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The oligarchs are the main disinformation proxies in Bulgaria, says local expert · Global Voices
Metamorphosis Foundation

Dr. Rumena Filipova. Photo by Center for the Study of Democracy – Sofia, used with permission.
This interview originally appeared on Meta.mk News Agency, a project of Metamorphosis Foundation. An edited version is published below as part of a content-sharing agreement.
Rumena Filipova is DPhil and MPhil in International Relations, University of Oxford, having completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Cambridge. She taught undergraduate courses at Oxford University, and she has been a visiting fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center, the Polish Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House and other international institutes and think-tanks.
Filipova currently works as a Research Fellow of the Bulgarian Center for the Study of Democracy, an interdisciplinary organization committed to the study of democracy and market economy.
In addition to a lot of other projects and publications, Dr. Rumena Filipova, along with her colleague Dr. Todor Galev is the author of the report “Russian Influence in the Media, Sectors of the Black Sea Countries: Options, Narratives and Policy Options for Building Resilience“, which examines the disinformation and misinformation as part of Russia’s overall strategy, as well as their transmission of propaganda through the media in the Balkan Black Sea countries.
Meta.mk: You have worked for a long time on the study of the Russian influence and the foreign policy “maneuvers” of Russia and in the report that you have produced together with your colleague Galev you have analyzed the media war it wages. What are your main findings on the spread of the Russian narrative in the Balkan Black Sea countries?
Rumena Filipova (RF): The study examined the dissemination of Russia’s propagandist narratives in Bulgaria, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia and Moldova between 2015 and 2017 with a specific reference to three prominent topics of Kremlin disinformation, including the war in Syria, large-scale energy projects and elections meddling. The main finding, which emerged, is that the patterns of ownership, economic dependency and (in)formal political links of media outlets in the countries under investigation to pro-Russian groups and interests are reflected into corresponding trends of employing Russia-originating propaganda narratives. That is, as a general rule, the greater the political-economic enmeshment of a news outlet with Russian interests, the more congruously and undeviatingly the content of Russian narratives is matched, the less analytical variation and nationally-originating perspectives are included and the more explicitly biased the style of communication is. Of course, the distinctive features of the national media landscapes in each of the 5 countries further reinforce or constrain Russian propaganda, framing specific discourses on Russia-related developments.
Meta.mk: Have you identified the most tenacious media proxies of the Russian narrative?
RF: The results of the study have shown that the most tenacious – and indeed insidious, proxies that promote Russian narratives are local oligarchic figures and networks, who are financially and politically related to Russia. These oligarchic proxies (formally or informally) control the editorial policy and ownership structures of influential national media. In addition, the cultivation of a larger community of content creators and providers loyal to or dependent on the Kremlin (such as small and medium-sized online news platforms, journalists, bloggers, social-media opinion-makers) ensure the reinforced dissemination of Russian messages. Clearly, the media directly owned by the Russian government or rebroadcasting or reprinting content from them are the staunchest propaganda channels.
Meta.mk: What is the situation, according to your observations, with the Bulgarian media/Bulgarian language media in this regard?
RF: Bulgaria’s general media landscape has undergone significant transformations, particularly in the 2010s, characterized by the decline of print media, the rise of online media, plummeting journalistic standards and changing media ownership patterns. As regards the latter, the combined consequences of digitization and the 2008 financial and economic crisis led to the outflow of foreign investors, whose place has been occupied by local oligarchic groups, seizing control of most of Bulgaria’s media companies. Thus, the concentration of media ownership, oligarchic interests and politics combined with state regulation of resources allocated to the media sector and the capturing of independent regulators have exercised a pernicious influence on the content and quality of the Bulgarian media output. Indeed, international indices have demonstrated Bulgaria’s consistent slide in freedom of the press rankings. For instance, Freedom House classifies Bulgaria’s press freedom status in 2017 as partly free on the basis of a score of 42 out of 100 points (with 0 denoting most free, while 100 – least free status). This has been a deterioration compared to a decade ago. Russia has been actively using and perpetuating this decline in media standards, as it implicitly supports its own model at home.
Yet, placed in a comparative perspective, Bulgaria fares better than the four countries of the Black Sea region that we studied. In particular, the weaker presence of an inherited official Russian media impact on Bulgarian media, including the absence of Soviet descended channels, the decline of the Russian language, a very small number of outlets operating in Bulgaria but originating in Russia, provides a bulwark to the extent of dissemination of and receptivity to Russian messages.
Meta.mk: Generally speaking, what are the most prominent disinformation and misinformation in Bulgaria?
RF: The pro-Russian national media propagate narratives that are framed within the conservative Russian discourse extolling the virtues of state sovereignty (in particular as it is related to decisions on Russia-related projects or on disagreements with some EU policies), the traditional family, the advent of a ‘democratic’ multi polar international order and criticizing social, economic and political trends in the West, including liberalism and multiculturalism. A specific topic that is subject to heavy propaganda concerns energy. For instance, a lot of media frenzy focused on the cancellation of South Stream, which was portrayed – along the Kremlin line, as Bulgaria’s fault resulting from toothless submissiveness to the European Commission and against the country’s supposedly true economic interests. It was claimed that Russian politicians and business officials would remain firmly against Bulgarian calls for the revival of South Stream or the extension of Turkish Stream through its territory as a form of punishment for Sofia’s unreliability and weakness. Yet, as we see now, Turkish Stream will pass through Bulgarian territory in a re-named version as Balkan stream.
Meta.mk: Are the Bulgarian media/Bulgarian language media often the source of disinformation and misinformation or maybe they just are the proxies of the politicians, foreign powers or the social networks? What are the media categories with the lead role in this regard – the traditional media or the new online media?
RF: There are indeed websites, whose goal is to make profit by attracting traffic and advertising revenue through their own fabrication of sensationalist stories. Yet, these websites certainly have not had the same impact and external orientation as the fake news troll farm in Veles, for example. So our research focus has been concentrated on the much more significant phenomenon of local oligarchic, foreign power proxies, who control the editorial policy and ownership structures of influential online as well as print media and TV channels. As traditional media has gradually become obsolete, the Balkans now are officially the land of TV and online media.
Meta.mk: Do the authorities in Bulgaria have any plan for combating disinformation and its main promoters? What has been done so far in this struggle against the disinformation and misinformation?
RF: The most recent initiative on the governmental level has been the establishment of a disinformation unit within the Council of Ministers as part of the Action Plan against Disinformation for coordinated measures by the European Commission and the European Parliament. However, there have not been tangible results from the operation of the unit – it is not clear how many cases of disinformation have been referenced to Brussels and there has not been a high-profile debunking of fake stories. It has been seen as an EU-driven and not Bulgaria-driven process. In fact, many in the country see the government as at best a bystander, and at worse as active promoter, in the process of oligarchization of the media landscape in the country, which has actually enabled propaganda narratives by Russia.
Disinformation is mainly tackled by non-governmental organizations through analytical reports, the deployment of online monitoring tools (showcasing the origin, progress and impact of disinformation activities) and capacity-building events for journalists. Yet, more needs to be done in relation to wider citizen engagement. The general public should be better trained to recognize biased coverage and obtain reliable information through awareness campaigns and media literacy initiatives.
Meta.mk: How much is a North Macedonia present in the Bulgarian media?
RF: We have not made specific research on this issue. But my impression is that the extent to which North Macedonia receives attention in Bulgarian media depends on the political calendar – i.e., with respect to issues that emerge in bilateral relations. Therefore, this coverage tends to be highly politicized and irregular, for example concerning statements by politicians on common historical figures or events, etc.
It is a good sign that for the first time a weekend of dialogue took place in Ohrid earlier this year, where Bulgarian and Macedonian journalists could discuss the prejudices that each country’s media give into when covering events and developments in the other. Hopefully, such initiatives can contribute to a greater understanding of the challenges that each country faces.

author: Metamorphosis Foundation


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US gaming company Blizzard bans Hong Kong e-sport player from tournament for shouting pro-democracy slogan · Global Voices
Hong Kong Free Press

