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Spanish TV Offers Parents Tips on How to Dress Kids Appropriately · Global Voices
Lourdes Sada

[All links lead to Spanish-language pages, except where noted.]
Spain's main public television station channel 1 featured a workshop for parents on “how to teach their children to dress appropriately” in its daily afternoon update on May 14, 2013. Although the report was barely a minute and a half long, it featured soundbites such as “it seems we live in an era when everything must be shown” and “the big question: is my daughter dressing provocatively?”
YouTube user ACTUALIDADenunTUIT uploaded the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5m9dQZQc4g
A few days before, the same program had broadcast a brief report on the “sudden” rise in religious devotion among the unemployed, asserting that prayer and the lighting of candles for the saints had a calming affect on them. This is the video of the report, uploaded on YouTube by Kewban:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_rBFerV33s
As expected, the story about how teenagers “should dress so as not to provoke” elicited significant dissent on the Internet. On Twitter, the Spanish words “decoro” (decorum) and “tve” (the TV station) were trending topics that very afternoon. Twitter users Andere, Nacho Grim, Alberto and Herráez, took issue with the anachronistic nature of the advice:
@SaintAndere: Entre el decoro en la vestimenta y las recomendaciones de orar para los parados, una no sabe en qué país vive, ni en qué siglo… @igotzi
@SaintAndere: Between dress and decorum and the recommendation to pray for the unemployed, one wonders in what country, and in what century we're living….@igotzi
@NachoGrim: http://www.publico.es/455359/tve-explica-como-vestir-a-las-hijas-con-decoro-para-que-no-provoquen … – La Falange y la Sección femenina vuelven, espero impaciente la llegada del NODO. [No-Do: Noticiarios y Documentales]
@NachoGrim: http://www.publico.es/455359/tve-explica-como-vestir-a-las-hijas-con-decoro-para-que-no-provoquen … The Falange and the Sección femenina are coming back; I eagerly await the arrival of the NODO. [No-Do: Noticiarios y Documentales] [Translation note: The Falange and its sister organization of women were Francoist groups. NODOs was a propaganda newsreel.]
@TANSOLO140: Al paso que va la burra, “Cuéntame” va a acabar siendo una serie futurista :(
@TANSOLO140: At this rate, “Cuéntame” is going to end up being a futuristic series:(
[Translation note: Cuéntame is a popular TV series set in the final years of the Franco regime.]
@JHerraez: ¿He dormido hacia atrás y despertado en 1947? TVE explica cómo vestir a las hijas con decoro y que no provoquen
@JHerraez: Did I sleep backwards and wake up in 1947? TVE is explaining how to dress girls modestly so they don't provoke
In reality, this is simply the anecdotal part of a much more serious problem. Just a few months after winning an absolute majority in the November 2011 elections, the Council of Ministers of the ruling Partido Popular (PP) approved a decree that modified the way in which the board of RTVE, the public radio and television corporation, is chosen—until then it had required the consensus of two thirds of the legislature, but now a simple majority would suffice. This drew criticism from all parties, who accused the PP of converting a public broadcaster into state television.
Julio Somoano, news director of rtve. Web photo losgenoveses.net
Shortly afterwards, the new bosses assumed their positions; among them was news director Julio Somoano, formerly of the conservative television network Telemadrid and a figure closely associated with the Partido Popular. Somoano replaced Fran Llorente, under whose mandate TVE newscasts maintained the highest audience share and received more than 200 awards. Somoano's arrival had immediate repercussions on the broadcasting personnel. One of the first victims of the purge was journalist Ana Pastor, a well-regarded professional whose merits include securing the only interview given by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Western media. Anna Bosch was also let go just prior to receiving the Madariaga award.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad informs Ana Pastor that her veil has slipped during the interview. Screen capture from video by cartierchinoua on YouTube.
In November 2012, Carlos Alonso, producer of the flagship weekly program Informe Semanal, refused to sign off on a report on the death of five young people at at a Halloween mega-party. The CNT union of RTVE explained the reasons on their website:
El descenso por la cuesta de la credibilidad comenzó el año pasado, con motivo de la emisión de un programa sobre la tragedia del Madrid Arena. Un realizador fue fulminantemente expulsado del programa por negarse a firmar un reportaje que ha entrado en el top ten de la Historia universal de la infamia audiovisual y que se suponía que analizaba la tragedia, para llegar a la conclusión de que la culpa es de los padres actuales que no atan corto a sus hijas.
The decline in credibility started last year, with the broadcast of a program on the tragedy of the Madrid Arena. A producer was summarily ejected from the program for having refused to sign off on a report that has entered the top 10 of all time in audiovisual infamy and that was supposedly analyzing the tragedy, reaching the conclusion that the fault lay with the actual parents who did not reign in their daughters.
This case prompted the intervention of the Media Council, which declared:
Mediante la práctica de imposiciones, advertencias de sanción o el cambio de destino, la Dirección parece interesada en imponer una ‘ley del silencio’ que daría al traste con los derechos profesionales regulados en los últimos años
Through the practice of restrictions, warnings of potential suspension or transfer, management appears to be interested in imposing a ‘law of silence’ that would put an end to the rights of professionals as had been standardized in the last several years.
Alonso's supporters wrote a letter endorsed by 260 professionals at the network. The letter includes the following:
La dirección [ignora] el precepto legal de que TVE debe ser independiente, plural y rigurosa en sus contenidos. Se seleccionan temas de manera tendenciosa, se imponen enfoques concretos y (…) se veta de una manera clara y directa tanto a ciertas personas como aquellas noticias incómodas para la línea editorial de la dirección. (…) [La expulsión de Alonso] es injustificable en lo profesional y un paso más en una estrategia clara que quiere imponer el silencio, el miedo y la ausencia de debate periodístico en la elaboración de los contenidos.
Management [is ignorant] of the legal precept that TVE must be independent, pluralistic and rigorous in its content. Subjects are chosen with bias, specific approaches are imposed and (…) both certain people and news items inconvenient to management's editorial line are being vetoed in a clear and direct manner. (…)  [The expulsion of Alonso] is professionally unjustifiable and one step further in an obvious strategy to ensure silence, fear, and the absence of journalistic debate in content production.
The program Informe Semanal has also been heavily criticized for its treatment of the Bárcenas case [en], a corruption case allegedly involving high level members of the PP. All this is taking its toll on TVE broadcasts: the dramatic drop in audience share has meant that the network has lost its status as news leader. Moreover, not one of TVE's programs has been nominated this year for the Television Academy awards. Against this backdrop, it is hardly surprising that the Council of Europe criticized the interference of the Spanish government in TVE in its resolution 1920 [en], of 24 January 2013:
La Asamblea advierte con preocupación recientes informes sobre presiones políticas en cadenas de servicio público en Hungría, Italia, Rumanía, Serbia, España y Ucrania (…). Recuerda a los estados miembros los (…) indicadores de medios en una democracia: «las cadenas públicas deben estar protegidas de injerencias políticas en su gestión diaria y su trabajo editorial; se deben negar los puestos de dirección a personas con claras afiliaciones políticas; las cadenas públicas deben establecer códigos de conducta internos para el trabajo periodístico y la independencia editorial de influencias políticas»
The Assembly notes with concern recent reports about political pressure on public service broadcasters in Hungary, Italy, Romania, Serbia, Spain and Ukraine (…).  It reminds member States of (…) indicators for media in a democracy: “public service broadcasters must be protected against political interference in their daily management and their editorial work; senior management positions should be refused to people with clear party political affiliations; public service broadcasters should establish in-house codes of conduct for journalistic work and editorial independence from political influence.”

author: Lourdes Sada


text:
The ‘News in Rap’, an Unconventional News Broadcast from Senegal · Global Voices
Anna Gueye

