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Russia Tightens Grip on Tech Infrastructure, Cuts Ties With US Firms · Global Voices
Jack Margolin

Nikolay Pryanishnikov, President of Microsoft Russia. Source: Imagine Cup, Flickr. CC 2.0
Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Service is opening an investigation into Microsoft for abusing its dominant position in the country's technology market.
The investigation, announced on November 10, comes amid renewed Kremlin efforts to crack down on US tech companies operating in Russia. Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, and others are facing increasingly heavy regulation and other Kremlin initiatives that threaten their access to the Russian market, which has an estimated worth of $3 billion.
Though Microsoft, which has been operating in Russia since 1992, remains the preferred software of Russian officials, the government is making a concerted effort to move away from the American tech giant: in September, Moscow began working to replace Microsoft software on municipal employees and officials’ computers.  State-controlled telecom behemoth Rostelecom announced last week that it intends to purchase a domestically-produced Microsoft substitute, My Office, which has already received tender offers from ten state agencies and institutions at different levels. Regional administrations, including Moscow's, have reportedly already replaced many Microsoft, Oracle, and Cisco systems related to a variety of tasks, from the operation of security cameras to database management.
The Kremlin wants to distance itself from the dominance of privately-owned Western technology infrastructure and products. But it's not entirely clear why. Does it fear US cyber retaliation? Does it want greater control over the communications and operations of government employees? Or is it simply seizing the opportunity to ceremonially bash another symbol of Western influence in Russia?
The Kremlin’s recent moves to restrict the use of American-made software by government employees are nothing new, but they do suggest the Russian government is turning up the heat. Since 2014, Moscow has increasingly limited US tech firms’ access to Russia, demanding backdoor access to user data (including the content of communications, like emails) and threatening prohibitive taxes on foreign-produced software.
Perhaps most importantly, the State Duma passed a law in 2015 mandating that companies with access to Russian users’ personal information store data on servers located in the country. Critics argue that the law threatens users’ security, making it easier for the Russian government to access their private information. The switch to Russian-made software may have the same effect, as many domestic producers have a cozy relationship with the state.
The local servers law provided the justification for a Russian court to uphold the government's decision to block LinkedIn in the country earlier this week. Many see the ban as a warning sign to Microsoft (whose purchase of LinkedIn is expected to be finalized by the the end of the year) and other American companies operating in Russia: either localize servers or leave the country.
The cause of the crackdown in 2014 was clear: US tech firms (including Microsoft, Google, and Oracle) took part in the sanctions regime directed against Russian financial entities that the US government levied after the annexation of Crimea, suspending support for developers and services on the peninsula.
В ответ на санкции Майкрософт – Россияне будут использовать в России легально пиратское программное обеспечение.
— Remiz (@remzav) May 6, 2014
“In response to Microsoft’s sanctions – Russians will use legally pirated software in Russia”
But officials give differing explanations for recent actions against American companies. If you believe Communications Minister Nikolay Nikiforov, it’s a largely economic issue, aimed at directing taxpayer and state-owned company spending towards Russian developers. And indeed, since the massive devaluation of the Russian ruble in 2014, products made by Microsoft and other foreign companies have become significantly more expensive, making domestic software more attractive to individual Russian users and state agencies alike.
If you believe German Klimenko, the man whom Putin personally tasked with replacing foreign software and levying taxes on items sold in major online stores at the beginning of this year, you get a slightly more colorful explanation. Economics have played a role, he says, but so has the annexation of Crimea and concurrent increased suspicion about coordination between American firms and the intelligence community.
Klimenko and Russian tech bloggers anticipate that a full-scale replacement of Microsoft software would take at least five years and be highly labor intensive. Certainly, the transition away from American tech firms—if it happens at all—will not be immediate or comprehensive. Moscow is discussing eventually replacing 600,000 Microsoft servers and devices, but has thus far only sought to replace Exchange and Outlook with a domestically produced email system for 6,000 users in the Moscow municipal government. Despite pressure to move away from Microsoft, change won't come immediately: Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said on November 2 that a complete replacement of Microsoft products across all state agencies would be possible once “domestic manufacturers give birth to something more effective.”
There is also, of course, the role of anti-American sentiment. Is Russian behavior towards Microsoft and its peers another example of the crusade against “foreign agents” seeking to weaken Russia from within? This is difficult to diagnose objectively, but looking again at Klimenko’s comments, it is clear that deep-rooted suspicion plays a role. In a February interview, he characterized Google as a “national security threat.”
In a widely circulated piece entitled “Putin Frightens the CIA with Import-Substitution of Microsoft,” Ruslan Ostashko, a popular pro-Kremlin blogger and founder of the website Politrussia.com, reflected on why US media are so alarmed by Russian efforts to restrict the sale of Microsoft software.
Может ЦРУ боится остаться без своего главного источника информации в России?[…] американскую компанию «Майкрософт» подозревают в сотрудничестве с американскими спецслужбами, и именно за это ее собираются выгнать с российского рынка государственных заказов.
Perhaps the CIA is afraid of finding itself without its main source of information in Russia? […] the American company Microsoft is suspected of having worked with American intelligence agencies, and this is why they are preparing to expel them from the state contracts market.
Russian bloggers like Ostashko have made sure to draw attention to the fact that Oracle’s first client was the CIA, too. In the following video, published on Politrussia.com, Ostashko reads his blog post on import-substitution, arguing that Microsoft is sharing information with the CIA.
As Russian bloggers’ reactions illustrate, the decision also fits conveniently into Kremlin narratives about insidious Western influence.
The ramped-up pressure on US tech firms should not simply be written off as a symptom of worsening tension, but recognized for what it is: a policy. This policy aims to pull US companies out of Russia's technology ecosystem, a move that would presumably provide greater protection from surveillance born out of cooperation between US firms and US intelligence agencies, as well as the removal of a American leverage point in the event of further sanctioning.

author: Jack Margolin


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Trump Propagandists From Macedonia Shy Away From His Victory · Global Voices
Filip Stojanovski

A widely shared meme from the USA Newsflash Facebook page. USAnewsflash.com is one of the websites that have been traced back to Macedonian owners, and is recycling false and sensational pro-Trump ‘news’ on the web and social media.
Much like Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, political spammers from Macedonia, who ran hundreds of popular pro-Trump fake news websites and Facebook pages, do not think they had any influence on the US election results.
In June, Global Voices reported how economic hardship pushed the Macedonian town of Veles into seemingly ‘becoming pro-Trump.’ Some residents of this former industrial town opened “news” websites and Facebook pages, with sensational click-bait pro-Trump headlines, to earn money through online ads. These ‘web entrepreneurs’ predominantly published recycled positive stories about Trump and recycled false stories about his opponents. The websites used catchy domain names: UsaNewsFlash.com, 365UsaNews.com, WorldNewsPolitics.com and their accompanying Facebook pages had hundreds of thousands of followers. Many international media outlets covered the story during the following months, including the Guardian, which noted that most of these sites include recycled disinformation from conservative sites and blogs in the US.
After Trump's election victory on November 9, Meta.mk agency, which investigated this story in April, called some of the websites owners. They refused to take credit for Trump's victory:
– Немам никаков коментар за победата на Доналд Трамп на претседателските избори во САД. Не мислам дека имав некакво влијание во победата на републиканскиот кандидат. Со веб-страницата веќе не работам и не знам дали понатаму ќе работам на веб-страници поврзани со политиката во САД – вели еден од младите велешани со кој „Мета“ разговараше и во април годинава.
Со него се согласува и друг велешанец кој вели дека веб-страницата на која тој работел веќе не постои и дека пролетоска последен пат бил објавен напис таму.
“I have no comment on Donald Trump’s win in the presidential elections in the United States. I do not believe I influenced the victory of the Republican candidate. I no longer work on the website and do not know whether I will continue to work on websites related to politics in the US”, said one of the young people from Veles that “Meta” had contacted in April.
Another man from Veles who also worked on multiple websites agreed and said that the web page on which he worked on no longer exists and that the last published article was in Spring.
From the Facebook page of another website linked to an owner in Macedonia. World News Politics has more than 860, 000 followers on Facebook.
Leading Macedonian new technologies website IT.com.mk commented on Mark Zuckerberg's rejection of the ‘crazy idea’ that Facebook influenced the elections, by drawing parallels with the Macedonian political spamming industry. Instead of putting its users in bubbles or ‘echo chambers,’ Zuckerberg claimed that his social media platform algorithms still enables diverse input of information.
Ваквото рационализирање од првиот човек на Facebook доаѓа откако Buzzfeed и другите медиуми директно го обвинија Facebook за ширење дезинформации и ја посочија и Македонија како делумен виновник, но и откако победата на Доналд Трамп за претседател на САД остави многумина во шок, кои пак сега се обидуваат да објаснат што се случи, и во некои случаи и директно бараат виновник за да посочат со прст.
Марк Закерберг не ја адресираше директно Македонија или македонските е-печалбари, но во контекст на таа тема посочи дека работат на подобрување на алгоритмот и спречување на ширење на дезинформации преку платформата.
По интересот за текстот кој го објавивме вчера, сакаме да потенцираме и дека пред да ги обвините овие корисници кои ние ги нарекуваме е-печалбари за срамотење на Македонија и да ги напаѓате за нивните обиди за печалба, треба да ја погледнете и локалната медиумска сцена од друг агол и ќе забележите дека тие само го реплицираат она што го гледаат на локално ниво од многу медиуми кои дневно ги бомбардираат и им ставаат clickbait линкови и спонзорираат секакви текстови на Facebook, без разлика на колку тоа е етички или не… Го земаат истиот метод и го применуваат на глобално ниво, а разликата е во тоа што на глобално ниво функционирa AdSense и пазарот е многу поголем.
These rationalizations from the first man of Facebook came after Buzzfeed and other media directly blamed Facebook for spreading disinformation and pointed at Macedonia as partial culprit, but also after Donald Trump's election victory shocked many people, who now try to explain what had happened, and in some cases seek for someone to point the finger at.
Mark Zuckerberg did not directly address Macedonia or the Macedonian e-profiteers, but in that context he noted that Facebook works on improvement of their algorithm to prevent spreading disinformation via their platform.
After the interest about the text about the ‘historical contribution’ to development of the Internet we published yesterday, we'd like to stress that even before you start blaming these users we dubbed e-profiteers for shaming Macedonia and attack their attempts to turn profit, you should look the local media scene from another angle. You'll notice that they only replicate what they see at local level, by many media which bombard them on daily basis with clickbait links, media which sponsor all kinds of texts on Facebook, regardless if it's ethical or not… They've taken the same methods and applied it at global level. The only difference is that at global level, AdSense works, and the market is much larger.
Days before the US election, this cottage industry again draw the attention of international media, especially after Buzzfeed covered it through two extensive articles, the first on the fake news production machine and the second on the use of Facebook groups as a spamming platform. Germany's public international broadcaster Deutsche Welle tracked one such website owner, who claimed he's not doing it because he likes Trump, but because publishing articles about him earn him a decent monthly income of about 600 to 1,000 Euros ($665 -$1109).
Трололо #Велес pic.twitter.com/4H1ZXI73CB
— Д'деко (@JumpToFunk) November 4, 2016
Photo montage: Trump's Veles. (During Communist times, the name of the town was Titov Veles, meaning Tito's Veles, in honor of Josip Broz – Tito, the Yugoslav commander in chief.)
Tweet: Trololo (Local net slang for political trolling.)
The techniques used by this breed of online publishers are considered “normal” within the Macedonian media scene, and had been perfected over the last ten years by pro-government media outlets and ruling party propagandists under the current right-wing populist regime. Variations of the same strategies have been used elsewhere in the region, notably in Serbia.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Filip Stojanovski


