text:
Conference in Thailand debates state of human rights in the northeast provinces · Global Voices
The Isaan Record

The Isaan Human Rights Festival is an annual event in its tenth year that opens space for discussion and exchange between marginalized Isaan communities, human rights defenders, and foreign diplomats. Photo and caption from The Isaan Record
This edited article is from The Isaan Record, an independent news site in Thailand, and is republished on Global Voices as part of a content-sharing agreement. Additional reporting by Christopher Burdett and Hathairat Phaholtap. Photography by Adithep Chanthet.
Over 300 people gathered at Ubon Ratchathani University on 16 December 2019 to discuss the state of human rights in the northeast region of Thailand.
The 10th Annual Isaan Human Rights Festival gathered communities from across the region, activists, scholars, students, and foreign diplomats. The ambassador of Sweden, Staffan Herrström, joined the event to talk about the international perspective on human rights in a special session.
Hosted by the Faculty of Liberal Arts at Ubon Ratchathani University and co-organized by The Isaan Record, the event opened a rare space for Isaan communities affected by development projects and government policy to voice their grievances. It also highlighted the work of local human rights defenders providing them with a stage to talk about the challenges they face.
Thawat Maneephong, moderator of the forum, said:
We usually only hear stories from a Bangkok perspective. The heroes who are talked about are Bangkok’s heroes. I feel that we are in the midst of reclaiming our own narrative with this event.
Conversing mostly in Isaan-Lao, speakers painted a grim image of human rights in the northeast while expressing little hope for the situation to improve under the current mixed military-civilian government.
Duangthip Karnrit from Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR), an advocacy group, noticed that since the military coup in 2014, a significant number of people in the northeast have been stripped of their rights to freedom of speech, association, and public assembly.
After the coup, the junta made heavy use of two mechanisms: the order that prohibited political assemblies of more than five people, and the [2015] Public Assembly Act. More than 100 people became political refugees while 2,408 civilians [across the country] had to stand trial in military courts.
The military junta, the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), seized power from a democratically elected government in May of 2014. After a controversial election in March this year, the NCPO-backed political party, the Palang Pracharat Party, was able to cobble together a pro-military coalition government that placed the head of the NCPO, Gen. Prayut Chan-o-cha, to assume the premiership. The NCPO was officially dissolved in July, but the military continues to exert its power.
Other speakers at the event blamed policies passed and implemented under the NCPO without any meaningful participation of the public for rising tensions and social conflict in the region.
Nipaporn Pula, a representative of Ta Mui village in Ubon Ratchathani’s Khong Chiam district, talked about the devastating impact of the junta’s forest reclamation policy on her community. Several Ta Mui villagers face eviction after being accused of encroaching land in Pha Taem National Park.
We’ve been on this land for generations. I can’t help but feel that there is nowhere to live in Thailand for us poor people. The judicial system is useless. Why are they selectively applying the law only to us poor people? Why can’t they apply these standards to people in the cities? People are left to fight against the entire state with their meagre resources, but receive no assistance at all. It’s not fair.
Across the region, several forest communities are resisting eviction from land that they claim they have lived on before it was announced a protected forest area. Since 2014, when the NCPO started enforcing the policy, until September last year, more than 28,000 cases of forest encroachment were recorded, covering a total area of almost 820,000 rai (131,200 hectares).
But the bleak human rights situation has not only been the work of the military government in the past five years, as some speakers argued.
Arunee Santhitiwanich, a lecturer at the Faculty of Political Science at Ubon Ratchathani University, argued that the Thai state is not only perpetuating inequalities that already exist in society but also discourages genuine public participation.
Whenever there is a conflict, a favourite tactic of the state is to set up a committee, because it buys them time. By appointing officials who will inevitably be transferred before the issue is resolved, they drag out the whole process. This gives people false hope that their issues are being addressed.
At the same time, public hearings mandatory for development projects hardly ever have any real villagers participating because regulations say that only legally registered members of civil society are allowed to attend, Arunee said.
In three moderated discussions, members of the audience shared diverse views on how to address Thailand’s human rights challenges. Some expressed feeling like “invisible citizens” without any rights while others told of a prevailing sense among the youth of wanting to leave their country.
June, a female student from the Faculty of Liberal Arts, said:
The current political situation suppresses our rights and freedoms. When I look at my friends on social media, many of them want to leave their country because they don’t see opportunities and have no hope. And then of course there are also the economic problems.
A retired teacher from Khong Chiam district said that many of his former students ended up driving taxis in Bangkok because there are few opportunities for them to make a living in their home province. He urged the youth not to fall into political apathy but to collectively push for social change.
If we poor people don’t stand up for our rights, we will remain dust under other people’s feet.
Sompong Viengchan, a long-time activist opposing the Pak Mun Dam in Ubon Ratchathani who was summoned by the military after the coup, echoed this view.
If we see someone stealing our buffaloes, are we just going to stand there and let them do it? No! We have to make a stand, make a fuss, and make some noise. We need to shame the government, or make them feel the shame that they should be feeling for using violence and intimidation against villagers who are just trying to preserve their livelihoods.
In a special session in the afternoon, Swedish ambassador Staffan Herrström stressed the importance of freedom of expression and public participation as a fundamental element of democracy. He also spoke of the positive experience with decentralization of power that helped turn Sweden from a “poor, unequal, undemocratic country in the 19th century” to what it is today.
Herrström praised the courage of human rights defenders in countries like Tanzania, Poland, Vietnam, Myanmar, and Lao PDR. But he also expressed concerns about the increasing number of governments acting in authoritarian ways to silence critics and violate human rights.

author: The Isaan Record


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Death toll reaches 27 in India’s citizenship protests · Global Voices
Vishal Yashoda Manve

Protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Mumbai. December 19, 2019. Photo by Vishal Yashoda, CC-BY
As of December 27, 2019, at least 27 people have been killed and thousands have been arrested amid demonstrations in India against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), a new law that allows immigrants of religious minorities in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh to seek Indian citizenship while excluding Muslims from that prerogative.
Passed in early December, the new law has put India's 200 million Muslims on high alert and joins a growing list of controversies spurred by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government, which is accused of pushing a Hindu-nationalist agenda. Critics say that the CAA undermines India's secular 1949 Constitution which ensures equality for all religions.
Mass demonstrations have engulfed both large and small cities nationwide, including Mumbai, New Delhi, Lucknow, Bangalore, and Malegaon. Authorities have responded with a brutal crackdown, as well as restrictions on street protests and internet shutdowns.
“A total of 5,400 people have been taken under custody till now and around 705 have been sent to jail.
The government is also expected to invoke the National Security Act (NSA) against 250 agitators”https://t.co/Dhxi5zhCAQ
— Asim Ali (@AsimAli6) December 26, 2019
Protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Mumbai. December 19, 2019. Image by Vishal Yashoda, CC-BY.
In August 2019, the BJP-led parliament abrogated the autonomy status of Muslim-majority state Jammu and Kashmir, which has since been subjected to curfews, restrictions on public transportation, and a near-total blackout.
On November 9, 2019, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the government in the Ayodhya dispute of 1992 when Hindu radicals razed down the Babri Mosque in Uttar Pradesh, leading to nationwide violence between Hindus and Muslims. The final verdict ordered the contested land to be hand over to the government for building a Hindu site.
Another upcoming controversial measure by the BJP is the National Register of Citizens, a comprehensive database of every Indian resident. Critics fear that the purpose of this list is to identify “undesirable” and force them to prove their right to Indian citizenship. The recent construction of detention centers in the Western state of Maharashtra have raised suspicions that the government plans to arrest citizens without documentation identified by the NRC. Similar mass detention centres have been rolled out in Assam state and constructions are underway.
Amid the CAA protests, the BJP secured funds to go ahead with the database, although Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the matter is still under study.
The BJP party is currently facing opposition to the Citizenship Act from 10 state governments, including Punjab, West Bengal, Kerala, Maharashtra, and Jharkhand.
German citizen Jakob Lindenthal, who was studying at IIT Madras in Chennai, attended a recent protest carrying a sign that referenced Nazi rule in his country between 1933 to 1945 (“we have been there,” the sign read). After a photo of the placard made waves on social media, Lidenthal was asked to leave India for “violating visa norms.”
As he arrived home, Lidenthal posted a message on Facebook expressing solidarity with protesters and concern for the deterioration of civil rights in the world's largest democracy:
Jakob Lindenthal, the German student expelled from IIT Madras has a message for us all. pic.twitter.com/CxGnlKyfGK
— Akif عاکف (@khaans) December 25, 2019
Indian Nazis, #RSS today took a massive Nazi style march in South Indian city, Hyderabad! pic.twitter.com/HqXQhH5Gwb
— Ashok Swain (@ashoswai) December 25, 2019
Editor's note: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is an Indian right-wing, Hindu nationalist, paramilitary volunteer organisation linked to the ruling party of India, the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Prominent historian Ramachandra Guha was among the people arrested during the protests in the city of Bengaluru:
Historian Ramachandra Guha is among the protestors who came in waves to Town Hall, Bengaluru and were detained. pic.twitter.com/yRY45drPU2
— Prajwal (@prajwalmanipal) December 19, 2019
Internet shutdowns have been reported in the capital Delhi and, according to Access Now, the block was ordered by India's Ministry of Home Affairs:
Reports indicate that the Special Branch of the Delhi Police — controlled directly by the Government of India’s Ministry of Home Affairs —  ordered service providers via a letter to suspend internet connections.
These are the #InternetShutdowns in #UttarPradesh right now. Please note that the list is not exhaustive and we will keep adding to it.
Agra
Mathura
Saharanpur
Ghaziabad
Firozabad
Bijnor
Sitapur
Bulandshahr
Meerut
Aligarh
Muzzafarnagar
Sambhal
Kanpur#LetTheNetWork
— InternetShutdowns.in (@NetShutdowns) December 26, 2019
Amidst the internet shutdowns, offline messaging apps like Bridgefy, FireChat, among others, have gained popularity.
Several incidents of stone-pelting by protesters and heavy-handedness by police officials have surfaced on social media. In Uttar Pradesh, authorities allegedly confiscated land and other private property of Muslim citizens. Over 17 people have died in protests in that state alone.
Locals in UP's Bijnor have alleged that after protests over CAA, the UP Police has been vandalising homes, harassing women and threatening children to disclose the location of the male members of their families. A current offline ground report from Bijnor
https://t.co/c6P4KjhlRa
— Indias Muslims (@IndiasMuslims) December 24, 2019
Many protesters are also being sued:
FIR against 1,200 AMU students for carrying out candlelight march | City – Times of India Videos https://t.co/dWCmflcuZZ
— Rana Safvi رعنا राना (@iamrana) December 25, 2019
Note: FIR = First information report.
There have been protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act abroad as well, including in London, New York, Paris, Tokyo, and others.
In the period between December 17 and 19, hundreds of Indian students from institutions such as Oxford, Harvard, Cambridge, Columbia, University of Massachusetts, and many others organised peaceful protests against the CAA.#CAA_NRCProtestshttps://t.co/GDeGVW2hDn
— The Wire (@thewire_in) December 24, 2019
They have raised their voices in solidarity with Indian protesters and against the violence in Jamia Millia University.
Protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Mumbai. December 19, 2019. Photo by Vishal Yashoda.
Indian writer and journalist Rasheed Kidwai wrote:
A strong manifestation of India-first among Indian Muslims offers an opportunity for all politicians and political parties to bury the old paradigm and make a new beginning based upon mutual trust, constitutional democracy and equality. Are there any takers?
Read our special coverage: Who is paying the cost of India’s declining democracy? for more details on the protests against the citizenship laws in India.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Vishal Yashoda Manve