TV audiences in Senegal have witnessed the rise of a new genre of broadcast journalism, presented by two local rap stars Xuman (39) and Keyti (40), leading figures in the the movement opposing Abdoulaye Wade's failed re-election bid last year. Like all Senegalese television news, ‘Le Journal Rappé’ is presented both in Wolof, a local language, and in French. On it the show Xuman and Keyti tackle current events – political, social and international.
The interview was conducted by Global Voices author Anna Gueye and all links forward to articles in French.
The two artists discuss their show below.
WHo are you ?
- Mon vrai nom est Cheikh Séne plus connu sous Keyti.
- Makhtar Fall AKA Xuman.
- My real name is Cheikh Séne, better known as Keyti.
- Makhtar Fall AKA Xuman.
Where are you from?
Keyti : Je suis né à Saint-Louis au nord du Sénégal mais j’ai grandi entre Dakar et Thiès.
Xuman: de Dakar
Keyti : I was born in Saint-Louis in the north of Senegal but  I grew up between Dakar and Thiès.
Xuman: From Dakar.
What is your educational background?
Keyti : J’ai eu le parcours classique de l’enfant sénégalais moyen : élémentaire, lycée puis après le bac 3 ans d’études de langues à l’université Gaston Berger de Saint-Louis que j’ai finalement quittée pour me consacrer entièrement à la musique.
Xuman : J’étais lycéen.
Keyti : I had the typical education of the average Senegalese child: elementary school, secondary school, the BAC, then three years studying languages at L’Université Gaston Berger de Saint-Louis which I ended up leaving to dedicate myself 100% to music.
Xuman : I went to secondary school.
How did you end up here?
Keyti : D’abord, la passion de l’écriture et de la musique puis le rap est arrivé.
Xuman : J'écrivais des poèmes et j’aimais la break dance. La combinaison des deux m’a mené au rap.
Keyti : First of all, out of passion for writing and for music, and then rap came into my life.
Xuman : I used to write poems and I loved breakdancing. The combination of the two is what led me to rap.
What did you do prior to this project ?
Keyti : J’ai sorti 2 albums (en 1998 et 2001) avec mon ancien groupe le Rapadio avant d’en sortir un en solo en 2003. Puis j’ai fait un autre album avec les Dakar All Stars, un collectif avec 3 autres artistes. J’ai aussi participé à un album (Histoires Extraordinaires des Enfants du Poto-Poto) avec 16 artistes d’Afrique de l’ouest (dont Xuman) pour la promotion des droits de l’enfant en Afrique.
Xuman J’ai participé à 7 albums dont 5 avec mon groupe Pee Froiss.
Keyti : I did two albums (in 1998 and 2001) with my former group the Rapadio before I launched my solo career in 2003. Then, I made another album with the Dakar All Stars, a collective with 3 other artists. I also took part in an album  (Histoires Extraordinaires des Enfants du Poto-Poto) with 16 artists from West Africa (which Xuman was also a part of) to promote the rights of the child in Africa.
Xuman I made 7 albums, including 5 with my group Pee Froiss.
What do you do outside of rap music?
Keyti : Mes autres activités tournent essentiellement autour du rap, de la musique. En 2010 par exemple j’ai réalisé un documentaire de 26mn sur le rap sénégalais nommé 100% hip-hop. Hormis cela je participe à des projets sociaux comme des ateliers d’écriture et de musique assistée par ordinateur dans les prisons de Dakar.
Xuman : je fais de la radio, de la télé et je suis DJ.
Keyti : My other activities basically revolve around rap, around music. In 2010, for example, I produced a 26 min documentary on Senegalese hip hop called 100% hip-hop. Outside of that I take part in social projects like online writing workshops and music workshops in Dakar prisons.
Xuman : I do radio, television and I'm a  DJ.
Why this project?
Keyti : Moi je le fais pour d’abord m’amuser et prouver que le rap peut aussi transporter de l’humour d’autant plus que j’ai cette image du rappeur sérieux au Sénégal. Il faut aussi dire que je suis un news addict et du coup c’est une façon pour moi de régurgiter toutes les infos que je croise, à ma façon, avec beaucoup de liberté dans le langage et les analyses.
Xuman : Pour donner notre version de l’actualité différente de celle imposée par certains medias.
Keyti : I do this first and foremost for my own enjoyment and to prove that rap can also bring humour, since I have this image of a serious rapper in Senegal. I also have to say that I’ m a  news addict and it's also a way for me to regurgitate all the news I come across, in my own way, with a whole lot of freedom in the language I use and the analysis.
Xuman : To give our version of events, different than the one that is imposed by certain parts of the media.
What inspired you? Where did you get the idea from?
Keyti : Xuman a eu l’idée à la base. Il m’en a parlé, c’était intéressant pour moi et j’ai eu envie de relever le challenge.
Xuman : Le fait d’avoir fait de la radio pendant un temps et aussi de relever le défi de coller à l’actualité et de le faire en musique … l’idée était là depuis un moment, il fallait juste avoir les moyens techniques pour la réaliser.
Keyti : Xuman came up with the idea. He spoke to me about it, I found it interesting and I felt like taking up the challenge.
Xuman : The fact of having done radio for a while and also taking up the challenge of sticking to reality, and doing that in music… I actually had the idea for a minute, it was just a question of having the technical means to make it happen.
How much time was there between the idea and the first show?
Il y a eu 4 mois avant que nous n’ayons le pilote puis 4 autres mois avant qu’une chaîne télé ne soit intéressée par le projet.
It took about 4 months to get the pilot done and then another 4 before a TV station got interested in the project.
La 2STV (chaîne de télévision privée. chaque vendredi soir après le journal traditionnel puis disponible dès le lendemain sur YouTube).
La 2STV (a private television channel. Every Friday night after the traditional news, and then available the next day on YouTube).
How did you make the first episode happen ?
C’est notre partenaire Level Studio qui a proposé le pilote au directeur des programmes qui a tout de suite aimé le concept.
Our partner Level Studio proposed the pilot episode to the director of programming. He liked the concept right away.
What problems did you encounter?
Avoir l’équipe adéquate pour que l’idée de base soit traduite en images. Il était important pour nous que le produit soit crédible, surtout au niveau de la réalisation graphique et vidéo. Il a donc fallu un peu de temps avant de trouver Level Studio qui a bien voulu nous suivre dans l’aventure.
Getting the right team together so that the original idea could come across visually. It was important to us for the end product to be credible, especially on the visual production and video level. Because of that, it took some time before we found Level Studio who wanted to ride with us on this adventure.
Who is your audience?
Keyti : Les plus jeunes en premiers parce que le journal est fait en rap qui est une musique de leur temps mais au-delà tous ceux qui veulent de l’impertinence, une actualité passée en revue sans langue de bois.
Xuman : Et enfin tous ceux qui ne suivent pas l’actualité mais préfèrent écouter de la musique.
Keyti : The younger viewers first and foremost because the news is done in rap, which is a musical style of their times, but above all, all those who want to see some impertinence, to see current issues get covered without ‘news speak’.
Xuman : And finally, all the people who don't pay attention to the news but who prefer to listen to music.
What is your goal?
Divertir d’abord mais aussi faire sauter plus de barrières et libérer beaucoup plus le discours des artistes au Sénégal quel que soit leur domaine. Qu’on puisse s’affranchir de la politique, des pesanteurs sociales et religieuses petit à petit et dire les choses comme nous les pensons.
To have fun first of all, but also to overcome barriers and liberate the discourse of artists in Senegal, in every domain. So that we can free ourselves of politics, social and religious pressure, bit by bit, and say what we really think.
How was it received? Did you have a good audience?
Keyti : Globalement je crois qu’il y a eu un bon accueil. Il reste toujours des choses à parfaire et nous avons bien sûr reçu des critiques par rapport à ces choses-là.
Xuman : Très bien car nous avons un vécu et sommes crédibles. Nous avons pu toucher au delà du milieu hip-hop. ( note de l'auteur: Ce que je confirme, je n’écoute jamais de rap mais je suis restée littéralement scotchée devant ce journal d’ailleurs le nombre de vues  en quelques jours démontrent que je ne suis pas la seule).
Keyti : Overall, I think that there's been a good reception. There's always things which could be improved and of course we have had some criticism in relation to those things.
Xuman : Really good because we have a story and we're credible. We've been able to touch people beyond hip hop. (author's note: this I can confirm, I never listen to rap but I have been virtually glued to this news broadcast and judging from the number of views in just a few days, I'm not the only one).
Who produces the show?
Ce projet est auto-produit de bout en bout. Cependant les premiers numéros ont suscité l’intérêt de certains investisseurs et nous étudions toutes les propositions afin de garder aussi notre liberté de ton sur les prochaines éditions.
This project is 100% self-produced. However, the first episodes caught the interest of certain investors and we look at all the propositions carefully to safeguard our freedom of expression in future editions.
See also the Afrik.tv report on the ‘News in Rap’.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Anna Gueye


