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One Man’s Revenge Against Russian Propaganda · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

“Noodleremover” on the boob tube. Photo of Soviet television from Flickr. CC 2.0. Edited by Kevin Rothrock.
He used to work for the Russian state media, heading RIA Novosti’s inoSMI.ru project, which translates the foreign-language media into Russian. Today, Alexey Kovalev is taking revenge on the people he says destroyed his country’s state media. His weapon is a new website called Noodleremover.news, a play on the Russian phrase “noodles on your ears,” which translates loosely to “a cock-and-bull story.”
The project (which Kovalev says began as Facebook posts and graduated to Medium.com, before he bought his own domain) takes aim at false and misleading reports in the Russian media—particularly stories about popular and expert opinion in the West about Russia.
One of Kovalev’s recent texts addressed how the Russian Defense Ministry’s TV network invented a fake interview with the Ukrainian Prime Minister, where Arseniy Yatsenyuk supposedly accused former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko of sexual harassment. Another post looked at how American evangelicals have helped shape Russia’s crackdown on gay rights, while praising Vladimir Putin along the way. “In order to gain access to new markets and sponsors,” Kovalev writes, “[homophobic evangelicals] need to rave about whatever local tsar there is, whose people go hungry, while they blather on TV about spiritual values and 90-percent approval ratings.”
Noodleremover made its biggest splash yet with a text published on September 18, titled “Russia Today, Information War, and Billions of Views: How They Get Their Stats,” where Kovalev reviewed information published in English by The Daily Beast about how the Russian state network RT intentionally misinterprets data about the size of its audience to inflate claims about its influence. Kovavlev told RuNet Echo that the piece attracted more than 60,000 readers. That was the moment, he says, when he decided his new website “is really something worth doing.”
Though he says the website is “worth it,” Kovalev is still somewhat hesitant to describe Noodleremover as an effort to bring media literacy to Russians. “You can’t even translate ‘media literacy’ into Russian,” he told RuNet Echo. “‘Media gramotnost’”? It doesn’t make any sense to a Russian speaker. But I think it’s important to teach people how to consume news. Every news outlet has an agenda.”
Kovalev makes no secret of his own agenda, either. “I despise [Margarita] Simonyan [chief editor of RT and Rossiya Segodnya] for what she did to RIA,” he says. “After all, my name is on the website, and now it’s filled with all kinds of shit. And it’s really shameful to see my name next to some stupid story about how Obama is a bad dancer. If that kind of story appeared on RIA a couple of years ago, the editor would have been fired.”
Alexey Kovalev (center). Photo: Facebook.
Noodleremover may have started as an act of revenge, but it’s grown into something bigger. The project already has more than a thousand followers on Twitter, after launching in October 2015 and tweeting just 19 times. Kovalev says the public’s reaction has greatly encouraged his work:
I’m getting all this feedback and people are telling me, “Wow this is so fantastic. Nobody has ever done anything like this.” And I realize that it’s true. Nobody in Russia has ever even thought about how we approach a piece of news. Why did a particular story appear? Why is it being aired? What agenda does the outlet saying this have? What kind of agenda might an anonymous source have? Where does it come from? Why is it even out there?
When the first news of Russian troops in Syria broke out, I started noticing these weird little websites with next-to-zero readership (sites with maybe 100 visitors a day), but they end up being quoted by Sputnik or RT, and then they’re requoted somewhere else, and this becomes a kind of chain of legitimation. You throw something out there through an obscure website, and it’s requoted so many times that everyone forgets what the original news was. And it’s just out there. And there is this network of weird little obscure websites that just throws stuff out there. And it’s being quoted and requoted hundreds of times.
Not everyone thinks Kovalev’s project is “fantastic,” of course. Most Russians will never hear about Noodleremover, but it’s a fair guess that they’d be disinclined to embrace it, given prevailing attitudes in Russia about information. According to a national survey conducted last month by the independent polling agency the Levada Center, not only do radically more Russians trust television over the Internet (59 percent versus 37 percent), but faith in information disseminated on TV, the radio, and in newspapers is rising. Over the past three years, significantly fewer Russians have come to believe that these mass media are deceiving them. In September 2012, for instance, 55 percent of the country said it thought the media deliberately reported half truths. Three years later, that number is down to 42 percent.
Kovalev told RuNet Echo that he thinks Russians might be responding to an overload of information in the world, and turning to the outlets that offer the most comfort. The need to stay sane, he says, allows people to accept ideas and information that often amount to nonsense:
When confronted with a deluge of information, people instinctively cling to just one source (however biased it may be) just because it’s “ours.” There is a certain degree of doublethink in Russia. How much contradiction can Russians absorb without going crazy? At any point in time, they believe two opposite things. For instance, there are no Russian troops in Ukraine, but we are winning the war. Because we cannot lose. Because Russians can never lose. But there are no Russian troops in Ukraine. So whatever is broadcast, they will believe, because it’s instinctive. Even if it’s lies, we’ll believe them because it’s our guys who are telling the lies. Because everyone is lying, and we’re going to stick to our lies.
What can we expect with Russians’ loyalty to home-brewed “lies”? It’s probably here to stay. Eastern Ukraine’s war has cooled, but Moscow now finds itself in a far messier conflict in Syria, where the government’s need to control information (and the public’s “instinct” to let it) is as strong as ever. Noodleremover is a one-man campaign against this trend. Can it succeed? Kovalev says he’s not under any illusions, and acknowledges the enormous clout of the people running the Kremlin’s media empire. Still, though, here goes nothing.

author: Kevin Rothrock


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These Paintings Depict the Indigenous Peoples’ Struggle Against Exploitation in the Philippines · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

“Land Grab”. Federico Boyd Sulapas Dominguez uploaded this painting in time for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit which will be held in the Philippines. Reposted with permission
Over the past 40 years, Filipino artist Federico Boyd Sulapas Dominguez has been painting the efforts of indigenous peoples to combat destructive mining, development aggression, and militarization. His aim is to enlighten the public about the situation of ethnic groups in the Philippines and their campaign for the protection of their ancestral lands.
The Philippines has more 14 million indigenous peoples belonging to 110 ethno-linguistic groups. However, the unique heritage of these tribes is threatened by rapid urbanization, commercialization, and encroachment of their lands by state-approved activities such as agribusiness ventures, logging, and mining.
In Mindanao Island, located in the southern part of the country, the collective term for ethnic groups is Lumad. Various lumad groups which are resisting the entry of mining firms into their communities has been in the news during September and October 2015 after they were attacked by paramilitary groups. About 700 Lumad members have set up camps in Manila, the nation’s capital, to demand the pull-out of troops from their homes.
The plight of the Lumad is reflected in many of Federico's artworks. He has also been uploading copies of his old paintings on Facebook which he thinks are still relevant because of the attacks on Lumad communities and the continued plunder of natural resources in the ancestral domains of ethnic tribes. Some of his paintings have been widely shared on social media by activists, scholars, and heritage advocates who are seeking to inspire the public to support the Lumad’s right to self-determination.
Federico, who is a Mandaya (Lumad indigenous people from the eastern part of Mindanao), encourages younger artists to enrich their knowledge of Philippine culture by integrating with ethnic communities.
Below are some of Federico’s paintings:
“Talabok” is a Lumad Matigsalog term for social gathering or market day. Artwork by Federico Boyd Sulapas Dominguez. Reposted with permission
This artwork by Federico Boyd Sulapas Dominguez depicts the impact of militarization in the hinterlands. Reposted with permission
Aside from exposing the negative impact of militarization, the painting also shows how government laws unfairly discriminate against the Philippines’ ethnic communities. Painting by Federico Boyd Sulapas Dominguez. Reposted with permission
“Lupa ay Buhay” means “Land is Life”. “Kapayapaan” means peace. The text at the borders of the painting reads: Respect the rights of indigenous peoples and their right to self-determination. Painting by Federico Boyd Sulapas Dominguez. Reposted with permission.
“Tagaynop” is a lumad Mandaya term for nightmare. Artwork by Federico Boyd Sulapas Dominguez. Reposted with permission
“Yalingkawas” is a Lumad Mandaya term for freedom or freed. Artwork by Federico Boyd Sulapas Dominguez. Reposted with permission
“Mandayuman” is a Lumad Mandaya term for where people live. A mini mural showing two major rituals of two different groups. Right part are the Lumad Mandaya (Balilig) and on the left are the Lumad Matigsalog (Panubad tubad). Artwork by Federico Boyd Sulapas Dominguez. Reposted with permission

