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A Kenyan artist designs revolutionary ‘kanga’ celebrating queer love around the world · Global Voices
Amanda Lichtenstein

‘South Africa’ kanga reads “Haiwezikani Nyeupe Na Nyeusi Pekee Ziwe Rangi Za Mapenzi” (Swahili, “Black and white are not the colors of love. They never were.”) by artist Kawira Mwirichia, ‘To Revolutionary Type Love,’ 2017, permission by the artist.
The “kanga,” the vibrant East African textile featuring Swahili proverbs, is widely known as “the cloth that speaks.” For centuries, women have exchanged them as gifts, often to communicate messages that would be otherwise taboo.
The Kenyan visual artist Kawira Mwirichia took the power of the kanga to a new level in a recent exhibition at the Goethe Institute in Nairobi, Kenya that ran from May 17-June 3, 2017. Entitled “To Revolutionary Type Love,” the show celebrates queer love and condemns homophobia by amplifying the messages of queer leaders from 35 different countries through original kanga designs.
Each of the kanga on display represents a country’s unique history regarding the struggle for equal love. For Mwirichia, inspiration struck while attending a friend’s wedding in 2013, where she witnessed the “laying out of kanga for the bride to take to her new family — a gesture that the Kenyan queer community wouldn’t receive,” she explained.
Seeing that Kenya is a very homophobic country, that’s something that really touched my heart and I wanted to create something that would celebrate our love.
Mwirichia puzzled over ways to use the kanga to “lay down and create a path to queer love.” Troubled by her country’s religious and patriarchal repression of queer expression as an illegal and immoral practice, Mwirichia wanted to make a statement through the kanga: Queer love, and queer stories matter. She asked members of Kenya’s LGBTQIA (Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual) community to submit quotes about love which she later matched to her kanga designs.
Mwirichia partnered with Tindi Amadi to conduct extensive research on each country’s history of sexual identity politics. For Mwirichia, the process affirmed the urgency of amplifying the voices of queer leadership around the world.
Access to information on the history of queer activism varied according to each country's culture and context. For example, Mwirichia and Amadi struggled to capture Bahrain's queer history due to its repressive stance on LGBTQIA politics; while in Andorra, where the LGBTQIA community experiences relative freedom, there has been little need for activism aside from the fight to allow gay men to donate blood. Mwirichia and Amadi gathered each country's symbols and stories and used them to produce a vibrant collection of unique kanga, each dedicated to a single country, featuring motivational messages of hope, courage, and love.
On May 17, as the world celebrated IDAHOBIT (International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia), Mwirichia held a “To Revolutionary Type Love” (#TRTL) launch party, creating a “safe space where love was celebrated with art, music, and conversations.”
The exhibition received an outpouring of praise from the over 250 guests who attended throughout the two-week period, which extended into Pride Month in June. In tandem with the show, Mwirichia and her team continued the celebration of queer love on social media with daily shout outs to queer music, fashion, and creative culture.
A unique space here at the #TRTL,  honoring the spirit of #IDAHOBIT2017
A #diverse group of queers and allies
https://t.co/BRJa4Kv5qQ
— AfroFem Hub (@HOLAAfrica) May 17, 2017
Of the 35 kanga on display, Mwirichia dedicated nine to countries on the African continent, including Kenya and Uganda. Of Africa's 57 nations, at least 37 currently criminalize homosexual acts.
The Uganda kanga quote submitted by AFRA (Artists for Recognition and Acceptance) states: “Twapenda Mahaba, Wala Hatuombi Msamaha” which translates from Swahili as “Because we love ‘love’ and make no apologies for it.“
The central image features activists Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera and the late David Kato, who was bludgeoned to death in his home just weeks after attempting to shut down a local tabloid for outing gay people. The kanga honors the two activists as the “mother” and “father” of Uganda’s gay rights movement as well as FARUG (Freedom and Roam Uganda) and SMUG (Sexual Minorities Uganda), organizations they founded together.
‘Uganda,’ by artist Kawira Mwirichia, ‘To Revolutionary Type Love,’ 2017, permission by the artist.
The Kenya kanga quote submitted by Ivy Gatibaru reads “Penzi Langu Halali,” meaning “My love is valid” in Swahili. According to the exhibition catalog, its design was inspired by the band Art Attack and their cover of the song “Same Love,” which sparked a national conversation about queer love in Kenya.
The design is also a shout-out to the National Gay and Human Rights Commission (NGHRC) for their work in confronting the Kenyan government's institutionalized homophobia and The Nest Collective for sharing powerful multimedia queer stories, including the critically acclaimed queer anthology film “Stories of Our Lives.”
‘Kenya’ by artist Kawira Mwirichia, ‘To Revolutionary Type Love,’ 2017, permission by the artist.
While the East African LGBTQIA movement has made significant strides toward equality, activists still struggle daily against oppression, humiliation and human rights violations. Ugandans face life in prison under the Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Act, 2014, and LGBTQIA citizens have no legal protections. Kenyan law also fails to protect its LGBTQIA community. In a 2011 study by the Kenyan Human Rights Commission, 89% of people who came out reported that their families disowned them.
Even in places like South Africa and the United States which have long-standing and hard-fought LGBTQIA movements, the struggle continues. US President Donald Trump recently banned transgender people from serving in the military, and the US Justice department announced that a major federal civil rights law does not protect gay people from workplace discrimination.
At this critical moment in LGBTQIA history, the impact of Mwirichia’s revolutionary project has reverberated across a wider platform.
The company We Transfer launched the ‘Championing Diversity’ initiative online, identifying nine leading LGBTQIA creatives who were then asked to nominate the top emerging LGBTQIA creatives to curate We Transfer’s online wallpapers. The multidisciplinary art group, The Nest Collective, which represents African diversity of all kinds, selected Kawira Mwirichia for this unique honor, explaining that “Mwirichia’s kanga collection speaks to “those still in the shadows, whispering their love to each other. The project also hopes to spark self-love, pride, and well-being in our queer community here in Kenya as it reaches out to the world.”
‘Benin’ kanga quote reads: “Tabasamu, Haiba Yako Nkama Machweo, Zanichoma Kama Moto.” (Swahili: “Fire, a sunset, your essence – your smile: their beauty scorches right through me all the same.”) Kawira Mwirchia, ‘To Revolutionary Type Love,’ 2017.
Mwirichia intends to complete kanga designs for all 196 countries of the world by the end of 2018 to mark the anniversary of #TRTL 2017.
She also hopes to register “To Revolutionary Type Love” as an NGO, to launch an annual pride celebration, and “create a platform to invest in and showcase queer culture in Kenya.” Supported by AFRA Kenya along with the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice Global Arts Fund, the Heinrich Böll Stiftung East & Horn of Africa and the Goethe-Institut Nairobi, Mwirichia sees this work as “essentially an act of love” that has the potential to reverberate around the world.
In addition to the 35 kanga, “To Revolutionary Type Love” featured the works of six queer Kenyan photographers and a unique exhibition soundscape created by collaborating DJ's. Mwirichia says:
I don’t think Kenyans are hateful. … I think they are influenced by hateful people. We need to open up a space to talk more about sex, and then artists like me want to open that up even more, to talk about queerness.

author: Amanda Lichtenstein


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History Repeats Itself, Violently, in Burkina Faso · Global Voices
Rakotomalala

‘Deadly attack in Burkina Faso.’ Screen capture showing customers of the café fleeing during the attack in Ouagadougou.
Burkina Faso is still in shock after gunmen left 18 people dead in the capital Ouagadougou on 15 August 2017 on the same street where a similar attack was committed in 2016.
According to witnesses, two assailants arrived by motorbike a little after 9 pm, and proceded to target the Turkish restaurant Aziz Istanbul on Kwame Nkrumah Avenue, which is a favourite among expatriates living in the capital. They began firing on customers at pavement tables, and then burst into the restaurant and took several civilians hostage.
At 9.30 pm, police officers arrived on the scene, followed by members of the Special Intervention Unit of the national gendarmerie (USIGN). Security forces exchanged heavy gunfire with the assailants, and towards midnight the USIGN launched their counter-assault. According to police sources, one of the assailants was killed a little before 2 in the morning, and the other around 3 in the morning.
Burkina Faso has declared three days’ mourning following the violence. The victims include Ahmadou Tanou, a young Burkinabe from Ouagadougou. His cousin Yacouba told Radio France Internationale is trying to get over his anger that an attack could have occurred in the same place within a space of 20 months and believes Burkina Faso will face up to things as always:
On ne peut rien contre la volonté de Dieu. Contre ces gens, on n’y peut rien. Ce sont des barbares. Nous, on confie le Burkina Faso dans la main de Dieu. Les ennemis du Burkina, tout ce qu'ils font contre le Burkina, Dieu les voit
You can't go against the will of God. Against these people, we're powerless. They're barbarians. We entrust Burkina Faso to God's hands. The enemies of Burkina, whatever they do against Burkina, God sees them
A Senegalese-Canadian couple who were expecting a child also perished in the attack: Mehsen, born in Dakar, and his wife, Tammy Chen Fenaiche, both lived in Ouagadougou. Tammy Chen was studying for a PhD in international development and was four-months pregnant. Mehsen's uncle Aboudi explained the family's distress to the same news outlet:
avec une Canadienne, enceinte de trois ou quatre mois. Tous les deux, ils étaient au restaurant avec un ami. C’est un choc. C’est très dur. Bien sûr qu’on est en colère, bien sûr. C’est un choc quand même. On a perdu un enfant et la perte de son épouse qui porte un enfant. Ce n’est pas facile à encaisser. C’est très dur. On fait avec quand même. On est révoltés. Cela n’est pas l’islam. Effectivement, ce n’est pas l’islam. Ils disent qu’ils sont musulmans. Non. Un bon musulman ne fait pas cela. Ce sont des voyous, des bandits, des personnes sans cœur
He [Mehsen] has been in Burkina four years now.  He'd just married a Canadian, two or three months pregnant. Both of them were in the restaurant with a friend. It's a shock. It's very hard. Of course we're angry, of course. It's still a shock though. We've lost a child and there's the loss of his wife who was carrying a child. It's not easy to take. It's very hard. We're dealing with it though. We're appalled. This isn't Islam. Truly, it isn't Islam. They say they're Muslims. No. A good Muslim doesn't do this. They are hooligans, bandits, people with no heart.
Mehsen and Tammy, killed in the attack, via Daktar Actus. Used with permission.
Hugo Larose, president of Gonville and Caius College of Cambridge University, where Tammy Chen was due to submit her dissertation, also spoke out in tribute to the young woman:
I was devastated to hear about Tammy's loss. All of Tammy's friends echo that she was extraordinarily kind and caring, that she was the sort of person that the world sorely needs in times such as these, who would have made a real difference in this world, and whose loss will be sorely felt. Though many academics dedicate their life to improving the human condition, Tammy went many steps further, working tirelessly in the some of the poorest parts of the world. She was the heart and soul of our MCR during her years in Cambridge, and had many close friends here at Caius. We are all in shock.
No claim of responsibility has been made. Nevertheless, the Burkina Faso authorities have evolved hypotheses as to who potentially was behind the attacks. An officer of the Burkina Faso army, speaking anonymously to the AFP news agency, suggested:
Vu le mode opératoire des assaillants, leurs traits physiques, ils peuvent probablement venir du Nord Mali ou encore plus près de la frontière. Le fait que l’attaque ne soit pas encore revendiquée se signifie pas que c’est une acte isolé, il peut être lié à Ansarul Islam ou à Aqmi. Ce sont des pistes que les enquêteurs explorent et l’analyse des armements et des munitions retrouvés sur le commando permettra d’affiner les recherches. Le processus d’identification des assaillants n’est pas achevé.
Given the assailants’ modus operandi, their physical appearance, they may very likely come from North Mali or maybe closer to the border. The fact that the attack has not yet been claimed doesn't mean it's an isolated act — it could be linked to Ansar ul-Islam or AQIM (Al-Qaeda In the Maghreb). These are leads the investigators are exploring, and the analysis of the arms and munitions found on the assailants will allow us to narrow the search. The process of identification of the attackers has not been completed.
Despite these first stab explanations, incomprehension prevails among Ouagadougou's residents. Omer Bere, 35, an entrepreneur, summed up the general feeling for Jeune Afrique news magazine:
Je suis choqué par l’horreur de ce qui s’est passé à Aziz Istanbul. C’est la tristesse totale, on ne sait pas où va le Burkina. Chaque fois, on vient tuer nos frères. Ce sont deux restaurants prisés des Burkinabè qui ont été visés.
I'm shocked by the horror of what happened at Aziz Istanbul. There's utter sadness, people don't know where Burkina's headed. Every time, they come to kill our brothers. Those are two restaurants beloved of Burkinabe that have been targeted.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Rakotomalala


