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With 47 more charged, every prominent Hong Kong activist is now either in jail or in exile · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Crowds gathered outside West Kowloon district court on March 1, 2021. Image by The Stand News, used with permission.
Hundreds protested outside a district court in West Kowloon in Hong Kong on March 1 where 47 pro-democracy activists were charged with “conspiracy to subvert the state power” under the National Security Law (NSL).
The charge relates to the activists’ organization of a primary poll for pro-democracy parties last July in the lead-up to the Legislative Council elections, which the Hong Kong government later postponed. They 47 will face a maximum penalty of life in prison.
During the hearing, which at the time of publication of this story was still ongoing, prosecutors have opposed bail, requesting instead a three-month adjournment for further investigation.
All other activists who have been so far charged under the national security law have had their bails rejected.
AFP correspondent Xinqi Su posted a video showing the crowd outside the West Kowloon district court:
For months this was not seen in HK. But #now it’s happening at West Kowloon Magistrates Court – hundreds are gathering outside the court chanting slogans including “Liberate HK Revolution of Our Times” pic.twitter.com/btdfd5QLX4
— Xinqi Su 蘇昕琪 (@XinqiSu) March 1, 2021
In July 2020, over 600,000 Hongkongers cast votes in primaries which had the objective of selecting the strongest candidates from a cohort of pro-democracy parties. According to the charge document, the pro-democracy candidates, if elected, planned to veto the public budget, which would force the Chief Executive to dissolve the Legislative Council and eventually resign. That strategy, according to the document, constitutes “conspiracy to subvert the state power.”
The Hong Kong government then decided to postpone the September elections citing the COVID-19 outbreak. On January 6, 55 activists who helped organize the pro-democracy primaries were arrested and charged under the national security law.
Among the 47 charged on February 28 is law professor Benny Tai, primary elections coordinator Andrew Chiu, former lawmakers Claudia Mo, Jeremy Tam, Helena Wong, Leung Kwok-hung, Ted Hui (currently exiled), and Chu Hoidick, district councilor and former spokesperson of Civic Human Rights Front Jimmy Sham, localist activist Joshua Wong (currently in jail) and Sunny Cheung (currently exiled).
Eight others, including lawyer John Clancey and former lawmakers Roy Kwong, James To, and Joseph Lee, have not been charged but are required to report to the police on May 4.
As described by UK-based human rights organization Hong Kong Watch, February 28 marks the day when almost all prominent activists in Hong Kong were either in jail or in exile:
“Today marks the first time that almost every prominent Hong Kong pro-democracy activist is either in jail, exile, or on trial awaiting sentencing.” @benedictrogers on the charging of 47 pro-democracy activists under the NSL. https://t.co/JoNuEFsAUu
— Hong Kong Watch (@hk_watch) February 28, 2021
Nathan Law says the charge indicates that the national security law is but a means to suppress political dissent:
4. You got it right — anyone who opposes govt's bill in Hong Kong now can be seen as violating NSL. Same as chanting certain slogans and showing some signs. Laws are weaponized to suppress the most basic human rights in Hong Kong. Freedom of expression has been quashed.
— Nathan Law 羅冠聰 (@nathanlawkc) February 28, 2021
AFP's bureau chief Jerome Taylor compared today's Hong Kong with the Kuomingtang's bloody crackdown of democratic forces in Taiwan on February 28, 1947:
It is somewhat ironic that the day Hong Kong police charge 47 of the city's most prominent democracy activists with subversion happens to be February 28th — the day Taiwan marks the 228 massacre and the subsequent imposition of “White Terror” martial law.
— Jerome Taylor (@JeromeTaylor) February 28, 2021
Today, as #Taiwan remembers the #228 massacre, 47 pro-democracy leaders are charged with sedition in #HongKong. The resonance is striking. May todays’s commemoration in ?? be possible in ?? tomorrow. May ??‘s present courage inspire ?? to reach toward greater democracy. Amen.
— Easten Law (@EastenLaw) February 28, 2021
Both the European Union and the United States have condemned the charges of the 47 activists.
Independent journalist Cheng Ci Ci noticed that a number of consulates had joined the crowds outside the West Kowloon district court:
Consulates from EU, USA, UK, Nevethlands, Germany, Sweden are all lining up for public seats. I said probably no chance for seats and they said they know but just here to line up. pic.twitter.com/YUnSSer7mZ
— ChengCC 鄭思思 (@ChengCiCi1) March 1, 2021
Despite the crackdown, many believe that Hong Kong people's will to democracy will survive. Such spirit is reflected in the messages charged activists sent to Hongkongers before they were taken to the detention center. Here are a few picks via Twitter user Eliot Chen:
Chu Hoidick: Today, to be guilty of our common ideals, I am deeply honored. I have received your well-wishes, and I wish everyone fulfillment each day. No matter the situation, fill everyone around you with love and with hope.
Jeremy Tam: Go peacefully, and be upright – sometimes it's hard to do both, and we can only work hard to practice the latter, and wish for peace in our hearts. History will stand on the side of justice, so sit straight, drink water, and dawn will eventually come.
Lester Shum: Do not feel demoralized, this road is our own. It is for Hong Kong people to choose together, it is the one we must walk together. History has no turn back points, only predecessors.
Ng Wai Kin: Remember to pay attention to the nameless brothers, to the Hong Kongers sent to China, relatives and friends. This land needs your support more than ever, remember not to bury your conscience, remember to come back to fight.
Andrew Wan: I have no fears, facing up to difficulties, I have hoped to demonstrate the strength of the wind. Respect yourselves! Remember your original intentions, no matter what may suppress them, be safe, and take care!
Carol Ng: To the very edge, you must stick to your ideals. The pursuit of a better society and the pursuit of democracy will never die, the labor movement will endure forever.
Lee Yu Shun: No matter the absurdity that they face, Hong Kongers must live well and live in the truth. I am proud to be a Hong Konger, I have no regrets.
Owen Chow: Whether we are in the streets, in prison or overseas, hope will always be needed for us to keep fighting this endless battle…Good luck to all of you out there.
Frankie Fung: With a clear mind, you have your own justice
Fight hard and to the end
I do not fear my own affairs
I only fear that there will be nobody to replace me

author: Oiwan Lam


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Pineapple recipes flood Taiwan’s social media after China bans imports · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Taiwan pineapples. Image from Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affair's Twitter.
Taiwanese netizens have been sharing pineapple dishes and recipes since China announced a ban on pineapple imports from the self-ruling island on February 26, citing pests concerns.
The Taiwan government criticized Beijing’s sudden notice as an “economic intimidation,” similar to the ban on Australian wine last year.
The Taiwanese Council of Agriculture claims that from October 2020 until now all pineapples exported from Taiwan to China passed safety controls.
Taiwan exports about 10 percent (45,621 tons) of its fresh pineapple output, 95 percent of which to China.
The ban would hurt pineapple farmers badly, especially those who planted the high-quality golden diamond variety specifically to cater to the mainland Chinese market.
Taiwanese independent journalist Chen Chih-tung explained how the impact would play out on a Facebook post:
一般水果頂多幾個月、至多一年就能收成，但鳳梨從種下到收成要歷經18個月，幾乎是台灣水果種植時間成本最高的。鳳梨非常怕冷，通常低於攝氏14度就停止生長… 鳳梨農通常是秋天10月後把鳳梨種下，戰戰兢兢讓鳳梨度過兩個冬季，等到春天3月後開始採收。也就是，中國選在3月1日這個時間點不讓台灣鳳梨進口，鳳梨農受到的影響不是一年生計，而是兩個冬季、550多天的心血可能就此血本無歸。
Most fruits can be harvested within months to one year. But it takes 18 months to grow pineapples. In terms of time, pineapples demand the most investment among Taiwanese fruits. Pineapples cannot withstand the cold, they will stop growing when temperatures hit below 14 degree celsius… pineapple farmers usually start planting in October, wait two winters, and harvest in March. With China banning Taiwan pineapples beginning March 1, farmers will have lost two winters and a total of 550 days of hard work.
In response to the ban, the Taiwan government vowed to invest 1 billion Taiwanese dollars (approximately 36 million USD) in subsidies.
President Tsai Ing-wen urged the public to consume local pineapples in order to support farmers:
After Australian wine, unfair Chinese trade practices are now targeting #Taiwanese ?pineapples?. But that won’t stop us. Whether in a smoothie, a cake, or freshly cut on a plate, our pineapples always hit the spot. Support our farmers & enjoy delicious Taiwanese fruit! pic.twitter.com/QnVJzyNiDL
— 蔡英文 Tsai Ing-wen (@iingwen) February 26, 2021
And the Ministry of Foreign Affairs called for a #FreedomPineapple campaign on social media to promote Taiwanese pineapples:
Here we go again! Our pineapples are now banned by #China to punish farmers in the south. Remember #Australia‘s #FreedomWine? I urge like-minded friends around the globe to stand with #Taiwan & rally behind the #FreedomPineapple. JW
— 外交部 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ROC (Taiwan) ?? (@MOFA_Taiwan) February 26, 2021
Many supported the call by posting photos of pineapple dishes and recipes. Here are some from Twitter:
「鳳梨燒肉丼」
① 五花肉在醬油、米酒、糖、薑片的醬汁裏醃一下，跟灑一點二砂砂糖的鳳梨，蔥、甜紅椒一起烤。剛剛的醬汁在平底鍋煮滾收汁
② 蝦仁跟鳳梨直接烤。醬汁用希臘優格、蜂蜜、一點點黃芥末拌勻
烤肉配鳳梨簡直美味到升天，配金牌台啤讚啦！#推特煮#台灣鳳梨 #FreedomPineapple pic.twitter.com/Jlvxny0TIv
— Monet (@ViolistMonet) March 1, 2021
Barbecue pineapples with pork. 1 Marinate pork belly with soya bean sauce, rice wine, sugar, ginger juice. BBQ it with pineapples, leeks and red peppers. Cook the sauce used to marinate the pork in a pan until it thickens. BBQ pineapples with shrimps. Stir the cooked sauce with Greek yogurt, honey and a bit of mustard. Pork served with pineapples are fantastic, super if served with Taiwanese beer!
「焦糖蘭姆酒鳳梨蛋糕」
① 蘭姆酒、二砂砂糖、奶油小火煮到糖融化
② 烤模放鳳梨、石榴，淋一層 ①，然後放麵粉、牛奶、蛋、糖、植物油、泡打粉的蛋糕糊。烤箱 170℃ 40 分鐘
③ 出爐後倒扣出來，淋 ①
我師父說：做甜點如果沒引起暴動，那你就白做了??#推特煮#台灣鳳梨 #FreedomPineapple pic.twitter.com/x1NoNJ6tXe
— Monet (@ViolistMonet) March 1, 2021
Pineapple cake with burnt sugar and rum. 1. Mix rum with sugar and butter and cook until melted 2. Place the pineapple and pomegranates on the cake mold and pour 1 onto it. Then mix flour, milk, egg, sugar, vegetable oil, and baking powder into cake cream. Place the cream onto the cake mold and bake for 40 minutes under 170 degree celsius. 3.Take out the cake and pour 1 on top. My teacher says, a truly delicious desert has to instigate a riot.
We can put pineapple on top of a pizza. Yum yum….!#台灣鳳梨 #FreedomPineapple pic.twitter.com/ROMoxdN1Op
— ΞMelamine™Ξ◻◽▫◽◻ ? (@2008melamine) February 28, 2021
「鳳梨蝦仁炒飯」
蝦仁平切油煎 (這樣好挑腸子，而且煎過會捲成漂亮的形狀)，雞丁油煎，蘆筍、甜紅椒切丁油煎，飯先拌生雞蛋再下鍋炒，前面所有料全下，再加上新鮮的鳳梨丁。裝盤後放一點腰果
鳳梨料理第一道，當然是形象鮮明的鳳梨盅裝鳳梨炒飯啦！超好吃！?#推特煮#台灣鳳梨 #FreedomPineapple pic.twitter.com/B7taPjxlcg
— Monet (@ViolistMonet) February 28, 2021
Fried rice with pineapples and shrimps. Cut the shrimps horizontally (this makes it easier to take out the intestine and the shrimps will curl naturally when cooked) and pan fry the shrimps, chicken, asparagus and diced red pepper. Stir fry the rice with eggs, then add all other pan fried ingredients and diced fresh pineapples into the pan and stir everything together. Put the fried rice in a pineapple bowl and add some cashew nuts on top. Fried rice with pineapples and shrimps is the top among all other pineapple dishes.
Doing our part. #Taiwan ? pic.twitter.com/ne5314meiQ
— Maggie Lewis 陸梅吉 (@MargaretKLewis) February 27, 202