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Mong Palatino


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Animated Series ‘South Park’ Showed China’s President Kissing a Woman. Who Is She? · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Screencapture from season 19, episode 6 of “South Park”.
Chinese President Xi Jinping made an appearance on the American adult animated sitcom South Park at the end of October. True to the show's politically incorrect form, the episode skewered Japanese yaoi or “boys’ love” comic culture as well as diplomatic relations between China, Japan and South Korea.
Yaoi is a comic sub-genre popular mainly among young Asian women that depicts idealized gay relationships between male characters. The episode last week had Asian students bringing the yaoi culture to South Park by distributing dreamy photos of Tweek and Craig, two male students at school. Everyone in town begins to believe the two are gay, even though they aren't.
At one point, the father of fellow classmate Stan, ignorant of what yaoi is, calls up Chinese President Xi Jinping to ask how Asian people decide who is gay or not. Xi answers, “That comes from Japan” and “They are dogs who refuse not apologize to the Chinese Republic.” What's more, at the end of the episode, the Chinese president kisses his Korean-speaking secretary in his office.
The scenes had South Park's Chinese audiences wide-eyed in surprise. The pirated copies of the original episode vanished quickly from the domestic Internet and now a censored version is online with the “dogs” comment and the kissing scene removed.
Chinese fans of South Park were worried that the attention to the politically sensitive elements of the episode would alert the country's propaganda authorities to ban the animated show from online circulation.
For non-Chinese, perhaps the most provocative moment was the “dogs” comment:
holy. shit. the gay anime south park episode has the president of china calling japanese people dogs. pic.twitter.com/9hbhmmnJkT
— Stefan Constantine (@WhatTheBit) November 1, 2015
Most Chinese audiences, however, were not bothered by that, seeing the remark as politically correct. It was the kissing scene that they believed might have crossed the line.
Xi Jinping is married to Peng Liyuan. But the Korean-speaking woman character in his office, who hasn't appeared in the show before this episode, was definitely not Xi's wife. South Park Wiki presented the woman as his secretary, implying an extramarital affair. Such an act would be regarded as corrupt within the context of the country's anti-graft campaign, and netizens feared it would get the series banned:
最后还来个和小秘接吻，简直是火上浇油。
Kissing with secretary in the end, this is like adding fuel to the fire.
South Park's Chinese fans pointed out that the woman was not just an ordinary secretary but actually Park Geun-hye, South Korea's president who has overseen increasingly closer ties to China. Historically, Japan, China and South Korea have bad relations. Japan invaded South Korea and China during the Second World War. During the Korean War (1950-1953) China joined the North Korean troops to fight against the US-backed South Korean troop. In the past few decades, the territorial disputes among the three countries have been non-stop. Yet somehow, Japan has become the common enemy of China and South Korea.
On Twitter, @SlowZhu highlighted the recent news of the China-Japan-South Korea summit to show the figure is actually Park:
这么看起来近平在南方公园里亲的是这位大姐 https://t.co/RFDTKV23zJ
— 可愛い推特王林 (@SlowZhu) November 1, 2015
Very likely this is the woman kissed by the Jinping character in South Park.
Representing diplomatic relations as such could still get the show in trouble. On popular social media platform Weibo, South Park's fans were worried about the fate of South Park in China. Some defended the show by explaining the difference between humor and maliciousness:
问题是结尾今上和瑾妃
The problem is the end when the current king kisses the imperial concubine Ms. Geun.
这一集其实讽刺的是日本那种卖腐文化的文化入侵，xi的出现只是几十秒，讽刺下中日关于二战道歉这争议天天打口水仗，最后亲了韩国女估计是意思中韩关系暧昧。本就是部无节操的成人向的讽刺动画，太祖都出现过，这也真的不算啥了。
This episode is mainly to mock the invasion of yaoi culture. Xi only appeared for a dozen seconds as a satire of the diplomatic war of words over Japan's apology for the Second World War. The kissing scene at the end reflects China and South Korea's ambiguous relations. The animation is for adult consumption, Chairman Mao made an appearance in the past as well. This is far from a malicious attack.
跟风狗简直够了。。。这集根本不算黑天朝，这也算黑只能说你太玻璃心了，或者压根没看过几集SP，不知道SP真正黑人是什么概念。08奥运会专门有一集天朝问题，讲中国威胁论的，地狱里太祖还经常出镜，要砍当时早砍了。
This is enough… the episode is not a malicious attack on the Chinese empire. If you think so, you are way too sensitive or you are not a fan of South Park. You don't have any idea about how the satire works in South Park. During the 2008 Olympics, it addressed the hot issue of the Chinese threat and Mao made several appearances. The ban should have been issued back then.
Given a nationwide campaign to guard Chinese young people against the “corruption” of western civilization, many South Park's fans are pessimistic and making efforts to download whatever remains of the animated show online:
尼玛我以为最后一季了….反正搜狐视频已经下掉了12季以后的…都是找资源下载看了…
Shit, I thought this is the end… Sohu TV has already taken down everything after season 12… I have to look for other online resources to download…

author: Oiwan Lam


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Basic Rights Suspended as Maldives Declares State of Emergency for 30 Days · Global Voices
Rezwan

Protesters wave flags in a public square in Malé calling for fresh elections during the 2011-2012 political crisis in the Maldives. Image by Mohamed Muha. Copyright Demotix
On November 4 at around noon Maldives time (07:00 GMT), the government of the tiny island state declared a 30-day state of emergency, citing threats to national security and public safety. The declaration emerged after security forces uncovered several improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and weapons in different locations in the capital Malé.
There will be no curfew, but freedom of assembly, right to privacy, right to strike, arrest and detention rights, freedom from search and seizure and some other rights have been suspended. According to UK newspaper the Guardian, the streets of Malé were quiet after the declaration, and soldiers had cordoned off water and power plants. Several people were arrested in raids.
Protests, strikes, rights on arrest, rights to privacy, freedom of movement banned with Maldives state of emergency
— Zaheena Rasheed (@ZaheenaR) November 4, 2015
This live blog at Maldives Independent is updating the situation.
The country's vice president, who entered his 11th day of confinement in Dhonidhoo prison, released a statement via his website expressing his concerns over the security situation and mentioning that the state of emergency will jeopardise the economic future of the country.
The news came as a shocker to many.
State of Emergency in Paradise. Maldives President declares state of emergency for 30 days starting today 12pm
— Aishath Aniya (@Aniya_A) November 4, 2015
Maldives security forces say they have found an object thought to be a bomb in a vehicle parked near power and water plants
— Zaheena Rasheed (@ZaheenaR) November 4, 2015
How does this affect Maldives as a popular tourist destination? According to the official Twitter account of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs:
Despite State of Emergency, situation in Maldives remains calm and normal. There are no restrictions for visitors to travel to Maldives
— MFA-Maldives (@MDVForeign) November 4, 2015
The main opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) has planned a mass protest in the capital titled ‘Minjuvaan’ for Friday, November 6. Ex-President Mohamed Rasheed, the leader of MDP, is in jail following his conviction last March under anti-terror laws. The state of emergency will give sweeping powers to security forces to arrest suspects before the anti-government protest rally.
Tension began brewing in the country following an explosion on President Abdulla Yameen’s speedboat on September 28, which wounded his wife and two others. Yameen was unharmed as he was not sitting in his usual spot in the boat. Recently, the FBI contradicted other investigators’ analysis and said it had found no evidence that an explosive device had caused a blast aboard the president's boat.
But the Maldives’ authorities maintain that it was an attempt on his life. President Yameen detained Vice President Ahmed Adeeb on October 24 on suspicion of links to blast after accusing him of “high treason”.
People remain skeptic. Writer Yameen Rasheed tweets:
Foreign observers should know about #Maldives: 1) There were never any IEDs. It's a #ManufacturedCrisis 2) There was never a democracy
— Yameen Rasheed (@yaamyn) November 4, 2015
Saina Saeed writes on Facebook about how the state of emergency affects the rights of the people of Maldives:
Even though this sudden state of emergency is announced as a precaution due to the bomb threats or even the demonstration that has been planned, our rights are being violated and regrettably there is no institution that we can turn to for a fair ruling despite how much we want to challenge it. This is nothing to make fun of.
#knowyourrights
While Zaeem Ahmed laments:
We don't have visionary leaders with goodwill and common good. That is the reason why we have to be here after fall of H.E. Maumoon regime, 8 years later. A small nation with substantial economic growth and resources with no immediate threat to communal peace and harmony should not be here. It is a shame that we created such rogue elements within the society rather than good governance.

author: Rezwan


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Bay Area Intifada: Identity Politics with a Capital ‘I’ · Global Voices
Efe Levent

