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As Women March in Argentina, the Country Debates Legalizing Abortion · Global Voices
Romina Navarro

During a historic Women's Week in Argentina, on March 6 the Argentine Senate will hear lawmakers present a bill to legalize abortion. The bill is spearheaded by the National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe, and Free Abortion and has been signed by 71 members of Congress from across political parties.
“[We don't want] even one woman dying because of an illegal abortion.” Image: Emergentes (CC BY-NC 2.0)
After decades of delays, including six failed attempts since 2005 to pass similar bills, this year the government gave the green light to debate the bill starting March 20. Given the wide variety of opinions on the issue, even within parties, the government gave legislators total freedom of expression, encouraging them to vote according to their own principles and convictions.
On March 1, in his opening speech for the regular sessions of Congress, Argentine President Mauricio Macri said:
Hace 35 años que se viene postergando un debate muy sensible que como sociedad nos debemos: el aborto. Como más de una vez dije, estoy a favor de la vida. Pero también estoy a favor de los debates maduros y responsables que como argentinos tenemos que darnos. Por eso, vemos con agrado que el Congreso incluya este tema en su agenda de este año. Espero que se escuchen todas las voces y se tomen en cuenta todas las posturas.
There have been 35 years of neglect of this very sensitive issue that we as a society are obligated to address: abortion. As I have said more than once, I am pro-life. But I am also in favor of the mature and responsible debates that we as Argentines must carry out. For this reason, I am glad to see that Congress is including the subject in its agenda this year. I hope that all voices are heard and all positions are taken into account.
Additionally, Macri brought up two other items of interest in the arena of gender equality: the extension of paternity leave–which as of today permits only a couple of days–and the promise to reduce the wage gap between men and women, something that already has a legal framework, but one that, in reality, leaves much to be desired.
It is notable that the initiative to host this debate in Congress comes from a government known to be right-leaning and conservative. The debates faced delays and barriers during the two terms of former President Cristina Kirchner, who belongs to the opposing political party. Kirchner was outspoken in her support of the abortion ban.
The abortion debate in Argentina is not cleanly divided along party lines, but rather revolves around the personal experiences, values, and religious beliefs of individuals. The wide range of opinions in favor of and against decriminalization is found both within the governing party and in the opposition.
The possibility of decriminalizing abortion has polarized public opinion in Argentina, which struggles between its progressive trajectory and its conservative, religious heritage.
As might be expected, days before the Women's Strike that will take place on International Women's Day, social media was exploding with comments and memes that mirror this range of opinions (including some extreme ones) on the issue of abortion.
It is certainly a topic that readily provokes thoughtful debate as well as intense emotional reactions, which explains the abundance of insults, personal attacks, and mocking. Some of the most widely used hashtags are #abortolegal (legal abortion), #AbortoLegalYA (legal abortion NOW), #NOalAborto (NO to abortion), and #Sialavida (Yes to life).
Nuestros cuerpos. Nuestros territorios.#AbortoLegalYa pic.twitter.com/WdX7Kk9cxf
— #AbortoLegalYa! (@PorAbortoLegal) February 28, 2018.
Our bodies. Our territory.#AbortoLegalYa (Legal abortion now)
Si les dan #AbortoLegal gratis para que garchen sin cuidarsey, quiero que también existan By pass gástricos y liposucción gratis, para poder comer sin cuidarnos y quedar flaquitos de nuevo.
De hecho muere más gente por obesidad que por abortos. ¿ O no?#BuenViernes
— Ave Nocturna (@MalbecYQueso) March 2, 2018
If they get free #AbortoLegal (legal abortion) so they can have unprotected sex, then I want free gastric bypass and liposuction so we can eat whatever we want and then get thin again. More people actually die from obesity than from abortions. Am I wrong? #BuenViernes (Happy Friday)
Deshumanizar al feto puede tranquilizar tu conciencia, pero no cambiar la realidad. Es una vida cómo la tuya! Déjalo vivir! #SiALaVida
— Ori Göttig (@oriana_gottig) March 2, 2018
You can dehumanize the fetus to ease your conscience, but you can't change reality. It's a life, just like yours! Let it live! #SiALaVida (Yes to life)
La discusión no es aborto sí aborto no, la discusión es aborto legal o aborto clandestino. Lo demás son posturas y decisiones personales, todas respetables, ninguna discutible. #AbortoLegalYa
— ★ Re Gi Na (@ReginaGrisolia) March 2, 2018
The debate isn't abortion versus no abortion; it's legal abortion versus underground abortion. Everything else is a matter of personal opinions and decisions, all respectable, none disputable. #AbortoLegalYa (Legal abortion now)
In the days following the news of the debate on decriminalization, political figures and members of the art world also voiced their views. National deputy Elisa Carrió, important ally to governing party Cambiemos, made her position against abortion clear in her statement asking for “respect for those of us who are believers.” The Argentine vice president, Gabriela Michetti, echoed this view, although she agrees that debate is necessary.
Minister of Science and Technology Lino Barañao declared himself in favor of decriminalization. The minister of culture, Pablo Avelluto, also supported decriminalization, but urged that the debate take place without demonizing those with opposing views. Actress Mercedes Funes shared a heartfelt letter in which she outlined her support for safe, legal abortion:
Conozco varias mujeres que han abortado. Todas ellas cuando me lo contaron, me lo contaron hablando desde la huella que a cada una les dejó. No me lo contaron con liviandad, como una anécdota más, como si hubieran ido a hacer un trámite, o a sacarse una muela.
I know many women who have had abortions. All of them told me about it from the perspective of the impact it had on them. They didn't talk about it lightly, like just another anecdote, as if they'd run an errand or had a tooth removed.
“Global call for legal, safe, and free abortion”. Image: Emergentes (CC BY-NC 2.0)
Beyond the internet debates and the personal opinions, the proposed bill not only shakes up the values of Argentine society, but also forces consideration of other realities.  According to the Argentina division of Amnesty International, an estimated 450,000 illegal abortions take place every year. And according to collectives like Varones Antipatriarcales de Rosario and Corriente La Colectiva on Medium:
…las prácticas de abortos no solo existen en el tejido social con una cotidianeidad mayor a la que imaginamos, sino que se distribuyen [y son atravesadas] por vectores de racialización, sexo, género, clase, posiciones políticas, ideológicas, religiosas, éticas y fundamentalmente, por los intereses económicos de corporaciones médicas y farmacéuticas.
…abortions do not only occur with a regularity beyond what we imagine, but they are also distributed by race, sex, gender, class, political party, ideology, religions, ethics, and, fundamentally, by the economic interests of medical and pharmaceutical corporations.
Ahead of the bill being presented in the Senate, the National Campaign for the Right to Legal, Safe, and Free Abortion organized a rally March 6 in front of the National Congress and in the country's major cities. Various community groups, feminist organizations, and human rights groups will lend their support, with some discussing live online.

author: Romina Navarro


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Evidence Says Iran Throttled Telegram Connections After January Protests · Global Voices
Article 19

User reports and various data suggests even after the Iranian government removed censorship on the popular messaging and social media platform, they were still slowing down speeds. Image remixed by Mahsa Alimardani.
A version of this post was written by Mahsa Alimardani for ARTICLE19 and republished here under a content partnership.
At the height of this winter's protest movement in Iran, there was a temporary ban on the Telegram messaging app, alongside the other popular foreign social media platform, Instagram. This lasted from 30 December 2017 to 13 January 2018.
Although temporary, the ban had big implications in Iran, where the IP-based messaging app is immensely popular. Telegram dominates the messaging app market inside of Iran and is seen as the central (private and public) communication platform for Iranians.
Out of a total population of 80 million people, 50 million Iranians have Internet access, and among those users, 45 million are on Telegram. Telegram’s public channels boast a wide array of topics, both political and quotidian, some of which are opposition diaspora channels, which ordinarily would be censored on other platforms.
While the temporary ban was widely acknowledged, new evidence indicates that the government throttled or slowed connection speeds to the platform in the days after it lifted the block on the platform. This adds a new layer of concern to the issue of Iran’s attempts to control and tighten the net.
The ban on telegram — and indications of throttling — cast doubt on the discourse of opening up the internet that the administration of President Hassan Rouhani had promised to improve. One of the greatest achievements of the Rouhani administration in promoting Internet freedom has been their success at keeping platforms like Instagram and Telegram uncensored against efforts of the more conservative and hardline elements of leadership in the country. But efforts by the Rouhani administration to re-open platforms such as Twitter that have been blocked since 2009 seem more unlikely after the events surrounding Telegram.
The decision to block Telegram was a violation of due process and the rule of law, imposed by various security agencies within the country working outside the bounds of official law and associated protocols.
According to provisions of the Computer Crimes Law and the multi-agency body of the Supreme Council of Cyberspace, multiple authorities should review and approve such decisions before they are acted upon. Statements by Minister of Information Communication and Technology Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi later indicated the decisions were made by the Supreme National Security Council. The use of communication applications such as Telegram and Instagram should be always seen as tools that enhance the freedom of expression and access to information of Iranians, as enshrined in Article 19 of ICCPR.
Once the block on Telegram was removed on 13 January 2018, users reported slow connections over the application. Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov confirmed this to be the case on the platform in a 15 January 2018 tweet:
The reports that @telegram has been unblocked in Iran are consistent with our data, however, the speed of access to @telegram in Iran hasn't reached its pre-blocking level. We are analyzing the traffic to understand the reason for this before making any announcements.
— Pavel Durov (@durov) January 15, 2018
Data from the University of Tehran’s social lab demonstrated that the number of posts on Persian public channels and the number of views on these posts struggled to return to the same levels after the block was removed (the pink area is the period of blockage). Levels only returned to previous numbers around 20 January 2018.
Yellow represents the amount of posts, blue represents the amount of views on posts. The section in pink represents the period where blocking occurred from 31 December 2017 to 13 January 2018. The period following blocking appears to struggle to return to the levels of views and content shared on Persian Telegram channels. Previous decreases were caused by things like earthquakes. Data from the University of Tehran social labs and visualized by ARTICLE19.
Test results from the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI), an initiative that uses remote probes to test for technical internet censorship around the world, showed a slow return on test times when they probed for censorship results from the Telegram app and web version within Iran.
OONI probes testing the Telegram app and Telegram web browser in Iran for blocks. The period after the block (the red dots that end when the censorship ended on 13 January 2018) shows slower connection speeds, correlating to statements by users, Telegram’s CEO Durov, and other user statistics. Graph produced by Arturo Filasto, the co-founder and lead software developer for OONI.
Telegram itself has released no data about activity in Iran since Durov’s 15 January 2018 statement, in keeping with its characteristic lack of transparency in documenting government interference with its platform.
The data from the University of Tehran and the OONI probes are not exact science. But when combined with anecdotal user reports, they give a strong indication that authorities were continuing to limit the application’s use after the ban was lifted, in further violation of internet access obligations that the Rouhani administration has pledged to meet, both at the national and international levels.
The government itself has made no official statements on whether or not it is throttling connections. Many users were still reporting that slow download speeds were posing hurdles to their business dealings. On 17 January 2018, Minister Jahromi tweeted that he was meeting with the Supreme Council for Cyberspace to coordinate their policy on digital economy, in the wake of the effects of filtering on businesses. Users started to question the Ministry’s role in the slow download speeds, but got no response from the typically vocal Minister.
Minister Jahromi on 17 January tweets: “After hearing from the Supreme Council of Cyberspace today, it was approved by the Ministry of Communications, with the formation of a working group consisting of the Minister for Economy, a deputy of the scientific community, with the presence of the National Cyberspace Center, will prepare within a month the document on the strategy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in developing the digital economy, and submit to the government for approval.” In response, one of Jahromi’s followers asked “Mr. Minister, is the Ministry of ICT deliberately slowing down the download speeds for pictures and films on Telegram?” Jahromi gave no response.
Given this evidence, it would behoove Iran’s Ministry of ICT, a institution part of the elected Rouhani administration, in place to represent the concerns of the Iranian people, to transparently document the means and extent at efforts to control online communication.
Furthermore, Telegram has not responded to how their infrastructure inside of the country was affected while the government implemented a ban on the platform. In July 2017, the company moved its Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) into Iran and began hosting public media on the platform's channel on servers inside of the country, in order to increase download speeds. Iranians would also be better served by Telegram if the company released any data bearing evidence of government disruptions or other types of interference in their service from January 15.
While Telegram is now accessible, both the government and the company should place mechanisms of accountability and process in place to ensure that access to information — regardless of politics or company policy — is a guarantee for Iranians, regardless of politics.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Article 19


