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Hong Kong’s universal testing wraps up with low turn out · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

A testing center in Hong Kong. Screen capture from Cable TV's Youtube channel.
Hong Kong's universal COVID-19 screening program came to an end on September 14 after healthcare officials tested 1.78 million people. Authorities initially hoped that at least 4 million out of the city's 7-million population would volunteer for the test.
After Hong Kong recorded a surge of local transmissions of COVID-19 in mid-July, Chief Executive Carrie Lam reached out to Beijing to help the city conduct a universal, voluntary, and free testing program of the city's population.
Lam's decision was criticized by medical experts who doubted the effectiveness of universal testing on locations that aren't under total lockdown, which is the case of Hong Kong. Others pointed out that by the time the Beijing medical arrived in the city, in early August, the daily rate of new infections had already wained.
In addition, pro-democracy activists led a boycott campaign of the city-wide testing over fears of Beijing's involvement in the logistics. Activists cited concerns over the possible collection of DNA data from Hong Kong citizens and the use of that data on a future health code system, similar to those implemented in mainland Chinese cities.
Lam dismissed all such critiques as “politically motivated.”
Hong Kong observers have argued that the universal testing would serve as thermometer of the city's level of public trust. While Lam hailed the program as “a success,” her critics contended that the low turnout was a “symptom of a failed state.”
The test wasn't mandatory, but local media outlets have reported that school teachers, civil servants, and employees of mainland Chinese companies were allegedly compelled to volunteer for the test.
The authorities have identified 32 positive cases, with 40 percent of them being “weak positives,” which means they aren't contagious. The government hoped that the testing program would be able to identify at least 1,500 asymptomatic spreaders.
The cost of the universal testing was also the subject of controversy. In total, the program cost 1.42 billion HK dollars (approximately 183 million US dollars), with about a third of that shouldered by Hong Kong taxpayers. Around 70 percent of Hong Kong's expenses covered wages of health care staff, according to Civil Service Minister Patrick Nip.
Beijing bore the rest of the cost by building temporary testing facilities, supplying testing kits, and processing results — the latter is the responsibility of Sunrise Diagnostic Centre Limited, whose parent company, BGI group, has been involved with building a gene bank in Xinjiang. BGI group is among the Chinese companies recently sanctioned by the United States’ government.
In the weeks leading up to the start of the program, adverts were run on pro-Beijing newspapers and TV channels urging people to volunteer for the free test.
Numerous news reports used language such as “mainland Chinese medical teams worked around the clock to safeguard Hong Kong people's health.” Suspicious social media posts praising the testing program have also been spotted.
Here are a few examples found on a Twitter search of 全民檢測 (universal testing). The account @houpan123 tweeted on September 9:
大家都睇到了，#全民檢測 喺短短嘅七天時間，已經讓香港「煥然一新」，民眾嘅臉上洋溢嘅都係迎接勝利嘅喜悅。新冠肺炎疫情嘅「侵襲」並冇讓香港退步，反而凝聚咗更強大嘅精神逆流而上，有中央安港護港，有特區政府履職盡責，有各界民眾團結一心，#香港 定能擺脫 疫情，大獲全勝。
You all see the result now. #universal testing has given Hong Kong a new look in 7 days. People wear a smile of victory on their faces. The “attack” of COVID-19 is not a setback for Hong Kong. It has aggregated a spirit to counter the current. With the presence of the central government to safeguard Hong Kong, and the responsible SAR government and the solidarity of people, #HongKong will overcome the epidemic and gain a victory.
The account @MariaCobbs4, which was created recently and has zero followers, tweeted on September 7:
#全民檢測 才可以拯救香港，而唔系攬炒派。
#universaltesting is the way to save Hong Kong, not the mutually destructive protesters.
This September 7 tweet by another suspicious account, @dEouU90VxHQlXzz, who also has zero followers, was retweeted four times:
全力支持全民檢測，相信在香港人民和社會熱心人士的共同努力和關注之下，香港疫情會早日清零。
Fully support universal testing. The effort made by Hong Kong people and concerned citizens will restore Hong Kong back to “zero cases”.
A lot of Hongkongers have remained skeptical of the program despite the propaganda.
Pro-democracy politician Gary Fan described the testing scheme as a project by the Hong Kong government to please Beijing:
全民檢測係政府嘅政治任務，要向中央「戴罪立功」，如果最終得幾十萬人登記，政府「顏面何存」
The city-wide test is a political mission to please the central government. If less than a million people had shown up, the government would have lost its face.
And here are some comments on a Facebook post by public broadcaster RTHK News:
擺明就係利益輸送，大陸醫護幾錢個月，啲測試藥就係廢料，港共政權擋香港人錢係糞便，好快儲備就掉清光。
This is a transmission of interest (to China). How much is the monthly salary of mainland Chinese medical workers? The testing kits are trash. They take our money as crap [sic] and we will use up all our reserves soon.
14日檢測計劃，薪金洗咗3.7億
即每日2,642萬，CLS
總數開咗141個檢測中心，即係每個中心、每日要19萬人工，係每日！咩概念
14 days of testing and HK$370 were spent on salaries. On average the daily salary is HK$26.42 million. This is totally crazy. There were 141 specimen collection sites, which means the daily salary of each center is HK$190,000. We are talking about daily here! How do you picture this?
3億7千萬，600個大陸醫護，平均一個大陸醫護60幾萬
減香港嘅公共醫療撥款，以全香港人嘅醫療資源嚟餵食呢幾百個仆街！
370 million and the Chinese team has 600 medical workers. On average each were paid 600K?
Hong Kong public health expense has been cut (in recent years) and now we are spending so much on this useless crap?
全民免費????5億公帑點收集返黎架?
Free universal testing???? Where is the HK$500 million coming from?

author: Oiwan Lam


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How the world’s six largest economies are faring amidst the global political economy of COVID-19 · Global Voices
Ian Inkster

