text:
Burundi clamps down on international NGOs and rejects human rights criticisms · Global Voices
Liam Anderson

Report on Burundi: Presentation of independent experts reports to UN Human Rights Council. Credit: United States Mission Geneva/ Flickr, September 27, 2016.
Burundi's government has repeatedly tried to focus international attention on 2020 elections and draw a line under the fallout from 2015’s election crisis, which led to insecurity and regionally-mediated dialogue with opponents in exile. In May, controversial constitutional changes were unsurprisingly approved by referendum, but then President Nkurunziza surprisingly announced he would not run again.
While positions diverge, international and Burundian criticism against political repression and economic hardship continue as government officials in Burundi's capital Bujumbura tighten control over non-governmental agencies.
At the 39th United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council session in September 2018, the United Nations Commission of Inquiry (UNCOI) renewed its mandate for another year, as many rights organizations and opponents called for. It was established in 2016 to investigate human rights abuses occurring since 2015.
Bujumbura threatened to leave the council, but the motion was adopted with 23 approvals, 17 abstentions, and 7 against. Most African states abstained. Burundi’s UN ambassador said European states tried to “impose their will”.
A UNCOI 2017 report said it had “reasonable grounds to believe” crimes against humanity were committed in Burundi. UNCOI president Doudou Diène warned the constitutional referendum had exacerbated problems, and in June it still expressed concern over repression, citing opposition activist Germain Rukuki’s heavy prison sentence. It also said President Nkurunziza’s announcement that he would not run again should not obscure the situation.
A UNCOI 2018 report found that human rights violations in Burundi had continued with impunity, including torture and forced disappearances by security services and Imbonerakure, the increasingly powerful ruling party's youth-wing. It lamented the “shrinking democratic space” and “the growing impoverishment of the population”, and directly criticized the president for inciting violence.
The government refused UNCOI access to Burundi, so UNCOI investigators relied on hundreds of in-person and phone interviews with refugees.
The government and its supporters consistently reject these reports, claiming they are false and serve as plots against national sovereignty. One government spokesperson said one report was “void” and based on a “hidden agenda”, and officials boycotted its presentation — even demanding reparations. The UNCOI investigators were declared ‘personae non gratae’.
“Le #Burundi a reçu et scruté de fond en comble le rapport que vient de présenter la #COIBurundi et voudrait le rejeter publiquement parce qu’il s’agit d’un rapport mensonger, taillé sur mesure et politiquement motivé” – Amb. @tabu_renovat au #HRC39 pic.twitter.com/WAnBCPtfEN
— Amb. Willy Nyamitwe (@willynyamitwe) 17 septembre 2018
“Burundi received and deeply scrutinized the report just presented by the UNCOI Burundi, and would like to publicly reject it because it is a dishonest report, tailor-made and politically motivated“– Ambassador at HRC39
UN Envoy Michel Kafondo, in a mediating capacity, took a more positive tone than UNCOI, which officials argued showed UNCOI did not understand the full picture. Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court investigation into violence and impunity, opened in 2017, continues. Bujumbura also refused to cooperate and left the court in an unprecedented move.
After the 2015 crisis, restriction on government critics intensified, leading to harassment of opponents, media and civil society, and closures of several independent radios. Journalist Jean Bigirimana was forcibly disappeared, and activist Pierre Claver Mbonimpa went into exile after being shot. Others, such as activist Nestor Nibitanga, faced general security-related legal charges.
In 2016, various Burundian rights organizations were delisted, and recently international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) came under pressure.
In September, the National Security Council, presided by Nkurunziza, announced all NGOs – except in hospitals and schools – were suspended for three months from October 1, and mining companies for one month.
This is to ensure compliance with 2017 regulations including ethnic and gender quotas, originally from post-war peace arrangements intended for security and political institutions. A government spokesperson even accused some NGOs of promoting homosexuality and political conflict.
Additionally, the government has forced NGOs to comply with new taxes and financial requirements for which NGOs were not prepared, creating a standoff. One possible motivation for the new requirements is to generate funds to alleviate struggling government finances.
Critics argued the council is only consultative and lacks legal powers, but Interior Minister Pascal Barandagiye said the council operates “above” ministers.
In a meeting on October 2, officials announced that NGOs which complied could restart as soon as four official documents were provided. Those that did not comply within three months would be delisted. Several International Rescue Committee employees were reportedly later arrested temporarily on accusations of continuing work.
NGOs protested, and Amnesty International warned the abrupt halt to activities would “throw vital services into disarray”. Iwacu newspaper later reported that services helping refugees return to Burundi had stopped.
Bloggers Landry Burundi and Patrick Nimpagaritse of Yaga Blog lamented the NGO restrictions as “a decision that penalizes everybody”, citing already high poverty rates and consequences ranging from reduced fertilizer supplies to energy.
UNCOI and others continue to report on human rights abuses and the government continues to contest them. With international disagreement or perhaps disinterest, the political crisis has stagnated to the ruling party’s advantage, consolidating its control over the opposition and international agencies in the country, but without solutions for worsened impunity and economic problems.
International divisions persist over Burundi's situation. While diplomacy with China and Russia is warm, European Union sanctions continue and neighboring governments differ. The United Republic of Tanzania has called for Burundian refugees to return home while tensions with Rwanda worsened, with armed groups making cross-border raids.
In August, a UN Security Council communique expressed humanitarian concerns for “nearly 180,000 internally displaced persons, 3.6 million people in need and nearly 400,000 Burundians seeking refuge in neighboring countries”. It also lamented slow and poorly engaged dialogue and said Burundi needs to make improvements in free expression for credible 2020 elections.
International Crisis Group noted that economic hardships exacerbate risks of violence, with unemployment, inflation and goods shortages compounded by forced financial contributions to elections. Many have fled the political violence since 2015, and while thousands have returned since 2017, UN High Commissioner for Refugees still registered 319,753 post-2015 refugees in underfunded camps.
The UN Security Council welcomed the president’s decision not to run again and said that security had improved, implying a shift in focus from “political crisis” to “credible 2020 elections”, reflecting the government’s consolidation of control.
UN Ambassador Albert Shingiro welcomed this phrasing, but opposition politician Leonce Ngendikumana criticized weak international action and said that inclusive dialogue was necessary to restore peace and assure the dignified return of refugees and liberation of political prisoners.
Iwacu newspaper, for example, reported recurrent discoveries of dead bodies in some areas of Burundi. Armed crime and rebel groups, especially active in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, also pose deadly risks.
Pierre Celestin Ndikumana of opposition coalition Amizero y’ Abarundi recalled that “absence of war is not synonymous with peace”.

author: Liam Anderson


text:
In Iran, state-sanctioned messaging apps are the new hallmark of internet nationalization · Global Voices
Mahsa Alimardani