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Police violence is increasing in Greece, but government is unconcerned · Global Voices
Maria Soulis

Director Dimitris Indares wearing a neck collar after his violent arrest by Athens police. Widely circulated photo online.
Since Greece elected a new government, led by the New Democracy party, in June 2019, instances of police violence have come to dominate public debate. One of the latest incidents involves a December 18 police raid on squats in Athens, during which a renowned film director was beaten, injured and arrested for refusing to comply with police orders.
In November, Minister of Citizen Protection Michalis Chrysochoidis, who is in charge of law enforcement forces, issued an ultimatum: squats occupying public and private buildings should be evacuated within two weeks. Squatting, a phenomenon mainly affecting Greece's largest cities, is presented by the current government as a manifestation of the anarchist ideology that supposedly supports terrorists and migrants.
Following the minister's announcement, several police operations took place, mostly in the capital, to evacuate buildings. On December 18 at 7 a.m., the target was three occupied buildings in Koukaki, a prestigious district in central Athens, where police arrested nine people. A resident of a nearby house said she'd been subjected to violence and threats as police officers broke into her home, beating and arresting her husband and son:
Ήρθαν τα ΜΑΤ και ζήτησαν να περάσουν από το σπίτι για να μπουν στο διπλανό. Ζητήσαμε χαρτί Εισαγγελέα για να περάσουν. Κάποια στιγμή ακούσαμε βήματα στη δική μας ταράτσα και πήγαν ο άντρας μου και τα παιδιά μου να δουν τι γίνεται. Ζήτησαν χαρτί Εισαγγελέα και σε απάντηση τους έβαλαν κάτω, τους έδεσαν τα χέρια και τους πλάκωσαν στο ξύλο. Πήγα να δω τι γίνεται και με απείλησαν και μου είπαν: Φύγε γιατί θα σε πετάξουμε από τη σκάλα.
[…] Είδα άνθρωπο των ΜΑΤ να έχει πατήσει το κεφάλι του γιου μου στο πάτωμα της ταράτσας. Ζητήσαμε Εισαγγελέα. Τους ξυλοκόπησαν και τους πήγαν στην ΓΑΔΑ. […]
The police came and asked to enter the house to get to the adjacent one. We asked for a prosecutor's warrant. At some point, we heard footsteps on our own rooftop, and my husband and my children went to see what was going on. They asked for a warrant and in response [the police] put them down, tied their hands and beat them severely. I went to see what was going on and they threatened me by saying: Go away, because otherwise we will throw you off the ladder.
[…] I saw a MAT man [a member of Greece's riot police unit] slamming my son's head on the rooftop floor. We asked for a prosecutor's warrant. They were beaten and taken to the police HQ. […]
As it turned out, the resident's husband is famous film director Dimitris Indares, best known for his 1995 film “Like A Prairie Cock in Wyoming” (1995).
According to the authorities’ version of events — the credibility of which has been challenged several times — Indares and his son were “reacting to the police operation”. In a statement, Minister Chrysochoidis defended police actions, asserting that during the standoff, officers “did not commit any violence other than necessary”, “suffered disproportionate violence”, and “were in danger”.
Yet, a photo, initially shared on Twitter by photographer Nikos Christophakis, depicts someone (likely a woman) sitting on the terrace of the raided squat, hog-tied and barefoot, head covered with a black hood. The photo went viral on social media platforms, even though the original tweet has been taken down.
Photo depicting a person thrown on the floor, tied and hooded. Image widely circulated online, and used by the daily newspaper Avgi].
Meanwhile, the private television channel, Open TV, broadcast an audio clip from Indares’ arrest, as recorded by neighbours. In an attempt to discredit both the family's testimony and the audiovisual footage, police revised their initial story, saying that the family's two sons were members of the squat and tried to jump onto a neighbouring rooftop. The police spokesperson also accused Indares of trying to seize an officer's gun:
Οι εικόνες που κυκλοφορούν στο διαδίκτυο είναι παραπλανητικές. Δεν υπάρχουν κουκούλες, ούτε γυναικεία παρουσία, ούτε αναιτιολόγητη βία. Οι τρεις άνδρες έχουν συλληφθεί και προσήχθησαν στην Ασφάλεια Αττικής.
The photos circulating online are misleading. There are no hoods, no female presence, no unreasonable violence. The three men have been arrested and taken to Internal Security.
In a television interview, Minister of Development Adonis Georgiades wondered why the family refused to cooperate during the squat evacuation: “The persons arrested were somehow aiding the squatters, that's why they didn't allow the police to enter their house”.
According to Article 9 of the Greek Constitution, “every person’s home is a sanctuary” and “violators shall be punished for violating the home’s asylum and for abuse of power”.
Pushing back against the state's narrative, members of the political opposition and the arts community have defended Indares and his sons. Citing medical reports from public hospitals, Giannis Ragkousis, head of the Division of Citizen Protection of the SYRIZA opposition party, complained that police officers shot at least one woman at close range with a plastic bullet.
Police responded to this accusation by resorting to semantics, claiming they had used not plastic bullets but rubber launchers the size of ping-pong balls.
On social media, Greek artists expressed anger at Indares’ arrest and the police version of events. The Greek Film Academy reaffirmed its unequivocal support for Indares and his family, while another well-known director, Pantelis Voulgaris, said during a radio broadcast that he found Indares’ arrest “inconceivable”.
Mixing outrage with irony, netizens chimed in with their support:
Μπουκάρουν τα ΜΑΤ στο σπίτι σου, όχι γιατί συμβαίνει κάτι στο σπίτι σου, αλλά γιατί θέλουν να μπουν στο διπλανό κτήριο. Ζητάς εισαγγελέα (όπως προβλέπει ο νόμος). Η απάντηση είναι ξύλο, δέσιμο χειροπόδαρα και απειλές.
Μπράβο στον υπουργό Μιχάλη. Από overdose κανονικότητας θα πάμε σ’ αυτή τη χώρα.
The MAT storm your home, not because something is happening inside, but because they want to get to the building next door. You are demanding the presence of a Prosecutor (as required by law). The answer is beating, tying hands and feet, and threats.
Well done, Minister Michalis. We will die from an overdose of ‘normality’ in this country.
Fellow Facebook user Anna Zabel commented on the counterarguments offered to justify violence/killings by the police over the years:
2008: Τι δουλειά είχε στα Εξάρχεια;
2013: Τι δουλειά είχε να τσακώνεται για τη μπάλα;
2018: Τι δουλειά είχε μέσα στο μαγαζί του άλλου;
2019: Τι δουλειά έχετε μέσα στα σπίτια σας;
2008: How come he was in Exarchia? [Young student Alexis Grigoropoulos killed by the police in Exarchia]
2013: How come he was arguing about football? [Antifascist musician Pavlos Fyssas killed by neonazi Golden Dawn, initially reported as a football argument]
2018: How come he was inside another person's shop? [LGBTQI activist Zak Kostopoulos lynched outside a jewellery shop, initially reported as an attempted burglary]
2019: How come you are inside your homes?
Not everyone supports Indares or his act of solidarity with squatters, however. Some citizens back the police actions and paint the director as an anarchist, with some tweets adopting a racist tone:
Η οικογένεια του κυρίου Ινδαρέ (το όνομα Ελληνικό;) πως και ήταν σύσσωμη σπίτι της πρωινιάτικα;
Δουλειά δεν έχουν;
Σε κάτι τύπους σαν κι αυτούς έκοψε τα επιδόματα ο Κυριάκος και σκούζουν τώρα.#κουκακι #με_την_Αστυνομία
— Φιλελεύθερος_Δεξιός (@Fileleftheros_) December 18, 2019
How come Mr. Indares’ family (and is that a Greek name?) was inside their house, all of them, so early?
Don't they have a job to go [to]?
Some guys like them miss the allowances Kyriakos [Mitsotakis, the Greek PM] cut them and now they cry
Παράσιτα της κοινωνίας … ανάξιοι λόγου … βδελυρά υποκείμενα που κειμενονται μεταξύ μαρξισμού και ωφελιμισμού.
– Ioannis Chassiotis, Facebook
Parasites of society…unworthy of mentioning…hideous specimens lying between Marxism and utilitarianism.
Some of the attacks against Indares have been leveled by members of the ruling party, such as New Democracy Minister of Parliament Giannis Loverdos:
Αφού δεν μπόρεσε να διακριθεί ως πετυχημένος σκηνοθέτης στην μυθοπλασία του κινηματογράφου, ελπίζει σε νέα καριέρα μετατρέποντας την πραγματικότητα σε μύθο, προς τέρψιν των ιδεοληπτικών συντρόφων του της αριστεράς!
After failing to succeed as a successful director in film fiction, he aspires a new career turning reality into fiction, to the delight of his leftist comrades!
Facebook user Chris Toutouzas noted that such claims are ironic, given that Indares is known for his rightist views:
[…] απλά να αναφέρουμε πως είναι γνωστό τοις πάσι, πως ο συγκεκριμένος σκηνοθέτης είναι ένας πολύ ήρεμος και πράος άνθρωπος, δεξιών πεποιθήσεων, που κάνει πολύ καλά τη δουλειά του. […] Στον Δημήτρη Ινδαρέ, έχει συμπαρασταθεί μέχρι τώρα, ΟΛΟΣ ο αναρχικός και αριστερός κόσμος της χώρας, όχι γιατί περιμένει κάτι […]
ΟΛΟΙ οι άνθρωποι της […] “Δικής του τάξης” ΔΥΟ μέρες τώρα τον αποκαλούν κάθαρμα, άπλυτο, καθίκι, καταληψία και ρωτάνε τι έκανε 6 το πρωί αυτός και η οικογένειά του, ΜΕΣΑ ΣΤΟ ΣΠΙΤΙ ΤΟΥΣ! […]
[…] just to mention that it is well known that this director is a very calm and serene right wing person, who does his job very well. […] ALL the anarchists and leftists of the country have up until now expressed their support to him, not because they expect something in return […]
ALL the people of […] ‘his own class’ TWO days now have been calling him a scum, a dirty bastard son-of-a-bitch, a squatter. And asking how come he and his family were INSIDE THEIR OWN HOME at 6 in the morning! […]
Despite the heated national debate, it seems the government does not feel it should concern itself with police violence. Following the December 18 incident, Al Jazeera published an extensive report indicating that the trend continues to grow.

