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The Impact of Climate Change on the Rural Population of Benin · Global Voices
Abdoulaye Bah

Alain TOSSOUNON of Benin posted on the West African Network of Journalists for water and sanitation (WASH) blog  a summary of the report on the evaluation of post disaster needs in Benin after the recent major floods. The disaster caused the death of nearly fifty people and caused damage estimated at 78.3 billion FCFA (about 160 million USD) [fr]:
Today, anytimes the rain starts to fall, I'm geeting scared and anxious ” says Elizabeth Kpossou, a resident of the village. This feeling is shared  by her neighbor and friend, Alice Codjo. However, a few years ago, periodic floods were part of the lives of these peaceful communities. And far from being a plague, they had found an opportunity with the fertile soil after the withdrawal of water from the floods. Now, those days are gone.  “Everything changed” says the village chief, Samuel Boton. “Now, floods are more devastating” [..] Indeed, like in this village of Adjohoun with its 56 455 inhabitants, the entire country has been hit hard by the disaster. Across the country, the toll was heavy in human loss and material damages. There were 46 deaths and more than half of the municipalities were affected (55 municipalities affected of the 77 in the Benin).

author: Abdoulaye Bah


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Tor’s Skyrocketing Popularity in Russia · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

Has Vladimir Putin's Internet crackdown spurred the explosion in Tor use in Russia? Images mixed by author.
Internet freedom in Russia is under assault like never before, but RuNet users are showing a growing capacity for circumventing the government's efforts to monitor and control their activity. Since mid-August 2013, the average daily number of Russian users of the Tor anonymity network, a free software for enabling online anonymity and resisting censorship, has multiplied fourfold. There are two major spikes in Russians’ Tor-use: the first occurred in late August 2013, and the most recent shift is an ongoing surge than began earlier this month.
The two sharp spikes indicated in Tor's statistics suggest that Russian Internet users are responding to major censorship events, though it's not immediately clear what caused the August 2013 increase. (The major political event at the time was an election cycle that saw blogger-politician Alexey Navalny challenge Sergey Sobyanin for the Moscow mayor's seat.) The surge today would seem to be Internet users’ response to a series of “anti-terrorist” laws set to take effect on August 1, 2014, which will saddle bloggers and websites with a host of new restrictions and regulations.
Users in Russia connecting to the Tor anonymity network. Screen capture from metrics.torproject.org.
While the growth of Tor's popularity in Russia is impressive, it is still the case that Russians make up less than 6 percent of the network's user base. (The United States, where Tor attracts the most users in any one country, hosts twice as many users.) So far in June 2014, an average of 134 thousand Russians connects to the Tor network every day. There are roughly 65 million Internet users in Russia, however, meaning that the country's Tor-user population represents less than 1 percent of all Russians with access to the Web.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Kevin Rothrock


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‘People No Longer Trust the Government’ – This Open Letter Went Viral in Singapore  · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

From the website of Catherine Lim
Popular Southeast Asian novelist and Singapore-based writer Catherine Lim wrote an open letter addressed to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong bemoaning the decline of public trust in his government.
The letter became popular on the Internet and was also covered by mainstream media. It sparked a lively discussion about Singapore politics, and in particular the defamation suit filed by the prime minister against a blogger early this month. The sudden popularity of the letter reflected the validity of the many issues raised by Lim. It also affirmed the continuing and rising active involvement of Singapore netizens on socio-political issues.
First, Lim noted that more and more people are daring to use graffiti, which carries strict punishments, including jail terms and caning under the island country's vandalism act:
We are in the midst of a crisis where the people no longer trust their government, and the government no longer cares about regaining their trust.
Firstly, the people are resorting to forms of high-visibility, high-risk protest never seen before, such as graffiti writ large on public buildings, persistent, strident online criticism despite stern government warnings and threats, an increased frequency of mass gatherings held at the Speakers’ Corner, as well as increased hostility shown at these gatherings.
She blamed the prime minister for not listening to the people:
…it is ultimately your inability or unwillingness to listen to the people. After your initial show of contrition and your ardent promises of change, following the shock of the General Election of 2011 (a change of heart which must have astonished as well as heartened a lot of Singaporeans like myself), your government now seems to be hardening its position and going back to the old PAP reliance on a climate of fear maintained by the deployment of the famous PAP instruments of control, notably the defamation suit.
The People’s Action Party or PAP is Singapore’s ruling party since 1959. It remained the dominant party in the 2011 elections but received fewer number of votes. In recent years, many Singaporeans have been openly blaming the government for its failure to address the rising cost of living, widening income inequality, and even the increasing number of foreign migrant workers in the city state.
The defamation suit was filed against a blogger who accused the prime minister of being involved in corruption without presenting evidence. The blogger has already apologized but the case was not withdrawn.
Then, Lim reminded PM Lee that young people are also interested in acquiring more rights:
…the expectations of the people, especially the young, go well beyond material needs, to encompass the long denied need for freedom of expression, open debate and public assembly.
What had worked well in the old era may no longer be relevant today, or worse, may even be damaging.
She warned the Singaporean leader that if the issue of trust is not addressed, it will lead to a political ‘meltdown’:
This is an epochal time in Singapore’s history, when one era is fading into the past, and a new one is being transitioned into. If the present crisis of trust is not resolved, it will become even more intractable for the next Prime Minister and the new generation of leaders, for by then the crisis would have deteriorated into meltdown.
Her letter quickly went viral. The official response came from Mr. Jacky Foo, the Consul-General of Singapore in Hong Kong, who disagreed with Lim’s view that public trust is declining:
Of course, not all is perfect in Singapore. Like other developed societies, our middle class too feels the squeeze from globalisation. The government has openly acknowledged the problems of income inequality and slowing social mobility. It has done much to overcome them, and is doing more in a sustainable and responsible, not populist, way. That is why trust in government in Singapore remains high.
He also defended the defamation suit filed by PM Lee against a blogger:
Ms Lim is also wrong to claim that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's defamation suit against a blogger will further erode trust. On the contrary, Mr Lee acted because the government prizes integrity as the ultimate source of the trust it enjoys. A leader who does nothing when he is accused of criminally misappropriating monies from the state pension system must engender mistrust in his honesty and leadership.
Lim replied to Foo and emphasized that ‘mistrust is very real’:
I would like to point out that the mistrust is very real, even if it only involves a minority.
Mr Foo commented on my long history as a complainer. I have been writing political commentaries for 20 years now. Their central theme is the need for a robust, trusting relationship between the government and the people, which, I strongly believe, is the only guarantee for a small country to survive in an increasingly perilous world.
In response to Catherine’s letter, former Straits Times editor Bertha Henson agreed on the point about how Singapore politics has been reduced into a mere ‘transaction’ between leaders and citizens:
The relationship between ruler and ruled has become a transaction. Leaders are just contractors whom we pay to do a good job. When there's a good job done, we think that's what they should be doing anyway since we pay them so well. And when anything bad happens, we become very unforgiving because we think they are not worth their pay. Also because we PAY them, there's little respect.
I know one reason for high pay is to keep our politics “clean”. But I think it has come at the expense of trust and regard that people have for political leaders. Now which is more important?
Interestingly, PM Lee published an open letter by an unnamed social worker on his Facebook page when Lim’s letter became viral. The letter sender praised the government and assured PM Lee that majority of Singaporeans continue to support his leadership:
I am glad I am a Singaporean. I am thankful that my government is thoughtful and far-sighted. I hope it will bring you some comfort that not all Singaporeans think like Roy Ngerng and the other activists who are overly self-righteous in the ways they challenge the government.

author: Mong Palatino


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Just Google It? Not In China, Where Google Remains Blocked · Global Voices
Abby Liu

Bird on the left: I want to get out of here. Bird on the right: You guys are being dramatic. We've got food and water here. The image is in response to Chinese netizens’ reaction to the block on Google.  Image via Kgen Bao on Twitter.
A block on Google in China is nearing its third week, and some are predicting it could last a while longer.
Google search, Gmail and other services from the Internet giant became inaccessible on May 30 ahead of the anniversary of the Tiannamen Square massacre on June 4, 1989, when Chinese troops attacked unarmed pro-democracy protesters in Beijing, killing somewhere between a few hundred and thousands of people. The country's censors have kept a close eye – and used a heavy hand – on discussion of it.
Google confirmed that the block wasn't their doing, nor were there any technical problems on their end. The company moved its servers to Hong Kong from mainland China in 2010 after refusing to continue to self-censor search results.
Chinese web users are doing their best to get around the block. A growing number are using virtual private networks (VPN) to access Google from the mainland. Another popular option is a Google mirror site, which has added the line, “If there’s no struggle, there’s no freedom,” to the Google logo. The website puts out a call for users to protest on Twitter-like site Sina Weibo and mobile messaging app WeChat:
GFW(中国国家防火长城)屏蔽了所有谷歌(Google)的服务，包括对科研至关重要的Google学术。如果你认为这是不可接受的，请将本页面转发到微博，微信。 在2013年初，GFW封锁了Github(代码分享网站)后，大量程序员在微博和工信部投诉，最后GFW被迫解封。没有抗争就没有自由！请大家转发此页面给GFW施压！
The GFW (Great Firewall) has blocked all services from Google, including important science and research academic resources. If you think it’s unacceptable, please repost this message on Weibo and WeChat. In the beginning of 2013, after the GFW blocked [hosting service] Github, many programmers complained on Weibo, and in the end, the GFW gave up and unblocked it. If there’s no struggle, there’s no freedom. Please repost this message and put pressure on the GFW.
According to the website, it has over 100,000 visitors every day. On FreeWeibo.com, a website that makes available Weibo accounts that have been censored on Sina Weibo, both “Google” and “If there’s no struggle, there’s no freedom” are listed as the top censored keywords.
One of the founders of censorship watchdog GreatFire.org told newspaper Global Times via email that the block on all Google services is the longest in the history of the Chinese mainland's Internet:
Google products are critical for users in high-tech industry, especially programmers. Such effects might not be immediate, but over the long-term, the Chinese technology sector will lag behind if the block is permanent.
Many academics have been particularly upset not being able to use Google Scholar, a search engine for academic texts. A Weibo user, “Chen Shixu,” wrote:
个人对政府停止Google的全面服务表示遗憾,我是一个经常用Google做专业文献查询和检索的人,没有Google等于全中国专业人员通往世界的门户被关闭。
I'm very disappointed by the government's decision to block all Google services, I usually use Google to find documents for research, so a block on Google means cutting all professionals in China off from the rest of the world.
His post was soon deleted and is now only available on FreeWeibo.com.
One professor, Zhan Jiang, says the block has affected his ability to download teaching resources. He said he feared it might continue until tensions between the U.S. and China over cyber security have been solved.
But it isn't simply a problem for academics, as Weibo user “Wang Ran” explained:
屏蔽google, 被伤害的首先是中国人的利益。
The block on Google first and foremost affects Chinese people's interests.