Coronavirus image concept of medical face mask and money, representing the pandemic and economic damages by Jernej Furman on Flickr, CC BY 2.0.
By Ian Inkster
On September 6, 2020, officially recorded cases of COVID-19 surpassed 27 million, with a mortality of over 884,000 people. Although we are still in the midst of this global pandemic, thoughts are increasingly turning to its ultimate economic impacts. Here we show that the economic impress of the virus in any nation will be closely related to the extent of virus cases and mortality and the condition of the economy prior to the endemic, as well as to virus management policies.
The political economy of any one nation, however, is interlinked with the global economy, and because of this the scale of activities in the largest economies really does matter—they may even be of greater importance to a nation’s ease of recovery than the effectiveness of its COVID-19 management regime.
Table 1 below lists the six major economies by GDP, noting overall COVID-19 incidence since the inception of the virus.
Row A shows cases per million, Row B shows deaths per million, and Row C shows deaths per number of cases in each nation. Together, these six nations represent 44 per cent of the world’s population (E), 42 per cent of COVID-19 cases (D), and 57 per cent of global GDP—so they are of tremendous importance in all respects.
It is immediately clear that the crude total of cases (Row D) says nothing much about real impacts. India, for instance, has a huge number of cases but a much smaller ratio of cases/population than the USA or the UK. Indeed, Britain—with far fewer total cases than India—has a disastrous statistical record: the largest number of deaths per million and by far the largest ratio of deaths to cases (Row C), often termed the “observed case mortality ratio”, at over 12 per cent compared to Japan’s 1.9 per cent. Germany, usually seen as exemplary in the West, in fact has a much greater case mortality ratio than Japan or India. Things are not quite what they seem when compared to the “spike talk” and abrasiveness of the Western press, in particular.
Table 2 moves towards an interpretation of this data. First, the poorer the nation as measured by per capita purchasing power parity income (that is, World Bank data) the lower the incidence and morbidity of COVID-19. Moving along Row F, India has a per capita income of only 13 per cent of the USA, 15 per cent of Germany's, or 18 per cent of Japan's. Yet the presence of COVID-19 in India, despite headlines of alarm, is far lower.
Rows G and H explain this substantially. In an income-poor nation such as India, the population of youngsters 0-19 years old (G) is very high, at 35.7 per cent, compared to 17.2 per cent in Japan or 17.7 per cent in Germany. As the virus has little impact on the young, this substantially reduces the proportion of the population subject to infection in India. Again, the very low percentage of elderly people (Row H, 6.6 per cent) compared to each of the other five nations is startling. Germany’s 22.2 per cent means that death per capita there should be much higher than in India by a multiple of 3 or 4, as COVID-19  results in mortality among the elderly far more than among younger age groups. Even in China, where Maoist population control reduced births, focused on smaller families and achieved longer survival amongst the elderly, the age differentials based on low income do possibly explain the China's good COVID-19 performance—we do not have to believe Trumpist rhetoric about lying and mischievous Chinese authorities.
The other elements of Table 2 that act as advantages for India and China compared to the other four nations centre on much lower urbanism, lower air pollution, and more distant borders (Rows J-M). Row J shows emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, perfluorocarbon, hydrofluorocarbon and sulphur hexafluoride per capita in metric tons. The combination of high air contamination with very high degrees of urban living in the richer of the six nations is a possibly potent factor in transmission and severity of the virus, although research on this is ongoing.  Again, in the poorer large nations, the table shows long borders, but these are distant from urban centres and sparsely populated in the main. In contrast, the USA has considerable borders in dense settlement regions adjacent to other high-COVID-19 nations—Canada with 3,479 cases per million, Mexico with its 4,372 cases per million.
The life expectancy results in Row P spell out the effects of low income and low health expenditures—Indian life expectancy being 15 years and more below that of Japan. So, while the lack of health funding in the low-income nations (with Row N showing USA spending 20 times as much and 4 times the proportion of its GDP, in comparison to India) is a depressing global fact, it is not sufficient to raise infection or morbidity levels of COVID-19 in comparison to those of the rich nations of this group.
Table 3 below turns to the likely economic impacts of COVID-19 following our overall analysis.
The biggest factor in recovery will probably be the extent of COVID-19 spread. Thus, Japan and the UK have almost identical incomes per capita, (Table 3, Row Q) but Japan has a far lower incidence of COVID-19 (Table 1, Rows A-C), less than one-quarter of British cases, a tiny fraction of its observed case fatality ratio. We can expect an easier Japanese recovery. On the other hand, generalising across the board, several other factors are involved in any economic forecasts, as suggested in Table 3.
Row T shows different rates of GDP in the six nations in post-recession years, and, other things being equal, the fast-growing China and India have a better running start on recovery. Their lower levels of national debt (Row R) means that they might have more public-funding slack—that is, growth will reduce debts from “recovery spending. At the same time, these two nations have a greater opportunity to borrow public funds through increasing their national debts.
In contrast, Japan has a very high existing national debt (R) but low COVID-19 presence, so might be able to trade her way out of imminent funding problems—Row S, showing that, as with Germany, Japan has a surplus on her export-import trade balance (e+i%).
Trade will be crucial. Row Y shows a high mutual dependency on trade in this group—the calculation here shows the number of the six nations listed as within the top four importing/exporting nations of the nation concerned; a figure of 0 would indicate minimum dependency, a figure of 4 the maximum. The figures of 2 and 3 throughout this row, therefore, show a high dependency of trade within the group—severe trade failure as a result of slow COVID-19 recovery in any members will demonstrably impact on the others. So, the large nations, in a pessimistic scenario, could well lead the rest of the world into further economic recession through a fall in their trading activity outside the group.
This is highlighted when we focus on the US and China as trading nations, bearing in mind that the total Chinese economy is growing much faster than that of the US (Row T). In 52 of 64 major economies globally, China is ranked in the top 4 as an exporter or importer to them. In 33 cases China is the major origin of their imports. China imports 10 per cent less than it exports, and has been growing very rapidly for some time. In contrast, the USA has a smaller world impact, trading disproportionately across her own borders with Canada and Mexico, or with China and Japan. The USA imports 20 per cent more than it exports, and its GDP has been growing at a rate of around 30 per cent of that of China. Crucially, the proportion of Chinese imports that go to poorer, non-industrial nations is around twice that of the USA. We may conclude that although severe trade decline would affect all nations, severe Chinese decline would be very serious for a much greater array of nations, and especially so for poorer or developing countries.
Finally, the political dimension can only be surmised. Rows W, X, and Z provide something approaching a measure of a comparative political economy for the six nations. The HDI, or human development index, of the United Nations incorporates life expectancy, education and incomes, and Row X adds the degree of income inequality between nations—the lower the figure the greater the equality. India suffers badly here from its low HDI position, which would hamper longer-term recovery from COVID-19. Surprisingly, given the range of political systems in this group, levels of equality/inequality are nothing to boast about but are relatively similar. So, these nations would have difficulty driving forward economic recovery programs that dampened the high levels of HDI, and at the same time—as shown in Row Z—they have very strong positions of political and economic freedom as measured by Freedom House earlier in 2020. As indicated by “*”, all nations other than China are defined as “electoral democracies,” with Germany and Japan leading in this regard. China is the odd nation out.
The conclusion is awkward. This immensely influential portion of our COVID-19 world has suffered more than average from the virus, has managed this in very varied ways, mostly problematic, and is economically highly interrelated.
The US recovery is likely to be slow and hard to predict, in that it suffers hugely from COVID-19, has a low rate of economic growth, and, as Rows X and Z of Table 3 suggest, Freedom House has reason to identify the USA as leading a decline in liberal democracy and the “functioning of government, freedom of expression and belief, and rule of law.” This judgement was made just prior to the COVID-19 outbreak.
India might well be a contrast, with a faster recovery due to lower COVID-19 impacts and advantages stemming from all the elements listed in Table 2. A speedy recovery in China together with reasonable growth in India could be the leading optimistic combination—they both have fast rates of growth in the recent COVID-19 past, and they are complementary traders. China, in particular, impacts a wider range of less-developed nations than does the US or the other Big Six nations. In addition, China has political room to move—no electorate complaining of declining democracy, a very low degree of political freedom as defined by Freedom House, (Row Z), so an ability to push through determined programs for recovery and open trade.
Finally, in this very complex situation, we might find that the US-China trade war changes in tone, from a simple dualism to a general division between US pressure for global protectionism and a Chinese insistence on global free trading.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Ian Inkster


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In Peru, indigenous youth rap against sexual violence · Global Voices
Gabriela García Calderón Orbe

“The girls are suffering”. Screenshot of video “Warmallan amaraq mamaqa” (Girls, not mothers). Video by Kusi Kawsay uploaded in YouTube.
On September 6, high school students from the Cusco region of Peru marked International Indigenous Women's Day by creating a rap video demanding girl's rights, including access to emergency kits and therapeutic abortions in cases of rape.
In the video, shared with the hashtag #WarmallanAmaraqMamaqa (Quechua for “#Girls, not mothers”), students from the Kusi Kawsay educational institution rap about the 700 reports of rape committed against girls during COVID-19 related lockdown. According to data from the Ministry for Women and Vulnerable Populations’ Aurora National Program, 6072 violence-related cases against children up to 17-years-old were reported during Peru's COVID-19 social isolation period from March 16 and August 31.
The same report adds that 16.2 percent of minors were victims of sexual violence, of which 92.9 percent were girls and 7.1 percent were boys. Cusco region is the third region nationwide in the rate of sexual violence against minors, with 9.7 percent of the total attended cases.
Image by Ministry and Women and Vulnerable Populations, under public domain.
The full video, shared on September 6, can be viewed on the Kusi Kawsay school Twitter account and on YouTube. The students rap in Spanish and in Quechua.
Video campaña #WarmallanAmaraqMamaqa de las jóvenes de Kusi Kawsay. Exigimos que los derechos de las niñas campesinas e indígenas se respeten ?? pic.twitter.com/ZX79Eo604F
— Kusi Kawsay (@KawsayKusi) September 7, 2020
Video campaign #WarmallanAmaraqMamaqa by young girls from Kusi Kawsay. We demand the rights of peasant and indigneous girls to be respected. ??
The lyrics, which include “I reveal the fear”, “underestimating women [is] part of colonization” and “never silent,” were written by Elizangela, a 13-year-old teenager:
1 / 7 Letra de rap escrita por Elizangela, 13 años: Campaña juvenil de #WarmallanAmaraqMamaqa (#NiñasNoMadres en Quechua). Este video campaña fue creada por lxs jóvenes del colegio Kusi Kawsay para exigir la protección de niñas campesinas e indígenas. Estáte atento/a!✊? pic.twitter.com/lmE3cgpt4z
— Kusi Kawsay (@KawsayKusi) September 5, 2020
1 / 7 Rap lytrics were written by 13-year od Elizangela, Youth campaign #WarmallanAmaraqMamaqa (Girls, not mothers in Quechua). This video campaign was created by youth from Kusi Kawsay school to demand protection for peasant and indigenous girls. Stay tuned! ✊?
The Kusi Kawsay school is located in the Písac District, at almost 3000 meters above sea level, and is focused on the education of indigenous children from nearby communities. The school's philosophy blends elements of Waldorf education with the Andean tradition, striving to holistically enhance students’ artistic, intellectual, and practical skills:
La filosofía educativa de Kusi Kawsay está basada en la tradición andina a lo cual ha integrado algunos elementos de la pedagogía Waldorf. Actualmente atiende a un estimado de 95 niñas y niños del Valle Sagrado de los Incas en Pisac, Cusco. Actualmente cuenta con tres niveles: inicial, primario y secundario.
Kusi Kawsay education philosophy is based in the Andean tradition, and has integrated some elements from Waldorf pedagogy. Right now, it serves abour 95 girls and boys from the Incas Sacred Valley in Pisac, Cusco. It currently has three levels: preschool, elementary and high school.

author: Gabriela García Calderón Orbe


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Is Belarus in the midst of a generational upheaval? · Global Voices
John O’Loughlin

