text:
For the first time, a digital security app is available in Aymara thanks to Bolivian language activists · Global Voices
Andrea Chong Bras

Members of Jaqi Aru during an event to translate the digital security app, Orbot, in El Alto, Bolivia. Global Voices interviewed Jaqi Aru Executive Director Edwin Quispe Quispe (Front row: third to the right), General Secretary Rubén Hilare Quispe (Back row: third to the right) and President Victoria Gimena Tinta Quispe (Front row: third to the left). Photo by Localization Lab. Used with permission.
The author of this story is the Community Manager of Localization Lab. She has worked with Jaqi Aru in the project that translated the Orbot app into Aymara.
A community of Aymara language activists from Bolivia has translated the digital security app Orbot to help their community protect themselves online — as well as to make their tongue better represented in cyberspace.
Orbot, a downloadable app for Android, creates a private mobile internet connection by encrypting traffic and hiding it by bouncing through a series of computers around the globe, a useful function when accessing private banking information over public wifi or sending personal information online.
It is the first time this type of app is available to Aymara speakers thanks to Jaqi Aru, a community of volunteers that since 2009 promote Aymara translation and content creation online. The group's past projects include the translation of Facebook's interface, and its ongoing projects include translating articles for Global Voices and promoting translation and content creation in Aymara on Wikipedia.
For the Orbot translation, Jaqi Aru had coordination help from Localization Lab, who works with language communities around the world to make open source technology available for local audiences. For Executive Director Dragana Kaurin, translating tech is as much an issue of common sense as it is an issue of language rights:
Every Internet user needs to worry about protecting themselves online, from protecting their passwords to preventing viruses and securely surfing the web. But talking about digital security can be confusing for a lot of us, and adding a language barrier on top of that can mean preventing people from accessing much-needed technology.
Aymara is an official language of Bolivia and parts of Peru and is spoken in northern Chile and Argentina. It is one of the few indigenous languages of the Americas with more than one million speakers — yet, like many minority languages, its online representation is low.
Rubén Hilare Quispe, general secretary of Jaqi Aru, told Global Voices:
La gente quieren saber como protegerse en el Internet y, ahora que tenemos esta aplicación en nuestra propia lengua, podemos empezar a enseñarles como usarla.
People want to know how to stay safe online, and now that we have this app in our own language, we can start teaching people how to use it.
Rubén remembers a time when speaking his native language was prohibited in the classroom. “In primary school, if we spoke Aymara we would get punished. Everything had to be in Spanish.”
Many studies have attributed the high rates of school abandonment in Bolivia’s rural communities during the 1980s and 1990s to aggressive pro-Spanish language policies that alienated speakers of indigenous languages.
Centuries of colonial rule by Spain coupled with policies that favored Spanish in educational and institutional settings led to severely marginalized indigenous communities. This meant that indigenous languages were “exiled to the home sphere” — leaving many embarrassed to speak native languages in public.
Recent changes to the education system have shifted the focus towards linguistic diversity, but speakers of indigenous languages still face disproportionate levels of discrimination in Bolivia — with serious consequences for the Aymara-speaking people.
Although nearly 17 percent of Bolivians identify as Aymara speakers, the language is considered threatened, with some estimating a 2 percent decline in the number of speakers every year.
Jaqi Aru means “language of the people” or “voice of the people”. Here members of Jaqi Aru collaboratively translate Orbot app into Aymara. Photo by Localization Lab. Used with permission.
Jaqi Aru’s language activists are working hard to reverse this trend. For Executive Director Edwin Quispe Quispe, part of the motivation behind the organization's work draws on deeper questions of identity, language and what it means to be a member of the Aymara community:
Casi en la mayoria de los pensum académico de carerras está introducido lo que es la historia cultural andina. A muchos de nosotros nos genera preguntas sobre la identidad. Nos preguntamos, ¿quiénes somos?¿cuál es nuestra identidad? […] La lengua es nuestra identidad. Si perdemos la lengua, perdmos nuestras tradiciones, nuestra cultura, nuestras historias, nuestros conocimientos ancentrales — perdemos todo.
Almost every university and study tract includes a course on Andean culture and history. For many of us, this generates questions about our own identity. We ask ourselves: Who are we? What is our identity? […] For us, language is our identity. If we lose our language, we lose our traditions, our culture, our stories, our ancestral knowledge — we lose everything.
As rates of Internet penetration continue to rise in different parts of the world, so does the demand for technology in diverse languages. There is a growing need for “localization” [now expired], or the process of adapting content to local audiences.
Naturally, companies only prioritize localization if it benefits their bottom line — profit. Making technology available in minority languages almost never meets this standard, leaving speakers of languages like Aymara relegated to the peripheries of the Internet. Rubén says:
Depende de que lengua nace una herramienta, entonces es la que tiene el privilegio y las otras lenguas carecen de su prescencia como es el caso de la Aymara.
If a tool is developed in a certain language, then that language is given priority. This means other languages, like Aymara, aren´t represented.
According to Kaurin, Orbot developers are working hard to make language access a priority:
The Guardian Project [developers of Orbot app] is really dedicated to making their apps available in as many languages as possible. We have been coordinating the localization of Orbot for a while, and jumped at the chance to collaborate on an event around the Aymara language.
Digital security aside, the members of Jaqi Aru see this app as another way to make sure that Aymara stays alive, grows and gets its deserved space in the online world. When asked what it meant for his community to have an app like this in Aymara, Rubén says:
Hay gente que dice con menosprecio: ¿pero que tienen en Aymara? [Orbot] es una de esas muestras de lo que podemos hacer con la Aymara. La gente ve y dice, “Wow, la Aymara si tiene lugar en las cuestiones tecnológicas”.
There are people who disparagingly say: What is in Aymara? [Orbot] is one of the examples of what we can do in Aymara. People will see it and say, “Wow! Aymara does have a place in technology.”

author: Andrea Chong Bras


text:
Lebanese journalist goes on trial for covering migrant worker abuse allegations · Global Voices
Afef Abrougui

A July 24 demonstration against arrests over online posts in Lebanon. Photo by Hasan Shaaban, used with permission.
Timour Azhari, a journalist at the Lebanese DailyStar newspaper, is facing trial for covering the alleged abuse of an Ethiopian migrant worker at the hands of her employers in Lebanon. Azhari has also written for Global Voices.
In March 2018, Lensa Lelisa alleged that her employers, who run a high-end fashion company, had been abusing her. Desperate to escape, she jumped from the balcony of the second floor, breaking her legs. She later described her experience in a video that was shared widely online.
When she was discharged from hospital, her employers took her back to their house, despite the allegations of abuse. Lelisa later appeared in a TV program where she recanted her story and said that she had accidentally fallen down.
Lensa (left) with her aunt Ganneth (right). Photo shared by friends of Lensa on social media and used with permission.
Migrant domestic workers in Lebanon are forced to work and live in difficult conditions under Lebanon's notorious “kafala” (sponsorship) system. The system grants sponsors (companies or private citizens) a “set of legal abilities” to control workers making them vulnerable to abuse. Without the permission of sponsors, workers cannot change or quit jobs or leave the country. The International Labor Organization, a UN agency, says the system leaves workers vulnerable to forced labor.
After reporting on Lelisa's story, Azhari was charged with defamation over an article published in the DailyStar's online and print editions on March 28, describing Lelisa's allegations against her employers. The case against Azhari also covers journalistic tweets that he posted while covering a protest in front of her employers’ home and workplace for his newspaper.
Under pressure from the authorities, the newspaper later took down the article from its website, though it remains available on Azhari's blog. Another article about the protest is still accessible on the DailyStar's website.
Azhari faces a fine for his reporting. Photo: journalist's Twitter profile.
Azhari was interrogated in June before Lebanon's infamous Cybercrime Bureau. When I spoke with Azhari about the proceeding, he described how an investigator accused him of “taking sides” in the story. Authorities asked him to remove his tweets in relation to Lelisa's case, reasoning that a police investigation had proven her employers to be innocent. Police also seized confidential information from his phone.
Between my questioning and time spent waiting in the interrogation room, I was at the Bureau for 8 hours. My phone was searched, confidential information on an anonymous source was seized from it, and I was made to delete my tweets.
The bureau also asked him to sign a pledge to not speak about the case again, but he refused.
Established in 2006 to strengthen the Lebanese state’s online security capabilities in the digital age, the Cybercrimes Bureau is the avenue through which most of the interrogations of journalists, activists and bloggers over their online publications take place.
Though Lebanese law contains protections for freedom of expression and freedom of the press, insulting the president, the Lebanese Army, religion or the flag can result in up to a three-year prison sentence and heavy fines. Slander, libel and defamation laws also increasingly have been used by politicians, representatives of big businesses and private individuals to question and prosecute activists and crack down on critical online speech.
By August 1, Social Media Exchange, a local NGO that works on internet policy, documented at least 16 cases of people summoned for questioning over their online posts in 2018.
Azhari's trial began on November 27, at the publications court in the city of Baada, but was adjourned to February 26 after the plaintiff and their lawyer failed to show up in court, he said. If convicted, he will be made to pay a fine.
As the trial goes on, Azhari will keep on doing his job and reporting on the stories that matter. ”If anything it [the trial] has motivated me to continue covering social justice issues, including stories related to the abuse of migrant workers in Lebanon,” he said.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Afef Abrougui


