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‘I wrote the book you all wish you had when you were 15,’ says Afroczech Obonete Ubam · Global Voices
Filip Noubel

Obonete Ubam, photo by Erik Ericsson, used with permission
With nearly ten million inhabitants, the Czech Republic is one of the most ethnically homogeneous countries in Central Europe: Czechs make up 90 percent of its population. It was not always like that.
When the country was part of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire until 1918, and then part of Czechoslovakia till 1993, it hosted large groups of other ethnic groups: Germans, Jews, Poles, Roma, Slovaks and others. Today, the country's largest cities, Prague and Brno, have opened to foreign migrant workers who make up significant parts of the urban population. Yet attitudes towards non-white co-residents or co-workers are far from harmonious.
One community that has been present from the 60s is the Afroczechs, mostly the descendants of African and Afrocuban students invited by then socialist Czechoslovakia in the 1960s as part of international Communist solidarity with post-colonial countries. Global Voices spoke to one of its most prominent representatives, Czech Nigerian Obonete Ubam who credits himself with coining the term Afroczech. Ubam's latest book “Náš černobílý svět,” or “Our Black-and-White World,” came out in early October. He interviewed ten prominent Afroczechs who made it in Czech society, mostly in the areas of media, political science, business, sports and the arts.
Here is how he describes the initial idea behind his latest book, as a person who grew up in a small provincial city:
V mé generaci bylo málo Afročechů. Byli jsme asi tři v okrese. Prvního míšence jsem potkal, když mi bylo dvanáct. Pak dlouho nic. A jakmile jsem přijel v třiadvaceti letech do Prahy, najednou jsem začal poznávat lidi jako já. Potom jsem žil dlouho mimo Čechy, a když jsem se po patnácti letech zpět, tak mě fascinoval ten kontrast: když jsem předtím potkával tyto lidi, tak nás společenský handicap zasahoval. Nyní jsem však zjistil, že ti lidé jsou až tak úspěšní. Proto stojí za to ty příběhy popsat, i třeba pro lidi, kteří mají partnera z jiné kultury a mají podobné zkušenosti.
There were very few Afroczechs in my generation; there were only three of us in our entire region. I met my first mixed-raced person when I was 12. Then no one for a long period of time, and, when I turned 23, I moved to Prague and started to get to know people like me. Afterwards I was away from the Czech Republic for a long time, so when I returned after 15 years, I was fascinated by this contrast: when I had met those people, we had all been affected by the same social barrier, but now I found out that those same people had become so successful. This is why it is worth telling those stories, as it can also speak to people whose partner is from another culture and who have similar experiences.
The book covers rather intimate issues of pain and rejection in a challenging exploration of identity and positioning in a predominantly white society. Ubam explains why his idea of the book was overall well received by prominent members of the Afroczech community:
Skoro všichni byli velmi vstřícní. Polovinu respondentů jsme znal osobně, vše bylo jednodušší, když jsme řekl, že píšu knihu, kterou by si přáli dostat do ruky, když jim bylo patnáct a bojovali sami se sebou, se svojí identitou v nějakém zapadákově. U nás je ten proces složitý: hledáte svoji identitu jako Čecha, a pak jako Afričana. Spousta lidí s tím bojovalo až do svých třeba pětatřiceti let. Já jsem asi jediný z té skupiny, který to vyřešil tak, že se odstěhoval do Afriky. Rád bych věřil tomu, že v tom věku a na tom levelu kariéry člověk ví, že to není jenom o něm, většina už má děti. Tam byla snaha sdílet příběh, a tak trochu ukázat cestu. Kniha se hodně dotýká rasismu ale zároveň je inspirativní.
Almost all of them were very welcoming. I knew half of the interviewees personally, but everything became easier when I told them I was writing the book they all wished they had in their hands when they were 15, fighting with themselves over their identity in some backwater place in the Czech Republic. For us this process is difficult: you are searching for your identity as a Czech, then again as an African. Most people struggled around this till they were 35. I am the only one from this group of ten who moved to Africa to solve this. I think that at this point in life and moment in their career, people know this is no longer just about them, as many have children. Thus the aim was to share a story and thus partially show the way. This book is about racism but it is also a very inspiring one.
Despite numerous reports showing a rather high incidence of racism, there is a denial dominates any discussion about it being an issue in Czech society. Ubam provides a nuanced view on this sensitive topic:
Současná situace je horší, než byla v roce 2005, tenkrát to byl vrchol tolerance. Začaly přístupové rozhovory do Evropské Unie a museli jsme si dát lidská práva do pořádku, Václav Havel byl prezident, byl to velký humanista, ta politika fungovala. Potom přišla migrační krize před volbami a z toho se udělala volební karta. Média způsobila, že se společnost vrátila zpátky ke xenofobním základům. V Česku je problém xenofobie. Ten klasický rasismus, který vyrostl na kolonizaci, tady není. Rozdíl ten mýtus, že Češi jednají s odstupem, protože nemají tu historickou zkušenost s lidmi jiné barvy pleti. Všechno, co vypadá jinak, tak porušuje řád. Rasismus je, když vzniká legislativa na základě toho, že někdo odmítá uznávat jinou skupinu lidí jako rovnocenné bytosti. Když se vám podaří tu počáteční nedůvěru odstranit, pak může vzniknout normální lidský vztah.
The situation in 2021 is actually worse than in 2005 when we experienced the height of tolerance, because the Czech Republic had started negotiations to join the European Union and we had to clear our situation about human rights. At that time, Václav Havel was also our president; he was a great humanist, so politics worked in our favour. Yet, later came the 2015 migrant crisis just before local elections, and that was used as a voting argument. The media contributed to this return to xenophobia. In the Czech Republic we have a problem with xenophobia; we do not have that classical example of racism born out of colonization. There's also this myth that Czechs act with suspicion because they lack the historical experience of living next to people with a different skin color. Everything that looks different disrupts order. Racism is when laws are based on the fact that someone refuses to accept another group of people as equal. When you can remove the initial lack of trust then a normal human relationship can take place.
Several celebrities mention in the book that, as children, they had been misidentified as Roma by members of the white majority. This ethnic group, who originates from the Indian subcontinent, has lived in Czech lands since the 14th century. Ubam agrees that, while there is a shared experience of being visibly different and looking at non-white role models with the Roma community, there is no alliance:
Já mám osobní zkušenosti, že Romové nás vždycky nějak brali. My jsme pro ně trochu symbolizovali tu americkou hudební kulturu jako Michael Jackson, a RnB, ale vztah neexistuje, protože ještě nevznikla ta afročeská komunita, ta komunita se zakládá když soudím podle sociálních sítí.
In my experience, Roma people always considered us as fine. For them, we came to represent the US music culture associated with Michael Jackson and R&B. But there is no bond, in the sense that the Afroczech community hasn't emerged yet, it is still a work in progress as I can judge from what I see on social media.
The uncertainty about identity perception is a recurring theme in the book. Ubam explains it is still an issue for the second generation:
U většiny těch respondentů chyběl tatínek, ten tam nebyl. To znamená, že ho nahradil bílý tatínek, případně dědeček, takže ten člověk je obklopen jenom Čechy. Vy sám sebe nevidíte a zapomínáte, že jste jiný. Po nějaké době vám přijde ta česká strana bližší než vzdálené kořeny v Africe. V Praze už je to normálnější, ale těch dětí už je více, ale té xenofobie je méně. Ta druhá generace je jinak protože to měla jednodušší protože našlápnuto ale pak došlo k tomu zvratu a začali to pociťovat stejně jako my na začátku. Česká mládež není tolerantnější, jak ukazují některé průzkumy veřejného mínění.
Most of the interviewees had a missing father; he was not present. This means he was replaced by a white father or grandfather, so every Afroczech was surrounded by [white] Czech people only. You don't see yourself and forget after some time you are different, so the Czech side of you becomes closer than faraway African roots. The second generation of Afroczechs is different because it had it easier as we had paved the way, yet things changed again and they started to feel the same [discrimination] as we did in the beginning. Czech youth is not more tolerant, as was shown in certain public opinion surveys.
Perhaps this explains why many Afroczechs present in the book left the Czech Republic, for good or for for long periods of time. According to Ubam:
To souvisí s hledáním dobrého života. Češi se cítí, že nejsou rasisti, ale podle průzkumů veřejného mínění třicet pět procent Čechů odpovídá, že by jim vadilo mít sousedy jiné barvy pleti, nás je třeba pět tisíc tak těch xenofobních lidí je 350 víc než my, takže lidi se naučí jazyk a zkusí to jinde, najdou si tam vlastní identitu, ani českou, ani africkou, a najednou najdou klid, nikoho nepohoršujete, nebudíte pozornost, najednou máte šanci schovat se v davu. Což je pro nás něco úplně nového.
It is related to a search for a better life. Czechs don't feel they are racists, but public opinion surveys show 35 percent of Czechs say it would bother them to have a neighbour with a different skin color. There are perhaps 5,000 of us; this means there are 350 times more people with xenophobic views. So Afroczechs learn foreign languages, try to make it outside the Czech Republic, find their identity, which is nether Czech or African, and suddenly they find peace, not offending anyone, not attracting attention, finally being able to hide in the crowd. Which is something very new for us.


