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Public Trust Wiped Away; Jamaicans at Risk from Tainted Toilet Paper · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

The poop has been hitting the proverbial fan in Jamaica recently over the sale of substandard toilet paper that has allegedly caused a slew of rashes and vaginal infections.
Active Voice explained:
The truth is we don’t know much. The Bureau of Standards claims to have found four brands that may be ‘contaminated’ but refuses to name them. Instead they are laboriously naming dozens of other loo paper that have alledgedly passed their tests. It leaves Jamaicans in a quandary. Should people like my friend Heather who invested in a case of toilet paper dump the lot because its not on the BOS list of safe tissues? Is it even safe to take a dump?
Annie Paul, the blogger, went on to chronicle some of the most outstanding tweets about the issue, but she was surprised to learn that:
This tissue issue had reared its head as far back as February this year albeit in a slightly different context. As a Gleaner article dated Feb 3, 2013, Shoddy imported tissue raises stink, has it:
Scores of Jamaicans are purchasing substandard toilet tissues and putting themselves at risk of serious health problems.
Sources in the health and manufacturing sectors last week confirmed that a large quantity of substandard toilet tissues is being imported into the island, mainly from Asia.
Paul surmised:
Perhaps we should consider whether this whole folderol is just a tissue of lies concocted by local toilet paper manufacturers to protect themselves against ‘foreign’ (read Chinese) imports of the sanitary product.
In the meantime the Jamaican Bureau of Standards (BOS) is digging in its heels and refusing to divulge the names of the contaminated toilet tissue brands.
Twitter, meanwhile, under the hashtag #TissueIssue, was on a roll, with some users offering useful information, others posting photos and most commenting on the situation:
@deronearcher: #InJamaica everyone stop talk bout the IMF and talking about the #TissueIssue Lol
@kishnicks: The PNP is an absolutely genius organization. What better distraction to the state of affairs than make us focus on the #TissueIssue #BS
Cucumber Juice pulled no punches, saying:
I’ve known for some time that Jamaica was up shit’s creek but the past few days have been a revelation.  What a day it is when you cannot be certain if the toilet paper you have in your home is safe…
So far, the Bureau of Standards Jamaica and the Jamaica Ministry of Health have refused to name three brands of toilet paper and one brand of paper towel that have “ high bacteria counts”  (problem #1).  Flat out refusal.  Instead the Jamaica Bureau of Standards provided lists of paper products…wait no, I’m not sure if all paper products are now being tested (problem #2)…right so let me rephrase: the Bureau of Standards Jamaica has chosen to only provide lists of toilet paper and paper towels that have been tested and found to not have “high bacteria counts.” A simple “pass” is noted.  So if your preferred brand  is not on the list does that mean it failed the test or it hasn’t been tested yet?  (problem #3)
How do we know that the list isn’t being manipulated to push sales toward certain brands or why certain brands haven’t (yet) been tested? (problem #4)
The Bureau of Standards Jamaica claims that it cannot name the four dangerous brands because — brace yourselves — they’re afraid of lawsuits.  And the fear of lawsuits comes because there was no acceptable bacterial level for toilet paper in the first place.  The argument then is that because there was no standard, the four dangerous brands cannot now be named for not living up to a standard (problem #5).  Regardless of the fact that there is a high bacterial count…so high that even in the absence of standards there is a clear problem.  Regardless of the fact that a product that comes into contact with genitalia – one of the body’s most sensitive areas –  when used as the product is expressly intended to be used has a high bacterial count and has already caused illness.  Call me crazy but those brands of toilet paper are not fit for their express, particular purpose.
The blogger, Alice Clare, continued:
Instead of naming the four brands and giving clear, explicit, firm guidance about how the public should proceed, the Ministry of Health is doing a belated silent recall and seizure action.  The lack of urgency and the silence when dealing with a public health emergency is dangerous; this is a time when clear information is needed, not half-assed updates peppered with fear and uncertainty.  And that vacuum of information breeds panic among the public.
The argument that testing is preliminary or that there are no standards holds no water for me.  People are already sick…that is how the GOJ found out that there was a problem.  By now testing should perhaps be in its third round; now is the time to request foreign help if you cannot manage because there is a clear and present danger to the health of Jamaican residents and citizens.
She went on to make her case for a proper recall:
Even if there are no standards required by the government agency responsible for setting standards, that the product cannot be used safely and for its intended purpose seems sufficient to publicly announce its recall so that the Jamaican public can protect itself.  If not a recall then a clear, explicit, detailed public advisory including the names of the brands instead of incomplete lists…? Because that’s the bottom line: the public needs to be aware so that it can protect itself.  It’s not like this is a brand of paper plate or garden hose: IT IS TOILET PAPER.  WE ALL USE IT.
To her, the government's refusal to offer adequate information about such a present health threat reflects deeper issues of transparency and good governance:
I forget that this is the Government of Jamaica and for whom transparency, accountability  and safeguarding the public are not priorities if even considerations.  Regardless of whatever P is in charge.
Alice Clare went on to pose a series of pressing questions:
With none of the dangerous brands being named, what should people do about rolls of toilet paper and paper towels that have already been bought?
How will the GOJ [Government of Jamaica] inform a vulnerable public that it should not be using at least four brands of toilet paper if you can’t — or won’t — name the brands?
How will the GOJ inform a vulnerable public that A, B, and C are symptoms of The Toilet Paper Infection and that those who show these symptoms should see a doctor immediately? Is there sufficient medication available on the island for treating The Toilet Paper Infection?  If not, is that being addressed?
If the GOJ does not name the dangerous brands, how will it ensure that the compromised tissue is returned — by consumers, retailers, distributors, wholesalers, supermarkets, the corner shop, the street vendor — to a designated place and safely disposed of?
Are the infections known to be caused by the bacteria on these four brands chronic or acute?  Is there a test for the infection?  If the four brands are not named, how will people know that they may be at risk?
What’s the source of the contamination? How did the contamination happen? What’s being done to prevent further contamination?
Is there a pattern involving this kind of contamination, the four brands of toilet paper, the country or countries or origin?  If re-exportation is done, who will notify the new destination countries that there’s a problem?  The Jamaican public may not be the only public that needs to know this information.
Why doesn’t the Bureau of Standards Jamaica have any standards for the quality of toilet paper being supplied to the Jamaican public? What other standards has the Bureau of Standards Jamaica failed to establish and enforce?
The post concluded:
This is not the first incidence of a public health issue being dealt with in silence (Chinese restaurant illnesses, baby formula drama, 2012 dengue outbreak): why are the agencies meant to either establish standards or protect the public health lax in naming culprit products…or disseminating needed public health guidance?  If the issue is Jamaica’s libel laws, when will they be amended to allow the GOJ to fulfill its public health role?  The law cannot be a muzzle when the safety of a population is at risk.
And is it that, in effect, the Bureau of Standards Jamaica has indemnified companies that offer dangerous products on the market?
Where does the Jamaican public sign up to sue the Government of Jamaica for negligence?
Latest developments suggest this will likely never happen.  As one Twitter user said just a couple of days ago:
@suebellaC: …And just like that the #TissueIssue came and went…


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Red Cross’ China Scandal – This Time About Sex · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

While Chinese people still remember Red Cross China's corruption scandal during the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, a new scandal has exposed, this time it also involves Guo Meimei, a then “manager at China Red Cross”, showed off her fancy sports cars and luxury handbags on Sina Weibo in 2011. This time it involves a sex tape showing someone who looks like Guo having sex with a few high-ranking China Red Cross officials. More from Offbeat China.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Oiwan Lam


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RSF Addresses the Situation at Ukraine’s TVi Channel · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

On April 26, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) issued a statement [en; fr; uk – .pdf] on the situation at the Ukrainian TV station TVi:
Reporters Without Borders condemns the sudden change of management at the opposition TV station TVi, announced three days ago, and is disturbed to learn that ensuing internal disputes have resulted in broadcasting being suspended. […]
Ukrainian journalist Mustafa Nayyem (@mefimus), who is quoted in RSF's statement as one of TVi's presenters, tweeted [ru] (and, later, wrote [ru] on Facebook) that the statement has been shared 3.6 million times on Facebook. This unlikely figure, however, is displayed on many other RSF's texts right now, and is most likely the result of a technical error. A number of Facebook users have already pointed that out to Nayyem, noting, as user Volodymyr Dzoban did [uk], that the true interest in the story is reflected by the number of retweets (currently, 34).

author: Veronica Khokhlova


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Russian Conspiracy Theories About Boston Bombings Abound · Global Voices
Daniel Alan Kennedy

