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Teacher Shortages Aren’t Always Hopeless, Proves Human Rights Group in India · Global Voices
Rezwan

A Primary Education In Chennai, India. Image from Flickr by GlobalPartnership for Education. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
The shortage of primary school teachers and facilities is a problem throughout India. According to a 2015 report, there was a shortage of 1.2 million teachers and almost half a million teaching posts were simply vacant. Recently, a citizen video depicting the teacher-shortage at a primary school in India's West Bengal prompted the authorities to install the required teachers.
The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, a law passed in 2009, describes the modalities of the importance of free and compulsory education for children between six and 14 in India and sets a pupil-teacher ratio (PTR) of 30:1. A recent report by Oxfam found that 37 percent of the Indian government's primary schools lack adequate teachers due to insufficient funding, which in turn encourages students to drop out of school. More than 600,000 in-service teachers are untrained, Oxfam discovered, and—worse still—6,404 schools out of the approximate 760,000 primary schools in India do not have a teacher at all.
A few months ago, Soriya Banu (a community member of the international media and human rights organisation Video Volunteers) revealed that three teachers (including a temporary instructor and the principal) at a school in West Bengal each have to supervise roughly 200 children, varying from the ages of six to 12. According to the ratio mentioned in the Right to Education Act of 2009, the school needs at least five more teachers. Soriya writes:
Could the apathy towards the school be because only dalit and muslim children attend? One certainly hopes not. Yet the response from the Sub-Inspector of Schools sounds rather casual. “If the Head Master asks us for more teachers we will send him some from other schools.” Surely the Head Master has already made several such requests. And does this imply that other schools in the district are adequately staffed?
Below you can find Video Volunteers’ short film mentioned above.
Soriya went to several local administrative officers and showed them the video. Her efforts reached even Manas Chowbay, the school inspector from Kaliachak. He responded by sending a request to the chairman of region’s District Primary School Council, prompting the authorities to send a teacher to Uttar Dariyapur to fill the vacancy. Within six months of the report, the school got a permanent teacher and a head teacher, bringing the school's total faculty to four.
Akashi Tripathi writes about the reason for the teacher shortage in India:
The government run schools are reluctant towards filling up the vacant permanent posts of teachers for cutting up the costs. They do this by appointing teachers temporarily on an ‘ad hoc basis’. [..] By the time the ad hoc teachers understand the needs of the students, they have to leave their jobs in the same school or move to the next school. In a situation like this, teachers themselves also look for other opportunities which are more of a ‘permanent nature’ and when they can’t find them, they move in a different direction altogether.
The possibility of reaching state officials and winning some concessions on education appears to have become an inspiration for many throughout the country.

author: Rezwan


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‘Warcraft’ Movie Brings Out the Nostalgia in China’s Online Gaming Generation · Global Voices
Ruijun Xu

Warcraft's poster. Labelled for reuse.
Warcraft, a Hollywood movie adapted from the famous multiplayer online game World of Warcraft (WoW), was released in China on June 8, and in the first five days, cumulative ticket sales reached $156 million there. In less than two weeks, the figure rose to $204 million. Meanwhile, in North America, the movie's debut weekend brought in about $24 million, and since its release has hit $44 million total. With global cumulative ticket sales at $412 million, that means China has contributed to about half of the movie's box office earnings. While the movie has been poorly ranked by western film critics, many wonder why it has surpassed other Hollywood movies in the Chinese market. The studio behind Warcraft, Legendary Entertainment, was acquired by Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda early this year. The local connection has helped the movie to develop marketing strategies that target the Chinese market and pull in a number of sponsors to boost ticket sales. A major strategy was to promote the movie as a kind of game festival for China's Warcraft generation to dress up or meet like-minded players.
Warcraft was first introduced in mainland China in 2005. At that time, Internet was having a profound affect on Chinese young people. Online video games were new and appealing, not only for the games themselves but also for the opportunity they represented to set up a virtual community and make friendships. The game was banned briefly in China in 2009, but hardcore fans still managed to find ways to access it. In a decade's time, China has become one of the biggest markets for Warcraft, with approximately two and a half million players. A lot of nostalgia surrounds the game for players who have been with Warcraft since it was first released. During the movie's premiere week, in addition to professional cosplayers (people who dress up in costume and play the role of a character) appearing in major cinemas, some Warcraft fans also organized festival-like gatherings with game props and costumes in theaters. One user of popular Chinese social media site Weibo, @novapang, received a free ticket from his company and dressed up for the occasion with friends:
Image from Weibo user @Novapang
Another Weibo user, Xiao Di, reflected on the feelings of the Warcraft generation:
坐在电影院时就开始好激动 真的很激动 甚至眼泪挤一挤就能出来。05年开始玩魔兽，我是第一批老玩家，开始的一个蠢蠢的人类小牧师，一路加神圣天赋练到满级，这一路得多坎坷啊。不过认识了很多朋友。虽然现在已经不再联系，但是魔兽的日子里真的谢谢有你们陪我。陪我练级，陪我打副本[…]那时候真好。不过什么样的年龄就该做什么样的事情，那些美好会永远留在心里的某个地方。
Sitting in the cinema, I was overwhelmed and almost cried. I started playing Warcraft in 2005 and was among the first group of players. I started as a silly preacher [a role in the game] and fought my way to the top. I made so many friends in the process. Although I lost contact with most of them, I am really thankful for their friendship — they helped in training my gaming skills […] It was a great time. But we have to change according to our age and that golden time will still have a place somewhere [in our memories].
Hardcore fans like @lucifer333 rebuked film critics and praised the movie for its nostalgia:
那些不懂魔兽电影瞎b评论的评论员。你知道什么是魔兽世界么。玩明白了么。就说我们对电影失望。那么庞大世界观你给我拍一个我看看。电影足以看出导演的用心。这部电影是我们的青春。是一部怀旧篇。让我看到了以前青春时代奔跑过的草原。战斗过的雪山。和队友一起大步冲进去的黑暗之门。这就够了。
To those blind film critics who know nothing about Warcraft. Do you know what WoW is? Do you know how to play the game? Even if we are disappointed at the movie, it has presented a view of this universe. The director has spent much effort on that. This movie is about our youth, it is a nostalgic piece in which I see the grasslands where I ran around, the snowy mountain where I had my battles, the door of darkness that my team had run through. This is enough.
But some game players weren't so kind to the film. Mission 006 could not help expressing his disappointment:
魔兽看完比想象中要差…毕竟都是去看情怀，很怀念当年玩游戏的那段时光，电影人物较多，更像是cosplay大戏，不了解或者没玩过游戏的估计会看的很懵逼吧，战斗也不够恢宏，还是换个大手笔的导演比较好，等下一部吧
Warcraft is worse than I imagined…After all, people went there to pay tribute to their youth spent playing video games. There are many characters in the film, like a big cosplay performance. For those who have never played the game, they would definitely lose track. The battle scenes are not grand. Needs to have a director who can handle a big production. Let's wait for the next one.
@sk-roro criticized that the film had failed the game:
看过《魔兽》：除了当Cosplay看，影片质量无法满意。宏大的游戏故事明明可以讲的更好，一些游戏噱头讨了游戏粉一笑之后，散乱崩塌，问题到处都是。只希望后续能更好，我想看的是与游戏同样优秀的电影，不然还不如回去玩游戏。
Watched Warcraft: Can only see it as a cosplay show, the quality of the movie is unsatisfactory. The video game has such a grand story setting, but the film just only focuses on game gimmicks that appeal to the game fans. The storyline is scattered and flawed. I wish the next one is better as the game deserves a better movie. Or else why go to the cinema, let's just play the game.
And @Bibi-Bibi-Bibi-Bibi argued with his game team over the movie:
前天看完电影，出了电影院就和从前队友开始互掐。我当然怀念当初[…]我珍视那段岁月，上线是每一天的日子里唯一的正经事。我记得每一个温情快乐抓狂暴怒的瞬间，每一刻真实。但是你要强行说服我一部不懂魔兽史就看不懂的电影是部好电影。WTF！
Watched the movie and started arguing with my ex-gamemates after stepping out of the cinema. Of course, I miss the past […] the time when the only daily business is going online. I remember all the feelings — happy, angry, crazy feelings [when playing the game]. All these moments are real. But if you want to force me into saying that a movie which non-game players could not comprehend is a good movie, [my answer is] WTF!
Hong Kong movie star Jackie Chan boasted that Warcraft's Chinese box office success has scared the Americans in the recent Shanghai International Film Festival:
Warcraft made 600 million RMB [$91 million] in two days — this has scared the Americans […] If we can make a film that earns 10 billion [$1.5 billion], then people from all over the world who study film will learn Chinese, instead of us learning English.
But while it certainly did well in ticket sales, some of its cinematic triumph was just hype, since the Warcraft movie also haunted by the phenomena of ghost screenings as a result of the large number of tickets pre-sold to corporations which financed or sponsored the film. Yoya-cc watched Warcraft with her boyfriend in one of the empty cinema halls and uploaded this photo to Weibo:
Ghost screening of the Warcraft. Image from Weibo.
难得出门啊！就我俩在这么大场子看魔兽让我想起好多电影院的鬼故事八万说我照相技术没他好，都看不清人，所以我特意标注了他所在位置
This is a rare occasion. Just two of us in such big hall watching Warcraft. It reminded me of so many ghost stories about cinemas. My boyfriend said my photography skills are too poor and that he is barely visible in the photo. So I added an arrow to indicate where he was.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Ruijun Xu


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At Least 42 Dead in Istanbul Airport Violence · Global Voices
Akhal-Tech Collective