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In Paraguay, Your Health Data and Credit Records Can Be Used Against You · Global Voices
Laura Vidal

One of the illustrations from the series Pyrawebs by El Surtidor. Used under Creative Commons license.
The following is an adaptation of the infographic series The Return of the Pyrawebs made by El Surtidor, which analyzes digital security issues in Paraguay.
Refusal to re-enroll a student in a private Catholic school in Paraguay's capital, Asunción, clearly highlights what happens when companies exchange and do business with personal data. According to press reports, the family had been paying their school fees on time, but were denied re-enrollment because they were on a creditor's black list as guarantors on a defaulted loan.
The data was stored by Informconf, a private company whose database is filled with the commercial activities of half of Paraguay's population, with black lists that don't require a debt minimum to appear on it.
The parents of the child reported the situation as discriminatory, and although the education ministry agreed, no further actions were taken against the school. Apparently, Catholic institutions are regulated by the archbishop and, as a result, don't answer to the State, even if these schools are allegedly responsible for discrimination against a minor.
This financial information is not only accessed by private schools or credit agencies, but also potential employers. As a result, and in spite of the existence of a law approved to avoid precisely this kind of discrimination, people in debt have a harder time finding work and a harder time paying back their loans.
Éste es sólo uno de los modos en que las empresas usan datos diariamente para discriminar. Enterate más en https://t.co/mXALinw0Y7 #Pyrawebs pic.twitter.com/toYJwMqIFR
— El Surtidor (@elsurti) July 11, 2017
In the image: Discriminated against for being on [Informconf's database]. Informconf manages data from half of Paraguay's commercial activities. There's no minimum amount to be on the default list. With this data, companies make decisions on whether or not to give loans and evaluate potential employees. In the tweet: This is just one of the ways in which private companies use data daily to discriminate against people. Find out more [in the link].
In 2016, a young man reported being expelled from the Military Academy for being HIV positive. After being the victim of mistreatment and humiliation from his superiors, he was forced to resign from the academy.
Despite its prohibition in 2009, between 2012 and 2016, 27 companies have been accused of demanding HIV tests from their workers. Some of them even ran these tests without knowledge or consent from their employees during routine analyses.
With this in mind, a study was done in 2016 by TEDIC, an NGO devoted to digital rights in Paraguay, together with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The study produced troubling results:
Entre varios problemas, uno de los principales que cita el informe es la carencia total de legislación que proteja los datos personales de la ciudadanía, lo que se considera una omisión grave en el cumplimiento de los estándares internacionales de derechos humanos. Además, los estándares locales para la intervención de las comunicaciones privadas no cumplen con los principios de necesidad y proporcionalidad ni con las garantías judiciales exigidas por la normativa internacional. Esta situación de vulnerabilidad se agrava ante una amplia concesión de ambiguas potestades a organismos como el Servicio Nacional de Inteligencia (SINAI), bajo el argumento de la “seguridad nacional”.
Among many other issues, one of the most important problems cited by the report, is the total lack of legislation made to protect citizen's personal data, which is considered to be a grave omission in the compliance of international standards for human rights. Moreover, local standards surrounding the monitoring of  private communications comply neither with the principles of necessity and proportionality nor with judicial guarantees demanded by international norms. This situation of vulnerability gets worse with the wide concessions that are given to organisms like the National Service of Intelligence which use the argument of “national security”.

author: Laura Vidal


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InfoBus Provides Remaining Calais Asylum Seekers and Migrants With WiFi and Information · Global Voices
Marie Bohner

