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For Fascinating Photos of 20th-Century Japan, Look to 21st-Century Twitter · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

Female members of the Democratic Youth League of Japan carrying wooden staves. Image from Twitter user @oldpicture1900.
Twitter user @oldpicture1900 posts photos that offer a fascinating and often nostalgic glimpse of Japan in the early and mid-20 century.
The account describes itself as “retro photos of Japan, from before until after World War II” (戦前～戦後のレトロ写真). The photos do not appear in any particular chronological order, and are accompanied by a short description.
The Showa Period, a slice of Japanese history that lasted from 1926 until 1989, was a time that saw great turmoil and change in Japan, from participation in a disastrous war that led to utter ruin and defeat, and then on to a miraculous recovery that experienced its own social upheaval.
1971年（昭和46年）。以前も違うのを貼りましたが、三菱重工の反戦一株株主たちです。ベ平連メンバーの一部からなり、株主総会にも参加しました。ソニーが南ベトナムに進出すると発表したときは「日本の再侵略を許すな」と抗議デモもしています pic.twitter.com/sbYKTNc6fI
— 戦前～戦後のレトロ写真 (@oldpicture1900) April 21, 2016
(1971) Shareholders protesting against Mitsubishi arms production. Members the Citizens League for Peach in Vietnam purchase shares and join the annual shareholders meeting. When it was learned that Sony would launch production in South Vietnam, there were also demonstrations organized with the rallying cry, “We will never allow Japan to become an aggressor ever again!”
Many of the wartime photos featured on the Twitter account show what life was like for soldiers in all kinds of situations.
1941年（昭和16年）。中国との闘いの中、傷病兵の中には戦争で精神を病んだ人たちもいました。彼等は一般傷病兵とは違う施設で療養していましたが、国防婦人会は陸軍と交渉し許可を得、リフレッシュさせようと奈良公園に一緒に行きました。 pic.twitter.com/dJHQq604iD
— 戦前～戦後のレトロ写真 (@oldpicture1900) April 22, 2016
(1941) During the war with China, among the sick and injured were those who suffered from psychological trauma. While these troops were treated in separated facilities than the regular wounded, they were still permitted to be visited by the army's female support workers (Kokuhofujin, members of an all-women professional organization devoted to providing emotional and practical support to troops, including returning their cremated remains to family members back in Japan). Here these troops and female support staff are enjoying a day out together in a park in Nara.
This period of Japanese history was not always dominated by war, and the photos feature a look back at celebrities who once dominated pop culture.
次は山路ふみ子さん（1912-2004）です。こちらは正統派和風美人です。人気女優となった後、実業家・社会事業家へ転身。「山路ふみ子映画賞」は今も権威ある賞です。3枚目の右は桂珠子さん、4枚目の左は東海林太郎さんです。 pic.twitter.com/P1hZPLiF2G
— 戦前～戦後のレトロ写真 (@oldpicture1900) May 2, 2016
Yamaji Fumiko (1912-2004), the epitome of traditional Japanese beauty. After becoming a popular actress, she turned to a career in business. The Yamaji Fumiko Prize is named in her honor. Also appearing in this photo are the actress Katsura Tamako (standing on the right in the third image in this set) and the folk singer Shoji Taro (standing on the left in the third image).
Some of the photos go far back before the war, showing how Japanese children lived at the turn of the century.
大正の中ごろ。衣装の切れっ端で遊ぶ子供たち。ゴム飛びの原型でしょうか。 pic.twitter.com/wsuC300V0S
— 戦前～戦後のレトロ写真 (@oldpicture1900) May 2, 2016
Sometime in the Taisho Era (1912-1926). Children dressed in hand-made clothes play “Chinese jump rope.”
Japanese school life is also represented.
1935年（昭和10年）。おそらく旧制の高知高校だと思います。この画像に限らず、当時の旧制高校は長髪の学生さんがかなりいます。 pic.twitter.com/lpGLgg8DcG
— 戦前～戦後のレトロ写真 (@oldpicture1900) May 2, 2016
(1935) Probably students enrolled at a Normal School (high school). As you can see, there are a number of students sporting grown-out hair (rather than shaved heads or crew cuts), typical of Normal School students at this time.
Many of the photos are nostalgic.
1959年（昭和34年）ごろ。紙芝居をやっています。ちょっとかわいそうですがいちばん左の女の子は飴が買えずチラチラと振り返って見ています。 pic.twitter.com/GTCuoaRG7N
— 戦前～戦後のレトロ写真 (@oldpicture1900) May 2, 2016
(Around 1959) A traveling Kamishibai entertainer performs for children. The girl at left likely cannot afford to pay to watch and so sneaks a peek at the show.
While many photos curated by the account remind us of how turbulent Japan's postwar society could be.
1969年（昭和44年）。1月。民青と言う組織の女子大生達です。角材を持っていますね。場所は東大のようです。 pic.twitter.com/oAHci6wYxV
— 戦前～戦後のレトロ写真 (@oldpicture1900) April 30, 2016
(January 1969) Female members of the Democratic Youth League of Japan carrying wooden staves. It's likely they are at student protests at Tokyo University in 1969.
1958年（昭和33年）。日教組が「勤務評定」導入に反発し、大規模な闘争集会を開きます。その集会の様子を塀の外から見る子供たち。 pic.twitter.com/E4qkinrYAC
— 戦前～戦後のレトロ写真 (@oldpicture1900) April 26, 2016
(1958) Children peer over a fence at teachers engaging in large-scale protests against changes to working conditions.
The Twitter account pays special attention to documenting the lives of women in Japan at mid-century.
1943年（昭和18年）。大阪の天下茶屋女性青年団です。戦死者の方々の英霊を弔っています（左）。それはそれとして、灯火管制のどさくさにまぎれ、団長が内緒で彼女達に特別に晴れ着と化粧を許したときの写真です（右）。 pic.twitter.com/nfjS9Ct51H
— 戦前～戦後のレトロ写真 (@oldpicture1900) April 25, 2016
(1943) A female youth organization meets in Tengachaya, Osaka. (Left) The young women are giving their condolences to the war dead. Taking advantage of the confusion of a wartime blackout, the leader of the group has allowed the young women to put on makeup and more attractive clothes [both forbidden under Japan's strict wartime rules for public morals] to pose for a photograph.
There are some truly amazing finds among the daily posts made on this Twitter account
1929年（昭和4年）。ハワイでの汎太平洋女子オリンピックに出場した日本選手団。左から2番目が前畑秀子さんです。 pic.twitter.com/GTB5h45htr
— 戦前～戦後のレトロ写真 (@oldpicture1900) April 22, 2016
(1929) Female athletes from Japan participate in Pan-Pacific Games in Hawaii. Second from left is Maehata Hideko, the first Japanese woman to earn a gold medal in the Olympics.
Twitter user @oldpicture1900 makes regular photos posts here.

