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Millions Are Playing Philippine President Duterte’s War on Drugs on Their Mobile Phones · Global Voices
Karlo Mongaya

As Philippine President Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s marks his first three months in office, a mobile app, based on his controversial and widely popular ‘war on crime,’ has reached over 2 million downloads on the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store.
The popularity of the game Fighting Crime provides a peek into the admiration many Filipinos hold for their new president, in spite of human rights abuse concerns and cases of extrajudicial killings related to his war on crime. Since Duterte took office at the end of June, more than 3,500 people have been killed as part of his war on drug traffickers and users. Human rights groups say most of them were suspected drug pushers.
Fighting Crime was first made available during the height of the presidential electoral campaign last April and it recently released its second version, which is downloadable on smartphones, tablets, and iPads.
In the game developed by Anjo Pascual and illustrated by Donat Pascual of Tatay Games, players get to control the character of Rody (nickname for Duterte) as he shoots robbers, drug lords, and other characters, with an assortment of firearms as they appear on the screen.
Rody continues to move across the screen to collect badges and weapons while shooting criminals. The game ends if the criminals reach Rody before he can kill them. Dionisia Pacquiao, the mother of boxer and Senator Manny Pacquiao, then appears riding a wrecking ball on the screen.
The second version of Fighting Crime also features sidekick characters such as a machine gun-wielding “Bato” Ronald Dela Rosa, Duterte’s Chief of Police, and the late Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, who will blow a huge fireball against the criminals when tapped by the player for help.
The game comes with the tough-talking president’s famous soundbites such as “My God, I hate drugs”, “Galit ako sa droga” (I am angry with drugs), and “Heto na ang huli niyong Merry Christmas” (This is your last Merry Christmas) in reference to his viral Christmas message to criminals last December 2015.
Most reactions to the game come in the form of reviews:
Gabrielalmina – September 28, 2016
Dapat may armor rin para iwas saksak naman, suntok at hollowblocks hahaha great job
There should be armor to avoid knife jabs, punches, and hollowblocks hahaha great job
Yooeeeeee – October 9, 2016
Nice game kabayan, nice ung mga updates ng game. If maguupdate kayu pwede nyong gawing boss si Trillanes at si De Lima. Hahahaha
Nice game countrymen, the game updates are nice. If you have another update can you make [Senators Antonio] Trillanes and [Leila] De Lima as bosses. Hahahaha
Starlight – May 22, 2016
Awesome graphics, funny soundbites. A change of scenery by level would be great too. I hope there is a more efficient bullet to criminal ratio since killing takes too slow and no pause button. I'm looking forward to upgrades to the game's aesthetics and playability. Kudos to the developers.
Ajjuarez1791 – September 29, 2016
Ahm miriam defensor santiago the former senator has died can u send update to change her character its awkward for me to play a dead character
Alice Liddel – May 20, 2016
Good game.. it gets boring along the way.. too much repetitive enemies.. and also need some option upgrade or buy weapons.. good game that needs more options or maybe more enemies..
Another crime-busting mobile game app, Go Duterte, was also released late last year. Other Duterte-inspired mobile games include Duterte Boxing and Duterte Tirador (slingshot) game where he battles rival presidential candidates during the 2016 polls.

author: Karlo Mongaya


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Surrounded by Piles of Trash, These Two Classical Musicians Played Bach in Protest · Global Voices
Filip Stojanovski

Classical music concert at the illegal dump in Tetovo, Macedonia. Photo by Ngadhnjim Mehmeti, EcoGuerilla.mk, used with permission.
In their formal concert outfits, with masks on to protect themselves from the stench of decay, two classical musicians from Tetovo played Bach's famous orchestral suite “Air” to protest pollution.
They were at the largest illegal dump site at the entrance of their city, Tetovo, the largest city in western Macedonia, and one of the most polluted cities in Europe. Some say it is the most polluted urban area in the world.
The protest was organized by the civil society organization Eco Guerilla, which used a video made at the protest-concert as a tool for digital activism. The video went viral on different platforms, drawing attention to the problem.
Government inaction on the issue has incited a number of protests within the city and in the capital Skopje.
Factors contributing to pollution in Tetovo include lack of filters at the nearby metallurgical complex Jugohrom, the import of used cars from the European Union, the increased use of wood for heating, and the lack of garbage collection facilities, which forces people to dispose of their garbage at illegal dumps. The concert took place at the largest dump in the city, which has been ignored by authorities for years. It is at the entrance of the city, next to the big grain silos (seen at the background of the video).
In a statement for Global Voices, Eco Guerrila representative Arianit Xhaferi explained:
Депонијата на влезот на градот постои едно подолго време. Актуелната градоначалничка, г-а Теута Арифи кога се кандидираше ни вети дека депонијата ке биде дислоцирана од градот и дека овој проблем ке биде решен на брз и ефикасен начин. До ден денеска депонијата е тука, како знак за ДОБРЕДОЈДЕ ВО ТЕТОВО – и ни служи како центар на срамот.
Тетово веќе подолго време се наоѓа на врвот на најзагадени градови во светот, и освен Југохром како најголем загадувач во регионот, депонијата исто така е загадувач на градот, од каде се шират различни болести и зарази.
This dump at the entrance of the city exists for a long time. The current Mayor, Ms Teuta Arifi, promised to remove it during her election campaign in 2013. She promised that she'll deal with this problem swiftly and efficiently. The dump is still here, until this very day, serving as WELCOME TO TETOVO sign, and serving as the center of our shame.
For quite a while, Tetovo has been listed among the most polluted cities in the world. Alongside Jugohrom, as the chief pollution source in the region, the dump also pollutes the city, enabling spread of diseases and infections.
Every October, Tetovo municipality funds the poetry festival named “Ditët e Naimit,” (“The Days of Naim,” in honor of Albanian poet Naim Frashëri). The organizers timed the protest concert as an interlude to this festival, “when many artists and art lovers are expected to visit Tetovo.”

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Filip Stojanovski


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Will Pakistan Carry Out a Threat to Expel 2.5 Million Afghan Refugees? · Global Voices
Samea Shanori

Returning Afghan refugees waiting to register at a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) center on the outskirts of Kabul Afghanistan. Photo taken from Khaleej Times Facebook page.
While the world's attentions are consumed by the migrant crisis that has left millions in limbo on Europe's borders, a smaller but equally worrisome crisis is waiting in the wings in South Asia.
Earlier this year, more than 2.5 million Afghan refugees living in Pakistan were told they should leave Pakistan and return to Afghanistan.
Pakistan has cited security and economic concerns and has set a March 2017 deadline for the exodus.
Islamabad's decision has been criticized by human rights groups and called “one of the largest forcible returns of refugees in modern history.”
With the security environment in Afghanistan deteriorating by the day, it is unclear what kind of country these refugees will eventually return to.
Afghan refugees have been living in Pakistan since the early 1980s, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan began.
In 2002, Pakistan signed an agreement with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR) and Afghanistan for a “voluntary and dignified repatriation” of Afghan refugees.
Pakistan has repeatedly set and extended deadlines for Afghan refugees to leave.
However, the Pakistani government states that due to national security reasons, this time round there will be no extensions and the Afghans must return.
Rights groups warn that Pakistani police and provincial authorities are already implementing coercive measures and abuses to pressure Afghan refugees in Pakistan into leaving the country.
Reports of these measures have increased tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
According to Human Rights Watch, nearly 90,000 Afghan refugees returned home in 2016 due to:
economic hardship in Pakistan (linked to loss of access to job markets due to a deteriorated freedom of movement), harassment, and intimidation, arbitrary arrest, extortions, and bribery.
Pakistani police have harassed and detained these refugees, their landlords have cancelled their rental agreements, their bank accounts and sim cards were cancelled and they were denied access to schools and medical care. There is no legal basis for this de facto displacement drive.
Afghanistan's Chief Executive Dr. Abdullah Abdullah called on the government of Pakistan to allow the refugees to return to their country voluntarily .
We ask Pakistan and Iran to be supportive in this process of return of refugees. The repatriation should be voluntary and not forced. -AA
— Dr. Abdullah (@afgexecutive) October 7, 2016
Human Rights Watch called on the government of Pakistan to stop “coercive measures and other abuses that are driving tens of thousands of Afghan refugees from Pakistan.”
Pakistan, however, feels it is being unfairly singled out for criticism. Addressing the United Nations General Assembly's Summit for Refugees on September 19, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif reminded the international community about their lack of financial support for the refugees:
While financial support from the international community has waned, Pakistan's hospitality has not.
For many in Afghanistan, Pakistan's hosting of the long-term refugees was viewed as a rare moment of goodwill on the part of a difficult neighbour.
Reflecting these thorny relations, Ghani blasted Pakistan's record for hosting terrorists that later commit attacks in Afghanistan when signing a trilateral agreement with Iran and India in September:
Some countries only exported terrorism, but our trilateral exports are self-belief, cooperation, and exhausting opportunities this region provides us to give our nation welfare and stability.
Early in his presidency, President Ashraf Ghani had made overtures to Pakistan to improve relations, but these largely failed.
Most recently, Afghanistan decided to boycott the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit which was held in Pakistan.
Bilal A. Nikyar, a freelance writer from Afghanistan wrote in June about how Pakistan has used the Afghan refugees as a “card” in relations with its poorer neighbour:
Ever since the agreement of Chabahar dam, Pakistan has spared no time in sullying, bashing and scapegoating Afghan refugees for all the bad things that’s going on in their country. At the same time, they have also held it as a prime example of Pakistan’s goodwill towards Afghanistan. It seems like that’s the only card left with them to use it as leverage against Afghanistan.
[…]
We will forever remain grateful for Pakistan’s generosity towards Afghan refugees. That’s a fact. But its also a fact that Pakistan has received millions of dollars over the years as aid […] because of these refugees, and it’s also a fact that the Pakistani establishment has constantly used and abused these poor refuges over the years.
Others argue Pakistan is deploying a looming refugee crisis as bait in negotiations with the United States after a US drone strike killed former Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour in Baluchistan province, and US Congress refused to provide financial subsidies for military aircraft Islamabad wanted to buy.
Beyond the politics are the logistics. Can Afghanistan accommodate such a large number of returnees? Millions of Afghans have already returned home since the collapse of the Taliban regime in 2001. The Taliban insurgency has only strengthened in recent years, increasing insecurity and deepening the economic morass the country faces.
An adviser to the Afghan Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation in Kabul highlighted:
Afghanistan isn't now prepared to embrace a large influx of Afghan immigrants from neighbouring nations, given the security problems and lack of resources.
At a recent international donor conference in Brussels on October 5 leaders of different countries and international organizations came together to review the achievements and vision of the Afghan government and renew their commitments to Afghanistan.
Pakistan, in its turn, pledged $500 million in support to the country at the event. While that may go some way to smoothing the growing tensions between the two countries, it will mean very little if Islamabad follows through on its promise to expel the 2.5 million refugees (equivalent to 8% of Afghanistan's current population) still living on its territory.