source: news-globalvoices

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


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Reggae icon Bunny Wailer, last of the original ‘Wailers,’ passes away · Global Voices
Emma Lewis

Reggae icon Bunny Wailer performing in Negril as part of the Dubdem Sound System Jamaican Tour, 2009. Photo by Dubdem e FabDub on Flickr, CC BY 2.0.
Just before 8:00 a.m. (GMT-5) on March 2, Neville O'Riley Livingston, better known as Bunny Wailer—or affectionately as “Jah B”—passed away at the age of 73 at Medical Associates Hospital in Kingston, Jamaica.
As one of the founding members of the reggae group The Wailers (the others were Bob Marley and Peter Tosh), the musician was practically synonymous with this pioneering genre of music which originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s and soon reached every corner of the world.
In recent years, Wailer had not been in the best of health. The three-time Grammy award winner suffered a mild stroke in 2018, but had been ailing since his second stroke in July 2020, which happened not long after his longtime partner Jean Watt, known as Sister Jean, was reported missing on May 23 of that year. She has not yet been found.
The news of Bunny Wailer’s death hit both Jamaicans and Wailers fans around the world hard, more so as the news came only two weeks after another iconic reggae figure, U-Roy, passed away at the age of 79.
Jamaica's prime minister, Andrew Holness, tweeted:
(1/5) My deep condolences to the family, friends and fans of legendary Reggae artiste, Neville Livingston, also known as Bunny Wailer, JahB. pic.twitter.com/gPiMZOPEt0
— Andrew Holness (@AndrewHolnessJM) March 2, 2021
At the request of Wailer's family, the country's minister of culture, Olivia “Babsy” Grange, also issued a statement:
We mourn the passing of this outstanding singer, songwriter and percussionist and celebrate his life and many accomplishments…
We remember with great pride how Bunny, Bob Marley and Peter Tosh took Reggae music to the four corners of the earth.
Today, the last surviving Wailer has passed.
His son Abijah said to me this morning that “Bunny Wailer cannot die, he has transitioned.”
Sharing a photo of the three young Wailers, singer Nadine Sutherland was only mildly comforted by the thought that the reggae greats would finally be reunited:
This one got me in my solar plexus! No man! Bawl me start bawl. https://t.co/Kl0YpeDzeJ
— NadineSutherland (@Nadinesutherlan) March 2, 2021
Bob Marley died of cancer in 1981, and Peter Tosh was murdered at his home in 1987.
Livingston was born on April 20, 1947 in Kingston, but from the age of seven, he lived with his father in Nine Mile, St. Ann, a district in rural Jamaica. He and Marley became friends as they attended Stepney Primary and Junior High School together. In fact, the pair were essentially step-brothers, since Marley's mother Cedella Booker was the common-law wife of Bunny’s father, Thaddeus.
After the duo moved to Trench Town, Kingston, they met Peter Tosh and formed a group, first called The Wailing Wailers. Reggae musician Joe Higgs, who lived nearby, took them under his wing, eventually adding vocalist Junior Braithwaite and backup singers Beverly Kelso and Cherry Green to the band. This lineup became The Wailers.
‘Original Wailers Musical Lesson'; image by vinylmeister on Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0.
In December 1963, the band recorded the ska song “Simmer Down” at the iconic Studio One; it became a number one hit. After recording two albums and numerous singles, the band made its international breakthrough with the album “Catch a Fire” with Chris Blackwell's Island Records.
The last album to feature all three original members was “Burnin’” (1973), which included the classic “Get Up Stand Up.” Throughout his life, however, Bunny continued to be consulted as the foremost authority on all things Wailers, including the definitive 2012 documentary “Marley,” which recounted Bob Marley's journey to becoming “the prophet of the oppressed.”
A devout Rastafarian who was not keen on the touring lifestyle, Livingston left the band in 1973 and began working on his first solo album, “Blackheart Man,” highly acclaimed as a roots reggae classic.
During the 1990s, he won three Grammys for albums celebrating the Marley legacy: “Time Will Tell: A Tribute to Bob Marley” (1991); “Crucial! Roots Classics” (1995); and “Hall of Fame: A Tribute to BM’s 50th Anniversary” (1997). The albums included collaborations with Marley's sons Damian, Stephen, and Ziggy.
In 2017, Livingston received Jamaica's Order of Merit, a national award bestowed on Jamaicans (and sometimes citizens of other countries) who are accomplished in the arts, literature or science.
In a mini-documentary film that captures the essence of his life, Livingston is portrayed as a beloved Rastafarian elder and griot, dedicated to his religion and to Jamaican music and culture.
Later in life, his natural charisma and effervescence—as seen in this interview clip for the acclaimed documentary on West Indies cricket, “Fire in Babylon”—gave way to reclusion and he did few live performances. A 2006 article in the Washington Post noted that “as a result, he has always been more of a cult figure than a commercial star, as well as one of reggae's most enigmatic figures in the bargain.”
Jamaicans may feel that with Wailer's passing, a chapter in Jamaican music has closed. In the evocative song “Dreamland”, which he co-wrote, he sings poignantly:
Oh, what a time that will be,
Oh, just to wait, wait, wait and see!
We'll count the stars up in the sky
And surely we'll never die.
And surely we'll never die.

author: Emma Lewis


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The misty beauty of Jamaica’s Blue Mountains captured on camera · Global Voices
Emma Lewis

