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Social media became a life-saving tool for Nigerians. Now, they have to fight for it · Global Voices
Bolu Akindele

Young people taking a selfie. Image by Iwaria, February 2021, free to use
Last year’s #EndSARS protests against police brutality, this year’s banning of Twitter and the #June12 protests across the country marking the historical battle to uphold democracy by resisting military dictatorship, are evidence of social media’s rising profile in Nigeria’s democratic landscape. For many Nigerians, social media has morphed into the tool of choice in outing the excesses of rich oligarchs and business people, promoting and mobilizing protests, and holding the government accountable.
This power of social media has rattled the Nigerian government. This explains why this free space is currently under assault, with freedom of expression and information dissemination as its latest victim.
The story of the Nigerian #EndSARS protests that finally reached its peak last year have been repeated over and over again — by activists, journalists, writers, filmmakers, and opinion writers. But they still bear repeating because it is at the root of the current assault on freedom of expression in Nigeria.
Agitations for the immediate disbandment of Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS)— the unit of the Nigerian police created in 1992 and notorious for illegal arrests, detentions, extrajudicial killings, sexual harassment of women, and brutalisation of young Nigerians — kicked off in 2017 as a Twitter campaign. Year in, year out, these agitations have always been met with the same promises to either reform or reorganize the group. But nothing happened.
By October 2020, Nigerians had had enough.
A tweet about a young man allegedly shot dead by the elite police unit, which has now garnered over 10,000 retweets since it was posted on October 3, was the first thing that grabbed people’s attention.
SARS just shot a young boy dead at Ughelli, Delta state as we speak. In front of Wetland hotels. They left him for dead on the road side and drove away with the deceased Lexus jeep.
I have videos…
— Chinyelugo (@AfricaOfficial2) October 3, 2020
The said video, one minute and 15 seconds long, came about four hours later, and from a different Twitter handle.
In the barely steady video, men are running towards what ended up to be a dead man dressed in a yellow pullover. The man had, allegedly, been killed by SARS officers.
This triggered Nigerians who immediately took to social media to express their infuriation, reviving the three-year-old hashtag — #EndSARS. This time, they wanted the police unit disbanded completely.
Hashtags — #EndSARS #EndPoliceBrutality — began to trend on Twitter. Infographics spread quickly on Instagram. Content creators got to work, journalists began to write, and activists began to galvanize people across the country.
The model for #EndSARS, unlike previous protests against the government, was not centred around any one individual, group, or organisation. Any one from any part of the country chose a location and a time and shared it online, and in a matter of minutes, people from that location began to gather in small groups in preparation for the protest.
“You messed with the wrong generation,” many young Nigerians wrote on Twitter. And they were ready to prove it.
In a few days, Nigerians both in Nigeria and in the diaspora were all on the street with one voice and campaigning for one cause — an end to SARS.
In this period, Nigerians created a formidable team on Twitter — a decentralized fundraising effort, a team of volunteer legal professionals, volunteer cooks, private security officials, private medical officials, and netizens whose responsibility was to constantly tweet with the hashtag.
People reported arrested colleagues on Twitter and found solutions, people reported instances of police brutality and got medical support, people posted alerts of where SARS officials were operating and saved hundreds of other Nigerians from going that route, people gathered evidence (against the government and the police) in cases of extrajudicial killings.
The protests died down about a week after they kicked off, but not without leaving young Nigerians with very important lessons. Nigerians had finally recognised, in that moment, that Twitter was not just a social media platform. It’s where they can galvanize themselves to take action against the government, hold their government accountable, and build processes to circumvent their government’s inefficiencies. The Nigerian government was taking notes too.
On June 4, the Nigerian government banned Twitter. This, however, was not an isolated action.
The Nigerian government was following precedents set by governments within the continent — Egypt, Uganda, Ghana, Ethiopia — and others around the world — Iran, North Korea, and China. These governments have previously shut down or throttled the internet and blacked out social media while cracking down on all forms of communication among citizens.
In an almost unexpected twist of fate to the government, hours after the ban was announced, Nigerians found a solution. The day after the ban, June 5, Google Trends recorded an over 500% spike in searches related to VPNs in Nigeria.
June 12 holds a very strong and far-reaching symbolism for Nigerians.
On June 12, 1993, Nigeria held the first democratic presidential elections since the military coup of 1983. Nigerians came out en masse, defying bad weather, religious, class, and ethnic affiliations for an election that was described as the freest and fairest election in the country. Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola, a Nigerian businessman and candidate of the now defunct Social Democratic Party, had supposedly won the election.
But the joy of June 12 was short-lived. The military government led by General Ibrahim Babangida annulled the results of the elections, citing election irregularities. This led to a political crisis. On June 11, 1994, Abiola announced himself as the lawful president of Nigeria. Abiola was detained for four years in solitary confinement, and in 1998, he died of unknown circumstances.
In 2018,  the government in a bid to co-opt the symbolism of June 12, moved the Democracy Day celebrations from its initial date —  May 29 —  to June 12. Prior to 2018, June 12 was only celebrated in Lagos, the economic capital, and in some states in southwestern Nigeria.
As the 2021 Democracy Day drew near, agitations for a #June12 protest increased. The clampdown on Twitter precipitated a traumatic déjà vu for Nigerians old enough to remember the events surrounding Abiola’s incarceration and death.
So on June 12, damning all consequences and warnings from security operatives around the country, young Nigerians came out — again — to protest. This time, unlike the #EndSARS protests, Twitter had been banned. But people defied the ban by using VPNs to tweet.
The ripple effect of the use of VPNs was an avalanche of tweets in support of the #June12 protests in different countries of the world with little or no input from celebrities in those countries. With VPNs, Nigerians were able to get their tweets on global trending tables in many countries around the world — the U.S., the UK, Netherlands, Ukraine, Switzerland, Austria, and Belgium — garnering global attention to their cause from the protest grounds (or the comfort of their homes).
#EndSARS protesters hold up their placards in front of the Lagos State House, October 11, 2020. Image by TobiJamesCandids via Wikimedia Commons
The Nigerian government had, once again, underestimated the resilience of its booming youth population, about 13.9 million of whom are unemployed. What appeared to be a strategic move on the part of the government intended to silence the voices of millions of Nigerians became yet another opportunity for Nigerians to mobilize.  In the face of a defiant Nigerian Army, in the face of intense resistance, in the face of the possibility of being killed, many Nigerians took an  opportunity to — once again — demand justice from the government.
For the average Nigerian, social media has morphed from being “just Twitter” or “just Instagram” — photo sharing apps and microblogging platforms. They have become avenues for Nigerians to create their own platforms without the risk of censorship, to galvanize themselves en masse for the purpose of securing their rights, and to expose the ills of their government. It’s not ‘just Twitter’; it’s the only platform Nigerians can ensure that their voices are not silenced and that they can hold an oppressive government accountable. It’s not ‘just Instagram’; it’s the only way we can preserve evidence of a mass shooting by the Nigerian Army.
Twitter is the only surviving bastion for political discourse in Nigeria. It’s a space for tech savvy, bold, and borderless young people constantly demanding good governance. It’s an independent channel for public information, exchange of news and ideas, outside the government’s regulation.
The Nigerian government knows this.
Nigerians were not letting go of the one thing that finally gave them a voice, a platform and an opportunity to hold their government accountable, without a fight.

author: Bolu Akindele


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A decade after the first siege, Assad’s regime besieges Daraa, the cradle of the Syrian Revolution · Global Voices
Mousa Mohamed - موسى محمد

