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Thailand: “Reform the World’s Harshest Lèse Majesté Law” · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Several groups, scholars, and activists in Thailand are demanding the amendment of Article 112 of the country’s Criminal Code or the lese majeste law, which forbids anyone from insulting the King and members of the Royal Family. Many people are alarmed that lese majeste cases have increased in the past few years; from 33 cases in 2005 it went up to 478 reported cases in 2010.
Thailand’s lese majeste is described by many commentators as the worlds’s ‘harshest’ since the law’s minimum mandatory sentence is already three years long while the maximum sentence is 15 years for a single count. Enacted into law in 1908, Thailand’s lese majeste has been amended several times. The 1976 amendment was the most recent with increased penalty of up to 15 years jail.
Amend Article 112. Photo from Asian Correspondent
The Campaign Committee to Amend Article 112 of the Criminal Code or CCAA 112 is a broad network which is spearheading the initiative to reform the law. Meanwhile, Nitirat (Enlightened Jurists) is a group of seven Thammasat University law lecturers who drafted a set of proposed amendments to the Constitution, including amendments to the controversial lèse majesté.
Nitirat explains the need to reform Article 112:
The existing law concerning defamation of, insults to and threats to the King, the Queen, the Heir-apparent, and the Regent is inappropriate both in the structure of its sections, the range of penalties, and its enforcement. In addition, the section provides no exemption for criticism, the expression of opinion or the expression of statements that are made in good faith and in order to uphold the Constitution and democratic system of government. It is at present clear that the law opens a channel for individuals to use it for political purposes or to use it in bad faith in a manner inconsistent with the intent of the law.
A summary of Nitirat’s proposed Constitutional amendments:
Academics from many countries have signed a letter addressed to Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra supporting the proposal to amend Article 112:
Article 112 has become a powerful tool to silence political dissent, and in particular, any dissent interpreted as disloyalty to the institution of the monarchy. There is no political space in present-day Thailand to publicly discuss the role and future of the monarchy under democracy, which is a crucial subject for the country at the moment.
When citizens cannot be certain if, or when, a knock at the door is going to come for a message they have written, an article they have posted online or another action deemed to be disloyal, action and thought are constricted. As long as this occurs, the full exercise of human rights cannot occur in Thailand.
Nitarat’s activities were affected when Thammasat University officials banned the use of the campus for activities related to lèse majesté. Human rights organizations and free speech advocates appealed this decision:
We demand that the administration of the university review its order to prevent the Nitirat Group’s activities from taking place in the university’s premises as long as the activities are carried out peacefully and in compliance with human rights principle.
Kaewmala is worried that those who support Nitarat are demonized by people who called themselves ‘Thais with Patriotic Heart‘:
Why did these “Thais with Patriotic Heart” burn Worachet’s effigy? How much do they know about Nitirat and their proposals? We don’t know for sure. Perhaps even they themselves don’t know for sure.
One placard in the picture reads: “Execution ONLY for whoever insults the monarchy!”
The campaign to amend the lese majeste has reached the provinces. The Isaan Record attended a forum in Khon Kaen:
Sunday’s motley crew of attendees cut across social, if not political boundaries. There were out-and-proud Red Shirts (“I came because I’m a Red Shirt… everyone should be able to critique [the king] just like they can critique a movie star.”), adamantly color-less university technicians (“The movement to correct the constitution is different from the Red Shirt movement.”), closeted Marxists, Yingluck apologists (“In truth Yingluck wants to change the law, but there are many factions in Thailand and she doesn’t want to fight with all these groups.”)
Politicians belonging to the administration and opposition parties are not in favor of amending the particular law. Perhaps they don’t want to be perceived of being impolite to the King, who remains the most popular and influential political icon in the country.


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Thailand: “The Purple People Toilet” · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Richard Barrow uploads a photo of the ‘Purple People Toilet’ in Thailand. It's a toilet for those who belong to the “Third Sex” or in Thailand they are often called “Lady Boys”

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Mong Palatino


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Uzbekistan: Security Service Threatens Jizzakh Youth Activists  · Global Voices
Adil Nurmakov

Nathan Hamm reports that two young natives of Uzbekistan residing in the United States and working as  officers at Awareness Projects International (a non-profit engaging in human rights education work in Uzbekistan and elsewhere) were summoned to the police for interrogation, when they returned to their hometown of Jizzakh in late December 2011 to visit family.

author: Adil Nurmakov


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Yemen: A Year of an Unfinished Revolution · Global Voices
Noon Arabia

This post is part of our special coverage Yemen Protests 2011.
Many expected bloodshed when the revolution first started in Yemen, since it is known to be the second most armed nation in the world, yet it amazingly turned out to be the least violent this so-called Arab Spring. Despite the regime's violence, protesters refrained from using their weapons and marched peacefully demanding their rights. They faced security forces excessive violence with bare chests.
A year has passed since the revolution started, yet Yemenis disagree on the exact day, as I pointed in my blog post:
Yemen's revolution is undoubtedly the longest in the Arab Spring, yet Yemenis disagree on which day it started. Some say it started on February 3rd, when a group of activists protested in front of Sanaa University, some say February 11th, when the first sit-in tents were erected in Taiz, and others say February 20th when the first martyrs were killed in Aden and Taiz. Yet, Yemen's revolution has been mostly associated with February 11th, the downfall of Egypt's Mubarak.
This video posted by SupportYemen on YouTube shows a group of activists expressing their hopes and highlighting the demands of the revolution:
Hundreds were killed and thousands were injured, yet those responsible for their killings were granted immunity as per the power transition deal, brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council and fully supported by the United States and the United Nations.
Protesters in Taiz lit the the flame on the eve of the revolution, on February 10, 2012, in Freedom Square, marking the beginning of the celebrations with chants and fireworks as shown in this video posted by taizpress:
Yemen's Revolution impressed the world with it's massive and powerful marches. Iona Craig, a freelance journalist who was been mostly in Yemen since the revolution started, tweeted a link in which she posted a selection of powerful images she had captured throughout the year, including some of the marches.
@ionacraig: Today marks one year since daily protests began in #Yemen. A selection of pictures I took from Feb. 2011 to Feb. 2012: bit.ly/wk1TTT
This video posted by KareemoS on May 21, shows the massive crowds rallying against Saleh and his regime, chanting “the people want to overthrow the regime” – a demand that has yet to be realized.
Huge celebrations were held in Taiz on February 11, on the occasion the first anniversary of Yemen's revolution. taizpress posts the following video on YouTube showing part of the celebrations:
Yemeni activist Baraa Shiban sums up the events in Yemen over the past year in his post in Comments MiddleEast. He concludes by saying:
The last days of December witnessed a parallel revolution that paralysed many governmental sectors and led to the resignation of some senior officials. It’s worth mentioning that the employee’s strikes are still continuing as the country forges its own mini revolutions, attempting to purge the remnants of Saleh's regime, and foremost, the last scraps of tyranny in Yemen.
Meanwhile, Yemen faces many challenges. A year of revolt has resulted in the loss of many lives, created an economic and humanitarian crisis due to a shortage in water, electricity and other supplies. Reflecting back on what has been achieved so far, a unity government has been established between the existing ruling party, the GPC (General People's Congress) and the “opposition” JMP (Joint Meeting Party). Saleh, and his regime, whom the people had been revolting against for months, were given an immunity by the international community.
Thousands of Yemenis have been protesting for a year. Photograph by Iona Craig from Flickr, used with permission.
Saleh travelled to the US and will be returning to Yemen to cast his vote for his vice president for the past 18 years, whom he had selected to be his successor and was approved by the GCC as the consensus candidate in the “one man election” taking place on February 21.
This (right) is one of the posters used for the election campaign, seen on various parts of Sanaa, which speaks for itself, posted by one of the most followed groups in Facebook “We are all Taiz” [ar], with a caption asking for readers comments. After 34 years of ruling Yemen, Saleh is finally stepping down as president on election day, February 21, yet his son, nephews and brothers still control the military apparatus, and his regime is very much intact. The independent youth who have been protesting for over a year are back to square one, still in the squares, weak and fragmented, yet still holding on to the hope of building a new Yemen, based on freedom, democracy, justice and social equality.
Supportyemen posted this video which sends out this strong message:
Some take basic human rights for granted, but for us, Yemenis, they are aspirations. We march for better education, better healthcare, freedom of speech, real democracy, for justice, and for dignity!
As I admitted in my post:
Sadly, Yemen has openly become an international protectorate, with regional and international players determining it's future rather than it's own people.
Having said that, I hope very much that the power of the people wins over the people in power.
This post is part of our special coverage Yemen Protests 2011.

author: Noon Arabia


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Arab World: RIP Whitney Houston  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

Arabs join the rest of the world in mourning the death of superstar Whitney Houston, who was found dead in her hotel room at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, at the age of 48. Reactions on social media platforms ranged from sadness and shock to those questioning why the death of Houston got more coverage in a few hours than the death of thousands of Syrians over the last 11 months.
From Dubai, UAE, Official Herv on YouTube shares this video showing the Dubai Fountains synchronised with Houston's I Will Always Love You!. This video has been watched 115,600 times since it was uploaded yesterday:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBquqHc_WHo
Back on Twitter, Egyptian Marwa G H draws a comparison to how news of the daily carnage in Syria is being received around the world. She tweets:
@Marwa_G_H: everyone is sad & posting about Whintey's death?! 100 people die every day in #Syria – it makes no-one sad. Maybe they should start singing?
Misha Zand, who lives in Cairo, responds:
@MishaZand: Thank you! WH has been a process of suicide waiting to happen for almost two decades now! While others fight to survive. #syria
Singer Whitney Houston performing on Good Morning America, 2009. Image by Flickr user asterix611 (CC BY-SA 2.0).
And Fadi Al Qadi adds:
@fqadi: either we'ren't informing world properly, or it doesn't want be informed: millions of RIP to Whitney Houston, few for 1000s #Syria victims
Syrian Amal Hanano looks at it from a different perspective, sharing lines from a Houston song:
@AmalHanano: “No matter what they take from me, they can't take away my dignity.” #Homs #Syria #favoritewhitneysong
While Dalia Ezzat questions:
@DaliaEzzat_: What is it with the twitter conscience police? Whether people want to tweet about Syria, Greece, or Whitney Houston is their prerogative.
Finally, Qatari diplomat Nasser H Al Khalifa reminds us:
@NasserIbnHamad: Whitney Houston passed away and with her part of my generation memory.She had a great voice and deep feelings you can feel listening to her

author: Amira Al Hussaini


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Bhutan: The Potentials Of Amateur Radios  · Global Voices
Rezwan

Tshering Tobgay writes about the Dx-pedition of a ham radio operator from England to Bhutan and the challenges and potentials of the amateur radio and its enthusiasts in his country.

author: Rezwan


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China: Fascist State? · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Roland Farris from Truthout argues that China could be understood as a fascist state with the extension of the role of the nation in all matters, including sports; a sense of national grievance as the core of national identity; the paranoid control of any potential opposition; and the rise of Han Chinese racism.

author: Oiwan Lam


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China: Migratory Birds Poisoned and Served in Dining Table · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Ministry of Tofu translated a local reports about the poisoning of migratory birds in Hubei province. The dead birds are then headed for dining table in local restaurants.