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How Greek Anti-Nationalist Satire Was Misunderstood as Hate Speech in Macedonian Media · Global Voices
Filip Stojanovski

Memes based on old propaganda posters mocking Greek nationalism which had been presented as posters used by Greek nationalists used for mobilization for mass protests. Collage by Macedonian Truthmeter.mk, CC BY.
On 1 and 2 February 2018, multiple Macedonian media outlets published an inflammatory poster they said was being distributed in order to mobilize Greeks to rally in Athens on 4 February.
The goal of the rally, organized mainly by Greek right-wing representatives, was to protest any compromise in the dispute with the Republic of Macedonia over the country's official name.
At first glance, the poster appeared to contain discriminatory language and visuals against Macedonians meant to incite tensions between the two neighbors.
But the image turned out to be satirical, purposefully outrageous in its wording in order to ridicule extreme nationalism. Nevertheless, the Macedonian public was incensed because these media outlets took the poster at face value and didn’t verify the facts of who was behind it.
The fake news was debunked by the fact-checking project the Truthmeter, in an article written by Zharko Trajanoski and translated by Dragan Kucirov. Their work helped ease nationalist tensions, as number of media reprinted the analysis, and raised important questions about the risk of reproducing hate speech, even in a mocking manner.
Macedonia is at once a geographic region in the south of the Balkan Peninsula, a modern state, and a northern province of Greece.
Similarly, the term Macedonian is used to designate ethnic Greeks or Bulgarians living in their respective parts of geographic Macedonia, and ethnic Macedonians who speak the Macedonian language and consider themselves as separate people from neighboring Greeks, Bulgarians and Serbs.
And therein lies the dispute between Greece and the Republic of Macedonia over the use of the name.
Many Greeks from Macedonia, Greece's northern province, feel that their neighbor's claim to the name steals their notion of homeland and co-opts their history, which stretches all the way to Alexander the Great. As a result, Greeks refer to people from the Republic of Macedonia as “Skopjans” (Skopje is the country's capital).
Meanwhile, ethnic Macedonians in the Republic of Macedonia see the issue as an infringement of their human right to identity.
The Republic of Macedonia formed in 1944 as a state of ethnic Macedonian people and others ethnic groups living there. After it became independent from the Yugoslav Federation in 1991, Greece blocked its entry into international institutions such as United Nations, NATO and European Union over its use of the name.
The Republic of Macedonia conceded to some Greek demands at the time, including replacing the ancient Macedonian sun symbol from its flag with a more modern version and agreeing to use the temporary designation of “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” in some international bodies.
A process of mediation under the auspices of UN had been under way for the last 23 years. During recent months, negotiations to resolve the issue have intensified thanks to both countries’ more liberal governments.
But extreme nationalists on either side of the border consider any compromise as treason. In this context, two massive protests recently took place in Greece's biggest cities: in Thessaloniki on 21 January and in Athens on 4 February, under the slogan “Macedonia is Greece.”
While the exact number in attendance is subject to debate, it's undeniable that both drew crowds of tens of thousands of diverse participants: from leftist icon composer Mikis Theodorakis, who made a speech in “defense of Greekness of Macedonia,” to far-rights extremists who perpetrated acts of violence.
And it was supposedly for these protests that the hateful poster was circulated — or at least that's what Macedonian news organizations misreported.
It showed a group of men jointly stabbing a giant dog with a knife branded with Greek symbols, warning that they have to defend Greece from “komitadjis” — members of the late 19th- and early 20-century Macedonian revolutionary movement which opposed Ottoman and later partial Greek rule in the region of Macedonia, and which was at times sponsored or undermined by other Balkan states, primarily Bulgaria and Serbia.
Several Macedonian media outlets reported on the poster as if it had indeed been distributed in Greece's streets using titles like “How the protest in Athens is announced: All together now, the comitadjis are at our doorstep (PHOTO)” or “Brussels is silent about the hate speech and the burned Macedonian flag during the protests in Thessaloniki”.
Satirical meme by Ελληνο-Χριστιανικό Ethnostedon. “Komitadjis at the gates! Macedonia needs you. Athens 04/02/2018 Syntagma 02.00 p.m. [This is written with Byzantine font, invoking associations of historical greatness.] NATIONAL RALLY NOW.”
From there, multiple intellectuals and journalists contributed to the sharing of the “shocking” image on social media. A well-known national TV editor wrote, “The Greek hysteria against Macedonia gains monstrous forms… This is a call for butchery – as opposed to the Macedonian’s gesture, to rename the motorway into ‘Friendship'…”
Poster for the 1958 film “Attack of the Puppet People.” Public domain, via Wikipedia. A copy of the film is available on YouTube.
Given that Macedonian media outlets were presenting the poster as hate speech, which can incite violence, Truthmeter decided to check out the story.
Analyst Zharko Trajanoski first started running searches on Google Images, where he found that the supposed protest leaflets was an edited version of a poster for the 1958 film Attack of the Puppet People (1958).
Digging deeper, it turned out that the source of the modified image was a Facebook page called “Ελληνο-Χριστιανικό Ethnostedon” (Greek-Christian Ethno-Sedative), dedicated to social satire.
Moreover, the page had photo-shopped numerous other old propaganda posters to make a statement.
For example, on 11 March 2014, they published the following photo-montage, using the same film poster as a model. This version caricatured right-wing politician Antonis Samaras, who was serving as Greek prime minister at the time, as a safeguard from the communist menace:
Satirical meme by Ελληνο-Χριστιανικό Ethnostedon from 2014 about Samaras. “Neo-Ruffians to the gates! Hellas needs you!! NATIONAL RALLY NOW.” The knife reads “Samaras”, the prime minister's surname.
The page also contained another photo-montage, similar to a poster that Macedonian media had claimed was for the January rally in Thessaloniki:
Satirical meme by Ελληνο-Χριστιανικό Ethnostedon based on an anti-Soviet poster from 1921. “SAVE OUR COUNTRY FROM THE EAMites Slavs. Everybody, be there 21.01.2018 15.00 White Tower.” EAM refers to the National Liberation Front, the main movement of the Greek Resistance during the Axis occupation of Greece during WWII. Made up of mainly the Communist Party of Greece and other leftist groups, EAM began to experience persecution in late 1944, which eventually led to the outbreak of the Greek Civil War.
But this time, it had text that ridiculed Samaras, and was published on 9 May 2014.
Both were modeled after an anti-Bolshevik propaganda poster used in Poland in 1921. In the 2018 photo-shopped version, the red star — the symbol of communism — was replaced with the sun from the flag of the Republic of Macedonia.
Polish anti-Bolshevik poster from 1921. The text reads: “Do you want to allow this to happen to your women and girls? Defend yourself against Bolshevism with all your might!”
“Greek-Christian Ethno-Sedative” is not alone in using such vintage posters for political discourse in Central and Eastern Europe.
For instance, a montage based on that poster was used by Polish newspaper in an anti-Russian context in April 2017.
And a magazine called “History without censorship” published a photo-montage in which the face of the raping Red Army soldier was made to look like Russian President Vladimir Putin. Apparently, it's symbolism is well known in Poland and possibly other neighboring countries like Ukraine.
The Truthmeter researcher wrote a private message to the admins of “Greek-Christian Ethno-Sedative” to tell them that two of their creations had been shared with misinformation, causing an uproar in the Republic of Macedonia. An administrator replied:
Humor through exaggeration. I think It is obvious for the Greeks. We choose to show posters that overemphasize the nationalistic and religious tendencies using a grotesque and old-fashioned background in order to deconstruct them. We are not nationalists, we are just joking. Thank you for your interest and sorry if you feel insulted.
So what caused so many to see hate speech in the posters, instead of humor? One commenter, Spyros Sofos, thought it came down to the degree to which Greeks and Macedonians are estranged from each other:
the problem is we are so alienated from each other as peoples and as individuals that we are prepared to expect the worst in each other
Truthmeter analyst Zharko Trajanoski noted that probably the biggest part of the problem lies with the Macedonian news organizations: Seemingly caught up in nationalistic paranoia, they presented the posters as hate speech without first tracking down the source and verifying the context in which they were published and the intentions of the author.
After Truthmeter published their analysis, several media outlets in the Republic of Macedonia republished it or reported on it, including some of those which originally published the misinformation. However, none of them issued an open retraction or an apology for misleading their readers.
And in Greece, several websites like Ptisi Diastima and anti-hoax website Ellinika Hoaxes pointed to analysis and commended Truthmeter for its debunking work.