author: Samea Shanori


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A Transgender Woman’s Modest Election Win Is a Huge Victory for Brazil’s Trans Community · Global Voices
Fernanda Canofre

Indianara during a protest asking for the ousting of current Brazilian president, Michel Temer | Photo: Indianara Siqueira/Facebook/Used with permission
For a few years now, Brazil has shamefully led the world in the number of murders of transgender people. According to a study by Transgender Europe, four times more transgender people are killed in Brazil than in the second country on the list (Mexico) and almost eight times more than in the third (United States). An independent study, organized annually by a gay rights group in Bahia, counted that at least 318 members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community were killed in Brazil in 2015, of which 37% — or about 117 people — were transgender.
The life expectancy of a transgender person living in Brazil in the 21st century is 30 years. To compare, the life expectancy of Brazilians in general is currently 75. Brazil doesn't have any laws that protect LGBT people from discrimination. Neither sexual orientation nor gender identity are included in the definition of a hate crime, and you'll find no option to check either on a police report, making it difficult for activists and NGOs to gather data. Life is especially hard for transgender people who earn a living as sex workers.
Amid such a problematic reality, a 45-year-old transgender woman has offered the world a glimpse of what life is like for trans people in Brazil. Indianara Siqueira ran on the left-wing party PSOL ticket in Rio de Janeiro's municipal elections on October 2. She received 6,166 votes and won an alternate seat (one of six designated replacements in case the voters’ first choices pass away or must abandon their post for any reason) in the local legislature. To celebrate, as well as to invite her voters to her inauguration ceremony in January, Indianara decided to share some of her life story on her Facebook page. So far, her post was liked by more than 3,100 people and shared more than 700 times.
Indianara was born in a medium-sized city, Paranaguá, in the southern state of Paraná during Brazil's military dictatorship (1964-1985). She started to take hormones at age 12. At 16, she left her grandmother’s home. Before turning 20, she had already been raped — committed by police officers in the small boarding house in São Paulo where she was living.
Indianara detailed the brutal conditions she and others like her were made to endure:
Fui pra Santos,afinal como diz a canção:La miseré est plus légere au soleil (A miséria é mais leve no sol).
Lá dormindo na rua conheci as Travestis putas que me acolheram e me deram um poste onde trabalhar na esquina.De masseira e pizzaiola,me tornei puta.
Quase todos os dias éramos levadas pelo Francês ( Polícia Civil) entre outres,ou Abreu ( PM) entre outros PMs pra delegacia.Apanhavamos por existir.Eramos jogadas no camburão e em viaturas como lixo que não pode nem ser reciclado.Eramos colocadas no muro do coliseu de Santos e tínhamos amoníaco espirrado na cara.Aquilo queimava olho ,mucosa da boca.So que quando eles iam puxar o amoníaco,puxavam também o revólver e se vc corresse eles atiravam.Vc suportava o amoníaco te queimar enquanto eles riam.As vezes faziam vc achar que iam fuzilar todas..Vc aprende o dia do plantão dos teus algozes,mas não pra fugir deles e sim se preparar psicologicamente pra ser torturada por eles.Voce tinha que sobreviver.Mas vc saia pronta pra morrer.
I moved to Santos, after all, as the song says: La miseré est plus légere au soleil (Misery is lighter under the sun).
There, while sleeping in the streets, Imet transvestites working as prostitutes who sheltered me and gave me a lamp post on a street corner where I could work. From a baker and pizza maker, I became a whore.
Almost everyday, we were taken by the “Frenchman” (an investigative officer), among others, by Abreu (a military policeman), among other military policemen, to the police station. We were beaten up because we existed. We were thrown into the police cars and vans as if we were garbage that couldn’t be recycled. We were lined up against the wall of the Santos’ Coliseum Theater and we had ammonia splashed all over our faces. It burned the eyes, the inside of the mouth. The thing is, when they went to pull out the ammonia, they also pulled out their guns, and if you ran, they'd shoot. You had to endure the ammonia burning you while they laughed. Sometimes, they would make you believe they were going to shoot us all. You learn your executioners’ shifts, but not to run away from them, you learn to prepare yourself psychologically to be tortured by them. You have to survive. But you leave home ready to die.
Indianara identifies as both a transgender woman and a transvestite. The word travesti in Portuguese, while derogatory in origin, has been reclaimed by the transgender community in Brazil, and many trans women currently identify as that.
She lived in Santos during the 1990s when the AIDS epidemic was hitting Brazil. She wrote that at the time, “the life expectancy of transvestigeneres” — a mash-up of the words “transgender” and “transvestite” in Portuguese — “was 25 years.”
A aids chegou.Santos era conhecida como a capital da AIDS.Disseram que eu morreria de AIDS.
Minha irmã cishetero casada com um PM morreu de Aids.Varias amigas morreram de AIDS.Variios amigos morreram de Aids.Nos chamavam de aidéticos.Nos expulsavam dos bares ,restaurantes e não nos deixavam comer com medo que comtaminassemos os talheres.Nos matavam socialmente aos poucos.Eles tinham prazer nisso.E não tínhamos a quem recorrer.
As vezes nos revoltavamos.A lider da revolta era assassinada.
Ninguém chorava por nós.Ao contrário.Para muitas famílias como é até hoje, é um alívio quando nos matam ou morremos.
AIDS came. Santos was known as the AIDS capital. They said I would die from AIDS.
My cisgender sister, who was married to a police officer, died from AIDS. Several of my friends died from AIDS. People used to call us the AIDéticos. They used to kick us out of bars, restaurants, afraid that we could contaminate the silverware. They were softly killing us socially. They had pleasure in doing so. And we didn’t have anyone to run to.
Sometimes we would revolt. The revolt leader was killed.
No one cried for us. On the contrary. To many families, as it still is today, it’s a relief when they kill us or when we die.
Indianara during a conference for LGBT rights | Photo: Indianara Siqueira/Facebook/Used with permission
Through her struggles, Indianara became an activist. In 1996, she was part of the LGBT rights group fighting for transgender people to have the right to use their chosen name — which was only officially granted by Brazilian law this year — as well as the right for a member of a same-sex couple to adopt their partner’s surname.
She also fought for trans women to be placed in the female wing of hospitals, or at least to be separated from men in the male wing.
And when she advocated against police abuse against LGBT people working on the streets, she became a target:
Então um dia fui algemada em um poste em Santos enquanto o policial fazia roleta russa na minha cabeça.Eu aterrorizada tremia tanto é chorava.Pensei nos meus irmãos pequenos que dependiam de eu sobreviver nessa porra de vida,pensei nas travestis doentes que dependiam de que eu sobrevivesse. […] Sim,o barulho do tambor do revólver girando me fazia lembrar de quem dependia de mim pra viver um pouco mais,mesmo eu não sabendo se teria essa chance.Mas o barulho aterrozante do revólver me fazia lembrar que eu estava viva ainda.Ou morta,mas ainda sem saber.
So, one day I was handcuffed to a lamp post in Santos, while the police officer played Russian roulette [with the gun] against my head. I was terrified and shaking and crying. I thought about my little brothers who depended on me surviving this shitty life, I thought about the transvestites who were sick and depended on me surviving. […] Yes, the noise of the gun’s cylinder spinning made me remember those who depended on me to live a little longer, even if I myself didn’t know if I’d have the chance. But the frightening noise of the gun would remind me that I was still alive. Or dead, even if I didn’t know yet.
Under threat, Indianara split her time between Rio and São Paulo for a while, working with support groups for transgender people and organizing LGBT rights marches. But as she rose to a prominent role in her community, the police abuse grew stronger:
Em SP a polícia colocava cocaína no carro das travestis e nas bolsas exigindo 5 mil reais pra não leva-las presas como traficantes.Muitas foram.Tinha a vida destruídas na prisão.Livres ou viravam ladras revoltadas que agrediam inclusive nós ,as amigas como se nos culpassem por não termos passado pelo mesmo.
Muitas foram presas injustamente.Algumas morreram nas prisões.
Nossa tortura tem que ser contada nas audiências públicas sobre tortura sim.
In São Paulo, the police would put cocaine on transvestites’ cars and purses demanding that they pay 5,000 Brazilian reais [1,500 US dollars] so they wouldn’t be locked up as drug dealers. Many of them were. Their lives were destroyed in jail. Once free, they would become revolt as thieves who would even attack us, their friends, as if they blamed us for not being locked up as well.
Many were unjustly arrested. Some died in prison. Our torture should be told at public hearings about torture.
The harassment motivated many in Brazil's transgender community to organize on a larger scale. A national transgender conference was created and became a prominent annual event. Indianara had to leave Brazil, but she continued denouncing the police. As she explained, “the lives of future transvestigeneres depended” on her doing so. One of her recent projects includes preparatory classes for university entry tests specifically designed for trans students.
A meme from her campaign says: “Come transform the city” | Photo: Indianara Siqueira/Facebook/Used with permission
In 1992, a friend of Indianara, Kátia Tapety, was voted municipal legislator in the small town of Colônia do Piauí – becaming the first trans person to be elected to a political position. In the following elections, Kátia became the most voted legislator in that town. In the vote after that, she was elected vice mayor.
Twenty-four years later, the representation of transgender people in political offices remains low, but this year's elections had a record number running for office. At least 80 candidates were identified as trans; six of them were elected. To Indianara, who is celebrating her own alternate seat win, this was a victory:
Passamos um recado:Estamos e ficaremos em todes espaços que nos foram negado.
Essa minha suplência é uma vitória de todes corpos de transvestigeneres que tombaram por mim.Que sobreviveram por mim.Que tombaram ao meu lado.Pelos corpos que poderão dizer : Sim podemos por que elas e eles puderam.
Sou resistência.Sou resiliência.
We’ve sent a message: We are and will be in every space that has been denied from us.
My alternate seat is a victory to all the bodies of transvestigeneres that have fallen for me. That survived for me. That have fallen beside me. To the bodies that can now say yes, we can because they could.
I’m resistance. I’m resilience.