For the 28th anniversary of the Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park, the Jamaica Conservation and Development Trust held a photography competition. Image courtesy the JCDT, used with permission.
For visitors to the famed Blue Mountains of Jamaica, at every turn, it seems that there is a beautiful subject for a photograph. The rugged, forested mountains dominate the skyline of the capital, Kingston, forming a high ridge along the central and eastern sections of the island. The range includes Jamaica’s highest point, Blue Mountain Peak (2,256 meters, or approximately 7402 feet).
The Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park was designated in 1993, two years after the Jamaica Conservation and Development Trust (JCDT)—the non-profit organisation that administers the area—led the first debt-for-nature swap in the English-speaking Caribbean with endowments from USAID, Conservation Trust of Puerto Rico and The Nature Conservancy.
In 2015, the Blue and John Crow Mountains were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a move seen as recognition of the value of its natural and cultural heritage.
This year marks the national park's 28th anniversary. The JCDT decided to have a photography competition to celebrate the milestone and on February 26, announced the winners. The judging panel included Donnette Zacca, founder of the Jamaica Photographic Society and photographer Gary Langley, who is based in the United Kingdom.
There were 86 entries spread among three categories: Youth, Nature, and Culture. The ultimate goal, according to JCDT Executive Director Dr. Susan Otuokon, is to create a coffee table book that includes some of the competition's best photographs.
The photo by Kabrina Hylton that won first place in the Youth category of the Jamaica Conservation and Development Trust's photography competition celebrating the 28th anniversary of the Blue and John Crow Mountains National Park. Photo courtesy the JCDT, used with permission.
To get to Blue Mountain Peak, you must endure a seven-mile trek. This stunning, crystal clear view comes into sight as you descend. Aspiring photographer Kabrina Hylton said, “I saw this amazing view between the trees while leaving.” She couldn't resist taking a photo; it won her first place in the Youth category.
This photo copped Jade Moyston second place in the Youth category. Photo courtesy the JCDT, used with permission.
Jade Moyston’s photograph, which depicted one of the many streams that flow from the mountains, was awarded second place in the Youth category. The judges deemed her entry “refreshing and cool.” It also illustrated the photographer's adeptness at working with slower shutter speeds to capture the effect of flowing water.
The photo shows a magnificent stream of water flowing down, from the heights of the Blue and John Crow Mountains, on its way to the valley below. The supply ensures that residents of the nearby village below have a clean and reliable water supply.
Jamaica's montane cloud forest shelters biodiversity of global importance. Over half of the park’s flowering plants are endemic to Jamaica, and one-third to the national park itself. Many of the competition's submissions, therefore, reflected the park's ethereal landscape, with tree ferns, lichens, bromeliads and mosses hanging from the trees.
Xavier Allen photographed the exquisite curl of a young fern opening, winning him third place in the Youth category. Photo courtesy the JCDT, used with permission.
Sherard Little's winning photograph in the Nature category, entitled “Tranquility.” Photo courtesy the JCDT, used with permission.
The lonely, historic Cinchona Botanical Garden, established in 1868, was the subject of the first-placed photograph in the Nature category by Sherard Little. Entitled “Tranquility,” it communicates multiple aspects of the mountains, all at once: its great height, its unique biodiversity in the unusual shape of the tree and the surrounding vegetation, its long history and man's coexistence with nature, both from the perspective of human coexistence (the building and chimney) and introspection (the bench).
This photo of the Oatley Mountain Trail, by Reichel Neil, took second place in the Nature category. Photo courtesy the JCDT, used with permission.
Reichel Neil's captivating photo of the Oatley Mountain Trail, which won her second place in the Nature category of the competition, was described as “dramatic and flavorful” by judge Donnette Zacca.
A photograph of trees by B’Andra Haughton-Walters won third place from the judges of the Jamaica Conservation and Development Trust photography competition. Photo courtesy JCDT, used with permission.
B’Andra Haughton-Walters said that her dreamy photograph of trees in the mist was “a stark contrast to the city below.”
Photographer Melanie Taylor’s calm, almost mystical image, which is captioned “Find yourself, test your limits, be fulfilled,” captured the judges’ imagination and earned her first place in the Culture category.
First place in the Cultural section was this serene scene by Melanie Taylor. Photo courtesy the JCDT, used with permission.
Sherard Little’s shot of a farmer and his donkey won second place in the Culture category. Photo courtesy the JCDT, used with permission.
Coming in a close second in the Culture category was Sherard Little’s sepia-toned photograph of a farmer striding downhill with his donkey, which the judges found had a “timeless” air.
Historically, the Blue and John Crow Mountains were a refuge to the Windward Maroons who escaped their enslavement. The area, therefore, preserves the tangible cultural heritage associated with their story, including trails, archaeological sites and settlements. Centuries later, the Maroon culture remains vibrant.
A bench drum is held aloft in this Culture entry by Peter-Ann Higgins which won third place. Photo courtesy the JCDT, used with permission.
In this third-placed photograph by Peter-Ann Higgins, taken at the three-day wake for the beloved leader of the Charlestown Maroons, Colonel Frank Lumsden, a gumbe or bench drum is lifted during the ceremony.
Coffee mill and waterwheel by Sherard Little. Photo courtesy JCDT, used with permission.
Sherard Little’s sepia picture of an old coffee mill and waterwheel in Clydesdale offered intimacy and texture.
Marie Baillie’s entry of a house nestled on the hillside won third place in the Nature category. Photo courtesy the JCDT, used with permission.
Marie Baillie’s photograph captures the coexistence of man and nature, proof, the photographer says, that “one can live” in the Blue Mountains, in harmony with nature.
Several entrants observed that the Blue Mountains offered a sense of calm and retreat. Judge Donnette Zacca encouraged the photographers to continue trying to capture the area’s unique atmosphere, and the “stillness that defines the aura and beauty of the mountains,” saying, “Please keep your awareness of this beautiful place alive.”


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African media perpetuating harmful stereotypes about the continent, report finds · Global Voices
Njeri Wangari

A screenshot of the Africa No Filter 2021 report on how African media covers the continent
Over-reliance on international news wire agencies is the main reason why African media outlets continue to perpetuate harmful narratives about Africa, a recent study has found.
The “How African Media Covers Africa” report released in February 2021 offers a deeper understanding of why poverty, war, disease and failed elections continue to dominate media coverage in Africa. The report which sought to establish how African media in various countries cover stories from the rest of Africa surveyed people in the media industry to find out why this trend continues. Twenty-five senior media practitioners from seven African countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda and Tanzania—including foreign correspondents and senior African journalists and editors—were convened for focus group discussions.
The survey focused on what determines which stories are prioritized, the way stories on Africa are framed by African media, who tells these stories (African reporters or foreign press), what constraints bedevil reporting on Africa and what interventions are needed to eradicate the negative stereotypes of the continent by media in Africa.
Commissioned by Africa no Filter, a donor collaborative that aims to shift harmful stereotypes and misconstrued ideas about the continent, the report shares some insights into the underbelly of African media.
How African Media Covers Africa 2021 Report – A pie chart showing the types of stories given the most and the least priority
According to the report, many stories published by African media about Africa follow the “if it bleeds, it leads” trail. Politics, elections, and crises in Africa and other “hard news” stories, such as protests, dominate news coverage. Hard news, the report finds, accounts for 80 per cent of all coverage and dominates the coverage of Africa while features and opinion pieces only contribute 8 and 6 per cent, respectively.
Whereas the report found that some of the media reviewed dedicated sections for news from the rest of Africa, it noted that most almost exclusively restricted their coverage to local or national news. Forty-seven percent included events happening in other African countries in their news diaries while 11 per cent said they did not do so. Coverage by country is often concentrated on a handful of countries which the report noted is often heightened around elections.
How African Media Covers Africa 2021 report – Statistics on the percentage of stories by author
Sixty-three percent of African media outlets don't have correspondents in Africa, the report found. Their news stories are almost exclusively sourced from international wire news agencies whose primary audience is Europe. Agence France-Presse (AFP) accounted for 14 per cent of the stories; the BBC, 9 per cent; Reuters and Al Jazeera contributed 4 and 2 per cent, respectively. According to the editors surveyed, the supremacy of these news wire agencies is due to their offer of cheaper alternatives to maintaining a full newsroom and retaining foreign correspondents.
This cheaper alternative has come at a huge cost to how Africa is perceived both at home and on global news maps. This, the report found, has come at the expense of positive narratives such as the change that the youth of the continent are making. Also lost amid all the shallow news is the “Silicon Savannah” story of the continent’s innovators, whose stories are not being told by African media.
Only 45 per cent of the editors surveyed said that their publications had an Africa page. Fifty per cent agreed that there are stereotypes in the articles they run,  despite their desire for more inspiring coverage:
“African crisis sells, but when local media positively changes how they cover stories, broader African media will pick up on that trend.”
- Sentiments of some participants in a survey focus group for the report.
Lack of funding to write or produce original stories was found to be the biggest constraint. Editors also attributed the superficial coverage to shrinking newsrooms because of dwindling advertising revenues. Media publications globally have suffered reduced revenues because of the effects of the COVID-19  pandemic. According to Print Media Global Market Report 2021:
“The outbreak of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has acted as a significant restraint on some of the print media markets in 2020 following reduced circulation and dwindling advertising as businesses were disrupted due to lockdowns imposed by governments globally.”
The pandemic aside, traditional revenue models that have been the mainstay for print media globally have been imploding. A May 2020 Africa Portal article entitled “Journalism in jeopardy: Mitigating the impact of COVID-19 on newspapers” noted that:
“The traditional business model for newspapers, underpinned by advertising and circulation, has imploded. This is not a new occurrence or due to COVID-19: revenue from these two sources has been steadily declining in recent years due to the uptake of digital news and the challenging economic environment in many African countries.”
- Africaportal.org, May 2020
The report concludes with some recommendations from both the survey respondents and Africa No Filter, including:
The need for African media to rethink its business model is something that, though not captured in the Africa No Filter report, is inevitable and necessary for its survival. Paywalls and digital subscription models have become the new industry standard for print media globally. Unfortunately for African media, this shift to alternative business models has been more of a knee-jerk reaction that, for most, was triggered by the pandemic. Early this year, one of Kenya’s leading newspapers, Daily Nation, announced its adoption of a paywall.
However, as News24.com noted, paywalls won’t save journalism; it is good journalism and content that readers appreciate and are willing to pay for that will make the difference. This report makes similar recommendations regarding the importance of rich content that incudes diverse topics and the voices of more people. However, as the report notes, good journalism requires investment.

author: Njeri Wangari


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Iran’s oppression of its Christians tears daughter from convert parents · Global Voices
Fred Petrossian