Game players share Blizzard Entertainment's “new” logo to express their frustration with the U.S company's decision. Via Twitter.
The following post was written by Holmes Chan and originally published by Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP) on October 8 2019. This version is republished on Global Voices under a content partnership agreement.
A Hong Kong-based professional e-sports player has been suspended for 12 months after he shouted “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our time” during a livestream.
Ng Wai-chung, who also goes by the username “blitzchung,” expressed support for the citywide protests in a post-match interview on Sunday. He also wore goggles and a respirator — the typical outfit for pro-democracy protesters going up against riot police.
[BREAKING] Hong Kong Hearthstone player @blitzchungHS calls for liberation of his country in post-game interview:https://t.co/3AgQAaPioj
@Matthieist #Hearthstone pic.twitter.com/DnaMSEaM4g
— ? Inven Global ? (@InvenGlobal) October 6, 2019
Ng was competing in a top tournament for the game, Hearthstone, run by American gaming company Blizzard. The game has a large following in mainland China and across Asia, and Chinese tech firm Tencent owns about five percent of Blizzard’s parent company, Activision Blizzard.
Blizzard said in a statement on Monday that Ng violated the rules of the competition, specifically a clause that forbids “engaging in any act that, in Blizzard’s sole discretion, brings you into public disrepute, offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damages Blizzard image.”
The company did not elaborate on how Ng’s actions violated the rules.
Ng will be removed from the tournament without receiving any prize money, and he will be ineligible for entering Hearthstone e-sports contests until October 5, 2020.
Blizzard also cut ties with the two livestream hosts, or “casters,” who interviewed Chung, despite them ducking their heads below the table to avoid associating themselves with his comments. The two men worked for the official Taiwanese Hearthstone organisation. The gaming company said,
We’d like to re-emphasise tournament and player conduct within the Hearthstone e-sports community from both players and talent […] While we stand by one’s right to express individual thoughts and opinions, players and other participants that elect to participate in our esports competitions must abide by the official competition rules.
“Blitzchung” Ng Wai-chung. Photo: Blizzard via HKFP.
Ng told HKFP that he will not appeal the ban despite finding it unfair. “I expected this to happen and I respect Blizzard’s decision,” he said.
Earlier, Ng wrote in a statement that his decision to shout the slogan was “just another form of participation of the protest that I wish to grab more attention”. He added,
It could cause me a lot of trouble, even my personal safety in real life. But I think it’s my duty to say something about the issue.
He also told gaming news outlet IGN that he did not regret his actions: “I’m not [regretful] of what I said… I shouldn’t be afraid of these kinds of white terror.”
Many users left angry comments on the Blizzard subreddit, with some saying that they will boycott the company’s games. One wrote:
I’ve spent thousands of dollars on Blizz games and subscriptions over the last 20 years and if this is their stance then I’m done with Blizzard.
Others decried the company for what they saw as hypocrisy:
How can this company support LGBT rights and give minority groups representation in their games while in the same breath, deleting an interview with a hearthstone player because he supports the Kong Kong protesters?
The company's new logo has gone viral via Reddit and Twitter:
Hey @Blizzard_Ent you guys should just use this logo from now on. Shameful display. I've played Blizzard games since 1995. Until this resolves positively, I'll never touch a game you make again. #FreeHongKong #standwithBlitzchung pic.twitter.com/Sv71S8CDJO
— Nate Anthony (@NGator88) October 9, 2019
HKFP has reached out to Blizzard for further comment.
Since June, Hong Kong has seen large-scale protests against a bill that would have enabled extraditions to China, which have evolved into sometimes violent displays of dissent over Beijing’s encroachment, democracy and alleged police brutality.
The slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, the revolution of our time” was first used by jailed localist activist Edward Leung, and has been widely adopted as a key slogan of the ongoing pro-democracy movement.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Hong Kong Free Press


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Bangladesh regulator blocks engineering university webpage containing reports of student abuse · Global Voices
Rezwan

Students of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology protesting in April 2018 to reform quota system in government service. Image via Wikipedia by Rahat Chowdhury. CC BY-SA 3.0
Bangladesh has been rocked with student protests across the country after an undergraduate of the country's prestigious Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) was beaten to death on 7th of October early morning by fellow students belonging to the student wing of the ruling Awami League. The murder of 21-year-old Abrar Fahad in a dormitory of BUET has put a spotlight on student abuse in public universities across the country and the attempt to bury the allegations.
After the murder, students of BUET and in other institutions were coming out with their tells of abuses by seniors as part of the practice of ragging or politically motivated intimidation. Ragging is commonly referred to as a traditional “initiation ritual” practised in higher education institutions in South Asian countries, which involves the abuse of junior students by senior students.
On Wednesday, 9 October, Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) ordered the blocking of an online page of BUET, where over 175 complaints were anonymously made by current and former students of the top engineering university of the country where only meritorious students can enter after a very competitive public entrance exam.
The Civil Engineering Building of BUET. Image via Wikipedia by Raiyan Kamal. CC BY-SA 2.5
Highlighting a leaked email, Dhaka Tribune informs that, BTRC asked all the International Internet Gateway (IIG) operators and internet service providers (ISP) of the country to block the said webpage from their networks immediately. No reason was given in the order.
At least 72 complaints were submitted over the past two days, after the murder of Abrar Fahad inside a dormitory!
এটা করে সবাইকে বুঝিয়ে দিলো আপনার অভিযোগ করার কোন অধিকার নেই। https://t.co/YOquvB3XEc
— Abdullah Al Jaber Hridoy (@kinghridoy50) October 10, 2019
This shows that you don't have any right to complain.
The blocked page contained an online-based anonymous reporting system under the website of BUET's computer science and engineering (CSE) department as part of a classroom research. After the abuse and murder of Fahad, the students were looking for a space to vent their experiences of abuse and the number of complaints anonymously submitted by current and former students of the university — mostly regarding violence and abuse on campus by senior students affiliated with Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), the student wing of the ruling party. Netizens reported that they cannot access the page anymore. However, saved copies of the complaints are being shared on social media.
we are abrar pic.twitter.com/ddHJuAWb8n
— Abul Munsur (@AbulMunsur5) October 9, 2019
A report in the Daily Star mentions that the student was possibly killed for his writings on Facebook. Last week in a Facebook status, which has been shared over 69000 times, Fahad had criticised the recent signing of bilateral agreements between Bangladesh and India during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s official visit to India. He was reportedly called by the BCL leaders of the University to explain why he wrote such a critical statement against the government. Reports are coming out that students with dissenting views were often subjected to physical abuse.
The killing of Abrar Fahad is a horrific crime that must be investigated immediately. Abrar was only exercising his peaceful right to freedom of expression in his Facebook posts criticising the government. #JusticeForAbrar Photo: Collected from Facebook pic.twitter.com/yCQyHGcHf3
— Amnesty International South Asia (@amnestysasia) October 8, 2019
The autopsy revealed that Fahad was bludgeoned with blunt objects on his hands, feet and back and he died due to “internal bleedings”.
According to the BBC, abuse and bullying for having dissenting political views or defying the order of the leaders is common inside public universities in Bangladesh.
Last year, Human Rights Watch mentioned in a report that those who publish social media posts critical of the government are systematically targeted in Bangladesh, often using the controversial Section 57 of ICT Act.
Section 57 of ICT Act authorizes the prosecution of any person who publishes, in electronic form, material that is fake and obscene; defamatory; “tends to deprave and corrupt” its audience; causes, or may cause, “deterioration in law and order;” prejudices the image of the state or a person; or “causes or may cause hurt to religious belief.”
In August 2018, Bangladeshi photographer and activist Dr. Shahidul Alam was detained for over 100 days for his Facebook posts about student protests in the capital, Dhaka.
Students in BUET and elsewhere in the country have taken the streets to protest the killing.
The students of BUET is protesting for Justice of Abrar Murder.
Abrar, was a student of EEE, killed in his dormitory by the Ruling Party Student wing BSL cadres.#JusticeForAbrar #Bangladesh pic.twitter.com/qZ2f6fcUDu
— Mohammad Shafi (@msaficu87) October 8, 2019
Students & teachers of Jahangirnagar University have held demonstrations on their respective campus and demanded exemplary punishment of the killers of BUET student Abrar Fahad.#JusticeForAbrar#Bangladesh pic.twitter.com/bSy0GEtmrv
— Sakib Ahmed Ratul (@PogoSaka) October 8, 2019
After examining the CCTV footage from the University Campus, the police detained 13 students so far, many of them affiliated with Chhatra League, over Fahad's murder. Fahad's father Barkat Ullah filed a murder case against 19 people.
CCTV footage of few student leaders killed BUET student named #AbrarFahad. Then throw dead body on dormitory stairs. Case has been filed by deceased father. pic.twitter.com/fqOHRBXCYO
— BORHANUL ASHEKIN (@ASHEKINBORHANUL) October 7, 2019
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina vowed that the killer will get the highest punishment and no one will be spared regardless of their political affiliations. She also defended some of the bilateral decisions the Bangladesh government made during her recent visit to India, including water sharing and exporting LPG gas, the issues Fahad was critical of.
Netizens also questioned the decision of BUET to keep such a sensitive complaint system open to the public which could put the safety of the complainants in peril. A system administrator form BUET could easily hide the page without requiring such knee-jerk action from the regulatory authority. At the time of reporting the entire BUET website was found inaccessible.

author: Rezwan


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Despite last year’s ‘alternative’ win, Guadeloupe’s Maryse Condé passed over for 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Guadeloupean writer Maryse Condé. Photo by MEDEF via Wikimedia Commons. (CC BY-SA 2.0)
At 1 p.m. Sweden time on October 10, 2019, both the 2018 and 2019 laureates for the Nobel Prize for Literature were announced. Following an embarrassing sexual misconduct scandal, the Swedish Academy decided to postpone 2018 award, which resulted in the creation of an alternative award that year. Dubbed the New Academy Prize in Literature, it was presented to Guadeloupean author of historical fiction Maryse Condé, best known for her novel Segu.
With a horse, so to speak, in this year's race, there was great anticipation in the Caribbean over who this year's Nobel Laureate in Literature would be, and Condé's odds of winning were pegged near the top, at 5-1:
#MaryseConde or #AntjieKrog?
Who will be #Literature Laurate of 2019?#NobelPrizeLiterature #NobelPrize2019 #NobelPrize #Nobel pic.twitter.com/GMoLxb9iLm
— Ameer Shahul (@ameershahul) October 10, 2019
Only 14 women have won the @NobelPrize in Literature, compared with 113 men. Only one laureate – the late Toni Morrison – is a woman of color. Let's make it two today! World Editions for #MaryseCondé! #NobelPrize #NobelPrize2019 pic.twitter.com/TAxUQku8or
— World Editions (@WorldEdBooks) October 10, 2019
But Nobel prize predictions often come with upsets, and today the honour was bestowed upon Austrian author Peter Handke. Polish author Olga Tokarczuk received the 2018 Nobel Laureate in Literature “for a narrative imagination that […] represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life”.
The Caribbean region has had, thus far, two Nobel Laureates in Literature—St. Lucian poet Derek Walcott in 1992, and Trinidad and Tobago-born V.S. Naipaul in 2001—or three if you count the poet Saint-John Perse, who, like Condé, was born in Guadeloupe, but who—also like Condé—had French citizenship because of Guadeloupe's status as a French overseas territory. Perse won the Nobel in 1960. There was great hope this year that Condé would bring the world's most coveted literary prize to the region another time.
Condé's novels delve into the enduring issues of race, gender and culture that link Africa and its vast diaspora, all set in historical contexts like the Salem witch trials and the construction of the Panama Canal. Politics and feminism have always factored strongly into her narratives, though her later work veers towards autobiography.
Deciding to be a writer after reading Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights as a child, Condé eventually paid tribute to the book that inspired her by writing Windward Heights, a historical novel set in Guadeloupe, in which race and cultural differences act as powerful divisive forces — issues which many social media users felt were increasingly relevant today, and for which she should have been honoured:
#MaryseConde should have been recognized by the #NobelPrize2019 to show the world her prize was meaningful, not a European white male genocide apologist. Congratulations to @OlgaTokarczuk & @FitzcarraldoEds for the wisdom to publish translations of her books! #SupportIndiePresses
— Wendy Whidden (@WendyWhidden) October 10, 2019
Condé has numerous other awards under her belt, however. Apart from being the first ever recipient of the New Academy Prize, she has won Le Grand Prix Litteraire de la Femme (1986), Le Prix de L’Académie Francaise (1988), and Le Prix Carbet de la Caraibe (1997). She was also presented with a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government.
For some fans of her work, though, those honours did not lessen the sting of Condé not being chosen at the 2019 Nobel Laureate in Literature. On Facebook, Arnel Asonto lamented:
So disappointing and what […] weak choices […]
I was expecting Maryse Condé of Guadeloupe to win the literature prize but somehow the award is still ‘Eurocentric’ and insular…
They promised some changes despite the scandalous fiasco last year…
It should have been you, #MaryseConde! #NobelPrize2019 https://t.co/0tcXN7PT69
— World Editions (@WorldEdBooks) October 10, 2019
A scholar of Francophone literature, Condé is currently Professor Emerita of French at Columbia University, which holds her literary archive.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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Thai Twitter users face threats over comments on royal motorcade · Global Voices
Prachatai

