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Balochistan Marches for School Safety as Panjgur Braves Boko Haram-type Threats · Global Voices
Anushe Noor

Thousands march against closure and intimidation of private schools in Panjgur, Balochistan in May 2014. Photo from Baloch Hal. Used with permission.
A tide of protests have swept Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan after threats from shadowy militants forced dozens of private schools in Panjgur, a district in the province, to close their schools.
The warning of “dire consequences” for private schools providing “western education” intimidated at least 35 private schools and 30 English language centers in Panjgur to shut their doors on May 7. Government schools in the area remain open.
Chanting “we want education. Education is our basic right. Save education,” thousands, including women, students and leaders from a few political parties marched on the roads of Panjgur. Protestors demanded that the government provide security for male and female students studying in all schools.
There have been similar protests for Panjgur's students in Balochistan's capital city Quetta and the districts Naseerabad and Jaffarabad.
The Baloch Hal, an online English news site that focuses on Balochistan and is banned within Pakistan, reports:
These warnings are alarming considering that fact that Panjgur has remained one of Balochistan’s more advanced places in terms of education. A number of private schools run by local teachers and administrators have earned a great reputation for impartial quality education among male and female students in the Pakistan-Iran bordering town.
The previously unheard of militant group “Tanzeem-ul-Islam-ul-Furqan” started distributing flyers in Panjgur at private schools against western-style education “regardless of them being a co-education or an all-girls facility” on 25 April, 2014.  Two weeks later, masked assailants stormed a school in Panjgur and beat up a teacher. A school van transporting female students and teachers was set on fire by gunmen several days later. These events intimidated most private schools to close their doors to students in Panjgur.
In an opinion piece on Baloch Hal called Pakistan's Boko Haram Malik Siraj Akbar, the site's editor-in-chief emphasises:
In grand protests joined by thousands of people to fight back against religious extremists, the people of Balochistan have given their judgment: there is no room for Boko Haram in Balochistan. The Pakistani government should now hear the people’s verdict and fulfill its responsibilities.
Pakistan has the second highest number of children out of school, according to UNESCO. Poverty, poor government investment, patriarchy, social bias and religious extremism all play a part. In 2012, Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head in retaliation for campaigning for girls education in the northern part of Pakistan.
In Balochistan, things are different. It is the country's largest, least populated and poorest province. Baloch nationalists have waged an on-and-off war for independence from Pakistan,  and their fight seems to be at its peak.  Meanwhile, Pakistani intelligence operatives are accused of abducting Baloch men.  Various sectarian and Islamist militias also use the area for recruitment and training to fight wars in Iran and Afghanistan, which border Balochistan, and within Pakistan itself.
Malik continues:
The public awakening in the town of Panjgur, on the contrary, has barely received any attention in Pakistan’s mainstream media or the international press. The developments in Panjgur epitomize a rare but organized community-based battle for protecting girls’ right to education. The rise of Islamic extremists in the secular Baloch province, which I had predicted in 2009, is deeply alarming but the local population’s uprising against the detractors of girls’ education simultaneously provides tremendous hope for a community that is being rapidly radicalized by the Pakistani government in an attempt to trade an ongoing left-wing independence movement with radical Islam.
When I was growing up in Panjgur in 1990s, it was absolutely inconceivable to think about giving the clergymen a share in the social and political decision-making process. The role of the clergyman, locally known as the mullah, was clearly defined and restricted to the mosque.”
Teachers themselves are in the crosshairs of this mistrust. Schoolteacher Abdul Hameed and five other members of his family were brutally murdered by separatist rebels on 21 May because they believed he was a spy for the government.
Recently, Hina Baloch, a social commentator who focuses on Balochistan, education and conflict wrote a piece detailing the raid of Pakistan's security forces at a school in Turbat, a town 220 kilometres from Panjgur:
It is also worth noting that just recently Atta Shad Degree College in Turbat was raided by FC personnel during a book fair. Masterpieces, like the autobiographies of Nelson Mandela, Gandhi and Che Guevera, were brandished by the FC in front of the media – the works were labelled as ‘anti-state’ literature. [..]
With religious intolerance and sectarian violence – an unheard of phenomenon for the secular Baloch populace – now mysteriously at an all-time high, it is alleged that the state is playing that dangerous game of curbing nationalism by stoking religious fanaticism once again. And in doing so, re-asserting its historic (and myopic) doctrine of ‘strategic depth’ – by providing tacit support to non-state actors for short-term strategic gains.
On Twitter, Shumaila Jaffery, who works for the BBC, wondered:
I wonder why there is so little noise about school ban in Panjgur and Turbat? Some reports say 35 schools are shut down! #balochistan
— Shumaila Jaffery (@ShumailaJaffery) May 22, 2014
Some activists are using Facebook and Twitter to spread the word and garner support. A Facebook page named “Save Girls Education in Baluchistan” was created by a Baloch journalist.
Another Facebook page named “Save Our Girls” and a petition on Change.org also supports the cause.
Banuk Zarina Baloch tweeted a photo of a crying student:
This #baloch child has made me emotional she want education #SaveBSOAzadLeader #WakeUp Support Baloch @UN @hrw #USA pic.twitter.com/YIyN07DMBU
— Banuk Zarina Baloch (@Zarina_Baloch) May 24, 2014
Chawash Baloch, who describes himself as a Baloch nationalist, offered a reason why education is important:
Without education, #Balochistan would be a body without soul. #SaveEducationInBalochistan @HRW @UN @usedgov”
— Chawash Baloch (@Chawash_Baloch) May 27, 2014
This Quetta resident tweeted a photo of a protest in Quetta:
#WeWantEducation #Balochistan #Makran #Panjgur Peaceful protest by civil society at #quetta press club today pic.twitter.com/K8rq0BpNFQ
— Yasir Ahmed Durrani (@yadurrani) May 26, 2014
According to an unnamed official in this report by Abdul Ghani Kakar on Central Asia Online, militant attacks and intimidation have forced 70,000 students to leave school in Balochistan. Kakar quoted Balochistan's education minister in this report, who said his government has allocated Rs. 61.3 billion (US $62m) to “fix the problem.” He added, “we are taking all possible measures to maintain law and order and to restore the educational system in the militancy-hit areas.”

author: Anushe Noor


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China’s Censors Become Busier Before Tiananmen Anniversary · Global Voices
Abby Liu

Index on censorship magazine details China's yearly Tiananmen anniversary crackdown: slower internet, blocked search terms, more military personnel in public and the arrest of high profile individuals.
Author Francine Stone from Index thinks “this year’s crackdown appears particularly thorough, either a reaction to dissent being higher than usual or a perception that it is in light of the milestone anniversary.” In addition, the government is keeping a close eye on the most popular social platform WeChat in particular. Read more on Index.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Abby Liu


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Disempowerment for Collective Growth · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

On Mi pensadero there is a review of the Seminar about Participation, Self Management and Disempowerment #ikaskide1314. About disempowerment, the website comments [es]:
Disempowerment is leaving power that incites a collective construction. From simple to complex and from complex to simple. It's not a show, it's not a place where politicians and researchers go to take pictures, it's not a hunting trophy. It is a process that starts with a new life style, a collective construction that relies on popular cultures, mutual attention, trust, happiness, decrease and hope.

author: Juan Arellano


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Dominican Republic and Open Government · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

[All links direct to pages in Spanish.]
After a recent trip, Spanish Alberto Ortíz de Zárate writes [es] on Administraciones en Red about Open Government in Dominican Republic:
In Dominican Republic, the Ministry of the Presidence has created the General Direction of Ethics and Government Integrity (DIGEIG by its Spanish name), in charge of launching open government policies, with a very clear focus in transparency. This office gives a political direction to the inititatives in its sector and it's complemented with OPTIC, in charge of technological aspects, and is publishing regulatons as interesting as:


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Dragons and Fears · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

Miguel Carrillo wrote [es] on Evolución Creativa about fears, and he uses a tale from a land named “Confortland”, and concludes with this reflection:
Fears don't define us, how we face them do. We hire our dragons to protect us, they aren't good nor bad, they just are. The only reality is that they are not inside us, as we've been told, they are external entities, and if we manage to see them like that, it will be easier for us to face them, control them and put them boundaries.


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“How are We Malagasy Supposed to Provide School Supplies and Medications for our Children ?”  · Global Voices
Lova Rakotomalala

Malagasy blogger
The budget of a family of 4 in Madagascar – with permission
Monthly expenses

author: Lova Rakotomalala


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Podcast: History of the Internet in China · Global Voices
Abby Liu

Sinaca Podcast discusses how the Internet has grown and changed China with three guests who have experienced the worst and the best of the Chinese Internet: Duncan Clark from BDA China, Gady Epstein from The Economist, and Bill Bishop, the author of the Sinocism newsletter.


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Prison Literature · Global Voices
Cati Restrepo

From a very young age he had a very big urge and devoted himself to well known works and trades such as becoming friends with what he didn't own, but he was also very clever, smart and extremely aggressive, but with highly defined principles towards shyness and respect for chlldren and women and our parents. He never allowed himself to witness any kind of abuse, although sharpness emerged from each of his pores as well as the urge of winning no matter how, but without violating his principles.
On blog Manofalsa there are [es] some narrations by the “prisoners of the Carquín Prison in Huacho (Peru) during the Workshop of Awareness to Creative Reading and Writing” on April. The quoted narration is titled Mosca [es] (roughly translated as Clever).

author: Cati Restrepo


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Reading “I am Malala” · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

On Books’ Whisper, there is a review [es] of the book “I am Malala” by Malala Yousafzai where they claim everybody should read her story.


