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Netizen Report: It’s not just Myanmar — ethnic hate speech runs rampant on social media in Cameroon, India · Global Voices
Netizen Report Team

Mobile phone kiosk in Bangalore, India. Photo by Victor Grigas, retouched by Wikimedia Foundation. CC BY-SA 3.0
This week, Facebook removed several accounts and pages belonging to members of the Myanmar military. The company announced the move just after a UN fact-finding mission accused Myanmar’s military of genocide in Rakhine state, where attacks on Rohingya Muslims caused a mass migration of an estimated 700,000 people in 2017.
A smattering of quick stories burst onto the internet, linking the Facebook press release to the UN report. Some media, like Frontier Myanmar, raised the question of whether this move was consistent with Facebook’s corporate policies on content.
This raises a question: Is Facebook finally getting ahead of the news cycle? From its announcements about censoring content and accounts from Russia, Iran, the US, to hate speech removals in Myanmar and the somewhat poorly received rollout of a user “trust ranking” mechanism, Facebook suddenly seems to be driving media coverage of its exploits, rather than fidgeting on the defensive line, as it has often done in the past.
A cursory review of recent English-language media coverage of Facebook could lead unsuspecting readers to believe that Myanmar is the only country where campaigns of hate speech and disinformation targeting ethnic minorities are escalating to incidents of real-life harm. But we know this is far from true.
Two recent examples prove this point.
Cameroon: Online campaigns promoting ethnic violence have become a growing force in Cameroon’s internal conflict, where a separatist movement in English-speaking areas has led to clashes between armed separatists and military forces, with attacks on Anglophone villages forcing tens of thousands to flee their homes. Local experts from the Global Voices community report that these disinformation campaigns and viral ethnic hate speech messages on WhatsApp and Facebook are escalating and contributing to the violence.
India: In July 2018, at least nine people in India were killed in lynch mob attacks organized on WhatsApp. Sparked by disinformation campaigns that are consistent with the political interests of India’s ruling BJP party, the attacks primarily targeted Muslims. Independent data journalism website IndiaSpend reports that minority Muslims, who account for 14 percent of India's population, have been the victims of 56 percent of lynching attacks since 2014.
To all of our readers — especially those who have some influence in technology reporting and criticism — we urge that you keep these and other examples in mind. And consider the likelihood that this phase of disinformation pandemonium is only the tip of the iceberg.
Palestinian journalist Ali Dar Ali was detained by Israeli police for posts on Facebook that Israeli authorities say were incitement to violence.
Ali is a widely followed independent journalist in Palestine who broadcasts live from clashes between Palestinian protesters and the Israeli army. According to the indictment, in one of the posts in question, Ali captioned a photo of a Palestinian man throwing a rock under a street sign that reads “We are at your service.” In the other, Ali posted a video featuring a song about the Al-Aqsa mosque in Old Jerusalem, a highly contested holy site that carries deep significance in both Islam and Judaism. The song includes the lyrics, “take revenge, Arab.” Ali is currently in detention, awaiting trial before an Israeli military court.
“This is Nigeria”, an adaptation of Childish Gambino’s “This is America” music video, was banned by Nigeria’s broadcast regulator less than three months after its release. In the video, the Nigerian rapper Falz addresses corruption, nepotism, and violence in Nigeria. In one lyric, he makes a reference to the original song by saying “This is Nigeria, everybody be criminal”, a statement that regulators claim is “vulgar”. Despite restrictions on local radio and television, the video is still accessible on YouTube.
The personal data of over 64,000 students in Andhra Pradesh, India was published by the Commissionerate of College Education without their consent. In what appears to be a major slip-up, the Commissionerate posted data from the students’ national ID registrations, via India’s Aadhar system, after collecting the data from students to avoid discrepancies in its management of scholarships and fee reimbursements. Aadhar is a state-run biometric ID system, and the largest of its kind in the world. Since its introduction, there have been multiple major leaks of citizens’ private information.
The Egyptian Parliament voted to approve a new cybercrime law increasing the government’s power to conduct online surveillance and censorship. In practice, Egyptian authorities already employ these tactics, and have been blocking a long list of news and human rights websites since May 2017. But the law gives them greater legal authority under which to censor the internet: ISPs can be asked to block a site as soon they receive an order, and then the request must be sent for judicial approval within 48 hours.
The Malaysian government repealed its ‘fake news’ law, which was introduced last March by the government of previous Prime Minister Najib Razak and seen by many as a tool to silence critics. Razak is currently facing up to 125 years in jail for corruption, and repealing the law was an election priority of new prime minister Mahathir Mohamad. The law provided for fines of up to USD $122,000 and jail time of up to six years for posting content the government deemed to be “fake news”. Though several countries have passed similar legislation, Malaysia is the first country to repeal such a law.
The EU Commissioner for Security, Julian King, is considering a regulation that would force tech companies to remove terrorist content within 60 minutes of receiving a complaint from law enforcement. Companies would face steep fines if they failed to comply. The measure would raise of a host of difficult questions about the independence of these two entities. If approved, this would all but require tech companies to work side-by-side with EU law enforcement agencies, not unlike the relationship that Chinese tech companies maintain with their government. The proposed regulation is still in the draft phase, but will likely go to a vote among EU member states before the end of 2018.
Afef Abrougui, Ellery Roberts Biddle, Marianne Diaz, Mohamed ElGohary, Rohith Jyothish, Rezwan Islam,  Weiping Li, Elizabeth Rivera, Juke Carolina Rumuat, Taisa Sganzerla, Laura Vidal and Sarah Myers West contributed to this report.

author: Netizen Report Team


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Australia denies Chelsea Manning entry while New Zealand gives visa thumbs up · Global Voices
Kevin Rennie

Chelsea Manning interviewed by video link at the Sydney Opera House on September 2. Photo: Screenshot/Instagram user the_adventuresofsyd
Former American soldier turned whistleblower and activist Chelsea Manning spoke at the Sydney Opera House on Sunday, September 2, via video link, after Australian authorities announced it wouldn't make a decision on her visa application in time for the event on “character grounds“.
Meanwhile, New Zealand, where she is scheduled toappear at events on September 8 and 9, has cleared Manning to apply for a work visa. In a public statement, the immigration department said Ms Manning has not reoffended since her release from prison and that the likelihood of her offending while in New Zealand was considered low.
Ms Manning was convicted to 35 years in prison in 2013 after leaking almost 750,000 confidential military documents to Wikileaks, obtained in her role as an intelligence analyst for the United States Army. In 2017, ex-president Barack Obama commuted her sentence.
Ms Manning is also scheduled to speaking engagements in Melbourne and Brisbane on September 7 and 11 respectively. It isn't clear whether the home affairs department will make a decision in time for Ms. Manning to appear in-person at those events.
The Morrison/Dutton government must think we live in the Stone Age if they think denying Chelsea Manning a visa means Australians don't get to hear her opinions.
If only she was an au pair though hey! #auspol #aupairaffair #nannygate pic.twitter.com/APCWsnxUMb
— Stephen (@TheAviator1992) September 2, 2018
The subject has drawn heated debate in both countries over the past couple of days.
Human rights advocates in Australia have attempted to stop her from being barred. The Castan Centre was among these:
American activist @xychelsea should not be banned from entering Australia to give a series of public lectures. That's why we'll be writing to the Department of Home Affairs tomorrow. #FreeSpeech
— Castan Centre (@CastanCentre) August 29, 2018
Many believe that it has more to do with politics than with genuine security concerns:
Move to ban Chelsea Manning from Australia a ‘political stunt’ to appease Trump https://t.co/dotgO4ODlm
— trevor haden (@chubbytrevor) August 30, 2018
Conversely, Rodger Shanahan of the international policy think tank Lowy Institute, questions:
The Australian Government is well within its rights to question whether someone convicted of espionage, dishonourably discharged from the US military and whose reckless actions while deployed on operations were described by a judge as dangerous to others should enter the country, let alone be paid for her appearance. Manning is not, and never has been, a whistleblower. She is someone convicted of espionage who was given a long prison sentence.
Writer and broadcaster Clementine Ford urged people to sign a petition supporting Manning’s visit:
This is actually outrageous. Hatemongers and racists like Lauren Southern and Milo are apparently fine, but a hero like Chelsea Manning is considered a threat. Fuck this government. Let Chelsea Manning visit Australia – Sign the Petition! https://t.co/rovUhRpAkm via @ChangeAUS
— Clementine Ford (@clementine_ford) August 30, 2018
Far-right activists Lauren Southern, a YouTube personality from Canada, and Milo Yiannopoulos, a British political commentator, have been granted visas for speaking tours in Australia in 2017.
A similar debate had brewed in New Zealand over the past week as members of the opposition National Party have called for Chelsea Manning to be barred from entry for speaking engagements there.
Bryce Edwards, writing at New Zealand's newsroom.pro, took up this theme:
The National Party didn’t take long to show themselves as hypocrites on freedom of speech. Michael Woodhouse’s call to deny Chelsea Manning a visa to enter New Zealand shows that his party is willing to clamp down on political freedoms based on the politics and ideologies of the individuals involved.
The right to freedom of speech has been the central plank for those supporting her New Zealand visa application. However, accusations of hypocrisy have been thrown around on both sides of the debate.
Referring to earlier cases, Martyn Bradbury has attacked people from both ends of the political spectrum for hypocrisy. He argues at the progressive website The Daily Blog:
“It’s only free speech when we agree with what you are saying”, isn’t of any value to anyone.
Watching the Woke Left & Feral Right contort themselves into impossible positions over free speech when they both held polar opposite stances barely a month ago would be hilarious if it weren’t so fundamental to us as a democracy.
Twitter user Stu, on the other hand, blames the spooks:
Denying Chelsea Manning entry to countries looks more like a Five Eyes thing rather than a free speech thing
— Stu (@StuFlemingNZ) August 29, 2018
Australia and New Zealand are members of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance that also includes Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Greens Party MP Golriz Ghahraman, who supports granting the visa, said:
Golriz Ghahraman says that the Green's are standing with Chelsea Manning and her right to come to NZ to address a meeting. This is the same @golrizghahraman who opposed two Canadian alt right speakers from speaking at a public meeting. Her hypocrisy is astounding.
— Steven Cowan (@StevenCowan) August 28, 2018

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Kevin Rennie


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For most Sri Lankans, bribery is just a fact of life · Global Voices
GroundViews

