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The Campaign Against Gender-Based Violence in Reggaeton Lyrics: Phase 2 · Global Voices
Gabriela García Calderón Orbe

She likes sushi, but made out of very hot meat, and she feels it. She is a real crazy bitch.
Image taken from the “Use Your Head” campaign's Facebook page.
In June 2014, Global Voices wrote about the Usa la razón (Use Your Head) campaign, where a group of Colombian photographers choreographs scenes to depict the violence of many lyrics in reggaeton music.
Dicen que ocho de cada diez mujeres que escuchan este popular género musical latinoamericano sienten que las maltrata.
They say that eight out of ten women who listen to the popular Latin American music genre feel mistreated by it.
Reggaeton is a genre with roots in Caribbean music—a spin-off from Jamaican reggae with some hip hop influences. Its lyrics tend to be about social criticism, love, and the ordinary problems of daily life.
Usa la razón recently released several new images, posted on its Facebook page, that—very graphically—showcase the violence described in the lyrics of several very popular songs that are often performed in public, presumably without much thought about the words’ abusive meaning.
¿Sientes lo que escuchas?, una campaña contra los mensajes del Reggaeton. Creada por estudiantes de Colombia.
“Do you feel what you sing?” asks the Colombian student campaign against messages in reggaeton.
Usa la razón‘s Facebook page links to an article on the blog Pencil and Paper, which argues that not all lyrics in reggaeton music contain violent messages, and tries to explain why some artists resort to this kind of language.
Y siendo justos, no todas las letras escritas de reggaetón son necesariamente malas, crueles e incitadoras de maltrato y violencia hacia la mujer. En algunas se escribe sobre situaciones propias de nuestra condición humana […]. Así que siendo justos, las personas que escriben dichas letras –normalmente las mismas que las cantan–, son seres humanos que como nosotros también necesitan liberar, purificar o limpiar su existencia de los miedos, perjuicios [sic], desilusiones, tristezas, etc., que habiten su alma. Ellos también necesitan desahogarse. De hecho, probablemente en un grado muy superior al de cualquier persona del común, pues su escritura, su “catarsis” y por ende su expresión, es muy peculiar:
To be fair, not all the reggaeton lyrics are necessarily mean, cruel, and encourage abuse and violence towards women. In some of them, we find situations inherent to our human condition […]. So, to be fair, people who write those lyrics—usually the same people who sing them—are human beings who, just as us, need to liberate, purify, or clean their existence from fears, prejudices, disillusionment, sadness, and so on, that dwell in their souls. They also need to free themselves. In fact, they probably have this compulsion more than the average person, and their writing is an important “catharsis” for them, making their self-expression quite unique.
In my bed, I put it by the center, I take her and I subdue her by hers.
Image taken from the “Use your head” campaign's Facebook page.
The campaign has being also using Twitter to spread the descriptive images.
Uno de los grandes miedos de la mujer: Ser violada #UsaLaRazon #UsaLaRazon #UsaLaRazon #UsaLaRazon #UsaLaRazon pic.twitter.com/vO3EbZKGPN
— Usa la razon (@Usa_larazon) febrero 18, 2015
If you keep that attitude, I'm going to rape you.
So, stop the rebellion. One of women's biggest fears: being raped.
Sientes lo que escuchas? #UsaLaRazon campaña contra los mensajes del reggaeton pic.twitter.com/azIuOXApY1
— AURORA (@marcelasebe) febrero 18, 2015
If at that last minute, any hole gets milk out, she tells me that on her face I shall spill it.
Do you feel what you listen to? Use your head: campaign against the messages in reggaeton.
Sientes lo que escuchas? #UsaLaRazon campaña contra los mensajes del reggaeton pic.twitter.com/QW3ZOjol90
— AURORA (@marcelasebe) febrero 18, 2015
If you keep that attitude, I'm going to rape you. So, stop the rebellion.
Do you feel what you listen to? Use your head: campaign against the messages in reggaeton.
Sientes lo que escuchas? #UsaLaRazon campaña contra los mensajes del reggaeton pic.twitter.com/INmVKyF9dh
— AURORA (@marcelasebe) febrero 18, 2015
She has me sweating as a lunatic, I'm maniac, it's critical.
Do you feel what you listen to? Use your head: campaign against the messages in reggaeton.
Carne Caliente #SientesLoQueEscuchas ? #UsaLaRazon pic.twitter.com/e2L0TMLryh
— Usa la razon (@Usa_larazon) febrero 18, 2015
She likes sushi, but made out of very hot meat, and she feels it. She is a real crazy bitch. Hot meat.
Titeres que no mueven las neuronas,pero si el culo #UsaLaRazon
— german benavides (@tetrixx5000) febrero 18, 2015
Puppets who can't move the neurons but the butt.
“@Sokyara: ¿Sientes lo que escuchas? Simplemente #UsaLaRazon al escuchar ls letras del reggaetón @Usa_larazon“//y t asquearan muchas d ellas
— ibis matera escalona (@rebecaibis) febrero 18, 2015
Do you feel what you listen to? Just use your head when listening to reggaeton lyrics, and you'll be sick.
#UsaLaRazon Que escuchaban nuestros padres machistas, la violencia contra la mujer viene desde hace siglos…
— Tatan (@TatanMedellin) febrero 18, 2015
What did our male-chauvinist fathers used to listen? Violence against women comes from many centuries ago…
On Facebook, a female user says:
[…] hay muchas formas de maltrato y violencia en nuestros medios, las novelas violentas, los hombres que no dejan caminar libremente a las mujeres en la calle a punta de piropos estúpidos y vulgares, el acoso en el trabajo, la desigualdad en sueldos cargos desempeñados y pensiones. En fin. Se quedan cortos con la campaña, pero es muy buena.
[…] there are many forms of abuse and violence in our media: violent novels, men who won't leave women alone in the streets, pestering them with stupid and vulgar catcalling, harassment at the workplace, inequality in salaries and pensions. The list goes on. No one campaign is enough, but it's a start.
Another Facebook user offered the following controversial comment, supplying (unintentionally perhaps) evidence that the campaign against violent lyrics has a long way to go:
Desgraciadamente esta violencia sexual tiene un cómplice: las mismas mujeres…
Unfortunately, this sexual violence has an accomplice: women themselves…

author: Gabriela García Calderón Orbe


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The Dress Rehearsal for the Belarusian Crackdown · Global Voices
Sergey Kozlovsky

Total media control, or the unexpected virtue of being Alexander Lukashenko. Images edited by Kevin Rothrock.
The state of free speech in Belarus enjoys remarkable stability: in 2015, Belarus placed 157th out of 180 countries on Reporters Without Borders’ Press Freedom Index for the third consecutive year. Attacks on the independent media have been commonplace since the 1990s. Restrictive laws, raids on newspapers, politicized criminal prosecutions, travel bans against outspoken reporters, and failing to investigate the murder of several journalists—Minsk has used every possible tool in its arsenal against the free press.
The Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, who's sometimes called “Europe's last dictator,” once said journalists “hold a weapon of a most destructive power.” That's the reason, he says, the state must exercise such control over the media.
Today, Minsk controls the media almost entirely. There are a few rare exceptions online, like the opposition news outlets Charter 97, Naviny.by, Belaruspartisan.org, the newspaper Narodnaya Volya, and a few others. Lukashenko would probably be happy to shut down these publications, too, but they provide a semblance of pluralist democracy that's useful when responding to criticisms at home and especially abroad.
Lukashenko headed a collective farm before the Soviet Union collapsed. Today, he treats the Internet with a mix of awe and caution, regarding it as one of mankind's greatest creations, albeit a potentially dangerous, inherently American weapon.
Alexander Lukashenko and his youngest son Kolya during harvesting on the territory of the presidential residence. Image: Press-service of the president of the Republic of Belarus.
Belarus’ suppression of the media becomes especially violent during election season. During the last election, in December 2010, several opposition websites and some entire social networks went down, targeted by blocking and hacking efforts. Police raided the offices of Belsat TV and European Radio‘s local station, detaining several journalists. Lukashenko declared victory in the election, but an international monitoring group from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said the election was neither free nor fair. Between 10,000 and 60,000 people gathered in downtown Minsk to protest the voting results, but police special forces dispersed the crowd by force and arrested as many as 700 protesters, as well as seven of the nine presidential candidates.
The next election will take place later this year, in November 2015, and the country's political situation promises to be even more volatile. Five years ago, most Belarusians lived in relative comfort, enjoying rising wages and retirement benefits. In 2011, however, the country's currency reserves ran out, and the dollar exchange rate nearly tripled from 3,100 Belarusian rubles in March 2011 to 8,700 by October. (Today, it takes almost 15,000 Belarusian rubles to buy a single US dollar.) The value of oil worldwide, too, has plummeted. Lukashenko has managed to contain the economic crisis thanks mainly to generous loans from Moscow.
In 2015, the Belarusian government owes its creditors roughly $4 billion, which is about two-thirds of its entire foreign reserves. The Belarusian economy, dominated by large, inefficient state-owned companies, is little reformed from its Soviet predecessor. The longer the country's financial woes continue, the less likely it is that Russian aid can rescue Lukashenko from a reckoning with voters. Also, Russia's own imploding economy, not to mention Lukashenko's refusal to endorse the annexation of Crimea, jeopardizes this one remaining lifeline.
Officials in Minsk seem to realize that a cataclysm might be ahead, and there are signs that Minsk is moving to address the situation, ahead of presidential elections. Last December, the parliament adopted amendments to regulations on the media, equating the online media with the traditional mainstream media. The reforms also grant the Ministry of Communications and Informatization the power to shut down online resources extrajudicially.
Vladimir Chudentsov, founder of the independent website By24.org, says the government hopes to exercise over the Internet the same control it's gained over television:
В нем [интернете] власти также начнут формировать свою альтернативную реальность, в которой в обменниках есть доллары, в стране нет безработных, а милиционеры не лгут в суде и не фабрикуют административных и уголовных дел.
The authorities will begin to form their own alternative reality on the Internet, where there are plenty of dollars in the currency-exchange offices, there are no homeless in the country, and policemen don't lie in court or fabricate evidence for civil and criminal charges.
Soon after the changes to Belarusian media regulations, several independent news sites became inaccessible almost simultaneously. The government didn’t take the responsibility for the outage, instead blaming technical problems and DDoS attacks.
According to Alexander Klaskovsky, who works at the independent information agency BelaPAN, the problems experienced by independent online media outlets are obviously the work of the Belarusian government. Such an operation, he says, is only possible with the permission and resources of the authorities in Minsk. Klaskovsky says the crackdown is punishment for covering news about the country's declining economy.
Belaruskaya Pravda chief editor Yuri Dubina says these blocking efforts were “the dress rehearsal before the election.” Yanina Melnikova, a board member at the Belarusian Association of Journalists, gives a similar explanation:
Кто-то очень сильно напрягся, опасаясь народных протестов в связи с положением в экономике и прочими проблемами, на которые аудитория независимых медиа могла отреагировать.
Someone became incredibly worried, fearing social unrest because of the economic situation and others issues—topics that might provoke the independent media's audience.
Today, Belarusian journalists are preparing for the worst. It’s doubtful that any politician will rival Lukashenko by November, but mass protests motivated by the bad economy are a real possibility, as are raids on media outlets and arrests of journalists. As in Russia, the government seems seriously concerned about a Maidan-style revolution. “There are thugs out there,” Lukashenko has warned. “But that's why the authorities are here. We neutralize such people and prevent them from shooting at each other in the streets. We won't let anyone wage a war here in Belarus.”