author: Nevin Thompson


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For Trinidad & Tobago, the Olympics Gymnastics Furore Is About Perceived Corruption · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Screenshot of a YouTube video of gymnast Marisa Dick competing at the 2015 World Qualifications in the Uneven Bars.
In the latest turn in the Trinidad and Tobago gymnastics drama, some netizens seem irritated that a blogger from outside the twin island republic appears to be lecturing them on how they should react to — and report on — an issue that has wider ramifications in their own country.
Lauren Hopkins, the US-based founder and editor-in-chief of gymnastics news website The Gymternet, recently posted an article that attempted to clarify the controversy surrounding the Trinidad and Tobago Gymnastics Federation's (TTGF) choice of Marisa Dick, who was born in Canada but holds dual citizenship, to compete for a spot at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro over Trinidad-born — and higher ranked — gymnast Thema Williams.
Williams met the TTGF's qualification criteria by placing higher than Dick at the 2015 World Championships in Glasgow, but was yanked by the federation at last minute — while she was already in Rio for the Olympics Test Event — over an injury, ostensibly in the athlete's best interests. Williams had faced a disciplinary committee a few weeks prior over a topless photo she posted on Instagram. Dick had similar proceedings brought against her for a topless photo of her own.
Many in Trinidad and Tobago believe the federation's decision was illegal, and Williams and her team plan to take legal action against them. According to her contract, her removal from competition could only happen after her coach and medical personnel were consulted, but the TTGF president himself admitted not everything happened as it should. Allegations have also swirled that two members of the federation have conflicts of interest that favor Dick over Williams.
Trinbagonians know all too well the effects of living in a society where the perception of corruption is high. While some social media users in Trinidad and Tobago did share the Gymternet post, using it to explain why they supported Dick, other commenters were irked by it for seeming to belittle the implications of the TTGF's decision to pull Williams:
It’s important to note that the TTGF’s initial selection procedure wasn’t legally binding and that since the test event spot was a non-nominative one – meaning it belonged to the federation, not to the athlete who earned it for the federation – there is no [International Gymnastics Federation, the governing body of competitive gymnastics] rule in place that says the TTGF had to select Williams for the spot based on her worlds finish. This seems to be a topic of confusion for most reporting on this event in Trinidad, but even though the TTGF had originally decided to select an athlete based on worlds finishes, its directors and decision-makers had every right to change their minds.
Lasana Liburd, the sports journalist who heads biting news and sports site Wired868, which Hopkins suggests is a “pro-Williams publication”, took issue with The Gymternet's understanding of the situation. The claim that “no other successful, experienced federation selects gymnasts based on a single score six months in advance” is untrue (the United States selects its gymnasts based on a single trial event), according to Liburd.
But more importantly, Liburd said, the TTGF's decision was legally binding, as it was a written agreement and not a mere “promise”, as Hopkins's post implied. Hopkins maintains, however, that in her experience, situations like this happen all the time.
The Gymternet post listed several facts related to what the author calls “one of the most ridiculously juvenile fights in gymnastics history”. William's coach John Geddert had written in a report to the TTGF that Williams was struggling in training due to a sore ankle. The TTGF allegedly attempted to reach him for clarification, but said his response time was slow. As the International Gymnastics Federation rule states athletes cannot be withdrawn less than 24 hours before the qualification date and that deadline was fast approaching, the TTGF went ahead and pulled Williams (though the post didn't weigh in on whether proper procedure was followed, and Geddert claims he never received the TTGF's calls).
Geddert left unexpectedly from the Olympic Test Event in Rio due to family reasons. Williams’ legal team attempted to fight the decision in vain (and she had no recourse through the International Olympic Committee's Tripartite Commission). Dick competed in her place and qualified for the Olympics, and the Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Committee decided to support the TTGF's choice of Dick (which the TTOC later admitted they did under duress).
Hopkins defended her summary with the following:
These are the facts of the story. Obviously there’s a lot more woven throughout, and there is a long history of the TTGF’s close relationship with Dick that has led to shady dealings and preferential treatment, but this is the bare bones list of what happened, plain and simple. The situation is seemingly innocent up close – gymnast struggles in training, federation decides she should be replaced, new gymnast comes in and everything works out in the end. Of course, it’s horrible for the original gymnast set to compete, but that’s life […]
But to Trinidad and Tobago netizens, the post seemed to misunderstand that the issue isn't about a squabble between two gymnasts wanting to go to the Olympics and there being only one spot, but has to do with the TTGF's decision and whether it followed due process.
Or, in the words of one social media user who I spoke to and who wished to remain anonymous, “it is about cronyism, nepotism and a startling lack of transparency within the gymnastics federation.” The source was also of the opinion that in many instances — not just gymnastics — the primary interest of sporting officials in Trinidad and Tobago lies in leveraging athletes’ talents to jockey for money, in the form of trips and funding.
Other Facebook users echoed this sentiment. Natasha Ramnauth said:
Dear TTOC, stop hiding behind the [International Gymnastics Federation], grow some balls and send NO ONE. We'd respect you a lot more. True congratulations would then be in order for Azerbijan, the next ranked country but it would demonstrate to your constituent associations that we had some integrity and moral fibre and that we will not tolerate the underhand tactics that prevailed in this selection. Oh wait! I forget, in TnT those are four letter words.
Several social media users agreed with The Gymternet when it came to its lament about both the mainstream and social media backlash against Marisa Dick. The Gymternet said on Twitter:
I'm sure some will comment about how Marisa is the devil and the TTGF broke every rule ever, but there's a reason for the TTGF's decision.
— The Gymternet (@thegymterdotnet) May 2, 2016
It is worth mentioning that many netizens have been very careful to call out bad behaviour and steer clear of bashing Dick. In fact, even as Wired868, which has followed the story closely, attempted to sort out the timeline of events and uncover the truth about the TTGF's process, it acknowledged Dick's talent and achievements.
For Trinidad and Tobago, this debacle has mushroomed into much more than whether Williams gets to go to the Olympics. The bigger issue is alleged corruption in sport. Even under the hashtag #ThemaOrNothing, which at first glance could appear to be anti-Dick, most of the commentary centred around dissatisfaction with the TTGF board and concerns about poor governance:
@Monz40 #ThemaOrNothing #TTGF board must step down. pic.twitter.com/8sjfmrFmyq
— Nicole Greene (@NicSGreene) April 24, 2016
#ThemaorNothing talent must go before nepotism. https://t.co/nKv36QK77L
— ThreadLine (@threadlineltd) April 29, 2016
In a television interview with sports reporter Robert Dumas, Williams said both she and Dick “were just pawns in the TTGF's game” and she does not blame Dick for what happened. Williams made it clear that if their roles were reversed, “in light of how the decision was made and the injustice that took place”, she would have stepped down — but she also emphasised that she doesn't endorse any hate campaign against Dick. To her, the issue is not about “Team Marisa” or “Team Thema”:
People are missing the bigger picture. This is a situation in which a federation has been unjust, they have been absolutely biased, and […] I have been able to open the eyes of the public to the struggles that some athletes experience on their journey toward their goals.
Hopkins’ post concluded that “the story here is not one of conspiracies or villains. It’s one of conflicting interests in a situation where not everyone can get what they want.” But when it comes to corruption, Trinidad and Tobago netizens are intimately familiar with conspiracies and villains — and social media gives them the power to speak out.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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‘Graffitours’ Capture a Colombian Community’s Painful Past and Search for a Better Future · Global Voices
Dylan Lebecki

View of Medellín and the murals of Comuna 13. Photo by Yoav Litvin, previously published in Brooklyn Street Art and reproduced with permission.
Following decades of efforts towards reconciliation and reinvention, the Colombian city of Medellín gives the impression of having left behind its dark history to focus on the future, redefining itself as a place of inclusion and enterprise. Ambitious projects for social inclusion like integrated transport systems and “library parks” have transformed the city's image in the eyes of the outside world.
But, while these innovations reap praise and prizes both in Colombia and beyond, their impact is not felt in many parts of the city, cut off by invisible walls built of fear, volatility and violence.
Situated on the far western edge of the city, Comuna 13 is one of Medellín's most remote districts. Poverty, marginalisation, discrimination and instability are rife here. Violence — both seen and unseen, direct and indirect — remains a tangible presence in the daily lives of the people who live here. The so-called “Medellín Miracle” has passed them by, leaving a great deal of resentment in its wake.
This is the account given by “Kábala”, a community worker from Comuna 13 and a graffiti artist who works to engage local people through graffitours — a tour of urban art that narrates the community's experiences. Speaking with the authors of the Spanish-language blog Bitácora, Urbanismo y Derecho (Urbanism and Rights), Kábala explained the exclusion felt in Comuna 13:
El derecho a la ciudad en la 13 no se da. No tener derecho de ciudad genera una sensación de abandono y condiciones propicias para la represión. Las consecuencias de esto, son miles de protestas, desorden público y social, muertes, atropellos y corrupción.
In 13, there is no right to the city. Not having a right to the city creates a sense of having been forsaken, and it creates the perfect conditions for repression. The result is an endless cycle of protests, public and social unrest, deaths, abuse and corruption.
Comuna 13 in particular has been one of the areas of Medellín most severely affected by violent clashes between guerrilla forces, paramilitary groups and the National Army of Colombia, caught up in the wider internal armed conflict that has tainted the last 50 years of the country's history. After decades of armed confrontation between the state and extreme left-wing guerrilla groups, it is the drug cartels, criminal gangs and extreme-right paramilitary groups that now dominate the hostilities. This conflict has a long history that has passed through several distinct phases, each more traumatic than the last. During one such phase, in the 1980s, certain aspects of the conflict were predominantly financed by the proceeds of drug trafficking.
Consequently, Comuna 13 became the scene of numerous military operations, which both exacerbated the conflict and left lasting scars on the community. In one of these operations, known as Operación Orión, armed forces and paramilitary groups joined together to attack guerrilla factions positioned in Comuna 13. According to investigations by digital magazine Los 2 Orillos:
Al final de los registros, que se llevaron a cabo sin órdenes judiciales, se contaron 355 detenciones arbitrarias a las que se añadieron, según el balance oficial, 39 civiles heridos, siete desaparecidos y tres policías muertos.
The raids were carried out without a court order, and by the time they came to an end, 355 people had been arbitrarily detained. Official figures indicate 39 civilian injuries, three police fatalities and seven “disappeared”.
Many people became the victims of forced disappearances and indiscriminate violence. Comuna 13 remained under paramilitary control for the next six years, between 1998 and 2004. The discovery of human remains has lent support to the conjecture that up to 300 young people were disappeared during the period of occupation. Witnesses claim that the bodies of these young men and women were dumped in Medellín's landfill site, which overlooks Comuna 13. No formal investigation has ever been opened.
As a response to its history and to the community's sense of being invisible to and excluded from the Colombian state, community groups such as Casa Kolacho are taking it upon themselves to work together at the grassroots level. They're turning to the internet to demand representation, bring about positive change and ensure that the voices of the people of Comuna 13 are finally heard.
Their initiatives bring together local women and young people, promoting social harmony in the hope of building a happier and safer future. In one of a number of projects, graffiti and murals are providing a medium for telling the story of Comuna 13. Graffitours, offered to both residents of Medellín and foreign visitors, allow the community's stories to be narrated through the artistic appropriation of urban spaces; spaces which, both historically and politically, have come to symbolise its violent past. Some of the murals that feature in the tours can be seen in the video below:
Participants’ experiences can also be followed via Casa Kolacho's Twitter account:
Construyendo #CiudadaniaParaLaPaz desde la memoria, el arte y la resistencia @CasaKolacho @comunacuerdo pic.twitter.com/Fho2nWyoOh
— CataCruzB (@catacruzb) April 15, 2016
Creating #CiudadaniaParaLaPaz [Citizens for peace] through memory, art and resistance
For Kábala, the community worker and graffiti artist from Comuna 13, graffiti provides a means to contemplate the violence of the past and to preserve the community's historical memory.
In this Spanish-language video, shared by Catherine Vieira, Kábala and El Perro, the co-creator of Casa Kolacho, give their account of Operación Orión, and speak of violence both past and present. Art plays a key role in collective recovery and in the different ways in which the community as a whole finds healing.
El grafiti en la Comuna 13 está haciendo memoria, está contando una historia; y cuenta que no queremos que esos dirigentes que juegan a la guerra estén otra vez, que tienen la guerra como un negocio, que no podemos caer en esa misma historia. Este graffiti es para eso, para hacer memoria y reconocer lo que paso durante esa época entre el 98 y 2004.
Es decirle a la gente que no somos ajenos a lo que pasa acá, y en nosotros está la tarea de decirles a los jóvenes, a los nuevos líderes, que nos tenemos que pensar esta comuna de otra forma.
In Comuna 13, graffiti is a reminder of the past; it's telling a story, and what it says is that we don't want to see a return of the barons who play at war, who see war as a business. We can't allow ourselves to be drawn back into the same old story. That's what the graffiti is for — it's an acknowledgement and a reminder of what happened during that time, between 1998 and 2004.
It's a way of telling people that we are part of what happens here, and it's our job to tell new leaders, and the young people, that we must start seeing this community in a different light.
Even if, in spite of everything, the violence goes on:
Hoy por hoy la comuna 13 es el lugar en Latinoamérica más militarizado. La violencia aquí sigue, solo se transformó el tipo de violencia. Ya no es una violencia de una guerrilla, de política. Es una violencia de [pandillas], de drogas, de plata, de peleas de territorio. La violencia continúa como continúa la violencia en El Poblado, en Castilla; contra mujeres, contra niños, donde no hay educación. Es una enfermedad social […] Contamos esta historia con mucha tristeza, pero hay que tenerla en la memoria. La memoria jamás se puede perder porque cuando voz perdés la memoria tendés a repetir lo que se hizo.
Today, Comuna 13 is Latin America's most highly armed neighbourhood. The violence here has continued; all that has changed is the form that it takes. The political violence of the guerrillas has given way to the violence of gangs, of drugs, of money, of territorial disputes. The violence continues here — against women, against children, wherever education is lacking — just like it does in the rest of Medellín, from El Poblado to Castilla. It's a social sickness […] We tell this story with great sadness, but we have to keep the memory alive. The memory must never be lost, because when you forget, you tend to go back and repeat the things that have happened in the past.

