faces Public Scrutiny After Abandoning Her Child · Global Voices
Taisa Sganzerla

The mother is taken into custody in São Paulo and is harassed by the media. Photo: Screenshot/TV
It all started on October 4th, a Sunday evening, when the concierge of a building in Higienópolis, an affluent neighborhood in São Paulo, was heading to church. He heard a cry and found, underneath a tree, a newborn baby, wrapped in blankets and placed inside a paper bag of “Au Pied de Cochon,” a famous Parisian restaurant.
The media made a big fuss about it. The infant girl became known as “the baby of Higienópolis.” Police officers posed for photos with the child. The concierge who found her gave interviews and was treated like a hero. The father never came into the picture.
Later, a CCTV video of a woman leaving the child by the tree surfaced and was circulated widely. There she was, the mother, the villain: what a monster, people would cry on social media; how can someone abandon a defenseless baby?
Soon they found her: she was identified as Sandra Queiroz, 37, who works as a live-in maid for a family in a nearby apartment. She was born in the Brazilian Northeastern state of Bahia, and like many women from that underdeveloped part of the country, moved to São Paulo to work as domestic help. She already had two children: a 17-year-old boy, who lives in her hometown with her parents, and a 3-year-old, who lives with her in the house of her employers, who never noticed her latest pregnancy.
She gave birth on the afternoon of that Sunday, on her own, in a bathroom in the servant's quarters (a common space in Brazilian homes, even apartments), after her bosses had left to have lunch.
Sandra Queiroz didn't have it easy from the police—or the public. She was detained on the following Wednesday while taking her 3-year-old to school. At the police station, she was harassed by reporters, who asked her “why did you abandon the child?,” to which she replied that she did it “out of desperation.” Though she was later released, Queiroz was charged with abandonment of incapable and now faces up to 3 years in jail.
Sandra Queiroz's situation highlights the many challenges Brazil faces with regards to women's rights. Abortion is illegal in the country (except in cases of proven rape and life risk to the mother), but about 1 million abortions are performed in Brazil each year and are among the main causes of maternal deaths. Clandestine clinics charge about 2,000 USD for a safe procedure, which means that the majority of women who die performing abortions at home are poor.
Giving a child away for adoption in Brazil isn't so simple. A mother has to attend an interview at Child Protective Services, provide them with a health certificate for the baby (which can only be issued in a hospital), and state her reasons for not wanting to keep the baby. In the end, only a judge will decide its fate.
“The rich abort, the poor die”. September 28th was the day of decriminalization of abortion in Latin America and the Caribbean. Shared on Facebook by Levante Popular da Juventude (Popular Youth Levant).
But the news on what happened to Sandra Queiroz revealed something that is, perhaps, even more pervasive: a culture that favors judgment over empathy and who punishes women's sexuality.
Many people pointed out how the media portrayed the whole thing. In a widely shared Facebook post, Lucas Bulgarelli wrote:
No Estadão: “Polícia detém mãe que abandonou bebê recém nascido em Higienópolis”.
Não coube no título que essa mãe habitava uma minúscula senzala próxima à área de serviço, em Higienópolis.
Não coube que ela abandonou o bebê para não perder o emprego.
Não coube o pai.
Não coube que seus patrões ficaram 9 meses sem perceber que ela estava grávida.
Não coube que ela fez o parto sozinha no banheiro de empregada.
Não coube a única frase dela que o jornal deixou que soubéssemos: “fiz por desespero”.
Não coube que ela esperou até que o bebê fosse achado, enquanto corria para chegar em casa antes da patroa.
Não coube a outra filha de 3 anos, que agora está na senzala sem a mãe.
Não coube que a poucas quadras dali existe uma clínica clandestina de aborto para a elite paulistana.
Não coube sequer o nome dos seus senhores.
Mas coube que ela foi presa e que a polícia agiu porque, em Higienópolis, quando se é escrava, a impunidade fala mais alto do que qualquer hipocrisia.
In Estadão [newspaper]: “Police detains mother who abandoned newborn in Higienópolis.”
It didn't fit into the headline that her mother inhabited a servant's quarters [senzala] close to the kitchen, in Higienópolis.
It didn't fit that she abandoned the baby so she wouldn't lose her job.
It didn't fit that she gave birth alone in a bathroom.
It didn't fit her only quote in the whole story: “I've done it out of desperation.”
It didn't fit that she waited on the street until the baby was found, while she rushed to arrive home before her employers.
It didn't fit her other daughter, the 3-year-old, who is now in the senzala without her mother.
It didn't fit that a few blocks from there there is a clandestine abortion clinic for São Paulo's elite.
It didn't even fit the name of her masters.