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Sergey Kozlovsky


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Unlawful Deals by 5 Biggest Ebola Contractors in Sierra Leone · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Five companies are said to have misappropriated funds for fighting Ebola in Sierra Leone:
Here are the 5 companies who were awarded the biggest contracts to provide goods and services to Sierra Leone’s ebola response as listed in the Ebola Funds Audit Report covering the period from May – October 2014. The following contracts did not meet the country’s procurement laws and policies and documentation to support the awarding of these contracts were missing, and unaccounted for. This makes it possible for fraud, waste, and misappropriation of funds to occur therefore crippling the nation’s ability to quickly respond to the crisis.

author: Ndesanjo Macha


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Belarus Bans Tor and Other Anonymizers  · Global Voices
Tanya Lokot

Images mixed by Tetyana Lokot.
Belarus has moved to block access to all Internet anonymizers in the country, including Tor. The country's Communications Ministry published a new decree that mandates how access to certain online resources should be limited by Internet providers at the request of the state. Some of the limitations deal directly with anonymizing services.
Государственная инспекция при выявлении интернет-ресурсов, средств обеспечения анонимности (прокси-серверы, анонимные сети типа Tor и другие), позволяющих пользователям интернет-услуг получать доступ к интернет-ресурсам, идентификаторы которых включены в список ограниченного доступа, добавляет в список ограниченного доступа идентификаторы этих интернет-ресурсов, средств обеспечения анонимности.
The state inspection, upon discovering Internet resources, anonymizing services (proxy-servers, anonymous networks like Tor and others), that allow Internet users to access online resources whose identifiers are included on the limited access list, will add the identifiers of these Internet resources and anonymizing services to the list as well.
Internet users typically use anonymizing services to circumvent government censorship and reach online resources banned inside Belarus, including many of the opposition websites.
Tor statistics indicate that anywhere between 6,000 and 8,000 users in Belarus use Tor directly on a daily basis, with more connecting through bridges. According to Anton Nesterov, an anticensorship activist, in order to prevent access to Tor, officials will likely attempt to block the so-called guard nodes, the first nodes in the circuit through which a user would connect to route encrypted traffic further. “They can just block torproject.org and stop there, but if they talk about blocking Tor, blocking nodes is what it means,” says Nesterov.
Russia has also been considering a ban on VPNs and anonymizers. At the start of February, Leonid Levin, an MP heading the parliamentary committee on information policy and communications, suggested that access to anonymization and circumvention tools such as Tor, VPNs, and proxy-servers needs to be restricted.

author: Tanya Lokot


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Disabilities Are No Obstacle to These Spirited Cricketers in Nepal · Global Voices
Sanjib Chaudhary

The ongoing Cricket world cup 2015 in Australia and New Zealand has generated much enthusiasm in the Indian Sub-continent. Allahabad, India. Image by Ritesh Shukla Copyright Demotix (12/2/2015)
While the world's cricket fans were glued to their television sets watching the Cricket World Cup matches, it was an emotional, spirited moment for fans and players alike at the Institute of Engineering cricket grounds in Nepal. At the cricket World Cup 2015, Pakistan lost to the West Indies, but in Kathmandu, Pakistan won the Winter Cup International Wheelchair Cricket Championship 3-0, beating the host, Nepal.
Shahid Waseem from IQRA University in Islamabad, Pakistan, tweeted:
Congrats Pakistan for winning Winter Cup International Wheelchair Cricket Tournament Series on Feb. 20 (Nepal) pic.twitter.com/wfah1XljZL
— Shahid Waseem (@shahidwaseem44) February 22, 2015
Hinting at the poor performance by Pakistan's team, Xeeshan, a sports reporter at PTV, wrote:
“We are Better than the Team in World Cup”..Pakistan WheelChair Cricket Team wins series 3-0 against Nepal. pic.twitter.com/VMHAn9M6Yw
— X è é § h ä ñ (@Xeechilly) February 21, 2015
The cricket tournament was organised by the Nepal Spinal Cord Injury Sports Association. Nepal and Pakistan played three matches of ten overs each on 18-19 February 2015.
Gajendra Budhathoki, a journalist who writes about the economy and development issues, shared some encouraging words with the players:
YOU ARE GREAT GUYS! PROUD ON YOU! THE FIRST WHEELCHAIR CRICKET By SPINAL CORD INJURIES #WHEELCHAIRCRICKET pic.twitter.com/Yw3MsLeumz
— Gajendra Budhathoki (@gbudhathoki) February 21, 2015
National Seating and Mobility, advocates for the disabled community, tweeted:
RT @Criceverest: Nepal vs Pakistan — 1ST InterNational Wheelchair Cricket Series. : pic.twitter.com/wRsVOU1sDv @ChangeFdn @TheRealPCB @KANepal:
— MOBILITY (@MobilityNSM) February 19, 2015
The championship, the first international tournament for wheelchair cricket, saw 14 spirited players from Nepal play cricket for the first time. All of them have spinal cord injuries—six of them were injured during the Maoist insurgency, while others were injured in accidents (some of them during daily chores like collecting grass and fuelwood). Likewise, for the 16 wheelchair cricket players from Pakistan, it was their first time getting international exposure.
Wheelchair cricket is played with 11 players on each side, like in normal cricket. The matches, however, are limited to minimum of 10 overs and maximum of 20 overs. The length of the pitch is 16 yards and the ground boundary is 45-50 yards.
Like normal cricket, the wheelchair batsman runs for single, double, and three runs. A batsman fetches four and six runs if the ball crosses the boundary and the same rule is applied for wide ball and no ball as in normal cricket.
Continuing the tradition of playing international tournaments, the Nepali Blind Women’s Cricket Team is set to tour Pakistan this year for a T20 series against Pakistan's Blind Women Cricket Team. According to the Pakistan Blind Cricket Council, five T20s will be played in five different cities during the series.
The visually impaired Nepalese girls won an international cricket tournament organised by Cricket Association of Blind Nepal  3-0 against a similar team from the UK, last year in 2014.
After the Nepalese victory, Nepalnews.com, a Nepali news portal, wrote:
Nepal makes 3-0 clean sweep vs @UKFemaleVICric in 1st ever women's #BlindCricket series. http://t.co/C7PNhi4MjH pic.twitter.com/YTbYZ0IrZ9
— Nepalnews.com (@nepalnews_com) October 28, 2014
Like the members of the Nepali Blind Women’s Cricket Team, two of the Nepalese wheelchair cricketers participating in the Winter Cup International Cricket Championship are women: Laxmi Ghimire and Hemkala Sunuwar. Twenty-year-old Laxmi says she will watch the rest of the World Cup matches from home. And so will the others.
Be it spinal injury or visual impairment, none of these disabilities will ever stop these spirited hearts from relishing the fervour of the World Cup.

author: Sanjib Chaudhary


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Facebook Campaign Garners Iranian Journalist Masih Alinejad Women’s Rights Award · Global Voices
Mahsa Alimardani

The cover photo from Masih Alinejad's Facebook page “My Stealthy Freedom”
London based Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad won the 2015 Women's Rights Award at the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy for her Facebook page “My Stealthy Freedom” this past week. The page invites Iranian women to post pictures of themselves without a Hijab, in defiance of Iran's Islamic laws that enforce compulsory hijab. With over 750, 000 followers, this page has been considered something of social media movement for Iranian women.
Below is a video from her acceptance speech at the Summit:

author: Mahsa Alimardani


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Here Is What You Can Do in Kyiv if You Have One Dollar · Global Voices
Tanya Lokot

Image from You have one dollar, what's next? on Facebook.
The economic woes in Ukraine have been hitting the local currency, hryvnya, hard. The most recent dive brought the currency to 33 against the US dollar (in December 2014 it was 16 UAH to 1 USD). But enterprising Ukrainian social media users have tried to find the bright side—by crowdsourcing ideas about what you could afford in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, with only a dollar to your name.
Alena Denga polled her friends and did some sleuthing herself, which resulted in a blog post listing all kinds of ideas on how to spend your dollar. Among other things, in Kyiv it can buy you:
A cappuccino and  an americano from a street vendor will cost you 22.5 UAH—less than one dollar! Image from Medium.
If you long for cultural events, a dollar can get you a matinee show at the movies or a trip to one of the numerous Kyiv museums. Other options for spending your 33 hryvnyas include boxes of candied fruit, postcards to send to your friends (yes, by snail mail!), and even a train ticket from Kyiv to Vinnitsa.
One Facebook user was even able to score a ticket to an opera performance for 20 UAH ($0.71).
National Opera of Ukraine, Carmen, February 27, 2015, 7 p.m.—20 UAH. And enough change to buy a sandwich.
After Alena's post got 3500 views in one night, she set up a Facebook community to continue crowdsourcing, with users already contributing ideas about how to spend one dollar (or 33 hryvnyas) in other Ukrainian cities.


