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Protests, Violence and Teargas as the Billion Euro Expo Kicks Off in Milan · Global Voices
Faten Bushehri

Anti-Expo march in Milan city centre. Photo taken on 30 April 2015 by Marco Aprile. Copyright Demotix.
Massive planned protests at the opening of the Expo 2015 in Milan, which Italy has been preparing to host for years, took a turn when clashes between police and some demonstrators broke out on May 1 at the city center.
Reports suggest masked “black bloc” protesters turned violent, vandalizing areas, particularly around the central Cadorna station. The violent protesters, are believed to be associated with radical anti-globalization groups across Europe. Police in riot gear, who were prepared for violence, responded by teargassing the protesters, and detaining a number of demonstrators.
The expo is running for six months and the Italian government has set aside 1.3 billion euros ($1.46 billion) for creating venues and other infrastructure around the event, which 145 countries are participating in.
To protesters, Expo 2015 is a symbol of corruption that only benefits participating corporations. Protesters claim the fair is not helping Italy overcome its financial crisis. Instead, they say, it’s a waste of money that should have been spent on economic growth and creating jobs.
The violence, was a major change from the previous day, when tens of thousands students, anti-austerity campaigners, anti-globalization activists and environmentalists took the streets to protest peacefully against the global fair on April 30.
Clashes in Milan. Photo taken on
1 May 2015 by Marco Aprile. Copyright Demotix.
Police fired tear gas at the masked protesters, some of whom pelted officers with stones, set trash bins and vehicles on fire, and set off smoke bombs and firecrackers in a few shops.
Black bloc used smoke bombs to blind cops, then changed clothes, dropped gear and slipped into crowd. Genius. #noexpo pic.twitter.com/2972qxCXXq
— Automnia (@Aut_Omnia) May 1, 2015
The world trade fair is expected to bring 20 million visitors to Italy by its closing date in October. Nine million tickets have already been sold.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi expects the expo to generate 10 billion euros ($11.2 billion) and Milan's Chamber of Commerce says the event will generate 191,000 new jobs for Italians over the next few months. Protesters strongly disagree with these forecasts.
#autonomous #Housing struggle & #notav bloc moving from Piazza XXIV Maggio towards downtown #noexpo #expo2015 pic.twitter.com/iXEzsSklGK
— Infoaut_English (@Infoaut_English) May 1, 2015
Earlier in the week Italian police conducted a series of raids on groups suspected of planning violent protests. They seized fireworks, baseball bats and gas masks. A German national was arrested and 26  people, including 16 French nationals, were placed under investigation. A day before the violence, The Times of Italy reported quoting police sources,  “A group of one thousand anarchists from all over Italy and Europe have gathered in Milan ahead of Expo”.
Thousands of Italian police officers were deployed in the city center and security was tight.
Some Italians were frustrated at the violence taking place on the streets, following what had started as peaceful protests:
#noexpo non è distruggendo negozi e macchine di incolpevoli cittadini che si fanno le proteste. E poi dovevate protestare prima
— Silvia Scardino (@AivlisSiska) May 1, 2015
You don't protest by destroying shops and cars of innocent citizens. And you should have protested earlier
molti #noexpo2015 non sanno quello che dicono e fanno e non hanno niente a che fare con la libertà di opinione ed il diritto di protestare
— Fabrizia Emanuelli (@lucrezia68lvely) May 1, 2015
many #noexpo2015 don't know that what they say and do has nothing to do with freedom of speech and the right to protest
The demonstration was the first in a series of panned demonstrations around  Expo 2015, whose theme, “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life,” has attracted criticism from environmentalists, anti-capitalist and anti-globalization groups.
Protestors argue that the fair’s theme is ironic, since many people have no access to food and water. Participants also oppose the inclusion of food corporations like Coca Cola, Nestle and McDonald's in the fair.
They also said that thousands of people have been exploited, and worked long hours at the exposition’s venues without getting paid.
“No #expo2015, eat the rich” #noexpo2015 pic.twitter.com/grcWaH9b5M
— Chiara Baldi (@ChiaraBaldi86) May 1, 2015
This video is from yesterday's peaceful protests:
#Italy: Clashes in #Milan as leftist students rail against Expo Milano 2015 https://t.co/SuKkeWNLEI #NoEXPO pic.twitter.com/OK0Do28B50
— th anonymous (@ori_no_co) April 30, 2015
Referring to a banner held by a protester in the picture above, Andrea Petti thinks it's ironic:
“La città è degli studenti, non di Expo”. Ah si, la città degli studenti che manifestavano solo per non andare a scuola #noexpo
— Andrea Petti (@Petti1899) April 30, 2015
The city belongs to students, not to the Expo. Sure, to the students who manifest only to skip school.
Milan has been preparing for the Expo since 2008 when it won the bid to host it. The last expo was hosted in Shanghai in 2010. The event is part of a world fair series that dates back to 1851, and takes place in a different country every five years.
The exhibition has already been associated with a tainted reputation after several officials were arrested for corruption.
Italian press has used headlines like “The five days of Milan” or in Italian “Cinque giornate di Milano”, referring to a major event in 1848 when the first Italian War of Independence started.
Qualcuno ancora non ha capito che non è il fine a giustificare i mezzi ma sono i mezzi che delegittimano il fine. #blackbloc #noexpo
— Pietro Vinti (@piellegivi) May 1, 2015
Someone has yet to understand: the goal doesn't justify the means, but the means can delegitimize the goal.
For others, this battle over Expo 2015 has triggered curiosity:
comunque a me questi di #NoExpo mi hanno fatto solo diventare più curiosa riguardo all #Expo2015 … quasi quasi ci faccio un salto
— Emanuela B. (@billabi) May 1, 2015
By the way, these NoExpo made me more curious about the Expo2015… I may just pop in
All'Italia non serve Expo, ma maggiore impegno verso i cittadini più deboli che non hanno come amico qualche “politico per caso”. #noexpo
— Marta Pellizzi (@marta_pellizzi) May 1, 2015
Italy doesn't need an Expo, but more commitment towards weaker citizens who aren't friends with “random politicians”
The event gained a lot of buzz on social media, with many hashtags created to either support or condemn the exhibition, like #Noexpo , #Noexpo2015, and #Noexpomayday coinciding with Labor day on May 1.
Meanwhile anti-austerity protests spilled over to other Italian cities and also resulted in clashes between protesters and police.

author: Faten Bushehri


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Teachers Strike in Colombia Leaves More Than 8 Million Students Without Class · Global Voices
Lully

One of the marches in Colombia caused by the Federation of Colombian education workers (la Federación Colombiana de Trabajadores de la Educación (Fecode)) on April 22, 2015 Photo by: Marcela Zuluaga, taken on Flickr account el Turbión  under license Creative Commons.
April 22 began a national teachers strike for public schools that left approximately eight million youth in Colombia out of the classroom. The Federation of Colombian Education Workers (La Federación Colombiana de Trabajadores de la Educación in Spanish, or FECODE for short), one of the country's most important unions with more than a million affiliates, promised in a press release to continue the strike and organize protests after the government rejected its demands.
According to the president of FECODE, Luis Gruber, there are five key points at the negotiating table that need to be resolved with the Ministry of Education, lead by Gina Parody: better salaries, skill evaluations, health care access, free education, and an increase in the number of years allowed in preschool from one to three.
Minister Parody declared she would not negotiate until the teachers suspended the strike. She also seemed to be unaware of the reality of being a teacher in Colombia: she said that a teacher on average earned 2.5 million Colombian pesos, when in reality the quantity is much lower, around 1 million pesos ($420 dollars monthly)
Among the scheduled activities were marches on April 27, in which professors, students, and other citizens mobilized in different parts of the country to demand that the government negotiate.
The strike also united teachers and students from various public universities. On social media, people discussing the strike used the hashtags #SantosGinaNegocienConFecode, (Santos, Gina, negotiate with Fecode) #Fuerzamiprofe (strength to my teacher) and #YoApoyoAMIProfe (I support my teacher).
User Leonardo Coca questioned the promises made by Juan Manuel Santos, president of Colombia, to dignify the work of teachers:
#SantosGinaNegocienConFecode ¿las promesas educativas quedan en la memoria de los políticos o en la del pueblo? pic.twitter.com/6aZfrp1DG5
— Fernando Coca (@durocontra) abril 29, 2015
#SantosGinaNegotiatewithFecode Education promises are remembered by politicians or by the people?
User Caty posted an image that captured the strike students undertook at her school:
Los estudiantes del colegio Pablo Herrera entramos en paro #apoyoamiprofe queremos una educación integra! pic.twitter.com/B60DuVO0MY — Caty (@KtyChN) abril 24, 2015
We students from Pablo Herrera school are joining the strike #supportmyteacher we want complete education!
Likewise, Duban Alexi Arboleda showed how students at the Universidad de Antioquia united for the cause:
Estudiantes de udea también apoyan el paro educativo @ginaparody @Mineducacion pic.twitter.com/X3tfiozd0x
— Duban Alexi Arboleda (@_Duban_) abril 29, 2015
Udea students also support the education strike
Congressman Iván Cepeda posted for consideration a worldwide salary table where the low salary of Colombia's teachers is evident:
¿Por qué hay paro docente? Tabla de sueldos de los maestros en el mundo: pic.twitter.com/gxGK8cd9be
— Iván Cepeda Castro (@IvanCepedaCast) abril 27, 2015
Why is there a teacher's strike? Salary table of teachers around the world
User Juco expressed the importance of having teachers:
#FuerzaMiProfe El maestro en la calle, enseña democracia, enseña a defender los derechos de todos nuestro pueblo! pic.twitter.com/kOR6MCMriS
— JUCO (Habla la J) (@hablalaJ) abril 27, 2015
#Strengthmyteacher The everyday teacher teaches democracy and teaches to defend the rights of our people!
OCECOLOMBIA.CO shared images of students making posters with the help of teachers:
El Paro Nacional de Fecode recibe amplio apoyo de nuestros estudiantes colombianos. #FuerzaMiProfe pic.twitter.com/TfCU5PHY2a
— OCECOLOMBIA.CO (@OCEcolombia) abril 27, 2015
Fecode's national strike receives widespread support by our Colombian students #strengthmyteacher
User Carlos Darío Morales, after making a comment about how important teachers should be for politicians as a means to achieve peace, published this image questioning the attitude of the minister of education to refuse dialogue while the government agrees to conversation with Cuba with guerrillas of Farc:
#FuerzaMiProfe! Hay q enseñarle a la clase política de este país que la educación es el verdadero camino para la paz. pic.twitter.com/lnnGqDH2Kn
— Carlos Darío Morales (@CarlosDario1975) abril 27, 2015
#Strengthtomyteacher We need to teach the political class of this country that education is the true way to peace
Image: So you're telling me won't negotiate with teachers in the middle of a strike but will negotiate with guerrillas in the middle of a conflict?
On May 1, Workers’ Day in many countries, Colombians also marched, and user Alba Mendoza made reference to this rally to signal support:
#Apoyando la marcha y protestas del dia del trabajo a los profesores y a todos los trabajadores en Colombia por un salario digno estable,,,
— Alba Mendoza (@albatours_viaje) Mayo 1, 2015
#Supporting the march and protests of Workers’ Day and the teachers and all of the Colombian workers for a dignified, stable salary…
Fecode requested a new negotiator to replace the minister of education, so Ombudsman Jorge Armando Otálora organized a conversational meeting between both parties to come to an agreement, even though the strike continued.
Update: After a two-week strike, teachers in Colombia finally headed back to their classrooms after the government agreed to make concessions early on May 6. Government officials came to a “tentative agreement” with Fecode.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Lully