Ataturk Airport wikipedia image.
At least 42 people have died following shooting and a triple suicide bombing at Ataturk, Istanbul, one of Europe's busiest airports and a hub for global air traffic.
The attacks carried out by at least three assailants began late on June 29 and were preliminarily attributed to the ISIS radical group by Turkey's Prime Minister Binali Yildirim.
The fact the attacks took place in one of the world's most transited airports meant that global media and citizen media coverage of the aftermath was almost instant:
1st photo from Istanbul's Ataturk airport where 2 major blasts rocked int'l terminal, leaving multiple casualties.pic.twitter.com/xhu1uMfzTS
— Mustafa Edib Yılmaz (@MustafaEdib) June 28, 2016
TURKEY – Children & relatives embrace as they leave Ataturk airport after Istanbul suicide attack. By @ozannkosee pic.twitter.com/nTGunVnOJe
— Frédérique Geffard (@fgeffardAFP) June 28, 2016
As has become par for the course in Turkey during times of crisis, authorities hit local media with a gag order as the situation evolved, and placed a block on access to Facebook and Twitter that was still in place as of Wednesday evening.
Text of the temporary gag order on Istanbul Ataturk twin suicide bomb attack issued by PM.https://t.co/N0sHNhKJ4l pic.twitter.com/ph7zKFgzzd
— efe kerem sozeri (@efekerem) June 28, 2016
Global Voices’ contributor Efe Kerem Sozeri offered a snap analysis of the government attempt to block media and social media over at Vocativ, underlining the fact that it prevented people from accessing information at a crucial time.
While some taxi drivers sought to profit from the crisis by overcharging, hotels across Turkey's biggest city and ordinary Istanbulus opened their doors to stranded passengers of all nationalities for free.
16 guests are resting in their rooms. We have one room left! #taksim #istanbul #PrayForTurkey #prayforistanbul https://t.co/TvGt0okaz6
— Suite Begonia (@BegoniaIstanbul) June 29, 2016
Amazing: Turkish student living near airport offers to let stranded passengers stay at his home. #istanbulattack https://t.co/EVoF9SjqxF
— Borzou Daragahi (@borzou) June 28, 2016
The airport attacks are a horrendous reminder of what some commentators have grimly referred to as Turkey's “new normal” — a regular cycle of extremist violence targeting the country's civilian population that would have seemed unimaginable in times of relative peace just two years ago.
Major recent attacks.. And the conflict in Southeast #Turkey… Hundreds… Hundreds died… https://t.co/nlJd4u1ZbU pic.twitter.com/cArfrHOhO3
— Cagil M. Kasapoglu (@CagilKasapoglu) June 29, 2016
The attacks took place exactly two years after ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate in the Iraqi city of Mosul, although the group has not yet claimed the Ataturk attack.

author: Akhal-Tech Collective


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Belarusians Get Naked and Get to Work. (President’s Orders.) · Global Voices
Tanya Lokot

Belarusian Internet users stripped in their workplaces to respond to the President's call to put more effort into their work. Image from Instagram.
Belarusian citizens are not usually known to enthusiastically heed the commands of their long-time president Alyaksandr Lukashenka. In fact, his authoritarian monopoly on ruling Belarus is frowned upon. But as it turns out, there are exceptions to every rule.
On June 22, Lukashenka spoke at the All-Belarusian people's meeting, and, ending his speech, issued a call to Belarusians seeking a better life.
Наша жизнь в простом. Надо раздеваться и работать. До седьмого пота. Не будет этого – погибнем.
Our life is about simple things. We must get undressed and get to work. Work till we sweat. If we don't, we'll perish.
The video of Lukashenka's speech made the rounds on social media, with disbelieving users trying to confirm that he had indeed used the word “to strip” (раздеваться) and not the similar-sounding “to develop [themselves]” (развиваться).
But the transcript of the speech on the presidential website confirmed it. And so the Belarusians took to the task with gusto.
Soon, social media were flooded with photos and videos of (mostly young) Belarusians in their offices and workplaces, stark naked, strategically covering themselves with binders, office tables, laptops, and going about their workday. Belarusian urban news website CityDog collected the best specimens of the social network flashmob.
#раздеватьсяиработать #ялюблюсвоюработу #чутьчтомыодеты #четкаяконспирация #minsk
A photo posted by Маргарита Воропаева (@margo_voropaeva) on
Батька сказал раздеться и работать, мы разделись и работаем)
 #раздеватьсяиработать
 #корпоративныйстиль
 #irmcreative
A photo posted by @ssnnooppooyy on
Batka (Lukashenko's nickname) said we should get naked and work, so we got naked and are working.
#раздеватьсяиработать и мы последуем совету!)) #Fistashki #коллегидрузья
A photo posted by @budenis on
We'll follow the advice as well))
Все только для того, чтобы поднять экономику страны. #раздеватьсяиработать #lukashenko #belby #belbeznalby #computer #shop #work #ignat #жилистый #флешмоб
A photo posted by Alexandr Ignatovich (@fun_bayern) on
Anything to prop up the country's economy.
Thousands of Belarusians have been posting pictures on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter using the hashtag #раздеватьсяиработать (#getnakedandwork).
#раздеватьсяиработать #музейбровки #ниднябезбровки #музей
A photo posted by Музей Петруся Броўкі (@museum_brovka) on
Сегодня я прополола клубникуА как ты исполнил государственное поручение #раздеватьсяиработать? Не коси, #раздевайсяиработай
A photo posted by Viktoriya Akvinskaya (@akvinskaya) on
I weeded the strawberries today. And how have you fulfilled the state's command?
The flashmob became so popular that even users from other countries on the RuNet and beyond joined in.
Поддерживаю флешмоб сябров #раздеватьсяиработать ! Ибо пятница! #живебеларусь #лукашенко #пятница #работа
A photo posted by Hanna Hrabarska (@anya_grabarskaya) on
Supporting the Belarusian flashmob!
Some Internet users took the flashmob a step further and posted videos of songs composed specially for the occasion. In the videos, of course, the singing citizens are mostly naked. Which just goes to show that country leaders really need to be careful what they wish for.

author: Tanya Lokot


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The Uncertain Future of the Syrian Revolution · Global Voices
أسعد حنا

Fighters from the 101st Infantry Division. Picture used with permission from the Division's media office.
The Syrian Regime is willing to remain in its current position for years, as long as it does not pay for this time with the blood of its own fighters, but rather with that of foreign militias and Syrian loyalists whose lives are worthless to the Regime. Most often, the Regime pushes forcefully enlisted fresh recruits to their front lines, as sacrificial lambs, while wearing down the Free Syrian Army (FSA) with daily shelling, killing its finest fighters and media activists who are the well-known targets on the front lines.
The Regime has no problem with continuing in the current situation, as long as the loyal coastal cities and the capital remain under its control, as every day its enemies turn into friends and allies. Washington has shifted its prompt calls for Assad's overthrow to fighting terrorism, while its military operations moved to Pentagon to fight Daesh (ISIS) alone. The tactic is to fight and defeat FSA divisions one by one in order to create new units supported by the Pentagon to fight Daesh in Deir al-Zour and Northern rural areas of Syria. Other units seek to join the Pentagon program to receive extra funding in exchange for sending troops daily to fight Daesh, in what seems to be a failed strategy with no significant  advances on defeating the extremist organization for over a year now.
With the increasing influence of the Kurdish and Syrian Democratic Forces in the north and their attempts to take leadership of Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan Province) by controlling the cities of Manbij and Jarabulus, there will be new fronts for FSA to defend against such attempts to appropriate Syrian territory. This pits the FSA against the Syrian Regime, Daesh and the Syrian Democratic Forces, not to mention the back-stabbing by Islamic battalions close by. So, what will the FSA do?
We no longer hear of great battles led by the FSA, but rather about limited clashes and attrition battles with the Islamist factions designed to protect and strengthen some areas, or to regain control over areas dominated by the Regime or Daesh. The battles for Hama and Aleppo have yet started. As for Al Raqqa’s, if that happens it will not be a piece of cake for the FSA, as such a battle will be under the US and Russia, with a possible participation by the Regime, which would give it a clear pathway towards Tabqa airport and Palmyra. Thus the Syrian Democratic Forces and Assad’s army (with coalition and Russian Air Force support) will be the key players.
The FSA maintained its positions in the north through some of its factions, which are now static, drowning in the swamp of external aid. Other factions are going about their business as they reinforce their control and power over their areas. They have begun to establish relief societies, schools and bakeries, thereby turning into yet another battalion working in relief and commerce without being able to reach the point of self-funding that would enable them to cut the cord of external support and achieve independence and triumph.
The FSA now enjoys relatively easy movement in northern Syria without being under siege, as is the case in Homs city or Eastern Ghouta in Damascus. However, despite this freedom of movement over large areas, the FSA is caged within the boundaries of international red lines which can’t be crossed. “Nubl and Al-Zahraa” is a red line. “Al-Fu'ah & Kafriya” is a red line. Coastal areas are a red line. People Protection Units areas are a red line. Crossing these lines could result in attacks, possibly from the very parties supporting the FSA.
In Southern Syria, in Daraa province, the FSA military operations have been on hold for nearly a year, except for several battles against Daesh divisions. The FSA lost its momentum in rural areas of Damascus and Ghouta. It is fighting alone and under siege against al-Qaeda, its eternal enemy, in addition to defending the large fronts with the Regime to prevent any advancement. And it is unable to break this siege whether in Darya, Ghouta or rural Homs as it has been left alone in these areas without any back-up or support.
The main purpose behind containing the opposition in the Geneva talks for eight months was to force the FSA to stop fighting and drain its support while continuously arming and fortifying Regime areas. The alleged truce is proof of this. It was imposed by Russia and the US on parties in Syria and included demands to constantly fight against Daesh and Al Nusra Front, while giving legitimacy to aerial bombardment closing in onto FSA controlled areas, and validity to the presence of Hezbollah, Iranian and Iraqi militias by including them as parties to the truce. The aim is to create dissent and send a threatening message to the FSA through the use of internationally prohibited weapons like phosphorus and cluster bombs, which gives the green light for Russia and Assad to wipe out any area they want while the US and Europe turn a blind eye.
Hardly a week goes by without a prominent activist, leader, commander or lead fighter being assassinated, as part of a systematic strategy to cause the failure of the revolution’s work. These incidents go unnoticed and their perpetrators are not held accountable as they occur far “away from home”. But what some FSA officials do not realize is that the day will come when it will be them, or one of their own, who is assassinated.
The Future of the Free Syrian Army
If the FSA continues on its current path, as the tool of forces with external agendas (whether or not these align with the FSA’s projects), it will enter into a maelstrom without a end. The FSA will be the party that causes Syria to be divided, and the Kurds to establish a state of their own in Syria. The FSA will help the restructuring of the Regime's army, and the destruction of Syria under the pretext of the “war on terrorism”. Opposition activists will be placed under surveillance and scrutiny by the next regime, which will not include the FSA, nor revolution figures, and which will expel tens of thousands of families from the country, just like in 1982 after Hafez al-Assad's war on the Muslim Brotherhood in the city of Hama.
If the FSA does not act like an internationally powerful force with ownership of a leading project in Syria, it will be out of the equation and will lose its place to civil society organizations, with their dubious role in the Syrian revolution, and to fake opposition characters who are working to give Assad’s Regime a new look.
The FSA will be held accountable not only for what it has done, but also for what it should have done when the need arose. FSA leaders residing in Turkey, Jordan, and Europe are ready to give up certain of their battles, and even the basics and fundamentals of the revolution, in order to strengthen international relationships that support their current authority and give them hope for the future. If the FSA’s on-the-ground soldiers had dismissed their leaders, renounced external support and returned to the principles of the revolution as it was in 2012, when the FSA would self-arm from the gains of successful battles against the Regime, the situation would have been much better for the fighters, despite the fragmentation of loyalties.
The decision of the FSA’s 101st Infantry Division, operating in northern Syria, to abandon international support that came at the price of silence regarding the administrative and financial corruption of their allies, is a first step towards demonstrating the possibility of returning to the revolution’s independence. But are other divisions willing to follow the example, or will they just carry on?