Earthern berms have been erected by Assad regime forces to block residents’ movement in and out of several neighborhoods across Daraa province. Photo captured by Lawrence Abu Adam. Used with permission.
Syria's Assad regime and its Russian allies are leading a new campaign against the city of Daraa in the country's south, the wellspring of the Syrian revolution. Since June 25, several neighborhoods in the province have been placed under a brutal siege aimed at exerting pressure on its residents in revenge for their popular movement against the presidential election held last May.
The election, which the regime declared Bashar to have won with sweeping figures, was widely deemed to be illegitimate, with many citizens choosing to boycott in order to register their dissatisfaction.
Along with the security restrictions imposed on Daraa's neighborhoods (including the eastern district of Tareeq Al-Sadd), its refugee camp, IDP (Internally Displaced People) camps and farms close to the area, the siege suffocates 11,000 families or 50,000 people according to activists’ and journalists’ estimates.
Hassan Al-Hariri, President of the Syrian Council for Change and a member of the opposition on the country's Constitutional Committee, confirmed in an email interview with Global Voices that many areas in Daraa are now experiencing a tightening of the siege by the forces of Assad's regime, as punishment for the city's rejection of the election process and its outcome. This rejection, he said, was significant since it happened not just in the city center, but also in the area's eastern and western countrysides. The result was a failed election in the whole governorate, said activists, — an unprecedented occurrence in the history of the Assad regime (both father and son).
The Syrian right activist Ahmad Abazeid tweeted:
صور من السواتر الترابية التي رفعتها قوات النظام على مداخل #درعا_البلد
بدأت إجراءات الحصار وقطع الطرق منذ 24 حزيران الحالي، بعد ضغوط روسية وطلب تسليم السلاح الخفيف من الأهالي #فكوا_الحصار_عن_درعا_البلد pic.twitter.com/JDqWMX62B9
— أحمد أبازيد (@abazeid89) June 29, 2021
Images of the mounds of sand which forces of the Assad regime erected at the entrance of Daraa Al-Balad
The blockade and road closures began on June 24 after the Russians’ pressure and their demand that the people of Daraa surrender their light weapons
Speaking to Mohammad [pseudonym used for security reasons], a member of the Central Committee of Daraa assigned to negotiate with the Assad regime and Russia, Global Voices learned that the targeting of Daraa began immediately after the elections. It gradually became a total siege, he said, that included the closure of roads—with security barriers and earthen berms—leading to the neighborhoods of Daraa and Tareeq Al-Sadd, except for a single outlet at which military security forces are stationed, where they exert pressure, issue threats, and detain and kidnap civilians.
Describing the humanitarian situation there, Al-Jazeera correspondent Omar Al-Hourani wrote:
Mohammad said that the Assad regime is standing behind this escalation with the support of Russia, which has assumed the role of the guarantor in the 2018 settlement agreement negotiations, under which the regime gained control of Daraa. According to Mohammad, Russia supervised the recent escalations, led by Chechen general Assad Allah, who was put in charge of the operations in southern Syria two months ago.
As far as the Central Committee goes, Mohammad said it has resisted entry of the Assad regime's army for inspection purposes, and rejected its demand for weapons to be relinquished:
What remained of weapons are for personal use by some individuals. There are no longer any weapons left after the dissolution of the opposition factions and them handing over their weapons under the Settlement Agreement in exchange for the agreed conditions of the army withdrawing from cities and villages, the release of detainees, the lifting of the security grip and the return of employees to their jobs. However, none of these terms have been met.
The military escalation was expected, he said, especially after the deployment of security personnel and the threat of warplanes flying over the area. Nevertheless, negotiations continued with the Russian general, in which residents confirmed that their weapons were not for warfare purposes, but for self-defense. “We do not want war, we want security and stability,” he added.
Geopolitically, southern Syria's strategic position is very important. Al-Hariri calls it the “politically useful Syria” due to its sharing of borders with more than one Arab state, most importantly Palestine.
Since the Assad regime regained control over southern Syria within the framework of the 2018 settlement agreement, it has launched, along with Moscow, numerous military campaigns and continued threats of escalations in Daraa governorate. There have been no humanitarian or security improvements; rather, the region has experienced violence, arrests, and assassinations over the past three years. Naba News, citing the Martyrs’ Documentation Office—an independent entity that monitors regime and pro-regime violations in southern Syria—reported  that 173 people have been killed and 75 others wounded, with nearly 279 assassinations being documented in the first half of 2021, most of them in western Daraa.
Under Syria's dire economic conditions, the siege has exacerbated the humanitarian situation. Lawrence Abu-Adam, a journalist based in the besieged area, told Global Voices that living conditions are plummeting. Referring to the worsening of the health situation after severe shortages of essential items and the closure of the only roads leading to the city's hospitals and medical centers, he called the situation “tragic”. He also said that journalists working in the besieged areas are receiving threats and, after the Assad regime included their names on assassination and terrorism lists, their lives are in danger.
As a result, calls for solidarity with Daraa have grown worldwide. One was made by German-based Syrian doctor Maysoun Berkdar:
Ten years ago, Daraa gave us the right to talk. Give it a voice today. Daraa is besieged and threatened.
#Freedom4Daraa
Using the #break_the_siege_on_Daraa hashtag, many Arab and Syrian activists and journalists have launched social media campaigns in solidarity with Daraa. Others have organized calls for peaceful demonstrations demanding the lifting of the blockade.
Palestinian journalist Mona Hawwa tweeted:
درعا تبعد عن القدس مسافة 3 ساعات و20 دقيقة بالعربة، تبعد مسافة أغنيتين لأم كلثوم، وصرخة.. في عالم آخر كان يمكن في نفس اليوم أن نأكل المليحي في حوران ونشرب القهوة مع الكنافة في نابلس. درعا المهد والحب المسكوت عنه والصرخة اليتيمة. باسمها وباسم أحرار الأرض من فلسطين، هنا #درعا.
— مُنى حوّا • Muna Hawwa (@MunaHawwa) June 28, 2021
Daraa is three hours and 20 minutes away from Jerusalem by car, (that's equal to two songs by [Egyptian singer] Umm Kulthum and a cry). In another world, on the same day, we could eat Al-Malehi in Horan and drink coffee with Kunafa in Nablus. Daraa is the cradle, the unspoken love, and an orphaned cry. In her name and in the name of the free people of the land from Palestine, here is #Daraa.
Internationally, states that have been involved in the Syrian issue have remained silent regarding the current events. Meanwhile, the Syrian opposition, through various bodies and institutions, has appealed to the international community to intervene in order to prevent a humanitarian disaster. Al-Hariri's France-based Syrian Council for Change has met directly with several political figures to press for a decisive stance on the situation, and the Syrian Opposition Coalition has addressed foreign humanitarian organizations and international policy-makers.
In defiance of the regime and as an expression of steadfastness, demonstrations took place in Daraa al-Balad on July 2, the ninth day of the siege. Various parts of the country—including several villages in northwestern Idlib—also joined in the demonstrations, calling for the lifting of the siege and the downfall of the Assad regime:
بأهازيجها الجميلة تستمر مظاهرات #درعا_البلد وسط تهديدات النظام باقتحام المدينة #درعا_البلد_مهد_الثورة pic.twitter.com/Lo3NgtcJJv
— Omar Alhariri (@omar_alharir) July 2, 2021
With beautiful cheers, Daraa's protests continue amidst threats by the regime to storm the city. #Daraa_the_cradle _of_the_revolution

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Mousa Mohamed - موسى محمد


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New application maps accessibility of Ukrainian urban public spaces · Global Voices
Tanya Lokot

“Where to today? Download the app and find out about accessible locations in your city”. Screenshot from the Dostupno.UA map website.
Ukrainian activists with Dostupno.UA, a disability rights group, recently launched an updated interactive map with accessibility information about over 800 urban locations around the country.
According to the activists, an average of 27-55% inhabitants of cities in Ukraine are differently abled or have reduced mobility. These include people with disabilities, parents with small children, the elderly, pregnant persons, and those recovering from various injuries. However, Dostupno.UA finds that “only 4% of urban infrastructure in Ukraine is fully accessible” – something they are working to change.
The map was initially developed in 2020, but the 2021 version, available as a smartphone application for Android and iPhone, covers over 30 cities, including the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. There is also a desktop version of the map on the Dostupno.UA website.
Users can check how accessible a particular location is for “differently abled persons and those with limited mobility”. Locations documented on the map include urban public spaces such as parks, administrative and municipal buildings, restaurants and cafes, and entertainment spaces such as cinemas and music venues.
The Dostupno.UA map classifies a venue's accessibility as either “green” (accessible), “orange” (somewhat accessible) or “red” (inaccessible), based on the research conducted by the activists. It also allows users to filter locations by key features, such as how accessible a venue's entrance is (i.e., door width or the presence of a ramp) and whether it has accessible bathrooms, a Braille menu suitable for those with visual impairments, or baby-changing facilities. Spaces are also rated on being child-friendly, pet-friendly and wheelchair-friendly.
Screenshot from the desktop version of the map showing accessibility parameters for a Kyiv food market, such as its entrance, bathrooms and other facilities. Image from Dostupno.UA.
Other useful features of the app allow users to navigate to a chosen venue by creating a suitable route to the destination, based on a person's needs and the level of accessibility they require. Users can also propose their own venues to be added to the map, helping to make their city's accessibility profile more comprehensive.
Dmytro Shchebetyuk, the founder of Dostupno.UA, who himself uses a wheelchair, says the map isn't only for people with disabilities.
Доступність потрібна всім і кожному в той чи інший період життя.
Це і батьки з дитячими візочками, і люди літнього віку, люди з інвалідністю, і вагітні. Загалом, якщо ви десь подорожуйте з важкою валізою, то відчуваєте певні труднощі від пересування. Більшість із нас постаріє, і тоді нам вся ця доступність теж буде потрібна.
All of us require accessibility at certain points in our lives. Parents with baby strollers, elderly persons, differently abled and pregnant people. Even if you're simply traveling with a heavy suitcase, your mobility will be limited by obstacles. Most of us will grow old and will need all of this accessibility as well.
In 2019, Ukraine adopted new state construction standards that require owners of public spaces and entertainment venues to allocate space to wheelchair users. Hospitality venues must also cater to the needs of patrons with disabilities or limited mobility, while employers are required to provide inclusive workplaces to differently abled employees. However, even local authorities sometimes violate these standards: for instance, in Kyiv the renovation of several public transport stop shelters in 2019 resulted in making them entirely inaccessible for those with limited mobility.
Shchebetyuk, who has been working with Dostupno.UA since 2015 to make Ukrainian society more inclusive and accessible, says the purpose of the app is to motivate the venue owners to make their establishments more accessible. But he also hopes the app inspires the users to get out of their homes. “The more differently abled people there are on the streets, the more demand there is for accessible infrastructure,” he says.
“Olya on the move,” an ad for the Dostupno.UA map application portraying a typical urban user enjoying public spaces and venues despite their limited mobility.

author: Tanya Lokot


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Georgia mourns the death of a journalist · Global Voices
Arzu Geybullayeva