Blogger Juliana Cunha commented on another story published in the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo:
Acho muito violenta essa imagem do policial salvador do bebê. Muito violento que a matéria fale em patrões, mas no final só apareça ali a patroa, tanto no título quanto no texto. Muito violento que divulguem o vídeo (não tem informação alguma no vídeo, só tem a vergonha da mulher).
Uma coisa bonita no jornalismo é reparar quem diz, quem alega e quem simplesmente faz. Repare: se o entrevistado diz que entrou em desespero (no caso, a mãe), eu não tenho como saber se ele de fato entrou em desespero ou se disse isso apenas para aliviar sua barra. Mas se o outro entrevistado diz que estava indo para a missa (o zelador), eu também não tenho como saber se ele de fato estava indo para a missa ou se disse isso apenas para parecer ainda mais bondoso.
A rigor, quase toda informação dada por entrevistados teria que ser acompanhada de “alega fulano”. No entanto, cenas explícitas de ideologia em toda matéria: observe sempre quem alega, quem “diz ter” e quem simplesmente é acreditado pelo texto.
Uma mãe que é presa levando a filha para a escola diz ter entrado em desespero quando decidiu abandonar seu bebê na rua.
Um zelador herói (nada contra o zelador e seu heroísmo) simplesmente vai à missa, porque é isso que zeladores heróis fazem. E isso que mães ignóbeis dizem.
I think this image of the baby-saving policeman is very violent. It's very violent that the story talks about employers, but in the end only the female employer is referred to, in the headline and the story. It's very violent that they would disclose the video (there isn't a single piece of information in the video, there's only the woman's shame).
An interesting thing in journalism is to notice who says, who claims and who simply does. Pay attention: if a source says she was ‘desperate’ (in this case, the mother), there is no way I am able to know if she really was desperate or if she just said this to justify her actions. But if the other source says he was going to church (the concierge), I also don't know if he was really going to church or if he said this to look even more honorable.
In theory, every information given by sources should be accompanied by “claims so-and-so”. However, there are explicit instances of ideology in the whole story: observe who claims, who “allegedly does” and who is backed by the text.
A mother who is detained while taking her daughter to school says she was desperate when she decided to abandon her child in the street.
A hero concierge (nothing against the concierge and his heroism) simply goes to church, because that's what heroes do. And that's what ignoble mothers say.
In the same newspaper, columnist Claudia Colucci pointed out how countries like Italy reintroduced the concept of the “foundling wheel“, a mechanism widely used in European hospitals and churches since the Middle Ages that allowed mothers to give away children in anonymity.
Foi pensando nessas mulheres que dão à luz sozinhas e depois deixam seus bebês nas ruas que a Itália reinventou a “roda dos expostos”, um local seguro em que a mãe pode deixar o bebê e ir embora sem se identificar.
Ao menos três hospitais filantrópicos em Roma e Milão dispõem de berços aquecidos, com vídeo e alarme para avisar da chegada do bebê. Só em Milão são abandonados em média 50 bebês por ano. Muitos são filhos de imigrantes, mas há também bebês italianos, cujas mães preferem doá-los a vê-los passar por necessidades.
O tribunal italiano espera 20 dias para que a mãe se arrependa e reclame o filho, antes de levá-lo para adoção.
No Brasil, a “roda dos enjeitados” funcionou até o fim da década de 1940, principalmente no Rio e em São Paulo. Na Santa Casa de São Paulo, o método existiu de 1825 e 1948. É nesse hospital que está o “bebê de Higienópolis” desde o último domingo.
It was thinking of those women who give birth on their own and then leave their babies on the streets that Italy reinvented the “foundling wheel,” a safe place where a mother can take the baby and leave without having to identify herself.
At least three philanthropic hospitals in Rome and Milan have warm cradles, with video and alarm to announce the baby's arrival. In Milan only, about 50 babies are abandoned per year. Many are children of immigrants, but there are also Italian babies whose mothers would rather give them away than see them go through hardship.
The Italian court waits 20 days for the mother to regret and reclaim the child before putting it up for adoption.
In Brazil, the foundling wheel existed until the end of the 1940's, mainly in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. The Santa Casa de São Paulo hospital had one from 1825 to 1948. It's in this hospital that “the baby of Higienópolis” has been since last Sunday.
One media outlet managed to reach out to one of Sandra Queiroz's employers, and the woman said that Sandra is still at her house and, had she known of the pregnancy, she wouldn't have fired her.
A close friend of Queiroz also told the press that the child's father, with whom Sandra has had a short-lived relationship, was indeed informed of the pregnancy by Sandra, but “didn't care.” This week, he told reporters that he is “not sure if the child is his.”