“Oakland City Of Dreams” Oakland Graffiti Art Dream. Photo by A Syn (CC BY-SA 2.0)
It’s four in the morning, and we are sitting on my rooftop in Istanbul with Jabar, overlooking the Golden Horn. The conversation is racing at a mile a minute, from Taksim Square to Tahrir Square, to Jerusalem, Cape Town and finally, Oakland, California. We talk about the good friends we had, and good friends we lost along the way. Those with whom we shared the same opinions and barricades are recalled in kinship terms.
There are plenty of things to compare, too.
Jabar tells me how white anarchists who recently settled in Oakland feel intimidated by the exuberance of the local people of colour in their “safe spaces”.
I tell him how middle class Turkish professionals who were teaching yoga at Gezi park in the summer of 2013 got all the credit for the protests, while it was in fact Kurdish militants who were manning barricades day and night to make the occupation possible.
Our common concern is with “white allies” who show solidarity on their own terms, ignoring the counsel and opinions of those they are supposed to be showing solidarity with, and taking credit for actions they cannot own.
Jabar sees these white anarchists as settler pioneers who have spearheaded a tide of gentrification in his city. Not only have they gentrified Oakland, but they have also taken over the movement and diluted its potency. Their expressed desire to be well-meaning “allies” of the anti-gentrification movement has not detracted from the fact that their very presence has been damaging to the community.
Just like the liberal Turkish intelligentsia, who have the temerity to “demand” that Kurds lay down their weapons when they are being systematically persecuted by the Turkish Armed Forces.
“It is a colonial approach to activism and organising,” Jabar says.
These allegedly well-meaning allies force themselves into others’ movements without invitation and stumble around destroying everything they touch, like King Midas in reverse.
We run through the litany of failures presided over by Western political activists, journalists and NGOs.
To them, pushing for change is an institutional pre-occupation carried out on behalf of some nebulous and distant oppressed other whose welfare can be reduced to a pie chart or a catchy concept.
To us, it’s about our own flesh and blood who self-medicate to alleviate the depression of living in a nation which undervalues and persecutes them on account of their ethnicity. People who struggle to find work because of their accents, religious beliefs or the melanin content of their skin. What we need, rather than faux solidarity, is a space to come together.
The Bay Area Intifada project started after long conversations between Jabar, a long time resident of Oakland, and a Palestinian comrade. It provides an online environment where global discussion involving everyone who has an active interest in the politics and culture of decolonisation can take place. It is simultaneously an information hub, a sprawling network and a reporting project.
It might seem contradictory to hold faith that Facebook pages and Twitter accounts can achieve anything of substance, especially in this age of slacktivism. But Bay Area Intifada has emerged as a place for those who are looking to learn about the struggles of others, in order to better guide their own.
Their reporting from Turkey has been insightful indeed, especially in the aftermath of the deadly explosions at a peace rally in Ankara. After I had checked in with everyone I could think of in my hometown, I saw the Bay Area Intifada report:
#BREAKINGNEWS: #Turkey, One of us here, luckily didn't take the caravan to #Ankara, Multiple explosions, 20+ DEAD pic.twitter.com/bM9ApwbdHu
— إنتفاضة الباي آريا (@BayAreaIntifada) October 10, 2015
It meant a great deal to have a brother on the ground who knows the fight from his own neighbourhood, who could extend solidarity to ours. It meant that our struggle lives on in Oakland, and Oakland’s struggle lives here. Rather than just passing on news, Bay Area Intifada has also done its own original reporting from Turkey:
#Turkey : There's something brewing right under the surface. Pin drop uprising. Video: https://t.co/2uBEsM8neQ pic.twitter.com/N5iqc9rKm0 — إنتفاضة الباي آريا (@BayAreaIntifada) October 15, 2015
For me, though, the most uplifting Turkey update has been pointing out how white settler colonial mentality is a common global problem all over the world:
Currently in #Istanbul. I think im in love! BEAUTIFUL! But many of the same problems, #WhitePeople gentrifying ish. #CrackerGoHome
— إنتفاضة الباي آريا (@BayAreaIntifada) October 4, 2015
The most moving aspect of Bay Area Intifada is its embodiment of a practice which poses a fundamental challenge to colonisation. We people of colour know very well what it means for our culture to be exterminated, our faith trampled for being “oppressive” by white liberal standards.
We are forced to feel ashamed of our names, our language, our spiritual connection to the world. But the same people who rob us of our traditions also appropriate them for profit and prestige.
Eastern religions are stripped of their significance to become add-Buddha-and-stir instant fixes for middle class Westerners looking to find their true north. Africans with cornrows or dreadlocks are branded as potential criminals in the eyes of polite society, while white people sporting the same styles are being celebrated as brave and cool.
To be truly effective, decolonisation has to take a different approach to fellow struggling cultures. Bay Area Intifada creates a hearth for people of colour to gather around and gift to one another the wisdom of their forbears. This is not the politics of half-hearted “allies” who pontificate under the cover of solidarity. This is the politics of kinsfolk.
At the end of our long conversation, as I walked my brother Jabar to a cab, he briefly summarised the spirit of Bay Area Intifada with cheerful succinctness. “Well,” he said, “it’s all about planting seeds.”

author: Efe Levent


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Je Ne Regrette Rien: Kyrgyzstan’s Hated Ex-President Begs No Forgiveness in New Book · Global Voices
Akhal-Tech Collective

Kyrgyzstan's Ex-President Kurmanbek Bakiyev. Wikipedia image.
Kurmanbek Bakiyev, the second of Kyrgyzstan's two exiled presidents, has a new book out. In it he absolves himself of blame for a reign drenched in corruption and bloody political violence that led to the death of over 500 people.
Aida Kasymalieva, a leading journalist from the Central Asian country wrote on November 4 a response to the book Pain, Love and Hope: My Kyrgyzstan in the form of a blog on leading news portal Akipress. In it she recalls in 2011 interviewing the country's first fugitive president and Bakiyev's predecessor, Askar Akayev.
Akayev, a former physicist who took control of the country after independence, was ousted in Kyrgyzstan's ‘Tulip’ revolution in 2005 and shared Bakiyev's lack of repentance:
В 2011 году, работая в Москве корреспондентом радио «Азаттык», я готовилась к интервью с экс-президентом Кыргызстана Аскаром Акаевым и очень волновалась. Мне казалось, что это будет памятное интервью в моей карьере и жизни. Хотя я задавала вопросы и записывала интервью по телефону, мы проговорили больше часа. Раз за разом, с упрямством и дерзостью, свойственных молодости, я повторяла один свой вопрос – не желает ли он попросить прощения у кыргызского народа?
Вместо этого Аскар Акаев обвинял кого только мог вспомнить, но не себя. Я тогда поразилась человеческой сущности – как можно не осознавать вины и просто попросить прощения. Пендечилик, говорят кыргызы, что переводится, как человеческая слабость. Теперь же очередное ежегодное интервью Аскара Акаева я даже не читаю – что он интересного или нового может сказать нам, не покаявшись?
In 2011, while working in Moscow as a correspondent from radio “Azattyk” [Kyrgyz service of State Department-sponsored RFE/RL] I was nervously preparing for an interview with the former president of Kyrgyzstan, Askar Akayev. It seemed to me that it would be one of the most memorable interviews in my career and my life […] We talked for over an hour. Time after time, with the stubbornness and impudence of youth, I repeated my single question — did he want to apologize to the Kyrgyz people? Instead, Askar Akayev accused everybody whose name he could remember, but not himself.
I was struck by the human ego — how can you evade the feelings of guilt and not simply ask for forgiveness? Pendechilik is a Kyrgyz word that translates as human weakness. Now when regular annual interviews with Askar Akayev appear in the news, I do not even read them. What is there he can say that is interesting or new if he remains unrepentant?
Akayev's regime was also tarnished by graft, nepotism and blood, notably when six people were killed in a standoff between protesters and police in 2002. But its violence paled in comparison to that of the Bakiyevs, credited with sending a severed ear by post to a former chief of staff subsequently murdered by henchmen.
Yet Bakiyev's self-depiction is rather different in the opening lines of his book, where he writes of himself dreaming of “snow-capped peaks, clear mountain lakes, the tickling smell of the spring grasses and the first rain, the striking view of shining, eternal glaciers.” The truth, he writes, in a nod to the country's nomadic heritage, is “bitter like the smoke from a shepherd's campfire.”
Bakiyev, Kasymalieva noted in a recent Facebook post, might have spent some time reflecting on the ills of his close relatives, such as elder brother Janysh, who oversaw the security services that opened fire on protesters in 2010, or his son Maxim, who allegedly acquired huge swathes of the struggling economy.
Instead, he goes down the route of self-justification, claiming the “biggest mistake” of his career was appointing in 2007 as Prime Minister Almazbek Atambayev, the country's current president, who he describes as a lazy and prone to drinking.
His 2010 overthrow, he concluded, was sponsored by a “third force” he never explicitly names.
Kasymalieva rounds off her blog with a wish that the current president and future presidents of the country will not spend their retirements abroad writing diatribes about erstwhile political rivals, and instead follow the example of third President Roza Otunbayeva who handed over power peacefully and willingly:
Давайте молиться, те, которые на берегу, и смотрят на изгнанную лодку, чтобы мы всегда впредь гордились нашими президентами. И настоящими, и особенно бывшими. Чтобы не было столько тонн горечи в книгах экс-президентов. Чтобы они на пенсии гуляли по бульвару Эркиндик, а молодое поколение стояло в очереди к ним за селфи. Чтобы к катающейся на коньках Розе Исаковне присоединился катающийся на лыжах Алмазбек Шаршенович.
Это же выполнимо?
Let those of us that have remained behind on this coast, looking at the fugitive's boat, pray that we are always proud of our presidents in the future, both present and past. [Pray] that there will not be so many tons of bitterness in the books of e-presidents. That they will walk as pensioners down Erkindik boulevard, and the younger generation will form a queue to take selfies with them. So that our horse riding Roza Otunbayeva will be joined by [fourth president] Almazbek Atambayev on skis.
Is that realistic?

author: Akhal-Tech Collective


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Netizen Report: The Mexican Cybercrime Law That Wasn’t · Global Voices
Netizen Report Team