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ISIS Burns Mosul Library in Iraq, Destroys Thousands of Valuable Manuscripts and Books · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

ISIS burns books from Al Mosul Library in Iraq. This photograph has been widely shared on social media. Original source unknown.
In an act described as “cultural cleansing,” ISIS fighters unleashed their anger on thought, culture and history, burning thousands of rare manuscripts, documents and books, when they ransacked the Mosul Library, in Iraq.
First estimates put the number of books burned at around 8,000. Fresh reports, however, says as many as 112,709 manuscripts and books, “some of which were registered on a UNESCO rarities list” have been lost, reports the Independent, quoting a library official.
Other reports say some of the manuscripts destroyed date back 800 years, adding that other libraries faced a similar faith in areas held by the terror group, which has also been staging public book burnings.
According to the report, the militants, who have come to control large swathes of Iraq and Syria, then demolished the building housing the library, using explosive devices. Mosul, Iraq's second largest city fell into the militants’ hands in June 2014 and is now under the control of the group, a splinter of the notorious Al Qaeda, which is also fighting in Syria.
The Fiscal Times adds:
Among its lost collections were manuscripts from the eighteenth century, Syriac books printed in Iraq's first printing house in the nineteenth century, books from the Ottoman era, Iraqi newspapers from the early twentieth century and some old antiques like an astrolabe and sand glass used by ancient Arabs. The library had hosted the personal libraries of more than 100 notable families from Mosul over the last century.
While reports on the attack on the Mosul Library have just made the headlines, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) says attacks on libraries, museums and universities have been going on for several months. On February 3, it voiced “its alarm over the reported destruction of thousands of books in museums, libraries and universities across Mosul.”
UNESCO Director-General, Irina Bokova described the destruction as “a new phase in the cultural cleansing perpetrated in regions controlled by armed extremists in Iraq.”
She further adds:
It adds to the systematic destruction of heritage and the persecution of minorities that seeks to wipe out the cultural diversity that is the soul of the Iraqi people.
According to the UN agency:
The books – on topics ranging from philosophy and law to science and poetry – have been “deliberately burned” over the past several weeks in what may be “one of the most devastating acts of destruction of library collections in human history.”
This takes us back to 1258, when invading Mongols attacked and ransacked Baghdad, then the centre of the Abbasid Caliphate. In that year, Beit Al Hekma (House of Wisdom), a learning centre and library, was destroyed, with the Mongols throwing valuable books into the River Tigris, reportedly turning the river's water black from the ink.
In recent times, the Mosul library, opened in 1921, was also looted during the US invasion of Iraq, as SubMedina, a blogger based in Morocco, reminds us:
isis destroys mosul library and thousands of books in iraq. this is like the us invasion all over again. pic.twitter.com/q7BuBfmKQt
— Don't Talk To Me (@SubMedina) February 24, 2015
Many netizens expressed shock.
Palestinian Ismail Abuelkass is lost for words:
داعش حرقت مكتبة الموصل التاريخية. “@cnnturkcom: IŞİD , Musul'da kütüphane yaktı >>> http://t.co/DjMhjmTc3B pic.twitter.com/jaPG0MjuKb“
— Ismail Abuelkass (@ilkass) February 25, 2015
ISIS burned down the historic Mosul library
Jameel, from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, adds:
داعش لعنها الله تكرر جريمة التتار وتحرق ثروة علمية هائلة في مكتبة الموصل.. من أزهق روح الإنسان لن يترفع عن إزهاق فكره.
— جميل (@jameel___) February 24, 2015
The ISIS, may they be damned, have repeated the Mongol's crime and burned down a huge scientific legacy at Mosul Library. Those who kill people will not think twice before killing ideas
And Far cry continues:
#داعش تفجر مكتبة الموصل بعد حرق كتبها ومخطوطاتها النادرة أي إيمان هش يخشى على نفسه من الكتب pic.twitter.com/3AEh5ckCWC
— Far cry (@Farcry99) February 24, 2015
The ISIS bombs Mosul Library after burning down its books and rare manuscripts. What kind of fragile belief is afraid of books?

author: Amira Al Hussaini


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Lunar New Year Envelopes Get a Rainbow Twist for Gay Acceptance in Hong Kong · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

The red envelope distributed by Action Q is designed with a rainbow-colored goat – as 2015 is the Year of the Goat – to signify the LGBT community's wish for acceptance. Image from Action Q's Facebook.
The Chinese Lunar New Year is a season that families often spend together. During the first few days of the new year, married couples give traditional red envelopes to members of the family who are unmarried as a gesture of good will. But same-sex couples are not recognized in major Chinese societies, including Hong Kong, so what should be a festive greeting becomes a dreaded moment for gay and lesbian people.
To address the problem, LGBT activist group Action Q launched a campaign called “Celebrating Lunar New Year with Gay People”. On Lunar New Year's eve, the group distributed special red envelopes in downtown Hong Kong containing three real life stories illustrating how gay and lesbian people feel during the holiday. A rainbow-colored goat was printed in the cover of the envelopes to signify the LGBT community's wish to enjoy the Lunar New Year celebration the same as straight couples do.
The group explained the rationale behind the campaign on Facebook, describing what the holiday season feels like for gay and lesbian people:
農曆新年是華人最重視的節慶，其中以家庭團聚和拜年作為節日的主軸，不難發現無論古今，所有關於農曆新年的活動都是以異性戀的家庭崗位作為中心。[…]在家庭裏，同志長輩因不能結婚而無法名正言順地派利是；長輩稱謂方面，姐姐的丈夫會稱為「姐夫」，但姐姐的妻子則沒有適當的稱謂。顯示他們被既定的家庭架構排除在外，在家庭裏地位較低。[…]作為後輩，在拜年期間經常被問及感情狀況，同志青年為了父母的面子或未跟父母出櫃，不時要迴避或應付這類對話，實在不無壓力。所以，我們寫了三個致同志青年的短篇故事，希望引起大家的共鳴，了解同志在農曆年的處境。
The Lunar New Year is the most important Chinese festival. Spending time with family and visiting relatives are a major part of the season. Since ancient times, all of these activities have centered around the heterosexual family unit. […] Within families, gay couples cannot hand out red envelopes to junior family members and we don't have a proper way of addressing gay couples in extended families. For example, we don't know how to address our sister's wife. Gay couples are marginalized in the current family structure with a relatively low status. […] As for junior family members, they are usually asked about their love lives when visiting family. Most gay and lesbian people have to face a lot of pressure as they don't want to embarrass their parents in front of other relatives or some of them haven't even told their parents about their sexual orientation.
Two of the stories inside the envelopes recount all the embarrassing questions gay and lesbian people receive from relatives and friend Lunar New Year. The most touching one tells of a mother inviting her son's partner to the year-end family dinner:
母親輕敲半掩的房門，端來一杯暖和的蜜糖水，說「仔，年三十晚食團年飯，唔好約人呀」。[…] 團年飯都是訂於年三十晚，年年如是[…] 而以往母親亦沒有如此刻意提醒。[…] 我回過頭去面對母親。我們四目相投了一秒，這一秒卻異常漫長，我完全不知道母親究竟要說甚麼，只感受到她將要說的是一件重要的事，終於母親打破了沉默，說「如果你朋友得閒，你就叫埋佢上嚟食飯啦」。
當耳膜上的震動化作我能理解的訊息後，我的心如鹿撞，擱在大腿上的手亦不自覺的顫抖起來，但我努力的壓抑我心裡的激動與狂喜，故作冷靜的說「哦，我晏啲問吓佢」，因為我知道這一段短短的對話對我和母親都並不容易，自我出櫃以來，除了剛出櫃的那一個充滿著淚水與吵鬧的星期，我的家避而不談任何有關同性戀的事足足有三年，情感的張力高得任何情感表露都會叫我倆眼淚决堤。[…]
待母親離開過後，我按捺著心中的激動，強忍眼眶中欲墜的淚水，用顫抖的手給男朋友撥電話。
「Sam，年三十晚你上嚟我屋企食團年飯，好唔好？」
Mother knocked my door and handed me a warm honey water. She then said, “Son, we have the year-end family dinner, don't go out with others”. […] Every year we have the same dinner […] and my mother had never reminded me like this before. […] I turned my head to face her and we locked eyes for about a second, a very long second. I didn't know what exactly my mother wanted to talk about, but I had the feeling that it was a very important issue. My mother finally broke the silence and said, “If your friend has time, bring him home for dinner.”
As soon as I heard her voice and was able to process what she said, my heart began to jump like a deer and my hands began to shake on my thighs. I tried very hard to suppress my excitement and exuberance and answer with a calm voice, “OK, I'll ask him later.” Such a conversation was very difficult for my mother and I. The week I came out to my parents was filled with tears and confrontation. Then, for three years we avoided talking about anything related with to homosexuality. The tension was so strong that showing any sign of emotion on our faces would end with us bursting into tears. […]
After my mother left the room, I tried hard to hold in my tears while I called my boyfriend, “Sam, can you come to my house for the year-end family dinner?”
Currently, neither same-sex marriage nor civil unions are legally recognized in Hong Kong. Although opponents to same-sex marriage still outnumber supporters by 3% there, the trend indicates that society will eventually be ready to accept gay couples.

author: Oiwan Lam


text:
‘Ministry of Truth’ Recruits Ukrainians for ‘Internet Army’ · Global Voices
Tanya Lokot