author: Taisa Sganzerla


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Watch Out, Internet! Ukraine Is Getting Its Own Cyberpolice · Global Voices
Tanya Lokot

The new Ukrainian cyberpolice force is tasked with protecting the country and its citizens from malicious Internet activity, and is expected to do it better than its predecessors. Photo by Ruslan Stepanov for Demotix. Images mixed by Tetyana Lokot.
Ukraine's law enforcement ranks will soon feature a special division tasked with preventing cyberthreats and apprehending criminals in the information sphere. The country's interior minister Arsen Avakov announced the news on his Facebook page and said that the first applications to serve in the “cyberpolice” force would be accepted starting on October 15, 2015.
ЦЕ ТВОЯ НОВА ПОЛІЦІЯ.
КИБЕРПОЛИЦИЯ – ВАШ ЗАХИСТ У ВІРТУАЛЬНОМУ ПРОСТОРІ І НЕ ЛИШЕ!
Відтепер, користуючись інтернетом та його можливостями, ви зможете отримувати поліцейську допомогу в режимі реального часу.
THIS IS YOUR NEW POLICE.
CYBERPOLICE—YOUR PROTECTION IN THE VIRTUAL SPHERE AND ELSEWHERE!
Now, as you use the Internet and everything it offers, you can receive police help in real time.
According to Avakov, the goal of creating a cyberpolice unit within the Ministry of Interior is to further reform and develop the institution by bringing in highly qualified professionals to work on preventing and fighting Internet crimes. Using new technologies and providing appropriate training, Avakov said, will allow to transform the cybercrime unit into a modern force equipped to neutralize threats in the field of information and communication technologies, such as transnational criminal networks, in accordance with global standards.
The Minister said new cyberpolice officers would have to deal with the usual Internet and digital crimes, including scheming, cash-trapping, carding, phishing, online money laundering, digital piracy, card sharing, malware and even less tangible crimes such as social engineering. Skills expected from the “cybercops” include fluency in Ukrainian and English, physical fitness, and extensive knowledge of the norms of criminal and international law pertaining to cybercrimes and cybersecurity.
The units and officers within the Ministry of Interior currently working on Internet crimes will have to undergo extensive re-certification to test their worth in order to join the new cyberpolice ranks. The new cohort of digital crime fighters should be fully staffed by November 5, 2015, according to Avakov's announcement.
The cyberpolice initiative is part of a broader police reform which has seen Ukraine's regions equipped with new police patrols staffed by fresh-faced men and women, in a bit to eradicate corruption in the law enforcement ranks. The new police force, eager to erase the deep-rooted prejudice against old-style “militia” law enforcement, has so far received mostly positive feedback from citizens.

