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As Syrian Government Trumpets Military Wins, Fear Continues to Grip Locals in Damascus · Global Voices
Julie Saleh

Photo of a regime military checkpoint. Used with permission.
Salma was scrolling through her Facebook newsfeed when an unverified piece of news struck her as bizarrely funny: Halloween celebrations have been banned in public places in Syria.
”Apparently they have taken pity on us. Our lives here are already a never-ending Halloween,” she tells Global Voices, smiling.
In a country gripped by a devastating conflict like the Syrian war, Halloween's flippant, playful quips contrast with serious, gruesome horrors that have become part of the Syrians’ macabre reality. Although the capital city Damascus has been spared the worst of fighting, different shades of fear diffuse the lives of the Damascenes.
Salma, 29, lives in a squalid neighborhood with a heavy military presence in southern Damascus. Armed, bearded men dressed in military outfit affiliated to the so-called National Defense Forces, a pro-government militia, man checkpoints.
”I have to run this gauntlet every day on my way to work and back home,” she says.
One might assume that after more than six years of military checkpoints, set up to tighten the Assad regime's grip on the capital since protests first flared up in 2011, locals would have reconciled themselves to their presence. The case is far from it, according to many, including Salma.
”They have made our lives difficult, causing delays and congestion. They are choking our city”:
I hate it when I have to return home after sunset. My pulse races under their fixed gaze. I feel ill at ease to say the least. Sometimes they are tipsy, laughing out loud and carousing.
‘They can do anything and get away with it. Who is there to protect us after all? There is a state of chaos and lawlessness everywhere. The state is busy coping with the consequences of war
Salma fumbles for the right words to describe how she feels. ”You feel naked, unarmed and powerless in the presence of this heavy-handed arrogant military prowess.”
Doaa, a university student at the Faculty of Dentistry, echoes her thoughts:
I have long stopped wearing makeup or revealing clothes, although I have always been a free girl, just to avoid getting myself into trouble.
Soft catcalling or flirtation in the street used to be a stroke to a woman's ego. But during war, you can only find men dressed in military outfit, usually armed, in the streets. It makes me jittery. They are arrogant about the power they have over the locals.
For military-aged men, checkpoints continue to be a constant source of horror.
The government has been using these checkpoints to conscript new soldiers to the Syrian forces, which are depleted from a protracted conflict. Fear of arrest and conscription has prompted many between the ages of 18-42 to flee the country in waves of undocumented immigration to countries next door and in the European Union.
Those who have stayed behind grapple with daily difficulties, pushing many to shut themselves in.
”My permit to postpone military service is about to expire. I am not going out unless on urgent errands,” says Hisham, who has a law degree from Damascus University:
They would search databases saved on their computers. If my name is found, I will be dispatched to one of the front lines.
Every time I passed one of these checkpoints was an outright nightmare. I would wait with bated breath for the military man to beckon to the driver to move on.
You can be arrested for evading military service, for having a similar name with a wanted man. Everything is possible.
Hisham relates the story of what happened to his friend: He was on his way to his own wedding party when he was stopped by a checkpoint and summoned to military service. The friend had to pay a hefty amount of money to postpone it for a few days.
This has made men thin on the ground. Women often joke that in the near future, they will not need to don a hijab, for there will be no men on the streets.
”Damascus is a testosterone-free city,” a pithy Facebook post reads.
Ruba, an English literature student, tells Global Voices that she ironically recalled an article she read lately listing the most romantic cities in the world when she passed by a military vehicle in her densely populated neighborhood.
”Damascus used to be called city of Jasmine, which symbolizes purity, romance and love. Now look at the situation on the ground. Everything smacks of war. Look at the people's weary faces.”
Fear extends to the use of social media. A pro-opposition activist based in Damascus who asked to be identified as Osama already goes by a fake name on Facebook to engage in solidarity campaigns with areas under government siege.
He says fears of arrest are now more pronounced than ever:
It was unthinkable when the revolution started seven years ago that today we will be fearful to express our thoughts on social media. Unfortunately it is happening.
Osama anticipated a wave of arrests and score-settling by the regime of President Bashar al-Assad against opponents, emboldened by a military superiority on the ground.
These accounts belie regime attempts to project an impression that life is back to normal following recent military wins, the latest of which was the recapture of al-Bukamal city in Deir Ezzor that sealed the fall of Isis in Syria. These attempts have included the holding the Damascus International Fair after a six-year hiatus, celebrating much-vaunted achievements of the Syrian football team which came close to qualifying for the World Cup, and the restoration of basic services, mainly electricity.
However, these so-called pessimistic perspectives receive pushback from those who see a clear improvement in the situation, as the regime has managed to claw back significant swathes of territory from opponents.
”There is a predominant sense of relief in Damascus compared to previous years,” says Salem, a government employee. ”Some checkpoints have been removed. Electricity is back 24 hours a day, the prices of some basic commodities have gone down. I believe that this is very promising.”
Others will find these wins too little and hollow.
”It is ridiculous to assume that war is over and the locals’ woes have come to an end just because some services are back and prices have slightly dropped. Rocket and mortar attacks continue on near daily basis. Just yesterday, there have been eight deaths,” Hisham says.
Rocket and mortar shells continue to hit the city, with a recent spike in the death toll after a brief lull that followed the establishment of de-escalation zones in the Damascus countryside, shattering a temporary sense of relief that prevailed in the Syrian capital. This came on the heels of a government offensive in eastern Ghouta, a rebel enclave under government siege near Damascus.
”The thunder of artillery and rockets hitting Ghouta echoes all across the city. Buildings here are literally shaking,” says Samar, who lives in Bab Sharqi neighborhood. ”We have not heard these sounds in a while.”
”Incoming or outgoing?” People ask in jest when they hear a sudden boom, wondering whether it is a rebel rocket hitting Damascus or the sound from the army's artillery pounding opposition-held areas.
Clearing this kind of ambiguity is part of what a Facebook page called Diaries of a Mortar Round in Damascus does.
The page, originally set up to track rebel rocket attacks on Damascus city, occasionally tells people in Damascus not to worry because the source of the noise is the Syrian military's shelling of opposition areas. Many in the comments express relief and urge the Syrian army to do more to eradicate ”terrorism” and restore security to Damascus.
But others criticize what they consider a chilling lack of sympathy for the tragedy unfolding in their close vicinity.
”Few mortar shells can disrupt life here. The sounds of artillery cause panic, especially among children. I find it impossible to imagine the horror visited on those on whose heads these rockets are falling,” says Manar, a teacher at an elementary school in old Damascus.
Asked if the Damascenes feel more safe after seven years of war as the regime touts new military wins, she says ”fear in Damascus ebbs and flows, but is always there. Many years will pass before the Syrians can feel safe and secure again.”

author: Julie Saleh


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After Authorities Evict Beijing’s ‘Low-End’ Residents, Chinese Ask: Where Is the Humanity? · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

