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Hongkongers ignore crackdown to vote for change-seeking youth in pro-democracy primaries · Global Voices
Hong Kong Free Press

Long queue outside a polling station. Image from Twitter user Studio Incendo CC By 4.0
The original version of this post is written by Rachel Wong of the Hong Kong Free Press on July 12 2020. The following edited version is published on Global Voices according to a content partnership agreement.
Over 600,000 Hongkongers cast their ballots in the democratic camp's primary elections over the weekend, despite the pro-Beijing authorities claiming the informal exercise may be illegal.
The initial results, which were announced on July 13, indicated that pro-democracy voters preferred young and radical representatives as candidates for the Legislative Council (LegCo) elections slated for September.
Candidates who had most votes in the five geographical constituencies included Hui Chi Fung from the Democratic Party (Hong Kong Island), Jimmy Sham from the League of Social Democrats (West Kwoloon) , Eddie Chu from the Land Justice League (West New Territories), famous activist Joshua Wong (East Kowloon) and former journalist Gwyneth Ho (East New Territories). The candidate with the most votes in the big district functional constituency is Roy Kwong from the Democratic Party, while among candidates slated to run for the public health service sector, Winnie Yu received a majority of the votes.
Bar Eddie Chu, the winning candidates above were all under 40 years old. Final results, which will incorporate 20,000 paper ballots, will be announced July 14.
The democratic sector will nominate about 30 candidates to run for the geographical constituencies, big district functional constituencies and the public health service sector in the September LegCo elections based on the primary results.
The election was organised by law professor Benny Tai, ex-lawmaker Au Nok-hin, the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute (PORI) and the political group Power for Democracy. A total of 48 candidates pro-democracy sector joined the primaries.
Currently, the Legislative Council is dominated by pro-establishment lawmakers who side with Beijing on the subject of the city's political course. The democrats hope to win a majority of more than 35 seats in the upcoming elections.
Only 40 of the 70 Legislative Council seats are directly elected by the majority of people (35 seats in geographical constituencies and 5 seats in the big district functional constituency) the rest of the 30 seats are elected from 28 conventional and professional functional constituencies.
Tai initially estimated a turnout at about 170,000 people. But after the first day of the primaries, the turnout had surpassed 220,000.
Tai told the press that after the polls closed on July 12 that they had recorded over 590,000 electronic ballots, while more than 20,000 paper ballots were processed during the two-day vote:
Hong Kong people have made history again – another miracle happened in Hong Kong…Hong Kong people – after all these years, since 2003 – have demonstrated to the world, and also to the authorities, that we have not given up to strive for democracy.
After the elections, China Daily ran a report citing pro-Beijing politicians who called the primaries “unfair” and potential “cheating” ahead of the LegCo vote.
Throughout the weekend, citizens queued at over 200 polling stations in the heat, despite news of a fresh Covid-19 outbreak hitting the headlines.
Jeffie Lam's video shows a long queue outside one of the polling stations at around noon on July 12:
#hongkong – hundreds of hkers have lined up outside a polling station in tin shui wai to vote in the pro-democracy bloc’s primary. organisers have earlier indicated the total turnout could hit 500,000 pic.twitter.com/p9iktKqqwU
— Jeffie Lam (@jeffielam) July 12, 2020
One voter, surnamed Wong, told Stand News that the primaries were a true reflection of citizens’ will and said that he hoped that localist candidates would win in order to change the political landscape dominated by older democrats.
“Localists” tend to be more radical in terms of their commitment to constitutional reform and opposition towards Beijing's encroachments in in Hong Kong when compared with older generation democrats.
Another voter, surnamed Lau, urged more Hongkongers to participate in the election in an interview with Apple Daily.
In light of all the events that happened over the past year, we should cherish this opportunity as our liberty is stifled.
The primaries were organised under huge political pressure. As all voters have to verify their identities and residential addresses in person, the organizers had to set up polling stations around Hong Kong. However, threats came from all directions:
#HK govt has done whatever it could to stop this peaceful & lawful democratic exercise. A Sha Tin District Councillor got a letter from Housing Authority saying his office couldn’t be used as a polling station. Landlord of ice cream shop warned it was breaking terms of its lease. pic.twitter.com/XOOTheDLgr
— Kong Tsung-gan / 江松澗 (@KongTsungGan) July 11, 2020
Still, over 30 pro-democracy shop owners withstood the pressure and turned their shops into polling stations during weekend.
Other voting spaces were even more creative:
Hongkongers have been creative in the venues of the “polling station” for the democratic primary, for example a classic double decker is being used as one of the stations.#HongKong #HKprimaries #FightForFreedom #StandWithHongKong pic.twitter.com/z2kiZRTI8M
— HK antielab frontline updates (@antielab) July 11, 2020
Two days before the elections, Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Erick Tsang claimed that participation in the primaries could violate the law due to organisers’ calls for the democratic camp to veto the annual government budget if they win a majority in the legislature.
Then, the day before the election, Hong Kong police raided PORI. The raid came after a pro-Beijing newspaper story quoted an anonymous netizen's accusation that PORI had failed to protect personal data in their surveys, resulting in data leakage.
Voters and organisers were also harassed at polling stations by supporters of the political establishment during the two-day vote, but nothing was able to stop them having their say.

author: Hong Kong Free Press


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Manila Pride protester fights back and narrates ordeal inside police detention · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Defiant Pride protesters inside a Manila police station. Photo from Facebook page of Altermidya – People's Alternative Media Network, used with permission.
On June 26, a Pride protest was organized in Manila in the Philippines to protest the passage of an anti-terror bill and the government’s response to the COVID-19 crisis. The police arrested 20 individuals, and charged them with resistance and disobedience to authority, illegal assembly and violation of Republic Act No. 11332, the Law on Reporting of Communicable Diseases. They were released on June 30 for further investigation.
Carla Nicoyco, a poet and member of activist LGBTQ+ group Bahaghari, shared with Global Voices via Facebook messenger her experience during the protest, arrest, and detention. First, she explained why they organized a Pride protest in Mendiola, a place located close to the presidential palace:
We believe that at its very core, Pride is, and will always be a protest; Pride means fighting back. And so we marched to Mendiola bringing the demands of the people for the right to health, economic aid, and democracy.
Images of the protest can be seen on this tweet:
BREAKING NEWS. Police dispersed a Pride March protest and arrested LGBTQ+ activists in Mendiola, Manila on Friday, June 26, 2020.
More than 10 activists are now detained at the MPD headquarters in Manila. Photos courtesy of Bayan Muna#PrideMonth #PrideMonth2020 pic.twitter.com/yXfqSOIyP7
— Rappler (@rapplerdotcom) June 26, 2020
The decision to hold the rally in Mendiola was widely applauded since it was the first time that a group dared to protest near the presidential palace since COVID-19 lockdown restrictions were imposed in March.
ICYMI: Despite following physical distancing and the expiration of Bayanihan Heal As One Act, police officers nabbed 20 members and allies of LGBTQ+ group @Bahaghari_Natl during a #Pride March protest in Mendiola earlier today. pic.twitter.com/IreX4MMX14
— #WeTheFuturePH (@WeTheFuturePH) June 26, 2020
Bahaghari echoed the call of many groups opposing the Terror Bill for containing overbroad provisions that could criminalize many forms of dissent. It castigated the government of President Rodrigo Duterte for its ‘militarized’ response to the pandemic instead of focusing on delivering aid to displaced citizens.
Carla Nicoyco added:
2020 seems like the end of the world. It is marked with fear and paranoia, hostility and violence. The stakes are higher now since we're experiencing a pandemic under the most incompetent and inutile government that only knows a militaristic response to every problem. This year's Pride, 51 years after Stonewall, exemplifies that the LGBTQ+ community is still not free as seen in the violent arrest and detention of Pride 20.
Pride protesters inside a Manila police station. Photo from Facebook page of Bahaghari, used with permission.
She then narrated what she and her friends endured inside the Manila police station:
We can say that we were disappointed but not surprised with the violence Pride 20 experienced under the hands of the police. We remained vigilant and invulnerable when we were detained. For almost 5 days, we experienced different forms of torture, from psywar to sexual harassment. Male and female detainees were kept in different offices, and we were only given a corner.
Officers smoked inside even if there were different ‘No Smoking’ signs; they would step on our sleeping mats when they passed through our space; we did not get any sunshine since we were literally in that corner of their office the whole time; they tried to take one genderqueer member away for questioning; they tried to prevent our trans woman member from staying with the female detainees; one officer was watching porn and masturbating one night in the female quarters.
She expressed gratitude to the overwhelming support given by many groups and individuals during their detention which she believes was an important factor for their release:
All these we endured for almost 5 days, and we would not have survived if it were not for different organizations and individuals here and abroad who gave material and moral support.
Finally, she concluded with a rousing message addressed to the LGBTQ+ community:
Us queers have lived our days in hiding and fear. We're living in a world that does not want us to exist. Like other oppressed sectors of society, we've experienced abuse, injustice, and violence firsthand. We've been handed our sorry lot of the world when we know there's a better one. But we're here. We persist against all odds. Our existence is resistance. We're here to dismantle oppressive systems, to change the things we cannot accept. We stand hand in hand with our other oppressed siblings all over the world. We must resist against the Duterte regime, and the other fascists of this world, these slouching beasts. Look them in the eye and be at the vanguard of this revolution together with the toiling masses.
After the release of the 20 Pride protesters, they filed a counter-charge against the police for unlawful arrest, slight physical injuries and maltreatment.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Mong Palatino


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Tanzanians debate the meaning of new ‘lower-middle-income’ World Bank status · Global Voices
Jessica Ott