author: أسعد حنا


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Zanoza.kg: Rising from the Wreckage of Kyrgyzstan’s Largest Russian-Language Newspaper · Global Voices
Akhal-Tech Collective

Kyrgyzstan's revolution in April 2010 cost up to a hundred lives and was followed by ethnic violence killing over 400 people in the country's south. Wikipedia image.
The story of the rise and fall of the news portal Vb.kg is one of the most dramatic and contested in the history of independent media in ex-Soviet Kyrgyzstan.
The name Vecherniy Bishkek is most often associated with the large-circulation Russian language newspaper that a series of governments in the Central Asian republic of six million people have sought to control.
After toeing the line of the authoritarian government prior to 2010 Kyrgyz revolution — a spontaneous uprising against a background of rising living costs and massive corruption — the paper developed a reputation for its critical line towards the new government, and won praise from international observers for its objective reporting on ethnic violence in the country in 2010.
In the years following that violence, in which roughly 500 people died, the newspaper's online arm, Vb.kg, also came to the fore as one of the country's most widely-read and trusted websites.
The government struggling to establish its authority over the country liked neither, with Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev even sensationally accusing the outlet's reporters of causing the death of his mother and brother from stress-related illnesses in 1996 and 2015 respectively.
By 2015 the outlet was fending off defamation lawsuits from two close advisors of Atambayev at the same time as its parent company was the subject of a bitter legal battle with a former co-owner, who claimed to to have been cheated out of his stake when the company was restructured a decade earlier.
Vecherniy Bishkek depicted Aleksandr Ryabushkin's bid to take back his part of the company as a government ploy to destroy a critical voice in the media, while the government denied that it had any role in an “ownership dispute” between Ryabushkin and his one-time business partner Alexander Kim.
But the extent to which the government went to trash Vecherniy Bishkek aroused suspicions that this was not the case.
In May, for instance, the state-owned OTRK channel aired several times a controversial 25-minute smear segment calling Vecherniy Bishkek, “a business of lies” and accusing the group of being a front for the political interests of the hated Bakiyev family ousted from the country in the 2010 violence.
By the end of last August, court rulings had disowned the reclusive Kim of his interests in Vecherniy Bishkek.
Among the assets transferred to Aleksandr Ryabushkin was the company's printing press — a strategically valuable asset in a small country where newspapers often depend on contributions from businesses and politicians to meet publishing costs.
Many of the staff that worked for Vb.kg meanwhile moved over to a new startup Zanoza.kg, which rapidly became one of the country's top news websites according to the online rankings of Liveinternet.ru, as Vb.kg's online presence dipped under new leadership.
Zanoza.kg's Editor-in-Chief Dina Maslova, who previously ran Vb.kg, spoke to Global Voices about the challenges facing independent media in the country of six million people.
Global Voices: According to the Freedom House media watchdog, Kyrgyzstan has Central Asia's freest media, but is not actually free. Do you agree with that analysis? What features sum up the state of Kyrgyzstan's media space today?
Фридом Хаус подчеркивает, что Кыргызстан – самая свободная страна в регионе. Посмотрите, какие авторитарные страны нас окружают, среди них, да, Кыргызстан – свободная страна. Но, во-первых, Фридом Хаус отмечает, что ситуация в Кыргызстане ухудшается. Во-вторых, я против того, чтобы останавливаться на достигнутом, сравнивая себя с худшими. В любой ситуации, не только в оценке свободы СМИ, нужно сравнивать себя с лучшими и стремиться развиваться. Если сравниваешь себя с худшими, то отпадает стремление двигаться дальше, так начинается деградация. С таким же успехом можно говорить, что в Кыргызстане в отличие от самых бедных африканских стран есть дороги, канализация и электричество. Это не стимулирует развиваться. А вот когда посмотришь, как живут развитые страны, то хочется тянуться.
Что касается характеристик СМИ Кыргызстана, то я бы выделила следующие:
Сужается пространство для свободы слова. Когда речь идет о свободе СМИ, то тут вопрос не в свободе написания статей о спорте или шоу-бизнесе, а о выражении мнения о политике и действиях руководства страны. В интернет-пространстве популярные ресурсы с альтернативными властям точками зрения – “Азаттык” и Zanoza.kg. Остальные находятся под влиянием аппарата президента. Двух-трех ресурсов мало для нашего информационного поля. Редакционную политику на ТВ также диктует аппарат президента. Те телеканалы, на которые он не влияет, или ничего не говорят о политике и “Белом доме”, или настолько непопулярны, что на них не обращают внимания. Тиражных газет с независимым мнением в Кыргызстане тоже не осталось, развлекательные газеты я не учитываю.
Уровень кыргызскоязычных СМИ остается низким, потому что они по-прежнему принадлежат политикам или находятся также под контролем пресс-службы президента. Это одна из причин того, почему продолжают существовать так называемые ушаки. Власти выгодно иметь такую площадку для компромата. И по некоторым темам заметно, что слив делается именно из “Белого дома”.
Серьезно беспокоит ситуация в судебных инстанция. Суды находятся под полным контролем властей, поэтому при их желании СМИ могут через суды отобрать или обанкротить. Политически мотивированные процессы рассматривают одни и те же судьи, которые в нарушение многих процессуальных и иных норм навешивают на СМИ многомиллионные иски – якобы ущербы, где цифры взяты с потолка.
Низкий уровень финансирования за счет рекламных средств тормозит развитие СМИ.
Остается проблема с кадрами. Но это проблема системная в нашей стране. Такого не может быть, чтобы в одной сфере все было хорошо, а в остальных все плохо.
Dina Maslova: Freedom House says that Kyrgyzstan is the freest country in the region. But look at the authoritarian countries surrounding us! For sure, in comparison to them, Kyrgyzstan is free. But Freedom House also notes the situation in Kyrgyzstan is getting worse.
Secondly, I am against the idea of resting on your laurels and comparing yourself with the worst there is. In any situation, not only in media freedom, you need to compare yourself to the best and aspire to be better. If you compare yourself with the worst, then the impulse to move forward is lost. That is where stagnation sets in.
You can say with the same assuredness that in comparison with the poorest countries in Africa, Kyrgyzstan has roads, sewage and electricity. But that won't stimulate further development. On the other hand, when you look at how the most developed countries live, you want to move in that direction.
In terms of the features of the media space in Kyrgyzstan I would say the following things:
Almazbek Atambayev (left) has been Kyrgyzstan's president since 2011 and is constitutionally bound to leave office in 2017. The country has become less authoritarian under his government, but shows regular signs of backsliding. His foreign policy has been strongly pro-Russian.
GV: If we assume that Vecherniy Bishkek was in fact seized under government orders, why was the company so important to the government? After all, newspapers’ circulations are shrinking across the planet, and the online team was always going to find another home…
Медиа-холдинг “Вечерний Бишкек” мог сохранять независимость, благодаря финансовой устойчивости. Это одна из немногих медиа-кампаний, которая не нуждалась в финансовых вливаниях донорских организаций, политических партий и пр. Независимость означает непредсказуемость для власти. А непредсказуемости власть всегда боится. Прошло достаточно времени, чтобы проанализировать ситуацию. Захват нужен был тем людям из окружения, которые расценивали “ВБ” как финансовый ресурс. То есть, например, Атамбаеву “ВБ” как источник дохода не нужен, но “помощникам помощников”/ “советникам советников” и ниже по иерархии это вполне доходный бизнес. Как информационный ресурс “ВБ” все еще интересен. В холдинг входили три газеты: несмотря на то, что тиражи печатных СМИ в Кыргызстане и мире снижаются, “ВБ” оставался влиятельным ресурсом, а у интернет-сайта vb.kg к тому времени тоже была большая аудитория (более 400 тыс. пользователей в месяц). Сейчас многие говорят, что какие-то российские группы через наших чиновников решили захватить “Вечерний Бишкек”, чтобы редакционная политика была более предсказуемой. Не могу это утверждать, но редакционная политика на самом деле стала пророссийской, причем безальтернативно пророссийской.
DM: The media holding Vecherniy Bishkek was one of the few in Kyrgyzstan that was able to maintain independence thanks to its financial sustainability. It did not depend on contributions from donor organisations, political parties and so on.
For the government, independence equates to unpredictability, and government will always fear unpredictability. Now enough time has passed to analyse the situation.
I think the seizure of VB was driven by allies [of President Atambayev] that viewed the holding as a financial resource. That is to say that at the level of Atambayev himself, VB is not needed as a source of income, but at the level of “helpers of the helpers”, or “advisors to the advisors” and further down the hierarchy, it is a very good business to reap profit from.
Moreover, VB is of interest [to authorities] as an information resource. There were three newspapers in the holding in total. Not withstanding the fact that newspaper circulations in Kyrgyzstan, as the world over, are down, VB remains a very influential resource, while the internet website vb.kg had a big audience — 400,000 users a month — at the time it was seized.
Currently, many people say that some kind of Russian groups decided via our state officials to seize Vecherniy Bishkek so that the editorial policy would become more predictable. I cannot confirm this, but the editorial policy has become pro-Russian, and from what I can see, consistently pro-Russian.
GV: Do you miss Vb.kg?
Нет, не скучаю. Если я закрываю за собой дверь, то ни о чем и ни о ком не вспоминаю. Новый проект – Zanoza.kg – помог начать многое с чистого листа для меня как журналиста и как для медиа-менеджера. Я уже не совершают некоторые управленческие ошибки, которые имели место быть в “ВБ”. И самое важное, сейчас я не исполнитель, а учредитель издания. Мне требуются другие компетенции, чтобы его развивать. Считаю, что собственное развитие – это важный плюс.
DM: No, I don't. When I close the door, I close the door.  Zanoza.kg helped me turn over a new leaf in many senses as a journalist and media manager.
I no longer make the type of executive mistakes I sometimes made at VB. And most importantly, I am now a founder, rather than just a manager. That means a different set of demands in terms of developing the outlet. Personal development is always a big plus.
GV: Zanoza.kg has become one of the country's leading media outlets in a very short space of time. How do you explain this?
- У нас стало больше развлекательных материалов – это тренд в Интернете, который мы используем.
DM: Zanoza.kg became popular in a short space of time for many reasons:
In Bishkek, a city of one million people, most people consume media in Russian. Beyond the confines of the capital, the Turkic Kyrgyz language dominates. Flickr image.
GV: Last October, when a group of prisoners broke out of a jail in Kyrgyzstan, Zanoza.kg was the only website to provide drone footage of the police operation to catch them. Given that several countries in the region, such as Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, have tightened restrictions on drone use, what future do you think drones have in the Kyrgyz media space?
Беспилотник мы попросили у партнеров в продакшн-студии. На самом деле нас об этом попросили сами милиционеры. Они не могли найти террориста, который спрятался в огромной новостройке, где очень похожие дома и улицы. Думали, что с помощью дрона смогут его найти, но не получилось. Беспилотники – сейчас новомодная штучка, которые используют СМИ. Они будут использовать ее и дальше, но аудитория будет расценивать это как что-то привычное.
DM: The drone was a request we made to our partners at a local production-studio [drone.kg]. And the police was actually keen for us to do that.
They could not find the terrorists [Editorial note: there was much debate in Kyrgyzstan as to whether the men that broke from the jail were Islamic militants, or just common criminals] who were hiding in a huge new housing settlement full of houses and streets that looked the same. They thought the use of a drone might help, but it did not.
Drones are now very much in fashion. Media will continue to use them and the media's audience will come to expect it.
GV: There is a lot of talk of an “information war” being played out in Kyrgyzstan's media between Washington and Moscow. Do you think that is a fair analysis?
Информационная война в КР – часть глобальной информационная войны. Она была, есть и будет. Но пока Москва и Вашингтон воюют в информационном поле, Пекин отвоевывает экономические проекты в Кыргызстане, при этом растет влияние арабского мира в нашей стране. Меня больше беспокоит это.
DM: The information war in Kyrgyzstan is a part of the broader global information war. It has always been and always will be.
But while Moscow and Washington wage a war in the information space, China is bedding down its economic interests in Kyrgyzstan and the influence of [Middle Eastern countries] over our country is ever-increasing.
These trends bother me a lot more.