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Thai Coup Selfies: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

A protester stands in front of a line of soldiers in Bangkok while wearing a mask bearing the message ‘No coup’. Photo by Atiwat Silpamethanont, Copyright @Demotix (5/25/2014)
General Prayuth Chan-ocha of the Royal Thai Army has been given a royal endorsement to lead Thailand’s coup regime but many citizens continue to mount protests despite an army directive against the gathering of five or more persons in public places.
The night curfew has been slightly eased and some of the detained leaders like former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra have been freed already. Although the Junta continued to summon academics, journalists and other dissenters to report to the army.
As mainstream media remained under tight regulation, information and other news reports about the coup are shared mainly via the Internet. Since day one of the martial law declaration on May 20, 2014, the army has consistently threatened Internet users about using the social media to undermine the regime.
Hundreds of websites have been blocked already for being ‘inappropriate’ and local Internet providers are asked to filter harmful content. The army has vowed to punish netizens who are committing illegal online acts.
One of the popular reactions of Thais during the coup is the taking of selfie photos with soldiers deployed in the streets of Bangkok, the nation’s capital. The Twitter hashtag #CuteSoldierBoy even became popular in Thailand. Many were alarmed to see civilians happily posting photos of soldiers carrying high powered guns.
But many residents are not afraid of military deployment in the city and this was expected after half a year of intense street clashes between government supporters and protesters. This is also the 12th successful coup since 1932.
But the coup selfies should not be interpreted as a sign that Thais are supportive of the military intervention. They may not be afraid of soldiers but it doesn’t mean that they are not opposed to the Junta. The selfies were taken at a time when the army was threatening to censor social media.
Perhaps afraid of being tagged as a dissenter, some Thais opted to snap selfies with the soldiers while being silent about their sentiments about the coup. But the selfies succeeded in informing the whole Thailand and the rest of the world that the army has indeed taken over and replaced the civilian government.
Through the selfies, we learned that soldiers have been deployed near train stations, malls, major intersections and government offices. While TV stations were shut down (for two days they broadcast only patriotic songs from the World War II era), social media and in particular coup selfies provided the latest information about the coup situation in Thailand.
Are “selfies” a sign of a military coup in Thailand? http://t.co/Ga9i2rhAWD #c4news pic.twitter.com/LqOhDj6YrI
— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) May 20, 2014
Newsy or a Doozy – ‘Aint no selfie like a Thai coup selfie'… @graciewtaylor pic.twitter.com/H2PIuZcKWT
— George FM Breakfast (@GRGFMBRKFST) May 27, 2014
New craze for wedding photos in #Thailand. Taking pictures with soldiers and armoured vehicles #ThaiCoup pic.twitter.com/iwM7xzkXNV
— Richard Barrow (@RichardBarrow) May 27, 2014
Tourists pose with soldier for pics at thaepae gate chiang mai. Very quiet. Usually a bustling Sunday market here. pic.twitter.com/IJhNPVIgmv
— Fergal Barry-Murphy (@fergalbm) May 25, 2014
Then the selfies showed Thais expressing condemnation of the coup. Journalists started posing near soldiers to protest the curtailment of free speech. Students dared to go near army troops to demand elections. These few and scattered selfie photos inspired others to join several protests across the country.
@PravitR at Army Club Thewes turning himself in. How many other journalists will follow? pic.twitter.com/kgX8Dza0ZP
— Jonathan Head (@pakhead) May 25, 2014
one onlooker taking part in an anti-coup protest in Khon Kaen #ThaiCoup #Thailand #Coup2014 pic.twitter.com/0jXh0gKJLE
— The Isaan Record (@isaanrecord) May 23, 2014
The protests, though small, undermined the authority of the Junta prompting the army general to issue a warning against the dissenters:
Please be aware that from now on many kinds of action will be tried in the military courts – offences like lese majeste, where the law is very clear.
There must be no more criticism of soldiers or the police, Everyone is obliged to contribute to national security and to start following the law. When everyone disrespects the law and has no respect for officials, it has impacts at the political level, the administrative level, and in transparency.
I don’t want to argue with anyone, I just want to make my intentions clear. I can achieve everything as long as the people are satisfied to help me. Don’t criticise or create new problems, it's useless.
The selfie protests became popular and this probably inspired coup supporters to be more aggressive in showing solidarity to soldiers. We saw Thais giving flowers, bottled water, and food to soldiers and many carried placards describing the army as their hero.
Pro-coup demonstrators rally in front of 1st Infantry Regiment HQ in Bangkok today #ThaiCoup pic.twitter.com/6Q3AV7UG1K
— Khaosod English (@KhaosodEnglish) May 27, 2014
Pro-coup gathering at Bangkok's Democracy Monument. “We support army” #ThaiCoup pic.twitter.com/76mfzUY8h7
— Amy Sawitta Lefevre (@MimiSawitta) May 27, 2014
บรรยากาศหน้ากองบัญชาการกองทัพบก มีเสียงตะโกน “ทหารสู้ๆ” pic.twitter.com/aS6Kd6OZkH
— Phattanan Songchai (@phattanantv9) May 27, 2014
Another trend is the posting of tourism activities and tourist destinations in Thailand to show the world that the country remains peaceful and many areas are not affected by the coup.
A friend sent me this pic of tourists at Phrom Thep Cape in Phuket. She labelled it “What Coup?” #Thailand pic.twitter.com/VZwcLxgar5
— Richard Barrow (@RichardBarrow) May 27, 2014
#Thailand – RT @Freeszone: Koh Samet looks peaceful as well, no military pic.twitter.com/OuGNOfppPR
— Richard Barrow (@RichardBarrow) May 27, 2014
There is reason to be less worried as long as we see Thai coup selfies on our timelines. Because it means Thais are still free to post online whether it is the picture of a cute soldier or a reporter denouncing the coup regime.

author: Mong Palatino


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The Legalisation of Political Repression in Ethiopia · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Beza Tesfaye describes how the Ethiopian government legalises political repression in the country:
It has been one month since the latest round of repression against government critics in Ethiopia began. Last weekend, the Zone9 bloggers and three journalists who were arrested in late April appeared in court. To date, very little information has been given about the crimes the bloggers and journalists are accused of committing or the reasons why they are being held practically incommunicado. Rather than indicting the prisoners during the recent court appearance, the presiding judge gave police an additional 28 days to investigate the case, sending the nine bloggers and journalists back to jail without officially charging them. It was the second time since their arrest that the court has delayed the process, and knowing Ethiopia’s dodgy laws around “crimes against the state,” it probably will not be the last time.

author: Ndesanjo Macha


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We Have to be Prepared for Children’s Questions · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

On Mamacitas, there are reflections [es] about the experience mothers have when it comes to sex questions from their children:
Comprehensive sex education can't start at 15 years old, it's too late by then. It's a contradiction that we want to protect our children from every danger and that we don't understand that this part of their education is fundamental for their well being, their safety and for building today the healthy sexuality for tomorrow. Finally, it's necessary to note that this is a gradual process that starts with a good answer to the question “where do babies come from.”


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When Maya Angelou Lived in Egypt and Ghana · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Sean Jacobs writes about American author and poet Maya Angelou, who died at age 86 yesterday May 28, 2014:
In 1961, Maya Angelou, already a civil rights worker, and her then partner Vusumzi Make, an exiled activist from South Africa (he was a leading Pan Africanist Congress member), moved to Cairo, Egypt, where she found work at a small radical newspaper. One year later, Angelou and Make broke up and she moved to Ghana with her son. There they joined a small, tight-knit expatriate African American community that included the great scholar and activist W. E. B. Du Bois, the writer William Gardner Smith, lawyer Pauli Murray, journalist Julian Mayfield, and sociologist St. Clair Drake.  Angelou continued her work as a journalist and also worked as an administrator at the University of Ghana. Angelou made such an impression on her hosts honored her with a postal stamp. It was also during this time that Malcolm X visited Ghana; a meeting which prompted her move back to the US in 1965 to help Malcolm X build his Organization of Afro-American Unity. Shortly after her return, Malcolm X was assassinated.


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60% of Electoral Abstention in Colombia · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

Daniel Bustos blogs [es] on Trayectoria Económica about the abstention figures on the recent Colombian presidential election:
Nationwide, the abstention was an important actor on this election; in fact, it was the winner of the first round, with 60,15%, something none of the winning politicians is reflecting on yet, at least for now. I hope the candidate who becomes president may remember that the phrase “fellow countrypeople” every time he starts and address, is limited to that 40% that voted for him.


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Are Colombian Librarians Updated, Technologically Speaking? · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

Jaider Ochoa-Gutiérrez wonders [es] on Infotecarios if ordinary librarians are updated on technological issues that influence their profession, such as content curation, big data, labs among others, and answers from his own experience:
I must confess that, to me (and after speaking with some colleagues), the issue is still vague; at least in Colombia there is not a clear goal yet. We are almost an “exclusive” group, those who are addressing these issues, as many times when I speak with colleagues in libraries, most of the times they don't know what these topics are about, they review and ask “researcher” colleagues on universities, and are surprised when we talk about this.
Jaider explains it and suggest some readings on his post.


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BookCrossing in Latin America · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

Silvana Aquino writes [es] on Infotecarios about BookCrossing, BC, the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise.
BC has become a an increasingly popular phenomenon, as right now there are two millions of registered users, known as BookCrossers, who have released about tne million books in 132 countries. Through these free books that go beyond barriers of time and space, the intention is to turn the world into a global library.
And then, Silvana tells us a Latin American experience:
So, there is the B Day [es] with the aim of “atttracting attentios about books circulating as objects, as idea carriers, as cultural assets, this is the main idea of this proposed action.” This practice is carried out every September 21 since 2010 in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru [es] and year by year, more countries from other regions have started to participate.