The Dar Rapid Transit (DART) is a bus-based mass transit system connecting the suburbs of Dar Es Salaam to the central business district., which began operations on May 10, 2016. Photo by Mazupixel / CC BY-SA.
On July 1, 2020, the World Bank changed Tanzania's income classification from a low-income to a lower-middle-income country, sparking a national debate on the meaning of development and how to measure it.
President John Magufuli announced the World Bank’s updated classification on Twitter, explaining that Tanzania had reached a “middle-income” status five years before its intended goal of 2025.
Benki ya Dunia leo tarehe 01 Julai, 2020 imeitangaza Tanzania kuingia UCHUMI WA KATI.Nawapongeza Watanzania wenzangu kwa mafanikio haya.Huu ni ushindi mkubwa na kazi kubwa tumeifanya, tulipanga kuingia uchumi wa kati ifikapo 2025 lakini tumefanikiwa 2020.MUNGU IBARIKI TANZANIA
— Dr John Magufuli (@MagufuliJP) July 1, 2020
Today, July 1, 2020, the World Bank announced that Tanzania has become a middle-income country. I congratulate my Tanzanian colleagues for this achievement. This is a big feat that we have accomplished and important work that we have done, since we planned on becoming a middle-income country in 2025 but succeeded in 2020. God bless Tanzania.
Some Tanzanias — particularly supporters of Tanzania’s ruling Chama cha Mapinduzi or Revolutionary Party (CCM) — lauded Magufuli for his early achievement. But critics argue that the World Bank’s updated classification did not accurately reflect the lives of most Tanzanians and did not align with first Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere’s vision of human-centered development.
A few netizens speculated about their glitzier weekend plans now that they had reached middle-income status. Tanzania’s CCM-affiliated Minister of Tourism and Natural Resources, Hamisi Kigwangalla, jokingly thanked small-scale miner Saniniu Laizer, who recently made international headlines for discovering two large Tanzanite stones and becoming an overnight billionaire, for the country’s reclassification from low-income to lower-middle-income:
Ahsante Mungu kwa kutupa bilionea Laizer! ?????? pic.twitter.com/uTahqA6cm5
— Dr. Kigwangalla, H. (@HKigwangalla) July 3, 2020
Thank you, God, for giving us Billionaire Laizer!
Tanzania’s Gross National Income (GNI) per capita — a measure of a country’s average income per resident — went up from $1,020 in 2018 to $1,080 in 2019, which put it above the World Bank’s current threshold for lower-middle-income status. GNI per capita is the total income of a country's residents and businesses divided by the country's population.
Drawing attention to the shortcomings of GNI per capita, writer Dotto Rangimoto tweeted a hypothetical breakdown of how GNI per capita is calculated:
Mnapoambiwa Mido Inkamu Kantri muwe mnaelewa maana yake si kushangilia tu kama @hpolepole aliyeamua kuuza utu wake.
Mfano
1. Mo?1000
2. Bakheresa?900
3. Rostam?700
4. Mimi?14
5. Wewe?18
7. Mwanangu?0
8. Mwanao?0
Jumla?2632
Jumla/8=329
Pato la wastani la kila mtu ni 329 pic.twitter.com/4yag5Hk9fX
— Dotto Rangimoto (@JiniKinyonga) July 5, 2020
When you are told “middle-income country,” you have to understand what that means rather than simply rejoice, like @hpolepole, who has decided to sell his own personhood. For example, say that
1. Mo earns $1,000
2. Bakheresa earns $900
3. Rostam earns $700
4. I earn $14
5. You earn $18
6. My child earns $0
7. Your child earns $0
Total: $2,632 $2,632/8=$329
Average income per person: $329
Dotto tweeted a few hypothetical incomes, illustrating how the high incomes of a few could inflate the GNI per capita measure so that it would become an inaccurate measure of a typical Tanzanian’s income.
On July 11, the World Bank Tanzania tweeted that the number of Tanzanians living in poverty had gone up from 12 million people in 2012 to 14 million people in 2018, primarily because of population growth:
#EndPoverty #DYK ?
Because the #Tanzania population grew faster than poverty was reduced in 2018, about 14 million Tanzanians lived in poverty, up from 13 million in 2007 and 12 million in 2012: https://t.co/hycs0OGuJ7 pic.twitter.com/VOqHHwJN56
— World Bank Tanzania (@WBTanzania) July 11, 2020
In the aftermath of the World Bank's improved designation of Tanzania as a lower-middle-income country, the reality of an increased number of people living in poverty sparked confusion:
Nyari on Twitter asked:
Sasa hapa tunaelewaje, tupo kwenye uchumi mdogo wa kati au ndio maskini kabisa?
— Nyari (@munisi_alex) July 11, 2020
Help us to understand, are we really now a middle-income country, or are we still low-income?
John Heche, a parliamentarian from Tanzania’s opposition Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo or Party for Democracy and Progress (CHADEMA), tweeted laments about a “middle-income country without decent social services,” which he attributed to CCM leadership.
Heche included photographs of schoolchildren sitting on the floor in Mvomero District in southeastern Tanzania to illustrate his point:
Kelele nyingi, mbwembwe nyingi, miradi mikubwa, kununua ndege kwa cash wakati watoto wanakaa chini au hawana vyumba vya kutosha vya madarasa inachanganya sana.
Uchumi wa kati bila huduma bora za jamiii inafikirisha sana.
Mvomero,rais ccm, mbunge ccm, madiwani na halmashauri ccm. pic.twitter.com/X6XCJbDMsa
— John Heche (@HecheJohn) July 5, 2020
There’s been a lot of noise, a lot of affectation, large campaigns, and the buying of airplanes with cash, all while school children are forced to sit on the floor and don’t have enough classrooms, which is very confusing. A middle-income country without decent social services is cause for reflection. [The problems in] Mvomero District exist in the midst of a CCM president, a CCM member of parliament, a CCM council, and CCM council members.
In response to John Heche’s tweet, CCM supporter Besta Mlagila retorted:
Tangu Serikali ya awamu ya tano imeingia madarakani Idadi ya vyumba vya madarasa imeongezeka kutoka madarasa 1710 hadi madarasa 2533 sawa na ongezeko la vyumba 823 ikiongezwa tena miaka 5, itakuwa zaidi ya vyumba 3500. Na hiki ndicho kitakachotupa kura october. #MaguTena2020
— Besta Mlagila (@BestaMlagila) July 5, 2020
Since this fifth government came into power, the number of physical schoolrooms has grown from 1710 up to 2533. If an equivalent 823 schoolrooms are added again in another five years, there will be more than 3500 schoolrooms. And this is what will give us the vote in October. #Vote for Magufuli again in 2020.
Julius Nyerere led Tanzania from 1964-1985, during which he developed and implemented a socialist national development project called Ujamaa or “extended family-hood” in Swahili. The central policies and philosophical tenets of Nyerere’s Ujamaa included economic nationalization, collective farming, universal education, and communal self-reliance.
Twitter user Joo refers to Julius Nyerere’s human-centered approach to development:
Mwalimu Nyerere aliwahi sema maendeleo ni ya watu na siyo ya vitu, Uchumi wa kati unapimwa kwa madaraja na maghorofa, aya leo watoto wanakaa chini kila kona ya nchi hii.
— Joo (@10Magoti) July 5, 2020
Julius Nyerere once said that development is about people, not things. A country’s middle-income status is measured by its bridges and skyscrapers, even as schoolchildren today are sitting on the floor in every corner of this country.
Suphian Juma, an Alliance for Change and Transparency (ACT) – Wazalendo Party parliamentary candidate for West Singida, shared a widely-circulated video of Nyerere commenting on the inability of traditional economic indicators to measure development:
Rais @MagufuliJP na Serikali yenu ya CCM wakati mnasherekea kinachoitwa “Tanzania imefikia Uchumi wa Kati”, jueni;
“Hatuwezi kusema nchi ina maendeleo na uchumi umekua wakati wananchi wake hawana uhuru, wanaogopa, wana hofu.” Mwl Nyerere. pic.twitter.com/SEHl3RFNbF
— Suphian Juma (@SuphianJuma) July 1, 2020
President Magufuli and our CCM government, while you are celebrating Tanzania's designation as a middle-income country, know this: “We can’t say that a country has development and that its economy has grown when its citizens lack freedom, are scared, and have fear.” -Julius Nyerere
With elections in October, Tanzania’s classification as a middle-income country has inspired debate on whether the improved designation reflects the experiences of most Tanzanians, — and how the country's political and economic past might inform the future.

author: Jessica Ott


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Construction of first Hindu temple in Islamabad faces opposition · Global Voices
R Umaima Ahmed

Umarkot Shiv Mandir in Umarkot, Sindh, Pakistan. Image via WIkipedia by Harish Chander, CC BY-SA 4.0.
On 24 June, Pakistan's Parliamentary Secretary on Human Rights Lal Chand Malhi performed the groundbreaking ceremony for construction of the first Hindu temple in Islamabad. However, as soon as the construction of the boundary walls commenced, it was vandalized by Islamists and petitions were filed against the temple by a group of religious clerics.
Of the estimated 221 million people living in Pakistan, over over 96% are Muslim and around 1.85% are Hindu — although the Pakistan Hindu Council claims the last number to be much higher.
According to the Evacuee Trust Property Board of the Government of Pakistan, there are approximately 1,300 temples in the country with only 30 considered currently functional. The construction of this new temple is meant to provide the nearly 3000 members of the Hindu community in Islamabad a place for their religious ceremonies, marriages, last rites and cremation.
In late June, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan approved a 100 million rupee (US$ 598,000) grant for construction of the Shri Krishna Mandir temple. The decision to build the temple in Islamabad faced severe backlash. Punjab Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi opposed the decision despite being a coalition partner in the government. Jamia Ashrafia, a leading religious educational institution in Lahore, released a statement calling the construction un-Islamic and issuing a fatwa (religious decree) against it. Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani, an expert in Islamic jurisprudence, added that the issue was not the construction of the building but who was paying for it.
The Capital Development Authority (CDA) of Islamabad had stopped the construction on July 4, 2020 citing reasons that design should be approved as per the building plan. In the meantime, a group of Islamic fundamentalists vandalized the temple's boundary walls, chanted religious slogans and recited Azan (the call to prayer) on the temple grounds.
The boundary wall of the Temple was destroyed and now a man is saying the Azan on the site.
This has nothing to do with the excuses of taxes, etc. This is bigotry towards Hindus.
Give others what you ask for yourself!
Islam preaches tolerance.#AreHindusLesserPakistani pic.twitter.com/FNnUlXw2Nx
— Shamila Ghyas (@ShamilaGhyas) July 7, 2020
The Islamabad High Court dismissed the petitions made by a group of Muslim clerics and referred the matter to the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), a constitutional body formed in 1962 to guide the state on how to run the country in accordance with the injunctions of the Holy Quran and Sharia. When the State requires legal advice on Islamic issues they refer to the CII.
The Ministry of Religious Affairs (MORA) also sought the CII's advice on the allocation of funds from Muslim taxpayers money, for construction of the temple. CII Chairman Qibla Ayaz has acknowledged the receipt of the ministry’s letter and he forwarded it to the council’s research department to formulate an opinion. The construction of the temple can only begin if the CII gives a favourable decision.
Noor ul Haq Qadri with the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony tweeted in support of the temple's construction:
اسلامی تاریخ ، تعلیمات اور پاکستان کا آئین تمام اقلیتوں کی مذھیبی آزادی اور عبادت گا ھوں کی حفاظت کےضامن ھیں !عمران خان کی حکومت اپنی اقلیتوں کے ساتھ ھر گز ھندوستاں جیسا سلوک نہیں کرے گا ! پاکستان بین المذاھب ھم اھنگی کیلۓ اقدامات جاری رکھے گا ! 50 لاکھ ھندوآبادی بھی پاکستانی ھیں
— pir noorulhaq qadri (@NoorulhaqPir) June 28, 2020
Translation: According to Islamic history, education and constitution of Pakistan all minorities are free to worship and the state would protect them. PM Imran Khan will not treat them like India has been doing so with the minorities.
In an telephone interview with Lal Chand Malhi, the National Assembly member who presided over the temple's groundbreaking ceremony, echoed this sentiment:
According to the constitution of Pakistan and the law of the land nothing can stop us from constructing the temple. The only issue at the moment is if it can be made from public money or not for which an application has been sent to CII. But if the response is in negative we will still construct it after collecting  funds.
According to religious scholar Javed Ahmed Ghamidi all Pakistani's pay taxes and the State builds mosques using public money so the government should be able to use public funds to build places of worship for other religions as well.
Javed Ahmed Ghamdi on the construction of Hindu Temple in Islamabad. Here, he recognizes the secular principle of secular nation-states, instead of advocating for an Islamic Republic. https://t.co/QayA20Evou
— Haroon Riaz (@HaroonRiaz) July 2, 2020
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) opposition party member Khawaja Asif addressed the National Assembly by reiterating the tenants of Pakistan's constitution, mainly that equal rights apply “to all citizens irrespective of their caste, creed, and religion.”
Pakistan Ulema Council criticized those complicating the issue and extended support for the construction of the temple as the Constitution of Pakistan was clear on the rights of Muslims and non-Muslims living in the country.
Social media has been abuzz since the day the prime minister gave his approval for the construction of the temple. The decision was praised by some while religious groups spoke against it and some even threatened to kill people from the Hindu community.  #MandirTauBanega (#TheTempleWillbeBuilt) has been trending widely.
The construction of the first Hindu temple in Islamabad is a welcome and laudable step by our Government. Pakistan belongs in equal measure to each and every citizen irrespective of his/her caste, creed, ethnicity or faith. #islamabadtemple
— Umar Khayyam (@utggondal) June 24, 2020
A private news channel ran a full-fledged campaign against the construction of the temple and when construction stopped they ran a piece stating that they are proud of their victory.
This is disgusting and shameful that @92newschannel is terming it their victory as CDA has stopped construction of a #Hindu #temple in #Islamabad. Simply, #ShameOn92News for siding with and promoting bigotry. This is Jinnah's Pakistan, not mullah's Pakistan. #MandirTauBanega pic.twitter.com/uvkPHwUcis
— Kapil Dev (@KDSindhi) July 3, 2020