author: Maria Soulis


text:
Longest internet disruption in Myanmar’s Rakhine state sets dangerous precedent · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Protest in Yangon calling for the restoration of internet access in Rakhine State on December 24, 2019. Photo from the Facebook page of Radio Free Asia Burmese service, used with permission.
On 21 June 2019, Myanmar authorities ordered the blocking of the internet in nine townships of Rakhine and Chin States in northern Myanmar. Six months later, the internet remains blocked in four Rakhine townships: Mrauk U, Kyauktaw, Minbya, and Ponnagyun, establishing a dangerous precedent and prompting protests.
The order to block the internet in June was issued following clashes between the military and the Arakan Army, an ethnic Rakhine rebel group. Myanmar counts over a hundred ethnic groups, some of which are waging armed struggle to assert their right to self-determination.
Authorities cited the need to protect national security in justifying the restriction of the internet. Even the entry of journalists in Rakhine , which counts over three million inhabitants, is strictly regulated by the government.
On 1 September, the Transport and Communications Ministry lifted the internet ban in some townships. Yet 600,000 residents in Rakhine’s four townships continue to be affected by internet restrictions.
Reports showed that the internet blocking in Rakhine has undermined business operations, delivery of e-government services, and tourism activities. Residents said they encountered difficulties in processing mobile money services and communicating with their relatives who are working in other provinces and countries.
On 21 December, civil society organizations issued a joint statement condemning the internet suspension in Rakhine. They described it as one of the longest internet shutdowns in the world. They rejected the argument of the government that internet needs to be restricted in order to restore law and order.
There has been no evidence that the disproportionate decision has had any positive effect on reducing the conflict, which remains pervasive.
They called for the lifting of the restriction, the review of the 2013 Telecommunication Law which allows the state to arbitrarily block the internet, and refrain from cutting off internet access in the future.
On 24 December, around 50 activists staged a protest in Yangon, Myanmar’s main urban center, and demanded the restoration of internet access in all parts of Rakhine. One of the speakers in the protest was U Oo Hla Saw, a member of the Lower House for Mrauk-U. He shared with Myanmar Times his views about the internet restriction:
Everybody knows that Burma [Myanmar] is in a democratic transition. But we [still] cannot fully enjoy democratic rights, especially for the Rakhine people. In Rakhine, there is communal violence, military conflict and – after that – now we have no internet access. Internet access is a universal right. But now we cannot enjoy that. This is unjust.
Ma Yin Yadanar Thein, director of the  Free Expression Myanmar NGO warned that the continuing internet shutdown in Rakhine can be used as precedent to ban internet access in other parts of the country:
If the government can shut down the internet without public outcry, they will be more likely to do it again. Today it is Rakhine but tomorrow it could be Shan, Kachin, or even when there are protests in Yangon.
Below are some photos of the protest in Yangon:
World's longest internet shutdown in #Myanmar marked 6months on 21st Dec that 4 townships in Rakhine State been banned to access internet which is 21st century basic rights & right to information. #StopInternetShutDownMyanmar. Public Movement @ Maha Bandula Park 24th Dec pic.twitter.com/OjzjbNPrLT
— Thinzar Shunlei Yi (@thinzashunleiyi) December 24, 2019
Arakan lawmakers and people of Myanmar are protesting in downtown Yangon to reopen months long internet shutdown in Rakhine State where Arakan Army and Myanmar army are sporadically fighting. Hundreds of civilians were killed and injured by the war. pic.twitter.com/aWPVKqL5Vd
— Nyinyi Lwin (@lwin051965) December 24, 2019

author: Mong Palatino


text:
Bangladesh’s first Human Milk Bank faces challenges before inauguration · Global Voices
পান্থ রহমান রেজা (Pantha)

Dr. Mujibur Rahman explaining how human milk is stored in the milk bank. Image from an YouTube video by Prothom Alo.
For the first time in Bangladesh, a Human Milk Bank — an initiative of the Bangladesh Institute of Child and Mother Health, a hospital in Matuail, Dhaka — has been set up to save breast milk for newborns who cannot get their mothers’ milk.
Lactating mothers who have lost their infants, or have leftover milk after feeding their babies, can donate breast milk at the bank. The idea is for the bank to operate pro bono: there will be no compensation for the donors, and the receivers will get the milk free of charge. However, the launch of the milk bank has been postponed several times, allegedly because of the religious sentiment of conservative Bangladeshis, mainly staunch Islamists.
Although breastfeeding is ideal for newborns, the reality is that some babies cannot have their mother's milk. Some may have lost their mothers during childbirth, others may be adopted, and some mothers are unable to breastfeed their infants for a variety of reasons.
Many babies cannot sufficiently develop their immune system without mother's milk, however. Some newborns, who cannot digest cow's milk or formula, end up in critical care and may die without breastmilk. The milk bank will help these newborns get much-needed mother's milk.
Although the official launch of the Human Milk Bank was scheduled for December 1, 2019, it was postponed after objections from some religious organisations and individuals, who consider the initiative to be anti-Islam.
One organisation, Tafsir Parishod, warned about the implications of unknown “milk siblings” — a situation it says could arise because of the Human Milk Bank.
Islam encourages breastfeeding for up to two years, but once infants are breastfed by a foster mother, she becomes a “milk mother” to the child — a relationship that holds special rights under Islamic law. The suckled child is recognised as a full sibling to the foster mother's other children, and intermarriage between them is forbidden. Conservative Islamists therefore fear that the milk bank will make it difficult to identify who the “milk mothers” and resulting “milk siblings” are. If, in the future, “milk siblings” were to marry, that would be considered haram (sinful).
Quoting Islamic scripts, Saiful Islam tweeted:
✒ রক্তের সম্পর্কের ভিত্তিতে যেসব স্বজনেরা (বিয়ের জন্য) হারাম তদ্রুপ দুধপাণের সম্পর্কের ভিত্তিতে তারা হারাম #বুখারী ও #মুসলীম।
✒ তোমাদের জন্য নিষিদ্ধ (বিয়ের জন্য) তোমাদের দুধমাতা ও দুধবোন – সূরা : নিসা -২৩|
অবিলম্বে হিউম্যান মিল্ক ব্যাংক বন্ধের আহ্বান জানাই ? pic.twitter.com/3gZUSfFyNi
— syful alam001? (@DrSyful) December 23, 2019
Marriage between those are forbidden on the basis of relations include the relations of milk-mother -#Bukhari and #Muslim (Hadiths).
Forbidden for you (for marriage) are your milk mother and milk sister – Surah: Nisa-25 (from the Quran)
I urge to close the Human Milk Bank immediately.
Mamunur Rashid also thought it better not to take the risk:
যাদের মাঝে বিবাহ হারাম তাদের মাঝে অন্যতম দুধ ভাই বোন। আর মিল্ক ব্যাংক থেকে দুধ পান করা হলে আপনি জানবেন না যার সাথে বিবাহ হচ্ছে সেও একই মায়ের দুধ পান করেছেন কিনা। হারামের ঝুকি থেকেই যায়, আর হারামের ঝুকি থাকলে সেইদিকে না যাওয়াই উত্তম
— Mamunur Rashid (@SMM_Rashid) December 25, 2019
Marriage between milk-siblings is forbidden. If breastmilk is fed from the bank, the recipient will not know whether the person whom they are marrying in the future have been fed the same breastmilk. There is a risk of Haram and better to avoid this.
Mohammad Mahmudul Hasan, a legal practitioner of the country's Supreme Court, has already sent a legal notice to the respective authorities against the Human Milk Bank, citing the legal and religious complications in donating milk to others.
However, Associate Professor Dr. Mujibur Rahman, who is leading the human milk donation project, defended the bank in an interview with the Bangla Tribune, explaining that there will be a proper record of both donors and recipients:
প্রত্যেকের জন্য আলাদা ডাটা, আলাদা আইডি কার্ড রাখা হবে। যিনি দান করবেন এবং যিনি গ্রহণ করবেন, তাদের দুজনের কাছেই পরিচয়পত্র থাকবে। এখানে প্রত্যেক মায়ের দুধ আলাদা কৌটায় রাখা হবে, যেসব শিশুকে আরেক মায়ের দুধ খাওয়ানো হবে, তাদের দুই পক্ষকেই আইডি কার্ড দেওয়া হবে। রেফারেন্স নম্বর-রেজিস্ট্রেশন নম্বর, খাতা ও ভলিউম, এন্ট্রি পৃষ্ঠার নম্বর, সবই তাদের দেওয়া হবে।
There will be separate ID cards and data for both the donors and recipients of breastmilk. Donated milk will not be mixed and will be kept in separate containers. The ID records of both of them; reference nos, registrations nos, entry and volume, all will be shared.
Once this is the case, the issue of future marriage between “milk siblings” should not arise. Dr. Rahman further stated that the milk bank is being created for infants in critical care, so its main aim is to save their lives, and Islam has placed the utmost importance on saving human lives.
Finding breast milk for newborns in Bangladesh is difficult — an overwhelmingly conservative mindset means that most women do not want to breastfeed other people's children.
On Facebook,  Tuli Sangeeta shared an incident from her childhood, in which her neighbour prematurely gave birth to twins. The mother was not yet lactating, one child had already died and the other was in critical care — she therefore needed help from others to breastfeed her child:
আমার মা পুরো হাসপাতালে ঘুরে ঘুরে অন্য মায়েদের সহায়তা চেয়ে বেরিয়েছেন, যদি একটুখানি মায়ের দুধ পান ছোট্ট বাচ্চাটার জন্য। কেউই খুব একটা রাজী ছিলেন না অন্যদের সন্তানকে একটুখানি বুকের দুধ দিতে!!
অবশেষে দুজন মাকে খুঁজে পাওয়া গিয়েছিলো যারা এক কোলে নিজের সন্তান আর আরেক কোলে ওই আন্টির সন্তানকে মাতৃস্নেহের ভাগ দিতে রাজী হয়েছিলেন। সারাজীবন এই দুজনের জন্য মনে মনে আনত শ্রদ্ধা পুষে এসেছি।
My mom roamed around the hospital to find other women who just gave birth. She begged breast milk from them to save our neighbour's remaining newborn.
At last, she found two mothers who, after feeding their own newborns, were willing to share their breast milk with the child in critical care. All my life, I thanked these two mothers with the utmost respect.
Number of deaths of infants under five years per 1,000 live births in Bangladesh for the period 1960–2016. Image from Wikimedia Commons by MagHoxpox. CC BY-SA 4.0.
Bangladesh has made great strides in reducing the infant mortality rate. In spite of this, being a populous country, the number of annual infant deaths is still considerably high compared to developed countries.
Each year in Bangladesh, 62,000 newborns die after birth — half of them on the first day of their lives and most of the rest within the first month. Such deaths occur due to premature birth, infections, and breathing-related complications as a result of delivery. Each year, 5,200 mothers also die during childbirth.
According to researchers, if a newborn is fed with breastmilk within one hour of birth, as many as one-third of these deaths could be prevented.
The Human Milk Bank at the Bangladesh Institute of Child and Mother Health will not be available for all newborns, however, only for those in critical care.
Jainab Tabassum Banu Sonali expressed hope in an op-ed in the Daily Sun that similar milk banks would be set up to help working mothers who have been struggling to breastfeed their babies while working full-time jobs.
Human milk banks or breastfeeding support groups already operate in many Muslim countries, including Iran, UAE, Malaysia, and many have suggested that their methods — which should encounter no objection from a religious perspective — can be researched and adopted in Bangladesh.

