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Skeptical Crimean Blogger Now Writes “Only About Politics”  · Global Voices
Daniel Alan Kennedy

Georgiy Sedelnikov. Image from strajj.livejournal.com.
This article is part of an extensive RuNet Echo study of Russian-language blogosphere in Eastern Ukraine. Explore the complete interview series on the Eastern Ukraine Unfiltered page.
This Crimean Livejournal user used to be an everyman blogger, but now he fills his blog almost exclusively with opinions on politics, media and conflict.
Georgiy Sedelnikov, a 30-year-old native of Sevastopol, wasn't always a particularly politically-oriented blogger. Though personally interested in politics, Sedelnikov, who runs a LiveJournal page under the name Strajj, primarily posted and commented on nature photography, popular culture, amusing stories from around the internet, and events in his hometown. Only occasionally were his updates punctuated with political commentary on events in Russia, Ukraine and the world.
That began to change in December 2013, as the Euromaidan protests started gaining strength. Since then, Sedelnikov's blog has become almost exclusively concerned with politics and conflict. Sedelnikov is a prolific blogger, and his page is updated numerous times a day.
Sedelnikov outlined his views sharply on the Euromaidan protests from the very beginning, in a 24 November blog post entitled “F*ck this E€uromaidan.”
Мне жалко людей которые реально верят,что Европа поможет.Люди выж поймите Европа это организм который питается странами такими как Украина.И ещё хочу сказать, как вы можете слушать Кличко и верить ему который налоги платит в Германии
I feel sorry for people who really believe Europe will help. People, you must understand that Europe is an organism that feeds on countries like Ukraine. I also want to say, how can you listen to [boxer-turned-politician Vitali] Klitschko and believe him when he pays his taxes in Germany.
The events that followed did nothing to allay Sedelnikov's suspicions of the Maidan, he explained.
Раньше я не писал о политике так много,но после киевских событий,я стал писать только о политике.Главное,что послужило писать о политике это одностороннее враньё со стороны Киева,и я вещаю другую точку зрения,можно сказать я один из тех кто хочет прорвать информационную блокаду.
Before I didn't write about politics so much, but after the events in Kiev, I started writing only about politics. The main thing that got me writing on politics was the one-sided lying coming from Kiev. I present a different point of view. One could say I'm one of those breaking the information blockade.
Asked about his political opinions, Sedelnikov states, “My views are very simple, I'm for justice and against fascism.” A cursory read of his blog indicates he is supportive of an assertive Russian foreign policy and deeply suspicious of both the West and Russian liberals. Unsurprisingly, he is extremely supportive of his native Crimea's “reunion” with the Russian Federation and of the separatist fighters in Luhansk and Donetsk struggling against the “junta.” Sedelnikov doesn't see any possibility of reconciliation at this point. “There's been too many deaths on both sides.”
Sedelnikov, like many bloggers in Crimea, is skeptical of mainstream media.
Весь кризис и конфликт на Украине показал полный не профессионализм всех украинских СМИ ибо они не показывают новости,а они вещают сплошную пропаганду и враньё.Враньё украинских СМИ я ощутил на себе ещё когда был кризис и сопротивление в Крыму.
The whole crisis and conflict in Ukraine shows the full unprofessionalism of all Ukrainian media as what they present is not news, but complete propaganda and lies. I experienced these Ukrainian media lies for myself back when there was the crisis and resistance in Crimea.
Rather than relying on the media, Sedelnikov would advise people who “want to find objective news to read social media” and notes that he himself prefers to rely on sources among ordinary people for the information he uses. Never-the-less he notes that “honestly, at the moment, without any bias, the Russian media are the most objective and democratic.”
Sedelnikov's views have made him a number of enemies, including, he claims, members of the Ukrainian security services, who had monitored him in the past. “I've taken part in many demonstrations and the participants were always watched by the SBU (Sluzhba Bezpeky Ukrainy, Ukraine's state security service).” Sedelnikov claims that he was threatened with legal action for supporting separatism and that he has received numerous anonymous threats against himself and his family both by email and in the comments of his LiveJournal page.
Ещё незадолго до сопротивления в Крыму я попал в расстрелянный список блогеров несогласных с майданом этот список мне присылали,но может он и не был столь серьёзным,но слава богу это я не проверил.
Shortly before Crimea fought back [against Kiev] I ended up on a death list of bloggers who disagreed with the Maidan and this list was sent to me. Maybe it wasn't really that serious but thank god I never got to find out.
Sedelnikov is a good example of the radicalising effect the conflict in Ukraine has had on a number of bloggers, such as Colonel Cassad. Whereas previously Sedelnikov was concerned primarily with distributing interesting or amusing content, with only occasional forays into the world of politics, now his blog is almost entirely devoted covering the conflict in Eastern Ukraine and the Ukraine-Russia tensions.

author: Daniel Alan Kennedy


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A Former Parliament Member Says His Plan Will Heal Egypt’s Political Wounds, But Critics Aren’t So Sure · Global Voices
Global Voices MENA

Supporters of Egypt's ousted President Mohammed Morsi pray outside Rabaah al-Adawiya mosque, where protesters installed a camp and held daily rallies at Nasr City in Cairo, on 20 July, 2013. A brutal crackdown on the sit-in the following month left hundreds dead. Photo by Volpi Francesca. Copyright Demotix.
Days after being released from prison, former member of parliament and Muslim Brotherhood supporter Muhammed ElOmda announced an initiative to resolve the current political conflict in Egypt.
ElOmda announced a seven-point initiative to help resolve the year-long political crisis, which escalated when the country's first democratically elected president, Muhammed Morsi, was ousted from office by the current president and former minister of defense Abdelfattah El Sisi.
ElOmda's plan called on the government to legalize the Muslim Brotherhood and end the ban on its activities as well as the Brotherhood and its supporters to accept Sisi’s term as a transitional period. It also includes changes to the controversial parliamentary elections law, a cancellation of or changes to the controversial protest law, and justice for those killed since the beginning of the revolution in 2011.
Islamist political movement Muslim Brotherhood had gained political victories in both parliamentary and presidential elections following the fall of former President Hosni Mubarak during the January 25th revolution in 2011. The Brotherhood was banned and labeled a terrorist organization by the current system following Morsi's ousting. Despite accusations of the contrary, the Brotherhood denies having taken any part in any acts of violence or terrorism.
Two laws ratified during interim President Adly Mansour's term have caused controversy even among political groups that supported the unseating of Morsi: the protest law and the parliamentary elections law. Among the controversial points of the protest law was an article that requires protest organizers to inform the police about:
1. The place of the public meeting or route of the march or protest.
2. The start and end time of the public meeting, march or protest.
3. The subject of the public meeting or march or protest, its aim and the demands and slogans adopted by the participants in them.
4. The names of the individuals or organising organisation of the public meeting or march or protest, their description, place of residence and communication information.
It also requires that the organizers give the police a notice at least three days before the protest, and places a fine between 10,000 to 30,000 Egyptian pounds (about 1,400 to 4,200 US dollars).
Critics of the current law that organizes and regulates the parliamentary elections and the political structure of the parliament claim that it “will recreate the same political environment which allowed Hosni Mubarak’s now-dissolved National Democratic Party to manipulate all political power.”
ElOmda was arrested last year along with other supporters of deposed President Morsi following the violent dispersal of the Rabaa sit-in by security forces that left hundreds dead. He was released a few weeks ago.
His proposal has been met with much criticism and skepticism from both sides of the current conflict.
Former parliamentarian and Muslim Brotherhood opponent Mohamed Abu Hamed, who supports the current regime, wrote the following to his followers on Twitter:
ظهور محمد العمدة في الإعلام و ما يطرحه يمثل إهانة للشعب و دماء الشهداء و تشجيع للإرهاب و الخيانة و يجب وقف هذه التمثيلية المهينة فوراً
— Mohamed Abu Hamed (@MohamedAbuHamed) August 31, 2014
Muhammed ElOmda’s appearance in the media and what he proposes symbolizes an insult to the people and the blood of the martyrs and promotes terrorism and treason and this demeaning show must be stopped immediately.
Mazhar Shaheen, a Muslim preacher and an outspoken opponent of the Brotherhood, in a YouTube video he shared on his Twitter page, said:
بالفيديو.. مظهر شاهين: «لا تصالح مع الإخوان ومبادرة العمدة فى الزبالة» http://t.co/3IfvhpfDQM
— الشيخ مظهر شاهين (@mazhar_shahin) August 29, 2014
I believe that the natural place for these initiatives is the trash can.
Opponents of the current regime have also rejected the initiative.
Egyptian lawyer Montaser Elayat, known for his legal defense of Islamist groups in Egypt and other countries in various court cases, responded to ElOmda’s initiative by writing a press release in which he congratulated ElOmda on his release from prison and then said:
أن المبادرات الاعلامية تمثل دخان في الهواء لا تعبر عن طرف من الأطراف المتصارعة داخل معسكرين رئيسيين بل وحيدين نظام جبري ومعارضوه
The ‘public-consumption’ initiatives represent smoke in the air and do not represent one of the conflicting parties within two main isolated camps: a tyrannical regime and its opposition.
Writer, historian, and political activist Mohamed Elgawady tweeted:
مبادرة العمدة في كلمة واحدة : عبث/ في كلمتين: تضييع وقت/ ف٣كلمات: كتابة علي الهواء/ ف٤كلمات: حبل مفتول خانق لصاحبه ٥ كلمات:صدوسد ورد وشد ومد
— د . محمد الجوادي (@MohamedElgawady) August 31, 2014
ElOmda’s initiative in one word: Nonsense. In two words: A waste of time. In three words: Writing in the wind.
In four words: A twisted rope that chokes its owner
A former parliamentarian and adviser to the former minster of Religious Endowments, Dr. Mohamed AsSagheer, focused on the seemingly contradictory nature of the initiative:
مبادرة محمد العمدة البند اﻷول بقاء السيسي رئيسا أربع سنوات البند اﻷخير إعدام من قتل وحرق المتظاهرين وهو السيسي كما ذكرت منظمات حقوقية دولية!
— د.محمد الصغير (@drassagheer) August 31, 2014
Muhammed ElOmda’s initiative
The first article: El Sisi remains president for four years
The last article: Execution of those who killed and burned the protesters, and that is El Sisi, as human rights organizations have mentioned!
Journalist and Editor-in-Chief of the Arab-American women’s Nonelneswa Magazine Ayat Oraby, who has also opposed the current system, wrote on her Facebook page:
It is rejected and not even open to discussion!
She then went on to say:
“I personally excuse him and I will not attack him, for no one knows the magnitude of the pressure that he faced.”
So far neither the Muslim Brotherhood nor the Anti-Coup Alliance, a coalition of Islamist organizations against the ouster of Morsi, has issued an official statement in response to the initiative. No government officials have made any remarks regarding the matter either. ElOmda has said that he will present his initiative to the government and presidency as well as the opposition and Islamist parties.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Global Voices MENA