text:
Trinidad & Tobago: Invented E-mails or Political Demise?  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Monday's sitting of Trinidad and Tobago's Parliament saw the Opposition Leader quoting from several e-mails, which, he alleged, implicate key government ministers, including the Prime Minister, in attempting to cover up her administration's actions surrounding the Section 34 controversy.
Netizens were taking notice.  Twitter was unusually quiet, but many social media users who watched the No Confidence motion against the government play out, flooded their Facebook status updates with commentary about the goings-on.  Some even posted notes, like this one by Christian Hume – its contents are reproduced in this post with the writer's permission:
The good thing about Emailgate is that the majority of people who would decide the next General Election understand e-mail. The Attorney General himself has publicly stated that he has had a particular e-mail address for the last 15 years, which means that he too would have been among the earliest people in this country to sign up for e-mail back in 1997.  I am therefore amused at the comical defenses being put up by himself and Anil Roberts in trying to convince people who do not understant e-mail (and some who do) that there is no connection between the e-mails read out in Parliament yesterday and the high government officials that they are purported to have come from.
Soon, the discussion, both on and offline, turned to the authenticity of the e-mails.  In this blog post, diaspora blogger Jumbie's Watch wrote:
This revealed email exchange over the Section 34 débâcle is a deal breaker if it turns out to be true. Why I find it amusing though, is that it is so obviously fake.
There are several clues which reveal right off, to those who are semi-literate in email technology, why said emails are fudged.
First of all, and most strongly telling is that Gmail, even since its inception in 2004 (when people were paying for invitations to Gmail) did not allow for 4-character usernames. Not even 5… and I know; I was there… back in 2004, you had to use 6 alpha-numeric characters or more.
Secondly…I have never seen such childish spelling and grammatical mistakes from Anand Ramlogan. Sure, one can argue that most people are far more informal in emails than in a commentary column… but even so some lineament of the writing style will continue to hold true. In other words, wolf cyah play sheep.
Thirdly, how improbable is it for public figures in high positions to use ‘free’ email accounts to contact each other, when they have ‘official’ government provided email?
What has me is a puzzled frame of mind is trying to fathom the reason Keith Rowley would bring this up in Parliament. Is he so naive that he would fall into the clutches of desperation? Malicious? Or is he merely dotish?
Hume addressed that very question in his Facebook note:
I'm hearing people saying that Dr. Rowley should have presented the technical verification of the authenticity of those e-mails in Parliament yesterday. Given that he read the contents of 31 e-mails, that would have been impractical, seeing that he only had 75 minutes in which to make his presentation. At any rate, the technical verfication of those e-mails would have been incomprehensible to the most of the national population, and I daresay, to almost all the members of the House of Representatives, including the Speaker himseslf. Instead, Dr.Rowley went one better. He took pains to explain the necessity for Parliamentary privilege, before using it to lay his case before House and country. In doing so, he is challenging Kamla, Anand, Suruj, and the PP machinery to deny the authenticity of the e-mails, and as most people in that situation would do, the PP spokespersons have already obliged bombastically. I am confident that the technical details that would verify the authenticity of those e-mails will start to emerge in the days to follow, and not necessarily from PNM quarters. Grab your pop corn, sit back and watch. Doh say ah didn't tell allyuh.
The Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society contributed to the discussion by tackling the topic of hacking.  The post explained the phishing phenomenon, adding:
The method of phishing emails pretending to be from a friend or organisation you know underscores the ease of faking emails. The from field in an email can have any text (e.g ‘lldjlkdladajdlk@sdkaldjal’) that looks like an email address and not be from the ‘real’ sender.
In this context, one Facebook user, suggested that if the Prime Minister's e-mail was indeed hacked, she should have noticed irregularities in the use of her account.  The TTCS post explained:
To detect hacking attempts, one should set up two factor authentication which improves the security of your email account. One common implementation of two factor authentication uses your cell phone. Whenever a new device or software is used to access your email account, the email provider prompts you to enter a second password that is sent to your cellphone via SMS. If you receive an SMS and you are not trying to access your email from a new device, then you are aware that someone else has your password and is attempting to access your account.
Detection of whether your email account is compromised without two factor authentication requires a regular review of your email account profile and/or settings.
The rest of the post detailed a step-by-step process through which to protect yourself and to determine if your account was compromised:
The complete, strange emails…should be kept for study by you or pertinent authorities to study for clues as to the IP address where the email was sent from.
This requires the preservation of the email headers which are typically not shown by email clients nor included in the email when emails are forwarded.  However, all email messages have e-mail headers.
Meanwhile, Robin Montano, a former Senator with affiliations to the United National Congress (one of the political parties in the coalition People's Partnership government), addressed the Opposition Leader's allegations on his blog, calling them the political equivalent of a Hail Mary pass:
Dr. Keith Rowley's play in Parliament yesterday could be labelled such a pass because if what he said turns out to be not true he will have effectively sunk himself and his PNM team. That would be it! Finito! Kaput! On the other hand, if all that he has said is true the Government is sunk!
The e mails basically allege a criminal conspiracy between the Prime Minister, the Attorney General and the Prime Minister's special security adviser, Captain Gary Griffith over the section 34 issue. Further the e mails go further to suggest that the parties involved were planning serious harm to a journalist.
The problem here is that the e mails appear on their very face to be faked. For example, a lot of the e mails are supposed to have come from an e mail address: anan@ gmail.com. But it is not possible to create a g mail account with less than six characters.  Then there is another e mail address that ends in “.coN “(I have high lighted and capitalised the ‘n’ for emphasis). There should be an ‘m’ where the ‘n’ is. Then there is an alleged exchange of e mails between Captain Griffith and Mr. Ramlogan starting with Mr. Ramlogan allegedly e mailing Captain Griffith at 1:33am on a Monday morning and Captain Griffith replying at 1:40am! So these men don't sleep and are sitting on their computers at that time?! Really?
The post then considered the potential political fallout:
The accusations that he has made are very, very serious. The Prime Minister has quite properly referred them to the Commissioner of Police. If they turn out to be true the Prime Minister and her Attorney General will have to resign. There is no question of that! But if the accusations turn out to be false then Dr. Rowley should be expelled from the Parliament.
In a follow-up post today, Montano declared:
I now believe beyond reasonable doubt that the e mails are fakes. Whether Dr. Rowley knew that the e mails were forgeries is another question.
He also challenged what the opposition knew and when they knew it:
You sent those e mails to the President? And by ‘you’ I mean the PNM. So that means that not only Dr. Rowley knew about those e mails but others in the PNM knew about them too? And therefore President Richards knew about them in December? And the Integrity Commission knew about it also in December?!
Mr. Ken Gordon, the Chairman of the Integrity Commission,  is quoted in the press this morning as saying that if the e mails are true then that would be very serious. But I must ask Mr. Gordon directly, what if the e mails are forgeries? Fakes? Wouldn't that also be very serious?
To help determine whether the e-mails could indeed be fake, Global Voices contacted tech journalist and blogger Mark Lyndersay.  We asked him, from a technical perspective, whether there were any red flags:
Mark Lyndersay: The first flag was that there only seem to be prints of these e-mails. It's hard to imagine that the Leader of the Opposition chose to stand before Parliament with no more evidence than some paper documents. His next logical step should have been an announcement that the electronic files would have been sent to the appropriate authorities for verification. That hasn't happened, though there is no reason to believe that it won't.
We then asked Lyndersay what he thought the next steps should be in order to determine the authenticity of the correspondence:
ML: First up would be the investigation of the e-mail transmissions to review the routing information that the messages took. Without that information, the argument is really about whether or not the printed information is convincing and that really shouldn't be a discussion at all.
Finally, we asked him about the impact that the technical aspects of this issue could have on its political aspects:
ML: Technology is absolute. It deals in verifiable bits that either are or are not. A message either has a proper transmission header or it doesn't. If it doesn't, it's unverifiable and useless as evidence, regardless of who offers it. This may be a confusing matter for politicians, who trade in mood, feelings and allegiances, none of which have any impact on bits. Information on the web may have mood and feeling, but its existence is trackable and verifiable every step of the way (unless people take the trouble to use anonymizers and other identity obscuring tools). E-mails can't just look right or wrong, they are either truly electronic transmissions and can be verified as such with a trackable footprint or they are not. It really is as simple as that. From a verification point of view, an unverifiable e-mail, whether it was invented out of whole cloth on a word processor or copied and pasted into a fresh transmission, simply can't be used as a tool of accusation.
In light of today's failed motion, in part thanks to the fact that the very opposition that raised it walked out of Parliament, political blog The Eternal Pantomime summed everything up this way:
Dr Rowley took a massive gamble accusing the government of conspiring against the office of the DPP and conspiring to harm a citizen of the country with just a pile of transcripts. To have pulled it off successfully what was required were digital files or actual screen shots of the e-mails so that the members of the doubting public would have irrefutable proof, create a significant hue and cry and catapult the powers into action.
Without those digital files it all boiled down to playing the blame game…yet again. It is a game the country has been caught up in for the past 3 years and it has gotten old and tired. Despite the numerous scandals and missteps this government has gotten itself embroiled in, this Motion of No Confidence had the potential to land a PM, an AG and a senior government Minister in jail had it been handled right.
Now, three days later, with Keith pointing fingers and Kamla sticking out her tongue and saying prove it, we have the country right back where it started…wondering who lying.
If Stephen Williams wasn’t such a compromised Commissioner of Police, if we had a serious cyber crimes unit here, if the Integrity Commission actually functioned and if the President had the power he thinks he has…there would be an independent investigation and the first thing to be done would be to confiscate the devices of these individuals and to ask their email hosts for transcripts on the dates Rowley gave…
But this was a rape trial. Rowley accused them of fucking us over…it was up to him to prove there was unwanted penetration…and before he managed to accomplish that in Parliament…he pulled out.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


text:
Well-Known Chinese Leftist Advocates Militarized Internet · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

A prominent Chinese nationalist has called for China to take tighter control of the country's Internet in part by building an online army of civilians to monitor the Web.
Zhang Hongliang (張宏良), a Maoist opinion leader, put together [zh] an elaborate plan of action on his blog on May 17, 2013 soon after the “Seven Speak-Nots” policy, a list of seven forbidden subjects for discussion in schools and online in China, was revealed. The post has since been deleted.
Political liberals in China have promoted the Internet as a platform for public deliberation and political negotiation since the landmark Sun Zhigang incident in 2003. That case saw the abolition of custody and repatriation in China, which allowed police to detain people without a proper permit and return them to where they legally could live and work, after the death of 27-year-old university graduate Sun Zhigang in an official detention center caused massive outrage online.
The Great Firewall of China. Image from Digital Trends.
Even extreme nationalists have made use of the Internet for political mobilization, such as a national anti-Japanese protest in September 2012.
But in the past few weeks, the government has undertaken a new censorship campaign that has removed the accounts of numerous political liberals from popular microblogging site Sina Weibo.
Below are the four main arguments Zhang makes in his 10,000-word article [zh]:
第一，新浪等各大门户网站为外资企业，有美国等西方国家垄断资本控制，在客观上与中国形成利益对立。
Firstly, Sina and other major portal sites are registered as foreign corporations and controlled by monopolized capital in the hands of the United States and other western countries. Their interests are thus in opposition to China.
第二，各大门户网站的把关编辑和关键岗位人员，都是南方报系这个当今传媒界“黄埔军校”培养出来的，是中国历史上规模最大的“网络伪军”。这是当今国内外反共反华势力最为自豪和自信的地方。
Secondly, most of the editors or content operators of major portals are coming from Nanfang Media Group, which is like a “military academy” for online media. Both domestic and overseas anti-communist and anti-Chinese forces are very proud of the base.
第三，[…]中国网管部门长期被推行西方政治制度和西方普世价值的领导人所控制，采取强制政策把反左和反对“文革余孽”作为主要任务，打着反左和反对“文革余孽”的旗号，妖魔化人民革命，妖魔化人民领袖，妖魔化社会主义，妖魔化民族文化和民族精神，支持汉奸文化，纵容反共反华势力、打压左翼爱国力量。
Thirdly, Internet authorities in China are under the control of those who advocate for western political systems and universal values. Their mission is to crackdown on those with left-leaning beliefs and Cultural Revolution believers by demonizing people's revolution, people's leaders, socialism, and national culture and spirit and by supporting traitor culture, indulging anti-communist and anti-Chinese forces, as well as repressing leftist patriot forces.
第四，“中美国”已从经济领域延伸到网络领域，形成了美国网军司令部统一操控中美两国网络舆论的危险状况。“中美国”是美国哈佛大学教授弗格森对“中国生产，美国消费”这种新型经济共同体的称谓，我们把它称之为“殖民经济循环圈”。“中美国”是新自由主义经济改革造成的，后来美国又试图通过中国政治体制改革，把“中美国”由经济领域推向政治领域，实现“中美共治”的新型政治共同体。目前在网络领域，由美国主导的“中美共治”已经形成。除了上述三个方面之外，形成“中美共治”的最主要力量，就是由“黑头发黑眼睛外国人”组成的庞大水军。
Fourthly, “Chimerica” has been extended from the economic domain to the Internet. The online opinion headquarters in the US is now manipulating both Chinese and US Internet opinion. “Chimerica” is a notion conceptualized by Harvard professor Niall Ferguson to describe the new economy of “made in China and consume in the US”. However, we call such a relationship “colonial economic cycle”. “Chimerica” is a result of the neoliberal economic reform, and the US later tries to extend such a relationship from the economic to the political domain to create a polity based on the “co-governance of China and the US”. Now in the Internet domain, the “co-governance of China and the US” led by the US has already been shaped. The major driving force is the large number of online opinion navy [meaning paid opinion leaders] formed by “foreigners who have black hair and black eyes”.
Based on his above analysis, Zhang put forward the following proposal:
第一，对各大门户网站实行本土化管理，或者国有化，或者中国化，收回网站控制权。此前我们多次指出，信息时代，网站是特殊企业，关乎国家安全和国防安全，绝不能像一般企业那样由外资控制或与外资合作经营。目前各大门户网站都在海外上市，可以采取获得控股权或控制权的办法，把各大门户网站变成中国控制的企业。获得控股权是指通过企业外部的股权并购来控制企业；获得控制权是指通过企业内部建立党团组织、工会组织以及员工持股会等，控制企业政治方向。总之，一定要像重视军队那样重视门户网站，把所有权牢牢控制在中国手中。军队不能由外资控制或者与外资合作经营，网站同样不能由外资控制或与外资合资经营。
Firstly, major portal websites have to be governed under domestic policy. Or we can regain the control by nationalization. We have pointed out many times in the past that in the information age, the Internet is a very distinctive business that affects our national and military security. It should not be controlled by foreign controlled capital or run by the foreign capital cooperation model. Now that major portal websites are listed in overseas stock market. We could regain China's holding through merger and acquisition. To regain China's control over the portal sites, we have to set up party branches, labour union branches, and worker stake-holding organizations within the corporations. We have to manage portal websites like our military. The military should not fall into the hands of foreign capital or be managed under the foreign capital-cooperation mode. The same principal should be applied to the Internet.
第二，调整网管队伍，保证网络管理权掌握在马克思主义者和爱国主义官员手中。[…] 此前中国网络舆论导向的问题，实际上是管理部门的问题，是管理部门推行西方普世价值的管理导向决定的，只要网络管理部门能够坚持十八大精神和习近平总书记系列讲话，中国网络就一定能够成为社会主义和爱国主义的舆论阵地。
Secondly, rearrange the Internet administrative team and make sure that the task of Internet governance should be in the hands of those officials who believe in Marxism and patriotism. […] The problem with Chinese online public opinion is caused by the Internet authorities whose decisions are based on western universal values. When Internet management authorities insist and act on Secretary Xi Jinping's speeches and the spirit of the Chinese Communist Party's 18 Congress, the Chinese Internet will gear public opinion towards socialism and patriotism.
第三，发挥中国共产党领导和人民群众监督相结合的政治优势，向各大门户网站派驻工作组和群众监督委员会，形成自上而下和自下而上的双重监督机制，保证网站的爱国主义方向和国家的政治安全、国防安全。
Thirdly, manifest political advantage by combining the communist party's leadership with mass monitoring by setting up working teams and people's monitoring committees in portal websites. So that the monitoring is both top-down and bottom-up. This is to ensure all the portal websites are in alignment with patriotism and serving national, political, and military security proposes.
第四，组建军民相结合的现代网军，形成网络社会的现代国防。网络时代是大众民主的时代，大众民主取代精英民主，是21世纪人类社会发展的根本潮流。[…] 而中国以往的全民皆兵时代和大众民主运动，是我们组建现代网军的天然优势，是新时代群众路线的主要内容，与此相联系的大众政治文明，也是中华民族崛起的历史依据。只要我们真正坚持群众路线，网军时代就是中华民族复兴的时代。
Fourthly, build a modern online army by bringing together the military force and people so as to form a modern defense system of the network society. The age of the Internet is an era of mass democracy and mass democracy should replace elite democracy. This is the developing trend of the 21 century human society. […] In China, the history of everyone being a solider and mass democratic movement has given us the advantage of building the modern online army, which is the substance of massive participation in the new era, towards a civilization of mass politics. This is the historical path of the rise of the Chinese nation. If we stick to the principle of the mass, the era of the online army is the era of the revival of the Chinese nation. [Note: the revival of the Chinese nation is the slogan or the “China dream” of President Xi Jinping's leadership.]
第五，借鉴去年美国和俄罗斯分别制订《爱国法案》和《叛国罪法》的经验，尽快制订与《反分裂法》相适应的《反汉奸法》，恢复宪法中“惩办卖国贼”的相关条款，把党要管网、群众管网与依法治网结合起来，建立保护爱国主义的法治基础。
Fifthly, borrow from the experience of the US and Russia with legislation of “Patriot Act” and “Treason Law“, we should legislate an “anti-Chinese traitor law” which is in the same spirit of the “anti-separation law”. We should restore the clause regarding “punishing the traitors” in our Constitution and set the patriotic legal ground for party, people, and legal governance of the Internet.
The central government's policy towards Internet government is under the so-called “dictator's dilemma”. On the one hand, an open Internet is the essential foundation of the information society and the central government has established its legitimacy by actively responding to online public opinion.
On the other hand, citizens have made use of the Internet to build a consensus for liberal political reform and by doing so, they have put the power of the one-party regime at risk.