The banner reads: “It is everyone's responsibility to clear out the low-end population. People like tiding up the environment.” Viral photo on social media.
A week after the deadly fire that killed 19 broke out in Daxing district, on the southern outskirts of Beijing, the city government launched a campaign against illicit buildings and cleared out thousands of migrant workers: the so-called “low-end population.”
The forced eviction of these people started a few years back. In 2014 in central Beijing, the Haidian district government shut down seven grassroots markets, forcing migrants to leave so that authorities could appropriate the space for “upper-end” commercial purposes.
Rural migrants who had been laboring in small workshops inside the city were forced to settle around the outskirts of the capital. Then came the fire.
And in recent days, just as these rural migrant workers were forced out of their dwellings into the streets, Beijing’s temperature fell to below 0 degrees Celsius at night.
Chinese netizens could not repress their anger and slammed the government on social media.
Ding Shenning, a high-profile personality on social media platform Weibo, criticized:
说真的，大红门拆我没意见，我也拥护政府把违建，把消防隐患消灭掉。但是政府执法能否更人性化一些？人家房东赶房客还给一个月呢。就不能给老百姓一个月时间过度，不管是变卖大件物品、还是找下个落脚处，还是离开北京回老家都好。我不能理解为什么要如此仓促、我更不能理解为什么要赶走这些所谓低端的人群？中国已经没有类似孟买这样的贫民窟了，不过就是在北京打工生存一个月赚三千人家就想付个三百元床位费而已。可能人家老家有重病的妈妈，或者要上学的弟弟。…不可否认我们大方向的确比资本主义国家走的好，但北京地方政府这一次行为我觉得是劣政的典范。…心中没有百姓、只有政绩。
Really, I am not against the tearing down of the Dahongmen [clothing wholesale market] and I support the government’s policy up cleaning up illicit buildings for fire prevention purposes. But can law enforcement be more humane? If a landlord has to end a rental contract, he has to give a month's notice. Why can’t you give them a grace period so that they can sell their furniture, find a place to settle or plan for travelling back home? I don’t understand why it has to be done in such a hurry. And I don’t understand why the so-called low-end population has to be kicked out of the city. China does not have the kind of ghettos like those in Mumbai. These people, they just want to work in Beijing earning 3,000 per month and paying 300 for a place to sleep. They probably have old grannies, sick mothers or school-age brothers and sisters to take care of back home…I would say our development path is better than the capitalist country but this time the local government in Beijing has exemplified bad policy. …you don’t see people in the policy.
In response to widespread criticism, the Beijing Chinese Communist Party committee stressed that local government does not have a policy of evicting the “low-end population,” calling it a rumor and emphasizing that the action was taken to prevent fires.
However, many netizens discovered the term in a number of government documents concerning city planning. Here is one source from Twitter:
低端人口的出处找到了，这可是政府的五年规划。 pic.twitter.com/NI0PI6KV15
— lalaba (@zhangmenglu1) November 26, 2017
I found a source of the term “low-end population,” it is in the district government’s five-year plan.
On Weibo, users also shared the government’s policy paper on “low end population” and blogger Ah Bao pointed out that the term violates a core socialist value:
当我在北京市某些区的政府官方文件和报道中看到“低端人口”这个词的时候，我感到了一种极度的震惊和恐惧。
“低端人口”这个极具歧视性和侮辱性的词，本不应该出现在任何政府文件中 […]因为，这个词汇，这个提法，和马列主义是完全对立的，是和我们党的宗旨、路线、方针完全对立的！
所谓的“低端人口”，其实无非就是一些外来普通劳动者，他们来到这个城市，含辛茹苦，胼手祗足，用自己的辛勤劳动，为这个城市服务，为这个城市添砖加瓦，为自己的家人谋求更好的生活。
When I read the term “low end population” from some district governments’ documents and media reports, I was shocked and frightened. Such discriminatory and insulting term should never be appeared in government documents… Such term and such suggestion is totally against Marxism and Leninism, it is totally against our party’s principle and value.
The so called “low end population” is referred to migrant workers. They come to this city, working very hard with little return to serve this city. They are the bricks of the city and all they want is to improve their family’s living condition.
Putting aside the controversy over naming of migrant workers, more than a hundred mainland Chinese intellectuals co-signed a letter demanding Beijing authorities to stop the forced evacuation:
2017年11月18日，北京市大兴区发生一起特大火灾，19死8伤，其中8名儿童遇难。北京有关部门不是反思检讨自己的责任，不是第一时间前往现场慰问灾民，反而以此为由，迅速下发通知，集中40天开展以主要是底层民众的“外来人口”为对象的所谓安全隐患大排查、大清理、大整治专项行动。通知下发后，大兴等地以迅雷不及掩耳之势，大规模强力驱赶所谓“外来人口”，导致成千上万底层民众一夜间流离失所，预计还有数十万底层民众将被清理出北京，前景堪忧。
我们认为，这是一起违法违宪及严重践踏人权的恶性事件，应予坚决制止和纠正
On 18 of November 2017, a great fire broke out in Daxing district of Beijing city causing 19 deaths and 8 injuries. Among the victims, 8 were children. Rather than paying visit to the victims of the disaster and reflecting on their own responsibilities, Beijing authorities launched a 40 days campaign targeting migrants’ settlement in the name of security and fire prevention. After the notice was delivered, the law enforcement officials forcibly evicted the migrants overnight. Thousands of grassroots lost their home and according to estimation, ten of thousands would soon be kicked out. We believe that such an action is against our constitution and human rights. It should be stopped and corrected.
The group of intellectuals also expressed hope that Beijing’s city planning should reserve space for the grassroots:
对北京定位予以纠偏。必须清楚，北京不只集中了北京的资源，而且集中了全国的资源；北京的今天，北京的发展，不仅是北京市民奋斗的结果，更离不开全国人民长期的牺牲和奉献。因此北京有义务感恩全国人民，回馈全国人民， 而不是忘恩负义，以傲慢、歧视和羞辱回报全国人民尤其底层民众。强力驱赶主要是底层民众的“外地人口”这种对自己同胞的歧视，比外族人的歧视更甚，不能让其延续。北京的定位、北京的发展战略必须考虑这一点，必须具有人性、包容性，为包括底层民众在内的“外地人口”留出空间。
Beijing must reorientate its position. It has to be clear that resources in Beijing comes from the whole country. Beijing’s development relies not only on Beijing’s residents. People from the whole country have made contribution. Beijing has the responsibility to contribute back to the country rather than treating others, especially the grassroots with such arrogant, discriminative and insulting manner. Forced eviction of grassroot migrants who are their own country fellow is more insulting than discrimination against other races. Such situation is should not continue. The future Beijing development should take this into account. It should be humane and inclusive. Some city space should be reserved for the grassroot migrants.
It is quite unlikely that the intellectual’s call would be realized. As pointed out by @gongminyaoyao on Twitter, the forced eviction of “low end population” is part of the project to ensure the capital’s political security:
北京清理低端人口，是一个大计划下的小计划，长期实施但落实得不好，借火灾发力。最终的北京，可以推测是以户籍，就业机会和准入为门槛的超级紫禁城，地理上保证政治安全。
— 姚遥 (@gongminyaoyao) November 26, 2017
The cleaning up of low end population is a small project under a big project. It has been put forward many years back but has not been fully implemented. This time they made use of the fire to launch the campaign. Eventually Beijing will be turned into a forbidden city using household registration and [high end] occupation as barrier. The geopolitics is to ensure the capital’s security.
And @rongjian1957, an experienced media worker, commented on a eviction photo and said that the incident symbolized the beginning of a new era:
这张照片，应该可以获普利策大奖吧？它象征着中国新时代的开端？北京强行驱逐“低端人口”的行动，据官媒说，受到了北京市民100%的欢迎，如果确实如此，照片记录的这个准战争的场面何会出现？五年前我说了，中国未来不是能不能争取最好的可能性，而是能不能避免最坏的可能性。照片或许已经给出答案。 pic.twitter.com/lKhFXlWS95
— 荣剑 (@rongjian1957) November 26, 2017
This photo probably deserves the Pulitzer Prize? It symbolized the beginning of China’s new era? Beijing’s forced eviction of low end population, according to official media outlets, is supported and welcomed by 100% Beijing citizens. If that’s really the case, why the photo records this warzone-like scene? I said five years ago, the future of China is not about getting the best outcome, but preventing the worst outcome. The answer is reflected in this photo.
Instead of waiting for the mercy of the authorities, volunteer groups tried to help the victims of eviction by connecting them to temporary free shelters. @xiucai1911 commented on volunteers’ effort:
以前在水灾赈灾晚会上，我经常听到一句话叫“水火无情人有情”；现在大兴火灾，北京官府在寒冬驱逐所谓低端人口，使之流离失所，各民间志愿者纷纷伸出援手，提供免费住所，我想到一句话“官府无情民有情”
— 秀才江湖 (@xiucai1911) November 26, 2017
I've heard of a saying that “water and fire are cruel, but people have hearts” in fundraising event for disaster. Now that Beijing's authorities evicted the so called low end population in cold winter. They lost their home. Volunteer groups are reaching out to help by providing free shelters. The saying should be “the authorities are cruel, but people have hearts”.
Satirical political news outlet @ComYouthLeague on Twitter mocked at China’s nationalism with an imaginary plot of patriotic movie “Wolf Warrior III”:
【战狼3剧情】某国首都突然指责中国劳工为低端人口，中国劳工住所被砸，一片狼藉，面临被强制驱逐出境，冬夜无处藏身，根本无法保护自己。“犯我中华者，虽远必诛”，中国精锐老虎团退役军人冷锋只身赴险，一举将传谣造谣者擒获，捣毁给中国劳工提供庇护的组织，国歌响起，国旗飘扬??！ pic.twitter.com/rt7re3EVfD
— 共青团流亡中央 (@ComYouthLeague) November 26, 2017
[Words on photo: You insult the word patriot.]
Some country’s capital labelled Chinese workers as low end population and tore down their accommodation. The scene was very chaotic as the workers faced forced expulsion from the country. It was winter time and they had nowhere to stay in the cold winter night. They could not even protect their own personal safety. “Whoever offends China would be extinguished”, China’s veteran soldier Leng Fung went to the spot alone, arrested the rumor monger and destroyed the office of the organizations which provided shelters for the Chinese workers. [People were surrounded by] Chinese national flags and the music of anthem.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Oiwan Lam


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Contrary to Social Media Claims, Serbia’s President Has Not Named a Street After War Criminal Ratko Mladić · Global Voices
Marko Angelov

Screenshot from a news item about 2007 event in support of Ratko Mladić, involving current Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, 10 years before he assumed office. In the photo, he is gluing a poster reading ‘Ratko Mladić Boulevard.’
Ten-year-old photos had been used to mislead social media users into believing that Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić has named a street after convicted war criminal Ratko Mladić.
After a United Nations tribunal sentenced former Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladić to life in prison for genocide in the 1990s Bosnian war, some Balkan social media users started reminding the world about his links with the current Serbian political establishment — and spreading misleading information.
One such meme falsely claims the current president has recently named a street “Ratko Mladić Boulevard” and utilizes photos showing Vučić posting a street sign with the name. The following tweet is a typical example:
Ratko Mladic was just sentencted to life imprisonment for genocide and crimes against humanity.
The sitting President of “European” Serbia named a street after Mladic. pic.twitter.com/xoLse5HwCG
— Admirim (@admirim) November 22, 2017
The photos are not photoshopped, but are presented out of context, making the overall claim false. The “street sign” is not a metal plaque, but a poster glued with sellotape. In reality, no street had been named after the notorious Mladić.
On 26 May 2007, Vučić, as general secretary of the far-right, ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS), took part in a protest against renaming a Belgrade street after the slain Serbian liberal Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić, who was assassinated in 2003 after starting a cooperation with the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). This cooperation lead to extradition of former President Slobodan Milošević, the main sponsor of Ratko Mladić.
At the protest, Serbian nationalists confronted liberals who supported the new name. The nationalists carried banners and posters in support of Mladić, who was a fugitive from justice at the time.
As member of the SRS, Vučić served as Milošević regime's minister of information from 1998 to 2000. In 2008 after its pro-European Union wing split from the Radical Party and formed the Serbian Progressive Party, Vučić joined them.
In 2014, after Vučić become prime minister, the Serbian fact-checking site Truth-o-meter presented the following archived footage from 2007 event as part of their efforts to advance the public record.
While in power, Vučić has toned down any nationalist rhetoric, trying to build himself an image of a pro-European politician who mends fences with the neighbors. In 2015, he paid two visits to the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, the site of genocidal massacre perpetrated in 1995 by Bosnian Serb forces commanded by Mladić. While paying respect to the victims and condemning the act “a terrible crime,” Vučić has also maintained an official line that refuses to allow use of the word genocide in relation to Srebrenica, in spite ICTY judgments.
His statement after the ICTY verdict on Mladić didn't express open support for the war criminal. While asserting that no one but the Serbs cares about the Serb victims of the 1990s wars, he stated that instead of delving in the past “we have to go to the future and think where our children will live… We must not choke ourselves on the tears of the past, but soak ourselves in the sweat of efforts for creating a common future.”
The footage and photos from the 2007 protest are now used by various critics to haunt Vučić about his alleged hypocrisy, from at least two sides. The opponents of Serbian nationalism use them to present him as closeted radical, while some of the more extreme Serbian nationalists criticize his attitude, considering it too meek.

author: Marko Angelov


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#DemocracyDefeated: How Indian Right-Wing Groups Stalled A Bollywood Period Drama · Global Voices
Vishal Yashoda Manve

