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Russian anti-corruption activists are jailed for ‘inciting riots’ based on their tweets and retweets · Global Voices
RuNet Echo

Riot police closing in on protesters on May 5, 2018, in Moscow // DonSimon, CC0
Anti-corruption activists who protested against Vladimir Putin’s fourth inauguration as president have seen their tweets, and in some cases their retweets of others’ publications, used by authorities as evidence of inciting mass disturbances.
On May 5, the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), Russia’s leading opposition organization, held a series of rallies across Russia under the common slogan “He’s not a tzar to us.” The demonstrations were met with violent resistance from both the police and loyalist groups.
In Moscow, the rally on Pushkinskaya square was attacked by men in Cossack uniforms (whom the government often uses as paramilitary squads to harass the opposition while avoiding blame for direct police involvement,) as well as by regular and riot police. Dozens of people were injured, including at least 25 reporters, and more than 1,600 were detained.
Several dozen participants were put to trial for “taking part in an unsanctioned protest” or “resisting police.” Alexey Navalny, FBK’s leader who was arrested at the Moscow rally, was sentenced to 30 days in jail for “repeated violations of public order.”
More arrests came after May 5. Over the next weeks, 28 FBK organizers and activists in total were taken into custody, charged with inciting riots based on their tweets or retweets, according to the organization's lawyer Ivan Zhdanov — who himself was arrested on May 24. While some were only fined and released, others were sentenced to the longest possible term for a misdemeanor under Russian law, 30 days.
Leonid Volkov, Navalny’s longtime campaign manager, said:
Ивана Жданова только что задержали на выходе из офиса.
Та же самая статья 20.2 (только у него впервые, будет 10 суток, а не 30), еще одного «организатора митинга путем ретвита» нашли.
Кажется, в этот раз решили закрыть просто всех.
— Leonid Volkov (@leonidvolkov) 24 мая 2018 г.
Ivan Zhdanov has just been detained outside our office. He’s facing the same article 20.2 [“Violating the established procedure for arranging or conducting a meeting, rally, demonstration, procession or picket” in the Russian administrative violations code] (but it’s his first time, so he’ll only get 10 days, not 30), so there goes another “organizing a rally by retweet.” Looks like this time they’re just locking up everyone.
Elena Malakhovskaya, a news presenter on Navalny LIVE, FBK's YouTube channel, was arrested near her home for covering the May 5 protests on the channel — or “organizing an unsanctioned rally,” according to the police.
Ведущая «Новостей» Елена Малаховская @elmalakhovskaya задержана около своего дома. pic.twitter.com/6qamZbW2uV
— Новости на «Навальный LIVE» (@novostiNL) 17 мая 2018 г.
News presenter @elmalakhovskaya has been detained near her home.
In most other cases, the incriminating evidence against FBK activists were their tweets or retweets. For example, Kira Yarmysh, Navalny’s press officer, was sentenced to 25 days based on the following message:
Мы эту власть не выбирали. Выйти на улицу 5 мая – это сказать самому себе и всем вокруг “я не согласен с тем, что происходит”.
Если выборов больше нет, заявить о своем мнении можно только так: https://t.co/2k3nFrTs1S
— Кира Ярмыш (@Kira_Yarmysh) 12 апреля 2018 г.
We did not vote for those in power. To go out and protest on the 5th of May means to say to yourself and those around you: I don’t agree with what’s happening. Since we have been deprived of our right to choose, the only way to make our voices heard is this: https://t.co/2k3nFrTs1S
Yarmysh’s tweet links to a YouTube video on Navalny’s channel promoting the May 5 rally. The video has accumulated over 3 million views at the time of writing.
Another Navalny LIVE host, Ruslan Shavetdinov, was also jailed for 30 days based on his retweet of a similar message — although he was merely one of many thousands to do so.
Human rights groups are saying this is part of a larger trend where more and more Russians are jailed for their online activity. Agora, a pro-bono law firm that offers legal assistance to defendants in such cases, says the number of prosecutions for posts and even reposts on social media in Russia is growing exponentially. According to their latest report, in 2017 a Russian internet user was sent to jail every eight days.

author: RuNet Echo


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Sabika Sheikh, the Pakistani student slain in US school shooting, had wanted to bridge the two countries · Global Voices
Anushe Noor

The body of Sabika Sheikh arrives in Pakistan. Screenshot from YouTube video by Newsleak
A funeral was held for Sabika Sheikh in her hometown of Karachi on May 23, 2018, five days after the 17-year-old Pakistani exchange student in the US was killed by a teenage gunman who opened fire at a school in the state of Texas.
In total, 10 people were killed including Sheikh and 13 wounded in the violence. Sheikh was an exchange student at Santa Fe High School under the US State Department-sponsored KL-YES program and was set to return home on June 10, 2018 after completing the program.
The news of her death took over social media in Pakistan, and messages of condolences poured in. Before her body was sent to Pakistan, a funeral was also held in Texas on May 20, 2018. Michael Mathes, a US politics correspondent for news agency AFP, tweeted:
Just devastating. Funeral service attendees in Stafford, TX pray over the coffin of Sabika Sheikh, the young Pakistani exchange student killed in the mass shooting at her high school in nearby Santa Fe. pic.twitter.com/GWYVk6FANm
— Michael Mathes (@MichaelMathes) May 20, 2018
At her funeral in Texas, Sheikh's host parents spoke about how she had impacted their lives:
The host father is speaking about how Sabika Sheikh came into their lives. Calls her the most precious gift that came into her life. He says the root of everything is love. He wants to carry the tradition of love she brought from Pakistan. #KAKEnews #SantaFe #SanteFeStrong pic.twitter.com/wThTbPVU6h
— KAKE Monica Castro (@KAKEmonica) May 20, 2018
Her host mother Joleen Cogburn tearfully described what had motivated Sheikh to study in the US:
I asked how she got involved with wanting to become a foreign exchange student and why. And she said because I want to learn the American culture and I want America to learn the Pakistan culture and I want us to come together and unite. She said I don't know if they know us the way they should.
Of her own feelings about being selected to study in the US, Sheikh had said in a video message:
People around me got sad a little bit that I'll be leaving them, but this was the bestest thing that happened. I was so very excited, I still am very excited.
US media often covers Pakistan, if it does so at all, through the lens of conflict. A Pakistani-born, US-based Twitter user named Zareen Nayyar was one of many pointing out that Pakistan is often portrayed as the unsafe country:
Just a thought … this girl born and raised in #Pakistan didn't die in her home country, which according to the west is doing nothing to fight #terrorism. Yet she comes to #America and dies in a #SchoolShooting. #irony#texasschoolshooting#SabikaSheikhhttps://t.co/FGlrC9wju9
— Zareen Nayyar (@zareennayyar) May 23, 2018
Mass shootings, including in schools, are a serious problem in the US. According to data from Gun Violence Archive (via Vox), since 2012 at least 1,941 people have been killed and 7,104 wounded in at least 1,686 mass shootings, defined as an event in which four or more people (not counting the shooter) are shot at the same general time and location. The US also has a high gun homicide rate.
Part of the problem, analysts say, is the ease of access to firearms in the US: the country has the world's highest rate of gun ownership.
Speaking to the media, Sheikh's father and uncle pleaded with the US government to make schools safer for their students. With her death, the US mass shooting crisis has become an international concern.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Anushe Noor


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Bangladesh’s ‘zero tolerance’ crackdown on drugs is leaving dozens dead · Global Voices
পান্থ রহমান রেজা (Pantha)