author: পান্থ রহমান রেজা (Pantha)


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Data protection policy void threatens privacy rights of citizens and refugees in Jordan · Global Voices
Global Voices MENA

This post was written by Raya Sharbain of the Jordan Open Source Association (JOSA), which works to promote open source, free culture and digital rights in Jordan.
Several regional tech businesses are based in the Jordanian capital Amman, sometimes referred to as the Middle East's Silicon Valley. Photo credit: Dimitris Vetsikas via Pixabay [CC0].
In November 2018, at the 31st session of the Universal Periodic Review, Jordan received for the first time in its history two recommendations on the right to privacy. Both Estonia and Brazil called attention to the need to respect citizens’ privacy. However, Jordan's experience has shown threats to privacy and digital rights come not only from the government but also from international agencies and corporations including Internet Service Providers and tech start-ups.
In the absence of a privacy law, how is personal data being handled in Jordan today by public, private, and international actors? And will the enactment of a data protection law reinforce privacy protections in the country?
It’s a long-standing belief among Jordanians that someone is always listening in, whether on phone calls or over internet cables. Government surveillance is a strong threat to Jordanians’ right to privacy which has pushed many, including journalists, to practise self-censorship.
The Necessary and Proportionate Principles
The International Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communications Surveillance (the “Necessary and Proportionate Principles” or “13 Principles”), were drafted by privacy and technology experts, and launched in September 2013 to ”provide civil society groups, states, the courts, legislative and regulatory bodies, industry, and others with a framework to evaluate whether current or proposed surveillance laws and practices around the world are compatible with human rights.”
Privacy and surveillance regulations include the Telecommunications Law (13/1995) which states that “telephone calls and private Telecommunications shall be considered confidential matters which may not be violated, under legal liability” (Article 56:4). While it mentions a traditional medium of communication, it has no specific reference to digital platforms. Moreover, the Anti-Terrorism Law of 2006 and specifically Article 4 threatens privacy rights under the pretence of protecting public safety and security. It also fails to comply with the Necessary and Proportionate Principles, since it stipulates that a person can be subject to surveillance “if the Prosecutor General received reliable information indicating that a person or group of persons is connected to any terrorist activity.” Definitions for what constitute “reliable information” and “terrorist activity” are absent from the Article.
In 2018, the government proposed amendments to the Cybercrime Law which included “applications” to the list of “information systems” that can be subjected to government inspection. The prosecutor was also granted more surveillance powers. During a parliamentary session in February 2019, the majority of members voted in favour of the draft amendments.
To make matters worse, in the absence of a data protection law, the Jordanian government is imposing on its citizens mandatory smart IDs that store biometric data, and a mandatory SIM card registration plan that will require citizens to submit their fingerprints to register a new phone number.
Iris scanner used by refugees to purchase groceries at Azraq refugee camp in Jordan
on April 3, 2019. Photo by the author, used with permission.
Meanwhile, international institutions also have accountability. Jordan hosts about 531,000 Syrian refugees with 123,000 living inside refugee camps (as of December 2019). Upon entering Jordan, refugees must give their biometric data. According to UNHCR’s data protection policy, data should only be obtained “either by a written or oral statement or by a clear affirmative action.” But the World Food Program partnered with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and Jordanian/British company IrisGuard in implementing a biometric transaction system whereby refugees purchase food and groceries and take out cash from ATMs by scanning their irises. There are concerns on whether refugees are aware of an option to opt out of such a system, let alone whether they have actually been given informed consent.
In the private sector, it is mostly policy voids that are threatening digital rights. Amman, the capital of Jordan, has a vibrant tech scene. Many regional companies such as online classified platform OpenSooq, Arabic-language publishing platform Mawdoo3, regional weather services company ArabiaWeather, and the regional online book retailer Jamalon, are headquartered in Amman. International companies like Expedia, Amazon, Microsoft, and Careem have engineering offices in the country. With no data protection law, these companies are left to handle user data haphazardly. Just a skim over some of these websites’ privacy policies reveals some invasive practices.
For example, job search website Akhtaboot boldly states in its privacy policy that it sells users’ data:
…we reserve the right to sell the information that is willingly posted by users on the site to third party customers seeking recruitment services. Akhtaboot is not responsible for any actions taken by any third party customer with regards to the information that is posted by users.
After developing Salma, an Arabic-speaking conversational agent similar to Siri and Alexa, Mawdoo3  appended their privacy policy stating that they “reserve the right to monitor and save sound recordings, and any correspondence made by the user through the application for the purposes of quality control and for security reasons, within legal limitations.” Users must also “agree that Mawdoo3 shall not be liable, in any way, for the compromise of user data resulting from hacking.”
Ride-hailing app Careem (acquired by Uber in March 2019) has been required by the Ministry of Transportation to give law enforcement full access to its computers, servers, and data in order to be able to operate in the country.
Internet Service Providers in Jordan have also been involved in practices that infringe on user privacy. A recent study by AccessNow and impACT has shown that not only do ISPs collect more data than necessary, they also do not reveal to users what data they collect and how they process it.
In 2014, the Jordanian Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (now known as Ministry of Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship) introduced a draft bill for personal data protection, which is currently in its fourth and final draft to date.
The draft personal data protection bill partially aligns itself with core aspects of European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and applies to all private and public institutions in Jordan including international agencies and organizations registered locally. It mirrors GDPR’s concepts of transparency, accuracy, storage limitation, and data minimisation.
As it stands, however, the bill still raises major concerns. For example, the Jordan Privacy Commission, proposed by the bill, lacks independence. In fact, under the current draft, the commission will not only be appointed by the government but also chaired by the ICT minister.
It is still uncertain when the bill will become law. It still needs to be adopted by the parliament, before it officially becomes law within a six-month timeframe through royal assent.
In Jordan, and the entire region, surveillance has been used to silence dissent. In today’s hyperconnected world, however, threats to privacy in Jordan emanate not only from the government, but also international agencies and corporations including ISPs and tech start-ups.
Data protection laws tend to be perceived as a panacea for all privacy concerns, but it is yet to be seen how the proposed bill in Jordan will take shape, and whether it will be effectively enforced after its adoption.

author: Global Voices MENA


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Global Voices quinceañera: The Caribbean steps out of the box · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

