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November 9 in Germany: A Day for Surmounting Physical and Cultural Walls · Global Voices
Lena Nitsche

Escape route: the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Physical and cultural walls often determine the fate of refugees, even in 2015. Image from Flickr, Raphaël Thiémard (CC BY-SA 2.0)
1918, 1938, 1989: the 9th of November, also known in Germany as the Schicksalstag der Deutschen (Fateful Day of the German People) is a significant day in Germany history. Along with the November Revolution of 9 November 1918, which led to the monarchy being overthrown following the end of the First World War, modern Germany still counts two major historical events on this day: Kristallnacht on 9 November 1938, the first in a series of violent pogroms led by the Nazi regime against Jews, and the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989.
Both events hold more significance in 2015 than ever before, for it is on this exact day that the far-right group PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West) called for demonstrations, as it has been doing every Monday for over a year now.
On the night of 9 November 1938, thousands of synagogues, Jewish assembly points, Jewish shops, homes and cemeteries across the whole of Germany were destroyed. The day marked the transition from discrimination to the systematic persecution and murder of Jews during the Second World War. Social network users demonstrated their participation. This is a photo of a Stolperstein, literally a ‘stumbling block’ – a memorial plaque laid in front of the homes of those who were persecuted and deported.
Wenn Mitläufer mitlaufen und Bürger ihre Demokratie nicht verteidigen… #9Nov pic.twitter.com/9vVnLcpKKc
— Steffen Voß (@kaffeeringe) noviembre 9, 2015
When collaborators go along with things and citizens fail to defend their democracy… #9Nov
Another event was the fall of the Wall on 9 November 1989. The Berlin Wall, which separated East Germany from West Germany for over 28 years, was opened little by little on 9 November following civil protests. One year later marked the reunification of Germany. The commemoration on 9 November 2015, however, took an unexpected turn, because alongside several commemorative events, the right-wing group PEGIDA was permitted to call for demonstrations. Munich initially banned the group from holding the demonstration, but the ban was later lifted by the city's administrative court. Many Germans see marches by right-wing groups on this day as unacceptable. In many places, xenophobic offences connected to the influx of refugees took place, as did attacks on refugee shelters, as right-wing groups grew in number. The Islamophobic PEGIDA group has been calling for demonstrations across Germany from summer 2014, and scores of people, particularly in Dresden, followed that call. The PEGIDA march was heavily criticised on social media. Some saw a link between the violence perpetrated against Jews on Kristallnacht in 1938 and the xenophobic attacks of 2015:
Zwischen Nazis, die Synagogen abbrennen und Nazis, die Flüchtlingsheime anzünden, liegen heute 77 Jahre. #9Nov #progromnacht
— Georg Gauger (@georg_gauger) noviembre 9, 2015
77 years separate the Nazis who tore down synagogues and the Nazis who are setting fire to refugee shelters. #9Nov #Kristallnacht
9 November should primarily serve as a reminder, however, that xenophobia and walls are not a solution in the year 2015 either. Surmounting our physical and cultural walls is a challenge that Germany has overcome in the past.
Angst vor fremder Sprache, fremden Ritualen und fremder Kleidung? Wir haben das schonmal geschafft! #9nov pic.twitter.com/kjcV3JcA9L
— Felix von Ackern (@vonAckern) noviembre 8, 2015
Scared of foreign languages, strange rituals and different clothes? We've had that before! #9nov
Zäune sind keine Lösung. Nicht 1989. Nicht 2015. #KeinZaun #Mauerfall #refugeeswelcome https://t.co/cTc8ommxOk pic.twitter.com/bsl16a8T6h
— Amnesty Austria (@AmnestyAustria) noviembre 9, 2015
Fences aren't the solution. Not in 1989. Not in 2015. #NoWalls, #FallOfTheWall #refugeeswelcome

author: Lena Nitsche


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On Net Freedom Report in Africa, The Gambia Scores Poorly · Global Voices
Demba Kandeh

The cover image of Freedom on the Net 2015 released by Freedom House.
The Gambia has been ranked second worst out of 12 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa included in a study on Internet freedom.
In its 2015 annual “Freedom on the Net” report, Freedom House, a US-based organization promoting freedom and democracy around the world, scored up to 65 countries globally on real-world rights and freedoms enjoyed by individuals within each country. The Freedom on the Net report aims to measure each country’s level of internet and digital media freedom based on a set of methodology hugely grounded on international instruments on freedom of expression.
The report covers three main areas:
Obstacles to Access details infrastructural and economic barriers to access, legal and ownership control over internet service providers, and independence of regulatory bodies;
Limits on Content analyzes legal regulations on content, technical filtering and blocking of websites, self-censorship, the vibrancy/diversity of online news media, and the use of digital tools for civic mobilization;
Violations of User Rights tackles surveillance, privacy, and repercussions for online speech and activities, such as imprisonment, extralegal harassment, or cyberattacks.
The results are compiled from information gathered from the organisation's researchers who include in-country bloggers, academics, journalists, and technology experts.
16.0% of the 1.9 million people in Gambia have access to the Internet. However, the state-owned telecom company, Gambia Telecommunications Company Limited (Gamtel), owns the fiber-optic cable that connects the country to the international internet.
In its 2014 submission to the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Gambia, human rights organisation Amnesty International said, “Since Gambia’s first Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in 2010, the human rights situation in the country has deteriorated. The government continues to stifle freedom of expression and commit other human rights violations with impunity.”
In 2013, Gambia passed a new law that clamps down on critiquing or lampooning government officials on the Internet. The Information Communication (amendment) Act 2013 seeks to punish “instigating violence against the government or public officials”, and also targets individuals who “caricature or make derogatory statements against officials”.
In March, 2913 Gambian netizens took to social media to ridicule President Jammeh and the pro-government newspaper for claiming that a letter by the US President Barack Obama sent to President Yahya Jammeh is an endorsement of his rule.
The report shows that between June 2015 and May 2015, the following internet freedom violations took place:
President Yahya Jammeh who has been in power since 1994, the reports notes, has been censoring the Internet in the country since 2006. The country has received a total score of 65, 100 being the worst.
The report paints a grim picture of Internet censorship trends around the world, saying, “Governments in 14 of 65 countries passed new laws to increase surveillance over the past year. Governments around the world have moved to ban encryption and undermine anonymity for all internet users.”
It reveals that: “More governments are now pressuring companies and individuals to remove content, as opposed to simply blocking.” China is singled out as the year’s worst abuser of internet freedom as President Xi Jinping made “cyber sovereignty” one of the priorities of his tenure as leader of the Chinese Communist Party, which has resulted into internet users facing crackdowns on “rumors,” greater enforcement of rules against anonymity, and disruptions to the circumvention tools that are commonly used to bypass censorship.
But China is not alone in this. Syria and Iran were the second- and third-worst performers, respectively. In the Sub-Saharan Africa, Ethiopia tops the region with a total score of 82 while taking up 4th position globally.
Reacting to the report on Twitter, writer and activist Jeffrey Smith pointed out:
Well-meaning citizens of #Gambia “have paid the ultimate price for standing up to Yahya #Jammeh‘s tyranny.” https://t.co/LFAGdaYkRt @IFEX
— Jeffrey Smith (@Smith_RFKennedy) October 31, 2015
Gainako (@Gainako) lamented:
#Gambia: Watching the country systematically destroyed selfishly is so painful for citizens who cares for the nation pic.twitter.com/jFJXWUVTn3
— Gainako (@dbaldeh) October 30, 2015
David Kaye, UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression, described the Freedom House report as valuable and noted:
.@FreedomHouseDC releases its extremely valuable annual rpt re #netfreedom2015. 5th straight yr of decline: https://t.co/uyHEHqxMdH
— David Kaye (@davidakaye) October 29, 2015
The index aims to capture the entire “enabling envi-ronment” for internet freedom within each country through a set of 21 methodology questions, divided into three subcategories, which are intended to highlight the vast array of relevant issues.
The report concludes that in many ways, the past year was one of consolidation and adaptation of internet restrictions rather than dramatic new declines. Governments that had already greatly expanded their arsenal of tools for controlling the online sphere—by disrupting ICT networks, blocking and filtering content, and conducting invasive surveillance—are now strengthening their application of these methods. As blocking has become less effective, more governments have shifted to censoring content through removal requests or more forceful, coercive tactics. And as savvy internet users increasingly turn to encryption and anonymity tools to protect their rights, government officials across the political spectrum are seeking to undermine these obstacles to surveillance, potentially making the internet less secure for everyone.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Demba Kandeh


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Russian Performance Artist Detained for Setting Fire to Federal Security Service HQ · Global Voices
Tanya Lokot

