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Iran’s Foreign Minister Says He Won’t Tweet in Persian Because of Twitter Censorship · Global Voices
Mahsa Alimardani

The popular, western friendly foreign minister, Javad Zarif, has announced he will not Tweet in Persian, since Twitter is banned inside the country.c
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has more than 800,000 followers on Twitter, despite the fact that Twitter is blocked in Iran.
In a recent interview with the Iranian government's official website, dolat.ir, Zarif explained that he only tweets for foreign audiences in English and Arabic, and not in Persian, asserting that his purpose is not to reach audiences inside of Iran, where Twitter is blocked and prohibited.
Twitter was one of the two platforms filtered in the lead up to the 2009 Presidential elections, alongside Facebook. Many Iranians wondered why Facebook and Twitter continue to be censored, when other social media like Instagram and Telegram operate with free reign.
What is the the difference between Instagram or Telegram and Twitter where only the latter is blocked in Iran?!
— MAHDI TAGHIZADEH (@mahdi) July 5, 2016
President Hassan Rouhani came to power in 2013 on a electoral platform that paired promises of a more open internet with a rhetoric of greater freedoms in general. Yet during Rouhani's first term as president (he was re-elected in May 2017) Iranians saw relatively little effort by his administration to remove technical blockades on both Facebook and Twitter.
Since then, many have questioned the propriety of Rouhani administration officials, including Minister Zarif, using these filtered platforms.
In a widely shared Twitter exchange in 2013, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey questioned the Iranian president’s decision to use the platform, given that it is inaccessible for other Iranians inside the country.
@HassanRouhani Good evening, President. Are citizens of Iran able to read your tweets?
— jack (@jack) October 1, 2013
Evening, @Jack. As I told @camanpour, my efforts geared 2 ensure my ppl'll comfortably b able 2 access all info globally as is their #right.
— Hassan Rouhani (@HassanRouhani) October 1, 2013
But Rouhani's response to Dorsey rings hollow one month into his second term, especially as his most popular minister (Zarif) appears to have acquiesced to this state of censorship.
The legal implications of using these platforms has been questioned by hardline figures, including the Deputy Prosecutor General of Iran, and the head of Iran's Committee Charged with Determining Offensive Content (CCDOC) Abdul Sayyed Khoramabadi, who stipulated as recently as August 2017 that membership in filtered social networks such as Twitter was a “violation.” He also noted that the use of Twitter by Rouhani administration officials was “problematic.”
On the other hand, many point to the fact that members of the government can often access uncensored internet, which gives government officials a privileged position for access to information, putting them on unequal footing with the rest of the country. It is widely known that access to the internet in government offices, or even international headquarters belonging to the United Nations, do not face the same hurdles as regular citizens. This 2009 blog post (in Persian) instructing Iranian Internet users on how to connect to the unfiltered internet of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasters offers a popular illustration of the issue.
Zarif, who won widespread popularity across Iran for finalizing the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1, drew international attention when he became the first to break news of the negotiations, through his own Twitter account.
Zarif's 2 September statement, however, are increasing concern among Iranians that Rouhani's promises of a more open internet in Iran may never be fulfilled.
من از توییتر فعلا با توجه به مقررات داخلی به‌عنوان ابزار پیام‌رسانی، صرفا در سطح بین‌المللی استفاده کرده و به همین دلیل هم هیچ‌گاه توییت فارسی نداشته‌ام و توییت‌هایم را به انگلیسی و عربی ارائه کردم تا در فضای بین‌المللی با این رسانه که بسیار هم در فضای دیپلماسی رسانه‌ای موثر است مورد استفاده قرار بگیرد.
البته معتقدم که می‌تواند یک وسیله موثر هم برای داخل باشد. برای پیام داخلی تلاش کردم از اینستاگرام استفاده کنم؛ گرچه من در اینستاگرام تازه‌وارد هستم و بیشتر روی توییتر تمرکز داشتم، ولی از اول سال ۹۶ در اینستاگرام حضور پیدا کردم که امیدوارم از آن مسیر هم بتوانم با استفاده از یک روشی که در ایران مورد قبول و مورد استفاده است از این طریق ارتباط خوبی با دوستان عزیز در داخل کشور هم داشته باشم.
Currently since Twitter faces internal regulations as a social media platform, I only use it on the level of international relations and for this reason I never tweet in Persian, and only post in English or Arabic, so within the international context I can utilize this platform which is ideal for being effective in the diplomatic space.
Of course, I do think it can be an effective tool for inside the country as well. For internal communications platforms I have made an effort to use Instagram; although on Instagram I am just learning how to use it and have more experience on Twitter, but since the beginning of 1396 (March 21 was the start of the Persian year 1396) I've started using Instagram regularly, and I'm hoping that through this method which is allowed and used widely by Iranians, I can find a way to have good communications with my dear friends inside of Iran as well.
But a quick scan of Zarif's tweets suggests a different reality — in fact, it includes numerous tweets in Persian. A post from 25 February 2016 even encouraged Iranians to participate and vote in the 2016 parliamentary elections:
مشارکت گسترده و هوشمند در انتخابات اقتدار ملی و فردایی بهتر را تضمین می کند. فردا همه رأی می دهیم تا هیچکس هیچگاه یک ایرانی را تهدید نکند.
— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) February 25, 2016
Widespread and smart participation in the elections guarantees a strong national authority and a better future. Tomorrow we will all vote so that no one anywhere will be able to threaten an Iranian.
Indeed, Zarif's recent Twitter posts have ceased to contain Persian language content. Since securing the 2015 nuclear deal, Zarif has gotten pressure from hardliners for betraying the country, who believe he conceded too much to the west in the deal. The fact that Zarif used Twitter to encourage Iranians to vote for the 2016 parliamentary elections — and not the 2017 presidential elections — might be a sign of his effort to reduce controversy over the platform, which is largely kept filtered by the hardline political faction placing pressure on him.
Rouhani also appointed a new Minister of Information, Communications and Technology in late August. While celebrated for being the youngest member of cabinet in the Islamic Republic of Iran's history at 36, Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi's credentials come largely from his previous work developing Iran's surveillance infrastructure. He also played a role in interrogating and imprisoning activists while working with the Ministry of Intelligence under the hardline and populist President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a fact that has caused alarm among activist and human rights defenders.
Jahromi too is active on Twitter and has indicated he would like to remove the filter on Twitter given the “right circumstances”, which he says would require negotiations with Twitter. This has raised concern that Twitter will cooperate with the Iranian government to allow a limited, censored version of Twitter, perhaps similar to what they now offer in Turkey.
It remains unclear if Twitter will engage in such negotiations — the company has given no public indication as to whether they will cooperate or not. When responding to an inquiry on the matter from BBC Persian, a spokesperson replied: “We do not have any opinions or comments on this issue.”
Read more coverage of the Rouhani government's internet policies, by Mahsa Alimardani

author: Mahsa Alimardani


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Macedonia’s Former Ruling Party Accused of Inflaming Xenophobia Ahead of Local Elections · Global Voices
Filip Stojanovski

