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From Cuba, with VPN · Global Voices
Periodismo de Barrio

Protests in Havana, Cuba, on July 11, 2021 Photo: Periodismo de Barrio.
This story was originally written by Geisy Guia Delis for the Cuban media site Periodismo de Barrio and was edited by Global Voices.
I was able to see the first video on Twitter on Sunday morning, July 11, at 11 o'clock: a group of 20 people banging on pans in the middle of a nighttime power blackout, in a place that looked like Holguín. The video lasted only 10 seconds, but I played it several times. Shortly after, live transmissions of hundreds of people in the streets of San Antonio de los Baños, Artemisa province, went viral on Facebook. The cries of “Freedom!”, “We are not afraid!” and “Down with the dictatorship!” were as shocking as they were implausible. I needed some time to convince myself that all this was real.
On July 11, thousands of Cubans across the island joined the largest protests in decades against Cuba's communist government, during which dozens of people were arrested. They protested the lack of food and medicine as the country faces a severe economic crisis worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic and the U.S. embargo.
I realized what was happening and immediately thought that in a few minutes the internet service in Cuba, or at least in San Antonio de los Baños, would be interrupted. This is now an automatic train of thought. Everyone on the island knows what the protocol is because we learned our lesson on November 26, 2020, when the Ministry of the Interior and the only telephone service provider in Cuba, ETECSA, disabled internet access so that state security agents, dressed as medical personnel, could break into Damas 955, the residence of Cuban artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and headquarters of the San Isidro Movement.
The video of the protests in San Antonio de los Baños remained online long enough to be seen in all provinces of the country. Just when the “gunpowder” was spreading to Palma Soriano, Santiago de Cuba, the first problems with WhatsApp, Facebook and Telegram started to be reported. Some users on Twitter also began to denounce the service failure. Several people, who could stay online longer through VPN, managed to upload images of Havana's Malecon, San Rafael Boulevard, Bauta and Güines—places overflowing with people shouting “Motherland and life!”
It is speculated in some discussion groups of Cuban programers and developers that ETECSA divides its users into “farms,” for which it creates different content distribution and delivery systems. This allows the testing of new functionalities, but it also enables the company to shut down the service in batches. This may explain why the same VPN, for example, works for some users and not for others, even if they live in the same house.
Although a few users have been able to access the Internet through the home internet service Nauta Hogar and others have been able to get online using the wifi hotspots, most Cubans could not access the internet via mobile data 48 hours later. Several people in the private sector reported that they could barely work because of this measure.
And if you call ETECSA's hotline, they will tell you that the service is down.
The people who were rallying and organizing through social networks have been disconnected. And don't be naïve: that is precisely what the authorities are after to stop the spread of the protests. However, limiting internet rights has a direct impact on the loss of other civil rights, much more so in authoritarian regimes.
According to OpenObservatory, a website dedicated to monitoring internet censorship, there is evidence that Cuba blocked WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal in response to the protests. Likewise, DougMadory, director of Internet analytics at Kentikinic, reported yesterday afternoon that, due to the anti-government demonstrations in Cuba, data and Internet traffic—to and from the island—dropped to zero around 4:05 p.m. local time.
In a radio program, Cuban journalist Arleen Rodriguez Derivet, confirms the existence of firewalls on social networks, supposedly to cut off hate speech.
In June 2011, the United Nations adopted the Joint Declaration on Freedom of Expression and the Internet, in which it was agreed that states should “Promote universal access to the Internet to promote respect for other rights, such as the rights to education, health care and work.”
Similarly, it is specified that there is no reason to justify the suspension of internet access, either to the whole population or segments of the public, not even for reasons of public order or national security.
During an appearance on July 12, President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez lashed out on national television against social networks and some media, blaming them for promoting a “soft coup” against the Revolution.
While protests continue to be reported from various locations, Cubans are waiting for the service they pay for with their own salaries, or that their relatives pay for from abroad, to resume. In these days when a smile on the other side of the screen is so valuable, the Cuban government has opted for more isolation.

author: Periodismo de Barrio


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Government-appointed rector removed from office in an overnight decree · Global Voices
Arzu Geybullayeva

A screenshot from Ulke TV reporting on the removal of Bulu from his office: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4a9b-_W3d4
For months Istanbul's renowned Boğaziçi University has been roiled by mass protests, with faculty, current, and former students demanding the resignation of a new rector appointed by President's Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on January 1. Six months later, in another late-night presidential decree, the government-appointed Melih Bulu was removed from office. The decision was announced via the Official Gazette.
A screenshot of the announcement of Melih Bulu's removal from office. Official Gazette. https://www.resmigazete.gov.tr/eskiler/2021/07/20210715M1-2.pdf
At the time of Bulu's appointment, students and faculty viewed it as another sign of Turkey's democratic backslide and highlighted how Erdoğan had also replaced over 100 elected mayors with government appointees in recent years.
But Erdoğan criticized the protests, accusing Turkey's political opposition parties of orchestrating the disobedience, adding that Bulu was a qualified candidate who was successful in his field. In one of his remarks, he also targeted the wife of Osman Kavala, a well-known Turkish philanthropist who has been in pre-trial custody since 2017. “The wife of this man named Osman Kavala who is a representative of Soros, is also among the Boğaziçi University provocateurs,” he said in February 2021.
As rector, Bulu dismissed demands for his resignation and remained silent about the police violence against students protesting his appointment since January of this year. “This crisis will die down in six months,” Bulu told reporters in February. His appointment was not approved by the University Senate, one of the university's guiding principles.
To bypass the need for a Senate majority, Bulu appointed himself dean of the university's faculty of communications, which was established by a Presidential decision during Bulu's time in office. He also skipped campus elections and consultation with university departments when appointing faculty members to new positions.
In June Bulu suspended classes offered by part-time lecturers. Among them was Feyzi Erçin, a lecturer in the Western Languages & Literature department who taught classes in the Film Studies Certificate Program. Erçin had been offering legal counseling services to students who were arrested during police raids.
The most recent measure Bulu took was to close down all university entrances and exits earlier in July under the “health and security risks.” As a result, all faculty members were prevented from entering the university premises while students were battered by the police outdoors.
According to T24, an online news platform, Bulu refuted the claims of his removal via his Instagram account but later removed the story and shared the picture of President Erdoğan while his Twitter account still described him as “Rector, Boğaziçi University.”
Screenshot from Melih Bulu's official Twitter account, taken on July 15 following the announcement of his removal from the office.
#MelihBulu was trending on social media on the morning of July 15.
Bu inanılmaz süreçte öğrenciler gözaltına alındı, bursları kesildi, öğrenciler/hocalar terörist ilan edildi, üniversiteye yeni fakülteler kuruldu, kahve makinesini Türkiye'ye getiren adam diye Melih Bulu'nun medyada reklamı bile yapıldı.
Ne için? Belli ki koskoca bir hiç için…
— can gurses (@canitti) July 15, 2021
During this hard to believe period, students were detained, some lost their scholarships, students/teachers were declared terrorists, new faculties were created, and Melih Bulu was advertised as the man who brought coffee machine to Turkey. Why? Clearly for one fat, nothing.
Many congratulated the university's faculty and students for their courage and continued resistance.
Boğaziçi Üniversitesi öğrencisiyle, akademik kadrosuyla direndi. Melih Bulu artık rektör değil ! Tebrikler #BoğaziçiDireniyor Şimdi sıra şu antidemokratik atama sorununu çözmekte. https://t.co/FhRYZw6MIZ
— Banu Guven (@banuguven) July 15, 2021
The Boğaziçi university resisted with its academic cadre and students. Melih Bulu is no longer the rector. Congratulations. Next is to resolve this anti-democratic appointment business.
My deepest respect and congratulations to the students and teachers at Boğaziçi University who peacefully protested the newly appointed rector for over 6 months. May the removal of Melih Bulu be a victory for academic freedom and the university’s independence. pic.twitter.com/DACyqVZJdL
— Jannes Tessmann (@jannes_tessmann) July 15, 2021
Direndiler ve kazandılar…
Tebrikler Boğaziçi ???
7 ay önce Boğaziçi'ne atanan Rektör Melih Bulu, geldiği gibi Cumhurbaşkanlığı kararnamesi ile görevden alındı. #BoğaziciDireniyor #melihbulu
Karikatür: Firuz Kutal pic.twitter.com/sFXvir5xQS
— Serkan Ocak (@serkanocakkk) July 15, 2021
They resisted and won. Congratulations Boğaziçi. Just as he was appointed 7 months ago, Melih Bulu was removed from office with a Presidential decree.
Discussions now loom about who will be the next rector, as shortly after the announcement, a Boğaziçi solidarity group tweeted that the university will continue its resistance against any undemocratically appointed rector.
Melih Bulu'nun yerine atanacak, Boğaziçi içinden veya dışarıdan yeni bir kayyumu kabul etmiyoruz. Üniversitenin tüm bileşenlerini seçime çağrıyoruz. #TümKayyumlarGidecek
— Boğaziçi Dayanışması (@boundayanisma) July 15, 2021
We won't accept a new government appointee from the university or outside, replacing Melih Bulu. We call on all university constituents to election.
The group also said they will continue to expose and demand accountability from the security personnel on campus and police officers who committed violence against students during the protests earlier this year.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Arzu Geybullayeva


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What is the Kurultai: Kyrgyzstan’s political body based on an ancient nomadic tradition · Global Voices
Aigerim Turgunbaeva

