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Gezi’s Legacy? Biggest Party Humbled in Turkey’s Game-Changing General Election · Global Voices
Global Voices

Kurds march in Berlin against violence in Turkey's election campaign on June 6, 2015. Photo by Thorsten Strasas. Demotix ID: 7791816.
The following post covers Turkey's June 7 general election. Ece Basay, Erkan Saka, Efe Levent, Ahmet Sabanaci and Chris Rickleton contributed updates to this post.
With votes fully counted in a high-stakes general election in Turkey, long-dominant conservative AKP (Justice and Development Party) fell short of a majority in the parliament thanks to the emergence of the pro-Kurdish HDP (People's Democratic Party).
Results left the AKP with around 41% of the vote and unable to form a single party government. HDP, with around 13% of the vote, comfortably crossed the 10% threshold required for parliamentary representation, while the CHP Republican People's Party (25%) and the MHP nationalists (16.3%) also entered the parliament.
It did not take long before Turkish tweeps were calling both the results and an unprecedented uptick in citizen monitoring initiatives a victory for the 2013 Gezi park protests that the AKP government quelled with excessive force:
My take, too. The election monitoring initiative, the pro-Kurdish sentiment, diverse candidates all legacy of Gezi. https://t.co/oBze1mA27z
— Zeynep Tufekci (@zeynep) June 7, 2015
While Selahattin Demirtaş, HDP's leader, who ruled out forming a coalition with AKP, dedicated his party's success to both the youth of the Gezi movement, and the Turkish-Syrian border town of Kobane, which overcame the brutal ISIS radical group after over 133 days of intense fighting.
Demirtaş : Bu zafer Gezi'nin ve Kobane'nin kol kola yürüyen gün yüzlü gençlerin bize armağanıdır.
— İzmirliHDPli (@HDPlizmirli) June 7, 2015
This victory is a present of the smiling and shining youth of Gezi and Kobane
Voters also thanked the party's women's organisation for “changing the language” of politics in Turkey:
Siyasetin dilini, yapısını değiştiren @HDPkadin larına çok özel teşekkürler! Sessiz sedasız yürüttüğünüz devrim her yere bulaşsın :)
— Ayşe Gül Altınay (@aysealtinay) June 7, 2015
We specifically thank to @HDPKadin who have changed the language and the structure of politics. Let this silent revolution which you have been leading spread everywhere.
According to the constitution, a potential coalition government should be formed in 45 days. If that is not possible, fresh elections will be called. Analytical website JamesinTurkey.com looked at potential coalitions prior to the vote going ahead.
Voting in Turkey's crucial General Election commences in Istanbul on June 7, 2015. Photo by SADIK GÜLEÇ.  Demotix ID 7795364.
This video produced before the elections by the Taiwan-based TOMO news agency, which covers world events in short animated clips, shows how good news for HDP was bad news for President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's bid to shift constitutional powers from the parliament to the president.
Violations
Given the tight margins involved in the vote, it is perhaps not surprising that users following the elections using open source mapping documented a number of violations.
Citizen media group Dokuz8Haber, working with the Seçim Var project that crowdsourced reports from all over the country on election day, noted:
#Secim2015 #Sandıktayım #ENG pic.twitter.com/puNU3BGd2V
— dokuz8 (@dokuz8haber) June 7, 2015
Birgun, a live blog (in Turkish) also kept pace with violations. One key electoral controversy — as predicted in the TOMO video — was electricity failures. Power cuts hit polling stations in Urfa, a mainly Kurdish region where support for the HDP is strong and, more briefly, the Tesvikiye region of Istanbul.
Global Voices contributor Arzu Geybullayeva noted:
There are electricity cuts in tesvikiye. It's been 30min or so. #OyunaSahipCık #Periscope #Secim2015 is it a coincidence? — Arzu Geybulla (@arzugeybulla) June 7, 2015
Another seeming irregularity widely shared on social media was the appearance outside polling stations of cars with no number plates:
Mystery of cars without licence plates around polling stations. Authorities should explain… #TurkeyElections https://t.co/AdMVLAQcQX — Erkan Saka (@sakaerka) June 7, 2015
Some citizens responded to the appearance of the vehicles — assumed to be linked in some way to ballot fraud — by blasting their tires:
Türkiye'nin her yerinde plakasız araçların lastikleri patlatılmaya başladı. Efsane bir seçim… #lastikleripatlat — Volkan Bozaci (@Volkances) June 7, 2015
People have started to blast the tires of the cars without the licence plates. A legendary election #blastthetires
Regional party becomes national and international focus
In the run-up to the vote, HDP offices and rallies were subjected to attacks by unknown assailants.
On June 5, in the key Kurdish majority city of Diyarbakir, a party rally suffered a devestating bomb attack that killed two and injured hundreds, triggering anti-government protests among the country's Kurdish minority in the country's east and abroad.
The AKP publicly condemned the attacks, while President Erdoğan called the bomb blast a “provocation”.
As their votes promised to swing the election, the minority was the subject of much international attention:
130 year old Kurdish man voting . Arnt you ashamed Pakistanis for not standing for your rights #TurkeyElections pic.twitter.com/IpaagqGB7h — Maan Imran Khan (@MaanImranKhan) June 7, 2015
Wounded at the twin explosions at #HDP‘s #Diyarbakir rally, that's determination. #bbcturkey15 pic.twitter.com/eEg1ErNATa — Zeynep Erdim (@zeynep_erdim) June 7, 2015
In a far cry from scenes earlier in the week, HDP supporters in Diyarbakir were in a celebratory mood as preliminary results filtered in, ignoring the pleas of co-leader Selahattin Demirtas not to go wild before final totals were known:
Celebrations in Diyarbakir in front of HDP hq. #Turkeyvotes2015 pic.twitter.com/9orkvuteQD
— Humeyra Pamuk (@humeyra_pamuk) June 7, 2015
The AKP-formed government is credited by many with delivering long-run economic growth in the post-millennial era. But the party's perceived arrogance and authoritarian streak, embodied in  Erdoğan's political persona, appear to have alienated large swathes of the electorate.
Media freedom concerns
After the 2013 Gezi protests, the Turkish mainstream media earned themselves the moniker “penguin media” because of their pro-government messaging and skewed portrayal of the protesters.
In 2014, Freedom House explained its decision to change the country's press freedom ranking from free to unfree:
Turkey’s status declined from Partly Free to Not Free as a result of a sharp deterioration in the press freedom environment in 2013. Journalists were harassed and assaulted while attempting to cover the Gezi Park protests that broke out in Istanbul in May, and dozens were fired or forced to resign in response to their reporting on the demonstrations. Throughout the year, other prominent journalists were fired over their coverage of sensitive issues like negotiations between the government and the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) or corruption scandals involving Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his associates that emerged in December. The firings highlighted the close relationship between the government and many media owners, and the formal and informal pressure that this places on journalists.
Build, build build
Turkey's economic growth from the early years of the AKP era was accompanied by a construction boom that has continued apace even as the economy has slowed down, fuelling fears for the environment and the long-term future of the country's uniquely diverse cultural heritage.
For Global Voices posts on the boom see:
Can Istanbul be Saved from Overdevelopment?
Gezi's Echo and the Battle for Public Spaces in Turkey
Watch John Lubbock's ‘Istanbul: the Politics of Architecture‘
The Original Santa Claus is Under Threat from the Turkish Construction Industry. So is Much of Turkey's Unique Heritage
Gender inequality and violence
According to data from the Ministry of Justice, the rate of murders of women increased 1400% between 2002 until 2009, and there have been further increases since. While it is difficult to hold AKP directly accountable for the shocking uptick in gender violence during its rule, many Turkish feminists feel that a patriarchal party narrative and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's views on the impossibility of equality between the sexes have not helped matters.
Turkish women's representation in the workforce remains just over half the EU average and there has been little progress on this front in the last five years.
For Global Voices posts on gender-based violence and inequality in Turkey see:
As Turkish Women Struggle for Freedom from Violence, Their President Tells Them: Give up on Equality
‘You Will Do Anything for Ratings': More Outrage over the Wife Killer ‘Star’ of Turkish Daytime TV
Turkey Mourns a Female Student's Brutal Death
What Does Turkey's General Election Promise for Women?
Online tools’ contribution to the election
Global Voices author Erkan Saka has been tracking a number of online tools that have helped citizens follow and understand the electoral process better.
Covering Turkey's General Elections, One Tool at a Time
Data Set Demonstrates Attacks on Turkish Opposition Party's Campaign Offices Are Systematic
Ahead of Turkey's Critical General Election, a Fact-Checking Website Analyses Political Statements

author: Global Voices


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Veterans of Croatia’s War of Independence Are Still Knocking on the Government’s Door · Global Voices
Marinella Matejcic