The artist poses in front of the burning door as the action is being recorded. Screen cap from the video on Vimeo.
Petr Pavlensky, a Russian performance artist, has been detained on suspicion of hooliganism after setting fire to the doors of the headquarters of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) in Lubyanka, Moscow.
Pavlensky, known for his hard-hitting and sometimes shocking performance art, was photographed and recorded on video holding a canister of gasoline and setting alight one of the entrances to the FSB offices. Video of the performance was posted on Vimeo.
Photos from the action were also published by Russian blogger Ilya Varlamov, and quickly made their way around social media.
According to Pavlensky, the performance piece (titled “The Threat”) was a symbol of the struggle against the “constant terror methods” of the Federal Security Service. The artist called his actions “a glove thrown by society into the face of the terror threat” of the FSB.
Journalists Vladimir Romenskiy and Nigina Beroeva, who were covering the performance, were detained together with Pavlensky, but later released by the police.
Social media users were either dismissive of the performance or very complimentary of it, echoing the usual polarized reaction to Pavlensky's art actions.
— Почему у вас ФСБ горит?— Я художник, я так вижу. pic.twitter.com/Zo2lfCh5b4
— Пeрзидент Роисси (@KermlinRussia) November 9, 2015
- Why is your FSB burning?
– I'm an artist, that's my vision.
Это всё что угодно – от современного искусства, до античного карнавала (типа, Герострат), но только не политика. И уж тем более не протест.
— Mark Feygin (@mark_feygin) November 9, 2015
This could be anything—from modern art to ancient carnival (see Herostratus), but this isn't politics. And definitely not protest.
Russian MP Dmitry Gudkov (from A Just Russia party) wrote a thoughtful Facebook reaction post, wherein he reflected on the nature of the performance, the society's reaction to it, and what this might mean for the future of Russian protests and the Russian state.
Я тоже скажу свои пару слов про новую акцию Павленского. Во-первых, все, конечно, прекрасно продумано: и время — утро понедельника, чтобы сразу обеспечить СМИ главной новостью, и картинка — лицо аскета на фоне пожара. Как акт искусства — практически безупречно, не нужны никакие пояснения.
А вот во-вторых — все печальнее. Представьте, что тот же Павленский вышел утром к ФСБ с плакатом в одиночный пикет. Этого никто и не заметил бы, сколько таких пикетчиков только за последний месяц повязали в центре города «без шума и пыли». А раз нормальный протест не работает — у ФСБ начинают гореть двери. И все, кого я читал в Фейсбуке, восторгаются. Не красотой картинки, а именно самим поджогом.
[…]
…другого способа диалога власти и общества уже нет. И искусство адекватно отвечает на такой вызов времени. Мы дошли до той точки, когда низы не могут достучаться до верхов, а те не хотят слышать этот стук.
I'll also say a few words about Pavlensky's new action. First, it's all very well thought out: the time—Mondya morning, to give the media their main news story, and the picture–an ascetic's face with fire in the background. As an act of art it's practically perfect, it doesn't require any explanation.
And second, everything's much worse. Imagine that the very same Pavlensky came out in the morning to the FSB HQ with a poster to stage a one-man picket. No one would have noticed it, as countless single picketers have been detained in downtown [Moscow] in just the last month, “without noise or dust.” And since a normal protest doesn't work, the FSB's doors start to burn.  And everyone who I've seen on Facebook are in awe of it. Not the beauty of the image it presents, but the arson itself.
[…]
…there is no other way for dialogue between the authorities and the society. And art is responding in kind to the challenge this time presents. We have reached a point when those at the bottom can't get through to those at the top, and those at the top don't want to hear them knocking from below.

author: Tanya Lokot


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Sassou-Nguesso on the Path of Other African Presidents-for-Life After Congolese Referendum · Global Voices
Rakotomalala

Dennis Sassou Nguesso via Wikipedia CC-BY-20
On November 6, the Republic of Congo's President Denis Sassou-Nguesso claimed victory in a referendum staged to allow him to stand for election once again, anticipating moves by colleagues in Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where long-serving presidents are all trying to change constitutions to extend their respective stays in power.
The call for the referendum was strongly contested by the political opposition, leading to several deaths at various protests in the streets of the capital, Brazzaville, during the week of the October 25 referendum.
Sassou-Nguesso was president of the People's Republic of Congo between 1979 and 1992 and has held the office in the renamed Republic of Congo from 1997.
#Sassoudegage protests via kabolokongo.com
The constitution of the Republic of Congo (also known as Congo-Brazzaville) limits the number of presidential terms to two, and sets the maximum age to stand for office at 70.
In early 2015, Sassou-Nguesso organised a series of consultations with some of the country's major political players to look into the possibility of modifying a constitution that has been in place since 2002.
This manoeuvre was the subject of severe criticism from a section of the opposition, who saw it as an attempt by the current president to stand for office a third time.
Sassou-Nguesso, nonetheless, went ahead with the referendum, asking the Congolese people if they would grant the amendments necessary for him to hold onto power.
Prior to the vote, the opposition called for a general boycott, and protests broke out against the president in several cities, notably Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire.
The authorities said four died and 10 were injured in violence during referendum week, as hashtags such as #Sassoufit (a play on words with the President's surname and the French for ‘that's enough’) and #Sassoudegage (Sassou out) trended on social media.
Despite a low turnout of 10% the referendum nevertheless returned a ‘yes’ victory, paving the way for Sassou-Nguesso's wished-for constitutional change.
#sassoufit slogans at protests against Nguesso via canalfrance info
For the opposition the low turnout signalled the population's opposition to the constitutional reform.
Ismaël Bowend Nabole, a reporter at Brazzaville's Omega FM, noted that the Congolese opposition rejected the result:
Une des deux principales plateformes de l’opposition a qualifié le référendum de « coup d’État constitutionnel », car « le scrutin n’a été ni libre, ni juste, ni équitable, ni transparent » et s’est déroulé « dans un état de siège ».
One of the opposition's two major outlets has called the referendum a “constitutional coup” because the poll was neither free, fair, impartial nor transparent” and took place “under siege conditions”.
The international community and electoral observers were also sceptical of the results.
Michel Taube, Director of the French-language current affairs website “l'Opinion Internationale” explained the position of the French government on the poll:
François Hollande, président de la République française, lâche Denis Sassou-Nguesso. Dans un communiqué tardif, après des propos tenus la veille qui avaient déçu toute l’Afrique, l’Elysée « condamne toute violence et soutient la liberté d’expression. [François Hollande] rappelle qu’il avait souhaité, lors de son discours prononcé à Dakar, le 29 novembre 2014, que les Constitutions soient respectées et que les consultations électorales se tiennent dans des conditions de transparence incontestables. » Or il est clair qu’avec son référendum constitutionnel prévu dimanche, Denis Sassou-Nguesso ne respecte pas la Constitution du Congo et n’offre aucune garantie de transparence incontestable.
François Hollande, the French President, has distanced himself from Sassou-Nguesso. After causing disappointment all over Africa with remarks made to the media the day before, the Elysée released a tardy statement saying that it “condemned  any violence and supports freedom of expression. [François Hollande] points out his speech in Dakar on the 29th November 2014 where he expressed his wish for all constitutions to be respected and for consultation of the electorate to take place under conditions of undisputed transparency.” Now it is clear from Sunday's constitutional referendum that Denis Sassou-Nguesso, doesn't respect the constitution nor can he offer undisputed transparency.
Taube added that this position will force government and opposition to dig their heels in as a political crisis continues to simmer in the country:
Rappelons-le : en Tunisie comme au Burkina Faso, quelques heures avant, Ben Ali et Blaise Compaoré ne se doutaient pas qu’ils quitteraient dans la précipitation le pouvoir et que la démocratie l’emporterait enfin sur l’omnipotence d’un seul homme.
Let's not forget: some hours before being ousted, Ben Ali of Tunisia and Blaise Compaoré of Burkina Faso did not suspect that democracy would triumph over an all-powerful statesman.
Young people in the Republic of Congo remain hopeful for the future, if deeply distrustful of the various political interests at play in the country.
A trio of students, Josué Mfutila Kiangata, Aaron Malu Mukeba and Martin Nomapungu gave African news portal Waza Online their views on events in the country.
Martin:
Certains candidats crient à la victoire avant les élections ; ils insinuent que les dirigeants des institutions chargées d’organiser les élections sont de telle obédience. Or ces institutions doivent être neutres, indépendantes. Cet organe est composé d’hommes politiques ; ils viennent avec leurs tendances politiques.
Some candidates proclaim victory before the elections; they imply that the heads of the institutions which run the elections are obedient. Yet these institutions should be neutral and independent. They are bodies made up of politicians; they come with their political allegiances.
Aaron:
je pense que les principes démocratiques sont universels et que nous sommes censés respecter ces principes. Je ne suis pas de ceux qui pensent que le système héréditaire africain d’hier était un bon système.
I think that democratic principles are universal and that we are supposed to abide by them. I am not with those people who think that the African hereditary system of the olden days was a good system.
Josué:
La littérature nous enseigne qu’il faut organiser les élections dans un contexte apaisé. Or ici en Afrique, ce n’est pas le cas. Pourquoi ? Parce qu’il s’agit d’une culture empruntée, une culture des Occidentaux qu’on est venue imposer ici en Afrique.
Literature teaches us that we should organise elections against a peaceful backdrop. But here in Africa it doesn't work like that. Why? Because it is a borrowed culture, a culture for Westerners that people have come to impose on Africa.

author: Rakotomalala


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When Were You Sexually Harassed for the First Time? Brazilian Women React to Online Violence · Global Voices
Florencia Goldsman