The logo for Telegram Talaee, one of the Telegram clients associated with the Iranian government.
This was written by Mahsa Alimardani for ARTICLE19. Read Tightening the Net: Internet in the time of currency crisis for the full report behind this analysis.
The rapid rise of Telegram, Iran's most popular mobile messaging service, appears to have reached a tipping point in the country.
After years of cautious observation and manipulation of Telegram's features to its own benefit, Iranian authorities are now putting both political will and money behind the development of “national” messaging and social media services. And since the Iranian judiciary moved to censor Telegram at the end of April 2018, a series of policy reforms have drastically changed online controls in Iran.
Far from its (self-promoted) image as progressive, the Iranian government’s new censorship techniques are “porous” rather than free. While publicly rejecting censorship of Telegram in rhetoric, government leaders have quietly promoted “national” messaging services, making it increasingly necessary for Iranians to use communication channels under the control of authorities.
The Iranian government has aggressively pursued development of national messengers for the past four years – worryingly (amid economic crisis) through Rouhani governmental funds, leading to the development of government-sanctioned services such as Soroush, Bisphone, and Telegram Talaee. These and other applications have existed for years and have been widely distrusted and avoided by Iranians.
But in recent months, officials have deployed more proactive and even aggressive measures in an effort to promote national services.
Telegram in Iran
Originally created as a platform for secure instant messaging (despite flaws in the service's security), Telegram morphed into a major news source for Iranians after it introduced public channels in September 2015. This was especially significant in Iran, where local news websites and many blocked diaspora media outlets are able to broadcast content freely to Internet users who subscribe to their public channels.
Telegram is one of the few Western social networks that hasn't been blocked in Iran. Facebook and Twitter, for example, have been banned since 2009.
In early 2017, the Ministry of ICT launched incentives for software developers to create local messaging services to rival Telegram. Grants of approximately USD $260,000 were provided for every one million users a platform attained, as long as the platform complied with Iran’s regulations for messaging services.
Incentives to create successful messaging platforms, to rival popular foreign platforms that were deemed as uncooperative with local data policies, went into overdrive in 2017. The state began subsidizing connectivity for these apps in late 2017, making it much more affordable for Iranians to use homegrown apps, rather than  foreign platforms (see page 9 of March 2018 Tightening the Net). ARTICLE 19 has consistently criticised this process as flagrantly violating international standards on net neutrality.
In addition to censoring Telegram in April 2018 (it remains accessible via circumvention tools), the government even threatened well-known Telegram users who refused to move to a national alternative. In July 2018, multiple administrators of food channels on Telegram were called in for questioning by the authorities and threatened with fines for using VPNs to access Telegram. Authorities threatened to prosecute them if they did not move their channels onto a national alternative, such as Soroush. The channel administrators had previously been forced by the Supreme Council of Cyberspace to register their channels on a government website. They believe the information they provided as part of the registration process was subsequently used to target and threaten them.
These measures have raised the technical and political costs of using Telegram, thereby leaving Iranians more inclined to use national alternatives.
The most infamous of the government’s platforms is Soroush. Owned by the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), the messaging and social media application has been promoted by both the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, and ICT Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi for its protection of user privacy, despite large amounts of evidence pointing to the contrary.
Soroush is owned by the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB). If platforms follow the policies set in place by the SCC (see the appendix of the September 2017 Tightening the Net report), encryption would be banned and all the platform’s data would be accessible to authorities. Initial assessments of Soroush unveiled worrying features, such as the ability to show personal details of channel administrators, including phone numbers and details of their membership of other channels. In April 2018, a mobile application developer shared on Twitter how he could openly access the user data of the ICT Minister Jahromi, including his telephone number.
Iranians can only register their Soroush accounts to their Iranian SIM cards (users with SIM cards registered outside of Iran are blocked from using the platform). In 2015, the Communications Regulatory Authority established a policy that all SIM cards in Iran must be registered to a national ID and residential address, making anonymity impossible for any activity that requires SIM registration. Throughout May 2018, many Iranian users reported that their registration and identifying photos were registered and time stamped with activity on Soroush, despite never having registered themselves.
Other questionable services are Wispi and Bisphone. Bisphone has not often been forthcoming regarding its connection to authorities. However, research has shown its data is stored with the Telecommunication Company of Iran, which is known to be partly owned by Iran's Revolutionary Guards. The semi-official government news media, Fars News, reported that the government has “possibly” invested USD $21 million into the development of Wispi to moving the company's servers to Iran, despite the fact that Wispi belongs to the Hong Kong-based company SG Atlantic Limited.
The table in our new Tightening the Net brief (p11) assesses Iran’s different messaging applications for their numbers of users, affiliations and implications for internet freedom. Local messengers are failing to attain the usage levels of their foreign competitors, despite government efforts.
Another approach sanctioned by government authorities has been that of Telegram Talaee and Hotgram, both of which are built on Telegram's technology. Although both services are owned by a private Iranian company Rahkar Sarzamin Hooshmand (Smart Land Strategy), there are indications of government involvement in their operation. Sources from the Ministry of Intelligence have confirmed that it is behind the platforms, while the Ministry of ICT has attempted to distance itself from the platforms.
These unique options provide a sort of “client” for Telegram, relying on the company's open API. A person using Hotgram, for example, is able to communicate with Telegram users and see most of the content that is available on Telegram channels. But Hotgram also functions as a filter. The company can choose to block users’ access to certain content — and there is evidence that this is happening.
US government-funded Radio Farda news service has an active channel on Telegram. But the channel is not accessible on Telegram Talaee and Hotgram. This is consistent with Iranian government controls on Radio Farda, the website for which has been long blocked in Iran. We offer greater detail on this finding on page 14 of our report.
Generally, national platforms have no rigid privacy protocols to protect users, leaving Iranians at the mercy of government-run data collection and protection efforts. The dangers of these applications’ data collection processes can be very real. There is precedent for Iranian authorities to use citizens’ communications data to oppress or persecute users. Examples range from collecting information on whether users have illegal applications on their phones (as seen through the application Snapp) to when intelligence authorities used mobile phone tracking technology to locate and arrest Isa Saharkhiz, a journalist covering the post-election protests of 2009.
These dangers raise the question of how Telegram — a private company incorporated in the UK — manages the use and potential misuse of its technology by outside companies like Telegram Talaee and Hotgram. As long as Telegram leaves its API open, companies like these will be able to build outside clients that connect to Telegram's API, but filter and potentially surveil users’ activities.
Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov has indicated before that there is “no way to guarantee these third party apps are secure,” yet Telegram has promoted the development of such clients, especially in Russia and Iran, where their primary platform is blocked. While the company cannot technically prevent the development of such clients without closing its API altogether, it could use policy and rhetoric to encourage client developers to abide by international human rights standards. This has yet to happen.
In sum, while recent changes are not cutting Iranians off from the internet altogether, they are creating new kinds of threats to freedom of expression and privacy. Under contemporary censorship theory, which tries to reconcile existing patterns within authoritarian, or “controlled” communications systems, Iran is maintaining a “porous censorship” model, with a twist of inventiveness. With the development of platforms such as Wispi and an increase in users on Telegram client applications, it seems this “porous” approach is presenting new threats to freedoms online in Iran.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Mahsa Alimardani


text:
Interactive maps become a tool to fight crime in Mexico · Global Voices
Mercedes Matz

Interactive mapping. Photo by Pixabay, in the public domain.
In Mexico, alarming security issues are nothing new — press reports, statistics and general public perception all point to a rise in criminal offenses. Faced with this situation, which has at times exceeded the scope of the public institutions meant to deal with it, regular citizens in Mexico City have turned to mapping technology in an effort to reduce the impact of crime in their communities.
According to a report on criminal offenses in the capital, in the second quarter of 2018, Mexico City suffered from the second highest incidents of violent robbery in the nation. It also ranked third out of 32 states for street robberies and tenth for burglary. These statistics translate to an astounding 96 violent robberies, 27 vehicle thefts, 20 burglaries, 44 business robberies and 40 robberies per day.
In response to this rise in crime, a group of community members from Anáhuac in Mexico City has created a public Google map where people can record the exact spots where crimes have taken place. The goal of the map is to record and to prevent robberies and vehicle theft. Users can also leave details about the crimes and help civil organizations with the collection of statistics.
The data is based on reports by either witnesses or victims themselves. Some of the reports seen in the map have been previously reported to the corresponding authorities as well. The link to the map is shared on Twitter, where community members can also ask questions and discuss the ongoing urban violence:
Vecinos, no olviden pasar a checar el mapa delictivo del mes de junio, si no aparece su reporte, avísenos para agregarlo.https://t.co/iUelINht73
— Colonia Anáhuac CDMX (@colanahuac_cdmx) July 6, 2018
Neighbors, don't forget to check the crime map of the June. If your report is not there, let us know.
The strategy of using geographic location apps as a tool to combat crime is not a new phenomenon. From 2013 to 2016, the website Hoyo de Crimen (Hole of Crime) gathered information about all types of crime per city block. Data on criminal incidents was obtained through information requests from the Mexican capital's security services. This particular project included recorded events such as assaults, vehicle theft, and homicides, among others. The project was created by programmer Diego Valles, who comments on a post written on u-GOB that his project can help people avoid danger in the city:
Con estos datos y su visualización, los ciudadanos y las autoridades podrían saber dónde se encuentran las áreas más violentas; los empresarios escogerían mejor dónde situar sus negocios, y los conductores sabrían en cuáles estacionamientos es más probable que les roben el auto.
With this data and its visualization, citizens and authorities can know where the most violent areas are located; entrepreneurs would choose where to locate their businesses in a better way, and drivers would know which parking lots should be steered clear of.
Hoyo de Crimen stresses that the project also sought to “ask for accounts from police officers and commanders responsible for each area.”
Despite the relevance of such a project, Hoyo de Crimen was ultimately forced to stop updating information after authorities refused to provide necessary data and disseminate official information.
Geography students at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), have also adopted the map initiative to follow and denounce crime inside the campus. The data is collected through an anonymous online survey which is shared publicly on Facebook. In a post on Facebook, one student explains that the survey and the map aim to “show the spaces taken over by violence in the university campus”. The post also makes reference to student shock groups, also known as porros, who have been the at the center of allegations of violence inside pacific protests for years at UNAM.
Screenshot of the map made and shared by the students. The map is shared on PDF format publicly through the students’ Facebook accounts.
Architecture students in the same university have also drawn up a map to locate assaults, harassment allegations and other acts of violence happening inside the campus. The group shares information on Facebook and Instagram:
Screenshot taken from the Facebook account of ‘FUGA Arquitectura’.
Have you been robbed, harassed or been a victim of violence on campus? Help us map when and where. With your help we can make a collaborative cartography that can help us demand our rights as students. Follow these simple steps using your PC or your phone.
Mapping initiatives in Mexico have not just been limited to assaults on pedestrians or vehicle thefts. Since 2016, a female developer working under a pseudonym for her own safety has produced an interactive map of femicides in the whole country.
The development and spread of mapping technologies have proven to be an important tool to combat crime and, more importantly, to create a self-reliant community which aims to collect data provided by users themselves.
Note of the editor: A previous version of this article erroneously stated that Carlos Castañeda was a co-creator of the project Hoyo del Crimen. Castañeda is, in fact, the author of the article from u-GOB we quoted above.

author: Mercedes Matz


text:
Ukraine is outsourcing law enforcement to private companies that don’t respect human rights · Global Voices
Kanykei Tursunbaeva

