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Bolivia: Protests Sweep Across the Country · Global Voices
Pablo Andres Rivero

This post is part of our special coverage Indigenous Rights.
A wave of different protests are sweeping across Bolivia, affecting at least six of the largest regions in the country. Although the conflicts are not initially linked to each other, they have generated a climate of political instability, raising challenging questions for the government of left-wing, coca-growing leader, President Evo Morales.
The Andean Information Network has published a calendar with the conflicts and protests that have taken place over the last couple of weeks.
In order to understand this climate of conflict it is important to look at these protests individually.
Transport unions strike
Photo by Mario Duran under CC licence
A 48-hour transport strike took place in La Paz, Bolivia's seat of government, and El Alto on May 7 and 8, 2012. Transport unions reject the recently passed Municipal Transport Law that attempts to deal with the chaotic transport system and also proposes a network of public buses to be launched in 2013.
Digital journalist Wilfredo Jordan (@wilofm) commented on Twitter [es]:
Buenos días, jornada difícil en La Paz y El Alto por la Ley de Transporte, para seguirlo en twitter ver#parotransporte
The 48-hour strike deployed thousands of buses and minibuses that blocked the streets of La Paz and El Alto and restricted any transit, even emergency services.
Several citizens criticized the blockades and showed their support for the Mayor's initiative to implement the local Transport Law.
Moreover, in only 48 hours a group on Facebook [es] emerged and gathered over 4,000 members who called for a “pedestrians strike”. They encouraged citizens to share cars, use bicycles or just walk instead of commuting for one day as a protest against the transport strike and the blockades.
Paginasiete uploaded this citizen video of citizens confronting the transport workers during the strike:
Luis Revilla, the Mayor of La Paz who is championing the Law, is a member of Movimiento Sin Miedo (“Movement without Fear” in Spanish) a left-wing party that stands in opposition to Evo Morales’ party MAS (“Movement for Socialism”).
La Paz and El Alto rely on a private bus and minibus system that provides poor and unsafe services with previously set tariffs to almost 2 million inhabitants.
Netizen Fernando Cabezas wrote on the Facebook Page [es] of the Observatory “La Paz Cómo Vamos” (How are we doing La Paz), an independent watchdog for issues in La Paz:
Una de las observaciones de los choferes al Proyecto de Ley Municipal del Transporte es que para renovar el parque automotor, el Estado debería liberar de impuestos y avalar los créditos para la importación de nuevas movilidades. La pregunta es ¿Por qué, los choferes deberían tener estos privilegios si el transporte público se ha convertido en un negocio privado? Los actuales operadores deben brindar un servicio seguro, cómodo y puntual; y evaluar si pueden hacerlo o no.
Indigenous march against road through TIPNIS
As closely reported on Global Voices, The TIPNIS issue is one of the most challenging ongoing conflicts for Bolivia's government. Indigenous people from the Indigenous Territory National Park Isiboro Sécure are marching for the second time in one year towards La Paz, demanding the cancelling of a road project attempting to cross right through the middle of their National Park, a constitutionally protected area.
Over 600 marchers are in Puerto San Borja, approximately 300 kilometres from La Paz, at the time of writing this post. Fundación Tierra enabled a widget [es] screening the latest news on the indigenous march.
Health sector protests
Unionised Doctors, health workers and medicine students have been protesting and holding a strike for almost six weeks against the Decree 1126 passed by President Evo Morales. The regulation attempted to include all health workers into the General Labour Law, forcing them to complete an 8-hour work day, and not a 6-hour work day as is currently established. The reform also restricts cashing more than one salary from public funds.
Although president Morales “suspended” Decree 1126 on May 4 and called for a “Health Summit” in July, protesters demand a repeal instead of a suspension and reaffirm their claim to be part of the General Labour Law under full payment and benefits for extra hours.
As explained on a blog post by Videourgente [es], Medicine students support the strike, claiming that the government is capping lecturers’ salaries and reducing practice hours.
Blogger Mario Duran, based in El Alto, commented on the Health Sector strike:
Analicemos las demandas y expliquemos las mismas:
8 horas. Sí. Esta medida merece nuestro apoyo, en Bolivia, obreros o profesionales, deberian trabajar ocho (8) horas.
Ley General del Trabajo. Sí. Todas las relaciones laborales deberian establecerse segun la Ley General del Trabajo […]
Nivelación Salarial a la CNS. Si.
Aqui se encuentra el meollo del paro medico, la Caja Nacional de Salud, al ser una entidad autarquica (en los hechos, aunque no en la reglamentación), sucesivamente ha destinado mayores recursos a la partida presupuestaria de sueldos y salarios,[…] hay que tener presente que en Bolivia, el salario mínimo es de 805 Bs.-. En promedio, los sueldos de la CNS superan entre un 20 – 40% al sueldo que se paga en otras instituciones.
Entonces, la movilización del gremio medico, no busca mantener el trabajo de 6 horas, sino exigir la elevación de sueldos y salarios.
Let's analize and explain the demands:
8 hours. Yes. This measure deserves our support, workers or professionals, should work eight (8) hours in Bolivia.
General Labour Law. Yes. All labour relations should be established according to the General Labour Law […]
Wage leveling for CNS (National Health Fund in Spanish) workers. Yes.
This is what the strike is about, the National Health Fund, being an autonomous entity (in fact, although not in the regulations), has successively increased the budget for salaries and wages, […] it must be taken into account that in Bolivia, the minimum wage is 130 US dollars. On average, the salaries at the National Health Fund are between 20 – 40% higher to the salary paid in other institutions.
Consequently, the protest by the health sector is not seeking to maintain the workday of 6 hours, but demands raising wages and salaries.
YouTube user davidangelcaballero1 shares the following citizen video of the march:
This post is part of our special coverage Indigenous Rights.


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China, Philippines: Scarborough Shoal Sovereignty Tension Rises · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Tension between China and the Philippines over the disputed waters of the Scarborough Shoal or Huangyan Island has been elevated, with the state-controlled Chinese media reporting that China can no longer tolerate the presence of Philippines naval ships in the South China Sea.
The China Daily commentary on May 8, 2012, highlighted [zh] in its headline that China “could not tolerate the intolerable” regarding the Scarborough Shoal dispute and it revealed that the Chinese government's diplomatic strategy would be a demonstration of sovereignty in the South China Sea.
Nationalist performance
Nationalist Chinese media outlet Global Times's editorial on May 9, stated that [zh] “it would be a miracle if the confrontation would not end up in military conflicts”.
Local newspapers also reported that Chinese naval ships have expelled [zh] Philippine fishermen from the Shoal. The nationalist commentaries come in reaction to a Philippine military expert's claim [zh] that China would not resort to military means to solve either the Scarborough Shoal dispute or domestically, Chinese online nationalism.
The latest sovereignty performance came with the erection of a Chinese flag on the main reef of the Scarborough Shoal by a Dongfan Star television reporter:
Chinese social media is flooded with nationalist sentiment when the word “黃岩島” (Huangyan Island) is searched for, and the mainstream media have added oil to the flame. Below is a selection of some typical Weibo comments on the issue:
周指辉：估计我国要实际控制黄岩岛——这是一个好机会，希望能顺手把菲占的其他岛也给一并拿了！
醉想丽华：[1/2]中国疆域领土确实很大，但没有一寸是多余的，关于领土问题没有谈判，只有战争，如果不准备动武就不要拿起武器，一旦遭人欺负，就应当瞬间回击；对于黄岩岛问题别每天总是在说是中国固有的领土，固有、固有听着就烦了，都已被人家欺负到这份上了，还无动于衷，不给一点颜色瞧瞧还真的以为好欺负，
黑匣子陈廖宇：黄岩岛问题特别满足各种国人从各方面的意淫。所以还是不要解决的好。
佳琦-半正太V：对于最近的南海诸问题，中国一直都忍让，但这次黄岩岛和菲律宾闹的有点大。我想，是不是想拿来它试试刀，镇一下越南和小日本呢，
A media worker's reflection
Media worker in Guangzhou, Su Shaoxin [zh], is critical of the media flaming of the popular nationalistic sentiment:
如同我严厉批评我所任职的媒体机构一样，作为媒体及公众人物在此刻为民族主义情绪张目，确能两头讨好：政治上正确，也能获市场掌声。但这种功利思维或不自觉做法背后可能产生的灾难性后果，您应比我更有切肤之痛。这大概是我会使用“知识能力不足”的原因——因为这如果不是天真的话，就是别有用心。