Image by Victor Teixeira/Facebook. Used with permission.
On average, a woman in Brazil has her first experience of sexual harassment at the age of nine. This startling finding came out of the work of a group of communicators called ThinkOlga, who gathered over 80,000 mini-stories on this topic using Twitter.
It all started with MasterChef Junior, a version of the popular reality/cooking show in the West but featuring contestants between the ages of nine and 13. With up-and-coming super-cooks competing with their recipes live on TV, a captivated audience turned to creative memes to interact with the show. While some were encouraging, other comments mocked the contestants. In a media ecosystem where violence, sexism, and pedophilia all has a place, MasterChef Junior spawned consequences its producers could hardly have foreseen.
Valentina, 12, one of the contestants, emerged as a particularly skilled chef and a favourite of viewers. But she also had to endure  stream of sexist and pedophilic comments while on the show. “She has straight, blond hair and blue eyes. If I had consent, would I be a pedophile?” read one Twitter comment. “That Valentina will become one of those secretaries in porn movies by age 14,” read another.
Social networks are increasingly acting as a sounding board for hate speech. This alarming phenomenon, however, is being countered by creative, irreverent, and organized women's groups also active online.
Spurred on by the stream of misogynistic commentary related to MasterChef junior, a network of female bloggers, Twitter and Facebook users gathered around the ThinkOlga communication collective to organize under the hashtag #PrimerAsedio (first harassment).
One of ThinkOlga's authors, Juliana, shared her experience on the website:
We created the #primeiroassedio hashtag on Twitter. There, I, Juliana, shared my first experience with harassment at age 11 and other cases that occurred repeatedly during my childhood, preadolescence, and adolescence.
We invited our readers to do the same. It is not a simple, painless, or easy mission. Empowering yourself from your own story is important, so that the victim is recognized as a victim. It is not victimhood. It is the first and most important step towards change.
More than 82,000 responses (both tweets and retweets) emerged on Twitter on October 25. The activists discussed a fraction of the 3,111 stories shared on Twitter and found that on average, a poster's first experience of harassment occurred at 9.7 years old.
Below is a small sample:
Com 15anos meu professor de história me seguiu de carro e me “convidou” pra entrar. Dps de ignorar ele reprovei na matéria #PrimeiroAssedio
— Barbara Helton (@babihelton) October 23, 2015
At the age of 15, my history professor followed me in his car and “invited” me to get inside. After ignoring him, I failed the class.
Meu #primeiroassedio foi aos 7. Meu tio avô decidiu enfiar a mão dentro da minha blusa. Por mt tempo achei q era como idosos se despediam.
— peligrom (@moharamv) October 23, 2015
@moharamv: The first time I was harassed, I was 7. My great-uncle decided to slide his hand inside my blouse. For a long time, I thought that was how elderly people said good bye.
9 anos. Um homem tentou me agarrar a força na frente da antiga casa da minha prima. Até hoje ñ passo pela rua onde ocorreu. #primeiroassédio
— Amanda Sfair (@amandassfair) October 23, 2015
@amandassfair 9 years old. A man tried to forcefully grab me in front of my cousin's old house. To this day, I don't walk down the street where it happened.
While the stories emerged and were shared on Twitter, Facebook, and blogs, trolls also made their appearance once again. They justified a woman being raped because of how she looked, used women's appearances to attack them (“fat”, “ugly”, “dressed like a whore”), and dismissed the testimonies as lies.
Beyond the attacks, Louise Bello of ThinkOlga spoke about the counter-discourse that they managed to spread:
Fue increíble, poderoso e inspirador observar la fuerza que tenemos, juntas, de denunciar esse tipo de violencia y como eso da el coraje de simplemente compartir nuestras historias. Nuestra intención es solamente empoderar a las mujeres. Son ellas las que merecen atención, espacio y voz en todo ese movimiento. La campaña sufrió ataques, si, como era de esperar cuando mujeres denuncian machismo en internet. Pero eso no nos desenfocó ni disminuyó la fuerza de la campaña.
It was incredible, powerful, and inspiring to see the strength that we have, together, to denounce this type of violence and how this gives us the courage to simply share our stories. Our intention is solely to empower women. It is they who deserve attention, space, and a voice in this entire movement. The campaign suffered attacks, yes, which was to be expected when women denounce machismo on the Internet. But this did not remove the focus nor diminish the campaign's strength.
Analysing patterns of Internet use in combination with the content produced by more traditional mediums such as TV and radio, can help users reflect on the nature of violence both on virtual platforms and in the streets.
Social networks in particular have unleashed many unfriendly voices. More than ever before, it is time to think about how online attacks and aggression cause real damage.
In Brazil, the punishment for rape is outlined in Article 213 of the Brazilian Penal Code. As Article 241-D of the Statute of the Child and Adolescent states, attracting, harassing, instigating, or constraining children, by any means of communication, with the goal of practicing a lewd act with them, results in an imprisonment of one to three years and a fine.
While several of the attackers deleted their Twitter accounts, screenshots with the messages went viral and stand as evidence.
According to the Brazilian Civil Rights Framework for the Internet, also known as the “Marco Civil da Internet”, intermediaries are not responsible or required to have prior knowledge of what users publish. But if and when they have been notified of some kind of abuse, they must remove that content, or else share responsibility for the damage it incurs.
If Twitter were notified of abuse by the Public Prosecutor, it would be required to disclose the identity information of the perpetrator. In Brazil, this would then go on public record.
“With this information, parents can also open a civil lawsuit against them for damages and losses,” Ricardo de Moraes Cabezon, a specialist in child and adolescent law, told the news website Uol.
The campaign has helped to elevate conversations about online violence as being directly linked with aggression in physical spaces. This is essential to tracking the consequences of online violence against women and other vulnerable groups like LGBTIQ collectives, minors, and people with disabilities.
On new media outlets, name-calling and other forms of cruelty can be amplified to an unbearable degree for the victims on the receiving end of such abuses. If we can commit to using these online spaces ethically and respectfully, we will have an opportunity to create less violent, more tolerant communities in the end.

author: Florencia Goldsman


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Bhutan’s Legendary Fourth King Turns 60 · Global Voices
Sonam Ongmo

Jigme Singye Wangchuck, the fourth king of Bhutan. Image from public domain.
He may have retired himself as king of Bhutan in 2006 when he ushered democracy into this tiny Himalayan kingdom, but the fourth king of Bhutan, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, (father of current King of Bhutan Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck) is still very much in the hearts of the citizens even today.
Retired or not, many Bhutanese love him for being a ruler who focused more on the well-being of his people than on power and fame. He is credited for bringing in meaningful progress when the tiny country amidst giants (India and China) remained largely isolated and underdeveloped, and for doing a great job especially given that he prematurely ascended the throne at 16 years of age in 1972.
Much of this gratitude and genuine respect for the “great fourth”, as he is known, is evident as Bhutan prepares for grand celebrations for his 60th birthday on November 11. Social media is seeing an outpouring of heartfelt tributes from Bhutanese all over the world, indicating how widely loved and respected he still is. Pictures of him and thanks for his contributions have proliferated on personal profile pages and citizen media.
Kurim for 60th Birth Anniversary of His Majesty the Fourth King of Bhutan at Tendrel Thang, Thimphu pic.twitter.com/mKrpPUGiDN
— Sonam Phuntsho (@sonamp85) November 7, 2015
2 June 1974, after coronation of His Majesty Jigme Singye Wangchuck, Bhutan treaded a path of balanced middle way carefully building #GNH.
— Thinley Dorji (@EpiPot) June 1, 2015
Passing Tshering, an educator, updated an earlier tribute to the king on his blog:
At 17 I was in high school trying to figure out why my mathematics teacher didn't like me, why the warden had to be so strict, why all the beautiful girls were scared of me, and what was I doing there in school…But at 17 young crown prince Jigme Singye Wangchuck not only lost his father, but also his king. Bhutan turned numb at the news but young Jigme had to wipe off his tears midway down the cheeks and answer to his country's calling.
Outward shows of respect for monarchs or dictators, simply for their position, abound around the world. But in the case of Bhutan, the praise for Jigme Singye Wangchuck is rooted in the fact that the people attribute much of the nation's success to him. Many look back on his reign with great nostalgia, remembering how an isolated country was successfully led into the international arena and into the 21st century by someone who had their best interests at heart.
On his blog iamDrukpa, Jurmi Chhowing wrote:
Grounded as he is exalted. Wise as he is pragmatic. Humble as he is daring. The Great Fourth is alive.
What a precious opportunity it is to celebrate such a life. […]
This man does not claim credit. Does not hanker after bouquets. Does not involve himself in pettiness. Does not get lost up in the summits. In all dualistic callings, equanimity is his measure.
Contentment, his treasure.
Jigme Singye Wangchuck. Image from Public Domain.
Jurmi's words resonate with many Bhutanese. They have seen a king who did not choose to lead summits, but instead remain the quiet force behind his nation's progress. He never took expensive vacations overseas; instead he spent his time trekking and biking in the country-side, getting to know his subjects. He didn't and still doesn't live in a palace, but in a cabin nestled in the pine forests.
Writer Tshering Tashi, who has written “Myth and Memory: Untold Stories of Bhutan” and “Bold Bhutan Beckons,” narrated a short excerpt from a National Assembly report in 1998 on his Facebook page.
Proposals for a suitable palace for His Majesty has been made in the past by the government officials and people. However, let alone the construction of a palace, His Majesty the King does not even approve the procurement of new vehicles to replace the old vehicles in the royal garage or even the regular maintenance and re-furbishing of the log cabin in which he resides. Speaker of the National Assembly, 76th Session of the National Assembly (29thJune –30th July 1998)
Jigme Singye Wanghchuck's development philosophy of Gross National Happiness, which focuses on people's well being, rather than material acquisition, was at the centre of all his development plans in Bhutan. It was a cue he took from his father, Jigme Dorji Wangchuck, the third king of Bhutan, who in 1968 decreed that the National Assembly rulings could remove ministers and also himself, the king, from office. The following November, he renounced his veto power over National Assembly bills and said he would step down if two-thirds of the legislature passed a no-confidence vote. He was also a man who traveled on an ordinary passport that said he was a government employee.
Sushila Gurung, a teacher in Thimphu, wrote on her blog about the “great fourth”:
[all sic] When world raced for socio-economic developent stamping [out] social happiness, you prioritzed Happisness as the ultimate source of overll development…Word sounds limited to when the heart is full.the person behind the destiny of Bhutan then and now .A king who fought along with the common soldiers in times of political turmoil.Which leader of 21st century has acclaimed such a height of infinite love for the county and its people…
His list of achievements, beyond ushering in democracy, include reducing infant mortality rates, improving overall health care and education, building infrastructure, coining Gross National Happiness, and personally leading the army to flush out armed Indian rebels from Bhutanese jungles.
Sonam Dorjee, who works with the Ministry of Education, posted a poem he composed on his Facebook page which probably sums up how many Bhutanese are feeling at the moment:
Thank you Your Majesty
For guiding us with the spirit of Buddha Nature,
With thoughtful wisdom and true compassion
For your selfless sacrifices to people's needs…
Thank you Your Majesty,….
For being the role model with the hallmark of simplicity
For being a far sighted and visionary leader

author: Sonam Ongmo


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New Platform Provides Grassroots Organizing Opportunities for Ukraine’s Urbanites · Global Voices
Tanya Lokot

View from roof into the yard of a highrise building in Kyiv, Ukraine. Image from torange.us, CC-By 4.0.
In most urban high-rises with dozens of apartments, communication between neighbors usually amounts to “good morning” grunts in the elevator or occasional passive-aggressive notes about trash or parking taped to the entrance door. To improve this state of things, activists in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, have launched an online community platform to encourage residents of urban apartment buildings to self-organize. The platform, called “Zhyteli” (Dwellers), is aimed at arming urbanites with the tools to communicate with their neighbors more effectively to create a more comfortable living environment in the city.
Ми вважаємо, що деякі речі в житті повинні бути простими і доступними, і спілкування з сусідами – одне з них. З Жителями Ви завжди будете на відстані одного кліка від Ваших сусідів. Так що можете сміливо попрощатися з незручним мовчанням у ліфті і почати вітатися з сусідами вже сьогодні!
We think that some things in life should be simple and accessible, and communicating with your neighbors is one of them. With Zhyteli, you'll always be one click away from your neighbors. So you can say goodbye to tense silences in the elevator and start getting to know your neighbors today!
“The neighbors are right here. Let's make life around us better together.” The front page of the website invites users to register using their residential address. Screenshot from zhyteli.com.
The mechanism behind the platform is simple: once a user registers with their residential address, they see all the neighbors from their building who are already using the service. Once an online community emerges, residents can use the platform as a discussion space for various issues related to the building, from daily maintenance to utility prices to major renovations. The platform's creators promise that entering your data into the system is safe as they make efforts to keep it private, and say they check every new user's info against an existing municipal database (through they don't specify which one).
“A huge number of residential buildings in Kyiv are in a terrible state, and we want to help people to self-organize, to hold residents’ community meetings via the Internet and maybe, to find leaders in their buildings to work on improving them and creating residential unions to manage the buildings,” Serhiy Savchuk, one of the project's co-founders, said.
Though the “Zhyteli” platform has only recently launched, it already has a few dozen residential buildings registered in Kyiv (and some in other Ukrainian cities), and a few buildings’ residents are already holding lively discussions on the website. Organizers are adding new residential addresses daily and, once a new house is added, they also hang posters in the building to encourage its inhabitants to register and try out the service (a user can also automatically generate a poster for their neighbors on the website). The platform also has pages on Facebook and VKontakte to reach out to more potential users and to popularize the idea of a free-for-all space for community organizing.