Digital art of Bollywood actress Deepika Padukone, the lead actor of the movie ‘Padmavati‘, who has a US$772,500 bounty on her head by a right wing politician. Image by Raheel via Pixabay. CC0 Creative Commons.
India's culture wars and vandalization from right-wing groups have wreaked havoc one of Bollywood's most awaited movies, ‘Padmavati‘, by Indian filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali. This movie is estimated to be worth 1.9 billion Indian Rupees (29.3 million US$) and the producers of the historical saga have been forced to defer the release date owing to threats of physical assault, and an alleged bounty placed by a member of the country's Hindu nationalist ruling party seeking to behead the lead actress Deepika Padukone.
Suraj Pal Amu, a member of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — the same party Prime Minister Narendra Modi belongs to —  put a $1.5 million bounty on Deepika Padukone's head, asking followers to behead her and the movie's director Sanjay Leela Bhansali.
Other threats included chopping off Padukone's nose, burning her alive and beating up other actors in the movie. All the anger and protests are based on rumors which state the movie may show a relationship between a Hindu queen Padmavati and a Muslim ruler Allaudin Khilji, a rumor which has already been quashed by the film's production units and Padukone herself.
The chief Minister of the Indian state of Karnataka tweeted:
I condemn the culture of intolerance & hate perpetuated by @BJP4India .
Karnataka stands with @deepikapadukone .She is a globally renowned artist from our state.
I call upon the CM of Haryana @mlkhattar to take strict action against those holding out threats against her. https://t.co/d8rahml5MZ
— Siddaramaiah (@siddaramaiah) November 20, 2017
Actress Deepika Padukone, who is at the centre of this row over “Padmavati”, has pulled out of the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES), an event whose inauguration on 28 Novermber will have US President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in attendance.
Who is Padmavati?
According to common belief and widely-accepted history, Padmavati was a character in the poem called Padmavat by Malik Muhammad Jayasi. Padmavati was a Rajput queen of Chittorgarh (which is currently situated in the state of Rajasthan, in the west of India). The queen was thought to have been beautiful and the Sultan of Delhi, Alauddin Khalji had requested a meeting with her where she simply showed her reflection through mirrors. The king of Chittorgarh, Raja Ratan Singh later fought a battle with the Sultan and lost, after which Padmavati immolated herself.
Poster of the movie Padmavati. Image via Wikipedia.
The current objection to the film is taken by Shri Rajput Karni Sena, a Rajput caste group at the forefront of those who condemn the content of the movie. Their argument against the film is that Padmavati, who was considered to be a Rajput queen, would be portrayed in a bad light and that would mean deferring from the historical account of her description. Additionally, this would distort the culture and religious practices and could possibly indicate a romantic relationship between the Rajput queen and Sultan Alauddin Khalji. Ironically, after the release of the trailer of the movie, only the Rajput and the Hindu have taken to the streets to contest the release of the movie while the Rajputs in the movie have been shown as regal and royal, and Sultan Alauddin Khalji has been portrayed as somewhat barbaric in nature. If the extreme criticism is to be believed, then it should be a reflection on the overall content of the period drama and not just certain aspects of it.
Suraj Pal Amu, the BJP leader who was responsible for the alleged bounty, mentioned in an interview with Indian Express that his ancestors hail from the state of Rajasthan and that he is not ready to compromise on Rajput pride.
The movie was due to open on December 1 but its producers postponed the release. Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan states, all ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP, banned it outright which was followed by protests and street revolts in the northern state of Haryana by Shri Rajput Karni Sena to get the movie banned there too. The filmmakers have provided tight security for Deepika Padukone and Sanjay Leela Bhansali, owing to concerns over these threats.
The issue and the divide in the political parties and the demand for the movie to be banned are somewhat reflective of the voters’ bank in the state of Gujarat and appeasing them, as the State elections lie just ahead of the release of the film.
The Government of Gujarat will not allow #Padmavati – a movie hurting sentiments of Rajputs – to get released in the State. We can’t allow our history to be distorted. We believe in freedom of speech & expression but any foul play with our great culture is not tolerated.
— Vijay Rupani (@vijayrupanibjp) November 22, 2017
Raja Sen writes in NDTV:
How else can we explain this baffling situation? A film has been made about a Queen we know through an epic poem. She is, in all likelihood, entirely imaginary, yet a film that shows Freedom of expression by the artists her dancing has angered some hate groups who demand that the film be banned and those who made it be harmed. This makes no sense. Dancing is what all of Sanjay Leela Bhansali's heroines do, regardless of historical appropriateness and context, and his operatic circus-ry has been hugely successful with audiences of late. Now, however, he has ‘hurt the sentiments’ of some idiots who unforgivably assaulted him on his set and have now, sadly, imperiled his massive December release.
The issue has gone past a mere debate of freedom of expression by the filmmaker and the artists involved and now has a larger applicability since the Indian filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali has faced additional criticism for his earlier movies, one of which was also a period drama. The Bollywood fraternity and friends in Hollywood openly supported the filmmaker and actors of the movie.
I am in shock at reading what my dear friend is going through but in absolute awe of her strength and courage. Deepika you are one of the strongest women I know. https://t.co/wrEaO9WZA0
— Ruby Rose (@RubyRose) November 18, 2017
On 20th, Hindi cinema’s finest will gather for the @IFFIGoa inauguration. I hope someone has the courage to bring up #Padmavati. After all, what is the point of celebrating cinema at festivals if our artists can be threatened and bullied with such impunity?
— Anupama Chopra (@anupamachopra) November 18, 2017
Cartoonist Sandeep Adhwaryu tweets:
#cartoon @timesofindia #Padmavati pic.twitter.com/7ROXtmPFjd
— Sandeep Adhwaryu (@CartoonistSan) November 21, 2017
Many condemned the protests and pointed out that there were much deeper and larger issues to be highlighted. This criticism was thrown on the religious groups, political parties and the media involved in the reporting.
I truly cannot fathom how #Padmavati and the role of a queen have enraged people to such an extent as if female feticide, massive amounts of rape and child marriage are lesser issues. Take a step back from your traditions and castes and look in the mirror.
— Lilly Singh (@IISuperwomanII) November 24, 2017
How #Padmavati row helped BJP to divert people's attention from these issues….
● Rafale deal scam
● Winter Session
● CBI Judge murder
● BJP's u-turn on Separatists
● EVM fraud in UP civic polls
● Hafiz Syeed release
● Pollution
● Attack on Muslim clerics
— Salman Nizami (@SalmanNizami_) November 24, 2017
However, many filmmakers and actors find themselves at the centre of protests and are subject to threats which have increased, not only with Bollywood movies but also Marathi movies and international movies facing similar criticism, most being rejected or removed from the screening list of International Film Festival of India (IFFI). The Padmavati issue not only highlights freedom of expression, but also extreme pressure from certain sects of society and how religion, caste and emotions are considered to be brownie points by political parties even in a secular country like India.

author: Vishal Yashoda Manve


text:
‘The Blind Captain’ Aims to Kayak Solo Across the Bosphorus With the Help of New Technology · Global Voices
PRI/PRX's The World

Ahmet Ustunel, who is blind, paddles his kayak solo on San Francisco’s Lake Merced. His goal is to kayak across the Bosphorus Strait in Turkey, his home country.
Credit: Adam Grossberg/KQED
This story by Laura Klivans originally appeared on PRI.org on November 7, 2017. It is republished here as part of a partnership between PRI and Global Voices.
Ahmet Ustunel remembers his daily commute to high school well. He'd wake up at home, on the Asian side of Istanbul, Turkey, a city that straddles two continents. Then he would take a ferry across the Bosphorus Strait to the European side of the city.
After boarding the ferry, Ustunel liked to buy tea and sesame bread, and take it outside on the deck. He’d stand at the railing, feeling the spray of the water on his face and listening for nearby boats. Ustunel has been blind since he was three years old when he lost his sight because of eye cancer — but that never kept him away from the water. He spent afternoons fishing with his father and summers swimming in the Black Sea, where his grandmother had a house.
“And I used to think one day, this strait, Bosphorus, should be more accessible to blind swimmers, blind surfers or sailors,” Ustunel said. “People should be able to see blind people using boats.”
For the last 11 years, Ustunel has lived in the United States, and he's finally making good on that high school aspiration. He plans to return to his homeland next summer to kayak solo across the Bosphorus Strait.
Now, he’s 37 and still loves being on the water. But instead of going out in another person's boat, Ustunel wants to go out on his own.
Ustunel first became inspired to captain his own boat in high school, while studying Greek mythology. Ustunel remembers one myth about a blind navigator.
“There was this blind king called Phineus, and he used to live on the north side of the Bosphorus,” he recalled. “His mission was guiding sailors in the dark safely to the Black Sea from the Mediterranean.”
Phineus, although mythical, became a role model.
When he was in college, Ustunel met an American woman whom he eventually married. After moving to the US so the couple could be together, they decided to leave his wife's Midwestern hometown and settle in San Francisco, in part because of Ustunel's love of the ocean.
The pair started kayaking in a two-person boat, and his wife would steer. Sometimes, Ustunel would kayak solo, but he'd go along with a group and ask a sighted friend to wear bells so Ustunel could hear and follow as they paddled across the water. But his desire to kayak independently persisted.
Earlier this year, he saw an opportunity that could make this possible: A nonprofit launched a new award to fund blind and visually impaired people undertaking adventures. The Holman Prize for Blind Ambition offers grants of up to $25,000 to accomplish a bold project.
The organization behind the prize, LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired, received over 200 applications from 27 countries. They finally whittled down the winners to three individuals. In addition to Ustunel, the other prize recipients were a Ugandan beekeeper hoping to expand job opportunities for other visually impaired people, and a British baker hoping to travel with her prize money and connect people across cultures through food.
LightHouse has been able to fund these creative projects after receiving an unexpected gift of $125 million from a Seattle businessman upon his death.
For Ustunel, the money will help him buy the right kind of kayak and the instruments he will use to navigate. He's documenting his training process on his website, where he calls himself “The Blind Captain.”
So, how do you kayak if you can't see?
Ustunel says the first thing is to use your other senses, which can convey lots of information. When he nears the shore, Ustunel smells plants or flowers. If it's rained recently, the land produces an earthy scent from the soil, called petrichor. If Ustunel is out on the open water, he will sometimes sense a smell similar to watermelon. He thinks this might be a kind of seaweed scent.
Ustunel also uses his ears to locate people, construction or cars. These sounds mean he's close to shore. When he's out farther in the water, he mostly just hears birds.
But to cross the Bosphorus, Ustunel will need more than just his senses. His journey will be just over 3 miles, but the strait is one of the busiest shipping channels in the world. The waters are dangerously crowded with huge freighters and tankers, alongside small ferries and fishing boats — and the currents are strong.
So Ustunel will need gadgets that can tell him exactly where he is and what’s around him.
Ahmet Ustunel sets up his kayak.
To prepare, Ustunel is training in a variety of waterways around Northern California, including Tomales Bay, San Francisco Bay and Lake Merritt in Oakland. And he's testing new technology every time he goes out.
On a recent Tuesday, he launched on the calm waters of San Francisco's tiny Lake Merced. He got there by taking a public city bus for people with disabilities. Once at the lake, he rolled his suitcase to the end of the dock and popped it open. Inside he had a black-and-yellow kayak, neatly folded up.
After inflating the boat, Ustunel took his white-and-red cane and stuck it on the back, like a flagpole. This cane is a symbol, he said.
“I’m a blind guy kayaking, raising awareness,” Ustunel said.
With his red life jacket zipped up, he climbed into his boat and pushed off.
On the other side of the lake, there was a loud road, which Ustunel used as a landmark, steering toward the sound.
Then he pulled out his smartphone. Like all his devices, he has it set to play at double speed for maximum efficiency. In a fast, robotic tone, the GPS device on his phone told him his coordinates, and Ustunel decided to head south.
In addition to the GPS on his phone, Ustunel placed another on the back of his kayak, just behind his seat. He refers to that one as “Mr. Beep.” It beeped slowly and steadily when Ustunel was correctly following a pre-programmed route, and quickly to alert him if he drifted.
Ustunel's kayak is powered by foot pedals, which allow him to keep his hands free.
On the water, he also tested a sonar used by fishers to find fish. Ustunel instead used this to scan the water in front of him for objects or debris.
And when he wanted even more information, Ustunel opened an app on his phone called “Be My Eyes.” It connected him to a sighted person, a volunteer who could be anywhere in the world, who could look through the camera on his phone and see for him.
This particular volunteer was in Texas.
“Hello?” a female voice said.
“Hi,” responded Ustunel. “I am on a kayak on a lake and I want to know what’s around me. I hear a street on my right. Can you see the street?”
The tools Ustunel uses are prototypes. He is providing feedback to engineers who will tweak the devices so that other people who are blind can use them, too.
Ustunel is not a stranger to helping other blind and visually impaired people access opportunities. This is what he does in his day job as a teacher of visually impaired students in San Francisco public schools.
On a recent school day, he met privately with Ethan, a 15-year-old whom Ustunel was helping write a letter to the city about an intersection that's not accessible for blind people. Together Ustunel and his student went over a draft of the letter. A computer program read it out loud. The pair made tweaks and spellchecked the document. Then, they agreed, it was ready to send.
In part, Ustunel says he teaches because when he was young, he had trouble finding role models. He took whatever he could get — even mythological Greek kings.
Now times have changed, and it’s much easier to find blind heroes because they’re walking around us every day. Or maybe they're kayaking on a nearby lake. Just look for the white-tipped cane jutting out the back.