The Global Voices 15th birthday celebrations continue, as we take a look at three 2019 stories that demonstrated ways in which the region evolved by going against the grain of traditional Caribbean society.
Pride parade in Port of Spain Trinidad on July 31, 2019. Photo by Maria Nunes. Used with permission.
On the occasion of the country's second annual pride celebrations, Trinidadian poet Shivanee Ramlochan posted a powerful essay on Facebook that perfectly encapsulated both the freedom of being unapologetically out and the tough road it took to get there.
Pride is beautiful. And it is political. And it is born of a bloody, mutinous theirstory, from the roots of a radical understanding that acceptance was not the only striveable goal, at least not acceptance from the come-to-Christer, from the corporation, from the oligarchy, from the evangelical, from the elite. And so whether your body was visible in the parade, or not, to exist queerly is its own breathtaking defiance of the statutes of raw hatred. You are alive. All the cells in you, incandescently gay. Irrepressibly lesbian. Outstandingly bisexual. Terrifically transgender. Indisputably intersex. Notwithstanding societal bullshit, non-binary. Queer as quantum joy.
Being gay in a region where so many territories still have “buggery” laws on the books is a challenge, but the fact that pride parades have been successfully pulled off — in Barbados, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago — leaves room for the hope that diversity will not only be tolerated but appreciated.
Cannabis, by Don Goofy, CC BY-NC 2.0.
As far back as 2014, the Caribbean was in the midst of a debate about marijuana legalisation. Jamaica eventually passed decriminalisation legislation in February 2015; the measure was welcomed as a kind of emancipation.
For the Caribbean, the idea of legal marijuana sales, purchase and consumption finally seemed to be an idea whose time had come; it was now a question of which countries would follow Jamaica's lead — and when.
Trinidad and Tobago was making moves to decriminalise, pushed along by longtime cannabis advocates like Nazma Muller, who was arrested outside parliament in October while continuing to press for the enactment of existing medical marijuana legislation. She saw this as a forerunner to decriminalisation, which has taken longer than promised. In the interim, people were still arrested and sentenced for marijuana possession.
As the marijuana bill was set to go to the country's cabinet in early November 2019, advocates focused on how to get those charged with possession of small amounts of marijuana out of the criminal system.
Trinidad and Tobago's marijuana decriminalisation legislation will finally be proclaimed on December 23. However, controversy is brewing over an alleged conflict of interest with Attorney-General Faris Al Rawi, who piloted the bill. Members of the AG's family have allegedly registered a for-profit entity called West Indian Cannabis Company, while, according to Muller, “cannabis is still illegal in T&T”:
The Attorney General must explain how his Ministry registered a company to engage in promoting — and possibly selling — an illegal substance, for which citizens have been jailed.
When the matter was raised in parliament, Al Rawi replied, “It is a fantasy that I could have any pecuniary interest in debating this bill. My wife has a very large family and I can’t claim to know what they do.”
Even with the imminent passing of the legislation, it seems that the controversy over marijuana in Trinidad and Tobago isn't quite over.
Redemption Song Statue, Emancipation Park, Jamaica. Photo by Mark Franco, used with permission.
The concept of reparations for the injustices of slavery is one that has held a lot of traction in the Caribbean. In October 2015, when then-British Prime Minister David Cameron visited Jamaica, the topic was raised — and dismissed out of hand with Cameron's admonishment for Jamaican to just “get over slavery.”
In response to “the whole idea of this dough-faced Tory coming to the colonies to tell the subjects what's what in our own damn house,” acclaimed Jamaican author Marlon James said:
Listen David bae, I feel you. I'm with you on this forgetting slavery business, screw all the haters. I too am all ready to move past slavery and forget the whole thing.
I just have one condition: YOU FIRST.
You heard me. I promise to stop bitching about the legacy of Slavery and Colonialism (don't get it twisted, the latter was even worse) and move on if you also move on, by destroying every building, every landmark, every statue, every port, every bridge, every road, every house, every palace, every mansion, every gallery (Hello, Tate!), every museum, and every ship built with slavery and colonialism blood money.
That would mean that London, Bristol and Liverpool would all have to go.
Then we'd all be just about full free, David.
Such calls for reparations are not new. Guyana was the first CARICOM territory to speak out on the issue. In 2011, Antigua and Barbuda made a stirring plea for reparations at the United Nations and the following year, both Jamaica and Barbados established reparation commissions, charged with leading the lobby for both formal apologies for the horrors and inhumanity of slavery as well as economic justice for descendants of slaves.
Finally, on July 31, 2019, their efforts met with success as vice-chancellor of the University of the West Indies, Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, and the University of Glasgow’s Chief Operating Officer, Dr. David Duncan, signed a historic agreement for slavery reparations — the first such contract since people enslaved by the British were fully emancipated in 1838.
Never before has a UK-based institution that profited from slavery apologised for its role — and proven its remorse by showing the money — in this case, £20 million ($24,308,500 United States dollar). Symbolic of the sum the British government paid to slave owners as compensation for the abolition of slavery, the money will be used for research and other development-based initiatives between the two universities over the next 20 years, under the auspices of the Glasgow-Caribbean Centre for Development Research, which is to be jointly owned and managed.
Three months later, the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne, wrote to Harvard University President Lawrence Bacow, asking the Ivy league university to live up to its responsibilities and pay his country reparations for the school's historical ties to — and profiteering from — the transatlantic slave trade.
Browne maintained that reparations were owed to Antigua and Barbuda on account of the fact that Isaac Royall Jr., an American slave trader and landowner who also operated in Antigua, bequeathed money to Harvard to establish its first law professorship, which later led to the creation of the Harvard Law School in 1817. He is hoping to have the reparations put toward education — specifically The University of West Indies at Five Islands.
To make matters worse, in celebration of the university's tercentenary in 1936, Harvard Law turned Royall's shield into the school's official seal — a hugely controversial decision. In 2016, Harvard students protested to have the crest removed, calling it “a glorification of and a memorial to one of the largest and most brutal slave owners in Massachusetts.”
The seal was eventually removed, and Harvard's former president, Drew Faust, declared the university's ongoing commitment to acknowledging its ties to slavery, a fact that the current president mentioned in his response to Browne.
Thus far, there has been no confirmation as to whether or not Harvard intends to follow the example set by the University of Glasgow, but whether or not the attempt is successful, there is no disputing that the Caribbean has performed admirably this year in tackling an issue for which the Global North — despite its profiteering from slavery, colonialism and other injustices in the region — is still reluctant to make amends.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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Who has ruined Christmas peace and joy in Hong Kong? · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

“Be water shopping” in a shopping mall in Shatin district. By 朝雲. Photo used under content partnership agreement with Stand News.
Hong Kong’s Christmas was neither peaceful nor joyful as riot police charged major shopping districts with anti-riot weapons to disperse flash mob protests. By December 28, a total of 336 people were arrested.
Thanks to the police, Hong Kong has its own version of ‘white Christmas':
Guess what? We have a white Christmas Eve in #HK. Tear gas in Tst, right in front of a hotel. I hope Police won’t make this Christmas Eve a bloody one. #PoliceBrutality pic.twitter.com/Sx9gfKaSAH
— Sunny Cheung 張崑陽 (@SunnyCheungky) December 24, 2019
‘Be water shopping’ and collateral damage
Ahead of Christmas, protesters called for a series of flash mob actions called “Shop with you” or “be water shopping” (和理 shop) on various social media platforms. Similar actions had taken place a few times in previous holidays like Halloween in the past few months.
“Be water shopping” means roaming around in shopping malls and shopping districts, singing protest songs and chanting slogans. Some protesters believe that it is a relatively safe protest strategy – if riot police entered shopping malls, it would result in collateral damage of the holiday shopping businesses, and they also believe that the economic harm would press the government and the pro-establishment to support the independent investigation of police brutality in the violent dispersal of protests since June 2019.
Majority of the ‘shoppers’ were peaceful but in a number of districts, a few pro-Beijing shops windows were smashed by some masked individuals. Instead of targeting the violent protesters, the police deployed riot control weapons including tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, water cannon and batons against the peaceful flash mobs:
Christmas in Hong Kong, 2019.
Photo by @initiumnews pic.twitter.com/ILTQPHOAz6
— Denise Ho (HOCC) (@hoccgoomusic) December 24, 2019
Who has ruined Christmas?
Some members of Hong Kong Watch, a human rights group based in the United Kingdom, witnessed the clashes between the police and protesters in a number of shopping districts during Christmas Eve. The group issued a statement condemning the brutality of the Hong Kong police:
Widespread reports of beatings, firing rubber bullets at people’s heads and faces (in clear breach of international norms), indiscriminate use of teargas and water cannon against largely peaceful crowds celebrating Christmas in Tsim Sha Tsui and other areas represent yet another example of the escalating human rights crisis in Hong Kong.
The city’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam, on the other hand, blamed protesters for ruining Christmas. Meanwhile, the police spokesperson described protesters as criminal thugs who terrorized Hong Kong people holding different political views. He urged shop owners to cooperate with police action.
However, who looked more like thugs? Writer Richard Scotford posted photos of plain clothes police in one of the shopping malls:
Here’re the black gangs that have ruined everyone’s Christmas. pic.twitter.com/AmZPNKbXFJ
— RichS (@RichScotford) December 25, 2019
And many netizens compared the unidentified masked plain clothes police to terrorists:
I can't find the different pic.twitter.com/AyMr7DP8gn
— ??M.hkgers??? (@Marvintsk) December 26, 2019
No independent investigation of police brutality
Earlier in December, the international panel of experts hired by the Hong Kong government to advise the police watchdog over its handling of complaints against abusive police officers had quit their jobs as they argued that the current mechanism was not equipped to carry out a proper investigation.
On Christmas eve, Washington Post published an investigative report quoting experts who had reviewed Hong Kong police’s official guidelines and training manuals and concluded that the city’s police force has been ignoring its own protocols aside from misusing chemical agents and deploying excessive force against peaceful protesters.
Since June 2019, more than 6,300 protesters had been arrested but thus far not a single police officer has been punished for excessive use of violence that led to severe injuries of activists, journalists and first aiders.
Reports about arbitrary arrests by the police and torture while under police custody have been appearing in the past few months. In addition, rumors kept circulating online that some frontline protesters were beaten to death and staged as suicides by the police.  Between June to September, there were 256 cases of suicides and 2,537 cases of deaths outside hospitals. These figures are more than 15 and 14 percent higher than in the same period in 2018.
While the government authorities kept debunking the accusation as rumors, its refusal to carry out an independent investigation on police brutality has undermined its credibility. The government also kept issuing political advertisements urging peaceful pro-democracy citizens to denounce the so-called protesters’ disruptive and violent acts. Yet such call has lost its moral ground as there is no independent investigation into the abuse of power by the police.
Meanwhile, the violent crackdown on protests has affected the local economy. The number of tourists in Hong Kong has decreased by 53 percent during the Christmas season.
It is unlikely that Hong Kong will be back to normal in 2020 if the government continues to ignore the five major demands of the protesters. The Civic Human Rights Coalition has prepared for it annual rally on the first day of 2020 and its only agenda is to reiterate the protest demands: withdrawal of anti-extradition bill (already withdrawn on 23 of October), remove the riot label against the protesters, independent investigation of police brutality, amnesty for the arrested protesters, and universal suffrage:
We will hold a rally on 1 January 2020, with the theme “Remember Our Promises, We Stand As One”. Letter of No Objection pending. #StandwithHK #WeStandAsOne #FiveDemandsNotOneLess #HKProtest pic.twitter.com/3E5Ipt1HD4
— Civil Human Rights Front 民間人權陣線 (@chrf_hk) December 24, 2019

author: Oiwan Lam


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A journey through Uzbek national identity on the Tashkent metro · Global Voices
Filip Noubel