Cartoon by Sharok Heidari on Iranian Christians’ resistance to the state's securitization of their status. Used with permission.
Lydia was 3 months old in 2019 when she was adopted by Sam Khosravi and his wife, Maryam Falahi, in Iran. At almost two years of age, and with serious health conditions, she was torn from her parents by a court ruling in July 2020. The reason was that Khosravi and his wife had converted to Christianity from Islam, and could not, therefore, parent a child originally born into a Muslim family.
This legal case is a testimony of what human rights groups describe as the Islamic Republic's continued repressive policy towards its Christian population, especially converts.
According to Article 13 of Iran's constitution, Zoroastrian, Jewish, and Christian Iranians such as Armenians and Assyrians and not converts from Islam, are the only religious minorities acknowledged by the state, and are, within the limits of the law, free to perform their religious rites.
Christians in Iran are estimated to be between 500,000 and 800,000 worshippers, some of Assyrian and Armenian Christian ethnicities, but a majority consists of converts. This is less than one percent of Iran’s population of 83.5 million people.
While recognized religious minorities still face structural discrimination, the Islamic Republic's targeting of non-recognized religious minorities, including Christian converts, is broader and harsher.
In the appeal's court which upheld the ruling in September, the judge pointed out that Lydia and her adoptive parents had an “intense emotional bond” and that the couple had provided the love and care needed for her to thrive. In his verdict, he added that the now almost 2-year-old would have no chance of finding another adoptive family due to her health issues. However, the court still went ahead with pulling the family apart.
Lydia's adoptive parents have also been targeted by Iranian authorities in the past. Khosravi and his wife, Maryam Falahi, were among the Christian family members who got arrested in coordinated raids on their homes in Bushehr in July 2019. In June 2020, they were given a variety of sentences including prison terms, fines, work restrictions, and internal exile.
The Netherlands-based Hossein Ahmadiniyaz, one of  Lydia's lawyers,  told Global Voices that the family's request for a resumption of proceedings in the Supreme Court has so far been unanswered and while the toddler is still with her parents, the execution order to get her away has been issued. He added that he has written a letter on November about Lydia's case to Javid Rahman, UN special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, asking him to intervene. This letter too remains unanswered.
Since 1979, scores of people of minority faith or religion, such as Bahais, Kurds, and Christians, have been sent to jail in Iran for “acting against national security” or “propaganda against the state.” This ranked Iran as the 8th worst country for Christians to live in by Open Doors, a Christian persecution watchdog based in the United Kingdom.
In its response to the UN experts’ inquiry about 24 Christians being persecuted for their beliefs, the Iranian state defended its stance, arguing that the accused “acted against national security” — charges which the UN experts’ letter said reflect the “securitization of minority religions” in the Islamic Republic.
According to a February report published by four Christian organizations, the post-1979 Iranian state “has been trying to impose a homogenous identity” on its people with an Islamic Shi'a belief system, “resulting in the repression of minority groups — their culture, traditions, religious beliefs and whatever else is considered a threat to the Islamic Republic and its values.”
Mansour Borji, executive director of Article 18, a leading London-based Christian advocacy organization, says to Global Voices :
The challenges Christian face in today’s Iran is rooted in the intolerant views of the Islamic revolutionaries who want to maintain a monopoly or a total control over every aspect of people’s life, and most importantly, the rights to choose one’s own faith and practice it. The disturbing reality is that the state increasingly resorts to more violent methods to marginalize, dehumanize, and eliminate unrecognized Christians.
In particular, regarding the care and protection of abused or unaccompanied children, the constitution pays attention only to human and moral aspects, meaning that any Iranian citizen, regardless of his or her religion, can apply for custody of a child. Nowhere in these laws or regulations is there any mention of the religion of the applicant, but, rather, in the first place, being an Iranian citizen and of good moral character is the criterion for eligibility.
کمپین «من هم یک #مسیحی هستم» در استکهلم،در اعتراض به حکم دادگاه #بوشهر برای استرداد فرزندخوانده یک زوج #نوکیش مسیحی دست به تجمع زده است. در این تجمع به سرکوب مسیحیان و دیگراندیشان در #ایران اعتراض شده است.https://t.co/q5jCrU4y6D
— Article18 (@articleeighteen) October 30, 2020
Mary Mohammadi, a Christian convert and human rights activist, who shared her prison story in “White Torture“, commented ironically on Lydia's verdict in a tweet that said:
در صورت جدا کردن او از خانواده احتمال اینکه خانواده دیگری او را به فرزندی بپذیرد صفر است.
رفتار حکومت جمهوری اسلامی با مسیحیان به معنای “بمیر” مودبانه است.https://t.co/DNrMoxkEAz
متن خبر را از طریق لینک کامل بخوانید#مریم_فلاحی#سام_خسروی#حضانت_کودک#حق_پدر_بودن#حق_مادر_بودن
— Mary mohammadi | ماری محمدی (@marymohammadii) September 24, 2020

author: Fred Petrossian


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LIVE on March 9: Will Argentina’s ‘green tide’ on abortion rights spread throughout Latin America? · Global Voices
Melissa Vida

Photo credits (L to R): Romina Navarro on Global Voices; Lara Va vía Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0); Juan Diez vía Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).
The legalization of abortion in Argentina in December 2020 triggered a wave of debates on reproductive rights across Latin America. Several countries in the region impose a total ban on abortion; and in others where the practice has been fully or partially legalized, it faces strong backlash from pro-life groups.
Join us on March 9 for the latest in our Global Voices Insights live webinar series, where a panel will explore the impact of the Argentina decision on the rest of Latin America, and attempt to answer the question: Will Argentina's “green tide” spread throughout the region, changing laws and attitudes around abortion?
The session, which will be conducted in Spanish and moderated by Melissa Vida, Global Voices’ regional editor for Latin America, starts at 6pm UTC (12pm Mexico City and Central America/1pm Bogotá/3pm Buenos Aires/7pm Madrid), and features the following:
The session is free of charge and open to the public, and will be live-streamed on Facebook Live, YouTube y Twitch.
We look forward to having you join us on March 9 at 6pm UTC (click this link to convert to your local time zone)!

author: Melissa Vida


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Press freedom in Jammu and Kashmir: An interview with journalist Anuradha Bhasin · Global Voices
VideoVolunteers

Anuradha Bhasin, executive editor of the newspaper Kashmir Times. Screenshot from YouTube video by VideoVolunteers.
This post originally appeared on Video Volunteers, an award-winning international community media organisation based in India. An edited version is published here as part of a content-sharing agreement.
In an interview broadcast on February 11, VideoVolunteers community correspondent Basharat Amin interviewed Anuradha Bhasin, executive editor of the Daily Kashmir Times newspaper, to understand the present situation of freedom of the press in Jammu and Kashmir.
On August 5, 2019, the government of India, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), revoked Article 370 of the Indian constitution that provided special autonomy status to the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir. Hundreds of political leaders were placed under house arrest, and access to mobile, landline and internet networks were suspended. Roadblocks were set up on the streets as restrictions on movement were enforced and anyone who protested was detained.
In this interview, Bhasin talks (in English) about press freedom during the Nineties, when militancy against the Indian administration began in the valley, to the current situation where Article 370 has been scrapped and the government has lifted the 4G internet blockade after nearly 18 months.
Anuradha Bhasin has been working for one of the oldest newspapers of Jammu and Kashmir. She is a strong supporter of press freedom and has been in news for being a critic of the Modi government. She petitioned in the Supreme Court for revoking the curbs on communication put in place after the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir. It was due to her plea that the Government of India restored 2G data internet services in the locked-down region of Kashmir.
“Local newspapers have stopped publishing anything that is critical of the government,” said Bhasin while talking about surveillance and harassment of journalists at the hands of the administration. She reminded journalists of their role of being the voice of the people, particularly of those being oppressed and marginalised.
The interview also focussed on the new media policy formulated in Kashmir, apparently to counter the spread of misinformation or fake news. “When TV channels start disseminating fake information, no action is taken against them because some of those things go in favour of the ruling government,” said Bhasin.

author: VideoVolunteers


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Sudan’s revised cybercrime law falls short on its promise · Global Voices
Khattab Hamad

Protesters gather inside and on top of a train in Sudan during the revolution, August 17, 2019. Photo by Manula Amin, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
This article is part of UPROAR, a Small Media initiative that is urging governments to address digital rights challenges at the Universal Periodic Review (UPR).
On February 11, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, chairman of the Sudanese Sovereign Council, registered a cybercrime lawsuit against Sudanese politician and political activist, Orwa Alsadig.
The lawsuit has sparked controversy over the nature of Sudan’s current cybercrime law, and the potential to abuse the law to limit freedom of expression.
Alsadig is under investigation for a solidarity speech he made on behalf of his colleague, Salah Manna, on February 6.
That day, Manna had been arrested and taken to the office of the specialized prosecution of the crimes against the state for “stirring hatred against security forces, disrepute and offense and insult,” after Manna allegedly accused Burhan of using the council’s powers to release former dictator Omar al-Bashir’s wife from prison.
Manna and Alsadig are both members of the Empowerment Removal Committee, a legal team tasked with dismantling Bashir’s administration. Alsadig made his controversial speech among supporters as Manna was being released from the investigation.
Alsadig's speech circulated widely on social media. He was later charged with publishing lies or and fake news and committing insults of disrepute under Articles 24, 25, and 26 of the 2020 cybercrime law, known in Arabic as قانون مكافحة جرائم المعلوماتية or “the law to combat information crimes.”
He told Global Voices:
I was interrogated about the authenticity of the posted clip, and whether I captured or published it, the content of the conversation in it and the indications of some of the phrases that I mentioned.
Alsadig adamantly denies any wrongdoing in the complaints lodged against him.
The 2020 cybercrime law amends the 2018 law legislated during Bashir’s rule, but does not change much except an increase in the penalty period.
Surprisingly, the Ministry of Justice never published the 2018 law in its official gazette, which is inconsistent with legal norms.
Alsadig told Global Voices:
This law was designed by the deposed dictatorial regime to limit the freedom of activists, bloggers, and media professionals, as well as other laws such as the press and publications law. It is certainly a cause for authoritarianism and can be used in a bad way that limits freedom of expression.
How can Sudan hold citizens accountable for the law when they lack access to the text of these laws?
After Sudan's revolution in 2019, the country entered a transitional period during which lawmakers legislate without a parliament or representation. Instead, they carry out legislation behind closed doors without consultation with representatives. Until a formal parliament is created, the joint meeting of the Sovereign Council and cabinet hold the power to legislate.
Now, workshops are being held under the auspices of the European Union to amend the 2020 cybercrime law. According to a leaked copy of the 2018 law, some articles have led to confusion, particularly Article 5-3:
Anyone who enters a network of information or a network of communication directly or remotely with the purpose of getting data or information related to the national security or national economy or telecommunication infrastructure or sensitive information will be punished for 10 years or fine or both.
Terms such as “national security” and “sensitive information” lack definition.
This enables government institutions to violate fundamental freedoms. Moreover, the law does not specify which institutions can interpret these categories.
Article 7 criminalizes network shutdown if a citizen is responsible but does not mention what happens if the government cuts off network access — which has already happened three times in 2019 and 2020.
Article 24 of the law also criminalizes publishing lies and “fake news”:
Anyone who uses a telecom or information network or an application or any other communication tool to publish rumors or news or a report and he/she knows it's fake aiming to spread the fear to the people or threatening the public peace or decreasing the prestige of the state will be punished for one year or fine or both of them.
Again, the law lacks critical definitions of terms such as “the prestige of the state” and which institutions would arbitrate.
Article 23 criminalizes the violation of one’s privacy if committed by a citizen, according to the 2018 law, but not if the violation of privacy occurs as a result of a judiciary or prosecutorial or other “designated authority.”
Once again, the law does not provide any clarity about what defines the “designated authority” to violate a citizen’s privacy.  The state may therefore activate this article to violate the privacy of opposition and activist voices.
In fact, the right to violate privacy gets reinforced in Sudan’s national security law amendments of 2020, Article 25, which states:
The security service has the right to request information, data, documents or things from anyone to check it or take it.
Security services can lawfully violate a citizen’s privacy without asking for any permission.
Alsadig’s case is not the first time the government has activated these laws against the opposition and the activists. The military has also abused these laws to threaten the journalists and activists.
Alsadig told Global Voices:
If [this lawsuit] was intended to preserve the prestige of the sovereign institution, then it achieved the opposite of its purposes and diminished its prestige, but made it a cause for jokes and ridicule.
Sudan is in a dire need of reforming its cybercrime law.
According to a Freedom House report, Sudan's score on civil liberties is 10 out of 60 in 2020.
Ahmed Elsanousi, a lawyer who specializes in criminal code and administrative law, told Global Voices that Burhan surely has the right to register a lawsuit.
“This is remarkable progress in a post-dictatorship Sudan,” he said.
However, the law itself “contains vague and unclear terms” and is therefore easily exploitable. He also mentioned that the revised cybercrime law does not yet represent citizens because it is essentially an old law enacted under the former regime.
It has become imperative to enact a law that keeps pace with technological development, taking into account the legislation of appropriate penalties. There is a penalty of imprisonment for a person of 20 years, and I think it is a very severe punishment, and I believe that it is intended to intimidate activists from investigating the facts, writing opinions and publishing against the government. This can be seen in that most of the legal cases directed according to this law are directed against activists and politicians.
While Alsadig remains under investigation for his impassioned speech, he is calling for urgent reform to the cybercrime law in Sudan:
Sudan needs laws that control media work and combat publishing that incites hate speech because the community bullion is torn apart and distorted by the ethnic, religious, and gender polarization that we inherited from the deposed government and its regime.
It is imperative to reform all laws and legislations in line with the international bill that guarantees freedom of expression. The blame does not fall on Burhan as much as it is on his legal adviser, who did not see the legacy of the sovereignty where it did not sue or try someone who criticized it for disagreeing with it.

