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Will Felix Tshisekedi bring an end to turmoil in Democratic Republic of Congo? · Global Voices
Samuel Kabulo

Screenshot of a TV5Monde anchor (right) discussing 2018 general election contestants Felix Tshisekedi (center) and Joseph Kabila (left). Via YouTube.
The Democratic Republic of Congo’s constitutional court announced last month Felix Tshisekedi as the country's newly elected president, rejecting a legal challenge filed by runner-up Martin Fayulu who claims the vote was fraudulent.
The DR Congo held fiercely contested general elections in late December 2018 after the incumbent, President Joseph Kabila, who ruled for 18 years, was constitutionally barred from running for a third term.
The election was anticipated to be the DR Congo’s first “democratic transfer of power in 59 years of independence, but has been mired in controversy since the December 30 vote.”
Frontrunner Martin Fayulu of the Engagement for Citizenship and Development party.filed a court challenge claiming the votes to be rigged against him. He and others believe a deal was made by Tshisekedi of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress, or UDSP, and President Kabila of the ruling Common Front for Congo party, or FCC.
On January 19, 2019, the court rejected Fayulu’s request for failure to prove his assertions beyond a reasonable doubt.
According to the Independent National Electoral Commission, Tshisekedi received 38.5 percent of the vote while Martin Fayulu, of the Lamuka opposition alliance, obtained 34.7 percent and “loyal hardliner” Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary garnered 23.8 percent.  Voter participation was less than half at around 47.6 percent.
Following the announcement, celebrations commenced at party headquarters in Kinshasa, the capital. Among several heads of state in Africa, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa congratulated Tshisekedi and the United Republic of Tanzania's President John Magufuli also tweeted his congratulations.
Following the judgement by the High Constitutional Court. I congratulate HE. Felix Tshisekedi on his election as President of the DRC. While congratulating all the Congolese, I beseech you to maintain peace and affirm my commitment to furthering our historic and brotherly ties.
— Dr John Magufuli (@MagufuliJP) January 20, 2019
Despite initial disagreement among African Union members about the election outcome, the AU has welcomed Tshisekedi, who gave his maiden speech to the union on February 10 to warm reception.
But two months after the disputed elections, many fear that this transition of power was staged carefully to ensure that Kabila holds onto power through backstage agreements with Tshisekedi.
I welcome U.S sanctions on individuals for their responsibility in fabricating electoral results. In a spirit of consistency, I encourage the U.S to extend sanctions to those who willfully benefited from the very corruption it is sanctioning and to those who orchestrated it. #DRC
— Martin Fayulu (@MartinFayulu) February 23, 2019
Félix Antoine Tshilombo Tshisekedi was born in Léopoldville on June 13, 1963. His father, Etienne Tshisekedi, dominated Congolese politics as the founder of UDPS — the largest opposition party.
Due to his father’s opposition politics, the family was exiled internally to their home town, Kasai, and in the 1980s, Tshisekedi traveled with his father to Belgium, where he earned a diploma in accounting in 1987. He earned several other degrees between 1991-2001 and worked in marketing.
While in Belgium, Tshisekedi turned to politics, like his father, and became the national secretary for external relations of the UDPS in 2008. In November 2011, he planned to represent the city of Mbuji Mayi in Kasai but did not take his seat, citing a deceitful election.
His father was supposed to take on a leadership role as Kabila transitioned out of power, but upon his father’s death on February 1, 2017, son Felix Tshisekedi was elected to lead the UDPS, thrusting into him a powerful leadership role.
Tshisekedi’s victory may bring peace to the DRC or explode into turmoil, depending on whether or not Fayulu, who firmly rejected the election results, can accept this transition of power.
Fayulu called the election results “a constitutional coup d’etat” and “electoral swindle.” In a January 14 statement from the Roman Catholic Church, one of the few trusted institutions in DR Congo, they said:
The results of the presidential election published by [the electoral commission] do not match those collected by our observer mission.
“It is no secret that you have elected me president,” Fayulu announced to the public, considering himself the only legitimate president of DR Congo. Fayulu has been involved in campaigns for multi-party democracy and organized protests to this effect in 2016 and 2017.
Francesca Bomboko, director of Berci International, a research and consulting group in DR Congo, told the BBC that Fayulu has often shown up at protests to oppose Kabila. Fayulu has reportedly said that the “Congolese call him [the] people's soldier.”
When Fayulu was nominated as the joint opposition candidate for 2019,  Albert Moleka, Etienne Tshisekedi's former chief of staff, told the BBC that Fayulu could “become the new Etienne Tshisekedi,” saying “he’s the one who embodies the real opposition.”
With the support of former vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba and Moise Katumbi, the former governor of the mineral-rich Katanga province, Fayulu seems to be rising in influence and power in DR Congo politics.
With no full support from party ranks, Tshisekedi’s victory came as a surprise. According to the International Crisis Group, the UDSP split into several factions, some of which rejected the transfer of leadership to Etienne's son Tshisekedi.
Felix Tshisekedi is also somewhat of a novice in the political arena. Tshisekedi has been criticized for his lack of charisma and political experience in high office, drawing his political legitimacy from his father, according to Simon Allison of the Mail & Guardian.
On the other hand, Tshisekedi is “more diplomatic, conciliatory and attentive to people,” a member of the Congolese opposition said.
He has promised to build a nation of unity, peace and security.
Tshisekedi said on January 20 that the court's confirmation of his win was a victory for the entire country.
It is Congo that won. I am engaged in a campaign to reconcile all Congolese. Congo won’t be of division, hatred or tribalism. It will be a reconciled Congo, a strong Congo focusing on development, peace and security.
Patrick Litanga, a Ph.D. student at American University in Washington DC., speaking to Al Jazeera, observed that Tshiesekedi’s win may be the beginning of a new political landscape:
Felix Tshisekedi will be the first president in the Congolese political history since the time of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba to face a serious countervailing power. We may be witnessing the genesis of political checks and balances.
DR Congo gained independence in 1960. Since then, citizens have been subjected to numerous human rights violations such as extrajudicial killings; torture, sexual and gender-based violence including rapes and abductions.
Uppsala Conflict Data Project concluded that Laurent Kabila’s government saw the next three highest conflict death rates respectively, with 13,884 in 1998, 8,019 in 1999, and 7,537 in 2000.
Will the new epoch of Felix Tshisekedi government end the turmoil or stir up it? Let’s wait.

author: Samuel Kabulo


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A steep price hike for passport applications pushed Angolans to protest · Global Voices
Simão Hossi

At a protest in Luanda, the sign says “30.500 Kwanzas is a lot”. Photo by Fernando Gomes, used with permission.
Angolans are enraged about the government's new passport fee of 30,500 kwanzas (around 97 US dollars), introduced on 21 January. Previously, the fee costed 2500 kwanzas (8 US dollars).
In addition, the government has put in place a new price scale for all types of travel. It states that authorities will charge 45,250 kwanzas for a staying visa; 21,350 for a tourist visa; 36,500 for tourist visas given at the border; 38,125 for extensions of working visas; 15,250 for medical visas; and 30,500 for a permanent residency card.
Valdemar José, spokesperson for the Interior Ministry, told Angola Press that the price rise for ordinary passports was justified by the higher cost of producing the document:
(…) O governo ajustou o valor real do passaporte e deixou de subvencioná-lo, dando, por exemplo, prioridade à questão da água, luz e dos produtos de primeira necessidade. As cédulas para a emissão dos passaportes têm um custo elevado, por causa dos elementos de segurança usados nos documentos e, que até então o Estado subvencionava os custos do mesmo.
(…) The government adjusted the real value of the passport and stopped subsidising it, giving, for example, priority to issues of water, light and products of primary necessity. The materials for producing passports have a higher cost, because of the security features in the documents, which until now the state subsidised.
This is reminiscent of what Mozambicans experienced in late 2018, when the government also decided to increase the fees for legal documents, as well as for driving licenses, by 500 per cent.
The price hike has sparked controversy. A protest by around 100 youths took place on 4 February, and was promoted by a group of citizens who saw the government’s measure as a clear attempt to restrict people’s right to travel.
Protest in Luanda (4 February). Photo by Simão Rossi, used with permission.
On 4 February, Global Voices spoke with Fernando Gomes, an Angolan activist and one of the promoters of the protest, to learn more of the details around the event. He told us:
Essa forma encontrada para apelar a sensibilidade do executivo de João Lourenço, que esta não é a melhor fase para o aumento do preço, pois os cidadãos perderam o poder de compra de forma exponencial. (…) E que a tão aludida diversificação da economia angolana não pode passar exclusivamente pela elevação dos impostos direitos, visto que estes incidem apenas aos cidadãos, a classe política têm vários privilégios, que são custeados pelo cidadão de si já empobrecido”.
This [was the] way found to attract the attention of João Lourenço’s government, that this is not the best time to increase the price, as citizens lose purchasing power in an exponential way. (…) And that the much alluded to “diversification of the Angolan economy” cannot occur exclusively through raising direct taxes, given that they only hit citizens, the political class has various privileges, which are paid for by the already impoverished citizens themselves.
Critics say that it is important to remember that a passport is a citizen’s identity document abroad and, as such, an inescapable necessity for a lot of citizens.
Vamos ficar todo mês de Fevereiro nas ruas da cidade capital, de forma intercalada, dia 4 de Fevereiro foi o arranque das manifestações, mas dia 7 voltaremos às ruas, e novamente estaremos no dia 11 e dia 13 faremos uma reunião de balanço, caso não haja recuo do executivo na aplicação do decreto presidencial.
We are going to be in the capital city’s streets for the whole month of February, on staggered days, 4 February was the beginning of the demonstrations, but on the 7th we will return to the streets, and again we will be there on the 11th and on the 13th we will hold a debriefing, if the government does not backtrack on the implementation of the presidential decree.
Two young rappers, Lilo Kwanza and Adérito Gonçalves, made a song and video about this protest movement, with the title “Passport for 30 thousand”, ironically commenting on the costs of the document to citizens.
Days before the demonstration, the Angolan activist Pedrowski Teca said that the passport is more important than the identity card, asking people to join the protest:
Manifestação Internacional contra a subida absurda do preço dos Actos Migratórios.
OBS: O Bilhete de Identidade (B.I) só identifica o angolano dentro do território nacional. Fora de Angola, o B.I é inútil, pois o único documento de identificação válido é o passaporte.
Nós, dentro do país, vamos protestar e incentivamos os nossos compatriotas na diáspora a seguirem o mesmo caminho, pois o passaporte é mais útil para eles.
International demonstration against the absurd rise in the prices in Migration Acts.
OBS: The identity card (B.I) only identifies an Angolan within national territory. Outside Angola, the identity card is useless, as the only valid identification document is a passport.
We, inside the country, are going to protect and call on our compatriots in the diaspora to follow the same path, as the passport is more useful for them.
To amplify the message, the activist and university student, David Mendes, wrote, on the day of the demonstration, a message for the Angolan president João Lourenço:
Camarada presidente João Lourenço não foi pra isso que o povo angolano votou para o senhor em momento algum nas suas campanhas o senhor falou sobre a mudança de preços acerca dos documentos afinal de contas o quê que o senhor está pensar?
Onde é que fica a voz do povo? Já temos uma vida miserável com estás subidas de preçário o senhor tem noção da dificuldade que estás a criar neste povo? Sinceramente já não sabemos quem é o homem certo para governar a nossa Angola como é que fica o jovem que não tem um emprego de onde ele vai tirar o dinheiro para tratar os documentos?
Comrade president João Lourenço, it was not for this that the Angolan people voted for you, in no moment of your campaigns did you spoke about a change of price of document, after all what are you thinking?
Where is the voice of the people? We already have a miserable life with these price rises, do you have an idea of the difficulty that you are causing for the people? We sincerely do not know who is the right man to govern our Angola, how will a youth who has no job find the money to get the documents?
So far, the government has not reacted publicly, nor announced if it would consider reducing the price of passport.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Simão Hossi