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Activists and Bloggers Worldwide Ponder Lessons Learned From the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge  · Global Voices
Lova Rakotomalala

Photomontage of reactions to the Ice Bucket Challenge
The Ice Bucket Challenge as a viral meme is now a few months old and the results are in: quite a few people have taken the challenge (at least 1.2 million participants to be exact), and people around the world have tried to emulate its popularity for other causes.
The campaign, which began in early summer, took off with a US audience television anchor Matt Lauer performed the challenge live on his NBC television show on July 15. Soon after, well-known figures from ex-President George W. Bush to movie star Benedict Cumberbath also participated in the challenge, anchoring the viral phenomenon and its subsequent inevitable backlash.
While the campaign raised an estimated $41.8 million in donations from July 29 until August 21 from more than 739,000 new donors, critics have argued that the campaign was more focused on fun and self-congratulating deeds rather than donating money to charity.
A conversation between Global Voices contributors about reactions to the Ice Bucket Challenge revealed conflicted feelings about the meme. Global Voices’ South Asia Editor Rezwan from Bangladesh opined:
the topic has become a cliche and many are kind of annoyed when people share these stuffs.
Anna Schetnikova, a Global Voices Russian contributor, asserted that skepticism about the campaign's impact is very strong in the Russian-speaking web:
many people send these video just for fun, and they don't really know what this campaign means.
In Kenya, Twitter user Njambi Magugu posted a cartoon highlighting the contrast in priorities in different regions of the world:
“@Belalmd12: Thousands die from ALS, but dehydration kills millions every year. Prioritize! pic.twitter.com/xDOirT5O7w” @NjeriThorne
— Njambi Magugu (@Mimmylovesart) August 31, 2014
Others showed support for the campaign, like Global Voices contributor Anushe Noor Faheem from Pakistan:
I hope that people try to learn about the disease. Here in Pakistan [..] many celebrities have taken the challenge.
There is no denying that more people are now more aware of ALS than ever before. This is a positive outcome that was best explained by Anthony Carbajal in California who posted a poignant video showing his participation in the Ice Bucket Challenge. Carbajal learned in January 2014 that he has ALS. His family has a history of cases with ALS: his grandmother died from it, and his mother currently has it. Carbajal had been caring for his mother when he learned that he too was sick. Then the viral campaign took off.
In the following video, he explains what the challenge means to him and other who suffers from ALS:
Here is an excerpt from Carbajal's plea on video:
I hate talking about it, I really hate talking about it. That’s probably why no one talks about it, because it’s so challenging to watch. Nobody wants to see a depressing person who is dying, who has two to five years to live. […] I promise your news feed will go back to cat videos and ‘Let It Go‘ covers, but right now the ALS community has the main spotlight […] You have no idea how every single challenge makes me feel – lifts my spirits, lifts every single ALS patient’s spirits. You are really, truly making a difference and we are so, so, so grateful.
The challenge had made people more aware of ALS and the struggle it presents as seen in Carbajal's story. From that standpoint alone, it is difficult to question the motives of people willing to participate in the challenge, however self-promoting it may appear.
There is also no denying that other diseases are overall deadlier than ALS.  For activists who would like to emulate the popularity of the challenge for their own cause, there are certain lessons that can be learned from the viral phenomenon.
1) Don't get hurt
Here is a compilation of Ice Bucket Challenge gone wrong:
It should go without saying, but if you are going to do the challenge, please take the necessary precautions beforehand or you might get hurt.
2) Don't just imitate
Beth Kanter, a social media expert for non-profits, explains that given the success of the campaign, other charity organisations are tempted to ride the wave by doing what she calls “charity jacking“:
Scores of nonprofit fundraising staffers report being called on to replicate the challenge. […] Charity Jacking is similar to brand jacking and  news jacking, defined by David Meerman Scott as the process by which you inject your ideas or angles into breaking news, in real-time, in order to generate media coverage for yourself or your organization.It creates a level playing field—literally anyone can newsjack—but, that new level favors players who are observant, quick to react, and skilled at communicating.
However, Kanter warns in a follow-up post that just imitating the challenge might not work:
Some aspects of the Ice Bucket Challenge can’t be replicated. Most likely, no matter how your nonprofit incorporates some of the best practices, you probably won’t raise $100 million and get hundreds of celebrities to participate on their own. But you can certainly incorporate some of the best practices like social proofing, fun call to action, and embracing free agents to get better results.
3) Simple works
The challenge was focused around a worthy issue, but the concept was also easy to understand. Furthermore, seeing people do something out of their comfort zone spurred others to also engage. Now if one can get the same level of engagement for other causes, the Ice Bucket Challenge can truly become a win-win situation for all activists worldwide.
Thalia Rahme, Rezwan, Anna Schetnikova, Leila Nachawati, Anushe Noor Faheem, Sanjib Chadhury, Laura Vidal have contributed to this article.

author: Lova Rakotomalala


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As Ebola Strikes, a Guinean Blogger Laments the Country’s Lack of Online Community · Global Voices
Abdoulaye Bah

The People's Palace in Conakry, Guinea. CC BY 2.5
Guinea is going through a challenging period lately. The Ebola virus is having an extremely detrimental effect on the population at risk, of course (430 deaths as of August 26) but also on the health care system as a whole. The West African country's health system is not equipped to withstand the Ebola assault on top of their other existing needs.
The health system is not the only industry that has lagged behind in terms of development. The tech industry has not shown similar growth in comparison with its neighbors Senegal, Ghana or Côte d'Ivoire, and Guinean bloggers struggle to engage civilians in the kind of national solidarity in time of crisis that Ivorians managed to instigate a few years ago.
Alimou Sow is one of the most popular bloggers in Guinea. Creator of the blog Ma Guinée plurielle, (My Guinea is Plural), he won the awards for the best Francophone Blog organized by Deutsche Welle in 2013. This situation has hit a nerve with Sow, and he wrote a scathing post that questioned the involvement of the Guienan blogosphere in doing its part for the betterment of the nation. Here is an exceprt:
Mais que s'est il passé sur la blogosphère guinéenne ? La Guinée-à t-elle une blogosphère ? Une twittosphere ? Ne sommes nous pas, comme très souvent des nombrilistes spectateurs passifs des convulsions du monde? Quelle est notre part du dividende de la citoyenneté sur le web ? Nous sommes un des rares pays – sinon le seul – de la sous région à n'avoir jamais pu organiser un #BarCamp ou un #BlogCamp. Pendant ce temps chez nos voisins il existe des communautés structurées très dynamiques des net-citoyens qui se mobilisent spontanément à chaque événement important pour apporter une aide désintéressée à leurs concitoyens à travers les outils internet. C'est le cas actuellement en RCI et au Sénégal pour lutter contre l'épidémie d'Ebola que nous leur avons fourguée….
En vérité, nous Guinéens, nous nous sommes laissés avoir par la politique et l'ethnocentrisme en oubliant nos terribles ennemis communs que sont: l'ignorance, le chômage, la pauvreté et les maladies. Nous pouvons toujours continuer à demander de l'aide à Dieu, mais au vu de ce dont IL nous a déjà gratifié (un pays immensément beau et riche, une diversité ethnique et culturelle, etc.) je crains qu'Il ne soit lassé vu son agenda dans les autres contrées du globe: Palestine, Ukraine, Ebola, Irak, Libye, Syrie…
What happened to the Guinean blogosphere? Does Guinea even have a blogosphere to speak of? A Twittersphere maybe? Aren't we just too often the self-centered, passive spectators of the world's convulsions? Do we do our part as members of the citizenship of the interweb? We are one of the few in the sub-region — if not the only one —  that has never been able to organize a #BarCamp or #BlogCamp. Meanwhile, our neighbors can showcase very dynamic structured communities of bloggers who mobilize spontaneously at each major crisis to provide selfless assistance to their fellow citizens through internet technology. This is currently the case in Côte d'Ivoire and in Senegal in order to combat the Ebola virus that Guinea “passed on” to them.
[…] In fact, we Guineans, we let ourselves be fooled by politics and ethnocentrism and we forget that our first formidable common enemies are  ignorance, unemployment, poverty and disease. We can keep on asking God for additional help, but given what HE already has given us (an immensely beautiful and rich country, ethnic and cultural diversity, etc.) I am afraid that God is tired for helping and that God saw on its agenda that other parts of the world also need assistance : Palestine, Ukraine, Ebola, Iraq, Libya, Syria …
University of Conakry at Dusk – Public Domain
A few additional bloggers reacted to the post and added comments to the conversation. Alfa Diallo agreed with the assessment that Guinea has fallen behind and needs to pick itself up right now:
Particulièrement touché par ces vérités. Mais, moi je pense que vous êtes sur la bonne voie. La formation est l'élement qui manque à la chaine. En Guinée, même ceux qui ont des choses à dire ou à montrer ont un serieux handicap: la non maitrise des outils du web. J'ai participé à une seule séance de votre formation à la MDP, mais croyez moi j'ai baucoup appris.
Particularly touched by the truths you exposed. But I think you're on the right track. Training is the element missing in the process. In Guinea, even those who have something to say/teach all have a serious flaw: they do not master web technology. I attended one of your training session and believe me I learned a lot.
Tafsir Balde took Sow's words to heart. He said Guineans must be held accountable, specifically those in the diaspora (Balde is resident of Morocco):
Au fait, moi je trouve que ce retard n'est pas toujours du côté de la Guinée, mais du guinéen en quelque sorte (sauf quelque uns). Au Maroc ici, des jeunes guinéens talentueux y sont, mais pas tellement branchés dans la blogosphère. Je ne connais qu'un seul blogueur guinéen ici (Kba), si non, le reste, ce ne sont que des simples internautes. J'ai représenté la Guinée et l'Afrique en général dans pas mal d'événements web ici au Maroc; ou j'étais le seul participant sub-saharien!…
I find that this lag is not always on Guinean authorities, but also on the Guinean population (except for a few). Here in Morocco, there are talented young Guineans, but they do not get involved with the blogosphere. I know of only one Guinean blogger here (Kba). The rest of us are just ordinary Internet users. I represented Guinea and Africa in general in a few web events here in Morocco and I was the only sub-Saharan participant!
Thierno Diallo thought that some bloggers are capable of advancing tech civic engagement in Guinea, but they must get organized:
On a dressé la liste (non exhaustive) des personnes qui se sont montrées aptes (par leur civisme) à faire partie de cette organisation ; Tu sais autant que les autres blogueurs que nous ne pouvons pas être manipulés comme les jeunes qui soutiennent aveuglément l'un ou l'autre camp en échange de quelques billets de banque, sans se soucier de l'intérêt de la Nation.
We compiled a non-exhaustive list of individuals who have demonstrated with their civic engagement the ability to be part of such a movement; You know as we do that bloggers cannot be manipulated by politicians like the young people can be sometimes. They would blindly support one side or the other in exchange for some banknotes, regardless of the larger interest of the Nation.
This online conversion summarizes in a nutshell the many challenges facing the Guinean blogosphere. They act in isolation in an environment stricken by extreme poverty. In fact, bloggers face many challenges on a daily basis such as provision of basic services. Internet is just one of those services they have limited access to.
Follow our in-depth coverage: The Struggle to #StopEbola in West Africa