author: PRI/PRX's The World


text:
Scrutiny and Doubt Over Rape Victim’s Testimony Sparks Outrage in Spain · Global Voices
Lourdes Sada

Texts in the signs left to right: “I believe you, sister”; “I believe you”; “Murderous patriarchy; media accomplice.” A group in Madrid supports the victim of an alleged rape. Photo from eldiario.es / MB. CC-BY-SA
November 13 marked the start of the court case against the so-called La Manada (the pack), a group of five young men from Seville, Spain accused of raping an 18-year-old woman over a year ago during the popular San Fermin Festival in Pamplona on the night of July 7, 2016.
The judge's decisions have sparked outrage and accusations of sexist bias, casting doubt on the victim's account and subjecting to her to a trial by public opinion.
On the night in question, the accused group insisted on accompanying the young woman back home after the celebrations. At a certain point, they took her into the hallway of a building where four of them raped her while the other filmed it with the intention of sending the video to friends. The accused also took the victim's mobile phone “so that she couldn't get help,” according to reports.
A couple found the woman in a state of shock and called the police. A few hours later, the five young men were detained and brought to court. The judge ruled that they would be held without bail.
In the days that followed, more details emerged. Calling themselves “La Manada,” the group discussed their deeds with profanities in a joking tone with friends who had not attended the festival. Boastful messages like “banging one between five of us” and “there's video,” were exchanged among the group including a member of the police force and a member of the military.
The alleged attackers used the same messaging service to discuss preparations for their Pamplona trip, making date rape jokes like “shall we bring scopolomine?” and “we need to start looking for chloroform, roofies, rope…”
In court, the judge would not admit the Whatsapp messages exchanged prior to the alleged rape as evidence for the prosecution. However, the defense hired a private detective to track the victim's social media usage after the alleged attack and the judge allowed this admission as evidence in the case.
On her program Cadena Ser, Journalist Carles Francino asks:
¿Qué se intentaría exactamente demostrar con ese seguimiento a posteriori de la chica, de la mujer? ¿Por qué interesa tanto cómo es su vida, su día a día? ¿Acaso existe algún patrón de conducta para las mujeres violadas que sirva como una especie de certificado de la agresión? (…) Lo que queda meridiana y lamentablemente claro es que dudar de la palabra de una mujer que dice haber sido agredida sigue funcionando (…)
What exactly are they trying to show from following the movements of this girl, this woman? Why are they so interested in her life, her day to day? Perhaps there's some kind of pattern of behavior for women who have been raped which serves as some kind of validation of the attack? What remains sadly and abundantly clear is that doubting the word of a woman who says she has been raped is still going on (…)
Writer Almudena Grandes also expressed unease about the case:
Se podría pensar que admitir como prueba el informe de un detective sobre la vida cotidiana de la víctima de una violación sería parecido a aceptar, en un caso de asesinato, un testimonio que probara que el muerto era un malvado que merecía morir, para que la defensa solicite que se considere como atenuante. (…) lo que pretende culpabilizar a la víctima de La Manada, sembrar dudas sobre su condición moral, es que se atreviera a salir a la calle, a tomar copas con sus amigas, después de haber sido violada, en lugar de quedarse en su casa con todas las persianas bajadas y la cabeza cubierta de ceniza.
It could be assumed that admitting evidence of a detective's report on the daily life of a rape victim is the same as accepting, in a murder case, a testimony that prooves that the deceased was a wrongdoer who deserved to die, in order that the defense can claim extenuating circumstances.. (…) which aim to blame the victim of La Manada, raising doubts about her moral condition, that she dared to go out, to have a drink with her friends after being raped, instead of staying at home with the blinds down, wearing sackcloth and ashes.
Writer and journalist Antonio Pamliega, who was kidnapped at the hands of Al-Qaeda, wrote a thread on Twitter defending the victim, empathizing with the doubt and blame he faced for his own kidnapping:
Que Twitter es un bar donde los parroquianos pueden escupir cualquier tipo de exabrupto es algo q ya sabía. Pero estos días se están alcanzando límites peligrosos como poner en duda la declaración d víctima de violación por tratar de rehacer su vida. Así que quiero compartir algo:
— Antonio Pampliega (@APampliega) 15 de noviembre de 2017
That Twitter is a bar where patrons can spit out all kinds of harsh remarks is something that I knew already. But recently dangerous limits are being reached like putting into doubt the testimony of a rape victim because of trying to rebuild her life. So I want to share something:
— Antonio Pampliega (@APampliega) 15 November 2017
This case has caused great controversy online about the importance of believing a victim's testimony to prevent the silencing and stigmatization of rape victims. Internet users activated widely-used hashtags like #Lamanada and #JusticiaPatriarcal to express strong opinions:
No contentos con violarnos,los hombres han de decirnos como comportarnos antes, durante y después de la violacion
Si no es mucho pedir, pónganse de acuerdo y hagan un manual de la violacion,para que seamos buenas chicas y no os llevemos a engaño
Asco de mundo #JusticiaPatriarcal
— Suspiritos (@AgrariaLola) 15 de noviembre de 2017
Not content with raping us, men also have to tell us how to behave before, during and after the rape. If it's not too much to ask, find an agreement and put together a rape manual so that we're good girls and don't disgust the world #JusticiaPatriarcal
— Suspiritos (@AgrariaLola) 15 November 2017
Los de #LaManada pidiendo que no se difundan sus datos y la gente no hace otra cosa. Debe ser duro que decir que No y que, sin embargo, los demás no te respeten.
— Teo de la Fuente (@Maestre_Temple) 14 de noviembre de 2017
To those of #LaManada asking that their information isn't leaked and people not listening. It must be hard to be saying No and not have people respecting that
— Teo de la Fuente (@Maestre_Temple) 14 November 2017
La presunción de inocencia: anuncias a tus amiguetes que te vas a San Fermines hasta arriba de “roinoles” para las violaciones, “te follas a una entre cinco” que “igual estaba en coma”, lo grabas y envías y luego le robas el móvil. Sexo consentido lo llaman. #JusticiaPatriarcal
— Coronela (@coronela_defog) 15 de noviembre de 2017
Presumed innocent: messages to your buddies that you are going to San Fermin loaded with roofies for rape, “banging one between five” that “as she was in a coma,” you film it and send it and later you take her mobile. Consensual sex they call it. #JusticiaPatriarcal
— Coronela (@coronela_defog) 15 November 2017
El grupo de #LaManada de whatsapp es uno de estos grupos tan graciosos de tios donde se habla “en broma” de mujeres como muñecas hinchables, de violaciones de bromi,con fotos de culos y tetas.
Seguramente muchos estéis en grupos así.No os jode tener algo común con estos señores?
— Nixarim a.k.a Deed (@Nixarim) 15 de noviembre de 2017
The Whatsapp group #LaManada is one of those funny groups for guys where they talk ‘in jest’ about women as if they are inflatable dolls, jokes about rape, with photos of bums and tits. Surely many of you are in groups like this? Don't you hate having something in common with those guys?
— Nixarim a.k.a Deed (@Nixarim) 15 November 2017
False sexual assault accusations are relatively rare yet the defense's strategy has convinced some people that the woman may have falsely accused the group.
This is how RPMallorqui puts it on Twitter:
#LaManada son el diablo y la chica una santa, cuantas veces nos hemos tragado el mismo cuento? Cuan estupido e ignorante puede ser el populacho aborregado pensando que es imposible que sea a la inversa? Para eso existen los jueces y las sentencias,veremos…?
— RPMallorqui (@rpmallorqui) 14 de noviembre de 2017
#LaManada are the devils and the girl is a saint, how many times have we heard this story? How stupid and ignorant are the general sheep-like masses who think it's impossible that it could be the opposite? This is why we have judges and sentences, we will see…
— RPMallorqui (@rpmallorqui) 14 November 2017
Thousands of protesters marched in a number of Spanish cities under the slogan “Yo sí te creo” (I do believe you), to support the alleged rape victim in this case and stress the need to validate rape victims’ testimonies.
However, this fight seems to have a long road ahead, according to derogatory comments like “LeGuillotin's” under the report made by eldiario.es:
Es una manada sí, pero de becerras, asnas y garrapatas demagogas que se creen que por gritar lo que les salga del chirri están por encima del derecho a la presunción de inocencia. Lo que no dicen es que la tunanta de Pamplona se lió a gusto con la otra “manada” hasta que vió la luz divina y dijo que había sido violada.
Por cierto, ni una guapa.., como es norma entre las chillonas lesbohembristas, entre todas esas del video. Como decía un chiste…no hay prisión que admita tanta fealdad
It is indeed a pack of animals, but rather a herd of calves, donkeys, or a swarm of demagogical mites that think that by making lots of noise they are above the law and the presumption of innocence. What they don't say is that the hussy of Pamplona got with the other “manada” quite happily until she saw the divine light and said that she had been raped. Indeed, not a pretty girl…, which is standard among the shrill men-hating lesbians like on the video. As the Spanish saying goes, there's no prison which could hold such ugliness.