“GOODBYE #FAYADLAW / THANKS, INTERNET!” Graphic created by digital rights group Contenido Libre, used with permission.
Mexico’s legislature considered – and then quickly shelved – a cybercrime bill that critics labeled “the worst Internet law in history.” The Law for the Prevention and Punishment of Information Crimes was drafted by Senator Omar Fayad of the notoriously power-hungry PRI party in collaboration with Mexico’s Federal Police. Known for short as the Fayad law, it covered most major areas that could be implemented in a law governing the Internet.
The law contained broad language that conflated everyday computer activities with criminal acts. For example, the law made it illegal to “…willfully destroy, disable, damage or perform any act that alters the functioning of a computer system.” While this may have been intended to target individuals actively seeking to harm others’ computer systems, the act of “altering the function of a computer system” could be as simple as running a software update or changing one’s operating system. The law proposed five to 15 years’ jail time for this offense.
Another section of the law would have made violations of a a website or app's terms of service punishable with up to one year in jail and a minimum fine of 800-1000 days’ salary. The incredibly broad scope of this section could have implicated anyone from an adult inciting violence or sharing pornography on YouTube to a 12-year-old lying about their age in order to use Facebook.
Most concerning were provisions that defined “computer terrorism” as the dissemination of information on the Internet “with the aim of destabilizing the public peace.” For journalists and human rights advocates, this had the looks of a policy that would criminalize the right to free expression online in Mexico. The law also criminalized various forms of public disclosure of data, measures that critics saw as a direct attempt to criminalize platforms like Mexicoleaks.
After thousands of citizens went online and into the streets to express opposition to the law, Senator Omar Fayad withdrew it from consideration.
Two publishing houses in Dhaka, Bangladesh were violently attacked by armed assailants, who murdered one publisher and left two others in serious condition. The brutal attacks are part of a string of assaults on powerful, secular intellectuals in the country. Both publishers had ties with Bangladeshi blogger and writer Avijit Roy, who was hacked to death in public in February 2015. Though the right to free expression is enshrined in Bangladesh’s constitution, the government has done little either to discourage the attacks or bring the perpetrators to justice.
The student activist Amin Anvari has been arrested and held without charge in Iran for unclear reasons. According to family members, he has been pressured to make false confessions. Anvari received a suspended prison sentence in December 2014 for publishing a post on Facebook promoting basic civil liberties.
In response to a public letter sent to Facebook by Global Voices in partnership with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Association for Progressive Communications, and the ACLU, the social media company has pledged to implement some modest changes to its “real name policy”, which requires users to register their profiles under “the name they’re known by in real life.” Facebook has no plans to do away with the policy, despite documentation from a wide range of users of the negative impact it has had on their lives. But the company has promised to make it easier for users to appeal their decisions on such matters, and to strengthen the process by which users can flag each other’s accounts for apparent violations of the policy. The company also announced that “going forward, IDs submitted to Facebook as part of this process will be encrypted when they are temporarily stored on our servers,” implying that these documents had been stored insecurely in the past.
The European Parliament passed a new bill preventing Internet service providers from blocking Internet traffic, but with carve-outs allowing them to do so when required by law or necessary to manage congestion. The bill also contains rules that would enable companies to offer different levels of quality for ‘specialized services’. One day after the bill was passed, Deutsche Telekom indicated it plans to ask startups to pay a share of their revenue for good Internet service, suggesting some telecommunications companies are already working to exploit loopholes.
The Internet Engineering Task Force formally recognized the use of the .onion top level domain name for hidden services websites accessed through Tor. The move recognizes .onion as a “special use domain name” used to “provide access to end to end, secure, anonymized services.” The Tor Project celebrated the announcement saying “we think that this is a small and important landmark in the movement to build privacy into the structure of the Internet.”
Ellery Roberts Biddle, Marianne Diaz Hernandez, James Losey, Taisa Sganzerla and Sarah Myers West contributed to this report.

author: Netizen Report Team


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Protest Activity On the Rise In Russia, Study Finds · Global Voices
Tanya Lokot

Protesters detained at rally in support of Bolotnaya prisoners held in St. Petersburg on February 24, 2014. Photo by Yury Goldenshtein for Demotix.
Russians are becoming more vocal in their criticism of the authorities, according to the findings of a monitoring study by the Committee of Civic Initiatives. During the first half of 2015 (January 1 to June 1), the overall protest activity in Russia recorded by the experts grew almost 15 percent compared to the first half of 2014.
The Committee of Civic Initiatives monitors the social-economic and political tensions in all of Russia's regions and uses reports from mainstream media and wire services about public protest actions to assess the level of dissent. Together with protest activity, the Committee's sociologists, political scientists, and economists also rank the regions by socio-economic status (salaries, benefits, welfare) and the internal political context (local political systems and events).
The protest activities recorded by the the monitors include “political protests,” but also social issues, labor rights, transportation and other urban matters, and environmental issues. Experts note that internal political matters won over external and international politics in 2015 (including the Ukrainian conflict), while social issues were as important to Russians in 2015 as a year ago.
Alexey Titkov, a senior researcher at the Higher School of Economics and one of the authors of the monitoring report, told RBC news agency that the 15-percent increase was a relative figure. “It's not like we counted the number of people participating in each protest action,” Titkov said. “The growth in the volume of protest activity simply means that this year the regions have seen an increase in the number of protest actions and that people are voicing their discontent with certain issues more often and are more vocal about it. These two indicators were added up in our analysis.”
“Risk of protests most likely occurring in Russia by region.” Infographic by RBC news agency.
This infographic made by RBC breaks down the protest moods and activity by region and shows where in Russia protests are more likely to occur at any given time. The areas marked in dark red—Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk region and Zabaykalsky region—lead in the list of regions most at risk of protest.
In many Russian regions there is no tradition of reacting to unsatisfactory social policies with mass protests, according to political scientist Aleksandr Kynev, who also co-authored the study. Instead, Kynev told RBC, the reaction takes the form of “protest voting,” when citizens go to the polls to express their dissatisfaction with their votes. The report's authors conclude that the overall rise in protest sentiment will also lead to an increase in protest voting in the 38 regions that are set to hold local elections in December of 2016. And, if local authorities try to use administrative pressure to stifle dissent among voters, that could lead to protest spilling out into the streets.
Despite the growing protest activity in Russia, the experts at the Committee of Civic Initiatives don't yet see a pretext for mass protests like the ones that shook Moscow after the State Duma elections in December 2011. Although the study didn't attempt to construct a detailed forecast of the probability of mass socio-economic protest, Titkov explains that the groups protesting in the regions due to dissatisfaction with their socio-economic status and the groups that protested during the Winter of Discontent in 2011-2012 don't really overlap, so it's unlikely that mass protests of the same scale could occur for socio-economic reasons.
The Committee on Civic Initiatives is a Russian non-profit organization that bills itself as a “non-political union of professionals in economics, science, education, healthcare, culture and other spheres of life” working for the development of Russia. It was founded in 2012 by Alexey Kudrin (former Russian finance minister, 2000-2011) and a number of other political and civic personalities.

author: Tanya Lokot


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Brazil’s Modern Day Slave Owners Don’t Want Their Names on the Web · Global Voices
Taisa Sganzerla

Rural worker. Photo by Flickr user Cícero R. C. Omena. CC BY 2.0
Brazil's infamous “dirty list of slave labour” identifies companies that have been caught exploiting employees with practices akin to slavery. Established in 2003 by the Brazilian Ministry of Work and Employment, the list has featured companies owned by famous Brazilian businessmen and politicians on many occasions.
In addition to the official list published by the Ministry, Reporter Brasil, the country's leading NGO defending and reporting on labor rights, regularly reports on and highlights companies on the so-called dirty list. But recent court rulings could change these efforts towards transparency.
In December 2014, Brazil's supreme court issued a ruling that prohibited the Ministry of Work and Employment from publishing the list on its website or sharing it with local media. This ruling came in response to a case brought by the Brazilian Association of Real Estate Development Companies (ABRAINC), in which it claimed Brazil lacks a law to regulate the maintenance of such a list, and that employers were being included without a proper legal process, undermining the presumption of innocence and their right to legally contest such allegations. The Supreme Court decided to suspend publication of the list until the ABRAINC case is decided.
ABRAINC comprises Brazil's largest contractors and holdings, and its own president Rubens Menin has been found using forced labour on five occasions in enterprises owned by his company MRV Engenharia, which has been featured on the dirty list.
Months after the Supreme Court Ruling, the Ministry of Work and Labor created a new list, backed by the Brazilian Access to Information Law, with the same content. On October 19, Brazil's Attorney General Rodrigo Janot issued an official report in favor of its publication by the media. Whether or not this list will last remains to be seen, but its opponents have persisted in trying to keep it out of the public eye.
In October 2015, a new judicial ruling required Reporter Brasil to delete all information on its website concerning Morro Verde Participações, one of the companies listed on the most recent version of the dirty list.
Prior to the forced removal of information about the company, Reporter Brasil reported that Morro Verde Participações S/A runs a cattle farm in Xinguara, in Brazil's northern state of Pará. In January 2014, authorities found and rescued 23 people working under conditions analogous to slavery on the farm.
Members of Reporter Brasil worry that the two events are connected. “[This] happened because the Brazilian government has been incapable of reinstating the registry of employers caught using slave labor,” they said in a note explaining the recent censorship. The organization believes firmly that transparency about these practices is a critical step towards greater corporate accountability.
Argemiro de Azevedo Dutra, the judge presiding over the case, is from the District Court of Salvador, capital of the state of Bahia. Morro Verde S/A is also registered in the state of Bahia. Azevedo Dutra is also listed on the website of the State Legislative Council as a cattle farmer, among other occupations. About 40% of the companies included in the latest version of the list were in the livestock business, followed by logging (25%), agriculture (16%) and construction (7%).
For more than 15 years, Reporter Brasil has been advocating for the approval of the Slave Labour bill, under which any property found to be maintained by forced labour would be expropriated by the state. The law is in its late stages before final approval.
Until these recent changes, the dirty list was a reliable mechanism for society to pressure those violating workers’ rights. The battle between government, civil society, companies and courts for its reinstatement is far from over.

author: Taisa Sganzerla


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Facebook Vows to Improve Real Name Policy. But How Far Will They Go? · Global Voices
Ellery Roberts Biddle