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Russia’s Internet Watchdog May Soon Get More Extrajudicial Website Blocking Powers · Global Voices
Tanya Lokot

Russia's Internet censor is likely getting new (super)powers. Image by Luis Prado for the Noun Project. Mixed by Tetyana Lokot.
Roscomnadzor, Russia's state media and Internet watchdog, might soon be able to cease the registration of websites in the .ru and .рф domain zones without a mandatory court order. This would broaden the institution's powers, allowing it to make websites unavailable not only for Russians, but also for users outside Russia.
Spokesperson for Roscomnadzor Vadim Ampelonsky confirmed to Slon news website that the watchdog was moving towards greater blocking capability. Earlier, pro-government daily Izvestia reported that Roscomnadzor's potential new mandate would be up for discussion at a meeting of the Russian censor's representatives with Communications Ministry officials and representatives of Russia's national domain coordination center, which enforces registration rules in the Russian domain zones .ru and .рф (the Cyrillic Russian domain zone).
Gaining this broader mandate from the Kremlin would allow Roscomnadzor to exercise extrajudicial powers to make websites unavailable in full by seizing registration privileges for a particular domain name, thus restricting access for users both in Russia and abroad.
At present the government watchdog has the right to blacklist website and page URLs for users in Russia, which means the websites themselves remain functioning and their content is still available to users outside Russia (and to Russians using circumvention tools to access blocked resources). The URLs containing materials deemed illegal are reported to Roscomnadzor by various other state institutions monitoring the RuNet. The Internet watchdog typically warns the website's administrators about the complaint and then, if the offending content is not removed, adds the website to the blacklist. Thousands of websites, including YouTube and Wikipedia, have at some point in the past three years landed on the blocked websites registry.


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Stunning Instagram Photos of Fall Foliage in Japan · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

Autumn in Japan. Photo by Nevin Thompson.
Like many other countries and regions around the world, Japan enjoys distinct seasons throughout the year.
While summers are torrid and winter can be unpleasant due to the lack of central heating in most of the country, spring and fall provide residents with a brief respite from the climatic extremes that Japan experiences the rest of the year.
The autumn months of October and November bring on quite a spectrum of colors as the leaves on the trees lose their green. Many people upload their snapshots of the fall foliage to social media.
Here is a selection of photos from Nikko, a popular tourist spot in the mountains northeast of Tokyo. Nikko is known for its splendid fall colors, especially the vibrant reds of the Japanese maple (Acer palmatum).
*** 真っ赤なモミジ♡
A photo posted by yumi♡ (@yumihr) on
Brilliantly red maples
The chief attraction of Nikko is a complex of gaudily decorated shrines and temples constructed as the mausoleum of the Tokugawa shoguns who unified Japan following a long period of civil war.
While the Tokugawa clan was famous for their military prowess, their aesthetic sense was not as highly developed, leaving visitors to Nikko overloaded with the visual stimuli of temples coated in gold and vermilion hues.
A photo posted by Bonhomme (@bonhommeupstate) on
紅葉の素晴らしさ . #栃木県 #日光 #佐野 #紅葉 #2015 #観光 #日光国立公園 #華厳の滝 #ニ荒山神社 #日光東照宮 #大猷院 #竜宮門 #湯滝 #湯ノ湖 #休日 #満喫 #さやの湯 #岩盤浴 #リフレッシュ
A photo posted by u.ttttt＊ (@u_takaraaaaa) on
The beauty of fall foliage. #tochigi #nikko #sano #2015 #travel #Nikko National Park #waterfall
During the fall, however, the surrounding hills are more than a match for Tokugawa's temples.
A photo posted by tammy (@tammy____) on
Autumn leaves
A photo posted by Satoru Soeta (@torucho) on
Light is Right // Perhaps the most beautiful moment in our short sojourn to the Okunikko region in Tochigi Prefecture, Japan, was when we laid out eyes on Kirifuri Falls (霧降の滝). "霧降" literally means descending fog, but we were fortunate enough to see these magnificent two-step falls so clearly, and while they were resplendent in autumn foliage. The masters of @instagram have taught me that the patience in waiting for the right light can be rewarding, and I think this is an illustration of the point. It was a bit cloudy on the day, but for a couple of minutes, the sun behind us broke through the clouds and cast magnificent soft light across the foliage and the lower part of the falls, illuminating it. We were speechless. Indeed, this was such a pretty scene that nothing else we saw during the trip was quite able to match the beauty we saw in this brief moment. The light was, indeed, just right!  Have a great week ahead, friends far and wide! ––––––––––––––––––––––  Sunday Salutations  My humble thanks to these hubs and moderators for recent features! Please check them out and show some love  @igpodium | @jamjammal @ig_shotz_bridges | @tanja123456 @creative_architecture | @franciscortega @fantastic_landscap | @francisca_s_goncalves @earth_ravens | @picarus –––––––––––––––––––––––
A photo posted by Bernie Ng (@itsbernie81) on
Nikko is more than temple town. It's also a popular outdoor destination. The mild temperatures of Japan's fall months make Nikko a popular vacation spot.
A photo posted by 19VintageVW75 (@19vintagevw75) on
The weather is nippy enough, however, to make wearing a muffler mandatory.
A photo posted by @bucch0 on
The drive up to Nikko from the Tokyo region is fantastic. Here we see a roadway lined with towering cryptomeria trees.
日光街道をドライブ♪ (^ー^)
A photo posted by kaz–tam (@tam_926) on
The drive up on the Nikko Highway
すがすがしい栃木旅行の天気！ 早起きしすぎて今、ブランチ やはり栃木の蕎麦は美味しいわ〜
A photo posted by りりか (@ririkankan) on
Our trip to Tochigi is enjoying awesome fall weather! We got up early and now we're eating brunch. Tochigi soba noodles are delicious!
2015/10/25 NikkoToshogu✨ ザ・日本の秋 #nikko #toshogu #momiji #japaneseautumn #autumncolours #red #blue #green #autumn #beautiful #nature #nofilter #日光 #東照宮 #もみじ #紅葉 #自然 #美しい #美しすぎる #きれい #秋 #秋色 #赤 #青 #緑 #日本の秋 #感動 #絵になる
A photo posted by Liubov Wakabayashi (@wakabayashi_ai) on
Nikko, Toshogu: Travel in Autumn
Seasonal foods play a big role in Japanese cuisine. Here we see a shop in Nikko preparing two favorite fall snacks, grilled dango rice dumplings, along with charcoal-grilled ayu river trout.
烤糰子及魚 #湯滝瀑布
A photo posted by Bonnie (@bonniewen) on
Dango and fish skewers
While a hot spring can be enjoyed at any time of year in Japan, there's something about the crisp, cool air of fall that makes a dip in an outdoor bath even more enjoyable.
#温泉#日光#奥日光#奥日光高原ホテル 最高だった‼
A photo posted by miki (@suzuki0502) on
#hot spring #oku nikko #Nikko Kogen Hotel… This is awesome!!
And, just like spring, autumn ends all too fast. The bright, sunny days of October and early November are soon replaced by the winter rains that wash the colorful hues of fall away.
A photo posted by Christy Chiu (@christy_cchin) on
This post was researched used Echosec‘s location-based social media search and monitoring tool.

author: Nevin Thompson


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Who Will Defend Tajikistan’s Detained Lawyers? · Global Voices
Salam Aleik

Empty courtroom. Wikipedia image.
Tajikistan is fast becoming one of the most dangerous places in the world to be admitted to the bar, with authorities arresting six lawyers on seemingly unsubstantiated charges in the space of eighteen months.
The most recent arrest — the basis for which is as yet unclear — came at the beginning of this month.
A cowed civil society and passive international community are doing relatively little to improve a situation that seems a side-effect of the growing political crackdown in the country.
Currently, there is every suggestion that things will become worse for local lawyers after parliament passed government amendments to the ‘Law on Advocates’ last week.
Among other things, the amendments will increase practising lawyers’ dependence on the government bodies that regulate their professional activities, while stopping previously convicted lawyers from practising law as long as the statute of limitations remains in place.
That is particularly significant in the context of the following lawyers, who may never see a Tajik courtroom in a professional capacity again.
March 2014 – Fakhriddin Zokirov was a lawyer for the imprisoned moderate opposition leader Zayd Saidov. He was detained and convicted on vague charges of “fraud”, but later amnestied in November 2014.
Upon release, he ceased defending Saidov.
July 2014 – Shuhrat Qudratov, prominent lawyer, deputy head of Tajikistan's opposition Socialist Democratic Party, was also part of Saidov's legal defense. He was detained for “bribery” and sentenced to nine years in prison, later decreased to three years.
Qudratov’s colleagues and followers believe he was punished for defending Saidov.
August 2015 – Fakhriddin Zokirov (see first lawyer) was re-arrested for “fraud”. The reason behind this detention remains unclear.
September 2015  – Zarafo Rahmoni was detained as a member of the Political Council of the strongest opposition movement in the country, the now-banned Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan (IRPT).
The United States Commission on International religious Freedoms wrote that Ms. Rahmoni has been “severely abused and threatened to commit suicide” during her ongoing detention.
Ms Rahmoni had defended members of her party in the past and was therefore an obvious target as the government launched a major crackdown on the party in September.
September 2015 – Buzurgmehr Yorov, a lawyer who has gained fame for defending opposition leaders in recent years, was detained for “fraud”, after announcing he would defend IRPT's arrested leadership.
October 2015 – Nuriddin Mahkamov, a lawyer active on social media and a second lawyer for the IRPT was detained — also on charges of “fraud” according to his relatives. Mr. Mahkamov had tried to get a license to defend his detained colleague, Mr. Yorov, but was refused.
November 2015 – Dilbar Dadajonova, from the “Sipar” union of lawyers Mahkamov and Yorov are members of, was detained for “fraud”.
There is no available information over whether Ms. Dadajonova was defending a political figure, or whether her arrest is connected to those of her colleagues.
With the increased atmosphere of fear in the county and the realization that anyone in the country can be charged with anything, civic groups and ordinary netizens are forming walls of silence.
While one year ago the detention of Shuhrat Qudratov sparked discussions and even profile-changing on social networks, the bloody events of September 2015 and the ensuing political persecutions that have followed clamped the public's mouth shut.
In the case of Buzurgmehr Yorov, a Facebook group was opened. But it has just over 1,300 members, many of them hiding their real identities. No recent post has attracted more than 10 likes.
People are now too scared to like the posts or join the Facebook pages of opposition groups like IRPT and Group 24, which have both been absurdly designated as extremist organisations by the Tajik authorities, their members abroad placed on the Interpol list.
Publicly, discussions of the lawyers’ plights are limited to their close relatives or disguised social media accounts, or the occasional brave activist.
Yorov’s sister was one of those actively speaking out in his support. In October she was held by police for one night on unexplained charges before being released the next day.