A young Eritrean boy accesses WhatsApp. Photo: Refugee InfoBus on Medium, reproduced with the permission of InfoBus Calais
Nine months after dismantling the “Jungle”, several hundred people who fled conflict, repression or economic insecurity in their countries for Europe continue to live in France's Calais in deplorable conditions, desperately awaiting their chance to be smuggled by truck into England via the tunnel that passes beneath the English Channel.
The challenges for these asylum seekers and migrants are many, including surveillance and periodic harassment by the ubiquitous police force, the outright absence of living space and hygiene, language barriers, and the lack of electricity and an Internet connection to communicate with family and friends and stay informed.
On that last one, an initiative called InfoBus is trying to help. It's a truck sporting a large antenna and covered with information posters and notices aimed at the asylum seekers and migrants of Calais.
We encountered the InfoBus when we returned to Calais one year after our first trip there to volunteer with the group Help Refugees. We were revisiting the organization's enormous warehouse, in particular, its “community kitchen”, which prepares some 2,500 meals each day before distributing them either at the sole authorized distribution site or by roaming the streets. We found that the organisations’ quality of work and volunteers’ resolution are as strong as ever, but the asylum seekers and migrants’ situation is definitely worse than it was last year.
The InfoBus spent the morning there recharging batteries that ran electronic equipment kept in the back. Its coordinator, Loan Torondel, gladly answered our questions.
Loan Torondel. Photo Marie Bohner
Global Voices (GV): Can you tell us about the InfoBus?
Loan Torondel (LT) : Ce projet a été d'abord lancé par l’association Refugee Info Bus, déjà présente ici du temps de la Jungle, avec un véhicule qui venait apporter l’information et du WiFi, et après le démantèlement, ils sont allés en Grèce sur l’île de Chios. Le projet a été relancé tout récemment à Calais par l'Auberge des Migrants qui le gère à présent. Nous sommes trois à le faire fonctionner.
Loan Torondel (LT): The initiative was started by Refugee Info Bus, an organization that was already here in the Jungle. They had a vehicle that provided WiFi and information. After the Jungle was dismantled, they went to the Greek island of Chios. The project was recently started up again in Calais by its current sponsor, L'Auberge des Migrants. There are three of us who run it.
GV: What kind of training do you have?
LT : J’ai beaucoup appris sur le tas, mais j’ai suivi des formations sur les actions juridiques, la protection de l’enfance, les droits humains etc. Je vais reprendre des études plus poussées dans ce domaine.
LT: I've learned a lot on the job, but I've also had some training in legal matters, child protection, human rights, etc. I plan to pursue further studies in these fields.
Refugee Info Bus in Calais. Photo from the group's Facebook page. Used with permission
GV: Do you work with local lawyers?
LT : Oui. Les réseaux associatifs de Calais ont récemment attaqué l'État en justice, sur les conditions de vie et le non-respect des droits des migrants ici. L'audience en appel est demain [28 juillet] [le Conseil d'Etat a confirmé le jugement de première instance donnant tort à l'État].
LT: Yes. The associative networks in Calais have recently sued the state over the living conditions and lack of respect for migrants’ rights. The appeal hearing is tomorrow [July 28] [The Council of State has since confirmed the Court of First Instance's judgement against the state].
GV: How does the InfoBus work?
LT : On va sur les différents lieux de distribution, pour apporter le WiFi, la recharge de portables, de l’info sur leurs droits et la procédure d'asile en France. D'où les affiches collées sur le van.
Pour la communication des associations nous collectons aussi de l’information, ce qu’on voit, ce que les réfugiés nous racontent sur ce qui se passe la nuit.
LT: We visit the various distribution sites, providing WiFi, recharging portable devices, giving out information about rights and how to seek asylum in France. That's what the posters on the truck are for.
We also collect information for organizations: what we see, what the refugees say goes on at night.
GV: Do you work with interpreters?
LT : On communique avec 2 ou 3 migrants qu’on connaît bien et qui ont un très bon anglais, ils nous servent d’interprètes. Pour les articles, on en trouve en pachtoune, en tigrigna et en amharique. On leur traduit aussi les articles de la presse française ou anglaise. Les informations très spécifiques aux droits sont dures à trouver sur Internet, on essaie donc de les leur fournir, de traduire, d’expliquer. Pour les questions juridiques personnelles, on les oriente vers des avocats.
LT: We communicate with two or three migrants that we know well and who speak very good English. They are our interpreters. We get articles in Pashtun, Tigrinya, and Amharic. We also translate English- and French-language articles for them. Specific legal information is difficult to find on the internet, so we try to provide it, translate it, and explain it to them. For personal legal matters, we refer them to lawyers.
Notices posted on the InfoBus. Photo Marie Bohner
GV: Can you give us any stats?
LT : Une centaine de personnes viennent voir l'InfoBus à chaque passage. On peut connecter jusqu’à 70 personnes sur le réseau wifi. Ce sont plusieurs dizaines de gigas utilisés pour les migrants chaque mois.
LT: About 100 people come see the InfoBus along its route. We can provide WiFi for up to 70 people. The migrants use several dozen gigabytes each month.
GV: What have been the most surprising requests you've had on the InfoBus?
LT : Ils sont vraiment intéressés par ce que disent sur eux les gens, les médias… Ils ont beaucoup de mal à comprendre pourquoi il y a ici tant de violence envers les migrants, et c’est difficile de leur expliquer. Ils ont l’impression que tout le monde s’en fout ici, alors qu’il y a quand même beaucoup d’articles, les gens en parlent, se préoccupent d’eux.
LT: They're very interested in what people, the media, are saying about them. They don't understand why there has been so much violence against migrants here, and it's difficult to explain it to them. Despite the fact that there are so many articles and that people are worried and are talking about them, they think no one cares.
GV: Do many women come to the InfoBus?
LT : Il y en a quelques-unes ; 4 ou 5 hier. Mais il n'y a plus de structures spécifiques pour elles à Calais.
LT: There are a few, four or five yesterday. But, there are no longer any specific structures for them in Calais.
GV: Do you experience other difficulties in your work?
LT : Le bon côté, c'est qu'on a peu de problèmes avec la police. Ils s’en prennent aux distributions de vêtements et de nourriture, mais ne comprennent pas vraiment ce que fait l’InfoBus, donc ils nous laissent tranquilles.
On va sur les lieux de distribution, où il n'y a pas d’électricité, pas d’eau. C’est difficile de trouver des lieux avec une bonne couverture réseau, et un accès à l’électricité.
LT: On the upside, we have very few problems with the police. They are busy with distributing clothing and food and don't really understand what the InfoBus does. So, they leave us alone.
The distribution sites, however, don't have electricity or water. It's difficult to find good network coverage and access to electricity.
Notice posted on the InfoBus. Photo Marie Bohner
GV: What do you need?
LT : Il nous faut des fonds pour payer nos factures de FAI : la connexion de 70 personnes à la fois, tous les jours, ce sont beaucoup de données utilisées. On peut nous faire des dons sur le site de l’Auberge des Migrants.
On a besoin de dons de matériels technologiques, chargeurs, portables, cartes SIM…
Quand les mineurs n’ont plus d’argent et plus de moyen de communiquer, en termes de sécurité c’est grave, ils n’ont pas de moyen de prévenir les secours ou de nous appeler s’ils ont un problème. Ils sont dehors, ils dorment dans les bois, du coup les portables sont plus rapidement abîmés, de même quand ils essaient de monter sur les camions pour passer en Angleterre. On essaie donc de leur donner des portables en priorité.
LT: We need funds to pay our IAP bills. Connecting 70 people at a time, everyday, uses a lot of data. Donations can be made on the L'Auberge des Migrants website.
We need technological equipment: chargers, laptops, SIM cards,…
When minors no longer have any money or ways to communicate, their safety is at risk. They have no way to get help or call us if there is a problem. They're outside, sleeping in the woods. Their portable devices can be quickly damaged, especially when they try to climb onto trucks heading for England. So, we try to give cell phones to them first.
GV: Are you looking for volunteers with specific skills to work in the InfoBus?
LT : Toute personne ayant des compétences techniques assez poussées en informatique, en électronique, peut nous aider. Et aussi des personnes ayant des connaissances médicales, pour faire des premiers soins. Les migrants se blessent très facilement vu la dureté de leurs conditions de vie.
LT: Anyone with extensive technological skills with computers or electronics can help. We also have people with medical expertise providing first aid. The migrants get hurt easily living in such harsh conditions.
GV: To conclude, what message would you like to pass on to our readers?
LT : Beaucoup de gens n’ont pas conscience de ce qui se passe ici, puisqu'il n’y a plus de jungle, plus de bidonville, et c’est bien. Mais il y a toujours 700 personnes ! Les migrants sont partout et nulle part, dans les rues, dans les bois, ils n’ont pas de lieux de vie. Leurs conditions d’hygiène sont effroyables, des cas de « pieds de tranchées » ont été constatés, des ulcères nécrosés apparus pendant la 1ère guerre mondiale.
La meilleure manière de résumer la situation, c’est de dire « avant c’était pire, maintenant c’est encore pire ».
LT: Many people are unaware of what's happening here because there is no more jungle, no more shantytown, and that's good. But, there are still 700 people living here! There are migrants everywhere and nowhere, in the streets, in the woods. They don't have any living space. Hygiene is terrible. Cases of trench foot have been found, necrotic ulcers first seen during World War I.
The best way to describe the situation is to say, “Before it was bad, now it's even worse”.
Recent video reports about nighttime police operations and migrant survival conditions in Calais are available on the Taranis News website.
Because of France's new migration policy (for instance, asylum seekers coming from humanitarian disasters are welcome but not economic refugees) and strict regulations on food and clothing distributions, the future is still very much unclear for those remaining in Calais. Still, in the meantime, the InfoBus intends to be there to provide some support in ways of communication with their families.

author: Marie Bohner


text:
Malaysian Political Cartoonist Zunar Sues Police for Unlawful Arrest, Seizure of Books · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Zunar is demanding the police to return 1,187 books and 103 t-shirts which were seized during his arrest last December 17, 2016. Photo from the Facebook page of Zunar Cartoonist Fan Club
Malaysian cartoonist Zulkiflee S.M. Anwarul Haque, more popularly known as Zunar, has filed a case against the police for arresting him and seizing his cartoon books and t-shirts on December 17, 2016.
Zunar accused the police of making an unlawful arrest and confiscating a total of 1,187 books and 103 t-shirts during an event which he organized to meet his fans and raise funds. He explains his reason for taking legal action:
My books are not banned and I was only selling them to my fans during the fundraising event. What is wrong with that?
Zunar has been arrested several times in the past few years and charged with sedition for his cartoons that criticize government policies, abuse of power by the ruling coalition that has dominated Malaysia’s politics since the 1950s, and curtailment of civil liberties. Many of Zunar’s cartoon books have also been confiscated by authorities for allegedly threatening national security. Zunar has won recognition in and outside Malaysia as a press freedom fighter. He has won accolades from Human Rights Watch, the Committee to Protect Journalists and Cartoonist Rights Network International.
His December arrest was tied to a police investigation of him under Section 124C of the Penal Code for “activities detrimental to parliamentary democracy.”
He was interrogated for six hours and released after the police told him that “they will apply a law to ban all my books.” He issued this statement shortly after his release:
I would like to point out my stand: talent is not a gift, but a responsibility. It is my responsibility as a cartoonist to expose corruption and injustices. Do I fear jail? Yes, but responsibility is bigger that fear. You can ban my books, you can ban my cartoons, but you cannot ban my mind. I will keep drawing until the last drop of my ink.
Zunar could be referring to the corruption scandal involving the prime minister and 1MDB, a state-owned investment firm. The prime minister is accused of pocketing 680 million US dollars through alleged anomalous transactions made by 1MDB.
Zunar’s lawyer, N. Surendran, said the filing of the case against the police is intended to warn authorities about making another illegal arrest:
There will be no more tolerance for this kind of unlawful behaviour against a person whose only crime is to criticise the authorities. That is the democratic right of every Malaysian.
Zunar is demanding the police to return his books and t-shirts.

author: Mong Palatino


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Netizen Report: US Tech Company Bans White Supremacist Group for Being ‘Assholes’ · Global Voices
Netizen Report Team