What's in a name? Collage by Ellery Biddle. Images by Fora do Eixo, Victor Martinez, and anonymous, all licensed for reuse.
What's in a name? It depends on who you are, where you live, and how you behave on Facebook.
In early October 2015, Advox joined forces with a handful of NGOs seeking to highlight risks associated with Facebook's “real name” policy, which requires users to create profiles under their real names. Working with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Association for Progressive Communications, the American Civil Liberties Union and several other NGOs under the mantle of the Nameless Coalition, we wrote an open letter explaining the inherent cultural and socioeconomic biases in the policy, and proposing some concrete changes.
Facebook says they require users to create profiles under their “real names” because they believe this encourages people to behave better. Yet the company's only known mechanism for enforcing this policy is to ask users to report accounts that they believe are using a “fake” name. This mechanism is used by users of all kinds, to various ends. Some time ago, Facebook users with bad intentions learned that simply by reporting a fellow user for violating the real name policy, they could—at least temporarily—force that person into silence.
If the person couldn't quickly prove to the company that she was using her “real” name (by sending in a photo ID), her account would be suspended. For some users, this might be an inconvenience. For others, losing access to a Facebook account can impose an effective blackout on their primary mechanism for communication with close family, friends and allies.
In our letter, we proposed that Facebook:
1. Commit to allowing pseudonyms and non-legal names in situations where using legal names could put a user in danger
2. Require users filing real name policy abuse reports to support their claims with evidence
3. Create a compliance process through which users can confirm their identities without submitting government ID
4. Provide stronger technical security for users who do send Facebook their identification information
5. Provide a robust appeals process for users locked out of their accounts
On October 30, Facebook responded with a detailed letter signed by Alex Schultz, who identified himself as a person who “work[s] with our teams that help protect people on Facebook.” Schultz's Twitter profile and multiple news articles describe him as Facebook's “vice president of growth.” [Read the full letter – PDF.]
Schultz wrote that the company wants to reduce the number of users who are asked to verify their identity through the real name policy process. He noted that “identity and names are deeply personal matters and can vary significantly across cultures,” and emphasized that Facebook wishes to “be sensitive to these issues.”
…identity and names are deeply personal matters and can vary significantly across cultures, and we want to be sensitive to these issues.
We see these declarations as progress. We applaud Facebook's desire to be more sensitive to the complex issues around personal names and identity, and we look forward to seeing this implemented in the form of real policy changes. We will continue to press on these issues until we see these changes first hand.
Schultz pledged to take a few concrete, if small, steps in the right direction. He wrote that in December, Facebook will begin requiring users to “provide additional information about why they are reporting a profile [for violating the real name policy]” (response to request 2). We believe this may help the company better understand the various intentions of users filing these reports, and that it will create a slightly higher barrier for individuals using the reporting feature for malicious purposes.
Schultz also pledged (in response to request 5) to allow users whose accounts have been suspended to “give more information about their situation and receive more personalized help throughout the confirmation process.” Currently, users whose accounts have been suspended due to real name policy violations are offered no formal opportunity to appeal their cases in writing.
Another challenging aspect of the current process lies in Facebook's requirement that users accused of using a fake name send the company either a photo of government-issued ID, or images of two non-government (but still relatively official) forms of identification. Similar to some voter identification procedures in the United States, Facebook allows users to send pictures of things like library cards, bank statements, or magazine subscriptions in order to verify their identities. These decidedly old-school alternatives, however, do not satisfy the needs of the majority of users whom Global Voices represents. Some members of our community point out that these things simply do not exist in their countries. Others note that these forms of identification tend to be tied to government ID, and thus reflect one's legal name all the same. Facebook promised no changes to this part of the policy.
Similar to some voter identification procedures in the United States, Facebook allows users to send pictures of things like library cards, bank statements, or magazine subscriptions in order to verify their identities. These decidedly old-school alternatives, however, do not satisfy the needs of the majority of users whom Global Voices represents.
In response to our fourth request, Schultz described plans to improve technical security for the process by which users send identification information to the company. But his response left us with more questions than answers. He wrote: “going forward, IDs submitted to Facebook as part of this process will be encrypted when they are temporarily stored on our servers.” This led us to assume that these files currently are not encrypted while stored on Facebook's servers—a troubling notion. Our colleagues at the Electronic Frontier Foundation are investigating the technical details of this process and may issue specific technical recommendations on how the company can maximize its security in this area.
Overall, we were disappointed to see Facebook continuing to assert that enforcement of the real name policy is necessary to improving user behavior. Naturally, we share Facebook's desire for the platform to be a safe place where people treat each other respectfully. But we know that certain efforts intended to make the platform safer in fact make some users more vulnerable, and expose them in some instances to physical danger.
We understand Facebook's logic—in many cases, it is easier to hold a person accountable for their actions when their identity is known. But we also know that their assumption is based on correlation, not causation: using a different name does not cause one to behave badly.
using a different name does not cause one to behave badly.
Schultz wrote that users who behave badly are eight times more likely to use a fake name than others. But this number does not come from their user base as a whole—it comes from data on individuals who have been reported for using a fake name. The statistic is wrong at worst and misleading at best. Schultz's letter says that those who are reported for using a fake name are more likely to engage in abuse than those who are not. This is neither surprising nor remarkable, as users who behave badly are generally more likely to be reported for any kind of abuse than those who are not.
We believe that if Facebook really wants to reduce bad behavior, they should target bad behavior.
We believe that if Facebook really wants to reduce bad behavior, they should target bad behavior. The company should zero in on the real problems in play: harassment, hate speech, threats of physical and sexual harm, and abuse of Facebook's policies in an effort to silence others.
Facebook promised to introduce these changes in December. We look forward to seeing these in practice, and hope the company will consult with us on these changes, given the wealth of experience our coalition has in the areas concerned. And we plan to continue our dialogue on this topic, both with the company and with our growing network of allies.

author: Ellery Roberts Biddle


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Iran Has Departed From Quranic Punishments Before, Despite What Hardliners Say · Global Voices
Center for Human Rights in Iran

A mural of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, outside of the former U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Khomeini eventually agreed that there could be divergence from strict Sharia law that abides by punishments the U.N. deems as torture. Image by Kamyar Adl (CC BY 2.0).
A version of this post originally appeared on iranhumanrights.org and is published here in collaboration with the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.
A battle over the necessity of strict adherence to Islamic law, including Quranic punishments designated by the UN as tantamount to torture, has been underway in Iran since the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979. The heated debate continues to the present day. Yet the views of leading clerics on the need for flexibility to meet modern standards would surprise some of the hardliners advocating for strict adherence.
In fact, Iranian Chief Justice Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani’s rejection of any departure from strict Islamic law is in direct contradiction to the views and practices of the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who explicitly allowed for flexibility in adherence to Islamic law in accordance with contemporary circumstances.
In particular, Larijani has rejected any criticism of, or departure from, qisas, or retributive punishments, which allow victims’ families to request punishments from the perpetrator equivalent to the crime, including death in cases of murder. This is commonly known as the so-called “eye-for-an-eye” principle.
Larijani was quoted as saying on the Judiciary’s official website:
Human rights pressures have again started against the Islamic Republic of Iran and they are bringing up the issue of qisas. But we have reminded them many times that it is not the West’s business to comment on how Islamic countries run their affairs [according to] Islamic laws. Qisas is a Quranic right and the Islamic Republic of Iran will never retreat from its divine values.
Larijani’s refusal to retreat from retributive criminal punishments, which have contributed to the record number of executions in Iran, has been a common theme in recent years. In February 2014 he said, “Human rights controversies regarding issues such as qisas have roots in certain Western political philosophies aimed at imposing secular values on us.”
That same year, Larijani launched an attack on religious intellectuals who have argued that some religious laws could be put on hold. “When we remind these pseudo-intellectuals about Islamic principles, they say Islam has many interpretations. But in fact Islam is nothing other that what the Imam [Khomeini] described as ‘pure Mohammedan Islam’,” the chief justice said.
One prominent religious intellectual who has been a harsh critic of Larijani is Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari. In his December 2013 commentary addressed to Sadegh Larijani, he wrote:
They argue that today’s Muslims are obliged to carry out punishments by execution because qisas exists as part of the Quran. This argument is false because the existence of a law in the Quran does not require Muslims to act upon it forever. That is where basic differences begin between new religious thinkers and the likes of Mr. Chief Justice.
“If Mr. Larijani had said that he would not allow new interpretations of Islam taking shape, that would have been completely understandable. But he digresses and says there are no variations in interpreting Islam!” Shabestari added.
Following the August 2014 release of the U.N. secretary general’s highly critical report on the state of human rights in Iran and, in particular, the secretary general’s criticism of the wave of executions, Larijani’s reaction was to lash out at the international community.
“No one has the right to tell us to stop believing in the only Truth in the whole world [Islam]. Who does the U.N. secretary general think he is to tell us we must stop executions?” Larijani angrily asked.
The chief justice represents a faction within the ruling establishment that believes religious laws must be carried out without any modification. Among those who see themselves as the last word on Islamic law, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi in Qom is considered to be the most extreme. “There’s no room for mercy in implementing divine laws. You can neither go beyond Islamic laws nor come up short in carrying them out,” he said in November 2009.
In a later speech Yazdi reiterated, “There are those in our Islamic society who we did not expect would speak against divine laws. But even though God’s work is based on love and mercy, we must realize that God is not just merciful. He also takes revenge.”
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has expressed similar views in opposition to what is known as “Merciful Islam.”
The Supreme Leader Ayatallah Khamenei sits in discussion with other prominent clerical figures, including Sadegh Larijani, the head of the Judiciary. Both men do not believe in “merciful Islam” and do not wish to change the country's Islamic punishments. Image from ICHRI.
One of the biggest clashes in this debate took place in the spring of 1981, when political groups opposed to religious rule criticized the Qisas Bill (or law of retribution), which had been introduced into the Iranian Parliament. This essentially codified the doctrine of “an eye-for-an-eye” punishment in the judicial process, replacing the the Public Punishment Laws that were used since 1924. They said it was against humanitarian principles. The National Front political party, which led the opposition against the Bill, even tried to organize a protest rally in Tehran.
In an angry response, Ayatollah Khomeini rejected any criticism of the implementation of Islamic laws and said: “The Qisas Bill is the same as what is in the Quran. Those who are calling for demonstrations are in fact inviting people to rise against the Quran and obligatory Islamic laws!” Setting a new precedent, Khomeini declared that the National Front was guilty of “heresy,” and qisas became one of the ideological pillars of the Islamic Republic.
However, over time problems in implementing some Islamic laws eventually led Khomeini to change his view and declare that the state had the authority to stop implementation of an Islamic law if deemed necessary. In a letter to then President Ali Khamenei, Khomeini wrote: “I declare that the State is an extension of the absolute rule of the Prophet of God, May Peace Be Upon Him. This is among the first ordinances of Islam, and has precedence over all secondary ordinances, even prayer, fasting or pilgrimage.”
Khomeini then ordered the formation of the Expediency Discernment Council to finalize disputes between Parliament and the Council of Guardians, the two legislative bodies which were locked in an endless dispute over adherence to Islamic laws. In resolving these disputes, the new council was given the authority to make decisions contrary to traditional Sharia, or Islamic law. In essence, Khomeini’s solution was an admission that Sharia could be modified in the face of modern realities and necessities.
Former senior Judiciary official Hossein Mousavi Tabrizi recalled in a February 22, 1998, article in the Khordad newspaper a meeting he held with Khomeini in which the founder of the Islamic Republic expressed his opposition to stoning. “In one of my meetings with Imam Khomeini regarding punishing adulterers by stoning, [Khomeini] said stoning is not in our interest at this time because we have many enemies who are promoting propaganda against us and we should not be helping them with our own actions.”
In another example of the Islamic Republic’s willingness to depart from Quranic law in the interest of the state, former Chief Justice Ayatollah Hashemi Shahroudi issued a directive on January 30, 2007, to put a stop to public executions. Shahroudi also ordered an end to stonings.
The history of the ideological battles regarding adherence to Quranic law in the Islamic Republic does not support Chief Justice Larijani’s view that all Islamic laws must always be fully followed. Yet the Judiciary and other hardline institutions continue to use repressive laws and unyielding adherence to Quranic principles as a political tool against reformist factions and other ideological foes, including religious individuals.
When strict adherence to Islamic law contradicts Iran’s compliance with international rights covenants to which it has freely signed, or directly violates international standards of basic human rights, the international community should speak out against such practices and support the voices of those inside Iran who seek to persuade the authorities to find alternatives to Islamic laws that are in line with basic humanitarian principles.