Croatian police on one side of the fence, veterans-protesters on the other. Photo credit: Katarina Krizamanić, posted with permission
On May 29, a protest movement that has already lasted more than 225 days reached a climax when a small group of veterans from the Croatian War of Independence blocked one of the main streets in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. The veteran protesters, who have expressed dissatisfaction with their treatment by the government for years, blocked Savska street in the center of Zagreb with a couple of gas cylinders in order to gain the attention of Croatian media and decision makers.
Since the Croatian War of Independence, several protests have occurred centred on veterans’ rights and compensation for serving in the 1990s, notably in 2001 and 2011.
The rally in 2001 was organized as a show of support for General Mirko Norac, who was accused of killing Serbian civilians in Ogulin, Croatia, during the war. Ten years later veterans demanded to “stop the prosecution of Croatian veterans”, one of whom, Tihomir Purda, was accused by Serbian authorities of committing war crimes in Vukovar in 1991.
Veterans have also claimed that many of their numbers were not reimbursed for their service during the war and that a large proportion were left to fend for themselves, having been denied pensions by the government.
Both the Croatian National Parliament and the main government buildings are located on St. Marko's Square. After the gas cylinders incident on May 29, the veterans subsequently barricaded themselves in Saint Marko's church, which is situated in the Upper Town of Zagreb.
The situation on St. Marko's square divided a country. Some people considered the gas cylinders threats and self-imposed captivation as a form of terrorism while others viewed it as the veterans’ right in the context of unfulfilled demands.
Veterans from all over Croatia began pouring into their local veteran associations to join the protest the following day.
The leaders of the protests, Đuro Glogoski and Josip Klemm, as well as a few of their closest associates spent the night in the church. The veterans clashed with police three times during Saturday night as police tried to enter the building.
On Sunday, Glogoski made a statement:
Policija je sinoć u tri navrata pokušala ući u prostorije crkve, ali su se vratili jer im nismo dozvolili. Očekujemo od čelnih ljudi ove države da nas pozovu na razgovor. Procjenjujemo da je situacija ozbiljna. Zbog onog što se dogodilo sinoć, mislimo da su naši životi ugroženi. Gospoda iz policije jučer su htjela oteti Josipa Klemma, ali nije im uspjelo.
Last night, the police tried three times to get into the church, but they had to go back because we didn't let them. We are expecting, from the heads of the people of this country, to call us for a conversation. This situation is serious. Because of what happened last night, we think that our lives are at stake. Gentlemen from the police tried to kidnap Josip Klemm, but they failed.
Minister of Veterans’ Affairs Predrag Matic managed to speak with the protesters on May 30, a Saturday, and heard their demand for an audience with Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic. But with Croatia's bureaucracy closed for business at the weekend, the meeting took place on Monday.
Since no agreement was reached during the meeting with Milanovic, Matic, and other officials on Monday, Đuro Glogoski announced that the veterans — who are pushing for the resignations of Matic and his deputy Bojan Glavasevic — will stay in their camp on Savska Street in downtown Zagreb and wait for the next meeting with government officials scheduled for Monday, June 8.
Prime Minister Milanovic told media after the first meeting with the veterans that the issues the protesters raised “are small for Croatia and [they] are making too much noise about them.”

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Marinella Matejcic


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Will Icelanders One Day Ditch Their Language for English? · Global Voices
PRI/PRX's The World

A mini Icelandic language lesson on the back of Icelandair's headrest. Photo by Flickr user jayneandd. CC BY 2.0
This article and radio report by Patrick Cox for The World in Words originally appeared on PRI.org on June 3, 2015, and is republished here as part of a content-sharing agreement.
Jón Gnarr is best known as the comedian who became the mayor of Reykjavik.
He’s also a great lover of the Icelandic language — and he fears for its future.
“I think Icelandic is not going to last,” says Gnarr. “Probably in this century we will adopt English as our language. I think it’s unavoidable.”
This is not an outlier view. Some linguists believe it is a distinct possibility that Icelandic will lose out to English. Among them, Ari Páll Kristinsson who is in charge of language planning at the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies, the Icelandic government's language research agency.
“English is everywhere now, from the moment we wake up until we die,” says Kristinsson.
He means that quite literally. Births take places with the aid of medical devices whose instructions are in English, so hospital staff must be able to read English. And at funerals, Kristinsson says, friends and family often remember their loved one with songs sung in English.
It’s a big deal for any linguistic group to witness the marginalization of their mother tongue. It’s especially poignant for Icelanders.
Consider this survey devised by Zuzana Stankovitsova, a Slovak who has lived in Reykjavik for the past few years, studying the Icelandic language. She sensed that Icelanders had unusually strong feelings about their language.  To test this, she asked Slovaks and Icelanders to define their nationality.
Most of the Slovaks said, “I am Slovak because my parents are Slovak.” Or, “I am Slovak because I was born in Slovakia.”
Icelanders responded differently. Usually, along the lines of, “I am Icelandic because I speak Icelandic.”
Most adult Icelanders recall singing a song at school called “Land, Nation and Tongue.” It’s based on a poem by Snorri Hjartarson, written in 1952 when Iceland was a new nation.
“Land, nation and tongue was a divine trinity — not the divine trinity. But on a similar level as that,” says Kristinsson. He says this patriotic belief was instilled in him as a child.
“If we lost the Icelandic language, there would be no Icelandic nation,” says Kristinsson. “And if there’s no Icelandic nation, there is no Icelandic sovereignty.”
Iceland only won full independence, from its colonial master Denmark, during World War II. The divine trinity was finally in place. But almost immediately there was a challenge to the language, though not recognized at the time. It came in the form of 40,000 US troops who were stationed in Iceland during the war. The US military didn’t completely leave until 2006.
By then, most Icelanders spoke fluent English alongside their native tongue.
Urbanization, air travel, satellite TV, and the Internet have all followed. Every nation has been changed by these things. But Iceland arguably more so, more quickly. Gone was the isolation that had done so much to protect the language.
“When I was growing up, very few people spoke English,” says Gnarr. “With my generation, through TV and music it became necessary to understand English.”
Gnarr’s children speak much better English than he does. They have friends all over the world who they converse with on social media.
“But they don’t speak as good Icelandic as I do,” says Gnarr. “It’s a drastic change in a very short time.”
Language purists — and there are many in Iceland — believe that the best chance for survival would be to resist importing words from English, and to hang on to the language’s archaic and complicated grammar. That, after all, is what makes Icelandic unique. (Here's moreon Icelanders’ attempts to update their language by recycling old words.) If it ends up sounding like other languages, then people would be less inclined to value it. That’s the argument.
“I think that people, especially older people, are very skeptical of the use of the English,” says Larissa Kyzer, an American who lives in Reykjavik and studies Icelandic.
Kyzer has noticed a big push to make Icelanders proud of their language. “The afterschool program where I work has all these posters up on the wall now: ‘Icelandic is our mother tongue,’” she says. “I had a teacher who would [tell] her children, she said they could swear all they wanted as long as they used Icelandic swearwords.”
There are several possibilities for the future of Icelandic. Here are two.
The first draws on Icelanders’ reverence for storytelling, from the Sagas of Iceland’s early years to the extraordinary number of writers today.  Some linguists believe that the tipping point for Icelandic — the moment when it may truly leave the hearts of Icelanders — would be when the country’s poets and novelists stop writing in Icelandic. Sverrir Norland has some experience of this.
To improve his writing, the young Icelander left his home country for a creative writing course in London.
“For obvious reasons, I had to write in English,” says Norland.
First it felt fake, but then liberating, which reminded him of a quote attributed to Bjork.
“She said something like, ‘When I first started singing in English I felt like I was lying.’” Says Norland. “That’s kind of terrible thing, but at the same time it’s kind of freeing. You can be whoever you want to be.”
You can even pretend you’re not Icelandic.
Norland didn’t go that far. In fact, today, he’s writing in Icelandic again. But would he ever write more fiction in English? Not out of the question, he says.
So that’s the first possibility — that some writers may switch to English, sending a powerful message to their readers in Iceland.
Here’s the second, rosier possibility: Immigration may give Icelandic a boost.
In the tiny town of Flúðir, on the other side of a mountain range from Reykjavik, Azeb Kahssay co-owns Minilik, an Ethiopian restaurant. Her native tongue is Amharic.  She has lived in Iceland for 7 years, and says she picked up Icelandic quite quickly.
“I’m more Icelandic perfect, not English,” she says. Just like her Icelandic husband. They speak to each other in Icelandic. Kahssay is probably the world’s only Ethiopian who speaks better Icelandic than English.
Sverrir Norland, the writer who has written in English but now is back writing in Icelandic, believes the Icelandic identity comes with writing and speaking the language.
“If I’m telling the story in Icelandic I’m thinking about Icelandic readers, and I’m assuming they share a similar experience and knowledge about the stuff I’m talking about,” says Norland. “But if I’m writing in English about Icelandic people, I would be explaining all kinds of different things — so it would turn out very differently.”
The World in Words podcast is on Facebook and iTunes.
With support from the National Endowment for the Humanities

author: PRI/PRX's The World


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Big Brother Mouse and an Elephant: Innovative Ways of Delivering Books in Laos · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