author: Abdoulaye Bah


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Blogger Puts a Naturally Formed Face of Buddha in Bhutan on the Map · Global Voices
Rezwan

Blogger Passang Tshering, a high school teacher from Wangdue, Bhutan, wrote in his blog on 31 August, 2014, about an image of Lord Buddha's face formed out of natural rock located on the elephant shaped hill on which the famous Wangdue Dzong is built. He posted photos of the site and wrote:
I don't understand how this place is not recognized as one of the holy Buddhist sites, though some people already knew about it.
Tshering writes in a follow-up post that his post about the face of Buddha has become popular and many are flocking to the site:
It was on Sunday I posted the story and by Monday I started receiving pictures from people who went there to see for themselves. By Wednesday the site was crowded with people, and that evening authorities decided to put fence around it. Today when I went there I could see long queue of people across the river, and many breaking through the fence already. On the other side of the river cars and people are causing traffic jam on the national highway. This is more than the attention one can ever ask for.

author: Rezwan


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Hong Kongers See an Anti-Democratic System. Beijing Officials See Democracy, Chinese-Style  · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Mainland Chinese political cartoonist @remonwangxt proclaimed the decision marks the end of “one country two system” with his latest drawing in Twitter.
China's decision to select the candidates for Hong Kong's next chief executive election via a committee stacked with pro-Beijing members has dashed the city's dreams of democratic reform.
But to Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ideologues, it is democratic reform — Chinese-style.
Some have borrowed former CCP leader Deng Xiaoping's slogan “Let some people get rich first,” in reference to China's pivot toward free-market economic policies, and modified it to be “Let some people get democracy first” to argue for the framework for Hong Kong's universal suffrage of its top leader. The use of the phrase indicates that this political reform could be meant to turn Hong Kong into a testing ground for a non-western “democratic” system that's compatible with the mainland.
A former British colony, Hong Kong enjoys a certain amount of autonomy from China as a special administrative region under the “one country, two systems” principle. Beijing has promised the city that its people could elect the next chief executive in 2017, but the standing committee of China’s National People Representative Conference (NPC) decided earlier this week that candidates must obtain at least 50 percent support from a 1,200-member pro-Beijing nominating committee before being allowed on the ballot.
To pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong, who want the right to choose the candidates, this undermines a direct vote. To mainland officials, the nominating committee, with its “collective will”, protects the single-party regime in China and goes hand in hand with the concept of “freedom of discussion, unity of action” under the Soviet-style “democratic centralism“. Top officials from Beijing have openly condemned the demand for genuine universal suffrage as being an attempt to launch a sort of Colour Revolution and thus representing a national security threat to the country.
Mainland web users discussed the democratic experiment following the NPC's decision, and some said that it poses a threat to the “one country, two systems” principle in Hong Kong, which ensures the city's freedoms. The following joke, one of the more witty responses out there, went viral on social media:
香港人一直在桥上走得好好的，非要把人家拽下河来一块儿摸石头
Hong Kong's people have been walking on a bridge and you have to push them into the river, forcing them to “wade across the stream and feel the way” with you.
The expression “wade across the stream by feeling the way” was used by Deng Xiaoping for promoting the economic reform in the 1980s.
Mainland Chinese political cartoonist @remonwangxt's reaction was more direct. He depicted the NPC's decision as a proclamation of the end of “one country, two systems”:
党国势力所到之处，真普选，真民主是不会有的，有的只是“真·一国一制”。 pic.twitter.com/Ky2N4G8q2Q
— 变态辣椒 (@remonwangxt) August 31, 2014
Wherever the power of a single-party state reaches, there won’t be any genuine universal suffrage and democracy. Now what remains is “genuine one country, one system”.
The Beijing government has boasted about the originality of the NPC’s nominating committee “solution” in the promotion of non-western democracy in Hong Kong. On popular Twitter-like service Sina Weibo, Huey pointed out that the framework is a copycat of Iran's and Russia's model:
官方的香港普选方案，一点都不新鲜。伊朗的宪法监护委员会听说过吧？起的就是“提名委员会”的作用，里面的人都是哈没内衣亲手挑选的，所以稍微亲西方的候选人跟本不可能出现在选票上。俄罗斯的各“自治”共和国的总统是怎么选的知道吗？由普京提名，再由各共和国的议会“确认“。都是别人玩剩下的啦。
The government’s framework for universal suffrage in Hong Kong is not that original. Have you heard about the Guardian Council in Iran? Its function is like the “nominating committee”. The members are appointed by Hassan Rouhani. No pro-western politicians can appear in the vote. Do you know how the presidents of all the “autonomous” republics of Russia are elected? They are all nominated by Putin and “confirmed” by councils of the repbulics. The current decision is just a copycat.
Writer Golden House believed the NPC decision could ruin Hong Kong:
香港终归是香港人的香港。话说你军队也驻了，外交也管了，提名委员会普选怎么了，十分之一委员即可提名又怎么了，为何非要把持提名、以党治港，不让一步？好端端的国内政治，非弄得天怒人怨、骑虎难下，搞成国际事件才肯罢休。谁当选都是中国人，究竟怕什么。小事弄成大事，好事弄成坏事，人猪的表现。
Hong Kong belongs to Hong Kong's people. You [mainland China] have the army stationed in the territories and you are in charge of diplomacy. Why can’t you accept a nominating committee formed by direct election? Why can’t you accept nomination with a 10 percent vote in the nominating committee? Why do you have to manipulate the nomination and apply the party rule to Hong Kong? This is domestic politics and you have to make everyone angry and frustrated and turn it into an international issue. Whoever gets elected, they are all Chinese. What are you afraid of? A small issue turns into a big incident, a good deed turns into a bad deed. The decision reflects the nature of the decision-maker and shows if he is a human or a pig.
Nan Kezhoz speculated that the state would never establish its legitimacy without giving citizens the right to vote:
政权的合法性在于权力来源于何处，古代的皇帝叫“受命于天”，所以常常祭天。现代社会的政权唯一的合法性在于“受命于民”，所以人民有没有普选权，是考验一个政权合法性的标尺，而且是唯一标尺。剩下另一个政治权力来源，即是“受命于枪杆子”，那种政治权力，必是土匪、海盗、流氓的权力之源。
The legitimacy of the state comes from the source of its authority. In ancient time, the emperor’s power came from the heavens, so they had to perform rituals for the heavens. In modern society, the legitimacy comes from people. Whether or not people have the right to universal suffrage is the scale for measuring the state’s legitimacy. Another source of legitimacy comes from military power. That nature of authority is similar to pirates, bandits and goons.
Beijing law professor He Weifang believed Beijing's handling of the situation would not only risk Hong Kong's “one country, two systems”, but also push Taiwan away from a peaceful reunification with China. The post was censored on Weibo, but was recovered by anti-censorship FreeWeibo.com:
可虑者，这个政府在国际社会之中大庭广众之下变成人见人厌的角色。当年还设想通过一国两制为港澳树个榜样，为台湾人树一范本。眼下这种干法，明明是将台湾往外推！
What worries me is that the government is now playing the role of bully in international society. Years back, the implementation of the principle of “one country, two systems” in Hong Kong and Macau was to set up an example for Taiwan [and prepare for its reunification]. The current method pushes Taiwan away.
Taiwan and China split in 1949 following a civil war. China considers democratic Taiwan a breakaway territory and doesn't recognize its independence.
As the mainland continues forward with its plans for Chinese-style democracy in Hong Kong, lawmakers in the Hong Kong legislative council with a different understanding of true democracy are building a coalition to exercise their veto power to the electoral reform package.
Follow our in-depth coverage: Hong Kong's Umbrella Revolution

author: Oiwan Lam


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Israel Moves to Make its Biggest Land Grab in 30 Years, in Palestine’s West Bank  · Global Voices
Elia J. Ayoub