The Sri Lankan capital Colombo. Image via Groundviews.
This post is a compilation of three posts (1, 2, 3) by Groundviews, an award-winning citizen journalism website from Sri Lanka. The version below is published as part of a content-sharing agreement with Global Voices.
Debates around corruption have once again taken center stage in Sri Lanka since the government's establishment, on August 21, of a Special High Court dedicated exclusively to hear such cases.
While the court has heard two high-profile cases so far (one of them involving the former Defence Secretary), some took the opportunity to remember how corruption remains ingrained in the daily life of ordinary citizens — who rarely mull over the Rs 1000 (US$6) slipped to a policeman during a routine traffic stop.
In a video recently published by the local online media outlet W NOW, Sri Lankans reflected on their own encounters with corrupt officials, including their own (willing or unwilling) participation through paying bribes.
In 2017, the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery and Corruption (CIABOC) received over 2000 complaints, but only 62 of them ended up going to court. Forty-two of those were related to bribes.
In October 2017, Groundviews asked its readers two questions: What did the word corruption mean to them? Did people recognize their own complicity in corruption when, for instance, paying a bribe? The responses, compiled across the cities of Jaffna, Ampara, Colombo, Deniyaya, and Maskeliya, showcased the many forms corruption can take.
In some instances, there was resignation, even a certain wry acknowledgment of complicity. In others, there was fear, reticence or anger. Here are some of the responses that Groundviews received in the northern city of Jaffna. Names have been omitted at the sources’ request.
This government is indifferent. Corruption is well-organized and done in a covert way. Recently, funds were allocated to rebuild the structures of the market… but up until now, this money has not reached the common Jaffna man.
Around 8 months ago, I went on a motorbike without a helmet. This policeman stopped me and demanded Rs. 2,000 (US$12). I wanted that money in order to drink arrack, so I refused to pay. I was taken inside the police station, and then I was asked to pay Rs. 4,500 (US$28). If I had paid the bribe, I could have got away with that extra Rs. 2,500 (US$16).
Corruption is an on-going issue here. If someone hits a pedestrian on the road with their motorbike, he will go into remand. Two or three months later he’ll be released because he paid a bribe. Even those who kill people will be released. Innocent people are not safe on the road.
In the capital Colombo, respondents highlighted how the police seem to target poor citizens in their quest for bribe money.
I see the police chasing away innocent people. How can people make an honest living when they do this? Even I make only Rs. 300 (US$2) a day when I sell lottery tickets. I too am struggling and sometimes get harassed by police. At times, when homeless people sleep on the road, the police comes and take them away. They haven’t done anything wrong. If someone commits a crime, then certainly they should be in jail. But these people are innocent people who have fallen on hard times. Isn’t this a type of corruption?
Yes, corruption is a problem, especially at a government level. As a three-wheeler driver, I can say the police are corrupt too. They stop us even if we haven’t committed an offense and ask for a bribe. We have to pay bribes even to get our licenses. Everywhere it’s the same. We know that it’s wrong, but we do it. If someone tells us we can pay Rs. 500 (Us$3) to get some task done, then we just do it. That’s the way this country is.
Corruption is prevalent in Sri Lankan's public schools too. Despite being free, many people report having to disburse significant “donations” to secure places for their children, as the testimony of S. Rita, an estate worker from Maskeliya, reveals:
Often, I only have about Rs. 4,000 (US$25) or Rs. 5,000 (US$31) remaining from my salary at the end of the month. I have to make do with this to somehow pay off school expenses. Meanwhile, everyone talks about free education, but you still have to make donations, to get your child into school.
In August 2017, Groundviews hosted a Twitter chat about corruption with the hashtag #anticorruptlka. The participants spoke about how deeply corruption was embedded into everyday state bureaucracy:
Driving license is organized corruption. Driving school fees include the bribe and there is a flat rate per license.
— Jack Point (@jackpoint627) August 28, 2017
At one time medical certificates for driving license were on sale for RS.100 outside RMV.
— Jack Point (@jackpoint627) August 28, 2017
While the initial reaction of most people is to point an accusatory finger at the government, a little conversation (and introspection) had some admitting their own complicity in the system.
The variety of perspectives and experiences bears witness to how pervasive corruption is across Sri Lanka, and how normalized it has become for all its citizens, rich or poor.

author: GroundViews


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Kashmiri journalist arrested after reporting on slain rebel, Burhan Wani · Global Voices
Ieshan Wani

Indian forces make a formation to stop the stones after protests erupted in Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir. Image from Instagram by Ieshan Wani. Used with permission.
Police in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir have detained a journalist for allegedly “harboring terrorists.” Aasif Sultan, who works with a with Srinagar-based news magazine Kashmir Narrator, was detained by the police for questioning on 27 August.
According to family members, local police raided their house in the Batamaloo area of the city and took Aasif into custody. His father told local media that police seized his son's personal belongings, including laptop and other electronic items, during the raid.
Srinagar based journalist Asif Sultan is under illegal detention from last six days. Police has confiscated his phone, laptop and other accessories also.
Journalism under attack ! #Kashmir #FreeAsifSultan
— Kabir JNU (@kabwrites) September 1, 2018
His friends believe that he was being targeted for a recent cover story which featured the slain rebel commander, Burhan Wani on its cover.
Asif Sultan had recently written a cover story on #Burhanwani, the popular Hizb Commander killed in 2016, whose killing triggered a massive uprising in Kashmir valley, for which he was quizzed. #FreeAasifSultan #Kashmir https://t.co/7W0zBWXKZQ
— ارشاد نبی (@Kashmir_rise) September 1, 2018
Journalists working in Kashmir have demanded his immediate release. Condemning his arrest, Kashmir Working Journalist Association and Kashmir Journalist Association said:
We are outraged to learn that journalist, Aasif Sultan, has been under illegal detention at police station Batamaloo for the last six days. We demand his immediate release from illegal custody.
The editor of Kashmir Narrator, where Aasif works as an assistant editor, told a Delhi-based newspaper that he was being framed wrongfully and the magazine was being targeted for their reportage.
Mugshot of the detained journalist. Used with permission.
“This is a cock and bull story. [The police] are not happy with our reportage,” he said.
“We have taken up his arrest with CPJ, IFJ, and other global organizations. We will fight it in the court of law,” editor Showkat Motta told the Indian Express.
Jammu and Kashmir police in a press statement said that they have seized what they termed as “incriminating materials” from various locations.
Though Aasif was detained on 27 August, a First Information Report was only filed on 31 August.
“On 31/8/2018 Asif Sultan S/O [son of] Mohammad Sultan Saida R/O [relative of] Firdousabad Batamaloo has been arrested by Police Station Batamaloo in case FIR No 173/2018,” a police statement said.
Harris Jargar, a journalist in the Indian News portal LiveMint tweeted:
I am curious to know what “incriminating evidence” #Kashmir police has found on #journalist Aasif sultan. Haven't we heard such claims previously against some senior kashmiri journalists!! https://t.co/RiWDlrfnyn
— Haris Zargar (@harriszargar) September 2, 2018
Journalist of Republic TV Aditya Raj Kaul tweeted:
Shocking. Local Kashmiri journalist Asif Sultan working with ‘Kashmir Narrator’ arrested in Srinagar, Kashmir by J&K Police for ‘harboring known terrorists involved in serious terror crimes’. The mask is coming off slowly in the Kashmir valley. The reality is for all to see. pic.twitter.com/7PPcYUvz56
— Aditya Raj Kaul (@AdityaRajKaul) September 1, 2018
The Committee to Protect Journalists issued a statement expressing deep concern about the ongoing detention and interrogation of Aasif.
“Police should immediately release Aasif Sultan from jail and halt efforts to pressure him to reveal sources or become an informer,” said Steven Butler, CPJ's Asia program coordinator in a statement. “By reporting on militant activity, Sultan is performing an important public service, not committing a crime.”

author: Ieshan Wani


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Myanmar sentences Reuters journalists to 7 years in prison · Global Voices
Juan Cebu

One of many online campaigns’ images demanding the release of wrongly accused journalists.
Two Myanmar reporters who were covering the killing of Rohingya in Rakhine state last year were sentenced to seven years prison on September 3 for violating the Official Secrets Act of 1923 after a nine-month-long trial.
Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were working for Reuters when they were arrested in December 2017 for possessing state documents regarding military operations in Rakhine state. In court proceedings earlier this year, police testified that they had handed the documents to the reporters without explanation, shortly before the arrest.
The two reporters were investigating the killings of 10 Rohingya villagers by the military in Inn Din village in the northwest of Rakhine on the aftermath of the clashes between the army and Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) in August 2017. The clashes were followed by the displacement of more than 700,000 Rohingya refugees into Bangladesh.
Myanmar's government does not recognize Myanmar-born Rohingyas, most of whom are Muslim, as citizens or as an ethnic group living in Myanmar. The government designates ARSA as a terrorist organization.
In April 2018, police captain Moe Yan Naing testified in court that he and a colleague were ordered to entrap the reporters. He was sentenced to one year in prison after that testimony for violating the Police Disciplinary Act. He told reporters after the hearing that sentenced him: “Putting me in prison stops other police officers from saying the truth”.
Immediately after the court decision, Free of Expression Myanmar (FEM), a local civil society group, released its statement denouncing the state for its failure to protect journalists.
The conviction shows the lengths to which the Myanmar state is willing to go to hide its wrongdoing. In the past, the state has mostly bullied and jailed local journalists, but now it has picked on one of the most renowned media houses in the world.”
The case has attracted outrage not only internationally, but inside Myanmar too.
Many people in the country, including civil society organization and activists, have been speaking out against the journalists’ arrest since last year.
Last month, A-than (Voice), a local civil society group working for the abolition of Myanmar's online defamation law, launched a video campaign on social media featuring several activists from Myanmar calling for the release of the journalists. The statement message of the campaign posts read as:
ရိုက်တာသတင်းထောက်နှစ်ဦးဖြစ်တဲ့ ကိုဝလုံးနဲ့ကိုကျော်စိုးဦးတို့ဟာ အင်းဒင်ရွာမှာ တပ်မတော်က ကျုးလွန်ခဲ့တဲ့ လူသတ်မှုအကြောင်းကို စုံစမ်းဖော်ထုတ်သတင်းရေးသားနေဆဲအချိန်မှာ ဖမ်းဆီးထိန်းသိမ်းခံခဲ့ရတာဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ အင်းဒင်ရွာမှာ ကျူးလွန်ခဲ့မှုတွေကို တပ်မတော်ကလည်းဝန်ခံခဲ့ပြီး တာဝန်ရှိတဲ့ တပ်မတော်သား(၇)ဦးကို စစ်ခုံရုံးကနေပြီး ပြစ်ဒဏ်အသီးသီး ချမှတ်ခဲ့ပြီးဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ ကိုဝလုံးနဲ့ကိုကျော်စိုးဦးတို့ဟာ ပြည်သူတွေ သတင်းအမှန်သိရဖို့ သတင်းသမားကျင့်ဝတ်နဲ့အညီ သတင်းရယူခဲ့တာဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ သူတို့ လိုက်နေတဲ့သတင်းကြောင့် ရဲတွေက ထောင်ခြောက်ဆင်ပြီး ဖမ်းဆီးခံခဲ့တာဖြစ်တယ်လို ဒုရဲမှူးမိုးရန်နိုင်က ထွက်ဆိုထားပါတယ်။
Reuters Journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were arrested and detained when they were doing their investigative report on the killings in Inn Din village committed by Ta-ma-taw [Army]. Inn Din village killings were admitted by Ta-ma-taw and seven army officers have been convicted by war court already. Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were acting ethically in order to get reliable information for people. Captain Moe Yan Naing has already testified that [the reporters] were set up by the police because of the news that they were covering.
A few days before the hearing on September 3, many marched in the city of Yangon, Myanmar's economic capital, to demand journalists’ release.
For some, the case reinforces the growing disappointment with the government of the National League for Democracy (NLD), headed by noble peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. Peace activist Moe Thway expressed his disappoint for Aung San Suu Kyi for not speaking out to protect the journalists.
ဝလုံးတို့မတရားထောင်ချခံရတာ
တရားရေးတခုတည်းရဲ့အပြစ်မဟုတ်ဘူး…
ဒီလိုဖမ်းဆီးတာကိုထောက်ခံခဲ့တဲ့
ဝလုံးတို့ဟာပြစ်မှုကျူးလွန်ခဲ့တာလို့ပြောခဲ့တဲ့
ဒေါ်အောင်ဆန်းစုကြည်နဲ့
သူ့အစိုးရမှာပါတာဝန်ရှိတယ်…
ဒေါ်အောင်ဆန်းစုကြည်ဟာ
အာဏာရှင်စရိုက်ကို
ထင်ထင်ရှားရှားပြလာပြီ…
The fact that Wa Lone (and Kyaw Soe Oo) were given unjust prison sentences is not because of the court alone.
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her government are also responsible for approving their arrests and saying that they were guilty.
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has clearly revealed her characteristic of a dictatorship.
In a statement [pdf] condemning the verdict, organized by A-than and signed by 63 local NGOs, supporters wrote:
We believe that the decision by the court is irrational and the case was brought against the two journalists….to justify [their] arrest and imprisonment…We take this as a crackdown on the right of access to information and media freedom, and an oppressive gesture [against] all concerned people of Myanmar who are aspiring [to]….a society characterized by rule of law, accountability, freedom and justice.
The court decision was also condemned by the international community, including statements released immediately by US Embassy in Myanmar and EU Union in Myanmar.