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Challenges of Education in the 21st Century · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

Mikel Agirregabiria gets inspiration from the movie Dead Poets Society to point out [es] the current needs of education:
The 21st century educations demands posing again some issues that were not evident in the past, as where do you want to live or work, with what languages or with what cultures you'l be more comfortable of related, how will you professionally rebuild your working life several times,…


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Chavs, on UK Working Class · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

Dani @El_Taquillero writes [es] on Sólo por molestar about the book Chavs. The Demonization of the Working Class, by Owen Jones.
Chav is a term used to name a sub class within working class. […] Would someone be proud of feeling part of the working class if from the media, the consecutive administrations, etc. they are constantly bombarding you with the impoliteness of this sub class? Chavs are lazy, rude, alcoholic, violent. That's how the hatred between classes starts, the demonization. In the past, working class was “the salt of the earth”, now they have become “the scum of the earth”. Working class is place to run from, you can't be proud of being part of it. “Now we are all middle class”. Does this ring a bell? The process started with Thatcher since the 80s and consecutive adninistrations, conservative and laborist as well, have a clear similarity with Spain, from the “exemplary Transition” to the disaster we face. Owen Jones focuses on England, but what has happened in Spain can be clearly explained just by changing names and some dates. The deindustrialization, the following unemployment, mines closings, defeat of unions, most basic labor rights go down the drain, cuts in education, health services…


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China Puts Squeeze on WeChat and Other Messaging Apps · Global Voices
Abby Liu

China is launching a new month-long crackdown on popular instant messaging platforms including Tencent's WeChat messaging application in the latest campaign targeting social media companies.
The move comes in the run-up to the 25th anniversary of the pro-democracy Tiananmen Square protests on June 4.
According to the state media, three government agencies will conduct a month-long “special operation” to monitor WeChat and other platforms. Authorities are asking for tipsters to call or email them. WeChat public accounts will be targeted.
Since 2013, WeChat has replaced Weibo as a news source for savvy mobile users in China. Unlike Weibo, WeChat has more than twice as many monthly active users – 396 million – than Sina Weibo's 143.8 million, but most WeChat users send their messages privately rather than sharing them publicly.
Since 2013, WeChat has replaced Weibo as a news source for savvy mobile users in China.(Photo from Weibo)
WeChat also has more than two million “public accounts,” on which media outlets, business owners, and anyone else wishing to share their views can push out articles to followers once per day. This has also given rise to “self-media,” a place where organizations build their brand names and share information.
China Daily quoted a statement from the State Internet Information Office:
Some people have used them to distribute illegal and harmful information, seriously undermining public interest and order in cyberspace. The campaign will target public accounts on instant messaging services, which can spread information on a large scale and mobilize followers. We will firmly fight against infiltration from hostile forces at home and abroad.
The WeChat crackdown doesn't come as a surprise to most. Analysis of messages on WeChat has revealed that the platform is closely monitored by censors. From time to time, specific articles are also blocked on WeChat. In March 2014, authorities shut off dozens of popular public accounts sending out political articles and information.
Bill Bishop, author of Sinocism newsletter, commented on Twitter:
no surprise that wechat in crosshairs now, given its size and its growing role in organization and in spreading information
— Bill Bishop (@niubi) May 27, 2014
Weibo user “Gong Wenxiang” wrote:
前几天cctv说微信色情的事情，其实是当局要开始整治微信的信号：当局 最喜欢以打击低俗之名行钳制舆论之实。
A few days ago, CCTV was talking about WeChat porn, it’s actually a signal to crack down on WeChat, the authorities like to curb online voices by using the term “porn crackdown”.
Another user “Yidong Hulianwang app” worried that WeChat will face the same fate as Weibo where vibrant discussions have gone silent due to the chilling crackdown on so-called Big V users, or online celebrities, since August 2013:
网络彻底断网才是利益集团最希望看得到的！微博的今天，就是微信的明天
The whole Internet cutoff is what the authorizes hope to see. Today’s Weibo is tomorrow’s WeChat.


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Colombia: Post Election Mess · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

On Mil para Siempres, Camilo Andrés writes [es] about his deception with the results of presidential election in Colombia:
I woke up today with that post election mess many of us have today, although we faithfully believed in our convictions and voted as we thought would be best for the country, once again, my vote lost. And even though yesterday there were many saying on Twitter: “I've never voted for the winner on a presidential election. I think I've voted correctly then” yes, it is OK to be happy with your vote. But, up to where?
And then he describes sarcastically what he believes is the opinion of the “Uribist” supporters, alluding to some questionings to former president Uribe and candidate Zuluaga:


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Colombia: Three Weeks Away From a New Election · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

Madame Web writes [es] on her blog La Lógica de mi Papá about the time left for the second round of presidential election in Colombia:
We are three weeks away for the 60% who decided not to vote gets convinced of voting… We have also three weeks for the former-president-now-elect-senator goes ahead with his campaign… Three weeks for president candidate to get on it and makes something to prevent Zuluaga from winning… as there are not that many options: it's one or another… only one is just less bad that the other one.
She ends up encouraging citizens to vote:
And don't forget to vote on this second round… it doesn't matter if Colombia national football team has a game on the eve [on Brazil 2014 Football World Cup] and that election day and Father's Day are on the same date… don't be lazy and get up from your bed, it's free, exercise your right to choose and to be chosen. at the same time, you help with the decision of what will happen the next four years.


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Colombia: Voting for War or Peace · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

Journalist Natalia Bonilla writes [es] on Ser Cosmopolita about Colombia presidential election on Sunday, May 25, with a result that has raised a dilemma for Colombians:
Oscar Zuluaga and Juan Manuel Santos, won yesterday the first round with 29% and 26% of the votes, respectively. However, the victory for one of them lies in how the people consider that the armed conflict against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) can be solved: through war or peace.
After exposing the context of the armed conflict and the candidates’ proposals, she concludes:
On June 15, Zuluaga and Santos will contend for Colombia's future. Santos has a presidential path full of controversies [es], but his public policies have allowed the country to gradually grow economically. Santos has (for better or worse) support from important media outlets, Zuluaga doesn't. Zuluaga proposes a solid campaign for descentralizing government, reinforcing security and imprvoing health and education services. He has not been free from controversies either [es].
Having this in mind, on Sunday, June 15, who will Colombia elect for peace?


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Comments on the Results of European Election · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

Martín Guevara writes [es] on his self named blog about the results in Spain of the European Parliament election that ended on Sunday, May 25. Martín is surprised with the new victory of People's Party:
Well, well, People's Party wins again ,even after Arias Cañete defined women as an inferior entity, in terms of intelectuality! From now on, every woman who has voted for PP, please, refrain from talking to me, as I won't understand her,
But he feels not everything is lost, as he is hopeful about the results of the new political party Podemos [We can]:
“Podemos” was formed just months ago, and in that period has been able to participate in an election, spread its projects, diametrically opposed to current economic and political power, and their victory is more than anecdotic, they've done that in an exemplary and paradigmatic way.


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Cuesta de Miranda, Argentina · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

Laura Schneider shares [es] on Viajes y Relatos her visit to Cuesta de Miranda [Miranda Slope; es] in La Rioja, province of Argentina.
The word “slope” already makes me think of cliffs and corniches, so without a doubt I tried the road. The worst case scenario was me coming back. Paved road most of the way, and little by little big mountains appear, more than 70 million years old, vermilion colored, not even red, an color of rage, life, presence. Large mountain valleys appeared, vermilion, vermilion. By saying it twice it was like feeling more the color.
Foto de Laura Schneider, usada con autorización.


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Environment and Colombian Presidential Candidates · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

Yolima Vargas Garzón blogs [es] on Conspiring for a better world that she invited the candidates in Colombian presidential elections to answer two questions related to environment, and not all of them answered. One of the questions:
Are you willing to change country's history by putting the environmental component as the backbone of your plan, above other economic priorities and, naturally, the exploitation of natural resources?
Read more answers from the candidates who submitted them on her post [es].


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Is Power Too Sweet for Ailing African Leaders to Step Down? · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Gershom Ndhlovu looks at the reasons why ailing African leaders wont step down:
There have been rumours, innuendoes and even insinuations regarding the health, or the lack of it, of Zambia’s President Michael Chilufya Sata, in office since September 2011. These have been spread by the largely unregulated online media that the Patriotic Front (PF) government is intent on controlling or even shutting down altogether.
The government has not particularly responded to these rumours apart from issuing one-liner statements refuting the stories about the health status of the 76 year-old head of state and veteran politician.
However, when Sata appeared at a May 1 Labour Day parade to receive a traditional salute from workers in the land, the appearance was very brief and only accompanied by a one minute address before getting into his motorcade for a three kilometre drive back to the presidential palace, a lot of people were convinced the President was not well.


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Learning How to Sing · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

Do you think it's impossible to sing if you don't have a good voice from birth? Carlos Campaña on Vox Technologies thinks [es] the opposite:
It's possible to learn how to sing without having a good voice, as the concept of “having a good voice” lacks sense when we understand that the voice is nothing else than a group of muscles working synchronized. And as we all were taught when growing up, muscles and mind can be trained.
On the same blog, Esther Justel gives us some recommendations [es] to take care of the voice.


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Reference Services in Library and the Web · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

Samuel Castro Ponce writes [es] on Infotecarios about reference services [es] or librarian consultaton, history, features and evolution:
Evidently, synchronized referece services are evolving. Now there is a trend of using 2.0 websites for taking advantages of social networks that make possible sending and receiving information instantly. The same goes for the new services on cellphones some libraries are providing, that use keywords for enquiries, i.e., users start a text message with a specific term to get concrete answers or to get instructions and submit their enquiries to an appropriate department


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Shooting the Messenger: Jamaica’s Brendan Bain Controversy Continues  · Global Voices
Matthew Hunte