Screenshot from YouTube video from explaining the role of the Kurultai. The caption in Russian translates as: “A long time ago nomadic nations used to solve important issues during Kurultais”
With a more nationalistic government in power since late 2020, Kyrgyzstan has progressively strengthened traditional institutions that had previously been sidelined. The expansion of the power of the president, sealed in a  low-turnout referendum on January 10, now goes hand in hand with the increased relevance of the the Kurultai, a traditional political institution of nomadic nations in Mongolia and Central Asia.
The Mongol empire brought the Kurultai to Central Asia in the 13th century, during its occupation of the the region. From the Mongolian “khur” (to gather), the institution of the Kurultai served as an assembly for local elites to make political and military decisions.
Kurultais were revived in the region after the collapse of the Soviet Union — which had banned it — and they have existed in Kyrgyzstan since 1993, with varying levels of cultural and political relevance.
Askar Akayev, Kyrgyzstan's first president from 1991 to 2005, restored the Kurultai. Yet, in 2004, the Kurultai was steered towards the opposing camp and rubber-stamped the political takeover by Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who became the country's president and further increased the role of the assembly, which was financed solely via private contributions and donations.
In 2010, as he was losing political ground, Bakiyev reorganized the institution into the so-called Kurultai of Consent, which included 750 representatives  from rural districts, urban centers, and various religious denominations.
After deadly ethnic disputes in 2010, the assembly played an important role in overcoming the divisions and rebuilding the nation.
The word Kurultai only appeared in article 52 of the 2010 Constitution, which set out its official status of consultative body. In October 2010, after a referendum and a parliamentary election, the role of the Kurultai became more prominent. Throughout 2011, Kurultais were held at the regional and national level.
In recent years, there has been growing interest among politicians in reviving this institution.
In 2019, members of the Jogorku Kenesh, the Kyrgyz parliament, submitted a draft law “On Kurultai” that would have further strengthened its role.  But the bill was rejected in parliament.
After weeks-long violent demonstrations toppled Kyrgyzstan's government in October 2020, however, a new nationalist government headed by President Sadyr Japarov precipitated a discussion on the Kurultai.
In January 2021, people in Kyrgyzstan voted in presidential elections — solidifying Japarov's leadership — and in a constitutional referendum that essentially changed the form of government from parliamentary to presidential.
In April 2021, a new constitutional referendum enshrined the presidential form of government and gave more powers to the Kurultai.
According to its proponents, the Kurultai would help keep in check the actions of elected individuals by means of clan pressure, with which the Kyrgyz still strongly identify. Supporters of the Kurultai are convinced that, since the government in the country is formed mainly from Kyrgyz, traditional mechanisms of influence on it are necessary. The Kurultai seeks to restore the traditional spirituality of the Kyrgyz people as a system of collective responsibility of the clan (people) for the nominated leaders and the service of leaders to the people. Kurultai is considered as the only mechanism that will force the government to serve the people.
Opponents of the idea say that there is a possibility that this initiative hides an attempt to centralize power around the figure of the president with a ‘pocket parliament’ and the Kurultai at his service. According to the critics, there is no need to turn the wheel of history back; instead we need to look for new modern approaches to solve the issues that have arisen.
The new constitution, approved in February amid alleged irregularities, fails to outline the process by which Kurultai members will be selected. Observers also noted that its mandate is practically indistinguishable from that of the parliament. Ilyana Zhedigerova, a legal expert form the NGO Precedent, told Global Voices that the functioning of the Kurultai is unclear.
We can assume that the Kurultai will, to some extent, duplicate the functions and powers of the Jogorku Kenesh. Kurultai members will essentially be duplicates of parliamentary deputies. But the concrete way in which Kurultai will work is still unknown.
In an interview with the Kyrgyz service of Radio Free Europe, Saniya Toktogazieva, a constitutional law expert at the American University of Central Asia, warned that the Kurultai could lead to authoritarianism.
In authoritarian states, all dictators like such quasi-constitutional bodies. Why? Because they are not elected and not accountable. The Kurultai will always consist of ‘loyalists’ to the president. [Former President of Kazakhstan Nursultan] Nazarbayev, with the help of the People's Assembly, dissolved the first parliament. At one time, [former President of Kyrgyzstan Kurmanbek] Bakiyev wanted to do the same thing. With the help of such institutions, dictatorships were established.
With the new constitution, the Kurultai will have a say in all three branches of government, according to Zhedigerova.
Народный курултай будет иметь право законодательной инициативы, может вносить предложения Президенту об освобождении членов кабинета министров. Представитель Народного Курултая будет входить в состав Совета по делам правосудия, который заменить Совет по отбору судей, а Торага ЖК КР будет обеспечивать взаимодействие Жогорку Кенеша, в том числе с Народным Курултаем.
The Kurultai will have the right to initiate legislation, to make proposals to the President about dismissing members of the Cabinet of Ministers. A representative of the Kurultai will serve on the Council for Justice Affairs, which will replace the Council for the Selection of Judges, and the Toraga of the parliament will ensure the interaction of the Jogorku Kenesh, including with the Kurultai.
The Kyrgyz constitution has already been changed 11 times since the country gained independence in 1991. Every president has changed the rules of the game while in power. Japarov did so immediately after taking the top job. It now remains to be seen what role the Kurultais will play in yet another new era for Kyrgyzstan.

author: Aigerim Turgunbaeva


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Chinese cities’ plans to ban unvaccinated from public facilities triggers online backlash · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

An announcement from Beiliu county, China, demanding all family members of school children must be vaccinated for the children to enrol. Image from Hong Kong-based CitizenNews.
A few dozen Chinese cities have introduced restrictive policies banning unvaccinated people from visiting public venues including schools, hospitals, mass transportation and shopping malls. More cities are expected to adopt similar policies.
The policy, which was announced without much explanation, came as a shock to many citizens who had been repeatedly assured that China has the COVID-19 pandemic under control, thanks to the flooding of positive news and messages on social media during the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party in early July.
Below is a celebratory message circulated on Chinese social media on July 2:
#建党100周年庆祝大会哪一幕令你印象深刻#
口罩，没了！
七一的天安门广场，数十万人聚集的活动，竟然全部没戴口罩。
当全世界都认为戴口罩是侵犯人权的时候，全中国都戴口罩，当全世界都被病毒搞得不得不戴口罩的时候，中国率先摘除了口罩。
小口罩的演变，折射出的是人权的真正体现，有五千年文明历史的泱泱大国干什么事情都有板有眼，正如联合国组织评价＂中国是目前最淡定的国家＂，这淡定来自于自信，自信来自于自律，来自于自醒，来自于中华民族传统文化的优秀基因??#何其幸运我们共睹这一天#
#Deeply impressed by the ceremony of the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party#
No more face mask!
On July 1, in Tiananmen Square, an activity that involved hundreds of thousand people, no one wore a mask.
When the whole world believed that wearing a mask is a violation of human rights, everyone in China wore a mask. When the whole world is forced to wear a mask because of COVID-19, China is the first country to take off the mask.
The story of the mask reflects the true meaning of human rights. A big and strong country with 5,000 years of civilization, we handle things in an orderly manner. A UN organization commented ‘China is now the serenest country’, such serenity comes from our confidence, such confidence comes from self-discipline and self-awareness. All these come from the distinctive gene of the Chinese culture. #We are so lucky to bare witness to this day#
China hopes to reach a 70 percent vaccination rate by the end of 2021. Thus far, the country has given 1.38 billion doses, about 48 percent of its total population. However, the distribution has been rather imbalanced. In big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou the vaccination rate is more than 80 percent. As for second- and third-tier cities and rural counties, the rate has fallen far behind.
As the Delta variant spreads across Asia, virologists anticipate that the efficacy of the Chinese vaccines may go down by up to 20 percent. However, domestic news outlets quoted China's prominent epidemiologist Zhong Nanshan that Chinese vaccines had been proven effective on variants. Some critics argue that China has yet to release adequate third-stage clinical data about the vaccines, which Zhong attributes to China's lack of COVID-19 patients to test.
A hashtag #凡尔赛發言, meaning ‘a proud aristocratic speech’ was attached to Zhong's speech to highlight China's complacency in fighting against the pandemic.
The new restrictive policy posed a sharp contrast to all the positive messages circulating online in the past two weeks.  In addition, the lack of explanation in the governmental announcement has invited a flood of criticisms. Below is an announcement issued by Jinjiang city in Fujian province via mobile messaging:
凡在我市工作生活﹑年滿18周歲（戶籍不限）且無疫苗禁忌症的人員均須接種。
7月22日起，年滿18周歲以上人員進入全市重點公共場所須主動出示疫苗接種記錄（八閩健康碼中含疫苗接種標識）。
7月22日前，全市黨政機關﹑企事業單位幹部職工和廣大黨員除禁忌症外必須完成接種。「應接未接」人員不允許上崗。
8月1日起，「應接未接」人員原則上不得進入全市醫療機構住院部（患者除外）﹑景區景點﹑養老院﹑托兒所﹑學校（含幼兒園﹑校外培訓機構）﹑文化娛樂場所。」
All residents above 18 (regardless of the origin of household registration) who have no medical reasons for not taking the COVID-19 vaccine, should be vaccinated.
Beginning July 22, all people above 18 have to show their vaccination record (vaccination label on the city’s mobile health code) before they enter major public facilities in the city.
By July 22, all party members and employees of government and party institutions, as well as their affiliated corporations have to be vaccinated (unless they have medical reasons). Those who have not been vaccinated will not be allowed to go to work.
Starting from August 1, unvaccinated individual without any medical reason will not be allowed to enter medical facilities (except if they are patients), touristic sites, elderly facilities, kindergarten, nursery, schools (including training institutions) and cultural and entertainment facilities.
The policy inconsistency has raised many questions like @xie-nm-ni-cheng says on Weibo:
从一开始的“自愿”到 “不强制”最后“限制出行”这就是政府的公信力？这就是社会主义？
At the beginning, [the authorities said] vaccination was on a “voluntary base”. Later, it was “non-coercive” and eventually it became “restricting movement”. This is government's credibility? This is socialism?
Although people with medical reasons can be exempted from the restriction, it is not easy to get medical proof. Below is one experience shared on Weibo by @yi-zhang-jing-zi:
由于身体原因不能接种疫苗，现在实习单位要我出示不能打疫苗的证明。结果跑了两家疫苗接种点都让我去附二医开证明，结果附二医说他们有文件说医生不得给患者开相关证明，打电话给12345也不告诉我怎么办，所以到底要我怎么办呢要强制大家打疫苗，难道所有人都是健康体质都是可以打的吗？？？
Due to my health, I can’t receive the vaccine, but my internship organization demanded medical proof. I went to two vaccination stations and they asked me to go to the hospital. But the doctor in the hospital said that they were instructed not to issue medical proof to the patients. I called the hotlines, but they did not offer me any solution. What should I do? Not all people are in condition to take vaccines!
Other Weibo users@sheng-bu-hui-chuanpoints out that the policy may infringe citizens’ privacy:
不能打疫苗的人一点隐私都没有了，去个公共场所就得跟人说明“我八十了”“我打hpv了”“我备孕着呢”“我有基础病”，谁想出的这个破点子，脑袋里面进屎了吗
For those who could not receive vaccines, they don’t have any privacy. Whenever they enter public facilities, they have to explain “I am over 80”, “I have just received a HPV vaccine”, “I am pregnant”, “I have a certain disease”. Who came up with such a bad idea? Something wrong with his brain?
Some are also worried that similar tactics would be applied in other policy areas in the future, such as zhi-tien-shou-wan-zhe says:
通过限制出行、入学以及停薪停职这些损招来达到目的，长远地看，就怕有了第一次之后，也会有第N次。你说今后他们要是肆无忌惮地在别的领域依样画瓢、如法炮制，迫使咱们顺从，那日子能好过到哪里？因此，我觉得吧，无论咱们是否已接种，都应该坚决地抗yì这种野蛮的一刀切。
Once they manage to achieve a policy objective by means of restricting movement, depriving rights to education, suspending salary and work, in the future, similar tactics would repeat N times. If they apply the same means in other policy areas to force us to comply, what will become of our lives? Whether we have received a vaccine or not, we should resist such a brutal zero sum policy.