author: Tanya Lokot


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WhatsApp Leads in Popularity, But Not Substance in Tanzanian Election Campaign · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Cover photos of main election competing candidates Edward Lowassa and John Magufuli from their campaign Facebook pages.
Tanzania is set to hold its General Election on October 25, 2015. The main presidential contenders are the popular former Prime Minister, Edward Lowassa, who defected from the ruling party in late July to join the main opposition bloc, and John Magufuli, the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) candidate.
According to the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA), the number of Internet users in Tanzania surpassed 11 million in 2014. To communicate with these connected voters, political parties and their supporters in the country are using not only traditional means, but also social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, and Twitter.
WhatsApp: massive voter reach vs. “trash talk”
Discussing social media and political communication in Tanzania in a piece for Quartz, journalist Omar Mohammed argues that the popular social messaging app, WhatsApp, is now the primary platform used by Tanzanians for election campaigning. He writes:
Data in Tanzania on WhatsApp usage are scarce, but political operatives are flocking to the platform because it cuts across all demographics, unlike other social networks.
This is partly because WhatsApp is more easily accessible than either Facebook or Twitter to Tanzania’s 11 million internet users. “A lot of feature phones have WhatsApp pre-installed,” Maxence Melo, co-founder of Jamii Forums, one of Tanzania’s most popular online platforms, tells Quartz. “People do not have the technical know-how to install apps. So its easy [because] of these feature phones, Chinese phones, to have WhatsApp.”
Additional reasons for WhatsApp's popularity, Mohammed writes, include decreasing costs of mobile data: users can purchase 60MB of data per week for as little as Tshs2,000 ($1). Jamii Forums’ Melo estimates that this ease of access and low cost have boosted WhatsApp user numbers in Tanzania to as many as eight million, compared to Facebook's 2.5 million Tanzanian users and Twitter's 700,000 (according to local sources, as Twitter does not release country-specific data).
However, there is little substantial discussion or political debate happening on WhatsApp, Mohammed notes:
For the most part, what gets shared on WhatsApp are images and memes, as those are easily digestible for an electorate that is not looking for substance, analysts say.
“This is a social media driven election, where people want easy to consume content that doesn’t make us think a lot,” the [anonymous] digital media strategist says. “It’s like Arsenal versus Chelsea rather than about issues.”
The other social networks
WhatsApp may be a popular platform in Tanzania, but the two main political parties—Chadema, whose presidential candidate is supported by a coalition of four opposition parties Ukawa, and the ruling CCM—and their supporters also have a presence on other major social media platforms. Can more meaningful and substantial content perhaps be found there? And how do the two competing forces compare in their social media presence?
Both parties, Chadema and CCM, share videos on YouTube of campaign rallies and other election-related events around the country.
The YouTube video below shows Chadema rally in Dar Es Salaam shared on the Team Lowassa YouTube page:
On Facebook, we can find pages for Team Lowassa with 246, 391 likes as of October 11, and Lowassa Team 2015 with 15,956 likes, while his party's Facebook page has 23,927 likes.
Supporters of CCM’s candidate John Magufuli have set up Team Dr. John Magufuli with 8,076 likes, while his party's Facebook page has 177,572 likes.
Chadema 2015 vs CCM 2015 is a popular closed Facebook group housing debates for supporters of both parties with 52,445 likes.
CCM's candidate @MagufuliJP‘s Twitter profile has 27,582 followers and his party’s account, @ccm_tanzania, has 54,509 followers.
Edward Lowassa’s official Twitters account has 29,293 followers, while his party’s Twitter account, @chademamedia, has 20,753 followers as of today.

author: Ndesanjo Macha


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Why Some Chinese Seem to Be Gloating Over Their Country’s Exclusion From the Trans-Pacific Partnership · Global Voices
Jack Hu