Main entry hall of the Bunyodkor metro station in Tashkent. Photo (c): Filip Noubel, used with permission.
For many years, it was strictly prohibited to photograph the ornate stations of the Tashkent metro in the Uzbek capital. The Soviet-era system had also been constructed with nuclear attack in mind, and could serve as a fallout shelter in wartime. But ever since that ban was lifted in early 2018, visitors from abroad have started to show heightened interest in Central Asia's oldest subway system. And with good reason.
Tashkent's metro system is so much more than just a means of transportation. Over the decades of its existence, the design and names of the metro's 29 ornate stations have changed to reflect the turbulent trends of Uzbekistan's history. In short, a ride on the Tashkent metro tells the story of a country where nation building is still very much in process.
That story begins in the early days of Soviet socialism.
Vladimir Lenin once famously said that “communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country” (Коммунизм — это есть советская власть плюс электрификация всей страны). Back in November 1920, electricity was a taste of the bold promises of progress to come; it embodied the new innovations now made accessible to the masses. Just 12 years later, the Soviet leadership pronounced yet another strategic and futuristic priority: the construction of the metropolitan, as Europe's subway systems had come to be known in the second half of the 19th century. On May 25, 1932, the Sovnarkom, the then executive body of the Soviet government issued a decree:
«Считать Метрострой важнейшей государственной стройкой с обеспечением ее лесоматериалами, металлом, цементом, средствами транспорта и т. п. как первоочередной важности ударной стройки всесоюзного значения».
“The construction of the metropolitan must be considered a project of the utmost importance to the state, with its provision of timber, metal, cement, transportation, etc, and as a key priority in matters of superproductivity at the national level.”
In other words, no efforts would be spared to demonstrate the success and superiority of Soviet technology. The first metro pit was excavated in Moscow in the 1930s, and the first line officially opened in May 1935. Those events can be revisited in the 1935 documentary film “There's a Subway” (Есть Метро) which covers the entire construction process between 1931 and 1935:
The development of the metro also marked a key turning point in the development of the Soviet economy: while the first five-year plan (1928–1932) emphasised heavy industrialisation, the second five-year plan focused on urbanisation. As a result, the metro became a major cultural symbol, present in films, children's books, poetry and songs. It was hailed as testament to the success of Stalinism in official songs, such as this one from 1936:
Мы верили, мы знали, / Что, роя котлован,
Мы твой, товарищ Сталин, / Осуществляем план.
Опишут для столетий, / Да не одно перо
А после скажут детям / Как бились за метро!
We believed, we knew, That by digging a pit,
We would, Comrade Stalin, Make your plan come true.
They will describe it for centuries on, And not with just one pen
And they will tell the children, How they fought for the metro!
— Song about the Metro (Песня о метро), 1936.
However, in later decades the metro also made its way into marginal or dissident culture, as shown in this 1969 song by Bulat Okudzhava:
Inspired by the success of the Moscow metro, in later years the Soviet government then announced it would build a metro in every Soviet city with over one million inhabitants. That ambitious plan eventually slowed down, but by the time of the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, it had constructed metro systems in 13 cities, including Leningrad (1955), Kyiv (1960), Tbilisi (1966), and, of course, Tashkent (1977).
The people of Tashkent had to wait several decades for their metro, which was the first in remote and comparatively underdeveloped Soviet Central Asia. Planners faced several challenges: the Uzbek capital had experienced a crushing earthquake in 1966, which destroyed half the city. The city lacked trained engineers and metro workers. Uzbekistan's long and scorching summers posed problems for ventilation. Which was precisely why the Soviet authorities had to demonstrate that they were up to the task.
Mobilising human resources and special construction material from all across the Soviet Union, the first metro pits in Tashkent were dug in 1973. Just four years later, in a Stakhanovite spirit which set a record, the metro's first line was opened in November 1977. The date was chosen to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the Russian revolution. Accordingly, as news footage from that day shows, all local politicians were present at the opening, where a message of congratulations from Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev was read out before the crowd.
In subsequent years, new stations were added to the system. By 1984, a second line had been opened. As this 2007 documentary shows, particular attention was paid to the design of the stations:
As in other Soviet metro systems, each station of the Tashkent metro was assigned a particular political and cultural message to illustrate key messages of Soviet ideology. When Uzbekistan gained independence in 1991, its new government followed the example of other young states and renamed streets, squares, and metro stations to distance itself from certain elements of the the Soviet past. In doing so, they reaffirmed long obliterated and sometimes censored symbols of Uzbekistan's pre-Soviet past. Of the 23 stations constructed during the Soviet period, 11 have been given new names. For example, Lenin Square station is now typically called Mustaqillik maydoni, or Independance Square, in Uzbek.
Soviet postage stamp from 1979 depicting Tashkent's Lenin Square metro station, as it was called at the time. Photo from Wikipedia Commons, copyright waived.
Of the 29 stations operating today (a third line was opened in 2001), five metro stations are particularly revealing in what they tell us about Uzbekistan's changing narratives around national identity:
Xalqlar Do'stigli metro station in Tashkent. Photo (c): Filip Noubel, used with permission.
Xalqlar Do'stigli (Friendship of the Peoples): This station is an emblematic example. Known as Friendship of the Peoples during the Soviet period, its previous name reflected Soviet ideology's extensive attempts to emphasise its supposedly peaceful international role during the Cold War, in opposition to western imperialism. The station's overground building conveys this message of futurism. In 2008, Uzbekistan's then President Islam Karimov, who kept a rather independent line from Moscow, renamed the station Bunyodkor (“The Founder”), in honour of his own role as founding father of the new Uzbek nation. However, in 2018, Uzbekistan's second president Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who is keen on closer ties with Russia, restored the station's previous name.
Tiles representing cotton flowers at Paxtakor metro station in Tashkent. Photo (c): Filip Noubel, used with permission.
Paxtakor (The Cotton Grower). This station's name symbolises the Uzbek economy's everlasting dependency on cotton production. During the Soviet period, Moscow assigned each of the 15 Soviet republics a particular crop to produce en masse. This focus on cotton monoculture has been continued by all subsequent Uzbek governments at a high price for the country's population. The cotton sector has used forced labor, including that of children. Irrigation for the vast cotton fields has brought ecological disaster on the country with the shrinking of the Aral Sea. Today Uzbekistan is the world's eighth largest cotton producer.
Chandelier in Chilonzor metro station. Photo (c): Filip Noubel, used with permission.
Chilonzor. This station was named after the nearby district of Chilonzor, whose massive residential complexes were developed along the lines of Soviet urbanisation. Chilonzor is one of the most imposing in terms of art: its walls are covered in white marble, while several panels of 3D ceramics, all made by leading sculptors, illustrate the Soviet vision of Uzbek life: a mix of rural traditions and urban achievements, all enhanced by a series of massive crown-shaped chandeliers reminiscent of the Moscow metro.
Here is one “Uzbek scene,” depicting men drinking tea on a tapchan, a wooden platform that helps to isolate from the scorching heat:
Tea drinking scene in 3D ceramics at Chilonzor metro station, Tashkent. Photo (c): Filip Noubel, used with permission.
Alisher Navoi. This station was named after the 15th century poet and linguist Alisher Navoi, whom several states in Central Asia claim as their own. Navoi was born on the territory of modern Afghanistan, and wrote in Persian, Arabic, and Chagatai, the ancestor of the modern Uzbek language.
Alisher Navoi playing a stringed instrument, in Alisher Navoi metro station. Photo (c): Filip Noubel, used with permission.
Kosmonavtlar (The Cosmonauts). In the Kremlin's narrative the cosmonauts, the Soviet Union's spacemen, were the apex of Soviet science and progress. This station is decorated in cosmic blue with portraits of Uzbek medieval astrologists and Soviet cosmonauts.
Kosmonovtlar metro station with a portrait of Yuri Gagarin, the first man into space. Photo by Filip Noubel, used with permission.
From Soviet to post-Soviet, from socialist to Islamic, Tashkent's metro celebrates and commemorates Uzbekistan's remarkable history. Its stations have become an integral part of any visit to the Uzbek capital, perhaps signalling that tourism will be the next chapter in Uzbekistan's long nation building narrative.

author: Filip Noubel


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All I want for Christmas is a free Hong Kong: How activists used festive cards to get the word out · Global Voices
Hong Kong Free Press