author: Abby Liu


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Comas Make for Comedians on Russian Twitter · Global Voices
Ildar Gabidullin

What kind of world did racing driver Michael Schumacher find after his coma? Russians speculate. Images mixed by Kevin Rothrock.
From December 29, 2013, until June 16, 2014, retired racing driver Michael Schumacher was in a medically induced coma, following a grisly skiing accident. When Schumacher finally regained consciousness and left the hospital, Russian Twitter users welcomed the story as an opportunity to joke about sports and politics.
As Moscow's relationship with Kiev remains tense, many bloggers were of course eager to slap Ukraine with “coma jokes.” The parody account for Kremlin official Vladislav Surkov had this to say:
Шумахер вышел из комы, а украина в нее вошла… #газ
— Сурковъ (@SurkovRussia) June 16, 2014
Schumacher is out of a coma, but Ukraine has entered one. #gas
Another Twitter account that parodies Russia's Foreign Ministry poked fun at the Kremlin's obsession with the right-wing extremism that supposedly dominates Ukrainian politics.
Шумахер вышел из комы. Теперь главное не рассказывать ему, что весь мир, кроме России, оказался под властью фашистов, пока он спал.
— Мuд Роисси (@Fake_MIDRF) June 16, 2014
Schumacher is out of his coma. The main thing now is not to tell him that while he was sleeping the whole world, except Russia, fell under fascist control.
When the independent TV channel tweeted that Schumacher had slept through all the violence and political upheaval in Ukraine, one Twitter user joked that the news might be too shocking.
@tvrain Не говорите человеку такое. А то опять в кому…
— Евгений сын Юрия (@XA3AK) June 16, 2014
Don't you go telling a person about that. You'll send him back into a coma.
Another Twitter user also playfully linked Schumacher's recovery to events in eastern Ukraine:
По результатам референдума, Шумахерская Народная Республика (ШНР) заявила о своем выходе из комы.
— Миша Шозанахер (@loooh_pidrrr) June 16, 2014
According to the results of a referendum, the Schumacher People's Republic (SNR) has announced a decision to leave the coma.
Others quipped that Schumacher woke up to watch Germany play in the 2014 World Cup.
По данным Быстрого Слона, выход Шумахера из комы приурочен к старту сборной Германии на футбольном ЧМ-2014 http://t.co/thAp47E5wU
— Самый Быстрый Слон (@FastSlon) June 16, 2014
According to information published by Fast Slon, Schumacher came out of the coma exactly as Team Germany took the field in the 2014 World Cup.
If Schumacher does indeed find the world as frightening as some Russians make it seem, he might choose the scenario described in this last tweet:
Шумахер вышел из комы, почитал новости, сказал: “да вы все офигели” – и попросил снова вернуть его в кому.
— Мuд Роисси (@Fake_MIDRF) June 16, 2014
Schumacher came out of a coma, read the latest news, said “yeah, you've all gone nuts,” and asked to be returned to his coma.

author: Ildar Gabidullin


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Have a Corrupt Foreign Company in China? ‘You Should Leave Now’ · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

As the Chinese government starts cracking down on corruption among foreign companies in China beginning with the pharmaceutical sector, China Law Blog advises:
if you are worried about getting arrested in China for something that your company has done, you should leave. Now.

author: Oiwan Lam


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9 Quietly Profound Photos From Kyrgyzstan That Foreshadow Central Asia’s Water Wars · Global Voices
Chris Rickleton

Finding safe drinking water is difficult in the Batken region of Kyrgyzstan. Due to the many dams nearby, rivers dry up, and people find themselves forced to fight for every drop of water. Photo by Fyodor Savintsev / Salt Images, 2012. Copyright: Creative Time Reports, used with permission.
The original version of this piece was first published on Creative Time Reports. Photos by Fyodor Savintsev, text by Katya Kazbek and Global Voices Central Asia Editor Chris Rickleton.
Today 780 million people lack access to drinking water. The lack of this precious resource in Central Asia, not only traps people in situations of dire need and sanitary hazard; it also foreshadows the rise of “water wars”—cross-border skirmishes over access to water that aggravate ecological strife and give the region sharp political overtones.
Kurambaev Almaz, 69, lives with his wife more than 100 miles away from the nearest town in Kyrgyzstan’s Osh Province. Almaz travels by donkey into the mountains to find drinking water. Photo by Fyodor Savintsev / Salt Images, 2008. Copyright: Creative Time Reports, used with permission.
By 2030 nearly half the world’s population will inhabit areas of “high water stress,” according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Central Asia is divided into water-rich upstream and water-poor downstream states. The fact that Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, the upstream countries, have the two weakest economies in the region might be seen as nature’s way of offsetting material poverty with ecological abundance. Still, the balance of resources in Central Asia is far from a happy one. Currently some Kyrgyz lawmakers are toying with the idea of cutting the flow of water to semi-arid Uzbekistan, the nation with the region’s largest population and standing army, after Uzbekistan cut gas supplies to Kyrgyzstan’s southern city of Osh in April.
View of the road through Kyrgyzstan’s Kalmak-Ashu Pass, which is more than two miles above sea level. Photo by Fyodor Savintsev / Salt Images, 2008. Copyright: Creative Time Reports, used with permission.
Uzbekistan’s decision to cut Osh’s gas may well have its origins in a long-running water dispute. Officials in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, are aghast at Kyrgyz and Tajik plans to build giant hydroelectric dams upstream of the Syr Darya and Amu Darya rivers.
A family drinks water from a pipe jutting out of the mountains in the Naryn region of Kyrgyzstan. Photo by Fyodor Savintsev / Salt Images, 2013. Copyright: Creative Time Reports, used with permission.
Uzbekistan relies on these water sources for its strategically vital agricultural sector, and fears the dams will provide difficult neighbors with the leverage to delay the release of water. In 2012 Uzbekistan’s president, Islam Karimov, warned that moving forward with these plans without regard for downstream states like Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan could lead to a full-blown war.
Lake Issyk Kul is the largest lake in Kyrgyzstan and the tenth-largest lake in the world by volume. Photo by Fyodor Savintsev / Salt Images, 2012. Copyright: Creative Time Reports, used with permission.
Water problems are not limited to conflicts between the region’s states, but extend to clashes within states and between communities living in them. They also arise from crumbling Soviet-era infrastructure. Upstream Kyrgyzstan, for instance, loses a third of its water wealth through holes in decaying irrigation networks. This problem is critical in rural areas, where large amounts of water are crucial for the growth of crops.
A shepherd boy watches a herd of cows as he stands on a tree stump near Lake Issyk Kul.
Photo by Fyodor Savintsev / Salt Images, 2013. Copyright: Creative Time Reports, used with permission.
To keep produce from drying out, desperate Kyrgyz villagers have set up handmade dams that divert the local rivers and make irrigation accessible. Their actions have led to drought in downstream communities. In areas like the Kyrgyz region of Batken, where few can objectively verify where Kyrgyzstan ends and Tajikistan starts, violent clashes between Kyrgyz and Tajik villagers over irrigation water have become commonplace. Both sides accuse the other of stealing.
A quarry filled with water from melting snow in the Nookat region of Kyrgyzstan. Photo by Fyodor Savintsev / Salt Images, 2012. Copyright: Creative Time Reports, used with permission.
But Central Asia’s water scarcity is just a snapshot of a broader crisis with grave consequences for the whole Asian continent, according to several Russian scientists studying the ramifications of the water shortage.
Military officers guard the entrance to the Kambaratinsk Dam on the Naryn River. The Kambar-Ati-1 Hydro Power Plant at the base of the dam, largely financed through a $2 billion Russian aid package, will have a capacity of approximately 1,900 megawatts. Photo by Fyodor Savintsev / Salt Images, 2012. Copyright: Creative Time Reports, used with permission.
In China, a giant population and large-scale commercial activities are placing huge pressure on the Illi and Irtysh rivers, both of which flow into Kazakhstan, the latter connecting with the Ob in Russia. Further draining of the Ob-Irtysh basin will cause irreparable damage to all of Asia, threatening vast expanses of fertile lands, jeopardizing the fishing industry and severely harming the Russian part of the Arctic Ocean.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the irrigation system in Kyrgyzstan has fallen into decay. Photo by Fyodor Savintsev / Salt Images, 2012. Copyright: Creative Time Reports, used with permission.
Central Asia’s water conflicts are often perceived as local skirmishes of little significance to the rest of the world. But as the water levels in the region diminish with every passing year, the anguish of dry spells will drive more and more people to enter into conflict. A point of no return for this socio-ecological disaster is drawing nearer. Shedding light on the situation is of pivotal importance today, while there is still time to prevent the water shortages—and the wars that will come with them—from spreading.

author: Chris Rickleton


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Russia’s Hacker Collective That Wasn’t · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

