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A Mexican Public Servant Is Using Periscope to Expose Lawbreakers, but Not Everyone Approves · Global Voices
J. Tadeo

Arne Sydney Aus den Ruthen Haag. Photo from the profile of his public Facebook page.
Mexicans have recently been debating local Mexico City civil servant Arne Sydney Aus den Ruthen Haag‘s use of Periscope to provide evidence of individuals committing low-level infractions, such as traffic violations or violations of the country's Civic Culture Law, which regulates civic behavior.
Periscope is an application for iOS and Android systems that allows users to share videos, or “scopes”, in real time via Twitter. Other users can then view the transmission on their computers or mobile devices and interact through comments.
Aus den Ruthen is city manager in the Miguel Hidalgo, a borough headed by Xóchitl Gálvez, a 17-year member of the National Action Party, one of Mexico's main political parties. As city manager of the neighborhood, which is home to several luxury residential areas, Aus den Ruthen has taken up the task of walking the streets and recording lawbreaking as he sees it using Periscope.
In November 2015, Aus den Ruthen first made headlines with his Periscope practice in a case that became known as #LadySotelo (Sotelo is the name of a neighborhood) or #LadyBasuras (Lady Garbage). He filmed a woman throwing trash on the street and afterwards trying to harass and intimidate him, boasting that she herself was a public servant. It later turned out that she indeed served in the borough of Tlalpan. She was eventually referred to Civic Court, as required by law.
In February 2016, Aus den Ruthen used Periscope to capture evidence of two teams of bodyguards (called guaruras, a term used in Mexico to denote public or private agents who protect top-level individuals in government or business) allegedly parking their vehicles in pedestrian areas and committing other traffic violations. These vehicles, it should be mentioned, are usually equipped with police and military gear, though it is illegal for private security companies.
One team belonged to businessman Raúl Libien, who is a personal friend of Mexican President Enrique Peña and several members of his team. Libien appeared to try to intimidate Aus den Ruthen a few days later, when in separate incidents, one of Libien’s bodyguards assaulted him and then stole his smartphone as it continued to broadcast through Periscope. Libien afterwards was dubbed #LordMeLaPelas on social networks (Me la pelas is a vulgar expression that means, essentially, “I don’t care.”)
In the same month, Aus den Ruthen published evidence of the bodyguards of Francisco Guzmán Ortiz, the president's chief of staff, committing traffic violations.
The cases stoked debate about the use of Periscope and similar applications by public servants. Fundamental human rights seem to be at the center of the debate: Does it violate the right to the presumption of innocence when someone is captured on film committing an offense? Is it a violation of privacy, of one's right to their own likeness? Is the person who exposes the offender summarily carrying out a punishment of public infamy?
Lawyer and TV host Leopoldo Gómez, who disagrees with the city manager's methods, commented to Mexican news outlet Milenio:
Me preocupa más que una autoridad imponga castigos por encima de la ley. Como ha apuntado la CDHDF [el organismo local encargado de la protección a los derechos humanos], al exhibir públicamente a los infractores, la autoridad vulnera su honra y su imagen. Se crean sanciones adicionales y una “violencia innecesaria”. En el caso del city manager, con buenas intenciones. Pero ¿queremos que los funcionarios puedan imponer sanciones a partir de sus deseos u ocurrencias? En esa lógica se basa el poder autoritario.
I’m mostly concerned about an authority who imposes punishments as if they were above the law. As pointed out by the CDHDF [a local agency that aims to protect human rights within Mexico City], the authority is damaging the honor and the image of the offenders by exposing them publicly. It generates additional sanctions and “unnecessary violence”. In the city manager's case, with good intentions. But do we want government officials to be able to impose sanctions at their own whim and fancy? This logic is based on authoritarian power.
In a short televised debate, Perla Gómez, the head of the CDHDF, said:
Debemos darles seguridad a todas las personas sobre lo que puede o no hacer la autoridad. El uso en vivo, la transmisión en vivo y posteriormente subir a redes la información debe tener esa claridad en ley de que va a convertirse en una forma de inhibición de conducta. El hecho de que sea en vivo [permite que] pueden pasar ‘n’ situaciones. ¿Qué pasa cuando hay un error, cuando transitan personas por ahí, si hay niñas, niños y no se puede difuminar la imagen en ese momento?
We must give assurance to all people about what the authorities can or cannot do. Using live broadcasts and then afterwards uploading them to information networks should be clarified in the law as this is going to become a way of inhibiting behavior. Since it is a live streaming, a lot of unpredictable situations can happen. What happens when a mistake is made, when passersby are filmed or when children are around and their images can’t be blurred in the moment?
The slightly open-ended speech of Perla Gómez contrasts with the fact that, according to reports, her office has three complaints pending against Aus den Ruthen. News site Proceso.mx wrote:
Si bien, señala la CDHDF, de ninguna manera está en contra de que las autoridades cumplan sus deberes, le preocupa que la utilización de herramientas tecnológicas como Pericope, “exhiba a personas que hubieran realizado conductas que probablemente constituían una falta administrativa sin que las autoridades observen las obligaciones que tienen en materia de protección de datos personales, al ser la imagen de una persona un dato personal que la hace identificable por sus rasgos físicos”.
Even though the CDHDF asserts that they are in no way against authorities fulfilling their duties, they are concerned with the use of tech tools like Periscope “showing people who have behaved in ways that probably constitute an administrative offense, without the authorities having to adhere to their obligations to protect personal information, given that a person’s image is a piece of personal information that makes it possible for them to be identified by their physical traits”.
Regarding the CDHDF's decision, the city manager responded:
Prioridades según la @CDHDF
1. El “honor” del infractor o delincuente grabado en FLAGRANCIA
2. Tus derechos
3. El respeto a la ley
— Arne aus den Ruthen (@arnemx) February 24, 2016
Priorities according to the @CDHDF
1. The “honor” of an offender or criminal recorded IN FLAGRANTE
2. Your rights
3. Respect for the law
Public relations and communications specialist Gabriel Guerra defended the use of Periscope to publicize offenders:
La prepotencia, el desacato y la impunidad no hacen caso de la amable indicación de la autoridad. Se requiere de la voz ciudadana, de la denuncia pública, del escarnio para que cambien sus conductas. En cualquier sociedad civilizada, el escándalo se centraría en quien viola la ley descaradamente y no en quien lo exhibe. Aquí confundimos el debate.
Arrogance, contempt, and impunity will not heed polite orders from authorities. It requires the voice of the citizen, public denunciation, and ridicule for them to change their behavior. In any civilized society, the scandal should center on those who brazenly violate the law and not the one who exposes them. Here is where the debate gets muddled.
On Twitter, I asked lawyer Rodolfo Herrera Moro what he thought of the use of Periscope in cases like those mentioned above:
@tadeo_rc a favor! La raíz de ntro (nuestro) problema es que corrupción e ilegalidad son socialmente aceptados. Periscope fomenta cambio de mentalidad
— Rodolfo Herrera-Moro (@herreramoro) March 1, 2016
@tadeo_rc's tweet: Hello @herreramoro: using Periscope to expose administrative lawbreakers, in favor or against? Greetings.
@herreramoro's tweet: I’m in favor! The root of our problem is that corruption and illegality are socially accepted. Periscope encourages a change in mindset.
While marketing specialist Raúl Morales answered:
@tadeo_rc Es decir, si grabar es legal, entonces documentar la falta también. Lo han hecho los medios desde que es posible hacerlo.
— Raúl Morales (@ElDonRaul) March 1, 2016
@tadeo_rc's tweet: Hey @ElDonRaul: using Periscope to expose administrative lawbreakers, in favor or against?
@ElDonRaul's tweet: That is to say, if recording is legal, then documenting the offense is too. Ever since it's been possible to do, the media has done it.
In response to CDHDF asserting that using Periscope as such could violate the protection of personal information, Twitter user Shiva noted that the administration of Mexico City Mayor Miguel Ángel Mancera films people in the streets using traffic cameras:
Si nos basamos en la lógica d @CDHDF tons @ManceraMiguelMX esta violando mis derechos al grabarme con cámaras #CiudadSegura @XochitlGalvez
— Shiva (@AquaKLM3) February 25, 2016
If we’re following the logic of the @CDHDF then @ManceraMiguelMX is violating my rights by recording me with cameras #SafeCity @XochitlGalvez
Engineering student Juan Rafael expressed his support for the city manager:
Me declaro admirador oficial del Señor Arne aus den Ruthen
— Juan Rafael (@GavilanBass) February 27, 2016
I declare myself an official admirer of Mr. Arne Aus den Ruthen.
Meanwhile, others have used foul language to voice their desire to assault him:
Tengo ganas de partirle la madre a arne aus den ruthen.
— abuepop (@scumbagmag) February 27, 2016
I feel like kicking Arne Aus den Ruthen’s ass.
As things currently stand, a significant number of Mexicans, who are accustomed to abusing their influence and living a lifestyle characterized by arrogance, don't pay much regard to laws and regulations that stand in their way. Indubitably, authorities should wield the tools they have at their disposal to enforce the law, but without violating fundamental rights or committing acts that could be construed as illegal. The issue is of no small significance and calls at least for a sincere deliberation on human rights.

author: J. Tadeo


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Afghanistan’s Path to Women’s Rights Is Paved With Risk, but Built on Hope · Global Voices
Rustam Ali Seerat