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Braving Crackdowns by India, These Young Kashmiri Volunteers Keep Neighbourhoods Safe · Global Voices
Rezwan

In the past three months, the Jammu and Kashmir police and the Central Reserve Police Force have arrested close to 7,000 people in the Kashmir Valley, in broad sweep and search operations targeting homes, often at the dead of the night.
In many areas of Kashmir, young, unarmed and masked volunteers have been patrolling the streets of neighbourhoods at night to warn families about impending raids. This video story embedded at the top of this story is by Video Volunteers community member Abid Salaam, and was shot days before the security agencies of Kashmir launched a massive crackdown in Baramulla’s Old Town, which is 55 km (34 miles) from Srinagar, the capital of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.
The arrests started soon after the Indian military killed 21 year-old Burhan Muzaffar Wani, a popular Kashmiri separatist militant with a wide social media following. His extrajudicial killing was followed by a curfew and wide-spread protests across the Muslim-majority Indian state. Protesters were also concerned with rising Hindu nationalism in India, and particularly with high unemployment, excessive militarisation of their public spaces, and repeated human rights violations by Indian security forces in their state. During the protests, the Kashmir police and Indian paramilitary forces used deadly weapons, such as pellet guns and assault rifles, resulting in 85 deaths. More than 13,000 civilians were also injured, thousands were blinded. The curfew affected seven million people and lasted 53 days in most places and 85 days in other areas.
The curfew has ended but the crackdown continues. More than 450 people have been booked under the Public Safety Act (PSA), a law under which a person can be detained without trial for six months.
Thousand of young Kashmiri men and teenagers are in hiding, some are taking refuge in the swathes of orchards that run through the valley. But as the winter is approaching, many are taking refuge in the homes of friends or distant relatives, changing location every few days. According to locals, more than 700 houses have been searched by the security forces.
In the video featured in this story, young Kashmiri men and teenagers are seen hiding their faces in white shrouds in fear of the Indian forces. In their night patrols they warn the locals to stay awake and stay alert. They don't sleep at night. Some say that they haven't gone back home for weeks. Sometimes they lay down under trees or adjacent houses in the open. They fear, if they are caught, the police will take their photo and detain them.
According to the authorities, the demographic poses security risks as they engaged in violent protests against the police. Some are accused of aiding or joining separatist rebels fighting for Kashmir's independence or the demands of its merger with Pakistan.
WH: Arrest spree, killings, maiming & blinding of ppl , night raids are the things, that really disconnect #Kashmir with the rest of India
— iKashmir (@icashmir) October 31, 2016
The arrest of thousands of youth on frivolous grounds might prove to be the shot in the arm of the armed insurgency in #Kashmir.
— ابن حسین (@polar_winds) October 22, 2016
The Indian government maintains that they are only cracking down on separatists but the arrest of figures like notable human rights activist Khurram Parvez, who was subsequently booked under the PSA, shows that they are going after the voices of dissent in the Valley.

author: Rezwan


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Decision 2016: Assessing the Damage · Global Voices
Robert Valencia

“The repercussions of Trump’s assumption of the US presidency will be felt not only in the US, but also in other parts of the world, especially Latin America.” Political graffiti in Caracas. PHOTO: Erik Cleves Kristensen (CC BY 2.0)
The morning of November 9 marked the culmination of a tortuous 18-month race for the US presidency, with Donald Trump emerging as victor with 279 electoral college votes and more than 59 million votes in total. As this bitter chapter in the contest for the White House draws to a close, the US now must consider what the next four years might bring. For the moment, however, the question that most preoccupies m any Americans is: how did this country get to this stage?
Several analysts have pointed at the deep socio-economic and racial disparities that have afflicted the US ever since its founding as a republic 238 years ago. The racial divide that many expected to narrow when Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, in fact did the opposite: the increase in police brutality against communities of color, and the mass deportations of Hispanic immigrants are among the most recent manifestations of this.
The situation was exacerbated by the fact that while the US economy did manage to recover from the 2008 financial crisis, economic recovery did not take place in all sectors of the population, and especially not for poor rural whites. This provided fertile ground for figures like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders to emerge and gain momentum over the course of the primaries of their respective parties. Both candidates promised to change the political status quo, with Trump using scare tactics to heighten the disgruntlement of Republican voters, suggesting, for example, that Mexicans were rapists, criminals and conduits for the traffic of drugs into the US. Fed up with traditional politics, Republicans chose Trump, on the basis that he, an outsider to the Washington political machine, could be an agent of real change.
The political establishment also played a role in creating the current situation. The leadership of the Democratic party—aided by the superdelegates and an alleged ruse on the part of the Democratic National Committee during the primaries that favored Hillary Clinton—sabotaged Sanders’ chances of having a real shot at becoming the Democratic party’s nominee. On the other side, the Republican establishment, headed by the Bush dynasty, failed to mount a credible challenge to a candidate whose campaign was rife with insults, misogyny, xenophobia and laughable policies such as the construction of a wall running the length of the border between Mexico and the US. Neither John Kasich, Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio—the latter considered at one point the savior of the Republican party—could stop the real estate magnate’s rampage.
The news media also played a key role in the selection of both parties’ candidates. Under the guise of impartiality, television channels found it difficult to resist Trump’s allure. The result was a year in which statistics, facts and truth were replaced by the rumors, speculation and lies peddled by Trump and his collaborators. The same news media ended up inadvertently whitewashing Trump’s image, as popular comedy shows such as Saturday Night Live and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon humanized the candidate by inviting him on as a guest star, in spite of strong protests against these appearances. For many, the media normalized Trump’s over-the-top discourse. Television channels like CNN reveled in the high ratings they received thanks to Trump and the insults he leveled at his opponents. Yet even while being afforded almost unlimited access to television airtime, Trump remained antagonistic toward the media, insisting that he and his campaign were being treated unfairly.
The repercussions of Trump’s assumption of the US presidency will be felt not only in the US, but also in other parts of the world, especially Latin America. The political gains made during the Obama years will likely be reversed, as Trump has promised to repeal the accord with Cuba and renegotiate free trade treaties which would surely affect Colombia, Mexico, Chile and Panama, among others. Trump would also have his eyes on Venezuela, not to mention what he has in store for Iran and North Korea, who find themselves faced with an impulsive Trump capable of launching a nuclear attack or repealing the agreements painstakingly arrived at during the nuclear talks.
In the aftermath of a vertigo-inducing election campaign, the only thing left for the US to do is assess the damage. Quite apart from the question of who won the election, the problem of partisanship in Washington is more acute than ever, thanks to the “iron triangle” of commingled  interests that governs the destiny of that country.
The president-elect will need to deal not only with challenges such as healthcare reform or choosing a new Supreme Court justice, but also with the pressing need to compensate for the pain afflicted on the country by his candidacy. Paying the price for that, however, will take many years.

author: Robert Valencia


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Sleeping or Dead – Part 2: Aghiad’s Blue Jacket · Global Voices
سرمد الجيلاني