author: Khattab Hamad


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New Chinese-led port project faces backlash from local residents and environmentalists in Peru · Global Voices
Isolda Morillo

Protest against the port in 2019. Photo by Miriam Arce, used with permission.
Peruvian civil organizations are warning of the serious impact on human health and the environment that could result from the construction of the Chancay Multipurpose Port Terminal, a project led by Chinese company COSCO and by a Peruvian extractive company, Volcan Compañía Minera.
COSCO aims to make the Chancay port a “key hub of South America and a gateway to the Pacific,” as the port is located 58 kilometers north of Lima, Peru’s political and business capital. Chancay Port authorities stated that the project will generate more than 9,000 jobs, 90 per cent of which will be filled by local people.
Former Peruvian President Martín Vizcarra said in 2019 that, with this project, the country is expected to provide “one of the best port offers in all of South America.”
In early 2019, COSCO acquired 60 per cent of Volcan's stake at the Chancay port, which is worth 225 million U.S. dollars, according to Chinese state media Xinhua and China Daily. It is now the first terminal project controlled by COSCO in South America. The port operations are expected to start in 2023 and includes multi-purpose terminals, container terminals and related infrastructure facilities, with a total annual designed capacity of one million TEU. This would make for a mid-size port, considered a big leap for the region.
After a series of protests that started in 2019, local activists and residents called for modification of the construction planning in August 2020. A few months later, COSCO and Volcan presented some changes. Yet, despite the continued criticism, the Peruvian authorities approved the construction in December 2020. Upon obtaining the green light, COSCO will further invest 1.3 billion U.S. dollars to carry out the first stage of the project—construction is set to start in April this year.
Socially distanced protest in 2020. Photo by Miriam Arce, used with permission.
Local organizations claim that the consulting company hired by COSCO and Volcan concealed the magnitude of the hazardous impact of the new port.
Peru is one of the most biodiverse countries in the world. Impact on wetlands, high emissions of toxic pollutants, noise pollution, alteration of the coastline, massive mortality of the flora and fauna of the area, are just some of the 50 observations made in 2020 by Mundo Azul, a local NGO, which reviewed the environmental impact documents presented by COSCO and Volcan to Peruvian environmental authorities.
Stefan Austermühle, biologist and executive director of Mundo Azul, claims the environmental assessment presented by COSCO and Volcan holds disputable and incomplete information.
“The environmental impact assessment hides the true impacts and should not be approved by the government in its current form,” Austermühle told Global Voices. “However, given the position of the government and the political lobbying and influence of the project investors, it seems unlikely that the government will listen to our opinion.” The project, he said, will result in serious environmental impacts and affect the health of the local population.
The construction of the terminal will require deep dredging of land, which will alter sea currents and wave directions, affect the marine fauna and result in massive mortality of marine species during the process of construction, Austermühle said. It will also affect the natural ecosystem of the neighboring Santa Rosa wetland, an important biodiversity hub.
Photo of a protest in 2019 by Miriam Arce, used with permission.
Residents claim that their homes in surrounding cliffs will be affected by the severe alteration of the site. Their questions have, however, remained unanswered.
“We have not been provided with any guarantee that residents and owners of properties in this area will be compensated financially if damage or total loss is caused by the impact of the project,” Miriam Arce, president of the Association in Defense of Housing and the Environment of the Port of Chancay, told Global Voices.
“Throughout the history of Peru, investments are located wherever they want, as long as they bring money, and the state or government allows this to happen,” Arce continued. She has been protesting port enlargement projects since 2008.
“It is a populated area, we have our history, our particular biodiversity, some people make a living from the tourism industry. If the project goes ahead, everything will be changed forever, we will never recover from this,” she says.
The project also contemplates lowering the height of the neighboring hill, Cerro Cascajo, from 80 to 4 meters. “They justify that the sounds and dust that are emitted will be mitigated when lowering the height. But what about the people who live on the hill?” Williams Jurado, president of the Santa Rosa de Chancay Wetland Surveillance Committee, asked local media. “We have (up to 50 families) living there.”
In the meantime, residents, activists, and local organizations continue holding virtual meetings with authorities to press their case.
Miriam Arce and others have launched pages on social networking website Facebook (ChancaySostenible and Coordinadora en defensa de los intereses de Chancay), hoping to gain more support for overturning the government’s decision to allow the expansion of the Port Terminal project in Chancay in April. Joining forces with other organizations, Arce has reached out to members of Congress, with little gain so far.
Photo of a protest in 2019 by Miriam Arce, used with permission.
This story is part of a Civic Media Observatory investigation into competing narratives about China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and explores how societies and communities hold differing perceptions of potential benefits and harms of Chinese-led development. To learn more about this project and its methods, click here.

author: Isolda Morillo


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Transphobic discourse is the real ‘Trojan horse’ of Mexican feminism · Global Voices
Laurel Miranda

Photo and illustration by Laurel Miranda, used with permission.
The original text was written by journalist and transwoman Láurel Miranda It had been published in the Mexican media Milenio before being withdrawn after a Mexican feminist group criticized it. The original translation into English can be found on the translator's blog, NorthernLauren.
If you’re a feminist and you don’t stand up to people who abuse trans and nonbinary people in the name of said political movement, I’m afraid to say that that’s called complicity. In the same way that we interrogate the patriarchal boy’s club in order to denounce male complicity (by way of their silence or passivity in the face of their fellow man’s misogyny), we can and must speak, too, of cisgender feminist women who choose to overlook the transphobic actions of their supposed sisters.
Transphobia has been allowed to get so far in Mexico that there are now “feminist marches” which fight not for the rights of women but to impede the trans community’s access to them. This is exactly what’s been happening in places like the state of Puebla, where a radfem collective has identified as their principal project the blocking of Ley Agnes, an initiative that would allow trans people to have their gender identity recognised by way of an administrative process. Something similar is going on in the state of Mexico, where another collective has put out a call for the feminist march on March 8 to be “against the erasure of women.”
What do they mean by erasure of women? Which women? White, racialized, poor, sex workers, trans? How could more than half the world population be erased? Well, in just the same way that concepts like “gender ideology” or the “gay agenda” swept in from the most conservative sections of society to stamp out sexual and gender diversity, we’re now facing the supposed “erasure of women.” This is apparently not a concept-driven by either the church or the extreme right, but rather by the voices of feminist journalists, writers and intellectuals, such as the ex-member of parliament for the Spanish party PSOE, Ángeles Álvarez, the Mexican anthropologist and academic Marcela Lagarde or the creator of Harry Potter, JK Rowling.
This fight has popped up in countries like Spain, the U.K. and now Mexico, to block laws that would allow trans and nonbinary people to have their gender recognised through administrative processes, rather than court rulings or gender certifications—for which they’d need the presence of a psychologist or psychiatrist, as well as hormonal treatments, which have historically contributed to the pathologisation of trans people.
In Spain, for example, Ángeles Álvarez and the trans-exclusionary wing of Spanish feminism believe that approving the “Ley Trans” would put the representation of women at risk in various spheres of public life, including politics, sport, entertainment, and so on. Again, which women? Álvarez’s argument falls to pieces when we take into account the stats surrounding trans people. We’re minorities worldwide, and yet we suffer a high rate of hate crimes and suicide, as well as a shortened life expectancy. By contrast, there are very few trans people in the spheres mentioned above but, even so, they’re trotted out sensationalistically, especially in the sporting arena, to suggest that the presence of trans women threatens the likelihood of “biological women” [sic] winning.
It seems incredible to me that in 2021, after decade upon decade of feminism and gender studies, phrases like “biological women” and “biological men” [sic] continue to be used as arguments to discount the legitimacy of trans identities and to openly wage war against our most basic rights: identity, free development of personality, an absence of discrimination, access to education and a decent job.
And the thing is, it’s more than being against the “erasure of women.” Trans exclusionary voices are against gender and in favour of revindicating the material reality of sex as the single and deciding factor to determine who is and isn’t a woman. So, it’s about taking an essentialist stance which feminism has in fact spent years fighting against. Consider also that their sexed reality implies a “primary oppression,” with which they universalize the experiences of all women. This sidelines facets of identity like race, class or sexual orientation, which for some women are the principal oppressions beneath which they live.
“There are Black women, lesbian women, trans women and poor women. They suffer discrimination not just for being women, but for their race, their gender, or their socioeconomic situation (…) Feminism is against gender oppression and exploitation, and if there are women affected by racism or homophobia or transphobia, fighting against that is part of liberation”, says British feminist and journalist Reni Eddo-Lodge.
Given the particularity of our realities and the distinct violences trans people suffer, I feel I should be upfront and point out that, here, I’m speaking to the dangers of trans exclusionary speech for trans women, in particular. However, I’d like to emphasise that this speech also threatens other ways of life. Trans men, for example, are called “sisters” if they decide to detransition or traitors and “lesbophobes” if they decide to stand firm on their gender affirmation. It’s enough to look at the violence levelled at trans men who (given that they’re also capable of becoming pregnant) have attended marches in favour of the decriminalization of abortion.
As Gracia Trujillo and Moira Pérez point out, “What often stands out in TERF feminism is a refusal to include trans women within the women’s movement (or the collective itself). However, it’s really about exclusionary feminism in broader terms, which opposes—from a position of privilege—distinct forms of decision-making autonomy, bodily autonomy, right to identity, the right to a life without violence … The exclusionary feminist movement goes against many forms of being: the entire trans and nonbinary spectrum, sex workers or anyone who resorts to surrogacy, among others. In the case of those last two, sex work and surrogacy are understood at all times to constitute violence against women. This analysis doesn’t adjust itself to reality; instead, it halts the advance of rights for the people directly involved in these practices and positions them as passive victims without even listening to them.”
The danger of this discourse doesn’t lie exclusively in its fight to limit rights, it also lurks in the way it functions as a breeding ground of reinforced stigmas and prejudice against our community. For example, take the recent case of graffiti by transphobic protestors, which positioned them as against the Ley de Identidad de Género (the Law of Gender Identity); however, it was incorrectly attributed to trans people by local sources, likely in an attempt to discredit them. At the end of the day, the way our identities are constructed by both press and discourse, which aligns us with the abnormal, the out of place, the irascible, feeds into the hate crimes perpetrated against us, especially transfemicides.
Not subscribing to transphobic speech or distancing yourself from it simply isn’t enough in the current climate. We must also position ourselves against it. That’s why I applaud the Dignas Hijas collective. After identifying the way in which feminism was being weaponized for transphobic ends, they launched an initiative last August called #NoEnNuestroNombre (#NotInOurName) to underscore that “trans rights are human rights, not a threat.”
Dear allies, dear cisgender feminists: if you want to spot the Trojan horse in your movement, I invite you to consider which discourse most closely aligns with that of the extreme right. Is it that which fights for the rights and honourable existence of trans people? Or is it that of your abolitionist “sisters,” who perceive danger in otherness? Let’s make no mistake: halting the laws which allow for the recognition of different gender identities won’t mean there are fewer trans people. It will only make our lives more difficult, limiting our access to human rights.
Right now, the troops are marching against trans people and sex workers and if we continue with these lukewarm rebuttals, it won’t be the (cis)patriarchy paying the price. It’ll be you.