author: Filip Stojanovski


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Netizen Report: Sri Lanka Blocks Social Media Amid Sectarian Violence · Global Voices
Netizen Report Team

Jami Ul Alfar Jummah mosque in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Photo by Aksam Zarook via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Sri Lanka’s Telecommunications Regulatory Commission ordered telecom operators to block Facebook, Viber and WhatsApp on March 7, in reaction to sectarian violence.
In recent months, tensions have risen between Buddhists, who make up the majority of the population, and Muslims, who represent just ten percent of the population. Last Sunday, a Buddhist man died after a violent encounter with a group of Muslim men, over a traffic dispute in the central region of Kandy. The following day, residents reported that a mob of at least 200 people set fire to a local mosque and the homes of at least 15 Muslims. According to a provincial council member, dozens more homes and businesses have been vandalized since.
On March 7, authorities imposed a ten-day “state of emergency” for the first time since 2011, when Sri Lanka was still freshly emerging from its civil war.
Regulators say the block will last for three days. An official who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity said that police had identified “anti-Muslim messages being shared on social networks, including a video posted by a hardline Buddhist monk urging violence against Muslims.”
Reacting to the measures in an analysis for Groundviews, an independent citizen media outlet based in the capital Colombo, journalist and social commentator Nalaka Gunawardene argued that this strategy was futile, and carried consequences for the entire population, leaving families unable to contact one another in a time of uncertainty and rising street violence. He wrote:
…this is more a case of public order than a matter of national security. Faced with a major breakdown in law and order, the government should have policed the streets properly, before trying to police the Internet.
Saudi human rights and political reform activist Essa al-Nukhaifi was sentenced to six years in prison, primarily over tweets that criticized the Saudi military intervention in Yemen. After he is released from prison, al-Nukhaifi will face an additional six-year ban on social media use and a six-year travel ban.
In a recent letter written from his cell in Mecca General Penitentiary, where he has been detained for more than a year, al-Nukhaifi addressed Saudi Prince Bin Salman:
I have been delighted to hear your speeches and media interviews in which you call for freedom of expression and respect for human rights, which is what we are calling for and share your wish to achieve….I am writing to you about them from a place of detention, where I being detained because of calling for these things.
Al-Nukhaifi called for broad reforms to the Kingdom’s justice system, rule of law and mechanisms for political participation.
A federal court in Abuja arraigned journalist brothers Timothy and Daniel Elombah of the independent Elombah news website on cybercrime and terrorism charges on March 1. The site covers Boko Haram and allegations of corruption in the upper tiers of government.
China Digital Times published allegations by a Weibo user who says their data was stolen by an Apple technical support employee. The report surfaced just days after Apple handed operations of its mainland China servers over to the Chinese government-owned company Guizhou Cloud Big Data.
According to the allegations, the employee accessed and tampered with multiple private online accounts belonging to the user. Apple subsequently claimed to have fired the employee, but could not offer further details on the safety of the user’s data or iCloud account, for confidentiality reasons. China Digital Times was not able to independently verify the allegations.
On Weibo, the user wrote: “They fired the employee so quickly, but still don’t even know how many people’s personal information and data was stolen and leaked. Apple users should all be wary!”
At the height of this winter's protest movement in Iran, there was a temporary ban on the Telegram messaging app from December 30, 2017 to January 13, 2018. New technical evidence from the University of Tehran and the Open Observatory of Network Interference suggests that authorities were continuing to limit the application’s use after the ban was lifted.
A group of US citizens who have been blocked by US President Donald Trump on Twitter have filed a lawsuit accusing the president of violating free speech in a public forum. Represented by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, the claimants argue that by blocking hundreds of citizens from publicly responding to his tweets, Trump is effectively restricting their first amendment rights. The case will confront thorny issues surrounding the treatment of online speech by public officials, and the adjudication of free speech on privately-owned internet platforms.
Afef Abrougui, Ellery Roberts Biddle Rohith Jyothish, Rezwan Islam, Oiwan Lam, Karolle Rabarison and Sarah Myers West contributed to this report.

author: Netizen Report Team


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Rebels and Rebellion in Classic Chinese Literature · Global Voices
I-fan Lin

Utagawa Kuniyoshi's drawing (1798-1861) of Li Kui, a rebel from “Water Margin”. Public domain image from Creative Commons.
As China prepares to remove the two-term limit on the presidency from its constitution, there is speculation as to whether the country is going to return to the era of dynasties, where the empire was ruled by powerful families.
The authoritarian nature of dynasties has led to a common stereotype of Chinese people as obedient and submissive. This stereotype fails to account for the fact that while much of China's history has been dominated by dynastic cycle, this cycle was in fact punctuated by the overthrowing of powerful emperors by popular revolutions or military coups which ended up with the country in chaos before another dynasty was established.
The first civil revolution recorded in China’s history took place in 221 BC. Liu Bang, who served as a minor patrol officer and led the revolution, went on to found the Han dynasty. Liu was not the only civilian emperor. The founder of the Ming dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang, also came from a poor peasant family. Wu Zetian, the most famous empress in Chinese history, was the daughter of a businessman and married into the royal family as a concubine.
The rebellious spirit of the knights-errant
In other words, the history of dynasties in China is also a history of rebellions, and that rebellious spirit is embodied in classic Chinese literature in the spirit of the knight-errant. Among the literary figures who embraced the rebellious spirit are Sima Qian and Li Bai.
Sima was a historian of the early Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 220). He dedicated a chapter of his famous “Records of the Grand Historian” to the knights-errant, whom he described as civilians trustworthy for their promises, fast to act in response to people’s needs and possessing their own system of justice. He expressed admiration for the knights-errant even when they acted against the law, because they adhered to the form of justice endorsed by the common people.
Liang Kai's drawing (1140-1210) of Li Bai, the genius poet. Public domain image from Creative Commons.
Li Bai was a poet widely acclaimed as a genius, and also a self-described knight-errant. He served the emperor for a short period, but spent most of his time wandering around and making friends. In his famous poem (a drinking song), “Bring in the wine”, he expressed his love of freedom and friendship and looked down on money and the societal status quo.
When we are happy,
Shan't we fully enjoy ourselves?
Drink up the golden chalices, my friends
[Bring in the wine]
Never let them empty to the moon
Life has its own meaning
[So never worry about money]
No matter how much I spend [on the wine]
It will eventually come back to me[…]
A luxury life is not my dream
My dream is to drink and drink and never wake up
All men of virtue are lonely
Only the drinkers are remembered
Film director Ang Lee’s award-winning film, ‘Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon’ is categorized in the west as belonging to the martial arts genre. In the Chinese-speaking world, however, it is considered a ‘Wu-Xia’ film—‘wu’ meaning the martial arts or Kung Fu, and ‘xia’ referring to the spirit of the knights-errant. Bearing this in mind, the film can be enjoyed from a cultural perspective as well as for its fantastic displays of martial arts.
It is believed that the Chinese dynastic emperors had absolute power, but this was not, in fact, the case. The Chinese emperors did rule based on the will of God, but ‘God’ is a vague idea in China, which has never had a single national religion.
This idea is also contained in the Chinese proverb, “water holds up the boat, and water sinks the boat,” which is taken from an important historical document. The “boat” in the proverb is referred to the emperor, and “water” is referred to the people. When the emperor lost the people’s hearts, the proverb says, the knights-errant trusted by the people could rise up in rebellion.
Rebels from Classic Chinese Literature
China's most famous rebellion novel is “Water Margin”, or ‘Outlaws of the Marsh’, attributed to Shi Nai'an. It tells the story of 108 rebels, including 3 women, from different backgrounds who gather in Mount Liang to confront the corrupt government. The rebels are knights-errant, all very gifted and brave. Their mission is to confront the dynasty, which makes them more romantic and heroic than Robin Hood. This story is loved by the Chinese working class because of its spirit of rebellion, so it is not surprising that the novel was banned by both the Ming dynasty and the Qing dynasty, the last imperial dynasty of China.
Mao Zedong, who led the Chinese Communist Party to win the Chinese Civil War and became the founding father of the People’s Republic of China, was known to have loved “Water Margin”. He used to say that he and his comrades were forced by the corrupt Kuomintang to go to Mount Liang, just like the 108 rebels in the novel.
Yashima Gakutei's drawing (1786-1868) of Sun Wukong, the main character of “Journey to the West”. Public domain image from Creative Commons.
Another well-known figure of rebellion in Chinese literature is the Monkey King,  Sun Wukong. Sun Wukong is the main character in “Journey to the West”, attributed to Wu Cheng'en. Wukong is a monkey but born from a stone. He is unrestricted by societal rules, with a physical strength rivalling that of  Marvel Comics’ The Thing, despite his monkey outlook. Wukong usually symbolizes the free mind and the strength and will to confront the Gods.
Sun Wukong in “Journey to the West” inspired He-Zhai Jin to write a new novel, “Wukong”. This novel was later adapted into a movie directed by Hong Konger,  Derek Kwok. Critics considered this film a fairy tale for the post-Umbrella Hong Kong, in which some of the people never submit to destiny and always fight for their freedom.
Fa Mulan is another brave and independent Chinese figure of legend who is also known by many westerners through the animated Disney film, “Mulan”. Mulan disguises herself as a man in order to fight in the war. Because of her achievements on the battlefield, the emperor invites her to work for the government, but she turns down the offer and returns to her family.
Although the figure of Mulan challenges the role of women in China's patriarchal society, she is still a beloved figure in China—perhaps because she chooses to obey the emperor and become a warrior, and most importantly, because she does not wish for power.
Few of China's literary works and legends of rebellion end as peacefully as Mulan. The most outstanding and respected knight-errant in “Records of the Grand Historian” is executed by the dynasty. The rebels in “Water Margin” end up surrendering to the dynasty and dying in the war. In “Journey to the West”, Wukong is captured by the Gods and later controlled by a golden ring on his head similar to the caps in The Tripods series. Even the Empress Wu Zetian was smeared as a whore, and her achievement had been ignored for a long time because she dared to wield power over men.
But these stories continue to be passed from generation to generation in spite of their tragic endings because they embody a spirit of disobedience and rebellion, an eternal source of inspiration for the Chinese people.