author: Lourdes Sada


text:
This Brazilian Doctor Says Science Has Evolved, but Stigma Against HIV Remains · Global Voices
Isabela Carvalho

For the activist public health doctor Carué Contreiras, campaigns need to go beyond prevention and target clarification. Photo: Sham Hardy/Flickr, CC-BY-SA 2.0)
From a scientific perspective, the response to the AIDS epidemic can be considered a success. In just over 35 years, the infection went from a global plague to a tractable disease.
New drugs, with less side effects and better performance, have allowed people with the HIV virus to live with virtually no symptoms of AIDS. When the infection is under control — or the patient has “undetectable levels” of the virus, in medical jargon — it is not transmitted by sexual contact. The average life expectancy of a person with HIV is now similar to those without it.
However, people living with HIV and AIDS (often shorted to PLWHA) still face social stigma, which limits their rights, prevents them from finding peers and defending themselves publicly and collectively. Stigma leads to silencing and isolation, which, in turn, contribute to illness and death. The People Living with HIV Stigma Index, research that is sponsored by the United Nations AIDS program and conducted in several countries, shows that 20% of PLWHA have experienced suicidal thoughts in the past year.
Brazilian public health doctor and activist Carué Contreiras, a member of the National Network of People Living with HIV / AIDS (RNP +), is one of the professionals working at the intersection of science and human rights. “Science has evolved, but the negative attitude toward us, PLWHA, has not changed. This is an attitude that, in an exercise in strategic essentialism, could be called serophobia,” he told Global Voices by email.
Carué Contreiras, Photo: personal archive, published with permission.
There were more than 36 million people in the world living with the HIV virus by the end of 2016, according to the World Health Organization. It is estimated that 0.8% of adults between ages of 15 and 49 are carriers of the virus, but their geographical distribution is extremely unequal — in Southern Africa, the proportion of people in this age group with HIV is of 4.2%, while in the Americas it is 0.4%, a rate below the world average.
Brazil was the first country in the world to provide anti-HIV drugs for free through its public health system. The number of new infections has been stable since the late 1990s, and, for the first time, more than half of those living with HIV are in treatment.
But this achievement overlooks the prejudices still faced by PLWHA in Brazil. “PLWHA's voices are especially neglected by the media, which often portrays them as victims, or as an example not to be followed, under the auspices of promoting prevention.”
Check out the full interview below.
Why are discussions about HIV still so marginalized, despite the progress of available treatments?
The first layer of prejudice, the fear of transmission by casual contact, is relatively simple to deconstruct. But, at a deeper level, serophobia derives from other sexual oppression, and attributes to us moral failure or personality drift. The various expressions of serophobia are complex and interact with other prejudices against marginalized groups — like misogyny, sexism, racism, transphobia and others, depending on the place. In regions where the disease and death from AIDS are still frequent, those images actively inform serophobia.
Most high-profile campaigns, from both NGOs and governments, tend to focus on prevention, but some activists argue that the fight against AIDS must also be pursued through other means. Could you talk about this?
Campaigns about health education often lapse because they restrict the message to prevention only and end up ignoring the actual person living with HIV. Of course, access to prevention is important for people to build autonomy in their own sexuality. However, in the case of HIV, there is always an other side, an “other”, which is the PLWHA. Unlike the person with gonorrhoea, having HIV is a lifelong identity that is related to the loss of rights.
An educational discourse that is confined to “how to protect yourself” – and gives PLWHA the role of vector – will only reinforce alterity and serophobia. In contrast, a message that starts with a consistent problematization of serophobia and is neutral with respect to serological status may help to dissolve the silence. Silence neuroticizes subjectivities even among negatives [people without HIV], thereby causing paranoia and denial, which interfere both in coexistence and affection, as well as in the ability to prevent HIV transmission itself.
What is the role of media in those circumstances?
Media representation tends to polarize between excitement by scientific achievement and a fatalistic and victimising gaze of individuals or deeply afflicted countries. Medical science is undoubtedly the most visible and exciting aspect of HIV — note that there is rarely a physician's statement missing from a news story. Unlike malaria and other diseases common in developing countries, there is significant funding for research on HIV treatment and prevention, which brings about potentially life-changing services.
However, the social aspects, which are related to human rights, are less visible. But they help explain why scientific achievements do not reach everyone. PLWHA's voices are especially neglected by the media, which often portrays them as victims, or examples not to be followed, under the auspices of promoting prevention. But this kind of advocacy ends up reinforcing serophobia.
“High-risk groups” were a buzzword in the early days of AIDS. These days, public health professionals prefer the term “key affected populations.” Why is that change important?
The evolution of the categories used to explain why some groups are more affected than others reflects the advancement of the understanding of HIV from a rights perspective.
‘High-risk groups’, which comes from a time when LGBT people had no rights at all, sees HIV as a natural consequence of deviant behavior, intrinsic to certain groups — thus justifying marginalization. Therefore, restricting the rights of ‘risk groups’ was necessary for the well-being of general society.
Then came the term ‘high-risk behavior’, which correctly conveys a risk of infection for the entire population, but still exaggerates individual responsibility. The term reinforces the notion that people who have become PLWHA are those who already had a deviant profile. It is still serophobic because it generalizes a profile for PLWHA and ignores, for example, external elements such as prejudice and isolation. In addition, the term exempted governments from certain responsibilities.
A major contribution to the social theory of HIV was the next category, ‘vulnerability’ or ‘vulnerable populations’, which focused on the context in which a person lives, and on how violations of rights, power imbalance and access to services can affect the ability of a person to control risk.
The term ‘key affected populations’ is recent and maintains the interpretation of ‘vulnerable populations’, but adds the need for meaningful involvement of social movements in AIDS-response decisions.
Is there already a consensus on the use of these categories?
No. These categories reflect political positions, so, unfortunately, we have not yet outgrown the old interpretations, which are still present in current discourses about HIV, depending on the interlocutor.
One example is the different interpretations of the spike in new infections among young people in Brazil – a generalization that conceals the fact that most of them are LGBT. The media cliché, which has become common sense, is that their “irresponsible” behaviour may stem from the fact that “they did not see their idols die.” The burden lies on the individual, resting in the belief that it all depends on the young person's choice, so one can conclude that the category actually used here is ‘high-risk behavior.’
However, an analysis from the vulnerability point of view may reveal the fact that the battle for LGBT adolescents’, and all young people's, rights to sexuality still occurs on the margins of society, since it was not followed by effective public policies and educational campaigns.
Another example is that most authorities in the world today use the term ‘key affected populations’, but few demonstrate understanding of the importance of civil society's participation. Therefore the term is emptied of practical meaning.
I should also add that even when using an appropriate category, the social theory of HIV reflects biases common in academia. One example is how researchers interprets the enormous inequality of AIDS between white and non-white people in Brazil. In a country that is founded on the myth of racial democracy, the contributions of black academics are silenced by an essentially white academy. Therefore, in Brazil, unlike the United States, there is little evidence of critical racial theory within HIV social theory.
These examples make it clear that we not only need to talk about HIV, but, most importantly, we need to be very aware about the way we speak about it and whether the discourses do or do not foster prejudices.

author: Isabela Carvalho


text:
Weaving Objects of Loss and Memory With Hayv Kahraman · Global Voices
Omid Memarian