author: Oiwan Lam


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July arrests mark turn for the worse in Vietnam · Global Voices
The 88 Project

From left to right: Le Van Dung, Mai Phan Loi, Dang Dinh Bach and Do Nam Trung. Source: The 88 Project
This article was originally published on The 88 Project, an independent news site covering Vietnam, and an edited version is republished on Global Voices as part of a content-sharing agreement.
Last week, a spate of arrests occurred within days of each other, marking a sharp and sudden increase in the clampdown against political activists in Vietnam. The arrests come as the country struggles through the latest wave of record-breaking COVID-19 infections and deaths. While most of these arrests follow the typical pattern that we have often seen before, two of them are rather extraordinary. Here’s a quick rundown:
On June 30, the police announced the capture of blogger Le Van Dung, aka Le Dung Vova. Dung had been evading police for almost a month after they failed to arrest him at his Hanoi home in early June. The police said they were able to track down Dung Vova and apprehend him at the home of a friend of his in Ung Hoa County, Dung’s hometown. Authorities have begun the process of pre-trial detention for Dung, which means he will be held incommunicado and won’t have access to a lawyer for at least four months until the police finish their investigation.
Dung Vova is a well-known activist who has been reporting extensively on human rights and other societal issues in Vietnam for years. Like many other bloggers, Dung was charged with “anti-state propaganda” under Article 117 of the Criminal Code. If convicted, he could face a prison sentence of up to 20 years.
Also, on June 30, Quang Ngai provincial police announced that they had arrested three men whom they accused of “abusing social media in order to erode the state’s rights,” under Article 331 of the Criminal Code. The three men are Bach Van Hien, 34, Phung Thanh Tuyen, 38 and Le Trung Thu, 41. None of these men are well known to Vietnam human rights watchers. According to Quang Ngai authorities, the three used their Facebook accounts to create and share information that “gave a bad impression of the government and violated the interests of other organizations and individuals—including the court, the police, the military, Vietnam TV and the bureau of propaganda.” The men are said to have received prior warnings to cease and desist, but those warnings were ignored, leading to their arrest. They will be held incommunicado for two months during the initial investigation phase.
On July 6, activist Do Nam Trung was arrested in Hanoi while on his way to work. Soon after, he was transferred to his home province of Nam Dinh. Hanoi police took his keys and entered his house while his partner, Nguyen Thi Anh Tuyet, was at home. She later told RFA what took place:
This morning while still in bed I heard a dog barking. I went downstairs and saw about 20 men in my living room, some in uniforms some not. … They entered without knocking and proceeded to search all three floors of our house, even my child’s bedroom.
The men did not explain why Trung was arrested; they only told her that he was charged under Article 117.
At her request, they did show her a warrant for his arrest. Tuyet refused to sign any of the paperwork after they took away some items that belonged to Trung. She also said that two days earlier they’d noticed that Trung was being followed by security police outside their home.
Trung had been arrested twice before, in 2011 and 2014. In 2014, he was convicted of “abusing democratic rights” under Article 258 of the 1999 Criminal Code. He served 14 months in prison.
But perhaps the most unusual and surprising arrests of all were of two relatively unknown individuals with hardly any history of pro-democracy activism. On July 2, the police arrested journalist Mai Phan Loi and lawyer Dang Dinh Bach and charged them with “tax evasion,” a typical method of political persecution for those for whom the government does not have a strong, clear case.
Loi, 50, is the founder and director of the non-profit Center for Media in Educating Community (MEC) in Hanoi. MEC has a communication channel called GTV which airs, among other things, several popular talk shows aimed at educating the community on various communication skills and techniques.
Loi was also editor-in-chief of Phap Luat, the most prominent state-run magazine focusing on the law. In 2016, he even got to meet former U.S. President Barack Obama in Hanoi. Shortly thereafter, however, his journalist credentials were revoked by the Ministry of Information and he had to resign from his position. The U.S. State Department’s Human Rights Report for that year alleged that Loi’s forced removal was in part a retaliation for his meeting with Obama.
Loi was temporarily detained on June 24 but was not officially arrested and charged until July 2. At the time of his arrest, he was an administrator of a Facebook page called POV of the Press and Citizens (Góc Nhìn Báo Chí – Công Dân), which has over 120,000 members.
The second person arrested on the same day as Loi was Dang Dinh Bach, director of the non-profit Law & Policy of Sustainable Development (LPSD). LPSD is a member of the Vietnam Environmental Network (VEN), Vietnam Sustainable Energy Alliance (VSEA), and the Vietnam Non-Communicable Diseases Prevention and Control Alliance (NCDs-VN).
Bach, 43, is known for his ability to mobilize young people to volunteer for charitable projects such as helping victims of storms and disasters, especially those impacted by global warming and environmental catastrophes. He has created many competitions and awards for innovation in the field of sustainable living which attracted the participation of many young Vietnamese. LPSD has also been a strong supporter of the government’s fight against the spread of COVID-19.
Both Loi and Bach are executive board members of VNGO-EVFTA Network, a group of seven community service organizations (CSOs) created last November to satisfy the civil society component of the EU-VN Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) called Domestic Advisory Group (DAG). DAGs allow independent observers such as CSOs to monitor the implementation of the FTA, especially in areas such as workers’ rights, land rights and the environment.
While the EU DAG was established in December 2020, Vietnam has been dragging its feet and has yet to establish its DAG, effectively preventing civil societies from participating in the implementation of EVFTA. As a result, the EU DAG had to cancel a joint meeting in June with its non-existent Vietnamese counterpart. In a statement, the EU reiterated that “civil society engagement and scrutiny of EVFTA is not an optional element of the agreement, but should be ensured and applied as a matter of urgency,” and that “EVFTA stipulated that DAGs be composed of independent representative organizations.”
The problem with this clause is that in Vietnam there are no independent NGOs since they all must be associated with the party-controlled Fatherland Front and are not free to criticize the government. And while the charge of “tax evasion” is nothing new in the government’s playbook, as far as we can tell this was the first time it’s been used against non-profit organizations instead of individuals.
Both Loi and Bach have shown that not only are they qualified but they’re also trusted by the community. Not being the types of people who seek the limelight for themselves, both men have been very effective at recruiting major influencers in the academic and political world to support their causes. And even though their work is non-political in nature, it is surmised that their ability to attract a large following of young people could be viewed by the regime as a potential threat.
Are the arrests of these two men a sign of heightened paranoia, a subversion of the EVFTA, an attempt to distract people from the government’s failure to handle the pandemic, or just business as usual in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam? We’ll just have to wait and see.