“Fair elections. A tribunal. Freedom for political prisoners” reads this banner during protests in Minsk, Belarus, August 16, 2020. Photo CC-BY-SA-3.0: Homoatrox / Wikimedia Commons. Some rights reserved.
Belarus today is a state in turmoil. Courageous protestors face off against a brutalising security apparatus that has sided with the country’s longstanding leader, Alyaksandr Lukashenka. This crackdown comes after mass protests which have bought hundreds of thousands to the streets, enraged at plausible accounts of fraud in the presidential elections of August 9. To some, Belarus is now under “occupation” by a dictatorial regime that has no popular support. To others, Belarus is being undermined by plots from the United States. Beyond these charged claims is a more complex reality of a country divided on many levels even before recent events. A sense of these divisions is evident from a nationally representative survey we conducted in Belarus at the outset of this turbulent year.
Our survey in January 2020 was part of a large project that examines the geopolitical orientations of people in the countries and de facto territories on the borders of Russia. It is motivated by the evidence that different trajectories are reshaping post-Soviet space – with strong support for more integration with the Western institutions in Ukraine and Georgia but continued close ties to Russia in the other polities. Belarus is especially interesting because its close economic and political-military ties to Russia have weakened in the past 10 years. But Belarus has also posed a headache to researchers due to the difficulty of garnering reliable data about domestic politics, especially about the actual level of support for President Lukashenka. Regional experts, including at the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), have offered estimates. In our national survey, we calculated Lukashenka’s approval at 26 percent in a list experiment that collects reliable responses, a figure that is close to other estimates.
Our representative national survey of 1,209 responses was conducted by an established and reputable survey company in Belarus, under our supervision and with the consultation and computer support of external survey experts for sampling design and tablet programming. We are not identifying the polling agency here out of caution given the current repressive situation in Belarus. Our procedures followed the best survey practices in random sampling of the population for face-to-face interviews. The results that we show here are the answers weighted to take into account the slight differences between the most recent population data and the numbers in our survey across regional and demographic groups.  Given the regime restrictions on face-to-face polling, we believe that these data are the best available and importantly, they show the societal divisions that underlie the recent protests against the Lukashenka presidency. Foremost among these divides is a huge generational rift between those who became adults during the Soviet period and those born after 1990.
The highly improbable scenario of Lukashenka winning 80 percent in the August election is undermined by our survey data. The events of summer 2020 probably reduced his support even more than the low rate that we already saw in January. As he continued his almost 30 year presidency of static policy, his society was changing irrevocably without him. His supporters in the older age categories (over 60) declined over time so that by the 2009 Belarusian census they were outnumbered (3.5 million to 2 million) by those under 45. As the graphs below reveal, younger Belarusians (45 or younger) differ dramatically in political outlook from their elders.
A significant divide concerns views about the Soviet system (Graph 1). Young voters (those aged 30 or younger) are three times more likely to approve of the collapse of the Soviet Union that those aged over 60. While the Soviet system was deeply flawed and repressive, for many it provided social stability and a certain minimum of social welfare provision that older voters now recall with nostalgia. We have seen this demographic pattern in dozens of surveys that we have conducted over the past 25 years across the post-Soviet space, but the gaps across the generations in Belarus in 2020 are among the largest. Although Belarus has not seen the scale of dislocation of jobs and material prospects evident elsewhere, the stagnation of the past three decades has nonetheless produced a sense among younger generations that they have been left behind.
Graph 1
A simple but powerful question asks about “the general direction of the country” and respondents are offered a stark choice – in the right or wrong direction. These ratios are highly indicative of both the current status and also the perceived immediate future. On the direction of Belarus under the leadership of Lukashenka (Graph 2), younger adults are more than twice as likely (55 percent) as older residents (22 percent) to respond with the wrong direction answer. As the age of respondents increases, the shift from negative to positive views of the direction changes proportionately. Overall, only 29 percent thought that the country was heading in the right direction, 52 percent in the wrong direction with 17 percent uncertain. In any society with fair elections, these ratios would portend a change of government as an incumbent regime would be blamed for this poor outlook.
Graph 2
Given the close, long-established economic and political relations between Belarus and Russia, generational differences evident on the graph of “which power has the greatest status?” are surprising. The term ‘greatest status’ is deliberately vague. For some, it might mean acknowledging military strength, for others economic leadership and for yet others, cultural attraction and soft power. One would expect that Russia would be favored for this status, but as Graph 3 shows, the differences between generations are clear. For the two generations younger than 45, a plurality nominate the United States; for those aged 46-60, a plurality picked Russia and for the over 60 age group, a majority picked Russia. Interestingly, China out-scores the EU across all ages and comes close to the Russian ratio for the younger age groups.  A recognition of changing geopolitical realities and a relative diminution of Russia’s status for the young is reflected in these results. Other recent research confirms these broad trends among young Belarusians.
Graph 3
What lies behind these big generational gaps? As Graph 4 shows, preferred sources of information appear to play an important role. But the exact causality remains unclear. Do younger people avoid television because it provides a steady diet of state-controlled information and look to the internet and social media instead? Or does access to web-based information about the nature of Western societies lead to a rejection of the kind of society that Lukashenka has controlled for decades? Either way, the overwhelming reliance on television for information by the over 60s stands in sharp contrast with the role the internet plays for about half of the respondents under 45.
Graph 4
This Western orientation is promoted, hardened, and confirmed by the preference of movies from Hollywood and to a lesser extent from Europe (Graph 5). Here a clear difference in movies between the 18-30 and the 31-45 age groups shows the broader popularity of Western cinema to the younger group. For those born or socialised in Soviet times (now aged over 45), Soviet and contemporary Russian movies retain their traditional appeal.
Graph 5
In sum, we have identified through these data a younger generation, culturally oriented to the West, which prefers Western democracy to the current or Soviet model, rejecting Soviet traditions and, of course, Lukashenka. When asked about the best political system (Graph 6), those aged 18 to 30 overwhelmingly chose the generic option ‘Western democracy’ over the more concrete options of the current system in Belarus, the Russian political system and the Soviet system which they have experienced. By contrast, those over 60 are clear in their rejection of ‘Western democracy’ and preference for the Soviet system. The two political systems most removed from contemporary Belarus (the Western and Soviet models) get more support than those familiar for the past 30 years. There is no one ‘Western democracy’ model, of course, but the power of that ideal in contrast to the reality in Belarus, and Russia, is one reason we see so many young people putting their bodies on the line in protests across Belarus each weekend.
Graph 6
While unambiguous generational differences are visible on these graphs, the generations do not always show divergent preferences on other issues. For example, there are no significant generational differences in religious beliefs nor in conservative social mores, on questions about whether “a husband should make the important decisions”, or whether “marriage should be between a man and a woman” (over 90 percent agreement across the generations). All generations disagree strongly that the Maidan revolution of 2014 was a positive development for neighbouring Ukraine and disagree with the removal of Lenin monuments, a lasting legacy of Soviet times on the Belarusian landscape.
Western liberals looking at young protestors in Belarus, thus, should know that they hold some conservative attitudes. While they are Western-oriented, preferring its political institutions and cultural products, they also reject, like their elders, many of the liberal social and political attitudes now mainstream in parts of the European Union (though not in some government circles, like in Belarus's neighbour Poland). At the moment, however, their aspirations are eclipsed by a repressive dictatorship.
The authors acknowledge funding for this work from a joint National Science Foundation/Research Council UK grant (NSF award #1759645; ESRC award # ES/S005919/1).

author: John O’Loughlin


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Social media in Latin America: Caught between a rock and a hard place · Global Voices
Guest Contributor

Protesters at Plaza Baquedano, in the Chilean capital Santiago, on November 8, 2019. Credit: Wikimedia user B1mbo  (CC BY-SA 4.0)
This article was written by Agustina Del Campo, Director at the Center for Studies on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information (CELE) at Universidad de Palermo, Buenos Aires, and a professor of internet and human rights and international human rights law.
In January 2020, following informal reports of issues with protest-related content on social media, three Chilean organizations, Fundacion Datos Protegidos, the University of Chile and the Observatorio del Derecho a la Comunicación carried out a study investigating social media censorship between October 18 and November 22, 2019. The study documented 283 censorship incidents where protest-related content was deleted or blocked on social media. In some cases, users active in the country’s protest movement had their accounts closed or suspended, with no timely recourse available. According to the authors, as well as other civil society organizations tracking the phenomenon, automation, lack of context, and lack of clarity as to the platforms’ rules were among the main stated causes.
Understanding what the Latin American content rules are and how they are enforced is a constant challenge.
Although companies claim to have adopted global policies, approaches differ from country to country and from region to region. The last couple of months have been very telling about these practices, for example, in the different treatment that misleading content received among major platforms. For example, while in March, Twitter deleted misleading tweets about COVID-19 cures posted by Brazilian President Jair Brazilian President, Jair Bolsonaro, they appear to have been more tolerant of similar tweets from US President Donald Trump. Likewise, in dealing with misleading tweets from Trump on election fraud, they kept them up, but assigned them a false claim warning.
In 2017, the Center for Studies on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information (CELE) conducted its own research into measures by Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to combat fake news and disinformation. Our intention was to track disinformation related announcements that companies had made globally, particularly in the aftermath of well-known events like the Brexit vote, the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the Colombian referendum, and contrast measures announced and implemented in light of these events with what had been implemented in Latin America.
We found that policies were being announced, in some cases on a daily basis, and that new tools, policies and programs often overlapped or contradicted one another, making it difficult to assess what was actually being done and where. Disaggregated information about local implementation was difficult to find, and procedures or policies were not always translated into local languages, making it difficult for users to understand how their content was being assessed and what remedies might be available to them. Sometimes initiatives were deployed to different countries in the world with varying levels of resources behind them, leading to disparities in enforcement. As researchers, it is very difficult to know how, or even if, high profile global announcements are actually impacting users in Latin America. CELE is finalizing a new study to update its 2017 research on platform responses to disinformation and of the 61 most relevant actions identified and analyzed in the document—in at least 28 of them, researchers could not verify their implementation in Latin America.
This all speaks to a broader challenge around transparency, accountability, and access to information regarding the operations of the biggest internet platforms. Although we recognize that efforts have been made to improve transparency reporting over the past couple of years, it is still difficult to find disaggregated data for our region. This includes even basic information about what policies are being applied where, as well as data about the regional and local impacts of content moderation, and how the local context differs from the global picture. Facebook and Twitter, for example, have recently started providing more information about their content moderation practices but it’s still not geographically disaggregated. This severely undermines state and non-state actors’ ability to assess the social implications of private content moderation locally.
Together, the lack of understanding of how content moderation is carried out in Latin America, along with failures to account for local context, has led to increasing calls for regulation against major platforms, coming from both governments and civil society. While intentions may be well placed,  governments in this region are less concerned with the narrowing space for freedom of expression than on developing new restrictions on speech, owing to their perception that the online space remains under-regulated. The propagation of laws or legal proposals from Europe and the United States which are similarly hostile to freedom of expression certainly does not help, nor do campaigns by many of the world’s oldest democracies, including in Europe and the UK, to pressure platforms into using their terms of service more aggressively to attack harmful but legal content. Although well intended, these initiatives promote vague and overbroad restrictions to freedom of expression in online platforms. Indeed, in the context of a region with a long history of State censorship, these proposals can provide political cover for governments to take a similarly aggressive approach to cracking down on online speech.
Latin American internet users, particularly those involved in advocacy or social movements, are caught between a rock and a hard place. In this context, the need for Latin American civil society and activists to raise their voices in global debates vis-á-vis content moderation practices and free speech appears more necessary than ever.
This article was developed as part of a series of papers by the Wikimedia/Yale Law School Initiative on Intermediaries and Information to capture perspectives on the global impacts of online platforms’ content moderation decisions. You can read all of the articles in the series on their blog, or on their Twitter feed @YaleISP_WIII.