Images mixed by Tetyana Lokot.
Ukrainian Ministry of Information Policy is ramping up its attempts to win the information war with Russia. Their newest idea? Launching a website to recruit Ukrainian social media users for a government-run “Internet army.”
Minister Yuri Stets had already hinted in January that an “Internet force” of influential users, coordinated by and working for the state, would make a good weapon to wield against Russian propaganda and manipulation online. Now, it seems, the Ministry has put his ideas about “sharing truthful information and debunking fakes” into action.
The new website, i-army.org, popped up on the social media radar on February 23. Using the slogan “Each of your information messages is a bullet in your enemy's conscience,” the webpage invites users to submit their name/nickname and email address to join the ranks of “information warriors.”
Як ви знаєте, війну Росії проти України називають гібридною.
Все тому, що війна справжня, а інформація про неї брехлива. Проти нас відкрито багато фронтів,
і один з особливо важливих — інформаційний.
i-army.org
As you know, Russia's war against Ukraine is called a hybrid one.
This is because the war is real, and information about it is false. A lot of fronts are open against us, and the information front is one of the most important ones.
[from the i-army.org website]
The “iArmy” also got a Twitter account, where it has already started debunking fakes and educating followers about the “signs of Russian propaganda,” and a Facebook page, filled with photoshopped images to assist the recruiting effort.
Image from Інформаційна війська України on Facebook.
Ukrainian social media users were immediately suspicious of the site and speculations about whether it was real or fake ran rampant. Media requests for comment to the Ministry went unanswered. Many users were understandably skeptical.
Если “Інформаційні війська України” не стёб, то всё очень печально.
— Павел Чистяков (@pavlentiyua) February 23, 2015
If “Ukraine's Information Army” isn't a joke, then it's really, really sad.
Finally, several hours later the Ministry's official online HQ spit out a press-release announcing the “Internet Army” launch and linking to the new website. The release says the Army's main goal is to mobilize Internet users to fight “Russian bots, spreading fakes, informational and psychological pressure from Russian media” and notes the Minister hopes that the new project “will help mobilize a number of volunteers to spread the truth and expose Russian fakes.”
The “Ukrainian Internet Army” will be run by a well-known Ukrainian blogger and video streamer Oleksandr Baraboshko (aka Krus), recently hired as adviser to the Minister. In an interview to Radio Liberty, Stets claimed that over 20 thousand users, including influential bloggers, have already joined the initiative.
Ukrainian social media users reacted to news of the new cyber army draft with varying degrees of humor and skepticism.
- Ты уроки сделал? – Нууу мааам, у меня важное задание от штаба информационных войск!
— ето Саша (@mrgrdsky) February 23, 2015
- Did you do your homework?
– Mom, I have an important task from the information army headquarters!
Джаст фо фан вступаю в інформаційні війська. Подивимось, які там бойові завдання будуть http://t.co/omMoA2bNmA
— Богдан Григорович (@bgrigorovich) February 23, 2015
Just for fun I'm joining the information forces. Let's see what kind of combat tasks they give us.
Users who subscribed on the website have already received several emails from the “Internet Army” command, informing them of the first tasks they had to perform. Those include recruiting their friends and followers to sign up on the website and leaving comments under news stories on “pro-Kremlin” Russian news websites like LifeNews. The emails also provide advice on dealing with “Kremlin trolls” (never try to argue with them) and warn users against sharing news from Russian websites (“they are all controlled by the Kremlin”).
The more critical voices on Twitter were unhappy about the level of professionalism displayed by the Ministry and the “Internet Army,” and some straight out dismissed the idea as ludicrous.
Мінстець створює інформаційні війська. Для початку ворог має лопнути зі сміху http://t.co/5xAX8LbN6R
— Олексій Тяжкий (@Oko_ua) February 23, 2015
MinStets [a portmanteau nickname for the Minister, Yuri Stets] is creating an information army. For a start, the enemy has to burst from laughter.
Бля, эти задания от Минстеця. И ведь, сука, это настоящий сайт и настоящая рассылка. Информационная политика my ass. pic.twitter.com/xPwkTS6fdP
— Bruce Wank (@Symphonicon) February 23, 2015
Damn, these tasks from MinStets. And this is a bloody real website and a real email list. Information policy my ass.
Some journalists have also criticized the idea of a government-run information warfare campaign. Reporter and activist Natali Sokolenko thought the ministerial backing discredited the initiative.
якби Стець запропонував об”єднатися блогерам у “інформаційні війська” не як міністр інформації міністерства правди, а від коордради, я би схвалила, а так – тільки відраза як від чогось мертво-бюрократчного
If Stets suggested bloggers come together as an “information army” not as the Minister of Information at the Ministry of Truth, but as [a representative] of the coordinating civic council, I'd approve of this, otherwise I only feel disgust at this stillborn bureaucracy.
The Ministry of Information Policy, itself a recent addition to the Ukrainian government, had a rocky start in January when it was dubbed the Ministry of Truth by the Ukrainian public. Many think it is an unnecessary waste of budget funds and an attempt to further curtail freedom of speech in Ukraine.
Volunteer groups in Ukraine are already engaging in information warfare in their own small ways, whether by hacking webcams and printers or by collecting data on rebel troop movements. The newest project, it seems, is not doing much to inspire confidence in the Ministry's abilities to guard Ukraine's information integrity and security. Given the stilted government rhetoric and the level of distrust towards the Ministry, it's hard to believe the “Internet Army” will be successful if it attempts to fight the Kremlin trolls with their own weapons.


text:
Peru’s Mosques: Pearls of Latin America’s Muslim Immigrants  · Global Voices
Gabriela García Calderón Orbe

Bab Ul Islam mosque in Tacna, Peru. Detail of image on Flickr by user Karin Ibarra Saavedra (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
Peru is a multicultural country, so it's no wonder that Lima celebrates Chinese New Year, as Global Voices reported recently. In the south of the country, however, in the city of Tacna, we find evidence of another migration in the Bab ul Islam mosque, where Peru's Muslims convene to worship.
The mosque, which now has its own Facebook page, was built by Muslim citizens who arrived in the 1990s. It opened its doors 15 years ago, in 2000.
The website IslamHoy.org sums up Muslim migrations to Latin American over the past five centuries:
La historia de la llegada de los musulmanes al Perú suele circunscribirse a las oleadas migratorias llevadas a cabo a partir del siglo XIX hasta el siglo XX. Sin embargo, debe tenerse muy en cuenta migraciones anteriores a éstas y para ello debemos intentar retroceder en el tiempo, hasta el siglo XV.
[…]
los musulmanes llegados a América legaron mucho de su arte. Por ejemplo, hasta ahora se pueden observar en la ciudad de Lima (e iniciadas en la Lima colonial) construcciones con diseños mudéjares […]. En cuanto a comida, podemos aún deleitarnos con mazapanes, turrones, alfeñiques y mazamorras (derivado de masa mora), entre otros.
[…]
Actualmente hay cerca de 300 musulmanes pakistaníes, recalcando el número elevado de conversiones, en especial de mujeres. También hay inmigrantes de India, algunos países árabes, así como chilenos y colombianos.
The history of the arrival of Muslims to Peru is usually limited to the migratory floods carried out from 19th century until 20th century. However, it's worth mentioning earlier migrations and thus we have to try to get back in time, back to 15th century.
[…]
Muslims who arrived in America left much of their art. For instance, until now we can observe in the city of Lima (initiated during colonial Lima) buildings with Mudejar designs […]. When it comes to food, we can still enjoy marzipans, turrons, alfeñiques and mazamorras (a term that comes from masa mora, moor dough), among others.
[…]
Nowadays, there are about 300 Pakistani Muslims, and we shall stress the high number of conversions, especially among women. There are also migrants from India, some Arab countries, as well as Chileans and Colombians.
Meanwhile in Magdalena, a district of Peruvian capital Lima, we find a mosque built in 1986. Blogger Juan Luis Orrego Penagos recounts the history of this house of worship:
Estrictamente, la construcción no es la de una mezquita (como por ejemplo, la que se ha levantado en Tacna), sino una vieja casa “acondicionada” como templo de oración para los musulmanes que viven en nuestra ciudad (por ejemplo, la colocación de una gran cantidad de alfombras para facilitar la posición del rezo orientado hacia La Meca). […] Se puede visitar en cualquier momento del día, sin interrumpir los rezos. […]
Uno de sus miembros fundadores, Said Faroud, confiesa: “Antes no había mezquita. Pero qué es lo que pasa… los musulmanes se dan cuenta que están siendo perdidos; ellos y sus hijos, pierden su cultura, su religión, todo… y comienzan a avisar que vamos a hacer mezquita… y en 1986, después de años de esfuerzo logran fundar esta mezquita.
Technically, this building is not a mosque (such as, for instance, the one built in Tacna), but an old house “set up” as a praying temple for Muslims living in our city (we find many carpets displayed to make it easier to face Mecca). […] It can be visited anytime during the day, with no interruption to prayers. […]
One of the founder members, Said Faroud, says: “There used to be no mosque. But the thing is… Muslims were aware that they were getting lost; them and their children, losing their culture, religion, everything… and started to spread the word that we are going to build a mosque… and in 1986, after years of hard work, they manage to create this mosque.
A group of Muslims from California, in the United States, who came to Peru “to spread Islam,” were surprised when they arrived:
Para nuestra sorpresa, la persona que contesto el teléfono, era la persona encargada de la mezquita en Lima. Su nombre era Sabed, es el imam de la mezquita de Lima (esta en la avenida Tacna, Magdalena) e insistió en recogernos en el aeropuerto. Nosotros le dijimos que tomaríamos un taxi. Nosotros nos pusimos contentos y aliviados de encontrar una mezquita. Saeed, estaba muy feliz, porque era la primera vez que llegaba un grupo de los Estados Unidos a visitar la mezquita de Lima. La mezquita, que era una casa gigante con 12 cuartos, fue donada por un hermano árabe.
[…]
Perú es un país gigante con más de 24 millones de personas. En la capital de Lima, hay aproximadamente 400 musulmanes. La mayoría de los musulmanes en Perú son una mezcla de palestinos y sirios que partieron de sus tierras buscando una vida económica mejor para sus familias.
Much to our surprise, the guy who answered the phone was the one in charge of the mosque in Lima. His name was Sabed. He is the imam of the mosque in Lima (located in Tacna Avenue, Magdalena) and insisted on picking us up at the airport. We told him we'd take a taxi. We were glad and relieved to find a mosque. Saeed was very happy, as that was the first time a group came from United States to visit the mosque in Lima. The mosque, which used to be a big house with 12 rooms, was a donation from an Arab brother.
[…]
Peru is a huge country with over 24 million people. In the capital Lima, there are about 400 Muslims. Most of Muslims in Peru are a mix of Palestinians and Syrians who left their homelands looking for a better economy for their families.
Some Twitter users have also addressed Peru's Muslim presence:
Mezquita Musulmana, Tacna Perú. #Vacaciones pic.twitter.com/Fd3XQtDojI
— Manuel Barría (@Manuel_Barria) agosto 8, 2014
Muslim mosque, Tacna, Peru.
Se oye el llamado a la oración http://t.co/YiLMIfxX
— Lima DailySecret (@LimaDailySecret) octubre 26, 2012
We hear the call for prayers.
And there are also expressions of amazement:
#Mezquita en #Tacna sabian que tenemos una aqui? #Islam http://t.co/1oFa2o0eos
— faGroupBlog (@faGroupBlog) diciembre 26, 2013
Mosque in Tacna, did you know we have one here?