Women in the Afghan National Army. U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Laura R. McFarlane/Released. Creative commons.
For Afghan women, the systematic repression and violence of the Taliban era was replaced by opportunities, but also fear and insecurity in the aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion of their country.
Today gender politics in Afghanistan are more complicated than ever, with victories in some areas qualified by setbacks in others.
Since the beginning of this year the Afghan National Women's Cycling Team has been nominated for the Noble Peace Prize, while Sumaya Ghulami won gold in taekwondo at the South Asian games held in Guwahati and Shillong, India, an achievement unthinkable during the Taliban era.
But women have been among the greatest victims of the intensifying Taliban insurgency and a rise in criminal violence that neither the frail government in Kabul nor the shrinking American military contingent on the ground have been able to contain.
The age of social media has shone a spotlight on some of the most egregious examples of violence against women in recent times.
Last November, in a Taliban-controlled village in Ghor province, central Afghanistan, a 19-year-old woman, Rokhshana was stoned to death for adultery.
Rokhshana's stoning murder harkens back to violent murder of Farkhunda, chronicled by @FaribaNawa https://t.co/wGiZZzDsmw via @thedailybeast
— Asra Q. Nomani (@AsraNomani) November 6, 2015
The adultery charge was technical in nature — an escape from a marriage that had been forced on her — and the viral video of the stoning seemingly filmed on a cell phone inspired widespread disgust across Afghanistan's growing online networks.
Ghor province's  former governor Seema Joyenda, only the second woman governor to be appointed in Afghanistan, became one of the main champions for justice for Rokhshana.
But Joyenda herself was eventually pushed out of office after conservatives led a successful — if not uncontested — campaign to remove her from office.
Unprecedented; when #Afghan #Men protest in support of a #Female Governor in remote #Ghor province. Gives me hope! pic.twitter.com/sB9CSsQfkG
— Omaid Sharifi (@OmaidSharifi) December 19, 2015
Rokhshana's stoning came just months after another horrific incident that attracted the attention of the world, when a mentally ill woman, Farkhunda, was beaten to death and burned for allegedly setting a Koran on fire.
One of the most horrible incidents of gender-based violence in the post-2001 period took place at the very end of last year.
Pajhwok Afghan news reported that eleven men, including four policemen, gang-raped a girl of nine in the country's northwest, where the government and the Taliban are vying for control.
But the news is not all bad.
This month Sumaya Ghulami returned to Afghanistan to a hero's welcome after her taekwondo gold in 2016 South Asian Games. She was publicly congratulated by President Ghani and widely lauded in the press.
(3/3) The President awarded Sumaya Ghulami and three other athletes certificates of appreciation. pic.twitter.com/pN0NuimfNb
— ارګ (@ARG_AFG) March 2, 2016
Ghani's wife, Rula Ghani, recently announced plans to build the country's first women-only university with funding from the government of Turkey, a move seen as key to guaranteeing women's access to higher education.
Meanwhile, over a hundred Italian MPs suggested the Afghan women's cycling team for the Noble peace prize earlier this month. The nomination thrilled the Afghanistan section of Twitter.
#Afghan women’s cycling team nominated for 2016 #NobelPeacePrize @AfghanJourno @ShafiNaqiJamie pic.twitter.com/vOcIpkZRKF
— Salam Sabir (@Salamsabr) February 24, 2016
Such events are symbolic of a growing visibility for women in public life. In the parliament, women make up 28% of the seats — a bigger proportion of women than in the US Congress.
However, no woman has headed the parliament, indicating that a female presence in domestic politics can expand without necessarily translating into real power.
A clear example of this was Ghani's attempt to include a woman judge into the national high court council, which was swiftly blocked by a parliament where conservatives are gaining ground.
The Afghan woman's position in society is thus subject to flux, varying from community to community.
Hazara women have seen a particularly fast-paced change in their lives, influenced possibly by higher rates of female education relative to other ethnic groups in the post-Taliban era.
Among Afghanistan's most influential women are Sima Samar Head of the Afghan Human Rights Commission and Afghanistan's first female governor Habiba Sarabi of Bamiyan province, both ethnic Hazara.
Laila Haidari, another Hazara, is a woman social volunteer who has found the Mother Camp which treats drug addicted men.
But women across groups in the country remain prejudiced by Afghan civil law, which reserves the right of divorce exclusively for men, while family matters remain under the control of the head of the family in most cases.
And critically, the Taliban is gaining ground across the country, even as the movement itself splinters, while hardline clerics have continually decried women's rights as a Western imposition.
In such a fluid environment, women are locked in a contradiction: they enjoy more space for participation than they did 15 years ago, but are also most likely to be a lightening rod for the inevitable conservative backlash.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Rustam Ali Seerat


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Japan Observes International Women’s Day With Mimosa Flowers and Grim Statistics · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

Actors from a historical revue in Japan. The actor on the right is portraying Niijima Yae. Screenshot from YouTube user Tsunoda Kazushi.
March 8 is International Women's Day, which in Japan is better known as Mimosa Day (ミモザの日, in reference to the mimosa flower, not the champagne cocktail).
The day is not an official holiday in Japan, but on social media there were messages of love, affection and appreciation for women.
おはようございます
本日は国際女性デー。
ミモザの日。
イタリアでは男性から女性へ、日頃の感謝を込めてミモザの花を贈る習慣があります。
多忙な女性の皆様、
何時もありがとうございます:) pic.twitter.com/b4aAKP8fz1
— coco (@1122Yamarei) March 7, 2016
Good morning. It's International Women's Day today — Mimosa Day.
In Italy it's a day when men give women mimosa flowers to express appreciation.
So, to all the busy women I'd like to say thank you very much :)
For some brands, March 8 provides yet another way to connect with their target audience. Fiat Japan, for example, tweeted:
毎年3月8日は、国連で「国際女性デー」と定められた記念日。イタリアでは「フェスタ デッラ ドンナ（＝女性の日）」という、女性に感謝を込めて黄色い花「ミモザ」を贈る日です。
あなたも、ミモザを贈るサプライズなんて、いかがですか。 pic.twitter.com/0Qp95UvUgX
— フィアット (@FIAT_JP) March 7, 2016
Every year on March 8 the United Nations observes “International Women's Day.” In Italy this day is known as “Festa della donna” (Women's Day), and women are given yellow flowers (mimosa) as an expression of appreciation.
What do you think about surprising [the women in your life] with flowers today?
Other businesses use International Women's Day as an opportunity to take women's issues more seriously.
<東京店３階より>3月8日の「国際女性デー」にむけて、女性の自由と平等にかかわる選書コーナーを展開中です。政府は「女性が輝く社会」を推進していますが、女性の歴史を知り、なぜ差別があるのか考えてゆくことが実現の一歩ではないでしょうか？ pic.twitter.com/nOYwuKFtZO
— crayonhouse (@crayonhouse) February 25, 2016
In anticipation of March 8, International Women's Day, we have on display a selection of books touching on women's rights and equality for women.
The Japanese government is promoting “a society in which women are dynamically engaged” (女性が輝く社会, sometimes translated as “Women will revitalize Japan”), if the government was aware of women's history why has there been no steps taken towards addressing the discrimination that exists against women?
Unfortunately, when comparing the status of women in other advanced economies, Japan does not rank well at all. The Tokyo office of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) tweeted:
【3月8日国際女性デーに向けて】国会議員に占める女性の割合は、OECDのなかで日本が最も低い。 pic.twitter.com/Mpmg0xVOIC
— OECD東京センター (@OECDTokyo) March 3, 2016
In terms of the number of women elected to national office, Japan ranks near the bottom.
According to OECD data, Japan is last of all OECD member countries in terms of political representation for women. A higher-resolution version of the chart can be found here.
This year, International Women's Day comes less than a week after a Japanese government survey showed that 30% of working women report being sexually harassed in Japan.
30% of working women sexually harassed – The Japan News https://t.co/FmnnJrc3Lb #セクハラ pic.twitter.com/pVoT4q6323
— The Japan News (@The_Japan_News) March 3, 2016
However, there is a growing societal awareness of the problem of sexual harassment (セクハラ, sekuhara), even if major brands can sometimes remain clueless.
A recent advertising campaign for Pizza Hut featuring “idol” Nishino Nanase was called out for its ongoing theme of objectifying women:
セクハラですか？？ pic.twitter.com/77Rz6XNndC
— NaRyo#なぁちゃん推し (@nogizakanachn) March 5, 2016
[Commercial caption] “So, where's your tastiest part?”
Wouldn't this be sexual harassment?
Other challenges facing women in Japan includes growing income equality: one in six children in Japan live in poverty, and most of these children are living in single-parent households headed by women.
And for many women, the “Womenomics” of the current Abe government means simply being asked to do more work in exchange for less free time.
Japan has a long tradition of female movers and shakers and “women warriors”, from ancient times to the present. While the country has much room for improvement in women's rights, there have been some bright spots in recent years in which female figures have received the popular respect they deserve.
Japan culture blog Tofugu devoted an entire series to Female Badasses of Japan.
And in 2013, women warriors played a leading role in a historial drama by Japanese public broadcaster NHK. The year-long series, Yae no Sakura (八重の桜), recounted the events of the mid-19th-century Boshin War and explored the lives of two women who fought in it, Niijima Yae and Nakano Takeko. Both were from Aizu, in modern-day Fukushima.
While Nakano, who died in war, is regarded as a modern-day folk hero, it wasn't until the 2013 drama that Niijima Yae entered the public consciousness.
会津の女と言ったら中野竹子だったのに大河放映後から新島八重になっちゃったね〜と言われた pic.twitter.com/2Yl1xXUpDi
— たまみの塊肉 (@tmaaaaa3) November 20, 2015
If we're talking about women of Aizu it's always Nakano Takeko, but after watching the year-long drama everyone's talking about Niijima Yae.
[Note: The poster pictured in Aizu, Fukushima, shows Ayase Haruka, the actor who portrayed Niijima Yae in the series.]
The series debuted less than two years after the 2011 Tohoku disaster that devastated Fukushima and other parts of northeastern Japan.
For many, the grit, guts and determination of the women symbolized the spirit of Fukushima and the desire to rebuild following the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident.
こないだの #あさが来た 録画で観たけれど、巴御膳や鬼を出したのだから、もうひと押し八重さんも出してくれたら#八重の桜 pic.twitter.com/Tj3VkclmGm
— てんぷる (@temple_ak12) January 31, 2016
Poster caption: Aizu [Fukushima] will never give up
Recently I watched Yae no Sakura.

author: Nevin Thompson


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Six Tajik Mothers Who Rule the Roost on Facebook · Global Voices
Abdulfattoh Shafiev