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The Heartbreaking Story of a Woman Enslaved in Mexico · Global Voices
Gabriela García Calderón Orbe

Scars from the mistreatment suffered by the slaved Mexican young woman. Screenshot from video posted on YouTube.
Warning: this story contains graphic images below.
She calls herself Zunduri because she thinks it means “beautiful girl” in Japanese. She's a 22-year-old woman, but looks like a girl not older than 15. Her case has shocked Mexico and every person who comes across her story. For about two years, Zunduri was the slave of a Mexican family who held her captive without food or water, subdued with beatings and mistreatments—a torture repeated on a daily basis.
She managed to escape from her captors, who are already in custody. They are José de Jesús Sánchez Vera, sisters Leticia Molina Ochoa and Fani Molina Ochoa, and sisters Ivette Hernández Molina and Jannet Hernández Molina.
Her story starts off with a very difficult childhood, a story that she'd rather not remember. She ran away from home and asked for a job from a friend's mother. At first, it was a good deal, with very reasonable working conditions. She was supposed to iron clothes for the family business, a dry cleaner. This continued until Zunduri fell in love and quit her job. When the relationship ended two years later, she came back asking to have her old job again. She got it back, although with a harder rythm, and she agreed.
With a higher workload, she felt more tired, and some of the clothes she was supposed to iron were ruined as a result. Her employers told her the cost of the ruined pieces would be covered with her salary, but in amounts determined unilaterally and arbitrarily by them. The moment finally came when the debt was so high that they simply stopped paying her. Zunduri managed to escape once, but when she was found, she was threatened with charges agasint her for robbery.
When she got back to “work”, the mistreatment and torture started. She got chained in a way she could not sit down for long hours, and she had to iron clothes without a break. Food didn't come every day. Zunduri saw herself forced to eat even the plastic that covered the clothes. She relied on plastic bags when she needed to use the bathroom, as the short length of her chains prevented her from reaching the toilet. All five individuals involved participated in the beatings, but the worst one was Leticia Molina Ochoa, who Zunduri sometimes used to call “mom”.
The website Repretel describes the young woman's plight:
“Me llegaba a golpear con palos, fierros, con lo primero que pudiera estar en sus manos”. asegura Zunduri.
“Había días que no dormía, nada, me obligaba a mantenerme despierta para seguir trabajando”.
El maltrato le provocó severos daños. Zunduri cumplirá 23 años el próximo mes aunque su cuerpo es como el de una adolescente de 14.
Pero los exámenes médicos determinaron que sus órganos tienen el mismo desgaste de una persona de 81 años.
“She beat me with sticks, with iron bars, with whatever she could find at hand”, claims Zunduri.
“There were days when I got no sleep at all, she forced me to stay awake so to keep on working”.
The mistreatment caused longterm damage. Zunduri will be 23 next month, though her body looks like a 14-year-old teenager. Medical tests, however, established her organs are as worn away as those of an 81-year-old woman.
The head of Ministry Labor and Social Welfare, Alfonso Navarrete Prida, has pointed out that this is not labor exploitation, but kidnapping—illegal imprisonment that included the exploitation of the kidnapped person. This is a crime punishable by 70 years in prison.
On Twitter, people are posting pictures and videos with the accounts Zunduri has given to the press. (WARNING: graphic images are ahead.)
Caso Zunduri: hasta 70 años de prisión a quienes esclavizaron a joven http://t.co/BOh1e4B0US
— Sofia Crus (@SofiCrus) abril 29, 2015
Zunduri case: up to 70 years imprisonment for those who enslaved a young woman.
This story will break Yur soul. Woman slave Zunduri tortured for two years by Mexican family | Daily Mail Online http://t.co/aJEwUwhI9u
— #BoutThatLife (@Kuncous) abril 29, 2015
Que fuerte que esto pase aún – BBC: Escalofriante relato de Zunduri, la esclava de la tintorería de Ciudad de México http://t.co/5s9copoTek — Sebastián Abarca (@Sebabarca) abril 29, 2015
So shocking this is still going on – BBC: Compelling testimony by Zunduri, the slave at a dry cleaner in Mexico City.
La @PGJDF busca a la madre de Zunduri, joven esclavizada en tintorería de la Ciudad de México. pic.twitter.com/I5qtav9ljw — Fernando Canales F (@FerCanalesF) abril 29, 2015
The Mexican Attorney General of the Republic looks for Zunduri's mother, young woman enslaved at a dry cleaner in Mexico City.
De nuevo los ausentes DDHH de México quedan en evidencia. http://t.co/ng3wmAjrp1 vía @noticias24 — Vanessa F. Villalta (@vanefuentesvi) abril 29, 2015
Once again, the non-existent human rights in Mexico are exposed.
#TeLoPerdiste ? “Que paguen cada lágrima”. Pide Zunduri: MÉXICO (El Universal).— Zunduri aprieta los dedos. T… http://t.co/AqzsGbFW1E
— Emilio Gómez Islas (@egomezislas) abril 29, 2015
“May they pay for every tear”, is what Zunduri asks for: MEXICO (El Universal).
Unfortunately, Zunduri's case is not an isolated story. According to the 2014 Global Slavery Index, Mexico ranks 111th in the world by prevalence of population in modern slavery, with an estimated 266,900 slaves. It is the highest-ranked nation in Latin American.
The website Publimetro recently published summaries of two similar cases in Mexico.

author: Gabriela García Calderón Orbe


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Ugandan Launches Tweef Against President Museveni and National Resistance Movement · Global Voices
Prudence Nyamishana

Uganda's president Yoweri Museveni. Photo released under Creative Commons by Russell Watkins/Department for International Development UK).
Not many have the guts to take on Uganda's number one citizen, Yoweri Museveni, head on.
Qatahar Raymond, a journalist, blogger and tweep, recently waged a tweef* against President Museveni, and his National Resistance Movement (NRM), on his Twitter page.
Qatahar is an investigative journalist currently working with Uganda Radio Network and Buzzfeed.
Museveni, who has been in power since 1986, is known for cracking down hard on dissenting voices.
Activists have recently warned of a new bill in the Ugandan parliament that is likely to silence critics, activists and non-governmental organisations critical of his government. He is reportedly seeking a sixth presidential term next year, and has promised never to give power to the opposition, whom he calls “wolves”.
The Raymond-Museveni tweef began with this one tweet:
Naye @KagutaMuseveni ddala kiki, can we jointly get you something more attractive to do than lead us to our graves as a country?
— Qatahar Raymond (@qataharraymond) April 29, 2015
what in the world is going on?, can we jointly get you something more attractive to do than lead us to our graves as a country?
We were just a few wks ago crying abt cancer treatment. A radiotherapy machine goes for 700mn. Our president saw it wise to buy landcruisers
— Qatahar Raymond (@qataharraymond) April 29, 2015
Yes @KagutaMuseveni Ku Landcruiser z'ogabye,gwe nga gwe,is it possible to also construct a cancer ward? You can paint it yellow teri buzibu
— Qatahar Raymond (@qataharraymond) April 29, 2015
On the issue of the Land cruiser, you as a president can construct a cancer ward? You can paint it yellow that will be perfect.
To what? 3bn landcruisers? 33% of GDP debt? a crippling economy? Lwaki otuzunza yye? https://t.co/3G9ab4eRTw
— Qatahar Raymond (@qataharraymond) April 29, 2015
The ruling NRM bought posh Toyota Land Cruiser V8s from the United Kingdom for its party officials. Speculation is rife about where the money for the vehicles was sourced from.
He continued with his criticism, reminding the president about his decision to lease state-owned Dairy Corporation to a foreign firm for $1 US for three years:
And you sold our Dairy corporation for $1. Lwaki ddala otuzunza? https://t.co/8rAYEXKZL3
— Qatahar Raymond (@qataharraymond) April 29, 2015
And you sold our Dairy corporation for $1. Why do you really take us in circles?
He kept posing questions to Museveni:
Yes, where are the corporatives where we sold these crops, Lwaki otuzunza? https://t.co/av2d5D41wY
— Qatahar Raymond (@qataharraymond) April 29, 2015
Many cooperatives in Uganda have collapsed under the Museveni regime following market economy reforms encouraged by the World Bank.
And in a pointed reference to the country's relationship with China, which Museveni was bragging about on Twitter recently, he pointed out that Uganda was not receiving free money from China:
I think you forgot the part where you mention ‘on loans’ and accumulating debt to them! https://t.co/6fW7VCBRWP
— Qatahar Raymond (@qataharraymond) April 29, 2015
On the unending use of the word “liberation”:
again you use the word ‘liberate’ a little to loosely here…. https://t.co/3G9ab4eRTw
— Qatahar Raymond (@qataharraymond) April 29, 2015
Museveni and NRM took over power after a five-year armed struggle towards the end of the Cold War.
Raymond dug up some skeletons in the regime's closet:
We still – under your regime- dont know who killed Kayiira, Kazini, Kagezi, do you have time I spell out the list? https://t.co/GyFZkaCGu7
— Qatahar Raymond (@qataharraymond) April 29, 2015
Dr Andrew Lutakome Kayiira was the leader of the rebel group the Uganda Freedom Movement. He was murdered in 1987 a few days after the government withdrew treason charges against him. Former army commander Maj. Gen. James Kazini was killed in mysterious circumstances in 2008. Joan Kagezi was the lead prosecutor in the case of the 2010 Al-Shabaab-linked bombings in the Ugandan capital Kampala. She was killed on March 30, 2015.
On Museveni being in power for almost three decades, Raymond asked:
Lets compare this with other countries on the timeline of 28 years, shall we Mr President? https://t.co/7WRGMkwBiT
— Qatahar Raymond (@qataharraymond) April 29, 2015
He called Museveni's Twitter account ‘a product of hypocrisy':
If I was hired to sell ‘glaring hypocrisy’ as a product, this account @KagutaMuseveni would be a target investment.
— Qatahar Raymond (@qataharraymond) April 29, 2015
Fellow Ugandan tweeps grew concerned about his criticism. One warned him:
@qataharraymond stop! No one is in the mood for a #FreeRaymond hash tag when they take you in
— Liz (@_firebaby) April 29, 2015
Kemigisa jacky wrote, perhaps sarcastically:
Gwe @qataharraymond it is bad manners in the African Tradition to point out failures of your elders! so i shall go back to my coursework!
— kemigisa jacky (@JackyKemigisa) April 29, 2015
However, J.P.K Makumbi remarked:
I'd like to have whatever @qataharraymond had for breakfast. He is on fire today.
— J.P.K Makumbi (@Johnie256) April 29, 2015

author: Prudence Nyamishana


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Bangladesh, Mexico and Syria triumph in 2015 The Bobs Awards · Global Voices
Georgia Popplewell