A viral picture by a Twitter user showing that an ambulance was halted in Bangkok. It also shows that a hashtag in Thai language which translates into #royalmotorcade is trending. Photo from Prachatai website.
This edited article is from Prachatai, an independent news site in Thailand, and is republished on Global Voices as part of a content-sharing agreement. It gives a background over a viral hashtag that saw rare online criticism of the monarchy. A few days later, the government arrested an activist for insulting the monarchy but authorities said it had nothing to do with the online comments about the motorcade. However, the arrest sparked fear that those who used the viral hashtag can be targeted as well.
On 1 October 2019, the hashtag #ขบวนเสด็จ or #royalmotorcade trended on Twitter in Thailand as innumerable critical tweets were posted in response to a royal motorcade causing a traffic jam around Victory Monument, Bangkok, in the evening rush hour. It remains unknown who was being transported in the royal motorcade. The hashtag trended despite legal restrictions on criticism of the Thai royal family. However, several users reported receiving threatening messages over their critical tweets.
One tweet, which received 36.6K retweets, claimed that an ambulance had to turn off its emergency siren when the royal motorcade passed by. Another with 46k retweets reported that 2 ambulances were halted.
Another Twitter user also posted a similar tweet with 10.4k retweets, but the tweet is no longer accessible along with the account because of a witch hunt. A post appeared on Facebook saying that the tweet was fake news and an act of instigation. The post also revealed pictures which were claimed to be of the owner of the Twitter account. The post has been deleted.
Thai Lawyers for Human Rights reported that an activist who commented on the hashtag also faced a threat from a sender who claimed to be from the Palace. The text message says “Please delete all your social network accounts by tonight for your safety.” Thai Lawyers for Human Rights said the threat had no legal basis and the Palace should investigate if it was made by an imposter.
Our reporter contacted the Bureau of the Royal Household on this matter. The person who answered said that the Bureau was not in charge of this matter and therefore was unable to give an answer, but personally believed that it was unlikely to come from the Palace because usually they have never responded to anything in this way.
Users on Twitter also reported that pedestrians were not allowed to walk to BTS Victory Monument Station. According to Thai custom, feet cannot be at any point above the head of a royal family member.
The hashtag #royalmotorcade existed earlier, but it did not go viral until the night of 1 October and the afternoon of the following day when the hashtag topped Thailand’s trends with 250k tweets.
Also viral were posts on social media about a news report from June of the Japanese Emperor Naruhito who stopped a royal motorcade at a side lane so that an ambulance could go first.
Bangkok is the 8th worst city in the world for traffic jams with an average congestion rate of 53% according to TomTom, a traffic data provider from the Netherlands.
iLaw, an independent organization, reported that according to the 2019 Road Traffic Act an emergency vehicle is allowed to cross any red light and park at any restricted area. Pedestrians must stop and stay at the side of the road. Other vehicles (including animals) must stop or park on the left and must not stop in an intersection.
But while an ambulance fits the legal definition of an emergency vehicle, along with fire trucks and other vehicles with sirens authorized by the Royal Thai Police, it is not clear if a royal motorcade has the same status, nor which will prevail when emergency vehicles use the same route.
In 2010, the Principal Private Secretary of the late King Bhumibol established a committee to design a protocol for royal motorcades so that they would cause the least inconvenience to people. The idea was based on the late King’s concerns expressed in 2001.
The protocol includes no enforced stoppage on frontage roads and opposite lanes. Pedestrians can also walk on overpasses as long as there are no safety concerns. BBC Thai reported Superintendent of Phayathai Police Station saying that the police still followed the protocols.
Critics of the traffic jam caused by the motorcade may risk prosecution under Section 112 of the Criminal Code, which criminalizes defamation, insult, or threats to the King, Queen, Heir-Apparent, or Regent and carries a maximum jail term of 15 years, with currently at least 25 people reportedly in jail for lèse majesté. Any such prosecution would depend on who was in the motorcade.
Section 14 of Computer Crime Act, enforced more frequently when the military grabbed power in 2014, may also apply. This carries a maximum jail term of 5 years and/or fine of 100,000 Baht (3,200 US Dollars) for anyone who imports into a computer system data, such as tweets, that is deemed a danger to national security.

author: Prachatai


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The Hungarian journalists who wouldn’t keep quiet · Global Voices
Maxim Edwards