The story of the elephant Boom-Boom is told in the book ‘The Little Elephant That Could’. Boom-Boom helps in distributing books in remote locations in Laos
A group in Laos has been using several innovative ways to deliver books and promote literacy across the country. Laos is a developing nation in Southeast Asia with a majority rural population.
As a publisher, Big Brother Mouse has published more than 300 children’s books since 2006 but it also organizes rural book parties, teacher training workshops, and literacy sessions to improve the habit of reading among the Lao youth. It also receives book donations and distributes them in schools to build village libraries. To reach a remote location, the volunteers sometimes ride on an elephant ‘staff member’ named Boom-Boom to deliver the books to rural kids.
The group was established to provide “books that make literacy fun!” The name Big Brother is a translation of “Ai Nu Noi”, which in Lao culture signifies love and unity in a family. This principle has guided Big Brother Mouse which identifies itself as a publisher, book distributor, and a volunteer organization:
We're not just a publisher. We give hands-on experience to young people as they learn new skills. We're also developing effective new ways to distribute books in a country where currently, there's no good system for that.
One of the popular activities organized by young volunteers of Big Brother Mouse is the rural book party where children are able to learn and read through games:
When we have a rural book party, or hold an art contest at a school, young Lao men and women lead the activities and make the presentations. Children discover that books can be fun. They also envision new possibilities for their own lives.
At book parties we read aloud, play games, sing songs about books, and give every child a book of their own, usually the first one they ever owned.
Teacher Jansaeng from the Nahai Village in Xayabuli Province affirms the effectiveness of book parties to inspire children to read:
Since the book party, many children like to read during their break. Attendance got better because students had books to read. Every day about 85% of students in the school read books. Also, now many more students are writing their own stories.
An important member of Big Brother Mouse is an elephant named Boom-Boom which means ‘books’ in the Lao language:
Boom-Boom became a part-time member of our staff, helping us get books into remote villages of Xayabuli Province. Kids have always been excited when Big Brother Mouse arrived in their village. They're even more excited when we arrive with an elephant. And our staff is thrilled that not only do they not have to carry all those books up mountains and over streams, but after they've dispersed some of the books that Boom-Boom carried early on each trip, they can sometimes get a free ride.
Below are some of the photos featuring the activities conducted by Big Brother Mouse across Laos:
Saodieo Village, Xayaboury Province, Laos
Sompori Village, Attapeu Province, Laos
Dorn Village, Xayaboury Province, Laos
Norngchorng Village, Luang Prabang Province, Laos
Somsanouk Village, Attapeu Province, Laos
Taothan Village, Vientiane Province, Laos
Sorngneua Village, Luang Prabang Province, Laos
To expand its programs, Big Brother Mouse is planning to build a ‘Discovery World and Learning Center’ on a three-hectare lot in the town of Luang Prabang.

author: Mong Palatino


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#GirlsCan Campaign Kicks Off with FIFA Women’s World Cup to Empower Girls in Sports · Global Voices
Marinella Matejcic

Credit: Women deliver, posted with permission
As the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Canada started kicked off on June 6, a number of organizations joined forces in launching the #GirlsCan advocacy campaign. Women Deliver, UNICEF, Right to Play, GAIN and One Goal are using the FIFA as a backdrop to raise awareness of how sports can positively influence girls’ lives and call for more research and funding for girls’ sports.
Lauren Himiak, Women Deliver's Communications Manager, explained it to Global Voices:
The #GirlsCan hashtag and campaign kicked off encouraging the public to share photos of themselves playing sport and talking about why it was important in their development. We have seen everything from female racecar drivers in training to boxers in Africa participate, and we cannot wait keep the buzz growing. The great thing about #GirlsCan is to see the messages coming out of Twitter…”#GirlsCan change the world; #GirlsCan do everything boys can do; #GirlsCan be the next president”!
The campaign is calling on people worldwide to take action, either by participating in the #GirlsCan campaign and advocating on girls’ involvement in sports in their communities, or by spreading the word on social networks. Those interested in the on-going campaigns can follow hashtags  #GirlsCan, #PowerInPlay or #InvestInGirls.
Sports programs represent a highly effective, low-cost means of addressing some of the most pressing global development challenges. Involvement in sports improves the overall health of adolescents and young women, including sexual and reproductive health, and it gives children and youth opportunities to be more successful and achieve gender equality in their communities.
Part of the campaign is the Girl Power in Play Symposium which will be held June 18-19, 2015, in Ottawa, Canada. The symposium's agenda this year focuses on the most pressing global gender issues, including girls’ right to play sports and related topics within the fields of health, education, nutrition, life-skills, and gender norms. The pinnacle of the #GirlsCan campaign is expected on October 11, 2015, when the organizations will share collected stories, research, blogs, and ideas on how can sports empower girls on and off the field.


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International ‘Freedom Flotilla III’ on Its Way to Break the Gaza Siege · Global Voices
Elia J. Ayoub

Marianne of Gothenburg departs. (Photo credit: Ship to Gaza)
The Marianne of Gothenburg, jointly acquired by Ship to Gaza Sweden and Ship to Gaza Norway, which left its home port of Sweden on May 10, was the first of three vessels to leave in an attempt to break Israel's blockade of Gaza. In a press release published on May 10, the Marianne of Gothenburg group declared that it “will join other ships to form ‘Freedom Flotilla III’, a peaceful, nonviolent action to break the illegal and inhumane blockade of the Gaza Strip.”
As of today, the ‘Freedom Flotilla III‘ has reached the Mediterranean, with conferences planned in Portugal and Spain for the next few days. Participants in the Freedom Flotilla Coalition also include Canadian Boat to Gaza, Greece Ship to Gaza, Freedom Flotilla Italia, South Africa Palestine Solidarity Alliance, Spain Rumbo a Gaza and Turkey's Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH).
Israel keeps the port of Gaza closed, which used to be the main point of connection to the world #Justice4Freedom https://t.co/8IlmpBVOXn
— Freedom Flotilla (@GazaFFlotilla) June 8, 2015
In their most recent video update, from Lisbon, Portugal, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition explained the historical context behind their cause:
I want to give a short history of the Swedish International Solidarity work. It actually started here [Lisbon] during the war against the fascists. 500 Swedish people volunteered in the International Brigades to fight Franco. Most of them, 350 of these fighters, were sailors. And as a Swedish sailor, I am proud to carry on this legacy.
Other members gave their thoughts on the current situation in Gaza and their hopes for breaking the siege.
- The people only remember Gaza when there is a war. And when the war ends everyone calls me and says “congrats, the war is finished, you are in peace. But there is no peace when the war ends. The real war starts.
- We ask: Why doesn't anyone care for the fishermen in Gaza? They get shot at, seriously harmed, and sometimes killed.
- If we succeed to break the siege of Gaza, I think it's possible to do anything.
- It's obvious that Israel will use all its power to stop the boat from entering.
- We will not give away our boat to the Israelis. We will not give away our boat to soldiers on international waters. It's my right. Actually, I have a strong right to defend my boat, but we will do this in a non-violent way.
- It was great news for us that ‘Marianne’ is coming to shore right now in Portugal and can take this message of solidarity and friendship from all the Portuguese people. Marianne is breaking the waves and we in Portugal keep the work in parliaments, in the schools, in the work places، on the streets, just to raise awareness about what's going on in Palestine.
Bob Lovelace, Canadian delegate to the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, wrote for Canadian Voice of Women for Peace‘s website on his hopes for this coalition:
Along with BDS, the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza stands as an inspiration and an effective action seeking justice for Palestine. Against incredible odds both campaigns continue to triumph; sometimes small, sometimes large but always keeping the flame of justice and freedom for Palestine alive. Despite political or material sabotage by Israel or international forces, they continue to lead the way and enrol people the world over to the side of credible, effective non-violent action and solidarity with Palestine. After many criminal acts of state piracy in open sea, sabotage in international ports, imprisonment and even outright deadly assault on civilians, the Freedom Flotilla remains alive and is ever resilient.
Gaza Ark Exhibition 2015 Poster
There are many activities planned in Gaza in anticipation of the Freedom Flotilla's arrival such as the “Gaza Ark Exhibition“, an exhibition of Palestinian products hoped to be exported by the Freedom Flotilla III. In a formal statement, dated June 5, they explained:
When Gaza's Ark was destroyed during last year’s attack on Gaza by Israel, we all lost a boat intended to break the blockade “from the inside out”. But our goal of helping to build a sovereign Palestinian economy based on freedom of movement has not changed. Palestinian products from both Gaza and the West Bank were to be exported not only as a symbolic stimulus to the Palestinian economy but to show the world the industrious work of craftspeople and farmers who continue to struggle against the overwhelming odds of occupation, economic strangulation and war.
Sameera Qarmout, from one of the producers’ organizations at the exhibit, expressed her hopes that she would be able to sell her goods this time:
Before it was attacked, we had the hope that our embroideries would be exported aboard Gaza's Ark. The coming Freedom Flotilla III has given us a light of new hope that our products will still be made available to world markets.
The exhibit includes goods from Palestinian producers in Gaza as well as goods from West Bank producers that reached Gaza in spite of the Israeli Occupier’s restrictions: embroidery, wood carvings and olive oil.
There have been several attempts to break the siege on Gaza between 2008 and 2010 and the boats have had such participants as 1976 Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead Corrigan, Palestinian Legislative Council member Mustafa Barghouti, Irish peace activist Caoimhe Butterly, US congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, author Alice Walker, Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein as well as international journalists and doctors and several EU parliamentarians from a variety of political parties.
This attempt will mark five years since Israel's deadly raid on the Mavi Marmara in 2010. The raid resulted in the death of nine activists from the Free Gaza Movement and the Turkish Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (İHH). Some of the current flotilla's members, such as Kevin Knish, were on the Mavi Marmara.
Israel debería ser juzgado por crímenes contra la humanidad. Volveremos a navegar hasta que así sea #Justice4Freedom https://t.co/FnKEjdInN4
— Rumbo a Gaza (@rumboagaza) June 8, 2015
Israel needs to be judged for Crimes Against Humanity. We will keep on sailing until that happens.
The coalition is updating about its whereabouts through its Twitter account and Facebook page as well as on their official website. You can also follow our updates on Global Voices Checkdesk.

author: Elia J. Ayoub


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Iran Increases Internet Surveillance Ahead of Parliamentary Elections · Global Voices
Arseh Sevom