author: The 88 Project


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Released journalists share prison experiences in Myanmar · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Friends and family members wait, hoping for the release of their loved ones in Yangon. Myanmar's government has released about 2,300 prisoners, including activists and reporters. Photo by a citizen journalist. Source of photo and caption is from Radio Free Asia. Copyright © 1998-2020, RFA.. Used with the permission from Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036. https://www.rfa.org.
Amid a rising national COVID-19 infection rate, the Myanmar military government released 2,296 prisoners on June 30 who were arrested for resisting the February coup. Among those released were 12 journalists charged with either spreading “false news” or agitating the public to commit sedition.
Authorities did not give a reason for the mass release of prisoners, although this was a key demand of many human rights groups and global institutions monitoring the situation in Myanmar. The military government's spokesperson said they released prisoners who joined the protests but were “not in leading roles” as well as those who had not participated in violent acts.
Since the February coup, at least 89 journalists have been arrested for covering the anti-coup resistance. Reporters have faced threats and have even been attacked for their coverage. Journalists who report on the atrocities committed by security forces have been accused of peddling misinformation.
Some of the released prisoners were journalists who were able to share their prison experiences and confirm reports about security forces abusing political prisoners and journalists.
Six journalists—Ko Aung Ye Ko of 7 Day News, Kay Zon Nway of Myanmar Now, freelancers Ko Banyar Oo and Soe Yarzar Tun, Myanmar Pressphoto Agency’s Ye Myo Khant and Zeekwat Media’s Hein Pyae Zaw—were freed from Insein Prison in Yangon on Wednesday. #WhatsHappeningInMyanmar pic.twitter.com/yycsWkXVI6
— The Irrawaddy (Eng) (@IrrawaddyNews) June 30, 2021
Ko Aung Mya Than, a reporter of Ayeyarwaddy Times, recalled the torture he endured after he was arrested. In an interview with The Irrawaddy, he said:
Eight junta vehicles surrounded my house and I was taken away for interrogation. I was beaten. They punched me in my ribs, face and mouth and slapped my face. Around eight drunken soldiers interrogated me, while accusing journalists of making false reports.
I challenged [the military] in a Facebook live on the day of the coup [on Feb. 1]. So they had a grudge against me and beat me while interrogating me for challenging them.
Ten days after his release, Ko Aung Mya Than was arrested again by local authorities who did not disclose the basis of the journalist's detention.
Ko Aung Mya Than, a #Maubin-based correspondent for the Irrawaddy Times, was arrested by the military on the night of July 10. He was released from prison on June 30 and re-arrested 10 days later.#JournalismIsNotACrime#WhatsHappeningInMyanmar#July11Coup #MyanmarNeedsO2 pic.twitter.com/nQtjfxBSIC
— Lwin Mar Aye (@LwinMarAye15) July 11, 2021
Freelance journalist Ko Banyar Oo was not beaten in prison but recalled the scare tactics used by prison officials. He shared this with The Irrawaddy:
I was sent straight to prison. I was questioned by the police at the prison. I was not beaten during the interrogation. Normally, people who were interrogated [at a police station or interrogation center] before being sent to prison were beaten. The food they gave us inside the prison was not OK. It was lousy and could hardly be called rice and curry. They gave us lectures to suppress our morale and, as we refused to obey prison rules, they put us in solitary confinement.
Aung Ye Ko, a reporter from 7 Days News, told Radio Free Asia that the crackdown on journalists reflected the government’s lack of respect for freedom of the press:
I don’t know about their intentions or why I was released but I’m going to carry on with my profession.
I endured a bit of physical and mental suffering while in there—there were no beatings but a lot of interrogations. I would say they have no respect for the Media Law.
Kamayut Media editor Nathan Maung was arrested on March 8 together with his colleague Hanthar Nyein. Nathan Maung, a United States citizen, was released on June 15 and immediately deported to his country. He told the Committee to Protect Journalists about what was done to him and Hanthar Nyein while under detention:
Without letting me sleep, they interrogated me for three days. I requested water, which they allowed me only on the third day. I had food only on the fourth day. I could hear screaming in the air and kept meditating.
Hanthar was badly tortured. He told me later that they burned his skin with a lit cigarette and put both his legs on a big ice block. Hanthar didn’t reveal his iPhone password, as they demanded, and he was beaten so badly to surrender his password.
Interrogators told him to take off his shirt and pants and attempted to rape him, so he finally gave up. By unlocking his phone passwords, his nightmare didn’t finish.
He added that military officials are blaming the media for their coverage of the resistance:
They thought the anti-coup “Spring Revolution” would die if there is no media present on the ground. They believe the Civil Disobedience Movement happened because of the media.
There is no hope at all for press freedom in Burma under the military’s rule. I believe that the media has a bigger role to play to promote human rights journalism and it is a sense of duty to highlight the humanitarian crisis which is emerging in the country.
Another foreign journalist, Yuki Kitazumi, was arrested on April 18 and spent nearly four weeks in prison before he was released and deported to his home country, Japan. After his arrival in Tokyo, he revealed the plight of political prisoners. He also shared what he experienced during his incarceration:
Even though I wasn't subjected to violence, an interrogator banged the desk hard when I refused to sign a statement containing things I had no recollection of saying. That frightened me.
Despite the mass release of prisoners, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners noted that more than 4,000 individuals are still in detention for opposing the coup. As of July 8, around 36 journalists remain in prison for covering the protests against the coup.
#Myanmar ?? Arrests of Journalists as of 8 July 2021 since the start of the military coup pic.twitter.com/0oAExL80qZ
— IFJ Asia-Pacific (@ifjasiapacific) July 12, 2021

author: Mong Palatino


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Volunteers tackle Bali’s plastic problem during pandemic · Global Voices
Sydney Allen

A screenshot from environmental organization Sungai Watch’s video detailing their plastic management technology, which is supposed to slow plastic pollution in Bali’s rivers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IOsm_m6xIw
Numerous grassroots movements, NGOs, and volunteers are using Indonesia’s pandemic border closure to battle Bali’s long-standing plastic pollution problem, cleaning up rivers and forests that have been littered with tourism-related plastic and trash.
While Bali’s trash problems are fairly well documented, the root of the problem is decades of unsustainable tourism paired with an underdeveloped waste management infrastructure and an increase in global marine pollution.
Tourism is a massive economic driver in the archipelago and has grown at a breakneck pace in recent years. Between 2010 and 2019, Bali’s tourism more than doubled from 2.57 million to 6.3 million visitors. However, as the tourism and hospitality markets have skyrocketed, the island’s infrastructure has stalled — particularly its waste management, transportation, and water treatment facilities — leaving it unequipped to deal with the massive influx of visitors.
Gus Angung head of Bali’s tourism board elaborated on the issue in an interview with ABC News In Depth.
The infrastructure is the problem here in Bali. Traffic and rubbish. The number one problem in Bali. Bali has already had tourism [for] more than 100 years. All of the money comes in, but 70 percent of the money goes out of Bali because the business is not operated by [the] Balinese people. The way of thinking has to change.
On average in Bali, per capita, a tourist uses 3.5 times more plastic per day than a local resident.
Because Bali — like much of Indonesia — has no centralized waste management system, most trash ends up in the island’s rivers, which eventually carry it to the ocean. However, during the country’s rainy season, storms at sea wash trash back onto Indonesian shores, blighting its beaches and creating a never-ending cycle of pollution.
Bali experienced a particularly troubling rainy season this year as its beaches were inundated with trash. During a January 4, 2021 beach cleanup, one citizen staged a protest by dressing up as a mermaid and posing in the fields of trash that littered the beach.
Mermaid in a sea of…trash?
LOOK: A person dressed as a mermaid lies on Kuta Beach covered in trash in Bali, Indonesia on Monday, January 4. ?: Dwi Duarsa via Reuters pic.twitter.com/v13S8wqMDk
— Rappler (@rapplerdotcom) January 4, 2021
During a single beach cleanup, it’s not uncommon for 30–60 tons of garbage to be bagged. Denise Hardesty, a research scientist at Australia’s CSIRO science agency who specializes in global plastic pollution, told the Guardian that there is a “tremendous amount” of plastic being washed ashore, and she expects the situation will only get worse.
It’s not new and it’s not surprising and it happens every year, and it’s been growing over the last decade. The rubbish had likely not traveled far and there would be many other beaches on the Indonesian archipelago suffering a similar fate.
Indonesia produces about 6.8 million tons of plastic each year, with about 90 percent of it ending up as streetside litter, in landfills, or in the ocean — and that’s not even considering the tons of trash that are imported from Australia and Western countries each year.
The Balinese government hopes to curb that number and reduce its plastic production by 70 percent by 2025. To do so, they have undertaken a number of initiatives aimed at reducing their trash problem, though few have been successful.
For instance, in December 2018 Bali Governor announced that the province would implement a ban on single-use plastic bags, which was widely ignored.
The Coronavirus pandemic has further exacerbated the island’s plastic problem as people rely on disposable PPE gear and single-use plastic for takeaway at restaurants. Some researchers estimate that globally, the pandemic has resulted in an additional 1.6 million tons of plastic pollution a day.
Though the government is struggling to combat the island’s trash problem, individuals and communities are stepping up in big ways to try to stem the tide of plastic pollution.
Like most countries, Indonesia’s borders became effectively closed to international tourists in March 2020.  For Bali — where an estimated 70–80 percent of the economy is based on tourism — this was a devastating blow.
But even before the pandemic, some said that Bali’s natural resources, reputation, and tourism sector were threatened by the immense amount of plastic pollution.
Photos I took of piles of trash on #bali #beaches including famed surfer beach #Kuta. ? #pollution #plastic #garbage #earthminders #savetheplanet #paradise ??? #tourism #travel #wehaveaproblem pic.twitter.com/9Lz9VmdtGi
— Elaine Weeks (@selaineweeks) February 10, 2018
Some community members are using this break in tourism to try to “reset Bali,” organizing grassroots environmental movements focused on cleaning the island’s beaches, rivers, and forests. One community organizer, Indonesia-raised Gary Bencheghib, discussed his efforts in an interview with ABC News In Depth.
There was a sense of, we want to go somewhere, we want to do something. And so that's really where we started our weekly clean-ups around the same time. Progressively, you know, we went from, like, 20, 30 an hour, all the way up to 150, 200 people. Because of COVID, people have more time. There is this community out there that wants to clean and press the reset button on Bali before we open up to international tourism.
There are hundreds of anti-plastic organizations in Bali, most of them small local initiatives started by students or residents hoping to make a difference. Many of these groups, including the organization Bye Bye Plastic Bags which was started by two teenage girls in 2013, hold daily beach cleanups to try and keep up with the onslaught of plastic and raise awareness about the problem.
Bencheghib’s community group, Sungai Watch, has been working since the start of the pandemic to clean up Bali’s biodiverse mangrove forests and rivers. The group has deployed a buoy technology in many of the island’s rivers to limit trash flow and has collected 450,000 kg of trash since September 2020.
Though the group recognizes that without some major structural change, cleaning the rivers alone won’t fix Bali’s problem. That is why the group has also been tagging and categorizing every single piece of trash it collects. The group hopes to hold consumers and companies accountable by gathering data on the island’s trash output.
What we’re trying to leverage is the brands that are responsible for the plastic packaging. Sungai watch in many ways is more of a data river cleanup organization. So really giving that transparency as to what we’re finding in the rivers online for everybody to see, so they can engage.
The group posted a video of their buoy technology on Twitter.
70% left to clean pic.twitter.com/XsxUU0fXdH
— Sungai watch (@Sungaiwatch) February 9, 2021
Hardesty’s CSRIO has proposed another solution to Bali’s trash problem: artificial intelligence. The group is developing technology that will use AI to monitor rivers’ trash output, which they are currently testing in London and Dhaka.
In the meantime, as Indonesia continues to address its COVID-19 surge, it’s clear that Bali, and the nation as a whole, needs to reassess its tourism reliance and find a balance between welcoming in tourists and economic opportunities and preserving the prized natural resources it is known for.

author: Sydney Allen


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WATCH: Indigenous+Digital: How young people are revitalizing their native languages on the internet · Global Voices
Eduardo Avila