Iraqi artist Hayv Kahraman. Image provided by Kahraman.
When she was 11-years-old, Hayv Kahraman’s family fled the Gulf War in Iraq with only one suitcase. Among essential items, her mother packed a mahaffa, the Iraqi hand-held fan made by weaving the fronds of palm trees. It traveled with Kahraman as she made the journey from the Middle East to Europe, and decorates her family home in Sweden today. “Mahaffa for me is a nomadic object because it’s something that brings me back to the past,” Kahraman tells me at her latest exhibition, “Re-weaving Migrant Inscriptions,” at the Jackson Shainman Gallery in Manhattan. “A different life that doesn’t exist anymore.”
As in her previous exhibitions—“How Iraqi Are You” (2015) and “Let the Guest be the Master” (2013)—Kahraman’s new work is a masterful exploration of the issues of identity, personal struggle, and human consciousness. But this time she has embraced new methods of incorporating objects which carry generations of history into her pieces. Kahraman’s latest exhibition also reveals the evolution in her expression of the images and memories that haunt refugees living in the West.
From her collection, “How Iraqi Are You?” an oil on linen piece called “Kachakchi”. Image from http://www.hayvkahraman.com/ and used with permission.
Kahraman’s use of female bodies in different poses, inspired in part by the Persian and Japanese miniature, could be seen as a celebration of memory, femininity, and liberation. This multi-layered, sophisticated presentation of various complex perspectives, combined with a vivid yet soothing color palette, provides a smooth finish to her method of storytelling. Kahraman’s new work is not only touching, but it provokes lasting thoughts and feelings in any one — no matter their background.
Kahraman’s new exhibition has excelled her art into the territory of excellence in expressing some of the crucial issues of our time through consistently aesthetic and emotionally powerful paintings.
Omid Memarian (OM): Why did you choose to name your exhibition, “Re-Weaving Migrant Inscriptions?”
I think this whole body of work centers around the idea of memory and how it impacts immigrants and people within the diaspora, like you and me. When I first came up with this way of cutting the linen, it was very intuitive. I didn’t think of mahaffa at the time. I was puncturing the surface. And cutting it was very cathartic.
‘Mnemonic artifact’ one of Kahraman's piece's from “Re-Weaving Migrant Inscriptions”. Image from artist.
OM: The mixing of mahaffe with your art integrated well with the bodies and souls of your paintings.
It was a struggle. I talked to a lot of conservators prior to doing this and I was having so much trouble, because when you cut the linen, it wants to sway and I want to make sure it’s perfectly flat. How do you repeat the surface, the cuts, in order to maintain the integrity of the structure? I did a lot of tests. As you can see, I have two studies that are hanging. In two of the works, I wove actual palm tree fronds from California. And I found out the other day—or maybe it’s a known fact and I didn’t know about it—that California imported the seeds from Iraq and the Middle East from the palm tree. It was a very interesting parallel for me.
OM: You focus on mahaffa in different forms and shapes in your current show. It’s one of the items that your family put in your luggage when you left Iraq. It seems to me that by incorporating it into your work, you are injecting something from the past and making it eternal.
Exactly, I think that’s the whole point of it, that as an artist I archived these memories that I feel I’m kind of losing, and in a way, those memories are supposed to identify who I am. Which is also really problematic because, who am I? I’m not Iraqi. I am, but I’m not. I’m not American, but I live here. I’m not Swedish but I have a Swedish passport. So it’s really problematic. It marks that point of displacement for me. That was the time when my biography, my identity was interrupted: when I fled. I’m no longer that person. I’m somebody else. So, if I were to apply a word to it, the mahaffa, it would be “displacement.”
OM: How do you convey the nostalgic relation between “things” and “objects” that attach migrants to their past and roots?
Language would be one of the ways. Calligraphy is a medium through which you can access language or the loss of language; forgetting about your mother tongue, recovering it and trying to access a connection to it somehow. Because I don’t speak Arabic anymore, and I don’t have any family here in the United States. I have a daughter, but she was born here. I think the main thing is that notion of loss, the trauma of that loss, and manifesting that through a painting becomes the struggle. For me, personally, in my studio, how do I make this come across? With the technique of cutting the linen and the weaving and connecting it to an actual object like mahaffa…
This piece illustrates the ‘weaving’ of materials that Kahraman incorporated into her work.
OM: Female hair has a strong presence in your work. What does hair symbolize for you?
I think you know more than anyone, it’s such a contested thing, especially in the Middle East. You like your hair and all those associated feelings. Women being hairless. Not being a hairy Arab, which I am. Hair was a very natural thing for me to work with. I didn’t necessarily think about what it represents. It was very intuitive. When I think about it now, after the fact, it’s because it is such a contested bodily thing in my culture, and even all around the world.
OM: The images in your paintings of disfigured female bodies and faces are very powerful in depicting the experiences of women. What’s your thought process in defining and drawing female bodies?
It starts by posing with my own body; I pose in various positions in my studio. The poses then transform into sketches and then they become paintings. There is always some sort of performance that’s happening.
They [the women] are always doing something on the linen, performing something. For this show, I really wanted to let go of control… That’s the origin of how they come into being…
OM: You have spoken about the connection these bodies have to a “painful journey.” What’s underneath all these different poses?
It’s funny because I started painting when I was in Florence, Italy. And I was really in that mode of renaissance painting, going to museums and making copies, and I felt and believe that this is what I was striving for. That’s when she was born. That’s when I started painting her. It came from that colonized space. A space where somebody was brown, was thinking that these white figures are what I want to aspire to, to paint, in order to succeed. When I look at them now, I am reminded of that. That’s why they have that white flesh. And that’s why I’m in constant dialogue with them, or at least feel like I am.
On the painful journey, I was born during the Iran-Iraq war, I lived through the first Gulf War. These are permanent scars on your body. You carry these memories. That definitely comes through in my work and I deal with it every single day. It’s like you are in this PTSD mode and you are trying to figure out how the hell you can survive.
Women walking around with sacrves with the texture of the “mahaffe” from “Re-Weaving Migrant Inscriptions”.
OM: There is a very close connection in your work between the faces that embody so many details and Persian miniatures. Even the colors on the faces are more distinct and alive. First, how do you describe or understand sexuality and femininity in Persian miniatures, and why use this form of expression?
That’s a good question because the faces are the most fun part to paint. The Persian miniature is definitely an inspiration in terms of the color scheme. For me, when it comes to the body and expression of the face, I’m more connected to Maqamat Al-Hariri [13th century Arabic manuscript]. In Maqamat, you don’t have the beautiful elaborate backgrounds that the Persian miniatures have. The focus is on the figure and the face and expression. That’s where I draw inspiration from in terms of depicting the faces.
OM: There is a sense of freedom and liberation in the way women interact with each other in your paintings, the way they touch and look at each other or look into space. How much of that is from your personal experience?
My earlier work was overtly violent. You have female genital mutilation, you have women hanging themselves, really violent, even like didactically so in your face. It reflects what I was going through at that time in my life, particularly in my personal relationship. I was in an abusive relationship at the time. The work was an outlet for me to investigate what I was going through. And I didn’t realize what was actually happening then. That’s the crazy part. It was very therapeutic. It probably started as a therapy or an outcry. And it was years later, when I got out of that relationship, that I could look back and say, that’s why I was doing what I was doing.
OM: What connects you to the root you belong to?
HK: I struggle with that, to try to find those connection. I think the only thing is either going back to the Middle East, physically traveling there, or just being with my family. Food with my family (laugh) And of course research based stuff.

author: Omid Memarian


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Russians Are Unimpressed With the 2018 Presidential Election Logo (and Have Ideas for Improvement) · Global Voices
Fabrice Deprez

Russia's Central Electoral Commission reveals 2018 elections’ logo // Credit: cikrf.ru
Vladimir Putin may not have announced yet whether he’ll run in the 2018 presidential election (few doubt he will run and win by a landslide), but that hasn’t prevented his administration from gearing up for the event. On November 29, the Electoral Commission (CEC) announced the logo for March 18 presidential election:
Представляем вам логотип избирательной кампании по выборам Президента Российской Федерации! pic.twitter.com/DpesvFjcgu
— ЦИК России (@CIKRussia) 29 ноября 2017 г.
Let us introduce the logo for the Russian Federation's presidential elections campaign!
Cooked up by the PR firm IMA-Consulting, it was immediately derided and mocked for its less-than-impressive design, especially when Russian media reported its alleged cost: 37 million rubles ($630,000). However, the head of the CEC has since told the radio station Govorit Moskva (“Moscow Speaking”) that the price tag was for the whole campaign, including 50 promotional videos, and not just the logo.
Unsurprisingly, this hasn’t stopped the Russian-speaking web from pocking fun at the logo:
Замечательное про «логотип» выборов президента в 2018. Это стыдное стоило 37.000.000 рублей. pic.twitter.com/525oWawCtj
— Wylsacom (@wylsacom) 30 ноября 2017 г.
[Fictional breakdown of the logo's alleged price]
A fun take on the presidential elections “logo”. This shameful thing will cost us 37,000,000 rubles.
The head of IMA-Consulting described the logo as “conservative, but not archaic,” according to the Russian business daily Vedomosti. State press agency RIA Novosti also quoted the head of the CEC saying the white colour scheme of the logo represented the “purity of the election.”
Some looked at the US for inspiration, with Maria Baronova, a prominent political activist, bluntly pointing out her dissatisfaction with both. “U.S. and Russian elections’ logos: which one is better?” “Both suck,” she answered:
Maria Baronova's Telegram channel // Screenshot by Fabrice Deprez
Granted, making a good-looking electoral logo might not be the easiest task, with previous iterations also firmly on the “not taking any risks” side:
ЦИК выбрал логотип выборов 2018 года. pic.twitter.com/UdJ9EGn7FJ
— Актуальная Политика (@Current_policy) 29 ноября 2017 г.
CEC picked a logo for the 2018 elections.
More embarrassingly, some Russians users noted pretty clear similarities with stock pictures of the Dutch and Russian flags, though the logos are actually different according to Latvia-based Russian outlet Meduza:
В гугле за пять минут нашел, с какой картинки неаккуратно перерисовали флаг для логотипа выборов в РФ. pic.twitter.com/qVYZZlWTgO
— Constantine (@CKonovalov) 29 ноября 2017 г.
It took me about five minutes of googling to figure out the original of Russian elections’ sloppy rip-off.
Another user clarified:
Всё намного проще, Костя pic.twitter.com/rrydglf9MR
— Artur Kasimov ?? (@akterpnd) 29 ноября 2017 г.
It's much simpler than that, Kostya
Russian internet users then embarked on a mission to show that they too could make a “conservative, but not archaic” logo “for less than 37 million rubles” and a splash of MS Paint magic. Russian news website TJournal showcased some of the “best” designs:
“March 2018: [Alexey] Navalny's elections” // tjournal.ru
“March 2018: Russian presidential elections” // tjournal.ru
So far, the logo challenge has been the most exciting part of the almost non-existent campaign where Putin is expected to run and win —yet again — even by his most vocal opponents.

author: Fabrice Deprez


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Animal Carcasses, Tires, and Medical Waste: A New Report Highlights Health Risks of Lebanon’s Trash Crisis · Global Voices
Hassan Chamoun