Who is backing Russia's newest “hacker” group, named after “Humpty Dumpty”? Who's the intended audience for their activity? Images mixed by author.
There is an Internet group in Russia that publishes compromising political information that the public was never supposed to see. For the past six months, a collective that calls itself “Anonymous International,” and also goes by the name “Shaltay-Boltay” (translation: Humpty-Dumpty), has disclosed internal government memos, hacked email archives, and “insider” analytical reports about rivalries within the Kremlin. The group opened a Twitter account on December 4, 2013, and launched a blog eight days later, on the twentieth anniversary of Russia’s current constitution. On December 31, for its first publication, Anonymous International posted the transcript of Vladimir Putin’s New Year’s Eve speech, hours before he actually delivered it.
Shaltay’s work, which has attracted a small but growing readership in Russia, found its way into the Western media earlier this month, when the group published emails corroborating a September 2013 investigative report in Novaya Gazeta claiming that a Kremlin-connected businessman has assembled a “troll army” to pollute the comments sections on English-language news websites.
There is a lot of interesting stuff in the materials on Shaltay’s blog. You can see the Kremlin’s instructions to Russian television about how to report on the annexation of Crimea, peruse the private emails of the rebel commander in eastern Ukraine, and read a 180-page-long Kremlinologist analysis of the power struggles between the warring “towers” of influence in the Russian government. You can find all this, and more, on their website.
But who are the people behind Anonymous International? The confusion about these individuals’ identity is so basic that reporters can’t even decide what to call them. Because the group publishes secret documents, including stolen email archives, journalists are eager to describe Shaltay as a “hacker” collective. Someone clearly hacked those email accounts, after all, so it follows that the people who published the data are responsible for the theft.
Shaltay’s representatives, however, keep telling reporters in interviews that they’re not really hackers. “We’re not hackers,” one of the group’s members told Vladimir Dergachev on June 9. “The majority of our activity is not the technical part,” the individual elaborated. Days earlier, another Shaltay spokesperson told BuzzFeed’s Max Seddon that the group isn’t composed of “hackers in the classical sense.”
If Shaltay doesn’t get its materials by breaking into the Kremlin’s digital vaults, there’s only one alternative: somebody is handing them the information. In other words, Anonymous International is funneling leaks from people connected to these issues. In fact, Shaltay’s representatives have been quite open about this, though they intimate that the group’s sources are middle-ranking whistleblowers who have soured on the Kremlin’s policy changes in Putin’s third term. “The source for a large amount of our files are the ‘good guys,’” one Shaltay member told Ilya Shepelin at Slon.ru, saying that there are all kinds of “saboteurs” in the government.
Until someone unmasks the Shaltay collective, Russians will continue “scratching their heads and trading guesses,” says journalist Aleksandr Morozov. Some have tried to determine who might be backing the group by establishing which officials are absent in the leaks. Slon.ru’s Ilya Shepelin, for instance, accuses Shaltay of ignoring Putin’s deputy chief of staff, Alexey Gromov. Others have recalled an emails-leak in 2012, when anonymous hackers released compromising letters between Kremlin-youth functionaries. The leak is now regarded as part of a coordinated campaign by Vyacheslav Volodin against Vladislav Surkov in what was the former’s struggle for the first-deputy-chief-of-staff spot in the Kremlin.
Oleg Kashin, May 15, 2014, Facebook.
Journalist Oleg Kashin recommends paying close attention to government personnel changes in the coming future, to study whom Shaltay’s leaks might be benefiting and harming. “I think the whole market for hackers’ services is linked closely either with the intelligence agencies or the President’s Administration,” Kashin told Vladimir Dergachev. “I’m unable to imagine a bunch of Robin Hoods who gut other people’s emails for fun or in the name of Good.”
Judging by the five documents Shaltay leaked earlier this week, the infighting and intrigue in Russia’s government is byzantine indeed. According to the Russian website The Insider, the “Information-Analytical Reports” published on Shaltay’s blog are confidential materials produced for Sergei Ivanov, Putin’s chief of staff. The reports contain a weekly roundup of political events significant to Russia, saturated in commentary and speculation about which interest groups, or “towers,” are gaining and losing influence on particular issues. If there is any shred of truth to the analysis, it’s easy to see why identifying the clans backing a “hacker collective” would be tricky business indeed.
While you're racking your brains, trying to figure out if the people at Shaltay-Boltay are “Robin Hoods” or hired guns, take a moment to appreciate that the group has accomplished one thing beyond dispute: it's taken a name coined in the bland, globalese jargon of the hacker world and made “Anonymous International” into something unique, unpredictable, and quintessentially Russian.


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Tajik Authorities Detain Global Voices Contributor · Global Voices
Global Voices

This post was originally published on Eurasianet.org and is republished with permission.
The unexplained arrest of a researcher carrying out fieldwork in Tajikistan’s troubled Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO) is sparking alarm among Central Asian academics and journalists. Reports of Alexander Sodiqov’s arrest first filtered out during the afternoon of June 16, when the researcher, a Tajik-born PhD student at the University of Toronto and the former Central Asia Editor for Global Voices, was meeting with Alim Sherzamonov, regional representative of the opposition Social Democratic Party of Tajikistan, according to RFE/RL’s Tajik service.
Tajikistan’s GKNB (state security service) subsequently released a statement June 17 via state media Khovar.tj, confirming that Sodiqov had been detained for carrying out “subversion and espionage” on behalf of a foreign country, a charge they linked to a June 10 email sent from Sodiqov’s account (officials did not disclose how they obtained access to the account and whether they did so before or after Sodiqov’s arrest). GKNB operatives presumably believed the “foreign country” to have been the UK, given Sodiqov’s research was funded by the British Economic and Social Research council. A British Embassy statement expressed concern about Sodiqov’s treatment.
View of Khorog, Tajikistan, by Zack Knowles. Used under Creative Commons BA-SY 3.0 license.
Sodiqov’s supervisor on the project, John Heathershaw, put out the following statement on social media on the evening of June 16:
“It is now almost 20 hours since we have heard from Alexander Sodiqov who was apparently arrested while conducting research in Tajikistan. We do not know if he has been released or remains detained.
Alexander Sodiqov, a researcher contracted by the University of Exeter, has been detained by security services whilst conducting an interview with a civil society representative in Khorog, in the eastern region of Badakhshan.
Sodiqov was conducting research for a British Economic and Social Research Council project called Rising Powers and Conflict Management in Central Asia which also involves the University of Newcastle and the NGO Saferworld. He is a citizen of Tajikistan who is a PhD student at the University of Toronto and ordinarily resident in Canada. His colleague John Heathershaw is an academic at the University of Exeter and his supervisor of the research project. The project looks at how international actors, states and civil society work to resolve conflict.
Alexander has not been heard from since his detention at 2.30pm (9.30am GMT) on Tuesday 16 June. His family and friends are very concerned for his whereabouts.”
Heathershaw was subsequently interviewed by independent local media Asia Plus June 17 under the heading “Alexander is a Researcher, not a Spy.” Heathershaw also told EurasiaNet.org that the apartment of Sodiqov’s mother in Dushanbe had been ransacked during a police search.  Security officers reportedly confiscated flash drives and computers.
It seems unlikely that Tajik authorities, at least in Dushanbe, did not know of Sodiqov prior to his arrest. Sodiqov is well-known as an analyst in Central Asia, having written regularly about Tajikistan and the wider region for outlets such as Jamestown, in addition to Global Voices. He has also provided interviews for EurasiaNet.org on more than one occasion and was the main author of the Tajikistan Monitor blog. Before entering the University of Toronto, Sodiqov held several positions at the Dushanbe office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and lectured at the Russian-Tajik University.
While RFE/RL reported Sodiqov released earlier today, his wife Musharraf Sodiqova has not confirmed contact with the analyst. Whatever the outcome, his arrest is likely to be interpreted by many as a warning from Tajik authorities that in Khorog, the epicenter of deadly government-opposition clashes in July 2012, as well as smaller scale unrest this May, it is better not to ask questions, or look for answers.

author: Global Voices


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This Twitter Account Puts a Face to the Unsung Volunteer Editors Behind Wikipedia · Global Voices
Subhashish Panigrahi

Photo of some of the curators. Image courtesy @WeareWikipedia Project Facebook page
Subhashish Panigrahi is a volunteer contributor for Wikipedia and in past worked as a community and program support consultant for Wikimedia Foundation.
The life of a Wikipedia editor is an interesting one. Globally, about 100,000 editors edit the collaborative online encyclopedia's 30 million articles in 287 languages, including over 4.5 million in the English Wikipedia. They dedicate a tremendous amount of their time to contribute and edit articles, but for no pay (editors work as volunteers) and for little public recognition – their work is credited via their usernames tucked away in the entry's edit history.
Now, one initiative is trying to shine the spotlight on these hard-working “Wikipedians.” WeAreWikipedia is an unofficial project that brings on a different editor each week to curate information regarding their favorite Wikipedia pages and tweet them using the handle @WeAreWikipedia. So far, 19 people representing 17 different language Wikipedias have curated the account.
WeAreWikipedia explains on its blog that it was inspired by a weekly rotation curation handle @WeAreBangalore created by social media strategists from the Indian city of Bangalore in October 2013 to create a space for Bangaloreans to tell their stories, give their opinions or simple connect with other active social media users in the area.
Admin: Most of u r not aware that, one of our previous curators @psubhashish was inspired by us and started global #RoCur @WeAreWikipedia :)
— Bangalore/Rajeev (@WeAreBangalore) June 17, 2014
@WeAreBangalore in turn took its cue from the highly successful @sweden, which turns over the Twitter handle to a different Swede every week as a sort of citizen ambassador program.
The WeAreWikipedia curators also tell personal stories and explain the technicalities of publishing and editing Wikipedia to any readers who ask.
Wherever I go, local Wikipedians are so welcoming and so open to collaboration. I have made friends all around the globe.
— WeAreWikipedia (@WeAreWikipedia) junio 17, 2014
Curators often focus tweets on their Wikipedia language community and country. Two women editors from India, Noopur Raval and Netha Hussain, dedicated many of their publications to facts about women’s rights, issues and development in India while curating the handle during Women’s History Month in March. They also drew attention to an edit-a-thon held in Bangalore that brought 90 women to write about 77 articles related to women in India.
Mariona Aragay, an editor for the Catalan Wikipedia, made a related call for more women editors while she was at the helm of @WeAreWikipedia:
As a wikipedian, it concernes me the low ratio of #woman editors: if you’re a wiki-girl, let us know your experience! #gendergap @wikiwomen
— WeAreWikipedia (@WeAreWikipedia) June 4, 2014
Curators also highlight community events, such as Odisha Dibasa 2014, a gathering at the end of March 2014 of the Odia-language Wikipedia community in the capital of the Indian state of Odisha, where the language is predominantly spoken.
Diptiman Panigrahi, an Odia editor who curated @WeAreWikipedia during the event, talked about his week in a blog post for The Centre for Internet and Society in India:
It was a wonderful experience curating WeAreWikipedia without even much time. Meeting the entire Wikimedia global community was even more fun when I was telling happenings of my own community. I hope to take part in more of such collaborative global issues like this.
You can follow WeAreWikipedia on Twitter, Facebook and on their blog.