author: Laurel Miranda


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Trinidadian activist and writer Colin Robinson, who did the ‘work of social history,’ has died · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Activist and writer Colin Robinson taking part in the open mic event at the Calabash Literary Festival, 2007. Photo by Georgia Popplewell on Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Trinidadian writer and staunch advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, Colin Robinson, passed away on March 4 after a long battle with colon cancer. He was 58 years old.
Robinson was one of the founders of the Coalition Advocating for the Inclusion of Sexual Orientation (CAISO), a civil society organisation that champions human rights issues for Trinidad and Tobago’s LGBTI (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex) communities and has built partnerships with feminist and other activist organisations.
CAISO aptly dubbed him its “Director of Imagination,” and in its statement on his death praised the way in which he “embodied fighting for justice using creative imagination and instilled in us the importance of collective voice and effort.”
Robinson said that his work at CAISO was about three things that excited him—analysis, alliances, and advocacy:
Leadership in CAISO provides opportunities to learn so much about policy and government, like how easily anyone can engage officials in a small place. I’ve grown to understand and own concerns of movements CAISO’s built alliances with—children’s advocates, violence survivors, people with disabilities, the highway rerouters—and admire the generosity and passion of other leaders. CAISO’s given me space to practise imagination. Imagination is as critical to social justice as power. Unless we imagine more just futures and how we get there, change won’t come.
Robinson deeply understood the concept that justice for one must translate into justice for all; his death prompted an outpouring from like-minded organisations such as Cause An Effect, which aims to improve the lives of people with disabilities in Trinidad and Tobago:
Thank you Colin Robinson, for your tireless work in the advocacy space. […] Thank you for your service and all that you did, with the time that you had.
His friend and colleague, Dr. Gabrielle Hosein, who lectures at The University of the West Indies’ Institute for Gender and Development Studies, noted the way in which Robinson would automatically make connections between seemingly disparate groups:
More than ten years ago, Colin gave a speech I’ll never forget. It was on reproductive rights, but he somehow wove in Spiritual Baptists, LBGTI folk and others you wouldn’t think share the same cause. If all who understood discrimination or life at the margins of state law and social acceptance were able to connect to each other’s desires for inclusion, then we could strengthen each other’s struggle to equally belong as many different bodies.
In their online tributes, colleagues and friends remembered his courageousness and mentorship of young people, the significance of his work, and his love of life even when “actively dying.”
Robinson, who wrote a weekly column for the Trinidad and Tobago Newsday, used the platform to publicly share his battle with cancer, announcing in a May 2020 article that his condition was terminal. His refreshing candour in that piece caused it to be liberally shared across social media platforms at the time:
My genes had bred a cancer that’s a better activist than me, which had promptly spread. I was Stage IV. […] And I am going to cuss the next person who tells me that, despite the bad news, they are praying for my total recovery.
There comes this moment when you realise—or decide—that what you are doing is dying. And that you need to quickly learn how to.
Part of that process was what Robinson called “the work of memory”:
[…] recording what I remember; and helping others to remember the paths I have trodden by leaving better markers of them—memoir-writing and archiving. This is not work only for the well-known. Indeed, in some ways it is work that is far more important for those not in the public record to undertake. […] It is the work of social history.
As a writer, Robinson contributed to several publications, including the book “Beyond Homophobia,” which aimed to disrupt the perception of the region as deeply homophobic by focusing on “the experiences and agency” of Caribbean LGBTQ people.
Peepal Tree Press, which published Robinson's debut collection of poetry, “You Have You Father Hard Head,” in 2016, described his verse as “acutely aware of the troubled history of race, politics and identity in Caribbean society […] taut, ironic, and richly evocative of various landscapes and cultures that have shaped him over the years”. (“Hard head” is a Caribbean expression for stubbornness.)
As a writer, he was a cherished friend of the Bocas Lit Fest, which featured his poetry at several live panels and online events. The Caribbean's premier literary festival put out a statement on his passing which acknowledged his activism and human rights work, his “consistently provocative newspaper columns” and, of course, his poetry:
We will return to his poems and other writings for the intrigue of his ideas and the pleasure of his wit. The difference he made, and the difference he was, will endure.
Robinson was one of four children raised by a school principal mother and a father who worked as a managing director in the finance sector. Upon completing secondary school in Port of Spain, he won a scholarship and left for Yale in 1980.
However, he found the Ivy League university “a culturally challenging space” and transferred to New York University, where he completed a degree in anthropology. He later got a master's degree in health policy and management from The New School, and lived and worked in New York for more than 20 years.
His work in LGBTQ+ advocacy came about after his first experience of having someone he knew die from AIDS. “I went to work in HIV,” he told fellow writer Lisa Allen-Agostini, “and really haven’t left.” His writing organically developed parallel to his community organising, a convergence which makes Allen-Agostini consider his work to be canon, “as he is one of the few openly gay Caribbean poets.”
University lecturer and fellow poet, Amilcar Sanatan, has cited Robinson's poetry as important in reconsidering Caribbean masculinity and patriarchy.
For his part, Robinson felt that the writing which made the most difference on a national scale was his newspaper column, as it allowed him “to write as a gay man about current affairs and culture.”
As Robinson's condition worsened, he made it known, via Facebook, that he was on his last, eager for connection, and would be happy to get messages, calls and visits while preparing to make his transition.
Invitation for the virtual Zoom event to honour writer and activist Colin Robinson, shared via WhatsApp.
On February 26, just about a week before he died, The Lloyd Best Institute of the Caribbean hosted a Zoom event for a reading of Robinson's poetry, which he attended along with some of his close friends and colleagues. It was a tribute to both his writing and his relentless human rights work.
Robinson wished he'd lived to see a few key things happen in Trinidad and Tobago: the expansion of the Equal Opportunity Act to protect members of the LGBTQ+ community, the establishment of both a national human rights institution and a shared management services hub for non-governmental organisations, and the adoption of international public health guidelines that give HIV-negative people access to antiretroviral drugs—something that the country's minister of health, Terrence Deyalsingh, opposes. Robinson had no qualms about saying it was his intention to haunt the minister.
That same sense of humour no doubt played its part in CAISO's decision to call its award for transformational activism and artistic boldness, named in honour of Robinson, the Hard Head Award — and a fitting testament to the fact that Robinson will be remembered in equal measure for his human rights work and his writing.
Activist Stephanie Leitch bid Robinson farewell by saying, “Thank you for loving us, when no one else would,” while poet Shivanee Ramlochan mused:
His work has lit a lamp long before I picked up a pen, and I followed that light in part without knowing its source. That is how a writing ancestry works, how a community is made around you.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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Virtual exhibit commemorates 1971 ‘Diliman Commune’ protests in The Philippines · Global Voices
Karlo Mongaya