Bassam Khawaja (Right) and Nadim Houry (Left) present the study of Human Rights Watch regarding Lebanon's open burning of waste. Photo by Hassan Chamoun.
Global Voices’ Hassan Chamoun attended the conference launched by Human Rights Watch as part of our ongoing coverage of Lebanon's garbage crisis.
Lebanon's ongoing garbage crisis was the subject of a Human Rights Watch (HRW) study entitled “As If You're Inhaling Death: The Health Risks of Burning Waste in Lebanon” released on December 1.
HRW's study included 104 interviews with stakeholders as well as field visits to 15 different ‘open dumping’ sites that do not take environmental or health concerns into consideration.
HRW also spoke with 53 residents, some who lived close to the dumps, and produced a short video report on the situation:
This type of open burning of waste is linked to severe impacts on human health, from heart conditions and cancer to skin diseases, asthma, and respiratory illnesses.
The crisis attracted international attention in 2015 with the ‘You Stink’ Movement, a loosely-organized protest movement that started as a response to the government's inability to replace the Naameh landfill that received waste from Beirut and the Mount Lebanon's region (roughly half of the Lebanese population).
While the international community learned about the crisis in 2015, it dates back much further and is not limited to Beirut and Mount Lebanon regions. As HRW pointed out, the crisis revealed severe structural problems in the country:
pattern of poor government planning and management, inadequate support to and oversight of areas outside of Beirut and Mount Lebanon; overuse of landfills, open dumping and burning […] and a lack of transparency.
A clash between environmental health and politics was therefore inevitable, which is why the 2015 protests soon included a wide range of demands, from the resignation of ministers viewed as directly responsible for the health crisis to government reforms. Some even called for overthrowing the government, chanting “Ash-shab yurid isqat an-nizam” (“The people want to topple the regime.”)
The movement's name, ‘You Stink’ from the Arabic ‘طلعت ريحتكم’, referred to both the smell of trash piling up on the streets and to the political system itself.
A widely-used sign held up in a protest in Lebanon during the You Stink protests shows various Lebanese politicians as trash bags on August 22, 2015. Photo: Hassan Chamoun
A 2016 survey by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Lebanese Ministry of Environment reported that Lebanon had a total number of 941 identified open dumpsites compared to 670 in the 2011 survey.
Using a UNDP map along with data from the Lebanese Ministry of Environment, HRW showed that more than 150 open dumps are burned on a weekly basis. The Operations Room of the General Directorate of Civil Defense (Lebanon's fire department) reported that they have responded to 4,426 reports of open burning of waste since the beginning of 2015. According to this report, the number of open burning cases reported in Mount Lebanon alone rose 330 percent in 2015 and a further 250 percent in 2016.
Mohamed, who lives next to a dump in Bar Elias in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon's East, told HRW:
When they burn we can’t breathe […] We’ve had to go to the hospital because of this. My wife has gone four or five times [since burning began], my son and I went two times. All because of breathing [problems]. We usually stay two days to a week. The hospital said it was an infection in the lungs because of the smoke.
Mohammed added that this has significantly increased the economic hardships of his family:
They would give us pills, they were very expensive. They also gave us oxygen masks…We’re not even able to fix our house because of how much we spend on medical care…In the summer we can’t sleep because of all the smoke, we kept waking up trying to breathe.
Because Beirut and Mount Lebanon are two of Lebanon's wealthiest provinces, the closing of their landfills mobilized citizens and grabbed international headlines. Yet the rest of the country was just as impacted but less recognized.
For example, Beirut and Mount Lebanon's waste is collected, treated and disposed of by Sukleen and Sukomi, two controversial private companies. In contrast, in the remaining regions of Lebanon, municipalities are responsible for their own waste.
Municipalities theoretically receive funding through an “Independent Municipal Fund” fueled by taxes collected by the central government. In practice, however, the Fund's disbursements have been irregular and, at times, delayed for months. A lack of effective funds has driven municipalities to find quick solutions such as open dumping and burning.
Open burning of waste in Majadel, South Lebanon. Photo by Human Rights Watch. Used with Permission.
In March 2016, the Lebanese cabinet adopted a waste management plan calling for the use of waste-energy-technologies starting in 2020. Until then, Beirut and Mount Lebanon will rely on two sanitary landfills constructed to receive garbage for four years: one in Bourj Hammoud (Greater Beirut area) and one in Costa Brava (near Beirut's airport).
The Costa Brava landfill, as Nadine Mazloum reported for Global Voices, has been deemed unsafe and threatens both the environment and air traffic. The rest is supposed to go to Sidon, a city 40 kilometers south of Beirut.
The report highlights a correlation between the burning of waste and income levels. Of the 100 open dumps in Beirut and Mount Lebanon, just nine are being burned while the rest of the country (where the other half of the population lives) has nearly 150 open burning dumps.
Map showing a moderate correlation between the burning of waste and income levels. The darker the map, the higher the percentage of the population below middle-class income levels. Source: HRW Report
Lebanon is a party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESR), which it ratified in 1972, and therefore legally bound to improve the standard of living of its population.
Under the Covenant, Lebanon also has an obligation to recognize
“the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living…and to the continuous improvement of living conditions.”
In addition to international law, open burning violates Lebanon's own environmental protection laws “which prohibit the emission of pollutants into the air, including harmful or disturbing smells,” explains Habib Battah, a Lebanese journalist and blogger at The Beirut Report. Battah recently warned:
Contrary to government claims, the waste crisis is far from over. Will we be tasting garbage in our wines and vegetables next harvest?  Where is the Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Public Health or Ministry of Tourism?

author: Hassan Chamoun


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In China, Skepticism Surrounding Police Investigation of Kindergarten Child Abuse Is Censored · Global Voices
Jack Hu

Parents gathered outside the RBY nursery. Photo from China state-owned people.cn
Child abuse at a private nursery in Beijing and the accompanying censorship of news and commentary surrounding the case has many Chinese criticizing authorities and skeptical of police conclusions.
On November 22, eight parents filed a complaint with Beijing police that their children were being harmed by staff at a kindergarten run by an education group called Red-Yellow-Blue (RYB).
According to local media reports, the parents found needle holes in their children's bodies. Some of the children said they were fed white powder by the teachers, and one child claimed that they were bought into a room for body inspections performed by a naked doctor. Allegedly, at least three children were punished with standing naked in class, and one showed physical marks that could imply sexual molestation.
The news was explosive on social media. On November 22 and 23, a group of enraged parents gathered outside the kindergarten demanding explanations and surveillance videos. The police then started the investigation.
Censorship soon followed. The once hot topic all but disappeared from social media. Netizens, however, continued to discuss the case in more private channels such as chat rooms, with many expressing concern that the police would not dig deep while investigating the established education group.
This is not the first time the education group has faced accusations of child abuse. In 2015, needle spots were found on the bodies of at least 17 toddlers in another kindergarten run by RYB in Jilin province. Four teachers there were subsequently arrested.
On November 25, Beijing Chaoyang district police announced on Weibo that they had arrested one 22-year-old teacher — as well as a Beijing resident who commented on social media about the connection between the headmaster of the nursery with a military clan stationed near Beijing.
On November 28, the district police further reported that there was no evidence of drugs being fed to children nor of sexual molestation. The parents, police said, admitted to making false accusations or coaching their children to provide false testimony about standing naked as punishment or drug consumption.
However, the police also said that the hard disk of the surveillance footage from the kindergarten was broken because the electrical supply to the video surveillance set had been unplugged frequently for a lengthy period of time. The police managed to recover 113 hours of recorded footage.
Under the police updates posted on Weibo, the majority of the comments praise the work of authorities and condemn rumormongers.
Nevertheless, despite the censorship, critical remarks about the investigation continue to pop up on Weibo. One netizen summed up the message of the police updates in a few bullet points:
Cartoon of a hard disk hanging itself. Viral image from Weibo.
1.孩子没事，2.老师脾气不好，3.视频坏了，4.家长无聊，借孩子搞事情，5.网友都被孩子和家长骗了，6.网友不要造谣，不然抓人。
1. The kids are OK; 2. Teachers are mad [they needled the kids because they refused to sleep]; 3. The surveillance camera's hard disk is broken; 4. Parents are using the kids to create a mess; 5. Netizens and the kids were both tricked by the parents; 6. Netizens should stop spreading rumors or they will be arrested.
China introduced the online rumor law in 2013. Netizens who distribute unverified information would be arrested and charged with spreading rumor if their posts have been viewed for 5000 times or shared for 500 times. The maximum jail time is three years.
Another Weibo user slammed the police report and censorship of online comments:
新浪刚推出来的朝阳分局的调查结果，立马点进去看，所以这调查结果就是一切都是家长造谣，抹黑，无中生有？呵呵，多么可怕，或许这就是社会，背后的势力或许是我们不能想象的。
短短几分钟，评论上千，全是质问，一眨眼功夫 ，评论全部被删，关闭评论！！这样就会没有质疑的声音了吗？
警方带走了能证明事实全部监控，一句监控视频损坏，就当没有发生过任何事？真是可笑至极。
Sina just reported on the investigation of Chaoyang district police. I read the report immediately. So the result of the investigation is that the abuse was fabricated by parents? This is so terrifying. Maybe this is a reflection of our society, that invisible power rules?
In a matter of a few minutes, thousands of questions popped up underneath the report. Then in a matter of a few seconds, all the comments vanished and the comment function was closed.
Criticism can be erased like this?
The police have taken away all the CCTV footage. Just by saying that the hard disk was broken, [you can] conclude that everything did not happen? This is such a joke.
To highlight the inconsistencies within the police report, “broken hard disk” became a hashtag on social media.
A technical piece pointed out that all the kindergarten surveillance cameras were connected to a central system which would alert the government education authorities if the surveillance cameras were not functioning. But the article was censored.
Another censored piece put together all available news reports on other unrelated cases in which police investigations reported that surveillance cameras or their associated hard disks at the scene of the alleged crime weren't working. Inevitably, majority of the cases ended up with the same conclusion that there were no evidence supporting the allegations.
Netizens made jokes about the hard disk and one widely circulated cartoon showed a hard disk hanging itself (see image on the right.)
The welfare of children in kindergarten has become a hot issue in China, where a string of abuse cases has revealed loose regulation and supervision in the childcare and early learning industry.
This time, the kindergarten involved is run by RYB, a high-end private education group that went public in the US stock market in September 2017. It targets China's emerging middle-class families and features school fees as much as 5,000 yuan (750 US dollars) a month for bilingual education. Yet, the incident reveals that spending that much money doesn't guarantee that children are protected from abuse.
Massive capital has poured into China’s early education industry; it's projected to be a 348-billion-yuan market by 2020 with 20% average growth annually, after China abolished one-child policy in 2015. However, rapid expansion has led to cutting corners — such as hiring unlicensed teachers — to increase profit or overstretched budgets.
RYB is a typical case of the expanding sector. Founded in 1999, the group opened its first private kindergarten in 2001 and has built a reputation as the leading education institute providing the best quality early education. After obtaining a franchise license in 2013, by June 2017 the group owned 853 play and learning centers and 225 nurseries, and planned to further operate 724 pre-school institutions all over the country. RYB's revenue mainly comes from franchise fees.
It doesn't seem like any of the industry-wide problems are getting much attention following the latest case, as the focus has been placed on the individuals involved. As Twitter @wyjaaa sarcastically commented:
硬盘坏了，监控没了，无证幼师认罪了，仓库保安招供了，家长情绪稳定了，承认造谣的就要上央视忏悔了，恭喜红蓝黄股价暴涨了，低端人口可以庆祝盛世中华了… pic.twitter.com/FvqR6klMeH
— 王亚军北京 (@wyjaaa) November 28, 2017
Hard disk broken, no more surveillance tapes. The unlicensed teacher admitted the crime and the security guard admitted [that he had unplugged the surveillance system ]. The parents stop complaining. The rumormongers will soon appear on China Central Television confessing their guilt. Congratulations, the stock price of RYB has bounced back and the low-end population [including the unlicensed teacher and security guard] continues to celebrate the prosperous era…

author: Jack Hu


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Russian Atomic Regulator’s Foray into Meme-Making Fails to Quench Rumors of Nuclear Leaks · Global Voices
Christopher Moldes