The winners of Deutsche Welle's The Bobs 2015 awards have been announced. Online projects from Bangladesh, Mexico and Syria were selected as winners by an international jury.
Projects in 14 languages competed in the categories of Social Change, Privacy and Security and Arts and Media, in addition to People's Choice.
Newly inaugurated this year as part of The Bobs was Deutsche Welle's Freedom of Speech Award, which was awarded in February to imprisoned Saudi blogger Raif Badawi.
The Bobs marks its 11th year of existence this year. Global Voices took the jury award in the Best Weblog in English category in 2005.

author: Georgia Popplewell


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Blunt Pro-Abortion Campaign in Chile · Global Voices
Global Voices Latin America

The NGO Miles (Thousands) and the advertising agency Grey Chile are taking a provocative approach to showing the problem that thousands of women face in Chile with respect to abortion, using three fictitious tutorial videos that show the only legal way to have an abortion in the country.
The “advice” ranges from throwing yourself down the stairs to getting run over by a car.
Abortion is prohibited in Chile, which means that thousands of women have to resort to illegal means in order to abort. It is estimated that there are around 150,000 cases each year, some of which result in the death of the patient.
This campaign seeks to draw attention to this fact and persuade the Chilean government to approve the therapeutic abortion law that was rejected last February.
Warning before you click play: these videos contain graphic images.

author: Global Voices Latin America


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Bringing Peruvian History to Life on Public Transport · Global Voices
Gabriela García Calderón Orbe

Screenshot of video posted on YouTube.
Frequent users of public transport in the Peruvian capital city Lima are accustomed to sharing transitory space with vendors of oral and musical products.
These improvised street musicians and storytellers — all of them looking for a few coins to put in their pockets before moving on to the next bus — are characters people hardly pay attention to as they blend into the busy urban landscape.
There is one group of young university students, however, that in recent weeks has placed higher demands on passengers’ attention.
Youth group Cultura PE, made up of university students, has landed on a unique, fun and educational way to talk to people about Peruvian history.
Since April, the members of the group have been getting aboard the buses traversing the Peruvian capital Lima's main arteries and making brief speeches about the lives of the historical figures who gave their names to those same streets.
As per the group's Facebook page:
Cultura PE, busca despertar el interés de los ciudadanos por conocer la historia de nuestro país en los buses que cubren las avenidas más transitadas.
Cultura PE aims to awaken citizens interest to know more about our country's history through the buses that cover [Lima's] most passed-through avenues.
The group's name, Cultura PE, can be understood both as a shortened form of Cultura PERÚ — playing on the country's .pe web domain — as well as a reference to the popular word pues which translates as “well, okay”.
Thus the group presents itself as “Culture, okay!”
The below clip uploaded onto the group's YouTube channel provides an idea of how Cultura PE goes about its work.
In it they board a bus that traverses Salaverry avenue, named in honour of Felipe Santiago Salaverry, the youngest-ever Peruvian president (1806-1836), a well-educated army officer who was executed by firing squad:
In the next video, a bus travels along Sucre avenue, carrying the name of Antonio José de Sucre (1795-1830), a Venezuelan politician, diplomatic, statesman and Army officer that served as Governador of Peru after the country won its independence:
Upon finishing their speech, they hand out some cards to the passengers with information about the historic figure they have just discussed.
Then they get off that bus, and continue sharing culture — pues – on another one.
On their Facebook page, people leave positive remarks and even requests to join the group:
Angelly Arias Avendaño Que bueno que jovenes como ustedes tengan esta iniciativa!!! Felicitaciones!
Angelly Arias Avendaño It's great to see that young people like you are having this initiative!!! Congratulations!
Gerardo Josic Rodriguez Paredes Aceptan a nuevos integrantes??? quisiera de vez en cuando salir a vivir esta grandiosa experiencia !!!!!
Gerardo Josic Rodriguez Paredes Are you accepting new members??? I'd like to get out once in a while to have this wonderful experience!!!!!
Feren Castillo Lujan Excelente iniciativa, esto debe expandirse a nivel nacional en la brevedad
Feren Castillo Lujan Excellent initiative, this should go nationwide as soon as possible.
Image of the group's profile on Facebook.
The educational project is a worthy one: Peru was ranked among the last of the 65 countries evaluated in 2013 under the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) carried out by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
PISA, conducted once every three years, determines student performance levels among 15-year-olds in different jurisdictions using standardised tests.


text:
How Israeli High-Tech Firms Are Up-Armoring the U.S.-Mexico Border · Global Voices
NACLA