Photo: Free HK Christmas Card Telegram channel. Via Hong Kong Free Press.
This post is originally written by Heidi Lee and published on Hong Kong Free Press on 29 of December 2019. The following edited version is published on Global Voices under a content partnership agreement.
Since the beginning of December, Moon has been writing Christmas cards with her friends at Ryerson University in Toronto. They purchased cards from stores and filled them with holiday wishes from a letter template.
Gathered in a room like workshop elves, they copied the same message over and over again, cut out stickers to decorate the cards, put them in envelopes and attached tiny pamphlets explaining the ongoing political turmoil in Hong Kong that has gripped the city for over half a year.
Their efforts were in response to a call to action by the Telegram channel Free HK Xmas Card. Participants are asked to write Christmas cards and send them to people across the world. Fung, the admin of the messaging channel, said he aimed to “make the wish of Hong Kong people a universal Christmas wish for all.”
Cards designed by volunteers were sent to random strangers, Santa Clauses worldwide, media outlets, friends and family members. Moon decided to send cards to professors at her university.
Photo: Free HK Christmas Card Telegram channel. Via HKFP
She said she got positive feedback from some of her professors when she mentioned this project she had been working on:
They thought it was a creative and innovative way to bring activism into conversations… It was a pretty good event where people in our group can try to connect to [people in Canada] by practically putting our hands down [to write] and starting more conversations about what’s happening in Hong Kong.
Photo: Free HK Christmas Card Telegram channel. Via HKFP.
With approximately 4,000 people subscribing to the Telegram channel, Free HK Xmas Card attracted a lot of participants, including Hongkongers like Moon and her friends living overseas.
Back in October, Fung initiated the #freehkxmascard campaign as he believed the right to protest was under attack. The project was designed for peaceful, rational, and non-violent protesters who felt like they were not contributing enough.
People volunteered to translate holiday greetings into different languages and write letter templates for people of different backgrounds. The team included a total of 21 core members, with nine located in Hong Kong and a dozen overseas.
New South Wales Hongkongers, an Australia-based civil organisation, also collaborated with the campaign to make the event possible. Fung said:
I think maybe peaceful protesters are able to do more than going to rallies. Spreading awareness to the world is a new way out.
Political figures have also become the targeted recipients. According to Twitter posts by Danish politician Uffe Elbæk and Australian Liberal Senator James Paterson, the two received holiday greetings from Hong Kong citizens.
Photo: Free HK Christmas Card Telegram channel. Via HKFP.
Thank you @NSWHongKongers for these awesome Christmas Cards #standwithHK https://t.co/XmNM7sbevZ
— James Paterson (@SenPaterson) December 18, 2019
Paterson thanked the group for their Christmas cards. He posted a picture of Christmas cards with characters wearing masks below a calligram formed by words that represent Hong Kong. The politician stated those were his favourite.
In Elbæk’s post, he posed with the Christmas cards he received and covered his right eye, a gesture indicating solidarity with a volunteer medic who suffered an eye injury during a protest in the summer.
Last day at my parliament office before holidays starts. I’m sitting behind some of the many, many Christmas greetings I have received from ordinary citizens from Hong Kong. I’m totally overwhelmed. I can only say one thing: #standwithhongkong and may the force be with you #dkpol pic.twitter.com/Vz9tle42w3
— Uffe Elbaek (@uffeelbaek) December 20, 2019
Besides politicians, participants also received replies from those they contacted via Postcrossing, a postcard exchange project allowing people to exchange postcards from strangers around the world.
Photo: Free HK Christmas Card Telegram channel. Via HKFP
Fung said he understood foreign countries do not have the obligation to help Hong Kong, but he believed in the impact of Christmas cards:
If we forcefully shove data and facts [in] foreigners’ faces, they might be overwhelmed by the message and not read it. Christmas cards are more approachable to all walks of life.
Moon said the Christmas card stunt allowed Hongkongers to address each individual personally:
[W]e tried to connect with them on a one-on-one level, and that gave us a little bit more appreciation. They would be more open to receiving information about Hong Kong.
Fung said he did not keep track of the exact number of cards that had been sent. However, he said more than 30,000 cards were posted out in November alone.
As the festive season comes to an end, Fung and his team are launching two new events— Free HK Nengajo and Free HK Lunar Card to help raise awareness of the movement’s demands into the new year.
Fung said Free HK Nengajo is designed for the Japanese. Nengajo is a traditional form of New Year’s greeting in Japan. Similar to Christmas cards, it would be used as a way to connect with older generations in Japan who may not always care much for foreign affairs.
Similarly, Free HK Lunar Card would also be used to spread awareness that the New Year is not only for the Chinese, but for everyone. Fung said:
I hope this event will inspire the peaceful, rational and non-violent protesters to carry on.
Whilst some might think sending out Christmas cards may not change anything, Fung said that the idea may give rise to the butterfly effect – the notion that a small change can make a huge difference in the system:
Never underestimate the power of your action… After all, our movement started with something small and turned into something massive.
Heidi Lee is a Toronto-based student journalist from Hong Kong. She has been writing for the Eyeopener, Ryerson University’s independent student newspaper, since 2018.

author: Hong Kong Free Press


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Comics fans in southern Europe celebrated the triple anniversary of cult publications in 2019 · Global Voices
Filip Stojanovski

Comics magazines Strip Revija Večernjeg Lista (Croatia), Politikin Zabavnik and Stripoteka (Serbia) with articles about 50-year anniversaries of Alan Ford, Dikan and Stripoteka. Photo by Global Voices, CC BY.
For comics fans in southern European countries, 2019 will be remembered as the year of a triple nostalgic jubilee of cult series: the 50th-anniversary publication of influential Italian comics ‘Alan Ford’, of the ‘Yugoslav Asterix’ Dikan, and of Serbian magazine Stripoteka.
Alan Ford, the comics parody of secret agent stories was created in May 1969 by the Milan-based writer Luciano Secchi, known under his pen name Max Bunker and artist Roberto Raviola, more known as Magnus. Max Bunker's company published the anniversary issue, number 600 in Italy in May 2019.
The Alan Ford series combines the Italian tradition of commedia dell'arte with satirical irreverence through the themes of injustice and backwardness, from politics and economics to human stupidity, bigotry, and greed. It became popular two years after its publication with the introduction of the villain Superciuk (known as Superhik in ex-Yugoslavia) in its 27th episode. This ‘alcoholic opposite of Robin Hood,’ an anti-superhero who literally ‘steals from the poor to give to the rich’ because as a street sweeper, he despises the lack of hygiene of lower classes, made the series a bestseller in its own country.
While the attempts to export this comics series to France, Denmark and Brazil failed, Alan Ford, alongside other Italian comics like Corto Maltese, became a fixture of the urban culture of Yugoslavia in the 1970s and 1980s.
Billboard in Zagreb, Croatia, advertising the book “Halo Bing” dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the cult comics Alan Ford, depicting the title character. Photo posted in May 2019 by Meta.mk News Agency, CC BY.
Alan Ford was first published in Yugoslavia in 1972 as part of the Superstrip imprint of the Croatian newspaper company Vjesnik. It soon became widely popular and gained cult status mainly because the original humor benefited from the excellent translation by the editor and journalist Nenad Brixy and later by his son. Both had been replacing whole segments of the text with their own mature jokes while using specific Croatian idioms.In 2015, the town of Varaždinske Toplice even erected a memorial plaque to Brixy for his contribution to the promotion of the Croatian language.
This comics had an enormous influence on popular culture in Yugoslavia, across the several languages spoken in the country. It inspired comedy productions such as Serbian movies (The Marathon Family, Balkan Express), Bosnian TV series “Surrealists’ Top Chart,”, as well as a political satire in the Slovenian newspaper Mladina (which fabricated an ‘apocryphal’ episode of the comics featuring Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito) and underground music with critical lyrics by Macedonian ska-punk band Superhiks.
The 50th anniversary was celebrated through public exhibitions displaying original panels and paraphernalia in Milan, but also in Ljubljana, Zagreb, Dubrovnik, Sarajevo, as well as in two events in Belgrade.
Some of these events were quite high-brow, like the exhibition “Alan Ford Runs a Lap of Honour” (a reference to the local title of the film Marathon Family) that took place in the National Gallery of Slovenia and can be seen in the following video:
The popularity of the Alan Ford comics was studied by sociologists, media and communication experts from almost all former Yugoslav republics. The author of one of these books, Lazar Džamić, explained its appeal in an article:
Razlog zbog kog je Alan Ford jedino na prostoru bivše Jugoslavije postao to što jeste, postao je naš i nigde u svetu nije bio toliko popularan, uključujući i rodnu Italiju, je u tome što je rezonovao sa tom bivšom zemljom i to na razne načine. U sebi ima veliku količinu nadrealne farse, ima veliku količinu satire koja satiriše svako nekompetentno, korumpirano, propagandističko društvo, u ono vreme je bilo smešteno u vreme Hladnog rata.
The reason why Alan Ford became what it still is [a cultural phenomenon], why it became ours and gained such popularity as nowhere else in the world, including its native Italy, is because it resonated with that former country [Yugoslavia] in different ways. It contains a high amount of surrealist farce, a high amount of satire denouncing an incompetent, corrupt, propagandist society, at that time in the context of the Cold War.
A new book on this matter titled “Hello Bing”, written by Croatian authors Ivan Sršen and Antonija Radić, was promoted in April 2019 in Zagreb. The book's title comes from a catchphrase in the comics. It contains an interview with the 80-year old author and publisher Max Bunker, and essays about the meaning and secret histories of this dark humor classic demonstrating the cross-border nature of the phenomenon.
Politikin Zabavnik issue 3506 from April 19, 2019 celebrating 50th anniversary of Dikan comics with a headline “Adventurous youth of the Old Slav.” Photo by Global Voices, CC BY.
Conceived as a Yugoslav version of the French classic Asterix and first published by the Serbian magazine Politikin Zabavnik in 1969, the comics Dikan is set in the Balkans during the so called Migration Period in the Early Middle Ages. It portrays the comical adventures of two Early Slavs, considered ancestors of the contemporary South Slavs (Serbs, Croats, Slovenians, Bosniaks, Montenegrins, Macedonians, and Bulgarians). The main characters are the heroic tall, blonde and handsome Dikan; and his sidekick uncle, short, cunning Vukoje.
Dikan comics were popular across former Yugoslavia, with new episodes added every few years until the mid-1980s. The anniversary essay in the Politikin Zabavnik publication (issue no. 3506, April 19, 2019 – not available online) noted that the comics circulation was high, while images of Dikan were used as mascots of the then massive voluntary youth work actions, in commercial advertising, and that there was even an initiative to adopt it as a mascot of Partizan, one of the top four football (soccer) clubs in the country.
That essay by Nemanja Baćković also noted that the publisher received a letter from an institution in majority-Albanian Kosovo which protested the absence of Illyrians in the comics. Illyrians are an ancient nation considered by some to be the ancestors of contemporary Albanians.
Meanwhile, Dikan has been cited in many papers and books, and throughout 2019 its editions were reprinted in Politikin Zabavnik and its magazine for preteens Mali Politikin Zabavnik.
The 50th anniversary edition of Stripoteka (issue number 1173, May 2019). Photo by Global Voices, CC BY.
Stripoteka, one of the oldest surviving comics magazines in the world, celebrated its 50th anniversary in May 2019. It was originally published in Novi Sad, the capital of Vojvodina province of Serbia, as a special monthly edition of an already established magazine, Panorama. It become so popular that it ran as a weekly paper between 1972 and 1985.
Its concept was to serve as “review of world comics,” using it 60-page magazine format [similar to Spirou, 2000 AD or Heavy Metal], to present–whole or chopped up in sequels–top quality graphic novels and other comics forms. As a whole, taken as a cross-section or an archive of the medium, balancing classics and contemporary hits, it has gained the status of an ‘encyclopedia’ or ‘academy of sciences for comics.’
The front page of the 50th anniversary edition (number 1173, May 2019) featured a collage of some of the most popular characters, from the Franco-Belgian Oumpah-pah, Gaston,  Lucky Luke, Axle Munshine and Lieutenant Blueberry; to American Tarzan, Mandrake the Magician, the Phantom, Hägar the Horrible, Marvel's Thor and Conan;  to Italian Corto  Malteze and Cocco Bill; to Spanish Torpedo and British Modesty Blaise.
In an op-ed in that issue, editor Milan Jovanović noted that through all its diversity, Stripoteka had been largely missing out on one important trend in world comics – manga. Therefore, that issue featured a story by Japanese artist Jiro Taniguchi (1947-2017).