Csaba Lukács at Magyar Hang's offices in Budapest, October 2019. Photo courtesy of Magyar Hang, used with permission.
It's a wild ride being a journalist in Viktor Orbán's Hungary.
Hungary now ranks 73rd out of 180 countries surveyed in Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index, having dropped 50 places since Orbán and his Fidesz party first took power in 2010. Over the past three years, the country has lost two of its leading daily newspapers. On 8 October 2016, the new Austrian owners of Népszabadság suddenly announced that the popular left-leaning publication had been closed due to poor sales. Journalists arrived to work to find themselves locked out of the building. Given that the newspaper had one of the country's highest circulations, observers were quick to suggest that its closure had been coordinated with Fidesz.
Last April, the owner of Magyar Nemzet announced that the newspaper would be closed. The conservative-leaning daily, founded in 1938, was one of several media outlets owned by the influential tycoon Lajos Simicska, previously a staunch supporter of Fidesz. But as Simicska started to fall out with Orbán in 2014, Magyar Nemzet took a more critical line towards the government.
Magyar Nemzet was closed shortly after Fidesz won yet another majority in the parliamentary elections of 2018. Analysts supposed that the move signalled Simicska's acquiescence to the new order, and a step back from an ugly confrontation. Magyar Nemzet is no more, or at least not the Magyar Nemzet its readers and journalists knew — in February, 2019 the name was assumed by the pro-government right-wing newspaper Magyar Idők.
However, the journalists of the original Magyar Nemzet decided to stay journalists. After briefly experimenting with publishing their own “samizdat” Magyar Nemzet, they founded the independent weekly Magyar Hang (Hungarian Voice) in May 2018. Despite multiple appeals, the Magyar Hang journalists received little support from what was left of Magyar Nemzet. They had to start from zero.
I spoke with Csaba Lukács, managing director of Magyar Hang and a former correspondent for Magyar Nemzet, on the sidelines of N-Ost‘s 2019 media conference in Chișinău, Moldova. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Maxim Edwards: Could you tell us more about the circumstances of your leaving Magyar Nemzet and your decision to found Magyar Hang?
Csaba Lukács: I had been a senior journalist for Magyar Nemzet for nearly 20 years. The second day after the elections last April, I got an email from the editor-in-chief telling us that everybody must come to to his office for an announcement. The announcement was that it would be the last issue of Magyar Nemzet. I was the lucky one who got to write the very last editorial. The title was “Vége” (“the end”), so I had to say goodbye to the readers. We immediately thought that we had to do something, to start a new newspaper from scratch. But unfortunately the old owner wouldn't give us the subscriber list, so we could not tell the good news to our former readers. As well as my work as a journalist, I was working for an NGO which sends doctors and paramedics to disaster areas. So when they stopped Magyar Nemzet, everybody was looking at me and said “you're used to catastrophic situations, so you have to be our director.”
So we had to start from zero. We had only used laptops and computers, all the furniture was donated. The very first issue of Magyar Hang was made in my living room, because we had no office at the time. For the first three months, no-one got a salary. I asked everybody to treat their work as an investment in the future newspaper. Unfortunately, we could save 25 journalists out of 100 from Magyar Nemzet, which had been the largest daily newspaper at the time. It's a miracle that we've survived; we're even growing.
ME: I understand that much advertising revenue is completely unavailable for political reasons. What other sources of funding are open to you?
CL: We had nothing for the very first year. Of course, there are market [not state] advertisers as well, but they are afraid that they'll be punished by the government if they spend money on our newspaper. But we had agreements with some small Hungarian companies who already have problems with the government so have nothing to lose. But until now, the percentage of our income which isn't directly from readers is less than 5 per cent.
It wasn't easy to get around the reluctance of some shops or fuel stations to sell us, but some do. At this moment we're present in nearly 2,800 shops in Hungary, and we now sell 8,000 copies every week. Our circulation recently reached 12,000.
Everywhere else, newspapers have more subscribers and sell fewer copies on the market. Unusually, we sell three times more than our number of subscribers. In Hungary, we get telephone calls from readers asking us ‘if I subscribe to your newspaper, will [ruling party] Fidesz know about it?’ We can't be 100 per cent sure, as there is only one distribution company, Hungarian Post, which is state-owned.
CL: Well, I was working for a conservative newspaper and we know that our readers were old-fashioned people. They like to hold a newspaper in their hands. In rural areas and in the cities there are many older people who aren't used to using Facebook or the internet. Unfortunately in Hungary there is no working model to earn money from online media, but print means immediate cash.
Actually, there was no Hungarian company which was brave enough to print us, so we're printed in Bratislava, in Slovakia. When we left Magyar Nemzet, we still had a rolling contract with the printing company; but when they realised we were trying to print something against the government, they said ‘we have no capacity.’ So Slovakia was the best option. It's close, and there's no Schengen border, so the trucks can't be stopped by the Hungarian authorities for some administrative reason.
ME: So Magyar Nemzet was a Christian conservative, centre-right paper. Many people outside Hungary don't always understand that there are a significant number of conservative Hungarians, not just liberals or leftists, who are also very scared about the direction their country has taken.
CL: More than half of our readers voted for Fidesz ten years ago. We're focusing on the ‘Orbán orphans’ who supported them but are now disappointed, that's our biggest audience. Orbán and the government give some advertising contracts to Népszava, a left-leaning newspaper, and Magyar Narancs [a weekly liberal-leaning magazine], just so that they survive. They have to show that they exist, that there is pluralism. But they see us as traitors; they don't want people who ‘betrayed the conservative ideal’ to stay alive. That was even mentioned directly during a TV show; on Echo TV, then part of the state propaganda machine, a political analyst literally said my name and that of our editor-in-chief György Zsombor, saying ‘they are traitors, and in times of war traitors have to be executed.’
We can never know when they'll decide that it's wartime.
ME: You still have full-time reporters working for you, but to what extent do they have access to state institutions? Can they still get quotes from government ministers?
CL: Nope. In the very first year we were not even allowed to go to the press conferences held every two weeks by Gergely Gulyás, the head of the prime minister's office. Our colleagues in independent media always ask on our behalf why we're not allowed. Eventually, about a year ago, we gained access. But that's the only government press conference we can get into, and we're always the very last people who get to ask questions. We have over 500 questions for government officials, even to state-run hospitals about basic stuff, but there are no answers. There is a law in Hungary that they have to answer the media, but they don't respect it.
Very often it happens that they steal our stories. If you send questions, they send the answers back to propaganda media or they lie.
ME: But regardless of whether they lie or not, you still have to quote those lies to have any hope of being seen as objective. How does that harm your readership?
CL: We ask them, they don't answer, then when we publish they say that they were not asked and that we are ‘fake news.’ Mister Gulyás says that the reason the government doesn't answer us is because we're ‘not proper media.’ But we are a legally registered media outlet in Hungary, we fulfil all the requirements.
ME: What is the future of press freedom in Hungary?
CL: They will close or buy other outlets. I think the next one will be HVG, which is now the biggest weekly political magazine on the market. I'm sure that after the local elections they will try to ‘catch’ it. They want to have the leaders in every section in their hands. The foundation linked to Orbán's oligarch Lőrinc Mészáros has 500 media outlets, from one of the biggest commercial TV channels to commercial radio, regional newspapers, sports newspapers, magazines… I think 80 per cent of Hungarian media is in their hands, but they're trying to go for 100 per cent.
ME: It seems to me that journalists are some of the first targets when governments lean towards this kind of right-populism; it's very easy to represent them as enemies of the people.
CL: Let's be very honest: we're not in danger. We're not like Turkey yet, so we won't be jailed. We're not like Russia yet, so we won't be killed. But we are in an extremely vulnerable position in terms of money. We can't earn a lot of money, and if, say, your close relatives or your wife is working for the government they will be fired. They are watching all of us. They know who our relatives are. In my family, we even had to agree never to discuss politics at Sunday lunch because some of my close relatives have said that I am a ‘traitor who is paid by [George] Soros.’ And to be honest, we are paid by [George] Soros, because the Central European University has one subscription to Magyar Hang. So we receive 450 Forint ($1.48) every week from Soros’ money!
ME: What do you think other European societies can learn from Hungary's rapid decline in press freedom?
CL: Everything can change, immediately. Democracy is vulnerable, and if somebody, a winner, chooses not to respect certain gentleman's agreements, he can change everything to his will. We never expected that things could end up this way in Hungary, thinking of 1956 when the people rose up against the Soviet Union. And when we changed the system in 1989 we thought that [dictatorship] had gone forever. But one strong politician came, he won more than 66 percent in three parliamentary elections. He got a constitutional majority, he changed the laws, he changed the election law which now makes it almost impossible to defeat Fidesz.
He can do whatever he wants, and we don't know when that will change. So we have to be prepared to survive like this for a long time.

author: Maxim Edwards


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Trinidad’s First Peoples say the indigenous name of airport should not be changed · Global Voices
Jada Steuart

The Piarco airport terminal in Trinidad, taken on September 20, 2010, by Wikimedia Commons user Saltprune416; used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2.
At a diaspora event attended by Trinidad and Tobago prime minister Keith Rowley during his recent trip to New York City, he responded to a suggestion that Trinidad's Piarco International Airport could possibly be renamed in honour of the country's first prime minister, Eric Williams.
“I would love to consider very seriously — and have the Cabinet consider — the naming of our airport the Eric Williams airport,” he told the crowd. At the same time, Rowley reminded the audience that Williams himself never wanted any national monuments or buildings in his name and said that his family, when contacted about the matter in the past, “would view any attempt to do otherwise as politicising his memory”.
The whole idea, however, has left the public rather divided. Some see it as a great step in acknowledging Williams's role as the father of the nation, while others think it unnecessary, including, most notably, the Santa Rosa First Peoples Community — the country's only remaining group of indigenous islanders.
Members of the Eric Williams Memorial Committee were elated at the possibility of the name change: Chairman Reginald Vidale told the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian:
It’s long in coming I would say, it is worthy of a great son of the soil, a great contributor to this country, to our independence and a great contributor to our republicanism.
But the Santa Rosa First Peoples Community has stated that the name “Piarco” is one of the very few indigenous names given to areas of the country, which has survived colonisation and lasted past the country's independence from Great Britain. While acknowledging that Williams deserves credit for his contributions, the group noted that there already is a financial complex, plaza and science complex named after him.
They also emphasised the importance of keeping names like “Piarco” alive, as they mark the forgotten languages of the indigenous people:
This suggestion of renaming the airport through erasing a name in an original language of the First Peoples would further erode the First Peoples heritage and legacy which our community continues to struggle to preserve.
The country's First Peoples have not typically given the level of acknowledgment many feel they deserve, but they are not the only ones against the move. Many social media users have voiced their concerns about changing the name, which they see as unnecessary use of government funds and time:
Netizen Reshma spoke out on Twitter:
Leave it as Piarco International Airport and deal with real issues please!!! https://t.co/6yGqyxyeKy
— Reshma (@ReshKitty) September 28, 2019
Others brought up the renaming of other local sites, such as King George V Park, which was changed to Nelson Mandela Park in 2014 and met with mixed reviews. To this day, many citizens still refer to the park by its original name:
As a matter of fact.. rename King George the V park to its original name fuh meh please.
This new name nobody uses to identify the park, is not a thing.
— Joεvoη ß (@JonBleux) September 28, 2019
They could rename it “Plane Lane” for all I care, I still gonna call it Piarco. https://t.co/3PV25EUxBZ
— Sōjirō The Tenken (@Angelo_vo) September 29, 2019
For many, it seems, the worry is that the change will require a lot of time, money and effort for a government that could be dealing with other more pressing national issues, such as escalating crime.
In any case, the whole idea may well be a moot point: No matter how much members of the Trinbagonian diaspora may feel that renaming the airport would be a fitting tribute to Williams, nothing will be moved for the Cabinet's consideration unless his family agrees — and they seem quite happy with leaving things as they are.

author: Jada Steuart


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‘I and we’: The rallying cry of Russian protests · Global Voices
Emily Couch