author: Subhashish Panigrahi


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Why Conducting Academic Research in Khorog, Tajikistan is a Criminal Offense  · Global Voices
Chris Rickleton

Pamir Mountains, Gorno-Badakshan Autonomous Oblast, Tajikistan. © Ivan Sigal
Khorog, the town where Global Voices community member Alexander Sodiqov was wrongfully arrested and detained for conducting academic research, is a faraway place.
Khorog is faraway because it is located in the mountains of Tajikistan, Central Asia, which for many is the very definition of faraway, and it is even further away because it is a full 14-hour drive—mudslides and bridge repairs permitting—from Tajikistan's capital, Dushanbe.
Thundering along the rutted, improbable track separating lush, poplar-laden Khorog at one end of the Autonomous Region of Gorno-Badakshan (GBAO) from sparse, dusty Murghab at the other, travelers of the cloud-cutting Pamir Highway experience the thrill of passing through settlements that do not appear to belong to anyone except the people who live there, speeding across landscapes not of this earth.
But GBAO and its administrative center of Khorog do belong to someone, and in recent years Tajik president Emomali Rahmon's regime has gone to considerable trouble to remind residents of the region that “autonomy” is in the eye of the beholder.
Tajikistan—a Very Weak State
Alexander Sodiqov is a bright scholar whose writing on Tajik and Central Asian politics bears the hallmarks of any top political analyst—rigour, insight and impartiality. He is also someone, who for all his international experience, remains committed to researching the country of his birth and conveying that knowledge to the wider world.
To understand why Tajik authorities would see a threat in someone like Alex, it is important to know that his arrest was less a show of strength and more a demonstration of weakness in a region where a weak government has a profoundly weak presence.
GBAO and Khorog are often portrayed by media covering Tajikistan as a kind of Achilles’ heel for policymakers in Dushanbe—a faraway bastion of anti-government opposition where the government's writ is tenuous at best. But this analogy misses the fact that Tajikistan's government is weak everywhere in Tajikistan. If the Tajik state was ever, like the mythological Achilles, dipped in a magical river, then most of its body missed out on the benefit of the water. Just ask the million-plus Tajiks working as labor migrants in Russia, unable to find work inside the most remittance-dependent country in the world, and the millions of Tajiks inside Tajikistan that endure rolling electricity shutoffs every year during the winter months.
Cyberspace is another sore spot for President Rahmon's regime. Since June 9, YouTube and other Google services  have been blocked [ru] in Tajikistan for “technical reasons” nobody can fathom. Normally, whenever YouTube or Facebook is cut in the country, the “technical reasons” are fairly self-explanatory: the eve of presidential elections, a leaked video of President Rahmon drunk-dancing at his son's wedding, or the onset of a special forces operation in Khorog. This time, however, YouTube might have been blocked just for blocking's sake.
It is easy enough to see why the Tajik government dislikes the Internet, even though it is a resource to which only a tenth of the country has regular access. In addition to undercutting its ability to control information, the web also undermines the image the Tajik state likes to present to the international audience—that of the country with the tallest flagpole in the world, the biggest teahouse in the world, the largest library in the world and one day, it hopes, the tallest hydroelectric dam in the world. Instead of celebrating these thin veneers of success, the Internet openly mocks the regime.
Ahead of Rahmon's inevitable re-election last November, the public Facebook group Platforma was full of demotivators depicting him as the “Rahminator” (“I'll be back”) and other unflattering identities. When Tajik communications chief Beg Zukhurov (now Beg Sabur) was challenged to justify a block on Facebook in December 2012, he summoned Marc Zuckerberg to meet him in his office in Dushanbe “during his office hours”, and rapidly became the butt of every joke in Tajik cyber space.
But GBAO, one of the poorest parts of a poor country, does not see a lot of the Internet.
Khorog and Gorno-Badakhshan: Whose Autonomy?
Until 1929, the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) was itself an autonomous republic within the Uzbek SSR. High altitude Gorno-Badakhshan oblast represented an autonomous province in the same SSR, maintaining this status throughout the Soviet period and into Tajik independence following a five-year civil war in which many Badakhshanis fought on the side of the losing United Tajik Opposition. At least 50,000 people died in a conflict that saw Emomali Rahmon consolidate formal control over the country. Coming to power by the sword, Rahmon has understandably had a fear of dying by it ever since.
On the road to Khorog, Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast, Tajikistan. © Ivan SIgal
For over a decade after the civil war's end in 1997, Khorog did not outwardly resemble a bastion of opposition to anything. Traversers of the Pamir Highway welcomed it as an oasis town at the end of a barren run, where attractive girls in traditional Pamiri dress—part of a culture and language distinct from other that in parts of the country—shouted out greetings in an impressive array of foreign languages. During the period between the war and a renewal of violent armed clashes in July 2012, Dushanbe and GBAO led separate lives, with GBAO residents, most of whom follow the Ismaili branch of Islam (as opposed to Sunni Islam practiced elsewhere in the republic), turning to Ismaili leader the Aga Khan for material assistance.
But sleepy, hospitable Khorog has long harboured a dark, open secret: along with countless other Tajik towns dotted along the gossamer-like border with Afghanistan, it remains a logistics point for the traffic of opiates heading north and west towards Russia and Europe. Foreign media focussed on the region have even suggested competition between informal power-brokers in Khorog and government officials over drug smuggling profits was the catalyst for the week-long special forces operation that after July 21, 2012 and saw GBAO's communications abruptly cut off. The operation, which may have precipitated the death of up to 50 people, was far from a success. According to an American journalist who interviewed locals in Khorog about the clashes (free of harrassment, unlike Sodiqov, by state officials), government troops probably came off worse from the fighting.
GBAO's unheard voices
Alex's academic fieldwork in Khorog, looking at conflict resolution mechanisms within civil society, followed shortly after a renewal [ru] of hostilities between government forces and Khorog residents. On May 21, 2014 a shootout in the town between police and locals accused of trafficking drugs took place in broad daylight. Residents of the city responded by targeting government buildings with arson attacks before an uneasy order was restored. Tajik media close to the government has claimed [taj] Western involvement in the conflict.
It would be too easy to blame the government exclusively for GBAO's unrest. Nevertheless, Dushanbe's habit of viewing residents of the region as unfinished remnants of past conflicts rather than people with development needs to be addressed is clearly a driver of conflict in the area.
Scholars like Alex, with their intellectually thirsty and impartial approach to academic study could be an ally to the Rahmon regime in helping to understand the complexities of region it has long misunderstood. By shutting down a conversation in Khorog, the Tajik government has simply revealed its fear over its loss of control of the region.


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Why Quality of Internet Service Is Needed in Nepal · Global Voices
Rezwan

Internet penetration in Nepal has increased to 29.78 percent in recent times mainly due to about 8 million mobile Internet users. But the quality of Internet service by the providers, lack of standards and bad customer service makes the user experience so unpleasant that many users feel that their time, money and resources are wasted, according to blogger Shreedeep Rayamajhi from Kathmandu, Nepal.
The situation is so bad that a petition on Change.org has been launched addressing the Nepal Telecommunication authority.

author: Rezwan


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The Influence of the World Cup in the Colombian Election · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

Image by Globovisión on Flickr. CC BY-NC 2.0.
On the blog Trayectoria Económica (Economic trajectory), Daniel Bustos writes about the recent presidential election in Colombia and analyzes a series of factors that, in his opinion, influenced the results. This includes the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil:
El sabado no fue un día normal en Colombia, primero porque volviamos a ver a la selección en un mundial luego de 16 largos años, un dia en el que por primera vez para muchos, veian a la selección en un mundial, un dia lleno de ilusion en el que todos y cada uno de los colombianos teniamos una gran ilusión y optimismo en lo que harian en brasil, y si, lo logramos, ganamos y por una amplia mayoria de goles esto desbordo el optimismo […] al otro día algunos todavia con el optimismo a pecho […] salimos a votar para hacer caer la abstención…
Last Saturday wasn't an ordinary day in Colombia. For starters, because we saw our national team in a World Cup for the first time in 16 long years, a day when many saw the national team in a World Cup, a day full of hope when each of us Colombians were excited and optimistic about what the team will do in Brazil, and yes, we did it, we won and with a great majority of goals and this caused the optimism to overflow […]. the next day, some of us still optimistic to the fullest […] we went to vote so the abstention wouldn't work…
He then wondered about the favors that President Juan Manuel Santos Luego will be expected to pay back to the alliances that helped push him to victory:
la gran pregunta es ¿Cuánto, cómo y cuando tendrá que pagar Santos los favores recibidos?, Santos hizo alianzas con toda la “izquierda” colombiana, de hecho parte de los votos que fueron determinantes en Bogotá fueron votos petristas, del polo y algunos verdes, es evidente que el presidente Santos tiene ahora una grandisima deuda […] No alcanzaran los 4 años de gobierno para pagar la jugosa factura que le pasara la mal llamada “Unidad Nacional”,
The big question is, how much, how and when will [president elect Juan Manuel] Santos have to return the favors?, Santos made alliances with all the Colombian “left”, in fact part of the decisive votes in Bogota were petrist votes, from polo and some greens. It's evident that President Santos now has a big debt […]. Four years were not enough to pay the fat bill that he has from the so-called “National Unity”.
You can follow Bustos on Twitter.
.entry

author: Juan Arellano


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Barbados: No Love in the Cemetery · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

As a mourner discovers exposed skeletal remains and discarded bits of coffins in a local cemetery, Barbados Free Press laments “the latest indignities to buried friends and relatives”.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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Bermuda: Football, The British & Brazil · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

120 years ago, two Scots brought a football to Brazil and the rest is history, according to an article written by Breezeblog.