A screenshot taken from Georgian TV channel Formula News from the protest outside the parliament building in Tbilisi on July 11 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAWtpRued1w
Known among his TV Pirveli colleagues as Lekso, journalist and cameraman Aleksandre Lashkarava, 37, was found dead in his apartment on July 11 in Tbilisi. Lashkarava was among some 50 journalists who sustained injuries while covering the Tbilisi Pride March on July 5. Vato Tsereteli, the owner of TV Pirveli, blamed the government for Laskharava's death.
According to local media reports, he suffered broken facial bones and a concussion during the attack. He had to undergo surgery but was discharged from a hospital on Thursday, July 8. While local police said they have launched an investigation, the Ministry of the Interior was quick to dismiss any suspicions over the cause of death, suggesting during a July 11 press conference that the journalist may have died from a drug overdose. According to Radio Tavisupleba, the Georgian Service for Radio Free Europe, the police rushed the journalist's body for an autopsy despite the family's demands to involve an independent expert.
Georgia's Interior Ministry has appeared to hint that journalist Aleksandre Lashkarava‘s death could have been drug-related. In a press conference, the ministry said he had travelled to Ponichala, an area often associated with illegal drugs, and claimed he had been intoxicated. pic.twitter.com/zacTbnsziL
— OC Media (@OCMediaorg) July 11, 2021
Founder of a political movement Droa, Helen Khoshtaria said in a tweet, the preliminary statements by the Ministry of the Interior were beyond “shameful”:
Lashkarava’s body was forcefully taken from his family for examination & 2 hours later a statement is made pointing towards overdose as his cause of death. Beyond shameful, beyond disgusting, but nothing else was to be expected. Everyone will be held accountable for this horror.
— Helen Khoshtaria (@Helenkhosh) July 11, 2021
On Sunday, July 11, thousands of Tbilisi residents gathered outside the parliament building in silent protest. At least 19 local civil society organizations signed a letter demanding Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili and Interior Minister Vakhtang Gomelauri's resignation.
Thousands have gathered outside the Parliament of Georgia for the “Murderer government must resign” protest, in the aftermath of the death of journalist Aleksandre Lashkarava. pic.twitter.com/lAPK9JmqS8
— Civil.ge (@CivilGe) July 11, 2021
#Georgia ??: 19 civil society organizations have written a joint statement in response to the death of Aleksandre Lashkarava. They call on PM Irakli Garibashvili to resign immediately https://t.co/aCmd8eJguA
— Thomas van Linge (@ThomasVLinge) July 11, 2021
Following the violence on July 5, the PM blamed the organizers of the Tbilisi Pride March for the ongoing violence. Speaking at a government meeting, Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili said, it was “unreasonable” for the organizers to march in a public space which could trigger “civil confrontation” at a time when the majority of the population finds LGBTQ identities “unacceptable.”
In Batumi, another city in Georgia, protesters clashed with the police according to reporting by OC Media.
The response and reactions from international organizations were swift.
We are shaken by the tragic death of @TvPirveli journalist that followed violent events in Tbilisi on 5 July. Media freedom & safety of journalists are democratic values that must be protected.
We offer deepest condolences to Aleksandre Lashkarava's family, friends & colleagues.
— UNDP in Georgia ?? (@UNDPGeorgia) July 11, 2021
?? fully supports statement by @CarlHartzellEU. We offer deepest condolences to @TvPirveli journalist’s Aleksandre Lashkarava's family, Friends & colleagues. ?? condemns any kind of violence. Media freedom & safety of journalists are democratic values that must be protected. pic.twitter.com/MdelK87rqg
— Sweden in Georgia (@SwedeninGE) July 11, 2021
Media Development Foundation expresses its deep grief over the death of Aleksandre Lashkarava, the cameraman of @TvPirveli, who was physically assaulted by a far-right mob in Tbilisi on July 5. pic.twitter.com/dl3FIYKPXX
— Media Development Foundation (MDF) (@mdfgeo) July 11, 2021
Around 70 Georgian media organizations, including Georgian Public Broadcaster (GPB), appealed to the international community saying, “despite the preliminary calls from the civil sector, the state has not taken appropriate measures to protect the media representatives. Insufficient police forces did not take measures to protect the journalists.”
According to OC Media, several media organizations, including the Shame Movement, whose office was also ransacked during July 5 Pride protests have vowed to renew their protests on Monday, July 12 unless their demands for resignations are met.

author: Arzu Geybullayeva


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How ‘Yasuke’ offers a new perspective on the history and current relations of Africans in Japan · Global Voices
Njeri Wangari

A Japanese-African kimono fashion show taking place during the “Africa Japan Night” cultural event celebrating the 10th anniversary of Japan Funds-in-Trust for Africa & Least Developed Countries (LDCs). Copyright: WIPO. Photo: Violaine Martin. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 IGO License.
Netflix's new series, “Yasuke,” has brought the history of the African samurai — and that of Africans in Japan in general — to public attention.
The real-life Yasuke was an African who arrived in Japan in the 16th century, as a bodyguard to a Jesuit emissary. In 1579, after impressing Oda Nobunaga, the de facto ruler of Japan, Yasuke was invited to serve the warlord as a military retainer, or samurai. During the three years he was at Nobunaga's side, until the leader's sudden defeat in 1582, Yasuke experienced firsthand the conflict and violence of Japan's “warring states” period. After Nobunaga's death, Yasuke found himself on the losing side of the ongoing struggle for control of the country and essentially disappeared from history.
Both the series and two upcoming Hollywood films — “Yasuke” (announced by Lionsgate in 2017) and a live-action film of the same name (announced by MGM in 2019) — have elicited interest in the warrior's history and with it, the often-overlooked 500-year history of Africans in Japan. Such insight into the first African samurai has triggered important conversations about his origins and the experience of the African diaspora in Japan today.
The story of Yasuke highlights the experience of Africans living in Japan, both during the 16th century and beyond. Yasuke's life in the post-Nobunaga era has remained shrouded in mystery. Until recently, thanks to sparse and conflicting accounts from historians, many believed the story was simply folklore.
This all changed with the 2019 publication of Thomas Lockley and Geoffrey Girard's book “Yasuke: An African Warrior in Japan,” which details Yasuke’s background, his meeting with the feudal warlord Nobunaga, investiture as a samurai, final battle, and long-lasting impact on modern society. The duo spent nine years researching and writing the book.
By piecing together historical evidence, the authors were able to determine that Yasuke arrived in Nagasaki from Macao, India, on May 21, 1579, as the bodyguard to Italian Jesuit missionary Alessandro Valignano. Valignano was the chief Jesuit emissary sent to Asia by the Roman Catholic Church to inspect all missions between Mozambique and Japan. At the time of their arrival, Japan had been at war for about a hundred years.
Recent scholarly evidence by Lockley, Kintaro, and History Extra suggests that he most likely came from the Dinka people, born near the Nile in South Sudan.
It is unclear whether he was enslaved as a child, but according to Lockley, by the 20th century, 11 million Africans had been sold in the areas closest to the Indian Ocean. Historical texts on the slave trade indicate, however, that there were hundreds of thousands of non-enslaved and non-trafficked Africans who made the same journey on their own ships, engaging in trade or diplomacy for African rulers, though others were mercenaries making a living through piracy.
During a virtual lecture on his book, hosted by the Aga Khan Museum in February, Lockley noted that Yasuke’s story is part of the fabric of Japanese history, and of all Africans in Japan. After its defeat in World War II, Japan transformed itself economically. In some ways, he says, this has contributed to the creation of a more diverse society:
The last 20 years have seen a rapidly more diverse society due to an increase in foreign residents (immigrants),  as well as a massive increase in a visibly foreign workforce.
Despite this, Africans currently account for just about 0.01 percent of Japan's total population. While the number of non-Japanese residents and workers in the country surpassed the one million mark for the first time in 2016, the number of Africans remains low.
Thanks to programs like the African Business Education Initiative for Youth (ABE Initiative) and the Japan Africa Dream Scholarship (JADS), many African immigrants are in the country as scholarship recipients, part of a strategy to invite 3,000 African students to study in Japanese universities and undertake internships in Japanese companies by 2026.
Dr. Harriet Ocharo, who was born in Kenya, now works in Japan as a research scientist at Hitachi Central Research Laboratory in Tokyo. In 2014, Ocharo became a recipient of one such scholarship, allowing her to obtain her doctorate in computer science in Japan. She has been living in Japan ever since, both as a student and as a single working mother.
Well known online as Savvy Kenya, Ocharo is a prolific blogger and one of Kenya’s leading pioneers.
A post shared by Savvy Kenya (@savvykenya)
She says that as an African living in Japan, she experienced culture shock when she first emigrated:
I had never been out of Africa. Going to Japan, I was so shocked at how different everything was. I, however, went there with a very open mind.
Still, one of her biggest challenges upon moving to Japan was learning and adjusting to the culture — including the written and unwritten rules of how people relate to one another. As she explained to Global Voices, “In Japan, there are rules that govern every aspect of life, including how to talk with other people.” As far as Yasuke goes, Ocharo felt it was important to see representations of the African diaspora in Japan:
I knew of Yasuke, the African samurai, before the Netflix series. I stumbled upon him on Twitter through the people I follow. Online and offline communities of Africans in Japan already knew about him, as he has made some appearances in the media and in some comic books.
She hopes that the show will have an impact on how Africans are perceived and represented in Japan, breaking away from the stereotype of all Black people being African-American, and is looking forward to watching the Yasuke series:
With anime, [there are] few Black characters. It [feels] good to have some form of representation. Now, with the Netflix series out, when I meet people and mention Yasuke, they will get the reference. It’s a good thing for us as Africans so that we are not just reduced to stereotypical roles.

author: Njeri Wangari


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Pro-European party takes the lead in Moldova’s snap elections · Global Voices
Tanya Lokot

Moldovan President Maia Sandu at a meeting in the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium, 2019. Image from Renew Europe 2019 on Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
The Action and Solidarity Party (PAS) headed by current President Maia Sandu is poised for a decisive victory in this Sunday's snap parliamentary elections in Moldova.
All the ballots have now been counted since the July 11 vote, which garnered just shy of 53 percent of votes for Sandu's pro-European party, resulting in 63 out of 101 seats in the Moldovan Parliament—a clear majority. The largest opposition bloc, Socialists and Communists (BECS), led by former President Igor Dodon and former President Vladimir Voronin has received slightly over 27 percent of the vote. The official results are expected to be announced shortly.
After two failed attempts to form a new government, Sandu called the snap elections back in April 2021. Speaking after the vote, she said her center-right PAS party would seek to build closer ties with the European Union and to fight corruption in the former Soviet country.
Sandu herself, who became President in November 2020 after defeating the pro-Russian Dodon, said in a Facebook statement that Sunday's elections were “a chance to get rid of thieves and choose a holistic and good government.”
Data provided by Moldova's election commission show that over 48 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots, including over 200,000 diaspora members living abroad. Some 3.2 million citizens were eligible to vote.
In an opinion and analysis piece for IPN, an independent Moldovan press agency, political analyst Dionis Cenusa said the success of PAS was “largely based on the image of President Maia Sandu, who promoted participation in the vote” amid fears of a low turnout.
25) It’s an important element. About an hour before the end of the vote, President Sandu used her Facebook platform (268k followers), asking people to convince their friends and relatives to go vote. This happened while many wondered about the slowdown in participation.
— Dionis Cenusa (@DionisCenusa) July 11, 2021
Cenusa also noted that Sandu's party is “the first pro-EU party in the country's electoral history to gain a majority in the legislature.”
Moldova is entering a new political cycle, with an emphasis on structural reforms and the fight against large-scale corruption, which will attract assistance and investment from the West. It is certain that the European agenda will become stronger than ever in the past.
Though PAS’ parliamentary majority gives the party access to multiple levers of state power, it simultaneously makes them a potential object of scrutiny by Moldovan civil society and independent journalists, who have previously kept close watch over the corrupt practices of state officials.
The pro-EU orientation of the new ruling bloc is also bound to complicate Sandu's relations with Russia, which remains actively involved in Moldova's breakaway Transnistria region and will likely continue to support the pro-Russian opposition in the country.