Woman on Facebook. Creative Commons picture.
On March 8 Tajikistan celebrates International Women’s Day, a holiday that remains extremely popular in the former Soviet republics, but that was re-branded in Tajikistan as Mothers’ Day.
Historically, the vast majority of Tajik mothers lived hard lives, living behind the veil in their homes for centuries before the Bolsheviks came to power, forcing them to unveil and go to work in the cotton fields.
Since the country's independence in 1991, their lives have been defined by years of separation from their husbands and children, whose cash transfers from Russia make the country the most remittance-dependent in the world.
But today is their holiday and Global Voices is marking it by focusing on some of the most empowered and influential Tajik mothers, whose voices in society have been further amplified by Mark Zuckerberg's invention, Facebook.
These women have been chosen not because of the followers they have amassed — there are spam accounts featuring attention-grabbing pictures of women that have amassed more — but because of their unique contributions to modern-day Tajikistan.
Known Facebook ladies of Tajikistan: Manzura Makhkamova
A former advisor to President Rakhmon, the mother of two sons, and the owner of her own successful consulting business, Manzura Makhkamova rose to popularity on Facebook as an active member of a dozen groups during what is increasingly being remembered as a “golden age of Facebook openness” in Tajikistan between 2011 and 2013.
With her extensive background in administering Facebook pages, Makhkamova created the “I Love Khujand” group on Facebook to gather more than 10,000 residents of the second biggest city in the country to help promote tourism and investment by stressing the city's cultural and historical influences.
With this in mind, if you find yourself staring at a widely shared Facebook post describing Tajik national dress in Russian or the story behind a national recipe or custom, you can fairly well assume that it emanated from Manzura Makhkamova or fellow culture-promoters affiliated to her.
Known Facebook ladies of Tajikistan: Shahnoz Komilzoda
Mother to a son and a daughter, Shahnoz is the best-known lady across Tajik Facebook and owes this popularity in part to her genuine bilingualism. Whereas most Central Asians choose to post in either Russian or a local language, Shahnoz feels comfortable posting in both.
Despite a life that involves supporting her children's schooling and extra-curricular activities, as well as her job's demands of frequent travel, she always finds time for Facebook.
That is because Facebook is a vital part of her brand. The former journalist — Voice of America’s ex-correspondent in Tajikistan — was until recently the subject of a headhunting battle between giant foreign mobile companies trying to harness Facebook to boost their popularity in the market. A few months ago Russia's Megafon lost this battle to Sweden's TeliaSonera, for whom Komilzoda is now a senior communications specialist.
In addition to promoting her company and trying to reply to clients that bypass the local call center and turn to her for advice on Facebook, Komilzoda shares life moments and thoughts with her followers as well as informing them about what spa salon she goes to and which ski resort she uses for her winter breaks.
Presumably, these businesses are also clients of this highly connected mother.
Known Facebook ladies of Tajikistan: Pari Saidova
Pari in Persian means ‘Fairy’ and is synonymous with female beauty in Tajik language and literature. The 25-year-old model star of the Tajik show business Pari Saidova is fully worthy of the name.
Until last autumn, widow Saidova sat at home and took care of her five children, a very normal situation in Tajikistan.
No one except relatives and neighbours would know any more about Pari, if she hadn't decided to open an account on Facebook and post some pictures of herself to grab the attention of show business producers.
Up to one thousand likes under each picture turned her into the most in-demand model for modelling shows and Tajik music clips.
Known Facebook ladies of Tajikistan: Manizha Khaitova
Manizha Khaitova’s tailored groups and pages are the main place thousands of Tajik Facebookers go to keep updated on market innovations and technological change.
It is not surprising, as this Tajik business leader heads the Association of the Innovative and Technological Entrepreneurship, runs an IT school and several companies developing programming software, while promoting e-government and the smart city concept.
A mother of three daughters, Khaitova says Facebook inspired her to take her knowledge and skills to a new level and go into tech-driven business. Facebook has become a place where she uses her network to source new ideas to implement in Tajikistan while showcasing other local innovators.
Known Facebook ladies of Tajikistan: Fayzinisso Vohidova
It is hard to think of anyone else on Facebook in Tajikistan who so openly criticises the government's shortcomings and publishes political posts so often. That is despite all the lawsuits, fines and threats she received and at a time when hundreds of Facebookers have adopted a policy of self-censorship to spare themselves from the wrath of the state, even if they live outside of the country.
While Facebook gave broad popularity to the other figures on this list, Vohidova focuses on topics many people find difficult to talk about in public such as human rights violations and corruption. The mother of four sons is as independent and non-partisan as she is courageous, refusing to ally herself with any of Tajikistan's opposition parties. Her Facebook account is a must-follow for anyone interested in political developments in Tajikistan.
There's just one catch: most of her posts are in Tajik.
Maknuna Niyazova does not need a model to showcase her designs. Beautiful as well as creative, she promotes them on Facebook herself, contributing to the growing popularity of plus-size fashion.
A recent winner of the “Face of Central Asia” fashion festival, she will soon represent the region in the continental “Asia Model Festival” in South Korea.
Niyazova also runs her own design classes both for students of the Technological University of Tajikistan, where she is a teacher, and students outside the university. But it is her Facebook posts that have earned her national and regional media attention.
The fact that Niyazova is a woman other women can relate to has helped to expand popular interest in fashion, taking it from the catwalk to the streets of Tajikistan's capital Dushanbe.
Known Facebook ladies of Tajikistan: Maknuna Niyazova

author: Abdulfattoh Shafiev


text:
South Sudan’s ‘Divide and Conquer’ Political Approach Heightens Tribal Tensions · Global Voices
Ayo Awokoya

A South Sudanese girl at independence festivities: Is there a bright future for this Sudanese girl who celebrated independence in 2011? Public domain image — original by Jonathan Morgenstein/USAID on Flickr.
On February 18th 2016, 25 people were killed in a United Nations (UN)-run camp in the northeastern city of Malakal, in what is being called a “tribally motivated and well planned” attack by government forces, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army.
The civil war in South Sudan, an ongoing conflict between government and opposition forces, has often been understood as a conflict between two warring tribes. President Salva Kiir, a Dinka, and opposition leader Riek Machar, an ethnic Nuer, act as symbols for the escalating ethnic tensions that have characterised the violence throughout the country. Dinka is the largest ethnic group in South Sudan; the Nuer tribe is the second. The soldiers involved in the attack were reportedly Dinkas.
The attack has been condemned by the international community and has renewed calls for warring factions to adhere to  the Compromise Peace Agreement, established in August last year, as a means of resolving the conflict.
South Sudan's war began in December 2013 when president Kiir fired Machar — who was then his deputy and had served as the country's first vice president since its independence in 2011 — accusing him of planning a coup. But to what extent can the conflict in South Sudan be labelled as ethnic conflict?
Though both Kiir and Machar belong to different tribes, they are both part of the same government. Kiir reappointed Machar as his first vice president last month in a move that may finally signal the possibility of a united government. Yet, the civil war itself has remained highly politicized — a power struggle along ethnic lines has become further exacerbated as issues of land ownership come under dispute.
This is exhibited most vividly in the reaction to President Kiir’s decision last year to dissolve the nation's ten regional states and create 28 new ones. Despite criticism that the division, mostly along tribal lines, will create ethnic imbalances, the president persisted with his plan. Now, the majority of the country's oil rich regions are regulated to his ethnic group, Dinka, while the other tribes are left to divide the remaining land among themselves.
Kiir has maintained that this policy is important for maintaining the country’s sense of nationalism, implying the necessity for political and social cohesion:
No matter our differences lets remember that not ONE party or ONE TRIBE can run this great country. We have to work together. #SouthSudan
— President Salva Kiir (@PresSalva) February 21, 2016
But Kiir’s call for South Sudan’s reunification rings somewhat false. His willingness to implement this plan reveals the dichotomy between political power and the increasing social fragmentation that is ripping the country apart.
Many view this as a threat to the potential peace that could be established in South Sudan:
@RadioTamazuj. If Salva Kiir continue with so called establishment order of 28 states, South Sudan will never have a real peace
— Gai Kuich Gai (@GGaikuichgai) February 9, 2016
Tap Koang Thany, a media officer in South Sudan, noted:
Dozens wounded in Pibor clashes https://t.co/4xqq0t2vKe
The Creation of 28 states by JCE mean more destruction to South Sudan & it's people
— Tap Koang Thany (@GreatTap) February 25, 2016
JEC refers to the Jieng Council of Elders, a group of Dink elders who are said to have played a role in President Kiir's decision to divide South Sudan.
Tension over the creation of the 28 states is not only between different tribes — the Shiluk tribe has experienced internal discord regarding their leader’s affiliation with President Kiir, resulting in a coup that installed a new king — one who was more inclined towards upholding the clan’s ideals. This recent development underscores the exacerbation of tribal tensions caused by the political upheaval within the central government.
The South Sudanese Sudan Tribune reported in January that the Shilluk ethnic group also overthrew their king, Kwongo Dak Padiet, for supporting the creation of the 28 states. Commenting on the article and the wider implications of the new states, one reader said:
Do you see how the war over evil 28 states and boundaries is getting momentum every now and then and traitors of communities […] surrender their lands as leaders will be overthrown by their communities who are ready to defend their lands. Soon other communities will rise up to get back what was illegally taken from them. Kiir and his Dinka intellectuals are fools and evildoers!
Another reader complained about the annexation of land belonging to the Chollo ethnic group:
[…]The great Chollo people have every reason to oppose the annexation of their land and the king should have displayed that defiance instead of approving the annexation of Chollo land for selfish, personal gain. The Apadang Dinka have more than enough land and should not take an inch from the Chollo. Greed is destroying this country.
The destabilisation of the region is becoming more apparent as tribes respond to the shift in political power through the use of localised violence. The fight for land that has historically belonged to certain clans is under dispute, encouraging division among ethnic groups and even within the tribes themselves:
Cultural leaders are not also immune from power wrangles of #SouthSudan…Shiluk king has been over thrown!
— Daikuei (@Daikuei) January 17, 2016
The complexity of this conflict should not be understated. It is easy to label the ongoing crisis as one of ethnic conflict, but doing so is problematic, as it ignores other important factors that are contributing to the escalating violence. This, in turn, may misinform leaders and policymakers, and dilute their ability to create solutions aimed at bringing an end to the war.
President Kiir has expressed his willingness to reconcile with Machar by reinstating him to the position of vice president. Machar, in turn, has exhibited his willingness to return to the capital from Ethiopia, where he has been based since he was fired, as long as certain conditions are met. While this appears to be a positive change in the turbulent dynamics of South Sudan’s politics, the path to peace is fragile.
The ramifications of the actions of both President Kiir and Machar must not be ignored. Many feel that both leaders should be made heavily accountable for the actions of their soldiers, which have wrought untold misery and destruction for the citizens of South Sudan.
Tribe, core of one's identity now determines if you live or die in #SouthSudan #Kiir fumbling and #Machar ego paid for in blood by peasants
— Fact belief Illusion (@MykEzee) December 19, 2013
Before peace can reign in South Sudan, justice — regardless of ethnic group — must also be delivered.

author: Ayo Awokoya


text:
The Flourishing Relationship Between Women and the Book Industry of Jamaica · Global Voices
Emma Lewis