author: Fernanda Canofre


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As Politicians Beat the Drums of War, Ordinary Indians and Pakistanis Call for Peace · Global Voices
Palash Ranjan Sanyal

Message of Ansar Sagar from India. Image via Voice of Ram Dot Org Facebook Page
An attack by armed militants in Uri, the Indian-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir, on 18 September has heavily soured the relationship between India and Pakistan. The assault — reportedly the deadliest in two decades — killed 17 Indian soldiers. India followed up with “surgical strikes” on suspected militants preparing to enter the country from Pakistan-ruled Kashmir.
The territory of Kashmir was already a sore spot for India and Pakistan because both disagree on who has claim to it. But after the violence, Indian politicians have fueled tensions with talk of reviewing a water-distribution treaty with Pakistan or vowing to “isolate Pakistan internationally”. And Pakistani politicians have joined in the bullying by threatening to destroy India with atomic bomb.
However, ordinary citizens on both sides of the board are taking a stand against war.
I strongly condemn all terror attacks We must realise that a life lost is a LIFE LOST!The world needs to stand together against terrorism!✋🏻
— MAWRA HOCANE (@MawraHocane) October 5, 2016
Dear India & Pak, you guys are never going to fight out and find a solution. So stop. If nothing else works, ignore each other. But no war.
— Sreejith K. (@sreejithk2000) October 3, 2016
Netizens and prominent figures from India and Pakistan have revived a social media campaign called #ProfileForPeace, which began in 2015, promoting unity and respect between the two countries.
Im a Pakistani🇵🇰
Im a Muslim😇
I dont hate India🇮🇳❤
I dont hate Indians!!
Im not alone there are many like me!!! #profileforpeace✌✨
— Fatima Abid Khan (@fatimaakhan24) October 7, 2016
#ProfileforPeace #India #Pakistan. I want peace, do you? pic.twitter.com/AoocPJFNn8
— Arshad Mahmood (@amahmood72) October 9, 2016
A petition on Change.org “urge[s] our leaders to come up with creative diplomatic solutions instead of engaging in a violent display of military might that threatens to destroy precious human life and natural resources.” It is currently 560 signatures shy of 5,000; the plan is to deliver it to both of the prime ministers of India and Pakistan.
Youths are taking a stand against any sort of war and are urging politicians to sort out the differences out and work towards peace. An Islamabad-based young woman named Alizay Jaffer wrote in a Facebook post about the India-Pakistan relationship:
What’s strange is the burden we carry of decisions made in our pasts, based on an entirely different socio-political context, when a common, exploitative antagonist made sure we saw each other as the aggressor, and boy, did we fall for it. What’s strange is our prolonged blindness to the immense opportunities that lie before us as a unit, and the vast desolation that lies before us as enemies.
She ended her post by putting her trust in the people of India and Pakistan:
it is comforting somehow, that when I messaged one of my closest friends across the border, expressing concern over the destructive megalomaniac tendencies of our governments, he responded and said, “It doesn’t matter what they do, you know I will always love you.
Amidst of all the animosity, 20 girls from different regions of Pakistan traveled to India to take part in the 11th Global Youth Peace Festival there. Though the girls’ families were worried about their safety, the girls also came with a clear message of peace:
I must say it's a matter of foreign policy. The governments should negotiate and talk with each other, because the public is so welcoming, and the people of both the countries want friendship, want peace. No one wants the war.
The tension has affected  the media and showbiz world of both countries as well. Pakistani theatres have taken down Indian movies, and a portion of Indian media has called for bans on Pakistani individuals involved in the Indian entertainment world. Celebrities on both sides have been reflecting on the spillover, with some talking in support of the actions, and some opposing them.
‘Patriotism’ that propagates HATE is not patriotism. United we RISE. Divided we fall. Politicians polarise to rule not serve society.
— Dia Mirza (@deespeak) October 9, 2016
Pakistanis ban our films, target our artistes: terrible, I agree. But do we want to be like them, or be a cut above?
— Rajdeep Sardesai (@sardesairajdeep) October 3, 2016
Message of Azad Abbas from Pakistan. Image via Voice of Ram Dot Org Facebook Page
On Facebook and Twitter, users have posted their messages and photos against possible war under the hashtags #ProfileForPeace and #KillTerroristsNotTalks. Ram Subramanian from Mumbai, who started the #ProfileForPeace movement and who calls himself an “artivist” (artist + activist), has been raising his voice against the diplomatic and military chest-thumping between India and Pakistan:
Millions of Indians and Pakistanis are getting along famously with each other all over the world. Millions more might be able to become truly independent of this rubbish that has been a collective bane for almost 70 years if you decide on it. Both India and Pakistan are still third-world countries because of third-world leadership.
People, however, have questioned the purpose and effectiveness of hashtags. Muhammad Zakariya commented:
Making posters and giving it to someone who doesn't know what has happend to the people who are fighting for their freedom is completely insane. This is utterly disgracing. If you want justice go there and put these same posters in their hands and tell them to stand by it. They wont. Because what they have suffered, you can't even imagine.
China is trying to calm the situation down between the two nations by mediating talks. But, given the long history of rivalry between the two countries, it is highly unlikely that the tension will resolve soon.

author: Palash Ranjan Sanyal


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Cuban Journalist Elaine Diaz and Colleagues Arrested For Reporting on Hurricane Matthew “Without a Permit” · Global Voices
Georgia Popplewell

Global Voices community members Marianna Breytman, Elaine Diaz, Ivan Sigal, Ellery Roberts Biddle and Firuzeh Shokooh Valle in 2015.
The Cuban news site CubaNet reported on October 12 that journalist Elaine Díaz, a Global Voices contributor and founder of the Cuban news site Periodismo de Barrio, was detained by Cuban authorities along with colleagues Mónica Baró, Julio Batista Rodríguez, Tomás E. Pérez and Geysi Guía. The five journalists were arrested in the municipality of Baracoa, in Cuba’s easternmost province. [UPDATE Oct. 13 09:31 EDT: Diaz confirmed late in the evening on October 12 that she and colleagues were released from police custody and returning to Havana.]
Elaine and her colleagues were in Baracoa to cover the effects of Hurricane Matthew, along with four other journalists who were also arrested. The trip to Baracoa was reportedly made possible as result of a fundraising campaign.
Periodismo de Barrio is a new media project that Elaine launched in 2015 an effort to improve local reporting on issues concerning natural disasters, the environment and local infrastructure. Elaine and her four journalist colleagues, all of whom reside in Havana, have been collaborating on the project for nearly a year. Most members of the group have worked both for state-affiliated media outlets and independent websites based in Cuba. Mónica Baró was nominated this past September for the prestigious Gabriel Garcia Marquez prize.
Elaine’s aunt, Ceire Rodríguez, is quoted in a Diario de las Americas news report as saying that that Elaine had tried to get permission for her team visit Baracoa to cover the hurricane, but the authorities were granting access to the area only to “accredited” media.
A close contact reported that Elaine said that she and her fellow detainees were told they would be sent to the city of Guantanamo, which is near to but separate from Guantanamo Bay.
Journalist Maykel González Vivero of Diario de Cuba was also detained in Baracoa by Cuban state security while covering Hurricane Matthew. He was released today, October 12, after spending three days in detention. González told Diario de Cuba that he was initially detained “in the interest of state security”, but that the charge was later changed to “illicit economic activity.”
Elaine worked as a professor of journalism at the University of Havana’s Communications School for several years, while blogging independently on her site, La Polemica Digital, and writing for Inter Press Service in Cuba. She has been an influential voice in Cuba’s blogosphere since the mid-2000s, building a reputation for her keen insights on public interest issues affecting education, infrastructure and utilities in Cuba.
Elaine was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University—and the first Cuban journalist to receive the fellowship—in 2015-2016. During that time, she studied with journalists from Egypt, Chile, China, Russia and Spain and from across the US, as well as with renowned author Anne Bernays and MIT professor and Global Voices co-founder Ethan Zuckerman.
As a community that has known and worked with Elaine since 2010, we are distraught at this news, and urge Cuban authorities to release Elaine and her colleagues immediately.

author: Georgia Popplewell


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Ethiopia’s State of Emergency: ‘The Last Sequence of a Brutal Authoritarian Regime’? · Global Voices
Ndesanjo Macha