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The imprisonment of the ‘Lucky Family’: How Chinese authorities detained and sentenced a whole birthday party · Global Voices
Guest Contributor

A transformation through education camp in Shache’s Qiaerbage township. Photo by Bitter Winter. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
In January 2018, Nauryzbai Izbasar invited over a dozen of his childhood friends and their families to his daughter’s birthday party via a WeChat group called “Lucky Family”. The party, celebrated in a remote village in China’s Xinjiang region, was a happy occasion to meet and laugh. More than three years later, we can shed light on what went wrong in the aftermath of the event.
In fact, the 18 men at the party were arrested in the hours and days after the party. They later received prison sentences ranging from 15–23 years.
Information on the people imprisoned in Xinjiang for “propagating extremism” and “gathering a crowd to disturb public order” is difficult and slow to obtain. Personal accounts and word-of-mouth substitute public disclosure in this secretive, highly surveilled area.
The region is home to Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other mainly Muslim ethnic groups that, since 2017, have been targeted with increasingly brutal governmental policies, including forced labour, re-education camps, family separation and extensively heavy prison sentences for large segments of the minority populations.
Widely portrayed as ‘motherland separatists’ or simply ‘terrorists’ in mainstream Chinese discourse — including government statements and media — the Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other mainly Muslim ethnic groups have been deprived of their most basic human rights, including freedom of religion, of movement, or to transmit their native language.
The arrested are generally sent either to prison or to so-called ‘re-education camps’. However, according to observers, these camps are seemingly becoming more and more like prisons and should be defined as such.
In a written statement to Global Voices, Gene Bunin, a researcher focusing on the oppression of Muslims in western China, said:
Not everything can be lumped into ‘camps’, not only because most of these really seem to be closed or closing, but also because even in 2017 a good fraction of the detained wasn't sent for study but simply to jail. Of course, it's even more important to insist on this distinction now, since very many of the current victims are serving long prison sentences.
The birthday party took place in a small village in Chapchal County in Xinjiang, China.
According to several relatives of the detained living in Kazakhstan, a few months later, authorities in the village tricked all the detained mens’ parents into a building and didn't let them come out. Meanwhile, the detained men were paraded in the streets for everyone else to see. Their hands and feet were shackled. Their names, ages and sentences were read out loud.
Aliya Beksultan, a 29-year-old ethnic Kazakh woman who grew up in the village, told Global Voices about those who were imprisoned through a phone interview.
I know all those people who got arrested, and they are all innocent, good people. They all used to live ordinary lives with their families, worked as taxi drivers, ran small businesses and so on.
Aliya described how pervasive the raid was for her childhood village.
All of this, the lengthy sentences and the public announcement of it, they did it to scare people. Our village is small with only around 200 families, so everyone knows each other.
Nauryzbai Izbasar, the party host, was 31 when he was arrested. He was also the local imam and was sentenced to 23 years in prison, his sister in Kazakhstan confirmed in a video.
Another man, Beken Erzhuma, was first sentenced to 15 years, but he has since refused to plead guilty and the judge added an additional four years to his sentence, according to Aliya Beksultan.
The wives of the detained men who were at the birthday party were immediately placed in so-called re-education camps. They were each kept in the camps for around seven months. Only two of the women were spared from this treatment due to pregnancy — one of them is Aliya’s sister-in-law.
Shattyq Daulet, also in his 30s, was diagnosed with leukaemia when he received his 19-year sentence. Several of his relatives outside China, as well as official documents, confirmed his arrest.
According to the official court documents he was accused of ‘inciting ethnic hatred, inciting ethnic discrimination, and gathering a crowd to disturb public order’.
In just a few months, Daulet made a swift journey from role model to criminal, in the eyes of the Chinese state. In 2017 local media published a portrait of him, describing Daulet as a self-made man, who rose from poverty to a successful mobile phone repair business.
He was awarded by the Communist Youth League Party Committee for being a role model in youth entrepreneurship.
Now, his condition is unknown in a prison in Kuytun, 280 kilometres northeast of Ili, the closest provincial capital to his village.
The rest of the 18 that were detained were later sentenced to 15 years, according to testimonies [opens PDF].
Zhanatbek Beksultan, 32, is one of the unfortunate members of the chat group “Lucky Family” who is now serving a 15-year prison sentence for attending the party. His sister Aliya, who now resides in Kazakhstan, described how she learned about the birthday party raid.
I first heard rumors in springtime 2018 from people that had travelled from China to Kazakhstan, that 18 persons had been arrested at a birthday party in my home village. But it was not until October that I learned from my parents that my brother was actually one of them.
Through various communication channels and after several months, Aliya obtained the incarceration notice for her brother, stating that he was sentenced for ‘propagating extremism’ and ‘gathering a crowd to disturb public order’.
Because the host of the party was an imam, she believes that the authorities wrongfully interpreted the gathering to be religious.
Anecdotal evidence from several cases shows that since 2017, big gatherings are carefully scrutinized by the authorities. There are no clear, public laws about this, which contributes to the arbitrary implementation of the surveillance.
In a leaked police record database, such gatherings are shown to be monitored due to the potential “risk” that they pose to public order. The “Lucky Family” birthday party, which hosted more than 40 people, perfectly fit the description.
Still, Aliya continues to be bewildered that her brother can pay such a price just for going to a party.
My brother is just an ordinary man. He has two children and used to be a taxi driver along with some seasonal farm work. Now, my brother is allowed to talk to his family on the phone for three minutes every week. But they must only speak in Mandarin, which means he can not talk to my parents, because they don't speak Chinese. Since the arrest, my parents have visited him just once in prison, and at that time his hands and feet were shackled.

author: Guest Contributor


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COVID-19 kills Brazil’s last Juma warrior · Global Voices
Amazônia Real

Indigenous people received “early treatment,” with medicines not recommended by the WHO | Photo: Gabriel Uchida/Amazônia Real
This article was written by Luciene Kaxinawá, originally published in February 2021 and republished here under a partnership between Global Voices and Amazônia Real.
“Our father fought hard, he was a warrior, and we will continue his fight.” This was the message from Borehá, Maitá, and Mandeí about their father, the Indigenous leader Aruká Juma, who died from Covid-19, on February 19.
His family and allies of the Juma people think that Aruká was between 86 and 90 years old — his exact age is unknown, as he had no birth certificate. The Juma people's territory is located in the southern part of the Amazonas state, a forested region under intense pressure from deforestation.
“Coiab and Apib warned that recently contacted Indigenous peoples were at extreme risk. The last surviving man of the Juma people is dead. Once again, the Brazilian government has shown itself to be criminally negligent and incompetent. The government killed Aruká,” said a statement signed by Indigenous organizations such as the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon (Coiab), the Coordination of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (Apib), and the Observatory of Human Rights for Isolated and Recently-Contacted Indigenous Peoples (Opi).
Apib counted over 55,000 confirmed cases and 1,124 deaths of Indigenous people across the country as of June 24. On the same date, Sesai (Special Secretariat of Indigenous Health, linked to the federal government) had recorded more than 50,000 cases and 728 deaths.
Coiab has been monitoring cases since March 19, 2020, when the death of a Borari Indigenous woman in Pará state was recorded. Sesai, however, considers the death of a 15-year-old Yanomami boy on April 9, 2020 in Roraima to be the first death of an Indigenous person linked to Covid-19 in Brazil. The two cases were in northern Brazil.
Aruká died of acute respiratory failure due to infection with the new coronavirus in a field hospital in Porto Velho, the capital of Rondônia state, which borders Amazonas state. The transfer to another state, and not to the capital of Amazonas, Manaus, was due to the distance between the two areas, and the region's geographical characteristics.
Before his transfer to an ICU bed, Aruká Juma received in January what is referred to in Brazil as “early treatment” against Covid-19 in a hospital in Humaitá, Amazonas.
The medicines, which include ivermectin and azithromycin, promoted by President Jair Bolsonaro's government, are considered ineffective against the disease by the World Health Organization (WHO).
The medication prescribed to Aruká, who had hypertension, was disclosed to Amazônia Real by the Agency of Indigenous Healthcare (Casai) in Humaitá (AM), an agency of the Health Ministry.
Aruká's family members are considered to be the last survivors of the Juma people, an ethnic group from the Tupi Kagwahiva linguistic group, which also includes other peoples such as the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau, with whom Aruká's daughters married to avoid the people's extinction.
In his youth, Aruká witnessed the worst massacre his people suffered when they defended their territory from an invasion by rubber tappers and nut traders in the 1960s. The first accounts of the Juma, from the 18th century, indicated that the people numbered around 15,000.
After successive massacres, they were reduced to 100 by the 1940s. From the 1960s, with new attacks by invaders, they were gradually reduced to near extinction. At the end of the 1990s, the leader managed to obtain the official demarcation of the territory located in Canutama town, in southern Amazonas.
Aruká Juma showed symptoms of Covid-19 together with 12 other family members who lived with him in the Indigenous territory in early January. On January 17, he was taken to Sentinela Hospital in Humaitá, a town near Canutama, and was then hospitalized and discharged several times.
On February 2, Aruká Juma’s condition worsened. He was put on a respirator, and had to be transferred because the hospital he was in — the second hospital he was admitted to — did not have an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) bed. A group of public institutions and organizations defending Indigenous peoples was organized to save his life. However, even though he was taken to the Hospital de Campanha in Porto Velho, he died.
Throughout the entire period of his hospitalizations in January and February, Amazônia Real requested medical reports on Aruká Juma's health condition and information on what medication he was receiving.
A professional from Casai Humaitá, an agency of the Special Secretariat for Indigenous Health, told this reporter by WhatsApp that the Indigenous leader received medicines such as azithromycin, ivermectin, and chloroquine in Sentinela Hospital, in Humaitá.
When contacted, the advisor to the Health Ministry's Indigenous District Council, Aurélio Tenharim, said that when he was infected by the virus and had Covid-19, he also received the “early treatment,” which confirmed the prescription of these medicines, including to the Juma elder. “The same medicine I took, he took too. The doctor prescribed that [early treatment],” he said.
Aruká Juma's daughters, Borehá, Maitá, and Mandeí said they had not been informed about the administration of the treatment, which has no proven scientific efficacy, to their father.
On January 11, the then Health Minister, General Eduardo Pazuello, who left the post in March, was in Manaus and publicly recommended the “early treatment” at the launch of the Strategic Plan for Fighting Covid-19 in Amazonas.
Amazonas faced the collapse of its health system with a lack of ICU beds and oxygen in hospitals.
“We are not discussing if this or that professional agrees anymore. The federal and regional health authorities have already taken a position. The councils are in favor of the early treatment, of clinical diagnosis. I talked personally, by video, with all of them,” he said at the time.
“The diagnosis is from medical professionals. The treatment is from medical professionals. And the guidance is early. (…) It will not kill anybody, but it will save [lives] in cases of Covid,” he added.
Pazuello was investigated by the Federal Supreme Court (STF) for alleged negligence in the health crisis in Amazonas, and the issue of recommending treatment without proven effectiveness is one of those being examined by the Senate’s Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry, which is analyzing the handling of the pandemic by Bolsonaro’s government.
Amazônia Real tried to contact Humaitá’ s Municipal Health Secretariat, responsible for Sentinela Hospital, and the Special Secretariat for Indigenous Health, part of the Health Ministry, to ask them for comment on the “early treatment” prescribed to Aruká Juma, but received no reply.
Sesai issued a message of condolence through the Indigenous Special Health Department (Dsei) of Porto Velho. “The Dsei took all possible steps to attend to the patient and continues to provide assistance to the family. (…) Sesai and the Porto Velho Dsei express their deepest regret at the death of this great warrior and chief,” said the text.
Historian Ivaneide Bandeira Cardozo, of the Kanindé organization, an ally of the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau and Juma, said that the health situation is critical for Amazonian Indigenous peoples.
She learned of Aruká Juma's death while she was assisting the vaccination against Covid-19 of the Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau people in Rondônia.
“You need to understand the health situation that the Indigenous people of Brazil and the Amazon are facing, of intense pressure, extensive invasion of their lands, and healthcare that is precarious,” she said.
Aruká's funeral took place on February 18, in the Juma village of Canutama in southern Amazonas. Various leaders were invited to pay homage to the leader on a bridge, before the funeral procession headed for the Juma’s indigenous territory.
Mandeí Juma, one of his daughters, told the reporter that all the warrior’s adornments and accessories would be buried with him.
The leader's eldest daughter, Borehá Juma, said that from now on she intends to follow in her father's footsteps: “I want to become like him now to fight like my father. My father was a real warrior. He was a chief, I was a chief and now the lineage is finished,” she said.
As well as the three Juma daughters, Aruká left 14 grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and a daughter from a relationship with an Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau woman. Aruká's grandchildren are children of Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau (whose territory is located in Rondônia, which borders Amazonas), whom Borehá, Maitá, and Mandeí married.
According to their patrilineal system, their grandchildren and their children became Uru-Eu as well. Aruká was the last man of his people.