China has been excluded from the Trans-pacific partnership agreement. Photo: Gobierno de Chile via Wikipedia.
Following five years of negotiations, 12 countries announced on October 5, 2015, that they had reached an agreement on the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a sweeping trade pact that is expected to set standards for 40 percent of the world's economy.
The countries include Brunei, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Chile, Mexico, Peru and the United States. Excluded from that list is China, the largest economy in Asia and the second largest in the world. The country is not likely to sign up to the TPP anytime soon because of Beijing's inability to meet the membership rules that set standards on labour rights, environmental protection commitments, intellectual property rights protection, currency management, Internet governance and fair competition policies in relation to state-owned enterprises.
A spokesperson for China's government tried to downplay the significance of the deal and stressed that the country is open to any mechanism that follows the rules of the World Trade Organization. But online some Chinese were anxious, fearing that it could further worsen the country's economic slowdown. Others appeared to relish the exclusion, taking it as evidence of China's need for more social and economic reforms.
The TPP allows member countries to lower or abolish tariffs with the aim of making trade cheaper and promoting business in all the countries involved. Some Chinese analysts have pointed out that the TPP could accelerate the movement of low-wage factory jobs out of China and into lower-cost countries such as Vietnam and Malaysia, as manufacturers look for free-trade benefits for their textiles and other goods.
China's central bank estimates the country could forfeit a 2.2 percent boost to gross domestic product (GDP) if Beijing does not join the TPP, according to commentary by the bank's chief economist, Ma Jun, published in the official Shanghai Securities News on October 8.
The US government has not hidden its intention to exclude China in the trade deal — President Barack Obama praised the TPP in a statement as a way to address China’s increasing influence over Asia.
Analysts, however, said the economic effects may be less broad than Washington predicts.
In the meantime, China has been pursuing its own bilateral trade deals with countries including Australia and South Korea. China is also participating in talks on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which would link the 10 members of Association of Southeast Asian Nations with Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea, accounting for about 30 percent of global gross domestic product.
Though the Chinese authorities responded in a cool manner to the country's exclusion, people have been sharing their pessimism over the deal online. Many feel that China is headed for a dead end because of its unwillingness or failure to deepen its reforms.
On popular social media site Weibo, well-known economist Christopher Kim criticized the monopoly of China’s state-run companies as blocking the nation’s further integration into the world:
在TPP准入条件中，国企私有化，针对中国而来，改革近40年，国企的垄断实力没有弱化，反而越做越大，要想加入TPP，就得国企私有化，这对于占尽天时地利的既得利益阶层的国企，比登天还难，更重要的是，在不公平竞争环境下，国企私有化也是极少权贵瓜分国有资产，这就是中国的残局。
Among TPP’s standards, privatization of state-owned enterprises is designed to target China. China’s state-owned enterprises have strengthened, rather than weakened, their monopoly over the past decades. It’s extremely tough for these vested interests to carry out privatization. What’s more, privatization of state-owned enterprises could lead to the fact that a minority of bigshots carve up state assets. That’s the end of China.
A software company manager, Ling-xu-pu-zi, used sarcasm to express his frustration with China's domestic standards:
对于TPP,国人还是习惯阴谋论，打悲情牌。其实，不是他人排斥，而是我们不敢。仅保护知识产权这一条，包括几个互联网巨头在内的很多企业都得完蛋；保护环境资源，恐怕90％以上中小企业都得关门；[…]至于信息自由，包括五毛在内的水军得全部下岗。
People still resort to conspiracy theories in response to the TPP. Let's not talk about exclusion, do we even dare to join the club? Regarding the rules on intellectual property protection, once it is implemented, all the domestic Internet giants are doomed. On environmental protection commitments, 90 percent of our small or medium-sized businesses will be forced to shut down. […] As for free flow of information, all paid Internet commenters like 50 Cent Party and Internet Water Army will lose their jobs.
Similar frustration appeared in a comment from user “kbldx” over TPP's membership principles:
民主，公平，法制，人权，环保，每一项都是有利于中国人民的，我国连这个基本的门槛都达不到，这是中国人民的悲哀，但在某些人民眼中，这是帝国主义故意制造的迫害中国的罪证，不知道这些人民是什么样的人民
Democracy, justice, rule of law, human rights, environment protection, each one would be beneficial to Chinese people. It’s sad for the Chinese that our country can’t pass the basic benchmarks of the pact. However, in some people’s eyes, it’s criminal evidence of imperialism to persecute China on purpose. I don't know what's in these people's minds.
Some of the critical comments were almost gloating over what they saw as China's upcoming misfortune. Sun Liping, a famous sociologist at Qinghua University, interpreted people's anxiety as reflecting their discontent with China's pace of reform:
关于TPP。第一，这些帖子，不但公知在转，很多做企业的，甚至一般的上班族也在转。第二，转的人看过协议的原文甚至能看懂有关评论吗？估计有相当一部分是没有或不能，很多人兴奋的可能是其中对中国不利的因素。第三，这么多的国人在幸灾乐祸吗？非也，背后可能是对现状的不满与变革的要求。该醒醒了。
Firstly, not only public intellectuals but corporate businessmen and even common employees are forwarding [these gloating comments about the TPP]. Secondly, have people seen the pact or can they fully understand all that it entails? Probably not in the majority of cases. Many people are excited probably because of the aspects of the pact that are unfavorable to China. Thirdly, are so many Chinese rejoicing over China's misfortune? No. What’s behind this is discontent over the status quo and demands for reforms. The phenomena is a wake-up call.
In Sun's comment thread, many offered their own explanations for the “gloating” phenomena:
关键是对中国不利的东西居然有这么多人很开心，说明共产党真是欠帐太多。
What’s critical is that the unfavorable thing to China makes so many people happy, which shows that the Chinese Communist Party owes too much to the nation.
目前一些倒退思潮甚嚣尘上，让国人对改革前景丧失信心。TPP协议的达成对中国改革形成倒逼之势但国人又担忧利益集团死抗到底，这才是国人暗自窃喜又实则无奈的缘由。
Currently, some retrogressive thoughts are so rife that it's making people lose confidence in the future of reform. The conclusion of the TPP could force China to continue reforming, but people are also worried that the vested interests could stubbornly cling to resistance. That’s why people feel secretly delighted but actually helpless.