author: Salam Aleik


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China Has a Few Walls to Climb If It Wants World-Class Universities · Global Voices
Patrick Wong

Peking University's West Gate. Photo by Flickr user Amy. CC: NC-AT
In China, it is quite common to see a flock of tourists taking “selfies” in front of the gate of well-known universities. To them, it's almost like a pilgrimage, a precious chance to associate themselves with one of nation’s most famous institutions of higher learning.
The enormous number of visitors has compelled some universities to impose limits on tourists during the summer holiday. Xiamen University, a leading Chinese university, is one of them, and it found itself in the spotlight after a recent visit by veteran Chinese columnist Jia Jia, who ended up literally climbing over the university's wall to gain access.
Jia stoked debate about the openness of Chinese universities, which further evolved into discussion on university reform in a response to a document issued by China’s State Council, vowing to build a group of world-class universities by 2020.
At the gate of Xiamen University, Jia was barred from entering because of the limitations on the number of daily tourists. He was then ushered over to a nearby fence by a 60-year-old nanny, who told him that he could spend 20 yuan to cross the fence with a ladder:
我一边翻梯子一边在想，我去过几百所国内外的大学，这是第一次以“非法”手段翻墙进入一所大学——一所中国一流大学。
I was climbing the ladder while thinking, I’ve been to hundreds of domestic and foreign universities, but this is the first I've had to use the “illegal” method of climbing over the wall to enter a university, and a first-class Chinese one at that.
Jia described the management of domestic universities as resembling concentration camps, which goes against the values of openness that a university should stand for:
而我们的许多大学，围墙高耸，门禁森严，学生教师出入查证，校外人员要么不让进，要么登记身份证。这种类似集中营的管理模式始自北京的非典期间的封校，后来当作常态被继承下来。我当然知道，一些著名高校尤其是风景优美的高校比如北大、武大、厦大这样的，校外人员把校园当公园，给学校的管理乃至教学带来了一定困扰，但真的只有限流登记这种管理手段吗？
Many of our universities are highly fenced and strictly guarded. Students and lecturers need to be verified before entry into the campus, but off-campus people are banned or have to register their ID card number to get access. This managerial style, like a concentration camp, was imposed when SARS began spreading throughout Beijing and has continued to present day. Certainly I’ve known that some famous universities, especially Peking, Wuhan and Xiamen universities, have the picturesque scenery, but non-affiliated people consider campuses to be parks. These acts have plagued management and professors at some level, but is this the only way to limit daily tourists?
Not everyone agreed with Jia. One netizen believed visitor management is a necessary measure:
也不看看节假日厦大挤成什么样，游客多了学生连饭都没得吃，有时候在自习、上课和午休都会被影响到。一篇文章下来丝毫没看到站在学生和学校角度换位思考下，就知道乱喷！大学要开放是没错，游客那么多校方也是无奈之举。我去年暑假去厦大玩排了十几分钟的队伍刷身份证进去，但我理解并支持校方的做法。
[You] should take a look at how squeezed Xiamen University is during the holiday: too many tourists occupy the cafeteria where students cannot eat; tourists sometimes interrupt students’ self-study, classes or noontime nap. This article did not take into consideration the students or the university at all. Bullshit! The university being open is okay, but it has no choice but to limit so many tourists. Last summer I went to Xiamen University where I spent over 10 minutes verifying my ID card to enter, but I understand and support the measure.
But cultural scholar Yang Zao’s article echoed Jia’s view:
至于一面限流，一面黄牛盛行，“给我20块，带你进大学”，实在是一所大学的耻辱。这一点我同意贾葭，连这个管理问题都解决不好，要推给中国人多或游客“素质”的高校，确实不配自称一流大学。如果做不到全面封闭，就不要在校门搞什么限流。
It is indeed a shame for a university that daily tourists are being restricted while [off-campus] touts are saying, “Give me 20 yuan, I will bring you into the university.” I agree with Jia that if the university uses too many Chinese or bad-mannered tourists as excuses, it is not worth the title of a first-class university. If the university cannot fence its campus off completely, it shouldn’t limit the number of daily tourists.
Jia's experience climbing over the wall is very much a satirical allegory of the “closed door” policy of Chinese universities. What worried Jia was the Chinese government's stress on the development of domestic universities with Chinese characteristics, which is the guiding principle of the State Council document promising to build a group of world-class universities by 2020:
我担心一旦提出“有中国特色”的一流大学标准，那么会变得没有真正的标准。因为中国特色是不能对外比的。举例说，中国之外的世界，没有任何一个一流大学图书馆编目或者馆藏上架排在“A”字母下的是马列原著。这是中国特色，改还是不改呢？[…]大学最重要的功能是提供真理，而真理是没有国界的。除非我们认为真理有两种：真理以及中国真理。
I am worried that if “Chinese characteristics” become a criteria for top-grade universities, it will rule out all other criteria. “Chinese characteristics” implies that we can't compare with others. For example, the library category system in China places Marxist and Leninist book under “A”. Should we change such a Chinese characteristic? […] University is a place to search for the truth, and the truth is borderless. Unless we believe that there are two kinds of truth: truth and Chinese truth.
Under the current education system, universities in China are under the dual power structure of an administration managed by the school president, who is led by the Chinese Communist Party secretary. The bureaucracy is huge, which oftentimes interferes with academic development.
In a recent interview with party mouthpiece People’s Daily on the challenge of education reform to make local universities meet “world-class” standards as set by the newly released government document, Wang Feng, director of the research office for the educational system reform to the Ministry of Education, presented two cruxes of reform:
高校行政化有两方面问题，一是政府把高校当做下属单位，按照行政管理的规则和要求管理高等学校，高校就不可能真正落实办学自主权。二是高校内部沿用官僚行政机构的管理方式，动辄请示汇报审批文件传达，与学术发展运行规律背道而驰。
There are two issues of administration in higher education: First, the government sees universities as its subordinate departments, and regulates universities according to administrative regulations, so universities cannot develop in their own ways. Second, universities use the management of bureaucratic administrative institutes, and have to submit to the higher authorities for examination and approval, which go against the nature of academic development.
Jia believed that education reform should get back to the very basics of the spirit of university:
大概就是北大百年校庆之后，国内的其他大学如南京大学、复旦大学、兰州大学、清华大学先后也都迎来百年校庆，过去十年，大学精神在中国大陆被广泛讨论，还有出了专著评职称的，也有办了网站搞大学排名赚钱的，但始终没能弄清楚，我们的大学为什么与世界一流大学的差距那么大？或者说，根本没有搞明白，大学到底应该怎么办？即便刨去那些明显不可讨论的政治因素，中国大学改革的空间仍然很大。
In the wake of centenary celebration of Peking University, other universities such as Nanjing University, Fudan University, Lanzhou University and Tsinghua University all celebrated their centenary. During the past ten years, the spirit of university was discussed nationwide. [Some people] focus on earning academic titles, some focus on building websites that provide university ranking service. But there is something unclear—why is there a huge gap between our universities and world-class ones? In other words, it never being clear–how on earth to develop an university? Put aside those unspoken political factors, there is a large space for reform in Chinese universities.