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Australian court’s historic rejection of coal mine highlights the impact of climate change · Global Voices
Kevin Rennie

Rio Tinto's Mount Thorley mine, Hunter Valley 2014 – Courtesy Lock the Gate Alliance Flickr account (CC BY 2.0)
In a groundbreaking decision, a court has used the impact on climate change as one of the reasons for rejecting a new coal mine in Australia. The proposed Rocky Hill mine is near Gloucester in New South Wales’ Hunter Valley. Chief Justice Brian Preston of NSW's Land and Environment Court said that the open-cut mine “would be in the wrong place at the wrong time”.
He concluded that:
The construction and operation of the mine, and the transportation and combustion of the coal from the mine, will result in the emission of greenhouse gases, which will contribute to climate change.
Members of the local community activist group Groundswell Gloucester were ecstatic. Environmental lawyer Elaine Johnson shared their joy on twitter:
“People in the packed courtroom quietly celebrated, hugging and shaking hands with each other, as Justice Preston delivered his judgment, with one opponent to the mine breaking down in tears.”
What a privilege to share this with @EDONSW clients @GGlo2422https://t.co/L3nZbh3hS2
— Elaine Johnson (@ElaineEDO) February 8, 2019
Lawyers, lobbyists, academics, environmentalists and economists have responded online about the implications of the historic judgment. Environmental activist John Englart framed a global message via Twitter:
NSW Land and Environment Court decision in #Australia on coal and #climatechange is sending shockwaves around the world: The Rocky Hill residents who stopped a coal mine using the law. What is climate litigation? Via @p_hannam https://t.co/1JG3vk33fW
— John Englart EAM (@takvera) February 16, 2019
Environmental law academic Justine Bell-James explored the future for climate-based litigation at The Conversation, concluding:
It is hard to predict whether his decision will indeed have wider ramifications. Certainly the tide is turning internationally – coal use is declining, many nations have set ambitious climate goals under the Paris Agreement, and high-level overseas courts are making bold decisions in climate cases.
Economist John Quiggin also looked at some of the longer term implications of the decision:
[…] miners will sooner or later face demands for compensation for the damage caused by climate change.
The strongest case will be against mines that have commenced operation after the need to leave remaining reserves in the ground was already clear. Anyone considering investing in, lending to or insuring such mines should be prepared for more decisions like Rocky Hill.
International professional services firm, Herbert Smith Freehills, offers to ‘help you realise opportunities while managing risk’. It has this advice for current and potential clients:
Proponents seeking consent for new projects, or modifications of existing projects, with ‘material’ greenhouse gas emissions across all industries in NSW should carefully assess climate change impacts, particularly if the proposal is not ‘carbon neutral’.
On the same day, leading Australian law firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth reinforced this view:
Future proponents will need to seriously consider the decision, as will banks and others who would traditionally invest in or support coal and other fossil fuel-dependent industries.
It is possible that the increasing recognition of causative links between fossil fuel developments and climate change could pave the way for future compensation claims of the kind now being seen in the United States.
Nevertheless, there are online climate skeptics challenging the science, with allies in the mainstream media such as Rupert Murdoch’s publications:
Ergas demolishes the ludicrous Rocky Hill mining judgement, which argued fear of climate change (a dubious hypothesis, to date) was sufficient to deny a coal mining licence: https://t.co/uVHyUDwSiL
— Andrew Deakin (@andrewl5059) February 22, 2019
Meanwhile Swiss-based coal mining multinational Glencore has stated that it will cap its worldwide coal production for environmental reasons. Glencore is Australia’s largest coal producer.
Glencore to limit coal production after pressure from investors https://t.co/A6bqkmqviX pic.twitter.com/dk6BBJIe3R
— GR (@GasEnergyUnion) February 20, 2019
The rejection of the mine may still be overturned by a legal appeal or government legislation. However, the risks of climate litigation for international greenhouse gas emitters are unlikely to go away in the near future.

author: Kevin Rennie


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Mexican women protest for their lives as kidnappings and femicides surge · Global Voices
Giovanna Salazar

Rally at Mexico City's Zocalo on February 2. Photo by Jer Clarke, used with permission.
On February 2, Mexican women flooded the streets of Mexico City and social media with chants and hashtags such as #VivasNosQueremos (we want ourselves alive), #NiUnaMás (not one woman more), and #NoEstamosSolas (we are not alone) to protest the staggering levels of violence against women in their country. An average of nine women were killed every day in Mexico in 2018, according to the National Commission of Human Rights.
Around 4000 people gathered at Monumento a la Madre and marched towards Zócalo in the capital Mexico City. The night before, hundreds of women joined bikes rides in thirteen different Mexican cities — with 200 cyclists in the capital alone — for the Rodada for Women's Lives and Freedom.
The demonstrations were called after an investigation by the newspaper El País revealed that 153 people, most of them women, have been kidnapped on Mexico City's subway system over the past four years. Protesters demand an end to femicides and that authorities implement adequate security measures for women on public transportation systems.
Global Voices contributor Jer Clarke was present on the February 2 protest in Mexico City and made this video:
On social media, the rally was followed and celebrated by hashtags such as #LaNocheEsNuestra (the night is ours) and #LaCalleEsNuestra (the street is ours).
A video tweeted by Ruido en la Red shows women chanting “not one more, no more women killed” during the bike ride:
Rodada ciclista en la Diana Cazadora para protestar en contra de los actos violentos que se han presentado en los últimos días contra mujeres. pic.twitter.com/7lv1cvUn0N
— Ruido en la Red (@RuidoEnLaRed) 2 de febrero de 2019
Another protest is scheduled on International Women's Day on March 8.
The El País story about the kidnappings has made shock waves online since its publication in January 2019.
Testimonies reveal the various terrifying ways through which women can be kidnapped while on the subway — and how bystanders’ indifference end up helping attackers.
On Facebook, Eunice Alonso described her experience of barely escaping a kidnap attempt:
Pues ahora me tocó a mi.
Hace un rato me encontraba en la estación del metro Boulevard puerto aéreo, estaba esperando a que llegara el metro y un joven de entre 20 y 25 años se me acercó muchísimo y sentí que recargó algo en mi costilla […] al principio creí que me iba a asaltar, pero me dijo: “vas a salir conmigo y verás una camioneta blanca, te vas a subir y si alguien te dice algo dices que es tu uber”. Me quedé paralizada y comenzó a darme un ataque de ansiedad por lo que empecé a llorar, y una señora (a la que no tuve oportunidad de preguntarle su nombre) me dijo: ¿estás bien?, no pude contestarle y se dio cuenta de lo que estaba pasando que empezó a gritar: “fuego, fuego”. Y la gente empezó a vernos y un policía se acercó; fue así como el joven me soltó y se dio a la fuga.
Well, today it happened to me.
A moment ago I was in the metro station Boulevard puerto aéreo, I was waiting for my train and a young man of 20 to 25 stood really close to me. I felt he pushed something against my ribs […] Initially, I thought he was going to rob me, but then he said “you're coming out with me, you'll see a white van, you'll get in, and if someone says anything you say it's your Uber”. I froze and started having an anxiety attack. I started crying. Then, a lady (I couldn't get her name) asked me “are you OK?”, and when I couldn't answer she yelled “fire! fire!”. People started looking at us, then a policeman approched, and the man [that was holding me] fled.
The lady in this story used a strategy that is recommended by experts: to shout keywords such as “fire” or “earthquake” when asking for help to draw the attention of bystanders and security guards without exposing the attacker directly (as that could trigger a violent reaction on his part).
Data journalism group Serendipia DATA created a collaborative database to map incidents like the one above on Mexico state's metro stations.
Activistas recopilaron 210 testimonios sobre intentos de secuestro de mujeres en #CdMx y #EdoMex. En este #mapa los puedes explorarhttps://t.co/5jgRpC9E3f pic.twitter.com/BPjGJXrac3
— Serendipia (@SerendipiaData) 6 de febrero de 2019
Activists collected 210 accounts of kidnapping attempts in Mexico City and the Mexico State. You can explore [the testimonies in detail] on this map.
A similar effort was launched by online TV channel Rompe Viento based on the data collected individually by a Facebook user.
On February 1, Mexico City's authorities met with victims, their families, and civil society groups to jointly devise a plan to fight violence against women in public spaces.
Authorities proposed measures such as stationing mobile units of the Prosecutor's Office specifically to assist women who have been victims to gender-based violence while using public transport. Officials also promised to improve lightening around subway stations and to strengthen surveillance.
But many think those are insufficient. In Mexico, over 90 percent of crimes are not reported over lack of trust in authorities. A lot of victims fear retaliation, or that the authorities will cast doubt over their experience.
Protest on February 2 in Mexico City. Photo by Jer Clarke, used with permission.
Citizen pressure seems to have produced some results, at least: the number of complaints by women who were attacked on the public transportation system in the capital has soared. Thanks to this, authorities were able to outline a profile of the victims.

author: Giovanna Salazar


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Protests in Haiti may have halted, but its fragile institutions still struggle · Global Voices
Joseph W. Alliance

“I Love Haiti,” Haitian flag. Roaring Jellyfish Designs, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0. After nine days of civil unrest in Haiti, the streets are calm again — for now.
Nine days after Haiti's violent street protests began on February 7, 2019, the government finally broke its silence and civil unrest came to a halt. An increase in food prices has prompted residents of Port-au-Prince and other major cities to demonstrate against the endemic corruption contributing to the country's socio-economic crisis.
The gourde, Haiti's local currency, has lost significant value and inflation has risen to 15 percent, thanks in part to the country's mismanagement of its involvement in PetroCaribe, a Venezuela-led regional energy programme designed to offer petroleum and its by-products at preferential rates. Instead of aiding national development, the scheme turned into a US $3 billion corruption scandal involving high-level government officials, including the current president, Jovenel Moise.
As part of the government's efforts to discourage further unrest, Prime Minister Jean-Henry Céant has announced a package of nine measures aimed at addressing the underlying issues. He promised to take immediate steps to curb the skyrocketing prices of basic food products (notably rice, an important element of the Haitian diet), reduce government expenses by 30 percent, tackle industrial monopolies, raise the minimum wage and fight corruption by supporting the PetroCaribe lawsuit process.
While Céant's announcement brought some appeasement, several details remain unexplained. Fritz Jean, a prominent economist and former president of Haiti's Central Bank, expressed skepticism over the prime minister's ability to leverage and carry out the proposed measures.
The country is currently running a budget deficit of 10 billion gourdes (US $122 million) for the first trimester of the 2018-2019 fiscal period, and it's unclear whether some of these measures involve lowering tariffs on agricultural products or subsidising rice importers.
Port-au-Prince residents quietly returned to their daily routine following a February 18 communiqué from the Ministry of Communication calling on businesses, schools and government institutions to reopen after shutting down during the protests.
Though members of the political opposition have pledged to keep up the mobilisation, the government was eager to show they had regained some control and restabilised the nation, especially after the United States issued a Level 4 travel warning against Haiti, and the popular Expedia travel website classified the country's two international airports as “illegal”.
The embattled president has continued to push for a national dialogue that would bring all the different actors together to address the crisis. On February 22, Moise announced the creation of the Committee for the Facilitation of the National Inter-Haitian Dialogue. According to the official communiqué, this working group was to be installed on February 25; within two weeks, it is to launch a constructive dialogue with relevant political stakeholders and civil society to create an inclusive government that will address all concerns.
The #PetroChallengers, however, have insisted they will not join this working group. They maintain that since Moise was implicated in the Petrocaribe scandal, he lacks the legitimacy to lead this initiative. Various influential members of Haiti's opposition are also convinced that the resolution of the crisis is concomitant with the president's resignation. The committee itself is facing difficulties, as one of its members has already resigned.
Complicating matters, Haitian police arrested eight heavily armed men — five Americans, one Russian, one Serb and one Haitian — at a checkpoint near the country's Central Bank in downtown Port-au-Prince on Sunday, February 17, around 3 p.m. Haitian authorities struggled to provide a cogent explanation for the group's actions, but conspiracy theories flooded social media channels.
Pascal Adrien, the prime minister's spokesman, said that the “mission of the heavily armed individuals” was “controlling the prime minister's office and the parliament from the roof of the Banque de la République d'Haïti”.
The men used two vehicles traced back to people associated with the president, and one of the Americans has said his group was here to do security work related to the president. On February 20, he and his four compatriots returned to the States, seemingly with no prospects of facing criminal charges.
The U.S. Department of State confirmed that the detained men were released in accordance with Haitian authorities, but the offices of the Haitian president and the prime minister said that they were not aware of this decision. This latest development has disgusted Haitians both at home and abroad:
Chris Osman, the former American Navy SEAL Sniper who was arrested in #Haiti says he was doing "security work." Apparently, one that required illegal entry, vehicles with no plates, illegal weapons, 5 Haitian license plates, a list of names, and one man still behind bars. pic.twitter.com/wxKhb9lCQT
— Madame Boukman – Justice 4 Haiti?? (@madanboukman) February 22, 2019
Thanks to the efforts of a Haitian legal team, Michaël Estéra, the group's alleged local chaperone, was released on February 25.
Haiti has often struggled as a fragile state with a weak government, but this period of deep and spectacular crisis has led netizens to contemplate this fragility at its worst. When it came to the arrest of the foreigners, online commentary painted the Haitian authorities as a group of incapacitated marionettes whose strings are being pulled by powerful foreign agents to act against Haiti's national security and interests:
This sums up #Haitians’ interpretation of what’s happened this week with 5 armed Americans sent back to US. https://t.co/xCQmn31m2a pic.twitter.com/Fl10wcuCkm
— Jacqueline Charles (@Jacquiecharles) February 22, 2019
This latest saga puts both the prime minister and the president in a weaker position to address the socio-economic crisis and orchestrate an inter-Haitian dialogue in the hope of preventing more political turmoil and new social unrest.

author: Joseph W. Alliance


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Sexual violence in the family. A taboo topic in Armenia · Global Voices
OC Media

The following is a version of a partner post written by Armine Avetisyan, that first appeared on the website OC Media.
Armine (not her real name) has married twice. Her first marriage lasted only a few days because she found out that her husband and his step-mother were in an intimate relationship, and were using the marriage as a cover.
Five years later, she met another man and went to Russia with him. She did not have a residence permit, so she had to stay at home. When he would return home from work in the evening, he would look for a reason to start arguing and beat her.
“He hit me with a chair, with dishes. He tore my clothes, beat me again and made me have sex with him. One time I fainted from the pain, and he poured water over my head,” she says.
When she was pregnant, Armine’s life became relatively calmer. However, after her child was born, the violence became even more severe. Each time he wanted to have sex with her, she asked him to use a condom. But this made him even angrier, and he refused. Armine got pregnant four times, and had abortions each time. She did not have the money to buy contraceptives, and it was her husband who brought her the medication for the abortions.
“Once, one of our acquaintances came to visit. I told her everything and she helped me escape. At night I took my baby, ran directly to the airport from home, and came to Armenia,” she says.
Spousal rape and sexual violence affects many women in Armenia. While changes in the law were supposed to counter this, many activists say the problem of sexual violence remains dire, and the women affected are left with little protection.
Like many victims of abuse, Armine did not go to the police because she is sure nothing would come of it. She is also afraid that her husband might seek revenge should she go to the police.
“People will say: ‘how is it that you could not (manage to) live even with two different men? You are guilty. You are immoral,'” Armine says.
According to data provided to OC Media by the Armenian police, there were only 112 cases of sexual violence against women in 2016; in 2017 the official number decreased to 94.
But this does not necessarily mean sexual violence itself is decreasing. Zara Hovhannisyan, an activist from the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Women, says reluctance to file complaints with police can be explained by women’s fear of being shamed as a result of sexual violence, a “taboo” topic in Armenia.
Lilit's fairytale relationship lasted until her first child was born.
“My husband loved me like crazy, he fulfilled my every wish instantly. I didn’t know what the word “no” meant. When I was pregnant, he treated me like a queen. In short, my life was like a fairy tale. Then it turned into hell,” says Lilit (not her real name).
After her baby's birth, she says, her husband changed. A few days later as Lilit was breastfeeding, her husband approached her, put the baby on the bed, and they had ‘passionate sex’. This was repeated several times. At first it was pleasant for Lilit.
“Not long after, however, I noticed changes in his behaviour: he forced me to do things in bed that were unpleasant and painful for me, and if I resisted, he would tie me up.”
This sexual violence continued for about six months. She has not said anything to her family, because she does not feel comfortable talking about her intimate problems.
At first, she wanted to preserve the family's relationship, and so she asked her husband to visit a sexologist and a psychologist. But he refused.
“I’m alive today because I did not follow the Armenian custom, was not afraid to bear the label of a “divorced woman” and applied for divorce. I didn’t report it to the police. At the time, I didn’t want people to know the story of my life,” Lilit says.
Financially secure, Lilit was able to leave with her baby and rent a house. She says her ex-husband has made several attempts to restore the relationship. Lilit believes her husband is addicted to sexual violence, and feels sure he rapes his current wife as well.
“I knew that girl distantly,” Lilit explains. “She was a plump, pretty girl, who came to the city from the village. After their wedding, I saw her a couple of times in the street. She’s become terribly thin, she walks with a slouch, and her neck is always covered. When I was married, my neck was also always covered, because he held it with his thick fingers and pressed into it — he wanted to choke me.”
He told me: “I dream of having sex with a corpse.”
In September 2017, the Ministry of Justice submitted a draft law ‘On prevention of domestic violence and protection of victims of domestic violence’ for discussion. The law was to provide the legal basis for preventing domestic violence, protecting victims of domestic violence, and making justice accessible, since none of this was regulated by existing legislation.
But not everyone was in favour the law. A number of MPs and political and public figures began to protest against it. Some claimed the law was “imposed by the European Union” on Armenia, and was “aimed at destroying families and snatching children from their parents.”
After intense debate, an amended version was adopted in December 2017, titled ‘On Prevention of Domestic Violence, Protection of Persons Subjected to Violence in the Family, and the Restoration of Solidarity in the Family’.
Activists from the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Women say that both the change in the name, and some of the concepts found within it are problematic. They point out that the term ‘domestic violence’ has been removed both from the name of the law, and from its text, having been replaced with the term ‘violence in the family’, which they say is more ambiguous from a legal point of view.
In the adopted law, the term ‘to cause physical pain’ has been removed and instead replaced with ‘to cause physical suffering intentionally’. The term ‘physical suffering’ is not defined in Armenia’s Criminal Code.
As a result “if a woman has been subjected to violence, has been physically hurt, but the traces of the offence or damage to the body are not apparent, it is no longer considered a punishable offence,” Hovhannisyan of the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Women told OC Media.

author: OC Media


text:
Tensions mount between Pakistan and India after retaliatory manoeuvres by both nations · Global Voices
Vishal Yashoda Manve

An Indian Airforce Mi-17 transport chopper crashed today due to technical failure in Budgam district of Jammu and Kashmir, killing two people. Image by Ieshan Wani. Used with permission.
Tensions between India and Pakistan escalated today, February 27, after the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) claimed to have shot down two Indian military jets and captured two pilots.
The action by Pakistan follows a February 26 airstrike by the Indian Air Force (IAF) on a training camp of the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) group in Balakot in Northwestern Pakistan. The strike was itself in retaliation for the suicide bombing of a convoy in Pulwama, a district in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, that killed 40 Indian paramilitary police.
The current situation represents the biggest escalation of tensions between the two South Asian nuclear-armed rivals in over three decades. The aerial attack on Balakot was the first time in five decades that Indian military aircraft have entered Pakistani airspace, and the extent of the casualties and impact has been hotly contested, with Reuters bureaus in the two countries offering differing accounts.
According to reports, the PAF jets were pushed back by Indian Air Force (IAF) aircraft patrolling the area, with both sides reportedly losing aircraft in the skirmish.
In response to PAF strikes this morning as released by MoFA, IAF crossed LOC. PAF shot down two Indian aircrafts inside Pakistani airspace. One of the aircraft fell inside AJ&K while other fell inside IOK. One Indian pilot arrested by troops on ground while two in the area.
— Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor (@OfficialDGISPR) February 27, 2019
One of the Pakistani jets reportedly dropped bombs near an Indian army post, an action the Pakistani foreign ministry later defended as “strikes at non-military target, avoiding human loss, to demonstrate right, capability for self-defence”.
J&K: Pictures of craters formed from Pakistani bombs dropped near Indian Army post in Rajouri sector. Pic courtesy: Army sources) pic.twitter.com/bAqG1YW3AO
— ANI (@ANI) February 27, 2019
India immediately closed five airports near the border of Pakistan, including Srinagar, Jammu and Leh, and suspended civilian traffic, diverting all the flights bound to these airports.
Pakistan also stopped its domestic and international flight operations from Lahore, Multan, Faisalabad, Sialkot and Islamabad airports. The Flightradar24.com image below indicates the state of the airspace above the two nations at around 4:00 PM Pakistan Standard Time:
Deserted Pakistan Airspace at 4PM Pakistan standard time today. Screenshot from FlightRadar24.com
According to reports, residents of the border areas have been instructed to remain inside their homes and not venture outside. The Indian Railways service has issued a security alert across its network.
In the wake of the Pakistan Air Force actions on February 27, Pakistan's prime minister Imran Khan offered to engage in dialogue with India to de-escalate the situation.
“We understand the grief that you have suffered in Pulwama and are ready for a probe and dialogue, Khan said, according to reports. “Let's sit together and settle this with talks,” he added.
With general elections in India just weeks away, however, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, who, with his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is battling for re-election amidst high unemployment and a slowdown in the economy, has been trumpeting the success of the strike on Balakot. Speaking at a rally, Modi reiterated that under him India was in safe hands, without specific reference to the February 26 attack.
Modi's aide—and BJP president—Amit Shah, was less circumspect, tweeting that:
Today's strong action shows the will and resolve of a New India.
Our New India will not spare any acts of terror and their perpetrators and patrons.
— Amit Shah (@AmitShah) February 26, 2019
Foreign policy analyst Kabir Taneja expressed the opinion on Facebook that the attack on Balakot was mostly “symbolic in nature”:
Will this end terrorism? No. Will it contain it in long term? Probably not. But a lot more was achieved in signaling and significantly altering the shackles of counter-terror policies than just destroying a campsite on a hilltop.
But social media in both India and Pakistan exploded with memes and jingoism celebrating both the ‘success’ and ‘failure’ of the Balakot attack. While many Indians hailed it as a victory, lauding Indian Air Force (IAF), Pakistani netizens questioned the validity of those claims. Already embattled residents of India-administered Kashmir lamented the continued stress.
Indian journalist Barkha Dutt, who is frequently trolled by right-wingers, came out in favour of the IAF strike on Balakot:
I am an Indian journalist who cut my teeth reporting war from the front line. I have no faux neutrality about my country being engaged in a decades old low grade war by Pakistan backed terror groups. My full support to @IAF_MCC for this. This is not war mongering. Its justice https://t.co/CQQcoxrCEA
— barkha dutt (@BDUTT) February 26, 2019
Dutt faced backlash from Pakistani twiterati such as Ammar Rashid, a political activist:
Do you truly believe the violence is just reducible to the actions of the Pak state? That otherwise Kashmir would be happily integrated into India?
I fully condemn & call out my state's reckless support of militancy. Can you condemn the repressive role yours has played?
— Ammar Rashid (@AmmarRashidT) February 26, 2019
And from Pakistani university professor Dr. Nida Kirmani:
For all those mindlessly advocating war (that includes you @BDUTT) as if this is some game, listen to the voices of the people who live near the border. It is them and the soldiers on both sides who will pay the heavy price if this continues to escalate. #balakot https://t.co/FyPTTJGT5e
— Nida Kirmani (@nidkirm) February 26, 2019
Other rational voices questioned the ‘news studio-based war cries’ and advocated peace. Shah Faesal, former Director of Education in Indian-administered Kashmir raised the question of who would gain from the confict:
How can yesterday's mourners become cheerleaders of today's violence?
This war-mongering, glorification of violence, arguments for necessity of violence for political ends, false distinctions between state and non-state violence, are all against the basic values of humanity.
— Shah Faesal (@shahfaesal) February 26, 2019
Jahanzeb Hussain, editor of Pakistani news site Dawn.com, tweeted:
It's sad to see India go down the route of nationalism this way. It has produced civil servants, academics and scholars far more capable than anything Pakistan has. Nehru and Gandhi; combine the collective intelligence of Pakistani leaders and they wont compare to those two.
— Jahanzeb Hussain (@hussainjahanzeb) February 26, 2019
The former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir Mehbooba Mufti lamented the war cries and its impact on Kashmiri citizens:
Todays IAF strikes were followed by mass war hysteria on twitter & news channels. Most of these people are ignorant who have suspended the use of common sense. But its disconcerting that educated privileged people are cheering on at the prospect of a war. This is true jahaalat.
— Mehbooba Mufti (@MehboobaMufti) February 26, 2019
Another Kashmiri citizen echoed the chief minister:
Since the #Pulwamaattack, Kashmiris faced the brunt – outside were mob attacks and inside been living in an atmosphere of war. Now with today, the fear, anxiety, loss of hope of any possible peaceful future vanishing, #Kashmir continues to face more, knowing it isn't over yet.
— Fahad Shah (@pzfahad) February 26, 2019

author: Vishal Yashoda Manve


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USCYBERCOM attack gives Russian legislators new justification for tighter internet controls · Global Voices
RuNet Echo