Collage of the Russian words “I” and “We”. Image by GlobalVoices.
On June 10, Kommersant, RBK, and Vedomosti, three of Russia's most respected newspapers, made headlines with, well, their headlines.
That morning, all three ran the same front page—a simple white background with just four words: Я/Мы Иван Голунов (I am/We are Ivan Golunov). The striking image of the front pages side by side garnered international media attention. The day before, Golunov, a journalist for the independent Russian news outlet Meduza, had been arrested on trumped-up drug charges widely believed to be motivated by his persistent investigation of corruption and organized crime in Moscow.
Almost immediately after the tripartite show of solidarity, the eye-catching phrase and format became ubiquitous both online and offline. Indeed, during a Kremlin awards ceremony, the daughter of one of the attendees sported a T-shirt bearing the words.
Much has happened since: Golunov has been released, Russia has seen nationwide regional elections. Protests over the barring of opposition candidates have given rise to a new spate of political trials, the most reported of which being the case of budding actor Pavel Ustinov, who was charged with supposedly assaulting a police officer.
Time may have passed but the significance of the original slogan has not. The Я/Мы formula has been applied to a multitude of other cases of political repression, including those of people detained during protests in Moscow such as Ustinov and Kirill Zhukov. It has even been used to express solidarity with the Siberian shaman Alexander Gabyshev who, on 20 September, was arrested on his walk from Yakutia to Moscow, where he intended to “banish” Putin from the Kremlin. It has been used to express solidarity with the imprisoned Dagestani journalist Abdulmumin Gadzhiyev, and to mourn the self-immolation of the Udmurt professor Albert Razin.
The trope has also been deployed in more general contexts in the form of the phrases “Я/Мы Вся Страна” (We are the whole country),“А Как Же Все Остальные?” (What about the rest?—a reference to Russia’s many other political prisoners besides Golunov); and—in an inversion of the phrase—“Я/Мы не средневековье” (I am / We are not the Middle Ages – in reference to the authorities’ draconian repression of protestors). On 23 September, massively missing the mark, ЖКХ, the Moscow municipal authorities’ department for heating, water, and electricity, posted their own version: Я/Мы Отопление (I am / We are heating).
The Я/Мы saga raises two questions. Firstly, why did the trope become so popular? Secondly, what is the broader significance of this popularity?
We could also ask: why write an entire article about two words?
The answer is that these two words and their now iconic formatting are a significant addition to the repertoire, to use an somewhat academic term, of Russian protest. “Repertoire” simply refers to the techniques and forms that protesters have used in the past; a toolkit that, every time a new cause arises, can provide useful instruments. Would a sit-in or a picket be the most effective way to communicate our grievance?  What about a hunger strike?
Clearly, the Я/Мы formula does not have the amplitude of a rally, but it is, nonetheless, a ‘tool’ that Russian protesters have chosen several times to express their grievances. With each new use, its position in the opposition repertoire becomes stronger. Obvious Western equivalents would be #MeToo (the hashtag that soared to prominence in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment scandal), and #JeSuisCharlie (used to express solidarity after the terrorist attack on French satirical publication Charlie Hebdo). The creator of Я/Мы—Strelka Institute’s Nastya Vishnyakova—explicitly stated that she was heavily influenced by these examples.
In protest, form is often just as important as content. “We decided to use a neat and simple design” that would be “instantaneously understood,” Vishnyakova said in a 13 July interview with business website VC.ru. This simplicity greatly helped the diffusion of the Я/Мы formula, debuting on the front pages of Russia’s most well-known newspapers. Vishnyakova added that Meduza quickly capitalized on this by making the symbol digitally available in multiple formats that could be printed on protest placards, clothing, and social media.
Formulas such as #MeToo and #JeSuisCharlie gained immense traction because they offered a common language through which a multitude of individuals with diverse experiences could speak with a united voice. Я/Мы has a similar resonance, facilitating the expression of a wide range of issues that all ultimately boil down to a profound dissatisfaction with Russia’s political system.
An important observation is that the formula is simultaneously home-grown and indicative of a new receptiveness to international repertoires. Since 2011-12, the Russian authorities have increasingly used allegations of foreign (i.e. western) influence to discredit opposition movements. Protesters have been careful to avoid referencing or employing techniques that would make them vulnerable to these accusations. Я/Мы indicates a growing political confidence in Russian society—protesters are no longer so afraid that the authorities can discredit them in the usual manner.
The aesthetic of the Я/Мы formula also indicates a clear understanding of that “form is as important as content.” The last phrase that gained comparable traction in Russian protests was opposition politician Alexei Navalny’s famous labeling of the ruling party, United Russia, a “party of crooks and thieves”. While Navalny's coinage gained substantial traction (it remains a common chant during protest rallies), Я/Мы has arguably created a bigger splash because, unlike its predecessor, its striking visual dimension can be reproduced in any medium.
Mentioning Navalny leads us to the final, and crucial, point: Я/Мы is distinctly non-partisan. Because of his unabashed opposition to Putin, and his affiliation with the Moscow liberal and creative classes, Navalny has become a divisive political figure: many protest movements (such as those at the beginning of 2018 against the mismanagement of landfills) now seek to distance themselves from him to retain their legitimacy. More broadly, Russia's opposition is notoriously fractious, with left-wing, liberal, right-wing, and self-proclaimed non-ideological groups often refusing to work with one another. The fact that Я/Мы is not the product of any particular political grouping or ideology is more important than one might think; it provides a relatively neutral rallying cry around which citizens of all political persuasions can unite.
So does Я/Мы herald the launch of a new and sweeping revolution? Almost certainly not. But it does mark an undeniable turning point in the repertoire of the Russian opposition, and how they articulate the relationship between state and society.
Perhaps, in future, the fractured Russian opposition will become a little less Я and a little more Мы.

author: Emily Couch


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Google removes Hong Kong protester role-playing game from its Play Store · Global Voices
The Stand News

Image from the Stand News
The Chinese version of the report was published on The Stand News on 10 of October 2019. The English version is published on Global Voices as part of a content partnership agreement.
A role-playing mobile app game with a story plot based on the recent Hong Kong protests was suspended from Google Play for violating the platform's “sensitive events policy”. A few days ago, Apple store has also taken down a mobile app marking in real time the locations of protests and police operations.
The mobile game, entitled “The Revolution of Our Times”, was launched on October 5 and taken down three days after.
The game provides details on the political context leading up to the protests with a map on key protest sites in Hong Kong.
The protagonist/player is set as a typical Hongkonger who is frustrated by the failure of the 2014 pro-democracy Umbrella Movement and the deteriorating political situation in Hong Kong. S/he has to decide whether to join the anti-extradition protest on June 9, 2019. Once the decision is made, s/he enters the game and has to make more choices, such as which protesting sites s/he should go, what kind of equipment s/he should bring along and whether or not s/he should join the next protest and etc. Each decision would result in certain risks (i.e arrests) that affect the protagonist's personal development, his/her relations with others and the city's public opinion.
In a phone interview with The Stand News, the game developer under the pseudonym “Spinner of Yarns” said that he received an email notification from Google that the mobile game had violated the company's “sensitive events policy” and had to be taken down. According to the policy, sensitive events refer to “content that may be deemed as capitalizing on or lacking reasonable sensitivity towards a natural disaster, conflict, death, or other tragic event.” It also bars developers from making money off “serious ongoing conflicts or tragedies” through video games. “
Before the game was taken down, it was downloaded 4500 times and had generated HKD1500 (approximately US$200 dollars) income. Spinner of Yarns stressed that 80 per cent of the income for the game would be donated to Spark Alliance, a legal fund for arrested protesters and had filed an appeal to Google. He also asked Google to explain why the company defined Hong Kong protests as sensitive event and wondered if the company's action was but a practice of political self-censorship. He said:
It is a practice of self-censorship if the game could be shelved on Google store upon removing all references to Hong Kong protests.
Spinner of Yarns had studied creative writings at university and joined an IT company upon graduation. He quit his job and spent more than a month developing the game.
In an inaugural post on Reddit-like LIHKG forum, he explained that his main intention is to catch international attention on the protest situation in Hong Kong.
As the mobile app has a function to send messages to all the subscribers, he intended to use that as a channel for Hong Kong protest news updates.
A number of foreign corporations have been accused of bowing to Chinese government pressures for censoring Hong Kong protests. American gaming company Blizzard recently banned a Hong Kong e-sport player from tournament for its game Hearthstone, after he shouted pro-democracy slogan at a post-game interview.
Apple removed from its store the HKmap.live app, which informs users of the locations of protests and police operations soon after Chinese Communist Party affiliated People’s Daily accused the company of assisting Hong Kong “rioters”. While the app could help users avoid stepping into violent conflict areas, Apple told The New York Times:
The app displays police locations and we have verified with the Hong Kong Cybersecurity and Technology Crime Bureau that the app has been used to target and ambush police, threaten public safety, and criminals have used it to victimize residents in areas where they know there is no law enforcement.
The Stand News has contacted Google for further comment on the taking down of the mobile game app. Google has not responded yet.

author: The Stand News


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Netizen Report: Iraq and Ecuador face network shutdowns amid public protests · Global Voices
Ellery Roberts Biddle, Netizen Report Team

