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A favourite Nepali hard cheese finds favour with canines · Global Voices
Sanjib Chaudhary

Chhurpis hung up for sale in a shop in the Ilam District of eastern Nepal. Photo by Sanjib Chaudhary. Used with permission.
As you pass by the misty Kanyam tea gardens in the Ilam District of eastern Nepal, you will come across bunches of hard cheese hanging in most of the shops.
The hard cheese, known locally as chhurpi, is made from milk collected from naks (female yaks), cows and chauris (a cross between yaks and local hill cows). An excellent source of protein, people throughout the Himalayan region, including Tibet, Darjeeling and Sikkim, and Bhutan, love this hard-to-chew cheese.
However, chhurpi is now a favoured food for dogs in the United States and Europe:
Yeti Dog Chew is an all natural and delicious dog chew made with the goodness of Himalayan yak milk.These are a perfect option to keep your dog happy and busy for longer hours in a safe & natural way.Check out our website to see different sizes of chews available for your dogs ? pic.twitter.com/RvVy2pffZl
— Yeti Dog Chew (@YetiDogChew) August 16, 2019
According to the Nepal government’s Trade and Export Promotion Centre, in the fiscal year 2017/18, the country exported more than  800 million Nepalese Rupees (US $7 million) worth of chhurpi. According to local businessmen, about 60-70 percent of the chhurpi exported as dog chew to the United States and Europe is produced in the Ilam district itself.
People love to chew chhurpis cut into small pieces. Photo by Sanjib Chaudhary. Used with permission.
Most cheese varieties tend to be soft, how do they harden this cheese? After collection, the milk is boiled and the fat removed. They then separate the solids from the milk, wrap them in a jute bag to squeeze out the water from the chhurpi, and dry it by putting it out in the sun or by hanging it over a fire.
Godawari International Private Limited, which exports chhurpi as dog chew to India, Japan, Taiwan, Canada, and the United States, explains its rigorous manufacturing process:
[…] Once the milk has cooled down, it is treated with 10 ml of lime juice and 10 mg salt for about 100 gallons of milk. The sour of the mild acid coagulates the milk and the salt speeds up the process. The solids are then separated using a burlap sac [sic], which is washed several times using warm water to remove the whey, and any hints of salt and lime juice.
The solids in the burlap sack are then subjected to squeezing for about 3 weeks when the cake obtained contains at most 5% moisture. The cakes are pressed using weights to remove the excess moisture.
The cake is then cut to size and prepared for cooking [sic] under the sun and smoke[d] for 2-3 months. […]
Two chauris resting at a highland meadow in Nepal. Chhurpi is made from the milk from yaks, cows and chauris. Photo by Sanjib Chaudhary. Used with permission.
The idea to market chhurpis as dog food came from brothers Suman and Sujan Shrestha who, together with Nishes Shrestha, started the company Himalayan Dog Chew in 2003. The idea was sparked when one of the brothers noticed a dog gnawing at a chhurpi. In 2007, they launched their product at a pet fair in Bellingham, Washington. Since then, the company has come a long way: it is currently the largest exporter of Himalayan cheese out of Nepal, employing more than 9,000 people. In 2015, these three Nepali entrepreneurs appeared on the popular American TV show Shark Tank, even though they were already making over US $5 million in sales a year.
Many other companies have since followed their lead, but Himalayan Dog Chew has now diversified, evolving from a single product-oriented business into a full pet supply company. According to its website, the company now proudly partners with a third-generation dairy farm in Washington State, which produces 10 million pounds of milk per month and over 124 million pounds per year, all for Himalayan Pet Supply.
Since this hard cheese is being exported to so many countries, including Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States, its manufacture has become a regular source of income for Nepal's rural farmers.
To stay afloat in the market, however, manufacturers and exporters need to make sure they keep re-engineering and diversifying the product:
My little bean is losing a few teeth, partially because of @himalayanpet’s yak milk chew. Devastated that I gave her something that broke her teeth & caused her so much pain. So be aware that these chews are problematic at best and potentially dangerous, esp. for older dogs. pic.twitter.com/qlZ7e7F2hX
— Meg McMuffin ?☠ (@siamesemeg) October 23, 2018
As per the company’s advisory, the chews might cause choking, indigestion, blockage and breakage of teeth and so advise constant supervision of dogs during consumption.

author: Sanjib Chaudhary


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As 3 million people vote in local elections, Hong Kong breaks record for civic participation · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Voters queue outside a polling station. Photo via the Stand News, used with permission.
About 3 million Hong Kong voters came out to vote for the 2019 district council elections on Sunday, November 24. The voting rate at 9:30 p.m. local time was more than 69 percent with 2,853,608 votes. It is estimated that by 10:30 p.m. when all polling stations closed, the voting rate will be up by 2-3 percent. The election turnout represents an absolute record of participation in any Hong Kong elections. In comparison, the same district elections voting rate in 2015 stood at 47 percent.
The pro-democracy camp believes that the higher the voting rate, the better the chance they would win the majority of 452 seats on local councils. An election analyst using big data has set a 70 percent voting rate as a benchmark for the pro-democracy camp to win a majority of seats.
The participation figure is considered to be an important indicator of citizens’ reaction to the ongoing political crisis triggered by the anti-extradition protests that took a massive form in July of 2019. Hongkongers are now determining their choice between pro-establishment and pro-Beijing camps on one hand and pro-democracy candidates on the other.
If the pro-democracy camp manages to win a majority of the total number of 452 seats of all the local councils, the pro-democrats could then gain an additional 117 seats in the chief executive election committee and thus win more bargaining chips for future political reforms. For the first time in history, the pro-democracy camp has mobilized more than 480 candidates running for all 452 seats.
The election result is the most “unpredictable” in recent years. First, the establishment has been blamed for blindly supporting of the extradition bill. Second, a large majority of Hongkongers are getting more and more frustrated with the vandalism and disruption associated with anti-government protests. Moreover, within the pro-democracy clan, the division between radical and peaceful protesters has deepened, as the former group is skeptical of representational democracy.
Ahead of election day, pro-democracy netizens had called for a protest ceasefire on social media, including the local equivalent of Reddit, LIGHK. As a result, elections went smoothly on Sunday.
As everyone waits anxiously for the most unpredictable election result, here is a quick explainer of the district election system and the political dynamics at play
Hong Kong has 18 district councils that advise the government on the development of community facilities and services.
As of 2019, constituencies of the district councils include 452 elected members and 27 ex-officio members who act as chairpersons of rural committees. The elections adopt a “single-seat, single-vote system” and the governmental Electoral Affairs Commission (EAC) is responsible for defining the geographical boundary of each of the 452 seats.
Considering that districts can be rather small, with about 10,000 voters, a slight difference in drawing the district borders can affect the election result. In fact, pro-democrats have accused EAC of gerrymandering district borders in this year's elections.
The election system is also favorable to resourceful pro-establishment political parties, as they are able to support hundreds of candidates to run election campaigns in all of the small districts. For example, the pro-establishment managed to win 68 districts with zero competition in 2015, simply because the democrats did not have enough resources to run for all 431 districts.
As a result, the pro-establishment always wins a majority of seats in district elections. In 2015, out of the then-431 district councilor seats, the pro-establishment won 299, about 70 percent, while pro-democrats only got 125 seats. Even back in 2003, after millions protested against the national security law legislation, the democrats only managed to win 151 seats out of the 400 seats, as they only had resources to support 226.
As the pro-establishment camp has monopolized the district councils for two decades, it has developed a solid grassroots networks, especially among the retired population through community services and free gifts. In 2018, among the 3.81 million registered voters, about one third — 1.23 million people — were above 60 years old, while the number of voters between 18-30 was less than 630,000.
In this context, the pro-democracy camp has come up with initiatives to change the scenario of local elections. Benny Tai, the co-founder of the Occupy Central movement, proposed a new initiative called Project Storm in 2017. The idea of the political campaign is to win a majority of seats in the district council elections so that the democrats can gain an additional 117 seats among the 1,200 seats that make the Election Committee. He believes such a result would generate political pressure and compel Beijing to reintroduce less restrictive political reforms.
In the 2017 chief executive election, pro-democrats had controlled about 300 out of 1,200 votes in the election committee. The chief executive election committee is composed of representatives from various sectors, including trade and economic, professional groups, religious groups and politicians from legislative and district councils.
Though some pro-democracy groups are skeptical of representational politics, they are eager to experiment with bottom-up grassroots democracy through district councils. Hence, for the first time in district elections history, the pro-democracy candidates are running in all 452 district constituencies.
Although the election system is not favorable for the pro-democracy camp, there is still hope for a change.
Indeed while the pro-establishment camp depends on the  “iron vote” of their hardcore supporters, swing voters are more likely to vote for the pro-democracy candidates. Moreover, voters with liberal views are eager to see pro-democracy politicians taking a leadership position in order to channel the energy of the protests into a more sustainable and peaceful political movement.
Last but not least, young people have become more active in political participation. Among the 380,000 newly registered voters in 2019, about 48 percent are between 18-35.
The election results will be announced on November 24, 2019. The pro-democracy camp is hopeful to win a majority of seats and help find a peaceful way out of the current political crisis. Stay tuned for more election result analysis.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Oiwan Lam