author: R Umaima Ahmed


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COVID-19 outbreak highlights unaccountability of American military based in Okinawa · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

“U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Keon Miller, special mission aviator assigned to the 33rd Rescue Squadron, looks out the gunner’s window aboard an HH-60G Pave Hawk, July 31, 2019, out of Kadena Air Base, Japan.” The U.S. Air Force operates Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, which the largest U.S. air base in the western Pacific, and is the site of a COVID-19 outbreak in July, 2020. U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Matthew Seefeldt, from Airman Magazine Flickr account. Image license: CC BY-NC 2.0
At least 99 U.S. military personnel and contractors based in the southwestern Japanese prefecture of Okinawa have tested positive for COVID-19 since July 11, causing further strain with a Japanese host community that has been forced to endure regular assaults, accidents and environmental degradation over the past 75 years.
Since July 11, COVID-19 infections have been detected at U.S. bases throughout Okinawa, with most of the cases occurring at Futenma and other U.S. Marine Corps bases near Naha, Okinawa's densely populated capital city. U.S. Marines seem to make up the bulk of the 99 cases that make up the COVID-19 outbreak in Okinawa in July.
So far, 148 Japanese citizens or residents of Okinawa (as opposed to U.S. military personnel stationed in the prefecture) have tested positive for COVID-19 since February 2020. Four of these cases were reported after July 11, with zero new cases of COVID-19 being reported on July 13.
With a population of 1.45 million people, Okinawa hosts at least 47,000 American military personnel and their dependents. U.S. Marines, Army, Air Force and Navy personnel are all stationed on Okinawa, and all generally have their own rules about conduct, with their own chains of command.
Like Okinawa, mainland Japan has also avoided large numbers of COVID-19 infections compared to many other countries since the pandemic was declared in March, although starting on July 10, Tokyo, with a population of 14 million, started reporting more than 200 new cases of the disease for several days in a row.
So far, there are no official explanations from U.S. authorities about the outbreak in Okinawa among military personnel, or its source. However, a video has been circulating on social media of a large beach party held in early July, where participants appeared to ignore the Okinawa prefectural government's official social distancing guidelines for public spaces.
Allegedly a video of the bbq party in Okinawa that may be where the US military COVID-19 cases originated. Not only no social distancing of any kind, they didn’t have a permit for a 300+ party in the park. They left when neighbors complained, leaving a ton of trash. https://t.co/XEOEzoyT6y
— Makiko Itoh (伊藤牧子) (@makiwi) July 13, 2020
Translation of original tweet: Here's a video going around of the same U.S. soldiers who are rumored to be part of a COVID-19 “cluster” enjoying an Independence Day celebration. Even if they're not part of the cluster, how is it possible that 300 people could gather, without permission in a park to gather, to drink and party it up? Even though the gathering was broken up after complaints by neighbors, they still left a lot of trash.
The original video of the beach party was shared online by a Twitter user with the handle @IAMCITI, an American man living in Okinawa who allegedly organized the event. After a COVID-19 outbreak was declared, IAMCITI swiftly deleted the video, but not before being blamed for helping spread the disease.
“My beach event has no confirmed Covid cases, according to Okinawa public health,” IAMCITI said in an Instagram message to Global Voices on July 13. “Also the attendees and my friends are all Covid negative as far as we know.”
With no information about what sparked the ongoing July COVID-19 outbreak in Okinawa, there is now speculation online that a recent U.S. Marine and Air Force troop deployment to Okinawa may have been responsible for the outbreak.
“The whole COVID situation was fine out here [in Okinawa] until the recent UDP units arrived. It was too good to last,” said Redditor Fastbondgush, commenting about the July COVID-19 outbreak in r/USMC, a Reddit channel devoted to discussing the U.S. Marine Corps. As part of “UDP”, or Unit Deployment Program, new troops are rotated into a new deployment. There is speculation that new troops had arrived in Okinawa sometime in June from Seattle, in Washington State, which has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Following the outbreak, U.S. Marine and Air Force personnel were essentially confined to barracks in order to prevent further spread of COVID-19. However, Okinawa officials expressed frustration that they had little to no influence over whether or not U.S. troops practised social distancing and other preventative measures. For example, once the outbreak was identified, the U.S. military quarantined infected soldiers and base staff in local hotels in the community, rather than in the more isolated confines of local bases.
The U.S. military also did not publicize the scale of the outbreak, instead communicating privately with the Okinawa government. The Okinawa government decided to inform the community of the outbreak among military personnel, despite fears of damaging relations with U.S. forces, which themselves operate medical facilities built with funding from the Japanese government.
Okinawa, which hosts 70% of U.S. military installations in Japan, has longstanding grievances about the conduct of the 45,000 American military personnel who occupy the prefecture. Most recently, in June 2020, Kadena Air Base downplayed a fire that exposed dozens of people, including local residents, to chlorine gas and smoke.
Other acts of mayhem, such as the 2016 murder of a local woman by an American military contractor, still occur regularly, and U.S. military authorities have been implicated in organizing misinformation campaigns targeting locals. Tensions over base construction continue to dominate local and national local politics.
This article was updated on July 14, 2020.

author: Nevin Thompson


text:
Fruit picking in a pandemic: Europe’s precarious migrant workers · Global Voices
Maxim Edwards