author: I-fan Lin


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Sand Mining in Uganda Poses a Serious Threat to the Environment · Global Voices
James Propa

A screenshot of a YouTube video by NTV Uganda showing part of the excavations in the Lwera Wetland.
Environmentalists in Uganda say an important wetland that runs along a highway linking the capital city of Kampala to the southwestern town of Masaka is being harmed by aggressive dredging to extract sand.
The Lwera wetland is a catchment area for several rivers that flow into Lake Victoria, and sand serves as a water purifier. It is home to various terrestrial and aquatic species, and there are concerns that the dredging, which reaches over 12 meters deep, could alter or destroy the habitat of fish that local fisherman rely on for their livelihoods.
The road Kampala-Masaka road could also be at risk for flooding, as the Urban and Infrastructural Development Conference warned on Twitter:
What is the water level between Lake Victoria and Lwera wetlands that will stop the water from flooding the road base and surface as well? Where there any hydrological as well as geology survey before sand mining to ascertain any risk on the highway?
— UIDC (@UIDC_UG) January 30, 2018
There are regulations in place to control sand mining. But the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) doesn't have much of a budget to fund monitoring officers.
The chairman of the parliamentary natural resources committee, Alex Byarugaba, believed this contributed to NEMA failing to do its job to protect the environment by allowing companies to destroy the habitats of aquatic and terrestrial species:
NEMA is duty bound to regulate activities that happen on wetlands but because of the organization’s reluctance, environmental degradation is on the increase around areas where sand mining is being carried out such as the shores of Lake Victoria and Lwera
There's also little appetite to stop mining because it would hinder “job creation”, or so supporters say. The Ugandan minister in charge of water and environment has stated that for this reason companies that are mining sand cannot be stopped, although he insists that all companies should do it in the right way.
According to the newspaper Daily Monitor, several government officials from NEMA have been to the site to stop the deep excavations reaching over 12 meters, but their operations were cut short due to lack of financing:
So far, according to Ayazika Waiswa, the Nema environment monitoring and compliance director, the mining companies in the areas have contravened their license obligations.
Most of the sand companies, according to Waiswa are scooping sand 12 meters underneath instead of the recommended three meters which enables easy regeneration of the resource.
“Through our routine inspections, we came and stopped them [sand miners] but later, our officers withdrew due to financial constraints and they [miners] came back,” Waiswa, said during a Nema board inspection recently.
But that is not the only violation; “…among the conditions we set out, they were not supposed to do mining in 200 meters from the road but they are not complying,” Waiswa, adds.
Dredging the sand 200 meters towards the highway puts the busy road, which connects Uganda to Tanzania on the brink of soil erosion through constant flooding and degradation.
A Twitter user Moriati X posed a question to the Uganda Police Force about their statement indicating that all overloaded vehicles must gain a license to transport goods. This follows him having seen heavily loaded vehicles carrying sand from Lwera.
And those trailers we saw carrying sand for mango tree in lwera. did you intercept? just asking.
— Moriati X (@emmexco) February 5, 2018
Additionally, Chinese company known as Mango Tree has been in the spotlight over sand mining on the shores of Lake Victoria.
Mango Tree was charged with engaging in sand mining under the license of ship construction on the lake. According to a statement from NEMA:
a criminal case was opened against Mango Tree following a tip off that a large ship on Lake Victoria had been mining and dumping sand at Miami Beach in Luzira.
In a piece by NTVUganda, member of parliament and activist John Baptist Nambeshe cited corruption as a way that such companies get the licences.
Despite Uganda being a signatory to several United Nations multilateral environmental agreements such as the UNCBD for Biodiversity, UNFCCC for Climate Change, UNCCD for Desertification, Ramsar Convention for Wetlands and many more, the government of Uganda has not been able to effectively protect and ensure sustainable use of the environmental resources.
Journalist and farmer Brian Luwaga on Twitter thinks its a huge pity (“kitalo nnyo” in Luganda means “it's sad or bad”):
How Lwera Wetland is being destroyed by Miners. Kitalo nnyo @ssekweyama @bindhejean @nemaug @pwatchug @Frankiesster @sadabkitatta79 @ugandarn @nilepostnews pic.twitter.com/OfAGwM4pFS
— BRIAN LUWAGA (@BLuwaga) January 31, 2018

author: James Propa


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Thousands Protest on the Streets of Kashmir After Indian Army Kills Four Civilians · Global Voices
Ieshan Wani

Kashmiri women shout anti-India slogans during a funeral procession of a local militant killed during an encounter with government forces in south Kashmir. Image from Instagram by author.
Six people were killed, including four civilians, during an alleged encounter between militants and the Indian army in the Pohan area of Shopian, a district in Indian-administrated Kashmir.
Officials said during the night of March 4, 2018, people they identified as militants attacked a mobile check post of the Indian army outside Shopian military base, which led soldiers to retaliate.
Read more: The Kashmiri People Versus the Indian State
The killings of the four civilians have led to spontaneous anti-India protests and business shutdowns throughout the Kashmir Valley, which has been in the grip of violence since a revolt broke out against Indian rule in the early 1990s. In response, authorities cut cellphone data services in the most restive towns, and reduced connection speeds in other parts of the valley to prevent more demonstrations. Schools were ordered closed and rail services were suspended.
An army spokesperson initially reported that the check post was attacked from inside of a car and the soldiers returned fire. Inside the car, a “terrorist” and “three overground workers,” a term that Indian security forces use for people who give support to Kashmiri rebels, “were found to be dead.” The three civilians were identified as Suhail Khalil Wagay, Mohd Shahid Khan, and Shahnawaz Ahmad Wagay.
The army's insistence that Suhail Khalil Wagay, Mohd Shahid Khan, and Shahnawaz Ahmad Wagay were aiding militants was quickly contested by locals, who told independent news site Scroll.in that the young men had no links to any militant group and were killed in cold blood.
Educator Ashok Swain quipped about Rawat:
For Rawat's Army, it seems there are no civilians in Kashmir – Either you are a militant, or you are providing logistical support for militant groups. https://t.co/iCLTwJLi28
— Ashok Swain (@ashoswai) March 6, 2018
The next morning, the body of another civilian, later identified as Gowhar Ahmad Lone, 24, was found some 250 meters from the spot. Lone had been shot four times.
Lone was pursuing his higher studies at Nagpur University in the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mudasir Ahmed quoted Lone's father at independent news site The Wire:
His body was inside the vehicle but there were no blood marks on the seats or anywhere. He had a bullet injury in his back but there was no bullet mark on the seat on which he was found dead. Neither was there a single drop of blood on the seat. I believe he was killed outside his car or the forces took him to their camp and killed him there and later dumped his body in the car.
The body of another man, identified as a militant, was also found the next morning in an orchard located some 12 kilometers away from the spot.
Soon after the killings, a valley-wide shutdown call was given by leaders of the anti-India resistance. Clashes between security forces and youth were reported from several towns.
Mayhem in #Shopian! #Army shoots dead three youth Suhail Wagay,Shahid Khan,Shahnawaz Wagay all civilians travelling in a car.JRL& the people of Kashmir strongly condemn this brutality of the forces &to express deep resentment & anger will observe a complete #strike tomorrow
— Mirwaiz Umar Farooq (@MirwaizKashmir) March 4, 2018
The state's chief minister, Mehbooba Mufti, contested the claims made by the Indian army:
Deeply distressed by more deaths of civilians caught in the crossfire in Shopian. My heartfelt condolences to the deceased’s families.
— Mehbooba Mufti (@MehboobaMufti) March 5, 2018
After her statement, the Indian army took a U-turn during a press briefing and said they were investigating if the killed civilians were “overground workers” or not.
Journalist Rita Paul tweeted:
#Kashmir is a place of a billion or more coverups.The old habits of the Indian Security Forces haven't died. India had never been interested in human rights or accountability. They are interested in controlling Kashmir by fear. Their miscalculation is that Kashmiris are fearless
— Dr Rita Pal (@dr_rita39) March 7, 2018
Schools were scheduled to reopen after a three-month-long winter break, but could not due to the unrest. Resistance leader Yasin Malik was detained by the local police as he tried to take out a march against the killing in the heart of Srinagar, the state's summer capital.
Many people have taken to social media, accusing Indian media of being silent on the issue.
Except for @shammybaweja no top anchor and ‘liberal’ columnist did not utter a single word about #Shopian tragedy in which even now Army also says they were civilians. #Kashmir has been a good saleable dateline
— Shujaat Bukhari (@bukharishujaat) March 6, 2018
Over the past three decades, the people of the Kashmir Valley have demanded the right to hold a referendum on their independence. In that time, more than 68,000 people have been killed in sporadic uprisings and subsequent crackdowns. The Indian military has been accused of numerous human rights violations, including the enforced disappearances of over 8,000 people.
Several inquiries ordered in such cases by the government haven’t led to any prosecutions, mainly because of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) which shields the army personnel accused of extrajudicial killings. The AFSPA gives troops the right to shoot to kill; arrest anyone as young as 12 with force and without a warrant; enter and search any premise and stop and search any vehicle; occupy or destroy property in counterinsurgency operations, and detain Kashmiris for up to two years without charging them.