Screenshots of social media posts and leaked SMS messages inciting supporters of Macedonian political party VMRO-DPMNE to join anti-migrant activities.
Ahead of the local elections that will take place in October, Macedonia's former ruling party is building upon its legacy of fear mongering by stepping up the propaganda about the supposed threat posed by refugees from the Middle East.
The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization – Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity (VMRO-DPMNE) was Macedonia's ruling party in the past decade. On May 31, 2017, a new coalition government led by Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM) was established.
But the former ruling party has retained control of most municipal governments and even media outlets. Through veiled statements by its leaders, and also through proxy groups on social media, it continues the propaganda based on fear, fomenting ethnic hatred between the (mostly Christian) ethnic Macedonians and other ethnic communities within Macedonia, in particular, the (mostly Muslim) ethnic Albanians. When the party failed to form a coalition with ethnic Albanian parties, it attempted to blame the latter, as well as the West and  civil society for conspiracy to dismember the country by dividing it into cantons (like Bosnia) or federalizing it into territories that can later secede and join Albania.
Откако немаше кантонизација и федерализација, мораше да дојдат мигрантите да го плашат народот.
— Man (@Goran_Man) August 31, 2017
Since the division into cantons and federalization of the country didn't occur, the migrants had to come to scare the people.
The latest iteration of this campaign incites fear of migrants which is believed to be intended to mobilize support for the dwindling political base of VMRO-DPMNE.
When the new government announced public consultations for the purpose of updating the National Strategy for Integration of Refugees and Foreigners in Republic of Macedonia 2017-2027, VMRO-DPMNE quickly denounced it as an unnecessary program for the building of settlements for refugees.
A paid Facebook advertisement by the proxy group “Budenje! Ne za migranti” (“Awakening! No to migrants”) demonizing the refugees.
VMRO-DPMNE is also accused of using proxy groups in its anti-migrant campaign to avoid legal and political backlash. For example, the group “Awakening” has been posting messages on Facebook  that criticize the government's settlement program by demonizing refugees:
“SDSM government plans to build apartments and massive settlement of migrants. That means the migrants will be present in our neighborhood. They will go to school with our children, they will take your workplace. Settling of migrants means an increase of crime rate and violence, also.
Awakening! No to migrants”
What “Awakening” didn't mention is that the government's strategy is almost similar to what VMRO-DPMNE had been implementing since 2008 when it was the country's ruling party. During the 2016 election campaign, VMRO-DPMNE even cited the building of 20 apartments for refugees who had been granted asylum as part of its accomplishments.
In response, the new government maintained that Macedonia will remain a transit country for refugees, and not a destination like Germany. In recent years, only 15 asylum seekers had asked to remain in Macedonia. The country's Minister of Foreign Affairs Nikola Dimitrov tweeted:
Имав стотини средби од 1 јуни наваму. Ниту еден, НИТУ ЕДЕН соговорник нема побарано Македонија да стане земја дестинација за бегалци. #факт
— Никола Димитров (@NDimitrovMK) August 24, 2017
Since June 1, I had hundreds of meetings. Not one, NOT ONE person I've talked to had asked that Macedonia to be a destination country for settling refugees. #fact
World's most and least welcoming countries for migrants – a chart made by The Independent based on the results of a Gallup poll. CC BY-ND. Click to enlarge.
The anti-migrant campaign espoused by VMRO-DPMNE could be one of the factors for the low opinion about accepting migrants in Macedonia. A recent Gallup poll showed that Macedonia is the least accepting country for migrants in the world.
Another example of how VMRO-DPMNE has used the refugee crisis for propaganda was its hiring of the  United States-based New Partners Consulting Inc. in 2015 to publicize “Macedonia's, and in particular [former] Prime Minister Gruevski's, role in the epicenter of the refugee crisis and the need for increased cooperation and resources from other NGOs and international partners.”
This was disclosed on the website of the Foreign Agents Registration Act which lists American companies engaged in lobbying for foreign powers.
One of the results of this deal, which cost 54,000 US dollars, was the publication on Newsweek of an opinion piece entitled “We Must Work Together to Help The Migrants,” officially penned by party leader Gruevski on December 10, 2015.
Providing a typical example of doublethink, many VMRO-DPMNE supporters seem unfazed by the contradictory positions of the party: advocating help for refugees on one hand (abroad), to reversing the stance on the National Strategy on Integration, to demonizing migrants, albeit through ‘unofficial’ channels aimed at the home audience.
Screenshot of a Facebook post by Union of Youth Forces  of VMRO-DPMNE Štip. Its text reads: “A school day in Štip after migrants settle. WILL YOU ALLOW FUTURE EDUCATION TO LOOK LIKE THIS.” Additional text over the screenshot: “Here's who is spreading hate speech, xenophobia and Islamophobia.” Click to enlarge.
The recent campaign to whip up anti-migrant sentiment has been criticized by some netizens as “fascist”.
For instance, the youth branch of VMRO-DPMNE from Štip (on the right) remixed photos of a local school and school children from some Middle Eastern country wearing robes and headscarves, and urging readers to prevent an Islamic invasion or mass conversion to Islam in schools.
Furthermore, groups such as “Awakening” and “You must come outside, too!” had been collecting signatures for anti-migrant petitions in various municipalities during the last few weeks, in particular, in municipalities where VMRO-DPMNE has a majority in the town council.  Human rights organization Macedonian Helsinki Committee has publicly warned that these groups are openly inflaming hate speech and xenophobia.
Investigative journalists also reported that VMRO-DPMNE has been ordering its loyalists, including civil servants and public school teachers to sign these petitions. When journalists tried to call the owner of the phone number used to send text messages in the name of the local party committee inviting members to come and sign the petition, the person denied having ties to the party.
In Skopje, when the Nova TV journalist Saška Cvetkovska asked “Awakening” activists collecting signatures who they are, and what they intend to do with the sensitive personal data collected from citizens, which include their Unique Master Citizen Numbers (similar to the US social security number), she received no clear reply. The person collecting the data merely said that she's a member of VMRO-DPMNE. Afterwards, a man who was later identified as an employee of the Municipality of Aerodrom attacked the journalist and her cameraman in an attempt to stop them from continuing their report.
Unlike in the past, when such cases of media attacks enjoyed impunity, the authorities pressed charges against the attacker of Nova TV journalists a week after the assault.
Another news item by Telma TV on August 24 showed that the logistics for taking the signatures, including the chairs, tables and the collected data are stored in the local political party offices, indicating direct connection between the VMRO-DPMNE and the supposedly “grassroots” initiative.
Еве за сите кои не верувавте дека ДПМНЕ стои позади собирањето потписи против мигрантите. А сега ќут таму! pic.twitter.com/n0FzRjwSYN
— Dimko (@ddimkooooo) August 24, 2017
Here's to all who don't believe that VMRO-DPMNE is behind the  collecting of signatures against the migrants. Now zip it!
Last week, these anti-migrant petitions had been used as basis by city councils in Štip, Kavadarci, Karpoš and other municipalities to initiate local referendums against the settling of refugees within their jurisdictions. Scheduled to take place around the local elections, such referendums can potentially disrupt the local political situation, aside from incurring significant additional cost for taxpayers.
In case the referendums are conducted simultaneously with the elections, they could potentially combine the issue of hatred against the (Muslim) migrants with the voting for local councils, presumably swaying some of the (Christian) voters who would otherwise not directly support nationalist candidates.
According to the Macedonian Criminal Code, some forms of hate speech are considered a felony, but their perpetrators had enjoyed impunity under the former government.
Activists are worried that anti-migrant propaganda might continue to intensify with the approaching campaign period for the local elections.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Filip Stojanovski


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On WhatsApp, Fake News Is Nearly Impossible to Moderate. Is That a Bad Thing? · Global Voices
Kisholoy Mukherjee

Image via Pixabay. From Public Domain.
With the number of social media users in India rapidly rising, the dissemination of fake news has become a widespread phenomenon in recent years.
So-called “information overload” has made it difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, and in some cases, misinformation spread via social media appears to have precipitated real-life violence, sometimes with fatal consequences.
In one recent incident, Twitter users in India expressed their anger when a ruling party member shared an image taken out of context, in what seemed like an effort to stoke social tensions during a riot in the Indian state of West Bengal. Several such images were circulated through social media to skew public opinion in this period. In 2015, a possibly fake image circulated via WhatsApp and was later linked to the subsequent lynching of a Muslim man in India, on the suspicion that he had slaughtered a cow.
In India, reporting misinformation to police can be a first step towards prosecuting its sender under Indian laws like Section 67 of the IT act, if the information is perceived as likely to be “harmful to young minds”, or section 468 of IPC if the news is considered “detrimental” to someone's reputation. But policies like these are hard to implement effectively, routinely running afoul of protections for free expression.
Online civil society is also increasingly proactive, with the emergence of several hoax-slaying initiatives run by do-gooders from different spheres of life who try to expose fake news for what it is. But research has shown that civilian reporting of fake news is often not swift or thorough enough to curb the problem.
At the moment, the most likely mitigators of fake news online may be the social media companies themselves. But experts are still undecided on whether or how companies might change their behaviors — by choice or by regulation — in order to diminish the problem.
As a major venue for the spread of fake news, Facebook has found itself at the center of this debate. After the 2016 US election, critics charged that the prevalence of false stories smearing Hillary Clinton, spread mostly on Facebook, may have shaped the outcome of the US election. These allegations triggered an ongoing debate about how Facebook might moderate misinformation on their network, along with multiple technical tweaks by Facebook, in an attempt to make its network less friendly to fake news distributors.
Most recently, Facebook updated its “Trending” feature formula. Unlike in the past, when the posts with maximum engagement appeared in the “Trending” section, now only those posts that have been shared by other “reputable sources” will appear in the Trending section. Users are also invited to contribute to the system by reporting false news stories directly to the company.
But Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says it is difficult to rely on feedback from users, who may flag potentially correct content as wrong, for vested reasons. In fact, recent research seems to indicate that most people fail to distinguish between real and fake online content. This, along with the fact that most of the news that we receive on social media sites are from those in our close circles (and therefore people we generally trust), makes social media an ideal platform for propagating fake news.
The only thing that is certain is that there are major pitfalls for any entity — whether a company, a government, or an individual — that aims to separate out the real from the fake.
While misinformation continues to circulate on standard social media platforms, all of the above examples from India reportedly went viral on WhatsApp. As the internet-based messaging app has become a key platform for disseminating news and information, for groups of friends and media houses alike, it has also increasingly served as a mechanism for distributing fake news.
But the picture becomes more complex when it comes to news and information spread through WhatsApp.
WhatsApp (which is owned by Facebook) is the leading messaging app for mobile users outside of the US. It is often easier to access via mobile phone than Facebook or other platforms that carry a higher volume of content and code.
But in contrast to the technology that supports Facebook, which allows the company can see and analyze what users post, WhatsApp operators have no way of seeing the content of users’ messages.
This is because WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption, where only the sender (on one end) and receiver (on the other end) can read each other's messages. This design feature has been a boon for users — including journalists and human rights advocates — who wish to keep their communications private from government surveillance.
But when it comes to the proliferation of misinformation, this presents a significant hurdle. In a recent interview with the Economic Times, WhatsApp software engineer Alan Kao explained that WhatsApp's underlying encryption makes it difficult to tackle the challenge of fake news, as WhatsApp operators have no way of seeing what kind of information is being spread on their networks, unless it is reported to them directly by users.
Like other Facebook-owned products, WhatsApp has a policy on acceptable use which prohibits the use of the app, among other things, to publish “falsehoods, misrepresentations, or misleading statements.” But this seems more like a suggestion than a hard and fast rule. The app doesn't offer a user-friendly way to report violating content, apart from its “Report Spam” option. In its FAQ on reporting “issues” (i.e. problems) to WhatsApp, the company writes:
We encourage you to report problematic content to us. Please keep in mind that to help ensure the safety, confidentiality and security of your messages, we generally do not have the contents of messages available to us, which limits our ability to verify the report and take action.
When needed, you can take a screenshot of the content and share it, along with any available contact info, with appropriate law enforcement authorities.
While it is easy to see why the company would encourage users to report violating behavior to law enforcement, this might not render the best outcome in a country like India (alongside many others.) Indeed, there have been several cases of arrests of people who have criticized politicians on WhatsApp. And in April 2017, an Indian court ruled that a WhatsApp group administrator could even be sentenced to jail time for “offensive” posts.
No matter what, it seems there is always the risk of the powers-that-be taking undue advantage of their influence over internet activity.

author: Kisholoy Mukherjee


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Scenes From the Bangladesh-Myanmar Border, Where Rohingya Refugees Are Seeking Refuge From Violence · Global Voices
Rezwan