Cyber operations at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. US Air Force photo by Boyd Belcher, licensed to public domain.
On February 27, the Washington Post reported that the US Cyber Command successfully penetrated — and briefly took offline — the network of Russia's infamous “troll factory”, also known as the “Internet Research Agency,” in November 2018.
While multiple US officials touted the move as show of the country's relative savvy in the field of cyber warfare, Russian legislators are using the attack as justification for imposing greater control over the Russian internet.
Speaking on condition of anonymity to the Post, people privy to the operation said that “the president [Trump] approved of the general operation to prevent Russian interference in the midterms.” According to the Post's sources:
The operation “marked the first muscle-flexing by U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM), with intelligence from the National Security Agency, under new authorities it was granted by President Trump and Congress last year to bolster offensive capabilities.
Multiple sources have since confirmed that the attack indeed took place. BBC Russian, citing its own sources inside the “troll factory,” reported that USCYBERCOM’s offensive on the eve of 2018 midterm elections “wiped out the servers” of IRA’s US department.
In a response to the Washington Post’s report, RIA FAN (a media outlet known for its links to the IRA) confirmed that the attack occurred, but still mocked USCYBERCOM's incursion attempt, calling it a “complete failure” and emphasizing the fact that it was quickly contained. The authors also noted that the attacked did not cause significant damage to the IRA's system, or to the team’s morale.
There is some debate as to how exactly devastating the attack was and whether it achieved the desired effect. RIA FAN described the attack in considerable technical detail, explaining how US CYBERCOM exploited standard vulnerabilities in a single IRA computer in order to execute an attack on the company's internal network.
После подключения мобильного устройства Apple iPhone 7 Plus к персональному компьютеру был произведен не только автоматический запуск iTunes и синхронизация данных пользователя, но и получен доступ в интернет со стороны ОС Windows и загружены некоторые файлы обновления системы, которые установились автоматически.
После этого компьютер стал по факту управляем удаленно и с него были проведены все необходимые процедуры для полноценного вторжения в локальную сеть ФАН. Стоит отметить, что вторжение в локальную сеть было проведено с IP-адресов, подконтрольных американским компаниям, в том числе, с серверов компании Amazon, которые обычно используются хакерами для заметания своих следов и скрытия настоящего источника атаки.
After connecting to a PC workstation, the [infected] Apple iPhone 7 Plus forced the launch of iTunes and user data synchronization, then accessed the internet via Windows OS and automatically downloaded and installed several system update files.
At this point, the infected workstation was being remotely controlled, opening the pathway for a full-scale attack on FAN’s intranet. It is worth noting that the intrusion originated from IP addresses controlled by US-based companies, including Amazon, often used by hackers to cover their traces and obscure the true source of attack.
The IRA has taken these revelations as an opportunity to confirm its aggrieved status as a victim of unprovoked US aggression.
And what's more, USCYBERCOM’s efforts appear to have re-energized the regulatory push to insulate the Russian internet from the rest of the world, and introduce increased levels of network-wide surveillance.
The Washington Post’s article mentions this only in passing:
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov asserted Wednesday that “in general” there are a “huge number of cyberattacks against various Russian organizations, legal entities and private individuals from the territory” of the United States. “This is the reality now in which we live,” he told reporters. He added that such threats underscore the need for a “sovereign Internet” in Russia.
But inside Russia, USCYBERCOM’s November offensive is being spun for all it’s worth, in propagandistic terms.
Russian state media, officials and pro-government experts are having a “we told you so” moment: this is exactly why we need the “sovereign internet” law, they are saying, referring to the controversial Klishas bill that Runet Echo has covered in the recent months.
The proposed legislation seeks to establish state-regulated internet exchange points that would allow for increased monitoring and control over internet traffic moving into and out of the country. This in turn would give authorities much greater power to censor objectionable (and politically inconvenient) content online.
Those who oppose the bill saw the attack against IRA (and the Washington Post's coverage of the incident) as powerful ammunition for proponents of the bill:
Теперь мы знаем, чему обязаны законом «о суверенном рунете». В ноябре 2018 США провели кибератаку, отключив интернет «фабрике» Пригожина.
— Кононов (@nickolaykononov) 26 февраля 2019 г.
Now we know to whom we owe the “sovereign internet” bill. In November 2018 the US launched a cyberattack, pushing Prigozhin’s “factory” offline.
Так вот почему нам хотят сделать суверенный интернет…https://t.co/zslD4DlRQd
— David Kharebov (@dharebov) 27 февраля 2019 г.
So, that’s why they’ve been pushing for “sovereign internet” for us…
There is no proven link between the November cyber attack on IRA and the Klishas bill, filed for review in the Russian parliament in December 2018, and awaiting a second reading in March 2019. But the bill’s accompanying paper does identify “the aggressive nature of US National Cyber Strategy” as its primary motivation:
В подписанном Президентом США документе декларируется принцип “сохранения мира силой”. Россия же впрямую и бездоказательно обвиняется в совершении хакерских атак, откровенно говорится о наказании: “Россия, Иран, Северная Корея провели ряд безответственных кибератак, которые нанесли ущерб американским и международным компаниям, нашим союзникам и партнёрам и не понесли соответствующего наказания, что могло бы сдерживать кибератаки в будущем”. В этих условиях необходимы защитные меры для обеспечения долгосрочной и устойчивой работы сети Интернет в России, повышения надёжности работы российских интернет-ресурсов.
The document signed by the US President openly declares the principle of “peace through strength.” It also directly and without any corroboration names Russia as the culprit in a number of hacker attacks and openly calls for retaliation: “Russia, Iran, and North Korea conducted reckless cyber attacks that harmed American and international businesses and our allies and partners without paying costs likely to deter future cyber aggression.” In these circumstances, there is a need for preventive measures to ensure a long-term and sustainable functionality of the internet in Russia and improve the reliability of Russian internet resources.
Pro-Kremlin experts insist that the bill’s aim is not to isolate Russia from the outside, but, conversely, to protect its own internet infrastructure from outside attacks and prevent a country-wide blockage.
Natalia Kasperskaya, Kaspersky Labs’ cofounder and one of the most influential IT experts to consult the Russian government on internet regulation, said in an interview with RT:
Речь идёт о том, что если нашей стране выключат интернет СНАРУЖИ, то он продолжит работать. То есть речь идёт о том, чтобы принять некоторые профилактические меры по тому, чтобы Рунет продолжил бы работать в худшем случае, если нам закроют доступ.
We are talking about a situation when someone switches off the internet for our country from the OUTSIDE, so that we are prepared to keep it going. This [bill] is about taking some preventive steps to assure the functionality of Runet in the worst case scenario, if we are denied access.
What Kasperskaya describes here is a significant exaggeration — what the US has done in Russia so far does not come close to a nationwide internet shutdown, and the likelihood that outsiders could even execute such a move (which would violate international human rights and cybercrime doctrine) is still remote.
While there is a legitimate argument to be made for a more robust and reliable national IT infrastructure (IRA’s weak spots were all foreign-made: a Windows workstation, an Apple iPhone and Western-made servers hosted outside of Russia), there is little doubt that this bill, as well as its accompanying initiatives, will be used to further “tighten the screws” on online freedoms in Russia.
As for USCYBERCOM, its attack appears to have achieved little in terms of deterrence, while handed the proponents of these restrictive policies an extra argument in their favor.

author: RuNet Echo


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What diapers taught me about Europe · Global Voices
Akja Kepderi

Baby image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images on Pixabay. EU flag image: public domain. Images remixed by Georgia Popplewell (CC BY 3.0).
When I arrived in Germany as a student two years ago, it surprised me to see mothers using cloth diapers, as people did decades ago in my home country of Turkmenistan. Although Turkmenistan is currently experiencing an economic crisis, parents aspire to use imported disposable diapers and leave behind the centuries-old tradition of cloth diapers, which is now perceived as backward. How was it that Western Europeans, who are financially better off than the average Turkmen, were choosing cloth, particularly when they had at their disposal was a plethora of different brands of modern disposable diapers?
Similarly, I found Western European youth odd and eccentric. They seemed to be experiencing a creeping ennui regarding famous brands, using cotton totes instead of designer bags and proudly wearing second-hand clothes that made them look anything but wealthy. As a foreign student from Turkmenistan, I could not help but wonder if a certain kind of romanticized poverty was a normal lifestyle in affluent Western Europe, a part of the world many Turkmens dream about moving to.
Munching on schnitzel in the canteen and chatting over lunch, I also learned that many of my German course-mates and professors followed a so-called “mindful” diet, which means avoiding certain foods in order to reduce your environmental impact on the planet. I could not help but wonder if I—and, for that matter, all Turkmens—whose diet primarily comprises of meat, am not “mindful”?
I spent my early days in Germany feeling awkward because I did not understand German culture and had a hard time fitting into my host country. In order to feel less isolated and blend in with my new community, I started to self-educate about ways of knowing and being in Western Europe. I discovered a whole ‘new’ world that was evolving that was largely unknown outside of Turkmenistan. I learned about climate change, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), circular economy, environmentalism, minimalism, and green lifestyle. With unrestricted access to the internet and information, my critical consciousness was awakened, and I began to reconsider binaries like “developed” and “backward” and re-analyze politics both in Turkmenistan and West.
I realized that while many better-educated and affluent citizens of Germany embraced a “postmaterialist” mindset, and now focus on quality of life and leading environmentally conscious lifestyles, we in Turkmenistan are becoming increasingly materialistic. In the absence of quality education and easy access to the internet, being environmentally conscious is neither a realistic nor obtainable goal for many Turkmenistani.
Access to information is also necessary for assuring public accountability. It is not surprising, therefore, to see teenagers in Germany and across Western Europe skipping school and taking to the streets to demand that adults protect their future from climate-change disasters. Many Turkmenistani, meanwhile, are clueless that Central Asia is also being adversely affected, and might face border conflicts as climate change reduces access to fresh water.
Disclosure of environmental information by governments, climate education in schools and access to information is the cornerstone for safeguarding people’s right to know and the public’s ability to participate in or take the lead on environmental protection efforts. Being environmentally conscious also requires the assurance that information will be made available and accessible to all citizens, which is not the case in Turkmenistan.
Having had the opportunity to live in Germany and be exposed to new ideas, I came to understand that the use of cloth diapers is not backward and wearing second-hand clothes is not a sign of destitution, but of eco-friendliness. I am afraid that many of my fellow Turkmens will take much longer to come to that realization. Some of them might not ever learn to appreciate our formerly thrifty lifestyle—mending clothes, passing outgrown ones to siblings—as progressive and environmentally friendly. I am also afraid that due to limited access to information and lack of awareness-raising initiatives, we will keep on undervaluing our environmentally-conscious traditions and a way of life to which many westerners aspire.
On the other hand, I don’t think Western Europeans acknowledge sufficiently that leading an eco-conscious lifestyle and attaining the SDGs is a feature of privilege. My German peers have probably never stood for hours on a line for a loaf of bread, sugar and oil. When you don’t have to fret about basic needs like food, have access to quality education and information, and live in a democratic country, it is easier to prioritize environmental concerns.

author: Akja Kepderi


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Dijaawa Wotunnöi: an animated short film helps revitalise the Yekuana language · Global Voices
Minerva Vitti

Screenshot of the animation on YouTube.
Dijaawa Wotunnöi is an ancestral myth of the Yekuana, an indigenous people who live in Venezuela and Brazil, that was turned into a short animated film by Saúl Kuyujani López.
The film is completely spoken in Yekuana and has subtitles in Spanish. Several Yekuanas participated in the project as translators and researchers, and also contributed their voice to the film's characters. The author of this story was also part of the production team.
The myth explains how the Yekuana people came to be descendants of bats. Part of the explanation lies with the life story of Kawashidi, a Yekuana man whose wife is killed by an evil spirit who then challenges him and tests his intelligence.
Saúl Kuyujani López documented the myth as it's told in the community of Santa María de Erebato, located in the banks of the Caura river (Alto Caura) in the Bolivar state, Venezuela.
According to Venezuela's 2011 census, there are 7,997 Yekuanas living in the states of Amazonas and Bolivar. Brazil's 2000 census registered around 430 Yekuanas living in the country.
The UNESCO Interactive Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger classifies Yekuana as a vulnerable language. Yekuana teachers say that most parents do not consider important to pass on their language to future generations. Many take their children to cities so they can learn to speak Spanish well. As a result, children lose their family's language.
For this reason, the animated adaptation of Dijaawa Wotunnöi aims to preserve the oral aspects of the Yekuana language through the audiovisual format.
The film was produced by Creaser Creative Studio and supported by the Indigenous Organization of the Cayu Kuyujani Basin and the Humboldt Forum. The first screening took place at the Humboldt Forum in Berlin, Germany, in July 2017.
The short film was selected in the official programme of the 13th International Film and Communication Festival of Indigenous / Native Peoples (FICMAYAB), which was held in Guatemala in October 2018. The national premiere was held at the Indigenous Film Festival of Venezuela, in November 2018.