text:
Remembering Ukraine’s ‘Heavenly Hundred’ · Global Voices
Tetyana Bohdanova

Kiev, Ukraine. 20th February 2015 — A Ukrainian carries a torn national flag at a mourning ceremony in memory of the heroes of “Heavenly Hundred”. February 20 during anti-government protests on Independence Square about 100 activists were killed. — One year after over 100 people were killed at Independence Square aka Maidan Square in Kiev thousands of Ukrainians pay tribute to activists killed during anti-government protests in February 2014. Photo by Oleg Pereverzev, © Demotix 2015.
Ukraine recently observed the first anniversary of the EuroMaidan revolution, commemorating the so-called “Heavenly Hundred” Heroes who died during the bloodiest days of the protests in February 2014. The Supreme Council of Ukraine proclaimed these men and women to be “victims” of police violence under the Yanukovych regime, awarding each of them the Hero of Ukraine title.
The first deaths on Maidan Nezalezhnosti square during the protests occurred in late January 2014, when two activists were shot and killed during clashes with police. The body of a third protester, kidnapped a few days earlier, was later found on the outskirts of Kyiv. The deaths continued for another month, culminating on February 20, when snipers opened fire on protesters, killing over 40 people (photo, video, video).
These events caused widespread unrest throughout Ukraine and escalated the demonstrations, ultimately driving Viktor Yanukovych from the country. With the president escaped to Russia, Kyiv held an emergency reshuffling of the government, and later held early elections for the presidency and parliament.
The protesters killed during EuroMaidan have been honored as martyrs in what Ukrainians have dubbed the “Revolution of Dignity.” Between February 17 and 24, commemorative events have been held to honor the fallen:
#euromaidan pic.twitter.com/pS7ttYg78q
— Kateryna_Kruk (@Kateryna_Kruk) February 20, 2015
Although a year has passed since the tragic events at Maidan Square, the memories are still fresh for many Ukrainians. Sevgil Musaieva-Borovyk, a Kyiv-based journalist from Crimea, described the difficulty of expressing such feelings of tragedy and loss:
Думала, моя лента в эти дни будет посвящена воспоминаниям 18-20 февраля. Они есть, но их очень мало. И я понимаю причину.
Я помню все в мельчайших подробностях, кроме второй половины 20 февраля – ее не помню совсем. (кажется, что сработала защитная реакция и мозг отказался воспринимать все происходящее).
Помню, но написать не могу. Год прошел. А болит до сих пор очень сильно.
Больно вспоминать.
В моей ленте мало букв о тех днях, но есть еще молчаливая боль. И я ее ощущаю.
[I] thought during these days my news feed would be filled with memories from February 18–20. There are some, but very few. And I understand the reason.
I remember everything to the tiniest detail, except the second half of February 20, which I do not recall at all. (This must have been some defense mechanism in my brain that prevented me from perceiving what was happening.)
I remember, but I cannot write [about it]. It's been a year. But it still hurts too much.
And it's too painful to remember.
In my news feed, there are not many [posts] dedicated to those days, but there is a lot of unexpressed pain. And I feel it.
Kiev, Ukraine. 20th February 2014 — Medical teams try to recover the dead and injured while under fire. — Pictures from the front lines in Kiev and around EuroMaidan. Ukrainians riot demanding the resignation of the President Victor Yanukovych. They wish for an end to the corruption for which he and his associates have been named. Photo by Misha Somerville, © Demotix 2015.
The Russia-fueled war in eastern Ukraine, which started after the revolution in Kyiv, has also overwhelmed the country with death and destruction. Kyiv-based journalist Anastasiia Bereza revealed her despair about the continued bloodshed:
Ожидалось, что тягостными будут дни первой февральской годовщины.
Не мыслилось, что ужас новых событий почти полностью затмит их собой.
It was expected that the days of February's anniversary would be very difficult. [But] it was inconceivable that the horror of new events would almost completely overshadow them.
But some people, of course, did share memories from Maidan, writing stories about courage, love, and sacrifice. Among them was Facebook user Vasyl Arbuzov, originally from Donetsk, who posted the following description of the shootings:
запомнилось как двадцатого числа часов в 11 утра со сцены сухо объявили, что протестующим рекомендовано покинуть майдан, тк по площади работает снайпер. я точно не помню как именно это было сказано, но помню, что понадобилось несоклько секунд, чтоб понять смысл услышанного. после этой фразы на майдане стало еще тише. тишину нарушали только гулкие выстрелы, которые эхом доносились с институтской. люди перестали спешить, большинство людей остановились, некоторые стали оглядываться вокруг. стояла прекрасная погода. легкий мороз, но было безветренно и не холодно. небо было затянуто плотной пеленой. из-за нее свет распространялся равномерно, не отбрасывая теней. между нами и институтской, где в небо уходили герои, была дочерна выжженная после штурма земля. с земли поднимался пар. парило также сгоревшее здание профсоюзов. среди этих декораций стояли необычайно красивые люди. в рваной одежде, большинство в саже, кто-то в крови. после того как человек понимает значение фразы “по майдану работает снайпер”, ничего кроме любви к окружающим он уже испытывать не может. на майдане стояла семья, которая за свободу платила своими лучшими сыновьями. никто не хотел умирать, но никто не собирался уходить. так украинцы победили.
[I] remember how on [February] 20, [2014], at 11 a.m., in a matter-of-fact manner it was recommended from the stage that protesters should leave Maidan because a sniper was firing at the square. I do not recall exactly how it was said, but it took a few seconds for the words to sink in. After this phrase, the crowd became even quieter. The silence was broken only by the hollow sound of gunshots, echoing from Instytutska street. People stopped hurrying, most stood still, some started looking around. It was a beautiful day. There was a light freeze, but no wind or cold. The skies were covered with thick clouds.
Because of this, the light fell evenly on the square, and there hardly were any shadows. Between us and Instytutska, where heroes were leaving us for the heavens, laid a dark ground burnt after the latest attack. Steam was rising up from the ground. The burnt Trade Unions building was steaming, as well. In the middle of this scenery stood unbelievably beautiful people. Their clothes torn, most were smeared with soot, some with blood. After one understands the meaning of “a sniper is firing at the square,” he or she can feel nothing but love for the people around. A family stood on Maidan, which was paying for freedom with the lives of its best sons. No one wanted to die. But no one was leaving either. That is how Ukrainians won.
Kyiv, Ukraine. 20th February 2015 — All around Maidan square are memorial spots, where people put the victims’ pictures and come to meditate. — Today in Kyiv, a ceremony was held on Maidan square to pay tribute to the victims of last year event. President Petro Poroshenko gave a speech and opera music was played. A photo by Camille Gazeau, © Demotix 2015.
Because of the events that followed the protests, many Ukrainians, including several government officials, now believe the crackdown on Maidan was at least partially orchestrated by the Kremlin and that protesters’ victory provoked the occupation of Crimea and the ensuing armed conflict in the Donbas.
One year later, however, the Revolution of Dignity is far from over, as Kyiv's fragile new government confronts Russian aggression, Russia-backed separatists, and the loss of Crimea, not to mention struggles at home to implement badly needed domestic reforms. Andriy Parubiy, a politician and a former head of a powerful EuroMaidan sub-movement “Maidan Self-Defense,” shared his view of events on Facebook:
Майдан продовжується. 21 листопада ми виходили на Майдан, щоб відстояти українську незалежність, виходили проти Путіна, бо Янукович був лише маріонеткою в його руках. Характерно, що 20 лютого, коли українці вели боротьбу на Майдані, Путін уже фактично розпочав пряму військову агресію проти України. Медалі за захоплення Криму, які Путін видав окупаційно-російським військам датовані 20-м лютого, – це і є фактична дата початку прямої військової агресії Кремля проти України. У мене немає сумнівів, якби нам тоді не вдалося вигнати Януковича з країни, він закликав би російські війська в Україну не з Ростова-на-Дону, а з Києва. І на Майдан були би кинуті російські танки.
(…)
Майдан триває. Нам необхідно подолати і внутрішнього ворога – корупцію. Таку ж народну війну, яку ми ведемо проти Путіна, ми повинні вести проти зла, яке руйнує державу зсередини – корупції.
(…)
Maidan continues. On November 21, we came to Maidan to defend Ukraine's independence, we came out against Putin, because Yanukovych was a puppet in his hands. It's illustrative that on February 20, when Ukrainians fought on Maidan, Putin basically launched his aggression against Ukraine. The medals awarded for seizing Crimea to Russian occupation forces are dated February 20, which is the true date of the Kremlin's direct military aggression against Ukraine. I have no doubts that Yanukovych would have sought Russian military aid from his palace outside Kyiv, instead of his home in exile in Rostov, if we'd not forced him from the country. And then Maidan would have had to face Russian tanks.
[…]
[But] Maidan continues. We must defend ourselves against an internal enemy: corruption. The national war we wage against Putin must also be fought against the evil that destroys our country from within: corruption.
Yaryna Yasynevych, who advocates reforms to the Ukrainian government, posted a rather disillusioning assessment of the current situation:
Щоб змінити систему, треба створити систему.
Хаотичні рухи організації не заважають. Повинна бути організована атака. А коли система впаде, її має замінити інша — базована на нових принципах, цінностях, але теж система.
ЄвроМайдану вистачило для того, щоб налякати капітанів і зробити пробоїну, але корабель продовжує свій рух. Громадяни, які і на Майдані не зважали на вказівки політиків і вибороли перемогу ціною неймовірних зусиль та навіть життів, зараз не меншою ціною виборють перемогу у війні. Фронт зміни системи у середині практично пустий: наразі ми перемагаємо на рівні декларації нових принипців (дякуючи парламентарям за нові закони), але система стоїть і натомість їй не твориться альтернатива, здатна зруйнувати і замінити. Українська бюрократія досі нагадуює фіру із ядерною боєголовкою, а не tesla
Дорогі політики, не думайте про вибори, лайки і репости, не думайте про черговий ефір – думайте про майбутнє. Творіть структури, набирайте людей, формуйте команди і втілюйте плани. І тоді вас запам'ятають надовго.
Нє, я не песиміст. Просто коли виграємо війну, думаю, всім би хотілося мати також і змінену систему всередині
In order to change the system, we have to create one. Chaotic movements are not an impediment to organizing. There must be an organized attack. And once the system falls, a new one must replace it, based on new principles and values—but it still has to be a system.
EuroMaidan was only enough to frighten the captains and make a hole in the ship's bottom, but the ship remains afloat. The citizens on Maidan who didn't listen to the politicians’ orders and achieved victory with enormous efforts, sometimes even at the cost of their own lives, are now winning the war [in the east] with sacrifices that are no less dramatic. But the internal front in the fight to change the system is practically abandoned. As of now, we're only winning when it comes to declaring new principles (which is what the new parliament has focused on), but the old system remains intact and there's no serious alternative in the works. Ukrainian bureaucracy is still more like a horse cart with a nuclear warhead than a Tesla.
Dear politicians, do not think about elections, “likes,” or shares [on Facebook], or about some upcoming TV broadcast. Think about the future. Build structures, find people, create teams and realize your plans. And then  you will be remembered.
No, I am not a pessimist. But when we win the war [against Russia and the separatists], I think everyone would also like to have a system that has been changed from within.
Apart from reforms, many activists have renewed calls for the prosecution of those responsible for killing and persecuting EuroMaidan protesters, a process that has stalled under the post-Maidan government and disappointed many.
Vitaliy Umanets, a member of the AutoMaidan movement (an motorist subgroup within the EuroMaidan movement), posted an angry reminder to the prosecutors and judges he still holds responsible for condoning and enabling police brutality against EuroMaidan protesters.
Переглянувши знову відео розстрілу наших хлопців на тодішній Інститутській, я вчергове нагадав собі, чому я, і АвтоМайдан – AutoMaidan загалом, не маємо права зупинятися у покаранні тих прокурорів і суддів, які продовжують бути гвинтиками вже “нової” системи, які в день, коли розстрілювали Небесну Сотню, продовжували ухвалювати свої незаконні рішення проти активістів, висувати обвинувачення побитим, скаліченим беркутнею людям, ті, хто мав захищати нас від бєспрєдєлу, а насправді творили його.
Судді і прокурори. Готуйтеся, для вас все лише починається. Ми їдемо по ваші гнилі, продажні душі!
After watching the video of the shooting of our guys on what was then Instutytska [street], I am again reminded why neither I nor AutoMaidan can cease until the prosecutors and judges are punished. Those prosecutors and judges that continue being the screws in the “new” system, those who on the day when the Heavenly Hundred were shot kept passing unlawful decisions against activists, making up charges against people beaten and crippled by the [riot police] Berkut troops—those who were supposed to defend us against lawlessness, but instead practiced it themselves. Judges and prosecutors. Be prepared, because for you this is only the beginning. We are still coming for your rotten and corrupt souls!
Yet, as on many other days, the military conflict with Russia-backed militants in the eastern region of the country continued to draw most of the public's attention and involve many activists that were present at Maidan a year ago. Yuri Kasyanov, a popular blogger who today helps fundraise for the Ukrainian army, has become a prominent chronicler of the war. He writes:
Сегодня пишут про Майдан. А со стороны Луганского в Артемовске видны вечером вспышки, рвущие ночное небо. Обстреливают наши позиции. Канонада отчетливо слышна. Людям страшно. В городе пусто. Магазины вечером закрыты. Некоторые закрыты надолго, и забиты витрины фанерными листами. В городском троллейбусе половина пассажиров – солдаты. Встретить самоходную гаубицу или танк здесь проще, чем популярные на востоке “Жигули” пятой модели. Артемовск сегодня – фронтовой город.
Мы возвращаемся в город поздно вечером. В Светлодарске шел бой; в Луганском – стрельба. На дороге работают вражеские диверсионно-разведывательные группы. Дорожное полотно изношено до предела. Здесь даже днем не видно ни черта из-за густой пыли, поднимаемой впереди идущим танком. Ночью не видно не зги. Пересекая поле перед военным лагерем, едем с потушенными фарами в кромешной темноте. Работает вражеский беспилотник с ночной оптикой; отчетливо слышен в небе стрекот мотора.
Опасно, страшно, и нужно сегодня быть здесь, как год назад в Киеве. Майдан переехал. Теперь он на передовой.
Today, [people] write about Maidan. But from the side of Luganskoe in Artemovsk [in eastern Ukraine], one can see explosions lighting up the evening sky. Our positions are under fire. One can clearly hear the booming [of artillery fire]. People are scared. The city is deserted. The shops are closed in the evening. Some have been closed for a while, with windows boarded up. Half of the passengers on public transit are soldiers. It's easier to encounter a tank or a self-propelled howitzer than a [locally popular Russian-made car] Zhyguli. Artemovsk today is a town on the frontline.
We return to it late in the evening. There's been fighting in Svetlogorsk and shooting in Luganskoe. The enemy's sabotage-reconnaissance groups are working along the road. The highway is completely covered with artillery craters. Even during a day, you have zero visibility because of the dust raised by the tank ahead of you. At night, you can't see anything, either. When crossing the field in front of a military camp, we drive quietly with our lights turned off, in a complete darkness. An enemy's night vision drone is flying above us; we hear the chirr of its motor from the sky.
It's dangerous, it is frightening, and today one must be here, like one had to be in Kyiv a year ago. Maidan has moved. It is now at the frontline.

