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Iranians React to the New Iranian-American Twitter Chairman · Global Voices
Mahsa Alimardani

IT Iran, a publication similar to the American Tech Cruch, announces the appointment of Iranian-American Omid Kordestani as the new Twitter Chairman.
Twitter has been making headlines with recent changes under the new leadership of its founder Jack Dorsey. Amongst the changes was the announcement on 14 October of the appointment of Iranian-American Omid Kordestani as the executive chairman of the company.
Kordestani was a former executive at Google, often called the companies 11th employee. Before moving to California, Kordestani was born and raised in Iran until the age of 14.
The news has been covered in Iran by more moderate and reformist news sources, such as Shargh, which discussed Kordestani's past experiences, and ISNA, which covered his new unexpectedly low base salary of 50, 000 US dollars as Chairman.
However, the discussions have taken a more interesting turn amongst Iranians on Twitter, who are tweeting the news from an Iranian perspective.
IT Iran, a popular information technology news website similar to American Tech Crunch was quick to announce the news to its Iranian followers:
جک دورسی می‌گوید که امروز امید کردستانی به عنوان عضو هیات مدیره و مدیر اجرایی توییتر منصوب شده https://t.co/KdvrIsr6lz
— ITIRAN | آی تی ایران (@itiransite) October 14, 2015
Today Jack Dorsey announces that Omid Kordestani will appointed to the Twitter board of directors as the Executive Chairman.
Sahand, a resident of Shiraz and host of a local tech show, tweeted he had foreseen such an announcement:
گفته بودم امید کردستانی یکی از بهترین گزینه‌هاست برای توییتر @omidkordestani https://t.co/otKZCdNod3
— Sahandram (@Sahandram) October 14, 2015
I had said that Omid Kordestani was the best option for Twitter
Another Iranian by the name of Nahal, living in an undisclosed location, pointed out that the appointment is a matter of pride for Iranians:
حالام بازم باعث افتخاره که یه ایرانی (امید کردستانی) رئیس هیئت اجرایی توییتر شده. — nahal| pet pet| (@NPeykartarash) October 14, 2015
It is now again a matter of pride that an Iranian (Omid Kordestani) becomes the chairman of Twitter.
One Iranian Twitter user by the name of “Qajar Girl” was quick to criticize the excitement of Persian-speaking social media by pointing out Kordestani's weak ties to Iranians.
دست از سر امید کردستانی بردارین بابا. یه‌دونه فالوئر ایرانی‌ام نداره طرف. خون آریایی‌تون قل قل نکنه لطفا. مرسی. اه — دختر قجری (@nzii_) October 15, 2015
You should let go of Omid Kordestani. He doesn't follow a single Iranian. Please don't make such a fuss just because he's Iranian. Thanks.
Another Iranian, going by the pseudonym Dash Meiti — a play on the word “dash mashti,” a name for a south Tehran thug character in Iranian theatre and films — joked that praising Kordestani could lead to Twitter suspensions.
از امید کردستانی تعریف نکنیم ساسپندمون میکنه؟ — داش میتی (@DashMeiti) October 14, 2015
So we shouldn't praise Omid Kordestani since he could suspend our Twitter accounts!
Sadjad Jahangard, an Iranian living in Malaysia, theorized that this might mean well-known censorship of the platform in Iran would be lifted through the ethnic bonds between Aryans, the ethnicity often associated with Iranians.
به نظرم دیگه وقتشه پاقدم انتصاب امید کردستانی به عنوان رئیس هیئت مدیره توییتر فیلتر توییتر رو ایران حذف کنه :)) آریایی با آریایی دوست شو :))
— Sadjad Jahangard (@Paknevis) October 14, 2015
In my opinion with this announcement of Omid Kordestani as the chairman of Twitter means that it's time Iran removes the filtering of Twitter :)) The Aryan must be friends with the Aryan :))

author: Mahsa Alimardani


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Sex Never Stops Selling. Even in Conservative Tajikistan · Global Voices
Abdulfattoh Shafiev

Tajikistan is turning the lights out on prostitution – or is it? Wikipedia image of Amsterdam's red light district. For representational purposes only.
Sex was been at the top of conservative Tajikistan's agenda last week as the government cracked down on sex workers while the country's first online sex shop stirred both excitement and disapproval.
According to new amendments to a law on prostitution, sex workers caught breaking the law a second time will get bigger penalties and potentially face up to two weeks in jail.
The state's crackdown on sex workers dates back at least to last year. In the spring and summer of 2014 authorities raided night clubs, restaurants and bars, hotels, and red light districts in search of sex workers, shaming those they detained.
The militantly secular government's media also stated this year that sex workers were wearing hijabs to cover up their activities, without offering convincing proof for the accusation. The clients of sex workers are not punishable under Tajik law, although in practice many usually pay bribes in order not to see their faces appear on TV bulletins or on the interior ministry's website.
With the public campaign against sex work failing miserably, Tajik internet users are divided over whether harsher punishments will lead to any change in the situation.
Comments on the topic ranged from extreme anger:
Их надо казнить ,по закону шариат !!!АТО через пару недель они занимаются своего грязной дело.
They should be executed under Sharia law. Otherwise, they will return to their dirty job in two weeks.
…to calls for mercy and understanding:
Они не от хорошей жизни наверное вышли в панель
They went to brothel not from a good life.
Other comments, even those sticking up for the sex workers, betrayed the patriarchy common to internet commentary in Tajikistan:
Да ещё была бы нормальная работа в Таджикистане, то 100% они на панель не вышли бы, а жить всем хочется хорошо, людям с образованием с хорошей зарплатой не найти, а куда идти тем у кого нет образования? Это тут такие смелячки пишут пошла бы туалеты мыть, агаааааа это только слова, а коснись так и тоже пойдёшь ноги раздвигать, вкусно покушать , красиво одеться и т.д
If there were good jobs in Tajikistan, no-one would go to work in a brothel, that is for sure. Everyone wants to have a good life. Well-educated people cannot find jobs with good salaries, how can the uneducated find a job? Those girls who say, that they would prefer to wash restrooms — you are just saying that. If you were in the situation of those women, you would also push your legs apart to eat and dress well.
Others still challenged the MPs to see the irony in the law they had just passed:
Внимание вопрос – каким путем они должны заработать на штраф? – отвечает господин Паташов
I have a question – how should these women work to earn money to pay the fines?
В ответ на этот шаг, проститутки подняли тарифы на обслуживание.
Responding to this law, prostitutes increased the price of their services….
Little else to sell
Tajikistan has faced tough economic and social challenges since independence from the Soviet Union and the outbreak of a civil war that raged from 1992 to 1997. Widespread corruption, bad management, tribalism and a lack of the rule of law are helping to destroy the country, which is more dependent on remittances sent home by migrants than any other in the world.
Hard times have also befallen economic and political patron Russia, resulting in a rebound effect. Just days ago Tajikistan was named the country most vulnerable to hunger in ex-Soviet Central Asia.
The situation is especially difficult for women, whose husbands leave for Russia and then often disappear without a trace, sometimes re-marrying.
A woman who has already been married finds it difficult to re-marry, since men in the majority-Muslim republic tend to demand virginity as a precondition for marriage. This has even led to the rise of virginity tests, billed as the basis of a happy marriage.
Economic desperation in the country has driven some young mothers to suicide, while some others choose prostitution, either at home or abroad in Russia.
Facebook user Dilovar Munavvarov explains why jailing sex workers stops nothing and increases the already significant risks they face:
НЕТ. Повышение штрафов и 15 суток сделают ситуацию намного хуже. Если немного подумать то будет следующее: 1. Чтобы избежать штрафов и арестов и секс работники и их клиенты станут искать места подальше от глаз милиции и людей – а это значить больше вероятности причинения побоев, насилия, жестокости, и далее по списку. Ведь кругом никого нет. 2. Все будут стремиться завершить процесс побыстрее – а это меньше времени чтобы подумать и применить средства защиты от инфекций. Результат – выше вероятность получить болезнь передающуюся половым путем. 3. Больше возможностей у части сотрудников милиции злоупотреблять своим положением угрожая арестом, штрафами, обнародованием информации. А это насилие, отбор денег, побои и тд. Причем все это может происходить в милицейском участке. И да, любого задержанного после насилия можно обвинить в проституции. Поди потом доказывай. 4. Понижает доступ к правосудию так как секс работники и клиенты не могут/боятся подать заявление в суд если они столкнулись с правонарушением в ходе своей деятельности. Как подать заявление за избиение/насилие со стороны клиента или милиционера если в результате можно получить штраф до 300 долларов и 15 суток. …
NO. Increasing fines and jailing them will worsen the situation and might have the following outcomes: (1) To avoid arrest sex workers and their clients will look for remote places, which will in turn endanger these women, as they might be beaten etc; (2) Everyone will try to end the process faster. They will have less time to think about protection from infectious illnesses; (3) More grounds for police to misuse their power, i.e. beatings, violence, bribery, blackmailing etc […] plus anyone detained and subjected to violence could be accused of prostitution; (4) Less courage for sex workers and their clients to seek justice and protection in the case of violence.
How will you complain about being beaten by police or a client, if as a result you will get a $200 fine or 15 nights in jail?
Talking shop
The anti-prostitution law has coincided with broad condemnation this week of a recently opened Facebook sex-shop in the country. The shop's page has since been deleted having aroused both interest and criticism.
A woman, who came under fire for posting her positive views on the shop's work concluded:
О чем можно говорить, если я выссказала свое положительное мнение, так ко мне в друзья уже набиваются многие из подписчиков данного поста))) любите своих жен, дружите с ними!!!
It seems that the people discussing this topic are now sending me friend requests because of my positive view on the [shop] :-) Love your wives, and friend them [instead]!