“Germany, choke on your asparagus” reads this graffiti in Wedding, Berlin. Photo (c): Maxim Edwards, May 2020.
In late June, more than 1,500 workers at a meat processing plant in western Germany contracted COVID-19. Once the limit of 50 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants had been surpassed, the lockdown of the facility and its neighbouring village was later extended to the entire district of Gütersloh, in the state of North-Rhine-Westphalia. It was the first lockdown on this scale since Germany relaxed federal restrictions on May 10.
Most of those infected at the Tönnies company's slaughterhouse were migrant workers from Bulgaria, Poland, and Romania. They are just a handful of the thousands of people from the EU's eastern member states who head to Germany every year to work in the country's food industry.
Germany's epidemiologists have warned that these massive facilities, with their poor ventilation, running fluids, packed assembly lines, and oft-touched metal surfaces, constitute Petri dishes for infection. They have already noted a significant number of COVID-19 infections among slaughterhouse workers, who are now being tested en masse in at least five federal states. But some figures, including North-Rhine-Westphalia's Prime Minister Armin Laschet, seemingly shifted the blame onto the workers themselves (Laschet has since “clarified” his statements, made in June, after criticism from federal politicians.)
Tönnies now adorns the frontpages of Germany's leading newspapers; in some publications and on social media, it has become a popular quip to state that the pigs have a bigger lobby in Germany than the precarious workers who slaughter them. That may change. On May 20, Germany's Minister of Labour Hubertus Heil presented a new law to ban the outsourcing of labour and hiring processes to subcontractors, obliging Germany's meat companies to commit to minimum labour standards for migrant workers.
With this outbreak, another chapter has unfolded in Germany's public discussion about the status of seasonal labour migrants. Labour activists from Europe, East and West, are warning that the COVID-19 pandemic has not only illuminated these existing inequalities — it has deepened them.
In Germany, the coming of spring is traditionally symbolised by the asparagus and strawberries. More recent tradition holds that they are picked by precarious Bulgarian and Romanian migrant workers — Germany's agricultural sector hired 300,000 migrant workers in 2019 alone. So when the federal government closed the country's borders in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the German agricultural lobby feared that tonnes of produce could be left to rot in the fields. Therefore, on April 2, Berlin agreed to open Germany's borders to 80,000 seasonal labour migrants over the following two months. The EU instituted a union-wide exception to travel bans for seasonal labourers.
Almost immediately, thousands of Romanians heeded the call. On April 9, images hit social media of 1,800 people crammed into the small international airport in Cluj-Napoca, due to board four flights to Germany. According to some German media reports, several workers had arrived from the Suceava region, which was technically supposed to be under lockdown. What explained the crowds of people at Cluj airport that day?
Both at home and in Germany, these seasonal labourers were accused of recklessness and stupidity for choosing to work abroad during a pandemic. Rights activists and analysts alike criticised this framing as inaccurate, asking not why workers chose to take such risks, but what the German companies benefitting from their labour could do to keep them safe. After all they were, in the words of the EU directive which exempted them from travel bans, “critical workers.”
For many people in rural Bulgaria, Romania, and other eastern European states with poor employment prospects, seasonal labour migration is a matter of survival.
Polina Manolova, a migration researcher at the University of Tübingen, says that the Bulgarian government that the Bulgarian government's lack of proactive measures to offer social support for workers intensified poverty, or the fear of impoverishment, during the pandemic:
These are people who have been laid off recently, people who aren't entitled to any unemployment benefit because there are so many conditions they have to fulfil. A lot of people fall out of the social security net, or work in the grey sector, or are self-employed. I follow recruitment agencies on Facebook, and I have never before seen such massive interest in leaving to work on these jobs.
As this anonymous woman explained to Bulgarian National Radio in April:
Финансова е причината да искам да замина. С 20 паудна си пазарувам храна за цялата седмица и от нищо не се лишавам, а тук не мога да си позволя да си купя сьомга всяка седмица. На 30-и април летя, имам организиран чартърен полет от фермата. Пътувам за Англия. Тази година ми е девети сезон, ходя в една и съща ферма. Фермата е за ягоди, малини, къпини, боровинки. Не се притеснявам, там сме затворено общество. От познати, които са там, знам, че има карантинен период. Спим в каравани, по шест човека сме, имаме отделно баня, тоалетна
The reason is financial for me. With 20 pounds I can do my weekly shopping and I don't deprive myself of anything. Here I can't even afford to buy fish each week. I am going on a charter flight organised by the company on April 30. This is my ninth season in this farm. It's a strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, and blueberry farm. I am not worried because we are like a closed society there. My friends there told me that there is a quarantine period. We are six people in a caravan, we have a shared bathroom and a toilet.
Her words also suggest, as several analysts explained to Global Voices, that wage differentials are a necessary but not sufficient way to explain seasonal labour migration. It offers young families a chance to save for their children's higher education or houses of their own. It offers social capital; for young men in rural areas, it may as well be considered a rite of passage.
This mainstay of rural life in Romania and Bulgaria was not going to be cut short by the pandemic. Facebook groups recruiting farm workers in the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands teemed with eager workers soliciting advice on how to head overseas. A handful of comments on the Bulgarian-language Brigada UK express concern about the coronavirus and social distancing measures, but most seem undeterred, even comments in April when the pandemic was far worse in many countries.
“With the amount of chemicals they spray over there, there's no way you'll get COVID-19!” joked one man on the same page.
When seasonal workers arrived in Germany, caveats applied. EU regulations, as well as instructions drafted by the German Ministry of Agriculture, obliged them to take a generalised health test before entering the country, whereupon they would have to self-isolate for two weeks. Only chartered flights were permitted, rather than the long bus journeys taken by most labour migrants.
Yet much remained the same. Seasonal labourers were still hired by subcontractors and middlemen rather than the farms or slaughterhouses where they worked. Formally paid the German hourly minimum wage of 9.35 euros, they complain that much of that sum is in fact deducted — not always transparently — to cover flights, food, and accommodation which they consider substandard. Dominique John, project coordinator of Faire Mobilität, an NGO which enforces fair working conditions for migrant labourers in Germany, told Global Voices that his colleagues had noted a rise in complaints of this nature in recent months.
Fundamentally, this precarious employment relationship did not change during the pandemic. As one German farmer told the national tabloid Bild in April:
Deutsche kann ich nicht gebrauchen. Stundenlang gebückt auf dem Feld zu arbeiten, sind die meisten Deutschen nicht gewohnt. Sie klagen schnell über Rückenschmerzen… Der Spargel muss alle ein bis anderthalb Tage gestochen werden. Deutsche fordern die Woche ein, zwei Tage frei. Das geht in der Hochsaison nicht. Rumänen ackern auch sonn- und feiertags
I can't use Germans. Most Germans aren't used to toiling away in the fields for hours on end. They quickly complain about backaches. But asparagus has to be picked every one to one and a half days. Germans demand one or two days off per week. That doesn't cut it in the harvest season. Romanians work away on Sunday and public holidays too.
According to an April 2 concept paper drafted by Germany's Ministry of Agriculture seen by Global Voices, seasonal labour migrants had to be provided with personal protective equipment (PPE) and be able to work and live at a safe distance distanced from one another. However, in light of the usual standards of accommodation for such workers, researchers and activists such as Manolova doubt that even stricter sanitary measures could be enforced across the board.
The following examples, according to labour rights activists, are not unrepresentative of the living conditions of seasonal labour migrants on farms in Germany and neighbouring Austria:
ErntearbeiterInnen sind meist unsichtbar, bestenfalls sieht mensch kleine Gruppen von ihnen am Feld arbeiten. Gestern…
Geplaatst door Sezonieri – Kampagne für die Rechte von Erntehelfer_innen in Österreich op Vrijdag 12 juni 2020
Ieri am fost împreună cu Oskar Brabanski, Sevghin Mayr, IG BAU și WirtschaftsWoche în vizită la muncitorii din…
Geplaatst door Marius Hanganu op Vrijdag 10 juli 2020
In April, other labour activists voice concern at the potential health consequences of the rigorous work regime on the fields:
horror stories from Romanian seasonal workers in Germany continue:
1. Days of quarantine: one. Then, on the fields.
2. Pressured to work 14 hours a day, 100 hours a week!
3. If refusing to work in cold rain, fired on spot. https://t.co/CCdI9e3AWg
— Daniela Gabor (@DanielaGabor) April 20, 2020
On April 11, a Romanian man working as an asparagus picker in the southern state of Baden-Württemberg was found dead, and had tested positive for coronavirus. He is believed to have entered the country earlier, on March 20. The same month, Romanian workers from Suceava working at the same farm wrote the following letter to Monitorul de Suceava, a local newspaper, complaining about working conditions during the pandemic. The subcontractor who had dispatched them there, they continued, was no longer responding to their phone calls.
Vă scriu pentru că suntem într-o mare dilemă, suntem în locul în care a murit acel bărbat din Suceava, aici nu sunt condiții de protecție, sunt oameni în izolare care muncesc singuri pe câmp. Astăzi a izolat o echipă întreagă de oameni, aici este o femeie care se simte rău și așteaptă medicul de azi dimineață și nu vine nimeni să o vadă. Se lucrează și în hală la sortat sparanghel, aici oamenii stau unul lângă altul, avem măști pe care le purtăm de 5 zile. Au închis porțile firmei și au pus bodyguard, au mers apoi la oameni în câmp și le-au spus că dacă vine poliția să le spună că e totul bine. Vrem să mergem acasă, nu vrem să murim aici pe capete.
I write to you because we are in a great dilemma. We are in the place where that man from Suceava died. There are no means of protection; there are self-isolating people who work alone in the fields. Today a whole team of people were isolated; there's a woman who feels ill, she's been waiting for the doctor to come since the morning and nobody comes to see her. People sort asparagus in the hall and stand next to each other. We have masks that we've been wearing for five days. They closed the gates of the compound and put guards there, then went to people in the fields and told them that if the police come, they have to tell them that everything is fine. We want to go home. We do not want to die here.
There are grounds to believe that the distribution of working hours has improved in subsequent months. But in light of the employment relationship, a key question remains: what should happen if an agricultural worker in Germany falls ill from COVID-19?
Last year, the Federal Employment Agency stated that nearly 70 percent of agricultural seasonal labourers in Germany were marginally employed on short term “mini jobs,” and therefore did not qualify for health insurance and German social security guarantees. Furthermore, the maximum period in which foreign workers were allowed to work in Germany without them or their employers contributing to the social security system was raised from 70 to 115 days during the pandemic, potentially prolonging their precarious situation.
Read more: Ukrainian workers mobilise against controversial new labour law
Throughout May and June, public interest in the fate of seasonal labour migrants rose, as did fears that the incoming labourers would bring COVID-19 with them.
But what went less widely remarked was that eastern Europe had been comparatively successful in its fight against the pandemic. Despite widespread tropes about migrants “bringing disease” to Europe, it was the Romanian and Bulgarian asparagus pickers, not the consumers, were at greater risk from working in Germany — where the number of COVID-19 infections was far higher than in their homelands.
When the crops have been saved and their saviours return to their home countries, it could be worth revisiting this social media user's words:
Auch muss ich gerade an diese abstrusen Bilder von voriger Woche denken, wo tausende Erntehelfer eng gedrängt an rumänischen Flughäfen standen.
Und ich frage mich: Wie wahrscheinlich ist es, dass ein rumänischer Erntehelfer hier zum Arzt geht wenn er Husten hat? Wer hilft denen?
— Dr. Wu (@Dok_Wu) April 15, 2020
I have to reflect on these abstruse images from the past weeks, where thousands of migrant workers stand back to back in Romanian airports. And I ask myself: how likely is it that a Romanian migrant labourer will go to the doctor here if he has a cough? Who will help him then?
It is a good question. If, indeed, one of those workers is able to visit a doctor in Germany, nothing will be lost in translation — for Germany's healthcare system, much like many others in Europe, runs with the help of thousands of Romanian doctors who have come in search of a dignified salary. Meanwhile, Romania fights COVID-19 with a shortage of medical personnel.
These examples are German, but they illustrate a story which all Europe shares.
In my own home country of Britain, the question of precarious eastern European labour has become ensnared in a Brexit culture war. Fearing for the fruit harvest, the government launched a “Pick for Britain” campaign in May, extolling patriotic spirit as the solution in a time of closed borders. Few Brits obliged. And so, exceptions to border closures were quickly made for seasonal migrant workers, much to the chagrin of some Brexit supporters. For pro-Europeans, the refusal of their opponents to work on the fields was the strongest evidence of their hypocrisy; precarious labour migrants betokened an idealised European cosmopolitanism drifting out of reach. Between the lines, say experts, a more holistic conversation about labour rights for seasonal migrants was lost.
Valer Simion Cosma, an anthropologist working with labour migrants in rural Romania and an employee of the Zalău History and Art Museum, hopes that the pandemic might raise awareness to Europe's segmented labour economy:
The management of fresh food supply chains in Europe's transnational agribusiness relies on cheap, non-unionised, and privately managed labour from low-wage Eastern European countries. The costs and benefits of this material structure are under-appreciated. West European farming benefits from massive EU and national subsidies, crowding out agricultural exports from the Global South. Yet pay and work conditions in the parts of European food supply chains that are not yet automated (such as fresh produce or meatpacking) remain precarious. International supermarkets pit producers against each other, who in turn rely on wage suppression to defend the sectors’ relatively small margins. While in theory, the East European workers enjoy the legal protections awarded to formal labour by EU law, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed, and in some cases sharpened, their often exploitative work conditions. This occurred not just in countries with large informal sectors, weak labour unions a dual labor markets such as Greece, Spain or Italy, but also in countries like Germany, where economic informality is low and, for all the recent erosion, labour relations.
For Hein de Haas, Professor of Sociology at the University of Amsterdam and director of the Migration Institute, the role of seasonal labour migrants in a time of otherwise closed borders underscores the fact that complete autarky has become a fantasy:
There's a chronic demand for labour across Europe, and this shows it. You can have Brexit or no Brexit, you're still going to need those workers, and there are few remaining places in Europe other than Romania where you can get them. Over the past 30 years, we've been through a process of liberalisation of economies, there have been much more short-term labour contracts and flexibility to recruit migrant labourers, and that's in total opposition to the publicly stated desire to have less immigration; you can't have both. You cannot on the one hand liberalise the economy and give more leeway to labour movement and then say that you want less immigration. Politicians play this game about closing borders because there's political benefits, but at the same time it's clear.
Trade unions also have to accept that local workers aren't available for those jobs. It's also not true that if the wages and conditions were improved, local workers would do that work — look at its social status. Perhaps students will do it, but once they graduate they're not going to do this. Politicians can say that they want unemployed people to do that work, but the problem is that picking strawberries, asparagus isn't an easy job! It requires getting up very early and being very motivated, and actually requires some skills. You won't often find that among other workers. It has proven a complete illusion that you can do without this. We're talking about very specific sectors — agriculture is one, care work is another, restaurants and dishwashing, hotel industry is another. These sectors can only exist because of that labour coming in.
For the Romanian philosopher Vasile Ernu, the pandemic prompts uncomfortable realisations about the place of his country in the global economy, and the frustrated hopes of the transition to market capitalism. Eastern Europe, he concluded in a column in April for Libertatea, provides the continent's precariat:
The human resource Romania is left with is no longer highly qualified, or rather, well-paid, but an unqualified resource known as “cheap labour.” Cheap, or poorly paid. So cheap that it is sold “seasonally,” and “wholesale” — almost like logs. But if the logs return to their country of origin in the form of goods processed in factories, to be sold at a higher price, the “cheap labour” citizens return to their country more tired, sick, and older, even if they have raised a little money. Our country's new project is neo-feudalism. The state does not differentiate between logs and human beings. […] So, do we have a state of emergency, or does it disappear with a phone call from Germany? […] What guarantees do these people have? What insurance, what healthcare? They leave after a few months, because they are “seasonal.” Who pays for their quarantine when they return: the German state, the Romanian state, or their employers? […] What is our national project?
As borders were closed across Europe, some of the continent's most vulnerable workers saw themselves labelled “critical” and “essential” by Brussels and Berlin. It was a flattering acknowledgement, but one which implicitly invited comparison with their less than flattering employment rights and precarious existence.
If the post-pandemic world returns to “normal,” it behoves Europeans to ask once more about the how our normality came to be and at a cost to whom — the cost to those who toil unseen, the better to nourish our illusions that it may continue forever.