author: Dylan Lebecki


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#LeyTelecom: Mexican Supreme Court Ratifies Geolocation and Retention of Metadata · Global Voices
Giovanna Salazar

Photo: Pixabay under Creative Commons Public Domain license.
Lamentamos que la Segunda Sala de la @SCJN haya ignorado estándares internacionales al validar retención de datos: https://t.co/rNXPmoyNN4
— R3D (@r3dmx) May 4, 2016
We regret that the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court has ignored international standards in the ratification of data retention
The Second Chamber of the Supreme Court of Mexico ruled on May 4, 2016 that it is constitutional for telecommunication companies to keep a record of users’ private communications for a period of two years, as stipulated by the Federal Telecommunications and Broadcasting Law (Ley Telecom or Telecom Law) passed in 2014. The decision endorses the indiscriminate retention of metadata and allows authorities to use real-time geolocation of mobile devices without adequate judicial oversight. According to Mexican NGO R3D: Digital Rights Defense Network, this puts the privacy and security of all citizens at risk.
During the first months of 2014, before the Telecom Law was approved, several protests were organized against various parts of the bill. Among them, the march #NoMasPoderAlPoder (No More Power for the Powerful) and a human chain spanning 7 km across the Mexican capital, as well as the digital campaign #EPNvsInternet, which referred to Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto (EPN). International organizations, activists and writers also issued a statement against the telecom bill. These acts of opposition succeeded in that the most controversial provisions of the bill were excluded in the final version of the law. However, the Telecom Law has entered into force with Articles 189 and 190 which include sections related to data retention and real-time geolocation, reasons for which R3D pursued an injunction against the law.
After postponing the debate for two weeks, the Court finally denied the injunction on May 4, 2014, thus ratifying Articles 189 and 190. However, according to R3D's press release, the battle in defense of privacy is far from over:
[…] en los próximos meses demandaremos al Estado Mexicano ante la Sistema Interamericano de Derechos Humanos con el objetivo de revertir este grave atentado contra la privacidad y seguridad de todas y todos los mexicanos.
[…] In the coming months we will sue the Mexican government before the Inter-American Human Rights system with the objective of reversing this serious infringement of the privacy and security of each and every Mexican.
While R3D notes that the details of the Court's judgement have yet to be disclosed, it appears that international justice, particularly the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, will have the final word on the subject.

author: Giovanna Salazar


text:
Local Social Media Site Tries to Displace Facebook in Uzbekistan · Global Voices
Eurasianet

PHOTO: carlos arbeláez via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
The following is a partner post from EurasiaNet.org. Republished with permission.
In an attempt to lure local Internet users away from out-of-bounds social media websites, Uzbekistan has launched its own equivalent of Facebook. Another one.
Davra.uz was launched last week at the annual USENET-2016 digital marketing conference in Tashkent, technology website ICTNews reported.
The website’s creators claim Davra.uz will marry the latest communication technology with local traditions.
“But the creation of this new social network caused quite some controversy among the audience [at USENET-2016],” ICTNews commented. “There is an emerging view that social networks have lately given considerable way to messaging software in terms of popularity, so why create another social media platform when they could create a new messenger?”
Indeed, if anything, Uzbekistan has something of a surfeit of social media websites.
According to the government’s IT development center, UZINFOCOM, there are 38 domestic social media platforms registered in Uzbekistan, although only eight are actually active.
The local market leader is Muloqot.uz, which has around 172,000 users, followed by Myjob.uz, a local variant of LinkedIn with 60,000 members. In third place there is an educational portal, Ziyonet.uz, with 57,000 subscribers.
In fact though, most people in Uzbekistan continue to use foreign websites like Facebook and an analogous Russian website, Odnoklassniki. The Uzbek user base for Odnoklassniki is the largest in Central Asia.
By some estimates, up to 2 million people in Uzbekistan access Odnoklassniki on a daily basis. There are around 7.5 million registered users in the country.
An Uzbek version of Odnoklassniki launched in 2012 has managed to ratchet up only 300,000 users, despite the best efforts of authorities, who see foreign social media websites as sources of potential trouble-making.
State communications authorities estimate that 13 million people in Uzbekistan have access to the Internet. Uzbekistan also has 22 million mobile phone subscribers.
The authorities attitude to the Internet is paradoxical. While the government understands the importance of online to the future of the economy, it is perennially anxious about sites like Facebook, Odnoklassniki and Twitter. The purported dangers of social media sites are regular fodder for discussion on television and in the newspapers.
The 2013 film Odnoklassniki, produced by the state-run Uzbekfilm studios, is a classic of its genre. The heroes of the movie are a group of young people who fall prey to a human trafficking ring because of their love of social media.
In November 2014, parliament passed legislation meant “to defend children from information that can bear negative impact on physical and spiritual development.” Proponents of the bill said it was intended to prevent children gaining access to “computer games propagandizing cruelty” and pornography. In a system copied from Russia, the law also stipulated that all mass media content had to be labeled with the appropriate target age group.
Uzbekistan’s demographics set out plainly why the government sees shielding young people in particular from problematic foreign ideas. Around 40 percent of the population is below the age of 18. Almost 65 percent have yet to turn 30.
That is a major chunk of the population that has grown up with the Internet as a significant formative influence in their lives.

author: Eurasianet


text:
The Fascinating History of Colombia’s Currency, in 140 Characters or Less · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

Image taken from this tweet by @MonedasColombia.
Are you a fan of numismatics, otherwise known as the study or collection of money? If the answer is yes, then the Twitter account Monedas de Colombia (Colombian Coins) is one worth following.
From the city of Bucaramanga, the owner of the account, which has over 7,000 followers, tweets historical facts in Spanish about coins and banknotes from this South American country.
Según la International Association Currency Affairs las monedas colombianas fueron las más bonitas del mundo en 2013 pic.twitter.com/0zAoJakvaq
— Monedas de Colombia (@MonedasColombia) November 16, 2015
According to the International Association of Currency Affairs, Colombian coins were the world's most beautiful in 2013.
Moneda de $500 homenaje al Árbol de Guacarí y a los esfuerzos del municipio por preservarlo Cae en 1989#DíaDelÁrbol pic.twitter.com/dOlztj8mjF
— Monedas de Colombia (@MonedasColombia) April 29, 2016
500 peso coin in homage to the Tree of Guacarí and the efforts of the municipality to preserve it. It fell in 1989. #ArborDay
In addition, this public account publishes facts about coins and bills from other countries around the world. However, its main focus is on the large Colombian collection minted and released throughout the country's history.
Moneda 2 Escudos 1627 Acuñada en Casa de Moneda Bogotá
Primeras monedas de oro acuñadas en América@colombia_hist pic.twitter.com/qrzIvegxSo
— Monedas de Colombia (@MonedasColombia) April 1, 2016
Coin 2 Crests 1627 Minted in the “Casa de Moneda” (the mint) in Bogota. The first gold coins minted in America
Un perro como imagen del Billete de 25 pesos emitido por el Banco Nacional de Colombia en 1895.
@colombia_histpic.twitter.com/SMcot8QdRp
— Monedas de Colombia (@MonedasColombia) April 11, 2016
A dog as the image of the 25 peso bill released by the Colombian National Bank in 1895.
Likewise, it shares curious details for collectors and experts:
Fidel Castro estuvo en Bogotá durante el #Bogotazo el 9 abril de 1948, se dice que aparece en el billete de $1.000 pic.twitter.com/w9PJc1Kg97
— Monedas de Colombia (@MonedasColombia) April 10, 2016
Fidel Castro was in Bogota during the #Bogotazo [massive riots which destroyed part of the city] on April 9, 1948. Some say that he appears on the 1,000 peso bill.
You can also follow the account on Facebook. Do you know any other accounts like this from other countries? Share them with us!

author: Juan Arellano


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Russian Internet Experts Push ‘Real Name’ Policy for Comments on News Websites · Global Voices
Tanya Lokot