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A Toxic Mix of Violent Activism and Police Repression Wreaks Havoc in Mexico’s Oaxaca · Global Voices
J. Tadeo

Union groups and federal police face off as a result of the education reform. Screen capture of video shared by Libre Red on YouTube.
Violence in Mexico is worsening, this time due to vehement protests against a reform to the constitution regarding education. The setting is the southwestern state of Oaxaca, particularly in the Nochixtlán region. The situation is tense and complex. Citizen media has spoken out against the vicious response by authorities, which has resulted in a number of victims. However, for many, the protesters are also perpetrating abuses that disrupt order and limit the possibilities of a dialogue.
The reform in question was published in February 2013 and involves, among many other things, mandatory teacher evaluations. In addition, the reform takes away privileges from the unions that have controlled education (and the budget for it) in the country. The reform is in the process of being implemented, and the protests have broken out intermittently since it was discussed by lawmakers.
The violence occurred in Nochixtlán on June 19, 2016. Clashes erupted between the National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE) and the federal police, leaving around 10 dead. By the time this article was edited in the original Spanish, no official records of the deaths or injuries had been made public; each side as well as news outlets have published their own numbers. Some international news organizations, like The Guardian, have confirmed that there are images of police agents firing weapons against protesters.
Normally, the government calls on the federal police to clear roads and highways that are blocked by protesters, although they also execute attacks in the internal armed conflict or “war” against organized crime. Only a few months ago, the federal police played a role in what numerous media and opinion leaders called a massacre in Tanhuato, a region in the west.
The CNTE is an extremist group of some teachers from areas suffering the most precarious conditions in the country, like Guerrero, Michoacán and Oaxaca. On other occasions, we have reported how this group's protests have disrupted the lives of ordinary citizens. In addition to roadblocks and protests, CNTE's main form of expression is strikes, which imply the closure of schools.
In the past several days, CNTE has been joined by like-minded groups that have been blamed for some shocking acts, including the public shaming of teachers who didn't participate in a strike in the beginning of May by forcibly cutting their hair. An act, by the way, that no human rights organization in the country condemned, as journalist Carlos Marin pointed out.
The CNTE's roadblocks and protests, which eventually morphed into confrontations with police, have also caused economic losses to the tune of many millions in only a few days. On June 22, 2016, an employer's union called Coparmex asked the government to declare Oaxaca an economic disaster zone, as La Crónica newspaper reported:
La solicitud fue dada a conocer en conferencia de prensa por el presidente de la Coparmex en Oaxaca, Benjamín Hernández Gutiérrez, quien advirtió que la entidad vive una situación similar a la de un estado de excepción, debido a las afectaciones económicas derivadas de los bloqueos carreteros por parte de los disidentes.
A través de un escrito, los empresarios exigieron a los actores sociales y políticos que no viven en Oaxaca a no emitir opiniones al respecto de la problemática que se vive en la entidad, porque confunden a la opinión pública y generan mayor polarización.’
The petition was made known during a press conference by the president of Coparmex in Oaxaca, Benjamín Hernández Gutiérrez, who warned that the organization was living under circumstances similar to a state of emergency, due to the economic damages caused by the protester's roadblocks.
Through a written communication, business owners called on social and political leaders who don't live in Oaxaca to refrain from publishing opinions about the issue affecting the organization because it confuses the public opinion and generates more polarization.
Mexicans are using Twitter to share news about the shortage of food and basic goods caused by the conflict:
Padece Oaxaca desabasto de productos básicos por bloqueos – Quadratín Querétaro
— Zarai Dominguez (@ZaraiDmn) June 24, 2016
Oaxaca suffers from shortage of basic goods due to roadblocks, [as reported by news site] Quadratín Querétaro
Los de la CNTE llaman a que les donen comida y cosas, mientras en Oaxaca el desabasto ya se empieza a serntir y seguira, dan asco
— Nopal Encabronado (@nopalmuino) June 24, 2016
The CNTE calls on us to give them food and goods while the shortage in Oaxaca is starting to be felt and will continue, it's sickening
Twitter user Z liborio asked why the shortage wasn't being covered widely in the media:
Los medios nacionales no hablan de los problemas de la Costa de Oaxaca y los medios digitales dicen que NO hay desabasto de gasolina… WHY?
— z liborio (@PAPARAZZAID) June 24, 2016
The national media isn't talking about the problems on the coast of Oaxaca and digital news sources say there isn't a shortage of gasoline….WHY?
The non-economic repercussions are also serious. Journalist Elpidio Ramos died after being attacked by CNTE teachers when he covered the moment that they were being cleared out. Newspaper El Debate reported what happened:
Elpidio Ramos Zárate fue agredido a balazos por los docentes.
Elpidio Ramos Zárate was shot by the teachers.
The CNTE and its sympathizers have illegally kidnapped journalists, turning them into hostages to negotiate their release with the press. Independent news organization Sin Embargo pointed out that the journalists in question were freed on June 21.
Freedom of expression defender Article 19 commented on these kidnappings, but argued authorities had failed since they should be protecting journalists:
Además, ARTICLE 19 recuerda a las autoridades que están obligadas a salvaguardar la integridad de los comunicadores. #Oaxaca
— ARTICLE 19 MX-CA (@article19mex) June 22, 2016
In addition, ARTICLE 19 reminds the authorities that they are obligated to protect the integrity of journalists. #Oaxaca
En este contexto, ARTICLE 19 reitera que el libre ejercicio periodístico es vital para que los ciudadanos se mantengan informados. #Oaxaca
— ARTICLE 19 MX-CA (@article19mex) June 22, 2016
In this context, ARTICLE 19 reiterates that exercise of free speech in the news is vital so that citizens remain informed. #Oaxaca
Analyst Alfonso Zárate addressed the inherent risk in the CNTE's mounting offensive:
Uno de los riesgos mayores que aporta el conflicto, es la propagación de más frentes en Guerrero, Chiapas, Michoacán y más allá, donde hay grupúsculos ansiosos de entrar en combate, y que la violencia rebase a la Policía Federal y obligue a la presencia de las Fuerzas Armadas. Los grupos guerrilleros, casi en extinción, podrían encontrar una coyuntura propicia para actuar. Otro riesgo es el de la contaminación: que se enganchen sectores del profesorado institucional que hoy en día se mantiene en las aulas frente a un grupo.
One of the greatest risks that the conflict gives us is the propagation of more fronts in Guerrero, Chiapas, Michoacán and beyond, where there are small groups who are anxious to enter into battle and that the violence could overwhelm the federal police, requiring the presence of the armed forces. Guerrilla groups, which are almost extinct, could find a window of opportunity to act. Another risk is one of contamination: the sectors of institutional teachers who today are in the classroom will get looped in.
There are also those who have voiced concern about the use of force against the CNTE; this is the case of Víctor Sánchez, who looked at the implications of the federal police's behavior from a human rights perspective:
El mal uso de la fuerza pública en el estado de #Oaxaca evidencia el débil estado de derecho que tenemos en México y la violacion de los DH
— Víctor Sánchez (@victorsanoro) June 23, 2016
The misuse of force in the state of #Oaxaca is proof of the poor state of rights that we have in Mexico and the violation of human rights
Activist Netzaí Sandoval spoke about repression against members of the CNTE and shared images of protests headed up by The National Regeneration Movement, a minority opposition political party:
Cientos de miles repudian brutal represión de @EPN Chong y Policía Federal en #Nochixtlán#Oaxaca#EstoyHartoDeEPNpic.twitter.com/EdQQHgHL6V
— Netzaí Sandoval (@Netzai_Sandoval) June 26, 2016
Hundreds of thousands condemn brutal repression by @EPN [Enrique Peña Nieto], [Interior Secretary Miguel Ángel Osorio] Chong and federal police in #Nochixtlán #Oaxaca #I'mFedUpWithEPN
If it is confirmed that police shot and killed protesters, the government of Enrique Peña Nieto will face yet another case in which, during its leadership, state agents have participated in the killing or imprisonment of members of the civil population, just like what happened in Tlatlaya (also considered to be a massacre by various sources) and Ayotzinapa (in which 43 students were the victims of forced disappearance). For President Peña and his regime, this would be even more bad news to pile on the hit they took at the polls recently when they lost various governor posts that were up for election.
The violence in Nochixtlán, Oaxaca, adds to the dismal panorama of the internal armed conflict afflicting Mexico. A short-term resolution seems impossible.

author: J. Tadeo


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Here’s What Macedonia’s Colorful Revolutionaries, Armed With Paint, Have Achieved So Far · Global Voices
Filip Stojanovski