author: Juan Cebu


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Confronting human rights violations in Africa one hashtag at a time · Global Voices
Nwachukwu Egbunike

Africa silhouette image by Natasha Sinegina (CC BY-SA 4.0). Image remixed by Georgia Popplewell.
Across the continent, many of Africa's long-serving presidents have met their match in the form of online protests which test the strength of their ability to retain power.
While countries like Uganda, Nigeria, and Rwanda have constitutions that technically guarantee rights such as freedom of association, speech, and assembly, these rights are often violated. Today, galvanised by increased connectivity, youthful pan-African online communities are using social media to speak out against this repression and support younger candidates vying for office in countries where leaders have clung to power for decades.
The last few months have seen unprecedented online activism, with trending hashtags such as #FreeBobiWine (Uganda); #FreeJonesAbiri and #FreeSamuelOgundipe (Nigeria) and #FreeDianeRwigara (Rwanda) created by African netizens to create awareness, solidarity and put international pressure on their governments.
In December 2017, 74-year-old Yoweri Museveni, Uganda’s president for the past 32 years, saw the constitutional amendment for which he’d campaigned strenuously signed into law. The amendment removed the age limit of 75 years for presidential candidates, paving the way for Museveni to extend his rule when his term expires in 2021. Most citizens favoured retention of the clause, and the Democratic Party ran a campaign called ‘Togikwatako’ (‘Hands Off’ in Luganda) to protect it.
During the age-limit debates, the young musician-turned-politician Robert Kyagulanyi Sentamu—widely known as ‘Bobi Wine'—caught Museveni's attention with his growing following, both online and in rallies. Perhaps fearing Bobi Wine's influence, Museveni wrote a public letter on a wide range of governance issues and pushed even harder to remove the age-limit clause. In the aftermath of Togikwatako, the government imposed a social media tax to “stem gossip,” which led to major social protests with Bobi Wine at the forefront.
Bobi Wine has spurred political participation among young Ugandans who connect with his personal story and humble beginnings in the poor suburb of Kamwokya, where he built a music studio and launched a powerful career in the Uganda music scene. He went on to wage a successful parliamentary campaign that beat challengers from both the ruling National Resistance Movement and the opposition in the June 2017 by-election.
On August 13, 2018, Bobi Wine joined independent candidate Kassiano Wadri during a by-election in Arua to support Wadri’s campaign. Violence ensued after a presidential convoy was stoned and the state pointed a finger at Wadri's camp. Several parliamentarians and other people—including some who were nowhere near the scene—were arrested and brutally beaten.
Stella Nyanzi and her team of fourteen peaceful protesters camp at Gulu to stand in solidarity with the Arua-34 detainees charged with treason, including Members of Parliament. #BobiWine #FreeBobiWine #freeArua33 pic.twitter.com/DHIlnKiDyq
— Rogers Atukunda (@rarrigz) August 27, 2018
During the fracas, Bobi Wine's driver was shot dead while sitting in a parked car. It was later revealed that Bobi Wine had been the intended target. According to his lawyers, Bobi Wine was tortured and held in a military detention centre. The trumped-up charges were dropped after ten days but Bobi Wine was then immediately charged with treason. The remaining detainees were released on bail on August 27.
Museveni has been calling for a REVOLUTION it's time Ugandan youth ANSWERED.
There's nothing to lose but the future.
Rise good people. Rise in the Spirit of Lumumba, Biko, Sankara and now BOBI plus the Arua 33.
Dictators must fall.
Rise Uganda ?? RISE ✊? #FreeBobiWine
— Scheaffer Okore (@scheafferoo) August 31, 2018
Bobi Wine's brutal arrest and detention were met with international condemnation, igniting the trending hashtags #FreeBobiWine, #FreeArua33 in addition to street protests throughout the world, with the largest one held in Nairobi.
Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari's government has significantly repressed press freedoms in recent years. Between August 2015 and March 2018, about 17 Nigerian journalists and bloggers have been unlawfully arrested or detained by security forces. Buhari has openly expressed his aversion to a free press and freedom of speech. In a recent address to lawyers, he stated that “the Rule of Law must be subject to the supremacy of the nation’s security and national interest.”
A number of hashtags have trended this year in response to the Buhari administration's intimidation journalists and citizens. One of them concerns Jones Abiri, publisher of Weekly Source, who was arrested on July 21, 2016, by state security (DSS) agents at his office in Yenagoa (Bayelsa State).
Remember the journalists who spent years in prison #FreeJonesAbiri #FreeSamuelOgundipe remember the women who were unlawfully imprisoned #FreeOwerri112
— En-Hakkore (@Steavihn) August 24, 2018
The DSS accused Abiri of being a militant responsible for the “bombing of oil pipelines” in oil-rich Niger Delta region. The government sustained this narrative and further accused Abiri of lacking official journalism credentials.
Human rights advocates countered that Abiri was arrested for publishing ‘unpleasant’ information. The hashtag #FreeJonesAbiri trended for several days on Twitter, and it worked: Abiri was released on August 15, 2018, after a two-year detention. He has sued the government, demanding compensation in the amount of 200 million Naira (about $556,000 United States Dollars) for detention without a trial.
Samuel Ogundipe was arrested by Nigerian police on August 14, 2018, for refusing to disclose the source for a news story.  According to police, Ogundipe leaked a letter from Inspector General of Police to the Acting President, Professor Osinbajo, regarding the DSS's parliament siege. The police accused Ogundipe of publicizing a classified document, causing “a breach of national security and a breakdown of law and order”.
Netizens, civil rights advocates, and journalists around the world condemned Ogundipe's arrest and called on the government for his release. For days, #FreeSamuelOgundipe trended on Twitter. Ogundipe was released on August 17, 2018.
During my detention, I had no idea of the magnitude of support that came in for me from the public. Upon my release earlier today, @PremiumTimesng management explained that my freedom came because of the pressure you all mounted.
I am very grateful. Thank you!
— Samuel Ogundipe (@SamuelOgundipe) August 17, 2018
Samuel Ogundipe was released on August 17, 2018.
On August 17, 112 women were arrested in Owerri in southeastern Nigeria for staging a peaceful protest demanding the release of Nnamdi Kanu, a separationist leader from the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).  Kanu’s whereabouts remain unknown since last year after the Nigerian Army raided his father's house and the government declared IPOB a terrorist organization. The women's arrests ignited a social media storm leading to the trending hashtag #FreeOwerri112.
The women were released on August 24.
Under President Paul Kagame's leadership, Rwanda boasts the highest proportion of women in government in the world.  But in reality, women leaders acting outside the confines of the governing political party face the full wrath of the regime. First, it was 49-year-old lawyer and leader of the opposition FDU-Inkingi party Victoire Ingabire, who returned from in exile in the Netherlands to contest the 2010 election. Ingabire was arrested and charged with collaborating with a terrorist organization and “genocide ideology.” She is currently serving a 15-year jail sentence.
More recently, Diane Shima Rwigara, a Rwandan businesswoman who ran as an independent candidate in the 2017 Rwandan presidential elections, had her presidential ambitions cut short when she was disqualified by the Rwandan Electoral Commission. Rwigara was arrested last year on charges of “incitement and fraud,” and been in jail for the past year. She faces a 20-year prison term.
People talk about Kagame's progressive parliament because of the record number of women but forget that he has tortured and indefinitely detained Diane Shima Rwigara (and her mother), who ran against him in 2017 and also auctioned their family assets.
But yes, development.
— Hotep Ras(cal) (@MarigaWangombe) August 25, 2018
It's overdue! We need to speak for her, she faces 20yrs in jail for daring to run for presidency in Rwanda! #FreeDianaRwigara pic.twitter.com/Sexwp4zmuL
— DeeDan (@missdeedan) August 29, 2018
While Kagame serves as chair of the African Union in 2018, many African netizens are calling for the release of his political opponents.

author: Nwachukwu Egbunike


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Brazil grieves as its oldest treasures turn to ashes in National Museum fire · Global Voices
Raphael Tsavkko Garcia