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Explainer:  How a U.S. Act on human rights and democracy can protect freedom in Hong Kong · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Hong Kong protesters want the U.S government to pass the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act; the American flags has been frequently seen in protest scenes around Hong Kong. Image from Stand News.
On November 20, 2019, The United States Senate unanimously voted for an Act aimed at protecting Hong Kong’s autonomous status and its residents’ civic rights.
Proposed in 2014 and reintroduced to the U.S. House Committee on June 13, 2019 — just after the anti-extradition protests broke out — the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act ensures that the U.S. Department of State will report annually to Congress about Hong Kong’s autonomy and human rights status, with a view to assessing whether or not the United States should continue its unique bilateral relations. Hong Kong officials who have been found to suppress freedoms would be sanctioned with visa bans and asset freezes.
Since the U.S. House of Representatives voted to pass the Senate’s version of the Act on November 21, the final step of its enactment would entail U.S. President Donald Trump signing it within the next few days.
Beijing is furious about the Senate’s move to pass the Act. Its foreign ministry spokesperson, Geng Shuang, condemned it as foreign intervention and threatened that there would be “negative consequences”.
For those unfamiliar with Hong Kong’s colonial history and the city’s political constitution, this U.S. legislation concerning Hong Kong could well seem like foreign intervention. However, since Hong Kong was handed over to China in 1997, the city’s autonomous status has been ensured by international treaty — the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration — which established the principle of “one country, two systems”. It outlines the framework of the the city's mini-constitution, the Basic Law, and ensures that Hong Kong becomes a signatory to a number of United Nations Conventions, including its Human Rights Convention.
Following 1989's Tiananmen Square Massacre in China, the U.S. government enacted the Hong Kong Policy Act in 1992, to ensure Hong Kong's autonomous status as a precondition of its special economic treatment of Hong Kong as a separate customs and trading zone. This Act has granted Hong Kong favorable bilateral ties in the areas of trade and economics, finance, aviation, shipping, and technology.
But ever since 2014, when the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act was first proposed, Hong Kong's autonomy has eroded rapidly, hastened by Beijing's reinterpretation of the Basic Law. On August 31, 2014, China imposed a screening mechanism on the election of the Hong Kong Chief Executive as part of election reform. In 2016, there was the alleged cross-border abduction of booksellers, and a year later, the disqualification of lawmakers over oath-taking.
Throughout all of this, the U.S. government had no legal tools with which to address the situation, as 1992's Hong Kong Policy Act does not include a mechanism to review Hong Kong's autonomous status. A draft of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act was therefore introduced to the U.S. Congress in 2017, but the amendment of 1992's outdated Hong Kong Policy Act was put aside until the anti-extradition protests broke out in June 2019.
The new Act is equipped with a monitoring and sanction mechanism to ensure the city’s “autonomous status” is in alignment with both the Sino-British Joint Declaration and the United Nations’ Human Rights Conventions. The U.S. Senate's final version of the Act has put more weight on Hong Kong’s international status, stressing that the U.S. government will “coordinate with allies, including the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Japan, and the Republic of Korea, to promote democracy and human rights in Hong Kong”.
The Act allows for detailed human rights assessment items — including education, freedom of the press (including the Internet), and police and security functions — to be addressed in its regular reports. It also gives the U.S. government the authority to ban journalists who work for Chinese Communist Party-affiliated media organizations in Hong Kong from entering the United States, and to block the supply of any crowd control and surveillance equipment that could be inappropriately used in Hong Kong.
Via Radio Free Asia's Twitter account, political cartoonist Rebel Pepper depicts the implications of the new Act on Hong Kong:
China has condemned a U.S. law that protects human rights in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act sanctions Chinese officials linked to rights abuses in the city. Beijing has threatened retaliation if President Trump signs the bill into law. pic.twitter.com/Qec2kMM1XK
— Radio Free Asia (@RadioFreeAsia) November 21, 2019
Like Rebel Pepper, the majority of pro-democracy Hong Kongers believes that the Act would counterbalance China’s encroachment into Hong Kong, especially as the city’s independent customs and trading status, recognized by the international community, is the key to the global financial center's success.
China depends on Hong Kong to attract foreign funds and investment there. In 2018, of the 64.2 billion USD that Chinese companies raised globally via initial public offerings, more than 50 percent — a value of 35 billion USD — came from the Hong Kong stock market. The listings from mainland Chinese cities only raised about 19.7 billion USD.
As the trade war between China and United States has intensified, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange had initially planned to buy the London Stock Exchange (LSE) in order to establish more channels for Chinese companies to attract foreign funds in global stock market, but after LSE's management rejected this pursuit in October, Hong Kong remains China’s major source of foreign capital.
On the other side of the coin, the United States also has huge economic interests in Hong Kong. In 2018, the largest U.S. bilateral trade surplus — 31.1 billion USD — was with Hong Kong. The discontinuation of Hong Kong's separate customs and trading zone status would therefore harm American economic interests.
While China is unlikely to loosen its grasp on Hong Kong, Beijing will likely be more cautious in taking further aggressive interventions that undermine the city’s political and legal autonomy. The stability of Hong Kong would be beneficial to all the players, just as ending the city's autonomy would be detrimental to all concerned.


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After a hot summer of protests, Germans debate their country’s role in climate change · Global Voices
Maxim Edwards

Protesters during the Global Climate Strike in Berlin, September 20, 2019. Photo by Maxim Edwards, used with permission.
Mir ist's zu warm! It's too hot for me!
This slogan was one of hundreds in a sea of banners, flags, and placards which made their way through the Tiergarten in central Berlin to the Bundestag, Germany's parliament building. At a makeshift stage before the Brandenburg Gate, Carola Rackete, the German ship captain who was arrested for docking a migrant rescue ship without authorisation in an Italian harbour, picked up a microphone to speak.
The crowd waiting to hear what she was going to say, by some counts, numbered over 100,000 (overall, an estimated 1.4 million protesters joined in Berlin in that day, according to organisers). And if there was some joy, it was due to the overwhelming sense of solidarity and common purpose.
That scene was Berlin's contribution to the global climate strike on 20 September 2019. It was not the first protest initiated by Fridays for Future, an ecological movement founded by 15-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg. Global climate strikes had already been called on 15 March and 24 May of the same year. Around 1.8 million people from over 125 countries took part in the latter.
The date of September's climate strike was not chosen at random. On 20 September, the German government's climate cabinet convened to decide on Germany's future ecological action plan. The preparations for the upcoming UN climate summit were also underway in New York City. According to Fridays for Future's website, protests were held in at least 575 German towns and cities that day.
Many people took to social media to share impressions from various cities all over Germany.
For instance, protesters in Freiburg came together to make some noise (literally):
Ton an!#Klimastreik #Freiburg #FridaysForFuture #läuft pic.twitter.com/DalaPMhyCE
— DasBo (@Bofylicious) September 20, 2019
Sound on!
And David Croyé shared an impression from the protest near Berlin's Brandenburg Gate:
#klimastreik #fridaysforfuture Berlin Brandenburger Tor. Klares Zeichen an die Politik!! pic.twitter.com/aIPufbGunb
— David Croyé (@DavidCroye) September 20, 2019
#ClimateStrike Berlin Brandenburg Gate. Clear message to politics!
The demands of the protest in particular and the movement in general are clear: adherence to the climate targets of the Paris Climate Agreement, a global climate deal. And ever since this summer of protest, Germans have been fiercely debating whether their government is taking those commitments seriously.
In December 2015, Germany was one of 195 countries that signed the Paris Agreement, whose main goal was to reduce global warming to below 2°C, in order to minimise, or if possible avert, its catastrophic impact. Signatories also agreed to review their progress and approaches to the issue every five years, in order to intensify their efforts and, if necessary, implement more stringent targets.
At some point in 2018, it became clear that Germany would not be able to meet its set targets by 2020. Among all participating states, Germany currently ranks 27th on the Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI), which monitors the countries’ progress with regards to the Paris Agreement. In recent years, the country's attempt to reduce carbon dioxide emissions has stagnated. According to Statista, in 2016 Germany’s carbon dioxide emissions amounted to 2.23 per cent of the global sum even though the country makes up around 1 per cent of the global population. At the top of the chart comes China with 28.21 per cent.
The environmental outlook is little better in other sectors. For instance, even though flying is the most ecologically damaging means of transport, the number of air traffic passengers in Germany increased from about 136,000 in 2004 to roughly 220,000 in 2018. Additionally, the German Federal Motor Transport Agency (Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt, or KBA for short) estimates that there are about 47.1 million registered passenger cars in Germany, a country with a population of approximately 83 million. The country's food industry is likewise dominated by wastefulness and exuberance. Overall, about twelve million tons of food are wasted in Germany each year which equals roughly 75 kg per consumer.
“Save the climate: fight the causes of migration,” reads this campaign poster from the conservative Freie Wähler movement before EU elections. Berlin, 2019. Photo (c): Maxim Edwards. Used with permission.
So where does Germany go from here, as the less than modest climate change targets seem beyond politicians’ reach and have been scaled down even further despite criticism for the initial plans?
There are signs that frustration with these failures is surfacing in electoral politics. One of the country's most important political upsets this year was the surge in support for the Green party during European and local elections.
It's important to note that the former were the first elections since the 2015-16 “refugee crisis” in Europe. Accordingly, analysts feared a sharp rise in support for right-wing nativist parties. To an extent, that has happened, with support for the AfD rising across the country in various elections recently.
However, for example, Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen received 20.5 per cent of all German votes in the 2019 European elections in Germany, compared to 10.7 per cent of the vote in 2014.
But ambitious, insurgent political movements are quick to adapt. After all, there are indications that, in Germany, as elsewhere in Europe, right-wing nationalists could adapt to rising popular concern about ecological issues, providing a potent new framing to their anti-migrant politics.
For now, it remains to be seen what the German government's final decision on their climate action measure will be. Various lawsuits against the government's handling of the climate crisis and their planned measures are already underway. On 31 October, the first verdict for one of those lawsuits was reached: the claimants (three bio farmers and Greenpeace) lost the case on the grounds that the government had issued a proclamation of intent and not made a legally binding obligation. The judges did however grant the claimants the possibility to appeal the judgement at the higher administrative court, leaving a backdoor open for a potential judgement in the farmers’ and Greenpeace's favour.
Most recently, amidst further criticism for abandoning clean energy sectors such as wind energy, the government gave the green light for starting up the coal-fired power plant Datteln 4 by the summer of 2020. The move has dismayed ecological activists, who stress that Germany, as an industrialised country, carries a particular responsibility for climate change. These recent moves have left those activists wondering whether Chancellor Angela Merkel really meant her words before the UN's Climate Action Summit in New York in late September, when she stressed that “we all have only one earth.”
But in light of the consensus that the world is running out of time to slow the pace of climate change, how long can Germans afford to wait for their rulers to match their words with deeds?

author: Maxim Edwards


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Japanese arms fair generates protest, puzzlement · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