The Problem with Censorship is XXXXXXXXX, Budapest, Hungary. Photo by Cory Doctorow via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Several US technology companies have banned hate groups from their services following an August 12 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that turned deadly.
The domain hosting service GoDaddy announced it would no longer provide hosting to the neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer after the site disparaged Heather Heyer, an anti-racism counter demonstrator who was killed by a man who drove his car into a crowd of protesters.
Google followed suit after the website attempted to register with its service, saying that the Daily Stormer violated their terms of service. Website security firm CloudFlare discontinued its security support for the website soon thereafter, despite its historically absolutist approach to free speech online. The Daily Stormer has now moved to the so-called “dark web,” which is accessible mainly via the Tor network, making it far less visible to the general public.
In an email to staffers that was later published by Gizmodo, CloudFlare CEO Matthew Prince explained his decision:
Our terms of service reserve the right for us to terminate users of our network at our sole discretion. My rationale for making this decision was simple: the people behind the Daily Stormer are assholes and I’d had enough.
Let me be clear: this was an arbitrary decision….It was a decision I could make because I’m the CEO of a major Internet infrastructure company….Literally, I woke up in a bad mood and decided someone shouldn’t be allowed on the Internet. No one should have that power.
In a subsequent interview with Gizmodo, Prince emphasized that the “whims” of people like Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and himself “shouldn’t be what determines what should be online.” He has since raised concern about the absence of transparency and due process mechanisms within companies like Amazon and Google, which have disproportionate control over what we see online.
Who decides what kinds of content can be on the internet? How do companies make these decisions? Too often, the answers to these questions are not accessible to the public, leaving billions of internet users unable to hold companies accountable for their decisions.
Three Facebook users in Thailand were charged with sedition over posts criticizing the government and could face up to 20 years behind bars if convicted. Among them is veteran journalist Pravit Rojanaphruk, a senior reporter for the news website Khaosod English. In a subsequent Facebook post, he reasoned:
I insist that I criticize the military regime in good faith […] I will continue to criticize the illegitimate military regime until they take away my smartphone.
Congolese authorities throttled internet bandwidth to prevent the sharing of images on social media following violent clashes between security forces and the religious separatist group Bundu dia Kongo. The measure appears to have specifically targeted Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram and Twitter. In a letter quoted by Reuters, postal and telecommunications chief regulator Oscar Manikunda Musata implored internet service providers to “take technical measures to restrict to a minimum the capacity to transmit images” in order to “prevent the exchange of abusive images via social media.”
The Egyptian government blocked access to the website of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), which reports on human rights violations across the Arab region, as well as the blog of human rights researcher Ahmed Gamal Ziada. This is the first time a website belonging to a human rights group has been censored in Egypt, and follows the blocking of 21 websites two months ago for allegedly “supporting terrorism,” including the independent news site Mada Masr and the website of the Al Jazeera network.
India blocked access to the Internet Archive (archive.org), which offers a free service called the Wayback Machine that enables users to access archived versions of webpages. Though no reason was cited by local internet service providers for the ban, BuzzFeed reported it is tied to two court petitions from Bollywood production houses seeking to keep pirated films off the web. In July 2017, archive.org was blocked in Kyrgyzstan on grounds that is hosts “extremist” content. Before that, the website was known to be blocked only China.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte confirmed that he hired online commenters during the 2016 election to manipulate social media through trolling and fake accounts. His statement supports the findings of a University of Oxford study which examined the use of troll armies by governments, the military and political parties in 28 countries, including the Philippines.
The Brazilian government opened a public consultation that could change the composition and powers of the country’s Internet Steering Committee, also known as CGI.br. Researchers expressed concern that the government may be seeking to assert greater control over the country’s internet: Earlier in the year, the Temer administration attempted to freeze the nomination of civil society members to the committee, and backtracked following public protests. CGI.br plays a key role in Brazilian internet policy and was central in shaping the Marco Civil da Internet framework, which lays out guarantees for Brazilian citizens’ rights online.
Renata Avila, Ellery Roberts Biddle, Mohamed ElGohary, Elizabeth Rivera, and Sarah Myers West contributed to this report.

author: Netizen Report Team


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Seventy-Two Years Later, Japan Remembers the End of a Devastating War · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

“Reflecting on our past and bearing in mind the feelings of deep remorse (I earnestly hope that the ravages of war will never be repeated).” Japanese Emperor Akihito, with Empress Michiko, addresses Memorial Ceremony for the War Dead on August 15, 2017. Screencap from ANN official YouTube channel.
August 15 marked the 72nd anniversary of the end of the Second World War. On the occasion, Japan remembered the 2.3 million Japanese military personnel and military employees and 800,000 Japanese civilians who died between the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 and the end of World War II in 1945.
Japan's annual commemoration of the end of the war shows that, seven decades on, there is no clear political consensus in Japan about how to remember the war. Some remember the 3.1 million dead while seeming to avoid the context of the war in which they died, while others are committed to preserving the memory of how destructive war can be, and the need for Japan to continue to embrace pacifism.
More than 6,200 people attended a memorial service at the Nippon Budokan sports arena in Tokyo, which featured remarks by Prime Minister Abe Shinzo and Japanese Emperor Akihito. Abe's words were notable in that he did not express Japan's guilt for starting the war, while the emperor expressed feelings of “deep remorse” for the war, for the third year in a row.
Neither made direct reference to the war dead in other countries.
全国戦没者追悼式　天皇陛下のお言葉・全文です。https://t.co/cjPpgMs6Ho #終戦記念日 #終戦の日 pic.twitter.com/cHF4JRysZl
— 産経ニュース (@Sankei_news) August 15, 2017
Full remarks made by the Emperor at the Memorial Ceremony for the War Dead: http://www.kunaicho.go.jp/page/okotoba/detailEn/14#92
Meanwhile, thousands of people traveled to Yasukuni Shrine and neighboring Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery in Tokyo to pay their respects to the war dead. Yasukuni Shrine is controversial for many people across East Asia since the shrine memorializes, among others, convicted Japanese war criminals. As well, swords forged at Yasukuni were used in the battlefields across Asia between 1933 and 1945.
BuzzFeed Japan reporter Kota Hatachi reported from the scene:
72年目の終戦の日。取材のため、靖国神社と千鳥ヶ淵戦没者墓苑に。
小雨が降り、蒸し暑い靖国神社の境内には、参拝のための大行列ができています。 #終戦記念日 pic.twitter.com/o12E3GlKrC
— はたちこうた Kota Hatachi (@togemaru_k) August 15, 2017
The 72nd anniversary of the end of the war. On assignment, I traveled to Yasukuni Shrine and Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery. As a light rain fell, a long line of visitors stretched through the muggy precincts of Yasukuni Shrine.
Meanwhile, protesters and other groups congregated outside of Yasukuni. According to Sankei Shimbun newspaper, the groups were demonstrating against attempts to revise Japan's “peace Constitution” as well raising awareness about a variety of issues, such as Taiwanese independence.
Due to the crush of Yasukuni visitors and the sheer number of protesters and other groups nearby, Tokyo police erected barricades to control the crowds.
【終戦の日】靖国神社周辺では多くの団体が集結　警視庁が警戒強めるhttps://t.co/DJ7yDU9tla pic.twitter.com/p3e5LAKMox
— 産経ニュース (@Sankei_news) August 15, 2017
End-of-War Memorial Day: Many groups assembled around Yasukuni Shrine. Tokyo Metropolitan Police issued warnings [to maintain order]
Sankei Shimbun also reported that right-wing and conservative counter-demonstrators appeared in response to Yasukuni demonstrators, prompting police to separate the two groups.
Elsewhere in Tokyo, other groups marked the day by coming out in support of Article 9 of Japan's Constitution, in which Japan renounces war and which the Abe government is seeking to revise or even abolish.
8月15日 #終戦記念日
17:00～雑色駅で宣伝を行います。みなさんぜひ、お越し下さい！
雑色 #九条の会 pic.twitter.com/ea8X4aX3pG
— 藤田りょうこ (@ryokofujitajcp) August 14, 2017
August 15, #EndOfTheWarDay
At 5 p.m. we will met at Zōshiki Station to reaffirm our vow [to support Article 9].
A main theme of the day was that memories of the hardship of war appear to be disappearing as the wartime generation ages:
戦没軍人の妻の平均年齢は94歳を超えました。記憶の継承が年々難しくなっています。 #終戦記念日 #太平洋戦争https://t.co/XtX9FRb2XS
— 毎日新聞 (@mainichi) August 15, 2017
The average age of surviving spouses of soldiers killed in the war has now increased to 94. Passing on the memory [of war] from generation to generation is becoming more difficult.
終戦時に8歳だった人はもう80歳。徴兵検査を受けていた人は92歳。戦争を生々しい体験として知る人はわずかになった。今の政治家も経営者も学者も所詮戦争を知らないのだ。それを自覚し、意識して生きた歴史を学ぶ姿勢を保たなければならない。https://t.co/d9xPh2bofP
— 鮫島浩 (@SamejimaH) August 15, 2017
At person who was 8 years old at the end of the war is now 80. A young man who was eligible for conscription then is now 92. There are just a few people left who know the experience of living through war. Today's politicians and business people and students know nothing of war. We must preserve the desire to study the experiences and awareness of those who lived the history of war.
Article: “Japan's Pattern of Defeat”—According to historian Isoda Michifumi, it's important for Japanese people to “think deeply.”
The significance of the day wasn't lost on this Japanese Twitter user, however:
平和を #終戦記念日 #あたしンち pic.twitter.com/djYRDX4B2g
— あたしンち／けらえいこ公式 (@atashinchi_new) August 15, 2017
To continue to live in peace.

author: Nevin Thompson


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‘You Can Lock Up Our Bodies, But Not Our Minds’: Hong Kong Court Sends 16 Activists to Prison · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Three student leaders of the 2014 pro-democracy protests, Joshua Wong, Alex Chow and Nathan Law, were sentenced to jail. Photo: Facebook/Demosisto
Nearly three years after mass pro-democracy demonstrations rocked the city of Hong Kong, 16 young activists were convicted on August 16 of unlawful assembly for their participation in two separate protests challenging the government.
Though the activists were originally convicted and sentenced to community service and suspended jail time, the Department of Justice later filed a re-sentencing appeal, arguing that the original sentences for the activists were “too light”. This week, Hong Kong's Court of Appeal ruled in their favor.
Many within Hong Kong's pro-democracy civic sector see the ruling as a politically motivated move that pushes the city towards a judicial culture that errs on the side of power over rights.
The first case involves 13 defendants including League of Social Democrats (LSD) Vice-Chairman Raphael Wong, Land Justice League convener Willis Ho, and activist Billy Chiu who in 2014 demonstrated to stop the government’s funding request of HK$340 million (approximately US$43.5 million) to develop the northeast New Territories in 2014. Opponents feared the development plan would fail to protect residents and the environment, and argued that the policy-making process surrounding the development was undemocratic.
Some in the group protested outside the Hong Kong Legislative Council, while others attempted to enter the legislature building. All were found guilty of unlawful assembly in 2015 and have already served between 80 and 150 community service hours.
On August 15, the Court of Appeal sentenced 12 of the defendants to 13 months in prison and one to eight months.
Activists against Northeast New Territories development. Via inmediahk.net
The second case involves Joshua Wong, Nathan Law and Alex Chow, three young activists who played a central role in the 2014 pro-democracy protests. Dubbed the Umbrella Movement, the massive sit-in demanding that the people be allowed to nominate candidates for Hong Kong's top leader lasted for three months.
The trio were convicted of unlawful assembly in July 2016. Wong was sentenced to 80 hours of community service, Law received 120 hours, and Chow received a three-week suspended jail sentence.
On August 17, the Court of Appeal re-sentenced Wong to six months behind bars, Law to eight months, and Chow to seven months.
According to Hong Kong's constitution, called the Basic Law, any individual who received a prison sentence for more than three months is to be deprived of the right to run in legislature and district council elections for five years. The activists will appeal the sentences.
In statements on social media, the activists vowed that they would not be intimidated and urged Hong Kong people not to give up.
Willis Ho, one of the activists who challenged the Northeast New Territories development plan, wrote before she was sentenced to 13 month in prison:
我不能不承認，我感到的社會，是黑暗和絕望的，不想散發負能量，但承認絕望才可以看到微微的光芒，在暗處抵抗。很微小，但存在。其他審判的戰友、男友，大抵要在入面看電視才會知道你們往後判刑的消息，這種「挫敗」會叫大家更堅韌不屈，我們互勉，意志上同在。知道在不同崗位都有努力的人，同在。
當自己決定不認罪、表示毫無悔意，是倔強地表明，刑罰不會改變我的信念、無法讓我感到後悔。
I have to admit, I see darkness and despair in our society. I don’t want to spread negative energy but in despair I can see light resisting against the darkness. The light is weak but it exists. I could only see on television the result of the court's decision: my boyfriend and fellow protesters on television in jail. Such a “setback” will make us stronger. We will support and be there for each other. We know that there are people who are with us making changes in different positions.
The decision to plead not guilty and the refusal to express regret over my action is a steadfast statement that the sentence cannot change, it cannot change our belief and make me feel regret.
Willis Ho.
Her mother shared her feelings on Facebook on her daughter’s trial:
今日東北案13被告中 其中有我的至親 折騰三年 終於判了 重
從沒有這樣的經驗 一道殺來 在外的我 情感百般 在内的她 心頭相若
在此 默默遙送支持鼓勵 無論你看見晨曦的日出 和煦的午後 沉鬱的黃昏
燦星的晚上
我都在 在惦念著你 給你力 給你氣
有天當你回來時 磨練把你更堅實 體現把你更豐富
最想你知道 你是我的驕傲 你沒有錯
Today, among the 13 defendants of Northeast New Territories protest, is my dearest [daughter]. After three years [of trial], the sentence is heavy.
I have never had such an experience before, such a heavy blow. I have mixed feelings and I'm sure she has them too.
I can only send my support in silence. When you see the sun rise, the sun set and the stars at night, I am with you, thinking about you and giving you strength.
When you are back, you will be stronger with a lot more experience.
I want you know that I am so proud of you and you have done nothing wrong.
Another activist from the Northeast New Territories case, Raphael Wong, posted his defense statement on inmediahk.net:
我不求憐憫，但求公義；我不怕無情監禁，我怕鴉雀無聲。我說過，對於此案，我毫無悔意，絕不求繞…律政司說我無真誠侮意，因此應當坐牢，我說我真誠無侮意，不是為求坐牢，而是忠於自己，忠於戰友，如牢獄是我必然之所，我坦然面對，我所信相的主耶穌與我同在。
新界東北的村民仍需我們關心，以及橫洲的村民亦是，為求諸位萬勿灰心，我們要堅持下去，這是意志的比拚，這是無煙硝的精神戰爭，我們用耐心、勇氣和智慧繼續抗爭，我深信，公義必將到來！
I don’t seek sympathy, but justice; I am not scared of prison, but silence [of the society]. I have said I have no regrets and would not surrender… the Secretary of Justice said I did not have sincere regrets and should be imprisoned. My sincerity in having no regrets is not to ask for more prison time but to be faithful to myself, to my fellow activists. If that leads to prison, I will face that without regrets. Jesus Christ will be with me.
Villagers [who face forced demolition] in the Northeast New Territories and Wangzhou need us. Please don’t give up. We have to carry on. This is a competition of wills, it is a spiritual war without guns. We need patience, courage and wisdom to carry on the struggle. I firmly believe that justice will prevail!
Nathan Law was given eight months in prison in the second case. He was a legislator who was recently disqualified from office for modifying his oath of allegiance to China during his swearing-in ceremony.
He expressed similar sentiments in his letter to friends:
無論高牆多麼的高，無論它遮擋陽光的陰影多麼廣闊，我始終相信它那背後通往公義的路，照耀和滋長生命的太陽，依然長存世上…
所有參與、聲援過雨傘運動的朋友，牢獄是為所有人而坐，也是為公義而坐。你要抱有的不是歉意，而是前進的動力和決心。當我心存自由的腦袋在牢籠內，我希望與我分享同一信念和價值的人，能夠更好的生活和抗爭。暴政不是由人的犧牲而推翻，而是由各位心存道德力量的人，共同合力改變；缺乏你們的改變，各位在牢獄內外背起的痛苦，是沒有意義的。
No matter how high the wall is, how much sunlight its shadow has blocked, I believe that behind the wall the path leads to justice. The sun that nourishes life on Earth still exists…
I serve prison time for those who have participated in the Umbrella Movement and for justice. Don’t feel sorry, be more determined in stepping forward. Although I am in prison, my free spirit will be with those who share our beliefs and values and continue fighting for a better life. Tyranny won’t be overthrown by those who sacrificed but by people who are driven by moral power to collectively make change. Without such collective will to change, our suffering and pain, inside or outside of prison, will become meaningless.
Joshua Wong, a well-known student leader, tweeted before he was sent to the prison:
You can lock up our bodies, but not our minds! We want democracy in Hong Kong. And we will not give up.
— Joshua Wong Chi-fung (@joshuawongcf) August 17, 2017
The Civic political party described the re-sentencing of the activists as “legal terrorism” in a statement (via Hong Kong Free Press):
The Civic Party believes that this sentence, despite being lighter than that given to the Northeast New Territories protesters, exhibits the same principle: the government will stop at nothing in its use of appeal procedures and sentence reviews – what are, in effect, tools of legal terrorism – to deal with protesters and social movements opposed to the establishment. The appeal and jail sentence is a form of institutional violence and political suppression – it has ‘created’ the youngest group of political prisoners since the handover.
The “handover” refers to the transfer of control over Hong Kong, a former British colony, to China in 1997.
Human Rights Watch's China director Sophie Richardson said, also via Hong Kong Free Press:
The justice department’s outlandish application seeking jail time is not about public order but is instead a craven political move to keep the trio out of the Legislative Council, as well as deter future protests.
International society has spoken out, including various US legislators who issued statements condemning the move.
The pro-democracy civic sector has planned a rally for Sunday, August 20 condemning the prosecution of the 16.

author: Oiwan Lam


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A New App Wants to Help the Blind ‘See’ the Solar Eclipse · Global Voices
PRI/PRX's The World

This is a prototype version of the app’s “rumble map.” Credit: Carolyn Beeler/PRI
This story by Carolyn Beeler originally appeared on PRI.org on August 11, 2017. It is republished here as part of a partnership between PRI and Global Voices.
It sounds like the beginning of a riddle. How can someone who’s blind “see” the upcoming eclipse that will cut a path across the United States on August 21?
It’s a question solar astrophysicist Henry “Trae” Winter started thinking about several months ago after a blind colleague asked him to describe what an eclipse was like.
“I was caught completely flat-footed,” Winter said. “I had no idea how to communicate what goes on during an eclipse to someone who has never seen before in their entire life.”
Winter remembered a story a friend told him about how crickets can start to chirp in the middle of the day as the moon covers the sun during an eclipse. So, he told his colleague that story.
“The reaction that she had was powerful, and I wanted to replicate that sense of awe and wonder to as many people as I could across the country,” Winter said.
So Winter, who works at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, decided to build an app to do just that: help blind people experience this summer’s eclipse.
Solar astrophysicist Henry “Trae” Winter gestures toward a video wall depicting an image of the sun at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Credit: Carolyn Beeler/PRI
“[The blind] community has been traditionally left out of astronomy and astrophysics,” Winter said, “and I think that that is a glaring omission that it’s time to answer.”
Eclipse Soundscapes, which launched for iPads and iPhones on August 10, features real-time narration of different aspects of the eclipse timed for the user’s location.
A “rumble map” allows users to hear and feel the phenomena when they touch photos of previous eclipses.
Dark areas in the photos, like the solid black face of the moon, are silent when you touch them. Wispy strands of sunlight radiating out from behind the moon emit lower hums. And touching brighter areas, like the shards of light that peek out from behind the moon’s valleys, produce higher frequencies.
The sounds are paired with vibrations, soft for darker areas and more intense for brighter spots.
“We managed to create frequencies that resonate with the body of the phone,” said the app’s audio engineer Miles Gordon, “so the phone is vibrating entirely using the speaker.”
“The goal of this app is not to give someone who’s blind or visually impaired the exact same experience as a sighted person,” Winter said. “What I hope this is, is a prototype, a first step, something we can learn from to make the next set of tools.”
Other tools exist to allow blind people to experience the eclipse, including tactile maps and books, but it’s still understood largely as visual phenomena.
Less well-known are the changes in temperature, weather patterns and wildlife behaviors that accompany total eclipses.
Chancey Fleet, the colleague who first asked Winter to describe an eclipse at a conference months ago, was skeptical when she learned about his idea for an app.
“The first time I heard that blind people were being asked to pay attention to the eclipse, I kind of laughed to myself, and tried to contain my really dismissive reaction,” said Fleet, who’s an accessible technology educator at a library in New York. “It almost sounds like a joke.”
Wanda Diaz Merced translates light data into sound for her research on gamma-ray explosions. She helped with navigation and accessibility on the Eclipse Soundscapes app. Credit: Carolyn Beeler/PRI
But after learning about the sounds associated with the eclipse, she’s interested in trying out Winter’s app.
“I’m looking forward to experiencing it for myself, and not just hearing or reading about it,” Fleet said. “Nothing is ever just visual, really. And [this] just proves that point again.”
The app development team has gotten help from Wanda Diaz Merced, an astrophysicist who is blind, to make sure the software is easy to navigate.
She believes the app will show people that there’s more to an eclipse than spooky midday darkness.
“People will discover, ‘Oh, I can also hear this!'” Diaz Merced said. “And, ‘I can also touch it!'”
She also sees the app as a tool to get more blind kids interested in science.
“That is very, very, very important,” she said.
The Eclipse Soundscapes team, which is backed by a grant from NASA, has recruited the National Park Service, Brigham Young University and citizen scientists to record audio of how both people and wildlife respond during the eclipse.
Phase two of the project is to build an accessible database for those recordings, so blind people can easily access them.
That’s the element of the project Diaz Merced is most excited about from a scientific standpoint.
After she lost her sight in her late 20s, she had to build her own computer program to convert telescope data to sound files so she could continue her research (here's her TED talk).
She hopes this project spurs more interest in making data accessible to researchers like her.
“What I do hope is that databases in science will use [this] database model … for us to be able to have meaningful access to the information,” Diaz Merced said. “And that perhaps through [the] database, we will not be segregated.”
In that way, she hopes the impact of the eclipse will last much longer than a day.