author: Jack Hu


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Democratic Republic of Congo Bans Film on Renowned Doctor Who Treats Rape Survivors · Global Voices
Abdoulaye Bah

Screenshot of the documentary “The Man Who Mends Women: The Wrath of Hippocrates”
The film “The Man Who Mends Women: The Wrath of Hippocrates“, which chronicles the work of Dr. Denis Mukwege, has been screened since March 2015 in The Hague at the International Criminal Court, as well as in Brussels, Paris and Montreal.
But in the country where the documentary takes place, the Democratic Republic of Congo, its screening has been banned nationwide, including at the French Institute of Kinshasa, where it was scheduled to play on 8 and 9 September 2015.
Dr. Denis Mukwenge is a Congolese gynecologist. He specializes in the treatment of women who have been gang-raped by forces on either side of the war during the mineral conflicts in the region. Mukwege has become the world's leading expert on how to repair the internal physical damage caused by gang rape.
The film, by journalist Colette Braeckman and filmmaker Thierry Michel, had been uploaded to YouTube in early September, racking up 13,000 views in one week. It is no longer available on the platform due to copyright restrictions. See the film's trailer below:
Via Minister of Communication and government spokesperson Lambert Mende, the Congolese government justified the ban, accusing the film of slander — a willful desire to damage and tarnish the image of the Congolese army.
In a blog post published on Lubumbashi Infos blog titled “DRC: The war of images and the film “THE MAN THAT MENDS WOMEN: THE WRATH OF HIPPOCRATES”, journalist and blogger Didier Mukaleng-Makal Kanteng, who is based in Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of Congo, explains where the controversy about Mukwenge's work might lie:
Dr Mukwege accueilli par des applaudissements, à son entrée dans une grande salle, passe à la tribune. « Témoin des atrocités commises contre les femmes et sur les femmes, depuis 15 ans », il prononce ces paroles :
« Dans les zones en conflits, poursuit-il, les batailles se passent sur les corps des femmes. Les viols se commettent avec extrême brutalité. Une véritable arme de guerre, si pas même, une stratégie de guerre mais qui est beau [sic] marché. Mais redoutablement efficace. »
Dr. Mukwege is greeted by applause as he enters the great hall and takes to the stage. “Witness to the atrocities committed against women and to women for 15 years”, he speaks these words:
“In conflict-zones, he continues, the battles occur on the bodies of women. Rape is committed with extreme brutality. A real weapon of war, if not a wartime strategy that does not cost much to implement. But dreadfully effective.” Starting from “a real weapon of war…” in the speech, the film shows a panorama of a country in despair, near burning. A near-apocalyptic image. A Congolese army truck then appears; the soldiers are well-armed and on alert.
In the same speech, starting with the sequence “a dreadfully effective weapon”, a mortar is fired. Fleeing civilians appear below the gunfire, and the voice of a commander: “Aim a little bit lower” as if to reach the civilians. Finally a procession of people displaced by the war is shown on the screen… then, a return to the doctor's speech. Based on these images shown in the film (limited of course, and yet emphasized!), the film seems to imply that sexual violence is linked to the army.
Scram.fr is an association with the objective of raising awareness of the status of documentary filmmakers and obtaining protection and distribution rights for each screening of their work; it includes over 37,000 documentary filmmakers and journalists. The association deplored the decision to bar the screening of the film in Democratic Republic of Congo and explained why the ban is harmful:
La vague mondiale de réactions politiques et professionnelles s'alarmant de cette interdiction devrait suffire à faire comprendre au Gouvernement congolais qu'il est essentiel pour sa crédibilité  interne et externe qu'il accepte que se réalise un travail nécessaire de mémoire pour rétablir l'honneur des femmes concernées et plus encore pour protéger toutes les femmes de nouvelles exactions.
The global wave of political and professional reactions showing concern over this ban should be enough to impress upon the Congolese government that it is necessary for its credibility, both internally and abroad, to accept undertaking a gesture of remembrance in order to restore honour to the women concerned and furthermore to protect all women from new abuses.