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‘Self governance is self love’: Barbados elects first local head of state on journey to becoming a republic · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Dame Sandra Mason, president-elect of Barbados. Screenshot taken from the YouTube video ‘Profiles in Excellence – Her Excellency Dame Sandra Mason, GCMG, D.A., Q.C.’, via the We Gatherin’ Barbados YouTube channel.
Making good on its intention, declared just over a year ago, to sever colonial ties with the United Kingdom by removing Queen Elizabeth II as head of state and becoming a republic, Barbados elected its first president on October 20, after members of the country's lower and upper house of parliament met to vote on the matter during a special sitting. Prime Minister Mia Mottley called the move a “seminal moment.”
The proposed candidate, Dame Sandra Mason, who is Barbados’ current governor-general and was jointly nominated for the post by Prime Minister Mia Mottley and Leader of the Opposition Joseph Atherley, was elected by more than a two-thirds majority in each house:
#WATCH: House Speaker Arthur Holder declares Dame Sandra Mason duly elected as first President of #Barbados following a vote in both Houses of Parliament
She will be inaugurated & replace Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II as head of state on Independence Day – Nov 30th #BIMRepublic pic.twitter.com/lZlsWQu9DU
— Kevz Politics (@KevzPolitics) October 20, 2021
While the vote in the lower house was unanimous, the senate had one unreturned ballot—that of Opposition Senator Caswell Franklyn, who objected to the procedure involved in the presidential election:
Opposition Senator Caswell Franklyn walked out of this morning’s joint sitting of Parliament after objecting to the nomination of Governor General Dame Sandra Mason as Barbados’ first President on Independence Day. pic.twitter.com/MFqMeEh0cQ
— Barbados Today (@BarbadosToday) October 20, 2021
Franklyn's objection seemed to revolve around the fact that the ballot papers did not provide an option to register a “no” vote. He also claimed that the process was “rushed”, accusing the government of “amending the old British constitution [and] calling it a republican constitution”:
If you want to become a republic, publish a republican constitution, have a Barbados Constitution Act and everything flows from there. You put the president in place under a British statute.
Senate President Reginald Farley, however, deemed all documentation and procedures valid.
Mason, now 72 years old, was the first woman attorney to receive her Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of the West Indies’ Hugh Wooding Law School in 1973. Over the course of her career, she has prioritised her professional development, completing courses in judicial administration and dispute resolution. She has worked in the financial sector, in private practice and as an ambassador, eventually being appointed chief magistrate and registrar of the Supreme Court of Barbados, before becoming governor-general.
Her impressive resume prompted one Twitter user to say:
I really dont understand the fuss about the election of the president of Barbados. It makes sense for Dame Sandra Mason to become president. ?
— Jay White (@QueenLici) October 21, 2021
Another suggested:
Caswell won today because he managed to make today about him despite the fact that all those who were present for the vote voted in favour of the election of Dame Sandra Mason as the first President of Barbados.
— Roshanna Trim (@RoshannaTrim) October 20, 2021
Dame Mason will make history come November 30, Barbados’ Independence Day, when she will be formally installed as the country's first-ever local head of state—and most social media users seemed happy about it:
Dame Sandra Mason x Mia Mottley:
The President and Prime Minister of Barbados.
Dame Sandra Mason is the first native Head of State and will replace Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.#BIMRepublic #BIM55 ?? pic.twitter.com/df3fDnhs0h
— Dionne Grant (@DionneGrant) October 20, 2021
Some netizens didn't see the point:
If you are getting rid of the queen as a ceremonial head of state
What is the point of replacing her with another ceremonial head of state?
What purpose will a Barbadian president with zero powers to do anything serve?
Genuine question here.
— kevin o'brien chang (@kevinobriencha1) October 21, 2021
For many others though, including Minister of Parliament Marsha Caddle, it was an issue of identity:
Yesterday both Houses of Parliament elected Dame Sandra Mason to become Barbados's first President. Self governance is self love. More at the link https://t.co/nc5AhPhyav pic.twitter.com/PYasXoQlJN
— Marsha Caddle (@MarshaCaddle) October 21, 2021
On Instagram, Caddle explained:
Today, in the year 2021, decolonization is still a word that has to exist, to mean the process of systematically removing one country's supremacy over another.
Colonies. Still. Exist. We may call them Overseas Territories or Overseas Departments, but they are colonies. Entire countries owned and governed by others. I believe it is absolutely a country's right to determine whether and how that status will change. And I respect the choice and national governance systems of all countries, including our neighbours in this region, who remain at different points in that conversation.
Nine Caribbean Community (CARICOM) territories, including Barbados, still recognise the queen as head of state.
Caddle continued:
I was overjoyed that Barbados said ‘as for me and my house, we will govern ourselves’. As a child, I was disturbed by the notion of an independent nation swearing to a queen. So too was I to be sworn in as a Minister of ‘the Crown’. So I am thrilled that such oaths will not be made by those who follow.
We have a good relationship with the British monarchy. Long may it continue, as equals.
Congratulations to our incoming President Dame Sandra Mason.
Other regional territories, some of which still recognise the queen as head of state, took notice. Jamaica's opposition leader, Mark Golding, tweeted:
Congrats to the people of Barbados who’ve successfully repatriated their sovereignty w/the election of 1st Bajan President, Dame Sandra Mason, as Head of State, an achievement skillfully guided by their transformational leader, PM @miaamormottley
Come on Jamaica, Let’s do this! https://t.co/QcsFJuaurS
— Mark Golding (@MarkJGolding) October 21, 2021
Opposition parliamentarian Lisa Hannah added:
There’s nothing as powerful as an idea whose time has come.
True empowerment for people comes when they embrace their individual identity and have the courage to rely on themselves rather than be beholden to another with dominion over them.
— Lisa Hanna (@LisaHannamp) October 20, 2021
It remains to be seen which, if any, of its CARICOM neighbours who are still part of the Commonwealth realm, will follow Barbados’ lead.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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Taiwan: Deepfake pornographic video victims call for new laws against sexual violence in cyberspace · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

The comedian Mr. Bean's face was swapped with Charlize Theron's in an Ad. Screenshot from Fat Ninja's YouTube video
Taiwan's recent arrest of popular YouTuber Xiao Yu, Zhu Yuchen, for allegedly selling deepfake pornographic videos of public figures has drawn public attention to artificial intelligence (AI) crimes and the government's lack of laws to address sexual violence in cyberspace.
Xiao Yu was arrested, along with two of his associates, on October 17 for selling AI-generated deep fake pornographic videos of public figures via a Telegram group since July 2020. The three were released on bail on October 18.
At least 100 individuals, including politicians, YouTubers, and celebrities, have fallen victim to the new technology crime. Their faces were implanted onto pornographic videos and sold for profit. Reportedly, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen is one of the victims, though the fake video clip featuring her was not explicit and was quickly removed from LINE, the most popular messaging app in Taiwan.
According to an investigative report conducted by Taiwan media outlet Mirror Media in May, the production team produced a number of 30-second fake porn videos on porn sites and invited viewers to pay a membership fee for full access, which would get them added to the Telegram group. They recruited about 8,000 members on four different Telegram groups before they caught public attention.
Members could vote to crowd-fund new productions and place special orders for tailor-made porn videos either for sexual fantasies or for reasons like humiliating a former partner. Authorities estimate that they had gained a 10 million New Taiwan dollar (an approximately 360,000 US dollar) profit from the pornographic videos.
Several victims have spoken out since Xiao Yu's arrest. Huang Jie, a councilor from Kaohsiung city, is the most outspoken victim. She expresses hope that the incident could educate people on the harm caused by AI crime :
「又不是妳真的去演。」
「夠正才會用妳的臉。」
「妳是瞧不起演A片的嗎？」
「小玉也太不挑了。」
不是真的去演，傷害和性暴力就不存在嗎？五月受訪時，當我知道我的臉被拿去這樣使用，一開始覺得「惡搞影片應該蠻好笑的吧」但當我真的看到影片時，完全笑不出來，只有滿滿的噁心反胃，甚至起雞皮疙瘩、深陷恐懼。 無論小玉的心態是好玩、惡搞還是單純想賺錢，這對受害者來說，就是真實的傷害、羞辱和踐踏。
稍早，有許多實況圈、網紅界受害者私訊我…我們願意鼓起勇氣，一起站出來提告，用法律制裁小玉，也嚴正警告躲在電腦後觀看影片的人，你們不是沒有責任，你們的訕笑、觀看，都是一次次的加害。
在此，除了要求警方嚴加偵辦，也懇請社會大眾關注逐漸興起的AI犯罪，#不要下載不要流傳這類影片，更要共同抵制這種低級的公眾人物，#不能再養出第二個小玉 ，讓這種墮落的風氣繼續蔓延。
最重要的，也呼籲立法院正視 #數位性暴力 的問題，進行修法，才有更有力的工具嚴懲惡狼…
“It is not the real you in the act.”
“Your face is used because it is pretty.”
“So you look down on Adult videos?”
“Xiao Yu picked a wrong face.”
Even it is not the real person, does it mean that there is no sexual violence in it?
Back in May, when I was told that my face was being used, I thought it was just another funny spoof video. But when I watched the video, I could not laugh and my stomach felt like throwing up. Then I felt creepy. I was struck with fear. Regardless of Xiao Yu’s intention, whether he did it for fun or profit, the harm and humiliation felt by the victims were real.
A number of victims, actresses from reality shows and YouTubers, contacted me in private… we would stand up together to press charges against Xiao Yu. And we warned those who were hidden behind the computers watching the videos. You are part of the crime. Your dirty jokes and consumption have harmed others, over and over.
Here, we urge the police to carry on with the investigation, and urge the public to pay attention to the emerging AI crimes. #don’t-download-and-spread-these-videos, boycott people with such debased taste. #don’t-create-another-Xiao-Yu and spread such perverted culture.
Most importantly we urge the Legislature to pay attention to #sexual-violence-in-cyberspace, amend the law to punish the evil wolves…
Huang Jie's view was shared by Manaki, an actress who was frustrated some netizens took the incident lightly or even treated it as a joke:
其實被惡意換臉已經是一種傷害了，加上有些人資訊不清楚可能會誤以為真。 身為當事人是真的很困擾，身心也非常疲憊。名譽也造成不可抹滅的侵害！ 希望大家別再當玩笑了，謝謝你們。 也希望數位性暴力能立法管制！
Having our faces planted in others like that is a harm. Some may believe it is real. I was mentally tormented by the incident and the harm done to my reputation is irreversible. Please don’t take this as a joke. I wish more laws could be introduced to address the problem of sexual violence in cyberspace.
Kao Chia-yu, a lawmaker and a member of the Democratic Progressive Party who was a victim of the AI crime, pointed out on Facebook that currently in Taiwan, the only legal avenue to punish deepfake pornography crimes is through defamation charges, a minor crime with a relatively light punishment. She also advocated for the introduction of new laws to stop deep fake AI crimes.
In a Facebook post on October 18, Taiwanese President Tsai Ingwen vowed that the government would tighten laws to crack down on disinformation and AI-generated fake videos.