author: Minerva Vitti


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Egyptian parliament endorses constitutional amendments that could allow Sisi to rule until 2034 · Global Voices
Guest Contributor

Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, president of the Arab Republic of Egypt, addresses the United Nations summit for the adoption of the post-2015 development agenda. Source: United Nations. Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic.
The following article is written by an Egyptian journalist who preferred to remain anonymous for security reasons.
Of the 596 members of Egypt's parliament, 485 voted in favor of extending Egyptian President Abdelfattah al-Sisi's ruling term that could see the 64-year-old leader in power until 2034.
Originating in the house of representatives, the constitutional amendments had been preliminarily proposed by Sisi's die-hard political party “Tahya Masr” in early February 2019, which opened the channel for a parliamentary debate.
As a result, it received initial endorsement after three consecutive sessions that lasted for 10 hours on February 14. The parliament's legislative commission received the amendments to be drafted into legislation and submitted to parliament with 60 days for a decisive vote. If the government secures votes from two-thirds of members of parliament, a national referendum will be held in line with the conditions of the 2014 constitution authored by Sisi backers.
Revision of the constitution gives the current political dynamics an overriding power and enshrines the military's position above the state.
Key among the proposed amendments is the proposed new article that allows Sisi to run for a third and fourth presidential term when his actual term was scheduled to end in 2022. Furthermore, the presidential clause amendment introduced an adjustment for Article 140 to extend the standard presidential term from four years to six years.
The amendment further suggests that the rule could have a vice president or two vice presidents appointed. The proposal guarantees unprecedented authority to the military, presenting an amendment to Article 200 that tackles the constitutional role of the military, adding the new phrase “protection of the constitution, democracy, the state, and its secular nature, and personal freedoms.”
According to an analysis titled “Generalissimo Sisi,” produced by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a foreign-policy think tank, this addendum grants the military “a constitutional right to carry out a coup and impose direct military rule, especially if an Islamist electoral victory threatens the ‘secular’ nature of the state. It is worth noting that Egypt has been home for Islamists, represented mainly by the Muslim Brotherhood Organization which won the 2012 elections and was later toppled by Sisi in 2013. Since then, the Egyptian government has adopted a crackdown approach to Islamists.
In fact, the proposed amendments go beyond military clauses and further strongly curtail judicial independence. Articles 185, 193, and 190, which primarily deal with judiciary budgets, supreme constitutional court affairs, and the duties of the state council are likely to be revisited.
The proposed amendments give authority to the president to appoint heads of judicial, oversee secondments and promotions, and offer an advisory role to the head of state to become the arbiter for draft laws that regulate judicial affairs.
The amendments strip the state council of its right to review any judicial oversight over the contracts signed by the state or one of its public institutions — and does not designate a replacement. Considering that military interventions had been largely favored by a court ruling, gradually undermining Egypt's judicial autonomy, the suggested constitutional changes are bound to limit judicial power.
The reformation of the parliament was likewise addressed. According to the Washington Post, the amendments will “bring back a lower chamber, or Senate, with mainly an advisory role. The Senate would have a minimum of 250 members, with two-thirds elected directly and the remainder appointed by the president.”
Human Rights Watch criticized the proposed amendments, saying that they would “undermine judicial independence and expand executive powers that are already being abused.”
Sisi previously said that he wouldn't run for president — let alone for a second term —  but he is the one who led the army's overthrow of former president and Muslim Brotherhood-affiliate Mohamed Morsi. Sisi took office in 2014 following a landslide victory capitalizing on a popular anti-Muslim Brotherhood wave.
Sisi was then re-elected in 2018 virtually unchallenged.
Egypt, a country of about 100 million citizens, is full of social media-savvy political activists who thrive despite the ongoing government crackdown on freedom of expression. The parliament's move triggered reactions from across Egypt and other parts of the world accusing Sisi of being an authoritarian president.
Egyptian actor Amr Waked, known for his opposition to the government, tweeted while using the viral hashtag “لا لتعديل الدستور” (#NoforConstitutionalAmendments)
قوة الرفض رهيبة. إتحدوا ولموا شملكم ونسقوا هتكسبوا. فعلا بقالي كتير ما شوفتش الرأي الواحد بالشكل ده.#لا_لتعديل_الدستور
— Amr Waked (@amrwaked) February 16, 2019
The rejection power is huge. Let us all unite and coordinate among us, so we win. It has been long since we agreed on a unified opinion.
Twitter activist Zahraa El Masry shared a video for MP Ahmed Tantawy, explicitly opposing the new constitutional amendments during the convened parliamentary session. The video has gone viral across social media:
ارفع راسك فوق انت مصرى مليون تحية للجدع احمد طنطاوى راجل تسلم ربنا يحميك ويثبتك ويبعد عنك كل شر يا محترم يا رجولة pic.twitter.com/Oz810oIyzG
— لســاهــا ثـورة ينــايـر (@Zahraa73Almasry) February 14, 2019
Raise your head high, you're an Egyptian. Salute to Ahmed Tantawy. May God Bless you.
#الشروق| بعد موافقة البرلمان مبدئيا على التعديلات الدستورية.. ننشر أسماء ١٦ نائبا معترضين عليها#لا_لتعديل_الدستور pic.twitter.com/gzoEixLmwn
— هيثم الحريري (@HaithamElhariri) February 14, 2019
Member of the Egyptian Parliament Haitham El Hariry, who voted against the proposal shared the names of the MPs who adopted the same vote through his twitter account. The name list include a number of 16 names that voted “No”

author: Guest Contributor


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The repatriation of African artifacts to countries of origin is tricky business · Global Voices
Abdoulaye Bah

Screenshot of the French news channel TV5 Monde with Bénédicte Savoy and Felwine Sarr, two professors who are leading the conversation on repatriation of African heritage to countries of origin. Image via YouTube.
in November 2017, in a speech at the University of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, French President Emmanuel Macron declared that “African patrimony” should no longer be featured in European museums and that measures should be taken for its temporary or definitive restitution back to Africa.
Following this request, lecturers Felwine Sarr and Bénédicte Savoy from the University of Gaston-Berger in Saint-Louis, Senegal, and the Technische Universität of Berlin, Germany, wrote a report to explain a suggested legal process for returning Africa's artifacts and treasures, rejecting the notion that these collections belong to French heritage.
The restitution of African art has been an ongoing debate for decades. European colonial powers used monumental archaeology to appear as the guardian of the colonized history, reinforcing an unconscious sense of ownership. Repatriation proponents say former colonial powers appropriated ancient art of colonized cultures and their museums, located in the West, prevent nationals from learning and embracing their own history.
Today, French public museums store about 90,000 sub-Saharan African art pieces, mostly obtained through theft and colonial privilege.
Journalists Konsimbo Ophelie and Poda Gabriel explain in Nsi mababu, a pan-African newspaper:
Plus de 90 percent des œuvres d’art d’Afrique noire se trouvent hors du continent, selon les experts. Pillées pendant la colonisation, elles sont pour la plupart aux mains du British Museum, du musée du Quai Branly, ou du musée de Berlin. Le Bénin, le Nigéria et la République Démocratique du Congo entre autres, réclament aujourd’hui le retour de ses trésors pillés durant l’époque coloniale. La question des restitutions d’oeuvres d’art africaines est à la fois épineuse, politique et constitue aujourd’hui une polémique dont il faut comprendre les tenants et aboutissants.
According to experts, more than 90 percent of black African artwork are found outside of the continent. Stolen during the colonization times, most of them are found in the property of the British Museum, the Quai Branly Museum, or the Berlin Museum. Today, countries like Benin, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo (among others) claim the return of their stolen treasures. The issue of the restitution contains tricky political elements. We need to understand the ins and outs of this.
Many African countries were affected by this looting, which represents 85 to 90 percent of African artistic heritage. Eva Rassoul, a journalist, explains on France Culture, a French radio program:
Dans les musées français, les œuvres africaines proviennent en grande partie du Tchad (9 200 œuvres), du Cameroun (7 800) et de Madagascar (7 500).
The artwork found in the French museums predominantly originate from Chad (9,200 artwork), Cameroon (7,800) and Madagascar (7,500).
Savoy and Sarr explained the legal process for repatriation of Africa's stolen artificats on TV5 Monde:
Journalist Philippe Rey says the report looks at the role France played in the pillage of Africa's heritage:
Il raconte les spoliations à travers l’histoire mondiale, évalue la part de la France, dresse un premier inventaire des oeuvres spoliées, fait le récit des tentatives des pays africains pour se réapproprier leur patrimoine, analyse les questions juridiques qui se posent, et énonce un certain nombre de recommandations pratiques pour la mise en oeuvre des restitutions, un des chantiers les plus audacieux de ce XXIe siècle.
It recounts the dispossession through the history of the world, evaluates the role of France, examines a preliminary inventory of the stolen artwork, narrates the African tentative for the heritage re-appropriation, analyses the legal questions, and lists a number of useful recommendations for the restitution process. This work is one of the most ambitious project of the 21st century.
Journalist Laurent Adjovi in Benin celebrates France's move to return 26 artifacts taken from Benin:
Grâce aux discussions ouvertes avec la France, Patrice Talon offre ainsi une possibilité aux béninois de revoir  par exemple les  œuvres royales, évoquant les règnes des rois d’Abomey Ghézo (1818-1858), Glélé (1858-1889) et Béhanzin (1890-1894), des trônes, de récades, et les sceptres royaux.
Thanks to open discussions with France, Patrice Talon can offer Beninese people the chance to see some of their artwork again. An example of this is the royal artwork, showing the reigns of the kings Abomey Ghézo (1818-1858), Glélé (1858-1889) and Béhanzin (1890-1894), thrones, recades, and royal scepters.
In the spirit of showcasing African heritage and artifacts, Senegal unveiled the Museum of Black Civilizations on December 6, 2018, supported by Senegalese President Macky Sall. The museum adds to other cultural sites such as the House of Slaves and the Henriette-Bathily Women's Museum.
Un évènement qui intervient au moment s’anime le débat sur la restitution des biens culturels africains pillés par la France pendant la colonisation. C’est un rêve vieux de cinquante ans qui se réalise.
This comes at a time where the debate is at its loudest concerning the stolen African cultural assets by France during the colonization. It is a fifty years old dream come true.
Ivory Coast's minister of culture, Bandama Maurice, says repatriation of his country‘s historical artwork is definitely in the works:
We think that in 2019, most or all of the 148 artwork will be given back to Ivory Coast. The reason we have asked for this number is because we can only accommodate that many in the museum collections.
In the Republic of Congo, too, the Museum of the African Circle was recently inaugurated in Pointe-Noire, a port city, to invite youth to connect to their history and culture.
Ancien lieu culturel pour les congolais, avant d‘être transformé en Cour de justice et de finalement tomber à l’abandon, le bâtiment a été réhabilité et transformé en 2017 pour devenir ce musée. Depuis son ouverture au public le 4 décembre, le Musée du cercle africain a déjà accueilli plus de 600 visiteurs par mois.
Before being converted into a museum in 2017, this building used to be a former cultural place for Congolese people in the first place, then a law court and finally an abandoned place. Since its opening to the public on December 4, the Museum of the African Circle has already welcomed more than 600 visitors per month.
Nevertheless, the process to return African artifacts is difficult and many issues must be resolved before they can be returned. Journalist Yassin Ciyow raises the complexity of this process for Neomag magazine, stating how many of the acquired artifacts were technically given — or taken — as “gifts” during colonial periods.
En revanche, pour les œuvres issues de l’époque coloniale, la complexité vient du fait qu’après avoir été pillées, elles ont généralement été données ou léguées (dans le cadre légal de l’époque) à des collections publiques françaises. Ainsi, ces œuvres sont de facto entrées dans le domaine public mobilier national, devenant ainsi propriété de l’Etat français. Par le passé, des lois d’exception ont néanmoins été votées afin de “déclasser” certaines œuvres. C’est grâce à cette pirouette juridique que la Vénus Hottentote a pu être rendue à l’Afrique du Sud et des têtes maories à la Nouvelle-Zélande.
… [The] stolen artifacts from the colonial times were generally given or donated to French public collections. Thus, these artworks are de facto part of the national public domain, and have become a property of the French state. Nevertheless, exception laws have been voted in the past in order to decommission some works. It is because of this legal twist that the Venus Hottentote could be returned to South Africa, and the Maori heads to New Zealand.
Besides the legal difficulties, protection and maintenance of these rare African artifacts once returned has also raised concerns.