PHOTO: Public Domain from Pixabay
This is the second installment in “Sleeping or Dead”, a six-part series by activist Sarmad Al Jilane about his experiences in a Syrian prison. Read Part One here.
As I exit I catch sight of a white bus, an image that has been engraved in our memories over the past few months of white regime busses filled with security personnel. I get on board, the only one of all the detainees, along with the driver and the “companionship” as they’re called, a band of five security agents in full military kit. The trip lasted around 80 kicks, 100 lashes—with what I believe was a bicycle tire—and one hour of unconsciousness. Then we arrived at our destination.
They welcomed me with the same rituals at the military investigation branch in Deir-ez Zour. Dozens of detainees in the yard. We all go through a long, wide corridor, and spread ourselves along its two walls, surrounded by around 30 security personnel. The guards assigned to accompany us took any precious belongings we had, such as money, to the small room at the entrance of the corridor.
“Undress.” The order came from a higher-ranking officer. We started taking our clothes off. The blue jacket—I have to guard it with my life. I have to; it belongs to my brother Aghyad who wanted to wear it that day but couldn’t find either it, or me. This thought was the straw I clutched at: the hope that I would get out for the sake of my brother and his jacket. My brother is quite religious; he prays all the time, I am sure God will answer his prayers. We stripped down to our underwear. “These fuckers seem to be visiting us for the first time. Remove your underwear and perform two safety measures: jump and squat quickly. I don’t have the whole day for you.”
I wasn’t going to strip down, for what was being stripped off were the rags of humanity. For 40 years this was exactly what had frightened our grandfathers, fathers and now us. There was no reason for you to jail us, to put us through this much humiliation. What kind of a homeland is it—one that we both share—that rewards us with the likes of you? What kind of a homeland offers your sect a golden shield that protects you from having to strip down completely? Maybe some concepts need to be redefined.
In this moment homeland doesn’t mean home, bur rather a patch of land where people met and were forced to live together. We were forced to live, together, us and them, or die, alone. Power belongs to the person who has the authority over this land. Glory belongs to those who are barefoot and naked, carrying their homelands in their hearts. The tape recording of the constant condemnation of the Americans’ violations in Abu Ghraib prison passes through my head. The president of the one who yelled at us condemned those actions. How ugly must you be to be able to condemn Abu Ghraib, but not even to try to listen to the shouts outside your palace. He may not know it it, but he’s the one who’s stripped down, not us: a free man’s dignity can never be taken away.
Against a chorus of taunts and insults we put our clothes back on and they start assigning us to our cells. “Sarmad to the second group cell.” I enter the cell; there’s silence as the other occupants check out the newcomer. I hang the Blue Jacket in the corner on a metal hook where others have hung their clothes. It’s not important to get to know everyone, as long as the jacket is safe. I sit next to the door, where newcomers usually sit. Everyone’s cautious. “I want some water,” I say, with a burdened sigh. I haven’t drunk water or eaten anything for a day and night. “Here, brother. Move inside, brother, don’t stay beside the door.”. A tired voice like mine comforted my soul before the water comforted my body. Exhausted, I fell asleep sitting upright, and when I woke up it was already night, or at least that’s what I assumed with no sunlight or moonlight by which to measure time.
Alone in the corner, despite the number of people crammed into the cell. How many homelands can imprison your body? Or tries to capture as many people as possible. On all-fours, you cry out like a child separated from his mother, but she lets you down! I touch the wall, rubbing it with my hands thinking it must have been made with clay and blood. How many homelands buried this 18-year-old? Shoveled dirt on top of him, stifled him and walked away, as if I never existed.
Maybe they don’t want to imprison us, but are trying to create a homeland for every individual who called for freedom. Maybe they’ve gathered us together here to divide us into smaller homelands, so we keep spinning around with our heads down, and we tell our children stories about a head that looked up and was cut off.
The silence is interrupted when a 40-year-old man starts pressing his palms against the wall. He does it smoothly, with his palms and not his fists, as we do to communicate. A guy answers my inquisitive look. “He is performing tayammum as there is no water here except in the toilet. We drink it and use it for ablution sometimes, but Uncle here prefers to perform tayammum before each time he prays.” He stands in the corner of the cell, with others, praying and reciting Quran in a low voice. I always try to avoid explaining the size of these cells. They are too small to be described, however at times they’ve felt bigger than our neighborhood mosque. “Amen.” The word conveyed a spirituality that overwhelmed me more than my first visit to a church.
“God, my brother Aghyad prays all the time. God, I’m not asking for my own sake, but for his Blue Jacket. It won’t be nice if something bad happens to it and causes Aghyad great disappointment. What about my father? What happened to him? He also prays and calls God a lot—no chance that he is not released yet!” A monologue with myself, after which I slept.
It was six in the morning, as the guard shouted as he entered. “Everybody stand, faces against the wall.” After the roll call he yelled: “Abdul Rahman, Sarmad, Adnan and Ahmed, come forward.” I learned later that they had arrived at dawn while I was asleep. We stepped inside a small, bare room. A table and a chair next to the door, several handcuffs at the back, with a metal pipe in place of a curtain rod, from which hangs a metal chain. A First Lieutenant is seated behind the table, wearing a blue uniform, similar to the navy’s. The executioner was Mohammed AlHalabi, from what the First Lieutenant called him. He unmasked us, and started with Adnan and Ahmed. Both are charged with hunting with an unlicensed weapon: 20 lashes each were enough to recuse them from the investigation room after covering their heads. I and Abdul Rahman remained.
“Today, I am in no mood to interrogate you both, neither will I be tomorrow. We will honor our guests for three days, then we talk.” He left the room. “Undress. Keep your underwear on,” said Mohammed AlHalabi as he approached us.
He holds our hands and puts them in handcuffs, then ties the handcuffs to the chain hanging from the rod. He pulls the chain till we are hanging by our hands, toes barely touching the ground. You’re mid-way between sky and earth, presented as a sacrifice of blood. He covers our heads, and we hear his footsteps as he walks away.
He left quietly and closed the door. We remained silent in fear of provoking his actions. Two hands raised to God, by force. A trickle of blood where the cuffs slice into our wrists. Two feet stretched, trying to touch the floor but with little control. A continuous whine escapes me, and I’m not able to stop it. Abdul Rahman also whines. This was our first introduction to one another, two criminals born and raised on this soil. Two criminals who could not stand to see their homeland suspended, as they are now, who had a staggering self-possession, at a time when humanity was wiped from the dictionary in that deluge of blood in that basement. No occupier will ever prevail. They wouldn’t have done this to us if they weren’t afraid. And now they hang two victorious hearts amid defeats.
The whining slowly increases. “Try to put your feet on mine, to rest a bit,” said Abdul Rahman, with difficulty. I stood on his feet. There’s no way for us to measure how long we are here, we can only estimate it, and we can’t keep this up for long, for fear of a sudden entrance by our tormentor. We switch roles, with him standing on my feet, but it doesn’t really help ease the pain. “This is called Shabeh [a Syrian slang term meaning to hang by the hands or legs], so now when we are released we can tell our friends that we became political prisoners and were subjected to Shabeh,” said Abdul Rahman, failing to hide the pain in his voice.
We laugh at our pain. Time barely passes before both of us are barely conscious. We wake up to the sound of the door being violently opened. It is Mohammed.

author: سرمد الجيلاني


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Beirut Begins Destroying the City’s Last Public Beach · Global Voices
Christophe Maroun

Ramlet El Bayda beach on Saturday, Nov. 12, 2016. Photo: Firas BouZeineddine / Facebook
The people of Beirut were shocked this Saturday, Nov. 12, when images of the city's last public beach, Ramlet El Bayda, began circulating on social media, showing the site being destroyed by heavy construction equipment.
The first footage was filmed by Lebanese activist Joumana Talhouk, who uploaded the video to Facebook.
The controversy over the ownership of Ramlet El Bayda first made news headlines back in 2012, and has since been at the center of a tug-of-war between activists, on the one hand, and real estate developers and officials, on the other.
In June 2016, government officials denied any speculation about the closure of the beach for real-estate-development purposes, after some of the installations were destroyed by excavators.
Ziad Chebib, the governor of Beirut, had said:
The Ramlet El Bayda public beach will not be closed and any form of restricting citizens from accessing the shores, be it for constructional purposes or by erecting fences to close off the area is strictly prohibited.
In this case, activists have the law on their side. Indeed, “Article 2 of Order 144,” the law regulating coastal properties in Lebanon since 1925, stipulates that the seashore until the farthest area reached by the waves during winter as well as sand and rocky shores are considered public property.
But despite this law, decree changes and loopholes have allowed more and more development to happen on the Lebanese coast.
This is not the first case of coastal development in Lebanon happening at the expense of public property. Just recently, activists held protests against the government’s plans to transform Kfarabida’s rocky beach in the Batroun district in Northern Lebanon to yet another Yacht Club.
The legality of this project has also been the subject of much controversy, as many rules are being bent by using ministerial decrees to get the project approved. Six months earlier, the issue of the Adloun beach in South Lebanon was raised by local media outlets. It was reported that the natural coast was being destroyed in order to be replaced by a port worth 26.6 million USD and erasing, in the process, a Phoenician port site of high cultural and archeological value. The excavations began with no proper environmental impact assessment prompting a conflict between the Ministry of Public Works and the Ministries of Environment and Culture.
It is in this context that we should see the case of Ramlet El Bayda.
The real estate company assigned to develop its project is called Achour Development. Founded in 1991, Achour Development will be developing its “Eden Rock Resort” on the Ramlet El Bayda beach. The company have developed projects all over Beirut ranging from residential to industrial complexes. The Eden Rock Resort’s status is currently “Under Construction” and is composed of 110 chalets and 53 cabins all of which are located by the beach, as described by the company’s website.
This is a photo of the beach in 2011:
Source: Le Coeur A Droite
And this is what it will look like:
Screenshot from Achour Development website
Needless to say, many are unhappy with these latest developments.
A protest was planned for Sunday, Nov. 13, 2016. On the event page, the description reads:
لأن الشط ملك عام للناس، رح نركض بكرا لنطالب بوقف الأعمال في شط الرملة البيضاء. رح ننتشر على طول الخط البحري (المنارة للروشة) ونتوجّه لموقع الجريمة بعد مرور العدائين. اذا ما ركضنا لإنقاذ آخر شط في بيروت، ما رح يبقالنا بيروت لنركض فيها.
Because the coastline is a public good, we will run tomorrow to demand the end of the construction works on Ramlet El Baida. We will stand along the coast (Manara to Raoucheh) and walk towards the scene of the crime after the runners have passed [there is the yearly Beirut Marathon happening]. If we don't run to save Beirut's last beach, we will have no Beirut in which to run.
Meanwhile, many Lebanese have taken to social media to express their outrage.
Two Lebanese activists, Firas Bouzeineddine and Whard Sleiman, were at the site on Sunday morning, while the media's attention was focused on the Beirut Marathon.
Lebanese researcher and activist Kareem Chehayeb wrote:
Beirut is officially a coastal city without a public beach. Ramlet el Bayda is gone. Video by @joumanatalhouk https://t.co/H1SAiDHTPz
— Kareem Chehayeb (@chehayebk) 12 November 2016
Ziad Naboulsi of the blog Mouwaten wrote:
Good-bye Ramlet el Bayda, the last remaining public beach in #Beirut. https://t.co/mrSJNaFpxv
— Ziad (@Mowaten_LB) 12 November 2016
Lebanese researcher and ex-editor of Al-Akhbar English Lara Bitar emphasized that if nothing is done, Beirut would be the first Mediterranean city without a coastline and how this can affect the very poor:
With the assault on Ramlet el-Bayda, Beirut on its way to becoming the first Mediterranean city without a seafront https://t.co/aaodNDWuan
— Lara Bitar (@LarsBit) 25 October 2016
Lebanese researcher Dr. Tarabay Rima also expressed her outrage:
This is what is happening in #Lebanon destroying our coast! public beach! #beirut where is the state? @LBpresidency @saadhariri https://t.co/HmnR6YnPmZ
— Dr.Tarabay Rima (@RimaTarabay) 12 November 2016
Lebanese student and activist Ibrahim Youssef wrote this status on Facebook:
I can't describe how furious this makes me. The last public beach in Beirut is becoming privatized. Here we see our constitutional right to freely access the coast be tossed aside. Instead, we get a nice posh beach resort where only a fraction of the population can afford to go. As with everything in the country, things of value are routinely tossed out the window while shallow gaudy structures erase anything that the city was or could have been.
And the best part? People had the chance to elect a municipal government that would have prevented this (and more) from happening. Instead, we voted in the same old garbage that just represents the interests of the country's political elite.
وداعاً رملة البيضا. مبروك يا جماعة.
Goodbye Ramlet El Bayda. Congratulations everyone.
The Beirut Madinati campaign shared the video uploaded by Joumana Talhouk, commenting:
نشهد اليوم استمرار تدمير الشاطئ وبداية مشروع استثماري جديد على تلة #الرملة_البيضا، وهو الشاطئ العام الوحيد ل #بيروت، وذلك بالرغم من كل الاعتراضات والمراجعات.
المشروع ينتهك جميع القوانين والمبادىء التي من شأنها المحافظة على ملكنا العام ومصالحنا الجماعية في المدينة.
لدى محافظ بيروت كامل الصلاحيات لإيقاف مشروع الإيدن روك غير المستوفي شروط تقييم الأثر البيئي والذي يعتدي على املاكنا البحرية.
لا ينبغي السكوت عن هذه الجريمة! #بيروت_بلا_شط، #بيروت_تختنق
#الشط_للكل و #البحر_للناس
We are witnessing today the continuous destruction of the beach and the beginning of an investment project on ramlet el bayda, the public beach in Beirut, and that despite all oppositions and reconsiderations. The project transgresses on all laws and principles that are concerned with the preservation of our public properties and interests in the city. The Beirut governor has all the power to stop the Eden Rock project that doesn't abide by the environmental impact conditions and that transgresses on our maritime properties. We should not stay silent in front of this crime!
Some have started using the Arabic hashtag #بيروت_بلا_شط meaning “Beirut without a coast”:
مسكينة بيروت فبعد أن سلبوها جمالها ونسيمها العليل ها هم يقضون على شطها الشعبي!متى ستخلع مدينتي ثوب الضحية لتثور على مغتصبيها؟#بيروت_بلا_شط
— hanadi ghanem (@hanadighanem) 12 November 2016
Poor Beirut, after they stole her beauty and her fresh breeze, here they are destroying its public beach! When will my city cease to be the victim and revolt against its violators?
Palestinian-American academic and Edward Said Chair of American Studies at the American University of Beirut Steven Salaita commented:
I hope the developers who just bulldozed Ramlet el Bayda, Beirut's last public beach, swallow the water and get a nice bout of dysentery.
— Steven Salaita (@stevesalaita) 12 November 2016