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Abdulfattoh Shafiev


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Two Tanzanians Accused of Posting ‘False Information’ Face Charges Under New Cybercrime Law · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Parades in the Amani Stadium mark the 40th anniversary of Zanzibar's 1964 revolution on 12 January 2004. Photo by Vincent van Zeijst via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Two Tanzanian citizens have been charged under the country's new Cybercrimes Act for posting what authorities claim to be “false information” on social media. They are the first individuals to be charged under the law since it was passed in Tanzania's parliament in April of 2015.
The bill was written in an effort to curb child pornography, cyberbullying, online impersonation, racist and xenophobic content online, unsolicited messages (i.e. spam), illegal interception of communications, and publication of false information. Despite criticism from opposition politicians, social media practitioners, donors and human rights activists, the bill was pushed through parliament with relatively little discussion or debate. President Jakaya Kikwete signed it into law in May 2015.
Benedict Angelo Ngonyani, a 24-year-old student at Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology was charged on October 9 for publishing materials which are “false or not verified by relevant authorities” over a Facebook post claiming that Tanzania's Chief of Defence Forces, General Davis Mwamunyange, had been hospitalized after eating poisoned food. Authorities say Ngonyani posted this information knowing it to be false. He will remain in police custody until he is brought to court on 23 October 2015.
Sospiter Jonas was arraigned in a primary court in Dodoma Region and charged with “misuse of the Internet”. He posted a message on his Facebook page saying that Tanzanian Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda “will only become a gospel preacher.” Jonas will appear in court again on 19 October 2015.
Opponents of the Cybercrimes Act argue that the law gives too much power — without meaningful oversight — to police such as ability to search the homes of suspected violators of the law, seize their electronic hardware, and demand their data from online service providers. They have also argued that police or the state could use their power to harass online activists or social media users, as may be witnessed in the cases of Jonas and Ngonyani.
According to the state, both men have violated Section 16 of Cybercrimes Act, which prohibits “publication of false information.” Little more is currently known about their cases.

author: Ndesanjo Macha


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What Is #Aldub and Why Is It Trending on Twitter Every Day? · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Alden Richards and Maine “Yaya Dub” Mendoza. The Filipino tandem is known as Aldub. Photo from the Facebook page of Eat Bulaga
Aldub refers to Filipino TV stars Alden Richards and Maine “Yaya Dub” Mendoza who rose to fame by starring in a live drama segment in the Philippines longest-running noontime show, “Eat Bulaga“. The love story of the two characters quickly attracted a large following on TV and the Internet.
The plot of the show is fairly simple: two young lovers overcome several obstacles and challenges to convince their elder relatives that their love for each other is genuine. They rarely meet and communicate only through a TV screen.
The Twitter hashtag #Aldub has been trending worldwide in the past three months. Since August, the hashtag has been generating more than a million tweets everyday. Last September 26, it received 25.6 million tweets; that episode surpassed the number of TV viewers who watched the game of world boxing champion Manny Pacquiao in November 2014.
Twitter Asia Pacific and Middle East Vice President Rishi Jaitly acknowledged Aldub as a true “global phenomenon”:
Aldub is a global phenomenon on Twitter and shows how our platform as the social soundtrack to TV has really connected Filipinos who love a good love story.
Overseas Filipino maritime workers show support for Aldub. Photo from the Facebook page of Eat Bulaga
The global trending power of Aldub is attributed to the high number of Filipinos living or working in many countries. There are 12 million overseas Filipinos. Many can relate to the love story of the Aldub couple, who maintain their long distance relationship via a split-screen monitor. This is familiar to Filipino families who use webcams and smartphones to communicate with their loved ones in other countries.
Don't ever worry that I'll leave u. It's just the hardest thing to do. I'll never find another u. #AlDubTrueLoveWaits pic.twitter.com/atMd8yTSWp
— mariekeithⓂ (@mariekeith9) August 19, 2015
ALDUB pa more [fan art] 150817 #KalyeSerye #AlDubTrueLoveWaits pic.twitter.com/FLtGrYPCie
— ENJ (@enjelicious) August 17, 2015
Some writers also believe that Aldub appealed to many ordinary Filipinos because the show makes reference to social mores, class divide, and traditional Filipino culture. The show also pokes fun at some of the behavior of the elite and their conservative view of modern relationships.
The social relevance of Aldub was recently affirmed after it received a Catholic Social Media award for promoting positive values. The Philippines has a predominantly Catholic population.
Some, however, are urging Filipinos to pay more attention to social issues instead of watching Aldub everyday. This is the message of an editorial cartoon published by newspaper Manila Times:
http://t.co/OM6UbnQY6C important national issues????? Not now! We had enough!!! 😏 pic.twitter.com/OrxO25rCoR
— i n a h (@inahbocsquared) September 27, 2015

author: Mong Palatino


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At 81, a Japanese Woman Tweets to Remember the Terror of War · Global Voices
Yuko Aoyagi

Macchako, her parents and her brother in Kobe in 1939. Used with permission.
As Japan has recently armed itself with legislation allowing the country to go to war after 70 years of official pacifism, some Japanese are reflecting on the bitter experiences of the Second World War.
Japan actively participated in the Second World War, invading China and widening the conflict to fighting allied American and British forces across Southeast Asia. After Japan's main cities were destroyed in a sea of fire, and atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese emperor announced the end of the war in a radio address on August 15, 1945.
According to the Japanese government, more than 80 percent of Japanese people were born after the Second World War. Not even considering people who fought on the frontlines or experienced the destruction of war, there are very few Japanese alive today who have childhood memories of the conflict.
Those few who still have recollections of the war feel there is a need to express their experiences and share them publicly.
My mother, who goes by the Twitter handle “@まっちゃこ” (Macchako), has been sharing her experience of the war on the social network. On the 70th anniversary of the end of combat, my mother published a series of short tweets.
昭和20年8月15日、あの日も暑かった！
— まっちゃこ (@dosuee6356) 2015, 8月 14
August 15, 1945, was a hot day!
This tweet alone received more re-tweets than some photos she had published of a recent trip (most of her Twitter contacts are younger people who share similar interests in travel and Japanese entertainment personalities).
70年前の8月15日、私は小学校5年でした。近所の子達と輪になってカゴメカゴメをしていました。 あの瞬間から世の中がコロッと変わりました。 4年前の12月8日（小1）日本が戦争を始めました。教室で担任の藤田先生が厳かに話されました。以前から戦争してたから大した衝撃はなかった。 — まっちゃこ (@dosuee6356) 2015, 8月 15
On August 15, 1945, I was a fifth-grade elementary school student. I was playing a game outside with the other kids in the neighborhood. Everything changed in an instant.
Four years earlier the war started (on December 8, 1941) while I was still in first grade.
Fujita-sensei, our homeroom teacher, had informed us of this news in the strictest possible way. We weren't surprised because Japan had already been at war before.
During the 1930s, Japan employed a variety of schemes to invade China, gradually increasing the scope of the conflict there.
As the public's appetite for fighting increased, in 1940 Japan entered into an “Axis” alliance with Germany and Italy. The event was celebrated by giving young Japanese children flags of the three Axis powers:
幼稚園の時　“日本とドイツとイタリアは、いつも仲良し～～”という歌を歌わされた。卒園してから幼稚園へ遊びに行って（行列用の）三国の国旗作りを手伝う。日の丸はダントツに作り易かった。当時はまだ日本は参戦してなかった。三国とも戦争に負ける。ヒトラーの時代のドイツ！今ゾッとしてます。
— まっちゃこ (@dosuee6356) 2015, 8月 15
When I was in kindergarten we were made to sing a song with the lyrics, “Japan and Germany and Italy will always be great friends.”
As an elementary school student I returned to kindergarten to help make flags of the three Axis powers.
Of course, the Japanese flag was the easiest to make. At the time Japan had not yet joined the war.
And all three Axis countries would be defeated in the war. And we were allied with Hitler's Germany! I shudder now just thinking about it.
At the start of the war, Japan presented itself as helping the small countries of Asia stand up to the rest of the world. Japanese people at the time enthusiastically supported Japan's war effort.
Opposition to the war at home was brutally crushed. Anyone in Japan who publicly opposed the war was jailed and tortured according to Japan's wartime Public Security Peace Preservation Laws (治安維持法) and would be publicly ostracized.
Macchako was born in Kobe, in Hyogo Prefecture, and she experienced the massive bombing of the city on June 5, 1945. Studio Ghibli's animated film “Grave of the Fireflies” depicts the bombing of Kobe and other cities by Allied forces towards the end of the war in 1945.
Her parents ran a confectionery shop in Kobe's Higashi Nada Ward. Including Macchako and her two siblings, there were five people in the family.
Because Macchako's father lived with a chronic illness he was not sent to the front. Wartime food rationing made it difficult to continue with the family business. By the time Macchako was in the fourth grade in 1944 and the end of the war was drawing near, air raid sirens would often end the school day early.
The next year, in 1945, shortly after Macchako had turned 11 years old, her father became the caretaker to a wealthy family's home.
The entire family moved in together, and one early morning a week later Kobe experienced a massive air raid:
昭和20年（小5）6月5日朝、空襲警報で家族が防空壕へ。わあ！家が焼けてるぅ！「お母さん達は消火するから、あんた達３人で上人山へ逃げなさい」って言われても！　４歳の妹を背負えど１歩も進めず。１年生の弟と妹の手を引いて山へと向うが、一面火の海！小さい火の玉が半円形にピョンピョン。
— まっちゃこ (@dosuee6356) 2015, 8月 15
On June 5, 1945, when I was in fifth grade, our family went to an air raid shelter after the sirens sounded. Oh no! Our house would be burned down!
“Don't worry, your father and I will put out the fire. You children go to where it's safe–Shonin Hill Temple [outside of the urban area],” said my mother.
With my 4-year-old sister slung on my back I could not walk one step. So my 6-year-old brother and my sister pulled me up to the temple.
All we could see was a sea of fire. Small balls of fire bounced on the ground like flaming coins.
Although the children took shelter in a graveyard halfway to the temple, they were still hunted by machine gun fire and could not get to the temple itself.
上人山への道は天下の豪邸通り。遠くでドーンドーンと時限爆弾。溝を見つけて入り、弟妹に耳に親指、目に４本の指で覆わせ、伏せをさせる。なんと従順な弟妹たち。目を上げると３０m.先のお墓へ逃げる人達。真似してお墓の防空壕に逃げ込む。その左側で財閥野村邸（洋館）が壮大に燃えている。
— まっちゃこ (@dosuee6356) 2015, 8月 15
The road to the Shonin Hill Temple was famous for luxurious mansions of wealthy merchants. In the distance we could hear the thud of exploding bombs. We took shelter in a ditch, and I made by brother and sister plug their ears with their thumbs, cover their eyes with their fingers and lie face down. They listened to what I said.
When we looked up we saw, 30 meters away, people who had taken shelter in a graveyard. Copying them, we took shelter in the graveyard too. A mansion to the left of us burst into flames.
防空壕は広くて奥に仏像があった。２０人位が逃げこんできていた。私より年下の女の子が赤ん坊抱いていた。狂気なおばさんが「ナマンダブナマンダブ」と絶叫していた。突然我に返ったおばさんが「あんた年上やのに、なんで赤ん坊抱かへんねん！」と叫ぶ。「うちの子と違います」と小さい声で返す。 — まっちゃこ (@dosuee6356) 2015, 8月 15
In the back part of the air raid shelter there was a statue of a Bodhisattva. About 20 people had crowded into the shelter, and there was a girl even younger than me holding a baby. A crazed woman started chanting a prayer in a terrified shriek.
Suddenly the woman called out to me, “How come you're not helping care for the baby here?”
I replied weakly, “Because they aren't from our family.”
Once the bombing had stopped, the children were able to reunite with their mother, who had come looking for them.
空襲が収まったらしく外へ出ると、お堂でお寺の人が皆に天ぷらを一つずつ振舞ってくれた。私は蓮根の天ぷらだったが、思わず年下の女の子に上げてします。その頃から“エエカッコシー”の悪しき習性がｗｗ 上人山へ逃げたと思い込んだ母が北の方から泣きながらやって来た。黒い雨浴びて顔マックロ。
— まっちゃこ (@dosuee6356) 2015, 8月 15
Once the bombing appeared to have stopped and we went outside, staff from the temple gave everyone one piece of tempura in the main hall. While I received a piece of battered lotus root, I gave it without thinking to the younger girl.
After that I always had the bad habit of pretending to be cooler than I really was, lol.
My mother, who had thought we had escaped further into the hills, finally found us at the graveyard, and cried as she met us.
A sooty rain fell down on us, turning our faces pitch black.
They returned to the city to find the house they were living in, as well as the family store, burned to the ground.
敵機も去ってペッシャンコになった家に帰れば　まだブスブス小さな火が。父が焼けてる家に戻って持出したのが、アルバム２冊と一斗缶のお米。かなり時間が経って、一斗缶の蓋を開けたらブオーッと勢いよく燃え出した。父が可哀想で可哀想で泣いた。イヤ、あれはご飯が食べられない自分に泣いた？
— まっちゃこ (@dosuee6356) 2015, 8月 15
Once the enemy planes had gone, we returned to our flattened home where small flames still guttered and burned.
Our father had returned to carry what he could from the house, but all he could salvage were two photo albums and a cask of rice. He waited a long time before trying to open it, but once he did the cask emitted a cloud of ash.
I burst out crying because I felt pity for my father. Or was I crying because I myself had nothing to eat?
Macchako's Twitter friends said her tweets made them cry. However, her subsequent recollections exposed even more trauma.
The day after the air raid Macchako's parents went to check on a neighbor. They could find no trace of this person, who was so close she may as well have been a member of the family.
She was a woman without any other family who had lived in a space at the family confectionery and had looked after Macchako and her brother and sister.
空襲の最中に防空壕から出て行った、と証言があり、ひょっとして？と、父が（同じく全焼した）職場の焼け跡を、この辺？と見当つけて鍬で掘ると、骨が出てきた。お腹の周りが焼け切れずに焦げ茶の塊になっていた。 ５年生の私は生まれてはじめて、こんな形で死体をみたのです。（続く） — まっちゃこ (@dosuee6356) 2015, 8月 15
There were witnesses who said she had left the air raid shelter during the middle of the raid. “Could it be?” my father asked himself as he dug around in the burnt out ruins of our confectionery shop with a hoe…
“Could it be here?” A bone appeared. Her body was a burnt brick of olive brown. I was 11 years old and this was the first time I had ever seen a corpse that looked like this.
While it was not normal at that time to express one's thoughts openly, the victims of the bombing were also victims of Japan's Imperial regime.
親戚に頼まれ両親が彼女を預る事になるが彼女は天涯孤独だった。いつも１日２合３勺のお米の配給が少いと嘆いた。その内２合１勺になり嘆きは倍増。 彼女は弟妹の面倒をよく見てくれ、天皇陛下の乗馬姿が載った新聞をおまるの底に敷いて妹をおしっこさせながら「見つかったら不敬罪で引っ張られる」
— まっちゃこ (@dosuee6356) 2015, 8月 15
While my parents had been entrusted with her care, she had no family or relatives. Every day she had subsisted on a ration of just 330 grams of rice, and grumbled when the ration was reduced to 300 grams.
She had done a good job while looking after my brother and sister. She had also used a newspaper clipping of the emperor mounted on a horse as a chamber pot for my younger sister.
“If they catch me doing this I'll be arrested for lese majeste,” she had said.
At the time photos of the emperor were venerated as religious objects. During the war, dying for the emperor was considered to be the supreme service one could provide to their country. Even as it was obvious that Japan was losing, the destruction continued under the slogan “100 million shattered jewels” (一億玉砕, ichioku gyokusai; Japan's population at the time was about 100 million people).
After being manipulated by a wartime government and a media that glorified the conflict, many Japanese resolved to never allow their children to experience war for a second time.
During the seven-year-long American-led occupation, Japan's postwar constitution renouncing war was enacted. Many Japanese people were proud and pleased their country had developed a global reputation as a pacifist country.
But in August 2015, efforts by the Abe government to pass a legislative framework that would allow Japan to go to war again dominated the country's media coverage of the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.
After Macchako's family lost their house in that very conflict, they stayed with relatives for several days. After that, they moved to an acquaintance's house in the mountains of the rural and remote Shimane Prefecture, where they lived as evacuees until the end of the war.
While the family experienced some hardship being cut off from the rest of the world in rural Shimane, what was different from their experiences as evacuees compared to the children in “Grave of the Fireflies” was that they did not starve.
Macchako avoided that fate by a razor's edge, and lived the next 70 years singing the praises of a peaceful Japan.
In fact, I grew up listening to my mother's stories of the air raid.
“Even if I get old and senile and can't recognize your face, I'll keep telling the story of the air raids,” she says. “Be prepared. The winds of change are upon us, and the world back then is not so very far away from us now. We must never let war happen again.”