‘Colorful Revolution’ protesters walk the streets of Skopje on June 20, 2016. Photo by Vančo Džambaski, CC BY-NC-SA.
Two major demands have been met since protesters started coming out on the streets of Macedonian cities ten weeks ago: a presidential blank pardon to regime politicians has been withdrawn and the government planned ‘one-party’ elections — which only featured their party — have been cancelled.
Despite threats from the regime that criminal charges will be brought against them, the protesters are holding their ground and continuing to push for reform. They want the ruling coalition of VMRO-DPMNE and DUI out.
The anti-corruption protests in the tiny Balkan land-locked country — dubbed the ‘Colorful Revolution’ — are non-violent, include marches, performances, and lots of color. Armed with paint buckets and water guns, protesters have been splashing paint on structures that symbolize the impunity and poor governance of the ruling regime.
The nonviolent movement adopted the name Colorful Revolution, because of the paint and the diversity of the protesters. The movement includes civil society activists, members of the political opposition (from the center, the left and the right), and many politically-unaffiliated citizens from all ethnic backgrounds. The diverse mix of Macedonian citizens are united in their outrage over abuse of power within state institutions.
The protests started on April 12, when President Ivanov pardoned all those charged and under investigation, by the newly-established Special Public Prosecutor Office, in a wiretapping scandal that targeted members of the country's opposition.
Within a month, the protests spread to 22 cities across Macedonia. In some cities, like Skopje and Bitola, they included almost daily marches and painting. In smaller cities, they were less frequent, but still numerous. During June, other forms of protests were also used, including blockades of crossroads, and protest performances.
“The People! Here’s the people, in the streets! By today (May 17) protests have been taken place in record 22 cities: Strumica, Veles, Ohrid, Resen, Kičevo, Kavadarci, Bitola, Prilep, Radoviš, Gevgelija, Štip, Kočani, K. Palanka, Obleševo, Delčevo, Gostivar, Tetovo, Kumanovo, Skopje, Kruševo, Sv. Nikole, Vinica.” From a tweet by @MKColorful.
The government of Republic of Macedonia canceled its plan to hold an early election with participation of only the ruling party in June, fulfilling one of the eight demands of the protest movement. The process showed that the combined pressure from the people in the streets, and the other domestic and international factors, can bring about change even within very adverse circumstances.
Initially, the State Election Commission (SEC), where ruling parties appointees hold majority, approved the elections on April 16, even though its task to clean the voting registry from phantom voters had not been done. Back then, the SEC estimated that the starting price tag for these elections would have been EUR 7.5 Million (USD 8.34 Million) for their basic expenses.
On May 4, the ‘Colorful Revolution’ protest march in Skopje visited the seat of the SEC. Thousands of people marched behind the banner “Dictatorial Electoral Crime!”, and then the protesters lighted flares, and threw paint on the facade of the building.
The State Election Office after the ‘Colorful Revolution’ protest on May 4, 2016. Photo by Vančo Džambaski, CC BY-NC-SA.
Considering that the basic conditions for the elections to be free and fair are not fulfilled, the protesters, the civil society organizations like election observers MOST, the international community, foreign analysts, the political parties in the opposition and also within ruling coalition all took position that such elections should not take place.
Attempting to maintain his image of invincibility, the ruling party chief Nikola Gruevski claimed that the one-party elections will take place on June 5, and then, after his party wins, he would also organize new elections with more parties.
Lack of pluralism brought back memories of communism, and further mobilized the ‘undecided.’ Some remembered that in the leaked wiretaps, the Parliament Speaker Trajko Veljanoski defined “democracy” as a state when all MPs are from his party. Others re-shared an interview with the president from 2013 in which Gjorge Ivanov praised the unchanging stability resulting from Chinese Communism.
“I see, finally we get an efficient Parliament” – a much shared 2009 “Pecko” cartoon by Darko Markovikj, who died on June 9, 2016. Protesters dedicated a march to his memory.
However, as daily street protests and other forms of influence continued, the VMRO-DPMNE backed down and canceled this plan through its apparatchiks in the state institutions. Тhe Constitutional Court annulled Parliament Dissolution and the reconvened Parliament postponed the elections without setting a new date.
In the aftermath of this decision, the Parliament also appointed new ministers from the ruling party, replacing opposition “caretaker” heads of the Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Labor and Social Policy. The ruling party politicians took a number of measures, including repeated detention of protesters, which have been interpreted as attempts to maintain the rule of fear. High ruling party officials and pro-government media stepped up their campaign against the protesters, targeting them with defamatory accusations of being foreign mercenaries.
Повторно обоено Министерството за правда, граѓаните скандираат „Долу диктатурата“ #протестирам pic.twitter.com/Emmwu59aqm
— META.mk (@meta_agency) June 27, 2016
Protesters again paint the Ministry of Justice, while the citizens chant: “Down with Dictatorship!”
But after weeks of stalling and bickering, the president actually revoked his decision for blank pardons of the persons under investigation by the Special Prosecutors Office on June 6.
There was no explanation why his list of preemptively pardoned people included some who had not been suspects in the  investigations. One such person, Kosta Krpach, was found dead in his apartment in Skopje, with two bullet wounds in his chest. The SPO informed the public that he was in fact a volunteer witness who had been receiving threats. After several weeks of investigation, the (non-special) Public Prosecutor Office declared that the case as “a suicide.”
After the revocation of the pardons, the protesters focused on two of their remaining demands. In order to prevent any new legalistic obstacles to the work of the Special Prosecutors’ Office, they demand from the Constitutional Court to issue a decision about the SPO's legality.
The Special Prosecutor Office was established as part of the Przhino Agreement, brokered by the EU and the US, at invitation of Macedonian political actors. International community involvement is based on the long term consensus that the country's strategic goal is to join the EU and NATO. While working towards the same goals, the protesters are also not shy of criticizing the all other stakeholders,  by issuing demands for allowing civil society monitoring of the negotiations in order to prevent backroom deals.
The second urgent demand is stopping police harassment of the protesters. Some of the more visible protesters have been singled out and subjected to repeated short-term detention, invitations for questioning in police stations, spectacular arrests, and house arrests. Often, such acts incite further, spontaneous protests.
During the second half of June, protests continued less frequently but with higher concentration. On June 20, over 25,000 people gathered in the center of Skopje to reiterate the demands of the Colorful Revolution. A week later, on the next organized protest in the capital, several thousands people showed up again.
Леле луѓе што напраивмееее….вриееее pic.twitter.com/BFefuZ7KHu
— Сеси Асхел (@rizikjak) June 20, 2016

author: Filip Stojanovski


text:
Can Japan’s Opposition Parties Compete? · Global Voices
East Asia Forum

Shinzo Abe hot air balloon. Image: Metropolico.org / Flickr / CC 2.0.
This article is by Corey Wallace and was originally published in East Asia Forum. The article is republished on Global Voices under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 license.
On 10 July, Japan will hold its upper house elections with half of its seats to be contested. This will be the first time that 18 and 19 year-old citizens will be able to cast a vote in a national election.
There was a possibility that this would be a rare double election, but a number of factors convinced Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to decide against this. One factor was caution over placing any additional burdens on the areas struck by April’s Kumamoto earthquake. Also, the Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) coalition partner, Komeito, had opposed a double election from the start, as it relies on concentrating its organisational and financial resources for electoral success.
But perhaps the most decisive factor was the results of the April by-election in Hokkaido. Hokkaido District 5 was seen as a crucial test of whether a ‘united’ single opposition candidate could meaningfully contest a seat in a straight run-off with a government-backed candidate. Despite an intense campaign from the LDP, its victory was a rather modest one in a district it was expected to win convincingly. According to one exit poll, a surprising 70 per cent of independents actually voted for the opposition-backed candidate.
Internal LDP polling also suggested that the ruling coalition might lose its current two-thirds supermajority in the lower house in a double election. These results reportedly worried the government, especially given the prospect that a double election would increase public interest and therefore turnout of independent voters.
Encouraged by the Hokkaido result, the opposition parties agreed to run single candidates for all 32 of the single-member districts (SMDs) for the upper house election. In the 2013 election, the LDP won virtually all 31 of the SMDs up for grabs, even though the LDP did not, on average, receive a majority of votes in these districts. For the LDP, winning a sizeable majority of the SMDs in Japan’s upper house is usually necessary for a strong upper house majority, because opposition parties often do relatively better in the proportional representation segment and in multiple-member districts (MMDs).
Certain indicators have given the combined opposition hope that they might win a larger proportion of the SMDs and at least prevent a runaway victory for the government. One survey showed only lukewarm support for the LDP in the proportional representation vote, and a narrowing of the gap between the ruling parties and the opposition parties in the electoral districts.
Only 28 per cent of respondents thought that Abenomics was having a positive effect on the economy. Crucially, most of the SMDs are in regional areas, which havebenefited least from Abenomics. There is also evidence of growing unease with the Abe government among traditional LDP supporters in these areas due to the recently signed Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. Mindful of this unease, the government has delayed ratifying the agreement until after the upper house vote.
Despite concern over the ineffectiveness of Abenomics, the ruling coalition will campaign on being a stable, effective and ‘responsible’ government that needs an even stronger mandate to tackle reform and ‘accelerate Abenomics’. The opposition’s main line of attack will be the ‘failure’ of Abenomics, as seen in the second delay to the consumption tax increase, and the need for a strong opposition to temper the Abe government.
Punters thought that this election might be fought over constitutional and security issues. It is the first election since the passage of the controversial security legislation in 2015. While the legislation is still unpopular, opinion polls suggest the public is in no rush to repeal all of the legislation. China’s continued incursions into Japan’s claimed territorial seas and contiguous zones will not help the opposition case against the legislation.
The opposition will also raise the spectre of constitutional change under Abe, although the ruling coalition has studiously avoided campaigning on the issue. To change the constitution, the ruling coalition needs a two-thirds majority. This would require winning almost all 32 SMDs, a majority of proportional representation votes and a significant majority in the MMDs. But current polling suggests the LDP and Komeito will struggle to gain a majority of the PR votes. The LDP also forfeited the high-risk high-reward opportunity to win a large number of MMDs when it decided not to run more than one candidate per district.
It is very unlikely that the ruling coalition will win the supermajority necessary to change the constitution. Contrary to expectations, it is also unlikely that the arrival of young ‘nationalist’ Japanese voters will help. They are not particularly enthusiasticabout Abe’s security and constitutional agenda either.
With little to energise the public, voter turnout is likely to be low. Independents are unlikely to vote, as has been the case in every election after 2009. Unless there is a major political scandal, it is almost certain that the opposition will not be able to register a victory significant enough to change the way the Abe administration deals with the opposition. Perhaps the biggest issue will be whether the LDP can capture a majority of seats in the upper house on its own, making it a little less dependent on its Komeito coalition partner.
Corey Wallace is the Einstein Postdoctoral Fellow at the Graduate School of East Asian Studies, the Free University of Berlin.