If online comments are not anonymous, users can bear the full brunt of responsibility, Russia's Internet experts say. Images edited by Tetyana Lokot.
Russian Internet users may soon be required to register with a state services portal in order to post comments on news websites.
Under this newly proposed policy, users would be required to register with Russia's Unified Identification and Authentication System (ESIA), a move that would shift the responsibility for the comments away from media outlets and onto users. This would relieve news websites of some of the burdens of moderating and policing comments on their sites. But it also could prohibit readers from posting comments anonymously.
Introducing such a shift in responsibility would necessitate a change in existing Russian legislation. A decree of the Russian Supreme court from 2010 currently holds officially registered online media outlets responsible for any comments their readers leave on their pages or forums, including those that promote social, national or religious hatred, if such comments are still available to readers after Roscomnadzor requests they be deleted or edited. Shifting the blame to registered users would require new legislative norms.
The commenter registration initiative is the brainchild of the Institute for Internet Development (IDI), a non-government agency headed by Putin's Internet advisor German Klimenko, and is part of the Internet development “roadmap” the agency is preparing for Russian president Vladimir Putin. The initiative will be discussed in the State Duma (Russian parliament) in mid-May by experts from the Communications Ministry, state censor Roscomnadzor, industry representatives, media outlets and lawmakers.
Twenty-six million Russians are currently registered in the state Unified Identification and Authentication System, and most of them use their passport data to register in the system. IDI's Aleksandr Mikheyev, the author of the idea, told Izvestia newspaper that the system would be voluntary for media outlets.
Мы хотим дать возможность читателям СМИ авторизоваться через любые соцсети или портал госуслуг. Это касается только комментариев и должно быть на добровольной основе для СМИ.
We want to give the readers of the media websites the possibility to identify themselves through any social network or through the state services portal. This only relates to comments and should be voluntary for the media outlets.
Given the voluntary nature of the suggested “real name” policy, it's likely that some news websites might choose to require ID (some, like Rambler&Co, are doing it already), while others might stick with the current system and bear the brunt of responsibility for the comments. But even if it's optional, the policy could still change how Russian Internet users are engaging with each other on news websites, especially if the most popular platforms choose to require user ID.
Deputy head of the State Duma committee on information policy Vadim Dengin told Izvestia he thought introducing user registration and minimizing anonymous comments would protect the interests of journalists, who he thought would be subjected to “less baseless criticism.”
Мы должны идти к тому, чтобы верификация пользователей была повсеместной. В повседневной жизни есть паспорт, и человек показывает его почти везде, и в интернете должно быть так же. Тут нечего бояться. Это правильный шаг. Мы прекрасно это понимаем.
We should strive to make user verification ubiquitous. In everyday life, everyone has a passport, and a person shows it almost anywhere, so it should be the same on the Internet. There's nothing to fear here. This is the right step. We understand this perfectly.
However, Russian digital rights activists from RosKomSvoboda questioned Dengin's logic on who the new norm might protect and expressed concerns that users who identify themselves in comment sections might face the same kinds of penalties, including fines and even prison sentences, under “anti-extremist” legislation that social media users have already been subjected to for posting content online.
С одной стороны, за СМИ хочется порадоваться, если с них снимут ответственность за людей, к которым они не имеют никакого отношения и зачастую позицию их не разделяют, с другой — это лишит пользователей права анонимности, ведь кроме обычных троллей и «хейтеров», своё мнение порой высказывают люди, которые опасаются за свою безопасность, в том числе и по причине наличия законов, не всегда правомерно наказывающих за высказывания.
On the one hand, we'd like to be happy on behalf of the media, if they will no longer be responsible for people who they don't have anything to do with and whose opinion they often do not share. On the other hand, this will leave users without the right to anonymity, since, apart from the regular trolls and ‘haters,’ some of the people who express their opinions may fear for their safety, in no small part because of the laws that don't always adequately sanction them for their speech.
The Russian government's increasing efforts to minimize user anonymity online have been complemented by a growing number of Internet users prosecuted for extremism-related crimes. According to a report from the Center of Economic and Political Reforms, the number of Russian citizens prosecuted under Article 282 of the criminal code (inciting hatred or enmity, or abasement of human dignity) has grown three-fold since 2011. Prosecutions under parts 1 and 2 of Article 280 of the criminal code (public calls for extremist and separatist activity, including public calls made using the media or Internet) has also grown considerably. The Center's experts credit the proliferation of “anti-extremist” sentences to the “vague” nature of the legal norms and note that the Russian notion of “extremism” has no clear equivalent in international law.

author: Tanya Lokot


text:
The CIA ‘Live-Tweets’ the Bin Laden Raid Five Years Later, Leaving Pakistanis Bewildered · Global Voices
Sheema Khan

A portrait of Osama bin Laden. Photo by Adam Jones via Flickr. CC BY-SA 2.0
On the fifth anniversary of the death of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) – a civilian foreign intelligence service of the United States – decided to recreate the events of that day by tweeting the operation that killed Laden as if it were happening in real time.
Bin Laden was killed by US Navy Seal commandos on May 1, 2011, when they raided his compound after midnight in the city of Abbottabad, Pakistan. Tweets posted by the CIA in 2016 included time-stamped updates of the operation and maps of the site, using the hashtag #UBLRaid.
#OTD 2011: US military raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan killed Usama Bin Ladin.#UBLRaidhttps://t.co/rklCIS2W8dpic.twitter.com/o2Ym4vM7ri
— CIA (@CIA) May 1, 2016
The “live” tweeting received mixed reactions from netizens and reawakened criticism of the lack of transparency surrounding the operation and the subsequent blow-back in Pakistan. Phillip Carter, senior fellow and director of the Center for a New American Security, provided a US military perspective:
I get @CIA desire to take victory lap but tweeting #UBLRaid seems contrary to Intel Community ethos & good judgment https://t.co/QJ2hnMQs7j
— Phillip Carter (@Carter_PE) May 1, 2016
He wasn't alone. Others joined in to question the purpose of tweeting the operation five years later:
@CIA #UBLRaid just when Pakistan is on the verge of eliminating terrorism CIA decides to open details of op it has been hiding for 5 yrs
— Zoni Khan (@zonimustaqeem) May 1, 2016
@CIA I'm gonna get on my roof top and yell as if I'm seeing the helicopters right now #UBLRaid
— Saadat Ali Zia (@my69cents) May 1, 2016
Some netizens were confused with the hashtag #UBLRaids, because the militant leader's name is more commonly spelled as Osama bin Laden and because in Pakistan UBL is an abbreviation for United Bank Limited.
Usama? #UBLRaid? NOT Osama? #OBL? What is this? Why? https://t.co/eFcUI9q13G
— Hassan Choudary (@hassanchoudary) May 1, 2016
And I thought #UBLRaid was a promotional event by @UBLDirect @CIA
— Mahwash (@LifeofSigh) May 1, 2016
when the ATM eats up your card for the 100th time #UBLRaid
— N (@condeshunzz) May 1, 2016
There was a Twitter account that live tweeted the operation in 2011. Sohaib Athar is a software consultant who lived in Abbottabad at the time. He began tweeting about the “rare” event of a helicopter in the area, and later realized the significance of it.
Here are a few of his tweets from that night:
Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event).
— Sohaib Athar (@ReallyVirtual) May 1, 2011
The abbottabad helicopter/UFO was shot down near the Bilal Town area, and there's report of a flash. People saying it could be a drone.
— Sohaib Athar (@ReallyVirtual) May 1, 2011
Uh oh, now I'm the guy who liveblogged the Osama raid without knowing it.
— Sohaib Athar (@ReallyVirtual) May 2, 2011
Though the US Navy Seal commandos who killed bin Laden left just as quickly as they came, their actions have continued to have consequences in Pakistan, something not mentioned in the almost celebratory tweets by the CIA.
The announcement that bin Laden was buried at sea didn't bode well with the Pakistani public at large. Then there were more serious issues that surfaced.
According to the most famous version of the story, the CIA worked in the shadows for many years in Pakistan, which led to them identifying a courier who resulted in the discovery of the Abbottabad compound where bin Laden lived. The agency then reportedly mounted a fake Hepatitis-C vaccination program with the aim of obtaining genetic samples from the compound.
When news of the vaccination ruse broke, health care workers in Pakistan suffered a severe backlash. Today, many in Pakistan believe polio vaccines are poison, or a conspiracy of the West to destroy Muslims, or a way to halt the population growth in the country. The fake vaccination campaign of 2011 is believed to have strengthened this mistrust in vaccines.
Furthermore, the militant group Taliban also suspected that polio workers were secretly collecting intelligence for the US. Polio vaccination teams have been targeted for assassination.
Seven police officers are shot dead in Pakistan while protecting a polio vaccination team. https://t.co/eZbVK51DLC pic.twitter.com/Monj1mjQdl
— New York Times World (@nytimesworld) April 21, 2016
Some investigative journalists considered the CIA's tweets as absurd, given authorities’ lack of transparency on the raid.
According to the US-based MuckRock, which assists anyone in filing governmental requests for information through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the US Department of Defense has refused to provide any records related to the raid that killed bin Laden. On its website, MuckRock shared that when the Associated Press news agency submitted more than 20 FOIA requests related to the issue, the response received was that it was unable to locate any records. MuckRock also received the same response.
.@CIA‘s tweeting of the #UBLRaid all the more offensive considering their refusal to release #FOIA docs: https://t.co/BtNKfkWW5h
— MuckRock (@MuckRock) May 2, 2016
Five years later, many in Pakistan still feel that there is not enough public disclosure around the military operation that led to the death of bin Laden, and the CIA's tweets didn't help that fact.

author: Sheema Khan


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The Week That Was at Global Voices Podcast: The Defenders · Global Voices
L. Finch

The Week That Was podcast takes a look at some of the stories that we’ve published recently on Global Voices.
This week we take you to Cambodia, Syria, Tajikistan, The Gambia and Colombia, where we talk about the defenders protecting their communities from deforestation, government negligence or incompetence and brutal bombings. We also speak to GV Latin America editor Laura Vidal about why the residents of Medellín in Colombia renamed their city.
Many thanks to all our authors, translators and editors who helped make this edition possible. This episode features stories by Mong Palatino, Echo of Truth, Amira Al Hussaini, Lara AlMalakeh, Demba Kandeh and Cati Restrepo. We also featured Creative Commons licensed music from the Free Music Archive, including Please Listen Carefully by Jahzzar (CC BY-SA 4.0); Dramatic theme by the PK Jazz Collective (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0); All The Best Fakers by Nick Jaina (CC BY-NC 3.0); You Know Who You Are by Alan Singley (CC BY-NC 3.0); and Breathe in the Static by Kirk Pearson and BIT (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
Listeners also heard Lean Street by Ketsa, used with the artist's permission.
Expect to hear our voices again in two weeks.
Image in Soundcloud thumbnail is from Instagram user danielup_, posted with the caption, “New toy. Not fun: very necessary. Indignation. #Medehollín”.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
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author: L. Finch