Publisher Tanya Batson-Savage visits the Trench Town Reading Centre in Jamaica. Photo by the author, used with permission.
March 8 is International Women's Day, and with the compelling 2016 theme of gender parity, we decided to focus on areas of the Caribbean that are getting it right.
As the Kingston Book Festival continues in Jamaica this week, the increasing involvement of women in every aspect of the business of books is becoming clear. Whether writing, publishing or promoting books, they are energizing the Jamaican book market with entrepreneurial spirit and creativity, as well as simply good storytelling.
The festival is chaired by children's book writer Kellie Magnus, publisher of Jack Mandora Books (“Children's Stories for the Children of the World”). Magnus is a graduate of Harvard and Columbia University; her children’s book “Little Lion Goes to School” was approved for use in the New York City school system. With a strong focus on early childhood education and special needs, Magnus has also produced a series for autistic children.
In a conversation with Anansesem, an online magazine focusing on reading material for children, Magnus noted the paucity of good children's material across the Caribbean, despite growing demand for books for and about Caribbean children within the region and in the diaspora. This was two years ago, but the bulk of the children's book market in Jamaica still comprises text books. Magnus was candid, saying there should be a wide range of books that children will actually enjoy reading. She concluded:
I think when it comes to children’s books we need to try a little harder. Caribbean children deserve it.
For the Kingston Book Festival, Magnus has partnered with publisher Latoya West-Blackwood, who recently took over the helm at the 27-year-old Book Industry Association of Jamaica (BIAJ). As founder and CEO of iPublish Consultancy and iMagiNation Books, West-Blackwood is the youngest chairperson of the organization to date.
West-Blackwood's vision is to promote literacy and a love of reading as tools for national development, economic growth and educational excellence. As she noted at the launch of the Jamaica Library Service‘s National Reading Competition on March 7, 2016, books offer “a path towards cultural preservation”.
Latoya West-Blackwood with 2015 winners of the Jamaica Library Service National Reading Competition. Photo by the author, used with permission.
Another Jamaican woman in publishing, Tanya Batson-Savage, is just as entrepreneurial. She launched Blue Moon Publishing six years ago with an initial focus on helping to fill in the gaps for children's books. Her imprint, Blouse and Skirts Books, offers more adult titles and includes Jamaican-Nigerian writer A-dZiko Simba Gegele's witty coming of age novel “All Over Again,” winner of the inaugural Burt Award for Caribbean Literature, for young adults.
Carlong Publishers, established by pioneering woman publisher Shirley Carby over 20 years ago, reaches across the Caribbean with a wide range of educational publications. Her passion for books has stretched across generations: Carby's daughter Candice joined the board of the BIAJ (which her mother co-founded) in charge of marketing and communications.
Toronto-based Olive Senior is on her native island for the Kingston Book Festival, following a visit last year to promote her non-fiction account of West Indian workers on the Panama Canal, “Dying to Better Themselves”, which won the 2015 OCM Bocas Literary Prize for Non-Fiction. She will launch her latest book of short stories, “The Pain Tree” at the University of the West Indies’ Mona campus in Kingston on March 10; it is now on the recently announced OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature Long List alongside another Jamaican woman writer, Jacqueline Bishop.
While Senior and Bishop live abroad, Jamaican women writers are keeping the literary flame alive at home. Environmental activist Diana McCaulay is a prolific writer who finds time to advocate on environmental issues as CEO and founder of the Jamaica Environment Trust. Her work includes the spellbinding novels “Dogheart” (2010) and “Huracan” (2012). Her short story “The Dolphin Catchers” won the 2012 Regional Commonwealth Short Story Award.
Her third novel and first young adult novel (an area of growing interest among regional writers), “Gone to Drift”,  was published in February 2016 by Papillote Press, a small imprint based in Dominica. Built on “The Dolphin Catchers”, this tale of fishermen and the sea won second prize in the 2015 Burt Awards for Caribbean Literature. McCaulay is currently working on a memoir.
Gwyneth Harold Davidson and Jean Forbes in conversation with Latoya West-Blackwood. Photo by the author; used with permission.
Children's authors Diane Browne and Helen “Billy” Elm Williams both maintain blogs; and Gwyneth Harold Davidson, Jean Forbes and others continue to write and contribute to the field of education in different ways.
Poetry also has its place. Female Jamaican poets have a rich legacy in the work of Louise Bennett-Coverly, who proudly brought Jamaican patois (an English-based creole language spoken in Jamaica) to the world. The country's new generation of women poets a — Ann-Margaret Lim's first collection poignantly captured the Jamaican experience and Tanya Shirley, who teaches at the Department of Literatures in English at the University of the West Indies’ (UWI) Mona campus, has been widely published and garnered tremendous acclaim for her work.
It is important to note that Jamaican women writers and publishers do not simply write for their own gratification, to win awards or to make money. There is a strong activist streak in them. They fervently believe in the power of reading and its importance for national development, regularly conducting school and community visits to spread the word with missionary zeal.
Jean Forbes (a judge in the Jamaica Library Service Reading Competition) made the point at the competition launch that low literacy levels have a negative impact on Jamaicans’ critical thinking and problem-solving skills, resulting in an inability to communicate effectively and a tendency towards solving conflicts violently. Indeed, reading and literacy have a critical role to play in society, and Jamaican women are carrying the banner onwards.

author: Emma Lewis


text:
Turkey, March 8 and the Everyday Struggle Against Gender Stereotyping · Global Voices
Ece Basay

Poster that reads ‘Women is Women, Flower is Your Father’. Image belongs to author.
March 8 is marked as International Women's Day in Turkey, and is typified as elsewhere across the world by speeches appreciating the role women play both in the workplace and at home.
Yet for the remainder of the year, women face an uphill struggle to gain recognition and respect in a country where sexism still sells.
Recent times have seen a number of Turkish television commercials play up to existing gender stereotypes, some of which caused enough controversy for them to be discontinued.
One such commercial was for the well-known Pınar food company. This January, Pınar decided to release a fruit juice specifically for women — packaged in pink, of course — that can also be used as a purse.
Bu gozler cinsiytci bebek bezi, camasr suyu, cikolata reklami gordu ama CİNSİYETCİ MEYVE SUYU bu nasl geldi akliniza https://t.co/TNJQGs26vA
— İpek (@peoplarestrange) January 5, 2016
These eyes have seen sexist diaper, bleacher, and chocolate commercials. But SEXIST JUICE… Could you ever have believed it?
Another was tea brand Doğadan's “What do Women Want?” advert, released last April, which portrayed women as perennially in fear of their 30th birthday and desperate for sweet food among other things.
When a group of women struck back at the commercial with their own subtitled take on what they want and don't want, they forced an apology from Doğadan.
Although many thought this campaign would prove a turning point in the battle against women's objectification-for-profit, the P&G group's detergent company ALO swooped in with a new low at the beginning of this year.
The brand's commercial features a heroine, who struggles to get married because she cannot wash her clothes white enough, before a prince-like figure saves her by throwing a pack of detergent in her direction.
ALO reklamı kadar dangalak bir reklam da yok… he canım he bütün gün çamaşır yıkayıp başka şey yapamıyoruz…
— FullHazal Alchemist (@Hzlpkcn) February 5, 2016
There are not many commercials as stupid as the ALO one… yes, my dear, yes, we do nothing but wash dirty clothes all day…
Change.org campaigns have helped effectively cancel a number of these commercials, but television programs that are persistent gender stereotyping offenders can be trickier to tackle.
One of the most recent and concerning programs to light up daytime TV in Turkey is on channel TV8 called ‘You are Much More Beautiful This Way’.
On its website, TV8 explains the show in the following terms:
Hanımlar, şimdi tepeden tırnağa değişmenin tam zamanı…
Estetik müdahaleler, farklı bir saç modeli, yeni kıyafetler ve yepyeni bir tarz…
Sıradışı program “Böyle Çok Daha Güzelsin” başlıyor!
Kararı eşleriniz veriyor, koçlarımız yardım ediyor, siz bayanlar mükemmel görünüme kavuşuyorsunuz…
“Değişime hazırım! ve eşime güveniyorum.” diyorsanız, haydi hanımlar bu program tam size göre…
Mükemmel değişime hazır olun.
Ladies, it is just the right time for a head to toe change…
Plastic surgeries, a different hair style, new clothes, and a brand new style…
An extraordinary show “You are Much More Beautiful This Way” is starting!
The decisions are made by your husbands, your coaches help you throughout the way, so that you ladies will obtain the perfect look…
If you say “I am ready for a change and I trust my husband”, this show is just for you…
Get ready for the perfect change.
On eksisözlük, a widely used online forum, a user named yazdimbunu makes the following comment about the show:
şaka gibi, bu kadar kötüsünü görmemiştim. kısa ömürlü olacaktır muhtemelen zira gerçekten iğrenç.
adam karısına, ‘bunları giyip yanımda çıtır gibi gezeceksin’ diye bagirdi, bi başkası karısının kırışıklarından şikayetçi, şunları şunları istemiyorum diye kadının suratını isaretlettiriyor estetisyene.
10 dakika izlemek yeterli tüm bu ve bunun gibi iğrençliklere şahit olmak için.
It is like a joke, I have never seen something this bad. It will probably have a short life, since it is truly disgusting. One guy yelled at his wife “you are going to wear these and walk next to me like a lolita”, another guy is complaining about his wife's wrinkles, getting her marked by a plastic surgeon as he shows which wrinkles he would like to get rid of. Ten minutes are sufficient to witness such vile things.
The show also saw an outpouring of criticism on Twitter:
#böyleçokdahagüzelsin de neymiş ya biz kadınlar annemizin karnından manken gibi çıkmazsak tüm konuşan orangutanlar bizi eleştirecek mi yani?
— Gözde YILDIZ (@GozdeLavigne) February 29, 2016
#YouAreMuchMoreBeautifulThisWay, so what is it, if we do not pop out of our mothers’ wombs as models, all the talking orangutans will criticise us?
Erkek egosunu tavan yaptıran, kadınları aşağılayan böyle aptal programlar yapmaktan vazgeçin .! #böyleçokdahagüzelsin
— Ezgi Yağmuroğlu (@EzgiYgmroglu) March 7, 2016
Stop creating such stupid shows that humiliate women while taking the male ego through the ceiling!
On March 6, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu gave a speech at an event named “Woman is Life”, in honour of International Women's Day.
His speech was aimed towards men, stressing that men should protect women's honour wherever they are, and that they should never use violence against women.
On the very same day, women were demanding their rights and freedom on the streets of Kadikoy district, Istanbul, where it was reported police told them “you go, let your men come over here.”
140journos: Kadıköy'de #8Mart eylemine yapılan müdahale esnasında bir kadına “Sen git, erkeklerin gelsin” denildi. https://t.co/52m8iOO8eD
— Gercek Haber (@gercegin_sesi) March 6, 2016
140 Journos: A women was told: “You go, let your men come over here instead”, during the police interruption of the #8March walk in Kadikoy.
But in this era more than any other, the struggle against such attitudes is played out in real time, meaning such words only provoke an ever-stronger counter-reaction each time they are spokem.
Yürü git! Kadının gelsin! #KadınlarDireniyor
— ubar (@yokkent) March 6, 2016
Go away!Let your women come over! #WomenAreResisting
Although resistance is by necessity a daily task, March 8 provides a crucial space for women in Turkey to express “what women really want”, and a number of marches and demonstrations will take place in the country's main cities today, including a ‘Night Walk’ in Istanbul.
” çevir dünyayı tersine dönsün, seni dövemez dizini dövsün ” gece yürüyüşüne geri sayım başlasın! #8Mart #Feministİsyan
— Deniz Yılmaz (@fillerbenisever) February 26, 2016
“Flip the world upside down, he cannot beat you, let him beat his knees” [lyrics of a very famous 8 March song], start the countdown for the night walk! #8March #FeministOutcry

author: Ece Basay


text:
What More Do Latin American Women Want? Equality, Safety and Respect for Starters · Global Voices
Laura Vidal