Conspiracy theories flourish in times of confusion and uncertainty. Claims that the April 15 Boston Marathon bombings were part of some sort of US government-led false flag operation were circulating on the English-speaking internet before the dust had literally settled, particularly on conspiracy forums and social media groups like the Citizens Action Network.
The news that the two bombing suspects were ethnic Chechens turned what had been a passing interest for the RuNet into the number one topic of conversation [GV]. Because the RuNet, just like the Internet at large, has always had a penchant for conspiracy theories, the events in Boston provided ample fodder for some its more paranoid denizens. For example, the pro-regime nationalist LiveJournal community vvv-ig [ru] was quick to place the blame on the American intelligence services, running an extremely graphic post [ru] from the blogger frallik [ru], outlining how the bombings had in fact been faked using actors. The post, mainly using materials and memes sourced from western sites, alleged, among other things, that a man who was in the epicenter of the explosion and lost both of his legs was in fact an Iraq war veteran and previous amputee named Nick Vogt.
Despite the fact that the vvv-ig commonly deals in anti-American conspiracies, the allegation that the bombings had been faked proved too bizarre for some contributors. Blogger proobman [ru] published  a rebuttal [ru] in the same community, pointing out that the man who lost his legs was in fact named Jeff Bauman, who has a Facebook page and a fund set up to aid his recovery. Interestingly, proobman's issues with accusations of “staging” appears partially due their similarity to ones leveled at the Russian security services: that they were behind the bombings of several apartment buildings in 1999 [en] as a pretext for the Second Chechen War. proobman quipped:
Башни-близнецы взорвал Буш, Буйнакск и Волгодонск – Путин. Обама взорвал марафон. Продам шапочки из фольги, недорого.
Bush blew up the Twin Towers, Putin blew up [the towns of] Buinaksk and Volgodonsk. Obama blew up the marathon. Tin foil hats for sale, cheap.
The two suspects, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. FBI.gov, April 25, 2013
While many Russian bloggers were quick to accuse the FBI and CIA of carrying out or staging the bombings, one group in particular has almost entirely rejected the official version of events: the Chechens. The Tsarnaev family itself continues to profess their sons’ innocence. The belief that the Tsarnaev Brothers are innocent (or have at least been set up in some way) is common among groups and individuals ranging from Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, to his sworn enemies at KavkazCenter [ru], the online mouthpiece of the Caucasian Emirate. While the Tsarnaevs’ innocence may be one of the incredibly few things Chechens can agree on, radically different conclusions have been drawn about who is to blame. Kadyrov stated publicly [ru] that “what happened in Boston is the fault of the American security services”. Kavkaz Center pointed the finger [ru] squarely at Kadyrov himself, and claimed he was acting on orders from Putin.
Кадыров очень удобная фигура для выполнения «грязных дел». В случае необходимости его можно в любой момент ликвидировать, спрятав все концы, и никто этому не удивится. На нём кровь десятков тысяч чеченцев, да и моджахеды ведут на него постоянную охоту.
Kadyrov is a very useful figure for carrying out “dirty business”. If the situation required it, he could be liquidated at any moment, concealing all evidence, and no one would be surprised. He has the blood of tens of thousands of Chechens on his hands and the mujaheddin are constantly hunting him.
Chechen blogger Zulikhan [ru], whose views on the Boston bombing are discussed in detail here [GV], saw the hands of both the Russian and American security services at work in the bombings.
Путин и Обама, по инициативе российской стороны, договорились по телефону о координации усилий в борьбе с международным терроризмом. Считаю, что за событиями в Бостоне торчат уши российских спецслужб. По принципу “кому выгодно”. […] Путину выгодно – чтобы Штаты не мешали России творить на Северном Кавказе все, что угодно, под видом борьбы с терроризмом.
Putin and Obama, at the initiative of the Russians, have come to an agreement about coordinating efforts in combating international terrorism. I think that the Russian special services are visible behind the events in Boston. Based on the “who profits” principle. […] Putin profits — so that the States let Russia do what it wants in the North Caucasus under the guise of fighting terrorism.
Netizens have not confined themselves to speculation and counterfactuals. Some have set up an active defense of Tsarnaev. An April 21 petition on Avaaz.org entitled “Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is innocent” [en] gained over 5,500 signatures in four days. Ethnic Chechens actively distributed links [ru[ to the petition on social media. A rolling tally at the side of the page showed the names and locations of the signatories, many of whom were located in Russia and many of whom had Chechen names. According to the author of the page, when enough signatures are collected the letter will be delivered to Barack Obama.
List of recent signatures to an online petition proclaiming Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's innocence. “Lom-Ali” and “Khamzat” are Chechen names. Screenshot. April 25, 2013
Chechnya and her people have suffered greatly throughout this century and the last. It seems in this case they are reluctant to suffer yet another indignity – that of having their people's name tied to a terrorist act half way around the world. Someone is to blame no doubt, but few in Chechenya want to believe it is the two young men whose family left their war-town country years ago.

author: Daniel Alan Kennedy


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Was Kyrgyzstan Ready for ‘The Vagina Monologues’? · Global Voices
Bermet Zhumakadyr kyzy

Amid vocal protests [ru] from the Kyrgyz Ministry of Culture, a local activist group, Bishkek Feminist Collective SQ, performed the play ‘The Vagina Monologues‘ in the capital of Kyrgyzstan in March and April. The play by American playwright and feminist Eve Ensler about female sexuality and experiences earned mixed reactions from the Bishkek audience.
Politically, Kyrgyzstan is often seen as being more liberal than its Central Asian neighbors. So far it is the only country in Central Asia to have had a female president. It was also the first country in the region to stage ‘The Vagina Monologues’ in 2009. However, Kyrgyzstan is also the only country in the region where bride kidnapping is still widely practiced, a predominantly conservative society and for a long time part of the Soviet Union, a country where the catchphrase “there is no sex in the USSR” [ru] became a union-wide meme (here a blogger explains the story behind the catchphrase). Thus, despite being staged in Bishkek for the third time, it is perhaps unsurprising that ‘The Vagina Monologues’ raised controversy.
Staging ‘The Vagina Monologues’ in Bishkek, 2013. Image from the Bishkek Feminist Collective SQ Facebook page, used with permission.
‘Corrosion’ of morals?
In early April, the Ministry of Culture recommended [ru] that the organizers discontinue staging the “controversial play” in Bishkek based on the concern that ‘The Vagina Monologues’ “features episodes that contribute to the corrosion of moral and ethical standards and national traditions of the peoples of Kyrgyzstan.”
The ministry’s statement provoked both negative and positive comments in social media.
Bektour Iskender, Kyrgyz journalist, commented [ru] on kloop.kg's Facebook plugin:
Я, честно говоря, не хочу больше на свои налоги содержать это глупое министерство культуры.
Honestly, I don’t want my taxes to be used for funding this stupid ministry of culture.
The opposite opinion was expressed [ru] by another Facebook user, Nazgul Nuranova:
Прошу госорганы полностью запретить эту пьесу!
I request that the authorities ban the play completely!
What's in the name?
The play was staged in Bishkek as part of the V-Day campaign, a global effort to end violence against women and girls.
Aikanysh Jeenbaeva, a co-founder of the Bishkek Feminist Collective SQ and one of the organizers of ‘The Vagina Monologues’ in the country, suspects that the ministry drew conclusions about the play based on its title. “I think none of them have actually seen the play and they’re just judging it by its name,” she said in a recent interview.
Stuart Kahn, director of Freedom House in Kyrgyzstan, also suspects that the ministry drew conclusions about the play based on its title:
[A]pparently just the title of The Vagina Monologues announcement, an episodic play about the feminine experience, has evoked negative and threatening response from Kyrgyzstan’s Ministry of Culture… [The monologues] are on topics such as love, violence and anatomy but is primarily about female empowerment and individuality.
Kahn also emphasized the scope of domestic violence in Kyrgyzstan:
Over 85% of households in Kyrgyzstan experience domestic violence and bride kidnapping and rape are increasingly being documented. Until recently, punishment for stealing a cow was greater than for stealing a woman, although prosecution is still more likely just in cases of cows.  Only through an open discussion on problems confronting any society can changes be made.
But the play has been criticized for what some people believe is the lack of relevance to the experience of Kyrgyz women. In a detailed review of the performance, blogger Georgii Mamedov writes [ru]:
Фактически, зритель, посетивший спектакль, осведомляется о фетишистских представлениях о своем влагалище белых американок среднего класса. Одна из них мечтает, что ее вагина будет носить бриллианты от Тиффани, другой на консультации у семейного психотерапевта рекомендуют брить вагину, чтобы удержать мужа, другая, бывшая успешная адвокатша, становится элитной проституткой, обслуживающей женщин. В своего рода кульминационном монологе – «Вагина в гневе» — героиня возмущается бумажными халатами и холодными инструментами гинекологических кабинетов. Интересно, какой процент кыргызстанских женщин вообще не охвачен гинекологическим медицинским обеспечением?
Having attended the performance, the audience becomes aware of the fetishist attitudes of white middle-class American females. One of them dreams that her vagina would wear Tiffany diamonds; another one, during a visit to a family psychotherapist, is recommended to shave her vagina in order to keep her husband; the third woman, a former successful lawyer, becomes an elite prostitute for women. In what in many ways is the climax of the monologues – ‘My Angry Vagina’ – the speaker resents paper gowns and cold medical tools in the gynecologist’s office. I wonder what percentage of women in Kyrgyzstan have access to gynecological medical support at all.
‘The road to hell…’
The performance has also drawn harsh criticism from the infamously conservative member of the parliament Tursunbai Bakir uulu. Questioning the justification for the staging of the play in the country, the MP tweeted [ru] on April 9:
@bakiruulu: […]Благими намерениями дорога в Ад вымощена!
@bakiruulu: […]The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
(NB: Bakir uulu’s initiatives, radical in their own way, have provided Global Voices Online with plenty of material since the current Kyrgyz parliament was formed in October 2012. See here, here, here, and here.)
Responding to the MP's tweet, Altynai Amati wrote [ru] on April 9:
@Altynai_Amati: @bakiruulu Вы бы пришли, послушали, а потом говорили про дорогу в ад;)
@Altynai_Amati: @bakiruulu You should come to the play, listen [to what is being discussed], and then only talk about the road to hell;)
But the pious deputy declined [ru] the invitation:
@bakiruulu: @Altynai_Amati Да хранит Аллах всех нас от святотатства и грешных дел! Аамин!
@bakiruulu: @Altynai_Amati: May Allah save us all from sacrilege and sin! Amen!
A satire blog on the local news outlet Akipress pokes fun [ru] at those who demand that the play be banned:
В [Кыргызстане] хотят запретить показывать еще один раз спектакль «Болтливая вагина». Взамен предлагают крутить дома сколько хочешь ХХХ -видео «Упрямый пенис», которое можно купить в любом ларьке за углом. Хулители спектакля объяснили, что вагина не для того создана, чтобы ею говорить о насилии, а для того, чтобы это насилие в ней осуществлять.
In Kyrgyzstan, they want to ban the performance ‘Chatty Vagina’. Instead, they recommend watching over and over ‘Stubborn Penis’, an XXX video that can be bought on any street corner and played at home. Critics of the play explain that vagina was not created with the goal of talking about violence; the goal was to have violence inflicted on the vagina.
All funds raised by staging ‘The Vagina Monologues’ went to benefit a crisis center that works with female victims of domestic and sexual violence and provides a shelter for them.

author: Bermet Zhumakadyr kyzy


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Brazilian Cartoonist Inspires Kissing Protest · Global Voices
Thiana Biondo

Mockup by Leonardo Maciel. Full credits on Solon Maia's blog. (CC BY 3.0)
Images of people kissing went viral on Facebook, blogs and Twitter in Brazil, under the hashtags #beijaço (protest by kissing) and #Laerte. Strips by Laerte published on Folha de São Paulo newspaper, triggered the ‘protest by kissing’ against the anti-gay preacher Marco Feliciano, recently elected Brazil Human Rights Committee Head.

author: Thiana Biondo


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Impartial Justice Wanted in Côte d’Ivoire   · Global Voices
Lova Rakotomalala

Human Rights Watch reports that there is still work to do to achieve impartial justice in the post-2010-11 elections crisis in Côte d'Ivoire:
The ICC’s one-sided approach has legitimized the same approach by Ivorian judicial authorities and undermined perceptions of the ICC’s impartiality.

author: Lova Rakotomalala


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Surprise Candidates for Madagascar Elections  · Global Voices
Lova Rakotomalala

Update:  Here is the full list of the 49 candidates [fr] for the presidential elections. It does not include the current president of the transition.
As the deadline to submit candidacies for the Malagasy presidential elections ends today (28/04), a few surprising candidates have allegedly come forth. While the earlier candidates were relatively new to the general public,  a few prominent political players from the past are expected to contest: former president Didier Ratsiraka, current president of the transition Andry Rajoelina [fr]  and the spouse of former president Ravalomanana, Lalao Ravalomanana.