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China: Online Protest Against the Bear Bile Business · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Since early 2011, Gui Zhentang, China's largest bear bile medicine producer, has been trying to apply for stock market launch on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. Last year, the application was turned down as a result of netizens’ protests.
This year, the company tried to mobilize public support by securing the support of the Association of Chinese Traditional Medicine, which accused animal rights activists of conspiring to western imperialism. Currently, netizens continue to protest against bear bile harvest business and 96% of public opinion is against the further expansion of bear farming in China.
If Gui Zhentang manage to obtain new capital by being listed in the stock market, they will expand the number of bears living in torture from 400 to 1,200. China Bubble Watch has more background about bear farming industry in China:
Bear bile is considered a precious ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine. Despite the fact that there are already synthetic alternatives that prove to have the same medical effects as bear bile, companies like Gui Zhentang still kept moon bears (an endangered species in cages, cut a hole in their stomach and stick a tube into their gall bladder to drain bile from them everyday. NGOs like Animal Asia and End Bear Farm have detailed documentation of such cruel practices on their websites.
Bear farming is a huge and highly profitable industry in China, there are 68 registered bear farms, more than 20,000 caged bears, which provide ingredients to 153 kinds of traditional medicines that are being produced by 186 pharmaceutical companies (according to a report by China Business Network).
In order to counter public opinion against their cruel business, Gui Zhentang has secured support form the Association of Chinese Traditional Medicine, which on February 7, 2012, issued a letter asking media outlets to censor negative information about Chinese medicine:
The Chinese Traditional Medicine Association's letter to media outlets via Sina Weibo user Nancy
To oppose Western interests from promoting inappropriate competition behavior and continue the Traditional Chinese Medicine legacy by developing farming businesses so as to protect people's medical needs, the Association of Chinese Traditional Medicine urges the following:
1. Strengthen the objective and positive image of the Chinese medicine industry by promoting the achievement of Chinese Traditional Medicine and businesses, such as Moon Bear bile harvest. By means of technology intervention and active promotion, help the public to develop a sense of pride in Chinese Traditional Medicine and legacy.
2. Optimize information by deleting and screening out that which misleads and portrays a negative image of  the Chinese Traditional Medicine industry. Attack those opinions that are misleading and untrue.
Sina Weibo user Nancy is outraged [zh] by the statement:
以此信函看来，这不是协会，完全是邪会呀！要用技术手段推广宣传活熊取胆的报道，这技术手段是什么？最不要脸的是要对活熊取胆的报道屏蔽，删除，我说邪会您真好意思，这么明目张胆光明正大的搞这些歪门邪道，这种不要脸的精神哪里来的，这跟归真堂说“反对我就等于反对国家”一个路子嘛！
Soon after the news about Gui Zhentang's IPO application came out, netizens launched a series of online and offline campaign against the application and expansion of such businesses. Blogger Don't eat friends has posted [zh] the protest photos in the Sina Weibo forum to raise public awareness.
Poster on the Sina Environmental Protection Poll
Sina Environmental Protection launched an online poll [zh] about Gui Zhentang's stock market application on February 9, which so far has gathered more than 12,081 participants, 96% against the company's expansion. Below are some typical responses to the the bear farming business under the poll's comment thread:
过冬河蟹 ：坚决反对。人性泯灭丧尽天良。凌迟处死也就一炷香的工夫。这样虐十年，tmd下手的人晚上怎么睡得着。(2月11日 4:06)
不想开学滴某丶西 ：怎么归真堂的高层领导们不也关在小笼子里每天和熊住在一块，熊抽一次胆汁可爱的领导们也抽一次，你们能挺多久公司就上市多久。多好，公平交易。(2月10日 20:10)
吉思教育 ：活取熊胆，惨无人道，这样的企业如果也能上市，中国的良心何在！(2月10日 14:16)
小荷恬恬 ：反对！！！我们不能因为一己之利而残杀无辜的动物！熊胆就像鱼翅，完全可以用别的东西代替，为什么还要破坏这个已经千疮百孔的大自然呢？！(2月10日 10:34)


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Cuba: Different Pope, Different People  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Generation Y adds her perspective to the issue of the upcoming papal visit: “At the end of the nineties Karol Wojtyla lit up our hearts – including those of agnostics like myself – saying the word ‘freedom’ more than a dozens times in the Plaza of the Revolution. But now the apathy and discouragement will make it more difficult for the phrases of Ratzinger to inspire the same emotion. His visit will be but a pallid reflection of that other, because we are no longer the same, nor is it the same Pope.”

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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Curacao: Elvio Carmela Dies Amidst Pension Reform Struggles  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

TRIUNFO DI SABLIKA pays tribute to the late Elvio Carmela, “a man who stood up for the unemployed, the welfare recipients and kept defending the rights of senior citizens as president of the pensioners association.”


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Egypt: The Army and the Economy · Global Voices
محمد الجوهري

Egyptian Vlogger Aalam Wassef reacts to the Egyptian security forces intentional aiming at activist Salma Said with a video mentioning a list of foreign companies dealing with the Egyptian army.

author: محمد الجوهري


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Greece: Parliament Votes in New Austerity Deal Amidst Riots · Global Voices
Veroniki Bacharidi-Krikoni

As 200 out of 300 Greek deputies voted in favor of the new austerity deal “Memorandum 2″, these were some of the different scenes. Jimhellas provides his perspective [el] on yesterday's #12febgr huge citizen protest and massive police teargas repression in a post entitled “Mass murder attempt at #Syntagma, as I lived it”. Jenny Hauser made a Storyful collection of photos and tweets from clashes and fires in the center of Athens last night. NassosKappa shared on his Twitter a photo of the burning Attikon cinema in Stadiou Street. Vassilis Vlachos posted a photo on Facebook, depicting Greek MPs watching television at parliament cafe.

author: Veroniki Bacharidi-Krikoni


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Greece: Photos, Videos and Liveblogs from Anti-Austerity Protests, Clashes in Athens · Global Voices
Asteris Masouras

Photos and videos from the latest massive anti-austerity protests in downtown Athens on February 12, 2012, the extensive clashes that ensued and their aftermath were posted on Real Democracy Now, while 19 photosets were uploaded on Demotix. Photos were also posted by Odysseas Galinos Paparounis and John Carnessiotis on Flickr, and on Athensville. A video showing an unprovoked police attack on a Thessaloniki rally went viral on Facebook. The events of the day were liveblogged in English by radiobubble and Greek Left Review.

author: Asteris Masouras


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India: Internet Companies Bow to Censorship Demands · Global Voices
Christine Mehta

India took a giant leap back in time when it demanded that 20 major Internet companies, including Google, Facebook, and Twitter present plans to filter “anti-religious,” or “anti-social” material from the content available to Indian citizens.
Political leaders, including Sonia Gandhi, telecommunications minister Kapil Sibal, and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh brought a case against the Internet companies demanding the pre-emptive removal of “objectionable” material, according to the government. “Objectionable” material includes blasphemous material and religious slurs, but much of the content also includes critical and unflattering content of many of India's leading politicians, including Sonia Gandhi, according to the Financial Times’ blog, beyondbrics.
Cartoon by Bryant Arnold, CartoonADay.com. Used under a Creative Commons 2.5 license (BY-NC)
After initial resistance the Internet companies have finally bowed to India’s high-handed demands and conceded to present plans for filtering “offensive content,” by February 21, 2012. The next hearing will be held by the courts on March 1. Authoritarian regimes such as China, Russia and Egypt have made similar demands but India is the first robust democracy, with a thriving domestic media scene, to make such sweeping demands.
Is India living up to its position as the world's largest democracy? Not according its citizens. Blogger AdityaT quotes a Google advocate in a blog post on igyaan.in:
The issue relates to a constitutional issue of freedom of speech and expression, and suppressing it was not possible as the right to the freedom of speech in democratic India separates us from a totalitarian regime like China.
What to do Baba thinks:
It is almost impossible to ban Google or Facebook in India. [..] I hope and believe, that the matter be settled both for the good of society as well as the web. Let us punish the guilty and not choose a scapegoat.
Citizen outrage may be too late. Google has already started to direct users away from the domain blogspot.com, and redirecting them to a censored blogspot.in, the Indian version of the blog site. Material censored on Indian sites and versions of search engines, will still be available outside of India. Yahoo and Facebook are refusing to consider censoring their material, as they claim they have nothing to do with the objectionable materials, according to blog Jaipur.co.
Google has a long history of wading into gray areas when it comes to appeasing irate governments. Founded on the ideal of “don't be evil,” Google has stopped using that slogan in public, as the motto has occasionally been trashed in favor of profits rather than providing service that serves the public best.
Internet behemoths Google, Facebook and Twitter, have guidelines that require them to “adhere to domestic law,” meaning that they will remove content that violates local law. The three companies have pointed to this in self-defense from accusations hurled by human rights advocates countless times in recent years, first in China, then in Egypt, and now in India.
However, those guidelines were not put in place to enable governments to choke the free flow of information. The reality is that the Internet is ungovernable forum, and the digital sphere has few laws. In India, Google is far from being a victim, it is allowing governments to censor material to avoid losing 121 million users if the government blocks Google completely, and a potential 900 million more as India's Internet users multiply every year.
Google isn’t bowing to government censorship to provide at least “some” ability to Indian citizens to access information, it is too afraid to lose millions of users to its competition.
Google’s move is directly contradictory to its recent withdrawal from China. Although obviously not the best business move, one of the most significant measures Google could have taken to fight censorship was withdrawing from China. Timothy B. Lee wrote on the New York Times’ Room for Debate blog:
Google’s withdrawal from China has important symbolic value. Google has become one of the world’s most prestigious brands, and for the last four years it has lent undeserved legitimacy to the government’s censorship efforts.
It’s mind-boggling that Google would follow this huge achievement with submitting to India’s censorship demands.
So, we enter the First Digital War. It’s governments versus the Internet, and even worse, it’s the Internet companies versus each other in their quest for Internet dominance. Internet companies do an enormous disservice to their users, and to the fight against corruption in India, by succumbing to the government’s requirement that they censor or close up shop.
Sure, Google might lose a significant portion of Internet users to a competitor’s social media site, so might Facebook, but in trying to beat each other out to reign supreme in the digital world, they seem to be slowly destroying the foundations on which they were built: freedom, empowerment, and an obligation to “don’t be evil.” Kevin Kelleher phrases it aptly on Reuters’ MediaFile blog when he writes that Google’s slogan, “’don’t be evil’ became ‘let’s all be evil.’”
Google has stopped using that slogan in public. It’s time they brought it back.