author: Maxim Edwards


text:
So-called anti-fascist files in Brazil expose the personal information of hundreds of people · Global Voices
Giovana Fleck

Anti-fascist demonstration in Porto Alegre, in the South of Brazil on June 14th. Photo by Maia Rubim via Benedictas Fotocoletivo/Used with permission.
Last month, hundreds of individuals in Brazil were named—without their consent— in lists aimed at identifying ‘’anti-fascists.’’ One of the lists, which circulated on WhatsApp, doxxed people's personal information such as names, pictures, and addresses. The other was compiled by a right-wing member of parliament with the help of his followers on social media. This list was not made available to the public and it is not clear which personal information it contains.
In early June, a 900 page PDF list circulated on Whatsapp. When Brazilians opened it, hundreds of them found their names, pictures, social media profiles, addresses, and some cell phone numbers. Apart from doxxing personal information, the document listed those in the list as “anti-fascists”. Until now, no one confirmed who compiled the data, nor the intent behind it.
Doxxing is the practice of publishing someone's personal information without their permission, with the intention to threaten or intimidate. While some of this information may be readily available or easy to find such as a user's own photos posted on their public social media profiles or pages, the intention with doxxing is to harass and threaten the targeted person.
Rumors circulated on social media that the flagged people belonged to leftist movements, although there is no formal proof of it. Professor Lola Aronovich, from the Department of Foreign Languages at the Federal University of Ceará (UFC) tweeted that most of the names were taken from Facebook. “Whoever made the dossier went after a visual profile (tattoos, piercings, etc.),” she wrote.
A few days later, there was a second list, similar to the first one. Deputy Douglas Garcia, an elected member of the local parliament in the state of São Paulo from Brazil's ultraconservative Social Liberal Party (PSL), said he compiled this second list.
In the Twitter video recorded by the pro-Bolsonaro parliamentarian, Garcia ran his fingers through his stack of papers. He claimed to have received between 700 and 1,000 names from his social media followers.
Garcia referenced U.S. President Donald Trump's recent announcement about his plan to designate Antifa, a loose term used to refer to left-wing antifascist groups and movements as terrorist. The term is an abbreviation for anti-fascist, and Antifa activists have been involved in anti-racist protests in the United States. The parliamentarian promised to send his list to the United States embassy and to the police to investigate the those in it and their links to “terrorist activities.”
Both documents — the public one on Whatsapp and the one compiled by Garcia — became known as “the anti-fascist files”.
People on social media started to believe the first and second lists are one and the same. Leftist lawmakers accused Garcia of defamation and violation of people's privacy and advised those on the list to organize themselves for legal protection.
In a call via WhatsApp with Global Voices, Garcia assured that his file is different. “Mine has no names of women and is only about people from the state of São Paulo,” he said. He also made clear that the names he collected were not made public. Instead, Garcia confirmed that the file was sent to the Federal and the Civil Police. “It is my job to have an open space in my office for complaints. When I saw people breaking public and private property during the anti-fascist demonstrations, I needed to act. This is a crime,” he said.
Garcia compiled the data after anti-fascist organizations, stemming from football clubs, held protests in at least 15 cities across Brazil. On June 1, thousands of people marched on the largest avenue in São Paulo in response to pro-Bolsonaro, anti-lockdown demonstrators who occupied Avenida Paulista every week in May despite the Covid-19 pandemic.
The pro-Bolsonaro lawmaker is officially under investigation since June 8, accused of administrative improbity because of his list. If he is found guilty, he could lose his seat. Opposition lawmakers believe Garcia attempted to intimidate activists and therefore requested the investigation. Even though Garcia created the file, the parliamentarian claims to be anti-fascist himself.
Not many people on the public list complained about it online for fear of more exposure. Lucas Lago, a developer at the data platform Project7c0 saw many of his friends worry when both lists were known to the public. “They were sharing the public list online so that other people could consult their names,” Lago told Global Voices via Skype.
He later contacted fellow coder Eduardo Cuducos to help him create a tool that would prevent people's personal data from spreading while allowing them to check if they are on the list. For him, it was important to have a secure way of knowing who is on the list. While the PDF is still available elsewhere online, with their tool, Lago and Cuducus sought to minimise the further spread of the personal information of the people on the list.
Qualquer maneira de compartilhar dados pessoais [online] que classifique as pessoas não é apenas complicada, mas ilegal. A situação no Brasil é tensa e polarizada, isso abre as portas para colocar toda a pessoa em risco. Me senti compelido a fazer algo para que as pessoas soubessem dos riscos se estivessem na lista. (…) [Compartilhar a lista on-line] pode acabar causando mais danos se for feito sem muita consideração. As pessoas têm que abordar tudo taticamente.
Any way of sharing of personal data [online] that classifies people is not only complicated but illegal. The situation in Brazil is tense and polarized, this opens the door to putting the whole person at risk. I felt compelled to do something so that people knew about the risks if they are on the list. (…) [Sharing the list online] can end up doing more damage if done without a lot of consideration. People have to approach everything tactically.
The developer also stated that many users reached out to him looking for legal advice, once they found their names on the list. “We forwarded them lawyers and NGOs that deal with data leaks, for better assistance,” he said. They do not know how many people used it as they do not keep users’ data to protect their identities.
For Lago, the tool marked a successful turning point since the first list was made public. “It allowed people to acquire more knowledge about their situation”, he said.

author: Giovana Fleck


text:
Sudan uprising: Sweeping reforms usher in justice and freedom · Global Voices
Khattab Hamad