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Oiwan Lam


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China: Political Space of the Weibo Blogging Platform · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Chicago University Sociology Professor Zhao Dingxin recently delivered a speech entitled “Weibo, Political Space and China Development” at East China Normal University. Zhao's reservations on the technological setting and nature of Weibo, a well known Chinese micro-blogging platform, has triggered debate and reflections amongst Chinese bloggers.
Reflections on Weibo
Zhao's speech has been partial transcribed and published in local newspaper Dongfang Daily (via NetEase) [zh]. Below is a selected translation of the transcript:
微博是一个彻底民主的同时又是可被操纵性很强的通讯手段。说它是最彻底的民主是因为微博只需写寥寥几句话，只要知道怎么用微博，谁都能写，写得好坏也无所谓。说它可操纵性强，是因为微博中的声音不具有“一人一票”的性质。…只要一个人掌握着大量的金钱或者某种技术，那个人就能通过雇佣水军把自己的声音做大，于是就形成了虚假舆论。这里面可操纵的余地太大。
前台行为和后台行为的区隔是我们社会文明处事的一个很重要的原则。但是在微博的公共空间中前台行为和后台行为的界限不再清晰。微博中的言论是面向社会的，它们本来应该是前台行为。但是微博中许多人并不在自己熟悉的圈子内混，不少人的真实面目我们完全不清楚。这些人因此能在微博中动辄破口大骂，而不怕受到惩罚。从这个意义上来说，微博公共空间的出现把人类的许多后台行为前台化了，这就是微博语言暴力趋向背后的结构性原因。
从一定意义上说，在微博公共空间中，人们的表现会接近于勒庞所描述的“乌合之众”，他们一方面表现得特别不服从权威，另一方面又在操纵下特别容易对权威产生崇拜甚至盲从。微博中的狂热之士很像“文革”中的红卫兵：一方面喊着打倒一切、怀疑一切；另一方面喊着谁敢反对某个权威我们就打倒谁。
Zhao pointed out that most of the debates in Weibo are ideological and he used famous Chinese writer Han Han's ghostwriter scandal as an example to explain his point:
我本以为这一场争论的核心是真假问题，而不是价值观问题，是比较容易说清楚的。但我马上发觉支持作家的人士大致可分为相互重叠的三类人士。第一是原教旨自由主义者。这些人士认定作家是盟友，并认为打假是政治阴谋，是价值观和意识形态层面上的问题，不是一个简单的真假问题。第二就是作家的“粉丝”。不读大学就可以当作家、收入不菲还可以打扮得很酷的生活令年轻人羡慕。维护作家对他们来说，犹如维护宗教信仰一般是他们的责任。第三，就是一些缺乏常识的人，对于这些人来说，什么奇迹都可以发生，常识简直就是对他们认知的亵渎。
Zhao believes that such irrational populist sentiment is rooted in the disintegration of the value system in mainland Chinese society as a result of the cultural revolution, the lack of direction in humanities subjects in the education, people's skepticism of the mainstream media and the culture of a mass consumption society.
Reactions online
Some Chinese netizens disagreed with Zhao's observations. For example, blogger Zuo Zhijian pointed out [zh]:
微博有商业水军潜伏，这固然是一个事实。但赵教授忽视了另外一个事实，即微博是一个开放的平台，意味着这是一个自由的言论市场。…即便是水军，在微博上也要比BBS上更容易识别。相信普通网民识别水军的能力，不会弱于公知，因为他们早就熟悉各类网络工具，在水军的风浪中久经考验了。
如果纵向比较，把微博与电视、广播做比较，应该很清楚“操控受众”的难度已经难太多了。
Zuo agreed that it is difficult to develop consensus via Weibo but he stressed that's the reason why public intellectuals should engage more with the open platform:
认识到微博的局限性，政治家与知识分子就更应主动应对并利用微博的长处。
作为政治家，应该更快更及时地提供公共信息，消除民众的疑惑。
作为知识分子，则应该意识到，微博传播价值远高过辩论价值，所以是一个很好的启蒙平台。在中国这样言论空间稀缺的环境下，更几乎是唯一的平台。
当下在中国，启蒙也远比辩论来的重要。知识分子也知道，民众有危险的民粹倾向，这恰恰意味着知识分子还需要做太多事情。
这个时代知识分子面临的环境，与历史上其他时期最大的不同就在于，有了互联网这样的开放平台。了解并善用互联网工具，是这一代知识分子的必修课。
Blogger Shan Gu's view echoed with [zh] Zuo Zhijian's criticism and looked deeper into the nature of Weibo as an open platform:
固然，微博空间是个大杂烩，其中高雅与低俗并存，美丽与丑陋同行，真相与谣言齐飞。但同时，与传统媒体相比，微博具有更高效的记忆功能：要证明传统媒体在两年前曾经说谎，你或许需要亲自跑一趟档案馆；而要证明一名微博大V两年前曾经说过谎，则只需要点击一下鼠标。因此，微博空间虽然谣言横飞，但其自身便具备了自洁功能，任何试图用谎言、谣言或其他各种极端思想来“操纵网民”作法最终都只会落人笑柄。
勒宠的“乌合之众”非常强调集体行为的“在场感”，只有亲身置于集体行为的特定场域之中，个体的非理性情绪才会在交互影响中被不断加强、放大并最终主宰个人的行动；而网络上的非理性情绪则缺乏这种“在场感”，其非理性情绪没有被放大、被加强的途径，所以其非理性情绪至多也不过是凝聚为几句“气壮山河”的国骂罢了，即便真的有极少数人会付诸行动，其行动也往往是基于功利计算后的个人行为——要理解上述两者之差异，只要想一下在现场看球、和十几个在电视前看球与一个人在家里看球有何不同便可以明了。
微博公共空间的隐忧不在于其可能被心怀不轨的“阴谋家”操纵，而在于其可能被国家机器控制——只有国家的控制才不受成本与收益的市场规律制约，并且能凭借其垄断性的资源而使其影响力超越时空范围的限制，获得主宰性的地位。因此，如果网民真的可能存在被操纵的危险，则其危险的根源绝不源于微博自身，而源自微博之外的强制性力量。
赵鼎新教授的观点则体现了一种智识上的高傲，在他眼中，“网民”是非理性、易忽悠且缺乏常识的，韩寒粉丝的认知能力更甚至是“亵渎常识”的（视他为奇迹、像维护宗教信仰一样维护他）……但他可能忘了，常识的普及永远不可能建立在“先知式”的智者对公众高高在上的“教化”基础之上，而只可能通过信息的自由与开放而实现。


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Europe: Economic Crisis Fuels Rise in Anti-Immigration Politics  · Global Voices
Rakotomalala

The French presidential election may be over, but the fact that outgoing president Nicolas Sarkozy chose immigration as a core theme of his campaign [fr] is still the subject of much debate on the Web. Many netizens have wondered whether his choice to flirt with the far-right wing of his electorate helped temper his defeat or whether, on the contrary, it was one of the reasons his electorate deserted him [fr].
Given the apparent waning appetite of European voters for multiculturalism, singling out immigration as the root of the global economic crisis has proven fruitful for far-right parties across the continent.
African refugees by Vito Manzari on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
If this rhetoric sounds familiar, it's because it has affected the old continent, when in times of crisis, in a cyclical pattern for centuries. Valérie, on her blog ‘Crêpe Georgette’, recounted the chronology of perceptions on immigration in France [fr] from the first half of the 19th century until today:
S’il est une idée en vogue, c’est bien de penser que les anciennes vagues d’immigration (italiennes, polonaises, espagnoles, belges …) se sont parfaitement intégrées au contraire des vagues, plus récentes, maghrébines et africaines.
Les anciennes vagues d’immigrés étaient travailleuses, ne posaient aucun problème et les français les ont d’ailleurs parfaitement acceptées, entend-on souvent.
Constatons donc que les propos actuels sur les immigrés les plus récents ne sont qu’une répétition d’idées reçues anciennes et qui se sont exercées à l’encontre de toutes les communautés migrantes (qu’elles viennent de province ou de pays étrangers).
Valérie drew a parallel between allegations that Italian and Spanish immigrants did not and could not be integrated, and those against today's immigrants from Eastern Europe and Africa:
Toutes les populations d’immigrés – mais aussi les populations pauvres de manière générale – sont vues au cours des siècles comme sales, non intégrées, se vautrant dans la luxure et des coutumes exotiques. Ce qu’on entend à l’heure actuelle sur les quartiers « islamisés », « envahis » de femmes en burqa avec 10 enfants n’est que la répétition, comme vous le constatez, de propos tenus sur toutes les vagues d’immigration précédentes. L’italien lui aussi fait une cuisine infâme, trop d’enfants et se vêt d’oripeaux. Le polonais se ridiculise avec son catholicisme particulier et à se tenir debout pendant la messe alors que le bon français est assis.
Economic downturn not the only reason
Nevertheless, the economic downturn alone cannot explain the attractiveness of anti-immigration arguments. In an editorial on the future of multiculturalism in France, Julie Owono highlighted that:
The reason for the growing worry over the future of Europe is not simply related to the crisis. Contrary to what some politicians were quick to explain on the evening of the first round, it seems that the French who gave their vote to extremism do not suffer that much from the immigration scourge. French analysts have found that, while the latter represents a major concern for 62 per cent of National Front voters, areas where the party has received a significant number of votes do not have a particularly high immigration rate.
A European phenomenon
Foreigners in Europe by Digital Dreams on FlickR License-CC-BY
Politicians singing this weathered old tune against immigration are not limited to France. In Greece, the Neo-Nazi party known as Golden Dawn took advantage of the country's economic difficulties and broke through during the most recent general elections. In Great Britain, a commenter posting under the name James reacted to the fact that  Cameron, Merkel, and Sarkozy declared the failure of multiculturalism in Europe:
She [Merkel] wanted People from richer nations to embrace and train poorer region folk! It hasn't worked, its cost us all billions and its getting more expensive year on year! Would you rather have a farmer from romania working in britain, claiming to be poor and sending all the money home to build a mansion! thats whats happening.
Valérie said she is no longer surprised by recycling of anti-immigration rhetoric. She suggested in her blog some reading to open up the debate:
Pour combattre les craintes face aux immigrés maghrébins et africains, on gagnerait à lire les textes du 19eme et du début du 20eme pour comprendre comment se fondent ces peurs et comment l’on ne fait que répéter les mêmes idées ayant cours dans les siècles précédents. Conseils de lecture :
- Conseillé par Melle S. : A. SAYAD « L’immigration ou les paradoxes de l’altérité » (1. L’illusion du provisoire et 2. Les enfants illégitimes).
– Gérard Noiriel, « Le creuset français ».
– Laurent Dornel, « La France hostile. Histoire de la xénophobie en France au XIXe siècle ”
To address anxieties over immigrants from Maghreb and Africa, one would gain from reading texts from the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries in order to understand the foundations of such fears and how the same arguments are being used throughout the centuries. Suggested reading:
- Suggested by Melle S. [fr]: A. Sayad, Immigration or the Paradoxes of Alterity [fr] (1. The illusion of the ephemery and 2. The illegitimate children)
– Gérard Noiriel, The French Melting-Pot
– Laurent Dornel, Hostile France. A History of Xenophobia in France in the 19th Century [fr]

author: Rakotomalala


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Greece: Olympic Flame Lit in Ancient Olympia · Global Voices
Veroniki Bacharidi-Krikoni

author: Veroniki Bacharidi-Krikoni


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Iran: Government prohibits ‘foreign’ mail services · Global Voices
Hadi Nili

Iran's minister of communications prohibited using ‘foreign’ mail services like Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, Hotmail, and MSN, since he believes ‘they are tools for information leak’. Reza Taghipour has asked Iranian state offices, universities and companies to use Iranian mail services ‘which are hosted in Iran’.

author: Hadi Nili


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Madagascar: Teachers Strike over Stipends Repressed by Armed Forces · Global Voices
Lova Rakotomalala

The teachers association in Madagascar  has been on strike for a week  [fr] over disagreement regarding their monthly wages.  The protests have been repressed by tear gas launched by the armed forces [fr]. Students have also joined in the protests [mg] (via Jentilisa's photoblog).

author: Lova Rakotomalala


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Paraguay: How the Media Silenced the Chaco · Global Voices
Silvia Viñas

“The media flew over the drama and didn't land over the human stories that were waiting below.” Carlos Rodriguez from the blog Rescatar [es] writes about the media's lacking coverage of the floods that hit the Paraguayan Chaco.

author: Silvia Viñas


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Russia: Ustream.tv Attacked Over Russian Blogger · Global Voices
Andrey Tselikov