Screenshot of a Facebook video by Saiful Huq Omi.
As Myanmar has brutally cracked down on Rohingya Muslims, forcing many to flee to neighboring Bangladesh, local Bangladeshi activists, journalists and aid workers have been there to document their difficult trek.
The Rohingya are an ethnic group who are concentrated in Rakhine state, in Buddhist-majority Myanmar. They are denied citizenship and other basic rights by the Myanmar government, who consider them to be illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, even though the Rohingyas have roots in Myanmar that go back centuries.
After a militant group attacked police outposts in Rakhine state, Myanmar's security forces retaliated. Witnesses have described troops shooting civilians and homes being burned.
According to UN sources, more than 123,000 Rohingyas entered Bangladesh in the past week alone. Bangladesh already hosts 400,000 Rohingyas in various settlements, who have arrived over past few decades. While the Bangladesh government has resisted accepting more refugees from Myanmar during this current crisis, the Bangladeshi people are largely sympathetic to the plight of the Rohingyas.
Shafiur Rahman is one of the people who have been sharing information from his Twitter and Instagram accounts about the stream of Rohingya people arriving at the border. He is a Bangladeshi-British filmmaker who is working on a documentary about Rohingya women refugees.
On August 26, 2017, he reported that the Bangladeshi border guards were not allowing the refugees to cross:
Hapless #Rohingya women & children captured by Bangladesh Border Guard & pushed back to Myanmar. https://t.co/IDjmCH1h5a #nonrefoulement pic.twitter.com/yWm4qIAlbx
— Shafiur Rahman (@shafiur) August 26, 2017
On August 29, 2017, however, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ordered security forces to treat the refugees humanely as they are fleeing for life. Subsequently, border guards began to allow many refugees through.
Rahman also reported that the Myanmar army was targeting innocent civilians as they flee. His information coincides with other sources who say the same. Myanmar helicopters pursuing alleged Rohingya insurgents have violated Bangladesh’s airspace near Ukhia in Cox’s Bazar multiple times:
GUN FIRE towards No Man's land in Gundam border with Myanmar 30 minutes ago. Refugees running. Burmese military still shooting with impunity pic.twitter.com/0nHLuVyNJ3
— Shafiur Rahman (@shafiur) August 28, 2017
This young #rohingya woman was shot today, along with her husband, a few metres from safety by #burmese military. Their child survived. pic.twitter.com/uDNTOFOzcT
— Shafiur Rahman (@shafiur) September 2, 2017
#Rohingya Women and children from Min Gri where there are reports of mass killings using guns, knives, launchers and house burnings. pic.twitter.com/DDEJP6bwEH
— Shafiur Rahman (@shafiur) September 2, 2017
Baby handed to woman. #Rohingya parents killed in #Myanmar by military. pic.twitter.com/pfei20m9m6
— Shafiur Rahman (@shafiur) September 3, 2017
#Myanmar army helicopters enter #Bangladesh air space 3 times. Myanmar BGP fire rounds into Bangladesh where I saw two deaths on 2nd Sept.
— Shafiur Rahman (@shafiur) 4 de septiembre de 2017
The journey to the relative safety of Bangladesh is long and treacherous, Rahman reported:
Exhausted #Rohingya children fleeing from #Myanmar. 12 days walk for this family. .#genocide #ethniccleansing #co… https://t.co/R7aPiFclC1 pic.twitter.com/wV2jfcSRcI
— Shafiur Rahman (@shafiur) September 4, 2017
Bare feet. Miles of thick slippery mud. And a deep knee wound. #Rohingya #refugee experience. #Bangladesh pic.twitter.com/rcpqpP9isx
— Shafiur Rahman (@shafiur) September 4, 2017
Welcome to Bangladesh! Bangladeshi gives a helping hand to this #rohingya family. They walked for 5 days. They fa… https://t.co/0pfzK5R9cI pic.twitter.com/OCrJsnASCQ
— Shafiur Rahman (@shafiur) September 3, 2017
Welcome to Bangladesh! Bangladeshi volunteers give water and biscuits to #Rohingya #refugees as they arrive. #RefugeesWelcome pic.twitter.com/ShyBk3LdBg
— Shafiur Rahman (@shafiur) September 3, 2017
Thousands of #Rohingya #refugees gathered in Khangchur para, near #Bangladesh border. Waiting for entry. pic.twitter.com/KCwFoO0IvO
— Shafiur Rahman (@shafiur) September 3, 2017
STORIES OF TRAFFICKERS hijacking fishing boats to bring in fleeing #Rohingya . This sinking near Shah Piir island https://t.co/lK1pJGao5O pic.twitter.com/J2YRdF0uKz
— Shafiur Rahman (@shafiur) 31 de agosto de 2017
And once on the Bangladesh side, the Rohingya refugees face exploitation by unsavory people as there is yet to be formal shelters and aids available for them:
Why are #Rohingya refugees having to buy their plastic sheeting? Why is there a flourishing market for these? Where are the agencies? pic.twitter.com/AroNVz8KV1
— Shafiur Rahman (@shafiur) September 5, 2017
Renowned photojournalist Saiful Huq Omi was also at the border posting images and videos to his Facebook page:
In a recent video report he urged for people to take a stand against Rohingya persecution:
Thousands and thousands and thousands of people are coming. Look at the faces. Look how young they are. And I hope those who think they're nothing but terrorists, I hope you see this child. You see this old man and ask yourself how on earth you can be such a shame for humanity. This is what is happening on the border. Young child, infants, old man, old woman, and young men are fleeing their motherland and leaving behind the dead bodies of their beloved members of the family. Hardly managing any time to get their things packed […]
They will take this route all the way down the hills and all the way at least few more hours of walk[ing] before they can rest and maybe one kind villager will show up and offer them some food and some water.
Resources are stretched, though the good news is that the Bangladesh government has decided to establish a new camp for the latest influx of refugees. It will take some time to build, however.
It remains to be seen what will happen in the coming days for the displaced Rohingyas whether in their home country Myanmar or in refugee settlements elsewhere.

author: Rezwan


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Simon Ateba Is Not Ahmed Abba, but He Too Has Experienced Persecution as a Journalist in Cameroon · Global Voices
Lova Rakotomalala

Simon Ateba. Published with his permission
Simon Ateba is not Ahmed Abba.
More than once, however, media outlets have mistakenly identified a photo of Ateba as being Abba, a Cameroonian journalist for Radio France International convicted of terrorism-related charges in April 2017 for reporting on the Boko Haram militant group.
Unfortunately, Global Voices was the latest news organization to make that mistake, and Ateba quickly alerted us to that fact. We have since corrected the original article, apologized, and spoken to Ateba about his own experience.
It turns out that Ateba is also a journalist who has faced government pressure on account of his reporting on Boko Haram. Born in Cameroon and trained in Nigeria, he worked for nine years for The News Magazine, one of Nigeria's most iconic political publications. Now he lives in the US capital of Washington, D.C., and is the publisher of Simon Ateba News Africa, which focuses on African events including the political situation in Nigeria, the presidential election imbroglio in Kenya, and Boko Haram massacres in Cameroon.
In 2015, after receiving a grant from the Ford Foundation via the International Center for Investigative Reporting in Nigeria, Ateba traveled to Cameroon and Chad to report on Nigerian refugees who had fled Boko Haram atrocities in Nigeria. He says he alerted all the relevant authorities beforehand that he would be visiting the area to do journalism.
However, he was arrested in September of that year at the Minawao Refugee Camp in Cameroon's far north and accused of being a Boko Haram spy.
While in the custody of the Cameroon government, Ateba says he was deprived of food and was kept in a cell without any basic amenities. He was eventually rescued from his ordeal with the help of Amnesty International and other human rights organizations.
His case highlights the precarious state of human rights and press freedom in Cameroon under the decades-long rule of President Paul Biya. The Cameroonian authorities haven't only targeted individual journalists, but entire populations. For example, earlier this year, following protests over the disparities between Francophone and Anglophone areas, the government shut down Internet access for the country’s English-speaking regions for three months.
“There’s press freedom of Cameroon for those who praise the government or who do not do serious investigative journalism,” Ateba says. “You can insult the President, he may not do anything. But once you begin to meander into serious things such as human rights abuses, financial transactions, and so on, then you are seriously in trouble.”
“And it's not just the President,” he adds, “the top officers, the cops, everyone is a Lord. Cameroon is more like a police state, a country where there are many laws that are not obeyed or respected by the authorities.”
That means practising journalism online is especially risky. Ateba doesn't have any illusions about what would happen to him if he were still in Cameroon: “I would be arrested, jailed or killed. Luckily, I have no intention of going there now.”
The fight against the militant group Boko Haram, which has been wreaking havoc in the country's far north since 2014, has given Cameroonian authorities even more of a pretext to punish journalists who step out of line, says Ateba. Under the new anti-terrorism law—the law that was used to convict Ahmed Abba—”officials can just frame anyone. . . .and label the person a terrorist. There is no freedom.”
But the truth, Ateba argues, is that the narrative in Cameroon has long been skewed. Instead of focusing on the actions of President Biya and his associates “looting everything and destroying the institutions of that country,” problems are often framed as the Anglophone minority versus the Francophone majority.
“President Paul Biya does not care about Francophones or Anglophones,” Ateba says. “Cameroonians are being neglected and being scammed by Biya. If you protest, you oppose him or threaten his power, he comes after you, whether you are a Supreme Court judge or protest leader, whether you are a Francophone or an Anglophone, same treatment.”
What needs to happen, Ateba believes, is more cooperation across these divides. “These groups need to unite and remove the gangster and his accomplices and sit down to form a federal country with 10 regions. Even though you hear only about Anglophones, Cameroon has ten regions and these regions have their own peculiarities, languages, and so on.”
Against such a dangerous backdrop, Ateba says the error of presenting his photo as Ahmed Abba's in news reporting has been “damaging.”
“Although I know he is innocent, I am not him. I am Simon Ateba, I am not in prison and I was never convicted for terrorism,” he says. “These stories were shared by thousands of people, archived by search engines and downloaded by terrorism experts,” he points out, “and even when the picture is eventually taken down, thousands of people do not go back to read the story again and news agencies do not crawl it again.”
Global Voices was the fourth outlet to make this error. Ateba points to several examples of how the things written about him online have affected his life. Two months ago, for instance, he was banned from a church near to Washington D.C. in the US state of Maryland. “The reason they banned me, they said,” says Ateba, “was because I had very negative things written about me on the Internet. They mentioned Boko Haram and spying. I did an article on that and moved to another church.”
People who Googled his name, Ateba continues “would see my pictures on spy stories…. In the United States, once you are convicted as a spy, once you’re described as a spy, you’re on the watch list of the government. I will not go into detail on how this has affected my relationship with the authorities here, but it has not been helpful.”
Once again, Global Voices sincerely apologizes for our mistake, and we hope this article can help to correct the record regarding Simon Ateba.