Sunset in Khartoum, Sudan, January 29, 2017. Photo by Christopher Michel via Flickr CC BY 2.0.
Sweeping reforms in Sudan are ushering in a new era of justice and freedom.
On July 9, Minister of Justice Nasredeen Abdulbari declared on Twitter that four new laws were approved by the president of the sovereign council. These reforms restore fundamental rights and freedoms long repressed by the former regime under dictator Omar Al-Bashir, who ruled Sudan for 30 years.
لقد تم التوقيع على قانون مفوضية إصلاح المنظومة الحقوقية والعدلية لسنة 2020، وقانون التعديلات المتنوعة (الحقوق والحريات الأساسية) لسنة 2020، وقانون مكافحة جرائم المعلوماتية (تعديل) لسنة 2020، والقانون الجنائي (تعديل) لسنة 2020.
— Nasredeen Abdulbari (@nasabdulbari) July 9, 2020
The Human Rights and Justice System Reform Commission Act 2020 has been signed, the Miscellaneous Amendments (Fundamental Rights and Freedoms) Act 2020, the Anti-Informatics Crime (Amendment) Act 2020 and the Criminal Code (Amendment) 2020.
These laws show the identity of a new Sudan that recognizes rights, diversity, freedom of belief and expression.
In a Twitter thread, Abdulbari wrote:
المفوضية المؤسسة بموجب القانون المجاز سوف تقود عملية شاملة وعميقة لإصلاح المنظومة الحقوقية والعدلية، التي تعرضت خلال سنوات النظام المباد العجاف لخراب لم يسبق له مثيل في تاريخ السودان.
— Nasredeen Abdulbari (@nasabdulbari) July 9, 2020
The commission established under the  law passed will lead a comprehensive and profound process of reforming the human rights and justice system, which during the years of the regime has experienced ruin — an unprecedented devastation in the history of Sudan.
أما قانون التعديلات المتنوعة فيُجري إصلاحات في قوانين متعددة لجعلها متسقة مع مبادئ حقوق الإنسان وحرياته الأساسية الواردة في الوثيقة الدستورية، وهو بذلك يمثل خطوة كبيرة نحو تحقيق ركن من أركان شعار ثورة ديسمبر الظافرة، ألا وهو الحرية.
— Nasredeen Abdulbari (@nasabdulbari) July 9, 2020
As for the law of various amendments, it undertakes reforms in multiple laws to bring them in line with the principles of human rights and fundamental freedoms contained in the constitutional document, and thus represents a major step towards achieving one of the pillars of the victorious slogan of the December revolution, which is freedom.
The Fundamental Rights and Freedoms Act is a victory for feminism in Sudan because it guarantees freedom of travel for women.
Under the Bashir regime, women could not travel without explicit permission from either a father or husband (if married). Mothers can now travel with their children without permission from the children’s father. In the past, these restrictions were especially disastrous for divorced families that often led to arguments. Women had to go to court simply to secure permission to travel alone with their children.
Also, under the new Criminal Law, Sudan will criminalize female circumcision, an act that was not recognized as a crime under the Bashir regime.
For the first time in Sudanese history, a woman — Nimat Abdullah Khair — holds the position of chief justice.
One netizen cheered:
مبروك ( للامراه السودانيه)الإنجاز العظيم اللي حصل اليوم بتعديل قوانين مجحفه في حق المراه زي حرمانها مع السفر بالأطفال الا بموافقه؛ وإيجاز قانون تجريم ختان الإناث لا تعيشي مقهوره لا مكسوره❤ واكيد دي بدايه لمشوار طويل في حمايه حقوق المراه والطفل في السودان ً
— Roaarabi (@Roaarabi2) July 10, 2020
Congratulations [for Sudanese women], the great achievement that took place today by amending unfair laws regarding the right of women to deprive them while traveling with children without their consent; Briefing the law criminalizing female circumcision. [Live without oppression or break] “Sudanese feminist's slogan.” And this is the beginning of a long journey in protecting the rights of women and children in Sudan.
In Sudan, more than 95 percent of Sudanese people are Muslim. Under the Bashir regime, citizens strictly adhered to the Sharia laws of Islam. The recent amendments have guaranteed justice to non-Muslim minorities.
For example, under Bashir, alcohol was banned because it is not permitted in Islam. Under the new Criminal Law, the alcohol ban has been amended to guarantee the freedom of non-Muslims to live their lives without being held accountable to Sharia laws.
These reforms also guarantee freedom of belief — the punishment for apostasy has been lifted. Before these reforms, the authority gave anyone who denounced Islam a period of three days to review the decision and face death if they did not retract the denouncement.
Now, all Sudanese citizens have the right to choose their religion or belief without fear of punishment.
The Criminal Code has also been amended. The death penalty has been abolished for those under the age of 18 and over 70.
The amendments received support from several high-profile government officials, such as Sudan's Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, who wrote on Twitter:
إجازة وتمرير هذه القوانين والتعديلات الجديدة هي خطوة هامة في طريق إصلاح المنظومة العدلية من أجل تحقيق شعار الثورة: حرية سلام وعدالة، عبر قوانين ومؤسسات عدلية تضمن سيادة حكم القانون، ستستمر المراجعات والتعديلات القانونية حتى نكمل معالجة كافة التشوهات في النظم القانونية في السودان. https://t.co/vkHvcsZM4m
— Abdalla Hamdok (@SudanPMHamdok) July 10, 2020
The passing of these new laws and amendments is an important step in reforming the justice system in order to achieve the slogan of the revolution: freedom, peace and justice, through judicial laws and institutions guaranteeing the rule of law, legal reviews and amendments will continue until we continue to address all distortions in the legal systems in Sudan.
However, Abdulhai Yousif, a well-known, devout Islamic cleric with over 75,000 followers, denounced the reforms, calling them a “war against virtue, and an [act of] aggression against the nation:”
1/ صدور التعديلات على القانون الجنائي يؤكد لكل منصف ما قاله الحادبون من وقت بعيد أن هذه الحكومة جاءت حرباً على الفضيلة، وعدواناً على دين الأمة وهويتها
— د. عبد الحي يوسف (@Dr_AbdHayYousif) July 12, 2020
The issuance of amendments to the criminal law confirms to everyone what long-time adherents of religion said — that this government came as a war against virtue, and an aggression against the nation’s religion and identity.
And some people created hashtag #لا_تشريع_بلا_تفويض  which means “No legislation without a mandate.”
Currently, Sudan does not have a legislative council or “parliament,” pending peace talks that must establish full and fair representation for conflict zones under the parliament dome. The 2019 transitional constitution of Sudan known as “the constitutional document” gave the joint meeting of the Sovereign Council and the Cabinet the right to create new legislation.
However, citizens say these sweeping reforms are undemocratic because any new legislation should happen through the consideration of citizens’ opinions.
Bakr Elterify cautioned:
https://t.co/bAOiLTGjG0
في ناس ما مستوعبين الكارثة. دي ديكتاتورية بالمناسبة حتى لو القوانين سمحة و ظريفة في نظر البعض! القوانين تجاز عبر البرلمان أو المجلس التشريعي منتخب لأنه بمثل رأي غالبية الشعب المفروض لو اتعمل بطريقة سليمة. #لا_تشريع_بلا_تفويض
— Bakr Elterify (PL Champions ?) (@bakr_elterify) July 11, 2020
Some people do not understand the catastrophe, it is a dictatorship by the way, even if the laws are good.
And Aabid lamented the way these laws were formed:
قوانين تمرردون إتاحةمسوداتها للنقاش المجتمعي و تعرض على هيئةتشريعيةمعيبة مصممة لتفصيل القوانين بما يتلائم مع مصالح ورغبات شركاء الحكم الغيرمنتخبين في ظل تأخير (متعمد) لتشكيل أى جسم تشريعي رقابي فاعل.
هذه طريقة الفرمانات و ليست طريقة تشريع قوانين.#السودان
#لا_تشريع_بلا_تفويض https://t.co/eK8G97iqqw
— Aabid (@Aabid_C) July 11, 2020
Laws passed without making their drafts available for societal discussion and presented to a defective legislative body designed to tailor laws to suit the interests and desires of unelected governing partners in light of deliberate delay to form any effective regulatory body of oversight. This is the method of dictatorship and not a method of legislating laws.
Sudan's transitional government faces threats of counterrevolution due to economic instability and needs international support at this critical time, but these reforms show the government's willingness to build a new Sudan where freedom, peace and justice thrive.

author: Khattab Hamad


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Cambodia continues to block memorial activities honoring murdered political analyst Kem Ley · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Around 20 Cambodian monks and youth activists were barred by the police from offering a Buddhist prayer ceremony near a gas station where a political analyst was killed on July 10, 2016. Photo from the Facebook page of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights
Individuals and groups were blocked by police and local authorities in Cambodia from holding activities commemorating the fourth anniversary of the death of political analyst Kem Ley.
Kem Ley was killed at a gas station on July 10, 2016. Many suspect the murder was linked to his work as a commentator and political analyst. He was murdered days after he gave a radio interview about a Global Witness report detailing corruption under the Hun Sen government, which has ruled the country since 1985.
The man convicted of the murder said that he killed Kem Ley because the latter owed him money. But civil society groups have raised doubts about the investigation and trial and insist that the perpetrators of the crime have yet to be held accountable.
Every year since 2016, various groups and individuals have organized activities to mark the anniversary, while authorities deploy scores of police to disrupt those activities and harass participants.
This year was no different.
This morning, on 8 July 2020, around 20 youths and monks met with restrictions when they attempted to gather at Bokor Caltex gas station in Phnom Penh in order to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the death of Dr. Kem Ley who was fatally shot in broad daylight by a gunman. pic.twitter.com/AU3jF20vtk
— Sopheap Chak (@sopheapfocus) July 8, 2020
On July 8, a group of monks and young activists were prevented by police from holding a memorial service at the gas station where the late analyst was killed. They were forced instead to hold their prayers on a sidewalk more than 100 meters from the site.
A young man wearing a shirt with Kem Ley's face printed on it was arrested that day.
A youth who wear Dr Kem Ley t-shirt with a message Dr. Kem Ley is the legend of Freedom Expressions was brought to Chamkar Morn district police station.#KemLey pic.twitter.com/zwABB4JOKZ
— Sar Mory (@morysar) July 8, 2020
The next day, a group of youth leaders were blocked by security forces from travelling to Kem Ley’s family home in Takeo.
Another convoy of monks and activists was blocked on July 10. But supporters of the slain commentator continued to honor him by embarking on a march of several kilometers.
Kem Ley, the man speaking truth to power, still hunt authorities. While many were there to commemorate the 4th anniversary of his murder, 19 tuk tuk & a bus was blocked so they all have to walk around 8 km to his home. I joined w/ them to show our solidarity & call for JUSTICE! pic.twitter.com/H9sBdawwdb
— Sopheap Chak (@sopheapfocus) July 10, 2020
Chheang Sinath, a tuk-tuk (three-wheeled vehicle) driver and member of the Independent Democracy of Informal Economy Association, criticized authorities’ actions in an interview with VOD news:
We just came to participate and show respect. Just participating and remembering [Kem Ley’s] sacrifice for society is seen as a wrongdoing [by authorities]. This is not appropriate unless we hold a demonstration or protest something. This is just a ceremony to pay gratitude to him, but authorities tried to stop us.
Venerable Bo Bet, a monk from a Phnom Penh pagoda, expressed frustration that his group of 10 monks was not allowed to pay respects to Kem Ley:
We want to pay respects at the place he was killed, and we will also hold ceremonies at other places. We come here and want to burn incense. We want to hold funeral rites at the site. We want to remember his good deeds here because we do this only once a year.
Kem Ley’s wife and kids were forced to seek asylum in Australia after his death. Bou Rachana thanked supporters of her late husband for their efforts:
I admire them the most because they know that every year when there is any celebration [of Kem Ley], authorities will always ban [gatherings] and use violence against them, but they still strongly participate. I respect their kind hearts.
Takeo authority stops association and youth group mid way while they are going to join Dr. Kem Ley, 4th Memorial Death. pic.twitter.com/nSM7eR0cbo
— CYN CAMBODIA (@cyncambodia) July 10, 2020
More than 30 civil society organizations have signed a statement asking the Cambodian government to form an independent and impartial commission to thoroughly investigate the murder.
They also condemned the continuing harassment of Kem Ley's supporters:
The Cambodian government’s continued harassment of human rights defenders, labor activists, monks, journalists, members of the political opposition, and others critical of the government reflects a systematic culture of impunity that protects those responsible for the death of Kem Ley, and cracks down on any form of expression or information deemed critical of the government.