author: Oiwan Lam


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Cameroon’s teenage cricket star Maeva Douma takes women’s sport to greater heights · Global Voices
Beng Emmanuel Kum

Maeva Douma, Cameroon’s teenage cricket champion. Image gotten from the Cameroon Cricket Federation, used with their permission.
Cameroon’s Maeva Douma, 16, made history in international cricket on Sept. 12, 2021 in Gaborone, Botswana, during the International Cricket Council (ICC) Women’s Twenty-20 (T-20) World Cup Africa qualifiers between her country and Uganda.
Douma brilliantly dismissed four Ugandan batters, setting a new cricket record during her first appearance on the world stage. This was the first time that Douma picked a ball in an international game and it is fair to say she made her mark taking five wickets against Uganda.
She employed a controversial but legal form of dismissal called Mankading, which has often divided the cricket world over the years. Named after legendary Indian bowler Vinoo Mankad, Mankading is a mode of dismissal, which comes into play when a batsman at the non-striker end leaves the crease before the ball leaves the bowler's hand. Though unpopular and controversial, Mankading is considered legal by international cricket standards.
Douma is not only regarded as a huge part of her country's national team, but has become an inspiration for many youngsters back home. Her win has already brought the fledgling women's cricket sports in that country lying between West and Central Africa, to the global limelight.
Maeva douma I will remember the name ???????? https://t.co/eDi32sT9wY
— Kartik Murali (@kartikmurali) September 13, 2021
Douma’s national cricket team jersey is conspicuously placed at the centre of her room. It is fenced by those of her club with her preferred number 9 decorated on them. The presence of other sports equipment like a ball, bat, and helmet gives the picture of someone’s life that was born to play cricket. But that is not exactly the case.
When Douma was very young, it never occurred to her she was destined to play cricket and would go on to hold an international record at just 16. Born into a family of seven, her parents had enjoyed a memorable path in sport at her age. Douma's mother played handball and basketball, while her father practiced mixed martial arts. Seeing her parents practicing sports motivated her to accomplish what her parents could not achieve because of the lack of opportunities. After the death of her father in 2005, she seems to have inherited her parent’s gift and has begun to live up to the billing.
Douma, who made her first step in cricket just nine months ago when she was 15-year-old, lives in a neighbourhood of cricket enthusiasts. It is in this sort of environment that the rising star learned the trade from her elder brother who often sought her as a backup for his amateur team.
“I was captivated by the way people played cricket in the quarter [her neighbourhood] and I decided to play as well,” Douma told Global Voices in an interview.
Even Douma was surprised by her accomplishment at the September game.
“At first I was really surprised but later became very proud of myself because I now hold an international record in cricket,” she said. “I owe this success to my coach and all those who inspired me to play cricket.”
Douma further stated: “I noticed that it was difficult to beat the striker. So, I decided to look for an alternative. I realised that at every moment I ran to throw the ball, the non-striker came out of her crease. And that's where I decided to dismiss them.”
Four Mankading in one innings does not come so easy. Once may have been a mistake. Twice could be sheer carelessness from the opposing team. But four Mankads require pace, precision, and energy.
A brilliant combination of skills and audacity has earned Douma international attention, which she hopes will catapult her to a promising career. “I never believed I was able to run out batters like my role model [Chris Benjamin, a South African cricketer]. I think I can greatly excel in the sport and perhaps shine someday,” she said.
But the cricket star still has eyes on her education. “I usually train after school and pick up my books. We usually train on weekends and occasionally during the week,” Douma told Global Voices.
Douma’s exploits made her the star of the team, her family, and neighbourhood. “It is my hope that Maeva benefits from appropriate mentorship that will help in practicing the sport more by the federation and other competent bodies. I hope her talent doesn’t die. At 16-year-old, she is just a kid and can go very far,” Djoh Christine Limoungue, Douma's mother told Global Voices.
After several months of intense preparation, the women’s national cricket team of Cameroon set out for Botswana to take part in their maiden 2021 ICC Women’s T-20 World Cup Africa qualifiers.
It was the first international competition for the Cameroonian cricket team. However, their excitement heading for the 11-nation qualification tournament was crushed when one of their players  — the best of the selection — tested positive to COVID-19 upon arrival in Gaborone.
The entire team was placed in quarantine for five days. The scenario took a toll on their preparation, both physically and psychologically. Many of the players were very young and had traveled for the first time.
Victor Agbor Nso, President of the Cameroon Cricket Federation, told Global Voices that “we didn’t have the normal training sessions that we had to. We had to leave isolation and quarantine to play without training, being stigmatized and traumatized. Despite the odds, we came into the tournament with our legendary fighting spirit and gave our best.”
It was not the kind of debut Cameroon had imagined from the outset. The team finished bottom of Group B where they had to face heavyweight nations like Namibia, Uganda and Nigeria. They lost all four games, but have focused on the positives of their participation.
“It was a great experience full of ups and downs,” Nso said. “The preparation was done without government support. Our participation was not an easy one. We left Cameroon to Gaborone and luck did not shine on our side.”
Despite the result, Cameroon was in the spotlight. The team realised the training they had received back home was one of the best despite the limited chances and resources they had available.
James Solefack, development officer and head coach of the men’s team, also emphasised in a chat with Global Voices that, “it was not easy for us to prepare the girls for that competition. At our small level, we teach the girls the rules. We don’t take things lightly around here. Our training is gradual. We teach them cricket from the base.”
He sees the chance for women's cricket to grow in Cameroon. “If chances are given to Cameroon to take time and prepare very well in the years to come we shall have a crop of well-trained and talented players for the country,” he said.
Cameroon's female cricket team. Image gotten from the Cameroon Cricket Federation, used with their permission.
Cricket is regarded as a novel discipline to many in Cameroon but has greatly developed since it was introduced in the country more than a decade ago. Its popularity is growing, with more than 7,000 children drawn from the various ten regions now fervent practitioners of the discipline, according to Nso, the cricket federation president.
However, clubs from regions affected by the Anglophone crisis are unable to participate in competitions organized by the cricket federation due to the conflict.
“We have schools in Douala, Yaounde, the North West, and South West although the socio-political crisis has slowed work. These are the strongholds of cricket. We have athletes who can potentially match up with Maeva’s talent in the future,” Nso said.
“We have gone through a lot of strides. When we started, people did not have confidence in us. We received criticisms. They said cricket can’t thrive in Cameroon,” he said. “And I told them, I’ve gone around the world, I’ve seen what other countries are doing. Today we are the new admiration of the world.”

author: Beng Emmanuel Kum


text:
Key suspect in Haitian president’s assassination held in Jamaica on immigration charges · Global Voices
Emma Lewis

Grunge versions of the Haitian and Jamaican flags by Nicolas Raymond on Flickr, CC BY 2.0.
On October 21, news broke in Jamaica that Mario Antonio Palacios Palacios, a Colombian national wanted in connection with the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse on July 7, had been arrested in Manchester in central Jamaica, and was being held on immigration charges.
In a short statement to the media, the Jamaica Constabulary Force noted:
Jamaican police confirm that a Colombian national arrested on the island.
Police didn't name the man but he's believed to Mario Palacois Palacios, a key suspect in the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise.
Story: https://t.co/Faw3FQMOYw pic.twitter.com/gweE9QAKxS
— Jovan Johnson (@jovanthony) October 21, 2021
According to a brief Associated Press report, police spokeswoman Stephanie Lindsay said that calls were being made to various officials to confirm details, and that more information would be released soon.
In an interview on local radio on October 21, Miami Herald reporter Jacqueline Charles, who covers Haiti and the Caribbean and had reported the news earlier, confirmed that this was a “high profile case,” and that Palacios had been in custody for “a while,” likely about a week.
Palacios is allegedly a member of the four-man “Delta team” that gained access to the presidential home on July 7, assassinating Moïse and seriously injuring his wife, First Lady Martine Moïse. Two of the four have been killed, one was arrested, and Palacios was on the run.
The late Haitian president, Jovenel Moïse, during a video conference with then president of the Dominican Republic, Danilo Medina. Photo by Gobierno Danilo Medina on Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Although a total of 44 people have been arrested in Haiti in connection with the attack, the president's murder remains unsolved. Incidentally, news of the resignation of Haiti's police chief broke on the same day as the reports of Palacio's arrest.
The question remains, however, as to how Palacios arrived in Jamaica, perhaps taking a boat rather than over the border from Haiti to the Dominican Republic. There has also been speculation as to whether or not the United States will make an extradition request, given Washington's involvement in Haiti.
While in hiding, Palacios reportedly gave an interview—in Spanish—to the Colombian media house Semana, which has been translated into English, here. In it, he claims that Haitian police are “crooked,” and that by the time he arrived on the scene, the president was “already dead,” which was the point at which he discovered the “twist” in the plan, echoing the Colombian authorities’ position that the Colombian ex-militia involved in the operation were deceived.
Jamaicans reacted on social media with a sense of “What next?” after a week that was chock-full of dramatic local news. One tweeted:
So who is going to write, produce and direct the movie “7 days in Jamdown”?
The last week or so been wild as hell.
— J (@juuuna) October 21, 2021
Economist and former senator Deika Morrison expressed astonishment at the news:
Not even the best of the best in Hollywood could script the last few weeks on this rock. My gosh man. Is what? https://t.co/XmmIYyVHHY
— Deika Morrison (@deikamorrison) October 21, 2021
There were also questions raised regarding Jamaica's border security:
Jamaica's borders right now pic.twitter.com/PzS8Bedmvb
— Mango Padre (@SGilphilian) October 21, 2021
Meanwhile, Jamaicans await further news on the matter, and are hoping for less turmoil in the coming weeks.

author: Emma Lewis


text:
The son of dictator Ferdinand Marcos wants to become the Philippines’ next president · Global Voices
Siegfred Deduro