author: Oiwan Lam


text:
A President for the Internet? · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

According to [es]a recent poll [es] by Taringa! in Latin America, around 10 % of Internet users say it is not necessary to have a president for the internet, 8% nominated themselves for the job and Megaupload creator Kim Dotcom got third place. Meanwhile 82% say that learning to do new things is the main thing they have accomplished thanks to the Internet. Among the worst of the Internet people voted for pop-up windows (77%) and fake download icons (76%).

author: Juan Arellano


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Brazil’s Indigenous Fight Back Against State Development · Global Voices
Raphael Tsavkko Garcia

This post is part of our special coverage Dossiê Belo Monte (Belo Monte Dossier) [pt] and Indigenous Rights.
[All links lead to Portuguese-language pages unless otherwise noted.]
As Brazil's economy steamrolls forward on the momentum of mega-construction projects, many of the country's indigenous have found their homelands snatched away for the sake of development.
This land-hungry economic push under Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, including road construction, mining, hydroelectric plants, and the exploitation of natural resources, has led to violent clashes between activists and police throughout Brazil. Rousseff's indigenous policy has been the target of criticism from experts and activists who point out that such development is costing tribes their territory.
Some scholars such as Idelber Avelar go so far to consider Rousseff's government as the most retrograde in indigenous rights since the end of the country's military dictatorship, during which hundreds of indigenous people were tortured and killed by the state. It was the case of 2,000 of them from the tribe Waimiri-Atroari who vanished overnight for being on the way of “progress” or the so-called “Brazilian economic miracle [en]”.
Hydroelectric construction
The recent construction of the Belo Monte Hydroelectric Plant is perhaps the most emblematic case of violence against indigenous people in the country.
On 2 May, 2013, communities from the Xingu River, which is the main river affected by the plant, protested the project by occupying the construction site. Among them, about 200 natives of various tribes issued a manifesto denouncing the violence to which they are being subjected:
Vocês estão apontando armas na nossa cabeça. Vocês sitiam nossos territórios com soldados e caminhões de guerra. Vocês fazem o peixe desaparecer. Vocês roubam os ossos dos antigos que estão enterrados na nossa terra.
Vocês fazem isso porque tem medo de nos ouvir. De ouvir que não queremos barragem. De entender porque não queremos barragem.
You are pointing guns at our heads. You raid our territories with soldiers and war trucks. You make the fish disappear. You rob the bones of the old who are buried in our land.
You do it because you are afraid to hear us. To hear that we do not want a dam. To understand why we do not want the dam.
Belo Monte construction site occupied on 6 May, 2013. Photo by Paygomuyatpu Munduruku, under licence CC BY-SA 2.0.
The indigenous people, who occupied the dam for three days, received the support of about 3,000 construction workers, who were  threatened to be sacked and also staged strikes denouncing poor working and accommodation conditions. Some workers have also accused the Consórcio Construtor Belo Monte (the consortium responsible for the Belo Monte dam) and the National Force for having abducted workers, handled demonstrators with heavy hand  and committed murder.
Journalist Ruy Sposati denounced the violence against the press on the site as well as criticized the project in a post shared by Idelber Avelar on Facebook:
Não é trivial. É a expulsão de jornalistas, em plena democracia, pelo aparato policial do Estado, do sítio de construção da obra mais cara da história do Brasil…., feita com dinheiro público, com seríssimos impactos humanos e ambientais, escassa demonstração de sua utilidade inúmeras acusações de violação da lei e, neste fim de semana, a incrível novidade de jornalistas expulsos por forças policiais, em plena democracia. Cabe lembrar que Belo Monte foi inicialmente orçada em R$ 4,5 bilhões e já se encontra em quase R$ 30 bilhões.
It's not trivial. It's the spell of journalists by the police apparatus of the state from the construction site of the most expensive work of the history of Brazil under a full democracy,….[a dam project] made with public money, with very serious human and environmental impacts, scant evidence of its usefulness, [target of] many accusations of violation against the law, and on this weekend [4-5 May], the unbelievable novelty of journalists being expelled by the police, during a full democracy. It's worth to recall that Belo Monte was initially budgeted at 4.5 billion Brazilian reais (2 billion US dollars) and this is already almost 30 billion reais (13 billion US dollars).
Indigenous people take Belo Monte construction site. Photo by Ruy Sposati, used with permission.
Indigenous groups have disavowed the Brazilian Intelligence Agency's espionage of the Xingu Vivo movement.
In the northern state of Pará, Munduruku people have also protested [en] against the presence of the National Public Security Force and the Army on 22 March, 2013. The security forces entered the territory to guarantee that 80 researchers of the Ministry of Mining and Energy could safetly assess the chances of a hydroelectric plant around the Tapajós river – the only major undammed river region in the country. This plan for a dam in the region is called operation Tapajós [en] and it has been suspended. The Munduruku people continue to resist.
In addition to that, Munduruku people affirmed that representatives of the Brazilian government missed the meeting scheduled for 25 April, 2013 and that the police force was used as a tool of intimidation, reports journalist Ruy Sposati while interviewing Waro Candido, President of the Association Pusuru, a representative entity of indigenous people, in an article published on the website of the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI):
O indígena disse que, por três dias, Jacareacanga esteve sitiada. “O governo trouxe mais de 200 policiais pra cá, o pessoal da cidade viu chegar pelo menos sete caminhões, helicóptero, avião, caminhonete, carro. Ficou igual em Itaituba [local onde teve início a Operação Tapajós]”, explica [Cândido Waro]. “E queriam que uma comissão [de lideranças indígenas] saísse da aldeia e fosse encontrar com eles na cidade, cheia de polícia. E isso a gente disse que não, foi uma decisão do nosso povo durante a assembleia de que queríamos receber o governo, mas tem que ser na nossa terra e sem policiais” [afirma Waro].
“O governo disse que estava com medo de ser atacado, e os vereadores disseram que eles pessoalmente cuidariam da segurança de todos os representantes. Mas aí eles falaram que só viriam se fosse com Força Nacional, Polícia Federal dentro da aldeia, que o Gilberto Carvalho [ ministro-chefe da Secretaria-Geral da Presidência da República do Brasil] falou isso pra eles” [disse Waro].
Munduruku assembly in Jacareacanga town. Photo by Ruy Sposati, used with permission.
The indigenous person said that during three days the Jacareacanga town was besieged. “The government brought more than 200 police officers out here, people from the town saw at least seven trucks, helicopter, plane, truck, car arriving. It was just like in Itaituba [where Operation Tapajós [en] began]”, explains [Candide Waro]. “And they wanted a commission [of indigenous leaders] to leave the village and meet them in the town center, full of police. And so we said no, it was a decision made by our people during the assembly that we wanted to meet the government, but it has to be in our land without police “[says Waro].”The government said they were afraid of being attacked, and the aldermen said they would personally take care of the safety of all representatives. But then they said that they would only come with the presence of the National Force and the Federal Police in the village, that Gilberto Carvalho [Chief Minister of the General Secretariat of the Presidency of Brazil] said it to them “[said Waro].
The Brazilian government, on the other hand, published a note on the official website of the General Secretariat of the Presidency saying representatives of the government attended the meeting on 25 April, 2013. Munduruku people denied that the meeting took place in an open letter:
Exigimos que o governo pare de tentar nos dividir e manipular, pressionando individualmente nossas lideranças, caciques ou vereadores. Lembramos que quem responde oficialmente pelo nosso povo são as coordenações das associações Munduruku, chamadas Pusuru e Pahyhy, as entidades representativas de todas as comunidades Munduruku. […]
Também exigimos que nossos direitos constitucionais sejam garantidos, sem que sejam usados como moeda de troca. E reafirmamos: somos contra as barragens e queremos todos os nossos rios livres. E nós vamos lutar por eles.
We demand that the government stop trying to divide and to manipulate us, by pressing our leaders, chiefs or city councilors individually. We remember that those who respond officially by our people are the coordination of the Munduruku associations called Pusuru and Pahyhy, entities representing all Munduruku communities. […]
We also demand that our constitutional rights are guaranteed, without being used as a bargaining chip. And we reaffirm: we are against dams and we want all our rivers free. And we will fight for them.
In March 2013 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazilian riot police violently evicted a group of indigenous people from a former indigenous museum that they had occupied, known as Maracanã Village [en], to make way for a walking area for fans during the 2014 World Cup and eventually the Olympic Museum.
On 26 April, 2013, there were more demonstrations of resistance against that eviction. YouTube user patrickgranja published a video showing police aggression toward the demonstrators:
President Dilma Rousseff observes an indigenous person being removed from the Maracanã Village by Rio de Janeiro State Governor Sérgio Cabral and the city's Mayor Eduardo Paes accompanied by the 2014 World Cup mascot and billionaire Eike Batista, who owns the company that is part of the consortium that won a bid to privatize the Maracanã complex. Cartoon by Carlos Latuff, free to use.
“Ruralist” lobby
In the federal state of Mato Grosso do Sul [en], the Guarani-Kaiowá, Brazil's second largest indigenous group, continue [en] to fight against the massacre perpetrated by gunmen, police and large state owners also called ‘ruralists’ in the country. They have been suffering due to the interests of cattle, cane sugar and soy estates in the region and the threat of losing lands already demarcated as reservoir because of the lobby led by the ruralists in the Congress.
And in April 2013, hundreds of indigenous people stormed the National Congress [en] to protest against the a proposed constitutional amendment (PEC 215) which would hand over the power to demarcate indigenous lands from the executive to the legislative ones. With the powerful ruralist lobby's influence in Congress, indigenous groups fear that amendment would pave the way for ranchers to take more of their homelands.

