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Taiwanese Netizens Aren’t Exactly Thrilled With the Upcoming China-Taiwan Meeting · Global Voices
Sophie Hsu

Image from Facebook Taiwan Explorer.
The buzz online has been non-stop since the announcement of a meeting between President Ma Ying-Jeou of Taiwan (R.O.C.) and President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China (P.R.C.) to take place on Saturday, November 7, in Singapore.
While Ma's government stressed that the two presidents would address each other with the title “Mr.”, which implies the two are on equal footing in the meeting, reactions online show that netizens aren't buying such political camouflage as the diplomatic and military power imbalance between the two is so obvious.
In contrast with the positive reactions from Taiwanese political parties and international media, the majority of Taiwanese views online expressed concerns over the perceived threat that China represents to Taiwan’s much cherished sovereignty and democratic processes. Taiwan has made great effort to better its relations with China for economic benefit over the past decade, but without much payoff, observers argue. China hasn't made any indication that it's willing to recognize Taiwan as sovereign, while Taiwan's gross domestic product (GDP) is forecast to continue contracting and wealth inequality remains a pressing issue.
China claims Taiwan as a rogue territory ever since the Kuomintang (KMT) retreated to the island following defeat at the hands of the communists in the Chinese civil war during the late 1940s, although the mainland has no control over the self-ruling state of Taiwan. Beijing has threatened using force to retake Taiwan if it were to ever make a formal bid for independence.
The leaders of the Chinese Communist Party and the KMT haven't met together since 1945. Some reactions to the historic meeting took the form of satirical caricatures, drawing on the public's reactions and predicting the possible scenarios and conditions for the cross-strait summit. On Facebook, TaiwanExplorer made fun of the claim that both presidents are the rightful leaders of China (see image on top).
Another caricature making waves is of a panda, representing China's President Xi, riding a wooden toy horse, symbolizing Taiwan’s President Ma.
Mr. Xi (panda) riding on Mr. Ma (horse). Image from Facebook user Taiwanfugue.
Netizens also shared a video showing President Ma back in 2011 when he made a public promise not to meet with any Chinese officials during his term as president.
Calls for his impeachment have also circulated, as many accuse Ma, who belongs to the Kuomintang (KMT) party, of trying one last attempt to put himself into the history books without caring for Taiwan’s democratic process. But such views have been repressed by pro-government media. A professor wrote on the opinion page of Taiwanese publication CommonWealth Magazine, which is an advocate of the current government's policy on forging closer economic ties with China, criticizing the meeting and calling for President Ma's impeachment, but the piece was taken down by the editorial board for being inappropriate.
Lin Feifan, a former student activist, raised a number of questions on his Facebook page immediately after the news of the meeting was announced:
我們都知道「馬習會」是馬英九夢寐以求、朝思暮想的重要時刻，但為何卡關了那麼久，如今突然之間成局了？
想請問，兩岸交流的成果到底是什麼？馬習會要鞏固的是什麼樣的成果？這些馬政府眼裡所謂的兩岸交流成果是台灣人民要的成果嗎？
沒有民意基礎、沒有經過民意認可的兩岸交往模式，已經一次又一次被反對，甚至已經在過去引起相當大的憲政危機，這場會面，難道沒有憲政問題嗎？
對馬英九，我想已經沒有什麼好說的了。
We all know that Ma Ying-jeou is trying to fulfill his dream of a Ma-Xi meeting and [it is now] the most important moment for this dream, but why has he been holding these cards for so long? Why did they suddenly become visible [to the public]?
We want to know what the benefits of cross-strait exchanges are. What sort of outcome is hoped to be accomplished with the Ma-Xi meeting? Are the expectations of the Ma government the same as those of the Taiwanese people?
Without public opinion as the basis and without having gone through the people’s consent to carry out cross-strait exchanges, they have not only again and again received public opposition, but they have also gone as far as to create a constitutional crisis… In regards to Ma Ying-jeou, there is nothing more to say.
Also widely distributed on the web was commentary written by Assistant Professor Tao Yi-fen from National Taiwan University, published on The Initium, an online media outlet based in Hong Kong. Tao explained why President Xi agreed to meet with President Ma:
其實，北京在思考台灣問題從來都不是放在兩岸關係的脈絡下來思考，而是放在中美、中日的大國關係下來思考。近年，中國在南中國海建人造島礁、成立亞投行、推動一帶一路等作為，讓美國與區域鄰國開始對崛起的中國產生疑懼，漸漸形成一種新的圍堵態勢，最近的例子就是延宕多時的TPP迅速建立，以及美國海軍進入中國在南中國海的人造島礁十二海里的範圍內巡航，彰顯自由航行的權利。
The fact is that Beijing does not consider the Taiwan issue from the context of cross-strait relations but rather from the perspective of China-U.S. and China-Japan relations. Recent Chinese actions, from building artificial reefs in the South China Sea to creating the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, have made the U.S. and regional neighbors become apprehensive, thus gradually causing a new containment strategy seen through the rapid establishment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the U.S. Navy navigating the 12 nautical miles of the South China Sea in order to test the rights of freedom of navigation.
Tao went on to emphasize that Taiwan’s democratic assets must be cherished collectively not just by the people of Taiwan, but also Hong Kong and China:
民主化二十多年來，台灣已經花太多時間在兩岸關係上了，2016年的選舉原本可以是一個關乎執政能力，關乎教育、就業、稅制、社會福利政策的辯論；馬習會突襲式的舉行，會多大程度改變台灣政治的進程，這將會是台港中民主人士共同關心的重點。而馬習會能多大程度把台灣套在中國的軌道上，也將影響東亞區域的穩定與安全。
Democratization in Taiwan has already taken place for more than 20 years, and Taiwan has already spent much of its time on cross-strait relations. Originally, the 2016 elections was going to become an election about issues, such as governance abilities, education, employment, taxes, social welfare, etc. The raid-like timing of the Ma-Xi meeting will change the progress of Taiwan politics in a dramatic way. This will become a collective point of concern for the people of Taiwan, Hong Kong and China. Especially, the Ma-Xi meeting could tie up Taiwan to the Chinese track to a great degree, and this would influence regional stability and security in East Asia.
Nevertheless, online indignation has also turned towards the U.S. and to the main opposition party in Taiwan, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), for not voicing any opposition for the meeting to be held.
A blogger known as Subing was quoted in the PPT bulletin board system predicting the response by the DPP and its chairwoman and presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen:
我預計蔡陣營對馬習會不會有甚麼實質的反對行動，如果美國對馬習會也沒什麼反應，表示國、民、中、美的四方均衡解的確存在，也解釋為甚麼歐習會台灣問題不在議程上，已經有答案的問題本來就不需要討論。
I foresee that the Tsai camp will not voice substantial opposition to the Ma-Xi meeting if the U.S. is not to make too much of a reaction either. This only represents that there is already equilibrium between the four sides, which are the KMT, DPP, China and the U.S. This also explains why Taiwan was not incorporated into the Obama-Xi meeting agenda because as there is already an answer to a problem, why discuss it again?
In public opinion polls, the percentages against the meeting taking place varied. A popular blogger, who writes about Taiwan news in English, combined many articles about the Ma-Xi meeting discussing why the poll numbers differed between the media outlets. He also conducted an informal poll himself, explaining:
I polled a couple of my classes anonymously. My students were fairly divided with majority not in favor of this meeting, and a clear majority thinking it would not help the KMT, so I suspect Froze is right and there might well be majority support, though the reasons will vary across groups (lots of us support this meeting because we see it as bad for the KMT).
GV author I-fan Lin also contributed to this post.

author: Sophie Hsu


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Top Editor of Chinese Tabloid Global Times Defends Patriotism in New Talk Show · Global Voices
Patrick Wong