author: PRI/PRX's The World


text:
Afghan Asylum Seekers’ Anti-Deportation Protest in Stockholm Marks Two Weeks · Global Voices
Samea Shanori

One of the organizers of the protest in Medborgarplatsen, Stockholm, Sweden – August 16th. Image taken from Kateb Media Group with permission.
Today marks two weeks since the beginning of a peaceful sit-in protest in Stockholm organised by Afghan refugees and asylum seekers to express their concerns over forced deportations from Sweden to Afghanistan.
The protest began on August 5 in front of the Swedish parliament in Stockholm, Sweden. Three days later, the police tightened security in the square after the right-wing extremist network Nordisk ungdom (Nordic Youth) attacked the protestors, injuring three of them.
The protest location was recently changed from Mynttorget square to the larger Medborgarplatsen due to the growing number of protestors.
Many Swedes have also joined the protest urging their government to stop deportations, especially of young Afghans, to Afghanistan since it is not a safe country.
Dawood Sarkhosh, a well-known Afghan singer, joined the protesters on August 17, while Shakib Mosadeq and Masoud Hasanzada, two other well-known Afghan artists, added their voices to the protest the following day.
Most Popular #Hazara singer #DawoodSarkhosh joins protest in #Stockholm #Sweden to support #Afghan #AsylumSeekers #UngiSverige@swedense pic.twitter.com/XTPyOVXSWY
— hazara.net (@hazaranet) August 17, 2017
Shakib Mosadeq, like many other Afghans, left Afghanistan with his family in 2011 and sought asylum in Germany, where he currently resides.
In an interview with The Voice of Refugees published on August 18, Mosadeq acknowledged that the singers’ participation in the demonstration might not change much, but added that he is hopeful of a shift in attitudes towards Afghan asylum applications in Sweden and elsewhere.
He noted that protests in Germany have resulted in the temporary suspension of deportations of Afghans to Afghanistan. The video of his interview is posted below.
In speaking out against the deportations, protesters have inevitably stressed growing insecurity in Afghanistan. Civilian deaths  from what a UN report termed “complex attacks” spiked in the country by 15 per cent in the first half of 2017, while the Taliban-dominated insurgency appears to gather strength by the day as the central government wilts under pressure from corruption and infighting.
Stop deporting minors ✊?. Or even better, stop all deportation of refugees #ungisverige pic.twitter.com/KRYSfTNQzv
— Stina Runesson (@RunessonStina) August 15, 2017
Special attention has been given to the plight of the ethnic Hazara community of Afghanistan, who have traditionally faced persecution in the country and have suffered disproportionately as security in the country unravels.
#Hazara asylum seekers have the right to live, not send them to Death to #Afghanistan#UngiSverige #låtdeungastanna #MirzaOlangMassacre pic.twitter.com/Rj7kCP6qvI
— Hosnia Aman Nazari (@AmanHosnia) August 12, 2017
The Hazara World Council's official Facebook page reported that, so far, the protest has been visited by members of several political parties, including the Minister for Higher Education and Research of Sweden. The Prime Minister and the Minister of Migration also wrote letters to the protesters. However, policymakers have asserted that the protestors’ key demand — stopping all deportations — is unfulfillable.
The Swedish Migration Agency have said that they are closely monitoring the security situation in Afghanistan, and have admitted that there are provinces in the country where people would not be able to return without fear for their lives.
According to the Afghan Embassy in Sweden, more than half of all Afghan asylum applications in Sweden have been denied. Afghan Ambassador Hamid Hami clarified:
When an asylum seeker receives a fourth negative answer, that person is not eligible to stay. So, it is not deportation, it is an obligation that he or she should leave the country. It is the decision of the court of the country, not the embassy.
Protestors in Mynttorget square on August 9th, Stockholm, Sweden. Photo taken from Hazara International Network Facebook page
Many Afghan refugees blame Afghan President Ashraf Ghani for these de-facto deportations. In October 2016, the Afghan president signed an agreement with the European Union in Brussels to send thousands of Afghans back to Afghanistan. The European countries in turn pledged over $12 billion in development aid to Afghanistan over four years.
Since the deal was signed, many rejected Afghan asylum seekers have been sent back to Afghanistan where their lives could be in danger.
Like many European countries, Sweden has experienced an upturn in anti-immigrant sentiment with a number of arson attacks targeting migrants since the country took in hundreds of thousands of refugees and immigrants in 2015, mostly from Syria and Afghanistan.
The situation for immigrants and asylum seekers got worse after April 2017, when Rakhmat Akilov, 39, an Uzbekistan-born asylum-seeker and ISIS sympathizer who supposedly trained in Afghanistan allegedly drove a truck into pedestrians in a crowded Stockholm shopping district, killing four and injuring fifteen.
The attack forced the Swedish government to introduce new immigration laws, including new restrictions on asylum seekers, border controsl, and intensify its crackdown on illegal immigrants. Since then, migrants have gone underground after getting expulsion orders.
Two years ago, 40 percent of Swedes were in favour of taking fewer refugees. In 2017, that number has increased to 53 percent. The anti-immigration Sweden Democrats are now the second biggest party in the country.
Back in Afghanistan every day brings worse news. The first half of the year saw some of the most deadly suicide attacks to hit Kabul since the US-led invasion of the country began over 15 years ago, and the second half looks likely to be no different.
In August alone, militants have attacked a Shia mosque in the western Herat province, killing more than 30 people, and murdered more than 50 people in the northern Sar-e-Pul province, where hundreds were displaced and dozens taken hostage.
At the same time, the hapless National Unity Government is already facing difficulties with refugees returning from Pakistan and Iran. Since January 2016, a total of 728,000 Afghans have returned from Pakistan and Iran. According to Masood Ahmadi, who heads the resettlement program at the International Organization for Migration in Afghanistan, Afghanistan will welcome even more returning migrants in 2017, including close to a million from Pakistan.

author: Samea Shanori


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Dear Tanzanian Cinephiles, Your Local Film Industry Needs Your Support · Global Voices
Amil Shivji

The cast and crew of T-Junction, a Tanzanian film that won three awards at the 20th edition of the Zanzibar International Film Festival. Photo courtesy of Amil Shivji.
On June 16, 2017, the 20th edition of the Zanzibar International Film Festival (ZIFF) concluded with an illustrious awards night that saw my film, T-Junction, honoured with the most important award of the night: Best Feature Film. Altogether we bagged three awards, including Best Actress for Hawa Ally, the film's lead actress.
Considering the number of international films screened at the festival and the many delegates and filmmakers that attended, I should be overflowing with joy after such a success.
Filmmaking in Tanzania dates back to the government-funded productions in the 1980s, but the “Bongo movies” phenomenon, as we call our home-grown films, came into its own in the early 2000s. The industry now is second only to Nigeria in terms of the volume of production, with some sources suggesting that there are around 500 films produced locally every year. It's for these reasons I expected to see many more of my fellow citizens at the festival.
I came to film by coincidence. I wanted to be a journalist. As I was getting ready to go to university, I stumbled upon an advertisement for a scholarship for African students at York University in Toronto. I applied, and in due course, I received an email informing me that I had won. What I didn't realise is that instead of journalism, I had blindly chosen film as my major.
I ended up going to Canada anyway, and it didn't take long for me to fall in love with the movies. I devoured the work of cinematic magicians such as the Senegalese masters Ousmane Sembène and Djibril Diop Mambéty, the Italian Gillo Pontecorvo, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea of Cuba, Sergei Eisenstein of the Soviet Union, not to mention the British-born genius Charles Spencer Chaplin, otherwise known as Charlie Chaplin.
As I immersed myself in the history of film, my focus shifted to Third Cinema, the movement for revolutionary filmmaking from globally marginalised countries that emerged in the 1960-70s in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Those films from the 60s, to me, were a true reflection of the disenfranchisement of people, and the filmmakers who came up in that tradition truly used the moving image to fight against oppression. That realisation moved me to do the same for this era, and for my country, especially as I believe this to be an age of aggressive neoliberal attacks and dwindling spaces for advocacy.
ZIFF, to me, has become home court for those kinds of narratives. It offers me, and other Tanzanian filmmakers, a refuge, and the festival is sensitive to our needs as visual artists. So the absence of many of the “Bongo” movie stars at the festival, the ones whose faces I regularly encounter on DVD covers on the streets of Dar es Salaam, I question whether we can truly call our film sector an industry. By labelling it as such while we still lack the foundation and cohesive structure that a real industry requires, we may be jumping the gun.
Education is key. I lecture on film at the University of Dar es Salaam, but most of my students were not at the festival. Some of them would argue that travelling to Zanzibar is expensive, and that may very well be true. But once you come to terms with the fact that you want to spend your life making movies, you must also get used to ignoring the statement that “funding is an issue”. The buzzword in our market these days is “entrepreneur”, and I find many of my students and young people casually throwing that term around. Yet they refuse to live by it and what it means. Entrepreneurship requires relentless passion and a can-do attitude—that is the only way to make things happen, money or no money. In the movie business, the drive to tell our own stories should be understood as a form of entrepreneurship.
As Tanzanian filmmakers and artists, we refuse to face the critical fact that pursuing one's passion is hard, and demands patience and perseverance. The current state of the film sector is a product of this attitude. It takes time to produce a film that tells a good story. Yet, how many of our filmmakers rush to market with incomplete projects because of their insecurities and the desire to make a quick buck?
Moreover, the film sector in Tanzania is littered with distributors who dictate the direction of projects by signing draconian contracts with actors and displacing directors and creative producers as they see fit, thereby creating barriers that prevent new talent and creative productions from emerging. Can we really call this state of affairs an industry?
It's high time we took a step back and took stock of where we focus our energy. Tanzania is blessed with countless stories and young people craving the chance to tell them. If we truly want to build an industry, we must move beyond individual ambitions and think about a more collaborative and collective future.
Supporting indigenous festivals like ZIFF is one place to start.