Israeli Army tanks by the Gaza border (Amir Farshad Ebrahimi / Creative Commons)
This article by Todd Miller and Gabriel M. Schivone was originally published on NACLA's website.
It was October 2012. Roei Elkabetz, a brigadier general for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), was explaining his country’s border policing strategies. In his PowerPoint presentation, a photo of the enclosure wall that isolates the Gaza Strip from Israel clicked onscreen. “We have learned lots from Gaza,” he told the audience. “It’s a great laboratory.”
Elkabetz was speaking at a border technology conference and fair surrounded by a dazzling display of technology—the components of his boundary-building lab. There were surveillance balloons with high-powered cameras floating over a desert-camouflaged armored vehicle made by Lockheed Martin. There were seismic sensor systems used to detect the movement of people and other wonders of the modern border-policing world. Around Elkabetz, you could see vivid examples of where the future of such policing was heading, as imagined not by a dystopian science fiction writer but by some of the top corporate techno-innovators on the planet.
Swimming in a sea of border security, the brigadier general was, however, not surrounded by the Mediterranean but by a parched West Texas landscape. He was in El Paso, a 10-minute walk from the wall that separates the United States from Mexico.
Just a few more minutes on foot and Elkabetz could have watched green-striped U.S. Border Patrol vehicles inching along the trickling Rio Grande in front of Ciudad Juarez, one of Mexico’s largest cities filled with U.S. factories and the dead of that country’s drug wars. The Border Patrol agents whom the general might have spotted were then being up-armored with a lethal combination of surveillance technologies, military hardware, assault rifles, helicopters, and drones. This once-peaceful place was being transformed into what Timothy Dunn, in his book The Militarization of the U.S. Mexico Border, terms a state of “low-intensity warfare.”
On November 20, 2014, President Obama announced a series of executive actions on immigration reform. Addressing the American people, he referred to bipartisan immigration legislation passed by the Senate in June 2013 that would, among other things, further up-armor the same landscape in what’s been termed—in language adopted from recent U.S. war zonesa “border surge.” The president bemoaned the fact that the bill had been stalled in the House of Representatives, hailing it as a “compromise” that “reflected common sense.” It would, he pointed out, “have doubled the number of Border Patrol agents, while giving undocumented immigrants a pathway to citizenship.”
In the wake of his announcement, including executive actions that would protect five to six million of those immigrants from future deportation, the national debate was quickly framed as a conflict between Republicans and Democrats. Missed in this partisan war of words was one thing: the initial executive action that Obama announced involved a further militarization of the border supported by both parties.
“First,” the president said, “we’ll build on our progress at the border with additional resources for our law enforcement personnel so that they can stem the flow of illegal crossings and speed the return of those who do cross over.” Without further elaboration, he then moved on to other matters.
If, however, the United States follows the “common sense” of the border-surge bill, the result could add more than $40 billion dollars worth of agents, advanced technologies, walls, and other barriers to an already unparalleled border enforcement apparatus. And a crucial signal would be sent to the private sector that, as the trade magazine Homeland Security Today puts it, another “treasure trove” of profit is on the way for a border control market already, according to the latest forecasts, in an “unprecedented boom period.”
Like the Gaza Strip for the Israelis, the U.S. borderlands, dubbed a “constitution-free zone” by the ACLU, are becoming a vast open-air laboratory for tech companies. There, almost any form of surveillance and “security” can be developed, tested, and showcased, as if in a militarized shopping mall, for other nations across the planet to consider. In this fashion, border security is becoming a global industry and few corporate complexes can be more pleased by this than the one that has developed in Elkabetz’s Israel.
Consider the IDF brigadier general’s presence in El Paso two years ago an omen. After all, in February 2014, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agency in charge of policing our borders, contracted with Israel’s giant private military manufacturer Elbit Systems to build a “virtual wall,” a technological barrier set back from the actual international divide in the Arizona desert. That company, whose U.S.-traded stock shot up by 6% during Israel’s massive military operation against Gaza in the summer of 2014, will bring the same databank of technology used in Israel’s borderlands—Gaza and the West Bank—to Southern Arizona through its subsidiary Elbit Systems of America.
With approximately 12,000 employees and, as it boasts, “10+ years securing the world’s most challenging borders,” Elbit produces an arsenal of “homeland security systems.” These include surveillance land vehicles, mini-unmanned aerial systems, and “smart fences,” highly fortified steel barriers that have the ability to sense a person’s touch or movement. In its role as lead system integrator for Israel’s border technology plan, the company has already installed smart fences in the West Bank and the Golan Heights.
In Arizona, with up to a billion dollars potentially at its disposal, CBP has tasked Elbit with creating a “wall” of “integrated fixed towers” containing the latest in cameras, radar, motion sensors, and control rooms. Construction will start in the rugged, desert canyons around Nogales. Once a DHS evaluation deems that part of the project effective, the rest will be built to monitor the full length of the state’s borderlands with Mexico. Keep in mind, however, that these towers are only one part of a broader operation, the Arizona Border Surveillance Technology Plan. At this stage, it’s essentially a blueprint for an unprecedented infrastructure of high-tech border fortifications that has attracted the attention of many companies.
This is not the first time Israeli companies have been involved in a U.S. border build-up. In fact, in 2004, Elbit’s Hermes drones were the first unmanned aerial vehicles to take to the skies to patrol the southern border. In 2007, according to Naomi Klein in The Shock Doctrine, the Golan Group, an Israeli consulting company made up of former IDF Special Forces officers, provided an intensive eight-day course for special DHS immigration agents covering “everything from hand-to-hand combat to target practice to ‘getting proactive with their SUV.’” The Israeli company NICE Systems even supplied Arizona’s Joe Arpaio,“America’s toughest sheriff,” with a surveillance system to watch one of his jails.
As such border cooperation intensified, journalist Jimmy Johnson coined the apt phrase “Palestine-Mexico border” to catch what was happening. In 2012, Arizona state legislators, sensing the potential economic benefit of this growing collaboration, declared their desert state and Israel to be natural “trade partners,” adding that it was “a relationship we seek to enhance.”
In this way, the doors were opened to a new world order in which the United States and Israel are to become partners in the “laboratory” that is the U.S.-Mexican borderlands. Its testing grounds are to be in Arizona. There, largely through a program known as Global Advantage, American academic and corporate knowhow and Mexican low-wage manufacturing are to fuse with Israel’s border and homeland security companies.
No one may frame the budding romance between Israel’s high-tech companies and Arizona better than Tucson Mayor Jonathan Rothschild. “If you go to Israel and you come to Southern Arizona and close your eyes and spin yourself a few times,” he says, “you might not be able to tell the difference.”
Global Advantage is a business project based on a partnership between the University of Arizona’s Tech Parks Arizona and the Offshore Group, a business advisory and housing firm which offers “nearshore solutions for manufacturers of any size” just across the border in Mexico. Tech Parks Arizona has the lawyers, accountants, and scholars, as well as the technical knowhow, to help any foreign company land softly and set up shop in the state. It will aid that company in addressing legal issues, achieving regulatory compliance, and even finding qualified employees—and through a program it’s called the Israel Business Initiative, Global Advantage has identified its target country.
Think of it as the perfect example of a post-NAFTA world in which companies dedicated to stopping border crossers are ever freer to cross the same borders themselves. In the spirit of free trade that created the NAFTA treaty, the latest border fortification programs are designed to eliminate borders when it comes to letting high-tech companies from across the seas set up in the United States and make use of Mexico’s manufacturing base to create their products. While Israel and Arizona may be separated by thousands of miles, Rothschild assured TomDispatch that in “economics, there are no borders.”
Of course, what the mayor appreciates, above all, is the way new border technology could bring money and jobs into an area with a nearly 23% poverty rate. How those jobs might be created matters far less to him. According to Molly Gilbert, the director of community engagement for the Tech Parks Arizona, “It’s really about development, and we want to create technology jobs in our borderlands.”
So consider it anything but an irony that, in this developing global set of boundary-busting partnerships, the factories that will produce the border fortresses designed by Elbit and other Israeli and U.S. high-tech firms will mainly be located in Mexico. Ill-paid Mexican blue-collar workers will, then, manufacture the very components of a future surveillance regime, which may well help locate, detain, arrest, incarcerate, and expel some of them if they try to cross into the United States.
Think of Global Advantage as a multinational assembly line, a place where homeland security meets NAFTA. Right now there are reportedly 10 to 20 Israeli companies in active discussion about joining the program. Bruce Wright, the CEO of Tech Parks Arizona, tells TomDispatch that his organization has a “nondisclosure” agreement with any companies that sign on and so cannot reveal their names.
Though cautious about officially claiming success for Global Advantage’s Israel Business Initiative, Wright brims with optimism about his organization’s cross-national planning. As he talks in a conference room located on the 1,345-acre park on the southern outskirts of Tucson, it’s apparent that he's buoyed by predictions that the Homeland Security market will grow from a $51 billion annual business in 2012 to $81 billion in the United States alone by 2020, and $544 billion worldwide by 2018.
Wright knows as well that submarkets for border-related products like video surveillance, non-lethal weaponry, and people-screening technologies are all advancing rapidly and that the U.S. market for drones is poised to create 70,000 new jobs by 2016. Partially fueling this growth is what the Associated Press calls an “unheralded shift” to drone surveillance on the U.S. southern divide. More than 10,000 drone flights have been launched into border air space since March 2013, with plans for many more, especially after the Border Patrol doubles its fleet.
When Wright speaks, it’s clear he knows that his park sits atop a twenty-first-century gold mine. As he sees it, Southern Arizona, aided by his tech park, will become the perfect laboratory for the first cluster of border security companies in North America. He’s not only thinking about the 57 southern Arizona companies already identified as working in border security and management, but similar companies nationwide and across the globe, especially in Israel.
In fact, Wright's aim is to follow Israel’s lead, as it is now the number-one place for such groupings. In his case, the Mexican border would simply replace that country’s highly marketed Palestinian testing grounds. The 18,000 linear feet that surround the tech park’s solar panel farm would, for example, be a perfect spot to test out motion sensors. Companies could also deploy, evaluate, and test their products “in the field,” as he likes to say—that is, where real people are crossing real borders—just as Elbit Systems did before CBP gave it the contract.
“If we’re going to be in bed with the border on a day-to-day basis, with all of its problems and issues, and there’s a solution to it,” Wright said in a 2012 interview, “why shouldn’t we be the place where the issue is solved and we get the commercial benefit from it?”
When Naomi Weiner, project coordinator for the Israel Business Initiative, returned from a trip to that country with University of Arizona researchers in tow, she couldn’t have been more enthusiastic about the possibilities for collaboration. She arrived back in November, just a day before Obama announced his new executive actions—a promising declaration for those, like her, in the business of bolstering border defenses.
“We’ve chosen areas where Israel is very strong and Southern Arizona is very strong,” Weiner explained to TomDispatch, pointing to the surveillance industry “synergy” between the two places. For example, one firm her team met with in Israel was Brightway Vision, a subsidiary of Elbit Systems. If it decides to set up shop in Arizona, it could use tech park expertise to further develop and refine its thermal imaging cameras and goggles, while exploring ways to repurpose those military products for border surveillance applications. The Offshore Group would then manufacture the cameras and goggles in Mexico.
Arizona, as Weiner puts it, possesses the “complete package” for such Israeli companies. “We’re sitting right on the border, close to Fort Huachuca,” a nearby military base where, among other things, technicians control the drones surveilling the borderlands. “We have the relationship with Customs and Border Protection, so there’s a lot going on here. And we’re also the Center of Excellence on Homeland Security.”
Weiner is referring to the fact that, in 2008, DHS designated the University of Arizona the lead school for the Center of Excellence on Border Security and Immigration. Thanks to that, it has since received millions of dollars in federal grants. Focusing on research and development of border-policing technologies, the center is a place where, among other things, engineers are studying locust wings in order to create miniature drones equipped with cameras that can get into the tiniest of spaces near ground level, while large drones like the Predator B continue to buzz over the borderlands at 30,000 feet (despite the fact that a recent audit by the inspector general of homeland security found them a waste of money).
Although the Arizona-Israeli romance is still in the courtship stage, excitement about its possibilities is growing. Officials from Tech Parks Arizona see Global Advantage as the perfect way to strengthen the U.S.-Israel “special relationship.” There is no other place in the world with a higher concentration of homeland security tech companies than Israel. Six hundred tech start-ups are launched in Tel Aviv alone every year. During the Gaza offensive last summer, Bloomberg reported that investment in such companies had “actually accelerated.” However, despite the periodic military operations in Gaza and the incessant build-up of the Israeli homeland security regime, there are serious limitations to the local market.
The Israeli Ministry of Economy is painfully aware of this. Its officials know that the growth of the Israeli economy is “largely fueled by a steady increase in exports and foreign investment.” The government coddles, cultivates, and supports these start-up tech companies until their products are market-ready. Among them have been innovations like the “skunk,” a liquid with a putrid odor meant to stop unruly crowds in their tracks. The ministry has also been successful in taking such products to market across the globe. In the decade following 9/11, sales of Israeli “security exports” rose from $2 billion to $7 billion annually.
Israeli companies have sold surveillance drones to Latin American countries like Mexico, Chile, and Colombia, and massive security systems to India and Brazil, where an electro-optic surveillance system will be deployed along the country’s borders with Paraguay and Bolivia. They have also been involved in preparations for policing the 2016 Olympics in Brazil. The products of Elbit Systems and its subsidiaries are now in use from the Americas and Europe to Australia. Meanwhile, that mammoth security firm is ever more involved in finding “civilian applications” for its war technologies. It is also ever more dedicated to bringing the battlefield to the world’s borderlands, including southern Arizona.
As geographer Joseph Nevins notes, although there are many differences between the political situations of the U.S. and Israel, both Israel-Palestine and Arizona share a focus on keeping out “those deemed permanent outsiders,” whether Palestinians, undocumented Latin Americans, or indigenous people.
Mohyeddin Abdulaziz has seen this “special relationship” from both sides, as a Palestinian refugee whose home and village Israeli military forces destroyed in 1967 and as a long-time resident of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. A founding member of the Southern Arizona BDS Network, whose goal is to pressure U.S. divestment from Israeli companies, Abdulaziz opposes any program like Global Advantage that will contribute to the further militarization of the border, especially when it also sanitizes Israel’s “violations of human rights and international law.”
Such violations matter little, of course, when there is money to be made, as Brigadier General Elkabetz indicated at that 2012 border technology conference. Given the direction that both the U.S. and Israel are taking when it comes to their borderlands, the deals being brokered at the University of Arizona look increasingly like matches made in heaven (or perhaps hell). As a result, there is truth packed into journalist Dan Cohen’s comment that “Arizona is the Israel of the United States.”
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Todd Miller is the author of Border Patrol Nation: Dispatches From the Front Lines of Homeland Security. He has written on border and immigration issues for the New York Times, Al Jazeera America, and NACLA Report on the Americas and its blog “Border Wars,” among other places. You can follow him on twitter @memomiller and view more of his work at toddwmiller.wordpress.com.
Gabriel M. Schivone, a writer from Tucson, has worked as a humanitarian volunteer in the Mexico-U.S. borderlands for more than six years. He blogs at Electronic Intifada and Huffington Post's “Latino Voices.” His articles have appeared in the Arizona Daily Star, the Arizona Republic, StudentNation, the Guardian, and McClatchy Newspapers, among other publications. You can follow him on Twitter @GSchivone.

author: NACLA


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Indian Minister Says #MaritalRape Does Not Count · Global Voices
Subhashish Panigrahi