author: Lova Rakotomalala


text:
The King’s ‘Throne Day’ Speech Leaves Many in Morocco Unimpressed · Global Voices
Mariam Elmaslouhi

Widely shared photo of protest in the Rif region of Morocco on August 14, 2017. Source: Youssef Ouled on Twitter.
July 29, 2017, marked the 18th anniversary of Moroccan King Mohammed VI ascending the throne after his father, Hassan II, passed away. The day is known as “Throne Day” (عيد العرش) and is always accompanied with a speech.
This year, however, the speech came during a time of tumult. For the past several months, the northern region of Rif has seen protests following the death of Mohcine Fikri, a fisherman who was crushed in a truck after his swordfish was seized by the police. The subsequent movement gained momentum and came to be known simply as the “Hirak”, Arabic for “movement”.
In addition to those in the country, all over the world members of the Moroccan diaspora have protested against police and state repression in the Rif, calling for the release of political prisoners.
Therefore, Moroccan activists and journalists were curious about how the king would react to the protests in his Throne Day speech. Just weeks before the speech, over 100 demonstrators demanding jobs and an end to corruption were arrested by the police, including prominent protest figure Nasser Zefzafi.
During the speech, the king offered a royal pardon to a few political prisoners with ties to the Hirak. While this was widely reported in Moroccan media, one Riffean activist following the events closely, Btissam Akarkach, told Global Voices that it is important to remember “that only 11 people from Al Hoceima [major city in the Rif region] were released, one from Casablanca [Morocco's largest city] and five from Nador [another major city in the Rif region].”
While Moroccan media outlets reported that “HM the Kind Pardons 1,178 Convicts on Throne Day”, a sentence that came out of the government's own website, the actual number, as Reuters pointed out, is far smaller.
In his speech, the king asked, “What is the meaning of responsibility if the official concerned loses sight of one of the most basic requirements of that responsibility, which is to listen to citizens’ concerns?”
The speech was viewed as unimpressive by many.
The king is, after all, the most powerful man in Morocco. He is the head of state and the head of the army. All police, ministers and mayors work for him, and the royal family owns important businesses across several industries in Morocco. Many therefore feel that he could do more to tackle corruption in the country.
Amina A, a student in international relations in Casablanca, told Global Voices that this is no coincidence:
This is the official discourse. The monarch denies his role as the chief of the states and the main political actor. We can understand that the state is saying clearly that we have lost the game, we have no solutions, and you are stuck in it.
Many Moroccan activists commented on social media that this was a smart move by the king to distance himself from the country's problems, and Amina agrees:
He is basically saying ‘I'm not responsible of the issues that are happening for decades in Morocco. I am, like you, overwhelmed by the speed that it takes. By your side I watch and condemn it, corruption is all over around us.
Speaking to Global Voices on condition of anonymity, one journalist argues that this is part of the king's tightly controlled media image:
The King is very much concerned about his image. Nothing is left to coincidence, everything is calculated. The pictures on the streets are to show people that he is a cool King, not a cold dictator like other rulers, on TV he wants the Moroccans to believe his informal title as King of the poor.
After taking over his highly controversial father, King Mohammed VI reportedly wished to be a very different monarch. Every once in a while, selfies with people on the streets would make the rounds in the media and on state TV he would mostly appear in traditional Moroccan clothing doing charity.
When the 2011 Arab Spring reached most of the Arab World, King Mohammed VI, in response to the the country's February 20th Movement, announced that there would be a (king-appointed) committee in charge of changing the constitution. While seen by many as largely cosmetic, it served to separate himself from more brutal Arab dictators such as Egypt's Mubarak, Libya's Gaddhafi and Syria's Assad.
And yet, shortly after being released, popular protester Salima Ziani, known simply as “Silya”, who had spent nearly two months in Casablanca's Oukacha prison, was hospitalized due to malnutrition and high psychological stress endured during her time.
This is the reality of protesters in today's Morocco, as Btissam Akarkach emphasized. “From these royal pardons, only 11 have been released so far. People think that hundreds have been freed but none of that is true.”
This argument found added meaning when, on July 20, thousands took to the streets in Al Hoceima and, following a brutal police crackdown, one 25 year-old protester, Imad Attabi, was seriously injured and eventually died of his wounds two weeks later, shortly after the king's speech.

author: Mariam Elmaslouhi


text:
Chinese Are Questioning the Government’s Response to Pyongyang’s Nuclear Tests · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

A cartoon by @badiucao published on September 6, 2017, titled #NorthKoreaNukes: Dictators Are Dictators’ Own Nightmare.
Chinese political cartoonist Badiucao’s latest work, “Dictators Are Dictators’ Own Nightmares,” perhaps best captures public sentiment in China on North Korea’s recent aggressive military moves.
The cartoon shows a white-gloved Kim Jong-un slapping his adversary, US President Donald Trump, and his ally, Chinese President Xi Jinping, in exactly the same manner — one that would probably be embarrassing for a leader who tries to project an image of strength.
It was published after Pyongyang fired a missile on August 28 that flew over Japan’s Hokkaido island and landed in the sea after travelling for 1,700 miles – a distance that can reach major cities in northern and eastern China, including Beijing and Shanghai. Then a week later conducted a nuclear test and claimed that it was an advanced hydrogen bomb designed for long-range missiles.
The nuclear blast yield of the latest hydrogen bomb test, according to Norwegian Seismic Array’s estimation, is up to 120 kilotons, which is the strongest of North Korea's six nuclear tests and more powerful than the two nuclear bombs dropped on Japan's Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the US during World War II.
Pyongyang's actions followed a series of chest-thumping statements from Trump, and happened at a time when Xi was in the international spotlight hosting the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit in Xiamen, a port city in southeastern China.
Diplomatic analysts have theorized that the timing of the tests were meant to cause “maximum embarrassment” for Xi as a means to put pressure on him, in the hopes that he influences the US towards opening up meaningful negotiations with Kim Jong-un.
The matter certainly seems to have touched a nerve in China. Beijing’s official response was brief and moderate, and authorities began to censor key terms such as “hydrogen bomb” on Chinese social media.
But netizens are still finding ways to cynically comment on China's response and debate about what North Korea's actions mean for their own country.
On September 3, Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece the Global Times urged people to stay calm in their editorial, arguing that China should stand firm on the possible radiation from North Korea's tests polluting northeast China, but implying that China should recognize North Korea as a defacto nuclear power:
朝鲜最新核试爆和最近的一系列中远程导弹试验显示，平壤软硬不吃，它决心获得中远程核打击能力，不会向任何外来压力屈服，朝核问题几近成为死结。
中国需面对这一复杂态势保持高度冷静，从中国的国家利益出发采取措施，最大限度地减轻中国社会从中面临的风险。
中国东北的安全是第一位的，我们需要通过各种管道明确告诉平壤，它的核试验不能污染中国东北。中国的战略安全与环境安全是中国对其采取克制行动的底线。
North Korea’s latest round of nuclear tests and missile launches indicated that Pyongyang won't accept neither hard-handed nor soft-handed negotiations. It is determined to equip the country with mid-range to far-range nuclear missile power and won't submit to any pressure from outside. The whole situation is in a deadlock.
China needs to be cool in this highly complicated situation. Decisions should be based on national interest — reducing the risk to Chinese society.
The security of northeast China is most important. We need to tell Pyongyang that its nuclear tests cannot pollute the Dongbei region. The strategic and environmental security is the baseline for Beijing’s restraint.
Readers responded critically:
谴责就行
All we have to do is condemn [Pyongyang].
不用理它，继续做我们的中国梦
Let it be. Let’s continue our China dream.
看完了 这文章重点就是 不能被拖下水 不能冲锋陷阵 前提是东北安全 但是问题来了 你咋保证东北安全……
The main point of the editorial is: don’t be dragged into troubled water, don’t fight. The premise is Dongbei’s security, but if there is no way to ensure Dongbei’s security when the problem of [radiation] arises.
Many  discussions about the hydrogen bomb test happened underneath a post from the China Meteorological Administration on the popular social media platform Weibo that urged radiation monitoring stations in northeast China, also known as Dongbei, to keep a close eye on radiation levels.
The post, published on September 4, did not mention anything about North Korea nor the hydrogen bomb test. Netizens did the same, discussing the crisis without mentioning any keyword to avoid censorship:
在重大的历史节点上，大家都以为这是个平常的午后。
In a critical historical moment, everyone thinks it is just an ordinary day.
政府说没事，那就没事，继续跳舞，嗨起来
The government says it is okay, let’s continue our dance, come on, get up!
消除污染最有效的办法：封消息，抓人，然后组织民众看战狼
The most effective way to clean nuclear pollution is to block information, arrest people and organize people to watch [the patriotic movie] Wolf Warriors.
完全看不懂热评，首先，这已经是第六次核试验了，而且第六次也已经是48小时之前的事了，那些看过新闻开始觉得自己浑身疼的能不能不带节奏？还有那些说东北怎么样跟你无关的，你可能不在东北，一辈子也没去过东北，但你绝对吃过东北的食物，如果东北被污染，全中国就得玩完，14亿人口的口粮都没了。
I don’t understand why people are making such cynical remarks. This is the sixth nuclear test, and the latest one happened 48 hours ago. But the news hadn’t addressed people’s concern. The comments saying that what happened in northeast China has nothing to do with them [aren't accurate]. Perhaps you are not in Dongbei, or you’ve never been to Dongbei and never eaten Dongbei’s cuisine. But if Dongbei is polluted, China will be too, as the rice that feeds 1.4 billion people will not be edible.
这世界在变好。但没有想象中那么好。 这世界在变坏，远比你想象中坏。
The world is getting better, but not as good as imagined. The world is getting worse, but far worse than imagined.
可是山东这边真的没有什么很强烈的消息和通知告诉市民要注意规避户外什么的啊，如果不是朋友翻墙看到的新闻告诉我我根本不知道已经严重到这个地步。所以政府到底要干什么呢，自欺欺人很有意思吗？
No information or notice in Shandong [province, across the Yellow Sea from North Korea] telling people what they should be aware of. If my friend did not climb over the [Great Fire]wall and tell me the news, I would have no idea of the severity of the situation. What is the government doing? Why is it burying its head in the sand?
发这个有用吗？具体指数是多少？会不会有危险？低剂量有害核辐射人体在不知觉的情况下可能就受伤了。维稳就能拿人命抵？
This alert is useless. Exactly what is the level of radiation? Has it reached a dangerous level? Radiation even at a low level can be harmful to the human body. Maintaining [social] stability is more important than human life?