Odessa Municipal Guard dismantling decorative fencing on the territory of “Dom Pavlovyh” guest house. Photo by Konstontin Puzilovskiy, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
A series of incidents involving Ukraine's municipal guards are adding up one after another, with ever more citizens demanding they be outright banned.
After the Euromaidan revolution in 2014, Ukraine's abolished its national police and attempted to create a new law enforcement agency, but that never left the paper. As that process dragged on, local authorities began to outsource their law enforcement to private security companies, which are commonly called “municipal guards”.
Technically, they are not public law enforcement. Their mandates are based solely on contracts signed between them and the city — which vary a lot from city to city — and mechanisms of accountability are virtually nonexistent. A law that would regulate those contracts has been pending approval by the national parliament since 2015.
A few politicians have called those guards outright “illegal formations”, and Ukrainian activists commonly refer to term as “private armies” who work in the benefit of certain local authorities.
The matter has come under the spotlight in July when Odessa's guards began a series of dismantling operations on private properties without court orders. On July 10, they've demolished the hydro park Luzanovka and the guesthouse Dom Pavlovyh, where two entrepreneurs were left physically injured. In total, both operations resulted in material damages of over 22,000 US dollars.
On July 13, the guards assaulted journalists who were covering one of such dismantling operations — in the parking lot of a law firm called Redut — with clubs and tear gas. Reporter Miroslav Bekchiv, of the newspaper Obshestvennyi Priboi, was forced into a car and brought into a police station, where he was severely beaten. He was later taken to a hospital, where doctors said that he had sustained traumatic head injuries, signs of suffocation and eye burns.
Olga Panchenko at the OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting in Warsaw, 17 Sep.
Bekchiv's case was taken to the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe (OSCE) and was mentioned on a September 17 meeting of its Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. Redut's attorney, Olga Panchenko, said:
In the context of the topic of the fundamental freedoms and the right to the freedom of movement, I and many of my colleagues-attorneys are particularly concerned about the following: an establishment of private armed and subordinate units in Ukraine by local municipal authorities, so-called the “municipal guards”, which according to numerous facts, infringe not only citizens’ freedom of movement, but also other fundamental human freedoms, as provided in the Declaration of Human Rights, including article 29, paragraph 2.
The prosecutor’s office of Odessa's Primorsky district is investigating five employees of the municipal guard for “organising and conducting criminal acts against media representatives and civilians”, including Viktor Nikolaevich Bondarchuk, who attacked Bekchiv on July 13.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs opened an investigation into Odessa's Municipal Guard. The Ministry has the power to revoke the licenses of private companies. If it comes the to that, it might set up a strong precedent for other such guards in other Ukranian cities.
After a spate of violent incidents, citizens raise concern about possession of military grade equipment by Odessa Municipal Guard. Images from a YouTube video by Nikolay Sikorsky.
According to The Babel, Odessa's guard has currently 300 employees. They also allegedly possess heavy-duty military equipment, as shown by a video that has circulated on social media. The video shows an armoured troop carrier BRDM-2 parked on the yard of Odessa's Municipal Guards offices.
According to an article published in The Babel on October 5, Deputy Mayor Kotlyar's press secretary said the vehicle in question was “in a state of repair for a long time”, but couldn't clarify who owns it.
But another report by Unsolved Crimes, an online investigative outlet, uncovered a video from a public discussion about the vehicle on Facebook in which the head of GUNDP (State Unitary Research Enterprise) of Odessa, Dmitry Golovin, says that, as far as he knows, the armoured vehicle “belongs to Deputy City Mayor – Andrei Kotlyar” (minute 7:48).

author: Kanykei Tursunbaeva


text:
Will Syria follow in the UAE’s footsteps and censor VoIP services? · Global Voices
SMEX

Millions of Syrians displaced by the war rely on VoIP apps to stay in touch with their loved ones. Photo by samer daboul from Pexels
This post, written by Grant Baker, was first published on smex.org. This edited version is republished on Global Voices as part of a content-sharing agreement.
On October 17, the Syrian Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (TRA) announced that it may soon begin blocking voice and video calls on WhatsApp and other Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services.
The TRA said it would do this to increase revenues in the telecommunications industry, according to a Al-Watan, a newspaper linked to the Syrian regime. The regulator's general-director Ibaa Oueichek complained that VoIP “lowers the return on investment for [telecommunications] companies and reduces their incentive to make new investments to improve the network and offer better services for a lower price.”
Like other governments in the region, and in sub-Saharan Africa, the promise of increased revenues for locally administrated telecommunications companies is attractive, despite the burdens it would place on citizens.
If implemented, such a ban would increase the already-high costs of communication in the country and decrease flows of information. It would also present a threat to Syrians’ rights to privacy and would likely lead to greater self-censorship in the country.
Currently, two companies maintain a duopoly on Syria's mobile telecommunication market: SyriaTel, owned by Bashar al-Assad’s cousin Rami Makhlouf, and MTN Syria, a subsidiary of the South Africa-based MTN Group Limited. The regime controls the internet infrastructure and bandwidth via two government agencies, the Syrian Computer Society (SCG) and the Syrian Telecommunications Establishment (STE). The SCG controls the country's 3G infrastructure while the STE, which in 1999 commissioned the country's first nationwide monitoring system, owns all fixed-line infrastructure. This allows the Syrian authorities to easily spy on users.
If WhatsApp and other encrypted VoIP services were to be censored, Syrians would have no choice but to use the government-controlled telecommunication services, leaving their private communications more vulnerable to government spying
This means that the Syrian government could easily listen in on their conversations and collect their communications metadata. It has been well-documented that the government purchases and uses various surveillance tools to spy on citizens. It is easy to imagine that if Syrians had no choice but to use local telecommunications services, authorities would take advantage of their relatively insecure technology and increase their habit of spying on the population.
Such a shift could also create a pathway for expensive and dangerous new alternatives. The United Arab Emirates government, which bans VoIP services including Skype, Viber and WhatsApp, has only allowed the country's two mobile operators, Etisalat and Du, to roll out their own VoIP services. Not only do these services cost money, but the government of the UAE also has access to customers’ metadata and call information, which facilitates surveillance.
In an effort to increase profits, the telecommunications companies in Syria could roll out similar services. The new services might give citizens the illusion that their communications were protected, when in reality they would be just as vulnerable as regular calls.
While users in Syria could still circumvent this ban by downloading a VPN, this will exclude those who are not tech savvy and who have limited financial means. Most VPNs cost money and those that are free often track browsing and give third parties access to user data, creating added vulnerabilities for users.
If the telecom industry regulator approves the blocking of VoIP services, Syria will be the latest country in the region to adopt such a restrictive policy. In addition to the UAE, Qatar currently blocks access to VoIP services, while Saudi Arabia still bans Viber and WhatsApp after easing its restrictions on the use of VoIP apps last year. Other countries in the region, like Lebanon and Morocco, briefly blocked access to VoIP in 2010 and 2016, respectively but quickly ended these initiatives.

author: SMEX


text:
Arrested in Saudi Arabia, and then disappeared: Yemeni writer Marwan Almuraisy · Global Voices
Afef Abrougui

Marwan Almuraisy. Profile photo of the journalist on Goodreads.
More than four months after he was arrested, the whereabouts of Yemeni writer Marwan Almuraisy remain unknown. He was last seen in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he resides.
Security officers arrested Almuraisy on June 1. Human rights organisations say he was transferred to an unknown location and that he is being held incommunicado:
Al-Muraisy's family have been denied information about the charges against him, the location where he is being held and are unable to visit him.
It remains unclear why he was arrested. On his personal Twitter account, where he has nearly 100 thousand followers, he mostly tweeted on news related to technology, innovation and science. He also posted motivational tweets and videos to inspire others.
Al-Muraisy had done some reporting for the privately-owned Saudi website Sabq and other outlets including the non-profit Science and Development Network (Scidev.net) that focused on science and technology.
According to his bio on Goodreads, Al-Muraisy managed a number of Twitter accounts including the @WorldInNumbers, which provided world data and statistics to an Arabic audience, @ArabicShortFilm dedicated to short films in Arabic, and @3bqr, where he posted mental puzzles, although these accounts have been inactive since 2015. He is also a co-founder at CV Graphic, a tech business that creates professional curricula vitae in the format of infographics. In January 2014, Almuraisy published a book, Lbn ala’sfour (Milk of the bird), in which he reproduced 140 funny tweets posted by Arabic-speaking users.
Almuraisy's disappearance puzzled his supporters, particularly given that he was not publicly involved in  political or human rights activism, which are common targets for the Saudi authorities.
الشاب مروان المريسي صحفي وإعلامي يمني يعيش في السعودية..
اعتقلته الحكومة #السعودية قبل أشهر وأخفته قسريا..
رغم أنه ليس له أي علاقة بالسياسة..
ولا أحد يعلم عنه شيء حتى اللحظة..#مملكة_القمع .. pic.twitter.com/qukEcI92A5
— نحو الحرية (@hureyaksa) September 14, 2018
the young man Marwan Almuraisy is a Yemeni journalist living in Saudi Arabia. Months ago, the Saudi government arrested and forcibly disappeared him even though he has no relation to politics. No one knows anything about him still
الصحفي الشاب اليمني المبدع #مروان_المريسي الذي يتابعه قرابة ١٠٠ الف على تويتر اختفى من مكان اقامته في السعودية منذ ثلاثة اشهر! لمصلحة من ان يعتقل ويصمت مغرد مثل مروان؟ @almuraisy كل تغريداته تدعم تطوير الشباب الخليجي والعربي والمحتوى الرقمي الثقافي والترفيهي بعيدا عن السياسة! https://t.co/Hrdv70lChW
— Rawan Damen (@RawanDamen) September 11, 2018
The young creative journalist Marwan Almuraisy who has almost 100 thousand followers on Twitter has been disappeared from his home three months ago! Who benefits from the arrest and the silencing of a Twitter user like Marwan? All his tweets support the development of Gulf and Arab youth and digital content that is cultural and entertaining with no link to politics!
Under the de facto rule of Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, it seems that political and human rights-related issues are no longer the only targets. There appears to be a mandate to stamp out “independent” voices — the words of anyone who is not writing in service of the kingdom's leadership or political agenda. Bin Salman came into his position of power in July 2017, but it is only now, as he faces accusations of playing a role in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, that heads of state and other global leaders are pressuring him on the issue.
In an analysis of media repression in the kingdom, published before Khashoggi's disappearance, the Committee to Protect Journalists’ Justin Shilad wrote:
Since becoming crown prince in July 2017, Salman has directed a wide-ranging crackdown on dissidents under the guise of fighting corruption and extremism. Though he touts the need to modernize and open Saudi Arabia, Salman's reform agenda has become an effective way to remove independent voices.
CPJ is investigating the possible jailing of at least 10 other journalists since Salman took power. Those arrested under his de facto rule of the kingdom include women's rights activists who campaigned for women's right to drive, a policy reform the crown prince himself supported and led.