Ya ba – opiate pills that are being smuggled into Bangladesh from neighboring Myanmar. Image by journalist พีรพล อนุตรโสตถิ์ via Wikimedia Commons. CC: BY 4.0
Bangladesh has a drug problem in the form of ya ba, or pink tablets containing a mixture of methamphetamine and caffeine that are usually being smuggled from neighboring Myanmar. But is a deadly drug war the answer to curb an increase in availability and use, especially among youth?
Human rights concerns are high after more than 50 alleged dealers have been killed in Bangladesh over the last several days as a result of a “zero tolerance” campaign undertaken by police with the support of the prime minister. A number of raids have happened across the country.
Some citizens have welcomed the crackdown. Md. Julkar Nain tweeted, praising Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's stance:
মাদকব্যবসায়ী ও এরসাথে জড়িত ব্যক্তিদের বিরুদ্ধে যুদ্ধ ঘোষনা করায় দেশরত্ন প্রধানমন্ত্রী শেখ হাসিনাকে অশেষ ধন্যবাদ জানাই এই মহত্ কাজ পরিচালনা করার জন্য । মাদক দেশের শত্রু ,উন্নয়ের বাধা ।”শূণ্য টলারেন্স” লক্ষ্য অর্জন করা চাই ।
— Md.Julkar Nine (@md_julkar) May 22, 2018
I thank Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for declaring an all-out war against the drug business and those who are associated with it. The drug business is the enemy of the state and an impediment to development. Zero tolerance is required, need to achieve the goal.
However, some people are comparing this drive to the Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte's drug war, which have seen more than 20,000 deaths, most of them extrajudicial, in the past two years. Saikat Rushdie tweeted:
Is #Bangladesh following the footsteps of #Duterte by launching #extrajudicial killings in anti-drug #shootout of suspects without trial? https://t.co/RNfCKHt6kx
— Shaikat Rushdee (@ShaikatRushdee) May 21, 2018
According to Bangladeshi officials, a record 40 million ya ba tablets were seized in 2017 while an estimated 250-300 million pills entered the market, compared to the 81,000 ya ba pills confiscated in 2010. The number of drug users in Bangladesh has grown to more than 7 million and most of them are young. Ya ba isn't cheap, and more and more users are becoming involved in violent crimes to fund their addiction.
Many have criticized the killings of people suspected of dealing drugs. Advocate Ziaur Rahman wrote on Facebook:
Bangladesh kills 13 drug dealers in major crackdown May 20 – Let us not WALK the path of EXTRAJUDICIAL killings. Superbad for #Democracy. Improve the law and order system and plug the miscreants into the system. Let the system take care of them. #StopEXTRAJUDICIALKilling.
In Bangladesh, “extrajudicial killing” or “crossfire” refers to the death of people by a bullet wound, oftentimes in the custody of a law enforcement agency; the usual narrative is that the victim was killed in crossfire between some criminals and the police.
According to statistics published by Human Rights Organization Odhikar, 1,758 people died in extrajudicial killings in the past decade. However, the police deny any such deliberate killings.
The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) has accolades for curbing crimes, but they stand accused of extrajudicial killings. Image by Nahid Sultan via Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 4.0
In the context of the recent drug war, terrorism expert and exiled journalist Tasneem Khalil termed extrajudicial killings as state-sponsored terrorism:
দোষী প্রমাণিত না হওয়া পর্যন্ত নির্দোষ। আইনের ম্যক্সিম। বাংলাদেশে র‌্যাব-পুলিশ ৮ দিনে ৩৭ জন নির্দোষ মানুষকে গুলি করে মেরে ফেলেছে। এর নাম রাষ্ট্রীয় সন্ত্রাস।
— Tasneem Khalil (@tasneem) May 22, 2018
Innocent until guilty: that is the maxim of the law. In Bangladesh, police and the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) have killed 37 innocent people in just eight days. This is a state-sponsored terrorism.
Journalist Hasan Mamun wrote:
আমরা তো চাইছিলাম, ভয়াবহ মাদক ব্যবসায় জড়িত উচ্চ পর্যায়ের লোকজন এবার ধরা পড়ুক — যেহেতু বলা হয়েছিল ‘জিরো টলারেন্স'। চুনোপুঁটিদের বিরুদ্ধে এসব ঘোষণা করা আর বাস্তবায়নের কোনো মানে আছে কি? এটা মানুষকে আশান্বিত করবে না; রাঘববোয়ালরাও ভীত হবে না এতে।
We wanted that the kingpins of the drug cartel close to the government high officials would be arrested in this anti-drug drive, as they are talking about “zero tolerance”. Only by targeting the small fries will the drive be effective? This will not assure people and the kingpins will not be worried.
One of the leading newspapers of Bangladesh published a list of what it said were the top drug dealers of the country, reportedly compiled by the Department of Narcotics Control. A number of politicians from the ruling party appear, including a member of parliament.
The home minister has warned journalists not to accuse him of any crime without evidence, but the inclusion of ruling party figures on the list has Bangladeshis further questioning the use of lethal force against suspected “low-level” dealers.
One young politician, Zunaed Saki, demanded that the ruling party should distance themselves from the listed individuals:
মাদক গুরুতর সমস্যা। সমাধানের প্রধান জায়গা হচ্ছে ক্ষমতার সাথে এর যোগসাজশ ছিন্ন করা। কিন্ত রাষ্ট্র যখন মানুষ মেরে ফেলাকে (ক্রসফায়ার) সমাধান হিসেবে হাজির করে, এর চাইতে ভয়াবহ প্রতারণা আর কি হতে পারে?
The drug is a serious problem. The best way to deal the problem is to cut of sponsorship by the powerful people. But when the state comes up with killing people (in crossfire) as a solution, how deceptive can it be?
Poet Ahmed Swapan Mahmud called for bringing the top drug lords to justice:
যারা ক্রসফায়ারড হইলেন তারা কে কত নম্বরে ছিলেন তালিকায়? জানি না।
যারা তালিকায় ১ থেকে ১১ নম্বরে আছেন তারা তো দেখছি ধরাছোঁয়ার বাইরে। কারণ কি?
আইন তো ক্ষমতার হাতে বন্দী, নাকি! গডফাদারদের বন্দী করেন।
Those who were killed in crossfire, who was in which rank according to the published list? I don't know. I see that the top ten are beyond our reach. Why? The law is also applicable to those who are in power, isn't it? Arrest the godfathers!
Much of the reporting on cases of “crossfire” or extrajudicial killings echoes the government statement only. Shafiqul Alam urged the journalists to be more faithful to their job and ask the right questions before writing the story:
Crossfires are the worst human rights violation in Bangladesh and many other countries in the world. Yet many reporters here don't know how to report a crossfire killing. They just copy and paste an official press statement, describing a story (most often lies) just the way the authorities wanted to tell it.
Ya ba is already a banned drug, but the government is set to elevate its status to Category A, a list that includes heroin, cocaine, pethidine, morphine and opium. Crimes related to drugs in this category can incur the death penalty as a maximum punishment, so it seems more death in the drug war could be on the horizon for Bangladesh.

author: পান্থ রহমান রেজা (Pantha)


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In India, 13 people are killed after police open fire on copper plant protesters · Global Voices
Jaes Jay

Sterlite Copper (a unit of Vedanta Limited). Screenshot from a Sterlite Copper video on YouTube.
Police in Tuticorin (Thoothukudi) city in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu fired on a demonstration against the expansion of a copper plant that locals say is polluting the air and water in their district and affecting their health. As a result, thirteen people have died and more than a hundred were injured.
Protests have been ongoing since March 2018, and have seen families and people of various political backgrounds coming together peacefully. May 22 marked the 100th day of mobilization against the Sterlite plant.
Thousands of men, women, and children had gathered with the intent of filing a petition with the district collector's office, which is the seniormost executive magistrate in the district. Since there was no pre-approval for the rally, the police forces set up barricades and tried to stop the public.
The situation heated up and violence erupted. People tried to overthrow the barricades, a few set public transport vehicles ablaze, and police responded with a baton charge and tear gas. Then, officers fired on the crowd, killing several people including a 17-year-old girl:
Peoples in #Tamilnadu., protested over 100days demanding shutdown of copper factory owned by Vedanta. There was no violence or vandalism over 100days. On a sudden what’s the necessity for #MassShooting . All that we want clean air and water for next generation#SteriliteProtest pic.twitter.com/LKuP92KGbF
— சிறுதுளி (@itntweets) May 24, 2018
Since then, more than 100 people have been arrested in the port city for rioting and damaging public property. The government has ordered the suspension of internet services in Tuticorin and two adjoining districts for five days, saying it will prevent the spread of false information on social media.
However, some have pushed back against that explanation, alleging that it's really to stop the spread of police brutality footage.
Now you know why internet services blocked in Tuticorin ?? #Thoothukudi
pic.twitter.com/orynsc4YUR
— Rajasekar (@sekartweets) May 24, 2018
The Sterlite copper smelting factory, which is a part of Indian billionaire Anil Agarwal's Vedanta Group listed in London stock exchange, started operations in 1997 and has a history of accidents, complaints and controversies.
In 2010, the Madras High Court ordered the plant to be shut down because of pollution it was causing. The Supreme Court stayed the order and ruled that the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute should inspect the problem; in that body's report, it mentioned threatening levels of copper, cadmium and fluoride in the groundwater in the areas surrounding the plant.
The factory caused further disruption in 2013 when there was a toxic gas leak. After a brief closure and a fine of 1 billion Indian rupees, ordered by the Supreme Court, the factory opened again.
Sterlite has applied for permission to expand, which the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board rejected. The Madras High Court issued directives to Vedanta to cease the construction of the second plant.
Videos have been circulating in the social media of police acting violently or cruelly with protesters, which has added fuel to the furious fire that is raging.
Cop caught on #video shooting protestors at #Thoothukudi. The #Sterlite plant is #India’s biggest copper mine complicit in #environmental degradation https://t.co/8NSvIAqnuK
— WITNESS Asia (@WITNESS_Asia) May 25, 2018
Journalist Anna Isaac from the Newsminute.com tweeted:
One cop prods the man lying on the ground and says, “stop acting, leave”. #SteriliteProtest pic.twitter.com/rcp6vWcsu7
— Anna Isaac (@anna_isaac) May 23, 2018
The police stated that they acted according to the situation. However, people were quick to question the police action:
This is wat u call self defence ?#SteriliteProtest pic.twitter.com/vGZvfIKP7s
— Sathish krishnan (@dancersatz) May 24, 2018
BlackDay for Healthcare,Environment & common people,If public demands closure of the hazardous industrial plant, they were killed by sharp shooters of @CMOTamilNadu. #Sterlite is more important than public Health & Sentiments #TamilNadu is the New Kashmir. #ThoothukudiMassacre pic.twitter.com/g3JIHdsjrK
— Harjit Singh Bhatti (@DrHarjitBhatti) May 24, 2018
Lawyer Malavika Rao tweeted:
My Constitution ensures a polluter’s liability for injury to people & damage to ecology. It ensures my right to protest. It ensures my right to life,livelihood,safe and healthy environment. #Thoothukkudi exposes the barbaric assault on these rights. #SteriliteProtest
— Malavika Rao (@Malspeaks) May 24, 2018
Various political leaders and prominent figures have criticised the police violence and the ministry of home affairs has asked for a clarification about this incident from the state government.
People from various places in India have also condemned the police brutality and joined in protests. Journalist Revathi Rajeevan tweeted about a protest in Bengaluru:
Activists in Bengaluru protest against #Sterlite outside Vedanta office near MG road. 13 people have been killed so far in police firing during anti-sterlite protest in Thoothukudi.@CNNnews18 pic.twitter.com/nVK933Fwdw
— Revathi Rajeevan (@RevathiRajeevan) May 24, 2018
And Aruna Chandrasekhar mentioned demonstrations in Ranchi, Jharkhand:
Protests in Ranchi, Jharkhand against #Tuticorin killings. Hazaribagh and Ramgarh police firings in October and August 2016 will not be forgotten. #SterliteProtests #SamePinchSarkar #EaseOfDoingBiz pic.twitter.com/sMXUG6YZAB
— Aruna Chandrasekhar (@aruna_sekhar) May 23, 2018
Meanwhile, the chief minister of Tamil Nadu has defended the police, saying they were forced to take action because “protesters resorted to repeated violence.” He has also announced compensation for victims of the shooting.

author: Jaes Jay


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Protestors in Bosnia and Herzegovina demand justice in two unresolved deaths · Global Voices
Tijana Cvjetićanin