Protesters condemn the brutal legacy of the Marcos government. Photo from Karapatan.
Ferdinand “Bongbong” Romualdez Marcos Jr., 64, also known as Marcos Jr., BBM, or Bongbong, is the second child and only son of Philippine dictator and world-class thief Ferdinand Marcos Sr. and former First Lady Imelda Romualdez Marcos.
He has been leading in several pre-election surveys, which could allow him and his family to regain political power after being ousted by a People Power uprising in 1986.
Bongbong Marcos. Flickr Photo by Public Attorney's Office (NCR) Training, (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
In 1980, he became Vice Governor of Ilocos Norte province, running unopposed under the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan party of his father, who was ruling the Philippines under martial law at the time. Bongbong Marcos held the position of Governor of Ilocos Norte in 1983 until his family was ousted from power by the People's Uprising (EDSA I). He fled to Hawaii in exile in February 1986.
His father appointed him chairman of the board of Philippine Communications Satellite Corp (Philcomsat) in early 1985, a prominent example of “crony capitalism.” The government sold its majority shares to Marcos cronies in 1982, despite being very profitable because of its role as the sole agent for the Philippines’ link to global satellite network Intelsat. Philippine government investigators later found that President Marcos acquired 39.9 percent — 19.95 million US dollars worth — of the company's shares through front entities. This allowed the elder Marcos to appoint Bongbong chairman of the Philcomsat board in early 1985, allowing Bongbong to draw a monthly salary “ranging from USD9,700 to USD97,000″ despite rarely visiting the office.
After the death of his father Ferdinand Marcos Sr. in Hawaii in 1989, President Corazon Aquino eventually allowed the remaining members of the Marcos family, including Marcos Jr., to return to the Philippines to face various charges on November 4, 1991.
Since then, the Marcoses have launched a systematic campaign to rehabilitate their notorious legacy and make a come back to power.
Imelda Marcos ran for president in 1992 but lost to Fidel Ramos — a key figure in the Marcos ouster. But in 1995, she won a congressional seat in her hometown, Leyte, where her relatives have wielded political influence for a long time. In 1998, Imelda tried again running for the presidency but did not succeed.
Bongbong Marcos was elected as Congress representative of the second district of Ilocos Norte from 1992 to 1995. He ran for and was elected governor of Ilocos Norte again in 1998. After nine years, he returned to his previous position as congressman from 2007 to 2010, then became Senator of the Philippines under the Nacionalista Party from 2010 to 2016.
Imee Marcos, the elder sister of Bongbong Marcos, became the representative of the second district of Ilocos Norte, serving three terms from 1998 to 2007. She became a senator in 2019.
The remains of the late dictator arrived in the Philippines more than seven years after the Marcoses went into exile. But the dictator's remains were only allowed to be buried in the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Heroes Cemetery) on November 18, 2016, a few months after President Rodrigo Duterte assumed office. The Supreme Court affirmed its 2016 decision allowing the burial of the former president in the Libingan ng mga Bayani. The Marcoses’ alliance with incumbent President Duterte was a crucial factor in this decision.
Marcos Jr. ran for Vice President of the Philippines in the 2016 election but lost to Congresswoman Leni Robredo. He then filed an electoral protest at the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, with claims and accusations of cheating, which was dismissed.
Cambridge Analytica Ltd., a British political consulting firm that describes itself as a “global election management agency,” was reportedly approached by the Marcoses to rebrand their family image. The firm is best known for managing the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal.
More proof of the Marcos family's systematic effort to manipulate public opinion and the legacy of the late dictator is reflected in scores of Facebook pages and accounts in the Philippines, including those linked to President Rodrigo Duterte and Imee Marcos, which were taken down by the social media company for violating its spam and authentication policies.
Bongbong Marcos’ campaign narrative propounds the idea that “the son should not be liable for the sins of his father” and that decades of disunity over the past should give way to moving on for a united and prosperous future.
Notwithstanding Marcos's advantage in resources (ill-gotten wealth), in-roads of historical revisionism, effective use of social media to influence the public, and significant return to power, his presidential candidacy faces formidable obstacles.
Foremost is from an ally, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte, daughter of the incumbent president. She topped all pre-election surveys, and Bongbong is second only to her. As President Duterte's daughter, she enjoys the advantage of the resources and influence of the sitting president. Though Mayor Sara is playing coy about running for president, she could still change her mind before the deadline for candidates submissions on November 15. A Duterte dynastic succession in the presidency will protect President Duterte from being indicted for “crimes against humanity” at the International Criminal Court amid numerous ongoing criminal cases.
The growing anti-Duterte and anti-Marcos coalition of opposition candidates is a force to reckon with.
Vice President Leni Robredo, a major presidential contender, is clear on stopping the Marcos, saying that she also wants to prevent a brand of government similar to President Rodrigo Duterte's regime.
Senator Manny Pacquiao, an eight-division world boxing champion and a presidential aspirant, said that there is a clamor for the Marcos family to return alleged billions of dollars of ill-gotten wealth. He added that if he is elected president, he will review all investigations against the Marcoses as well as the ill-gotten wealth recovered by the Presidential Commission on Good Government.
Former legislator Neri Colmenares, who was tortured as a young activist during the Marcos presidency, wrote about the need for unity to stop the return of the Marcoses.
…preventing a Marcos restoration, and uplifting the country from the catastrophe of the past five years.
We remain hopeful that unification can still be possible among the ranks of those opposing a Duterte or Marcos presidency.
— Neri Colmenares (@ColmenaresPH) October 7, 2021
Opposition to a Marcos presidency is backed with a strong legal basis. On February 25, 2013, President Benigno Aquino III signed into law Republic Act No. 10368, otherwise known as the “Human Rights Reparation and Recognition Act of 2013.” The law acknowledged the State's legal and moral obligation for the gross human rights violations committed by the regime of former President Ferdinand E. Marcos during martial law from September 21, 1972, to February 25, 1986, and one month before and after the period. The law recognized that there were civil, political, and economic rights that were violated by the authoritarian regime.
Karapatan, an alliance of human rights defenders, added:
In the same way that the struggle of the people did not end with the downfall of the Marcos dictatorship, the campaign to stop Marcos and Duterte from returning to and staying in Malacañang continues, as a way to do justice for the Filipino people of the martial law generation and all other generations after Duterte.

author: Siegfred Deduro


text:
We need ‘painless’ glucose monitors, says Mia Chichkarikj, a 16-year-old diabetes patient from North Macedonia · Global Voices
Metamorphosis Foundation

Mia Chichkarikj. Photo: Personal archive, used with permission.
This story is based on original coverage by Meta.mk journalist Antonija Popovska. An edited version is republished here under a content partnership agreement between Global Voices and Metamorphosis Foundation.
Mia Chichkarikj is a 16-year-old third-year high school student at the Orce Nikolov School in Skopje, the capital of North Macedonia. What makes this young girl a true fighter is that every day for the past ten years, she has had to grapple with Type 1 juvenile diabetes. The only way to manage the disease is through daily insulin shots.
Multiple times each day, she must measure her blood glucose levels with the help of devices that her parents purchased from Germany and Austria, which each cost 60 euros (around 70 US dollars) and only last two weeks. The number of children with diabetes Type 1 is on the rise globally, as well as in North Macedonia and the US. A 2017 news piece from SDK warned about discrimination against children with diabetes in North Macedonia, including refusal of kindergarten staff to tend to their needs.
Meta.mk journalist Antonija Popovska talked with Mia about her life at home and her surroundings, how she is accepted at school, and the challenges she faces, with the goal of raising awareness about this autoimmune condition.
Mia Chichkarikj | Photo: Personal archive, used with permission.
Meta.mk: Mia, your fight every day with diabetes makes you a true hero. How did it all begin?
Јас живеам и се борам со дијабетесот веќе 10 години. На 30. септември 2011 година, се родив по втор пат бидејќи мојот живот целосно се промени. Тој ден беше најтешкиот ден во мојот живот, никогаш не можев ниту да помислам дека животот ќе ми се смени преку ноќ. Многу пати сум слушнала дека дијабетот е болест, но тоа е само состојба во која клетките на панкреасот не лачат инсулин. Уште од првиот ден јас ја прифатив оваа состојба, па многу често само за да се пошегувам, велам дека дијабетот ќе ми биде најверниот другар низ целиот живот. Постојаната контрола на гликемијата, хипогликемијата како и хипергликемијата навистина ми го отежнуваат животот, но успевам да се изборам со сè. Морам да признаам дека моите родители, моите пријатели и професори се оние кои ме поддржуваат околу мојата борба со дијабетот и тие се оние кои секогаш ми кажуваат дека сум борец.
I have been living and fighting with diabetes for almost 10 years. On the September 30, 2011, I was born for the second time, since my life completely changed. That day was the hardest in my life since I never even thought my life would change overnight. Many times I have heard that diabetes is a sickness, but it is only a condition where the cells of the pancreas aren’t producing insulin. I accepted this condition from day one, so very often in order to make a joke, I’m saying that diabetes will be the most faithful friend throughout my life. Constantly having to control my glucose levels, hypoglycemia, as well as hyperglycemia, have truly made my life difficult, but I manage to fight all of this. I have to admit that my parents, friends, and teachers have always supported me in this fight with diabetes and they are the ones who keep telling me I’m a fighter.
Meta.mk: We live in a society where people are easily condemned, mistreated on various bases. How do the surrounding people react, your fellow students and professors?
Кога го добив дијабетот, цел месец не одев во училиште. Премногу ми недостасуваа соучениците, училиштето, професорите. Во тој период постојано се прашував дали моите соученици ќе ме прифатат со мојата нова состојба или пак повеќе нема да сакаат да се дружат со мене. Морам да признаам дека навистина имав одличен клас, сите ме прифатија и за тие 9 години секогаш ми помагаа. Сега сум средношколка во скопската гимназија „Орце Николов“ и сум им навистина благодарна и на моите соученици и на моите професори кои ме прифатија со мојата состојба. Морам да признаам дека периодот пред да започнам со моето средно училиште беше навистина премногу стресен за мене, бидејќи се плашев дека нема да бидам прифатена од страна на учениците, но сега сум веќе трета година и одлично се снаоѓам во средината.
When my diabetes was diagnosed, I didn’t attend school for a whole month. I missed my friends, the school, and teachers. During that period I constantly wondered whether my fellow students will accept me with my new condition or they will not like to hang out with me. I have to admit I had great classmates, everyone accepted me and during those nine years and they always helped me. Now I’m a high school student at the Orce Nikolov school and I’m very grateful both to my fellow students and professors for accepting me with my condition. I have to admit that the period before starting high school was very stressful for me since I was scared I would not be accepted by my fellow students. But now I’m in my third year and I’m coping well in these surroundings.
Meta.mk: Please describe what a day in your life looks like.
Станувам наутро, веднаш ја мерам гликемијата, а ако е висок резултатот прво се боцкам со инсулин, па потоа појадувам. Aко е низок прво појадувам па потоа примам инуслин. Се разбира истото е и пред ручек и пред вечера, додека пред спиење морам да ставам таканаречен базален инсулин, кој е бавен и ми ја регулира гликемијата во текот на целиот ден. На почетокот, кога ми го дијагностицираа дијабетот, моите најблиски беа исплашени дали ќе успеам да се справам со постојаното мерење на гликемија, но за една недела научив. Тоа многу им ја олесни работата на моите родители.
I get up early in the morning, and measure my glycemia immediately, and it is high, I take a shot of insulin, and then I have breakfast. If it is low, I have my breakfast first and then take my insulin shot. Of course, I do the same before lunch and dinner. Before going to sleep, I have to take basal insulin, which is slow and regulates my glycemia throughout the day. In the beginning, when I was diagnosed with diabetes, my closest family was scared whether I would be able to deal with constantly measuring my glycemia, but I learned the process in a week. It helped my parents tremendously.
Meta.mk: What has to be done in order to ease the lives of children with diabetes?
Мојата најголема желба е сите деца со дијабет во државата да добијат сензори со кои ќе ги одморат малите детски прсти од безброј боцкања. Посакувам да имаме квалитетни инсулини, кои ќе ни помогнат за подобра регулација на гликозата во крвта. Ова нека биде апел до надлежните во Министерството за здравство, сериозно да ја сфатат нашата потреба од сензорите за безболно мерење гликемија и што поскоро да ги обезбедат за сите нас за да ни го олеснат барем малку секојдневното контролирање на гликемијата во крвта.
My greatest desire is for all children suffering from diabetes to receive monitors that will help them to spare their tiny fingers from the constant pricking. I wish we could have good quality insulin that will help us better regulate the glucose in our blood. This should be a plea to the authorities at the Ministry of Health, to take our needs for “painless” glucose monitors seriously and to provide them as soon as possible for all of us…
Mia Chichkarikj with her mother Jasmina Chichkarikj. Photo: Personal archive, use with permission.
“The so-called ‘sweet’ story started exactly 10 years ago when the doctors at the Children’s clinic told us the diagnosis: juvenile diabetes. Firstly, we didn’t know what it was about, but they explained what Mia’s condition was like, and we, the whole family, has to live with it,” said Mia’s mother, Jasmina Chichkarikj.
“We were scared and confused, we didn’t know how to continue. But, with time, we learned that, whether we liked it or not, this will be our everyday life, and slowly we accepted this type of life. Throughout the years we have managed to get through many problems, starting from lack of insulin, which happened many times, so we had to manage by ourselves. Then there was a problem with the devices for measuring glycemia, which are those with stinging the fingers despite our neighbors having painless glucose monitors in the blood. We pleaded to the Ministry of Health to acquire such monitors that will ease the lives of these children, but our petitions fell on deaf ears,” said Jasmina.
She said that every day there are more parents whose children are diagnosed with this type of diabetes.
“We all have to understand that our children are healthy, to think positively and that it really is a condition that with a little bit of effort can be managed well. Our children are our heroes.”
On October 21, two days after Meta.mk published the original version of this interview, the Minister of Health of North Macedonia, Venko Filipche, invited Mia and her mother to the ministry. During the meeting, he announced that due to the article, the government will purchase the necessary medical supplies.