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Violence Against Women in Mexico Has Become Dangerously Normalised, One Lawyer Says · Global Voices
J. Tadeo

Photo provided by Fabiola Higareda, lawyer expert in violence against women.
Violence against women is all to common in Mexico, a country with antiquated gender norms and a government that seems to only offer insufficient or naive solutions to the problem.
The danger goes beyond sexual abuse — in many places women are losing their lives daily, with impunity for their killers. The UN has even labelled Mexico as one of the 25 most dangerous countries for women.
In the past few days, Global Voices has published a series of articles related to the crisis of violence against women in Mexico. We have addressed, among other things, the government's response to the problem and the reaction of female victims of harassment, both from Mexico and various Latin American countries, who shared their experiences online.
As a continuation of this work, we spoke to Fabiola Higareda, a lawyer who for several years has dedicated her time to dealing with violence against women as a civil servant.
Global Voices (GV): In your opinion, is the coverage in traditional media and by the Mexican citizens on the subject of violence against women justified, or has it just ‘blown up’ the situation?
Fabiola Higareda (FH): En la actualidad, los medios de comunicación constituyen una herramienta fundamental para evidenciar lo que se ha normalizado por años. Los altos niveles de violencia de género contra las mujeres siempre han estado presentes, sin embargo, justo por esta normalización, existe una cifra negra (no denunciada), y es justo ahí, donde los medios de comunicación resultan un elemento útil y necesario para poder concientizar y visibilizar que las mujeres seguimos siendo violentadas en múltiples formas.
Fabiola Higareda (FH): Nowadays, the media is key in showing what has become normalized over the years. High levels of violence against women have always been there, however, because of this normalisation, a dark figure exists (unreported crimes) and it is here where the media becomes a useful and important tool to be able to raise awareness and show people that women continue to to feel abused in various ways.
GV: Two questions in one: Do you think that the Mexican government is right in its strategy of creating bodies such as CONAVIM (The Mexican Commission to Prevent and Eradicate Violence Against Women,) and INMUJERES (the National Institute of Women) to tackle the problem? Is this tactic of creating more local and federal offices enough?
FH: La creación de instituciones encargadas de hacer políticas públicas para erradicar la violencia de género contra las mujeres ha sido fundamental para promover, respetar, proteger y garantizar el derecho de las mujeres a una vida libre de violencia. Sin embargo, es importante cambiar la perspectiva desde la que se ve esta problemática. Con esto me refiero a la necesidad de crear instituciones dedicadas a prevenir y atender la violencia de género desde una óptica en donde los hombres sean el eje central. Lugares en donde puedan diseñarse políticas públicas encaminadas a crear nuevas masculinidades. Para ejemplificar lo anterior expongo el siguiente caso: cuando una mujer es víctima de violencia familiar por parte de su pareja, acude a alguna institución a recibir atención multidisciplinaria e integral. Ella se convierte en el centro de acción del aparato gubernamental, mientras que el hombre generador de violencia se anula en su totalidad. Éste no recibe ningún tipo de apoyo o terapia para modificar su conducta y entender que existen otros medios no violentos de resolución de conflictos. Por lo tanto, este hombre seguirá actuando a lo largo de su vida de forma violenta.
Es necesario que las estrategias tomen en consideración que la violencia de género no es un asunto exclusivo de mujeres violentadas, sino también de hombres generadores de violencia.
FH: The creation of institutions charged with putting the eradication of violence against women into public policy has been fundamental to promote, respect, protect and guarantee the rights of women to a life without violence. However, it is important to change the perspective of how the problem is seen. I am referring to the need to create institutions dedicated to preventing and dealing with violence against women with men being their main focus point. Places in which new public policy directed at creating a new masculinity can be designed. To exemplify this last point I present the following case: When a woman is a victim of domestic violence, she can turn to an institution and receive multidisciplinary and comprehensive care. She is taken right into the middle of the government's aid system, whereas the man who committed the acts of violence is totally void of help. He receives no type of support or therapy to change his behavior and understand that there are other ways to resolve conflicts than violence. Therefore, this man will continue being violent throughout his life.
Strategies need to take into consideration that gender violence is not just a matter of the female victims of violence, but also of their violent abusers.
GV: Looking at sexual violence, is traditional media partly to blame for the generalisation or ‘normalisation’ of this kind of violence?
FH: Los medios de comunicación atienden y cubren las necesidades de la colectividad, siguen las reglas básicas del mercado de “a mayor demanda, mayor oferta”. En México, al igual que en muchos otros países, las mujeres somos vistas como objetos sexuales y este aspecto es reforzado por los medios de comunicación. En el discurso, la sociedad exige que las mujeres tengamos un protagonismo en los medios de comunicación igualitario con independencia del sexo. Sin embargo, en la práctica seguimos teniendo un trato diferenciado y asimétrico. Son muchos los medios de comunicación dirigidos a la población masculina que sexualizan a las mujeres para tener mayores ventas. Periódicos que en su página principal muestran a una mujer con poca ropa, al lado de la noticia principal del día o anuncios televisivos que “objetivizan” a mujeres para la venta de algún producto. De esta forma, constituyen un elemento clave en la normalización de la violencia de género.
FH: The media deals with and covers the needs of the masses. They follow the basic market rules of “supply and demand.” In Mexico, like in many other countries, women are seen as sexual objects, and this perspective is reinforced by the media. In principle, society demands that women play an equal role in the media, independent from our sex. However, in reality we continue to be treated differently and asymmetrically. Many media that target a male audience sexualise women in order to boost their sales. Newspapers which show half-dressed women on their front pages next to the main news story of the day, or television adverts that objectify women in order to sell a product. In this way, they play a key role in the normalisation of violence against women.
GV: Recently, the cases of Andrea Noel, who was accosted by a man who lifted up her dress and took down her underwear, and Gabriela Nava, who had photos taken up her skirt by a worker at her university, have made headlines. In your experience, how can the harm inflicted in cases like this be repaired?
FH: Es necesaria una reparación del daño a nivel social e institucional, ya que van de la mano. A nivel social, resulta necesario hacer visible que los hechos que vivieron Andrea y Gabriela fueron actos de violencia que por ningún motivo deben pasarse por alto. A nivel institucional se necesita que las autoridades sean conscientes de que este tipo de actos deben ser investigados y sancionados. Ambos tipos de reparación del daño demuestran a la sociedad que no será permitido ningún tipo de violencia de género hacia las mujeres, lo que repercute directamente en la prevención de la misma.
FH: Reparation on a social and institutional level is necessary, they go hand in hand. On a social level, it becomes necessary to make it clear that what happened to Andrea and Gabriela were acts of violence that should not, for any reason, be overlooked. On an institutional level, the authorities need to be aware that these acts have to be investigated and punished. Both types of reparation of the harm done show to society that no type of violence against women will be tolerated, and they will also have a direct effect on preventing such acts.
GV: What is your opinion on the role that social media has played in cases like those previously mentioned, or that of “Los Porkys” — the four well-to-do young men from Veracruz who were accused of sexually assaulting a minor?
FH: Las redes sociales también han tenido un factor preponderante en evidenciar los grandes índices de violencia que vivimos las mujeres en nuestro país, así como evidenciar el silencio y el machismo que muchas veces existe en torno a ésta. Este silencio y machismo se refleja en las amenazas, insultos y burlas que han recibido las víctimas en las redes sociales.
Dichas redes constituyen entonces un arma de dos filos: por un lado, sirven para resaltar los desequilibrios y exigencias sociales, mientras que, por el otro, funcionan como instrumentos para ocultar, detrás de una pantalla, a miles de personas que aún consideran que las mujeres somos violentadas porque nos lo merecemos, ya sea por nuestra forma de vestir, hablar, actuar o por el simple hecho de ser mujeres. Muchos de estos comentarios han sido rebatidos por miles de voces que somos conscientes del verdadero génesis de la violencia de género, así como de sus repercusiones.
La indignación social debe seguir siendo el motor en las redes sociales. Es esta indignación la que ha hecho que las autoridades volteen a ver a las víctimas cuando en un principio les fueron negados sus derechos; que hombres y mujeres nos cuestionemos sobre las relaciones de poder que practicamos en el día a día, pero los más importante, es que ésta indignación le ha puesto voz a miles de mujeres que hemos vivido algún tipo de violencia en nuestras vidas.
FH: Social media has also played a key role in exposing the high rates of violence that Mexican women endure, as well as the silence and machismo that often surrounds it. This silence and machismo is reflected in the threats, insults and taunts that victims have received on socal media.
These sites therefore have both positive and negative repercussions: On the one hand, they serve to highlight inequality and social demands, whereas, on the other hand, they work as instruments that can hide behind a screen thousands of people who still think that women are abused because we deserve it, because of the way we dress, talk, act or for the simple fact of being a woman. Many of these comments have been rebutted by people who are aware of the truth of the origins of violence against women, as well as its repercussions.
Social outrage should continue to be the motor for social media. It is this indignation which has made the authorities sit up and see these victims, where before they were denied their rights; that men and women question the relationships of power that we have day to day, but most importantly is that this outrage has given a voice to the thousands of women who have been victims of some kind of violence in our lives.
GV: Do you have a message for the millions of Mexican women who have been victims of violence and faced difficulties getting justice?
FH: Aún falta hacer mucho en el tema de acceso a la justicia. Necesitamos instituciones fuertes que den respuesta a nuestras demandas: funcionarias y funcionarios debidamente capacitados y sensibilizados en el tema; así como leyes que no se rijan bajo un esquema androcéntrico. Me parece que vamos caminado; sin embargo para lograrlo es necesario que mujeres y hombres, conjuntamente, sigamos exigiendo nuestros derechos y exhibiendo, por todos los medios posibles, las deficiencias que se tienen.
FH: Much still needs to be done on the subject of getting justice. We need strong institutions that respond to our demands: Competent male and female officials who are sensitive to the subject, as well as laws not governed under an androcentric system. It seems to me that things are changing, but to reach our goals, men and women together need to keep demanding our rights and showing by any means possible the shortcomings that exist.
GV: And finally, do you feel safe walking on the streets, or using public transport alone at night in Mexico City?
FH: Yo creo que no hay mujer en la Ciudad de México que se sienta 100% segura de caminar sola por las calles o al abordar el transporte público. Quizá sea más viable decir que nos vamos acostumbrando a vivir con ese miedo siempre latente.
FH: I don't think there is any woman in Mexico City who feels 100% safe walking on the street or using public transportation alone at night. It might be more reasonable to say that we are getting used to living with this constant underlying fear.
Fabiola Higareda spoke to Global Voices in a personal capacity, sharing her own opinions on violence against women in Mexico.