author: Yuko Aoyagi


text:
Bahrain Government Renews Crackdown on Religious Rituals · Global Voices
Batool Al Musawi

Sanabis, Bahrain. 17th October 2015 — Third night of the month of Muharram, Shia Muslims revive the memory of the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, grandson of Prophet Muhammed, in the village of Sanabis, west of the capital Manama. Photograph by Sayed Hashim. Copyright: Demotix
Bahrain's streets are boiling again as the government cracked down on angry protesters with buckshot and tear gas today, October 20. It all started when security forces appeared in the village of Malkiya, West of Manama, to remove black flags and banners that were put up to mark the commemoration of the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, a champion of justice in the Islamic history.
Security forces then marched on to the nearby villages of Sadad and Karzakan and then to Sanabis to destroy flags and banners put up in villages across Bahrain and the old suq area in the capital Manama to mark Ashura, which is marked on the 10th day of the Arabic month of Muharram. In Bahrain, and other countries with huge Shia populations, the period of mourning extends for two months. In this period, black banners and signs carrying sayings of Imam Hussain adorn walls and roadsides, especially in areas where processions marking the occasion pass.
In 2011, at the beginning of widespread Arab Spring-like protests which engulfed the country, authorities destroyed 38 Shia mosques, seen by many as a direct attack on the freedom of Shia in the country to practice their rites and rituals.
Columnist Kassim Hussain tweets today's clashes to his 45K followers:
مصادمات في المالكية وكرزكان غرب البحرين والسنابس غرب المنامة بسبب نزع لافتات تتعلق بعاشوراء #البحرين #عاشوراء pic.twitter.com/XYskzxp4um
— قاسم حسين (@kassimhussain1) October 20, 2015
Clashes in Malkiya and Karzakan, in the west of Bahrain, and in Sanabis, west of [the capital] Manama, as security forces remove Ashoura banners
Photographs and video footage circulated on social media showed injuries among the protesters, who tried to thwart security forces from removing the banners. Reema Al Shallan tweets to her 29.6K followers photographs of today's injuries:
اصابات برصاص الشوزن وقمع مفرط بالغازات الخانقة لمجرد رفض الأهالي إزالة مظاهر عاشوراء #المالكية #bahrain pic.twitter.com/L68hqgbvow
— ريما شعلان (@reemashallan) October 20, 2015
Buckshot wounds and excessive suppression with suffocating tear gas just because people refused the removal of Ashura banners in Malkiya
The chaos quickly moved to a neighboring village, Karzakan, as a number of youth came out to prevent the security forces from removing their banners. Hussain Radhi explains:
قوات الشغب تقمع الأهالي في كرزكان الان بعد اعتراضهم على ازالة مظاهر عاشوراء #bahrain pic.twitter.com/Dq0pB2Biqy
— Hussain Radhi (@Huss3inRadhi) October 20, 2015
Riot police forces suppress people in Karzakan now after they refused removal of Ashura banners
Others expressed anger directly on Twitter. Hassan Alsharqi notes:
أوقفوا هذه المهزلة وهذا التعدي على شعائر الحسين ،الذي حدث في #المالكية و #كرزكان لايمكن لأحد أن يتصور أن هذه هي #البحرين ، وكأنها عراق صدّام
— حسن الشارقي (@Hassan_Alsharqi) October 20, 2015
Stop this farce and attack on [Imam] Hussein's rituals. What happened in Malkiya and Karzakan, no one can imagined this is Bahrain, it's like Saddam's Iraq.
Enas Oun, member of Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, shared a photograph of tens of tear gas grenades which she said had been fired at the protesters in the Karzakan today:
صور توضح كمية طلقات الغاز السام وطلقات الشوزن المستخدمة لقمع من خرج معترضا على نزع السواد في #كرزكان اليوم #bahrain pic.twitter.com/w82L5ByHdZ
— Enas oun (@glorybahrain) October 20, 2015
Pictures that show the amount of toxic gas and buckshot grenades used to suppress those who took to the streets protesting the removal of black banners
Security forces were filmed removing the banners and flags in other areas around Bahrain over the past few days.
#Bahrain regime forces remove Ashura banners in A'ali area today #ReligiousFreedom pic.twitter.com/SsjAyDmxXf
— AlwefaqEN (@AlWefaqEN) October 19, 2015
This video footage went top on the #Bahrain timeline as netizens reacted to the news.
#Bahrain regime forces remove manifestations that are usually put up in Ashura annual anniversary #ReligiousFreedom pic.twitter.com/Gm60EZ7T0k
— AlwefaqEN (@AlWefaqEN) October 17, 2015
The Ashura religious events have been marked by the Bahraini Shia year after year. But as the political crisis continues between the government and the people, mainly the Shia community, intimidation is very likely to bolster the problem.
2- أولاً : طقوس وشعائر #عاشوراء هي إرثٌ ديني وتاريخي للشيعة في #البحرين منذ مئات السنين، وقد كفلها الدستور في المادة 22 #إلا_شعائر_الحسين
— حسن الشارقي (@Hassan_Alsharqi) October 20, 2015
The Ashura rituals are a religious and historic heritage of Shia in Bahrain which goes back to hundreds of years, and the constitution has ensured it in Article 22
Jawad Fairooz, a former member of parliament who is now stateless and in exile, said:
لم تحارب مظاهر الشعائر الحسينية في #البحرين عبر تاريخها المعاصر كما تحارب اليوم pic.twitter.com/TNEWUtioDl
— Jawad Fairooz (@JawadFairooz) October 20, 2015
Bahrain's modern history has not seen war on Ashura manifestations as seen today.
Bahrain is a tiny island in the Gulf where Shia are the majority, but they are complaining of political and social disenfranchisement. Over the past four and half years, it has been swinging in a political stalemate. Talks between the government and opposition factions have led to no positive outcomes. Today, most opposition leaders and figures are in jail.
You can also read: Bahrain's Opposition, From Dialogue Tables to Prison Cells
Shia religious places and mosques were also reported to have been attacked by gunmen as the annual Ashura commemoration approached. Activists criticized the government for not taking the attacks seriously.
Clergyman Shaikh Maytham Al Salman notes:
هل توجد جدية في محاسبة من هدم ٣٨ مسجدًا وغزا محلات جواد ٧٨ مرة وأطلق النار على مسجدي الصادق والباقر ومأتمي الهملة ودمستان أول أمس؟ #البحرين
— ميثم السلمان (@MaythamAlsalman) October 18, 2015
Is there any seriousness in holding those who demolished 38 mosques, and raided Jawad stores 78 times and shot at Al Sadiq Mosque and Al Baqer mosque and at the Hamala and Dimistan matams accountable?
The Jawad chain of stores, owned by a Shia family, has been attacked and robbed 78 times. Until today, those responsible for the attacks, some caught on camera, have not been punished. A matam or Hussainiya is a place a gathering hall for Shia, to observe Shia rituals like commemorating Ashura.