author: Christophe Maroun


text:
In Paraguay, Many of the Country’s Poorest Girls Undergo Slavery Just to Receive an Education · Global Voices
Kurtural

Tina Alvarenga, who was a criadita in her childhood, visits the house that she worked in for years. Currently, Tina works to defend the rights of children and gathers testimonies of criaditas who, like her, were victims of abuse and discrimination. Photo by Cecilia Rojas, published with permission from Kurtural.
Tina Alvarenga lived eight years in a house where she was forbidden to eat with the household family. Nearly a college graduate, she returned years later and listened to the mistress talk about her with pride. “She is like our daughter, the one who has turned out better,” she said. But Alvarenga was never treated like a daughter in that house. Starting when she was ten years old, she was the family's criadita, a word used in Paraguay to describe the more than 46,000 boys and girls who are forced to work in order to be able to attend school.
The deal is simple: a large family with little money hands over their underage son or daughter to another more wealthy family, in exchange for the child receiving food, education, and a roof over their head. What is not said is that the boy or girl will have endless days of domestic work, work that is never paid, and may suffer abuse or mistreatment, all under a contract that cannot be annulled. This is known as criadazgo, a prevailing practice within Paraguay due to the complicit acceptance by a good chunk of society and despite various complaints from human rights organizations.
After finishing her undergraduate studies, Alvarenga worked for years for an organization that defends the rights of boys and girls. She interviewed criaditas (young girls trapped in criadazgo), gathered testimonies, researched and denounced. She tried to call things as they are, because the feeling of gratitude instilled in criaditas is, in general, a guarantee of silence.
“Criadazgo is supported by a double illusion,” says Alvarenga. On one hand, there is the illusion of the family that delivers their daughter over to another family, thinking that, thanks to this act, she will be able to finish her studies, better her social position, and “be someone in life”. On the other hand, the family that receives the daughter justifies her exploitation by believing that they are giving an opportunity to someone who otherwise would not be able to study and even might have starved to death.
If the girl is mistreated, her family members will not know of it until many years afterwards. Sometimes, they never find out. But in January of 2016, an event put a face to this hidden phenomenon that happens within the houses of Paraguay.
Carolina Marín was admitted to Caaguazú's Regional Hospital with signs of having received a fierce beating and died soon afterwards. She was 14 years old. She was a criadita in the house of former military man Tomás Ferreira and Ramona Melgarejo, an official for the Civil Registry. Marín was living with them in Vaquería, a locality of little more than 3,000 inhabitants located some 250 kilometers east of Asunción. At the end of January 2016, Ferreira beat Marín with a branch until he killed her. It was the last punishment the teenager ever received.
A few days later, the media disseminated news of the incident. They emphasized how the murdered minor was a criadita. Organizations, such as UNICEF or Callescuela, blamed the death on the unshakable tradition of criadazgo. They called it “a modern form of slavery”. Dozens of people gathered together in protests, demanding that there not be “another Carolina” in Paraguay. The teenager's name and photos went viral via social media.
“In Paraguay, there are more registered cows than children,” complained Tina Alvarenga. Without identification, it is easier to violate children's rights with impunity. Without such records, it is difficult to control the conditions in which a boy or girl lives.
The couple’s neighbors, along with almost 60 civil society organizations, are calling for swiftness in the investigation of the case. They want Tomár Ferreira and Ramona Megarejo to serve 30 years in prison for the homicide of the girl who was their criadita. If the legal process continues, the case of Carolina Marín could become a landmark one — the first time that criadazgo is judged in Paraguay.
In addition to labor exploitation, many criaditas also live isolated from other girls their age.
Tina Alvarenga was ten years old when the factory where her father worked went bankrupt, leaving him unemployed. All of her brothers were put to work in order to bring money into the house, selling sweets in the streets or in the market. All of them continued studying at school. Only she became a criadita in Asunción.
In her employers’ house, Alvarenga worked between four to six hours each day, and also had to measure the amount of time that she had to dedicate to studying. She woke up around five in the morning and prepared breakfast for her patrons, then began cleaning. Every day of the week had to be dedicated to cleaning and organizing a different part of the house. On Fridays, for example, she cleaned the refrigerator and the living room, polishing the furniture and disinfecting the floor. Afterwards, she went to school.
When school ended, she would return home and have time to study. The sooner she finished studying, the more free time she would have; yet this also was limited, since she had to make dinner for her patrons. Alvarenga says that although she never went hungry, her food was limited. “I had more access to the master's library than to the refrigerator,” she recalls.
The library was well-stocked and belonged to the owner of the house, a military sympathizer of the Liberal Party, the opposition party to the dictator Stroessner (who ruled between 1954 and 1989). Some nights, after dinner, the master would compel Alvarenga to stand by his side and read oppositor newspaper editorials such as “Sendero” or “El Pueblo,” and persuade her not to believe what the official media said regarding the dictator's regime. He considered her intelligent, but did not converse with her. “The master had found someone who would listen to him talk about politics,” she says.
“They did not let me go to my own home very often, because they said that I would return with ‘the bad habit’.” This was in reference to how she would speak in Guarani, her maternal tongue, since she is an indigenous Guarani. Her patrons feared, she explains, that she would lose the education that they had given her. All the same, she was perfectly aware that all that they provided for her was paid for by her own hard work.
Discrimination against Alvarenga carried over into school as well. “One of the things that is least spoken of is bullying, of the harassment that criaditas suffer when they go to school. Since other children have parents, they immediately realize that if you don't have them, then you are a criadita. “I couldn't invite anyone over to the house where I was living, I didn't have my own group of friends at school or among my neighbors. In my adolescence, which is when friendships are formed, what I felt most keenly was that I didn't belong to a group. Of everything, the isolation was the worst part,” Alvarenga explains.
In January 2015, a woman published this text in a Facebook group where people share employment advertisements for professional cleaners and nannies in Paraguay. The group administrator is Pepa Kostianovsky, a city councilwoman for Asunción Municipality.
Hola, necesito una compañerita para mi nena, para jugar con ella a la mañana y a la tarde. Para estudiar. Avisen por favor. Para el lunes si es posible.
Hello, I need a little companion for my darling, to play with her in the morning and in the afternoon. In order to study. Please notify. By Monday if it's possible.
The announcement received five “Likes” and various comments. One woman from the city of Ñemby said that she had an eleven-year old girl and gave her phone number. Another woman, also from Ñemby, offered her 15-year old niece. “She likes the little ones and is very pretty,” she wrote. A third comment spoke of “an inland girl that wanted to work”. In the midst of the number of replies, the author of the ad intervened:
Amigas, conseguí una, voy a ver si me funciona. Muchas gracias, aviso otra vez cualquier cosa.
Friends, I found one, I am going to see if she works out. Many thanks, I will notify again if anything.
The transaction was closed.
Ortiz wrote in the prologue to Criaditas, ¿hasta cuándo? (Criaditas, Until When?), a collection of testimonies from ex-criaditas:
If throughout our history we have been capable of ending systems like slavery, cuñadazgo (a practice in Paraguay's early history in which the Spanish conquistadores enslaved Guarani women as their “wives”), las encomiendas (in which Spanish citizens were rewarded with Paraguay natives, who would be forced to pay them tribute and undergo Spanish indoctrination), or the mensú (a laborer who was considered a semi-slave), it is unjustifiable that we continue to accept with pleasant complicity the servitude that faces so many girls and boys in a system of slavery, opening them up to all types of abuses and exploitation.
Both Paraguay's social inequality and power show-off are clues to understanding the validity of this phenomenon known as criadazgo.

author: Kurtural


text:
Two Slain Youth Become Tragic Symbols of Ongoing Police Brutality in Sri Lanka · Global Voices
GroundViews