author: Metamorphosis Foundation


text:
Why Salvadoran farmworkers ponder migrating to the United States · Global Voices
Eddie Galdamez

Spraying sugarcane fields in El Salvador. Photo by Christopher Porter/Flickr. (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
It is 4 a.m. in rural Ahuachapan in western El Salvador. Rogelio Campos, a worker on a private farm that grows corn and beans and raises cattle and pigs, has already been awake for 30 minutes, ready to start his working day. His wife Maria has been awake for longer. She makes the coffee and prepares the food her husband will eat throughout the day.
“I leave the house for work at around 4 in the morning, and I return around 5 in the afternoon,” Campos told Global Voices. “This is my daily routine six days a week.”
Campos’ working week is similar to most Salvadorans living in rural areas of El Salvador, who work long days for low wages and scarcely any healthcare and retirement benefits. About 70 percent of jobs in El Salvador are in the informal market. This is part of the reason Salvadorans, including Campos, consider migrating.
Photo by Alison McKellar/Flickr. (CC BY 2.0)
After decreasing for years, the poverty rate in El Salvador is rising. In 2019, 22.8 percent of families or individuals lived on less than $5.50 a day. In 2020, that rose to 26.2 percent. A study by Francisco Gavidia University predicts it will increase to 33 percent by the end of 2021. Poverty in rural areas tends to be higher than the national Salvadoran average — and more than a quarter of El Salvador's population is rural.
Even though the International Monetary Fund IMF projects the economy will increase by nearly 9 percent this year, Campos does not believe it will help him and his family. Even in a growing economy, farmworkers have to deal with low-paying wages.
For people like Campos, the only jobs available are in the agriculture or coffee sectors. If they are lucky, they are paid the Salvadoran minimum wage ($243.46 per month), which is barely enough to cover the cost of living. Campos, for his part, is paid $200 on the informal market. His wife takes care of their domestic tasks and does not have a paying job.
The beauty of rural areas in El Salvador. Photo of the author.
Campos believes that he lives in rural El Salvador for lack of education and skills to get a higher-paying job. He says:
Solo tengo una educación de cuarto grado. Yo tuve que dejar la escuela a una edad temprana para trabajar y ayudar a generar ingresos para la familia. Ayudar a mantener a la familia era más importante que ir a la escuela.
I only have a 4th-grade education. I had to leave school at an early age to work and help bring income for the family. Helping to provide for the family was more important than going to school.
Most schools in rural communities are in disrepair. Also, due to crime and violence, some parents keep their kids out of school.
Accessing virtual classes is another problem in rural areas in 2021. According to Radio YSUCA, in 2018, 90 percent of rural homes had no access to the internet.
Photo by Alison McKellar/Flickr. (CC BY 2.0)
A clear example of such a struggle is the illiteracy rate. In 2018, the rural illiteracy rate was 15.9 percent. It was more than double the urban illiteracy rate, which was 6.6 percent.
Another issue is access to proper healthcare. El Salvador's public healthcare system is of poor quality; however, it gets worse for those living in isolated rural areas.
According to the hospital directory of the Ministry of Health, all Salvadoran public hospitals are located in the capital cities of each department and in towns with large populations. Anyone living in rural areas that need medical assistance must travel long distances to get it. It is time-consuming and expensive.
Even though El Salvador has a universal healthcare system, it does not cover everything. Campos had to learn this the hard way when his younger daughter got ill.
Quedé en quiebra el año pasado cuando mi hija menor se enfermó. Terminé pidiendo dinero prestado para pagar las medicinas y los exámenes que el hospital no pudo realizar.
I went broke last year when my youngest got sick. I ended up borrowing money to pay for medicines and the exams the hospital couldn't perform.
Public hospitals in El Salvador offer free care; however, they do not always have the medications needed. Also, many hospitals don't have the equipment necessary to perform all tests. Therefore, patients must get the tests done at a private facility, pay for them, and bring them to the hospital.
Photo by Alison McKellar/Flickr. (CC BY 2.0)
Campos and his wife are at a critical point in their lives. They need to decide whether to keep living in Ahuachapan or migrate to another city or country. Roughly a quarter of El Salvador's population is outside of the country. In 2018, 70 percent of Salvadorans who joined the so-called migrant caravans headed to the United States came from rural areas.
He does not want his daughters to live his life. Campos says:
Quiero que mis hijas obtengan un título universitario y una vida mucho mejor. No quiero esta vida del campo para ellas. Estoy seguro de que no llegarán a esa meta si seguimos viviendo en esta zona rural.
I want my daughters to get a college degree and make a better living. I don't want this life in the countryside for them. I am sure they will not achieve this if we continue living in this rural area.
Campos is pondering whether to move to a larger city in El Salvador and look for work in a factory; he wants a steady income and work benefits. He is also considering migrating to the United States and look for work in the agriculture or farming sectors, something he is familiar with and he hopes pays better than at home. Both options scare him as he has only lived in rural El Salvador, but wants a chance at escaping poverty.