Activists protesting Japan's first large-scale international arms fair in Chiba on November 18. One banner reads “We do not want arms trade shows” (武器見本市いらない). Screencap from YouTube vlogger U PLAN.
Japan's first-ever major international arms trade show was met with at least 400 local protesters highlighting the Japanese government and industry's ambiguity towards the country's post-war pacifist legacy.
Organized by the Japanese government at the Makuhari Messe convention center in Chiba, the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) arms fair is part of the Japanese government's efforts to build up the country's defense industries five years after it lifted a ban on arms exports. The event took place from November 18 to 20, just a week before Pope Francis historic visit to Nagasaki bringing a message of peace to Japan.
While small-scale arms fairs have been regularly held in Japan in the past, this is the first such event organized in collaboration between government and industry. According to the Mainichi Shimbun:
The nation's “first fully integrated defense event” is sponsored by ATLA (the Japanese Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry with 62 Japanese and 93 foreign firms and organizations taking part.
According to the DSEI briefing about the event, the fair attracted 110 attendees from 60 companies representing Japanese and European prime contractors as well as suppliers including Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, NEC, Subaru, Thales Japan, Fujitsu, and Airbus Helicopters Japan.
After the end of the Second World War in 1945, Japan restricted arms exports. In 2014, based on updates made in 2013 to its National Security Strategy, Japan loosened those restrictions, citing the need for greater security integration with the United States and a desire for economic diversification.
The changes to the National Security Strategy were also made possible by the Abe Shinzo government's successful efforts to reform Japan's Peace Constitution to make it easier for Japan to go to war.
Maruyama Shinichi, a Japan Communist Party politician from Chiba, remarked:
幕張メッセでの武器見本市公式ガイドブックに「近年の日本国憲法の一部改正に伴い、防衛産業の海外展開が可能になった」「日本で総合防衛展示会を開催する最適のタイミング」「アジア市場参入の足がかりになる」などと記していると「しんぶん赤旗」が報道。これに県有施設を貸すなどあってはならない。 pic.twitter.com/WA7wfPlnxH
— 丸山慎一 (@maruyama_sin1) November 20, 2019
As reported in Red Flag [the official newspaper of the Japanese Communist Party], in the official guidebook for the arms expo it says, “Recent revisions to the Japanese Constitution has made it possible for the defense industry to expand overseas”, “this is the best timing for holding a comprehensive defense exhibition in Japan”, and “this is a foothold (for Japan) for entering the Asian market.”
A publicly-owned facility [the Makuhari Messe convention center in Chiba] should not be used for this.
(Screenshots are from Red Flag articles about Japan's Constitutional amendments)
So far, Japanese arms exports have been mainly focused on contributing parts and technology to US-led anti-ballistic missile projects, and sales of maritime patrol aircraft and coast guard patrol boats. However, the country has been largely unsuccessful since 2014 in selling its arms overseas due to inexperience and the small scale of its fledgling arms export industry compared to other countries (Japan does have a large domestic arms industry specialized in supplying specific needs of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces).
However, even as the government has struggled to build an arms export industry, major Japanese corporations have long invested in arms production outside of Japan.
In November, as the DSEI arms trade show was about to begin, a 2017 story by tabloid SPA! resurfaced on social media. It reported that Japanese financial institutions and are investing in cluster munitions, even as Japan reaffirmed its commitment to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, and despite a 2017 promise by Japanese corporations to stop investing in producing such weapons.
Cluster munitions are a type of fragmentation weapons primarily intended for use against personnel. Bomblets are scattered indiscriminately across the landscape by air, which makes them hard to recover and neutralize following the end of a conflict. The bombs also indiscriminately target non-combatants. For example, over 80 percent of casualties caused by cluster munitions in Yemen's civil war have been civilians.
The 2017 SPA! story notes:
日本の金融機関は、クラスター爆弾製造自体への直接の投融資は禁じている。しかし、製造企業への投融資は禁じていないことがPAXなどのNGOから指摘されている。つまり「クラスター爆弾製造」に投資はしなくても「クラスター爆弾製造企業」には投資しているということだ。
Japanese financial institutions prohibit direct investment in cluster bomb production itself. However, NGOs such as PAX have pointed out that investment in manufacturing companies is not prohibited. In other words, it does not invest in “cluster bomb manufacturing” but invests in “cluster bomb manufacturing companies.”
The SPA! story quotes a July 2017 report by PAX, an NGO based in the Netherlands, that says that, in 2017, the Japanese investment bank Mitsubishi UFJ was “7th in the world in terms of transactions with cluster bomb manufacturing companies, 3rd in terms of financing, and 5th in investment and banking”. A December 2018 update from PAX notes that although Mitsubishi UFJ had promised to divest from cluster munitions, it's unclear if all of its subsidiary companies will do the same.
Given Japan's general lack of a defense export industry and its commitment to selling defense-oriented hardware, some critics of the DSEI trade show in Chiba were also confused about the entire point of the arms fair. Sugihara Koji, a Green Party of Japan politician, took to Twitter, stating:
総合武器見本市｢DSEI JAPAN｣。なんと防衛省は｢10式戦車｣｢16式戦車｣などの実物を展示。以前、日本の戦車のトルコ輸出の構想があったが、露骨な戦争加担につながるため、日本側が断ったと報じられた。さすがに戦車の輸出は困難だろう。何のために展示したのか、意味不明だ。 pic.twitter.com/WfbKKCgjwP
— 杉原こうじ（NAJAT・緑の党） (@kojiskojis) November 23, 2019
At the DSEI arms fair, the Japanese Ministry of Defense had Type-10 tanks and Type-16 light armored vehicles on display. Previously, there were plans to sell these military vehicles to Turkey, but it has been reported that (in the end) Japan refused, since the tanks and vehicles would be used for conducting offensive war. So it would seem it would be difficult for Japan to export this hardware.
What was the point of this arms fair, I wonder?
Japanese government officials either ignored or were oblivious to protests. Despite the criticism, and fears Japan is forgoing its pacifist past, Kono Taro, the Defense Minister of Japan, expressed one lesson learned from Japan's first large-scale arms fair — the country needs flashier trade show booths.
DSEI JAPAN 防衛・セキュリティ総合展示会。技術以前に、外国企業と日本企業のプレゼンテーションに大きな差がありました。まず、そこから力をつけないと。 pic.twitter.com/C0Qot949r9
— 河野太郎 (@konotarogomame) November 20, 2019
At the DSEI JAPAN Defense & Security General Exhibition. Before even addressing technological capabilities, there was a big difference between presentations made by foreign companies and Japanese companies. This is what Japan needs to work on first.

author: Nevin Thompson


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Who is Eva Copa, the little-known figure who helped pave the way for new Bolivian elections? · Global Voices
Global Voices Latin America

Photo of Eva Copa from the Bolivian Senate's Instagram account.
Until recently, the prospects for new elections in Bolivia appeared bleak. Announcing new elections was a key condition for the country to begin the process of pacification after weeks of strikes, protests, road blockades and violence following the contested October 20 presidential elections that led to resignation of President Evo Morales. Opposing parties from the interim government led by President Jeanine Áñez and Morales’ Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) political party were having difficulty reaching a consensus on the conditions for new elections.
Based on negotiations and consensus-building, however, a law was signed on Sunday, November 24 that cleared the way for new elections to take place on an as-yet-unspecified date.
A key figure in the convening and negotiation process was the current president of the Bolivian Senate, Mónica Eva Copa Murga, or Eva Copa as she is better known. After the resignation of the previous President of the Senate and other high-ranking party officials, Copa, a MAS senator from El Alto, Bolivia, assumed the leadership position due to Senate succession rules. Many Bolivians, however, did not know much about her.
As Daniel Gómez of the news site ALnavío put it,
Eva Copa, no quiere más muertos ni más violencia en Bolivia. Quiere negociación, diálogo y paz. Su apuesta es porque se arribe lo antes posible a elecciones urgentes, como señala el acuerdo que firmó este domingo con la presidenta interina, Jeanine Áñez. No hay que olvidar que Eva Copa es dirigente del MAS, el partido de Evo Morales. Un MAS dividido entre los radicales del evismo, y los pragmáticos. Ella representa a estos últimos.
Eva Copa doesn’t want any more deaths or violence in Bolivia. She wants negotiation, dialogue and peace. This is the reason she’s working to make sure these crucial elections happen as soon as possible, as signaled through the agreement she signed this Sunday with interim President Jeanine Añez. Let’s not forget that Eva Copa is the head of MAS, Evo Morales’ party. A party divided between Evo-ist radicals and pragmatists. She represents the latter.
María Galindo from the feminist collective Mujeres Creando (Women Creating) recently published a short Spanish-language essay profiling Copa in the Argentine online monthly magazine La Vaca. In the essay, Galindo shares her admiration for Copa's courage and provides some background to introduce readers to this unfamiliar leader:
Tiene 32 años, es alteña, hace semanas que no duerme en su casa por razones de seguridad; es estudiante de Trabajo Social y la vida no le ha dado la oportunidad de terminar su carrera. Estudia en la universidad pública de El Alto […] No es chola, aunque seguramente su madre o su abuela lo son: ella es birlocha. Viste un cómodo pantalón y su cabello negro largo y brillante no esta trenzado, sino suelto o con cola. Sus labios café oscuro, sus mejillas quemadas por el sol alteño y más que nada su forma de hablar -con una mezcla extraña de parquedad, solidez y timidez- la colocan como la antítesis política de Yanine Añez.
(Copa) es una mujer que asumió el peso del que otros y otras huyeron. Cuando le pregunté comó y por qué se había animado a hacerlo me dijo: “porque soy alteña, porque no tengo otra salida, porque no me voy a ir de Bolivia a otra parte: no tengo por qué escapar”. Y cuando le pregunté ¿y por qué han escapado tantos y tantas?, responde: “Dicen que por razones familiares”.
She is 32 years old from the city of El Alto, for weeks she has not slept at home for security reasons; she is student of social work student and life has not given her the opportunity to finish her career. She studies at the public university of El Alto […] She is not a chola [person of indigenous peasant background], although surely her mother or grandmother are: she is birlocha [a term denoting the children of cholas]. She wears comfortable pants and her long shiny black hair is not braided, but rather it is loose or held together with a ponytail. Her lips are dark brown, her cheeks burnt by the El Alto sun and above all, her way of speaking — with a strange mixture of roughness, firmness and shyness — position her as the political antithesis of Yanine Añez.
(Copa) is a woman who assumed the burden from which that others fled. When I asked her how and why she was motivated to do so, she said: “Because I am from El Alto, because I have no other way out, because I am not going to leave Bolivia to go somewhere else: I do not need to escape.” And then I asked her, then why have so many escaped? She responded, “they said it was for family reasons”.
Galindo concludes the essay praising Copa for her handling the pressure in the face of overwhelming odds:
La ciudad de El Alto es una ciudad donde cotidianamente las mujeres cargan en sus espaldas grandes bultos en aguayos, llevan su mercadería, o sus wawas, sus angustias o sus esperanzas a cuestas. Eva carga un bulto también: el bulto de esperanzas para frenar una guerra civil, el bulto de ungüentos con que conjurar la violencia de los asesinos, carga el bulto de los sueños de los asesinados, carga el bulto de las lágrimas de las dolientes que no paran de llorar, dejando claro una vez mas que las mujeres no queremos ocultar nuestra fragilidad y nuestro dolor.
Eva es la antítesis de Yanine Añez, pero también de Evo.
El Alto is a city where on a daily basis women carry large bundles in aguayos [a traditional multi-colored wrap], carry their merchandise, or their babies, their anguish and hopes in tow. Eva also carries a burden—the hopeful burden of halting a civil war, the burden of the balm that conjures up the violence of murderers, the burden of the dreams of those murdered, the burden of the tears of the mourners who cannot stop crying—making it clear that women do not want to hide our fragility or our pain.
Eva is the antithesis of Yanine Añez, but also of Evo [Morales].
Galindo also interviewed Copa on her radio program broadcast on the Radio Deseo station in La Paz.