This post by Raisa Wickrematunge originally appeared on Groundviews, an award-winning citizen journalism website in Sri Lanka. An edited version is published below as part of a content-sharing agreement with Global Voices.
On Monday October 24 and Tuesday October 25, 2016, Police Inspector General Pujith Jayasundera’s mobile number, given out to the public just months before, rang unanswered.
The reason for the call was the shooting of two youths, 23-year-old Natarajan Kajan and 24-year-old Pounraj Sulakshan, who were traveling by motorbike when police asked them to stop at the Kulappidi Junction roadblock in Kankesanthurai of Jaffna District, Northern Province, Sri Lanka.
When they didn’t, gunshots rang out. The police spokesman acknowledged to the media that the post mortem report found bullets lodged in one rider’s body — even as the police tried to claim it had been an accident.
President of the Jaffna University Arts Faculty Students’ Union, K. Rajeevan, spoke to sister paper Maatram about how the police had initially attempted to cover up the incident. Rajeevan said he was not in Jaffna at the time, but had gone to the hospital later on.
While the police had initially asked for two students to come with them to the hospital to identify Gajan and Sulakshan, they never showed them their bodies, Rajeevan said. Up until the afternoon, the police claimed it had been an accident.
It was only in the evening that the police told Kajan and Sulakshan’s parents that they had made a grave mistake, acknowledging that there had been shooting involved. The police had offered to pay for funeral expenses, Rajeevan said, adding that they had also pressured the families to hold the funerals quickly.
Five police officers were immediately remanded when, thanks to the coroner, these facts came to light.
Early reports indicated that the students had sped past without stopping for police, who then opened fire. The rider of the motorcycle, Sulakshan, was shot several times, losing control of the motorcycle, which slammed into a parapet wall causing serious injuries to Kajan, who died shortly after.
In the wake of the deaths, there was widespread outrage. Over 2,000 students from Jaffna University blocked the A9 road, before submitting a list of demands. Click below to read the list in full:
Full text of Jaffna University Students Union statement on the killing of two students on 20/10/2016 #lka #tamil pic.twitter.com/OOMUQpcXm6
— Guruparan K (@rkguruparan) October 24, 2016
“If the police do this, who do we get justice from?” Rajeevan asked.
Meanwhile, the president of Sri Lanka called for compensation for the families, and for an impartial inquiry:
I learned with grief the news of the deaths of two Jaffna University students. Ordered compensation and an immediate independent inquiry.
— Maithripala Sirisena (@MaithripalaS) October 22, 2016
This in itself made social media users incredulous, given the implications:
What does it say about a country when its executive president has to instruct the police to do an impartial investigation of a crime?
— Namini Wijedasa (@Nimilamalee) October 22, 2016
Kajan and Sulakshan were students at Jaffna University's Arts Faculty — a quiet, shady building with an open quadrangle. Sulakshan was an aspiring actor, participating in a comedy sketch called “Ulcer” for The 48 Hour Film Project competition.
The day after the funerals of the two students, Jaffna city was empty as the citizens declared a hartal (general strike).
#Jaffna at standstill pic.twitter.com/wqTQwkpX1D
— shalin (@uthayashalin) October 25, 2016
Despite this, former government minister Mervyn Silva said that people had been “too quick to rush to judgment” of the police officers.
“I too would stop at a road block, if asked,” he said to the media.
The unspoken question was, if the former minister chose not to stop for whatever reason, would the policemen then open fire?
In parliament, Law and Order minister Salgala Ratnayaka read out the police's version of events, which was that they had shot the students “while trying to fire in the air”.
To many, the police’s actions were not just questionable, but also to be condemned. “The police acted irresponsibly, and we hope this incident can be logically decided by the courts,” Minister of National Coexistence Dialogue and Official Languages, Mano Ganesan, said. He pointed out that the police were equipped with 1000 cc motorcycles, which could easily have outstripped the motorbike the two students were using.
Minister of Parliament for the Tamil National Alliance, M A Sumanthiran, pointed out that it was the driver of the motorcycle who was shot, not the pillion rider, indicating that the shots had been fired from in front. This could have occurred if, when Kajan and Sulakshan didn’t stop, the police in front of the roadblock had opened fire. “The student community is outraged. Not just in Jaffna but all over the country. Even the southern universities have joined and expressed their concern,” he added.
This sentiment was echoed by members of civil society. “What sickens me most is that right from the outset, the police have been trying their best to cover up or justify their heinous and negligent actions,” activist Marisa de Silva said.
“The police is where people turn when they’re in trouble. We trust the police with our safety and see [them] as [a] source of protection. This is why it’s so important that the police earn young people’s trust. However, many incidents that have taken place over the years have made young people extremely skeptical of the police as an institution,” noted Senel Wanniarachchi, a member of the youth group Hashtag Generation.
Who do you call, when police murder? #SriLanka #Lka @SriLankapic.twitter.com/wKzhCg4Ik9
— Hashtag Generation (@generation_sl) October 25, 2016
The line between outrage and violence soon began to blur. In Kilinochchi, there were stand-offs between the public and the police. In Jaffna, three youths were reportedly hospitalized after an attack by unknown assailants.
Chief Minister Wigneswaran pleaded for calm in an increasingly volatile environment.
It is undoubtedly important that calm be restored, and that no further violence breaks out. However, the protests, which spread from the north to the south, are worth reflecting on. They are not just statements of solidarity — they reflect a truth few are willing to speak openly about.
Police brutality is by no means restricted to the north of the country — in Weliweriya in 2013, for instance, villagers protesting water shortages were shot at by the army. It took three years for a magistrate to declare the shooting a crime. In Pasyala in 2014, Subhash Indika Jayasinghe was shot dead by police officers, also during a traffic stop. The Asian Human Rights Commission called for an independent investigation into the incident. In Divulapitiya, 19-year-old S.M. Kelum Subasinghe was shot on his way home from a wedding reception — although, in that incident, he had reportedly tried to stab the police constable who had asked him to stop his vehicle.
The National Police Commission has reportedly received 752 complaints against the police in just three months — from October 21, 2015 to January 2016. Most of these complaints show partiality, abuse of power, and police inaction — yet, the Commission’s hands are tied, as it has the mandate only to act on internal matters, not on human rights violations.
The reason the protests are so far-reaching is because police brutality is a phenomenon felt all across Sri Lanka, during both traffic stops and questioning. In that sense, Kajan and Sulakshan have become tragic symbols to a wider problem that is yet to be addressed.

author: GroundViews


text:
A Live Facebook Event to Promote Peace and Fight Hate Speech in Kenya · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

The logo of the public Facebook group: Promoting Peace – Fighting Hate Speech.
DW Akademie, a German organization for international media development, is organising a live Facebook event all about strategies to counter hate speech in Kenya ahead of the general elections next year.
The event will take place today November 14 and November 16 at 6 pm Kenyan time (UTC +3) on a new public Facebook group: Promoting Peace – Fighting Hate Speech.
The moderators of the live session are Chrispin Mwakideu, a Kenyan DW freelance journalist, author and performing artiste, and Joan Okitoi,  the Project manager for the DW Akademie digital innovation library, Shitemi Khamadi, a Kenyan journalist and online hate speech expert, will also participate.
Combating hate speech is particularly important, given Kenya's not-so-distant past. Post-election violence followed the 2007 general elections there. Hundreds of people died and tens of thousands were displaced.
Below is short YouTube video teaser about the event.

author: Ndesanjo Macha


text:
After 200,000 Join Violent Protest in Indonesia, Questions Follow About Defending Islam · Global Voices
Juke Carolina

An estimated 200,000 joined a protest calling for the ouster of Jakarta's governor, who is accused of insulting Islam. Image: YouTube
Earlier this month, on Nov. 4, an estimated 200,000 people in Indonesia — the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation — joined a protest in front of the presidential palace calling for the ouster of Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (popularly known as “Ahok”), whom hardline Muslim leaders accuse of committing blasphemy.
The rally, organized by the conservative Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), eventually turned violent, and many have since compared the unrest to riots that rocked Jakarta, the country’s capital, in 1998.
Ahok is a Chinese Christian politician who allegedly insulted Islam by citing some passages from the Quran about electing non-Muslims. Ahok’s speech citing the holy Muslim text was recorded on video, which later transcribed with an error that outraged Muslims and used by his opponents against him.
Moderate Islamic clerics from the Nadhlatul Ulama (Indonesia's largest Islamic organization), Muhammadiyah (Indonesia's second largest Islamic organization), and the Grand Imam of Istiqlal Jakarta Mosque (the largest mosque in Southeast Asia) have stated publicly that Ahok didn't insult Islam, in their view, but fundamentalist clerics insist that the governor is guilty of blasphemy, demanding his removal from office by holding a massive protest on Nov. 4.
Indeed, thousands joined the protest in defense of Islam, but some analysts have noted that the rally also attracted the support of thousands more who were evicted from their homes because of Ahok’s aggressive demolition campaign against slum dwellers. Aside from this, Ahok is also known to be the first high-ranking official who formally asked the Home Affairs Ministry to ban the activities of the FPI.
Weeks before the protest, racist messages directed against Ahok circulated online and offline. For example, the pamphlet below asks readers if they would support Ahok's assassination.
#AksiDamai411 itu hanya di bibir, yel-yel, orasi, spanduk, poster isinya tebarkan kebencian dan kekerasan pic.twitter.com/473zkf5H4N
— Ulin Yusron (@ulinyusron) November 4, 2016
#peaceprotest411 was an empty promise. Speeches, banners, posters filled with hate and violence are circulating.
Extremist groups like Syrian jihadists have reportedly encouraged followers to punish Ahok and by “igniting” a holy war in Indonesia.
The protest, which was held primarily in the city center, reached the residential areas in the northern part of Jakarta, where Ahok lives. Public facilities were destroyed and corner shops looted, spreading fear among locals, and triggering #safetycheckjakarta on Twitter (for the second time this year, after the Jakarta bombing attack in January). The violence compares to riots in 1998, when an angry mob looted and burned down many Chinese-Indonesian shops.
@DivHumasPolri @TMCPoldaMetro #safetycheckjakarta https://t.co/i1kFN8D4T9
— #AhokDahsyat (@cintaindonesia2) November 4, 2016
A friend's windshield was pelted by rocks because he, the driver, has slanted eyes. Glass door of a restaurant in Muara Karang also pelted by rocks.
As the protest slowly dispersed, Indonesian President Joko Widodo expressed regret about the violence and condemned the “political actors” who he says exploited the situation to spread chaos. The president subsequently ordered the military not to tolerate further acts of provocation that could divide the nation.
Sudah terbukti bahwa Demo hari ini bukan Demo Bela Agama. Lihat saja tuntutan para demonstran. Mereka juga ingin MELENGSERKAN JOKOWI!!
— #NO2ISIS (@TolakBigotRI) November 4, 2016
The fact is that today's protest was not to defend our religion. Just listen to what they demanded. They want Jokowi to step down.
The police promptly arrested suspects accused of robbing local stores and attacking officers.
There is also speculation that the protest was meant to discredit Ahok, who is currently leading in the surveys ahead of local elections in Jakarta, set for next year.
Indonesian Islamic Scholar Sumanto Al Qurtuby, who is based in Saudi Arabia, questioned the motives of the rally organizers in a Facebook post that soon went viral:
Kalian mengklaim “jihad konstitusional” membela negara tetapi kau injak-injak dan lecehkan fondasi kenegaraan dan konstitusi negara. Kalian abaikan prosedur hukum, tata-cara berhukum, dan proses menjalankan hukum. […]
Kalian mengklaim jihad membela Islam tetapi kau injak-injak norma-norma dan etika keislaman. Kau abaikan ahlak dan moralitas keislaman. Perilakumu yang beringas seperti orang kesurupan, tindakanmu yang ngawur seperti orang kesetanan, dan perkataanmu yang kotor-njetor seperti got empang adalah sudah lebih dari cukup untuk membuktikan bahwa kalian ini tidak membela Islam. […]
Apa yang kalian lakukan sesungguhnya bukan jihad membela Islam, Al-Qur'an, apalagi membela Tuhan. Apa yang kalian lakukan sebenarnya adalah jihad membela egomu, membela kepentingan kelompokmu, membela parpolmu, membela tokoh dan idolamu, membela ormas Islammu, membela nafsu-serakah kekuasaanmu.
You claimed it was a “constitutional jihad” to defend the country, but you've disgraced the nation's foundations and constitution. You ignored the legal procedures, legal manners, and processes.
You claimed that it was jihad to defend Islam, yet you disgrace Islamic norms and ethics. You ignored Islamic morals and moralities. Your actions were rabid, as if possessed by evil, and your foul words are clear evidence that you weren't defending Islam.
What you did was not jihad in defense of Islam, Al-Qur'an, or God. What you did was jihad to defend your ego, to defend your Islamic organization, your greed, and power-thirsty selves.