author: Oiwan Lam


text:
Netizen Report: Togo Government Shuts Down Internet and SMS as Protests Escalate · Global Voices
Netizen Report Team

Demonstrators in Lome, Togo on September 6. Photo shared on Twitter by Farida Nabourema @Farida_N.
Internet and mobile SMS fell into a total blackout in the West African nation of Togo on the morning of September 7.
Anti-government protests have been surging in the capital Lomé, with opposition leaders now demanding that President Faure Gnassingbé step down. On September 5, users began reporting that mobile internet connections were spotty and that social media sites like Facebook were inaccessible altogether.
By the morning of September 7, the same researchers told Global Voices that all internet networks (mobile and fixed connections) were down, and that all mobile SMS and mobile money transactions were being blocked.
Network testing firm Dyn and West African digital rights group Internet Without Borders, which has members in Togo, verified these reports through technical tests.
#Togo downs internet service amid huge anti-government protests. https://t.co/be4Ac0E8ez https://t.co/PqI3bHK8Fl pic.twitter.com/IDD8J34ws5
— Dyn Research (@DynResearch) September 6, 2017
In a broadcast by Togolese Victoires FM radio station, Public Service Minister and government spokesperson Gilbert Bawara confirmed that the internet had been cut for security reasons. “Even in most developed countries, authorities take control of telecommunications in some cases,” he said.
Protesters’ primary objective is to prevent legislators from allowing President Gnassingbé, who has been in power since 2005, to run for another term. The president succeeded his father, Gnassingbe Eyadema, who held power for 38 years.
While the shutdown has made it difficult for Togolese demonstrators to report what they’re seeing on social media, blogger Farida Nabourema was sending tweets from the Togo-Ghana border, where she reported that she was able to get a signal.
Images and videos of the protests in #Togo are coming slowly becoz internet is shutdown and we have to go to the #Ghana border to use theirs
— Farida Nabourema (@Farida_N) September 6, 2017
The shutdowns violate international human rights protections for free expression and access to information and contravene a 2016 UN resolution that condemned intentional disruption of internet access by governments.
They are also preventing hundreds of local startups and companies from working and delivering their services, simply because their work relies on internet access. A recent Deloitte study demonstrated that an internet shutdown can cost a country up to 1.9% of the daily GDP.
Veteran Indian journalist Gauri Lankesh was shot to death outside her home in Bangalore on September 5. Lankesh took a strong oppositional stance against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in her journalism, and was convicted in 2016 of defaming two politicians from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. In recent interviews, she expressed concerns about the state of free speech in India after being harassed and targeted with death threats online. One of her last tweets read:
why do i feel that some of `us’ are fighting between ourselves? we all know our “biggest enemy”. can we all please concentrate on that?
— Gauri Lankesh (@gaurilankesh) September 4, 2017
The police investigating her killing have yet to arrest any suspects.
Chinese authorities sentenced a man to nine months in jail for selling virtual private networks to circumvent internet censorship. The man was convicted of “providing software and tools for invading and illegally controlling the computer information system,” an unusual characterization of VPNs. Chinese authorities announced a crackdown on unauthorized VPN services earlier this year.
At a recent symposium, Chinese Communist Party officials urged the country’s internet firms to strengthen their “party building” efforts. In an effort that is likely intended to enforce greater party control over the internet, tech companies are facing pressure to set up CCP branches, which typically serve an advisory role within the company, though in some cases they may do more. This push may function in tandem with China’s new cybersecurity law, which empowers authorities to shut down sites violating “socialist core values.” At least 34 Beijing-based internet firms now have party branches, including Weibo, Jingdong, Sohu, 360 and Lets TV.
The UN Special Rapporteurs on Freedom of Expression, David Kaye, and Human Rights and Counter Terrorism, Fionnuala Ní Aloáin, expressed “grave concerns” over the Egyptian government’s increasing blocking of websites. At least 21 news websites are reportedly blocked in the country, including MadaMasr, Al Watan, and Huffpost Arabi, as are the websites of human rights organizations including Reporters Without Borders. There is no public record of which sites are blocked, making it difficult to verify the total number. “In the case of the widespread blockings in Egypt,” they wrote “the blockings appear based on overbroad counter-terrorism legislation, and they lack any form of transparency and have extremely limited, if any, judicial control.”
Sci-Hub, the world’s largest free and open scientific research database, was recently blocked in Russia — though not by Russian regulators. In fact, the website’s founder, Alexandra Elbakyan, elected to block online visitors from Russia due to what she described in a letter posted on Sci-Hub’s homepage as “persecution” that she was facing from Russian scientists who did not want their works to be accessible free of charge. Elbakyan, who is from Kazakhstan, began the project in 2011 in a simple effort to increase access to scientific and medical research in Kazakhstan and other countries where universities often do not have access to large western-owned research databases.
A Twitter user in Japan was banned from the service for making a death threat against a mosquito. His tweet included a picture of a dead insect.
Ellery Roberts Biddle, Mohamed El-Gohary, Leila Nachawati, Julie Owono, Nevin Thompson and Sarah Myers West contributed to this report.

author: Netizen Report Team


text:
Outside Venezuela: Into the Deep Podcast · Global Voices
Sahar Habib Ghazi

Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves. Years ago, it was Latin America’s richest economy. Now it’s a country in free fall with food shortages; the highest inflation in the world; a raging homicide epidemic; and a hugely unpopular government consolidating constitutional power while brutally repressing protests.
Venezuela doesn't have one crisis. It has many crises, all of which are interconnected and affecting ordinary Venezuelans. As life becomes increasingly difficult for the 31 million people inside of Venezuela, we speak to two Venezuelan women who live outside the country in this episode of Into the Deep.
Laura Vidal and Marianne Díaz Hernández belong to the Global Voices community. Marianne left  the country, recently, because of the crisis; and Laura left the country nine years ago in 2008, when Venezuela’s social programmes were promoted as a model for Latin America.
Here's a sneak peek at the episode:
Everything that you do now in Venezuela has some how to do with how the country is being handled. For instance you run out of milk then you have to have a conversation with others about the fact that you can't get milk because you have to buy a certain amount of milk, a certain day of the week, because of certain political decisions that were taken. Everything that happens in the country, happens inside of that discourse and you have to locate yourself somewhere in the political spectrum and take a position.
There's always a way to make the other person shut up. Shut up you work in a ministry. Shut up you left. Shut up you received a scholarship. Shut up you went to a public university. Shut up you follow the government. There is always a reason why you shouldn't give your opinion or you shouldn't participate. And this is not only people who follow the government. This is something that has become kind of general. Now that I am outside the country, both parties absolutely silence me. I really have no right of opinion, even if there are things that I understand now that I wouldn't understand if I had not left the country.
Into the Deep is the Global Voices podcast where we dig deep into one topic that isn’t getting the media coverage it deserves. In this episode, we featured Creative Commons licensed music from the Free Music Archive, including Daemones (CC BY 4.0) and Scenery (CC BY 4.0) by Kai Engel; Bathed in fine dust by Andy Cohen (CC BY 4.0): and Mutinee by Podington Bear (CC BY-NC 3.0).
The image featured in this podcast is called “What young Venezuelans do when they’re not being killed” is by Venezuelan illustrator Gonzalez. It is used here with permission.
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author: Sahar Habib Ghazi


text:
Yes, Racism Among the US Latino Community Against African-Americans Does Exist · Global Voices
Robert Valencia