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Could reform be on the cards for Jamaica’s prison system? · Global Voices
Emma Lewis

A police van escorts inmates who are being moved from one institution to another; in the background is the Tower Street high-security prison. Photo by Christina Xu on Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.
This is the second instalment of a two-part series on how the Jamaican prison system deals with inmates suffering from mental health issues.
After the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM), which examines abuses of human rights by Jamaica's security forces, shared its first quarter 2020 report on the country's prison system at a June 3 press briefing, Jamaicans were horrified to learn of the conditions in which 81-year-old inmate Noel Chambers died.
The octogenarian, who suffered from mental health challenges, died at Kingston’s Tower Street Correctional Facility on January 24. He had been incarcerated for 40 years without being tried, having been deemed unfit to plead to a murder charge.
The resulting public outcry soon turned his death — and what it says about Jamaica's penal system — into a political football.
The issue became sidetracked by a partisan political debate about which administration had rejected a controversial offer back in 2015 from then UK prime minister David Cameron to build a new prison on the island. The finger-pointing was roundly dismissed by social media users:
I don't care about what happened with the prison deal, who said what, who rejected who etc and quite frankly, debating it is a waste of time
I'm more concerned that we fix the existing prison system so that what happened to #NoelChambers doesn't happen to anyone else again
— Entangle meant???? (@sassymb20) June 10, 2020
The government responded with alacrity in the wake of the outrage, with Prime Minister Andrew Holness noting:
The death of Mr. Noel Chambers while in custody within the Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre is both tragic and heartbreaking […] This tragedy is undoubtedly ranked among the most dreadful inheritances of a penal and judicial system that are in urgent need of reform.
On June 4, the Ministry of National Security announced that an audit would be conducted into Chambers’ death.
On June 8, Chief Justice Brian Sykes announced the establishment of a task force to consider current laws affecting those in custody who suffer from mental illness. The group is expected to report its findings within 120 days.
While Director of Public Prosecutions Paula Llewellyn conceded that successive administrations have shown “insufficient care and attention” to the need for a forensic psychiatric facility, she concluded:
Perhaps it is not helpful to get into a blame game […] It is not only mental health issues, but mental health issues which bring them in conflict with the criminal law, that is where you have the dilemma. […]
Between the Mental Health Act and the Criminal Justice Administration Act, efforts have been made systemically; it's just that it was not being carried out in the way that it ought to have been.
Journalist Jovan Anthony posted several statements from the government entities involved, which included a rare apology from the chief justice:
READ: The head of prisons #GaryRowe and the Judiciary have now released statements (pictured) on #NoelChambers.
June 2: @INDECOM_JAMAICA report on #NoelChambers:
June 4: National Security statement (@mnsgovjm)
June 9: Chief Justice statement
June 13: Head of prisons statement pic.twitter.com/aeeoEft4ps
— Jovan Johnson (@jovanthony) June 14, 2020
Following Minister of National Security Horace Chang's parliamentary statement on the matter, however, human rights advocate Susan Goffe demanded more:
One reason why greater transparency is absolutely necessary is that this audit process may be being carried out by entities and/or individuals responsible for the circumstances that led to Mr Chambers’ incarceration and death.
More information is necessary, Minister Chang.
We need to remember that it wasn’t the Ministry of National Security that brought Mr Chambers’ death to public attention. Without INDECOM’s report, we would not have known.
Since Chambers’ death, two former inmates have been freed after decades of imprisonment. Isat Buchanan, legal counsel for the human rights nongovernmental organization Stand Up For Jamaica (SUFJ) succeeded in having one mentally ill man, 71-year-old George Williams, released from the Tower Street prison on June 24.
The Jamaica Gleaner reported:
Shouts of ‘freedom’ were heard outside the St Catherine Parish Court […] as 71-year-old George Williams was released from prison after spending close to 50 years behind bars without a trial. With a black eye from a beating on the weekend, Williams was met by family members and supporters. [His] brother Aldrin Jones said, ‘The journey will be hard, but he is prepared for it.’
Another mentally ill inmate, 49-year-old Abraham Lawrence, was freed on July 10, after being deemed unfit to plead and spending over 25 years in jail. He had been charged with malicious destruction of property after throwing stones at a group of men and a police car in 1994.
Upon Lawrence’s release, his brother emphasised the importance of caring for and supporting the mentally ill.
In a Zoom discussion, SUFJ founder Carla Gullotta, who noted that “the justice system in Jamaica does not work for too many people,” echoed his sentiments. She explained that a detainee’s mental health quickly deteriorates upon entering the prison system, because of “an environment which is not acceptable under any human rights basic principles.”
There are approximately 350 mentally ill inmates being held in special blocks in two Jamaican prisons; Gullotta believes they should be somewhere else, as the penal system has only one psychiatrist serving a total of 4,600 inmates. The only health service these mentally ill prisoners currently receive is one monthly injection to keep them calm.
According to one member of the Jamaica Psychiatric Association who took part in the Zoom discussion:
The mentally ill are being asked to prove their innocence for future crimes, which is wrong […] Locking someone up has no therapeutic value, merely an issue of security. You are violating the rights of these persons either in prisons or mental hospitals to please the society at large, [which is] working on the incorrect presumption that they are all violent.
The psychiatrist added that the mentally ill are more likely to be victims of exploitation and violence themselves: “What we are seeing here is clear evidence of exploitation and structural violence by systems that are in place to protect them.”
INDECOM is currently investigating an incident involving another death of a Tower Street inmate.
Earlier this month, during an argument with a warden, the prisoner was allegedly struck with a baton and later died. The incident sparked a hunger strike among some inmates. One prisoner, speaking anonymously on radio, said that some prison officers are abusive and suggested that existing rehabilitation programs should be extended.
It is now the general hope that Noel Chambers’ tragic death will not be in vain, that more prisoners “lost in the system” will be freed, and most importantly, that the system itself undergoes meaningful reform.
Part I of this post is here.

author: Emma Lewis


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Freedom of expression in Kazakhstan still a distant prospect, says prosecuted activist · Global Voices
Madina Aimbetova