author: Abdoulaye Bah


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This Trinidad and Tobago steelband changed its tune, prompting discussion on a steelpan policy · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Invaders Steel Orchestra playing at the 2019 Panorama Semi-Finals at the Queen's Park Savannah in Port of Spain, Trinidad. Photo by Maria Nunes, used with permission.
The lifeblood of Trinidad and Tobago's annual Carnival celebrations is new music; it couldn't survive without it. Seasonal fetes blast the latest soca tunes to the delight of partygoers, but this music takes on new life and new forms during Panorama.
The hotly contested steelband competition sees arrangers take a soca song and build on it throughout the preliminaries, into the semi-finals and the grand finals. The contest involves traditional single steelpan players and conventional steelbands of various sizes.
After placing ninth out of the ten steelbands in the “large band” semi-finals, Exodus, a popular “pan side” hailing from east Trinidad, announced their intention to change their tune from “Rag Storm” to “Savannah Grass”, ostensibly because the latter might be better received at the finals.
The switch was not simple.
PanTrinbago, the association representing steelpan players’ interests, deemed the band should not be allowed to change their song even though the official rules don't bar it; they only stipulate that a band must not have played the same song at previous Panorama competitions.
Exodus felt so strongly about the swap that they went to court, where the judge ruled that if PanTrinbago wanted to amend the regulations, the membership should have been consulted.
At the Panorama finals on March 2, Exodus will play “Savannah Grass”, but the wrangling involved in making the change has many pan aficionados dismissing the whole imbroglio as semantics. They reason, no band ever plays exactly the same version of the tune they've selected all the way through Panorama; in fact, spectacular changes in arrangement have come to be expected and often weigh heavily into the scoring.
The blog Sokah2Soca simply couldn't understand what the outcry was about:
Exodus are putting themselves at a disadvantage by choosing a new song! Pelham [Goddard] has to arrange, the band has to learn and the drill master has to work the team to get the orchestration right with very limited time to get it done […] while […] the rest of the bands in the competition will simply be fine tuning their arrangements.
Discussion on social media also pointed to the role of the Panorama adjudication criteria and its dissonance with the pressure for bands to play popular songs. Some pan aficionados suggested that because the lion's share of new soca offerings are composed around a pre-existing beat and harmonic structure (called “riddims”), the result is musical homogeny, which can't always stand up to the rigorous demands of the judging criteria.
Yet, some arrangers — like Renegades‘ Duvone Stewart — have managed to take popular soca songs and expand upon them in complex and innovative ways:
Could a steelpan policy help? According to Michael Cooper, president of Panland, a Trinidad-based company that stakes its claim as the world's largest steelpan manufacturer and exporter, new policies can help navigate such paradigms. Steelpan was created in Trinidad and Tobago, but the country currently has no national policy on the instrument.
On February 20, Cooper gave a talk titled “A National Framework for the National Instrument” as part of a lecture series by the University of Trinidad and Tobago. He called Panorama the only annual event that has the power to cut across gender, age, race or class, and thinks its stakeholders need to “take responsibility” and develop a policy for pan.
Once Carnival is over, Cooper and a small group of volunteers that includes Patrice Cox-Neaves, an adjunct music lecturer at the University of the West Indies, have promised to come together and help develop the document, for which he already has a template.
Cox-Neaves believes that the situation with Exodus and the change of song is symptomatic of a lack of policy:
A pan policy would cover everything from history and education to manufacturing and marketing. Had PanTrinbago's board understood the history, they would know that Harmonites changed its tune midway through Panorama 1972. It's an option. Bands rarely take it up, because it's risky and a lot of extra work, but it is an option.
Panorama is a strange animal. Bands don't play covers. They use existing melodic lines of songs that have a set chord and harmonic structure and create an entirely new composition designed to suit the tech ability of a particular steelband.
I don’t think people really understand what happens in a panyard: you have section leaders, drill masters, an engine room, and the arranger pulls it all together. They transform a two-minute song into an eight-minute piece that is constantly evolving, dependent on both muscle memory and music memory.
Problems — even simple ones like a band wanting to change a tune — will resurface if we keep looking at pan as pure entertainment, and treating it as if it doesn’t speak to our soul. And that is all that it does. It feeds us.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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As patriotic propaganda video praising Huawei goes viral, netizens mock the company’s political connections · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Screen shot from Youtube
A patriotic propaganda video called “Huawei, the beautiful” has gone viral on the Chinese social media on February 27.
Sung by a group of cute kids wearing t-shirts stamped with the word “China”, the melody resembles the propaganda songs of the Cultural Revolution. The lyrics suggest the love of China and Huawei go hand-in-hand:
Which phone is the most beautiful in the world? Everyone says it’s Huawei.
The battery is durable, appearance is good. China’s chips are the most precious!
Huawei is good. Huawei is beautiful. Huawei gives me wisdom.
Teacher teaches me to love my motherland and homegrown brand Huawei.
Huawei wins glory for our country!
The video is the work of a group called the Zhoudan Children’s Singing Classroom (周丹少儿声乐教室), based on the southern Chinese city of Zhuhai. On its official Weibo account, Huawei has denied any involvement in the video's production.
Huawei has been trying to establish an independent outward image for the international market but has come under suspicion by Western governments of having close ties with the Chinese one-party state.
Indeed, every detail of the video suggests that it's a sophisticated piece of political propaganda. The lyrics were written by Li Yourong (李幼容), a prominent lyric writer of the CPC Central Military Commission Political Department Song and Dance Troupe, and Zang Sijia (臧思佳), a hired lyric writer of Police Literature And Arts Association of China.
The composer, Cheng Lengheng (郑冷横), has won many national awards for contributing to the country’s “spiritual civilization”, and he has been endorsed by the State Council for his outstanding performances.
The genre has reminded many people of the political propaganda tunes of the Cultural Revolution. @ZoologistPanghu remembered his childhood days:
找一帮根本没用过手机的小支孩歌颂华为手机,就像胖某7岁唱“我们是共产主义接班人,要把敌人消灭干净”一样,唱得很投入,但根本不知道什么是共产主义,要消灭什么敌人
直白而毫无艺术修辞的歌词”华为好呀华为美”体现了中国人的审美情趣,是在致敬周星驰的恶搞台词”少林功夫好耶 真是好 少林功夫劲 太棒了”吗? https://t.co/XdmKYkZFfg
— 动物学家•胖虎 (@ZoologistPanghu) February 28, 2019
A group of Chinese kids who are not mobile phone users singing praises for Huawei reminds me of myself when I was a 7-year-old singing “we are the hire of communism and have to eliminate the enemies”. We were so engaged in singing but we knew nothing about communism or who were the enemies. The lyrics is so straightforward with no rhetorical consideration – Huawei is good, Huawei is beautiful – this is a kind of aestheticism with Chinese characteristics. Isn't this a tribute to Stephen Chow's satirical drama – Shaolin Kungfu is good, yeh… really good, Shaoline Kungfu is awesome, really awesome?
Given its antiquated presentation, many have described the song as “gao ji-he”(高級黑), which suggests a mockery of Huawei’s connection to the Chinese Communist Party and the government. On the comment thread of Huawei's official Weibo's statement about the video, many users talked about the adverse effect:
心疼华为，不满又不能说出来，被绑架了
Feel heartbroken for Huawei, it is hijacked and can't utter a word.
感不感动？ 华为:不敢动不敢动
This is so touching and Huawei dare not touch it.
捧杀华为，看的我哭了
Praising to kill. I cried watching the video.
侵犯了华为名誉权，告它们
This is defamation, can sue them.
On Twitter, @legend500 noted how the video contradicts a claim by Huawei's own founder:
Huawei: We have no connection to the Chinese government. Also Huawei: the littlest children know we make Chinese chips the pearl of the world and advance the prestige of China globally! https://t.co/YztEpbIhRx
— Andrew Graf von Seeland (@legend500) February 27, 2019
Despite Huawei's efforts to portray an image of autonomy, the Chinese government's retributive response to the arrest of Huawei's chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou in Canada seems to suggest otherwise. Meng, who is the daughter of the company's father Ren Zhengfei, was arrested reportedly suspected of trying to evade US trade curbs on Iran.
Likewise, the now-viral video hints at Huawei's ties with the single-party state just as Zhengfei tours the world stressing that the company’s equipment would not provide backdoor access to the Chinese government and it would not help China spy on the U.S.
Patriotism has been Huawei’s marketing strategy for years. On Zhihu, a popular question-and-answer platform, many discussion threads are tracking Huawei’s association with Chinese patriotism. One answer pointed out that a clear connection emerged around 2015 when Huawei was able to manufacture its own mobile phone chip. Since then, the company has become a symbol of China’s power in the technology sector, and there have been many articles on social media suggesting Huawei’s distinctive role in the rise of China. Such role is also endorsed by the Chinese government's plan to have locally made chips inside 40 per cent of all smartphones in the domestic market by 2025.