author: Afef Abrougui


text:
No more photos of sleeping MPs? New rules restrict what media can cover in Tasmania Parliament · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Tasmania House of Assembly. Photo by Edoddridge. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Journalists and media groups are opposing the new media guidelines issued by Tasmania's House of Assembly Speaker Sue Hickey. Tasmania is an island state of Australia located south of the country’s mainland.
The nine-page document dated August 2018 details what journalists are allowed and prohibited to do while reporting inside the House of Assembly and its precincts. Media groups said the new rules undermine their work and make it almost impossible to report the proceedings in the Parliament.
Here are some of the rules that are being criticized:
The Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance, the professional association for Australia’s journalists, described the new rules as “the most egregious attack on the work of a parliamentary press gallery.”
The guidelines represent an outrageous assault on press freedom, undermine the role of the media in carrying out legitimate scrutiny of the work of the state’s elected representatives, and hinder the dissemination of news and information to the people of Tasmania.
The Mercury, a newspaper in Tasmania, also rejected the new guidelines:
…these rules are nothing more than a sneaky way for our elected officials to avoid scrutiny as they go about the job taxpayers pay them to do in the building at the centre of our democratic system.
It plans to continue ‘lingering’ in the Parliament corridors despite the new rule banning it:
We therefore plan to continue to do so in the interests of open democracy and accountability. If the Speaker plans to enforce this ban, then that is a decision that would be on her head.
On Twitter, Australian quiz personality Brydon Coverdale questioned the rule which bans the taking of photos of ‘unparliamentary behaviour’ by parliamentarians.
Tasmania's parliament is banning the media from taking “photos of ‘unparliamentary behaviour’ by parliamentarians.”
Who do these politicians think they are? They are elected by the public, and the public is absolutely entitled to see how they behave. https://t.co/G4jDSqMZW8
— Brydon Coverdale (@brydoncoverdale) October 18, 2018
Speaker Hickey insisted that the guidelines her office issued are not really new and that they reflect the standard in other state parliaments. Some parliamentarians are also reportedly not happy that reporters can easily interview them in the chamber. But Hickey acknowledged the criticism against the new guidelines and vowed to consult the media about it.
Meanwhile, some journalists took photos of themselves ‘lingering’ in the Parliament corridor which is not allowed in the guidelines.
Lingering journalists at Tas parliament. The sort of behaviour new regulations will ban. #politas pic.twitter.com/IgsxDVLArg
— Leon Compton (@LeonCompton) October 18, 2018
Speaker Sue reached out and assured them that her office values the work of media.
I hope to meet with you all next week to get some workable consensus, we value our media mates!
— Sue Hickey (@SueHickeyTas) October 18, 2018

author: Mong Palatino


text:
All art is political: A conversation with Patricia Kaersenhout · Global Voices
Tori Egherman

“Guess Who is Coming to Dinner Too,” by Patricia Kaersenhout. Image provided by the artist and used with permission. Photographer: Aat Jan Renders.
Conversations about race and racism can be particularly fraught in the Netherlands, where tolerance is a core value. Yet, blackface is still a feature of the Sinterklaas (Santa Claus) celebrations and the role of the Netherlands in the transatlantic slave trade is widely ignored. Over the past few decades, however, scholars, artists, activists, and writers have been exploring the limits of Dutch tolerance. One such person is the Dutch-Surinamese artist Patricia Kaersenhout.
The first time I came across the work of Patricia Kaersenhout was with Guess Who's Coming to Dinner Too, her response to Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party. The Dinner Party is regarded as the “first epic feminist artwork”, but it has been critiqued for its lack of inclusion of women of color. More than 40 years after Judy Chicago, Kaersenhout responded with a work that brings Black women to the table.
In this interview, Kaersenhout talks about the African Diaspora, her art, and cultural activism.
Tori Egherman: My non-white Dutch friends tell me that Americans are better at dealing with racism than the Dutch, which has confused me since the impact of racism is obviously worse in the United States.
Patricia Kaersenhout: It’s out in the open in the United States. Americans “do” race. Even though I find it difficult when I go to the States and encounter this blunt open racism, and I think oh my, here we go again, at least it’s out in the open. What happens here [The Netherlands] is under the skin. It’s less visible. You feel it. You know it. But it’s always that you are questioning whether or not what you are experiencing is racism. You ask yourself, is this really what I am experiencing?
The Dutch don’t do race. But now there is a black voice, a voice of color, that speaks back. Black people and people of color are no longer in a state of confusion about race. We know we are experiencing racism.
Of course, the scholars Gloria Wekker and Philomena Essed have been very important when it comes to this discussion. Now there is a narrative about the Netherlands and race, and many Dutch don’t like that narrative. They see themselves as kind and liberal and open to everybody. But this liberal attitude is really a way of earning money. It brings in a lot of tourists and a lot of expats who want to be here — it’s a money thing. They earn money with this so-called liberal and open society. But the question is: how liberal and open are you when you only tolerate the other when they behave the way you want them to behave? That’s not tolerant. That’s why I hate the word tolerance.
TE: I loved the word until I moved here…
PK: Power structures for privilege are passed down from generation to generation, sometimes without even understanding how they work. Let me give you an example. A teacher asks the children in her class to crumple a piece of paper and throw it into the trash can. The first row of students has no problem. For each successive row, it is more difficult. The teacher asks the children if this was a difficult task. Of course, those in front say no. Then she asks, “Did you ever think to look behind to see how the others were doing?” That’s privilege.
From “The Dream of 1000 Shipwrecks” series, by Patricia Kaersenhout. Growing up in the Netherlands, Kaersenhout was not taught about the role of the country in the transatlantic slave trade. “We’ll talk about the American slave trade instead,” the teachers told her. One of her early art projects involved the defacing of history books. Image provided by the artist and used with permission.
TE: Can you tell me more about your defacing of history books?
PK: That’s my meditation. It helps me relieve my anger. It reminds me of when we got to the Dutch slave trade in school and the teacher said, let’s skip it. We’ll talk about the American slave trade instead. It made me angry, this erasing of my history. But when I talked to my mother, she also said let’s not talk about it. It’s too painful. At a certain point, I felt a need to do something about these books. Maybe it was a way to take revenge on them. If it’s not about me, that my history as a black woman is not included in this history, why not do with it what I want to?
This is also a project which evolved. I started to do this at the Decolonial Summer School where I teach. Most of the students are privileged. Books are sacred to them. Books with white history are sacred. I needed to de-sanctify this knowledge. I needed to create a feeling of discomfort and pain because this creates a different awareness. So I had them mutilate the books. I told them they had to do it meticulously and consciously, being aware of what they’re doing. It was so difficult for them. They felt so many emotions. They were crying. And while they were doing it, I walked around them in circles reading a poem I wrote, “The Daughter of Diaspora.” While they were cutting holes in history, I was filling the holes with my words. It was a way of reclaiming my place in history. Afterward, I asked what happened? Some of them were crying. Students of color were angry. They felt that they could finally do something with all this knowledge that had been forced upon them. I did this a couple of times with different groups of young people and every time it evokes so many emotions.
TE: Since coming to the Netherlands, I have often been told that I am too loud, too emotional, and my voice has too much range. I am never going to be able to speak in an even tone. My voice is confrontational for many Dutch people. I’ve noticed that many successful non-white women in the Netherlands whisper. You included. Are you aware of that?
PK: Yes I am. I’ve heard that before. I think it has to do with having children. When they were little I was really good at soothing them by making my voice lower and calmer, and it sort of stayed that way.
But this is a good question. I am thinking of the generation of my mother. I am thinking about how voice changes depending on who is in front of you. Because if you are with a group of Black women, it’s loud. It’s really loud.
It really depends. Amongst each other it gets loud.
“The Mantle of Love,” from the project “Handle With Care” by Patricia Kaersenhout and Jimini Hignett. The project responds to the trafficking of vulnerable women in the Netherlands, sub-Saharan Africa and the Balkans, whose stories the artists collected and responded with theater and art. Image provided by the artist from a 2013 exhibit in the Tropen Museum in Amsterdam. It is used with permission. Photographer: Gert Jan van Rooij.
PK: I just returned from Albania where I was preparing a project started with my dear friend Jimini Hignett in 2013. The project is on forced prostitution and female trafficking. It’s really under my skin what’s happening there.
Jimini is doing interviews with survivors of human trafficking. It’s too painful for me. I get too emotional. With local women, I am making a carpet with red female clothing. It’s called the Mantle of Love. The carpet is about covering up the things which are painful in society.
Even though I am thinking of handing the project to Jimini, I want to keep on supporting her. The project will travel from Albania to Macedonia to Kosovo and in the region. There will be media attention and we hope to provoke public discussion on the issue. We hope that politicians will make a decision to address human trafficking.
TE: I was at a museum and I saw a Duane Hanson sculpture of a cop beating a black man. And it moved me, but I purposely didn’t share the work because I thought of what you said about not always showing violence against black bodies. I thought it is enough for me to have seen this sculpture and experienced it, but I don't need to share it. Perhaps this was true particularly because I am white. And then I thought of your project “The Soul of Salt.”I thought about how the work is about healing generational pain.
PK:  Walter Mignolo talks about “the de-colonial aesthetic” — aesthesis — from the Greek word feelings, to evoke feelings. Decolonial aesthetics/aesthesis is not just about creating a beautiful piece of art, decolonial work evokes feelings of grief, sadness, and sorrow. It evokes history and the erasing of history and the things that have been done to so many marginalized groups by the dominant culture… So because I had the theory and the ingredients, the pieces of the project fell together.
I first made an installation with fabrics to represent displacement and accompanied by a mountain of salt. I had already heard the legend that Africans brought over as slaves refrained from eating salt with the idea that they would become light enough to fly back to where they came from in Africa. So I had 147 kilos of salt, referring to 147 years of abolition, and I thought it would become a mountain, but it was a really tiny mountain. This has no impact, I thought. I need to do this differently.
So I thought about making something even bigger, with only salt. For the celebration of 150 years of abolition, I was invited to make the mountain of salt. I thought the mountain of salt needs to have more impact. I started working with these undocumented refugee women who had cut themselves off from the men. And I thought, how can I support them, also financially? So I brought them into the project. And then I learned this 19th-century slave song and thought, what if they also learn the song? I found all this through serendipity.
And then I thought, it’s not enough to do a performance. The salt needs to be blessed. So I approached this spiritual woman, Marjan Markelo, and asked her, why not do a ceremony? She agreed to do this because salt is a very important element in the Afro-Caribbean tradition. And then I thought, we also need to do something with the audience. Otherwise, they are just observers. And no one gets to touch the art. So I thought, let’s have them touch the artwork, bring some salt home with them. And now I am talking to another spiritual leader because I am not totally satisfied. I really want to do more with the ritual of bringing the salt home. It should be a ritual. There should be words. There should be song.
I brought some salt home from Palermo's Manifesta 12 where “The Soul of Salt” is on display. The salt is also migrating. Moving from one place to another. Salt from Amsterdam is in Senegal and now I have salt from the Mediterranean in Amsterdam.
Bonaire gave me 8,000 kilos of salt. In Bonaire, there are huge salt planes. But I have to arrange transport and that is too difficult. So a friend said, why don’t you go there? Do the project there? So I am talking to a woman about doing the ceremony in Bonaire and then Aruba and then Curacao.
These things happen when you are working. You cannot plan or invent. It happens because you are working.
TE: It was interesting to see the former Dutch queen taking salt from your installation, knowing that the salt represents the sins of the past, specifically her past.
PK: Yes, the royal family is the result of colonialization. We are all suffering from the wounds of colonialization. Not just the oppressed, but the oppressor as well. It’s easier to identify yourself as a victim than perpetrator. There is a wound.
TE: This makes me think of your project about the Dahomey [now Benin] women. From one point of view, they are kidnappers and the sellers of people. From another point of view, they are brave warriors and resistors.
PK: We all have ways in which we are a victim and a perpetrator. When we talk about the transatlantic slave trade, there is a difference. Yes, small-scale slavery existed in Africa. Even so, enslaved people were seen as human beings, not as a commodity. They could become part of the family. Being brought to the New World as animals were something done by colonizers. That is an important difference. It’s a different kind of slavery. Europeans were also sold as slaves, people say. Yes. Slavery is very old. But we are still feeling the consequences of the transatlantic slave trade.
Image from the performance by Patricia Kaersenhout, “A History of Grief.” Die Volksbuhne Berlin 2016. Photo provided by the artist and used with permission. Photographer: Miguel Gomez.
PK: Some of my Dutch students come in and say, my work is about nothing. I say study something else. Do advertising. Art is not about nothing. Art students are supposed to be the new avant-garde. Art is not nothing.
This feeling that art can be about nothing is embedded in the national innocence.
At art school, they said that my work was too narrative. So I said this is a good starting point. I’ll make it more narrative. I tell the critics, my culture is narrative. We share our history through stories because you won’t write about our history.
All art is political.