Activist Alnur Ilyashev. Photo used with permission.
On the surface, there have been many changes in Kazakhstan in recent years. On March 19, longtime President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who had ruled the country since independence in 1991, stepped down. His successor, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, promised to liberalise the political space and pursue reforms.
Yet the arrest of activist Alnur Ilyashev suggests that freedom of expression remains a distant dream under Kazakhstan's new president. On June 22, the activist and human rights defender was sentenced to three years of “restricted freedom” on charges of disseminating “false information.” Ilyashev was detained on April 17 after writing Facebook posts accusing officials from the ruling party Nur Otan of corruption and incompetence in their response to the COVID-19 pandemic. He was eventually released from detention on the date of his verdict, on June 22.
If Ilyashev violates any of these restrictions, he is likely to face a prison sentence.
I interviewed Ilyashev to hear his thoughts on the Kazakh authorities’ approach to critics and the future of civic activism in this Central Asian state. The interview has been edited for brevity.
Madina Aimbetova (MA): Alnur, what are your impressions on what has happened to you?
Альнур Ильяшев (АИ): Все началось с того, что в 2018 году я несколько раз подавал в суд на акимат Алматы в связи с отказами в проведении митингов и загрязнением воздуха. Затем в начале 2019 года активистка Санавар Закирова решила создать политическую партию «Наше право», и мы с активистом Маратом Турымбетовым поддержали ее. Однако учредительный съезд был сорван. При этом нас вызвали в полицию и предупредили, что если люди все-таки соберутся, это будет расценено как несанкционированный митинг со всеми вытекающими последствиями. После этого мы подали на акимат, департамент полиции и партию Nur Otan в суд.
Alnur Ilyashev (AI): It all started in 2018, when I sued several times the city government of Almaty [the largest city in Kazakhstan and former capital – ed.] for denying the right to hold demonstrations and on the issue of air pollution. Then in early 2019, the activist Sanavar Zakirova decided to establish the political party Our Right (Наше право in Russian), and we supported her, alongside the activist Marat Turymbetov. Yet the founding congress was disrupted; we were summoned to the police station and warned that should people gather again, it would be considered as a demonstration held without approval from the authorities, with all the consequences that meant. After that, we sued the city government, the department of police and Nur Otan.
MA: How was this related to the Nur Otan party?
АИ: Мы посчитали, что партия Nur Otan препятствовала созданию партии «Наше право», опасаясь появления неудобного конкурента. Но наш уточненный иск, в котором упоминались председатель партии Нурсултан Назарбаев и его заместитель Бауыржан Байбек, на момент всех этих событий вокруг создания партии занимавший пост акима Алматы, суд не принял. Помимо этого я попытался через суд лишить Байбека звания почетного гражданина Алматы, обосновав это тем, что человек, который активно продвигал спорный проект по строительству горнолыжного курорта «Кок-Жайлау» и переименовал одну из центральный улиц в честь еще живого (обычно такое делается посмертно) Нурсултана Назарбаева, недостоин носить это звание. Но и этот иск у меня не приняли. Думаю, это очень задело Байбека. Затем осенью 2019 года на нас подали в суд партия Nur Otan и четверо ее членов, которые посчитали наши публикации с заявлениями о воспрепятствовании созданию партии «Наше право» со стороны Nur Otan порочащими их честь, достоинство и деловую репутацию. Этот процесс тоже закончился не в нашу пользу: суд обязал нас опровергнуть эти сведения и выплатить каждому из истцов-членов партии по 1,5 миллиона тенге. А в апреле 2020 года в отношении меня было начато досудебное расследование, причем в основу обвинения лег суд с Nur Otan и его членами.
AI: As we saw it, the Nur Otan Party was obstructing the creation of Our Right, as it feared competition from a new and inconvenient challenger. But our specific accusation, in which we mentioned head of the party Nursultan Nazarbayev and his deputy Bauyrzhan Baybek, who at the time was mayor of Almaty, was not accepted by the court. I also tried to have Baybek stripped of his title of honorary citizen of Almaty, based on two facts: he had actively promoted the construction of the controversial Kok-Zhaylau ski resort, and he renamed one of Almaty's main streets after Nursultan Nazarbayev, while the former president was still alive (this is usually done after their death). I argued that Baybek did not have the moral authority to bear the title, but that was also dismissed by the court; the issue really affected him personally. Then in the autumn of 2019, the Nur Otan party and four of its members sued us. They believed that an article in which we said that they had obstructed our party's registration constituted an attack of their dignity, honour, and professional reputation. The trial did not end in our favour: the court obliged us to withdraw our statements and pay each of the plaintiffs the sum of 1.5 million tenge (US$2,460). Then in April 2020 a pre-trial investigation procedure was initiated against me, based on this backstory with the Nur Otan party and its members.
MA: And how is that previous case related to your current legal issues?
АИ: В обвинительном акте сказано, что я не сделал выводы из того суда и продолжил распространять ложную информацию. В частности, написал три критических поста о Nur Otan в Facebook, которые могли привести к тяжким последствиям. И на основании этого меня приговорили к трем годам ограничения свободы.
AI: The prosecution claimed that I had not taken the court's ruling on that case into account and had continued to spread false information. In fact, I wrote three critical posts about Nur Otan on Facebook, which could have been the cause. On that basis, they sentenced me to three years’ imprisonment.
MA: You were also barred from participating in public activities for five years. How does that make you feel?
АИ:  Я выпадаю из активной общественно-политической жизни на предстоящий электоральный период — в скором времени у нас должны состояться выборы в мажилис и маслихаты. А это демонстрирует политическую подоплеку моего дела. Ранее я через СМИ говорил о том, как действовать в отношении нарушителей принципа честных выборов. Дело в том, что результаты парламентских выборов будут влиять на количество получаемых той или иной партией денег из бюджета. Согласно существующим правилам, за каждый голос, отданный за партию, которая войдет в парламент, будет даваться по 3% от минимальной заработной платы, то есть около 1,3 тысячи тенге (3,2 доллара по текущему курсу). Например, за 2018 год партия Nur Otan получила из бюджета свыше 5 миллиардов тенге именно по этому принципу финансирования. В этой связи, если на предстоящих выборах будут нарушения (кто-то будет делать вбросы, приписывать голоса, подделывать протоколы и т.д.), они, по сути, будут соучастниками в мошенничестве с целью хищения бюджетных средств в пользу конкретной партии. И, может быть, из-за того, что я был автором идеи привлекать нарушителей за мошенничество, меня решили нейтрализовать. Чтобы я не мог заниматься продвижением этой тактики и осуществлять наблюдение за выборами. Кроме того, я не смогу участвовать в выборах как кандидат — и из-за запрета, и из-за наличия судимости. Да что там выборы — я, юрист, теперь даже не смогу вступить в палату юридических консультантов, чтобы заняться частной практикой, потому что для этого требуется справка об отсутствии судимости. Получается, мне и в политическом, и в экономическом смысле «подрезали крылья». Но ничего, переживем, – не я первый, не я последний.
AI: I am cut off from any active engagement in socio-political life for the next election period — as we will soon have elections for our national and local parliaments, this is proof that my trial is politically motivated. I used to speak up via media platforms about violations of the principle of free and fair elections. The issue is that the result of parliamentary elections will influence the amount of financing available to each party from the state budget. According to existing rules, the state offers three percent of the minimum monthly salary, meaning 1,300 tenge or $3.2 for each vote received by parties which make it into parliament. For example, in 2018 the Nur Otan Party received over five billion tenge ($12.2 million) from the state budget thanks to this system. Thus any violations of the electoral code, such as ballot-stuffing, falsifying vote tallies or the ballots themselves, can also be tied to attempts by individuals to steal more funds from the state budget for their party. Perhaps because I was the one to come up with the idea of accusing the culprits of electoral fraud, they decided to render me inactive, so that I couldn't promote this idea and monitor elections. Moreover, because of the ban imposed on me and my criminal record, now I cannot participate in elections as a candidate. Beyond elections, even though I am a lawyer by training I cannot be a member of the Chamber of Legal Consultants and open a private practice. To do that, I need a certificate confirming that I do not have a criminal record. As a result, they have “clipped my wings,” shutting down any economic or political activities I might be involved in. Of course, I will survive. I am not the first to end up in this situation and I will  not be the last.
MA: Were all your efforts in civic activism worth this?
АИ: Меня сейчас уже называют политиком новой формации. Если это так, то я, скорее всего, «политик по принуждению». Я долгое время был очень лоялен к властям, даже голосовал за Назарбаева, потому что не видел ему альтернативы. Но потом понял, что все эти ребята во власти не справляются с возложенными на них задачами. Да, на госслужбе есть много грамотных, честных граждан. Но в то же время есть и немалое количество некомпетентных и корыстолюбивых людей, о чем свидетельствуют громкие задержания, приговоры за коррупционные преступления и вообще кризисная ситуация в стране, которой он управляют. Но если конкретная политическая сила не справляется, то она должна уступить место другим. И кто-то должен это потребовать вслух. У меня хватило на это знаний и смелости. И, видимо, я действовал достаточно эффективно, раз получил такую реакцию властей. Мне иногда говорят: зачем тебе это надо, ведь ты рискуешь собой, своим здоровьем и, может, даже жизнью? На это я отвечаю: в нынешней ситуации молчать уже невозможно.
AI: People say I am a new kind of politician. If that really is the case, I am most likely “a politician by obligation.” I was very loyal to the authorities for a long time: I voted for Nazarbayev, because I didn't see any alternative. But then I understood that those power have no way of carrying out their duties. Yes, there are many honest and well-educated citizens working in the government. But there is also a large number of incompetent people who are just there to enrich themselves. That can be seen in all the scandalous arrests, corruption allegations, and the general crisis affecting the country they rule. But if a political force is unable to cope, it must step aside and make space for others. And somebody has to say that aloud. I had enough awareness and courage to do so. And it seems I was quite efficient, given the authorities’ reaction. Sometimes people ask me: why do you need all this? Why risk your health, even your life? To that I say: in the current situation, it is impossible to remain silent.
MA: You mention the need to let others step in. But that's happened: we have a new president, Kasym-Jomart Tokayev. How do you assess his presidency?
АИ: У меня есть определенные ожидания, особенно в связи с его бэкграундом. Токаев – дипломат. Он прекрасно знает механизмы защиты прав человека и понимает, насколько это важно. Понимает, какую роль это играет для сохранения мира и стабильности не только в стране, но и во всем мире. Плюс у него хорошее образование, хорошая база. Он – выходец из интеллектуальной среды. У меня есть надежда, что он может что-то сделать. Но мы понимаем, что в текущий момент это не всегда возможно, тем более что он сам подписал указ о необходимости согласования назначений на ряд важных государственных постов с председателем Совета безопасности, которым сейчас является Нурсултан Назарбаев. Этим он, на мой взгляд, подчеркнул, что Назарбаев, который также возглавляет партию Nur Otan, по сути, остается в управлении государством. Токаев же выполняет больше представительскую функцию. В принципе, это нормально для некоторых форм правления, например, в Германии делами заведует канцлер, а президент только документы подписывает. Конечно, Токаев какие-то решения самостоятельно принимает. Но он сам ранее говорил в интервью, что советуется с Назарбаевым по ключевым вопросам. Полностью независимый политик так не делал бы.
AI: I have certain expectations, particularly given his background. Tokayev is a diplomat. He knows human rights mechanisms very well, and knows their importance. He knows how important they are in maintaining peace and stability not just in Kazakhstan, but around the world. He is very well-educated, and comes from an intellectual background, so I hope that he can achieve something. But we must understand that this is not always possible, given the current situation. He himself signed an order which means that all appointments to high government posts have to be approved by the head of the Security Council, that is Nursultan Nazarbayev. By doing this, he makes it clear that Nazarbayev, who remains the head of the Nur Otan, is still the person in charge of this country. Tokayev plays a representative role. That's normal under certain forms of governance; for example in Germany the Chancellor governs, and the president is there just to sign papers. Of course, Tokayev does take his own decisions, but he has himself acknowledged that he asks for Nazarbayev's input on key issues. A truly independent politician would not act like that.
MA: Is the time ripe in Kazakhstan for civil society to start a dialogue with the authorities?
АИ: В начале 2000-х годов шел рост цен на нефть, на сырьевые товары. Соответственно, росла наша экономика. И тогда системные проблемы немного смазались, их было не так видно на том фоне. Но это оказалось кратковременным везением. А потом все посыпалось, и после 2009 года мы пребываем в перманентном кризисе. Ситуация все сложнее и сложнее. Дошло до того, что сейчас государственные мужи вынуждены обращаться к гражданам, чтобы они делали пожертвования на борьбу с коронавирусом. Где наши хваленые резервы? Часть активов Национального фонда арестованы в рамках судебной тяжбы нашего правительства с молдавским бизнесменом Анатолом Стати. Это деньги народа, заработанные на наших ресурсах, и мы не можем ими полноправно воспользоваться! Все эти экономические проблемы заставляют людей открывать глаза. Еще важную роль сейчас играют социальные сети. Есть книга Мойзеса Наима «Конец власти», где говорится, что активисты, блогеры, журналисты уже воспринимаются как микровласть — эти граждане в отсутствие больших ресурсов могут оказывать влияние на политические процессы. И именно Интернет и соцсети дают им такую возможность. Сейчас люди могут самостоятельно найти ту или иную информацию, провести фактчекинг, выразить свое мнение и т.д. А на этом фоне перемены неизбежны. Тем более что масса людей, которые хотят изменений, растет с каждым годом. И от того, будут ли власть и гражданское общество действовать сообща или, наоборот, противодействовать друг другу, зависит, какими будут эти изменения.
AI: In the early 2000s, the price of oil and other raw materials rose, and Kazakhstan's economy grew along with them. At the time, these systematic problems were not so apparent. But it was a short period of good fortune, and it all came tumbling down. We have been in a state of permanent crisis since 2009. The situation has become more and more difficult, to the point that government officials have had to ask citizens to contribute money to the fight against COVID-19. What has become of the country's financial reservers that were praised for many years? Some of Kazakhstan's National Oil Fund is frozen as part of a lawsuit between our government and the Moldovan businessman Anatol Stati. That money belongs to the people, earned from Kazakhstan's national resources, and yet we can't use it! All of these economic problems are forcing people to open their eyes. Social media also plays a key role. In his book “The End of Power” Moisés Naím writes that activists, bloggers and journalists can be considered a micro-power in their own right — meaning that those citizens who are deprived of large resources can influence the political process. The internet and social media provide them with this opportunity, allowing people to find out things by themselves, checking facts, and expressing their opinions. In this context, changes are inevitable, given that the number of people wanting change grows every year. The nature of those changes will be defined by whether there is cooperation or a conflict between the state authorities and civil society.
MA: So what does the future hold for Kazakhstan?
АИ:  Я думаю, общество способно помочь президенту запустить реальные реформы, когда у него созреет соответствующий запрос. Поэтому пора начинать равноправный, полноценный, открытый диалог со всеми силами, которые сейчас есть на политической арене. Я считаю, что при наличии каких-то проблем в государственном управлении о них надо говорить честно и в лицо.
AI: I believe that society is capable of helping the president launch real reforms when the demand for them is ripe. This is why the time has come to start an equal, fully-fledged, and open dialogue between all the forces in the political arena. I believe that that if there are any issues affecting governance, they have to be debated honestly and openly.

author: Madina Aimbetova