Thousands of Indians join the rally led by the priests in Allahabad in support of a 71-year-old nun who was gang raped at her convent school in West Bengal's Nadia district. Image by Ritesh Shukla. Copyright Demotix (16/3/2015)
Ever since India's Union Minister of State for Home Affairs made a statement in the Rajya Sabha (Council of States) saying that marital rape should not be criminalised, Indian media and social networks have been lit up with heated debates.
Haribhai Parathibhai Chaudhary made the argument on April 30 that marriages are considered as a sacred act in the nation, and thus sexual violence after marriage cannot be considered a crime.
The minister's statement comes as many are arguing for a specific law defending spouses that are victims of domestic sexual abuse.
Currently, as per Section 375 of the legal code, Indian courts do not consider marital rape a criminal offence unless the wife who is the victim of marital rape is younger than 15-years-old. In 1980 when rights activists challenged the law government officials maintained that the marriage contract presumes permanent sexual consent and that criminalizing marital rape would weaken family values in India.
Social media users blasted the minister's statement:
When there is no love in d relationship every sexual act wud feel as #MaritalRape. Be it to a man or a woman Laws can't regulate Love GN
— Deepika Bhardwaj (@DeepikaBhardwaj) April 30, 2015
Dear minister, if marriage is sacred, does that make #MaritalRape sacred too? http://t.co/WT73Ac4adn (via @JSB17) pic.twitter.com/3HONV59jgV
— Hindustan Times (@htTweets) April 30, 2015
However, other Twitter users were more cautious, criticising advocates of the law and pointing to flaws in the legislation that could open the door to misuse:
Don't trust #MaritalRape Divas. They say they are doing it for you. But most don't even stand up for colleagues in Sexual Harassment cases.
— Ajayendar Al-Adarsh (@ajayendar) April 30, 2015
my objection to criminalizing #MaritalRape is the possibility of wide-spread misuse. Look how #DomesticViolence Act unfairly favours women
— Tinu Cherian Abraham (@tinucherian) April 30, 2015
Excerpts from the suicide note of a #498A victim. #MaritalRape pic.twitter.com/Zv02cIBb8i
— हम भारत के लोग (@India_Policy) May 1, 2015
Facebook user Jyoti Tiwari also argues  that the law should be unbiased and gender-blind in order to protect both spouses against sexual abuse:
Out of five wives every wife rapes her husband at some point at time (physical , financial , mental , emotional and of course legal ) #hangtherapist #maritalrape !
Commenting on the Delhi Gang Rape case that shocked India in December, a senior police official in Delhi stunned Indians by claiming that about 60% of rape cases are false alarms.
“We get at least 60 per cent cases which are false and motivated but we have to register them and sometimes we feel that because of such cases we are not able to work on the genuine cases as much as we would like.”

author: Subhashish Panigrahi


text:
New to America, This Young Vietnamese Refugee Wanted to ‘Erase’ His Past · Global Voices
PRI/PRX's The World

The Truong family arrived to the United States not long after fleeing Vietnam in 1975, when the then-capital of South Vietnam, Saigon, fell to the North Vietnamese army. Thu-Thuy Truong, far right, places bunny ears above her brother, Sy. Credit: Courtesy of Thu-Thuy Truong. Published with PRI's permission
This article and radio report by Monica Campbell for The World originally appeared on PRI.org on April 28, 2015, and is republished here as part of a content-sharing agreement.
Red apples floating in barrels of cold water. That’s what Thu-Thuy Truong remembers after she arrived at a refugee camp in Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, not long after fleeing Vietnam with her family in April 1975.
Along with those the barrels of apples, Thu-Thuy, who was 13 at the time, remembers the family's first home in the US. It was a small apartment in Berkeley, California. “Even though life wasn’t that luxurious … it was our little home,” she says.
The Truongs were among thousands of Vietnamese families who fled the capital of South Vietnam, Saigon, as the North Vietnamese army approached. Many made new lives in the United States. Forty years later, Thu-Thuy and her brother, Sy, collaborated with StoryCorps to talk about their memories of settling in the US.
The Truong family, from Vietnam, went to a refugee resettlement camp in Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, when they arrived to the US in 1975. Credit: Courtesy of Nghiem Thuan. Published with PRI's permission
It was a time of constant firsts. Sy Truong, who was 8, remembers his first ride on Bay Area Rapid Transit, which goes underwater and connects San Francisco with Berkeley and Oakland. The young boy expected to see water and fish through the subway’s windows as it went underwater.
Even though he only saw a dark tunnel, Sy says “every little thing for me was a new experience of something radically different than what we had growing up in Vietnam.”
The siblings also wrestled with culture, how or whether to retain their Vietnamese roots. “At the time, I didn’t see any value, being a child, of holding onto this culture of ours that I saw as the past,” Sy says. “The only way to move forward and progress in this new world was to fully immerse and fully become an American. I almost wanted to erase that part for some reason.”
But for Thu-Thuy, music from back home was vital. Her mom loved listening to Vietnamese ballads, and “that’s something that kind of brings us back to the good part of Vietnam,” she says. “So when we were in Fort Chaffee, we don’t have that much money, but we did pay money to just buy some cassettes from other people who re-record and re-record some of our famous singers. Besides us, you know, that’s the only connection to the homeland.”
Sy Truong, left, and his sister, Thu-Thuy Truong, were just kids when they arrived to a refugee camp in Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, soon after the fall of Saigon in 1975. Their family eventually settled in the San Francisco Bay Area. Sy remembers the first time he rode the Bay Area Rapid Transit system, which travels underwater. He thought he'd be able to “look out to the ocean and see the fish swimming” but soon realized it was just a windowless tunnel ride. Credit: StoryCorps. Published with PRI's permission
School also meant quick immersion into American life. “One of the major differences I felt was school has people from all different skin colors,” Thu-Thuy says. “We have white kids and Asian kids and we have black kids, and feeling, ‘Wow, what a totally different life we had back in Vietnam.'”
Her brother remembers being dropped off at the elementary school this way: “I looked at the other kids and they looked very different, both their size and the clothes they wear and everything. And I felt that how am I ever going to fit in? But what I found was I did find a lot of friends. And it was actually a cool thing to be different.”
HEAR MORE FROM VIETNAMESE AMERICANS: StoryCorps collaborated with American Experience to collect stories from refugees and veterans about the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. Listen to the First Days Story Project.

author: PRI/PRX's The World


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On World Press Freedom Day, Iraqis Mourn Journalist Ammar Al Shahbander, Killed in Car Bomb Explosion · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Iraqis light candles at the site of last night's blast, which claimed the lives of 17 people in Karrada, including pioneer journalist Ammar Al Shahbander. Photo source: @Iraqism on Twitter
Iraqis are marking the World Press Freedom Day today mourning the death of journalist Ammar Al Shahbander, who was killed in a car bomb explosion in Karrada, in Baghdad, carried out by the ISIS.
Al Shahbander, a defender of freedom of speech, was the Chief of Mission in Iraq for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR). His colleague, Emad Al Sharaa, was wounded, and remains in “a serious but stable condition” in the twin blasts in the busy commercial area, which claimed the lives of 17 people.
According to IWPR, Al-Shahbander, aged 41, an Iraqi with a Swedish nationality, started working for IWPR in Iraq in 2005, and become Chief of Party in 2008 and Chief of Mission in 2009. He previously worked with the Iraq Foundation. He leaves behind a wife and four children.
Iraqi journalist Ammar Al Shahbander was killed on the eve of the World Press Freedom Day. Source: @superammar (Al Shahbander's Twitter account)
“Ammar’s death is a tragedy for his beautiful family and a profound shock for all of us at IWPR,” said IWPR Executive Director Anthony Borden. “He was devoted to helping build a new and peaceful Iraq, and he was one of the most informed, creative and passionate members of the civil society community there –hugely respected by government officials, Western diplomats and the international press, and loved by his colleagues. His loss is a major blow to Iraq, and to us all.”
Tributes poured from all over Iraq.
Mustafa, from Iraq, tweets:
مات الانسان #عمار_الشابندرمات الأخ الحقيقي #عمار_الشابندرمات الطيب مات مات مات صارت عدنا بالعراق شي عادي ملينا pic.twitter.com/nPKa8wqf1y
— MuStaFa مصطفى (@msiq88) May 2, 2015
The human is dead
The real brother is dead
The good person is dead dead dead. Death has become so normal for us in Iraq that we are bored
Iraqi blogger Al Hassan adds:
الى كل من لا يعرف عمار الشابندر هو رجل عراقي مؤمن بعراقيته ترك لندن ورجع للعراق حتى يساعد في بناء عراق مدني وعنده 4 اطفال ورود الله يرحمك
— حسنشتاين (@Al77assan) May 2, 2015
To those who don't know who Ammar Al Shahbander is, he is an Iraqi man who believes in Iraq. He left London to return to Iraq so that he can help rebuild a civil country. He left behind four children.
Rest in peace
Khawla Ramadan notes:
عمار الشابندر ومن استشهد اليوم معه لساعات مضت كانوا احياء يخططون لما يفعلون غداً ويحلمون بعراقٍ افضل وفي لحظة غدر لم يبقى منهم الا حزن ذويهم
— khawla Ramadan (@RamadanKhawla) May 2, 2015
Ammar Al Shahbander and those martyred with him were alive a few hours ago and planning what they would do tomorrow. They were dreaming of a better Iraq. In a moment of treachery, all that is left for their loved ones is sadness
And Iraqi Hussein Adam concludes:
نحنُ مشاريع موت مؤجلة يوما ما….سنتحول الى تغريدة نعي في تويترثم ندفنُ في تراب التغريدات المتراكمة…الرحمة لك يا #عمار_الشابندر
— Hussein Adam (@huss_iq) May 3, 2015
We are all delayed death projects
One day …
We will turn into a tweet on Twitter
And will then be buried in the avalanche of tweets…
Rest in peace Ammar Al Shahbander
People from around the world mourned Al Shahbander.
The Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) issued a statement saying Al Shahbander “worked tirelessly and with unwavering dedication for the promotion and protection of human rights and freedom of press in Iraq.”
The statement added:
Human rights defenders in Iraq work in extremely dangerous conditions for the promotion of human rights risking death, imprisonment and torture by security forces or armed groups.  Many have sadly lost their lives.
The GHCR urges the authorities in Iraq to guarantee in all circumstances that all human rights defenders are free to carry out their peaceful and legitimate human rights work without fear of reprisals and free of all restrictions.
Jordanian Mohamed Tarakiyee notes how Al Shahbander was killed on the eve of World Press Freedom Day:
On the eve of Press Freedom Day, Ammar al-Shahbander was killed in a bombing, and Emad Al-Sharaa was injured. https://t.co/Oaz3NhSeNX
— Tarakiyee (@Tarakiyee) May 3, 2015
Lebanese Mohamad Najem, Social Media Exchange (SMEX) co-founder, describes Al Shahbander's death as “devastating”:
Devastating news from #Iraq, my friends: @superammar killed in an explosion few hours ago, @emadalsharaa is injured! https://t.co/pU8B2V0CG5
— Mohamad محمد (@monajem) May 3, 2015
Human Rights Defenders and Digital Security Consultant Mohammed Al Maskati, from Bahrain, says he lost a dear friend:
استشهاد صديقي العزيز و زميلي عمار الشابندر (صحفي و مدير معهد الصحافة الحرب و السلم ) في تفجير إرهابي ببغداد ،الله يرحمك يا الغالي #bahrain
— Mohammed Al-Maskati (@MohdMaskati) May 3, 2015
My dear friend and colleague Ammar Al Shahbander was killed in a terror explosion in Baghdad. Rest in peace dear one
And GCHR director Khalid Ibrahim says terrorism will eventually be defeated:
رحمك الله أخي الفاضل عمار الشابندر ومن استشهد معك في التفجير الإرهابي الذي طال الأبرياء بمقهى شعبي و سنواصل المسيرة وسيندحر الإرهاب. #Iraq
— Khalid Ibrahim (@khalidibrahim12) May 3, 2015
Rest in peace my dear brother Ammar Al Shahbander and those who were martyred with you in the terror blast which killed innocents at a traditional coffee shop. We will continue the path and beat terrorism
Many retweeted and shared Al Shahbander's last tweet, which ironically carried the hashtag #no2isis:
#Baghdad summer.. 2Guitars playing Hotel California #Iraq #no2isis pic.twitter.com/4zd779ODra
— Ammar Al Shahbander (@superammar) May 2, 2015
Back in Karrada, Iraqis lit candles and read verses from the Holy Quran at the site of last night's bombings:
Iraqis light candles & read the Quran at the site of yesterday's bombings in Al-Karrada district in #Baghdad. #Iraq pic.twitter.com/N722eTSQA5
— Iraqism (@Iraqism) May 3, 2015
The ISIS, which claimed responsibility for the attacks, is an Al Qaeda off-shoot, which has occupied swathes of land in Syria and Iraq, leaving a trail of horror and destruction.
Iraq is one of the most dangerous places for journalists. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a total of 166 journalists have been killed in Iraq since 1992.