author: Tori Egherman


text:
Death by bureaucracy? Russian regulators slap independent news site with sky-high fine · Global Voices
RuNet Echo

Yevgeniya Albats is a Russian investigative journalist, political scientist, writer and radio host. Her magazine, The New Times, has been heavily fined for failing to report to Russia's government media watchdog on time. Photo by Evgeniy Isaev (CC 2.0)
The New Times, an independent website and former magazine with a distinctly critical voice, has been slapped with a record fine of 22 million rubles (USD $334,400).
This is a crippling sum for a small media outlet in Russia. For comparison, the investigative journalism outlet MediaZona, which is similar in size and scope to The New Times, raises just below one million rubles (USD $15,200) per month, which is barely enough to cover their operating costs.
Alexey Venediktov, the editor-in-chief of Echo of Moscow, the first independent radio network in post-Soviet Russia, broke the news on his Telegram channel:
Журнал Нью Таймс и Евгения Альбац оштрафованы решением мирового суда на 22 миллиона рублей за несвоевременное предоставление сведений в Роскомнадзор.
Это, конечное, разорение и закрытие журнала.
[…]Информация о штрафе от адвоката журнала и Альбац Вадима Прохорова.
The New Times magazine and Yevgeniya Albats [The New Times’ editor-in-chief] have been fined by a magistrate court for 22 million rubles for failing to submit a report to Roskomnadzor [Russia’s government media watchdog].
It obviously means bankruptcy and imminent closure for the magazine.
[…] I learned about this fine from the magazine and Albats’s lawyer Vadim Prokhorov
Venediktov reminded his followers that on Monday, Yevgeniya Albats hosted an interview on Echo of Moscow with Alexey Navalny, Russia’s leading opposition activist.
The New Times was fined under a rarely-used law in the Russian administrative code that requires media outlets to report any foreign sources of funding to Roskomnadzor, Russia's media regulator. No statistics of other instances of its usage are available, but MediaZona notes that similar media law violations have accrued a total of just above 7 million rubles ($106,400) in fines since 2015.
The law requires Russian media outlets that do accept foreign grants or donations to file quarterly reports to Roskomnadzor — but sometimes they’re given less than no time to do so. Earlier this year, The New Times received a request from Russia’s attorney general office to report on their foreign funding. The request was issued on May 10, but with a reporting deadline of May 7.
Introduced in late 2015, the law came as part of a package of legislative measures directed at independent media outlets, civil society groups and NGOs. Within Russia's increasingly labyrinthine regulatory structure, it has become all too easy for organizations to run afoul of “three strikes and lose your broadcasting license” rules, or to face fines for things like failing to to clarify that ISIS is a terrorist organization banned in Russia every time it is mentioned in an article.
Although these laws and regulations were written as part of an agenda to prevent terrorism, extremism and other grave crimes, authorities’ enforcement of the rules suggests that independent journalism may have been the real target: no pro-Kremlin outlet has been warned or sanctioned under them.
When combined with advertisers’ reluctance to buy ads from politically risky publications, small media outlets like The New Times that aren’t directly or indirectly owned by the Russian government find that they are always teetering on the edge of survival.
In Russia, there remain relatively few legal avenues for making money through advertising or selling print copies. The New Times stopped its own print edition in early 2017, going fully digital after continued issues with distribution, and eventually accepting some donations from outside of Russia, and thereby confronting the possibility of a slow death by bureaucracy.
And alongside these regulatory impediments to operation, there's the steady stream of violence, threats and intimidation against independent reporters in Russia, like last week's grisly “gifts” delivered to the doorstep of another prominent newspaper, Novaya Gazeta.

author: RuNet Echo


text:
Online stories of the Venezuelan exodus · Global Voices
José González Vargas

Screenshot of numerous video testimonies by young people who are documenting their journey as they leave Venezuela.
It is difficult to determine exactly how many Venezuelans have left their country.
The international press insists that the number reported by the Venezuelan government remains “questionable”. The most recent data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees puts the number at around two million people — a report which the Venezuelan government and its allies have labeled as false.
What can be seen is the increase virtual support networks and everyday Venezuelans who are taking to social media to share their stories, recommendations, and personal reflections as they make their way out of the country — giving a voice and a face to the dire statistics.
Yosy, a 23-year-old Venezuelan woman, is one of the many people who seek to record their stories and to help others embarking on the same journey. On her YouTube channel, she describes her migration experience, first to Panama and then to Argentina. In addition to her adaptation process, she also reflects on the reasons she decided to leave:
En mi país no hay medicinas, no hay doctores, no hay salud. En mi país todos los días hay muertes. En mi país no hay comida, pero sí hay desnutrición. En mi país no hay seguridad, pero sí mucha violencia. […] ¿Te sorprende? A nosotros ya no.
In my country, there is no medicine, there are no doctors, there is no healthcare. In my country, there is death every day. In my country, there is no food, but there is malnutrition. In my country, there is no security, but there is a lot of violence. […] Are you surprised? We aren't anymore.
Dozens of YouTube videos with titles like “My trip to Peru without a passport“, “9 Tips for Getting to Cúcuta, Colombia from Venezuela” and “My journey by land to Chile from Venezuela” are available through a simple search. All of them contain personal stories illustrating the Venezuelan exodus and act as a guide for those planning to do the same.
In each video, viewers can see the hardships and risks for those traveling by land. For example, in her “9 Tips”, Youtube user Oriana shares the potential risks that people can encounter in bus terminals as well as ordeals with legal documents:
From Cúcuta  to Bogotá, or any nearby city, there should be at least 20 checkpoints where the immigration police get on the bus, check IDs and see if passports are duly stamped. [All] due to uncontrolled Venezuelan immigration into Colombian territory […] In the Cúcuta terminal you have to go to the basement if you want to store your luggage, shower, or use the bathroom. You have to be strict with this: the basement is the only zone that is almost safe. Areas outside of these terminals are extremely dangerous…
Meanwhile, a number of Venezuelan communities abroad have created Facebook groups, and use Twitter and other social networks to give support and advice in destinations like Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, and Spain — a virtual solidarity network for those who must leave their country.
The situation for Venezuelans leaving the country has worried some NGOs that support migrants. Among them, the Jesuit Network for Migrants and the Jesuit Service for Refugees from Latin American and the Caribbean who have designed a “virtual map” in order to help with people's safety while traveling to Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador or Peru. The project is another example of the magnitude of the Venezuelan exodus, now considered to be the largest in the region in the last 50 years.
Detailed “virtual route” developed by the Migrant Jesuit Network, the Jesuit Service for Latin American Refugees, and The Caribbean in order to help immigrants. The guide shows data and organization information that can help those undertaking the journey from Venezuela to other countries in the region. It also has a list of information about transportation prices, times, and routes.
Apart from the route itself, it's important to remember the harsh conditions that Venezuelans face as they prepare their travels. On the one hand, there are complicated and numerous limitations when accessing legal documents. Being able to hold a passport, for example, can mean waiting up until two years or paying extra to get it printed or renewed. On the other hand, the spectacular and unstoppable hyperinflation (projected to reach a million percent in 2018) that makes any budget change significantly by the day.
It remains to be seen what solutions could help solve the immense challenges taking place inside and outside the country. So far, as the numbers behind the exodus (as well as the tensions with neighboring countries) continue to rise, the Venezuelan migration phenomenon doesn't show any sign it's slowing down.