author: Ieshan Wani


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Women March in Indonesia for Equality and Justice Amid Legislative Attacks on Rights and Freedoms · Global Voices
Juke Carolina

Participants of the Women's March 2018 in Jakarta. Photo by Women's March, used with permission.
Over a thousand people joined the Women’s March in more than a dozen Indonesian cities calling for justice and protection of women’s rights. The simultaneous marches took place on March 3, 2018, a few days before International Women’s Day on March 8.
The Women's March has eight demands addressed to the national government:
Among the issues raised in the rallies was the approved amendments to the Indonesian criminal code (RKHUP) which would criminalize criticism of members of the House of Representatives (DPR). Participants also denounced the passage of legislative measures that outlaw adultery as well as the sharing of information about contraception and sexual education.
Indonesia has a Muslim-majority population and boasts the promotion of a moderate view of Islam that celebrates a diversity of beliefs to build a harmonious society. However, in recent years, hardline clerics have been pushing for the strict interpretation of Islamic teachings and their application in many aspects of governance.
Indonesia’s Women’s March was first organized in 2017, conceptualized to mobilize people from all walks of life to defeat patriarchy's influence on all aspects of society. Participants cited the persistence of feudal concepts like the old Javanese thinking that women are only good for “macak, masak, manak” (looking attractive for her husband, cooking for her family, and bearing children).
Marchers called for unity and public support for women’s rights while using the hashtag #LawanBersama (#FightTogether) on social media:
Privileged & humbled to march with so many inspiring & awesome women this morning at #womensmarchjkt #LawanBersama #jakarta #intersectionality pic.twitter.com/UA2ap0nsJC
— Victoria Forsgate (@VictoriaFors) March 3, 2018
I made this poster.  #tolakRKUHP #tolakRKUHPngawur #womensmarchindo #womensmarch #womensmarchjkt #lawanbersama
A post shared by  Wulan Luna (@deportistaverde) on
(When) the state is busy with (regulating) crotches, corruptors laugh. #againstRKUHP #notoincoherentRKUHP
Women's March pagi ini. . Selain bisa menyuarakan pesan, yg menyenangkan dari Womens March adalah ketemu sama temen2 yang jarang bisa kita temuin krn sibuknya mereka kayak orang2 ini.  #womensmarch #womensmarchjakarta
A post shared by  Inayah Wahid (@nay_wahid) on
Instagram caption reads: “At the Women's March this morning. Besides voicing my opinion, what was fun about it was to meet those we rarely met due to our active life. Like these folks.”
Poster in the image reads: “Patriarchy is also men's nightmare.”
Jakarta Women’s March 2018 See all the photo on my Flickr: bit.ly/womensmarchjkt2018 . . . . . #womensmarch#womensmarchjkt#womensmarchindonesia#womensmarch2018#lawanbersama#womensmarchsigns#jakarta#indonesia
A post shared by  ? (@_devinamartina) on
In Indonesia, underage marriages are still common despite the law forbidding parents to marry off their children under 18 years old. Indonesian child marriages are often underreported. In Kupang, the capital of East Nusa Tenggara province near Bali, a couple of teens voiced their concern and hope:
WOMEN'S MARCH KUPANG DARI KUPANG UNTUK INDONESIA YANG LEBIH MANUSIAWI #WOMENSMARCHKUPANG
A post shared by  Women's March Kupang (@womensmarchkupang) on
Instagram caption reads: “Women's March Kupang for a more humane Indonesia.”
Posters in the image read: “Mama, my womb isn't ready to give birth” and “Mama, I still want to go to school.”
The Women's March on March 3 was just the first of several activities scheduled for the month in Indonesia.

author: Juke Carolina


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“You Just Killed Me”: The Internet Meme Defying Angola’s Government · Global Voices
Dércio Tsandzana

Photo of the music group Os Nandako, credited with starting the meme “You just killed me”. Image: Facebook Os Nandako, published with authorization.
Meet “You just killed me,” the viral meme challenge sweeping Angola where youth share images pretending to be dead under various objects: cement blocks, fridges, cookers, or cabinets — and usually accompanied by references to social problems faced in Angola.
The images often refer to the heavy rains that have hit Angola since late 2017. In the capital of Luanda over 2,000 homes have already been flooded and 10 people have died as a result of the destruction.
Os Nandako, a Kuduro and Afro-house music group, is credited with sparking the popular meme challenge. (Kuduro is an Angolan style of music influenced by North American rap, Caribbean soca, and native kizomba.)
But the trend has gone beyond the rains as a form of protest against the government of the Movimento Popular pela Libertação de Angola (MPLA), the party in power since 1979:
Acaba de me matar! Você que exige que eu pague a taxa de circulação mas continua a não haver estradas em condições. pic.twitter.com/Ne8dQbLuEI
— Hebo Imoxi (@hebo_imoxi) February 27, 2018
You just killed me! You who demand that I pay road tax but continue not keeping the roads in a good condition
#kota_jajão_acaba_de_me_matar pic.twitter.com/nOkiLuA2xC
— Calisto Capaxe (@Calisto_Capaxe) February 24, 2018
#Acaba de me matar# or #Just finish to kill me#
This was a creative way to protest against the the worse government budget approved this month… Check how the Angolan people reacted.. pic.twitter.com/0nBljgptL5
— Econ. Dalmeida Paul (@DarcyPaulo) February 23, 2018
On Facebook the following message is shared with the images, making reference to Angolan frustrations, among them, being the approval of the general budget for 2018 which plans more spending on defense and security than on health and education:
ACABA DE ME MATAR
Acaba de me matar você que aprovou o OGE que vai piorar ou manter a vida dos jovens na desgraça.
Acaba de me matar você que na abundância só se preocupou com o desvio do herário público.
Acaba de me matar você que se apoderou dos campos deixando os jovens sem espaço de prática de desporto.
Acaba de me matar você que só está preocupado comigo quando precisas do meu voto depois se esquece de mim.
Acaba de me matar você que não coloca medicamentos nos hospitais e quer punir os técnicos.
Acaba de me matar você que não consegue construir escolas, mas aparece todos os anos que dizendo que estamos a combater oanalfabetismo.
Acaba de me matar você que se aproveita da Bíblia para explorar as pobres mamães que de tanto sofrimento mesmo sem fé procuram auxilio de Deus.
Acaba de me matar você que vem a televisão dizendo que os produtos baixaram de preços mas na verdade os preços continuam a subir.
Acaba de me matar você que não cria políticas de emprego mas continua a correr com as zungueiras.
Acaba de me matar você que aproveita da farda para extorquir o bolso do taxista.
Acaba de me matar você que exige que eu pague a taxa de circulação mas não estradas em condições.
Acaba de me matar você que não pagar o meu dinheiro.
Acaba de me matar você que fez o KILAPI que compromete o futuro dos meus filhos e netos.
YOU JUST KILLED ME
You just killed me, you who approved the OGE [general state budget] that will worsen or keep youths’ lives in misery.
You just killed me, you who with your wealth only concern yourselves with embezzling public funds.
You just killed me, you who take the fields leaving the youth without spaces to practice sports.
You just killed me, you who are only worried about me when you need my vote and after forget me.
You just killed me, you who do not put any medicine in the hospitals and want to punish staff.
You just killed me, you who do not manage to build schools but appear every year saying we are combating illiteracy.
You just killed me, you who take advantage of the bible to exploit the poor mothers who suffer so much even without faith seeking help from God.
You just killed me, you who appear on the television saying that product prices fell but in truth prices continue rising.
You just killed me, you who do not make employment policies but continue to hunt street vendors.
You just killed me, you who take advantage of the uniform to rob the taxpayers’ pockets.
You just killed me, you who demand that I pay road tax but continue not keeping the roads in a good condition.
You just killed me, you who do not pay my money.
You just killed me, you who makes debt that jeopardizes the future of my children and grandchildren.
On February 20, Os Nandako released the song “Vanessa” in memory of one of the victims of the rains in Luanda. With the release, they shared photos depicting blocks fallen on their chests as a kind of reenactment of the destruction. Unexpectedly, others started doing the same:
Acaba de me matar, novo modelo que a juventude entrou de protestar contra a situação difícil que o país vive face a crise que assola Angola. pic.twitter.com/BY01B5lflj
— José Tembo (@osvaldo5550) 23 février 2018
You just killed me, a new tactic that the youth have started to use to protest against the difficult situation in the country, faced with the crisis devastating Angola
Some criticized the meme while others saw it as trivial and argued that there are other ways of talking about social problems.
For Angolan artist Kiluanji Kia Henda, the challenge is more than just a form of protest. It is also a form of performance:
Depois de vários anos a trabalhar como artista plástico e, com um claro interesse por questões ligadas a história e a intervenção social, não poderia deixar de expressar a minha admiração e deslumbre, com a série de fotografias do desafio que se tornou viral nas redes sociais, “Acaba de me matar”. Mais do que um acutilante protesto contra a degradante condição da vida nos musseques em Luanda, “Acaba de me matar” é também um acto de performance que se enquadra perfeitamente nos pensamentos e criações, no tal de universo da arte contemporânea. Apesar da sua estética extremamente violenta, o que ilustra bem o desespero de muitos jovens, não podemos esquecer que nada é pior do que a violência na vida real. Por isso, a ficção será sempre um meio pacifico de reivindicação. Sem muita margem para duvidas, é dos protestos mais inteligentes que já vi alguma vez. Fico feliz que ainda haja criatividade (o que na verdade é o que mais abunda na periferia), para expressar a tamanha indignação que se vive hoje. Parabéns ao autor anônimo desta ideia! “Acaba de me matar”, acabou de me matar! Éué!!!
After years of working as an artist and, with a clear interest in questions linked to history and social action, I could not avoid expressing my admiration and amazement, with the series of photos of the ‘you just killed me’ challenge that went viral on social media. More than being a sharp protest against the degrading living conditions of the slums in Luanda, ‘you just killed me’ is also a performance act that captures perfectly our thoughts and creations, in such a universe of contemporary art. Despite its extremely violent aesthetic, what it illustrates well is many youths’ despair, we cannot forget that nothing is worse than violence in real life. Because of this, fiction will always be a peaceful way of making statements. Without a doubt, it is among the most intelligent protests that I have ever seen. I’m happy that there is still creativity (which in fact is what most abounds in the periphery), to express such indignation that is experienced today. Congratulations to the anonymous author of this idea! ‘You just killed me’ just killed me! Éué!!!
Every year the rains expose the weakness of Angola's infrastructure. This year, collapsed bridges and cut roads have been reported as well as interruptions to public services including schools.
On Twitter, some images show the state of roads in the aftermath:
Chuvas mataram 47 pessoas na província angolana do Huambo desde Setembro: A actual época das chuvas em Angola já provocou, desde setembro do ano passado, só na província do Huambo, um total de 47 mortos e 38 feridos, informou a Protecção… https://t.co/kvlIeul6wO #dnoticias pic.twitter.com/NoagzXnOpf
— dnoticias.pt (@dnoticiaspt) February 21, 2018
Rains have killed 47 people in the Angolan province of Huambo since September: The current rainy season in Angola led to, since last September, only in Huambo province, a total of 47 deaths and 38 injured, according to …
Citizens have criticized authorities for thwarting their responsibilities as Kambeu De Sousa Tomé emphasized:
Disseram que a culpa é dos cidadãos que constroem em áreas proibidas e desta forma impossibilitando a água fazer o seu percurso normal. No entanto só não disseram qual era o destino da água. Agora vamos aguardar a parte da nossa culpa na crise que assola o país.
They said that the blame is on the citizens who built in prohibited areas and so made the normal flow of water impossible. However they only didn’t say what the final destination of the water was. Now we will wait for our part of the fault in this crisis hitting the country
Chuvas de hoje já levaram (pelo menos) 3 crianças: 1 com desabamento de muro e as outras 2 por afogamento. É tão fácil morrer aqui e ainda há quem esteja chateado com o #acabademematar
— Luaty Beirão (@LuatyBeirao) 28 février 2018
Today’s rains already took (at least) 3 children: 1 due to a collapsed wall and the other 2 due to drowning. It is so easy to die here and still there are those who are upset by #youjustkilledme
The Angolan government has a history of intolerance for criticism. For example, the government accused activist Rafael Marques of “crimes of offense and outrage against a body of sovereignty” relating to concerns about an article Marques wrote in 2016 criticizing an allegedly unlawful deal involving the former Prosecutor General of the Republic. His case was recently postponed.
Similarly, activists known as the “15+2” group were arrested in 2015 during a meeting of a study group that intended to discuss peaceful methods of protest. They were then sentenced to prison terms of between two and eight years for accusations of attempting a coup d’état. In 2016, the activists’ sentences were changed to house arrest on the Supreme Court’s orders.