author: East Asia Forum


text:
Even Assad Supporters Aren’t Immune to Syria’s Kings of Looting · Global Voices
Syria Untold

This story was originally written for Syria Untold in Arabic byʿAlia Ahmad, translated by Maya Milani and edited by Andrea Glioti. It is republished here as a partnership agreement.
[Image: Drawing by Abi al-Bara’ shows the map of Syria as a road signaled by coffins leading to the coast. (Source: The Cry (as-Sarkhah)’s Facebook page)].
A small stroll in loyalist neighborhoods in the Syrian cities of Jableh and Latakia will tell you that not all regime supporters are the same. Talks of “banal death”, “corruption”, “war profiteers” and “price peaks” are no longer confined to private spheres. You now hear it at the grocery store, on public transport and from passers-by on the streets.
An undeclared conflict of interests has split regime supporters into various groups. The community is split between benefiters of the status quo, backed by influential groups, and everyone else. The benefiters carry out “thuggish” (tashbihiyyah) abuses against harmless regime supporters, who do not dare to assert their basic rights.
“A new mobile phone model shakes me into action and occupies me more than the news of the death of someone I know,” said Nader, a techie college student, to describe how he relates to the numerous daily casualties around him.
“I don’t think of tomorrow. I live my day with minimum damage possible. I wait for the beginning of each month to collect the pension of my recently deceased mother, although it doesn’t even cover a quarter of my needs, and so days wipe out days.”
On the other end of the government supporters’ spectrum there is Wasim, an ex-telecommunication professional in his thirties, and a current member of the National Defense Forces (NDF). “I hope the crisis lasts for years. I got my back watched (by influential people) and no one can mess with me. I go on a stroll on the Latakia-Aleppo highway with my guys and they take whatever they want and no one dares to speak out or object. I now have several houses and cars,” flaunts Wasim.
He pauses for a few seconds, then continues loudly, as if to justify himself: “In this war I have lost my brother and by nephew and I have the right to make up for it!”
Some joined the pro-government militias to earn a decent salary, or to avoid being dispatched to remote regions. “I finished my studies at the industrial institute and I was to be drafted, so I had no choice other than joining the NDF, where the wage is better than with the army [30.000 SYP (roughly 58 USD) in comparison with 15.000 SYP (29 USD), although the army salary is inclusive of some clothes, room and board],” said Muhammad, another NDF fighter, “and I am serving in the Latakia countryside, so I get the chance to see my girlfriend and family once a week, which would be impossible in the army.”
Wasim, who became rich thanks to the same paramilitary group, takes a few more puffs of his cigarette, then continues: “The NDF is more like a gang forced upon me by circumstances. Actually it is a war gang of the worst type. Its leadership comprises the most dangerous criminals in the coast, who used to run illegal activities before the war. Those activities increased and spread out like a cancer in the last few years. Everything has a price for them.”
Regime militia members exploit their presence at checkpoints to extort tolls from drivers, and blackmail anyone whose ID points to an area out of government control.
They are also the kings of “de-furnishing” (taʿfish), which is the term used to describe furniture thefts from the houses of those who have been displaced as a result of military action. NDF member Muhammad commented ironically that their excuse is that those are “war spoils” (ghana’im) they have earned through their efforts to defend the homeland against the enemy.
He explained that the thefts reach even the houses of people living in regime-controlled Latakia and its devastated countryside. In these areas “the defender is the thief,” concluded Muhammad.
“People of the coast are the regime’s human repository in this war, like embers they burn quietly beneath the ashes of this grinding war,” this is how Mahmud describes the situation. He works as a private tutor. He has intentionally not completed his college education to postpone the military draft.
He adds: “It is no secret that some consider death an honor and take pride in it, seeking it in battle fields all over Syrian soil. On the other hand, there are those who find themselves forced into taking part in this filthy war without belonging to any side.”
“Patriotic” ideologies control the minds and hearts of many of those who consider death a duty in the defense of the homeland. The violations committed by some opposition groups, or their extremism, become a pretext to convince themselves that defending the regime despite all its faults is the guarantee for the lives of their families.
Umm Ahmad is more than 70 years old. She lost four of her seven sons in the past five years. The old woman tearfully says: “ We must all sacrifice in self-defense so that we can survive. Of course the price will be very high, and I don’t mind losing my other three sons.”
Her husband Abu Ahmad agrees on that, even though he clearly expresses his rejection of the regime’s management of the crisis: “The traitors and the corrupt should have been held accountable. Those who handed over areas to the armed (opposition) men in return for money have not been tried for that. I lost one of my sons in the at-Tabqa airport battle (August 2014) and until today there is no official regime account that explains to us what happened there.”
On the other hand, Umm ʿAli, a woman in her sixties, takes a very different stance. After losing her middle son in the war, she says: “I am not willing to send my youngest to the military. I cannot imagine losing another son, come hell or high waters. My son never leaves the village in fear that his name might be called on for the draft, so he only leaves (home) to help his father work in the orange grove.“
Many changes have almost radically affected the stance of lots of regime supporters. Corruption has spread to an undeniably obvious extent and those who were desperately defending the regime and its symbols have been directly or indirectly subjected to an injustice that made them reconsider their stance.
Shadiah, an employee in her thirties, commented on this point saying: “In the beginning there was a majority of enthusiasts willing to sacrifice their lives for the sake of the homeland and its leader. In every heated debate, any critic of regime practices was considered a traitor. […] The apologists used the opposition’s silence against violations committed in the name of the revolution as an excuse to undermine the values and credibility of the revolution.”
Today, after five years, according to Shadiah, the vehement defense of the regime “has disappeared for many who suffered unjustified abuses, while it has remained frequent in individual instances. Nonetheless, the absence of the spirit of citizenship and the lack of respect for the human individual have left each person alone with their suffering.”
Having said that, the grievances of the “loyalist areas” from the war are not limited to the abuses committed by the regime and its militias. Car bombs, mortar shelling and the daily arrival of the corpses from battlefronts give the locals a taste of the Syrian tragedy as other Syrians have experienced it. Today numerous government supporters feel trapped between both sides.
This article was prepared inside Syria through direct interviews in the cities of Latakia and Jableh. Pseudonyms have been used to protect the sources.

author: Syria Untold


text:
‘I’ll Stay as Long as the Queen Allows Me to Stay’ and Other Brexit Reactions From the Portuguese-Speaking World · Global Voices
Manuel Ribeiro