author: J. Tadeo


text:
Baobab and Moringa, Two ‘Superfoods’ With the Potential of Boosting the Planet’s Health · Global Voices
Ensia

The Sindri village (Kongoussi area) Baobab fruit called Monkey Bread and by the locals theodo, Burkina Faso. Photo by Flickr user CIFOR. CC-BY-NC-SA 2.0.
This post by Rachel Cernansky was originally published on Ensia.com, a magazine that highlights international environmental solutions in action, and is republished here as part of a content-sharing agreement.
It can seem like new health food fads pop up in the United States every week — fads that often fade as quickly as they appear. Two gaining steam lately, though, may be worth a longer look: baobab and moringa. Traditional fare in parts of Africa (and for moringa, Asia as well), these foods offer the potential not only to strengthen local economies, but to encourage conservation and carbon sequestration, too.
Time and again, when the world “discovers” a food previously consumed by a small pocket of the planet, global demand grows and production shifts from small and sustainable toward large-scale monoculture operations. In some cases, that ends up wreaking havoc on local ecosystems and spelling economic trouble for local producers and indigenous food supplies.
With baobab and moringa, though, some researchers say that growing global demand is gaining farmers a reliable market for crops they were often unable to sell before — and also helping the environment. These trees have a long history in the diets of many cultures, but they have grown in the wild and not been viewed as a crop for trade, giving farmers little incentive to grow them. Now, farmers are planting the trees.
And while the precise environmental benefits of the baobab and moringa planted so far are unknown, we do know that trees help improve soil structure and fertility — sometimes so significantly that yields of other crops also improve — and protect water ecosystems by filtering pollutants, reducing water runoff and, in some areas, reducing impacts of salinization by lowering the water table. They also often support bee and other pollinator populations, in addition to improving air quality and storing carbon.
Observers are hoping that baobab and moringa — if they ultimately do generate, and sustain, the expected economic and environmental benefits — can pave the way for a sustainable supply chain model that can be applied to other crops as well.
The baobab tree is considered by many as one of Africa’s most iconic plants: It grows across much of the continent and has a distinct appearance with a majestically wide trunk and branches that look more like the tree’s root system growing toward the sky. Able to live more than a thousand years, the tree is known as the “tree of life” for its many uses, including as a source of food and medicine; the papaya-size fruit is packed with nutrients — more vitamin C than an orange, more calcium than milk, and minerals, including magnesium, potassium and iron — and the leaves are eaten as vegetables in parts of West Africa.
Despite its reputation as one of the continent’s most important trees, however, researchers are worried about its future. Few people cultivate it intentionally because they’ve never needed to, but deforestation and changes in land use, including industrial and tourism development, have reduced wild populations.
“People don’t necessarily know the full value of it, so they might make choices to cut it down, and that’s thousands of years worth of growth,” says Stepha McMullin, social scientist with the Nairobi-based World Agroforestry Centre, or ICRAF.
ICRAF researchers and others believe that getting farmers in on the game of conservation will go a long way toward preserving a future for these unique trees, and that’s where the global market comes in. In general, crops grown for export or even larger regional markets fetch much higher prices than do crops grown for local markets; most farmers therefore would rather grow apples or mangoes, which are more commercially popular, than indigenous crops like baobab. But when the price they can get for baobab fruit goes up, farmers stop cutting the trees down and instead preserve them — and even start planting new ones.
PhytoTrade, a Botswana-based trade association representing southern African businesses, is one organization that has been working to bring baobab fruit and other crops to Europe, also with conservation in mind. The association’s goal is to help preserve indigenous biodiversity by boosting trade and creating sustainable, ethical supply chains that introduce baobab into products ranging from ice cream to cereal bars.
As the market for baobab has grown, PhytoTrade has seen producers — the vast majority of whom are small-scale women farmers — setting up tree nurseries and monitoring trees in local forests in Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South Africa. The growing market also creates incentive for programs like the South Africa-based Baobab Guardians, in which rural women plant and care for baobab seedlings and are then paid for trees that survive past the seedling stage.
Moringa, which grows in tropical areas from West Africa to India to the Caribbean, has a similar story to tell — even though it’s a drastically different type of plant, with tall, lean trunks, vibrant green leaves, which boast high levels of nutrients and antioxidants, and long seedpods (the tree’s fruit) that have long been used in some Indian cooking. One of the fastest-growing companies selling moringa leaf products in the US was founded with the explicit intention of boosting the livelihoods of small-scale farmers, women in particular, who grow moringa in heavily deforested areas that stand to benefit from newly planted trees.
Lisa Curtis, founder and CEO of Kuli Kuli, started importing moringa in 2013 from women-led farming cooperatives in Ghana. Kuli Kuli has since expanded its sourcing to Haiti and most recently Nicaragua. The company’s presence and the long-term potential benefits of planting moringa trees stand to boost Haiti’s forest cover from a recent dismal low of 2 percent — something the country, the United Nations and other organizations have spent millions to try to do, with many of the efforts proving unsustainable in the long run. The problem planting other types of trees has faced, says Curtis, is “if the tree isn’t actually helpful to the local population, it becomes more valuable as charcoal than as a tree, so it gets cut down.”
Moringa is not the first food-producing tree farmers are being encouraged to grow in Haiti or elsewhere, but it may offer some of the strongest benefits. It is a rich source not just of vitamins and minerals including iron, but of protein, and it asks little of farmers who grow it. Moringa does well in a variety of soils, shows resistance to drought and disease — and, crucially for poor farmers, grows quickly, with leaves available to harvest just a few months after planting seed.
“I rarely use the term miracle, but I am willing to make an exception for moringa,” says Hugh Locke, president of the Smallholder Farmers Alliance, which works with farmer cooperatives to improve nutrition and contribute to reforestation in Haiti. “Not only has it got these unique nutritional properties — unique in the entire tree kingdom — but it requires very little moisture and very little nutrients. And the thing grows from seed to 13 feet in one year. So you’re able to get a return on planting the tree without having to wait.”
Moringa’s high nutrient content raises questions about whether it should be used as a main source of food for the families growing it rather than as an export. Curtis says she faces that question all the time, and thinks it’s a valid concern, but notes that in many areas, people aren’t eating it regularly anyway. The way Curtis sees it, outsiders who want to see moringa’s benefits realized can either tell local people to eat it because it’s good for them or create a reliable market for the crop and, hopefully, financially empower local people to improve their own nutrition in other ways. “One of those is a lot more compelling than the other,” she says.
Some observers even think this tension could be one of the strongest cases for building an export market in the first place: The food’s popularity elsewhere could end up increasing local consumption — and subsequently nutrition intake — as well.
Jed Fahey, director of the Cullman Chemoprotection Center at Johns Hopkins University, has studied moringa for two decades. He says in South Asia and Africa, “either it’s so common that it’s not cherished, or even in some places it’s a famine food, and of course famine foods are sort of disdained.” Building an export market, he says, “may enhance the value of it to locals, and they may take a second look at it, they may be more prone to use it — rather than ignore it or use it for fence posts or firewood.”
That could have profound benefits for people suffering from malnutrition. One study found, for example, that adding moringa to porridge may help malnourished children gain weight and recover from nutrient deficiencies more quickly.
When moringa is refined into a western superfood, however, its effects on health become less clear, cautions Mark Olson, professor of evolutionary biology at UNAM (Mexico’s national university) and one of the world’s top moringa researchers.
“The closer a product is to a fresh vegetable and farther from a hokey supplement or a medicine, the better,” he says, cautioning specifically against extracts and concentrates, which he calls “possibly dangerous” and “totally untested.” He advises people to shop at an international grocery store for frozen or fresh leaves instead.
Despite the promise these crops offer, increasing demand for baobab and moringa comes with ecosystems risks, too. Ramni Jamnadass, tree research project leader at ICRAF, points out that there has been such little research on the vast majority of indigenous crops, including baobab, that there’s no way to assess the sustainability or scale of current harvesting practices. Moringa, on the other hand, reproduces so easily and grows so quickly, it’s sometimes regarded as an invasive species. Because research is also scarce, there’s little evidence to suggest whether that should be a big concern.
And despite the optimistic view that Curtis and Fahey offer, encouraging people to sell a crop for export rather than benefiting from its nutritional value themselves still raises questions. “You have to be very careful that you do no harm, in terms of promoting it for its potential economic market, in particularly the international market,” says ICRAF’s McMullin. “Once you make something very valuable economically, it becomes out of reach for the communities who also can benefit from it, particularly from a nutritional point of view.”
There are also concerns that as demand increases, production will start to resemble monocultures — which can have a number of environmental consequences, including jeopardizing the crops themselves. Roger Leakey, former research director at ICRAF, explains that indigenous crops are naturally resistant to local pests and disease in part because of the diverse ecosystem in which they grow. “There are already all the bugs and beasties, who in the wild situation would only nibble at them — but if there’s this great feast suddenly presented to them, they will expand and devour the whole crop,” he says. “So we have to be very careful, if we start selling these things as international commodities, that people understand those sorts of risks. We need to think very carefully about how we would go about cultivating them.”
Olson agrees that moringa could face these risks — as will any crop. It points to “the global agricultural conundrum,” he says, and the real question is about global priorities. “We need to decide what we want as a society. Do we want short-term very high production, or do we want to bet on what we think will provide us with long-term stability? And that’s not just moringa.”
Meanwhile, promoters of other crops are also looking to encourage tree growth by developing international markets. Yerba mate, a traditional beverage in parts of South America made from the leaves of the South American holly tree that’s become popular in some western countries, grows in regions that are naturally rich in biodiversity, and some companies are using it to encourage local people to preserve native forest or reforest deforested areas. And Alice Muchugi, gene bank manager at ICRAF, says there are plenty of other traditional foods in Africa and around the world that could benefit from a global market — tamarind, safou, monkey orange (Strychnos cocculoides) and jujube (Ziziphus mauritiana), to name a few.
For Jamnadass, one of the most pressing challenges is getting the funding to study the trees’ benefits, cultivation methods, and the threats trees face, and to establish collaborations with farmers — because donors are often drawn to faster-growing crops.
“Trees are going to take their time … to grow. But then they’re there for a long, long time,” she says.  Code Embed v2.2
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author: Ensia