author: Dércio Tsandzana


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Pastor’s Reduced Sentence for ‘Sex With Minors’ Casts Cloud Over International Women’s Day in Jamaica · Global Voices
Emma Lewis

Protestors passing the Moravian Church during the Tambourine Army's Survivor Empowerment March Against Sexual Violence in March, 2017. Photo by Storm Saulter, used with permission.
Jamaicans celebrated International Women's Day in style this year, with numerous celebratory events and greetings flooding social media — but online celebrations took a pause around midday, when news broke that a former pastor in the Moravian Church, Rupert Clarke, was sentenced to eight years in prison for two counts of “having sex with a minor”. In November 2017, Clarke pled guilty to having sex with two sisters, who were both under 16 at the time.
Netizens expressed their disapproval at what they saw as a very light sentence — considerably less than the maximum 15 years often prescribed in similar cases. Clarke's reduced sentence was attributed to a recent move by the Ministry of Justice to speed up cases through the courts by offering shorter sentences to those who plead guilty.
NEWS: Lead Prosecutor Assistant DPP, Adley Duncan, says a 50-percent discount contributed to Rupert Clarke's reduced sentence. Clarke– who's former Moravian Minister–pleaded guilty to having sex with two minors and has been sentenced to only 8-years in prison
— Stevian Simmonds (@steviblessed) March 8, 2018
The sentence reduction strategy continues to cause controversy and concern, especially after a high-profile murder case resulted in a 15-year sentence in December 2017:
This sentence reduction to speed through cases…is testing
— Ketchy Shuby (@Astrolopiticcus) March 8, 2018
The issue of church leaders sexually abusing young girls sparked the creation of a radical feminist movement called the Tambourine Army (so called after an activist hit the then-leader of the Moravian Church, Dr. Paul Gardner, on the head with a tambourine during a protest against Clarke's behaviour).
The pastor's case created a crisis in the Moravian Church in both Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. The church is now led by a woman, Reverend Phyllis Smith Seymour, who was appointed in January 2017, when Rev. Dr. Paul Gardner, its president, and Rev. Jermaine Gibson, its vice-president, resigned after being charged with carnal abuse and indecent assault.
Compared to the intense coverage at the time that Clarke was charged, the response by traditional media so far has been very low key.
One Jamaican summed up the feelings of many:
Disgraced Moravian pastor Rupert Clarke got a slap on the wrist with only 8 years sentence. He egregiously breached the trust and confidence of the people who look to him as a man of the clergy for moral support and guidance.
— OdaneBrooks (@odane_brooks) March 8, 2018
Another shared on Facebook:
Only eight years? Very sad reality on a day like International Women's Day!! This is not progress!!
The pastor's name has been added to the country's Sex Offenders Registry, which was established in 2014. The registry is not available to the public, however. Instead, it is is housed in an office of the Department of Correctional Services, which says that it will monitor the offenders through its regional offices. Unsurprisingly, the move does not appear to have had much impact: a recent report noted that in 2017, not one institution or individual had checked any names with the registry.
The normalisation of rape and sexual assault remains a troubling one for Jamaican women. One Twitter user commented:
I remember a lady friend telling me about her experience with sexual assault. Long short, it ended with local ? laughing at her. #PoliceDontCare was her take.
— R3N0GAMBL3 (@R3N0GAMBL3) March 8, 2018
Another put the concerns in a broader human rights context:
Take the time to be upset about the sentence, but just remember that poor people are the most vulnerable to abuse in Jamaica esp poor women & girls. This is the result. Let's use our sadness & work to protect them in a real way. #IWD2018
— Father stretch my strands (@nnboogie) March 8, 2018
She added:
A woman who is impoverished is more likely to be abused by partners. Her children, particularly her daughters, are seen as easy prey for paedophiles who know desperation will allow them access to these girls. You mad about eight year sentences? Let's do something about it.
— Father stretch my strands (@nnboogie) March 8, 2018
In a letter to the editor, human rights organization Jamaica AIDS Support for Life wrote that much more needs to be done to protect women:
If we, as a country, fail to address poverty, particularly among women and children, we only perpetuate the cycle of poverty, inequality, sexual abuse and domestic violence…
The authorities must act now and send a strong message to those who continue to harm our women and girls that it will not be business as usual. We call for the urgent revision and passing of the Sexual Offences Act and other related Acts; namely, the Domestic Violence Act, Offences Against the Person Act, and the Child Care and Protection Act. We call for an urgent revision of the Employment (Equal Pay for Men and Women) Act, which in its current state is ineffective in addressing wage disparity. We also call for the urgent passing of the Sexual Harassment Bill to not only address workplace sexual discrimination, but also to shun normalising the sexualising of our women and girls.
This International Women's Day, we press for laws that allow for social inclusion and punish those who continue to harm our women. We press for progress for opportunities that create independence for our women – disabled or otherwise. We press for progress to end all forms of violence against our women if we seriously intend to put a dent in the nearly 30,000 cases of HIV/AIDS on the island.
As International Women's Day drew to a close, it was clear that, in Jamaica at least, there remains much work to be done on behalf of vulnerable women and girls.

author: Emma Lewis


text:
What Bitcoin, Tulip Mania and the Nigerian Stock Market Have in Common · Global Voices
Guest Contributor