On the morning of May 9, 2012, unknown parties launched a DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack on the live feed website Ustream.tv. According to Victoria Levy of Ustream.tv, the attack took place from thousands of unique IPs, based in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Iran. It was centered on one particular user, reggamortis1 [ru], who for the past four days has been covering opposition rallies and protests in Moscow.
Although Ustream.tv began operating normally after ten hours of downtime, the reggamortis1 channel remained inaccessible for several more hours. CEO Brad Hunstable said in an interview with Global Voices that this was the most serious DDoS attack on the website ever.
Screenshot of Ustream.tv's homepage featuring reggamortis1's coverage of the protests in Moscow.
Ustream.tv makes it very easy to run live-streaming broadcasts from smart-phones, making it an invaluable resource for bloggers around the world. It reaches 55 million people monthly, and a staggering 125 hours of content are uploaded to the site per minute. Ustream’s mission, says Mr. Hunstable, is to provide a platform for people to share stories and build communities.
True to this mission, Russian citizen journalists like Kirill Mikhailov, aka reggamortis1, who also tweets at @reggaemortis1 [ru] and blogs at reggae-mortis.livejournal.com [ru], have been utilizing the service to report on recent Russian protests in lieu of coverage by official Russian television networks.
One such live broadcast, by user vova-moskva [ru], gained traction through Twitter on March 5. It covered the situation on Pushkinskaya Square in Moscow during the rally against Vladimir Putin’s reelection.
Mikhailov blogged about the need for such action [ru] on February 29:
From every square we will need to maintain constant coverage and concentrate it in one place. But that’s for the future.
At this point Mikhailov was slightly behind the times. The Ustream.tv channel of Ridus, a Russian citizen journalism platform, has been posting live feeds of protests starting last December, and has since collected well over two million live views.
This type of guerilla reporting is in line with the general trend of internet-based news coverage in Russia. For example, tvrain.ru [ru] is a liberal-leaning online television channel that often interviews opposition leaders and hosts them on its talk shows. It recently provided a platform [ru] for new opposition darling Ksenia Sobchak after her political debate show had been forced out from mainstream television.
On the other side of the barricades, MinaevLive [ru] is a live-streaming “internet-show” run by Sergei Minaev, a Russian writer and blogger with reputed ties to the Kremlin. His from-the-rooftops YouTube coverage of the May 6 March of the Millions was a four-hour bird’s eye view of the conflict and its development. (A compressed and sped-up 4-minute YouTube version is located here.)
The current DDoS attack on Ustream.tv is consistent with other attacks on Russian opposition websites and social networks. RuNet Echo has previously covered DDoS attacks against Russian opposition media and blogs during the Russian parliamentary elections last December. Ridus’ Ustream.tv channel was likewise DDoS’d on December 6 and January 6.
Attacks on online media were most recently repeated during the March of the Millions. “The tvrain.ru website isn’t working, and so are the sites of Slon [slon.ru] and Echo Moskvy [echo.msk.ru],” tweeted @tvrain [ru] on May 6.
On the same day, General Director of Kommersant, Demian Kudriavtsev, warned on his Facebook [ru] that the daily newspaper’s website was under a DDoS attack. Echo’s Varfolomeev gave the same reason [ru] for his site’s erratic behavior.
Perhaps because of this Mikhailov, an opposition activist from Ufa [ru] who charmingly calls himself “Navalny’s battle-hamster,” doesn’t put all of his eggs in one basket. Although he has been using Ustream.tv since April 15 [ru], during the May 9 attack on his channel he switched to a Bambuser.com account (Bambuser is a streaming service similar to Ustream) to continue his coverage. On his blog he also lists the Ustream channel of his colleague, romanpomych, whose stream was up while Mikhailov’s was down.
Before his current project, Mikhailov had been covering the Astrakhan hunger strike (Global Voices coverage is here and here), in which he participated as one of the strikers. Incredibly, he is conducting another hunger strike [ru] at the moment, even as he is running around Moscow and reporting. Amidst all of this activity, Mikhailov has found time to write an email [ru] to Ustream.tv, in which he implicates the Russian government and the youth group Nashi in the attacks:
[…] Russia actively tracks the current events thanks to your website. This is the only source of communication, thanks to which we will find out how Putin is killing our citizens. […] Your site currently doesn’t work only because of these bastards – kremlin.ru and nashi.su. These people, under Putin’s orders, rob the people of information and are trying to hide the mayhem happening in the capital of Russia and are conducting a DDoS attack against ustream.tv.
Brad Hunstable also finds the attack very disturbing. To him, someone is trying to take away the right of global citizens to speak and be heard, in essence subverting his company’s mission. Currently, Ustream.tv is debating the best response to the situation. In the meantime, and in a gesture of defiance, they have added a Russian-language option to the website:

author: Andrey Tselikov


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Spain: #NoMoreEuros for Bankia · Global Voices
Lali Sandiumenge

This post is part of our special coverage Europe in Crisis.
The Internet in Spain was seething since it was reported [es] this Monday that the government is preparing a plan to inject public money into Bankia, the fourth largest bank in the country and the most exposed to the real estate market. Since the crisis started in 2008, the government has supported Bankia with 33 billion euros [es]. The current bail-out plan could be as much as 10 billion.
The news circulated the same day that the the resignation [es] of the head of the financial institution, Rodrigo Rato, was announced. Rato also served as an economy minister in Aznar's government and as president of the IMF (International Monetary Fund). Rato had been two years in management, first in Caja Madrid and then in Bankia, which was formed in 2010 from a merger of seven saving banks.
For his work, he received 2.34 million euros last year and, and for resigning, he is entitled to an indemnity of 1.2 million. His proposed successor is José Ignacio Goirigolzarri, who left the BBVA group (Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria) in 2009 in exchange for an annual life pension [es] of over 3 million euros.
“Bankia, the rats are jumping ship,” the blog Salmón wrote in an article that has circulated throughout the web [es]:
Rato no se marcha sin más. El botín en versión indemnización al que tiene derecho alcanza la escalofriante cifra de 1,2 millones de euros. Y perdonad mi inocencia pero esta es una de las cosas que no alcanzaré a entender jamás: llegas a una caja quebrada, haces una gestión pésima que la aboca a una situación aún peor, cuando todo se vuelve negro te marchas, le cuestas a los españoles prácticamente lo mismo que los recortes en Sanidad y Educación, y encima te llevas una indemnización millonaria en el bolsillo.
The community's reactions were immediate and have come one after the other throughout the week. #NiUnEuroMas (#NoMoreEuros) and #Bankia are two of the hashtags that Spaniards are using to express their opinions. The reasons for their anger are many.
Bankia, according to what the website Madrilonia.org recalls in an entry titled “Cuando las ratas huyen de Bankia es hora de tomar Bankia”  [es] (When the rats are fleeing Bankia it is time to take Bankia), is the bank with the highest amount of mortgages in the Community of Madrid and one of the most involved in evictions of families that can no longer pay them:
Caja Madrid y ahora Bankia han ido creciendo con nuestro dinero: nuestros ahorros, nuestras hipotecas, nuestras pocas acciones y ahora, directamente, con nuestras casas robadas en desahucios -Bankia es uno de los bancos con más desalojos- y con dinero público. Ya se han lanzado propuestas de nacionalización -ya que pagamos todo, pues, oiga, que los dividendos no se lo lleven otros.
Many of the tweets denounce the fact that the sum of the anticipated bail-out is more than what is going towards Education and Health in the public budget and is equal to the cuts carried out in both sectors.
These are some of the tweets that have shown up on the web since last Monday. As always, the criticisms are seasoned in many cases with humor:
LoveWillTearUsAznar @lwtuaznar: ¿Y vender chandals para ayudar al rescate de Bankia? ¿Cómo lo veis? Son muy guapos http://pic.twitter.com/4b00MpRf
Dark Vader  @pistatxin78: #Bankia, ¿Por qué pides sólo 10.000 millones? Pide 14.000 y ya lo amueblas…. http://pic.twitter.com/M5TinsNI
Dark Vader  @pistatxin78: #Bankia, Why are you only asking for 10 billion? Ask for 14 and you can get new furniture…. http://pic.twitter.com/M5TinsNI
"Why are you only asking for 10 billion? Ask for 14 and you can get new furniture."
Raul Gonzalez  @Raulexio: #Bankia ¡¡¡¡¡ Manos arriba, esto es un atraco!!!!!
Jose Sanclemente  @josesanclemente: ¿cuanto IVA hemos de pagar, cuantas recetas y camas de hospitales, cuantas aulas se han de cerrar…para darle 10.000 millones a Bankia?
Pilar Marroyo  @pilar_marroyo: El gobierno rescata a Bankia y sus directivos millonarios, ¿qué dirán los que han visto hundirse sus negocios sin nadie que los ayudara?
Joan Baldoví i Roda  @joanbaldovi: Presupuesto educación + sanidad en 2012: 5.397 millones de euros. Rescatar Bankia: 7.000 millones de euros #hagamoscomoislandia
Toret @Toret: #HagamoscomoIslandia. Ni un euro más para los bancos, juicio a los culpables de la crisis y una constitución escrita por los ciudadanos!
Ángel  @A_Cas: Si Bankia vale en bolsa unos 3.000 millones y se le inyectan 8.000 ¿no es de facto pública?
Jéssica Remón  @jess_rr: Recortes en educación y sanidad: 10.000 millones de €; rescate a Bankia: 11465 millones de euros, pero ¿ésto que es?? #NiunEuroMas
Mrs. ∞ ßϒξn  @bren_oo7: #NiUnEuroMas Habrá que volver a guardar los millones bajo el colchón de la cama…están mas seguros que bajo 3 cajas fuertes en un banco.
Renta Básica  @Renta_Basica: Si se repartiera el rescate de Bankia entre TODOS los desahuciados tocaría a + de 20.000€ por familia #ConElDineroDeBankia#NiUnEuroMas
Peich  @_Peich: La inyección que necesita #Bankia es la letal.
Miquel Roig  @miquelroig: Ejem… Según #BFA, #Bankia vale 24.000 millones. Según #Deloitte, vale 17.000 millones. Según el mercado: 4.300 millones
The journalist Ignacio Escolar outlined the numbers in a post in his blog,  Bankia's deficit in five easy-to-understand figures [es]:
4.600 millones de euros. Es lo que vale Bankia, según su capitalización bursátil de ayer. Es decir: los mercados valoran a esta entidad financiera en un tercio de lo que el Estado tendrá que poner para reflotarla a ella y a su matriz, el BFA, que es una especie de banco malo donde el genio financiero de Rodrigo Rato –aconsejado por MAFO– dejó toda la basura del ladrillo para ver si así podía aguantar. En ese almacén nuclear se guardan 30.000 millones en activos tóxicos, un 3% del PIB nacional o todo el recorte del gasto público de este año. Dentro de esa cifra hay también 5.000 millones en suelo, un patrimonio que se ha devaluado aún más. Es obvio que el dinero público prestado difícilmente va a regresar.
The conservative Catalan newspaper La Vanguardia has started an online survey [es] in which it asks its readers if they approve of injecting public money to compensate Bankia. After 3,243 people responded, 94% said no.
This post is part of our special coverage Europe in Crisis.

author: Lali Sandiumenge


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Trinidad & Tobago: SEA “Ordeal”  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Today, children across Trinidad and Tobago sat the SEA Entrance Examination for admission to secondary school.  Coffeewallah calls it an “ordeal so intense, that it can be likened to Suzanne Collins’  Hunger Games novel”, explaining: “While these children do not have to kill anyone to survive, their self esteem, peace of mind and their very childhood, is marked with a stress that is at best unfair, and at worst, draconian.”

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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Venezuela: Video ‘Caracas, City of Farewells’ Sparks Discussion on Emigration · Global Voices
Laura Vidal

It took the Venezuelan blogosphere only a matter of days to unleash an avalanche of criticism and mockery on the video documentary “Caracas, Ciudad de Despedidas” (“Caracas, City of Farewells”). The video compiles seventeen minutes of interviews on the experience of emigration in Venezuela and explores the reasons which have driven several of its citizens to join the growing Venezuelan diaspora. The sheer force of the response led to the video's removal from the YouTube channel on which it was initially posted, and resulted in public statements from those behind and those featured in the documentary.
Overall, the video met with a strong wave of harsh criticism, mockery, video responses, remixes [es], parodies [es], caricatures, memes and tweets, with  the hashtag, #meiriademasiado [es], an allusion to the comment of one of the subjects in the video, “Yo sí me iría… Me iría demasiado [sic]” (“I would go, I would so go”) becoming a trending topic en Venezuela.
The video did receive some shows of support, albeit very few, which backed up the validity of its ideas, pointing out that behind the tone and the rhetoric (the most criticized aspects of the video), the video had served to stir up a highly sensitive topic within citizen media: emigration due to urban violence.
El brujo [es] points to what, in his opinion, was the main flaw in “Caracas, Ciudad de Despedidas”:
El problema del autocensurado video […] y de sus participantes, radica en la absoluta ajenidad y desconocimiento absoluto de la sociedad a la que dicen pertenecer, emitiendo juicios de valor totalmente sesgados y prejuiciados respecto a asuntos que obviamente conocen por lo que les dicen sus padres …
Meanwhile, Luis, on Panfleto Negro [es] (Black Pamphlet), underlines the main message:
…detrás de todo el mandibuleo [*] y el “me iría demasiado” hay una realidad a la que no queremos dar la cara; Venezuela no ofrece a sus jóvenes ni un presente ni un futuro viable, ofrece más penurias y que todo vaya a peor antes de ir mejor. Hablar de porvenir en un país donde se depende de la salud de una sola persona es casi tan ingenuo como los testimonios de estos chicos.
[*] In Venezuela, “mandibuleo” is a term used to describe the speech of upper-class youth in Caracas (who are also known as “sifrinos”).
On the other hand, Vanessa [es] opines:
Yo pienso que ellos sí tienen derecho a opinar lo que les dé la gana, así sea mandibuleado y mal redactado. ¿O es que acaso ya en Venezuela estamos tan acostumbrados a la mordaza en la boca que nos escandaliza una opinión distinta a la propia? Se ha formado una especie de dictadura opositora donde, al igual que los chavistas, todos repiten al unísono lo que les mandan a decir los “líderes opositores”. Al que se salga un poquito de la línea, los demás le caen a peinillazos.
Laura Solórzano, en her blog Debilidades y Vicios [es]  (Weaknesses and Vices) points to another fact:
[…] mi preocupación es que muchos de esos “jóvenes del este del este[“] que estudiaron en los mejores colegios y universidades” sigue sin entender el verdadero problema en Venezuela. Que esos chamos de “me iría demasiado” son los hijos de esos venezolanos que hicieron plata y se olvidaron que existía un país y que algún día les tenían que responder.
Meanwhile, Mirelis Morales Tovar [es] explains why the video moved her:
Me movió… Si, no lo niego. Quien tiene dos hermanos lejos, otro con un pie aquí y otr[o] allá, así como casi todos sus amig@s a muchas horas de distancia, no puede ser indiferente a lo que se plantea en el video Caracas Ciudad de Despedidas.
Es una realidad. Queramos o no. […] Todos quienes vivimos en esta ciudad tenemos el temor de no regresar a casa y eso no es precisamente una sensación con la que debamos acostumbrarnos.
Pero fomentar la idea de que emigrar se ha vuelto la solución a los problemas que nos agobian en este país es ir creando una generación de desarraigados.[…] Otros países han vivido situaciones similares o peores. Y es el espíritu de su gente lo que les ha permitido salir a flote. [Venezuela] es una nación herida. Herida por su propia gente. Pero también es tierra de gracia, de oportunidades.
It moved me… Yes, I'm not going to deny it. A person with two brothers living far away, and another with one foot at home and the other abroad, and on top of all that, with almost all their friends living several hours away, can't just be indifferent to what was going on in the “Caracas, Ciudad de Despedidas” video. It's a reality. Whether we like it or not. […] Everyone who lives in this city carries this fear of not being able to make it home and this is not a feeling we ought to get used to having.
But to foment this idea of emigration now being the solution to the problems overwhelming us in this country, is to create an entire generation of rootless people […] Other countries have been through similar or worse. And it's the spirit of their people which allowed them to rise above it. [Venezuela] is a wounded nation. Wounded by her own people. But this is also the land of grace, of opportunity.
Asdrúbal [es], for his part, comments:
lo que sinceramente no me gustó [de las opiniones expuestas el video] fue el hacer entender que la responsabilidad de mejorar al país era de «otros» exclusivamente.
Of the participants in the video, Raquel Abend van Dalen, was the first to break her silence. In her blog Merienda en el Espacio [es] (Snacking in Space), which was made private days later, she wrote:
La realidad de Venezuela nos afecta a todos. Tanto a los que viven en ella, como a los que se tuvieron que ir. Y cada quien busca la forma de sobrellevarla y de aportar para un cambio positivo. Yo amo a Caracas, yo a amo Venezuela. Es el país en donde nací y crecí. Venezuela es el espacio que me ha hecho ser quien soy, y que me ha brindado todas las oportunidades para crecer como persona y como ciudadana. Esta situación me ha servido de lección de vida: se vive y se aprende.
The youth involved in the documentary published a communique [es] in response to the reaction their video received. In it, they explained their reasons for producing such a video, adding:
Nunca nos imaginamos, esperamos o quisimos este alcance y ahora que lo tenemos no nos lamentamos, porque a pesar de que la forma parezca banal, lo que ahí se expresa sigue siendo la verdad: tenemos miedo por la inseguridad que existe en Caracas y por ello no hemos podido vivir nuestra ciudad como quisiéramos.
The communique concludes:
Respetamos las opiniones diferentes a las nuestras, agradecemos el apoyo de quienes nos han respaldado e invitamos a todos a mirar más allá de la forma y analizar el fondo, a leer entre líneas y considerar que todos formamos parte de lo mismo aunque seamos diferentes. No es una cuestión de discriminar a un grupo, es de exponer a otro y no es para ofender a nadie, es para compartir lo que algunos sentimos.
Finally, Leopoldo Tablante [es] reflects on the similarities and the discourse of the upper and lower classes, and on how this mirrors a common spirit which makes living together and social advancement difficult:
Por novatada o por lo que sea, el video parece inspirado por un muy particular espíritu de indolencia ante el proyecto de construcción del bien común. Y sin ese espíritu, ¿qué nos queda?
Por la izquierda o por la derecha (si es que estos clivajes siguen teniendo vigencia), en la urbanización o en el barrio, Venezuela suena en monofónico. Y con ese empaque al vacío, ¿a quién le queda fuelle para pensar en una reconciliación?

author: Laura Vidal


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Video: Robot Shows us How to Stay Safe Online · Global Voices
Juliana Rincón Parra

ONO the Robot
Online security is a complex issue that is sometimes hard to understand or to know how to face. Using a lovable animated robot, the Tactical Tech Collective is trying to get more people aware on how to stay safe online through short video animations that can be viewed online or downloaded.
With eight new weekly releases for their new series Survival in the Digital Age, ONO the robot will help us with email security, facebook security, private browsing and more. The first video in the new series is HEY YAHOO! HTTPS MY EMAILS! where how to chose a safe web based email provider. The organization is using crowdsourcing efforts to translate the videos into as many languages as possible.
In 2010, ONO made its appearance explaining the Digital Traces we leave behind and how to keep our personal information and contacts safe when using mobile devices, cameras or the internet. The videos in this past series have been subtitled into many different languages already. Following is the promotional video for this episode, the full length video can be viewed at Onorobot.org.
Through ONO's own eyes, we see how we are constantly tracked through our digital communications. While a lot of the time this might not be harmful for us, we have little control over what we want to keep private and what is available for viewing, recording and information harvesting. This is crucial for activists and journalists who might be under surveillance and whose digital activities can put them in danger. ONO explores some of the ways that people can protect their identity and separate who they are from what they are doing such as: the use of anonymising and circumvention tools and encryption. ONO warns us that we need to know what we are doing when trying more advanced privacy techniques and provides a checklist for the best practises which everyone can implement in our daily use of email, mobile phones and online services.
Following is a preview for the Safe Email episode. Full length here.
With a callout to Global Voices Advocacy Access Denied Map, ONO'S GUIDE TO SAFE SURFING tells people how to stay safe while surfing online, specially when accessing sites that may be blocked. Following the promotional video, full length on the site.
You can learn more about ONO through Facebook, twitter (@onorobot), and more about online security through the Tactical Tech site.

author: Juliana Rincón Parra


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Zambia: Bloggers Form Zambian Bloggers Network · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Zambia bloggers have formed a network called the Zambian Bloggers Network with the help of HIVOS. Announcing the formation of the network on The Zambian website, Brenda Zulu wrote:
Zambian Bloggers with the help of HIVOS are setting up a BLOG Ring for the Zambian Blogosphere to help in the generation of local content. We hope to work virtually and also meet in person during the monthly meetings to network on many issues. We hope to generate funds through micro payments, doing some relevant jobs to content creation and management and also through adverts. We still welcome grants, any donations and sponsorships to cover a lot of costs including high internet costs.
Zambian Bloggers hope to redress some of the inequities in the traditional media by leveraging the power of citizens’ media. We believe in freedom of expression and hope to focus our attention on the most interesting issues around Zambia by linking to social media, blogs, photos, podcasts, video and other forms of grassroots citizens’ media.
It is hoped that with the BLOG RING, Zambian Bloggers Network can grow to be consistent in it’s news coverage and regular in blogging and also become visible to Zambians and the world over. To critically reflect on the Zambian society issues, the bloggers hope to enlarge spaces of expression. It is hoped that bloggers may receive appropriate training in all forms of blogging and web 2.0 applications.
The network's description on its website reads:
Brenda Zulu – Zambian journalist and blogger. Photo courtesy: Brenda Zulu.
This is a community of  Zambian Bloggers who are to bring reports from blogs and citizen media, with emphasis on voices that are not ordinarily heard in mainstream media.
We hope this space will enlarge spaces of expression for bloggers to critically reflect on the Zambian society.
The platform hopes to provide bloggers with capacity building in WEB 2.0 applications and introduction to new media.
Florence Gichoya was one of the participants at the network´s first meeting in Lusaka. She wrote:
Most of the bloggers are journalists interested in new media, they blog about health, politics, gender, environment etc. There are also two photo bloggers and a cartoonist.
What I gathered from the meeting was that there is a gap in Zambia in areas of podcasting and video blogging.
The rate of blogging in Zambia has also been very low. And the main objective for the network is to strengthen the Zambian blogosphere. Brenda emphasises that as bloggers “we are stronger together”. There are many voices that are not heard in the mainstream media therefore the bloggers give those issue a voice.
During the strategy meeting members decided to create a blog ring and blog collectively on contentious issues for instance, gender based violence, homosexuality, abortion and early marriages. They also agreed to have more online interactions on blogs, dgroup and other social networks.
The network plans to start mentoring and training programs:
What’s the future?
The future projects that they came up with were: They plan to have more mentorship programs for the upcoming bloggers. Also training on new media is imperative for every blogger in order to ensure more readers access their articles. Impart skills on how to make money through blogging. Training on web page designing and create general awareness on blogging. Creation of more Zambian content and to set the agenda for Zambia on issues affecting the citizens e.g. water, road safety, HIV and AIDS and gender development.
Writing about the state of Zambian blogosphere in 2010, Zambian Economist observed:
A strange thing has happened in the Zambian blogosphere. Rather than grow, it appears to have shrunk in recent times. In the early days of this blog we saw all kinds of other Zambian blogs popping up. Today very few Zambians blogs are update or maintained. Many people discovered that starting a blog is quick and easy. Few realise how difficult it is to maintain one. This incidentally is not a Zambian phenomenon. Today, millions of blog start-ups still exist on the web, but much of the blogosphere is beginning to look like a graveyard. Huge gaps in posts posted and the phrases “Sorry I haven’t posted lately” is the first line of many a front-page post.
The state of Zambian blogosphere looked promising in 2007:
The Zambian blogsphere is growing. Two years ago one would struggle to find a regularly updated blog covering any meaningful issues. I am happy to report that is now changing. New blogs are being created at pace faster than I can count. And the good news is that what were personal entries are now being transformed into meaningful blogs that seek to encourage dialogue and trading of ideas.
On 12 July, 2012 Global Voices published an interview between Soneka Kamuhuza and Brenda Zulu about the state of Zambian blogosphere. When asked about the current attitude towards blogging in Zambia, Brenda noted:
Well there is a number of Zambian bloggers but most of them live in the Diaspora. Many Zambians living in the Diaspora blog frequently than Zambians living at home. This is also associated with issue of access to the internet for Zambians at home. Many Zambians can now access internet on their mobile phone where they can mostly do micro-blogging. Otherwise, some even connect their mobile phones to their computers if they would like to do some blogging. Others access the internet from internet cafes, libraries, use mobile dongles, rabbits, wifi, etc. Internet access in Zambia is not cheap even with the coming of optic fibre networks. As one moves away from the city to rural areas access to the internet doubles while losing mobile networks.
Zambians living at home are not prolific bloggers. There are many Zambian blogs online but most of them are dead blogs as they are not updated frequently. Many Zambians are good at micro-blogging and the use of Facebook. Zambians use Facebook more than any other social media platform. Very few Zambians are on Twitter and among the few that have Twitter accounts very few use their accounts. Many claim that they don’t know how to use Twitter.
Zambian Bloggers Network can also be found on Facebook.