A general view of constructions in the Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim and Kedar in the West Bank. The practice, against international law, continues today. Photograph by Mahmoud illean. Copyright: Demotix
Israel's decision to annex more Palestinian land in the Occupied West Bank has sparked international condemnation from human rights organizations, governments and activists.
The Israeli government announced that it will annex 990 acres of Palestinian Territory near the Jewish settlement of Gva'ot, west of Bethlehem. It has declared them ‘State Land’, leaving way for more settlements considered illegal under international law.
On numerous occasions, the United Nations declared that Israel's construction of settlements constitutes a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention (relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War). As of 2012, there were 344,391 Israeli settlers in the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem.
Map of West Bank area West of Bethlemen showing Israeli settlements (blue), Palestinian villages and towns (brown) and the area declared as State Land (red). (Peace Now)
Israeli Human Rights NGO, Peace Now, said that this is the largest appropriation of Palestinian land in three decades:
As far as we know, this declaration is unprecedented in its scope since the 1980's and can dramatically change the reality in the Gush Etzion and the Bethlehem area
Peace Now offered some historical perspective to the settlement of Gva'ot:
Gva'ot was established in 1984 as a Military Base between the Palestinian villages of Al Jab'a and Nahhalin. During the 90’s, the soldiers were replaced by Yeshiva students that occupied the 30 caravans on site, and in 1998 the site was included within the official Municipal Borders of the settlement of Alon Shvut, which is located 3 km away. Recently, some 10 families moved in Gvaot and established an education institution on site.
Human Rights Watch deputy director for Middle East/North Africa, Nadim Houry, as well as its European Media Director, Andrew Stroehlein, condemned the move on Twitter, respectively:
Usually when a crime occurs, you prosecute criminal. Israel authorities use it as excuse to illegally annex more land http://t.co/Mwe1RTJ8Nm
— Nadim Houry (@nadimhoury) September 4, 2014
#Israel showing contempt for international law that prohibits settlements in occupied land http://t.co/nJ7q7rTw6Q pic.twitter.com/TBtg91cjMd
— Andrew Stroehlein (@astroehlein) September 4, 2014
Human Rights Watch said that the new settlements plan, if implemented, would amount to a war crime:
Israel should immediately reverse its illegal appropriation of a large swath of land in the occupied West Bank south of Jerusalem, Human Rights Watch said today. The appropriation, announced on September 1, 2014, paves the way for substantial settlement construction near the West Bank town of Bethlehem. Transferring civilian settlers into occupied territory would amount to a war crime.
This condemnation was joined by dozens of human rights NGOs, including Amnesty International, Jewish Voice for Peace as well as numerous governmental bodies and governments including the United Nations, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO, or Palestinian Authority), the USA, the UK, Egypt, France, Spain, Turkey, Ireland and the European Union. A good summary of many governments’ responses can be found in this Huffington Post coverage.
Not surprisingly, Palestinians, many Israelis as well as international observers are seeing this as yet another proof that Israel isn't interested in a two-state solution.
Belal Damour, a Gaza-based doctor, tweeted to his more than 82,000 followers:
Israel confiscates 988 acres of West Bank land for “possible settlement use”, the largest move of the kind since 1980s. So much for peace!
— Belal Dabour – Gaza (@Belalmd12) September 1, 2014
In his op-ed for Israel's Haaretz, Israeli journalist Chemi Shalev wrote that:
It is becoming increasingly hard to refute the argument that over the decades, the peace process has served as a cover for de-facto annexation and denial of Palestinian rights.
The Guardian's Ben White says that the blame also lies on the futility of symbolic condemnations rather than real action:
condemnation alone is useless –> Huge new Israeli settlement in West Bank condemned by US and UK http://t.co/px0yeV9CeH via @guardian
— Ben White (@benabyad) September 2, 2014
West Bank land expropriation shows Israel's disregard for int'l norms, & is directly related to years of ‘condemnation’ w/out consequences.
— Ben White (@benabyad) September 3, 2014
Jadaliya co-editor and Human Rights lawyer Noura Erakat accuses Israel of standardizing land theft of Palestinian territory:
Let's be clear Israel's latest & massive land grab of #Palestinian land near Bethlehem isn't “vengeful” it's standard http://t.co/sMHy00KBT1
— Noura Erakat (@4noura) September 2, 2014
Given that not two weeks have passed since the devastating war in Gaza left over 2,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and 70 Israelis dead, mostly soldiers, the timing of the Israeli move in the West Bank is being treated with suspicion:
Christian Science Monitor journalist Dan Murphy claimed that this could only have been Netanyahu's plan all along:
Biggest Israeli land appropriation in West Bank for 30 yrs. This has been Bibi's plan all along. http://t.co/zqRrYfsKl6
— Dan Murphy (@bungdan) September 1, 2014
If you're still new to the settlements topic, this AJ + labs video summarizes it in simple terms:

author: Elia J. Ayoub


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EXCLUSIVE: German Companies Are Selling Unlicensed Surveillance Technologies to Human Rights Violators – and Making Millions · Global Voices
Guest Contributor