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Celebrations Take Over Chile Following its Historic Triumph Over Spain · Global Voices
Elizabeth Rivera

Celebrating in Antarctica. Photo posted by Twitter user @prensaantartica.
The national Chilean football team have managed to qualify for the round of 16 of the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil tournament after defeating Spain, the 2010 World Cup holder, at the legendary Maracanã stadium.
Chileans all over the country came out to celebrate even though the working day wasn't over. From Arica to Antarctica, we've compiled photos posted on Twitter using hashtags such as #EliminamosAlCampeónMundial  (We eliminated the World Champion) and #LaRojaEsChilena (La Roja is Chilean), as ‘La Roja’ is not just Spanish but Chilean too because their national team's colour is also red.
#EliminamosAlCampeonMundial En la Antártica también lo festejan pic.twitter.com/6KVhryyPY3@deportes13cl vía @riveros_freddy#LaRojaEsChilena
— Prensa Antártica (@prensaantartica) June 18, 2014
In Antarctica they're also celebrating.
Gran celebración enParque Italia #valparaiso#LaRojaEsChilena@ucvradio@twittcafechile@edgardolazopic.twitter.com/yGvILXLFtq
— Stefa Umaña Canessa (@stefacanessa) June 18, 2014
A large gathering of fans in Parque Italia, a park in the city of Valparaíso.
#CopaMundialEspanaChile ¡CHILE 2—ESPAÑA 0! Hoy en cordillera de Santiago, foto de Roberto Antezana #LaRojaEsChilenapic.twitter.com/00U4hEp7AD
— Piureman (@Piureman) June 18, 2014
CHILE 2—SPAIN 0! Today in the Cordillera de Santiago region. Photo by Roberto Antezana.
Desde el Morro de Arica #LaRojaEsNuestra#LaRojaEsChilenapic.twitter.com/Jo8YUH8fww
— María José (@JosesiTaita) June 18, 2014
Taken from the Morro de Arica hill in Arica.
Galería: Revisa las mejores imágenes de la celebración en Plaza Italia http://t.co/YNi9vT3ehPpic.twitter.com/2t2EzXjDok — La Galera (@lagalera_cl) June 19, 2014
Galería: From the best shots of the celebrations in Plaza Italia in the capital city of Santiago.
Imágenes de la celebración de #CHI en este #Mundial2014http://t.co/XddLt4jKn0pic.twitter.com/n7NrukwaLX — La Tercera (@latercera) June 18, 2014
Photos from the celebrations in Chile during the 2014 World Cup.
Even President Bachelet gave in to the celebrations:
Celebrando el histórico triunfo de #LaRoja con la Presidenta Bachelet y la ministra @ximerincon#CHI#Brasil2014pic.twitter.com/gb3kLUssTu
— Alvaro Elizalde (@alvaroelizalde) June 18, 2014
Celebrating the historic triumph of ‘La Roja’ with President Bachelet and the Secretary.
True to the spirit of football and good sportsmanship, the goalkeepers of both teams exchanged T-shirts amicably after the match.
IKER CASILLAS Y CLAUDIO BRAVO INTERCAMBIAN CAMISETAS TRAS EL ESPAÑA – CHILE. #EliminamosAlCampeonMundialpic.twitter.com/Jt8DyKbgje
— Ricardo Larrañaga (@RlarranagaR) June 19, 2014
IKER CASILLAS AND CLAUDIO BRAVO EXCHANGE T-SHIRTS AFTER THE SPAIN-CHILE MATCH.
Now Chile awaits the final game in Group B against the Netherlands on Monday 23 June at the Arena Corinthians stadium in São Paulo.

author: Elizabeth Rivera


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A Tale of Two World Cups in Fortaleza, Brazil  · Global Voices
João Miguel Lima

“Enough with evictions. We want housing”, says the yellow banner by the Movement of People's Councils. Photo shared on Twitter by Jornalismo B profile (@jornalismob).
The sounds of vuvuzelas and fireworks mixed with those of protest chants near Arena Castelão stadium in the Brazilian city of Fortaleza ahead of the Mexico vs. Brazil World Cup match on June 17, 2014. As Mexican fans enjoyed themselves before the match, protesters rallied against FIFA and the government for the event's immense cost to public coffers and people, some of whom were left homeless thanks to infrastructure construction.
Nearly a year ago, the two teams played in Fortaleza for the Confederations Cup. Inside the stadium, Brazil defeated Mexico 2-0. Outside, thousands of people protested on Alberto Craveiro and Paulino Rocha avenues against urban intervention and public spending, and clashed with military police, who used tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets against the crowds.
This time around, the match ended in a tie, and military police deployed dozens of special forces officers to Alberto Craveiro Avenue, a meeting place for protesters. There, they formed a blockade to secure a perimeter around the stadium.
As protesters arrived—union workers, youth, students and feminist groups—independent journalism collective Nigéria shared photos on their Facebook page.
Protesters start to gather on Alberto Craveiro Avenue. Photo by Nigéria Collective, shared on Facebook, June 17, 2014.
Heavily armed police form a double blockade to prevent protesters from getting closer to the stadium. Photo by Nigéria Collective, shared on Facebook, June 17, 2014.
Heavily armed and without badges on their uniforms, officers approached and searched protesters, saying that “they were doing their part, investigating any suspicious behavior, such as carrying a Molotov cocktail”, according to members of media platform Na Rua (On The Street), which is dedicated to the coverage of human rights violations during protests in Fortaleza.
Heavily armed and without badges, police officers search protesters in Fortaleza before the game. Photo by Natasha Cruz, shared on platform Na Rua on Facebook.
A couple of kilometers away, residents threatened by forced evictions were joined by members of the Movement of People's Councils (Movimento dos Conselhos Populares – MCP), and families who were evicted or whose houses were destroyed for World Cup infrastructure work. Together, they closed one side of an express highway to protest against forced evictions and the mayor, accusing him of lacking social commitment on the issue.
A surprise for Mexican fans
Meanwhile, Mexicans seemed very excited about the match. A group of Mexican supporters donned costumes depicting the Mexican character El Chapulín Colorado, known in Brazil as Chapolin Colorado. Over 20 supporters were dressed as Chapulín, and one woman was dressed up as La Chilindrina (known in Brazil as Chiquinha) from the series “El Chavo del Ocho“, renamed in Brazil as “Chaves”. Both TV series, created by Mexican Roberto Gómez Bolaños who also starred in them, have been extremely popular in Brazil for generations.
Twitter user Alysson shared photos of the Chapulín Colorado supporters as they arrived at the stadium:
MELHOR COPA! Chapolins indo para o Castelão acompanhar Brasil x México: pic.twitter.com/2k1Dvi3lTq
— Aliçu. (@aalyssonbr) June 17, 2014
THE BEST WORLD CUP! Chapulíns going to Arena Castelão to watch Brazil vs Mexico
Mais Chapolins em frente ao Castelão: pic.twitter.com/ToEAFYTrde HAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAH
— Aliçu. (@aalyssonbr) June 17, 2014
More Chapulíns in front of Castelão! HAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAH

author: João Miguel Lima


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Mexican Goalkeeper ‘Memo’ Ochoa’s Incredible World Cup Performance Is Now a Meme on Twitter · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

Mexican goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa in full action. Photo posted by Twitter user @futbolperu.com.
The star of Brazil-Mexico World Cup match, which ended in a 0-0 tie, was Mexican goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa, who more than once impressively blocked Brazilian shots, saving his national team goal. The match ended with a tied score without goals.
The game was a nail-biter, despite the lack of goals. “Brazilian attacks didn't stop, although each time they came across a magnificent Ochoa who fearlessly and with absolute confidence became a wall against the shots from the rival,” wrote Spanish-language website Apuntes de Fútbol.
A photo from this tweet shows the moment when Ochoa deflected a powerful headbutt by Brazilian superstar Neymar:
#FOTO: La atajada de Memo Ochoa ante cabezazo de Neymar http://t.co/9b8gjL5Mlc | MEXSPORT pic.twitter.com/UkkBDW8mdH
— DIARIO RÉCORD (@record_mexico) junio 17, 2014
Memo Ochoa's blocking a headbutt by Neymar.
From that moment on, his performance inspired various memes on social media.
That wasn’t even Guillermo Ochoa’s best game – check out how he played v PSG in August http://t.co/pzRblKk0Co #MEX pic.twitter.com/kHK8Jh7iKh
— 101 Great Goals (@102greatgoals) June 17, 2014
El pulpo Ochoa. Versión 2. pic.twitter.com/k2WyTDZC3r
— Martín Hidalgo (@martinhidalgo) June 17, 2014
Octopus Ochoa. Version 2.
Hoy Ochoa podía ver la Matrix. Paró Todo. pic.twitter.com/HkGidSDZbm
— Nik (@Nikgaturro) June 17, 2014
Today, Ochoa could see The Matrix. He blocked everything.
A tweet depicted the Mexican goalkeeper with the classic charro style:
Ochoa…. what a boss #MEX pic.twitter.com/5K5IlXHoKC
— Mr. Footy News (@MrFootyNewss) June 17, 2014
Take a look at more memes about the game in this post on LifeBox. Meanwhile, among the many trending hashtags in Mexico about the game. #GraciasOchoa (thanks Ochoa) was a trending topic for a while.
From Colombia, Alfredo Carreño wrote about the performance of the Brazilian crew on his blog Cápsulas de fútbol (football capsules):
Fiado todo a Neymar sin demasiado, la ‘canarinha’ acabó sufriendo ante Chicharito, Guardado y compañía mientras el ‘canta y no llores resonaba entre una confundida ‘torcida’ brasileña. Primera lección que tiene que aprender un Neymar que se pasó de emociones en la previa y se apagó más de la cuenta en el momento de la verdad.
Relying completely on a not so shiny Neymar, the ‘canarinha’ [as the Brazilian team is known for its yellow shirt] suffered facing Chicharito, Guardado and co. while the [popular Mexican folk song lyrics] ‘sing and don't cry’ resounded among a confused Brazilian ‘torcida’ [as the Brazilian fans are known]. First lesson for a Neymar who was overly emotional before the game and went off more than the bill at the moment of truth.
Another scene that became popular online was the one of a Mexican female fan at the stadium:
Our expression after every save from Ochoa… pic.twitter.com/siuRbVJAGS
— 2014 World Cup (@TheWorIdCup) June 17, 2014


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Social Media Loves Mexican Goalkeeper ‘Memo’ Ochoa · Global Voices
Gabriela García Calderón Orbe