author: Amazônia Real


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India mourns Dilip Kumar, the ‘tragedy king’ of Bollywood · Global Voices
Abhinash

Actor Dilip Kumar with his wife actress Saira Banu in 2011. Image via Wikipedia by Bollywood Hungama. CC BY 3.0
Many in India are saddened by the death of one of Bollywood’s most popular actors — and former member of parliament — Dilip Kumar, who passed away on July 7 at the age of 98 due to health problems. He was among a cadre of legendary actors and producers of India's cinema industry, having worked on more than 60 films over the course of six decades, from 1944 to 1999. His extraordinary acting has left an everlasting impression on movie fans’ hearts.
Another Bollywood legend, Amitabh Bacchan, paid tribute on Twitter:
T 3958 -” ?????
An epic era has drawn curtains… Never to happen again..
?????” ~ s
— Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) July 7, 2021
Dilip Kumar, whose real name was Mohammed Yusuf Khan, was born in 1921 in Peshawar city, in present-day Pakistan. He and his family migrated to Mumbai, India in 1930. He made his cinema debut in 1944 in ‘Jwar Bhatta’ (‘High and Low Tides’), created by the famous Bombay Talkies production house. Its producer, Devika Rani, persuaded him to change his Muslim-sounding name to the one that made him famous, appealing to Bollywood's majority Hindu Indian audience.
In 1947, Kumar stepped into the limelight with the hit film ‘Jugnu‘ (‘Firefly’), which received favourable critical reviews. As its popularity grew, so did Kumar's reputation. He never looked back, becoming one of India's top-paid actors during the 1950s. By the time he appeared in the 1960 epic historical film ‘Mughal-E-Azam‘ (‘The Great Mughal’), Kumar was a full-fledged star, and the film went on to become one of the highest-grossing in the Indian movie industry.
Actress Sophie Choudry remembered:
Even as a little girl the ardent movie lovers in my family would show me Aan, Jugnu, Mughal-E-Azam, Andaz, Devdas & many more. To us, this was cinema at its greatest & he was sheer brilliance on screen. There will never be another??? #DilipKumar #kingofcinema #legend #endofanera pic.twitter.com/nkGSR3wFiJ
— Sophie C (@Sophie_Choudry) July 7, 2021
Kumar's impeccable acting has been widely acknowledged. In 1954, he won Filmfare magazine’s Best Actor award for the movie ‘Daag‘ (‘The Stain’). He would go on to claim this award seven more times over the course of his career.
Filmfare remembered him by posting a collage of his popular on-screen pairings:
Along with his craft and good looks, #DilipKumar’s on-screen pairings also became memorable. We profile him and some of his best leading ladies. pic.twitter.com/KFBoHgmdpV
— Filmfare (@filmfare) July 8, 2021
Kumar earned his nickname because of his performance in several heart-wrenching love stories during the 1940s and 1950s, in which his character ended up either tragically losing his love interests or dead.
A politician from the Bharatiya Janata Party, Amitava Chakravorty, tweeted:
Only actor with max number of films with tragedy ending which became huge Blockbuster….He was called as Tragedy King
RIP #DilipKumar ???? ?? pic.twitter.com/5ePiCdc4Y2
— Amitava Chakravorty (@Amitava_BJP) July 7, 2021
Kumar's popularity, however, was by no means limited to his on-screen work; he also played a pivotal role in matters of civic duty. In the 1950s, for example, when India was experiencing major upheaval, including tense Hindu-Muslim relations, Kumar inspired a sense of togetherness in post-independent India, helping citizens to see past barriers of religious identity.
He was also at the helm of many social and welfare initiatives, advocated for national integrity and spearheaded fundraising initiatives for the Indian Armed forces. Perhaps most famously, prior to India's independence in 1947, the acting legend — a staunch supporter of India’s freedom struggle — spent a night in jail for speaking out against the British authorities for misusing their power.
It was no surprise, then, that Kumar eventually ventured into politics. In 2000, he was nominated to the Rajya Sabha (The Council of States) as a member of parliament by the Indian National Congress. During his six-year tenure, he spent a lot of his time on the construction and improvement of the Bandstand Promenade in Mumbai's Bandra area.
Both at home and around the world, social media users paid tribute to Dilip Kumar. Renowned Indian actress Shabana Azmi tweeted:
Acting is not like a horse race where the one who runs the fastest is considered the best.A most definitive Othello can be a disastrous Hamlet so how do you judge a good actor?By her /his versatility and there can never be another #DilipKumar. Tragedy or comedy he was supreme
— Azmi Shabana (@AzmiShabana) July 7, 2021
Chicago-based Melanie Greenberg, who runs a YouTube channel that reviews Indian movies, tweeted:
Currently watching Yahudi. Dilip Kumar wearing a yarmulke and sword fighting. Be still my heart! ?? pic.twitter.com/taSY2vSdez
— Pardesi Reviews (@PardesiYT) July 10, 2021
The former prime minister of Nepal, Baburam Bhattarai, remembered how much Kumar's movies were a part of his youth:
I pay my sincere homage to the legendary actor Dilip Kumar(Yusuf Khan)on his sad demise.I can never forget the romantic days in the 1970s in Chandigarh College of Architecture when we used to throng cinema halls &open air theaters to rejoice his films like Mughal-E-Azam &others. pic.twitter.com/wvxPjSQa51
— Baburam Bhattarai (@brb1954) July 8, 2021
Given where he was born, Kumar was — quite fittingly — also popular in Pakistan, where movie fans mourned his death. In 1998, Dilip Kumar became the first and only Indian to receive Nishan-e-Imtiaz, Pakistan's highest civilian award.

author: Abhinash


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Turkey’s spectacular city statues — a thing of beauty or an architectural failure? · Global Voices
Arzu Geybullayeva

A screenshot taken from a BBC Turkce video about city statues across Turkey https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qc4QN6SVZHs&t=2s
Turkey is known for its plethora of historical sights and impressive monuments that offer visitors plenty to see and explore, but few are aware of the spectacular city statues standing at the entrance of Turkey's provinces and city centers. All across the country, one can spot eclectic statues of a garlic clove, a rooster, meatballs, local desserts, walnuts, pottery, and much more, symbolizing whatever that province is famous for. The most recent addition to the list of bizarre statues a child inside of a watermelon that was placed in Turkey's Diyarbakir province in May.
Diyarbakır havalimanı kavşağına yeni yapılan karpuz içindeki çocuk heykeli pic.twitter.com/zRzyjATObE
— Mimari Facialar (@mimarifacialar) May 9, 2021
The new statue of a baby sitting inside the watermelon at the Diyarbakir airport roundabout
Created in honor of the region's watermelons and the tradition of photographing babies in carved-out watermelons to highlight the size of the fruit, the statue, sparked criticism online and triggered a debate around Turkey's penchant for bizarre statues and their hefty price tags.
According to the Gazete Duvar, an online news platform, “one social media user asked the municipality to reveal the cost of the bizarre artwork, as well as the statue of a man displaying a local sweet that was revealed at the same time. The municipality is currently run by a government-appointed trustee, who is known for extravagant spending without any transparency.”
The watermelon statue in Diyarbakir reportedly cost 4.4 million Turkish Lira (517,000 US dollars).
This is not the first time, the costs for erected statues have been questioned.
In the Turkish province of Amasya, the local mayor was quick to defend a statue of an Ottoman prince taking a selfie when an opposition politician grumbled about the waste of public funds.
Sanırım dünya'da ilk…
Selfie çeken heykel…
Tasarım ödülü almalı…#GuinnessRecord #AmasyaBelediyesi#Amasya pic.twitter.com/e6E0dmxq8U
— Çağrı (@cyalcin) May 9, 2015
I think this is the world's first selfie taking statue. It deserves an award.
In 2015, the three-meter-high, ten-meter-long T-Rex statue erected in Turkey's capital Ankara reportedly cost 1o million Turkish Lira (with the currency exchange rate at the time, about 4 million US dollars). The T-Rex replaced a controversial Transformers statue — both statues were commissioned by the city's then-mayor and eccentric member of the ruling Justice and Development Party, Melih Gökçek.
?#Turkish capital #Ankara‘s T-Rex dinosaur statue replaces ‘#Transformers‘ robot #Turkey
? pic.twitter.com/NsADYaRer6
— Mete Sohtaoğlu (@metesohtaoglu) April 29, 2015
The robot statue was erected as part of a promotion campaign for the AnkaPark theme park (also known as the Wonderland Eurasia park). The park, which featured robots and dinosaurs was commissioned by Gökçek and cost some 750 million US dollars according to Ahval news. But Gökçek never made it to the opening as he was forced to step down in 2017. President Erdogan who attended the opening of the park in March 2019, described it as a “symbol of pride for Turkey.” But the “symbol of pride” never lived up to its expectation as the park was forced to shut down in February 2020 when the company charged with managing the park failed to pay its electricity bills.
The budget for these statues is not transparent and is often associated with corruption at the local government level. In an interview with the BBC, Turkish city planner Meltem Parlak said, in order for the process to be transparent, “the municipality should first consult with a sculpture maker, or organize an open contest, and then make a decision. Instead, municipalities simply assign certain companies in a so-called tender, creating an environment for corruption.”
Most of these statues are commissioned through private companies according to the Turkish Hurriyet newspaper. But not one of the organizations contacted by the paper was willing to claim a specific statue. Instead, they too blame the municipalities for the poor work which damages the reputation of the companies. “Municipalities are not paying attention. They should consult with an artist, hire a consultant. But they don't. As a result, we are also criticized,” said Yakup Koçak, an owner of a small studio which provides made-to-order sculptures.
Former dean at Marmara University Fine Arts Faculty and the founder of Baksı Museum Hüsamettin Koçan also agrees that authorized institutions have a responsibility to seek out experienced, trained artists. “If we care about the contribution of art to the city, the authorities must accept that the subject of art and aesthetics is a field of expertise and act accordingly,” he told Hurriyet in an interview.
So far, there is little responsibility or accountability for the spending or the aesthetics of statues which is likely to continue to trigger jokes and criticism from those who encounter Turkey's modern wonders blooming across the country.


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Macau bans 21 opposition candidates from campaigning for the Legislature · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

This photo of Antonio Ng shaking hands with HK politician Wu Chi Wai was presented as ‘evidence’ to disqualify him from running for the Macau Legislature. Image via Stand News.
The Macau government disqualified 21 democratic candidates from running in its upcoming legislative elections.
Following the disqualification announcement made on July 9, Beijing's Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office expressed support for Macau's decision and stressed that it is necessary to uphold the principle of ‘patriots governing Macau’.
The opposition groups were shocked by the decision as some of the disqualified candidates have been serving in the legislature for years. For example, Antonio Ng Kuok-cheong,  the founding chairman of the pro-democracy party the New Macau Association, has held office through direct elections since 1992.
Although the 21 candidates had previously pledged that they uphold Macau’s micro-constitution, also known as the Basic Law, and are loyal to the Macau Special Administrative Region (SAR) region, the electoral affairs officials claimed that they had ‘factual evidence’ provided by the Secretariat for Security which proved their vows were not genuine.
The 2021 elections of Legislative Assembly of Macau will take place on September 12. The law-making body has 33 members, with 14 directly elected, 12 indirectly elected and 7 appointed. The pro-democracy camp only had four seats — won through direct elections in 2017. The 21 disqualified candidates were to compete for six seats in September.
Antonio Ng Kuok-cheong, who started serving in the legislation before the former Portuguese colony rejoined China in 1999 and continued his service after the Macau national security law was enacted in 2009, believed the decision was political. In an interview with Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP), he rebuked the Macau electoral affairs officials’ claim:
We are 100 percent confident to say that we did not violate any requirements under electoral laws, and 100 percent confident that [we] did not have any action or evidence showing that we did not support the Macau SAR and the Basic Law.
Of course, if this is a forceful political decision, there will be no effective appeal […] I’d imagine that this is of course related to the situation in Hong Kong, as [disqualifications] are common there, and with the national security law, suppression became stronger, it is no surprise that their approach [to the two cities] appears identical.
Both Macau and Hong Kong are ex-colonial cities that were unified with China under ex-Chinese government leader Deng Xiaoping’s ‘One Country Two Systems’ degree which offered each city a ‘high degree of autonomy’. China expected that the implementation of ‘One Country Two Systems’ in Hong Kong and Macau would serve as a model for their eventual unification with Taiwan — a de facto independent state since the Kuomingtang people escaped to the island in 1949 upon its defeat in the China civil war.
However, in the midst of Hong Kong’s 2014 pro-democracy movement, the China State Council published a white paper on ‘The Practice of the “One Country, Two Systems” Policy in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR)‘. The policy paper redefined high autonomy as ‘the power to run local affairs as authorised by the central leadership’ and sets ‘patriotism’ as a criterion for people serving in public offices.
Two years later, after the Legislative Council election in 2016, Hong Kong started disqualifying pro-democracy lawmakers over their allegiances. In the following years, officials banned more pro-democracy candidates from running for both district councils and legislative council elections.
Upon the enactment of the national security law on June 30, 2020, four more opposition lawmakers were disqualified which triggered a mass resignation of pro-democracy lawmakers in November 2020 in Hong Kong.
Then in March 2021, Beijing further imposed a new election system in the Asia financial centre which includes establishing a candidate screening system, expanding the power of the Chief Executive Electoral Committee (EC) to ensure Beijing’s representatives were the dominant power, reducing elected members in the Legislative Council and EC.
While Hong Kong has a strong democratic movement, Macau’s opposition parties are relatively weak and have little influence in policymaking and public opinion. Also unlike Hong Kong, Macau passed the National Security Law back in 2009 and the allegiance of the opposition has never been questioned.
The disqualification of the 21 candidates will purge the Macau Legislative Assembly of all opposition voices.
Sulu Sou, a current lawmaker who has been disqualified for running this year’s elections expressed his shock on his Facebook page:
這是令我們傷感和不忿的一日，澳門立法會有45年歷史，自1976年就有直接選舉，至80年代開放全澳華人選民投票，無論今次堅持的結果如何，政府的決議都已為澳門選舉史蒙上不可磨滅的污名，159位候選人中有21位被取消資格，比例之高、規模之大，相信放諸世界都是不容輕視的事件。
Today we are indignant and sad. The Legislative Assembly in Macau has 45 years of history. Since 1976, we have had direct elections and in the 1980s the Chinese citizens in Macau have obtained the right to vote. The government’s current decision has tainted Macau's election history. Among the 159 candidates, 21 have been disqualified, the ratio and scale is huge and this won’t be ignored by the world.
Macau’s veteran lawyer, Jorge Neto Valente told the local media outlet Macau Daily Times the decision has violated Macau Basic Law's guarantee of freedom of expression:
I am shocked because I know some of the disqualified [candidates]. I always follow what they say and some of them have been legislators and for decades have been contributing to Macau […] I am very concerned when it is stated that they are not loyal and do not love Macau. The fact that they have different ideas and opinions from some of the authorities does not mean that they do not have the right to have them. When the Basic Law states that there is freedom of expression, we can think up some restriction to that, but one thing is for sure, freedom of expression means the right to think differently…
To address public concern, Tong Hio Fong, the president of Macau’s Legislative Assembly Electoral Affairs Commission revealed 7 criteria for assessing candidates’ allegiance on July 12, 2021.
Tong explained that ‘evidence’ cited to disqualify the candidates involved acts or speech that:
Antonio Ng managed to acquire his disqualification document which is composed of more than 200 pages of ‘evidence’ including examples such as him taking a photo with Wu Chi-Wai, former Hong Kong lawmaker and ex-chairman of the Democratic Party on August 3, 2019. The party was labelled as ‘pro-Hong Kong independent’ in the document (see top photo).
Under the above criteria and screening mechanisms, all opposition would be banned from the Macau Legislative Assembly. The same set of screening criteria may also apply to Hong Kong in the upcoming Legislative Council elections in December.