International attention for “Justice for David and Dženan”: the participants of the Political Accountability and New Technologies – POINT conference in Sarajevo stand in silence in support of protest movement demanding justice for murdered youths (17.05.2018). Photo by Vanja Čerimagić, used with permission.
This is an expanded and edited version of an article by the same author published by NewsMavens.
The death of David Dragičević in Banja Luka, the informal capital of Republika Srpska (a legal entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina-BIH), was declared an accident, but police missteps and a lack of transparency have sparked demonstrations as protestors are gathering to demand a new investigation and more openness from the government.
Dragičević, 21 years old, went missing on March 18, 2018. His body was found washed up on a riverbank in Banja Luka six days later. Following his death, the police made contradictory statements and drew conclusions that led Dragičević's parents and many others to believe that he was murdered.
The Alliance of Independent Social Democrats and its leader Milorad Dodik have ruled Republika Srpska in an authoritarian manner for over a decade, establishing a routine strategy for dealing with dissent. Their go-to reaction to protests would always be channeled through pro-government media, which would declare that the protest's cause was being instrumentalized for political purposes. In many cases, those claims were accompanied by the assertion that “secret services and international actors” were attempting a coup against Dodik and his government, using the protestors as more or less unsuspecting puppets.
The same thing happened last month, when, on the eve of the biggest protest gathering, announced for 21 April, a tabloid from Serbia published an article expressing the same claims which quickly spread through several media outlets in Republika Srpska. Similar maneuvers in the past have, more often than not, proven to be effective.
This time, however, protesters calling for a new investigation into David Dragičević's death paid no attention to government-directed media spin. On April 21, they gathered in unprecedented numbers, with an estimated 10,000 participants present. The following video provides an aerial view of the events:
The slogan “Justice for David” is now spreading both offline and online. A Facebook group with the same name (“Pravda za Davida” in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian) has attracted over 323,000 members from all over the region. In subsequent weeks, the unrest has spread to other regions outside of Banja Luka.
After various media outlets failed in their attempt to portray the protests as a conspiracy, the Ministry of Internal affairs threatened to sue Dragičević's father for his accusations of a cover-up against the police, an action explicitly prohibited to public institutions by law.
Numerous local and regional groups have begun organizing protests in support of Dragičević in various Bosnian towns and the diaspora. For instance, the 1,300-member  “Pravda za Davida – Kozarska Dubica”  hailing from Dubica, a municipality with 23,000 citizens. Online activism has resulted in packed town squares, like the one during the 8 May protest in Modriča, a center of municipality of similar size to Dubica, depicted in the following video. Protesters stand in silence using the signature gesture of a raised right fist used by David Dragičević's father.
Protesters have also been demanding justice in the case of another murdered youth, Dženan Memić from the BIH capital city of Sarajevo. His death in February 2016 was initially declared a traffic accident and led his family on a grueling struggle to reveal the truth. Several protests in support of the Memić family have taken place in Sarajevo over the past two years. The last one was on May 16 and was joined by David Dagičević's father, under the slogan “Justice for Dženan and David”.
Pravda za Davida, Do kraja, Ne idemo nikud odavde, Ostajemo ovdje! pic.twitter.com/cEA9eVqQBe
— AleksandarTrifunović (@AlexandarT) May 22, 2018
Justice for David; Till the end; We aren't going anywhere; We are staying here!
In an election year in Bosnia, the stakes are high as protestors face accusations of “political instrumentalization.” Journalist Tanja Topić, writing for the independent Belgrade weekly Vreme on May 17, summarized the significance of the protest movement:
“Pravda za Davida” potpuno je novo i drugačije kolektivno ponašanje i teško je predvideti kako će se stvari dalje odvijati. Na velikom protestu, koji je održan 21. aprila ove godine, bilo je prisutno više građana nego zajedno na mitingu i kontramitingu, koji su pre dvije godine upriličili vlast i opozicija u Banjaluci. Tu su građani iz cele BIH zatražili da se sem pravde za Davida, razreše i sva do sada nerazjašnjena ubistva. Na okupljanjima na banjalučkom trgu izbrisane su sve etničke i verske podele među ljudima, što vladajućim etnonacionalistima predstavlja ozbiljan kamen u cipeli koji ih žulja.
‘Justice for David’ is completely new and different collective behavior and it's hard to predict how the events will unfold. At the great protest, which took place on 21 April this year, there were more citizens than the combined number of participants of the big rally and counter-rally organized by the government and the opposition in Banja Luka two years ago. At the protest, citizens from the whole Bosnia and Herzegovina demanding justice for David also demanded solving of all other unsolved murders. All ethnic and religious divisions among the people had been erased on the gatherings on Banja Luka square, which presents a particular problem for the ruling ethno-nationalists.

author: Tijana Cvjetićanin


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Acquittal of Fiji Times sedition case hailed as victory for press freedom in Oceania · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Fiji Times executives and supporters celebrate the court verdict which acquitted the paper of sedition charges. Screenshot from the YouTube video uploaded by Fijivillage CFL
The Fiji Times, its three executives, and an opinion columnist were cleared of the sedition charges filed by the Fiji government after a High Court judge concurred with the ‘not guilty’ ruling of the court’s three assessors.
On April 27, 2016, weekly indigenous-language newspaper Nai Lalakai published a letter by Josaia Waqabaca which tackled the need for a national reconciliation between the country’s indigenous population and Muslim minority groups. Nai Lalakai is part of Fiji Times Ltd.
Two months later, charges of inciting communal hatred were filed by the Fiji government against Waqabaca, Nai Lalakai Editor Anare Ravula, Fiji Times Editor-in-chief Fred Wesley, and the paper’s publisher and general manager Hank Art. The government said the article “promoted feelings of ill will and hostility among Muslims and non-Muslims.” A year later, the charges were amended to sedition which carries a maximum prison sentence of seven years.
On May 18, 2018, the court’s three assessors ruled in favor of the accused. After four days, this decision was affirmed by High Court judge Justice Thushara Rajasinghe who said that the prosecution failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the accused abetted and committed sedition.
The ruling was welcomed by several regional and global media monitoring groups as a victory of free speech in Fiji. Many consider Fiji Times to be the last independent media outlet in the country where free speech has been undermined ever since the military took power in 2006. Elections were held in 2014 but threats against media freedom have remained.
The High Court in Suva acquits the #FijiTimes company, Fiji Times senior officials and #NaiLalakai letter writer of sedition charges.  #TimesNews #NotGuilty #MediaFreedom
A post shared by  The Fiji Times Online (@thefijitimes) on
Reacting to the court verdict, Art said the newspaper will continue to fulfill its mission:
We should now be encouraged to keep going with the way we have been, stay within the law and decency but report honestly and balanced without fear.
Wesley insisted that the paper is working neither in favor nor against the government:
We will continue to endeavour to stay true to the ideals of good journalism.
We are not pro-government, and neither are we antigovernment.
We will endeavour to allow a platform that offers people, irrespective of their political leaning, an opportunity to voice their concerns.
Aman Ravindra-Singh, Waqabaca's lawyer, explained the importance of the court ruling:
This is a victory for freedom of speech and expression and the right to have freedom of speech and expression for the people of Fiji.
It has become quite obvious that the government of Fiji has continued to charge people with sedition to suppress freedom of speech and also political dissent. This particular case and outcome is a huge victory for the people of Fiji.
Fijian Media Association reminded the government that there are other ways to correct the mistakes of the media without going to the courts:
We reiterate our call on the Government to use the provisions and apply the procedures in the Media Industry Development Decree of 2010 – that a complainant against a media organisation should lodge a complaint with the Media Industry Development Authority (MIDA) to resolve first. Court proceedings should be the last resort.
Meanwhile, the Pacific Islands News Association highlighted the regional impact of the Fiji verdict:
The decision is important not only for Fiji Times, but for the media in Fiji and the wider Pacific region. We applaud our colleagues at Fiji Times for their tenacity and resolve in fighting for and protecting media freedom and democracy in our region for the past two years.
Fiji’s Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions will appeal the ruling of the High Court.

author: Mong Palatino


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‘Bocamandja’: The theatrical adventure strengthening Equatorial Guinean culture · Global Voices
Lucía Mbomío

Recadero Sielbo Boturu (left): “Traditional rituals in Equatorial Guinea are attached to theater, or maybe it is theater the one that is attached to all the rituals. In an adaptation, it is enough to give a small allusion any of this to get a reaction from the audience. ” Photography courtesy of the Bocamandja theater company, used with permission.
Bocamandja, a theater company in Equatorial Guinea in Central Africa, provokes and plants questions in a country where those in power make people grin and bear whatever is thrown at them. The performers take risks and tell painful truths while also making the audience double over with laughter. Director Recaredo Silebo Boturu is the man behind Bcoamandja — a poet, playwright who describes himself as an “outraged artist”.
Bocamandja's myriad facets make it exceptional. Full of talented actors and creators, Bocamandja celebrates14 years of existence as a pioneer in producing nearly all of the dramatic works by authors published in Equatorial Guinea. The company also highlights the influence of oral traditions that characterize the country's theater.
The story of Boturu's relationship with Bocamandja is one of impulse and inspiration, but also of challenge and struggle. In this conversation, Global Voices spoke with Boturu about the origins of Bocamandja, what pushes each to continue, and the profound effect that performing art has on its participants.
Global Voices (GV): When did your connection to theater begin?
Recaredo Silebo Boturu (RB): When I was a kid I left my town, Bareso. I remember my mother packed me off with a suitcase and a bag and sent me to the city to continue my studies with a host family. In Malabo, I met the boyfriend of one of my cousins (one of the daughters of the lady who took care of me), Liki Loribo, and it was him who discovered me and invited me to watch one of the rehearsals of a theater group (ESA’A) that together with ‘Hijas del Sol’, another artistic collective, had formed a cultural group with the objective to recreate the Bubi culture, which is one of the ethnic groups of Equatorial Guinea, through theater and dance.
At first, it was difficult because I had always been shy (even if it doesn’t look like it), but later I got hooked and the following year I took to the stage for the first time. In 1997, when ‘Hijas del Sol’ were already in Spain, circumstances made Liki leave the country, and I was left in charge of the group.
GV: The creation of Bocamandja is related mainly to the theater movement that existed under the sponsorship of the Cultural Center of Hispanic Guineans, and later with the challenge of reviving the art form once the Cultural Center had closed its doors:
RB: It was as if a tornado swept everything away. A year after the [Cultural] Center closed, all of the groups disappeared. All of them. In 2005, finally our persistence would allow us create Bocamandja. The name, although it sounds Spanish, is the union of the names of two typical dishes in the country, the bacao and mandjaa.
From the moment we decided to create Bocamandja, it was very clear we could not operate under the umbrella of any other entity. We had to have our own autonomy so as not to end up as the other groups had.
The multicultural “Orígenes” (Origins) project was created in 2008 and came about through a joint endeavor between Bocamandja and the Spanish company L’Om Imprebís, the Centro Internacional de Teatro Actual (International Center of Contemporary Theater) Casa África (Africa House) and the Spanish Cultural Centers in the cities of Bata and Malabo.
The three-year collaboration focused on the creation of a stable theater space to unite artists from the five main ethnic groups that make up Equatorial Guinea. It entailed more than 50 hours of dances, rituals, and celebrations recorded for a documentary that also included footage from the training and creation process. The project did not meet all its desired goals, but as an artistic initiative, it reminded participants what was missing from Equatorial Guinea's cultural life:
RB: In a country that does not have proper artistic training schools, Orígenes offered three years of continued learning in diction, speech, choreography, discipline, and above all, gave many young people the opportunity to realize that to be an actor or dancer could be a profession.
GV: What did the Orígenes tour mean for a country that is talked about mainly from the point of view of politics?
RB: When we're together we speak about Orígenes with a beautiful nostalgia for the possibilities and the lost opportunities on the part of our country for people to get to know the greatness of its oral culture and magic of theater.
Professionally, Orígenes raised the bar on performances. However, when projects have no continuity they end up as dreams of what could have been. I don’t know what repercussions the project had in Guinea because in the end it didn't get any sponsorship, maybe due to a lack of economic interest.
GV: How does theater connect to the African oral tradition and in the different towns/ethnic groups in Equatorial Guinea?
RB: Traditional rituals in Equatorial Guinea are attached to theater, or maybe it is theater the one that is attached to all the rituals. In an adaptation, it is enough to give a small allusion any of this to get a reaction from the audience. If you witness a traditional Fang wedding, a funeral in Annobon, or (the dance) Bonkó krió, or the ceremony that introduces of a child into society, the Ripuripuri Bubi, you’ll realize what I am telling you.
“We were putting on a show in a public square in front of more than three hundred people when, right in the middle of it, the mayor came over to tell me that the governor was ordering us to stop the show: We were ‘hurting’ the military's feelings.” Photograph courtesy of Bocamandja, and used with permission.
Bocamandja is more than a theater company. As a non-governmental organization, Bocamandja has helped produce works with national and international organizations with a social justice mission. For example, they promote campaigns to support schooling for young girls and engage in projects defending human rights and ending gender-related violence and discrimination.
The company has also worked on adapting texts of authors from Europe, Latin America, and Africa. Their productions have traveled across Equatorial Guinea, Spain and Colombia.
Bocamandja has not been immune to censorship. One piece about denouncing mistreatment by the military was interrupted in the middle of a production:
RB: We were putting on a piece in a public square in front of more than 300 people when, in the middle of it, the mayor came over to tell me that the governor was ordering us to stop the production: we were ‘hurting’ the military's feelings. The strangest thing was that those concerned who had attended the production were enthusiastically applauding. In the end, we had to stop as the audience remained passive.
In other cases, Bocamandjaa's work had a more uplifting effect thanks to the actors bringing complex topics to the table:
RB: In contrast, I remember that after a production, in the María Auxiliadora school in the Ela Nguema area of Malabo, of a piece about HIV, an old man came over to congratulate us and say thank you that, thanks to our work, he was no longer afraid to say that he was HIV positive. It was an incredible feeling in a city where people living with HIV and AIDS are singled out and stigmatized.
GV: What influences you when you are writing a piece?
RB: In many awareness-raising projects we use techniques from the Theatre of the Oppressed, which is a trend devised by the Brazilian playwright, actor, director and theatrical educator Augusto Boal in the 60s. In his words, the goal of the Theatre of the Oppressed is to ;humanize humanity’ and ‘dramatize’ reality, (returning it to gestures and making it comprehensible in the language of the theatre) in order to understand it and then to be able to change it.
GV: What role does the public play in the productions?
RB: Crucial. You can't have a theatrical production without the public, they are the judges.
GV: You are a playwright and you manage a company, what changes do you see in the actors and actresses as they spend longer with the company?
RB: It is amazing to watch them learn to move, speak, gesticulate, and to vocalize, but above all, to realise the need to train yourself continuously in order to be able to face any challenges. When they have spent a certain amount of time working, you realise that they have an interior defiance that makes them face things head on.
GV: So, theater … Do you love it or do you need it?
RB: I need theater to be myself, without ties, in order to have my particular way of showing my voice, of seeing the world from other perspectives or through a different lens, to be pissed and indignant by injustices and to be militant in the defence of the vulnerable. I need theater to be in love with this goddamn life.
GV: Next challenges?
B: Rehearsal tomorrow.

author: Lucía Mbomío


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How ‘African’ is Northern Africa? · Global Voices
Nwachukwu Egbunike, Prudence Nyamishana, Endalkachew Chala, Rawan Gharib

When the Egyptian Mohammed Salah won the 2017 African Footballer of the Year, the internet went into an uproar. Why? Some Africans did not think Salah was ‘African’ enough to have earned the title.
The six regions of the African Union [Image Credit: Sahel and West African Club]
This is certainly not the first time, and probably won't be the last, that a North African's “Africanness” was questioned. In July 2015, The Guardian reported that Nigerian Chigozie Obioma was “the sole African writer on the longlist” for that year's Man Booker Prize for literature, overlooking the presence of Moroccan-born writer Leila Lalami among the 13 shortlistees.
Which raises the question: Why are Africans from north of the Sahara sometimes not considered definitively “African”?
North and south of the desert
The term “Sub-Saharan Africa” usually refers to the 46 countries that lie south of the Sahara Desert. Countries north of the Sahara, along with Sudan, are included in the geographical and geopolitical unit known as the “Middle East and North Africa region”, or MENA, as their linguistic, religious and cultural characteristics have more in common with the nations of the Middle East than with their neighbours south of the desert.
This divide has sparked heated debate among African intellectuals. Some blame colonialism for sowing the seeds of division, while others say the division existed much earlier.
The vision of the African Union
The organisation that theoretically unites the continent is the African Union (AU), which comprises all 55 sovereign states on the African continent, divided into five geographic regions: North, South, West, East, and Central. North Africa is made up of seven countries: Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic and Tunisia,
The AU traces its conception to Pan-Africanism, an intellectual movement which sought to strengthen African integration in the face of colonial intrusion. The main actors who formed the Organisation of African Unity, which later became the AU, were five heads of state, three from Sub-Saharan Africa and two from North Africa: Kwame Nkrumah, who later became the first president of Ghana, Sekou Toure of Guinea, Leopold Senghor of Senegal, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt and Ahmed Ben Bella of Algeria.
North African leaders, therefore, played an equally important role in the formation of the African Union, the continent's most important geopolitical institution.
Northern “white” and Sub-Saharan “black” Africa
Yet many North Africans identify more as Arab or Arab-Muslim than as African, and it is the case that the “countries south of the Sahara have long been considered authentically “African” [emphasis added] while those to the north have been perceived as the Mediterranean, Middle Eastern or Islamic” argues Egyptian journalist Shahira Amin. In an article titled “Are Egyptians Africans or Arabs”, Amin gives an account about interviewing hundreds of Egyptians from various walks of life about how they viewed themselves:
My question raised a few eyebrows among people on the streets, the majority of whom replied ‘I’m a Muslim Arab, of course’ or “an Arab Muslim.’ They shrugged their shoulders and looked perplexed as they responded for wasn’t it an already-known fact that Egyptians are Arabs and that Egypt has a majority Muslim population? A few of the interviewees said that they ‘were descendants of the Pharoahs’ but surprisingly, none in the sample interviewed thought of themselves as Africans.
“I’m not surprised to hear about some Africans (particularly in sub-Saharan Africa) questioning the ‘Africanness’ of us, North Africans,” said Afef Abrougui, one of Global Voices MENA editors:
I come from Tunisia, and most Tunisians would identify as Arabs. There is this joke in Tunisia which says that Tunisians only feel African when our national team is playing in the African Cup of Nations. I don’t remember in school that we learnt that Tunisia was not ‘’African’’ but the country’s Arab- Muslim identity is emphasized, particularly in politics.
To give an example, in its preamble the 2014 Tunisian Constitution refers several times to the country’s Arab and Muslim identities, and only once to Africa. Of course, I understand why Tunisians would mostly identify as Arabs because of the language element. Growing up as a child it’s Syrian, Egyptian and Lebanese series and music that were on our televisions. This, however, is unfortunate because identifying as an Arab does not prevent one from also identifying as an African. Africa is diverse and we should celebrate that, instead of putting a label on what an African is.
For North Africans, the definition of ‘Africanness’ may also be related to influence and power. After independence, countries like Egypt and Algeria looked to the Middle East for a model of an Islamic nation, and north to Europe for economic partnerships.
Egyptian Global Voices contributor Rawan Gharib saw the issue in light of recent tensions between Ethiopia and Egypt concerning an Ethiopian dam project:
… [the] Egypt regime's attitude of looking down towards Ethiopia ruined an amazing opportunity to collaborate and revive the African Union concept of the '60s. I think that the sense of detachment from Africanity among Egyptians comes from the lack of believing in a truth that's no longer factual or tangible. We're Africans, yes. The list-song of African countries the Nile River crosses was one of the first history lessons we learned in elementary school, some of us may even still remember it by heart so well, but over the last three decades the only time we were reminded we were Africans, we were referred to as Africans was during the Africa Cup of Nations.
As Algerian columnist Iman Amrani has written in The Guardian, the divide also has to do with the perpetuation of hierarchies of value in terms of skin color, class and race:
[C]ertainly there is something to be said about North Africans trying to distance themselves from ‘black Africa’.
Prejudices rooted in language, culture, religion
Racism expressed by North Africans toward sub-Saharan Africans, however, does not justify its reverse. And the notion that “black” is the same as “African” is itself rooted in racism. For centuries, the term “Sub-Saharan Africa” has lumped together cultures and nations far more diverse and complex in terms of ethnicity, language, experience, and history, than the stereotypes would suggest.
Global Voices contributor Prudence Nyamishana from Uganda was forced to confront some of her preconceptions about North Africa on a recent visit to Cairo:
I dressed like a clown in a big dress and jeans underneath. I had a scarf ready to cover myself. I was told that women were supposed to be all covered because it is a Muslim country and all this stuff I had read on the Internet. When I boarded the Emirates flight from Dubai to Cairo, there were many Egyptian women dressed in fancy jeans with beautiful uncovered hair. I wanted to go to the bathroom to change my dress because I had got it all wrong… I understood that my prejudices and fears were all hidden in the disconnection between North Africa and the rest of Africa. The history of Arabs and slave trade, the news we get fed is from western media houses. At first being asked whether I was from Africa was irritating. But then I realised that the Egyptians that were asking me if I was African had never traveled outside their own country. Maybe if it was easy to travel within Africa these barriers would be broken down brick by brick.
Joey Ayoub, a Global Voices MENA editor from Lebanon, notes that unlike Pan-Arabism, Pan-Africanism did not become an ideal with institutional backing:
The divide between ‘black’ Sub-Saharan Africans and ‘Arab’ North Africa seems to me to be the result of Pan-Africanism occupying a different historical route than Pan-Arabism. Pan-Arabism ‘won’ in the sense that its narrative had more significant structural backing (Arab League). I also think it ‘won’ because the Palestinian cause coincided with the period of ‘anti-imperialism’.
Nwachukwu Egbunike, Global Voices contributor from Nigeria recalls that he wasn’t taught about Pan-Africanism in school:
Nigeria's fractured past, having fought a civil war, explains why history was kept out of high school curriculum. . . . Nonetheless, I grew up in a Nigeria when almost all our musicians sang about the horrors of Apartheid rule in South Africa. Thus, the deep-seated belief in Africa solidarity was a mark of my childhood…. Nonetheless, I am not oblivious to the equally prevalent dichotomy between black Sub Saharan Africa and Arab Northern Africa. I think the reason behind these labels is obvious, stereotypes need to be reinforced. I have come to realize that ethnic or racial bias are integral aspects of our deeply flawed humanity. People hide behind categories and labels because to do otherwise means a radical transformation; an encounter with that ‘other’ in truth and love.
“It is hard to recognize today Algeria, the country that Nelson Mandela said: “It's Algeria that made me a man,” said Global Voices contributor Abdoulaye Bah, a Guinean-born Italian formerly with the United Nations:
Algeria played a big role in liberating former colonies in Africa. That is why it is difficult to see today that this government issues racial laws stigmatizing and limiting the freedoms of blacks on its soil.
In Morocco and Tunisia also the Sub-Saharan suffers. Yet these two countries also played a great role in the creation of the Organization of African Unity. In addition, these two countries are becoming members of the African regional economic groupings, south of Sahara. Gamal Abdel Nasser's Egypt has also been very active in terms of African unity.
On the other hand, the citizens of some sub-Saharan countries did not need an entry visa [for some of these countries] when I was there the last time. In addition, all these countries have trained thousands of sub-Saharan academics. In my opinion, despite all that the Sub-Saharans endure in these countries, it is difficult to question their Africanity.
Political analyst Imad Mesdoua, an Algerian raised in Nigeria, asserts that the dichotomy between an Arab North Africa and a supposedly black Sub-Saharan Africa is false. Africans, says Mesdoua, are not defined by language, boundaries or geography but rather a “common history, binding values, and a common destiny.”
Perhaps, in the spirit of its founding Pan-African values and vision, the African Union should focus on deconstructing this divide between the north and sub-Saharan Africa and this common destiny.