Public domain photos from Unsplash, remixed with image by www.vpsi.org from Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
By N. M. Bassey
Everyone wants more money: beggars, students, thieves, workers, billionaires—everyone. Money determines the choices available to you, the places you can live and the things you can or cannot do. So humans are always trying to get more money, more resources. Economists call it the law of unlimited wants. Humans always want more and our want is insatiable.
To get more money, we do a variety of things: we work, we steal, we beg. But more honourably, and sometimes more successfully, we invest. Investments have the ability to change people's financial futures and lift them out of poverty. Businesses providing goods and services have done this for the longest time, but the paradigm has shifted to show that that the most important investments are those that require your time or supervision, the ones where your money works for you.
Enter real estate, commodities, the stock market, forex trading and most recently, cryptocurrencies. These investment avenues offer a return that does not depend on your time or effort, but invest in the right one at the right time and you will be rich—or at least richer—than you would have been without the investment. Great idea, except when such investments fail: when the real estate market crashes, when the forex trade does not yield, when the price of a commodity (e.g. crude oil) plummets, and when a cryptocurrency's value crashes.
Tulip Mania
Investments crashing spectacularly are not new events. The earliest one on record is the tulip mania of the 17th century. Tulips were introduced to the Dutch about 100 years earlier and became progressively more popular and desirable to the rich and upper-middle class. Tulips were beautiful and hard to get hold of, so people coveted them. Some people saw an opportunity to make money, buying up large volumes of tulip bulbs in the hope of making a profit when they flowered. Soon, tulips began to be traded on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, and even more people began buying them speculatively.
Though tulips had no practical use, lacked fragrance and were of no medicinal value, at the height of tulip mania there were investors who sold their homes to purchase a single bulb at a cost of up to US$76,000 in today's money. Sound familiar?
Then early buyers began selling their tulip holdings, and so the price began to weaken. As the price dipped, more people rushed to sell, and soon there was a glut of sellers, with no buyers in sight. More panic sales ensued and in about a month the tulip that had previously sold for $76,000 was worth less than one dollar. The government tried in vain to pass laws to control the market and keep the tulip afloat. The tulip bubble burst, the tulip market crashed, tulip mania ended and it took the Dutch government years to recover from the shock.
When I first read about the tulip craze I found the parallels with cryptocurrency and Bitcoin, in particular, uncanny. Tulip mania began with people buying something they did not need because they believed someday, someone else would buy it for more than the original price, even though the item in question had no practical use.
Bitcoin, invented by the enigmatic Satoshi Nakamoto, was designed to be a new model for peer-to-peer lending—a currency that would bypass third parties such as banks, exchanges and governments, and deliver funds to those who needed them in a secure, authentic, verifiable way. It satisfied many of the demands of currency and opened a window to genuinely new possibilities. The problem? Bitcoin, and cryptocurrencies in general, have failed to demonstrate their usefulness, at least so far.
There is, as of today, no absolute use for Bitcoin. There's little it does that existing modes of exchange can’t do, and it still needs to be converted to cash to be of widespread use. So just as the Tulip buyers invested thousands of dollars in a flower that had no intrinsic value, people are investing same in a currency that is yet to justify its cost. And when people throw money at items that don’t have intrinsic value or an obvious use, they are taking a serious risk.
The Nigerian stock market
In the late 2000s, the Nigerian Stock Market began to rally. Previously unknown stock began to increase in price and soon the stock market was making newspaper headlines. Investment analysts celebrated the rise in share prices as market capitalization. People were making profits of up to 100%. Based on this, stock brokerage firms began intensive marketing efforts. Using the obvious gains as proof, they convinced thousands of people to invest in the Nigerian stock market. People began to speculate on a short-term buy and sell basis, pouring millions into stocks with little examination of their profitability, asset base or previous dividend/ bonus share records. Encouraged by the stock market’s rising graph, even more speculative investors poured in money, with some people going to far as to take loans to finance investments in a rash of dubious Initial Public Offerings.
In less than a year, the Nigerian stock market crashed in spectacular fashion. From a high of 13.5 trillion nairas in March 2008, the market capitalization crashed to 4.6 trillion Naira in January 2009. Hundreds of stock brokerage workers lost their jobs, firms were shut down and pension funds were unable to meet their obligations.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading for $9,000-10,000, about half of its value two months ago. There is a lot of panic among investors, with those who bought at lower prices—the price in January 2017 was $960—selling at a profit and those who bought above $8,000 gnashing their teeth.
Experts are divided on the future of Bitcoin. In 2014 the World Bank likened it to a Ponzi scheme and others have called it a dangerous global scam, while economists like John Lanchester have viewed its future more hopefully.
Personally, I am looking for ways to invest in things with a clear intrinsic value, like power generation plants for Nigeria, instant weight-loss pills, bicycles designed for fat people, and yes, blockchain, but for books. Anything with a clear unmet demand.
I stay away from things I do not understand, and I am learning to recognize that when a thing is being hyped or in the news or being bought up by everyone might not be the best time to do same. I am learning to investigate before I invest, instead of outsourcing my financial knowledge base.
When Bitcoin was selling at the all-time high of $19,783 in December 2017, I tried to warn people of the possibility of a crash. One of the people I warned scoffed at the idea and called it impossible. I wonder what he thinks now.
N. M. Bassey is a Nigerian blogger and commentator. She blogs at The Naija Writer, and tweets at @StNaija.

author: Guest Contributor


text:
A Trailblazing Filmmaker Wants to Make Sure Native Stories Have Their Place in the US Narrative · Global Voices
PRI/PRX's The World

Joanelle Romero. Credit: Courtesy of Joanelle Romero
This story by Christabel Nsiah-Buadi for GlobalPost is part of a series called “The Media Disruptors” about women challenging long-established narratives. It originally appeared on PRI.org on March 8, 2018, and is republished here as part of a partnership between PRI and Global Voices.
When Joanelle Romero stepped onto the set of “The Girl Called Hatter Fox,” she made history.
She was the first Native American to carry a lead role in a contemporary film, which aired on TV in 1977. It was also the first modern, Native woman story produced in the United States.
Romero was born into Hollywood, the daughter of an actress, Rita Rogers, who starred in Elvis Presley movies. At the age of 12, Dennis Hopper became Romero's legal guardian. Yet her story is more than a laundry list of movie industry name drops.
As the founder of the Red Nation Celebration Institute, Romero is steering the narrative around First Nation people, in TV, film and music.
Christabel Nsiah-Buadi: Let’s start with your role in “The Girl Called Hatter Fox.” It was the 1970s. Given the time, what was the experience like in terms of its production and story?
Joanelle Romero: I wasn't raised on the reservation. I was raised in Hollywood and so I didn't experience a lot of direct racism. When I did this film, it was very challenging because I directly experienced racism. I remember in my hotel room, I called my mom, and I said, “They don't like me because I'm Indian.”
I was 17, 18 years old, and it was really an intense moment for me, because in my immediate home there was no racism.
How did you process that?
It's been a lifelong journey to process it, and come to terms with it, especially within the film industry. I was the highest-paid Native actress on episodic television for years. Fourteen years ago, [US broadcast networks] NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox have completely written us out of the narrative for Native women. Every once in a while, there'll be a Native actor, man on episodic shows, but yeah, they've completely written our Native women out of the narrative, and it's been 14 years. I spoke with a network a while ago and they said, “Well, we had one actress.” I was embarrassed for them. It was like, how can you even say that?
We have a long way to go with this narrative. There was a film, that just won all the awards at our [recent Red Nation Film Festival], called “Wind River.” That film had Oscar buzz on it, and it's about our missing and murdered women. That I think has opened up this whole conversation to lend itself to Native women in film. Where are we?
Why do you think Native women have been written out of the narrative?
It's the doctrine of domination and dehumanization. It's generational, passed down from when our lands were taken from us. The whole mission at that time was, if you wipe out the women and children, they don't have a nation. When you hear that over and over again, and it's proven over and over and over again, it just becomes a norm. Then we get written out of the narrative.
I'm an Academy [of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences] member. I'm the only Native director, producer who made the preliminary documentary shortlist for Oscars (for the film “American Holocaust: When It’s All Over I'll Still be Indian“). Why am I not directing episodic television or anything? Why haven't I even been offered to shadow someone on episodic television if they're so concerned about anyone's ability to direct? There are really no nurturing programs.
When did you become an active advocate for the representation of First Nation people in the media?
I don't call myself an activist, and we're not a cause, and we're not associated with any movement. We're professionals, directors, writers, actors, crew. We're professionals. With that said, I did this film for [US media mogul] Ted Turner. It was called “The Miracle in the Wilderness.” It was a Christmas movie about how they brought Jesus to Indians; it was a weird thing. I was so tired of being in a buckskin and saying, “Me want more stew meat.”
I was just praying on this one day and looked up at this tree and saw this beautiful hawk with her family. I said, “I'm just going to go into directing, and start doing my own thing, because I'm not going to wait, I'm tired of waiting.” Twenty-three years ago, I started our non-profit organization, which is Red Nation Celebration Institute. We're the longest standing Native arts and cultural organization in Los Angeles.
Under that banner we have Red Nation Film Festival and in that body of Red Nation Film Festival we've always included Native women in film and television. Then we created Native Women In Film Festival. Then we have Red Nation Television Network which launched in 2006. We launched our online streaming network before Netflix, before Hulu. We were way ahead of our time. We have 10 million viewers in 37 countries. In 2018 we are launching a newsroom of all Native content. We're also uploading 300 new titles on our network.
Who is producing a lot of this content?
We have a staff of five people that help with everything from branding to graphics to uploading, editing, all of that stuff. As far as content, it's all of our filmmakers. We also have a board of directors. There's a lot of A-list celebrities on our board, as well as chiefs of different tribes across the country, as well as Native actors, and actresses. They really help us, guide us with our mission, and to stay on point with our mission and not get derailed.
Our thing is “Natives in charge of their narrative.” That's going to be our narrative for quite some time, moving forward, until something changes in this industry.
When our kids, our youth don't see themselves in media, that's a big issue to me. We have the Native youth suicide issue in our communities that is very prevalent. I feel personally that is because they don't see themselves, there's nothing for them to relate to. It's like, what's the point?
It's also the murdered and missing women. I'm a survivor of sexual assault and molestation. It's really important that, as a Native woman, mother, grandma that I speak up.
What do you consider to be some of your biggest successes? Or achievements?
Well, first of all, the birth of my two children. And my grandbaby, now that I'm a grandma.
As an artist, it's being a member of The Academy. That has been my biggest dream since I was three years old, when I started doing plays with my mom and my grandpa. I used to hold the brush and recite my Oscar speech over and over all the time.
To be able, as an artist, to do a lot of “firsts,” like with” The Girl Called Hatter Fox.” Because it was a Navajo girl who'd been abused and she was off the reservation, I went in [to the audition] with no makeup, my hair uncombed, barefooted, no jewelry, torn jeans. When I went in to the director and producers, they said, “Your name?” I said, “I'm Hatter Fox.” Right then and there, they said, “You have the part.”
In regards to our community, I'm very proud that we started our non-profit 23 years ago. We just keep growing and growing and moving forward with our narrative, and not taking no for an answer. That word does not exist in my vocabulary.
Christabel Nsiah-Buadi is the creator and editor of “The Media Disruptors” and a public media producer. She also writes about the media, culture and politics. You can follow her on Twitter: @msama.