author: Batool Al Musawi


text:
On the Eve of Elections, Côte d’Ivoire Tries to Move on From Its Violent Past · Global Voices
Tanja Schreiner

In the whole city of Abidjan have been put up election posters. Image by Tanja Schreiner
More than 3,000 people were killed in the violent political crisis that followed the presidential elections in Côte d’Ivoire in 2010. On October 25, 2015, the Ivorian population will be asked to go to the polls again. One week before the elections, the country seems to be holding its breath.
Already several months before, Ivorians were constantly talking about the presidential elections at the end of October, which will be decisive to the further stabilization of Côte d’Ivoire. Will or will there not be violence again? This probably is the most important question dominating the lead-up to the vote.
During the last months, I have been speaking with Ivorian friends who survived the crisis in 2010 and 2011, people I just happened to meet in the streets, Ivorian politicians, and members of the Ivorian diaspora.
Some have insisted that there will be violence again this year but said that it would not reach the severity of what followed the last presidential elections, which escalated into a civil war claiming some 3,000 lives. Others, though, swore that everything is going to be peaceful, the most common argument being that there currently is no strong opposition.
The main opposition party of former President Laurent Gbagbo, who is awaiting trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague for war crimes during the post electoral crisis, is currently split.
Furthermore, there have been actions taken to make sure that the elections will be hold peacefully. In June 2015, the mandate of the United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire was extended for another year.
In the month before the two-week-long election campaign began on 9 October, the media, which played an important role in heating up the debate in 2010 and 2011, faced calls to treat all candidates equally.
The African Union just announced this month that it is going to deploy 40 short-term election observers, and the Civil Society Platform for the Observation of the Elections in Côte d’Ivoire, which already observed the voter registration process, just trained 755 election observers.
Présidentielle 2015 : La POECI forme ses observateurs http://t.co/yAKDYmbtZv #observationpvt #civelections #ci225 pic.twitter.com/B23kttYtfQ
— POECI (@civelections) octubre 13, 2015
Presidential elections 2015: POECI trains its observers
However, people’s fear of another outbreak of violence seems omnipresent. After the horrific events following the last elections, many people in Côte d’Ivoire still cope with trauma. Some still dream of the dead bodies lying in heaps on the streets. A friend recently told me that she was not able to come back to the economic capital of Abidjan for three years because of what she experienced there during the crisis. Some weeks ago, all these traumatizing memories were brought back to her mind when a group of armed people robbed the hospital in Abidjan she now works in.
Throughout the city of Abidjan, election posters have been hung. Image by Tanja Schreiner
When I asked her what she thought about the coming elections, she just replied, “Il y aura rien” (“There won’t be anything”). A sentence I have heard very often in these last weeks, being pronounced almost like an oath.
However, it contradicts how people are behaving. Some already bought their tickets to Ghana, Togo or Europe months before. There are companies that even obliged their international staff to go back to their home country during the elections. Others bought food in bulk and recommend to have a certain amount of money at home — just in case.
Moreover, many people will certainly not be going to the polls. Only 300,000 new voters have signed up – from an estimated 2 to 3 million. “On October 25, I am going to cook pork and stay at home with my friends, celebrating the non-voting”, one of my friends told me.
But while some leave the country or boycott the elections, others commit themselves to promote peace. Women’s organisations in the west of the country have designed traditional fabrics to call for peaceful elections. A photo exhibition at the University Felix Houphouët-Boigny in Abidjan aimed to raising awareness among students.
Sensibilisation élections paisibles ds étudiants de l'université FHB par une exposition photo #civpaix #CIVElections pic.twitter.com/lkryHhoMDO
— USAID CITI2 (@CITI_2) agosto 31, 2015
Creating awareness of peaceful elections through a photo exhibition from students at the University Felix Houphouët-Boigny
And the football association “Foot’Attitude”, with the participation of football stars like Didier Drogba, launched a campaign called “Election C’ Pas Gnaga” (“Elections are not war”) to raise awareness for non-violent elections. In addition to this, messages of peace have been going up on social media in these last weeks. On YouTube, a group of Ivorian artists posted a video “Jeune, ma voix, mon avenir” (“Young, my voice, my future”) to promote the youth’s participation in peaceful elections.
On Twitter, people have been calling for peace, using the hashtags #ElectionCpasGnaga and #civpaix. Kamara Kollo Rachel, a blogger based in Abidjan, writes on Twitter:
Engagement retenue ” pour les élections 2015, je choisi la paix,mon candidat d'accord mais le pays d'abord ” #votenjaillement #CIVPAIX #KKRD
— KAMARA KOLO RACHELLE (@kolo12rach) October 5, 2015
For the 2015 elections, I choose peace. I am for my candidate, but I am for my country first.
Choisir la voix de paix, c'est faire le choix d'un lendemain meilleur. #CIVPaix #CIVElections @klahon225 pic.twitter.com/IfnrUASU4j
— Marius K. Kwadyo (@MariusKwadyo) september 30, 2015
Choosing the voice of peace is making the choice of a better tomorrow.
Of course Facebook, being widely used in Côte d’Ivoire, is a big part of where the conversation takes place. One of my friends, a university student from Abidjan, wrote on his wall (republished with permission):
chers amis jeunes, nous sommes proche des élections présidentielles. et le doute s'installe dans le cœur de tous ceux qui aime la côte d'ivoire. si nous aimons notre pays, si notre avenir nous tiens vraiment à cœur, ne nous livrons pas à des actes de violence, ne nous laissons pas manipuler par qui que se soit…
Dear young friends, we are not far from the presidential elections and the doubt is installing in the hearts of all those that love Côte d’Ivoire. If we love our country, if our future really is in our hearts, do not give yourself to acts of violence, do not let you be manipulated, whatever it may be….
Now it just remains to hope that all these messages of peace will guide Côte d’Ivoire to presidential elections without violence.

author: Tanja Schreiner


text:
‘The World Needs Tunisia’ · Global Voices
Blogueurs invités

Peace protest in Tunis during the revolution in 2011 – CC-BY-20
Guy Sitbon is a journalist of mixed French, Italian and Tunisian heritage, a veteran reporter of North African and Middle Eastern affairs for French publications such as Le Monde, The Nouvel Observateur and Marianne. With this article on the Tunisian website Leaders he welcomed the Nobel Peace Prize bestowed on the Quartet of Tunisian National Dialogue. We publish it here with his permission, as one of the reactions to the Nobel Prize from the French-speaking world.
Guy Sitbon
“Paris, 11:05 am. My phone pings with an incoming text message. I'll check it in a short while. Two minutes later, a second message; a third; a fourth. What an earth is going on? Unnerved, I pull my phone from my jacket pocket and read. My friend Laura from Rome: “Evviva la Tunisie!” (Hurray for Tunisia!). My grandson from his office: “Would you have thought it? Absolutely fantastic.” Nicole from Madrid: “Bravo Radès!” (she grew up in the port town of Radès). John from San Francisco: “Congratulations. You really deserve it.” Boris from Moscow : “Molodets, Slava Tunis” (Well done, long live Tunisia). My neighbour Annie: “You're going to keep on bothering us with your Tunisia now.”
I go outside. My neighbours Ahmed, the kebab seller, and Samuel, the shoe-shopkeeper, both “Tunes” (Tunisians) raise a glass in the bar opposite. A glance at Google News clarifies everything: I have just won the Nobel Prize. Well, almost. All “Tunes” have been honoured. I can picture the celebrations across Paris in Belleville, Barbès and in the restaurants of the 17th arrondissement.
I, for one, am not surprised. If not Tunisia, then who? Obama? Putin? Assad? Le Pen? It is under our skies that the blood of today's war flows—nowhere else. Here, in this forsaken “Arab-Islamic world” that has been plunged into a bloody ragout.
At a crossroads between a happiness and damnation, a pebble barely visible on world maps—Tunisia is ours. Neither the most gracious, nor the most ingenious, but perhaps the nicest. Without either oil or weapons, just the dream of living this life with a smile rather than in sorrow. With love rather than poison. With a hatred of hate.
Congress of National Dialogue, 16 October 2012 CC-BY-20
Somewhere near the North Pole, a handful of fair-haired seniors have devoted themselves to a single task: to keep a close watch on the fists and firearms of the planet. Who is misbehaving, or behaving well. Who believes in justice, whose beliefs are twisted. Who soothes instead of killing. Nothing and no man escapes the scrutiny of their microscopes. For one whole year they have trawled though the human race to single out whom, in the end? You. Us. Me. I know that I needed Tunisia. But here is what Oslo has revealed to me: the world needs Tunisia too.
The Quartet is worthy of the homeland. Oslo could have deferred to custom by crowning Béji Caïd Essebi and Rachid Ghanouchi for having averted the expected calamity by uniting fire and water. But in Oslo they have cruel memories of honouring heroes like Kissinger and Le Duc Tho (1973), and Arafat, Rabin, and Peres (1993). They even ruled out Merkel. The Nobel Committee could have also nominated the Tunisian people in their entirety. Many, in Damas or in Sousse are not worthy. Beyond the Quartet, the whole history of Tunisia has been honoured. History will lie for eternity in the hands of each one of us.
This morning my friend Moncef explains to his cleaning lady what the Nobel Prize is. At the end of a long speech from her boss, Salha asks: what difference will it make for me? In one reply Salha has said it all.
From now on every word, every deed will have to be preceded by a question: is what I am about to do, is what I am about to say, worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize? Yes, you heard correctly—Peace.