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Same-sex love ‘is just as legitimate’ as heterosexual love, says Cuban activist Yadiel Cepero · Global Voices
Sandra Abd'Allah-Alvarez Ramírez

“If there is one thing I'm completely convinced of, it's that the love that we same-sex people profess to each other is just as legitimate as the love that heterosexual people profess to each other.” Yadiel Cepero. Photo courtesy of the interviewee and used with permission.
Yadiel Cepero is a young activist and computer science engineer who created a space for discussion on Facebook called “Building an agenda for sexual diversity in Cuba“, in which nearly 150 people participate.
Cepero came to activism following his experience as a health and sexual rights advocate for the Youth Network of the National Center for Sexual Education (CENESEX). For two years he coordinated a project devoted to education about sexual health and rights called “Love at a Second Glance” at the Havana-based University of Computer Science. In 2014, he was a delegate at the sixth regional conference of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association for Latin America and the Caribbean. He is currently a member of the youth organizing arm of the Oscar Arnulfo Romero Center, where he works with young people's initiatives promoting social equality.
The framework of the interview is based on the debates in Cuba over same-sex marriage, which isn't currently recognized in the island's constitution. The conversation took us to several interesting points in the debate, from the level of priority that people give same-sex marriage to the different lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI) communities, as well as the pitfalls of legal texts that regulate the private lives of a country's citizens.
Global Voices (GV): In your opinion, why should there be a way for people of the same sex to legalize their relationship in Cuba?
Yadiel Cepero (YC): I think there should be a legal mechanism for this. Specifically because many legal procedures, including those that involve property that was purchased together, depend on the relationship being formalized and recognized by law. What this mechanism is called, whether it's same-sex marriage, consensual union, or something else, will depend on what our revolutionaries suggest and our ability to overcome the obstacles in our way. At the international level there are several countries that have included some of these mechanisms in their legal system. In Cuba, we are barely taking the first steps.
Personally, I don't think a legal contract guarantees the emotional stability of a relationship, but it can help to protect heritage, facilitate procedures, and avoid regrettable injustices. Depending of the scope of the legal mechanism, [we will see if] the right of same-sex couples to adopt [is included]. This is a topic that few people talk about in Cuba. It's complicated and is not without ethical questions.
YC: Personally, I believe that people's rights shouldn't be put through anyone's inquisitorial judgement, not even that of the majority. However, there are legal mechanisms that can't be left aside. For example, marriage is defined in the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba (article 36) as “the voluntarily established union between a man and a woman, who are legally fit to marry, in order to live together.”
The Family Code takes non-formal unions into account. Some important modifications could be introduced there regarding the recognition of legal unions that don't have the conditions to be formal marriages, all of it without a national consultation.
This second option seems the most plausible, but it has a limited reach. If it is approved, marriage would still be a constitutional right/privilege for couples of different sexes, while same-sex couples would have to settle for a non-formal union, or a consensual union, something that would accentuate discrimination further.
I should clarify nonetheless, that a legal union between people of the same sex is just one item within the agenda of sexual diversity. Therefore, I think that the starting point of any legal initiative should be discussed and that the agenda should be agreed upon taking into consideration the proposals coming from activists and organizations.
Regarding equal marriage itself, Cepero said:
I believe it's overrated. Historically, marriage has been a tool to preserve patriarchy, monogamy, and the the Judeo-Christian double standard. I respect those who take a chance on it, but I don't think that the debate has reached the level of depth that it should have. That's why I'd like to pose some questions for a future debate:
Why does equal marriage hog so many headlines? What place should it have in the agenda for sexual diversity?
Does it make sense to fight for equal marriage just because heterosexual people have it? What's the real reach of this legal mechanism?
When we talk about recognizing same-sex people's relationships, are we only talking about  relationships between two people? What happens with the collectives who are currently defending polyamory? Should their proposals be left out?
Will marriage make a difference for trans people, who consider access to medication and gender confirmation surgery as their priority?
Will marriage make a difference for lesbian women who want access to medically assisted reproduction in Cuba? Given that the protocol of the Ministry of Public Health is conceived for infertile couples, it wouldn't be enough to be united by marriage, as it is required that one member of the couple be infertile.
GV: Do you know of any case or anecdote in Cuba in which people who were not united by law experienced discrimination?
YC: I know of a lot of cases. Among them a friend, who couldn't keep the properties he had acquired with his partner when the latter passed away. It's a regrettable story. Years before, the father of the deceased partner had forced him out the home. After his death, the father received almost all of his son's belongings. Since the union was not legally recognized, there was very little to do through legal means.
Moreover, there are state establishments (restaurants, hotels and other places) that have special prices for couples, but they deny access to same-sex partners.
GV: Four years ago, a commenter named
YC: First of all, I'd like to clarify that the comment you're referring to was motivated by an article that was published in the online edition of Granma's newspaper on May 6, 2014. In the article, journalist Lisandra Fariñas interviewed Gloria Careaga, who was then the co-secretary of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA). Ernesto's comment reflects the personal opinion of someone who's openly against same-sex marriage. It's his opinion, and I respect it, but his high degree of ignorance about the subject is clear. The concept of “normal” or “natural” is as relative as humanity itself. What is normal or natural for someone may not be the same for another and viceversa. It's been this way for a long time throughout history. During times of slavery, the purchase of human beings was “normal” or “natural,” something spurned or punishable today. If there is one thing I'm completely convinced of, it's that the love that we same-sex people profess to each other is just as legitimate as the love that heterosexual people profess to each other.

author: Sandra Abd'Allah-Alvarez Ramírez


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Amid continuing crackdown on anti-government protests, Nicaraguans pay homage to those killed · Global Voices
Elisa Marvena