27th installment from Banksy's “Better Out Than In,” October 2013, New York City. Photo by Scott Lynch. (CC BY-SA 2.0)
The Advox Netizen Report offers an international snapshot of challenges, victories, and emerging trends in technology and human rights around the world. This report covers news and events from October 5 – 11, 2019.
In Iraq and Ecuador, public protests have led to shutdowns of internet and social media services in recent days, all at the apparent behest of government officials.
After demonstrations against corruption, unemployment and poor public services cropped up across Iraq starting on October 2, multiple sources and technical experts reported widespread outages of major internet and social media services. On October 10, technical evidence gathered by NetBlocks and confirmed by local sources indicated that the internet is being shut down curfew-style, leaving residents unable to connect during nighttime hours.
Alongside street protests, Iraqis are also speaking out against the internet shutdowns. Activists at SMEX and the Iraqi Network for Social Media have launched a Change.org petition urging the government to “respect citizens’ and internet users’ rights by restoring the internet in Iraq and refraining from shutting the internet down in Kurdistan,” and noting that shutting down the internet “inhibits free expression and allows government forces to commit human rights violations without evidence or recordings against them.” A local lawyer is filing a case against the Ministry of Telecommunications, arguing that the internet shutdown violates Iraq’s constitution.
Meanwhile in Ecuador, street demonstrations against austerity measures have escalated to open, violent confrontations between protesters and police, prompting authorities to impose a “state of exception.” Since October 3, journalists and activists have reported various incidents of internet censorship and disruption that appear to be associated with the protests.
Services including WhatsApp and Tweetdeck have experienced dramatic slow downs, and technical researchers have shown evidence that backend image and content (CDN) servers for Facebook and WhatsApp were temporarily disrupted on Ecuador’s state-owned telecommunication network, Corporación Nacional de Telecomunicaciones, on October 7. Activists at Usuarios Digitales, a local advocacy group, also tweeted reports that an activist attempting to livestream protests on Facebook had their account suspended.
President Lenin Moreno, who was once aligned with former leftist president Rafael Correa but has rolled back many of Correa’s social policies since taking office, has accused demonstrators of attempting to orchestrate a coup at Correa’s behest.
Turkish military attacks on Kurdish forces near the Turkey-Syria border have caused tens of thousands to flee the area, following US president Trump’s controversial decision to withdraw US troops from northern Syria, where they long have been allied with Kurdish forces.
The conflict has coincided with reports of social media and internet blocks in the region, that began circulating on Twitter on October 9. By October 11, technical tests by NetBlocks had confirmed that major social media services including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Twitter were being blocked on Turk Telecom, the country’s leading service provider.
On October 7, Venezuelan users of Adobe products received an email alerting them that they will be barred from accessing Adobe services after October 28. The email and an associated notice on Adobe’s Spanish site explained that the cutoff is the result of an executive order issued by the Trump administration in August 2019. Since then, the web-based money transfer service Transferwise has followed suit, also citing the order.
Executive Order 13884 dictates that “all property and interests in property of the Government of Venezuela that are in the United States…[ must be] blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in.” Given the focus on property and interests of the Venezuelan government, it is not clear whether or how this applies to technology companies offering their services to the general public.
As has occurred in the past for tech companies attempting to follow economic sanctions against countries such as Iran, companies may be over-complying with the order, in an effort to avoid legal challenges.
A student at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology was beaten to death on October 7, after he wrote a widely shared Facebook post criticizing the recent signing of bilateral agreements between Bangladesh and India. Those responsible appear to be members of the student wing of the Awami League, Bangladesh’s ruling political party.
Abrar Fahad was reportedly called by university leaders to explain why he wrote a statement so critical of the government. On October 9, Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission ordered the blocking of an online forum at the university, where more than 175 grievances and expressions of remorse had been posted anonymously by current and former students.
Ongoing mass protests in Hong Kong have had untold ripple effects on technology and free speech around the world in recent months. Here’s who got censored this week, because of what they said about Hong Kong:
Chinese companies and government voices decried a tweet by Daryl Morey, the manager of the Houston Rockets basketball team, in which he voiced support for Hong Kong protesters. Morey later removed the tweet and US National Basketball Association (NBA) spokespeople offered an official apology, but China Central Television and Internet giant Tencent nevertheless announced plans to suspend NBA broadcasts.
Soon after the NBA debacle, the creators of the irreverent US cartoon South Park released a satirical apology video mocking the NBA for bringing “the Chinese censors into our homes and into our hearts” and criticizing China's “forced confession” practices by having one character confess (under duress) to the murder of Winnie the Pooh, who has become a part of a popular online meme mocking Chinese President Xi Jinping. The video was promptly censored in China.
A pro-level player of the popular video game Hearthstone was suspended and stripped of a winning tournament title after he declared his support for Hong Kong protesters in an interview. Blizzard, the maker of Hearthstone, told press that “engaging in any act that, in Blizzard’s sole discretion, brings you into public disrepute, offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damages Blizzard image will result in removal from Grandmasters and reduction of the player’s prize total to $0 USD.” Blizzard is partially owned by Tencent, one of China’s largest and most powerful technology companies.
A mobile app expressly created to help Hong Kong protesters crowdsource information about street activity, including police presence, was removed from Apple's app store on October 9. The app was originally introduced in September and taken down at the time, but was re-instated after public disapproval. This time around, Apple’s Tim Cook defended the app's removal, saying it was intended to protect police from being targeted by protesters. Human Rights Watch China researcher Maya Wang called it “another shameful incident in which a multinational company bends to Chinese government pressure.” The app is still available in the Google Play store.
The Google Play store removed a role-playing mobile game with a plot line based on the Hong Kong protests, citing a violation of its policy against apps that lack reasonable sensitivity towards “sensitive events.” The mobile game, entitled “The Revolution of Our Times,” was launched on October 5 and taken down three days later. The game provides details on the political context leading up to the protests with a map on key protest sites in Hong Kong.
Afef Abrougui, Ellery Roberts Biddle, Marianne Diaz, Rezwan Islam, Oiwan Lam, Taisa Sganzerla and Nevin Thompson contributed to this report.


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Nigerian journalist Omoyele Sowore remains in jail on trumped-up charges of treason and insulting the president · Global Voices
Nwachukwu Egbunike

Omoyele Sowore. Screenshot from Democracy Now.
More than two months after his detention, Nigerian human rights activist and journalist Omoyele Sowore remains in prison despite a court order for his release.
Sowore was arrested by the Department of State Services (DSS) on August 3, 2019, in Lagos, Nigeria, because he called for national protests as part of the #RevolutionNow movement he started. Sowore was a presidential contender in the February 2019 elections, won by incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari.
The DSS branded the #RevolutionNow protest as an attempt at a forceful takeover of the government. On August 8, an Abuja court, headed by Justice Taiwo Taiwo, granted the DSS petition to keep Sowore in custody for 45 days while they conduct their investigation.
On August 23, 48 press freedom advocates, including Global Voices sub-Saharan Africa team, petitioned the United Nations (UN) and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, to urgently intervene by securing Sowere's immediate release. They also described Sowore's arrest as a gross violation of his human rights and a threat to press freedom in Nigeria.
All these pleas fell on deaf ears as the government kept Sowore behind bars.
At the expiration of the 45-day detention period granted to DSS by the court, the Nigerian government, on September 20, filed trumped-up charges of treason, cyberstalking and money laundering against Sowore.
According to the online newspaper CableNG, he was charged with treason for “staging a revolution campaign on September 5, 2019, aimed at removing the president and commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria”. He faces money laundering charges for transferring “the sum of $19,975 from his UBA account credited by City Bank, New York, into Sahara Reporters Media Foundation”. Sowore is the publisher of Sahara Reporters, an investigative online newspaper he founded in 2006. He also stands accused of cyberstalking for “causing insult, enmity, hatred and ill-will on the person of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
The charges are punishable under the Money Laundering Prohibition Act, 2011, the Cybercrime Act of 2012, and the Nigerian Criminal Code Act, [Cap. C38 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004].
The government has so far defied court orders calling for the release of Sowore.
On September 24, the same Abuja court, presided by Justice Taiwo Taiwo, ordered the immediate release of Sowore from DSS custody. Sowere's lawyer, Femi Falana, argued for Sowore's immediate release as the order granting the DSS the power to detain his client for 45 days expired on September 21. But state prosecutor G.O. Agbadua stated that it was lawful to keep Sowore in detention since charges were filed against him on September 20.
However, Falana flawed Agbadua's submission, stating that “a citizen could not be detained in anticipation of the arraignment.” Consequently, Justice Taiwo ordered the detainee's release.
This order was not heeded by the DSS because they had not received a copy of the court order. Consequently, Sowore's lawyers filed a notice of contempt of court against the DSS.
BREAKING: Release @YeleSowore Or Go To Jail, Federal High Court Tell DSS DG | Sahara Reporters
…Court directed the boss of the secret police to comply with its directive or face grave consequences, which includes “commitment to prison”.
READ MORE: https://t.co/dFC5LJSGZr pic.twitter.com/5SRb2hNwz9
— Sahara Reporters (@SaharaReporters) September 26, 2019
On September 30, Sowore was again arraigned on an alleged conspiracy to commit treason, cyberstalking and money laundering. He pleaded not guilty to the charges.
UPDATED: DSS In Show Of Shame, Drags #Sowore Out Of Courtroom | Sahara Reporters
The rash and harsh action of the secret police was to prevent the rights activist from speaking with journalists present in the courtroom.
READ MORE: https://t.co/2spZXTzAsb pic.twitter.com/exgcDXOcAc
— Sahara Reporters (@SaharaReporters) September 30, 2019
On October 4, Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu of an Abuja high court granted bail to Sowore with the sum of 100 million naira (about $280,000 United States dollars). They asked him to hand over his international passport to the authorities and prohibited him from addressing the press. Other conditions for the bail include a ban on traveling outside Abuja.
Sowore's lawyer, Femi Falana described the conditions attached to the bail as “stringent”.
Govt cannot form a habit of disobeying court orders & expect national security to improve. Things are fallings apart in #Nigeria because govt refuses to #ObeyCourtOrders. pic.twitter.com/BLUz7iJsUN
— Chidi Odinkalu (@ChidiOdinkalu) September 30, 2019
Timeline of Sowore's trial
The Nigerian government has remained adamant of calls from international organisations to release Sowore.
American economist Edmund Phelps, together with 72 academics and activists, called on the government to drop the charges against the “world-renowned journalist” and to “release him as soon as possible.”
Similarly, 50 human rights advocacy organisations, including Global Voices sub-Saharan Africa (GVSSA), renewed their call on the United Nations and African Union to prevail on the Nigerian government to release Sowore.
In an opinion piece published on Premium Times on September 23, Nigerian journalist ‘Fisayo Soyombo aptly summed up the sentiments of many over Sowore's travails:
I would talk about Sowore whether or not I’ll end up in jail? Filing charges against Sowore for ‘insulting’ the president is laughable, a complete abuse of federal powers and a lowering of the business of presidency to the gutters. Sowore abuses the ruling class from time to time, yes, but many who would not adopt his choice of words often agree quite alright that his summations are not unfounded. He often labels the ruling class as ‘thieves’, is that a lie? He likes to describe this government as ‘incompetent’, isn’t that true? And is it new? Is that not the term we popularly associated with Jonathan while in power? Thankfully, despot Buhari won’t be in power forever. Three more years and his reign will be over.

author: Nwachukwu Egbunike


text:
Algerian government cracks down as demonstrators protest presidential elections · Global Voices
Amina