author: Ndesanjo Macha


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Zambia: Netizens Question Judges’ Suspensions · Global Voices
Gershom Ndhlovu

When Zambian president Michael Sata suspended a Supreme Court judge and two high court judges and set up a tribunal to probe their alleged misconduct, he probably did not count on the political backlash that the whole matter would engender, even threatening the tenure of his Director of Public Prosecutions.
President Sata suspended Supreme Court Judge Philip Musonda, along with High Court judges Nigel Mutuna and Charles Kajimanga for allegedly improperly transferring a civil case in which state-run Development Bank of Zambia (DBZ) had sued the Director of Public Prosecutions Mutembo Nchito with his lawyer brother Nchima Nchito and private newspaper The Post owner, Fred Mmembe over an unpaid debt of K14 billion or US$2.5 million in their capacity as directors of defunct airline, Zambian Airways. Justice Mutuna, in his judgment, ruled that the defendants pay back the debt.
Supreme Court of Zambia building. Picture courtesy of Wikipedia
The airline’s and it’s directors’ woes started under the then MMD government whose leaders under President Rupiah Banda called the company’s debts it owed DBZ and the National Airports Corporation, a state company that runs major airports, apparently because the Nchitos had been in the forefront prosecuting Zambia’s second president Frederick Chiluba who had been appearing in court for plunder of national resources. The former president’s cases were discontinued after his successor, Levy Mwanawasa, who initiated the cases, died.
Mmembe, on the other hand, was also and still is The Post’s managing editor. The newspaper has over the years single-handedly exposed corruption and shortcomings of government officials and was instrumental in having Chiluba’s immunity lifted, arrested and prosecuted.
Reporting on the suspension and subsequent appointing of the tribunal, the Independent Post wrote:
The head of State noted that his office has received numerous complaints about Justices Philip Musonda who is a Supreme court Judge, Charles Kajimanga and Nigel Mutuna who are High court Judges, from the Law association of Zambia, Lawyers within the judiciary and members of the public.
President Sata noted that the terms of reference would be based on the allegations that the trio interfered with a case involving the Post newspapers, Development Bank of Zambia (DBZ and JNC holding limited and Mutembo Nchito.
One of the three suspended judges, High Court Judge Philip Musonda. Photo courtesy of statehouse.gov.zm.
Fred M’membe is also the editor and proprietor of The Post, the main daily independent newspaper in Zambia that supported the PF in last year’s elections while Nchito  is the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).
A fortnight ago, Mutuna delivered a landmark judgement in which he ordered The Post and JCN to pay back K14 billion   which they owe
A citizen news website, Tumfweko, reported the threat by opposition political parties to impeach President Sata:
A consortium of opposition Political Parties in the country says impeaching President Michael Sata remains an option as it is evident that he has seriously breached constitutional and warrants the President to be impeached according to Zambezi fm.
The opposition political parties being led by Alliance for Development and Democracy President Charles Milupi said Mr. Sata has breached the supreme Law of the land on several occasions and the recent one being the suspension of three Judges.
Opposition National Restoration Party president and lawyer, Elias Chipimo Jr, whose speech one citizen newspaper claimed had been distorted by state owned media, said at a press briefing that was reproduced on Facebook:
THE APPOINTMENT BY PRESIDENT MICHAEL SATA OF A JUDICIAL TRIBUNAL TO
LOOK INTO THE ACTIONS OF A JUDGE OF THE SUPREME COURT AND 2 JUDGES OF THE HIGH COURT COUPLED WITH HIS DECISION TO SUSPEND THESE JUDGES PENDING THE OUTCOME OF THE TRIBUNAL HEARINGS, IS BASED UPON A COMPLAINT FROM PERSONS CONSIDERED PUBLICLY TO BE CLOSE ASSOCIATES OF THE PRESIDENT.
Another politician and lawyer, Sakwiba Sikota, a State Counsel equivalent to a Queen’s Counsel in Britain, told an internet-based citizen radio, CrossFire Blogtalkradio, that there was an “incestuous relationship” between the complainants, the appointing authority and the Malawian chairman of the tribunal, Justice Lovemore Chikopa.
Commenting on the judgment published by the Zambian Watchdog, Sauzande wrote:
You voted for Sata. Now Zambians will see in real life what a corrupt government actually looks like and how it works. People used to complain about corruption, but now they will realise that many of those times in the past people used to be just too suspicious even when things were straight. Now, you have in government a party that openly practices corruption. You don’t have to be an expert to see this and whoever is supporting Sata on this case is plainly stupid and corrupt himself. Even Dora Siliya’s case is chicken feed compared to this mammoth corruption where the President is openly supporting his people to steal from a public development Bank that is funded by public tax payers…  Very annoying and disappoiting at the same time. This is the first time when a President has practiced OPEN CORRUPTION in the history of the country. Even Chiluba was not as arrogant as this. It is unacceptable and should not be allowed to continue.
A reader signing himself as It’s a worry, wrote:
This whole case stinks of irregularities and the crafty dealings of people like Nchito within the legal fraternity. It seems the issue is not the judgement but the circumstances in which the case was moved from Judge Albert Wood and also the fact that DBZ had submitted a notice to discontinue the case.
Well the first issue raises serious questions. How did Nchito and M’membe come to know that there were dubious circumstances surrounding the moving of the case from one Judge to another? Surely, this is an internal matter for the Lusaka high court to address and I imagine Judge Wood would have taken steps to report is concerns to the Judge in charge or follow laid procedure…
It also appears that the notice to discontinue the case is one that was hatched in order to frustrate Justice knowing that with the case aware from Justice Wood, the likelihood of an unfavourable outcome was looming. With Sata coming into power, it was easy for a decree to be issued directing, with immediate effect, DBZ to discontinue with the debt recovery case…

author: Gershom Ndhlovu


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Afghanistan: How to Use an Afghan Box Camera · Global Voices
Juliana Rincón Parra

The Presurfer shares a small video documentary of one of the only two remaining Afghan box photographers left in Kabul, and how he takes pictures and processes them inside a small black box.


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Argentina Approves Death with Dignity Law · Global Voices
Laura Schneider

After four hours of debate in the Argentine Senate [es], on May 9, 2012, the Death with Dignity [es] project was converted into law with wide-ranging support, even from the opposition.
The newspaper Infobae [es] reported just after the law was passed:
Tras más de cuatro horas de debate, el Senado convirtió en ley por 55 votos a favor el proyecto de muerte digna que reconoce el derecho de los pacientes “a aceptar o rechazar determinadas terapias o procedimientos médicos o biológicos con o sin expresión de causa, así como también a revocar posteriormente su manifestación de voluntad”.
La iniciativa indica que el paciente terminal puede rechazar procedimientos, cirugías y “medidas de soporte vital, cuando sean extraordinarias o desproporcionadas en relación a las perspectivas de mejoría” pero lo obliga a expresar su postura al facultativo, quien antes lo habrá informado sobre su real estado de salud, los tratamientos posibles y sus consecuencias.
The debate surrounding dying with dignity is even more important now following the wishes of the parents of Camila, a two-year old girl who has been in a vegetative state since her birth. The website Legislarweb [es] reports on the case:
Camila es un caso emblemático de la situación por la que atraviesan muchas familias y que hasta ahora encontraban un vacío legal sobre el tema de la muerte digna. […]
Tres comités de bioética aseguraron que su estado es irreversible, pero los médicos dicen que, sin legislación, no pueden desconectarla
The website continues quoting Camila's parents:
“La situación por la que estamos pasando como familia es desgastante y dolorosa, considerando que tenemos una beba de 2 años y 3 meses en Estado Vegetativo Permanente. La situación de mi hija es irrecuperable e irreversible, y hay un vacío legal que impide retirar el soporte vital”, decía en varias oportunidades la madre de la pequeña, Selva Herbón.
But this has not been the only case in Argentina. Susana Bustamante, the mother of Melina Gonzalez, has also fought until the end for her daughter. The news agency Telam [es] tells of Susana's situation:
“Ella me dijo que durar conectada a un respirador artificial no es voluntad de Dios sino el capricho del hombre” y que “cuando una persona llega a un estado terminal e irreversible se debe permitir que acontezca el hecho natural” de la muerte, recordó Bustamante.
Melina, quien falleció el 2 de marzo de 2011, a los 19 años, padecía neurofibromatosis, una enfermedad degenerativa del sistema nervioso e incurable que afecta principalmente el desarrollo, que le paralizó totalmente el cuerpo y redujo su peso a sólo 20 kilos.
On Twitter the hashtag #Muertedigna (death with dignity) became a local trending topic after news broke out about the new law. There have been many different opinions. Twitter user Lean Fernández (@leanfe4) [es] says that the passing of this law is an historical event, and Lou A. Salomé [es] (@Lou_A_S) tweets:
Vivir es un derecho, no una obligación #muertedigna
However, Martin Ferro (@Martin_Ferro), similarly to other Twitter users, expresses his discomfort:
Autorizar el retiro de alimentación e hidratación no es #MuerteDigna, es #Eutanasia, estaba seguro q iban a votar cualquier cosa
Argentina finds itself on a list of countries that have a law about dying with dignity. According to the newspaper Clarin [es]:
Holanda, Bélgica, Luxemburgo fueron de los primeros países en reglamentarla. Tres Estados de EE.UU  la permiten. También Suiza. En Colombia fue autorizada por la Corte.

author: Laura Schneider


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Armenia: NGOs Condemn Arson Attack on Gay-Friendly Bar · Global Voices
Onnik Krikorian

Unzipped: Gay Armenia posts the text of a statement by a group of NGOs including the Helsinki Citizens Assembly in Vanadzor, Women's Resource Center, and Pink Armenia, among others, condemning the 8 May arson attack on D.I.Y., a gay-friendly bar in Yerevan. The blog also reports that two members of a Neo-Nazi group, Dark Ravens Armenia, have been arrested [EN/AM].

author: Onnik Krikorian


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Brazil: Homeless Movement in Belo Horizonte Surrounded by Police · Global Voices
Sara Moreira

“Ocupação Eliana Silva” [pt], a camping site of around 300 families in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, which had been occupied mostly by homeless workers [pt] on April 21, in protest against lack of housing conditions, was sieged by the military police today, May 11. Journalist Adriano Ventura (@adrianoventura) is tweeting photos that illustrate the tension between the population and the police.

author: Sara Moreira


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China: In Bo Xilai Saga, Did Social Media Challenge Government? · Global Voices
Violeta Camarasa

This post is part of our special coverage International Relations & Security.
Bo Xilai portrayed as Greek mythology character Icarus, who tried to fly too close to the sun with a set of wings made from wax. Source: Beijing Cream.
Political struggle, murder, corruption, espionage and diplomatic conflict – the downfall of Bo Xilai from the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) elite ranks has turned out to be a multi-faceted story. The Bo Xilai affair is also a good example of the disruptive role that social media plays in today’s China. Despite censorship, discussions on social networks caused international media to prick up their ears.
With the CCP's once-in-a-decade leadership succession [pdf] scheduled for October 2012, Bo Xilai’s case has jumped to the front page of international and local media. It has been widely argued that social media has made it unfeasible for the government to keep the story behind the scenes. However, it is also true that the government has stirred social media to its own advantage. Did the Chinese government really want to hide Bo Xilai’s story? Did social media really challenge the government control on information? The opacity of China’s politics makes it impossible to answer these questions, but they are worth a thought.
Let’s re-cap on how Chinese social media played a major role by apparently forcing disclosure and challenging government control on information.
February 2012
1. First rumors spread
Wang Lijun, Vice-Mayor of Chonqing, disappears from his post. Despite censorship, speculation regarding his whereabouts spreads on China’s micro-blogs. The rumors state that Wang has requested political asylum at the US consulate after falling out of favor with the local high-profile party secretary Bo Xilai, who aspires to a top political post. Wang may have denounced Bo's implication in the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood.
2. A “vacation-style therapy”
An official statement on the Twitter-like Sina Weibo says Wang has been temporarily removed from his post for a “vacation-style therapy”. The phrase becomes an ironic meme on the Chinese Internet.
3. Where are the censors?
The Chinese government confirms that Wang did enter the US consulate in a post on Sina Weibo that netizens hurry to re-tweet. The censorship machine not only allows but boosts online discussions, making netizens suspicious. Blogger C. Custer, from ChinaGeeks writes:
At the moment, Wang is back on the Sina Weibo trending topics list twice. […] Searches for “Wang Lijun” (typed correctly) remain uncensored. It’s quite clear that Sina is not trying to suppress this story at all, which begs the question: is someone at Sina trying to damage Bo Xilai?
March 2012
4. First rumors confirmed
Official news agency Xinhua makes a double announcement: Wang has been removed from his position and Bo Xilai has been replaced as Chonqing Party Chief by Zhang Dejiang. Another report confirms that Wang did request political asylum at the US consulate.
5. Second wave of rumors flows in
In the midst of hectic public discussion on Bo’s political purge, online rumors spread about a coup d’état in Beijing and a confrontation between President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao on one side, and Bo’s supporter Zhou Yongkang on the other.
6. Talks of coup finally wake the Great Firewall up
Micro-blogging sites Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo block word search facilities. Days after the blocking, the government cracks down on social media. Six people are arrested and 16 websites closed for “disseminating online rumors” that “severely disturb the public order, undermine social stability and deserve punishment”, Xinhua reported. The same report states Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo have been “criticized and punished accordingly”. The two sites halt the posting of comments for three days.
April 2012
7. Rumors become the truth
On April 10, Xinhua makes two separate announcements: Bo’s dismissal from his position at the CCP Central Committee for “serious discipline violations”, and his wife's alleged role in the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood over “economic interests”.
Netizens can't get over their surprise. The rumors that have been flooding the net for months suddenly make it to the covers of all official newspapers. Jing Gao, from
Ministry of Tofu writes:
Weibo user Zhang Xingsheng wrote, “We had already followed the instruction from the higher-up that we’d never believe or spread a rumor. But today, the rumor became the truth! I am puzzled! To believe or not to believe? This is a question!
China’s 550 million micro-blog users have witnessed a twisted public information stratagem. Online rumors becoming official truth overnight, endorsed by the same official media that censored and demonized them in the name of social harmony.
8. Political struggle and corruption
The government insists that Bo’s fall is a fight against corruption that has nothing to do with political struggle. As details on Bo’s family fortune emerge, public discussion gets heated over the enrichment of party officials. With corruption debate taking over the press, the government manages to sideline sensitive discussion on political infighting.
Again, Jing Gao reflects:
But one thing is certain. Before the advent of social media, the government never owed the people an explanation. […] Today, with tens of millions of Chinese actively use Sina Weibo, a low murmur of political gossip may have already been amplified and heard by thousands before the internet police step in.
Social media play a major role boosting public discussion in China by breaking systematic cover ups. However, it seems clear enough that the Chinese government has shown a remarkable expertise in playing with censorship, leaking or blocking information at its convenience to lead public opinion. Who wins? Do China’s social media outlets really challenge the government’s control of information?

author: Violeta Camarasa


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Cuba: Remembering the Dissidents  · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

This week, members of the Cuban diaspora have been blogging about two main things: the one-year anniversary of the death of dissident Juan Wilfredo Soto, and the re-arrest of human rights activist Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia.
Of the former, babalu places blame for Soto's death squarely on the shoulders of the Cuban government:
Mercilessly beaten in a park by agents of Cuba's political police, Soto died three days later from the injuries he received. His murder at the hands of the Castro dictatorship, like that of Cuban prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo, caused an uproar in the international community and forced the regime and its defenders here in the U.S. to mount a campaign seeking to blame his death on natural causes and diminish the role Castro police had in his murder.
One year after the murder of Juan Wilfredo Soto, things have have changed Cuba, but for the worse. The rate of arrests of human rights activists on the island has skyrocketed…One year later, the Castro regime is as repressive and violent as ever, if not more so…
Pedazos de la Isla corroborates his account of increased numbers of arrests in this post, quoting a “Lady in White and independent journalist” who claims that:
The Cuban police, as well as State Security and other watchdog branches of the regime, prefer to unleash this kind of repression against peaceful activists who demand freedom and democratic changes in Cuba instead of pursuing and detaining those who rob, rape, and even kill other citizens.
The recent re-arrest of Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia, as Uncommon Sense reports, also appears to support this claim:
Cuban dissident Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia was arrested in Havana on Wednesday.
Ferrer, who had been released April 29 after almost a month in jail, was on his way to the Czech embassy to access the Internet, when the Castro police swept in and arrested him.
Details of his whereabouts were not known, but human rights activist Elizardo Sanchez, with whom Ferrer was staying while visiting the capital said he thought Ferrer would be returned to his hometown of Santiago de Cuba.
Finally, Notes from the Cuban Exile Quarter, which gives a detailed history of the case, says that Soto Garcia, who died on Mother's Day last year, should never be forgotten:
Juan Wilfredo Soto García, 46, belonged to the Central Opposition Coalition (Coalición Central Opositora) and the previously unrecognized opposition organization Foro Antitotalitario Unido, (United Anti-totalitarian Forum) and according to Amnesty International Juan Wilfredo ‘had previously been imprisoned for 12 years for his political activities.’
Amnesty International called for an investigation into his death which over a year later has not been conducted.  The Cuban dictatorship has sought to deny Juan Wilfredo Soto García's status as a former political prisoner and human rights defender in order to portray him as a common criminal.
In addition to Amnesty International, 12 former Cuban prisoners of conscience from the 2003 Black Cuban Spring met on Saturday, June 4, 2011 and petitioned the Cuban regime for an independent investigation into the May 8, 2011 death of Juan Wilfredo Soto García in a document called The Declaration of El Roque. Others continue to [be] badly beaten and denied adequate medical care in Cuba and their lives remain at risk. It is for that reason and the continuing demand of justice for Juan Wilfredo Soto García that we must never forget.


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Ethiopia: The World Economic Forum in Africa 2012 · Global Voices
Markos Lemma

Over 700 leaders from more than 70 countries are attending the World Economic Forum taking place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopian from  9 – 11 May, 2012.
The World Economic Forum is an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas:
Africa is experiencing strong growth and despite the increasingly volatile global economy, African leaders are pursuing measures that will transform the region into the next global growth pole. In this context, the World Economic Forum on Africa will seek to leverage the positive political, economic and social progress of recent years by providing a true multistakeholder platform to develop new ideas and actions to achieve further sustainable, inclusive growth, –  says Elsie S. Kanza, Director, Head of Africa, World Economic Forum.
Caroline Kende-Robb, Kofi Annan and Bob Geldof – World Economic Forum on Africa 2012. Photo source: World Economic Forum (CC BY-SA 2.0) .
It is not a surprise that such a forum would take place in Africa since African countries are among the top fast growing economies in the world. The top ten countries with fastest growing population are also in Africa. But the choice of Addis Ababa leaves many unanswered questions to human rights activists.
Ethiopian blogger and Global Voices author asks, “When Addis Ababa hosts the 22nd World Economic Forum for the first time on Africa soil will anyone care?”:
I strongly believe that one topic that should be tackled in numerous debates in the forum should be the role of free and independent media and economic growth in Africa. Also other topics on the agenda should be issues like journalists’ incarceration, telecom services control by government and may be corruption. In fact the present spotlight of media on Ethiopia’s economic breakthrough is distracting attention from many serious challenges that Ethiopia’s free media is facing on day to day basis.
The forum has started on Wednesday after lots of bad news about Ethiopia’s free press five journalists—Woubshet Taye, Elias Kifle, Re’eyot Alemu and two Swedish journalists — sentenced to at least 10 years and more behind bars and 2012 PEN America press freedom award winner, Eskinder Nega, could face the death penalty if convicted this Friday.
However, Bekele argues that bringing the WEF to Ethiopia “marks a real shift in the perception of Ethiopia”:
Bringing the Forum to Addis Ababa marks a real shift in the perception of Ethiopia by the international community – a gradual understanding that this is a continent of potential and opportunity and not just misfortune and intractable problems.
As a representative of civil society among what will be an impressive gathering of influential political and business figures, I will be reinforcing the logical progression from building strong communities to strong economies, and, ultimately, greater political stability.
On Twitter, tweeps use the hashtag #WEFAfrica to share key insights and lessons from the Forum:
@Kwabena: Who (here) is using new technologies to engage the youth? – Klaus Schwab asks at the World Economic Forum on Africa #wef #WEFAfrica
@waresafrica: “l wouldn't really invest anywhere apart from Africa today because that's where the growth is.”Dangote tells #WEFAfrica in Addis
@msibeko: Best time for Africa in 50 years, but don't confuse economic growth with economic transformation. Kaberuka #WEFAfrica
@StephanMorais: My view is that there is no connection between democracy and economic growth, but democracy is good in itself, PM Ethiopia @ #WEFAfrica #YGL
@Africa_activist: Is the ordinary African touched by this #AfricaOptimism, is it an elitist movement, how can it be real & transformative? #WEFAfrica #YGL
@FightPoverty: Very inspiring day yesterday @GrowAfricaForum – key message: shift mindset from developing agriculture to developing agribusiness
You can follow the Forum live here.

author: Markos Lemma


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Iran: Calls for killing of ‘apostate’ rap artist · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

Several bloggers announced their  support to Shahin Najafi, Europe based Iran singer.A Shi’ite cleric, has issued a death sentence against rap artist Shahin Najafi for apostasy. The sentence was issued after Najafi released a controversial song called “Naqi” (a Shi'ite saint).

author: Fred Petrossian


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Kenya: Mark Kaigwa to Global Voices: “The East is Coming to Africa.” · Global Voices
Suzanne Lehn

Mark Kaigwa is a Kenyan blogger and new media consultant based in Nairobi, whose work is to “help international companies and African brands to connect with each other to develop creativity”. He is also a former film maker and was a judge at the 2012 Kenyan Bloggers Awards that took place on May 5.
His session at the recently concluded re:publica conference, “Silicon Savanna, how African technologies are changing the world”, was dedicated to illustrating the shift in Africa's image – a shift from the clichés of crisis, war, or even wonders of  nature, to  an Africa that is showing the world a way to foster development in a competitive environment, specifically through the use of mobile technologies.
Global Voices caught up with Mark at the re:publica to better understand his hopes and dreams about Africa's digital future.
Mark Kaigwa. Photo by Suzanne Lehn
Global Voices Online (GV): When and how did you get into blogging?
Mark Kaigwa (MK): I started blogging in 2007 – 2008, first with a personal blog. I wanted to express myself so that someone in the world would listen and hear.
Now I run three blogs : my personal blog mark.co.ke – where I give my personal views about creativity in African technology, afrinnovator.com – with focus on technology, start-ups, who is bringing money and from where and africandigitalart.com - about  animation, illustration, graphic design, in one word, all about the combination of art and technology. It features, for instance, artists giving responses to the North African uprisings.
GV: Do you have any links/connections with French-speaking African countries?
MK: I have personal business connections through the Internet, yes, but I have yet to travel to a francophone African country. I am trying to get inputs from francophone as well as lusophone countries, but not because they belong to the non-English sphere (editor's note: The notion of language-based sphere appears pretty much irrelevant to Mark). To give you an example, Angola is interesting to me as a country regardless of the fact that it is part of the lusophone sphere.
GV: The world went through a period in which low-cost labor was the most  sought after commodity. Then recently it was low-cost natural resources. In your opinion, is it now a period in which low-cost technologies will be the most sought after?
MK: The 1990's were the decade of China's boom, the 2010's are  India's and the 2020's will be Africa's. The West was going to the East, now the East is coming to Africa.
The east has a smart strategy. It brought to Africa what it learned and it does not consider Africa as one entity. On the contrary, eastern countries have understood that Africa is composed of 56 countries. They build the infrastructure in exchange for the natural resources that they are of course in need of.  Technology is last on their agenda.
GV: It has been said that Africa's real problems are transport and the banking systems. What is your opinion?
MK:  Those problems indeed exist but these are not the only ones.
The African challenges are the infrastructure and the economic climate for doing business, but we as Africans are in the process of  solving them; and as a prominent economist of the World Bank noted, Kenya's debt-to-GDP ratio amounts to about 45%, which would make many European countries very envious !
The true size of Africa, an infographic presented by Mark at the conference (CC License. No Rights Reserved, public domain)
GV: So how will the shift of economic power work in favor of Africa?
MK: They know that Africa will compete with them. China's competitive advantages – economies of scale, low costs – are going to shrink, and might even cancel out in the next 10 or 20 years, along with the development there of the middle classes, the rise of wages and consumption. China's low-cost advantages will then probably go to Africa. Once the infrastructure is up to par, Africa will be able to be competitive with the East – provided the political leadership holds its end of the bargain.
At the re:publica 2012. Photo by Suzanne Lehn
GV: Regarding African breakthroughs in technology that came about after the well-known Ushahidi, you mentioned the following in your session – SwiftRiver, CrowdMap, Kopo Kopo, iCow, M-Pedigree, MXIT. However, these are mostly operating on mobile phones. Is  technology in Africa over-hyped ?
MK: What we have now is that for the first time, Africa has a way to influence the world. Political leadership permitting, technology is getting some serious attention. Furthermore, the Kenyan government is acknowledging that opening its data will result in better accountability and leadership, and that this is good for their political legacy.
I don't deny there's hype, but it's a good hype and I prefer it to the former one-sided vision of Africa.
GV: A meaningful fact for conclusion?
MK: All of East Africa started to learn Chinese – starting, not from English, but from Swahili.
The interview was conducted by Global voices author Suzanne Lehn. The photos of Mark Kaigwa used in this post were taken by her.

author: Suzanne Lehn


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Mali: Junta Aims to Take Back Control after Caretaker President’s Term  · Global Voices
Lova Rakotomalala

Marcus Boni Teiga explains why he thinks we should not hold our collective breath for a resolution in the Malian crisis [fr]. While rumors of Captain Sanogo vying to be promoted General circulated in Bamako, reports indicate that the military coup leaders aim to seize back control of the country after the term of the caretaker president comes to an end.


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Mozambique: Space for Human Rights Debate Launched on Facebook · Global Voices
Sara Moreira

A new online space that aims to “sharpen critical awareness and the promotion of citizenship, human rights and access to information” in Mozambique was launched today, May 11, on Facebook by CODD – a Center of Studies and Promotion of Citizenship, Human Rights and the Environment. On their welcoming message they say: “get ready for major ‘battles’ and debates about Mozambique”.


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Nicaragua: The Media’s Challenges in Going Mobile · Global Voices
Silvia Viñas

Carlos R. Fonseca [es] blogs about the use of mobile devices in Nicaragua. He looks at the challenges Nicaraguan media outlets face in creating mobile applications and mobile versions of their sites due to a lack of information on how Nicaraguans use mobile devices.


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Robert F. Kennedy Award Will Recognize Social Media Journalism · Global Voices
Bernardo Parrella

One of the foremost international human rights organizations, the Robert F. Kennedy Center, is calling for nominations to a new Journalism Award on International Photography and International Social Media hosted by their European Office in Florence, Italy. The award will recognize the achievements of professionals and students who investigate human rights issues and advocate for change.
The journalism award is a first step of a long-term Smart Dissident Project by the RFK Center, aiming at providing digital activists from countries in the Middle East and North Africa with a physical working space (the former prison complex Le Murate in Florence, now beautifully restored) and an opportunity to stand up for freedom of expression and for the defense of human rights. The winners in the professional categories will win two weeks stay at Le Murate complex.
Previous award winners have been given a bust of Robert F. Kennedy, a civil rights activist and U.S. politician who was shot dead in 1968, only five years after the death of his brother President John F. Kennedy.
As part of the same project the Center will offer a course on “Social Media and Human Rights: Can Smart Dissidents Create Change?” planned for 18-19 June, 2012 (with participation from Global Voices), followed by the Journalism Award ceremony.
Nomination entries should describe the causes, conditions and remedies of injustice and critical analysis of relevant public policies, programs, attitudes, and private endeavors.
Submission deadline is May 15, 2012 (click here to download an entry form).
Updates from the RFK European Office are on Twitter:
@RFKennedyEurope: RFKennedy Journalism award 2012 on SM and human rights is open to blogs: http://bit.ly/AwardEntryForm – http://bit.ly/JournalismAward #egypt #syria
The Robert F. Kennedy Center present awards every year for both Human Rights and Journalism. In September 2011, the winner of the Human Rights Award was Frank Mugisha, Executive Director of Sexual Minorities Uganda, an umbrella organisation that protects LGBTI people in the country.

author: Bernardo Parrella


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Russia: Yavlinsky Stir Reveals Opposition Rift · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

On May 10, Grigory Yavlinsky [en] controversially wrote [ru] in his LiveJournal blog that the Russian opposition's recent turn to more confrontational tactics is a bad omen for democracy. Yavlinsky, born the same year as Vladimir Putin, is one of Russian politics’ oldest faces. He played a pivotal role in the immediate post-Soviet period, authoring important elements of Russia's transition to a free-market economy. Since the 1990s, Yavlinksy has been the face of Yabloko [en], Russia's original liberal democrat political party. In the Putin era, Yavlinsky's party has remained a curious outlier to both “systemic politics” and “nonsystemic politics,” having lost its Duma presence in 2007 but remaining an officially registered party that is still viewed by many oppositionists as compromised and pro-establishment.
Grigory Yavlinskiy, economist and politician, 15 Jan 2011, photo by Skilpaddle, CC BY-SA 3.0; Wikimedia Commons.
True to Yabloko's troubled past and present, Yavlinksy's May 10 blog post has upset many and pleased relatively few. While he made a point of praising protesters’ bravery and placing “main responsibility” on the authorities (‘those who falsify elections, propagate corruption and thievery,’ etc.), many have focused exclusively on Yavlinsky's criticisms of the protest movement. Lenta.ru, for instance, ran an article [ru] titled, “Yavlinsky Declares Protests Meaningless.”
Yavlinsky's concerns with the new developments in Moscow protests center on spiking violence and a perceived drift away from politics. He writes:
При этом я считаю, что если у организаторов есть расчет на то, что жестокость омоновцев будет мультиплицировать количество желающих с ними сражаться, то это неверный расчет. Опыт Триумфальной показывает, что мультипликации не получится. Наоборот, люди перестанут ходить на митинги и шествия, если там льется кровь, если их там избивают. Неужели кто-то полагает, что можно чего-то добиться лобовым столкновением, гражданской войной?
[…]
САМИ ПО СЕБЕ ГРАЖДАНСКИЕ МИТИНГИ, АКЦИИ, ГУЛЯНИЯ И ПРОЧИЕ ФЛЕШМОБЫ, ПРИ ВСЕЙ ИХ ЧЕЛОВЕЧЕСКОЙ ДОСТОЙНОСТИ, ПОЛИТИЧЕСКИ НИЧЕГО НЕ ИЗМЕНЯТ И В СИЛУ СВОЕЙ БЕСПОМОЩНОСТИ БУДУТ ЧАСТО ПЕРЕРАСТАТЬ В ДРАКИ И СХВАТКИ. Разрастание насилия сделает ситуацию во всех отношениях гораздо хуже.
If organizers are counting on the brutality of riot police to multiply the number of people wishing to join their fight, I think that's a flawed count. The experience of Triumfalnaia [Square] shows that no such multiplication occurs. On the contrary, people stop coming to rallies and marches, if blood is being spilled there, or if people are being beaten. Do some people really believe that anything can be accomplished with a head-on collision, or a civil war?
[…]
BY ITSELF, CITIZEN DEMONSTRATIONS, RALLIES, WALKABOUTS, AND SIMILAR FLASHMOBS (WITH ALL THEIR HUMAN DIGNITY) WILL NOT CHANGE ANYTHING POLITICALLY, AND BY VIRTUE OF THEIR OWN IMPOTENCE WILL OFTEN ESCALATE INTO FIGHTING AND CRACKDOWNS. The spread of violence will make the situation much worse in every respect.
As an alternative to this brand of dissent, he proposes a response “personal, programmatic, idealogical, organized, professional, moral, AND POLITICAL,” saying that a gradual, long-term approach is the only real option:
Надо начинать заниматься серьезной политикой , выигрывать выборы и брать власть. Долго? Да, шесть лет очень долго, но раньше и мы ничего не успеем. И следует понимать – альтернатив будет не одна, а три: левая, демократическая и националисты. Какая победит – скажет народ.
Reactions to Yavlinsky's comments have varied. Some bloggers have been less than polite. Anti-Putin LiveJournal user i_l_d responded [ru] simply: “Go screw yourself, Yavlinsky.” Nationalist blogger sinn-fein-front wrote [ru] gloatingly:
Ну вот и Явлинский, отчисливший Навального за национализм, в своем блоге на Эхе Москвы признал националистов равноценной силой протеста. Что ж, отрадно. Один за одним падают бастионы русофобии в публичной политике
Prominent blogger Rustem Adagamov [en], linking to the above-mentioned Lenta.ru article (not Yavlinsky's original text), tweeted [ru]:
Вот и Явлинский! http://lenta.ru/news/2012/05/10/yavl/ “Надо начинать заниматься серьезной политикой” Вау, а 16 лет до этого—это что было?
Dmitri Ivanov, a political satirist from the website CarambaTV.ru [ru], a webtv project, tweeted [ru]:
Явлинский заявил о бессмысленности митингов. Митинги заявили о бессмысленности Явлинского
Despite the backlash against a politician infamous for upsetting pro-Kremlin and oppositionist figures alike, support for Yavlinsky also exists on the RuNet. Some of his supporters are predictable, like Ivan Bolshakov, a deputy chairman of Yabloko's Moscow branch, who faulted [ru] critics for taking Yavlinsky's words out of context:
И каким же надо быть простачком (или сознательным дискредитатором?), чтобы этот смысл извратить до «Явлинский – против митингов» и фактически приравнять заявление Явлинского к позиции Путина его дружков!?
Vladimir Milov [en], another prominent oppositionist politician who briefly served in the Russian government as Deputy Energy Minister in 2002, is another figure who has publicized his disdain for street confrontations. He tweeted [ru] a mild attack on Lenta.ru and announced his support for Yavlinsky's comments:
Вот образчик типичного наглого хипстерского вранья http://www.lenta.ru/news/2012/05/10/yavl/ а вот оригинал, с которым я полностью согласен http://gr-yavlinsky.livejournal.com/43985.html
In the aftermath of parliamentary elections, between December 2011 and February 2012, the Russian opposition experienced an explosion of mass popularity that disadvantaged professional politicians like Yavlinsky and Milov, whose careers (or ‘activism,’ if one prefers) are fixed on evolutionary improvements to Russian society and governance. Theirs is the politics of policy and statecraft — what critics view as regime-collaboration and allies see as realistic, constructive work.
Current developments in Russia's protest movement have widened the gap between populist dramatics and nuts-and-bolts politics. Consequentially, Yavlinsky's blog-post scandal is symptomatic of a growing rift between guards Old and New. And, yet, men like Milov are fairly young. (He turns forty this summer.) The question is less about age than temperament and tactical preferences. Does one work ‘within the system’ for gradual change — a relatively thankless task with only distant satisfaction — or, to borrow a phrase from Yavlinsky, opt for more aggressive “head-on collisions”?