author: Patrick Wong


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Four Tanzanians Charged for Publishing Political Information on WhatsApp · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Ballot boxes. Photo by Sheila Rouge, labeled for reuse.
Four Tanzanians, Leila Sinare, Godfrey Soka, Deo Soka, and Monica Gaspary Soka, were charged under Section 16 of Cybercime Act 2015 for publishing false election-related information on the social messaging platform WhatsApp. The four appeared before a Magistrate's court in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania on November 6, 2015.
Public prosecutors allege that the accused published audio information on a WhatsApp group called Soka Group that was intended to mislead the public during the October 2015 Tanzanian general elections.
Authorities frame the Cybercrime Act as an important tool for fighting child pornography, cyberbullying, online impersonation, racist and xenophobic content online, unsolicited messages (i.e. spam), illegal interception of communications, and publication of false information. The controversial law was passed in April of this year and signed into law by the former President Jakaya Kikwete in May 2015, despite criticism from opposition politicians, social media practitioners, and human rights activists.
The message they are accused of spreading in reads:
Ndugu zangu wana kigango cha siasa, hakuna cha kutakiana uchaguzi mwema wala nini. Nchi yetu inaingia kwenye machafuko muda wowote kuanzia sasa hivi na kama tulivyoambiwa kwamba nchi hii itageuka kuwa nchi ya vita ni kweli imeingia kwenye vita. “Mabox yenye kura feki yamekamatwa Jimbo la Vunjo yamekamatwa mabox matatu, tumekamata mabox feki Moshi mjini. Mabox 6 Ilemela, Mabox 12 Hanang. Kwa kifupi uchaguzi umeshavurugika na Tanga nasikia magari yamesimma sehemu.
Makamanda zetu bado wanaendelea kufuatilia lakini inasemekana ni mabox ya kura na mpaka sasa hivi hali sio nzuri CCM wameingiza kura feki na niseme kutokana na hali halisi ambayo ipo hatuponi kwa sababu Mwanza vijana vimeshaaanza kuuawa. “…. wameshakufa vijana wanne, watano mpaka sasa na hali hiyo inaendelea….. CCM jamani tunaomba mtuachie nchi kwa amani, kweli ingelipaswa kutuua angalau kwa sumu mkabaki wenyewe, msitutese msitutese…
Dear fellows of our political forum, there is no need for us to wish each other a nice election, as our country has already plunged into chaos and anytime soon it will turn into a war zone. It is true it has entered into war because three boxes full of fake votes have been recovered in Vunjo Constituency. We have found three other boxes at Moshi Town, six in Ilemela and 12 boxes in Hanang.
In short, the election has already been in disorder. I hear cars alleged to contain fake votes have been stopped in Tanga and our commanders are following them and until now the situation is not good. CCM [the ruling party] has inserted a lot of fake votes, and I should just say because of this situation we will not be saved, not saved because they have started killing youths in Mwanza, four are dead and five are in a serious condition…CCM please we beseech you to leave our country safely, you should have killed us by poison so that you remain behind alone, don’t torture us, don’t torture us.
Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), Tanzania’s ruling party, candidate, John Magufuli, was declared winner by the election commission despite claims of vote rigging  and calls for a recount by the opposition. He won 58.46% of the vote, while the main opposition candidate, Edward Lowassa, won 39.97%.
The information the four individuals are accused of spreading carry similar allegations of vote rigging by the ruling CCM and electoral violence in different parts of the country. The four have pleaded not guilty. They are scheduled to appear in court on December 3, 2015.
The accused are not the first Tanzanians to be charged under the new controversial law. The first individuals to be charged under the law since it was passed in Tanzania's parliament are Benedict Angelo Ngonyani, a 24-year-old student at Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology. He was charged on October 9 for publishing materials that prosecutors claimed were “false or not verified by relevant authorities” over a Facebook post claiming that Tanzania's Chief of Defence Forces, General Davis Mwamunyange, had been hospitalized after eating poisoned food. Authorities say Ngonyani posted this information knowing it to be false.
Sospiter Jonas was arraigned in a primary court in Dodoma Region and charged with “misuse of the Internet.” He posted a message on his Facebook page saying that Tanzanian Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda “will only become a gospel preacher.”
Free expression activists argue that the law gives too much power — without meaningful oversight — to police such as ability to search the homes of suspected violators of the law, seize their electronic hardware, and demand their data from online service providers. They have also argued that police or the state could use their power to harass online activists or social media users.
Of the 12 Sub Saharan African countries ranked by Freedom House in their Freedom of the Net Report 2015, 2 are ranked free, 3 not free and the rest partly free. Tanzania was not included in the report.

author: Ndesanjo Macha


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Iran’s Minorities Use the Internet to Overcome Tensions · Global Voices
Small Media

An Afghan man works on a construction site in Shiraz, Iran. With few alternatives for work, construction is often the only work Afghans will find, yet they are still derided for taking jobs away from ethnic Iranians. Image by Simon Monk (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
This post was written by James Marchant, the research manager for Small Media based on the research report National Fabric: Iran’s Ethnic Minorities.
Most minority communities in Iran have a long and troubled history of grievance with the central government. Some activists are using online spaces to give voice to these tensions, though others are working hard to overcome them.
The growth of all these campaigns and cultural organisations in online spaces has taken place because the Iranian government has been closing off so many spaces for legitimate cultural and political expression within minority communities over the past decade.
As news broke of the nuclear deal on 14 July, Yama—an Afghan living in Iran—took to Facebook to share his joy at the news that Iran’s age of sanctions and isolation was coming to an end. He posted:
I’m from Afghanistan—I send my congratulations for the nuclear deal to all dear Iranians!
Within an hour an Iranian user named Kian offered this reply to Yama’s gesture of goodwill:
It does not concern you. Iran will never be your homeland. You are guests here—if unwelcome ones.
Decades of conflict and strife in Afghanistan have resulted in one of the world’s most protracted and ruinous refugee crises, with hundreds of thousands of Afghans now living in Iran (down from a peak of around 3 million in 1991). Afghan refugees and migrants have been pulled into Iran’s low-wage economy, with ILO-UNHCR reporting that a large majority of displaced Afghans work in the construction and manufacturing sectors. This influx of cheap labour has drawn the ire of some Iranian labour activists and populist politicians, who have done their best to focus public anger on Afghan migrants and refugees for ‘stealing’ Iranian jobs.
Iran is one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse countries in the Middle East, but decades of mistreatment of minority communities has resulted in the growth of ethnic tensions.
Public hostility towards the Afghan community has been matched by harsh treatment from officials, who have barred Afghans from public places ranging from swimming pools to cemeteries. Scattered across the country and living on the margins, Afghans have until recently struggled to organise and mobilise against these injustices. But things are starting to change for them, and for Iran’s diverse array of ethnic minority communities.
Small Media’s new report National Fabric: Iran’s Ethnic Minorities shows how the Afghan community—among many others—has been using technology to come together and push back against societal and state-sanctioned discrimination. In the Afghan case, this has included Facebook campaigns such as ‘We’re Ashamed For the Afghan Children in Iran’, which provide spaces for Afghans to catalogue injustices, and name-and-shame racist officials and policies.
Other spaces work to support Afghan refugees as they move through Iran and into Europe, with ‘The Afghan Question’ providing up-to-date information about logistical and security issues at border crossings, as well as descriptions of European asylum and resettlement policies. Both of these pages can boast more than 20,000 likes, and are host to frequent engagement from Afghan users and Iranians sympathetic to the plight of Iran’s refugee population. These growing collaborations between Afghan refugees and Iranian activists may offer a way forward for grassroots movements for migrant rights.
Iran's multitude of ethnic minority communities generally live in underdeveloped peripheral regions of the country.
On Iran’s fringes, minority communities are using technology to help revive languages endangered by the government’s long-standing policies of assimilation and Persianisation. Whereas languages such as Azeri Turkish and Kurdish have been largely pushed out of the classroom, activists are making full use of social media platforms to try and bring about a renaissance in minority language and literature.
Amongst the Azeri Turkish community, these efforts are geared towards elevating the Turkish spoken in Iranian Azerbaijan from a colloquial dialect to the level of a scientific and literary language. Websites such as ‘Bilimsesi’—”Sound of Science”—outline ways that Iranian Turkish speakers should substitute Turkish technical words for Persian ones, in an effort to combat the perception of Persian as the sole language of science and higher learning. Other pages are focused towards rejuvenating the use of Azeri Turkish amongst young people, with Instagram pages like ‘Dil-Xoshlux’ use memes and jokes to promote the use of Turkish expressions in everyday life.
Linguistic activism aside, the majority of Azeri Turkish online activists are uninterested in talk of secession or radical pan-Turkic nationalism. Facebook pages such as ‘Sattar Khan’ celebrate Iranian Turkish identity while providing multilingual spaces for Turkish and non-Turkish speaking Iranians to discuss human rights concerns, and the prospects of developing a tolerant, multi-ethnic democracy in Iran. There are a few exchanges with Azerbaijani activists in the Republic of Azerbaijan, but users’ chatter is largely inward-looking and divorced from the politics of irredentism or separatism.
In Kurdistan, social media activists have a more outward-looking focus. The political influence and cross-border nature of Kurdish nationalism has meant that the vast majority of Kurdish social media pages are used by Kurdish communities in Iran, Turkey, Iraq and Syria. Most offer content in a full range of Kurdish dialects, allowing users from across the entire Greater Kurdistan region to participate in discussions about Kurdish identity, history, politics and culture.
Although Iranian Kurds have had access to Kurdish literature and satellite television for decades now, they have largely been a population of cultural consumers. The tight controls imposed on Kurdish-language media by the government has meant that the population has struggled to make many significant contributions to the development of the Kurdish nationalist discourse—instead, Kurdish voices in Iraq and Turkey have dominated. But now pages like ‘Nodshe’, ‘Mahabad’, and ‘Kermanshah Music’, and e-publishing platforms like the ‘Bokan Literary Committee’ are offering Iranian Kurds the chance to take up the role of cultural producers, and share their work with Kurds across the entirety of Greater Kurdistan.
Most minority communities in Iran have a long and troubled history of grievance with the central government. Some activists are using online spaces to give voice to these tensions, though others are working hard to defuse them.
Although the Rouhani government has delivered on its campaign promise to offer Kurdish-language instruction in Iranian Kurdistan’s schools and universities, the Turkish, Arab and Baloch communities are still waiting for similar reforms to be offered. Cultural organisations such as the Ahwazi Arab Al-Hiwar Institute remain closed, and a number of founding members have been executed on Rouhani’s watch.
Iran’s ethnic minority communities remain under siege, but their creative use of technology has allowed for the development of active and resilient online communities, and new platforms for cultural development and expressions of resistance to Iran’s policies of Persianisation. If the government wants to resolve the minorities issue once and for all, the only sensible option is to recognise communities’ rights to linguistic autonomy and cultural expression. Until this is achieved, minority grievances will continue to find expression online, and Iran’s tightly woven national fabric will be at risk of slowly unravelling.

author: Small Media


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Lumad Indigenous Peoples in the Philippines Speak Out Against Abuses · Global Voices
Karlo Mongaya