Detail of the image made by Pictoline and shared publicly to report on April protests in Nicaragua. Used with permission.
The political crisis that started in late April 2018 in Nicaragua continues. At least 76 people have been killed in protests that authorities have repressed with a heavy hand. On May 24, negotiations between the government and the opposition in the form of a “National Dialogue” were suspended, triggering a second wave of demonstrations.
The movement began as a backlash against plans to reduce social security payments, but has since turned into an outcry by citizens for Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and Vice President Rosario Murillo to step down after numerous human rights violations took place during the crackdowns.
The Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (CIDH in Spanish) reported that throughout April's protests there were illegal arrests and cases of torture and humiliation, as well as possible extrajudicial killings.
#SOSNicaragua ¿Qué está pasando en Nicaragua? ?? pic.twitter.com/J881fFmI93
— pictoline (@pictoline) April 20, 2018
Tweet: “What's going on in Nicaragua?”
Image: Thousands have taken to the streets to protest the changes in social security and retirement payments. The government has censored independent TV channels, taken over universities and cracked down on protests with police and armed groups.
The CIDH condemned the killing of students; youth made up the largest number of protesters in April. The press also came under assault: a journalist was killed in the protests, local news sites reported experiencing Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks, and several TV networks were banned from broadcasting.
Negotiations to find a solution came to a halt when the government suspended dialogue on May 24, alleging that the opposition's intention was to “open the way” for a coup d'état. As a result, Nicaraguans have returned to the streets. So have the police and armed forces.
Since the start of this new series of protests, at least eight more people have been killed. Cases of alleged aggression from armed groups have been reported online, such as the one below detailed by Amnesty International Americas Director Erika Guevara:
Hemos documentado en vivo el ataque armado de turbas Sandinistas en contra de jóvenes estudiantes de la Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería en Managua, Nicaragua ?? #SOSNicaraga Difundan video https://t.co/nc734NbWyk
— Erika Guevara-Rosas (@ErikaGuevaraR) May 28, 2018
We've documented live the armed attack undertaken by crowds of Sardinista [ruling party] supporters against young students from the National University of Engineering in Managua. Please spread.
Led by the hashtag #SOSNicaragua on Twitter, discussions for a national strike are underway, with activists publicizing special recipes online to keep strong for a long day of protests. Netizens are also widely sharing recommendations for communicating securely on or offline.
The government has demanded that protesters stop their mobilization and lift blockades that they've placed on different roads throughout the country to to limit people's movement. Protesters have counter-demanded that authorities end the repression, that para-police groups be dismantled, and that early elections be called to choose new leaders.
Given what happened in April, protesters and human right workers fear that violence will intensify because many believe the only way out of the crisis is a change of government. Videos are circulating online of Nicaraguans taking down First Lady and Vice President Rosario Murillo's “Trees of Life” monuments placed in 2013. Critics see Murillo's metallic trees as a display of absolute power, and pro-change activists have replaced her trees with real ones in a symbolic gesture:
26/mayo, 5:40 pm. Cayó el chayopalo frente al colegio Teresiano, en carretera Masaya. YO lo filmé. #SOSNicaragua pic.twitter.com/g6kmkfcfAT
— Bayardo Aguilar (@bayardoaguilar) May 26, 2018
26 of May, 5:40pm. The chayopalo [referring to the ‘Tree of Life’] in front of the school Teresiano, in the Masaya way. I recorded it.
YouTube memorials along with Facebook testimonies are providing a space for grieving those lost to the violence, including accounts from the mothers of four of the students killed in April. Others are discussing the role of women during the protests and the National Dialogue and reflecting on what the protests meant for many:
La gente apenada mira la calle, sabiendo que hace una semana a los estudiantes que luchaban cerca, los rociaban con gases lacrimógenos y en el peor de los casos, los asesinaban o apresaban (y torturaban). Hay vergüenza por no haber hecho nada […] Una anciana no para de contar lo que pasó. Trata de informar a las personas y compara esto con lo que ella vivió con Somoza. “Este es peor, este ya sabe cómo es la dictadura” […] Si algo deberíamos tener claro, es que los jóvenes no volveremos a ser los mismos. No volveremos a ver a los lugares donde ocurrió la masacre como antes.
People look at the street with sorrow, knowing that a week ago the students who were fighting close to that place were sprayed with tear gas, and in the worst cases, were killed or jailed (and tortured). There's shame for not having done anything […] An elderly lady can't stop talking about what happened. She tries to tell people [about what happened] and compares it with Somoza [the family that held dictatorial power over Nicaragua from 1936 to 1979]. “This one is worse. This one knows how a dictatorship works” […] If something should be clear, it is that the youth won't ever be the same. We won't see the places where the massacre occurred in the same way.
Government supporters online have accused protesters of being “terrorists” and “criminals.” Memorial posters on the streets have been taken down, but activists have promised to continue to place them back up:
Si mil veces lo dañan, mil veces se vuelve a poner ?? #SOSNicaragua pic.twitter.com/nMD6nj8qoj
— Indira? (@Vrtreee) May 27, 2018
If they take them down a thousand times, a thousand times we'll put them back.
On Twitter and Facebook, artistic expressions and creative initiatives are helping to communicate the complexity of grief, hope, and fear that grip Nicaraguans:
Because we love Nicaragua! Because we want peace! An homage to those university students who are dead and to the pain of the Nicaraguan families that are suffering their loss! Something quick and improvised, but we did it. Thank you to all the dancers and parents that supported [us].

author: Elisa Marvena


text:
‘We’ll find you and hang you’: Russian bloggers threatened for their efforts at doxxing pro-government Cossacks · Global Voices
Christopher Moldes

Cossacks attacking a peaceful demonstration: a still from the 1965 film Doctor Zhivago // Screencapped and cropped by Frederick Young, Wikicommons
When demonstrators gathered on May 5, 2018, in Moscow to protest Russian President Vladimir Putin with the rallying cry “He’s not a tzar to us“, they were confronted not only by riot police but also by a group of paramilitary Cossacks wearing traditional uniforms and camouflage fatigues.
In a scene that could have been lifted straight out of the film Dr. Zhivago, the Cossacks beat demonstrators with their nagaika (hardened leather whips), with full protection of the Russian OMON riot police (Otryad Mobilny Osobogo Naznacheniya or ‘Special Purpose Mobile Unit’ in Russian).
Traditionally a Russian frontier paramilitary force, and now regarded by the Russian state as an ethnic group, the Cossacks have guarded Russia's vast borders at various times throughout Russian history in exchange for relative independence under Tzarist rule. In the early 20th century, they assisted the state in dispersing anti-government protests and were also persecuted under Joseph Stalin. Today, they operate in some Russian cities as auxiliary police who at times cause controversy for attacking activists with impunity.
The Cossacks’ authority in relation to the state is varied, as they have no unified organizational structure. Cossacks may work in direct coordination with police or other state actors or may assume policing authority. In this case, the group in question will be providing security during the 2018 World Cup in Russia. In other cases, they may act in their own interests.
The recent attacks were caught on video and Russian activists have been using the images to establish the Cossacks’ identities, going so far as to crowdsource efforts with the creation of a Telegram channel “Database of provocateurs, strikebreakers, and mercenaries.” Now, these activists have also allegedly been doxxed and threatened.
As the Telegram channel name suggests, the Cossacks in question were allegedly part of the Central Cossack Battalion, an organization financed by the Moscow mayor's office and trained to disperse protests.
The Telegram channel, which was started the day after the “He’s not a tzar to us” protests, immediately set to work to discover the exact identities of the Cossacks in question. The channel's authors accept submissions from the public, and after reviewing evidence, such as matching insignia and faces with images on public social media profiles, they verify information and post what they consider reputable.
Using this crowdsourcing method, they were able to identify several Cossacks from the Central Cossack Battalion. Although one member of the group was issued a small fine after the public outrage, the Central Cossack Battalion says that its members were not officially involved, claiming that only a handful was present and suggesting that the others were street thugs disguised as Cossacks. This handful was reportedly flogged by their comrades for their “unsanctioned” participation in the street brawls.
Cossack communities are historically concentrated in Russia's southern regions, Siberia and the Far East, but some newer ones have sprung up in central Russia. Cossacks have been known to complain about “impostors” who wear their traditional uniforms and insignia to operate as hired thugs usually ignored by the police.
While Cossack authorities attempted to distance themselves from the actions of a few of their members, the authors of the Telegram channel say they are now receiving death threats. They also report attempts made at hacking their devices and accounts. The Telegram channel authors took their story to the YouTube channel of Alexey Navalny, a leading anti-corruption activist, and blogger.
Dozhd, an independent media company often tied to opposition figures, transcribed the following:
Все началось с каких-то попыток взломать телеграм-бот, затем посыпались вполне реальные угрозы: „Мы вас найдем и повесим“, „Мы вас убьем“. Потом в сети появилась масса дезинформации, вымышленные факты из нашей биографии. Мне, например, приписали частный самолет, квартиру в Нью-Йорке и двойное гражданство…Помимо сообщений и звонков с угрозами сегодня наши администраторы столкнулись с проблемами технического характера, на наши устройства идет скоординированная вирусная атака.
It all started with some attempts at hacking the Telegram bot, and then some pretty real threats started pouring in: ‘We’ll find you and hang you’, ‘We’ll kill you’. Later on the Internet a bunch of disinformation showed up, just made up facts about our lives. For example, they said I have a private plane, an apartment in New York, and dual citizenship…Aside from messages and calls with threats, today our administrators ran into some technical problems, and our devices are being subject to a coordinated virus attack.
These threats have come as self-proclaimed Cossacks declare open season on the Telegram channel authors. Numerous groups have opened on Russian social media networks with the aim to replicate the activists’ crowdsourcing method to expose information about the activists who started “Database” Telegram channel. Many use the slogan “Wanted: Enemies of the people.”
As Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper reports, these groups contain inflammatory posts with messages such as, “What’s stopping us from bumping off the organizers of this resource?” and “Why haven’t they been shot?”
Alexandr Plyushev, a journalist at the independent Echo of Moscow radio station, sees this as the latest manifestation of doxxing wars between government supporters and opposition activists. Calling the appearance of the “Database” channel long overdue, Plyushev said:
Странно, что подобное появилось только сейчас, поскольку против оппозиционеров эти технологии применялись уже давно, как точечно – против отдельных лидеров, так и скопом. Широко известен сайт Je Suis Maidan, который уже почти год деанонимизирует участников митингов и прямо им угрожает. С очередными предупреждениями выступил он и перед 5 мая. Еще раньше похожей деятельностью занимался сайт Whoiswhos (сейчас не работает), который специализировался на оппозиционных блогерах. Именно с его работой связывали серию нападений на рядовых оппозиционеров в Санкт-Петербурге весной 2016 года.
It’s strange that this type of thing has only just appeared, seeing as how this technology has long been used against opposition activists, both against specific leaders and crowds. The site Je Suis Maidan is well known, and for almost a year has been deanonymizing participants at demonstrations and directly threatening them. It carried another warning right before May 5th. Even earlier, the site Whoiswhos (now defunct) did something similar, focusing on opposition bloggers. A series of attacks on rank-and-file activists in St. Petersburg in the spring of 2016 was tied to the site’s work.
Plyushev fears these continuing escalations could be an early warning sign of another civil war in Russia.
Netizens also pointed out the discrepancy between an archaic paramilitary force violently dispersing a peaceful protest and the futuristic promises of Moscow's mayor:
Сергей Собянин: «Москва — современный мегаполис, конкурирующий с ведущими мегаполисами мира и активно развивающий человеческий капитал».
Реальность: на центральной площади города казаки под прикрытием ОМОНа избивают «человеческий капитал» плётками. pic.twitter.com/GiMfa1S58b
— Пeрзидент Роисси (@KermlinRussia) 5 мая 2018 г.
Sergey Sobyanin [Moscow's mayor]: ‘Moscow is a modern megapolis on par with the leading capitals of the world and it's actively developing its human potential.’
Reality: on a central town square Cossacks, supported by riot police, are flogging the ‘human potential’ with leather whips.
The “Database” channel is determined to continue to be vigilant at any events where Cossacks are present. The authors have started a Facebook page to ensure that information uncovered is broadcasted beyond Telegram.

author: Christopher Moldes


text:
Swiss brewery sparks protests in Nepal for naming new beer with timur flavor after late king · Global Voices
Sanjib Chaudhary

Timur, also called Nepali pepper, is used as condiments, spice and medicine. Image by Krzysztof Golik via Wikimedia Commons. CC By-Sa 4.0
Swiss brewery Turbinenbräu created a furor among Nepalis when it used the name and image of Nepal’s former king for its seasonal beer product.
After adding Nepali spice timur in brewing a new beer flavor, Turbinenbräu decided to call it Birendra in reference to Nepal’s king from 1972 to 2001. It also tweaked the king’s image so that it appeared he was smiling while holding a glass of beer. This infuriated many Nepalis especially those who were supporters of the monarchy.
King Birendra, regarded as a liberal monarch, was massacred along with other family members at a royal dinner in 2001.
Because the #beer included a Nepalese spice, the Turbinenbräu brewery in Zurich decided to name one of its seasonal beers after King Birendra, who reigned over #Nepal from 1972 to 2001 – and whose name the brewery thought sounds like beer.
Beer is King ? pic.twitter.com/xCVc4vwm4t
— dhirajkarki (@dhirajkarki) April 28, 2018
A few royalist groups staged protests in front of the Embassy of Switzerland in Nepal for ‘insulting’ the legacy of the late king. There was also an online petition against the so-called Birendra Beer.
The brewery was reportedly contacted by the Swiss ambassador to Nepal who requested it to take down all online advertisements for the beer. The company subsequently decided to discontinue its promotion of the beer that used Nepali spice timur.
King of Beers! Not. Birendra had gout, so wouldn't have enjoyed the dubious honour of being featured as flavour of the month by a bunch of obtuse Swiss hipsters! https://t.co/2AIaP9EgbV
— rabithapa (@rabithapa) April 26, 2018
However, not all Nepalis were offended by the beer with the timur flavor.
People love Late King Birendra.
People love Beer,too!
So How and why does naming a beer “Birendra” offend people and hurt their sentiments??
I got no opinion on this one, just curious!
— Maanchhe (@novemberbridges) April 21, 2018
The founder and owner of the brewery, Adrien Weber, clarified that it was not the intention of his company to defame the name and honor of the king.
In an email to Global Voices dated 15 May 2018, he said that the beer product is still on sale but it’s only available for springtime.
The Birendra Beer is still on sale. But it was only meant to be a seasonal beer for Springtime. Although we have undoubtedly great success also among our Nepalese customer in Zurich, we are looking forward to the next seasonal beer, the summer special. This beer called «Taifun» is spiced with Ginger and cooked with rice. It will be saleable by the end of this week.
The controversy is unfortunate since it could have been an opportunity to endorse the use of timur or more popularly known as Nepali pepper. Timur, a spice belonging to the genus Zanthoxylum, is collected from the wild and used as condiments, spice and medicine. Eight species of Zanthoxylum are abundant in 30 districts of Nepal.
Zanthoxylum oil is consumed in several European countries. The use of timur as a cooking ingredient is also getting more attention in countries like the United States.
Developing a new beer flavor by adding timur was certainly an innovative brew but too bad this was overlooked because of the naming and image controversy.

author: Sanjib Chaudhary


text:
The not-forgotten soldier: Afghan serviceman goes viral after Taliban execution · Global Voices
Ezzatullah Mehrdad

Image of officer Mohammad Musa. Widely shared on social media.
Of the tens of thousands of Afghan servicemen that have died over the course of one of the modern world's most deadly insurgencies, very few have become legends on social media.
Mohammad Musa, a 47-year-old Afghan police officer, who was captured by the Taliban while defending his hometown of Farah in western Afghanistan, is an exception to the rule.
Musa was on the front lines for the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) when his hometown Farah was besieged by the Taliban earlier this month.
Desertion is common in the security services, where officers earn miserable wages despite the incredibly high risks of the job. Musa stood his ground and refused to leave his city at the mercy of the insurgents.
The Taliban published footage of his capture, and his family later learned that he was executed.
But if the group thought the footage would have a morale-breaking effect, they were wrong. Musa's final, defiant glance towards the camera as he was pushed into a Taliban vehicle proved an instant hit with the country's Facebook class, who have taken to comparing him to Che Guevara.
One Facebook user wrote:
آخرین نگاه آزاد مردان گمنام!
محمد موسی فرزند تاج محمد ساکن ولسوالي اناردره ولایت فراه که بعد از اسارت به مدت ۵ ساعت، شکنجه طالبان را به خاطر مردم خود برجان می خرد و سرانجام هم جان خود را فدای سرزمین و مردم ستمدیده اش می نماید.
به راستی، نگاه او تاریخ را می شکافد و بعد از سال ها از قلب آسیا کسی، “چه گوارا” را به چلنج می کشد: “آخرین نگاه آزادمردان گمنام این گونه باید باشد”. یادت زنده و نگاهت فراموش نشدنی است: “موسی دیار ما”!
مردم ات اشتباه نگیرد که “موسی” آن ها به خاطر فرعونیان زمانه، “نام و نگاه” خود را جاودانه نکرده است، بل او برای وطن و مردم خود تاریخ آفریده است.
The Last Gaze of the Free Man! Mohammad Musa, son of Taj Mohammad who was from Anar Darra district of Farah province, suffered torture for five hours in captivity before sacrificing his life for his oppressed people and his land…A man like Che Guevara, but from the heart of Asia. Your memory lives on.
When contacted by telephone by Global Voices, Mohammad Musa's 22-year-old son, Dawood, said that Musa had been in the service for the last nine years.
Since Musa's death, the family has moved from Farah to Herat province where more jobs are available. Dawood has become the new breadwinner, feeding nine other members of his family and paying rent on the new house.
“We have nothing here,” he said during the brief phone conversation.
Mohammad Musa's image is already all over Facebook and has been adopted as a profile photo by many Afghan users. But in the last week, he gained a new tribute.
He was painted on a wall in the capital Kabul. Privately owned TOLO TV dedicated a report (from 11.00 in this video) to the new mural in their evening news roundup on May 24.
Screenshot from TOLO News nighttime news broadcast on May 24, 2018.
Dawood moreover told Global Voices that the family had received about $3,000 after Afghan social media users began a crowdfunded campaign. Most frontline soldiers and police officers in Afghanistan earn no more than $140 per month.
Facebook user Aziza Karimi explained the importance of her donation to the campaign in a country where the government has next to no money to compensate the families of slain soldiers.
بهترین و موثرترین نوعِ قدردانی از سربازان و هم‌دردی با بازماندگان آنان، حمایت‌های مالی از خانواده‌های آنان است.
ابراز احساسات چند روزه‌ی مجازی ما هیچ دردی از آنها را درمان نمی‌تواند. خانواده سربازان را تنها نگذاریم.
The best and the most effective way of showing appreciation for the sacrifices of soldiers is financial support. Expressions of emotion on social media alone cannot cure their pain. The families they leave behind must not be forgotten.
Mr. Musa was one of 25 security personnel that lost their lives in the recent attack on Farah province, which was carried out by the Taliban group. The group briefly overran the eponymous provincial capital on May 15, but a pushback by ANSF and U.S. air power forced the militants back into the surrounding countryside.
Taliban insurgents turn themselves into Afghan authorities in 2010. ISAF photo CC 2.0
Hundreds of soldiers and police officers have been killed across the country this month. In late April, the Taliban announced it had no interest in the government's offer of talks. Since then it has intensified its traditional “spring offensive.”
The most costly attack in May saw 70 Afghan servicemen killed in a pitch battle with Taliban forces in the southern province of Zabul. In the northeastern province Baghlan, 44 soldiers were killed as the group captured a government compound.
As the insurgency wreaks ever more violence, fallen servicemen are reduced to numbers, their individual stories lost to a public sustained in a constant condition of grief. While it is small consolation for his family, MohammadMusa of Farah has avoided this fate.

author: Ezzatullah Mehrdad


text:
What were Global Voices’ readers up to last week? · Global Voices
L. Finch

“Read.” Photo by Flickr user RJ. CC BY-SA 2.0
At Global Voices, our community researches, writes, edits, and translates stories with a mission to support human rights and build bridges of understanding across countries, cultures, and languages.
We don't publish just to grab clicks or follow a news trend. We do, however, like to keep track of the ways in which our hard work has impact around the world.
To that end, one useful metric is how readers respond to our stories and translations. So let's take a look at who our readers were and what caught their attention during the week of May 21-27, 2018.
Last week, our stories and translations attracted readers from 206 countries! The top 20 countries represented across all of Global Voices’ sites were:
1. United States
2. Brazil
3. Japan
4. France
5. Mexico
6. Macedonia
7. Peru
8. Spain
9. Colombia
10. Argentina
11. Taiwan
12. Italy
13. Germany
14. Bangladesh
15. United Kingdom
16. Russia
17. Canada
18. Ecuador
19. Lebanon
20. India
But that's only a small slice of the diversity of our readership. Let's use the True Random Number Generator from Random.org and take a look at a few other countries on the list:
25. Madagascar
68. Paraguay
198. Faroe Islands
54. Panama
35. Turkey
The English-language site is where the majority of original content is first published at Global Voices. The top five most-read stories of last week were:
1. Macedonians manage to joke about a serious naming dispute with Greece
2. Lebanon's historic Anfeh salt marshes threatened by yet another resort
3. Making Japan’s hot springs more friendly for LGBT folks
4. Photo essay: Stateless in the former Soviet republic of Georgia
5. Nepal’s Kami Rita climbs Mount Everest for a record 22nd time
Lingua is a project that translates Global Voices stories into languages other than English. There are about 30 active Lingua sites. Below is last week's most-read story or translation on each active language site.