author: Juke Carolina


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Dear Young Progressive Annoyed About the Trump Victory… · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

En redes la gente dice cosas.
Hay gente molesta por los que dicen cosas.
Luego otros se molestan por los que se molestaron.
Y todos caben.
— Luis Carlos Díaz (@LuisCarlos) November 10, 2016
On social media there are people saying things. Then there are people annoyed by those who are saying things. And still others who are annoyed by those who are annoyed. And yet there's room for everybody.
If you’re a democrat, social democrat, progressive, neoliberal, leftist or, as we call them here in Peru, a “caviar leftist”, you’re not going to like what I'm going to say. If, in spite of that warning, you choose to continue reading, okay, that’s a first step towards breaking out of your bubble. And that’s a good thing.
Over the last few days I’ve been reading in different news media about how horrible the world is going to be now that the election in that faraway land whose fate is nevertheless intertwined with our own was lost by the favorite candidate of those media and the people they write for, and won by the candidate who is practically evil personified. Okay, I know that candidate is far from perfect—the fact that he doesn’t believe in global warming is to me great cause for concern—but he won. Fair and square, as far as we know. If you don’t accept this, maybe it's time for you to review the basic tenets of democracy.
You might say to me that the electoral system of the country in question is imperfect, and that some people would like to change it. Fine—then fight for that change, though bear in mind that you didn’t quibble about the same electoral system when your preferred candidate won. I sincerely believe you should examine your ideas about democracy. And while we’re at it, it might do you some good to review the concept of the political alternance as well. Why? Well, is it such a terrible thing that the other half of the country should have the right to to have a government it favors in power? No? Because I’ve been hearing you ranting and raving about “the entrenchment of power”, and I wouldn’t want anyone to accuse you of looking at the splinter in others’ eyes while ignoring the the beam in your own.
An anti-Trump protest in New York City in April 2016. PHOTO: mal3k (CC BY 2.0)
If you looked at the tweet I used as the epigraph for this article it's possible you've already labelled me part of the second group, one of those who get annoyed at other people on account of what they say. Not really—perhaps I’m more concerned than annoyed, for in my view your proclamations about the coming apocalypse do constitute misinformation. Come on, you seem like a serious guy, who, if I recall correctly, knows his journalism and political science, so you know what I mean. You shouldn’t be walking around, tablet in hand, prophesying the coming of the Four Horsemen, because there’s something called a self-fulfilling prophecy and that seems a little like one of those. And it’s not just me saying that, there are others as well:
El sostenido desdén con el que desde el principio de la campaña la clase media cultural trató a Trump en las redes sociales creó su fortaleza. Esa actitud de superioridad banal manifestada en burlas e ironías terminó siendo la fuente de toda la energía comunicacional del empresario […] En el campeonato de burlas y parodias que se llevaron a cabo en apoyo de Hillary y que se multiplicaron por las redes sociales hasta el infinito, nunca consideraron preguntarse seriamente qué estaba encarnando para el electorado ese hombre rudimentario.
The unremitting disdain with which middle-class social media users treated Trump from the beginning of the campaign bolstered his power. The trivial superciliousness manifested in jokes and ironic quips only ended up energizing the magnate's performance…. While waging their campaign of jokes and parodies in support of Hillary and propagating them endlessly through social media, they never stopped to ponder the things this crude man embodied for his constituency.
So in other words, in case you still don’t understand, it was your misunderstanding of your own fellow voters that brought you to where you are today. Obviously those who waged the losing campaign are in the same situation, or worse. There's much that can be said, but in the end the thing that matters is winning, not losing. And you lost. Yes, I know you have travelled the world, that you have the fought on behalf of the defenseless in distant countries, that you are well qualified. But maybe you don’t quite understand your immediate environment. Perhaps you, as happened to me once, let yourself be dazzled by the big city lights and failed and became blind to other things, to the things hidden in the interstices along the way, hidden in those dark corners where light doesn’t shine.
And it wasn’t only you: your media also failed, they didn’t see the reality either. Whether out of conviction or convenience, their interpretation of reality was biased, incomplete, just plain wrong. Read this, for example:
¿existió de verdad el “shock” que con tanta rimbombancia describían ayer los medios de comunicación de medio mundo? Quizás, sólo quizás, el “shock” afectó sólo a la mitad de los estadounidenses, puesto que la otra mitad votó, a sabiendas y probablemente con gusto, […] El periodismo, antaño uña y carne de la sociedad, está cada vez más desconectado de esa sociedad sobre la que informa. Y lo está porque sólo informa sobre la mitad de la sociedad, la mitad que a los periodistas les interesa. A la otra mitad la ignoran sistemáticamente.
Did the “shock” half the world’s news media described yesterday with such bombast really exist? Perhaps, just perhaps, the “shock” touched only half the US population, given that the other half voted, knowingly, and probably with great relish… Journalism, at one time so cozy with society, is increasingly disconnected from the communities it reports on. And that’s because it only reports on half of the society. The other half it systematically ignores.
It’s worth asking why this happened, including in cases where things were done in good faith. With all due respect, I believe it is has to do with class. According to this commentator:
The main reason that national media outlets have a blind spot in matters of class is the lack of socioeconomic diversity within their ranks. Few people born to deprivation end up working in newsrooms or publishing books.
But still, don’t be depressed. In the end you will see that your supposed Antichrist probably doesn’t possess sufficient power to open the gates of hell. Because remember the balance of powers? Those checks and balances? Life will go on, as this article humorously suggests:
las posibilidades de que Donald Trump le haga un siete al conjunto de derechos y libertades actual son escasas, por no decir nulas. Más allá, por supuesto, de retoques cosméticos y en el fondo intrascendentes […] EE.UU. también sobrevivirá a Donald Trump y al final de su mandato el país seguirá disfrutando de cifras de paro cercanas al pleno empleo, una renta per cápita muy superior a la española y la preeminencia cultural, económica, militar y científica sobre todos los demás países del planeta Tierra. Es decir los cuatro pilares sobre los que se sostienen los imperios.
The chances of Donald Trump doing serious damage to rights and freedoms as a whole are scarce, if not non-existent. Beyond, that is, a few cosmetic and ultimately inconsequential alterations… The US will also survive Donald Trump and at the end of his mandate the country will continue to enjoy unemployment levels close to zero, a per capita income much, much higher than Spain’s, and will lord its cultural, economic, military and scientific might over all the other countries on planet Earth. In other words, the four pillars that sustain all empires.
At the very least—and this is a fool’s consolation—I don’t think you are as bad as the progressives of my own country, whom I fear are never going to come to terms with the fact that the president-elect, who's practically a member of the extreme right, will annul the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other treaties they have long refused to recognize. Will they thank him for that?
So yes, politics is a strange beast, but treat this as opportunity to practice looking at things with your theoretical and academic blinders off. It’s your turn to step in shit, as they say. But you will see that, like any good shit, it will fertilize your brain and open it up to the real world. I wish you luck.
This post was originally published on Globalizado.

author: Juan Arellano


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Ethiopian Authorities Arrest Zone9 Blogger Befeqadu Hailu Citing ‘State of Emergency’ · Global Voices
Endalkachew Chala