author: Eddie Galdamez


text:
Yasin Abu Bakr, leader of Trinidad & Tobago’s attempted Islamist coup, dies 31 years after failed insurrection · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Screenshot of Yasin Abu Bakr, leader of the Trinidad and Tobago-based Jamaat al Muslimeen organisation, taken from the YouTube video “The Man Who Tried to Overthrow the Trinidad Government: Interview with Abu Bakr”, from the Vice News channel.
Yasin Abu Bakr, who led a failed coup d'etat in Trinidad and Tobago on July 27, 1990, has died. Early news reports suggest he first collapsed at home and later died at hospital. Bakr, who was 80 years old, was leader of the Islamist group Jamaat al Muslimeen.
The insurrection Bakr led 31 years ago resulted in the deaths of at least 24 people, and left many more both physically injured and psychologically scarred. The country also suffered millions of dollars of property damage in the looting that followed, and some have argued that the legal system's failure to convict Bakr for his crimes—despite a formal enquiry into the events—is a key contributing factor to the degree of lawlessness and violent crime the country has grappled with ever since.
Wow! #AbuBakr “The only Islamist coup ever attempted in the Western hemisphere.” Abu Bakr in Maraval #trini pic.twitter.com/SIDFFkfHZY
— Mrs Marcella “Moira” Ruiz-Ayers (@MarcellaMoiraR) October 22, 2021
On the 30th anniversary of the attempted coup in 2020, Bakr infamously maintained there was “nothing to apologise for,” claiming that “the Privy council upheld our Amnesty and released us from prison.” Bakr also blamed local media for what he said were negative portrayals of the Jamaat al Muslimeen.
To at least one local journalist, however, news of Bakr's death seemed a fitting end to an already eventful week:
We had a bomb scare, 2 waterspouts, a presidential impeachment attempt which devolved into absolute chaos in parliament, a plane crash, news of a full return to secondary school, crossed 1,600 COVID-19 deaths. Now, the death of the Jamaat Al Muslimeen Leader, Imam Yasin Abu Bakr.
— Kalain Hosein (@KalainH) October 22, 2021
News of the Jamaat al Muslimeen leader's passing spread quickly on social media channels, with many public comment sections offering condolences and eulogising him as a hero, prompting Facebook user Bis Ram to quip:
Wait […] Clearly y'all born after 1990…?
Anees Rahman retorted:
Bis Ram let this be a lesson to you that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Life and justice [don't] fit into neat little boxes.
One Twitter user concluded:
All the 90 babies romanticizing the coup is…weird
— brittany (@brittyanya) October 22, 2021
Another agreed:
I feel like when I wanna make a difference, I pray and I research the topic and speak to affected persons.
I don't hand guns to unloved, young Black men, brainwash them and get them to storm the Parliament and bomb a police station.
That's just me.
— Boo Radley Disorder (@MauriceVET) October 22, 2021
Facebook user William J Carter, who taught three of Bakr's children, countered:
I will state publicly that while I know some have diametrically opposite views, as Principal of his three sons […] my experience was of an entirely respectful, supportive and involved parent.
During his lifetime Bakr consistently embraced the role of the misunderstood revolutionary, telling Vice News in 2014 that his organisation was “cleaning up the drug trade,” in which he alleged several high-level politicians were involved. The victims of the 1990 coup and their families, however,  viewed him through a vastly different prism.
News anchor Dominic Kalipersad, who was on duty when Jamaat forces stormed the headquarters of state-owned Trinidad and Tobago Television and held him and the production crew hostage, simply marked Bakr's passing as “the end of an era.”
Maria Rivas-McMillan remembered the victims of the bloody insurrection, and praised a friend for correcting the media narrative:
A friend on FB fixed the media headlines
“Insurrectionist gets to live to old age and die of natural causes having caused the deaths of 24 persons and terrorizing a nation.
Noted.”
— Maria Rivas-McMillan (@Panyol) October 22, 2021
Other netizens shared their memories of the horrifying event:
I was still in high school on August vacation that year. Remember returning to school located in town, viewing the devastation. #trinis lost their innocence. We thought it could never happen here. #coup #AbuBakr
— Mrs Marcella “Moira” Ruiz-Ayers (@MarcellaMoiraR) October 22, 2021
Suddenly not having a government was one of the most frightening experiences of my life. Phones were disconnected. TV and radio not on air. 24hr curfew. We had to stay indoors under threat of death by the military #AbuBakr
— Mrs Marcella “Moira” Ruiz-Ayers (@MarcellaMoiraR) October 22, 2021
Other Twitter users took a less categorical view of Bakr's legacy:
This man was a terrifying memory from my childhood. I was too young to understand but I do know that he took action and sparked change for the good and the bad. #AbuBakr #TrinidadandTobago
— Michelle Lochan (@michellelochan) October 22, 2021
May he rest in peace. I'm not saddened or anything his death has no effect on me, I never held him in high esteem or viewed him as a hero. May his family be comforted in their time of grief #AbuBakr #1990
— Selassie Dawta (@superfinelady) October 22, 2021
On September 10, 2021, a 75-minute talk by Bakr was streamed live on Facebook, in which he slammed the state for alleged injustices relating its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and threatening “war” against the government. The police assessed Bakr's comments and deemed that they warranted no further action.
The incident brought up unresolved feelings for many, as evidenced by this Letter to the Editor published on the online news site Wired868:
There is no greater example of our misapplication of the national watchword, tolerance, than the way we treat Yasin Abu Bakr.
We tolerate a man who masterminded and led an attempted coup on our duly elected government; who was responsible for holding our parliament hostage unless his terms were met; whose people shot our PM, killed innocent police officers and destroyed our police headquarters; and who, in so doing, held us up to the world as another unstable democracy.
We gave him a get-out-of-jail-free card.
In the most amazing example of injustice, we allowed this man to walk free, deeming the ‘amnesty’ he held—while holding our PM at gunpoint—valid. If this was not a travesty of justice, I don’t know what was. […]
Things would be different, if he had expressed contrition for his attempt to overthrow the elected government and gratitude for his ‘amnesty’ and the way he’s been accepted into society. But he has done neither; and his latest diatribe on FB is just the latest example of the poisonous and ignorant invective he injects into his followers.
At least one Facebook user pondered the “power vacuum” Bakr's death has created and who might fill it. One Twitter user cheekily suggested that Bakr, along with another of Trinidad and Tobago's most polarising figures, the late Hindu religious leader Sat Maharaj, could still wreak havoc:
I lowkey feel Abu Bakr and Sat Maharaj, meeting up all now, plotting how to mess up Trinidad and Tobago's society, from the afterlife.
— Boo Radley Disorder (@MauriceVET) October 22, 2021


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A McDonald’s drive-through in Japan gets a visit from a sacred horse · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

Horses at Cape Toi, Miyazaki, by Koji Ishii. From Flickr. Image license: CC BY 2.0
A popular post on Japanese Twitter provides a glimpse into the long connection between horses and Shinto shrines in Japan.
The tweet, which has been shared over 5,000 times so far, shows a woman riding a horse through a McDonald's drive-through, somewhere in Japan.
?おれなぁドライブスルーしたどどん??
お店のお姉さんとも記念写真撮ってもらったどどん✨?おどどどっ?#テイクアウト pic.twitter.com/BvtJWmKlb3
— 吉川八幡神社 御神馬?いづめ?公式 (@yoshikawa8izume) October 19, 2021
I'm going through the drive-thru! And an employee took our photo!
The video was posted by the “public Twitter account of Izume, the ‘sacred horse’ of Yoshikawa Hachiman shrine” (吉川八幡神社 御神馬 いづめ 公式), a Shinto shrine located in Nose, in the mountainous and largely rural northwest corner of Osaka prefecture.
The rider is a miko (巫女), a woman employee and acolyte who works at the shrine, while the horse—according to his Twitter bio—is a four-year-old stallion that resides at Yoshikawa Hachiman shrine.
A native kiso horse, Izume was consecrated in October 2019, to mark the start of Japan's Reiwa era. Shrine visitors are encouraged to feed Izume his favorite foods, which include bananas and carrots. However, since Izume is a sacred horse, no petting is allowed.
Sacred horses (神馬, shinme, shinma, kami-uma) are considered to be messengers of the gods, and have a deep and reverent association with Shinto shrines in Japan. According to the Mie prefecture's Cultural Affairs department:
古代の人々の生活は、自然に大きく左右されていました。自然には神が宿っていると考えられ、当時の人々にとって神への祈願は重大なことでした。その祈願には多くの方法がありましたが、生きた馬の奉納もその一つでした。馬は神の乗り物あるいは貴人の乗り物だと考えられていたからです。
The lives of ancient people [in Japan] were greatly influenced by nature—it was thought that God dwelled in nature, and connecting to God through prayer was important. There were many ways to pray, and making offerings and other dedications to a living horse was one of them.
Consecrated horses were once typically kept at shrines in Japan. However, due in part to the high cost of feeding and caring for them, some shrines used a symbolic substitute called an ema.
Made originally of fired clay, and later wood and sometimes paper, ema are small tablets where worshippers write prayers or messages to the gods. They are now widely available at Shinto shrines all over Japan.
Ema for sale at Kanda Myojin Shrine, Tokyo. Photo by Nevin Thompson. Image license: CC BY 3.0
The history of the Yoshikawa Hachiman shrine dates back over 1,000 years, when the site was dedicated to a natural spring that served locals as their main source of water.
Eventually, the shrine also housed a Buddhist temple devoted to Yakushi nyorai (Bhaisajyaguru), the Buddha of healing and medicine in Mahayana Buddhism. The main votive deity of the Yoshikawa Hachiman shrine is the mythical Emperor Ojin, who is said to have reigned between 200 and 300 CE, and who is posthumously worshipped as the deity Hachiman (八幡神), the god of war.
Main hall of Yoshikawa Hachiman Shrine, Osaka Prefecture. By Kujime Kazuya. From Wikipedia. Image license: CC BY-SA 4.0
Today, the small shrine is known locally—and, thanks to its social media presence, online—not only for Izume the horse, but also for its live music performances and two decommissioned railway carriages, a gift from a local railway company that ceased operations in 2016.
【吉川八幡神社 秋大祭】
10月24日(日) 半熟BLOODのライブ
露依楼囲 -Roy Roy-の出店が決定しました❣もうすでに中の人達はテンション上がっております。
北神弓子ちゃんからの長いお友達です✨
鉄道アイドルのなっちゃんも見られるかな⁉@seikajd pic.twitter.com/TOeTebSKLW
— 吉川八幡神社 (@hachimanshrine) September 29, 202
On October 24th (Sunday), as part of the Yoshikawa Hachiman Shrine Autumn Festival, bands Half-Ripe Blood and Roy Roy-Roy Roy will play live!
As Izume heads off for some cuddling time with his “Mom”, you can follow his adventures on Twitter:
?最後はおかあたん?♀??おれのラブラブたいむどどん?
?おどどどっ??おどどん? pic.twitter.com/ahvJ7UpyFp
— 吉川八幡神社 御神馬?いづめ?公式 (@yoshikawa8izume) October 17, 2021

author: Nevin Thompson


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Bangladesh’s upcoming Data Protection Act may suppress, not protect, citizens rights · Global Voices
Zara Rahman