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To Cut or Not To Cut College Subsidies in the Bahamas? · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Education, democracy and societal priorities are being called into question as Bahamian bloggers address the government's recent decision to reduce the subsidy it provides to the College of The Bahamas.  A week ago, Rick Lowe, writing at Weblog Bahamas, explained why he thought the cut was a good idea:
In case we're not looking, the country is now in debt to the tune of approximately $5 billion.
Assuming our total population is 350,000, that's $14,285 per person.
If we divide it among a working population of say 150,000. That's about $33,000 each.
These numbers are astounding and worsening with each passing year, so something has to be done.
Sure it sounds cold hearted, but either the government starts to find ways to cut back expenditures or we all might have a much higher price to pay. Cyprus comes to mind.
Still, he was a bit sceptical as to whether the government would actually follow through:
The question is, will government stick to its guns and cut back in other places or is this the typical political trial balloon?
Another thing the government should do is pass a Constitutional Amendment restricting deficits and borrowing and a balanced budget.
It seems just a short while ago that most people had to work to pay their way through college. Today we take it for granted our way should be subsidised.
Where did we go wrong?
The post caused an emotional reaction on the blog's Facebook page; Lowe defended his position in a follow-up post:
Subsidies must be paid for. Either by COB creating their own revenue stream through studies etc or by everyone paying more taxes. The Government borrowing money to subsidise at the expense of future generations is unsustainable.
The concentrated benefits (COB students in this case) and dispersed costs among all citizens, is simply unfair to the general public that is on the hook for the taxes.
What prevents like minded people (people that see the value in education, COB Alumni etc) starting a fund to donate to COB to help pay for the needy students? Seems to me that would be a better way?
A day later, Blogworld posted a link to a press statement by The College of The Bahamas Union of Students, making the point that “the press in general has focused on one small part of the document”, [the union's foiled protest on Parliament over the issue] but that the bigger picture is “the value we place on the young adults in our society who have chosen to educate themselves at home, and the value we place on their place in our so-called democracy.”
The blogger, Nicolette Bethel, highlighted some of the key points of the statements that particularly stood out for her; in another post, she quoted from an article which suggests that “the thing being made in a university is humanity…what universities, at least the public-supported ones, are mandated to make or to help to make is human beings in the fullest sense of those words — not just trained workers or knowledgeable citizens but responsible heirs and members of human culture.”
Finally, she wrote a post about her take on the issue, examining the situation from the perspective of the student body:
Over the past several weeks, the College of The Bahamas Union of Students has worked tirelessly to resist the college’s proposal to raise fees in response to proposed government cutbacks in subvention.
Their work has included attempts to meet or speak with senior administration, with the college council, with the minister of education, and with the minister of state for finance. Their most recent press release may be found here; I encourage those people who may be quick to dismiss the students for their passion to read it, as it will show you another side of them, and may encourage us to treat them with the respect that is due to adults who are legitimately questioning their rights to participate in our democracy and their place in our society.
Bethel continued:
I will be the first person to say that, given the fact that our society has decided that the only education offered freely to its citizens is that which stops at the secondary level, I am not opposed to the principle of raising tuition. Here are my reasons.
In the beginning, the government was the primary subsidizer of tertiary-level education. Fees were never non-existent, but until 1998, they were a mere $25 per credit hour. The result was the persistent underfunding of the institution.
In 1998, recognizing the move to university and the development of bachelor’s degree courses, the college raised tuition over the course of three years from the $25 per credit hour to the present $100 per credit hour for lower-level (100-200) courses, and $150 per credit hour for upper-level (300-400) courses.
No other increases in tuition have been applied since 2000. Students today still study for the same cost as students in 2000, but the purchasing power of the Bahamian dollar today is worth only 80¢ of the 2000 dollar. The tuition increase originally proposed by the college administration (from $100 to $120 per credit hour) can be seen as merely making up for that lost revenue. But that is not all. Not only does the 2013 Bahamian dollar buy 20% less than the 2000 dollar, what students get for that price is considerably more than what students got in 2000. Tuition for the college has not increased in that time, but what is provided to the students has consistently been expanded over the past 13 years.
She went on to explain:
I can see the rationale behind the increase. All things being equal, I would even support it, even though I am theoretically persuaded by arguments that tertiary level education is worth being fully subsidised by our government. My pragmatic perspective in this country at this point in time recognizes that our culture, so heavily influenced by the USA, tends to devalue those things that we do not pay for; on the contrary, the more we pay for something here in The Bahamas, the more we tend to respect it.
That said, however, I do not support the principle of raising incidental fees in an attempt to recover costs.
Why?
In the first place, student amenities at the college are sub-standard, even with all the improvements; in the same period of time, although the investment in tuition and the quality of education has improved, changes in student life have been mixed.
In the second place, the pervading attitude towards students on campus appears to be that they are a necessary evil—or, to use more gentle language, that they are simply overgrown, misbehaving high-schoolers who should be seen and not heard, and who should be deferential to their elders, accepting of whatever treatment is meted out to them, unquestioning of inefficiencies, and uncritical of mediocrity. Unlike the quality of the education provided at the College (which is, against all odds, high—and some of the best value for money in the hemisphere), the quality of student (and faculty) life is low. To ask students to pay additional fees without addressing these shortcomings is asking a bit much.
Blogworld added:
I said…that all things being equal, I would support an increase in tuition fees. For example, if that increase was linked to the College’s full and legal transition to university status, I would have no quarrel with the proposal. But it is not. It is a desperate move on the part of a college administration faced with drastic and untenable cuts to its subvention to find ways to maintain the services currently being offered.
So to me, the real question is whether or not The Bahamas as a whole, and its representative, the government, sees any real value in Bahamian tertiary-level education.
As many have said before me, there is something fundamentally visionless and absurd about the government’s proposed reduction of the COB subvention. While the government itself is faced with the need to reduce its own expenditure by the 25%-over-two-years that it is passing onto its agencies, it is not making those cuts across the board; certain agencies have been deemed to be exempt. That the College of The Bahamas, poised by promise on the verge of the university status that the government has yet to grant it, is not also exempt speaks volumes to the place of the intellect in Bahamian society, and to the real commitment of the government to Bahamian university education.
She finally came to this conclusion:
These facts, together with the relative lack of outrage about the government’s proposal to cut COB’s subvention, suggest that the Bahamian government, together with the society that supports it, does not in fact take the idea of Bahamian higher education seriously at all. What the College of The Bahamas is being asked to do, at the same time as it is being moved to university status, is to cut just under $6.25 million from its current budget over the next 2 years. This is to be done ‘without any reduction in quality and level of services to the public’.
Sleight of hand and double-speak aside, what the government has just demanded the college do is carry water in a sieve. Do I object to the raising of fees for tertiary education? In principle, no. But when this is the only way in which the services currently provided can hope to be maintained, I am left with grave and serious questions about the proposal indeed.
In an interesting twist, another blogger at Weblog Bahamas agreed:
The PLP Government is wrong to cut funding to the College of The Bahamas for several reasons (including…the fact that the Prime Minister said as recently as last month that they would do nothing to ‘compromise education’). I will focus on what I believe is the most important reason: the proven impact of public spending on education on a country's economic growth.
In The Bahamas, we are saddled with a host of challenges, not the least of which is our declining educational standards, steadily weakening workforce and loss of skills. This is not the time to take funding away from our only tertiary institution.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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China Earthquake Donation Protected by Spell · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Hong Kong based inmediahk.net's Facebook page shared an image circulated widely on Chinese social media which shows spells written on money, that says, “This is a donation for a Ya'an earthquake victim, those who dare to misuse this money will go to hell.”
Last week Hong Kong's legislature denied a donation call for China's earthquake victims due to the overwhelming opposition by Hong Kong citizens, who feared the money would end up feeding corrupt Chinese government officials instead of going to people in need.


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Do All Miss Korea Contestants Look Alike? · Global Voices
Lee Yoo Eun

The web was abuzz over the photo of 20 of South Korean pageant contestants who all look uncannily alike, and jeering comments were made against South Korean women's beauty standards. However, some Korean net users, pointing out some media coverage can be misleading, posted another photos of contestants which people can tell them apart and explained that it is more of the ‘photoshop’ issue- the overuse of airbrushing.

author: Lee Yoo Eun


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Open Letter to Blogger Yoani Sánchez · Global Voices
Firuzeh Shokooh Valle

Journalist and Global Voices author, Leila Nachawati, writes an open letter [es] to Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez, who has been touring the United States, Latin America and Europe talking about Cuban technopolitics. Sánchez has been embraced by some, and criticized by others during her voyage. In her open letter, the Spanish-Syrian blogger Nachawati refers to some of Sánchez's comments on the Spanish state and society:
I was struck by your admiration towards the policies and institutions of this country [Spain]. I cannot deny that you may value aspects that pass unnoticed to many of us who live live here, but the truth is that our reality is far from a mirror to want to look into. I think we are far from being a model to follow or a formula to imitate.

author: Firuzeh Shokooh Valle


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Iran: Investors Swarm Ahmadinejad over Losses · Global Voices
Farid

According to Payvand site and several bloggers, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was swarmed by a group of Iranians protesting the loss of their money in the Tabriz Nasr Secured Loans Fund.

author: Farid


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Lenin Paladines: Science Fiction from Ecuador · Global Voices
Gina Yauri