text:
Crackdown in Beijing: ‘Using Twitter is more dangerous than street demonstrations’ · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Derivative image from Flickr user mkhmarketing CC: AT Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)
Authorities in Beijing have launched a nationwide crackdown on mainland Chinese Twitter users.
The December 5 release of 42 testimonies collected by China Change, a Chinese human rights advocacy site, details the ordeals of hundreds of Twitter users who have been detained and interrogated by national security police officers since September 2018. In most cases, police have asked — if not forced — these users to delete their posts or accounts.
Although Twitter is blocked in mainland China, many netizens use circumvention tools, such as VPNs (virtual private networks) to visit the social media platform, get in touch with friends or access uncensored information and news.
In 2016, there were an estimated 10 million Twitter users in mainland China. A majority of the users used the site as a news-gathering tool, and refrained from making comments, but some were outspoken, actively making critical comments when retweeting news to their friends.
Mainland Chinese authorities have arrested Twitter users in the past, but there was no clear pattern or evidence of a strategic crackdown. Incidents were sporadic and random, like the 2012 arrest of amainland Chinese Twitter user who made a joke about the collapse of the Hall of the People's Congress.
The current crackdown is a new and more worrisome development. It is happening nationwide and is not restricted to a specific online incident or act. The number of Twitter users who have been directly threatened is estimated to be in the hundreds or even more.
According to a report from Radio Free Asia, cybersecurity authorities have detained and interrogated dissenting Twitter users from all over the China including Beijing, Chongqing, Guangdong, Shandong, Fujiang, Hubei and other provinces. Some have been placed on administrative detention for 10 days. One user who refused to cooperate with cybersecurity officers was arrested and may soon face prosecution.
There is no official information about the Twitter crackdown. But the documentation efforts of China Change have allowed us to read testimonies of arrested Twitter users and their friends, providing an overview of the latest social media crackdown in the country.
Twitter user @Xybaiyun2018 was arrested by some 30 domestic security officers on October 31. He was then beaten and detained for 10 days. The police found his Twitter password and deleted all of his content. During the interrogation, the police officers said that reposting of “political rumors” was illegal. They emphasized @Xybaiyun2018's retweeting of posts by Guo Wengui, an exiled Chinese billionaire accused of corruption, who fled to the United States in 2014 and is known tweeting allegations of corruption within the Chinese Communist party.
@Xybaiyun2018 asserted that all his tweets had not violated China's anti-rumor law, which dictates that any message containing a “rumor” and shared more than 500 times can be subject to prosecution. The law says that any piece of information that does not come from official government channels can be considered a rumor.
The blogger has long tweeted anonymously using his mobile phone. He believes that the police identified him by way of mobile surveillance technology.
The Twitter crackdown covers not only recent posts and events by users. According to @asn_213, police were able to trace the online activities of dissenting Twitter users over the past five years:
They printed all the stuff from 5-6 years ago regarding the same-city meal gatherings [part of the New Citizens Movement], and they also printed all of my tweets and retweets. They said these were evidence of my criminal activities. At 10 pm, their political officer interrogated me again, giving me a notice for 15-day administrative detention. It describes me as defaming the national leaders and attacking the current political system on Twitter.
Another Twitter user @419041838 disclosed to his friend that he was arrested, interrogated and threatened, and that several thousands of his tweets were deleted. The whole process was videotaped. He said in a chatroom:
You guys still don’t get it: using Twitter is very dangerous, more dangerous than street demonstrations.
Since Twitter is not accessible in China, it does not have much capacity to affect domestic politics. This makes it difficult to see why authorities are pursing such a crackdown. Sources from Chinese Human Rights website Weiquan Wang said that the crackdown may have been precipitated by the upcoming fourth plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Committee. Perhaps cybersecurity authorities wanted to make sure that no dissenting voices would undermine Xi Jinping’s public image in or outside of China.
While the aim of the crackdown cannot be validated, Chinese authorities have demonstrated that they can identify and locate dissenting Twitter users inside China. It indicates that Chinese cybersecurity agencies’ capabilities now allow them to extend their surveillance power and threaten users of overseas social media platforms like Twitter, but also other major players such as Facebook, Instagram, and or mobile messaging tools like LINE and WhatsApp.
Several made-in-China apps such as WeChat, Weibo and Alipay, which all have a reputation of disrespecting the privacy of their users, now have an increasing presence outside of China. Some are worried that this could enable Chinese cybersecurity authorities to extend their reach and threaten overseas Chinese communities. The recent cancellation of an art exhibit by Australia-based Chinese political cartoonist Badiucao in Hong Kong last month and the suspension of his activities on Twitter have shown that such developments may portend more ominous acts of repression.
Editor's note: The original version of this story incorrectly quoted Weiquan Wang as saying that the crackdown may have been precipitated by the second plenary session of the CPC Central Committee. Weiquan Wang suggested that the upcoming fourth plenary session might be the cause, not the second.

author: Oiwan Lam


text:
Singapore government threatens critics and independent media with defamation claims · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

The Online Citizen logo and copy of summons posted outside the house of Singaporean blogger Leong Sze Hian.
Two separate defamation cases against a news site and blogger in Singapore have put the country's severe restrictions on free speech back in the spotlight.
The cases, which target blogger Leong Sze Hian and the political news site The Online Citizen, re-raise longstanding concerns about the consequences of criminal defamation laws for freedom of expression. In Singapore, defamation is an offense that carries a maximum penalty of two-year imprisonment and a fine.
The Online Citizen (TOC) is facing a criminal defamation probe for publishing a letter written by Willy Sum, a government critic. Police say the letter is defamatory because it accused top government officials of corruption.
On November 20, police raided the home of TOC editor-in-chief Terry Xu, confiscating computers and other equipment, and forcing the news website to declare a hiatus from publication. Xu was also interrogated by police for eight hours.
A crowdfunding effort by its subscribers allowed TOC to buy new hardware and resume operations. In a joint statement, several Southeast Asia-based civil society groups urged the government to drop the defamation probe against TOC:
Instead of persecuting individuals who ask difficult questions and publish critical views, the government should be more transparent and refute assertions it does not agree with while adhering to the standards of civility and encouraging civil discourse.
They have also stressed that TOC removed the alleged defamatory letter as soon as it received a takedown notice from the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), an agency of the Singaporean government.
On November 7, blogger Leong Sze Hian shared on his Facebook page an article published by a Malaysian news website, TheCoverage.my, about a possible link between Singapore’s prime minister and a high-profile corruption scandal in Malaysia involving Malaysian Development Berhad, a government-run development company.
In early December, Leong revealed that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had filed a defamation claim against him, simply for sharing the article.
The article cited a story by States Times Review, an Australia-based political blog aimed at Singaporeans, which was later found to contain baseless allegations. It claimed that editor-in-chief of investigative journalism platform Sarawak Report, Clare Rewcastle, had mentioned Singapore as “one of the key investigation targets, alongside Switzerland and the United States” in an interview with Malaysian media. Sarawak Report later rebutted this claim, calling it “erroneous” and making a request for STR to correct it.
The Singaporean state agency IMDA requested the publisher of States Times Review to take down the article, but the website refused, so the IMDA instead directed Singaporean ISPs to block access to the entire website, along with other Malaysian media that had republished the story. States Times Review ceased operations shortly thereafter.
Singaporean laws empower the IMDA to order local ISPs to remove any material it deems against the public interest, social order, or national harmony. Local news websites are also required to remove a content deemed illegal by the government within 24 hours. These orders are not subject to judicial approval.
The IMDA also requested that Leong remove the Facebook post on November 10. Leong complied, but then received a letter from the prime minister’s lawyers demanding a public apology and compensation for damages.
News about the defamation case against Leong alarmed many people. Ghui, a TOC contributor, warned that it could set a dangerous legal precedent:
If Leong is indeed taken to court and found guilty, this sets a dangerous precedent for virtually any entity (ranging from big corporations to rich individuals) with the money to pursue law suits to bully anyone into not speaking up. Is this the kind of society we want to live in whereby money can be used as a tool to subjugate?
Ghui also questioned whether there was a strong enough case for charging Leong with defamation, given that he had complied with the government’s takedown notice and did not write a caption for the original article when he shared it on Facebook.
Some believe that Leong was singled out because of his previous affiliation with a human rights group which had been advocating free speech and other civil liberties in Singapore.
One of those who expressed support for Leong was Roy Yi Ling Ngerng, a blogger who was also sued for defamation by the prime minister in 2014:
How can a prime minister be offended by someone sharing a Facebook post? If so, thousands of people all over the world should also be sued by him too.
Roy was ordered by the court to apologize to the prime minister and pay the equivalent of USD $106,383 in fines. Roy is now based in Taiwan.
Leong has refrained from commenting on the details of the case, but affirmed his commitment to free speech:
I have fought for fundamental human rights in Singapore for the better part of my adult life in the last 2 decades or so, and the freedom of speech is one of the most fundamental of these human rights.
The IMDA also requested that Facebook remove the States Times Article from its platform, but the company refused to comply. A statement by the company from November 10 said: “Facebook has indicated that they will not accede to IMDA’s request”.
Facebook's refusal prompted Singapore's Ministry of Law to follow up with a statement calling for tougher legislation on “fake news”:
Facebook has declined to take down a post that is clearly false, defamatory and attacks Singapore, using falsehoods. This shows why we need legislation to protect us from deliberate online falsehoods. (…). Facebook does not feel that [falsehood] is sufficient grounds for it to remove the post. FB cannot be relied upon to filter falsehoods or protect Singapore from a false information campaign.
Singapore is among the many countries in the world considering such legislation. In January 2018, the Parliament established a committee to address the problem of “deliberate online falsehoods”, or disinformation on the internet.
Read more: Will Singapore's plan to combat ‘deliberate online falsehoods’ stifle free speech?
Community Action Network, a local rights advocacy group, disagreed with Singapore's government’s order to ISPs to block the websites in connection to the States Times Review case:
While we do not approve of articles which contain falsehoods, it is disproportionate for the government to resort to criminal sanctions for speech which does not incite violence, hate and discrimination.
Criminalising ‘fake news’ will have a chilling effect and further entrench the stigma of engaging in critical political activities and discourse. It will also give those in power more ammunition to silence views they don’t agree with.

author: Mong Palatino


text:
Serbian internet users ridicule disinformation broadcast by pro-government media · Global Voices
Marko Angelov