author: Oiwan Lam


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Censored on WeChat: Huawei, ZTE and ‘Amazing China’ · Global Voices
Wechatscope

Photo taken by ShamsiohcHWOI CC: AT-SA via Wikimedia.org
This post was written by the team of WeChatscope, a research initiative led by Dr. King-wa Fu at The University of Hong Kong.
With more than 1.0825 billion individual users, along with more than 20 million registered public accounts, WeChat has the largest number of domestic users and the most extensive coverage of any social media service in China. As such, it has become a chief component of China's rigorous censorship regime.
In 2017, our team at the University of Hong Kong built a technical web “scraping” system for studying censorship on WeChat's publicly accessible pages. Throughout 2018, we tracked more than 4,000 public accounts covering daily news and preserved censored posts in a publicly accessible database, WeChatscope. This article is the third in a partnership series with Global Voices.
Throughout 2018, two other top-10 censored keywords in our dataset were the names of technology giants ZTE and Huawei. The censorship of both terms has strong association with the censorship of “China-U.S trade war”.
Both companies play important roles in China's booming technology industry, which has become instrumental in China's national plan to achieve greater dominance on the global stage, known officially as “Made in China 2025.”
Together, the two companies are leading the development of China's 5G network, a strategic component of the plan. At the same time, both companies found themselves in pivotal positions in the China-US trade war in 2018.
China's powerful tech sector was the prime focus of the 2018 propaganda film, “Amazing China”, which heavily featured innovations led by Huawei and ZTE. The documentary-style film claimed that China had already successfully developed quantum semi-conductors that would increase the transmission speed for high-quality videos on a 5G mobile communication network, an important infrastructure development for smart cities.
Not six weeks after the film's release, the US Department of Commerce activated a ban on ZTE, that would prevent the company from trading with American technology companies for seven years. The official order — which was issued but then immediately suspended in 2016 — cited ZTE's sale of banned technologies to Iran, which had come to light in a 2012 FBI investigation. It also covered the purchase of semiconductors and other electronic components from Intel and Qualcomm.
Just three days after the US announced an injunction order against ZTE, putting the previously suspended ban into full effect, China's propaganda department ordered the removal of “Amazing China” from all online video platforms in the country.
Scores of WeChat posts were removed in short order. Posts containing the words “chip” and “crisis” were deleted, along with posts commenting on the so-called “chip war.”
An in-depth analysis of the ZTE incident, written by veteran journalist Wang Zihui, was published and removed from WeChat public domain on April 26, 2018. The article explains the background of the US export ban and ZTE's lack of investment in research and development of core chip technology. Another censored piece, entitled “A Japanese engineer's views towards the ZTE incident” (一位日本工程技术人员对中兴事件的看法), compared ZTE's business model with its Japanese counterparts. This piece was also published and then removed the same day.
By May 9, US sanctions had brought ZTE's sales to a standstill, forcing the company to freeze production. WeChat posts that mentioned the China-US trade war, Donald Trump, and a variety of messages suggesting that China had been put at a disadvantage, were all censored.
On May 14, the tide began to turn when Donald Trump said that he was willing to cooperate with President Xi Jinping to “resume ZTE’s business.” These were Trump's exact words — although somewhat unclear, they were widely interpreted to mean that he would either lift the ban or extend its suspension.
Soon thereafter, articles discussing the probability that ZTE would be able to regain a share in global 5G markets began to disappear. It seemed that any narrative suggesting China had been harmed or treated unfairly — possible signs of vulnerability — was to be scrubbed from the network.
Another more curious expression that was censored in high volume was “salted fish.” A reference to the common Cantonese food, people often use the term to describe a person or a company that is somehow doomed. The expression of “the return of dead fish” (咸魚翻生）signals that a person or thing that was once doomed has come back to life.
When Trump suggested lifting ZTE's injunction order, a flurry of WeChat posts questioned whether ZTE, the salted fish, could come back to life. Along with “salted fish ZTE”, expressions like “the United States lets off ZTE this time” were also censored. Articles that were critical of state-backed enterprises like ZTE were targeted too.
As the ZTE incident cooled off and the US lifted its export ban on July 13, censorship of themes related to Huawei became more and more visible.
Established in 1987, the Chinese tech champion operates in more than 170 countries and has the largest market share in smartphones and telecom equipment across the world.
US officials began investigating whether Huawei violated U.S. sanctions against Iran as early as 2016, when the US government imposed a “suspended” seven-year export restriction on ZTE. While it was anticipated that Huawei would become another bargaining chip in the trade war, the arrest of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou in Canada at the request of the US Justice Department came as a surprise to the whole world
Meng, who is also the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, was reportedly suspected of trying to evade US trade curbs on Iran. Her arrest was reported to the Chinese public on December 6, after Xi returned to China from the G20 Summit in Argentina.
Two days later, the Chinese Foreign Ministry summoned the Canadian ambassador calling the arrest “unreasonable, unconscionable, and vile in nature” and warning of “grave consequences” if Meng was not released. State-affiliated media outlets echoed the message of the government.
At the same time, the propaganda authorities handed down several censorship notices demanding that unauthorized media outlets stop reporting on Meng’s arrest and China’s 5G development. Our data confirms that WeChat followed the propaganda directives of the state.
A report on Meng's arrest, “Meng Wanzhou is targeted, Huawei is suffering” (晚舟搁浅，华为遭难), which connected the incident to the trade war, was removed on December 7, 2018, one day after it was published on WeChat.
Speculations and conspiracy theories that circulated among overseas Chinese communities also made their way onto WeChat, but were quickly censored. One of the more popular theories connected Meng's arrest with the December 1 death of Stanford theoretical physicist Zhang Shoucheng. Another connected the arrest with a factory fire at the Dutch tech giant ASML, the world's leading manufacturer of extreme ultraviolet lithography machines.
Theories that built upon nationalist expressions were also censored. For example, this commentary titled “Huawei is a demon's mirror” (华为，就是一面照妖镜), which compares the US to a demon wanting to contain the expansion of China, was published on WeChat on December 7 and removed one day after.
Monitoring the censorship pattern involving ZTE and Huawei, we can see that the Chinese government is walking a thin line. The government wants the country to be seen as a great power, part of the “Made in China 2025″ campaign. And it wants the reputations of Huawei and ZTE to remain strong. But it does not want these companies to be seen as state-controlled — this image could damage China's reputation, presenting it as a “threat” to the existing world order amid the trade war between the U.S. and China.
WeChatscope team includes Dr. King-wa Fu, Dr. Yun Tai, Regina Chung and Coco Young.

author: Wechatscope


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Chiang Mai, Thailand celebrates its first LGBT Pride in a decade · Global Voices
Prachatai

Chiang Mai Pride 2019. Source: Facebook event page
This edited article is from Prachatai, an independent news site in Thailand, and is republished on Global Voices as part of a content-sharing agreement.
On 21 February 2019, Chiang Mai celebrated its first LGBT Pride festival since 2009, after the city’s last Pride Parade was cancelled due to harassment from counter-protestors.
On 21 February 2009, what would have been Chiang Mai’s second Pride Parade was threatened and forced to shut down due to hostile opposition. The parade was blocked by around 200 protestors who surrounded the parade with trucks and loud speakers and threw objects and insults at the participants. The protestors were demanding that the organizers call off the parade since they saw gay parades as an insult to Chiang Mai’s culture. The protestors also blocked other participants from joining the event, and there were reports that police officers who were supposed to be guarding the event did nothing to help.
This incident led to the formation of the ‘Sao-sow-ed’ group (a name which roughly translates to ‘Saturday the 21st’) and the declaration of 21 February as ‘Stop Violence Against LGBTQIs Day’, but Chiang Mai had not celebrated another Pride — until this year.
Chiang Mai’s 2019 Pride was held on the 10th anniversary of this event. The Facebook event page says that the day is “used to remember that event and bring together the community. We now stand for protection. We stand for the right to be safe from violence. We stand for the right to raise our quality of life and reflect on the history of our community.”
The 2019 Chiang Mai Pride Parade started at the Chiang Mai Religion Practice Centre, where the 2009 Parade would have started if it had gone ahead, and ended at Thaphae Gate. There was also a Chiang Mai Pride Ambassador 2019 Contest. The organizers also read a statement of the history of the LGBT Community’s fight against violence and a candlelight vigil was held in remembrance of the 21 February 2009 event.
? : @thancha.k  #Chiangmaipride2019  #pride #Chiangmai #Thailand #lgbtq
A post shared by  Thanchanok Kaweewattana (@thancha.k) on
As the 2019 general election draws near, more attention is being paid to LGBT rights, especially to marriage equality. Political parties are now proposing policies which will promote LGBT quality of life and equality. The country is also in the process of passing a Civil Partnership Bill. Despite its flaws, if this bill is passed, it will offer same-sex couples in Thailand the legal recognition they have long waited for.
The Thai LGBT community still faces everyday discrimination and violence. Transgender students still cannot dress according to their gender identity in schools and universities, nor can transgender people change their title. And even if the Civil Partnership Bill passes, same-sex couples would not receive all the same rights as heterosexual couples. Nevertheless, there is hope that the country is moving in the right direction.

author: Prachatai