With his blog [es] about science fiction, the young writer from Loja, Lenin Paladines, keeps his passion for writing alive while working to promote reading among young people.
When he was 19 Lenin won the Ángel Felicísimo Rojas novel prize, awarded by the House of Ecuadorian Culture [es] in 2010, for his only novel that had been published at that time: El Diario de Lorenzo (Lorenzo's Diary). Lenin, a student of Social Communication at the Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja [es] and a Law student at the Universidad Nacional de Loja [es], has other works that still have not been published.
We talked to Lenin about his life, his experience as a writer and his blog.
Lenin Paladines talking to Global Voices. Photo by Gina Yauri.
Mi mamá trabaja en una biblioteca. Ella siempre me llevaba allá. No me gustaba jugar con niños de mi edad sino encerrarme con los libros. Toda la vida he vivido rodeado de libros; desde ahí nace la cuestión de escribir.
My mom worked at a library. She would always bring me there. I didn't like to play with the kids my age, I preferred to close myself in with the books. I've lived my whole life surrounded by books; that's where writing comes from.
Es una forma de expresar lo que puedes, porque el problema de la mayor parte de las personas es no tener los medios para poderlo hacer, aprovechando la manera de contarles a los demás lo que uno tiene por dentro.
It is a way of expressing what you can, because the problem that the majority of people have is not having a way to do that; it is making the most of the method to tell everyone else what you have inside.
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Uno tiene una idea, pero las cosas o los personajes van apareciendo a medida que se va trabajando, sin que se lo haya planificado la mayor parte del tiempo.
You have an idea, but the things or the characters appear while you are working, without it being planned most of the time.
No es tanto que te dedicas a escribir, sino es ponerse a leer. Desde el punto de vista del lector nunca se va a terminar de leer. Sí, es interminable.
It is not so much that you focus on writing, but that you spend time reading. From the point of view of a reader, you will never stop reading. Yes, it is never-ending.
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Sí, cada libro te permite conocer lugares que nunca imaginaste y te permite sentir de alguna manera lo que ese escritor quiso dejarte en especial.
Yes, each book allows you to learn about places that you never imagined and it allows you to feel in some way what that writer wanted to leave especially for you.
El poder incentivar la lectura en mis amigos y que estos me digan que les ha servido de algo.
Being able to encourage reading among my friends and that they tell me that it was worth it to them in some way.
No es culpa de la tecnología. Es cierto que la gente no lee, pero para incentivar a la lectura es necesario hacer buen uso de la misma, buscar la manera atractiva de la tecnología para que las personas lean. Una forma es el hipertexto que se complementa con información extra a la lectura.
It is not technology's fault. It is true that people don't read, but to encourage reading we have to make good use of it, we must find the attractive technological way so that people read. One way is hypertext that complements the reading with extra information.
Ecuador está mucho más atrás en comparación con otros países. En Guayaquil y en Quito hay clubes de lectura, en otros países son mucho más común. Es importante que las personas se den cuenta que leer es importante para poder avanzar.
Ecuador is far behind compared to other countries. In Guayaquil and in Quito there are reading clubs; in other countries they are much more common. It is important for people to realize that reading is important to be able to move forward.
Tarde o temprano se darán cuenta que es necesario leer. Y otro es que los profesores deberían incentivar con el ejemplo en el ámbito de la lectura; necesitan forman profesionales integralmente completos, no sólo teóricos o formación técnica, que les permitan desarrollar otro tipo de competencias.
Sooner or later they will realize that reading is necessary. And another thing is that professors should lead by example in the area of reading; they need to produce professionals that are well-rounded, not just with theories or technical training, they should allow them to develop other types of abilities.
Lenin keeps up his blog Este lugar… Donde el horizonte no es más que el principio de esa dimensión que nunca encontramos (This place… Where the horizon is no more than the beginning of that dimension that we never find) [es], where he writes about science fiction, which is what he is most passionate about. He also reads and follows other blogs, like Tejiendo el mundo [es], Raguniano el blog para el libre pensamiento [es], El Blog de Laura [es] y Fumamos de gorra, y no por necesidad [es].
Escribo regularmente columnas para un periódico de la ciudad, pero lamentablemente los periódicos tienen esquemas demasiado cuadrados y restringidos que no te permiten ir más allá, como por ejemplo escribir narrativa dentro de las columnas de opinión. Eso sumado a los problemas de límites en cuanto a la extensión de la escritura y sobre todo a la posibilidad de que más gente me lea me hizo decidirme a abrir un blog.
I regularly write columns for a newspaper in the city, but unfortunately newspapers have guidelines that are too square and restricting and don't allow you to go further, like for example writing a narrative in the opinion columns. That, added to the problems of limits on how long the piece can be, and above all the possibility that more people would read me, made me decide to start a blog.
Me ha ayudado en el sentido de aprender la responsabilidad de tener un blog. Actualmente cualquiera podría tener uno y escribir sobre lo que se le dé la gana sin ningún problema o filtro editorial, para eso es Internet. Pero la responsabilidad que tú tienes al estar tu nombre expuesto a que cualquiera lo revise y cualquiera critique tu trabajo hace que te fijes más en pequeños detalles y realices mejor tu trabajo.
It has helped me in the sense that I have learned the responsibility of having a blog. These days anyone can have one and write about whatever he or she wants with no trouble and no editorial filter – that is what the Internet is for. But the responsibility that you have with your name on it, so that anyone can look at it and criticize your work, makes you focus more on small details and do a better job.
Mantenerme escribiendo sobre todo, porque si uno no escribe se olvida de cómo hacerlo, y promover el hábito de la lectura entre los jóvenes.
Above all that I keep writing, because if you don't write you forget how to do it, and encouraging the habit of reading among young people.
Que en el blog podrán encontrar literatura joven interesante, original, que busca utilizar las bondades de las nuevas tecnologías para mejorar los niveles de lectura en los chicos.
That in the blog they can find young, interesting and original literature that tries to use the good things about new technology to improve the reading levels of young people.
Close to finishing his two university degrees, Lenin is a little more on track for working in education.
You can follow him on Twitter: @lvpaladines

author: Gina Yauri


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Marijuana in China · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Chengdu Living has an interesting post on the potential disappearance of relatively free weed smoking atmosphere in China as the police has recently started to crack down on Marijuana trade.


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Ukraine’s TVi Saga: 31 Journalists Resign · Global Voices
Veronica Khokhlova

On FT.com's beyondbric blog, Graham Stack writes [en] about the “murky takeover” and “a tangled history of offshore ownership” of the Ukrainian TV station TVi, 31 of whose journalists resigned [uk] on April 29.


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Ukrainian Lawmakers Propose to Ban Abortions  · Global Voices
Tetyana Bohdanova

In early April, three MPs from the opposition political force “Svoboda” [“Freedom”] registered a bill that would ban abortions in Ukraine. The only exceptions foreseen in the proposal included cases when the pregnancy threatened a woman’s life, when a fetus had grave pathologies, and when the pregnancy was proven to have resulted from rape. This initiative comes only a year since the Ukrainian lawmakers’ last attempt to ban abortions.
In the explanatory note to the bill, the authors of the proposal justified the need for such restrictions with the following arguments [uk]:
Despite the declining tendency, the level of abortions in Ukraine remains among the highest in Europe and amounts to 21.1 abortions per 1,000 women of childbearing age; 45.8 abortions per 100 pregnancies or 84 abortions per 100 births.
[…]
It must be noted, that [when the previous regulations on abortions were adopted] the following fact was not taken into consideration: according to a series of scientific medical researches, a child that is being aborted experiences the same level of suffering as a grown up person who is being tortured to death. Moreover, abortions have negative consequences on the psychological and physical health of all those involved.
[…]
In most [regions] of Ukraine, the number of deaths is nearly three times the number of births. During the last 20 years, the population of Ukraine has decreased by 5 million people (from 52 to 47 million). If such demographic dynamics persist, in a few years immigrants, mostly from Asia, would constitute the majority of the Ukrainian people.
One of the major reasons behind such discontenting demographic tendencies is the legality of abortions.
The lawmakers also stressed the negative attitude toward abortions shared [ru] by all Christian churches of Ukraine.
The proposal has proven quite controversial and sparked active discussions both online and offline.
Many commentators immediately focused on the issue of proving the occurrence of rape in court. Reporters of a major Ukrainian TV channel, TSN, noted that only 10 percent of rape charges become court cases and asked Olexandr Sych, one of the bill’s authors, what a woman should do if she became pregnant but failed to prove the fact of rape. The MP replied [uk]:
I do not work in the law enforcement and do not know what a woman can or cannot prove… But first of all, [she] should lead such a lifestyle as to not be exposed to the risk of rape. In particular, [she should not be] drinking alcohol beverages in a questionable company.
This excerpt was widely circulated online and discussed on Facebook by regular users, journalists and activists.
User Serhiy Masliuchenko wrote [uk]:
This law is yet another attempt of the state and the bureaucrats to interfere with an individual’s life… when [they] lack brains to do something about the economy, science, education, ecology, [they] invent laws like this one […]
User Vasyl Martyuk disagreed [uk]:
I do not consider “Svoboda” to be a cure-for-all, but I support this bill! Ukraine as one of the leaders in the number of abortions – this is terrible!
Facebook user Andrey Anthony wrote [ru]:
Before proposing such laws [you] should restore the order in the country. How can you propose such initiatives in a state where there aren’t even any roads, no rule of law, and endless corruption around? […]
User Elena Bondarenko wrote [ru]:
[This is just] another opportunity for gynecologists to [make a fortune from] underground abortions!!! Are there too few newborns found in dumpsters? Too few in [orphanages]? IDIOTS!! Create social and economic conditions for parenthood, not restrictions!!!
User Marianna Goncharova commented [ru]:
This is one of those cases where gender-sensitive approach is needed. Why is this issue being raised by men? […]
User Vitaliy Diachenko mocked the proposal [uk]:
Svoboda should adopt another law where their members are prohibited from having sex, unless they obtain a written document certifying that the sole intention behind this sexual act is [procreation].
User Yevgeniy Ikhelzon wondered [ru] why so little public reaction followed the introduction of the bill:
[What a] paradox, people who resent Muslims making women wear headscarves, calmly accept deputies attempting to ban abortions […].
Journalist Iryna Slavinska criticized the proposal [uk]:
[…] to fight the high numbers of unwanted pregnancies, sex education should be introduced in schools and there must be places where condoms and oral contraceptives are disseminated free of charge, instead of putting a ban on abortions.
Many users addressed the moral and ethical aspects of abortions. In particular, such a discussion took place on the Facebook page of a physician and activist Evgeny Komarovsky.
User Yulia Zheleznova wrote [ru]:
Those commenting here, unfortunately, have not convinced me otherwise, but only strengthened my previously held convictions. Regrettably, in our modern society there are so many women who do not consider not only the morals aspects of abortions, but even the elementary [issues] of their own health. […] There are no arguments to justify murder. Full stop.
Adding to the same discussion, user Olga Shandra wrote [ru]:
I think abortion is a choice of every individual woman, [based on] her moral and ethical principles, and definitely not the MPs, psychologists, public moralizers and so on.
User Enela Adonieva wrote [ru]:
I am against abortions. But a woman should have a choice. And it is not to be made by politicians.
Currently, abortions in Ukraine are legal until the 12th week of pregnancy (the 22nd week in emergency cases). Ukraine is one of the leading countries in Europe in the annual number of abortions, although there is a clear downward tendency. “Abortion tourism” from the neighboring countries where the laws are more restrictive, such as Poland, has also been documented.