Peaceful march in Algeria for a root-and-branch change of the political system. Photograph by Zaki NJ, used with permission.
Protesters in Algeria believe that presidential elections proposed for December will not guarantee transparency. They fear that allies of former president Abdelaziz Bouteflika may influence the electoral process.
Weekly protests, known as hirak or “movement” in Arabic, began in February this year in opposition to the re-election of Bouteflika, and have continued even after his April resignation.
On 15 September, Algeria's interim president, Abdelkader Bensalah, announced presidential elections to for mid-December, after they had been twice delayed because of the protests.
In his announcement, Bensalah said that the elections would be a chance for Algerians “to write Algeria's history and to contribute collectively to the right choice of president, who will watch over our country's destinies and make good our people's hopes.”
Judges, lawyers, trade unionists and civil activists plan to join government representatives and diplomats to form a 50-member electoral council that will organize, run and oversee the elections.
However the chosen date of 12 December has split Algerians.
Those in favour of the election say it is the only democratic way to solve the crisis, prevent the formation of political vacuum and halt a slide into political uncertainty. They are using a hashtag meaning, “Algeria will go to the polls,” to back the decision to hold elections:
#الجزاير_تنتخب
سنمر قدما بإذن الله نحو الاقتراع، و الانتخابات هو الحل من أجل رئيس نزيه و لم يرتبط بالعصابة، لعلمنا ان هذا الطريق هو الأسلم و الانجع للخروج من هذه الحالة، و لعلمنا أيضا اننا جاهزون و نظرتنا إلى أبعد من ذلك نحو بناء جزائر متماسكة و مزدهرة و ما ذلك على الله بعزيز ?
— ريمو أزو (@AzzoRimo) September 16, 2019
We are going to the polls because elections are the perfect solution to choose an honest president, because it is the safest way to get out of this situation and we are ready to build a new, collective, prosperous Algeria.
But opponents see the elections as a new ruse to muzzle and weaken hirak protests. They took to the streets for the 31st week in a row to protest the elections that, in their eyes, have little credibility.
Independent journalist Khaled Drareni tweeted:
مئات الآلاف من الجزائريين يتظاهرون للأسبوع 31 ضد النظام
Des centaines de milliers d’Algériens manifestent contre le pouvoir pour la 31ème semaine consécutive
#الجزائر#الجمعة31#Alger#Algerie#Vendredi31 pic.twitter.com/NYgebERCJ8
— Khaled Drareni (@khaleddrareni) September 20, 2019
Hundreds of thousands of Algerians are protesting against the government for a 31st consecutive week
Opponents also believe that the elections will be fixed. They say that if political leaders really wanted fair elections, they would have appointed an independent electoral council. But instead, the government installed Bouteflika’s former adviser, Mohamed Charfi, as president of the independent electoral council and guarantor of transparency.
Le #hirak est invisible sur la majorité des chaînes TV, vous pensez sérieusement que les élections seraient transparentes. ?
Les citoyens sont libres de leurs choix mais arrêtons la propagande du système qui y joue sa survie. Le système a déjà décidé de notre futur président. ?
— Collectif Debout l’Algérie ?? (@CDA56950635) September 16, 2019
The #hirak goes unreported on most TV channels. Do you seriously think that elections can be transparent.
Citizens are free to make their choices but let’s stop the propaganda from the system that is staking its survival on it. The system has already decided on our future president.
Several protesters and activists have been arrested without charge, including journalist Fodil Boumala, activist Samir Benlarbi, arrested on the 16 September, while riding in a car with his friend and Karim Tabbou, leader of the Democratic and Social Alliance, arrested at his home. Authorities also arrested 87-year-old Lakhdar Bouregaa, one of the few surviving figureheads of the Algerian revolution, after he said the government “has named the new president, and is now figuring out how to legitimate him.” Furthermore, dozens of students were arrested at the 30th protest on 17 September. CNLD, a national organization for the liberation of prisoners of conscience, published a list of 75 such detainees, of which five have been released.
Not even ill activists were spared.  Ziane Bilal, who has cancer, requested release from prison for a chemotherapy appointment. “I know that I am going to die and I do not want to die in prison. I want to spend the days I have left outside prison walls,” he said through tears.
On 20 and 27 September, both Fridays, police blocked the main entry points to Algiers, after authorities banned protesters coming into the city in an attempt to quell the movement. LADDH, the Algerian human rights defense league, condemned this move as a serious affront to free movement:
Comme vendredi passé, les accès vers Alger sont bloqués.
Les trains en direction de la capitale annulés.
Des fourgons de la police sont stationnés au niveau de Tafourah et fouillent des individus à la recherche de manifestants.
Bonjour, c'est vendredi 32 Hirak 2019!
— Journal d'El Mouradia – جرنان المرادية (@JournalMouradia) September 27, 2019
The main arteries into Algeria are blocked, just like last Friday.
Trains into the capital are cancelled.
Police vans are parked at Tafourah [interchange station] and officers are searching people looking for protesters.
Hello, its Friday 32 of Hirak 2019!
The authorities have also forbidden meetings of political parties and associations and closed the offices of mainstream TV channel Al-Araby, after it broadcast images of protest slogans against the country's strongman, Ahmed Gaïd Salah, chief of staff of the Algerian army. TSA, the popular Francophone news site that has covered the protests from the start, has also been shut down since 12 June.
Khaled Drareni, the founder of online newspaper Casbah Tribune and correspondent of television channel TV5 Monde, speaks to the pressure bearing down on journalists in Algeria:
Jusqu’à quand allons-nous nous taire ?
Des journalistes et correspondants sont constamment menacés par une responsable au ministère de la Communication parce qu’ils couvrent les manifestations de manière objective et ne censurent pas les slogans hostiles aux tenants du pouvoir
— Khaled Drareni (@khaleddrareni) September 23, 2019
How long can we keep silent?
Journalists and correspondents are constantly threatened by representatives of the communications ministry because they cover protests objectively and do not censor hostile slogans directed at those in power.
In a statement issued on 9 September, Human Rights Watch criticized the restrictions on civil liberties and listed more than forty protesters who have been arrested since June. Ahmed Benchemsi, a manager at HRW, was arrested and expelled.
Similarly, Algerian YouTuber Anes Tina posted a message on Facebook opposing the attacks on civil liberties:
تصلني يوميا رسائل لكثير من العائلات بصور ابنائهم المعتقلين بسبب ارائهم السياسية ما أؤمن به هو ان حرية التعبير حق لكل واحد حتى لو اختلفت معه و لكن الكلام و التعبير عن الأراء حق لا يمكن ان يعتقل بسببه اي احد مهما كان ….. ما نعرفه ان الإعتقال يكون للمجرمين لذلك قررت نطلق حملة و هاشتاغ #الحرية_لمعتقلي_الرأي تضامنا مع كل المعتقلين بسبب ارائهم
اتمنى ان ينضم الجميع الى هذه الحملة دفاعا عن حقنا جميعا في حرية التعبير
#الحرية_لمعتقلي_الرأي #حرية_التعبير_حقي #2019
Everyday, I receive many messages from families of those in custody with photos of their children, who have been arrested for their political opinions. What I believe is that freedom of expression is everyone's right. You might not agree with someone but you should not lock them up; that person is not a criminal. No one should be arrested for speaking out or expressing their opinions. I am launching the hashtags #freedomfortheprisonersofconscience, and #freedom ofexpressionismyright, in solidarity with all prisoners of conscience. I hope that everyone will join this campaign to defend our right to freedom of expression.
By blocking the capital and undertaking searches and arbitrary arrests, the government has tried to stop peaceful marches but has failed. The protesters have shown that, once again, nothing will stop them until they reach their stated goal of ending the political system that has wielded power since independence in 1962.

author: Amina


text:
Arts festival caught in the crosshairs of Azerbaijan’s ‘national mentality’ · Global Voices
Arzu Geybullayeva