author: Global Voices Latin America


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Will Uganda shut down the internet as opposition heats up for 2021 elections? · Global Voices
Sandra Aceng

Protesters at the June 2018 Women's March in Kampala, Uganda. Photo by Katumba Badru, used with permission.
In Uganda, the internet has become a battleground where the government attempts to silence a growing online population voicing dissent.
For years, Ugandan authorities have deployed different tactics to stifle political dissent and keep the ruling National Resistance Movement party and President Yoweri Museveni in power.
This includes blocking media websites, filtering SMS and shutting down social media platforms. As Uganda’s 2021 general election approaches, authorities are expected to continue deploying similar tactics.
During the 2016 general elections, Ugandan authorities resorted to shutting down entire social media platforms twice.
The first shutdown took place on February 18, 2016, on the eve of the presidential election, and it affected social media platforms and mobile money services. The restrictions lasted for four full days.
On May 11, 2016, social media platforms including Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter and mobile money transfer services were once again blocked. This shutdown lasted for one day and took place a day before President Museveni was sworn in for his fifth term as president.
Museveni has been in power since 1986. Opposition to his rule is growing: According to a public opinion poll released in April 2019, an overall majority of Ugandans opposed a 2017 decision to remove the maximum age limit of 75 to run for president, which would allow the 74-year-old to run again in the 2021 elections.
During both shutdowns in 2016, the Ugandan government cited “national security’’ as the motivation behind restrictions. The disruptions were ordered by Uganda’s security agencies and the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), which regulates the telecommunications sector, online publications, broadcasting (both radio and television), film industry, postal and courier services.
On February 18, 2016, MTN Uganda, a telecommunications service provider, issued a statement on Twitter confirming that “UCC, the regulator had directed MTN to disable all social media and mobile money services due to a threat to public order and safety.” This also affected other telecoms companies such as Airtel, Smile, Vodafone, and Africel.
The same day, President Museveni told journalists that he ordered the blocking of social media: “Steps must be taken for security to stop so many getting in trouble, it is temporary because some people use those pathways for telling lies,” he said.
On March 17, in an official declaration during Supreme Court deliberations in which President Museveni’s 2016 victory was challenged, the UCC executive director Godfrey Mutabazi explained that “he received instructions from the Inspector General of Police, Kale Kayihura, to shut down social media networking sites and mobile money facilities owing to security concerns.”
These shutdowns interfered with the rights and daily lives of Ugandans who use the internet and social media platforms to access information, express views and conduct everyday business online. During the weeks prior to the 2016 elections, Ugandans actively tweeted and debated about the elections using hashtags like #UgandaDecides and #UGDebate16. Ugandan citizens’ level of online civic engagement was sparked by the first-ever televised presidential debates, the first of which was held in January and the second, a week later.
Even with the social media bans in place, many Ugandans continued to post about the elections using Virtual Private Networks or VPNs. On election day, citizens were able to share updates on late arrivals of voting materials at various stations, reports of election malpractice, and provisional election results on social media.
Human rights activists say that targeted shutdowns during election periods slow down communication, just when access to information and citizen expression are most needed.
“Internet shutdowns limit people from communicating particular concerns that affect them, such as health, interaction with friends as well sharing of political views and opinions,” Moses Owiny, the chief executive of the Center for Multilateral Affairs, an independent platform for policy analysis operating in Uganda and Tanzania, told Global Voices in an interview.
According to Owiny, shutdowns primarily aim to stop dissent in politics based on “perceived fear by the state that citizens’ views and concerns are likely to incite the public,” an accusation he believes is unfounded and not grounded in reality but assumptions.
On April 14, 2011, the UCC instructed ISPs to temporarily block access to Facebook and Twitter for 24 hours to eliminate connecting and sharing information. The order came in the heat of opposition-led “walk to work” protests over rising fuel and food prices. The regulator stated that security agencies requested the block to minimize social media use in order to prevent violence.
In 2011, the elections were marked with SMS filtration that contained certain words including “Egypt,” “bullet” and “people power.”
In the lead up to the 2006 elections, the UCC instructed ISPs to block access to the website of Radio Katwe for publishing “‘malicious and false information’ against the ruling National Resistance Movement and its presidential candidate,” according to a 2015 ICT policy briefing by Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA). Ugandan authorities blocked access to the radio station and the Daily Monitor website for publishing “independently tallied election results.” Media platforms were quickly reinstated but only after the electoral commission announced official results.
Since 2016, authorities have continued to crack down on opposition politicians and journalists.
President Museveni in May 2013. He has been in power since 1986. Photo credit: Foreign and Commonwealth Office on Flickr [CC BY 2.0].
Robert Kyagulanyi, known as “Bobi Wine,” singer and leader of the opposition party People Power, who is also a member of parliament, has already announced his bid for the presidency. Wine currently faces criminal charges for “annoying the president” and if convicted, he would not be allowed to run.
According to Human Rights Watch, in 2018 authorities targeted six opposition members including Bobi Wine and Francis Zaake, ahead of the August 15 by-elections in Arua (northern Uganda). Members of the police and military arrested the group along with 28 other people on August 13, 2018, and charged them with treason. They were later released on bail.
That same day, police also arrested two journalists, Herber Zziwa and Ronald Muwanga, as they covered the by-election and related violence, including the deadly shooting by the military of Bobi Wine’s driver.
As the 2021 election approaches, Uganda authorities are very likely to continue to crack down on political dissent, including through social media shutdowns. In fact, since the 2016 elections, there has been no change in the legal framework that allows the government to restrict the rights to freedom of expression and access to information online.
According to the 2016 State of Internet Freedom in Africa report,  the 2013 Communications Act gives UCC broad powers and functions under Section 5 that permits the communications regulator to “monitor, inspect, license, supervise, control, and regulate communications services” and to “set standards, monitor, and enforce compliance relating to content.” At the request of the government, the UCC used this section to order ISPs to block access to social media and mobile money services during the 2016 elections.
The government continues to weaponize these laws to control public debate and to silence political dissent, particularly at times of elections.
Owiny argues that the state is capable of shutting down the internet at any time deemed necessary: “Where regime security and that of its citizens converges, and where regime security is threatened, the regime security and its survival will take precedent.”
Nongovernmental organizations and human rights defenders have been organizing in Uganda so that shutdowns like the ones that took place in 2016 don’t happen again.
Several organizations wrote a joint letter to the African Union and regional bodies asking them to condemn the decision by Ugandan authorities to shut down internet access during the 2016 elections.
Unwanted Witness Uganda took the Ugandan state to court, along with internet service providers and the regulator, in a case filed in September 2016. The organization contended that the internet shutdown planned by the state violated the rights of Ugandans to personal freedom of speech and expression is enshrined in Article 29(1) of the 1995 constitution. However, a judge ruled that “the applicants failed to prove any violations’’ that resulted from the shutdowns, Unwanted Witness Uganda told Global Voices.
Achieving uninterrupted access to the internet — particularly during the upcoming elections — will require more advocacy.
Owiny suggested the need for digital rights activists to deepen conversations between the government and private sector to present the negative impact of shutdowns because the private sector is intimidated by the state.
Uganda was among the first African countries to enact a right to information law, known as the Access to Information Act (ATIA), in 2005. The law promises to provide “efficient, effective, transparent and accountable” that will “enable the public to effectively access and participate in decisions that affect them as citizens of the country.”
Will the government meet its mandate to promote the right to access to information? Will it live up to its promise?
This article is part of a series of posts examining interference with digital rights through methods such as network shutdowns and disinformation during key political events in seven African countries: Algeria, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tunisia, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. The project is funded by the Africa Digital Rights Fund of The Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA).

author: Sandra Aceng


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Albania hit by powerful earthquake, leaving 21 dead and hundreds injured · Global Voices
Ardi Pulaj

Earthquake damage in Durrës, Albania, on 26 November 2019. Photo by Redi Muçi, used with permission.
At least 21 people have died and more than 600 were injured after a 6.4 magnitude earthquake hit Albania in the early hours of Tuesday, 26 November 2019. The epicenter was in the port city of Durrës, about 32 km from the capital Tirana.
The United States Geological Survey informed that the quake hit the country from an approximate depth of 20 kilometers. The tremor was felt in nearby cities, including the capital.
As people panicked, many were trapped in the debris of the collapsed buildings.
Rescue operations continue. Meanwhile, people are tweeting photos and videos.
The building shakes in #Shëngjin following the 6.4 magnitude earthquake that struck #Albania. So far, 13 residents have been killed and 600 others injured. – @LastQuake pic.twitter.com/kdWBzLq4IS
— Xhildinho Z (@xhildinho) November 26, 2019
#earthquake in #Durres
First reported damages! #Albania pic.twitter.com/6jS3Nb0Xiv
— Klaudja Karabolli (@KKarabolli) November 26, 2019
Global Voices spoke with Redi Muçi, a construction engineer and professor at the Faculty of Geology and Mining in Tirana. He has witnessed the earthquake’s aftermath:
Ardi Pulaj (AP): How is the situation in the places you have visited?
Redi Muçi (RM): I visited Durrës, but not Thumana (Fushë Krujë). These are the most affected areas. There is fear there will be more victims as there is news that many people are still trapped in the debris.
AP: How are the authorities responding to the emergency?
RM: There is a full mobilization of the military, firefighters, police, who are dealing with the situation on the scenes. All are doing their best, although there seems to be a problem in managing the situation. As they are digging the debris there are people who are not using proper protective gear such as helmets and gloves. This gives you the impression that they don’t know what they are doing. I believe there is a lack of special units trained to react in such situations.
Earthquake damage in Durrës, Albania, on 26 November 2019. Photo by Redi Muçi, used with permission.
AP: What we see from the scenes are many destroyed houses. What can you say about this situation?
RM: I met engineers that were evaluating the damages. The number isn’t sufficient. I am sure there is a lack of an emergency plan that takes into consideration the seismic micro zoning, the type of buildings and the quality of them. Also, there is a lack of a detailed rescue plan when there is a catastrophe. A big number of buildings are at risk of being destroyed by aftershocks. This is dangerous for all the inhabitants and we don’t know how we will get out of this situation. Over the past years we've seen buildings being built without a rigorous criteria regarding the structures and lacking a geology study.
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said all state bodies are involved in the rescue operations as he appealed to the people to remain calm. Opposition leader Lulzim Basha has called the population to help those affected by the earthquake. President Ilir Meta flew the flags at his office half-mast “in honor of lost lives from this tragedy for our country,” he said.
The Ministry of Education has ordered all schools to be closed on Tuesday and Wednesday. As the country dealt with the situation, aftershocks continued. Messages of solidarity and offers of aid have been arriving from the neighboring countries, the European Union, and the United States.

author: Ardi Pulaj


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An interview with ‘Siamese Intellectual’ Sulak Sivaraksa on the future of Thailand’s democracy and monarchy · Global Voices
The Isaan Record

Sulak Sivaraksa at the Wild Dog Bookshop in Khon Kaen. Photo from The Isaan Record
This edited article by Hathairat Phaholtap is from The Isaan Record, an independent news site in Thailand, and is republished on Global Voices as part of a content-sharing agreement.
At 86 years of age, Sulak Sivaraksa–better known as S. Sivaraksa–is a senior academic who has been popularly dubbed the “Siamese Intellectual,” and he is no stranger to the courtroom. Throughout his career he has been compelled to answer court summonses more often than he cares to remember. In no less than six of these court cases he was answering to the charge of lèse-majesté, or royal defamation.
His most recent court case was in 2014, when he was accused of defaming King Naresuan, a monarch in the 16th century, during a debate at an academic seminar titled “The history of expunging and contriving.” In 2018, the case was withdrawn by military prosecutors.
The Isaan Record’s editor Hathairat Phaholtap sat down with S. Sivarak to talk about this case, and his views concerning the monarchy, and the country's politics.
The Isaan Record (IR): After petitioning the incumbent King Rama X and receiving a royal pardon from him, you gave interviews to the press saying that the King is compassionate. How is he compassionate?
Sulak Sivaraksa: I told His Majesty that I was being unfairly targeted, that the charge of lèse-majesté was just a pretext for silencing me, and he believed me. He instructed the royal secretariat to have the court case dropped immediately. His Majesty is very decisive. If he is going to do something, he doesn’t wait around to do it. I am very grateful indeed.
IR: You say that he is a very capable and insightful person. What are his views on democracy?
Sulak: He is very interested in the topic of democracy, that much I’m sure. But as to exactly what his views are on the subject of democracy are, I am not sure at all.
IR: Do you view Article 112, as it is currently being used, as a political tool or as a means of protecting the monarchy?
Sulak: Oh, it’s definitely not a means of protecting the monarchy! It is well and truly a political tool. The previous king stated under no uncertain terms that anyone who abuses Article 112 is, in effect, harming the King. And by doing that, they would be directly contributing to the decline of the monarchy. He was very clear about that.
IR: How will this law be used from this point onwards? You’ve said many times in the past that it needs to be overhauled. How should it be changed?
Sulak: I said that in parliament. I said that, “If you MPs had any sense, if you don’t have the courage to get rid of this law, you should at least think about amending it.” For example, they could have gotten rid of the minimum sentence of three years since that would allow the courts to suspend sentences. Another thing is to remove the obligation for the police to accept any accusation of lèse-majesté–however spurious–as prima facie. That’s just ridiculous, that they can’t refuse to arrest someone accused of lèse-majesté, even when they don’t see any reason to.
There ought to be a legal commission to decide first on whether there is really any grounds for prosecution under Article 112. This commission could be drawn from the judiciary, or from the Bureau of the Royal Household, too, for that matter. The point is that there really ought to be some serious deliberation on whether to go ahead and prosecute someone for the crime of insulting the monarchy.
IR: Do you think the monarchy should remain a fixture in Thai politics and society?
Sulak: That’s actually one of the questions His Majesty posed during my audience with him. I said to him, that for the monarchy to endure, it must make itself useful to the people. If the monarchy is wholly self-serving, well then its days are surely numbered [Sulak shakes his head]. The monarchy must introduce some transparency into its workings if it wants to remain. It must be open to criticism. That’s what I said to him, but I don’t know whether he believes I’m right or not.
IR: At the moment there’s a buzz online about young people not wanting to stand up for the King in cinemas. What are your views on this?
Sulak: Standing up for the royal anthem in cinemas and theaters, that’s a custom that we borrowed from western nations when they still did it. In the UK, they’ve stopped doing that long ago! They know that if people want to do these symbolic displays they will, but if they’re not into it then they won’t. There’s no real point to it.
The [royal] anthem is just a symbol. It’s designed to honor the monarchy and make it look great. When the people are satisfied, that is a good time to put the anthem on. But when people are dissatisfied, forcing the anthem on them is a mistake—whether it’s a song or whatever. If people are unhappy about these displays, then they have to stop. There is absolutely no good to be gained from forcing the issue.
IR: But some people still do stand up for the royal anthem—there seems to be a pretty even split. What is the way forward?
Sulak: Just leave them be! The people who don’t agree with you, that’s who you have to get to come around. The people who already agree with you, they’re already on your side.
It’s very simple. When Tsarist Russia fell, Rama VI asked his son Prince Chakrabongse–who was studying in Russia and living as a member of the Tsar’s royal household–why the monarchy ended there. Prince Chakrabongse’s reply was that though the Tsar was personally a very nice man, he refused to listen to the progressive voices, he refused to hear anyone who disagreed with him. He only listened to the people who agreed with him. Even the young Prince Chakrabongse could see that.
IR: What is the political significance of the monarchy?
Sulak: The monarchy has been with Thailand for around 700, 800 years now. It’s generally better to keep and improve what you already have than to destroy and start again. It’s easy to chop down a tree, but if the tree gives shade then it’s surely better to keep it than to chop it down.
Sure, the tree could have parasites living off of it. It might have creatures living in it that can make you wish the tree wasn’t there. You have to remove them, not the tree. The monarchy is the same. You have the extreme right-wingers, the people who are just hanging onto the coattails of the monarchy for their own ends, you have to get them out of the tree. A transparent monarchy that can be critically examined can last forever. It’s better to keep a tree than to chop it down.
IR: The government of General Prayut Chan-ocha, which started off as a military dictatorship, has manipulated things and got themselves into parliament. What kind of hopes do you have for this government?
Sulak: Mr. Prayut, he doesn’t know a damned thing about anything. He’s just winging it from day to day. How did we allow this kind of person to be prime minister?
He even decided to either leave out or forget certain parts of the oath when being sworn into office. This is very dangerous, because the oath is sacred, yet he doesn’t seem to give a damn. How do you deal with someone like this? The MPs have to get together and push, or kick him out, through whatever legal means they have before them.
But there are still some promising signs. There are some new parties in parliament now, a lot of people who are progressive in outlook. I think that these people will band together to stick it to Prayut. They’ll use rationality as their main weapon because that’s something that Prayut just doesn’t get.
IR: You’ve said that you’re beginning to see some hope in the younger generation in parliament. Can you see hope for democracy after the most recent election? Do you think the people have democratically awake?
Sulak: Yes, I believe that some kind of awakening is afoot, whereas the government is rudderless. The more dictatorial the government is, the more the people will awaken. I think it really is worthy of praise, the way that young Thai people are more wise to what’s going on than a lot of people from my own generation.

author: The Isaan Record


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Why is Central Europe leaning towards illiberal democracy? Interview with Czech author Radka Denemarková · Global Voices
Filip Noubel