Zone9 members rejoice at the release of Befeqadu Hailu (second from left, in scarf) in October 2015. Photo shared on Twitter by Zelalem Kibret.
Befeqadu Hailu, one of the best-known voices in Ethiopia’s stifled media environment, was arrested on November 10, 2016. In the morning hours, authorities took Befeqadu from his home to a jail cell in a nearby police station. He spent the day in there and was then transferred to a police station located in a neighborhood called Kotebe.
A member of the high-profile Zone9 blogger collective and a Global Voices contributor, Befeqadu is an active voice in the blogosphere and on Twitter. When the Ethiopian government declared a state of emergency, he wrote:
Now, the government in Ethiopia has declared a ‘state of emergency’ that lasts in six months. As ‘the usual suspects’ because of our dissents [sic], my friends and I are scared more than before. It has always been a risky thing to criticize the government here. Furthermore, this declaration has given the government the right to arrest us even without an excuse. I’m publishing this personal note as a blog because I am afraid I may be arrested sometime soon. If so I want people read me and understand me. I want people to also understand my likes to understand the desperate protests in Ethiopia. It’s an attempt to survive as human with dignity.
Authorities did not officially disclose the reason for Befeqadu's arrest, but they told him that he was wanted by the highest-ranking military officer (also known as command post) that is instituted by the state of emergency. Later he was told that the interview he gave for Voice of America's Amharic Service about Ethiopia's state of emergency was the reason for his arrest, and that he either will be charged or given “educational” training.
His friend and co-author Zelalem Kibret shared on Twitter the five-minute sound bite from Voice of America that supposedly justified Befeqadu's arrest. The clip is in Amharic.
The 5 minutes why Befkadu Hailu is arrested: https://t.co/L3MkMHkgSg#OnlyInEthiopia
— Zelalem Kibret (@zelalemkibret) November 12, 2016
Demonstrations have taken place in Ethiopia's Oromia region since November 2015 and spread across the country in recent months, with protesters demanding greater self-rule, freedom and respect for the ethnic identity of the Oromo people, who have experienced systematic marginalization and persecution over the last quarter century. Authorities have used deadly force against protesters. In October, the Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC), an opposition party, reported a death toll of nearly 600 people.
Since the government declared an official “state of emergency” last month, social media and mobile Internet connections have been periodically blocked, a nationwide curfew has been instituted, and any form of speech or gesture indicating opposition to the government can merit punishment.
Zone9 bloggers Atnaf Berahane, Natnael Feleke and Abel Wabella advocate for Befeqadu's release in 2015. Image shared widely on Twitter.
Due to his steadfast online advocacy for human rights and rule of law in Ethiopia, Befeqadu has spent much of the last three years behind bars. Along with his Zone9 blogging collective colleagues, the 35-year-old has been arrested and stood trial several times. From April 2014 until October 2015, they were jailed and then charged under Ethiopia's Anti-Terrorism Act.
In April of 2016, the prosecution appealed the decision against five of the Zone9 bloggers, including Befeqadu. The Supreme Court is scheduled to issue a verdict in the case on November 15, but this has been postponed on several occasions.
F.Supreme court expected to pass a verdict on long awaited, @zone9ners case, tomorrow. #Ethiopia #FreeZone9Bloggers
— EHRP (@EHRProj) November 14, 2016
Befeqadu unfortunately is in good company as a writer under fire in Ethiopia. Natnael Feleke, also a member of the collective, spent three days in October in a local police station after he was arrested for conversing loudly with his colleagues in a hotel about the causes of stampede that resulted in deaths of hundreds of people in late September.
Seyoum Teshome, a prominent blogger who was arrested last September is not yet known. Almost two months after his arrest, authorities have not disclosed the causes of his arrest or any charges against him.

author: Endalkachew Chala


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Four Animated Videos That Advocate Religious Tolerance and Protection of Child Refugees in Myanmar · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Screenshot of a video warning about the negative social impact of religious discrimination and online hate speech. Source: YouTube
Last year, Global Voices featured the work of Equality Myanmar, a non-government organization which has been producing multimedia materials to promote human rights in Myanmar.
We highlighted five animated videos that explain the impact of violence in communities in a simple yet creative format. The videos also aim to educate viewers on how to effectively challenge oppression and empower the marginalized sectors in society.
We are presenting four more videos that address the need to step-up the information campaign to combat religious intolerance and racial bias in Myanmar.
While Myanmar is embarking on a democratic transition, this process is being undermined by the disturbing rise of religious extremism and xenophobia in recent years.
There have been intermittent clashes between Buddhist nationalists and Muslim minority groups in several communities, especially in the western part of the country. The upsurge in violence has displaced thousands of Muslims and other minority ethnic groups. Meanwhile, hate speech on social media has reinforced bigotry and racial intolerance which further victimized minority communities.
Myanmar civil society groups have launched various initiatives to promote peace, justice, and tolerance. Even netizens are active in countering hate speech. The use of animations is also a useful method to emphasize the mainstreaming of human rights concepts in society.
These videos by Equality Myanmar reflect relevant issues which can be easily understood by viewers. For example, this video about diversity reminds viewers about the role of online misinformation in spreading hate in a community:
In this video, volunteer groups representing different religions are united in distributing relief and assistance to flood victims. It is a simple but powerful reminder that people with different beliefs can live and work together in harmony:
This video explains how discrimination can deprive young people of their right to think freely and creatively:
And finally, this video depicts the struggle of children migrants who are forced to flee their homes. It underscores the need to understand the plight of refugees and the intervention of the state to rescue children migrants from human traffickers. Another threat which the video also presented is the racist attitude of many urban residents:

author: Mong Palatino


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Putin’s Adversaries in Russia Wonder How Much Worse Things Will Be Thanks to Trump · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

One of countless Putin-Trump Internet memes.
In the wake of Donald Trump’s presidential victory, there’s been wide speculation in both Russia and the United States about whether America’s new commander in chief will be a friend or foe to the Kremlin.
Before last week, most experts and election prognosticators anticipated a harder line from Washington under Hillary Clinton. Instead, the world is looking at four years of leadership from a man who has repeatedly praised Vladimir Putin’s geopolitical prowess and signaled his willingness to rewrite U.S. foreign policy commitments in Eastern Europe, where Russia says it is unhappy with NATO’s encroachment.
As Trump’s opponents in the U.S. and around the world manage their post-election panic, Russia’s democratic opposition finds itself in quite a pickle, as the Western power it most often looked to for guidance and support has suddenly made president a man who apparently has little interest in the state of Russia’s democracy.
While Russian oppositionists’ feelings about Trump are as varied as the dissidents themselves, activists and politicians are understandably most interested to know if the next U.S. president will help or hinder their cause to bring an end to the Putin regime and revitalize Russia’s democratic institutions.
In the immediate aftermath of the U.S. election last week, anti-corruption activist Alexey Navalny published a blog post and a YouTube video asking if Trump would be bad or good for Russia. The video, which features English subtitles, now has more than 1 million views.
Navalny argues that Trump is unlikely to be the gift to the Kremlin that many suspect, laying out four general reasons: (1) Trump’s promises to scale back environmental protections and to unleash U.S. energy production will drive down world oil prices; (2) Trump’s strongest praise for Putin is in the past, and it’s unlikely that he can remove sanctions, even if he wants to; (3) Trump will launch a new arms race, boosting defense spending; and (4) Trump and Putin disagree about domestic policy issues like immigration, the government’s role in the economy, the right to bear arms, and “Islamification.” (In his fourth point, Navalny is clearly appealing to his fellow “liberal-nationalists,” whose political views on these issues are far closer to Trump’s than Putin’s.)
Despite his million views and 35,000 “upvotes,” Navalny hasn’t convinced everyone that Trump is bad news for the Kremlin.
Like Navalny, Vladimir Milov is a prominent liberal-nationalist in Russia today. Unlike Navalny, he is also an energy-sector expert. In 2002, he served as deputy energy minister of the Russian Federation. On Sunday, Nov. 13, Milov spoke to the online project “Moscow Activist,” explaining his disappointment with the U.S. election and his fear that Russia’s democratic opposition may have lost an important ally while gaining a dangerous adversary.
Что касается российской оппозиции, нам Америка как таковая не нужна. Это наша работа — здесь в России добиваться изменений, и мы помощи от них не ждем, но я скажу вот что.
Трамп вел свою кампанию больше года. Ни разу ни он, ни его вице-президент Пенс не покритиковали Путина по-серезьному. При том, что, Путин развязал войну на Донбассе, где погибло 10 тысяч человек, сбит малайзийский боинг — триста мирных жертв, в России продолжаются и еще усиливаются адские репрессии против политической оппозиции. Все видели, только что было много шума по поводу Ильдара Дадина, которого избили в колонии, а он сидит за то, что просто с плакатом стоял. Убили Бориса Немцова. Ну много чего происходит.
Ни слова плохого про Путина и про режим в России за все это время Трамп не сказал.
Мы же тоже считываем тоже этот сигнал — важно это все для него, или для него важны другие вещи. В этом смысле для нас Трамп выглядит как недружественный лидер, враждебный. Враждебный лидер, который является потенциальным союзником Путина и нашим противником.
То есть по сути он стал лидером недружественного для нас государства на сегодня. Для нас Америка, конечно, была символом свободного мира, она действительно очень много сделала для развития демократии в мире. Но с таким лидером это все меняется как в калейдоскопе, и мы видим в нем союзника диктатора. Вы видите, как все диктатуры бросились его поздравить, все антиглобалистские силы просто счастливы от этой победы. Это совершенно не радует. Я делаю вывод о том, что в ближайшее время Америка — это будет страна, которая будет скорее помогать Путину. А нам крайне неприятно, что все эти безобразия, которые в России происходят, не получили от Трампа ни малейшеи моральной оценки.
As for the Russian opposition, we don’t need America, per se. It’s our job to bring about change here in Russia, and we’re not sitting around waiting for help from them [the Americans].
But I’ll say this: Trump campaigned for more than a year, and not once did he or his running mate Pence ever criticize Putin in a serious way. This after Putin launched a war in eastern Ukraine, where 10,000 people have died, and where the Malaysian Boeing was shot down with 300 innocent victims. And extraordinary repressions continue against the political opposition inside Russia. Just recently, everyone saw the media storm around Ildar Dadin, who was beaten in prison, where he’s locked up simply for protesting with a banner. They killed Boris Nemtsov. There’s just a lot going on.
In all this time, Trump never said a bad word about Putin or his regime in Russia.
We’re looking at these same signals: does any of this matter to him, or are there other things more important to him? In this sense, Trump looks to us like an unfriendly, hostile leader — a hostile leader who is our potential adversary and possibly one of Putin’s allies.
In essence, he’s become the leader of a state that is hostile to us today. For us, of course, America was the symbol of the free world. It really did a lot for the development of democracy around the world, but everything changes like inside a kaleidoscope with a leader like this, and we see in Trump the ally of a dictator. You saw how all the dictators rushed to congratulate him. How all the world’s anti-globalization forces are simply thrilled with this victory.
But this is absolutely no cause for celebration. I suspect that America, in the near future, will become a country that is more likely than not to help Putin. And for us it’s extremely unfortunate that all these outrages that are occurring in Russia haven’t provoked the smallest moral judgement from Donald Trump.
Milov shared his comments on Facebook, addressing them as a “reminder” to the “weirdos in the Russian opposition who are drooling over Trump and the ‘decision of the American people.’” “It seems the Devil has fooled them,” he wrote.