Satellite image/map of the Mayak nuclear facility, the closed town of Ozyorsk/Ozersk (Chelyabinsk-65), various lakes and reservoirs, and the South Urals nuclear power plant. Based on a screenshot from NASA World Wind (Landsat Global Mosaic visual layer), color corrected // Credit: NASA, Jan Rieke
After weeks of denial, Russian authorities finally admitted that September’s radiation cloud detected across Europe was centered around the Mayak Manufacturing Group in Russia, which has a history of contaminating the surrounding areas and populations with radioactive waste.
However, they stopped short of naming this facility as the origin of the cloud, which was notable for containing Ruthenium-106, an isotope that does not occur in nature. To further dispel the notion that Ruthenium-10 6 came from Mayak, while at the same time emphasizing its harmlessness, Rosatom (the Russian state atomic regulator) posted a meme on its Facebook page, having the isotope itself play the role of conciliator.
The post reads:
Маленького любой может обидеть!
Столько глупостей и истерики вокруг рутения-106. Узнали, что он сам думает об этой ситуации ;-)
“Я не простой металл, из платиновой группы. В природе не встречаюсь. Я настолько полезный, что меня специально делают очень умные люди по всему миру. Говорят, я появляюсь, если происходят аварии на АЭС или на заводах по переработке ядерного топлива, но это неправда ?
В чистом виде в России меня производят только в г. Димитровград Ульяновской области в научном центре “ГНЦ НИИАР”. Это очень непростой процесс. Получить меня сложно, потому что я не являюсь побочным продуктом при наработке других изотопов или при любом другом технологическом процессе. После производства меня в виде раствора в безопасной упаковке отправляют в Германию, США или г. Обнинск Калужской области в научный центр “ГНЦ РФ-ФЭИ”. Пока еще никто не жаловался, чтобы меня плохо доставили или что-то произошло с упаковкой ?
Я не жалуюсь, просто не понимаю, почему обо мне так плохо все говорят. В Обнинске и за границей другие умные люди из меня делают офтальмологические аппликаторы. Я возвращаю людям зрение! Меня очень ждут, например, в Москве в МНТК “Микрохирургия глаза”.
Говорят, недавно я появлялся одновременно в разных местах от Нормандии до Урала… Пока меня в Обнинске делают штучно, под заказ. Меня очень мало, в год не больше 10 штук. Может, это мои близнецы?! ? Их у меня много. Есть и заграничные родственники, есть и очень известные личности – летают в космосе подолгу. Некоторых из них я даже не знаю, они секретные. Но, поверьте, все они очень полезные и никогда не приносили людям вреда”.
Anyone can pick on someone small!
There’s been so much stupidity and hysterics around Ruthenium-106. We found out what it thinks about this situation ;-)
“I’m no simple metal, I’m from the platinum family. I don’t occur in nature. I’m so useful that smart people all over the world create me on purpose. They say that I appear if there’s an accident at a nuclear power plant or at a spent fuel processing facility, but this isn’t true ?
I’m only produced in my pure form at the GNTs NIIAR research facility in Dmitrovgrad in the Ulyanovsk oblast. It’s quite a complicated process. It’s difficult to obtain me because I’m not a by-product of isotope production or any other technological process. After production, they send me as a chemical solution in safe packing to Germany, the USA or to the GNTs RF-FEI research center in the city of Obninsk in the Kaluga Oblast.  So far no one has complained about problems with delivery or packing ?
I’m not complaining, I just don’t understand why they’re saying such bad things about me. In Obinsk and abroad, smart people use me to make ophthalmological applicators. I give people their sight back!  People depend on me, for example, in the “Eye Microsurgery” scientific complex in Moscow.
They say that I recently appeared in various places from Normandy to the Urals all at the same time…For now, I’m made to order in Obnisnk. There’s not a lot of me, maybe ten units a year. Maybe these are my twins?! I have a lot.  I have relatives abroad, even some very famous ones, who’ve been flying around in space for a long time. ? I don’t even know some of them because they’re secret. Believe me, though, they are all really useful and haven’t caused anyone harm.”
The meme seemed to fall flat. A popular Facebook reply  states:
“No one is chastising Ruthenium, or even Ruthenium-106. They’re chastising Rosatom for contradictory information and for jokes like this instead of a serious investigation into the accident.”
Rosatom then directed the user to their “serious” answer stating that all Russian nuclear facilities were and are working nominally.
A few days earlier, Rosatom announced a tour of the Mayak facility, inviting journalists and bloggers to apply to visit the site and learn about the existence of alleged Ruthenium leaks. By 28 November, Rosatom announced that it had accepted only 17 applicants, a mix of Russian and foreign journalists, due to space limitations at the plant.
One user pointed out that since no specialists had been invited, verification would be impossible. Rosatom replied saying their goal was to explain nuclear science to those who don’t have a background in it. Nevertheless, many began to doubt that the tour would even take place.
On 29 November, the press tour was indeed canceled, yet Rosatom refuted these claims:
The report by Chelyabinsk Today is incorrect. The announced site visit is going to take place in the coming days. And we are also working on another one, for foreign nationals, as it takes more time to organise it.
— Rosatom Global (@RosatomGlobal) 29 ноября 2017 г.
However, so far the promised press tour hasn't materialized, and Rosatom's forays into meme-making did little to quench the rumors.

author: Christopher Moldes


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Ashraf Ghani Gets Thumbs Down After ‘Anti-Women’ Headscarf Gaffe · Global Voices
Ezzatullah Mehrdad

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. Creative Commons.
A sexist remark made recently by Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani has highlighted a powerful political culture of chauvinism pervading the national government while revealing cracks in Ghani's own self-image as a progressive.
Ghani has since been moved to apologise to women for comments comparing opposition politicians to women wearing a chaadar, the traditional Afghan headscarf.
During a long–winded speech on December 2 the president blasted opposition politicians that have accused high-ranking members in Ghani’s administration of collusion with the Islamic state.
The politicians must provide evidence, Mr. Ghani said, or “go home and wear the chaadar”.
The large crowd of military officers that formed Ghani's immediate audience applauded him, but on social media — which up to a sixth of the country uses according to some estimates — the reaction was far more mixed. Afghan women backed by male and female representatives of civi society, urged the president to apologize, branding his remark sexist and anti-women.
In Afghanistan, the insult “to wear the chaadar” is often used as a means of shaming men.
Fawzia Koofi, a member of Afghanistan Parliament and Chairperson of the Women, Civil Society and Human Rights Commission, wrote against the remark on both her Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Why wearing scarf z regarded an act of shame among so called elite politicians our political literature is still man dominated I was surprised to hear from @ashrafghani inviting those who can't proof their claim wear scarf as an act of shame.Am proud of my scarf as part of my ID pic.twitter.com/HH8qLfxUOc
— Fawzia Koofi (@FawziaKoofi77) December 2, 2017
Nahid Farid, a prominent women rights activist, also pointed out that wearing headscarf was no shame.
در پيوند به چالش پوشيدن چادرِ رئيس حكومت وحدت ملي:
در افغانستان زنانِ چادر به سر نماد غيرتند. استفاده از ادبيات زن ستيزانه در سخنراني هاي شخصي كه ادعا ميكند٤٠ درصد راي دهندگانش زنان بودند، مايهء شرمساريست. طبق قانون منع آزار و اذیت زنان و کودکان، هر نوع نگاه جنسیتی و مثال زدن بخاطر تحقیر کسی با استفاده از نام زن، خشونت عليه زنان محسوب مي شود. از منظر تاريخي هم، تا حالا چادر هیچ زنی هيچ نقطهء اين كشور جنگزده را به آتش نکشیده است.
Regarding to latest remark of the President, Afghan women who wear headscarf are symbols of honor and dignity. It’s shameful to see such anti-women speech from a president who sourced 40 percent of his votes from women… Historically, it has been men, rather than those who wear the headscarf, who have put Afghanistan in flames.
The public backlash pushed Ghani to apologise in a statement released on Dec 3:
The president is a very prominent advocate of women’s rights and has taken unique steps to strengthen and preserve their position since his tenure as the president of Afghanistan…The use of the word Chaadar—scarfs in English—had been misinterpreted by oppositions to disturb public opinion. It never aimed to offend the highly valuable place of women in the country. Despite this, if emotions of Afghan women have been made regretful, the president apologizes to them.
Bahar Sohili, an Afghan woman, criticised the statement as insufficient:
معذرت خواهی روی حساب فیسبوکی و شخصی شاه حسین مرتضوی توام با توجیه و متهم ساختن میزان درک و شعور مردم از سخنرانی رئیس جمهور به معنای نادیده گرفتن زنان است .
پیشنهاد من : چه معذرت بخواهند و چه تحقیرآمیز توجیه کنند این نگاه تبعیض آمیز، تا زمانیکه پوشش نابرابر دارید تغییر نخواهد کرد. جستجوی برابری تلاشی بیهوده است زیرا همان چادر روی سر نشان دهنده ی بسته بندی تفکر و درجه ی دوم بودن است و نشانگر اینکه هنوز نتوانسته اید با خود در مورد گناه آلود بودن موی سر کنار بیایید .
Apologizing to women on Facebook is itself insulting Afghan women…I suggest we take off our headscarves to end gender inequality, because as long as women wear the headscarf, they will be treated as second class.
Ghani may also have faced censure from his own wife, Rula Ghani, a vocal champion of women's rights in the country.
Rula Ghani caused a stir shortly after her husband won a tightly contested presidential election in 2014 when she gave an interview to French media claiming she supported the ban on the fully covering niqab, or burkha, in France.
Ms Ghani, who speaks five languages and studied at the University of Columbia as well as in France, later said her critics had “taken the remarks out of context” and pledged her support for “family values`” in Afghanistan.

author: Ezzatullah Mehrdad