Lumad leaders display banner calling for the protection of their communities as they march towards Manila. Photo from the Facebook page of ST Exposure
Over 700 Lumad (indigenous peoples from the southern Philippine island of Mindanao) traveled thousands of kilometers and set up protest camps in the nation's capital of Manila in October 2015 to demand the removal of troops and paramilitary forces from their communities.
Dubbed the Manilakbayan 2015, the people’s caravan also seeks public support to end the human rights abuses committed by state forces against the Lumad.
Testimonies from some of the Lumad were shared on Facebook by multimedia group Southern Tagalog Exposure.
The hashtag #StopLumadKillings trended in the Philippines after the gruesome murders of Lumad community school head Emerito Samarca and two indigenous leaders Dionel Campos and Bello Sinzo last September 1, 2015.
This was the most high-profile case in what activists claim is a systematic campaign of repression against indigenous peoples in Mindanao, including the targeting of their leaders for assassinations, the closing of indigenous schools, and the military occupation of their homelands.
Lumad organizations explain that they are being targeted at the behest of large-scale mining, plantations, and other companies salivating over the resource-rich Lumad lands.
The armed forces of the Philippines is also accused of arming and training Lumad paramilitaries to fight their own kin. The militarization of indigenous communities has led to massive evacuations of thousands of Lumad across Mindanao.
These brief statements gathered by Southern Tagalog Exposure bear witness to the intense militarization of indigenous communities and plunder of their ancestral lands.
“Our ancestral lands are being forcibly taken from us. We want to drive the soldiers away and dismantle the paramilitary groups dividing the ranks of us Lumad. We want to live in peace.”
Bai Bibiaon Ligkaian Bigkal, Woman Warrior of Tala-ingod, Davao del Norte
“Soldiers massacred our tribe. The government and corporations prioritize personal interests, not the interests of the people. The people are not important to them. When we defend our ancestral land and culture, they accuse us of being part of [rebel group] New People's Army to justify abductions or murders.”
Kaylo, Manobo of Talaingod, Davao del Norte
“Because of the repression of the soldiers, we were forced to evacuate and leave our land. To be displaced is difficult, with the heat and no water. We want to return to our land. I vowed to myself as a Lumad since childhood to continue our fight until I die.”
Krstina Lantao, Southern Mindanao Region
“The Philippine Army destroyed our school. They even burned our agricultural cooperative. I experienced getting jailed and now face trumped-up charges of kidnapping. We miss our ancestral land. Wherever we go, we yearn for it. This is where we live and grew up. If it is taken from us, our culture will die with the next generation.”
Datu Isidro, Kitaotao, Bukidnon
“The helicopter of the soldiers arrived at our place. They burned our house. Only the clothes we wore were saved. According to the soldiers, the Lumad are not allowed to study. When I grow up, I want to be a teacher to prove them wrong.”
Kimkim Baliti, 13-year-old Manobo, Talaingod, Davao del Norte
“”We will not die in the jungles, but instead will die from the open pit mining. We should be the ones benefiting from the wealth of Mindanao. The soldiers say we are [rebel group] New People's Army to justify our displacement and murder. They should be the ones who must go because they are outsiders to our ancestral land.”
Jean Derong, Manobo, Davao Oriental
“The role of women in the struggle of the native Lumad is important. Our respect for each other is high. We need to collectively defend our human rights and our ancestral land.”
Bai Aida Seiza, Manobo, Paquibato, Davao City

author: Karlo Mongaya


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Netizen Report: UN Authorities Pluck Protesters from Global Internet Conference in Brazil · Global Voices
Netizen Report Team

Demonstrators at IGF 2015 in Joao Pessoa, Brazil. Photo shared on Twitter by @NewsRevo.
Ellery Roberts Biddle, Lisa Ferguson, Hae-in Lim and Sarah Myers West contributed to this report.
At the UN-sponsored Internet Governance Forum in Brazil this week, several activists were stopped from demonstrating in support of net neutrality and against Facebook’s Internet.org application, which is now known as “Free Basics”. Civil society advocates were rattled by the incident, given that the IGF is specifically intended to focus on the protection of fundamental rights online and to welcome participation from all sectors of society.
The activists walked through the opening plenary session of the event, holding signs that read “No to Net Neutrality violation in Brazil and all the world!” and “Free Basics = Free of Basic Rights.” Multiple videos captured by conference participants show security guards and UN coordinating staff taking the signs from the demonstrators’ hands and forcibly removing them from the hall. The activists’ identification documents were briefly seized and their credentials were confiscated by organizers.
Shortly thereafter, civil society leader and Brazilian free expression advocate Joana Varon, an invited speaker at the opening session, condemned the act. In her speech, Varon addressed the urgent need for reform within UN processes that attempt to address the protection of human rights online. She connected this with the incident at hand:
[L]et's let people who cannot be on the stage also symbolically express their key questions regarding the future of Internet in front of high level panels like this. I hope in these days to come, we can discuss this and other issues further….but not only discuss really, let us also protest freely. This is also political space.
Grassroots group Marco Civil Ja, a leading supporter of Brazil’s “Bill of Rights for the Internet,” quickly issued a statement reprimanding IGF leadership for its actions. They wrote:
This kind of repression is incompatible inside an event that is precisely discussing how to protect freedom of speech [on] the Internet and how to guarantee privacy of those who use the world wide web.
The activists’ credentials were reinstated several hours after the incident.
Russian Internet watchdog Roscomnadzor may soon have additional powers to block websites without a court order. Currently, Roscomnadzor can block sites at the URL level, which prevents Russian users from accessing them but leaves the content available to outside users, as well as Russian users deploying circumvention tools. Under the new expansion, the agency could block websites with the .ru and .рф TLDs not only in Russia, but for users around the world.
A local government in the city of Tata in Hungary fined a woman for a Facebook post critical of government spending.
Four political activists have been charged under Tanzania’s Cybercrime Act for published an audio message on a WhatsApp group that was “intended to mislead the public” during Tanzania’s October 2015 general elections. The message suggested that the country’s ruling party had engaged in vote fraud, an allegation that both local and foreign media outlets echoed.
In a recent review of free expression online in twelve countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Gambia ranked right at the bottom, with only Ethiopia ranking worse on Internet freedom. In the past year, the Gambia has jailed online journalists, blocked opposition and news websites, and blocked Internet access entirely, for as long as a full week in April of this year.
A proposed law granting greater surveillance powers to UK law enforcement has been described as “worse than scary” by the UN Special Rapporteur for Privacy Joseph Cannataci, and could bring “very dire consequences” according to Apple CEO Tim Cook. Among other things, the draft investigatory powers bill includes one provision that would provide a mandate for bulk surveillance that would allow law enforcement to hack into and plant monitoring tools on computers and phones, and another that would obligate Internet companies to help government officials bypass encryption. The bill was introduced in the House of Commons last week and will now be open for debate.
The full text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a far-reaching trade agreement governing everything from e-commerce to pharmaceutical trademarks, is finally public. With signatories including Chile, Mexico, Australia, Vietnam, Japan and the US, the agreement may harm individuals’ access to knowledge and digital privacy, as many advocates had feared. University of Sydney law professor Kimberlee Weatherall has published multiple preliminary analyses of the text, alongside her writings on previously leaked copies of the agreement.

author: Netizen Report Team


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Trinidad and Tobago’s Crime-Solving Facebook Users Are Back, and So Is the Controversy of Policing Domestic Violence · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Walk against domestic violence and commemoration of International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women by the Caribbean Association for Feminist Research and Action, Trinidad and Tobago, November 2008. Photo by CWGL, CC 2.0.
They were at it again last week, on Friday, November 6, 2015. Back in action were the crime-solving citizens of what has become known as the ‘Facebook Division’ of Trinidad and Tobago's police force — netizens who circulate footage of abuse caught on video, until it goes viral and someone comes forward with information that helps identify any perpetrators.
This time, the video in question depicted a man severely beating a woman (allegedly with a steel pipe) at a bar in east Trinidad. Reports have confirmed that the couple have a child together.
Police acted quickly, but they were initially stymied by the fact that the woman refused to give a statement about the incident. In Trinidad and Tobago, convictions in domestic violence charges can be very difficult to achieve: police can generally only press charges if the victim goes on record about having been abused, or if a doctor can prove (usually through medical notes) that the victim admitted to being beaten. When cases do reach the courts, it's not unusual for victims to undermine the process out of fear of retaliation by their abusers.
Diaspora blogger Jumbie's Watch was not impressed with the police response to this incident:
I observed with great alarm the police inaction in the case of a woman beaten in a bar, kicked until she was sent skating across the floor like a busted football.
The police are saying that they cannot charge the perpetrator under the Domestic Violence Act if the victim is not making a complaint. That may be true under the Domestic Violence Act […] However, I looked at the Summary Offences Act, and it clearly states that ‘a complaint can be laid by or on behalf of the person aggrieved'… In other words, a complaint can be made by the police officer or other any other person, if the victim is not willing.
Jumbie's Watch also pressed for the modernisation of certain outdated laws, arguing:
There is a lesson the police need to learn. Don’t be so myopic to look at a single view when it comes to the law. Just because a situation smacks of domestic violence does not mean you can’t be ‘creative’ within the law and charge the offender under other statutes.
But the police did just that. Because there were several eyewitnesses and video evidence of the beating, the offender, Ricardo Jerome, was taken to court to face charges of assault, possession of a weapon, and disorderly conduct. Jerome pleaded ‘not guilty’ on all counts.
Despite the fact that Jerome was charged, netizens are still sceptical. Square Peg (Round Hole) quipped:
If a crime happens in Trinidad and Tobago and no one films it, did it happen at all?
I’ve had occasion to ask myself this question several times over the last few weeks as viral video after viral video emerged to prompt the police into uncharacteristically swift action.
[…]
Then came the video of the woman being brutally beaten by a man in an Arima bar.
As with all the other videos, this one spread like wildfire on Facebook, autoplaying all over my newsfeed and prompting the requisite outrage. Folks were understandably appalled at the sight of this man throwing a woman to the floor, kicking her and beating her with a metal object. They wanted him found and they wanted justice for that poor woman.
At least, most of them seemed to. Some of them were already laying odds that she wouldn’t cooperate with the investigation, that she’d go right back to her abuser, that this was all sound and fury signifying nothing.
“It is ridiculous to put the burden on a victim who is often unable to shoulder it,” the blogger wrote, adding:
This has to change, and not just in the legal sense. The problem here is incredibly pervasive and deeply embedded in our society. This is a place where women are often still treated as the property of their partners, expected to conform to patriarchal norms and often blamed for the crimes perpetrated against them. Just take a look at the backlash against the woman now that she has refused to cooperate.
The vitriol directed against the victim of this attack has been tremendous, and it's come from some unexpected sources, including Ricardo Jerome's defence attorney, who called the situation “a storm in a teacup”, raising the ire of many netizens. Jacqueline Scott wrote on Facebook:
I understand lawyers have to do their job and defend their clients but to call this a storm in a teacup?? I've read many of the comments that people have made via social media. I am horrified at the scale of disdain and abuse directed at that woman being beaten…….
She like it so.
she must like the weave and fake nails he giving her.
Why she doh leave?
She look for dat, she horn him.
This video and many of the others shown on social media recently, give us a tiny view into the violent society that we have become.
When did it become ok to kick and beat another human being? I have no interest in what this woman has done.
We are breeding angry, violent people and when a lawyer can go on record making light of such a horrific video…..we are fast becoming a society that is lost.
Facebook user Patricia Worrell was incredulous about a comment she overheard related to the beating:
Man's comment on wife beating case:
“But den again, yuh have to see de odder side. Yuh eh know what she do!”
Because of course – the beating might have been justified!
#thekindofthingthatgivesasininityabadname
Fellow Facebook user Rhoda Bharath noted that “women in domestic situations here have very little recourse under our laws; and even less protection by state services”—a sentiment that was echoed by both an employee of a women and children's rights organisation and the blog Square Peg (Round Hole), which said:
It’s easy to watch that video and ask how she could take it, but what we should be asking is, where could she go? Where are the shelters that take a woman and her child in and protect them from her abuser? Where are the legal advocates to ensure that she doesn’t lose custody of her child to him if he should decide to fight? Where is the counselling to help her see that what she is living through isn’t love?
Most of all, where are the laws that allow the police officers to do their jobs? They have all the evidence they could want of the beating and still, without a statement from a woman likely terrified of reprisal from her abuser, they can do nothing about it until the beating that finally kills her. At that point, we’ll all shake our heads and murmur about how she should have left when she had the chance.
In the meantime, we engage in yet another round of victim-blaming (‘she mus-see like it so’) and equivocation (‘what happens between two consenting adults…’) and abusers nationwide feel even more emboldened to batter their victims wherever and whenever. Because, no matter how badly they’re beaten, they’re not victims unless they can stand up and say so.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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Afghans Unleash a Civic Backlash Against Gruesome Violence and Hapless Governance · Global Voices
Chris Rickleton