A screenshot from the video juxtaposing a biased report by Serbian state-controlled media claiming very few people attended the protest, with actual protest footage. Video below.
Thousands Serbian citizens took to the rainy streets of Belgrade on December 8, demanding an end to state-sponsored violence against political opposition leaders and an end to “bloody shirts.”
The protest was organized by opposition parties in response to recent attack on opposition leader Borko Stefanović, who displayed his bloody shirt at a press conference, creating a new symbol of repression.
But Serbia's heavily controlled media ecosystem was loathe to acknowledge this significant expression of public discontent. In the hours and days following the protest, Serbian internet users and media experts watched as local media misinformed the public about the scale and scope of the protest. These misleading reports in turn inspired a flood of viral reactions on social media.
As reported by N1 Tv, Voice of America and Reuters, protesters who chanted and blew whistles blame the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) for enabling violence against political opponents, and shouted “Out with you” and “you will not get away with it.” Various public figures, including the actor and philanthropist Sergej Trifunović gave speeches. Notably, protesters did not display party symbols.
The non-violent protest included a march through the center of Belgrade to the Parliament and then on to the Public Broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS).
Hej @RTS_Vesti imate par desetina hiljada ljudi ispred zgrade. Pomenućete ih u Dnevniku 2 koji počinje za 15 minuta, je l’ da?
Ako ih ne vidite i ne čujete, slobodno promolite glavu kroz prozor.
Molim i drugi put. pic.twitter.com/GaKcgNgONa
— Ana Stevanović (@StevanovicAna7) December 8, 2018
Hey RTS News there's couple of tens of thousands of people in front of your building. Will you mention them on the Evening News 2 which starts in 15 minutes?
If you don't see them and listen to them, feel free to look through the window.
You are welcome! Anytime!
The main news items on the RTS News were the yellow shirt protests in France and visit of singer Ceca to Kosovo. The protest in Belgrade was mentioned only in the 23rd minute of the evening news.
Organizers said the turnout was larger than expected, estimating that around 15,000 people participated. But many warned that information about the event was not reaching the general public in Serbia, as most of the media are controlled by the SNS government.
Isli smo kolektivno sa car-go na protest i nazad – ni jedan od vozaca nije imao pojma da postoje neki protesti. A ti vozaci nisu simpatizeri ni clanovi svinjo-mafije. 96 je bio b92 i Studio B -sada medijski fasizam. Gde ljudi da cuju? S obzirom na ovo – ogroman broj ljudi veceras
— Srdjan Dragojevic (@srdjandrago) December 8, 2018
We collectively went to the protest and back using Car-go [an Uber-like service]. None of the drivers had any idea that there was a protest tonight. And those drivers are neither sympathizers or members of the pork-mafia [his term for the regime]. In 1996, at least two stations informed about such events, b92 and Studio B. Now we have media fascism. Where can people get the news? Considering this, we had a huge turnout tonight.
After the protest, Studio B TV broadcasted a short item in which the reporter minimized the protest. This swiftly become a hot topic on Serbian social media. In the clip, the reporter Barbara Životić claimed that the protest was attended by very few people and described the organizers as hypocrites and promoters of violence.
In the report, she said:
Navodno je to trebalo da bude spontani mirni protest pobunjenih građana protiv nasilja. Naravno da se iza tog protesta nalazi glavni finansijer lider opozicije Dragan Đilas, koji je finansirao sam taj protest i organizovao i okupio navodno vanstranačke ličnosti kako bi se okupio što veći broj građana. Protest je blokirao saobraćaj. Daleko malo ljudi je prisustvovalo protestu. Kako je naš reporter nama preneo bilo je dosta neorganizovano.
[…]
Kako sam navela protest je organizovan protiv nasilja, pod parolom „Stop krvavim košuljama“, što je veliko licemerje, zbog toga što upravo ti ljudi koji su organizovali protest pozivaju na linč, silovanje, nasilje, državni udar… I to smatramo jako, jako, jako licemernim. Pogotovo u ovoj situaciji kada našoj državi treba mirna i stabilna situacija, zbog čitavog dešavanja na Kosovu i Metohiji. Naravno, oni organizuju proteste!
Allegedly this was supposed to be a spontaneous peaceful protest of citizens opposing violence. Of course behind this protest is the chief financier and opposition leader Dragan Djilas, who financed that protest and organized it, by gathering alleged nonpartisan personalities to attract more citizens. The protest blocked the traffic. Very few people participated in the protest. As our reporter said earlier, it was rather unorganized.
[…]
As I said the protest was organized against violence, under the slogan “Stop to bloody shirts,” which is huge hypocrisy, because the people who organized the protest are the ones calling for lynching, rape, violence and coup d'etat… And I find that very, very, very hypocritical. Especially in this situation when our state needs peace and stability, because of all the developments in Kosovo and Metohija. Of course, they decided to organize protests just now!
Anti-fake news website Raskrikavanje published a fact-check of the report, marking it as media manipulation. They noted that contrary to available footage from the march and official police report, Ms. Životić claimed the event included a violent incident, then broke the Code of Journalists of Serbia by describing the participants in a biased manner, claiming that “very few people attended the protest”, and making other unfounded claims while hiding behind anonymous sources.
Digital artist Bojan Dzodan juxtaposed the footage from the Studio B report with actual footage from the protest, showing thousands of peaceful protesters on the same spot. The resulting video went viral.
In just one day, the Facebook version of the video received over 5800 shares and more than 633,000 views. He wrote:
Apsolutno me ne interesuje ko je na vlasti, dok nam mediji budu ovako izgledali sretaćete me na protestima.
I absolutely don't care who's running the government, but as long as our media look like this, you'll be meeting me at the protests.
Along with sharing raw footage of the controversial news items, some social media users went in a creative direction with the material. One user wrote and posted an original rap about the situation.
In the only prominent official government response to the protest, Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić, who has been blamed for autocratic tendencies, declared: “March as much as you want, I won’t fulfil your demands.”

author: Marko Angelov


text:
In Madagascar, costly presidential campaigns don’t add up to a better life for citizens · Global Voices
Rakotomalala

Screenshot of a presidential debate on television between candidates Marc Ravalomanana (right) and Andry Rajoelina (left) via the TVM Youtube channel.
Madagascar’s 2018 presidential elections may turn out to be one of the most expensive per inhabitant in its history. Critics point out that the colossal amount of money spent by various electoral candidates’ campaigns contradicts the small island nation's huge issue with extreme poverty caused by political and climate instability.
On November 7, 2018, the first round of elections revealed two leading candidates, Andry Rajoelina and Marc Ravalomanana, who benefit hugely as independently wealthy people, compared to the other candidates. Ravalomanana was at the helm of a dairy company before going into politics while Rajoelina was an event organizer and worked in advertising prior to his first electoral campaign. They also both benefited from the backing of national and foreign investors during their current presidential campaigns.
After the first round, Rajoelina and Ravalomanana each won 39.19 percent (1,949,851) and 35.29 percent (1,755,855) of the votes, respectively. They will now contend for the presidency in a second round scheduled for December 19, 2018.
Meanwhile, Malagasy people are poorer than ever. According to the World Bank, nearly 80 percent of the population lives on less than $2 USD per day and half the children under 5 suffer from stunting. Only 13 percent of Malagasy have access to electricity, one of the lowest rates in the world. Much of the infrastructure, including roads, hospitals, clinics and schools are in total disrepair.
To prevent under-the-table financing and campaign finance influence on the 2018 presidential elections results, the nongovernmental organization Transparency International asked candidates to share their financial sources publicly as well as their pre-campaign and campaign budget. Many candidates have complained about the difficulty of competing with the lead candidates, because of the financial cap set for electoral expenditures.
A 2017 European Parliament resolution declared that “a big illegal and inexplicable stock of rosewood was found in the presidential palace at the end of Rajoelina's mandate in 2013,” suggesting massive corruption at the highest levels.
The combination of this secret financing and corruption is a real threat to the legitimacy of these elections. Marcus Schneider, a resident representative of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Madagascar, explained where the lies the problem for the future of democracy in Madagascar:
Le problème qu’on a actuellement, c’est qu’on peut supposer qu’une partie de ces dépenses-là [NDLA: dépenses de campagne] sont financées par de l’argent qui n’est pas légal, par de l’argent sale et bien-sûr, on ne peut pas s’attendre à une politique propre qui est financée par de l’argent pourri.
The current issue is that, you can think some of these [campaign] expenditures are financed by illegal money, with dirty money, and of course, you cannot expect clean politics which have been financed by corrupt money.
Transparency International's executive director, Ketakandriana Rafitoson, pushes her evaluation of the upcoming danger for Madagascar:
Ce n'est pas l'argent qui doit dominer, ce sont les idées. Malheureusement, avec les distributions de goodies à tout va, on voit depuis les cinq jours de campagne électorale que les pratiques n'ont pas changé. Si on attend que la campagne soit terminée pour révéler les fraudes, les malversations, le choix de l'électeur sera fait : il sera trop tard
It is not the money which should govern, it should be ideas. Unfortunately, with the multiple goodies distributions, we have seen since five days of electoral campaign that the methods have not changed. If we wait until the campaign is finished to reveal frauds, embezzlement, it will be too late for the voter.
Despite the high stakes of the upcoming election, corruption in Madagascar has turned Malagasy citizens off to engagement with the election process. Two-thirds of Malagasies are under the age of 25, but youth have shown very little interest so far. Madagascar is now ranked 155 of 175 countries evaluated by Corruption Watch.
A lack of government control since its 2009 military coup has led to plundering all of the natural resources, which has caused damage to Madagascar's fragile coastal ecosystem.
Former leaders have a set a precedent for extreme spending in politics: During the 2013 presidential elections, then-elected President Hery Rajaonarimampianina spent 43 million dollars — the equivalent of 21.3 dollars per voter — double the amount spent by US President Donald Trump in 2016 — during the US presidential campaign. This is by far the most amount of money spent per person in one of the poorest countries in the world.
Many Malagasy have noticed that extreme spending during presidential campaigns could be better spent addressing extreme poverty.

author: Rakotomalala


text:
Women entrepreneurs break barriers in Kashmir · Global Voices
GV South Asia