author: José González Vargas


text:
Brazilian journalists face hacking, doxxing and other threats as election draws near · Global Voices
Fernanda Canofre

Journalists at a press junket in Brazil | Image: Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (ABRAJI)
After publishing one of the most important reports of this electoral season in Brazil, Patricia Campos Mello paid a high price.
The reporter for Folha de São Paulo, one of the most important news outlets in the country, uncovered a scheme used by Jair Bolsonaro’s campaign to spread false news on WhatsApp. According to Mello’s article, business associates of the campaign paid around USD $3 million to the companies that ran the scheme. The money was never declared by the candidate, as required under electoral law.
Soon after the story was published, Mello began to receive threats and had her personal WhatsApp account hacked. The attackers erased a few of her conversations and sent pro-Bolsonaro messages to her contacts. As the newspaper published:
Entre sexta-feira (19), dia seguinte à publicação, e esta terça (23), um dos números de WhatsApp mantidos pelo jornal recebeu mais de 220 mil mensagens de cerca de 50 mil contas do aplicativo. (…)
[Patricia] recebeu duas ligações telefônicas de número desconhecido nas quais uma voz masculina a ameaçou.
As ameaças à jornalista também se alastraram por grupos de apoio ao presidenciável do PSL no WhatsApp. Foram distribuídas mensagens convocando eleitores do capitão reformado para confrontar Patrícia no endereço onde aconteceria um evento que seria moderado por ela, na próxima segunda-feira (29).
Between Friday (19), the day after the publication, and this Tuesday (23), one of Folha’s own WhatsApp numbers received more than 220,000 messages from 50,000 different accounts (…)
[Patricia] received two phone calls from unknown numbers in which she was threatened by a male voice.
The threats to the journalist also spread in different groups of Jair Bolsonaro’s supporters on WhatsApp. Messages calling voters of the retired captain to confront Patricia at an event where she was scheduled to moderate were also distributed.
The final vote for the presidency will take place on October 28, and multiple polls show that Bolsonaro is heavily favored to win.
The case of Patricia Campos Mello, which is now under investigation by the Federal Police, was the latest in a series of threats to journalists working in Brazil during this election cycle. Two reporters who collaborated on the same story were also threatened. A reporter of Estado de São Paulo was doxxed after writing a follow up story. His personal telephone number was publicized online by a vocal supporter of Bolsonaro.
According to the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (ABRAJI), there have been 141 cases of threats and violence against journalists registered during the coverage of 2018 elections. Most of them are attributed to Bolsonaro’s supporters, but there are also cases linked to Workers’ Party voters. Daniel Bramatti, ABRAJI’s president, noted:
A fim de demonstrar comprometimento com a preservação da democracia, ambos os candidatos devem condenar qualquer ameaça ou ataque contra jornalistas por fazerem seu trabalho e devem se abster de qualquer discurso que incite a violência.
To demonstrate a commitment with the preservation of democracy, both candidates must condemn any threats or attacks against journalists doing their work and must abstain themselves from any speech inciting violence.
A day before Mello broke the news on the scheme, Bolsonaro signed a statement with the Brazilian Press Association, articulating his commitment to respecting freedom of the press. After the story was published, however, his tone changed.
In a live broadcast to a crowd rallying in his favor, at Avenida Paulista, a major thoroughfare in São Paulo, Bolsonaro called Folha “the biggest fake news in Brazil” and defended “free press rights, but with responsibility”. He also echoed his message via Twitter:
A mamata da folha de são paulo vai acabar, mas não é com censura não! O dinheiro público que recebem para fazer ativismo político vai secar, e mais, com sua credibilidade no ralo com suas informações tendenciosas são menos sérias que uma revista de piada!
— Jair Bolsonaro 1⃣7⃣ (@jairbolsonaro) October 24, 2018
The easy life of Folha de São Paulo is about to end, but not with censorship! The public funds they receive to make political activism are about to dry out, as its credibility goesdown the drain with biased information less serious than a comedy magazine!
An article by The Intercept Brazil notes that, in 2018 alone, Bolsonaro initiated 23 actions to take down negative news and posts on the internet criticizing him.
Isso faz dele o político que mais acionou o Judiciário este ano para silenciar opositores. O levantamento foi feito com a ferramenta Ctrl+X, da Associação Brasileira de Jornalismo Investigativo, a Abraji, que monitora tentativas judiciais de impedir a divulgação de informações.
This makes him the politician who has appealed to the judiciary the greatest number of times to silence opposers. The study was made by a tool called Ctrl+X, created by the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (ABRAJI), that monitors court attempts to stop the publication of information.
The Intercept Brazil also revealed that threats against media workers also come from inside newsrooms. The news outlet published an exposé on how reporters working for news portal R7 received orders to produce positive stories on Bolsonaro and negative ones on his opponent, Fernando Haddad.
R7 is a company linked to the Universal Church of God’s Kingdom, owner of the second most powerful media group in Brazil and led by Edir Macedo, a billionaire evangelical figure who has been involved in multiple financial scandals over the years, and has faced allegations of child trafficking.
After refusing to participate in debates with his opponents, Bolsonaro agreed to give an exclusive interview to Record TV, from Macedo’s group, three days before the first turn of the elections. The week before the final vote, a journalist quit the radio show after being told not to ask questions to the candidate in another exclusive interview via phone. The episode was recorded at a local radio station, in the south of Brazil, that also belongs to Record.
A few days after The Intercept story was published, R7 published its own piece attacking the site’s founder, Glenn Greenwald, and the Brazilian editor, Leandro Demori, at a personal level. The story accused The Intercept of pushing a political agenda and promoting the work of Greenwald’s husband, David Miranda, who is a City Councilor in Rio de Janeiro, representing the left-wing party PSOL (Socialism and Freedom Party).
The reporter himself responded to the attacks:
It was in that context that Macedo-machine journalists began widely complaining, from behind a protective wall of anonymity, that they have been converted from journalists into hostage-like messaging machines for a candidate widely, and credibly, viewed as fascist. And that was what enabled The Intercept to report on the inner workings of R7 and the severe pressure its writers are under to distort the truth and churn out pro-Bolsonaro, anti-PT agitprop.
But it’s one thing for Macedo to use his massive wealth and media empire to elect a fascist. It’s another entirely for him to exploit and abuse those media outlets to intimidate, investigate, and threaten journalists for the crime of reporting on Bolsonaro and his media outlets. That conduct is a serious threat to a free press: it is virtually impossible to freely report on Bolsonaro if one knows that Macedo’s infinite wealth and powerful outlets will be used to smear not only the journalists responsible but their family members as well.
This year, Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) ranking of world press freedom put Brazil at 102 among 180 countries, falling below several other countries where media workers face considerable risk in their day-to-day work, including Hungary, Nicaragua and Kyrgyzstan.
RSF identified the lack of a national system to protect media professionals and guard against impunity as the main problems:
The freedom to inform is far from being a priority for the authorities amid the high level of political instability, as seen in President Dilma Rousseff’s removal in 2016 and the uncertainty surrounding the 2018 presidential election. Media ownership continues to be very concentrated, especially in the hands of big industrial families that are often closely linked to the political class. The confidentiality of journalists’ sources is under constant attack and many investigative reporters have been subjected to abusive judicial proceedings.
The Committee to Protect Journalists in the Americas (CPJ) called Brazilian authorities to ensure the safety of media professionals:
As autoridades brasileiras devem garantir a segurança dos jornalistas brasileiros que estão cobrindo as eleições no país. Numa democracia turbulenta como a do Brasil, a liberdade de expressão é um direito fundamental, antes e depois da eleição de 28 de outubro. #Eleicoes2018
— CPJ Américas (@CPJAmericas) October 23, 2018
Brazilian authorities must guarantee the safety of Brazilian journalists who are covering elections in the country. In a turbulent democracy such as Brazil, freedom of expression is a fundamental right, before and after the elections in October, 28.
A special commission for the Organization of American States, sent to oversee the elections in Brazil, declared that the circulation of fake news via WhatsApp during the current campaign to be “unprecedented”. A judge denied Bolsonaro’s request for an editorial in which he could respond to the Mello story in Folha’s pages, following the WhatsApp scheme news, claiming that it lacked justification since the information was not “untrue”.
Alongside several human rights organizations asking for protection for journalists, Maria Laura Canineu, Brazil’s director of Human Rights Watch, affirmed:
Qualquer um pode discordar de uma reportagem, e deve ter o direito de fazê-lo publicamente, mas ameaçar o jornalista e incitar outros a fazer o mesmo não só põe em perigo a segurança pessoal dos jornalistas, mas prejudica a liberdade de expressão e a democracia. Os candidatos à presidência devem defender o direito dos jornalistas de informar o público e o direito do público de ser informado.
Anyone can disagree with a story, and they have the right to do so publicly, but threatening reporters and inciting others to do the same not only endangers the personal safety of journalists, but it also harms the freedom of speech and democracy. The presidential candidates must stand up for journalists’ rights to inform the public and the public’s right to be informed.