author: Tetyana Bohdanova


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Russian Lawmakers Propose Banning Women Under 40 from Smoking · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

Images edited by Kevin Rothrock.
Russian lawmakers have proposed new legislation that would ban all women under the age of forty from buying tobacco products. The draft law, authored by two Duma deputies from the Communist Party, says allowing women of childbearing age to smoke cigarettes poses a national security threat to Russia. “Female smoking,” the legislation’s explanatory note says, “harms the body’s reproductive system, causing irreparable damage to the genetic stock of the nation.”
Supporters of the law, which has been stuck in a parliamentary committee since June 2014, reason that the health risks posed to children by mothers smoking (such as increased odds of stillbirths, premature birth, cleft palates, and so on) outweigh any civil right to tobacco. The law would apply to all women, not just those who are pregnant. “Female smokers are often unable to carry a fetus to term or even become pregnant in the first place, as smoking kills an egg’s ability to be fertilized,” the legislation argues. The law would also ban the sale of tobacco products to women of any age in the presence of their non-adult children.
Individual vendors caught selling cigarettes illegally to women would face a penalty of up to 5,000 rubles ($80), while businesses could be fined as much as 150,000 rubles ($2,400).
The bill’s sponsors say banning women under forty from smoking is necessary to uphold Article 38 of the Russian Constitution, which charges the state with protecting “maternity, childhood, and the family.” The law also cites Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which entitles motherhood and childhood to “special care and assistance.”
So far, Russians online have mostly ridiculed the law, embracing it sarcastically and admonishing its authors.
Феминизм нинужон, потому что проект о запрете продажи сигарет женщинам – это совершенно нормально! Наши матки принадлежат государству!
— Плуточка (@pluto_chan) February 25, 2015
We don’t need feminism because we’ve got a project to ban the sale of cigarettes to women under 40. And it’s completely alright! Our uteruses belong to the state!
В Гос. Думе обсуждают вопрос о запрете продажи сигарет женщинам моложе 40 лет. Вот даже пошутить никак не могу, блять
— маяк (@mayaak_) June 10, 2014
The Duma is discussing the possibility of banning the sale of cigarettes to women under 40. I can’t even joke about this shit anymore. Fuck.
In early February, Philip Morris announced that Russia’s market for cigarettes contracted 9.2 percent in 2014, thanks mostly to higher taxes and a struggling economy. Despite the overall decline, however, vendors reported a 1,350 percent rise in the sale of papirosy—a cheap, filterless Russian cigarette that was especially popular in the Soviet Union.
As the Duma prepares to review the prohibition of women smokers, deputies will consider another law that would allow small towns to overturn a ban on selling tobacco products within 100 meters (330 feet) of schools.
According to a complaint by business-owners in Kirov, the ban on selling cigarettes near schools fails to appreciate rural economies, where all major shops and facilities are traditionally located side by side. In Kirov, stores reported a loss of 10-30 percent of their profits, often making it impossible to pay the rent, resulting in the closure of 15 different shops.

author: Kevin Rothrock


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South Korea’s Young Workers Earn ‘Passion Wages’, Meaning Hardly Anything at All · Global Voices
Lee Yoo Eun

Image titled ‘How to calculate passion wage’. All three conditions (which read from the left to right, ‘One has passion’, ‘One has talents’ and ‘One has the skills’) lead to the conclusion that ‘it is okay to pay less’. Image shared by Enha Wiki Mirror site, (CC BY NC SA 2.0)
“Passion wage” (the English for the Korean ‘열정페이’) has recently emerged as a new term in South Korea in reference to the extremely low pay given to young workers, often lower than the minimum wage. Employers hope that the workers’ “passion” will somehow compensate for the lack of a livable wage.
The term was first inspired by the extremely low pay that young interns of renowned fashion designer Lie Sang-bong receive, which was heavily criticized by youth rights group. Since then, many more testimonies of “passion wage” have followed. As this hot buzzword turned up in conversations and in news stories, the government ordered monitoring of alleged abuses of young people in the workforce.
South Korea's youth unemployment rate hit a record high of 9% in December 2014. One of the most scandalous cases of “passion wage” was that of an online game maker company, which posted a job advertisement offering voice actors compensation of ‘several hundred diamonds’ — the money used in the game, not real-world money — for their work.
Net users have shared many similar instances of small clothing shops paying their temporary photo editors and clothing models in clothing items, not money.
Outraged, young people have taken to social media to recount their experiences with little to no compensation for work they performed for the sake of getting experience. Many have noted that unpaid internships favor young people from wealthy families, who can afford to pay living expenses while doing work for free.
수습, 견습, 인턴, 알바, 열정 페이.. 세월의 흐름과 함께 ‘착취’라는 역사적 단어도 다양하고 세련된 이름으로 발전을 거듭한다.
— 이진경 (@castellio) January 8, 2015
Probationary employment, apprenticeship, internship, part-time work and now the “passion wage”… The word “exploitation” has evolved in various ways and transformed itself into more sophisticated forms as time goes by.
타인의 노동/재물/재능 등으로 이득을 보지만 그에 상응하는 댓가는 치르고 싶지 않은 경우 흔히 하는 짓이 그 노동등을 “숭고한 것”으로 만드는 거다. 가사노동, 육아노동, 강제징병, 그리고 최근의 열정페이, 재능기부 모두 이러한
— ㄱㅗㅏㄱㅅㅜㅈㅓㅇ (@ksj_0111) January 24, 2015
When someone wants to get only benefits from others’ labor, resources and talents but doesn't want to pay for it, what they often do is turn that labor into something ‘sacred’. Domestic work, child-rearing, being drafted, and currently, “passion wage” or talent-sharing are good examples.
진짜 공감 창작물도 창작하는데 드는 시간은 공짜가 아닌데… 열정페이 정말 진심을 다해서 싫어함 이건 좋은 기회이고 넌 이걸 좋아하니 희생해^^! 하는건 언제들어도 이해 할 수 없어…
— 료 (@ryoyell) February 18, 2015
I totally agree. All those hours spent on making creative content, it's not like it's free extra time. I really hate the passion wage. It's like saying, “Since it's a good opportunity and you seem to like it, why don't you just sacrifice for us!” I don't follow their logic.
“Passion wages” are most prevalent in fields that require mentoring from a superior, notably the fashion, beauty and culinary industries, as well as those in which a connection is pivotal to finding a job, such as creative industries like art and comics.
주간연재나 특정장르는 어시를 고용하지 않으면 정상적인 연재가 불가능에 가깝지만 어시에게 최저시급을 줄 경우 연재할 수 있는 작가가 많지 않다. 열정페이는 어느 곳보다 만화쪽에서 뜨끔할 문제.
— 마늘오리 (@kyhasdf) February 5, 2015
For weekly publishing or for certain genres of comics, it is nearly impossible to meet the deadline without the help of assistants, but there are not many comic writers who can afford to pay the minimum wage to an assistant. Actually, it would be the world of comics where the passion wage issue is most grave.
방송국에서 열정페이 피해자를 찾는다라… 멀리 가지 말고, 거기 AD, FD들한테 물어보시죠.
— 에사쿠 (@aircon77) February 11, 2015
They say people in TV stations are searching for victims of the passion wage system [for their news coverage]. Why don't you search closer and take a look around? Ask questions to your [poorly paid, entry-level] assistant directors or floor directors.
이상봉뿐 아니라 수많은 문화예술 쪽이 열정페이 천국이지. 비슷한 계열 잠깐 몸담은 적 있다.술자리서 어떤 작가가 “요즘애들 너무 쉽게 얻으려고 해. 글쎄 저번엔 월급 100만원을 요구하더라니까”라고 말하는 걸 듣고 그 동네를 탈출하기로 결심했지.
— KIL Yong-chan (@inven_Kavo) November 1, 2014
Actually, it is not only limited to the Lie Sang-bong case. Passion wages can be found almost everywhere in art and culture world. I once worked in that field and overheard one writer say, “Those young kids nowadays want easy money. One day, he or she even asked me to offer 1 million Korean won for monthly payment!” [equivalent to 909 US dollars, about 100 dollars higher than the minimum wage]. After I heard that, I’ve decided to run away from that area.
Regarding people's arguments that the unpaid internship system is used in many other countries and in certain fields, one Twitter user stressed:
무급 인턴제 운영으론, 이탈리아 예술계가 최악입니다. 식대와 차비 외 3-4년 무급 도제도 흔합니다. 일본의 유명 건축가들도 무급으로 인턴을 부립니다. 그런데, 그건 잘못된 겁니다. 미국 예술계에 무급 인턴이 흔하니까, 서울에서 그래도 되나요? — 임범묵 AKA 이정우 AKA 임근준 (@st_disegno) January 29, 2015
In the case of abusing the unpaid internship system, the Italian art field would be one of the worst cases. Unpaid apprenticeships can continue over the course of two to three years. In the case of Japan, even famous architects use unpaid interns. But that does not change the fact that it is wrong. Do you think it is okay to have such system in Seoul, just because unpaid interns are common in the art world in the United States?