Deputy Interior Minister Hossein Zolfaghari announced that a “Security Committee” to monitor election-related activities would be created earlier than expected. Photo by IRNA, and published with permission to reuse.
This post first appeared on Arseh Sevom's Dar Sahn page.
Iran’s deputy interior minister announced that the police and the intelligence ministry would be monitoring the internet and social media for activity regarding the upcoming elections in the country.
In a press conference in Tehran during the week of June 1, 2015, Deputy Interior Minister Hossein Zolfaghari announced that a “Security Committee” to monitor election-related activities would be created earlier than expected. “The security committee will be made up of representatives from the police, Revolutionary Guards, army, and state radio and television.” Zolfaghari also added that similar committees would be created throughout Iran.
In view of the sensitive situation on Iran’s western borders and the movements of terrorist groups such as IS in the area, the upcoming Iranian elections will take place in an atmosphere of security.
The deputy interior minister has informed the Persian-language media that 60,000 polling stations would be set up for the elections of members of parliament and members of the Assembly of Experts and 300,000 people will be working with the government in this process.
A growing number of social media users in Iran combined with speedy information circulation have Iranian authorities seriously concerned. In addition to monitoring online sources, the security committee will create a “security map” to identify sensitive areas for upcoming elections.

author: Arseh Sevom


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Is Cash-Strapped Portugal Using Austerity as an Excuse to Privatise Water? · Global Voices
Manuel Ribeiro

Water privatisation in Portugal. Image: WeHaveKaosinTheGarden. Used with permission
Water privatisation is once again a topic of debate in Portugal. The subject was recently discussed in the Portuguese parliament, where the leader of the The Greens party, Heloisa Apolonia, accused the government of “withdrawing its promises on the water sector”.
Minister of Environment Jorge Moreira da Silva has assured that authorities will not privatise Águas de Portugal (ADP), the national company that manages water supply in the country. However, the minister is supporting the restructuring of the treatment system and water supply — which includes raising tariffs in the coastal municipalities to reduce prices in the interior of the country — to ensure its “economic and financial sustainability.”
Local councilors fear that this restructuring is a step to privatise this essential commodity in the same way the country's urban waste management company fell into private hands in 2014. The country's high levels of debt put it at the mercy of foreign capital, making it more vulnerable to privatisation.
But the minister has rejected this theory, saying that the reform implemented avoids this scenario. Moreira da Silva says the plan will lead to greater equity in the cost of water across the country.
Noticias ao Minuto – Águas de Portugal: Afinal, o preço da água subirá em todo o país: http://t.co/W7lfjUlUTI via @noticiaaominuto
— Elton Mello (@medindoagua) May 22, 2015
Latest news – Aguas de Portugal: In the end, the price of water will rise around the country
The restructuring was predicted to bring water prices down in the country's interior and up everywhere else, but in fact households everywhere will be paying more. Nuno Cardoso, ex-president of the local water company Águas do Douro e Paiva, called the idea that families would be paying less a “fallacy“.
The minister's explanations did not convince Twitter user Artur Amorim, who believed that privatising the water in Portugal is part of the political agenda:
ÁGUA / URGENTE = NÃO ACREDITEM NOS POLÍTICOS PORTUGUESES! Privatizar toda a água em Portugal, está na agenda deles. http://t.co/vcZusKH5MI
— Artur Amorim (@ArturAmorim59) abril 17, 2015
WATER / URGENT = DO NOT BELIEVE IN THE PORTUGUESE POLITICIANS! Privatising all water in Portugal is on their agenda.
Talk about privatasing Portugal's water services has been around at least since the country entered economic crisis several years ago and received a rescue package for its public debt in 2011 from the so-called toika — the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank.
In 2012, in an article published by the Portuguese Business newspaper Jornal de Negocios, then-Minister of the Environment Assunção Cristas referred to the troika‘s desire to make the company Aguas de Portugal private:
A privatização da Águas de Portugal foi já abordada várias vezes com a troika, explicou Assunção Cristas aos deputados. “Dissemos que precisávamos de tempo e temos 2012 para fazer uma reestruturação do grupo ADP e só depois disso será conhecido o modelo de privatização”, concretizou, remetendo a concretização do processo para 2013.
The privatisation of Aguas de Portugal has already been addressed several times with the troika, said Assunção Cristas to the members of parliament. “We replied we needed time and we have the year 2012 to perform a restructuring of the Águas de Portugal group and only after that the privatisation model will be made known,” she said, leaving the completion of the process for 2013.
In 2013, the same minister kept her promise and went to parliament to defend “the sale of waste management public enterprises and the sub-concession to private companies of water supply systems”:
Anti-privatisation activists created the Facebook page “Movement for Water – Put privatisation of water to a referendum” on social networks in response. The platform appears to be less active nowadays, but its posts still ring true. In 2013, one of the posts said that “no private company or multinational will venture into the water business if it does not generate profits by the millions” and wondered “what is the government interest in privatising this public asset that is, above all, a human right?”
Ricardo Carvalho responded at the time with the following comment:
A água potável é fonte de riqueza apetecível às empresas privadas. Se não são mais rentáveis é porque não sabem gerir o serviço. Deve ser dada a devida importância aos Sistemas de Informação Geográfico assim como à gestão com o intuito de minimizar as perdas. Também a pressão existente na rede e contadores qualificados fazem com que o negócio da água seja rentável. Não é preciso privatizar mas sim ser eficiente.
Drinking water is a source of wealth attractive to private companies. If it is no longer profitable, it is because [the government] does not know how to manage the service. It must be given its due importance in terms of Geographic Information Systems as well as management in order to minimise losses. Also the pressure on the network and qualified accountants make the water business profitable. No need to privatise, but to be efficient.
It's true that there is lots of money to be made in the water business. The commercial and strategic value of water — dubbed “blue gold”, a spin on the term “black gold” for oil — has not escaped the interest of multinationals. Nestlé, the largest food producer in the world, leads the bottled water market. The company's president argues that “water is a food and as any food must have a market value.”
But privatisation has given rise to social tensions in various regions of the world. The documentary “Blue Gold – World War for Water” shows the “thirst to privatise the water” by the big multinationals and the involvement of the World Bank.
A report released in 2013 by a German TV station showed how the European Union (EU) has initiated a project of privatisation of water across Europe, including in some regions of Portugal. These regions served as the precursors of this “secret” plan:
In 2014, during a celebration of the European Citizens’ Initiative “Water and sanitation are human rights,” The Greens party euro-deputy Bas Eickhout criticized the European Commission together with the troika for demanding the privatisation of Aguas de Portugal:
And on water privatisation, officially it's not the commission's policy yet […] however, it's true if you then look at the troika and if you look at the memorandum of understanding between, for example, the troika and Portugal, there's nothing on it. But then if you read the progress reports, the commission as part of the troika is asking to further privatise Aguas de Portugal, so in the troika the commission is still pushing for privatisation. So if it is really a human right and if we really are serious to the citizens and to this initiative, we should start acting […]
The parliament of Greece is preparing to introduce legislation that attempts to fit water as a human right in its constitution. If it succeeds, the country will become a pioneer in Europe with regard to the conservation of an essential commodity and its universal access.
The Greek initiative set the tone for the movement Right2Water, which gathered several European organizations in order to get two million signatures for the EU to start the debate and create the appropriate legislation at the European level. This has not happened yet, but this bill will again be discussed in Parliament soon, according to the portal InfosGrécia .
The privatization push continues at a breakneck pace in Portugal. Aguas de Portugal, which is partially owned by Energias de Portugal (the country's energy supplier, which was privatised in 2011), could generate the interest of Nestlé.
On Facebook, Hélio Moreira quoted a famous reflection of Portuguese writer and Nobel Prize in Literature winner José Saramago, who in an outburst wrote a record about privatisation in his Lanzarote Notebooks – Daily III (pages 147 and 148):
Privatize-se tudo, privatize-se o mar e o céu, privatize-se a água e o ar, privatize-se a justiça e a lei, privatize-se a nuvem que passa, privatize-se o sonho, sobretudo se for diurno e de olhos abertos. E finalmente, para florão e remate de tanto privatizar, privatizem-se os Estados, entregue-se por uma vez a exploração deles a empresas privadas, mediante concurso internacional. Aí se encontra a salvação do mundo… e, já agora, privatize-se também a p*** que os pariu a todos.
Privatise it all, privatise the sea and the sky, privatise water and air, privatise justice and the law, privatise the passing cloud, privatise the dream, especially if it is daytime and with open-eyed. And finally, after so much privatisation, privatise governments, surrender once and for all their exploitation to private companies through an international share offering. Therein lies the salvation of the world … and, while you're at it, privatise the whore mothers who gave birth to you.

author: Manuel Ribeiro


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Israel Says A-WA — ‘Yes!’ — to Singing Yemenite Sisters · Global Voices
PRI/PRX's The World