The very much lauded performance by Mexican goalkeeper Guillerno “Memo” Ochoa during his national team's World Cup match with Brazil has made him a social media star.
The Mexican music band Tres Tristes Tigres dedicated a “corrido” to Ochoa on YouTube:
Ochoa has also received a marriage proposal from the well-known singer Thalía:
#MEX Ochoa se convirtió en héroe tras su actuación ante #BRA y Thalia, le pidió casamiento a través de Instagram. pic.twitter.com/N85cABfR3J — Mundial Brasil 2014 (@RutaMundial2014) junio 18, 2014
Ochoa has became a hero after his performance with Brazil, and Thalia proposed through her Instagram account.

author: Gabriela García Calderón Orbe


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Mozambique’s President Gives Back Former Leaders’ Laws of Privilege to Parliament   · Global Voices
Dércio Tsandzana

Mozambican Parliament. Photo of Deputies and Luxury on Facebook.
After getting the approval from three parliamentary benches of two laws about the revision and allocation of privileges for former deputies and former presidents of the Republic Assembly House, many civil society organizations have unleashed a campaign of repudiation against that decision made by those who were elected from the people.
Walk against the privileges for former presidents.
It was on May 16th 2014 that many Mozambican civil society organizations – among them, the Supportive Mechanism to the Civil Society (MASC), Community Radios in Mozambique Forum (FORCOM), Women's Forum, Center for Public Integrity (CIP), among others – gathered for a “walk against the legalised robbery“. The protest, organized through the Luxury Deputies, comes at a time which many Mozambicans lack social well-being resulting from social inequalities and lack dignified transportation.
As a response to this pressure, the President of the Republic Armando Guebuza returned these two laws to the Parliament to be reviewed, an updated new by the newspaper page Canal de Moçambique under the heading of “Citizenship wins first battle”.
The Luxury Deputies group, who carried out the campaign of repudiation against these laws, was pleased with the attitude of the Head of State:
Caros Compatriotas! Uma parte dos nossos objectivos, como moçambicanos, foi alcançada. O PR devolveu a Assembleia da Republica, a lei que faz menção as mordomias dos deputados. Traremos mais informações…Viva o Povo!!!
My compatriots! A part of our objectives, as Mozambicans, has been achieved. The President of the Republic returned to the Republic Assembly House,the law which mentions the privileges for deputies. We will bring you more information…Long live to the Mozambican people!!!
In the same publication, Narciso Francisco refers that this decision cannot be a political advantage from the Head of State:
Espero que não seja uma questão de tempo para garantir o voto nas eleições que se avizinham e a posterior aprovar…a luta continua e o povo e que esta no poder.
I hope it is not a matter of time to ensure the vote in the forthcoming elections and the subsequent one to approve… The fight continues and the power belongs to the people.
Ericino de Salema, a Mozambican commentator and journalist, found the returning of these laws as a great worthiness action:
PR Armando Guebuza e a devolução das duas “leis da (des)graça” ao Parlamento: uma decisão sabia, clarividente e visionaria!
The PR Armando Guebuza and the returning of these two “laws of (mis)fortune” to the Parliament: a wisdom, far-sighted and visionary decision.
To Francisco Alberto Tembo, a college student, the great credit goes to the civil society because of the increased pressure to achieve this triumph.
Ponto para sociedade. É muito bom saber que sociedade tem capacidade para influenciar as decisoes politicas, pois, se assim não fosse sabe se lá onde é que estaria o país.
A score to the society. It's very good to know that the society has the ability to determine political decisions, otherwise nobody knows where the country would be at this time.
The citizenship in Mozambique comes up as the greatest winner in the process. Nonetheless, it's expected a new analysis of the returned laws to the Republic Assembly House, it could be said that: only a battle has been won and not the war.

author: Dércio Tsandzana


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Analysis: How Pakistani Politicians and Fake Accounts Drove Twitter Trends on Lahore’s Rare Political Violence · Global Voices
Shaheryar Popalzai

This image from the Lahore clashes was shared 1,300 times on Facebook. Translation of the Urdu caption: Evidence of police and government brutality. Share this image and curse the Punjab government. Photo credit: PanjtanPoint.com's Facebook page.
In Pakistan's second largest city Lahore violent clashes between police and supporters of a newly energized political party Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) resulted in eight deaths and left at least 80 injured.
Lahore is the capital of Punjab province, and political violence here is rare. It is also the home city of the country's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif; his brother Shahbaz Sharif is the province's chief minister.
Twitter users in Pakistan picked up on the incident immediately. Three different hashtags that specifically targeted the government soon spread.
This post analyses these hashtags, traces where they originated from and looks at how they spread.
The story behind the violence
Horrific photos of women and elderly supporters of PAT being violently beaten by police quickly spread on social media, accompanied by tweets and posts from the party's chief from his home in Canada under the hashtag #StateTerrorism.
It is unclear who started the violence. In the wee morning hours of June 17, 2014, police attempted to remove security barriers placed outside PAT chief Tahirul Qadri’s home and the head office of a religious organization he also happens to head in a residential area of Lahore known as Model Town. Police say local residents had been complaining about the blocs disrupted their movement. The party claims it has a court order allowing them to have the barriers.
#StateTerrorism
Mining for all three hashtags stopped at 9:30 p.m. Pakistani time on June 18, 2014.
As soon as police arrived at the head office, the official English-language account of the party's leader, which has just under 95,000 followers, began tweeting with the hashtag #StateTerrorism condemning the police and the ruling Sharif family. When police began to bulldoze the barriers, the rhetoric continued, including calls for an uprising as he has done many times before in recent years.
This is our first test, we will not bow our heads to them its only a matter of days we will bring the revolution. #StateTerrorism
— Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri (@TahirulQadri) June 16, 2014
In tweets that seemed to prophesize the unusual violence, he warned that he would not be responsible if any fighting broke out. His account published variations of the veiled threat before and after the clashes.
I believe in peace, but if they shed blood , the public will not be in my control. #StateTerrorism #Pakistan
— Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri (@TahirulQadri) June 17, 2014
His Urdu-language account, @TahirulQadriUR, which has 23,500 followers, would go on to send 152 tweets using the #StateTerrorism hashtag between June 17 and 18.
In the same time period, a total of 9,362 #StateTerrorism tweets were published on Twitter. The tweets had a total of 82,389 combined retweets.
The Twitter handles that used the hashtag #StateTerrorism with the most retweets.
At least 200 tweets were sent at 12 a.m. on June 17, before the violence in Lahore, with the hashtag peaking at 10 a.m., around the time the clashes broke out, with over 1,000 tweets.
Frequency of #StateTerrorism tweets
Some of Qadri's tweets were retweeted hundreds of times, like this one:
The Sharif family has always used the police as their personal slaves and gangsters. #StateTerrorism #Pakistan
— Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri (@TahirulQadri) June 17, 2014
The Twitter handles that used the hashtag #StateTerrorism the most by number of tweets.
Other accounts simply tweeted the hashtag #StateTerrorism with nothing else. This appears in 12 tweets such as those from @Arslan__Sherazi, @auoazain and @Hassan23Zohaib.
#StateTerrorism
— Arslan Sherazi (@Arslan__Sherazi) June 17, 2014
The text “Situation is very tensed on ground,they r doing heavy shelling”Several workers seriously injured. #StateTerrorism #Pakistan” was tweeted 11 times from accounts such as @abdullahabid786, @abdulmajeedhnd, @abidmughal786, @kkminhajian & @majidhnd.
Situation is very tensed on ground,they r doing heavy shelling” Several workers seriously injured. #StateTerrorism #Pakistan
— Abdullah Abid (@abdullahabid786) June 17, 2014
#TalibanSharif
The #TalibanSharif hashtag trying to vilify the ruling government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, even though the government is currently engaged in a war with the Taliban in the north, began appearing on Twitter in the morning of June 17, 2014. It was included in up to 1,247 tweets, and these tweets had a total of 2,866 combined retweets.
The hashtag was propelled by a massive network of fake accounts. The text “#Shahbazshareef is the culprit behind killing of #minhaj ul #Quran members.#Nawaz #shareef & his brother r #agents of #Dajjal#TalibanSharif“ was tweeted by 98 different Twitter accounts.
The Twitter handles that used the hashtag #TalibanSharif the most by number of tweets.
Most of these handles were the same except for the last few characters or numbers.
Out of the 98 Twitter accounts mentioned above, 68 had “gohar” in the handle and 48 were “AyeshaGohar” with the last few characters or numbers changed.
The AyeshaGohar accounts included Ayeshagohar7, Ayeshagohar11, AyeshaGohar12, AyeshaGohar13, AyeshaGohar24, AyeshaGohar66, AyeshaGohar124, AyeshaGohar150, AyeshaGohar410, AyeshaGohar461 and others.
#Shahbazshareef is the culprit behind killing of #minhaj ul #Quran members.#Nawaz #shareef & his brother r #agents of #Dajjal #TalibanSharif
— Ayesha Gohar (@ayeshagohar11) June 18, 2014
There were other multiple accounts as well, such as AbidGohar (@AbidGohar1, @AbidGohar3 and @Abidgohar34), nusratgohar (@NusratGohar1, NusratGohar8), and YasmeenGohar (yasmeengohar7 and yasmeengohar9).
The tweets peaked about 11 a.m. around the time of the violence and spiked two more times afterward.
Frequency of #TalibanSharif tweets
The following had the most retweets for the #TalibanSharif accounts. They happened to belong to Twitter accounts of rival political party workers PTI:
#Irony – An INJURED protester being carried off by Rescue 1122 & the policeman still beating him #TalibanSharif pic.twitter.com/h30Jhfs3WT
— Awab Alvi (@DrAwab) June 17, 2014
Strongly condemn the cowardly act by #TalibanSharif govt against the peaceful protestors of Qadir sahib.Shows the mindset of those ruling us
— Ali Zaidi Inqalabi (@AliHZaidiPTI) June 17, 2014
#MANvsWILD 3 policemen suspended when cat ate a peacock in #TalibanSharif Farms 8 ppl killed in Lahore & we're still wondering #WHODUNNIT?
— Awab Alvi (@DrAwab) June 17, 2014
Gullu Butt was a man identified damaging cars during the violence. He was detained, and on his way to his first court appearance was attacked by a mob outside the court. He was later given a brief sentence.
Tweets linking him to the ruling PML-N popped up soon after he was seen smashing vehicles. Mainstream media have also labeled him a PML-N worker and a goon used by dirty cops.
The #GulluButt hashtag saw a total of 1,149 tweets and 1,234 combined retweets.
The Twitter handles that used the hashtag #GulluButt the most by number of tweets.
A politician from Karachi city, where there is a history of political violence, tweeted:
Save me from #GulluBUTT pic.twitter.com/7p77bXGvl0
— HaiderAbbasRizvi N.I (@HaiderRizviMQM) June 18, 2014
This Twitter user quotes a popular TV pundit saying Gullu Butt was hired by the government to take out Tahirul Qadri's son:
Dr Shahid Masood exposed a possible plot of PMLN – #GulluButt got task to kill son of TUQ @ShkhRasheed @MAnwarMQM pic.twitter.com/d4edThsEfu
— Syed Saim A. Rizvi (@saim_riz) June 17, 2014
Immediately after the violence, the Punjab government filed official charges against 3,000 workers of Qadri's party. In turn, Qadri's people have formally filed charges against the Punjab government. Opposition parties are united in their condemnation of the ruling government's handling of the situation.
The prime minister's brother and Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has vowed to resign if he is found responsible for the violence.