Radka Denemarková in Graz in Austria, 2019, photo under Namensvermerk/Stadt Graz/Foto Fischer free copyright license
Radka Denemarková is something of a phenomenon in contemporary Czech literature. She is the only writer to have won the highest Czech literary award, the Magnesia Litera Prize, four times in total, in different categories (fiction, non-fiction, translation and Book of the Year) and is now gaining a wider readership through translations and international awards. Perhaps her most notorious novel is Peníze od Hitlera (meaning “money from Hitler”) which describes the story of a Jewish Holocaust survivor who returns to Czechoslovakia after WWII and is denied recognition of her most basic rights.
Denemarková grew up in communist Czechoslovakia and witnessed the fall of communism and the Berlin Wall in her youth. Those events have shaped her writing as well as her public engagement and her commitment to speak up for democracy in her region, but also in China. As the Czech Republic marks the 30th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, Global Voices asked her about her experience as an observer of changes in Central Europe, and about her concerns and hopes for the political future in this part of the world. The interview was edited for brevity.
Obrovská naděje, že zažiji svobodu. Obava z brutality moci, ale obecně z lidské povahy. Pro mě jsou přelomové tři zážitky. Palachův týden v lednu 1989, kdy lidé vzpomínali na Václavském náměstí výročí upálení studentka Jana Palacha. Byla to tichá setkání, rozehnaná vodními děly. V říjnu moje východoněmecká kamarádka utíkala přes pražské západoněmecké velvyslanectví do svobodného Německa s dalšími tisíci Němci… Pád berlínské zdi byl šťastný okamžik. Třetím zážitkem bylo přespávání na Karlově univerzitě, solidarita. Bohumil Hrabal přinesl v batůžku sto tisíc korun, což byly tehdy velké peníze. Daroval je studentům. Měla jsem radost kvůli tátovi, že se svobody dožil. Založil školní knihovnu, v roce 1969 zachránil spoustu zakázaných knih, které jsme měli doma ve sklepě a půjčoval je nejbližším přátelům. Tyto knihy tehdy znamenaly vězení.
Mojí obrovskou nadějí bylo, že ze Západu přijmeme demokratické hodnoty. U nás se udělala za minulostí tlustá čára. Ale bylo obrovskou chybou neoznačit hned viníky a oběti. My jsme po roce 1989 převzali ze Západu jen konzumní podobu společnosti, nikoliv demokratické způsoby života na všech úrovních.
My greatest hope was to experience freedom. My greatest concern was to experience the brutality of power, and in general, of human nature. I recall three key moments. The Palach week in January 1989, when people were honoring the anniversary of Jan Palach’s immolation on Prague’s main Wenceslas Square. It was a silent gathering dispersed by water cannons. In October, my East German friend fled to free Germany via the West German Embassy in Prague along with thousands of other East Germans… The fall of the Berlin Wall was a happy moment. The third moment was when we slept at Charles University and the solidarity we experienced. The writer Bohumil Hrabal brought 100,000 Czechoslovak crowns in a backpack, which was a lot of money back then, and offered it to the students. I was happy for my father, for the fact he lived to witness freedom. In 1969 [after the 1968 Soviet invasion], he had saved a lot of forbidden books, which we kept at home in the basement and would lend to our closest friends. Keeping those books back then could lead to prison.
My biggest hope was that we would adopt the Western democratic values. Yet we drew a thick line with the past but this was a huge mistake not to immediately label culprits and victims. What we took from the West after 1989 was a model of consumerism, and not a democratic lifestyle.
united
RD Česká společnost je nemocná. A co je horší, odmítá se léčit. Zdrojem této atmosféry je neustálý pocit, že jsme jen jakýsi nárazník mezi Západem a Východem. Totalitní slovní zásoba se vrací nenápadně a je to nemírně nebezpečné. Jazyk odráží myšlení. Když mizí demokracie, tak ne ze dne na den, ale centimetr po centimetr. Musíme udržet pozice, které jsme dosáhli a bojovat za svobodu. To dnes vyžaduje hodně síly.
Země východní Evropy jsou frustrované. Oběti a viníci se slili. U nás jsou u moci lidé, kteří zbohatli v divokém kapitalismu devadesátých let, bývalí spolupracovníci Státní bezpečnosti jako premiér, představitelé komunistické moci, arogantní oligarchové. V Polsku navíc velkou roli hraje konzervativní katolická církev. Všichni představitelé moci si berou jako vzor Viktora Orbána. Toho napodobují. A on napodobuje Putina. Jsme stále mentálně satelitními státy Ruska.
Máme ve východní Evropě naštěstí i pozitivní odkaz. V duchu masarykovského a havlovského humanismu. Odkaz ideového prostředí masarykovského humanismu pro mě dnes znamená: sociální cit. Odkaz ideového prostředí havlovského humanismu pro mě dnes znamená: nalézt v sobě opět hlubší odpovědnost za svět, vystupovat proti všem skrytým i otevřeným tlakům a manipulacím, aby lidský život nebyl zredukován na stereotyp výroby a konzumu. Řečeno s Masarykem, závisí-li na něčem náš národní osud, pak především na tom, jak dostojíme svým úkolům lidským.
RD:  Czech society is sick. What is worse, it refuses to get cured. The source of this state of mind is this eternal feeling that we are just a buffer zone between East and West. The vocabulary of totalitarianism is creeping back unnoticed, which is incredibly dangerous. Language reflects the current thinking. When democracy disappears, it doesn't happen day by day but centimeter by centimeter. We must maintain the positions we reached and fight for freedom. This requires a lot of efforts today.
The countries of Eastern Europe live in frustration. Victims and culprits became one. The people who have power are those who got rich during the wild years of capitalism in the 1990s, former agents of the Czechoslovak State Security, such as our current Prime Minister, people representing the former communist power, arrogant oligarchs. In Poland, the conservative Catholic Church also plays a huge role. All political leaders take Hungarian politician Viktor Orbán as an example, and imitate him, while he imitates Putin. Mentally, we are still satellites of Russia.
Hopefully we have some positive models in Eastern Europe, with the humanism of Masaryk and Havel. The reference I make to Masaryk's humanism is social empathy, as for Havel's humanism, it means to find in oneself a greater sense of responsibility for the state of the world, to reject open and hidden forms of pressure and manipulation, so that human life wouldn't be reduced to a stereotyped view of production and consumption. As Masaryk said, our national fate depends mostly on our capacity to fulfill our human mission.
The writing in white cray on the pavement says “Chybí mi Havel”, which means “I miss Havel’, and is answered below with another smaller message saying “Mně taky”, meaning “I miss him too”. Photo taken in central Prague on August 21, 2019, on the occasion of a demonstration commemorating the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia by Soviet troops. Photo by Filip Noubel, used with permission.
RD: Nekompromisní svobodu slova a názoru mám už jen ve svých knihách a v západoevropských médiích. Berlusconiho syndrom, tedy koupení médií jako zdroj propagandy a „národních hodnot“, bují ve východní Evropě. I politici mé země jsou Čínou okouzleni a tvrdí, že jde o stabilizovanou a harmonickou společnost a pro nás nezbytného ekonomického partnera. Já se tam ale setkávala se vším, co si lze představit pod pojmem brutální policejní stát.
Věřím románu, ten dokáže říct pravdu. Mým tématem je odlidštění. Jsem součástí lidstva a neuznávám perspektivu „států“ a národnostních kotců a nadřazených pohlaví. Moje knihy překvapivě znamenají pro mnoho lidí očistnou katarzi. Mně jde o nápravu myšlení a podporu lidí, kteří jsou senzitivní a vzdělaní, ale nemají hlas, protože je překřičí arogantní moc. Tito lidé se musejí propojit a ukázat, že existuje paralelní způsob života.
V románech obnažuji, co tvoří dnešní mentalitu. Po roce 1945, zmizelo řádné právo pro miliony vyhnaných Němců, aby později pro další, ještě netušené statisíce rovněž mohlo zmizet. To jsou morální následky masového vysídlení,  jež se dají rozpoznat: Když je možné potrestat člověka za to, že patří k určitému národu, pak je později možné, že bude potrestán za to, že patří k určité společenské třídě nebo k určité politické straně. Budoucnost nebude hrdá na ten okamžik, kdy byl na světě zaveden pojem kolektivní viny.
RD: The only places where I can find an uncompromised freedom to speak and express my opinions are in my books and in the media of Western Europe. The Berlusconi syndrome, which allows the capture of media as a source of propaganda and “national values” is thriving in Eastern Europe. And the Czech politicians are under the spell of Beijing, they state that China represents a stable and harmonic society, and for us an indispensable economic partner. But my experience of China is that it represents what we imagine as a brutal police state.
I believe in the novel, it can tell the truth. My main theme is dehumanisation. We belong to the human kind and I do not accept the views of “states”, of ethnic cages and superior gender. Surprisingly, my books act as a catharsis for many people. What matters to me is to correct the thinking and support people, who are sensitive, educated but have no voice, because of the arrogance of the powerful who shout louder. Those people must unite and demonstrate that a parallel way of life is possible.
In my novels I disclose what makes today's mentality. After 1945, the rule of law disappeared for millions of expelled Germans, so that the same thing could happen later to hundreds of thousands of other people. These are the moral consequences of massive expulsion that can be identified: if it is possible to punish a person because she or he belongs to a nation, then it is later possible to punish anyone for belonging to a specific social class or political party. The future will not look positively at the moment when the world introduced the notion of collective responsibility.
Demonstrations on Wenceslas Square in Prague on August 21, 2019, marking the anniversary of the August 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. The banner reads ‘Totalitu nechceme’ meaning ‘We don't want a totalitarian regime’. Photo by Filip Noubel, used with permission.
FN: You experienced communism and thus have a very concrete idea of what it means to live without freedom. What about the younger Czech generations? Is this also a topic among younger Czech authors?
RD: Pro spisovatele ne, tomu nerozumím. Dokonce ani pro ty starší. Většina lidí se chová, jako by rok 1989 nebyl. Havel je vzorem ve světě, jeho Charta 77 probudila vznik Charty 08 v Číně, doma je vysmívaný. Charta 77 byla prvním významným aktem solidarity v komunistické éře. Představovala počátek občanského napřímení. „Partajní mládenci“ v Čechách se dnes pokoušejí o kapitalismus „se socialistickou tváří“: vítězství vyvolených, bez konkurence a mimo volnou soutěž.
Nadějí je pro mě mladá generace. V rámci východní Evropy máme studenta Mikuláše Mináře, který organizuje Milion chvilek pro demokracii a na Slovensku prezidentku Zuzanu Čaputovou, která přichází s novým politickým myšlením a chováním. Smutné je, že nejprve musel zemřít novinář a jeho snoubenka, aby se lidé na Slovensku vzpamatovali a zamysleli.
RD: Not for writers, and I don't understand why. Not even for the older generation. The majority of people behaves as if 1989 [the year marking the fall of communism] never happened. Havel is a world reference, his Charter 77 led to the creation of Charter 08 in China, but at home people mock him. Charter 77 was the first significant act of solidarity in the communist era, it represented the first awakening of a civic conscience. Today the “young comrades from the party” are attempting to build “capitalism with a socialist face“: it is the victory of the chosen ones, who operate outside the rules of competition and open tenders.
For me, the younger generations represent hope. In Eastern Europe, we have Mikuláš Minář, the student who founded the movement A Million Moments for Democracy, and in Slovakia we have the new President Zuzana Čaputová, who comes with a new political agenda and behaviour. It is sad that a young journalist and his fiancée had to die before people in Slovakia woke up, and started thinking seriously about their future.
Radka Denemarková sitting on the left at her public reading of her latest novel on April 15, 2019 at the Václav Havel Library in Prague. Photo by Filip Noubel used with permission.
FN: What is your biggest fear for the future of democracy in the Czech Republic and in Central Europe?
RD: Stojíme nyní před zásadní otázkou: otevřená demokracie nebo uzavřená společnost, svoboda projevu nebo cenzura, právní stát nebo nová forma autoritářského režimu. Společnost je záhadné zvíře, se spoustou skrytých tváří a schopností. Moc dobře vím, že hlavní starostí, kterou mají všichni lidé na světě společnou, je tato: Co si počít se svým životem. Byla jsem v Číně, kde se „políbilo“ to nejhorší z kapitalismu a to nejhorší z komunismu a ekonomicky vše skvěle funguje, což všichni skrytě obdivují: ovšem bez lidských práv. V tom vidím nebezpečí pro východní Evropu.
Vím, že politika společného lidství stojí před nejosudovějším z osudových kroků lidstva. A tady se ukazuje, že právě na takovém humanismu, o který usiluje každý v rámci prostředí, v němž žije, záleží budoucnost lidstva. Lidstvo se musí vzpamatovat, uvědomit si, že solidarita i vzhledem ke klimatickým změnám je nezbytná. Nejtěžší bude boj proti nacionalismu, malosti, omezenosti. Ale jsem optimista. Je to moje provokativní naděje, ale naděje.
RD: We are now contemplating an essential question: do we want an open democracy or a closed society, freedom of expression or censorship, rule of law or a new form of authoritarianism? Society is a strange animal, with a lot of hidden faces and abilities. I know very well that the main concern shared by all on this planet is this: what to do with this human life? I visited China where the worst of capitalism married the worst of communism, and economically it all works perfectly, and everyone it admires secretly, yet without any human rights. This is where I see the danger for Eastern Europe.
I know that the political process of a shared humanity finds itself now at one of its most critical moments. And it becomes clear that the future of humans depends on this kind of humanism that each of us tries hard to reach within the limits of our environment. Humans must come to their senses, and realize that solidarity, including in the context of climate change, is absolutely necessary. The hardest thing will be to fight nationalism, a narrow view of the world, and any limitations, but I am an optimist. This is my provocative hope, yet it is hope.