author: Christine Mehta


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Iran: Internet Blackout Ahead of Protest Day  · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

Slow Internet and filtering is a daily reality in Iran, but in recent days reports from inside the country say that web email and secure Internet (https:) has become inaccessible, and that the Internet is so slow that anti-filtering software fails to open web pages. The partial blackout began on Thursday, February 9, 2012.
While Iranian authorities have been silent, some bloggers speculate that the reason for the blocking is a planned protest on February 14 (in the Iranian calendar, 25 Bahman). The Tuesday protests will mark the one year anniversary of demonstrations called by Iranian opposition leaders in 2011, in solidarity with the people's uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia. The physical repression on this day was brutal and left at least two people dead in Tehran.
An Internet cafe in Tehran, Iran. Photo by Mr_L_in_Iran. Copyright © Demotix (24/02/11)
The blog Azadi-Esteqlal-Edalat (Freedom, Independence, Justice) writes [fa]:
Khamenei's regime is scared since the Green Movement has invited people to restart protests. According to some reports, in most parts of country from Tehran to Ardebil, people have no access to Gmail, Yahoo mail, Google or Google+. This blocking can be considered as the regime's attempt to stop Green activists from informing people to take part in demonstrations in the final days of February. The regime's action is useless because green activists have already informed their friends and family members, and developed creative means of passing on the message, such as writing slogans on bills of money.
Dara 1390 says  [fa]:
Without any doubt the February 14th demonstrations are the reason why the government has interrupted the internet. They are afraid of any kind of demonstration in the streets. We do not know how people will react on February 14 but the regime is making itself ready for the day.
Another blogger, Mborjan writes [fa]:
Since Thursday any access to Gmail, Facebook and https sites has become impossible, at least in Isfahan. I heard this only happened in big cities. In small cities and villages things are as usual.
Yadasht Ha (means ‘notes’) says [fa] with irony that if it becomes necessary, “We will use pigeons instead of national email.”
Bani Man also reports [fa] that as the protest day approaches, the regime blocked Gmail and Faceboook. The blogger quotes a Forbes report that as Iran cracks down online, the software Tor for anonymous online communication, is testing undetectable encrypted connections.

author: Fred Petrossian


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Jamaica: Engaging on Twitter  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

“Twitter is a very interesting space once you engage”: Grasshopper Eyes The Potomac finds himself empowered by the microblogging service.


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Jamaica: The Marley Brand  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Active Voice blogs about a public talk that Damian ‘Junior Gong’ Marley gave at the University of the West Indies, while Jamaica Woman Tongue repors that “Jamaicans of all social classes” attended the 12th staging of the Bob Marley Tribute Concert, ‘Trench Town Rock’.


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Kyrgyzstan: Nationalist Politician’s Statements Spark Protests · Global Voices
Chris Rickleton

Recent pronouncements by MPs of a provocative and nationalist character have brought debates about language, identity and self to the top of the KyrNet’s ‘to blog’ list, and not for the first time, either. Since bloodshed between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in June 2010, nationalist rhetoric has made nests for itself both online and inside the Kyrgyz parliament.
Nevertheless, having come into sharp relief in the aftermath of those tragic events, “ultra patriotic” voices seemed finally to be taking a well-deserved rest in the country, as a government of more moderate political sentiments coalesced around new President Almas Atambaev. Enter language warrior Urulkan Amanbaeva and inter-ethnic peace-pooper Kamchybek Tashiev.
Adapted from the blog thekulas.blogspot.com
When looking at how important a given issue is to Kyrgyz netizens, citizen media portal Kloop.kg’s Facebook plugin is usually a fairly reliable indicator. In still-young 2012, the most discussed articles have been Kyrgyz MPs and their cars, MP Urulkan Amanbaeva’s belief that ethnic Kyrgyz government officials should speak in Kyrgyz, and, most recently, MP Kamchybek Tashiev’s statement that Kyrgyzstan’s Prime Minister should be a “pure blooded Kyrgyz”.
The details of the Amanbaeva case, which involved the deputy from the Respublika faction squawking at an official from the treasury for answering a question posed in Kyrgyz in Russian can be read here. But it is the statement of Tashiev, a polarizing politician from the south of the country, which has attracted the most attention from netizens.
“Oh Tashiev, so very Tashiev”
It was Tashiev’s party, Ata-Jurt, that edged victory in Kyrgyzstan’s parliamentary elections in October 2010. Judged by international observers as the country’s most free and fair in 20 years of independence, the result reflected a growing nationalist fervour – especially in the country’s ethnically divided south. But since then, “Kamchike” as he is affectionately known by the country’s red top media, has comprehensively failed to get along with any of the other parties in parliament, and even had a fight with one MP while the legislature was in session.
If Tashiev has an ultimate nemesis, it is Omurbek Bobanov, leader of the Respublika faction and current Prime Minister, who he has accused of a range of misdemeanours in the past. On February 8, in an interview with the Kyrgyz tabloid De Facto, he said the following:
Society is full of people who are opposed to Babanov leading the government. Everyone knows who Babanov is. I should say openly, and let people not be offended, that the head of government should be a pure-blooded Kyrgyz, who will actually be rooting for the interests of the country. We have been ruled by Tatars, Jews, Russians and others. With the coming to power of Babanov we are now ruled by Kurds. The man who guides the nation should be a full-blooded Kyrgyz. So they say in Russia, and in Kazakhstan. And why should we be ashamed to talk about it?
Russians? Ok, that was the Soviet Union. Tartars – some loose orientalist reference to the age of Ghengis Khan, perhaps. Jews – when was that?
In referring to the people of Zion, Tashiev may have been speaking of Maxim Bakiyev, the son of Tashiev’s former boss, Ex-President Kurmanbek. Maxim’s mother was Russian and his father at various points was accused of being a non-Kyrgyz Dungan (how else could his unpatriotic, corrupt activities be explained?), while Maxim, seemingly by virtue of having Israeli business partners, was labelled “a Jew”. Thus, ethnicity is clearly a complex thing.
Chalkan.kg columnist, Aida Kasymailova, blogged in a piece titled “Tashiev – the true Kyrgyz”:
Yesterday, all Kyrgyz, on hearing the news [of Tashiev’s announcement] via radio and television, glanced at themselves in the mirror and asked themselves whether or not they were “pure-blooded”. They remembered their ancestors up to the seventh generation, enquired with their current and former wives. Some found a reason for pride, but many, doubt.
The allegation that Babanov is a “Kurd” stems from the fact that his mother is Kurdish, according to a comment  re-tweeted [ru] by Kyrgyzstan’s second-most followed twitterer, Edil Baisalov:
If Tashiev is having a go at Babanov's mother, then he should apologize
Bektour Iskender, president of Kloop, let out a despairing cyber-sigh on his citizen media portal's Facebook plugin [ru]:
Oh Tashiev, so very Tashiev
Another user, Bahadir Nazirkhanov, said Tashiev's focus on “pure-bloodedness” put the status of ‘national’ literary hero Chingiz Aitmatov [ru] in doubt:
To follow Tashiev's logic, should we also put C. Aitmatov in the category of unpure?
Indeed, such a thorough and discerning search for purity could reduce the Kyrgyz nation down to Tashiev and a few of his friends, although even Tashiev's own children might miss the cut.
Nazambai Ishkahametov said:
What fascism? Tashiev's wife is Kazakh. To follow his logic, his children are not pure-blooded
But among the liberal complainants, there were a few ready to rally behind Tashiev's message. Kyalbek Kyrgyz said:
Mind your language
Tashiev's announcement certainly raised the stakes in terms of the nationalist debate. Prior to now, most of the country's discourses on patriotism have had language, rather than genetics, at their core. The need to develop the state-endorsed Kyrgyz, perhaps at the expense of the country's other official mode of communication, Russian, has been a key concern, not only of the country's politicians but of popular culture figures, too.
In an engaging article on Eurasianet.org, Nate Schenkkan profiles Tata Ulan, a Kyrgyz bard/rapper with revivalist cultural leanings, whose performances have made him a national talking-point:
The music video is all one take. Standing behind a podium bearing the state seal of Kyrgyzstan, wearing a felt kalpak hat and armor like the national epic hero Manas, a masked figure hectors the audience over a bounding beat:
In 20 years what has the state given its children? / Sold out wisdom, turned to business, wisdom’s on the street now! / What do my Kyrgyz need? You're a Muslim, you need religion! / What do my Kyrgyz need? Pure Kyrgyz language is what you need!
Ulan went on to tell Schenkkan in an interview that, like many urban Kyrgyz, he had to go back to the books to ‘learn’ his native tongue:
“In order to learn my language, I started to read Manas,” he said. “I had never spoken Kyrgyz, at least not well. And I couldn't write the language at all. But then I read Manas, and immediately I started to write”.
[Ulan] is now a fierce advocate of the language. “If you grew up in the city and don't speak Kyrgyz, you're a myrk,” he says in ‘Ne Kerek,’ inverting the insult native Bishkek residents use for non-Russian speakers who move to the city. It is statements like this that prompt accusations of nationalism.
An archived Spektator blog has more on the bizarre term “myrk” here.
N.B For readers of Russian, a satirical blog on Akipress.kg that re-imagines public discourses as fairy tales, makes for an interesting introduction to politics in the country. Last week the theme was inevitably ‘pure-bloodedness’, discussed in a post “What is on your mother's side?”, with “Kamchi” and “Omurke” as the main characters. In the blog, the author infers that “Kamchi”, who has the Kyrgyz national dish besh barmak in his blood, has long suspected “Omurke” of being ” far too pretty” to be a true member of the “besh barmak nation”.
We will allow Global Voices readers to make up their own mind on that score. Tashiev is on the right, the “impure-blooded” Bobanov on the left:

author: Chris Rickleton


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Madagascar : Crowdsourcing Information about Cyclone Giovanna  · Global Voices
Rakotomalala

Cyclone Giovanna was expected to make landfall on February 13th at 23h00 local time in Madagascar. Malagasy Bloggers  have set up  a citizen reporting  platform  to crowd source information during the storm.  If you have any relevant information regarding the cyclone, you can share those with mutliple channels: via  SMS at a  local number 0326705819,  send an email to cyclonegiovanna@gmail.com,   fill out this form  online or by posting on twitter with the hashtag #Giovanna.

author: Rakotomalala


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Pakistan: Launch Of Hosh Media, A Citizen Journalism Portal · Global Voices
Rezwan

Sonya Rehman reports about the advent of Hosh Media, a new citizen journalism portal, which epitomizes the growing popularity of locally-based, online portals for citizen journalism in Pakistan.


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Pakistan: Mob Beating In Karachi · Global Voices
Rezwan

Teeth Maestro condemns the mob mentality of some of the people in Karachi on people doing petty crimes, which is actually a consequence of losing the trust on the state police.


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Singapore: Citizens Discuss Politician’s Extramarital Scandal · Global Voices
Kirsten Han

One of Singapore's socio-political websites, Temasek Review Emeritus, posted an article alleging that Worker's Party (WP) member and Member of Parliament for Hougang SMC Yaw Shin Leong had an extramarital affair:
TR Emeritus (TRE) has received several tip-offs from reliable informants that a core member of a reputable opposition party is allegedly involved in an extramarital affair with a married woman who is also from the same party.
This article led to plenty of gossip and speculation amongst Singaporeans, both in the mainstream media and on social media. New reports of alleged affairs with other women began to surface, claiming that Yaw had had an affair with a woman from his church, as well as a Chinese tuition teacher who had helped him translate his speeches.
Both Yaw and WP chose to remain silent instead of addressing the rumours, but on 7 February, 2012, the party put out a terse statement saying that Yaw had resigned from the party's Central Executive Committee (CEC):
The Workers’ Party wishes to inform the public that at the monthly meeting of the Executive Council on Tuesday, 7 February 2012, the Council accepted the resignation of Yaw Shin Leong from the party leadership. Yaw Shin Leong will cease to be Treasurer of the Party with immediate effect.
A photo Yaw posted on his Facebook page of himself working with colleagues over the Chinese New Year.
The party however assured the public, and especially the constituents of Hougang, that Yaw would continue to serve as Member of Parliament.
Many Singaporeans have been unhappy with the way the whole episode was handled by both Yaw and the Worker's Party, feeling that their silence indicated a lack of transparency and savvy in dealing with the media.
Ng E-Jay of SGPolitics feels that Yaw should either come clean or resign as MP:
In light of recent developments, I am forced to conclude that Mr Yaw’s alleged sexual behaviour has the potential to create conflicts of interests at both the party level as well as the constituency level.
As such, Mr Yaw should either come clean about the truth of his sexual indiscretions, whilst protecting the women involved from further embarrassment and harassment, or he should consider himself unfit for political office, and resign accordingly as MP of Hougang.
Some feel that Yaw's resignation from the WP CEC is an implicit admission of his guilt:
@jannajauhar: WP member Yaw Shin Leong seems to have problem staying faithful. #men
@sailesh88: This Yaw Shin Leong macam James Bond. Involved with a woman everywhere he goes
Alex Au of Yawning Bread points out that WP's silence in this episode reflects the lack of openness shown by the ruling People's Action Party (for which they have often been criticised):
If the party hopes Hougang voters will overlook the allegations at the next general elections — they are hardly likely to forget them — why doesn’t the party trust that Singaporeans will be understanding now?  Why not set an example of honesty and openness now?
Why is the Workers’ Party putting on the PAP’s (Singapore's ruling party) mask of sullen resistance?
However, Tan Kin Lian, who had contested in the Presidential Election 2011, supported Yaw and WP's handling of the matter:
“We have to respect the right as a citizen, including a public figure, to remain silent on private matters that do not affect the performance of their public duty.
There is no need to make further disclosures, as there is a need to protect the privacy of Mr Yaw's family.
The voters of Hougang will judge Mr Yaw at the next general election.”

author: Kirsten Han


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Sri Lanka: Lack Of Basic Convenience At The National Development Exhibition · Global Voices
Rezwan

Serendipity reports that there are insufficient toilets planned at the annual Deyata Kirula (National Development Exhibition).


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St. Vincent & the Grenadines: Women’s Congress · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

“There is great buzz about St. Vincent and the Grenadines’ first ever Women’s Congress to take place in March”: CODE RED says that “ff the Women’s Congress can move towards the creating women as a political constituency they will have achieved tremendous success.”


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Caribbean: Talking to Peter James Hudson of The Public Archive · Global Voices
Nicholas Laughlin