author: Guest Contributor


text:
This Polish travel blogger wants Poles to ‘fall in love’ with North Macedonia · Global Voices
Violeta Jonchevska

Justyna Mleczak during a visit to North Macedonia. Photo used with her permission.
This story was originally published by Meta.mk. An edited version is republished here via a content-sharing agreement between Global Voices and Metamorphosis Foundation.
Justyna Mleczak is a travel blogger from Poland who runs Do Macedonii, a blog in Polish about her travels in North Macedonia and Albania.
Since 2016, she has spent all summers in Albania working as a tour guide, and visiting North Macedonia often. Recently, she visited North Macedonia in cooperation with European Union-supported Smart Tourism Enhancement Project (STEP).
She is currently finishing an e-book about North Macedonia, and in the meantime organizes lectures about the Balkans in schools, universities and travel clubs in her home base in Poland.
Mleczak spoke via email with Metamorphosis’ Violeta Jonchevska about how she first fell in love with the North Macedonia — and how she uses digital technologies to connect people from different cultures.
Violeta Jonchevska (VJ): Why did you decide to become a professional tourist guide in North Macedonia and the broader region?
Justyna Mleczak (JM): It has never been an idea for living and truth be told, it is still not. I mean, legally I cannot even be a professional tour guide in Macedonia as to take the exam you firstly need to get a citizenship. On the other hand, I always thought I would become a non fiction journalist or a war/social correspondent. I was reading cover to cover books written by Tiziano Terzani, Egon Kisch, Joseph Kessel, Ernest Hemingway and lots of our famous Polish reporters. I have been also always intrigued and fascinated by history – with a great inner belief that there are thousands of voices which we cannot hear or somebody does not want us to listen to them.
However, until 2015/2016 I did not have even a slightest idea about modern history of North Macedonia or Albania and maybe a little bit about the Balkans. I have just finished my Bachelor on Central European Studies and I was going to go deeper on Caucasus or at least Hungary-Romania. This year, summer 2015, I was responsible for our family holidays. Frankly, I did not remember, why I chose Vlore in Albania. A few weeks later we started the journey which changed everything.
VJ: How was your first visit to North Macedonia?
JM: My first visit in Skopje was just ridiculous. We arrived to the capital quite early and with hope for a bit of sightseeing. Instead, we were circling the city trying to find non-existent street or just reach the owner of our rented apartment. After a few hours the only thing we wanted was something to eat. Believe me or not, we were not able to find any open restaurant. And I am laughing at us even in this moment, because… we gave up one hundred meters from the Stone Bridge and Old Bazaar. One hundred meters separated us from the heart of Skopje!
Justyna Mleczak overlooking Ohrid Lake from a summit Galičica mountain. Photo used with her permission.
Anyway, of course I was astonished by all the statutes but mostly – the secret story behind them. Next day we stopped for a coffee in Ohrid. I mean, my family were drinking coffee, I was wandering around. At that moment, I started to consider another field of study.
Two months after our return home, my article about Albania was published in Poznaj Świat, one of the most famous travel magazines in Poland. I got the invitation for an internship in Albania by a Polish woman who I worked with in her travel agency in Albania for the next four years and I started my Balkan Studies. I fell in love with Macedonian language immediately and I decided to write a Master Thesis which will connect my passions. On September 2016 I came for a 6 months’ research. I was writing about the potential of tourism in solving conflicts.
I started a blog. It was a bit of a journal, a bit of a practice to publish a non-fiction book about Macedonia one day. And after four years… here we are. I did not publish a book, I did not go on Ph.D. studies. I am, accidentally, in love with Macedonia.
Quite a long story, huh? I should have probably said: I have been dreaming about it since I was 5!
JM: I do not have favorite destinations in Macedonia. I love places where I can meet interesting, smiling people willing to sit and talk, and here there are dozens of them. I stayed in Macedonia because I really feel like home here.
Stevce Donevski and Justyna Mleczak, photo used with her permission.
Kratovo reminds me of Stevce Donevski who have already arranged me a meeting with half of Slow Food Macedonia community. If I were a singer and he was my manager, I would have won MTV Award in a year from now!
I have a great sentiment towards Prilep, for me it is an energetic and magical place. It is not a coincidence that Prilep is a hometown of my Macedonian language teacher, Zvonko Dimovski, whose contribution to the popularization of Macedonia among Polish students deserves special recognition.
Another order of recognition should be awarded to Malezan family from Ohrid, the owners of the most famous terrace among Polish professors, students and tourists. Trajanka Malezan is the person who believed in me from the very beginning and does not stop even when I no longer believe in myself. Recently Ramne village became a special place to me – but only thanks to Natasa Nedanovska. She has a hands, brain and heart from gold.
VJ: North Macedonia has a lot of Polish tourists. Why do you think they are interested in this destination?
JM: Not sure. It is a bit of a fashion, a bit of fascination with the Balkans, a bit of looking for a cheaper alternative for holidays. Macedonia was famous among Poles long before the Polish crowds arrived here. We as a nation are known for “being everywhere” and the current pandemic situation perfectly confirms that.
I am not interested in these crowds. There are a few most common reasons for Poles to visit Ohrid: one day trip from Albania, transit or a few days stop on the way to Albania or during the Balkan trip and, especially since we have charters, relax with sunbathing by the Ohrid lake.
Justyna Mleczak and a group of Polish tourists in Ohrid, North Macedonia. Photo used with her permission.
For a long time I cannot get over the fact that for our market and most Polish tourists Macedonia is only Ohrid and sometimes Skopje, perceived as sad, boring and chaotic. I slowly begin to understand that this kind of tourism is also needed – it is just not for me. I am focusing on people who want to slow down, sit, talk and experience. These people are true Macedonian lovers. They are coming back over and over again, delighted with food, culture, tradition, and top of the top – Macedonian people.
VJ: What are the positive and negative sides that Polish tourists point out after visiting North Macedonia?
JM: Well, it is a very difficult and general question. The average stereotypical Polish tourist complains about breakfast and lack of black tea… Jokes aside, hundreds of Polish tourists come to Macedonia, especially Ohrid. These are people with different experiences, expectations and needs.
I will answer differently – the biggest advantage and power I see is in people with passion, vision and idea. They form associations, work in non-governmental projects, devote themselves to protect what they recognize as a treasure. On the other hand, the biggest disadvantage is ignorance of authorities who not only does not help but make the work harder and complicate things.
VJ: COVID-19 harmed tourism globally. How do you deal with the challenges and what are your expectations for the future?
Justyna Mleczak. Photo used with her permission.
JM: Tourism is a meeting place. It is communing with culture, with the past, present and future, broadening horizons and being able to see yourself in others. It has an unbelievable power both to build and destroy.
I do not expect anything. I am trying to work hard, hoping to establish a cooperation with two fantastic women, Jasmina Popovska and Katerina Vasileska, founders of Genuine Experiences platform, as I feel we are looking in the same direction. And I am going to continue to convince Poles that the Balkans is not a powder keg. It is a barrel of wine. To share and drink with others, no matter who they are.

author: Violeta Jonchevska


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A new ‘cyber defence’ system in Oman raises human rights concerns · Global Voices
Gulf Center for Human Rights

A man holds his mobile phone at a fort in Oman. Photo via Pikist, license-free photos for design.
Editors note: This post was written by Khalid Ibrahim, executive director of the Gulf Center for Human Rights (GCHR), an independent, nonprofit organization that promotes freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly in the MENA region.
While the world remains preoccupied with the repercussions of COVID-19, the Sultanate of Oman passed a new decree that further increases the authorities’ control over the internet. This will make it even harder for critics and dissidents to transmit critical information without putting themselves at additional risk.
On June 10, Sultan Haitham bin Tarik issued decree No. 64 of 2020 establishing the Cyber Defence Centre, as a division that follows the Internal Security Service (ISS), notorious for its continous suppression of public freedoms, including freedom of expression on the internet. On June 14, the Official Gazette No. 1345 published the method of work of this centre, which includes 11 articles.
The Cyber Defence Centre system gives absolute control to the ISS over communication networks and information systems in the country. The decree makes the ISS head the de facto head of the Cyber Defence Centre.
It further gives authority to the Cyber Defence Centre to import advanced hardware and software that blocks websites or closely monitors the internet. The centre has the authority not only to monitor any electronic network in the country, but also to isolate it ”in order to address any threats that might harm the national security system, or the Sultanate’s economy, or its international and regional relations.”
The new decree means that the ISS fully controls the devices and data of all institutions and groups of society and may use this control to provide evidence and information about internet activists who express their opinions contrary to the government on public issues of concern. This may result in threatening and imprisoning internet activists, and using the judiciary against them if required.
Oman has several vague and broad laws in place that make it a crime to express dissent and criticise the authorities or the country's rulers.
For example, article 17 of the cybercrime law prescribes a prison term between one month and three years against those convicted of using information and communication technologies to distribute materials that “might prejudice or violate public ethics.” While article 19 punishes by the same prison sentence those found guilty of distributing and possessing content that “might prejudice the public order or religious values”.
On July 19, the Special Division of the ISS summoned internet activist Ghazi Al-Awlaki to a police station in Dhofar Government, as a result of his peaceful activities on social media. He was held until September 7, without access to a lawyer or his family.
The Cyber Defence Centre system is an open attempt to legalise Oman’s repressive patterns. This dangerous development, which violates the digital rights of all citizens, including Omani internet activists, has passed unnoticed and has not received any coverage by various media outlets.
The government in Oman should immediately rescind the decree establishing the Cyber Defence Centre system in order to preserve the open space for citizens to exercise their legitimate right to freedom of expression on the internet. The authorities must end all forms of repression against other opinions on the internet and offline.
The task of preserving the internet and making it a tool that contributes to building a prosperous future for all citizens must be entrusted to a group of independent academics and technologists in cooperation with the Ministry of Technology and Communications and other civil bodies specialised in internet governance so that the mission of security services is limited to addressing issues of a criminal nature only.