Firefighters tried to put out the fire at the National Museum for hours. The lack of water was a problem | Image: Screenshot from Felipe Milanez's Facebook live
Brazilians were left heartbroken after the National Museum, the country's oldest and arguably its most important, guardian of Latin America's largest natural history and anthropology collection, burned to the ground on Sunday, September 3, in a fire that raged throughout the night.
The National Museum was founded in Rio de Janeiro in 1818 by the then king of Portugal, D. João VI. It was housed in a palace of around the same period. The site had been the residence of the Portuguese and Brazilian royal families until 1889. It's also where Brazil's first National Constitutional Assembly was held.
Over its 200 years of history — the museum's anniversary was celebrated just in June this year — it assembled a collection of around 20 million items. While a complete list of destroyed items is yet to be released, treasures such the eldest human fossil found in the Americas, pieces from ancient Egypt and the original letter that abolished slavery in Brazil in 1888 have all been confirmed lost.
Some people, including the museum's staff and scientists, risked their own lives by breaking into the blazing building to retrieve some of the items.
While the number of visitors had been dwindling every year — more Brazilians visited the Louvre in 2017 than the National Museum –, online reactions following the news of the fire were plenty.
Journalist and professor Felipe Milanez live-streamed the museum as the fire was raging:
One Twitter user posted a long thread, with images, of what might be lost in the fire:
esquife da dama Sha-Amun-en-su. Egito, Época Baixa, c. 750 a.C pic.twitter.com/KuXW8tmizG
— tem que acabar o jovem (@leuavila) 3 de setembro de 2018
lady's Sha-Amun-in-su skiff. Egypt, Low Season, c. 750 BC
Índios Ricbactas. Coroa radial, s.d. pic.twitter.com/EqidRQKsnY
— tem que acabar o jovem (@leuavila) 3 de setembro de 2018
Carajás Indians. Ceramic Doll (Statuette Litxocô),no date. Ricbactas Indians. Radial crown, no date.
E ainda tem o prédio em si: pic.twitter.com/ZtKvSNA1GB
— tem que acabar o jovem (@leuavila) 3 de setembro de 2018
Yoruba people. Mask of the female secret society Gelede, no date. And there is still the building itself
A video posted by the facebook page Realidade Simulada gives an aerial view of the museum as it was before the fire:
After the tragedy, people remembered how the authorities have neglected the National Museum for years. The museum is managed by the public and increasingly underfunded Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ).
Luísa Nunes, a student of the university, remembered on Twitter that this was the sixth major fire in UFRJ's buildings since 2011.
2011, Palácio da Praia Vermelha.
2012, Faculdade de Letras
2014, Laboratório do Centro de Ciências da Saúde
2016, Reitoria
2017, Alojamento Estudantil
2018, Museu Nacional
Esses são os prédios sob custódia da UFRJ que sofreram episódios de incêndio na última década.
— Luisa Nunes (@luisanunes) 3 de setembro de 2018
2011, Palace of the Praia Vermelha.
2012, Faculty of Letters
2014, Laboratory of the Center for Health Sciences
2016, Rectory
2017, Student Housing
2018, National Museum
These are the buildings in the custody of UFRJ that have suffered episodes of fire in the last decade.
The state of Rio de Janeiro is also slumming through an unprecedented budget crisis: there have been ongoing cuts in public services civil servants’ salaries, including firefighters. The two hydrants nearby the museum were dry, so firefighters had to improvise by pumping water out of a nearby lake, losing 40 minutes of work in the process.
The museum's annual budget, of around 500,000 reais a year (125,000 US dollars), has suffered significant cuts over the past four years, local newspaper Folha de S.Paulo revealed in a story from May 2018. Twitter user DanPimpao posted a graph showing how much have been cutted from the museum's budget since 2013:
Orçamento do Museu Nacional de 2013 até 2018. Análise vcs mesmos e tirem suas próprias conclusões. pic.twitter.com/d9qCTzqOq8
— Dan (@DanPimpao) September 3, 2018
Budget of the National Museum from 2013 to 2018. Analyze yourselves and draw your own conclusions.
The museum on fire. Image by Felipe Milanez, used with permission.
On its 200th anniversary, its management launched a crowdfunding campaign to to reopen a relevant collection room, where was the skeleton of the Maxakalisaurus, the first large dinosaur assembled in Brazil. 58 thousand reais were collected from the initial goal of 30 thousand reais – however the ideal would be to raise 100 thousand reais.
Professor Stevens Rehen commented on Facebook:
Na festa dos 200 anos, nenhum ministro de estado compareceu. O orçamento despencou de R$ 531 mil em 2013, para R$ 54 mil em 2018.
Esse ano todo o investimento do governo no Museu Nacional foi o equivalente a 1/4 do que cada deputado de Brasília recebe por mês somente para contratar assessores.
At the 200th anniversary party, no state minister attended. The budget has plunged from R $ 531,000 in 2013 to R $ 54,000 in 2018.
This year, the government's total investment in the National Museum equals a quarter of what each Congressmen's budget to hire advisors.
A Twitter user compared the amount with other government expenses:
O orçamento anual do museu nacional corresponde a:
– 30′ de propaganda eleitoral
– 0,0004% do custo de renovação do Maracanã
– o custo de 1 juiz federal/ano
– o custo da troca de carpete do Senado 3 anos atrás.
– o preço dos brincos de turmalina da coleção de joia do S. Cabral
— Mathieu Le Roux (@matleroux) September 3, 2018
The annual budget of the National Museum corresponds to: – 30 ‘of electoral propaganda
- 0.0004% of the cost of renovation of Maracanã stadium
- the cost of 1 federal judge / year
- the cost to change the Senate's carpet 3 years ago.
- the price of tourmaline earrings from Sergio Cabral's jewelry collection [former governor of Rio de Janeiro, currently in jail on corruption charges]
The museum was just about to receive extra resources National Bank of Economic and Social Development from to implement a fire-safety plan. The first installment was due in October.
journalist Breiller Pires summed up the sentiment that took over Brazilians watching the building burn with little to do:
O incêndio do Museu Nacional é a metáfora impiedosa de um país que menospreza a ciência, o conhecimento e, sobretudo, a história.
— Breiller Pires (@breiller) September 3, 2018
The fire of the National Museum is the merciless metaphor of a country that disparages science, knowledge and, above all, history.

author: Raphael Tsavkko Garcia


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A lethal combination: How MENA governments use cybercrime laws and spyware to target activists · Global Voices
Gulf Center for Human Rights

Israa Al-Ghomgham as a child. Photo widely circulated online.
This post was written by Khalid Ibrahim, executive director of the Gulf Center for Human Rights (GCHR) an independent, non-profit organisation that promotes freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly in the Gulf region and its neighbouring countries.
Human rights advocate Israa Al-Ghomgham may soon be facing the death penalty in Saudi Arabia, for her non-violent human rights related activities.
Arrested in 2015 along with her husband, activist Mousa Al-Hashim, over their roles in anti-government protests in Al-Qatif, Al-Ghomgham was charged under article 6 of the Cybercrime Act of 2007 for “preparing, sending and storing material that would harm the public order”. She also stands accused of “inciting rallies and young people against the state and security forces on social networking sites”, and posting photos and video of these protests online. She has been in detention ever since, and was put on trial in early August 2018. State prosecutors for her case are seeking the death penalty.
The stakes in Al-Ghomgham's case could barely be higher. But the circumstances of her arrest, detention and prosecution have become chillingly common across the MENA region.
For nearly two decades, activists like Al-Ghomgham in the MENA region have been using online tools to demand democratic societies that respect fundamental rights, and freely express other ideas that are not welcome in traditional media, which in many cases is controlled by governments.
But following the cascade of social movements across the MENA region in 2011-2012, several governments and their security forces endeavoured to tighten their controls over the internet and cripple its use to promote human rights and social justice.
In countries where human rights groups documented serious human rights violations, such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Qatar, governments invested millions of dollars in surveillance, espionage and hacking tools to target human rights defenders, including internet activists and bloggers.
Alongside these technical measures, they sought out legal mechanisms to further this cause. Their tactics included the adoption and strict implementation of anti-cybercrime laws that have been used to stifle freedom of expression on the internet and to criminalise and imprison activists.
A recent report by the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR), entitled “Mapping Cybercrime Laws and Violations of Digital Rights in the Gulf and Neighbouring Countries” illustrates how this combination of technical and legal measures has led to a new era of repression in the region.
The report highlights these trends and anticipates that regional governments may expand their capacity to prosecute such “cybercrimes”:
There are two trends at hand we anticipate to proliferate and feel compelled to warn against. First, legislation will introduce more restraints on online freedom of speech and expression under the label of combating ‘fake news.’ Second, now that the UAE and Syria have developed two branches that are specialised in the prosecution of cybercrimes i.e. the police units and courts, other countries are likely to follow suit.
In addition to using cybercrime laws as an arbitrary legal cover to target activists, governments and their security agencies hire foreign companies, often based in Western democracies, to provide them with the latest software and hardware to fully control the activities of internet activists and civil society.
The Canadian company Netsweeper sold filtering tools to the UAE government to block websites including that of the GCHR, which has been blocked in the country since January 2015.
In addition to monitoring and surveilling the online activities of civil society organisations, government actors have attempted to hack their accounts and obtain the sensitive data contained therein.
Human rights activist Ahmed Mansoor is currently serving a ten-year jail sentence in the UAE. Photo Credit: Martin Ennals Foundation, via Citizen Lab.
Emirati blogger and human rights defender Ahmed Mansoor, who is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence for merely expressing his opinions online, was targeted with spyware known as Finfisher and sold by Gamma International which is incorporated in the UK and Germany. Technical research indicates that Mansoor was also targeted with software developed by Hacking Team, an Italian firm.
Through 2015 alone, authorities in the UAE used Hacking Team software bought for USD $634,500 to spy on 1,100 people. In 2016, Mansoor was once again the target of a phishing attempt this time using the technology of the Israeli company NSO Group.
Across the region, when human rights defenders and online activists are arrested, their electronic equipment and those of their family members are confiscated. When Mansoor was arrested in March 2017, the security forces confiscated his children’s cell phones and laptops.
As crackdowns across the MENA region continue unabated, governments in Western democracies should take action against companies that aid such repression. EU, US and Canadian governments need to impose controls on digital security companies to prevent them from exporting censorship, blocking and spying technologies to repressive governments.

author: Gulf Center for Human Rights


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Netizen Report: What role does Facebook play in Libya’s civil war? · Global Voices
Netizen Report Team