Brendan Bain, D.M., M.P.H., FRCP; former head of head of the Caribbean HIV/AIDS Regional Training Network (CHART). Photo by Steve Shapiro/2011 Caribbean HIV Conference, used under a CC license.
The controversy over Professor Brendan Bain's court testimony in the Caleb Orozco case (in which the plaintiff was suing the Attorney General of Belize over the unconstitutionality of the criminalisation of homosexual relations) continues. After Bain, who was head of the Caribbean HIV/AIDS Regional Training Network (CHART), stated that men who have sex with other men are at higher risk for contracting HIV, the University of the West Indies took the decision not to renew his contract.
The professor's full testimony is here. The aspect of his statement that appears to be fueling the contention involves his reference to a report which found that:
The relative risk of contracting HIV is significantly higher among men who have sex with other men (MSM) in Belize than in the general population. This is also true in several other countries for which data are available, including countries that have repealed the law that criminalizes anal sex and countries where the law still applies.
On Monday there was a protest at the Mona campus in support of Professor Bain. The protesters said that the University had violated Bain's right to free speech and had inadvertently cast doubt on the justice system:
In the Facebook group, “I Support Dr. Bain”, Miguele Smith commented on the video:
It is unjust on all levels for C.H.A.R.T to continue being in support of Professor Bain’s removal as Head of the organization, for how can an organization lose confidence in an individual of such high esteem and unquestionable professional character for giving an expert opinion? It must have meant that they wanted Professor Bain to state falsely on the issue. It is obvious that the Gay lobby groups are adamant in achieving their goal of having the buggery law repealed and legalizing same sex practices. If this were not so then the expert testimony given by professor Bain would not have been viewed as a threat that could influence the courts verdict to rule against the position of the gay activists and gay lobby groups of having the buggery law repealed. This issue gives insight to the level of indignation that plagues our society and highlights the blatant attempt of such lobby groups to craft a paradigm shift and silence those who oppose their goal even scientific evidence itself.
Many other quarters have been coming to Bain's defense. The Trinidad and Tobago Medical Association, for instance, called the non-renewal of Bain's contract as head of CHART a case of “shooting the messenger”, adding that there is “irrefutable evidence that MSMs [men who have sex with men] are at a higher risk of contracting (and spreading) HIV/AIDS.”
Jamaican writer Kei Miller posted an in-depth review of the issue, motivated in part by the fact that Dr. Bain has been a close family friend:
It is perhaps an inconvenience to know so well, so personally, people whose public selves you wish to engage with, and sometimes to challenge, for if you take a counter opinion you can no longer throw whatever invective you might have otherwise casually thrown at them – ‘close-minded’, ‘bigots’, ‘bible-thumpers!’  Instead you know too well their integrity, have experienced first-hand their love and compassion and so you must acknowledge that they (like you) are people in search of the truth, and people brave enough to speak that truth as they understand it.
He immediately acknowledged the complexity of the issue and the many layers that needed to be peeled away and understood before the truth could be arrived at:
We might stop for a moment to appreciate that this is how the story has been framed and understood by several Jamaicans. What many of us have understood is that a good man has been fired for having the moral and intellectual integrity to stand up and say not only what he believed, but to do so while standing on the solid ground of his research. And if we appreciate that this is how the story has been framed, that this is what many of us have understood, then we might appreciate why across the length and breadth of this little buggered island, so many of us are feeling deep pain and sometimes anger over the whole issue.
Miller also referred to a key aspect of Professor Bain's testimony in the court case:
It is difficult to find anything objectionable in the affidavit – but not impossible. There is one very curious statement which he offers in the preface and which in a way frames all of the evidence he then gives. He says:
‘Some Public Health practitioners have hypothesized that decriminalizing the practice of anal intercourse among consenting adults would lead to a reduction in the incidence rate of HIV infections among MSM. To date, published data have not substantiated this hypothesis.’
This single statement will have several of his colleagues and many others who work as HIV/AIDS researchers scratching their heads in perplexity.  I wish he had expounded on it and not just left it hanging there, a sentence that seems to go dramatically against what most of his colleagues would argue. For what is certainly true is that the rate of HIV/AIDS infection is highest in countries that have their buggery laws firmly in check. So where does this new conclusion come from? The very reports that he cites throughout his paper all come to the conclusion that the buggery laws must be repealed with great urgency to help in the fight against HIV. But Uncle B doesn’t mention this.
Miller referred to a situation with the Jamaica Coalition for a Healthy Society, which he says “lost serious moral and intellectual ground when they kept on invoking the research of Prof Chris Beyrer, one of the world’s leading HIV/AIDS specialists, and used it to support their cause of keeping the buggery law in place”:
It was Beyrer himself who finally had to write a heartfelt letter to the Gleaner (you can read it here) almost begging the group to stop being irresponsible and contorting his research, reading it out of context, and not showing the conclusions he had reached. That conclusion – once again – was that the buggery laws must be repealed to help in the fight against HIV. So when Bain seems to be employing a similar tactic, selecting sections of someone else’s research, speaking authoritatively from it, but not acknowledging the conclusions from that research, indeed suppressing it, then we might understand why certain groups might begin to get nervous.
Attempting to decipher the intended meaning himself, he wrote:
On closer inspection, and using all my skills as a literary scholar, the sentence is a slick and a slippery one. For though it might seem to leave hanging in the air the possible implication that the evidence REFUTES it, this is absolutely not what he says. He simply says the evidence does not, TO DATE, SUBSTANTIATE it. And we must give him credit, for Bain, throughout his affidavit, is making an extremely important and a nuanced point – that the repeal of the buggery law by itself may not lead to less HIV/AIDS infections among MSM, but that there are other behaviorial issues to tackle.
He also tried to bridge the divide between the different factions:
The inconvenient truth that most Christians do not want to hear is that this supposedly powerful gay lobby are not a bunch of paedophiles and degenerates hellbent on legalizing their immorality. They are men and women who have slowly let go of the terrible effort it takes to hate themselves, and who know all too well the social and medical consequences that such a culture of hate can produce, and who are now brave enough to challenge that culture of hate.
The inconvenient truth that gay lobbyists do not want to hear is that the counter Christian lobby are not a set of self-righteous, unintellectual people who simply want to advance their hatred of others. Amongst the group of Christian lobbyists are doctors like Brendan Bain who have worked quietly over the years, with love and empathy, to attend to some of the most vulnerable in our society.
KairoFocus fully supported Dr. Bain:
We must also note how Dr Bain's report calmly and professionally states or summarises clinically observed and statistically soundly investigated facts that should not be in serious dispute, and draws out findings that are very carefully broadened from the Buggery law — and BTW, this is about a sexual act that is generally reasonably seen as insanitary and dangerous, not a disposition —  to the full range of people at risk. Any sexually promiscuous person or anyone who interacts sexually with such a person is at risk in our region, or anyone who carelessly handles blood or other body fluids. (Intravenous drug use is not a significant factor in the Caribbean . . we smoke or drink, we don't “jook” here. [And, we should stop the smoking and drinking to excess too.
He was skeptical of the University's reasoning in this matter:
Now, too,  if what I suspect is going on behind the scenes is even half-way so (and notice protesters speaking of selling out for thirty pieces of silver . . . ), we had external forces with financial leverage over UWI, who sought to use radicals as a front lending apparent legitimacy to holding UWI to ransom to suppress research and analysis based findings identified by Dr Bain, on the real causal factors for the prevalence and patterns of HIV/AIDS in our region.
That is, grant money may well have come to WI with some ugly, hidden, enslaving chains attached.
Which is a wake-up call on what sort of money we should accept, from whom, for what . . . our souls are not for sale.
I therefore have a word for my Alma Mater:
It is time for us to stop, pause and rethink, UWI administrators.
Trinidadian poet and activist Brendan O'Brien argued that those in policy making positions should follow best practice, regardless of their personal beliefs:
The refusal to acknowledge the medical merit of the decriminalization of same-sex behaviour in curbing the epidemic of HIV/AIDS and other STIs in the developing world is a refusal to curb the epidemic overall.
Organizations committed to HIV prevention and the care of those affected have a mandate to support policies that work. When medical practitioners insist upon not supporting those policies in their capacity as members of those organizations, those organizations are within that mandate to sack them. It would work the exact same way, for example, if a global coalition of pediatricians dedicated to ensuring young children get vaccinated chose to sack a doctor who insisted against the evidence that vaccines cause autism.
O'Brien argued that while Dr. Bain's facts were correct, his policy proscriptions were wrong:
Bain is right when he says that MSM, especially in the Caribbean, are at high risk of contracting STIs such as HIV. After all, he got those facts largely from Beyrer.
Bain is wrong when he says that the solution is to continue criminalizing same-sex behaviour. Such a legal position makes it even more difficult for MSM to get or choose to seek treatment in a society that already holds a dangerous social stigma against LGBT persons. Bain is therefore woefully underinformed as to the policies that the majority of public health professionals are in support of – policies that CHART was committed to supporting – or was willing to lie by omission as it pertains to the facts related to the issue, since he was willing to quote Beyrer’s numbers, but not Beyrer’s conclusions.
But did Professor Bain actually say that? Miller explained:
Bain’s affidavit takes a neutral tone and is absolutely grounded in research, but it would be disingenuous for us to ignore what the affidavit is being used to advance. We especially know what it is being used in service of, not so much because of what it says, but because of what it doesn’t say, the conclusions that are not included, the voices shouting from these reports that buggery laws need to be repealed, that are carefully silenced.
For many stakeholders in the fight against HIV/AIDS who are working hard to create environments in which people might practice better sexual health, that might encourage an especially effeminate man not to feel awkward and guilty to walk into a pharmacy and buy condoms and lubricant, an environment where people might seek treatment when needed – for these stakeholders to support a position that argues for the maintenance of punitive buggery laws is not only unhelpful to their work, but is unethical.

author: Matthew Hunte


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Sisi Wins Egyptian Presidential Elections; Only Opponent Sabahi Comes in Third · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Egypt has a new president in the third elections it has had in as many years. General Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi won a landslide victory, topping his only oppopent Hamdeen Sabahi, who came in third place. After three days of voting, the preliminary results are out. Sisi is reported to have won 93.3 per cent of the votes, Hamdeen took 3pc and 3.7pc of the votes were declared void.
On Twitter, netizens met the news with sarcasm and snark.
Egyptian Aida Elkashef says [ar]:
المضحك المبكي ان في انتخابات مفيهاش غير ٢ مرشحين، حمدين حتي الان طالع التالت بعد المبطلون!
— Aida Elkashef (@AidaElkashef) May 28, 2014
What makes you laugh and cry at the same time is that in elections, with only two candidates, Hamdeen is in third place after the votes that have been declared void
Sherief Gaber asks:
So if 2011 was an uprising, can we call the unenthusiastic response for Sisi a downrising?
— sherief gaber (@cairocitylimits) May 29, 2014
And Egyptian Hosam El Sokkari notes [ar]:
الإنسان حيوان ناخب (غير كده مالوش قيمة)#حكمة_الأسبوع
— Hosam El Sokkari (@sokkari) May 28, 2014
The human being is a voting animal (other than this he has no value)
Meanwhile, Nabeel wonders why people are upset Sabahi was not up to the competition. He asks:
بس احنا بنحط على حمدين ليه؟ عشان أصواته القليلة؟ حد اقترح في لحظة انه ممكن ينجح مثلا؟
— نبيل (@Ternz) May 28, 2014
Why are we laying the blame on Hamdeen? Because he got few votes? Who suggested for a moment that he could ever win?
Despite Sisi's landslide win, Amro Ali sets a challenge:
Sisi will never be like Nasser till he can achieve Nasser's 99.9% "victory" in the 1956 polls. Amro Ali (@_amroali) May 28, 2014
Lebanese satirist Karl Sharro adds:
You only say that Sisi can't possibly get more than 100% of the vote because of your ethnocentric hegemonic mathematics.
— Karl Sharro (@KarlreMarks) May 28, 2014
From Bahrain, Abo Omar Al Shafee draws parallels to Bahrain. He tweets:
كما نجحت الإنتخابات الرئاسية في #مصر  ، حتما ستنجح الإنتخابات البرلمانية في #البحرين. ولا عزاء للمقاطعين.#صباح_الخير هقهقهقهق
— أبوعمر- الشافعي (@ALSHAF3EE) May 29, 2014
Just like the presidential elections were a success in Egypt, the parliamentary elections will definitely be a success in Bahrain. There is no consolation for those who boycott
And, in conclusion, Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah tweets:
دانت طلعت أهبل قوي يا سيسي
— Alaa Abd El Fattah (@alaa) May 28, 2014
You have turned out to be such an idiot Sisi

author: Amira Al Hussaini


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Spain: If European Election Would Have Been Legislative… · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