author: Filip Noubel


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Will the upcoming Taiwanese presidential election bring an end to the death penalty? · Global Voices
Filip Noubel

Leaflet from the Taiwan Alliance to End Death Penalty calling for the abolition of capital punishment in Chinese and English. Photo by Filip Noubel, used with permission.
Despite being recognized as the third most advanced democracy in Asia, Taiwan still maintains the death penalty. On the surface, there seems to be a general consensus on the issue: 85 percent of Taiwanese support it according to recurrent polls. Yet some activists believe the time has come to revisit the issue of capital punishment, particularly as the island gears up for presidential elections in January 2020.
Worldwide, the death penalty has been abolished in over 100 countries as it is considered a major violation of human rights. In East Asia, allowing capital punishment is the rule and not the exception: Mongolia abolished it in 2016, preceded only by Macao in 1976 and Hong Kong in 1993; all other countries apply it, including China where thousands of people are sentenced every year.
In Taiwan, the death penalty was introduced when the island was under Japanese rule (1895-1945). When the Kuomintang sought refuge from mainland China in 1945 and resumed state control over the island, it maintained capital punishment. To this day, executions are carried out with the inmate sedated and shot in the back as he or she lies down on a mattress.
The death penalty is applicable to serious crimes, such as treason, espionage, murder, or rape. The number of executions has been consistently going down from about 50 to 70 a year leading up to the early 1990s, to around 5 per year on average since 2000.
If crime rates in Taiwan are among the lowest in the world, why then are people in Taiwan overwhelmingly in favor of capital punishment?  Lin Hsinyi, a long time anti-capital punishment campaigner who heads the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (廢除死刑推動聯盟) and also works with former death row inmates, believes one of the reasons is that people lack the will to challenge existing norms:
台灣人習慣已經存在的事情。他們不太會思考，到底對不對。還有一些比較傳統的概念， 比如說，殺人要償命。但是我覺得我們沒有思考說，它存在就有道理嗎？台灣人很喜歡聽政府的規定。當然有些冤案， 可是這不是廣泛為人所知。
Taiwanese people are used to accept existing situations, they won’t necessarily spend time overthinking the matter to assess if it is correct or not. Traditional views do play a role here, for example the notion that ‘if you kill someone, you have to pay with your life’. But I think the real issue is that we haven’t processed one question enough: Is it because something exists that it is therefore right? People in Taiwan are very much inclined to obey government rules. Of course there have been cases of miscarriage of justice, but the broad public wouldn’t know about those.
In an effort to change the norms, the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP) has worked with government structures and researchers to frame the issue in a more nuanced way that goes beyond the idea of just “being for or against” capital punishment. The results of a 2013-2014 questionnaire, which included over 100 questions and polled 2,000 people indicated that people's positions are not as entrenched as they would appear.  Lin Hsinyi explains:
你問人們有冤案的情況的話， 他就更不想判死刑， 所以支持死刑並不是一個理性思考的想法。我們做了一個很走趣的事情，我們做了兩套問卷，分成A和B。在A的問卷，我們把‘你支持不支持死刑“的問題放在前面的地方， 在B問卷，把同樣的問題放在最後面。 你會發現， 如果人花時間考慮， 82%的人會支持死刑，如果問題放在前面，這個比例是88%， 大概有6%的差異，說明15分鐘的區別就可以造成怎麼大的改變。如果我們提供更多的資訊， 如果我們教育民眾， 應該可以改變。
所以如果你有選擇的可能性的話，大家會不選擇死刑。政府經常說“因為民意支持死刑，我們要執行死刑”，我覺得這是錯的。你要做政府，你是不是要跟我講，有其他的方案？ 廢除死刑最大的困難不是民意，是不負責任的政府，不管是民進黨還是國民黨。
If you ask people about cases of miscarriage of justice, then they are not in favor of death penalty, thus the support for capital punishment is not at all based on rational thinking. We did a very interesting thing, we divided the questionnaire into type A and B. In questionnaire A, we put the question ‘do you support the death penalty or not?’ at the top, while in questionnaire B this question appeared at the very end. We discovered that if people spend time to think over it, only 82 percent of the respondents would support death penalty, while if you ask at the beginning, the rate in favor is 88 percent. There is a gap of about 6 percent. This shows that a difference of 15 minutes of time is enough to create such a change in opinions. If we provide more information, if we educate the public, we can certainly change perceptions.
Thus when given the possibility of choice, most people do not opt for the death penalty. The government often says ‘we implement the death penalty because the public supports it’. But this is wrong in my opinion. If you are the government, shouldn't your role be to explain, to provide alternatives? The biggest obstacle to the abolition of the death penalty is not public opinion, it is the government that fails its responsibilities, be it a DDPor KMT [government].
The reintegration of former death row inmates who have been freed once a judiciary error has been recognized by the state is an important part of the work Lin Hsi-yi and her organization undertake. As she explains:
政府每天會賠償一千到五千台幣，但是到找NGO之前，他們（這些冤案的受害者）要自己找律師， 家人也不能工作為了要幫忙他們，所以拿了賠償之後，他們要把錢還給家人， 其實很快就沒錢了。
The government will compensate from 1,000 to 5,000 Taiwanese dollars per day [about US$ 32 to 160 for every day spent in prison]. But before they find an NGO to help, they have to pay for their own lawyers, their family members have to support them and cannot go to work, so once they receive the compensation, they have to return the money to their families and use up all the money very soon.
While some of the former inmates work in NGOs advocating the abolition of the death penalty, others choose manual work as part of their therapy to overcome their trauma. One of them is Cheng Hsin-tze who was wrongly accused of murdering a police officer. He spent 16 years in a prison in Taiwan, 12 of those years were spent on death row. Now, Cheng Hsin-tze grows and sells organic rice.
Organic rice produced by former death row inmate Cheng Hsin-tse. Photo by Filip Noubel, used with permission.
Some also become spokespersons for the abolition campaign. At a photo exhibition opened recently in Taipei, the work of artist Christophe Meireis profiled the lives of inmates and their relatives and was attended by Hsu Tzu-chiang.
Hsu Tzu-chiang speaking at the opening of a photo exhibition of death row inmates in Taipei on November 15, 2019. His own portrait is exhibited as well with the following quote: “I don't have dreams. I just wish that there won't be another Hsu Tzu-chiang.” Photo by Filip Noubel, used with permission.
The death penalty regularly resurfaces in public discourse around election time in Taiwan. In 2000, the island experienced a major political shift as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ended the 55-year long political dominance of the Kuomintang with the election of DPP President Chen Shui-bian. From then on, the issue has been instrumentalized around election time as competing parties are courting voters and want to appear as hard-liners on issues of safety. This despite the fact that in 2009, Taiwan ratified the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which calls for the abolition of capital punishment. However, since it signed the agreement, Taiwan has applied the death penalty in 34 cases, both under KMT and DPP governments.
The main question now is how the winner of the January 2020 Presidential elections will consider the issue of a moratorium. As the experience of other countries show, a prolonged moratorium is the most successful way for the abolition of capital punishment, as illustrated in this region with Mongolia.


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Activists in Angola continue to face repression for online and offline activities · Global Voices
Liam Anderson