CCTV coverage of the protests. Image is a screenshot from CCTV's official You Tube Channel.
Thousands of people thronged in Kabul in a huge, unprecedented public stand against violence and insecurity in Afghanistan this week.
The protest triggered by the executions of seven ethnic Hazara at the hands of militants supposedly linked to ISIS was an enormous show of civic strength. It was also a wake-up call to President Ashraf Ghani's chronically weak government, which has watched the country unravel even further since it came to power last year.
The November 11 demonstration was led by ethnic Hazaras, historically one of Afghanistan's most marginalised and persecuted groups, but it soon crossed ethnic lines, drawing in Tajiks, Pashtuns, Uzbeks and Sikhs.
Carried by the protesters were the coffins of the seven Hazaras, all allegedly beheaded by loyalists of ISIS, a brutal Al Qaeda offshoot that has come to control swathes of Syria and Iraq, but maintains a presence in Afghanistan, too.
Four of those abducted from Ghazni province and killed were men, two were women, while one was a nine-year-old girl, whose image has been adopted on hundreds of Afghan Facebook profiles.
The violent deaths of the Hazaras quickly came to symbolise the increasingly brutal violence Ghani's government seems unable to stem, only weeks after the public stoning of a 19-year-old woman, Rokhshana, in Ghor province.
The protests stirred on November 10, when hundreds of civil society activists, people and students gathered in Park-e Zarnigar*, a park in central Kabul only five minutes walk from the ARG house of government.
A tent has been pitched in the park since February, when 31 Hazaras were abducted in a separate kidnapping, also alleged to have been carried out by ISIS.
The tent was originally pitched to call for government accountability following the first kidnapping, but government largely ignored its existence. Only Abdullah Abdullah, CEO of the National Unity Government, visited it last week, and his vague promises failed to satisfy the protesters.
While they gathered there, the relatives of the dead were carrying the beheaded corpses of their loved ones to Kabul in coffins.
The government had tried to dissuade the people from moving towards Kabul with the corpses, but they reached the capital on nightfall of November 10, accompanied by more than 300 cars. Thousands of people, almost all Hazaras to begin with, received them in Dasht-e Barchi, a Hazara ghetto in western Kabul woefully neglected by the state.
Photo of protest taken from Facebook user Abdullatif Dianatmadari and used with permission.
Some say the crescendo of the protests, when all protesters converged at the ARG, marked the biggest anti-government protest Afghanistan has witnessed in decades.
Amrullah Saleh, former chief of National Directorate of Security (Afghanistan’s Intelligence), wrote on his Twitter account:
Kabul demonstration also defied the decaying Jihad era leaders, 4 them a dignified transition to irrelevance should be designed. NEW AFGH.
— Amrullah Saleh (@AmrullahSaleh2) November 12, 2015
The government's response was weak and irresponsible. President Ghani spoke in broad agreement with the demands of protesters for less violence via state-run TV, while Mohammad Mohaqiq, who positions himself as a Hazara politician in the National Unity Government’s power-sharing arrangement, equated the protesters with street wanderers called to protest by “political losers”.
Thousands of demonstrators who had waited for the government to come out until midnight left the ARG’s southern gate angry and with tears in their eyes after Mohaqiq’s words.
Protesters may've achieved something big in demanding discussions with gov happen on TV. Mohaqiq really cracked under pressure. So did Ghani
— Mujib Mashal (@MujMash) November 11, 2015
Eventually the corpses were carried back to Dasht-e Barchi, with thousands of protesters accompanying them, angry but undeterred. This was not the end of a movement, but the beginning of one, with strong and legitimate demands for a safer Afghanistan.

author: Chris Rickleton


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Airpocalypse Strikes Again in China’s Northeast · Global Voices
Patrick Wong

Northeastern University's campus. Photo by a student, anonymously distributed online.
Liaoning is one of China's first industrial provinces. A merger of two provinces, Liaodong and Liaoxi, as well as five municipalities, the area has been fighting an economic slump. More recently, Liaoning has also confronted what's being called an “airpocalypse” of polluted air.
Since November 5, hazardous smoke has shrouded many of Liaoning's cities, including its capital, Shenyang, where air quality set a new record low on November 8, testing 130 times above levels considered safe by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Shenyang's air registered at PM2.5 index with the maximum figure 1326 μg/m3 on November 8. PM2.5 are particles smaller than 2.5 micrometers. In some districts of the city, the index was recorded as high as 1400 μg/m3. These pollutants can stay in the air for days or weeks and travel into human respiratory system, causing lung disease, emphysema, lung cancer, or premature death in individuals with existing heart or lung diseases. According to WHO's air quality guidelines, the air is considered hazardous when PM 2.5 is present in the air at 301-500 μg/m3 level.
Environmental experts suspect an increased burning of coal, straw and other materials for heat is partly causing the rising air pollution. As a result, Shenyang's Environmental Bureau has implemented its emergency response plan for the first time ever.
Screenshot: PM2.5 reading of Shenyang on November 8 from Aqistudy.cn, an air-quality monitor website.
The official emergency plan for heavy air pollution requires the temporary suspension of outdoor construction work and limiting the number of vehicles on the road, but a journalist from the news agency Xinhua found a construction site still running. The city's traffic department has also resisted limits on automobile traffic.
Growing increasingly annoyed, many in the public and the media are calling into question the effectiveness of the city's emergency plan.
Bi Deli, a low-carbon expert at Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences, told the state media that some official emergency plans lack operability:
一份预案看起来面面俱到，实际上可操作性怎样？各个部门之间应该如何联动？在极端重污染情况下，如果老百姓对相关污染状况知之甚少，或还是通过口口相传来了解污染程度、防护措施，那么这样的预案就会成为一纸空文。沟通渠道不畅通，各项指令不能真正落实，这样的“梗阻”很难真正收到实效。
The plan appears to solve every potential issue, but what about its operability? What about communication between official departments? In cases of severe pollution, if residents know little about the situation and come to learn about pollution levels and protection measures through rumors, the plan becomes useless. If communication channels [between official departments] hit a bottleneck and instructions can't be distributed or implemented, the issue would not be easy to resolve.
Some high schools continued instruction, also violating the city's emergency protocol. Instead of halting all classes, one school, for instance, merely told students to stop all activities outdoors. A student at the school reposted the administration's message, expressed her disappointment on China's microblogging service Weibo:
作为沈阳的一名高二学生，我接到校讯通时候深深对教育部门表示失望。
通知：明天沈阳市天气处于橙色二级状态，按上级有关部门要求，要求我校同学明日停止一切教室外活动，注意关好门窗，并且上学、放学期间佩戴好口罩，做好一定的预防工作，学校也会停止一切室外大型活动，希望全体学生和家长周知。－－28中学管理办公室管理员 11月08日
As a senior high school student in Shenyang, I was quite disappointed with the education department, after receiving this message.
Notice: Tomorrow Shenyang’s weather will be at Level 2. According to orders from the state, our students should suspend all outdoor activities, close windows, wear masks when coming to and leaving from the school, and take relevant measures to prevent injury. The school will halt all large-scale outdoor activities. We hope this notice has been delivered to all the students and teachers. [Signed] Administrator of the Managerial Office to No. 28 Middle School, November 8.
Another high school student criticized the Environment and Education Department:
沈阳雾霾严重污染，环保部门和教育局为什么不停课？这是对学生身体健康状况的忽视，也是对沈阳环保的无视，这不仅关系到学生的身体健康，也关系到老师的健康。我就搞不明白了，北京雾霾，停课；上海雾霾，停课；到我们大沈阳，停止户外活动，这是要把沈阳学生的体质搞差的节奏吗？
There's severe pollution in Shenyang, so why hasn't the Environment and Education Department halted school instruction? This neglects students’ health and safety concerns, affecting students and faculty alike. I can't understand it. When smoke like this comes to Beijing and Shanghai, they'll halt all teaching. But here in Shenyang, it's just the outdoor activities that go. Do they want to endanger students’ health?
The suffocating smoke in Shenyang is a harsh reminder of the consequences of China's coal consumption, which reached 4.12 billion tons a year in 2012.
For northeastern areas of China, burning coal has long been the main way of supplying warmth. Last winter in Shenyang, almost 18 million tons of coal were fueled for supplying warmth to city residents. It was in this one season that the city managed 60 percent of its coal consumption in a year.
Making matters worse, the people of Shenyang rely on low-quality coal that contains high-sulfur and high-ash materials. Burnt by outdated heating boilers, the low-quality coal produces high emission levels of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and other particulate pollutants that are main culprits in fatal smoke.
Early this year, the Shenyang government resolved to convert from a coal-based to power-based mode for heating in the coming future. This strategy is designed to lower the city's coal consumption per square meter from nearly 35kg to 22kg.
In China's 13th Five-Year Plan, the country's central government vowed to lower dependence on fossil energy and promote the development of clear energy. China has seen resolutions like this before, however, and a revolution in air quality still seems many years away.