author: L. Finch


text:
From zero to superhero · Global Voices
Khalid Albaih

Illustration by the author. Used with permission.
As a kid reading Arabic-language versions of DC and Marvel comics in Sudan, I believed in superheroes. But I didn’t understand why none of the superheroes looked like me or had stories to which people like me could relate. Maybe that’s why I decided to become a cartoonist?
All my childhood feelings came to the surface yesterday on Twitter when I stumbled on the viral video of a man selflessly scaling a four-storey building in less than 20 seconds to save a child, hashtagged #ParisSpiderman.
Refreshing my Twitter feed gave me bits and pieces of the secret identity of the mysterious #ParisSpiderman, then they flooded my Twitter feed. His name is Mamoudou Gassama and, an undocumented immigrant from Mali. “This is a much better—and more realistic—plot than Black Panther,” I thought to myself.
While refreshing the hashtag to try to get at this new hero’s origin story, it struck me that his religion was not mentioned, as this is usually the first adjective featured in clickbait headlines and hashtags when an immigrant does something negative.
Within hours, the headlines were reporting that #ParisSpiderman had been invited to meet the French president and that he would be granted citizenship. A typical zero to hero intro to a superhero story. With very little light shed on the details of the backstory, it highlighted the stereotypes (black, struggling, poor, ghetto-dwelling), with a quick fast-forward to the climactic scene where the unknown underdog hero saves the child in a public spectacle— and POW!—the introduction of a new “minority” hero, a new addition to the mostly-white superhero line up.
Here’s the missing backstory: Gassama left Mali as a teenager and traveled via [Burkina Faso], Libya—where he was arrested and beaten—to the coast, where he undertook a perilous boat journey to Italy. He spent four years in Italy before arriving in France in September 2017 to join his brother. Without the proper documentation to be in France, he had been sleeping on the floor of a residence for immigrants in Montreuil, outside Paris, rolling out a thin mattress each night and packing it up in the morning. He shared a cramped room with six others and was, of course, unable to work legally.
So scaling that building was probably one of the easiest things Mamoudou had done in years.
What readers should realize and what the storytellers need to do differently this time is to shed more light on the details of our hero’s life and the real hardships he’d had to endure before he scaled that building to save the child. Superman, the greatest of superheroes, was an immigrant but he was the “good kind”, the kind that looks “normal” and fits it, and doesn’t get randomly checked or surveilled.
Let the introduction of this new and different superhero make France, and the rest of the world, realize how many superheroes have come in on those boats that are still waiting for their intro scene.
Next issue: Is our hero going to cope with his five minutes of fame? How is he going manage now that his powers have been discovered?

author: Khalid Albaih


text:
Kazakhstan commemorates Stalin’s Terror · Global Voices
Eurasianet

Svetlana Tynybekova, 78, in her apartment in Astana, Kazakhstan. Born in 1939, she experienced the tail-end Stalin's terror that swept up her family with it. (All photos by Joanna Lillis).
The following is a partner post from EurasiaNet.org written by Joanna Lillis. Republished with permission.
Svetlana Tynybekova was born in 1939, on the tail-end of a tidal wave of terror that ripped through the Soviet Union, sweeping up her family with it.
Her grandfather, a Kazakh intellectual and a former minister in the Soviet government of Central Asia, had been shot as an enemy of the people. Her grandmother was languishing in the Gulag.
“It’s unnatural, it’s inhumane, that a child should live having never met their grandmother and never see their grandfather at all,” said Tynybekova, a sprightly and alert 78-year-old, recalling her family’s past in an interview in her apartment in Astana last November.
On May 31, Kazakhstan will hold its annual commemoration of those, like Tynybekova’s family, who were caught up by Soviet repression.
“It really affected our family. My mother really loved her father and when she used to talk about him she’d become like a child. I’d look at her and think: this is someone who was robbed of her childhood. She was 16 [when her father was arrested]. The family was left in her hands,” she said.
Tynybekova’s grandfather, Sultanbek Khodzhanov, was born in 1894 into a family of cattle-herders in southern Kazakhstan, which was then part of the Russian Empire. He would, in the wake of the Russian Revolution, mature into a model Soviet citizen.
Khodzhanov imbibed his revolutionary ideas in Tashkent, where he attended teacher-training college and joined a radical underground student movement that was pushing for political change in the dying days of Tsarist rule.
Before and after the Bolshevik seizure of power, Khodzhanov associated with prominent Central Asian intellectuals, including the Kazakh Mustafa Shokay, who espoused the ideals of pan-Turkism, a movement that sought a political union of all the Turkic peoples.
Shokay fled to Turkey after a bid to establish an autonomous Central Asian government – popularly called the Turkestan or Kokand Autonomy – was routed by Bolshevik troops in 1918.
Khodzhanov, however, found common cause with the Bolsheviks, and rose through the ranks to become a People’s Commissar – the Bolshevik equivalent of a minister – in the Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, the administrative entity created to rule Central Asia.
“Grandpa had high hopes of the revolution,” said Tynybekova, showing black-and-white photographs from the 1920s of a handsome young man in uniform.
He hoped the Soviets would live up to their high-flown slogans about equality and power to the people, “but gradually he became disillusioned, he saw all that wasn’t happening in practice.”
Sultanbek Khodzhanov, his wife Gulyandam Khodzhanova and daughter, Ziba. Photo by Joanna Lillis.
In 1924, Khodzhanov was posted to Kazakhstan. But his career in the higher echelons of regional Soviet officialdom did not last long. In 1925, he fell afoul of the Kazakh republic’s new leader, Filipp Goloshchyokin, who arrived with radical plans to modernize a traditional nomadic society that the Soviets deemed backward and unsuited for the modern age.
Under Goloshchyokin, the republic would undergo a blitzkrieg of industrialization of the economy and collectivization of agriculture that would ultimately eradicate the Kazakhs’ nomadic way of life and caused a devastating famine in the early 1930s.
From the outset, these plans were fiercely resisted by some Kazakh intellectuals and political leaders, including ministers in Goloshchyokin’s government.
These included Khodzhanov, who argued passionately against them, according to his granddaughter. So did a minister named Smagul Sadvakasov, who captured the resentments with a lament today taught to every schoolchild in Kazakhstan about how Goloshchyokin’s rule proved that “Kazakhstan was and has remained a colony.”
Objections were brushed aside. Critics were labeled “national deviationists” and removed from positions of power.
Khodzhanov was sent away, first to Moscow then back to Tashkent to continue his Communist Party work in less prominent roles.
Unbowed, he continued to champion the Kazakh cause.
In 1928, four years after Vladimir Lenin’s death, he penned an outspoken tract essentially accusing Stalin of betraying the revered first Soviet leader’s legacy by failing to allow self-determination for the peoples of the Soviet Union. Khodzhanov’s premise was that whatever fine names the Soviet republics bore, “a colony is still a colony,” said Tynybekova.
Nearly a century later, the colonial question remains a sore point. Annual commemorations of the Stalin-era repressions notwithstanding, critics point out that Kazakhstan – which is still ruled by its last Soviet-era leader, Nursultan Nazarbayev, 27 years after independence – has never had a frank debate about the legacy or lessons of its totalitarian past.
A newly formed political movement, Forum Jana Qazaqstan, has argued recently that without an honest assessment of historical traumas like the repressions and the famine, Kazakhstan will remain stuck in the past and never manage to complete the process of decolonization.
Khodzhanov was arrested at his home in Tashkent one morning in 1937 amid protestations that he was loyal to the party and the revolution. He was shot in 1938 for being part of an “anti-Soviet, nationalist organization,” one of around a quarter of a million victims from Kazakhstan executed during repressions that claimed the lives of almost the entire Kazakh intelligentsia. Many, including Khodzhanov, were officially rehabilitated after Stalin’s death.
The stigma of being relatives of an officially designated enemy of the people cast a long shadow over the lives of Khodzhanov’s children, Tynybekova’s mother Ziba and her two brothers.
“They were expelled from school, then thrown out of the flat and left on the street, because two months later they came for grandmother,” said Tynybekova.
Deemed politically suspect, Gulyandam Khodzhanova was dispatched in a cattle wagon to Karlag, a camp in central Kazakhstan that was part of a sprawling, Soviet-wide archipelago of labor colonies.
Ziba and one brother were taken in by relatives in Alma-Ata, which had by then been anointed capital of Soviet Kazakhstan. She eventually managed to complete her secondary education and embark on a history degree, but was thrown out of the university when it emerged whose daughter she was. Her younger brother was sent to an orphanage, “where it was drummed into the children that their parents were enemies of the people,” Tynybekova explained.
Khodzhanova spent eight years as a slave laborer in Karlag, before being banished into exile in southern Kazakhstan for three years. She then moved to Alma-Ata to live with Ziba and her family, which was when Tynybekova finally got to know her grandmother.
Khodzhanova did not like dwelling on her horrific experiences, which cast a pall of sadness over the family, yet “she survived,” said Tynybekova. “She was a strong-willed woman.”
In 1953, when Stalin died, her granddaughter witnessed a curious scene.
Khodzhanova, who had lost her husband to the firing squad, been incarcerated in the Gulag and seen her family ripped apart because of Stalin’s repressions, wept copiously for days.
“I couldn’t understand it at all,” mused Tynybekova. “Perhaps she was weeping at the way her fate had turned out because of Stalin.”

author: Eurasianet