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Exit Davutoglu: Turkish PM Squeezed Out as Fears for the Future Intensify · Global Voices
Akhal-Tech Collective

Davutoglu at Harvard. Creative commons.
Turkey's Prime Minister of nearly two years Ahmet Davutoğlu has announced his intention to quit his post “for the unity of the party” amid evidence of a bubbling conflict with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Davutoglu was the second most important figure in the AKP (Justice and Development Party) that has dominated Turkish politics for over a decade and his likely disappearance from the political scene is viewed as robbing the country of a potential check on Erdogan's ambitions.
A bespectacled intellectual, Davutoglu never quite had the aura of Erdogan, who came to the fore as Turkey's Prime Minister and AKP's guiding political force in 2003.
Wow that was quick Mr #Davutoğlu already found himself a new job impressive. #Turkey pic.twitter.com/BEzLlaJmO5
— Hamosh (@Hamosh84) May 6, 2016
Writing at Al-Monitor, Mustafa Akyol noted the appearance of a “mysterious political blog” that had painted Davutoglu as a traitor shortly after Davutoglu was stripped of his powers to appoint regional party officials by the AKP's executive committee.
If the blog — as many think — is a reflection of Erdogan's positions, then some of Davutoglu's principle crimes appear to have been playing the soft cop to Erdogan's hard cop in negotiations over the EU-Turkey refugee deal and favouring a parliamentary system.
What awaits Turkish Prime Minister #Davutoğlu after his dismissal by President #Erdoğan… pic.twitter.com/WYKJKvVmef
— Aykan Erdemir (@aykan_erdemir) May 5, 2016
Davutoglu, for his part, appears to have recognised that he lacks the political capital to go toe-to-toe with one of the most popular and powerful leaders in Turkey's history, despite the fact that as PM he has a broader constitutional mandate than Erdogan.
This has led many to fear that Turkey's transition from a troubled democracy to an authoritarian state is close to complete.
Let us mourn Turkish democracy, which has been shorn of one of its last checks on #Erdoğan’s power https://t.co/GnQEmjgc8N
— Arzu Geybulla (@arzugeybulla) May 7, 2016
With Davutoglu's successor likely to be more in favour of a constitutional switch in favour of broader powers for Erdogan and the presidency, the world will wait to see what this means both for the ongoing refugee crisis on the EU's borders and the deepening conflict between Kurdish militants and the Turkish state.
Unfortunately, what developments in Turkey over the last two years or so have shown is that prospects that at one point might have seemed absurd, suddenly become conceivable.
CHP MP: “Thank goodness for the Republic. In Ottoman times, Davutoğlu would have lost his head.” https://t.co/fK3yMALDtG
— Ankaralı Jan (@06JAnk) May 7, 2016

author: Akhal-Tech Collective


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Facebook Posts Tell the Tale of a Kazakh Land Reform Furore · Global Voices
Akhal-Tech Collective

It's about the land. Or is it? Grain fields near Kokshetau, Kazakhstan by Breshuk. Wikipedia image.
With Kazakhstan's pro-government media — which is the majority of media — studiously ignoring protests over land reform plans that have enveloped the Central Asian state over the last couple of weeks, it was left to social media to try and provide a serious explanation of what the unrest was, and was not about.
While ordinary Kazakhs have any number of reasons to kick off at the moment — Bloomberg named the tenge as the world's worst-performing currency last year and inflation is strident — the spark that triggered protests in different corners of the vast country was a proposal to amend the land code in a way that would make more unused farm land commercially available and extend land leases for foreigners.
And when pro-government media finally did decide to dedicate coverage to the topic, it was mostly to stoke public rage by suggesting protesters were foreign funded sellouts.
Finally, on May 5, after a two-week period in which several provincial cities saw protests involving up to a thousand people or more, 75-year-old Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev moved to block the reform for at least another year, a move that may well draw the sting from the protest mood.
But even if broader unrest has been quashed for the moment, the question remains: how did one of the more stable authoritarian governments in the ex-Soviet Union find itself in such a mess in the first place?
In late April, the government announced plans to amend the country's land code, triggering immediate public irritation.
Privatization of land and use of land by foreigners is a controversial issue in ex-communist countries where the transition from the former Soviet Union to capitalist independence was associated with elites getting rich and the poorest parts of the population growing increasingly disenfranchized.
A particularly unpopular element of the present land reform proposal is a legislative clause that would increase lease terms on Kazakh land used by foreigners from 10 to 25 years.
Writing as the land protests spread across the country's West and South, political analyst Dosym Satpayev noted the appearance of two bastions of deep-seated ambivalence — if not all out opposition — to Kazakhstan's autocratic regime.
Inside the country two areas of social and political activity have taken shape. One is the West of the country and the other is [largest city, situated in southern Kazakhstan] Almaty. The only difference is in methods of expression.
If Almaty is more like a bastion of passivity, as was seen, for example, in its especially low turnout during the recent parliamentary elections, then the western regions of Kazakhstan are more demonstrative in their expression […]
Referring to Western Kazakhstan and Almaty as politically active regions is mostly academic, however, as a social explosion could now actually occur in any part of the country and on any occasion […]
Economist Tulegen Askarov noted that pro-government media such as Kazakhstan Pravda was resorting to ever-more desperate messaging in an attempt to persuade citizens not to join protests.
The image in the article he posted is from neighbouring Kyrgyzstan, whose more democratic political system Kazakh state media tends to deride as chaotic, although as another Facebook post noted, that kind of propaganda is losing its power now that Kazakhstan's ‘stability’ has grown less attractive to ordinary citizens.
It is notable that Nazarbayev used Ukraine — another country that has experienced violent revolution — as an example of what Kazakhstan should avoid becoming on the country's Unity Day on May 1.
Tulegenov writes: Kazpravda [newspaper] has warned us!
Article title: ‘Victims and poverty – What the “Color Revolutions” Led to’.
One of the most extraordinary indicators that the state had lost the public relations plot amid the protests was the sight of a news presenter on government-controlled Channel One Eurasia cryptically blaming a “fifth column” supported by people “very far away” for funding the land-related unrest.
The presenter suggested that these external forces “very far away” (cue suggestive gesture with a pen) had offered protesters $100 and more to engage in the protests.
Many observers, including PR specialist Alisher Yelikbayev noted that the broadcast was drawn straight from the Russian playbook.
With Kazakhstan having relatively little protest management experience however, the messaging was rather more clumsily executed.
Quietly in the corner, somewhere in Moscow, Irada Zeynalova [combative and occasionally sensationalist correspondent for Russia's First Channel] is now crying.
And on Whatsapp, people are discussing the alleged trip schedules of the US Ambassador to Kazakhstan, which supposedly coincide with the schedules of the land rallies.
It is a pity that the authorities do not even try to reinvent the wheel and explain their own stupidity in a new way, but rather content themselves with the notion that it is all Obama's fault. The guy has very little time left to sit in the White House, and then the Kazakhs go and spoil his karma.
The problem is, that unlike Russians, who from birth are brought up on the idea that the United States is the superpower that thwarts their superpower, we are less ambitious and have generally not minded the Americans.
We hazard a guess that it is not Barack Obama who is spending away our pensions and that he probably does not have the slightest clue about this particular land issue. Therefore it is not certain how playing this card will go down…
Former Deputy Education Minister Marat Ubenov also took exception to the wave of propaganda blaming “third forces” for what appeared to be a domestic response to poor domestic policy-making and government communications strategy.
Some stubbornly insist that the people taking part in these rallies are agents of a “color revolution”. Allegedly, those who protest in one form or another against the transfer of land to foreigners are actually setting themselves broader political goals.
Where did this information come from? Where is the proof? If you think that they are preparing a revolution then name which political force is behind them, with what aims. If this is not the case, then why artificially cause the situation to escalate? […]
Those supposed to ensure stability in society are instead pushing for the further politicization of the land issue.
The more strongly government opposes increased civic engagement, the less space there is for compromise. Do not provoke a stronger reaction. The issue at stake is a dumb land code. That is all.
The government showed it was in no mood for debate over the land reform proposals on April 29 when it detained a number of activists planning a press conference in the former capital Almaty on April 29.
How can you detain people that wanted to give a press conference? Yes, of course it is a rhetorical question.
The growing social unease in Kazakhstan also prompted a reappraisal of resource-poor Kyrgyzstan's two revolutions, which while failing to bring the kind of prosperity seen in oil-rich Kazakhstan, at least ensured democratic gains including free elections, term limits respected by presidents and genuine space for policy discussions.
Remember how several years ago we laughed at our Kyrgyz brothers? Admit it, you laughed at them, no? We said that they had nothing bar the Issyk-Kul Lake and that we were this great land of oil.
Well, in truth, he who laughs last laughs loudest. He he.
And big respect to our Kyrgyz brothers. You are on the correct path and now we envy you. Honestly.
With the prospect of a nationwide protest later in the month looming, President Nazarbayev took action, backing down on the Land Code amendments.
Facebook satirist Rinat Balgabaev meanwhile wrote a typically witty post imagining a conversation that had taken place in presidential residence prior to the decision to block the amendments.
- What to do, how to calm the people, distract them? Maybe I could sack somebody? Offer some concessions. Put some stupid news out there, I don't know, film a new season of ‘Magnificent Century'?
- Maybe you can just drop the land code amendments?
- You mean we can just do that?
On the same day, an MP in the exclusively pro-government parliament, Gulzhana Karagusova, criticised journalists for “taking words out of context” regarding the land reform and generally inflaming the situation.
Irina Mednikova, director of the non-governmental Youth Information Service of Kazakhstan media monitoring group wondered which journalists Karagusova was talking about.
“You journalists should also be analysts, because your words are the words that people finally hear. Nobody analyzed anything, [words] were taken out of context, and based on that, there was a discussion that did not correspond to reality,” said MP Gulzhana Karagusova.
In the aftermath of a potentially toxic public relations crisis, President Nazarbayev has ordered the dismissal of two ministers as well as the creation of a ministry of communication to be headed by his former press officer, while citizens across the country have received SMS messages explaining that the land reform has been temporarily shelved.
All is well that ends well?