Mufti Sadia in her shop. Image used with permission.
In the Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, shutdowns and curfews often bring life and business to a standstill. Setting up a new business could be disastrous for anyone but for women, who must battle social norms about their role in the workplace, the obstacles are tenfold. Despite this, there is a generation of women who are breaking down barriers and establishing their own businesses.
Mufti Sadia started her business when there were no women in the clothing sector of Kashmir. Her boutique was among the first in the Srinagar after she decided to opt out of her previous job and work independently in the valley.
Facing many hurdles and challenges, Sadia started her own brand called ‘Hangers, the closet‘ in 2014 at a shopping mall. Despite the negative comments, she has never looked back:
Mufti Sadia,24,has started her own women's boutique,Hangers The Closet,in #Srinagar.only female shop owner at the Sarah City Centre #Kashmir pic.twitter.com/OVeDIXZw1Y
— Younis Rah (@YounisRah) January 28, 2017
“My father wasn't sure what I was doing because I was just 24-year-old back then, but now he also supports me in what I am doing,” says Sadia while attending a customer.
Her family has been a source of inspiration for Sadia, who always helped her cope with the difficulties of being a new, female entrepreneur in the volatile state. Hangers is now a known brand in the Kashmir region.
Sadia draws most of her customers through Instagram and Facebook. Most of her designer wear is aimed at giving the western touch to the Kashmiri traditional wear. Starting from zero, she has expanded and hired a salesgirl among eleven others.
“The response is good so far, I get negative comments on social media, even by women, but I think the negative comments given to me have helped me grow into a better person to a better designer,” Sadia adds.
While Saida has inspired many girls to set up their own clothing line, there is another woman in the old city of Srinagar whose business acumen saved her family from impending bankruptcy.
Rifat Masoodi. Image used with permission.
Rifat Masoodi is a mother of two and soon after the death of her father-in-law, the family was thinking about closing down the bat manufacturing factory located in one of the most volatile areas of Srinagar.
Braving all odds, Rifat convinced her husband to let her run the factory which employes many local workers. Despite the social backlash, she took the up the challenge in the year 2000:
EXC: Tucked inside Srinagar’s Downtown, that remains nervecentre of protests b/w military & civilians, Rifat Masoodi is quietly scripting a story of grit
The only woman in Kashmir who runs a bat factory appeals “Its time @imVkohli @msdhoni @ImRo45 bought bats from us”
I report pic.twitter.com/8Up2mxOnL5
— Rohan Dua (@rohanduaTOI) October 3, 2018
Every morning after sending her kids to school, she steps into the small unit near her house to oversee the work. Today, Rifat's bat unit produces thousands of bats per month which are transported to many states, including Maharashtra and Kerala.
“It is difficult to manage everything. In the morning I do my work at home, then I come to this unit. Later, when the kids come at 4 PM, I go to see them. I also take care of my mother-in-law,” says Rifat.
In recent times, many Kashmiri women have turned into successful entrepreneurs in the conservative society. Many of them are now bravely chasing their own dreams.
Rifat Masoodi's bat factory. Image used with permission.
Rifat now wishes to see her bat in the hands of international and national players. These entrepreneurs have become an inspiration to many other women in the state who dream of starting a business of their own.

author: GV South Asia


text:
Angola expels thousands of Congolese migrants in crackdown on illegal diamond mining · Global Voices
Abdoulaye Bah

Tazua Falls, Rio Kwango: One of Angola's richest sources of gem diamonds. Photo by Brian Harrington Spier via Flickr CC-By-2.0.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has stated that since the beginning of October 2018, the government of Angola has expelled some 330,000 undocumented migrants, mainly to the provinces of Kasai, Kasai-Central and Kwango in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Many of the undocumented migrants have left due to “Operation Transparency,” a major government-led initiative to crack down on diamond smuggling. Angolan security officials say diamonds worth more than $1 million have been seized and over 200 illegal diamond trading sites were shut down.
Via interviews with residents of Kamako, a border town in Kasai, the UN Human Rights Office received reports that Angolan security forces used excessive force during these expulsions, resulting in deaths and injuries.
Angolan officials have denied use of force or xenophobia in their approach to the crackdown on illegal diamond mining.
The report, prepared by OCHA in the DRC, in collaboration with humanitarian partners, covering the period from November 1 to 16, 2018, mentions 362,097 Congolese involved. However, it warns that this data is not entirely accurate and that the numbers could be even higher:
Les chiffres ci-dessus ont été validés par la DGM [ Direction Générale de Migration] au niveau national et font donc office de chiffres vérifiés. Cependant, comme toutes statistiques officielles sujettes à un processus de vérification, il est probable que ces données ne reflètent pas encore totalement l’ampleur de l’afflux de la période la plus récente.
Ainsi, les données collectées par les antennes locales de la DGM et celles provenant de certaines organisations de la société civile et ONG semblent indiquer un nombre plus important d’arrivants dans certaines provinces. C’est notamment le cas pour les données récoltées par le système de veille humanitaire assuré par l’ONG Caritas et couvrant toutes les provinces affectées, dont le rôle d’alerte précoce doit être vu en complémentarité des chiffres vérifiés de la DGM. Actuellement, ce système de veille rapporte que près de 522 200 personnes seraient retournées de l’Angola vers les provinces du Kasaï, du Kasaï Central, du Kwango, du Kongo Central, de Lualaba et de Lomami entre le 1er octobre et le 10 novembre 2018.
The above figures have been validated by DRC's General Department of Migration (GDM) at the national level and thus serve as verified figures. However, like any official statistics subject to a verification process, it is likely that these data do not yet fully reflect the magnitude of the most recent influx.
The data collected by local branches of the GDM and data collected by civil society organizations and NGOs thus indicates a larger number of arrivals in certain provinces. This is particularly true for data collected by the humanitarian monitoring system monitored by the NGO Caritas, which covers all the affected provinces and whose early warning should be taken into account along with the GDM's verified numbers. Currently, the monitoring system reports that some 522,200 people were sent out of Angola toward the provinces of Kasai, Kasai-Central, Kwango, Kongo Central, Lualaba, and Lomami between October 1 and November 10, 2018.
The following video documents the plight of thousands of Congolese who were expelled from Angola. Some were accused of stealing diamonds from Angolan soil:
Having left Angola in haste, migrants brought only the bare minimum or fled empty-handed. KongoTimes cited Anna Praz, head of International Committee of the Red Cross operations in Kamako:
Ce sont des personnes qui sont parties avec très peu de moyens, sans avoir beaucoup de temps pour se préparer, parfois arrivant les mains vides ou avec très peu de biens. Et certains d’entre eux ont fui sous la peur … Et maintenant ils se retrouvent dans un endroit pour eux qui est quasiment étranger, parce qu’ils ont été pendant longtemps loin du Congo, et parmi eux des personnes n’ont plus vraiment beaucoup de contacts avec leur famille depuis quelques années.
These people left with very little, and they didn't have much time to get ready. They're turning up here empty-handed or with very few possessions. And some of them were frightened when they left … And now they're in a place which is more or less foreign to them, because they've been away from the Congo for a long time, and some of them have had no contact with their families for several years.
In a post on October 15, Le Potentiel Online denounced the human rights violations to which these migrants have been subjected:
La majorité de ces compatriotes ont été maltraités et dépouillées par les forces de sécurités angolaises avant d’être expulsés comme des bêtes. Tout ceci se passe sans qu’aucune autorité de Kinshasa ne puisse lever le ton. Comble de l’humiliation, depuis qu’ils sont sur le territoire congolais, ces compatriotes refoulés sont logés à la belle étoile, dans le dénuement total. Des milliers de Congolais sont passés de l’humiliation, en Angola, et au calvaire, sur leur propre territoire, dans l’indifférence totale de Kinshasa.
The majority of these compatriots were mistreated and robbed by Angolan security forces before being forced out like animals. All this happened without any authorities in Kinshasa speaking up. To add insult to injury, since they have been in Congolese territory, these cast-out migrants have been sleeping outdoors, in total destitution. Thousands of Congolese have gone from humiliation in Angola to suffering in their own country while Kinshasa remains totally indifferent.
For the past five years, the DRC has endured ongoing conflict between supporters of President Kabila and political opposition.
According to the Oxfam country director for the DRC, Chals Wontewe, some of the expelled migrants have been taken in by individuals who are themselves fighting poverty, hunger, and illness:
Nous avons rencontré des familles qui hébergent jusqu’à trente personnes rentrées d’Angola, alors qu’au sein du foyer ils ont des enfants qui souffrent de malnutrition sévère.
We've met with families who are sheltering up to thirty people coming from Angola, while they have children suffering from severe malnutrition at home.
Malnourished, the expelled migrants suffer from various illnesses. Journalist Vignikpo Akpéné reported that on October 23, 15 people had already died of tuberculosis, adding:
Le responsable de l’hôpital de Kamako, en RDC, le Dr Miko Mikobi a souligné que   ‘tous ces morts sont dus à la sous-alimentation et à des maladies, principalement la tuberculose ‘.
Ce médecin dit avoir déjà reçu ‘318 malades, parmi les expulsés, dont la plupart souffre de la tuberculose.’
The head of the hospital in Kamako, DRC, Dr. Miko Mikobi, stressed that ‘all of these deaths are due to undernourishment and illnesses, mainly tuberculosis.’ The doctor reported already having seen ‘318 patients from among the expelled migrants, most of whom have tuberculosis.’
Angolan women, as wives of Congolese men, have also been expelled or chose to follow their husbands:
Ces angolaises, épouses des congolais expulsés d'Angola, suivent leurs maris à Kamako (Kasaï). Près de 200 000 congolais ont déjà quitté Lunda Norte. Les conditions d'accueil en RDC ne sont pas réunies, beaucoup passent nuit à la belle étoile avec femme et enfants. pic.twitter.com/zVf33ocw79
— ACTUALITE.CD (@actualitecd) October 15, 2018
These Angolan women, wives of Congolese men expelled from Angola, follow their husbands to Kamako (Kasai). Nearly 200,000 Congolese have already left the province of Lunda Norte. The conditions in the DRC are not sufficient; many are sleeping outdoors with their wives and children.
This has also affected Congolese children born in Angola who only speak Portuguese, not French. One mother spoke to Slate Afrique:
‘Tous nos enfants sont nés en Angola et ne parlent que le portugais’, raconte la femme d'une quarantaine d'années qui vivait dit-elle depuis dix ans avec son mari à Lucapa, dans la province angolaise du Lunda Norte…
‘Soudain, le lundi, nous avons vu des jeunes garçons de la communauté Tchiokwé avec les policiers angolais commencer à incendier les maisons de tous ceux qu'ils prenaient pour étrangers. Arrivés chez nous, ils ont blessé mon mari à la machette et nous avons été obligés de partir avec ce que nous avons pu prendre’, raconte-t-elle, en écho à d'autres témoignages de violences communautaires qui font même état de morts.
‘All our children were born in Angola and only speak Portuguese,’ said the woman in her forties who had lived with her husband for the past ten years in Lucapa, in the Angolan province of Lunda Norte. ‘Suddenly, on Monday, we saw youths from the Chokwe community with Angolan policemen starting to burn the homes of those perceived to be foreigners. When [Angolan police] came to our house, they attacked my husband with a machete and we were forced to flee, taking whatever little we could carry,’ she said, echoing other reports of communal violence, some of which even caused deaths.
While the largest expulsions affected Congolese citizens, Angola also expelled other Africans. As Cheik Sidya wrote on the website Le360 Afrique, at a time when Africa seeks unity, various nations have also taken measures to round up and expel foreigners using inhumane tactics.