author: Center for Human Rights in Iran


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Myanmar Decides: 4 Videos to Help You Understand the Upcoming Election · Global Voices
Seelan Palay

Opposition leader and Nobel Laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi addresses a crowd. Photo by Kamayut Media, used with permission.
On November 8, 2015, Myanmar will host its second election since beginning its transition to democracy in 2010. The election will determine whether or not Myanmar's military-backed government will pursue more reforms and allow opposition leaders to assume a greater role in the governance of the country.
Myanmar was under a direct military rule for 50 years. In 2010, elections for the first time allowed the participation of several political parties, including some opposition groups. The government also began implementing various political reforms, such as the release of political prisoners and the abolition of media censorship. To this day, however, the military continues to wield vast power, appointing senior and retired officers in all branches of the government.
Highlighted here are some videos uploaded by the multimedia platform Engage Media, addressing this year's historic and controversial election, starting with an overview by the previously-exiled Democratic Voice of Burma (a media outlet).
Below, the nationalist Buddhist group Ma Ba Tha celebrates the passing of four “Protection of Race and Religion Laws”, which will effectively exclude many Myanmar Muslims from voting. Coupled with voter-list errors, an estimated 4 million citizens across the country will be unable to vote.
Opposition leader and Nobel Laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is also seeking reelection on November 8. She began her campaign in Rakhine State, a conflict area where clashes between hardline Buddhists and some Muslim residents displaced thousands of Rohinya. The Rohingya, a majority of whom are Muslims, are not recognized by the government as citizens of Myanmar. The Rohingya are among those who are excluded from voting on November 8.
Socio-political talk show Dateline Irrawaddy discusses the various campaign strategies of the ruling party and the opposition, in a landscape where the intermingling of religion and politics is inevitable. Earlier this year, the program interviewed the Chairman of the Election Commission on the credibility of the election contest.
If the above videos are any indication, Myanmar's road to democracy remains a long and complicated journey.

author: Seelan Palay


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The Remarkable, Forgotten Story of How a Soviet Town Disposed of Its Dead · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