author: Kevin Rothrock


text:
Taiwan: Indigenous Tao People’s 30 Year Nuclear ‘Nightmare’ · Global Voices
I-fan Lin

After Japan's Fukushima nuclear accident last year, more and more Taiwanese have started to become aware of the problems caused by nuclear power plants. One of the most serious issues is nuclear waste on Orchid Island, where the Tao people have lived for generations.
In December 30, 2011, a group of Tao people went to Taipei to protest against [zh] the nuclear waste storage facility situated on the Orchid Island in front of the presidential building. However, the president did not respond to their protest.
Another protest took place on February 20, 2012, with more than 500 Tao people demonstrating [zh] in front of the nuclear waste storage facility on the island due to concern over radioactive isotopes detected outside it and their anger with the owner company Taiwan Power's unfulfilled promise to store the nuclear waste elsewhere.
Jessie Tai from Wired Taiwan explained why [zh] Taiwan Power failed to keep their promise and move the nuclear waste out of the Orchid Island by the end of 2002:
因為核廢料處理最終場址的選定程序過於漫長，以及把核廢料運往國外處理的計畫失敗。
A reporter from Taiwan New Talk listed the Tao people's demand [zh]:
首先，已經完成核廢桶檢整的貯存場應立即遷出蘭嶼；其次，蘭嶼將不續租土地給台電放置核廢料，已造成污染之土地必須進行除污與活化；第3，政府部門與台電應對核廢料貯存在蘭嶼的錯誤政策進行檢討，並重新與達悟族人談判後續賠償事宜，以彌補多年來達悟民族因核廢料所損失的健康。
Some Tao people have also joined the political party and are pressuring the government through the legislature [zh], according to Jessie Tai's report from Wired Taiwan:
在農曆年前的大選中，提倡環保的綠黨為了強調其反核立場，將長期推動反核運動的達悟族單親媽媽希婻瑪飛洑列為該黨不分區立委名單第一人，綠黨雖然後來並未達到政黨票5%的國會門檻，但在蘭嶼卻創紀錄地拿下35.7%的政黨票，突顯出蘭嶼人長久以來的不滿，以及對自身家園環境的隱憂。
Below is a documentary produced by Taiwan Indigenous TV on the history of the nuclear waste problem on Orchid Island:
Here is selected translation of the video script:
0'18″: To the Tao people of Orchid Island, the scene of first shipment of nuclear waste in the harbor of the Orchid Island in 1982 is a 30-year-long nightmare.
4'24″: On February 20, 1988, Tao people protested against the nuclear waste storage facility. Twenty four years ago, on a rainy day, the residents of Orchid Island angrily gathered together in front of the nuclear waste storage facility. They shouted their slogan loudly, “I love Orchid Island, and I do not want nuclear waste.” The Tao people's protest against nuclear waste started from that moment.
4'53″: On June 1, 1995, the Tao people were angry about the Taiwan Power company's plan to build six new nuclear waste storage trenches. There were protests against nuclear waste in Orchid Island and Taipei at the same time.
5'19″: (Former President Chen Shui-Bian said on TV): Our policy about nuclear waste on Orchid Island is very clear. We will move all the nuclear waste out of Orchid Island before the end of 2002. We will give the beautiful island back to the Tao people.
5'40″: The township magistrate of the Orchid Island asked, “Did the people on Orchid Island produce this nuclear waste? Who produced it?” The crowd answered, “Taiwan.” The township magistrate asked, “Do we use the electricity generated by the nuclear power plants?” The crowd answered, “No.” The township magistrate said, “Do not give others what you do not want. Chen Shui-Bian should eat this”.
6'44″: In 1996, the nuclear waste storage facility was full. There are more than 97,000 barrels of nuclear waste [in it]. However, Taiwan Power company still planned to ship more nuclear waste to Orchid Island. The Tao people were mobilized to surround the harbor. At last, the ship of nuclear waste was blocked in the waters off the small island. That ship returned to Taiwan. No more nuclear waste has been shipped to Orchid island.
7'36″: Breaking news: there are radioactive isotopes, Cobalt-60 and Caesium-137, [evident] outside the nuclear waste storage facility on Orchid Island. Although the Atomic Energy Council said the amount of radioactive isotopes is far below the standard, researchers found these radioactive isotopes are from the nuclear waste storage facility.
8'28″: Looking at this photo, you can see what happened in the nuclear waste storage trenches in the past 30 years. This is horrifying. As a mother, when I look at the photo, I think our health may be seriously threatened. I cannot stop yelling. In the past 30 years, in last year, we Tao people have kept yelling. We are yelling for help.
9'09″: What you throw in front of our houses will make the Tao people die and become extinct. You are talking about increasing the compensation. I am sorry. Can you tell Mr. Ma Ying-Jeou what you just said? The only thing we ask for is the removal of nuclear waste from Orchid Island.

author: I-fan Lin


text:
Turkey: Outrage at Sentencing of Scarf Case Student · Global Voices
Stratos Moraitis

On May 11 Cihan Kirmizigul, an engineering student at the prestigious Galatasaray University in Istanbul, was sentenced to 11 years and 3 months in jail for firebombing a building – but many believe his only “crime” was wearing a Kurdish scarf in the vicinity of the attack.
The number of imprisoned Turkish journalists and politicians has doubled in the last few years, prompting strong reactions both locally and internationally. Kirmizigul's sentencing on May 11 was just the latest in a series of controversial cases. He was sentenced to 11 years and 3 months on charges of membership in the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), possession of explosives and causing damage to private buildings. However, in what has become known as the “scarf case”, it is widely believed that Kirmizigul just happened to be in the area wearing a Kurdish poşu (keffiyeh or scarf).
On Twitter, reactions were immediate. Fatih Aker commented on the lack of evidence [tr]:
@mesutbahtiyar: kaçıranlar için #cihankirmizigul davası özeti: -soru:molotof kokteyli atan kişi bu muydu? -tanık:hayır değildi. (delil:poşu karar:11 sene)
The Turkish judicial system has for some time been under the scrutiny of social media activists because of unfair court decisions. While a special “terror law” (separate from the usual criminal law) is terrorizing political dissidents, rapists and abusers are evading heavy punishment under the regular law.
Melis Tasan looks at the reason Kirmizigul was singled out by the police, which was the scarf he was wearing [tr]:
@melistasan: tecavüzü meşrulaştıran, katilleri kahraman ilan eden, hırsızları büyük iş adamı yapan hükumet poşuya dur dedi
Actor and movie director Ahmet Mumtaz Taylan tweeted [tr]:
@taylan1789: Poşu takarak Beyoğlu'nda yürümek suretiyle devleti yıkmaya kalkışan Cihan KIRMIZIGÜL'e 11 yıl ceza veren adalet; Dümen senin kolpa senin!
After his arrest, Kirmizigul's friends and professors started a blog [tr] to make his case known:
Demonstrators occupying Beyoglu in protest at Kirmizigul sentencing, May 11, 2012. Photo courtesy of Elif Ilgaz (@elifilgaz)
Galatasaray Üniversitesi Endüstri Mühendisliği Bölümü öğrencisi Cihan Kırmızıgül, 22 aydır Tekirdağ F Tipi Cezaevi’nde tutuklu bulunmaktadır. Bir süpermarkete yönelik gerçekleştirilen Molotof kokteylli bir saldırıdan iki saat sonra, olay yerine yakın Kağıthane’de otobüs beklerken, saldırıya katılmış olduğuna dair hiçbir somut delil bulunmaksızın, zor kullanılarak gözaltına alınmıştır. O gün boynunda taşıdığı ve polis tarafından Kürt hareketiyle özdeşleştirilen “poşu”, gözaltına alınması için öne sürülen tek suç unsurudur. Bir gizli tanık tarafından “giysilerinden” teşhis edilmiş, fakat bu tanık, daha sonra ifadesini geri çekmiştir. Suç delillerinin zayıflığına işaret eden savcı, Kırmızıgül’ün beraatini istedikten sonra görevden alınmıştır.
While most wrote in support of Kirmizigul, some defended the state's stance. Hasan Ceylan tweeted [tr]:
@Hasan_133: #CihanKirmizigul ne poşu davası lan örgüte yataklık etmek molotof atmak patlayıcı bulundurmak çarpıtmayın pkklı piçler…
Some took the case as a matter of reciprocity. Twitter user a.l.g. wrote [tr]:
@friendsinhell: TÜRK vatandaşı bir ÇERKES arkadaşım KÜRDİSTAN'da PUŞİ takmadığı için sınır dışı edilmişti:/ süreç şu anda AİHM'e intikal etti.
Kirmizigul's quest for justice has been taken up by others. His professors at university started “Öğrencime Dokunma Kampanyası” [tr] (Don't Mess With Our Students campaign) under the leadership of Mehmet Karlı, research fellow at Galatasaray University. They have organized meetings and issued press statements throughout the trial. Upon the issuing of the court decision, the group immediately gathered at the courthouse where Mehmet Karlı criticized the proceedings [tr]:
Demonstrators wearing keffiyeh and demanding justice. Photo courtesy of Elif Ilgaz (@elifilgaz)
Bizimle dalga geçiyorlar. Bizimle oyun oynuyorlar. Daha önce Cihan serbest bırakılmıştı, biz umutlandık. Dedik ki ’Galiba hakikat görünüyor’ ama bu umut malesef bir taktiğin parçasıymış. Bizim bu işin peşini bırakacağımız zannedildi. Biz mücadeleyi bırakmadık buradayız. O dosyada Cihan’ı suçlayacak bir delil bile yok. Bir tek satır dahi yok. 22 yaşında genç bir çocuğun hayatıyla oynuyorlar.
The supporters of jailed students gathered in Taksim Square in Istanbul on the evening of May 11, to protest injustice against political prisoners.

author: Stratos Moraitis