“Racism.” Photo by the Flickr user Luis Romero. Used under CC 2.0 license.
On July 24, 2017 in Los Angeles, California, a Hispanic man assaulted a Mexican street vendor and overturned his food cart. In a video recorded with his cell phone, the victim said that this “racist rascal” had flipped his cart over, to which the perpetrator replied, “I am not a racist, moron, I am an Argentine.” The video, with more than 8.8 million views, generated much debate.
It seems there is this idea that Latinos in the US, as a minority, are incapable of committing acts of racism or discrimination, including in incidents involving two Hispanic people. However, racist attitudes do exist within the Latino community, and one of the targets are African-Americans.
The topic has been examined before, and emerged once again due to recent events in which people of Hispanic origin have committed crimes against African-Americans, such as the case of vigilante George Zimmerman who killed teenager Trayvon Martin in 2012, or police officer Jeronimo Yanez who shot Philando Castile at point blank range during a traffic stop in 2016. Both men were acquitted of charges.
The most recent incident in Charlottesville, Virginia, involves a Hispanic person as well: Michael Ramos, who was identified as one of the alleged assailants of Deandre Harris, a 20-year-old African-American man. Once identified on social media, Ramos posted a video stressing that he is not racist because he is “Latino and Puerto Rican.”
Given these incidents, how do Hispanics approach the issue of racism? For Mai-Elka Prado, co-founder of the Afro-Latino Festival in New York, it is not something specific to the Latino community. “The problem is that it is not exclusive to Latin America, it is global,” she said in an interview with Global Voices.
Prado pointed out that the issue of racial discrimination between Latinos and people of African descent is not something new. “Conversations have been going on for more than 50 years, [so] my festival puts a lot of emphasis on that topic. This topic involves political, spiritual and cultural aspects.”
Prado, of Panamanian origin, recognizes that “discrimination still exists, but for me in Latin America how one is allowed to talk about a person of color is very coarse, using demeaning comparisons and words which are socially accepted and tolerated.”
A recent Pew Research Center study found that about 50 per cent of Hispanics have experienced a form of discrimination based on race or ethnicity. Meanwhile, 75 per cent of African-Americans have experienced racism or unfair treatment.
Some outlets like Latino culture site Remezcla have contributed to building bridges between both communities. It recommends, for example, fostering the conversation about African roots in the Latino community, highlighting the visibility of Afro-Latinos, supporting policy changes that help combat structural racism in justice, and raising awareness of Latino racism towards people of African descent.
Mónica Carrillo, founder of the LUNDU Center for Studies and Promotion of Afro-Peruvians in Peru, talked in an interview with Global Voices about her work in defense of Afro-Peruvian communities and the problem of discrimination. The full interview, in Spanish, is available through the player below:
Carrillo explained her role in eliminating a character from the Peruvian television show that perpetuated stereotypes about Afro-Peruvians. She also addressed the word “black” and its context in the treatment of people of African descent: “We must see how much affection there is in the use of the word ‘black’ and how much racism there is,” said Carillo, “in any space where we are called ‘black’ as a prefix and in opposition to white, to ‘pure’.”
The Latino community has an important question to ask: How to address the issue of racial relations between Hispanics and African-Americans?

author: Robert Valencia


text:
As Myanmar Violence Spikes, Why Is India Threatening to Deport 40,000 Rohingya Muslims? · Global Voices
Devika Sakhadeo

Rohingya refugees in Rakhine State, Burma Myanmar. Image from Flickr by European Commission DG/ECHO CC: BY-NC-ND 2.0 Year 2013
Many Indians are accusing the government of turning its back on human rights and the country's history of welcoming refugees with its declaration that it plans to deport the estimated 40,000 Rohingya Muslims living in India, including the 16,500 registered with the United Nations refugee agency.
Recent violence in Myanmar between Rohingya insurgents and Myanmar security forces has forced tens of thousands of Rohingyas to flee the country. But the Rohingya people have long faced persecution in Buddhist-majority Myanmar. They are effectively stateless, as Myanmar does not grant them citizenship, despite historical evidence linking them to the country's Rakhine state.
In the past decades, the more than one million Rohingyas living in Myanmar have faced crackdowns by Myanmar military, leading to a widespread exodus of Rohingya refugees to neighboring Bangladesh and India through land and sea routes, and to nearby countries Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia by sea.
After the latest flare-up of violence, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said “we are facing a risk” of ethnic cleansing, and some have gone further, labeling what's happening a “genocide.” Hundreds have been killed, and witnesses have reported Myanmar troops shooting civilians and burning homes.
The situation is grim, but the Indian government, under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), doesn't view the Rohingya people living in India as refugees, but as “illegal immigrants.” As India's Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju recently put it:
I want to tell the international organizations whether the Rohingyas are registered under the United Nations Human Rights Commission or not. They are illegal immigrants in India and since they are not legal immigrants, they stand to be deported.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made an official visit to Myanmar during the first week of September and offered his support for Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Ki, a recipient of Nobel Prize who has been widely condemned for allowing the brutal treatment of the Rohingya under her watch. He seemed to share her version of events, which is uncritical of the military and places the blame entirely at the feet of “terrorists.”
India has not signed the 1951 UN Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol, unlike the majority of the world. But this might not be enough to justify deporting the Rohingya back to Myanmar, Mani Shankar Aiyar explained for news channel NDTV:
Surely Modi's government must know of the terrible suffering these Rohingya have fled from. Sending them back (“deportation”) amounts to transgressing the well-established principle of “non-refoulement“, that is, the principle in customary international law that no refugees may be pushed back to their place of origin if there is any apprehension that such persons will be subjected to the very suffering from which they fled.
Two Rohingya men, Mohammad Salimullah and Mohammad Shaqir, have petitioned the Supreme Court against deportation; their lawyer has argued it would violate the constitutional rights to equality, life and personal liberty. The final hearing is to be held on September 11.
The legal aspects aside, many Indians, such as politician and lawyer Prashant Bhushan, have balked at the notion of deporting the Rohingyas, asserting that India has a history of accepting refugees from all walks of life and religion without discrimination:
Rohingyas facing severe persecution,genocide in Myanmar. India welcomes all persecuted minorities,but not Rohingyas? https://t.co/1XN79L4FWu
— Prashant Bhushan (@pbhushan1) September 5, 2017
For example, in the past India has helped vulnerable populations fleeing from neighboring countries, including Sri Lankan Tamils, Afghans and Tibetans.
And noted journalist Shekhar Gupta argued:
Civilised nations don't throw out refugees. India shd work for Rohingyas’ safe return by diplomatically pressing Myanmar to stop persecution https://t.co/oKR43P8ULd
— Shekhar Gupta (@ShekharGupta) September 4, 2017
The BJP government under Modi has ushered in a surge of Hindu nationalism, an ideology that believes the country should conform to Hindu, not secular, values. This in turn has led to a rise in animosity toward India's Muslim community, who are the country's largest religious minority.
Enmity towards Muslims is also tinged by India's turbulent history with neighboring Muslim-majority Pakistan — once the same British colony, the two were violently partitioned along religious lines in 1947, and the relationship has remained rocky ever since.
Some observers have linked the Indian government's intention to deport the Rohingya Muslim refugees to this background. Opposition politician and writer Salman Nizami tweeted:
India z home to abt 2L refugees,most of thm frm tibet & S Lanka.But,BJP govt wnts to deport only Rohingya refugees. Why becoz they r Muslim!
— Salman Nizami (@SalmanNizami_) August 30, 2017
(Note: 2L means 200,000.)
And Nafees Ahmad in an article on news analysis site The Conversation explained:
To counter such (refugee) flows, the Indian government developed a new strategy last year. It has proposed amending the Citizenship Act of 1955 and make the naturalisation process easier – except for displaced persons of Muslim faith.
The new bill would indeed benefit people belonging to Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jain, Zoroastrian and Sikh faith, which are considered minority religions in their countries of origin, such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, but not Muslims persecuted in their countries of origin, such as the Burmese Rohingyas. Hence the latest proposal to deport Rohingya.
In this context, false claims that Rohingya militants were killing Hindus and burning Hindu temples have circulated on social media in India. Messages published online have also accused all Rohingyas of being violent, despite the lack of evidence for such a claim:
Because India is known for humanity that doesn't mean that we accept those who r criminals in their own country #RohingyaMuslims #Rohingyas
— Deepak Prem Thakur (@DeepakThakur_10) September 5, 2017
August 25 attack by 150 #Rohingya terrorists in #Myanmar shows it is a full-blown militancy. Those against deportation want India to suffer
— Abhijit Majumder (@abhijitmajumder) September 2, 2017
Many news reports have also pointed out how Asian nations, including India, have stayed relatively quiet on the issue, ostensibly to protect their security and economic ties with the country. Some Indian editorials have, in fact, asked Modi to “make up with Myanmar” or risk losing business opportunities.
Modi himself tweeted that “India wants to deepen cooperation with Myanmar in areas such as trade, investment, counter-terrorism, skill development, energy & culture.” In response, Kashmiri blogger Muhammad Faysal wrote:
Hence the reason why India wants to deport thousands of Rohingyas to Burma, where the escaped from a genocide. https://t.co/Ba6NT4NxWm
— Muhammad Faysal (@_Faysal) September 5, 2017
Whatever the Indian government's reasoning, the threat of deportation is adding more grief to the lives of Rohingya refugees. One Rohingya man, who is staying in a UN sponsored settlement in Delhi, told NDTV: “We don't mind going back to Myanmar but only with a solution. That is our country, that is home, but death right here would be better than going back under the present circumstances.”

author: Devika Sakhadeo


text:
Muslims in the Former Soviet Union Rally Behind Myanmar’s Besieged Rohingya · Global Voices
Alexey Kovalev