Brexit. Photo: Pixabay/Public Domain
British voters decided to leave the European Union in a referendum on June 23, with 52% of the ballots supporting a so-called Brexit (Britain exit) over 48% for Bremain (Britain remain). British Prime Minister David Cameron tendered his resignation as this result.
The outcome has given rise to uncertainty about what will happen to EU citizens living and working in the UK (free movement of workers across member states is a central tenant of the European Union) as well as companies and organizations that do cross-border business. The stock market and the pound have fallen in the wake of the Brexit vote, and there have been reports of an increase in xenophobic incidents across the UK.
Around the globe, reactions to the vote in favor of leaving the EU have been diverse. Global Voices sought to find out what the Portuguese-speaking world are saying about Brexit.
Through Facebook, we talked to João Carvalho, who lives near London with his daughter and where he has worked as a mechanic at Jaguar for a year. He said he left Portugal, which is a member of the EU, to find a good job and because he considered it a failed state. In England, Carvalho said he found a higher quality of life and the possibility to provide a good future for his daughter.
He expected Brexit wouldn't have an impact on him and that it could “serve as a model for his own country”. Asked if he will remain in England even if the visa conditions become more difficult for European citizens, he replied, “I'll stay as long as the Queen allows me to stay,” and ended by saying that he had never personally experienced “any xenophobic sentiment by the British.”
On the other hand, Patrícia Soares, who has lived in Brighton since 2014 where she's completing a doctoral degree, said the number of xenophobic attacks since the vote has increased. “Most of the cases that I have heard is directed at Muslims, Polish and Pakistanis,” she told Global Voices. She added that she hadn't encountered any discrimination or hate and that “the day after the referendum, several British colleagues asked me how I felt and were unanimous in making it clear to me that it is not their position and were embarrassed with this result.”
Patricia doesn't intend to stay in England because her “goal was always a doctoral degree and return to Portugal.” The researcher acknowledges, however, that she'll need to change some of her plans: “We were exploring the possibility of continuing to work from Portugal and come regularly to the UK. Given the Brexit result,probably I'll have to think of other options. The funds will probably be more difficult to obtain and employers may not be so open to the possibility of paying someone from outside.”
The Brexit vote revealed a deep split between the four countries that make up the United Kingdom: Scotland and Northern Ireland voted overwhelmingly to remain, while England and Wales went the other way. The difference in voting has stoked calls for independence, especially in Scotland. Regarding the possibility of the UK breaking up, Soares said:
O futuro do Reino Unido não está claro. No entanto, seja o que for que aconteça daqui para a frente ninguém poderá apagar estes resultados da memória dos cidadãos. Esquecendo as consequências políticas e económicas, o aumento da discriminação que o leave (“sair”) trouxe não poderá ser apagado. O país está claramente dividido e acredito que a Escócia vai fazer os possíveis para continuar na UE. Tendo em conta a história com a Irlanda, a Irlanda do Norte é mais complicado
The future of the UK is unclear. However, whatever happens from now on, no one can erase these results from citizens’ memories. Forgetting political and economic consequences, increasing discrimination that the leave vote has brought cannot be deleted. The country is clearly divided and I believe that Scotland will do everything possible to continue in the EU. In regards to the history of Ireland, Northern Ireland is more complicated.
From Brazil, blogger “Socialista Morena” (Tan Socialist) argued that it the Brexit issue wasn't clear cut between left and right-wing:
Confesso que estranhei um certo desespero, por parte da esquerda, com a saída da Inglaterra da UE, como se fosse uma espécie de fim dos tempos – até porque a esquerda nunca foi uma grande defensora do bloco, pelo contrário. Nestes 23 anos de sua existência, não se pode dizer que a UE tenha sido uma maravilha para as pessoas mais necessitadas da Europa – a pobreza e a desigualdade estão crescendo, inclusive – ou mesmo para os imigrantes, que aparentemente serão o maior alvo da extrema-direita agora (como se já não fossem). Para complicar ainda mais, os pobres da Inglaterra votaram em sua ampla maioria pela saída do país da UE. Diante de tantas complexidades, prefiro esperar para ver antes de automaticamente me afirmar contra o Brexit.
I confess that I found the certain level of desperation from the left wing with the exit of Britain from the EU to be strange, as if it were like the end of times — because the left has never been a great defender of the block, on the contrary. In these 23 years of its existence, it cannot be said that the EU has been a wonder to the most deprived persons in Europe — poverty and inequality are growing — or even for immigrants, which apparently are the biggest target of the extreme right now (as if they never were before). To further complicate things, the poor from the UK voted in their vast majority for the country to leave the EU. Faced with so many complexities, I prefer to wait and see before automatically assert myself against Brexit.
An analysis of the results reveals how divided the UK is on the matter. The remain vote won in regions with greater economic power, while leave won in regions with greater economic problems, meaning the richest voted to stay while the poorest chose to get out of the EU. Other data taken from the referendum results points to a clash of generations. Young people want to stay in the EU, but the older voted to leave.
Is the future of the European common project at risk of dissolving? From Portugal, Francisco Fortunato, wrote the following:
Não acredito que a União Europeia tenha aprendido nada com o terramoto britânico. Nem compreendido as angústias dos mais desfavorecidos, nem os problemas que a construção do projeto europeu às escondidas dos cidadãos provocaram. Cedo ou tarde, um acontecimento como o inglês ia acontecer. Para nosso mal, o nosso futuro europeu comum é cada vez mais uma miragem, um sonho bom que se está a tornar um pesadelo. A Inglaterra não será um contraponto – por pequeno que tenha sido – ao poder alemão, a França está tão frágil que a sua voz pouco conta. A reação dura – pedindo um processo rápido – dos decisores europeus à saída da Inglaterra da União Europeia não passa de uma ameaça aos outros países. Nada faz prever uma inflexão de rumo, uma aprendizagem com os profundos erros cometidos.
Provavelmente, teremos uma União Europeia cada vez mais germanizada, mais fechada sobre o seu pequeno círculo de satélites e os outros condenados a viver ligados ao soro alemão, que lhes vai permitindo pouco mais do que se manterem à tona, ou a uma rutura que os vai atirar para uma crise social e política de proporções dantescas. É o fim de um sonho lindo.
I do not believe that the European Union has learned nothing from the British earthquake. Nor has it misunderstood the anguish of the poor and the problems that the construction of the European project behind closed doors, away from citizens, caused. Sooner or later, an event like the British would happen. To our detriment, our common European future is becoming a mirage, a good dream is becoming a nightmare. The UK will not be a counterpoint — as small as it has been — to German power, France is so fragile that their voice counts for little. The harsh reaction — calling for a quick process — from the European decision-makers to the UK's exit from the European Union is only a threat to other countries. Nothing indicates a shift in direction [for the EU], that they’ve learned from the profound mistakes they’ve made.
Probably, we will have a European Union increasingly Germanized, more closed off within its small circle of satellites and others condemned to live off the German lifeblood, which will allow them little more than to stay afloat or will throw them into social and political crisis of Dantesque proportions. It's the end of a beautiful dream.
In Africa, Mozambicans also reacted to the possible departure of the UK from the EU. Isalcio Mahanjane warned it wasn't an isolated “trouble”:
(…) Vale a pena dizer que estamos em face de um verdadeiro “sarilho”, para os British themselves (para os próprios britânicos), para o resto da UE e para o mundo, donde não escaparão a minha África e o meu Moçambique! (…)
[…] It is worth saying that we are facing a real “trouble” for the British themselves, for the rest of the EU and the world, where will not escape my Africa and my Mozambique! […]
Eduardo Matine replied:
(…) Nos moldes em que Bruxelas vinha gerindo esta união, tarde ou cedo, de algum lado se ia desintegrar! A crise da Grécia fortaleceu a Alemanha com conivência de Bruxelas, só para citar alguns imbróglios que o Reino Unido e outros tiveram que engolir porque devem respeitar diretivas lá da união! Essa união, que supõe-se que devia servir aos países membros, deixa-se guiar por agendas milionárias de grupos económicos financeiros ditando regras de jogo e sendo jogador e fiscal ao mesmo tempo! (…)
[…] In the way in which Brussels was managing this union, sooner or later, some side would crumble! The Greek crisis has strengthened Germany with collaboration from Brussels, to name a few of the messes that the UK and others had to swallow because they must comply with directives from the union! This union, which it is assumed should serve the member countries, let itself be guided by the millionaire agendas of financial economic groups dictating the rules of the game, acting as the player and referee at the same time! […]
From Angola, Márcio Cabral, who once lived in the UK, feared the rise of xenophobia:
(…) Não acho que o “Brexit” tenha sido uma decisão acertada do ponto de vista económico. Quanto ao ponto de vista social, este sim é o que me preocupa profundamente. Como frisou o meu colega britânico Gerson Emanuel, a motivação deste voto foi puramente xenófoba…e por isso temo bastante que o sentimento anti-emigrante venha a crescer de forma voraz nos próximos tempos naquele país. Quando lá vivi, ouvi bastantes vezes a frase “Go back to your Country = Volta para o teu País” e temo que os meus, que ainda lá vivem, venham a passar por situações de racismo e xenofobia. Por mais “britânicos” que eles se possam sentir…
[…] I don't think that “Brexit” was a wise decision from an economic point of view. As for the social point of view, this is what worries me deeply. As pointed out by my British colleague Gerson Emanuel, the motivation of this vote was purely xenophobic … and so I fear the anti-immigrant feeling will grow voraciously in the near future in that country. When I lived there, I heard quite a few times “Go back to your country” and I fear for mine who still live there, and will go through situations of racism and xenophobia. No matter how “British” they think they can feel …
Cape Verdean Herminio Silves believed that the exit of the UK from the EU will affect his country too:
BREXIT GANHA. E CABO VERDE COM ISSO?
Pelos visto nos vai afetar e muito. A saída do Reino Unido da União Europeia prejudica – sim prejudicar, porque é o nacionalismo exacerbado e a xenofobia que venceram – o principal bloco do planeta, pelos seus efeitos de contágio. A Holanda, a França, a Itália e a Turquia (esta quer entrar na UE) já cogitam avançar também com um referendo se permanecem na União ou se ficam para a manter firme.
Com os sinais vindos do Reino Unido, é crível que esses países se deixem levar pela mesma onda e preferir sair da UE. Com isso, pode estar por um fio a moeda única europeia, o Euro, como aliás, se defende na Itália. Roma vai começar a referendar primeiro a sua saída da zona Euro, antes de avançar com uma consulta pública sobre a sua permanência na UE.
A desintegração começa a sentir-se e é o cenário mais preocupante. Cabo Verde é um dos que perde com o desmembramento da UE. O país, que por via do acordo cambial mantém o Escudo preso ao Euro, poderá não aguentar as oscilações do mercado se a moeda única europeia for para o brejo.
Além disso, há acordos bilaterais (pesca, circulação), financiamentos e o protecionismo que nos foge, ainda por cima, nesta época difícil.
Curioso é que ainda esta semana o presidente da AN (Assembleia Nacional), Jorge Santos, esteve nas Canárias onde, juntamente com os Açores e a Madeira, Cabo Verde reivindicou uma participação ativa nas instituições da UE, no quadro da Macaronésia. Bem, se os tubarões estão em debandada, que será dos peixinhos?
BREXIT WINS. AND WHAT ABOUT CAPE VERDE?
Apparently, it will affect us a lot. The exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union undermines — yes, jeopardises because of the extreme nationalism and xenophobia that won — the main block of the planet, for its contagion effects. The Netherlands, France, Italy and Turkey (this last one wants to get in) have also set their minds on going ahead with a referendum to either leave the EU or to stay and make it stronger. With the signs coming out of the UK, it is believable that these countries could be carried away by the same wave and prefer to leave the EU. With this, the single European currency, the euro, is now questioned, as Italy is doing. Rome will start first, countersigning its departure from the Eurozone, before moving forward with a public consultation on their stay in the EU. The disintegration begins to happen and is the most worrying scenario. Cape Verde is one of the losers with the collapse of the EU. The country, which through the exchange agreement maintains its Escudo currency attached to the euro, cannot withstand the fluctuations of the market if the single currency goes down the tubes.
In addition, there are bilateral agreements (fishing, movement), financing and protectionism that we lose, moreover, in this difficult time.
Interestingly, this week the president of the National Assembly, Jorge Santos, was in the Canary Islands where, together with the Azores and Madeira, Cape Verde claimed an active participation in the EU institutions as part of Macaronesia. Well, if the sharks are in disarray, what will become of the little fish?
The June 23 referendum is not legally binding The UK exit might not even materialise, although it is unlikely because disrespecting the will of the British electorate could be political suicide for any party that takes power.
Before resigning, David Cameron assured that the decision of the people would be respected and the other party leaders share the same opinion. It is now for the British Parliament to approve the referendum and ask the prime minister to formally invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty that outlines how a state can withdraw from the EU. Once activated, the process can last up to two years.
Till then, Secretary of State of Portuguese Communities Abroad José Luis Carneiro told journalists in Lisbon:
Os portugueses com mais de cinco anos de trabalho no Reino Unido devem acautelar os seus direitos e requisitar a residência permanente naquele país, independente da saída ou não dos britânicos da União Europeia.
Portuguese people with more than five years of work in the UK must ensure their rights and request permanent residence in that country, regardless of the exit or not of Britain from the EU.

author: Manuel Ribeiro


text:
Taiwan’s First Airline Strike Inspires Workers in Other Sectors to Reflect on Their Rights · Global Voices
I-fan Lin