author: Tetyana Bohdanova


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Brazil: Police Condemned for the Carandiru Massacre · Global Voices
Fernanda Canofre

[All links lead to Portuguese-language pages unless otherwise noted.]
More than 20 years after the rebellion in São Paulo’s Carandiru Penitentiary, which ended with the deaths of 111 inmates and became known as the ‘Carandiru Massacre’, 23 military police have been condemned to 156 years in jail for a total of 13 fatalities.
After two postponements, the first part of the trial – which lasted a week in total – was concluded on 21 April, 2013, with the sentence read by judge José Augusto Nardi Marzagão.
Minutes after the announcement of the sentence, #Carandiru had already become a Trending Topic on Twitter in Brazil, with internet users commentating on the result of the trial which came a whole 20 years after the event concerned.
The internet was divided on opinion. Across the official profile of rap group Racionais MCs (@RacionaisCN), well-known for their lyrics which often portray life behind bars, there was a mood of celebration:
Law students from the University of São Paulo (USP) place 111 crosses in front of the law faculty in the centre of the city in memory of the prisoners killed by military polive at Candiru in 1992. Photo by Marcelo Camargo, Agência Brasil (CC BY 3.0)
Justiça!! Massacre do Carandiru: 91% lembram, mas só 10% creem em prisão.
http://bit.ly/Z1QKM0 via @revistaforum
Justice! Carandiru massacre: 91% remember but only 10% believe the prison [of police officers]. http://bit.ly/Z1QKM0 via @revistaforum
However, there was also a great number who protested against the judgement:
@DarioAlvesLima: policiais do Carandiru condenados, que Justiça é essa sempre a favor dos bandidos e contra a população sofrida e cumpridora dos Impostos.
@DarioAlvesLima: police condemned for Carandiru, Justice is always in favour of the bandits and against the poor old tax-payers
@leraffaelli: Os policiais que estão sendo julgados pelo massacre do Carandiru, deveriam receber medalhas ao invés de pena!!!
@leraffaelli: the police being condemned for the Candiru massacre should instead be receiving medals rather than punishments!
Twenty years on without a sentence
On 2 October, 1992, a game of football in Carandiru ended with a fight breaking out between prisoners from rival gangs, resulting in the seizure of ‘Pavillion 9’. In an attempt to stop the inmates, 300 police officers from São Paulo’s Military Police invaded the prison and quashed the rebellion under the command of police chief Ubiratan Guimarães [en]. The outcome of this was the death of 111 prisoners [en].
Image of the old penitentiary complex. Public domain.
In 2000, eight years after the conflict, police chief Ubiratan was the first of the 120 accused to be judged. Yet, a mere two years after being condemned to 623 years in prison, Ubiratan was elected State Deputy. The vacancy guaranteed to the police tribunal was restricted and, in 2006, he was officially pardoned by a ‘special organ of the Tribunal of Justice’, which claimed that he was only doing his duty in ordering the invasion of the prison. As Ubiratan took sole responsibility for the order to invade, the State Governor, Luiz Antonio Fleury Filho, and the Secretary of Public Security, Pedro Franco de Campos, were exempted from the process. Fleury testified on Tuesday, 16 April 2013, that he had held ‘political responsibility’ and defined the actions of the military police as ‘legitimate.’
In the era during which the Massacre of Carandiru took place, the penitentiary housed an incarcerated population of nearly 9000 prisoners. This was almost triple the amount it was meant to contain at maximum capacity. The economist and blogger Luiz Cezar, who had visited the place several days before the insurrection, remembers the confession of Ismael Pedrosa, director of the penitentiary:
Ao lado do ex-deputado Álvaro Fraga, ouvi do diretor um relato desesperançado sobre a falta de recursos, a impossibilidade de separação de detentos e a confissão de que a qualquer momento “a panela de pressão iria arrebentar”.
At the side of the ex-deputy Alvaro Fraga, the director listened to a desperate account on the lack of excuses, the impossibility of separation of the prisoners and the confession that at any moment “the pressure cooker could explode.”
In the documentary “Carandiru’s Bloody Memories”, posted on Vice News website, an ex-agent of the prison uses powerful imagery to portray daily life inside the biggest penitentiary in Latin America. The agent, who referred to several rebellions inside Carandiru, revealed that in the case of a prisoner rebellion, to effectively control it was nigh on impossible. On any given day in Pavillion 9, there were between 2-3 agents responsible for the oversight of more than 1,800 prisoners.
Homage to the 20th anniversary of the Carandiru Massacre in São Paulo. Photo by veredaestreita/ Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
With around 550,000 people living behind bars, and being home to the fourth biggest population of incarcerated people in the world, this trial has given Brazil the opportunity to deal with one of the worst chapters of its recent history. Most of the people responsible for the massacre continue to work as public servants without any type of penalty. The delay of the trial was with many of the crimes ordered, leaving only 79 of the 300 police officers thus subject to trial. In the Corte Interamericana de Direitos Humanos (Interamerican Court of Human Rights), the case was classified as an ‘an unpunished crime’.
Yet the condemned could still appeal against their sentence, and there exists a great possibility that the police officers will have to serve only 3% of their sentence. One of the main prosecutors in the case, Fernando Pereira da Silva, suggests that the sentence thus serves as a form of appeasing society:
Tínhamos a preocupação de a população entender que a vida do ser humano não é descartável. A invisibilidade social daqueles indivíduos, presos à época de um massacre, não pode prevalecer sobre o descumprimento da lei.
The concern for our population is to understand that the life of a human being is not worthless. The social invisibility of these individuals – prisoners at the time of the massacre – cannot prevail over the failure of the law.
As journalist and blogger Leonardo Sakamoto writes, a country like Brazil is not used to punishing the past:
Momentos como o julgamento que se encerrou nesta madrugada são importantes para que a sociedade consiga saldar as contas com seu passado, revelando-o, discutindo-o, entendendo-o. Para evitar que ele aconteça de novo.
Mais do que um país sem memória e com pouca Justiça, temos diante de nós um Brasil conivente com a violência como principal instrumento de ação policial.
Moments like this result are important for society because it allows us to deal with our past; revealing it, discussing it and understanding it. This will hopefully mean that this type of event does not happen again.
As well as being a ‘forgetful’ country and possessing a weak justice system, we are now faced with a Brazil which uses violence as the principal instrument of political action.
This was proved in a survey undertaken by instituto Datafolha which revealed that the bloody memory of Carandiru is still alive in Brazilian society with 91% of the population claiming to remember the case. Yet, in the interim years, the percentage of people who say they approve the actions of the police has increased from 29% to 36%.
Of the 26 policemen accused in April 2013, 23 were condemned and three were pardoned at the request of the prosecution. In this first part of the trial, the officers were supposed to be judged for the deaths of 15 prisoners, however, two fatalities were excluded from the records because the reports suggested that their deaths were caused by white arms and not firearms.
The decision of the first tribunal may or may not influence the results of the following trials of the remaining 53 military police. Of the 84 accused, 79 are still living but, as was declared in a public notice from Amnesty International, the condemnation “represents an important step in the confrontation against the impunity which so often comes hand-in-hand with the serious violation of human rights, especially when concerning the Brazilian penitentiary system.”
Apesar dos 20 anos de espera, a sentença (…) sinaliza que justiça brasileira não irá admitir abusos cometidos pelo estado contra a população carcerária.
Mesmo sem a responsabilização das altas autoridades do Estado de SP à época do massacre, como o governador e o secretário de segurança, a Anistia Internacional acredita que este resultado é um passo importante na garantia de justiça para as vítimas, seus familiares e sobreviventes do Carandiru.
Despite the 20 years of wait, this sentence…signifies that the Brazilian justice system still will not admit abuses committed by the state against the incarcerated population. Even without holding to account the high authorities of the state of Sao Paulo at the time, such as the governor and the secretary of security, Amnesty International believes that this result is an important step towards justice for the victims, their families and the survivors of Carandiru.

author: Fernanda Canofre


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Campesino Resistance in Honduras · Global Voices
Silvia Viñas

Chavelo’s voice was quiet but unwavering as [he] expressed his gratitude that we traveled all the way from the U.S. and Canada with the human rights and solidarity organization Rights Action to hear his story. […] Chavelo recounted briefly how he ended up in the prison, emphatically stating that, “I have been in prison for five years for a crime I did not commit. I am not a thief or an assassin. I never took anything from anyone.”
Upside Down World shares Lauren Carasik's article: “The Criminalization of Campesino Resistance in Honduras: Chavelo’s Story”

author: Silvia Viñas


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Cartoon: Girls Prevented from Leaving Kyrgyzstan · Global Voices
Alexander Sodiqov

Art group ‘705’ has produced a two-minute animation film on the increasing social restrictions that girls and women in Kyrgyzstan face in trying to leave the country in search of work.
The artists describe [ru] their film, ‘Did Not Let Go,’ as follows:
A father had a bad dream which now troubles him. So, he decides that his daughter will not travel anywhere. He takes away her passport and air tickets while she is sleeping, but the daughter takes the documents back. Finally, the father decides to lock his daughter at home to prevent her from leaving.
Thousands of girls and women leave the Central Asian country every year, mainly for Russia, where some of them are subjected to ‘patriotic’ attacks from their male counterparts from Kyrgyzstan. A member of the Kyrgyz parliament has recently proposed a bill that would ban girls under 23 years of age from leaving the country without parental consent in order to ‘protect’ them.
NewEurasia.net has more on the new art by group ‘705’. The group became popular in Kyrgyzstan and some other countries in Central Asia by producing animation films that address the role and status of women in a patriarchal society.