‘Rohingya’. Creative commons image by Flickr user Rockefeller.
Over the past few weeks, Russia's North Caucasus republics and the ex-Soviet states of Central Asia have seen an explosion of interest in the plight of Myanmar's besieged Rohingya minority, who share the Islamic faith dominant across the region.
According to the United Nations over 270,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar's Rakhine state for Bangladesh amid a campaign of government-backed violence sparked in part by a standoff with militants during the last two weeks. Al Jazeera and aid agencies estimate almost a million members of the stateless minority have fled Myanmar since the late 1970s.
Several large, seemingly Whatsapp-fuelled rallies against the violence have already taken place in Moscow and Grozny, the capital of Chechnya. The rallies went ahead in spite of Russia's seeming official position on Myanmar, that saw it block a UN Security Council resolution regarding state-sponsored violence against the Rohingya earlier this year. In ex-Soviet Central Asia, while no-one took to the streets, a football match featuring Myanmar's international team was cancelled over security fears and Facebook posts, petitions and even poetry in support of the Rohingya flooded timelines.
The Moscow rallies that took place on September 3 and 4 were unsanctioned in a country where the right to protest is strictly controlled. The first Moscow rally didn't result in any arrests, despite heavy police presence, but 17 people were briefly detained on Monday at a follow-up rally. According to reports in the Russian media, WhatsApp groups served as a the main hub for organizing the protests.
Chechnya’s controversial leader Ramzan Kadyrov has played a leading role in organising the response to a sudden surge of violence and state-driven persecution in the Southeast Asian country. Kadyrov, famed for gay-bashing and fiery tirades in support of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has used social media to strike out against world leaders for their inaction. On September 4 he staged a rally attended by tens of thousands the official claim was a million people, or almost 80 percent of the republic's total population — in the Chechen capital Grozny. On Thursday, three days after the Grozny rally, Kadyrov made another statement on Instagram, saying that no further protests will be necessary as enough awareness had been raised.
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this year. Russian government photo. Creative commons.
By that point Kadyrov had already hinted that Moscow should step up pressure on Myanmar, while claiming he would launch a nuclear strike against the Rohingya's oppressors if he was able to.
He later said the comments — which analysts called alarming for his superiors in the Kremlin — had been taken out of context by his enemies. Russia's foreign ministry warned against putting pressure on Myanmar on June 8.
Given Kadyrov's uncompromising stance on Myanmar, it is no surprise that social media users from Chechnya have been among the loudest voices backing the Rohingya on Russian social media. Users from neighbouring Dagestan and Ingushetia have also been vocal even as citizens in Russia's other majority Muslim federal republics, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, largely ignored the issue.
This North Caucasus bias was reflected in Yandex, Russia’s largest national search engine, reporting a sharp increase in searches about Myanmar (Мьянма in Cyrillic) coming from the region.
The word “Myanmar” is most searched on #Russia|n search engine @Yandex by users in #Chechnya & #Dagestan:https://t.co/iIPH3nkHo6 pic.twitter.com/EHReEz9Ajw
— Alex Kokcharov (@AlexKokcharov) September 6, 2017
Support for the Rohingya cause across the region has a pop-up feel. Many long-standing Islamic-themed Vkontakte pages have transformed themselves into 24/7 pro-Rohingya advocacy channels overnight. Most are explicitly run by and aimed at residents of Chechnya.
Pro-Rohingya meme widely shared on Russian social media
One such online community, [V]Chechnye ([In]Chechnya), has posted at least 43 messages relating to the Rohingya crisis since September 1. Messages include video appeals informing Muslims of the atrocities against the Rohingya, calls to sign a Change.org petition, and allegations that anti-Muslim violence in traditionally Buddhist regions of Russia such as Kalmykia goes unpunished (incidents reported in the Russian media, such as a prayer room in Elista, Kalmykia's capital, being torched by unidentified assailants, and a pig's head thrown into a village mosque, were mentioned).
Some have gone as far as recruiting volunteers online to join a “holy jihad” to save their brethren in Myanmar.
One page, Overheard in Chechnya, published a post bringing attention to the September 4 rally, adding bullet-pointed instructions on how to keep the online campaign alive.
Они переживают то,на что мы даже смотреть не можем.
#Рахиньямыстобой
АЛЛАХУ АКБАР
Завтра (04.09) митинг в Грозном центральная мечеть !!
Не останьтесь равнодушными !!!!
Максимальный репост !!
Давайте все устроим митинг в соц.сетях!!! Все! Все! Все кто против геноцида в Мьянме! Неважно какой веры вероисповедания вы и нации!!!
Поставим на аву в Instagram, What’s App, VK и тд это фото! (Фото пересылайте вместе с текстом)
НЕ ЛАЙКАЕМ ФОТО И ВИДЕО ПО ДРУГОЙ ТЕМЕ! Чтобы в ленте популярных была только тема геноцида!!! Чтобы все видели!!!
РАСПРОСТРАНИТЕ О МИТИНГЕ В СОЦ СЕТЯХ ВСЕМ КОГО ВЫ ЗНАЕТЕ! Пусть весь мир знает что мы не оставим эту тему! И пойдем на все чтобы спасти невинных людей!!!
ХЕШТЕГ #РОХИНЬЯМЫСТОБОЙ
They are experiencing what we cannot even imagine!
#Rohingyawearewithyou
ALLAHU AKBAR
Tomorrow (04.09), a rally near Grozny’s central mosque!!
Don’t be indifferent!!!!
Max repost!!
Let’s all hold a rally on social media!!! All! All of you! Everyone who opposes the genocide in Myanmar!!! Your faith, denomination or nationality don’t matter!!!
Replace your Instagram, What’s App [sic], Vkontakte etc profile picture with the following image (share both the text and the image)
DON’T LIKE IMAGES AND VIDEOS NOT RELATED TO THE CAMPAIGN! So that the genocide stays on top of most discussed posts!!! So that everyone knows!!!
DISSEMINATE INFORMATION ABOUT THE RALLY AMONG EVERYONE YOU KNOW ON SOCIAL MEDIA! Let the whole world know that we won’t just let the story go!!! We are prepared to go any length to save innocent people!!!
USE THE HASHTAG #ROHINGYAWEAREWITHYOU
Even My Private Aul, an anonymous online community for gay persons from Northern Caucasus — arguably one of the most marginalized and persecuted groups in Russia — posted an appeal to sign a petition addressed to Russia’s UN envoy.
The petition, which at the time of writing has over 160 thousand signatures, urges the the Russian ambassador Vassily Nebenzya to support a UN Security Council resolution on violence in Myanmar, rather than vetoing it with China, as happened earlier this year.
Over on the other side of the Caspian Sea in the Central Asian states once part of the Soviet Union there has also been a strong reaction to violence in Myanmar. This was most apparent in Kyrgyzstan, where the government cancelled a scheduled Asia Cup football qualifying fixture with Myanmar, amid concerns over a potential terror threat and fan clashes with Burmese players.
The #ACQ2019 Group A match between ?? and ?? is postponed due to security concerns.
READ: https://t.co/YOZ0KG2bmn pic.twitter.com/kwmYVjZ1iB
— AFC Asian Cup (@afcasiancup) September 4, 2017
Many Kyrgyz social media users thought this was an overreaction. But officials were clearly nervous in the build-up to the game, as social media users called variously for a boycott of the match, a peaceful protest outside the stadium and a minute's silence in respect of the Rohingya victims prior to kick off.
The football federation, whose Facebook page was overwhelmed by criticisms of Myanmar and support for the Rohingya, posted a plea for order before the country's Prime Minister eventually moved to cancel the game:
Мы себя позиционирует,как дружелюбный и гостеприимный народ!!! Мы скорбим и неприемлем,как и все,то,что происходит с мусульманами в Мьянме! Но…Давайте 5 сентября покажем,что мы не поддаёмся провокациям, давайте дружно поболеем за наших ребят!
We position ourselves as a friendly and hospitable nation!!! Like all we condemn and mourn what is happening to Muslims in Myanmar! Nevertheless…let's show on September 5 that we don't give in to provocations. Let's support our guys in a friendly fashion!
Not all Kyrgyz have been impressed by online pro-Rohingya messaging. One post in the group We are for a Democratic and Secular Kyrgyzstan (In Russian Мы за СВЕТСКИЙ, ДЕМОКРАТИЧЕСКИЙ КЫРГЫЗСТАН!) hinted at frustrations over pan-Islamic sympathies and posts written “stupidly for likes and comments”.
In this post a Facebook user criticizes another user for writing posts “stupidly for likes and comments”. The original post calls on Muslims to pray for the Rohingya and for God to punish their persecutors “in the harshest possible way.”
The violence in Myanmar also inspired a number of lyrical tributes. Here citizens of Tajikistan came into their own. One website focused on the country counted at least five Tajik poems on social media, themed on the unfolding tragedy in Myanmar.
A woman poet Shoira Rahimjon wrote:
Ман меравам, Миянмар!
То Бирмаро бигӯям, бечора хоҳарамро
(Уммедвор ҳам ҳаст) навмедтар насозад…
Қавми маро насӯзад,
Ҷони маро набозад.
Ман меравам ҳаминак….
То Бирмаро кашонам
Бар остонаи адл- бар боргоҳи бахшиш
I’ll go to Myanmar!
To tell Burma not to take hopes from
My poor pregnant sister,
Not to burn my nation,
Not to take my soul,
I’ll go right now!
To take Burma to the house of justice,
And to the home of forgiveness
Although the Grozny and Moscow protests may have played a role in drawing Central Asians towards the Rohingya cause, it is worth considering that the opportunity for solidarity presented to them by the conflict in Myanmar is also an opportunity for self defence.
While all five countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan) have majority-Muslim populations, they also share aggressively secular authoritarian governments, who fear growing religious adherence is undermining their authority.
Tajik migrants gather on a Moscow street for Eid al-Fitr prayers. Praying on the street is banned in Tajikistan. Photo by David Trilling for Eurasianet.org. Used with permission.
Last week Tajikistan moved to ban the Islamic hijab covering from schools completely while mobile service providers mobbed citizens with SMS messages stressing the need to wear non-religious “national” clothes. Neighbours Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are routinely recognised by the US state department as “countries of particular concern” in regards to religious freedom. Kazakhstan is seemingly moving in a similar direction.
For citizens in these countries then, the plight of a geographically distant community whose religion they share has offered a chance to amplify concerns about injustices committed against Muslims the world over, without too much fear at the consequences of speaking out.
For Ramzan Kadyrov over in Chechnya, the Rohingya tragedy perhaps represents something even greater: a bid for power and influence across the Muslim world.

author: Alexey Kovalev


text:
Palestinian Human Rights Defender Arrested for a Facebook Post · Global Voices
Marwa Fatafta