author: Lee Yoo Eun


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The ‘Spy Cables’ Reveal Inconvenient Truths about Israel’s Mossad · Global Voices
Elia J. Ayoub

Screenshot from Al Jazeera's Promotional Video for the ‘Spy Cables‘
In collaboration with The Guardian newspaper, Al Jazeera is publishing hundreds of secret intelligence papers, dubbed the ‘Spy Cables‘ from agencies all over the world, from Israel to Britain, passing by Russia, Australia and South Africa. This comes four years after Al Jazeera published the Palestine Papers, “a trove of over 1,600 memos, emails, maps and more, which documented over a decade of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.” Of the current leaks, we will focus on those pertaining to Israel's Mossad agency.
Mossad contradicted Netanyahu on Iran nuclear programme
In 2012, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went to the United Nations to supposedly warn the world about Iran's nuclear program, claiming that they were 70 per cent into achieving their goal. Meanwhile, the Mossad, Israel's own Spy agency, denied the story, saying that Iran was “not performing the activity necessary to produce weapons.” Full story.
Israel airline used as intelligence ‘front’
This leak revealed that “Israel uses its flag-carrier, El Al Airlines, as cover for its intelligence agencies,” a claim supported by a document from the South African intelligence agency, the SSA, released in 2009. Full Story.
‘Ex-Israeli agents’ threatened cyber attack on S Africa
This leak revealed that a group claiming to be ex-Israeli spies threatened to launch a ‘devastating’ cyberattack on South Africa if the government doesn't crack down on local Boycott, Divest and Sanction campaigns against Israel's violations of international law. Full Story.
The Mossad asked its South African counterpart detailed information on Egypt's Morsi
This cable revealed that the Mossad asked South Africa's SSA to provide detailed information on Mohammed Morsi nearly a month into his presidency. Full Story and Al Jazeera's Analysis.
A CIA agent was ‘desperate’ to make contact with Hamas, Israel lobbies South Africa to silence a UN-sponsored probe into war crimes committed in Gaza
This leak reveals that a CIA agent was desperately trying to contact Hamas and asked the SSA for help. It was also revealed that the then-Mossad chief, Meir Dagan, was “seeking Pretoria's help in its efforts to scupper a landmark UN-authorised probe into alleged war crimes in Gaza, which was headed by South African judge Richard Goldstone.” Full Story.
Spy Cables reveal Mossad's tactics
Al Jazeera's Will Jordan revealed some of the tactics used by the Mossad for its activities. Full Story.

author: Elia J. Ayoub


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Trinidad & Tobago Has ‘Carnival Mentality’. Is That Necessarily a Bad Thing? · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

“Carnival Beauty”. Photo by Quinten Questel. Used under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license.
Many things come to mind when you think of Trinidad and Tobago Carnival: soca and steel pan music, costumes, fetes, and the spectacular street parade on Carnival Monday and Tuesday. But some people argue that the passion Trinbagonians have for their national festival is exactly what contributes to the society's ills, via a condition dubbed “Carnival mentality”.
Don't laugh it off; it really exists, and there have been several studies that examine what many believe is a debilitating cultural and behavioural albatross. A research paper by H. Maharajh and A. Ali described the phenomenon as “having two dimensions”:
During the carnival season, carnival mentality has been viewed as a ‘time to free up’, ‘time to break away and get on bad’ or take part in every carnival activity or event and indulging in alcohol, immoral, vulgar, and promiscuous activities without thinking of the consequences.
Outside of the carnival season, carnival mentality refers to the ‘non-stop party mentality’ that is practiced throughout the year; where every event or occasion is treated as a excuse ‘to lime or party’. Some respondents have regarded carnival mentality as ‘extreme liming’ or ‘continuous fun in the sun’. Carnival mentality was also seen as having filtered into the workplace where individuals have a very slack, laid back or ‘don't give a damn’ attitude towards work. Carnival mentality was also referred to by a minority of respondents as mindlessness […]
Over the years, social media users and bloggers have expressed concern that this Carnival mentality has moulded Trinbagonians into their own enablers, tracing the roots of the problem back to colonialism and slavery — the “deep-rooted results of forced submission, and the effect it has had on the psyche of its victims”:
What we have is a country that is more than capable of greatness, but the only thing holding us back is our approach to change and challenges.
This Carnival, however, blogger aka_lol turned the “Carnival mentality” phrase on its head, explaining why he can no longer buy into its negative connotations:
For too long the term Carnival Mentality was used in a very derogatory manner to describe the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago. When someone is described as possessing a Carnival Mentality it means that person is lazy, carefree, unproductive, promiscuous and prone to smiling too much while having the ability to enjoy oneself in the most genuine of ways. It meant the person or country with this mentality can achieve nothing meaningful in life even though they showed true signs of real happiness. […]
Trinidad and Tobago is now a world Carnival powerhouse and to do so requires the country to be productive all year as such an event can not be created in a couple months. Carnival involves so many people from nearly all sectors effectively planning and producing in now what seems like second nature to the country.
His post cites several examples of such industriousness — from the meticulous planning it takes to successfully pull off Carnival parties and concerts, to the fact that big Carnival bands “are now million dollar companies operating throughout the year and survive and grow using prudent and innovative business skills and not laziness as previously advertised.”
Carnival in Trinidad and Tobago is an industry in its own right, but is it actually profitable? Vernon O'Reilly Ramesar is  “not entirely convinced that Carnival should be considered an economic value to T&T”:
Some of the figures I am seeing suggest it generates $100 million US in revenue, but government is spending over $50 million US on Carnival which is a 100% ROI on the face of it, but that doesn’t tell the whole story.
Ramesar suggests that taxpayers are actually shelling out a lot more than they think to fund the festival, thanks to costs like police overtime. He also notes that much of the Carnival costume production is outsourced to countries like China, that not all ticket revenue is declared and some of it is funnelled to offshore accounts, and that “most of the big hotels are US managed”, so the revenue ends up abroad.
He concludes:
Then consider the disruption to normal commerce that occurs as a result of a lack of productivity and the country being shut down for several days. I haven’t seen that being quantified.
My conclusion is that Carnival is an investment in keeping the population distracted, and claiming it is an economic boost to the economy is really not true.
(As a contrast, Toronto’s Carnival is estimated to attract over 1.3 million visitors and generate over $400 million in revenue from a combined Toronto and Province investment of $1 million. That’s a respectable ROI in terms of taxpayers money.)
To Carnival lovers, however, that may not matter. aka_lol explains:
Without Carnival and the new Mentality it produces we would be just be another island in the sun selling rabid boredom to the rabidly boring.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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Anonymous Twitter Account Blows the Whistle on Wounded from Ukraine in Russian Military Hospital · Global Voices
Tanya Lokot

A child goes into a captured armored vehicle that was exhibited in Kyiv as part of the proof of Russian military presence in Ukraine. Image by Geovien So at Demotix.
An anonymous account on Twitter claiming to be a Russian soldier at a military hospital in a Russian town is providing undercover reports on the wounded brought from the frontlines in Ukraine.
The account, @ponimaem, started tweeting on Thursday, February 26. The bio says simply “ну вы же понимаете в какой стране живем?” (“You do understand what kind of country we live in?”) and the avatar features an anonymous person in a mask holding their finger to their lips, as if to underscore the anonymity of the author.
Уже больше месяца я лежу в военном госпитале в одном из городов России и постоянно слышу разговоры про донецк и луганск
— понимаем (@ponimaem) February 26, 2015
For over a month I've been a patient at a military hospital in one of Russia's towns, and I constantly hear talk of Donestk and Lugansk.
The anonymous soldier says he's using his hospital neighbor's laptop and a VPN connection to send the tweets. While the user doesn't have access to any papers of the wounded brought in, he has promised to provide more proof of being in the hospital.
Я действительно нахожусь в военном госпитале, куда ночью привозят бойцов ДНР и ЛНР pic.twitter.com/T3CmQrC3kV
— понимаем (@ponimaem) February 26, 2015
I really am at a military hospital, where DNR and LNR fighters are being brought at night. [Image of sheets with typical military hospital insignia]
Although the soldier says he himself has only served inside Russia and never went to Ukraine, his rationale for making his observations public, he says, is to “exculpate some of the guilt” of being part of the “Russian world” fighting in Ukraine.
The user says wounded fighters are brought in every night, under cover of darkness, in secret. While he isn't sure in every case whether they're soldiers of the regular army, volunteers or mercenaries, @ponimaem writes the doctors always get to them last, usually after 9:00 p.m., and their arrival and treatment are always covert.
Каждую ночь к нам в госпиталь привозят на машинах без опознавательных знаков по 3-4 борца за русский мир
— понимаем (@ponimaem) February 26, 2015
Every night 3-4 fighters for the “Russian world” are brought to our hospital in cars without any insignia.
Users’ reactions to the account have been mixed, with some praising the anonymous whistleblower's bravery, and others accusing him of treason. @ponimaem says he's aware of the danger of being found out, but feels like talking about the things he sees is something he has to do.
Я прекрасно понимаю, что меня могут обвинить в измене родине за такие слова, но лучше так, чем потом будет стыдно смотреть детям в глаза.
— понимаем (@ponimaem) February 26, 2015
I understand very well that I can be accused of treason for these words, but better do this then look my children in the eye with shame later.
Being able to create and maintain anonymous accounts on social media remains a key guarantee of freedom of expression, especially in countries where free speech is under threat. Russia's recent suggestions of restricting access to anonymization and circumvention tools such as Tor, VPNs, and proxy-servers, as well as the Kremlin's continued pressure on Twitter to disclose user data put anonymous whistleblowers like @ponimaem under direct threat.