Around 40 percent of the more than 7,000 languages spoken globally are considered endangered. Among the strategies being employed by Indigenous communities is the use of digital technologies to enhance the learning and promotion of their languages. Creating a new generation of young speakers is especially crucial, as according to UNESCO's Language Vitality and Endangerment scale, intergenerational transmission and the use of a language in new domains are key factors in determining a language's health.
This special episode of Global Voices Insights was recorded live on July 13 (July 14 for audiences in Oceania) and brought together the following language advocates and activists from Australia and Mexico to talk about their experiences.
Organized by Global Voices’ Rising Voices initiative and First Languages Australia with the support of the Embassy of Australia in Mexico, the session featured the following:
Annalee Pope: Annalee is Wakka Wakka woman from Central Queensland, Australia. Annalee began working to revive and strengthen Aboriginal languages in 2013, when she became the Coordinator of the Central Queensland Language Centre. Annalee joined First Languages Australia as a project officer on the Priority Languages Support Project, and then got involved with First languages Australia’s Young Champions program when it began in 2013. She has since become a mentor for young language champions.
Joaquín Yescas Martínez: Joaquín is a Zapoteco Xhidza man from Oaxaca, Mexico, co-founder of the Xhidza Collective and Coordinator of Xhidza Telecommunications, founder and coordinator of the Xhidza Penguin School, and technician and audiovisual producer at Radio Bëë Xhidza. Joaquín is an activist for indigenous languages, Free Software, free culture, hacker ethics and community philosophy.
Maria Lilia Hau Ucan: Maria is originally from Kinil, Yucatan, Mexico. A lawyer by training, she has worked as a teacher, speaker, translator, interpreter and collaborator on different projects with community and revitalization approaches focused on the Mayan language and culture.
Rachel Dikul Baker: Dikul is a Yolŋu woman from the Northern Territory in Australia. When she's not traveling the world running marathons, she mentors other young Yolŋu women, helping them build resilience and self-esteem and identify career pathways that fulfil their potential. Dikul’s role at ARDS Aboriginal Corporation involves documenting Yolŋu languages, cross-cultural facilitation and translation, broadcasting on Yolŋu Radio and language literacy activities. She speaks Djambarrbuyngu and four other Yolŋu languages.
Isela Xospa (Moderator): Isela is a designer, illustrator, and editor, originally from the Milpa Alta in the Nahua southeast region of Mexico City. She has worked for the Fondo de Cultura Económica, ILCE México and the David Bowie Archive, and is the founder of Ediciones Xospatronik, where she writes, illustrates, and edits books for children and young people in indigenous languages.
The episode replay is also available with Spanish and English voiceover.

author: Eduardo Avila


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Caribbean Tree Planting Week: A region-wide coalition gets serious about climate change action · Global Voices
Emma Lewis

Professor Rosalea Hamilton planting a tree as part of the Caribbean Tree Planting Week initiative. Jamaica's Lasco Chin Foundation, in collaboration with the Kiwanis Club (Division 24 North) visited the JP Farm in St. Mary to plant 300 Jamaican mahogany and blue mahoe trees. Photo courtesy Hamilton, used with permission.
The inaugural Caribbean Tree Planting Week took place virtually from July 5 to 11, and Jamaica-based professor Rosalea Hamilton, chair of the Caribbean Philanthropic Alliance (CariPhil) and CEO of the LASCO Chin Foundation, along with her enthusiastic team, are campaigning for it to be a regular fixture in the regional calendar. The ambitious Caribbean Tree Planting Project (CTPP) has, so far, encompassed 22 territories and 347 partners since its inception. Participants planted 1,517,463 trees between February 2020 and June 2021, a remarkable feat in the context of COVID-19 restrictions.
The week was packed with online events involving cultural and civil society activists, representatives from the region's Indigenous peoples as well as its diaspora, academics, conservationists, musicians, spiritual leaders and, perhaps most importantly, young people. One young Bahamian shared his love of composting; an Indigenous Surinamese woman described her people’s fight for land rights under threat of spreading deforestation; other conversations focused on everything from women’s empowerment, to mangrove restoration and even the fascinating history of the baobab tree.
Professor Rosalea Hamilton. Photo courtesy Hamilton, used with permission.
Via email, I interviewed Rosalea Hamilton, the co-founder of CTPP, and Trinidad-based development strategist Talya Mohammed, who moderated a lively session with Caribbean children and works with many of the young volunteers.
Emma Lewis (EL): Where did the inspiration for this initiative come from?
Rosalea Hamilton (RH): We started sowing the seeds of the Caribbean Tree Planting Project (CTPP) in April 2019, when a group of Caribbean philanthropists met in Jamaica at the WINGS philanthropic peer-learning event. It was here that we decided that it was important for us to collaborate regionally to more effectively achieve the Sustainable Development Goals in the Caribbean.
This led to the creation of The Caribbean Philanthropic Alliance, which was launched in September 2020 at the SDG Action Zone at the United Nations in New York. This happened during the aftermath of the catastrophic Category 5 Hurricane Dorian, which devastated The Bahamas. In this context, and given our shared experience with hurricanes and climate events in the Caribbean, it was easy for all of us to agree to do a project that can contribute to addressing the existential threat that climate change poses for all of us in the Caribbean. By February 2020, the CTPP started … the seeds started to take root!
Development strategist Talya Mohammed. Photo courtesy Mohammed, used with permission.
EL: How critical is the youth component of the project to you?
Talya Mohammed (TM): The youth component of this project is extremely vital for sustainability. Essentially, the project was conceptualised by youth members […] leading to the formulation of the CTPP. The youth voiced their concern about the lack of cohesive and united climate action in the Caribbean, with [localised] efforts in each island, but not set as a regional goal. We are the heart of the project, whilst the senior members are the soul.
Leading and interacting with the youth has been challenging and inspiring. Whilst they all are passionate about the cause, they are also highly involved in academic pursuits and/or entrepreneurship activities. Time management has been an early lesson of this high-paced, action-oriented project. It is phenomenal to witness the opportunities that they are all taking advantage of with globalisation and access, while still doing their part to contribute meaningfully to this project. Leading our team in Trinidad and Tobago has been a wonderful experience; encouragement and mentorship have been my role, which allows them to take the lead on ideas and implementation. Allowing them to spread their wings to make decisions and troubleshoot problems is important to develop their critical thinking, a necessary [skill] for them being able to lead projects, and take over and carry on the work.
EL: What role has digital technology and social media played?
RH: Digital technology has played a huge role […] keeping us all connected and in constant, easy communication. The ease in sharing documents, pictures and videos enabled us to organise events such as the CTPW very quickly and comprehensively. For me, the only real limitation in relying only on digital technology is the absence of personal interactions and related personal/social experiences, [which] gives us a better understanding of individuals, their communities and their society.
One of the educational offerings of Caribbean Tree Planting Week that was shared on social media. Photo courtesy Talya Mohammed, used with permission.
TM: Without digital tools and supporting infrastructure, Caribbean Tree Planting Week would not be possible. It has been amazing to see [people] embracing technology to do the work and foster the […] relationships necessary [for] a project of this scale. [We did have] connection issues on each island, with Tropical Storm Elsa announcing herself suddenly and with severity. Other limitations [were] hardware reliability and resources in general to manage all the aspects of digital technology, both human and financial. The project is intensively volunteer-based [so] we have been working with many skilled, tech-savvy [people], [with everyone] doing their part and learning as we go to accomplish tasks.
EL: What would you like to see coming out of Caribbean Tree Planting Week?
RH:  Better public awareness and understanding of the importance of planting trees and the need to ACTIVELY protect our environment and cultural heritage. I want Caribbean people to really understand the benefits of trees. Trees enable us to breathe, give us clean water, reduce pollution, provide food, protection and homes for animals and humans, and much more. When we see trees through this broad lens, we will see how our collaboration in planting trees across the Caribbean enables us to address all 17 of the Sustainable Development Goals. Tree planting will not solve all the problems in the Caribbean, but it is an important seed to plant in addressing most.
“Plant like a Rockstar”: Youth Tree Planting Ambassadors plant trees at WIRRED in Barbados, working with the “One Tree, One Bajan” campaign. Photo used with permission.
EL: Do you see it branching off into other related projects?
RH: YES! As we grapple with the serious social and economic implications of [COVID-19], our branches will be spread in other areas. We are committed to empowering Caribbean people, especially our women and children, who are disproportionately affected by the pandemic. We must empower Caribbean people to not only address the immediate COVID-related challenges that we face, but also to tackle the root causes […] that have persisted prior to COVID. This includes empowering Caribbean people to actively advocate for climate justice and defending Mother Earth and all human beings. We are actively seeking partnerships, as well as financial and in-kind resources to strengthen the work of philanthropic organisations that are actively empowering men, women and children across the Caribbean.
TM: It must. [In most countries] the project was based upon existing projects or activities of non-profits and other organisations doing this work. What this project did was connect dots, [allowing] collaboration and learning from others. The next step would be building better connections in order to collate data for monitoring and evaluation of the project and its many moving parts through its many partners. This is essential for sustainability and monetisation and/or downstream activities and products that will be generated by the different trees being planted—especially in agro-processing and reporting on SDG 2: Zero Hunger.
Tree planting on July 10, 2021 at the newly opened Harmony Beach Park in Montego Bay, Jamaica, with singer and tree planting ambassador Jamila Falak (left), and a representative of the Urban Development Corporation. The trees planted included the Blue Mahoe (Jamaica's National Tree), Lignum Vitae (its National Flower), and Jamaican Mahogany. Photo courtesy Rosalea Hamilton, used with permission.
EL: We do a lot of talking about climate change in the Caribbean, but this is a great example of climate action. What else do you consider important at this time?
RH: Climate Justice is very important. As we tackle climate change, we must consider issues such as fairness, equality, human rights, and the historical responsibilities for climate change. The Caribbean contributes less than one per cent to global greenhouse emissions, but we are increasingly bearing the burden of the environmental devastation that climate change events bring. We must actively advocate for the changes we want and invest the resources required to make [them].
TM: Public sector entities are understaffed and under-resourced themselves to implement and upkeep compliance. Yet we do host many conferences and talk shops. The CTPP was action-oriented, along with the action of education, which requires strategic communication tools […] as well as the use of digital media [to] ‘talk to the people’. United action is needed, hence the Caribbean Tree Planting Week was designed so that any Caribbean person can make a change by signing the letter.
Other planned actions involve fundraising to ensure that the trees which have already been planted can be monitored, and that all downstream activities from tree planting are capitalised upon.