Tagel, Tair and Liron Haim, the three sisters that make up A-WA. Credit: Tomer Yosef
This article and radio report by Avishay Artsy for The World as part of the Across Women's Lives project originally appeared on PRI.org on June 4, 2015, and is republished here as part of a content-sharing agreement.
Three musically-talented sisters from Israel have formed a band that’s gaining a following in the Muslim world.
They’ve unearthed ancient Yemenite melodies, and have combined them with irresistible electronic dance music and hip-hop beats. Tair, Liron and Tagel Haim (not to be confused with Los Angeles's own three-sister rock band, Haim) named their band A-WA, the Egyptian Arabic word for “yes.”
“It’s a short name, very catchy, positive,” Tair Haim said. “Like something you would call in a celebration to cheer everyone up.”
A-WA’s first single, “Habib Galbi,” is also catchy and positive. In the music video, the young women wear bright pink dresses and head scarves, and ride across the desert in a white jeep. Then they dance-battle three young men wearing matching blue Adidas tracksuits.
Their father’s parents came to Israel from Yemen. When they were little, the sisters sang traditional Yemenite melodies at their school in the tiny village of Shaharut, in the desert of southern Israel.
“It was kind of like Little House on the Prairie, you know? We used to go barefoot and sing to the wind. We had such a lovely childhood,” Tair said.
That’s not something you hear very often from Mizrahi Jews. They’re Jews who come from Arab or Muslim countries, and have been among the poorest and most disenfranchised residents of Israel. For decades, they fought for equality with European, Ashkenazi Jews.
But the Haim sisters belong to a younger generation who are reclaiming their Middle Eastern heritage. Now, they say, it’s cool to be Mizrahi. What’s more, they’re getting fan mail from all over the Muslim world.
“Yeah, we get lots of comments from Yemen and Morocco and it’s amazing, that people know that we’re from Israel, and still, they like the music, and they feel connected and they enjoy it,” Tair said.
The band is also following in the footsteps of Ofra Haza, the Israeli singer who brought Yemenite music to global audiences in the 1980s.
The band discovered a recording of “Habib Galbi” from the 1960s, from the singer Shlomo Moga’av. It was their first time hearing the song, and they were surprised to hear a man singing it.
“It was like finding a treasure, because these songs that we perform in this album, are songs that were created by women in Yemen, and it was like an oral tradition,” Tair said. “These songs were only recorded in Israel in the 50s and 60s.”
“Habib Galbi” translates as “Love of My Heart,” but it’s from the perspective of a woman whose lover has abandoned her.
“The women in Yemen couldn’t write or read, and they weren’t allowed to pray with the men,” Liron said. “So the only way they could express their feelings and emotions were through those songs. It’s all about their anxieties and difficulties.”
The sisters wanted to give these ancient songs a modern twist. They needed a producer. And so they sent a demo to Tomer Yosef, a member of the popular Israeli electronic group Balkan Beat Box.
“Tomer, one day, decided to take our demos and to give it to the Yemenite old women,” Tair said. “They loved it and they thought we were from Yemen. Like we were old women from Yemen.”
That was the sound they were going for. The video for “Habib Galbi” has been watched more than 400,000 times on YouTube. It was even posted on the “Mipsterz” (Muslim Hipsters) Facebook page. They plan to release their debut album later this year.


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Monitoring Mexico’s Midterm Elections with #BreakTheFear · Global Voices
Elizabeth Rivera

“I want democracy”. Picture by Marte Merlos under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
During last Sunday's elections in Mexico, the free-speech organization ARTICLE 19 ran a campaign called #RompeElMiedo (#BreakTheFear) to monitor the safety of journalists and human rights activists. The effort focused on Mexico City, Guerrero, Michoacan, the State of Mexico, Oaxaca, Puebla, and Guanajuato (key areas where election reporting has been risky in the past).
The #RompeElMiedo network, which aggregates complaints about the harassment of journalists and rights workers, has been activated 11 times since 2013, when it first launched.
La frecuencia de las agresiones sigue aumentando: en temporada electoral, una cada 10.6 horas. Durante la primera quincena de mayo, se registraron 34 agresiones contra comunicadores; de estas, ocho se relacionan directamente con la cobertura de actos de campaña o hechos relacionados con las elecciones. Estos ataques son ejemplo de la falta de condiciones para el ejercicio de los derechos a la libertad de expresión e información.
Desde su inicio, la red ha hecho un llamado directo a los gobiernos del Distrito Federal, de la República, así como a los diferentes gobiernos estatales y municipales, para que de manera pacífica y apegada a los estándares internacionales en materia de derechos humanos garanticen el adecuado desarrollo de las jornadas de protestas y el libre flujo de información en estos contextos.
These acts of aggression are occurring more frequently. During election season, there's one every 10.6 hours. During the first half of May, we registered 34 attacks against journalists; eight of them directly related to the coverage of political campaigns and elections. This aggression is an example of the lack of safe conditions when it comes to the freedom of expression and information.
Since its beginning, the network has called on officials at the city, state, and national levels to guarantee the safety of demonstrators and the free flow of information in a peaceful and lawful manner, according to international human rights standards
As part of its operations during Mexico's voting, ARTICLE 19 published real-time updates on Tumblr about the situation for election reporting, including security recommendations for journalists and activists on the ground. The same platform was used to create a map to track attacks:
Attack-tracking map for 2015 midterm elections in Mexico. Network #RompeElMiedo (Break the Fear).
Using the Twitter hashtag #RompeElMiedo (BreakTheFear), election monitors were able to catalogue instantaneously the voting's various irregularities and episodes of violence:
Armando Rincón asistente electoral del INE, impide trabajo de la prensa | #TabascoDecide2015pic.twitter.com/kYYW2Z9sf8
— Olmeca Diario (@OlmecaDiario) June 7, 2015
Armando Rincón, INE (National Election Institute) election assistant prevents the press from working.
Policía de Cholula retiene a reportero #RompeElMiedo@article19mex#Pueblahttps://t.co/9jmhy70NIE
— Lado B (@ladobemx) June 7, 2015
Cholula police hold back a reporter.
#RompeElMiedo@article19mex Periodista Azucena Rivas golpeada en Lara Grajales por gente de la CTM a bordo de una camioneta placas SJ90830
— Red Periodistas Pue (@Periodistas_Pue) June 7, 2015
Journalist Azucena Rivas was assaulted in Lara Grajales by people from CTM (Confederation of Mexican Worker) who were riding a pickup truck with license plates SJ90830.
#RompeElMiedo Las agresiones en contra de @centronline son intensos desde las primeras horas de este 7 de junio. cc @article19mex
— Felipe P. Mecinas (@mecinas) June 7, 2015
Attacks against @centronline have been intense since the early hours of the day, June 7.
Besides the reports under this hashtag, you can follow tweets about Mexico's midterm elections with the following two hashtags: #Elecciones2015 and #Votaciones2015.

author: Elizabeth Rivera


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Spain’s ‘Indignados’ Make the Leap From City Squares to City Councils · Global Voices
Elena Arrontes

Facebook cover photo from the citizen platform Barcelona en Comú. Photo by Marc Lozano. (CC BY-SA 4.0)
May 24, 2015, will be remembered as a historic day in Spanish politics: for the first time, the political movement know as indignados, which occupied the streets across the country in the mass protests that started back in 2011, entered the official realms of power.
For the first time, the two-party system that has characterized Spanish democracy is facing a real challenge. This is a significant development, as Spain is five months away from general elections that will decide which party will rule the country in the coming years.
Spaniards went to the polls late last month to vote in municipal elections to choose the new major in main cities and villages across the country and regional elections to vote for the leader of 13 of its 17 autonomous communities. Alternative political parties, some of them appearing on the ballot for the first time, had considerably strong showings, taking votes from the two major political parties that had until then shared power at the municipal, regional  and central government levels.
The new parties were born as a result of recent social movements against austerity, inequality and corruption, and competed in these elections proposing a profound change to the system. Unthinkable until recently, they managed to rise as an alternative to major traditional parties. They advocate for the end to official auto fleets and speculative projects and support taxing electrical companies, fining banks in possession of empty houses, and auditing the public debt.
The night that election results came in was full of tension and excitement, as races were close in many regions. Although the ruling conservative Popular Party (PP) remains as the first force in national politics, it lost 2.4 million voters and some of its strongholds across the country. PSOE, the opposition social democratic party, lost 700,000 voters compared to the municipal elections of 2011, but if it comes to an agreement with other minority parties, it could regain some of its localities.
As none of them obtained the absolute majority required to govern, the parties and citizen platforms that participated in these elections must reach an agreement among each other in the coming weeks to decide who will ultimately govern the autonomous communities and municipalities in Spain.
Ada Colau, winner of the Barcelona municipal elections, in an neighborhood assembly. Photo BenComu (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Ada Colau, known for her social activism, especially as part of the anti-eviction organization known as PAH, led a political campaign in recent months representing the citizen platform Barcelona En Comú, which ran in local elections in Barcelona.
She was elected as Barcelona's mayor on May 24, 2015, obtaining 11 councilors. Since her collective did not obtain an absolute majority, it will have to reach an agreement with other political parties in Catalonia to be able to rule the city council.
Manuela Carmena, 71, a former magistrate, ran as representative of the citizen platform Ahora Madrid in that city. She could be the next Madrid mayor, replacing the conservative PP, who has held Madrid as its stronghold for over 20 years.
Again, it will all depend on the agreement they manage to reach, but these citizen platforms advocating social and political changes, and a shift to the left, may rise to power in seven major cities in Spain, including Madrid and Barcelona.
Manuela Carmena, the Ahora Madrid candidate, may be elected mayor- Image under license CC Wikimedia.org
Here are some Twitter messages from the two candidates, conveying ideas, programs and even support inside and outside the country:
Un honor conversar sobre el futuro d las ciudades con Pepe Mújica, expresidente d Uruguay y un gran referente para mí pic.twitter.com/iMfHxqPgXx — Ada #BcnEnComú (@AdaColau) Mayo 22, 2015
It is an honor to discuss the future of the cities with Uruguayan President Pepe Mujica, who is a great example for me
En Barcelona Ganó la gente, GANÓ EL PUEBLO! Este triunfo nos inspira a todos! Un honor haberte conocido @AdaColau
— Residente C13/ RC13 (@Calle13Oficial) Mayo 24, 2015
The people have won in Barcelona! This victory inspires us all! It was an honor to meet you @AdaColau
El mensaje más repetido que estamos recibiendo es: «por primera vez voy a votar con ilusión». Esto ya es ganar. #AhoraYo #Manuela24M
— Ahora Madrid (@AhoraMadrid) Mayo 24, 2015
The most recurrent message we are getting is: “For the first time I am eager to vote.” This is already a victory.
«Los partidos se están quedando muy antiguos y tienen que evolucionar mucho, por eso me gusta una candidatura popular como @AhoraMadrid».
— Manuela Carmena (@ManuelaCarmena) Mayo25, 2015
“The political parties are getting old and have to evolve a lot, so I am all for a citizen platform like AhoraMadrid“.
«La democracia representativa es interesante, pero hay que llenar la vida de esta ciudad de más participación, de democracia directa».
— Manuela Carmena (@ManuelaCarmena) Mayo 22, 2015
“Representative democracy is interesting, but this city needs more citizen participation and direct democracy.”
In this video you can listen to Ahora Madrid's official song:
Podemos (which means “we can”), the new left-wing political party that embodies the 2011 Spanish protests against inequality and corruption, made waves in the last European elections. In the May 2015 elections, taking into account just the autonomous communities results, they managed to obtain 119 regional deputies and are ranked as the third political force in Madrid, Aragon and Asturias. Their rise to power, together with the social movements previously mentioned, undermined the major parties.
The coming weeks will reveal whether Podemos at a regional level and Ahora Madrid and Barcelona en Comú at a local level will take power. This could be dreaded news for the financial sector, large companies and for some parts of the population, but on the other hand, for many Spaniards who want more citizen participation in politics, they represent hope.