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Australians Shake Up Internet With Indigenous #MotherLanguage Tweets · Global Voices
Kevin Rennie

Marrin Garu – courtesy First Languages Australia. Used with permission.
What is your first language? Do you use it on social media or in other communications?
Even though more than 7,000 languages are spoken in the world, the Internet is dominated by a handful of them. For International Mother Language on 21 February 2015, Global Voices was part of an international community which promoted the campaign to Tweet in Your #MotherLanguage.
In Australia, it is estimated had between 300 and 400 Indigenous languages at the time of British colonisation in 1788. Of those remaining today, perhaps only a few dozen remain strong while many of the others are threatened.
First Languages Australia logo, taken from its Facebook page
Approximately 75% of people in Australia speak only English at home. In addition to Indigenous languages, there is a very large number of Languages Other Than English (LOTE) spoken at home by mostly migrant families.
Before Sunday, it was not easy to find tweets or other social media in Indigenous languages. First Languages Australia has been working to change that and posted on Facebook the day before the tweetathon:
Tomorrow the twitter world will hear the voices of #Wiradjuri, #Noongar, #Miriwoong, #Yugambeh, #Woiwurrung, #Gunnai, #Boonwurrung, #Gunditjmara, #WembaWemba, #Kriol, #Butchulla, #KalawKawawYa
You can join the fun too!
Those are Twitter hashtags as well as Facebook ones. There were already some tweets in ‘language’, as it is sometimes referred to.
One was by Kylie Farmer, an actor whose background is Nyungar/Bibbulmun (or Noongar) from Western Australia. Her tweet concerned an online video:
Kwopitj yorga nguny maam yok, nidja djinang wah, moorditj yoks maamang waarngkiny kooralong kaya kaanarn…nih…djoorapiny! #IndigenousX
— Kylie Farmer [KK] (@farmer_kylie) February 2, 2015
My beautiful aunties, please watch them, they speak of the whale's true story from long ago.. listen.. enjoy
Kylie's TEDx talk ‘Keep our languages alive’ explains her commitment:
The next two tweets were about use of Kriol. Several varieties of this creole language exist.
Thei bin pudum ‘Ngukurr’ la @Wikipedia oni las wik. Bat im ja na! / ‘Ngukurr’ was only added to Wikipedia last week! But it's there now. :)
— Kriol Kantri (@KriolKantri) January 22, 2015
Creole is ‘a stable, full-fledged language that originated from a mixture of two or more languages’, according to Wikipedia. Ngukurr is a remote aboriginal community in Arnhem Land where Kriol is the main spoken language.
Det Kriol kos wikentaim bin brabli gurruwan / Our Kriol course on the weekend was really great pic.twitter.com/edbTAWaavr
— Ngukurr Language Ctr (@NgukurrLC) October 16, 2014
Kriol was also used to tweet about the impending arrival of category 4 Cyclone Lam on the coast of central Arnhem land of Northern Australia:
Turns out @abcnewsnt does not travel lightly #cyclonelam pic.twitter.com/aHWnXP0CY0
— abcnewsNT (@abcnewsNT) February 18, 2015
.@abcnewsNT gajinga hu det olmen garri bigiswan gabarra / who's that man with the large head?
— Kriol Kantri (@KriolKantri) February 18, 2015
The man in question is Steven Schubert @senorschubert, a digital producer for @ABCNewsNT, who was covering the cyclone for @ABCNewsNT.
Young Albert and Lemos get set for #CycloneLam in Maningrida. Photo @WestArnhem More here: http://t.co/lgZsnbL6Ua pic.twitter.com/m2LxH1d8SI
— abcnewsNT (@abcnewsNT) February 19, 2015
Maningrida has an amazingly complex language web, according to the Northern Territory government:
The traditional landowners of the country in Central Arnhem Land are the Kunbidji people whose language is Ndjebbana. Additionally, 13 different languages are spoken in Maningrida. Language is a key marker of social identity in the region, as clanship and social groupings are mainly based on what languages people speak.
Most people in the community can speak three, four or more of these languages—in fact Maningrida may be the most multilingual community in the world.
…the main languages spoken in the community [are] Burarra (46%) and Ndjébbana (12%). Eastern Kunwinjku, Na-Kara and Wurlaki are also quite widely spoken.
Anthropologist Evelyn Enduatta tweeted in Yolgnu, the language of East Arnhem, during the cyclone.
I'm not sure if anyone tweets in any of the Indigenous languages used in Maningrida. We’ll certainly be encouraging them to give it a try.
First Languages Australia has another initiative called Marrin Gamu where school students translate a song into their own language and create a video. The program is explained here:
Marrin Gamu from Marrin Gamu on Vimeo.
For a selection of tweets from the day, please visit First Languages Australia's Storify:
First Languages Australia, language centres and language ambassadors around the country collaborated in the Tweet for International Mother Language Day campaign. In total 111 Australian languages were represented in tweets from 7.45am till midnight EST. Here they are:
Tweet for International Mother Language Day 2015 – Australia
There is also another Storify selection here: Indigenous Tweets Highlight International Mother Language Day in Australia.

author: Kevin Rennie


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Banksy Visits Gaza, Calls on World to Act · Global Voices
Elia J. Ayoub

A scene from Banksy's mini-documentary from his visit to Gaza
Famous British street artist Banksy went undercover in Gaza and released a series of thought-provoking graffiti as well as a mini documentary.
Banksy also released a short two-minute documentary entitled “Make this the year YOU discover a new destination” on his website and YouTube page. In it, we see Banksy entering Gaza through one of the countless tunnels dug by Gazans across their borders with Egypt and Israel.
The documentary looks like a sarcastic version of a tourism ad as Banksy welcomes us to this city that's “well away from the tourist track”. He describes the people of Gaza as liking it so much they never leave, before adding between parentheses “because they're not allowed to”.
Screenshot from Banksy's “Make this the year YOU discover a new destination”
Banksy then went on to describe Gaza's neighbors as friendly, and then adding that over 18,000 homes were destroyed in Gaza during Israel's so-called ‘Operation Protective Edge’, as we previously covered on Global Voices. ‘Development opportunities are everywhere’, he tells us before adding “no cement has been allowed into Gaza since the bombing.”
Soon after, we see the first graffiti, entitled “Bomb Damage” and possibly inspired by Rodin's “The Thinker“. It was posted to his Instagram account and got over 12,000 likes at the time of writing. Rather than representing philosophy as The Thinker does, this figure seems to be sheltering herself from the devastation around her.
“Bomb Damage” by Banksy. Photo from www.banksy.co.uk
The second one, originally posted on streetartnews, transforms a symbol of Israel's occupation, a towering guard station, into an object of amusement for children. Guard stations are placed along the ‘Apartheid Wall’, one of the terms used for Israel's West Bank barrier, which will be approximately 700km (434 miles) upon completion.
Photo from www.banksy.co.uk
The third one targets the Internet's love of cats. In it, we see a kitten playing with a ball of coiled metal rather than the usual cotton ball. Banksy was quoted in RT as saying: “A local man came up and said ‘Please – what does this mean?’ I explained I wanted to highlight the destruction in Gaza by posting photos on my website – but on the internet people only look at pictures of kittens.”
Cat playing with a ball of coiled metal. Photo from www.banksy.co.uk
We see Gazan children playing next to the kitten, and a father interviewed by Banksy tells us:
This cat tells the whole world that she is missing joy in her life. The cat found something to play with. What about our children? What about our children?
Finally, Banksy's message can be summarized by the quote he wrote on a wall in Gaza, which reads:
If we wash our hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, we side with the powerful – we don't remain neutral.
Palestinian kid climbs the wall featuring Banksy's message. Image from Banksy.co.uk
This is not the first time that Banksy visits Palestine. The graffiti that he made on the Palestinian side of the West Bank barrier remains some of his most well-known ones. Here are a few of them.
Banksy in the West Bank. Photo from www.banksy.co.uk
Banksy in the West Bank. Photo from www.banksy.co.uk
Banksy in the West Bank. Photo from www.banksy.co.uk
Banksy in the West Bank. Photo from www.banksy.co.uk
Banksy in the West Bank. Photo from www.banksy.co.uk


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Caribbean Law Students Join the Fight Against Human Trafficking · Global Voices
Jason Nathu

This poster was displayed by the Trinidad and Tobago Ministry of Gender, Youth and Child Development in commemoration of International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. The symposium was attended by students of the Hugh Wooding Law School and formed part of their research for the ‘Join The Fight’ campaign.
Four students from the Hugh Wooding Law School are encouraging the public to join the fight against human trafficking in Trinidad and Tobago.
Anessa Anderson and Sharla Weir of Barbados, Stefan Knights from Guyana and Nadia Scott from Trinidad and Tobago designed a project to bring awareness to an issue which is often overlooked in Trinidad and Tobago and the wider Caribbean:
We believed the subject of human trafficking had not received the level of public appreciation which it deserved and it was our duty to bring awareness to it.
The project was conceived and executed by the students as part of their participation in the law school's Human Rights Law Clinic; they were among 16 students who advocated for various human rights concerns.
The initiative, which was branded “Join The Fight”, consisted of a public service announcement, a short video on human trafficking in Trinidad and Tobago, and volunteering their time at an event organised by the Trinidad and Tobago Rape Crisis Society, in which the group assisted in the distribution of learning materials and in role playing. They also advised victims of rape and domestic violence about the human trafficking laws in Trinidad and Tobago. The logo used in the campaign was designed by Dane Elliott-Hamilton, a fellow student at the Hugh Wooding Law School.
Trinidad and Tobago has been described as a destination, source, and transit country for human trafficking, specifically as it relates to forced prostitution, and children and men in conditions of forced labour. The students collaborated with their charity of choice, the Caribbean Umbrella Body for Restorative Behaviour (CURB), providing promotional materials to the organisation and eliciting CURB's expertise as a support body for both criminal offenders and victims in their research for the project:
We identified the CURB as the most prominent NGO which addresses human trafficking at the policy and ground level. […] we volunteered our time with the CURB […] This experience was definitely an amazing one as the members of the group were able to impart knowledge of a critical human rights area in the country and educate the vast number of persons who were in attendance on that day.
The students also created a public service announcement, to be distributed digitally and broadcast on local television stations.
As part of their assessment for the Clinic, the students visited primary and secondary schools, delivering presentations on various human rights issues and distributing a brochure about human trafficking, in order to raise awareness about the gravity of this modern-day form of slavery.
A short documentary on the issue of human trafficking in Trinidad and Tobago formed the final component of the students’ project.
On completion of the project, the students said of their experience:
This project has made us aware of a myriad of things, it has allowed us develop new skills and sharpen existing ones.
This new generation of aspiring attorneys is revolutionising what it means to be custodians of the law, which sometimes involves being the voice of the voiceless. Students of the High Wooding Law School have already advocated against bullying, which they see as a critical human rights issue. Other projects they have undertaken include speaking out about pressing issues such as domestic violence and gay rights. The Global Voices Caribbean team will highlight these projects as part of this series.

author: Jason Nathu