author: Kevin Rothrock


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She Misses Being a Guerrilla, but This Former FARC Fighter Is Starting a New Life Back Home · Global Voices
PRI/PRX's The World

FARC guerrillas during the Caguan peace process March 22, 2006. Photo by DEA Public Affairs. Public domain
This story by Jasmine Garsd originally appeared on PRI.org on October 31, 2016. It is republished here as part of a content-sharing agreement.
At the bottom of a cement glen, by the banks of the canal, there’s a tiny store that sells green plantains, cola and cigarettes. But they are out of plantains.
The woman who tends the store, who goes by Xiomara, often has to fight the urge to run away. She compares the desire to escape to something taking over her body.
“I’ll be fine and then from one minute to the next, I want to get out,” Xiomara says. “I just want to go. I want out. I need to leave.”
When she gets this way she lights up a smoke and maybe watches some TV.
“I want to leave. And I can’t, because I have a home now,” she says.
Up until recently, Xiomara was a guerrilla combatant, for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. She fought in what is the longest active war on this side of the planet — for 52 years the Marxist FARC rebels have clashed with the government. The conflict left 260,000 dead, terrorizing Colombians for years with forced displacements, kidnappings, gruesome torture and disappearances.
Earlier in October, a slim majority of Colombians rejected a peace deal that had been negotiated over the last several years. Both sides are back at the negotiating table now, and there is a temporary ceasefire.
Women played a central role in the peace process, and Colombia was praised around the world for its groundbreaking inclusion of the needs and concerns of women. The peace accord promised to create a gender subcommittee to investigate war crimes of a sexual nature, it promoted land rights of peasant women and the negotiations put the voices of female victims front and center.
However, many women still rejected the deal. Some said they wanted harsher punishments for guerrilla members. Others feared it would give Marxist rebels too broad a role in the government.
Should they manage a new peace accord, the government will have to figure out how to better serve women like Xiomara: There are over 17,000 active guerrilla fighters, and an estimated 40 percent are women. And they have an especially harrowing time returning to civilian life.
Xiomara’s store is in the city of Florencia, at the edge of the Colombian Amazon, in a neighborhood where thousands of families are squatting, displaced by the armed conflict. In between customers, she reminisces about when she first became a militant.
She was 14. She didn’t tell her friends or her family that she was leaving.
“Ever since I was a little girl, I loved guns. I figured I would join the police, or the army. But to join them you have to study, and I was really poor. So the easiest thing was … the guerrillas. It didn’t require you to study,” she says.
People join the FARC for different reasons. Some are forced in. Many join for social justice causes. Others, like Xiomara, just want adventure. The excitement and respectability brought upon by weapons is no small thing for a woman in a profoundly sexist society.
“The FARC espoused a rhetoric of gender equality,” explains Kimberly Theidon, a professor at Tufts university. She teaches international humanitarian studies, and has worked in Colombia extensively.
Theidon says, for all the FARC's promises, women in it had it pretty rough: “You hear about the forced abortions, forced contraception and being forced to sleep with people that you didn’t necessarily want to. Giving up babies that you wished you could raise.”
Xiomara stiffens when I ask if she was ever scared out there. “Well it’s a hard life, I’m not going to tell you it’s all happiness and celebration. No. I was scared,” she says.
She generally speaks in a small voice, so it’s a bit jarring when it becomes a general’s bark. “You know at any moment a bullet can hit you, and kill you. That’s scary. But look, you learn. I’m telling you, you get used to it. You get used to it and you learn.”
“Before you were a guerrilla, you were my daughter. I hope you come home this Christmas. Demobilize. At Christmas, anything is possible.” Campaign poster from Colombia's Ministry of National Defense.
She loved it. Xiomara stayed with the FARC for 15 years. She moved throughout Colombia, mountains and jungle. Until she started getting sick.
She blames the birth control the rebel doctors gave her. She says the hormones made her really ill. It got so bad the guerrillas discharged her. “They told me I was no longer of use. And I no longer could do it anyways. It was as far as I could go,” she says.
She left the wilderness, and went home to figure out her next move. And that was terrifying. “I was scared of going outside. Very scared. I’m not going to lie, I still am. I’m not scared of getting hurt. I just don’t feel at ease. Because it’s like I became a little mountain animal.”
Fighters like Xiomara are supposed to contact authorities when they leave the FARC. But she didn’t tell anyone she was back. A neighbor reported her. The army came to check her for weapons. That’s when she enrolled in an official reintegration process, run by the Colombian government, with support from the US.
About 48,000 militants have enrolled in the program in the last 12 years. It starts off with a halfway house. There’s a stipend in exchange for continuing your education, or learning a trade. And a lot of counseling. Often for things you and I take for granted, like how to get around on public transportation or book a doctor’s appointment.
Monica Monje is a psychologist assigned to work with Xiomara. She tells me Xiomara’s struggle is far bigger than how to run an errand. Xiomara is not sure how to be a woman in Colombia.
It’s strange to hear Xiomara talk about it: she’s curvaceous, stunningly attractive. She exudes a hypnotic confidence. But she tells me, almost flabbergasted with herself, that despite being a woman, she loves physical labor, and the great outdoors.
“The truth? You want me to tell you the honest truth?” Xiomara pauses. “I miss that life. That’s the truth. Look, because in that life … you are always on the move. You are always exercising. Your body is always moving. And also you’re surround by so many people. It’s like family.”
Colombian society is still deeply gendered. Leaving the house, getting dirty, doing manual labor — those are considered unfeminine. Xiomara feels the change in her body — still strong from hiking around the country with a weapon, but growing soft from sitting around the store. This is one of the big challenges of reintegrating female rebels back into society. For years they’ve been experiencing adrenaline and adventure. And now they’re expected to slide right back into being domestic women.
Professor Theidon remembers one campaign by the Colombian Defense Ministry, to coax women out of the rebel forces. “It was a poster that looked as though it was a lipstick ad. It was glossy. And a woman was smiling and she was perfectly made up. And it was about ‘free yourself.’ … ‘Guerrillera, demobilize and feel like a woman again!'”
If Colombia manages to sign a peace deal with the rebel forces, it would be historic. The longest active war on this side of the planet would be over.
But here’s the challenge: There are still more than 17,000 fighters out there, in the mountains and jungles. They will suddenly be expected to reintegrate into society. A lot of them are women, like Xiomara. Theiden says in order for any peace deal to work, the government will have to rethink how it treats female combatants.
“I think the program is understood as, you’re demobilizing men, because armed men are seen as a security risk,” she says. “The message to the women is, ‘redomesticate.’ Let’s get you back into the lipstick, back into the home. … And it’s a very reactionary, backward-looking, kind of understanding of what these women might be wanting after years of seeing themselves as political protagonists.”
Xiomara doesn’t really have friends. She certainly doesn’t have girlfriends. Think about it: From age 14, to 30, she was out in the jungle and the mountains. And now she’s back, and she can’t talk to anyone she knew back then.
She invites me to the back of the house for a cigarette, on a porch overlooking a canal. The water is dirty, but it’s peaceful out here. And for a few minutes her husband isn’t hovering over us. Which is when she talks about what is eating her up. “It got me sick. It got me real sick. The birth control really messed me up. I can’t have children.”
In much of Colombian society, not being able to have children is considered a failure as a woman. Away from her husband, I ask her: If she could, would she go back to fight with the rebels?
“Even If I want to, I can’t, because of my health problems,” she says. “I’m clear on that. If I go back, I would only bother them. I’m no longer … I’m no longer useful.”
Dusk has fallen, and it’s getting dark in the glen. It’s time for me to go. When she says it, it sounds like a demand, but later on listening to the recording of our interview, she sounds childlike.
“Why are you leaving so soon? Why don’t you stay longer?”
So I stay for another cigarette. And then I really have to get going.

author: PRI/PRX's The World


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Argentina’s Changing History, as Seen Through 100 Years of Beauty Ideals · Global Voices
Romina Navarro

The model Mariela Irala made-up in the style of Evita, a 1940s icon. Image taken from the video ‘100 Years of Beauty: Argentina‘.
To celebrate the 200th anniversary of Argentina's Declaration of Independence, Cut.com released the powerful video “100 Years of Beauty: Argentina” (100 años de belleza: Argentina), the 24th video in the 100 Years of Beauty series.
Uploaded to YouTube on 26 October, this tribute to Argentina takes scarcely more than a minute to use the changing trends in feminine beauty to summarise the significant historical events and cultural icons that have marked every decade of Argentinian history since 1910. It is the story of an entire century told in images and symbols.
Revisiting the last century of Argentina's turbulent history, with its times of struggle, hope, numerous recessions, wars and six coup d'états, and then condensing it into such a short video, required a great deal of research by the production team. They had to choose hairstyles, make-up, accessories and appropriate gestures with great care, to demonstrate both the changes in fashion and in the personality and the history of the Argentinian people.
This mini documentary begins with the Modernism era of the early 20th century, bringing out icons like the beloved former first lady Eva Perón, a big symbol in the country's history, and the actress and glamour model Isabel “Coca” Sarli, considered the quintessential sex symbol of Argentina. It then moves to the dark times of the military dictatorship and the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (Madres de Plaza de Mayo) from the 1970s, identifiable by their white headscarves, a historical and cultural symbol that remains just as powerful today.
At the beginning of the 1980s, there was the war between Argentina and Great Britain over the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), and the turbulence it caused was in sharp contrast to the wild and sensual hairstyles of the time. Finally, the 21st century began with a devastating economic recession, while at the same time ‘flogger’ fashion was all the rage amongst young people, stemming from the use of Fotolog, one of the first social networks available online.
In the video below, Chris Chan, the editor of the 100 Years of Beauty series, discusses the historical research that was carried out before producing the video, and explains the relationship which developed between Argentina's tempestuous history and how beauty standards changed during the last century:
After watching the video from beginning to end, what stands out to me is that the essence of Argentinian beauty consists in being sophisticated, cosmopolitan, cultured and elegant. However, the video is also about the way in which Argentinian women have used their beauty to look towards the future as well as to remember the past.

author: Romina Navarro