author: Gulf Center for Human Rights


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Australian government on collision course with Facebook and Google over news revenue · Global Voices
Kevin Rennie

Facebook News – U.S. website (Author's photo of computer webpage)
In what could be a world first if successful, the Australian government has drafted laws that would force tech giants Facebook and Google to negotiate with media companies over payment for linking to their news stories. The tech giants have responded defiantly.Flaw
The dispute has its seeds in a request by the Federal government for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). In December 2017, the ACCC was directed to consider the impact of online search engines, social media and digital content aggregators (digital platforms) on competition in the media and advertising services markets. Its final report was published in 2019 and a draft bill was posted on 31 July 2020.
Draft legislation would establish a code of conduct, requiring negotiations between the parties that could result in payment to the publishers of the content. Compulsory arbitration would follow if agreement could not be reached.
As can be expected, most of the large media companies support the code, including the Guardian as it admits in its explainer:
The government, acting on the advice of its competition regulator, accepts the argument that the platforms benefit far more, and that their substantial market power means the news companies do not have the capacity to demand a better deal. It also accepts the argument that this lopsided relationship jeopardises the capacity of the media to continue to play their essential role in society.
The vested interests of Australian-based media may help to explain why there seems to be confusion about the difference between using links to news and publishing the actual content of the stories. They foster the common belief that the platforms are gaining advertising revenue from these links, money that should be going to the news producers.
Apparently Google is prepared to pay for content and has undertaken some negotiations about doing this. They have mounted a publicity and lobbying campaign, with a letter to the ACCC posted on their platforms in Australia. The latest update to their open letter outlines their position.
They have also highlighted part of the proposed laws requiring them to give the big news organisations notice of changes to search rankings and algorithms. It warns that ‘Search and YouTube, which are free services, are at risk in Australia’ without being specific about their future.
Moreover, Google News in Australia is under threat, according to the tech giant.
Facebook has threatened to remove the news content from its site:
[…] we will reluctantly stop allowing publishers and people in Australia from sharing local and international news on Facebook and Instagram.
It has already changed its terms of service in Australia to enable this to happen:
Effective October 1, 2020, section 3.2 of our Terms of Service will be updated to include: ‘We also can remove or restrict access to your content, services or information if we determine that doing so is reasonably necessary to avoid or mitigate adverse legal or regulatory impacts to Facebook’
Facebook has also offered a carrot:
We already invest millions of dollars in Australian news businesses and, during discussions over this legislation, we offered to invest millions more. We had also hoped to bring Facebook News to Australia, a feature on our platform exclusively for news, where we pay publishers for their content.
The sums of money being talked about could well exceed $AUD 600 million [USD 40 million] according to Crikey’s Bernard Keane, politics editor at Crikey, an independent news website in Australia.
However, he rejects the government position arguing that it is stealing money from successful companies:
The government’s proposed News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code would be a draconian regulation to force two explicitly identified companies, Google and Facebook, to hand an unlimited amount of revenue over to Australian media companies, justified by a fiction that those companies steal news content.
[…] The code is justified by a News Corp lie, that Google steals news content and makes billions of dollars from it.
Well respected Australian independent writer Tim Dunlop mused at length on Twitter about the government’s approach:
The huge mistake the govt made in regard to FB & Google and extracting money from them for news is that they allowed themselves to be trapped in news media's view of the world, most especially News Ltd's view.
They're seeing like a media company instead of seeing like a govt
— timdunlop_iveneverbeensoclean (@timdunlop) September 1, 2020
You can read the complete thread here.
Hal Crawford explained the case for change to New Zealanders at Spinoff:
Google, Facebook and other global companies are not sufficiently contributing to the public purse and the community life of the places where they conduct business. Both companies have made moves to support news locally, but these good initiatives are not yet enough to balance the books.
The Australian government has support from the big media companies especially Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. In fact some see it as doing his bidding arguing that the code of conduct mirrors a News Corp submission to the ACCC. Kangaroo Court of Australia’s Shane Dowling has no doubt:
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and the Scott Morrison government are conspiring in an attempt to shakedown Google and Facebook for hundreds of millions of dollars.
One of the slightly puzzling aspects of News Corp's strident position is that nearly all of its online news sites are behind paywalls. The national daily, The Australian, is a good example of a paid subscriber service only.
Others are riled by the fact the government-owned Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) are excluded from the proposed scheme. This includes the Australian Greens party but others fear it would undermine their government funding and independence:
The #ABC MUST NOT allow the #Greens to make this happen. It will result in reduced Govt funding, and make @ABCaustralia beholden to commercial interests and economic growth. “Greens may back forcing Facebook and Google to pay for news if ABC is included” https://t.co/qDjhTl6obb
— Ian Mannix (@sedvitae) September 14, 2020
“The ABC has been a punching bag of this government for too long. Fixing this code, including the public broadcasters and saving AAP, is what Australia’s news landscape requires.” @sarahinthesen8
Agree. We need to include the ABC & SBS https://t.co/qOIG0gghsK
— Belinda Barnet (@manjusrii) September 13, 2020
There are also concerns about the future of the Australian Associate Press news agency and the funding of regional newspapers.
This is not just shadow boxing. The tech giants face fines of up to 10% of their annual turnover in Australia if they do not comply with the code. That could amount to hundreds of millions.
The draft legislation has been the subject of a month’s consultation. It should be debated by the parliament before the end of the year.

author: Kevin Rennie


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Lebanon protests: Authorities prey on digital spaces to silence criticism · Global Voices
Sofia Cherici