author: Abdoulaye Bah


text:
Removal of Filipino language and literature as required college subjects sparks opposition · Global Voices
Karlo Mongaya

Manila students protesting against the removal of Filipino as a required college subject. Photo by the Manila Collegian, used with permission.
A group of Filipino professors, scholars, and students in the Philippines is leading a campaign against government steps to remove the mandatory teaching of Filipino language and Panitikan (literature) at the college level.
Along with English, Filipino is one of the two official languages in the Philippines, where over 185 are spoken. It is the country's national language and main lingua franca.
On October 9, 2018, the Supreme Court upheld the legality of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) Memorandum Order 13 of 2013 which officially removes Filipino and Philippine literature from the General Education curriculum in colleges and universities. The SC decision overturns a temporary restraining order secured in 2015 by opponents of the CHED measure.
Basic education in the Philippines is composed of kindergarten (5-6 years old), elementary (7-12 years old), high school (13-16 years old), and senior high school (17-18 years old). This is followed by college level (19-22 years old) at higher education institutions.
CHED justifies the curricular changes by reasoning that the said subjects are already taught in the basic education curriculum. This comes amidst the implementation of the K-12 program, which since 2011 have added two more years of senior high school.
But critics say the anti-Filipino curricular changes reinforce an educational system inherited from the American colonial era that privileges English and trains students for the foreign labor market. The erasure of Filipino is seen as part of wider educational packages that marginalize the humanities and other academic fields considered non-essential for the formation of young Filipinos for the cheap labor needs of big business.
Various groups are leading protests and legal actions against the erasure of Filipino and Panitikan in college. Tanggol Wika (Defend our language), an alliance of professors, students, writers, and cultural workers has filed a motion for reconsideration at the high court last November 26, 2018. They warn that 10,000 teachers could end up losing their jobs due to the curricular changes.
Filipino advocates are encouraging netizens to post statements in support of the preservation of Filipino in college using the hashtag #TanggolWikaAtBayan (Defend our language and nation).
Tanggol Wika members marched to the Supreme Court to file motions for reconsideration on the removal of Filipino in the college curriculum. Photo by the Manila Collegian used with permission.
A statement by the University of the Philippines Diliman University Council calls for the preservation and development of Filipino and Panitikan in college:
Naniniwala kami na napakahalaga ng wikang Filipino at panitikan sa pagpapalalim ng mapanuri, malikhain, malaya, at mapagpalayang kakayahan ng mga mag-aaral at mamamayan, anuman ang kanilang kurso, disiplina at larangan ng pagpapakadalubhasa. Hindi pag-uulit ang pag-aaral ng wika at panitikan sa kolehiyo, bagkus ay pagpapalawig sa teorya, praktika, at silbi nito sa pamantasan, bansa, at buhay.
We believe that Filipino language and literature is vital in deepening the critical, creative, free, and liberating capacities of students and people, whatever their courses, disciplines, and fields of expertise. The study of language and literature in college is no duplication but an expansion of theory, practice, and its usage in the university, the nation, and life.
An online petition has also been recently initiated by the national university's Department of Filipino and Philippine Literatures. Here are some of the comments written by the online petitioners at change.org:
Carol Marcelo: Wala nang magmamahal pa ng kanyang sariling wika kundi tayong mga Filipino rin kaya tayo rin ang nararapat na magpayaman nito sa pamamagitan nang patuloy na paggamit at pagkilala bilang ating kaluluwa na kabahagi na natin noon pa man.
Carol Marcelo: No one would love her own language if not us Filipinos hence it is only right that we enrich this through active usage and recognition of its being our soul even from before.
Rommel Rodriguez: Mahalaga ang patuloy na pag-aaral ng wikang FIlipino at panitikan ng Pilipinas hanggang kolehiyo sapagkat bahagi ito sa paghubog ng kamalayan makabayan at adhikaing Pilipino ng ating mga mag-aaral.
Rommel Rodriguez: The continued teaching of the Filipino language and Philippine literature up to college is important because it is part of the molding of a nationalist consciousness and Filipino aspirations of our students.
Memes have also sprung online poking fun at CHED and the Duterte government and calling for the preservation of Filipino and Panitikan in college:
Other nations’ own languages did not become a hindrance for them to become progressive, hence we Filipinos should not think that the Filipino language will become an obstruction to development.
I am an Ilokano and I like to write and read of the discourses of national unity and liberation. Because it is understood by the majority, Filipino is the most effective language to attain this.
Left: Patronage of foreign language and culture. Center: State forces. Right: Developing one's own national language and identity.
Top: Filipino Subject. Bottom: “Students today don't have any nationalist spirit anymore”

author: Karlo Mongaya


text:
Russian reporter who faked his own murder named a ‘person of the year’ by TIME magazine · Global Voices
Christopher Moldes

Arkady Babchenko (second from left) meeting with Ukraine's president Petro Poroshenko, SBU head Vasil Hrytsak and attorney general Yuri Lutsenko after his staged assassination in Kiev, Ukraine // President.gov.ua, shared under CC4.0
When Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko worked with Ukrainian authorities to fake his own assassination in May 2018, he became an international story and subject of criticism. This week, he was named a “Person of the Year” by TIME Magazine.
Rather than choosing one newsworthy individual, the US-based magazine chose to honor journalists around the world for their efforts during a particularly trying year. Dubbed “The Guardians and the War on Truth”, this selection included Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi advisor-turned-journalist who was murdered in the Saudi embassy in Turkey, and the staff of the Capital Gazette newspaper in the United States, whose colleagues were killed in an attack at their offices earlier this year.
Also on the list were two Russians: one, Tatiana Felgengauer, almost died in a brutal knife attack. The other is Arkady Babchenko, who staged his own death in cooperation with Ukrainian authorities in May 2018, the hopes of exposing an alleged plot by Russian security services to assassinate Babchenko and 30 other Russian political emigres in Ukraine and other countries.
There is still no concrete evidence that the alleged assassination plot actually existed. And many international organizations, including OSCE and Reporters Without Borders, criticized the stunt as unjustifiable, irresponsible and damaging to public trust in the media in general.
Babchenko's inclusion TIME's list was also controversial because of who was not included. Many have pointed to the three Russian journalists who were murdered in July 2018 while on assignment in the Central African Republic.
Liusya Shtein, a Moscow city council member, further elaborated this critique:
Среди журналистов, ставших людьми года Тайм, Аркадий мать его Бабченко, который большую часть времени ноет, говнится в фейсбуке и просит денег на пивас, а не Саша Расторгуев, погибший во время расследования поставок российского оружия в ЦАР
— гражданин штейн (@shteyni) 12 декабря 2018 г.
Among the journalists in Time’s “Person of the Year” is Arkady freaking Babchenko, who spends most of the time complaining, talking shit on Facebook, and begging for beer money, but not Sasha Rastorguyev who was killed during an investigation into Russian weapon deliveries to the Central African Republic.
Rastorguyev and his colleagues Orkhan Dzhemal and Kirill Radchenko were investigating reports of Russian weapon shipments to the government of the Central African Republic, and the involvement of a Russian private military contractor in the country’s local armed conflict.
If TIME really wanted to honor journalists working in risky and even deadly conditions, this is a curious omission, to say the least. Including a person who faked his own death makes it even more conspicuous.
Other journalists also called TIME to task:
Hmm. Interesting move by @TIME to include Arkady Babchenko in #TIMEPOY as it relates to “war on truth.” Recall he's the journalist who faked his death in Ukraine with help from the country's controversial security service, which hasn't been completely truthful about the operation pic.twitter.com/eAqcvlfIoz
— Christopher Miller (@ChristopherJM) 11 декабря 2018 г.
Simon Shuster, the TIME reporter who interviewed Babchenko for the feature, responded to the concerns of Babchenko’s colleagues, adding more nuance than 280 characters in a Tweet allow. He writes:
Among the central questions of that debate was this one: Exactly how inviolable is a journalist’s commitment to the truth? Should Babchenko have been willing – as he had already been so many times while reporting from war zones in Georgia and Ukraine – to sacrifice his life for it? Or was he justified in deceiving the public in order to save his own skin? In other words, as a reporter, was it his duty to find some other way to stay alive, one that would not have required him to produce a piece of fake news so sensational, and so believable, that it risked discrediting not only him but his entire profession?
He also further elaborated on the nature of “Person of the Year”:
Thanks Mark, but it’s not an award, it’s a recognition of impact. Have a look at the list of people who have been PoY over the years and that should be pretty clear.
— Simon Shuster (@shustry) 11 декабря 2018 г.
In his own comments about the recognition, Babchenko did not seem to appreciate this distinction:
Ну что там? Весь мир смеется, клоунада, постановка СБУ, нарушил этические нормы? Ну и мое самое любимое – Бабченко не журналист! Не журналист, не журналист. Успокойтесь.
Еще раз спасибо избушке за отлично проделанную работу. Это и ваша награда, парни.
Стать человеком года, обогнав Дональда Трампа, который на второй строчке – done.
Пойду за пивом что ли.
What’s the big deal? The whole world is laughing, it’s buffoonery, a setup by the SBU (note: Security Service of Ukraine, the country’s domestic intelligence agency), I violated ethical norms? And my absolute favorite: Babchenko’s not a journalist. Not a journalist, not a journalist. Calm down.
Thanks again to the Ukrainian feds for a job well done. This is your award too, guys. To be Person of the Year, beating out Donald Trump, who's in second place – done. I'm gonna go for a beer, as it were.
With this last line, Babchenko seems to be poking fun at himself. He has developed a reputation for soliciting donations for beer money at the end of many of his posts online, including the most vitriolic, something Shtein references in her Tweet above. This reflects his model of independent reporting: he posts content, and asks for money in exchange. He has even spearheaded a “Journalism Without Middlemen” project to formalize this arrangement.
Some also took issue with his inclusion because they allege Babchenko has not done any reporting for quite a while. While he is well-known for his reporting on the Chechen War and writing for Novaya Gazeta, the Russian newspaper holding the dubious record of having the most reporters assassinated while on the job, he has not written much for a few years. The only exceptions are his expletive-filled Facebook posts culminating in donation appeals, something that's been mocked even among many of his former colleagues and friends.
Whatever one’s view on Babchenko, for TIME to ignore the murder of three journalists while including a staged one undercuts their message of honoring reporters doing their jobs against all odds. Why couldn’t both be included?