author: Amira Al Hussaini


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Private Initiatives Take the Helm in Solving Europe’s Shipwreck Crisis · Global Voices
Lena Nitsche

The Italian coastguard rescues two of the 156 survivors of the October 3 tragedy off Lampedusa Island. Photo by UNHCR under CC BY-NC 2.0
Over 800 refugees died in the disaster off the coast of Libya last month. According to a report by Amnesty International, the boat carrying the refugees capsized after too many people surged to one side in order to reach a merchant ship that was offering assistance.
Sadly, the April 18 disaster was not the only one to have occurred in recent months. The European border organisation, Frontex, which provided a mandate to Operation Triton to to monitor the coasts of the EU’s external borders in November 2014, says it can no longer afford large-scale rescue work and is committed to monitoring and surveillance only, while the national coastguards of the EU member states and commercial vessels do what they can to effect rescues.
That is unfortunate, because Operation Triton's predecessor, Mare Nostrum, was credited with saving thousands of lives during its one-year existence. Although the EU has faced criticism for its new non-humanitarian approach to sea-bound migration, Mare Nostrum cost more money than Operation Triton and migration as a whole is politically unpopular: some are concerned a coordinated rescue operation lowers the risks involved in boat crossings and thus increases the number of refugees and migrants planning to make them.
Nevertheless, Operation Triton has been unable to halt the influx of refugees to Europe. Amnesty International claims a drastic increase in the numbers of people trying to cross the Mediterranean in 2015 compared to the same period in 2014. According to the group's report, 2015 saw a 42 % increase in irregular border crossings in the first two months of 2015.
Several organisations and civilians continue to press for a response from EU institutions and for a large-scale, coordinated rescue programme:
List of 17 306 #migrants who drowned on their way to #Europe #Mediterranean In EU Parliament MEPs have to walk on it. pic.twitter.com/K6Y39uhMDT
— CP International (@passionistsint) April 30, 2015
A number of private initiatives and organisations have sprung up over the last few years to plug the gaps in the political system. These initiatives and organisations are aiming to mitigate the situation in the Mediterranean in their own ways.
As politicians idle, citizens take the initiative
Harald Höppner founded the Sea Watch initiative together with other volunteers in the wake of last year's Lampedusa shipwreck that killed 366 migrants to combat the worsening situation on the Mediterranean.
Sea Watch was brought to life by a number of families in Brandenburg, Germany and is currently run by a dozen volunteers from all over the country. The project, financed by private donations, aimed to use its own boat to oversee the maritime area between Malta and the Libyan coast, to provide first aid to boats in distress, and to report on their experiences at sea to the public. The initial timeline for the project has been set at three months.
On its website, the group writes:
We feel responsible, and no longer wish to sit idly by while people continue to suffer and die.
Sea Watch also promotes a culture of ‘hospitality’, of the kind preached by EU politicians but subjugated to a policy of exclusion in practice:
We've decided to fight for the humanisation of politics. Hospitality should be a part of our everyday lives once more. A civil maritime rescue service must be set up urgently, and the EU is unwilling. That's why we're seizing the initiative.
The implementation of the project will begin mid-May. A crew of 4-8 people will sail to the maritime area north-west of the coast of Libya and carry out a 12-day observation.
If they see a refugee boat in distress, the organisation will inform the relevant authorities and provide first aid, drinking water and food, as well as medical help including life rafts and life jackets if required. In compliance with the recommendations of the ProAsyl organisation, a pro-asylum NGO in Germany, the group does not take victims onto their boats.
Sea Watch also maintains an emergency telephone line in order to convey information about emergencies to national coastguards.
Mapping the Med
Sea Watch works closely with Watch The Med, another private initiative founded in 2012. The group has evolved into a large network made up of activists, researchers, refugee organisations and seafarers, who document accidents together with the number of dead and injured refugees in the Mediterranean area using mapping technology. By using mobile phone data, wind and current analysis, and eyewitness reports, the exact position of the boats and accidents can be documented in order to subsequently determine who is responsible for violating international law and the rights of migrants on the high seas.
At the centre of the project is mapping technology, which creates an overview of when and where an incident took place and how many refugees were involved. However, the maps also depict how many refugees can be saved, meaning that a user could, for example, see that Watch the Med received a call by satellite phone on April 11 from a refugee boat with almost 1000 passengers off the Libyan coast. These refugees could then be saved after a request for assistance is passed on to the relevant authorities.
In an interview with Swiss online portal 20Minuten, Simon Sontowski, trained on the emergency telephone by Watch the Med in Zurich, spoke about his motivations for participating in the initiative:
Because I can do something practical. Watch the Med is a real lifeline within a political and human tragedy. Everyone agrees that it's terrible that so many people die each year, but the phrases “Our hands are tied” or “What can we do about it” often come up in this context. And it's just not right. Of course, we can't save them all – nor do we aim to. But we can help to ease the pressure slightly, and with this project, we want to draw attention to the fact that it shouldn't be our aim – but that of the EU.

author: Lena Nitsche


text:
Spotlight on Yazan Halwani, Beirut’s Street Artist · Global Voices
Elia J. Ayoub

The Fairuz Mural in Gemmayzeh, Beirut. On Fairuz, Yazan said: “Fairuz is a national symbol of unity: she might be the only person the Lebanese agree that they love. She is a positive cultural figure. She was also one of my first portraits, I used her mural to cover some political posters that were still hanging from a number of years back. It is extremely interesting how much people identify with her. Photo by Yazan Halwani.”
“To Beirut,
From my heart, I send peace to Beirut,
And kisses to the sea and homes,
To the Rock that is as the face of an old sailor.
She comes from the soul of the people, from wine,
She comes from their sweat, from jasmine.
Then how did her taste change to smoke and fire?”
So reads the translated lyrics of Fairuz's most famous song, “Li Beirut” (To Beirut). Today, the song is often cited as a symbol of Lebanon's history, full of sadness and suffering. But Fairuz also sings of Beirut and its people as being one -“You are mine, you are mine. Ah, hug me”- both in suffering and in hope.
In that spirit, Yazan Halwani is taking back the streets to make them more ‘Beiruti’. His weapon? Art. Global Voices Online sat down with this young Lebanese graffiti artist to see what makes him tick.
Yazan Halwani in front of the yet-unfinished Fairuz mural in Gemmayze. Source: Facebook.
Global Voices: Can you please introduce yourself?
My name is Yazan Halwani and I am a street artist and calligrapher from Beirut, Lebanon. I have been street painting for around seven years now, mainly in Beirut, the city that inspired it all, but also in Tunisia, Singapore, Dubai, France.
GV: Can you describe your work?
My current work is a style I have developed myself over the past years. It combines Arabic calligraphy, oriental geometry and patterning and portraiture. I think that my work is also not only about mural painting but more about the relation of the wall to the people and the city it surrounds. For example the Feyrouz mural has become somewhat of a landmark for the people living around it. The owner of the several buildings around it called it:”The most photographed wall in the city”. One time when someone scribbled on the Fairuz mural, someone living next to the mural called me, without knowing who he is, and asked me if I could fix the mural.
Yazan's image of what the Lebanese 100,000 LL bill would look like with Khalil Gibran, the Lebanese-American poet and author of “The Prophet”. “Apparently someone suggested this currency design to the head of the Central Lebanese Bank, from what I heard it was as quickly dismissed because of complications that might arise from adding Gibran to the note,” Yazan said. Photo by Yazan Halwani.
GV: What inspired you to do what you do?
I have developed over the years. I have started my work as a graffiti artist being inspired by the graffiti scene in Europe and the US, where graffiti artists write their name in flashy and colorful ways. After a few years of doing that, I started questioning the relationship the relation of my work within a city in the Middle-East: at the time, it was somewhat alien from its surroundings, I realized that writing my name was not really different than what political parties have been doing around the city. I needed to change direction.
One day, I stumbled across a book of the five main calligraphy scripts (Diwani, Koufi, Thuluth, Naqsh, etc.) and decided to change my style: instead of doing my “alias”, I would paint words, letters, images that fit much better within the city, the culture and the context. At this stage I thought that a good mural is one that talks to the citizens surrounding it: it becomes part of the city and it becomes theirs, not the artist's.
Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish in Hamra, Beirut. This mural was vandalized and Yazan decided to repaint it in Tunisia, where Darwish spent a part of his life. On Darwish, he said: “I personally love Darwish for his stance on the conflict in Palestine as well as his poetry. The first time I painted him was near the Hamra street, in a street he probably walked in back when he was in Beirut. Unfortunately someone chose to throw paint on his face. Instead of repainting it in the same spot, I choose to repaint it away from any vandal. I took Darwish to the streets of Tunisia, a country that has also welcomed him. I used a poem from Darwish that says “How can we be cured from the love for Tunisia” for my calligraphy.”
This is why each mural tries to have a story that relates to the people living around it: Ali Abdallah‘s mural is a reminder of a homeless man who died from the cold and it tries to make people help or remember their social responsibilities.
Mural of Ali Abdallah, a homeless man who lived in the Hamra neighborhood. He died from the cold. Photo by Yazan Halwani.
Indeed, Yazan doesn't just paint famous people. The story of Ali Abdallah is a particularly striking one. In Yazan's words:
Some people told me that I “paint famous people”, this is not true. I paint faces that tell stories, and are part of our culture. One of my favorite murals is the one of “Ali Abdallah”, a homeless man living on Bliss street.
Ali's existence was surrounded by urban legends about how he became homeless. Some of them say he was a physics teacher that had a scaring experience during the Civil War. The one thing everyone agreed on was their love for Ali.
Despite that, on one of the coldest winter nights, Ali passed away. This tragedy triggered several short-lived initiatives to try to help the homeless in Beirut. After a few months everybody seemed to have forgotten about Ali's story. This is why I painted the mural to remind people of his friendly face, and also to remind people on an everyday basis of these short-lived initiatives.
Mural of Asmahan, the popular Syrian-Egyptian singer, actress and popular icon. Seen in Achrafieh, Beirut. Photo by Yazan Halwani.