author: Filip Stojanovski


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Global Voices quinceañera: How the climate crisis and other disasters affected the Caribbean in 2019 · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

As the year of Global Voices’ 15th birthday comes to a close, here are three more of the most compelling stores from the Caribbean team in 2019 — this time, related to climate change.
LEED-certified architect Mandilee Newton and her husband Tim at the #ClimateStrikeTT demonstration in Port of Spain, Trinidad, September 25, 2019. Photo by Rapso Imaging, used with permission.
At COP 21, the position of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) like the Caribbean was that the agreement coming out of that 2015 climate change conference must continue to recognise the vulnerabilities that such island nations face. In 2019, Caribbean-based individuals and organisations continued to advocate for environmental awareness and greener ways of living to stem rapidly rising global temperatures and their ill effects.
Jamaica, for instance, used music as a way to educate people about climate change and influence behavioural change. Women's movements in the country were also dedicated to environmental awareness. Tobago, meanwhile, used its increasing levels of coral bleaching as a warning tool, since the main contributors to the phenomenon are warmer water temperatures as a result of climate change.
By September 2019, young people throughout the region joined in solidarity with other global climate marches, empowering participants to plant trees and contribute to universal water sanitation, hygiene and resources management — heartening actions which suggest that the region is not prepared to accept its fate in a looming crisis to which it contributed the least, but will suffer from the most if left unchecked.
Screenshot taken from a YouTube video uploaded by NBC News showing drone footage of the Bahamas’ Marsh Harbour destroyed by Hurricane Dorian.
Predictably, the 2019 Atlantic hurricane season was deadly. Unpredictably, it was mostly because of one monster, slow-moving storm, Hurricane Dorian, which lumbered its way across the Caribbean before wreaking unimaginable havoc in The Bahamas.
Following the devastation, there were immediate calls for the region to wake up to the realities of the climate crisis, especially since Dorian was preceded by hurricanes like Irma and Maria in 2017, which had disastrous effects on islands like Puerto Rico and Dominica. Even Jamaica, which had survived a brutal assault from Hurricane Gilbert back in 1988, could not quite fathom how an island nation could withstand a storm with the hovering ferocity of Dorian.
The New Yorker did not mince words in the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian, saying that the trail of destruction, a steadily climbing death toll, severe flooding, unfathomable damage and serious cases of post-traumatic stress were tantamount to “a climate injustice”.
In addressing the United Nations Climate Event Summit in New York on September 23, 2019, Barbados’ prime minister, Mia Mottley, told world leaders to expect a mass migration of refugees if the climate crisis is not solved:
In other words, two degrees needs to be taken off the table once and for all. The global community must accept that it is within our power to halt and reverse climate change. […]
We refuse to be relegated to the footnotes of history and to be collateral damage for the greed of others, for we have contributed less than one percent of greenhouse gas emissions.
Other regional leaders joined the clarion call, and there is great hope that they will continue to advocate for the best interest of Small Island Developing States.
Screenshot from a YouTube video showing footage of a car accident on a bridge in Kingston, Jamaica. Fortunately, there were no fatalities in this particular crash. Video uploaded by Best Jamaica.
In another kind of environmental issue, Jamaica's steadily increasing number of motor vehicle-related deaths took centre stage in November. As at the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, 374 Jamaicans died in crashes, compared to 330 road fatalities in 2018, and 284 in 2017.
In 2019, the National Road Safety Council (NRSC), a non-governmental organisation, sadly failed to achieve its goal of “Below 300” road fatalities. While environmental factors may contribute to some accidents, the majority of crashes are blamed on culture, behaviour and corruption.
While Jamaica is not the only regional territory to grapple with rising road deaths, the hope is that with more robust legislation and a deeper grasp of the issue by decisionmakers, 2020 will be a better year.


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Trinidad and Tobago continues to face HIV stigma and lack of sex education · Global Voices
Jada Steuart

Selection of reproductive health supplies. Photo by the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition
@rhsupplies, via Unsplash.
In an interview with the Trinidad and Tobago Newsday in mid-December, 2019, Trinidad and Tobago Minister of Health Terrence Deyalsingh made a controversial statement, suggesting that even if the HIV-preventative drug known as PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis) were readily available, it would encourage promiscuity.
Minister Deyalsingh had made similar remarks at the 2016 Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS signing ceremony, aimed at eliminating the spread of HIV by 2030, at which he made it clear that the government would not allow access to PrEP via the local public health care system.
Deyalsingh's attitude toward HIV/AIDS prevention highlights Trinidad and Tobago's ongoing struggle with HIV stigma and a lack of sex education.
While PrEP has been proven to reduce the chances of contracting the HIV virus, Deyalsingh maintained that the government will not subsidise the PrEP medication because the thrust of his ministry's HIV/AIDS awareness campaign is post-exposure care, not prevention. If people want the drug, he said, it is available in the private health care sector.
While Deyalsingh offered exceptions to the rule, many citizens felt that his remarks exacerbate the heavy stigma of HIV/AIDS.
In the interview with Newsday, Deyalsingh explained that should a health care worker accidentally get stuck with a needle, for instance, or in cases of sexual assault, those involved would be given the treatment if there is a chance they might contract the virus. While the World Health Organisation classifies PrEP as an “essential medicine,” the minister rationalised his position this way:
PrEP is to give […] to people before exposure or with no exposure to HIV…It means that knowingly you are going to engage in some sort of behaviour that would cause you to be at a higher risk of getting HIV and you want to take a drug to prevent yourself from getting HIV. […]
That is not government policy […] It's a simple as that.
His comment was met with a lot of criticism, especially from Trinidad and Tobago's estimated 29,000 citizens living with the virus — a reduced number, thanks in part to the efforts of both government agencies and non-governmental organisations dedicated to education, prevention and stigma reduction on HIV/AIDS.
HIV-positive patients often face discrimination because of their health status, and many cannot afford the required drugs through the private health care system.
The Family Planning Association of Trinidad and Tobago (FPATT) has insisted that the government must make the drug available, saying that citizens have the right to access medication in the public health sector.
Calling the minister's statement “myopic,” executive director of FPATT, Donna Da Costa Martinez, chastised Deyalsingh for contributing to the narrative that the drug encourages promiscuity, rather than educating people about its actual purpose: being “a useful tool to prevent HIV”:
The statement is not only short-sighted but harmful, as the deciding factor then becomes grounded in a moral debate about human sexuality, an integral part of who we are and what we do.
The Family Planning Association, Minister of Sports and Youth Affairs, Shamfa Cudjoe, and Minister Deyalsingh, representing the health ministry, have all said that the country needs massive reforms in sex education, but little to nothing has been done by the Ministry of Education.
Deyalsingh is pro-sex education and admits that its absence contributes misinformation among young people:
Let’s not try to put our heads in the ground. Let’s just open our eyes, face the realities and make sure that we introduce sexual education adequate for the age of the students in schools.
Yet, several of the country's religious bodies condemn the concept of sexual education, most notably the Trinidad and Tobago Council of Evangelical Churches.
Despite the state's mandate to retain a secular view when it comes to laws and policies, government officials, often in the health and education ministries, often pander to the interests of the country's diverse religious population, using religion as their rationale for not developing a well-rounded sex education curriculum.
As a result, successive governments have had a “hands-off” policy when it comes to sex education, with many schools opting for an abstinence-only approach, mainly due to the fact that a majority of the country's schools have religious affiliations.
Currently, the ministry has a Primary Health and Family Life Education (HFLE) curriculum aimed at teaching children about sex, sexuality and STIs.  The programme, however, is not mandatory for teachers if they feel uncomfortable teaching it. Since the ministry does not have many specialised teachers to teach the subject, they rely “on the goodwill of the teachers”:
These are the topics covered in the syllabus. And even after the MOE offered the teachers the option to NOT teach anything regarding sexuality; offering to send someone in specifically for that part… they STILL REFUSED to teach it. pic.twitter.com/be7zi7DDQ3
— miss (@jay_bean_) July 3, 2018
Connected with this lack of sex education are many unplanned pregnancies and a lack of knowledge about how sexually transmitted infections and be contracted and prevented.
Dr. Kale Ferguson, Chairman of the Tobago AIDS Coordinating Committee, said in a speech earlier this year that youth education is key to HIV prevention, as well as reducing stigma. Trinidad and Tobago's “most at risk” group for HIV is females, aged 15-24.
Meanwhile, Colin Robinson of the Coalition Advocating for Inclusion of Sexual Orientation (CAISO), which has been advocating the use of PrEP as a preventative measure, has accused Minister Deyalsingh of “moral hypocrisy.”
By refusing to implement a policy to allow access to PrEP, Robinson said, the ministry is standing in the way of protection. He explained that the decision to make the drug available in public health care facilities lies solely with the minister, but lamented the ministry's stance, stating: “We are not really empowering communities to stop HIV.”
Other Caribbean territories, including Guyana, have already implemented the use of the drug in order to prevent HIV and save lives.
Thus far, Minister Deyalsingh has not responded to any of the outcry surrounding his statement.

author: Jada Steuart