China Airline flight attendants’ strike in Taipei on June 24. Photo credit: Brian Hioe. Republished by Global Voices with permission.
For the first time in its history, Taiwan witnessed a strike within the airline industry on June 24. Several thousand China Airlines (CAL)  flight attendants protesting against a change to their working conditions first rallied in front of the Taipei branch headquarters. The strike then dramatically developed into an occupation of Nanjing East Road in the city center. The action resulted in the cancellation of 122 flights on Friday and Saturday; around 10,000 passengers were affected.
The strike came to an end the same day, with CAL flight attendants winning important concessions from the airline. And their success hasn't gone unnoticed by workers in other sectors in Taiwan.
What triggered the strike was the unilateral decision of CAL's management to reset flight attendants’ report-for-duty location without discussing with the flight attendants first. This affects the calculation of their working hours, cutting the report-for-duty time before flight take-off from 140 minutes to 90 minutes and off-duty time after the flight has landed from 60 minutes to 30 minutes only.
By cutting their working hours, the company can squeeze more flights into flight attendants’ schedules without giving them full rest time between flights. In other words, the change exploits flight attendants’ rest time. In addition, a new contract that the airline requested them to sign recently extended their working hours from 174 hours per month to 220 hours per month.
The tension between the airline workers and the Taiwanese government-dominated enterprise has been escalating for many years. The company has been criticized for extremely long work hours and low pay on holiday shifts.
Smaller-scale demonstrations have taken place in the past two years. In September 2014, some flight attendants protested against the increased number of red-eye flights and the reduced number of flight attendants on each flight. In response, airline management issued a warning to them for protesting and suggested that they raise the issue in negotiations instead of protesting.
In January 2015, CAL’s workers protested again for their salary and bonus. The airline management did not respond to their request, but they penalized protesting flight attendants by transferring their job to customer service and forcing them to be re-trained.
After a huge CAL labor protest at the end of May 2016, CAL management proceeded to fire two members of the technicians’ union. At the same time, the union of flight attendants decided to vote for a strike that could force the airline management to take them seriously. This time, 2,535 out of the 2,638 members of the CAL flight attendants union voted in support of the strike.
After a five-hour negotiation, the company, under pressure from the government, agreed to restore the previous working hour calculation policy, consult with worker representatives on policy changes in the future, ensure sufficient holidays, and increase the flight attendants’ daily allowance at the destination location. The strike ended in the late evening on June 24.
On Facebook, one of the protesting flight attendants said:
今天華航員工被資方壓榨，其實只是全台灣勞工的縮影
台灣的經濟成長率幾乎年年為正，請問你的薪水有漲嗎？[…]
就算企業賺錢，打工仔還是領最低薪資、老闆還是給你差不多的薪水，剩下的錢通通進到他們口袋
社會資源都大集團壟斷、勞資越來越不平衡，也難怪年輕人看不到未來，怎麼拼都還是條魯蛇
所以，就讓我們開革命的第一槍吧！
Today the staff of CAL are exploited by management, and this is just one of the cases that labor face every day in Taiwan. The GDP growth of Taiwan is positive almost every year, has your salary been raised? […]
Even when the companies earn a lot of money, the hourly paid workers only earn the minimum salary, and the boss only pays you almost the same salary. The rest of the money always goes into their pockets.
Social resources are monopolized by the big companies, and the relationship between the workers and management is less and less balanced. No wonder young people cannot see a future, because they are doomed to be losers no matter how hard they work.
Therefore, let us fire the first gunshot of this revolution.
The actions of CAL's management that triggered the strike didn't happen in a vacuum. Recently, Taiwan's business community has been lobbying legislators to introduce new revisions to the Labor Standards Act that would strip the government of their power to protect employees regarding their working hours and allow companies to extend workers’ schedules as long as they wish.
In a public hearing on working hours in Taiwan's Legislative Yuan on June 21, the executive director of the General Chamber of Commerce, an organization representing the interests of businesses, suggested that the upper limit of overtime should be extended to 60 hours per month because “it is good for the health and income of workers”.
If the business community continues with its push to extend working hours, it wouldn't be surprising if they encounter more and more opposition from their employees, especially on the heels of the CAL flight attendants’ success. In fact, the flight attendants’ strike has inspired workers from other sectors to reflect upon their labor rights and contemplate future collective action action to improve their working conditions.
The Taipei City Hospital Union preparation committee said on its Facebook page:
空服員在刻板印象總是年輕、漂亮、語言能力佳等小資階級特質[…]華航空服員今日寫下台灣罷工史新頁，但願這非單一階級的勝利，而能將這勝利延伸到更多其他不美、不年輕、不優勢的階級群眾。
The perception of flight attendants is always young, beautiful, good language skills, etc., those ‘petit bourgeois’ characters.[…] Today the CAL flight attendants wrote a new page in the history of strikes in Taiwan. I hope this success will not be limited to this class of workers, and this success could be extended to other less beautiful, less young, and less advantageous classes.
Health care workers in Taiwan have complained about their working conditions for years, but have a uniquely difficult time going on strike. Legally, management must approve their strike; any other action would be considered illegitimate. The law is made to protect patients, but more and more medical staff argue that their labor rights are aligned with patients’ interest. Vicky Lin, a nurse, said:
看到有人提出如果護理師罷工，病人死掉誰來負責的說法
我想問的是，那如果醫護人員超時工作過度疲勞造成給藥錯誤開錯刀醫錯病，為什麼這種情況造成病人死亡時就要醫護人員買單！？我們有準時下班的選項嗎？沒有！那為什麼我們活該被告！？
沒有什麼職業天生應該被當奴才一樣的存在，沒有什麼職業應該要燒光自己只為點亮別人，不要再說醫護本來就是高道德標準的工作
I heard people ask who should take responsibility if patients die when nurses strike.
What I want to ask is why should medical staff take the responsibility for the errors that they make when they are too tired due to overtime? Do we have a choice to leave our job on time? No! Therefore, why should we be sued for these kind of errors!?
No one in any occupation should work like a slave. No one in any occupation should light up others while burning down ourselves. Please do not say that health care workers should have high moral standards.
The flight attendants’ strike has served as a kind of wake-up call for Taiwanese workers in other sectors that the proposed revision to the Labor Standards Act might affect them. Legislators who had signed on the revision are now under pressure due to what happened with this strike. Feeling that their interests are threatened by the success of flight attendants’ labor action, on June 27 the business community decided to suspend all negotiations with the government and workers regarding further legislation on public holidays and working hours.

author: I-fan Lin


text:
In China, Homophobia and Fear of ‘Foreign Forces’ Go Hand in Hand · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

The lesbian couple's public proposal in the Guangdong Foreign Studies University on June 21. Photo from Gender in China's blog.
A recent incident shows how fear of homosexuality and fear of foreign forces is sometimes intertwined in China.
On June 21, a lesbian couple from Guangdong University of Foreign Studies had a romantic public proposal after their graduation ceremony. Very quickly, photos of their passionate kisses and news about the proposal went viral on Chinese social media platforms WeChat and Weibo. People praised the public display of love and gave them their blessings.
But later that same day, the Wechat public account of a Guangzhou-based group for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people called Girlfriend was taken down permanently by censors because of their coverage of this public proposal. A post on Weibo relating the same news published by a Guangzhou-based feminist group called Women Awakening was also deleted.
One of the newly engaged women, Wang Xiaoyu, was threatened by the deputy secretary of the university's Chinese Communist Party committee that she would face disciplinary action for “misbehavior.” Wang wrote a post on feminist group Gender in China's blog on June 28 recounting what she went through after the public proposal:
我叫王小宇，是一名拉拉。我和我的女朋友同是广东外语外贸大学2016年应届毕业生。借毕业典礼之际，我们决定以求婚的方式公开出柜，让性少数群体的亲密关系在大学校园内被看见、被讨论、被思考，为创造开放多元的大学校园环境而尽一份力。[…]
事情发生不久后，我学院党委副书记杜书记火燎火急要找我谈话，希望我就此事在媒体禁声，不要给学校带来“不良影响”，“你要保护好自己，不要受到媒体伤害”，她担心“别有用心”的“国外媒体”、“国外势力”关注、利用我。
杜书记这样和我说，“这么多同性恋者，大家都不会歧视，因为他们把握得很好，不会去影响到别人，也不会去危害到别人。”
去年是我校50周年校庆，50对广外异性恋伴侣举行了集体婚礼，而我们又什么时候怀疑过他们的举动会不会“危害到别人”？[…]同性恋之间的爱欲表达怎么又变成一个不堪，更遑论危害他人的事情？
My name is Wang Xiaoyu, I am a lesbian. Both my girlfriend and I are 2016 graduates of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies. We wanted to make use of the graduation ceremony to come out of the closet publicly with a romantic partnership proposal. We want to make visible the intimate relationships of sexual minorities, to stimulate discussion and reflection and to construct an open and diverse university environment. […]
Soon after [the public proposal], Secretary Du, the deputy secretary of our school, desperately wanted to talk to me. She wanted me to stop talking to the media and stop having a “negative impact” on the school. She urged me to “protect myself from the harm of the media” and she was worried that “foreign media” with “ill-intentions” and foreign forces will pay attention to me, use me.
Secretary Du said to me, “There are so many gays and lesbians around, no one discriminates against them because they know how to handle their relationships in a way that doesn't affect and bring harm to others.”
Last year, during our university's 50th anniversary, 50 pairs of heterosexual couples had their marriage ceremonies together. There was never any assumption that their actions would bring harm to others. […] How come expressions of love between LGBT people brings harm to others?
The deputy secretary confiscated Wang's graduation certificate on June 22 to make sure that she would not talk to the media. She also put pressure on Wang's parents, telling them that their daughter was under the control of an “illegal organization” and asked them to report “her daughter missing” to the police so that they could break into her apartment and search for evidence of her connection to an illegal organization.
Wang only managed to recover her graduation certificate on June 28 after she had been silent for a week and had cancelled a work-related trip. The school's deputy secretary was happy that the situation was under control:
杜书记严肃地和我家里人说我参与了非法的、不正当的活动，会对我的前途有很大的影响。她说我原来是非常优秀的学生，但后来变化太大。现在我为与父母沟通放弃出差被他们定义为“局势的扭转”，“事态还在萌芽状态就得到控制，被扼杀了”。然而她没有意识到的是，事情没有往她丰富的想象方向发展，这可能会给她立了一个大功劳，却给我的生活带来多大的创伤与影响。
从杜书记自作主张告诉我家人“我是被非法组织控制了”开始，我就陷入了和家长非暴力沟通无效且受到双方压力的无力中。她丰富的想象力给我紧张的父母火上浇油，在我和父母有沟通隔阂的时期趁虚而入，最终导致我和家人之间信任破裂[…]。
Secretary Du told my family in a serious manner that I had participated in illegal and inappropriate activities, which will have a huge impact on my future. She said I was an excellent student but had changed. I gave up a work-related trip for my parents, and they saw this as “a turn for the better,” “nipping this in the bud.” Her imagining something that did not happen might help her claim victory. She didn't care how she has harmed me.
Since she told my family that “I was under the control of an illegal organization,” I could no longer communicate with my family and fell into a state of helplessness. Her imagination added fuel to my already tense relationship with my parents and now all the trust within the family has been broken […]
Seeing the ill treatment the lesbian couple was receiving, LGBT groups posted selfies on social media to show their support.
The placard says: “Child, true love has nothing to do with gender. Be courageous to speak out about love.” Photo from LGBT family support group's Weibo.
Feminist group Gender in China called on netizens to send in same-sex public proposal photos to combat homophobia. Below are some of the entries:
The placard says: “Marriage proposals are the same for homosexual and heterosexual couples.” Photo from Gender in China.
The placard says: “Marriage proposals are the same for homosexual and heterosexual couples.” Photo from Gender in China.
The placard says: “Marriage proposals are the same for homosexual and heterosexual couples.” Photo from Gender in China.

author: Oiwan Lam