author: Elia J. Ayoub


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The Wayúu Indigenous Community in Colombia and Venezuela Is Dying of Thirst · Global Voices
Lully

“The River That They Stole”. Screen capture from the documentary that exposes the Wayuu community's situation and their need for water.
After many years of exclusion and poverty, the Wayúu community in Colombia and Venezuela has been fighting for their voices to be heard.
The people of this community, located on the desert peninsula of La Guajira at the northern tip of Colombia and the territory shared with Venezuela, is faced with a combination of hunger, malnutrition, and thirst. The main reason? The river that runs through the region was dammed and its water privatized for surface coal mining and industrial scale agriculture.
Children are especially vulnerable to this deadly situation. The community filed a complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in an effort to force the Colombian government to free up the flow of water. Their petition shines a light once again on a subject that has appeared in the news on and off since mid-2014. Defenders of the community have made many calls for humanitarian assistance programs, grants and projects to help these indigenous people, but few have become reality.
The Wayúu are the largest indigenous group of Venezuela and Colombia. They represent about 11% of the population of the Venezuelan Zulia state and close to 45% of the department of La Guajira.
Writing for Canarias-Semanal.org website, Juan Andrés Pérez Rodríguez argued that mainstream media has not paid enough attention to the urgent issues of this community:
Como los medios de comunicación corporativos tienen sus prioridades informativas bien definidas y orientadas, especialmente contra Cuba, Venezuela u otros países que no se subordinan a Occidente; usted no sabrá que la nación indígena Wayúu, la mayor de Colombia, se muere de hambre y sed porque el río madre de la región donde radican fue represado y su agua privatizada para el servicio de la industria agrícola y la explotación de la mina de carbón -a cielo abierto- más grande del mundo. Por esa misma razón, ignorará, seguramente, la denuncia que esta comunidad ha presentado ante la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos -CIDH-, de la OEA, con sede en Washington, por la violación de sus derechos vitales fundamentales
As the corporate media have their well-defined and targeted information priorities (especially against Cuba, Venezuela and other countries that do not align with the West), you will not know that the indigenous nation Wayúu, the largest of Colombia, is dying of hunger and thirst because the mother river of the region has been laid with a dam and its water privatized for the agricultural industry and the exploitation of the coal mine Cielo Abierto, the largest in the world. For the same reason, you surely will ignore the complaint that this community has filed with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights as part of Organization of American States, headquartered in Washington, for the violation of their fundamental vital rights.
The post ends with the trailer of a documentary produced by Colombian journalist Gonzalo Guillén, entitled The River That They Stole. The film, which the indigenous community presented as legal evidence in that complaint, paints a disturbing piccture of the situation in the region using testimonies from both victims and perpetrators.
Some media outlets have recently taken up the issue, such as El Tiempo, which published a text written by María del Pilar Camargo explaining the grave situation faced by the children living in La Guajira. The columnist highlighted something even more serious: not all children are recorded; which means that the figures may be higher:
En el 2012, fallecieron 43 niños indígenas por cada 100.000 niños menores de 5 años en el país. Esta cifra podría ser mucho mayor, así lo constatan la guajira, Unicef Colombia y el líder wayúu.
“Aquí hay muchos niños que mueren, pero en el monte. Los entierran y no los reportan al hospital”, dice la mujer.
El problema del subregistro también lo señala la experta de Unicef Colombia. “El porcentaje de la población indígena está en 5,4 %, no representa mucho, pero es el que suma la mayoría de las muertes de los niños en este país. Y eso que hay muchas muertes infantiles que no se registran. Estoy casi segura de que en La Guajira hay muchas más muertes de las que están registradas en las estadísticas y eso lo digo por la experiencia que hemos tenido con un proyecto, en el que, para el indígena wayúu, el niño no tiene valor hasta cuando cumple cierta edad, porque ese niño tiene la posibilidad de morirse, entonces en sus valores sociales hay que esperar a que crezca y una vez crezca empieza a hacer parte de la familia”.
“In 2012, 43 indigenous children died per 100,000 children under age 5 in the country. This figure could be much higher,” the La Guajira Unicef Colombia Wayúu leader responded.
“There are many children who die, but in the mountain. They are buried and are not reported to the hospital,” she said.
The problem of under-reporting is a signal, she said. “The percentage of the indigenous population is 5.4%, which is not much, but it adds to the sum of the majority of deaths of children in this country. And there are many child deaths that go unrecorded. I am almost certain that in La Gaujira there are many more deaths than those registered in the statistics and I say this from the experience we have had on a project, in which, for the indigenous Wayúu, the child has no value until they turn a certain age, because the child could possibly die, so in their social values they have to wait until they grow and once they grow they are made part of the family.”
In alternative online newspaper Las 2 Orillas, Diana López Zuleta explained the community's complaint in further detail:
De acuerdo con el escrito judicial, además de pedir la apertura inmediata de las compuertas de la represa para que el agua llegue cuanto antes a los indígenas, se pide que se ordene suspender de manera inmediata las tomas de agua de La Guajira que (la mina) Cerrejón obtiene de otras fuentes públicas distintas al río, principalmente subterráneas, hasta cuando una evaluación técnica idónea e imparcial determine si después de abastecer satisfactoriamente a los seres humanos en la región, quedan excedentes de agua para destinarlos a la agricultura a gran escala y la explotación de las minas de Cerrejón.
According to the judicial writing, in addition to requesting the immediate opening of the dam's floodgates so that the water can reach the indigenous community as soon as possible, they ask for an immediate suspension order of water taken from La Guajira that (the mine) Cerrejón obtains from other public sources other than from the river, mainly underground, until a suitable technical and impartial evaluation can determine if after successfully supplying the people of the region, there is surplus water to be allocated to large-scale agriculture and exploitation of the Cerrejón mines.
On Twitter, users have lent their support to a #SOSLaGuajira campaign started by Colombia Digna, (@colodigna). UNICEF also started a campaign, #DeseoQueAyuda (I want to help) in order to raise funds for the cause:
Sabe ud q en la Guajira mueren 3 niños Wayuu/día y porque? Por Desnutrición! Necesitan ayuda NO MÁS INDIFERENCIA apoyemos #SOSLaGuajira
— Moreno Lina (@li_mba) abril 9, 2015
Did you know that in Guajira 3 Wayuu kids die per day and why? Due to malnutrition. They need help NO MORE INDIFFERENCE let’s support #SOSLaGuajira
Mucho apoyo hemos recibido con el #SOSLaGuajira por eso continuaremos mañana desde las 7pm. Esperamos nos sigan apoyando
— Colombia Digna (@ColoDigna) abril 1, 2015
We've received a lot of support with #SOSLaGuajira  so we'll continue until tomorrow until 7pm. We hope for your continued support
El petulante ministro de Salud de Colombia (un simple mercachifle) no sabe qué es ni dónde queda La Guajira. #SOSLaGuajira
— Gonzalo Guillén (@HELIODOPTERO) abril 3, 2015
The arrogant Health Minister of Colombia (a simple clown) does not know what or where is La Guajira #SOSLaGuajira
Esto es responsabilidad de todos los colombianos. #SOSLaGuajira pic.twitter.com/sp7lmoErxr
— Cony Camelo (@conycamelo) abril 2, 2015
This is the responsibility of all Colombians #SOSLaGuajira
Sé parte de todas las personas que piden el #DeseoQueAyuda y que están comprometidas con la niñez de la Guajira en http://t.co/BRj2e4pFf4
— UNICEF Colombia (@UNICEFColombia) marzo 27, 2015
Be part of all the people asking for #DeseoQueAyuda and are committed Childhood Guajira in desoqueayuda.com
In December 2014 UNICEF created the campaign #DeseoQueAyuda (Wish that helps) to collect funds for this cause


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State Department Responds to Turkish Official’s Criticism of Police Brutality with Tepid Humour · Global Voices
Efe Levent

Demotix image ID:7468686. Baltimore on edge as riots force state of emergency
28 April 2015. Photo by Aidan Walsh.
As the Turkish general elections approach, the tone political propaganda takes is becoming increasingly bizarre.
A recent Twitter spat between Ankara Mayor Melih Gökçek, and US State Department spokesperson Marie Harf has taken on a surreal twist.  On April 29, Gökçek, who is still remembered for trumpeting the disproportionate use of police force against citizens during the Gezi protests in June 2013 —  reminded Harf of her statements in support the protests with an irony tweet pointing to US police violence during unrest in Baltimore.
The plot thickened when US Ambassador to Turkey, John Bass decided that airbrushing his hair to a reddish yellow hue would constitute an adequate response to the Mayor's allegations of racism and police violence.
The opening salvo of the dispute came from Ankara’s eccentric Mayor, well-known for his late night Twitter outbursts, who shared a picture from his Twitter account showing Baltimore police brutally beating a subdued civilian during the protests that followed Freddie Gray’s murder.
HADİ SARIŞIN CEVAP VERSENE…COME ON BLONDE ANSWER NOW… pic.twitter.com/gTeftDEWdg
— İbrahim Melih Gökçek (@06melihgokcek) April 29, 2015
The stupid blonde who said that the Turkish police use disproportionate force, where are you now?
American tweeps were quick to correct Gökçek with more accurate terminology:
@PressTV @marieharf  Hypocritical Statist Sock Puppet would of been a better choice of words.
— Paul F. Sinn (@Paul_F_Sinn) May 1, 2015
Turkish tweeps were in dispute over the comments. Some, like celebrity author Elif Şafak whose latest book faces accusations of plagiarism, rushed to Harf’s defence by denouncing patriarchy in Turkey:
Patriarchy in Turkey!! Ankara mayor calls US spokesperson "StupidBlonde"just because she happens to be a woman&blonde http://t.co/OIYj26AP0c
— Elif Şafak / Shafak (@Elif_Safak) April 29, 2015
Other commentators observed the hypocrisy of selective sympathy for victims of police violence in both Turkey and the United States and criticised Gökçek and Harf equally:
@06melihgokcek sizin köpek medyanızın gezi zamanında yaptıgını yapıyor iktidarın kıcını yalıyordur belkide !
— ✌Atarlı Güloğğ ★ (@AtarliGulogg) April 29, 2015
Maybe she is doing what your dog media was doing during the Gezi protests and licking the government’s ass!
Later in the dispute, the US Ambassador seized on the opportunity to display his disputable sense of humour by posting a picture of himself with his hair photoshopped blonde on his instagram account to show support for his colleague.
#ABD'li diplomatlar: hepimiz #sarışınız. #American diplomats: we're all blonde.
A photo posted by John Bass (@amerikanbuyukelcisi) on
The response in both countries was once again mixed.
In Turkey, regular detractors of Gökçek, who showed no sign of having actually followed the news coming out of Baltimore, applauded the Ambassador. But others have pointed out that institutional racism in the United States cannot be whitewashed — or even blonde-washed — in the same way the hair of Washington's Chief of Mission in Ankara can.
@USEmbassyTurkey bugün hiç silahsız siyah öldürmediniz. Zor olmalı .
— İsmail Yeşilova (@ismyesilova) April 30, 2015
You haven’t killed any unarmed black people today. Must be difficult.
Similarly, US responses ranged from predictable exclamations of shock at the brutishness of a previously unknown Turkish politician, to condemnations of poor judgement on the part of the State Department:
@guardianworld Ah, America spreads statesmanship abroad. Good old American activist government. No control. No self discipline.
— haaker66 (@haaker66) May 1, 2015
Bearing in mind the low proportion of African Americans able to access top government jobs, one commentator pointed out that the Ambassador's joke might have been funny if it wasn’t in fact pointing to a well known reality:
We're all blonde, US envoy John Bass in Turkey said in response to Ankara Mayor's comment. I say "we know, all of you are blonde & stupid".
— Rais Hussin (@raishussin) May 2, 2015
In conclusion, a dispute that started with an exchange of disingenuous sympathy for victims of police violence has ended the only way it could: a mixed media art piece featuring a priveliged representative of the so-called ‘Lilly White’ State Department pouring digital peroxide on America's race problems.

author: Efe Levent


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What Does Cleavage Censorship Have to Do With Hong Kong’s Electoral Policy? · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Three different versions of “the Empress of China”. Image from The Arm Channel's Facebook Page.
What do cleavage and electoral policies have to do with one another? Maybe more than meets the eye.
In mainland China, when viewers watch the popular TV period drama The Empress of China, they do not see the female actresses’ cleavage, pictured in the first frame above. To keep things “decent”, censors have cropped the picture so that viewers see the little past the womens’ necks.
The show is currently being broadcast in Hong Kong on the city's most popular commercial television channel. Instead of choosing between the original, skin-bearing version and the cropped version, the Hong Kong Television Broadcast (TVB) spent HK 15 million dollars (almost 2 million US dollars) to edit the drama by digitally adding a piece of cloth to the authentic Tang Dynasty costumes in a more subtle effort to conceal the actresses’ cleavage (see the final frame in the above image).
Of all Chinese-speaking societies, now only Taiwan now will show the uncensored version of The Empress of China.
The program has the highest production budget of any drama series in Chinese television history and stars mega-celebrity Fan Bingbing as the only known empress in China's history, Wu Zetian. It first aired on Hunan satellite TV before it was taken off the air on December 21 for a re-edit. The new version, which reappeared on January 1, was crudely cropped to cover the actresses’ cleavage. The State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television explained that the drama contained “unhealthy images”.
The resulting censorship distorted the series’ long shots with the glamorous palaces as background as it narrowed the frame to closeups on actresses’ faces. Chinese television lovers were furious that the RMB-300-million-yuan ($48-million) production, which included more than 3,000 costumes painstakingly designed to capture accurately the Tang Dynasty's fashion, was so wasted.
Though there is no law in Hong Kong banning cleavage on television, TVB still took a cue from the mainland and carried out this unique digital solution to the supposed problem. The editing is so delicate that ordinary people cannot discern that the costumes were mended in post-production.
The image above compares the TVB's expensive censorship technique to the Hong Kong government's push to persuade the public to give up their rights to nominate candidates for the city's top leader, in exchange of their voting rights in 2017. The image suggests that both TVB and the government are self-censoring and self-delimited at the behest of Beijing.
The Arm Channel TV, a citizen media outlet based on Facebook and YouTube, published the image  demonstrating three versions of The Empress of China – the original uncensored version is on top, following by China's cropped version, and finally Hong Kong's edited version, entitled “pocket-it-first”.
The term “pocket-it-first”, meaning “take whatever is available”, is a political slogan the Hong Kong government has used to promote an election reform package, which limits the right to nominate mayoral candidates to a 1,200-member nominating committee. The image went viral online, with more than 6,000 likes and 800 shares in a matter of days.
The current election reform proposal, issued in August of 2014, specifies that candidates for the Chief Executives must be endorsed by the majority of the nominating committee, and that the total number of candidates must be less than 3. Both the pro-Beijing politicians and Hong Kong government officials told the public that they can either accept this proposal, or lose their voting rights altogether.
The pan-democrats have vowed to exercise their veto power in the Legislative council, as candidates must now have 600 votes from the nominating committee, as opposed to the previous quota of 150. Moreover, as the government keeps saying that there is no other choice under the August 31 determination, “pocket-it-first” will become “pocket-it-forever”.
Over the past few days, top government officials have visited local communities to promote the election reform package as if it represents genuine universal suffrage. Pan-democrats criticized these visits, describing them as a political performance aimed at fooling the public. A number of recent polls conducted by local research institutes indicated that about 47% of the respondents supported the government election proposal while 38% opposed. The majority of respondents with university degrees opposed the election proposal.
As the political drama took place when the historical drama started to air, Internet users compared the government's political spinning technique with the TV company's censorship of authentic cleavages – both are expensive, unnecessary, not genuine and submissive to Beijing's political will.

author: Oiwan Lam


text:
What Does Consensual Frotteurism Mean in Mexico? · Global Voices
J. Tadeo

Public transportation in Mexico. Image granted by https://juantadeo.wordpress.com.
Frotteurism is known as a paraphilia that consists of erotic arousal by rubbing one's pelvic area or any other part of the body on someone else's body without their consent. René Zubieta describes such conduct as “rubbing other people's bodies lustfully” in public places.
In Mexican-spoken Spanish, this rubbing is known as arrimón, from the verb arrimar, which translates as putting something against or next to something, or in this case, someone.
In Mexico, arrimón is both bad taste and a criminal offence (sexual abuse) punishable according to the federal criminal code. But what happens when arrimón is carried out on someone who has agreed to it?
Enter the new public movement #ArrimonConsensuado, or Consensual Arrimón:
#ArrimonConsensuado es una comunidad creada y dedicada para consensuar arrimones en el metro de la Ciudad de México, Guadalajara y Monterrey a personas mayores de 18 años, regidos bajo una normativa estricta para garantizar la seguridad, integridad y discreción de quienes gustan de tener un viaje placentero (enfocado a las damas) con personas confiables, respetuosas y responsables porque…
“El acoso sexual es un delito, el #ArrimonConsensuado no”.
#ArrimonConsensuado is a community created and devoted to consensual arrimones on the Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey subway services for people over 18-years-old, regulated by strict norms to grant the security, integrity and discretion of all those people who enjoy having a pleasant ride (especially ladies) with reliable, respectful and responsible people, because…
“Sexual harassment is a crime, consensual arrimon is not”.
The movement's Twitter account currently has over 16,000 followers. Many of the members of the initiative sport bracelets that identify them as arrimoneros or individuals willing to get some kind of consensual frotteurismo during their rides on public transportation.
#Pulseras #ArrimonConsensuado @SexyEnfermera69 @karensisima_sw @caliaQadehs @mandy140785 @jovenesw @LaBatiPerra pic.twitter.com/eOMAzK1wRf
— #ArrimonConsensuado (@arrimonCMetroOf) April 12, 2015
Bracelets.
But the arrimón “official” bracelet is not the only way that people who like a bit of bumping to break up the grind of their daily subway rides can set themselves aside from the masses.
According to Milenio:
Los fans de los arrimones aprenden a identificarse mutuamente dentro del vagón con una prenda que sirva de señal, normalmente un listón rojo en la muñera derecha indica disposición para el arrimón.
Those who enjoy arrimones learn to mutually identify themselves inside the Metro wagon with some item that can be used as a signal, normally a red ribbon tied to the right wrist, which indicates [positive] disposition towards an arrimón.
Opinions about the correctness of arrimón are mixed, however. Isa Esteinou tweeted:
@asilascosasw #ArrimonConsensuado Un poco triste la vida de alguien que anhela que le den un arrimón en el metro… — Isa Esteinou (@IEsteinou) April 14, 2015
A little sad the life of someone who longs for an arrimón on the Metro…
Edgar Rivera exclaimed:
¡¡¡¡#ArrimonConsensuado!!!! No sé si reír o llorar cuando veo que existen este tipo de movimientos. #AdóndeVamosAParar — Edgar Rivera (@EgRiverag) April 14, 2015
Consented arimón !!! I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I see there are these kinds of movements.
The online edition of Chilango magazine shared important statistics about sexual abuse on municipal transportation:
Desafortunadamente, como reveló una investigación realizada por la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), siete de cada 10 delitos que se reportan en el Servicio de Transporte Colectivo son por abuso sexual.
Sin embargo, no todas las agresiones sexuales se denuncian, ‘la prisa, el temor, el pudor, el tiempo, la burocracia en los ministerios públicos, entre otras razones, muchas mujeres prefieren no denunciar las agresiones’.
Unfortunately, as revealed by a survey carried out by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), seven out of every 10 reported crimes committed in Collective Transportation Service refer to sexual abuse.
Not every act of aggression, however, gets reported; ‘rush, fear, shyness, time, bureaucracy in public ministeries, among other reasons, make many women prefer not to report the aggressions.’
Avendaño Law Firm summarised:
DELITO DE ABUSO SEXUAL EN EL METRO: es doloso y nunca culposo,aunque es peligroso por la interpretación que se le dé. pic.twitter.com/kNcr7ctQzs
— avendaño abogados (@bogados_DF) April 8, 2015
THE CRIME OF SEXUAL ABUSE IN THE METRO: is intentional and never reckless, although it's dangerous due to how it's understood.
Due to high demand for the subway and other public transportation in the Mexican capital, it is vital that rules of coexistence are clear so that undesired and non-consensual conduct is reported and punished.
Consensual and desired conduct on the other hand, should go on freely without disturbing other passengers, the group argues.

author: J. Tadeo