“Feminist women rally in Santiago de Chile, demanding democracy during the military rule of Augusto Pinochet.” (by Kena Lorenzini) CC BY-SA 3.0
International Women's Day always brings with it questions and quarrels, celebrations and clarifications. It is a day in which feminist movements (and their opponents) shake up social media worldwide to make their points of view known. The discussion includes robust accounts of the oppression, both visible and invisible, that dominates the lives of women around the globe.
Within Latin America, the debate includes many different types of struggles, including the plight of indigenous women, violence against women in urban and rural areas, social oppression behind the concept of love and family, and the criminalization of abortion.
This year, March 8 celebrations come as protests continue for the release of jailed indigenous leaders, the historic trial of soldiers accused of committing sexual violence gets underway in Guatemala, and the murders of two Argentinian travelers in Ecuador and Honduran indigenous activist Berta Cáceres rattle the region.
Gaby Arguedas, from Costa Rica, pointed to these facts and reflected on the concerning social status of women in Latin America:
El mensaje inscrito en el cuerpo de una mujer asesinada o agredida puede resumirse así: Los hombres tenemos poder sobre las mujeres porque son nuestra propiedad. Hacemos con ellas lo que queremos. Si están en la vía pública, son objeto público. Las podemos tocar, perseguir y golpear, si nos da la gana. ¿Y qué? ¿Quién nos lo va a impedir? Las mujeres no son sujetos, son objetos […] Si no que lo digan mujeres como Milagro Sala, dirigente comunitaria de Jujuy, Argentina, detenida arbitrariamente desde hace dos meses; o Maricela Tombe , líder campesina y ambientalista, de la comunidad del Tambo en Cauca, Colombia, quien fue asesinada hace pocos días. La lista sigue y es larga.
The message written on a woman's body, whether killed or assaulted, can be read as such: Men have power over women because they are our property. We do with them what we like. If they are on a public street, they are a public object. We can touch them, chase them and hit them if we feel like it. And so what? Who will stop us? Women are not subjects, they are objects […] If their stories are not told by women such as Milagro Sala, community leader of Jujuy, Argentina, arbitrarily arrested two months ago; or by Maricela Tombe, the rural environmentalist leader from the community of Tambo en Cauca, Colombia, who was murdered a few days ago. The list grows and is long.
Despite these cases and the conversations that stem from them, activists still face questions online about the need for an International Women's Day. In her blog, Coral Herrera, a researcher from Spain residing in Costa Rica, analyzed the topic “what more do women want?” — a question that for her is the “favorite of people who know nothing about inequality”:
Queremos que nos dejen de violar y de matar a diario en todo el mundo. Queremos que nos dejen de mutilar los genitales, queremos que no nos encierren en las casas, queremos que dejen de esclavizarnos para la trata sexual, queremos que dejen de desaparecernos, queremos que dejen de someter a las niñas a matrimonios forzados, queremos viajar solas sin que nos maten, queremos caminar libres por las calles sin miedo, queremos parir en los hospitales sin riesgo a morir o a sufrir malos tratos, queremos que nos dejen ser madres cuando elijamos, queremos que las niñas y las jóvenes puedan estudiar, queremos parar el acoso sexual en las universidades y en el trabajo, queremos empleo y salarios dignos, queremos que se nos deje de usar como botín de guerra en los conflictos armados, queremos que se garanticen nuestros derechos humanos en todo el planeta.
We want them to stop raping us and killing us daily around the world. We want them to stop mutilating our genitals, to stop locking us in our homes, we want them to stop turning us into sex slaves, we want them to stop causing us to disappear, we want them to stop submitting girls to forced marriages, we want to be able to travel alone without being killed, we want to be able to walk freely in the streets without fear, we want to give birth in hospitals without risk of death or of suffering abuse, we want to be able to be mothers when we choose it, we want for girls and young women to be able to study, we want the end of sexual harassment at school and at work, we want dignified employment and salaries, we want an end to being used as the spoils of war in armed conflicts, we want our human rights to be guaranteed across the entire planet.
Spanish-speaking social media across the Americas has hosted discussion on women's rights since the beginning of March. Under the the hashtags #8demarzo (March 8) and #DiaInternacionalDeLaMujer (International Women's Day), Web users have examined the purpose of International Women's Day, the struggles still being faced, and the triumphs achieved, as well as the racial discrimination and problems that constitute part of daily life for women in the region.
Last year, Luis Sallés evoked the central reason for the March 8 celebration with a cartoon published on the website Cinismo Ilustrado. The artwork was in response to the fact that many of the words and memes shared on International Women's Day are steeped in flowers and feel-good wishes, something that seems more appropriate for Valentine's Day than the international day dedicated to women:
Cartoon by Luis Sallés about March 8. Published in 2015 and shared virally online.
The cartoon reads:
¿Qué no se celebra el 8 de marzo:
-Al “más grande regalo de Dios”
-A “lo más bonito que hay en este mundo”
-A “una criatura angelical, la pincelada de un artista celestial”
-Al “amanecer de todas nuestras mañanas”
-A “las dueñas de nuestros corazones”
-O a la flor que enfrenta retos con valor y fuerza.
Hoy se celebra la lucha por la igualdad, la justicia y los derechos de la mujer. Sigamos luchando por eso. Feliz 8 de marzo.
What is not celebrated on March 8:
-“The biggest gift from God”
-“The most beautiful thing in the world”
-“An angelic creature, the brushstroke of a heavenly artist”
-“The sunrise of all our mornings”
-“The owners of our hearts”
-Or “the flower that faces challenges with courage and strength”
Today we celebrate the fight for equality, justice, and women's rights. We continue fighting for this. Happy March 8
In addition to misunderstandings, there are those who are missing from many of the conversations surrounding International Women's Day. For example, community site Afroféminas, which is based in Spain, published a post on Facebook, saying that March 8 “talks about women but doesn't take into account black women.” To raise awareness, the site has dedicated the month of March to chronicling the work of pioneers of black feminism as well as exploring the unique context of their fight.
In one of the articles dedicated to Afro-feminism, Antoinette Torres Soler explained:
Se abolió la esclavitud. Sin embargo cuando llegó el momento de aquellas marchas que pedían justicia para la mujer, aquellas feministas blancas, las mismas que hablaban en nombre de la MUJER y que pedían avances para ellas, estas mismas exigieron su segregación. Las negras podían marchar, pero separadas de ellas. Y esto es clave para entender el porqué del feminismo negro. La preocupación de la mujer afro estaba centrada no tanto en sus relaciones patriarcales como en su reconocimiento como MUJER.
Slavery was abolished. Nonetheless, when those marches began demanding justice for women, those white feminists, the same ones who spoke in the name of WOMEN and who demanded progress for us, those were the same women who demanded our segregation. Black women could march, but separated from them. And that is key to understanding the reason behind black feminism. The concerns of the black woman were just as much centered around her patriarchal relationships as they were around her recognition as a WOMAN.
Meanwhile, Urufarma, a contraception lab in Uruguay, released the campaign “The first time”, in which different fathers are asked how they think their son's first sexual experience will be, and then, that of their daughters. The difference in their responses are dramatic, as are the reactions to the video, having already exceeded 57,000 views. Watch the video below with English subtitles:
In Mexico, Twitter users seized the occasion  to demand answers for the rising number of femicides in the country's capital:
Exigimos acciones puntuales. 35 asesinadas durante 2016 en el Estado de México. #DiaInternacionalDeLaMujer pic.twitter.com/Dje0IxLS22
— PRDToluca (@PRDToluca) March 7, 2016
We demand timely action. 35 women killed in 2016 in the State of Mexico. #InternationalWomen'sDay
#NiUnaMas quiero salir sin miedo a las calles, #Chimalhuacan pic.twitter.com/AdjeJErZZb
— Jorge (@Sandersrivera) March 7, 2016
#NotEvenOneMore I want to go out into the streets without fear, #Chimalhuacan [a suburb of Mexico City]
Reflections on the significance of celebrating a day for women continue to spread online. Venezuelan Aglaia Berlutti, who wrote detailed commentary about the daily oppression faced by women, from cultural conventions to the power of words, and finally about the need to continue this fight, which has barely just begun:
Camino por la calle, en este país de mujeres: de madres, de hijas, de esposas. De mujeres sin adjetivo como yo. Y pienso en esas batallas diarias. En esa noción de continuar aunque la lucha parezca estéril, simple y desigual. Pero supongo que toda idea comienza así [y me lo] digo mientras una niña pequeña me sonríe desde el hombro de su madre unos pasos más allá de la calle donde camino.
I walk down the street, in this country of women: of mothers, of daughters, of wives. Women, like me, without adjectives. And I think of these daily battles. Of this notion of keeping on, even when the struggle seems sterile, simple, and unequal. But I suppose that all ideas begin like this, I say [to myself] as a little girl smiles at me from the shoulder of her mother a few steps ahead of me on the street where I'm walking.

author: Laura Vidal


text:
Kurdish Reporter Faces Jail Time in Turkey for Twitter and Facebook Posts · Global Voices
Efe Kerem Sozeri