Protest art installation by Toym Imao for the 50th anniversary of the Diliman Commune in front of the Quezon Hall administration building, University of the Philippines Diliman campus in Quezon City. Photo by Pol Torrente for Engkwentro, used with permission.
A virtual exhibit spearheaded by the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman through its Office for Initiatives for the Culture and the Arts (OICA) honors the legacy of the Diliman Commune. This historic event of 50 years ago saw students, faculty, staff and residents barricading the premier state university’s flagship campus in the national capital for nine days to defend against violent police incursions.
The virtual exhibit is entitled “Engkwentro: Sa(la)ysay ng Diliman Commune” (“Encounters: The Narrative and Sense of the Diliman Commune”) and is part of the UP Diliman Arts and Culture Festival held annually between February to April.
While UP’s commemorative activities were planned ahead of time, they gained added relevance amid the Rodrigo Duterte government’s targeting of UP as an alleged hotbed of “communist” rebel recruitment. The Department of National Defense (DND) Secretary Delfin Lorenzana on January 18 unilaterally terminated the UP-DND accord which prohibited military forces from entering campus without prior coordination with university administration.
A protest art installation by Fine Arts professor Toym Imao recreating the barricades of 1971 has served as the backdrop to protest rallies calling for the upholding of academic freedom. The installation is made of barricades of chairs, desks, and bamboo painted in bright red and towers in front of the administration building, Quezon Hall, a few meters away from the site of the main barricades set up along the university avenue 50 years ago.
On February 1, 1971, youth activists installed barricades on main roads along major universities in the national capital and surrounding regions to express solidarity with transport workers who were then on strike against rising oil prices. But at UP Diliman, the killing by a university professor of a student manning the barricades and the violent attempt by police to disperse the barricades spontaneously sparked a full takeover of the campus by protesting students.
Students, with the support of faculty, staff and residents declared the campus a “liberated zone” which they dubbed the “Diliman Commune” in reference to the Paris Commune, the 1871 workers’ uprising in Paris whose 100 anniversary was then being commemorated. They set up a “provisional directorate” coordinating the defense and governance on campus, reinforced the barricades, battled police incursions, and held their ground for nine days.
The “communards” took over the campus radio DZUP to broadcast radical messages and coordinate actions in the barricades. They also occupied the university press where they produced the newsletter “Bandilang Pula” (“Red Flag”) to disseminate their views and even produced improvised defensive weapons like Molotov cocktails, pillbox (homemade explosives) and kwitis firecrackers to shoo away military helicopters.
On February 8, the student-led provisional directorate decided to end the Commune after attaining some of their demands and in order to avert further violence from police forces. The barricades were torn down the next day, but the image of students barricading the country’s top university became a potent symbol of resistance against Ferdinand Marcos who would go on to declare himself dictator a year later in 1972.
Students forming a human barricade in front of UP Diliman's administration building Quezon Hall to block the invasion of police forces on the campus. Photo from Arkibong Bayan, used with permission.
The exhibition was set up virtually under the direction of Dr. Cecilia De La Paz, head curator and OICA's director so visitors can relive the days of the Diliman Commune from their homes.
Written entirely in the Filipino national language, the exhibit details the day-to-day events during the Commune, based on archival research and interviews with key participants and witnesses. It interpreted these encounters through the lens of Filipino national hero Jose Rizal’s 1879 poem “A La Juventud Filipino” (“To the Filipino Youth”), which exhorted young people to offer their talents and intelligence to their country.
The archival material includes a digitized copy of the UP administration’s “Final Report of Committee of Inquiry on the Events and Occurrences at the Diliman Campus from February 1 to 9, 1971,” written eyewitness accounts, activist pamphlets and newsletters, newspaper clippings, photos, and even a recording of a broadcast by DZUP.
‘The sixth day.’ Screenshot of a section of the ‘Engkwentro: Sa(la)ysay ng Diliman Commune’ virtual exhibit.
Alongside the historical narrative is an interactive map of the location of the events, based on a map drawn by Ar. Ringer Manalang of the UP Diliman Office of the Campus Architect and digitally rendered for the exhibit. Viewers can hover over or tap the icons and names of places on the map to show the events of each day:
Ang pagmamapa ng mga kaganapan ng Diliman Commune ay ang pagkilala sa kahalagahan ng mga lugar na sangkot sa yugtong ito ng kasaysayan ng UP Diliman – mga lansangan, silid-aralan, opisina, dormitoryo, at mga pook sa loob ng kampus na naging espasyo ng engkwentrong pisikal at ideyolohikal. Bilang lunsuran ng kilos-protesta, hindi naglaon ay naging espasyo ito ng pagbubuwis ng buhay, ng paninindigan sa ideyolohiyang pinanghahawakan, ng tensyong pangkomunidad, at ng paggamit ng sining at agham upang “protektahan” ang kampus ng Diliman bilang kanlungan ng malayang kaisipan.
The mapping of the events of the Commune is a recognition of the importance of the places involved in history of UP Diliman in this period – roads, classrooms, offices, dormitories, and places inside the campus that served as spaces for physical and ideological encounters. As the site of protest actions, these subsequently became spaces for the sacrifice of lives, of commitment to their ideological principles, of community tensions, and the use of art and science to “protect” the Diliman campus as a cradle of free thinking.
Screenshot of the interactive map of the events of the Diliman Commune in the ‘Engkwentro: Sa(la)ysay ng Diliman Commune’ virtual exhibit.
Apart from looking back on the events in 1971, the virtual exhibit explores the Commune and the decades of activist and intellectual foment in the 1960s and 1970s that prompted activism in academic work, inspired artistic and literary works, and underlined the need for asserting the university’s role as a safe space for free expression and intellectual discourse without fear of state repression.
One concrete expression of this legacy is the offering of Philippine Studies 21, the General Education subject in UP on the linguistic, cultural, and literary aspects of domination and people’s resistance during the Marcos dictatorship years.
As the Philippines continues to teeter towards full-blown authoritarian rule under Duterte, the narrative and historical lessons of the Diliman Commune should serve to inspire the continuing struggle for genuine freedom and democracy in the present.
Disclosure: The author is the head researcher for Engkwentro, UP Diliman’s commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Diliman Commune.

author: Karlo Mongaya


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Africa adrift, and awaiting Nigeria’s leadership? · Global Voices
Sanna Camara

Market in Tanji, on the Atlantic coast of The Gambia. Image by Rafael Vila, October 18, 2015 (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
On February 2, the Heads of States of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS ) held an extraordinary video conference summit, during which the regional bloc agreed to “prioritize support for the candidature of Nigeria” for the African Union’s Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security.
This led to the withdrawal of candidates for Deputy Chairperson of the African Union (AU) from The Gambia, in favour of Nigeria’s bid.
Nigeria is grateful to Heads of State and Government of the African Union for the overwhelming and historic endorsement of Amb. Bankole Adeoye, who was this weekend elected as the AU’s Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security, with all 55 votes possible.
— Muhammadu Buhari (@MBuhari) February 7, 2021
Africa's most populous nation is ECOWAS’ major financer. Hence, Nigeria’s prestige in The Gambia and within West Africa is understandable. But it also begs the question, when will Nigeria step up and provide real leadership in the African continent?
The Nigeria-led intervention in The Gambia is an example of how Nigeria's authority can be achieved.
The Gambia lies on the Atlantic coast but is surrounded on three sides by Senegal. For a country whose biggest landmass had been given to French Senegal as a compromise between British and French colonial interests, The Gambia is almost an enclave of Senegal and the smallest country on mainland Africa.
Map of The Gambia surrounded by Senegal. Wikimedia Commons image by Plucas58, November 26, 2016 (CC BY-SA 4.0)
When The Gambia's then-president Yahya Jammeh rejected the poll results in December 2016, Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari, on December 17, 2016, acted decisively and convened an ECOWAS extraordinary session in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, in which the regional bloc passed a resolution to use military force against Jammeh.
Senegal’s president Macky Sall and Buhari were both proponents of a resolution calling for military intervention if all efforts at dialogue failed. Buhari was the first to jet into the capital, Banjul, at the head of the ECOWAS delegation seeking a peaceful resolution.
Sall dared not go, as relations between Banjul and Dakar were at their lowest at the time. There were several border closures, and negotiations for mutual state issues went south. The closing of a crucial river crossing for Senegalese commuters inside The Gambia became a key issue and another was Jammeh's “suspected meddling in the Casamance” peace process. (A separatist rebellion in the Casamance, Southern Senegal which started in 1982, has claimed thousands of lives.)
Gambia's President-elect Adama Barrow was soon put on Buhari’s jet and flown out of Banjul for his safety. Senegal's Sall played the “Mboka” (Wolof for “brethren”) card to host Barrow in Dakar, which is nearer to Banjul than Buhari’s Abuja or the then ECOWAS chair Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s Monrovia.
Countries began pledging troops, topped by Senegal, as the closest neighbour, Nigeria and Ghana. In Operation Restore Democracy (code name for ECOWAS’ military mission in The Gambia 2017—ECOMIG), Nigeria deployed 800 soldiers and together with Ghana and Senegal, worked with about 125 members of the Gambian navy. Some of the Gambian armed forces who had shifted loyalty to Barrow, provided support for the ECOMIG intervention.
Some 2,500 ECOMIG forces remained in The Gambia after Jammeh went into exile and Barrow was installed in office, to provide security for the new president, his family and the government.
UN, ECOWAS partners kick-off Western Accord 2016. Image by U.S. Army Southern European Task Force, Africa, May 2, 2016 (CC BY 2.0)
France maintains more than 5,000 troops “fighting Islamic extremism” in the Sahel region—currently the country's largest deployment. Why would it be so important for France to maintain the largest military force of its army fighting wars in Africa when giants like Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa, Morocco can combine and constitute a continental force to protect their interests?
In addition, France continues to dictate the monetary policies of her former African colonies.
In March 2001, the West African Monetary Institute (WAMI) was charged by ECOWAS with the task of establishing a regional central bank and the ECO single currency. However, on December 21, 2019, some Francophone African countries, with the backing of France, announced the rebranding of their CFA franc currency as ECO. France, therefore, preemptively snatched away the fruits of over two decades of ECOWAS labour to forge the common currency.
Since France would not disconnect its colonial umbilical cord from its former West Africa colonies and accept ECOWAS projects like ECO, Nigeria must lead efforts to launch this currency and create a parallel monetary union to CFA francs zone.
President Cyril Ramaphosa welcomes Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari to South Africa. Image by GovernmentZA, October 3, 2019 (CC BY-ND 2.0)
Nigeria should take the lead on all African issues on peace and security challenges confronting the continent. Otherwise, the continent’s critical decisions on politics, defense, international peace and justice, plus multilateral solidarity among states will continue to be decided by foreign actors.
In 2018, Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo made similar calls on Nigeria to lead Africa’s industrialisation process and growth. Akufo-Addo cited the fact that his country and Côte d’Ivoire annually produce about 60 per cent of the world’s cocoa beans and yet earn less than 6 per cent of the global value-chain activities of the cocoa industry.
In Akufo-Addo’s view, Africa has the capacity to bolster its revenue position in the international market, using policy harmonisation, coordination, and effective collaboration between public and private sectors to drive effective and time-tested industrial frameworks, and so fully utilise Africa’s rich natural resources.
Nigeria has to muster the courage and begin acting strategically as it did with the emergence of Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iwella, the first African woman to lead the World Trade Organization (WTO):
It is done! Thank you @WTO members for finalizing my election today and making history. In the 73 years of GATT and WTO, honored to be First Woman and First African to lead. But now the real work begins. Ready to tackle the challenges of WTO. Forget Business as usual! pic.twitter.com/apnAalHWf5
— Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala (@NOIweala) February 15, 2021
The world watched Buhari sign the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement in Niamey, Niger, at the African Union Summit launch in 2019, while continental leadership and development multilateral partners cheered on:
#News #Nigeria: President Buhari signs Africa Free Trade Agreement. Buhari signed the Agreement Establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) today at the opening of 12th Extraordinary Session of Assembly of African Union Heads of State and Govt in Niamey, Niger.
— Nosa Irabor (@nosairabor) July 7, 2019
The economic prosperity of the African continent and West Africa, in particular, requires bold leadership. Who is better suited to provide it than Nigeria?