author: Alexander Sodiqov


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EU Seal Ban Maims Indigenous Way of Life in the Arctic · Global Voices
Rachael Petersen

A European Union court in Luxembourg has upheld its ban on the commercial trade of seal products despite a challenge from Canada's Inuit and several Canadian lawmakers that it cripples the indigenous people's ability to make a living.
The court's decision on 25 April, 2013 came after the Inuit Tapirii Kanatami and 20 other Inuit and sealing rights groups petitioned to overturn the seal ban, pointing out the importance of the seal hunt to Arctic dwellers for meat and income, critical in light of the increasingly high cost of living in the north.
The ban, enacted in 2009, prohibits the sale of seal meat, pelt, and oils. Though it includes an exemption for indigenous sealers, critics argue that the exemption has failed because the price of seal pelts has plummeted since the introduction of market restrictions.
Leona Aglukkaq (@leonaaglukkaq), a Conservative Party member of Canada's Parliament, regional minister for the North in Canada, and Inuk herself, slammed the court's decision:
@leonaaglukkaq: “Ban on seal products adopted in the EU was a political decision that has no basis in fact or science #sustainablehunt-http://t.co/ejMOAYIU9E”
Canadian lawmakers are next slated to challenge the seal ban within the World Trade Organization (WTO), proposing that it “amounts to an illegal restriction of trade.” Norway also stated it would confront the WTO on the seal ban.
The seal hunt is one of the most stigmatized hunts in the world, with opponents evoking brutal images of clubbed baby seals. Organizations from the US Humane Society, PETA, and the International Fund for Animal Welfare have launched campaigns against the Canadian industry.
The EU cited concerns that seal hunted methods caused pain and distress to the animals. European leaders who brought the ban into force in 2009 called the seal hunt “cruel, inhumane, and unacceptable.”
Inuit of Nunavut prepare a seal skin for clothing. Photo by Rachael Petersen
However, the seal hunt ban is dealing a terrible blow to Inuit communities, which utilize all parts of the animal for food and clothing.
Canadian Marine biologist Dr. Alan Emery commented on anti-sealing initiatives on his blog over a year ago:
While the intentions of the anti-seal activists are laudable, in at least the case of the Inuit people, the indiscriminate strategy of undermining the market for sealskin has had a profoundly negative impact on the Inuit people who do not really have an option to move to a second income source. This has resulted in an increased loss of income and added to food insecurity for the Inuit people. …The Inuit people have been dealt some very damaging blows: most Inuit families have been forced by government fiat to give up their semi-nomadic lifestyles and instead live in settlements provided by the government. The provided housing is of poor standards and there are relatively few opportunities to make a living in their “modern” settlements so most Inuit families are living a substandard Canadian lifestyle.
The government of the northernmost Canadian territory of Nunavut conducted an analysis of the effects of the EU ban on Inuit. The full study can be downloaded in full here [iu, en]. The report pointed out:
Seal hunting has been a cornerstone of Inuit culture, nutrition and survival in the Arctic for millennia. Since the introduction of the cash economy in the Canadian Arctic, seal hunting has also been an important factor in the socio-economic well-being of Inuit. Seal hunting in Nunavut occurs year-round and is an important part of daily life in every coastal community.
Hunting seal near Igloolik, Nunavut. Photo by Rachael Petersen
The European Bureau for Conservation and Development conducted a study investigating the impact of the EU seal ban on the Inuit of Greenland, concluding similarly that:
the EU seal ban is destroying the sealskin market and undermining the traditional way of life of thousands of indigenous people who depend on marine resources for their livelihood.
Madeline Redfern (@madinuk), the former mayor of Nunavut's capital of Iqaluit and president Ajungi Arctic Consulting, a group of Arctic public policy experts, echoed these sentiments in a series of tweets on 25 April, 2013 following the EU's ruling:
@madinuk: Animal rights target vulnerable minorities, usually indigenous ppls animal byproducts/economies – easier than mainstream products.
@madinuk: Dangerous precedent. EU legislators accepted animal rights agenda based on cultural prejudices~who/what minority product is next?!
@madinuk: EU seal ban isn't just bad for Inuit its bad for any/all animal producer/user b/c based on ‘morality’ not science/sustainability
Social media has been a powerful tool in bringing to light the reality of traditional hunting practices in the North. Maatalii Okalik (@maatalii), president of Ottawa Inuit Children's Centre, tweeted a photo of Inuit youth from Nunavut promoting the seal hunt on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on 24 April, 2013:
Inuit of Nunavut support sealing on Parliament Hill. Image from Twitter user Maatalii Okalik.
A Facebook group “Nunavut Hunting Stories of the Day,” started by a 36-year-old Inuk in Nunavut, now boasts almost 37,000 members across the Canadian North as well as Alaska and Greenland. Indigenous members post photos and videos – both current and historical – and share stories of trips out on the land in the North. The hope is to create awareness of native hunting rights and to teach young people who may not have the chance to go hunting anymore how their elders and ancestors lived.
A grassroots group called “No Seal No Deal” recently formed to defend native sealing rights. According to their site, the group was founded “by a group of Inuit taking part in a grassroots movement to educate the international community about Inuit seal hunting, the seal skin market, and how Inuit are affected by international trade bans on seal products.”
The group is petitioning Canada to refuse granting the EU observer status to the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum that addresses Arctic issues. The Arctic Council includes member states Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland Norway, the Russian Federation, Sweden, and the US. Members of the movement point out the Arctic Council’s 2011 Nuuk Declaration requires observer applicants “demonstrate respect for the aboriginal peoples of the Arctic.” They hold that the EU should be denied entry because of the negative effects of the seal ban on indigenous communities of the North.
No Seal No Deal will submit their petition to Canadian Parliament by 1 May, 2013. You can read more about the  movement on their Facebook page.

author: Rachael Petersen


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Pakistan: Sorry Mobile Users, No Service!  · Global Voices
Sahar Habib Ghazi

Pakistan-based Internet access advocacy group Bolobhi releases a timeline with details of the 12 times mobile services were suspended in the country since April 2012.
The timeline includes “official” reasons cellular services were blocked on each occasion. On most public holidays in Pakistan in 2012, including Eid and Independence day, mobile services were suspended in select cities to maintain “law and order”. Bolobhi maintains mobile “access should not be a victim to national security.” According to the timeline, when mobiles were blocked on Eid in several cities the government lost Rs. 300 million (USD 3 million) in taxes.

author: Sahar Habib Ghazi


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Pavel Durov, Russia’s Zuckerberg, Fights for Control of His Creation · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