On the blog Recuerdos de Pandora, Milhaud carries out [es] a maths exercise and takes the results of European election in Spain to a legislative election, and the analyses that data with some interesting results:


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Spain, Podemos Political Party for 2015? · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

John McMarlo writes [es] on Hasta el corral y más allá about the performance of new political group Podemos on recent European election in Spain:
To me, the moral here is that we are in time for changing things and that we should think this has been a dress rehearsal for what will come on 2015. Next year, everything will be possible, removing from government those who rule and only see profit in power, as politics is acting for the people, facing it, not acting as if it doesn't exist. The end of the two-party system…


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What’s the Beef? Strike Call at Japanese Fast Food Chain Sukiya  · Global Voices
Keiko Tanaka

Screenshot of video uploaded by LaborNet Japan on YouTube.
On the heels of global protests demanding fair pay and better working conditions for fast food workers, unconfirmed reports on Twitter said employees at Japanese fast- food chain Sukiya were going on strike.
Sukiya, a Japanese restaurant chain run by Zensho Holdings, is famous for its cheap, tasty gyūdon or beef rice bowl. The company's slogan is “save time and money”. It has been plagued by reports of poor working conditions because of its “one-man operation”, with 28 stores closing business due to a shortage of workers. The company objected to earlier news reports claiming that a much larger number of their stores were closed. From Zensho's website [ja]:
一部報道で「人手不足などで184店舗休業」と見出しを打った報道がありました。この184店舗の内訳は、リニューアル工事によるものが156店舗、人員不足によるものが28店舗です。
There have been some news reports with the headline, “184 stores closed due to insufficient human resources”. However, these 184 stores are closed due to the following reasons: 156 for renovating the store [kitchen facilities], and only 28 are closed due to labor shortage.”
According to unconfirmed reports [ja] on the Internet, workers in some Sukiya stores were going to strike on May 29, 2014. Japanese pronunciation of the number 29 can alternately refer to “meat”. Part-time workers and labor activists used the hashtag #すき家ストライキ (#stirkeonSukiya) on this “day of meat” to take action against Sukiya.
Twitter user @Artanejp uploaded a photo showing a note attached to the front door of one store that reads, “We are closed from 6 AM to 10 AM due to insufficient labor power.” The photo was widely shared on the Internet, and the hashtag became viral. Even conventional newspapers like Asahi Shimbun are keeping their eyes on the prize [ja], asking users to submit information.
マジでやっとる。リスペクト。RT @Artanejp: http://t.co/Zp9z2JZ3Hr >吹いたw土浦ほぼすき家全滅やんw >http://t.co/mCN7juORic #すき家ストライキ pic.twitter.com/ybpsPvN8yI
— KEN-NYE(けにぃ) (@k2gtr) 2014, 5月 28
Looks like they are really on strike. Much respect. @Artanejp: All the Sukiya stores in Tsuchiura area [Ibaraki prefecture] seem to be out of business LOL #StrikeonSukiya
However, other users reported seeing stores operating normally, so it isn't clear if the photos circulating online are due to strikes.
Two weeks ago, fast food workers protested for similar reasons. Labornet Japan, a network of activists and citizens defending rights of workers, posted a video about activities in Tokyo linked to global actions for fast food workers. Labornet writes:
On May 15, 2014, there were simultaneous global actions in thirty-five countries to demand respect for fast food workers’ rights and fair wages to them. In Japan, the action was organized mainly by the Tokyo Young Contingent Workers’ Union, and the participants walked through a fashionable street in the Shibuya district in central Tokyo. They said, “We don’t need to work overtime and can afford to enjoy dinner or dating with 1,500 yen an hour”. The action got a positive reaction from people working in the district. They told me about their hourly wages, “950 yen”, “1,100 yen” and “1,200 yen” [each equivalent of 9.3 USD, 10.8USD, 11.8USD], all of which are still low. In front of a Sukiya beef bowl shop and a McDonald’s, the demonstrators demanded fair wages of minimum 1,500 yen an hour, showing placards written in Japanese, English and Spanish. Many media outlets covered the action.
Earlier in May, Zensho Holdings announced [ja] it was creating a third-party committee to improve working conditions. The labor union in Chiba prefecture called a strike [ja] over their demands. Zensho Union for Part-Timers has condemned the strike [ja] as being unlawful and urged part-time workers not to participate.
With the visibility of the hashtag and the buzz surrounding the unconfirmed reports online, it appears these strikes and the bad reputation of Sukiya are becoming larger than life.

author: Keiko Tanaka


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Twitter Effects in Thinking · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

Carles López Cerezuela believes Twitter produces some kind of “collateral damage” in human thinking, and on his blog KRLS he relates [es] some of those effects considering the good and bad parts of each one. Besides the already widely pointed out by several analysts, these are some of the mentioned by Carles:
More on Carles’ post [es].


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Venezuela: Answering Dieterich · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

After reading an interview [es] on Spiegel Online to German sociologist Heinz Dieterich, who purposts “Socialism of the 21st Century“, Adriana Vigilanza commented [es] on the blog Apertura Venezuela what Dieterich said. Below, a couple of them. Adriana's comments are italicized:
What has happened that people are ready to risk their lives in the srweets?
There is a combination of factors: first, infinite death rhetoric by president Nicolas Maduro, that divides Venezuelans in “fascists” and “loyals.” To add on this, we have the prison of oppostion leader Leopoldo López and the serious problems that country is having, which allowed radical sectors to movilized frustrated people.
Dieterich has the wrong information about Venezuela. “The infinite death rhetoric”, that exists without a doubt, was created by [late president Hugo] Chávez, who even invented the slogan “Socialist nation or death”. Nicolas Maduro only continues what the other one started, adviced Dieterich.
[…]
Is it likely for the president to be toppled?
On the guidelines of Chavismo, the discussion will go on about an effective way out to the crisis without considering this as a toppling. Meanwhile, it's clear to everybody that Maduro has no concept nor tools for modernizing the country. He used to think and thinks that it's enough to emulate his predecessor Hugo Chávez on the rhetoric and choreography and to keep the economic model.
Better said than that, impossible. The “Socialism of the 21st Century” he invented and that Chávez implemented, was (and still) pure “rethoric and choreography.”


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What is Eco-Friendly? · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

Rut de Esturirafi writes [es] about what does being eco-friendly means:
To me, being eco-friendy is being , i.e., to try to keep a balance between environment, social and economic issues. And this is not an easy to get balance.
For instance, a  item, with a fair  for consumer and producer as well would be the ideal situation.


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An Experience with Ciberbullying · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

Arely Torres Miranda writes [es] on Mujeres Construyendo [Women Building] about her own experience with ciberbullying:
That's when I understood that I hadn't been part of a social phenomenon I didn't even know how to start addressing, I didn't quite understand that dynamics and, above all, I had no idea of how to stop it. While I was making some phone calls, tweeted San Luis cyberpolice and got phone calls from sisters, on Facebook, as usual, part of the organized civil society, mostly about Human Rights, Gender and Non Discrimination, created a network through which, until today, we keep on filing, reporting and working on cases of so called “ciberbullying”. For this specific case, on that same day, at 20.30, the page “Quemones en San Luis” [San Luis’ shames] was pulled down thanks to each and every individual who took a minute to report the page on Facebook… but this was just getting started.


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Now Russia Wants to Tighten the Noose Around News-Aggregation Sites · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

Could Russia's regulatory push online include new restrictions on news-aggregation websites like Yandex? Images mixed by author.
The next time you pass a newsstand, consider the person who determined what publications would be displayed. The newsstand operator tries to appeal to passersby with a snapshot of what’s occurring in the world. When news aggregation occurs on a street corner, it’s a fairly simple business enterprise. When it happens on the Internet, some people in the Russian government, maybe Vladimir Putin included, are ready to treat it like a mass media undertaking.
Russian lawmakers are taking steps to classify news-aggregating websites as mass media, which would require companies like Yandex to register with the government and face stricter regulations. This latest legislative initiative responds to comments Putin made at a public forum in April 2014, when pro-Kremlin blogger Viktor Levanov asked the President how the state defines Yandex’s news-aggregation service. Levanov expressed concern that millions of people visit Yandex every day, where they see the website’s list of the “top five” news stories. Putin promised that the government was investigating the legal status of such online services, and would soon come to a decision.
Members of the Russian parliament seem to have read in Putin’s remarks not a “wait-and-see” message, but a call to action. On May 13, Duma Deputy Andrei Lugovoi asked the Attorney General to issue a ruling about whether Yandex is in fact part of the mass media. An answer is expected by mid-June. Reporting on the story, Russian newspaper RBC quotes several state officials who argue that Yandex must either part with its news-aggregation service, or accept the status (and restrictions) of mass media.
Apparent in many of the comments by government authorities is a blatant misunderstanding of how Yandex News actually works.
Yandex News is indeed intensely popular. Between May 2008 and March 2014, the service’s average daily visitors in Russia rose from about 600 thousand to 5.9 million. Yandex’s home page, which displays any moment’s “top 5” trending news articles, now attracts over 22 million people every day. Yandex, however, produces no original content. Moreover, the aggregation process, according to its designers, is entirely automated. Nobody at Yandex is writing anything. Nobody is even handpicking anything. Algorithms are responsible for everything found on the website.
The tremendous growth of average daily visitors to Yandex's news aggregation service. May 2008 to March 2014.
Many in the Russian government, however, either fail to comprehend this, or refuse to believe it. Seemingly, state officials and pro-Kremlin activists are inclined to view the popularity of “bad news” in Russia as an editorial ploy to turn the public against the government. Yandex is no stranger to such paranoia. One of the most frequently asked questions featured in Yandex’s help section asks, “Why is all the aggregated news so negative?” (Yandex’s answer is that aggregated news is negative when most individual news stories are negative.)
Curiously, Google’s news-aggregation service seems not to interest Russian lawmakers. RBC quotes an anonymous source in United Russia, the country’s ruling political party, who claims that Google doesn’t curate news articles. While the service is perhaps more primitive than what Yandex offers, Google does in fact aggregate Russian news. There is even a feature called “Editors’ Picks” that allows publishers to handpick particular content.
According to reports, the Attorney General is expected to rule that Yandex’s news service does indeed constitute a mass media outlet. Once that determination is made public, Lugovoi or some other Duma deputy is likely to sponsor new legislation that would formalize the legal obligations of news aggregators like Yandex.
Could new regulations pressure Yandex into abandoning news aggregation altogether? Probably not. In 2013, Yandex earned more than 891 million dollars in advertising revenue—much of it from its News portal.