author: Shaheryar Popalzai


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Reasons to Cheer for the Ivory Coast in the World Cup · Global Voices
Gabriela García Calderón Orbe

Ivory Coast's national team during the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. Image from Flickr user Merah Chhaya. CC BY 2.0.
On the website LaMula.pe, Juan Carlos Urtecho explains his reasons for supporting the Ivory Coast in the World Cup match with Colombia on Thursday, June 19:
Desde que les ganaron a Japón en su debut, los marfileños se han vuelto mis preferidos en este mundial. […] Uno escoge a sus engreídos de la manera más simple. Costa de Marfil, ubicado en la costa occidental de África, con un PBI de 19 mil millones de euros y un per cápita de 967 euros es el tercer país más pobre de los que están en el mundial después de Honduras y Bosnia. La economía de Japón (PBI de 5 billones de euros y 30 mil per cápita) es la segunda detrás de Estados Unidos. Costa de Marfil es un país que intenta recuperarse de una sangrienta guerra civil que dejó a decenas de miles de muertos y cientos de miles de desplazados entre el 2002 y el 2007. Japón, es… bueno, Japón.
From the moment they defeated Japan in their debut, the Ivorians became my favorite team in this World Cup. […] You choose the spoiled ones via the simplest way. Ivory Coast, located in West Africa, with a GDP of 19 million euros and a per capita of 967 euros is the third poorest country that takes part in the World Cup, after Honduras and Bosnia. Japan's economy (GDP 5 billion euros and 30 million per capita) is the second after the United States. Ivory Coast is a country struggling to recover after a bloody civil war that resulted in ten of thousands dead and hundreds of thousands displaced between 2002 and 2007. Japan, is… well, it's Japan.


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Tajik Government Silent on “Disappeared” Global Voices Contributor · Global Voices
Chris Rickleton

Alex Sodiqov / Twitter
This post was originally published on Eurasianet.org and is republished with permission.
Tajik authorities have allegedly paraded University of Toronto researcher Alexander Sodiqov, who disappeared three days ago, on television, in an apparent attempt to discredit him and an opposition politician. Friends and colleagues are growing increasingly concerned that Tajikistan’s heavy-handed authorities may be trying to make an example out of Sodiqov to discourage others from examining tensions between Tajikistan’s authoritarian government and minorities in the restive eastern province of Badakhshan.
Sodiqov, a 31-year-old Tajik national who lives in Canada, disappeared in Khorog on June 16 while carrying out academic fieldwork on civil society and conflict resolution in Central Asia. Tajikistan’s unaccountable and US-backed secret police service, the GKNB, initially confirmed it had detained Sodiqov and accused him of carrying out “subversion and espionage”—a charge it will be difficult for them to retract. The GKNB has since refused to discuss Sodiqov's whereabouts.
Citing an anonymous Khorog resident, Tajikistan’s independent Asia-Plus news agency reported [ru] on June 18 that Sodiqov appeared twice on local state television, once the previous evening and once early on June 19. The resident told Asia-Plus that Sodiqov’s speech appeared to have been edited to discredit the opposition and a religious leader.
“He was pale, confused and probably they forced him to say something. He spoke in Russian. He spoke about research work that he was carrying out [on conflict] in Khorog. According to [Sodiqov] he met with [local opposition leader] Alim Sherzamonov and [Sherzamonov] told him that if in 2012 the people of [the eastern province of Badakhshan] had no faith in law enforcement, now they had no faith in the government and the Aga Khan Foundation or the Aga Khan himself. We doubt that Sherzamonov could say that and he himself denies it,” the source said.
If the resident’s comments are true, it appears Sodiqov is being used to discredit Sherzamonov, the opposition Social Democratic Party of Tajikistan’s regional representative in Badakhshan. Sherzamonov, with whom Sodiqov was allegedly speaking on the topic of community conflict at the time of his arrest, has openly admitted to participating in mass protests in Khorog on May 22-23, and claimed police wanted to arrest him at the same time they arrested Sodiqov, but were unable due to the intervention of his supporters. (The broadcast is unlikely to affect the status of the Aga Khan in Badakhshan, revered by many of the region’s native Pamiris as a benefactor and coreligionist whose development programs have plugged the holes left by the state.)
Sodiqov’s research partner John Heathershaw, of the University of Exeter, said the “heavily edited video” is “worrying.”
“This is Alexander’s first public appearance in 72 hours. It is important that the government of Tajikistan provides him with access to a lawyer and informs his family about his whereabouts. I reiterate that Alexander was doing purely academic work, as demonstrated by documents about the project which he was carrying on his person at the time of his arrest, and which I have subsequently provided to media organizations in Tajikistan. Alexander is an outstanding young Tajikistani scholar and not any kind of agent of a foreign government,” Heathershaw told EurasiaNet.org by email.
Tajik authorities have yet to confirm the charges against him or provide any update on his situation. The OSCE and Freedom House have both issued statements of concern. Steve Swerdlow, Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch, told EurasiaNet.org that the Tajik authorities have broken international law.
“Under international law, authorities commit an enforced disappearance when they refuse to acknowledge holding someone in custody or conceal the person’s fate or whereabouts, thereby placing them outside the protection of the law and increasing the risk of torture or ill-treatment,” Swerdlow said.
Friends and colleagues have organized at least two petitions demanding Sodiqov’s release. One posted on Avaaz.org, was organized by Sodiqov’s close family and friends while the other, Scholars for Sodiqov, was organized by Edward Schatz, a political science professor at the University of Toronto, where Sodiqov is working on his doctorate.
Tajik authorities are notoriously thin-skinned about anyone prying into their fraught relations with ethnic minorities in Badakhshan, which happens to be a key way station on the drug trafficking route between Afghanistan and Russia. Drugs have been implicated in past outbreaks of violence between authorities and locals, including during several shootouts last month.
Ominously, in a veiled statement that many will see as directed at Sodiqov, GKNB head Saimumin Yatimov said on June 19 that foreign spies are operating in Tajikistan as part of a “big geopolitical-ideological game,” Radio Ozodi quoted him as saying.
“Under the guise of non-governmental organizations, they [the spies] use methods that don't benefit the people of Tajikistan. In Tajikistan there are a few spy services – whose status I will not comment on here – that cooperate with organized criminals and spend big sums of money. They prepare them for the fight against our security, undermining the safety of our people,” Yatimov said.
The US government has provided millions of dollars of training for Yatimov’s GKNB over the years. The US Embassy in Dushanbe has said nothing publicly about Sodiqov’s disappearance.
David Trilling contributed reporting.


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Cloudflare CEO Updates DDoS Attacks on Civic Referendum in Hong Kong · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

The civic referendum on the election mechanism of the Chief Executive of Hong Kong has begun around noon time today on 20 of June. The voting system has been under massive DDoS attacks since June 14 and now it relies on Cloudflare to defend the platform. Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince updated the situation in Twitter, the attack scale is up to 300Gb per second.
Battling 300Gbps+ attack right now. Knew it was coming so well prepared. Helluva story someday. pic.twitter.com/YJW9u5TBoL
— Matthew Prince (@eastdakota) June 20, 2014
Were thinking of opening @CloudFlare's Asian office in Singapore. After all the love tonight, thinking maybe Hong Kong instead.
— Matthew Prince (@eastdakota) June 20, 2014


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The Darker, More Violent World Cup Kick-Off in São Paulo That You Didn’t See · Global Voices
Raphael Tsavkko Garcia