author: Amil Shivji


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A New Documentary Shows the Human Side of Male Sex Work in Japan · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

Entertaining potential customers in an urisen bar. Image courtesy of ‘Boys for Sale.’
The new documentary “Boys For Sale” explores male sex work, or “urisen” (ウリ専) as it is called in Japanese, in Tokyo's biggest hub for gay culture and nightlife, Shinjuku's “2-chome” neighborhood.
The film features candid interviews with young men who work in bars and brothels and are paid to have sex with other men and touches on topics such as sexuality and sexual consent in Japanese culture. At times, the documentary uses animation to protect the identity of some interviewees and illustrate what happens during a sexual encounter with a client.
Different men interviewed in the documentary have slightly different explanations as to what urisen is: “Spending time with a boy”; “We offer opportunities for people to meet people. And if a customer likes one of us, it might lead to something else”; and “Urisen is selling and buying… We sell our bodies and men buy us.”
Many of the young men interviewed in the documentary say they fell into the work because they needed money to help out with family debts, or because they had drifted into Tokyo looking for a job but found nothing else available. One interviewee said he had gone to Tokyo after the 2011 tsunami that had destroyed his hometown in Iwate Prefecture. Generally speaking, male prostitution in Japan is permitted, since under the law, sex is exclusively defined as vaginal intercourse, so other paid sexual acts are not illegal.
Webpage showing selection of male sex workers at a bar in Japan. Image courtesy of ‘Boys for Sale.’
According to the documentary, as part of their job, young men typically work at a bar where they meet potential patrons. They can “earn 5 dollars for 30 minutes” for sitting next a customer in a bar, and more if they persuade the customer to have sex with them in hour-long sessions in small, private rooms adjoining the bars. The men start at 4 p.m. and work for eight to 10 hours a night, and report earning from ¥150,000 and ¥850,000 (from US$1,350 and $7,800) a month, although up to 50% of this income goes to the bar that employs them.
Most of the young men interviewed in “Boys for Sale” are under the age of 26, and many, while they are paid to have sex with other men, do not identify as gay. Some of the interviewees say since they prefer women, they don't actually enjoy having sex with men and try to remain detached while having sex. Other interviewees say that they discovered that having sex with men wasn't as hard as they had imagined at first.
Many of the young men do not receive any sort of training or testing from their employers to protect themselves against sexually transmitted diseases (“This is one of the only developed countries where HIV is growing,” notes one interviewee), and, out of deference to the wishes of the customers, condoms are rarely used. In fact, one bar operator states that sex workers are taught that “Showering together (with the customer) prevents STDs.”
Interviewees tell other troubling stories in the documentary.
“The clients are powerful,” says one interviewee. “I end up giving in… So no matter what the customer forces me to do. I cannot really refuse.”
Another interviewee reports being blindfolded and gang-raped. He continued to work at the same bar afterward.
“Boys for Sale” was made by an international team of filmmakers from the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan. Building trust with the interviewees was key, Ian Thomas Ash, the executive producer, told Tokyo Weekender. The filmmakers spent a full year going to different urisen bars in Shinkuku, getting to know the community. “[P]eople had come to know us and they understood that this wasn’t just parachute journalism,” he said.
As a result, the documentary provides a humane and empathetic look at the lives of men working in Tokyo's urisen trade.
The documentary premiered at a film festival in Germany in May 2017, and will be screened at a series of festivals around the world, including the 2017 Durban Gay and Lesbian Film Festival on August 26 and September 1, 2017. The film's fall 2017 schedule can be viewed here, and a Japanese premiere is expected to be announced shortly.
A trailer for “Boys for Sale” can be watched here:


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Cambridge University Publisher Removes 300 Academic Articles for the China Market · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Cambridge University Press. Image from Cambridge University
[Update August 22, 2017: CUP has reversed its decision and unblocked the banned articles in China.]
Cambridge University Press (CUP) has removed more than 300 academic articles (which were published in the academic journal The China Quarterly) from its website in China, in order to avoid a full shutdown.
In a statement, CUP explained the pressure that they received from China:
We can confirm that we received an instruction from a Chinese import agency to block individuals articles from China Quarterly within China. We complied with this initial request to remove individual articles, to ensure that other academic and educational materials we publish remain available to researchers and educators in this market.
We are aware that other publishers have had entire collections of content blocked in China until they have enabled the import agencies to block access to individual articles. We do not, and will not, proactively censor our content and will only consider blocking individual items (when requested to do so) when the wider availability of content is at risk.
CUP said it would find a long-term solution to the censorship problem, and has planned meetings to discuss its position with import agencies at the upcoming Beijing International Book Fair.
However, Greg Distelhorst, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor, is critical of CUP's strategy. He left his comments under the publisher's statement:
When a government or party curates your historical record, it uses your reputation to rewrite history.
Students in China will read the ‘leading scholarly journal’ on China and conclude those political taboos can't be that important.
‘If Tiananmen was really important, wouldn't there be some serious analysis by top international scholars? Guess it was just fake news.’
Your academic readers may be aware of the censorship, but this isn't much better.
When a journal silences accurate scholarship for market access, it either means that core principles are up for negotiation…or the commitment to academic freedom was not authentic in the first place.
Award-winning journalist and author of The People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited, Louisa Lim, is also critical of CUP's market concern:
This is appalling.   A clear example of the profit motive being valued over academic freedom, and by an academic publisher as well https://t.co/50UVm5Fet7
— Louisa Lim (@limlouisa) August 18, 2017
The China Quarterly is an interdisciplinary journal covering all aspects of contemporary China, including Taiwan. The list of censored pieces deals with contemporary history and politics in China, including studies on the Tiananmen Square Massacre, the Cultural Revolution, the Practice of Rule of Law, political development since Deng Xiaoping‘s reform, the country's political model, tension between state and market, Maoist and Marxist ideology, Falun Gong, labour rights movements, and studies about Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang.
The journal's editor, Tim Pringle, expressed disappointment over the censorship request in a public statement:
The China Quarterly wishes to express its deep concern and disappointment that over 300 articles and reviews published in the journal have been censored by the Chinese import agencies CEPIEC [China Educational Publications Import & Export Corporation Ltd.] and CNPIEC [China National Publications Import & Export (Group) Corporation]. We note too that this restriction of academic freedom is not an isolated move but an extension of policies that have narrowed the space for public engagement and discussion across Chinese society.
CEPIEC is the largest state-owned publication import and export enterprise in China, established in 1987 by the Ministry of Education to meet the demands of foreign academic publications from universities and colleges in China. CNPIEC is another large, state-owned cultural enterprise, which was founded in 1949.
Many concerned scholars have spoken out against CUP's censorship.  Sam Crane, a teacher of Chinese politics, urged CUP to give up its China-based site:
Why do the Party's work? If this is what they demand,  CUP should give up its China- based site and carry on elsewhere. https://t.co/dgnszzPXQa
— Sam Crane (@UselessTree) August 18, 2017
Anna L. Ahlers, Mette Halskov Hansen and Rune Svarverud, who are former — and forthcoming — authors in The China Quarterly, wrote a note via Twitter to Cambridge University Press and China Quarterly, saying that they were shocked by the decision:
There is no compromise to the idea of a global system of science. Either the PRC [People's Republic of China] takes part in it or not: that is a decision that has to be taken in China, not in Europe/outside. We sincerely hope that the editors of The China Quarterly will react strongly against the move by CUP on behalf of all its dedicated authors and readers. Hopefully CUP will reverse its policy and insist on academic freedom even if Chinese authorities do not.
Greg Distelhorst elaborated his view in an open letter to CUP, which was co-signed by Jessica Chen Weiss, an associate professor at Cornell University:
Chinese students and scholars reading a censored version of The China Quarterly will encounter only historical facts and scholarly analyses approved by political authorities. Worse Chinese readers will learn this sanitized history directly from the official website of Cambridge University Press.
This censored history of China will literal bear the seal of Cambridge University.
Scholarship does not exist to give comfort to the powerful. Nor is its purpose to find and exploit the largest market.
Christopher Balding, associate professor at HSBC Business School in Shenzhen, launched a petition demanding that CUP refuse the censorship request made by the Chinese government.
The pressure faced by CUP and other foreign publishers is the ripple effect of China's internal ideological struggle, which previously mainly targeted Chinese publications.
China has viewed university education as one of the most important ideological battlefields since 2013, when university professors were instructed by the Central Committee General Office of the Chinese Communist Party not to teach seven subjects — including freedom of the press, past mistakes of the Communist Party, and citizen rights.
In 2015, mainland Chinese universities were ordered to ban textbooks that promote Western values. Recently, a professor from Beijing Normal University, Shi Jiepeng, was sacked for calling former leader Mao Zedong “a devil” on social media.
The censorship practice has already affected Chinese academic publications — in Hong Kong, for instance, even philosophy book projects are censored. Baptist University’s Director of Liberal and Cultural Studies, Dr. Wong Kwok Kui, recently revealed that two censorship requests were made by a publisher with a mainland Chinese background. One incident happened in 2016, as reported by Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP):
Last year, when compiling an anthology on Nietzsche conferences, Wong said he was asked by the publisher to request that a writer amend an essay which criticised Xi Jinping as well as China’s policy towards Hong Kong and Taiwan. Wong refused, and the project was cancelled, despite everything being ready for publication.