author: Elena Arrontes


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“Where de Lizard?” Why the Caribbean is Fascinated with Them · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

These little creatures have different meanings in other cultures. Ancient Romans believed that the lizard symbolized death and resurrection, because it sleeps during winter and reawakens in Spring.
For the Greeks and Egyptians, the lizard represented divine wisdom and good fortune.
In the Caribbean, lizards have special significance as well. Jamaican blogger Nadine Tomlinson examines the many ways in which lizards feature prominently in local folklore and old wives’ tales:
In Jamaica, old-time people say, ‘If a lizard jump on a woman, it mean she pregnant, or soon pregnant. […]
Old-time people say, ‘If you dream ’bout lizard, it mean you have an enemy.’
She likens the fascination with lizards to the region's African heritage, noting that “throughout the entire continent of Africa, the lizard recurs again and again as a motif in popular culture.” She cites the carving of the lizard icon on doors in West Africa, saying that in some tribes, it represents household tranquility; in Cameroon, it represents fertility.
Interestingly, one of Trinidad and Tobago's most beloved calypsonians, The Mighty Sparrow, sang a popular song called “The Lizard”, which humourously deals with aspects of sexuality:
Playing in class with a lizard in a glass
The lizard get away from Ruth and run by the teacher foot!
Oh Lord, the children frightened hmmm…wonder what gon’ happen,
But the teacher laughing out ‘kee kee kee’, only watching everybody.
The lizard run up she foot and it disappear…
Everybody still searching everywhere.
Where mih lizard, teacher Mildred?
Under she dress, taking a rest.
The way she jolly and happy, I swear the lizard must be tickling she!
While Tomlinson, like most Caribbean dwellers, take the presence of lizards as a given and feels a certain affinity to them, for her, there are a couple of exceptions to the rule: the Jamaican croaking lizard and ground lizard, both of which “creep [her] out”:
Normally, the former tends to be pale, although I’ve seen some in darker hues, and one with spots a couple of times. Yes, they croak, yes, they’ve kept me up at night, and yes, they can be brazen. […] Once, one fell off the ceiling, and almost dropped on my head. Never mind that it didn’t. Just the thought of it stuck in my hair, and the sound of its sticky plop! on the floor was enough for me to start hollering.
As for the latter, as its name suggests, you would be hard-pressed to find it in a tree. This kind is large and long, with an even longer tail, and slithers. They’re fast, too. One chased me when I was a little girl, so I’m convinced they bite. […]
I wonder what old-time people have to say about those two.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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#CharlieCharlie Sends the Caribbean a Bit Crazy · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Internet meme about the #CharlieCharlie game.
By now, most netizens have heard about the #CharlieCharlieChallenge, the game that grew into a worldwide phenomenon thanks to the internet and social media. There is some confusion as to the game's origins, but somewhere along the line, it was attributed to Spanish-speaking countries, including the Dominican Republic and Mexico.
Somehow, the game was deemed “demonic” and rumours abounded that it was designed to summon evil spirits from the great beyond. Interestingly, without delving any deeper, many Caribbean netizens bought into the hype. It is fair to say that the Caribbean is, by and large, a deeply religious society in which leaders routinely make pronouncements on everything from homosexuality to national identity; the brush of religious faith seems to be dipped in everything.
#CharlieCharlie was no different. On Facebook, netizens were sharing links suggesting that the game was something out of the Dark Arts class in Harry Potter; schools were banning children from playing and there was general alarm that youngsters should be protected from its influence at all costs. One of the most thoughtful reactions to the #CharlieCharlie ban came from Jill Lian Goddard, who posted on Facebook:
I believe strongly in a world that I cannot perceive with my known senses. But in this case I think that if I were still a child living under Young Peoples Oppression and could find a way – like this activity – to direct my frustration, boundless energy and genius I would participate . And after seeing the power it's having on adults who always have power over me? And scaring them like they always scare me? I would be playing it non-stop. Actually if I were still a child I probably would open a business selling ‘Charlie’ pencils. Good thing I'm old.
Once Snopes.com, the rumour-busting website, came out and confirmed that the whole thing had been a marketing gimmick for an upcoming movie, the religious factions fell strangely silent – but the blog Barbados Underground had to share its perspective:
In Barbados the reaction by the society to the Charlie Charlie Challenge has given an insight that is scary for the few sensible individuals left.
The post acknowledged the religious fervour of the region, but drew the line at public officials adding to the panic:
Human beings, based on heritage, practice different beliefs and are free to do so for the most part. If people want to believe that Charlie Charlie Challenge is the key to a portal to the other side where demonic forces exist so be it. BU is concerned when the state responds with positions giving validity to such beliefs. We still operate on the basis of separation of state and the religious right? Let us ignore the gibberish spewed by the folks from the Pentecostal and other denominations.
[…]
Instead of discussing Charlie Charlie Challenge how about substituting the discussion with how ignorant and gullible a people we have become, so easily manipulated. The politicians and religious zealots know this only too well.


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Facebook Responds to ‘Stop Political Blocking’ Petition by Russians and Ukrainians · Global Voices
Kevin Rothrock

Screenshot of the “Stop Political Blocking on Facebook” petition. Change.org.
It’s taken about about two weeks and almost 11,000 signatures, but Facebook has at last responded to the “Stop Political Blocking on Facebook” petition. In a statement posted to Change.org on June 8, Thomas Myrup Kristensen, Facebook’s director of policy for Eastern Europe and Russia, explained that the social network stands by its moderation policies. Facebook has confirmed to RuNet Echo the authenticity of Kristensen’s comments.
“We recognize the importance of these debates to people, especially in times of conflict,” Kristensen wrote, before explaining that Facebook doesn’t block content or suspend users automatically. He also addressed concerns that the website might be vulnerable to coordinated attacks against certain users:
It doesn’t matter if something is reported once or 100 times, we only remove content that goes against [our] standards. We have learnt over the years that people can run campaigns to create many reports about content they don’t like and have designed our systems to prevent this leading to the removal of acceptable content.
Kristensen also responded to claims that Facebook’s moderators are poorly suited to working with Russian and Ukrainian content. The petition against “political blocking” says, “We don’t know why Facebook seems so eager to block people protesting against the Russian government’s policies. Perhaps its moderator team is not savvy enough, not large enough, or politically biased.” Kristensen ensures users that moderators are “highly trained” and “impartial”:
Within these teams we have people who speak both Russian and Ukrainian who can help give specific language context. And we have quality control systems in place to ensure that reports are decided on correctly according to the common standards.
The petition reaching out to Facebook began in late May, after several high-profile Russian and Ukrainian bloggers reported being suspended for apparently innocuous posts. According to the petition, Ukrainian artist Alexander Roytburd was blocked for “a harmless joke about Jews,” Ukrainian journalist Andrei Kapustin lost his account because of “nude” photographs of mannequins, and dozens of others were suspended over similar issues.
In mid-May, after Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko joined the appeals to Facebook about alleged “political blocking,” Facebook-founder Mark Zuckerberg addressed some of the concerns at a question-and-answer event, saying “I think we did the right thing according to our policies,” referring to unspecified cases of hate speech by Ukrainian and Russian Facebook users.
One of the most prominent Russian bloggers to be suspended by Facebook is photographer Rustem Adagamov, who lost access to his Facebook wall after he posted images of a Norwegian museum display that included Nazi Christmas-tree decorations.
Adagamov told RuNet Echo that he doesn’t take Kristensen’s statement seriously, going so far as to say it is an embarrassment to the service’s 1.4 billion users:
Находиться в социальной сети с таким отношением к пользователям, непрозрачной политикой администрирования унизительно, думаю, для каждого. Для меня в т.ч. Жаль, что так получается.
Being part of a social network that treats its users like this, with such non-transparent moderation policies, is an insult to each of us, including me. It’s a shame that things turned out this way.
Adagamov says he considers Kristensen’s claims about manual moderation to be “pure lies,” telling RuNet Echo that he’s completely certain that Facebook does indeed rely on automated moderation that makes the site vulnerable to bot-attacks:
Я думаю, что Фейсбуку просто нет никакого дела до этой проблемы, модерацию они осуществляют с помощью автоматизированной системы и вникать в детали не могут и не хотят. Этим обстоятельством воспользовались нанятые российскими властями менеджеры и поставили на поток это дело.
I think Facebook simply doesn’t care about this problem. Their moderation is carried out using an automated system and they’re neither able nor interested in revealing its details. [Public relations] managers hired by the Russian authorities are exploiting these circumstances and going to town with this.
This is not the first time Facebook has insisted publicly that bots and trolls cannot influence decisions to censor its users and their content. In October 2014, the website’s vice president for public policy in Europe said the same thing, claiming that Facebook doesn’t treat large volumes of complaints as a “good indicator” of whether or not content violates of the site's policies. Statements like this, however, have done fairly little to placate Facebook’s critics in Russia and Ukraine.
As long as people can disagree about what truly violates the website’s terms of service, and until Facebook grants users more transparency about how specific decisions to block content are made, both sides of this conflict seem determined not to budge.

author: Kevin Rothrock


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That Rare Moment When a Moscow Opposition Leader Visits Siberia · Global Voices
Will Wright

Navalny in Novosibirsk, June 7, 2015. Photo by Alexey Konstantinov. Navalny.com.
Alexey Navalny, one of the leaders of the Russian opposition, made a rare trip outside Moscow on Sunday, June 7, arriving in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, where Russia's “democratic coalition” will hold primaries next weekend. Navalny's new political alliance has organized voting in Novosibirsk and several other cities this month to select candidates for regional and district elections in September.
Navalny has faced tight travel restrictions in recent years while fighting an onslaught of legal cases brought against him following his rise to political prominence during mass protests more than three years ago. Fellow opposition leader Ilya Yashin joined Navalny in Novosibirsk at a public discussion about the coalition's politics. Yashin, a party leader of RPR-Parnas, which is a founding member of the coalition, kicked off the event by asserting the need for political change through elections, saying Russia needs a “true parliament that represents the interests of all citizens, not just a small group of bureaucrats and oligarchs.”
Stepping onstage before a crowd of several hundred people, Navalny opened with a joke about the stifling heat of the summer afternoon in Siberia. “I told my wife that when it was all over, we would go somewhere warm—and here we are. Yulia, are you happy?” Navalny then delivered what Americans would recognize as a “stump speech.” Pounding away at familiar themes, Navalny decried government corruption and argued for greater decentralization, less focus on the military, and more social spending, saying the state needs to be more responsive to the interests of ordinary people.
Then Navalny began taking questions from the audience. One person asked about his views on economic policy and another asked what gives him the strength to fight on, even after all the harassment and the murder of his colleague Boris Nemtsov. Answering the latter question, Navalny said, “I believe in what Leo Tolstoy said, that a lie does not cease to be a lie, even if it is repeated a thousand times.” Navalny continued, “My brother wrote me from prison: ‘Do not stop, they jailed me so that you would stop, but keep on going.'” Most of the questions posed by audience members, however, were decidedly hostile.
Sporting military fatigues and a “Novorossiya” arm patch celebrating Russia's claim on lands in eastern Ukraine, a man from the crowd said, “I would like to remind everyone here who it was who went to the American embassy,” criticizing Navalny's relationship with US state officials. “Remember how Russia was betrayed in the 1990s?” he continued. “Does he want to do the same?”
A local woman then approached the microphone and accused Russia's democrats of tearing apart the country, saying this reflected poorly on Navalny. Next, a self-described economics expert questioned Navalny's decentralization and taxation policies, saying he expects the country would break apart if the regions stopped sending taxes to Moscow. Finally, a teenager from the crowd asked how he could be sure everything Navalny said wasn't simply “empty words,” before questioning if Navalny actually rides the metro (a contrast to Russia's ruling politicians that Navalny has highlighted).
Navalny listened to the criticism, and responded to each audience member, countering the attacks on his patriotism by framing himself and his anti-corruption agenda as truly patriotic in contrast to Russia's current rulers. “I am going to unite around the development of the Novosibirsk region's gas infrastructure, not around [state energy giant] Gazprom,” Navalny argued.
In addition to the unfriendly reception by those picketing the public rally, Navalny and his colleagues were also attacked in Novosibirsk with eggs on their way to a morning press conference. Predictably, pro-Kremlin media outlet Life News focused on these hecklers in its coverage of Navalny's trip.
During the trip, Navalny also made time to meet local celebrity and performance artist Artyom Loskutov, known across Russia as the organizer of Novosibirsk's annual celebration of absurdity called Monstration, who showed up at the afternoon event. True to form, Loskutov shared a curious remark on Twitter:
Увел жену президента, затащил под #ЛоскутовоОдеяло pic.twitter.com/F5adjBqo7s
— артём лоскутов (@kissmyba) June 7, 2015
I stole the president's wife [Yulia Navalnaya], and carried [her] off under the #ЛоскутовоОдеяло [#LoskutovBlanket]

author: Will Wright


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The Uruguayan Prison with a ‘Human Touch’ · Global Voices
Gabriela García Calderón Orbe

Screeshot of a video posted on YouTube of Punta de Rieles prison entrance, in Montevideo, Uruguay, where prisoners lives as if they were in a village.
In Uruguay, you'll find a prison called Punta de Rieles (“Rail End”) in a neighborhood by the same name, which used to be the end of the line for the first streetcars in Montevideo, the country's capital. It's also a place where the inmates’ lives don't differ much from life on the outside, as Punta de Rieles takes a particularly “human approach” to incarceration.
Seen from the outside, it's not any different from other correctional facilities: the compound is still surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards. Things change dramatically on the inside, however, where there are about 200 prison officers—mostly unarmed women—with professional backgrounds in social work, psychology, and human rights.
The inmates at Punta de Rieles have been convicted and sentenced for a number of crimes, with the exception of sexually based assault and drug trafficking.
The facility's director, Rolando Arbesún, says the idea is to manage the correctional facility as if it were a village:
Nos gusta pensarla más como un pueblo, que tenga una dinámica de vida lo más parecido posible al exterior. Eso implica un volumen de trabajo bastante importante, actividades muy importantes, pero también mucha presencia del afuera, del mundo externo de la prisión dentro de Punta de Rieles. Porque si uno está preparando a estos hombres para que vivan en libertad, hay que prepararlos en un escenario que se parezca lo más posible dentro de las limitaciones de lo que se pueda hacer en una prisión.
We like to think of this facility as if it were a village, with the same daily-life dynamics found on the outside. This means an important work volume, very important activities, but also a significant presence of life on the outside, from the world that is external to Punta de Rieles. Because if we are preparing these men so they can live in freedom, we have to prepare them against a backdrop that's much more similar [to freedom] than what can be found in a prison.
Opened in 2010 at the site of a previous traditional prison, Punta de Rieles is the first correctional facility in Uruguay ever managed by personnel not related to the military. Inside the prison, female social workers get along with the inmates and help them to solve their problems. The aim is not only to prepare the inmates for a life outside the prison, but also to humanize the time they spend behind bars.
The website Cosecha Roja calls it an anti-prison space, and shares some special features of the facility:
Puntas de Rieles alberga a unos seiscientos hombres: no tienen comisiones internas ni delegados, eso establecería una distancia, un “ellos” y un “nosotros”. La relación es directa y horizontal. Aquí no hay intentos de evasión, no existe el aislamiento para sancionar a los que transgreden las reglas de convivencia y no se hacen requisas sin su expresa autorización, cuando existen datos puntuales y concretos de alguna irregularidad, y está prohibido hacerlas de noche.
[algunos reclusos] se acercan al director, lo saludan con un beso (esta costumbre moderna que interpela a cierta masculinidad) y palmadas en el hombro, se llaman por el nombre de pila.
Puntas de Rieles holds about 600 men: they don't have internal committees or delegates, as that would set a distance, a “they” and an “us”. The relationship is direct and horizontal. Here there are no breakout attempts, there is no isolation as a way of punishing those who violate communal living rules, and we don't confiscate personal property without express authorization (only when there is concrete information about a certain irregularity, and even then it can't be carried out in the middle of the night). [Some inmates] get close to the director, they greet him with a kiss (this modern habit that puts some inmates’ manhood into question) and pat him on the shoulder. They use their given names.
The facility has a library, a computer center, a bakery, and a candy shop. Inmates prepare bread and sell it to the public, and there's a brickworks shop, so prisoners can learn this useful trade. There is even a yoga workshop. In the video below, some of these activities are on display, along with a sports competition.
In Punta de Rieles, 85 percent of the inmates work at one or more of the 22 business ventures available inside the correctional facility. The recidivism rate is very low, with just 2 percent of the inmates committing new crimes after going free. (This figure is at 50 percent in the rest of the nation's prison system.) In the last year, 201 men recovered their freedom and only four of them repeated a criminal offense.
On Twitter, users also expressed themselves about the accomplishments of this innovative system:
Cárcel de Punta de Rieles,emprendimientos de internos const.escuela en barro, const.paneles de miel, cafetería huerta pic.twitter.com/O3IBnZDqcI
— Julieta Negrin (@JulietaNegrn) Mayo 26, 2015
Punta de Rieles correctional center, inmates business ventures such as pottery works, panel building, coffee shop, garden.
El alumno (mi ex-alumno de Álgebra Lineal I) preso en la cárcel de Punta de Rieles Una gran historia http://t.co/6DsYAg6jXY cc: @carigmonier
— G.Guerber (@gguerber) Mayo 25, 2015
Student (my former student of Linear Algebra I), held at Punta de Rieles correctional center. A great story.
Hoy 1año de un gran trabajo con los internos de la Cárcel de Punta de Rieles! Yoga y Valores! pic.twitter.com/6pfbmri0x0
— Julieta Negrin (@JulietaNegrn) Mayo 13, 2015
A year ago today, we started a great working project with the inmates of Punta de Rieles! Yoga and values!
During Uruguay's dictatorship from 1973 to 1985, the old Punta de Rieles infrastructure was used as a detention center for men. When another prison opened, the inmates were transferred and the site became a female prison, and over 700 female political prisoners were held there.
Damián Barbosa refers to this history in the following tweet:
La “ahora” Cárcel Pueblo Punta de Rieles tiene su MEMORIA… http://t.co/pMPItpvpuQ @MarioJuliano @pensapenal — DAMIÁN A. BARBOSA (@DAMIANBARBOSA) Mayo 15, 2015
What's now the village prison Punta de Rieles has its own memory.
The case of Roy Vitalis, an inmate at Punta de Rieles, demonstrates the results the prison's “alternative” approach:
Roy Vitalis, de 36 años, está preso en la cárcel de Punta de Rieles. Cada día, pasadas las 9:00 de la mañana, emprende viaje en bicicleta hasta la Facultad de Ingeniería, donde cursa sus estudios.
Incluso, en un principio se le había dicho que tenía que asistir con grilletes y custodios armados, pero finalmente logró esquivar esas trabas. […] Actualmente ya no requiere de autorización especial. Va y vuelve en bicicleta; recorre alrededor de 30 km por día, de lunes a viernes.
36-year-old Roy Vitalis is an inmate at Punta de Rieles prison. Each day, a little after 9:00 a.m., he starts his route by bike all the way to the Engineering School, where he takes up his higher education lessons.
When he started, he was told to use shackles and go with armed guards, but he managed to avoid these obstacles. […] Today he no longer needs any special authorization. He comes and goes by bike, traveling about 30 kilometers [about 20 miles] each day, Monday through Friday.

author: Gabriela García Calderón Orbe


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Wrongfully Detained at a Psych Ward, Trinidadian Cheryl Miller Gets Justice · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Judge's Gavel; image by Rumble Press, used under a CC BY 2.0 license.
Just over two years ago, Cheryl Miller, an employee of Trinidad and Tobago's Ministry of Gender, Youth and Child Development, got into a heated argument with one of her seniors. The next thing she knew, she was being carted off to St. Ann's Psychiatric Hospital, despite her protests that she was “not mad”. At the time, the incident caused outrage in the blogosphere, with many concerned about the cavalier way in which fundamental human rights could be trampled upon — and “just how vulnerable we are to the whims and fancy of any state body that wishes to abuse its power”.
After Miller was eventually released, she wasted no time in filing a lawsuit against unlawful imprisonment. Last week, the judge passed her ruling in the case: Miller is to be awarded TT $835,000 (just over US $130,000) in damages. The social media reaction was swift. On Facebook, Rhoda Bharath commented:
One of the greatest acts of bullying executed by members of the public service with the oversight of the line Minister.
I done talk.
She continued:
Truly annoyed that we had to pay for Verna and her Perm Sec fucking up.
Really annoyed by that.
Always the electorate pays for the bullshit actions of the govt.
That $800k should have come directly from their pockets for their stupid, inhumane, bullying behaviour.
Another Facebook user, Tanya Carr, was confused as to how the four other defendants cited in Miller's lawsuit — the attorney general, the permanent secretary and deputy permanent secretary of the ministry in which she worked, and the former Minister of Gender Affairs, Youth and Child Development Verna St Rose-Greaves — were found by the judge to be not culpable:
How exactly were the Minister, AG,PS and DPS not found liable in this case? When they orchrstrated [sic] this mess?
Diaspora blogger Jumbie's Watch was also confused as to how Minister St. Rose-Greaves was spared, since he remembers her publicly accepting responsibility. This notwithstanding, he called the judgment “a victory for the Rule of Law“.
The crux of Miller's case revolved around Section 15 of Trinidad and Tobago's Mental Health Act, which states that “a person found wandering at large on a highway or in any public place and who by reason of his appearance, conduct or conversation, a mental health officer has reason to believe is mentally ill and in need of care and treatment in a psychiatric hospital or ward may be taken into custody and conveyed to such hospital or ward for admission for observation in accordance with this section.” The presiding judge deemed Miller's admission to St. Ann's unlawful, as the offices of the ministry could not be considered a public space. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health, which was found to be liable, intends to file an appeal.


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250 Days Without the Ayotzinapa Students · Global Voices
J. Tadeo

250 days have passed since the disappearance of the Ayotzinapa students in México. Justice hasn't been served yet.
June 3, 2015, marked 250 days since one of the most tragic episodes in Mexico's modern history: the disappearance and murder in Iguala of 43 students form the Rural Teaching School Raúl Isidro Burgos in Ayotzinapa, in the state of Guerrero.
Despite the time that's gone by, there are still calls to hold state officials responsible for what happened to the students. Scholars Imanol Ordorika and Adolfo Gilly have commented:
La desaparición y matanza de estudiantes normalistas en Iguala, Guerrero, es un crimen de Estado, cometido en un país donde la tortura, las desapariciones y las muertes violentas se han convertido en hechos cotidianos. Están ya confirmados el asesinato de tres estudiantes y cuatro ciudadanos y la desaparición forzada de cuarenta y tres estudiantes de la Escuela Normal Rural de Ayotzinapa.
Las víctimas son jóvenes estudiantes que, en el contexto de privaciones y pobreza de sus propias familias, luchan por la defensa de la educación pública en medio de las difíciles condiciones de las Escuelas Normales Rurales, objeto de acoso estatal y federal durante décadas.
The disappearance and murder of the students in Iguala, Guerrero, is a state crime committed in a country where torture, forced disappearances, and violent deaths have become common. The assassination of three students and four citizens has already been confirmed as well as the forced disappearances of 43 students of the Rural Teaching School of Ayotzinapa.
The victims were young students who, in the context of poverty and hardship in their own families, struggled to defend public education in extreme conditions at the Rural Teaching Schools. The state and federal governments harassed these people for decades.
The NGO Ciudadanos en Apoyo a los Derechos Humanos (Citizens Supporting Human Rights) has echoed accusations that state officials played a role in the Ayotzinapa tragedy:
En dichos actos participaron tanto policías municipales de Iguala, Guerrero en coordinación personas vestidas de civil, ante la total “ausencia, pasividad y tolerancia”, de las fuerzas federales, la gendarmería, y las fuerzas armadas cuya presencia es notoria en el estado de Guerrero, ante la vigencia del operativo “Guerrero Seguro”.
Both local police from Iguala, Guerrero, and civilian-dressed persons participated in the events, amidst a total “absence, inaction and tolerance” of the federal forces, prison officers, and armed forces whose presence is notorious in the state of Guerrero given the operation “Safe Guerrero”.
The investigations carried out by the Attorney General's office on November 2014 led to the arrest of Iguala's mayor and his wife, José Luis Abarca and María de los Ángeles Pineda, better known as the “Imperial Couple” because of their lavish lifestyle. The two were charged with ordering the murders, but the criminal process regarding the murderers specifically has stalled there. That said, the couple have been charged with other offenses, including participating in organized crime.
During the investigation, the Argentine forensic anthropology team has played a key role in the examination of burnt remains discovered in a dumpster near Iguala.
Jesús Murillo Karam, who led the Attorney General's office and its investigation, was replaced by former Congresswoman Arely Gómez, who's been criticized as having too little experience in criminal matters, albeit a strong background in political history. After taking the position, Gómez said:
Estoy convencida que la investigación que se realizó por el exprocurador Murillo Karam fue una investigación profunda, seria y exhaustiva. Esto lo realizaron varias personas de la Procuraduría General de la República con un alto nivel.
I am convinced that the investigation carried out by former Attorney General Murillo Karam was thorough, serious, and exhaustive. It was performed by several highly regarded members of the Attorney General's office.
There are still regular protests and sit-ins to remember the terrible events in Iguala. On May 26, the “Global Action for Ayotzinapa” gathering took place in Mexico City, and several family members of the disappeared attended.
On Twitter, Enrique D. commented:
La memoria florece sembrando semillas de libertad. México no puede olvidar, dadle de beber de la fuente de la memoria. #Ayotzinapa8meses
— Enrique D. (@kikesma) May 27, 2015
The memory blooms sowing seeds of freedom. Mexico cannot forget—make it drink from the fountain of memory.
Last Sunday, Mexicans went to the polls in the mid-term elections to vote for local and state leaders. For some, this was the greatest opportunity to express their discontent with the current administrations.
User Compa Elephanthorn wrote:
“Si votas por el PRI recuerda que los próximos desaparecidos pueden ser tus hijos o algún ser querido.” #Ayotzinapa8meses
— -COMPA ELEPHANTHORN- (@elephanthorn) June 1, 2015
If you vote for the PRI [Institutional Revolutionary Party], remember that the next people to disappear could be your sons or any loved one.
(President Enrique Peña belongs to the PRI, and the new Attorney General Gómez campaigned on the party's ticket when she ran for senator.)
It was the PRI candidate, Esteban Albarrán, who became the new mayor of Iguala in last weekend's election, unseating the Party of the Democratic Revolution, whose members include the city's former mayor (now in prison) and the former governor of Guerrero, who was ousted after the Ayotzinapa tragedy.
Epigmenio Ibarra, with more than 229,000 followers on Twitter, leads a daily roll call of all the names of the disappeared students. Ibarra includes political messages with these tweets.
1 Abel #JuntosPorJusticiayVerdadAyotzinapa #JuntosPorJusticiaABC NiPerdonNiOlvido FueElEstado pic.twitter.com/G48Jy1mzre
— epigmenio ibarra (@epigmenioibarra) June 2, 2015
1 Abel. Together for Justice and Truth to Ayotzinapa. Together for Justice to ABC. We don't forget and we don't forgive. It was the State.

author: J. Tadeo