Peter James Hudson is a historian based at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. He was born in Edmonton, Alberta, and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia. His parents hail from the Caribbean —specifically, Jamaica — and Eastern Europe the former Yugoslavia.
Hudson’s field is modern American history, specialising in “the cultural and political-economic history of American empire and the cultural history of the African diaspora in North America,” and he is currently working on a book that looks at the political and economic history of US banks operating in the Caribbean.
In February 2010, together with his colleague Samira Sheikh, Hudson launched The Public Archive: History Beyond the Headlines, a blog-format “clearinghouse of historical and archival sources” on Haiti. (And he tweets at @public_archive.) As he explains, The Public Archive was a response to the debates about Haiti’s past, present, and future that broke out after the devastating January 2010 earthquake.
Peter James Hudson of The Public Archive
Hudson wrote then:
Given the incredible loss of life resulting from the January 12, 2010 earthquake in the Republic of Haiti, it may appear frivolous to turn to history — but history, too, has been a casualty of this disaster. In the reporting on the earthquake and the relief operations, Haiti’s history has been contorted by cliché, smudged by misrepresentation, or not represented at all. The country and its citizens have been rendered history-less, and its historic significance in the region and the world made invisible.
With The Public Archive’s second anniversary approaching, I interviewed Hudson via email about the issues raised by the kind of “digital humanities” intellectual work the blog represents.
•••
Nicholas Laughlin: Did the idea to start The Public Archive come after the January 2010 earthquake and its media coverage, or was it something you had in mind before that?
Peter James Hudson: While we didn’t have anything in mind before the earthquake, the idea to start The Public Archive came about not as a result of the earthquake itself, but as a result of a profound sense of despair at and frustration with the media coverage of Haiti following the earthquake. As professional historians with laymen’s interests in Haiti, we thought that we needed to make some small, however limited, intervention in the coverage of Haiti, and we agreed that the best way to do it was by mobilising the research skills we had as historians in an attempt to provide some context for understanding Haiti’s history, and how that history was constructed and represented in the media.
NL: Were you involved in an online project like this before, or was this your first foray into using blogging tools for doing this kind of research/archiving/advocacy work (because The Public Archive involves elements of all those activities)?
PJH: I had been involved in those activities in the print world, but never before online.
NL: Are your students and colleagues at Vanderbilt regular readers? How have they reacted? What’s your sense of where the blog fits into your research interests?
PJH: I know it has been used in a number of classes at Vanderbilt and at other institutions. The response has been mostly positive — though, in some cases, I think the idea of “digital humanities” is still recent enough that there is an old guard of academics who don’t believe that digital media are part of the proper set of professional endeavours of academic historians. As academics, we’re encouraged to use blogs and twitter and the like to teach our students, but using them for other purposes isn’t seen as something that will help you on the road to tenure.
As for where the blog fits into my own research interests, in some ways it doesn’t. While it has led me to a number of digital repositories and open-access periodicals and journals that I did not previously know about, the history of Haiti is really a secondary part of my research. I’m trained as an Americanist, and my primary research is on the expansion of Wall Street and American banking interests into the Caribbean at the beginning of the twentieth century. Haiti is significant in this — especially through the role of the National City Bank (the precursor to Citigroup) in the first US Occupation (1915-1934). However, Haiti was but one of the Caribbean republics, colonies, and dependencies on the radar of Wall Street at the time.
NL: Do you have a notion of where most of your readers are, and whether you have a readership in Haiti itself?
PJH: The majority of our readers are in the United States, followed by Canada and Britain, with a smaller segment in Haiti, Jamaica, and India.
NL: Do you think the earthquake — and all the debate and interest it generated — has had a lasting influence on how Haiti is perceived by the wider world, or has it been the case that old stereotypes and received ideas have actually been reinforced by the nature of that debate?
PJH: Many of the old stereotypes persist — but I also think a new set of perceptions have been generated. There is a greater awareness that Haiti exists, but it seems that now Haiti and Haitians are seen as permanent wards of the international aid community. As a permanent ward, Haiti is now competing (in the minds of North Americans) with much of Africa as the site of celebrity rehab and redemption. And here there is the danger — and I think this is already happening — that as donor fatigue sets in, and a new fashionable catastrophe occurs somewhere else, Haiti will return to obscurity, until, of course, there’s another crisis.
More importantly, the moment you assume that Haiti couldn’t survive without your help is the moment that you assume that Haiti can’t be helped. And all the old tropes of dependency, paternalism, and, implicitly, racial hierarchy fall into place. This comes out in some strange ways — in everything from the benignly ignorant advertisements recently produced by Donna Karan in the name of “helping Haiti” to the sickening way non-Haitian photographers can build their careers on, literally, the corpses of Haitians, to the incredible number of architects and designs students who have settled on the idea that the best way of helping Haiti is to design, literally, huts and villages for the Haitian people. While this vision of huts and villages points to the paucity of the imagination of the reconstruction plan for Port-au-Prince, it also suggests Haiti is next to the racist constructions of Africa within the North American imagination. Port-au-Prince is estimated at between two and three million people; it’s the size of Chicago or Houston. Nobody refers to those cities as villages and nobody, from what I know, in those cities lives in huts.
That said, I think the question of perception and representation of Haiti is in some ways misleading. Sure, these things shape how we see Haiti, but I think what more people in this part of the world need to do is look less at Haiti than at the engagements the United States, Canada, France, and Brazil have with Haiti. At this point, I think it would make more sense for Oprah and Kim Kardashian to visit the Red Cross or the United Nations.
NL: Have you thought about expanding the scope of the site to include other Caribbean locations, or do you plan to keep it focused on Haiti?
PJH: In the Caribbean, I’ve thought about expanding it to include Puerto Rico. I had the opportunity to spend a month in 2010 as a visiting scholar at the University of Puerto Rico’s Institute of Caribbean Studies. The energy of its director Humberto García Muñiz — especially in the face of the constant cuts to his budget — was inspiring, and he has a real vision of Puerto Rico in a pan-Caribbean context, something that comes through in the pages of the interdisciplinary journal Caribbean Studies, which he edits. But my time in Puerto Rico and, after I returned to the US, the incredible protests organised by the UPR students, really made me aware of the absolute ignorance that we in North American have about Puerto Rico. Yet the work going on at the Institute, and the protests of the students, coming long before the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street, suggest a visionary understanding of the processes of neoliberalism and neo-colonialism in the Caribbean and the wider world.
On another tip, we also considered expanding The Public Archive to include Somalia and Pakistan.
NL: What other online resources on Haiti or the Caribbean would you point readers to?
PJH: I follow the twitter feeds of Alterpresse, the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, the Haiti Information Project, BriKouri Nouvèl Gaye, Defend Haiti, and Haiti Liberté for Haiti news. Together, they create a consistent and critical newsfeed. I also follow Inner City Press for their dogged pursuit of answers from the United Nations on the activities and behavior of MINUSTAH.
For the Caribbean, my favorite blog is Norman Girvan’s Caribbean Political Economy. I was always a fan of Girvan’s writing on the political economy of development and underdevelopment in the Caribbean, and the impact and role that transnational corporations have had on Caribbean political sovereignty and economic integrity. Girvan’s Corporate Imperialism, Conflict, and Expropriation: Essays in Transnational Corporations and Economic Nationalism in the Third World (1976) and his Aspects of the Political Economy of Race in the Caribbean and in the Americas (1975) are, in my mind, classics of political economy and, of course, his theoretical work with the New World Group in the 1960s is inspirational — I wish more people were reading both the New World anthology Readings in the Political Economy of the Caribbean, which Girvan edited in 1971, as well as the recent collection that Girvan edited with Brian Meeks, The Thought of New World, The Quest for Decolonisation. All of these texts provide important ways of understanding the contemporary global economic crisis.
Girvan’s Caribbean Political Economy blog offers an important extension of this work, providing an accessible entrance into many of the questions of economy and politics facing the contemporary Caribbean, and while it displays the depth of knowledge of a policy wonk, it is written with the clarity and language of a journalist.
I’m a huge fan of many of the better-known literary and cultural sites on the Caribbean — sx salon, The Caribbean Review of Books, La Jiribilla, and Repeating Islands — and also the African Diaspora, but I think we need more work on political economy. Girvan is sending us in the right direction. There is also a fantastic blog on Dominican thought and culture called Cielo Naranja, and I’m also a regular reader of Pambazuka.
I also want to mention two digital history sites that I regularly frequent, and whose online archives have led to posts on The Public Archive. The first is the Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) — an online archive run by a cooperative of partners and administered by Florida International University and the University of the Virgin Islands. While they have a specialised Haiti collection, they also have documents, periodicals and newspapers, maps and photographs, letters and documents from throughout the region. The second is the Centre International de Documentation et d'Information Haïtienne, Caribéenne et Afro-Canadienne — or CIDIHCA — based in Montreal. CIDIHCA do not have the slickest website out there, but as a highly specialised, well-curated independent archive, they offer a model of possibility for other similar institutions and organisations looking to create online archives. They have uploaded back issues of the Montreal-based Haitian journals Nouvelle Optique and Collectif Paroles, as well as collections on the Haitian Left and Haitian numismatics. Both the Digital Library of the Caribbean and CIDIHCA are well worth a browse.
NL: In these interviews I always like to ask what’s been the most unexpected thing about running the site.
PJH: Probably the power of Twitter. I wasn’t really a social media person before the site started; since then, I’ve found that through Twitter you can curate an individualised clearinghouse of information and news on whatever theme you’re interested in, that goes far beyond a reliance on a single mainstream news source. By now, this is probably obvious to most people, but it wasn’t to me. Twitter has become an important source for generating traffic to the site, but also for creating a broader historical and cultural context — and a broader community — in which the site is engaged. I’ve also spent more time on Google Books than I’d like to admit, and was pleasantly surprised to find out that the entire back run of Black World/Negro Digest has been uploaded.

author: Nicholas Laughlin


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Trinidad & Tobago: The Job Letter  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Perhaps the best (or worst!) recommendation letter ever – diaspora blogger CunningLinguist shares.


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Antigua, Guadeloupe: From the Common Past · Global Voices
Fabienne Flessel

For the past decade, the tight historical and geographical bonds between the West Indian islands of Antigua and Guadeloupe have been analyzed by historians. A recent conference entitled “Antigua: From the Amerindians to an Independant Nation” [Fr] was organized in Guadeloupe by the group Yo Té Pou Nou Sé. Bloggers at PerspeKtives [Fr] explain the importance of this project.

author: Fabienne Flessel


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Arab World: Where Even Valentine’s Day is Different  · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

It's Valentine's Day today! The occasion was not forgotten despite a year of protest across a large portion of the Arab world.
From the UAE, Yasser Hareb tweets:
@YasserHareb: I don't believe in valentine's day. True love has no occasion.. True love is the occasion #Valentine
Abdullah Al Rasheed, from Saudi Arabia, which bans all forms of Valentine's celebrations, writes [ar]:
And Ramu Salame jokes:
@ramisalame: Hey, Saudi tweeps, I have a question: Tomorrow, for Valentine's Day, are we supposed to avoid red meat?
Eyad Joudeh explains why this question is plausible in Saudi Arabia. He tweets:
@EyadJ: Valentine's day, the only day of the year where people in Saudi Arabia can go to jail for wearing a certain color.
While reminds Sultan Angari reminds us [ar]:
Saudi Arabia bans all forms of Valentine's celebrations. It's notorious Commission for the Prevention of Virtue and Prevention of Vice raids shops in the run up to Valentine's Day, forcing owners to remove all symbols of the Valentine's, including roses, hearts, balloons and red wrapping paper.
Moving on, Egyptian Nermeen Edrees was welcomed after work with a lovely surprise. She tweets:
Egyptian Nermeen Edrees finds a heart drawn on her red car. Photo credit: Nermeen Edrees, shared on Twitter
@NermeenEdrees: Nice surprise..someone decided to draw a heart on my car :D
Meanwhile, in Bahrain, today marks the first anniversary of the start of massive protests, styled after the so-called Arab Spring revolutions which have also rocked Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria and Yemen, to name a few.
There, blogger Mahmood Al Yousif comments on the brief detention this afternoon of human rights activist Nabeel Rajab by saying:
@mahmood: #FreeNabeel another special #Bahrain hash tag on this lively Valentine's day @NABEELRAJAB
Anonymous, the loosely formed international group of hackers, also presented Bahrainis with a Valentine's present. Human rights activist Maryam Al Khawaja tweets about it:
@maryamalkhawaja: “#Anonymous to People of #Bahrain: Happy #Valentine's Day” Anonymous takes down websites of contractors tht sell to Bahrain regime #feb14
And finally, back in Egypt, Mohammed El Dahshan could be in trouble. He exclaims:
@eldahshan: Ha! I managed to spend the entire day without speaking about Valentine's day and… oh crap.