author: Blogueurs invités


text:
The US is No ‘Safe Harbor’ for Citizens’ Data · Global Voices
Suzanne Lehn

“safe harbor”, by manolo guijarro on Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
What happens to your Facebook data — your identity information, photos, links and “likes” — when you share it outside of the US? Plenty. Your data will flow from your computer, to the nearest servers of the company, and eventually land at Facebook's home servers in California, where it will likely be mined by Facebook for commercial gain and subject to snooping by the NSA.
What laws protect your information along the way? Not many. But a recent court ruling should change this for European Internet users.
Until this month, a “Safe Harbor” regulatory policy agreement between the US and EU allowed companies like Facebook and Google to self-regulate the transfer of data between Europe and the US. It is now formally dead. Unilaterally approved by the European Commission in 2000, the policy allowed companies to promise that they would abide by EU privacy laws when handling the data of EU persons, without needing to provide explicit proof of their compliance. Among other things, it required companies to notify users of the collection and use of their data, allow them to opt out of its collection or transfer, and keep it secure.
Since the Snowden revelations, it has become increasingly difficult to believe that US companies uphold EU privacy standards when processing EU user data.
Safe Harbor infographic in French, created by Ledieu Advocats, a French law firm.
The policy was unexpectedly killed on October 6 by the European Court of Justice which ruled that the United States’ mass surveillance regime makes it impossible for companies to abide by the policy in full. The Snowden leaks revealed the degree to which US technology companies bend to the demands of government, and indicated to the EU court that US companies therefore could not guarantee the same privacy protections as their European competitors.
The case began in 2013, when Austrian privacy activist Maxmilian Schrems filed a lawsuit in Ireland (home of Facebook's EU headquarters), in the wake of the Snowden revelations. Schrems challenged Ireland's Data Protection Commissioner to investigate Facebook's compliance with European data privacy laws, as it had pledged to do under the Safe Harbor agreement. When the Commissioner refused, Schrems took them to court.
The Court of Justice’s top legal adviser, Yves Bot, wrote that “Interference with fundamental rights is contrary to the principle of proportionality, in particular because the surveillance carried out by the United States intelligence services is mass, indiscriminate surveillance.” In an initial response, Schrems wrote:
This decision is a major blow for US global surveillance that heavily relies on private partners. The judgement makes it clear that US businesses cannot simply aid US espionage efforts in violation of European fundamental rights.
Experts as well as tech observers in the media were quick to offer analysis and recommendations with many arguing that the decision should serve as a wakeup call to the United States to reform its surveillance law.
While French data privacy government watchdog National Commission on Informatics and Liberty (CNIL) welcomed it as a “key decision for data protection,” many privacy rights defenders celebrated the decision. French digital rights group La Quadrature du Net wrote:
This is a landmark ruling! By recognising that the surveillance led by the NSA on personal data hosted in the US was prejudicing EU citizens, the CJEU upholds what Human Rights organisations and MEPs were calling for: conditions surrounding the transfer of personal data must be revised, in the light of legislations regarding surveillance and the practices that Edward Snowden has unveiled.
Human rights lawyer Renata Avila, who serves as campaign lead for the Web We Want initiative, joined LQDN in celebrating the victory: “That Max Schrems, a 28 year old law student, could successfully challenge a long-standing international agreement underlines why we must preserve the Web as a space for debate, dissent and progress,” she said in a press statement.
Experts say US surveillance agencies should be unfazed by the ruling, but that it will have significant implications for companies whose business model depends on mass data transfers:
Pour les services de renseignement américains, cela n’aura pas la moindre conséquence à terme. Les documents Snowden ont montré l’incroyable capacité de la NSA à aller chercher la data là où elle est, et où qu’elle soit. Ils s’adapteront très vite à cette nouvelle donne. Pour les GAFA, par contre, c’est un coup très dur, particulièrement pour ceux dont le cœur du modèle économique repose sur la surveillance privée : Google et Facebook (Apple n’ayant pas grand chose à craindre, pour le coup, Amazon un peu plus).
US intelligence agencies won't feel any effects whatsoever over time. The Snowden leaks demonstrated the NSA's unbelievable ability to pick up data anywhere and everywhere it is. They will adapt very fast to the new order. For the GAFA however, the blow is heavy, especially for those whose core economic model is based on private surveillance: Google and Facebook (Apple having almost nothing to fear in this case, Amazon a bit more).
Some users saw the Court's decision as a long-deserved blow to the infamous “GAFA”, the US giants of the Internet Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple:
Notre Une préférée ce mercredi, au lendemain de l'arrêt de la #CJUE sur #SafeHarbor ? @tazgezwitscher, pardi ! pic.twitter.com/7KbiqJoZ9C — VoxEurop (@VoxEuropFR) 7 Octobre 2015
Our favorite front page this Wednesday, in the wake of the UECJ judgment on Safe Harbor? @tazgezwitscher of course!
US-based tech blog TechCrunch speculated that the shift may prompt more companies to begin using strong encryption technology that would allow them to comply with (and exceed) European requirements. While it may seem most painful for the GAFAs of the world, these companies have substantial resources that they can put toward implementing such changes. In contrast, many critics pointed out that small companies may stand to lose the most from the ruling, as they have fewer resources to address the types of operational changes that a new policy will likely require.
Les PME pourraient être victimes de la remise en question du Safe Harbor http://t.co/0CyigkwpZ9pic.twitter.com/uI5Wg57016
— Les Echos (@LesEchos) 12 Octobre 2015
The small and medium size business might be victims of the striking-down of Safe Harbor
European data protection authorities have given national governments and the European Commission three months to determine what mechanisms will replace the Safe Harbor system. And open Internet advocates in the EU are ready for the next round. La Quadrature du Net states:
We ask all French and European representatives to draw the necessary conclusions and work towards protection of citizens within the EU, especially by invalidating monitoring laws currently under consideration in many European countries, and notably in France.
Ellery Roberts Biddle contributed to this article.

author: Suzanne Lehn


text:
Trinidad and Tobago’s Oddly Overlooked—and Totally Legal—Fix for Marijuana · Global Voices
Guest Contributor

By Nazma Muller
Three-quarters of all cases in Trinidad and Tobago's lower courts involve marijuana possession. Trinidad and Tobago flag image, public domain. Cannabis leaf by Oren neu dag (CC BY-SA 3.0), via Wikimedia Commons. Images remixed by Georgia Popplewell
On September 28, three weeks after a bitter and hotly contested general election, the Trinidad and Tobago cannabis law reform NGO C420 threatened to sue the country’s Ministry of Health.
The Ministry, said C420 director and co-founder Colin Stephenson, had failed to make it known that laws regarding the lawful possession of marijuana exist in Trinidad and Tobago, to make regulations governing the use of marijuana, and to explore uses of the plant other than smoking.
According to amendments made in 2000 to sections of the country's Dangerous Drugs Act, the Minister of Health can issue licences to grow, import, export, sell and distribute marijuana, as well as make regulations for “the use, purchase, sale or possession of any dangerous drugs for medicinal or scientific purposes.”
With thousands of marijuana cases clogging up the country's judicial system—according to criminal attorney Wayne Sturge, three-quarters of all cases in Trinidad and Tobago magistrates’ courts involve marijuana possession—activating this section of the Act has the potential to relieve this burden, as well as set the stage for the regulated use of marijuana as medicine.
In May 2012, C420 applied to the Health Ministry for a special licence to import cannabis seeds and to cultivate the plant, and received a response from the Chief Medical Officer in December of that year stating that the granting of such a licence fell within the Minister’s remit. C420 has also made several applications for medicinal marijuana licenses on behalf of individuals with medical conditions.
Former Trinidad and Tobago prime minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar (centre) with C420 co-founders Natallee Stephenson (left) and Colin Stephenson (right).
Stephenson said that in April 2015 the former Health Minister, Dr. Fuad Khan, had been instructed by the Prime Minister to meet with the group, but that the meeting never took place. Statements made to the media by Dr. Khan regarding C420’s legal action suggest the Minister was unaware of the amendments to the Dangerous Drugs Act, in spite of the fact that they were made during his political party’s first term in office (1995 -2001).
The updated legislation has also been mysteriously overlooked by the legions of lawyers who earn astronomical fees defending clients charged under the Dangerous Drugs Act. In the 15 years since it was introduced, it has never once been used as a defence in the thousands of marijuana possession cases that have been clogging the country’s judicial system.
At the opening of the 2013 law term, Chief Justice Ivor Archie called for decriminalisation of marijuana, and alluded again to the ridiculousness of “incarcerating people for two marijuana cigarettes” at this year’s ceremony.
David Robinson, the resident Crown Prosecution Service Criminal Justice Advisor, has also called for decriminalisation, suggesting that police officers give out fines instead of arresting people.
“The courts are overworked, over-burdened,” Robinson told the local daily Newsday. “There is no other logical solution… Court is an incredibly expensive, time-consuming place to resolve a dispute. You either say we want to deal with everything so you make the courts enormous and you pay for that. Or you limit the kinds of cases coming into the magistrates’ court.”
MARIJUANA AND TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO LAW
Marijuana is classed as a narcotic drug and psychotropic substance under the country's Dangerous Drugs Act Chap 11:25.
A person found to have marijuana in his/her possession is guilty of an offence and is liable, on summary conviction (in the magistrates’ courts) to a fine of $25,000 (US$3,900), and to imprisonment for five years. Upon conviction on indictment (in the High Court), the person is liable to a fine of $50,000 (US$7,800) and to imprisonment for a term over five years, but not exceeding 10 years.
Possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking is also a serious offence. Being in possession of more than one kilogramme of marijuana is classed as possession for the purpose of trafficking, unless it can be proven otherwise. Upon conviction on indictment the fine is $100,000 (US$15,600), or—where there is evidence of the drug's street value—three times the street value, whichever amount is greater, plus imprisonment for a term of 25 years to life.
Source: Marijuana and the Law in T&T
Since Jamaica’s decriminalisation of the herb came into full effect on April 15, many in the Caribbean have been hoping that CARICOM, the regional economic bloc to which Trinidad and Tobago belongs, will call for legalisation across the board. This if only for economic reasons, as highlighted at a 2013 CARICOM heads of government meeting by the prime minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves.
But Trinidad and Tobago's new prime minister, Keith Rowley, has said that while the issue might be “fashionable” at the moment, it isn’t a priority for his government. In this year’s national budget, presented on October 5, national security once again received the largest allocation of funds. The Minister of National Security is calling for “zero tolerance” on crime, as the murder rate continues to climb and shocking assaults on our women expose serious social upheaval.
Meanwhile, marijuana-related arrests continue apace and fields worth millions are destroyed, as people on marijuana charges are locked up alongside violent and often mentally ill inmates, in prisons whose horrific conditions recently came under the spotlight following a daylight jail break from a prison in the capital city. The prisoners involved in the jail break had been awaiting trial in Remand Yard, where many often spend months or years awaiting bail or a trial date—and where up to 15 men are locked up in a single small cell with a bucket as their toilet.
As a sociologist, activist and leader of the Caribbean Collective for Justice, a spanking new political party that campaigned in the recent general election on a green platform that focused on cannabis legalisation (hemp and marijuana) and a radical transformation of the economy to address both environmental and social injustices, I have been writing for the last ten years about the devastating effects that the United States’ War on Drugs— what Rolling Stone magazine calls a trillion-dollar failure—has had on my compatriots, especially poor, young black men.
Senior barrister Lord Anthony Gifford, chairman of Jamaica's Ganja Law Reform Coalition, agrees that legalisation is also a human rights issue. “The criminal law is meant to intervene when people harm each other,” he says. “Criminal law should not be used when people use substances that are available to them, that does not harm them when it’s used responsibly – and does not harm others. Conceptually, one should have the rights to do whatever does not harm other people.”
C420 has decided to hold off legal action and give the new government of Trinidad and Tobago an opportunity to address the issue. They have since requested a meeting with the current Health Minister, and this week made a request to the Ministry under the Freedom of Information Act to find out if any licences have been issued for cannabis by the Ministry of Health in the last 15 years.
Should the Rowley administration decide to write the regulations and decriminalise marijuana, as allowed under the law, this would have a tremendous impact on the country’s  huge narco-trafficking industry, overburdened judicial system and struggling health system.
With one of the highest rates of cancer, hypertension and diabetes in the region, Trinidad and Tobago’s hospitals and health centres are in crisis. If cannabis licences are granted, the country can begin to benefit legally and openly from the positive medical benefits of marijuana—as is being done in Canada, Israel, Portugal, Uruguay and 23 states in the US. Patients with epilepsy, diabetes, cancer, multiple sclerosis, irritable bowel syndrome and other conditions will be able to grow their own medicine.
Ready or not, the new government of Trinidad and Tobago must move swiftly to separate marijuana from the very real and dangerous illegal drug trade and allow the people who use it as medicine to do so without being jailed.
Nazma Muller is a Trinidad-born Rasta who writes for Caribbean Beat magazine. She is the leader of the Caribbean Collective for Justice, which advocates environmental and social justice for the entire region.