author: PRI/PRX's The World


text:
Law, Entertainment and Politics in Korea Feel the Wrath of #MeToo · Global Voices
Eunji Kim

Screenshot from the JTBC broadcast in which prosecutor Seo Ji-Hyun (pictured) exposed sexual misconduct in South Korea's legal establishment, remixed with Hashtag #MeToo (digital text pattern on RGB screen version 25) by Wolfmann (CC BY-SA 4.0). (Image remix by Georgia Popplewell)
The month of February was a complicated one for Korea. In three eastern cities including Pyeongchang, the world’s largest winter sports event was taking place, bringing together athletes from all around the world to laugh and cry over their well-fought games. But all around the country, many Koreans were fighting a different battle—a longer, more arduous and lonesome one.
When the #MeToo movement first started spreading, Korean media merely reported it in their “global news” sections. Some praised and envied these “foreign” developments, while others looked on as outsiders. But things changed on January 29.
That day, prosecutor Seo Ji-hyun appeared on Korean cable network’s JTBC News Room and revealed that she had been sexually harassed by a senior prosecutor at a funeral in 2010. Seo noted that she was bringing the incident to light eight years later after realizing that nothing would change if a victim remained silent. She also revealed another rape case within the prosecution authority, noting it was not up to her to discuss the details. The quiet, firm recounting from Seo, who has received ministerial recognition twice during her 15-year career as a prosecutor, enraged the nation.
As the revelations of details and information resulting from Seo’s testimony continued to shock the nation, a poem published in December 2017 was next to grab the public’s attention.
Poet Choi Young-mi’s “Goemul,” which means “monster” in Korean, depicted the sexual abuse of young writers by a writer called “En”. Near the end of the poem, the narrator hints that “En” was a Nobel Literature Prize nominee. The public immediately turned their eyes to the poet Ko Un, who has been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature for 15 consecutive years. While Choi stressed that “Goemul” is a literary work, many other women in the South Korean literary community have since come forward, accusing Ko of sexual misconduct over decades.
#MeToo spreads like wildfire
The movement began to spread like wildfire. Next came testimony from an actress, who accused prominent film director Kim Ki-duk of rape. This was followed by similar allegations against Kim by two other women.
Another exposé accused Lee Yoon-taek, artistic director of Yeonheedan, one of South Korea’s top theater groups, of sexual misconduct. As further testimonies surfaced, Lee apologized for his behavior but denied the rape allegation.
Then the nation’s so-called “100 million viewer man” Oh Dal-su, firstly denied, then admitted to sexual harassment allegations.
Twenty victims testified against actor Jo Min-ki, who is also a Cheongju University professor, on charges of sexual assault. On March 9, Jo was found dead in his apartment building in Seoul.
Actor Jo Jae-hyun was also publicly called out by fellow actor Choi Yul, who addressed Jo on her Instagram account with the words “I was waiting for you to get exposed”. Jo Jae-hyun also admitted his guilt and resigned from his professorship at Kyungsung University.
The proliferation of #MeToo testimonies also led Korean Actors Association’s board director Choi Il-hwa to confess to wrongdoing—the first time in Korea that an aggressor spoke up prior to being accused. Following this, reporters from the nation’s public broadcaster KBS spoke out, sharing their own stories. #MeToo stories continued to emerge from left and right, featuring aggressors from an array of sectors in Korea.
Campaign Spreading from entertainment to the political realm
Eventually, #MeToo revelations spread to the political realm, starting with a testimony against the former governor of Chungcheongnam Province, Ahn Hee-jung, from none other than his own secretary. Ahn, who was considered the ruling party’s presidential candidate in the next election, was quick to step down. Former lawmaker Jeong Bong-ju postponed his plans to run for the Seoul mayorship per allegations against him as well.
The speed and scope of the revelations also highlighted how unprepared Korea was to address such a situation.
As Prosecutor Seo herself noted, victims are not free from legal constraints. South Korea’s Criminal Act Article 307 (Defamation) stipulates that “a person who defames another by publicly alleging facts”—not necessarily false facts—“shall be punished by imprisonment…for not more than two years or by a fine not exceeding five million won.” The support of the society didn't offer much by way of protection.
Of the 556 cases of workplace sexual abuse reported in 2016, only one was pursued by prosecutors, and 7 in 10 victims left their jobs after making their reports. Between 2012 and 2016, only 9 out of 2,109 sexual offence cases led to prosecution, a figure also pointed out by Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) during the committee’s session for the 8th periodic report on the nation.
#MeToo is bringing change to South Korea
Yet slowly but surely, #MeToo is bringing change to South Korea.
The burgeoning of “MeToo” revelations has shed light on the gravity of an issue that had been kept silent for decades. In South Korean society, which had formerly been deaf to the statements of victims, the revelations exposed how widespread the problem was. It also exposed the large part power plays in sexual misconduct, and that—in spite of the society’s hierarchical and age-centric mentality—this was completely unacceptable.
Societal support and learning
Along with the victims’ cries of #MeToo, others joined in support with expressions of #WithYou, both online and in the streets. Actors also voiced their support, and political leaders followed suit.
On February 26, when the police made the first arrest of an aggressor called out by the movement, President Moon Jae-in called on the police to “actively investigate” sexual assault allegations.
About a week later, on March 7, the day before the world observed the 110th International Women’s Day, chairperson Lee Sung-ho of the National Human Rights Commission of Korea issued a #WithYou statement, adding the commission would expand ex-official investigations on sexual harassment rooted in power imbalance.
Meanwhile the #MeToo movement is also educating the public. Public discussions have emphasized that victims whose identities were revealed shouldn’t be subjected to secondary or tertiary abuse. Guidelines for media coverage of such issues have been proposed. After all, these testimonies aren’t just tales to tell—they are life experiences endured by actual human beings.
More than a month has passed since Seo Ji-hyun's testimony triggered #MeToo in Korea. The volume of explosive testimonies has set the stage and created momentum for change. It still remains to be seen how the movement will proceed, but there is reason to be hopeful. Koreans have witnessed the power of the people. The memory of the candelight vigil in Seoul’s Gwanghwamun Square over many Saturdays and the eventual ousting of President Park Geun-hye last March still fresh in people's minds.
The message, then as now, was a call for a better Korea. Only this time, it is in the form of #MeToo and #WithYou.

author: Eunji Kim


text:
Aurat March (Woman March) Marks Resistance Against Misogyny in Pakistan · Global Voices
Anushe Noor

Aurat March (Woman March) participants’ demands. The image comes from the official Twitter page of Aurat March 2018.
March 8 International Women's Day ushered in the “rise of sisterhood” against misogyny in Pakistan. Women and men took to the streets of major cities of Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad demanding economic, reproductive and environmental justice for women.
The event was initially planned for Karachi. However, solidarity marches sprung up in Lahore and Islamabad showing a united confrontation against gender-bias and misogyny.
Pakistani feminist organisations such as the Awami Workers Party, The Feminist Collective, Women's Collective and Girls at Dhabas organized the marches under one platform called “Hum Auratien” (meaning “We Women” in Urdu).
Reportedly, 70 percent of women in Pakistan face sexual and physical abuse from intimate partners whereas 93 percent experience sexual and physical abuse in public places.
Due to the growing numbers of cases of violence against women, march organisers believe that this is the beginning of a show of outrage by women.
Talking to The Express Tribune, Sadia Khatri, a founding member of Girls at Dhabas said:
There is a lot of anger that is finally releasing and this march was a way to direct that anger somewhere for something powerful and beautiful.
Massive crowds were seen at all marches.
Lawyer and activist Jibran Nasir tweeted a video from the march in Karachi:
Massive Crowd at the #AuratMarch pic.twitter.com/inRX2dC5gu
— M. Jibran Nasir (@MJibranNasir) March 8, 2018
Women and their male allies must fight this fight together ????#WomensDay #AuratMarch #AuratMarch2018 #InternationalWomensDay pic.twitter.com/bYwTWTA581
— MangoBaaz (@mangobaaz) March 8, 2018
Women not only chanted slogans of equality but danced and sang celebrating womanhood. Aurat March 2018 posted:
They also called out for transgender rights with posters reading: “Transgender women are women. Shut up!”
Activist and blogger Hija Kamran tweeted this photo:
Trans women are women. Shut up!!!! #IWD2018 #AURATMARCH ##KARACHI ❤❤❤❤ pic.twitter.com/7i7mXTwe1e
— Hija Kamran (@hijakamran) March 8, 2018
Marchers paid tribute to important Pakistani feminist figures in the struggle against gender-based violence, including Asma Jahangir and Sabeen Mahmud. Jahangir died from a cardiac arrest on February 11, 2018 while Mahmud was assassinated on April 24, 2015.
Remembering Mahmud, Chief Executive Officer of Patari Music Ahmer Naqvi tweeted:
Looking at all the women organizing the #AuratMarch I can't help but notice how many of them I got to know via @sabeen. Our generation owes so much to her, who mentored encouraged and taught so many of us. Missing you today. #InternationalWomensDay
— Ahmer Naqvi (@karachikhatmal) March 8, 2018
Women from all walks of life joined the march, whether be it working women, housewives or laborers. A netizen named Faizan targeted those who believed the march to be a fancy elitist event:
oufff beautiful scenes from the #auratmarch, showing participation from all backgrounds. quite the in your face to people here ridiculing it as just an elite event.
— Faizan ?? (@merabichrayaar) March 8, 2018
As a whole, the Aurat March (Women March) 2018 is the beginning of the struggle for an equal society, and a call by the people to stand firm against misogyny.

author: Anushe Noor