On 26 July 2015, Turkish police special forces stormed Gazi Cemevi, a place of worship for Alawites, with tear gas and rifles at Istanbul’s Gazi neighbourhood. The operation aimed at confiscating the body of Günay Özarslan, who was killed in a police raid two days before. Public funerals are a form of protest for the minorities in Turkey. Photo by Hayri Tunç.
Rights groups have long been reporting Turkey’s ‘trajectory towards authoritarianism’. The story of a jailed Kurdish journalist highlights the plight of the two groups — minority ethnic Kurds and media workers — that have been hit hardest by this tendency.
Hayri Tunç, a Kurdish reporter from independent news website Jiyan, is facing years in jail for seven tweets, 11 Facebook posts and two YouTube videos.
Based on material in the posts, an Istanbul court charged placed him in February on pre-trial detention in Silivri prison on charges of ‘terrorism propaganda’, ‘abetting criminal acts’ and ‘glorifying criminal acts’.
Taking into consideration multiple counts, the charges arrayed could mean over 20 years in jail if he is convicted, although given Tunç has no prior criminal record, any sentence would likely be smaller.
Until recently, Tunç’s main area of work has been uncovering stories of exclusion and struggle in the slums of Istanbul where the Kurdish minority has resided for decades.
As a video-journalist he excels at documenting clashes between Leftist protesters and the Turkish police.
Videos from his own YouTube channel have reached thousands of viewers and have been featured in major outlets such as Russia's RT and France 24.
His personal Twitter feed doubles as an independent newswire for 13.6K followers, thanks to his reporting from the other side of the Kurdish conflict.
But since last summer, when a low intensity conflict between the Kurdish armed group PKK and the Turkish state escalated into all-out guerrilla warfare, the Turkish government imposed a blanket censorship over Kurdish media by banning over a hundred independent news websites, including Jiyan.
(Disclaimer: the author of this report is an editor for Jiyan).
Among the subjects of Turkey's numerous removal requests to Twitter were key Kurdish journalists, including Hayri Tunç.
Tunç’s account featured three times in such requests according to data reported by cyber rights activist and professor of law at Bilgi University in Istanbul Yaman Akdeniz: first in August, then in September, and once more in January.
Such persistence has helped Turkey become the top Twitter censor worldwide.
Facebook is less transparent in revealing government requests, but Tunç reported he lost access to his account several times, while Instagram removed his photos that documented clashes in Istanbul.
But when the government’s repeated censorship requests failed to silence Tunç, mainly because Twitter usually fails to comply with removal requests relating to journalistic content, police raided his home in October and detained him on grounds of ‘being a member of a terrorist organisation’ and ‘spreading terrorist propaganda’.
He was even accused of ‘polytheism’ during a police interrogation.
It is clear that Tunç is being punished for reporting on the conflict in real time, with tweets such as this one, from July 2015:
Amed Alipaşa'da YDG-H özgürleştirme hamlesi başlattığını açıkladı. pic.twitter.com/iVvgjKKJ36
— hayritunc (@hayriituncc) July 28, 2015
YDG-H [youth branch of PKK] stated that they have launched a move to liberate Alipaşa in Amed [Kurdish name for Diyarbakır, East of Turkey]
That particular tweet provided visual evidence of the coming urban warfare, just a month before a Turkish governor issued a curfew in the town.
In December, he documented in a YouTube video how such months-long curfews in the East had sparked clashes with the police (from 1:45) in the Kurdish neighbourhoods of Istanbul.
All these materials are included in the indictment bill, reviewed by this author, as evidence of ‘terrorism propaganda’ and ‘abetting and glorifying criminal acts’.
This is not the first time that a journalist reporting on PKK is being jailed in Turkey.
Last August, Vice News reporters Jake Hanrahan, Philip Pendlebury, and their colleague Mohammed Ismael Rasool were detained on similar ‘terrorism charges’; Hanrahan and Pendlebury were deported while Rasool was released on bail after spending more than four months in jail.
But Kurdish journalists in Turkey face these threats on a daily basis.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), at least seven Kurdish journalists were arrested in Turkey in the last three months and another died in a basement in Cizre, a Kurdish town under curfew, while covering efforts to help people wounded during the clashes.
Regarding Turkey’s prosecution of journalists on ‘terrorism charges’, CPJ wrote earlier that “broadly worded anti-terror and penal code statutes have allowed Turkish authorities to conflate the coverage of banned groups and investigation of sensitive topics with outright terrorism or other anti-state activity.”
After Tunç’s arrest, CPJ further warned that “Turkey has recently renewed its practice of imprisoning critical journalists in retaliation for their work.”
When the number of banned websites in Turkey surpassed 100,000 last October, internet freedom groups demanded Turkish government cease online censorship of independent news organizations and citizen journalists.
Before this massive censorship began, the same government was the worst jailer of journalists for two consecutive years, in 2012 and 2013.
The case of Hayri Tunç reminds us how important independent journalists are for Turkey, how crucial it is that they spread news via social media, but also how easy it is for Turkey’s government to censor and jail them without serious reprieve from Ankara's Western partners.
The first hearing of Tunç's case will be held on March 11 in Istanbul.

author: Efe Kerem Sozeri


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World Spotlight on Australia’s Cardinal Pell at Rome Child Sexual Abuse Hearing · Global Voices
Kevin Rennie

Cardinal Pell at World Youth Day 2011 – Photo courtesy Flickr user: Catholic Church England and Wales (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
On 29 February 2016, Australian Cardinal George Pell began nearly 20 hours of giving evidence to the country's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse via videolink from Rome. His testimony was part of the commission's public hearings into how the Catholic Church handled cases of child sex abuse involving clergy within its institutions.
George Pell grew up in Ballarat and was a priest there in the 1970s and 80s. During that time, he lived in a house with notorious convicted paedophile priest George Ridsdale in 1973. Pell went on to become a bishop in Melbourne in 1987 and continued moving up in the church's hierarchy. In 2014, Pope Francis appointed him head of the Vatican's Secretariat for the Economy.
David Ridsdale, the nephew of George Ridsdale, flew to Rome along with other survivors to attend the session.
The commission questioned Pell over his knowledge of the child sex abuse. Pell denied knowledge of Ridsdale's and others’ offending.
It may have been a blessing in disguise that he did not ‘come home’ as musician Tim Minchin demanded because the hearing's set-up focused international attention on the issues raised and the cardinal's role. Reuters introduced their global audience to the controversy:
Al Jazeera English also covered developments in Rome:
This global spotlight was one of the upsides for the survivors who flew there to be present while Pell gave evidence.
During his presentation, Pell was quite prepared to criticise the Catholic Church's handling of abuse allegations. He blamed the former bishop of Ballarat, Ronald Mulkearns, for repeatedly moving Ridsdale from parish to parish. He also accused former Archbishop of Melbourne Frank Little of covering up serious allegations. However, those looking for personal contrition or a smoking gun implicating him in cover-ups were sorely disappointed and many questioned his evidence:
#Pell says it's “upsetting” to have his testimony questioned. Hundreds of raped children weren't believed either, I bet they're upset too…
— Tony Lomas (@TonyLomas) March 5, 2016
Nevertheless, there were occasional moments when Pell admitted some direct culpability:
Nail in the coffin:
Cardinal George Pell admits knowledge of abuse and says he should have done more https://t.co/sYQ2b60EIQ
— Sassy Lassie (@NaughtySec) March 2, 2016
Perhaps his lowest point came when answering about his lack of action over George Ridsdale:
And from his own mouth so was he damned to hell.
George Pell:
‘a sad story that wasn't of much interest to me’.#CARoyalComm#auspol
— Emperor God Goughlam (@leftocentre) March 1, 2016
His memory failure was a popular meme on Twitter on the first of the four days of hearings:
If #Pell‘s memory is so bad why is he looking after the Vatican's finances.
— Michelle Bennett (@mm_bennett) February 29, 2016
Pell had his supporters, especially some conservative media commentators. Miranda Devine and Andrew Bolt, columnists for Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch, angered many Web users:
Miranda Devine defending George Pell and Andrew Bolt reporting from Rome. What kind of fresh media hell is this? pic.twitter.com/vNJLGqPeRz
— Em Rusciano (@EmRusciano) February 29, 2016
Timothy W. Jones, history lecturer at Melbourne's La Trobe University, analysed Pell's performance over the week:
Pell modified slightly his previous public positions. But, fundamentally, he insisted that he knew little, and fulfilled his duties in relation to what he did know.
On several occasions, counsel assisting the royal commission suggested that Pell’s claims to be ignorant of child sex offending in various contexts was implausible. If everyone around Pell knew, how could he not have known?
With the Academy Awards in full swing, many tweeted about acting skills and the best picture winner “Spotlight“, which concerns child sexual abuse in Boston:
#Pell unhappy that #Spotlight won Best Picture at #Oscars. And Best Song? #WritingsOnTheWall. Well, there's a message there!#CARoyalComm
— Peter Murphy (@PeterWMurphy1) February 29, 2016
Many accused the cardinal of deliberate lies:
Seems that everyone knew about Ridsdale but Pell…what a load of rubbish…the parishes would have been alive with this information! #Pell
— KA#RuralLivesMatter (@ka_robo) February 29, 2016
Naked swims—why? I'm speechless! Lies and more lies! #Pell #Catholic #abuseroyalcommission https://t.co/SLylyCb1n1
— Modishthing (@modishthing) February 29, 2016
By mid-week longtime critic David Marr was comparing Pell's prowess in cleaning up the Vatican's finances with his actions and omissions over peadophiles back home:
These days he’s putting the cleaners through ancient Vatican offices which have never ever been audited. Millions are coming to light. He has enemies everywhere. All reports from the Holy See suggest the cardinal is doing well.
But the same man has a sad story to tell of being hoodwinked decades ago by an archbishop, a bishop, his colleagues and even the Catholic Education Office.
Brisbane Dentist may have been suggesting that getting straight answers was harder than pulling teeth, when tweeting First Dog on the Moon's cartoon:
George Pell: they didn't tell me because they were worried I might ask difficult questions | First Dog on the Moon https://t.co/Iptl9pm339
— Brisbane Dentist (@dentistbrisbane) March 3, 2016
By Thursday, 3 March, some mainstream media were joining those on social media calling for Pope Francis to sack his close ally:
“Pell has no credibility as a moral leader. Pope Francis’ reputation is damaged by association if he fails to act” https://t.co/5q6dBaA92k
— Jessica Alice (@jessica_alice_) March 3, 2016
An added bonus for survivors was their meeting with Pell after the hearing, which addressed possible future action.
Some were upbeat on their return to Australia, despite not getting to meet Pope Francis:
NQ: Survivors return home with hope for future https://t.co/xjo54pOG0Y #qld #nq
— Queensland Online (@QLDOnline) March 6, 2016
One of those quoted in this article was clearly hopeful about better protecting children in the future:
Survivor Peter Blenkiron said he returned with renewed passion to work with schools to introduce wellbeing programs so children learned about how to cope with difficult emotions.
…Mr Blenkiron said he was not upset about not meeting with the Pope, stating he would have “preferred to meet the Dalai Lama – he kept me alive for a long time”.”
A writer publishing under the name BB left an anonymous “Survivor’s message to Cardinal George Pell“. It was far from optimistic:
So ends the testimony of one Cardinal George Pell.
So, back to the safety of the Vatican apartments slinks that little ecumenical mind.
So, unrealised, remains the potential of that Roman interrogative chair.
So, for us Survivors …
More Silence.
More background on the scandal and the setting up of the commission and the cardinal's connection can be found on earlier posts.

author: Kevin Rennie


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Anonymous Artists Place ‘Monument’ to Antidepressants in Macedonia’s Capital · Global Voices
Filip Stojanovski