author: Christopher Moldes


text:
An all-female flight crew makes history in Mozambique · Global Voices
Dércio Tsandzana

Mozambique's first all-female crew | Photo used with permission from Meck Antonio.
It is a historic day: that is how many Mozambicans regard December 14, 2018 when, for the first time in the country's civil aviation history, an airplane was operated solely by women.
The crew for flight TM112/3, which traveled between the capital, Maputo, and Manica — an air distance of 442 miles — was captain Admira António, co-pilot Elsa Balate, cabin chief Maria da Luz Aurélio, and flight attendant Débora Madeleine.
The women are members of MEX, an entity originally created as the Special Operations Department of LAM — Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique. In 1995, it began operations as an independent airline, Mozambique Express.
A congratulatory Facebook status update posted by feminist activist Eliana Nzualo, has so far attracted nearly 450 comments, been shared more than 460 times, and garnered close to 2,000 reactions:
UM DIA NA HISTÓRIA – Vôo totalmente tripulado por mulheres
Vôo TM112/3 MPM- VPY- MPM (Maputo- Chimoio- Maputo)
Parabéns MEX!
Parabéns tripulação!
Parabéns Moçambique!
Por mais mulheres em todos os sectores.
A HISTORIC DAY – All-female crew
Flight TM112/3 MPM-VPY-MPM (Maputo-Chimoio-Maputo)
Congratulations MEX!
Congratulations crew!
Congratulations, Mozambique!
For more women in all sectors.
Social activist Mauro Brito added that women should be proud “when [they] are represented in various sectors”:
Na aviação há muito poucas mulheres, poucas mesmo, isto não é aqui apenas mas em todo mundo. Imagino as mulheres por aí a fora que julgavam ser esta profissão apenas para homens, devem sentir se orgulhosas.
In aviation there are few women, very few, this is not only here but in the whole world. I imagine the women who thought this profession was for men only, should feel proud.
Mozambique is not alone. In August 2018, in a first for South Africa's national carrier SAA, an intercontinental flight with an all-female crew took to the skies to transport passengers from Johannesburg to Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Eight months earlier, in December 2017, Ethiopian Airlines operated its first ever flight staffed by an all-female crew. From pilots to cabin crew, check-in staff to flight dispatchers, the flight — from Addis Ababa in Ethiopia to Lagos in Nigeria — was (wo)manned entirely by women.

author: Dércio Tsandzana


text:
It’s official: 2018 in Japan was a ‘disaster’ · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

The Chinese character (kanji) “wazawai” or “sai” (災) has been named the kanji that best symbolizes the year 2018 for Japan. The kanji is unveiled each year at historic Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto. Screencap from ANN News official YouTube Channel.
After a year of earthquakes, torrential rains, floods, typhoons and torrid heat, the Chinese character meaning “disaster” ( 災: “wazawai” or “sai”) was named as Japan's “2018 Kanji of the Year”. Chinese characters are known as kanji (漢字) in Japan.
This year's kanji was selected by the Japanese Kanji Proficiency Society based on the results of a nationwide poll conducted earlier in the fall. Of the 193,214 entries submitted from all Japan, “wazawai” received the most ballots at 20,858.
Throughout 2018, Japan endured a steady series of hammer blows, including:
In a news release, the Kyoto-based Japanese Kanji Proficiency Society explained that “disaster” was a suitable symbol for 2018 in Japan because the kanji character touched people's lives in different ways:
日本全国「災」害は、いつどこで起きるか分からないと、自助共助を重視する人が増え、防「災」の意識が高まった。多くの人が「災」害を忘れず、教訓として減「災」につなげていきたいと心に刻んだ一年
Since, all over Japan, no one knew when calamity (災害) might strike, the number of people who decided to take personal responsibility for disaster preparedness (防災) increased. And since no one could forget the calamities that afflicted Japan, it was a year when many wanted to learn more about how to reduce the effects of natural disasters (減災).
Each December, the Kanji of the Year is announced at historic Kiyomizu-dera, a temple and UNESCO world heritage site in Kyoto, first established 1,300 years ago. Reverend Mori Seihan, the chief abbot of the temple, typically unveils the Kanji of the Year by writing it in traditional calligraphy, captured in this video of the 2018 ceremony:
As Japan prepares for the abdication of its current emperor in May 2019, thereby ending the Heisei Era as it makes the transition to a new emperor, the second most popular Chinese character in this year's poll was “hei” (平). “Hei” is one of two kanji that make up “Heisei” (平成), the name of the reign of the current Emperor of Japan, who is typically known in the rest of the world as Akihito:
1位は「災」でしたが、2位の「平」を選んだ方のコメントには、「平成最後」、「平昌」五輪での日本選手の活躍、米朝首脳会談で「平和」の兆しといったポジティブな内容が多く見られました?
2019年はより明るい漢字が上位に選ばれる年になると良いですね✨#今年の漢字#2018年
— 2018年「今年の漢字」 (@Kotoshinokanji) December 13, 2018
While the most popular character was “wazawai”, number-two was “hei” (平) with some commentators stating it is the end of the Heisei (平成) Era in Japan. For many others, the 2018 PyeongChang (written as 平昌 in Japanese) Olympics and the 2018 US-Korea summit that sought peace (平和) were positive aspects of the past years. ? We hope that the next year will be one for which a positive and bright kanji character can be chosen. ✨
— 2018 Kanji of the Year.

author: Nevin Thompson


text:
Anti-violence protests continue in Belgrade, after journalist survives assassination attempt · Global Voices
Filip Stojanovski

December 15 protest against violence in Belgrade, Serbia. Photo by Vesna Radojević, used with permission.
Protests under the slogan “Stop to Bloody Shirts” continued in Belgrade on December 15, with an estimated 20,000 people demanding that the Serbian government stop the verbal and physical violence against its critics.
The event organized by opposition parties mirrored the first protest against violence that took place a week earlier, prompted by a recent attack on a government critic whose shirt was literally bloodied after he was assaulted by pro-government thugs. But this time, almost twice as many people peacefully marched through the center of the capital, galvanized by several events that took place during the previous week.
This 2-minute video by Bojan Dzodan shows the protest from the ground:
On the night of December 11, unknown perpetrators tried to assassinate the seasoned journalist Milan Jovanović in the municipality of Grocka, on the outskirts of Belgrade. Attackers first threw Molotov cocktails at his house, and then opened fire at his front door, attempting to trap Jovanović and his family inside. Jovanović is nearly 70 and has a medical condition.
Jovanović and his wife escaped through a rear window while their property perished in the flames. Neighbors managed to get them to a hospital, and out of harm's way.
Jovanović had been receiving threats because of his coverage of local corruption cases, but authorities did nothing to intervene.
“I won't stop writing about the thieves, even if they kill me,” Milan Jovanović stated right after the attack.
Brnabić: ”Mediji u Srbiji su slobodni, svako može da kritikuje vlast.”
Sigurno. Jedan probao pa mu zapalise kuću.
— Otac Makarije (@otacmakarije13) December 14, 2018
[Prime Minister Ana] Brnabić said “Media in Serbia are free, anyone can criticize the government.”
Sure. A guy tried that, and his house burned down.
Foundation Slavko Ćuruvuja, named in honor of a critical journalist murdered in 1999, initiated a crowdfunding drive to help the Jovanović family, starting with medical equipment for him and basic necessities, such as food and clothing.
Pozivamo građane i NVO da uplatom dobrotvornog priloga što pre skupimo bar 100.000 dinara za najhitniju pomoć Milanu Jovanoviću, novinaru portala Žig info, kome su u noći između utorka i srede na kuću bačeni molotovljevi kokteli.
Širi dalje!https://t.co/tiYQsDdzHY#Srbija pic.twitter.com/J5tHAJXtlM
— Slavko Ćuruvija fond (@scfondacija) December 12, 2018
We call upon the citizens and NGOs to donate so we can gather at least 100,000 dinars (around 950 dollars) for the most urgent aid to Milan Jovanović, a journalist of the portal Žig info, whose house was targeted by Molotov cocktails in the night between Tuesday and Wednesday. Spread the word!
Many citizens reacted promptly, while sharing the call for a new protest. So far, the campaign has collected the equivalent of nearly USD $13,000.
The response of the authorities to the demands of the December 8 protest included flood of media disinformation and smearing, and a statement by President Aleksandar Vučić who said: “Walk around as much as you want to, I will never meet any of your demands. Even if five million of you gather.”
Many perceived a direct connection between the atmosphere of enabling violence by the government, the president's response, and the attack in Grocka.
Na protestu održanom prošle subote gradjani su zahtevali da se zaustavi nasilje. Predsednik Republike je rekao da neće da ispuni zahteve pa makar se okupilo 5 miliona ljudi. Neki su to razumeli na ovaj način: https://t.co/llThAdJQI2
— Zoran Lutovac (@ZoranLutovac) December 12, 2018
At the protest held last Saturday, citizens demanded an end to the violence. The President of the Republic said he won't meet the demands even if 5 million people gather. Some people understood his message in this way.
Quoted tweet with video: Attempted murder of journalist Milan Jovanović.
House burned down, shots fired at front door so no one would get out. Jovanović: “I won't stop writing about the thieves and the mafia, even if they kill me…” #Serbia #AttackOnJournalists
People expressed support for the protest using the slogan “I'm one of the five million” (hashtag #1od5miliona) in direct reference to the president's remark. Serbia has about six million residents.
After the demonstration, many protesters and their supporters shared an aerial photo of the protest on the snowy night, illuminated by the holiday lights on the city streets.
#serbia President (by now) IN-famously said that even if 5 million people protest against him he wouldn’t care
Reminding myself of the word for this form of government?
First time 10k, second time (yesterday) 20-25k, next Saturday #1od5miliona #StopKrvavimKosuljama pic.twitter.com/4QActs7x60
— Srdjan Cvijic (@srdjancvijic) December 16, 2018
The next protest is scheduled for next Saturday, December 22.

author: Filip Stojanovski


text:
100 days for Alaa: Family of Egyptian activist counts the days until his release from prison · Global Voices
Afef Abrougui