The Ob River. Photo by Ondřej Žváček. August 3, 2007. CC 2.5.
Sergey Parkhomenko, a Russian journalist and publisher, has worked as a reporter, an editor, a radio show host, and more. He is also immensely popular on Facebook, where he has more than 133,000 subscribers. A man of generally anti-Kremlin views, Parkhomenko challenged his social media audience on November 2 to tell him if they know the history of a Russian town called Kolpashevo. He received more than 5,000 responses—most of them saying no. Five hours after polling his readers on the subject, Parkhomenko wrote on Facebook again, telling a story very few Russians, it turns out, have ever heard. This post has attracted more than 12,700 “likes,” more than 13,000 shares, and more than 1,200 comments. RuNet Echo reproduces that text below, translated into English.
Sergey Parkhomenko, May 11, 2012. Photo by Evgeniy Isaev. CC 2.0.
Well what do you know. Five thousand people answered my impromptu survey in my last post. I asked if my readers can tell me anything about a place called Kolpashevo, located in the Tomsk region. Or if they knew anything about a particular place inside Kolpashevo: the Kolpashevsky Ravine.Colleagues at [the human rights organization] Memorial assure me that Kolpashevo’s history is well-known, has been written about many times, and is all over the Internet. In the 90s, moreover, a small book was even published on the subject.
Of the 5,000 people who responded to my Facebook post, however, only 30 or 40 said they know about the history behind the town. And most of these people live in the Tomsk area (or used to live there), so they know the history from their relatives and their neighbors… The rest answered: no, don’t know, never heard of it.
So now I can go ahead and tell the story.
The town of Kolpashevo (home to a little more than than 20,000 souls, according to the latest census) sits on the high bank of the Ob River. The water makes a turn at Kolpashevo, and every year it “eats away” a few feet of a sand cliff there, inching closer and closer to the homes on streets named after Lenin and Dzerzhinsky [the founder of the Soviet secret police forces]. This is how it’s been for as long as anyone can remember, and everyone in town is used to it.
On April 30, 1979, exactly one day before May Day, the Ob’s waters knocked down another six-foot chunk of sand from the riverbank. Sticking out from the newly exposed wall were the arms, legs, and heads of people buried there. A cemetery at least several yards wide had been exposed. The people had been packed in and layered tightly. The top layer of bodies were decayed almost completely, while the lower layers were very well preserved, mummified in pure sand. It’s said that you could easily see the clothes they were wearing, and in some cases you could even make out the faces. There were men and women of different ages, and there were children. All in civilian clothes.
Some of the skulls from the uppermost layer rolled out from the sandbank, and little boys picked them up, put them on sticks, and started running around the town, scaring passersby. Soon the whole town was aware of what had happened. People started gathering at the sandback. Some thought they could even recognize one person’s coat, or place another person’s face… The police and neighborhood watch volunteers then cordoned off the whole thing. Then, very quickly (literally within a few hours), they built around the crumbling sandbank a thick fence.
The next day, the Communist Party staged gatherings all throughout town, at various enterprises, and in the so-called “red corners” [the Party meeting areas of factory floors]. The Party’s activists began to explain to the population what they’d been told by the Party’s district committee: buried here were traitors and deserters from the war. But the explanation wasn’t entirely convincing. Why was everyone dressed in civilian clothes? What were the women and children doing there? And from where, for that matter, did so many deserters come in a town of just 20,000 people?
Meanwhile, a bit more of the sandbank slipped into the river, and it became clear that the burial site was enormous. There were thousands of people. People around town recalled how there used to be a prison on these grounds in the late 1930s. It was general knowledge that there were executions there, but nobody could imagine just how many people were shot. The perimeter fence and barbed wire had long ago been dismantled, and the prison itself was closed down. Even the prison house had been moved to another location farther from the disappearing coast, to a place where it served for many years as a dormitory for students at a technical institute.
In fact (to the knowledge of few people in the town), Kolpashevo’s prison operated a full-fledged assembly line of death. There was a special wooden trough, down which a person would descend to the edge of a ditch. There, he’d be killed by rifle fire, by a shooter sitting in a special booth. If necessary, he’d be finished off with a second shot from a pistol, before being added to the next layer of bodies, laid head-to-toe with the last corpse. Then they’d sprinkle him lightly with lime. This process repeated, until the pit was full. When that happened, they filled in the hole with sand, and moved the trough over a few feet to the side, and began again.
And so the river bank continued to recede and bodies were falling into the water and drifting all the way to the town. People watched this happen from the shore.
In Tomsk, the authorities decided to get rid of the burial site and remove the bodies. It was the personal decision of the then-First Secretary of the Party’s regional committee, Yegor Ligachyov, having consulted with Moscow and directly with KGB Chairman [Yuri] Andropov. Officials in Kolpashevo were ordered to destroy the the burial site and rebury the bodies somewhere else.
The task, it turned out, wasn’t so simple. Using heavy equipment so near a collapsing sandbank wasn’t possible. They feared for the safety of the trucks and the bulldozers. And there was no time to dig up everything by hand. The leadership was in a hurry.
By this time, the scale of the gigantic burial ground was already clear. Ships towed to the coast a drilling rig (I’ll say that again slowly: a drilling rig), which cut a few holes into the cliff, to determine the boundaries of the cemetery.
Then from Tomsk came new orders containing an interesting, ingenious engineering solution. Up the Ob, they dispatched two powerful tugboats and sent them right up to the riverbank, where there were tied with ropes to the shore, facing the ships away from the land. Then they set their engines on full throttle. The waves from the ships’ propellers began to erode the cliff, and bodies started falling into the water, where most of them were cut to pieces by the same propellers. The crew working these tugboats was made up of ordinary civilians. Nobody selected these men specifically for this task. Nobody switched the crew.
The people of Kolpashevo watched the whole operation with interest. No one protested.
Then it turned out that some of the bodies had washed away downstream, escaping the propellers. The mummified corpses managed quite well in the water, floating not sinking. So down the river they stationed a row of motorboats, where people sat with fishing hooks. Their job was to catch the bodies in the water. These people were volunteers, recruited from the local male population: laborers, public servants, and the so-called workers’ intelligentsia. A barge loaded with scrap metal from a nearby factory came up to the boats. The men were to tie pieces of scrap metal wire to the bodies they caught and then sink them in the deepest part of the river. This work went on for several days.
The people of Kolpashevo kept watching the tugboats and their propellers thrashing in the water. The tugboats had to be refueled with diesel regularly: all together, each ship burned through about 60 tons of fuel. Nobody was particularly surprised or outraged.
The last team—also composed of local volunteers—worked a bit farther downstream: people on motorboats rounded the shores, collecting the bodies that slipped through the row of boats higher up the river. Some of these remains they buried on shore (in unmarked graves), but more often they buried them in the river, smashing the bones with their oars, or sinking the bones by tying them to stones. This cleanup continued almost until the end of the summer.
Life in Kolpashevo that summer, generally speaking, was calm. It was like it always was. And that’s the story.
If someone out there doesn’t understand yet, let me say plainly that I consider these events to be remarkable. This isn’t a story about the Stalinist repressions, or the Great Terror, or the NKVD [the KGB’s predecessor], or the state’s system of destruction.
This is a story about the Soviet man. It’s about our compatriots and our countrymen, and our brothers and our sisters. It is a story about the way of life in Siberia. It’s about the moral code of the Builder of Communism.
It’s a story about the “greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century” [Vladimir Putin’s famous description of the fall of the USSR]. It’s about that great and wonderful country we’ve lost—which only a “heartless monster” doesn’t regret.
And finally.
In 1983, four years after the Kolpashevo incident, Yegor Ligachyov was promoted to a new position in Moscow. On Yuri Andropov’s recommendation, Ligachyov was appointed chief of the Party’s Department Organizational Work and made a secretary of the Central Committee. Yegor Ligachyov is alive today. Until 2010, he was active in public life, trying to participate in the activities of the Communist Party. He’s a big fan of Nikolay Gumilyov’s poems.
Yuri Andropov, meanwhile, became the Communist Party’s General Secretary in 1982, just three years after Kolpashevo. He designed a reform policy, but never managed to implement it. Andropov wrote his own poems, and it’s said he loved jazz and American films. He died surrounded by faithful companions and loving family members.
On the banks of the Ob River, directly across from Lenin Street in the center of Kolpashevo, to this day there is still a long triangular cavity preserved in the sandbank. For some reason, the river doesn’t wash it away.
Parkhomenko’s account of what happened in Kolpashevo is not without its detractors. Several people, including locals from the Tomsk region, claim that he plays with facts and exaggerates the town’s participation in the cleanup effort, in order to criticize Soviet society writ large and not just the already-discredited Soviet state. RuNet Echo translates a Facebook post by Nadia Taiga, a Russian art projects director now living in Chicago who hails originally from Kolpashevo. Taiga disagrees strongly with Parkhomenko's version of events.
Nadia Taiga. Photo: Facebook
Complete indignation. I’ve read this work of fiction by the distinguished Sergei Parkhomenko, as well as some of his readers’ surprisingly myopic comments (though there are also many sane responses, which lightens my indignation). His post is about events that took place in Kolpashevo, my hometown, in 1979. I was born in this town and I was only eight at the time, but I remember well the events that christened the Kolpashevsky Ravine, made reports on Radio Freedom and the BBC, and became some of the first public evidence of the Stalinist repressions.I will write about this event with a bit less emotion than Sergei, who wasn’t actually there. In short, that year just before the May holidays, part of the shore collapsed into the Ob River, exposing a mass grave of executed political prisoners. Some skulls fell into the water, some kids picked them up, and played with them. Later, several squads arrived from the military and the KGB (I call it the NKVD, like my grandmother still does to this day). They cordoned off the pier and, after a few meetings with senior authorities, decided to destroy the bodies, in order to hide the burial site and avoid publicity. Many of the bodies were mummified because they’d been sprinkled with lime after being shot. The story is horrible. But no less horrible, in my view, is the reaction of many people now.
Then, it was people in plainclothes [non-uniformed police] sinking the bodies by tying them to stones. They sent a ship to the ravine to cut up the bodies with its propeller. Generally speaking, the authorities tried every way they could think of to conceal the crime. “Plainclothes people” were everywhere throughout the town.
So what’s got me so bothered? There are this experienced journalist’s subtly worded lines like “the people of Kolpashevo watched the whole operation with interest, and no one protested,” “the people of Kolpashevo kept watching the tugboats and their propellers thrashing in the water,” “life in Kolpashevo that summer, generally speaking, was calm, like it always was,” and other claims about how local people actively participated in the destruction of bodies. Sergey isn’t describing a town, but a metaphor for mass surrender. And then he draws the following conclusions for any dimwits who haven’t yet understood him:
“If someone out there doesn’t understand yet, let me say plainly that I consider these events to be remarkable. This isn’t a story about the Stalinist repressions, or the Great Terror, or the NKVD, or the state’s system of destruction.
This is a story about the Soviet man. It’s about our compatriots and our countrymen, and our brothers and our sisters. It is a story about the way of life in Siberia. It’s about the moral code of the Builder of Communism.”
It all seems to add up. It’s not about the state’s system of destruction; it’s about you and me, or rather it’s about me and my neighbors in Kolpashevo. It makes sense. But there are certain nuances…
Here's an excerpt from my comment on his post:
“I remember how they cordoned off the pier and didn’t let anyone near, and when all the KGB agents got to work there, it was impossible to see, because they made every effort to limit any publicity. We lived on the other side of town, near the taiga itself. But everyone knew that the brigades sinking the bodies and cordoning off the riverbank were from the military. My grandmother spent the whole time wailing and praying. Some local people (Communist activists) surely helped the brigades, but there were other people who risked their own lives to try to bury the dead. I don’t know the exact number of KGB agents that came to our town then, but a cleanup in the town was organized professionally. My dad, who was an ‘enemy to the fulfillment of Stalin’s plan for livestock’ and the son of a political prisoner, spent 15 years in the Norilsk prison camps. Later, he told me that ‘people in plainclothes’ were everywhere: at every enterprise, institution, and school.”
I’m also bothered by some of the comments on [Parkhomenko’s] post that reduce to disgusting “non-people” not the KGB or the Communists, but the people of Kolpashevo. One young woman even wrote that “these people birthed another voiceless generation.”
So, dear former Soviet citizens, today’s Russians and expats—you who were bystanders to this, or perhaps you lounged around drinking tea and reading samizdat in the kitchen of your Moscow apartment, or maybe you were ignorantly a member of the Komsomol (or better still the Communist Party), and now you’re full of anger and a thirst for vengeance—answer me this one simple question: what would you have done in 1979, living in this particular town, cordoned off by soldiers and KGB agents? Tell me. I’d love to hear your answer.
And here’s where that poisonous Siberian separatism and provincialism boils over in me. Calling Siberians (most of whom are exiled political prisoners or the children of the exiled and the dispossessed) “voiceless” and “quiet observers,” when you’re somebody born and living in Moscow, seems to me to be something very, very wrong. And I’ve got some cold Siberian contempt for the people who hurried to write lovely comments about how the people, not the KGB, are a bunch of “bastards.”
I’d also like to say to Sergey and all the furious commenters that not everything WAS or IS so awful with the PEOPLE in the Soviet Union and in Russia. There were people who didn’t join the Communist Party, but didn’t openly march into the streets then, having spent many years already in internal exile. There were people who brought flowers to the burial site at the Kolpashevsky Ravine, and who secretly buried any bodies they found. Some of the people who came were former prisoners, but of course some were also guards. But now many people have decided to become guards of other people’s lives and judge them.
Something here smells like the Soviet Union to me. Here’s the guard’s magnifying glass and we’re on a search for shit. What was then is what we’ve got now. What we’re looking at is all we’ve got. The voiceless majority was awful then, and it’s awful now and forever, just as any angry mob is terrible. But what’s the point of all this? Do you want to say that an individual is stronger than the system? What do you want from people? What do you want from your countrymen alive today?
My view now is from afar. I don’t ride the Moscow metro every morning, so I can’t be objective when I talk about Russia. But when I visit Kolpashevo (which is dying, by the way, not because of the people living there but because of the “state’s system of destruction”), I meet wonderful, compassionate people. You can find many of them in the comments on [Parkhomenko’s] post, but for some reason it’s better to go after the amoral “builders of Communism.” These are two polar opposite ways of viewing the world. Two ways to create your own world. You can write about the impassive onlookers, staring at the victims of car accidents and terrorist attacks, or you can support people who create, for instance, social foundations to help the elderly, the sick, and the young. There are many such amazing people. They don’t march into squares with guns in their hands, protesting the regime. These people are fewer than the voiceless crowd, but because they do exist I will never say that all people in Russia are “non-humans” or that the Soviet people were “cattle.” And because, in my youth, there were people in town who tried to honor the bodies of those executed, I cannot allow even the most respected onlookers to disrespect my neighbors.