Something strange is happening with Vkontakte, Russia’s homegrown version of Facebook. In the last couple of months, the company’s founder and current head, Pavel Durov, has suffered three very public “kicks in the teeth,” one of which might even lead to criminal charges.
The setup
First, on March 27, 2013, there was Novaya Gazeta’s Andrei Kolesnikov, who published [ru] hacked emails supposedly written by Durov and former Vkontakte Press Secretary Vladislav Tsyplukhin, addressed to Vladislav Surkov, the Kremlin’s former chief ideologist. In those emails, Durov and Tsyplukhin indicate Vkontakte’s secret cooperation with federal police to suppress the online organizing efforts of the country’s political opposition in December 2011.
Pavel Durov of Vkontakte speaks during the Digital Life Design conference, 24 January 2012, photo by Hubert Burda Media, CC 2.0.
Second, on April 5, 2013, someone driving a white Mercedes registered to Vkontakte Vice President Ilya Perekopsky disobeyed a police officer [ru] on the streets of St. Petersburg, actually hitting the traffic cop with the front of the car, in a frustrated effort to change lanes. (See dashboard video footage here [ru].) When police pursued, the driver booked it on foot, escaping thanks to the efforts of his private bodyguard, who stayed behind to intervene and prevent a chase. About a week later, police identified Durov as the man behind the wheel. Within days, law enforcement officers descended on Vkontakte’s Petersburg office and Durov’s apartment (though he was present at neither). Shortly thereafter, Petersburg investigators called in Durov for questioning on April 19. When he didn’t show up, investigators called him in again on April 22. Again, the Vkontakte creator was a no-show.
Third, on April 21, 2013, Dozhd Television’s Leonid Parfenov announced [ru] that Durov had relocated to Buffalo, New York, where he is working through a new company called “Digital Fortress” on a new social network that will compete directly with Vkontakte, adding, “It’s clear that [Durov] has no intention of returning to Russia.” Parfenov’s bombshell came four days after a major shakeup [ru] in Vkontakte’s ownership, when investment group United Capital Partners bought up the shares cofounders of Lev Leviev and Viacheslav Mirilashvili (the original startup money behind Durov’s original vision), giving UCP 48% control of the company. UCP’s president, Ilya Shcherbovich [ru], is a man said to have strong ties to the Kremlin, given his seats on the boards of directors at state-owned industrial giants Rosneft and Transneft. In the April 21 television broadcast, Parfenov interviews Shcherbovich and airs a statement from Leviev and Mirilashvili, all of whom deny any hostile intentions against Durov. (Indeed, Shcherbovich says UCP wants to see Durov remain Vkontakte’s head.) After the show, Durov immediately denied [ru] Parfenov’s emigration insinuation and clarified that Digital Fortress is working on a cloud-storage side project that does not compete with Vkontakte.
Russia’s mighty independent media
Reading Westerners’ descriptions of the Russian media is an experience much like looking up the word “bad” in a thesaurus. Critics frequently except from their denunciations certain “respected” newspapers that focus on business, like Kommersant and Vedomosti. Novaya Gazeta is another publication that often gets a pass, thanks largely to its investigative journalists, many of whom have exhibited great bravery over the paper’s twenty-year history. Past Novaya reporters like Anna Politkovskaya (assassinated in 2006) are key to its reputation today as a newspaper many consider to be beyond reproach. In other words, when Novaya Gazeta publishes leaked emails implicating Pavel Durov and Vkontakte in secret cooperation with the Kremlin, it carries the force of Politkovskaya’s ghost and two decades of “speaking truth to power.”
Not everyone sees it that way, however. Anton Nosik, one of the most influential and established figures on the Russian Internet, wrote [ru] on LiveJournal on March 28 that Novaya’s exposé was a lie—an example of mercenary journalism (“zakazukha”). In that post, Nosik cites a series of Novaya Gazeta articles published in 2002 that were in fact part of coordinated media campaigns [ru] by warring business interests.
Leonid Parfenov (with the aid of some CGI) reports that Pavel Durov isn't likely returning to Russia, 21 April 2013, screen capture from YouTube.
On April 5 (the same day as the white Mercedes incident), Novaya published a follow-up [ru] to its March 27 article, this time focusing on Kremlin-cooperation by Tsyplukhin and “The Twitter Journal,” a Web project [ru] that received its $25 thousand startup funding from “Start Fellows”—a grant program administered by Durov and investor Yuri Milner. (Later that day, Tsyplukhin apologized [ru] and admitted that this second batch of leaked emails is genuine.) On April 6, firebrand radio host Yulia Latynina criticized [ru] Nosik’s March 28 comments, calling him a “friend” of Durov’s and highlighting that Nosik’s 2002 zakazukha example is eleven years old. On April 9, Nosik responded again, publishing a 2,500-word monster [ru] on his LiveJournal blog, addressing both Novaya’s more recent past and the details of its suspiciously anti-Durov reporting.
Nosik dissects Novaya
“If this had been any other newspaper,” Nosik writes, “a leak like this coming from a journalist would have been fact-checked by colleagues with some [technical] expertise.” Indeed, Novaya’s March 27 article says nothing about how Kolesnikov obtained the hacked emails, and the paper offers no way to verify their authenticity. Strangely, Novaya presents this sensitive content as image files [ru] containing print-view text, without any DKIM-signature. (The April 5 follow-up leak, featuring emails written by Tsyplukhin but not Durov, did contain the messages’ digital signature data.)
And then there is Durov’s email itself, which begins rather ludicrously:
Как вы знаете, мы уже несколько лет сотрудничаем с ФСБ и отделом «К» МВД, оперативно выдавая информацию о тысячах пользователей нашей сети в виде IP-адресов, номеров мобильных телефонов и другой информации, необходимой для их идентификации.
As you know, we’ve already been working for a few years with the FSB and the MVD’s special division “K,” promptly supplying information about thousands of our network’s users in the form of IP addresses, mobile phone numbers, and other information necessary to identify them.
If Durov—often described as a genius, not unlike Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg—had indeed collaborated with the Kremlin, would he really have announced it so plainly in a letter to Vladislav Surkov? Remarking on this curiosity, Maria Sergeyeva joked [ru] on Facebook that “only the lobotomized” write phrases like “we’re working with the FSB” in official documents. (Sergeyeva also mentions that Surkov is famous for refusing any letters longer than a single sheet of A4 paper, whereas the note allegedly authored by Durov runs a whopping four pages.)
Nosik also takes issue with Novaya’s peculiar presentation. For instance, its April 5 article features 18 emails written by Tsyplukhin about “The Twitter Journal,” but the headline instead takes aim at Durov’s company (“Micro-gods [a play on “microblog” in Russian] Are Vkontakte [In Contact] with Staraya Square [the Presidential Admistration]”), as though Tsyplukhin was scheming on Durov’s behalf. Novaya’s tenuous implication (by pun no less) seems to be that the Start Fellows program incriminates Vkontakte in Tsyplukhin’s dirty dealings with the Kremlin.
Nosik concludes his post with a scathing attack on Novaya Gazeta as a relic of Russian journalism from the 1990s, speculating that certain powerful people have decided at last to poison the country’s burgeoning Internet culture:
А сейчас какие-то люди, для которых ведение чёрных PR-войн является привычным занятием, решили влезть с этой дубиной в Интернет. И мне не очень важно, кто эти негодяи: володинские они, сурковские, малофеевские, или чьи-то ещё. Мне в любом случае не хочется, чтобы они тащили это своё говно в Рунет. Мне хватает Единого реестра и уголовных дел против блоггеров.
But now certain people, for whom running black publicity wars is an ordinary job, have decided to butt in on the Internet with this bludgeon. And it doesn’t matter to me who these scumbags are: Volodin’s people, Surkov’s, Molofeev’s, or someone else’s. Whoever they are, I don’t want them dragging their shit onto the RuNet. I’ve had enough of Internet Blacklists and criminal cases against bloggers.
Not a straightforward conspiracy?
On April 19, after learning that UCP now owns almost half of Vkontakte, Nosik again addressed the scandals surrounding the company, announcing somewhat unexpectedly [ru] that he doesn’t think the shareholders shakeup (which is rumored to have cost UCP roughly $700 million) is the reason for the media campaign against Durov. (Though, Nosik does harbor certain suspicions about UCP’s self-reported $3.5 billion under management, asking distrustfully whose money it is, if none of the investment fund’s five founding partners is worth even a fraction of that.)
Nosik points out that Durov’s partners, Leviev and Mirilashvili, made no secret about their long-held desire to cash out and disinvest from Vkontakte. Indeed, this tension features prominently in Nikolai Kononov’s 2012 book [ru], “Durov’s Code: the Real Story of the Social Network ‘Vkontkate’ and Its Creator.”
Just days later, on April 22, Kononov himself weighed in on Durov’s current crisis, offering five potential conclusions [ru] to the story. In the most probable scenario (which Kononov amusingly assigns a “95% likelihood”), Vkontakte’s majority shareholders sue Durov over his Digital Fortress project (which turns out to be a sleek instant messenger app), and Durov must sell off his remaining Vkontakte shares at a depreciated price to pay the legal damages.
Durov’s enigma
Throughout his tenure at Vkontakte, Pavel Durov has not shied from controversy. In July 2011, after billionaire Alisher Usmanov’s Mail.ru Group expanded its Vkontakte ownership to 39.99%, Durov fought bitterly to maintain control of the company, refusing to acquiesce to Usmanov’s stated desire to buy out Leviev and Mirilashvili. On July 22, Durov posted [ru] to Instagram a photo [ru] of himself gesturing obscenely at the camera, captioned, “[My] official response to the trash-holding [fund] Mail.ru regarding its latest attempt in vain to swallow Vkontakte.” Shockingly, Usmanov backed down [ru], apparently impressed by Durov’s gall (or perhaps instructed by the Kremlin to lay off). In April 2012, Mail.ru Group granted Durov full stewardship of its shares [ru], giving him majority control of Vkontakte, dependent of course on Usmanov’s continued good graces.
http://instagram.com/p/IO0Kd/
Durov's message to the FSB, 8 December 2011. Photo posted to Durov's Twitter account.
In early December 2011 (at precisely the time that Novaya’s article would have us believe he was writing love notes to Surkov), Durov tangled with St. Petersburg’s FSB, which had requested that Vkontatke delete seven groups on its network that were directed at organizing Russians against United Russia at the height of the Winter Protest Movement. Repeating his stunt against Mail.ru Group, Durov went public with the FSB’s request, posting a scan [ru] of the official police petition, along with a humorous image [ru] of a dog wearing a hoodie (reminiscent of Durov’s trademark cartoon dog).
Rather than ban oppositionist groups, Vkontakte actually lifted network restrictions [ru] on its groups, allowing them to host more than the 16,384-posts-per-day limit. Later that night, government investigators and camouflaged police special forces came knocking on his door, demanding entry to his apartment. Durov didn’t let them in, and the authorities left and never returned. (Durov’s bodyguards later told Nikolai Kononov that they nearly opened fire on the police, fearing they might attempt to breach the door by force.)
Days after this incident, Durov penned an open letter [ru] explaining his defiance as an act of business savvy, arguing that the FSB had tried to handicap Vkontakte in an area that foreign social networks operate freely. Clearly uncomfortable with his newfound status as a hero of the protest movement, Durov tried to reclaim his identity as a more ambiguous, business-focused figure:
Те, кто бросились благодарить нас за содействие политическим протестантам, теряют из вида простое обстоятельство. Если бы в те же дни мы стали проигрывать в конкурентной борьбе из-за отсутствия какого-нибудь сервиса виртуальных массовых репрессий, нам бы пришлось ввести и его. И будьте уверены – наши репрессии были бы самыми массовыми и самыми кровавыми на рынке.
Those who rushed at the chance to thank us for aiding the political protesters are losing sight of a simple fact. If in that same period, we’d started to lose our competitive edge because of a lack of some kind of virtual mass repression service, then we’d have introduced one of those, too. And rest assured, our repressions would be the most massive and most bloody on the market.
In yet another stockholders scandal, Durov revealed [ru] in November 2012 that Konstantin Malofeev [ru] (then head of Marshall Capital Partners and a trustee at the League for a Safe Internet) had ordered media attacks on Vkontakte in August earlier that year, exploiting his position at the League to accuse Vkontakte of hosting large amounts of child pornography. Malofeev, it seems, tried and failed as Usmanov had a year before to buy out Leviev and Mirilashvili. Durov says that the media campaign against Vkontakte stopped on a dime the moment that he approached Malofeev for negotiations, and restarted the moment those talks broke down.
Today’s mystery
Western coverage of Durov’s current predicament largely assumes that forces loyal to the Kremlin have swooped down on Vkontakte to claim the country’s biggest social network for federal police, who have clearly demonstrated their interest in controlling the website’s capacity to mobilize opposition sentiments. Miriam Elder of the Guardian writes that recent events have occurred “amid fears the Kremlin is looking to tighten its grip on the Internet,” adding that “Kremlin fears over the Internet have grown since Vladimir Putin returned to the Kremlin last year amid an unprecedented wave of protests.”
Nevertheless, almost half [ru] of Vkontakte has belonged to Mail.ru Group for nearly two years already, and Usmanov’s ownership has been above 30% [ru] since 2010. In all those years, Durov’s reign over the company, however colorful and rebellious, has depended entirely on the support of Russia’s richest oligarch [ru]. That being the case, what does the Kremlin gain from engineering “black PR” attacks on Durov? How does defaming Vkontakte for FSB collaboration “tighten the Kremlin’s grip on the Internet”?
It’s a tired trope in Russian politics to draw stark generational lines when discussing the country’s development. Alexey Navalny did it when he finished two-weeks imprisonment in December 2011 and declared that he’d entered jail in one country and emerged in another. Anton Nosik does it when he labels Novaya Gazeta an antique of the 1990s, and nods to the great mass of the Internet as a media culture reborn. Current attitudes about Pavel Durov and Vkontakte aren’t so different. People want to believe that “the Russian Facebook” and the promise of the Internet represent something new that can bring about a break with the past.
Remember, however, that Dozhd TV—the opposition’s foothold in televised media—was also a willing participant in (or at least enough of a sap to join) the PR campaign against Durov. Moreover, many netizens were ready to believe Novaya’s anti-Durov publications, despite the supposed outmodedness of 1990s journalism in today’s Internet age. Oleg Kashin, for instance, theorized [ru] on April 5 that a staff member working for Surkov’s replacement had spotted the incriminating emails in a random archival sweep and sent them over to Novaya Gazeta for his own entertainment.
Whoever is behind the media campaign and whatever its significance to Russian society, Durov’s legal strategy regarding the traffic incident in St. Petersburg seems to mirror his approach in December 2011, when police first came banging on his doors: he’s simply not answering. According to the Kremlin-friendly daily Izvestia, Durov’s plan could actually pay off. That newspaper published an article [ru] last week on April 26, indicating that Petersburg investigators might close the case on the white Mercedes, if they’re unable to reach Durov by early June. Is this casual speculation, or could it be a message to Durov to stay away? Will he?