Image via Pixabay. Public Domain CC0
This exclusive report was compiled by Ben Wagner and Claudio Guarnieri, leading researchers on surveillance and digital security technology. The Berlin-based scholars work at the Centre for Internet & Human Rights, European University Viadrina.
From Mexico to Mozambique to Pakistan and beyond, there is now ample evidence that governments across the globe are using mass surveillance technologies such as FinFisher to spy on their citizens. This has driven researchers and advocates like ourselves to consider the source: Who makes these technologies? And who benefits from their sales?
Germany is a major exporter of these technologies, and as digital communications privacy has become a red-hot topic for the German public, the country has become an ever-more central actor in this field.
By cross-referencing information from a massive data leak in mid-August with the results of a recent parliamentary inquiry in Germany, we’ve come to suspect that the majority of surveillance technologies produced by German companies have been bought and sold under the table – in other words, without a license. The German government requires licenses for the sale of technologies that are considered to be “dual use” – products that can be used for both good and ill.
At the center of the inquiry lies the British-German company Gamma International, maker of the now infamous FinFisher surveillance toolset. Unsuspecting targets of surveillance typically end up downloading FinFisher unknowingly, just by clicking on a seemingly innocent link or email attachment. Once installed, the tool allows the user to access all stored information and monitor even encrypted communication. Keystrokes can be logged, Skype conversations recorded and cameras and microphones can be activated remotely.
Members of Germany’s parliament recently conducted an inquiry into the sale of surveillance technologies to foreign governments. In response, the German government stated that over the past decade, it has provided German companies with licenses to export surveillance technologies to at least 25 countries, many of which have long histories of human rights abuse. Between 2003 and 2013, surveillance technologies were exported to Albania, Argentina, Chile, India, Indonesia, Qatar, Kosovo, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Morocco, Mexico, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Singapore, Taiwan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, USA and the UAE. German Green Party MP Agnieszka Brugger published the full set of questions and official government response on her blog.
The answers provided by the German government are complex to interpret, as their documentation covers any IT system that includes surveillance technology “components”. For example, a complete national telephone system that is sold for $10 million in total might include a surveillance component that costs $2 million – but the product is listed in public documentation as $10 million worth of exported goods which include licensed surveillance technologies.
Based on extensive conversations with relevant government officials, individuals from the private sector and the numerous leaked documents available, it is possible to get a relatively accurate estimate of the proportion of these technologies that are actually surveillance technologies. By a conservative estimate, around 20% of the overall IT systems delivered on this list are actually surveillance technologies, with the rest being generic IT systems and technologies. For example, in 2010 Germany exported 11,977,728 € worth of IT systems which include surveillance technologies. Thus we estimate that of these IT systems listed only 2,395,546 € are actually surveillance technology exports, with the rest exports of generic IT or telecommunications systems.
These figures also allowed us to build the following graph of German surveillance technology exports from 2010 to 2013:
Estimated total worth in millions of euros of licensed surveillance exports from Germany, 2010-2013.
Importantly, the German government explicitly denied having received any request from Gamma for a license to export their FinFisher product to Bahrain or Ethiopia. Official German government documentation also does not mention exports to countries like Bangladesh, Netherlands, Estonia, Australia, Mongolia, Bahrain and Nigeria, yet there is ample evidence that FinFisher has been sold to these countries. (Security researchers at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab have conducted an extensive series of technical investigations into the use of FinFisher products in a wide range of authoritarian and democratic countries. A full archive of these reports can be found here.)
Documents in the leaked FinFisher dump and analysis by Privacy International, suggest to us that Gamma has sold these technologies without any export license at all. This claim is based on numerous documents on how Gamma deals in technology the recent assertion of the British government that they would legally require Gamma to obtain a license for FinFisher if the company wanted to export it from the UK. Existing knowledge and research shows Gamma operates out of the UK and Germany, thus strongly suggesting that these technologies would have been exported from Germany. And Germany has repeatedly denied that it provided a license to Gamma to sell to several key countries where we know that FinFisher has been deployed. This leads us to the conclusion that FinFisher was exported from Germany without a license.
What does this mean for the German trade in surveillance technologies? Sales of licensed surveillance technologies are meager in comparison to the sales of unlicensed exports of FinFisher, let alone other surveillance products. Gamma is currently selling more surveillance tech than all licensed exports combined. Here is an overview of how licensed and unlicensed German surveillance exports compare:
Estimated total worth in millions of euros of licensed and unlicensed exports from Germany, 2010-2013.
And this is just one single company – there are likely others in Germany following this business strategy. Although the exact total of unlicensed German surveillance exports are hard to calculate, it should come as no surprise, given that business insiders from industry leader ISS World estimated their global industry worth at $3 – 5 billion. The significant gap between licensed and unlicensed elements of the surveillance technology industry shows the need for urgent and clear international regulation.
The German government also stated that it will further lobby to regulate surveillance technologies that harm human rights, a positive development that reflects an understanding of the seriousness of the issue. In light of these latest revelations, and the desire of certain parties to make this a key political issue, we are encouraged and hope further changes can be made to prevent even more dangerous technologies from being exported to repressive regimes. Findings like these suggest to us that greater regulation is needed in this sector.
And there is some precedent for this. Germany blocked exports of ‘Interception Management System’ software (a product similar to Utimaco’s LIMS system) to Iran in 2008. More recently, the government has suggested that companies should stop exporting surveillance technologies to Turkey.
The data also suggests that the global surveillance technology market is highly dependent on large contracts with a few individual countries. Response to the parliamentary inquiry showed the largest individual deals in 2006 and 2007 were brokered with Saudi Arabia and Turkey. It is hard to guess precisely what contracts these exports refer to, but they fit into the pattern of Internet surveillance being upgraded to deal with larger data volumes that became common around 2005. Tunisia faced similar issues in 2007, prior to the revolution, and opted to install Deep Packet Inspection surveillance technology in order to manage increasing quantities of data.
Left-wing parties in Germany now see regulation of surveillance technologies as an important political issue worth fighting for. Both the Greens and the Social Democrats SPD are fighting for ownership of the issue – this seems to have been the driving force behind the parliamentary inquiry. While the politicisation of issues like this is not always helpful, it is interesting to watch political parties compete to see who can better regulate surveillance technology in the interest of human rights.
Leaked documents from FinFisher show that the company now believes they are or may soon be subject to export restrictions in Germany, a fact that appears to have prompted them to begin asking their clients for additional information about what the exports will be used for – this is the type of information they would need in order to comply with German export control regulations. This suggests that export regulations for surveillance technologies may be having an impact before becoming law, as even some of the most ruthless companies are already reacting to ensure they comply.
And there may be more changes to come. Documentation suggests that the German government has begun to recognise the need to regulate more surveillance technologies that harm human rights. They explicitly cite surveillance “Monitoring Centres” – that can house data from e-mails, SMS messages, Internet and VOIP phone calls within a single data center – as technologies that can be misused and thus merit additional regulation.
The primary venue for negotiating such changes to export controls is the Wassenaar Arrangement, a non-binding agreement between states on how to regulate certain “dual use” technologies internationally. Wassenaar essentially provides a long ‘control list’ of technologies that all member states believe could be misused. Each individual member state in the EU then implements the decisions in their national export control laws. These lists are updated annually at a large conference of Wassenaar member states. It typically takes an entire year for these changes to come into force within the national legal frameworks of the various Wassenaar member states.
Like many human rights advocates, we believe the Wassenaar Arrangement provides the strongest platform for the German government to lobby for such changes and it has now repeatedly confirmed its wish to the German parliament to do so extensively. Better regulation of surveillance technologies is “of high political importance” to the Wassenaar member states as it is for the European Commission which considers this area “high priority.”
Germany is also pushing heavily to have 2013 changes to the Wassenaar control list come into force at the EU level as quickly as possible. Some officials say they will move forward on the issue as soon as autumn 2014. This is an optimistic prognosis, but it speaks to the steps that the German government has taken at various different levels to speed the process. How realistic this timetable is remains to be seen, but it at least signals substantive intent by the German government after years of inaction.
Beyond surveillance technologies themselves, Social Democrat SPD party head and Minister of the Economy Sigmar Gabriel has declared his wish to interpret export control law more strictly in all areas. The tools for this have existed for some time in the form of “Political Principles for Exports” developed by the German government in the year 2000, but these were seldom strictly enforced. SPD Minister Gabriel has interpreted these principles more strictly to stop a variety of weapons exports from Germany. Thus additional regulations of dual-use surveillance technologies fit very well into his agenda. At the same time he has received criticism in the press and from German media and the Green party for not being able to prove that he has actually turned down a concrete request for surveillance technologies.
Here as in other cases the struggle is primarily political rather than substantive. We welcome the fact that two political parties are now competing in Germany on which can regulate surveillance technology better. In concrete terms, both have made strong commitments and the SPD government in power has not yet been able to fully document these. Perhaps most notable is the German government’s continued aspiration to become a leading voice in the international debates around the regulation of surveillance technologies. Time will tell whether they are actually able to fulfil this promise, but the signs remain promising.

author: Guest Contributor


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Spain’s Alternative Political Party Podemos Is Growing in ‘Circles’  · Global Voices
Tom Walker

Image taken from the Podemos party's Facebook account.
In a cluster of houses in the Galician hills, close to the old Roman city of Lugo, Spain, little appears to have changed in the last 40 years. Chickens wander freely in the streets, while farmers discuss tractor machinery at length by the roadside. Yet in this sleepy corner of Spain’s north-western province, a new political initiative is taking shape.
Jago, a 48-year-old language teacher, is setting up a “circle”—a type of informal grassroots democratic and pluralistic assembly—in the hamlet that will act as the local face of the new political party Podemos. Meaning “we can” in Spanish, Podemos hopes to engage people who despair of conventional political approaches, and counter disillusionment with austerity measures by involving citizens in shaping policy from the bottom up.
Plenty of parties across Europe, watching their membership figures sink, share the same ambitions. But Podemos backs up the talk about “making politics more relevant to the public” with results. Since beginning in March with an entirely crowdfunded campaign and a manifesto created using suggestions from the public, the party claimed 8 percent of the national vote in the European Parliament elections. Many of its supporters are likely to have been people who hadn’t voted in years. A recent poll suggested that Podemos would take third place if a general election were held tomorrow, and could even challenge for second.
Circles: inclusive political spaces
One of the factors behind Podemos’s promising start is its community organising system of “circles.” This is what Jago is aiming for. Circles are groups with no leaders or membership fees, run through open public assemblies where attendees debate whatever they feel is most relevant to their situation. “Assemblies allow people who aren't involved in the movement to express their feelings and see that there are others that feel the same,” Oscar Gonzalez, a Podemos circle spokesperson in the Galician port city of Vigo, explains. Circles have a strong local focus, covering areas from entire cities to districts, or form around special interests (for example, there are currently circles for psychoanalysis, music and nursing).
The circles are growing fast. At the time of writing, there were more than 700 nationwide, an increase of almost 80 percent on the number recorded two months earlier. Attendance in assemblies has shot up: from an average of 20-30 people before the elections, Podemos Vigo claims that more than 300 turn up for each event. The idea of circles may work even in small cities, but things are different in rural Galicia. Hamlets like Jago's are rapidly emptying, with at least 1,400 in Galicia alone now completely deserted. There's little sign that they will regenerate on their own: the birth of a child is reported as a news item in the local paper, while the Galician regional government is spending 70 million euros (about 92 million US dollars) over the next three years in an attempt to improve the region's declining birth rates, which are the lowest in Spain.
All this hardly seems fertile ground for a young movement whose election slogan was: “When was the last time you voted with hope?” It's hard to imagine a thriving circle in the rural corners of this conservative part of Spain. Former dictator Francisco Franco was a Galician, while the centre-right Popular Party that rules at national level still registers some of its strongest results in the region. In the hamlet's only bar (which doubles as the butcher's and greengrocer's), Jago points out one of the regulars, a balding man in his 50s: “We get along fine, of course. But one day when I asked him for a light, I realised that he still had a cigarette lighter with a picture of Franco on it.”
Still, Jago remains undeterred. “I am a simple person, but I damn well know what discrimination and corruption is,” he says, citing his own difficulties in setting up a business and cataloguing a series of recent Galician graft cases. Like many Spaniards, Jago is struggling to pay his mortgage, having taken out a bank loan just before the crisis, a move he describes as his “single biggest mistake”.
Podemos collecting tin in a cafe in Vigo, Spain. Photo by author Tom Walker.
Still, he contributed five euros to Podemos's campaign fund for the European parliamentary elections. Considering that Podemos spent just over 12 euro cents for each of the 1.25 million votes it gained in May, his donation was in fact worth about 40 voters. While none of those 40 are likely to have come from Jago's hamlet, he remains on the lookout. “I believe that Podemos can be a haven for many others out there who never felt at home in another political party,” Jago says. “Little by little, I hope we can get somewhere.”
Podemos has already got somewhere in Navia, a district to the south-west of central Vigo. The party garnered 20 percent of the vote there, its best result in the city. Navia is made up of council houses that were built over the last eight years to house a young population of around 8,000. Podemos’ success there is all the more remarkable because, amid austerity, state money has actually been spent in Navia: the council has invested in road improvements, bus services, allotments and sports facilities, while the regional administration is building a health centre and a large garden area.
“It is true that governments have spent a lot of money on our neighbourhood, but the way they have done it—the amount they contracted for the works and modifications, and the absence of maintenance or planning—lead us to view these investments as tombstones planted in our environment,” explains Antonio Saá, from the online community Navia Merece.
Navia is also one of the districts where Podemos Vigo conducted a different kind of mailing campaign, hand-delivering a one-page message: “This letter did not reach you by post, because mailing a letter like this all over the country costs over 2 million Euros. Ask the parties who sent you an election letter by post where they got the money to do so and in exchange for what.” In Navia, where several prominent public projects remain unfinished and others have been beset by corruption allegations, arguments like these appear to have hit home.
A work in progress
Successes like these cannot hide the fact that Podemos is a work in progress, still adjusting to the surge of interest it has received in recent months. Local supporters openly acknowledge this. “It was far easier to run assemblies before the elections, when the groups were smaller and you could vote by raising hands. Now that's completely useless. You spend all your time counting and checking no-one is voting twice,” points out Manuel Villot, a member of the Vigo circle.
The circle has also recently had to introduce a moderator to keep discussions focused in assemblies, which had previously been relatively unstructured. Podemos is banking on technology as it attempts to retain its collaborative ethos while absorbing growing numbers, and is currently attempting to introduce Appgree and Loomio—online tools that allow people to submit ideas and vote on them—across the board.
The party built much of its profile through television, particularly the talk-show appearances of the academic and party figurehead Pablo Iglesias, but the Internet now seems to be playing the most important role at the local level. Many circles don't have websites and rely on Facebook to communicate with existing supporters and attract new members. “Podemos would be unthinkable without Facebook and Twitter,” explains Mayka Arias, the coordinator of Podemos Vigo's page. Aware that this technical focus might put some people off the party, Podemos Vigo is running free computer courses to explain the new tools and recruiting Internet cafes to provide free access for people who can't get online.
The coming months will be key for Podemos, with a new organisational structure for the party set to be announced in autumn. “I believe it will keep growing—there's no ceiling at the moment,” suggests Saá. “Now we'll have to see if Podemos can make choices that are truly different rather than just more of the same.”