Alaa Abd El Fattah, photo by Nariman El-Mofty.
After spending five years in prison, the Egyptian blogger and activist Alaa Abd El Fattah is scheduled to be released from prison on March 17, 2019. On December 8, his family launched a campaign — “100 days for Alaa” — to ensure his prison term ends on time.
The March release date does not mark the end of Alaa's time served, but rather a transition to the final phase of his sentence. After his release, Alaa will be made to spend every night in his local police station for an additional five years. He will be under police surveillance throughout this period.
Alaa was arrested and taken from his family’s home in November 2013. More than one year later, in February 2015, he was finally tried and sentenced to five years in prison for “organising” a protest under a 2013 protest law that prohibits unauthorised demonstrations. While he did take part in a protest against military trials for civilians on 26 November 2013, Alaa had no role in organising it. His sentence was confirmed by Egypt’s Court of Cassation in November 2017.
Omar Robert Hamilton, a cousin of Alaa, outlined the goals of the campaign on Twitter:
Alaa has been jailed or investigated under every Egyptian head of state who has served during his lifetime. In 2006, he was arrested for taking part in a peaceful protest. In 2011, he spent two months in prison, missing the birth of his first child, Khaled. In 2013, he was arrested and detained for 115 days without trial.
Alaa has long worked on technology and political activism projects with his wife, Manal Hassan. He comes from a family of prominent human rights advocates, including human rights lawyer Ahmed Seif El Islam, Alaa's father, who was jailed multiple times under the regime of Hosni Mubarak. Abd El Fattah’s sisters, Mona and Sanaa Seif, are also human rights defenders who have long campaigned against the military trials of civilians in the country. In 2016, Sanaa served a six-month jail sentence for insulting a public official.
Alaa's ordeal is similar to many other Egyptians who are behind bars because of their activism. There are as many as 60,000 political prisoners in Egypt, human rights groups say. Those arrested on politically-motivated charges in Egypt are often subjected to enforced disappearances, torture, prolonged pre-trial detention and solitary confinement.
In a letter to the attendees of RightsCon, a digital rights conference held in Toronto in May 2018, Alaa urged supporters to ”fix [their] own democracies”.
This has always been my answer to the question “how can we help?” I still believe [fixing democracy] is the only possible answer. Not only is where you live, work, vote, pay tax and organize the place where you have more influence, but a setback for human rights in a place where democracy has deep roots is certain to be used as an excuse for even worse violations in societies where rights are more fragile. I trust recent events made it evident that there is much that needs fixing. I look forward to being inspired by how you go about fixing it.
Those looking to join the ”100 days for Alaa” campaign are encouraged to send ”essays, photos or acts of solidarity” that will be republished on the campaign's website:
This is an open-source campaign – we'll be putting out some new ideas, but need new thoughts and new energy coming in too. So get thinking with us!
The hashtag, as always, is #FreeAlaa – please join us in preparing the ground for Alaa's release.


text:
Hungarians stage nightly protests against new court system and so-called ‘slavery law’ · Global Voices
Atlatszo.hu

Protest in front of the Hungarian Parliament in Budapest on December 13, 2018. Photo by Atlatszo.hu / Márk Tremmel, CC BY-NC-SA 2.5.
This article is based on the story “Hungarians protest against the government in front of Parliament every night” written by Anita Kőműves, with photos by Márk Tremmel and Áron Halász for Atlatszo.hu, Hungary’s first investigative journalism non-profit. It is republished here in edited form through a partnership with Global Voices.
Hungarians have been protesting in front of the Parliament building and across Budapest since Viktor Orbán’s right-wing party passed a bill allowing employers to request 400 hours of overtime work from employees annually as well as a bill which would make it easier to fill the court with judges that are loyal to Orbán's party. Despite the cold weather, protesters were out in the streets until after midnight every night — actions which were met with police tear gas.
The Hungarian Parliament passed two important bills on Wednesday. Even though opposition parties protested the two bills, the body dominated by the governing right-wing conservative party Fidesz (Hungarian Civic Alliance) was able to pass the so-called ’Slavery Law’ and a law creating a new court system.
December 12, 2018 — The day Hungary's opposition surprised A LOT of people. (wait for it) pic.twitter.com/pM6a1GsLPq
— Benjamin Novak (@b_novak) December 12, 2018
The newly created administrative courts will be entirely separate from the current court system. They will be overseen by the minister of justice and rules will make it easier to fill the new court with judges loyal to Fidesz. The administrative courts will be able to rule in politically sensitive cases such as corruption and electoral law and freedom of assembly.
Policemen lining in front of parliament in Budapest, Hungary. Photo from the album from the first night of protests, by Atlatszo.hu / Márk Tremmel, CC BY-NC-SA 2.5. Click on image for album.
The so-called ’Slavery Law’ will raise the 250-hour annual cap on overtime work to 400 hours. Moreover, employers will be able to take up to three years to pay compensation for the overtime work.
According to the law, employees need to agree to the overtime in writing, but protesters claim pressure from employers will leave workers with no choice but to accept the new terms.
Protest in front of parliament in Budapest, Hungary. Photo from the album from the second night of protests, by Atlatszo.hu / Áron Halász, CC BY-NC-SA 2.5. Click on image for album.
Since the bill passed, protests have taken place in front of the Parliament, with thousands of protesters walking around Budapest streets loudly chanting anti-government slogans, and briefly blocking roads and bridges. Some of the protesters returned to the Parliament building where they chanted slogans facing riot police.
Despite the cold weather and the Friday night snow, protesters were out in the streets until 1 or 2 a.m. every morning.
Many protesters were detained during 2nd night of unrests after Orbán Administration passing #SlaveryLaw. Vice President of Momentum currently at a police station, the access to her lawyer has been denied so far, @hvg_hu reports. #Budapest #Hungary Pics: @444hu pic.twitter.com/Ax1czDgfvi
— Balazs Csekö (@balazscseko) December 14, 2018
Unlike protests in previous years, police used tear gas during the demonstrations which angered protesters.
They just sprayed the crowd pic.twitter.com/KfQRD9lMGO
— Benjamin Novak (@b_novak) December 12, 2018
Demonstrators used smoke-screen bombs, burned small handkerchiefs and newspapers and one window of the Parliament was broken by a stone thrown by a protester.
Protest in Budapest, Hungary. Photo from the album from the third night of protests, by Atlatszo.hu / Márk Tremmel, CC BY-NC-SA 2.5. Click on image for full album.
The protests continued on Sunday afternoon at Hero’s Square. Student organizations, opposition parties, and trade unions announced that they would join the protests.
Thousands of Hungarians are protesting at the public broadcaster because of its continuous propaganda. pic.twitter.com/TfIAUIKX4G
— Mérték Média Monitor (@MertekMonitor) December 16, 2018
The Police used tear gas against protesters in front of the headquarters of the public broadcaster TV. Atlatszo.hu documented these developments by providing a live video feed from the scene on Facebook.