Hu Xijin welcomes viewers in the first episode of his new talk show. Screenshot.
For years, Global Times, a tabloid affiliated with China’s state-run People’s Daily, has earned popular disdain for its nationalistic take on current affairs. Leading the paper's particular bent is editor-in-chief Hu Xijin.
Hu is publicly regarded as a flamboyant, ultra-leftist character who makes use of the Global Times to court the government by fueling zealous brands of patriotism and nationalism — two ideas endorsed by Chinese Communist Party officials in recent years. His controversial views have also boosted the publication's circulation.
Recently, Hu decided to further promote himself and his views using another medium — online talk show. His first try came in September 2015, when he made an appearance in a short video defending communism in response to Chinese real estate tycoon Ren Zhiqiang's criticism of the Communist Youth League's assertion that “we are successors of communism.”
Now Hu has debuted a new talk show online — “Hu’s Talking” or Hu Kan in Chinese. He proudly claims it is “the first Chinese talk show that comments on global current affairs,” and in the first episode he knocked the use of disparaging terms for “patriotic” Chinese.
Hu launched his debut episode on Chinese Twitter-like Weibo with the following message:
既然来了舆论场，我就不会走。《环球时报》早就被这个时代“抓了壮丁”，除非终老，我没有权利倒下。今天我带着自己的视频节目”胡侃”回到微博，它是我和环时价值观的可视展现。时代给了我们一个角色，我须倾力对它负责。就当我是“胡侃”吧。珍惜多元，团结万岁。
Since I have spent my time in the realm of opinion, I won't leave it. The Global Times has been a “manhood” [meaning a man forcibly enlisted in the army for the ideological battle] serving this era. Only if I were old would I have the right to step away. Today I return to Weibo with my video program “Hu Kan,” the visualization of the values of Global Times and me. The era we live in bestows a role on us all, and I must do my utmost to responsibly perform it. Just see me as “Hu Kan.” Cherish diversity and long live unity.
He kickstarted the show, which opens with a professionally animated sequence featuring a cartoon version of himself, by addressing the political labels that have been attached to him. He then attempted to present the “real Hu Xijin“ by reminiscing about when he entered college following the turbulent Cultural Revolution — the violent campaign led by Chairman Mao to rid Chinese society of elements deemed anti-communist — and his time working as a war correspondent in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
During the latter topic, he made use of his foreign linguistic knowledge to condemn the popular use of the term “patriotic thief” on China’s Internet to refer to those who are overzealous or inappropriate in their love of country:
有一段时间了，互联网上出了一个词，让人很生气，这个词叫什么呀，叫“爱国贼。”我第一次见到这个词的时候，下了我一跳。什么人编这么一个臭词出来，但这个词就是在互联网上流传着……我是懂英语、俄语、塞尔维亚语，在这三种语言中，没有一种语言，能够把“爱国”和“贼”这两个词给拼在一起的。（有些人）还挺得意，只有中文出了这帮孽种啊。现在经常有人拿爱国主义开涮，为了这个意识形态斗争，甚至为了政治斗争，说什么我爱国，但不是爱政府，不是什么什么，编出一大堆理由。
For a while, a certain word on the Internet has been making people angry. That word is “patriotic thief.” The first time I saw this word, it astonished me. What kind of people invented this terrible word? But there it is, just circulating on the Internet… I know that in English, Russian and Serbian, you can't stick the words “patriot” and “thief” together. [Some people] even feel proud. Only the Chinese created this kind of people! Now some people constantly ridicule patriotism. In the ideological or political struggle, they claim, “I love the country but do not love the government” or such and such. [They] have fabricated a lot of reasons.
Guan Xin, a freelance translator, quickly rebuked Hu’s sophistry on Wheibo:
英文也有“patrioteer”，指“打着爱国幌子谋私利者”，也没听说它是什么“英文之耻”。词没有“有耻”“无耻”之分，只有它们形容的人才有这样的区分。换句话说，指定某些词是“中文之耻”，才是中文之耻。
There is also the term “patrioteer” in English, referring to “a person who gains personal interest in the name of patriotism.” I never heard of this term being deemed “the shame of English.” Words can't be “shameful” or “shameless.” Only when describing a person do they take on that distinction. In other words, labeling some words “the shame of Chinese” is indeed the shame of Chinese.
In 2012, Hu wrote an editorial suggesting that people should be “understanding of the moderate corruption of Chinese officials.” Only a year later, he seemed to betray his patriotism and put those words into practice.
In September, a photo of an official document circulating online showed that the editorial board of the People’s Daily issued a disciplinary warning to Hu, who had attended a Chinese-German media forum and had spent the budget he received to arrange his guests for a three-day tour in Poland in the summer of 2013.
One Weibo user considered Hu’s words contradictory to his behavior in real life:
边喊爱国边公款旅游，爱国就是一门生意而已，典型爱国贼。
Singing a patriotic tune while touring on the public's dime, patriotism is just a business. [Hu] is a typical patriotic thief.
Another Weibo user advised Hu to use his position to become one of the critical voices that Chinese society so needs:
奴性不改，歌功颂德的事少干些，国家需要的是批评的声音，哪个皇帝哪个时代不是需要进谏真言，习皇也是，舔没有一点用…从没听说谁在溜须拍马，歌功颂德中进步。望阅。
[Hu] did not change his subservience [to the government] and should sing its praises less than he does. The nation needs critical voices. Every era’s emperor needs useful advice, as well as President Xi, it is useless to flatter him. I never heard of a person who made progress by flattering and singing praises [to the top leader]. I hope you see my suggestion.
Since his talk show was uploaded to Youku, the largest Chinese video site, it has been played over 200,000 times in two days, despite netizens flooding the comments section with negative remarks.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Patrick Wong


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Why Did the Giant Ears Cross the Road? To Protest State Surveillance in Macedonia · Global Voices
Goran Rizaov

Three activists from Metamorphosis Foundation cross the street to the Macedonian government building in Skopje, wearing eyeball and ears costumes to symbolize the illegal surveillance that civic society organizations and journalists have been subjected to. Photo by Vanco Džambaski, used with permission.
A human-sized eyeball sandwiched between two giant ears cross the street before a government building in Skopje, Macedonia. The trio performed a larger-than-life act of eavesdropping to protest mass state surveillance of journalists and civic groups, an activity that leaked recordings of illegal wiretaps have proven the Macedonian government has been engaged in for years.
Behind the eye and ears (and the distinct reference to the Beatles’ Abbey Road album cover) were activists from the digital rights non-profit Metamorphosis Foundation and the informal coalition Citizen for Macedonia, who staged the demonstration to honor Freedom Not Fear, an EU-based campaign against mass state surveillance.
The big eye pretending to read a newspaper while spying on the municipality of Centar and the mayor, Andrej Zernovski. Photo by Vanco Dzambaski, used with permission.
A massive trove of audio files and archives (known locally as “bombshells”) released by opposition leader Zoran Zaev almost one year ago revealed that the communications of more than 20,000 individuals in Macedonia had been secretly recorded illegally, including more than a 100 journalists and civil society activists.
The big eye and ears took a stroll on 16 October from the government and the headquarters of the ruling VMRO-DPMNE party to the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, the municipality of Centar, the European Union delegation's building, the weekly magazine Fokus and the Metamorphosis Foundation, where the Meta news agency and Portalb news portal are situated.
The big eye and ears in front of the EU delegation's building in Skopje. Photo by Vanco Dzambaski, used with permission.
Zoran Zaev's party claims to have obtained these records from whistleblowers within the Ministry of Interior and has since used them to expose the wrongdoing of the ruling party and, most likely, to draw more supporters into their own ranks. These corrupt behaviors were not news to anyone in Macedonia, but the hard evidence was welcomed by rights advocates who have worked for years to improve transparency and increase public accountability for spending and policymaking by the ruling government.
Biljana Volceska (left) from the Directorate for Personal Data Protection and Predrag Tasevski, founder of cybersecurity.mk took part in the debate on “Safety of communications and threats from monitoring and surveillance of communications” (Photo: Metamorphosis)
Along with the activists’ public demonstration, on 19 October Metamorphosis hosted a debate on the safety of communications and threats from monitoring and surveillance of communications.
Biljana Volcheska from Macedonia's Directorate for Personal Data Protection participated as a speaker in the debate. She addressed the role of telecom operators in the process of eavesdropping, collecting and processing data from telephone conversations:
There are standards according to which communications can be monitored and personal data can be collected, and every violation [of these standards] is actually a violation of privacy. Telecom operators and [Internet service providers] should have mechanisms for guaranteeing their user’s privacy, and providing safety and confidentiality of their data and communications. They need to take technical measures to secure the data, and destroy the data if the purpose for their collection has been fulfilled.
Recent reforms require telecommunications operators to build “back doors” into their technologies so that the Security and Counterintelligence Service, known as UBK, can listen to the conversations of just about anyone it chooses. Although the Constitution requires that the UBK obtain a court order before doing so, the new policy and practice disregards this requirement altogether.
It seems that the telecom operators have been compliant in this illegal surveillance scheme all along. According to Volcheska, telecom operators in Macedonia collect and store all telephone metadata for 12 months. European Union regulations would prohibit such a lengthy storage period, an important detail as Macedonia is currently seeking accession to the EU.
Volcheska also confirmed that the directorate has not initiated proceedings on behalf of citizens affected by what the wiretaps revealed, and explained that this is because none of the individuals who were wiretapped had submitted a complaints about their cases thus far. This is not surprising, given rapidly declining levels of citizens’ trust in their government.
Besides the debate, a workshop on the safe use of mobile phones was held in Skopje (Photo: Metamorphosis)
Violeta Gjorgjievska from Internet Hotline Provider – Macedonia, a local civil society organization that works on the protection of digital rights, spoke on instances of online harassment in which wiretap recordings have been used to embarrass or shame political elites. She also commented on a proposed law on “bombshells”, which if approved by Parliament, would prohibit the publication or storage of the content of the wiretapped recordings in the country and abroad.
The law on the ‘bombs’, proposed by the government, is an attack on the freedom on the Internet and censors it. Such a law cannot be adopted without forming relevant bodies to prevent censorship on the Internet.
This proposed law was withdrawn from the Parliament after a fierce public reaction by journalists and civil society claiming that this would mean that Macedonia officially legalizes censorship. It is now being re-negotiated by the government and the opposition.
The day concluded with a workshop on the secure use of mobile phones led by Predrag Tasevski, founder of cybersecurity.mk.
The Freedom Not Fear – International Action Days initiative has been present in Macedonia since 2008.

author: Goran Rizaov


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Why Is Taiwan President Ma Ying-Jeou Ending His Presidency With a Cross-Strait Summit? · Global Voices
New Bloom

Taiwan ruling Kuomingtang's chairman Eric Chu met with China President Xi Jinping on 4 May 2015. Photo from China state-owned newswire China news.
This article is written by New Bloom writer Brian Hioe, a M.A. student at Columbia University and freelance writer on politics and social activism. The original post, titled “The Beginning of the Ma-Xi Endgame? Calls For Action by Civil Society in Response to Planned Ma-Xi Summit“, was published on News Bloom on November 4 and is republished on Global Voices in accordance with a content partnership agreement.
“It feels like this is the beginning of the end,” someone commented to me after hearing of the Ma-Xi Summit scheduled to happen in Singapore on November 7th.
The eleventh-hour meeting between Chinese president Xi Jinping and Taiwanese president Ma Ying-Jeou comes like a curveball, given that Ma is perceived a lame-duck president and there is less than two months before presidential elections take place. Does the meeting represent the last, desperate attempt of the Ma administration to influence cross-strait relations before the end of Ma’s term? Certainly, that the meeting was announced with only a few days notice suggests that something very, very unusual is going on here.
If Ma’s meeting with Xi is a surprise, it follows in the footsteps of an earlier meeting between Xi and the ruling party Kuomingtang (KMT) chairman Eric Chu. Chu replaced Ma as KMT chairman last year, after the defeat of the KMT in the nine-in-one elections, with Ma resigning as a way of taking responsibility for the KMT’s defeat. But Chu is popularly seen as something of Ma’s puppet, in that he is a member of the Ma-led pro-China unification “Mainlander” faction of the KMT and is still subordinate to Ma, who remains a powerful figure within the KMT. In the meantime, of course, Chu has become the KMT's presidential candidate for the 2016 elections.
When Chu met with Xi, the KMT attempted to play this up as a historic breakthrough in cross-strait relations—one which only the KMT, and not the oppositional Democratic Progressive party (DPP), could have accomplished, given the special historical relation between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Yet, as it had been one of Ma's long-term goal's to become the first standing Taiwanese president since the end of the Chinese Civil War and the founding of the PRC to meet with a sitting Chinese president, the Chu-Xi meeting was seen then as something of a failure on Ma’s part — suggesting that Ma would end his presidency having failed to achieve this goal and having squandered his popularity by pushing for unpopular cross-strait policies.
The other incident in the past year of a Taiwanese high official visiting China was, of course, Lien Chan’s visit to China on the occasion of the large military parade held in September 2015. Lien’s visit to China was, in fact, condemned by even the KMT—it appears that Lien decided on his own to go to China, in a sense taking Taiwanese foreign policy into his own hands.
Both Lien’s and Chu’s visits to China were likely to provoke strong reactions from the Taiwanese public. Which raises the question: What exactly does Ma  intend to accomplish here? It is merely that, as a lame-duck president with less than two months left in his term, Ma believes he can behave with complete abandon and total disregard for public opinion?
Even if Ma and Xi have both vowed that no real policy decisions would come out of this meeting, it is also true that the meeting is probably meant more for show than anything else. Ma and Xi can be in communication anytime they want—there is no need to broadcast this publicly. It seems likely that Ma’s meeting with Xi is to further demonstrate that the KMT has a special ability to manage cross-strait relations which the DPP lacks, especially as this moment of crisis for the KMT, before elections in which the KMT not only stands to lose the presidency, but is also more unpopular than ever before in history, with even asked its continued viability in question.
Probably KMT’s hope is that the meeting would demonstrate, once again, the special ability of the KMT to conduct negotiations with the CCP in order to maintain cross-strait stability. In this way, Ma and Xi's meeting would offer a rational for the KMT's continued existence. That is, even if the KMT looks very unlikely to win the presidency, the existence of the party remains a critical factor in Taiwan's maintaining cross-strait stability. For while members of the international press will descend upon the event from afar—with little knowledge of the past year’s events—and probably report quite wrongly that this meeting is a sign of improving China-Taiwan relations, the meeting will in fact influence how cross-strait relations between Taiwan and China are perceived by the international world.
It is also very likely that the historic nature of the Ma-Xi meeting would help stablize the KMT's internal crisis. As evidenced in Hung Hsiu-chu's bid for the presidency and the struggle to oust her as the candidate of the KMT, it would appear that dangerous pro-unification deep-blue extremists are threatening to take control of the KMT. But the historic nature of a Taiwanese KMT president meeting with a Chinese president might be viewed as a victory for the party as a whole, and in that way consolidate the internal divisions which have emerged within the “mainland faction” of the KMT in wake of the rise and fall of Hung Hsiu-Chu. This, however, might well aggravate the “Taiwanese faction” of the KMT, at a moment where there is tension over whether the leader of the “Taiwanese faction”, Wang Jinpyng, would be allowed to seek another term as legislator. So there would also seem to be something complicated going on with the KMT internally in the run-up to this meeting.
But Taiwanese civil society will not take this sitting down. Ma seems to have learned few lessons about continuing to push through unpopular cross-strait policies in the past year, post-Sunflower Movement, and we have seen eruptions of spontaneous protest every time he has done this. In the run-up to this summer’s Ministry of Education occupation, for example, we saw spontaneous outbursts of protest against the Ma administration's decision to have Taiwan apply for the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank on March 31st—with over a thousand protesters gathering outside the presidential residence. This time will be no different—and no doubt, after the past year of continual protests, even the Ma administration realizes this at this point. It's just that it does not care, or is laboring under the delusion it can shrug off mass protests from Taiwan’s youth as being of little consequence.
Calls for action have already come from leading figures of civil society such as Huang Kuo-Chang of the Sunflower Movement fame and rock star Freddy Lim, both members of the New Power Party, and condemnations from the Social Democratic Party and Free Taiwan Party. Huang Kuo-Chang and Freddy Lim called for a mobilization to be held on the morning November 4 outside of the Legislative Yuan. Regardless of what happened there, as Ma’s meeting with Xi is slated to happen over the weekend, there's no doubt that protests will take place over the weekend as well.
The heat is on. Two months after July's textbook protests there's been a lull in action, likely due to exhaustion. But it may be time for activists to mobilize once again. Taiwanese civil society will not go down without a fight.

author: New Bloom


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A Transgender Woman in Aceh, Indonesia Gathers Strength as New Anti-Gay Sex Laws Roll Out · Global Voices
PRI/PRX's The World

Echa wears the hijab because it's the law for women in Aceh. Echa is transgender, and when she wears the headscarf, she says no one calls her names. Credit: Carey Wagner. Used with PRI's permission
This article and radio report by Ruth Morris for The World originally appeared on PRI.org on November 2, 2015, and is republished here as part of a content-sharing agreement.
Indonesia has been called the smiling face of Islam for its moderate religious bent. But for Echa, an LGBT activist in the northern Aceh province, that smile can be deceiving.
New regulations in Aceh now punish gay sex with fines, jail time, even canings. It’s the latest phase in a gradual rollout of Sharia laws that also prohibit unmarried men and women from riding on a moped together, or holding hands in public. Gambling is not allowed either, and all Muslim women must wear the traditional head covering known as hijab. It’s the law.
Rights groups have decried the new laws as inhumane and unconstitutional. The Indonesian government handed Aceh a unique allowance to implement Sharia law 10 years ago as part of a peace deal with separatists. Gay sex is not illegal in the rest of Indonesia.
“The private space for LGBT will be invaded,” says Echa, of the new provisions that went into effect in late October.
“I believe Islam is very tolerant on these issues,” she adds. “I believe in God, and God loves. Those who cast us out aren’t God.”
Echa (that’s not her real name. She asked that we use a pseudonym to protect her identity) is a transgender woman who wears a floor-length pink dress and a turquoise headscarf. Not a wisp of hair is showing. She has her own reasons for wearing the hijab: It’s respectable.
“I don’t want the image of transgender people to be associated with prostitution,” she says. Plus, in Aceh’s conservative religious climate, she almost never gets called names as long as her head is covered.
Echa heads the local chapter of Violet Grey — an LGBT advocacy group — and also works as a modeling coach.
On an evening drive through the capital Banda Aceh, the coffee shops are brimming with young people on plastic chairs. There’s no alcohol here, so coffee is king. Echa points out a hotel that used to be a hangout — no more.
Then we pass a street Echa says used to be a “hotspot,” a meeting place for gay and transgender people. Tonight it’s dark. The storefronts are shuttered.
Syahrizal Abbas, director of the local government’s Islamic Sharia agency, says the Sharia regulations were meant to guide people towards a more devout life, not terrorize them. He takes pains to stress that Aceh’s version of Sharia law is moderate — nothing like the Sharia practiced by extremist groups like Boko Haram and ISIS.
“We want good Muslims in Aceh,” he says.
But he’s fully behind the new law that punishes gay relations with up to 100 strokes of the cane. Adultery carries the same penalty.
Abbas argues that gay couples actually enjoy more freedom than unwed straight people in Aceh. Unmarried heterosexual couples can’t be alone together, and they can’t touch in public. But for gay men and women, such behavior is permitted.
“Walking together, it’s no problem. Cooking in the kitchen, no problem. Sleeping in one room, one bed together, is no problem,” Abbas says.
The problem, he says, is if the couple engages in sex.
At a small hair salon, Echa greets friends who are also nervous about the new law. As they compare selfies and watch soap operas on TV, a gay man who calls himself Mulan says the tightening restrictions make social media more important than ever. Platforms like Blackberry messenger offer the safest way to socialize.
Echa’s home is also a kind of safe haven. There’s a row of lockers in the entryway. Her house is open to students, friends, and runaways. Some members of the local LGBT community have left Aceh for Jakarta; Echa refuses to go.
“We have to have a strategy to ensure that we stay strong and solid. The important thing is for us to survive, even if we need to go further underground,” she says. Then she adds, “We must take a step back and go along with the game, go along with what is wanted.”
Ruth Morris and Carey Wagner reported from Indonesia on fellowships from the International Reporting Project.

author: PRI/PRX's The World


text:
It May Be Legal Now, But Many Chinese Say They Can’t Afford a Second Child Anyway · Global Voices
Jack Hu

One-child policy poster from the 1980s.
Many Chinese aren't as excited as you might expect about the Communist Party's announcement on October 29 that the one-child will be abolished, allowing all married couples to have a second child if they choose. Instead, a large number have responded to the “good news” by venting their frustration on Chinese social media over the heavy burden of the new so-called “two-child policy”.
The average monthly salary of a graduate in big cities like Beijing is just about 3,000 yuan (approximately US $500) while the average property price is 30,000 yuan (US $5,000) per square meter. And raising a child also implies expensive foreign formula milk, expensive kindergarten fees and the increasing risk of young mothers losing their job — all of which are very realistic problems.
The new rules will further ease family planning policy in China, the world's most populous country, which introduced the single-child policy in the late 1970s to rein in the surging population by restricting most urban couples to one child and most rural couples to two children if the first child born was a girl.
The change of family planning policy is intended to balance skewed population sex ratio and address the challenge of an ageing population, according to a communique issued after an important party session held last week.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China had a population of 1.368 billion at the end of 2014, while India, with the world's second largest population, had about 1.25 billion people.
Since its implementation, the one-child policy has resulted in an estimated reduction of some 400 million people in China, according to the government. However, it has also been blamed for generating a number of social problems, especially a skewed sex ratio, an aging population and a lot of families bereft of only child.
According to official data from 2014, the sex ratio of men to women born in the 1980s and unmarried is 136:100, the most disproportional in the world.
In 2014, China had over 212 million people above the age of 60, accounting for 15.5 percent of the population.
Families bereft of their only child due to natural disasters, accidents, diseases and etc. in China have accumulated over 1 million since 1990, according to Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Though declining, China's labor force still remained at high level of 916 million in 2014, outnumbering Europe’s total population of 730 million — far from representing a labor shortage or demographic dividend disappearing.
At the beginning of 2014, China relaxed its family planning policy to allow parents to have a second child if one of them was an only child themselves. According to China's National Health and Family Planning Commission, by the end of May, only 1.45 million of 11 million eligible couples had applied to have a second child.
According to an online poll by Chinese news site Sina.com, 60 percent of respondents said they didn’t want to have a second child after the announcement of the new policy. Over 72 percent listed economic pressure as the main obstacle to having a second child.
Other fears circulating were that having another child will translate into women being pressured to spend more time at home and less time at work, perhaps diminishing employers’ willingness to hire women.
China's population is expected to reach 1.45 billion by 2030 following the end of the one-child policy, said Wang Pei'an, deputy head of the National Health and Family Planning Commission. About 90 million couples will qualify to have a second child after the policy is enacted, Wang said, adding that around 60 percent of the qualified women were 35 years old or older.
In the comments section of Headline News on microblogging service Weibo, the following comments on the two-child policy news received the most likes:
政策不是阻碍人生孩子的原因，有钱的出国去香港都能生，关键是生了养不起。
Family planning policy is not the reason stopping people from fertility. The rich can go abroad to Hong Kong to give birth. The key to the reluctance is being unable to support more children.
生了谁养，政府会帮我养吗？终究还不是我养，但是对不起，我不会生二，因为养不起，一个都已经过的很辛苦了，再生一个命还要不要了，日子还过不过了，说白了，政府不就是想让我们再生个房奴出来吗？
Who would raise a child if I had given birth to another? Can I rely on the government? Ultimately, I have to raise the child on my own. But sorry, I wouldn’t bear the second child because I’m unable to support another. It’s tough to raise one child, and having another could cost my life. To be frank, the government just wants us to give birth to another mortgage slave, doesn’t it?
移民吧，活着太贵了，死又死不起，牲口一样的日子
You’d better emigrate from China. It’s so expensive living here that you even can’t afford to die. We live like livestock.
城市里负担压力大，二胎生不起，农村穷多生就是劳动力，最后又往城里跑，然后房价就又高啦
Urban residents can’t afford to bear a second child because of the heavy burden of living, while in poor countryside peasants tend to bear more children to have more labor on hand. Then the peasants would migrant to cities, prompting house prices to increase.
懒汉大Q：一个都养不起，还生？奴隶不够了，养不起你们了，急了吧
Why let people still bear another child when many can’t afford to raise one? Are you [the rulers] becoming so anxious that the slaves are insufficient to serve you?

author: Jack Hu


text:
Shiseido’s Gender-Bending Commercial · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

Screenshot from Shiseido official YouTube channel
Japanese cosmetic maker Shiseido's latest web-only commercial was designed to go viral.
Called “The Makeup Secrets of Japanese High School Girls” (メーク女子高生のヒミツ), the commercial begins with a teacher arriving at a high school class at the start of a lesson.
The camera travels around the room, briefly pausing to give the audience a glimpse of the students in the classroom.
Video caption: The Makeup Secrets of Japanese High School Girls
A surprise is in store for the viewer. But what is it?
A hint is printed on the page of a book one of the students is reading:
Image from Shiseido official YouTube channel (screenshot).
“Did you notice any boys in this classroom?”
Of course, it turns out that the female-students are in fact male, and the video cleverly starts to run in reverse, showing how the young men were transformed into young women.
Even the teacher turns out to have been a man.
Predictably, the commercial has turned into a hit in Japan.
Says one female Twitter user:
資生堂のＣＭ凄いね！女よりキレイで自信なくした(*´ｪ`*)…
— まにゃ (@k15rko) October 20, 2015
This Shiseido commercial is awesome! These guys are even cuter than women! (*´ｪ`*)…
Most of the reactions seemed to think the transformation from boy to girl was amazing, but there was little if any attention paid to the deeper issues of how gender identity can be constructed, and what role cosmetics play in defining what it means to be considered female:
プロの仕事って凄い！資生堂の本気も凄い！
— すずみ (@suzumi_heywho) October 20, 2015
The professional stylists are amazing! And so is Shiseido's perfect execution of this commercial!
Some of the models in the commercial posted before-and-after photos.
Here is Asahi Fuji, a relatively unknown model:
Before After載せます！ #女装 #見た人全員RT #少しでもいいなと思ったらRT pic.twitter.com/sZbyUPOIQh
— 伊藤　明日陽 (@Rising_Sun119) October 16, 2015
Here's a before-and-after photo! #cross-dressing #plsRT #plsplsRTthis!
Yuki Murakami, another model, posted photos of the whole group:
資生堂のウェブCM出ました！少しだけど😅 なんと！池田翼くんとかでてる！！ てかイケメンめっちゃおおいです！ 女子必見？wはずいけど https://t.co/qJlbEy8D5C メイク道具の紹介はメイキングだね〜 pic.twitter.com/KcJEOSP4Vm
— Yuki Murakami (@XvyukivX) October 16, 2015
I'm in a new web-only commercial for Shiseido […] A lot of the guys were super handsome… a must-see commercial for the ladies lol. Thanks to the pointers on how to apply makeup.
Twitter user @RII_925, a high school friend of Murakami's, posted some stills of behind-the-scenes footage of how the makeup was applied and expressed her disbelief at the transformation:
@XvyukivX え、まって！スゴイじゃん！笑 pic.twitter.com/0f8U9ZzqdZ
— とびたりさ (@RII__925) October 16, 2015
Wait a minute! That's amazing!
The transformation is all the more interesting when compared with an image of the makeup-less male students who appeared in the commercial:

author: Nevin Thompson


text:
Zambia’s Master Class in Mishandling ICT Exams · Global Voices
Gershom Ndhlovu

Students outside Lukamantano school in southern Zambia. Photo by DFID, UK Department for International Development. Released under Creative Commons.
Zambia's efforts to introduce information and communication technologies (ICT) into its secondary schools was always ambitious. Two years ago, instruction in high-tech subjects proved to be challenging, exposing how ill-prepared and ill-equipped the country's education system was. And Zambia's ongoing national electricity supply crisis hasn't made matters any easier, of course.
After two years of study Zambia began testing in ICT fields earlier this month. Equipment shortages, however, meant that it took more than 18 hours for every student in many classes to take a seat at a computer and complete the test. Two months earlier, the Secondary School Teachers Union of Zambia warned against making ICT a compulsory subject, arguing that the Education Ministry isn't prepared for it.
Social media users did not take kindly to news that some pupils didn't finishing their examinations until 4 a.m. the following morning.
One Facebook user, Jimmy Maliseni, could not hide his indignation:
What happened to commissions of enquiry in Zambia? The Grade 9 ICT Examinations debacle requires an urgent enquiry. We need to ask ourselves: we know we are a nation of jokers, but why have we reached the clown status so soon?
Stella Mutale Sata, the outspoken daughter of Zambia’s fifth President, the late Michael Sata, did not mince her words:
Despicable! We can't have grade 9 students writing ICT exams at past midnight! How do we expect our pupils to get good grades with such kind of lack of planning? Can we not take education forgranted in this country?!! Examination Council of Zambia and Ministry of Education need to explain how and why this happened and HOW THEY WILL MAKE SURE IT NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN!
Wynegood Malunga had this to say about the debacle:
Someone please explain this to me:
You introduce I.T. [Information Technology] in school but you don't have computers, how does one even start to teach. Then you know these kids must take exams at the end of it all but even then, you're not worried about it at all. Yet you knew all this at the beginning of the year. I guess you had it all figured out then that the kids would write exams after midnight. No big deal, ha?
The Zambian Watchdog criticized Chishimba Kambwili, Chief Government Spokesman and Minister of Information and Broadcasting, who has been attributing most of the problems the country is facing, including a depreciating currency, to the global situation:
Chief government Spokesperson Chishimba Kambwili has not yet commented on the issue as he could still be checking for other countries in the global community that may have faced a similar challenge.
Some Grade Nine pupils at a school in one of the capital, Lusaka's suburbs, waiting for their turn to take their ICT examination at night. Picture used with permission of Zambian Watchdog.
Commenting on the Zambian Watchdog story, Kambwidi Kunya described the scene in rural Mufumbwe, locataed about 1,200 northwest of Lusaka:
The ministry of general education was not ready for the ICT exams. Its better to be open to the people than telling lies. Imagine in N/western province, (mufumbwe district) over 1000 pupils from four schools were gathered at a zonal centre with five computers and the exams ended this morning around 06:30 hours. Isnt this a big failure? Pupils travelling in the night over a distance of 47km from the centre where the exams were taking place. What if there was an autocrash while transporting the pupils, who is to blame? Teachers, please learn to say no to your idiot bos[s]es […]
Alerting the Zambia Report, an informer wrote:
Happening right now […] , grade nine students at Libala basic school in Lusaka have been delayed to write their computer paper due to the fact that the school doesn’t have enough computers.
They have been put in groups and this will go on upto 23hours tonight […] 51 years after Independence, we are still behind with technology. This is so unaccepteable not to mention shameful on the part of the school who couldn’t come up with a better plan to avoid such situations.
Following the public's outpouring of dissatisfaction with the testing process, the Examination Council of Zambia indicated that it will expand the exam period to span three days, to avoid keeping students at school until the early morning hours, while they wait for a turn at the computer. This reform is sure to raise other issues, however.

author: Gershom Ndhlovu


text:
Impact Lesvos Is on a Mission to Help Refugees Arriving in Greece · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

A group of four young women are embarking on a mission to help refugees. You can help too. Follow their mission on @impactlesvos on Instagram
A group of four young women are embarking on a mission to help refugees who make their way to Lesvos, Greece, as they land on the shores of Europe. The volunteers, who include Global Voices author Faten Bushehri, are raising funds online to provide daily humanitarian supplies to refugees as well as help other volunteers to make refugee camps winter-proof.
We caught up with Faten as she plots for this trip with questions many of you may have in mind.
Global Voices (GV): Who is going on this trip? Who are you and what other work have you done in this field? How long will you be there for and what do you want to do?
Faten Bushehri: We are a group of volunteers. It started with three German women and one Bahraini, then it grew to include two more German men.
We are two teams of three going separately. We are overlapping our travels to maximize our help there. Annabella, Henning and I are going from the 16th to the 23rd of November from Amsterdam. Leonie, Babette and Flo are flying to Lesvos from Hamburg on the 20th of November until the 4th of December.
Faten is a freelance journalist and native Arabic speaker who has been working with refugees in Amsterdam for the past six weeks as a volunteer and has helped establish the group Refugees Welcome Amsterdam.
Others in the group include the founding member Annabella Stieren, also a freelance journalist and documentary filmmaker, as well as Leonie Stieren, a student of rescue engineering, specializing and working in the area of disaster relief and management. The fourth member is Babette Tabel, a media and communication management student, who wants to do whatever she can to help out.
Faten: It is difficult to plan exactly where help is needed there. We have two projects we plan to join and help out. One is joining a team at one of the five camps in Lesvos to turn it winter-proof. Moria camp is one of the main and largest camps where the line of people is 2 kilometers long waiting to get registered. People stand in line for days and need daily supplies of food, water and dry clothes.
We will also work in Molyvos, the north shore where most boats carrying refugees arrive, offering our help and providing supplies and translation assistance.
The situation changes on a daily basis and volunteers are ready to jump in wherever help is needed most. That is what we are ready for while we move between camps and the Molyvos.
Faten Bushehri with a young refugee in Amsterdam (Photo credit: Lesvos Refugee Emergency Aid.
GV: Why did you embark on this mission?
Babette, left, and Leonie: “We share the belief, that every human is sharing the same planet and should have the opportunity to live in peace.” (Photograph provided by the interviewees)
Leonie and Babette: As the refugee’s crisis burst forth every helping hand was clearly needed, even in Germany. We share the belief that every human is sharing the same planet and should have the opportunity to live in peace. Borders shouldn’t be an obstacle to their chance of safety. We would like other people to do just the same for us, if we would every experience a similar situation in Germany. We couldn’t live with ourselves doing nothing, while children are drowning in the sea, families are without shelter after their horrible and inhuman journey.
Annabella: I can't sit and do nothing about it. It hits close to home because before my grandparents passed way, they used to tell me stories about how they immigrated to Germany back in the day. Today, these people need help and we can help them, why not do it. The question is not why are we doing this, it is more like why are we not doing more.
Faten: Both Bella and I went through a life changing experience after spending so much time with refugees in Amsterdam and listening to their horrifying stories.
For me, it is important because it hits close to home as well. Growing up in a family that strongly believes in human rights and helping people it is really difficult for me to not put all my efforts to help people in need. Right now the crisis in Lesvos is getting worse, there are cries for help from volunteers on the ground who need more people to lend hands and provide supplies especially that the winter is approaching. The island is not winter proof and prepared to accommodate all these people.
Children are drowning, pregnant women have miscarriages, people are tired and getting sick from the weather. They are just hoping to survive and make it through this process to hopefully reach the greener grass on the other side. We take things for granted everyday, and don't realize some times we could do little things that can change someones life or add positivity to their future.
After spending weeks with Syrian refugees in Amsterdam Central Station and at the camps, we have made close friends that are now part of our lives. For us, the refugee crisis is no longer a number of people, the crisis has a face now. It is Waseem, Alaa, and Majd. It is a Syrian family that I got to know on a personal level and spent time with, the three little children, Malak, Jowdat and Suad, who I took to the zoo. They are people who are fleeing war because they have no other choice. That in itself is enough to make me get on a plane and do what I can to help.
GV: How are you collecting the money and what will you do with it?
Faten: Bella and I have started a fundraiser campaign on Gofundme to collect donations.
All four of us have used our connections, social media and families to spread the word and encourage people to help us.
Money goes directly into buying supplies for arriving refugees, and that is usually food, water, rescue blankets, fleece jackets, tents, a lot of socks, baby food and children's underwear. This changes daily based on the number of refugees and based on what other volunteers brings. What is left of the money will probably go into buying some winter-proof supplies for the camps.
GV: Tell us some more about your work with refugees in Amsterdam. Who has been running this mission and what have you done so far?
Faten: Refugees Welcome Amsterdam started with two Moroccan Dutch guys who proposed the idea, and showed up at Central. We heard about it, and then there were 10 to 15 of us coordinating logistics and connecting with officials. This mission is completely voluntary and is not an official NGO or organization. It is a bunch of people who want to help and showed up at central station with a good attitude.
There is not one person responsible for running the group, but more like a group of people who were responsible for different tasks, and then delegated it to other people as more volunteers showed up, and so on.
We are the first help for refugees who arrive. We check the train schedules everyday and split in teams to go on platforms and find refugees there, then guide them to the corner we have set up at the station where they can get food, water, toys for kids, some basic clothes, and sim cards.
In the beginning, we co-ordinated with the Red Cross, who provided free buses to take refugees to the camps. We co-ordinate with the police to bring people to us if they find them. We co-ordinate with the municipality to stay updated on changing rules, or if camps are full, and we adapt accordingly. We used our connections and networks to provide and get donations, in the form of clothes, or food. We also are working with a shelter for people who arrive late and need a place to sleep the night before they catch a bus or a train to the camp the next morning.
We visit different camps to check on the people we have met at central stations, and each one of us performs a different role, like talking to the media, building connections, getting donations, in charge of the Facebook group, responding to inquiries, organizing and sorting clothes. Others are in charge of delegating tasks, and ensuring each shift is covered by enough numbers of volunteers. We don't offer legal advice though and we are just there to comfort people when they arrive.
GV: Why should we help refugees and how do our contributions make a difference?
Faten: Every tiny step can make a difference, even a little gesture and lead to a day full of happiness. Refugees experienced things, we can't even imagine. They generally can't be blamed for anything that has happened in their country. Nobody deserves the life they had to live.
But what is more important is that immigration is a global crisis that affects all of us and all countries on different levels, and it is a shared responsibility to help facilitate the process so that everyone can live in peace and with at least the minimum needs and rights secured.
Not many people have the opportunity to go to Lesvos or volunteer at a camp, the easiest way is to donate money so those who can physically be there can take the money directly into the hands of those who need it, in the form of clothes, food, and medical supplies.
If we secure water and winter proof clothes we can prevent many from getting sick, we can minimize hunger and pain, and donations in general can assist medical teams in rescuing people from drowning. That is the change, not to mention the emotional and mental support that can help someone to get through a tough experience.  All volunteers and teams in Lesvos are good at collaborating and coordinating, and all money goes into what is needed to cover all areas. Wherever the money is needed, it goes.
GV: How did you prepare for this trip and how can others be involved? How difficult or easy is it to follow in your footsteps?
Faten: Two of our good friends also from Refugees Welcome Amsterdam decided to go, and they started planning their trip. We tried to follow up on their plans and how they are doing it. Bella and I decided to go spontaneously and took advice from them as well as people on the ground. It is not difficult to plan logistics, and accommodation for example, but mentally and emotionally, no matter how prepared you are, you don't know what to expect. We are also getting a first aid and trauma crash course before we leave to be able to assist on the spot when needed.
There is a huge Facebook group for everyone who wants to volunteer it includes all teams and organizations and essential contacts in Lesvos. There are documents that provide all info that anyone needs, in terms of where to go, what hotels to stay at, how to rent a car, where help is wanted, what things to pack, and what things to buy for refugees, etc.
People who plan to volunteer also join to ask questions and get answers from those who have already gone through the experience.
GV: What role does social media play in helping refugees and highlighting their plight? Is what is being shared on social media helpful or will it just desensitize people and let them turn away from this evolving story since it has been dragging on for a while?
Leonie and Babette: Generally the social media platforms do help a lot in raising awareness for the refugee issue. Furthermore, it gives minorities the opportunity to share their thoughts and opinions anonymously. Even demonstrations can be the outcome of a social media movement, as we can clearly see in the Arab Spring. Also, refugees can plan their flee via social media. Reports from other refugees help to coordinate and plan their own escape. In addition to this, social media does lead to a bigger international, in this case even global, attention and actions.
We think that social media does not desensitize people. Normally media platforms only deal with such stories for a short time. After that a new event is being discussed. This leads to people forgetting about other crisis. As the refugee situation is being discussed for quite a long time now, people have time to deal with this topic and finally take some actions to help and make a change.
GV: International organisations, with more power and resources, are on the ground helping refugees. Why should we trust individuals working on this? How do we know where the money you collect will go?
Faten: People who are willing to help should be faced with trust. We ourselves will document our whole trip with photos and will publish them on social media platforms. We are even thinking about doing a blog on our journey. Friends have offered to join us and shoot the entire journey, and we are in the process of talking about that.  We are offering to provide material, footage, images and interviews with people to interested media outlets for broadcast.
GV: Where can we follow you and the work you will do?
Faten: I will be updating information on my Twitter account, @Fatenhbu  and our official Instagram account is @impactlesvos where people can follow our journey and see what we are doing on the ground.
The team has so far collected 3,600 euros out of the 5,000 euros they intend to raise for the trip over the week. You can help them reach their target, and contribute to helping refugees in Lesvos here.

author: Amira Al Hussaini


text:
Music Was the Path to Financial Independence for This Indian Woman · Global Voices
PRI/PRX's The World

This article and radio report by April Peavey for The World originally appeared on PRI.org on November 5, 2015, and is republished here as part of a content-sharing agreement.
Tritha Sinha is a woman who's always known exactly what she wants. “I always wanted to be free and not depend on my father for pocket money or eventually my boyfriends or brother and that sort of thing,” she says.
Sinha is the driving force behind the New Delhi- and Paris-based band Tritha Electric.  She grew up in Kolkata and says, in India, the women around her weren't all that happy. They were stifled. “I had seen tears on faces of my aunts or mother, or just teachers randomly at school — and that made me feel that something is just not right.”
Music, Tritha Sinha says, was her way out — a ticket to financial independence and liberation.
That independent streak started at a very young age. Tritha Sinha was only 5 when she started singing.
Credit: April Peavey. Used with PRI's permission
She paid her way through college by singing in Bollywood movies. But singing songs written by other people wasn't enough. Oh no, she needed to write her own songs and front her own band.
That's where Tritha Electric comes in.
Sinha calls it ethno-punk music.
The ethno part is a nod to her classical Indian musical roots and the punk, she says, helps her express the struggles of being an independent woman in India today.
Tritha Electric's latest album is called Pagli. That means “crazy woman” in Bengali. And the songs on it tell the story of a woman who feels confined by tradition. But she breaks the rules and finds freedom. Much like Tritha Sinha herself.
She says, “To discover freedom sometimes we need to go through very crazy moments or insanity sometimes to just realize what is freedom or how important freedom can be for our individual deep inner selves. And that really opened the door of my independent musical life.”


text:
Russia’s Most Popular Social Network Just Sent 20,000 Users a Private Message From the Government · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

Image edited by Kevin Rothrock.
One of Russia’s most popular online social networks, Vkontakte, has sent a private message from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to users who accessed the service in Egypt anytime in the past two weeks.
Vkontakte’s press secretary, Georgy Lobushkin, told the website TJournal.ru that roughly 20,000 users received messages from the government containing information about returning to Russia from Egypt, after President Vladimir Putin suspended all air traffic between Russia and Egypt late last week, due to concerns that terrorists are responsible for the October 31 crash of a passenger flight in the mountainous area of central Sinai.
“We took all the Vkontakte users who have logged into the site from Egypt in the past two weeks,” Lobushkin said, “and, with the help of our new messaging service, sent them all a message from the Foreign Affairs Ministry.” Vkontakte says it merely geolocated all users with recent activity in Egypt, contacting them on behalf of the Russian government, whether they were tourists or permanent residents. There was “no additional targeting,” Lobushkin explained.
The message directs individuals to a government website and toll-free phone numbers for information about returning home to Russia. Passengers are only being allowed carry-on luggage, and the Russian Postal Service is responsible for shipping back larger items. The message was identical for everyone who received it, meaning the text was not personalized, though the messages were sent “privately” (landing in users’ personal inboxes.)
For years, Vkontakte’s critics have accused the service of having a dangerously close relationship with the Russian authorities. While fears about governments’ influence over online social networks are nothing unique to Vkontakte or Russia, concerns about Vkontakte specifically have steadily risen in recent years, following Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency in 2012 and the ouster from the company of founder and CEO Pavel Durov, who regularly publicized his defiance of the government’s efforts to control Vkontakte.
The Foreign Ministry’s official spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, told TJournal that officials appealed to Vkontakte for help with its efforts to provide Russians in Egypt with information about the state’s repatriation efforts. “It’s certainly been efficient,” Zakharova said. “We needed to send out a mass alert, and that is what we’ve accomplished. This wasn’t our only option, but as one of our options it proved to be the most efficient: even if just 15 percent of the messages reached individuals, this instrument was worth using.”
Zakharova also said that the Russian government has failed to convince Facebook to send out a similar message to its users, citing an absence of direct contact between Russian officials and Facebook’s administrators:
К Facebook контакта прямого практически нет: все решения принимаются очень долго и опосредованно. У них такая политика. У «ВКонтакте» политика другая — она прямая, есть люди, которые принимают решения. И решения принимаются очень быстро. Наш опыт взаимодействия с другими соцсетями несравним — не потому, что они зарубежные компании, а это российская, и мы хотим её похвалить.
We’ve got almost no direct contact with Facebook at all. Any decisions take a long time and it’s all done indirectly. That’s their policy. Vkontakte has a different policy—it’s direct and there are people who make decisions. And those decisions are made very quickly. Our experience of cooperation with other social networks simply doesn’t compare—and that’s not because they’re foreign companies and it’s not because we want to praise a Russian company.
If nationwide surveys are any indication, the Russian public is not widely opposed to government interventions on the Internet. In September 2014, a poll by the Levada Center showed that only 37 percent of the country opposed the recent slew of federal laws restricting Russians’ access to an unfiltered World Wide Web. Though fewer Russians expressed support for censorship of the Internet in 2014 than two years earlier, more than half (54 percent) still broadly endorsed such policing.

author: Kevin Rothrock


text:
‘How Can We Believe Tomorrow It Is Not Our Turn?’: Outrage Over 19-Year-Old Afghan Woman’s Stoning · Global Voices
Najiba Madadi

A screenshot from the RFE/RL video showing a young woman being stoned to death.
Warning: This article contains distressing images
In late October a 19-year-old Afghan woman was stoned to death in Firozkoh, capital of Ghor province, after she was accused of adultery. A short video, obtained by Radio Free Europe, shows the young woman identified as Rokhshana buried up to her neck and screaming while men are hurling stones at her chanting: “There is no God except Allah.” (Footage extremely disturbing)
“Rokhshana was forced to marry an old man against her will, and she was stoned after she was caught eloping with another man in Ghor province,” Ghor's provincial police chief General Mustafa told Tolo News after the October 25 stoning.
Provincial Governor Seema Joyenda — one of the only two female governors in Afghanistan — said that Rokhshana’s family had married her off against her will.
“The man eloping with her is punished in a very lenient way and is fine without any harm,” she said. “This is not the first incident in this area and it will not be the last one.”
The stoning to death of 19 year old Afghan girl Rokhshana is a reminder of the old Afghan proverb “Women are made for homes or for graves”.
— Saif Rahman (@SaifRRahman) November 6, 2015
A local official, Mohammad Zaman Azimi blamed the Taliban, who control the village where the stoning took place, for the incident.
A local newspaper called 8am claimed that the order of Rokhshana’s stoning was issued by a cleric, Mullah Yosuf, who asked her to marry his brother many times despite her consistently refusing.
Abdul Hai Khatibi, the provincial governor's spokesman, said Rokhshana’s rejection of Yosuf's brother was the direct cause of the stoning.
According to research compiled by 8am, Rokhshana was a pretty woman and had only studied up to grade six. It was her second time running away from home because of an arranged marriage.
The first time she ran away with a man she liked, Muhammad Nabi, a few months after she was forced by her family to marry a local rich man.
However, they had no option except to return back to the village after her husband's family threatened Nabi's family and took them as hostages. When she came back, her husband was no longer interested in marrying her and instead married Nabi's sister.
Nevertheless, local elders forbade Rokhshana and Nabi to marry.
Rokhshana's dark times continued. A 55-year-old man offered her father a huge amount of money to marry her. Even though she refused and warned her father that she would run away again, he accepted the offer.
She carried out her threat, this time escaping with Gul Mohammad, son of a powerful man in the village. While Rokhshana was stoned to death, Gul received the lesser punishment of 100 lashes and was sent home.
President Ashraf Ghani called the stoning non-Islamic and criminal, and ordered a thorough investigation of the incident.
The president's statement ordering an investigation into the stoning.
Parliamentarians also condemned the incident. Fawzia Koofi, a female representative from Badakhshan, who in 2014 unsuccessfully tried to run for president said: “Since the beginning of the new government, this is the second most horrible crime in human history.” Earlier in March, a young woman — Farkhunda — was beaten to death and then burned by angry mobs in Kabul — following a false accusation that she burned the Quran.
When you see #Rokhshana‘s stoning video, you hate yourself as a man, you hate yourself as a human being.
— Muhib Shadan (@muhibshadan) November 5, 2015
The two minute-long video — most likely captured by an eyewitness’s cellphone — led to a surge of criticism on social media.
The incident sparked indignation against passive politicians as well as religious hardliners.
A Facebook user commented under a video in which parliamentarians condemned the stoning:
You useless politicians just keep talking as always. Shame on you all.
The horrific news of Rokhshana’s stoning coincided with Maryam Monsef’s success in Canada’s parliamentary election. Monsef, an Afghan-born refugee, is Canada’s new Minister of Democratic Institutions in Prime Minister Justin Trudueau’s young and diverse cabinet.
Afghan social media users compared the lives of two Afghan females in protest at new lows for gender-related violence in the post-Taliban era.
Rokhshana (widely shared)
Kabul women are protesting against Rokhshana's death.
A number of women activists stood up to seek justice for Rokhshana. On November 6, they released a statement in which they asked the government for a serious investigation, identifying those who decreed the stoning.
Many, however, see these actions as ineffective.
The cases of Farkhunda and Rokhshana have caused many Afghan women to doubt if their lives, let alone liberties can be guaranteed in Afghanistan.
This girl #Rokhshana was stonned in #Afghanistan. How can we believe tommorow is not our turn? pic.twitter.com/a6R4hbJULN
— Estagidia (@SmyAmazon) November 5, 2015
A Facebook user commented:
How on earth can someone pick up a stone and throw it at a woman half buried in the ground? How can you live with yourself after doing that?
The Afghan penal code does not provide for stoning. However, in 2013, some religious hardliners in the lower house tried to legitimate it.
Luckily for Afghan women, international pressure forced then-President Hamid Karzai to reject the proposal and replace the provision with a ‘prolonged detention’ to punish adultery.

author: Najiba Madadi


text:
How Myanmar Voted on Historic Election Day · Global Voices
Juan Cebu

Citizens earnestly wait and watch the live ballot counting in front of the office of the opposition party. Photo by Irrawaddy shared on Facebook.
Despite some reported irregularities, Myanmar succeeded in holding a peaceful general election on November 8. A total of 91 political and ethnic parties participated in the election. The current ruling party, Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), is led by the President Thein Sein; while the opposition party, National League for Democracy (NLD), is headed by Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
Regardless of the election results, 25 percent of the seats in Parliament are reserved for the military. This is based on the 2008 constitution drafted by the army to ensure that it continues to wield influence in the civilian government. Furthermore, Aung San Suu Kyi is constitutionally barred from becoming president even if her party wins majority of the votes because she was married to a foreigner and she has foreign children.
Although it is technically Myanmar's second general election, many consider the November 8 event as the country's first free and fair election.
Myanmar was under a military's dictatorship for 50 years. In the 1990 election, Aung San Suu Kyi's party won with a landslide victory but the military ignored the results and took control of the government. In 2010, the government allowed some political reforms like the holding of election although it was accused of rigging the results.
Some of the issues that marred the pre-election campaigning include the reported massive errors in the voters’ list, disenfranchisement of some ethnic groups like the Muslim-dominated Rohingya, and the perceived biases or flaws of the election commission. Despite these challenges, many citizens continued to believe in the promise of the November 8 election to promote change in society.
Many people used slogans such as အသဲကြားက မဲတပြား (A Ballot From Our Heart) and ပြောင်းလဲချိန်တန်ပြီ (Time to Change) which reflected the popular sentiment about the general election.
Below are some of the observations shared by voters during election day on various social media platforms.
Some people lined up as early as 4 a.m. even though polling stations didn't open until 6 a.m.
Ye Ling Aung tweeted a photo of people queuing to vote.
The very first 10 people went into the voting station. Now I am the first in line. #MyanmarElection #Myanmarvotes pic.twitter.com/HlR1FZSdGG
— Ye Lin Aung (@yelinaung) November 7, 2015
Many people posted photos of their ink-stained fingers to show that they had voted. Blogger Ei Myat Noe Khin shared her thoughts about the significance of the day:
Well, for the rest of people, Nov 8th would be just an another Sunday, hanging out with friends, and do stuff but for us, Myanmar citizens who are going to vote, it’s not just another day
Kenneth Wong explained what this symbol could stand for:
ယခင်က အာဏာရှင်တို့ လက်မထောင်ခဲ့ကြ၏။ ယနေ့ မြန်မာလူထုတို့ ဂုဏ်ယူဝင့်ကြွားစွာ မင်စွန်းသောလက်သန်းများ ထောငြ်ပကြလော။
My Burmese friends who have voted are proudly sharing photos of their ink-stained fingers — proof of casting a vote. You might say, today the Burmese people give the old regime the finger!
Activist Khin Ohmar noted that many people complained about not finding their names on the voters’ list, while some people testified about receiving multiple voter approval cards. She also read some news that the ruling party is leading in the army constituencies.
After the polling stations close at 4 p.m., people were anxiously waiting for the preliminary results. Journalist Lupa Aung praised those who are working overtime at the polling station:
မဲရုံမှာ တာဝန်ကျတဲ့သူတွေကို လေးစားပါတယ်
သူတို့ အခုထိ ထမင်းမစားရသေးသူတွေ ရှိတယ်ဗျ။
အပြောင်းအလဲ အတွက် သည်းခံစိတ်ကို အလေးပြုပါတယ်။
လူပအောင်
Respect those who are on duty at the polling station. Some of them have not even eaten the whole day. Salute their patience working for change.
A crowd gathers in front of the NLD office in Mandalay to watch the live counting of ballots. Photo shared by Nik Nayman on Facebook.
Meanwhile, in Kayah state's capital city of Loikaw, the arrival of ballots with 5,000 pre-counted votes has angered candidates and voters. Josephine Nan Mu reports:
5,000 pre-votes arrived out of nowhere in an election commission office in Loikaw. Where it came from is quite blurred. Fighting other representatives and whoever in charge there!
The arrival of ‘advanced’ votes took place in several areas across the country. This news worried the public and electoral watchdogs. Burma Partnership, a network of democracy and human rights advocacy organizations, monitored that the suspicious votes benefited the ruling party:
In Myitkyina around midnight, advance votes arrived, which were mostly for USDP. The same situation with the arrival of advance votes in Monywa, Lashio, Taunggyi. In remote and ethnic areas where it is strategic for the Burma Army, it seems they will not allow the NLD or ethnic opposition party to win.
But surprisingly, the opposition is not objecting:
What is interesting is that the NLD candidate who had already won by vote counts last night is not objecting this illegitimate arrival of the advance votes at midnight. It will be interesting to see whether the NLD as a whole will respond to the arrival of these midnight advance votes.

author: Juan Cebu


text:
In Venezuela, 140 Characters Can Land You in Jail · Global Voices
Odell López Escote

Allegations, insults, and even predictions en 140 characters were enough to prosecute seven people in Venezuela. Image taken from the Twitter feed of mkhmarketing under Creative Commons license.
Seven people in Venezuela had to trade a keyboard for prison bars in 2014. Ordinary citizens who wrote messages on Twitter — that were considered criminal by the Venezuelan government — are now behind bars. In most cases, Venezuelan intelligence forces took them from their houses and workplaces and incarcerated them.
#6S Tuiteros detenidos SEBIN HELICOIDE #Venezuela: @victorugas @Hiipolita *2 @inesitaterrible @AnonymousWar #DDHH pic.twitter.com/YGsawk4gsc
— Foro Penal (@PorHumanidad) September 6, 2015
Twitter users detained at Sebin Helicoide (Intelligence Service Headquarters) #Venezuela: @victorugas @Hiipolita *2 @inesitaterrible @AnonymousWar
Although it may seem like a newfangled practice, it is not that at all. In Venezuelan prisons there are already several Internet prisoners. Jesus Enrique Manajo was detained in September of 2010 for publishing a photograph showing the wounded face of then-president Hugo Chavez. Another example is Lourdes Alicia Ortega, brought to court in March 2013 for having stolen the identity of an employee from the Autonomous Service of Registries and Notaries to send tweets against Chávez.
However, it was in 2014 that the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN) set out to capture Twitter users considered to be against the government of Nicolás Maduro.
¡Colegas en Twitter está disponible! http://t.co/72Apvu6VfW Gracias a @LDanieri @juanfariall @psoscunmachado — Anderson Paredes (@andersonp42) September 16, 2015
The majority of these “Twitter prisoners” are adults with stable professional careers in their fields. They do not appear to have been immersed in political activities, nor have they been active in militant parties. But just one or two falters were sufficient to mobilize the SEBIN to detain them at their headquarters.
@AnonimusWar on Twitter was an account run by Leonel Sánchez Camero, a 47-year-old economist with more than 100,000 followers on the social networking site. His was the first known detention due to online speech of 2014. On his profile, he identified himself as an organizer of the “Radical Resistance against the current regime of government.” He was a self-proclaimed defender of human rights, freedom of expression, and democracy. His profile also empowered the independence of the public Venezuelan powers.
On Twitter he shared his opinion, mainly on political topics, appealed to government officials, mentioning them or what he thought about them and even retweeted opposition leaders like Leopoldo López y María Corina Machado.
In order to detain him, more than 100 officers came to his mother's property in the western state of Barinas. He was moved by helicopter from there to the government reclusion site three meters beneath the ground in the SEBIN headquarters in Caracas, informally known as “La Tumba” (The Tomb). Previously, political prisoners were brought to El Helicoide, another of the government political reclusion centers.
They charged Sanchez with instigation of hate, conspiracy, assault, unauthorized access, and possession of counterfeit equipment.
In a 2001 newspaper interview, Communications Minister William Castillo said “few are the cases of detained people in this way. Pending investigations have been for crimes like instigation of hate, for violence and for people that have called for assassination [of political figures].”
This positionwas shared by some users who expressed support for the government:
Los “santicos” tuiteros que lo único que hacían era amenazarnos de muerte, incitar a la violencia y el odio, y así… pic.twitter.com/UlUdDoHRYq
— Gipsy Gastello (@GipsyGastello) May 24, 2015
All the “saint” Twitter users did was threaten us with death, incite violence and hate, and so on…
These “crimes” of opinion represent a violation of freedom of expression. In almost all cases, the Public Ministry has acted ex officio, without issuing formal denunciations, according to Caracas free expression NGO Espacio Público.
Sin derecho al debido proceso, lo que hayan publicado en sus cuentas queda en 2do plano: el Estado viola sus garantías y abusa de su poder.
— Luis Carlos Díaz (@LuisCarlos) August 2, 2015
Without a right to due process, what they've published on their accounts is still secondary: the state is violating their [right to due process] and abusing its power.
The most widely known case of a detained Twitter user is that of “Inesita Terrible”. A native of the city of Maracaiboin the west of the country, with a postgraduate degree in chemistry from the United States, Inés María González worked for a year and a half for the Venezuelan Institute of Scientific Investigations.
In the eyes of the government, González committed the offense of having “mistreated” the public image of deceased legislator Robert Serra on Twitter. SEBIN visited her house on two occasions; the second time, they took her away, giving her the false impression that she was only being brought in for questioning. A dark, dank cell awaited her.
The court hearing the case issued a measure to release González, in which SEBIN has not complied. Their defense lawyers introduced a habeas corpus, a measure that is ordered to avoid the continuation of a random detention and to guarantee basic rights.
“La Terrible” was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty of inciting hate, but rejected the charges of assault of a civil servant, violent assault, and public instigation, which the prosecution dismissed.
On November 3, 2015 she was issued a so-called “humanitarian” measure so that she could undergo surgery for endometriosis.
The next Twitter user was Victor Ugas, a detainee who may have more evidence against him than the others. Ugas took photos of the corpse of Serra and published them on Twitter. At 26 years old, he was accused of improper disclosure of facts or information of personal character and of information espionage. Like the other Twitter users, he is being held in the headquarters of El Helicoide.
“How can one predict the death of an assembly member and not expect repercussions?” These were the words of the president of the National Assembly, Diosdado Cabello, who on his program “Con el Mazo Dando” (Hitting with the Sledge Hammer), denounced the @Hipolita account, a clairvoyant of Twitter who predicted that the Parliament “would be in morning” days before the assassination of Serra.
Por este tuit del 24 de septiembre detienen en el Sebin a @Hipolita ¿porqué? pic.twitter.com/HcEJhAlFRr
— Ivonne Vivas (@ivivas117) October 17, 2014
For this tweet on September 24th, Sebin detained @Hipolita Why?
Despite the name, the account belonged to a man named Lessi Marcano, an architect who dedicated the majority of the 48 years of his life to the art of divination. The account was run both by the archiect and by his niece, Ginnete Marcano, who managed inquiries send to him. Marcano was accused of information fraud, public instigation, and instigation of hate, but was only found guilty of crimes of conspiracy and distributing false information.
His niece was not spared either. The 23-year-old woman, who studied art at the Central University of Venezuela (UCV), was paid a visit by SEBIN officers at her place of work one day. She had begun working as a community manager at the cable television channel on E! Entertainment Television just two weeks prior. Her sentence ends this December. She was found guilty for crimes of distributing false information.
María Magaly Contreras is a 55-year-old homemaker who runs a popular Twitter account where she tweeted some comments against the government. This was enough for authorities to arrest her, though they did so in a deceitful manner. Contreras received a call from Sebin to tell her that her son was detained and when she arrived to the headquarters of the political police of Maracaibo, where she lived, they arrested her.
At present she is on parole with community service. Her username was @marlatmaga and her crimes were instigation of hate and conspiracy.
The Venezuelan government also detained people who had nothing to do with messages against them. Daniely Benítez was detained for five days in SEBIN in Caracas. The president of the Venezuelan Parliament and official leader, Diosdado Cabello, mentioned her on his program as the writer of tweets from the account @hipolita, even though it was proven that she did not run this account. More than 30 officials from SEBIN took her from her house, together with her computer equipment. Her case was dismissed. There were no apologies nor rectification by the government.
The person most recently detained by the government is Army Colonel Jose Martin Raga, who after appearing on Newsweek Español Venezuela was taken and detained for criticizing the governmental administration of Maduro. On his Twitter account, @josemartinraga, he is described as a chavista, but this didn't stop him from criticizing the failure of the state to adequately advance agriculture in Venezuela and the complacency of the armed forces in the so-called economic war.
Raga was detained for two days in SEBIN. On his wife's Twitter she thanked Maduro for his “gesture” of freeing him with the slogan, “Chávez Lives”.
El Cnel Raga esta libre. Gracias a todos ls q nos apoyaron.Gracias presidente @NicolasMaduro seguimos en la lucha por la patria. Chavez Vive
— MARISOL BRACAMONTE (@SARUMAN1) August 21, 2015
Colonel Raga is free. Thanks to all that supported us. Thank you President @NicolasMaduro we continue the fight for the homeland. Chavez Lives.

author: Odell López Escote


text:
Indigenous Communities Live Complex Lives in a Disputed Corner of South America · Global Voices
Morelia Morillo

A family paddle down the upper Rupununi River in their dugout canoe, north of the Kanuku Mountains Photo: Allan Hopkins
LP, whose identity will not be revealed for safety reasons, belongs to the Pemón Arekuna indigenous community located in Sakaiká, 125 kilometres from Santa Elena de Uairén. Santa Elena is the main city in Venezuela's Gran Sabana district, close to the remote borderlands that separate the country from Brazil and Guyana. Every time she wants to go back to her birthplace with her family, she takes a taxi or bus to Sakaiká and goes deep into the jungle.
This region currently called “Guyana” was once called Ikén by LP's ancestors, according to Mariano Gutiérrez Salazar's book Pemon Culture (Cultura Pemón, UCAB 2002). The large territorial extension is highlighted on some Venezuelan maps as Guayana Esequiba or “Zona en Reclamación” (Reclamation Zone) but avoided in many others. It is a zone administered by the Cooperative Republic of Guyana and which the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela claims as part of its own territory.
LP was born in Parima, an Arekuna community located on the other side of the Schomburgk Line, a border delineated in the 19th century following a boundary dispute between Venezuela and British Guiana (now Guayana). When her birth certificate was issued, however, she was listed as a native to San Rafael de Kamoirán, a Pemón Arekuna community located to the west side of the zone marked in red on the map below.
In red: comprising the Guyanese territory between the Essequibo and Cuyuni rivers. In green: comprising the Guyanese territory between the Cuyuni river and the Atlantic Ocean. Both areas are claimed by Venezuela. Picture taken from Wikipedia under Creative Commons license
CC BY-SA 3.0
The Parima community was converted to Adventism by foreign missionaries in the first half of the 20th century. A dispatch published in the Adventist Missions Quarterly (Third Quarter, 1942) provides an insight into the nature of their conversion:
Brother and Sister R. E. Brooks are at Parima Mission. They have a large number in their baptismal classes, and many were baptized in 1941. Indians come from Venezuela to study, and they carry the message back. Catholic priests and generals from Venezuela have visited Parima, and they speak highly of our good work and our methods employed in teaching. Brother Brooks is a colored man from Nicaragua, but was brought up among the Indians, and he seems to be well suited to work for them.
LP and her relatives carry provisions during an eight hour hike through the jungle to Parima. There is no customs office to report to. Sometimes, she says, they stop halfway before crossing the river so they can cook, bathe and rest until dawn. The next morning, after breakfast, they pick up the trail to their destination.
She pronounces the word Parima with an accent. Her native language is Arekuna and she learnt to speak English at a young age. She was able to master Spanish — the region's lingua franca — once her parents left Parima Mission to spread the gospel among the Taurepán community, with whom they share the same language.
LP is officially Pemón Arekuna. Since the constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela came into force in 1999, the new national ID card recognizes the community and even indigenous group she belongs to.
She estimates that several indigenous groups reside in the Essequibo region of Guyana: Sarao, Warao, Arawako, Kariña, Patamuná, Arekuna, Akawaio, Wapishana, Makushi and Wai Wai.
But many of these groups also live on both sides of the border and have been prosecuted by the Department of Immigration and Foreign Services for remaining in Santa Elena undocumented.
“If they come back, they will be deported to Esequibo,” says LP.
Venezuelan authorities demand the Warao people identify themselves as Pemón, so as to avoid being taken for Guayanés, a discriminatory strategy that denies them of their origins.
The Arawako, which are the most numerous, along with Warao, Kariña, Arekuna and Akawaios, live both in Venezuela and Guayana.
Santa Elena de Uairén, Tumeremo and Puerto Ordaz are three locations in Venezuela's Bolívar State where these groups go to hospitals and collect daily provisions.
They identify themselves as Guyanese or Amerindian.
Governments from each side of the border barely know about it but there is a group of Brazilian and Venezuelan citizens searching for gold and diamonds in the region. According to LP there are even “Chinese extracting wood” there, too.
During the 1930's and 1940's DD's grandparents — relatives of LP's grandparents — “were rebels, they refused to wear clothes and to go to church.”
They left Parima and went deep into Kuyuní region. They settled in Inawai, as far up as Las Claritas, where an Adventist mission later arrived, which they joined.
According to DD:
From Las Claritas, 88 kilometres on to San Martín de Turumbán, near Tumeremo (Sifontes district in Bolívar State), English is the dominant language between the indigenous people.
DD believes the San Rafael de Kamoirán and Parima Mission are one and the same: both Arekuna communities. San Rafael de Kamoirán was evangelized by Catholic missionaries at the same time Parima was evangelized by the Adventists.
San Martín de Turumbán as well as San Ignacio de Yuruaní, both districts of Bolívar State, are communities that were founded by indigenous people from the Esequibo, those who once accepted the Venezuelan nationality but later became refugees.
Regarding the boundary dispute between Venezuela and Guayana, DD says:
That problem is nonsense to us. People from both sides of the border have been visiting each other.
While LP says:
Our representatives from both sides are politicised, that's why we have to get together and make a statement as indigenous [peoples].
In the book Cultura pemón, several pages are dedicated to the Makunaimas, intrepid characters in Pemón legends.
One story runs that Wei, the Sun, and a father to all Makunaimas, “like a good Pemón, travels to Ikén in search for provisions.”
In this sense, his descendants are following in his footsteps, however difficult the journey.

author: Morelia Morillo


text:
Narcodata, an In-Depth Data Journalism Project That Contextualizes the Drug War in Mexico · Global Voices
Elizabeth Rivera

Screenshot from Narcodata's introduction video.
Mexico, a country where drug cartels and criminal organizations have permeated the everyday life of the country, it's hard to follow who is who among gangsters and how strong their influence is. An in-depth data journalism project by independent news site Animal Político and collaborative data journalism platform Poderopedia simplifies all this complex data behind the country’s failed drug war of the past four decades.
Using easy-to-comprehend, interactive visualizations, Narcodata tells the story of how the cartels were born, who their leaders are, the conflicts among them, their geographic expansion and their known crimes.
La idea de este sitio surgió hace un año, cuando Animal Político obtuvo el 21 de octubre de 2014, gracias la ley de transparencia, un documento de la Procuraduría General de la República que muestra todas las células delictivas que operan en México y el cártel al que obedecen. Ese documento, además, tumba varios “mitos” creados por funcionarios públicos, como que el Distrito Federal está libre de crimen organizado o que todas los grupos delictivos pierden poder con el actual gobierno federal […]
La experiencia de Poderopedia nos permitió mirar a los cárteles, hasta cierto punto, como poderosas organizaciones comerciales con influencia en los asuntos públicos del país.
The idea for this website arose a year ago, when on October 21, 2014, Animal Político obtained access — thanks to the country's transparency law — to a document from the attorney general that shows all the organized crime cells operating in Mexico and the cartel to which they report. Also, this document debunks several “myths” created by government officials like the one that says Mexico City is free from organized crime or like the one that claims gangs are losing power under the current federal administration.
[…] The experience of Poderopedia allowed us to see the cartels, to a certain point, as powerful commercial organizations with influence over the country's public affairs.
Narcodata also provides explanations of the context surrounding the situation to understand the dark history of organized crime in Mexico and the players who have taken part in its progression.
Their first article, “Siete presidentes, pocos resultados: 40 años de expansión del crimen organizado” (Seven presidents, few results: 40 years of organized crime expansion) highlights the role the United States has played in bolstering drug cartels in Mexico:
Las estrategias fallidas explican, en parte, la supervivencia y fortalecimiento del crimen organizado, pero su avance tampoco podría entenderse sin considerar la vecindad con Estados Unidos, el mercado de consumidores de sustancias ilícitas más grande del mundo y el proveedor más importante de armas para cualquier grupo delincuencial. […]
Pero no sólo es una cuestión de consumidores. Las organizaciones criminales mexicanas también han ganado fuerza gracias al fácil acceso a armas de fuego. Hace una década, el presidente George W. Bush derogó la disposición que prohíbe la venta de armas automáticas y de asalto en Estados Unidos. Para 2014, el 71.9% de las armas incautadas en México vinieron de Estados Unidos, según la propia Agencia de Alcohol, Tabaco, Armas de Fuego y Explosivos de Estados Unidos (ATF, por sus siglas en inglés).
The failed [government] strategies partially explain the survival and strengthening of organized crime, but its advance cannot be understood without considering the neighboring United States, the biggest market for illegal drug consumption in the world and the most important weapon supplier for any criminal group.
[…] Mexican criminal organizations have gained power thanks to easy access to weapons. A decade ago, President George W. Bush abolished the law that forbade the sale of automatic and assault weapons in the United States. In 2014, 71.9% of seized weapons in Mexico came from the United States, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
The piece includes an interview with Guillermo Valdés, the former director of the Mexican intelligence agency CISEN (Center for Research and National Security). He explained that for a long time the state's security strategy was focused on seizing drugs and weapons and arresting drug lords, when they should have been working on strengthening local institutions such as the police or courts to prevent corruption and ensure that justice is served.
Elaborating on how the government has failed to solve the problem, Alejandro Hope, security editor at news site El Daily Post, told Narcodata in an interview for their article titled “Con Peña Nieto, ‘El Chapo’ y Jalisco Nueva Generación dominan el negocio de la droga” (With Peña Nieto, ‘El Chapo’ and Jalisco Nueva Generación control the drug business):
Las fuerzas armadas pueden ser muy útiles para cazar a los grandes capos pero no lo son para prevenir la extorsión a taxistas y comerciantes que estén en manos de los grupos que quedaron de esas grandes organizaciones. Se necesitan policías locales fuertes, procuradurías estatales con mayor capacidad de armar casos en contra de esas mafias locales, un sistema penitenciario menos vulnerable y es ahí en dónde estamos atorados y en dónde no hay muestra de avance en este gobierno.
The armed forces can be useful to hunt big drug lords, but are not good at preventing the extortion of taxi drivers or businessmen and women, who are left in the hands of those groups that came out of the breakdown of the big organizations. Strong local police forces are needed, state attorneys with a greater capacity to present cases against local mafias, a less vulnerable penitentiary system, and this is where we are stuck and where the current government lacks results.
As for the extended violence that burdens the country, Narcodata explains how the armed groups that support drug cartels became powerful as their “side businesses” of kidnapping, extorting, human trafficking, and assaulting civilians thrived:
Los ataques contra la población se hicieron más comunes desde que, a finales de la década de 1990, las organizaciones criminales decidieron fortalecerse con el reclutamiento de brazos armados o células delictivas dedicadas a matar y utilizadas para atacar a grupos rivales y a cualquier ciudadano. […]
La expansión de los brazos armados también implicó un aumento en el saqueo a la sociedad civil, que se convirtió en una actividad cotidiana de esas células delictivas para autofinanciarse. […]
Attacks against civilians became common after the 1990s when the criminal organizations decided to toughen up by recruiting armed branches or crime cells dedicated to killing and used to strike rival groups and citizens. […]
The expansion of the armed branches also implied a surge in the looting of civil society. This became a daily activity for these cells to finance themselves. […]
The market for illicit drugs, calculated to bring in annual revenues between US $18 billion and 39 billion, have long been violently contested by criminal organizations in a bloody war that has resulted in tens of thousands of people killed, disappeared and displaced in Mexico.

author: Elizabeth Rivera