A monument to Diazepam in Skopje, Macedonia. Photo: F.Stojanovski. CC BY 3.0.
A unique sculpture appeared in Skopje, the capital of Macedonia, on March 9: a monument to the antidepressant Diazepam (also known as Valium).
The item in question is a giant orange pill 1.4 meters (4.6 feet) tall. It was installed near a main boulevard, along with the following explanation:
Потрошувачката на антидепресиви последните две години е зголемен на над 1,6 милиони реализирани рецепти (најмалку 2,5 милиони пакувања), покажуваат податоците на Фондот за здравствено осигурување.
Претпоставките се дека во 2015 бројот на реализирани рецепти ја надминал бројката од 2 или 3 милиони пакување.
Во случај на нужда одгризи парче од апчето.
Еден гриз соодејствува на 2 mg од апчето – скулптура.
Data from the State Health Insurance Fund indicate that consumption of antidepressants in the last two years increased to more than 1.6 million implemented prescriptions (at least 2.5 million packages). The estimated number of prescriptions used during 2015 is more than 2-3 million packages.
In case of urgent need, bite a part of the pill.
One bite equals 2 mg of the pill-sculpture.
With fewer than 2 million people living in Macedonia, the country's rising use of antidepressants has activists concerned that the trend indicates a growing “pill addiction,” which they say is also occurring in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Bulgaria. In 2014, the Health Insurance Fund of Macedonia warned that taking such medicines at certain levels can be toxic, especially during pregnancy. The fund's latest report, published in December 2015, shows that Diazepam was the country's second-most prescribed drug between January and June last year.
A list of the most-prescribed medicines in Macedonia between January and June 2015, published as part of Health Insurance Fund semi-annual report from December 2015. Diazepam is in second place, sandwiched between Enalapril and Lisinopril, which are used for treatment of cardiovascular problems.
“The monument” has incited political debate online. For example, one Twitter user joked that there would be violence in the streets, if people lost access to their antidepressants.
нека снема диазепам еден месец и ќе летаат молотови
— Џото (@Giotto_mkd) March 9, 2016
Cut the Diazepam supply for a month, and Molotov cocktails will start flying.
Zaneta Skerlev, another Twitter user, implied that people in Macedonia are turning to antidepressants to deal with stress induced by the government's bad decisions, linking to a news story about the pill sculpture:
Се надевам дека власта ова ќе го сфати лично.
Се појави „Сменик на Дијазепам“ во Скопје https://t.co/hKNaoGnjlo via @twitterapi
— Zaneta Skerlev (@Zaneta30) March 9, 2016
I hope the government will take this personally. A “Monument to Diazapeam” appeared in Skopje.
While no one has claimed credit for the Diazepam installation, the likeliest candidate is a group of locally well known guerrilla protest artists.
In recent years, Skopje has been an epicenter of huge government spending through a project called “Skopje 2014,” which launched in 2010. The Balkan Investigative Reporters Network revealed that taxpayers in Macedonia (one of Europe's poorest countries) have been footing the bill for €634 million ($698 million) in spending on 136 different “objects” (27 administrative buildings, including a Triumphal Arch, 34 monuments, 5 squares, Ferris Wheel, and new facades).
Macedonia's cultural establishment has been largely complacent about the “beautification projects” spearheaded by former Prime Minister and ruling party boss Nikola Gruevski, as various forms of bribery and censorship have “erased critical voices” from Macedonia's mainstream arts.
Simultaneously, a “guerrilla” movement of mostly anonymous independent artists has used self-financed projects to offer commentary on current issues. The movement uses conceptual art pieces placed in public spaces as a form of protest. These artworks are short-lived, as the authorities often very quickly dismantle them.
For instance, through Skopje 2014, the government approved construction of four buildings in the shape of sailing ships located on the Vardar riverbed at the center of Skopje. The city has never offered an official reason for why it added them to zoning plans, or explained their connection to local tradition or history. The river has never been navigable, and the closest sea is over 240 kilometers (150 miles) away. Thanks to taxpayer-funded subsidies, entrepreneurs with ties to the government use these properties to operate luxury restaurants.
On a hot August day in 2015, citizens noticed shark fins circling around the “pirate galleons.”
The above YouTube video attracted almost 200,000 views in a single day. Today, it has more than 260,000 total hits. Responding to the footage, Skopje's city government quickly dispatched the fire brigade. The fire chief personally waded through the river to try to remove the sharks. Upon reaching the fish, however, he discovered that they were fake: the fins were styrofoam, attached to small rocks to stay in place in the water.
An endangered anthropomorphic three in Skopje, looking scared. Photo: a1on.mk
Similarly, activists have protested the city's loss of green space, as more and more trees are cut down to make room for new construction. Artists added “eyes” to some trees downtown, making them look afraid.

author: Filip Stojanovski


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For Its Dubbed Version, Marvel Removed Russian Insignia From a Scene in Its New ‘Captain America’ Trailer · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

Earlier today, Marvel Entertainment released the second trailer for its hotly anticipated film “Captain America: Civil War.” The trailer is already available in several dubbed languages, including Russian.
Within hours, Internet users in Russia noticed one remarkable difference between the videos: in the Russian version, a soldier's arm at the very beginning of the trailer is missing the Russian insignia visible in the original version. The patch is black, instead, and the Russian flag is edited out.
Marvel's Captain America: Civil War, Trailer 2. Image: YouTube
Marvel's Captain America: Civil War, Trailer 2, in Russian. Image: YouTube
As has been the case for all past “Captain America” films, the movie franchise in Russian is known instead as the “The First Avenger” series.

author: Kevin Rothrock


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Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy’s Oscar-Winning Film Inspires Pakistan to Confront Honor Killing · Global Voices
Aisha

Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy talks during the Crystal Award Ceremony Exploring Arts in Society’ at the Annual Meeting 2013 of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, January 22, 2013. Photo by Sebastian Derungs. CC BY-SA 2.0
At the end of February, renowned filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy made headlines in Pakistan for winning yet another Oscar and becoming the first ever Pakistani to hold two of the coveted awards. Chinoy, who first won an Academy Award in 2012 for her documentary “Saving Face“, added another feather to her cap for her documentary “A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness”.
While “Saving Face” focused on the plight of acid attack survivors in Pakistan, “A Girl in the River” tells the story of a rare survivor of an attempted honor killing. An honor killing is the murder of a family member by another, due to the belief that the victim has brought dishonor upon the family.
While many celebrated the Oscar win, there were others who criticized Chinoy for painting a negative image of Pakistan through her documentaries. But despite its detractors, Chinoy's film has thrust honor killings, a brutal practice that leaves hundreds of Pakistani women dead each year, into the spotlight and inspired promises from the country's prime minister to close legal loopholes that allow the perpetrators to escape punishment.
Social media platforms were abuzz with outrage and anger towards Chinoy, as many blamed her for neglecting to portray a more positive image of the country. By far, the worst criticism came from a prominent religious cleric, who in a video posted on Facebook referred to Chinoy with misogynist slurs and accused her of fulfilling what he called “the west’s agenda”.
Fervent proponents of religious political parties also joined in, insulting her with gender-based smears, offering with their behavior a glimpse of the very issue — violence against and abuse of young girls and women in the country — that Chinoy has sought to highlight with her work. Unfortunately, this was nothing new and reflects the myopia held my some towards everyone and anyone who raises their voice against gender-based violence, especially crimes that are associated with honor.
It's not accurate to say that Chinoy hasn't published work celebrating Pakistan's positive attributes. For instance, she directed, “3 Bahadur”, Pakistan’s first animated series dedicated to the bravery of young kids. Chinoy’s production house Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy Films also made a series of documentaries highlighting everyday heroes of Pakistan.
But it is true that she doesn't shy away from tackling tough issues head-on. Another TV venture of hers called “Aghaz-e-Safar” was a TV show hosted by Chinoy, exploring various social issues from child abuse to labor rights.
Perhaps, one of the most articulate arguments against the vile attacks directed towards Chinoy was by designer and activist Faizan Raza Rizvi, who posted on Facebook:
How many of you bothered watching more than 2 episodes of her TV show Aghaz-e-Safar where she highlighted stories of incredible courage from across Pakistan?
How many of you even know about Song Of Lahore? That documentary on musicians received a standing ovation and was named the runner-up at the Tribeca Film Festival last year. It was also nominated for the World Documentary Competition. International stages: check. Positive Pakistan: check. If this really was about you having an issue with her showing the bad side of the country, you'd have at least celebrated that. But you didn't
Chinoy spoke out against all the brouhaha too:
I want my work to make people uncomfortable, to make them think
Journalist Omar R Qureshi summed up the outrage against Chinoy:
In Pakistan win an Oscar and become everyone's object of hate and be called a traitor
Kill a man and become a national hero
— omar r quraishi (@omar_quraishi) March 2, 2016
In 2015, Pakistan's Federal Ministry of Law released statistics that put the number of honor killings over the past two years at 933. The simple act of dating, falling in love or marrying someone out of free will can result in an honor killing, a heinous act that is too often blamed on culture and tradition.
Women’s rights activists have for years fought to stop such violent crimes. In 2004, the National Assembly passed Criminal Law Act, otherwise known as the ‘Honor Killings Act’, which made honor killing a criminal offence.
However, a loophole still exists. The Qisas (retribution) and Diyat (blood money) provisions of the Pakistan Penal Code have proven to be a hindrance for those seeking justice in cases of honor killings. Honor killing laws and the laws of Qisas and Diyat contradict each other as the victim's family can invoke the law to pardon the killers. Since honor killings are mostly committed by family members, people are often unwilling to lose another family member and end up compromising.
Saba Qaiser, the teenager whose real life story is depicted in “A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness”, experienced the very real impact of this loophole. Despite being shot and thrown in a river, Qaiser survived only to be pressured in to pardoning the shooters, her father and uncle.
After a screening of the documentary, Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif vowed to change the country’s laws to try to stop honor killings.
No honour in ‘honour’ killings, says PM at screening of ‘A Girl in the River’: PM praises Sharmeen Obaid-Chino… https://t.co/pMEROby3so
— Unified Pakistan (@unifiedpakistan) February 22, 2016
Sharif's stance on the need to eliminate the horrific practice is an important step in the fight to stop gender-based violence in Pakistan.
Bina Shah, a noted columnist and writer, tweeted:
I'm in shock. Mumtaz Qadri hanged and Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy wins an Oscar. Am I really in Pakistan?
— Bina Shah (@BinaShah) February 29, 2016
While the government has made some progress, with the passage of the Anti-Rape Law in 2014 and the Anti-Honor Killings Law that same year, it is the popular conversations around the issue that will lead the real change. It is high time that Pakistanis raise their voices against the injustice of honor killing.

author: Aisha


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A Syrian Asks Herself: Am I Capable of Killing? · Global Voices
مرسيل شحوارو