author: Guest Contributor


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Typhoon Koppu Brings Floods and Agricultural Disaster to Philippines’ ‘Food Basket’ · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Monitoring the path of Typhoon Koppu as it batters the northern Philippines. Image from @govph.
Typhoon Koppu (known locally as Lando) has battered the northern part of the Philippines, affecting almost 300,000 persons in six regions of Luzon, the country’s biggest island.
Koppu brought heavy rains that caused massive flooding in several provinces. The rains also destroyed agricultural crops in the Cagayan Valley, a region known for being the food basket of Metro Manila and other urban centers of Luzon.
Koppy also disrupted the communication signals in many areas, leading to delays in media reports, as eyewitnesses were not immediately able to share photos, videos, and other information about the impact of the typhoon in remote villages. Despite this problem, following the Twitter hashtag #LandoPH is still one effective way to monitor the flood situation and relief efforts in the disaster-hit towns.
Some of the following photos show the kind of damage Koppu did in the Philippines.
Casiguran in the Aurora Province was particularly badly hit:
Mga bahay sa Casiguran, Aurora na nawasak dahil kay #LandoPH. | via @Dennis_Datu pic.twitter.com/OVU9LnZPNd
— DZMM TeleRadyo (@DZMMTeleRadyo) October 19, 2015
Houses destroyed in Casiguran, Aurora because of Lando
Pinsala ng bagyong lando sa Casiguran Dist. Hospital pic.twitter.com/soZ9JNE0wW
— Dennis Cabral Datu (@Dennis_Datu) October 19, 2015
Casiguran District Hospital Damaged by Typhoon Lando
Koppu also destroyed several rice fields and other crops. This is a double tragedy for farmers, many of whom spent the past few months enduring a prolonged drought:
Agricultural damage and flooding in #Isabela in the aftermath of #LandoPH pic.twitter.com/MNALTzWB3Z
— Atom Araullo (@atomaraullo) October 19, 2015
Farmers in Santiago Isabela says they will try to salvage what they can from crops damaged by typhoon #LandoPH pic.twitter.com/9gScjOEoEr
— Raffy Tima (@raffytima) October 19, 2015
Antonio Flores, a peasant leader, urged the government to provide quick assistance to farmers:
To immediately help farmers, a moratorium to the payment of land rent and land amortization in typhoon-affected areas and waiving of irrigation service fees are just and necessary relief at this time of calamity.
The National Food Authority should also be ready to buy farmers’ palay (unhusked rice) irregardless of classification, wet or dry, for them to recover the cost of production. At the same time, we demand government to extend full subsidy to the next production season.
Floods engulfed Cagayan, a province located in the northernmost part of Luzon:
Drone video shows massive flooding in Tuguegarao http://t.co/mmu9LRjYcL #LandoPH pic.twitter.com/5aod1yOkri
— ABS-CBN News Channel (@ANCALERTS) October 19, 2015
Tuguegarao City, Cagayan: Before and during #LandoPH @cnnphilippines #Koppu (Photos by Al Espaldon) pic.twitter.com/XfuJYHXc0S
— Rex Remitio (@RexCNNPH) October 18, 2015
Koppu also affected Metro Manila. In Marikina City, an eastern suburb, some residents were evacuated because of the Marikina River's rising water levels.
85 families (390 persons) evacuated at Bulelak Gym in Brgy. Malanday, Marikina due to #LandoPH @cnnphilippines pic.twitter.com/bjRobgWBrT
— Rex Remitio (@RexCNNPH) October 18, 2015


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3 Mexicans Who Refuse to Stay Silent on Injustice · Global Voices
J. Tadeo

Relatives of the missing students in Iguala. Photo taken from Mario Acosta's Flickr account under Creative Commons License.
There are many voices fighting to stand out among the cacophony of Mexican politicians and media parroting the official line that the government works for the benefit of the people and deserves their trust.
These dissenting voices sometimes rise above all the noise, but other times they are muddled by stubborn intolerance or twisted by those with dark intentions who thrive in an environment of authoritarianism and impulsiveness. Nevertheless, they need to be heard.
Let's take a look at the voices of three Mexicans in particular who have refused to stay quiet on injustice and ignominy. At some point, they have been threatened for expressing their discontent with the armed conflict in the country, but they have continued on with their non-violent struggle in compliance with the law and in exercise of their fundamental right to freedom of expression.
Catholic priest-turned-activist for migrants Alejandro Solalinde — like few others in Mexico — has understood that migration must be addressed as a phenomenon and not as a problem that “must be solved.” In 2007 he founded the hostel Hermanos en el Camino (Brothers on the Road) located in Ixtepec City, Oaxaca (southwest Mexico) to provide humanitarian assistance to travelers from the country and from throughout Central America. These migrants would come mainly by the freight train commonly known as The Beast on their way to the United States, where they hope to find better opportunities.
Migrants crossing the southern border of Mexico to the United States, as well as domestic migrants heading towards the same destination, find themselves at the mercy of armed groups and other criminals operating in the country. This makes them constant victims of theft, rape and sexual abuse, among other crimes.
Mexico's security forces, who in theory should be protecting them, render them subjects of extortion, abuse of authority, and intimidation; National Migration Institute and other related officials practice complacent neglect.
Given the above, Solalinde has constantly spoken up to place the issue on the public agenda and seek dignified treatment for those who pass through Mexico seeking a better life.
In a piece for the Latin Amercian magazine Gatopardo, Emiliano Ruiz Parra describes the humility with which Solalinde lives, as well as another aspect of his speech that disturbs the power of the Catholic Church:
Se juega la vida al oponerse a una industria en la que se confabula la más alta política con el crimen organizado: el secuestro de migrantes. Nunca será consagrado obispo porque dice lo que piensa de su madre iglesia: que no es fiel a Jesús sino al poder y al dinero; que es misógina y trata con la punta del pie a los laicos y a las mujeres, y que no es la representante exclusiva de Cristo en la Tierra.
He risks his life by opposing an industry in which organized crime conspires inside the highest political circles: the kidnapping of migrants. He will never be made bishop because he says what he thinks about his Mother Church: that she is not faithful to Jesus but rather to power and money; that she is misogynistic, treating women and laypeople like dirt, and that she is not the sole representative of Christ on Earth.
Solalinde knows that challenging the authorities in a country of fledgling democracy such as Mexico carries its risks. “I am aware that at any time they will kill me, but they have not done so because they are avoiding the political cost,” he said in an interview with Laura Cifuentes Weffer from independent online newspaper Efecto Cocuyo.
A journalist, writer and poet — and a convert to activism like Solalinde — who has abandoned his primary occupations to call for a stop to violence, impunity and injustice in Mexico. Sicilia had other reasons for becoming an activist as he personally suffered the consequences of armed conflict when his son was murdered at the hands of organized crime.
Sicilia has taken his voice to many corners of the country, even to the United States, with a caravan. As the head of the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity, he made his demand known in the highest offices, including a heart-wrenching encounter with former President Felipe Calderon, from whom he demanded answers and concrete actions against the climate of violence that, to date, persists in much of Mexico.
Almost a year ago, following the slaughter in the city of Iguala — to which we will refer later — Sicilia spoke of widespread protests, although he advised maintaining a pacifist attitude:
Que esto no se diluya, hay que subir el tono, no en la violencia, sino en la construccion. Hay que acompañar la protesta con propuesta.
Don't let this be forgotten, the pressure must increase, not with violence but with construction. The protest must come with a proposal.
Parents, siblings and other relatives of students who were kidnapped after bullet-riddled confrontation with local police and members of an organized crime group in Iguala, Guerrero, in September 2014, have also spoken out against the impunity that is afflicting the country. It should be mentioned that the 43 students of the Raul Isidro Burgos Ayotzinapa Rural School weren't the only ones deprived of their lives on that occasion. Others were also victims of the violence, despite the fact that they were not a part of the activist students. Their cases keep being eclipsed by the media frenzy that has accompanied the disappearance of the 43 students.
Protests in the emblematic Walk of Reform in Mexico. Photo from the author's blog
Since these events, marches and days of protest have occurred and can be followed through the hashtag #AcciónGlobalPorAyotzinapa (Global Action for Ayotzinapa). Their goal is to demand that the return of the students (although there has been forensic evidence indicating some of the student's deaths), while some of thousands of people accompanying the victims’ families cry out for justice for the murder or forced disappearance of students at the hands of state agents.
Unfortunately, there have been occasions when the protests have turned violent, and there hasn't been any statement against it from those leading the movements.
One of these voices is that of Ezequiel Mora, father of Alexander Mora Venancio, whose remains were identified by experts of the Austrian university in charge of analyzing the bone fragments recovered from the garbage dump in Cocula. He has spoken out against the country's current administration:
Nosotros como campesinos no podemos manifestarnos contra él [gobierno] porque nos está matando, nos tortura; no es un gobierno para apoyar a la gente. Es un gobierno corrupto y delincuente, más que nada, porque ellos son los que han matado a todos los luchadores sociales. No los mata otra gente, los mata el mismo gobierno.
We as rural people cannot protest against [the government] because they're killing us, torturing us; they are not a government in support of their people. They are a corrupt and criminal government, more than anything, because they are the ones who have killed all of the social activists. They were not killed by others; they were killed by our very own government.