author: Sanna Camara


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Coup and resistance in Myanmar: A timeline of the first month under the 2021 military junta · Global Voices
Global Voices South East Asia

Protesters gathered at Yangon’s city center Sule on February 22, 2021. Used with Permission.
This article originally appeared on the blog of a Global Voices contributor who doesn't wish to be identified. It is published here as a three-part series.
Following the November 2020 general elections, Myanmar's democratic transition took an unexpected turn. Early on the morning of Monday, February 1, just before the first parliamentary session of the newly elected National League for Democracy (NLD) government, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing of the Tatmadaw, Myanmar's military, staged a coup d'état and arrested the country’s state counsellor, Aung San Suu Kyi, and its president, Win Myint.
The General claimed the results of the elections were invalid, alleging that the ruling NLD had committed massive fraud.
The coup leader immediately declared a year-long state of emergency. On the first day, the military-appointed 11 ministers to an interim cabinet, and on the following day announced that it has formed the State Administrative Council, a government council comprised mainly of ex-military members.
Many citizens were quick to express their opposition to the Council, and have been pushing back with fierce resistance since day one of the coup.
The anti-coup movement gained momentum throughout February, with citizens engaging in online protests and acts of civil disobedience. The military responded with draconian laws, internet shutdowns, arrests, and violent crackdowns resulting in the deaths of protesters and even bystanders.
Here is a timeline of what happened in Myanmar in the first month of the coup:
Early in the morning of February 1, the day of the coup, phone and internet service from most providers were cut, and only fully restored after 3 pm that day.
In the first few days, some analysts advised people not to go out on the streets, fearing—based on the country's previous experience with coups—that a violent uprising could help the military legitimize their rule.
But protests spontaneously broke out across the country, and as the month wore on, the use of non-violent methods of expressing dissent became a core principle of the movement.
Civilians raised three fingers to show their defiance against the military, a gesture inspired by protests in neighboring Thailand, which  borrowed the gesture from the popular Hollywood movie “The Hunger Games.” The gesture quickly became a widely used anti-coup symbol.
On the second day of the coup, some residents of Yangon, Myanmar's largest city, took to banging metal pots and pans as a sign of protest each day at 8pm. This form of protest, traditionally known as “သံပုံးတီး”  (Than Pone Tee) or playing buckets, had also been used during the 1988 revolution against the previous junta. By the following day, it had spread across the nation.
Throughout the first week, vehicles on the streets in cities across Myanmar also honked their horns in protest against the coup.
On February 3, employees of 110 government hospitals began a civil disobedience movement (CDM) and enjoined workers in other government ministries and offices to join the movement known as the “Red Ribbon Campaign.” By February 4, the CDM had gained traction and massive support.
In order to quell the growing resistance, on February 4 the military council ordered internet and telecommunications service providers to block Facebook, the social media platform most widely used in Myanmar, then Twitter and Instagram the following day. The block has not been lifted as of the time of writing.
On February 5, parliament members from the ousted NLD called a meeting and formed the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH) as a counter to the military council.
The period between February 4 and 6 saw small-scale protests led by students and activists erupting in Myanmar’s largest cities, Yangon and Mandalay. Some protest organizers in Mandalay were arrested.
On Saturday, February 6, around 10:30 am local time, the military ordered a nationwide internet shutdown. Service was not restored until noon the next day.
Despite the disruption of internet service, the protest movement had grown by Sunday, February 7 into larger demonstrations in at least 10 cities.
The morning of February 8 saw the first of many massive protests across the nation as students and civil servants from various ministries took to the streets.
UPDATE: Civil servants from the Education and Railway departments in Mandalay, the economic hub of Upper Myanmar, join citywide protests against the military regime on Monday. (Photo: The Irrawaddy) #WhatishappeninginMyanmar pic.twitter.com/Pds0nE7WTT
— The Irrawaddy (Eng) (@IrrawaddyNews) February 8, 2021
By that time the CDM movement has also become very strong well organized: the national health service, for instance, had come almost to a standstill. Several regional CDM support teams were set up to provide funding and legal services.
A small number of police officers defected and joined civilian protests in Loikaw, Dawei, Naypyidaw, Mandalay and other cities.
An iconic photo during Naypyidaw protests. The police officer who switched to the protesters’ side gave a speech to the crowd, calling for the “fall of dictator Min Aung Hlaing”, the country's army chief and coup leader. #2021uprising pic.twitter.com/6wBN0WTxGK
— Myanmar Now (@Myanmar_Now_Eng) February 9, 2021
On February 11, the military council threatened media organizations not to use the word “coup government” in their reporting. Forty news agencies responded with a statement on February 25 that they would not comply.
Throughout the week, the military council passed a series of laws increasing the scope of the police's power of arrest. Protests nevertheless continued throughout the week.
The protests that started on February 8 continued every day in many cities across Myanmar. By February 17, according to news reports, 325 townships were holding daily demonstrations.
On the evening of February 14, military tanks paraded through the streets of Yangon. But people were undaunted and made fun of the tanks that broke down on the streets. The next day, protests continued in front of Myanmar's Central Bank near the location where the tanks were parked.
Starting on the morning of Monday, February 15, the Ministry of Telecommunications and Communications ordered all service providers to cut off internet service from 1 am to 9 am each day for one week. The restriction is still in effect as of March 5.
On Monday, February 15, all private banks announced they would close until further notice. Only a few government banks remained open, including the military-owned Myawaddy Bank, where people queued to withdraw their money as a form of boycott. The boycott forced some branches to close by February 19.
On the morning of February 17, car owners in Yangon staged a protest by pretending that their vehicles had broken down on the streets that morning. This was an attempt to prevent civil servants who had not joined CDM from going to work. Some days earlier, car owners had used similar tactics to bar the police from harming protesters.
On February 17, in Myanmar's large urban areas, thousands participated in massive demonstrations.
On February 20, two people died in a violent shooting attack in Mandalay, but this did not deter Mandalay residents from taking to the streets in an even bigger protest the next day where instead of retaliating with violence, they sat in the streets holding leaves of the Eugenia tree. The event was dubbed the “သပြေညိုတော်လှန်ရေး,” or “Light Brown Eugenia Leaves Revolution.”
On Monday, February 22, people took to the streets again in a nationwide general strike, All shops and businesses in the country were asked to close on that day. The event, dubbed “နှစ်ငါးလုံး တော်လှန်ရေး” (“22222″ or the “Five-Twos Revolution”) took its name from the date 22/02/2021, inspired by the 8888 uprising against the military dictatorship on August 8, 1988.
GeneralStrike : Incredibly huge, well-organized and peaceful crowd protesting at Hledan, Rangoon. This is the biggest protesting so far. #BurmaGeneralStrike #WhatsHappeningInMyanmar #Feb22Coup pic.twitter.com/Nid1u1NDtQ
— Myanmar Protests News (@MMProtestsNews) February 22, 2021
On February 25, Facebook announced that the military council has been banned from Facebook and Instagram.
Also on February 25, a group of junta supporters marched in Sule, Yangon's business district, holding placards with pro-Tatmadaw slogans and some wielding weapons. They clashed with locals and [WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGERY] attacked passersby.
On February 28, strike organizers called for another nationwide protest to recognize the support Myanmar's democracy movement has been receiving from Thai and Hong Kong protesters linked to the Milk Tea Alliance protest movement. The Hong Kongers even shared a bilingual manual from the Hong Kong protests on social media.
Despite the increasing use of force, violent crackdowns, and arrests of protesters across big cities in the previous three days, protesters still came out in huge numbers on Sunday, February 28 to join the Milk Tea Alliance March On that day, the military responded with a deadly crackdown on the peaceful protests in at least five cities, the bloodiest violence since the movement began. At least 18 people were reported dead.
Political analyst Naing Aung has written a memo detailing the protest movement's achievements over the four weeks of February. In summary, he wrote, the nation has come together with “unity in diversity” across generations, ethnicities and religions. Civilian resistance has challenged the morale of those who use weapons, and the actions of the military have been strongly condemned both domestically and internationally:
[…] လူထုလှုပ်ရှားမှု လုပ်တဲ့ပြည်သူများအနေနဲ့ အကြမ်းမဖက်ဘူးဆိုတဲ့ စည်းကမ်းကို တိတိကျကျ လိုက်နာနိုင်ခဲ့ပြီး အကြမ်းဖက်လို့ ဖြိုခွဲမယ်ဆိုတဲ့အကြောင်းပြချက်ကို ရဲနဲ့ စစ်တပ်က တော်တော်ကြာ ပေးလို့မရအောင် လုပ်နိုင်ခဲ့တယ်။ အခုလုပ်နေတာက သူတို့ဘက်က ရာဇဝတ်မှု ကျုးလွန်တာဖြစ်သွားပြီ။ ငြိမ်းချမ်းစွာ ဆန္ဒပြသူတွေကို လက်နက်နဲ့ အဓမ္မဖြိုခွဲတာ နိုင်ငံတကာ လူ့အခွင့်အရေးချိုးဖောက်မှု ဖြစ်တယ်၊ လူသားဖြစ်မှုကို ဆန့်ကျင်တဲ့ ရာဇဝတ်မှုကို ကျုးလွန်ရာ ရောက်တဲ့ အနေအထားဖြစ်သွားပြီ။ တရားစီရင်ရေးကို ခံကြရတော့မယ်။ […]
The people of the movement have been strictly following the discipline of non-violence and for a long time the police and military could not crack down for the lack of civilian violence. What they are doing now is purely a crime. Using violent force on peaceful protesters is an international human rights violation; to the point of crime against humanity. They will be under trial soon.

author: Global Voices South East Asia