This 2012 photograph shows a Syrian boy holding anti-aircraft rounds up to the camera and smiling in the town of Marayan in northern Syria. Photograph by Syria Freedom, shared on flickr and used under (CC BY 2.0
This post is part of a special series of articles by blogger and activist Marcell Shehwaro, describing the realities of life in Syria during the ongoing armed conflict between forces loyal to the current regime, and those seeking to oust it.
Am I capable of killing?
If somebody had asked me this question five years ago, being a person who used to decorate her desk with Jesus’ advice to Peter—“Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword”—I would probably have swiftly, and naively, answered: “Impossible! I neither have the ability nor the desire to end someone’s life.” Without much further thought I would probably have added: “—whoever this person is, and no matter what atrocities they have committed.”
We always like to think we are pretty; we aim not to smell like death; we believe we are messengers of life. We like to think that we are on this planet to make it a better place. That we are here for a higher purpose. That we are alive in order to chant others’ lives and be enriched by them, not to demean those lives and take them away. Five years ago I did not believe in abortion or the death penalty. I hated weapons and violence and I believed that change is made by love.
Today, I don’t know what I believe in anymore. It’s the war. Living perched on the verge between life and death all the time. You would either need a survival instinct always steering you toward the inevitable death of the enemy, or you’d surrender. One of you must die for the other to triumph. It’s the violence which redefined everything: our hopes, our beliefs, and our trust in the world. At a very early stage I had to rethink the answers to many violent questions: Am I a murderer? Am I capable of killing? Do I want to kill?
“Five years ago I did not believe in abortion or the death penalty. I hated weapons and violence and I believed that change is made by love. Today, I don’t know what I believe in anymore.”
The first shock came when they shot at us, a group of completely peaceful protesters. There they stood; they resembled us in everything but the dream. They spoke our language, some of them were even from the same city. I had to accept that the murderer is a person who’s like me. Maybe up until yesterday we went to the same places and danced to the same songs. Maybe this murderer was in love with the Aleppo Citadel, like I was. Maybe he had a girlfriend he’d met in a café or in university. How did he suddenly become, upon orders from the Sultan, a murderer? Where did this readiness to kill come from? How can a person, who doesn’t seem to have made any personal gains from the system, turn into such a killing machine? I wanted to think that I was better than that monster. That no one, and no ideology, would ever make me do something like this.
The question arose again when my mother was shot, and again when I was under investigation. Then I wished the investigator would die, especially after he threatened to hurt my family. I couldn’t really judge whether the world would be a better place if this person were gone. I wished for his death and I was ashamed of this wish. Does the new me believe that the death of certain people might actually be a benefit to the rest of humanity? And that not every single life is “sacred”? And that killing someone might save thousands of lives? Of course, I hoped over and over again for the death of Bashar Al Assad—I even dreamt it many times. Was I subconsciously playing God deciding who had the right to live and who didn’t? Definitely! I was surrounded by beautiful heroes who were falling dead because of the violence of people who I was supposed to believe had a right to live. The equation was very difficult. Oh, how much I’ve changed! And how much has maturity changed this naïve, romantic idea of changing the world with love.
All this was less pressing than living in the line of fire. From there we could see the army, only steps away from our houses. We chose those locations because they were less likely to be targeted by air strikes. This army that bombs us day and night. There was a check-point close by where we could see them drinking tea and hear them swearing at us through their walkie-talkies, in Aleppo we call them “fists”. The regular black humor in our house was about what we would do if the army broke in. As with every terrifying thing, we needed to face it with humor to silence the fear. One of our friends asked us not to wake him if the army broke in, and another said he’d jump off the balcony if it happened, while I joked that I would claim that I was kidnapped by my friends.
“The regular black humor in our house was about what we would do if the army broke in. As with every terrifying thing, we needed to face it with humor to silence the fear. One of our friends asked us not to wake him if the army broke in, and another said he’d jump off the balcony if it happened…”
A friend said he would use a weapon and fight them to death; another said he’d rather blow himself up than be captured alive. This is what the images of death under torture do to us. I said, whispering: I don’t think I am capable of committing the act of killing. There was silence, then they all laughed at my “articulate phrasing”. One of them said in a deep Aleppean accent: What, sister? I repeated the answer with the confidence of someone who believed in the morality of her decision: I will not kill!
And so began conversation that was to last for hours, until one of them asked me: What if the soldier was going to kill you? I answered: Then I would die. I’d rather be the victim than the murderer. He continued: What if the soldier was going to kill me? What if you could save me? What if this soldier heads to the neighbors’ house to kill Aiisha? Aiisha was the neighbors’ daughter who used to knock on our door every day to collect plastic bottles. She was too small to be seen through the door’s peephole.
I couldn’t know whether I was actually capable of stealing another life, and I was not sure that this inability is not, by itself, another form of killing. I have changed, I am disfigured now. This is probably a logical explanation, or maybe I simply matured.
The violence escalated. Scuds, barrel bombs, rockets, shells, friends dying under torture. And with every story I remembered—or don’t because my brain prevents me and suppresses these memories—the certainty that I was a person who neither kills nor wants to kill was gradually shrinking. ISIS was spreading in the liberated areas and started kidnapping journalists one by one. We ran then to our armed friends asking for protection, which was an important, fundamental contradiction: we wanted to hold on to our moral supremacy, which depended largely on others’ violence, not the nonviolence itself.
I still, to this day, don’t understand this war and its killing equations. This war, which I don’t know whether brings out the worst in you or changes you. The person who robbed his neighbor’s house after his neighbor fled: he doesn’t think he would have done that if it weren’t for the war. The person who wishes the death of everyone who doesn’t share his religious beliefs: he didn’t realise he had this much hatred inside.
My questions and uncertainties might not interest you. You might be completely confident, like I used to be, that you are incapable, or capable, of committing an act of killing. But my question remains: is every life “sacred”? Even the life of an ISIS militant who tortures others to death? Is passive surrender to your murderer another type of killing? Killing yourself? Ending your life or the lives of others whom you were supposed to protect? Did living constantly with death to the point of familiarity, and all the anxiety and uncertainty one experiences as a result, cause the answer to my initial question to become In fact, I don’t know?

author: مرسيل شحوارو


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Citizen Sleuths Can Now Officially Report Irregularities They Find in Macedonia’s Voters’ Registry · Global Voices
Goran Rizaov

Activists hold several fake ID's as part of the protest performance called “Macedonia provides housing” organized by the citizen initiative “We deserve better” in Skopje on February 15. Photo by Vancho Dzambaski (CC BY-NC-SA).
The Macedonian State Election Commission (SEC) has added a new feature to their online Voters’ Registry app, enabling citizens to report irregularities and help the commission in their efforts to clean up the registry.
Overhauling elections is one of the reforms agreed upon to end the political crisis in Macedonia. Authorities are currently investigating alleged election fraud, including the issue of thousands of identity cards to ethnic Macedonians from neighboring Albania, committed in recent years to ensure a victory for the ruling party, VMRO-DPMNE. The country's number of registered voters raises more than a few eyebrows: 1.8 million registered voters with a population of a little over 2 million, as of last census.
The SEC's app lists the names and addresses of registered voters and is used to determine their polling station. After a new version of the app was released on March 3 following a security problem, Macedonians unleashed an avalanche of searches in the registry to identity phantom voters.
They discovered “voters” whom they weren't familiar with registered at their home address or the address of friends, as well as relatives and acquaintances who had died or moved out of the country long ago still registered to vote at their old residences. Macedonians in the diaspora have the right to vote, but only in embassies as part of separate electoral constituencies.
The organization MOST, which among other things monitors elections, called on the SEC to issue clear instructions on reporting suspicious data in the Voters’ Registry. MOST maintains a free telephone line where voters can report election irregularities.
On March 7, the SEC unveiled an additional feature allowing users to report their suspicions. Users can click on a “report” link displayed alongside the records and open a form where they can add more information. According to the commission, several thousand citizens used the reporting feature on the first day.
Screenshot shoving a suspected phantom voter “living” on the address of the U.S. Embassy. The reporting link is at the end of the row.
The new version of the SEC's web app publicly lists people's addresses, raising digital privacy concerns. However, Meta.mk news agency obtained confirmation from the Directorate for Personal Data Protection that all the data that the web app displays is in accordance with the Law for Personal Data Protection.
The Directorate said that they've told the SEC not to use the Unique Master Citizen Number during searches (which is currently one of the search parameters), and to notify people of their right to file a request for the removal of their own addresses from the public list, in a free, timely and simple manner.
Privacy concerns aside, many Macedonians have found the list an important resource to expose evidence of fraud or mismanagement. On Twitter, citizen sleuths are using the hashtag “All from the List” (#СеПоСписок) and including screenshots of their discoveries.
Фантомците гласаат и по два-три пати. #Сепосписок pic.twitter.com/wY2J6R8YwX
— Слонче (@Elislonce) March 9, 2016
The ghosts can vote up to three times. #Сепосписок
People found buildings, apartments, and houses full of phantom voters, on some occasions with more then a 100 people registered as living in one house.
The hype also attracted jokers. For instance, a parody tweet claimed to have discovered a fake voter named Jessica Alba (like the American actress) using a photoshopped screenshot. Other Macedonians fact-checked the screenshot and quickly debunked it, and such pranks were mostly accepted in good spirit.
The ruling party VMRO-DPMNE has controlled the organization of elections since 2008. In response to the citizen clean-up effort, party officials defended the integrity of the Voters’ Registry or tried to downplay the irregularities discovered.
For example, some Macedonian villages do not have a street system, so residents of whole neighborhoods are legitimately listed at a same address. Party officials or pro-government media workers have highlighted cases of citizens “crying wolf”, mistakenly considering those people as phantom voters. One popular narrative says that even if there are some fake voters, they are very few and cannot reach 200,000 — the difference in votes between the current government and the opposition.
Another explanation offered is that some citizens simply failed to report changes of address and remain registered to their old residences. While this is probably true in some cases, there are “voters” registered as residing in newly built apartment complexes, state institutions and embassies. For instance, the site of United States Embassy, built in 2009, was previously was a barren hill without any houses. Yet people listed at the embassy's address were issued IDs from the Ministry of Interior despite the fact that nobody actually lives there, not even the ambassador.
Citizens have kept combing the Voters’ Registry app, to the extent that it crashed during the night between March 9 and 10. The high number of visits exceeded its bandwidth quota, so the SEC expanded the hosting package to accommodate for it.
In parallel, the Special State Prosecutor has continued to investigate alleged fraud committed in the upper echelons of government during previous election cycles. Authorities searched the home of one of the suspects, a police officer, who is mentioned as “the guy who makes the [fake] IDs” for the ruling party in a leaked wiretaps. Former Minister for Transport and Communications Mile Janakieski, who is a close confidant of party leader Nikola Gruevski, is implicated in that same recorded conversation.

author: Goran Rizaov