author: Tom Walker


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Iran Holds Persian ICT Week · Global Voices
Mahsa Alimardani

Iran held the first annual Persian ICT week conference in Tehran's Ijlas center between August 30-31, 2014. The two day conference was a cooperative effort between Iran's ICT Guild Organization and the Arab ICT Organization. The theme of the conference was entitled, “Internet for Economic Growth,” and panels were held over the two days discussing youth using social media, the ICT industry post-sanctions in Iran, and the role of government in Internet development.
Many users followed the event on both Facebook and Twitter using the hashtag #PersianICTWeek in English, and #هفته_فناوری_اطلاعات_و_ارتباطات_پارسی‌زبانان in Persian. Government representatives from many countries including Malaysia, Qatar and Lebanon were present at the event.
In a meeting that followed the event, Iran's Minister of ICT Mahmoud Vaezi and his Qatari counterpart Khatem Hesam Jabar, met to discuss cooperation between the two governments in developing both nation's ICT industry. According to Iran's semi-official Fars news agency, the minister wished to share with Qatar the merits of Iran's new national information network, a project that endeavours to create a countrywide network of websites assigned to domestic IP addresses, separate from the worldwide web. Many Iranian figures have suggested this will aid in the development of domestic ICT infrastructure and economy. Vaezi stated achievements were made in electronic banking, cyber security and information technology, and explained the network was one of the best ways forward in the new youth dominated Internet culture.
A large portion of the conference was focused on how Iranian youth were engaging in entrepreneurship within Iran's ICT sector, and the government's support of knowledge based industries amongst this new generation. This event preceded President Hassan Rouhani's September 1 televised speech, declaring the importance of the Internet for Iran's youth.

author: Mahsa Alimardani


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Latin American Music Mourns Argentinian Rock Legend Gustavo Cerati    · Global Voices
J. Tadeo

Gustavo Cerati in Madrid on October 10, 2006. Photo by Camilo Rueda López. Available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
Argentinian songwriter Gustavo Cerati died on September 4, 2014, in Argentina. The 55-year-old musician was internationally well known for being a member (alongside Zeta Bosio and Charly Alberti) of the band Soda Stereo, one of the most influential of the Ibero-American music scene.
He later went on to have a successful solo career. His sixth and final album, “Fuerza natural” (Force of Nature), was released in 2009 and won three Latin Grammy awards the following year.
Cerati was under medical observation since May 2010, when he had a stroke in Caracas, Venezuela. The news of his death was released by his family through Facebook:
En el día de la fecha lamentamos compartir con ustedes esta información:
“Comunicamos que hoy, en horas de la mañana, falleció el paciente Gustavo Cerati como consecuencia de un paro respiratorio”.
Dr. Gustavo Barbalace
Director Médico de la Clínica ALCLA”.
Despediremos a Gustavo a partir de las 21hs. en la Legislatura Porteña, Julio Argentino Roca 595, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires. Les agradecemos el respeto y la consideración con que siempre acompañan a nuestra familia.
Familia Cerati.
On this date we regret to share with you this information:
“This is to let you all know that earlier today, patient Gustavo Cerati passed away as a result of respiratory arrest”.
Gustavo Barbalace, M.D.
Medical Director of ALCLA Clinic”.
We will give Gustavo the last and definitive farewell starting at 21hr. at Legislatura Porteña, Julio Argentino Roca 595, Autonomous City of Buenos Aires. We thank you all for the respect and consideration you've always had with our family.
The Cerati family.
Among his most emblematic songs with Soda Stereo were “En la ciudad de la furia” (In the city of fury), “Persiana americana” (American blinds) and “Nada personal” (Nothing personal). During his career as soloist, his main hits included “Puente” (Bridge) and “Cosas imposibles” (Impossible things).
On Twitter, Spanish-speaking fans remembered Cerati and mourned his death using hashtags #HastaSiempreCerati (Forever Cerati), #MeVerásVolver (“You'll see me return”, the name of Soda Stereo's reunion tour in 2007) and #GraciasTotales (Thank you completely) remembering the final words the rocker said on the recorded version of his “De Música Ligera” (Of light music) for the album “El Último Concierto” (The last concert), recorded in 1997 at Antonio Vespucio Liberti Stadium:
#HastaSiempreCerati “Vamos despacio para encontrarnos el tiempo es arena en mis manos” Gracias Totales!!!
— Lunita Roja (@LunitaRoja78) septiembre 4, 2014
#ForeverCerati. “Let's go slowly to find ourselves, time is sand in my hands.” Thank you completely!!!
Hay canciones que jamás tendrán fecha de caducidad… #HastaSiempreCerati
— Manuel Cataño (@Manuel_c9) septiembre 4, 2014
Some songs will never have an expiration date. #ForeverCerati.
Cuánto amor nos da la música. Hoy llora todo un continente. #GraciasTotales
— Julia Mengolini (@juliamengo) septiembre 4, 2014
Amazing how much love music can give. Today, a whole continent cries. #ThankYouCompletely
This is a modified version of a post originally published on Global Voices in Spanish.
Laura Schneider contributed with writing this post.

author: J. Tadeo


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The Funeral That Brought Syria’s Revolutionaries to a Church with Red Roses · Global Voices
مرسيل شحوارو

At Marcell Shehwaro's mother's funeral, friends and revolutionaries from across Aleppo turned up wearing white and carrying red roses in their hands.
This post is part of a special series of articles by blogger and activist, Marcell Shehwaro, describing the realities of life in Syria during the ongoing armed conflict between forces loyal to the current regime, and those seeking to oust it.
Perhaps I have overwhelmed you with the details of my personal loss, telling you in a previous article the story of my mother and the murderer that grew in me after she was killed. But today I don’t think I can talk about what’s going on in Syria without conveying to you the cries of the victims, and their pain.
Today I shall tell you about the night of the incident.
I had lingered late at a friend’s house, discussing revolutionary ideas, when my mobile phone rang. On the line was the terrified voice of my sister: “Mom is in hospital, she’s been shot.”
In the few minutes it took to get to her, thoughts collided in my head. Will she make it? Am I to blame for all this pain? Did they murder her because she’s my mother? To protect myself against the feelings of guilt I wished it was I who had been shot. Were they our bullets?? Or their bullets? I didn’t know. At that point I didn’t imagine it made a difference which party caused the death. When I arrived at the hospital I was supposed to approve the decision whether they should operate, but before I managed to answer, they told me she was dead. My mother was martyred on that day.
I don’t know how I managed to shed my humanity so quickly. I kept it for later. I didn’t cry as much as I wanted: my conscience was saturated with the revolution, it was my cross, the one I— like thousands of Syrians—had to bear, so who am I to complain? In those moments I realised my own selfishness. I realised the ugliness of the fear I caused my mother to feel each time I went to a protest—which she could always tell from the “casual” clothes I had on, or from my happiness when I returned home, or even as a result of my inability or reluctance to lie to her—and essentially  faced my death. I don’t know where I buried my emotions nor where I found the resolve that allowed me to decide I would not be silenced, and that even after my mother’s death I would continue to be the daughter of my revolution, immune to tears, immune to mortification.
Early the following morning I had to go and meet the officer in charge of the security checkpoint where my mother was killed. He was a cold-blooded murderer, just like the regime that spawned him. He didn’t even apologise. He referred carelessly to the killing as “an individual mistake,” just like thousands of individual mistakes being made throughout the country, forgetting, or pretending to have forgotten that this particular “individual mistake” was a mother, was a history of love, compassion and memories, was a homeland for its family. But these people are used to assassinating homelands, so what’s new?
Afterwards I became the target of everybody’s warnings, about what I should do and shouldn’t say, of the fear that ran in the family, in the society. Despite the magnitude of my loss I sat in a corner and pitied them for being enslaved to these circles of fear; those who once were the closest of friends. I pitied their enslavement and loved them so much that I wished them freedom. As for me, who used to dread my mother’s tears if I were ever martyred, I had been freed from this fear.
In my head I was chanting revolutionary songs, songs I still recite in my head whenever life gets tougher. Whenever I wish to remember who I really am I build a protective bubble around myself. I chanted that song my mom used to hate: “I’m going out to protest with my soul on my hand/And if I come back to you a martyr, mother, don’t cry.”
How ironic life is. I used to face death almost daily, protesting in the most dangerous places, getting directly shot at—and yet I survive while she dies?
On the day of the funeral I had to think of everything. How could the church become a space that preserved the dignity of all revolutionists regardless of their affiliations? And how could I make the revolution look like the most beautiful bride to those who, having prejudged the revolution to be an affair of extremists with no room for anything different, have kept their distance in fear.
That’s how I managed to choose white and red. I asked the revolutionists to wear white, in contrast to the Christian friends and family who’d be dressed in black as is the custom at Christian funerals. I also asked the revolutionists to each hold a red rose to demonstrate their compassion in a manner that everyone would understand and appreciate.
On entering the church premises I was almost broken by the sight of a busload of security forces. I don’t know why my mother’s funeral entailed an armed security presence. All of that would have broken me, had it not been for the revolutionary whiteness that embraced me. I don’t know where all of those people came from, but all the love and acceptance they held brought me peace. Revolutionists filling the steps of the church in their white shirts, holding their red roses up high, screaming freedom in silence and with reverence. Hundreds of eyes beholding me, awaiting my signal to turn it into a protest, but they respect my grief and my decision.
I don’t know exactly how many were there, but on that day I felt that rebellious Aleppo was leaning over me and kissing my forehead, wiping my tears one by one. On that day I learned the meaning of a band of revolutionists visiting a church for the first time, just to be with me, to offer me condolences; the meaning of girl wearing a head cover to sit on a church bench without feeling alienated or bizarre, because she’s not alone there. I learned what it means when they say the revolution “unites the Syrians”.
If the regime has stolen what’s left of my family, the revolution gave me a family that is capable of unconditional love. Anyone can talk about sectarian cheers, and make claims about the nature of the Syrian conflict, but, deep inside, I trust that this revolution pulled us all out of the thousands of shells we used to hide in. This grief has united us and reformed us in its essence.
Hundreds of red roses approached along with their holders. I wished I could thank each one of them. I wished I could tell each one of them how much deeper the pain would have been if they hadn’t been here. I wished I could catch the scent of majestic Aleppo in their tears, and dedicate this article to them, or to those among them who are still with us, as many of these revolutionists have died defending freedom.
I smiled at them, proud of a revolution that gave birth to such heroes. I smiled at them, trying hard to disguise my tears with a feigned strength, for we should all “press hard on the wound and rise high” to avenge the blood of martyrs, the blood of my mother, of Mustafa and of Mahmoud. There is a vow that we took: “We will never forget a martyr’s blood”.
They approached the casket, all of them, and with that same beautiful serenity they laid their flowers on my mother’s tomb. I called out to her, inside me: “Mother, don’t mind me, Syria is my mother”.
We headed to the graveyard with them surrounding me, carrying my pain so it was lighter for me to bear. Afterwards they stayed with me, attending one and a half hours of rituals and prayers which they neither understood nor related to. I felt that they needed to pray as well, in their way. I asked them to read her the Fatiha. I knew that inside each of their hearts there was enough purity to rest her soul. I prayed with them, in my faith and theirs.
Great is the debt I owe them, deep is my gratitude for their compassion, and dear to me is every tear they shed with me, and long—so long—is the road we still need to cross together, with whomever is left.