Libyans in central Tripoli protest the continuing presence of armed groups in 2011. Photo by Maghrebia via Wikimedia (CC BY 2.0)
Earlier this week, Facebook was blocked in the Libyan capital Tripoli and surrounding cities, as fighting between armed militias raged. On 3 September, Reuters reported that the blocking started around noon local time, and that while residents were able to access other websites, Facebook was inaccessible.
It remains unclear who blocked the social media platform and for what reasons. Al Jazeera reported that the state-owned Libyan Post, Telecommunication and Information Technology Company, which owns the country’s only two internet providers, said “a lack of security had led to outages” but did not directly address the blocking of Facebook.
Like elsewhere in the region, Facebook is by far the most popular social media platform in the sparsely populated country of six million people. While Facebook played a key role in 2011 to mobilize protests against the regime of now-deceased dictator Muammar Gaddafi, different armed groups vying for control have since been using the platform to find, threaten and silence critics and opponents, engage in hate speech and other illegal activities such as arms and human trafficking. A recent investigation by The New York Times showed that “practically every armed group in Libya” had its own Facebook page.
The New York Times found evidence of military-grade weapons being openly traded, despite the company’s policies forbidding such commerce. Human traffickers advertise their success in helping illegal migrants reach Europe by sea, and use their pages to drum up more business.
Public prosecutors in Saudi Arabia announced via Twitter on September 3 that online speech that “ridicules, mocks, provokes and disrupts public order, religious values and public morals through social media” will be criminalized, in what would likely be an amendment to an already existing cybercrime law. This will amount to a ban on political satire in the kingdom, and provide authorities with an additional legal mechanism for silencing critical speech.
The country’s cybercrime law has been used to criminalize political speech multiple times, including in the prominent case of Israa Al-Ghomgham, an activist who has been in detention for more than three years on charges related to her online activism during and after the Arab uprisings of 2011-12. Prosecutors are now seeking the death penalty against Al-Ghomgham, whose next court appearance will be in October.
A popular actor is facing detention in Spain over a July 2017 Facebook comment that read: “I shit on God and there's shit leftover to shit on the holiness and the virginity of the Virgin Mary.” The Spanish Association of Christian Lawyers filed a complaint arguing that the comment offended religious sentiments, despite the fact that “I shit on God” is a common exclamation in Spain. After the complaint was filed, Willy Toledo refused to appear in court on two occasions, at which point the judge in his case ordered his arrest. #MeCagoEnDios (#IShitOnGod) rose to the number one trending topic on Twitter in Spain, tweeted mainly by users showing solidarity with Toledo.
An inter-ministerial committee in India is developing a set of recommendations intended to quell the spread of disinformation in the country, which in multiple cases has escalated to real-life violence, in particular in the form of lynch mobs. Although Facebook and WhatsApp appear to be prime targets of government leaders who are part of the committee, many in India say that vicious party politics lie at the root of the problem.
A new state-run platform, Piyao, is now centralizing efforts to stop online “rumors” in China, where any piece of information that does not come from official government channels can be considered a rumor. Hosted by the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission and operated by the official Xinhua news, Piayao has integrated data from 40 other rumor report platforms and generated a rumor database with 30,000 incidents. It encourages the public to file reports, but also uses artificial intelligence to identify rumors spreading online.
United States, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada — the so-called Five Eyes nations — issued a memo in late August 2018 that pressures private technology companies and developers to make encrypted communications accessible to law enforcement authorities. Much of the language in the memo is remarkably general and vague, but the final sentence makes it clear what these governments want:
Should governments continue to encounter impediments to lawful access to information necessary to aid the protection of the citizens of our countries, we may pursue technological, enforcement, legislative or other measures to achieve lawful access solutions.
Afef Abrougui, Ellery Roberts Biddle, Mohamed ElGohary, L. Finch, Rohith Jyothish, Leila Nachawati, Georgia Popplewell and Sarah Myers West contributed to this report.


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Two women who dared to oppose Rwandan President Paul Kagame · Global Voices
Nwachukwu Egbunike

Opposition candidate Victoire Ingabire awaits the judge at the Kigali Supreme Court. From kigaliwire.com via Flickr, used with permission: Attribution Non-Commercial 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC 2.0)
In 2015, Rwandan president Paul Kagame oversaw constitutional reforms allowing him to run for a third term in office, effectively ensuring his role as president until 2034. Under Kagame's leadership, Rwanda has transformed itself from a haunted nation with a genocidal past to one of modernity and development.
However, Rwanda's notable transformation has come with the high price of sustained repression of human rights and freedom of expression. A 2017 report by Human Rights Watch on Rwanda reveals an abysmal pattern of debilitating free speech and political pluralism along with extrajudicial executions, arbitrary detention, ill-treatment and torture of citizens.
Two women who both challenged Kagame as opposition candidates in presidential elections, Victorie Ingabire and Diane Rwigara, are now in prison for what many say are trumped-up charges to silence opposition voices:
2010, Victoria Ingabure (1st pic) wanted to run for Presidency of Rwanda as sole opposition candidate to DICTATOR @PaulKagame, she was arrested, jailed for 15yrs.
2017, Diane Rwigara (2nd) wanted to run for Presidency, arrested, now facing 20yrs. Rise up WOMEN #FreeDianeRwigara pic.twitter.com/IiAeCwj2iu
— Abraham Mutai (@ItsMutai) August 25, 2018
Victoire Ingabire. Photo used with permission from Friends of Victoire.
Victoire Ingabire returned to Rwanda from the Netherlands (where she resided for 16 years) in January 2010 to contend in the 2010 presidential elections.
That same year, Ingabire served as the President of the United Democratic Forces (FDU-Inkingi) in Rwanda.
Her crime, according to Friends of Victoire, began with her speech in Kigali's Genocide Memorial Centre:
On 16 January 2010, her first day in the country after 16 years abroad, she made a speech at the Genocide Memorial Centre in the capital, Kigali, and laid a remembrance wreath. Her speech, which referred to problems with reconciliation and ethnic violence, addressed issues that are rarely discussed openly in Rwanda. Victoire Ingabire was arrested in April 2010. She was bailed on house arrest and prevented from leaving Kigali. She was subsequently re-arrested on 14 October 2010 and was remanded in pre-trial detention.
Between 1994-1995, Rwanda suffered a genocide during which ethnic Hutu and Tutsi people engaged in mass slaughtering, spurred on by Hutu nationalists. Nearly 800,000 mostly Tutsi people were slaughtered within a year's time. The Twa people, an indigenous community, also lost nearly a third of its population.
As a result of the genocide, nearly two million Rwandans, mostly ethnic Hutu, fled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) seeking refuge from the violence. Kagame's invasion into the DRC with the Tutsi-led Rwandan Defense Forces prompted atrocities mostly targeting thousands of ethnic Hutu.
Rwanda has enacted a number of laws proscribing “genocide ideology”, “genocide minimisation” and “negationism,” but Amnesty International asserts that these are “vague laws that pose unnecessary restrictions on people’s freedom of expression.”
When Ingabire, an ethnic Hutu, asked why there was no memorial for the moderate Hutus also killed in the genocide, stating “her brother was one of them,” she was perceived as a “genocide denier” and was subsequently barred from running in the 2010 presidential elections. In 2013, the Rwandan Supreme Court handed her a fifteen-year jail term for:
…threatening state security and ‘belittling’ the 1994 genocide. The Supreme Court also pronounced her guilty of spreading rumors intended to incite people to revolt — charges on which she had earlier been cleared.
On November 24, 2017, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (AfCHPR) ruled that Rwanda violated Victoire Ingabire's right to freedom of opinion and expression, as well as her right to an adequate defense. The court maintained that the state violated various aspects of her rights:
Ingabire’s right to various aspects of her defense and to freely express her opinions within the law. The judges found that Ingabire had not minimized the genocide against Tutsis and had not spread false rumors about the government, charges that were central to Ingabire’s conviction by Rwandan courts.
Rwandan businesswoman Diane Shima Rwigara ran as an independent candidate in the 2017 Rwandan presidential elections. Her father, Assinapol Rwigara, was a major financier of Kagame's Rwandan Patriotic Front in the 1990s, and in 2015, he was killed in what his daughter described as an assassination. Police claim he died in a car crash.
Rwigara's decision to run against Kagame was lauded as ‘shattering a glass ceiling’. However, she was soon slandered with the release of nude pictures shared on social media. Rwigara stated that these images were fabricated to silence her.
The Rwandan Electoral Commission delivered the last blow to her ambition with disqualification papers, accusing Rwigara of doctoring the required number of signatures needed to run against Kagame in the elections. She was further accused of submitting names of the deceased, which she denied.
In an op-ed published in The Washington Post, Rwigara asserts:
Screen shot of Diane Shima Rwigara, Rwandan opposition candidate, whose arrest sparked the hashtag #FreeDianeRwigara
It’s no longer news that I have been disqualified as a candidate in Rwanda’s presidential election. Unfortunately, Rwandans will not see my name on their polling cards when they go to vote on Aug. 4. President Paul Kagame will eventually be crowned as an undisputed king of Rwanda and will continue to rule the country in a climate of fear and lack of fundamental freedoms. By extending his 23 years in power, Kagame is denying Rwandans an opportunity to experience the first-ever peaceful transition of power in their country.
Rwigara was arrested last year on charges of “incitement and fraud” and sent to prison for 20 years. Her assets were forcefully confiscated and auctioned by Kagame. Members of her family were also sent to jail for tax evasion and several of her supporters reported harassment:
Today marks 1 YEAR since Rwandan political activist and presidential aspirant Diane Shima #Rwigara and her mother Adeline were unlawfully arrested on fabricated charges by Rwandan authorities.#FreeDianeRwigara #FreeTheRwigaras #Rwanda
— Diane Shima Rwigara (@ShimaRwigara) August 29, 2018
Rwandans have experienced sustained economic growth of about eight percent between 2001-2014, according to the World Economic Forum. The percentage of Rwandans living below the poverty line has fallen from 57 percent in 2005 to 45 percent in 2010. And Kagame has positioned Rwanda as the world's leader in terms of the highest number of women in parliament.
However, ReportsAfrique argues that Kagame's “high handedness against political opponents may undermine that seeming good name that he has built for himself.”
Kagame's authoritarian side is cleverly concealed from tourists and international aid donors. Running a well-oiled public relations machinery, he is also known as Rwanda's benevolent dictator.