author: Kevin Rothrock


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Culture and Art in Bolivia · Global Voices
Gabriela García Calderón Orbe

“Does Bolivia have culture?”, wonders [es] Eduardo Bowles on his blog, and tries an answer:
Of course it does, but nobody looks at it and very few try to promote it. The Ministry of Cultures pays lots of money to singers who harp upon catchy choruses, but has never tried to rescue the huge knowledge that there is regarding ancestral materials that could be improved or provided them a production and marketing system that allow indigenous people to improve their living conditions.
[…]
Not even art, which is the way the enlightened ones imagine the future, has that kind of promotion and it usually stays in small social circles, as if it was exclusive and prohibitive.

author: Gabriela García Calderón Orbe


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German Graduates Fight Back Against Woefully Paid Internships: ‘Have You No Shame?’ · Global Voices
Anne Hemeda

Application papers. Photo by Anne Hemeda
Under what conditions does an internship constitute exploitation? As of yet there is no national minimum wage in Germany, and the lines of what seems reasonable are crossed time and again, most recently when a non-profit enterprise used the list to search for a trainee who was to be paid 900 euros per month for full-time work as the personal assistant to the deputy general manager.
“Have you no shame?” asked a member of the mailing list for the International Relations section of the German Political Science Association (Deutsche Vereinigung für Politische Wissenschaft), IR-List, in an open letter in response. This issue gave rise to a heated debate among the 12,000 plus members of the mailing list.
It is not uncommon to see advertisements for internships or traineeships which offer absolutely no pay or very little. Relocation packages and travel cost reimbursements are usually given no consideration whatsoever. Students save up for their work experience, not only because costs are incurred, but also because the lack of earnings has to be made up for, given that it is unrealistic to have a part-time job during a full-time internship.
This raises the question, which students or graduates can actually afford such a placement? Franz Schröder came to the conclusion in his open letter:
Angenommen Euer Traineeship ist wirklich ein Karrieresprungbrett, dann würdet Ihr – wie so viele andere zivilgesellschaftliche Organisationen, die unbezahlte Praktika etc. anbieten – die soziale Ungleichheit weiter stärken, weil Arbeiterkinder es sich nicht leisten können, für Euch zu arbeiten.
Assuming your traineeship is really a springboard for one's career, then you – like so many other Civil Society Organisations – would end up increasing social inequality even further, because working-class children cannot afford to work for you.
Many accept unpaid work experience in the hope that the reference will look good on their CV, and that a good job will be awaiting them after a fruitless spell of several unpaid or badly paid placements. However, that is very much doubtful when the work experience undertaken is administrative in nature, with no education or advanced training to be expected from the placement or traineeship.
As recently as March this year, an Employment Tribunal found in favour of one intern who had sued her employer for lack of remuneration, as reported by Spiegel Online. The contract was said to have been unconscionable, since the employer had demanded a regular amount of work in order to save on labour costs, and because the internship had no educational purpose.
The Duden definition of ‘internship.’ Photo by Anne Hemeda.
What's more, it is paradoxical that it is precisely the charitable sector which is not meeting standards with respect to its own workers. In 2012, university graduate Mario Schenk sent a ‘letter of non-application’ for a job he was interested in and shared it via the mailing list Reflect-Info. He wrote: “I simply cannot afford the position that you are offering.” According to Schenk, it is incomprehensible that an organisation, whose “fundamental premise is its commitment to equity”, would commit a “most blatant contradiction” to its “cause and objective” with remuneration of this kind. The project Absageagentur (“Rejection Agency”) also sent ‘letters of non-application’ in the spring of 2004, in order to “give unreasonable wage labour a taste of rejection”.
As more and more intrigued contributors signed up to the IR-List, a text document was uploaded in which active volunteers collaborated to gather ideas for a campaign. A mailing list has been created for the hundred plus interested individuals, a Yahoo Group, a Facebook Group and finally the “Hall of Shame of the most Outrageous Job Offers“.
While planning for the campaign continues, Franz Schröder's open letter has raised awareness of an issue which has already been discussed so often. When one institute used another mailing list to offer an internship in exchange for one hundred euros’ worth of expense allowance per month, questions were quickly raised as to whether there had been a typo. And indeed: the institute removed the advertisement, released a statement and posted a revised internship description.
It remains to be seen what the effects of the minimum wage will be, which was passed by the Bundeskabinett, the German cabinet, in early April and is supposed to apply to non-compulsory internships that last over six weeks.

author: Anne Hemeda


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How To Register A Company In Nepal · Global Voices
Rezwan

Libertarian blogger Surath Giri posts an info-graphic which depicts the details of the complicated company registration process in Nepal.

author: Rezwan


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Young, Hip and Worshipping Shiva in India · Global Voices
Alka

A man dressed as Hindu God Lord Shiva performs during Maha Shivratri Celebration in New Delhi. Image by Rohit Gautam. Copyright Demotix (10/3/2013)
Is Shiva the cool god of the younger generation? The Hindu deity appears these days on television, in books, movies and even on tattoos.
Popular Indian cricket star Ravindra Jadeja, who has more than 112,000 Twitter followers, tweeted this earlier this year:
Shiva has to be coolest of all Gods, He smokes weed, dances and gives shit about the clothes he wears. Now that's a cool God.
— Sir Ravindra Jadeja (@SirJadeja) Feb 27, 2014
Even major magazines run cover stories about Shiva and the new-found obsession for him among India's youth. Weekly magazine India Today covered this phenomenon in April 2013. In an Editor's Note, Aroon Purie, editor-in-chief of the magazine, wrote:
For generations of Indians over millennia, Shiva was a God to be feared. People worshipped him because he alone, among the holy trinity of Hinduism, possessed the power to destroy. Like in several other spheres, young, urban India is rewriting the conventional wisdom. For them, Shiva is cool, an ancient icon given a contemporary twist, fit for consumption in the 21st century.
The “Shiva” phenomenon seems to have grown stronger since Purie's observation. Popular television show Devon ke Dev Mahadev, which covers various stories from the Shiv Puran, is still going strong after two-and-a-half years. And author Amish Tripathi's in demand Shiva trilogy of books was picked for a movie deal by Bollywood director Karan Johar. An American producer soon followed suit, purchasing rights for the English version of the movie.
Tripathi takes a guess at what lies behind Shiva's popularity. During an interview with the Wall Street Journal, he said:
I’m certainly not surprised by the passion of the youth for our myths. Mythology is almost a part of an Indian’s DNA. I really didn’t think it would die down so easily.
Devdutt Pattanaik, author of several books on Shiva and a consultant for Devon ke Dev Mahadev, has a more radical view about Shiva's popularity. Pattanaik suggests that Shiva's popularity goes hand in hand with a perception that he is macho. Looking at several factors that might contribute to this idea of Shiva's machismo, he relates that the latest is probably the influx of comics from the stables of the American publishers DC Comics and Marvel:
At its heart is a new form of misogyny that rejects everything remotely feminine, where even feminism becomes all about embracing the masculine as in the film Gulaab Gang. It celebrates the violence of the alpha predator who sits on top of the pecking order and dominates the pack. Not surprisingly, women are increasingly feeling increasingly unsafe in Indian cities.
Another perspective is offered by Sadhguru, Indian yogi and founder of Isha Yoga. Looking at Shiva as the first yogi who introduced humanity to spirituality, he writes on Facebook:
Breaking the laws of physical nature is spiritual process. In this sense, we are outlaws, and Shiva is the ultimate outlaw. You cannot worship Shiva, but you may join the gang.
An aghori ascetic, follower of Shiva, smoking cannabis. Image by Alewis2388 via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY
This “outlaw” image seems to be one of the factors that resonates with young Indians. Bollywood actors Ajay Devgan and Sanjay Dutt, known for their roles in action movies, have tattoos of Shiva on their bodies.
But clearly these are not the only factors that draw youth to this enigmatic figure. A blogger on the Indian website Boloji points out why Shiva is so cool from his point of view:
What appeals to me about Shiva is the fact that he embodies so many contrasts. A married man who can also be a celibate ascetic; a wild dancer who can sit absolutely still in meditation; his grief knows no bounds when Sati dies, yet he casually lops of ganesha's head. He embodies every aspect of human nature. If you can make your peace with this bewildering multidimensional individual, you've made your peace with the existence and everything in it.
Whether it is his machismo, his wildness or his all inclusive nature, interest in Shiva is holding steady. A look at Google Trends shows that he has steadily gained popularity over the last five years, after a dip between 2006 and 2009. Whatever the reason, the books, movies, TV shows and tattoos don't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon.

author: Alka


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Information Hub for Humanitarian Aid for Bosnia and Herzegovina Floods · Global Voices
Filip Stojanovski

POINT, the international conference on political accountability and new technologies in Sarajevo, has used its skills to aid in relief of the ongoing disaster affecting three Balkan countries – Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia. BosniaFloods.org, the first tool developed by the participants, specifically targets Bosnia, because the situation in this country was made particularly abysmal because its government structure hindered disaster coordination.
In Bosnia, the floods and landslides directly affect over 1.36 million people, about 1/4 of the population, and lack of information in English inhibits people abroad who would like to help. The multinational team congregates and translates bits of information currently spread around the web. It addresses their credibility, mindful that in Serbia and possibly elsewhere there were attempts to swindle prospective donors via false bank accounts. Money is probably the easiest kind of aid to send. The people affected also need food, clothes and medical aid that can be delivered from other European countries, as well as volunteers who could coordinate such efforts within their countries.