Protestors in Tyre, Southern Lebanon, cheering to a female singer during a demonstration against government corruption and austerity measures on October 22, 2019. Credit: RomanDeckert via Wikimedia / CC BY-SA  4.0.
Editor's note: This article is part of UPROAR, a Small Media initiative that is urging governments to address digital rights challenges at the Universal Periodic Review (UPR).
As new protests erupt in Lebanon, online repression is set to continue.
In recent weeks, protests escalated as the country is crippled by the dire spill-overs of the 4 August Beirut port blast which damaged the city and left tens of thousands of people homeless in the Lebanese capital.
In the face of a reported death toll of 190 dead and more than 6000 injured, the population revolted against the political elite’s long-denounced graft over the government’s negligent mismanagement of the thousands of tons of ammonium nitrate that were reported to be the cause of the explosion. Dumped for six years in a compound of Beirut’s port, the ammonium nitrate was stored next to 15 tons of fireworks and several jugs of kerosene and hydrochloric acid, setting the stage for the 4 August tragedy.
So far, the Lebanese authorities have met with repression the population's demands for major political overhaul.
Government crackdown on the streets has been coupled by repression online. As critics to the political elite’s ingrained corruption skyrocketed across the internet, Lebanese authorities prey on online digital spaces — from social networks to messaging services — to restrain freedom of speech and opinion online and mitigate anti-regime outbreaks, a practice which has been long denounced by activists and human rights defendants.
Since 2015, when anti-government protests rocked Lebanon over authorities’ mismanagement of waste, human rights activists have witnessed a surge in online repression against dissenters.
On October 17, 2019, another wave of nationwide protests erupted, unveiling the population’s deep-rooted discontent. Yet again, protesters hold the corrupted political elite responsible for driving the country to the brink of collapse.
This time demonstrations were sparked by the government’s attempt to introduce new taxes, including an umpteenth tax proposal on voice calls made through internet services such as WhatsApp, a freeware mobile application for messaging that is widely used in Lebanon, especially among young adults. Soon, the grievances turned into the largest anti-regime unrest that the country experienced in more than a decade.
As societal turmoil spiraled, the government’s online repression intensified. While social media and WhatsApp have been extensively leveraged by demonstrators to organize, document, and sprawl the protest, Lebanese authorities have resorted to identifying and persecuting dissenters based on their online activities.
Social Media Exchange (SMEX), a Lebanese nongovernmental organization that advocates for digital rights in the Middle East and North Africa, tracked the recent soaring of state’s repression using Muhal, an observatory for the documentation of violations of online freedom of speech, reporting approximately 44 cases between October 2019 and August 2020.
Mariam al-Shafie, knowledge & impact manager at SMEX, told Global Voices:
Social media played a part in mobilizing the population during the mass protests; at the same time, we witnessed the increase of threats on the digital space with the calling in for investigations of many activists at the hands of different security agencies.
Ever since the garbage crisis in 2015 spurred the anti-establishment demonstrations, the government’s response to corruption and mismanagement allegations has been to stifle criticism and dissent on the current political and economic crisis, Human Rights Watch denounced in a November 2019 report.
The government’s repression strategy has widely relied on criminal defamation laws, which punish critics against the army, president and public officials, with up to three years of imprisonment.
According to the evidence gathered by Human Rights Watch, the use of these laws to silence online speech has skyrocketed in recent years, with a prevalence of cases of defamation filed by “powerful local individuals” who were accused of “allegations of misconduct, corruption, or fraud.” Leveraging its controversial criminal defamation laws, state authorities are prosecuting people on charges of tarnishing the state’s image by defaming state representatives’ reputation.
On the legal side, “Lebanon only offers conditional protection to freedom of expression, both offline and online, which enables judicial and non-judicial bodies to impose restrictions,” al-Shafie says. “Although Lebanon has signed a number of international conventions and treaties affirming its commitment to protecting freedom of expression, its laws fall short.”
On June 15, Lebanon's National News Agency reported that the Anti-Cybercrime and Intellectual Property Rights Bureau (Cybercrimes Bureau) has been put on the lookout for social media posts that violate criminal defamation laws by insulting the president, Amnesty International says. The risk is that this operation may further escalate the attacks on free speech perpetrated by state authorities, resulting in increased arrests and investigations.
On SMEX's Muhal, most cases of online repression look the same. Recently, Raed al-Masry, a professor of political and international studies, and Alwan Amin al-Din, the founder and director of the Sita Center for Studies, were summoned by the Cybercrimes Bureau on August 3, for an article written by Masry and published on the center’s website. The piece accused the president of the Lebanese University, Fouad Ayoub, of corruption. After they appeared before the bureau, both defendants were later released.
In a similar case, an anonymous report exposing fiscal fraud at Lebanon’s Central Bank was disclosed by journalist Dima Sadek and released on the independent media platform Daraj. Later, Sadek was contacted by the Cybercrimes Bureau on May 18, as she was being investigated on the charge of “undermining the financial status of the state,” under Article 319 and 320 of the penal code, SMEX’s sources highlight.
The complaint was filed by Riad Salamé, the governor of Lebanon’s Central Bank. SMEX reports that according to available sources, Sadek was questioned for 5 hours; as of today, there are no further updates on the case.
As protesters continue to use WhatsApp chat groups to organize and coordinate demonstrations, Lebanese authorities have started infiltrating these groups. According to insights gathered by a US-based national public radio (NPR) investigation, authorities use this strategy to identify and persecute protest leaders. The strategy has created fear among participants and protesters, whose identity and anonymity are at risk.
Arbitrary arrests and interrogations over online activities, social media posts, and WhatsApp chats jeopardize not only the life and the freedom of speech of journalists, activists, and protest leaders but the future of protests themselves. “Now, many young people feel that there are no results happening to the action they are doing. Because of the Lebanese authorities’ tactics, disengagement increased,” al-Shafie said.
“After Beirut port explosion on August 4, we witnessed many coming back to the streets to protest the political elite and the people in power, whose corruption led to this massive explosion,” she adds, “Yet, the situation in Lebanon is always changing, and with the COVID-19 on the rise, we cannot guess what is going to happen.”
Now more than ever, digital security and rights remain crucial for securing citizens, journalists, and activists’ freedom of speech and safeguard their rights to protest amid the mass uproar.

author: Sofia Cherici


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‘Please kill me now’: Japanese Twitter reacts to Osaka Expo 2025’s unusual new mascot · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

An Osaka resident reacts to the new logo for Expo 2025: “Is it supposed to be a monster made out of eyes?” Screenshot from FNN News official YouTube channel.
In late August, when the logo for the 2025 World Exposition — which will be held in Osaka, in western Japan — was unveiled, Japanese social media erupted in mock horror at first, but soon came to adopt the quirky and unusual design.
The winning design, choice “E” (see tweet below), selected from a list of five logo submissions, provoked a variety of confused reactions when it was revealed:
Yall, why did they choose E when they had so many beautiful choices? We are so confuuused.
Which one would you have chosen? pic.twitter.com/ZtVrnJxeMh
— Kurly in Kansai (@KurlyInKansai) August 26, 2020
Held roughly every four years in different locations around the world since 1851, this international exhibition lasts for six months, typically attracting millions of visitors, and is intended to showcase the achievements of participating countries.
Resembling a red donut with blue eyes, the official name of the World Expo 2025 logo is 命の輝き (inochi no kagayaki, meaning “brilliance of life”). However, Japanese Twitter nicknamed the logo koroshite-kun, which roughly translates as “Mr. Please Kill Me Now”.
Nick Kapur, an expert in the history of Japan and East Asia, whose tweets about the odd, the unusual, or the simply interesting regularly go viral, collected a wide range of reaction memes, which he arranged into a long and detailed Twitter thread:
Kapur noted that many memes highlighted the more grotesque or potentially horrific connotations of the logo, such as this parody of Parasyte, a science fiction horror manga series:
EXPO 2025 Osaka reveals the logo.
……it's Shimada in Parasyte ? pic.twitter.com/BkIbO68XgE
— otakujp (@otakucalendarjp) August 25, 2020
Not everyone was terrified by the logo, however; one person used the design to knit a collar for their cat:
大阪万博のロゴ「命の輝き」編んだ? pic.twitter.com/iFQU8ctgeu
— とざわみーこ(よしえだ製作所) (@yoshieda1394) August 25, 2020
I knitted the Osaka Expo logo.
The Osaka Expo's logo also inspired creativity in the kitchen:
Just making a Caprese, nothing to see here. #コロシテくん #OsakaExpo2025 #Osaka #コワイ #vegetarian #salad #caprese pic.twitter.com/tgIMAMSPwG
— Ann 杏 Kilzer (@stonecoldkilzer) August 29, 2020
A baking enthusiast made cookies:
小麦粉とバターと砂糖と卵の混合物に命を吹き込んでみました。
…というわけでいのちの輝き君クッキー完成です！#BlookyCookie#いのちの輝き pic.twitter.com/hckbJCH2wt
— 砂鼠＠きみ選辞退しますごめんなさい (@Nirone7C2C) August 25, 2020
A little bit of flour, butter, sugar and eggs brings the logo to life! The “brilliance of life” (inochi no kagayaki) is ready to eat!
Another social media user created an augmented reality (AR) character for iPhone that was based on the logo:
あいつを召喚できるARつくったよ
iPhoneの人はここからダウンロードして遊んでnehttps://t.co/T2cTciZDyq#コロシテくん #いのちの輝きくん #いのちの輝き #大阪万博 #Expo2025 #C4D #C4Djp pic.twitter.com/yoYHfXn8z5
— Keisuke Terashima #KeepDistanceRuler (@kskee) August 26, 2020
I created an AR character that can summon (the logo). iPhone users can download at the link. #koroshite-kun #InochiNoKagayaki #OsakaExpo2025
Someone else created an 8-bit video game:
“ Destroy the eye ! ”#いのちの輝きくん #命の輝き pic.twitter.com/VwJ2Qa0Jct
— 21@Skeb募集中 (@444th_spare21) August 25, 2020
The similarities between the logo and real-world lookalikes did not go unnoticed:
Many people pointed out how the logo looks similar to the Amazon Rainforest fruit guarana.
23/ pic.twitter.com/49z7ZQL5tw
— Nick Kapur (@nick_kapur) August 29, 2020
Others tried to imagine how the logo might feel after being disparaged on social media:
ｺﾛｼﾃくん pic.twitter.com/IwpLWEjJNk
— 関西風うどん???⚡?? (@Umai_TanTanMen) August 25, 2020
[captions]
“Ew!”
“No effing way!”
“This is so unbelievable!”
Mr. “Kill Me Now”: (tears up as he reacts to abuse)
Some chose to look on the bright side of the new logo:
As weird as the 2025 Kansai Expo logo is, at least it isn’t as mind-numbingly boring as the 2005 Aichi Expo one was. pic.twitter.com/0BfPCX5Ve7
— SamuraiGodzilla (@Samuraigodzilla) August 26, 2020
Read Nick Kapur's Twitter full thread with many more memes, and follow the Twitter hashtag #コロシテくん (koroshite-kun) for more.

author: Nevin Thompson


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Will a new US TV series on the ‘Macedonian teens who helped elect Trump’ perpetuate a tired cliché? · Global Voices
Filip Stojanovski