Image via Pexels by Mati Mango. Used under a Pexels Licence.
The government of Bangladesh is working on a draft data protection law, known as the DPA, which will be the first legislation in the country that is focused on data privacy and protection. Analysts have pointed out that the draft contains loopholes, including the indemnification of government agencies, which could allow the government to use the prospective law to suppress the rights of citizens and government critics in a way similar to how the existing controversial Digital Security Act (DSA) of 2018 has been used.
A draft of the law was publicly available on the website of the Digital Security Agency earlier in 2021, but does not appear to be available at the time of writing. It broadly defines the rights and obligations of data subjects, data controllers and data processors, and describes data sourcing and archiving methods, including provisions for data audits and notifications in case of a data breach.
Until the DPA appeared, the main piece of legislation pertaining to online activities was the Digital Security Act (DSA), which has been widely critiqued by human rights organisations as a tool to suppress freedom of expression of citizens. The DSA has justified the arrest of over 400 people since its introduction in September 2018, including journalists, activists and citizens posting on social media.
Strategic advisory firm BGA Asia states that the Data Protection Act may enter into force before the December 2023 general elections. However, the draft law is yet to be finalised.
The government's motivations for the law are unclear. While data protection acts typically aim to protect citizens’ privacy rights, many of the proposals under this draft law would actually increase the government’s access to personal data, and, in theory, also increase their surveillance capabilities. Though there are some similarities with the European Union’s landmark General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a key difference is that certain state agencies are reportedly spared from complying with the law, and employees of the Digital Security Agency and the Data Protection Office will be exempt from prosecution. These exemptions remove accountability and lay the groundwork for the government to weaponise the law against critics.
Another major difference between the proposed DPA and the GDPR is the push for data localisation, or data sovereignty, as the draft law states that the personal data of Bangladeshi citizens must stay in the country. Specifically, the draft says that “every data controller should store at least one serving copy of data within the geographic boundary of Bangladesh.” Under this provision, the government of Bangladesh could potentially exert investigatory jurisdiction to gain access to more data than ever before. As Human Rights Watch describes, under the 2006 amendment to the Telecommunications Act, the government of Bangladesh can give any security officer the authority “to bar, record or to collect the information” that is “sent by any client using the service of any telecommunication” for the purposes of national security and public order — which is already a very broad mandate. This, combined with the Digital Security Act, and the exceptions noted above, create a far-reaching, privacy-invasive surveillance apparatus that is deeply worrying for the privacy rights of Bangladeshi citizens.
People protesting the death of Mushtaq Ahmed in judicial custody on February 25, 2021. He was arrested under the Digital Security Act (DSA). Screenshot from YouTube video by Nagorik News.
This law would also have significant consequences for international companies and organisations with operations inside Bangladesh, who might otherwise use servers located in other countries to host their data, and who would have to change large parts of their infrastructure to ensure that data of Bangladeshi citizens remain inside the country. Operationally, for international social media companies operating in Bangladesh, implementing such a law would be extremely difficult. But the draft DPA also reportedly applies to all businesses “irrespective of size or turnover,” which presumably would be close to impossible for all small entities to abide by without prohibitively large costs — meaning that all businesses or data controllers would be negatively affected, regardless of size.
Transparency International Bangladesh called on the government to conduct a stakeholder consultation, and make the draft law widely available again for public viewing, noting that stakeholders’ fears before the enactment of the Digital Security Act 2018 had been proven right. Bangladeshi citizens writing on social media expressed concerns about how the DSA had already gagged free speech, and worried that this new law would put social media users even more at risk.
Md Saimum Reza Talukder, who teaches cyberlaw at Brac University, notes that the data localisation proposition would also likely decrease the security of citizens’ data, given how few data centres there are in Bangladesh. He also pointed out that the privacy journalistic sources and human rights defenders would be particularly at risk under these provisions.
News of the law also comes amid reports that the ruling Awami League has started training “tens of thousands of cadres to wage a propaganda war on social media in preparation for the next general election.” Within the context of how the Digital Security Act 2018 has been used to censor and crackdown on government critics, the proposal of an online army focused on monitoring social media is deeply concerning.
The combination of the DSA, reports of the “online propaganda army.” and this data protection draft act suggests that the Awami League is turning its attention to the digital realm ahead of the 2023 elections, seeking to increase their surveillance capacities and control of data and technology in Bangladesh.

author: Zara Rahman


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News site founders, editor resign under pressure from Kazakhstan’s authorities · Global Voices
Paolo Sorbello

Former Hola News editor Zarina Akhmatova during an interview about the blocking of their website. The caption reads “Every month, 1.5 million unique users visit the site Holanews.kz.” Screenshot from the YouTube channel Dergachyov Insight.
In the same hours of the Facebook shutdown on October 4, one of Kazakhstan's most popular news websites, Hola News, went offline, and not from a technical mishap. The facts concerning the causes and the 10-day duration of the shutdown were never clarified by the authorities.
The site, followed by hundreds of thousands on social media, had published on October 4 an article about the OCCRP investigation into offshore companies possibly linked to the country's former president.
Fearing that the blocking could be linked with this article, the founders, Alisher Kaidarov and Adilet Tursynbek, and editor Zarina Akhmatova decided to take it down from their servers on October 5. The following day, they noted that the blocking seemed to be due to a Deep packet inspection (DPI), a technology often used by governments to censor online content.
Instead of the original piece, they published an empty article that resembled a death notice. “Here was the headline,” “here was the image,” and “here was the body of the article,” the webpage that was self-censored now recites. At the bottom of the page, the only addition was a YouTube video of the ‘There's nothing better in the world!’ introduction song to the Soviet cartoon version of the Town Musicians of Bremen.
A screenshot of the censored article now at Hola News.
This looked like an epitaph to the existence of Hola News, born in 2018 in the midst of a hostile environment for news outlets in Kazakhstan. Immediately after the website was back online, in fact, Kaidarov, Tursynbek, and Akhmatova resigned with a public note denouncing the pressure on them.
After being blocked for 10 days, we had to give up our basic principles [of honesty and objectivity]. We have removed the article from the site. […] That is why we believe that, in order to remain yourself, leaving is better than staying.
The Adil Soz, a local freedom of expression watchdog, officially filed a statement against the blocking of Hola News with the Ministry of Information's web portal.
The blocking was a harsh measure against Hola News, especially given that other outlets had covered the same news and the Semey City website had copied and shared Hola News's original text.
Observers debated whether the event was a “one of a kind” or a “sign of warning for others.” Nurzhan, a political analyst who asked to withhold his last name, told Global Voices that “the government likely targeted Hola News because of its large following.” Besides the 1.5 million unique monthly visitors to its website, Hola News has a large social media audience.
In the latest Freedom on the Net report by Freedom House, Kazakhstan was classified as not free due to its obstacles to access and its limits on content. The report highlights how news sites often have to resort to self-censorship to survive.
Self-censorship in the media is pervasive, even among independent online news outlets, because existing legislation often contains ambiguity.
The Pandora Papers leak — with its almost 3 terabytes of data spread across 12 million documents from service providers in offshore jurisdictions — is poised to further expose opaque deals concerning politically exposed people in Kazakhstan. From this perspective, the blocking of Hola News could be a precedent, as others might choose to self-censor in prospective investigations.
Besides new legislation and the absence of security tools available elsewhere, Kazakhstan has proved to be a hostile environment for journalists. Some were targeted with spyware, as unveiled in the Pegasus Project investigation in July.
Hola News could now face the fate of several other media platforms, which had to choose self-censorship over independence to survive.

author: Paolo Sorbello


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Cats, crows and planet Earth: drawings by Belarusian political prisoners · Global Voices
openDemocracy Russia