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Why French Muslim Comedian Samia Orosemane Says She’s Like a UFO · Global Voices
PRI/PRX's The World

Samia Orosemane tweaks stereotypes about her North African community in her one-woman show in Paris. Credit: Adeline Sire
This story by Adeline Sire originally appeared on PRI.org on August 16, 2017. It is republished here as part of a partnership between PRI and Global Voices.
It’s no small feat for a French Muslim woman from a disenfranchised suburb of Paris to make it on stage, let alone as a stand-up comedian.
Enter Samia Orosemane.
At the start of her Paris one-woman show “Femme de Couleurs” (“Woman of Colors”), the 37-year-old comedian of Tunisian descent walks on stage to a mashup of the themes from “Jaws” and “Star Wars.” Veiled in black from head to toe, she paces ominously on the dark stage. And then in a stage whisper, she says, “I’m your mother.” The audience roars with laughter.
“Oh, that’s what scares you?” she says, pointing to the black veil. “Don’t worry, it’s a convertible.”
Then she pulls off the veil, revealing her turban-covered head.
That's Orosemane, taking on the hijab taboo. France bans all religious signs, including the Muslim headscarf, in public schools and for some government workers. Orosemane wears a colorful turban instead of hijab — something she says some people take issue with. They tell her she should be more modest and not show herself.
“I feel like telling them, ‘Mind your own beeswax.’ Some people say my turban is not as good as a real scarf because my earlobes still show, and it’s too sexy. I want to tell them the same thing a comedian told me, “On stage, you’re supposed to be naked, how are you going to do that with a scarf on your head?” But it’s part of who I am, it’s as if I told you I don’t like your haircut. I am here to make people laugh, not to get caught in religious discourse. My job is to be a comedian, and right now I think I do my job well.”
On the day I met her, Orosemane wore a salmon-pink turban and matching jacket, red lipstick and pink eyeshadow. Dressing as she pleases, she says, is her feminist stance.
In her show, Orosemane makes fun of many accents and stereotypes, from North Africans to the Paris equivalent of an American Valley girl. It’s biting satire, but it never mocks people harshly. Orosemane sees her brand of comedy as equal opportunity offender, and the audience gets that.
“It’s hard to peg me,” she says. “In fact, even people from my background don’t understand what’s going on. Since I pick on everyone, no one knows who I am. I’m like a UFO. I’m a girl, born in France, of Tunisian parents, dressed like a sub-Saharan woman who lives her life and wears a turban. I make my own choices. I don’t try to fit any mold; I don’t try to please.”
Orosemane also pokes fun at her own Tunisian culture. At the heart of the show is her long-standing battle with her mother about dating a black man, a French guy from Martinique who converted to Islam. Orosemane acts out her mother’s reaction when she told her she wanted to marry him. It's a wail of despair.
Marrying someone who’s not North African is considered a no-no by some in Orosemane’s community, even when that someone is Muslim.
“My mother used to tell me, ‘I’d prefer an Arab who’s a drunk to a black man who prays,’” Orosemane says. “It’s a visceral racism that is prevalent in the North African community, as elsewhere. Everyone is afraid of the other. Tackling this on stage is a way to make people think about it.”
Orosemane’s mother eventually gave her blessing to the marriage. On stage, Orosemane brags about being an unconventional wife to her husband.
“At home, he does the cleaning, the shopping, the cooking, and I make a mess,” she says. “When I get home, I toss my scarf here, my coat there and my purse over there, and he goes: ‘Samia, respect my work!'”
She moves around the stage quickly and then adds softly, with a smile, “It’s so good not to be hitched to an Arab!”
Then she adds, “To all the Arab mothers in the audience who’re going to be waiting for me outside, please note, I’ll stop saying this when you start teaching your sons to clean up.”
That gets her laughter and a round of applause.
In her show, Orosemane aims to make people laugh but she also wants open minds.
“I try to be as useful as possible. If I can create bridges where there are walls, I’m very happy. I’ll try anyway. If it works, great, if not, I’ll turn to other people.”


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My Complicated Relationship With Cockroaches · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

An typical early summer seasonal display for insecticide and cockroach traps at a Japanese supermarket. Photo by Nevin Thompson.
I'm proud of my ability to eliminate cockroaches. It's one of the most valuable skills I've learned since coming to Japan more than two decades ago, and I'm passing on the knowledge to my sons as part of a family legacy.
I had never seen a cockroach before coming to Japan in my early 20s. In the cool, dry corner of Canada where I grew up, there are very few insect pests. I had no idea what I was in for when I moved to Japan.
The first summer I lived there, I shared a house with a fellow teacher. It was full of odds and ends, a mountain of junk left by our predecessors. We weren't too bothered by that—neither of us was particularly clean and tidy. We left our dishes in the sink and our garbage in a corner of the kitchen. Such habits would have been fine back home, but in Japan, it was the beginning of our problems.
One sultry, sticky morning, I woke up to find a long column, about 20 feet long, of tiny black ants trooping through a crack under the front door, up through the entry hall, and into the kitchen. The line of ants climbed up onto the counter, where they were painstakingly carting bread crumbs and grains of soggy cooked rice and white sugar back outside. I got a dustpan, swept up the ants and dumped them outside. Then I went to work.
When I got home the ants were gone, but some other critter had strewn garbage all over the kitchen, with a discarded mackerel carcass as the centrepiece. I heard a noise upstairs. I went to investigate.
There was something in my room. A cat. I had left my bedroom window open, allowing a stray to get into our garbage. It was cowering in the corner of my messy room. I ran downstairs and grabbed a butterfly net a previous tenant had left behind. I gently scooped up the cat, took it outside and released in a vacant lot up the street. I then got to work cleaning up the stinking mess in the kitchen.
And then the cockroaches came.
If you've never seen a cockroach, imagine a creature right out of a David Cronenberg body horror movie. Glistening black or turd-brown body. Waving antennae and spiked legs. And a deeply unsettling way of zig-zagging around a room in search of a bookcase to escape behind or a pile of papers or dirty clothes to hide under. But what is most distressing is the sheer size of a full-grown cockroach. The ones that terrorize the Japanese are big—several centimetres long, and, unlike a house fly, a moth or a jumping spider, cannot be ignored. They must be dealt with if you ever want to sleep soundly again.
I encountered my first cockroach the day after the cat ate the garbage. It was dog-vomit brown, and it scurried along the wall under the kitchen table. I grabbed a coffee cup and managed to capture it, its antennae sticking out from under the edge of the cup, waving frantically. Now what?
I slid a piece of paper under the cup, grabbed the wriggling cockroach and dumped it in the toilet. It flailed about and wiggled its legs as I flushed it out of sight. I looked at the coffee cup. A bit of antenna was still stuck to it. I threw that away too.
But it was the beginning of an onslaught. Over the summer, cockroach after cockroach appeared in every corner of the house, under futon mattresses on the floor, in cupboards, on the TV console. Some were big and black, and, as a defense measure, would fly right at my face when I tried to corner them. I ran out of coffee cups and water glasses. I didn't want to swat the cockroaches with a rolled-up newspaper—I had read that if you did that you might spray their eggs all over the house.
Fall arrived, and I forgot about the roaches. I eventually got married and moved in for a time with my wife's parents. My father-in-law schooled me on some of the basics of roach-proofing, notably:
I didn't take his advice, so during that summer we lived with them it was a constant battle with bugs in our section of the house. I was still scared of egg-spraying, and continued to catch them with a cup or a bowl, kept handy in a cupboard in case of a cockroach emergency. On a trip back home to Canada during a Japanese summer, I was luxuriating in the cool, crisp air when I was struck with a panic attack: did I unwittingly bring back cockroaches to Canada in my suitcase? Could there, at this very moment, be a cockroach creeping around, ready to set up shop in my hometown?
In recent years I have become even more determined to confront the cockroach menace head on, mostly because my kids are deathly afraid of the big, shiny black bugs. Besides researching online forums about how to roach-proof my house in Japan, I've consulted the literature, such as the excellent Understanding and Controlling the German Cockroach. I've learned that cockroaches are nocturnal and live together in nests called harborages (if you see a cockroach in daylight it means the harborage is full). They need shelter, food, and water to survive. Take away one of these, and it's much easier to defeat them. Cockroaches also generally stick close to walls, and choose the same route when searching for food. They also defecate frequently, and other roaches use this trail of poo to navigate. Cockroaches eat the feces of other cockroaches, and will cannibalize their fellow cockroaches, too. In the process of these discoveries, I became acutely aware that the appearance of one cockroach meant there were dozens, if not hundreds, lurking out of sight.
I decided to execute a strategy of defense in depth. First, I identified likely intrusion points into our house: the door to the back garden, the lavatory, and the shoe cabinet in the entry hall, where I had regularly discovered cockroaches. Next, I set out “roach motels”—glue traps baited with a pheromone melange—in each of these locations. I then set out glue traps at key transit points throughout the house, including corners of the kitchen, and in the small room where we have our meals. The ultimate goal was to use these concentric rings of glue traps to defend the large, air-conditioned tatami room where we all slept together. No cockroach could ever be allowed to set spiky foot in there.
Besides keeping the kitchen clean and living spaces free of clutter, the final element of my defensive strategy was setting out poisoned bait along the cockroaches’ known transit routes. The cockroach's tendency to dine on its own feces as well as dead cockroaches was both its strength, and its liability. Once a cockroach eats poisoned bait, it either dies, or returns to the harborage. If it dies, its poisoned corpse is eaten by other cockroaches, who then die themselves. If the poison doesn't kill the roaches outright, they take it back with them to the harborage, where it is ingested or absorbed by members of the colony. Theoretically, with enough bait it is possible to cause a colony to collapse.
This year, the strategy seems to be working. I patted myself on the back: the glue traps were gathering lint, but nothing else. We've seen a few roaches, all in the middle of the night, but I quickly hunt them down and whack them with a rolled-up newspaper.
I've started to wonder about my revulsion for cockroaches. While there is nothing remotely human about them, when running away to avoid my wrath they do seem to possess some human characteristics. It's almost as though they're looking over their shoulders at me, then scanning around for some way to escape, in a very human kind of way.
A friend of mine says he no longer kills cockroaches (he ‘s also stopped playing shogi, the Japanese version of chess, as he no longer wants to compete with and defeat others). He feels sorry for them, and instead catches them and places them outside.Of course, he lives out in the country surrounded by rice fields, where he has an advantage I will never have—a resident Huntsman spider in his back garden, nearly ten centimetres across, who takes care of any cockroaches it comes across.
As for me, my war against cockroaches has not come without a cost. The other day, doing my regular morning roach motel inspection, I noticed something quite un-cockroach-like stuck in a glue trap. It was the soft, almost gelatinous body of a small, aquamarine gecko. It was dead.
“Agh!” my wife exclaimed. “You killed it! They protect the house!”
Known in Japanese as yamori, or “protector of the house” (家守), geckos feast on cockroaches and other insects. Now there was one less to keep the cockroaches away.
So, I've put away my glue traps for good. Hopefully, the cockroaches will not come back.