author: Oiwan Lam


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‘Ring de bell’: Brother Resistance, who mainstreamed Trinidad & Tobago’s rapso music, has died · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Screenshot of Brother Resistance from the video “Never Ever Worry”, filmed by Earth TV (1997).
To Trinidad and Tobago, Brother Resistance was much more than an artistic icon; he was a fount of cultural knowledge. With his passing at a private hospital on July 13 (he had been ailing for some time), the country has lost an elder of its musical artforms—calypso and soca, to be sure—but more specifically, its hybrid, rapso.
Part poetry, part scintillating backbeat, rapso is defined as “the power of the word in the rhythm of the word,” having grown out of the West African griot or storyteller tradition. In the Caribbean, these musical poets have been traditionally referred to as chantwells, champions of call and response.
Born Roy Lewis in east Port of Spain, Trinidad, in 1954, Brother Resistance, as he would most popularly come to be called, eventually changed his name to Lutalo Masimba to better reflect his African heritage. He received his secondary education at the prestigious Queen's Royal College, famous for producing figures such as Eric Williams, the country's first prime minister who led the country to independence from Britain (also a notable historian), and writers C.L.R. James and V.S. Naipaul. The school inducted Brother Resistance into its Hall of Honour in 2017 in recognition of his contribution to culture and the arts.
Rapso music was pioneered by the late Lancelot Layne, evolving as a brand a protest music out of the Black Power movement of the late 1960s, during which the country experienced a period of social unrest that culminated in a failed revolution attempt in 1970. Brother Resistance, along with the Network Riddum Band, took up the rapso mantle and carried the form into the 1980s and beyond, spearheading its revival and bringing it into the mainstream of World Music.
The band's 1981 debut offering “Busting Out” contained two tracks, one written by Brother Resistance, and became a hit. The following year the group released “Roots of de Rapso Riddum”, but their message, deeply rooted in social commentary, was deemed subversive. Police raided and destroyed their band room in June 1983, which only served to fuel their sense of purpose. They continued to release music, always putting the genre front and centre: “Rapso Explosion” (1984), “Rapso Takeover” (1986), and “Rapso Uprising” (1989).
Brother Resistance continued to be prolific as a solo artist well into the 1990s and 2000s, singing on themes of love, unity, spirituality, and respect for “Mother Earth”, a song that demonstrated just the depth of his perception and vision. Long before the term climate change was coined, Brother Resistance was asking, “Is it too late to save the earth?”
Perhaps his most beloved song, however, was “Ring De Bell”, in which he symbolically advocates for ringing the bell—part of Spiritual Baptist, Orisha and other religious traditions—for culture, justice, freedom and, of course, rapso: “It's a long, long time now we fighting for freedom, victory bound to come […] I come with my bell just to second the motion, rock the rapso riddum.”
Brother Resistance's work provided a strong foundation for other rapso artists, most notably the group 3 Canal, who posted the following on Facebook:
‘Resistance the father, I am the son and in the name of Rapso, Thy kingdom come…’ Stannyman sang in one of our songs a long time ago and truer words were never spoken. If wasn’t for Brother Resistance, we would not be who we are today. We sang backgrounds on your songs before we even recorded our own. You were always inspiring and encouraging and accessible and humble and rooted and real and wise and committed and strong. Give Thanks for the example and walk Tall in the realm of the ancestors. Rest In Peace Big Brother. ‘Stand firm for yuh Roots and yuh Culture.’ […]
Deejay Lyndon Livingstone posted videos of Brother Resistance performing, saying:
Not many have walked your road. Thank you for opening the many doors you did. RIP
Musician John Hussain added:
Wow, at a loss for words right now. Brother Resistance was a titan and along with the Network Riddim Band had a major musical influence in my life…on par with Prince, Van Halen etc….Ring D Bell in Peace Brother ✊????
In a telephone interview, Robin Foster, who attended Queen's Royal College with Brother Resistance and later worked with the Network Riddum Band as a sound engineer, remembered him as a true poet who would mix his love of language with music:
He was the chantwell of the school. At cricket and football matches, he led the chant and would always compose the school songs for Intercol [the secondary schools football league]. He used to deejay at school bazaars. I'll never forget seeing one of his party flyers promoting what was called ‘The Cold Concrete Network’. He took that concept of networking and ran with it.
Brother Resistance opened a business, Uprising Culture Shop, in what was known as the People's Mall on Frederick Street, in the heart of Trinidad's capital, selling local craft and music. He also opened a branch in London's Ladbroke Grove, where he lived for a spell and made records. Upon his return to Trinidad, he and the Network Riddum Band did a series of successful shows in Port of Spain, which featured fellow artists like Ras Shorty I, known as the father of soca music, and Merchant, both famous for pushing the limits of the calypso genre.
For Foster, though, one of Brother Resistance's most enduring legacies was his embracing of “Trinbagonian” as its own language:
Resistance was a bright, highly educated man, and he regarded our way of speaking as more than a dialect, more than broken English — and that was really important at a time when anything but standard English was considered uncultured. The way we speak may be English-based, but it includes influences of French Creole, Spanish, Hindi, all with a distinctive West African phrasing. There's a line in Lancelot Layne's hit ‘Blow Way’ that goes, “Don't believe what foreigners do is better than you because that ain't true.’ Resistance was proud to be Trini. His standard greeting was ‘Rapso time!’ His love of calypso, in all its forms, and of local language and expression, was his real contribution.
Having completed his tertiary education at The University of the West Indies (UWI), Brother Resistance was awarded a Master's degree in Carnival Studies from the University of Trinidad and Tobago in 2012, and was in the process of completing his Ph.D. at UWI.
Social media users were unanimous in their characterisations of him as a kindhearted, gracious and humble man. Until his death, he was president of Trinbago Unified Calysonians Organisation (TUCO), which paid him homage as “a cultural activist and a Rapso artiste of international repute” as well as “a cultural activist, researcher and educator”:
[Brother Resistance] was a hardworking, diligent and futuristic President. He cared deeply about the welfare of our members. He pushed for recognition of calypso and rapso music on the international stage, […] foresaw an Organisation that [would] be self-sufficient and worked day and night in realizing this vision. [He] was a true patriot, a leader, and loved his country.
Resistance may have brought rapso music to the world, having toured throughout the Americas, Asia and Europe, but he was at heart a poet, authoring “Rapso Explosion”, a collection of rapso poetry that was published in the United Kingdom. In 1992, he received a national award, the Hummingbird Medal (Silver), for his contribution to the culture and community development.
Tillah Willah, who hosts The Wajang Diskotheque, a virtual space where she jams local tunes and has fascinating conversations with the music makers, concluded:
What to say about Resistance? It have chapter and verse and multiple parts and there was never enough time, never enough space to capture everything. He belonged to the House of Music. He has gathered his materials at the market and is making his return home. Give thanks for his time here, give thanks for words and his laughter. Give thanks for the work that he did, give thanks for those who will continue his work and call his name and remind us all that Resistance is inherent to survival.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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The Awá people in Colombia threatened by foreign armed and socio-environmental conflict · Global Voices
Johana Fernanda Sánchez Jaramillo

Indigenous guards of the Awá people. Photo by Silvio Fernández, used with permission.
This report was originally published on Servindi, edited by Global Voices.
In Colombia, the Awá people and their land are in the middle of an armed and socio-environmental conflict caused by other people, but with victims of their own. On Monday, June 7, another three community members were killed by an illegal armed group, one of many recent attacks.
The violence continues even though a peace deal was signed in Colombia in 2016. The Constitutional Court of Colombia and the entity in charge of administering transitional justice in the Colombian armed conflict, the Special Justice for Peace (JEP), recognized the Awá people and their land—which they call Katsa Su (Great Territory)—as victims of that conflict. The Awá people are displaced and looking for solutions to survive.
Silvio Fernández, community member of the Magüí Reservation of the Awá people in Ricaurte Nariño, explains:
Si bien es cierto que las instituciones y organismos de derechos humanos conocen la realidad de los actores armados en el territorio y cada uno de ellos cumplen su misión de vigilar la violencia, en este último año hemos tenido masacres.
Although it is true that human rights institutions and organizations are aware of the reality of the armed actors in the territory and each one of them fulfills its mission of monitoring violence, in the last year we have had massacres.
The Awá people, one of the approximately 115 Indigenous peoples in Colombia, live in the southwest of the department of Nariño and the northwest of Ecuador in an area of approximately 610 thousand hectares. There are more than 29,000 people, most of whom live in Colombia. From January to April 2021, 41 Awá people were murdered during clashes between armed groups. The exact figures of the massacres perpetrated against the Awá people in recent years are unknown.
In 2019, the 32 councils part of the Indigenous Unit of the Awá People (UNIPA) and its territory, Katsa Su, were recognized as victims of the armed conflict due to the violent actions between 1990-2016, allegedly committed by the FARC guerrillas and the Public Forces.
At present, the Awá people have not only been victims of forced displacement and the dispossession of their lands due to the arrival of people (‘settlers’) from other regions of the country, but also of the armed actors who are disputing control over territory to exploit it through the illicit coca cultivation, mining, logging, megaprojects, fossil fuels, and other monocultures, such as oil palm. Currently, they are also facing the resumption of aerial campaigns spraying glyphosate, a herbicide used to eradicate the coca plant and that can have a negative impact on health, including causing cancer.
This year, through several published statements, the Awá people disclosed the violent actions of legal and illegal armed groups, which continue to occur: forced displacements, homicides, arbitrary detentions, antipersonnel mines, forced recruitment, confinements and lack of freedom to travel, harassment, and massacres that prevent them having a relationship with their Katsa Su as they learned from their ancestors.
Photo by Claudia Pai, used with permission.
The Awá people consider that any violent action against their territory, Katsa Su, is also violence against them. Leidy Pai, an Awá woman, explains:
Como familias Awá, creo que cualquier situación que afecte al territorio, al tejido social, cultural y espiritual de nuestro pueblo y nuestras familias Awá implica ser víctima directa.
Being part of Awá families, I believe that any situation that affects the territory, the social, cultural, and spiritual fabric of our people and our Awá families implies being a direct victim.
The violence against the Great Territory affects everyone. As Leidy says:
En el territorio es un daño que no se puede entender ni explicar porque el hecho de que los pueblos indígenas creemos en espíritus que viven allí, que convivimos con ellos; al suceder esas masacres y derramamiento de sangre, que hayan torturado a familias enteras, que hayan sacado niños del vientre de dos mujeres, desarmoniza.
The territory is damaged in a way that cannot be understood or explained because we the Indigenous peoples believe in spirits that live there, we coexist with them. These massacres and all this bloodshed which have tortured entire families, which have taken children from the wombs of two women, bring disharmony.
Photo by Leydi Pai, used with permission.
This violence disrupts dreams and life projects. When Awá people are forcibly displaced, they leave behind their Great Territory, their culture, and the fields they cultivate. In Pasto, the capital of the department of Nariño, where some displaced people arrive, they miss taking care of their animals, cultivating the land, and cooking on the stove, activities that they cannot do in the city.
Claudia Pai, Counselor for Women and Family in the Indigenous Unit of the Awá People (UNIPA), states:
Es difícil para los niños en la ciudad y las mujeres son más vulnerables. El rol de transmitir el legado cultural a sus hijos y estar en familia se rompe porque deben trabajar afuera y se aprovechan de ellas, a veces, por su condición de víctimas y desplazadas. Falta que el gobierno ayude en la parte de reparación y ayudas humanitarias porque las que no saben leer y escribir lo pasan peor.
In the city it is difficult for children, and women are more vulnerable. Their role of transmitting the cultural legacy to their children and being with their family is broken because they must work abroad, and sometimes they are being taken advantage of due to their condition as victims and displaced people. It is necessary for the government to help with reparations and humanitarian aid because those who cannot read and write are in an even worse situation.
The inhabitants are frightened, and their travel within the Katsa Su is restricted. They live in distress, and they cannot cultivate the fields used by armed actors. There are some places on public roads that are restricted, and there are just certain hours when they can travel due to the dangers posed by armed actors.
Militarization is another negative effect. As Leidy Pai recalls:
El ejército llega a unos sitios donde nosotros los Awá no habíamos caminado. Llegaron a unos sitios vírgenes, selvas vírgenes, ellos se ubicaron derribaron árboles para descender sus helicópteros.
The army reaches places where we, the Awá people, had not walked. They arrived at some pristine places, virgin forests. They knocked down trees to land their helicopters.
Aura López, a 35-year-old member of the Awá community who lives in Resguardo Nunalbí Alto Ulbí in the municipality of Barbacoas (Nariño), has been verbally threatened several times and forcibly displaced to the city of Pasto. She opposes the forced recruitment of minors by armed groups. She explains it this way:
However, the Awá people resist. As explained in the Ethnic Safeguard Plan of the Awá People, the constant actions against them have led them to organize themselves, by establishing UNIPA, the Main Council Awá de Ricaurte (Camawari), and the Association of Awá Indigenous Councils from Putumayo (ACIPAP) to carry out joint actions in support of their community.
Silvio Fernández says:
Una alternativa de resistencia es no cometer el error de desplazarnos de un lugar a otro, implementar la guardia indígena como control social y territorial y capacitarlos. En Ricaurte, tenemos sitios de concentración en planteles educativos, adecuados para el alojamiento, para que la gente pueda estar y fomentamos la alimentación propia para no depender tanto del pueblo porque en caso de bombardeos y combates, no se puede salir a comprar.
An alternative of resistance is not to make the mistake of moving from one place to another, but to implement the Indigenous guards as a social and territorial control, and to train them. In Ricaurte, we have meeting sites in educational establishments, which are suitable for accommodation of people. We encourage them to bring their own food so as not to depend so much on others, because in case of bombings and combats, they cannot go out to buy supplies.
Claudia Pai adds:
Además, cumplir con los acuerdos de paz, la Ley 1448/11 de víctimas y el Decreto 4633 de 2011 de plan de reparación con enfoque étnico y de género. El sistema judicial es lento en atender las necesidades de los pueblos originarios.
Another measure is to comply with the peace agreements, the Law 1448/11 on victims and the Decree 4633/2011 on a reparation plan with an ethnic and gender perspective. The judicial system is slow to meet the needs of Indigenous peoples.
Lawyer Buitrago from the Colombian Commission of Jurists agrees:
Es indispensable la implementación del Acuerdo Final de Paz, principalmente la aplicación del apartado sobre sustitución de cultivos ilícitos, los cuales mantienen a estas comunidades en constantes enfrentas con los grupos armados en Nariño y Putumayo al negarse a las dinámicas del narcotráfico, desconfigurando a su vez el tejido social y la preservación cultural Awá.
The implementation of the Final Peace Agreement is essential, mainly the application of the section on substitution of illicit crops, which keeps these communities in constant confrontation with the armed groups in Nariño and Putumayo by denying drug trafficking, and which is changing the social fabric and the Awá cultural preservation.
The Awá people resist in the midst of a conflict that affects their physical health, their culture, their customs and their ancestral spiritual relationship with other beings that inhabit the Katsa Su. Faced with this destruction, they still plant, try to defend their food sovereignty, and recover traditional medicine until justice arrives and guarantees that this will never happen again to them.