Photo of Palestinian human rights defender Issa Amro. Source: Twitter account of Youth Against Settlement
The Palestinian Authority (PA) is continuing its crackdown on free speech in the West Bank, this time arresting prominent Palestinian human rights activist Issa Amro for criticizing a journalist's arrest in a Facebook post.
Issa Amro, who is based in the West Bank city of Hebron, is the coordinator and co-founder of the grassroots organization Youth Against Settlements, which documents human rights violations committed by Israeli military and settlers. He is a recognized human rights defender by the European Union and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
As one of the more prominent Palestinian advocates for non-violent resistance, Amro also faces legal challenges from the Israeli government. In a separate case before an Israeli military court, he is facing 18 charges, including disputed charges of incitement to violence, stemming from his political protest activities. His trial began on September 3, but was immediately adjourned to October 22. UN human rights experts, Amnesty International and multiple US legislators have condemned the charges against Amro.
According to Amro's brother, he was summoned by the Palestinian Preventive Security Forces on the morning of 4 September and officials then interrogated him over a Facebook post, in which Amro had criticized the PA for arresting journalist Ayman Qawasmi the day before.
Qawasmi heads a local radio called Manbar al-Hurriya, which was raided by the Israeli army on September 3 and ordered to be shut down for six months due to alleged “incitement”. Qawasmi was later arrested by PA security forces for openly criticizing the PA and calling for the resignation of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah.
The actual Facebook post could not be retrieved as Amro's Facebook account is no longer visible on the platform, presumably due to deactivation or deletion. However, a screenshot was saved and published by Youth Against Settlement. In the post, Amro denounced the arrest of Qawasmi and called on the PA to respect and protect freedom of expression and opinion, and its international obligations.
Qawasmi was released on 6 September, but Amro remains under arrest. On 6 September, the Palestinian public prosecutor's office extended Amro's arrest for 24 hours and charged him with stirring sectarian tensions and insulting the PA president, or “speaking with insolence”.
Breaking: PA prosecutor extends detention of rights defender @Issaamro 24 hrs on charge of “stirring up sectarian tensions.” @hrw responds: pic.twitter.com/vhycfvxUbZ
— Omar Shakir (@OmarSShakir) September 6, 2017
In a statement published by Youth Against Settlements, Amro said prior to his arrest:
All my writings on social media are part of the freedom of opinion and expression stipulated by the Palestinian Basic Law and are protected by all international laws and conventions.
[…]
My arrest will not affect my defense of human rights and the rights of journalists to exercise their work freely and without pressure from the government.
On 6 September, Youth Against Settlement tweeted that Amro is going on a hunger strike to protest his unlawful arrest:
UPDATE @Issaamro remains imprisoned by PA. Charge is “extending his tongue & causing strife” by insulting PA president Mahmoud Abbas pic.twitter.com/arQi3ZNDIC
— YouthAgainstSettlmnt (@YASHebron) September 6, 2017
Amnesty International condemned his arrest, calling it a “shameless attack on freedom of expression” and called for his immediate release. “Issa Amro’s arrest is the latest evidence that the Palestinian authorities are determined to continue with their repressive campaign against free speech,” said Magdalena Mughrabi, Amnesty's deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights also published a statement Monday expressing concern at Amro’s arrest and urging his release.
In recent months the PA has stepped up its crackdown on media and press freedoms, and free speech online, arresting journalists and activists, blocking websites of opponents and critics, and adopting a draconian cybercrime law. Amro's only crime is that he spoke out against the arrest of Qawasmi and free speech violations committed by the PA. Now he himself has become the target.

author: Marwa Fatafta


text:
The Caribbean Comes Together After Hurricane Irma · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

A public Facebook status update posted by Trinidadian Wendell Manwarren after hearing of the destruction caused by Hurricane Irma, which reads, “Time to Rally, Caribbean People.”
It is unusually still in the Caribbean. With nary a breeze, the heat is almost oppressive. But as hurricanes cut a path through the region, skies will turn from blue to menacing grey, and sunshine to downpour in a New York minute — and this is happening further down the archipelago, in territories that weren't even in Hurricane Irma‘s direct path of the northern Leeward Islands.
But despite the lethargy that the weather is inflicting, people are energised, banding together to send supplies, money, and other forms of relief to those affected.
The strongest storm of the Atlantic hurricane season since Wilma in 2005, packing wind speeds of up to 185 mph (295 km/h), Irma quickly became a Category 5 cyclone powerful enough to be picked up by seismographic equipment:
Seismometer recordings from the past 48 hours on Guadeloupe show Cat. 5 #Hurricane #Irma driving closer toward the Lesser Antilles pic.twitter.com/9y3Nuv2Z9E
— Stephen Hicks (@seismo_steve) September 5, 2017
With the nation of Antigua and Barbuda in the front line on the night of September 5, 2017, there were serious concerns about the country's ability to handle the onslaught:
#Irma is now gone off the scale – it is now a Cat 5+ with 175 mph sustained winds – may the lord bless our soulshttps://t.co/1k4T1exGMF? pic.twitter.com/z0QwFp8r7u
— Antigua Met Service (@anumetservice) September 5, 2017
The smaller of the two islands, Barbuda, was practically flattened and for a time, all communication was lost. By September 6, the prime minister was calling for a complete evacuation of the island, saying it was “uninhabitable”. The damage was so widespread that there was nowhere left for people to shelter in safety — especially since Hurricane Jose is hot on Irma's heels, and seems intent on battering the same targets.
From Jamaica, Facebook user Annie Paul posted:
A Facebook status update by Annie Paul, in which she says, “What's really worrying is that Jose is chasing behind Irma like this…”
Barbuda recorded one hurricane-related fatality on the island, and it is astounding that there weren't more. Videos of the aftermath quickly began circulating on instant messaging platforms like WhatsApp and social media channels. There were accounts likening the experience to a horror movie: people running from house to house as roofs were blown off, 40-ft. containers “flying through the air”, and “cars flying over our heads”.
As Irma continued to wreak havoc, more and more islands were added to the list:
Facebook status update from Holly Bynoe: “Barbuda, St. Martin/Maarten, Saba, St. Bart's, Tortola, Anagarda, Virgin Gorda. My heart breaks.”
We forget the Turks & Caicos Islands. In Irma's path, N of Haiti. High point abt 140 ft above sea level. Full of Haitian/J'can/DR workers
— Judy Raymond (@heyjudeTT) September 5, 2017
Citizen media videos coming out of Tortola were also distressing.
Netizens soon started asking for suggestions as to the best way to help, and contact information for any trustworthy organisations that would be coordinating relief efforts. Even those who had been through the deluge themselves, but fared better than places like Barbuda and St. Maarten, were concerned about the welfare of their neighbours. From St. Kitts, Dele Adams said:
Hi guys! Thanks for checking in. We in St. Kitts ?? are fine, but others in our neighbor islands, namely: Barbuda ??, St. Martin/St. Maarten ??, St. Barths ??, Anguilla ?? and Tortola ??were BADLY hit.
If anyone was thinking of donating, be it clothes, food or money, can you please send it their way first? Barbuda in particular, as 95% of the island is uninhabitable per BBC reports.
You are the best, most compassionate people I have ever met and I know you will step up to the plate. One Love!
Facebook user Raymond Edwards posted an update from journalist Julian Rogers, who was on the ground in the Leewards:
This hurricane is so huge that it is already affecting Dominica, Guadeloupe and its islands and will have an impact all down the chain of the Northern Caribbean – so that will include St Kitts and Nevis, St. Maarten/St. Martin and Anguilla on to the BVI and US Virgin Islands. We all have family and friends on each of those island countries. Don't get hooked on the US reports that never list these countries – their interests is American. So look for them to be talking about Puerto Rico…even disregarding the USVIs…they have no concept or understand or appreciate the geography. Let's look out for our own, for we are ONE CARIBBEAN.
From Trinidad, Maria Nunes observed:
It has been very striking over the past 24 hours to experience just how disconnected we are from one another in the Caribbean, but also to experience the power of the internet to connect us in ways that traditional media is failing to. For example, to the credit of the Antigua Broadcast Service they streamed live on FB which made is possible for a very large audience to see the devastation in Barbuda, and most critically, to hear the people of Barbuda share their experiences first hand. Last night, for another example, I tuned in to radio in Antigua via internet streaming and listened with great interest to all the callers. It made me feel my Caribbeanness very strongly. We need to see and hear and interact with each other much much more. That's the message Irma has brought to me […]
On that point of “Caribbeanness”, another thing that the people of the region do very well is pray. Trinidadian actor Michael Cherrie was one of many on various social networks who were “sending prayers and protection vibes to those in the path of Irma and Jose” — but for every person who sent out positive energy, there were those who reverted to the concept of heavenly comeuppance to explain Irma's severity — and the path she had chosen to take:
Facebook user Patricia Worrell posted a comment she had seen online with regard to why Hurricane Irma was happening. It reads, “Comment on the Hurricane Irma story:
“Yea well ent they wanna legalise Homosexuality and all these Abominations.”
Then, tongue firmly in cheek, she adds, “So now you know!”
But others laid the blame for the severity of the storm at the feet of climate change. Activist Tillah Willah, posting a link to Lord Nelson's calypso “Foreigner”, mused on Facebook:
When Irma pass and finish make she manimah, when all the other storms pass through us like senna and salts at the end of August. Who will be so shameful to dare call our neighbours ‘foreigner’, forgetting in their arrogance the stories that once the indigenous moved freely from up the islands to down the islands to avoid Huaracan's terrible dance. No passport, just a pirogue and prayers. What will nation mean when America's coasts and small islands start to disappear and we have the first generation of climate refugees? We sow this environmental damage daily and for that we will reap whirlwinds for which no categories have been dreamed of yet. Who will be the foreigner when nature comes back for what we have so violently taken?
Kathryn Stollmeyer-Wight was asked to share a Facebook post from Linda Louison, who said:
We entered into a new era. Anyone who has the audacity to doubt climate change really should be given the walking papers if they have a job in this area and who are not taking it seriously.
It's especially so because hurricane Jose coming about 5 to 6 days after is not going to give a few islands a chance to even think.
Skye Hernandez added:
How terrifying to be sitting there waiting for this beast to come. Fearing for all our people in its path and its brother following. The monsters we have created.
Some of the most highly recommended hurricane relief organisations on social media threads include Habitat for Humanity, Is There Not A Cause? (ITNAC), and Save Our Sister (a group specifically set up for relief to Barbuda). There is also TickeTing, an app developed in Antigua, which is collecting donations to be donated to both the National Office of Disaster Services and the Antigua and Barbuda Red Cross. Religious organisations region-wide have joined in hosting collection drives to send food, clothing and other supplies for hurricane victims.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco