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“Orphaned Parents”: Emigration in Venezuela from the View of Those Who Stay Behind · Global Voices
Jessica Carrillo

International Terminal of Maiquetia International Airport, Venezuela. Photo from Only J. under Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
[All links lead to Spanish language pages, unless otherwise noted.]
For the first time in Venezuela's history, it is undeniable that an important diaspora of Venezuelans is being formed. Even though there aren't precise or current figures of that diaspora, it is estimated that in 2010 more than a million Venezuelan citizens were living abroad.
Saying goodbye to family and friends has become common, and on social networks there had been little debate around the situation until the controversial video “Caracas, City of Goodbyes” [en] was released. The video generated a heated conversation on social networks about the migrant movement that started in the country in 2000.
The majority of texts that have been generated about the topic, as much by the media as by citizens on the Internet, talk about the reasons for which a Venezuelan decides to abandon his or her daily life and family. The Venezuelan doctor Samir Kabbabe wrote in his post “What do you say to those who leave?” posted on Prodavinci :
Sea por expulsión, persecución, fracaso, inseguridad, imposibilidad para la satisfacción económica o por desarrollar un proyecto de vida, todo exilio es político. Y el exilio va en aumento.
It could be due to expulsion, persecution, failure, insecurity, the impossibility of economic satisfaction, or to develop a life project–all exile is political. And exile continues to increase.
However, journalist Elizabeth Fuentes (@fuenteseliz) recently wrote a post that has been shared by many on social networks and which has once more generated debate about emigration in Venezuela, this time from the perspective of the family that stays behind.
Posted on the blog Jokeslab under the title “Orphaned Parents”, the journalist tells, from her experience, what the moment of separation and then the brief reunion means for the parents of young Venezuelans who left the country.
‘Madre muerta caminando’ es como lo describo, mala traducción de ‘dead men walking’, que es como rotulan a los condenados a muerte mientras atraviesan el pasillo que los llevara a la silla eléctrica. Exagerada la comparación, por supuesto, pero igual lo repito mentalmente cada vez que me despido de mi hija y comienzo a atravesar ese trocito de aeropuerto donde ya no hay regreso.
‘Dead Mother Walking’ is how I describe it, a terrible translation of ‘dead men walking’, which is what they call those sentenced to death as they cross the corridor that takes them to the electric chair. The comparison is exaggerated, of course, but all the same I mentally repeat it each time I say goodbye to my daughter and start to cross that small section of the airport, from which there is no return.
Fuentes suggests that an Orphaned Parents Day could be invented, in which they take plazas in silence, and a mourning flag is flown on balconies, in cars, on motorcycles, and on ranches. “How about December 6? When the gem of Hugo Chávez won?, she suggests with irony.
Elizabeth Fuentes comments that there are no longer young people at family reunions, only parents talking about their absent children and about the hoops they will have to jump to organize their next trip. But in her post, the journalist doesn't only tell the story of the Venezuelan middle and upper classes, she also refers to what happens in the lower classes:
Pero no solo se van por razones “mercantilistas”, como metió la pata una de las tantas ministras de salud que tampoco sirve para nada: la señora que gerencia nuestra casa me dice quiere mandar su muchacho de vuelta a Colombia  un jovencito buena conducta – porque en su barrio todo es drogas, asesinatos y ajuste de cuentas.
Cada día me llega con un cuento más espantoso que el anterior. Que si a la clase media se le van los hijos, a los humildes se los asesinan, un dolor incomparable a nuestro rito de aeropuerto. Una nadería nuestra despedida frente a una espera a las puertas de la morgue.
But they don't only leave for “mercantilist” reasons, like one of the many ministers of health who made a mistake said which didn't help at all: the woman who manages our home tells me she wants to send her boy back to Colombia–a well-behaved young man–-because in her neighborhood it's all drugs, murders, and settling scores.
She comes to me each day with a story more frightening than the last. When the middle class children leave, the poorer ones are being murdered, an incomparable pain to our airport ritual. Our goodbye is nothing compared to waiting in front of the morgue doors.
Comments and debate have gone around the web for several days as a result of this post.
Maritza González commented that she never thought that she would go through a similar situation to that of a friend who moved to Venezuela to flea from Francisco Franco's regime in Spain:
En una oportunidad, una amiga que llego a Vzla huyendo del Franquismo, me dijo cuando decides irte los dolores son muchos, las familias se dividen y ve tu a saber cuando se pueden volver a reunir.. Me dijo soy Huérfana de Familia, mi hermano murió en Argentina y ni sé donde llevarle unas flores… Jamás pensé que eso, me llegara a pasar a mi, en ese momento, mi País era el refugio de muchos, hoy mis dos hijos ya están fuera… aunque lucho con todos los organismos del estado para visitarlos, no hay consuelo cuando regreso, el momento más duro no es ir a visitarlos, sino ese mismo pasillo pero en Barajas…
Once, a friend who came to Venezuela fleeing from Franquismo told me that when you decide to leave there are many things that cause pain,  families are divided and who knows when they can be reunited again. She told me, I am a family orphan; my brother died in Argentina and I don't even know where to bring him flowers… I never thought that that would happen to me, and in that moment, my country was many people's refuge, and today my two children are away… Even though I fight with all the state agencies to visit them, that is no consolation when I come back. The hardest moment isn't when I'm going to visit them; instead it's that same hallway but in Barajas [Madrid, Spain airport]…
For her part, Alejandra Lopez in her intervention names the reasons that caused her to leave the country, and she considers that society is responsible for the country's situation:
Esa es la realidad por la que me fui hace 6 meses me cansé de luchar por hacer las cosas bien y ayudar a generar justicia en un sitio donde mucha gente, se queja y echa culpas, pero siguen actuando de manera deshonesta e irrespetuosa con los derechos de los otros. Me duele mucho porque sí existen venezolanos honestos, pero la vida se le hace 10 veces más difícil. Y amo a mi país, y lo siento pero esto es una consecuencia histórica que merecemos como sociedad por haber permitido que las diferencias sociales fueran tan grandes y la gran mayoría de nuestra población viviera en carencia.
That's the reality and the reason I left six months ago–I got tired of doing things well and helping to see justice done in a place where many people complain and blame others, but they keep acting dishonestly and disrespectfully with other people's rights. It really hurts because honest Venezuelans do exist, but life is ten times harder for them. And I love my country, and I am sorry but this is a historic consequence that we deserve as a society for having allowed such big social differences and that the great majority of our population live in poverty.
Vane commented that even if she feels like she has a lot to do for her country, she wants to leave because she doesn't want to keep living in fear.
Siempre pensé que enterraría primero a mis padres y luego me marcharía, pero vivir en Venezuela, y más aún en Caracas, ya es insoportable. Tengo el trabajo de mis sueños, vivo en un lugar propio y en una de las mejores zonas de CCS, y de qué me sirve si a las 10 de la noche me despierto por tres tiros que suenan casi en mi oreja porque estaban tratando de secuestrar a alguien que salía de un restaurant […]
Lo peor de todo es que siento que profesionalmente todavía puedo hacer muchas cosas aquí, pero valdrá la pena quedarse? O repetiré la historia de mis padres que abandonaron sus países de origen para buscar un futuro mejor (que hace 50 años era en Venezuela).
I always thought I would bury my parents first and then I would leave, but living in Venezuela, even more in Caracas, has become unbearable. I have my dream job, I live in my own place, and in one of the best areas in Caracas, and what good does it do me if at ten o'clock at night I wake up to three gunshots that nearly sound in my ear because they were trying to kidnap someone who was leaving from a restaurant […]
The worst thing of all is that I feel that professionally I can still do a lot of things here, but is staying worth it? Or will I repeat the story of my parents who abandoned their countries of origin in search for a better future (which 50 years ago was in Venezuela).
Maiquetia Airport, Venezuela- LuisCarlos Díaz photo under Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC 2.0)
Beatriz Rezzin explains that in her family they take advantage of Skype to stay close to family:
Me gusta la idea del día del luto migratorio. Mi esposo y yo somos padres y abuelos huerfanos pegados al Skype para sentirlos cercanos.
I like the idea of the migration mourning day. My husband and I are orphaned parents and grandparents who are stuck to Skype to feel close to our family.
Although some use technology as a way of lessening the emptiness, for Alberto it is increasingly hard to face the idea that someone else may leave. He only hopes that the country's condition will improve so that his family can return, for that reason he writes:
Pensé que iba a acostumbrarme a la idea de escuchar que alguien más se va el próximo mes… Pero es al revés, cada vez me duele más cada conocido y cada amigo que se va… Mi familia casi por completo se fue solo tengo a 4 familiares aquí en Venezuela, el resto fue a más de un país, imposible y doloroso pensar que jamás volveremos a estar juntos…
Amigos como 10 que se han ido… Solo me pregunto si yo también me iré… No sé por que todo esto? (bueno si sé, pero que duro ya resignarse a esto ¿no?).
No me quiero ir en verdad… Mas bien quiero que esto cambie y que los míos regresen… En verdad ese es mi sueño.
Mientras me encuentro extranjero en mi propio país porque desconozco tanta violencia, tanta cochinada, tanta miseria, tanta ignorancia y sobretodo tanta falta de valores.
¿Esto ha de cambiar???
I thought I was going to get used to the idea that somebody else was leaving the next month… But it's the opposite–it hurts more each time an acquaintance or friend leaves… Almost my whole family has left so I only have four family members here in Venezuela; the rest went to more than one country, and it is impossible and painful to think that we will never go live together again…
About 10 friends have left… I only wonder if I will also leave… I don't know why? (okay, yes I do know, but it's so hard to resign yourself to this, isn't it?).
I don't really want to leave… What I really want is for this to change and for my family and friends to come back… That is truly my dream.
Meanwhile I am a stranger in my own country because I am unfamiliar with such violence, such filth, such misery, such ignorance, and above all, such a lack of values.
Will this ever change???
But Luis Díaz determines that not all of those who have stayed behind in Venezuela have done so due to a lack of a chance to emmigrate, but rather because some of them dont’ want to be foreigners:
No todos los que nos hemos quedado es porque no hemos tenido la oportunidad de irnos, yo la he tenido y aquí sigo, no sé si es un error, pero no tengo intención de vivir como extranjero pase lo que pase.
Not all of us who have stayed behind are here because we have not had a chance to leave; I've had the chance and here I am. I don't know if it's a mistake, but I don't intend to live like a foreigner because what will happen will happen.

author: Jessica Carrillo


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Saudi Clerics Protest Women Driving  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

‘A group of more than 100 conservative Saudi clerics gathered Tuesday at the Royal Court in Riyadh to protest against what they called “the conspiracy of women driving.”’ writes Ahmed Al Omran at Riyadh Bureau.
Saudi women are planning to defy a ban on women driving in the absolute monarchy on October 26.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Amira Al Hussaini


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Saudi Prisoners’ Children Put Into Solitary Confinement · Global Voices
Anas Soliman

Following the cancellation of Saudi prisoners’ Eid visits, their relatives organized small gatherings to protest the sudden decision. Gatherings are strictly prohibited in the absolute kingdom, but the ban has been continuously defied by the prisoners’ relatives, and most of the women and children who participated in the gatherings have been arrested since October 17. The children were even ordered to be in solitary confinement.
One of the arrested children, Humam al-Rushodi, whose father is a prisoner. via @e3teqal
The one woman who was released because of her child's health condition tweeted about their arrest in front of the Governor's Office [ar]:
قالوا انتظروا انتظرنا قليل ثم ادخلوا الباصات وهجمت قوات المهمات الخاصة من جهه والسجانات من جهه وكاننا نريد ان نقتل اميرهم..يتبع4
— ام عبدالله الحربي (@vvbbvnn) October 20, 2013
They told us: “Wait,” so we did. Then they brought buses and the special forces attacked us from one side and the female prison guards from the other like if we were about to murder their prince.
Umm Abdulla Al Harbi also reported that one of the prisoners’ relatives, Maha al-Duhayan, was beaten and had her hand broken:
وكتم أنفاسي حتى لا أتكلم وقاموا بضرب الاخت مها الضحيان ضرباً مبرحا حتى انهم حين اركبوها دفعوها فسقطت على وجهها..يتبع6
— ام عبدالله الحربي (@vvbbvnn) October 20, 2013
…They shut my mouth so that I don't speak and they hit Maha al-Duhayan very hard and they even pushed her and she fell on her face…
This launched a very large condemnation within the Saudi Twittersphere against the Interior Ministry's aggression. The women, including al-Duhayan, were denied calls, visits and access to lawyers. Her son tweeted:
#كسر_يد_مها_الضحيان منذ يومين وانا تحت الشمس عند الابواب المفتوحة ولم استطع الحصول علي اي شيء حتى الاتصال وعدني مسؤل الهيأة واخلف وعده!!!
— م.صالح العياف (@x1199y) October 19, 2013
I have been under the sun during the past two days trying to get into the open doors, but I got no where. An official from the Bureau [of Investigation and Public Prosecution] promised me a call, but he didn't fulfill his promise.
On October 20, a group of women and young men organized a sit-in in front of the Buraydah Police Administration to demand the release of their relatives. They, too, were shortly surrounded by police forces and arrested.
عاجل قوت الطوارئ تطوق المعتصمين أمام مديرية الشرطة و تعتدي بالضرب على الحضور من النساء و الشباب #السعودية
— اعتقال (@e3teqal) October 20, 2013
Just in: Emergency forces surround those taking part in the sit-in in front of the Police Administration and beat the participants – women and young men.
Among those who were arrested were two of Mrs. al-Duhayan's sons, Yasser and Rayan.
لتو خرجت من المباحث العامة للاستفسار حول قضية الوالده واتفجأت بإتصال من اخي ريان يخبرني بأنه أعتقل هو واخي ياسر #كسر_يد_مها_الضحيان
— م.صالح العياف (@x1199y) October 20, 2013
I just got out from the General Investigation Bureau to inquire about my mother's case. I was shocked to receive a call from my brother, Rayan, saying that he was arrested with my brother Yasser.
The detained women and men are still prohibited from contacting the outside world. The under-age detained relatives were given a visit, but the prison officials told [ar] a family member yesterday, October 22, that they had orders from Bureau of Investigation and Public Prosecution to hold each child in solitary confinement for the next five days.

author: Anas Soliman


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Slovakia’s Roma Communities Significantly Bypassed by Development · Global Voices
Danica Radisic

A Roma village in Eastern Slovakia; photo by Slawojar, used under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
About 500,000 Roma, or roughly a little less than ten percent of the country's population, live in Slovakia today. Statistics show that they have been drastically bypassed by the socioeconomic transformation the country has undergone over the last two decades, including since its accession to the European Union in 2004. The Nation reports on the lack of development and integration of Roma communities in this and other EU countries:
A survey conducted by the United Nations in 2011 showed a sustained, alarming difference in socioeconomic indicators between Roma and non-Roma citizens in Slovakia.
The statistics are in stark contrast to what would be expected from an EU member state: Only 19 percent of Roma adults have completed secondary education, compared to 78 percent non-Roma. More than 90 percent of Roma live below the national poverty line, and their unemployment rates are as high as 70 percent – more than twice that of non-Roma.

author: Danica Radisic


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Tajiks Note that “Moscow Has Changed” · Global Voices
Mahina Shodizoda

As Russians try to make sense of ethnic riots rocking Moscow, these developments are also carefully watched in Tajikistan where more than half of the population depends on money that their relatives working in Russia send home. Halil Qayumzod who lived in Moscow in the 1990s suggests [tj] that over the past decade the Russian capital has grown extremely hostile to the nationals of former Soviet countries:
Moscow has changed. Everyday our fellow-nationals face problems and lack of legal protection there. Is the Moscow I loved gone? Where are you, the Moscow I used to love? I do not recognize the present-day Moscow…

author: Mahina Shodizoda


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The Crowd in the Machine · Global Voices
Ivan Sigal

What shall we make of the flood of images and voices coursing through the Internet, and how shall we understand it? In our minds, the details of so much material overlap and overwhelm. On the Internet, we say, our attention is getting shorter, but our memory is improving. And yet, when I turn off my wifi, take off my glasses, and confront the flicker and hum of images in my own degraded memory, I know that the Internet's recall will be as partial as my own. But, it seems to me, it will fail differently.
Human memories have half-lives. I remember seeing a video some years ago of two Russian football mobs clashing on a bridge. Red shirts versus blue, vicious kicks and punches, someone pushed into the water, the back-and-forth rush and blur of faces and bodies, all recorded by a shaky hand on a balcony overlooking the scene. I used to live in Russia, and I've been on those balconies; it could have been me standing on that slab of rotten concrete in the sky, camera in one hand, bottle of Baltika strong beer in the other.
When the Internet loses images they will be gone forever, replaced by a static screen and an epitaph: this video does not exist. Our organic recall might conjure a keyword: mob, hooligan, crowd, Spartak, Kiev, or we might try a knife fight + Russia + football Boolean search. It might survive in some screen grab, or appropriated under new metadata, but linkrot is an equally likely fate. Save for rigorous annotation and the hope that the company that built the tool in which you collected your citations might survive the latest corporate buyout, you are lost.
There are images of crowds, and there is the crowd of online images. They are not the same thing, but in our heads, and in the temporal flow of an Internet search, they merge into something resembling the fragility and confusion we feel when finding ourselves in a large and unpredictable mob. In the 19th century, an emerging social science literature considered crowds and decreed them monstrous, unruly, home to disorder of the human psyche and an existential threat to the nation-state.
Twentieth-century thinkers absorbed that lesson and the idea of crowds retained a dark equivalence with mass violence. The writer Bill Buford immersed himself in the subculture of European football hooligans in the 1980s and dissected the creation and sustenance of crowds, finding that they were complex but knowable, with definite patterns, clear thresholds of behavior and markers that indicated a shift toward violence. His book, Among the Thugs, helped break the assumption that crowds were formed by something inherently unknowable and uncontrollable and placed them squarely in the frame of rational human behavior.
The Internet, in relocating the crowd onto networks, has shown us that crowd behaviors are in fact made up of many individual decisions, with resulting patterns that might be complex but can be measured. If a street crowd provides feedback for itself through sound, motion and threshold actions – a brick thrown through a window, a police line rushed – then a networked crowd has feedback loops that are transparent to anyone who monitors the network and knows that those loops provide direct and continuous input into our behavior. This has made it possible for us to imagine crowds in a wholly different light. Not just the wisdom of the crowd, but smart mobs, crisis mappers and even, in the parlance of labor-on-demand, crowd flowers.
Smart crowds do not, of course, necessarily mean good crowds. The testing ground for crowd behavior that is Tahrir Square has shown us everything from the peaceful vigil to rape as a tactic of terror. They do not cancel each other out, but coexist within our emerging understanding of complex crowd behaviors. Tahrir has also become the epitome of a crowd that simultaneously acts and documents itself as part of its action, creating its own self-monitoring feedback loops on Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and Bambuser.
Broken plastic chairs in stadium, after a football game. Bryansk, Russia, 2008. Source: Wikimedia, Creative Commons 3.0 license.
It is in the Syria case that we find ourselves back on the unsteady analytic ground of the crowd as extra-rational threat. This time, it is the crowd of images of violence and protest that exist online, over 500,000 videos uploaded to YouTube alone. Out of the mass media comes a steady beat of fear associated with a lack of context and explanation of these images, as if their very lack of framing constitutes a danger. Here we also find a hazardous mourning for the loss of the iconic image made by heroic, trusted documentarians. These videos, even when existing within a definite network frame – YouTube user terms of service, required Internet access, user names, and a legal and technological underpinning – have somehow taken on an aspect of the unknown, or are being sold to us as such.
The consequence of this is subtle but significant: it degrades the authority and impact of those who make and upload them, and asks that we reassign legitimacy to the very media outlets and governments deriding them. These videos inspire derision, it seems me, primarily because they are complex and fragmentary narratives. They confound because they demonstrate the possibility of many competing positions of power, and block a satisfying resolution for those who seek a clear narrative, both in the media, and in governance. To deny their authority is to shift our focus away from the individuals involved, and their motives for creating and sharing their experiences.
This is perfectly exemplified by this video of Syrian citizen videographer Zaid Abu Obaida. The video shows Obaida filming a helicopter overhead, and explaining his motives for documenting: “we are trying to shoot it down through media by sending images to television channels with our simple equipment…we have nothing but these weapons.” Obaida himself was killed a few days later. This video is another epitaph.
Ivan Sigal is Global Voices’ executive director. Prior to working with GV he worked in media development in the former Soviet Union and Asia. He's also a photographer—his book White Road, published in 2012, chronicles in text and photos his journey through former Soviet states.

author: Ivan Sigal


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This Weekend at Developing Latin America 2013 Apps Challenge (Part I) · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

Photo from Desarrollando América Latina Facebook page.
This past weekend has been very productive for the Developing Latin America (#DAL2013) Apps Challenge; there was movement in person and on social networks in almost all locations of the participating countries. In this post we bring you a brief summary of what happened.
In México [es] they share some of the challenges they have raised and the activities they have organized to find solutions:
Retos #DAL2013 sobre #educación en México, derechos de los niños y más checa http://t.co/vop4d7ygkW
— OpenDataMX (@OpenDataMX) October 19, 2013
#DAL2013 challenge about education in Mexico, children's rights and more.
Reto @Infancia Cuenta: Visualiza el estado de la infancia en México http://t.co/PgbHoYaX1o
— OpenDataMX (@OpenDataMX) October 19, 2013
Challenge ‘Infancy Counts': Visualizes the state of infancy in Mexico.
Video: Expedición de datos con @Mexicanos1o para #DAL2013 http://t.co/wYUGUfGE81
— OpenDataMX (@OpenDataMX) October 19, 2013
Video: Data expedition with @Mexicanos1o for #DAL2013
Reto #DAL2013 Información sobre la calidad y servicio en las clínicas http://t.co/59ZajoZrEt ¿Ya escogiste el tuyo?
— OpenDataMX (@OpenDataMX) October 19, 2013
#DAL2013 Challenge: Information about quality and service in health clinics. Have you picked yours?
Reto #DAL2013: Ayuda a jóvenes a identificar situaciones de riesgo para ser víctimas de trata http://t.co/4IUq9BiD2S
— OpenDataMX (@OpenDataMX) October 19, 2013
#DAL2013 Challenge: Help youth identify risky situations that can turn them into victims of trafficking.
Participants in Guatemala [es] have shown their excitement about a series of scheduled conferences:
#DALGt #DAL2013 empieza el sabado de conferencias pic.twitter.com/ERZnPsMrJs
— JorgeGabriel Jimenez (@bebejimenez) October 19, 2013
Saturday conferences begin.
Red socio-tecnica de una pantalla flexible #DALGt #DAL2013 pic.twitter.com/OQ1idyWHBL
— JorgeGabriel Jimenez (@bebejimenez) October 19, 2013
Socio-technical network of a flexible screen
“Las ideas son fáciles de copiar, las ideas de negocios, las ideas socio técnicas son más difíciles“ Alvaro Figueredo #DALGt #Dal2013
— guate cambia (@guatecambia) October 19, 2013
“Ideas are easy to copy; business ideas, socio-technical ideas are harder” Alvaro Figueredo
Se debe lograr que el proyecto tome vida propia y que tenga inercia para que se mantenga-Javier Álvarez #DALGt
— guate cambia (@guatecambia) October 19, 2013
The project has to take on a life of its own and have momentum to keep going- Javier Álvarez
La presentación de Hacking cívico está disponible aquí –> http://t.co/Y3PzA489T5 @guatecambia #dalgt #dal2013
— SocialTIC (@socialtic) October 19, 2013
The presentation on civic hacking is available here –> http://t.co/Y3PzA489T5
Civic hackers from Costa Rica [es] took some time off this weekend, but the previous weekend they held their hackathon:
Los expertos co-creando con los participantes ¡En Costa Rica #DAL2013 acaba de comenzar! pic.twitter.com/XQRFNdbr0b
— DAL (@DesarrollaLatAm) October 12, 2013
Experts co-creating with participants. In Costa Rica #DAL2013 has just begun!
24 horas después, 10 equipos, 34 jóvenes, mucho talento #DAL2013 #CostaRica pic.twitter.com/vYp0LwlszB
— Maikol Porras (@maikolporras) October 13, 2013
24 hours later, 10 teams, 34 young people, a lot of talent.
Muchas cosas han pasado en #DAL2013 ¿Quieres saber cómo fue la hackathon en Costa Rica? http://t.co/WANBTgQf03
— DAL (@DesarrollaLatAm) October 15, 2013
A lot has happened at #DAL2013 Do you want to learn about the hackathon in Costa Rica?
Ganadores de #DAL2013 Costa Rica premiados por la Presidenta Laura Chinchilla http://t.co/G8kwCfJmW5
— Luis Diego Oreamuno (@ldiego_oreamuno) October 16, 2013
#DAL2013 Costa Rica winners awarded by President Laura Chinchilla
@nacion trae una nota sobre todos los equipos ganadores de Desarrollando América Latina Costa Rica 2013 #DAL2013 http://t.co/TJv80PPYKE
— GobiernoDigitalCR (@GobDigitalCR) October 17, 2013
@nacion brings us an article about all the winning teams of Developing Latin America Costa Rica 2013
Colombia [es] also held its hackathon earlier:
#DAL2013 Colombia @williamgomezg presenta proyectos #mochilapp, salud y tecnología, veeduría política ¡buenas ideas! pic.twitter.com/mFicokxSfe
— Camilo Andrés Suárez (@KAMIAN) October 5, 2013
@williamgomezg presents #mochilapp projects, health and technology, political oversight. Great ideas!
En #DAL2013 @DesarrollaLatAm @TheColombist nos presenta este interesante proyecto #RutaCiudadana base de activistas. pic.twitter.com/g6JVxe0GuC
— Centro de Innovación (@Idea2Lab) October 5, 2013
@TheColombist presents this interesting project #RutaCiudadana
@sibcolombia muestra en primicia su api dinámica y libre para explorar datos georreferenciados @DesarrollaLatAm, pic.twitter.com/IHoqUHdLhO
— Camilo Andrés Suárez (@KAMIAN) October 5, 2013
@sibcolombia shows for the first time their dynamic and open app to explore georeferenced data
Colombia tambien desarrolla soluciones en #DAL2013 http://t.co/55oj1Mk8Nc @campuspartyco @DesarrollaLatAm pic.twitter.com/jnPhqDMaH1
— GobiernoAbiertoCol (@GobAbiertoCol) October 11, 2013
Colombia also develops solutions at #DAL2013
Hackers and other specialists in Ecuador [es] are working towards Demo Day on October 26, but they've also been sharing some tweets about their activities:
Inicia #DAL2013 Ecuador en la ESPAE, Espol Campus Las Peñas pic.twitter.com/gAwHebLNLF
— Fundapi (@fundapi) October 5, 2013
#DAL2013 kicks off in Ecuador at ESPAE, Espol Campus Las Peñas
#DAL2013 Ecuador busca resolver problemas en transporte, medio ambiente, democracia, salud y educación. pic.twitter.com/luw3I8E9YP
— David Chang (@DavidFernandoC) October 5, 2013
Ecuador seeks to find solutions to problems related to transportation, environment, democracy, health and education.
Total integración entre participantes en el DAL Ecuador #DAL2013 pic.twitter.com/l8mboDfRrh
— Fundapi (@fundapi) October 5, 2013
Complete integration between participants at DAL Ecuador
Se presentan los premios del DAL Ecuador #DAL2013, gracias a @McDonalds_Ecu pic.twitter.com/v02jolUcpg
— Fundapi (@fundapi) October 5, 2013
Awards at DAL Ecuador are being presented, thanks to @McDonalds_Ecu
Se le agradece a la Universidad Santa María (@USMgye) por la acogida en el Data Scraping realizado la noche de ayer #DAL Ecuador #DAL2013
— Fundapi (@fundapi) October 10, 2013
We thank Santa María University for hosting the data scraping event last night.
And in Peru [es] there's been a lot of activity in the past two weekends, with the hashtags #datamaskay (data search) and #dataminka (work with data) becoming quite popular on Twitter:
#DAL2013 todo Octubre! [mes de hackatones, temblores y milagros] > @IPAE_Innova y @escuelab te invitan! #innovape > http://t.co/x0GlPwH59V
— escuelab (@escuelab) October 10, 2013
#DAL2013 throughout October! [month of hackathons, earthquakes and miracles!] > @IPAE_Innova and @escuelab invite you!
Las soluciones están en los #DatosAbiertos ¡En Perú las ideas se convierten en soluciones! #DAL2013 | #Datamaskay pic.twitter.com/lYr0V98ydn
— DAL (@DesarrollaLatAm) October 13, 2013
Solutions are found in open data. In Peru ideas become solutions!
#tenemosdata!!! última encuesta sobre corrupción 2013. v/ @srotta #DatosAbiertos CSV SPSS XLS —> http://t.co/hieNAZvQwz #dal2013
— escuelab (@escuelab) October 13, 2013
We have data! Latest poll about corruption 2013
¡ideas discutidas en #dataminka! #dal2013 #perú c/ @guillerp @yonsy @cslucano @bobsparz @cynthiax_y @eldecimohombre pic.twitter.com/CY4fPX5tjn
— escuelab (@escuelab) October 20, 2013
Ideas discussed at #dataminka!
Una vez decidida qué app sería ideal realizar los concurrentes al #dataminka debaten sobre los insumos #DAL2013 http://t.co/VhVydxYerY
— Centro de Innovación (@IPAE_Innova) October 20, 2013
Once participants decided which app would be ideal to develop, they debated which resources they will use.
In the next post we will continue reporting about activities in the other countries participating in Developing Latin America 2013!

author: Juan Arellano


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16 Books on Latin American Street Art · Global Voices
Silvia Viñas

In Latin America, street art is of major cultural relevance. The region’s traditions of social movements and revolution have allowed the form to give voice to otherwise unheard sectors of the population. Of course, not all street art is politically or socially-oriented in content, but it does often provide insight into specific objectives and ideals.
Nick MacWilliam from Sounds and Colours browsed the online store Amazon “to see what’s readily available for those who are interested in the subject of street art in Latin America.” He recommends 16 books on the subject, covering Haiti, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Colombia, Mexico, Argentina and more.

author: Silvia Viñas


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Chinese Newspaper Defies Censors, Publishes Front-Page Call for Journalist’s Release · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

A Guangzhou-based newspaper, the New Express [zh], published a front-page editorial statement urging the Security Bureau of Hunan Province to release their investigative reporter Chen Yongzhou who was arrested for criminal defamation. The journalist had been following a story on the allegedly shady practices of Changsha-based construction machinery company, Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science & Technology Development (Zoomlion).
The front page of New Express on October 23, 2013.
The headline running on the front page of New Express [zh] on October 23, 2013 is “Please release our man – our paper may be small, and our bones poor in quality, but we still have a few remaining”. The meaning of “bones” in Chinese is equivalent to “guts” or “courage” in English.
According to the newspaper, Chen only made one minor mistake among his 15 investigative reports about the management of Zoomlion for exaggerating profit, tunneling interest, deforming marketing measures and suspected fraud. He mistakenly wrote “513 million Ads fee and Entertainment fee” into “513 million Ads fee” in one of the articles. Chen has been in police custody since October 18.
As the New Express’ risky statement went viral around the Chinese Internet, Chinese authorities quickly rallied its censorship forces, and the statement was quickly removed from major web portals around noon, roughly 10 hours after its release. Around the same time, Sina Weibo, China's most popular social media platform, also started deleting critical tweets.
But durings its 10-hour life on Weibo, the newspaper's courageous move won rounds and rounds of applause. The paper's statement [zh] was republished 39,486 times in a 10-hour span on Weibo, and commented on more than 14,046 comments. Shi Biao, who worked for New Express in the past, expressed his appreciation for the newspaper:
2013年10月23日，广东《新快报》头版必将载入中国新闻史，沧桑而悲壮。老东家，我以你为荣！
On 23 October 2013, the front page of New Express in Guangdong entered into Chinese journalism history. It is such a moving moment. I am proud of you, old pals.
Liu Xiangnan, also a reporter, echoed:
新快報今天的作為，必將載入新聞史册。以一個头版來為自家報館記者被抓進行抗爭，这几乎是前所未有。就為这份担当，也要向新快報致敬！接下來事件会如何演变，继续关注。
What New Express did today will become part of China's journalism history. It is the first time a newspaper defends its own journalist on the front page. Considering the consequence that it has to bear, we have to pay tribute to New Express’ courageous move. Let's pay close attention to the development.
As the incident concerns press freedom, many online news outlets shared the statement and added supporting comments in their retweet. For example, New Information Post commented:
继续关注新快报陈永洲事件。如果企业认为媒体报道有问题，可以到法院起诉。@长沙警事 也应该铭记，你们的权力是人民赋予的，请在阳光下使用，并请用好它。
Continue to pay attention to New Express’ reporter Chen Yongzhou. If the corporation found the report ungrounded, they can sue the newspaper. The Changsha police should remember, your power is given by people, use it under the sun and do not abuse it.
Another news outlet on Weibo, Shanghai Radio's program Night Talk on News, wrote:
新快报头版就记者陈永洲被跨省刑拘事件发声明——今天它毫无疑问是众多人士关注的焦点，我们关注它，不仅是因为我们是他/它的同行，我们也不是一味去愤愤不平，我们希望更加理性的去关注剖析这个事件，警方抓捕有没有违法？媒体发出这样的声音是否合适？
The front page statement regarding the criminal detention of Chen Yongzhou in New Express is today's focus. We pay attention to it not only because we are working in the same news sector, not because we are frustrated [by the incident]. We have to analyze the incident and ask if the police's actions are legal or not. And whether it is appropriate for a newspapers to issue the statement.
Popular TV program host Meng Fei's comment was among the first bunch of posts deleted by the Web censors. Meng wrote:
【新快报】事情的来龙去脉我不清楚，不便评论，说一段很多人都知道历史吧。1923年《芝加哥论坛报》因报道地方政府破产失实而遭起诉，但该州法院判决报纸无罪，理由是“宁可让一个人或报纸在报道偶尔失实时不受惩罚，也不能使全体公民因担心受惩罚而不敢批评无能和腐败的政府”。
I don't know much about the incident concerning New Express and should not comment on it directly. Let me just tell you a piece of historical information that many people already know. In 1923, the Chicago Tribune was taken to federal court for an unfounded report on the bankruptcy of the local government, and the court found the newspaper not guilty because it is better not to punish an individual or newspaper's occasional inaccurate report than to create a chilling effect and make citizens worry about being punished for criticizing an incompetent and corrupted government.
Despite heavy censorship measures, microbloggers continued to discuss the news. To avoid the charge of spreading rumors, Gong Wenxiang, a businessman in e-commerce, quoted the search results from Chinese search engine Baidu to reveal the background of Zoomlion:
今天最大的事件应该是新快报记者被跨省引起众怒，其实背后原因是中联重科的董事长，父亲是湖南省高院院长、岳父曾经是湖南省委第一书记（据百度搜索结果）
Today the big event is the the outrage over the arrest of New Express reporter. The reason behind [the arrest] is related with the background of the company. The father of the CEO of Zoomlion is the head of the Higher Court in Hunan province, the father-in-law was once the first secretary of the [Communist] Party committee in Hunan.
Current affairs commentator AfkmouUOS pointed out that the arrest is not an isolated incident – the Hunan police also detained human rights lawyer Tang Jitian for five days. He said the two incidents show that:
公权力的滥用已经到了肆无忌惮的地步，它就像一个嗜血的恶魔，在不断的寻找着猎物以满足它的巨大的胃口。中国人的命运如此不幸，但只有反抗才是唯一的出路
The abuse of power is excessive. It is like a blood-thirsty devil looking for its prey to fill up its huge stomach. Chinese people are so unfortunate and the only way out is resist.
Not everyone approved of New Express’ statement. Wang Shengyou, a member of the youth league of the Chinese Communist Party, criticized:
该报有没有公器私用的嫌疑？有法律专家称，记者被抓应该聘请律师吧？！也有一位媒体人对此说，是不是中央电视台的记者出了事，也在新闻联播里播一条抗议？那不乱套了吗？
Isn't that paper using public resources for its private interest? A legal expert pointed out that the reporter's arrest should be dealt with by a lawyer. A media worker also asked, if a reporter from China Central Television got into trouble, should CCTV protest during its news cast? Won't that result in chaos?

author: Oiwan Lam


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Codeshare Request from Serbia’s New Airline Met with US, EU Pushback · Global Voices
Danica Radisic

Airlines for America (A4A), the oldest and largest airline trade association in the United States, has submitted a response to the US Department of Transportation regarding the joint application of Etihad Airways and Air Serbia for codeshare authority, calling the request “bizarre”.
Delta Airlines also responded with a similarly critical assessment, arguing that the application was “irrational” and “not in the public interest”. The letters from both A4A and Delta cite concerns about fair competition of privately held commercial air carriers with state-supported carriers.
Official promotional photo of Etihad-JAT (Air Serbia) partnership; public domain image.
Earlier in 2013, Etihad Airways, the state-supported national airline from the United Arab Emirates, purchased 49 percent of Serbian national air carrier JAT, also a state-funded company. The two partner companies then decided to shut down JAT and establish a new company in its place, Air Serbia, that would function with JAT's restructured resources and flight routes.
On September 19, 2013, Air Serbia applied for authority to place its existing code on now partner Eithad’s flights from Abu Dhabi to Chicago O’Hare, New York’s John F. Kennedy and Washington Dulles airports, as well as several European airports. As Novi Magazin reports [sr], Turkey was the first country to react, while some EU countries also lodged complaints:
Vazduhoplovne vlasti Turske oduzele su slot (aerodromsko mesto) i premestile su novu srpsku aviokompaniju na drugi istambulski međunarodni aerodrom Sabiha Gokčen koji je na azijskoj strani ovog grada.[…]
Neke (za sada neimenovane) evropske kompanije, kako pišu beogradski mediji, traže od regulatora u EU da ponište sve slotove koje je Jat imao na evropskim aerodromima i tvrde da Er Srbija ne može da ih nasledi, naročito zbog odredbi Sporazuma o otvorenom nebu (open sky) koje se odnose na suvlasništvo van teritorije EU.
Turkish aviation authorities have revoked slots (airport positions) and have transferred the new Serbian airline to Istanbul's other international Sabiha Gökçen Airport on the Asian side of the city.[…]
Some (for now unnamed) European carriers, according to Belgrade media, have asked EU regulators to cancel all slots that JAT had in European airports and claim that Air Serbia cannot inherit them, in particular due to regulations in the [EU-US] Open Skies Agreement regarding joint ownership [of airline companies] outside the EU.
In its 13-page response to the US Department of Transportation [PDF], A4A brings to light various issues regarding planned flights to the United States to be operated by Etihad-Air Serbia, but focuses particularly on the lack of business sense and commercial viability of the planned flights:
We oppose the Application. Because the service proposal can fairly be described as bizarre, at best, and JAT reportedly is receiving substantial state aid, the public interest does not support granting it. Furthermore, the Application and information in the public domain indicate that JAT, rebranded as Air Serbia, is (or soon will be) under the effective control of a non-Serbian citizen. For these reasons, the Application should be denied.
The Consolidated Answer of Delta Air Lines, Inc. [PDF] has an almost identical stance and goes on to explain:
The proposed codeshare routes are irrational and do not serve the public interest
While Delta believes that codeshare arrangements are typically in the public interest where they increase opportunities for travel and expand air service networks for the benefit of consumers, the codeshare services proposed by JAT and Etihad are not in the public interest because they have no market or consumer service based rationale and would only create confusion and complexity for consumers.
JAT and Etihad are proposing codeshare services on routings from Belgrade (BEL) to New York (JFK), Washington (IAD), and Chicago (ORD) via Abu Dhabi (AUH). These routes are so extraordinarily circuitous (nearly 5,000 miles of additional circuity in each direction) that one must question why any consumer would regard their addition to the marketplace to constitute a rational service option or to offer any consumer benefit.
Delta's main concern is the distortion of the market and confusion of travelers, as the two state-funded companies Etihad and Air Serbia seem to be planning on offering rerouted flights from Belgrade via Abu Dhabi to US cities, approximately an additional 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometers), for the same or lower prices as other air carriers who fly directly. The state subsidies provided to the new Air Serbia company by both the UAE and Serbian governments are inconsistent with international aviation policy, Delta and A4A claim, as well as tax advantages, fuel and airport fee subsidies, and government investment in airport infrastructure that Etihad and Air Serbia benefit from.
Although both documents have been made public, Serbian media have shown little to no mention of this case nor any discussion about the possible repercussions for the new national airline should the former Serbian airline JAT's codesharing not be granted to Air Serbia for US and EU-bound flights, thus there is very little discussion about the matter on social networks or public forums. No media outlet in Serbia seems to have even made these documents available to the public, while Kurir simply quoted a tweet by Vladimir Todorić, a politician and member of the Democratic Party (DS), in a short article titled “HATE: Delta More Important than Serbia to the Democrats!” [sr].
Todorić complained on Twitter in recent days:
Udruženje američkih avio kompanija protiv Air Serbia/Etihad. Na netu od 4.10, nijedan srpski medij nije preneo http://t.co/xgjXx11SjC
— Vladimir Todoric (@VladimirTodoric) October 18, 2013
The Association of American Airlines is against Air Serbia/Etihad. [It has been] on the web since October 4, no Serbian media has published it http://t.co/xgjXx11SjC
— Vladimir Todoric (@VladimirTodoric) October 18, 2013
When asked by another Twitter user why the A4A was against Air Serbia-Etihad, Todorić responded:
@MidzaBg @Bezdanj Ko normalan leti za NY preko Dubaija tj 5000 milja više?Ako je cena karte ista kao za direktan let onda je subvencionisana
— Vladimir Todoric (@VladimirTodoric) October 18, 2013
@MidzaBg @Bezdanj Who normally flies to NY through Dubai, i.e. 5000 miles more? If the price of the ticket is the same as for a direct flight then that [ticket] is subsidized
— Vladimir Todoric (@VladimirTodoric) October 18, 2013
An Air Serbia aircraft had its first test flight [sr] on October 23 under the new brand and colors at 3 p.m. over Belgrade, but it remains to be seen just how far Air Serbia's other planes will be flying.
This post was updated on October 24, 2013 at 1630 GMT. An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Air Serbia flights would be routed from Belgrade through Dubai to US cities. Air Serbia plans to reroute flights from Belgrade through Abu Dhabi to US cities. Thanks to our reader Vladimir Gojkovic for spotting the error.


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Gulf Cities: Cultural Capitals of the Arab World? · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

UAE commentator Sultan Al Qassemi argues that “some of the cities of the Gulf were transforming into cultural capitals of the Arab world as the traditional capitals of Baghdad, Cairo, Beirut and Damascus continue to suffer from civil strife.” He posts arguments in support and against this notion on his blog here.


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In Wake of Suicide Bombing Russians Question Their Security · Global Voices
Nina Jobe

Volgograd bus explosion caught by a windshield mounted camera. YouTube screenshot.
An explosion aboard a Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad) commuter bus caused a stir in Russia’s blogosphere on Monday. Initial reports [ru] stated that the bus exploded because of a faulty natural gas powered motor, and that at least six people [ru] had died. However, within minutes netizens began to speculate that the blast was the result of a terrorist act.
Some Twitter users demanded photos [ru] of the damaged bus, and the popular tabloid LifeNews offered [ru] a 50 thousand ruble reward for a video (indeed, because of the common use of car mounted cameras, video of the blast soon turned up [ru], but not on LifeNews). In the meantime, conflicting photos were released on different television news stations and online news portals, with no clear sources or citations. In fact, some publications used photographs of other burned or damaged buses to illustrate the news — instances that LiveJournal user ljfun picked up on and collated into a post [ru]:
К примеру, Волгоградский ресурс «Всё для вас» распространил новость с фотографией […] автобус[а] взорванн[ого] в Израиле в 2002 году палестинскими террористами. […] Еще один волгоградский сайт опубликовал фото взорванного автобуса в Бургасе (Болгария)
For example, the Volgograd resource “All for you” distributed the news with a photograph of a bus that exploded in Israel in 2002 by Palestinian terrorists. […] Another Volgograd website published a photo of a bus that exploded in Burgas (Bulgaria)
Some of the confusion was created by Twitter users like Vladimir Zolin, who claimed to be a witness, but seemed to be tweeting wildly inaccurate information:
[…] я ехал на 5-6 машин позади этого автобуса. При взрыве обугленные тела разбросало прямо по дороге!!…
— Владимир (@zolinvladimir) October 21, 2013
[…] I was driving 5 or 6 cars behind this bus. During the explosion charred bodies were tossed all over the road!!..
Two hours after the explosion, Russia’s Investigative Committee released a statement [ru] declaring it an act of terror. Although the Committee offered few details beyond this, the announcement opened up the floodgates of speculation. Echo Moskvy's Vladimir Varfolomeyev tweeted referencing recent ethnic violence against Muslim migrants in Moscow's Biruylyovo district:
Будет очень-очень плохо, если взрыв в Волгограде вдруг окажется как-то связан с националистическими/мигрантскими проблемами. Не дай бог. — Владимир Варфоломеев (@Varfolomeev) October 21, 2013
It will be very very bad if the blast in Volgograd turns out to be connected with the nationalist/migrant problems. God forbid.
An hour later information surfaced that the bombing was carried out by a woman wearing a hijab. She was allegedly Naida Asiyalova, a young Muslim woman married to an ethnic Russian convert to Islam, who had become a terrorist operating in Dagestan. Asiyalova was apparently seriously ill — two years ago her friends took up a collection [ru] on the social network VKontakte, claiming that she needed jaw surgery.
Russian nationalists were quick, as always, to note that Asiyalova was from the North Caucasus. Nationalist publicist Egor Holmogorov, for example, mocked the old trope that “crime has no nationality”:
У смертницы в Волгограде конечно нет национальности. Разумеется это была чувашка прошедшая подготовку в лагерях террористов в Ирландии.
— Egor Holmogorov (@holmogorov) October 21, 2013
Of course the suicide bomber in Volgograd has no nationality. Most certainly it was an ethnic Chuvash trained in Irish terrorist camps.
Some, like the blogger Yuri Pronkou, see [ru] the answer to such acts of terror in giving Russia's security apparatus even more leeway than it already has:
Еще раз о моей позиции по работе спецслужб: в стране должна быть система противовесов, которая позволит (с санкции суда) спецслужбам производить прослушку, прочитку и т.д. подозреваемых лиц.
Once again, about my position on the special services: Russia should have a system of checks and balances that would allow (with court approval) the special services wiretaping, electronically monitoring, etc. of the suspects.
In the same blog post, Pronkou asked his readers if they would agree to wiretapping if they knew it would make them safer. Only ten percent answered positively.
The rest feel that Putin and Russia's security apparatus have failed to live up to their promises of personal safety. For example, the blogger irlandets01 wrote [ru]:
Заплатив за безопасность свободой мы купили явно бракованный и тухлый товар.
Having paid for security with our freedom we have clearly purchased defective, rotten goods.
Many Russians realize that Putin cannot protect them from continued acts of terror. But with the Sochi Winter Olympic Games only 109 days away, it may be that Russia’s security services will not be able to protect visitors either.

author: Nina Jobe


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Kazakhstan’s Soviet Mosaics: “Ghosts of an Epoch Gone By” · Global Voices
Alexander Sodiqov

In a post titled “The Walls Are Crying”, a blogger reflects [ru] on Kazakhstan's slowly disappearing Soviet artistic mosaics that once adorned housing blocks and industrial facilities across the country:
Many of these works of art died along with the buildings which they adorned. Some are being destroyed. But many mosaics can still be seen, and they are in a great state. They are like ghosts of an epoch gone by, reminding us of the country that does not exist any longer, of which we once were part.
The post includes images of several beautiful Soviet-era mosaics.

author: Alexander Sodiqov


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Macedonia Imprisons Investigative Journalist For Reporting On Local Murder · Global Voices
Danica Radisic

A criminal court in Macedonia's capital city of Skopje found journalist Tomislav Kezarovski guilty for allegedly revealing the name of a protected witness in a high profile murder case from 2005, and sentenced him to four and a half years in prison. Journalists and media workers in Macedonia and other countries are condemning the sentence, handed down on October 21, 2013.
“Freedom for Kezarovski”, a frequent image that has been circulating the Macedonian Web and social networks recently.
Kezarovski, a well-known investigative reporter, was arrested in May 2013 for a story he wrote five years ago – about the murder of 57-year-old Lazar Milosevski in the village of Orese near Veles – for a publication that no longer exists. Coincidentally, in February 2013 and before Kezarovski's arrest, a “protected” witness in that case came forward to claim that he had falsely testified against the defendants in the Orese case because he had been threatened by the police.
In the months prior to his arrest, Kezarovski had also been investigating an unrelated case – the death of Nikola Mladenov, who was the publisher and editor of an independent media outlet – and had brought to light certain discrepancies in what officials had labeled as a “classic traffic accident” in which Mladenov was killed.
The official reason for Kezarovski's arrest in May and sentence in October, however, is endangering a protected witness and, thus, helping in overturning the convictions of the men sentenced for the Orese murder. As Balkan Insight reveals:
Two brothers, Ordan and Ljupco Gjorgievski, were charged as perpetrators while Gjorge Petrovski, who was extradited from the United States, was charged with ordering the murder.
But in a spectacular twist in February this year, a former protected witness, Zlatko Arsovski, admitted falsely testifying against the defendants, saying he did so after threats from the police.
The sensational admission resulted in the release of the defendants who had claimed all along that a police inspector had framed them out of revenge.
The prosecution in Kezarovski’s trial claimed that the publication of Kezarovski’s article allowed the murder trial defendants to find out who the protected witness was and influence him to change his testimony.
OSCE Media Freedom representative Dunja Mijatović has made several statements since Kezarovski's arrest in May expressing concern that the case will lead to more stifling of media in Macedonia and the region. Upon hearing the sentence Kezarovski received, Mijatović reiterated her concern in an official OSCE statement:
Today’s verdict has serious consequences for free expression and media freedom. Criminal prosecution of reporters for their journalistic activities violates the fundamental human right to free expression and the country’s OSCE commitments to develop and protect free media.
Social networks have been overwhelmed since the reading of Kezarovski's sentence with outrage and concern, coming mostly from Macedonian journalists and their colleagues from other countries. Twitter user @MoPkoB4E, a Macedonian living abroad, said:
Good morning, my name is Alex and I come from a country that locked up a journalist for a written article #Кежаровски
— Bestish Mensch (@MoPkoB4E) October 21, 2013
Elena Stavrevska also commented on Twitter:
Не, не мора да си партиски определен за пресудата на #Кежаровски директно да те тангира. Нема ваши и наши во ова!
— Елена (@EStavrevska) October 21, 2013
No, no need to choose political affiliation for the sentencing of #Кежаровски to have a direct impact on you. There is no yours and ours on this one!
— Елена (@EStavrevska) October 21, 2013
Twitter user @sheretoto added:
Пресудата за #кежаровски е срам за судството, за државата и пред сè срам за сите нас. Поразен сум и толку празен денеска. Ќе повратам
— x→∞ t=0 (@sheretoto) October 21, 2013
The sentence for #кежаровски [#kezarovski] is shameful for the justice system, for the state and above all for all of us. I feel defeated and so empty today. I'm going to throw up
— x→∞ t=0 (@sheretoto) October 21, 2013
Aleksandar Sazdovski was among the many media workers who could not hide his disgust, reminding everyone of the 2012 tragedy in which Miodrag Jovanovic, mayor of small town Staro Nagoricane near the Serbian border, hit and killed a man [mk] with his car, then fled the scene. Jovanovic was never detained for this incident or charged with anything and later was named CEO of a government-owned company.
Правда во Македонија: градоначалник убива човек со кола и станува директор. Новинар пишува и добива четири и пол години затвор. #Кежаровски
— Aleksandar Sazdovski (@sazspasm) October 21, 2013
Justice in Macedonia: mayor kills a man with his car and becomes a CEO. A journalist writes and gets four and a half years in prison. #Кежаровски
— Aleksandar Sazdovski (@sazspasm) October 21, 2013
Journalists and watchdog organizations around the world were also deeply concerned with the entire case from beginning to end and are protesting the disproportionate sentence online. On the day of sentencing, EU Commissioner for Enlargement Štefan Füle also tweeted from his official account:
fYRo Macedonia:Following the case of journalist #Kezarovski for months with concern.Will carefully study the judgement when available.
— Štefan Füle (@StefanFuleEU) October 21, 2013
Tomislav Kezarovski has not officially begun to serve his sentence, but he has been refused release by the Skopje court and will remain in detention until his sentence begins. This case, however, seems to be far from over, and online Macedonian journalists are calling for protests in Skopje to demand his release.


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92 Countries Sign Minamata Convention to Prevent Mercury Poisoning  · Global Voices
Keiko Tanaka

More than 50 years after the residents of Minamata, Japan suffered an outbreak of mercury poisoning due to contaminated local seafood from highly toxic waste water, 92 countries have signed a United Nations treaty designed to prevent such a tragedy from happening again.
The Minamata Convention on Mercury, a global legally binding instrument on mercury was adopted in Minamata, Japan, during the convention held on October 7 to 11, 2013.
The treaty is named after Minamata city where its residents suffered mercury poisoning from 1950s. In online version of a journal Environmental Health Perspectives, science and environmental journalist Rebecca Kessler explains the story of the victims of “Minamata disease“:
In July 1956, in a fishing village near the city of Minamata on Japan’s Shiranui Sea, a baby girl named Shinobu Sakamoto was born. Her parents soon realized something was wrong. At 3 months old, when healthy babies can hold up their heads, Sakamoto could not. She grew slowly and began crawling unusually late. At age 3 years, she drooled excessively and still couldn't walk. Her parents sent her to live at a local hospital, where she spent four years in therapy to learn to walk, use her hands, and perform other basic functions. Early on, several physicians agreed on a diagnosis of cerebral palsy.
Yet there were signs that Sakamoto’s condition was part of something much bigger. A few years before her birth, dead fish and other sea creatures had begun appearing in Minamata Bay. Seabirds were losing their ability to fly. And cats were dying off, many from convulsions that locals called “dancing disease.” Then, two months before Sakamoto’s birth, an outbreak of an unknown neurological illness was first reported among the area’s fishing families. Sakamoto’s older sister, Mayumi, and several of the family’s neighbors were diagnosed with the mysterious ailment, which was attributed to contaminated seafood. In 1957 scientists gave the ailment a name: Minamata disease.
That baby girl, Shinobu Sakamoto is now the Minamata Disease Victims Group leader. Aside from the diplomatic conference for the Minamata Convention, international NGOs and citizen groups also got together and exchanged information. The International POPs Elimination Network (IPEN) co-hosted a symposium with Citizens Against Chemicals Pollution (CACP) on October 8, 2013 and presented their Minamata Declaration on Toxic Metals with Shinobu.
Minamata Disease Victims Group leader Shinobu Sakamoto holds declaration presented by the International POPs Elimination Network (IPEN)
Photo taken by Minori OKUDA
IPEN’s senior science and technical adviser Joe DiGangi said:
The Mercury Treaty is particularly connected to Minamata because it specifically calls on governments around the world to learn and apply the lessons from the Minamata tragedy to prevent mercury poisoning in the future. Unfortunately, the original tragedy is still not resolved.
With the Minamata name comes a special responsibility – and an opportunity to take actions so that the name Minamata is not only associated with a tragedy, but becomes a positive model in the resolution of the world’s worst case of mass mercury poisoning.

author: Keiko Tanaka


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Only Football Divides Tanzania · Global Voices
Omar Mohammed

The Benjamin Mkapa National Stadium in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Photo by Omar Mohammed
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania — When it comes to football rivalries, few in Africa are more intense than the one between Simba Sports Club and Young Africans (known locally as Yanga). Both from the country’s commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, they are the two biggest and oldest clubs in Tanzania. They have won the the greatest number of titles, boast the biggest fan bases, and in their squads you will find the best collection of talent in the nation.
When these two clubs meet, Dar es Salaam is transformed. A certain electricity courses through the city. It’s subtle, but the energy shift is palpable, with Dar’s famous edginess rising a few notches.
Tanzania has long prided itself on its unassailable unity. We are Tanzanians first, before any ethnic, religious or tribal affiliation. But on the day of the Dar es Salaam Derby, the city cleaves into two distinct clans. People don either Simba SC's famous red and white or Yanga's yellow and green. Street corners sprout flagpoles carrying the teams’ logos, marking a neighbourhood's affiliation. Cars fly banners signaling their drivers’ allegiance. The flag with the majestic lion is Simba; the torch superimposed on a map of Africa is Yanga. On match day, there is no such thing in Dar as a neutral.
I am a Simba fan. Always have been and always will be. My connection to the club runs deep. My father, Mohammed Hadi Tamimi, played for the club in the late 60s and early 70s, when it was known as Sunderland. And as a boy, I would wake up on the day of the Derby, don my Simba kit and my uncles would carry me on their shoulders to the game.
“One day, everyone will be Simba SC's supporter.” Photo by Omar Mohammed
My memory of those afternoons is filled with heartache. I remember mostly the defeats, and the sense of despair that followed. One player in particular was a thorn in Simba's side. Said Sued “Scud” played for Yanga in the 90s and his specialty was scoring against Simba. He was slightly overweight and didn't play that much, but when the Derby came around it was almost inevitable that he would score the winner, with a thunderous strike befitting the nickname “Scud”.
As I’ve grown older, my devotion to Simba has waned somewhat. In the last ten years I attended no more than three Dar Derbies. But recently I started monitoring my old team's progress again and last Sunday, after a long hiatus, I decided to go and watch the latest meeting between the old arch-rivals.
I arrived, with some friends, at the fantastic, 60,000-capacity Benjamin William Mkapa National Stadium about an hour before the 4pm kick-off. The atmosphere was already electric, with the two sets of fans trying to out-sing each other. A pre-game match between the club's youth teams was underway. As I took my seat, I felt the sense of anxiety start to build.
Simba was coming into the game the more in-form team. Still unbeaten and leading the league, they had won five of their last eight games. Yanga, on the other hand, had already suffered their first defeat of the season, but with four wins and three draws, they were in fourth position, only three points behind the league leaders.
Simba players in a huddle before kick-off. Photo by Omar Mohammed
But as the game kicked off, it was Yanga who came out of the gate in blistering form. They handled the ball with pace and fluency and controlled the tempo throughout the first half. Simba seemed unsure of themselves, with no clear idea of what their tactics should be. They were lethargic, struggled to keep possession, resorting instead to long balls that inevitably led to them giving the ball away, which put them on the defensive.
The star of the first half was undoubtedly Yanga's number 10, Mrisho Ngasa. A former Simba player, he was causing his former club all sorts of problems. Playing in the pocket, between the midfield and attack, his movements off the ball wreaked havoc on the heart of Simba's defence. When he had the ball his pace simply terrorised Simba's back four. 15 minutes into the game, he was rewarded for his efforts. A ball swung in from the left, eluded Simba's defender and broke into Ngasa's path. Ngasa flicked it into the net to give Yanga a well deserved lead.
Mrisho Ngasa, who made life difficult for Simba's defense in the first half, celebrates opening the score for Yanga in the Dar Derby. Photo courtesy of Lenzi ya Michezo
Things got even better for Yanga in the 35th minute. After Simba failed to clear a long throw into their six-yard box, Yanga’s Hamid Kiiza pounced, to give his team a 2-0 lead. And just before half-time, Yanga scored again. After an errant pass was intercepted, midfielder Didier Kavumbangu dribbled past a Simba defender before setting up Kiiza, who slotted in his second goal of the game. 3-0, Yanga. It was shaping up to be a massacre.
Simba had no idea of what hit them. When the referee blew his whistle for half-time, the players seemed relieved. Their fans were shell-shocked. Some decided they had seen enough and left the stadium. Those who did were about to miss one of the greatest comebacks in the history of the Dar Derby.
Soon after the start of the second half Simba made two changes. Midfielders William Lucian and Said Ndemla came in for the underwhelming Haroun Chanongo and Abdulhalim Humuod. The two young substitutes quickly transformed the match. All of a sudden Simba's midfield, out-run, out-hustled and out-played in the first half, grabbed control of the game. Lucian and Ndemla, in particular, injected some pace into Simba's attacks and soon enough they had helped their team pull a goal back.
Then, in the 54th minute, Yanga failed to deal with a speculative punt forward from Simba that found striker Bertram Mombeki in position to blast the ball into the roof of the net, giving his side some hope.
A few minutes later a corner kick swung in by Ramadhan Singano was headed powerfully into the net by the Ugandan centre-back Joseph Owino and all of a sudden it was 3-2, and we had a game on our hands.
Yanga’s fans appeared deflated and anxious while Simba's began believing that a comeback might be in store. The noise in the stadium was deafening, with the cries of “Let's go, Simba!”
But Yanga weren’t done yet. Ngasa, quieter in the second half, went through clean on goal at one point, but his tame shot was parried away by Simba's goalkeeper, Abel Dhaira. Ngasa was to rue that missed chance. Five minutes from the end of the match, Simba got a free-kick on the right wing, near the edge of Yanga's box. The resulting cross was met beautifully by Gilbert Kaze, who headed in the equalizer, sending the red and white half of the stadium into a frenzy. Simba’s comeback was complete.
Final Score in the Dar Derby. Photo by Omar Mohammed
It was a stunning turnaround, the first time in the history of the Derby that a team had been able to accomplish such a feat. The match ended 3-3.
A few minutes later, after the referee had blown for full time, some Simba players collapsed to the ground, not quite believing what they had just pulled off. Those who could manage to stand embraced their opponents, taking in the idea that they’d just been part of an unforgettable classic, one that will long live in the memory of their fans.
Omar Mohammed is a Tanzanian journalist based in Dar es Salaam. He tweets at @shurufu.

author: Omar Mohammed


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Overwhelmed by Syrian Refugees, Bulgaria Seeks EU Aid · Global Voices
Danica Radisic

Bulgaria, as the closest EU country to Syria, is seeing more than its fair share of the average 5,000 refugees that are fleeing Syria every day. Unprepared and inexperienced in dealing with this influx of refugees seeking shelter, food and protection, Bulgaria has requested assistance and financial aid from the European Union. Meanwhile, some Bulgarian ministers have allegedly proposed to use some of the new funding to put up a 30-kilometer barrier fence along the border with Turkey to prevent illegal entry.
Open Democracy reports in more detail:
Geographically, Bulgaria is not that remote from Syria. Sharing a border with Turkey, Bulgaria is the EU member state closest to Syria if one is travelling by road or railway transport. Therefore, as the most likely first point of entry into the Union, Bulgaria must be well equipped to meet the challenges that will ensue with the new expected waves of Syrian refugees in the coming months. Unfortunately, that appears not to be the case.[…]
This week it is expected that the European Commission will make a final decision as to whether Bulgaria will receive financial aid to cope with the situation. In the meantime, Kristalina Georgieva, the European Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response, has warned that the Bulgarian authorities lack experience of dealing with similar situations and have failed in crisis planning.


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Saudi Women Gear Up To Defy Driving Ban · Global Voices
Anas Soliman

Dozens of women have shared videos of themselves driving on major roads and highways across Saudi Arabia ahead of October 26, a day they plan on defying the ban. The videos are available here
Since October 26th has been chosen as a day for defying the government ban on women driving, Saudi women have uploaded videos of themselves preparing for the day. Opponents, on the other hand, sought government harsh enforcement of the ban calling it a “conspiracy” and describing it as a “demonstration” in a country were demonstrations are strictly prohibited.
The campaign's YouTube channel and Instagram profile were filled with videos and photographs of women driving in major roads, and others that are getting trained for driving.
Nasser al-Omar, one of the major conservative Islamist clerics in the country, tweeted [ar]:
هل يعلم المطالبون بقيادة المرأة أنهم يخدمون أعداء هذه البلاد بإدخالها في الفوضى ونشر الفساد، وهي أحوج ما تكون للأمن والإيمان والاستقرار!
— أ.د.ناصر العمر (@naseralomar) October 10, 2013
Do those who call for women driving understand that they are serving the enemies of this country by getting it into chaos and corruption when it badly needs security, faith and stability?!
al-Omar, and other clerics, tried to visit the Royal Court yesterday, October 22, but they were not given an appointment. In a video recorded outside the royal court [ar], al-Omar said that those who call for women driving “are not taking the legitimate method” (referring to defying the ban, rather than asking the king to repeal it).
The Interior Ministry issued a statement [ar] today, October 23rd, saying:
وعطفاً على ما يثار في شبكات التواصل الاجتماعي وبعض من وسائل الإعلام من دعوات لتجمعات ومسيرات محظورة بدعوى قيادة المرأة للسيارة، وحيث إن الأنظمة المعمول بها في المملكة تمنع كل ما يخل بالسلم الاجتماعي ويفتح باب الفتنة ويستجيب لأوهام ذوي الأحلام المريضة من المغرضين والدخلاء والمتربصين، لذا فإن وزارة الداخلية لتؤكد للجميع بأن الجهات المختصة سوف تباشر تطبيق الأنظمة بحق المخالفين كافة بكل حزم وقوة
Regarding what has been circulating in social media networks and other media channels about forbidden gatherings and demonstrations for women driving, the regulations in the kingdom prohibit whatever violates civil security and calls for temptations of harm-seekers and those with sick dreams. For that reason, the Interior Ministry assures everyone that the specialized authorities will enforce the regulations on those who violate them with firmness and vigor.
The campaign organizers have been insisting that they were not calling for any demonstration:
للأشخاص الذين يروجون بأن هناك مظاهرة يوم 26 اكتوبر ، نحيطكم علما بأننا لا نكل ولا نمل من تكرار بأنه لا يوجد مظاهرات ولن تهبط عزيمتنا بتاتا.
— حملة 26 أكتوبر (@oct26driving) October 21, 2013
For those who promote that we are calling for a demonstration on October 26, we want to inform you that we had tirelessly repeated that there will be no demonstration, and this will not weaken our will.
Saudi blogger Fouad al-Farhan compared the statement of the Interior Ministry to Egyptian Armed Forces General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi's statement 48 hours before overthrowing President Mohamed Morsi:
#بيان_وزارة_الداخلية_حول_قيادة_المرآة يشبه بيان السيسي قبل الانقلاب اللي أعطى فيه مهلة لجميع الأطراف، كل طرف جلس يفسر البيان بأنه في صالحه
— فؤاد الفرحان (@alfarhan) October 23, 2013
The statement of the Interior Ministry regarding women driving is similar to el-Sisi's that gave a chance for all parties. Each party interpreted the statement as being in their favor.
Amnesty International has also called for signing the campaign petition:
Show your solidarity with #Saudi #women‘s drive to freedom by signing the @oct26driving petition for #women2drive: http://t.co/TDoKIiKLhW
— Amnesty West Gulf (@amnestygulf) October 23, 2013


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South Korea: Labor Worker’s Posthumous Victory Over Samsung · Global Voices
Lee Yoo Eun

South Korean conglomerate Samsung has come under fire for their notorious labor violations. ‘International Campaign for Health and Labour Rights of Samsung Electronics Workers‘ explains about South Korean Court's recent ruling that orders industrial-accident payouts to the bereaved family of a former Samsung employee who died of leukemia.

author: Lee Yoo Eun


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Tajik Official Plagiarizes Story Extolling President · Global Voices
Alexander Sodiqov

Social media users in Tajikistan have caught an education official-cum-ardent supporter of the incumbent president plagiarizing. In his recent article “Why I Am Voting for [President] Emomali Rahmon” [ru] Ilkhomjon Khamidov extolled the country's veteran president who is seeking to secure a re-election in the November 6 vote.
After the article was shared online, netizens were quick to detect that its author had borrowed quite a number of sentences from recent speeches by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev. On October 23, Khamidov admitted [ru] that he had used parts of these leaders’ speeches in his article literally and without attribution. A Deputy Dean at the Tajik National University, he apologized [tj] on Facebook, noting that, “young people sometimes makes mistakes”.
Dozens of netizens have since reacted to Khamidov's confession by suggesting that his doctoral dissertation should also be checked for plagiarized content and that he should be banned from teaching at a university.
Parviz Khamdamov tweets [ru]:
позор хамидову. “простите я молодой” – это разве оправдание? гнать таких из универа и отнять все ученые степени http://t.co/F1ofslGN5G
— Парвиз Хамдамов (@mr_parvizon) October 23, 2013
Shame on Khamidov. “Sorry, I am young” – is this an excuse? People like him should be fired by the university and their academic degrees should be revoked.
While blogger Shukufa argues [tj] that this case indicates the ability of social media users to hold the authorities accountable:
This is a good lesson for Khamidov. If you have nothing to say, do not speak about issues that you have nothing to say about. In general, however, this is a very instructive case. It shows that in the age of the Internet and Google, it is difficult for the authorities to [fool] ordinary people. It is so because these people have access to sources of information that the authorities cannot control.


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The Suspended Martyrdom of Russia’s Alexey Navalny · Global Voices
Gina Lentine

Cartoon Alexey Navalny, animated by YouTube user KuTstupid, 22 August 2013, screen capture.
After his tumultuous guilty verdict and five-year prison sentence last July, a court on October 17 decided to suspend Alexey Navalny's sentence, leaving the Russian opposition's most prominent leader on probation but free. While Russian law forbids convicted felons from running for or holding elected office, the suspended sentence does allow Navalny considerable flexibility [ru] to remain engaged in Moscow and national politics. In less than a week, for instance, Navalny launched a new citizen initiative [ru] against a government plan to freeze the pension system's private savings accounts.
Suspicious about the Russian legal system and its reasons for the suspended sentence, many Russians remain confused about why the Kirov court lowered the severity of the punishment handed down to Navalny. Was it an effort to boost the business community's confidence in Russia's lagging economy, as newspaper Vedomosti suggested? Was it part of a larger plan to bring Navalny into the fold of the established political world, eroding his credibility as an oppositionist?
Not surprisingly, the RuNet is abuzz with speculation, opinion, and theories about Navalny's suspended sentence. LiveJournal user teh_nomad even compiled [ru] tweets from several politicians, journalists, and others.
Ilya Yashin, an opposition political activist, tweeted:
Приговор суда это по сути политическая изоляция. #Навальный не может свободно ездить по стране и миру. И в выборах участвовать не может.
— Илья Яшин (@IlyaYashin) October 16, 2013
The verdict essentially amounts to political isolation. Navalny is not free to travel around the country or the world. And he cannot participate in elections.
Television celebrity Ksenia Sobchak lamented:
Невиновным людям дали условный срок(то есть признали виновными),Алексей не сможет участвовать в выборах,но мы,получается, и этому рады:(((
— Ксения Собчак (@xenia_sobchak) October 16, 2013
Innocent people get a suspended sentence (i.e., are declared guilty), Alexey will not be able to participate in the elections, and we, it turns out, are happy about it.
Navalny-supportive journalist Oleg Kashin summed up Navalny's sentence in a one-word tweet that read: УСЛОВНЫЙ (SUSPENDED).
Elsewhere on Russian Twitter, opinions were diverse as they were numerous. User Dmitriy Zykov underscored the darker side of Navalny's political platform, namely his borderline xenophobic views about Russia's southern territories:
Навальный нужен как посредник между властью и протестующими. Чтобы говорил нам с трибуны: “Во всём виноваты чёрные” и “Давайте расходиться”
— Дмитрий Зыков (@dmitryhorse) October 16, 2013
Navalny is needed as a mediator between the government and the protesters, in order to tell us from the podium: “The blacks are to blame for everything” and “Let's dissolve [the Russian Federation's inclusion of the Muslim North Caucasus].”
On the other hand, Kirill Martynov, a lecturer at the Higher School of Economics, thought Navalny's reaction to the Biryulevo riots demonstrated his ascension to a new, more refined social status:
Теперь мы должны увидеть нового, аккуратного, милого Навального. Первые свои комментарии в новом амплуа он накануне дал про Бирюлево.
— Кирилл Мартынов (@kmartynov) October 16, 2013
Now we should see a new, well-kept, kind Navalny. His first comments in this new role were delivered the other day, on the subject of Biryulevo.
Journalist Olga Kuzmenkova wrote that witnesses to the announcement of Navalny's suspended sentence had feared the worst:
Короче, чтоб вы просто понимали обстановку: адвокаты, подсудимые, жены, большая часть журналистов были уверены, что это конец
— лемур (@okuzmenkova) October 16, 2013
In short, so that you understand the situation: the lawyers, defendents, wives, and a large group of journalists were certain, that this was the end.
Mikhail Prokhorov wrote [ru] on Facebook about the two sides of Navalny's suspended sentence:
Навальный остается на свободе, это хорошо, Алексея можно только поздравить. На мой взгляд, приговор отражает уровень компромисса между разными группами высшей бюрократии и ручной характер управления судебной системой в России. Телефонное право никто не отменял, и на событиях, развернувшихся вокруг Навального, мы это отчетливо видим: посадили на невероятный срок, выпустили по ходатайству прокуратуры, что само по себе нонсенс, отпустили на свободу, но с условным сроком. Такой приговор демонстрирует узкий коридор, в котором вынуждена действовать оппозиция. Условный срок — это признание, что фактически преступления не было, но политика, которого теперь сделали всероссийски известным, сохраняют в подвешенном состоянии — с возможностью в любой момент отправить в зону.
Navalny remains free, this is good, and we can only congratulate Alexey. In my view, the sentence reflects a degree of compromise between the different groups of the higher bureaucracy and the manual-control nature of the judicial system in Russia. [Soviet-era] “telephone justice” hasn't gone anywhere, and, in the events that unfolded around Navalny, we can see clearly: he received an unbelievable sentence, he was released at the request of the prosecutor's office (which is itself nonsense), and he was ultimately released, but with a suspended sentence. This verdict demonstrates the narrow corridor through which the opposition is forced to act. A suspended sentence is a recognition that there was in fact no crime, but the politician, whom they've now made famous throughout Russia, is held in limbo—with the possibility that they'll send him back to the slammer at any moment.
Eduard Limonov, 29 March 2013, YouTube screen capture.
Meanwhile, Russian writer and political dissident Eduard Limonov's reaction was characteristically bizarre and disparaging:
Хомячки! Ваша Золушка- Алексей Навальный стала принцессой! Радуйтесь, хомячки! Все в Жан-Жак и каждому по штруделю !
— Эдуард Лимонов (@edvlimonov) October 16, 2013
[Internet] hamsters! Your Cinderella—Alexey Navalny—has become a princess! Celebrate, hamsters! Everyone to [cafe] Jean-Jacques. A strudel for each man!

author: Gina Lentine


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Three Lessons on Dating in China · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Jocelyn Eikenburg from Speaking of China shared her experience in cross-cultural dating in China. The three lessons she had learned are: 1. Actions matter more than words; 2. Keep that past relationship in the past; and 3. It takes a lot longer to meet the parents.


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USA: Elevating Young Asian Voices in Immigration Reform Debate · Global Voices
Lee Yoo Eun

The Youth Leadership Council of the Korean American Resource & Cultural Center created an inspiring video to help young Asian voices heard in the immigration reform debate. Blogger Angry Asian Man briefly comments on this video featuring local youth's thought-provoking spoken word performances.


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Video: Saudi Girls Blamed for Being Attacked Outside Mall  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

A screenshot from the video which shows the scuffle between the man and the girls
A video showing young men harassing women in a shopping mall in Dhahran, the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia, is causing a storm online.
This video of the incident shows a mob following girls out of a mall – and a scuffle that follows between the girls and some of the boys. Other versions of the video have been removed from YouTube after the furor.
In this YouTube video, which is still available, cccoppwew puts the blame on the girls, for not covering up properly [ar]:
اختي خروجك بحجاب سافر وارتياد الاسواق بدون محرم وبدون ضروره لعدم وجود اغراض معك يدل على عدم الضروره احمي نفسك من ضعاف النفوس والله لو كنتي ملتزمه بحجابك واخذتي اغراضك الضروريه لما تعرض لك احد
الحمد لله على الستر
My sister, you have left your home without a proper hijab (veil) that doesn't not cover you fully and gone to a mall without a male chaperon and without the need [to go to the mall] because you are not carrying any shopping bags with you. Protect yourself from the weak. If you were properly dressed and went to the mall to finish buy necessities, no one would have stopped you.
Thank God for chastity.
Although the girls had their hair covered and were wearing a abaya, the black cloak which fully covers the body, the commotion seems to be because they did not cover their faces too.
Comments on their dress-code recurs on Twitter, under the hashtag [ar] #تحرش_شباب_بفتيات_بالشرقيه which translates to Youth Harass Girls in the Eastern Province.
Manar Alkhalidi also points fingers at the girls:
#تحرش_شباب_بفتيات_بالشرقيه انا معاكم ان فيه نوعيه من الشباب ماتستحي وماتخاف ربها ، بس لو البنات بحالهم ومو مستعرضين محد قربهم.
— منار الخالدي (@manarto_sh) October 23, 2013
I agree that there are young men who have no shame and do not fear God, but if those girls kept to themselves and not show off [their femininity] no one would have approached them
And this Twitter user also wonders why the girls did not follow the strict dress-code imposed on Saudi women – full coverage, from top to bottom, in black:
#تحرش_شباب_بفتيات_بالشرقيه … لماذا لم تلتزم بحشمتها وسترها الم تعلمين ياحواء أن الحيوان  فيك عندما يجوع…….
— ♛سَمووُرﻫ♛ (@smorh001) October 23, 2013
Why weren't they properly covered? Doesn't Eve know that an animal would betray you when he gets hungry?
But Luma Alnami says the men are at fault:
#تحرش_شباب_بفتيات_بالشرقيه يجيك واحد عقله عقل حيوان نفس اللي بالمقطع ويقول الغلط على البنت عشان شكلها يابابا انتو لو شفتوا كيس زباله لحقتوه!
— لمى ي.النعمي (@_lmmash) October 23, 2013
Some people whose mentality is like the animals we saw in the video put the blame on the girls. You would harass a garbage bag if you saw it moving.
Sara agrees:
#تحرش_شباب_بفتيات_بالشرقيهنعيد ونكرر مهما كانت البنت كاشفه ترا مو مبرر انك تتحرش فيهاا الا اذا استبدلنا اسمك ب كلمة حيوان
— سارا الشكره (@s_s00000) October 22, 2013
I repeat, no matter how much the girl shows of her body, it is no excuse for you to harass her unless you are an animal
And this user complains about the onlookers who filmed and posted the videos of the attack:
#تحرش_شباب_بفتيات_بالشرقيه السفيه اللي يصور المفروض يتحاكم وينسجن ويصير عبره لقطيع الخرفان اللي صورهم وهم يتفاخرون بإنعدام رجولتهم
— S♛ (@ALG_SOSO) October 22, 2013
The ridiculous person who filmed the attack should be put on trial and arrested and made an example out of for the herd he has filmed showing off their lack of manhood.
Meanwhile, Moheeb Alsheikh asks where were the authorities when this happened:
في حال تجاوزنا اخلاق الشباب والبنات اللي بالمقطع وتربيتهمسؤال..مافي نظام؟الامن، الهيئه، الشباب الصالحين! وينكم #تحرش_شباب_بفتيات_بالشرقيه
— مُهيب الشيخ (@MoheebAlsheikh) October 23, 2013
In case we ignore the manners of the girls and boys in the video and their upbringing, the question is: where are the authorities? Where is the security? Where is the Commission [Saudi religious police aka Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice]? And where are the good young men? Where are you?
And Khalid offers a solution:
الحل سهل جدا اسواق نسائيه ٪١٠٠ وتنتهي المشاكل من الطرفين لان الشاب مراهق ولايوجد قانون رادع وفتاة متبرجه  #تحرش_شباب_بفتيات_بالشرقيه
— خالد (@505te) October 22, 2013
The solution is simple: 100 per cent women only malls and this ends the problem for both sides, because the young men are adolescents and there is no law to stop them and the women wear make up