author: Raphael Tsavkko Garcia


text:
For Two Weeks, Liberia’s Media Refused to Report on the President · Global Voices
Counselor Track

Liberian independent journalists have ended a nearly two-week long freeze on coverage of the country's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a media blackout they placed on the leader for failing to condemn her security director's comments calling journalists “terrorists”.
The standoff between the media and Sirleaf began when Liberian journalists joined other journalists worldwide to celebrate World Press Day in the Liberian port city of Buchanan on May 3, 2013. However, participants were shocked when Othello Warric, director of presidential security unit Executive Protective Service (EPS), said that his office will not hesitate to go after journalists who “intrude the intelligence of the presidency”.
“Be careful in questioning the integrity of Liberians. Be careful, because you have your pen and we have our guns. And if you incriminate the character or integrity of Liberians, like myself, we will come after you,” Warrick was reported to have said at the event.
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf speaking in Margibi,Liberia. Photo courtesy Cyrus Wleh Badio the Press Secretary to President Sirleaf.
After that fateful Friday, the Liberian independent media houses  imposed media blackout on the presidency which was lifted following the intervention of the parliament.
The threat by the head of the presidential guard and the media blackout prompted online debate particularly on Discussing Liberia Facebook group [Editor's note: Discussing Liberia is a closed group. Content used with permission]. The debate revolved around, among other things, issues of freedom of the press and the relationship between the state and private media in Liberia.
Peter Bemah, a Liberian research analyst at the Liberian Senate, expressed his frustration over the president's silence on the matter:
The silence of the presidency in this matter is troubling and worrisome. It is my hope that this president will take the necessary disciplinary action in this matter.
Tom Winston Monboe explained the president's stance on the matter:
The presidency has a position on the issue bro. The President was quoted as saying the media blackout could remain in place for as long as the media wanted. As shocking as that statement was, it so far remains the President position on the matter.
Tamba Siaffa defended security director Warrick:
If the press in Liberia has the right and freedom to report all kinds of stories with 50% of them lies without any harassment and intimidation, why can a citizen also have that same right and freedom to express the way they feel about the press. The press Union has taken this too far. The president is the president and must be given the respect as the president of the republic. She has people that speak for her most of the time. The Ministry of Information and the President press secretary speak for her. They have spoken but the press wants the president as an individual to speak first. This is not fare [sic]
Image courtesy of frontpageafricaonline.
In solidarity with their colleagues and the principle of freedom of speech, the West African Journalist Association formally wrote the Liberian president and summed up their condemnation of Warrick's threat:
These statements further signal a worrying state orchestrated interference with the free flow of information, willingness to illegally interfere with the processing of news and ideas without recourse to or respect for any form of legal procedure.
It would accordingly imply that your Government does not intend to promote the free flow of ideas and divergent views. As a public figure and head of state and government, under international law, you are expected to be subject to a higher level of scrutiny and criticism from the press than other ordinary citizens and that you are in fact expected to tolerate such higher level of scrutiny and criticism
We also wish to bring to your attention our unflinching support to the Press Union of Liberia, independent journalists and all media partners in Liberia. WAJA stands by each and every position that the PUL has so far taken in protest and looks forward to the resolution of this crisis
Phillip Blamo, a Liberian priest, posted what he said were the president's words when quizzed about the media blackout:
I’M ENJOYING this benign neglect, I wish they will continue it for a long time
James Blackie did not think that the media blackout on the president was the solution:
will block out on our prezo solve [the] problems? Let's seek some other means cuz we as ordinary citizen need to know [what the] president does on a dialy basis so as critic or praise her. Please let seek another punishment 4 them
In an effort to counter Blackie's argument and stress the need for an independent press, Siezie Siefa opined:
LISTEN TO LBS [the state's Liberian Broadcasting Service] IF U ARE HUNGRY FOR NEWS FROM THE CLOWN….BUT YOU CANNOT PLAY LIP SERVICE TO PRESS FREEDOM AND MANIFEST CONDESCENDING BEHAVIOR AT THE SAME TIME…. the JOURNALISTS ARE NOT YOUR PLAY TOYS TO SPEAK TRASH TO. accordingly THE REGIME MUST BE SANCTIONED BY NOT GIVING THEM ANY RELEVANCE. psychologists WILL TELL U THAT IS THE APPROPRIATE RESPONSE FOR A REGIME THAT LACKS DOMESTIC LEGITIMACY.

author: Counselor Track


text:
As Croatia Marches Towards the EU, Skepticism Meets Excitement in the Balkans · Global Voices
Danica Radisic

As Croatia prepares to enter the European Union officially on July 1 of this year, and Serbia awaits to finally receive a date to begin talks about EU entry, citizens of both countries express mixed feelings about European Union (EU) integration.
Some young Croatian citizens are looking forward to being able to seek employment in EU countries and to the economic benefits some say the EU promises to bring. Twitter user @Tash from Zagreb says [en]:
@EszterLzr haha i know, bad timing for EU and here ppl have mixed feeling ab it..and i just want to be able to go to work somewhere else
Others, like Aleksandar Holiga from Zagreb, look forward to traveling with more freedom to other EU countries [en]:
Flying to London tomorrow. For the last time ever required to fill that form and speak to immigration officer on the non-EU airport booth.
Pro-EU and anti-EU Croatian citizens are having spontaneous street debates in Zagreb on the eve of the 2012 European Union referendum. Photo by Marin Tomaš, copyright © Demotix (14/01/12).
The majority, however, seems to be taking entry into the EU with a grain of salt. Goran Saravanja, a Croatian economist who blogs for Vecernji List daily, begins and ends his thoughts on the matter with simple, objective conclusions in a post titled “Facing Change: Croatia in EU” [hr]:
Prosječna osoba neće primijetiti veliku razliku u svom svakodnevnom okruženju na dan pristupanja Hrvatske EU. No, važne promjene nastupit će ubrzo. […] Pristupanje EU samo po sebi neće automatski poboljšati kvalitetu domaćih institucija, kao ni razne politike niti njihovu provedbu. Ukoliko želimo da nam rast bude konstanta, nezaposlenost smanjena, a izvoz povećan, mi sami moramo provoditi reforme i (ne samo) ekonomsku politiku na kvalitetan način.
An average person won't notice a large difference in their everyday surroundings on the day of Croatia's entry into the EU. However, important changes will come quickly. […] Entry into the EU in and of itself won't automatically improve the quality of domestic institutions, nor various political standpoints or their execution. If we want our growth to be constant, our unemployment lowered, and exports to grow, we must implement reforms ourselves and (not only) economic policy in a quality manner.
While Mr. Saravanja lists many of the benefits and opportunities that EU membership will bring Croatia, Zarko Plevnik in an editorial for Glas Slavonije [hr] (Slavonia is a Croatian region) questions how Croatian products will fare in the EU market because most are “unprotected”:
Gledajući i slušajući vijesti iz Hrvatske o tome kako svaki dan pronalazimo neki novi problem vezan uz naš ulazak u Europsku uniju, između ostalog, nameće se pitanje – što smo mi zaštitili od naših proizvoda prije ulaska u EU?
Watching and listening to the news from Croatia about how every day we encounter a new issue related to our entry into the European Union, among other things, the following question arises – what have we protected [trademarked] of our products prior to entry into the EU?
An article on the same site, titled “And This Is the European Union,” shows a picture of Greek farmers giving away fresh vegetables to their “class allies” [hr], or, rather, government employees.
Most social media users from Croatia seem to be skeptical about the benefits of EU membership.
Twitter user @ruzniuzorak says [hr]:
smorena sam ko europska unija
I'm bummed out like the European Union
User @nxyassa from Croatia comments [hr]:
Glupost nema granice evo naprimjer EUROPSKA UNIJA
Stupidity has no limits [borders] for example the EUROPEAN UNION
User @cromarko from Zagreb quotes an article and adds his own opinion [hr]:
“Najvece priznanje ulaska RH u EU je sastanak s kraljicom”. Priznanje hah, sve sto cu reci je Sjeverna Irska! #freeireland #oneireland
“The greatest acknowledgement of [Croatia's] accession in the EU is a meeting with the Queen.” Acknowledgement hah, all I will say is, Northern Ireland! #freeireland #oneireland
In Serbia, social media users, bloggers and many journalists are just as skeptical. Considering the recent history of Serbia and Croatia, one might wonder at the lack of perhaps expected envy that might come from Serbia towards Croatia, as Croatia enters the EU, while Serbia is still on hold and waiting for talks on membership. Serbs, however, seem to be much more concerned with their own fate.
Twitter user @na_preporciju from Serbia says [sr]:
Evropska unija nam se pokakila na demokratiju i slobodu,
a naši Slepci ne znaju da povuku vodu.
The European Union pooped on our democracy and freedom, while our Blind Men don't know how to flush.
User @m2aja echoes [sr] what many Serbs are saying:
Britanc žele da napuste Evropsku uniju, a Srbija bi da ide…
Britons want to leave the European Union, while Serbs want to enter…
Even users like @luminous_pg from Montenegro, which began EU accession negotiations a year ago, view EU-related matters [sr] sarcastically:
Muče vas bolovi u vratu? Imate problema sa zglobovima? Zaboravite na vaše neprilike, uskoro ulazimo u EVROPSKU UNIJU!
Neck pain bothering you? Have problems with your joints? Forget all your troubles, we're entering the EUROPEAN UNION soon!
User @na_preporciju also comments [sr]:
Kad uđe Hrvatska Evropska unija zaključava vrata – od robijašnice.
When Croatia enters, the European Union will close the door – of the work camp.
Some, like the Beograd Cafe blog, see positives economic opportunities for Serbia in Croatia's entry into the EU [sr], reporting from the recent “CEFTA After Croatia's Entry Into EU” trade conference, where all of the regional countries’ representatives met to discuss the Central European Free Trade Agreement:
Ulazak Hrvatske u EU doneće Srbiji niz prednosti, kao što su dominantan položaj u CEFTA regionu i povećanje suficita u razmeni sa okolnim zemljama, a očekuje se i više investicija…
The entry of Croatia into the EU will bring Serbia several advantages, such as a dominant position in the CEFTA region and a larger sufficit in trade with surrounding countries, while more investments are also expected. […]
A blog from Bosnia and Herzegovina also writes about the subject [bs] in a post titled “Due to Exiting CEFTA, Croatian Companies to Move Production to Bosnia and Herzegovina?”.
In general, both in Croatia and Serbia, people seem to have an “it is what it is” attitude about the European Union in general. Perhaps the tweet of one user, @Darac42, sums it up best [hr]:
Da da, bit ce taj EU hard landing za hrvate.. niti ne zasluzujemo bolje..
Yes, yes, that EU will be a hard landing for Croats.. and we don't deserve better..