Upper left: Use pepper spray against an immobilized man. Upper right: Injure foreign journalists with shrapnel bombs. Down left: If the military police is not afraid to act when the whole world is watching. Down right: Imagine what it will be like when nobody is watching. Image by Pirikart, free to use.
Hours before music filled Arena Corinthians during the colorful 2014 World Cup opening ceremony in São Paulo, a starkly different scene was playing out on the city's streets.
As protesters were preparing to rally on June 12, 2014, against the large amount of public money spent on the sporting event instead of on services like health and education, Brazil's military police launched an aggressive crackdown on the group. Amidst the rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades, 37 people were injured, including several journalists, and 47 people arrested.
Demonstrators tried to take refuge where they could, including in the Union of Subway Workers that at the time was also preparing to protest for fairer pay. Some sought help from the press covering the situation, according to the Collective Advogados Ativistas (Activist Lawyers Collective):
Jornalistas acabaram por ver-se tão acuados quanto os demais atores da manifestação, na medida em que estes os buscavam como um possível “porto seguro”, independentemente do tipo ou nacionalidade dos profissionais envolvidos.
Journalists ended up seeing themselves cornered as the other people in the protest, to the extent that protesters sought them as a potential “safe haven”, regardless of the type or nationality of the professionals involved.
CNN Brazil bureau chief Shasta Darlington and producer Barbara Arvanitidis were slightly injured when they were hit by shrapnel from a bomb thrown into the crowd by military police. At the same protest, Argentinian journalist Rodrigo Abd was hit by shrapnel in the leg. A French journalist was hit by a rubber bullet in the leg and a Brazilian cameraman from the SBT network was hit by shrapnel in the head.
Catalan journalist Sergi Altadill's eardrum was perforated after a tear gas bomb thrown by police burst beside him; he was later hospitalized as a result.
Activist Daniele Lima described the scene on Facebook:
A Tropa de Choque chegou também, batendo seus cassetetes nos escudos e depois na gente de novo. Confusão, fecharam a estação, chamaram a cavalaria, fecharam as ruas em volta.
The Shock Troops also arrived, beating their batons on their shields and then at us again. Confusion, they closed the [subway] station, called the cavalry, closed the streets around.
The case of protester Rafael Marques Lusvarghi, 29, drew particular attention. After the English teacher was struck in the chest by rubber bullets, police held him down while an officer sprayed pepper spray in his face.
Police hold protester Rafael Marques Lusvarghi while he is sprayed with pepper spray in the face during protests in São Paulo before the opening of the World Cup.
Anonymous Rio offered details on Facebook:
[Ele] estava parado sozinho em frente à tropa ao lado do metrô Carrão quando levou dois tiros de borracha no peito. Em seguida, ele foi imobilizado pelo próprio comandante da operação e ao menos mais cinco PMs. Mesmo algemado e imobilizado, Lusvarghi foi atingido por um jato de spray de pimenta nos olhos.
Por causa da repercussão das imagens, ele perdeu nesta sexta seus dois empregos – em uma escola e em uma multinacional do setor de tecnologia.
[He] was standing alone in front of the troops off the subway Carrão when he was shot twice in the chest with rubber bullets. Then he was immobilized by the operation commander himself and by at least five more military police officers. Handcuffed and immobilized Lusvarghi was hit by a blast of pepper spray in the eyes.
Because of the impact of the images, he lost his two jobs on Friday – at a school and a multinational in the technology sector.
In Rio de Janeiro, military police also cracked down on World Cup protests. In the confusion, Pedro Guilherme Freire, a professor, was dragged away and detained by military police. Protesters recorded the moment that he was detained.
Pedro Freire is dragged and detained by Brazil's military police in Rio de Janeiro during World Cup protests. Photo of Daniel Fonsêca, used with permission.
Videos on Facebook show other incidents during protests. Activist Rafael Rezende posted a video showing a military police officer grabbing a protester from behind, and activist Paula Kossatz published a video in which police chase and beat protesters with batons during a night demonstration on the Rio de Janeiro shore.
The website Revolution News also released a video showing journalists from activist media group Mariachi Collective being arrested in Rio de Janeiro:
In the city of Belo Horizonte in Minas Gerais state, Reuters Agency photographer Samuel Costa was wounded in the head during protests. A total of 18 people were arrested in the demonstrations.
A member of the Collective Media Ninja, Karinny de Magalhães, was arrested and accused of being part of a group that overturned a car during protests there, despite her live broadcast proving she was elsewhere at the time.
The collective said on its website that she “was beaten by five police officers until she lost consciousness” at a military barracks before being transferred to a civil police station. She was released the next day.
Anger over the country's handling of the World Cup remains. More protests across the country are expected throughout the games under banners such as “Não Vai Ter Copa” (There Won't Be World Cup) and “Sem Direitos Não Vai Ter Copa” (Without Rights, There Won't Be World Cup).

author: Raphael Tsavkko Garcia


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Why Some Cameroonians Protested the Visit of This Cote d’Ivoire ‘Warlord’ · Global Voices
Dibussi Tande

The President of Cote d’Ivoire National Assembly Guillaume Soro. Photo released under Creative Commons by Wikipedia user Africa1979.
Certain circles in Cameroon have still not moved past the election crisis – the 2010 crisis thousands of miles away in Cote d’Ivoire, that is, which ended in the ouster in April 2011 of the country's President Laurent Gbagbo.
Guillaume Kigbafori Soro, the president of Cote d’Ivoire National Assembly, received a less than warm welcome during a controversial official visit to Cameroon marked by unprecedented protest against his presence there. Soro is a long-time opponent of Gbagbo, who is currently being detained at International Criminal Court at The Hague for crimes against humanity. He sided with current French-backed President Allasane Ouattara in those contested elections four years ago.
Fighting between forces loyal to Gbagbo and forces loyal to Ouattara eventually broke out, leading to months of civil war until French and United Nations troops intervened and helped Ouattara's forces capture Gbagbo in April 2011. A few thousand people were killed and human rights violations committed on both sides.
Gbagbo has a huge following within Pan-Africanist and leftist circles in Cameroon, and pro-Gbabgo hardliners in Cameroon consider Ouattara a usurper and French puppet. Cameroonians were actively involved in the Ivorian crisis, with many political parties in the country literally taking up the cause for Gbagbo, whom they claimed had won the disputed vote and therefore was the legitimate leader.
These hardliners were resolutely against Soro's visit to Cameroon. They accused him a being a warlord – a reference to the 2010-2011 conflict as well as his leadership of a rebellion in the north of Cote d’Ivoire in 2002.
Leading the anti-Soro charge was Cameroon’s leading opposition party, the Social Democratic Front (SDF), which has longstanding ties to Gbagbo’s Front Populaire Ivoirien (FPI). In a statement issued on the eve of Soro’s arrival in Cameroon, the SDF described Soro as:
Un chef de guerre qui a plongé la Côte d’Ivoire dans la guerre civile, causant la mort des milliers de personnes.
A warlord who plunged Ivory Coast into civil war, causing the deaths of thousands of people.
The SDF also called on its members of parliament and those from other political parties to boycott Soro’s speech at the country's National Assembly.
In another statement, the SDF Chairman, John Fru Ndi, insisted that he had nothing to learn from Soro, whom he described as someone who did not respect the verdict of the ballot box. Joseph Banadzem, the president of the SDF parliamentary group, went a step further, labeling Soro a rebel who was persona non grata in Cameroon.
True to their word, the 18 SDF members of parliament walked out of the National Assembly when Soro addressed the legislative body on June 11, 2014.
Soro and critics push back
Although the SDF stance was hailed in pro-Gbagbo circles both in Cameroon and Cote d’Ivoire, there were many observers who criticized the SDF’s actions. Particularly significant was a statement from Nfor Susungi, a former adviser to the SDF chairman and author of the SDF’s economic platform for the 1997 parliamentary and presidential elections. In it, he said:
To characterize Soro Guillaume as a “Chief Rebel” is a mistake. He is now the President of the National Assembly and an integral part of constituted authority in the Republic of Cote d’Ivoire. This does not call on anyone to like him or to love him. It calls on everyone to acknowledge and to respect the office because Cote d’Ivoire is a nation that is above Soro Guillaume, Alassane Ouattara, Konan Bédié and Laurent Gbagbo or any other person who might, at one time or another, be called upon by political circumstances to occupy any of the constitutional offices of the land… the SDF decision has put them in a corner and they have emerged gaining nothing out of their approach in handling this event. In fact they are the big losers.
Soro took it upon himself to personally address his detractors, beginning with his speech at the national assembly. “Yes, I am a rebel just like Paul-Martin Samba and Edandé Mbita who rebelled against German colonialism here in Cameroon!,” he said. “I am a rebel against any western, Asian, American or African policy which normalizes injustice, discrimination, and the disregard and daily exploitation of man by man.”
An active social media user, Soro tweeted a picture of a cross section of the audience during his speech:
Regardez bien au-dessus. Un record m'a dit un diplomate habitué des lieux. La fronde des députés SDF n'ya rien changé pic.twitter.com/YLlYZMWs4B
— Guillaume K. Soro (@SOROKGUILLAUME) June 13, 2014
Take a good look [at the audience]. A diplomat familiar with the national assembly told me this was a record. The SDF’s revolt did not change a thing.
Soro used his Facebook page for an even more direct attack:
[…] Après de vaines tentatives d'intimidations, ils ont essayé de négocier mon silence. Allant jusqu'à plaider que je renonce à lire mon discours. Dommage je ne mange pas de ce pain là. Seule solution : fuir la salle!
Eh oui, fuir leur propre hémicycle! Là où ils avaient juré m'interdire l'accès! Et j'ai parlé dans l'hémicycle sans changer un iota de mon discours.
[…] After useless attempts at intimidation, they tried to negotiate my silence. Going as far as asking me not to read my speech. But I didn't want any part it. Their only option? To flee the hall!
Yes, to run away from their assembly room! Where they had sworn to deny me access! And I spoke in the assembly room without changing a single word in my speech.
A high-profile meeting
A couple of days later, Cameroonian President Paul Biya granted Soro an audience after newspaper reports alleged that the president had refused to meet with him. Soro did not let go this opportunity to take on his detractors which he did in a series of mocking tweets.
Regardez bien cette photo! Bien plus intime! Les jaloux vont maigrir pic.twitter.com/V8lfpHIlMk
— Guillaume K. Soro (@SOROKGUILLAUME) June 13, 2014
Take a good look at this photo. Much more intimate! The jealous will be disheartened.
This dejected reaction of an anonymous commentator on news website Cameroon-Info.net fittingly captured the general mood of those who were against Soro’s visit to Cameroon:
Je ressent dans ma profondeur une tristesse en réalisant que Paul Biya a accorder une audience à ce SORO que nous connaissons comme bras de la France dans sa politique de domination de l'Afrique.
I am deeply saddened by the audience that Paul Biya granted to this SORO fellow whom we know to be a tool of French domination in Africa.
If the purpose of Soro’s visit was to force Cameroonian authorities to publicly take sides in the Ivorian conflict, then it was certainly a resounding success, as a newsducamer analysis explains:
Le président de l’Assemblée nationale ivoirienne a mené une opération séduction au Cameroun. Et les autorités locales lui ont donné la tribune qui lui manquait depuis la chute de Laurent Gbagbo en avril 2011. Reçu par le président de la République, par le président du Sénat et par le président de l’Assemblée nationale, l’ancien premier ministre ivoirien peut justifier l’impression qu’il a d’une visite réussie.
The President of the Ivorian National Assembly was on a charm offensive in Cameroon. And Cameroonian authorities gave him the platform which he lacked since the fall of Laurent Gbagbo in April 2011. The former Ivorian Prime Minister can claim that he had a successful visit to Cameroon after being received by the Head of State, the President of the Senate and the President of the National Assembly.

author: Dibussi Tande