author: Johana Fernanda Sánchez Jaramillo


text:
The year of the ‘orange handkerchief’ for State-Church separation in Argentina · Global Voices
Romina Navarro

Militants from the Federal Campaign for Separation of State and Churches at Pride March, June 2018. Photo by Leonardo Miranda Quiroga, posted on Instagram and used with permission.
In January 2021, after abortion was legalized in Argentina, the orange handkerchief movement, the symbol of the campaign for State-Church separation, emerged with a renewed force.
Within a few weeks, the group behind the orange campaign received numerous inquiries and new supporters through its profiles on social media. It also initiated information campaigns, provided information on the process of formally leaving the church, and shared complaints of abuse of power, genocides, religious interference in education and law, and child abuse or its cover-up. They also gave interviews with figures from different social and political sectors.
Vamos por la separación definitiva del estado y la iglesia! Súmate desde tu provincia a nuestro móvimiento! #estadolaico #AbortoLegal2020 #SeraLey #naranja #curas #asuntoseparados #laicismo #igualdad pic.twitter.com/Zj2rr7b5bR
— Campaña Fed. Por La Separación Estado/Iglesia (@CampEstadoLaico) January 2, 2021
We are aiming for the final separation of the state and the church! Join our movement from your province! #secularstate #LegalAbortion2020 #ItWillBecomeLaw #orange #priests #differentmatters #secularism #equality pic.twitter.com/Zj2rr7b5bR — Fed. Campaign for Seperation of State/Church (@CampEstadoLaico) January 2, 2021
With the slogan “Church and State: Different Matters,” this campaign fights for the establishment of a secular Argentine State that does not allocate public funds for the Catholic Church. Above all, the movement wants a state where religious beliefs — Catholic or otherwise — do not shape policies that affect the full exercise of rights. It is not only religious lobbying, but history shows that legislators have used religion as a reason to vote against basic human rights, such as divorce, same-sex marriage, the Gender Identity Law, the right to abortion, and comprehensive sexual education. In return, they receive support (and votes) from people who share those beliefs.
Nicolás Panotto is a theologian and the managing director of Otros Cruces, an NGO that advocates for religious freedom in harmony with democracy. He explains the campaign's boom:
Ya a inicios de 2018 se vivió una indignación generalizada al conocerse sobre los 130 millones de pesos (unos 4.6 millones de dólares) que el Estado argentino otorga a la iglesia católica para cubrir los sueldos de la curia, los estudios de seminaristas y otros gastos “filantrópicos”. Pero el debate sobre el aborto ha mostrado que la vinculación orgánica entre Estado e iglesia sobrepasa lo financiero, y mete la cola como un factor determinante y excluyente en el tratamiento de políticas públicas, donde los intereses particulares (entre ellos religiosos) no deberían ser condicionantes.
Already at the beginning of 2018, a general indignation arose when we found out about the 130 million pesos (about 4.6 million dollars) granted by the Argentine State to the Catholic Church to cover the salaries of the Curia, seminary studies and other “philanthropic” expenses. But the debate on abortion has shown that the inherent relationship between the State and Church goes beyond the financial, as it meddles in treatment of public policies, where individual (and religious) interests should not be determinants.
One could say, then, that the orange campaign arose from “the green tide” fighting for abortion rights. The orange campaign quickly became visible during the first debate in 2018 about the Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy Law, where it reacted to the strong pressure of the church during the debates and the voting as well as to speeches marked by religion that prevailed among those who opposed the law.
When it comes to separating the state from the church, we tend to think only of the Catholic Church. However, the campaign emphasizes “churches” (plural). The latest survey of religious beliefs in Argentina, carried out by CONICET, shows that the number of people professing Catholicism is decreasing, while the number of people practicing the evangelical religion, with much more conservative doctrines than the Catholic one, is increasing. This gives leaders and representatives in Latin America a greater push in political and social power: in 2019, they presented more than 200 candidates on the electoral lists for various positions.
The struggle for a secular Argentine state dates back to the beginning of the republic in the 1800s, followed by another struggle after 1950. This recent campaign began with a Facebook group created in 2018 by Taty Barranco, feminist militant and activist for human rights, diversity, and gender. The aim of the group was to bring together people who felt uncomfortable or aggrieved by the imposition of religious dogmas in public and private educational settings.
Coming from Salta, one of the most religious and conservative provinces in Argentina, Taty spoke to Infobae about the strong religious influence in their life:
Mi mamá creció en el campo, en un lugar muy conservador de Salta. Fue criada por una mujer muy religiosa, que siempre ejerció su violencia psicológica con un rosario en la mano. […] Quedó embarazada de mí a los 19 años, y la violencia por parte de esa mujer empeoró. ¿Por qué? Por el dogma religioso y moral que dice que si te quedas embarazada joven sos una prostituta.
My mother grew up in the countryside, in a very conservative place in Salta. She was raised by a very religious woman, who always exercised psychological violence on her with a rosary in her hand. […] She became pregnant with me at age 19, and the violence by that woman worsened. Why? Because of the religious and moral dogma that state that if you get pregnant young, you are a prostitute.
A post shared by Separación Estado/Iglesia CABA (@separacionestadoiglesia.caba)
In a few days, the Facebook group created by Barranco reached 40,000 members, which raised the need to organize and divide tasks. Together, and inspired by the green handkerchief, they came up with the design and color of the scarf. This is how the orange handkerchief was born.
Little by little, they created committees and regional movements to spread the activism and to make the campaign more nationally and geographically diverse. Its members are of all political, social, and even religious affinities, but with a common vision: that religious institutions and beliefs should be limited to individual life choices and be kept away from public affairs that affect the lives of citizens as a whole.
One of the focal points of the campaign is the apostasies — the formal renunciation of the link with the Catholic institution consecrated in the sacrament of baptism. It is an individual but very important symbolic action, and many people approach the campaign asking how to apostatize and stay to support the cause.
Another focal point is the Secular Public Space initiative, which registers and denounces the presence of religious monuments and symbols in non-religious public spaces, such as squares, parks, courts, hospitals, train and subway stations, offices, universities, and public schools.
Because it is a self-organized group, it still does not have legal status nor does it receive financial support from the state, from supporters, or from private individuals. The group consists of people who voluntarily contribute their time and knowledge and who organize themselves mostly through social networks.
They recently joined the coalition Argentine Secular Organizations (OLA), created in March 2021, hoping to join forces and ending the privileges of the religious institutions and their representatives by repealing all laws and decrees, including Article 2 of the National Constitution, which state that “the federal government supports the Roman Catholic Apostolic faith,” to eliminate pecuniary benefits paid out of the pocket of the State (that is, of its taxpayers).
At the moment, the orange campaign is focused on spreading activism, becoming known, attracting militants and support, building alliances, and informing and educating the public with varied material of high quality through their accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, hoping to grow and expand throughout Latin America, as the green tide did.
Although they have made significant progress this year, the system that they seek to change is still very solid, and it is so deeply embedded in the social and cultural matrix that, at times, it is invisible to many people. The aim of the group was first expressed by Barranco in an interview with the medium La Tinta:
Nos interesa viralizar información e instalar el debate, porque lo que no se ve, no existe.
We are interested in making the information viral and initiating the debate, because what is unseen, is unknown.

author: Romina Navarro