A mural in Baku which fell foul of the country's “national values and mentality,” 2019. Photo by Turxan Qarishga / Hamam Times. Used with permission.
It was just a contemporary art festival.
From September 17 to 27, fans of art, film, and poetry were invited to take part in “Maiden Tower. To Be a Woman,” a festival organized by the European Union's Delegation to Azerbaijan and several diplomatic missions. The festival, named after a famous landmark in Baku, was to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the liberation of Azerbaijani women. The initiative was launched and curated by the artist Sabina Shikhlinskaya, who founded a contemporary art forum of the same name in 2009.
One of the festival's events was an exhibition of murals and graffiti held at Kombinat, a derelict workshop in the Azerbaijani capital once used by the artists’ union during the Soviet period. The organizers hoped that the works would remain there after the festival.
But something quite different happened. One mural by Swedish artist Carolina Falkholt, depicting the body of a transgender person, drew so much attention that it was painted over once the festival ended — in a not so artistically friendly way.
In fact, it has provoked a backlash, a discussion about the public visibility of sexuality, and even a government response in defense of the country's “traditional mentality.”
A post shared by @carolinafalkholt on
Contemporary art in Baku: Before/After pic.twitter.com/py9yhclzl0
— Cavid Ağa (@cavidaga) September 26, 2019
In an interview with 1news.az, a local government-affiliated news agency, Shikhlinskaya said she fought hard to preserve the mural, but was unsuccessful. “The wall where the artist painted her mural was facing a residential complex, residents of which complained to the police. After a series of complaints from people appalled by the drawing, it was decided to partially paint over Falkholt's work,” explained Shikhlinskaya, adding that, as this was a public artwork, one could not ignore the opinion of residents.
Falkholt's other works are as explicit as the one featured in Baku. The Swedish artist challenges conventional gender stereotypes and portrayals of the female body. In traditionally-minded Azerbaijan, where women's rights are still in their infancy, this did not go down well:
Mənə maraqlıdır, nə əcəb indiyəcən Azad Qadın heykəli sökülməyib? pic.twitter.com/0qoSk7tRao
— Cavid Ağa (@cavidaga) September 27, 2019
I am curious, why no one has dismantled the statue of a liberated woman?
Ребят так быстро к этому нельзя приехать, начали бы с маленьких граффити.
— Эльчин Алиев (@aznicle) September 26, 2019
Guys, you can't get there so quickly. They should have started from small graffiti.
allahıvız olsun, tarqovide neynirsiz eliyin, üçün kruqunda divara daşşaq çekmey olar? https://t.co/4gTJ0aQMpl
— Elnur Героинoğlu (@XXXElnur) September 27, 2019
Have mercy, do whatever you want on Torgovaya [main pedestrian street in Baku] but how can you draw balls on the roundabout of 3rd microdistrict [the name of the neighborhood where exhibition was held]
First, the figure's chest was painted over, and other “offending” parts were gradually covered up. Photos of the area on social media indicate that the mural had been completely covered up by 28 September, most likely by the local authorities.
After the protests, the drawing of the “Trans” was completely removed. Do you think it was because of these protests that the drawing was fully removed? // Photo: Cavid Qurbanov.
On September 29, the Baku Mayoral Office issued a statement lamenting the crude attempt to paint over the mural, but conceding that it had offended residents and Azerbaijan's “national mentality.”
Azərbaycan multikultral ölkə olsa belə, öz milli dəyərləri, mental xüsusiyyətləri var. Gələn qonaqlar Azərbaycanın müsəlman ölkəsi olduğunu nəzərə almalı, biz başqa dinlərə, dəyərlərə necə tolerantıqsa, onlar da bizim dəyərlərə hörmətlə yanaşmalıdırlar. Ölkəmizə gələn xarici qonaqlar çox böyük hörmət və ehtiramla qarşılanır. Amma paytaxtda binalar mühafizə olunur, onların fasadları yenilənir. Odur ki, Bakıda binaların üzərinə müxtəlif şəkillərin çəkilməsinə icazə verilmir. Əgər festival çərçivəsində rəssamlara hansısa binanın üzərinə qrafiti çəkməyə icazə verilibsə, bu, o demək deyil ki, onlar bizim əxlaqımıza zidd olan dəyərləri Azərbaycanda rəsm vasitəsilə təbliğ etməlidirlər. Onda belə çıxır ki, Azərbaycana gələn qonaqlara öz təriqətlərini də təbliğ etməyə imkan verilməlidir. Bu düzgün yanaşma deyil. O ki qaldı bunun sənətə və sənətkarlığa qarşı hörmətsizlik kimi dəyərləndirilməsinə, bu fikir ilə qəti şəkildə razı deyilik. Bu gün Bakıda elə binalar var ki, orada qrafitilər çəkilib. Amma bizim rəssamlar bunu elə peşəkarlıqla ediblər ki, özümüz də, gələn qonaq da baxanda zövq qalır.
Even though Azerbaijan is a multicultural country, it has its own national values and mentality. Visitors must not forget that Azerbaijan is a Muslim country. Just as we remain tolerant to other religions and values, we expect visitors do the same. Our guests are welcomed with much respect. But the buildings in the capital are protected, their facades are renovated. It is not allowed to draw on buildings in Baku. Just because it was allowed to draw on a building within the scope of the festival, it does not mean they are allowed to project their values that are against our morality through their work. It is as if visitors coming to Azerbaijan should be allowed to preach their own religion. This is not the right approach. We strongly disagree with the [idea that the] decision to paint over the work was a sign of disrespect to the art and the artist. There are buildings in Baku that have all kinds of graffiti but our artists have done it so professionally that we and our guests take great pleasure in them.
This reference to Azerbaijan's “national values and norms” provides an important insight into how Azerbaijani society perceives gender equality, LGBTQ+ rights, or indeed any issue often overshadowed by these same norms. But hiding behind the veil of morality and “national values” closes minds to the diversity of artistic expression, something which can only strengthen the country's cultural riches.

author: Arzu Geybullayeva


text:
India’s apex court halts tree felling in Mumbai amid protests · Global Voices
Vishal Yashoda Manve

A metro rail depot of Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC) proposed at Aarey milk colony in Mumbai will wipe out 2,646 trees, which environmentalists say will destroy Mumbai’s “green lungs”. Image via Flickr by Ajay Singh Jaswal. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Barricades, chainsaws, and the implementation of a law meant to prevent groups of dissenters from assembling. This was the scene in Mumbai as protesters took to the street in response to a 4 October 2019 Mumbai Court decision which would allow the felling of trees in Aarey Colony – an area known for its urban forest.
Despite a 7 October Supreme Court verdict which restrained the state government from cutting trees, the decision was too little too late as the short period between the local court decision and the supreme court ruling was enough to allow the felling of a substantial amount of trees.
The Supreme Court verdict was the result of a long-simmering battle between environmentalists and citizens against the Maharashtra government and metro authorities over plans to construct an infrastructural metro project that involved axing thousands of trees inside an urban forest.
Initial protests erupted after an earlier local court verdict paved the way for felling a large number of trees. Much to the dismay of protesters and local NGO Vanashakti, the local authorities rushed ahead with axing the trees on 4 October before the Supreme Court ruling was passed down. Protesters faced arrests and many were slapped with serious charges by the police.
My sister and best friend were arrested last night during the #Aarey Protests. They were manhandled and have been charged with a non bailable offence. Citizens with a voice being treated like criminals. Videos floating in of random arrests being made to spread fear.
— Shreya Nair (@shoeyoutoo) October 5, 2019
An activist who organized Fridays For Future and Extinction Rebellion protests in Mumbai spoke with Global Voices on condition of anonymity:
“We had procured permissions to stage our Extinction Rebellion protests in Bandra, far away from Aarey colony. Despite this, we were threatened and asked to disband and police officials acted in an extremely haphazard manner. Even the turnout for Climate Strikes was watered down as amid Aarey protests, officials have an extremely negative view of climate-change-related protests.”
A group of law students wrote to Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi seeking intervention in preventing the felling of trees. But, the Mumbai Metro Line 3 project tweeted a statement reporting 2,141 trees had already been cut since Friday. The authorities further added these would be cleared and subsequent construction activities would be carried out.
We respect the order of the Hon'ble Supreme Court dated October 7, 2019. Following is our official statement. pic.twitter.com/o8CjSmHAB2
— MumbaiMetro3 (@MumbaiMetro3) October 7, 2019
The Mumbai police, which enforced section 144 of the Indian penal code intended to ban unlawful assembly, from 5 to 8 October morning arrested 29 people, forcing them to pay 7000 rupees ($98.50) in order to secure bail. The top court asked the police to release everyone arrested for protesting on furnishing a personal bond.
Mumbai (formerly Bombay) is a cluster of seven smaller islands reclaimed by the British to create a metropolitan Island city. The area has a sensitive ecosystem that is prone to annual flooding during torrential downpours. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports in September, Mumbai along with five other coastal cities in India are threatened as global sea levels are set to rise by at least 1 meter by 2100.
In addition, the presence of oil refineries in the city's periphery in the Mahul area is affecting air quality and the health of citizens living nearby. The Bombay High Court asked the state government in September to not relocate over 5,500 families in Mahul adjoining the refineries subject to health implications.
Journalist Aarefa Johari outlines how India does not have a clear definition of forests resulting in the loss of vast tracts of land usually diverted to infrastructural projects.
Monday’s Supreme Court stay on tree-cutting in Aarey may have brought a belated (and perhaps only temporary) victory to those fighting to preserve the Mumbai forest. But it is clear that when it comes to protecting the environment, India is losing the larger battle.
On social media, columnist Shobhaa De said:
Murder of 400 trees at Aarey.
Criminals must be tried and punished.#MaharashtraElections2019 vote out heartless netas.
— Shobhaa De (@DeShobhaa) October 8, 2019
Actress Dia Mirza tweeted:
The collective voice of the people to #savetrees is what strengthens me. The #SaveAarey movement is not over. Thank you @sardesairajdeep for hearing us. @saveaarey @SaveMumbaifore1 https://t.co/QUOHCkRBcr
— Dia Mirza (@deespeak) October 8, 2019
Climate protestors from Friday's For Future and Climate Extinction, who convened a successful worldwide protest in September reported that civic authorities and police officials were hauling away protestors, not giving space for campaigns despite seeking for permissions weeks in advance.
In a statement to Global voices, the resistance group said:
We hosted a ‘Citizens Declare Climate Emergency’, a pre-planned event with permissions to throw light on this climate crisis. But the event was drastically changed due to police presence, which confused and angered attendees.
Ashutosh Senger, Advocate, Supreme Court of India told Global Voices:
The dispute with the cutting of trees in Aarey Colony clearly shows that the community perception and expectations are gaining a significant position in the development discourse of India. It is of paramount importance that government authorities must learn from these protests and sequence of events that today’s community expects a much higher degree of care on behalf of the infrastructure projects that operate in their midst.
Expert on Indian constitutional law Gautam Bhatia wrote in a blog:
Nobody likes to see the environment damaged, and the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation’s undue haste in chopping down trees is indefensible. But I doubt very much whether weakening procedural constraints even further, and handing over even greater powers to the Supreme Court (and, in this case, in the Office of the Chief Justice) will end up doing very much for the cause of the environment in the future.
As Greta Thunberg and global climate activism gather steam on the world stage, Indians are waking up to different challenges as much of the conversations on social media around environmental projects are mired in propaganda and disinformation. Eventually, forests and climate change commitments are facing the axe while the goal of a $5 trillion economy flounders and healthcare costs spiral upwards.
Vishal is a Climate Tracker South Asia hub fellow.

author: Vishal Yashoda Manve