The book “How we elected an American president” was sold at Skopje Book Fair in September 2020. Photo by Filip Stojanovski, CC BY.
The so-called “Macedonian teenagers” who set up networks of fake news sites in the lead-up to the 2016 United States election continue to turn a profit — not so much for themselves anymore, but for producers looking to capitalize on the exaggerated trope.
To recap: In 2016, a group of Macedonians from the city of Veles set up various sensationalist websites that peddled disinformation catering to the tastes of Donald Trump voters, including baseless conspiracy theories. The links were marketed via social media, and their basic goal was economic: To get as many clicks as possible in order to generate ad revenue.
While such networks exist around the world, the high concentration of owners of those sites in a small Macedonian city, which was first identified by Buzzfeed, attracted a lot of media attention, resulting in coverage by Channel 4, CNN, Wired, NBC, and others.
Cut to four years later, streaming platform Quibi is said to be preparing a TV series, working title “Clickbait,” that tells “the true story of a group of Macedonian teenagers who made a fortune creating fake news in the run-up to the 2016 election,” according to United States magazine Variety.
The series will star British actor Fionn Whitehead, who played the lead role in the historical feature-length “Dunkirk.” He will play a “Macedonian teenage ringleader” named Niko, described as “a young man desperate to escape his circumstances, who discovers that publishing fake news could be his golden ticket,” says Variety.
Actor Fionn Whitehead attending the World Premiere of Christopher Nolan's “Dunkirk” in London in 2017. Photo by Wikipedia user Foxy59, CC BY-SA 4.0.
The series executive producers include US filmmaker Matt Reeves (famous for “Cloverfield” and sequels to “Planet of the Apes”) and Ann Ruark (“Boy Erased”).
But the idea that those fake news sites were run by kids was grossly exaggerated by Western mainstream media. In 2018, Investigative Reporting Lab Macedonia revealed that those networks were not just gigs by teenage “hackers,” but that many of them were run by adults, including a Macedonian lawyer with ties to American conservatives.
Macedonian outlet SakamDaKazam.mk followed up on the Variety story by interviewing sources from Veles, who confirmed that a team of producers visited the town in the summer of 2019.
One of the people they interviewed, who did not wish to be identified, was a man who had run such a website in 2016 but was not approached by the series’ producers. He voiced reservations to SakamDaKazam.mk that the series would provide an objective view of the events. In his opinion, the series will most likely reproduce the clichés of “boys who don't speak English, but write news, teenagers wearing worn-out sneakers forming the public opinion.”
According to the SakamDaKazam.mk article, the filming of the series was taking place during the summer in Bucharest, Romania, due to similarities of the architecture.
Prior to the series, a lesser-known commercial venture related to the Veles affair was a 2019 fiction book by Aleksandar Kukulev, a writer from Veles itself.
“How we elected an American president” (Како избравме американски претседател) is a spy thriller set in Veles and its surroundings. It combines historical references about the Bogomils, who indeed lived in the Veles area in the Middle Ages, with Nazis hiding stolen art treasures in nearby tunnels during World War II. The main plot features Russian, Israeli, and Balkan spy characters fighting over the fake news industry influencing U.S. politics.
In an April 2020 interview with local website Veles365, Kukulev said he never met any of the “Veles teenagers” personally, and that they are just supporting characters in his novel. He added that the teenagers “poked the entire world in the eye… Those lads don't need to be justified, but need to be respected.” In the same interview, Kukulev also claimed he didn't receive an award for the novel of the year for 2019 ‘due to political reasons.’
Global Voices’ content partner Meta.mk News Agency was among the first outlets that talked to the people from Veles involved in the fake news networks in 2016. Meta.mk editor Goran Rizaov (who also contributes to Global Voices) had this to say about the phenomenon:
When we first interviewed the owners of these disinformation websites in April 2016, President Trump wasn't yet an official presidential nominee. Almost all of them were eager to talk to us on the record. Some claimed they do it for financial gain, some said they liked Trump and others denied even having such websites. It's interesting to note that very shortly after publishing the first article they anonymously re-registered their websites and their names and phone numbers disappeared from official whois records.
Our thorough investigation that followed afterwards showed more about what the actual Veles “fake news factory” is not, instead of what it is. It was very clear that most of them are not teenagers, they don't have sufficient knowledge of the English language to write news articles and Veles wasn't the only town in Macedonia that had a “fake news hub.”
By the time Trump won the elections, this was widely spread and some people made a fortune out of it.
After the election results surprised everyone, we had dozens of calls and emails from foreign journalists that wanted to talk to them, but it was almost impossible. The community was closed for public. Those that actually talked to the foreign press were actually real teenagers that had none or little involvement in the websites that pushed the most popular content.

author: Filip Stojanovski


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As US West Coast burns, false rumors spread like wildfire on Chinese social media · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Screen capture from video via Tire and Fire.
False rumors alleging that the fires ravaging the United States’ West Coast were caused by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are spreading on Chinese social media, including on Twitter, Weibo, and WeChat.
A video showing flames being shot out of a helicopter is being presented as hard evidence to support the false claim, which has spread on Twitter and other social media platforms amongst Chinese political dissents. This post of the video received over 4,000 retweets:
中共間諜無人機縱火被逮捕
9日，@FBI官員透露，美國土安全部分析模型顯示西海岸山火多數初始火點沿森林公路蔓延引起調查。57歲移民美國20年華裔李建軍被搜查住所，從其筆記本找到一段視頻，汽車GPS記錄顯示8月初多次前往火區。
中共超限戰ROI極高，$10K投入可造成$10B損失。暗殺&破壞包裝成私人恩怨?♀ pic.twitter.com/shzCWij1LO
— 突發事件[Breaking News]? (@breakup1984) September 12, 2020
CCP spy drone got caught. On the 9th (of September), officials from the FBI revealed that the U.S National Security Bureau’s investigation showed that the wildfire spread along the west coast had sparked along the forest highways. The house of 57-year-old Chinese American Li Jianjun who had migrated to the U.S for 20 years was searched. A video was found on his computer. The GPS record on his car shows that he travelled to the fire district many times in early August. The CCP’s unrestricted warfare has extremely high ROI (Return on Investment) — by investing $10K, it can cost $10 billion damage. Assassinations and destructions are usually packaged as personal conflicts.
Several Chinese language fact-checking organizations have debunked the claim.
The video was originally posted by an automotive news site called Tire Meets Road as part of an article on the “heli-torch,” an ignition device hung from a helicopter that disperses ignited lumps of gelled gasoline. The heli-torch is often used to conduct “backburning,” a common wildfire suppression tactic.
The information about the Chinese-American citizen being investigated for forest arson was also labeled as ungrounded by the same fact-checking agencies.
In China, the same video, along with the same baseless claim about the forest fire having set by drone, is also circulating on Weibo and Wechat, but without reference to the CCP.
In the U.S., there have been rumors about the wildfires being caused by leftist activists. While various fact-checking organizations, as well as the FBI, have clarified that they are entirely false, such claims continue to circulate on social media — and they have traveled all the way to China.
For example, a popular post on WeChat sources that claim with a story by the website of Blue Lives Matter, a pro-police movement that has emerged in the U.S as a reaction to Black Lives Matter. The post on WeChat says:
2020年9月第二个礼拜，俄勒冈州警察又拘留了几名正在森林中纵火的武装激进分子……所以你依然相信，大媒体喋喋不休地向你灌输的，美国西海岸连翻大火是由于全球变暖引发的么？
In the second week of September 2020, Oregon police arrested several armed extremists who were setting fire to the forest (…). Do you still believe the big media’s endless brainwashing reports about the causes of wildfire in the West Coast being climate change?
Also on the same WeChat post, a screenshot of Google Maps showing what was allegedly fire sites along the West Coast was presented as another piece of evidence of arson. The caption of the screenshot says.
以下是北美洲西部大火的地图
美国的两个邻国安然无恙
国境线之外根本没有什么大火
This is a map indicating the wildfire in the U.S West Coast. The two neighbouring countries are intact. Outside the U.S border, there is no fire.
The English version of such claim, which uses the same map, has circulated widely on both Facebook and Twitter. Fact-check organization Snopes has identified it as false.
This particular disinformation trend seems to be underpinned by a wider narrative of “unrestricted warfare” between China and the U.S., as at least a few of the Chinese internet users who posted about them used that term (including @zengjieming, @Liudeming, @iamapoldfriend, @niuniu_Liu2 on Twitter).
“Unrestricted Warfare” is the title of a Chinese book on military strategy written in 1999 by two colonels from the Chinese Liberation Army.
The book argues that China is able to defeat the United States through non-military strategies, such as via economics and the internet. It has become a popular read in China, and its ideas have been embraced by Chinese nationalists and hawks.
Since the US-China trade war escalated, the Chinese political commentariat has been increasingly incorporating the term “unrestricted warfare” in its discourse about the relations between the two countries.
On Weibo, posts referencing war with the US are quite common. The latest iteration of that conversation on the platform involves a bilingual post written by Zhao Shengye, the founder of China Red Hacker Alliance (紅客聯盟) – a patriotic hacker network, in which he describes what a nuclear war between the two countries would look like. Twitter user @xiaoli_ya posted a screenshot of Zhao’s post:
Chinese public opinion leaders want China and the United States to die together. https://t.co/HGE9OtUVLH
— xiaoli ya-anti-communism (@xiaoli_ya) September 13, 2020
Ironically, Zhao's ideas have also been popular with hawks in the US, among them former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon, who's cited the book as an “inspiration.”
When COVID-19 arrived in the US, the idea of “unrestricted warfare” made the rounds on US Twitter, perhaps most frequently demonstrated by Trump’s insistence on the use of the term “Chinese virus.”
Two months ago, the mysterious “seeds” that were anonymously sent from China to people in at least 50 countries were also interpreted by some commentators as a form of “unrestricted warfare.” The disinformation about the West Coast fires seems to be following the same path.