From several sources, it has been documented that those who commit these heinous offences are both members of local rebel groups and foreigners as well as regular forces. Former President Laurent-Désiré Kabila, father of the current President Joseph Kabila Kabange, rose to power as a guerrilla and governed for approximately four years; he was implicated in the increase of violence against women in the conflict. Whether one attributes these atrocities to rebel or regular forces, the former president has successively led both types of soldiers that are accused of rape.
It would seem, therefore, that the Congolese government is embarrassed by the film and the criticism made by Dr. Denis Mukwege backed by international civil society. On 30 May 2015, well before the banning of the film, the French-language site journeefemmeafricaine.com wrote this call to action:
De nombreuses personnes se mobilisent depuis quinze années, dénoncent, se mobilisent, hélas, pour bien peu de résultats. Est-ce une raison pour abandonner ? Certainement pas, bien au contraire. Nous gardons à l’esprit l’exemple d‘Aoua Keita initiatrice de la Journée Internationale de la Femme Africaine et fort de cette femme inspirante que nous nous disant que nous ne pouvons pas ne pas faire quelque chose, aussi infime que cela semble face au traitement inhumain que subissent les femmes dans les zones de combats en République démocratique du Congo.
Nous nous pensions impuissantes parce que nous ne pouvions nous impliquer sur le terrain, mais c’est faux, chaque geste compte dans de tels cas. Et il faut pouvoir faire à sa mesure, là ou l’on se trouve avec les moyens dont on dispose…
Numerous people have mobilised for over 15 years, denouncing, mobilising, yet unfortunately with little in the way of results. Is that a reason to give up? Certainly not, quite the contrary. We keep close to heart the example of Aoua Keita, founder of the International Day of the African Woman, and with this woman inspiring us we tell ourselves that we cannot not do something, as tiny as it seems when confronting the inhumane treatment that women in the Democratic Republic of Congo suffer.
We might feel powerless because we can't get involved on the ground, but that is not true, each action counts in such cases. And it is necessary to be able to do what we can in the place where we live and with the means we have available to us…
A petition started by lawyer Hamuli Rety, former president of the lawyers’ association of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, signed by more than 50,000 people, offered some background on violence against women in the Democratic Republic of Congo:
L’UNICEF a ainsi rapporté avoir pris en charge 38 000 cas de violences faites aux femmes pour la seule année 2007. La FIDH (Fédération Internationale des ligues des Droits de l’Homme) parle de 3 300 cas en 2012 pour la seule province orientale, soit environ dix cas par jour. L’ONU, quant à elle, affirme qu’en moyenne 48 femmes sont ainsi violées toutes les heures en République Démocratique du Congo. Les constats sont là mais les solutions restent désastreuses : aucune de ces autorités n’a pris de mesures efficaces pour faire cesser ces crimes.
UNICEF has reported having taken on 38,000 cases of violence against women in only 2007 alone. The FIDH (International Federation for Human Rights) notes 3,300 cases in 2012 only in the eastern province, some ten cases a day. As for the UN, they confirm that on average 48 women are raped every hour in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The findings are clear but solutions remain dire: none of the authorities have taken effective measures to stop these crimes.
These figures on the number of women raped should, however, be viewed cautiously because in reality they could be far higher. The French-language site wikistrike.com cites a study published in the American Journal of Public Health, according to which more than 400,000 women and young women between 15 and 49 years old were raped in a 12-month period, between 2006 and 2007. That is 26 times more than the figures announced by the UN over the same period.
For his humanitarian efforts aimed at restoring honour to the women and children who are victims of rape, Dr. Denis Mukwege has received some 20 national and international awards and distinctions including the United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights; the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, awarded the the European Parliament; the Clinton Foundation Prize; the Olof Palme Prize; the Inamori Prize for Ethics 2014 (Japan-United States); the Primo Levi Prize (Italy); the Solidaris Prize from the hospital of Saint-Pierre in Brussels (Belgium); and the medal of the Royal Academy for Overseas Sciences of the Netherlands.
Yet in his own country, the government continues to ignore him and certain militant groups threaten him. He does not move around within his own country without an escort of United Nations soldiers.