author: Danica Radisic


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Iran’s Regime Bars Two Top Candidates from Election Race · Global Voices
Farid

Mashaei (left) and Rafsanjani
source: http://isna.ir/
Once again the Islamic regime's desire for absolute control of political life in Iran surprised many when it announced their selection of only eight shortlisted presidential candidates out of more than 600 hopefuls who registered.
Most controversially, the conservative Council of Guardians disqualified two high profile candidates: Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president, and Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, an ally of the current president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who have each dared to differ with the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. At present only Khamenei can reverse this decision.
Rafsanjani publicly accused Iran's leadership of incompetence and ignorance after being barred from standing in the election.
Blogger Mola Hasani says [fa]:
I was very relieved when I heard that Rafsanjani was disqualified… Is it funny that they disqualified the chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council of Iran. They [Council of Guardians] are really stupid and this stupidity makes us happy and hopeful.
Azarakan says [fa]:
It is possible that Ali Khamenei would reverse the Council of Guardians’ decision and let Rafsanjani run for the presidential election for several reasons, such as: He wants to make Rafsanjani understand that he can run thanks to his generosity. Khamenei can show the oppressed 2009 victims that he is a wise and good leader. The Leader also aims to show Western powers that he is the one who is in charge.
َA group of Mashaei's supporters published [fa] a statement in their blog asking the Leader to intervene to restore Mashaei's candidacy.
The blogger Imayan writes [fa] that the Council of Guardians lies, and that the Leader wants to impose its one vote on the whole population.
Belgiran writes [fa] that the coming election is not going to solve anything.
“The regime is dead, the military carries a corpse on its shoulders. It's time to bury it, people want change.”

author: Farid


text:
Outrage over Arrest of Two Photojournalists in Spain · Global Voices
Elena Arrontes

The news of the arrest of photojournalist Raúl Capín, at his home in Madrid, was widely shared under the tag #RaúlLibertad on Twitter. Later, the reason for the arrest was made know in exact terms: “disturbances and contempt of authority.” Photojournalist Adolfo Luján was also arrested. They have since been released.
The most prudent Internet-users waited to find out the reasons for the arrest while others condemned it on principle: a government attempt to limit the freedom of the press in Spain.
“Because taking photos of police brutality is not a felony. Freedom for the detained photojournalists”
Raúl Capín, who works for the Diario DID (Independent Digital Newspaper) [es] and Mundo Obrero (Workers World) [es], was criminalized by the large conservative newspapers of the country which called him an “undercover photographer in the demonstrations” and even a “radical demonstrator.”
Meanwhile, online messages of indignation and complaints of the repression of journalists who report on social protests continue to circulate. Various groups, platforms, alternative media sources and journalists have shown their solidarity with those who were arrested, such as the platform Fotogracción [es] which put out a statement [es] on which more than 120 groups and 250 people have already signed in support. The online newspaper La República [es] explained its perspective:
Es así como se ha producido la detención del compañero, a quien han ido a buscar a su casa, como si se tratara de un peligroso delincuente. En su casa tenía armas tan peligrosas como una cámara Nikon… Nosotros y nosotras, como Raúl, también estamos armados. Tenemos cámaras de fotos, vídeo, ordenadores y, lo más peligroso para ellos, las ganas de informar.
This is how the arrest of our fellow journalist was carried out, who they went to detain at his house, as if he were a dangerous criminal. In his house he had such dangerous weapons as a Nikon camera… We, like Raúl, are also armed. We have cameras to take photos and videos, computers, and the most dangerous thing of all for them, the desire to inform.
Social networks and citizen journalists on the Internet allow for more and more stories that contrast official information, thanks to the spread of videos and images that show another reality. In this video we can see how the police take the bracelet worn by members of the press from the photojournalist who was arrested yesterday, while covering the protests organized by the Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (Platform of People Affected by Mortgages) against evictions:
Another video [es] shows the same scene from a different perspective and how the police treat journalists covering the demonstration.
This is not the first time the Spanish government has violated freedom of the press, and not only in the area of social actions. The public state-run network of Spanish radio and television (RTVE) has dismissed journalists [es] for what allegedly political reasons. At the beginning of the legislative term, a law modified the designation of the president of RTVE [es] who, from now on, will be appointed by the government without having to come to any agreement with the opposition. Those working for the corporation have called this modification “very worrisome” because it means the loss of the network's autonomy. Recently, the newspaper El Mundo reported on the votes of the Spanish European Parliament Members [es] from the European Popular Party against a report on freedom of press.
*Thumbnail by photographer Juan Luis Sánchez and taken from his Twitter account @juanlusanchez.

author: Elena Arrontes


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Peruvian Mathematician Claims Proof of 300-Year-Old Conjecture · Global Voices
Gabriela García Calderón Orbe

Peruvian mathematician Harald Andrés Helfgott made headlines after news broke that he had demonstrated the solution to a 271-year-old problem in number theory.
Back in 1742, Prussian mathematician Christian Goldbach‘s theory, known as Goldbach's conjecture, stated that “every integer greater than 5 can be written as the sum of three prime [numbers]”.
This conjecture, one of the most difficult problems in mathematics, has been investigated by many number theorists and confirmed by computers for all even numbers smaller than 10^18. After working hard on the so called Goldbach's weak conjecture, Helfgott managed to fully demonstrate it.
Harald Andrés Helfgott, image shared on Facebook.
Helfgott has a position at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France, and has published two papers “claiming having improved the estimates of major and minor arcs, enough to prove unconditionally Goldbach's weak conjecture.”
The blog Cajón de sastre [es] republished the news [es] and included a link to the compete work on Helfgott's demonstration.
Meanwhile, Twitter users also expressed their opinion about Harald Helfgott's work using the hashtags #Helfgott and #Goldbach.
Alberto Anguiano (@Dr_LAAG) summed up the news in one tweet:
@Dr_LAAG: #Goldbach: “Todo número impar mayor que 5 puede expresarse como suma de tres números primos”, conjetura resuelta por un peruano #Helfgott.
@Dr_LAAG: #Goldbach: “every odd number greater than 5 can be written as the sum of three prime [numbers]”, conjecture solved by a Peruvian #Helfgott.
Twitter user and physicist V H Satheeshkumar (@VHSatheeshkumar) expressed himself in three tweets:
@VHSatheeshkumar: #Helfgott proves of one of the oldest open problems in #mathematics, the ternary #Goldbach #conjecture http://arxiv.org/abs/1305.2897 . #numbers
@VHSatheeshkumar: Strong #Goldbach #conjecture: “Every even #number greater than 2 can be written as the sum of two #primes.”
@VHSatheeshkumar: Ternary #Goldbach #conjecture: “Every odd number greater than 5 can be written as the sum of three prime numbers.”
And dmv.mathematik.de (@dmv_mathematik) asked:
@dmv_mathematik: progress made proving #Goldbach‘s #theorem? #Helfgott says so, proof published at http://arxiv.org/abs/1305.2897 #math #prime #conjecture
Norwegian mathematician Torgunn Karoline Moe (@TorgunnKaroline) shared Helfogtt's work enthusiastically in two tweets:
@TorgunnKaroline: Goldbach-artikkelen ligger her http://arxiv.org/abs/1305.2897 . Les med måte! #helfgott #goldbach #abel
@TorgunnKaroline [no]: Goldbach's article can be read here http://arxiv.org/abs/1305.2897. Read his work! #helfgott #goldbach #abel
@TorgunnKaroline: @alexarje For en fantastisk nyhet!! S2 #goldbach #helfgott
@TorgunnKaroline [no]: @alexarje For a fantastic news!!! S2 #goldbach #helfgott
Mexico_Today (@Mexico_Today) tweeted cheerfully:
@Mexico_Today: ►PERÚ: ‘INCREÍBLE!! MATEMÁTICO PERUANO RESUELVE CONJETURA DEBIL DE GOLDBACH’ #peru #matemáticas #goldbach
@Mexico_Today [es]: ►PERU: ‘INCREDIBLE!! PERUVIAN MATHEMATICIAN SOLVES GOLDBACH'S WEAK CONJECTURE’ #peru #matemáticas [mathematics] #goldbach
More ironically, Mario Daniel (@Desiderantes) said:
@Desiderantes: Ok señores, ya probaron la conjetura de #Goldbach, ya se pueden dormir http://arxiv.org/abs/1305.2897
@Desiderantes [es]: Very well, you all out there, #Goldbach has been demonstrated, you may go to sleep now http://arxiv.org/abs/1305.2897
As this is Peru we are talking about, a football reference could not be absent, as laslo rojas (@amnesico) wrote:
@amnesico: Confirmado: Harald Helfgott es la Foquita de las matematicas: http://ow.ly/ldsE0  #Goldbach #Math
@amnesico [es]: Confirmed: Harald Helfgott is the Foquita of mathematics: http://ow.ly/ldsE0  #Goldbach #Math
Jefferson Farfán, known as Foquita (little seal), is a Peruvian football player who is currently part of Bundesliga's Schalke 04 team.
Futhermore, Luis Biedma (@LBiedma) simply said:
@LBiedma: Acaban de probar la conjetura debil de #Goldbach!? Que leeeeendoooo!!! #OMG [Oh, Díos mío]
@LBiedma: #Goldbach‘s weak conjecture has just been demonstrated!? So niiiiiiice!!! #OMG
Lastly, Luis das Cragfeit (@Cragfeit) played with words:
@Cragfeit: ¿Entonces #Goldbach decía que si dos primos se casaban, siempre tendrían hijos que se dividieran por la mitad? #Preguntica #PrimeNumbers
@Cragfeit [es]: So, #Goldbach said that if two cousins got married, they would always have children that might be divided in halfs? #Preguntica [little question] #PrimeNumbers
In Spanish, “cousin” and “prime” are the same word: “primo.”
As Helfgott shared on Facebook [es]:
Me parece que lo importante es – mas alla de donde vivamos o trabajemos – mantener un compromiso con la educacion y la ciencias en el Peru y Sudamerica, y con la matematica local en particular. […] Quisiera que esto sirva para que el trabajo que muchas generaciones han hecho por la matematica peruana sea apreciado.
I think the important thing -regardless of where we came from or where we live or work- is to stay engaged with education and science in Peru and South America, and with local mathematics in particular. […] I'd like this to be useful so the work many generations have made for Peruvian mathematics might be appreciated.