author: Emma Lewis


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Africa’s loss, their gain: How the US and UK benefit from medical brain drain · Global Voices
Olusegun Akinfenwa

A child is examined by a doctor at Kalma Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Camp in Nyala, South Darfur. Image by United Nations Photo, December 6, 2010 (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
Africa bears over 24 percent of the global disease burden with only 3 percent of health workers to take care of the sick. Though this has been a perennial issue, the recent COVID-19 pandemic has further exposed healthcare shortfalls in the continent. Lack of access to testing, shortage or lack of ventilators, and other medical equipment hampered efforts to save lives at the peak of the outbreak. The exact number of African healthcare workers infected with COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic is hard to calculate. But as of July 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported the number at more than 10,000, which compounded the challenges of shortages of medical staff on the frontline.
A major driver of this shortage of healthcare professionals has been the increased medical brain drain as Africa's health professionals migrate in droves to developed countries, like the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada.
What is responsible for this and what can be done about it?
As recommended by WHO, the ideal doctor-to-population ratio is 1 per 1,000 persons. But in reality, Africa has a low ratio of one doctor per 5,000 patients. By 2035, the deficit is expected to reach 4.3 million physicians.
The United Kingdom (UK), with a population of 68 million people, has more than 370,000 physicians, while Nigeria, with 211 million people, has less than 75,000 physicians, according to WHO. Many of the doctors working in the UK are from Nigeria and the number of Nigerian doctors there has been increasing. For instance, as of 2006, there were 2,692 Nigerian doctors in the UK medical workforce, and by 2018, the figure had risen to 5,250. By that year, the UK was employing at least 12 new Nigerian doctors every week, according to a report.
In 2016, the former president of the Nigerian Medical Association said an estimated 8,000 Nigerian doctors were practising in the United States. A 2015 study revealed that 86 percent of African-educated International Medical Graduates (IMGs) in the U.S. workforce came from four countries: Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa, and Ghana. Apart from physicians, other U.S. healthcare occupational groups are also made up of high percentages of Africans. For instance, 24 percent of its registered nurses, 20 percent of nursing assistants, and 16 percent of personal care aides are from Africa.
Canada also has a history of growing its medical workforce with African-trained doctors. As of 2019, the total number of foreign-trained doctors in Canada was 22 percent, including those from Africa. Other countries, including Australia, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, have sustained their relatively high physician-to-population ratio by employing medical graduates from African countries.
The driving force behind the mass exodus is the search for greener pastures. “I left Nigeria because I wanted to earn more money, learn new things, and to practise in a better environment,” a Nigerian doctor practising in the U.S. told Africa Renewal in 2016. Low pay, paucity of job opportunities, poor infrastructure, and a bleak future for their children are some of the factors responsible for the mass emigration of African health workers.
This long-standing issue has both medical and financial implications. Despite having just 16 percent of the global population, Africa accounts for less than 1 percent of total global health expenditures. And in per capita terms, the rest of the world spends ten times more on healthcare than Africa. The severe funding disparity impacts hugely on both its medical personnel and facilities.
On average, surgeons in New Jersey, United States, earn $216,000 USD annually, while their counterparts in Zambia earn $24,000 USD and Kenyan physicians make on average $6,000 USD.
There are 0.3 hospital beds per 1,000 persons in Ethiopia compared to Germany with 8 per 1,000 persons. There have been cases of Zimbabwean doctors operating with bare hands for lack of gloves. At the peak of COVID-19 in 2020, the Central African Republic, a country of about 5 million people, had just 3 ventilators. For Nigeria to meet its healthcare infrastructure gap, it requires an $82 billion USD investment in healthcare real estate and additional 386,000 beds to attain the global average of 2.7 beds per 1,000 persons.
All these explain why more African health workers move in droves out of the continent. Being high-value immigrants in their countries of destination, they have access to various immigration pathways leading to permanent residence. This includes the Indefinite Leave to Remain in the UK and the Employment-Based Green Card in the U.S., which can later lead to citizenship by naturalisation.
A doctor sees patients in a clinic in Mukono, Uganda. Image by Arne Hoel/World Bank, March 12, 2003 (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
Many developed economies have saved millions of USD — at Africa’s expense — because of the brain drain. A 2011 study by Edward J. Mills, a professor of public health in Canada's University of Ottawa, and other researchers on nine sub-Saharan African countries showed that governments spent between $21,000 to $58,7000 USD to subsidise a doctor’s education.
Therefore, losing thousands of doctors to other countries after graduation puts each of these African countries at a huge financial loss. The overall loss of return was estimated to be in billions of dollars. The United Kingdom was reported to be the highest beneficiary with $2.7 billion USD, followed by the United States with $846 million USD, according to the report by Professor Mills and others.
In 2010, the World Health Assembly adopted a code of practice on the international recruitment of health professionals, which recommends that wealthy countries should lend financial assistance to source countries facing a shortage of healthcare workers. That same year, the United States, through its Medical Education Partnership Initiative, invested $130 million USD to support medical schools in 12 sub-Saharan countries.
Some publications have questioned the motive behind Africa's brain drain by wealthy countries and wondered if that should be viewed as a crime.  The 2010 World Health Assembly Code also attempted to stem the flow of talent migration, but it has not produced tangible improvements, as more African health workers daily queue to join their colleagues in the developed world.

author: Olusegun Akinfenwa


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Image of marijuana leaves on an energy drink creates debate in Mozambique · Global Voices
Global Voices Lusofonia

It is alleged that the drink has an image of the herb Cannabis sativa, which, under the country's legislation, encourages the consumption of this type of narcotic considered prohibited in Mozambique. Image: Illustration/Giovana Fleck/Global Voices
Mozambique's tax authorities issued a statement on July 1st, reporting the circulation and marketing of an energy drink called Cannabis Energy Drink.
The tax authorities’ document stated that the drink should be withdrawn from the Mozambican market. Though the drink contains no marijuana and has no hallucinogenic properties, some officials are concerned it would encourage the consumption of illegal narcotics in the country.
According to the brand's Facebook page, the drink has been commercialized at least since 2012 in Mozambique — although the most recent post dates from 2013.
The energy drink has an image of a Cannabis sativa leaf, which allegedly violates the country's anti-drug legislation. The authorities claim that the drink encourages cannabis consumption, which is prohibited in Mozambique.
The ban enacted by the Mozambican authorities comes at a time when countries in the Southern Region where Mozambique is located are discussing ways to legalize marijuana, as was the case in Zimbabwe, in 2018, and very recently Zambia.
In 2018, South Africa, which borders Mozambique, legalized the use of cannabis in private places. South Africa's courts also authorized the cultivation of cannabis and ruled that the right to privacy ‘extends beyond the limits of a house’.
At the time, many Mozambicans responded to the decriminalization of cannabis in South Africa with humor and concern — mainly because, as early as 2005, South Africahad been considered the largest producer of cannabis in the southern African region, according to a study by the International Agency Control of Narcotics.
Notice of the prohibition of the sale of the product – Trade authorities. Photo received by official communiqué, July 1, 2021.
In this context, the trade regulatory authority notified employees and commercial agents that they would not import, much less sell such a drink as of July 1, 2021.
It is not clear where ‘Cannabis Energy Drink’ is produced, although its official website lists the Netherlands as the host country.
The controversy created debate among users of social media platforms. Some understood the decision, but others considered the ban inappropriate, especially because the drink has no hallucinogenic effect. In other words, it does not create physical effects on the consumer as it does not have tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main substance responsible for the psychic effects of cannabis in the body.
There were those who asked that the decision of the Mozambican authorities have at least some scientific basis, as Professor Celestino Joanguete commented:
The scientific study that proves the causal relationship between the consumption of the aforementioned energy drink and its main raw material remains to be attached to this customs document.
Zenaida Machada, journalist and researcher at Human Rights Watch, does not understand the decision and draws a parallel with the weapon that appears on the flag of Mozambique:
Mozambique banned d selling of d “Cannabis” energy drink bcoz, according to an official document, the cannabis image on d can incites people to consume d drug. Following this logic, maybe they should consider banning d country's flag as d AK47 image could incite people to kill? pic.twitter.com/5hSg3r6LMV
— Zenaida Machado (@zenaidamz) July 5, 2021
Lawyer Stayleir Marroquim had an equal interpretation in a publication on Facebook:
Essa coisa de “interpretação” sempre deu muito trabalho, desde os tempos lá da primária quando estudavamos a “leitura e interpretação de textos.”
Um fim de semana energético, mas comedido, para todos.
If the image of “cannabis sativa” in an energy drink incites, according to a certain public entity, the consumption of “cannabis”, then I am afraid of the day when the same public entity decides to interpret what stimulates the image of the AKM weapon (more world) which is on our national flag.
This “interpretation” thing has always been a lot of work, since the days back in elementary school when we studied “text reading and interpretation.”
An energetic but low-key weekend for everyone.
make weed legal, please
— Palloma Matusse (@pallomagpm) July 5, 2021
? Você é a favor da legalização do consumo da Cannabis (Suruma)? ?
— Mulungo do Chiveve (@criticoesocial) July 5, 2021
? Are you in favor of legalizing the use of Cannabis (Suruma)? ?
— Mulungo do Chiveve (@criticoesocial) July 5, 2021

author: Global Voices Lusofonia


text:
Twitter Japan appears to suspend government critics · Global Voices
Kazuki Ichida