author: Filip Stojanovski


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Rwanda: The Good, the Bad and the Hopeful  · Global Voices
Abdoulaye Bah

Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda, at the World Economic Forum on Africa 2009 in Cape Town, South Africa- via wikipedia cc-license-2.0
Rwanda remains deeply scarred by the 1994 genocide of 800,000 to 1 million people, including 80 percent of the Tutsi population as well as many Hutus. Around one-sixth of the country's total population was killed in a matter of weeks.
Twenty years later the process of reconciliation still has a long way to go. President Paul Kagame is accused of suppressing his opponents, among other serious human rights violations. But efforts to rebuild are beginning to yield results.
The Good News
One of Rwanda's most remarkable achievements is the progress of gender equality in numerous areas. The percentage of women in the Rwandan parliament, at almost 64 percent, is the highest in the world, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union's 2014 ranking of 189 countries.
Louis Michel, a former minister in Belgium and European commissioner, noted on his personal blog [fr]:
Ces résultats sont spectaculaires : en moins de dix ans plus d’un million de personnes ont été sorties de la pauvreté extrême et le pays a enregistré un taux de croissance économique stable de 8% par an. Plus de 95% des enfants ont aujourd’hui accès à un cycle complet d’éducation primaire, la mortalité infantile a été réduite de 61% tandis que les trois quart de la population ont accès à l’eau potable. Enfin, près de 50% des femmes ont accès à un moyen de contraception, ….. Cela fait du Rwanda l’un des très rares pays d’Afrique qui pourra affirmer avoir atteint la quasi-totalité des OMD en 2015.
These results are spectacular: In less than ten years, more than one million people have been lifted from extreme poverty and the country has seen a stable economic growth rate of 8 percent per year. Today more than 95 percent of children have access to a complete primary school education, infant mortality has been reduced by 61 percent, and three-quarters of the population have access to potable water. Finally, almost 50 percent of women have access to some means of contraception …. This makes Rwanda one of the very few African countries that will have almost entirely achieved its Millennium Development Goals in 2015.
The country's first five-year plan for the development of new technologies [fr], created in 2001, showed significant progress. During the plan's second phase, which ended in 2010, Rwanda saw a 8,900 percent increase in users, compared with 2,450 percent for the rest of the continent and a world average of 44 percent. The magazine African Renewal, hosted by the U.N., reports that four divisions of the public sector (ministers, agencies, provinces, and districts) and almost a third of the private sector have an online presence. Rwanda's capital Kigali plays a primary role in the development of the surveillance system of navigation and aerial communications throughout the region.
President Kagame maintains that “the Internet is a needed public utility as much as water and electricity.” In collaboration with the Rwandan Telecentre Network (RTN), the government has implemented a plan for the development of Internet access in rural zones. A report [fr] published on balancingact-africa.com states:
Rwandan Telecentre Network (RTN) s’est rallié aux efforts du gouvernement et s’est engagé à créer un réseau national de 1 000 centres TIC d’ici la fin de 2015 et à former du personnel local.
Rwandan Telecentre Network (RTN) is rallying with the government's efforts, pledging to create a national network of 1,000 ITC centers by the end of 2015 and to train local personnel.
A further sign of advancing access to new technologies is that Rwanda is the highest achiever among the African countries participating in the program One Laptop Per Child. According to the OLPC wiki page  :
By the end of 2012, 210,000 laptops have been deployed to more than 217 schools across the country. In 2013: 210k = 110K (before 2012) +100k (2012) laptops [were distributed] in country
The Hopeful News
After the genocide, the country took legal action, creating a National Unity and Reconciliation Commission (NURC). The NURC, established in 1999, aims to contribute to good government; promote unity, reconciliation and social cohesion between Rwandans; and form a country where everyone has the same rights.
Susan Thomson, a professor of contemporary African politics at Hampshire College in the U.S., wrote in an article [fr] published on academic publication hub Cairn.info:
Sous la férule du RPF, l’État postgénocide a largement contribué à restaurer la paix, l’unité et la réconciliation aux quatre coins du pays. L’appareil d’État rwandais, solide et centralisé, a facilité une reconstruction rapide. À la différence de La plupart des autres États africains, le Rwanda est capable d’exercer son contrôle territorial avec une efficacité extrême. Les institutions de l’État ont été restaurées.
Under [the ruling] Rwandan Patriotic Front's rule, the post-genocide state has made a large contribution to restoring peace, unity and reconciliation throughout the country. The Rwandan state structure, solid and centralized, has facilitated a rapid reconstruction. Unlike most other African states, Rwanda is capable of exercising territorial control with great effectiveness. The state institutions have been restored.
The Rwanda Peace Academy (RPA) is an example of those advances. Created in 2009 with the financial backing of Japan and the United Nations Development Program, the RPA has a mission is to carry out research and to develop and implement professional training courses and internationally recognized educational programs. Its goal is to provide the army, police and civil servants with the necessary skills to respond to current challenges and future peace and security issues in Africa.
The Bad News
Unfortunately, this promising work is marred by the grave human rights violations reported by advocacy groups. Violations have been occurring for years. In 2012, after having sent several missions to the country, Amnesty International condemned the violations:
Between March 2010 and June 2012, Amnesty International documented 45 cases of unlawful detention and 18 allegations of torture or ill-treatment at Camp Kami, Mukamira military camp, and in safe houses in the capital, Kigali. The men were detained by J2 for periods ranging from 10 days to nine months without access to lawyers, doctors and family members.
Assassinations of opposition members [fr] have also been reported outside the country. Journalists and former political leaders close to the Rwandan president have been arrested or killed [fr]. The most recent arrests were confirmed at the beginning of April 2014.
Singer and activist Kizito Mihigo – Public Domain
The site arretsurimages.net [fr] reported the arrest of famous singer Kizito Mihigo, a genocide survivor, and three other individuals, including a journalist accused of plotting a grenade attack on a building in Kigali. Kizito Mihigo, however, is known for his activism for peace. He even founded an NGO for peace education. His blog [fr] reads:
Depuis l'année 2003, il a œuvré pour le pardon, la réconciliation et l'unité dans la diaspora rwandaise en Europe. En 2010 quand il est rentré au Rwanda, il a Fondé la Fondation KMP (Kizito Mihigo pour la Paix), une ONG rwandaise qui utilise l'art (musique, theatre poesie, ..) dans l'éducation à la Paix, à la Réconciliation et à la Non-violence après le génocide.
Since 2003, he has been working for forgiveness, reconciliation and unity in the Rwandan diaspora in Europe. Upon his return to Rwanda in 2010, he founded the KMP Foundation (Kizito Mihigo for Peace), a Rwandan NGO that uses art (music, theater, poetry…) in education focused on peace, reconciliation and non-violence after the genocide.
The singer pleaded guilty, but serious doubts [fr] were raised about many aspects of the case.
Furthermore, for the past several years Kigali has had tense diplomatic relations [fr] with several other countries. Once a country favored by the West, Rwanda is now becoming a no-go area and is losing its military [fr] and development aid. Diplomatic relations with South Africa are strained following assassinations of opposition members in that country. There have already been expulsions of diplomats [fr] on both sides.

author: Abdoulaye Bah


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The Party and the Trash · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

José Arias writes [es] on Habemos Ciudadanus about the issue of trash in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic:
The thing is that trash and plastic are the result of the weekly party at Bonyé. Regrettable and revealing, once again, of the civic degeneration in spite of the praises to heroic martyrdom and love to the Tricolor Flag. Nonethless, that love and respet for the sacrifice of Heroes aren't seen in harsh urban hygiene: pick up the trash or ask the locals to put the trash where it belongs.


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Wow Madrid! · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

Francisco Javier is rejoiced [es] with the recent victory of Real Madrid Football Club on the 2013-2014 UEFA Champions League.
Who remembers what was going on 12 years ago? Well, [we were] watching our team rising the big-eared [as the Cup is known for its shape] some years younger, but with the same illusion since we were born to find out that Real Madrid is the best thing in the world.