author: Fernanda Canofre


text:
‘Voice for the Ocean’ gives European citizens a say on the future of ocean conservation · Global Voices
Marie Bohner

Photo of a ship cruising by the littoral entitled “Passing Through,” taken by Melody Ayres-Griffiths in July 2010 via Flickr, Creative Commons.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)'s last report, commissioned during the COP21 conference in Paris and released on October 6, 2018 in Incheon, South Korea, offers an alarming perspective on the effects of climate change in general and on the oceans in particular: a temperature increase of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) would lead to near total annihilation—around 99 percent—of coral reefs. The urgency is great and the pressure on global leaders to act is increasing.
Surfrider is an association created in 1986 by surfers from Malibu, California (USA) who were angry about bacteriological pollution and litter in the water. Member Tom Curren, three-time world surf champion, brought Surfrider to Europe in 1990.
Today, it gives citizens a voice on ocean conservation from a European perspective. With a few months left before the European parliamentary elections, Surfrider Foundation Europe is conducting a continent-wide, multilingual online consultation, so that citizens can weigh in on the debates and crucial upcoming decisions on marine conservation and exploitation.
Global Voices interviewed Agathe Clerc, European Lobby Officer for the consultation campaign “Voice for the Ocean” (VFTO).
Global Voices (GV): Who makes up the European branch of Surfrider?
Agathe Clerc (AC): Surfrider Foundation Europe's members are people from all backgrounds who share a passion for the ocean and are concerned about protecting it. It comprises a network of 1,700 volunteers, 10,500 members, and 120,000 supporters gathered in active local chapters in 11 European countries.
GV: What are the main threats facing the marine environment in Europe?
AC: Whether in Europe or on an international scale, the dangers affecting the ocean are unfortunately the same. Surfrider Foundation Europe's work focuses on three main areas of threats to the marine environment and to humanity: marine litter, water quality, and user health; adaptation to climate change; and coastline management.
GV: Why was the European consultation “Voice for the Ocean” launched?
AC: The VFTO idea came from an observation: the disconnection between European institutions and citizens. While 44 percent of French citizens voted in the European elections in 2014, Surfrider wants to mobilize all European citizens to participate in this oft-neglected democratic process, and place the ocean and its protection at the center of the debates.
The ocean is borderless, and so is the impact of the decisions related to it. The EU adopts measures that apply to the member countries and will thus have direct local effects. With the VFTO consultation, Surfrider is reaching out to the entire European community. Citizens need to express themselves in order for ambitious measures to be taken regarding protecting the ocean.
The future of the ocean is also being decided in the European Parliament. We believe that it is necessary to connect European citizens and ocean lovers to the political sphere in order to discuss, make progress, and protect the ocean together.
Photo of a surfer taken below the sea. Image provided by Surfrider Foundation Europe, used with permission.
GV: How did you design this consultation campaign?
AC: We selected eight priorities that affect every one of us: water quality, plastic pollution, maritime transport, sustainable tourism, offshore platforms, renewable marine energy, climate change, and ocean literacy (the sharing of knowledge about the ocean). In responding to the consultation, citizens are expressing the concrete actions that they expect from the European Union on each of these topics. Is it more restrictions? More information? Awareness? Research?
For each topic, we provide background on the situation via a text, a video, or an infographic. The level of the information varies according to their profile (expert, citizen, teacher, or participant in water sports). The visitor thus has enough information to answer the question.
We created a multiple-choice questionnaire — boxes to check or items to put in sequence — in order to facilitate analysis of the responses afterwards, and to limit how long it takes to respond to the consultation (ten minutes on average). The last question is decisive: Choose the most pressing, in the respondent's opinion, of the eight priorities mentioned.
GV: What are participation rates right now?
AC: Today, the computer is showing 3,500 responses. The majority are from France, but Germany and Spain are present too. The consultation is available in six languages: French, English, Portuguese, German, Spanish, and Bulgarian.
GV: What will you do with the results of this consultation?
AC: Starting at the beginning of 2019, Surfrider Europe will aim to amplify citizens’ voices and challenge each political party in the European elections to include concrete ocean protection measures in their platform.
GV: Are there major differences in perspective between European countries?
AC: We don't have access to the responses yet, but we already know that not every country has the same priorities. For example, we were able to do a phase of VFTO in Malaga, Spain. Through discussion with people who live there, it quickly became evident that residents’ main worry comes from cruise ships docking in their port — more tourists every year — and public infrastructure [is] not always able to support them. The consultation includes questions about sustainable tourism and changes in marine transport. I don't think I'm wrong in assuming that those two topics will take priority in Spain. Those priorities may not necessarily be the same for people in Germany or Holland.
GV: What is Surfrider's position on the use of the oceans (by surfers for instance) and environmental considerations? Are they always compatible (for example, sharks and surfers)?
AC: That's one of the most interesting questions at the heart of our mission. The main objective of our association remains the preservation of the ocean, because without a healthy ocean, surfing or any other water activity would be impossible. Surfrider will continue to advocate for the preservation of the environment and of its users, in a coordinated effort with local actors.
Regarding the shark crisis, we're participating in the collaborative process already underway. Most importantly, we want to understand the causes of the disruption of this ecosystem so that the relevant decisions can be made with everyone involved.
GV: You're also developing a blog on ocean literacy. Are technology and social networks essential tools for environmental conservation today?
AC: Surfrider Foundation Europe is developing a large platform, Ocean Campus, that will host various teaching tools. Digital communication is at the heart of our information and awareness strategy. Considering how widespread technology is in our culture, it's an essential medium to reach as many people as possible. Because it's accessible to everyone, digital communication allows us to create and promote an engaged and ecologically responsible lifestyle using multiple creative and interactive tools.
GV: Why should European citizens participate in this consultation?
AC: Participating in VFTO gives you access to high-quality information on the problems threatening the ocean. We're expressing ourselves and mobilizing for the protection of the ocean, and we're exercising our right to influence future European policies, which will have direct effects on the member countries. The European elections will be decisive, determining the direction the EU will take regarding ocean conservation. It's time to make your voices heard!

author: Marie Bohner


text:
A Mozambique surfwear retailer thought is was a good idea to name their store “Hitler”—Netizens disagreed · Global Voices
Alexandre Nhampossa