text:
What do Chinese internet users think of Google’s ‘Dragonfly’ project? · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Image: Badiucao.
After deflecting questions from reporters for months, CEO Sundar Pichai acknowledged in October 2018 Google’s plan to build “Dragonfly,” a censored search engine app that would serve Chinese users.
But on December 5, in a hearing before the US House Judiciary Committee, Pichai described the development of Dragonfly as an “internal effort” and said that the company currently had no plans to launch a search service in China.
When asked if he was committed to launching “a tool for surveillance and censorship in China”, Pichai declined to answer. He instead told legislators that he is committed to “providing users with information, and so we always — we think it’s ideal to explore possibilities. […] We’ll be very thoughtful, and we will engage widely as we make progress.”
His answer echoed a pro-Dragonfly letter, circulated anonymously among Google staff before the House hearing, and subsequently published on Tech Crunch:
Dragonfly is well aligned with Google’s mission. China has the largest number of Internet users of all countries in the world, and yet, most of Google’s services are unavailable in China. This situation heavily contradicts our mission, “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”. While there are some prior success [sic], Google should keep the effort in finding out how to bring more of our products and services, including Search, to the Chinese users…In any case, only with continuing efforts on Dragonfly can we learn how different approaches may work out in China, and find out if there is a way that is good for both the Chinese users and Google. Even if we fail, the findings can still be useful for bringing other services to China.
Around mid-October, when Pichai confirmed the development of the censored search engine, several technology and business news outlets — including Startup Media and Computer Post — reported the news on Sina Weibo, highlighting the positive aspects of Google’s Chinese plan:
【谷歌CEO谈重回中国市场：保护隐私，遵守法律】谷歌CEO皮查伊表示，谷歌公司的目标是把信息传递给每一个人，中国拥有庞大的用户数量，中国市场十分重要。谷歌正在研发一个新项目，遵守所法律法规的同时可以为中国用户解决99%的问题。比方说接受癌症治疗，有人找到的是假的癌症治疗的方法，我们希望能帮助他们找到有用的信息。
[Google CEO on return to Chinese market: Protect privacy, follow rule of law] Google CEO Pichai said Google’s mission is to bring information to everyone. China has a huge number of users and the Chinese market is very important. Google is developing a new project so that it can follow the rule of law and regulations on the one hand, while helping Chinese users to solve 99% of their queries. For example, cancer treatment. People get fake cancer treatment information; we wish to help them find reliable information.
Despite these positive overtones, opinions in China remain divided. About half of the ensuing comments welcomed Pichai’s take, likely due in part to public resentment of Baidu, the country’s most popular search engine, which is incorporated in China:
快来吧，在百度搜啥都是广告，第一页绝对是广告，我们要抵制百度！
Come back quick. Searches on Baidu are ads, the first page is definitely ads. We have to boycott Baidu!
快上吧，对百度假信息已够了！
Come quick, so fed up with misinformation on Baidu.
But there were many skeptical voices on Weibo too:
保护隐私？那你怕是进不来了
Protect privacy? Definitely you can’t return.
回来也是简化版的百度，该不让看的还是不让看
Even if [Google] managed to return, it would be another version of Baidu; what can’t be seen will not be seen.
我宁愿翻墙
I prefer circumventing the GFW [Great Firewall of China].
回来跟百度狗抢饭碗，谷歌自己的6000员工都联合起来抵制这个项目的，真新喜欢谷歌的人打心底不希望它们变成一个和谐版进入大陆市场
Return to compete with Baidu…Google’s own employees have boycotted the project. For those who really like Google, they don’t want to see it having a censored version for the China market.
Just before Australia-based Chinese  political cartoonist Badiucao cancelled his exhibition in Hong Kong and discontinued posting on Twitter, due to threats from Beijing, he opened a Twitter poll about Google’s return to China and invited other Twitter users to comment:
谷歌配合审查，重回中国是好是坏？大家都请在回复中写原因。
— 巴丢草 Badiucao (@badiucao) October 17, 2018
Is it good or bad for Google to cooperate with censors and return to China? Please write down your reason by replying to this thread.
As many as 857 people voted, with 18 per cent expressing support for the return and 65 per cent opposing it. The majority of Dragonfly project supporters believe the censored search engine could serve the needs of Chinese Internet users.
Twitter user @zhizhi_ma’s reply was typical of this argument:
三四线，乃至二线城市，大部分群众甚至能轻信传销的鬼话，对这样的大多数人而言，对路上扫地的大妈，对经营着小小面馆的老板，有一个能正确指导生活的搜索引擎，身体不适就能正确就医，而不被假药之流所苦，较之所谓美好的自由，孰轻孰重？
这样的群众才是大陆，你的忧国忧民可曾忧到过他们？
People in third and fourth tier cities or even second tier cities [cities in China are categorised into three levels], they believe all sorts of lies presented by pyramid schemes. A search engine can generate reliable information about daily necessities for these majority groups — the elderly women who clean up the street, the small noodle shop owner — so that they can find the right doctor rather than taking fake medicine. Isn’t this more important than the alluring freedom? These groups of people represent mainland China. Your concern about China and Chinese people barely addresses their needs.
But this rationale may be overstating the social impact of Google search.
As Twitter user @chutsetien pointed out, apart from Baidu, there are other reliable search engines in China, such as Microsoft’s Bing.com:
谷歌搜索在中国大陆的市占比当年就不高，而且「墙」内目前已有 Bing 等非百度搜索可用，那个拿「三四线城市居民健康与安全」做为支持理由的，实在是荒唐地站不住脚。我真的无法不怀疑你是政府的水军。而且：Google 也不排斥在搜索引擎上投放广告，并且卖假药一事 Google 也干过。
Google’s market share in China was not big [before it left China]. Moreover, inside the GFW we had many alternative search engines such as Bing. Citing the health and security concerns of people from third and fourth tier cities is absurd and cannot be justified. Such arguments are similar to the [Chinese] government’s Internet water army [online promoters of government positions]. Moreover, Google sells ads on its search engine. Google was also caught in the controversy over the proliferation of fake medicine sites on its search engine.
And there is reason to believe that if Google's search engine were to have a positive impact on China, Chinese authorities would step in and nip it the bud. As Twitter user @TechyanWP argued:
在审查机构的操作中，他们更在乎的是影响力而非法律也非“老外在中国老不老实”。Line曾经在中国很火，且在屏蔽前夕跟微信分庭抗礼。结果就墙了。Discord被墙前夕被郭文贵下面的人大肆用于宣传。而Skype和Whatsapp还活着。
For censorship authorities, the concern is not about legality nor about the submissive nature of the foreigners. LINE [a communications app] was once very popular in China; before it was blocked, it could challenge WeChat's monopoly. Then it was blocked. Discord [a voice and text chat application for gamers] was used by Guo Wengui [the exiled Chinese tycoon] and his supporters to disseminate information before it was blocked. Skype and WhatsApp [which were not popular in China] are still available.
Baidu's monopoly status in China is guaranteed by the Chinese government. Like the majority of the Chinese tech giants, Baidu follows censorship orders from the authorities, grants cybersecurity police access to user data, and has set up Chinese Communist Party branches within the corporation.
If Google’s censored search engine is not the only alternative, and authorities refuse to allow it to have a significant impact on Chinese society, the Dragonfly project may become more of a symbolic act — a global IT giant paying tribute to China's data dictatorship, in pursuit of greater profits. The concession of universal values will never come to an end, just as Twitter user ANTatAries predicted:
中共会将此举视为谷歌低头，那么下一步是什么？把中国用户的数据放到云上贵州？还是像微信一样全面监控。只能说，一步退步步退。另外也不要拿苹果微软来说事，因为那两家公司在中国的故事也远没有完结，未来会咋样还不知道呢
The Chinese Communist party sees the project as Google’s act of kowtow. What will be the next step? Moving Chinese user data to Guizhou’s cloud server [following Apple]? Or accepting comprehensive surveillance measures following WeChat’s example? You take one step back and you can only move backward. Moreover, don’t use Apple and MSN as your model. The story of these two corporations in China has not yet come to an end. No one can foretell their future.


text:
Will the reinstatement of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe end Sri Lanka’s political crisis? · Global Voices
Rezwan

Image from the We Want Democracy – Coalition Citizen Protest at Lipton Circle, Colombo on December 12. Image via Groundviews. Used under a content sharing agreement.
On Sunday, December 16, 2018, ousted Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was reinstated, possibly ending a nearly two-month-long political crisis.
Earlier, on Saturday, December 15, 2018, disputed prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa resigned following a court verdict which barred him from the position and questioned his appointment.
Ranil Wickremesinghe sworn in as Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister possibly ending a 51 day political crisis #SLPoliticalCrisis #CoupLK pic.twitter.com/HZv8v3zXBa
— Sathira Sarachchandra (@sathira_s) December 16, 2018
Wickremesinghe tweeted:
Today marks a victory not for myself or for the UNP. It is a victory for Sri Lanka’s democratic institutions and the sovereignty of our citizens. I thank everyone who stood firm in defending the constitution and ensuring the triumph of democracy.
— Ranil Wickremesinghe (@RW_UNP) December 16, 2018
Incumbent president Maithripala Sirisena, who had precipitated the constitutional crisis in Sri Lanka by removing  Wickremesinghe as prime minister on October 26 and appointing the former president and opposition Member of Parliament Mahinda Rajapaksa to replace him, defended his actions, saying:
“Even if I am imprisoned, the correct decisions I made with the best of intentions for the country and its people will be written in stone someday”: President Sirisena in a statement after @RW_UNP was reinstated as PM today. #couplk pic.twitter.com/SLhsSY8QVY
— dharisha (@tingilye) December 16, 2018
President Sirisena suspended the country’s parliament for three weeks and dissolved the cabinet of ministers.  Wickremesinghe protested his removal, claiming it was unconstitutional, with many supporters rallying behind him and demanding the reconvening of the parliament for a floor test. See Groundviews’ timeline of the constitutional crisis.
Sri Lankan citizens protested almost every day since the start of the crisis, taking a stand for democracy.
“I’m not here for Ranil. I’m here for democracy and good governance” Civil society protest at liberty circle now #lka #SriLanka #ConstitutionalCrisisLK #CoupLK pic.twitter.com/5A4yFTwaaW
— Lisa Fuller (@gigipurple) October 30, 2018
President Maithripala Sirisena responded to the pressure and reconvened parliament on November 14, but rejected two no-confidence motions against Rajapaksa. Ranil Wickremasinghe and 121 other parliamentarians then went to court seeking a writ of quo warranto, which would require Rajapaksa to show what authority empowers him to exercise the office of prime minister. On December 3, a Sri Lankan Appeals Court issued an interim injunction restraining Rajapaksa from the office of prime minister until the petition challenging his appointment was heard.
On December 13, a historic judgment was passed which reinstated parliament and directed the President to rescind the appointment of MP Rajapaksa as prime minister.
Breaking : Sri Lanka Supreme Court rules that Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena's decision to dissolve Parliament was unconstitutional & illegal pic.twitter.com/s76zDnys8s
— Azzam Ameen (@AzzamAmeen) December 13, 2018
A blog post on Groundviews quoted attorney-at-law Dinesha Samaratne, who said that the Supreme Court decision should be welcomed and celebrated:
The Parliament stands and its declaration of no-confidence in MP Rajapakse (through two separate motions) and its declaration of confidence in Prime Minister Wickremesinghe clarifies that Ranil Wickremesinghe continues to enjoy the confidence of a majority in Parliament. The only way forward is for the President to rescind his purported appointment of MP Rajapakse as Prime Minister and his purported appointment of a Cabinet of Ministers. The status quo prior to 26th October has to be restored.
The Groundviews story also quoted attorney-at-law Luwie Ganeshathasan, who said that:
The decision re-affirmed that Sri Lankan citizens had a right to be governed according to the Constitution as well as a right to participate in elections according to established procedures of the law, as opposed to on the whim of one individual.
Ashraf Hegazy and Gary Milante noted in Groundviews that the political crisis went largely remained unnoticed in the international press, but that:
How Sri Lankans have responded to these events demonstrates the resilience that they have built into their systems of government and social norms.
On December 16, netizen recalled on President Sirisena's November statement that he would resign immediately if Wickremesinghe came back.
Really, can someone ask @MaithripalaS / @PMDNewsGov why after more than one hour after swearing in Wickremesinghe, he is still President & hasn't resigned? #couplk #lka #srilanka
— Sanjana Hattotuwa (@sanjanah) December 16, 2018
I am too excited for tomorrow! No! Not because Mr. Ranil Wickramasinghe is Prime minister again. Just to see Mr. Maithreepala Sirisena’ s face turns red when he meet UNP MPs. — feeling blah
— Hirunika premachandr (@Hirunika_Premac) December 15, 2018
According to media reports, a new cabinet will be sworn in on December 17, 2018, and will include six parliamentarians from Rajapaksa and Sirisena's factions of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP). Wickremesinghe's United National Party (UNP) has said that it is ready to work once more with President Maithripala Sirisena, who was “misled by some groups” against the unity government. In August 2015, Sirisena and Rajapaksa’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and Wickremesinghe-led United National Party (UNP) created a national government after signing an agreement.
On his blog, Sri Lankan poet, critic, journalist and political commentator Malinda Seneviratne asked the important question about what will happen after the verdict:
Where do we stand right now? Well, the President cannot dissolve Parliament arbitrarily. Parliament itself is at a standstill thanks to the antics of the Parliamentarians, a clearly partisan Speaker, a stubborn President and a court order. We will have to wait and see if the key players in the drama can rise above their personal and political agenda to resolve things.
It remains unclear that how this political crisis and the differences between Sirisena and Wickremesinghe will play out in this “new government”.

author: Rezwan