Students at Haromaya University displaying what has become the official anti-government gesture. Photo shared widely on social media.
The Ethiopian Council of Ministers has declared a six-month state of emergency following a series of deadly anti-government protests in the Oromia and Amhara regions, a move that some Ethiopians online have characterized as dangerous and desperate.
Demonstrations have regularly taken place in Oromia since November 2015. They originally began as a response to a government plan to expand the capital city Addis Ababa into Oromia's surrounding farmlands. But the protests soon grew to demand greater self-rule, freedom and respect for the ethnic identity of the Oromo people, who have experienced systematic marginalization and persecution over the last quarter century.
Authorities have used deadly force against protesters. At least 52 people were killed recently at a gathering for the Irreecha holiday in Oromia, after security forces firing smoke bombs and live bullets triggered a stampede.
A similar movement is also happening in Amhara. Both represent a challenge to the dominance of the Tigray ethnic group in Ethiopia's politics. The Tigray make up 6% of the population, but have an overwhelming hold on power in the country, while the Oromos, who are the country's largest ethnic group, representing 34%, and the Amharas at 27% have very little representation in key government positions.
The declaration of a state of emergency came around the same time as a shutdown of all mobile internet services in the country lasting at least seven days. The movements have relied on social media to organize protests and to bring their message to international audiences.
The state of emergency has been widely condemned. The Association for Human Rights in Ethiopia has asked the Ethiopian government to stop using the state of emergency as a pretext to the escalating human rights violations in the country. However, Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn has said the state of emergency “will not breach basic human rights enshrined under the Ethiopian constitution and won't also affect diplomatic rights listed under the Vienna Convention.”
Reacting to the declaration, Ethiopian human rights activist Soleyana noted:
We all know what #StateOfEmergency means,The usual suspects (our friends and activist we know) r in eminent danger now.It is sad. #Ethiopia
— Soleyana (ሶሊ) (@Soli_GM) October 9, 2016
Hallelujah Lulie, a postgraduate student, observed:
Ethiopia has always been a state of state of emergency. This is just a mere codification of the usual practice. #OromoProtests #Ethiopia
— Hallelujah Lulie (@halelule) October 9, 2016
On Facebook, a Kenyan citizen, Elphas Odegu, asked:
Where is that useless club of criminals calling itself AU [African Union]?sadly its based in the capital of that despot.
The African Union headquarters is based in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.
Writing on one of the oldest Ethiopian blogs, Nazret, Alem Mamo said the Ethiopian regime is in a state of self-deception. He compared the situation in Ethiopia to that of Libya under the late Muhammar Gaddafi:
In 2011, during the Libyan uprising, Muammar Gaddafi was asked about the rebellion engulfing the country to get rid of his regime. Gaddafi’s response was pure self-deception. He said “I am loved by all my people, and there are no protests in Tripoli.” He also said true Libyans had not demonstrated but those who had come on to the streets were under the influence of drugs supplied by al-Qaeda and they are thugs and mercenaries.
At a news conference on Monday, October 10, 2016, the TPLF [Tigrayan People's Liberation Front] regime’s spokesperson, Getachew Reda, denied there was a locally organized uprising in the country. Instead, he singled out Eritrea and Egypt as sources of backing for “armed gangs
Mamo called the state of emergency a “comical show” and pointed out that this is the last card of the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF):
There is nothing the regime was not doing before the declaration of the state of emergency that it is going to do now. It is well documented by credible human rights organizations, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, that the regime arbitrarily arrests, search homes with out a warrant, exercises extrajudicial killings, torture and a whole host of human rights violations. So, what is left? What different authority or power would be given to the security forces? The declaration of the ‘state of emergency’ is a comedy, except we can’t laugh!
TPLF is a regime that has overstayed a welcome that it didn’t have in the first place. Twenty-five years of repression, polarization and institutional terror is the only mechanism that kept it in power. Now, the people of Ethiopia from all corners, age, religion, and identity have spoken in one chorus: Enough! The declaration of a state of emergency is the last card all authoritarian regimes play while they are being shown they way out. In essence, the state of the emergency is the last gasp of a dying regime to feed their own self-deception and denial.
In the end, neither the self-deception nor the glowing words of their external supports can save authoritarian regimes from their demise. Any government can only govern with the consent and mandate of the people. A regime that absurdly claims that have won 100% of the vote has neither the consent nor the mandate to govern. In Ethiopia we are witnessing the last sequence of a brutal authoritarian regime, state of emergency and the end!
However, commenting on the article, Abay Rebel disagreed with those who are calling for democracy in the country:
Right now Ethiopia needs pure dictatorial regime like North Korea, China, Russia. No need for anarchy in the name of fake democracy.

author: Ndesanjo Macha


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Former Guantanamo Prisoner Risks Death From Hunger Strike in Effort to Be Reunited With Family · Global Voices
Fernanda Canofre

Jihad Diyab during an interview in Montevideo. YouTube
Jihad Diyab will need crutches for the rest of his life—a regular reminder of the torture he endured for 12 years, 8 months, and 7 days as an inmate in Guantanamo Bay, where the U.S. military operates a prison to detain suspected war criminals indefinitely and without trial.
Forty-three years old today, Diyab suffered permanent damage to his back while in the care of the U.S. government. In an interview conducted earlier this year in Uruguay, he told an an Argentinian journalist that Guantanamo even haunts the prisoners who are lucky enough to leave. The ones who make it out, he says, “are still U.S. prisoners inside.”
Diyab is one of the six Guantanamo prisoners (four Syrians, one Palestinian, and one Tunisian) who were freed and welcomed to Uruguay in December 2014, thanks to an agreement between U.S. President Barack Obama and Uruguayan President José “Pepe” Mujica.
Following a failed campaign to be reunited with his family, who fled from Syria to Turkey, Diyab declared a hunger strike in mid-August. On September 15, he told the BBC that he blamed the governments of Uruguay and the United States for his situation.
Mi situación de salud está muy precaria, estoy mal, mi energía está muy baja y yo responsabilizo personalmente al gobierno de EE.UU. y también al de Uruguay si yo muero.
My health is very precarious. I’m sick, my energy is very low, and I personally hold accountable the U.S. and also the Uruguayan government, if I die.
In late September, after receiving a guarantee that his family was safe in Turkey, he resumed a liquid diet.
Diyab made headlines this June, when he fled Uruguay over the border into Brazil. The Uruguayan media called him an “ungrateful” “rebel” for leaving the country that welcomed him out of U.S. captivity. After a month of uncertainty about his whereabouts, Diyab turned up in Caracas, Venezuela, where he was detained for 17 days and then deported back to Montevideo.
The circumstances of Diyab's deportation remain unclear. Though officials have maintained that the former Guantanamo prisoners are now “free men,” the reality has been something different.
According to the newspaper Brecha, Uruguay apparently agreed to require that the freed prisoners remain in the country for two years before setting foot abroad, though top Uruguayan state officials initially denied that they accepted this condition.
Whatever deal Uruguay made with Washington, the fact remains that the prisoners released from Guantanamo have only been issued Uruguayan citizenship cards, which are not valid for foreign travel.
Today, public opinion on the former Guantanamo inmates has shifted, and even the former Uruguayan president who negotiated the prisoner release now says receiving the men was simply the price his country needed to pay in order to keep “selling oranges to the United States” and maintain good ties.
Four of the “Six of Guantanamo” protest in front of the U.S. Embassy in Uruguay. YouTube
Five months after arriving in Uruguay, four of the “Six of Guantanamo” staged a protest in front of the U.S. Embassy in Montevideo. Diyab was absent. The men had gathered after learning that Washington refused to provide them with financial assistance.
Writing in a blog, the men say they were dumped in a foreign country without employment, their families, or local language fluency. For this, and for the 13 years they spent locked up without charges, they deserve help from the government responsible, they argued in April:
They [the U.S.] should provide us with the means to live as normal human beings. They can’t just throw the mistakes on others, they should help us with houses and financial support. We are not asking the impossible from them they detained us for 13 years and they should help form some years to come. We think that this is the least they could do or we can ask for.
In a documentary about Jihad Diyab’s life in Uruguay, Anfibia magazine says the deal that secured his release was actually just an “informal” agreement with the United States. In other words, there are no official documents establishing the former prisoners’ rights. The only formal sheet of paper applying to the prisoners is a letter signed by U.S. State Secretary John Kerry that lists the six prisoners’ names and says “there is no information that [they] were involved or conducted terrorist activities against the U.S. or its allies.”
Anfibia's documentary also examines the lives of other former Guantanamo prisoners who have settled in Europe and Africa, where many are facing similar problems. One of these men, now living in Slovakia, told the magazine, “This is not freedom. We are still detained. I’ve left Guantanamo, but it's still in me—all the time.” Another prisoner in the film called his life after prison “a second Guantanamo.”
Since April, all the former prisoners in Uruguay except Diyab signed a deal with the Ecumenical Service for Human Dignity (SEDHU in Spanish) to receive financial support. Diyab refused to sign, saying he disagrees with the terms, which include housing and money for two years. Diyab says his back injury prevents him from working, and argues that the financial aid offered isn't enough to sustain himself, let alone his family.
Diyab was the only of the six prisoners who entered Guantanamo with a wife and children. Of the group, he alone says that he wants to leave Uruguay for an Arab country, where he hopes to settle with his family.
The next challenge Diyab faces is finding a new home. In an interview with the independent journal La Diaria, Senator Lucía Topolansky—who was imprisoned during Uruguay's dictatorship—promised that the government is searching for a solution:
Lo que hay que hacer es buscar un país que lo quiera. Y ese no es un problema de Uruguay ni tampoco de él, es un problema del mundo.
What we have to do is search for a country that accepts him. And this is not just Uruguay's problem or his problem—it's the world's problem.
In September, Uruguay’s government released a note confirming that it is looking for a country willing to receive Diyab and his family. Officials say they are doing everything they can and ask Diyab to call off his hunger strike “to respect the principle of life.”
The negotiations, however, have made little progress.
According to WikiLeaks’ Gitmo Files, Diyab—the son of a Syrian father and an Argentinian mother—earned his living as a truck driver for many years in Syria. When he was arrested in Lahore by the Pakistani police in 2002, he was living in an apartment maintained by the Taliban and was selling honey to support his family.
The files link Diyab to al-Qaida members, identifying him as “high risk,” “high intelligence,” and “a threat to the United States.” He was allegedly responsible for forging documents and passports for the terrorist organization. Held in U.S. detention for well over a decade, he was never formally charged with any crimes. Diyab denies all the accusations.
Diyab's supporters manage a Facebook page and an Avaaz petition calling governments to take “immediate steps to have him reunited with his family in a country that can offer the family reunification.” In the meantime, repeating what he did for 13 years in prison, Diyab waits. In an interview with CNN, he declared:
Yo no quería hacer esta huelga de hambre pero me cerraron las puertas y me dejaron sin solución y es el único camino que encontré.
I didn't want to go on hunger strike, but they have closed the doors on me and left me without any solution and this is the only path that I've found.
This week, after 54 days of hunger striking, Diyab was diagnosed with a “superficial coma.” According to the newspaper La Diaria, he previously signed a document refusing medical intervention, “even if his life is in danger,” but he later accepted intravenous feeding. The doctor who is assisting Diyab says his current health is “critical” with a “high risk of sudden death.” In addition to his deteriorating condition, his mediator with the Uruguayan government just left his case.
Nevertheless, the hunger strike continues as Diyab waits for a reply to his request.


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Hong Kong Citizens Express Dismay as Macau’s Border Control Turns Them Away · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

A number of activists were blocked from entering Macau on October 10. Photo from Long Hair Facebook.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s has finally ended his three-day visit to Macau.
In the two weeks leading up to his visit, border control at Macau was chaotic. More than a dozen citizens from Hong Kong were denied entry by Macau immigration because they posed a security threat to the city. The citizens included an independent filmmaker, an LGBT activist and even a travel writer, which has led many to question whether the Hong Kong government has a broad blacklist, which it shares with Macau authorities and Chinese authorities.
Both Macau and Hong Kong are special administrative regions of China, yet they do not form part of mainland China. They have their own distinct, borders, government, currency, police force, and even languages.
Premier Li Keqiang was in Macau along with a host of leaders from Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa and South America for a high profile trade conference that aims to chart a new course for the world’s most cash-rich casino-city. Nine of the barred Hong Kong citizens were activists who planned to protest during the Chinese premier's visit against an election framework imposed onto Hong Kong by a Chinese body.  While it is not unusual to see protesters blocked at the border before a planned event, some of the Hong Kong citizens were denied entry into Macau because they were former activists or registered members of student groups. A number of them have shared their stories on Facebook.
Fred Lam, a travel book writer, who was politically active in a preservation movement back in 2008, was surprised to see himself accused of posing a security threat at the Macau border on October 5. He was invited to Macau by a school to give a talk about his travel experience.
Roddy Shaw, an LGBT activist, was also blocked from entering Macau in October. He was worried that the political labelling would affect him from entering China and other Asian countries:
同 Lam Fai Fred 命運一樣 冇得入澳門境 其他同樣遭遇的人可否入境泰國或大陸？我短期內要飛此兩地，求幫忙！
I share the same fate with Lam Fan Fred and could not enter Macau. I wonder if people who had the same experience could enter mainland China and Thailand? I have to fly to these two countries soon, pls advise!
Last week, Hong Kong student activist Joshua Wong was detained by Thailand immigration for a few hours and eventually deported. Thailand authorities explained that their decision was based on Beijing’s request.
Independent film maker Siuyea Lo who was a frequent traveler to Macau for work also faced the same situation on October 5. He wrote down the process on Facebook:
今天應澳門朋友之邀過去帶短片工作坊 […] 上船前看到林輝入境被拒，心諗這幾年來往澳門數十次，演過《無花果》和《七月燒衣》，亦探過朋友買過手信，應該無野卦，頂多如上次般被扣查一會然後放行。
我大概掌握流程是如何發生，e-道不讓我通過，職員帶我進房填份表問幾句，坐一陣，放行入境。不過今次只估中個開頭，填完表好快就被帶往一條狹小走廊，再填一表，坐一陣，警察著我簽下此書。我錯愕都來不切，已有幾人相繼岀來著我動身，早走早著。
「對過張相，係佢黎架喇」，一個警察一個海關送到上船，一往無前急步而行，務求盡快抵壘，以防意外走甩，藍衣警察跟白衣海關説「今日行到腳都攰」，怕且佢今日都行左幾廿次 。
Today I was invited by friends from Macau to hold a film making workshop […] I read that Fred Lam was blocked from entering but still did not believe that I would enter counter the same situation. In the past few years, I have travelled to Macau for a few dozen times as actor for two films, Fig and A Summer Ghost Stories. I also frequently visit friends here and should not have any problem. The worst would be a brief interrogation.
I have a sense of the procedure. The e-channel check point would not let me walk pass and the immigration officer would take me to the room to fill up a form and answer some simple question. They should let me enter eventually. But I was wrong, after I filled up a form, I was taken to a corridor to fill up another form. Then I was asked to sign on the document [deportation notice]. I was shocked. They kept asking me to take the next ferry back to Hong Kong. “I double checked the photo, this is definitely him”, a police and an immigration officer were talking when they escorted me to the check out spot. The police told the immigration, “My feet are so tried walking to and fro today”, I guessed he must have escorted more than a few dozen deportees already.
Roy Tam, a pro-democracy district councilor was also blocked at the border on October 8. He and his family planned to have a day tour in Macau.
Derek Liu, a committee member of the Student Union of Polytechnic University, who had just visited China was blocked from entering Macau at Zhuhai and Macau immigration checkpoint on October 10. He was eventually deported to Zhuhai. The case showed that Macau’s immigration control during Li Keqiang’s visit is even stricter than mainland China’s immigration. Liu reported the situation on Facebook:
我唔明，我雖然身為一個學生會嘅社團註冊人，但身家清白。就係要因為大陸領導人要訪澳而唔俾我入境，旅行啫，咁都可以對你內部穩定構成威脅？
話說我今個星期六跟住屋企人去珠海澳門兩天遊，本身都仲驚緊入唔到大陸，但都最後無穿無爛無檢查下都返到上去玩。好啦玩完珠海就差唔多係時候過澳門玩埋呢一日佢，點知我就係喺呢個時候被拒絕入境澳門。到底澳門要為左媚共可以去到幾盡？無錯呀連大陸都俾我入嗰時，我都唔知澳門憑咩唔俾我入。
I don't understand. I am just a registered member of the student union and have clean record my entire life. Now I am blocked from entering Macau because of a Chinese leader's visit. Am just a tourist and you claim that I am posing threat to internal security?
The story is that my family have organized a trip to Zhuhai and Macau over the weekend. I was a bit worried that I might encounter problem at mainland China's immigration. But I just simply walked through the immigration. On the next day we carried on our trip to Macau but I was blocked from entering. Macau just gives up all its power to please the Chinese Communist Party. It is ridiculous that I can enter mainland China but not Macau.
The hostility of the Macau immigration has not only confined to Hong Kong citizens but also directed to tourists coming from “insecure” regions. When Miss Iran Melissa Razavi, who had just attended the beauty pageant Miss Global 2016 in the Philippines, entered Macau, she was held for more than two hours in the Macau immigration and asked to sign documents that would allow officers to go through her cell phone and luggage. She complained to local media outlets that she was treated like a terrorist. Several tourists from India were also interrogated for up to three hours and described the border inspections as “humiliating” and “discriminatory.”
Similar border control measure was also seen in December 2014 during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Macau. A large number of Hong Kong citizens who had participated in the pro-democracy protest for universal suffrage were denied entry at the Macau immigration. [Editor's note the writer of this article was also blocked from entering Macau in December 2014.]
The situation has probed many to question whether Hong Kong government has a broad blacklist, which it shares with authorities in Macau and China. As shown by Roddy Shaw's reaction to his deportation, there are fears that this list can even be used against Hong Kong activists in other pro-Beijing countries such as Thailand and Malaysia. Both countries had blocked Hong Kong student activist Joshua Wong from entering for fear that his visit would upset Beijing.

author: Oiwan Lam


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Netizen Report: Brazilians Find the Limits of Free Speech on Facebook · Global Voices
Netizen Report Team

Photo by Flickr user zeevveez. CC BY 2.0
Tensions between citizens and public officials in Brazil are running high this week, with the country’s uniquely restrictive defamation laws being put to the test on Facebook.
On October 10, a judge ordered a nationwide block on Facebook over a page that made fun of Mayor Udo Dohler, who is running for re-election in Joinville, a city in the state of Santa Catarina. The court ruling states that the content was “clearly created to offend the candidate as its publications, despite containing a certain dose of humour, include constant attacks and aggressions against the candidate.” The ruling also demanded that Facebook reveal the IP address of the page’s administrator and provide Dohler with the right to respond to the content.
The ruling appears to contradict Brazilian electoral legislation that protects attributed online expression during the electoral period (anonymous speech is forbidden in Brazil). While the law also protects the target’s right of response, it is not clear how this right could be infringed within an online platform like Facebook, where the right to comment is built into the system. The same law also provides a penalty for whoever hosts the offensive content.
Facebook’s press office told Brazilian media outlets that it complied with the decision to remove the page within the deadline, and thus should not be penalized by blocking or a fine. Anatel, Brazil’s telecommunications regulator, did not comment on the decision.
A new page with the same title was created promptly and now has a little more than 200 followers.
In another example, Brazilian actress and TV presenter Mônica Iozzi was ordered to pay 30,000 reais (about US $10,000) for posting on Instagram a photo of Supreme Court Justice Gilmar Mendes with the word “accomplice” in capital letters beside his image.
Iozzi was referring to the case of former fertility doctor Roger Abdelmassih, who was convicted on rape and sexual abuse charges involving at least 37 female patients at his clinic between 1995 and 2008. Abdelmassih was originally arrested in 2009 and held in pre-trial detention for four months until Justice Mendes granted him habeas corpus. Despite being convicted of the charges soon after, the court allowed him to remain free while he prepared an appeal. He then fled to Paraguay, where he remained until being apprehended and extradited by Paraguayan federal law enforcement officials.
Mendes argued that the photo damaged his public image by implying he was an accomplice to criminal practices. The court, which ruled in his favor, stated that Iozzi “overstepped her right to freedom of expression.”
This is not the first time Mendes has gone after journalists for defamation. In 2014, he demanded compensation of 150 reais (about US $50,000) from famous Brazilian leftist blogger Luiz Nassif, who criticized Mendes for interfering with a process that would prohibit private financing of political campaigns. The court ruled decided in Nassif’s favor.
Ethiopian authorities have shut down mobile Internet services in the face of increasingly violent protests and a recently declared state of emergency. The blackout may be helping to diminish news coverage of the protests, which began in opposition to an expansion of the capital city into the region of Oromia, but has since broadened to include demands of greater self-rule, freedom and respect for the Oromo ethnic identity. A similar protest movement is happening in the Amhara region. Ethiopian digital media expert and Global Voices contributor Endalk Chala writes that “those close to the situation fear this may be the beginning of a dangerous new phase after 12 months of protests.”
WhatsApp has been inaccessible in Yemen for several days. According to user reports, the messaging app first reported interruptions in service on October 5, which mobile service provider Yemen Mobile attributed to “technical” issues, though local experts fear it may be intentional. Facebook’s app has also been working off and on over the past several days. In the wake of the October 8 airstrikes that killed at least 140 people, blocks on basic communication platforms are even more problematic, as they make it difficult for families seeking to communicate and account for one another’s safety.
The Chinese website Consensus, a Communist Party-associated platform for writers and researchers to discuss sensitive issues of social and political development in China, was shuttered October 1 following a government ruling that it was “transmitting incorrect ideas.”
Opposition news website the Zambian Watchdog has been offline since late September. The website and its Facebook page both shut down on September 21, and a week later armed state agents raided web hosting company Hai Telecommunications searching for the website’s servers. While also known for controversial and sensational reporting, the Watchdog has a long record of conducting investigations critical of ruling Patriotic Front party officials, who have in turn threatened to arrest Watchdog journalists and shut down the website. The site has been intermittently inaccessible in Zambia since 2012, and has used Facebook as a secondary platform to disseminate news during periods of shutdown.
Ali Abo Hemela, director of the Egyptian TV station Nile Drama, is facing accusations of insulting the president over Facebook posts from earlier this year. In the posts, Abo Hemela commented on a government agreement transferring the islands of Tiran and Sanafir to Saudi Arabia, saying that whoever relinquishes the islands is a traitor.
Proposed amendments to Indonesia’s Electronic Information and Transactions Law to criminalize cyberbullying may be used to stifle legitimate dissent, according to free speech advocates in the country. Though the revisions would soften the penalties for defamation under the law, these changes may be countered by the introduction of new punishments for cyberbullying.
According to research by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter all provided access to public user data to a company called Geofeedia, which markets social media monitoring services to law enforcement agencies seeking to keep tabs on criminal activity online—and on activists and protesters. After the ACLU put forth documents revealing the nature of law enforcement agreements with Geofeedia, both Facebook and Instagram cut off the company’s access to their data. Twitter has taken steps to limit the company’s access but has not altogether ended the data-sharing relationship. At the moment, neither Facebook nor Instagram has a policy that prohibits developing tools to access user data for the purpose of surveillance, according to the ACLU. It is unclear whether and how these data-sharing agreements may have affected social media users, both within and outside the United States.
During the first week of October, Saudi netizens staged a week-long boycott of mobile operators in protest of poor service and the blocking of applications that use voice-over-internet protocol (VoIP). Participants were asked to stop using the mobile networks for three hours every day by switching their phones into flight mode from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Saudi Arabia blocks several voice calling applications including Viber, Skype, Facebook Messenger, and Whatsapp.
Afef Abrougui, Ellery Roberts Biddle, Oiwan Lam, Leila Nachawati, Taisa Sganzerla, and Sarah Myers West contributed to this report.

author: Netizen Report Team


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New Abortion Ban Proposals in Poland Mean the ‘Black Protest’ Movement Isn’t Over Yet · Global Voices
Kasia Odrozek

The cover image of the Facebook event “Polandwide Womens’ Strike – Round Two,” used with permission.
New legislative initiatives for stricter abortion laws continue to fuel the determination of participants in Poland's “Black Protests,” who are preparing another women's strike for October 24.
The first strike on October 3 was such a success that the controversial bill, which would have banned abortion in nearly all cases and even thrown criminal suspicion on women who experienced a miscarriage, was withdrawn. A picture of Warsaw's Old City filled with umbrellas became symbolic of the  massive protests.
With many employers’ support, women in #Poland took today off work & wore black clothes in protest against ant-abortion Bill. #CzarnyProtest pic.twitter.com/MskHA83qrp
— Thomas A. Lukaszuk (@LukaszukAB) 3. Oktober 2016
But it seems that the storm isn't over just yet. Shortly after international media celebrated Polish women for their achievement, the newly formed women's rights movement was confronted with another development directed at drastically tightening the existing abortion law.
“My body, my choice” – that's what Polish women and men fought for this week #czarnyprotest #blackprotest @aleksandraS_G pic.twitter.com/UwBy9Y0qj6
— dwnews (@dwnews) 8. Oktober 2016
Shortly after the protests, the Polish government started to claim that the original bill, based on a civic initiative developed with the initial backing of the country's ruling party and the Catholic Church, was not well thought out regarding its consequences and hence had to be dismissed. However, Jarosław Kaczynski, the leader of the ruling party PIS, immediately followed that up with a declaration that the party stands for “protection of life” and will soon present its own bill that would significantly reduce the amount of legal abortions in Poland.
In a recent interview, Kaczynski mentioned that his party will work on a solution where also “difficult pregnancies” will end with birth, so that the child can be named and baptized, even if it would be seriously malformed and would die shortly after.
Liczę na kolejny Czarny Protest przeciwko barbarzyńskiej wypowiedzi Kaczyńskiego, który chce zgotować piekło. Protest, który go pokona.
— Przem.Szubartowicz (@PSzubartowicz) 12. Oktober 2016
I am counting on another Black Protest against the barbaric statement of Kaczyński who wants to create a hell. A protest that will defeat him.
Meanwhile, another legislative project by the anti-abortion organisation “Głos dla Życia” (“Voice for Life”) gathered approximately 160,000 signatures, and has been accepted to be discussed in the Parliament.
The proposal doesn't foresee any prison sentences for women, but it would introduce higher sentences for carrying out of abortion, with an exception in cases when woman's life is in “immediate danger.” The bill goes even further by making emergency contraception and any hormonal contraceptives that prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg illegal. Like the defeated bill, this one also defines the beginning of life as the moment when female and male cells merge. In addition, the proposed legislation stipulates changes to school curricula and public institutions campaigns directed at promoting “the culture of life” and condemning abortion. Lastly, the law foresees help programs for women and families in case of “difficult pregnancies.”
Independent online publication OKO, which broke the news (the article has been shared over 18,000 times on Facebook at the moment of writing this article) speculates that the bill seems to be very much aligned with the position of the ruling party and might receive its support.
Meanwhile, the Facebook groups “Dziewuchy Dziewuchom” (Gals for Gals) and “Ogólnopolski strajk kobiet” (Poland-Wide Women's Strike) became the coordination points for the new solidarity movement filled with discussions, news, plans and moral support. The movement has widened its focus to include the fight against contempt and violence towards women, influence of the Catholic Church in politics, and political influence in the education system.
After the plans of the ruling party became clear and the “Voice for Life” petition landed in the Parliament, the groups have been flooded by posts of women outraged at the proposal and ready to march into the streets again chanting “My body, my choice.”
The “Poland-Wide Women's Strike – Round Two” is planned for October 24, with several thousand people on the Facebook event confirming they plan to attend.

author: Kasia Odrozek


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Only ‘Foreign Agents’ Share Stories About Happy Times in the U.S., Says Russian Court · Global Voices
Isaac Webb

The “American Samara Alumni Club” performs a flashmob greeting to Americans and friends everywhere. YouTube
Social media reposts about life in the U.S. are enough for an organization to be deemed a “foreign agent” in Russia, at least according to the Lenin District Court in Samara. On Tuesday, the court upheld the Ministry of Justice's August decision to include the “American Alumni Club” on the Kremlin's list of foreign agents for reposting two stories about American life on the social media website VKontakte. The court ruled that the reposts constituted “political activity,” in violation of a 2012 law that requires groups to register as foreign agents if they receive international funding and participate in political activity—a term that, through recent legislation and jurisprudence, has taken on an increasingly broad definition.
So broad, in fact, that the term may be starting to lose whatever meaning it once had. As reported by the advocacy website Open Russia, the Samara court wasn't able to explain exactly what about the American Alumni Club's reposts violated the law, saying only that they included “material with stories about life in the U.S.” (The club's VKontakte group is now private.) The court fined Oleg Kokorev, the head of the club, 50,000 rubles ($790), and slapped a 300,000 ruble ($4,740) fine on the organization itself, in accordance with article 19.34 of the Code of Administrative Offenses, “Violating the mandate of the activity of a non-profit organization, acting as a foreign agent.”
The American Alumni Club's logo. Source: VKontakte.
In May 2016, the Russian parliament passed a law clarifying what constitutes “political activity,” broadening the definition so as to make nearly all collective action fall under the scope of the law. According to the new legislation, political activity encompasses everything from appealing to state bodies to engaging in activity aimed at achieving a certain result in an election. The caveats to the law are similarly broad, covering charitable, educational, and cultural endeavors, as well as work in a variety of other spheres; the exemptions allow the determination of what constitutes political activity to be made on entirely political grounds. Everything in Putin's Russia is political.
Although this legislation affected administrative offenses, the government has pursued similar measures in the criminal sphere. As Gleb Bogush has argued, Russian anti-terrorism laws have become so broad that they encompass a wide variety of non-terroristic activity: “The government has long used the ‘fight against terrorism and extremism’ to justify repressive laws, no matter how obviously senseless they may be. As a result, Russia’s statutory framework can now be effectively used to target not only credible extremist threats, but also political opponents of the state.” The same can be said of the foreign agent law, which leaves NGOs subject to prosecutorial and ministerial whims.
The American Alumni Club, founded in 2001, aims to develop cultural, informational, and educational ties with American organizations, and does charitable work in the Samara region. It is one of 146 organizations that have been designated as foreign agents by the Ministry of Justice since 2012. More than 20 organizations have chosen to close their doors rather than accept the branding as foreign agents. Most recently, on October 4, the Memorial Society, one of Russia's most famous and influential non-profit organizations that seeks to preserve the memory of the victims of communism and to describe comprehensively the human rights abuses committed in the Soviet Union, was hit with the foreign agent label. Human rights advocates say the 2012 law is part of a broader Kremlin effort to crack down on dissent and civil society in Russia. According to Human Rights Watch, “It is part of a sweeping crackdown to silence critical voices that has included new legal restrictions on the internet, onfreedom of expression, on the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, and on other fundamental freedoms.”

author: Isaac Webb


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South Asians Celebrate American Singer-Songwriter Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize in Literature · Global Voices
Rezwan

President Obama presents Bob Dylan with a Medal of Freedom, May 2012. NASA/Bill Ingalls. Public Domain.
American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan has been awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature, becoming the second songwriter to have won the Nobel prize after Indian Nobel Laureate, poet, lyricist and singer Rabindranath Tagore, who received the honor in 1913.
Dylan was awarded for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition. The 75-year-old musician has been influential in popular music and culture for more than five decades. He created much of his best known work during the turbulent times of the 1960s; his songs like Blowin’ in the Wind and The Times They are A-Changin’ were widely popular during the anti-Vietnam War and civil rights movements in the United States.
Bob Dylan is also immensely popular in some South Asian countries. In fact, in 2009 Indian author Nilanjana S Roy proposed on the Serkadis blog that Bob Dylan should be awarded the Nobel Prize:
How many roads must a poet walk down before he is awarded a Nobel? [..] Dylan’s Nobel chances are often treated as a joke; it’s assumed that the austere guardians of the universal literary fame would never unbend far enough to award the Prize to a song-writer. Especially a successful one. And there’s the question of how Dylan, with his twin aversion to formal dress and formal speeches, would react to receiving the Nobel.
The reason why Dylan deserves the Nobel has nothing to do with his popularity, or the fact that his works are actually still quoted, discussed and in wide circulation today. [..]
The argument for Dylan would rest squarely on the quality and influence of his work over the years, and the fact that they have now become classics of modern poetry, decades after they were first composed. It’s not just that Dylan wrote great songs—he wrote songs that were deeply rooted in the history of his times, and in a musical and verbal folk tradition that goes back for decades.
Many Indians celebrated the Dylan's win on Twitter:
Giddy and delirious with joy! Bob Dylan gets Nobel for Literature 2016. Swingin’ Sixties and Crazy Seventies get… https://t.co/hjpCSxjmjz
— কাঞ্চন গুপ্ত (@KanchanGupta) October 13, 2016
Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan. My way of saying congrats! pic.twitter.com/eCY82pszAd
— Abhijit Bhaduri (@AbhijitBhaduri) October 13, 2016
Bangladeshis remember Bob Dylan for his participation at the Concert for Bangladesh, a benefit performance organised by former Beatles lead guitarist George Harrison and Indian sitar master Ravi Shankar on 1 August 1971, at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The concert was organised to raise international awareness and fund relief efforts for refugees from then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), following the genocide perpetrated by Pakistan army and their collaborators during the Bangladesh Liberation War. A total of 40,000 people attended the concert, and close to US $250,000 was raised for Bangladesh relief. It was also Bob Dylan's return to the spotlight after a few years’ absence from the stage following a motorbike crash.
Here is a video of Bob Dylan performing at the concert for Bangladesh:
Tanvir Haider Chaudhury from Bangladesh, who lost his father during the war, wrote with joy on Facebook:
I have this sense of irrational glee at this news – as if someone in my immediate family or a very dear, old friend had won this. Well done your Bobness
Other Bangladeshis congratulated him on Twitter:
Congratulations Bob Dylan, a true friend of Bangladesh.
— Saifur Rahman (@saifurmishu) October 13, 2016
Congrats for winning Nobel prize! Bob Dylan, a true friend of Bangladesh. ♥♥♥
Love from Bangladesh. pic.twitter.com/oTv9Qv3aQ2
— Shanjiban Sudeep (@ShanjibanSudeep) October 13, 2016
From Nepal, Twitter users reacted:
Very happy that Bob Dylan was awarded Nobel Prize for Literature; always a big fan of his powerful & often brutal lyrics. He deserved it.
— Ujjwal Acharya (@UjjwalAcharya) October 13, 2016
Its a Dylan night baby, and nothing tops ‘The Hurricane’. Congratulations to @NobelPrize for this awesome choice! https://t.co/MytBq5uRHd
— Anurag Acharya (@Anurag_Acharya) October 13, 2016
No wonder some argue that he is one of the most important figures in pop-culture history — his work has clearly transcended international boundaries.

author: Rezwan


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Uber Lands in Trinidad, Its Smallest Country to Date · Global Voices
Georgia Popplewell

PHOTO: Georgia Popplewell.
Last weekend here in Trinidad, the Caribbean branch of Uber Technologies Inc., the company behind the ride-hailing smartphone app you’d have to have been living in a severely media-deprived environment not to have heard of, held on-boarding meetings at a Port of Spain hotel for potential “partners”, as the drivers who form the core of the service are called.
Digital-only news site LoopTT, the only media outlet that seems to be taking the news seriously, has carried stories about the response from indigenous competitors and an interview piece with the regional representative. Loop also reported that Uber was yet to meet with the minister of transport, and that the company was seeking a meeting with said minister. An article posted on October 12 reported that the local association of insurance companies was concerned about the legality of the service.
For Uber, this is probably business as usual. The company didn’t become a household name by kotowing to local transport regulations and playing by the rules. In many, if not most of the markets into which it’s swash-buckled its way, Uber has incurred the wrath of municipal governments, taxi drivers, and their unions. I’ve travelled in more than one taxi that had an anti-Uber sticker on its window.
Trinidadians speculating on whether Uber will be bold enough to flout local laws regarding the use of privately licensed cars may not know that the company deployed a category of service for “non-professional” drivers called UberPop in highly regulated European markets, and almost got away with it.
At an Uber protest in Portland, Oregon in 2015, organizers pressed for city leaders to make ride-sharing companies play by the same rules as cabs and Town cars by occupying a square. PHOTO: Aaron Parecki (CC BY 2.0)
We should also pay attention to Uber Caribbean GM Juan Andion’s slick characterisation of the company’s business model. According to Andion, Uber is simply a peer-to-peer service that “…matches riders with drivers…. I have my own car and I want to give a ride to someone else… imagine you are driving your mom to the airport.“
In a country where many taxi drivers own their vehicles, it is also possible, of course, that they too could sign on as Uber partners.
There’s another thing to note: unless I’m misreading Uber’s list of locations, Trinidad will not only be Uber’s point of entry into the English-speaking Caribbean, but also the smallest country into which the company has ever ventured. There are cities on Uber’s list larger than the whole of Trinidad and Tobago, with its population of 1.4 million.
I’ve used Uber several times in various countries, but I don’t always feel great about using the service. But like Amazon, that other behemoth many of us would prefer not to patronise, Uber is often the path of least resistance: it’s already on my phone; it works in several countries; and it doesn't scorn my Trinidad and Tobago credit card.
A screenshot from Uber's Port of Spain web page.
And on a number of occasions, Uber has saved my skin.
One icy winter evening in Buenos Aires, thanks to Uber, I was able to avoid the mad scramble of Argentines jostling in the rain for rush-hour taxis and wait instead in a warm lobby, tracking the progress of the black car-shaped icon representing Mauro’s Chevy on the screen of my phone and timing my dash out of the building to coincide with its arrival at the curb.
On a layover in London, having missed the last train back to Heathrow from an outlying Underground station, it was an Uber car that whisked me to King’s Cross station, not only in record time, but for a fraction of the cost of a London black cab.
On an upcoming trip to Mexico City, where security is a concern, you can bet I’ll be using Uber.
But the aforementioned cities are huge. How will Uber fare in tiny Trinidad and Tobago? Will it “change life”, as the headline of one article has suggested, in this country where crime and security are a genuine worry; where gas—now US$2/gallon after the partial removal last year of the government subsidy—is still relatively inexpensive; and where car ownership was made more attainable some years ago by the arrival on the market of cheap Japanese used vehicles?
And how is Uber going to play with the local public transportation system, on which, in spite of the abundance of private cars, many people still depend?
Trinidad and Tobago’s public transportation comprises a constellation of services that have operated more or less the same way for decades.
A traffic jam in Port of Spain, Trinidad in 2012. By Mariordo (Mario Roberto Duran Ortiz) (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
The backbone of the system are “route taxis” and “maxi taxis”, shared-ride sedans or passenger vans that ply set routes along the country’s major arteries, allowing passengers to jump on and off at random points along the route. Fleets of clean, air-conditioned passenger buses run along similar routes. A system of “pirate” taxis—cars officially registered for private use—has been in operation for decades. They’re technically illegal, but ply their trade openly, and also fill a genuine need, shuttling people up and down mountain roads and through back streets and other places where official taxis don’t go.
(In an alternate version of history I would have added to this list a light railway. But that project was scuttled in 2010, for reasons both political and financial, re-initiated when the current government was elected in 2015, then scrapped again this year when the country went into recession.)
Rides are inexpensive. In and around Port of Spain and environs you’ll pay $4-5 (US$0.60-0.75) for a taxi, depending on the distance, and $3 (US$0.45) for the bus. For a couple of extra dollars, a taxi driver can be persuaded to go a little off his route and drop you to your door.
To a visitor, or even a local who doesn’t regularly use taxis, getting around this country on public transportation can be daunting. Taxi ranks are signposted, but tell you nothing about the actual routes taxis follow. And on certain routes taxi drivers employ an arcane system of hand signals to indicate which variation of the route they’ll be following.
My guess is that Uber won’t make much of an impact among the mass of regular taxi and bus users. But depending on how Uber prices its services, I could imagine users with some disposable income forking out a few extra dollars for a door-to-door ride under certain circumstances: when pressed for time, for instance; women concerned about security might use the service at night.
Another potentially lucrative market for Uber is teens in the middle- to upper-middle classes who are too young to drive or don’t own cars, and whose over-protective parents, uneasy about them rubbing shoulders with the masses in shared-ride taxis, currently spend too much time shuttling them from place to place. This group is also tech-savvy and own smartphones with parent-sponsored data plans.
The niche where I believe Uber will be most competitive is that currently occupied by a relatively small number of private taxis and taxi services. These are often one-person enterprises run by smart, entrepreneurial individuals who’ve built a loyal clientele on the basis of good service. Their main target market is visitors who don’t want to brave the country’s roads in a rental, and well-off but carless locals who don’t care to take shared-ride taxis, want door-to-door service, or both.
Demand for this type of service also burgeons during the carnival season, when partygoers bent on taking full advantage of the all-you-can-drink bars at “all-inclusive” parties hire taxis to play the role of designated driver. I can see Uber making an especially big impact in this niche-within-a-niche, particularly among tourists visiting for carnival who don’t have a go-to private taxi service and who might already have the app on their phones.
Uber, no doubt adept at calibrating their services for different markets, has already announced a key amendment to their service here in Trinidad: they say they’ll be deploying an option to allow payments by cash. This cancels out the service’s famous cashlessness, which is also a security feature, but in a market where a portion of its potential users may not have credit cards or care to put their info into Uber’s system, it’s essential. The ability to pay in cash is a feature I’ve appreciated in EasyTaxi, an app developed in Latin America that works with, rather than against, existing taxi infrastructure, and whom I wouldn’t be surprised to see land here in the near future.
Before it gets anywhere, however, there’s another key hurdle that that Uber, and the indigenous ride-hailing companies that, frankly, I’d prefer to support, will need to surmount: keeping a critical mass of cars in ready circulation, especially during periods of high usage. Will these companies manage to bring a sufficient number of drivers on board to produce that critical mass? And, in turn, convince a critical mass of patrons to stick with that service in order to retain those drivers?
It’s a problem I encountered when I tested QuikPickUp, one of Uber’s local competitors. According to QuikPickUp app, there were only two cars circulating near my location, and the app estimated it would take 16 minutes for one of them to get to me. That might be fine in certain situations, but the very idea of “hailing” suggests that you’re summoning your ride at or close to the moment you need it.
We’ll see how it goes.


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From London to Kingston, British-Jamaican Artist Mike Stanley Speaks the Language of Paint · Global Voices
Emma Lewis

The reception area of the Trident Hotel in Port Antonio, Jamaica, displaying one of Stanley's paintings. This particular hotel owns 22 pieces of Stanley's work. Photo courtesy the artist, used with his permission.
British-born, Jamaica-based artist Mike Stanley, whose major one-man exhibit, ‘Passion for Paint’ closed this week at the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies, talked to Global Voices about his early influences in London, his move to Jamaica in the late 1980s — and the tropical environment that has impacted his work in Jamaica.
Global Voices (GV): You prefer to call yourself a “painter” rather than an “artist.” Why and how do you make this distinction?
Mike Stanley (MS): I have been a practicing painter since I was a student at Chelsea College of Arts in London (1963 – 67). It’s always been what I do. When people ask me what I do, I tell them I’m a painter. There was the explosion of ‘abstract expressionism’ in New York in the late 1950s, when European artists moved to the United States after World War II. Jackson Pollock was a great abstract expressionist painter. Then there was ‘post-painterly abstraction’, which involved greater use of color. In 1960s London, we had a ‘European take’ on that style. This is how my style developed, through the influence of these artists; my style has always retained the notion of paint as a language. These days, though, paint is regarded as ‘old hat’.
GV: Tell us about your artistic life in London. How did you get started?
Painter Mike Stanley at his recent exhibition at The University of the West Indies Regional Headquarters — a wonderful space for art. Photo courtesy the artist, used with his permission.
MS: I started exhibiting while I was still a student at Chelsea. I won second prize in a student exhibition in 1966 called ‘Young Contemporaries’. I won 50 Pounds. I spent my prize money on driving lessons. I continued to paint throughout the '70s and '80s, supporting myself by teaching. I have never been a ‘dyed in the wool’ teacher, but I have to give thanks for the income, which allowed me to keep painting. I always say the best thing about teaching is the students.
During that period, painting became a kind of subversive activity. There was little support from the art establishment in London; the art gallery scene was all to do with ideas — conceptual art. Some art schools even stopped teaching the traditional skills of painting, drawing and sculpture. I went my own way. It was not easy being an artist in London — and there were many of us, exhibiting in warehouses and the like. We were ‘family’ — one big family of people who used paint.
GV: Who was your greatest influence in England? Who inspired you to continue painting?
MS: I had a great teacher, John Hoyland, from my first year at Chelsea onwards. He was a part of the art establishment and had quite a high profile career. His teaching wasn’t at all formal; he taught through telling stories. He was also very funny — we used to bust up with laughter, even to the point of tears. Although his paintings were great, what I really learned from him was an attitude.
GV: So what was behind your move to Jamaica?
MS: I came to Jamaica in 1988 with my second wife Margaret, who is a Jamaican textile artist, and our two year-old daughter Suzi. Margaret had always kept in touch with her Jamaican family, and we had paid several long visits. At the time, we were both teaching in the UK; it was our bread and butter. Then we were both made redundant by Maggie Thatcher! We arrived in Jamaica with the idea of trying it out for a couple of years. I was drawn to Kingston, because you aren’t seen as a tourist here, you can be yourself — 28 years later, we are still here.
GV: Did you adjust easily to life in Jamaica?
MS: Well, it wasn’t easy making a living, teaching and painting in Jamaica. So I used to supplement my income by traveling to the UK to do supply teaching, every summer. I did this for more than ten years; it kept us going.
GV: Your paintings are bright and colorful. What does color mean to you?
MS: Well, you know, this annual trip, from Jamaica to the UK, made me recognize the huge difference in the light. The way you see color changes. As you fly into the UK, the colors are muted. The light changes completely. It’s more natural to me to be colorful in my work. I always embraced color; I used to call myself the ‘Gauguin of West Norwood'! Many European artists’ work became more colorful when they moved south — for example, Delacroix, Van Gogh. The environment affects you.
GV: As artists, how have you and your wife Margaret influenced each other?
MS: Margaret’s work has always been a big influence on me. She has always channelled tropical imagery and color in her work. I would say her influence has increased over the years. Now — especially in my latest exhibition — I am leaning more towards semi-figurative art, myself.
GV: Now, here in Jamaica, what do you enjoy the most about your art?
MS: I am doing more big paintings again. I hadn’t done any big paintings for some time. But when I saw the Matisse exhibit at the Tate Modern in 2014, there were these huge cutout pictures. I thought, ‘I’ve got to do more big paintings’. By the way, you can see many of my large-scale works at the Trident Hotel in Port Antonio; they bought 22 of my paintings. Perhaps my early work at an architecture office in London inspired my large pieces — I am interested in public spaces. Now, funnily enough, I am teaching art at the Caribbean School of Architecture at the University of Technology in Kingston. Back to where I started!
Since I have been living here, I have exhibited on average every two years. I have had three large one-man exhibitions, roughly every ten years, with smaller ones in between and some joint exhibitions with Margaret.
GV: Finally, what are your thoughts on the current state of the Jamaican art scene?
MS: When we first arrived here, the art seemed like watered-down versions of what we had seen elsewhere. This was because many were trained outside Jamaica. Then David Boxer brought the (self-taught) Intuitives to public attention at the National Gallery of Jamaica — something so unique to Jamaica, something I’d never seen before. Younger Jamaican artists nowadays have more ambition, more professionalism. They have a more international approach, but they still retain a very Jamaican ‘twist’ — like Matthew McCarthy, who used to paint signs; and Leasho Johnson, a painter and graphic artist. The National Gallery of Jamaica has taken a more international approach in recent years, representing many different strands of contemporary art.

author: Emma Lewis


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More Naughty Than Nice: The Dutch Government’s Approach to the Black Pete Tradition · Global Voices
Nani Jansen Reventlow

“Saint Nicholas” and his helper “Black Pete” — “essentially a yearly recurring appearance of blackface” in The Netherlands. PHOTO: Michell Zappa (CC BY-SA 2.0 ) via Wikimedia Commons
As the summer holiday comes to an end and normal life in The Netherlands resumes, there are two things the Dutch can count on: the premature appearance of pepernoten and chocolate letters in supermarkets, and a dramatic upsurge of the debate surrounding Black Pete or “Zwarte Piet”, as he is called in Dutch.
Both have to do with the celebration on December 5 of the holiday of Saint Nicholas, the North European counterpart of Santa, described by David Sedaris in his humorous description of the holiday as “painfully thin and [dressed] not unlike the pope”. Global Voices previously published a piece about the tradition.
Black Pete is generally described as Saint Nicholas’ helper, arriving with him on the boat from Spain, bringing gifts and candy to children who have been nice. Kids who’ve been naughty run the risk of being taken back to Spain or—potentially worse—not getting any candy.
“Regardless of the reason for his skin tone, Black Pete is essentially a yearly recurring appearance of blackface in a country that generally considers itself tolerant, open-minded, and non-discriminatory.”
The reasons given for Pete’s blackness vary from his being a Moor, to his face having been blackened from sliding down sooty chimneys to secretly deliver said gifts and candy. (For some reason, Saint Nicholas rides the rooftops on his horse–David Sedaris can explain). Regardless of the reason for his skin tone, Pete is essentially a yearly recurring appearance of blackface in a country that generally considers itself tolerant, open-minded, and non-discriminatory.
In recent years, The Netherlands has been divided into two camps: one arguing that the Black Pete tradition is racist, and one arguing that it’s a harmless Dutch tradition. Each have their campaigns and prominent figures arguing for either position in the various debates that take place on the issue in the run-up to 5 December.
An interesting perspective is offered this year by the Children’s Ombudsman, who released a report (in Dutch) recommending that changes be made to the Black Pete tradition. The Ombudsman noted that no proper research had been conducted to date on whether the way the Saint Nicholas holiday is currently celebrated has any negative impact on children. She concluded, however, based on conversations with children, that non-white children experienced increased instances of discrimination around the holiday. The current practice, the report stated, was in contravention of The Netherlands’ obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, in particular Articles 2, 3 and 6. Following the release of the report, the Ombudsman received numerous threats.
“The Ombudsman concluded, based on conversations with children, that non-white children experienced increased instances of discrimination around the holiday.”
The matter of Black Pete has received attention in the past few years from various United Nations human rights bodies. In 2014, the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent conducted an official visit to The Netherlands. In a statement made following the visit, the Working Group pointed to the apparent blind spot that many Dutch citizens have regarding the Black Pete tradition.
“It is a fact that no country is free of racism and the Netherlands is not an exception,” the statement said. “But for a country that has long been perceived as having a long tradition of tolerance and openness, the silence around racism and racial discrimination is surprising and worrying, It affects the awareness and sensibilities around cultural traditions and cultural diversity in the Kingdom as exemplified in recent debates around the Black Pete (Zwarte Piet) celebration.”
The Working Group had reported earlier that it had been the target of threats when its investigations into complaints filed on the portrayal of Black Pete became known. The right-wing politician Geert Wilders commented that “it would be better to scrap the UN than Black Pete.”
The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, in its 2015 concluding observations on The Netherlands’ periodic reports on its compliance with the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, encouraged the Dutch government to “…actively promote the elimination of those features of the character of Black Pete which reflect negative stereotypes and are experienced by many people of African descent as a vestige of slavery.”
The government dismissed the idea of banning Black Pete, but said it “would promote a discussion, however ‘uncomfortable,’ about racism.”
“The Netherlands’ official response does not inspire much confidence in light of frequently surfacing reports about the outright prohibition of, or police interference in, demonstrations against Black Pete, and the lack of investigation into threats made against those who oppose the tradition.”
The Netherlands’ official response does not inspire much confidence in light of frequently surfacing reports about the outright prohibition of, or police interference in, demonstrations against Black Pete, and the lack of investigation into threats made against those who oppose the tradition.
It also appears to demonstrate a lack of comprehension by the Dutch government of its obligations under international law—in addition to the treaties mentioned above, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights come to mind—or at least an unwillingness to effectively implement them. This is striking in and of itself, but even more so on the part of a country that is the birthplace of international law and prides itself on its tradition of open-mindedness and the upholding of human rights.
The big question is: what next? Litigation has yielded little result. The Dutch courts appear to be in favour of having “society” find a solution rather than forcing the government to do so, but Dutch society seems too polarised to engage in any constructive conversation about a solution. Meanwhile, there is evidence that what is meant to be a children’s holiday is negatively affecting the country’s young people. Should the Dutch government then not act to remedy this?
Otherwise, it will be up to Saint Nicholas and Black Pete themselves to step in: pack the government in a bag and take them back to Spain, together with all the naughty kids.

author: Nani Jansen Reventlow