author: Kevin Rothrock


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Police Besiege Barcelona District in the Run Up to May 1st · Global Voices
Chris Moya

*All links lead to sources in Spanish unless otherwise stated.
The day before May 1st, the International Day of Workers, during a protest in the Gràcia district of Barcelona, organised by Endavant (a socialist organisation for national freedom) under the slogan “Against the dictatorship of the euro: popular sovereignty” , a hundred protestors went through the district's streets peacefully followed throughout the entire route by 280 riot police, heavily armed with anti-gas masks and shotguns, as well as more than 100 policemen. A total of 40 police vans took to the district causing outrage amongst the community.
Photo of Grácia. Used with permission.
The group 15mbcntv has produced a satirical video condemning the police occupancy of the district:
Policemen in Vila de Gràcia. Photo by @SiitoMellark. Used with permission.
Immediately social networks and blogs were the platform for opinions and comments against the display of force from the new Interior Advisor of the Catalan Government, Ramón Espadaler, and the hashtag #manibrimo [protestRiotforce] was created.
@Informatica_CGT: The police Starship Troopers march in. More than fear, you feel a little bit sorry for them http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS4m9SUe9kQ #maniBRIMO
*Cover photo taken and made available by Sergio Picón.

author: Chris Moya


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Potty-Mouthed Russian Blogger Faces Prison for Ethnic Slurs · Global Voices
Andrey Tselikov

Last week, the SOVA Center for Information and Analysis, a Russian watchdog group that focuses on xenophobia, religion and “government misuse of counter-extremism measures,” drew public attention to a peculiar legal case [ru] in which a blogger from the Republic of Bashkortostan (a small autonomous republic neighboring Tatarstan in southern Russia) was charged with hate speech for a post she published on her Facebook account late last year. SOVA cites the case as an example of misuse of counter-extremism measures, which it defines as [ru]:
[…] действия государства и общественных групп, предпринимаемые в рамках противодействия агрессивному национализму или иным формам неприемлемого радикализма, но фактически направленные преимущественно на неправомерное ограничение гражданских свобод или даже прямо попирающие гражданские свободы.
[…] actions of the state or social groups, taken within the framework of combating aggressive nationalism or other forms of unacceptable radicalism, but in reality aimed mainly at unlawful limiting of civic freedoms or even directly trampling civic freedoms.
According to Bashkortostan's Investigative Committee [ru], the woman in question, Guzaliya Galimova, is in indeed being charged under the now infamous article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code, for “inciting hatred or enmity, as well as denigration of human dignity.” Specifically, she is alleged to have had:
[…] находясь у себя дома разместила в открытом доступе в социальной сети Интернет «Facebook» текст, содержащий негативную информацию в отношении представителей русской национальности, создающую у читающего резко отрицательные психологические установки в отношении другого лица либо группы лиц […]
[…] while in her home, placed into the public domain in the Internet social network “Facebook” a text, containing negative information about members of the Russian nationality, creating in the reader a sharply negative psychological attitudes agaisnt other person or persons […]
What does this mouthful of a formulation mean? It turns out that last year Galimova, formerly a history teacher, went on vacation to Turkey (a popular beach destination among Russians), and came back dissatisfied with the experience. In fact, she was so dissatisfied that when she returned she went straight for her Facebook and wrote a profanity laced diatribe [ru], in which she somewhat unexpectedly blamed Russian women for the various problems she encountered, specifically singling out “Russian” as an ethnicity, rather than a civic identity:
О русских бабах, не о россиянках, а именно о русских бабах! Русское бабье как вас научилась ненавидеть, отдыхая в Турции. Как можно загадить все вокруг и испортить своим поведением менталитет турков мужчин. Еще отдыхая в Чамьюва, испытала на себе все прелести поведения русских сучек, иначе не назовешь.
About [ethnically] Russian broads, not [civically] Russian women, but precisely Russian broads! Russian broads, how I've learned to hate you, vacationing in Turkey. How you can turn everything around you into crap, and spoil the mentality of Turkish men with your behavior. While still at Çamyuva, I experienced the charming conduct of Russian b*tches, no other way to call it.
Russian tourist dancing at a Turkish resort. YouTube screenshot, April 30, 2013.
Galimova continued with a description of “stereotypical” Russian conduct at Turkish hotels — heavy drinking, promiscuous behavior, and being victims of robberies. Later she again emphasized the promiscuity:
[…] русское бабье на охоте за турками. Турки – тоже самое. Мне пришлось даже прибегнуть к помощи охраны, чтобы избавиться от назойливого турка, которому даже повода не давала. Спасибо охране – они четко выполняют свои обязанности. Знаю, что ни один турок не может ко мне прикоснуться без моего желания. […] Идешь и тебе прямым текстом предлагают секс, причем каждый второй. А причина проста как 3 копейки. Русские сучки! Знаете, всегда вношу ясность – я татарка, этим все сказано.
[…] Russian broads hunting Turks. Turks – the same. I had to resort to asking the security to get rid of an annoying Turk who I didn't even give cause [to hit on me]. Thanks to the security – they do their jobs well. I know that no Turk can touch me if I don't wish it. […] You are walking and you simply get offered sex, every second person. And the reason is as simple as three pennies. Russian b*tches! You know, I always make it clear – I'm a Tatar, and that says everything.
Describing herself as a historian, Galimova concluded by hypothesizing that this state of affairs exists because of Russian women who smuggled Turkish goods into the Soviet Union in the late 80s, and had sex in exchange for free merchandise.
The post went viral, and Galimova eventually ended up deleting it (she later removed her entire Facebook profile), but not before it was captured by several other bloggers, one of whom wrote a complaint [ru] to the local prosecutor's office. Galimova later asserted [ru] that the text was part of a “philosophical treatise on Russian women” which she says she wrote 2009.
As vitriolic as it was, it is unclear if such polemic should qualify as “inciting hatred,” or fall under free speech provisions. It is pretty clearly “denigrating human dignity” based on an ethnic distinction. If Galimova had not mentioned her Tatar ethnicity or made such a point to distinguish between ethnic and civic Russianness in her post, it is unlikely that anyone could make it fit under the Article 282. There is also the “public domain” aspect to consider — as usual with the Internet, the line between privately letting off steam and displaying opinions publicly is blurry. But is prosecuting Galimova worth the resources? Probably not. In the end, frivolous cases like this devalue the already controversial Russian hate speech laws.

author: Andrey Tselikov


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Yemeni General Apologizes for 1994 Civil War on Facebook · Global Voices
Noon Arabia

Crowds in Aden city on the anniversary of the declaration of war on southern Yemen (Shared on Twitter via @NajiAlkaladi)
Waving flags of a country that once existed while chanting slogans of independence, thousands assembled in former capital city Aden and other cities that used to make up South Yemen on 27 April 2013, to commemorate the day the north declared war on their people and as some southerners say “occupied” their land in 1994.
The same day, the country's chief military advisor to the President issued a personal apology on Facebook to the people in the south for all “unjust wars” declared by former President Saleh's regime.
South Yemen was an independent socialist state that united with North Yemen in 1990 to form the present-day Republic of Yemen, with Ali Abdallah Saleh as the President of unified Yemen. In 1994, a disgruntled south Yemen demanded its secession from the north due to multiple grievances including its economic marginalization, which resulted in the north taking over south Yemen after a three-month long 1994 civil war.
General Ali Muhsin, the current Military and Security Advisor to President AbduRabu Hadi, who came to power after the Yemeni revolution which paved the for Saleh's exit in 2011, wrote in a Facebook post on his public profile [ar]:
في ذكرى حرب صيف 94 نتوجة بالاعتذار والأسف لإهلنا في جنوب اليمن شخصيا ، كما اعتذرنا لكل الأطراف في اليمن عن كل ممارسات النظام السابق من حروب ظالمة ، والاعتذار الحقيقي قدمه الشعب اليمني لنفسه حين قام بثورة سلمية قضت على طموحات التوريث التي تسببت في ظلم الكثير من ابناء الشعب اليمني جنوبه وشماله .. ون
On the anniversary of the 94 war, we send out an apology and regret to our people in the south of Yemen personally, and all parties in Yemen for all practices in the forms of unjust wars by the former regime; the real apology the Yemeni people presented to themselves when they had a peaceful revolution that eliminated the aspirations of inheritance which caused a lot of injustice to the Yemeni people, both in the north and in the south.
A New York-based human rights activist with Yemeni roots Summer Nasser (@SummerNasser) tweets:
@SummerNasser Ali Mohsen apologizes to the southern people for the war through FACEBOOK. Are you kiidddinnnggg meeeee #Yemen
Twitter user Hussein Al-Yafai (@crazyyafai), a student who lives between the U.S. and Yemen tweets:
@crazyyafai: General Ali Mohsen apologized today for waging a war on #SouthYemen, we want out land and resources back not an apology.
This video uploaded by YouTube user Radfan Almokafeh ردفان المكافح [ar] shows protesters coming out on the streets to mark the nineteenth anniversary of the day the north declared war on the south  on April 27, 1994:
Al-Yafai who describes himself as a lover of human rights in Yemen adds:
@crazyyafai: On this date: April 27 1994 The northern regime declared war on #SouthYemen & turning the beautiful unity into an occupation
@crazyyafai: The results of the war were the occupation of #SouthYemen , taking all of its resources as spoils of war.

author: Noon Arabia