“Checking the Prime Minister's Pancakes for Poison” (パンケーキを毒見する). Image remixed by Nevin Thompson. Pancake image by ajay_suresh, from Flickr (CC BY 2.0).
As the Japanese government faces criticism for a rise in COVID-19 cases, uneven vaccination rollout, and perceived deference to the International Olympic Committee ahead of the summer Olympics, prominent commentators have claimed that Twitter Japan, Twitter's business unit in Japan, appears to be trying to protect Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide and the government of Japan. These  commentators have seen their accounts suspended and then reactivated after public outcry, with no reason provided by Twitter Japan. In each case, the user's Twitter account was frozen after criticizing the Japanese government.
One of the suspended accounts, “Checking the Prime Minister's Pancakes for Poison” (パンケーキを毒見する), promotes the upcoming theatrical release of an animated satire that relentlessly parodies Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide. The title of the Twitter account and the upcoming film it promotes is a reference to the Japanese prime minister's attempts to use a love of pancakes as a prop to cultivate his public image.
#パンケーキを毒見する　に登場する、現在の日本の状況を風刺する５本の短篇アニメーションの一部を解禁致します。
手掛けたのは、「#パンパカパンツ」シリーズなどで知られるアニメーション作家のべんぴねこさんです。 pic.twitter.com/V0HykjMb0A
— パンケーキを毒見する (@pancake_movie) July 9, 2021
In advance of our upcoming film “Checking the Prime Minister's Pancakes for Poison” (パンケーキを毒見する), we're releasing five short animated clips that portray the true state of things in Japan right now.
You'll recognize the animation style from the Panpaka Pants animated series by Benpi Neko (“Constipated Cat”)
The “Checking the Prime Minister's Pancakes for Poison” account, now restored after public outcry, was suspended by Twitter Japan after tweeting about the upcoming film on June 24.
Twitter Japan provided no explanation for the suspension or the restoration of the account.
Meanwhile, Nomachi Mineko, a prominent illustrator and commentator and a vocal critic of the Japanese government, was suspended and then reinstated by Twitter Japan in late June after making a series of tweets using the hashtag “Cancel the Tokyo Olympics”  (#東京五輪の開催中止を求めます).
Tweeting a screenshot of Nomachi Mineko's July 8 column in weekly magazine Bunshun, Uchiyama Yuto, the director of “Checking the Prime Minister's Pancakes for Poison,” noted that both accounts were suspended by Twitter Japan at around the same time.
Uchiyama also noted that, in her column, Nomachi argues that Twitter Japan seems to automatically freeze accounts that are critical of the Japanese government.
文春の7/8号で能町さんが、本作の凍結騒動を書いて頂き、驚く事実ばかりが。なんと能町さんが凍結されたのは我々の2日前！ツイッター社の解除のメールも全く一緒！能町さんの分析も納得で日本のツイッター社のスタンスが問われますね。#パンケーキを毒見する #パン毒 pic.twitter.com/Hy3M5vW2hp
— 内山雄人 (@taketwu) July 6, 2021
In the July 8 issue of Bunshun, Nomachi Mineko documented a surprising series of events around her account being frozen by Twitter. Her account was frozen just two days before our “Pancake” account was!
And we both received exactly the same automated response from Twitter!
Nomachi's reasoning of her ban [that her account was automatically locked by Twitter because she was critical of the government] makes a lot of sense.
There are a lot of open questions about [Twitter's policy towards banning Japanese accounts].
After a backlash on Twitter, with Nomachi supporters tweeting thousands of times about the suspension, her account was reinstated without comment by Twitter Japan.
Others have accused Twitter Japan of being unfair and opaque when it comes to suspending and restoring accounts.
In another example from earlier in 2021, Twitter Japan suspended an account that debunked misinformation about COVID-19, instead of banning the accounts actually spreading misinformation.
The Twitter user was banned after disputing claims from the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare early on in the pandemic that PCR tests are not a reliable way to control the spread of COVID-19.
In other cases outside of the Olympics and the COVID-19 pandemic, Twitter Japan bans and suspensions appear to be politically motivated, unfair, or inconsistent.
In one example, Twitter Japan suspended an account for disclosing a secret file central to an ongoing and unresolved corruption scandal where a government bureaucrat committed suicide after being allegedly framed for falsifying documents. The suspended account belonged to the wife of the deceased politician, and the secret files helped exonerate him.
In another case, a Twitter account of a regional politician was suspended for three months, apparently for no reason. However, Twitter Japan immediately restored the account after its owner, Toyama Koichi, the head of the “Kyushu Fascist Party,” paid an unannounced visit to the social media platform's Tokyo headquarters.
There have long been complaints about content moderation on Twitter in Japan. While the Japanese central government enacted legislation in 2016 aimed at curbing hate speech online, enforcing these regulations is left up to municipal governments and the regional judicial system.
Japan's relatively strict libel and defamation laws are also sometimes used by courts to moderate online speech, typically in an effort to curb hate speech. Revisions to Japanese defamation laws, which are planned to come into effect in 2022, may make it easier as well for the government to silence critics.
While Japan's Constitution arguably protects individual liberties, including freedom of speech, the country is regularly criticized for subtle and not-so-subtle attempts by the government to muzzle the press.
The perception that Twitter Japan punishes progressive voices critical of the Japanese government is not new.
In a 2018 article, news site LITERA reported that, at the time, there was a widespread perception that Twitter Japan was targeting progressives on the platform who were critical of the Japanese government.
In the article, LITERA also reported that Twitter Japan tended at the time to suspend accounts that criticized racial discrimination on the social media platform, while ignoring entirely racist tweets.
The article noted close ties between Twitter Japan and the governing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) of Japan. In 2017, LITERA reported, Twitter Japan managing director Yu Sasamoto was invited to speak to the LDP about how political parties could make use of the social media platform to help achieve their goals (Twitterの現在と政治での活用).
While it's unclear if Twitter Japan offered such guidance to opposition parties too, the LDP, which has governed Japan since 2012, had already begun monitoring and aggressively pursuing online critics as early as 2013. At the time, according to a 2013 Nikkei news story, the LDP launched an internal “truth team” (dubbed, in Japanese “T2″) to monitor social media and “respond to slander” (誹謗中傷への対応):
チームは自民党のネットメディア局の議員約20人のほか、選挙スタッフやITベンダーのスタッフらで構成する。顧問弁護士2人も参加し、誹謗中傷の書き込みを発見した場合は、速やかに法的手段を取ったり削除要請をしたりするかを協議し、決断できるようにする。立候補者らがアカウントを持つFacebookやTwitter、ブログのほか、2ちゃんねるなど一般の掲示板も分析、監視の対象にする。
The team (consisted) of about 20 members of the LDP's Internet Media Bureau, as well as election staff and IT vendor staff. Two legal counsel also participated to discuss and decide whether to promptly take legal measures or request deletion if they discover slanderous writings. In addition to Facebook, Twitter, and blogs where candidates have accounts, general bulletin boards such as 2chan were analyzed and monitored.
While direct links between the Japanese government and Twitter Japan may be difficult to prove, the social media platforms perceived bias against government critics could be a result of a lack of Japanese-language capacity.
In a Japanese-language interview with Asahi Shimbun in February 2021, Mor Naaman, a researcher at Cornell Tech, says that Twitter tends to focus its moderation efforts on the English language. According to data collected and analyzed by Naaman's team, other languages on the Twitter platform, such as Japanese, enjoy fewer resources when it comes to moderation policies, resulting in what can be confusing treatment.
When it comes to preventing misinformation from spreading on its platform, Naaman says that Twitter seems to mainly ban English-speaking accounts (that spread misinformation), and doesn't seem to take much action on misinformation in other languages.
In Japan, an online petition that implores Twitter to stop suspending accounts that criticize the Japanese government has so far collected more than 36,000 signatures. The petition calls on Twitter Japan to instead focus on addressing hate speech on its platform, and to also conduct an audit of its moderation policies for Japanese-language accounts.
So far, Twitter Japan has not responded to the petition.

author: Kazuki Ichida


text:
Azerbaijani Director who justifies sexual assault faces backlash, no repercussions · Global Voices
Arzu Geybullayeva