author: Abdoulaye Bah


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Outrage After Ugandan Police Strip a Female Opposition Official Naked in Public · Global Voices
Prudence Nyamishana

A screenshot of YouTube video showing police officers arresting the opposition official.
An official from the leading Ugandan opposition party Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) was arrested and stripped naked in public by police after they had blocked the party’s leader, Dr. Kizza Besigye, on his way to hold a rally.
Zainab Fatuma, a National Executive Committee member and FDC secretary for environment, is seen in footage from the scene struggling against officers, who restrain her and tear off her clothes. “Why are you undressing me?” she shouts repeatedly in the video.
However, the Uganda police force have denied that the police stripped her, saying that Fatuma undressed herself.
Uganda's state security forces have routinely stripped naked women involved in peaceful protests against President Yoweri Museveni's increasingly intolerant approach to dissenting voices.
Reacting to the incident, a coalition of civic organisations in the country released a statement condemning the degrading treatment of women in active politics in Uganda:
The women’s movement, civic associations and women leagues of political parties and citizens who identify with adherence to the Constitution by all state institutions strongly condemn the use of degrading and dehumanizing acts by the Uganda Police Force which is mandated to provide law and order. These acts manifest as both a political tool to intimidate women’s leadership but also as a grave human rights abuse.
The incident and the police spin on it have angered many Ugandan citizens, prompting some to unite against police brutality by sending messages to the Inspector General of Police Kale Kayihura using the hashtag #SomeoneTellKaihura.
Ugandan lawyer and activist Jacqueline Asiimwe tweeted:
The role of police is not to undress women, but to redress crime! #SomeoneTellKayihura
— Jacqueline Asiimwe (@asiimwe4justice) October 11, 2015
Godber Tumushabe, a lawyer and policy analyst, advised:
#SomeoneTellKayihura that brutalizing women won't save a dictatorship. Wait when they come 4 you. @shawnmubiru @TDAOfficial1 @ForwardUganda
— Godber Tumushabe (@GodberTumushabe) October 11, 2015
Bireete Sarah, a human rights activist, noted:
A regime that loses respect for women deserves no respect either #ImpunityUg #SomeoneTellKayihura #SomeoneFireIGP pic.twitter.com/HmkhIfCrBj
— Bireete Sarah (@SarahBireete) October 11, 2015
Elektrolyte pointed out that:
#SomeoneTellKayihura police is born of women. Those pictures are horrific. And the women are unarmed.
— Elektrolyte (@julimuffn) October 11, 2015
Jacqueline Asiimwe declared:
Violence against one of us is violence against all of us! When you undress one of us, you have undressed all of us! #SomeoneTellKayihura
— Jacqueline Asiimwe (@asiimwe4justice) October 11, 2015
Asiimwe Angella posted a photo showing a new dress code for women to avoid being stripped naked:
New women dress code in Uganda to avoid being undressed by the @ugandaupf #SomeoneTellKayihura #FreeUganda pic.twitter.com/6dIR05prh5
— asiimwe angella (@angellaasiimwe) October 13, 2015
Penelope Sanyu wondered:
If you could strip her in public i shudder to imagine what you do to the rest in the cells #SomeoneTellKayihura #SomeoneFireKayihura
— Penelope sanyu (@latagal) October 11, 2015
Reporting about a press conference held by the Uganda Law Society (ULS) to denounce police conduct, political reporter and news anchor for NTV Uganda, Sheila Nduhukire wrote:
ULS treats these events as unacceptable, unfortunate, unnecessary and outlandish – Ruth. #ULSPRESSER
— Sheila Nduhukire (@Snduhukire) October 12, 2015
The law society promised to collaborate with the public to identify the police officers:
“Our pro bono team is ready to work with the Public to identify these Policemen ” -Ruth #ULSPRESSER
— Sheila Nduhukire (@Snduhukire) October 12, 2015
President Yoweri Museveni's rule has been characterized by the enactment of repressive laws, the militarization of what should ideally be a civilian police force, the unabashed recruitment and training of militias by the regime, and the ever-present threat of a clampdown on electronic and print media outlets and suppression of opinions on social media. When taken together with this most recent incident, it seems that the 30-year-old regime is digging in and has no intention of advancing political and civil liberties.

author: Prudence Nyamishana