Angola flag_Vanessa Lollipop_Flickr. 07.20.2018
This story is the second in a two-part series on limited reforms introduced under João Lourenço (JLO) that affect media freedom and activism in Angola. You can read the first part here.
When (JLO) became Angola's president in 2017, he unexpectedly began wide, ongoing reforms focused on anti-corruption, although with limits, distinguishing himself from his authoritarian predecessor of the same party Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA). While these changes seemed to have improved the media space, online activists still risk tough reactions from authorities, particularly when connected to offline activism.
Independent media in Angola have an activist aspect, making available criticisms and information challenging abuses of power. The authoritarian government of previous president José Eduardo dos Santos (“JES”) restricted media and controlled traditional media, pushing independent journalists online. In this sense, online media provide a tool to raise awareness of and defend basic rights. The well-known anti-corruption website Maka Angola is run by journalist Rafael Marques, who has been repeatedly harassed by authorities under the rule JES.
Folha 8 is an outlet which, while Freedom House reported is primarily a print publication, also has a lively website and social media. Its articles criticize and satirize authorities, for example an editorial called Angola the “MPLA Republic”, an approach which continues under JLO. The director William Tonet is a former MPLA militant, detained many times.
Read more: Angolan president's reforms drive positive impact on media — but limits persist
Club-K, founded in 2000 by Angolans abroad, is another website with regular publications and lively social media. Rede Angola suspended publications in mid-2017 due to funding issues, according to its homepage.
Activist groups began using online spaces to criticize and organize under the previous president’s more repressive regime. Central Angola 7311 is an activist collective founded in 2011 by protesters, particularly present on social media, providing space for documenting abuses and discussion. Activist-musician Luaty Beirão, who is influential on social media, criticizing corruption and authoritarianism, is a member of the collective.
Social media has been a mobilizing tool for demonstrations. Rafael Marques recently said that, under JLO, there is “more freedom and less bread”, evoking the continuing economic hardships of recent years, and there have been numerous protests in recent months, particularly in October, against high unemployment and poverty, recalling JLO’s election promises of job-creation.
The protests, part of an ongoing movement, have been amplified by Central Angola 7311, and others such as the civic association Laulenu. Central Angola 7311 recorded online the names of detained protestors, and criticized violent police clampdowns, by sharing videos and images, including during protests as they happen. The collective also shares information on organizing protests on various issues, such as women’s rights, collecting funds to support detainees, or sharing petitions for example calling for a hospital’s managers to be fired for poor management.
These tweets are from a protest on October 15, with people seemingly temporarily arrested by police citing public security:
ACTIVISTAS DETIDOS
Hitler
Dago
Laurinda
Geraldo
Alemão
Mwangola
Jaime mc
Em actualização………
— Central Angola 7311 (@Central7311) October 15, 2019
ACTIVISTS DETAINED
Hitler
Dago
Laurinda
Geraldo
Alemão
Mwangola
Jaime mc
Em actualização………
“Polícia está agredir os manifestantes q pretendiam protestar na Assembleia Nacional onde o presidente @jlprdeangola vai discursar.
Há muitos feridos e detidos.
A activista Laurinda Gouveia, q está grávida, foi fortemente espancada.
Jornalistas tb foram intimidados.” B. Ndomba pic.twitter.com/pvcJme36IY
— Central Angola 7311 (@Central7311) October 15, 2019
Police are beating the demonstrators intending to protest at the National Assembly where the president will give a speech.
There are many injured and detained.
The activist Laurinda Gouveia, who is pregnant, was heavily beaten.
Journalists were also intimidated
In October, activist Jeremias Benedito told DW África that, while he felt freedom of expression improved after JLO came to power, the government was increasingly returning to “the same tactics as his predecessor”, with police repression of protests, using tear gas, dog-bites, and arrests, for example, protesters were injured and detained in mid-October in Luanda. Activists have filed formal complaints against police violence.
The president and others said the protests were linked to corrupt attempts at destabilization, which online Luaty Beirão criticized for being rhetoric “just like” that of the past. In September, JLO also warned “the youth to refrain from using social media to misinform and distort” facts to create “social disorder.”
The arrest this year of activist “Samussuku”, and his aunt briefly, indicates the authorities’ readiness to act even against content only online. Human Rights Watch reported that on 10 May “plainclothes police officers violently forced Hitler “Samussuku” Tshikonde into an unidentified car” jailing him “unlawfully for 72 hours without charge or access to a lawyer”. He was investigated for “insulting the president” in a YouTube video shared on social media on 8 May ” where he said “activists were ready to “oppose [the president] the same way they opposed Dos Santos if he continued to target peaceful activists”. Analyst Sawyer said Angola’s police “should stop treating peaceful activists as a threat to state security,”.
A Radio Angola article wrote that while some may call such arbitrary arrests “isolated cases” under this government, the previous president said the same. Indeed, Samussuku’s video was reacting to the arrests of fellow activists at protests against forced evictions.
He was released on 13 May after a court hearing, on condition he reports to police regularly. On 26 September he was summoned by the Criminal Investigation Service for a hearing — which originally arrested him — and asked if he would apologize to the president, which he declined.
Samussuku is a long-time government critic, calling it a “rotten structure”, and supports UNITA opposition party, who has been detained before and injured at protests. He is active on Facebook. and remarked that the government got more money from fining activists than repatriating ill-gotten wealth, referring to its anti-corruption drive. He is also involved in running Handeka, a civic rights organization which created “Jiku”, an online project for citizen-monitoring of the 2017 elections.
Digital activist spaces have become energetic in recent years, although with accessibility limited. Internet access in Angola was measured by Internet World Stats as 22.3 per cent of the population in 2019, although less by other sources, and for 2018-2019 DataReportal recorded: 66 per cent urban population; 45 per cent mobile subscriptions; and 11 per cent active social media users, mostly on mobile connections, and social media use grew per cent. Facebook use dominates compared to other platforms.
The Communications Minister, Celso Malavoloneke, said in November 2019 that Angola has the lowest access to TV and radio in the Southern African Development Community, particularly in rural areas, reflecting urban/ rural disparities in infrastructure and media access. Although low internet access has hindered its impact, online spaces have become lively, both journalistic and activist.
Social media use noticeably increased, though, which could make it increasingly effective for organizing and galvanizing certain audiences, but maybe less so for reaching new audiences or in areas with lower access, for example regarding serious drought and land-grabs in the rural south.
Information online also travels offline, and so low internet access does not necessarily mean people without regular internet connections will not hear about information or protests organized online, thus multiplying the effect. For comparison, though, in Tunisia in 2011, when the Arab Spring protests famously made use of online platforms, Freedom House reported internet penetration of 39 per cent, notably higher than Angola’s currently, and in a smaller country. Other networks, though, such as unions and foreign mainstream media, were important, showing that online and offline activism complement each other, and how that happens depends on the context.
Despite improvements to media space under JLO’s government, some activists have said that it has increasingly resorted to tactics of his predecessor against protestors and critics. The government still has restrictive legal tools, such as vague defamation laws, and Samussuku’s arrest for online content shows that authorities’ inclination to react to challenges on sensitive issues, such as “too much” criticism, also applies to online spaces.

author: Liam Anderson


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In Hong Kong, landslide victory for Pro-democracy camp in local elections means Beijing is out of touch · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

An info-graphic comparing 2015 and 2019 district council election result. Red stands for pro-establishment; yellow stands for pro-democracy. Image from the Stand News, Global Voices’ content partner.
The Pro-democracy camp has won a landslide victory in district council elections on November 24. Out of the 452 small district seats, the Democrats have taken 388 seats — 263 seats more than the previous election in 2015. The pro-establishment party has lost 240 seats and only retained 59 seats.
If the voting rate were below 65 percent, the pan-democrats could have lost in many districts as the pro-establishment’s iron votes were more evenly distributed in all districts. With the current 70 percent voting rate, the gap between the number of votes received by the two camps widened to 6 percent (469,189 votes) and helped the pan-democrats win in competitive districts. The small district, single vote and single-seat election system, which is all favorable to big and resourceful pro-establishment political parties, has led to the utmost defeat of the pro-establishment. (Check more on the background of Hong Kong's District Council Elections)
The elections are considered a de-facto referendum on Hong Kong protests and a majority of the voters have shown their support for the anti-government protests despite the chaos and destruction that has taken place.
In fact, about half of the pro-democracy candidates who won the elections are independent or new to elections. They don’t have track records in serving the community nor organization resources for their election campaigns. The reason why they won is mainly that they have endorsed the agenda of anti-government protests, including investigation on police misconduct and brutality, remove riot label on the protests, drop charges against protesters and democratic political reform.
Beijing was allegedly shocked by the result of the elections. A senior editor of Foreign Policy was told that the Chinese communist mouthpieces had prepared a front page victory story for the Hong Kong pro-establishment:
How Chinese media – and probably the leadership – became so convinced of a Beijing victory in Hong Kong's elections they wrote the story in advance.https://t.co/2tEFXVxLG8
— James Palmer (@BeijingPalmer) November 25, 2019
The pro-establishment camp had been pressuring the government to delay the elections since September. On November 8, they even put up front-page political advisement on major newspapers urging the government to call off the elections. However, a week later, after protesters started disrupting traffic to create a general strike, Beijing decided to hold the elections on schedule as it was believed that they could swing the public opinion in their favor.
On November 14, ten days ahead of the elections, the city was flooded with political advertisements calling citizens to use their vote to say “NO” to violent protests. A large number of local pop-stars were mobilized to spread the message on “voting down violence”. On November 16, soldiers of the People's Liberation Army marched out of their barracks to clear barricades in the streets. Pro-establishment groups also organized their supporters to clean up the streets as part of their election campaigns.
Beijing was confident that the pro-establishment could win the district council elections as they had not lost since 1999. They believed that a majority of people could not withstand the radical protesting strategy and would want to restore social order to Hong Kong as soon as possible.
While it is true that people want to restore order, many feel that the disorder was created by the government in the first place. For six months, no one in the authority's camp has been punished for the chaos while about 4,500 protesters have been arrested and are facing riot charges with the potential to receive a maximum 10-year jail sentence.
In districts where residents have witnessed the violence of the pro-Beijing white clads and riot police officers’ abusive use of tear gas, rubber bullets and even live rounds, the “silent majority” decided to stand up and voice their support for the protesters.
The most stunning election result is in Yuen Long where the Beijing Liaison Office, pro-establishment political parties and rural leaders have a strong grasp in grassroots community networks. Not a single seat will go to the members of pro-establishment political parties. The “silent majority” used their votes to speak out against the July 21 subway attack incident.
The election result let Beijing know that its judgment about Hong Kong is all wrong. Since the anti-extradition protests, Beijing's strategy in Hong Kong has turned a single-issue protest into a political crisis that questions China’s fundamental policy on Hong Kong. Here are some of the ways that Beijing has underestimated and misjudged the current political climate in Hong Kong:
1. Beijing believed and claimed that the anti-extradition protests were staged by pro-democracy politicians who work with foreign forces;
2. Beijing believed that the Hong Kong government could simply neglect one million people’s demands as the pro-establishment political parties have dominated the Legislative Council;
3. Beijing believed that the police and pro-Beijing mobs could work together to crush the protests in a manner similar to the cracking down of 2014 pro-democracy Occupy Central protests;
4. Beijing believed that radical protesters are a small minority and the riot police officers could crush and arrest them all;
5. Beijing believed that the demand for an investigation on police brutality was a political plot against Hong Kong and the Beijing government and hence unacceptable;
6. Beijing believed that the majority of Hong Kong people only care about their personal well-being and would not support disruptive protests;
7. Beijing believed that the anti-mask law and the emergency act could terrorize the masses and keep them away from protests;
8. Beijing believed that political propaganda and disinformation spread across pro-Beijing mainstream media outlets and made-in-China WeChat and Weibo could change public opinion in Hong Kong;
9. Beijing believed that the pro-establishment camp could never lose the district council elections.
All of the above have been proven wrong. But will Beijing see the truth and alter its Hong Kong policy?