author: مرسيل شحوارو


text:
Trafficked Ecuadorian Children Pass Through Hell on the Way to the US · Global Voices
Connectas

Nohemí's cousin, Leonela, who was left without her playmate. Photo: Daniela Aguilar.
The original version of this article was written by Daniel Aguilar and published on Connectas in May 2014.
Ecuadorian children are leaving the country by the dozen, bound for the United States. They don't have visas, but they do have some light luggage. And there are people — traffickers in Ecuador, smugglers in Mexico — who charge for the journey: up to $20,000 for each traveler. The children's parents want them in the US and are willing to pay whatever it costs, even if their children have to endure the worst experience of their young lives to complete the trip. On some occasions, the children cannot reach their destinations and return; in other cases, they die on the way, without ever reuniting with their families.
In the United States, the thousands of unaccompanied children crossing the border (90,000 by the end of 2014, according to projections by the Department of Homeland Security) is now considered a humanitarian crisis. The phenomenon has motivated the US to hold intense meetings with the heads of state in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, where the vast majority of these children originate. The president of the UN General Assembly, Ban Ki-Moon, US President Barack Obama, and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto addressed the issue in a meeting with the Vatican Secretary of State on Sunday, August 13. All of them assured the public that they are searching for a resolution to the situation.
In Ecuador, however, no major authority figure has said so much as a word in public about the crisis. One exception has been the tragic death of Nohemí Álvarez Quillay, the 12-year-old girl who perished in a Mexican shelter after journeying unsuccessfully from Ciudad Juarez to the US border. In Quillay's case, Deputy Minister of Transportation María Landázuri launched an investigation, even going to Mexico to “demand” clarification about the girl's death on March 11. State officials have shared their condolences and publicly lamented this tragedy. Even President Rafael Correa, passing through New York City in April, went to hug the girl's parents, who are undocumented in the US and, like many others, risked their little one in the wolf's den.
Nothing is said about the rest of the children who leave the country, however, and there are more than just a few. The justice system does not investigate these cases, either, which Romeo Gárate, a prosecutor from Cañar, acknowledged, saying that Nohemí's death is “the only case” he can remember, when asked about child trafficking.
Honduras: a launch pad to the American dream
Since the need for a visa between Honduras and Ecuador was eliminated, one-way trips have soared. Between 2007 and 2013, 992 children were lost after leaving Ecuador for Honduras via plane. This figure by LA HISTORIA, incidentally, differs significantly from the migration statistics of international entries and exits in the National Data Archives (Anda). A total of 1,286 minors between 0 and 14 years of age traveled to Honduras during this period, but only 294 returned. This statistic increases with adolescents between the ages of 15 and 19, where 5,255 failed to return from their trips to Honduras.
One way trips for Ecuadorians to Honduras.
For every one child who leaves, 20 adults emigrate. During the same six-year period, 21,403 travelers over the age of 20 left and never returned. The government lifted visa requirements “primarily to promote bilateral tourism,” as reported by the Foreign Ministry at the time. Ecuadorians have embraced this language, too. Of the 27,650 citizens who never returned from Honduras between 2007 and 2013, 22,678 said they were going for tourism.
“Legislation must be created for this situation to prevent it from continuing, because it is nothing more than a field, the legal system, where we come in, and after it comes the State that must create a more direct policy to solve this”, said Romeo Gárate, an attorney from Cañar.
Gárate admits that the outflow of minors who leave to reunite with their parents has increased over the past three years. Honduras is just one of the many stops en route to America that employs trafficking networks to bring Ecuadorians to the border between Mexico and the US. Ecuadorians also cross into Colombia, like Nohemí Álvarez and two other boys, brothers from Cañar, aged 14 and 16, who were deported last week from Colombia as illegal immigrants.
The annual statistical reports from the country's National Institute of Migration (INM) also capture the number of Ecuadorians at the Mexican border. Between 2010 and 2013 alone, 2,663 Ecuadorians entered detention centers, after being detained. The number of detainees is rising sharply. 177 minors were recently returned to Ecuador. According to the latest report by the US Department of Health and Human Services and the EFE Agency, 96 percent of children succeeded in crossing the border last year, and 49,567 have already reached their families inside the United States.
Nohemí's tombstone in the cemetery in El Tambo, a province in Cañar (Ecuador). Photo: Daniela Aguilar.
Tambo, the tip of the iceberg
“First off, I must report that there are some students who normally attend classes but disappear at a certain point.” That is how Milton Correa, the principal at the El Tambo school, begins his talk at one of the only public schools in the Cañar region. This was the last institution that Nohemí Álvarez attended before starting her trip.
Surrounded by green hills, the El Tambo school welcomed last year 1,042 students between the ages of 12 and 17. During that time, teachers reported a surge in child labor migration and human trafficker activity.
For every unexplained absence, lead instructors investigated and reported their findings. “Without a doubt, I can say that 40 students have left this school during this school year. Some are gone, some have migrated, and others attempted to migrate,” says Nube Chogllo, a school counselor who collected the teachers’ reports. “We know that they left because of information that shared with us — by a relative, a friend, a colleague. They tell us: ‘s/he is in Nicaragua, in Guayaquil, in Mexico,’ but time goes by and some have crossed [the border] and others come back.”
There have been times when teachers learned that a child was about to migrate and they tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade them to finish the school year, at least. As Principal Correa explains, the main problem is that the children's parents organize the move to the US. “This phenomenon cannot be counteracted because those who are listening to us are more often the ones responsible for taking care of the children,” he says. “I don't know how to reach the people who migrated, to convince them not to put their children at risk,” Correa admits. He also argues that the direction of “family reunification” needs to be reversed, if parents are serious about their children's well being. If parents have already attained some economic stability in the US and want to be with their kids, they should come back, he says.
Of all the students at the El Tambo school who have fallen victim to trafficking, Nohemí Álvarez Quillay is the only one remembered for her tragic death. Though she never finished the school year before her first voyage north, Nohemí was automatically transferred to the eighth grade. When her first trip ended in failure and she returned to Ecuador, Nohemí attended only a month of classes before setting out on a new journey. Nube Chogllo interviewed the girl, before she left. At the time, Nohemí said only that she had tried to reached the US once, and wasn't sure if she would attempt it again. The counselor holds back tears when thinking about what the little girl had to live through: “Oh, if Nohemí could talk now, what would she tell us?” she mutters between long pauses. “These are mysteries we will never be able to solve.”
Leonela's loneliness
Leonela is 12 years old with straight hair and tanned skin. Her days are spent in school and wandering among the rice farm that separates her grandparents’ clay-brick house and the cement one built by her parents and uncles, all illegal immigrants in the US. She lives in El Rosario, an indigenous community in the district of El Tambo.
It has not been long since she was running alongside Wendy and Nohemí, her cousins who left Ecuador at the beginning of the year with coyoteros to be reunited with their parents in New York. She knows Wendy arrived and Nohemí died along the way, but she tries not to think about the circumstances. The fact is that Leonela was left without her playmates.
According to reports, many children are subjected to physical and sexual abuse in transit to the US. They are vulnerable to child prostitution gangs and kidnapping. Children always carry the telephone numbers of their relatives in their belts or shirt cuffs and are passed from one trafficker to another, usually at border crossings.
Ecuador's former penal code, which was reformed just last month, condemns both human traffickers and& “those responsible for the protection and custody of the children or adolescents, be they parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, siblings, or guardians or any other person, who facilitates the execution of this illegal activity.” In lieu of this legal protection, the Ecuadorian government has established nothing to stop parents living illegally in the United States from paying traffickers to bring their children to them. The new Integral Penal Code, approved by the National Assembly, specifically removed this paragraph in Section 11 of the law's Crimes Against Migration section.
Nohemí Álvarez was found hanging from a shower curtain in a Mexican hostel belonging to the National System for Integral Family Development. In Mexico, police detained and soon released the smuggler traveling with the girl. They've since reactivated an arrest warrant for the man. In Ecuador, the District Attorney's office initiated a preliminary investigation against four people, two of whom have already been arrested. Nohemí was sexually assaulted, according to a staff member from the Tambo District Attorney's office — an end very different from the inscription on her gravestone: “A peaceful death, like a dream of peace she closed her eyes, but her soul rose to the mansion of eternal light”.