Hitler's name on fashion clothing store in Maputo | Photo used with permission of the author
A clothing store in Mozambique's capital Maputo that displayed Nazi iconography removed both its name and logo after it drew angry reactions on Facebook between October 21 and 22, 2018.
The “Hitler” store, which seems to have been in business since early October, is located in one of the largest shopping centers in the country — the Maputo Shopping Center, in a busy area of downtown Mozambican capital, near the office of the prime minister and other state buildings.
On October 20, Facebook user Fernanda Lobato posted a photo of the store's window, which displayed the Nazi swastika:
Loja com o nome HITLER e com a soástica estampada no vidro da loja. Maputo Shopping. Como permitem este ultraje?
Store with the name HITLER and with the swastika stamped on the window. Maputo Shopping. How can they allow this disgrace?
Hitler's name on fashion clothing store in Maputo | Photo used with permission of the author
The publication quickly received many reactions and comments. Sara Lopes, whose profile says she resides in Maputo, wrote:
Eu nem entrava nessa [censurado] de loja! Mas quem é o imbecil que abre uma loja dessas com uma conotação tão racista e de um homem que defende a supremacia da raça ariana quando nem ele mesmo o era?
I did not even go into that [censored] (sic) store! But who is the imbecile who opens such a shop with a racist connotation and a man who defendend the supremacy of the Aryan race when he is not that himself?
The rapper, social activist and Mozambican lawyer Ivete Marlene says that the store has insulted humanity and that the Mozambican State, through the Public Prosecutor's Office, should act:
Um Estado com uma Constituição como a nossa não deveria nunca permitir isto! O que o fascismo fez com os negros? Quais eram os ideais do Hitler para Africa? Acima de tudo, o que Hitler fez a raça humana? As respostas a estas perguntas deveriam ser fundamento bastante para repudiar essa ideia comercial… Na verdade, essa loja é um insulto a nossa liberdade, moçambicanidade e nossa história por representar discriminação e genocídio a todas as raças em benefício e supremacia da raça ariana… A PGR [Procuradoria Geral da República] tem espaço para actuar aqui…não podemos aderir a Declaração Universal de Direitos Humanos por via da constituição e permitir isto de glorificar o maior genocida do mundo…
A State with a Constitution like ours should never allow such a thing! What did fascism do with the blacks? What were Hitler's ideals for Africa? Above all, what did Hitler do to the human race? The answers to these questions should be sufficient grounds to repudiate this commercial idea… In fact, this store is an insult to our freedom, Mozambicanity and our history for representing discrimination and genocide to all races for the benefit and supremacy of the Aryan race… The PGR [Attorney General] has room to act here… we can not adhere to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights through our constitution and allow the glorification of the greatest genocider in the world…
Possibly following reports on the shop's Facebook page, the platform seemed to have blocked it.
The post seems to have produced concrete effects in the real world too. Two days after the original publication, the store's owners removed its name and symbols from the windows. Fernanda Lobato has sent this update:
Amigos, estou sem palavras (….) O nome da loja com o nome Hitler foi apagado. O símbolo da suástica foi apagado. Viva o Estado de Direito Democrático. Viva os Direitos Humanos. Parabéns a todos nós que nos indignamos com esta situação. Fico feliz por o meu país não admitir que símbolos que dignifiquem atrocidades efectuadas à Humanidade se perpectuem aqui. E viva as Redes Sociais, que usadas para o bem, conseguem chamar a atenção contra atos contra os Direitos Humanos.
Friends, I'm speechless (…) The name of the store with the name Hitler has been deleted. The swastika symbol has been deleted. Long live the Human Rights. Congratulations to all of us who are outraged by this situation. I am happy that my country does not admit that symbols that dignify atrocities done to Humanity are perpectuenced here. Long live to the Social Networks, which used for good, can draw attention to acts against Human Rights.
Sociologist Edgar Cubaliwa called for a boycott of the shop regardless of the removal of the name and symbols as a way to demonstrate the eternal disavowal:
O nome e os símbolos foram apagados. Celebremos. Contudo, podemos continuar a mandar o recado para os donos: näo esquecemos…. O Nazismo saiu dos vidros mas não saiu da mente, do coração, da alma dos proprietários. E pessoas, não alimentem os discursos de desconhecimento de história por parte destes neonazistas. Esses fascistas conhecem muito bem a história, sabem o que fazem. Esse é o lado que escolheram. Agora cabe a nós sermos ou não aliados deles. Boicote.
The name and symbols have been erased. Let's celebrate. However, we can continue to send the message to the owners: we do not forget… Nazism came out of the glass but it did not leave the mind, the heart, the soul of the owners. And people, do not feed this discourse of ignorance by those neo-Nazis. Those fascists know the history very well, they know what they do. This is the side they have chosen. Now it's up to us to be allies of them or not. Boycott.

author: Alexandre Nhampossa


text:
Paramilitary group killed farmers in Philippines sugar plantation, fact-finding mission says · Global Voices
Karlo Mongaya

Activists hold a protest outside Department of Agrarian Reform in the national capital to condemn the massacre of 9 farmers in Sagay, Negros. Photo by Anakbayan used with permission.
Nine farmers, including two minors, were killed on October 20 in Hacienda Nene, Sagay City in the central Philippine island of Negros in what could be the single most deadly attack against peasant activists under the Rodrigo Duterte administration.
A fact-finding mission led by human rights and civil society groups have pointed fingers to members of the Special Civilian Auxiliary Army (SCAA), a private militia associated with the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), as the most likely perpetrators of the massacre that is being dubbed “Sagay 9″.
Members of the government-backed paramilitary group rained bullets from M-16 rifles on the farmers as they were having dinner around 9:30 in the evening. Most victims reportedly suffered headshots and three of the dead bodies were doused with gasoline and burned afterwards.
The victims are Angeliffa Arsenal, 47; Rommel Bantigue, 41; Paterno Baroy, 48; Marcelina Dumaguit; Rene Laurencio Sr.; Morena Mendoza, 48; Eglicerio Villegas, 36; and the minors Marchtel Sumicad, 17 and Joemarie Ughayon Jr., 16. Three others were wounded but survived.
The fact-finding mission took place last October 24-25, 2018, with the participation of the Children’s Rehabilitation Center, Gabriela Women’s Party Congresswoman Arlene Brosas, Karapatan National Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights, the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers, and Salinlahi.
Fact Finding Mission at Sagay Negros Occidental Massacre Site #stopkillingfarmers #JusticeForSagay9 @GabrielaWomenPL pic.twitter.com/DGsotRLcnG
— ArleneBrosas (@ArleneBrosas) October 24, 2018
UPDATE from NEGROS:
PHOTOS from the Sagay9 massacre scene. #JusticeForSagay9 #StopKillingFarmers pic.twitter.com/RwaxPgsueu
— KMP (@kmp_phl) October 22, 2018
The “Sagay 9” massacre's victims were members of the National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW) who were occupying an idle portion of the 75-hectare Hacienda Nene, which the group claims is earmarked for redistribution to farmers under the government’s land reform program.
The farmers had just started a “bungkalan”, a collective farming program that serves to assert their claims on the still undistributed land. They began planting vegetables on the day of the massacre in order to help them survive the “tiempo muerto” or dead season in between the sugarcane harvest and planting seasons.
According to the fact-finding mission, members of the paramilitary SCAA have been notorious for serving as gun-for-hire mercenaries on behalf of big landlords like Hacienda Nene’s landowner Carmen Tolentino and its arriendador or leaseholder Allan Simbingco. The two are in fact close relatives of Negros Occidental Governor Alfredo Marañon Jr. and Sagay City Mayor Alfredo Marañon III.
Negros is known for the persistence of the haciendas, vast landholdings from the time of Spanish colonialism which were first introduced in the island for cultivating sugarcane.
The NSFW has documented 172 killings of farmers, including 45 in Negros alone, in Duterte’s two years in power. The intimidation and violence against farmers serves, the group says, to perpetuate exploitative conditions:
Sugar workers in haciendas, on the average, receive a measly P500 to P750 ($9.3-$14) weekly wages all year round. Minimum wage is pegged at only P245 ($4.5) per day for the farm workers but in many haciendas, P80-P120 ($1.5-$2.2) a day is still prevalent.
On December 21, 2017, NFSW-Sagay City Chairperson Flora Jemola was stabbed to death by suspected paramilitary men. Ronald Manlanat, an NFSW member in Hacienda Joefred in Sagay City, was murdered on February 22, 2018. An entire magazine of an M-16 rifle was emptied on Manlanat's head.
Sagay Massacre is the 13th massacre under this regime. pic.twitter.com/s0thzvpNyX
— KMP (@kmp_phl) October 24, 2018
In the aftermath of the Sagay massacre, government, military, and police spokesmen have all joined together in accusing the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), its armed wing New People’s Army (NPA), as well as the NSFW itself, for perpetrating the killings.
The Philippine National Police (PNP) has filed multiple murder cases against Rene Manlangit and Rogelio Arquillo, two NSFW union organizers who supposedly deceived the victims into joining the land occupation as part of a conspiracy to spark outrage against the government.
The AFP has claimed that the killing of the nine farmers is part of a “sinister plot” to oust President Rodrigo Duterte from power. But various human rights and civil society groups have belied this claim, asserting that the authorities are pushing that narrative in order to cover-up its own involvement in the bloodbath.
President Duterte himself, in a speech delivered on October 28, warned farmers involved in land reform disputes from resorting to land occupations, saying he has issued an order to the military and police to arrest and kill all those occupying public and private properties.
My order to the police is to shoot them. If they resist violently, shoot them, and if they die, I do not care.
Twitter responses
When #DutertesMilitary says the NPA is their prime suspect in THE KILLING OF 9 FARMERS, including a child, who believes them? Because why would the NPA kill farmers? What would they gain? Meanwhile the landlord that gains from farmers’ oppression, THEY ARE NOT SUSPECTS? #SPIN
— katrinastuartsantiago (@radikalchick) October 22, 2018
“I stood up and tried to run back but bullets were flying. I crawled, trying to huddle as close to the ground. I prayed for my son.”– Bobstil Sumicad #JusticeForSagay9 #StopKillingFarmers pic.twitter.com/zIWGlW8UIT
— StopKillingFarmers (@ryan_alcarde) October 25, 2018
Ito pala ang ginawa kong mapa sa cartography class ko. Pinapakita niya kung gaano kalaki yung lupaing nasa monopolyo ng mga panginoong may-lupa at mga korporasyon.
Sa likod ng lahat ng ito ay ang araw araw na paghihirap ng mga magsasaka.#StopKillingFarmers#JusticeForSagay9 pic.twitter.com/sncKWta0kL
— Moy (@MoyieMoy) October 21, 2018
This is the map I've been doing for my cartography class. It shows how big the land monopolized by landlords and corporations is. Behind all of these is the everyday suffering of farmers.
What's not so right about this country is aside from our food producers are getting killed for standing up for their rights, it's already 2018 and yet spanish-introduced haciendas still exist! #EndFeudalism #StopKillingFarmers
— Jam Pinpin (@jamcaholic) October 21, 2018
US-Marcos regime,1985: Escalante Massacre
US-Aquino regime,1987: Mendiola Massacre
US-Arroyo regime,2004: Hacienda Luisita Massacre
US-BS Aquino regime,2016: Kidapawan Massacre
US-Du30 regime,2018: Hacienda Nene Massacre
BERDUGO ANG ESTADO SA MGA MAGSASAKA!#StopKillingFarmers
— Joisa #JusticeForSagay9 (@joysandreya) October 21, 2018
The state is a butcher of farmers!

author: Karlo Mongaya