author: J. Tadeo


text:
Precarity and Resilience in Calais · Global Voices
Caoimhe Butterly

Migrants demonstrate to demand that UK open the border at Calais Eurostar Terminal France. PHOTO
© Jess Hurd/reportdigital.co.uk. NUJ recommended terms & conditions apply. Moral rights asserted under Copyright Designs & Patents Act 1988. Credit is required. No part of this photo to be stored, reproduced, manipulated or transmitted by any means without permission.
At the entrance to the scrubland and litter-strewn sand dunes that serve as a precarious residence to the over 5,000 men, women and children who inhabit them, there are signs painted on pieces of plywood and cardboard, welcoming visitors to “The Jungle” and calling for justice, freedom and refuge for its inhabitants.
Flimsy multi-coloured tents and make-shift tarpaulin shelters are clustered into various encampments on the outskirts of Calais, comparative permanence signalled by attempts made to create a sense of home and relative normalcy. Some of the tarpaulins are adorned with paintings, symbols and memories of places and people left behind and statements of loss, hope and struggle: “Darfur is bleeding”, “Freedom not Fences”, ”These Borders Kill”, “Black is not a Crime. Proud to be Black”, “We are Survivors”.
The refuge-seekers, who attempted to leave the French port city to cross the channel into England the night before, walk slowly back into the camp in groups, exhausted and chatting quietly as they pass the early-morning camp-fires of those just waking up. They pass on news of those who managed to cross, and the many who did not. Some of those seeking warmth around the fires are on crutches, or home-made walking sticks, waiting for multiple fractures sustained while trying to stow-away on lorries or jump onto high-speed trains to heal before they attempt again. Others have eyes swollen from exposure to tear gas and pepper spray, bruised limbs and ribs sustained by the police violence visited on their bodies.
Despite the bleak surroundings, residents—from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Palestine, Iraq, Libya, Algeria, Mali and elsewhere—attempt to create community and spaces of welcome. Restaurants, a small bakery, a library and schools, an arts and music space, places of worship and community centres are organised by the camp’s inhabitants, and built from the same materials as the shelters where they sleep: left-over wood from pallets, plastic sheeting and tarps, plywood, corrugated iron sheeting, salvaged materials and donated cloth and blankets.
In the Ethiopian Orthodox church, women and men gather to pray. With mournful, beautiful ceremonial music playing in the background and candles and incense burning on small altars, Sara, a 22-year old who has been on the road for over a year and a half, leans back and exhales. “It’s the only place in the camp that I can relax, in which I really feel human. I come here to escape the chaos and noise outside and to feel hope”.
Sara lives with four other friends from Eritrea and Ethiopia, all with immediate and extended family in England. They all hope to make it, together, across the securitised border of fences and razor wire and other-ing that mark the final miles of their long journey. Detained in Libya with other Eritreans while their families were forced to pay smugglers additional money to release them, she met fellow travellers who had been tortured or raped by their captors. “That was the worst part,” she says. “The women were so ashamed, they didn’t want their families to know, but it was obvious they were really suffering. We are alive and we’re strong, but we have passed through experiences on this journey which we won’t ever forget”.
Later, in the small structure where Sara, Awet, Mariam and her friends live, we sit together as they make injera and spicy tomato stew over a camping stove. A recent arrival, a solo Kurdish traveller, stops by and asks if he can borrow a cooking pot. Meron, a 25-year old graduate, gives him one, then invites him to join us on the ground for lunch. He hesitates before declining shyly. “Solidarity is so important here in the camp,” Meron reflects. “It keeps us strong and gives us hope. If we didn’t help each other our situation would be a lot worse”.
In a tent next to the camp’s plywood clinic, Ahmed, a Palestinian engineer and youth worker from Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus, welcomes passers-by with tea and memories. A member of a dynamic community centre in Yarmouk, he and his friends attempted to replicate some of their activities while in refugee camps in Turkey. “We thought we could keep a feeling of community by reminding ourselves of our identity beyond being refugees, again” he says “but our experience—in Turkey and in Europe—has been difficult and humiliating. We are just asking to be treated as equals, as human beings”.
Sitting on the benches for those waiting outside the clinic, a group of Sudanese and Eritrean men talk about those that they knew and those that they have heard of who have been killed over the past days, weeks and months, trying to make the crossing to England. A Somali teacher electrocuted while trying to jump down onto a train; an Eritrean student hit by a car while fleeing from the police pursuing her; a Kurdish musician crushed to death under a lorry; a Sudanese father of three hit by a train; unidentified bodies washed ashore, of those who were desperate enough to try and swim across the channel alone at night; the many others that add to a growing, avoidable were there routes of safe and legal passage, death toll.
“We are escaping wars and oppression, but when we arrive here we are treated like criminals,” Mulu says. “We also have to face aggression—of the police and of the local racist gangs who attack us if they find us alone”.
Khalil is an Algerian grocer whose wife and daughter remained in London while he went back to Algiers for his mother’s funeral. He was later refused re-entry to England and asserts, “We have a right to be with our families and to build our lives. Look around at this camp, where are the majority of people here from? We are from countries that have been colonised or had wars fought against them—by the same countries that now treat us like criminals and make us risk our lives to re-unite with our families.”
Later, we walk through the mud and pools of waste water towards the library with Samer, a teacher and father from Sudan.  He is helping to set up a school for children and language courses for adults, and as we walk we pass a stooped, much older man. Hussein, a 74-year old grandfather from Iran whose son lives in London, gestures to the over-flowing portable toilets and weather-exposed tents. “My body is too old for this camp and too old to be able to climb onto the lorries or trains. But, with luck and the will of god, I will make it across.” We meet him again as the sun is setting, by himself, sitting on an empty plastic crate. We stop to chat and as we leave he repeats, “With luck and the will of god, I will make it across.”
As night falls and it begins to rain, we sit with Afghani, Syrian, Iraqi and Kurdish families in a section of the camp in which newly-arrived families have gathered. Sitting around fires fed with remnants of wood from pallets and whatever rubbish is combustible enough to burn, people struggle to stay dry under tarps and plastic sheeting. Hot, sweet tea is passed around and those who have brought instruments with them play a few songs from home.
Ahmed, a florist from Damascus who was unemployed in the months before he left—“Flowers are for joyful occasions and we had little left to celebrate”—sits with his son, Mallas, who is 12 years old, is affectionate to all around him, and who has intellectual disabilities. Ahmed struggled to manage him in the rubber dinghy in which they crossed from Turkey to the Greek island of Samos. “He wanted to stand up and move around and we had to physically restrain him so the boat wouldn’t capsize.” He has relied on the help of fellow travellers along the way and is hopeful that he will eventually receive support services wherever they can finally claim asylum. “He is the only reason we left Syria. My wife and daughter have stayed behind until I can apply for family reunification and send for them, but we both want to be in a place in which our son is supported and given the respect he deserves”.
Hozan, a 65-year old Kurdish man from Mosul, shows us the scars on his ankles and wrists and healing wounds on his arms and neck. Kidnapped by ISIS after the fall of Mosul, he was tortured for months. “They treated me like an animal and threatened to execute me. They would tell me, every day, to prepare to die but, somehow, I lived.”
Jamila, nine months pregnant, from Dohuk in Kurdistan, has walked tens of kilometres in the past weeks. “I wanted to wait until the baby was born before we left, but we had no choice,” she says.
Fatima, an English teacher from Herat in Afghanistan, sits surrounded by her five children. The youngest is four and sits in her mother’s lap, her head resting on Fatima’s chest. “I feel very bad about how difficult this journey has been for my children,” she says, “but we had no choice—we had to leave. I hope we can have the possibility, in the future, to live in peace and safety”.
As those who will attempt the crossing in the rain prepare themselves—wrapping mobile phones and documents in plastic, writing their names on their arms or on pieces of paper so their bodies can be identified if they are badly injured or killed, drinking final glasses of tea and bidding friends good-bye in the hope that they’ll have made it across by morning—Amadou from Mali is pensive. He survived a sinking ship off the coast of Lampedusa and the drowning deaths of many of those he knew on board. To avoid being registered in Italy or elsewhere along the way, he walked hundreds of kilometres to avoid border and immigration officials, and was exploited and robbed of his little remaining money. Stuck in Calais for the past months he has relied on the limited, though committed, support from under-resourced local organisations, solidarity activists and volunteer groups.
“Despite everything,” Amadou says, “I have kept my dignity. And my hope—for a new life—is very strong. I have come this far and have to continue.” He and hundreds of others walk off into the night and towards an uncertain, and precarious, future.