author: Connectas


text:
This Russian Lawmaker Thinks the US Can Take Russia Off The Internet · Global Voices
Tanya Lokot

Are Russian fears that the US can take the country offline unfounded? Images mixed by Tetyana Lokot.
A deputy in the Russian parliament thinks the United States might cut off Russia's Internet and suggests Russians take measures to get ready for the information blackout.
Ilya Kostunov, the deputy in question, believes the US might want to undermine Russia's Internet access in order to destabilize the economy and to agitate the social and political sentiment in the country. He has also asked the Ministry of Communications to prepare a contingency “civil defence plan” in case the RuNet goes dark, according to TJournal.
Всё чаще из стран блока НАТО раздаются угрозы уничтожить экономику России. […] Учитывая, что за адресацию в интернете отвечает подконтрольная США ICANN, отключение интернета действительно возможно. Американцы могут отключить интернет, например, перед выборами и обвинить в этом российские власти.
More and more often we hear threats from NATO countries to destroy Russia's economy. […] Since the routing on the Internet is controlled by ICANN, which is controlled by the US, switching off the Internet is actually possible. The Americans can switch off the Internet before elections, for instance, and blame Russian authorities for this.
It's worth noting that in March 2014 the US announced its intent to withdraw from its managing role in ICANN, the non-profit managing IP addresses and domains (stewardship of the IANA functions could pass on to the “global multistakeholder community” when the US contract with ICANN expires in September 2015), so Kostunov's claims are somewhat threadbare in this regard. But he is not to be deterred, as he has suggested Russia needs a more autonomous Internet that could function independently of the rest of the world. This, Kostunov says, requires a set of software and technology solutions. One solution he offers is a special USB flash drive which “every Russian should have,” containing an ‘alternative routing system’ which could be launched in case of a Western-masterminded Internet blackout. The deputy did not elaborate on the details of this ‘alternative’ system or on what technologies could help make this possible.
The RuNet users reacted to the alarmist statement with a healthy dose of skepticism. Twitter user JosefK was full of scorn for Kostunov's suggestions:
@tjournalru у каждого жителя России должна быть специальная флешка и шапочка из фольги.
— Йозеф К. (@JosefK_Prozess) September 4, 2014
@tjournalru Every Russian citizen should have a special USB flash drive and a tin foil hat to boot.
The fear mongering around Internet cut-offs is the latest example in Russia's ongoing quest for control over Internet access and user data. Earlier this week the Russian parliament moved to push the personal data storage law to an earlier start. The law, which obliges all online services with Russian users to store the users’ data on servers within Russia, will now come into power in January 2015, more that a year and a half ahead of the previously planned September 2016 date. Yevgeny Fyodorov, one of the deputies who lobbied for the earlier date, believes that Western sanctions endanger the RuNet users, and that the law will protect them.
Мы понимаем, что развязывание оголтелой информационной атаки идет по разным направлениям, под угрозой находятся и личные данные наших граждан. […] Чтобы избежать разного рода провокаций и исключить эскалацию информационной войны было принято коллективное решение, что можно ускорить введение в действие закона.
We understand that a ruthless information attack is being unleashed in many directions, and the personal data of our citizens is under threat. […] In order to avoid various provocations and to rule out an escalation of the information war, we've made a collective decision to speed up the law's coming into power.
Deputies are also concerned about Western Internet companies colluding with other states. Just this week, they accused Google of being anti-Russian and spying for Ukraine, after the Ukrainian state security service (SBU) announced it was cooperating with Google and YouTube in particular to thwart Russian efforts to manipulate and remove content online. Deputy Yevgeny Fyodorov believes the deal will allow Google to supply Ukraine with information about Russian Internet users, and has asked Russian authorities to investigate the matter, according to an Izvestia report.
As Russia becomes increasingly paranoid about threats to its information security, it will likely continue the trend towards the fragmentation of the global Internet, already evident in many other countries around the world. The security, however elusive, might come at the cost of free expression and unfettered access to the wealth of the world's information and communication resources, which many Russians have grown to enjoy.

author: Tanya Lokot


text:
Vigils in Australia for an Iranian Asylum Seeker Who Died After Getting Sick in a Detention Centre · Global Voices
Kevin Rennie

On Friday 5 September 2014, Iranian asylum seeker Hamid Kehazaei died in a Brisbane hospital following his family's decision to switch off his life support. He had been declared ‘brain dead’ after contracting septicaemia from an infection contracted while in offshore detention on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island.
Many Australians had responded with compassion or anger including a series of vigils.
The vigils included:
Sydney, New South Wales
Candlelight vigil for Iranian asylum seeker Hamid Kehazaei – Sydney
Photo by Sergio Leyva Seiglie, CC Demotix (4 Sep 2014)
Perth, Western Australia
“May the burning candles around the nation remind us that hope wins.” Vigil for Hamid Kehazaei #LightTheDark pic.twitter.com/l8yGTwzaWz
— UCIC Perth WA (@UCICPerth) September 5, 2014
Adelaide, South Australia
Photos from #Adelaide‘s #LightTheDark. ping @GetUp “Darkness cannot drive out darkness only light can do that” #MLK https://t.co/QQnZT4ytl3
— Kate Leaney (@misskate_86) September 4, 2014
This photo is from the Facebook album: #LightTheDark for Hamid Kehazaei by The Welcome Centre volunteer Dyako.
#LightTheDark for Hamid Kehazaei
Courtesy: The Welcome Centre volunteer Dyako (Facebook)
Michaela McGuire expressed the shared anguish on The Monthly blog:
What is saddest about the brain death of 24-year-old Iranian man Hamid Kehazaei is what could have saved him: a pair of shoes, or some basic medical treatment. Perhaps just a bandaid.
The treatment of asylum seekers who arrive by boat has been a very controversial issue under both the current conservative government led by Tony Abbott and the previous Labor ones of Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard. David Legge tweeted:
Hamid Kehazaei's death predictable consequence @TonyAbbottMHR & @ScottMorrisonMP harsh remote imprisonment policy. #AsylumSeekers #auspoI
— David Legge (@DavidGLegge) September 5, 2014
The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre repeated its longstanding position:
#LightTheDark #HamidKehazaei We won't forget and we won't stop until #asylumseekers are out of offshore detention pic.twitter.com/ogrGxwN0GN
— ASRC (@ASRC1) September 4, 2014
The Immigration minister Scott Morrison has defended the health care provided to detainees on Manus.
There was hope for a one positive aspect to this unfolding tragedy:
True generosity – Hamid Kehazaei's family donate his organs to the country he never got to call home #auspol http://t.co/syV4TyJF26 @theage
— Duchess van Pelt (@Nettythe1st) September 5, 2014
Apparently this will not be possible because of his septicaemia.

author: Kevin Rennie


text:
Celebrating Day of Lunfardo, Port of Buenos Aires Dialect · Global Voices
Gabriela García Calderón Orbe

Carlos Gardel alley. Image on Twitter by user Luciana Monte (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).
As has happened every September 5 since the year 2000, Buenos Aires celebrated the Day of Lunfardo, a dialect that originated and developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the lower classes of the city. From there, it spread to other cities nearby.
Originally, it was slang used by criminals and afterward by other people of the lower and lower-middle classes, but later, many of its words and phrases were introduced in the vernacular and disseminated in the Castilian of Argentina and Uruguay.
The tango “Mi noche triste” (My sad night), written by Pascual Contursi and popularized by Carlos Gardel, was the first song to use Lunfardo on its lyrics.
Twitter users remembered the date:
Hoy 5 de Septiembre se celebra el Dia del Lunfardo. pic.twitter.com/UmMNEOowNx
— elrincònderosiano (@Rinconderosiano) septiembre 5, 2014
Today, September 5, we celebrate Day of Lunfardo.
@lalybuss mi vieja lo hablaba con una facilidad asombrosa, probablemente se debía a que lo aprendió a usar de muy chica.
— Carlos N✌® (@gringodeboedo) septiembre 5, 2014
My mom used to speak it with amazing fluency, probably because she learned it at very early age.
Hoy es el Día del Lunfardo, el idioma porteño http://t.co/tAaZRQrsFM vía @lanacioncom
— Foro Prof en Turismo (@PROFenTURISMO) septiembre 5, 2014
Today it's Day of Lunfardo, the language of the port of Buenos Aires.

author: Gabriela García Calderón Orbe