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After Facebook ban, Myanmar military accounts are moving to Russian social media site VKontakte · Global Voices
Guest Contributor

Screenshot of Myanmar Military Chief VK account
After being banned from Facebook, Myanmar's military chief was quick to create a new account on Russian social media site VKontakte.
Facebook announced its decision to ban a total of 18 accounts and 52 pages related to Myanmar's military, including the account of Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, commander-in-chief of the Tatmadaw (Myanmar Army) on August 27, 2018. The pages had a significant presence on Facebook, with almost 12 million followers combined.
Immediately after the bans were implemented, the office of the Myanmar Military Chief created a new account on Russian social media site VKontakte and gained 2,000 followers within 48 hours. The page had more than 35,000 followers as of this writing.
Facebook justified its removal of the military accounts on grounds that they were using the social media site to promote ethnic violence against the Rohingya people, a claim supported by a United Nations fact-finding mission. In a subsequent report, Facebook added that it identified a covert Myanmar military propaganda campaign on its platform.
The UN group issued a report accusing the Myanmar military of committing genocide against the Rohingya people. Myanmar-born Rohingya people are neither recognized as an ethnic group nor as citizens by the state of Myanmar. Last year, conflicts and military operations in the northwestern state of Myanmar resulted in displacement of more than 700,000 Rohingya residents, many of whom taking refuge in neighboring Bangladesh.
On Facebook, the former presidential adviser and writer Nay Zin Latt has been urging his followers to open VKontakte accounts. His post which accused Facebook of being a “dictator” got more than 5,000 likes and 1,400 shares.
VK ကိုပြောင်းကြပါ။ အာဏာရှင် FB ကို စွန့်ကြတော့။ အမျိုးသားရေးသမားတွေအတွက် ပိုသင့်တဲ့နေရာ။
Forsake dictator FB. Move to VK, a place more appropriate for patriots [nationalists].
The anonymously-authored blog Myochit Monitor published a post titled Myochit [Nationalist] Migration from Facebook, where the author described how nationalist social media accounts reacted to the Facebook ban.
The author wrote:
…not being able to log on to social media and post your daily propaganda hurts your ego and ability to change public opinion. But the military is adapting well.
No doubt the reason Myochit are migrating to this Russian platform is the Facebook’s tightening of its policy. That means they are now spreading their hate freely on the site without any moderation.
The blogger also noted that several media outlets have created their pages on VKontakte although it is not known if these are official accounts.
When it comes to social media and online communication, Facebook is far and away the most popular platform Myanmar, so the military move to VKontakte may not result in an instant reconstitution of the massive following that Min Aung Hlaing and other military leaders had before.
Facebook's decision to ban the accounts of Myanmar military officers was met with mixed reactions online. Some lauded it as a timely intervention to stop the spread of hate speech. But some also raised the question of censorship and whether it was consistent with Facebook's policy on removing accounts.
Will VKontakte be a more hospitable platform for these accounts? Not necessarily. Despite Myochit Monitor's interpretation, VKontakte (similar to Facebook) prohibits content that “propagandizes and/or contributes to racial, religious, ethnic hatred or hostility, propagandizes fascism or racial superiority.” Also similar to Facebook, the Russian company is not known for implementing its Terms of Service in a consistent or transparent manner.
Time will tell if the strategy serves the military's best interests.
This post was written by a guest contributor who wished to remain anonymous, due to security concerns.

author: Guest Contributor


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As China faces record-breaking flood levels, authorities arrest two women for spreading ‘rumors’ of health risks · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Flooding in Ningxiang, Hunan, China in 2017. Photo by Huangdan2060 via Wikimedia (CC0)
Two WeChat users in Shouguang county of Shandong province were arrested on August 25, 2018 for spreading “rumors” about the spread of disease in livestock, triggered by record-level flooding in Shandong.
Typhoon Rumbia, which hit the northeastern regions of China beginning on August 17, has left at least 13 people dead in Shouguang alone, and has done an estimated 9.2 billion yuan (USD $1.34 billion) worth of damage to the area, which is one of China's largest producers of vegetables and pork. The flooding has also killed an estimate of 250,000 pigs in Shandong.
Members of a private messaging group on the popular WeChat platform were discussing the flooding and related damage, when the conversation turned to the possible spread of disease triggered by flood waters. The conversation, translated below, led to the arrest of two group members on August 25, 2018:
A: A plague has spread to the north of Shouguang county.
B: What plague?
A: I am not sure. Just heard from XXX
B: Is it serious?
A: Eat less pork and chicken.
B: I have heard nothing about it.
A: My husband bought anti-septic detergent to clean up the house.
A few minutes later, a member of the chat group shared their messages with another WeChat group, in a likely attempt to warn other people of the possible spread of disease.
In less than 15 hours, both users were arrested and detained for spreading “rumors” — in China, any piece of information that does not come from official government channels can be considered a rumor.
Shouguang police reported with photos on the arrest of two females for spreading rumors about a possible “plague” on a WeChat group on August 26, 2018.
The arrest was reported by Shouguang police on their official Weibo account on August 26 at 3:37 am, and even included photos of the two women, as seen above. A number of media outlets followed with reports. Very soon the term “Shouguang” became a popular search on social media platform.
China has recently strengthened its approach to stopping the spread of “rumors” by using a centralized system that leverages artificial intelligence, social media data and user reporting. Now even private conversations about social unrest and natural disasters in chat groups can easily trigger the rumor switch and police can take instant action against the “talkative” ones, as seems to be the case in Shouguang.
The users’ arrests have brought panic online. Social media outlet Today’s Headlines posted a news thread about the arrests on August 26 that has attracted more than 1000 comments, most of which have slammed the local Shouguang authorities for abusing their power.
Some pointed out that the two WeChat users were not spreading rumors:
真是可笑，张徐二人皆是听她人所说，瘟疫这种东西人心惶惶，莫非她二人还要亲眼去看一看验证了才能将听到的消息警告给亲友吗？一个正常人处在那种大灾难时，神经紧张，一点儿风吹草动就会被吓到，她二人听说了有瘟疫，立刻告诉亲戚朋友，作为一个都不知道寿光在哪里的普通人，我不知道他们有什么错。
This is such a joke. Both got the information from other sources. Do they have to go for a site visit and verify the information before they can warn friends and family members? People become very nervous facing disasters. They feel frightened easily. They shared what they heard about the plague with their friends and family, what have they done wrong?
寿光被淹几天才退洪水，现在这个天气，我要在附近，人家跟我说瘟疫的话，我肯定会信的，会做些预防，本身新闻也是在报无人机撒药防瘟疫，造谣是不对，你们及时辟谣就好了，不提醒不告知，先逮起来以儆效尤，这处理说白了还是做给人看的，有意思吗？
Shouguang has been flooded for days. In such weather, if I were in the region and someone told me that there was a plague, I would definitely believe this information and take precaution. Even the news reported that the authorities had arranged for drones to spray the flooded areas to prevent plague. It is wrong to spread rumors, but you can make clarifications. Now, you have neglected to inform people of the situation and arrested people for spreading rumors. This is a public performance to intimidate people.
Others expressed their frustration with mockery:
救灾也能这么快就好了
If they could react to the floods as effectively [as they do to the ‘rumors’], that would be great.
寿光洪灾恐怕也是谣言！
The floods in Shouguang must be a rumor too!
哪有什么瘟疫，只不过村民皮肤发痒红肿，满村弥漫腐臭气息，封锁了村子而已。请大噶放心，下一步一定会加强信息封锁，绝对不能让现实情况传播出去。
There is no plague, people’s skin just turned red and inflamed; the villages just smelled rotten and they were all blocked from entering. Please take it easy, information will be blocked and the real situation will not be reported on.
死畜遍地，饮水污染，喝了就生病难道不是瘟疫？
So many livestock have died and the drinking water has been polluted. Once you drink the water, you are sick and this is not a plague?
大家不懂，这是为了百姓好早抓了处罚轻，再不抓有可能就是和境外敌对势力勾结，妄图利用负面信息颠覆政权
You have no idea. They arrest people and punish them lightly for their own good. If they don’t arrest them now, they would hook up with foreign enemies and use the negative news to subvert the state.
Widespread online criticism has not stopped the Shouguang police from arresting more concerned citizens. On August 29, two more users were arrested for insulting Shouguang and Weifang police because they left angry comments under the two authorities’ Weibo posts about police efforts to save lives during floods.
The floods hit Shouguang on August 19, and historical surveys suggest that they are the most severe floods seen in the region since 1974. Yet only four days later, official media outlets were already criticizing negative responses and censoring negative news about flood damage. Now, when one searches “Shouguang” on Weibo, most of the news items praise the authorities’ disaster relief efforts.

author: Oiwan Lam


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Despite parents’ campaign, Bosnia denies schooling to children with learning disabilities · Global Voices
Filip Stojanovski