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Censors On, China Still Doesn’t Want Anyone Talking About Tiananmen Square · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Hong Kong University's Weiboscope project collected a large number of censored tweets in Sina Weibo, analyzed the censored terms and visualized them into a star-shaped word cloud.
As the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre approaches the Chinese government's web censors are in full swing to silence online discussions and commemoration of one of the bloodiest events in Beijing's modern history.
The crackdown that initiated on June 3–4, 1989 is also remembered as the “June 4th event”. On this day, armed Chinese troops and tanks attacked unarmed civilians who were trying to block their advance towards Tiananmen Square in Beijing, where student-led popular demonstrations had been taking place since spring. The protests were triggered by the death of a liberal reformer, the former Communist Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang, who was deposed after losing a power struggle with hardliners in the Communist Party over liberal reform.
Estimates of the death toll from June 4, 1989 range from a few hundred to the thousands. The Chinese government has prohibited all forms of discussion or remembrance of the events since.
As anticipated, the most frequently used and censored term on China's web is “June 4″ (六四), the day the massacre took place. A number of other terms, like “Hu Yaobang”, “narrow”, “rejected” and “Mirror Magazine”, all of which are associated with the memoir of Deng Liqun on Hu Yuibang have also been deleted. Keywords related to Hong Kong's politics are also being blocked.
Here are some of the major censored terms featured in the Weibo censored terms word cloud created by Hong Kong University's Weiboscope project, with some examples of the deleted posts that have been saved and made public by Free Weibo.
June 4 (六四): Most censored posts containing “June 4″ sought to honor the 25th anniversary of the event. Some focused on the historical event that happened in 1989. The Chinese government recently arrested several intellectuals who attended a seminar on the Tiananmen Massacre. News and comments about the arrest were also deleted:
HK灭貪魔神：肯定删，我就是發六四貼被禁关注！講大話天理不容含家惨死[怒]
“Hong Kong anti-corruption monster”: This will definitely be deleted. But still I will post a June 4 tweet and get myself banned from Weibo! Heaven will forbid such lies and I will go to hell with the liars.
涂锴￼：孔庆东是因为什么事情被封杀的?六四还是乱邦?好像说法不太一致啊
To Jia: What is the reason for Kong Qindong being blocked? June 4 or Hu Yaobang? There are different versions.
团团转转不过来弯：深夜看到土家野夫也被抓,睡意全无。作为个作家,写过令人看了痛哭的母亲,写过纯真感动的爱情,写过铁肩道义的江湖……就因为在家里开个会讨论下六四,被抓。我操,这世道魔鬼当道,好人难存呀。
“Can't turn around”: Read that Ye Fu was arrested at midnight, can't sleep. As a writer, he has written the story of heartbroken mothers, pure love and a grassroots society seeking justice… He was arrested for holding a seminar at home about June 4. Damnit. The devils rule the world, good people can't survive.
Tiananmen (天安門): The term Tiananmen was also censored. This year, however, overseas Chinese activists launched a “return to Tiananmen” movement and encouraged individuals to either take photos with a political message at the square or to visit the square on June 4. All posts that talk about the political significance of Tiananmen were removed. Below are two examples:
江南闲人2008：如果反右有用，就不会有文革中的四五天安门广场运动，也不会有毛死后的执政党继续执政的合法性危机。
Jiangnan leisure 2008: If the anti-rightist movement worked, the May 4 Tiananmen movement during the Cultural Revolution wouldn't have happened and the ruling party would not have had a legitimacy crisis upon Mao's death.
费明微博：北京，天安门广场，是毛居住的地方。六月请绕行。
Feiming Weibo: Beijing, Tiananmen Square are Mao's residence. Have to take a round turn in June.
Hu Yaobang (胡耀邦, Old Residence（故居), Firmly rejected (峻拒), the Mirror Monthly（鏡報月刊）and Hu Jintao (胡錦濤: All these terms were deleted because of their relation to a memoir written by Deng Liqun on Hu Yaobang.
The man whose death triggered the 1989 Tiananmen Protests
Hu Yaobang was loved by the political liberals in China. Throughout the 1980s, Hu pursued a series of economic and political reforms under the direction of Deng Xiaoping, the engineer of China's open door policy. A series of student protests that took place in 1987, demanding more political liberation, resulted in an internal party struggle. Hu was condemned for his “bourgeois liberalization” policy and was forced to resign as the party's general secretary. He passed away on April 15, 1989 and indirectly triggered the Tiananmen student protest.
The memoir of Deng Liqun revealed that in 1988, after Hu Yaobang was forced to resign. Deng encouraged him to stand up against his successor Zhao Ziyang, but was rejected. The episode reconfirmed Hu Yaobang's integrity as the country's leader. The fact that the former Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Hu Yaobang's old residence to show respect for the late leader has been interpreted by some as a political gesture amid the fierce internal party struggle under the leadership of Xi Jinping.
草民杜楠：什么信号？“胡耀邦”不再是敏感词、满屏纪念胡耀邦的帖子没删除没加密、胡锦涛参观了胡耀邦故居
Grassroots Du Nan: What is the meaning of this sign? “Hu Yaobang” is no longer a sensitive term. The screen is full of posts for memorizing Hu Yaobang. No blockage or screening. Hu Jintao visited Hu Yaobang's old residence…
雾霾兰州：//@老章的住院护工:【人品】1988年11月，邓力群在长沙求见胡耀邦，想拉耀邦联手扳倒当时的总书记，遭峻拒。
Misty Lanzhou: RT @Nurse from Lao Zhang hospital: [A person's virtue] November 1988, Deng Liqun requested to meet Hu Yuibang in Changsha. He wanted to join hand with Yuibang to overthrow the then CCP chief secretary but was rejected firmly.
郑克强￼[…] 警卫秘书李汉平听说了邓的想法，不假思索地说：“好呀！咱们也报个仇嘛！”耀邦听后严肃批评说：“我真没想到，你（李汉平）跟了我这么多年，思想还这么狭隘！”（镜报月刊
Zheng Keqiang […] Secretary of the security guard Li Hanping heard Deng (liqun)'s idea, straightforwardly said: “that's great! Let's retaliate!” Hu Yuibang criticized him: “after so many years you have followed me, I can't imagine you are so narrow-minded!” (Mirror magazine)
Censors zoom in on Hong Kong's Politics
Hong Kong（香港) and Leung Kwok-Hung or Long Hair (梁國雄): All these terms relate to Hong Kong politics, and are under heavy censorship as the citizen's civil disobedient campaign, Occupy Central, approaches. Many names from the pan-democratic clans, such as Leugn Kwok-Hung, who is a Legislative Council member and a radical democrat, have become sensitive terms. Apart from specific censorship of people and political events, many political discussions have also been filtered into oblivion. This suggests that the Chinese Communist Party is very cautious about the role of Hong Kong as a diasporic dissent space. Here are some examples of the censored posts related to Hong Kong:
SCMP_南華早報：#观点#【香港须捍卫言论自由】香港报摊经常售卖各类批评不同政治派别领导人的刊物，许多人不禁会问：为何新闻自由仍是一个值得关注的问题？
SCMP: #opinion# [ Hong Kong has to defend freedom of speech] The newspaper kiosks in Hong Kong have all kinds of magazines about politics and political leaders, many people ask how come freedom of press is still a concern?
时代迷思：【户籍的差距】在香港生孩子，小孩就是香港户籍了；在美国生孩子，小孩就是美国户籍了；[…]在中国生孩子，小孩子不一定是中国户籍，可能是黑户，生命的合法性来源于政府的“准生证”。
“Time's Myth”: [Difference is household registration] Giving birth in Hong Kong, the baby will obtain Hong Kong citizenship; Giving birth in the USA, the baby will obtain US citizenship […] Giving birth in China, the baby is not necessarily Chinese citizen, it may become illegal because the legal status of life originates from the government's “birth permission”.
海边的金子：香港立法会议员正式访问上海。行程泛民议员仅余三名，目前正考虑是否继续行程。有泛民议员因“六四”衣着遭边检拦截返回香港。梁国雄质疑此次“上海行”的诚意。另有工党两名出席议员也响应启程返港。长毛大哥没能入关,粉丝颇感失落。
Gold at the seaside: Hong Kong Legislative Council members made their official visit to Shanghai. There were only three pan-democrats, who were considering whether or not to proceed with the tour. A pan-democratic council member who carried with him a June 4 T-shirt was repatriated back to Hong Kong. Leung Kwok-hung questioned the sincerity of the trip. Two members from the Labour Party returned back to Hong Kong. Long Hair failed to enter [China], his fans were disappointed.
China sees the Internet as an ideological battlefield. The range of the censored terms in the Weiboscope's word star – names related to the Tiananmen event, the party's historical internal struggle, and Hong Kong contemporary politics – shows just how sensitive the Chinese Communist Party still is about the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, and the extent it is willing to go to make sure that no one talks about it.

author: Oiwan Lam


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Free E-books: Digital Survival Kit · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

Andrea Collazo publishes [es] on Profesora de Informática [Computing teacher] her first free e-book:
Security, browsers, e-mail, office automation, storage in “The Cloud”, messaging, multimedia, image treatament, accesories. Meet the Digital Survival Kit.
The kit can be ordered on the post [es].


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“I Can Feel Total Censorship in the Air”: Internet Freedom Evaporates in Thailand · Global Voices
Guest Contributor

Coup protest in Bangkok, May 29, 2014. Photo by Prachatai (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
To protect the safety of the writer this post has been published anonymously.
When Thai Army General Prayuth Chan-Ocha declared martial law on May 20, media workers felt it immediately. By law, they were no longer allowed to report anything negative about the military — not even a downtrend in the stock market. The military took total control on May 22, 2014, calling themselves the “National Council for Peace and Order”.
After last week’s coup d’etat, television screens went dark and patriotic songs were broadcast repeatedly through all free channels to replace daily information. For a few days, only the army’s television channel was allowed to report the news — all positive things about the coup, of course. By order of the Council, both online and offline media have been forbidden from criticising the army or sharing content that could be “harmful to national harmony and public order”. ISPs were summoned to report to NCPO.
Freedom of expression is Thailand is at stake. I can feel total censorship in the air. Simply criticising the Council could land one before a military court. When media cannot function, the lack of information creates a fertile breeding ground for rumours. Panic has spread rapidly online, with public servants quietly warning their friends and family who are active online that social media could be blocked any minute. There are also rumours that the Internet could be blacked out, although this has not happened yet.
Why is freedom of expression so essential? During the 2010 military crackdown on the Red Shirt demonstrations, TV channels were not allowed to report on the situation. The army used real weapons to drive protesters away, resulting in 98 deaths. Without enough information, half of the nation supported the army in committing a massacre in the middle of Bangkok and reacted as if the protesters deserved to be killed. Freedom of expression is a safeguard to prevent human rights violations. When you know the media is watching, it is more difficult to do something wrong.
Regulations issued by Council may destroy the open nature of the Internet in Thailand. Panic and fear will lead to self-censorship. The Internet is not only regulated by the army and cyber police but somehow, by our own acquaintances. Trust between friends and family breaks down, sometimes even causing them to report on each other to authorities. This widespread fear leads to self-censorship.
Thailand “coup selfie” posted on Twitter by @MarcoTexRanger.
In this situation, the Internet is our last resort. Although the Council says these conditions are temporary, no one knows exactly how long ‘temporary’ will last or how much worse the situation could become. Media reports show citizens sharing selfies and flower photos online, but these do not reflect a nationwide reaction to the coup — rather, they are the only activities allowed. Silence does not mean consent. We don’t wish to keep silent, but who would want to risk being tried in a military court? Personally, I strongly disagree with the seizure of power through armed force and the limitation on freedom of expression, which can no longer be exercised domestically. With a dim hope, I wish to bring a free Internet back to Thailand.
Global Voices takes the security of its contributors very seriously. We omitted the name of this author for their safety.

author: Guest Contributor


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Legislating on Open Access in Mexico · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

Saul Equihua writes [es] on Infotecarios about open access in México:
On Tuesday, May 20, 2014, Mexico moved ahead by adding and reforming the Legislation of Science and Technology, the General Legislation of Education and the Organic Law of National Council of Science and Technology, to promote open access.
After analyzing the legistlation, he concludes:
My wish as well as other's (most surely) is that this law won't remain paper and that it will really be a step that will allow us to improve investigation, innovation and development. May the assigned resources get to the hands of those who should get them without getting lost in their way, stuck in bureaucracy.

author: Juan Arellano