author: Gabriela García Calderón Orbe


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Russian Non-Profit “Mercy Island” Helps Stray Animals · Global Voices
Teplitsa

In an April 2013 interview with Evgeny Voropai of Social Technologies Greenhouse, Tatiana Nikitina, president of the charity group Mercy Island, discussed why public organizations are interested in social media and what challenges they face in their everyday work.
Tatiana Nikitina: It's difficult to say. I think a lot. The fact is that these organizations helping stray animals are diverse. Any shelter or foundation falls under the same category that we do.
Before a charity forms, we try to solve the problem on our own. There are quite a lot of people who help stray animals. So, an exact count of all [similar] organizations would be difficult.
Mercy Island logo, available at the organization's website.
E.V.: For charities, there is the troubling matter of Internet fraud. Everyone is familiar with the scheme of earning money under the guise of helping sick children. Is this a problem when it comes to helping animals?
T.N.: It is relevant, of course, although we need to recognize that such instances do not occur very often. When it comes to animals, they don't just need financial assistance. Here, the people who help are those who can. There are many more ways to contribute financially—someone wires money, someone buys food, someone pays for the shelter. Scammers have little room to maneuver. And this [type of charity] is less attractive to them, anyway. On the Web, people are less likely to help animals than, say, children. No one would just hand over their money because of seeing a picture of a dog on a social media site. This is something that is difficult to earn.
If some kind of organization requests money for animals, one must always pay attention to its charter documents, its certificates of registration, and, of course, you can always demand checks instead. Mercy Island, when it starts working with new partners, always provides a complete set of documents confirming the foundation's status. It is a necessary measure because there are organizations that abuse the help of donors or sponsors and spend money for other purposes.
We try to report to donors in order to eliminate even the slightest misunderstanding.
T.N.: There were no significant changes. We got a grant from Google for the promotion of our site. So the first task we needed to resolve was how to do it correctly and with maximum efficiency.
The site gives users a more complete picture of what we do and how we work. Single posts on social media sites or anywhere else on the Internet do not have such an effect. On our own site, we control the electronic pay system. Incidentally, there is something else that you should pay attention to when you begin working with an NGO: if an organization uses electronic payments through a well-known payment system, the probability that they are crooks is minimal. For example, RBC checked Mercy Island for a long time before they activated its electronic payments.
T.N.: It isn't some trend—it's just the actual work. It's a constant process. I don't advocate these types of pictures, but, as a rule, the animals who need help arrive at the veterinary clinic and the doctors or the volunteers themselves take the photographs in real conditions. It is a way of reporting how and what is happening with a dog or a cat.
The problem is that after the animals get help, no one shows the pictures of the saved pet. Mercy Island is trying to do this. We publish the stories of our animals and of their fates, even after they have found a home. Often, people react to the appearance of the dog, and to their nickname. You know, there are cases when people don't want to help the whole organization or all its animals—they just want to help one. We're fine with this, too. For instance, we have a singer among our donors. She's a native of Saint Petersburg, but she lives in Turkey now, and every month she gives money to a dog named Betty.
T.N.: That's very interesting. I would be very interested in participating in something like that. But again, we run into the problem of financing. Money is needed for joint projects, and there isn't always enough even o take care of the animals. Basically, I would like to develop a virtual story—I believe in its effectiveness.
However, there is one thing here that is very complicated: when I start a conversation with specialists and suggest some ideas, I have to explain that this is not at all a commercial project and they won't get any money for it. Unfortunately, this is an obstacle that can't be overcome. Luckily, we have volunteers, people who don't mind and are willing to devote their time. I am open to the idea of crowdfunding. I would happily work this way in order to help animals.
T.N.:  This is a very common story. Many people come to us and say that they can no longer take care of their animal. In this case, Mercy Island will take the pet. Sometimes, the owners feel that they need to support us and give us money to support their former “pets,” and sometimes they don't. First, the animal goes to a veterinarian and receives an examination. After its analysis, we send the animal to a temporary home to adapt [to its new circumstances]. If the check-up reveals any health problems, the doctor provides all possible assistance.
In fact, there are ways to solve the problem of both stray animals and owners who no longer want their dog or cat. Nursing homes are one of them. For example, if there is a retiree who wants to get a pet, but doesn't have a way of doing this, they can be given a cat and help take care of it. Many elderly people would love such an opportunity.
T.N.: Shooting animals is a consequence of a much larger problem. I don't understand how the problem of stray animals has been artificially injected and presented as a social threat. We often hear about a pack of stray dogs attacking people, but we practically never hear about why this is happening. You see, an aggressive, sick, three-legged dog could actually become a good pet.
Crowdsourcing or other social-networking projects devoted to animals could help solve the problem. Really what is needed is information, verified data, and people who are willing to take on such work. A tool is needed to show that these animals are in a hostage situation. Maybe then people will begin to empathize with them more.

author: Teplitsa


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Saudi Arabia Executes Five Yemeni Men, Publicly Displays Bodies · Global Voices
Noon Arabia

Five Yemenis convicted of murder and robbery were executed in Saudi Arabia and their bodies displayed in public in the southwestern town of Jizan.
The beheadings of the men, who were reportedly members of a gang, bring Saudi Arabia's total number of executions this year to 47. Murder, armed robbery, drug trafficking, rape, and apostasy are capital offenses under the kingdom's Muslim Sharia law.
Yemen also has the death penalty and ranks sixth in the world when it comes number of executions, according to Amnesty International. Saudi Arabia ranks fourth, behind China, Iran, and Iraq. The United States ranks fifth.
Photos of the five corpses hanging from a rope high in the air tied to two cranes circulated on Twitter and Facebook on May 21, 2013 to the outrage of many users, including many Yemenis who were disturbed and enraged by the images of their executed countrymen.
Five Yemeni men were executed and publicly displayed in the streets of Saudi Arabia. Photo via @Bintbattuta87
On Twitter, a professor and editor in Saudi Arabia, Bayan (@BintBattuta87) wrote in dismay:
@BintBattuta87: Graphic: Image of 5 men executed today, their dead bodies hanging now in #Saudi streets. Fuck this country, wallah. pic.twitter.com/LwztwvfpAB
She added:
@BintBattuta87: GRAPHIC: #KSA: Ppl sit around staring at their dead bodies. Nobody stands up to condemn this?! That's what kills me: pic.twitter.com/za72LMdNDQ
Haykal Bafana (@Bafana3), a Yemeni lawyer based in Yemen, tweeted a photo of the scene and commented:
@Bafana3: This is how Saudi Arabia executes armed robbers. 5 #Yemen men executed yesterday. #KSA https://www.facebook.com/haykal.bafana/posts/469019226511426 … pic.twitter.com/0NcWDxYBHc
A close up of the five executed men in Saudi Arabia. Photo via @Bafana3.
Sana2 Al-Yemen (@Sanasiino), a Yemeni journalist based in the UK, pointed out:
@Sanasiino: Saudi executes 5 Yemenis in Jizan & leaves them for the world to see. These are the people ruling over our Holy Land pic.twitter.com/JP6QpnzXsE
Journalist and former Middle East editor for The Guardian newspaper Brian Whitaker (@Brian_Whit) tweeted a link to his latest post:
@Brian_Whit: Saudi Arabia steps up executions. Headless bodies put on display http://bit.ly/YYULRz (http://al-bab.com)
In the piece, he observed how the Web was affecting the perception of Saudi Arabia's around the world:
The idea behind public executions is to deter others, though it's not at all clear that they do. But nowadays, as a result of the internet, it is not just the Saudi public that sees them and this reinforces international perceptions that the kingdom is barbarous.
Quoting Amnesty International, he added:
. Amnesty International says:
“Authorities in Saudi Arabia routinely flout international standards for fair trial and safeguards for defendants, who are often denied representation by lawyers and not informed of the progress of legal proceedings against them.
“They may be convicted solely on the basis of ‘confessions’ obtained under torture or other ill-treatment.”
Yemeni blogger Afrah Nasser (@Afrahnasser), who is based in Sweden, challenged Yemen to speak out against the execution of its citizens:
@Afrahnasser: I dare Mr. Hadi or anyone from #Yemen‘s foreign ministry issue a statement to condemn #Saudi execution of 5 Yemeni! http://afrahnasser.blogspot.com/2013/05/saudi-excutes-five-yemeni-men.html?