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Uzbekistan as creative chaos: A photographer’s interpretation of his nation’s search for identity · Global Voices
Filip Noubel

” Logomania : Owning the world at half price”, 2019. Photo by Hassan Kurbanbaev, used with permission.
The Central Asian nation of Uzbekistan is mostly known for its breathtaking Silk Road architecture and rich cultural heritage. Beyond the postcard image, however, lies a society still grappling with its own identity.
Following the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, the nation's difficult transition from socialism has left many struggling economically — but because they are so keen on promoting the country as a dream tourist destination, Uzbek authorities are very sensitive to the way it is portrayed by photographers.
In the Soviet tradition, photography was a political art ordered to show only glowing aspects of the state in order to serve its propagandistic aims. After it gained independence, Uzbekistan applied the same rules: in 2010, independent photographer Umida Akhmedova was accused of “insulting the Uzbek nation” because the photos she published allegedly did not reflect Uzbek society in positive tones. She was charged in an Uzbek court.
To understand the current state of modern independent photography, I spoke to Hassan Kurbanbaev, an emerging photographer who has started exhibiting his work abroad, online and soon, he hopes, in Tashkent, where he is based.
Filip Noubel (FN): Many of your photos focus on various interpretations of identity, and often contrast modernity — and its obsession with brands — with the reality of daily life in Uzbekistan. How would you describe your work?
Hassan Kurbanbaev (HK): It seems to me that these things are complementary — the search for self-identification and the country itself in the context of time. What is modern Uzbekistan? I think this question ultimately leads to a global reflection on everything that surrounds us, including our everyday life. Our behavior, the way we dress, all demonstrate in a very revealing way our desire for a certain luxury that we could not afford but watched on TV. These symbols for me are a reflection on the question of identity and of a search for it.
Recently, I talked with a guy from Albania who now lives in Tashkent — he said that for him, Uzbekistan is a sort of chaos, where everything is mixed — the beautiful East, the Soviet Union and the imitation of the West, both visually and mentally. It seems to me he determined the state of the country in very accurate terms. We all need to think about this.
In my case, I didn't take pictures for a while. After a break, [I] returned to photography and realized I was in fact taking a course on studying my country while using a camera. I felt like a student, a kind of a child who re-opens his own country. Therefore, my series of photos is, at first glance, very simple. For example, [my piece] “Logomania” is based on the irony found in everyday life and in street chic that can be obtained in the most affordable way.
Young man lying on the roof of a Soviet Zhiguli car in Oksoy near Samarkand, June, 2019. Photo by Hassan Kurbanbaev, used with permission
FN: Being a non-commercial photographer in Uzbekistan is no easy life. How did you come to this form of art, and how do your subjects perceive your role when you approach them?
HK: I think it's important to define what we mean by non-commercial photography. If you [compare me] with wedding or advertising photographers, then yes, I am not a commercial photographer. But I can work, for example, for the Financial Times, and get paid for my work — so I am an independent photographer who also works in the commercial field.
In the West, independent photographers can be represented by galleries [and] sell prints but here, there is no domestic art market for photographers. I would really like this situation to change, because [there is] a growing interest from local young people who want to be independent, to make their own series about themselves or their country, but they don't have the resources to do it. I very often have to face financial difficulties in order to make a project; sometimes I feel desperate. Therefore, I have to focus more on the Western market.
I believe that independent photography can be commercially successful and the state itself should be interested in this, if it wants to develop art. If we talk about my working methods, I just try to tell very simply why I take photographs, and sometimes this is enough for people to agree to a portrait.
Ozodbek, a young performer in Samarkand, September 2018. Photo by Hassan Kurbanbaev, used with permission
FN: Is there a recognition of contemporary photography in Uzbek society and a space for photographers like you to meet and exhibit their work? Where is your audience, primarily?
HK: Such a community existed, but among the older generation photographers, such as photo correspondents. There is no domestic art market in the country as such; this, of course, also applies to contemporary photography. The absence of curators and years of state censorship have eventually led to a crisis in art. But there are good changes — last year in Tashkent, photographer and human rights activist Timur Karpov opened an independent space for artists, the 139 Documentary Center. He has great plans to develop independent photography, to do well curated exhibitions. For me, this is an important event considering our context.
Today, the whole world has switched to online and we need to use it, especially for artists for whom this is, sometimes, the only opportunity to show their work. For example, I write on Instagram in English to reach a large audience, although I don't speak English very well. [This] is a chance not only to share my vision, but also to show Uzbekistan, which still seems completely unknown as a country.
A blanket with two tigers in love in the Zarafshan Mountains in Southern Uzbekistan, June, 2019. Photo by Hassan Kurbanbaev, used with permission.
FN: What themes are you working on currently?
HK: I am working on a series about youth from all countries of Central Asia. They are the first generation of people in the so-called five Stans — “new countries” created after the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991 — that continue to emerge as independent societies. These young people are the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Indigenous people, immigrants, people who were deported to Central Asia for political reasons. They interest me because they are the ones who will make our countries better in every sense. If I manage to find a budget along with the series, I would like to shoot a documentary film.

author: Filip Noubel


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Belizean Independence reminds me of the complicated legacy of colonization · Global Voices
Nicole D. Ramsey

My grandmother, Bernice, and me, 1995. Photo from the author.
This piece was originally published on Central American News.
I was destined to be a historian. As a young child, when I wasn’t enrolled in summer programs, I would often spend the bulk of my summers at my grandparents’ house in the Adams-Normandie neighborhood of Los Angeles. Always an inquisitive (read: nosy) child, I would often peruse my grandma’s photo albums, closets, and boxes full of mementos. In those boxes were collectibles, plates, and placards with Queen Elizabeth’s face on it.
My grandmother, like many people across the world, was also enamored with Princess Diana and Britain’s Royal Family in general (scandals and all). Between watching American soap operas in the early afternoon and her late evening news and game shows on TV, my grandma would occasionally pull out her VHS tape recordings of Princess Diana’s wedding or funeral, and we would watch from start to finish. After my granny passed away, it took me years to really think about those moments and why sharing them with me, her youngest grandchild, was so important for her who grew up in Belize as a colonial subject in the Crown colony.
Becoming an independent nation on September 21, 1981, Belize is the last country in Central America to do so. Belize’s long road to self-rule is marred with conflicts pertaining to enslavement, land dispossession, and territorial disputes. For example, Guatemala claimed the Belizean territory although Belize was formally declared a British crown colony in 1862. Guatemala’s claim prolonged the nation’s ability to seek independence until the early 1980s. In 1992, Guatemala finally recognized Belize as a sovereign state, although recent developments have led both Belize and Guatemala to take their cases to the International Court of Justice in 2019.
British colonization in Belize, like many places throughout the Caribbean, was invasive and omnipresent. It touched all facets of life in Belize and its Diaspora through culture, politics, education, and memorialization. Antiquated depictions of slavery in Belize have often been represented as benign and less violent than other places across Latin America and the Caribbean, an argument which many Belizean scholars and historians have challenged.
Belizean slavery, although not related to plantations, was still violent and allowed for particular forms of resistance and identity-making to take place. Enslaved men worked in the logging camps for the majority of the year while enslaved women engaged in domestic work and tended to the colonial households back in the city. Political and scholarly mischaracterizations of slavery in Belize being “mild” in comparison to other settlements in the Caribbean region influenced how race relations in the colony were perceived during that time and in the decades that followed. For example, the commemoration of September 10th as a holiday comes from a myth of collaboration and loyalty between Black and White settlers who fought “side by side” to ward of an oppressive Spanish fleet—it became a narrative of inter-racial partnership that was particular to Belize. Ultimately, the historical conditions regarding slavery, which marked Belize as an exception in the region, also worked to establish a Belizean identity that continued until its very recent colonial past.
With the celebration of The Battle of St George’s Caye on the 10th and Independence on the 21st, the month of September is one of the most important times in the Belizean community, especially abroad. The large celebrations that take place in Hollywood Park in Inglewood and Rancho Park in South Los Angeles were my introduction to Belizean festivities. It was a time for Belizeans to come together in the racialized geography of LA to celebrate independence for a country that they had left years—and for some, decades—ago.
Photo courtesy of BelizeInAmerica.net depicting Belizean September Celebrations in Los Angeles, USA, 2015
Given the mass migration of Belizeans to the US in the 1970s due to an economic depression in the aftermath of Hurricane Hattie in 1961, the memories of Belize that migrants, such as my parents, held dear to their hearts were those prior to independence. Belizeans like my grandmother who left the country years after independence were tasked with keeping traditions alive through storytelling, food, and celebrations. The memorialization that often accompanies immigrants is steeped in national longing and melancholia.
Given this history and my family’s migration to the US, my experience of Belizeanness was through a complicated pre- and post-colonial lens.
For example, in many cases, English (often referred to as “the Queen’s English”) as opposed to Creole, was used in public spaces as a tool for Belizean immigrants in Los Angeles to navigate anti-immigrant rhetoric in a city that was always violent to Black and Brown communities—whereas speaking Creole sometimes also worked to place them within an enigmatic existence of Anglo-Caribbean identity on the West Coast.
Thinking about my grandmother and her references of Belizeans as “Black British people” transports me to a generation and a historical moment of negotiation of Belizean identity before and after Independence. My granny’s Blackness and her attachment to the British Crown provided me with some of my first lessons about the complexities and peculiarities of diasporic Blackness. I often wondered if perceiving herself as English on top of Black was also her particular way of speaking to anti-Blackness in the region—by latching on to a system that most English-speaking Caribbean communities (and Africans) were also indoctrinated into.
Belizean Independence is a window into the many ways that the British Empire has permeated the Caribbean and parts of Central America. As a scholar of the Belizean Diaspora and someone of Belizean ancestry, the lens through which I see Belize is both loving and critical.
I think about my ancestors and loved ones and the beautiful culture that they were able to cultivate and preserve. Then, I also think about the complex history that is owed critical and honest engagement when it comes to the treatment of our Black and indigenous populations under the curtain of colonization.
With recent news of Barbados’ decision to become a republic thereby removing Queen Elizabeth as Head of State, I immediately thought about my granny and what she would think about this. Similar to the peak of decolonization in the 1960s and 1970s throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America, I can’t help but think, in my granny’s words “Dis ya time no stan like befo time” (“This is not like the old days”).
Things are changing in the Caribbean, and Belize might follow that lead in the near future, leaving the Queen behind. Yet, I am reminded again and again of the complicated legacy of colonization in Belizean lives.

author: Nicole D. Ramsey