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In Bangladesh, Extremists Use Social and Mainstream Media Data to Target Victims · Global Voices
Palash Ranjan Sanyal

Secular writers killed in in Bangladesh between 2013-2015. From top left clockwise: Faisal Arefin Dipan, Shafiul Islam, Oyasiqur Rahman Babu, Rajib Haider, Avijit Roy and Ananta Bijoy Das.
Since 2013, Bangladesh has witnessed a series of brutal killings of secular intellectuals by religious militants. As assailants have targeted an increasingly diverse set of people — from bloggers to academics and publishers, to gay rights activists and religious minorities — people have begun to look critically at the different entities involved.
On the occasion of World Press Freedom Day, UNESCO organized a seminar in Bangladesh where the focus was on use of social media to resonate ‘false information’. The speakers expressed their worries about the use of social media to spread religious extremism and hatred as well as to infringe on individual freedom. Indeed, observers have begun pointing fingers at the government, mainstream media and social media, identifying specific ways in which each of these entities has contributed to the problem.
Although the government is harsh on any views hurting religious sentiments, authorities have made little effort to stop these threats. Police always seem to arrive at the crime scene just moments after a murder has been committed and the perpetrator has fled.
As for media, most of the deceased bloggers were openly threatened via social media before their killings, and violent extremist groups regularly claim responsibility for their deaths on Facebook or Twitter as well. Mainstream media regularly report on these incidents, but often publish personal information about targeted individuals that can increase their vulnerability to threats by militants.
In the latest murder, Nikhil Joarder, a tailor, was hacked to death on 30 April and the attack was claimed by the Indian sub-continent division of ISIS on social media. Nikhil belonged to a very ordinary family. At first, people could not fathom how he could be a target of an international extremist organisation. But the attack may be linked to a comment that Joarder made in 2012:
Another Islamist style organised machete attack in Bangladesh, on a Hindu tailor for ‘anti-Prophet’ comment in 2012!https://t.co/oANvPoriNK
— Rayhan Rashid (@rayhanrashid) April 30, 2016
At the time, a complaint was filed against Joarder for allegedly making derogatory comments about the Prophet Mohammed. Joarder was then arrested and released after spending a few weeks in jail. Three locals have been detained in the murder case.
In another example, Facebook user Noyon Chatterjee, who allegedly operates using a fake (and importantly, Hindu) identity openly shared the social media identities of professors and individuals on his website. When individuals are exposed in this way, they can easily fall prey to extremists.
And social media is being used by militants not only to track and gain support, but also to incite mob violence. In September 2012, Bangladesh saw a string of violent attacks on Buddhist monasteries, shrines, and houses of Buddhist inhabitants in Ramu Upazila in Cox's Bazar District in Bangladesh by local mobs. The agitated mobs destroyed 12 Buddhist temples and monasteries and 50 houses in reaction to an image depicting the desecration of a Quran on the timeline of a fake Facebook account under a Buddhist male name. In both this and the previous case, individuals with malicious intentions posed as religious minorities as part of their effort to incite hatred and violence against religious minority groups.
It also appears that extremists are tracking such information with the support of other netizens. In an article titled In Bangladesh, Call Facebook for Murder, writer Sudip Roy charted the activities of a Facebook page right after the killing of two LGBT Activists. The page celebrated the killings, and netizens took part in it, constantly providing information.
The following documentary “Razor's Edge”, produced by anonymous blogger “Nastiker Dhormokotha” (religious talk of an atheist), is the winner of jury’s award in the Citizen Journalism category at the Deutsche Welle BOBs awards 2016. This reveals the life-threatening situation the secular bloggers are facing in Bangladesh.
Blogger Haseeb recently wrote in Sachalayatan about the arrest of a young girl under the controversial section 57 of the ICT Act for a Facebook post allegedly defaming Allah and the Quran:
নিখিল চন্দ্র কেন ৪ বছর পরে টার্গেটে পরিণত হলেন সেটার প্রাথমিক কারণ হল তিনি কিছু বলেছেন (বা বলেননি কিন্তু ছড়িয়েছে তিনি বলেছেন) এবং সেই তথ্যটা জায়গামতো পৌঁছে গেছে। এই হত্যার দায়ভার প্রথমত জেএমবি হলেও জেএমবি কীভাবে তথ্যটা পেল সেটা ভেবে দেখার অবকাশ আছে।
The primary reason Why Nikhil Chandra became the target 4 years later, is because she said something (or allegedly spread that he said) and the information has traveled to the right place. Though extremists are responsible for this killing, how the information reached to them remains to be explored.
He also added:
আজকে পত্রিকায় প্রকাশিত একটি খবর যেখানে নিখিল চন্দ্রের মতোই একজনের গ্রেফতারের কথা প্রকাশিত হয়েছে যিনি (অভিযোগকারীদের দাবি) ফেসবুকে ধর্ম “অবমাননা” হয় এরকম মন্তব্য করেছেন।… এই নিউজটা পড়ে নিখিল চন্দ্রের কথা কীভাবে জেএমবি পর্যন্ত পৌঁছাতে পারে সেটার একটা ধারণা পাওয়া যেতে পারে। নিউজের প্রথম লাইনে গ্রেফতার হওয়া তরুণীর নাম (ডাকনামসহ) এবং বয়স উল্লেখ করা হয়েছে। সেই সাথে তিনি কোন জেলার কোন উপজেলা থেকে গ্রেফতার হয়েছেন সেটার তথ্য। দ্বিতীয় প্যারাতে আরও এক লেভেল নেমে সেই উপজেলার কোন এলাকা এবং সেটা “নিজের বাড়ি” উল্লেখ করে তরুণীর বাবার নাম উল্লেখ করা হয়েছে। অর্থাৎ খবর থেকে এখন এই তরুণীকে খুঁজে বের করা কোন সমস্যা হবার কথা নয়। এই তরুণীর বাসা খুঁজতে আরও একটু সহযোগিতা করার জন্য তৃতীয় লাইনে থানার নামও দিয়ে দেয়া হয়েছে। সাংবাদিক, পুলিশ (বা সরকার) ছাড়াও এখানে আরেক পক্ষের খবর পাই আমরা। স্থানীয় জনতা নাকি সেই তরুণীর বাড়ী ঘিরে রেখেছিল পুলিশ আসাতক। ফেসবুকে একটা মন্তব্য করায় একজন নাগরিকের জীবন এভাবে সবাই মিলে সারাজীবনের জন্য বিপন্ন করে তুলল।
Today, a similar news story was published saying that (like Nikhil Chandra) a person has been arrested, accused of (according to complaint) making a Facebook comment which can be treated as “contempt” of religion. If you read the news, you can have an idea how the extremists learned about Nikhil Chandra. The first line of the news provides the name and age of the girl who was arrested (including nickname). Also, it includes information about the district and sub-district she was arrested in. The second paragraph even points out the local area, mentions her father's name, and notes that they own the house. Now from the news, anyone can locate the girl. To make it even easier to find this young woman's home, the news includes the girl's local police station as well. Other than journalists and the police (or the government), we get to know about a third side. Local people surrounded the house before the police came in. Just for a comment on Facebook, a citizen's life is placed in danger for a lifetime, by everyone around her.
Indeed, the practice of discretion and verification of sources often seems to be missing within the journalist community. Social and mainstream media have failed to prioritize privacy and important ethical considerations when handling.
Critics have also suggested that journalists focus too much on identity rather than humanity. As a Dhaka Tribune Editorial emphasized:
Whether you support LGBT rights or you do not, the one thing that we must all agree on is that there can never be any justification for murder, and that those who are guilty of such savage slaughter are enemies of the state and of everything that is decent in humanity.
In 2015, the Bangladesh government blocked Facebook for 22 days citing threats to public security. The ban was lifted after government officials met with Facebook representatives and urged them to monitor or filter content that could be seen as provoking religious sentiment and conspiracies against the government.
It is clear that police and government authorities could do much more to mitigate threats and hold perpetrators accountable for their crimes. It is also clear that mainstream media could take greater care to omit key private information about individuals who have faced threats or legal challenges concerning their online speech. But the responsibilities of social media platforms in this milieu, and Facebook in particular — as it is the most popular social media platform in Bangladesh — are more difficult to define.
In April 2016, Facebook stated that it had complied with Bangladeshi government requests for the personal data of specific users who had violated local laws. Facebook administrators provided some data related to 16.67 percent of requests made by the government between July and December 2015, according to the company's latest Global Government Request Report. As per the report, the Bangladesh government made 12 requests seeking information on 31 Facebook users during the period. Within this time, Facebook restricted access to 4 pieces of content alleged to violate local law regarding blasphemy, pursuant to a request from the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission.
While these measures may help mitigate threats and the proliferation of hateful messages and incitements to violence, these likely represent only a small fraction of cases in which people used Facebook to issue threats or incite violence against others.
While all entities discussed here could take greater care to protect the privacy and safety of individuals facing threats from such groups, it is above all incumbent on the Bangladesh government to uphold the rule of law and protect public safety by working to prevent such attacks and to bring their perpetrators to justice.

author: Palash Ranjan Sanyal