In July and August 2018, NGO EDUS (“Education for all”) organized a Summer school for kids with cognitive disabilities. Photo by EDUS, published with permission.
After an entire year of campaigning for education for children with learning disabilities, Bosnian parents were left distraught after authorities in Sarajevo denied a primary school funding for the upcoming year.
Launched in September 2017, the #WhereIsMySchool campaign (#GdjeJeMojaSkola in Bosnian) demanded authorities include in its educational system a program developed by EDUS, a local nonprofit organization that offers support for educators of children with special needs.
As the campaign gained traction, the assembly of the canton of Sarajevo approved a resolution that would obligate the education ministry to provide both space and human resources to care for such children. Officials from the ministry promised to work with one local school in Sarajevo and EDUS to execute the assembly's decision.
However, on August 29, only four days before the school year was due to begin in Bosnia and Herzegovina, EDUS warned that their educators hadn't yet received payment from the Ministry.
Education minister Elvir Kazazović rebuffed EDUS’ claim the next day, but according to Truth-O-Meter, a Bosnian fact-checking initiative, the organization was the one telling the truth:
Za djecu koja pohađaju nastavu po EDUS-ovom progamu danas je kapija škole Isa Beg Ishaković ostala zaključana, jer za njih nije obezbjeđen nastavni kadar, a sudeći prema obavijesti EDUS-a tako će ostati do daljnjeg. Ministar Kazazović, za svoju izjavu u kojoj tvrdi da su riješeni kadrovski problemi sa edukatorima i da su obezbjeđeni uslovi za rad EDUS-a dobija ocjenu neistina.
Today the gate of the primary school Isa Beg Ishaković remained closed for the children who attend education according to EDUS’ program because there were no teachers who could welcome them. According to the information by EDUS, this state of affairs will continue. Therefore we rate as untrue the statement of Minister Kazazović, in which he claims that all human resources issues with the educators are solved and that all adequate conditions for work according to EDUS program are provided.
Truth-O-Meter added that around 150 children from the Canton of Sarajevo are now out of school.
The campaigning parents were devastated. Aida Hrnjić, a parent of a kid with autism, has written a sorrowful open letter for the influential website Index.ba:
Ministar obrazovanja se jučer na jednoj TV hvalio kako je zadovoljan mandatom, kako će  u Kantonu Sarajevo na besplatno skijanje itd, a ja ga slušajući u malo fras ne dobih i zagrcnuh se od pomisli kako će djeca da se raduju i skijaju. Neka, ne naša, ne djeca sa poteškoćama odnosno autizmom. Za njih nema ni osnovno.
Ljudi, zamislite svoje dijete da sjedi i čeka milostinju nesposobnih da se dogovore dok mu vrijeme neumoljivo curi i dijete nazaduje. Ne pričamo mi ovdje o nekom običnom vrtiću i čuvanju djeteta dok roditelj radi, mi pričamo o borbi za to dijete, bjesomučnoj borbi da se tu djecu nauči da budu samostalni koliko je to god moguće i da znaju razmišljati. Uče kako naučiti da uče.
When yesterday the minister of education on a TV bragged how he's satisfied with his work, how the kids of Canton of Sarajevo will go to free skiing etc. I almost got a stroke imagining how the kids will be happy skiing. Some other kids, but not our kids who have disabilities including autism. They don't get to have access to even basic primary school.
People, imagine how it feels if your child is forced to just sit and wait for charity from incompetent politicians who can't even make a simple agreement, while their time is running out and they're backsliding. Here the issue is not a simple kindergarten or babysitting while the parent is at work, here the issue is fighting for the life of this kid, a struggle to teach them to become as self-sufficient as possible, to teach them to think. To teach them how learn.
Ms Hrnjić asked the parents of neurotypical children to show solidarity through boycotting the first school day. Another campaigner, Aida Ajanović, also shared her thoughts on her Facebook profile:
Neću vas ja zvati da bojkotujete, nemate vi sluha za te stvari. Kao što nadležni sluha nemaju za moje dijete već godinama. I ako vas vrijeđa ovo što govorim, šta ću vam ja. Jer zamislite moju frustraciju, i frustraciju mog djeteta. Uvijek zadnji na spisku, uvijek problem, uvijek nepodoban za vaše planove, vaše vizije društva i sistema, uvijek zaboravljen.
I dok vi budete ispraćali djecu u školu u ponedjeljak, njih 150 će ponovo ostati u svojim kućama. Tegoba jednom, tegoba zauvijek.
I won't call you to boycott, because you simply don't care for such calls. Just like the authorities who have not cared about the needs of my child for years. And if you are offended by this, why don't you break contact with me altogether. Imagine my frustration, and the frustration of my child. Always the last on the list, always a problem, always unfit for your plans, your visions of society and the system, always forgotten.
And while you'll be sending your kids to school on Monday, the 150 kids with disabilities will have to remain in their homes, again. Once the suffering has started, there's no end to suffering.

author: Filip Stojanovski


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It is now legal to be gay in India · Global Voices
Subhashish Panigrahi

Rainbow Spectrum and Bangalore Pride Parade. Image via Flickr user Pee Vee. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Indians were overcome with joy on Thursday, September 6, after the country's Supreme Court unanimously ruled the 157-year-old law that criminalized homosexual sex unconstitutional.
Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code was a legacy of the British empire, who around the mid-19th century imposed many laws criminalizing homosexual acts across its colonies.
In a historic verdict, Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra said:
Majoritarian views and popular views cannot dictate constitutional rights. LGBT community possesses human rights like all other sections of society. Equality is the essence of the constitution. 377 is arbitrary.
Back in 2013, the Delhi High Court ruled Section 377 unconstitutional, but this had been overturned shortly after by the Supreme Court.
The latest Supreme Court's decision has brought joy to people across the country, gay or otherwise. On social media, many acknowledged that such victory is the result of years of activism by India’s LGBT community.
Educator Danish Sheikh wrote in Facebook:
For 29 years, I have lived in the shadow of this law, and now, just like that, it’s gone.
Jayna Kothari, executive director for the Center For Law And Policy Research, said:
In the words of Justice Indu Malhotra that history owes them and their families an apology for criminalizing them for so many years – today’s decision is a remarkable recognition of the equality and dignity of LGBT persons.
Others cheered the decision on Twitter:
I'm thrilled that India has finally repealed the colonial-era law criminalizing gay sex, a law imposed by the British during imperial rule. Today, one fifth of the world's population was just freed from this homophobic legal relic. ?? ?? https://t.co/bZ5RNy6esd
— Aditya Mukerjee, the Otterrific ?? (@chimeracoder) September 6, 2018
Love wins ….?❤ proud Indian .. love is a beautiful feeling and now you are free to love in India ?? #humanity #loveislove? #377 #jaihind ?♀?❤ pic.twitter.com/V2qjlw7l2C
— Nikita Sharma (@Nikita12S) September 6, 2018
The decision will not reflect in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir state as it has its own constitution and criminal law, the Ranbir Penal Code, which still criminalizes non-heterosexual sexual intercourse. Dr. Ajaz Ahmad Bund, a social worker in Kashmir, told the Times of India:
The Supreme Court judgment, I am hoping, will now initiate a debate and awareness about what it means to be gay or lesbian or transgender in Kashmir.

author: Subhashish Panigrahi


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It is women who bear the brunt of the Venezuelan crisis · Global Voices
Laura Vidal

“Introducing Patricia, my sister, the real Wonder Woman. Single mother of two, taking care of business with a broken ankle for nine months. Amidst the protests and chaos in Venezuela, our father's death, and her being unable to work, she is still kicking more ass than anyone I know. Mad respect for the lady. Compared to her, I'm a pussy.” Illustration and caption by Venezuelan artist and illustrator Leonardo Gonzalez, used with permission.
There is one aspect of the Venezuelan economic crisis that often goes untold: how it impacts women and girls.
With 44 percent of the country's households headed by women, it is they who usually suffer through the long supermarket queues, who endure the crippled health care system when their loved ones fall ill, and who mourn the death of the children at the hands of the police — all while surviving the grim statistics that afflict their gender.
While it is true that the Venezuela government has had policies aimed at easing female poverty, many other aspects of female autonomy have been neglected by the Bolivarian government, despite it often proclaiming itself to be “feminist”.
Income transfer programs like Madres del Barrio (“mothers of the slum”), from 2006, and Hijas e Hijos de Venezuela (children of Venezuela), from 2011, have created a crucial safety net for families living in extreme poverty. Combined, both programs hand out between 150-350 USD, depending on the number of children.
Abortion, on the other hand, was made illegal in Venezuela's Bolivarian Constitution, inheriting its status from the country's previous political order that the Bolivarians had otherwise upended. Neither Chávez or Maduro have made efforts in modifying this in their 20-year-long tenure. Abortion remains allowed solely in cases of maternal life.
Aglaia Berlutti, a prominent feminist online voice and Global Voices contributor, highlights the contradictions of Chavismo's rhetorics when it comes to gender equality:
…en Venezuela el término feminismo fue consumido, abusado y sobre todo tergiversado por el poder. […] Al mismo tiempo que se habla de la representatividad política, el Presidente Nicolás Maduro usa términos machistas para insultar a minorías […] Al mismo tiempo que se insiste en que el número de Ministras del tren ejecutivo supera al de cualquier otro del continente [las mujeres continúan]  padeciendo de una situación donde su identidad sigue siendo aplastada por una interpretación histórica que la desvaloriza.
In Venezuela the term ‘feminism’ has been consumed, abused and above all, distorted by [those] in power. […] While they speak about political representation, president Nicolás Maduro uses sexist terms to insult minorities […] While they insist that the number of female ministers in the executive branch surpasses that of any other country in the continent [women continue] to endure situations in which their gender identity continues to be crushed by the historical interpretation that devalues them.
Previously-existing problems not only failed to be addressed: with a raging economic crisis, they have been dangerously aggravated.
Venezuela's femicide rate is now among the 15 highest in the world, according to three local rights monitoring organizations. Several cases of sexual abuse against women by law enforcement authorities have been reported during the 2017 protests.
Venezuela's murder rate in 2016 reached 56 per 100,000 people — the highest in South America. This is according to the UN Department on Drugs and Crime (UNDOC), who publishes yearly worldwide data series on homicide rates. The Venezuelan Observatory of Violence (OVV), who uses a different methodology, counted a rate of 89 in 2017, which would make Venezuela the most murderous nation on Earth.
Also according to OVV, in July 2018, 40% of the crimes in the greater Caracas were committed by police officers.
With both crime and police violence escalating in the last years, many women mourn the deaths of their children. Speaking at La vida de nos (“the life of us”), an online media project collecting personal accounts of the crisis, Elibeth Pulido recounts the murder of two of her children, one of them by a police officer:
Como a la media hora me llamaron para decirme que fuera a buscar a los niños. El corazón se me iba a salir del pecho cuando los vi y ellos me vieron. Fueron tan increíbles nuestras miradas. ¡Jamás nos miramos de esa manera! No tenían camisa ni zapatos […Entonces] me dieron la noticia más espantosa de mi vida. Se repitió la historia: me volvieron a quitar otro hijo.
Half an hour later they called to tell me to come fetch the children. I felt as if my heart was going to burst when I saw them and they saw me. The glances we exchanged were unbelievable. We had never looked at each other that way! They were barefoot and shirtless […And then] they gave me the most horrifying news of my life. It happened again: they took another child from me.
Additionally, the chronic lack of sexual education in schools, combined with the poor access to contraceptives as an effect to the country's drug shortage, translates into high numbers of unplanned pregnancies. Adícea Castillo, researcher and founding member of the Women Studies Center of the Central University of Venezuela, explains:
…hay una cifra, pequeña pero importante, de madres pre adolescentes […] Es un círculo vicioso. Muchas no se controlan, se practican abortos. Se mueren luego de ocho meses hospitalizadas por una infección y, las que se salvan, regresan al barrio a mantener un muchacho sin el apoyo de los padres.
There's a number. Small but important, of pre-adolescent mothers […] It's a vicious circle. Many of these young women don't use contraception, they have [unsafe] abortions. They die after eight months in the hospital for an infection, and those who survive, come back home to the slums to take care of a child without parental support.
Finally, women leaving the country also face hardship. The number of Venezuelan women who have been victims of human trafficking in Latin America and Europe has quadrupled between 2014 to 2018.
In neighboring Colombia, a country that has received over a million Venezuelans in the past year, women are subject to prejudice and abuse. While many accuse Venezuelan migrants of “stealing” local jobs and engaging in crime, women are often seen as sex workers.
To confront many of those misconceptions, the feminist Youtube channel “Las igualadas”, made a special episode in the Colombian border town of Cúcuta about Venezuelans (in Spanish, no English subtitles).