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Hungarian Woman Fined for Facebook Post About State Spending · Global Voices
Marietta Le

The local government of Tata, a town in Hungary, has filed a lawsuit against a resident because she shared a Facebook post that questioned government spending.
According to 444.hu news site, the original post alleged that the local government had sold a piece of property, but then later paid high rents for the same building, suggesting possible collusion between the government and the property's current owner. The court first issued Maria Somogyi a fine of approximately USD 175 for libel, though following her appeal, the fine was reduced to approximately USD 35. Somogyi will also have to cover the cost of the judicial proceedings. According to Index.hu news site, this will amount to approximate USD 260.
“A terrorist fundamentalist sponsored by western democracies and liberals,” a quote from conservative TV reporter Ferenc Szaniszlo, combined with the face of minister Janos Lazar. Created with http://politikuss.tasz.hu/ints-be-nekik/.
In 2013, investigative journalism site Atlatszo.hu called for the decriminalization of libel and defamation in Hungary. The regulation criminalizing both acts is still in place, and has been abused on many occasions in an effort to muzzle critical voices. The Hungarian Civil Liberties Union has started a crowdsourcing campaign to support Maria Somogyi.
The HCLU also launched an application that generates a sarcastic “meme” by mixing images of Hungarian politicians with quotes from famous journalists and authors, such as the one above. The picture is intended to be shared by supporters of freedom of expression on social media. People can share their opinion offline as well. As part of their “PolitiKuss” campaign, the HCLU is collecting people's written opinions in Budapest on Monday, November 9, 2015.

author: Marietta Le


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Is an Award-Winning Photo of a Haitian Immigrant Bathing in Brazil Unethical? · Global Voices
Rodrigo Borges Delfim

The surge in arrivals of migrants to São Paulo overwhelmed reception centers. Credit: Laura Daudén/ Conectas.Org/Fotos Públicas (29/04/2014). CC BY-NC 2.0
The Vladimir Herzog Award is considered one of the highest recognitions of human rights in Brazilian journalism. Carried out with support from the UN, its name is in reference to the journalist who was killed by the Brazilian dictatorship in 1975. But this year, one of the selections generated controversy and raised questions about the social responsibility of journalistic activities.
The work awarded in the photography category was an image captured by photographer Ronny Santos of a Haitian man taking an improvised bath on the premises of Missão Paz (Peace Mission), an organization of the Catholic church in São Paulo, in May 2015. Published in the newspapers Agora and Folha de S. Paulo, two of the largest in Brazil, the photograph stirred up indignation from immigrants and organizations involved in migratory issues.
The image of a Haitian man was taken in May in the bathroom of Missão Paz, a place that suffered overcrowding of migrants at that time. In October, the photograph received the Vladimir Herzog Award in Amnesty and Human Rights. Image: ARFOC-SP/Divulgação. Widely distributed online.
Soon after the photograph was published, the Missão Paz, led by the Italian priest Paolo Parise, released a letter condemning what he considered “sensationalist journalism”:
Algumas reportagens se aproveitam dessa situação para invadir a privacidade alheia, expondo os migrantes sem sua autorização de forma que as imagens dessas pessoas acabam se tornando um produto a ser comercializado de maneira totalmente desumana. O objetivo da mídia em meio a essas crises é pressionar o Estado para tomar uma atitude, e não constranger aqueles que mais precisam de assistência.
Some reports take advantage of the situation to invade the privacy of others, exposing migrants without their permission in a manner in which the images of these people end up becoming a product to be commercialized in a completely inhumane way. The objective of the media in the middle of these crises is to pressure the state to take a stand, not to embarrass those who need help the most.
The photo was taken in a specific context: at the time, migrants from diverse nationalities – Haitians, for the most part – were streaming into Brazil through the state of Acre, on the border with Peru and Bolivia. Lacking adequate infrastructure and with little assistance from the federal government, the Acre government sent the migrants on buses to other states, among them São Paulo.
Civil society groups that aid migrant populations in São Paulo struggled to meet the demand. The Missão Paz even needed to shelter migrants on mattresses in an auditorium due to lack of space.
With the announcement of the image among the winners of the Vladimir Herzog Award for Amnesty and Human Rights this year, the Missão Paz and the Haitian Organization of São Paulo asked the award's organizing committee to reconsider their choice.
In an open letter sent to the committee, the Haitian Organization argued:
Comentamos aos jornalistas e fotógrafos ‘se gostariam que alguém entrasse em sua casa e fizesse fotos enquanto tomavam banho’. Conversamos com os haitianos que estavam no salão da igreja quando o fotógrafo bateu as fotos. Ele não pediu autorização. Muito mal educado, ele entrou no banheiro e fez as fotos. O haitiano foi embora de São Paulo com muita vergonha. Estamos tristes como organização e como haitianos.
We asked the journalist and photographers ‘if they would like for someone to enter their home and take photos while they were taking a bath.’ We spoke with the Haitians who were in the church hall when the photographer snapped the photos. He did not ask for permission. Being very rude, he went into the restroom and took the photos. The Haitian man ended up leaving São Paulo very embarrassed. We are saddened as an organization and as Haitians.
In the same document, the Haitian Organization claims that not a single newspaper or television station gave any attention to the outrage from the community.
Even so, the award's organizing committee opted to maintain its selection. In an interview for the blog MigraMundo, the committee justified its decision:
Entendemos que as informações sobre as instalações de emergência, e alegações sobre o constrangimento do fotografado e da comunidade haitiana apontados pelo Padre não retiram a importância da fotografia em termos de denúncia pública de um problema social. Concluímos que houve esforço na tentativa de preservar a imagem do fotografado, e neste caso, os danos à sua imagem e dos haitianos aludidos pelo Padre Paolo seriam menores do que aqueles causados pela não valorização ou supressão de informação sobre uma situação de grande relevância nacional e global, que é a falta de condições de instituições estatais e sociais para recepcionar os imigrantes.
We understand that the information about the emergency facilities, as well as the claims about the embarrassment of the subject and of the Haitian community pointed out by the priest, don't diminish the importance of the photo in terms of public criticism of a social problem. We concluded that there was effort to attempt to protect the image of the individual photographed, and in this case, the harm to his image and to the Haitians alluded to by Padre Paolo would be less than the harm caused by not valuing or by suppressing information about a situation of great national and global relevance, that being the inadequate conditions in state and social institutions set up to receive immigrants.
Also in an interview with MigraMundo, the photographer behind the image, Ronny Santos, argued that he had the permission of the Haitian man photographed to take the pictures:
“Em nenhum momento o personagem faz menção de proibir as fotografias ou usar as mãos ou os braços para indicar que não quer ser fotografado. Simplesmente continua tomando seu banho sabendo que as fotografias estavam sendo tiradas. Depois disso, saí e o haitiano continuou se lavando”.
At no time did the person make mention of forbidding photographs or use his hands or arms to indicate that he did not want to be photographed. He simply continued taking a bath, knowing that the photos were being taken. After that, I left and the Haitian man continued bathing.
Santos added that even though he was shocked by the scene, it was his duty to photograph it.
“Entendo a posição das entidades e entendo as críticas, mas o desrespeito estava acontecendo e eu, profissionalmente, tive que fotografar”.
I understand the position of the organizations and I understand the criticism, but the disrespect was happening and I, professionally, had to photograph.
But the arguments of the photographer and the commission did not convince the Missão Paz and others involved in the reception and orientation of migrants. In addition to a new memorandum of rejection, the organization launched a public petition to gain support and protest the selection of the photo:
“Tal premiação está abrindo um perigoso precedente de que mais importa uma foto em si do que os direitos humanos do fotografado. Nesse sentido, é possível destacar diversos outros trabalhos fotográficos que contribuem para a função social da mídia de informar e sensibilizar a população e o governo para a causa das imigrações, sem denegrir e violar direitos humanos”.
Awarding such an image opens a dangerous precedent in which the photo itself is more important than the human rights of the person photographed. In that sense, it's possible to highlight several other photographic works that contribute to the media's social function of informing and raising awareness among the population and government authorities of the cause of immigration, without denigrating or violating human rights.
Bolivian journalist Antonio Andrade, in charge of the web portals Bolívia Cultural and Planeta América Latina, also criticized the publication of the photo:
“Nossas dores não podem ser utilizadas como ferramenta de humilhação ou desvalorização do ser humano! O contexto deve ser mais profundo e menos banal! Como comunicador, acredito que a ética do profissional estará sempre à frente do comunicador, que deve ter seus valores focados na humanização da informação e nunca na desmoralização da mesma”.
Our pain can not be used as a tool for humiliating or devaluing human beings! The context must be more profound and less banal! As a media person, I believe that professional ethics are always in play with the journalist, who must have his or her values focused on the humanization of information and never on demoralization.

author: Rodrigo Borges Delfim