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Caribbean: It’s V-Day; Can You Feel the Love?   · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Love is definitely on the minds and in the hearts of Caribbean bloggers today; here's a quick look at how many of them are honouring the feeling that makes the world – and apparently the blogosphere – go round…
Jamaican diaspora blogger Grasshopper Eyes The Potomac is keeping it simple:
Valentines Day. Whatever it may mean to you, I’m going to make it a day for loving of all kinds. I’m also going to follow an old adage: KISS–keep it simple, silly. I will wish everyone I meet today ‘Happy Valentine!’
…while Jamaican litblogger Geoffrey Philp posts one of his poems, “My Crazy Valentine” and Girl With a Purpose offers some tips for those who might be thinking of proposing today.
Barbadian blogger Skip to Malou admits that “Valentine's Day is kind of like Christmas” for her:
It stirs up all kinds of emotions and instead of gifts I make sure to tell certain people what they mean to me; it's always nice to be reminded of how much someone loves you or cares about you. Friends, family, pets and lovers all get a slice of the love pie.
Her compatriot, Pastel Pink Paisley, posts a quotation that she thinks “says it all”, adding:
May your day be filled with all kinds of love from all kinds of people! Xox
Over in Haiti, the Livesay Weblog changes the focus from romantic love to a more all-encompassing kind – spiritual love:
Our house is FAR too chaotic for romantic candle lit rice and bean dinners. We didn't get the time to grab treats for our kiddos. Getting flowers of any quality would require a TON of time in traffic. Most of the greeting cards in our area are in French, a language we don't speak or read…none of that matters because when we choose to focus on the God of love and the love in our house RATHER THAN the insane circumstances swirling around us  – it makes every day feel like a day to celebrate.
Of course, some bloggers do the “not-Valentine's day” thing, while others, like Guyana-Gyal, make the point that “everything is a commodity now. Even love”:
Last night, on tv, ads for Valentine shows bang-a-lang me nerves like generators in the dark. Everybody seeking light in one form or another but making noise instead o’ beauty.
What happened to good old-fashioned walks in the moonlight, holding hands, whispering wishes to falling stars?
In Cuba, the concept of love takes on additional layers; at Translating Cuba, Rebeca Monzo writes:
The fact remains that to be alive, and even more to be in love, gives us enough energy to overcome so many difficulties, and each of us celebrates in our own way this and other dates.
Today I passed by La Casa restaurant to investigate and I was delighted to see the special offers for Valentine’s Day: the tab of 25.00 CUC per person, includes welcome cocktail, appetizer of home-based salmon rolls stuffed with fruit and cream sour, croquettes, ceviche, fried taro, squid and shrimp with garlic and onions…
It is true that these prices are only within reach of a few, but I’m sure there will be other offers for less healthy pockets. The point of all this is that there is a possibility, and especially the right to choose.  Make a celebration where it suits you…most important, no doubt, is that you and your partner spend an afternoon or a night to remember and salute the representation of Saint Valentine of this wonderful feeling we all call love.
Happy Valentine's Day!


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Caribbean:  We’ll Always Love You, Whitney  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Following the untimely death of singer Whitney Houston, a handful of Caribbean bloggers are talking about her talent, her music and her legacy.
From Trinidad and Tobago, The Liming House posts a video of the singer performing “I Look to You” and says:
Goodbye, Whitney.  Because your voice, even when ravaged, could still reduce me to tears.
Barbados Free Press expresses similar sentiments.
Blogging from Jamaica, one of the things that most strikes Active Voice is that many of the international mainstream media “[seem] to have one clip of Whitney singing/performing”, to which one of her Twitter followers responded:
You know they don’t keep black folk in stock.
The post continues:
I couldn’t understand why for a couple of hours CNN kept showing the same footage of Whitney in a grey dress singing on stage, while NBC seemed to have slightly more diverse clips to accompany the sparse details of her death yesterday. @106harlem’s terse response is shocking but true. Within a few minutes @diverseworld chimed in saying @anniepaul @106harlem … If this is about the footage. I agree. Finally BBC moved from the Bodyguard…
Plain Talk begins his post with a line from “The Greatest Love of All”, but soon voices his concern that the cult of celebrity may be sending the wrong message to regional societies:
The truth of the matter is that the deepest needs of a human being cannot be medicated away; human beings, people, need love, acceptance, intimacy and a feeling of belonging as much as air, water and food to develop, regardless of how unfashionable and contradictory that statement may sound…
Our society is now at the cusp of a complete breakdown because we bought the lie wholesale and sprung for all of the attachments as well. The modern day man-made dilemma of depression that is caused either by the abandonment or outright abuse of our children when they are at their most vulnerable can only be turned around through deep self examination and acceptance in a healthy loving environment and by a life of purpose and of service to others.
We need teachers who love children, who chose the profession out of  the desire to mould and develop healthy young minds in a world of immense possibilities and dreams. We need to put back the structures of a healthy society into place, that encourages family life rather than its destruction; that rebuilds our nation into a place where it is safe and beautiful to be a child, and where it is healthy and possible to grow up and become an adult. We need to love each other, take care of each other, and to treasure and grow our communities into spaces of human development and care once again, so as to have somewhere to retreat to when times get dark and we need the trust and support only loved ones can give.
Finally, over in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Abeni writes:
When the phone rang last it was to report two deaths. One was yet another female homicide and the other the death of mega star Whitney Houston. Both were devastating for various reasons. The blood of females continue to drench the soil and it makes me scared,helpless and angry at the same time.
Ms Whitney was an icon, She was gorgeous,regal and had the most amazing voice ever. It seemed like everything she touched turned to gold. From being the first black woman to grace the over of Seventeen magazine, to an endless succession of hits,to lighting up the screen she had the fans eating out of her hands. As a 90's teen her music was a constant in my life.
Many would prefer to reduce her life to her struggles with drug addiction as if it were the single defining factor. I can't and I won't because I believe we or most of us have our demons. We however, have the luxury of not having them played out on the public stage. In the end she was a human as human as all of us.
Rest in peace sweet girl and thanks for sharing your talent with us.


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Colombia: Romantic Movie for Men Premieres on Facebook · Global Voices
Juliana Rincón Parra

Lessons for a Kiss, a Colombian film categorized by writer and director Juan Pablo Bustamante as a romantic comedy for men, will premiere on Facebook on Valentine's day (Feb. 14) and will stay online for 3 months. It will be available for rental for $.99 cents.

author: Juliana Rincón Parra


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Hungary: Another Environmental Catastrophe in the Making · Global Voices
Atlatszo.hu

Parts of this text were published on Atlatszo.hu.
In October 2010, a toxic spill from a red sludge reservoir in Kolontár caused the greatest environmental disaster in Hungary's recent history. Toxic water and mud flowed through the nearby villages, killing ten and injuring many inhabitants who had not been informed about the danger of getting close to the deluge.
Residents of the town of Devecser, about 150 km west of the capital Budapest, hit by a flood of toxic sludge from an alumina factory were struggling to recover their belongings from the mud. Photo by Y ATTILA "BOGART" P., copyright © Demotix (6/10/10).
Since the production of alumina stopped, some alumina production waste sludge reservoirs in Hungary – similar to those that caused the October 2010 catastrophe – were or are being used for dumping other types of hazardous materials. Hungarian aluminium factories were privatized after 1990 at conveniently low prices. In exchange, the buyers had to take over the reduction of the previous environmental damages.
One of these factories – in Almásfüzitő, a town by the Danube River in north-western Hungary – has long stopped producing alumina. Its waste sludge reservoirs, however, are being used for hazardous waste produced elsewhere.
According to a document published by Atlatszo.hu [.pdf, hu], a staff member of Tatai Környezetvédelmi Zrt. (Tata Environmental Protection cPlc., also known as TKV Zrt.) claimed this 15 years ago, in a university lecture about a technology used in “fixing” one of Hungary’s alumina production waste sludge reservoirs (at Almásfüzitő): “We are replacing an existing risk with another one.”
The lecturer added at the time: “The only way to sort out this area would be to remove the whole lot of 11,000 tons of waste from here.”
The document, which is a transcript of the lecture, proves that with the excuse of “reducing the damages,” these containers get infected with hazardous waste and even heavy metals that are dumped there by specialist companies. The consequences of this are unpredictable, but profits can be huge.
Olajos, a Hungarian blogger, wrote in a 2010 post [hu] that, according to documentation on hazardous waste, even in 2000 alumina production generated 14.45 percent of the industrial dioxin and furan:
[…] What is dioxin? Those who've been following the Ukrainian politics in the past few years have heard of it, since [Victor Yushchenko, one of the presidential candidates in the 2004 election] was poisoned with dioxin at the time.
The full name of dioxin is Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD). This compound doesn't exist in nature, it is a by-product of human, industrial activity, it disrupts the immune system and causes cancer, and has a DNA-damaging potential. The long and short of it: this is an insidious poison and it can't deplete from the body. Factories release into the environment by-products containing dioxin. In Hungary, dioxin got out from a waste reservoir in Garé, a place which also turned into a symbol of environmental damage.
Less has been heard about furan, this compound didn't get as famous as its companion, but the environment can be polluted with this by-product as well, deriving from the alumina production. […]
By the end of 2011, Greenpeace started a campaign in Hungary drawing attention to the reservoir in Almásfüzítő. Pacsker of Greenr blog shared a Greenpeace video titled “A Street of Cancer Patients in Almásfüzítő” [hu] and commented on it [hu]:
There must be a very serious case for ELTE University's Cooperative Research Center for Environmental Sciences (CRCES) to be talking in a Greenpeace video. The case of Almásfüzítő is like that.
Judit Molnár [the young woman talking in the video] is 24 years old and she has gone through two neoplasia diseases, her sister has 19 malignant lumps in her body.
1.5 meter deep it's already oil that is flowing in the soil.
Red sludge is bagatelle compared to other materials poured into the reservoir.
The frogs are red [because of the liquid leaking from the reservoir].
The reservoir leaks in many places. The low tide [of the Danube right next to the reservoir] has proved this perfectly. The whole Budapest is drinking these industrial poisons and carcinogenic by-products!
And, in addition to this, the Tata Environmental Protection (SIC!) cPlc. is able to call this simply “composting”… Man, how can you compost inorganic waste?!
This is pouring hazardous waste into a reservoir leaking like a sponge. In Germany and Austria it is forbidden to mix different types of hazardous waste and to deposit them together. [Meanwhile] we are intentionally creating an environmental powder keg…
Since the publication of the transcript of the 1996 lecture, TKV Zrt. has contacted atlatszo.hu to claim – among other things – that the documents mentioned above had been manipulated and that the red sludge reservoirs at Almásfüzitő are not at all dangerous to the environment. Yet, a study [hu, with a summary in English] published in 2004 by the Geographical Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences supports the facts stated in the document published by Atlatszo.hu.


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Iran: Blogger’s wife and daughter got kidnapped · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

According to a report Mehdi Khazali‘s wife and daughter were kidnapped by the security forces and moved to an unknown place[update: they were released on bail]. Khazali is a blogger and publisher who had been sentenced to 14 years in prison but later a court revised his jail term to four years and half. The blogger has been on hunger strike for 38 days.


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Iran: ‘Internet is an unwanted guest’ · Global Voices
Hadi Nili

A member of Iranian council of internet filtering says [fa]: Internet is an unwanted guest in our country. Mohammad Reza Aghamiri adds: Due to the problems of this guest, we should apply severe monitoring. He believes Google is supporting ‘disruptions’ in Iran, helping opposition supporters. Several Iranian users have reported in last week they have had no access to emails.

author: Hadi Nili


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Iran: Threatening message targets journalists · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

Reliable sources, including one Iranian journalist, have told Global Voices that several Iranian activists and journalists have received an email threatening that they will be punished according to the “Islamic Punishment” law of the Islamic Republic of Iran.


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Jamaica: Media Mandate to Provide Info · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

A man dies after being shot during a robbery at an ATM; Active Voice wonders “why Jamaican media seems to be conspiring with the bank concerned to keep the exact location of the ATM a secret”, adding: “Such an omission raises serious questions about the media and exactly whose watchdogs they are…”


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Lebanon: Bloggers Get Together · Global Voices
Moussa Bashir

The first Get Together for Lebanese bloggers organized by LebAgg took place on February 9, 2012. “It was a pretty casual one, the sole purpose was to kick-start a series of more get togethers for bloggers. We were hoping for some brainstorming and bloggers suggesting ideas, but the settings didn't really help whereas there was food and drinks and the bloggers were having fun..” wrote Liliane, who spearheaded this event.

author: Moussa Bashir


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Mexico: PEN Protesta! International Writers Protest in Solidarity With Mexican Colleagues · Global Voices
Andrea Arzaba

On January 29, 2012, PEN International, the world’s oldest international literary and human rights organization, held an event in Mexico City called PEN Protesta! (“PEN protests”) to show solidarity with Mexican writers, poets and journalists, and to demand freedom of the press and of expression in Mexico.
PEN Protesta! was held at Casa Lamm, a cultural centre and gallery located in the legendary Colonia Roma district of Mexico City. On its official website, PEN International described the event as “a public demonstration of solidarity and a demand for accountability for the murders and disappearances of journalists in Mexico,” adding that:
As an international literary organization dedicated to the protection of writers and the defense of freedom of expression, PEN has condemned these killings and called for an end to impunity for those who carry out attacks on media workers in Mexico. At “PEN Protesta,” delegates representing PEN’s distinguished global membership of writers lend their voices to the growing national chorus demanding effective protections for members of the Mexican press.
On January 27, PEN published the following ad in Mexican newspaper El Universal:
To the journalists and writers of Mexico:
We, writers from around the world, stand with you and all Mexican citizens who are calling out for the killing, the impunity, the intimidation to stop.
These violations diminish us all and threaten the right of Mexican citizens to live lives both safe and free from censorship.
You have an absolute right to life and a guaranteed right to practice your profession free from fear.
We call on your government to apprehend and prosecute all who have silenced your colleagues and seek to silence you. This is its obligation – to respect and to protect citizens and their rights.
We honor your courage and demand this in the name of our common humanity.
The ad includes the signatures of 170 writers from all over the world, including J.M. Coetzee, Chinua Achebe, Daniel Alarcón, and Toni Morrison.
PEN International Delegation at PEN Protesta! in Mexico City on January 29, 2012. Photo by Alain Pescador, used with permission.
The event was mentioned [es] in the blog Geografia de Riesgos:
En México 56 periodistas fueron asesinados y 18 desaparecieron entre el 2000 y el 2011, según datos de la Sociedad Interamericana de Prensa. La ONU y la OEA consideran a México como el país más peligroso para el ejercicio periodístico en el continente americano.
En este contexto, una delegación compuesta por 12 personas de la asociación de escritores PEN Club Internacional visitó México bajo el lema PEN Protesta, para emitir “un mensaje de solidaridad de decenas de miles de escritores del mundo con el pueblo mexicano que tanto admiramos”, informó John Ralston Saul, escritor canadiense y presidente de PEN.
In Mexico, 56 journalists were killed and 18 disappeared between 2000 and 2011, according to the Inter American Press Association. The UN and the OAS consider Mexico as the most dangerous country for journalists in the Americas.
In this context, a delegation of 12 people from the writers’ association PEN International visited Mexico under the slogan PEN Protesta to convey “a message of solidarity of tens of thousands of writers in the world with the Mexican people that we admire so much,” said John Ralston Saul, Canadian writer and president of PEN.
Journalist Renato Consuegra highlighted the words of poet Homero Aridjis [es] in the blog Cuba Nuestra:
La frase del poeta Homero Aridjis no podía ser más emotiva: “México es un país mágico, donde hay asesinados pero no asesinos”. Por ese motivo la delegación más grande de PEN viajó a México —los 7 de Norteamérica, Japón e Inglaterra y todo el Ejecutivo—, en muestra de solidaridad con los periodistas asesinados y con la exigencia a flor de labios, en la jornada de este medio día: PEN protesta.
The words of the poet Homero Aridjis could not be more emotional: “Mexico is a magical country where there are people killed but no murderers.” For this reason the largest PEN delegation traveled to Mexico —7 from North America, Japan and England and the entire Executive – to show solidarity with those killed and with the demands on their lips, during midday today: PEN protests.
Later in his post Renato quotes the powerful words [es] of renowned Mexican writer Elena Poniatowska:
La escritora Elena Poniatowska dijo que “en México decir la verdad es jugarse la vida; lo terrible es que el número (de asesinatos) aumente; hasta cuándo ejercer el periodismo será una sentencia de muerte; cuánto tiempo más debemos esperar para que las autoridades ofrezcan garantías reales que garanticen la vida y la profesión, cuánto tendrá que pasar para que México deje de ser el país más peligroso de América Latina para ejercer el periodismo”.

author: Andrea Arzaba


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Mexico Prepares to Elect a New President · Global Voices
J. Tadeo

After the governing political party finalized their candidate on February 5, 2012, for this year's upcoming election, the list of competitors for Mexico's presidential race appears ready.
The candidates
Although no one can be formally considered a candidate for the presidency at the moment, according to Mexico's electoral legislation, the country's main political forces have already designated their “virtual candidates.” So, on the part of the Partido Acción Nacional (the party in power) Josefina Eugenia Vazquez Mota was chosen to contend for the presidency. For the Partido de la Revolución Democrática the virtual candidate is Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who participated in the process six years ago, and upon not being favored deemed himself to be the “legitimate president of Mexico.” For the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (which maintained power from 1929 until 2000) Enrique Peña Nieto will be the candidate.
Reactions in the blogosphere
Varied commentary has arisen from the Mexican blogosphere; much of which for whatever reason has concentrated on the mistakes made by the “virtual candidates” or on the droll moments that attract attention. Nevertheless, some bloggers have ventured to write about what can be expected from the electoral process, which has only but a recent history in the country; such is the case of Carlos Gómez Luna [es], who wrote:
Josefina Vazquez Mota, image from Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license, not adapted
En el desarrollo del proceso electoral sin duda aún faltan muchas cosas por conocerse, como las estrategias de campaña, la plataforma electoral de las alianzas, los errores que pudieran cometerse por parte de los equipos de los candidatos, y sobre todo el comportamiento que tendrá la Presidencia de la República, que como observamos en la contienda presidencial pasada, fue un factor determinante en el resultado final, incluso reconocido por la propia Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación. En este sentido ya se han dado algunas señales como la anulación de los comicios en la capital del Estado de Michoacán, la sospecha aún sin sustento pero probable del aprovechamiento de los programas de beneficio social para encauzar el voto y la retención de presupuesto federal asignado a los Estados gobernados por partidos políticos distintos al del Presidente.
On the other hand, the blog Liberal Mexiquense [es] wrote with skepticism, remembering the result of past electoral processes and some of the undue practices that persist within the political system of the country:
Así, cada sexenio se repite ese clamor de esperanza ciudadana que rápidamente es acallado por la sucesión de gobiernos fallidos que se esmeran en operar contrariamente a lo prometido.
Por igual, procesos electorales que en repetidas ocasiones responden a guiones preestablecidos y cansinos ensayos montados desde hace décadas con una buena dosis de melodrama y tragicomedia, no exenta de humor negro.
Cultura del pasado que todavía acumula un catálogo de términos donde anidan actitudes y conductas, aún con vigencia: “dedazos”, “compra de votos”, “acarreo”, “campañas faraónicas”, “pago de cuotas”, “regalitos del candidato” o el proverbial “reparto de tortas” que la modernidad ha convertido con su milagrería, no en la multiplicación de panes y vino, sino en “bonos fraternales” para la hamburguesería más próxima al mitin.
So, every six years we repeat this clamor of citizen hope that is quickly quieted by the succession of failed governments that strive to operate contrary to what is promised.
Equally, electoral processes that on repeated occasions respond to preestablished scripts and weary trials mounted since decades ago with a good dose of melodrama and tragicomedy, not without black humor.
Past culture that still accumulates a catalogue of terminology within such nest attitudes and behaviors, even with validity: “thick fingers”, “vote-buying”, “haulage”, “pharaonic campaigns”, “payment of fees”, “gifts from the candidate” or the proverbial “allocation of cakes” which modernity has changed, because of it's misrecognition of miracles, not into the multiplication of bread and wine, but into “fraternal bonds” for the hamburger joint closest to the rally.
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, image from Wikimedia Commons free in the public domain.
Toward the end of the past year, the blog Sopitas [es] prepared an interesting infographic [es] about the bids of the parties and their candidates. The same authors recently spoke on the need for more candidates, alluding to the confusion over the current bid:
No sé qué piensen ustedes pero en un proceso idílico, lo único que podemos pensar es que nos gustaría que alguna fuerza de la justicia universal abriera las filas de candidatos y nos diera más opciones que los flancos artificiales de nuestra política; porque las cosas, en lugar de definirse, cada vez nos generan mayor confusión.
Reactions on Twitter
Several users were interested in the visual pollution that the electoral process has generated so far. Dr. Miguel Carbonell (@MiguelCarbonell) [es] suggested:
Quienes han inundado la ciudad con tanta basura (pre)electoral deberían comprometerse a recogerla y reciclarla.
On the same topic, Malú Flores (@maluflores) [es] pointed out:
Curioso que el progresismo, que jura cuidar el medio ambiente, sea el sector que más propaganda electoral (basura) tiene en las calles
Enrique Peña Nieto, image from Wikimedia Common under Creative Commons Generic Attribution/ShareAlike 2.0 license
Commentator Brozo (@brozoxmiswebs) [es] in colloquial language (as is the usual), referred to one of the most important topics to the electorate and one that was recently addressed on the political agenda of the head of the Secretary of the National Defense: security.
Galván Galván [actual Secretario de Defensa Nacional] reconoce al chile pelón [sin reservas], que la seguridad interior se encuentra seriamente amenazada. Qué candidat@ podrá con ése paquetito?
However, as it was noted previously, many users continue to be focused principally on the gaffes of the “virtual candidates”, such as Armando Cornejo (@acornejoi) [es] who recently referred to an episode which featured a candidate demonstrating his lacking reading skills at the International Book Fair:
Por qué vas a votar x #EPN [Enrique Peña Nieto] del #PRI? Seguramente te has quedado sin respuesta; casi como #PenaNieto en la #FIL [Feria Internacional del Libro]… caray que PENA
On Sunday, July 1, 2012, Mexico will elect someone to take over the Presidency of the Republic for the 2012 – 2018 term. In the upcoming months, there will be many expressions of support for or disapproval of the candidates; we will be on the lookout for the critical and analytic voices that will help us to understand the development of the electoral process in this North American nation.

author: J. Tadeo


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Paraguay: Displaced Indigenous Community to Return to Land · Global Voices
Silvia Viñas

Intercontinental Cry re-posts a report by Amnesty International: “After living next to a major highway for nearly two decades without access to water, regular food supplies or even land to cultivate–the Enxet community of Yakye Axa can finally return to a normal way of life on their ancestral lands in southeastern Paraguay. Amnesty International reports.”

author: Silvia Viñas


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Senegal: Reasons Behind the Pre-Election Turbulence · Global Voices
Anna Gueye

[All links are in French unless stated otherwise]
Given the turbulent pre-election period currently being experienced in Senegal, many observers are worried that the Senegalese are contributing to a progressive undermining of democracy, only weeks ahead of the presidential elections.
Current President Abdoulaye Wade was first elected head of state in 2000 and has decided to stand for a third term even though it should not be allowed under the constitution. Many Senegalese are protesting the decision to allow him to stand, and several factors worry Senegal's voters.
President Abdoulaye Wade. Image via Wikipedia (CC-license-2.0.
Fatou Diop highlights the fact that Wade is the world's oldest candidate:
Le fait est sans doute unique dans les annales de l’histoire mondiale : Me Abdoulaye Wade est candidat à l’élection présidentielle de 2012 pour un mandat de 7 ans à l’âge de …86 ans. En filigrane du débat politique actuel, se pose la question de sa succession, beaucoup le soupçonnent de vouloir un troisième mandat pour transmettre le pouvoir à son fils.
Since his rise to power in 2000, Abdoulaye Wade has manoeuvered to maintain power. Langangui returns to the fact that Wade embraced change when he was elected. But his promises were empty and the time for change seems to have long since passed:
Tout juste élu en 2000, animé, pensait-on de bonnes intentions il remanie la Constitution. Un nouveau texte instituant le quinquennat au lieu du septennat initial, stipulant que le mandat présidentiel « est renouvelable une seule fois » est adopté. Chacun avait compris que Wade serait lui-même concerné par cette disposition quoiqu’il ait été élu un an après la modification du texte constitutionnel. D’ailleurs en 2007, après sa réélection, il déclara publiquement qu’il ne se représenterait plus.
The following video was uploaded to YouTube by user dameptm on April 6, 2011, detailing President Wade's intention not to stand as a presidential candidate in 2012:
However, Wade has gone back on his word and will stand for re-election:
C’était mal connaître le bonhomme. Dans l'intervalle, en 2008, il fit à nouveau modifier la Constitution pour réinstaurer le septennat renouvelable une fois (vous suivez ?), avant d'échouer l'année dernière dans une autre tentative de modification constitutionnelle qui consistait à organiser un scrutin présidentiel à un tour, dans un système de ” ticket présidentiel ” à l'américaine (chaque candidat aurait été affublé d'un vice-président, Wade se présentant avec son fils Karim, par exemple). Deux mandats donc, un de sept ans et un autre de cinq qui s’achèvent, mais qu'il voudrait prolonger par un énième septennat
Quand on rappelle au « Vieux » sa promesse de ne plus se représenter il répond « Ma Waxoon ? Waxeet » (« je l’ai dit, je me dédis ») » en wolof, la langue la plus parlée dans le pays.
Babacar NDiaye highlights Wade's flagrant nepotism in manoeuvring his son Karim into several key government posts:
Le fait le plus marquant du « règne » de Wade est certainement la mainmise de son fils sur l’Etat. Ce même fils qui n’a jamais rendu compte sur sa gestion de l’ANOCI et qui, après sa défaite inoubliable lors des élections locales en 2009 [dans son propre bureau de vote] , a été nommé au poste de Ministre d’Etat avec un portefeuille qui empiète sur d’autres ministères. En plus d’être le ministre de la coopération internationale qui n’est rien d’autre qu’un démembrement du ministère des Affaires Etrangères, il est également le ministre de l’énergie, des transports aériens et des infrastructures. Il est ainsi à la tête d’un « mini gouvernement » dans le gouvernement. Dans le pure style « Wadien », il s’agissait de faire un « pied de nez » aux sénégalais qui ont freiné l’ascension fulgurante du « Prince » en quête de légitimité et de popularité. La raison évoquée par Wade sur l’attribution d’un tel « super ministère » à son fils est qu’il a « une formation particulière et rare ». Il est diplômé de la Sorbonne en audit et management (..) C'est ce népotisme que dénonce l’opposition et la rue et qui a aussi poussé le chanteur Youssou NDour à présenter sa candidature pour l‘élection présidentielle de 2012. Un acte qu’il voit comme un devoir à l‘égard de ses concitoyens.
Fatou Diop continues:
En juin, il avait tenté un ènième tour de passe- passe : une modification qui devait permettre d’élire simultanément un président et un vice-président avec un minimum de 25% des suffrages exprimés au premier tour. Une manipulation qui a mis le feu aux poudres. De violentes émeutes éclatent à Dakar et Wade finit par retirer le projet.
Langangui explains that Wade has mobilised a lot of resources to get his candidacy approved:
S’agissant de l’interdiction que lui fait la Constitution de se présenter à un troisième mandat il requiert à grands frais des constitutionalistes étrangers. A la question de savoir si la première élection de M. Wade, en 2000, entrait pas dans le champ de la réforme constitutionnelle, adoptée en 2001 et limitant à deux le nombre de mandats consécutifs la réponse de ces derniers fut bien entendu négative. Pourtant cinq constitutionnalistes sénégalais – dont un membre du comité de rédaction et de la Constitution – avaient tous estimé que cette disposition devait s’appliquer au président candidat. « L’esprit et la lettre de la Constitution interdisent un troisième mandat à Wade. C’est pourquoi nous devons refuser le dépôt de sa candidature », avait alors déclaré Mounirou Sy, professeur de droit à l’université de Dakar…
Ce débat vient d’être tranché par « cinq Sages du Conseil constitutionnel », tous nommés par Wade. Ces derniers ont déclaré hier vendredi 27 janvier que le président sortant pouvait se présenter, avec treize autres candidats, à l’élection présidentielle du 26 février prochain, invalidant au passage la candidature du chanteur Youssou Ndour (Le Conseil constitutionnel a motivé son refus de valider la candidature de Youssou Ndour en constatant qu'il ” a produit une liste de 12.936 électeurs appuyant sa candidature, dont seulement 8.911 ont pu être identifiés et leurs signatures validées “, alors qu'il en faut 10.000 au minimum).
Le choc de la nouvelle a été rude, notamment chez les jeunes à Dakar. « Si Wade participe aux élections, il n’y aura pas d’élections. Si les membres du Conseil constitutionnel valident sa candidature, ils seront responsables de tout ce qui adviendra au Sénégal » avait averti un militant des droits de l’homme.
On its Facebook page the Mouvement du 23 Juin (23rd June Movement) explains the reasons behind the anger:
On n'est pas riches, on n’a pas de pétrole, ni d'or, ni de diamant… mais on a toujours eu la paix, et notre honneur, aujourd'hui le Sénégal a honte… tout ça pourquoi… parce que pour Wade, il faut que Karim Wade soit Président… on ne se laissera jamais faire.
Subsequent protests against Wade's candidacy have resulted in eight deaths, including a police officer and a young girl, and another young girl has been blinded in one eye. As Vincent Hugueux indicates in his blog, Abdoulaye Wade is playing down the protests, describing them as “displays of petulance”.
The 23rd June Movement held meetings on 11 and 12 February and decided that from Tuesday 14 Februrary onwards, protesters would occupy Obelisk Square and would not leave until Wade withdraws his candidacy. The first round of voting is set for 26 February. All but one of the opposition candidates have decided to suspend campaigning until 16 February and will be in talks with President Wade's PDS party.

author: Anna Gueye


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Slovakia, Hungary: Shrouded in Smog · Global Voices
Tibor Blazko

Blogger Ulrika Lejnarová, highlighting air pollution data from the Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute [sk], wonders [sk] why Slovakia, while often paying attention to the critical conditions in Hungary [en], is doing little to inform its own citizens of the domestic situation adequately, in order to avoid health complications.

author: Tibor Blazko