author: Laura Vidal


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Nauta Hogar: A tool for Cuban entrepreneurs · Global Voices
Periodismo de Barrio

Illustration: MONK (Periodismo de Barrio). Used with Permission.
For years, connecting to the Internet in Cuba — a country with the second worst ranking in access to communication technology in the Americas — has always meant resorting to a variety of creative alternatives.
Different methods have worked for different sectors: Enet accounts, a service provided by the Telecommunications Company of Cuba (ETECSA) for incorporated institutions and government employees; WiFi zones and connections for hotels and tourist areas; Nano stations that provide different WiFi connections for the home; and SNET for clandestine connections among others.
In an attempt to improve the Internet service on the island, the government decided to launch Nauta Hogar, a proposal for residential clients which has improved the way that privately-owned technology companies do business.
In 2010, when licenses for privately-owned technology startups were granted, Internet penetration in Cuba was at 18 percent and was primarily concentrated in tourist areas, research and investigation centers, companies, and government entities. By 2016, these licenses tripled and Cuba had WiFi access points in public areas. The 2016 Statistical Yearbook for Cuba (published in 2017), reported that 40 percent of the population had access to the Internet, or 4,529,000 users out of a total population of 11 million.
Despite these gains, Cuban technology entrepreneurs were faced with the challenge of trying to work without a fast Internet connection which limited productivity. According to Alberto Castro, the owner of Celulares 41:
…when very specific information was needed, we had to take a laptop to a hotel. Many times a job that should have only required 20 minutes became one that took an hour and a half or two hours.
Alberto Castro, owner of Celulares 411, on Obispo street (Photo: Julio Batista. Periodismo de Barrio. Used with permission.)
Avansys, a laptop repair company, used to buy large software packages in order to address their connection issues. Meanwhile, at MovilServer, the purchase of software packages was alternated with downloading information from third parties, which were often government institutions.
The first large-scale campaign to connect Cuban homes to the Internet was undertaken by ETESCA (a government-owned telecommunications company) and took place between December 19, 2016 to February 28, 2017. This was the beginning of Nauta Hogar and its pilot test, which installed Internet services in 2,000 homes in Old Havana. Nauta Hogar is based on ADSL technology and charges set amounts based on hours of use, with a cap at 30 hours per month. By late 2017 and early 2018, Nauta Hogar arrived to the provinces of Matanzas, Cienfuegos and Santiago de Cuba.
Celulares 411, Avansys and MovilServer are all located in the Old Havana neighborhood, and were given almost immediate access to the ETECSA offer. Alberto from Celulares 411, Héctor Venegas from Avansys and Jorge Fernández from MovilServer all agreed that the basic benefit of the service is that you can download without having to leave the office to find more reliable service.
For Alberto, who signed up for the most expensive plan offered at 70 CUC (almost $70 USD) per month for a navigation speed of 4 Mbit/s and upload of 512 kb/s, Nauta Hogar has greatly improved his connection speed.
Hector and Jorge, who both signed up for plans costing 15 CUC (almost $15 USD), confirm that the arrival of Nauta Hogar has made everything easier, even though its presence has not gotten rid of the old practices.
Héctor Venegas, intermediate-level technician in computer science and member of the Avansys team. (Photo: Julio Batista. Periodismo de Barrio. Used with permission.)
Although Héctor from Avansys admits that the company still buys software packages which can be used offline, he also says, “In Avansys, we use [Nauta Hogar] to download important drivers or software updates as well as obtain information about complex repairs”. Additionally, Avansys invests connection time to advertise its services in Revolico, Cuba's largest classified ad network.
At MovilServer, Jorge was able to complete repair jobs more quickly and it is now easier to download drivers, applications, databases and firmware for mobile phones. But when the firmware is too heavy, he still has go find a better Internet connection.
Although the service comes with many benefits, it is important to note its practical and contractual limitations, which include stipulations against resale and using the Internet in a way that could harm Cuba's national security. The contract also forbids acting against intellectual or industrial property rights, violating personal or social data privacy, and breaching rules on defamation and obscenity.
Nauta Hogar's principal log-in web page. Photo: Julio Batista. Periodismo de Barrio. Used with permission.
However, none of this compares to the most common complaint thrown at Nauta Hogar — the 30 hour per month limit. Alberto would prefer “to have a fixed price and not have to worry about the clock”. The simple solution? A payment structure based on the connection speed instead of the connection time.
Of course, a portion of the 30 hours is spent on recreation rather than work. Héctor of Avansys, keeps updated on musical themes and watches videos. While at MovilServer, the owner's family uses the connection to check emails and Facebook profiles. However, even if the time were spent just on work, it would still be insufficient.
Despite these limitations, the interviewees admitted that the benefits are undeniable. According to Alberto:
..it is worth it to suscribe [to Nauta Hogar] […]To get connected through another site, you would be paying the same for lower speed and less comfort.

author: Periodismo de Barrio


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South Asian governments keep ordering internet shutdowns — and leaving users in the dark · Global Voices
Afef Abrougui

When students in Bangladesh protested, demanding improved road safety, mobile internet  connections were cut. Image via Wikimedia Commons by Asive Chowdhury CC: BY-SA 4.0
This post is published as part of an editorial partnership between Global Voices and Ranking Digital Rights.
When students in Dhaka, Bangladesh launched public protests demanding road safety after a speeding bus killed two students on July 29, mobile internet connections suddenly were no more.
When the protests turned violent on August 3, after rumors of rape and kidnapping triggered confrontations between police and protesters, authorities resorted to shutting down 3G and 4G networks in and around Dhaka.
Local media reported that the Telecommunication Regulatory Commission ordered service providers to reduce mobile phone network signals for 24 hours so that only 2G networks could operate.
The measures made it impossible to share multimedia and live video, which many protesters were using in an effort to show what actually was happening on the streets, in real time, and to debunk false claims. Telecom operators in Bangladesh gave subscribers no explanation of the cut in service.
These measures are not unique to Bangladesh. They represent part of a growing trend across South Asia, where access to networks or platforms is restricted or completely shut down when protests or violence erupts, and the public is left in the dark, with little or no information about what causes these shutdowns.
Earlier this year, Sri Lankan authorities shut down the internet in the district of Kandy, in response to acts of sectarian violence. The government, which also ordered telecom operators to block Facebook, Viber and WhatsApp across the country, blamed social media for spreading hate speech and calls to violence.
While service providers alerted users prior to the shutdowns, “there was no indication as to why in the formal notice,” Amalini De Sayrah, an editor at GroundViews, an award-winning citizen media group based in Colombo told Global Voices. GroundViews contacted the Telecommunication Regulatory Commission for more information, but “there was confusion or just unwillingness to divulge more,” De Sayrah said. “We were told it [the shutdown] would end in a few hours, but it carried on for a few days.”
The lack of corporate transparency is also an issue in India, where the Software Freedom Law Center, documented 106 shutdowns across the country so far this year.
In India, users are “most often” not informed about these shutdowns before they take place, “leaving [them] to wonder if it is a technical glitch or a shutdown,” Mishi Choudhary, legal director at the SFLC told Global Voices in a previous story.
“Transparency in the operator-user relation has a long way to go in South Asia,” said Subhashish Panigrahi, a Global Voices author and co-founder of O Foundation (OFDN) a non profit organization working to preserve underrepresented languages and cultures through digital technology. “India had blocked as many as 23,030 websites by 2017. There are cases where the operators share about the shutdowns and there are many [others] where the users are left to be startled.”
Telecommunications companies are facing increasing burdens in this area, from all sides. Companies that push back on shutdown orders can risk losing their licenses. While companies usually have little choice but to follow these orders, that should not absolve them from responsibility towards their users’ human rights.
In legally-challenging environments, companies should at least notify users when shutdowns are about to happen, name the authorities that ordered the shutdown, and specify its duration activists told Global Voices.
De Sayrah said that she would like to see operators not only publish alerts about shutdowns that are about to happen but also include information on who made the shutdown request and when and the duration of restriction.
“This way the companies are accountable to the people and are doing their part, which is one step up from the government,” she added.
Panigrahi noted that industry organizations like the Internet Service Providers Association of India’s (ISPAI), which represents 60 operators could address this issue by maintaining a public record of the ongoing shutdowns. While there are civil society groups and activists that document these restrictions, “ISPs have a wider and a direct reach to users and [can] always inform users prior to the shutdowns.” He added that activists and civil society groups “can at times put their own security at risk” in their efforts to document shutdown cases.
Transparency from the part of telcos can help media groups that play a key role in times of crisis to verify information and provide accurate media coverage prepare better. During the March shutdowns in Sri Lanka, GroundViews found it challenging to get information on the situation in Kandy, editor Raisa Wickrematunge told Global Voices.
“Providing justifications and ideally a potential duration of a block or shutdown can help assess what strategy to use to continue pushing out information,” she added.
India internet shutdown map, January 2010 – March 2017. Created by the Centre for Communication Governance (CC BY)
Corporate transparency can also help digital rights activists and advocacy groups understand the scope, the impact and the legality of shutdowns.
Data such as revenue loss experienced by telcos, impact on e-commerce, reasons given by the state and terms of licensing could be useful for advocacy groups, Choudhary said.
“It is important to have a record of how long these blocks persist, and when and why they commenced, in order to help digital rights advocates prepare for possible clampdowns in the future,” Wickrematunge said. She added that transparency can be useful when engaging with the government “to try and prevent these types of shutdowns happening arbitrarily…”
Despite the outcry from civil society groups and a 2016 UN Human Rights Council resolution condemning “measures to intentionally prevent or disrupt access to or dissemination of information online,” governments across South Asia are very unlikely to stop ordering shutdowns anytime soon.
The Indian government, which has been blaming Whatsapp and other messaging and social media apps for a spike in mob killings and lynchings, has reportedly urged telecom operators “to explore various possible options” to block such applications “to protect national security.”
In Sri Lanka, activists fear that the the Kandy shutdowns may not be the last. “I do believe the incidents in March have now set a precedent for similar blocks in future, particularly on social media,” Wickrematunge said.
Following the recent 3G and 4G network shutdowns in Bangladesh, the ICT minister said that access to Facebook and networks could be restricted again for the “security of the state and its people.”
In the absence of government transparency, corporate transparency can help users and digital rights groups prepare to fight shutdowns when they are about to happen, hold to account those responsible, and raise awareness about their negative impacts.
“Operators owe complete transparency to their users, as consumers who are paying them money and also in the interest of accountability,” De Sayrah said.

author: Afef Abrougui