Protest in Belarus, September 2020. Image by Jana Shnipelson, Public Domain, (CC0 1.0).
This article by Hleb Liapeika was originally published by Mediazona and a translation appeared on Open Democracy on October 25, 2021. It is republished as part of a content-sharing partnership and has been edited to fit the GV style.
Since Belarus’s presidential elections in August last year, the country has been gripped by a brutal crackdown by security forces.
Protesters, politicians, civil society participants and journalists have been detained and tortured, and many are facing prison sentences. The Viasna Human Rights Center states there are currently 812 political prisoners in the country.
In response to this wave of police violence and arbitrary detention, solidarity campaigns in support of those facing imprisonment on politically motivated charges have sprung up. But with little information about what life is like inside Belarus’s prison system, people on the outside rely on letters, and often drawings, by prisoners.
Mediazona, a media outlet reporting on law and justice, recently published a series of illustrations based on images by Belarusians who have found themselves behind bars over the past year – student activists, protesters, ideological opponents of the Lukashenka regime, and artists.
OpenDemocracy translate and republish the article with permission.
Pre-Trial Detention Centre No.1, Minsk
Nadzeya Kalach. Illustration by Maria Tolstova for Mediazona.
Nadzeya Kalach is a member of Belarusian folk rock group Irdorath, and is accused of “seriously disturbing public order”. She was detained in August 2021.
In a letter to a friend, Kalach says she misses certain songs (her friend has made a playlist of these songs on YouTube), and reports how she and her cellmates made a cake, and blew out a lighted match on top of it.
“I’m not free now, but what we created and launched into the world is. My voice is still on our songs, as are our instruments. People are listening to these songs somewhere and this brings them joy. I love it,” she writes.
KGB Pre-Trial Detention Centre, Minsk
Siarhei Ramanau. Illustration by Maria Tolstova for Mediazona.
Siarhei Ramanau is accused of “committing a terrorist act” and “unlawful actions relating to flammable substances”. He is one of four anarchists named by the Belarusian Border Service as “radicals with an impressive arsenal [of weapons]” after their arrest last autumn.
Outside correspondence rarely reaches people inside the KGB Pre-Trial Detention Centre, and Ramanau tends to write short letters. According to his friends, he used to sketch tattoo designs, and took up pencil drawing when he was imprisoned from 2014 to 2019.
KGB Pre-Trial Detention Centre, Minsk
Dzmitry Dubousky. Illustration by Maria Tolstova for Mediazona.
Anarchist Dzmitry Dubousky is a defendant facing the same charges as Siarhei Ramanau. He says that he is improving his pencil-drawing skills while in jail, and he sent his sister Yulia a letter and a drawing with this message:
Here’s a drawing that reflects the atmosphere in our cell :). Sometimes I get carried away with thoughts and reflections; this is how our days pass.
Pre-Trial Detention Centre No.1, Minsk
Ales Minau. Illustration by Maria Tolstova for Mediazona.
Ales Minau was a teacher of Belarusian language and literature in Minsk until he was arrested in August 2021. He is accused of “seriously disturbing public order”.
In a letter to his friend Arina, Minau drew a picture of the world with the phrase “Why is there so much evil in the world?” in Ukrainian.
“Sometimes sadness tries to creep up on me, but I have stopped feeling sorry for myself or complaining about my fate, and I expect the worst to happen,” he wrote.
Pre-Trial Detention Centre No.1, Minsk
Kim Samusenka. Illustration by Maria Tolstova for Mediazona.
Kim Samusenka is one of four people accused of hacking into the Minsk City Executive Committee’s IT systems, and has been behind bars since November 2020. His wife Alesya recalls that she asked Kim to “draw something nice, to have a nice reminder of him”. Samusenka drew a cat, which in Alesya’s opinion looks like her husband: “It’s just as positive as him, and with the same ironic take on the world.”
“There’s this wonderful autumn on the other side. I would also like to walk around in it with the whole family,” he wrote in a letter, describing the pleasure of daily exercise in prison.
Pre-Trial Detention Centre No.1, Minsk
Kasya Budzko. Illustration by Maria Tolstova for Mediazona.
Kasya Budzko, a student, has been sentenced to two and a half years in prison for “seriously disturbing public order” in connection with student protests.
She sent a surreal drawing to a friend, and shares some news in a letter: a new cellmate who speaks Belarusian. Budzko, who speaks Russian, says that she “might, at last, overcome my internal barrier and start speaking Belarusian”.
Pre-Trial Detention Centre No.3, Homyel
Maria Kalenik. Illustration by Maria Tolstova for Mediazona.
Maria Kalenik, a student at the Belarusian State Academy of Arts, was sentenced to two and half years in prison in the same case as Kasya Budzko. She often sends letters with drawings of animals to her friends, and sent pictures of a cat and a squirrel to her friends Hleb and Darina.
“This cat is angry because he’s been woken up,” she explained. Kalenik drew a squirrel, Darina says, just because it’s art and they regularly discuss art and design.
Pre-Trial Detention Centre No.2, Minsk
Ruslan Slutsky. Illustration by Maria Tolstova for Mediazona.
Ruslan Slutsky was detained in January 2021. According to investigators, he had left a number of home-made anti-tyre spikes on a road in the Vitsebsk region ahead of a car rally in support of the Belarusian authorities in November 2020.
In a letter to a penpal, Polina, Slutsky says that he started drawing two months after he was jailed. “And you can see the results in this drawing,” he wrote. “I receive letters from friends, and now I have one more. Thank you so much.”
Pre-Trial Detention Centre No.1, Minsk
Ivan Krasousky. Illustration by Maria Tolstova for Mediazona.
Ivan Krasousky, an anarchist, was sentenced to three years of open prison for participating in the post-election protests of 2020-21. After receiving a postcard from a penpal, Darina, Krasousky sent back a drawing of SpongeBob SquarePants. “Your postcard is UNBELIEVABLY cool! It cheered us up no end!” he wrote. Krasousky’s penpal says she cannot remember what she originally sent.
Investigative Prison No.8, Zhodzina
Ales Pushkin. Illustration by Maria Tolstova for Mediazona.
Ales Pushkin, an artist and performer, was detained on 30 March this year, and is charged with “rehabilitating Nazism”. Now in prison, he sends his friend Valeria drawings and drafts of a future book.
Pushkin’s picture is accompanied by a poem: “In Hrodna, I heard a crow cry/ The crow is the embodiment of Odin/ I am a descendant of Vikings.”
Prison Colony No.4, Homyel
Anastasia Mirontsava. Illustration by Maria Tolstova for Mediazona.
Anastasia Mirontsava was sentenced to two years in prison for participating in the August 2020 protests, on charges of “seriously disturbing public order” and “attacking a police officer”.
In an August 2021 letter, Mirontsava talks about a woman she’d met in prison, who takes care of flowers in a prison garden and gets angry if someone touches them. The woman told her that eight years ago, when another prisoner who took care of the flowers was released, the flowers started to die. Mirontsava’s new acquaintance had to take responsibility for them – unwillingly at first.
Her eyes get so bright when she starts talking about the flowers! She says that they can feel everything. What you say to them, they communicate back. They send the same energy back. She says that the flowers are also imprisoned here.
Mirontsava also included a picture of a tree planted by the “first woman” in the prison 15 years ago.
Illustrations by Maria Tolstova.

author: openDemocracy Russia


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NGO says Egypt’s North Sinai residents were badly abused by both military and militants · Global Voices
Global Voices MENA

Videos and statements released by Egypt’s military spokesperson are the only source of information on developments in the region, amidst a state-imposed media blackout. Screenshot taken from a propaganda video, which sparked calls for investigating soldiers allegedly carrying out extrajudicial killings in North Sinai.
A recent report issued by the Sinai Human Rights Foundation (SFHR), a homegrown group of activists and researchers that monitors violations committed against civilians by both the army and extremist militants in the Egyptian peninsula, states that as many as 112 civilians were killed in 2019 and 2020, as a result of the fighting between the two parties.
Released on September 30, the report—titled “We Just Want to Live”, after a quote from one of the 212 Sinai residents cited in its pages—said 25 of those killed by fire from both the military and militants were children, while 22 were women. Civilians injured during that period totaled 134, of whom 36 were children.
North Sinai, a largely barren triangle locked between the blockaded Gaza enclave and Egypt's mainland, has been the site of a years-long, anti-terrorism campaign, as the local branch of the Islamic State (IS), known as the Sinai Province, took root in the region. From this foothold, it staged deadly attacks on troops, policemen and government officials, as well as on tourists and members of the country's religious Coptic minority.
In response to the murder of thousands at the hand of militants, the Egyptian army waged several military campaigns to uproot the insurgents. However, it simultaneously tightened its grip on the region's residents, who fell victim to violent crimes committed by both warring factions. A curfew restricted movement in and out of the region, and denied access to independent journalists while enforcing a media gag on updates—unless the statements were issued by government forces.
The UK-based executive director of the SFHR, Ahmed Salem, said:
The number of abuses recorded in the report shows a non-written agreement between the conflicting parties on the disregard for human rights or the lives and dignity of the people of Sinai, which led to vast areas of Sinai becoming unsuitable for life, where abuses and violation of civilians are rampant.
The report documented five incidents of military airstrikes targeting civilian houses, killing 30 civilians and wounding 22 others. Houses, schools and medical centres have been struck by raids, the report said. Civilians were forced to flee their homes, while random fire by soldiers—in the absence of any real threat or imminent danger—left 26 civilians dead and 33 others wounded.
In its report, the SFHR also casted doubt on the accuracy of the military and interior ministry's claims that the individuals killed in shootouts by security forces’ fire were terrorists. Having analyzed dozens of press statements that declared the killing of 158 people by the interior ministry, and 548 people by the army, the SFHR said:
The Foundation found compelling evidence that government authorities provided false information in three official statements published by spokespersons for the Ministries of Defense and Interior, which raises several questions about the credibility of these statements and the legality of the killings.
On August 5, Amnesty International released a statement urging Egypt's public prosecutor to “urgently investigate what appear to be extrajudicial executions by members of the military in North Sinai.” Commenting on a military propaganda video released by the spokesperson of the Egyptian armed forces just days before, Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Middle East Research and Advocacy Director, was quoted in the statement as saying:
“The deeply disturbing footage in this Egyptian military propaganda video, which celebrates the armed forces’ deliberate cold-blooded killings of two unarmed people clearly not posing a threat to life, offers a glimpse of the shocking crimes committed in the name of countering terrorism in Egypt.
The video showed a person, who was sleeping in a makeshift tent, getting shot at close range by a soldier. In another clip, an unarmed man is shown running in the desert as bullets puncture his body; he ultimately falls to the ground.
Over the years, from the start of the curfew imposed on North Sinai in October 2014 and its accompanying media blackout, residents of the region and their sympathizers have written about many instances of extrajudicial killings, as well as other violations they have faced, via the hashtag #سيناء_خارج_التغطية, or #Sinai_Out_Of_Coverage.
Meanwhile, Egypt's government troops have enjoyed full impunity, never confessing to intentionally harming civilians. However, on February 10, in an unprecedented acknowledgement of civilian loss of life since the beginning of these anti-terrorism campaigns, the semi-official National Council for Human Rights said that 1,836 civilians had been killed in the crossfire, and 2,915 wounded.
According to SFHR's report, there have also been dozens of arbitrary arrests of North Sinai residents, with many of them allegedly held for months without charges, while others—including women and children—were captured in order to pressure their relatives into surrendering to security forces.
In March, the Human Rights Watch issued a statement saying that, between late 2013 and July 2020, Egypt's army destroyed at least 12,350 buildings as it created a buffer zone along the borders with Gaza. HRW said that the Egyptian military’s ongoing “home demolitions and forced evictions during the armed conflict in North Sinai governorate are violations of international humanitarian law, or the laws of war, and likely amount to war crimes.”
Militants of the Sinai Province, the report added, carried out their own set of crimes and violence against civilians in North Sinai, killing, kidnapping and torturing hundreds of residents throughout 2019 and 2020. This appears to have been done primarily on religious grounds, as their targets were Copts and Sufis. Militants are hostile towards these religious minorities, viewing them as backers of a regime that continues to prosecute the predominantly Islamist supporters of former president Mohamed Morsi, who was removed from power in a 2013 coup d'etat.
Scores of civilians were executed by the local IS-affiliate, the report said, under the pretext that they were either supporting the government or working on economic projects affiliated with the Egyptian army. In addition, militants executed some of the soldiers they captured, which the SFHR noted is a war crime.
The report also documented the injury of 23 civilians, mostly women and children, as a result of explosive devices that were planted, and the killing of an additional 22 people, via bombs set off by the terrorist group.

author: Global Voices MENA