author: Noon Arabia


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South Korea’s Child Porn Law Blasted for Restricting Freedom of Expression · Global Voices
Lee Yoo Eun

A new youth protection law in South Korea, meant to protect children by clamping down on child pornography, is being assailed for its broad language that labels net users who unknowingly downloaded suspicious content and artists who depict children in their work as criminals.
The Youth Sex Protection Law went into effect a little less than two months ago, but there already has been a flurry of complaints about the ambiguity of the law and the police's overzealous crackdown of file-sharing sites. According to local news report [ko], 1,938 people were taken into custody and six were arrested for violating the law in April alone. Only 106 were directly involved in making and sales of child porn.
The Youth Sex Protection Law not only punishes those directly involved in producing and selling child porn but also people who simply downloaded a file that contains implied sex with someone who appears as underage. Users have flooded online community sites, including ‘Netizen’s Discussions on Porn Crackdown’, the largest site dedicated to the issue with 93,000 members, to detail their own experiences. Some have written that they were being charged as pornography distributors for unknowingly sharing files which they downloaded via torrent file.
A one-person protest against the Youth Sex Protection Law. Photo by blogger DooPiece (CC BY- NC- ND 2.0)
One of the law's clauses stipulates that “a [cultural or art] expression that depicts or implies sexual intercourse with ‘a human or an image that can be perceived as underaged kids” in any medium is a violation. This includes virtual characters in animation or game.
User Hanguk-dongin [ko] on DeviantART, an online community site for artists, protested against the controversial clause, writing [ko]:
이 법률은 ‘실재'아동을 괴롭히는 이들을 처벌하려는 것이 목적이 아니라, 마치 표현물, 창작물을 검열하기 위한 것으로 보입니다 […] 당신이 그린, 쓴 캐릭터가 아동이나 청소년이 아닐지라도 “아동/청소년으로 보인다”는 집행기관의 자의적 판단으로 당신은 범죄자가 될 수 있습니다.
This law seems not really about punishing those who harass the “real kids”, but about censoring creative works and [cultural] expressions […] Although the characters you draw and depict may not be technically underage, if the characters “appear as underage kids”, you can be a criminal who violated the law. It is totally up to the law-enforcing entity’s deliberate judgement.
The writer also accused the law of having a double standard when it comes to art — some literary works perceived as “serious work of art” can get away with containing similar contents, while popular cartoons cannot.
Blogger DooPiece elaborated [ko] on this:
표현의 자유 측면에서도 아청법은 상충된다. 청소년을 대상으로 한 여러 만화나 애니, 게임에 등장하는 캐릭터들은 설정이 20세가 넘은 젊은 여성이거나 늙지 않는 판타지 세계의 요정일지라도 의도치 않게 여기에 걸려들수 있다. 당연히 작가나 출판, 배표 업자의 입장에선 서비스를 위해서라도 해당 내용을 수정 순화시킬 수 밖에 없단 얘기고, 이는 곧 자유로운 표현의 위축을 불러오게 될 것이다.
The law also contradicts freedom of expression. Any character in cartoons, animations, and games which are sold to kids [is subjected to this rule]. This includes 20-something female characters and age-defying elves [if they appear underage]. This has obviously forced authors, publications, and syndication companies to alter their content and it will chill free expression.
South Korea’s Open Net, together with several cartoonist consolidations, released a statement voicing concerns over the abuse of the law. The writer revealed that many of those convicted for violating the law witnessed changes made in their initial written arraignments — meaning police changed some descriptions of the grounds on which they were charged — which would be a serious misstep caused by the ambiguity of the law:
경찰단계에서 실존 아동에 대한 성범죄를 보호하기 위한 수사활동을 하기보다는, ‘보여주기식’으로 무리하게 수사 및 기소를 하여, 아청법 위반의 소지가 없었던 사람들이 억울하게 오랜시간 고초를 겪은 셈입니다. […] 실존아동과 전혀 관련없이 아동학대라는 설정을 그림이나 애니메이션으로 표현하였다고 해서 아동성범죄로 처벌하는 것은 살인에 대한 내용이 있다고 해서 살인죄로 처벌하거나 […] 이렇게 해석되면 아동학대, 살인, 마약의 극악무도함을 보여주려는 작품 제작자들까지 모두 범죄자가 되어버립니다.
Police investigations, instead of focusing on protecting underage children who are potential victims of sex crimes, were instead determined to demonstrate their seriousness about the law. And police indeed investigated and indicted too much.  Due to this, innocent people, who should not be suspected for violating the law, have unfairly suffered for a long period of time […] Treating a mere depiction of harassment, which were expressed via image and animation, as a real crime against kids is [ridiculous. It is] equivalent to applying the same level of punishment to a content creator who depicts murder as they do to a real murderer […] If they are overzealous in applying this law, content creators who show the villainy of child abuse, murder, or drug abuse can all be labeled as criminals.

author: Lee Yoo Eun


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Students Defend Cambodia’s Human Rights Record · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Some students of Mekong University in Cambodia held a protest after U.N. human rights envoy Surya Subedi delivered a lecture on law of foreign investment. The protesters accused the UN envoy of distorting the human rights situation in Cambodia which they claim is better compared to other countries. But aside from the UN Envoy, human rights groups have noted the rising cases of human rights abuses in Cambodia, especially land rights violations.

author: Mong Palatino


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Vietnam App Helps Motorbike Taxi Passengers · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Tech in Asia features Aloxeom, a web-based service that allows passengers to search for motorbike taxis in Hanoi, Vietnam.


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Yemen Marks Unification Anniversary as South Marches for Independence · Global Voices
Noon Arabia

A day before Yemen marked the 23rd anniversary of the unification of north and south to form today's Republic of Yemen, thousands gathered in South Yemen in support of independence for the region once more.
The country of Yemen was formerly two separate states, the Yemen Arab Republic (formerly known as North Yemen) and the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (formerly known as South Yemen). But after a long and arduous effort from both sides, the two were joined on May 22, 1990 into the Republic of Yemen.
But that unity was jeopardized a couple of years later when power struggles and economic marginalization of the south prompted the region to demand its secession. A bloody civil war erupted in 1994, with the north overtaking the south, where most of the fighting took place, after three months. An estimated 7,000 to 10,000 people were killed in the conflict, and land in the south was confiscated by the north.
The separatist sentiment remains popular in the south, and so May 22 has become a thorny date for the country. Some in the south celebrate May 21 instead, which marks the day southern leaders called for independence from the north 19 years ago.
Southern Yemen rallies on May 21, 2013 in Aden calling for separation from the North. Photo shared by Twitter user @NajiAlkaladi
Protesters this year in the major southern city of Aden chanted slogans calling for secession and waved the flag of their former republic.
Journalist Nasser Arrabyee (@narrabyee) commented on the stark split between north and south during those two days in May:
@narrabyee: South Yemen celebrates angrily the 19th anniversary of disunity, north celebrates 23rd anni of unity, chaos in both!
Hussain Al-Yafai (@crazyyafai), a Yemeni student who lives between the US and Yemen, tweeted a photo of the march and explained the south's reasons for independence:
@crazyyafai: South Yemenis want separation from the North because 23 years of unity have done nothing but failure for both sides. #SouthYemen #Yemen
Meanwhile, there were no unification celebrations nor the customary parade in Yemen's capital city of Sanaa this year. President Abdo Rabbo Mansour Hadi commemorated the day of Yemen's Unification with a formal address stressing the importance of the date.
Twitter account Yemen Updates (@yemen_updates) quoted from Hadi's speech:
@yemen_updates: Prz Hadi, in his May 22 anniversary speech says, “The national dialogue is set to fix the past mistakes associated with the national unity.”
Many Yemenis and especially southerners have criticized Hadi, who is from the southern province of Abyan, for failing to take any concrete action to salvage Yemen's unity in the face of the separatist mood in the south.
Summer Nasser (@SummerNasser), a youth activist and student based in New York, criticized the president's attitude toward the south:
@SummerNasser: If Pres. Hadi cares about the unity of our country, he shouldn't turn a blind eye to the South. Simple as that. #Yemen
Map showing North Yemen (in orange) and South Yemen (in blue) before 1990. Image shared by Twitter user @Droodkin
Faisal Al Yafai (@FaisalAlYafai), a writer and columnist, tweeted a link to his latest article, published in the English-language news website The National based in the United Arab Emerites, with a piece of advice for Hadi:
@FaisalAlYafai: If Hadi wants #Yemen to remain whole, he must take the possibility of southern secession seriously http://bit.ly/16EMKGQ
In the article, he argued that Hadi's lack of leadership was making the situation worse:
At the end of last year, Mr Hadi set up a tribunal to address some of the issues of reinstatement, promising to return to southerners property seized after the 1994 civil war. But it has moved slowly, while other events – such as drone strikes by the United States – continue to inflame the south.
By not making a genuine effort to fix legitimate grievances of southerners, Mr Hadi is making his task of steering Yemen through this political transition harder
He finally warned:
Whether Mr Hadi can make such an offer – and whether he can find anyone in the south to listen, agree and deliver the deal – remains an open question.
But Mr Hadi is running out of time. Whereas at the beginning of the year, he might have found factions within [southern movement] Hirak open to dialogue on greater inclusion in a Sanaa government, now public sentiment is hardening, moving towards autonomy and more.
Sana Uqba (@Sanasiino) a Yemeni writer and speaker based in London, argued in her piece entitled “Is there a new Yemen on the horizon?” published on news website Your Middle East, that the South are not ready for Independence:
The 1990 unification of South and North promised no less than paradise for both people and both people (with the exception of the elite of course) are yet to receive this. There is absolutely no doubt in mind that Yemen as a nation was oppressed by [President of unified Yemen Ali Abdallah] Saleh’s regime. But likewise, there is absolutely no doubt in mind that the people of South Yemen have indeed been a targeted victim for the past 23 years.
She adds making her point:
Nevertheless I as a Southerner, and as many Southerners believe, this is no reason to sever a tie of brotherhood… how can one group with numerous leaders who all chant diverse slogans and have no plan possibly lead and rebuild a broken nation full of broken people?…The hurtful truth is, the South is not ready to become its own nation again and Southerners refuse to accept this.
Some northerners still refuse to acknowledge the south's grievances and choose to ignore their calls for separation, and some southerners refuse to admit that both sides of Yemen were subject to bad governance under President Saleh's 33-year rule.
In order to save Yemen's fragile unity, the country needs to urgently and seriously address the secessionist cause and rectify all transgressions by the former regime. Only through serious commitment and concrete action will the unity survive.