“Instagram logo on gradient header” by SmedersInternet is licensed under CC BY 2.0
A man named Tural Safarov, shared a video message on July 6, targeting Azerbaijani women and justifying sexual harassment. Safarov, who goes by the nickname of Pantural on social media, said in his video message that he shared on his personal Instagram page (the video was removed after strong backlash) that men feel uncomfortable when women dress “revealing” and therefore cannot control themselves, leading to sexual assault. In another comment posted under the video, Safarov openly encouraged raping the women who dress in a “revealing” manner.
Tural Safarov film director from Azerbaijan released a 40-minute video defending sexual assault and indicating that he believes he is the future of the country. A transcript of the video is below:
There are some women who encourage men to slap them from behind when they open their body parts. You just want to slap them. And if they turn around and ask why I would tell them ‘are you out of your mind?! You have left your body parts exposed and I am slapping them. Are you messing with me?!’ Why do you leave your parts exposed? If they are, then I will touch them. I enjoy it. You are playing with my natural instinct.  Do I have to walk around like a blind man, covering his eyes with his hands, because of you? Then dress properly. Cover your body parts. Why is it so important for you to show it? If you are showing it, then I will slap you. I enjoy it. It turns me on. This is how I have been made. It is a natural sensation. Why do I have to control myself?! You have left your body parts exposed, so I am going to slap it like that.
His video message sparked a wave of criticism but there were also plenty who supported his claims. Nadir Gafarzade, an Azerbaijani singer said in an interview with Meydan TV, a Berlin-based online media outlet, there was nothing about violence against women in the video. “I saw the video posted by Pantural. And he doesn't talk about violence. He only said to some women not to walk around naked […] I liked what he said. Modernity is not about dressing up openly. So what it is summer. Then, men too should walk around in their underwear. We too are hot.” Gafarov, retracted his comments after Tural Safarov apologized.
Others disagreed. In an interview with Meydan TV, Shahla Ismayil, who runs a Women's Association For Rational Development, noted that Panturali's video message contained all the elements of hate speech.
In Azerbaijan, women's freedom is measured by their choice of dress code. This is especially in the case of men and how they choose to see women. This is aggressive, and patriarchal view. The reaction given to how women dress is indeed related to pathological fear. They think if women and men are equal, then men, are going to lose their status.
As a public figure, with over 70,000 followers on his Instagram, Safarov is shaping public opinion, said activist Gulnara Mehdiyeva, who is known for her work on gender equality and combating violence against women. “I consider such statements to be quite dangerous for the Azerbaijani society because they normalize violence and sexual harassment so the culture of violence becomes common,” Mehdiyeva told regional online news media Jam-News. “These speeches shape public opinion. He is a public figure, he has a residual number of followers.”
Alasgar Mammadli, a media law expert, from Azerbaijan told Meydan TV there was an open call to violence in the video. “The calls to violence in this video are punishable under Article 220 of the Criminal Code. Because freedom of speech does not protect calls to crime and hate speech. The instigator can face up to three years in prison for this,” Mammadli told Meydan TV.
As a penalty for the video, Safarov had to briefly talk with the police. He was then let go. The film director then shared another video, where he apologized for what he did. However, some people, like journalist Ulviyya Ali, said the apology video was far from sincere.
Blogerə üzr videosu çəkdiriblər. Bu cür videoları polisin avtoriteti ilə edildiyi və pis ənənə yaratdığı üçün dəstəkləmək olmaz. Yeni videodan da görmək olar ki, şəxs öz səhvini başa düşməyib və təfəkkürü eyni qalıb, sadəcə “güc” qarşısında geri çəkilməyə məcbur edilib.
— Ulviyya Ali (@UlviyyaAli) July 12, 2021
The blogger was forced to film an apology video. Filmed as a result of police authority these kind of videos cannot be supported as they set a precedented. Basically, we can see from the new video, that the man, did not understand the mistake he made and his thoughts remain the same. He was simply forced to take a back step due to pressure.
Safarli said the following in his video message:
I did not insult anyone. My intentions were good. I was referring to immoral women. I apologize from women and certain that the men understood me. It was a forty-minute video and at some point, I got too emotional. I have also been the supporter of doing and acting in what you believe in. I have only said to women not to crush men. Men are your support. Respect the men so they can respect you back.
At the end of the video, he critiques the media for sharing the video on the grounds that people watching it would misunderstand.
“I do not consider an apology a kind of punishment. There are crimes that cannot be corrected with an apology. Instead of cultivating a tradition of apologizing, people should face real punishment,” said Gulnara Mehdiyeva in an interview with Jam-News.
“According to him [Tural Safarov], if a man gets aroused, he can rape anyone. This is, of course, a criminal thought and absurdity,” said lawyer Vafa Rustam to Jam-News.
The film director was also heavily criticized on social media.
Self-proclaimed Instablogger PanTURAL SAFAROV who openly admitted to physically assaulting women because of their clothing is nothing other than an instigator to mass violence. IRFS calls on the authorities to investigate all public calls for #ViolenceAgainstWomen in #Azerbaijan pic.twitter.com/BkrYis43C7
— @IRFS_ORG (@IRFS_ORG) July 12, 2021
Pantural sağ olsun, sizə göstərdi ki, ölkədə nə qədər xəstə, potensial, hətta bəlkə də real təcavüzkar adamlar var. Belə…
Posted by Jamila Mammadli on Monday, July 12, 2021
Thanks to Pantural, we were able to see the extent of just how many sick, potential if not real rapists there are in this country. It does not matter if he is a man or a woman. They are all equally not normal, and potential criminals dangerous for a society. What I am trying to say is that for the first time, we can agree that those who openly or secretly supported him, who saw truth in his video, cannot be normal people. They must all be corrected quickly.
Violence and harassment against women in Azerbaijan is a persistent problem and one which has seen little improvement in recent years. And as long as men like Safarov get away with no accountability for their actions, the path to seek justice and find comfort for victims of violence and harassment remains bleak.


text:
Mozambican journalist receives international prize for press freedom · Global Voices
Global Voices Lusofonia

A sample of newspapers published in Mozambique | Photo taken by Dércio Tsandzana and used with permission of the author on 08.23.2018
In mid-June 2021, the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ), based in New York, decided to award the press freedom prize to four journalists, including Mozambican Matias Guente, editor of the weekly Canal de Moçambique.
Matias faced “violence, harassment, repression, and persecution, but refused to back down” on his mission, as CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said in a statement.
The CPJ is a committee of journalists based in the United States. In the decision, members of the organization noted that Matias Guente is a journalist who “over the years has faced a series of threats for his harsh reporting, including police interrogations, accusations of rape, state secrecy, and conspiracy and an attempted kidnapping in 2019.”
CONGRATULATIONS to Matías Guente from #Mozambique on being one of @pressfreedom‘s 2021 International Press Freedom awardees (#IPFA).
Guente is the executive editor of the Canal de Moçambique & @Canal_Moz, & has faced a myriad of threats for his reporting: https://t.co/NewLgeXHe8 pic.twitter.com/fcesvPrqXK
— CPJ Africa (@CPJAfrica) June 15, 2021
With the award, Matias becomes the first journalist in Mozambique to be recognized by a high-level international journalism panel.
According to the organization Reporters Without Borders, Mozambique is ranked 108th out of 180 countries in the World Freedom of Expression ranking. In 2013, the year the analysis began, the country was ranked 73. The organization points to political interference in the local media plus administrative and financial restrictions as the main reason for the decline.
Furthermore, media professionals in Mozambique have increasingly been facing attacks. The One Free Press Coalition named the disappearance of journalist Ibraimo Abu Mbaruco, from Palma, Cabo Delgado, as the most serious press freedom violation in the world. Mbaruco disappeared in April 2020 after he covered a conflict that has been taking place in Northern Mozambique since 2017.
In August 2020, another attack on the press occurred in Mozambique. Unidentified individuals invaded the Canal de Moçambique and set furniture and equipment on fire. The newspaper staff refused to be silent and set up an outdoor newsroom the next day.
A liberdade de expressão e de imprensa acaba de sofrer hoje um duplo golpe. O Jornalista Armando Nenane foi detido pelas autoridades policiais. Enquanto isso, o Jornal Independente @Canal_Moz foi incendiado. pic.twitter.com/OCIlRco5cl
— Tomás Queface (@tomqueface) August 23, 2020
Freedom of expression and of the press has just suffered a double blow today. Journalist Armando Nenane was detained by police authorities. Meanwhile, the Jornal Independente @Canal_Moz was set on fire.
— Tomás Queface (@tomqueface) August 23, 2020
…all newspaper equipment was completelly burned but this morning people came over & donated some computers, desks, plastic chairs & the team promply ressumed work right there on the street.Tomorrows deadline that will be met
A Luta Continua! @Canal_Moz #Mozambique #FreePress pic.twitter.com/XDX8MbpDIB
— Erik Charas (@echaras) August 24, 2020
Just returned from the @Canal_Moz bombed offices. Inspiring resilience from these men & women.They are already back at work- hours after bombing! Allies have been agile & responsive too #solidarity #Mozambique pic.twitter.com/LQtknwTxIZ
— Neshangwe (@TitusGwemende) August 24, 2020
At the time, the attack against the newspaper directed by Guente was condemned by the President of the Republic:
Condeno veementemente os ataques ao “Canal de Moçambique” perpetrados por desconhecidos na noite de ontem, dia 23 de Agosto de 2020.
A Liberdade de Imprensa é um pilar da democracia e conquista dos moçambicanos que deve ser protegida. Instruímos as autoridades a investigar e trazer os perpetradores à barra da Justiça.
I strongly condemn the attacks on the “Canal de Moçambique” carried out by strangers last night, August 23, 2020.
Freedom of the press is a pillar of democracy and conquest of Mozambicans that must be protected. We will instruct authorities to investigate and bring the perpetrators to justice.
Before that, the same editor had escaped an attack that was presumed to be a failed kidnapping:
Meanwhile, in the country where impunity rules…
Editor of @Canal_Moz, Matias Guente, escaped an attempted kidnapping this afternoon in Maputo. He was followed by 3 men in a Toyota, who tried to remove him by force from his car. He managed to fight back, sought help in a garage.
— Zenaida Machado (@zenaidamz) December 31, 2019
Matias managed to escape such an act unharmed, although he was subsequently hospitalized for medical care. More than two years later, the perpetrators are still unknown.
The editor of Canal de Moçambique and CanalMoz has been hospitalised after armed men attempted to kidnap him in Maputo https://t.co/RVRBuNBD6z pic.twitter.com/s0LBUd4k7B
— Tom Bowker (@TomBowk) December 31, 2019
Angela Quintal, the coordinator of the press freedom program for Africa, congratulated the editor for the award:
Congratulations to Canal de Moçambique executive editor, Matias Guente, who is one of four @pressfreedom International Press Freedom Awardees for 2021. #Mozambique https://t.co/i8XRe8mfFs
— Angela Quintal (@angelaquintal) June 15, 2021
In addition to congratulating the achievement, the University Professor, José Macuane, said that the award was an indication for those who affect the freedom of expression and press of Mozambicans:
Matias Guente, parabéns pela sua nomeação ao Prémio Internacional de Liberdade de Imprensa. Merecedíssimo. Vocês que brincam de restringir liberdades de imprensa e de outros tipos, que se divertem com o projecto de tornar a vida dos vossos compatriotas num inferno, essa é bem na vossa cara!
E também a prova de que o mundo está a vos ver e pode ser tornar num lugarzinho bem inóspito para vocês. Já têm exemplos suficientes para aprenderem da história.
Matias Guente, congratulations on your nomination for the International Press Freedom Award. Well deserved. You who play at restricting press and other freedoms, who have fun with the project of making your countrymen's lives hell, that's right in your face!
And also proof that the world is watching you and it can become a very inhospitable place for you. They already have enough examples to learn from history.
Tom Bowker also congratulated Matias Guente. Bowker is one of the journalists who was deported from the country at the beginning of 2021 for allegedly carrying out illegal activities. He owns a communication portal, Cabo Delgado, that has extensively reported on the conflict in Northern Mozambique.
Deserving recognition for the courageous Matias Guente, editor of @Canal_Moz, who is relentless despite violent attacks on him personally and his newsroom https://t.co/vdfLtzYdB1
— Tom Bowker (@TomBowk) June 15, 2021