author: Caoimhe Butterly


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Homophobia and Name-Calling Derail Trinidad & Tobago’s Budget Debate · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Opposition Member of Parliament Barry Padarath on the campaign trail in Princes Town in August 2015. Screenshot from video uploaded by YouTube user Kierron Yip Ngow.
During his recent 2015/16 budget speech, Trinidad and Tobago's new minister of finance aroused public interest and ire with revelations of fiscal mismanagement by the previous government. There was further drama during the follow-up budget debate, which is still ongoing, when the minister of sport and a Facebook account belonging to the finance minister made jibes at an opposition member of parliament on account of his alleged effeminate manner.
The political “picong” (a local term for “taunting” or “ridicule”) targeted opposition member Barry Padarath, a first-time parliamentarian for Princes Town, who made his maiden speech in parliament during the debate on October 10. After Padarath's speech, Darryl Smith, also a first-time parliamentarian and minister of sport for the governing People's National Movement (PNM), took the mic and thanked Padarath for the “comic relief”, referring to him as a “princess”.
In the video below, Padarath's speech begins at 1:32:50 and Smith's at 2:26:00.
A Facebook page belonging to Finance Minister Colm Imbert then piled on more disparaging comments: “Please don’t use the words “bull”, Padarrraaath, and me in the same sentence. I fraid.” (“Bull” is a pejorative Trinidadian term for anal sex.) Imbert later claimed his profile was hacked and he hadn't written the comments.
Blogger Mark Lyndersay wrote a stirring post in which he recalled a moment in his youth when he didn't intervene to stop his peers from hurling cat-calls at an effeminate classmate. “That's what bullying is,” he wrote. “A few people who act in cruelty who are either supported or not stopped by the many who should know better.” Lyndersay continued:
This does not constitute a defense of Padarath, who is going to face his own professional challenges in Parliament quite removed from any perception of his lifestyle that his observers care to indulge in.
It is, however, a disappointed condemnation of [Prime Minister] Dr Rowley’s Cabinet, who seem to be still drunk on a cocktail of triumphalism and condemnation that’s already worn out its welcome.
Sneering at Barry Padarath is only one symptom of behaviour that’s raddled his team from young to old that the Prime Minister needs to step on firmly.
This isn’t 1972 anymore and even then, schoolboys should have known better. In 2015, I didn’t expect to hear that sound again from the centre of my nation’s governance. Nobody did.
But these things turn around and bite you. What don’t meet you, elders would say, don’t pass you.
And naturally, the slur against Padarath also evoked strong reactions from the local LGBT community.
Blogger The Eternal Pantomime said that the LGBT community was “rightly” outraged, though she made the observation that there were double standards at play:
Padarath’s way of expressing masculinity may not be mainstream in a society that is very chauvinistic, but his mannerisms don’t make him any less of a human being or deserving of respect. Just like being black, assertive, straightforward and male shouldn’t make any person fair game for names like raging bull, rottweiller, wajang, rapist and pedophile [all names that current Prime Minister Rowley has been called by his political rivals]. But it seems, certainly given the responses of some members of the LGBT community, that some versions of masculinity are more deserving of defending than others. Which is unfortunate.
The Coalition Advocating for Inclusion of Sexual Orientation (CAISO), for its part, acknowledged that both sides were at fault. Although critical of the homophobic statements made about Padarath in parliament and on Facebook, they also condemned his response. Padarath, subsequent to the name-calling in parliament, reportedly sent letters to the offending ministers announcing a “non-partisan initiative…to launch an anti-bullying campaign” at a school in his constituency, suggesting that if they refused to join the initiative they should be made to resign. According to CAISO:
Mr Padarath’s letters to his colleagues have turned the bullying tables. Following their public taunts of him in the House chamber and tearoom this past week, he is now holding down the heads of Ministers Smith and Imbert in the schoolyard sand, insisting they say uncle.
Sadly, it’s precisely this way in which bullying escalates in our schools every day that requires urgent leadership and attention; and counter-bullying can’t be the solution either for those who are bullied in school or for how our politicians respond to this serious problem.
The uncouth behaviour continued when, two days after the taunting of Padarath, opposition chief whip Dr. Roodal Moonilal told another MP to “shut your stink mouth”.
Some didn't categorise any of the banter as “picong” at all. Earl Best, writing at the satirical website Wired868, noted that some media commentators tossed aside all euphemisms and called it as they saw it—”shit talk”. Best was less concerned with the dimwittedness of the parliamentary representatives than with the serious economic situation Trinidad and Tobago now finds itself in, which is, of course, what the budget debate was supposed to be focusing on.
Another Wired868 guest blogger, Jabari Fraser, noted the insults were masking a lack of thoughtful analysis from lawmakers on all sides:
Bull, princess and stink—the three words that had the biggest impact in our Budget debate and debate about the debate by Trinidad and Tobago parliamentarians.
Contributions in Parliament were generally poor. Few of the elected members analysed the vital macroeconomic matters which all of us have to deal with. Even fewer had constructive criticism of the fiscal policies announced by the Finance Minister.
For the most part, the senior Opposition members based their contributions on a healthy portion of misinformation, half-facts and ridiculous fear-mongering.
Netizens echoed this sentiment, calling on their elected representatives to do better than this show of “disrespect to the people of Trinidad and Tobago”. The Eternal Pantomime agreed:
I want to believe that both Government and Opposition will step their game up and fulfil their real roles as MPs. Otherwise we can simply hire 41 circus clowns and get on with the entertainment.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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How Social Media Fuels China’s Growing Love of Cosmetic Surgery · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Image by TeeLamb. CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
In less than two decades, cosmetic surgery has surged exponentially within China. The medical procedure has been transformed into a consumer product, thanks to a plethora of advertisements that preach a standardized Asian beauty and social media marketing strategies that build a community “empowering” women to change their face and hence their life.
According to the estimations of China's cosmetic surgery industry, there were 140 million potential cosmetic surgery customers in 2014. One out of every thousand faces have undergone either major or minor surgical treatment and two out of every thousand have considered going under the knife.
Confucians believe that spiritual upbringing is more important than looks. But that idea has given way to the reigning view among young Chinese that your looks can determine your fate. According to popular thinking, by tweaking your facial features, be it nose or eyelids, your life will also become more beautiful.
Stories of how a changed face ushers in a brighter future have been shared again and again on Chinese social media among young women:
美丽的外表，带来的不仅是生活的改变，还有自我的改变，祝福亲，美丽生活，美好人生
A beautiful appearance not only changes your life, but your inner self. Be blessed, enjoy a beautiful life and future.
以前都说，心态年轻，才能让外表保持年轻，这固然没错，但年轻的心态下必然是因为每天的心情都很美好，不管是生活在什么样的环境中，让自己心情好的方法很多，其中，欣赏自己一定是一个重要的且不可或缺的要素，你说一个一照镜子就心情不好的人，怎么可能生活的乐观，还能保持心态年轻呢？所以，年轻的心态和年轻的外表是相辅相成，互相影响的。
看着自己越来越年轻、越来越漂亮，谁还会管这是人工的还是天生的，至少我现在是很快乐的
People often say that staying young at heart can make you look younger. While it's certainly true, you need to have a good mood to keep yourself young at heart. There are many ways to maintain your mood, but what's most necessary is the ability to appreciate yourself. If a person looks into the mirror and feels bad, how can that person be optimistic about life and stay young? So staying young at heart and your appearance go hand in hand.
Watch yourself become younger, more beautiful, who will care whether it is artificial or natural? At least I am now very happy.
Similar assertions are found on soyoung.com, a cosmetic surgery service platform that allows users to upload their photos and share their surgical experience in an online diary. The platform is run by a cosmetic surgery service agency to promote the elective procedures; it connects both domestic and overseas doctors and hospitals directly with their clients and enables users to have online medical consultations and make appointments.
Within two years, the online-to-offline platform has accumulated more than 600,000 registered users and facilitated 2,000 cosmetic surgery facilities in reaching out to their clients. There are at least a dozen other similar platforms that help the industry to promote their medical services.
Beautiful models in advertisements reinforce a standardized Asian beauty — white skin, double eyelids, tall and straight nose, oval-shaped face, big breasts, long and slim thighs. And mobile apps that allow you to modify your looks only intensify the temptation of obtaining that “desirable” beauty.
The idea pushed by the beauty industry is that there are no ugly women, but lazy women who don't make the surgical changes necessary to conform. But these surgeries aren’t always successful, yet there aren't any similar social media platforms dedicated to sharing experiences of botched procedures.
An investigative report from a Hong Kong-based news platform, the Initium, revealed that the cosmetic surgical industry uses potent social media marketing tactics to suppress complaints and create a herd mentality among potential clients.
According to the anonymous patient of a famous surgeon in the report, her doctor was involved in a bone-shaving surgical error that led to a serious disability in a different patient. Despite this, the doctor's social media marketing team managed to convince her and other potential clients that the news was just a malicious rumor spread by his competitors. Before the source decided to undertake the bone-shaving procedure, she joined the doctor's patient group on social media platform QQ. The positive comments and the excitement and readiness of the patients in embracing the surgery made her forget the potential risk that she would be undertaking.
Most victims of botched cosmetic surgery are unwilling to share their painful experience because they rarely gain public sympathy. The following comments under lifestyle blog Shanghaiist's report on a series of protests in Seoul, South Korea, by victims of botched surgeries are rather typical:
I don't have sympathy for people who fall for these ‘super cheap’ schemes. Ok plastic surgeons aren't as qualified as real surgeons, but it still takes a lot of hard work and training to do it, if people are being cheapskates about it and trying to save money by using dodgy surgeons then they are hurting the honest ones who learn how to do it properly and are good at it. I hate cosmetic surgery by the way, but the principle still stands. China probably suffers more than any other rich nation from this attitude of ‘why waste money on paying someone who actually knows what they're doing.
People are born with a certain look and defining features. Are they denying their parents looks? There's a difference between surgery after an accident to repair cosmetic damage and this. This is just pointless and detrimental.
Even when victims are courageous enough to face public scrutiny and tell their stories, their voices are often drowned out by the profit-driven social media marketing business. The imbalance of information reflects the adverse effects of China's current Internet governance policies, which encourage the growth of online businesses while suppressing the development of virtual communities, such as those dedicated to feminist, consumer and citizen right issues, that can genuinely empower ordinary people to speak out.
Ayo Awokoya also contributed to this post.

author: Oiwan Lam